Committee to resolve labour disputes - Gulf Times

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QATAR

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THURSDAY Vol. XXXVII No. 10247

October 20, 2016Muharram 19, 1438 AH www. gulf-times.com 2 Riyals

BUSINESS | Page 1

Doha Bank reports net profi t of QR1.1bn

SPORT | Page 1

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Qatar take on Japan today

Committeeto resolvelabourdisputesThe committee will be responsible for settling all disputes related to the provisions of the Labour Law or a work contract within a maximum of three weeks

A committee will be set up to re-solve labour-related disputes in the country, in line with amend-

ments to Law No 14 of 2004 and as part of the government’s eff orts to ensure workers’ rights and simplify judicial procedures in such cases.

The Cabinet approved the amend-ments at its regular weekly meeting in Doha yesterday, the offi cial Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported.

Provisions of the new law include the establishment of a committee – or more – at the Ministry of Administra-tive Development, Labour and Social Aff airs, which will be charged with set-tling labour-related disputes.

The committee will be responsible for settling all disputes related to the provisions of the Labour Law or a work contract within a maximum of three weeks. The labour authorities con-cerned may refer unresolved disputes to this committee for settlement.

The committee will be chaired by a judge from the Court of First Instance, who is to be chosen by the Supreme Ju-diciary Council (SJC). HE the Minister of Administrative Development, La-bour and Social Aff airs will nominate two ministry offi cials as members of the committee. They should have ex-perience in accounting.

There is also a provision for an ap-peals committee for labour-related disputes, where pleas against any de-cision of the fi rst committee may be

fi led by the parties involved. The appeals committee will have a

judge from the Court of Appeal as its chair, to be chosen by the SJC. Besides, HE the Minister of Administrative De-velopment, Labour and Social Aff airs will nominate two offi cials from the ministry as its members.

Those seeking an appeal, according to the new draft, must do so within 15 days of the verdict of the fi rst commit-tee. This will apply if a party involved in a dispute is present to hear the verdict. If not, they must appeal within 15 days from the time they are notifi ed about the verdict. Only the committee can halt the implementation of one of its verdicts.

HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Cabinet Aff airs Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al-Mah-moud, who chaired the regular Cabinet meeting at the Emiri Diwan yesterday, said the Cabinet welcomed the resolution issued by the United Nations Education-al, Scientifi c and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), under which it “fully approved that the Al-Aqsa Mosque (Al-Haram Al-Sharif) is one of the exclusive Islamic holy sites and classifi ed it as an exclusive Islamic heritage, and said the Buraq Wall (Western Wall) is an integral part of the Al-Aqsa Mosque”, QNA reported.

The Cabinet expressed hope that the Unesco resolution would provide new impetus to the international commu-nity to “halt Israel’s repeated violations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and its contin-ued attempts to Judaise Jerusalem”.

Further, the Cabinet renewed Qatar’s fi rm stance on the matter and support to the legitimate Palestinian rights, particu-larly the right to establish their independ-ent state with Jerusalem as its capital.

Cabinet nod for draft law on non-Qatari capital investmentNon-Qataris may invest up to

100% of the project capital in all sectors of the national

economy provided they have a Qatari services agent, according to a draft law approved by the Cabinet.

The Cabinet gave its nod to the draft law on non-Qatari capital investment in economic activity at its regular weekly meeting yesterday, the offi cial Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported.

The meeting was chaired by HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Cabinet Aff airs Ahmed bin

Abdullah bin Zaid al-Mahmoud at the Emiri Diwan.

The draft law aims to keep pace with modern developments in the fi eld of in-vestment and will replace Law No 13 of 2000 regulating the investment of non-Qatari capital in economic activity.

According to the QNA report, non-Qatari invested capital means “what-ever is invested by a non-Qatari citizen in cash and/or in kind and the rights of monetary value in Qatar”, including cash transferred to the State through banks and licensed fi nancial compa-

nies; assets in kind imported for in-vestment purposes in accordance with the provisions of the law; profi ts, rev-enues and reserves accumulated from the investment of non-Qatari capital in any project if added to the capital of this project or if invested in any of the projects permitted under the pro-visions of the present law; and moral rights such as licences, patents and trademarks registered in the country.

The draft law also defi nes a company “as any company that has been found-ed in accordance with the provisions of

the Commercial Companies Law”. Under the provisions of the draft law,

non-Qatari investors may invest up to 100% of the project capital in all sectors of the national economy provided they have a Qatari services agent. In the case of a Qatari partner, this partner is an agent for the services of that company.

Non-Qatari investors may own up to 49% of the capital of companies listed on Qatar Exchange following the ap-proval of the ministry concerned on the proposed percentage in the article of association. Foreign investors may even

obtain more than 49% of a company, subject to approval from the Cabinet and based on a proposal by HE the Min-ister concerned.

Citizens of GCC member countries are treated as Qatari citizens when it comes to the ownership of companies listed in the Qatari stock market.

The provisions of the law are not valid for companies or individuals whom the State provides with the right to exploration, use or management of a natural resource based on a special agreement or a franchise – unless the

new provisions do not contradict with the special agreement or franchise, the QNA report states.

The second exception is companies that the government, or any public in-stitution, establishes or contributes to the equity of in partnership with non-Qatari investors.

The law includes a number of invest-ment incentives and does not aff ect tax breaks or other incentives currently off ered to companies. Such companies may also maintain those incentives for the duration of their contracts.

HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani yesterday toured Qatar University to take a look at its latest projects and centres that aim to meet the country’s current and future education needs. Vice-Chairman of the Board of Regents HE Sheikh Dr Abdullah bin Ali al-Thani and President of Qatar University Dr Hassan Rashid al-Derham received HH the Emir upon arrival at the university. The Emir began his visit with a tour of the girls’ building of the College of Education and the Early Childhood Centre, where he met the faculty, staff and students and attended a lecture. Later, the Emir visited the boy’s building of the College of Engineering where he viewed the advanced education systems available at the college, as well as laboratories, such as the mechanical engineering lab. He attended presentations on some of the students’ projects. The Emir also visited the College of Medicine and saw the clinical skills lab and listened to part of a lecture. The Emir was briefed on the latest technologies available in the college. Pages 2, 3

The Cabinet has given its nod to a draft law that seeks to prohibit the use of mobile and other de-

vices while driving and prevent the practice of making children below 10 years sit in the front seats of a vehicle.

The decision was taken at the regular weekly meeting of the Cabinet yester-day, chaired by HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Cab-inet Aff airs Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al-Mahmoud at the Emiri Diwan.

According to the offi cial Qatar News Agency (QNA), the Cabinet approved a draft law amending some provisions of the Traffi c Law, as promulgated by Law No 19 of 2007, and decided to refer it to the Advisory Council.

Under the amendment, the text of Ar-

ticle 55 of the law is replaced, stating that the driver of a motor vehicle undertakes to comply with the following: avoid us-ing any device – whether by carrying it, touching it or watching it – while driving, and not to allow children under the age of 10 to sit in the front seats of the vehicle while it is on the move.

Meanwhile, the Cabinet has ap-proved a draft decision by HE the Min-ister of Culture and Sports to issue rules and operational procedures per-taining to certain provisions of Law No 1 of 2016 regulating sports clubs.

The Ministry of Culture and Sports has prepared the draft resolution with-in the context of the completion of necessary resolutions to give eff ect to the provisions of the aforementioned

law, particularly with regard to the in-volvement of such clubs in sports ac-tivities and by taking into account the principles of sports independence and relevant international standards.

The weekly meeting also approved a draft memorandum of understand-ing for co-operation in encouraging direct investment between the govern-ments of Qatar and Kuwait, a draft co-operation agreement in the legal fi eld between the governments of the Qatar and Macedonia and a draft air services agreement between the governments of Qatar and Peru.

Further, the Cabinet reviewed a report prepared by the government committee on the national action plan on human rights and took the appropriate decision.

Emir visits Qatar University

Drivers face mobile phone ban

Woqod set to open 10 new petrol stations this monthQatar Fuel (Woqod) is gearing up

to open 10 new petrol stations in the country this month. Work is

also under way to build more such facili-ties, which will be operational before the end of the year, the company has said in a statement.

The new petrol stations are located in the Old Al Ghanim, Hamad Interna-tional Airport and Al Thameed areas,

among others, while four new loca-tions for mobile petrol stations have been allocated at Al Sadd, Rawdat Al Khail, Jelaiah (Qatar University) and Al Gharafa, which will become operation-al this month.

Woqod is co-ordinating with the Public Works Authority (Ashghal) to link the exit/entry points of these fa-cilities with the roads leading to them,

according to Woqod CEO Ibrahim Ja-ham al-Kuwari. The statement also noted that nine private petrol stations were closed recently, which increased the demand at the existing stations. On its part, Woqod has been able to accomplish a number of new stations this year to implement the govern-ment’s directive on providing relief to motorists.

BUSINESS | Agreement

Qatargas, Petronas unit in new dealQatargas has signed a new five-year liquefied natural gas sale and purchase agreement (SPA) with Petronas LNG UK under which the world’s premier LNG company will deliver liquefied natural gas to the latter until December 2023, an extension of its current contract, which is due to expire in December 2018. A total of 1.1mn tonnes per year (MTPY) are secured for a partnership that will now extend to a decade-long supply of LNG to the UK-based entity. The LNG will be supplied from Qatargas 4 (Train 7), a joint venture between Qatar Petroleum and Shell, which started production in January 2011 and will be delivered on board Q-Flex LNG vessels to Dragon LNG terminal at Milford Haven, United Kingdom. Business Page 16

IRAQ | Off ensive

Militant leaders‘fl eeing Mosul’Militant leaders are fleeing Mosul, a top US general in the coalition battling the Islamic State (IS) group said yesterday as Iraqi forces closed in on the northern city. Mosul was where IS supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his “caliphate” two years ago but is now the group’s last major stronghold in Iraq. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who announced the launch of a broad off ensive to retake the city on Monday, visited the front line yesterday. Page 13

EUROPE | Crime

Police detain suspects for airline ticket fraud One hundred and ninety-three suspects were detained over a five-day period at airports around the globe as part of a crackdown on fraudulently purchased airline tickets, according to a statement released by the Europol policing agency in Paris yesterday. The suspects booked flights using stolen, compromised or fake credit card details, allowing them to travel anonymously, the statement said. Airline fraudsters cost the industry an estimated $1bn per year, Europol said.

ASIA | Aviation

MH370 hunters continue probe Investigators will deploy an underwater vehicle to take a closer look at objects found during a sonar survey of the southern Indian Ocean in the hunt for MH370, Australia said yesterday, as it extended the search into next year. Malaysia Airlines MH370, a Boeing 777, disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014 carrying 239 passengers and crew.

Israel must face consequences forsettlements, Security Council toldAFPUnited Nations

Israel must face consequences for its failure to heed international appeals to stop building Jewish

settlements on Palestinian land, the Palestinian envoy to the UN told the Security Council yesterday.

Palestinian ambassador Riyad Man-sour accused Israel of eroding pros-pects for a future Palestinian state and creating a “one-state reality” that was tantamount to apartheid.

“The global calls for cessation of Is-raeli settlement activities and crimes against the Palestinian people must be

backed with serious, practical meas-ures to compel Israeli compliance with the law,” Mansour told a council de-bate on the Middle East.

“There must be consequences if Is-rael continues to violate international law.”

The United Nations maintains that settlements are illegal and has repeat-edly called on Israel to halt them, but UN offi cials have reported a surge in construction over the past months.

UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov told the council that Israel was pressing ahead with new settlements, citing a recent decision to build an initial 98 out of 300 housing units in Shilo, in the West Bank. Page 12

QATAR

Gulf Times Thursday, October 20, 20162

Emir tours Qatar University,.. HH the Emir Sheikh

Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani yesterday visited

Qatar University to see the latest projects, centres and plans the university has made, on par with international standards, to meet the country’s current and future needs.

Vice-Chairman of the Board of Regents HE Sheikh Dr Abdulla bin Ali al-Thani and President of Qatar University Dr Hassan Rashid al-Derham received HH the Emir upon arrival at the uni-versity.

The Emir began his visit with a tour of the girls’ building of the College of Education and the Early Childhood Centre, where he met the faculty, staff and students and attended a lecture.

Later, the Emir visited the boy’s building of the College of Engineering where he viewed the advanced education systems available at the college, as well as laboratories, such as the me-chanical engineering lab.

He then saw presentations by faculty and students on some of the students’ projects.

The Emir also visited the Col-lege of Medicine and saw the clinical skills lab and listened to part of a lecture. The Emir also checked the latest technologies available in the college.

The Emir concluded his visit with a tour of the university’s research complex, where he saw a presentation on the research conducted by the universities’ students and staff , which have benefi ted the state.

The researchers briefed the Emir on their latest innovations, key projects and the strategic programmes made for the stu-dents.

The Emir held a discussion

with students on their ideas and current projects. He ad-vised them to focus their eff orts on what will benefi t their soci-ety and gives the State of Qatar the leadership in the scientifi c fi eld.

The Emir expressed his appre-ciation on the role of youth and the university in the develop-ment of the country.

He also met the deans of the university’s colleges and signed a statement and presented it to the young students.

The statement said that hu-mans are the most important aspect of building a nation and a country’s biggest investment. The statement added that Qa-tar has invested in its youth and with them it will develop further with the aid of science.

QNADoha

HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani is greeted by the staff of the College of Education and Early Childhood centre. Right: Emir greeting a young student at the Early Childhood Centre.

HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani being received by the off icials of College of Medicine. Right: HH the Emir signing a statement.

QATAR3Gulf Times

Thursday, October 20, 2016

..interacts with students, staff

HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani visitng Qatar University’s Research Centre. HH the Emir interacting with students at the College of Medicine.

HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani interacting witht the students and staff at the College of Engineering.

QATAR


WISE holds a series of meets on refugee challenge in EuropeThe World Innovation

Summit for Education (WISE) has concluded a

series of high-level meetings in Paris and Brussels focusing on the current refugee challenge to European education sectors.

The WISE Prize for Education laureate, Dr Sakena Yacoobi, was a featured speaker at the round-table discussions as well as the informal discussions in both Eu-ropean capitals.

In Brussels, WISE offi cials met with the European Union com-

missioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, Chris-tos Stylianides, who expressed his interest in the work of WISE and Qatar Foundation as well as possible collaboration on future education initiatives.

Also in Brussels, WISE part-nered with the government of Norway in organising a high-level roundtable discussion on refugee issues. The engage-ment was an opportunity for the participants to explore successful creative solutions

that are transforming lives through education and skills development.

The panel brought together several prominent speakers in-cluding Dr Sakena Yacoobi and Oda Helen Sletnes, the Norwe-gian ambassador to the Europe-an Union. Stavros N Yiannouka, CEO, WISE, also spoke at the event.

In Paris, WISE partnered with the French education magazine L’Etudiant, and under the pa-tronage of Unesco, took part in

a high-level panel discussion focusing on the current refugee challenge to education sectors. The discussion was presented before an audience of some 100 education experts and offi cials from international organisations and associations.

Dr Sakena Yacoobi addressed the panel in a discussion enti-tled, ‘Education and Displaced People: Why is it important to open our schools and univer-sities to refugees?’ Dr Yacoobi remarked: “We want refugees

Dr Sakena Yacoobi speaking at a Paris gathering on education for refugees.

to be part of a country, not a burden. Education is the solu-tion. We have to develop an in-novative curriculum to encour-age leadership, accountability and values.”

The Brussels and Paris events organised by WISE were fo-cused on a wide range of ref-ugee-related challenges and opportunities. Areas of discus-sion included education and

skills development being key to helping displaced individuals of all ages to reconstruct their lives; and how higher-skilled refugees can benefi t the local economy.

Students of Georgetown and QU win at Startup Weekend DohaGeorgetown University in

Qatar (GU-Q) students, Malek Deeb and John

Robling, were awarded the top prize for their fl edgling online Arabic gift store at the recent Startup Weekend Doha.

Deeb and Robling, along with Qa-tar University student Fatema Aref, created a functioning prototype and fi nancial plan for their business idea, AhlanGifts.com. They competed against approximately 20 other teams to win QR25,000 in initial funding from event organiser Qatar Development Bank.

The event, held in collaboration with Hamad Bin Khalifa Univer-sity, brought together industry experts and future entrepreneurs for just under three days of inten-sive work. After initial pitching sessions, participants dived into rapid product development, de-vised potential business models and fi nally presented their ideas to a panel of judges. Their projects were judged on their creativity, level of innovation, and the po-tential viability for the business in the current market.

The students’ aim for Ahlan

Gifts was to create an online store where customers could purchase high-quality items like oud and bukhoor, without having to navi-gate crowded shopping malls or hunt for items in the souks.

“Our company is about mak-ing the gift-giving process sim-pler. We want to stress the factor of convenience, instead of feel-ing overwhelmed when buying somebody an Arabian-themed gift,” explained Deeb, who is majoring in International Eco-nomics at GU-Q. “Instead of buying somebody a new watch

or a purse or a pair of shoes, you can give them something that is produced within their country.”

While many of the competi-tors presented ideas and mock-ups to the judges, Deeb thinks that what set Ahlan Gifts apart, was that they were able to show-case an up-and-running website with secure payment facilities, as well as a practical business model and fi nancial forecast.

While the team members are full-time students and Ahlan Gifts is still in the early stages of de-velopment, the Startup Weekend

event allowed them to meet and engage with collaborators who are interested in helping them take the business forward. They are cur-rently assessing their next steps and talking to potential partners.

Startup Weekend is a glo-bal network of events to foster the creation of new, innovative businesses and a community of mentors, investors and sponsors who can help them grow. The initiative, which is run by Google for Entrepreneurs, has included more than 2000 events that have taken place in 150 countries.GU-Q team members with their prize.

QATAR7


Beauty parlour closed for using expired productsThe Ministry of

Economy and Com-merce (MEC) has

announced the one-month closure of a beauty salon in the Al Hilal area of Doha for displaying and using expired products.

The closure comes within the framework of inspec-tion campaigns carried out by the ministry in an eff ort to monitor the market and commercial activity in Qa-tar, in a bid to off set price manipulation and expose violations pertaining to counterfeit goods and non-conformance with standard specifi cations.

Inspectors from the ministry fi ned the beauty salon and ordered its clo-sure for a month in line with article (7) of law number (8) of 2008. The law compels suppliers to clearly display the nature of the item and other rele-vant data on the product’s package, while prohibiting

the display of fraudulent descriptions, advertise-ments and misleading statements.

The administrative clo-sure is published on the ministry’s website, as well as in two daily newspapers

at the off ending store’s ex-pense, in line with article (3) of law no (8) on consumer protection.

The ministry stated that it is determined to pro-tect consumer rights and will intensify its inspec-tion campaigns to crack down on all violations of the consumer protection law.

The ministry said it will refer violators of laws and ministerial decrees to the competent authorities, who will take appropriate action against perpetrators in or-der to protect the rights of consumers.

The MEC has urged all customers to report any violations to its Consumer Protection and Anti-Com-mercial Fraud Depart-ment through the following channels: Hotline: 16001, e-mail: [email protected], Twitter: @MEC_Qatar, In-stagram: MEC_Qatar, MEC mobile app for Android and IOS: MEC_Qatar

An MEC off icial pastes the closure notice outside the beauty salon.

Qatar takes part in administrative body meetQatar took part in the meeting of the Arab Administrative Development Organisation’s executive council in its 104th session, which concluded yesterday in the Egyptian capital Cairo.HE the Minister of Administrative

Development, Labour and Social Aff airs Dr Issa bin Saad Al Jafali al-Nuaimi, led Qatar’s delegation to the meeting.The council discussed a number of issues on the agenda of the meeting, including following up on previous

decisions, endorsing the organisation’s budget for 2017-18, reviewing and developing its structural organisation, and approving Qatar’s proposal to prepare a database for Arab experts and trainers.

QATAR


Safari Mall at Abu Hamour celebrated its sixth anniversary on Tuesday. Managing director Aboobacker Madappat and director/general manager Zainul Abideen inaugurated a cake cutting ceremony along with other members of the senior management.

Safari Mall celebrates sixth anniversary

Qatar steps up eff orts to tackle breast cancerAs part of Breast Cancer

International Awareness Month, Hamad Medical

Corporation (HMC), in collabo-ration with the Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC), is continuing to raise the level of awareness about the issue in Qatar through a number of me-dia engagements and outreach activities.

These joint eff orts are aimed at raising awareness of breast cancer and increasing public understanding of the impor-tance of prevention and early detection of the disease.

According to the Qatar Nation-

al Cancer Registry of the Ministry of Public Health, breast cancer represented 38.78% of overall cancer diagnosis in women in Qa-tar during 2014.

Breast cancer ranks as the top cancer in Qatar (17.42%), fol-lowed by colon cancer at 10.55%.

The highest incidence of breast cancer at 16.2% occurs in women aged between 45 and 49.

Dr Mufi d El Mistiri, senior consultant, Oncology and head of the Cancer Registry Section, National Cancer Care Centre and Research at HMC and assistant professor of Clinical Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine - Qa-

tar said: “It is important that we take advantage of Breast Cancer International Awareness Month to work hand in hand with our healthcare partners. Our ulti-mate goal is to enhance the health and well-being of our commu-nity, through fostering a healthy population. This goal cannot be achieved without empower-ing women and inspiring hope in those aff ected by breast cancer through early detection, educa-tion and support services.”

Dr Shaikha Abu Shaikha, cancer programme manager at PHCC added: “Raising aware-ness about the benefi ts of early

screening is a key part of our work at PHCC in leading the na-tion’s Breast and Bowel Screen-ing Programme, and the fi rst step in treating the disease.

“Cancer is a serious dis-ease that can be prevented and by working with partners such as HMC during October - the Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we are bringing the dis-cussion to the top of the agenda for women across Qatar.

“Engagement activities with the wider community aim to not only increase awareness, but also the number of lives that we can save.”

HMC is one of the key partici-pants in an annual breast can-cer conference led by the Qatar Cancer Society which will be held on October 28 and 29.

The two-day conference will bring together oncologists, surgeons, gynaecologists, psy-chologists, researchers, health sciences students, and other healthcare professionals from across the world.

HMC has invited six interna-tional speakers to share informa-tion about up-to-date breast can-cer research, practical programmes and models of breast cancer care and screening services.

Jewellery retailer opens renovatedoutlet tomorrow

Health ministry to hold workshopThe Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) in collaboration with the World Health Organisation, Eastern Mediterranean Regional Off ice (WHO-EMRO) is or-ganising the first training programme in occupational and environmental health for the second batch of gen-eral practitioners and other specialties. The workshop, which will be held from next Sunday at Millennium Hotel Doha, aims to train the physicians on the basic services for occupational and environmental health. The five-day workshop will be opened by the

director of Public Health Department at MoPH, Sheikh Dr Mohmmed bin Hamad al-Thani. Experts from WHO-EMRO will undertake the training of the physicians from Hamad Medical Corporation, Primary Health Care Corporation, Workers Health Centres and a number of physicians working in various companies. The workshop comes within the framework of MoPH’s keenness on providing the best occupational and environmental healthcare services for the workers.

Leading jewellery retailer Malabar Gold & Dia-monds will open its reno-

vated showroom at Al Watan Centre in Doha tomorrow at 5pm.

The grand opening will be cel-ebrated with ‘the fi nest collec-tion of gold, diamonds and pre-cious gem jewellery,’ promotions for customers and the ongoing ‘Delightful Diwali’ campaign.

Customers get a chance to win up to 500 gold cold coins instantly on purchase of gold jewellery worth QR2,500 via Scratch N Win coupons.

They will also get a 2g gold coin on diamond jewellery pur-chase of QR5,000 and a 1g gold coin on purchase of diamond jewellery worth QR3,000.

There are no making charges for 8g gold coins.

Customers can protect the gold rate at Malabar Gold & Diamonds on payment of 10% of the entire amount on the se-lected gold jewellery.

They can also avail them-selves of the zero deduction of-fer on 22K (GCC) gold jewellery exchange.

All the offers are valid until November 5.

Malabar Gold & Diamonds has also unveiled the latest col-lection of jewellery specially designed for Diwali in gold, diamonds and precious gems.

These designs have been in-corporated as a part of various brands namely Ethnix - hand-crafted designer jewellery, Era - uncut diamond jewellery, Mine - diamonds unlimited, Divine - Indian heritage jew-ellery and Precia - precious gem jewellery.

Malabar Gold & Diamonds is the flagship company of Mala-bar Group, a leading diversified Indian business conglomerate.

Established in 1993 in Kerala, Malabar Gold & Diamonds to-day has a retail network of 157 outlets across nine countries, 10 wholesale units in addition to offices, design centres and factories spread across India, the Middle East and Far East.

With an annual turnover of $4bn, the company currently ranks among the world’s top five jewellery retailers in terms of annual turnover.

Ooredoo media network ‘to carry HD video feeds’

Galaxy Note7 exchange possibleat any Samsung Brand Shops

Samsung Gulf Electronics has an-nounced that from today Galaxy Note7 owners in Qatar can bring

their device, regardless of the original point of purchase, to any of the Sam-sung Brand Shops to exchange for a Galaxy S7 edge with a refund of the price diff erence (in the form of cash or a gift voucher).

The Samsung brand shops are: Barwa Village, Al Wakra District, Samsung+ Member (Ghasham In-ternational); Dar Al Salam Mall, Abu Hamour, Samsung+ Member (RP Tech); D Ring Road, Samsung+ Mem-

ber (RP Tech), and Souq Gharaff a, Samsung+ Member (Ghasham Inter-national).

Consumers who wish to obtain a full refund should take their Galaxy Note7 and the original receipt to the original point of purchase.

All consumers who have a replace-ment Galaxy Note7 device, or do not have an original purchase receipt, or have questions related to the exchange process, are advised to contact Sam-sung’s call centre on 800-2255 for as-sistance.

Samsung had confirmed last

week that with consumers’ safety as a priority, Samsung has stopped sales, exchanges and production of the Galaxy Note7 globally (af-ter some devices caught fire while charging).

Consumers in the Gulf region with either an original Galaxy Note7 or re-placement Galaxy Note7 device should power down and stop using the device and take advantage of the remedies available.

More information on Galaxy Note7 exchange process is available on www.samsung.com

Ooredoo has launched the Oore-doo Media Network, a new so-lution that aims to provide na-

tional and international broadcasters with footage of “unprecedented qual-ity” when they transmit video feeds in Qatar.

Ooredoo, in partnership with Euro-vision, recently supported media cov-erage of the UCI Road World Champi-onships using the new media network, the telecommunications provider said.

Throughout the championships, Eurovision Production Co-ordination acted as host broadcaster for the event, and the Ooredoo Media Network de-livered a key network component to connect broadcast locations around the championship courses to new ring architecture.

In addition, Ooredoo, together with the Eurovision FiNE Global Network, delivered dedicated circuits to inter-national broadcasters.

The Ooredoo Media Network is de-signed to carry HD video feeds and

ensures zero jitter, ultra-low latencies and high availability for media outlets, the company said.

The network has the capacity to carry video traffi c of up to 10Gbps from one location to the other, provid-ing the highest quality coverage for live events.

Ooredoo said it predicts strong de-mand for this solution, particularly as the number and profi le of global sports competitions in Qatar continues to

rise and international broadcasters compete to cover the action.

Yousuf Abdulla al-Kubaisi, COO of Ooredoo Qatar, said: “Ooredoo has developed the advanced Oore-doo Media Network to provide na-tional and international broadcasters with world-class technology when they cover sporting events in Qatar. Our nation is set to host some of the world’s most important sports con-tests in the world and Ooredoo will leverage the power of our Supernet to ensure that audiences around the world will be able to see every mag-nificent sporting moment.”

The solution provides a cost eff ec-tive alternative for event coverage in Qatar, saving media outlets the need to lease outside broadcasting satellites and reducing the human and techni-cal resources required to provide high defi nition broadcast coverage.

As part of its role as the ‘National Telecommunication Partner’ of the Road World Championships, the Ooredoo Media Network covered seven race sites, including The Pearl, Aspire, Lusail, Qatar University, and Qatar Foundation.

The 2016 UCI Road World Cham-pionship, which ran until October 16, was organised by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), and hosted around 1,500 riders from more than 80 countries, and more than 5,700 par-ticipants from national federations, delegations, and media outlets.

Yousuf Abdulla al-Kubaisi, COO of Ooredoo Qatar.

“Our nation is set to host some of the world’s most important sports contests in the world and Ooredoo will leverage the power of our Supernet to ensure that audiences around the world will be able to see every magnifi cent sporting moment”

QATAR9Gulf Times


Qatari real estate project inaugurated in Mauritania

Minister of Trade, In-dustry, Handicraft and Tourism of Mauritania

Naha bint Mouknass inaugurat-ed a large real estate project that will be implemented by a Qatari company.

The inauguration ceremony was attended by Mauritania’s Minister of Finance Mokhtar Ould Diay, Qatar’s ambassador to Mauritania Abdulrahman bin Ali al-Kubaisi, the owner of the Qatari company implement-ing the real estate project and a number of offi cials.

The real estate project con-sists of two fi ve-star and four-star hotels, 386 luxury villas in addition to a school and com-mercial complexes.

QNANouakchott

Mauritania’s Minister of Trade, Industry, Handicraft and Tourism Naha bint Mouknass inaugurating the Qatari real estate project in Nouakchott yesterday.

Qatar is taking part in the 20th meeting for GCC ministers in charge of environment aff airs, which started Wednesday in Jeddah. HE the Minister of Municipality and Environment Mohamed bin Abdullah al-Rumaihi is leading Qatar’s delegation to the meeting. The session will discuss issues related to combating desertification, groundwater depletion, climate change, promoting GCC action in these areas and the preservation of the environment in GCC states.

GCC environment ministers meet

Two Swedish experts to assess road safety awareness in Qatar

Two Swedish transport spe-cialists will come to Qatar next month to assess the

road safety awareness campaign and education programmes in the country, Swedish ambassador Ewa Polano has said.

The announcement was made during a meeting with National Traffi c Safety Committee secre-tary-general Brigadier Moham-ed Abdulla al-Malki yesterday, the envoy told reporters yester-day at the embassy.

“In line with the National Traffi c Safety Committee rec-ommendations and approval of HE the Prime Minister, two highly qualifi ed experts from

Sweden have been selected for this task based on tough interna-tional competition,” a statement from the offi ce of Brigadier al-Malki said.

Part of the three-month pro-gramme includes developing some guidelines and action plan to be used by various agencies in Qatar during the next fi ve years based on local conditions and international best practice.

The two experts, one in con-gestion and one on road safety awareness, are well-known internationally and currently implementing a similar project fi nanced by the European Union to assess the migrant drivers, Polano noted.

The Swedish embassy in Doha believes that the ‘Vision Zero’ pol-icy, a proven traffi c management

safety management system in Sweden, can also achieve positive and substantial results in Qatar.

The experts will assess the

road situation in the country and see what could be done to achieve the Vision Zero prin-ciple, according to Swedish

National Road Consulting AB managing director Jonas Her-manson. He was among the keynote speakers at the recently held Qatar Transport Safety Fo-rum in Doha.

“We could talk about a number fi elds on road safety like crash data, in depth study of fa-tal crashes, analysis of data ma-terial, like looking at the driver’s education, driver’s examination, and police enforcement,” he said. “A number of issues are at-tached to road safety.”

The experts, who are work-ing for the Swedish government, will be travelling back and forth between Sweden and Qatar for three months.

The embassy also invited Minister of Transport and Com-munications HE Jassim Seif

Ahmed al-Sulaiti and Brigadier al-Malki to visit Sweden soon to see how Vision Zero is being im-plemented.

About the steps that need to be taken to achieve road safety in Qatar, Hermanson said deal-ing with speed, seatbelts and be-haviour of road users should be given importance.

He explained that a deeper understanding on how people react on the road is also needed to change road users’ behaviour, particularly in a country which hosts a multinational population.

“Adding the aspects of hav-ing many cultures to deal with makes it more complicated,” he said. “But we all are in traffi c so we need to obey the laws and that can be educated and worked on.”

By Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

Jonas Hermanson and ambassador Ewa Polano speak about ‘Vision Zero’ at the Swedish embassy in Doha yesterday. PICTURE: Jayan Orma

Hi-tech traffi c cameras operational in Mesaieed

Safety on Qatar roads has received a further boost with 4D microwave ra-

dar detectors up and running in Mesaieed, according to a senior offi cial of a Swedish company involved in the installation of the state-of-the-art cameras.

“A total of 46 grey box-shaped cameras are now operational in the area, detecting various road violations of erring driv-ers,” explained KTC International Co general manager Mohamed Vadiee at a briefi ng on road safety at the Swedish embassy yesterday.

The new devices can capture a vehicle’s classifi cation, size and

the direction it is travelling, and the lane it is in, among others.

With the help of the Ministry of Interior (MoI) and the Traffi c De-partment, the company designed “whole shape cabinet cameras” specifi cally for Qatar roads, and initially being implemented by Qatar Petroleum at the Industrial Area in Mesaieed. The project was handed over to the MoI.

Vadiee said the cameras can also detect a number of violations such as tailgating and swerving.

He disclosed that they initially received a lot of complaints from many motorists travelling in the area who are not used to such restrictions. Installed since last year, these cameras started op-erating in July.

Besides 4D microwave radar

detectors, a camera embedded in a car is also being tested to detect violations such as speeding.

“We have completed a demo, the proof concept was approved and we are just waiting for the right time to have a word from MoI or tender such a process,” Vadiee noted.

He said the camera produces video and images of any motor-ist passing by the car over the speed limit, complementing the 4D radar system.

The devices have so far passed the environmental test, which include both hot and cold weathers, according to Vadiee.

Swedish National Road Con-sulting AB managing direc-tor Jonas Hermanson said the concept is being implemented in Sweden as part of its Vision

Zero policy, which has sub-stantially reduced road fatali-ties and serious injuries.

While cutting down speed re-duces the risk of serious injuries, he explained that speeding is one major component in fatal acci-dents. “Speed is a major cause of damage in a crash.”

“Managing kinetic energy is what is needed,” he said. “We have done a great overhaul of the speed system (in Sweden) depending on what kind of situation you have.”

After the speed system was implemented, he noted that Sweden also saw a 25% cut in carbon emissions due to lesser fuel consumption.

“In turn, it has a great impact on the environmental targets we have in Sweden,” Hermanson added.

By Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

QRCS marks

World Food Day

Qatar Red Crescent So-ciety (QRCS) has cel-ebrated World Food Day

2016, observed globally under this year’s theme of “Climate is changing. Food and agriculture must too”.

QRCS’s Health Education Unit held a training event at Al-Rashad Model School for Boys, Al-Duhail.

The event was attended by 350 students, teachers, and adminis-trative staff of the school.

Its purpose was to promote QRCS’s role in building partner-ships with public and private in-stitutions, notably outstanding schools.

The Al-Rashad School was selected to host the celebration for its eff orts to improve health conditions.

The school is a contributor to QRCS’s health education pro-gramme, which seeks health de-velopment towards the goals of Qatar National Vision 2030.

During the morning assem-bly, the students and staff were introduced to World Food Day, its importance for hunger con-trol and food security, how so-ciety members can take part in the global endeavour to eradi-cate hunger by wise consump-tion practices and donations for hunger-affl icted communities, good eating habits, and healthy food.

QNADoha

OIC FMs praise Emir’s role in Darfur peace

The Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organi-sation of Islamic Co-

operation (OIC) member-states has commended the positive role of the State of Qatar under the leadership of HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in support of the peace process and development in Darfur which enables everyone in Darfur to enjoy security and stability.

At its forty-third session in Tashkent, the Council welcomed the mediation eff orts under-taken by HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani to resolve the dispute between Eri-trea and Djibouti, including his eff orts that led to the release of four Djiboutian prisoners in Eri-trea.

In its resolution on “solidar-ity with the Republic of Sudan,” the Council thanked and ap-preciated HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Cabinet Aff airs Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid al-Mahmoud, and African Union-United Na-tions Joint Mediator for Darfur for their credible eff orts to bring peace to Darfur.

The Council commended the steps taken to implement the Darfur Peace Agreement signed in Doha, and called on the gen-eral secretariat of the member-states to follow up the imple-mentation of the outcome of the international donors’ con-ference for reconstruction and peace in Darfur.

On the situation in Somalia, the Council of Foreign Minis-ters appreciated the countries, including Qatar, that have con-tributed to transport and treat the wounded in Somalia.

QNATashkent

OIC condemns kidnapping of Qatari citizensThe 43rd session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC), which concluded its meetings in Tashkent yesterday, adopted a resolution regarding Qatari citizens kidnapped in Iraq.The council renewed its condemnation of the kidnapping, saying the Qatari citizens entered Iraq through legitimate means. The council described the kidnapping as a terrorist attack that contradicts with all Islamic teachings. They called on the Iraqi government to assume its responsibility.

The council expressed its solidarity with the Qatari government in any measure it takes in that regard.The council also expressed its hope that the contacts made between the Iraqi government lead to the release of the citizens. They requested that the OIC secretary-general follow up on the implementation of their resolution regarding the kidnapped Qatari citizens.Qatar’s delegation to the meeting was chaired by HE Minister of State for Foreign Aff airs Sultan bin Saad al-Muraikhi.

Education on usage, security to boost mobile banking

Despite having one of the highest Internet pen-etration and smartphone

usage in the GCC, mobile bank-ing in Qatar remains low, but education on usage and security will play a key role to help boost uptake, according to industry sources.

Citing fi gures from the Minis-try of Transport and Communi-cations, Chandramouli Kunda-grami, head Digital Strategy, Infosys Finacle, India, said 44% of the overall population in Qatar does not use e-Banking services due to security reasons.

He also said 62% of Qatar customers fi nd mobile banking

“diffi cult to access,” referring to another report by E&Y on GCC banking.

“Ease of use is another focus area for banks because today, to make [online banking] secure, the customer has to remember a user ID, a password, and then there is a strict question, as well as is an OTP (one-time pass-word), among many other secu-rity features.

“We have to make banking frictionless. To do this, we have to make the best use of technol-ogy such as facial recognition, which can happen in both the Internet, as well as the smart-phone. Qatar has a high smart-phone penetration but it is not being leveraged as a technology,” Kundagrami told Gulf Times on the sidelines of a recently held

summit on new age banking.During his presentation,

Kundagrami stressed that “edu-cation about usage and security [is the] key for uptake.”

“It is a matter of telling the customers what are the secu-rity mechanisms the bank has implemented, what are the fac-tors that can lead to fraud, and what are the information that they should not be sharing. Banks have to get this across the media and to the people. They should have this con-tinuous customer engagement and discussion with them,” he stressed.

This was corroborated by an-other speaker during the event, Neil Andrew Buckley, Group head of Technology & Opera-tions at Doha Bank.

Citing an E&Y report, Buckley said the GCC has a tech-savvy population. He said up to 98% of surveyed baking customers are equipped with modern smart-phones, and a large number of customers use various smart-phone apps daily.

However, Buckley said “mo-bile banking penetration is very low mainly due to lack of con-venience.” Topping the list of factors that inhibit digital cus-tomers in the GCC in the E&Y report is “diffi cult access” at 46%, he said.

Other factors include “un-intuitive user experience” (31%), “not real time” (31%), “slow transaction speed” (36%), “not tailored, does not fulfil my needs,” (37%), and “non-availability of pre-

ferred channel” (43%).“The key is education […] not

just around banking products but also around security, social media, and the entire digital standpoint, so this is how bank-ing is changing. It is not just about ‘I have an account’. It is all about the relationship. It is all around creating that ecosystem for the customer to live in that’s trustworthy, and they’re getting value,” Buckley said.

To increase their digital foot-print, Buckley said GCC banks should prioritise on channels, payments, and process auto-mation. “Among the benefi ts of these digital initiatives is re-duced cost by 25% to 35%, en-hanced customer satisfaction, and improved turnaround time by 50% to 60%.”

By Peter AlagosBusiness Reporter

Al-Kuwari meets Italian finance ministerHE Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz al-Kuwari, Adviser at the Emiri Diwan and the State of Qatar’s candidate to the post of the Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), met Italian Minister of Economy and Finance Pier Carlo Padoan here yesterday.During the meeting, HE al-Kuwari detailed his programme with a focus on the financial crisis facing Unesco and how to deal with it.The meeting also touched on the depth of relations between Qatar and Italy.

QATAR


WCM-Q, HMC researchers win prestigious fundingResearchers at Weill Cor-

nell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q) and the Neu-

rosciences Institute at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) have won a prestigious inter-national funding for their in-novative proposal to use eye examinations to aid in early di-agnosis, analysis of disease pro-gression and benefi ts of treat-ment in patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

WCM-Q professor of medi-cine Dr Rayaz Malik was pre-sented with the award for Multiple Sclerosis Innovation by the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis. It was one of only four research grants awarded from a total of 260 applications from 45 countries and the fi rst ever to be awarded to the Mena region.

The research team will now use the grant to conduct a com-prehensive 24-month study to determine whether Corneal Confocal Microscopy can be a viable method for determin-ing nerve damage in patients with MS. The research has local signifi cance as Qatar appears to have a higher than expected prevalence of MS.

MS is a debilitating disease of the central nervous system in which nerve impulses within the brain, and between the brain and other parts of the body, are disrupted. Symptoms include diffi culty walking, vision prob-lems, fatigue, pain and cognitive changes.

MS is diffi cult to monitor as each patient is aff ected in diff er-ent ways and experience diff er-ent rates of disease progression. Additionally, the most widely used monitoring technique,

Researchers from WCM-Q and HMC who are working together to develop an innovative monitoring tool for MS.

magnetic resonance imaging scans of the brain, cannot ac-curately identify nerve damage, which is the underlying pathol-ogy associated with progressive neurological defi cits.

The new test is non-invasive and utilises existing ophthalmic equipment that many hospitals already have.

Dr Malik and his team of other WCM-Q researchers and neu-rologists from HMC, Dr Saa-dat Kamran, senior consultant

neurologist, and Dr Ashfaq Sh-uaib, professor of medicine and neurology and director, Neuro-science Institute, believe their technique could provide a more accurate and easier method for monitoring MS.

The cornea has the densest concentration of nerve fi bres an-ywhere in the body. Dr Malik and colleagues have pioneered the technique of ‘Corneal Confocal Microscopy’ over the last 15 years to enable close examination and

imaging of the cornea’s nerve fi -bres to identify nerve damage in a variety of conditions including diabetic neuropathy, hereditary neuropathies and in patients with Parkinson’s disease.

Dr Malik said: “MS is an ex-tremely distressing disease, which is very diffi cult to moni-tor and has limited treatment options. There is an urgent need for a new monitoring tool that is both reliable and more accu-rate that could be applied both

in the clinic and in clinical trials. Our research indicates that nerve damage in the cornea is a reliable indicator of nerve damage in the brain that characterises MS.”

Dr Ashfaq Shuaib of HMC said, “We are extremely pleased to be involved in this important research and this award gives us all a great opportunity to contin-ue to work together to develop a very eff ective new tool for diag-nosing and assessing progression of MS.”

HBKU Press supports World Osteoporosis Day

In recognition of World Osteoporosis Day, marked on October 20, Hamad

Bin Khalifa University Press (HBKU Press) has focused on better bone health, a topic ‘highly relevant to Qataris and those living in the region, but one that is often neglected in the Middle East.’

Osteoporosis is a medical condition that causes bones to become brittle and frag-ile due to the loss of tissue. It is caused by inactivity, a diet defi cient in calcium, magne-sium and Vitamin D, excessive smoking and alcohol intake, and in some cases genetics.

Accurate information from healthcare profession-als about diet and lifestyle choices can help prevent the onset of osteoporosis. In an article published via HBKU Press on QScience.com titled, “Helping Patients Under-stand Osteoporosis” in which 93 osteoporosis patients were surveyed in Qatar, researchers found that people were more informed if they had a univer-sity or graduate-level degree. Furthermore, many patients obtained a greater degree of information about their condition from the media rather than from healthcare professionals.

The article highlights the need for education by health-care professionals on preven-tion methods and awareness of the chronic illness from cred-ible sources before it aff ects your health as in most cases, osteoporosis can be complete-ly prevented by maintaining a balanced, healthy lifestyle.

Another article details that while osteoporosis may be well-researched, informa-tion and guidelines on it are lacking in the Middle East and Africa. In “Osteoporosis: An under-recognised public health problem”, the authors Dietrich Büsselberg and Ra-jasree Vijayakumar from Weill Cornell Medicine - Qatar re-view the latest fi ndings on the prevalence, risk factors and lifestyle behaviours aff ecting osteoporosis.

According to the researchers, Vitamin D defi ciency, lack of exercise, and hormonal chang-es in post-menopausal women are the main risk factors for fragile bones. In a country like Qatar, where a 2009 study of 458 children revealed that 68.8% were Vitamin D defi -cient, this knowledge is es-sential. Statistics on Vitamin D defi ciency similar to these are found in many hot, humid

Middle Eastern and African countries where the extremely high temperatures and the practice of covering prevent the population from absorbing Vitamin D from the sun.

According to the Interna-tional Osteoporosis Founda-tion, osteoporosis is set to dramatically increase in the Middle East as the percentage of the population older than fi fty grows. The number one risk among old people is that of bone and/or hip fractures which signifi cantly reduces a person’s independence and the quality and longevity of life.

The best way to fi ght the disease is to prevent it. Vi-tamin D, a key vitamin that supports healthy bones, can be absorbed though moderate exposure of healthy ultraviolet rays directly on the skin in the morning and evening. Con-suming foods like egg yolks, milk, yoghurt, fi sh, cereals and green, leafy vegetables, which are high in calcium, mag-nesium and Vitamin D also support strong bones. High impact, weight-bearing exer-cises can help improve bone density as well. Education and awareness are extremely important to preventing and managing osteoporosis and to building healthier, stronger bones for life.

This year’s theme, as or-ganised by the International Osteoporosis Foundation, is Love Your Bones. It calls on the general public to take early action to protect their bone and muscle health, in order to enjoy a good quality of life and independence in the future. It also calls on health profes-sionals and health authorities to prioritise osteoporosis and fracture prevention by ensur-ing that people at high-risk are assessed and appropriately treated.

“Co-ordinating closely with scientists and research-ers in the region, our ambition at HBKU Press is to advance Arab scientifi c research and thought,” said Dr Alwaleed Alkhaja, senior editor at HBKU Press. “With platforms like QScience.com, this cutting-edge research is available to both academics and the gen-eral public to read freely.”

Vitamin D defi ciency, lack of exercise, and hormonal changes in post-menopausal women are the main risk factors for fragile bones

Eatery faces action for keeping foodstuff in unhygienic place

Inspectors of the health inspection section of the Doha Municipality have

taken action against a res-taurant in the Najma area for preparing and keeping food-stuff inside hidden store in unhygienic conditions.

The outlet was issued a report for violating law no. 8 for 1990 on the regulation of human foods control. Besides, all the necessary legal procedures against the outlet have been taken.

Meanwhile, the Al Khor and Al Thakhira Munici-pality sprayed insecticides yesterday at Al Khor Park, which was closed for the day. The park will be open to the public from today.

The Ministry of Munici-pality and Environment’s department of public rela-tions and communications has conducted an aware-ness lecture on greenhouse emissions at Al Jamilah Independent School for boys. Students of diff erent age categories were intro-duced to the issue and how to limit the adverse conse-quences of climate change.

The Al Khor and Al Thakhira Municipality also conducted an aware-ness lecture on the safety of food, and the proper ways to keep diff erent food products yesterday at Al Thakhira Independent Primary School for girls.

Insecticides being sprayed at Al Khor Park yesterday. Awareness lecture on greenhouse emissions at Al Jamilah Independent School for boys.

A lecture on food safety at Al Thakhira Independent Primary School for girls

REGION/ARAB WORLD 11Gulf Times


Kuwaiti candidates register for the upcoming parliamentary election in Kuwait City yesterday. Kuwait will hold snap elections on November 26.

Kuwaiti royal to contestparliamentary electionAFPKuwait City

A member of Kuwait’s rul-ing family announced yesterday his candidacy

for next month’s parliamentary election, a rare move in the Gulf state where royals normally stay away from polls.

Sheikh Malek Humoud al-Sabah was among 71 hopefuls who fi led to stand for election on the fi rst day of registration which saw some opposition members return after a four-year boycott.

“The previous assembly let down the Kuwaiti people and I am contesting the polls to de-fend the rights of the people,” said Sheikh Malek.

Speaking to reporters in Ku-wait City, he said he had given up his special passport “to be-come an ordinary citizen” and that he does not mind losing other benefi ts.

Under the Kuwaiti constitu-tion, royals are eligible to run for public offi ce.

Only a few have registered as candidates in the emirate’s 54 years of democracy, but all have dropped out before elec-tion day.

The last royal to register their candidacy was Sheikh Fahad Sa-lem al-Ali al-Sabah, who with-drew before the 2006 election.

Members of the al-Sabah family, which has been in power for 250 years, still occupy the main posts in the Opec mem-ber.

The emir, crown prince and prime ministers are senior members of the family, and royals occupy the key posts of foreign, defence and interior minister.

Kuwaiti Deputy Prime Min-ister and Interior Minister Sheikh Mohamed al-Khaled al-Sabah ordered yesterday form-ing a special panel to examine nomination papers of the can-didates vying for seats in the upcoming 50-member Nation-al Assembly (Parliament).

The November 26 polls were called after Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah dissolved

parliament on Sunday, follow-ing a dispute over petrol price hikes.

Many candidates have criti-cised the outgoing parliament for failing to defend the inter-ests of citizens.

Political parties are banned under Kuwaiti law but many Islamist, nationalist and liberal groups operate freely as de facto parties.

Under Kuwait’s unique sys-

tem of democracy, a senior ruling family member will be mandated to form a govern-ment regardless of poll out-come.

Many opposition groups have decided to take part after boycotting the previous two elections in protest against changes to the voting system.

Only two former opposition lawmakers registered yesterday but as independents.

Clashes killdozens inYemen aheadof ceasefi reAFPAden

Clashes killed dozens of fi ghters across Yemen before a UN-brokered

ceasefi re was to begin yesterday, as warring parties came under mounting pressure to end the two-year confl ict.

The truce is the sixth attempt to end the bloodshed since a Saudi-led Arab coalition intervened in March 2015 to support the gov-ernment of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after rebels overran much of Yemen.

Civilians have paid the highest price in a country that was already the Arabian peninsula’s poorest.

Almost 6,900 have been killed – more than half of them civilians – while another 3mn are displaced and millions more need food aid.

The UN special envoy for Yem-en, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, on Sunday announced the truce from 23:59 (2059 GMT) for an initial three days, subject to renewal.

But clashes killed dozens of

fi ghters across the country yester-day, including near the Saudi bor-der and around the capital Sanaa.

At least 30 Houthi rebels and fi ve pro-Hadi fi ghters died dur-ing heavy artillery bombardments near the Red Sea, in Hajja prov-ince, a loyalist statement said.

The last ceasefi re attempt be-gan in April alongside UN-bro-kered peace talks in Kuwait but both the rebels and the coalition accused each other of breaches.

After talks collapsed in August, fi ghting escalated until an October 8 coalition air strike which the UN said killed more than 140 people and wounded at least 525 at a fu-neral in Sanaa.

Yemen’s Houthis are allied with members of the security forces loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

They control the capital Sanaa and other territory but coalition-backed forces earlier pushed them back from the southern port of Aden and adjacent areas.

Both the rebels and pro-gov-ernment forces have come under increased international pressure

to silence their guns.On Tuesday, US Secretary of

State John Kerry hailed the an-nouncement of the new truce.

“We ask the parties to take all steps necessary to advance the implementation of this cessa-tion, call on them to sustain it, and strongly encourage its uncondi-tional renewal,” Kerry said.

Hadi’s government said it would agree to the truce if rebels also adhered to it, and also called for the insurgents to monitor the ceasefi re and end their siege of Yemen’s third city, Taiz.

The rebels, in a statement on Tuesday night, expressed readi-ness for a “lasting ceasefi re, com-prehensive and without condi-tions”.

But clashes rocked Yemen yes-terday ahead of the truce.

As well as the Hajja fi ghting, rebel tanks and other reinforce-ments in the northern Saada province were bombed in coali-tion air strikes overnight, a mili-tary source said.

Three air strikes also hit a rebel convoy in Omran province, north of Sanaa, the source added.

At least two rebels and a pro-government fi ghter were killed during overnight fi ghting in Taiz, according to witnesses and mili-tary sources.

And further south, three pro-Hadi fi ghters died in a rebel missile strike near the Bab Al-Mandab strait, a military offi cial said.

In spite of yesterday’s violence, Mustafa Alani, a senior adviser to the Gulf Research Centre, said the prospects for peace were growing.

“Both parties in the confl ict are getting tired. The cost of the con-fl ict – human, fi nancial – is very high,” he said. “Both parties be-lieve they cannot win, they cannot settle it by military means.”

Egypt court quashes deathsentences of 14 IslamistsReutersCairo

Egypt’s highest court yes-terday quashed death sen-tences imposed on 14 Is-

lamists over an attack on a police station in protest at the military’s overthrow in 2013 of then-Pres-ident Mohamed Mursi, the state news agency Mena said.

It was the court’s latest reversal of many of the hundreds of death sentences imposed on Islamists after the ouster of Mursi, a Mus-lim Brotherhood member.

In yesterday’s decision, the

Court of Cassation accepted ap-peals from the defendants fi led last year against a lower criminal court ruling, and ordered them retried.

The court also threw out one 10-year prison term in the same case.

Eight more defendants in the case were sentenced to death in absentia.

The court did not quash those sentences but Egyptian law af-fords automatic retrials to con-victions in absentia that are sub-sequently reversed.

The 23 defendants face charges of murder in the killing of a se-

curity offi cial at the police sta-tion and the attempted murder of others in July 2013, as well as assault, rioting, sabotage, and il-legal possession of fi rearms and knives.

The Court of Cassation gave no legal reasons for its reversals of the death sentences but is ex-pected to do so in written form in a few days time.

In February the court ordered the retrial of 149 people on death row, out of a total 183, in a similar case where the defendants were accused of an assault on the same police station in August 2013 that left 14 policemen dead.

Iran rejectsUS demandfor release ofdual nationalsAFPTehran

Iran said yesterday it would accept no US “interference” after Washington demanded the release of a dual national

and his 80-year-old father given 10 year sentences for espionage.

The State Department demanded the immediate release of Siamak and Baqher Namazi, both Iranian-American dual na-tionals, after their sentences were an-nounced on Tuesday.

But foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi told Iranian media: “The govern-ment and the Iranian people give no impor-tance to the statements and interference of American offi cials and their eff orts to di-vide the ranks of the Iranian people.

“The American threats only add to the wall of mistrust Iranians have regarding the United States.”

Washington expressed concern over the health of the elder Namazi, a former UN Children’s Fund employee who also served as the governor of an Iranian province be-fore the Islamic revolution of 1979.

Both were jailed for 10 years for “espio-nage and collaboration with the American government”, Tehran prosecutor Abbas Ja-fari Dolat-Abadi announced on Tuesday.

Three other Iranian-American dual nationals – Farhad Abd-Saleh, Kamran Ghaderi and Alireza Omidvar – were also sentenced to 10 years on the same charges, along with a US resident from Lebanon, Nezar Zaka.

Siamak Namazi, a well-connected busi-ness consultant who has supported Iranian reformists and sought to promote ties be-tween Iran and the United States, was ar-rested as he arrived in Tehran a year ago.

His father was detained in February when he came to Iran to seek his son’s re-lease.

Kuwaiti ruling family member, Sheikh Malek al-Hmoud al-Sabah, announced his candidacy for next month’s election.

Egyptians gather to buy subsidised sugar from a government truck after a sugar shortage in retail stores across the country in Cairo.

Sugar shortage

Jamie McGoldrick, United Nations Resident Co-ordinator for Yemen, speaks during a news conference at the United Nations building in Sanaa yesterday.

Female activists from the “Women for Peace” organisation, take part in a march at the Qasr al-Yahud baptismal, site near the West Bank city of Jericho yesterday.

‘Women for Peace’ march

Pause in strikes on Aleppo holds into second day

Israeli forces shoot dead Palestinian attacker in W Bank

AFPAleppo, Syria

A pause in Russian and Syr-ian strikes on Aleppo was holding for a second day

yesterday, ahead of a brief unilat-eral ceasefi re aimed at allowing civilians and rebels to quit the devastated city.

Moscow announced it would extend an eight-hour truce planned for today to 11 hours and said Syrian and Russian war-planes were giving Aleppo a wide berth.

At a meeting in Berlin, French President Francois Hollande said he would work with Germany to persuade Russia to adopt a long-lasting truce around Syria’s sec-ond city.

Russia’s ceasefi re plan has stirred scepticism in the West and the United Nations said it would be insuffi cient to allow humanitarian aid to reach encir-cled Aleppo inhabitants.

Moscow is backing President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in its war with a wide range of rebel groups, including with air strikes in the divided northern city.

Under growing international pressure over the devastation and civilian deaths, Moscow an-nounced early Tuesday that Rus-sian and Syrian warplanes would stop bombing rebel-held parts of the city to pave the way for a “humanitarian pause”.

That window, starting at 0500 GMT today, was initially meant to last eight hours and is ex-pected to see all fi ghting stop to allow civilians and rebels to exit opposition-held districts via six corridors.

Senior Russian military offi -cial Sergei Rudskoi said yesterday the ceasefi re had been extended “by three hours until 7pm (1600 GMT)”.

He also said Russian and Syr-ian planes were keeping 10km from Aleppo.

An estimated 250,000 people live in Aleppo’s eastern districts and have been under near-contin-uous government siege since July.

AFP’s correspondent in east Aleppo said although clashes between rebels and pro-gov-ernment forces involving heavy artillery continued in several neighbourhoods, the pause in air strikes was holding.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said pro-re-gime fi ghters were pressing their ground assault in the Old City as they vied to shift the front line.

Russian and Syrian bombard-ment had been providing air cover for a government off en-sive that started on September 22 aimed at seizing the city’s east, held by rebels since 2012.

According to Moscow, once

the pause begins six corridors out of the city would open for civil-ians with another two – via the Castello Road in the north and Souk al-Hal in the city centre – designated for rebels.

The UN dashed hopes however that a prospective Aleppo truce could allow humanitarian aid to reach civilians.

“Before we can do something really meaningful we need as-surances from all parties” over a lasting ceasefi re, a spokesman for the UN’s humanitarian agency said in Geneva.

Rebel groups have indicated they will not abandon their posts and, with Aleppo encircled by pro-government forces, many civilians fear falling into the hands of the regime.

But Russia has said the pause is an opportunity for mainstream rebels to disassociate themselves from militants in Aleppo.

Near Damascus, more than 600 rebels and their families were evacuated yesterday from Moadamiyat al-Sham, a besieged rebel town, according to a local offi cial.

It was the latest in a string of evacuation accords allow-ing armed rebels to fl ee encir-cled areas, which Damascus has championed as a way to restore stability.

Syria analyst Thomas Pierret, of the University of Edin-burgh, said the halt in Russian air strikes was about Moscow “managing international pres-sure”.

“Russia is periodically try-ing to mitigate tensions with the West on Aleppo through such initiatives.

This is the continuation of war by diplomatic means,” he said.

In Brussels today, EU leaders are expected to “strongly con-demn the attacks by the Syr-ian regime and its allies, notably Russia, on civilians in Aleppo”, according to a draft obtained by AFP.

The draft calls on them “to bring the atrocities to an end and to take urgent steps to ensure unhindered humanitarian access to Aleppo and other parts of the country”.

Five years of diplomatic ini-tiatives to put an end to Syria’s confl ict have failed, but over the past week world powers have made new eff orts to reach a last-ing truce.

Hollande and German Chan-cellor Angela Merkel were to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Berlin later yesterday to discuss the ceasefi re plans.

“France will do everything it can to exert pressure, especially on supporters of the (Syrian) re-gime, such as the Russians, so that the ceasefi re can be extend-ed,” Hollande said.

ReutersJerusalem

Israeli forces yesterday shot dead a 19-year-old Pales-tinian woman who police

said had advanced towards them with a knife in her hand at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank.

A police spokesman said the woman was shot after ignoring orders to halt.

Over the past year, Palestin-ians, many acting alone and often using rudimentary weap-ons, have killed at least 35 Israe-lis and two visiting Americans in mainly street attacks.

At least 222 Palestinians have

died in violent incidents in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

Of those, 150 were identifi ed by Israeli authorities as assail-ants while others were killed during clashes and protests.

Palestinians have accused Is-rael of using excessive force and say that some of those killed posed no threat or had no in-tention of attacking anyone.

In some cases, Israel has opened investigations into whether excessive force was used.

No Israelis were hurt in yes-terday’s incident at a junction near the Palestinian city of Na-blus, police said.

Ten days ago, a Palestinian

shot dead a pedestrian and a police offi cer in Jerusalem be-fore being killed by Israeli gun-fi re.

Palestinian leaders say the assailants are acting out of des-peration over the collapse in 2014 of peace talks and the ex-pansion of Israeli settlements on occupied land that Palestin-ians seek for an independent state.

Israel says anti-Israeli incite-ment by Palestinian offi cials and on social media networks is stoking the violence.

Some individuals, fam-ily members have said, carried out what were eff ectively sui-cide attacks to escape personal problems at home.

Proposed truce not enough for aid deliveries: UN

The UN yesterday dashed hopes that a proposed fighting pause in east Aleppo would allow aid to reach besieged civilians, saying all sides needed to back an extended ceasefire before humanitarian convoys could roll.“Before we can do something really meaningful we need as-surances from all parties,” said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the United Nations humanitarian agency (OCHA) in Geneva.

“It’s great when the guns fall si-lent but we need all the guns to fall silent,” Laerke told journalists.Laerke stressed that the UN also needs fighting to stop for “a minimum of 48 hours”, with Russia’s proposal insuff icient for UN teams to mobilise.Aside from getting desperately needed supplies to east Aleppo’s estimated 250,000 civilians, the UN also wants to evacuate hundreds of people.

A man rides a bicycle near damaged ground in the rebel held besieged al-Sukkari neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria yesterday.

US general suspects Iran role in Houthiattacks on warshipsIran may have played a role in recent Houthi missile attacks against US war-ships in the Red Sea, a top US general said yesterday.Iranian-backed Houthi rebels are believed to be behind a series of inci-dents this month that saw surface-to-surface missiles fired at the USS Mason on at least two occasions.In response, US cruise missiles on October 13 struck Houthi radar sites believed to have been used to target the weapons.“I do think Iran is playing a role in some of this. They have a relationship with the Houthis, so I do suspect there is a role in there,” General Joseph Votel told a Washington think tank.Votel heads the US military’s Central Command, which oversees operations across the Middle East.His statement was the most forward-leaning so far of a US off icial in describ-ing Iranian involvement in the missile attacks.

12 Gulf TimesThursday, October 20, 2016

REGION/ARAB WORLD

ARAB WORLD13Gulf Times


Bedouin village caught up in Israeli settlement riftBy Joe Dyke/AFPWadi Abu Hindi, Palestinian Territories

Abu Youssef is tired. He has already seen his family home destroyed once and

now faces a second demolition.But this time he has a contro-

versial opt out clause: agree to move his small Bedouin com-munity less than a mile away, and Abu Youssef could get a brand new home with running water and electricity.

The catch is that the off er comes from Israel, and Palestin-ian leaders and those concerned with Israeli settlement building are vehemently opposed.

Any move, even if the 50 fami-lies who live in the tiny commu-nity of Wadi Abu Hindi agreed to it, would violate international law and could be disastrous for the Palestinian cause, they say.

“We are between two sides,” Abu Youssef said.

It is a dilemma faced by other Bedouin communities in the West Bank, the Palestinian territory Is-rael illegally occupied in 1967.

Palestinian leaders say moving Wadi Abu Hindi would amount to forcible transfer of a population

by an occupying power – a breach of the Geneva Conventions – and could lead to more relocations.

The village is located east of Jerusalem, where rights groups fear demolitions could eventually clear the way for further Israeli settlement construction.

This could partly divide the West Bank between north and south while further isolating the territory from East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians see as their future capital.

That scenario would make a contiguous future Palestinian state diffi cult to achieve.

But for Abu Youssef, the issue is far more personal.

Wadi Abu Hindi amounts to a collection of shacks of corrugated metal in a desert valley, unbear-ably hot in summer and freezing in winter.

Abu Youssef, 56, has lived there his entire life, but under two dif-ferent rulers.

When he was six years old, Is-rael occupied the West Bank, seiz-ing it from Jordan, in a move never recognised by the international community.

The government began build-ing settlements, including on land formerly used by semi-nomadic Bedouin farmers. There are now

more than 400,000 Israelis living in the West Bank, according to Is-raeli statistics.

Wadi Abu Hindi was demol-ished by Israeli forces in the late 1990s then rebuilt, and since 2011 has faced a new demolition order.

Last year, the Israeli lawyer for the community, Shlomo Lecker, says he received an off er he felt he had to present to them.

He previously fought many proposed relocations of Bedouins as they would be moved far away, imperilling their traditional agri-cultural lifestyles, he said.

But this off er involved moving less than a mile to where many of their extended family members live.

Infrastructure would be avail-able and, crucially, they would be free from the threat of demolition.

“Nobody wants to be trans-ferred far away but if they can have a chance to build a village near where they come from that is good,” Lecker said.

Abu Youssef said Lecker has won numerous battles for them, so they took the off er seriously.

He stressed they have not made a fi nal decision, but added that personally he was “tired” and tempted.

“We need water, we need elec-

tricity and we want to live,” Abu Youssef said.

Israeli offi cials would not con-fi rm details of the off er, but noted an agreement hadn’t yet been reached.

The temporary homes of Bedouin communities between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea are often demolished by Israel, which says they lack permits.

Such permits are nearly impos-sible for Palestinians, including Bedouins, to obtain.

Israel has off ered to relocate more than 40 unrecognised Bedouin villages into pre-planned communities but so far none have accepted.

One successful agreement could pressure other Bedouin communities to move, Palestinian offi cials argue.

The concerns of the Palestin-ians and the UN can be seen close to Wadi Abu Hindi.

A few hundred metres above the village, a shiny and clean Is-raeli settlement, Kedar, peeks over the hill.

Further away, the suburban-like settlement of Maale Adumim houses some 35,000 Israelis.

After a international NGO cut his funding when he rec-ommended the villages dis-

cuss taking a deal, Lecker has worked pro bono for more than six months.

He says he can no longer do so, while the Bedouin don’t want a diff erent lawyer.

The UN was considering step-ping in, UN sources said, prompt-ing senior Palestinian offi cial Saeb Erekat to protest earlier this month, in a letter seen by AFP.

It warned that lawyers paid by international organisations “have provided legal aid to nego-tiate and/or mediate on behalf of these communities to reach a set-tlement agreement for their own transfer.

“These legal aid actors have in fact facilitated the forcible transfer of these communities,” it added.

UN Humanitarian Co-ordina-

tor for the Palestinian territories Robert Piper said in a statement to AFP he was concerned by po-tential forcible transfer but also by the legal aid gap for Bedouin communities.

Lecker accused the Palestinian Authority of ignoring the villag-ers’ needs.

“They are soldiers of the PA without anyone asking them.”

A man and his goats drink from a water tank in the Bedouin village of Wadi Abu Hindi, near the Israeli-occupied West Bank town of al-Azariya, east of Jerusalem.

Hariri backs Aoun for president, some allies opposedReutersBeirut

Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri intends to endorse Michel

Aoun for the vacant presidency, senior political sources said, and the Hezbollah ally could be elected head of state later this month.

Long an opponent of the Iran-backed Shia group Hezbollah, Hariri would become prime minister again under the plan

that could reshape Lebanese politics.

It has drawn opposition in his party and a fi nal decision has not yet been taken, allies said.

The presidency, which is re-served for a Maronite Christian in the country’s sectarian power-sharing arrangements, has been vacant for 2 1/2 years due to po-litical confl icts.

Aoun, a veteran politician in his 80s, has long coveted the post.

It was not immediately clear if Aoun’s candidacy would en-

joy enough support among other politicians to secure the neces-sary two-thirds quorum for the vote in the 128-seat parliament.

The next scheduled parlia-mentary session to elect a presi-dent is set for Oct. 31.

Opponents of Aoun’s candi-dacy include Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, head of the Shia Amal Movement and a close ally of Hezbollah, which itself has yet to comment.

Hariri, 46, led the “March 14” alliance against Hezbollah and its allies, after the 2005 assassina-

tion of his father Rafi k al-Hariri.He remains a fi erce critic of

Hezbollah, which is fi ghting in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad.

Two senior politicians said that Hariri had expressed his in-tention to nominate Aoun for the presidency as part of the power-sharing deal.

A third source, a member of Hariri’s Future Movement, con-fi rmed Hariri had expressed this intention, but members of his own parliamentary bloc opposed it.

Fouad Siniora, a former prime minister and head of the Future Movement’s parliamentary bloc, told the newspaper Daily Star that Hariri had told his MPs on Tuesday that he had decided to support Aoun’s candidacy, but added that there was “no fi nal decision yet on this matter”.

One of the senior sources said Hariri would announce his sup-port for Aoun “within the com-ing few days”.

The current government of Prime Minister Tammam Salam has been paralysed by rivalries

exacerbated by regional confl ict.Hariri became prime minister

for the fi rst time in 2009, but his cabinet was toppled in 2011 when Hezbollah and its allies resigned. Since then, he spent most of his time abroad.

Last year, he nominated Hez-bollah ally Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency, but Hezbollah stuck by Aoun.

Aoun, a former army com-mander, heads the largest Chris-tian bloc in parliament and has a large following in the divided Christian community.

He has been a political ally of Hezbollah since 2006.

A signifi cant fi gure in Leba-non’s 1975-90 civil war, Aoun led one of two rival governments during the fi nal years of the con-fl ict. In 1990, the Syrian army forced him into exile.

He returned in 2005 after Syr-ian forces withdrew under inter-national pressure following the Hariri assassination.

Aoun’s main Christian rival, wartime enemy Samir Geagea, earlier this year also endorsed Aoun’s candidacy.

IS leadersfl ee as Iraqiforces closein on MosulAFPQayyarah, Iraq

Militant leaders are fl eeing Mosul, a top US general in the coalition battling

the Islamic State group said yes-terday as Iraqi forces closed in on the northern city.

Mosul was where IS supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his “caliphate” two years ago but is now the group’s last major stronghold in Iraq.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who announced the launch of a broad off ensive to retake the city on Monday, visited the front line yesterday.

In the biggest Iraqi military operation in years, forces have retaken dozens of villages, mostly south and east of Mosul, and are planning multiple assaults for to-day.

“We are telling Daesh (IS) that their leaders are abandoning them. We’ve seen a movement out of Mosul,” said Major General Gary Volesky, who heads the anti-IS coalition’s land component.

He told reporters in a video briefi ng that the many foreign-ers among the 3,000 to 4,500 IS fi ghters would likely end up form-ing the core of the holdout mili-tant force.

Volesky noted that the Ira-qis would screen anyone leaving Mosul, and attempts by foreign fi ghters to blend in to an expected exodus of displaced people would be thwarted.

“It’s diffi cult for them to blend

into the local population based on the number of diff erent types of foreign fi ghters that there are,” he said.

Hundreds of thousands of ci-vilians were still trapped in the city with dwindling supplies, many sheltering in basements as air strikes intensifi ed on IS tar-gets.

“We couldn’t sleep last night because of the air strikes. The explosions were huge,” said Abu Saif, a 47-year-old resident con-tacted by AFP.

“Many families are starting to run out of some basic food goods, there is no commercial activity in Mosul – the city is cut off from the world,” he said.

East of Mosul, forces were poised for an assault on Qaraqosh, which lies about 15km (10 miles) away and was once Iraq’s largest Christian town.

News of the move to recap-ture Qaraqosh sparked jubilation among Christians who had fl ed the town, with many dancing and singing in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Arbil on Tuesday night.

Units from Iraq’s elite counter-terrorism service, which has done the heavy lifting in most recent operations against IS, were poised to fl ush militants out of the town, offi cers said.

“We are surrounding Ham-daniya now,” Lieutenant General Riyadh Tawfi q, commander of Iraq’s ground forces, said at the main staging base of Qayyarah, referring to the district that in-cludes Qaraqosh.

“There are some pockets (of re-

sistance), some clashes, they send car bombs -- but it will not help them,” he said.

Qaraqosh was the largest of many Christian towns and vil-lages seized by the militants who swept across the Nineveh plain east of Mosul in August 2014.

Kurdish peshmerga forces prepared to attack IS positions on several fronts north of Mosul while federal forces worked their way up the Tigris Valley.

The “caliphate” Baghdadi pro-claimed in Mosul’s Great Mosque in June 2014 once covered more than a third of Iraq and parts of Syria.

But it has been shrinking stead-ily for more than a year and re-taking Mosul would be a major setback for IS, all but ending its experiment in statehood.

Tens of thousands of personnel are involved in the operation to retake Mosul, far outnumbering IS fi ghters.

World leaders and military commanders warned that -- de-spite signs that early progress in the Mosul off ensive was faster than predicted -- the battle could be long and diffi cult.

“Mosul will be a diffi cult fi ght. There will be advances and there will be setbacks,” Obama said on Tuesday.

After clearing towns and villag-es on the outskirts of Mosul with air support from the US-led coa-lition, Iraqi forces are expected to besiege the city before entering it.

Iraqi forces may allow fl eeing IS fi ghters an exit to the west in a bid to minimise human and material losses.

ReutersBeirut

Thousands of Iraqis fl ee-ing fi ghting in the off en-sive against Islamic State

(IS) in Mosul have taken shelter in northeastern Syria in recent days, an offi cial from the Kurd-ish-led administration in the area said yesterday.

The displaced, who were Arab and mostly women, children and the elderly, had been cross-ing the border since Oct. 16 and were currently being housed in a refugee camp in the al-Houl area

in Hasaka province, the offi cial said.

“There are around 5,000 to 6,000 who are already there. Meanwhile there are still around 3,000 who are waiting at the bor-der to cross,” Mezkin Ahmed, an adviser to the de-facto autono-mous administration that controls much of northeast Syria, said.

“We have set up a welcome point at the border. It is a hu-manitarian operation – we have experienced Daesh fi rst-hand, in Kobani for example, so this is our duty,” she added, referring to a northern Syrian town previously occupied by Islamic State, and

using a pejorative term for IS.Three days into the assault be-

gan on Mosul, US-backed Iraqi government and Kurdish forces are steadily recovering outlying territory before the big thrust into the city itself, expected to be the biggest battle in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said on Monday that as many as 100,000 Iraqis might fl ee to Syria and Turkey to escape the fi ghting in Mosul, a city of 1.5mn and the largest controlled by IS militants.

It said that there were plans under way to receive up to

90,000 Iraqi refugees in Syria, whose Hasaka province across the border from Mosul is mostly controlled by Kurds.

As Syria’s civil war weakened central state institutions after 2011, Kurdish groups in the north of the country established au-tonomous rule, setting up three self-governing cantons in a re-gion they call Rojava.

The main Kurdish armed group there, the YPG, is the most powerful element in the Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition of militias backed by the United States and fi ghting against Is-lamic State inside Syria.

Thousands of displaced Iraqiscross into northeastern Syria

A displaced woman who is fleeing from clashes holds her baby in Qayyarah, during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq, yesterday.

AFRICA


Congolese former vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba and his defence team bribed witnesses to lie in his favour at a war crimes trial that ended in the highest ranking conviction by the International Criminal Court, judges ruled yesterday. The court said 14 key witnesses had been coached about what to say, and found Bemba and four other defendants guilty of conspiring to present false evidence to the court. Supporters of Bemba, who is appealing his conviction and 18-year sentence for overseeing a campaign of rape and murder in Central African Republic more than a decade ago, had no immediate comment.

Senegalese prosecutors yesterday requested a six-month sentence for an imam accused of insulting Muslim Brotherhood. The Mourides are one of four important Sufi brotherhoods followed by Senegal’s Muslims, who practise a moderate version of Islam while following the teachings of local spiritual guides. The case relates to a video posted in September by imam Cheikh Mbacke Sakho in which he accused Mouride elders of taking money from Muslims to further their own business interests, and of “swindling” followers. Sakho could face a six-month suspended jail sentence and a fine of 1mn FCFA ($1,673) for abusing a religious group on a digital platform.

Somali security agents have detained a British journalist working for television network Al Jazeera together with his cameraman and their driver and fixer, the Qatar-based channel said yesterday. The detentions come less than a week after the off ices of a Somali newspaper were raided and its editor held for three days. The satellite network said Hamza Mohamed and his crew were arrested on Tuesday afternoon in Mogadishu. “Al Jazeera Media Network have been in touch with him since his detention and he is well. He was travelling with a driver, fixer and cameraman, who were also detained,” the statement said. Off icials could not be immediately reached for comment on the detentions.

A Belgian tourist was trampled to death by an elephant near Kenya’s famed Maasai Mara wildlife reserve, police said yesterday, the second such incident in a month. “He was badly injured by the rogue elephant and succumbed to injuries at the Talek Health Centre,” a police off icer in the area said. The death of the Belgian on Monday in circumstances that remain unclear comes a month after an Italian man was trampled in the Tsavo National Park, southeast Kenya, while trying to take a photograph of an elephant. Kenyan daily The Standard reported that in a separate incident on Tuesday, a Kenyan secondary school student was killed by an elephant on the way to school.

Kenya’s new chief justice said yesterday he would fight corruption, cut a backlog of court cases and ensure any election disputes arising from next year’s vote were resolved fairly and swiftly. David Maraga, an appeals court judge who was sworn in yesterday, takes over in the build-up to the August 2017 elections in a nation where votes are often marred by political strife. The disputed 2007 election was followed by weeks of ethnic bloodshed. “The judiciary is ready to hear and resolve any election disputes that may arise in a fair and timely manner,” Maraga said at the swearing-in ceremony, adding that he had experience as chair of the judiciary committee on elections.

Bemba convicted of witness tampering

Imam ‘insults’ Senegal Muslim Brotherhood

Jazeera journalist, team detained in Somalia

Belgian tourist trampled to death by elephant in Kenya

Top Kenya judge vows to adjudicate any vote rows

GUILTY SWINDLEDIN CUSTODY CAUSE UNKNOWN LEGAL EAGLE

EU gets tough on African migrantsReutersBrussels

Encouraged by their success in halting a mass infl ux of refu-gees by closing Greek borders

and cutting a controversial deal with Turkey, EU leaders are getting tough on African migrants too.

A Brussels summit today will endorse pilot projects to pres-sure African governments via aid budgets to slow an exodus of peo-ple north across the Sahara and Mediterranean.

It also wants swift results from an EU campaign to deport large numbers who reach Italy.

“By the end of the year, we need to see results,” one senior EU dip-lomat said yesterday.

Arrivals in Italy so far this year are nearly 6% higher than the same period of 2015.

Italy received 154,000 migrants last year and this year’s fi gure will be similar or slightly higher.

Italy is sheltering 165,000 asy-lum seekers, almost three times as many as in 2014.

The buildup has accelerated since Italy’s northern neighbours clamped down on border controls. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has told EU allies that Rome can cope for now but is worried about the future.

EU offi cials want to put in place tougher measures to identify il-legal migrants and fl y them back to Africa before next year’s mi-gration season, when thousands are expected to take to precarious boats from Libya.

“We need to clean this up and have migration compacts with Af-rican countries in place before next spring,” a senior EU offi cial said.

That will depend on persuad-ing African states — initially a group of fi ve — to take back their own citizens. The EU is already bringing African offi cials to Italy to identify citizens who may try to conceal their identity to avoid be-ing sent home.

At their summit, European Union leaders will agree to use money and trade to force African countries to curb emigration, in a shift towards a more hard-nosed joint foreign policy.

African leaders may be per-suaded to agree with the new pol-icy by the fact that the EU is the continent’s biggest aid donor.

The EU has turned a wary eye on Africa, a young continent where millions live in poverty, af-ter last year’s uncontrolled infl ux of refugees and migrants from the Middle East thrust the bloc into a deep political crisis.

It wants fewer to come and it wants to deport more.

EU leaders will therefore de-cide today that they want to get “measurable results in terms of preventing illegal migration and returning irregular migrants”, ac-cording to a draft summit state-ment seen by Reuters.

It said they would also agree to “create and apply the necessary leverage, by using all relevant EU policies, instruments and tools, including development and trade”.

Behind the diplomatic language lies a threat of cutting develop-ment aid and restricting trade with those African countries that do not cooperate before the next migra-tion season starts in the spring.

Apart from the stick, there is also the carrot, which comes in the form of promises of more aid and preferential trade treatment under what Brussels calls migra-tion “compacts”.

The new approach — aimed at keeping people away from Europe — was fi rst proposed by Italy, the main disembarkation point for Africa migrants.

It is initially aimed at Nigeria, Niger, Senegal, Ethiopia and Mali.

The bloc is determined to send back everyone whose life is not under immediate threat at home.

But the new strategy of making aid to third countries conditional on their cooperation on migration is controversial.

Aid agency Oxfam has urged EU leaders to abandon their drive to build a “Fortress Europe” and instead help those in need. “The need for development aid and Eu-rope’s obligation to alleviate poverty should not be about reducing mobil-ity,” said Raphael Shilhav, Oxfam’s migration policy adviser in Brussels.

“The reasons of displacement should be addressed through un-derstanding the situation on the ground, seeking solutions to the confl icts that are driving dis-placement of people,” he said.

But increasingly EU aid projects in Africa are accompanied by more political pressure on migration.

“It is very much about send-ing a message to would-be mi-grants. The political impetus is about sending this discouraging message,” said Elizabeth Collett, director at the Migration Policy Institute, a Brussels think-tank.

“There is something inherently distasteful in this new approach for the EU foreign policy because historically they have always been the good guys,” Collett said.

“It’s the fi rst time they are be-ing asked not to just be the good guys anymore.”

Buhari meets freed Chibok girlsAFPAbuja

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday met the 21 Chi-bok girls who were released by

Boko Haram last week, pledging to “re-double” his eff orts to rescue those still being held.

Speaking at the presidential villa in Nigeria’s capital of Abuja, Buhari ad-dressed the girls and their families say-ing “we shall redouble eff orts to ensure

that we fulfi l our pledge of bringing the remaining girls back home”.

Buhari said that he hoped the girls would go on to complete their education after their ordeal at the hands of Boko Haram, whose name in the Hausa lan-guage spoken across northern Nigeria means “Western education is sin”.

“Obviously it is not too late for the girls to go back to school and continue the pursuit of their studies,” Buhari said to the girls, who were clad in new, bright-ly coloured dresses and head wraps.

“These dear daughters of ours have

seen the worst that the world has to off er. It is now time for them to experience the best that the world can do for them.”

The 21 girls were part of a group of over two hundred schoolgirls kidnapped from the northeast Nigerian town of Chibok in April 2014.

They were released last week following negotiations between the Nigerian gov-ernment and Boko Haram brokered by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Swiss government.

On Sunday, presidential spokesman Garba Shehu said that the government

was hoping to secure the release of 83 other girls believed to be from Chibok being held by a diff erent Boko Haram faction.

The release of the 21 Chibok girls is a triumph for President Buhari, who was voted into power on a platform vowing to stamp out corruption and crush Boko Haram.

But Boko Haram still poses a threat to the war-torn region, launching sporadic raids on remote villages in Nigeria and deadly attacks on soldiers in neighbour-ing Chad and Niger.

President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo host some of the 21 Chibok schoolgirls released by Boko Haram.

General strike against Kabila paralyses Congolese citiesDPAKinshasa

Congo’s main cities came to a partial standstill yes-terday as a general strike

called by the opposition pressed President Joseph Kabila to step down in December.

Witnesses reported little com-mercial activity and public trans-port in the capital Kinshasa, where many schools remained closed.

In Goma in the east, thousands of protesters marched to the pro-vincial governor’s offi ce.

They also erected burning bar-ricades until police dispersed them with tear gas.

In the town of Beni, protesters carried placards accusing the UN and the international community of not addressing the situation in Congo.

Kabila’s mandate ends in De-

cember, and the constitution does not allow him to seek a third term.

The government postponed the November elections over alleged logistical delays, sparking violent protests in which dozens of peo-ple have been killed.

The ruling coalition and some smaller opposition parties on Tuesday set April 29, 2018, as the new election date.

Martin Fayulu, leader of the opposition Commitment for Citi-zenship and Development party, said the main opposition had boycotted the dialogue with the government.

“We have told Kabila that his tricks to cling to power have been exposed,” Fayulu told DPA.

“We cannot wait for 2018. Eve-rything has the right time, and today, the right time for Kabila to go is now, because he prom-ised to respect the constitution,” a protester on a motorcycle said in Goma.

A public cleaner works on a deserted avenue as the Congolese capital Kinshasa was gripped by a strike called ‘Villes mortes’ (Dead cities) in a protest over plans by President Kabila to stay in power beyond the end of his term in December.

France to keep troops in W Africa for as long as neededReutersParis

France appeared yesterday to accept that it would need to keep thousands of troops

in Africa’s Sahel region for an in-defi nite period given the ongoing instability and preponderance of Islamist militants.

The region, a politically fragile

area whose remote desert spaces spanning from Mauritania in the west to Sudan in the east host a medley of extremist groups, is seen as vulnerable to further at-tacks after strikes on soft targets in Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast earlier this year.

That has been brought further to light after a spike in violence in northern Mali, where France in-tervened three years ago to drive

out Al Qaeda-linked militants who hijacked a rebellion in 2012 by ethnic Tuaregs and attempted to take control of the central gov-ernment in Bamako.

Speaking to lawmakers, For-eign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault sought to reassure regional allies that Paris would not abandon them despite pressure on its mil-itary that has seen it increase op-erations in the Middle East, but

also on home soil after a series of Islamist attacks.

“France remains commit-ted as long as the militant threat continues to weigh on the future of these countries,” Ayrault said at a parliamentary debate on his country’s overseas operations.

“What message would we be sending if we envisaged a reduc-tion of our eff ort? We do not have the right to abandon our African

brothers at the exact moment when they need us the most to consolidate the fragile balances,” he said.

After sending troops to Mali, the former colonial power has since spread some 4,000 soldiers across the region to hunt down Islamists, while United Nations’ peacekeepers have been deployed to ensure Mali’s stability.

However, the UN’s forces have

lacked equipment and resources making a political settlement be-tween Tuaregs and the govern-ment in Mali increasingly fragile and paving the way for Islamists and traffi ckers to exploit a void in the north of the country.

“We know it will be long and diffi cult (because) the national reconciliation process is taking time to come into eff ect, secur-ing the north is slow and terror-

ist groups continue to destabilise the region by carrying out attacks on Mali’s borders at the entranc-es to other countries like Niger and Ivory Coast,” Ayrault said.

France will next week seek to discuss Mali when it hosts a min-isterial meeting on UN peace-keeping operations in French-speaking countries to see how to beef up and improve their ef-fi ciency.

AMERICAS15Gulf Times


Agencies Las Vegas

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump faces a formida-ble challenge yesterday when he

and Democrat Hillary Clinton go head to head in a third and fi nal debate as Trump tries to reverse momentum in an election that polls show is tilting away from him.

Trump has been damaged by accusa-tions that he made unwanted sexual ad-vances toward women — which he denies — and concerns about his claims that the election will be rigged against him.

The debate at the University of Las Vegas Nevada gives the New York busi-nessman perhaps his best remaining chance to sway the dwindling number of Americans who are still undecided about which way to vote at the Novem-ber 8 election.

“This one is important if Trump is going to have any chance to get back into this race,” said Republican strate-gist Charlie Black. “He’s going to have to talk about issues eff ectively and not get down in the mud, and he needs to talk about jobs.”

Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway acknowledged that her candi-date goes into the debate, which starts at 9pm EDT (0100 GMT today), as the underdog.

“It’s a comeback and he’s done it before several times in this campaign,” Conway said on Fox News, adding a jibe at Clinton: “Hillary Clinton just has not been able to put him away.

What is her problem already?”For Clinton, who leads national polls

and in most of the battleground states where the election will likely be decid-ed, the 90-minute debate is a chance to make a closing argument on why she is the best suited to succeed President Barack Obama.

“I can’t imagine what Donald Trump could do positively or a mistake Hillary Clinton could make to change the tra-jectory of this race,” Democratic strate-gist Steve Elmendorf said.

Both candidates are likely to attack each other’s character.

Trump’s campaign has been marked by personal squabbles and controver-sial comments about illegal immigra-tion and minorities.

Most recently, he has urged support-ers to patrol polling places in inner cit-ies to prevent voter fraud, and has tried to fi ght off several allegations that he groped women. Clinton has struggled to get past concerns about transpar-ency raised over her handling of emails while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.

“She needs to be able to answer the email question,” Democratic strategist Bud Jackson said.”She hasn’t quite hit that nail on the head yet.

She should do better this time.And she should expect the unex-

pected.”But Trump’s troubles have loomed

the largest after a video from 2005 was released showing him bragging about groping women.

That has weighed down the real es-tate magnate’s political run going into the fi nal weeks.

This has prompted him to lash out at what he calls a political and media sys-tem rigged against him, an apparent bid to discredit the process before the elec-tion takes place.

Obama said Tuesday that Trump needs to “stop whining” and make his case to voters.

Republicans who have watched Trump repeatedly shoot himself in the foot said the debate was a chance to ap-pear presidential.

“Trump needs to make a real closing ar-gument and stop the personal attacks and come across like a commander-in-chief,” Republican strategist Scott Reed said.

Trump called the event an important opportunity to talk to voters.

Both candidates have invited guests who could be seen as provocative.

According to several media reports, Trump asked Obama’s half-brother

Malik, who supports the Republican, as well as the mother of one of the four Americans killed in the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, a focus of Republican criticism of Clinton.

Clinton’s guests include Mark Cu-ban, the billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team and a fre-quent Trump antagonist.

Cuban wrote on Twitter that he could not wait to give “a big hug to my bestie” Trump in Las Vegas.”I know you miss me!” he added.

Republican candidate Donald Trump has made the insistent claim that the elections are being “rigged,” but ex-perts say massive voter fraud is highly unlikely in a system as decentralised as the United States.

“There are a lot of safeguards in place that would preclude that from happen-ing, from federal laws to local and state laws as well,” said Jo-Renee Formicola, a political scientist at Seton Hall Uni-versity.

The US election system is far from perfect, as illustrated by the imbroglio over the vote count in Florida during

the 2000 presidential election between George W Bush and Al Gore.

A conservative-majority supreme court fi nally ruled in favor of Bush, but the sense of a “stolen” election lingered on among some Democrats — who nev-er fully accepted the Republican presi-dent as legitimate.

But 16 years later, the chances of mass fraud marring the contest be-tween Trump and his Democrat rival Hillary Clinton are remote, experts say.

Even national elections like the one on November 8 are organised not by the federal government but by US states, and they tend to delegate the task to a welter of local authorities.

“The fact that every single voting district would be involved in a fraud is virtually impossible because there are so many diff erent kinds of districts,” Formicola said.

A mosaic of voting systems — some using electronic voting machines, oth-ers paper ballots, and still others both — add a level of complexity that would tend to thwart any attempt at wholesale voter fraud, the experts say.

Besides, Republican election offi -cials oversee the vote in most of the key battlegrounds of the 2016 presidential elections, states like Colorado, Iowa, Michigan and Arizona.

“In person voter fraud — that’s when someone shows up and pretends to be someone else — is incredibly rare, al-most never happens and there is no evi-dence that it happens in numbers that are anywhere close to having an eff ect, even in a close election,” said Cornell Law School professor Zachary Clopton.

While the risk of in-person fraud is seen as minimal, there are more seri-ous concerns that hackers could pose a threat on Election Day — fuelled by recent intrusions attributed to Russian hackers in voter registration databases in Illinois and Arizona.

Those incidents have spurred federal authorities to off er local authorities their expertise in protecting their sys-tems against hackers.

Pamela Smith, president of Verifi ed Voting, a civic group that advocates for clean elections, says safeguards against fraud are greater now than they were in 2012 and 2014.

Still, electronic voting machines could be a weak link.

“That’s perhaps one area where we might be concerned about leaving these questions to little towns and cities that may not have the technical sophistica-tions of the federal government, but it would then require hacking multiple places if you are trying to build up,” said Clopton.

Trump may be preparing the ground for a loss to Clinton by predicting that the election is rigged.

But experts worry he is undermining public confi dence in a basic democratic institution.

“I can say it is highly unusual to claim ‘rigging’ in advance of polls even open-ing,” said Smith.” It would not appear to be based on specifi c evidence, or per-haps it is better to say we have seen no evidence brought forward in support of such a statement.

Debate gives Trump a last big chance to sway voters

Cattle rancher Jim Chilton stands beside a fence that is the US-Mexico border on part of his 50,000 acre ranch some 40km southeast of Arivaca, Arizona, where a barbed-wire fence is all that separates the two countries. Despite the diff icult Sonoran desert terrain, the area remains a popular and much-used route by the drug mules, sophisticated and well-equipped with binoculars and satphones to monitor routes and US border patrols from the surrounding hilltops.

Ranch patrol

Aboriginal girl latest in rash of suicides by youth in CanadaReuters Winnipeg, Manitoba

A 10-year-old girl took her own life on Tuesday, the fourth Aboriginal child

to do so this month in a poor, remote region of Canada, the top chief in the province of Sas-katchewan said.

The girl was from Des-chambault Lake, some 460km northeast of Saskatoon, Sas-katchewan, said chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, an Aboriginal political group in Saskatchewan.

Her death follows three

others in the province this month, Cameron said, adding that he did not have further details.

Canadian Press has reported that two girls from Stanley Mis-sion and one from La Ronge, all between the ages of 12 and 14, committed suicide earlier this month.

The federal health depart-ment could not be immediately reached for comment.

The suicides refl ect a need to “improve the quality of lives”, Cameron said, including better education, housing and mental health.

Earlier this year, a poor On-tario aboriginal community,

Attawapiskat, declared a state of emergency after a rash of su-icide attempts, and a Manitoba indigenous community also appealed for federal help after suicides.

Canada’s 1.4mn aboriginals, who make up about 4% of the country’s population, have higher levels of poverty and a lower life expectancy than other Canadians and are more often victims of violent crime, addiction and incarceration.

The problems plaguing re-mote indigenous communities gained prominence in Janu-ary when a gunman killed four people in La Loche, Saskatch-ewan.

ReutersNew York

A New York City police sergeant fatally shot a 66-year-old woman

who charged him with a base-ball bat at her apartment on Tuesday, prompting an inves-tigation that will look into why he did not use a Taser instead, an assistant police chief said.

The Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr called the shoot-ing an “outrage”.

It follows a string of inci-dents that have put law en-forcement across the country under heightened scrutiny over the use of lethal force, especial-ly against minorities and the mentally ill.

Police on Tuesday evening received an emergency call of an emotionally disturbed per-son at an apartment building in the Bronx, where the woman’s neighbour complained she was acting irrationally, said New

York police assistant chief Lar-ry Nikunen.The sergeant en-tered the woman’s apartment and found her clutching scis-sors in a bedroom, Nikunen said at a news conference.

The sergeant talked to the woman, convincing her to put down the scissors, but she charged toward him while pick-ing up a baseball bat, Nikunen said.

“As she attempted to strike the sergeant he fi red two shots from his service revolver, strik-ing her in the torso,” Nikunen told reporters.

The New York Police De-partment is investigating and will look into why the sergeant did not use a Taser against the woman instead of opening fi re, Nikunen said.

The name of the woman, who was pronounced dead at a hospital, was not immediately released. Police had previously been to her apartment to handle similar disturbances, Nikunen said. Nikunen did not give the

races of the offi cer or the wom-an in his statement to reporters.

Bronx Borough president Diaz, a former state lawmaker, called in a statement for the state attorney general to inves-tigate the shooting of the wom-an, whom Diaz called “mentally disturbed”.

“This elderly woman was known to the police depart-ment, yet the offi cer involved in this shooting failed to use dis-cretion to either talk her down from her episode or, barring that, to use his stun gun,” Diaz said. “That is totally unaccept-able.”

A representative for the New York police offi cers’ union could not be reached for a com-ment late on Tuesday.

In a California shooting last month that sparked protests, an offi cer in El Cajon responding to a report of a man acting er-ratically shot him to death. Po-lice said the man had pointed an object, later determined to be a vaping device, at the offi cer.

Woman shot deadby NY police offi cer

Four wounded in shootingReutersSan Francisco

Police and school offi cials said four people were wounded, one critically, in a shoot-ing that erupted at a San Francisco high

school parking lot after school had been let out for the day. One victim, a teenage girl, was criti-cally wounded after the shooting near the June Jordan School for Equity around 3.20pm local time, while two teenage boys suff ered non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

The San Francisco Unifi ed School District said in a statement that a fourth person was also wounded but could not provide any further in-formation on the victim.The school was placed on lockdown, which has since been lifted.

School offi cials said one of the victims was specifi cally targeted. The three others were by-standers, the district said.

Police said four male suspects were seen fl ee-ing the scene shortly after the shooting.

The district said classes will continue as scheduled.Further details were not immediately available, police said, as the investigation was early and ongoing.

ReutersPortland

The six men and a woman charged with conspiracy in seizing a US wildlife center in Oregon were stag-

ing a legitimate protest manipulated by the government through informants who infi l-trated the group, a defence lawyer argued at their trial yesterday.

In protesting what they saw as a form of tyranny, the defendants themselves be-came victims of a government campaign to discredit and criminalise a larger move-ment opposed to federal control over mil-lions of acres of public land in the West, Marcus Mumford argued.

Mumford, whose client, Ammon Bundy, led the armed takeover of the Malheur Na-tional Wildlife Refug, summed up the de-fence case in federal court in Portland.

His closing argument followed the prose-cution’s summation and weeks of testimony by government and defence witnesses, some of whom took part in the occupation.

“You are the heart and lungs of liberty,” Mumford told jurors during an impassioned presentation lasting nearly four hours. “Only you can make clear that Mr Bundy is not a conspirator and none of these men and women are conspirators.”

On Tuesday, US attorney Ethan Knight countered that Bundy and his followers had defi ed the rule of law, turning the wildlife refuge into an armed “fortress” from which to press their political beliefs.

“Is it illegal to tell the government to re-spect its limits?” Mumford asked the ju-rors. “Is it illegal to tell the government to respect the constitution?”

Mumford said federal offi cials sought to manipulate the occupiers through the use of informants planted at the compound to help the government portray the protesters as “scary people”.

He cited evidence accepted by the court that nine government informants were present at the refuge during the occupa-tion, furnishing intelligence to federal law enforcement while infl uencing the course of events there.

Oregon militants cast asvictims of corrupt govt

Trump has one last chance to turn things around

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally at Grand Junction Regional Airport in Colorado. Trump is on his way to Las Vegas for the third and final presidential debate against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Right: People wait in line outside the IFC Theater before the debut of a surprise documen-tary about Donald Trump titled Michael Moore in Trumpland.

ASIA/AUSTRALASIA

Gulf TimesThursday, October 20, 201616

Pro-independence lawmakers blocked from taking oath in HKAFPHong Kong

Hong Kong’s legislature again descended into chaos yesterday as pro-

Beijing politicians blocked the swearing in of two new lawmak-ers who want a split from China, in an increasingly divided par-liament.

It comes as fears grow in the semi-autonomous city that Be-ijing is tightening its grip, fuel-ling an independence move-ment in Hong Kong.

Yesterday rival lawmak-ers clashed in a heated shout-ing match after the pro-Beijing camp walked out of the swear-ing-in session.

The walkout led to the meet-ing being cancelled, preventing pro-independence lawmakers Yau Wai-ching and Baggio Le-ung from taking the oath that would allow them to take up their seats.

In the ensuing confrontations one veteran pro-democracy legislator threw slices of lunch-

eon meat at his opponents while another was surrounded by se-curity after turning China and Hong Kong fl ags displayed on pro-Beijing lawmakers’ desks upside-down.

Meanwhile, pro-Beijing law-makers chanted “Apologise!”, demanding Yau and Leung say sorry for their failure to take the oath properly at last week’s swearing-in ceremony.

The pair had their oaths rejected last Wednesday af-ter they draped themselves in “Hong Kong is not China” fl ags.

The oath states Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China.

Both refused to pronounce China properly, and Yau was heard to replace the words “the People’s Republic of China” with “the People’s refucking of Zeena”.

They were given permission to retake their oaths yesterday, but the session was abandoned after the pro-Beijing walkout left an insuffi cient number of legislators in the chamber.

“If they want people to re-spect their oaths, they have to

express regret over their be-haviour last week and to apolo-gise to all Chinese around the world,” pro-Beijing lawmaker Priscilla Leung told reporters.

Hundreds of pro-Beijing sup-porters waved Chinese fl ags and stamped on pictures of the two outspoken lawmakers outside the legislative council building.

The pair said they wanted to complete their oaths, but would not apologise for last week’s be-haviour. “We are empowered by the people to enter the Legco,” Baggio Leung said.

The former British colony was handed back to China in 1997 under an agreement pro-tecting its freedoms for 50 years, but there are concerns those liberties are being eroded.

Leung and Yau are part of a new wave of lawmakers advo-cating independence and self-determination who won seats in the Legislative Council (Legco) – Hong Kong’s lawmaking body – in citywide polls last month.

Five legislators, including the pair, had their oaths rejected at last week’s swearing in.

Of those fi ve, one pro-Beijing lawmaker and one pro-democ-racy lawmaker, whose oaths were declared invalid the fi rst time round, were allowed to re-take them yesterday morning.

The Beijing camp then walked out, forcing the session to be abandoned before Yau, Leung and pro-democracy teacher Lau

Siu-lai, who read her oath at a snail’s pace last week, took the stand.The chaotic scenes came after a late-night court bid Tuesday by city leader Leung Chun-ying and justice secre-tary Rimsky Yuen to block Yau and Baggio Leung from taking up their seats.

That went directly against a decision by the pro-Beijing president of Legco, who had al-ready given the green light for them to have a second chance at the oath.

The court refused to grant an injunction against Wednesday’s oath-taking, but gave permis-sion for a judicial review into whether the pair should be dis-qualifi ed, putting their future as lawmakers into question.

In a separate case yesterday, former pro-democracy law-maker Raymond Wong was convicted of throwing a glass at city leader Leung Chun-ying inside the Legco in 2014.

Wong, 64, was convicted of common assault and will be sentenced on Tuesday, local media reported.

Designer Christelle Kocher (front third right) poses with models during her Koche AW16 and SS17 mix collection show presented by H Beauty & Youth at Amazon Fashion Week in Tokyo yesterday.

Style statementJapanese ministers visit disputed war shrineAFPTokyo

Two Japanese cabinet min-isters visited a controver-sial war shrine yesterday,

after a mass visit by lawmakers angered China and South Korea which see it as a painful remind-er of Tokyo’s past aggression.

The ministers – internal af-fairs chief Sanae Takaichi and Katsunobu Kato, in charge of women’s empowerment – are close to conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who did not visit the Yasukuni shrine during this year’s four-day au-tumn festival.

Abe, often criticised for what some see as revisionist views on Japan’s wartime record, sent a ritual off ering to the shrine in-stead.

He has not gone to the site in central Tokyo since late 2013 in an apparent attempt to ease dip-lomatic tensions.

China on Wednesday lashed out at the cabinet ministers’ visit, saying the shrine “white-washes” Japan’s past militarism and “reveals its wrong attitude towards history”.

“China fi rmly opposes that,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular Be-ijing press briefi ng.

“We urge Japan to own up to and refl ect upon its history of aggression, make a clean break with militarism and use concrete actions to win back trust from its Asian neighbours and the inter-national community.”

On Tuesday a group of about 85 legislators arrived at the leafy site for an annual pilgrimage, earning rebukes from Beijing and Seoul.

Yasukuni honours millions of Japanese war dead, but also sen-ior military and political fi gures convicted of war crimes after World War II.

The indigenous Shinto re-ligious shrine has for decades been a fl ashpoint for criticism by countries that suff ered from Ja-pan’s colonialism and aggression in the fi rst half of the 20th cen-tury, including China and Korea.

Pro-independence lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung (left), known as Long Hair, argues with pro-Beijing lawmaker Priscilla Leung Mei-fun after members of the latter group walked out of the main chambers to block the second swearing-in of pro-democracy lawmakers – whose initial oaths from October 12 were invalidated – at the Legislative Coun-cil in Hong Kong yesterday.

Two Chinese astronauts entered the country’s new orbiting space laboratory for the first time yes-terday, state media reported, as Beijing works towards having its own space station.Mission commander Jing Haipeng was first to float into the Tian-gong-2 (“Heavenly Palace”) lab, the off icial Xinhua news agency said, followed by Chen Dong.The pair “extended greetings to all the people of the nation”, it said.Their Shenzhou-11 (“Divine Vessel”) mission is scheduled to see them stay on board for 30 days – the longest stay thus far by Chinese astronauts – carrying out experi-ments before returning to Earth.

About 3,700 people took part in a drill for a 6.8 magnitude earth-quake in the South Korean capital, Seoul, yesterday, with authorities staging explosions, fires and build-ing collapses. South Korea is not in a major earthquake zone but a 5.8 mag-nitude quake, the largest ever recorded in the country, hit near the southern city of Gyeongju last month. Police, military and Seoul metropolitan government off icials took part in the exercise held at more than 60 buildings and in-cluded evacuations and helicopter searches.

Thai “cyber-scouts” have flagged scores of websites for alleged royal defamation since the death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej and are monitoring all communication channels, a junta off icial said yesterday. A crackdown on perceived royal insults has been enforced following the king’s death last Thursday, which has plunged the nation into mourning for a beloved monarch. Thailand’s monarchy is protected by a draconian lese majeste law that outlaws criticism and muzzles detailed discussion on the monarchy – including by all media based in Thailand.

Chinese astronauts reach orbiting lab

South Korea stages large quake drill

Thais step up web surveillance

SPACE

MOCK EXERCISE

POLICY

China anger as Japan withholds Unesco funding

ReutersBeijing

China said yesterday that Japan had acted irre-sponsibly by withholding

its 2016 funding for the UN her-itage body Unesco in a row over how the 1937 Nanjing Massacre is remembered.

Unesco last year decided to include documents about the massacre in its “Memory of the World” programme.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the massacre was a serious crime and a historical fact recognised by the international community, and Unesco was right to include it in the listing. “What Japan has said and done once again lays bare their wrong attitude of not acknowledging history,” Hua told a daily news briefi ng in Beijing. “Not paying fees to Unesco to ex-ert pressure is irresponsible. They will not achieve their aims.”

Ties between China and Ja-pan, the world’s second- and third-largest economies, have been plagued with a territorial dispute over a group of tiny East China Sea islets and the legacy of Japan’s wartime aggression.

China says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in 1937 in its then capital of Nanjing.

A postwar Allied tribunal put the death toll at 142,000, but some conservative Japanese politicians and scholars deny a massacre took place at all.

Australia’s ‘Sculpture by the Sea’ exhibition begins near Sydney

ReutersSydney

Australia’s annual “Sculpture by the Sea” exhibition got under

way on Tuesday with more than 100 giant fi gures loom-ing along the coastline be-

tween Bondi and Tamarama beaches near Sydney.

The exhibition showcases both Australian and inter-national artists and will stop beachgoers in their sandy tracks with sculptures such as a red fl ipfl op sandal and a dis-membered rhinoceros with its feet in the air.

The annual event, which began in 1997 and is free to the public, received close to 500 submissions this year from sculptors in 27 countries around the world.

It runs until Nov 6 and is expected to attract thousands of visitors working on their tan amidst the huge sculptures.

A member of the public walks past a sculpture at sunset that is part of the annual outdoor exhibition known as “Sculpture by the Sea” near Bondi Beach in Sydney yesterday.

Widodo defends chemical castration for paedophilesAFPJakarta

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has defended the introduction of chemi-

cal castration for paedophiles, saying in an interview pub-lished yesterday there can be “no compromise” when it comes to tackling sex crimes.

Widodo introduced a series of tough punishments for child sex off enders in May through an emergency decree, includ-ing chemical castration and the death penalty, following an outcry over the fatal gang-rape of a schoolgirl.

Parliament last week voted to put the new regulations permanently on the statute

book, as had been widely ex-pected.

In an interview with the BBC, Widodo defended intro-ducing chemical castration, a decision that has sparked an-ger from human rights activ-ists and the Indonesian Doc-tors Association, which has said its members will not per-form the treatment.

“Our constitution respects human rights, but when it comes to sexual crimes there is no compromise,” he said, add-ing that the government “will hand out the maximum pen-alty” for such crimes.

“In my opinion...chemi-cal castration, if we enforce it consistently, will reduce sex crimes and wipe them out over time,” he said.

BRITAIN17Gulf Times


Second inmate arrestedover prison knife attack

A second inmate at Penton-ville prison has been arrest-ed after a knife attack in the

jail that left one prisoner dead and two others in a critical condition.

The 26-year-old suspect was taken to a north London police station, where a 34-year-old was already being held for questioning by detectives from the Metropoli-tan police’s homicide and major crime command, police said.

Offi cers and paramedics were called to the prison at 3.30pm on Tuesday, where three men had suff ered stab wounds. At 4.25pm, one inmate, in his 20s, was pro-nounced dead at the scene.

The two other victims, aged 21 and 30, remained in critical condi-tion in an east London hospital.

Police yesterday said they were in the process of informing the next of kin of the dead man, who had not yet been formally identi-fi ed. “Further inquiries into the in-cident continue,” the Met said in a

statement. Visitors queuing to see loved ones inside the prison spoke of their safety concerns. A woman visiting her 21-year-old son ini-tially feared he could have been the victim. She said: “My son is 21, I haven’t felt the same since I heard the news.

“As a mother everyone tells you at least you know where he is and he is safe – but actually he’s not safe, is he?

“No matter their age or what they have done, no one deserves to die in prison. It is supposed to be a place of safety.”

Another woman said: “It shouldn’t be allowed to happen anywhere, let alone in prison. It’s obviously not safe in there.”

The Prison Governors Asso-ciation (PGA) yesterday renewed calls for a public inquiry into the state of jails in England and Wales. The union said government cuts to staff and resources meant the inci-dent at Pentonville was “no mas-sive surprise”.

Recent statistics published by the ministry of justice showed there were 100 apparently self-in-

fl icted deaths in the year to March, the highest for more than a decade. There were more than 20,000 as-saults – 2,813 deemed “serious” – in the 12 months to December, a rise of 27% year-on-year, and nearly 5,000 attacks on staff , a jump of more than a third com-pared with 2014.

John Attard, national policy offi cer at the PGA, said: “It is no secret that we have had concerns about cuts and resources over the last four years. The ministry of justice statistics paint a very grim picture indeed.”

Referring to Tuesday after-noon’s incident as a “tragedy”, he said: “The prison service paid staff to leave. The years of experience, the mentoring, the sharing of their experiences – a lot of that has been lost, and it is showing. It’s why we need an inquiry into this.”

Speaking outside the prison gates, Attard added: “We called for an independent public inquiry a week ago. The reduction in staff -ing is a key factor, there’s no doubt about that, but synthetic drugs also had some part in that.”

Victoria station roofcollapse injures two

Two people were injured af-ter heavy rain caused roof panels to collapse at Victo-

ria railway station in Manchester.The panels within the roof

linking the Grade II-listed sta-tion buildings buckled owing to rain water, witnesses said. The incident at the city’s second larg-est mainline railway station came after recent refurbishment work to the roof.

Police confi rmed that two peo-ple suff ered head injuries and were taken to hospital. A small part of the concourse was fenced off and photographs posted on social media showed the bulging roof.

Managers at Northern Rail, which runs the station, said the two people involved in the inci-dent, just after 4.30pm, were not seriously injured.

A spokeswoman said one plas-tic roof panel above platforms one and two had collapsed. “It has not disrupted the station and services are running as normal,” she added. “Two customers are

being seen by paramedics. They are not seriously injured. No platforms are closed.”

The station’s new 8,500 sq metre roof over its new con-course links the original station’s buildings. The “bubble roof” was the central part of a £44mn up-grade.

Daniel Pratt, 25, a witness, said a “tidal wave” of water from the roof collapse landed on a train and a platform where people were walking. He said a group of be-tween 20 and 30 commuters were hit.

“About a tonne of water dropped down and the train took the brunt of it but there was a big group of people who it landed on too, and one woman I saw who was knocked down and didn’t get up,” he said.

“I don’t know if she was knocked out but she didn’t move. She looked like she was in her 30s. I think it’s a fabric roof in diff er-ent segments and one or two seg-ments must have been damaged so the water wasn’t draining then suddenly it just collapsed. It was like the huge wave you get on the log fl ume at a theme park. I hope no one was injured.”

Queen Elizabeth II, as Captain General, Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery, meets Brigadier James Selbie, Colonel Commandant, Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery, at Buckingham Palace in London yesterday.

Official visit

Retailer Sir Philip Green was yesterday accused of making no proper plans to deal with the £571mn BHS pension deficit, as MPs were set to debate stripping him of his knighthood. Commons work and pensions committee chairman Frank Field said: “The flavour of this would change if he put concrete proposals which ensured the pensioners were better off than they are now, heading for the Pension Protection Fund. That would help him. Whether, given the views now in the country and those that may be expressed today in the Commons, it is possible to save his knighthood is clearly another matter.”

Southern Rail passengers are facing fresh disruption with up to 1,000 train drivers from the Aslef union to hold a strike ballot. Overwhelming support for a strike is predicted when the result is declared on November 18. Aslef must give seven days notice of a walkout, poised to coincide with a three-day strike by RMT guards starting on December 6. Combined action by both guards and drivers, over driver-only operated trains, would halt Southern’s 2,242 services-a-day across the region and in and out of London. Southern will be ready to threaten a High Court challenge if there is any infringement in union voting rules.

A young woman yesterday said she is scared to get in a minicab again after an Uber driver punched her in the face and racially abused her. Taleka White, 27, was dragged from the car and hit twice across the face by her driver, Shahab Akbar, 33, in Addiscombe, south London. She had a lump on her head, bruising to her face and a bloodied wrist and knuckles. Akbar was handed a 16-week suspended prison sentence and a community order at Croydon magistrates’ court after being found guilty of racially aggravated common assault. White described the attack as “a nightmare part of her life” and said: “I no longer trust minicab drivers.”

A millionaire music promoter who worked with the Beatles, Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton faces prison for raping two teenage girls. Mervyn Conn, 82, forced himself on his victims in the Seventies and Eighties. One victim was 15 when the promoter hired her as a cowgirl for a music festival at Wembley Arena in 1976. He off ered her a lift home in his Rolls-Royce but took her to his house in Wimbledon and raped her. Conn raped another girl, 16, in 1985 after he had off ered her tickets to a concert. Conn, of Wimbledon, served an eight-week prison sentence in 1989 for sexually assaulting a secretary. He was arrested at Gatwick airport in 2014 when the fresh claims were made.

A benefits fraudster who ripped off taxpayers has lost more than £400,000 of profits he made from rising house prices after the National Crime Agency seized his London flat. Sean Doherty bought a Kilburn home for £55,000 with a deposit of £2,750 in 1998 and saw its value increase by more than 700% to £460,000. He has now been forced to hand over the property and all profits from it after a High Court ruling that he bought it with a fraudulently obtained mortgage. Justice Laing said that Doherty – in jail for fraud at the time – used a false identity and dishonest declarations of income to buy the flat and even his deposit had been generated by criminal activity.

Green ‘off ering no planto help BHS pensioners’

Strike by 1,000 Southern Rail drivers loom

Woman left traumatisedafter Uber cab attack

Millionaire music mogulfaces jail for raping girls

Fraudster to forfeit£400,000 profit on flat

CRITICISM INDUSTRIAL ACTIONPEOPLE JUSTICE RULING

Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street in London yesterday ahead of the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons.

Migrationcontrols‘must notharm theeconomy’

Finance Minister Philip Hammond said measures to reduce net migration

into Britain should be designed in such a way as to protect the economy as the country plans its strategy for exiting the European Union.

Newspapers have reported sharp disagreements between members of Prime Minister Theresa May’s cabinet with Hammond as an antagonist to those pushing for a so-called ‘hard Brexit’ in which immigra-tion control is prioritised over economic concerns.

“As we approach the challenge of getting net migration fi gures down to the tens of thousands it is, in my view, essential that we look at how we do this in a way that protects our economy and protects the vital interests of our economy,” Hammond told a par-liamentary committee yesterday.

Earlier this week, the prime minister’s spokeswoman said May has full confi dence in Ham-mond – who campaigned to keep Britain in the EU – and wants to hear diff erent views on how to make a success of leaving the EU.

Treasury sources have de-nied reports that Hammond was seeking to obstruct the exit proc-ess and that he was on the brink of resigning his post.

The June 23 vote took many investors and business leaders by surprise, triggering the deep-est political and fi nancial turmoil in Britain since World War II and the biggest ever one-day fall in sterling against the dollar.

Nearly four months after the vote, sterling is 17% below its pre-referendum levels.

Its latest falls were triggered by concerns that May favoured a hard Brexit which most econ-omists believe would damage the economy. There have also been signs of friction between the government and the Bank of England since the referen-dum.

ReutersLondon

May accusedof ‘dithering’on HeathrowexpansionTheresa May has been ac-

cused of “dither and delay” by Sadiq Khan, the London

mayor, after putting off a parlia-mentary vote on airport expan-sion for another year.

There are strong signs that a Cabinet committee will decide next week to back expansion at Heathrow after the prime minis-ter set out plans to let ministers such as Boris Johnson and Justine Greening carry on opposing the government’s position.

However, May also appears to have shelved plans for a parlia-mentary vote on the issue this au-tumn after being warned of pos-sible Conservative resignations in south-west London, including Zac Goldsmith, who would be prepared to run as an independ-ent.

Khan, who backs expansion at Gatwick, said he thought the prime minister needed to be more decisive about airport expansion after so many years of delay.

“The government’s decision to yet again delay deciding where to build a new runway will cause unnecessary uncertainty for Brit-ish businesses already struggling with Brexit,” he said.

“Now, more than ever, busi-nesses need certainty and stability in order to make investment deci-sions and to keep jobs in Britain. Instead they are getting dither and delay.”

Sir John Armitt, a former mem-ber of the Airports Commission that backed a third runway at Heathrow in 2015, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that it was

a step forward for a government decision to be made next week. He said he was “pretty confi dent” there was support in the House of Commons and across the country for Heathrow expansion.

But he added: “It is another de-lay and I am not quite sure why it takes a year for that debate to take place because there has been a lot of consultation and MPs are well up to speed on this issue. I would have hoped it could have taken place sooner than a year’s time.”

Grant Shapps, the former Tory co-chairman, said more “guts and authority” was needed and he was “sorry this is going to be fudged for another year”.

Speaking to the International Business Times, Goldsmith yes-terday said Heathrow could still be stopped by “more years of dither-ing and delay”.

Goldsmith, the former Con-servative mayoral candidate, add-ed: “For my part, I made a promise some years ago, and I will honour it. But for now I am concentrating on winning the arguments.”

Two Conservative sources told the Guardian on Tuesday that Downing Street had been warned by whips that May could face resignations and by-elections in seats that could be lost to the Liberal Democrats in south-west London when there is a vote on Heathrow expansion.

May outlined her timetable on Tuesday in a letter to Cabi-net colleagues, saying Cabinet ministers with longstanding op-position to the chosen option could dissent publicly as long as they do not campaign against the government or speak against it in parliament.

However, her offi cial spokes-

woman could not say whether Conservative MPs would even-tually be given a free vote when the fi nal decision was put before parliament. Asked how many ministers have threatened to re-sign over the decision on aviation strategy, she said: “I’m not keep-ing a tally.”

Downing Street sources said May had not categorically ruled out holding a preliminary vote be-fore winter of next year, but point-ed out the only legal requirement was for a vote in the fi nal stages, when a national policy statement needed for planning purposes is put to parliament for approval.

May allowed a discussion of airport capacity at cabinet on Tuesday morning, but the fi nal decision on whether to back ex-pansion at Heathrow or Gatwick will be taken by a smaller subcom-mittee by the end of this month.

They will choose between three options examined by the Airports Commission, led by Sir Howard Davies: a third runway at Hea-throw, which was the preferred choice, the extension of an exist-ing runway at Heathrow, or the building of a second runway at Gatwick.

The commission, established under the coalition government more than four years ago, gave a “clear and unanimous” verdict in July 2015 in favour of building a third runway at Heathrow, cost-ing an estimated £17.6bn. But ministers have since almost en-tirely referred to Davies’ shortlist, delivered in 2013, which included a £7.1bn second runway at Gat-wick, as well as the Heathrow Hub scheme, an alternative £13.5bn proposal for Heathrow to expand an existing runway.

Guardian News and MediaLondon



EUROPE


Putin in the fi ring line over Ukraine, SyriaAFPBerlin

President Vladimir Putin yes-terday faced a grilling over Russia’s role in Ukraine and

Syria at talks in Berlin on his fi rst visit to the German capital since the Ukrainian confl ict erupted.

He was welcomed by host Chan-cellor Angela Merkel, as dozens of protesters who had gathered close to the chancellery held up bloody teddy bears in protest against Rus-sia’s air raids in Syria.

Merkel said the talks — the fi rst four-way summit for a year — were aimed at “off ering a brutally hon-est assessment” of progress on im-plementing the frayed Minsk peace accords for Ukraine.

“Things are stalled in many ar-eas such as the ceasefi re, political issues and humanitarian issues,” she told reporters.

“We have to seize every chance we have for progress. I have to say that we cannot expect a miracle but it is worth every eff ort at this point.”

But Moscow poured cold wa-ter on hopes for headway toward a lasting resolution of the confl ict at the talks with Germany, France and Ukraine.

“We do not expect any break-throughs,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters ahead of Putin’s trip.

“I don’t expect easy talks,” Ger-man Foreign Minister Frank-Wal-ter Steinmeier said ahead of the talks.

“A peaceful solution is not yet in sight...but we will not stop trying.”

Putin had not visited Berlin since Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, sending rela-tions with the West plunging to their lowest point since the Cold War.

Moscow’s involvement in the Syrian civil war, which has deep-ened the diplomatic freeze, will also fi gure at the top of the agenda, Merkel said.

Speaking of the “disastrous” sit-uation in the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo, Merkel said she and French

President Francois Hollande would talk to Putin “about somehow alle-viating people’s suff ering”.

“Here too, we cannot expect miracles but it is essential to talk, even if the views are far apart,” said Merkel, who will head to Brussels today for a summit with fellow EU leaders.

The European leaders will issue a condemnation against Russia over attacks on civilians in Syria’s Aleppo, urge an end to fi ghting and call for a revived political process, according to a draft statement seen by AFP.

In a small conciliatory gesture, Russia said it was extending an eight-hour truce in Aleppo, which is planned for today, to 11 hours to

allow civilians and rebels to leave the city’s battered east.

The move came after Hollande said he would work with Merkel to persuade Putin to prolong the ceasefi re.

A pause in Russian and Syrian strikes on Aleppo was holding for a second day yesterday, ahead of the promised brief ceasefi re.

Syria’s second city, held by rebels determined to oust President Bashar al-Assad, has come under heavy bombardment since the Rus-sian-backed military announced an off ensive in late September to regain control of the east.

Air strikes there have fl attened numerous residential buildings and civilian facilities, in a cam-

paign the European Union said could amount to war crimes.

The last four-way summit in the so-called Normandy Format took place in Paris in October 2015.

At today’s EU summit over rela-tions with Russia, European leaders will discuss the question of sanc-tions over Ukraine, which come up for renewal at the end of the year.

Russia backs a separatist, pro-Moscow insurgency in the region that has claimed nearly 10,000 lives. But it denies accusations that it has sent troops and weapons across its border with Ukraine to fuel the confl ict.

In the run-up to the meeting, Moscow and Kiev swapped re-criminations.

Peskov said that Putin believed there was “no alternative” to im-plementing the Minsk accords.

“We know that on this point, the situation leaves much to be de-sired,” he said. “For the moment, Kiev is doing nothing.”

Ukrainian President Petro Poro-shenko also indicated he had little hope for progress in Berlin.

“Am I optimistic enough? Yes I’m very optimistic about the fu-ture of Ukraine but unfortunately not so optimistic about tomor-row’s meeting,” he said.

Germany currently holds the ro-tating presidency of the Organiza-tion for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has monitors in eastern Ukraine.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomes Russian President Vladimir Putin at the chancellery in Berlin.

Ukraine rebels bid farewell to notorious commanderAFPDonetsk

Thousands of pro-Russia rebels and supporters in eastern Ukraine yesterday

turned out to bid farewell to no-torious rebel commander Arseny Pavlov, who was killed in a week-end bombing.

Some 5,000 people came to Donetsk’s opera house to pay last respects to the 33-year-old Rus-sian, known as “Motorola”, who died Sunday when a homemade device exploded in his apartment block.

A Russian army veteran from

the Komi region, Pavlov joined the fi ghting in east Ukraine in 2014 as a volunteer, rising to prominence af-ter appearing on Russian television broadcasts.

He boasted in a 2015 interview of shooting 15 Ukrainian prisoners of war, prompting Kiev’s defence ministry to say he was lucky to die in a bombing rather than serving an “inevitable” life sentence.

Some mourners carried fl owers and black-and-orange St George’s ribbons that symbolise World War II victory and have been adopted by the Kremlin-backed insurgents, an AFP correspondent reported from the scene.

The grandiose memorial cer-emony was also shown live on Rus-sian state television.

More than 100 armed men in camoufl age guarded the opera house, where the leader of self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Re-public (DPR) Alexander Zakharch-enko, stood by the coffi n.

“A great public fi gure, a real warrior, a man who remained un-defeated in an open battle is now gone”, said 63-year-old Alexander Kurenkov, a rebel fi ghter standing in the guard of honour.

“He was killed in a terrorist at-tack,” he added.

Natalia, a 32-year-old doctor

carrying a bunch of red carnations, praised Pavlov as “a hero of DPR, a hero of Russia.”

After the ceremony, militants from the Sparta battallion Pavlov commanded carried his coffi n out to brass music as the crowd chant-ed “We will not forget, we will not forgive!”

The coffi n was then placed on the gun carriage of an open-topped truck, and the funeral procession slowly moved through streets lined with mourners to a local cemetery.

Several people told AFP that state employees including teachers and doctors were “strongly recommend-ed” to be present at the funeral.

“Lessons were cut for all the teachers to come here. Students were also allowed out of classes”, said Viktor, a 42-year-old history teacher.

Pavlov is the latest in a series of rebel leaders to be killed in the eastern Ukrainian regions control-led by militias.

Fighting has dragged on there despite a peace plan brokered by Germany and France, which has run aground amid acrimony between Russia and Ukraine.

The confl ict, which broke out in April 2014, has claimed nearly 10,000 lives.

Mural depicts Pope as a graffi ti artistReutersRome

A larger-than-life mural showing Pope Francis as a sneaky graffi ti artist paint-

ing peace signs on a wall near the Vatican was taken down yesterday by Rome’s “decorum cops” just hours after it went up.

The mural showed the pope on a step ladder playing a game of tic-tac-toe by painting circular peace signs in place of zeros as a Swiss Guard in a billowing uniform acts as a lookout against witnesses or police.

Street artist Mauro Pallotta, who signs his work “Maupal”, painted it on paper in his studio and pasted it up with glue and lacquer on a cor-ner near the Vatican overnight.

Early yesterday, a maroon van marked “Decorum Squad of the City of Rome” arrived carrying city sanitation workers, who blasted the artwork off the wall with high-pressure water sprays.

Local media have criticised the unit, ridiculed as “the deco-rum cops”, for removing popular art while unsightly graffi ti blights many buildings and heaps of gar-

bage pile up on sidewalks because of a collection backlog.

Last year, the same squad took down another of Pallotta’s crea-tions in the same neighbourhood.

It showed Francis as the comic book hero Superman taking off into the air and carrying a black brief-case bearing the word “valores,” Spanish for values.

A street art mural by Italian artist Maupal of Pope Francis playing tic-tac-toe and drawing peace signs as a Swiss guard keep watches the street near the Vatican.

Spain focus moves onto Islamic militancyAFPMadrid

Five years after ETA quit violence, the Basque separatist group has yet to dissolve but it poses little threat

and authorities have shifted their focus to fi ght Islamic militants, says Spain’s chief anti-terrorism prosecutor.

The armed group is blamed for the deaths of 829 people in a four-decade campaign of bombings and shootings in pursuit of an independent homeland in northern Spain and southwestern France. It declared a ceasefi re on October 20, 2011.

“ETA is not dead, it still has weapons, explosives...but I don’t think they will take up arms again,” said Javier Zaragoza, chief prosecutor at the National Court, which handles terrorism cases.

“There are still 50 people left who are being investigated for belonging to a ter-rorist group or collaborating, or for par-ticipating in other off ences” linked to ETA, he told AFP.

Zaragoza added that up to twenty mem-bers are still believed to be at large, living in hiding.

In contrast, some 90 people are in pris-on awaiting trial for acts linked to Islamic militancy and around 30 have been sen-tenced and jailed.

Ten of these are serving time for their role in train bombings in Madrid in March 2004 that left 191 dead in what is still the worst extremist attack in Spain’s history.

Close to a quarter of all investigations launched by the National Court are now linked to militants, said Zaragoza.

Spain has so far been spared another at-tack and holiday-makers fl eeing other res-tive destinations have fl ocked to the coun-try known for its sunshine and beaches.

“There have been risky situations. We identifi ed two or three cases of cells that were ready to act,” said Zaragoza.

“But the attacks on March 11, 2004 taught us a lot,” he said, adding that the focus was on prevention, with the adop-tion in 2015 of a law allowing authorities to detain people who had merely consult-ed extremist websites.

But Zaragoza warned that Spain had re-cently started to be mentioned on extrem-ist websites.

“Spain is one of the countries they have in their sights for historical reasons as it was once Al Andalus,” he said, referring to a territory that was under Muslim rule from 711 to 1492.

But unlike France or Belgium, the coun-try is less exposed to a “very high risk” phenomenon — the return of nationals who went to fi ght abroad and plan to com-mit extremist acts on home soil, he said.

Only around 200 Spaniards are esti-mated to have gone abroad to fi ght, com-pared to thousands from nearby France and Belgium.

And while Spain remains on high terror alert — level four out of fi ve — Zaragoza warned against descending into alarm-ism.

“We must be careful,” he said.“One of the keys to the expansion of

terrorism is to be present all the time in the media.

“If you constantly give news about their actions, you are in a way giving them what they want: generating terror among the people.

“Without the media, terrorism is noth-ing.”

ETA meanwhile has sought to negoti-ate its dissolution with Spain and France in exchange for an amnesty or for gather-ing together in Basque prisons the roughly 350 jailed ETA members scattered across both countries.

Relatives regularly stage protests de-manding they be held closer to home, but so far the government has taken a hard line.

“These negotiations cannot take place,” said Zaragoza.

“You can’t put a terrorist organisation on the same level as a state governed by the rule of law.”

EU panel seeks to plug national tax loopholesReutersBrussels

Large companies in every European Union country will have to pay their taxes on a common set of rev-enues and reductions under an EU draft law seen

by Reuters and aimed at curbing tax avoidance.The 28 EU countries apply a wide range of tax exemp-

tions and deductions, making it diffi cult to calculate the tax base — the amount of net profi ts subject to taxation — for corporations operating in more than one country.

The national variations also allow companies with bigger accounting departments to exploit these diff er-ences to reduce their fi nal bill — a practice that has raised public outcry after revelations of widespread tax dodg-ing by companies and rich individuals.

To close this loophole, the European Commission, the EU executive arm, is proposing a “mandatory” tax base for companies with a total group revenue that exceeds 750mn euros ($820mn) a year.

“All revenues will be taxable unless expressly exempt-ed,” the draft proposal read.

It envisages some dividends and proceeds from the disposal of shares could be exempt.

Countries will remain responsible for setting tax rates.The Commission is set to unveil the proposal on a

Common Corporate Tax Base (CCTB) next week, accord-ing to an agenda of the EU executive.

The draft is still subject to changes.EU states will have to back the proposals unanimously.A plan in 2011 to set a common tax base for companies

was shelved after opposition from some EU states.The new proposal postpones proposals on consolidat-

ing multinationals’ accounts when they operate in more than one EU country.

This is seen as the most controversial part of the ear-lier plan and has been delayed until agreement is reached on a common tax base, the Commission said.

Brussels is also proposing to allow deductions for the issue of equities, seeking to increase this form of fi nanc-ing for companies rather than debt, whose favourable treatment has encouraged high stocks of corporate debt.

Germnay okays controversial N-waste dealAFPFrankfurt

Germany yesterday paved the way for nuclear power plant operators to pay 23.5bn euros ($26bn) towards managing atomic waste, in a deal critics

say lets fi rms get off too lightly.Under a draft law approved by the federal cabinet, the

four fi rms — Vattenfall, EON, RWE and EnBW — will pay the money into a state fund for temporary and perma-nent nuclear waste storage by 2022.

Chancellor Angela Merkel declared the country would shut down all remaining nuclear plants by that date in the wake of Japan’s 2011 Fukushima disaster.

Her decision has left ministers and power companies wrangling over shutdown and waste management costs ever since.

Beyond the 23.5bn euros for waste management, the fi rms will remain fi nancially and legally responsible for shutting down and dismantling the plants and preparing all remaining nuclear waste for permanent storage.

The remainder of a total 40bn euros of provisions they have set aside to cover the nuclear phase-out is ear-marked for those costs.

Eight power stations remain in operation in Germany.Meanwhile, Berlin forecasts that investing the waste

fund in fi nancial assets will allow it to grow enough to cover the costs of temporary and permanent storage of the fuel remnants.

“Financing for shutdown, dismantling and waste management will be guaranteed for the long term with-out transferring the costs to society or endangering the economic situation of the operators,” energy minister Sigmar Gabriel said in a statement.

EUROPE19Gulf Times


Erdogan vows to tackle Turkey enemies abroadReutersAnkara

Smarting over exclusion from an Iraqi-led off ensive against Is-lamic State in Mosul and Kurdish

militia gains in Syria, President Tayyip Erdogan yesterday warned Turkey “will not wait until the blade is against our bone” but could act alone in root-ing out enemies.

In a speech at his palace, Erdog-an conjured up an image of Turkey constrained by foreign powers who “aim to make us forget our Ottoman and Selcuk history”, when Turkey’s forefathers held territory stretching across central Asia and the Middle East.

“From now on we will not wait for problems to come knocking on our door, we will not wait until the blade is against our bone and skin, we will not wait for terrorist organisations to come and attack us,” he told hundreds of “muhtars”, local administrators gener-ally loyal to the government.

“Whoever supports the divisive terrorist organisation, we will dig up their roots,” he said, referring to Kurd-ish PKK militants who have waged a three-decade insurgency against Tur-key and have bases in northern Iraq and affi liates in Syria.

“Let them go wherever until we fi nd and destroy them. I am saying this very clearly: they will not have a single place to fi nd peace abroad.”

Erdogan has struck an increasingly fi rm tone in his speeches in recent days, frustrated that Nato member Turkey has not been more involved in the US-backed assault on Mosul, and angered by Washington’s support for Kurdish militia fi ghters battling Islam-ic State in Syria.

He is riding a wave of patriotism since a coup attempt failed to oust him in July, his message of a strong Turkey playing well with his fervent support-ers.

Ankara has been locked in a row with Iraq over the presence of Turk-ish troops at the Bashiqa camp near Mosul, as well as over who should take part in the off ensive in the city, once part of the Ottoman empire.

Erdogan has warned of sectarian bloodshed if the Iraqi army relies on Shia militia fi ghters.

He said agreement had been reached with the US military on Turkish jets

joining the Mosul operation, although Washington has said it is up to the Iraqi government on who takes part.

“They thought they could keep us out of Mosul by bothering us with the PKK and Daesh (Islamic State)... They think they can shape our future with the hands of terrorist organisations,” he said.

“We know that the terrorists’ weap-ons will blow up in their hands soon.”

The US-led coalition now seems to focus on fi ghting Islamic State in Syria rather than on removing Syrian Presi-dent Bashar al-Assad, the root cause of the war in the Arab country, according to many Turkish analysts.

They have also been particularly an-

gered by US support for Kurdish militia fi ghters in Syria.

Washington views the Kurdish YPG as useful allies in the fi ght against the militants, but Turkey sees them as a hostile force and an extension of the PKK.

“We know this business in this re-gion. You are foreigners here. You do not know,” Erdogan said, to loud ap-plause, in a speech late on Tuesday to mark the opening of the academic year.

While criticising the West, the Turkish leader has restored ties with Moscow in recent weeks, vow-ing to seek common ground on Syria after a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week,

despite Moscow’s backing of Assad.Erdogan said he discussed with Pu-

tin by phone an agreement on Tuesday night on removing from Aleppo the group formally known as the Nusra Front, and now called Jabhat Fatah Al Sham. He gave no details.

Erdogan has made repeated refer-ences in his speeches this week to the term “Misak-i Milli” or National Pact, referring to decisions made by the Ot-toman parliament in 1920 setting out the borders of the Ottoman Empire. He often laments the concessions made by Turkish leaders after World War I, with the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne that brought modern Turkey into be-ing in 1923.

Pro-government media this week published maps depicting Ottoman borders encompassing an area includ-ing Mosul.

He warned of eff orts to “restructure the region” and said Turkey would not sit by.

“I’m warning the terrorist organi-sations, the sectarian fanatic Baghdad government, and the Assad govern-ment that kills its own people: you are on the wrong path. The fi re you are trying to start will burn you more than us,” Erdogan said.

“We are not obliged to abide by the role anyone has set for us in that sense. We have started carrying out our own plan.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers a speech during 28th mukhtars meeting at the Presidential Complex in Ankara.

Berlusconi seeks to sink Renzi’s referendumReutersRome

Centre-right leader Silvio Ber-lusconi, who left Italy’s po-litical limelight after heart

surgery, has returned to the fray this week trying to defeat Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s planned constitution-al reform.

In his fi rst television interview since June, the 80-year-old media tycoon told his own Canale 5 channel on Tuesday evening the reform was “dangerous” and had to be blocked to prevent Renzi becoming “the master of Italy and the Italians.”

After meeting heads of other cen-tre-right parties, he said yesterday it “would solve none of Italy’s prob-lems” and was being used by Renzi to divert attention from “the economic failures of his government.”

The reform, which goes to a na-tional referendum on December 4, aims to reduce the role of the Senate and cut the powers of regional gov-ernments.

Renzi says it will increase govern-ment stability and speed up lawmak-ing.

Opponents say it will make Italy less democratic and complicate the legislative process.

The great majority of opinion polls over the last month put the “no” camp ahead, but with many voters still undecided, the margin remains narrow.

Berlusconi, who had an aortic valve replaced on June 14 after what his doctors said was a life-threatening cardiac disorder, headed four Italian governments between 1994 and 2011.

He has lost much of his political clout since being barred from offi ce following a 2013 conviction for tax fraud, but his Forza Italia (Go Italy!) party is still backed by around 12% of Italians, according to opinion polls.

These votes could be vital in the referendum as polls show Forza Italia supporters are particularly undecid-ed, with as many as 40% attracted by Renzi’s proposals.

Berlusconi negotiated with Renzi in drawing up the reform and origi-nally voted for it in parliament, only to withdraw his backing after Renzi refused to settle on a mutually agreed candidate for national president in 2015.

It remains to be seen how strongly Berlusconi will campaign ahead of the referendum.

Robot explorers all set for Mars questAFPParis

Europe is to send a tiny lander on a scorching, supersonic tumble to Mars as part of an ambitious quest

with Russia to fi nd evidence of life on the Red Planet, past or present.

The Schiaparelli craft will end a seven-month, 496mn km trek from Earth with a dangerous dash through the Martian at-mosphere, a critical trial-run for a larger and more expensive rover to follow.

“Things could not be better,” said Ri-chard Bessudo of Thales Alenia Space, who helped prepare the Exomars mission which could become Europe’s fi rst suc-cessful Mars touchdown 13 years after its fi rst, failed, attempt.

“Everything is nominal,” Bessudo told AFP hours ahead of the historic touch-down 175mn km from Earth.

Schiaparelli has been free falling to the Martian surface since Sunday, when it separated from its Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) mothership.

The lander was asleep and programmed to wake up minutes before arriving at Mars’ atmosphere for a hair-raising six-minute descent.

Radio telescopes on Earth and satel-lites in space will monitor signals from the landing module throughout its entry, de-scent and landing.

The TGO and Schiaparelli comprise phase one of the ExoMars mission, through which Europe and Russia are seeking to join the United States in putting a rover on the hostile Martian surface.

Paddling pool-sized Schiaparelli’s main task is to test entry and landing technology for the planned rover — the second phase and high point of ExoMars.

The TGO faces its own high-stakes ma-noeuvre — to enter the Red Planet’s orbit from where it will sniff atmospheric gases potentially excreted by living organisms — however small or primitive.

While life is unlikely to exist on the bar-

ren, radiation-blasted surface, scientists say traces of methane in Mars’ atmosphere may indicate something is stirring under the surface — possibly single-celled mi-crobes.

The TGO’s science mission will only start in early 2018, once it has changed its initial eccentric orbit into a more circular one at an altitude of some 400 kilometres.

“The ExoMars/TGO orbiter is in great shape and ready to swing into orbit,” the European Space Agency (ESA) said in a blog update yesterday.

The fi rst manoeuvre will see the TGO execute its most critical command to date — starting a more than two hour-long en-gine burn to slow down and allow itself to be captured by Mars’ gravity.

Confi rmation is expected several hours later.

Schiaparelli, meanwhile, will be ex-ecuting its own daredevil mission through Mars’ thin, carbon dioxide-rich atmos-phere.

A discardable “aeroshell” will protect the 600kg craft against a heat of several thousand degrees Celsius generated by at-mospheric drag, while a supersonic para-chute and nine thrusters will brake its fall.

A crushable structure in the lander’s belly is meant to cushion the fi nal impact.

Schiaparelli was designed to send home vital data on how its body and instruments coped with the harsh hike through the at-mosphere.

Powered purely by onboard batteries, it will stay online for two or three days, sending messages that will take about 10 minutes to reach Earth.

Since the 1960s, more than half of US, Russian and European attempts to operate craft on the Martian surface have failed.

ExoMars is Europe’s fi rst attempt at a Mars rover since the British-built Beagle 2 disappeared without trace in 2003 after separating from its mothership.

The ExoMars rover is set for launch in 2020 after a two-year funding delay.

It will be equipped with a drill to seek for life clues up to a depth of 2m.

French police take to streets over anti-cop attacksAFPParis

Dozens of French police offi c-ers demonstrated on Tuesday night in and around Paris and

in the southern city of Marseille, the second wildcat protest in as many days over mounting attacks on of-fi cers.

Around 400 off -duty offi cers demonstrated outside a police sta-tion in the suburb of Evry, near a town where a fi rebomb attack on a squad car earlier this month left one offi cer fi ghting for his life.

The protesters, who were in plain clothes with orange police arm-bands, held aloft banners reading “Solidarity with our colleagues” and booed the visiting national police chief.

The police have been up in arms over attacks on offi cers during pa-trols in tough suburbs and recent demonstrations over labour reforms.

In May, a squad car was set alight in Paris with three offi cers inside. The three escaped without serious injury.

On Monday night, several hundred police in plain clothes took their pro-test to the ritzy Champs-Elysees in

Paris, circling the Arc de Triomphe in police vehicles, sirens blaring.

“We’re at the end of our tether,”

one offi cer told AFP, calling for more resources to be ploughed into crime fi ghting.

Dozens of offi cers in plain clothes have observed vigils the past two nights outside the Paris hospital where the offi cer whose car was petrol-bombed in the suburb of Viry-Chatillon on October 8 lies in a coma.

The 28-year-old offi cer sustained severe burns in the attack by youths from a notorious housing estate.

His female partner was also seri-ously injured.

Under French law, police may pro-test only when off duty, out of uni-form and provided they leave their service weapons and vehicles be-hind.

In Marseille, around 100 police defi ed the restrictions on Tuesday night, gathering in uniform in the pedestrianised Old Port in solidarity with their Paris peers.

President Francois Hollande and Interior Minister Bernard Caze-neuve yesterday both expressed “support” for the police, with Ca-zeneuve promising to address their demands.

French police take part in a protest at the old harbour in Marseille on Tuesday night.

Danish anti-immigration party hit by EU cash scandalAFPCopenhagen

Denmark’s anti-immigration Danish People’s Party (DPP) was reeling yesterday from a

string of EU expenses scandals, in-cluding a trip to Brussels when Eu-ropean institutions were closed.

Morten Messerschmidt, a Euro-pean lawmaker and one of the coun-try’s most ardent eurosceptics, was kicked off the populist party’s top leadership late Tuesday after the DPP agreed to pay back 500,000 kroner ($74,000) of EU funds.

“It’s sloppiness at a very high lev-el,” party leader Kristian Thulesen Dahl told public broadcaster DR.

The money had been used to cover expenses for two EU confer-ences that appeared to be indistin-guishable from the party’s regular summer meetings, as well as an educational trip to Brussels for campaign workers during a public holiday when EU institutions were closed.

Cash had also been spent on me-dia training and an advertising cam-paign.

Messerschmidt told broadcaster TV 2 News that he “completely re-

jects that there has been a deliberate attempt to cheat.”

The expenses scandal is a sharp blow to the outspoken politician, who helped the eurosceptic DPP become Denmark’s largest party in the European Parliament election of 2014.

The liberal Politiken daily re-sponded by publishing a list of DPP expense quotes, accusing the EU of wasting taxpayers’ money.

“If Europeans knew the full extent of the shameless waste of money, I am convinced that there would be a revolution,” Messerschmidt wrote in 2012.

The European parliament had previously asked the DPP to pay back 2.9mn kroner that it spent on politi-cal campaigning.

The party repaid 1.6mn kroner in June, saying it did not administer the rest of the money.

Messerschmidt previously sat on the board of the Movement for a Eu-rope of Liberties and Democracy, a now defunct conservative European alliance.

Last year, the DPP paid back 120,700 kroner to Brussels after us-ing the money to tour Danish har-bours on a sailing ship a few months before local elections in 2013.

Malayalam actor Suresh Gopi joins BJP

Indian elected to UN environment panel

JNU starts courses in animal welfare

In a setback to Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal-II on yesterday ruled there was no need to re-allocate the river water among all four riparian states. The much-awaited verdict has come as a relief to Maharashtra and Karnataka, which were opposing re-allocation among all states. The tribunal said the water should be re-allocated between Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, the two successor states of undivided Andhra Pradesh. It asked the Telugu states to submit their objections and arguments, if any, within four weeks. The tribunal adjourned the next hearing till December 14. Telangana Advocate General Ramakrishna Reddy said the tribunal order was not final and was subject to a review by the Supreme Court.

The Indian Navy yesterday commissioned a highly manoeuvrable fast attack craft INS Tihayu, which will now be deployed along the eastern coast for patrolling. The ship was commissioned by Vice Admiral H C S Bisht, Flag Off icer Commanding in Chief, Eastern Naval Command. Tihayu is the second of the four follow-on Water Jet Fast Attack Craft (FO-WJFAC), built by the Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Ltd (GRSE). The production of Car Nicobar-class vessels was fast-tracked after the 2008 Mumbai terror attack. The ship is an improved version of WJFAC, earlier constructed by GRSE. The ship is manned by a team of four off icers and 41 sailors. Commander Ajay Kashov has been appointed the commissioning Commanding Off icer.

Tribunal setback forTelangana, Andhra

Navy commissions new fast attack craft

WATER ROWPATROLLING

Malayalam actor Suresh Gopi yesterday joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in the presence of federal minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and party general secretary Bhupinder Yadav. “The BJP will be strengthened further after Suresh Gopi joined the party,” Naqvi said after the actor’s formal induction at a function in New Delhi. The National Award winning actor was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in April. He was the star campaigner for the BJP in the Kerala assembly elections.

POLITICS HONOUR EDUCATION

Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) yesterday announced six new certificate courses in animal welfare to sensitise and train people in the ethics of treating animals. The first certificate course - Management and Ethical Use of Laboratory Animals in Research - will commence from November 1 and will comprise a minimum of 85 contact hours. The titles of the rest of the five courses will be put on the university website in November. The courses are the outcome of a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) signed in July between JNU and the National Institute of Animal Welfare (NIAW). According to the MoA, JNU has to conduct six certificate courses (duration four weeks) and one diploma course (five weeks) in the first year.

One hundred and ninety-seven countries have unanimously approved India’s nomination of Rajendra Shende as a senior expert to the UN Environment Programmes Technology and Economic Assessment Panel of the Montreal Protocol - the most successful global treaty aimed at protecting the ozone layer. Shende, a former UN diplomat on global environmental treaties and presently chairman of the TERRE Policy Centre, was seconded by the US, Brazil, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. “The universal approval of Shende by the countries, that included China and Pakistan, is considered a welcome development for India and its leadership role under climate change,” a statement said.


INDIA20

Police fear US tax scam is spread across IndiaSchool leavers or college dropouts were trained to speak with an American accent, posing as US Internal Revenue Service off icials

AFPMumbai

A multi-million dollar rack-et that used fake Indian call centres to trick US

citizens into paying bogus tax bills may be the tip of the ice-berg, with police warning similar scams could be operating across the country.

School leavers or college drop-outs would be trained to speak with an American accent, posing as US Internal Revenue Service offi cials and scare people into believing they owed the govern-ment cash, detectives said.

The scheme, which had been operating for over a year, netted more than Rs10mn ($150,000) a day, they added.

More than 70 people have been arrested after police this month swooped on call centres in Mumbai and Ahmedabad, but they suspect the network could stretch even further.

“We believe that the racket is spread across India, including in the north,” Parambir Singh, commissioner of police in the Mumbai suburb of Thane, said.

Police from Thane, on the out-skirts of India’s fi nancial capital, rounded up at least 770 employ-ees of bogus call centres on Oc-tober 4.

Most were let go pending fur-ther investigations but 72 were arrested while another suspect was detained this week as police

try to close in on the 23-year-old alleged mastermind.

It is claimed the accused would berate victims for failing to pay taxes and then threaten them with jail if they did not cough up immediately.

The con artists would use an altered caller ID number that made it look like they were ring-ing from the United States and often quoted IRS badge numbers to make them appear legitimate.

The fraudsters would trick the victim into sending money, often through prepaid debit cards that can be purchased at stores like Walmart, or even by buying Ap-ple iTunes gift cards.

In both instances transfers are made by the victim handing over the card’s registration number.

The iTunes scam has even led Apple to issue a global warning on its website urging people not to give the number to someone they do not know.

The IRS has been warning about identical scams for a few years with reports in US media that such schemes might have been operating out of India.

In January, the US Treasury In-spector General for Tax Adminis-tration said it was aware of more than 5,000 victims who had paid a total of more than $26.5mn in such scams since October 2013.

“It is one of the biggest fraud cases to surface in recent times in Mumbai,” Parag Manere, Thane police deputy commissioner, said, adding that the ringleaders found willing recruits.

“Hiring was easy. They just gave out pamphlets about job openings and received applica-tions, mostly from school or col-lege dropouts,” said Manere.

Commissioner Singh said ringleaders “lured youngsters with good working knowledge of English and trained them how to speak with an American accent.”

Police believe the recruits were paid Rs30,000-70,000 a month, plus commission. Some made the initial calls while others were employed to “close” deals.

They would work through the night to catch Americans dur-ing their day and sometimes left threatening voicemail messages if their targets didn’t answer the phone, it is alleged.

A victim of a similar-sound-ing scam told NBC last year the caller had her “so frightened” but felt “embarrassed, guilty and ashamed” when she realised she had been swindled.

Singh said Thane police knew of 2,000 people suspected of in-volvement in the scam, but the force believes there are more, and is working with their counter-parts in Gujarat and the US Fed-eral Bureau of Investigation.

Police in Ahmedabad raided more than half a dozen call cen-tres following the Thane opera-tion, a senior crime branch offi -cial said, while searches were also carried out in the Gujarati cities of Bhuj, Surat and Vadodara.

Police are desperate to fi nd al-leged mastermind Sagar Thakkar, known as “Shaggy”, who is from Ahmedabad but may have fl ed India.

Thakkar had half-a-dozen people working for him in the US and was preparing to expand operations, according to the Ahmedabad offi cer.

“He was planning to set up fi ve more call centres by December,” he said.

AgenciesNew Delhi

New Delhi zoo has tem-porarily closed after two birds died of bird fl u, its

curator said yesterday, a month after India declared itself free of the disease.

Riaz Khan said tests had con-fi rmed the birds died of the H5 strain of avian infl uenza, com-monly known as bird fl u.

“We have shut the zoo down only for two to four days to con-duct tests and monitor the situ-ation to see it does not spread,” Khan said.

He said a total of nine birds, including ducks, pelicans and painted storks, have died in re-cent days but only two were confi rmed as having had avian fl u.

“But in any case, the zoo has

been closed as a precautionary measure and will reopen in a few days,” he said.

Only masked staff members were being allowed in, as the complex had been quarantined.

Zoo staff are also being vac-cinated.

The closure comes a month after India announced the coun-try was bird fl u-free, saying there had been no reports of an outbreak since May when more than 100,000 chickens were or-dered to be culled in Karnataka.

The zoo was in the spotlight in May after 46 spotted deer re-portedly died of rabies.

In 2012, it had to close the rhi-noceros enclosure after one of them died of suspected anthrax.

But samples later tested neg-ative.

The zoo, one of the largest in India, has some 1,400 animals, reptiles and birds belonging to

around 130 species. It gets about 2.2mn visitors annually.

Meanwhile, Delhi Develop-ment Minister Gopal Rai said the government was taking all necessary measures to check the threat of bird fl u.

“There have been some deaths of migratory birds re-ported due to H5 virus in Delhi Zoo. But there is no alarming situation. The government is taking immediate pre-emptive actions,” Rai said.

His remarks came after he visited the zoo.

Rai said six rapid response teams have been formed and sent to possible spots from where the infl uenza virus can spread in the city including bird sanctuaries and poultry markets.

“Teams have been sent to Okhla Bird Sanctuary, Niza-muddin (where sale and pur-chase of poultry happens),

Yamuna Biodiversity Park, Najafgarh drain and Ghazipur poultry market,” Rai said.

“One such team has been posted in the Delhi Zoo to con-sistently monitor the situation.”

The Delhi government has also started a helpline number (011-23890318) to report cases of bird fl u and seek help.

Bird fl u aff ects mainly the domestic poultry. The disease spreads from infected birds to other winged creatures through contact with nasal and respira-tory secretions and also due to contamination of feed and water.

Most strains of bird fl u do not usually infect humans, accord-ing to the World Health Organi-sation.

But the H5 strain of the virus - found in the zoo’s birds - can cause fever, cough, sore throat, pneumonia, respiratory disease and sometimes death.

NHRC slams govt overdeaths of schoolchildrenReutersMumbai

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has accused the

Maharashtra government of negligence over the “shocking and painful” deaths in the past decade of more than 700 indig-enous children in schools run by the authorities.

It was the second time in two months that the commission has criticised the state’s care of its indigenous people.

Last month, the NHRC asked state authorities for a detailed report on the deaths of more than 600 indigenous children from malnutrition.

The NHRC said on Tues-day that at least 740 students from poor tribal areas of Ma-harashtra had died in state-run “ashram” schools over the past decade from illness-es such as malaria, food poi-

soning, drowning and snake bites.

The schools, which provide accommodation for pupils, had not followed several proce-dures, including health screens for the students at least twice a year, it said.

“The school authorities, as their lawful guardians, are re-sponsible for their welfare, safety and healthcare,” the NHRC said.

“The negligence on the part of the Department of Tribal Development and the school authorities is a violation of the right to life and dignity of the students,” it added.

A spokesman for the state’s tribal department said senior offi cials were meeting with the chief minister in Mumbai to “look into all aspects and take appropriate action.”

The NHRC asked the govern-ment of Maharashtra to provide a report on the matter within a month.

Ashram schools for children from poor tribal areas of In-dia were set up more than two decades ago and are the only option for many living in re-mote areas.

The schools, which are run by state authorities, are meant to improve literacy levels and provide basic healthcare to the children.

Maharashtra, one of the wealthiest states in the coun-try, has about 550 tribal schools but most of these schools lack even basic amenities and health services, an activist said.

“There are no proper beds, and most schools lack proper toilets and drinking water, and basic healthcare facilities,” said Vivek Pandit, founder of Shramjivi Sanghatana, which works with vulnerable people in Maharashtra.

“There is enough funding, but it is badly managed and not accounted for,” said Pan-dit.

SBI blocks 600,000 debit

cards after security riskIANSMumbai

The State Bank of India (SBI) has blocked more than 600,000 debit

cards of its customers follow-ing a suspected security breach, offi cials said yesterday, adding they will issue fresh cards.

The malware-related se-curity breach was reportedly detected in the non-SBI ATM network and the bank’s move is intended to ensure that cus-tomer’s confi dential personal data is not compromised while swiping.

An SBI spokesperson said card network companies NPCI, MasterCard and Visa had in-formed various banks in India about a potential risk to some cards in India “owing to a data breach.”

“Accordingly, SBI has taken precautionary measures and have blocked cards of certain customers identifi ed by the networks,” the spokesperson said, without revealing the ex-

act number of customers who would be aff ected.

The SBI emphasised that its own systems have not been compromised and existing cardholders are not at any risk and can continue to use their cards as usual.

Meanwhile, SBI will issue new cards free of cost to the af-fected customers. According to banking circles, several other banks have also experienced similar problems as a few ATMs have been hit by a malware which has a high potential to compromise customers data.

Offi cial fi gures indicate that SBI has over 200mn active debit cards, besides another 40.75mn of its associate banks.

Some private banks are con-ducting security review by ex-perts of its ATM networks to pre-empt any type of breaches.

New Delhi zoo shuts down after birds die of avian fl u

Private security guards stand near a banner placed at the main gate of the Delhi zoo which has temporarily closed after two birds died of bird flu.

Women perform rituals during the Karwa Chauth festival at a temple in Ahmedabad yesterday. Karwa Chauth is a traditional Hindu festival celebrated in northern India during which married women fast one whole day and off er prayers for the welfare, prosperity, and longevity of their husbands.

Praying for husbands

SBI has taken precautionary measures and have blocked cards of certain customers identifi ed by the networks

21Gulf TimesThursday, October 20, 2016

INDIA

Solar rickshaw comes to rescue of fume-choked KochiReutersKochi

The inventor of an innova-tive solar chick incuba-tor, solar milking machine

and solar-powered boat now has his newest item rolling onto the streets in this city: a solar rick-shaw taxi.

Georgekutty Kariyanappally, the founder of Lifeway Solar De-vices Private Ltd, so far has just one prototype operating on the streets, but has supplied another 20 to a nearby tourist resort.

In a city where traffi c fumes are a worsening problem, the solar rickshaw, Kariyanappally said, is a way of ensuring people don’t have to choose between

eff ective transport and environ-mental protection.

Usually “you have to choose between development or the en-vironment,” he said. “But I have an answer.”

Solar vehicles are not entirely new in Asia. Solar rickshaws are on the road in a number of coun-tries, particularly Thailand; in Cambodia, a solar-adapted au-to-rickshaw has even become a mobile coff ee cart.

Earlier this year another In-dian engineer drove a solar rickshaw he’d constructed from Bengaluru to the UK.

But Kariyanappally, known in Kochi as “Solar Man”, has come up with his own version – just the latest creation in more than 14 years of work on renewable

energy innovations, some of it backed fi nancially by the Na-tional Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development.

The fl edgling solar rickshaw – a three-wheeled, fi ve-seater motorised rickshaw with a solar panel on the roof – has gained a particular public following in Kochi since its launch in August because it is quiet and non-pol-luting.

In a country where more than half a billion people don’t own motorised vehicles and rely in-stead on hailing taxis – usually auto-rickshaws – the invention could have a big impact on air quality, noise, health and climate change, backers say.

Altogether more than 5mn auto rickshaws – favoured be-

cause they are cheap, ubiquitous and able to get through narrow lanes – ply India’s roads, ac-cording to the federal Ministry of Surface Transport.

Kochi has about 15,000, ac-cording to the road transport of-fi ce in the city.

“It’s quite similar to an or-dinary auto (rickshaw) journey except that I am breathing fresh air instead of polluted air. This gives me immense pleasure,” said Vijayakumari, who recently took a ride in Kariyanappally’s prototype.

The solar rickshaw can run up to 80km a day with six hours of charging, with the range extend-ing to 120km on a sunny day, Ka-riyanappally said.

Solar rickshaws could poten-

tially fi nd a home in cities such as Mumbai and Kolkata, where their more polluting cousins have been banned, replaced with battery-operated electric rick-shaws, backers say.

“Think how much carbon would be reduced if all the au-tos in the city were remodelled as solar autos,” Kariyanappally said.

He noted that a switch to solar transport potentially could also net the country carbon credits.

Some auto-rickshaw drivers in Kochi say they’re interested in the solar models – but only if they’re aff ordable and improve incomes for drivers.

“Tell me in simple language how could it helpful in my daily life,” said Biji, one driver in Ko-

chi, asked about whether he’d consider a solar vehicle.

Like most rickshaw drivers in Kochi, Biju doesn’t own his vehicle, but instead rents one for 12 hours a day for Rs250. He spends another Rs250 a day on diesel while driving his vehicle 80 to 100km he said, and takes home about Rs500 a day for his work.

Ditching diesel costs would be great, he said, but not if it means paying a higher daily rent for a solar taxi.

“I am ready to shift from a tra-ditional auto to a solar one. But I should not have to pay more,” he said.

Still, he can see other benefi ts of making the switch.

In a city suff ering what the

National Environmental Engi-neering Research Institute calls “severe” air pollution, even his own 5-year-old son is struggling with bronchitis, he said.

Kariyanappally, the solar ve-hicle’s inventor, says solar rick-shaws need not be more expen-sive.

He believes his invention could be sold for Rs125,000, compared to about 200,000 to 250,000 for a traditional new auto-rickshaw.

For now, Kariyanappally’s invention faces a few barriers – including that his prototype ve-hicle is technically on the streets illegally, as the Kerala Motor Vehicle Department has not yet recognised solar as a legal vehi-cle fuel.

India, Myanmar say states backingterror should be held to accountThe two countries agree to closely co-ordinate on border security

IANSNew Delhi

India and Myanmar yesterday said the fi ght against terrorism should target terrorists, and hold to ac-

count organisations and states that encourage, support or fi nance terror-ism in any way.

A joint statement issued after del-egation level talks between Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi made reference to last month’s terror attack in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir that killed 19 Indian soldiers.

Suu Kyi condemned the Uri terror attack. Modi condemned the recent armed attacks against three border posts in the northern part of Rakhine state in Myanmar and expressed his profound sympathy for the families of the policemen killed in the attacks.

The two sides called for the expedi-tious fi nalisation of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism at present being negotiated in the UN.

“Both sides condemned terrorism

in all its forms and manifestations as well as all acts, methods and practices of terrorism wherever, by whomever, against whomsoever committed, and agreed that the fi ght against terrorism should target terrorists, hold to ac-count terror organisations, networks and also states that encourage, sup-port or fi nance terrorism in any way,” the statement said.

The two sides also agreed on further co-ordination between the respective border guarding forces and shared the view that the long-standing commit-ment of not allowing insurgent groups to use their soil for hostile activities against the other side was essential for the prosperity of the people residing along the border.

India and Myanmar also agreed to co-ordinate, through diplomatic channels, the setting up of immigra-tion facilities at the Tamu-Moreh and Rhi-Zowkhathar border crossing points for enabling and facilitating regulated and easy movement of peo-ple across the land borders for busi-ness, tourism and other purposes.

The statement said that terrorism was “fi rst and foremost a violation of human rights and that there can be no justifi cation for extending sup-

port, fi nancing, provision of material resources or training to terrorists who destroy innocent lives.”

Observing that maintenance of se-curity was essential for the socio-eco-nomic development of border areas, both sides underlined their mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, and reaffi rmed their shared commitment to fi ght insurgent activ-ity and the scourge of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.

“Both sides expressed their mutual respect for the already-demarcated boundary between the two countries, and stressed the need to resolve out-standing boundary demarcation issues as soon as possible through existing mechanisms,” the statement said.

Both sides also agreed on the need for close co-operation on the development of ocean-based Blue Economy and Mar-itime Cooperation in the Bay of Bengal.

The two nations also agreed to hold early meetings of the Joint Trade Com-mittee (JTC), Joint Working Groups on Border Trade and Border Haats, and on Railways and Shipping.

Myanmar reiterated its support for India’s bid to become a permanent member in an expanded and reformed UN Security Council.

Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi reads a joint statement as Prime Minister Narendra Modi looks on at Hyderabad House in New Delhi, yesterday.

Refund money to 39 Gurgaon fl at buyers, court tells UnitechIANSNew Delhi

The Supreme Court yesterday asked real estate major Unitech to refund the principal cost

of fl ats to 39 buyers who had booked apartments in its Gurgaon project sev-en years back but are still to get pos-session.

A bench of Justices Dipak Misra, Amitava Roy and A M Khanwilkar said the issue of interest as well as com-pensation for the company’s failure to deliver timely possession of the fl ats will be considered at the next hearing on January 11.

The total principal amount that Unitech has to refund to the 39 fl at owners is Rs160.5mn.

The bench also asked Unitech to deposit Rs20mn with its registry. In pursuance to the court’s earlier or-ders, Unitech has already deposited Rs150mn with the registry.

Justice Misra said the foundation of any economy was “faith” that a buyer reposed in the seller.

“The property developer has to have a contractual commitment. Live up to the terms of contact and gain trust so that people who dream of houses can repose faith in them. The foundation of economy is faith; if faith is lost, everything is lost,” the court said in its order.

“Be aware of the wrath of a patient man. Flat buyers have lost their pa-tience,” the court said later while hear-ing another matter relating to another real estate company.

The court order came after fl at buy-ers rejected a Unitech off er to complete three residential towers by April and allot fl ats thereafter as per the sched-ule submitted in the court.

As senior lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi said the real estate major will give an undertaking to adhere to the schedule, the fl at owners said Unitech had given such schedules in the past too but never honoured it.

“The appellant (Unitech), by delay-ing the completion of fl ats, can’t base its stand on nuances and rest on the metaphor that Rome was not built in one day,” the court said.

The court noted the agony of the buyers as they told the bench that even after paying the entire amount they were still without a home were living in rented accommodation.

‘Consensus needed on simultaneous polls’IANSNew Delhi

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Nasim Zaidi yester-day said the election watch-

dog was ready to hold simultaneous Lok Sabha and state assembly vote if certain conditions are met, includ-ing political consensus and more re-sources.

He said two primary issues have to be taken care of in the matter.

“First, several constitutional amendments will have to be made; and second, there has to be a consensus among all political parties,” Zaidi said on the sidelines of a two-day interna-tional conference on voter education organised by the Election Commission of India here.

“If these two things are done, we can hold simultaneous elections. Of

course, we would need extra resources, such as more electronic voting ma-chines, etc.,” he said.

He said the Election Commission has already written to the Law Ministry on the issue, after the ministry sought the poll panel’s opinion on the 79th Re-port of the Department-related Parlia-mentary Committee on the ‘Feasibility of Holding Simultaneous Elections to the House of People (Lok Sabha) and State Legislative Assemblies’.

LATIN AMERICA


Nicaragua canal‘non-viable’: PanamaAFPBerlin

Nicaragua’s plans for an Atlantic-Pacifi c canal to rival Panama’s are a non-

starter despite Chinese backing, Panamanian President Juan Car-los Varela said.

“A new canal, in Nicaragua for example, would not be economi-cally viable,” Varela told reporters at a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin.

“Of course Nicaragua has the right to build a canal, the Chinese businessmen who’ve shown inter-est of course have the right as well, but we think it’s more speculation than reality.”

“We see (our canal) as a model of success, and we don’t see any risk from the possible construction of another canal in the region,” said Varela, adding there had been no progress on the Nicaraguan canal since ground was broken in late 2014.

He insisted the $50bn project could not hope to compete with Panama’s own century-old canal, recently widened to allow passage to increasingly broad container ships.

Inaugurated in its new, widened form last June, the volume of cargo passing through the Panama canal is expected to double to 300mn tonnes annually and sales to triple to $1bn in the coming 10 years.

The US and China are the big-gest customers of the waterway, which accommodates around 5% of global maritime trade each year.

Nicaragua granted a 50-year concession in 2013 to Hong Kong-based HKND to build and operate a canal three times the length of its Panamanian rival.

Work began in December 2014, but the Chinese fi rm said digging out and construction of the locks would not begin until late 2016.

Merkel meanwhile praised Varela’s speedy response to leaks about Panama’s links to tax dodg-ing that made global headlines earlier this year. “Panama reacted

very quickly. I can only encourage them to clear up these things from the past clearly and defi nitively,” said Merkel, adding both countries hoped to seal an agreement on fi -nancial transparency and infor-mation exchange by year-end.

In April, the International Con-sortium of Investigative Journal-ists published stories based on millions of documents from the computer archive of Panamanian law fi rm Mossack Fonseca.

The fi les unmasked politicians, celebrities and wealthy individu-als around the world who used the fi rm’s services to create off shore entities and hide assets. While not all of the activities revealed were illegal, the Panama Papers drew attention to rampant tax avoid-ance and money laundering.

“We in Panama want to play a leading role and close these gaps,” Varela said, adding his govern-ment had spent more than two years updating its laws on fi nancial transparency to tackle tax avoid-ance, terrorism, the drug trade and insecurity.

US extradites tycoon accused of drug tiesReutersNew York/Mexico City

The US has extradited to Mexico a businessman accused of working with

drug cartels after $205mn in cash was found at his Mexico City home, ending a years-long legal battle.

Zhenli Ye Gon, who was ar-rested in the US in July 2007 after the discovery of the cash, faces charges of organised crime, drug traffi cking, fi re-arms and money laundering in Mexico, a spokesman for the US justice department said in a statement.

“The US government recog-nised Mexico’s strong interest in prosecuting its own citizen,” said spokesman Peter Carr.

Ye Gon’s extradition came after the US Supreme Court de-clined to hear his fi nal appeal.

Ye Gon was the former owner of the defunct Mexican phar-maceutical wholesaler Unimed Pharm Chem, which imported chemicals that US and Mexican prosecutors alleged were used to manufacture the illegal drug

methamphetamine. Ye Gon’s attorney, Gregory Smith, has said his client was a legitimate businessman. “The Mexican people should understand that Ye Gon has not yet received any trial, or been convicted of any-thing,” said Smith, adding that Ye Gon had already spent nearly a decade in jail in the US.

US prosecutors brought charges against Ye Gon after his arrest, but their case against him collapsed in 2009 after key witnesses recanted or refused to testify. Ye Gon, who remained in custody, had since been fi ght-ing his extradition to Mexico, arguing he could face torture or even death if sent back.

US courts rejected those arguments and the US Su-preme Court denied a peti-tion addressed to Justice Sonia Sotomayor to temporarily halt the extradition, clearing the way for Ye Gon’s return.

“We were able to refute all the arguments put forward by the defendant and his defence,” Salvador Sandoval, an assistant attorney for international aff airs in Mexico’s attorney general’s offi ce, said in a statement.

Chilean politician Carolina Toha, former mayor of Santiago, and current candidate for the mayoral elections for Santiago, shows a poster to a child during a campaign rally in a neighbourhood in downtown Santiago, Chile.

Campaign trail

Brazilian police yesterday arrested Eduardo Cunha who was one of the country’s most powerful lawmakers and the architect of former president Dilma Rousseff ’s impeachment until engulfed in corruption charges. “We can confirm that (Cunha) was detained in Brasilia,” a police spokesman said. G1 news site published a copy of the arrest warrant issued by the off ice of top Brazilian anti-corruption judge, Sergio Moro. Cunha, nicknamed Brazil’s Frank Underwood after the scheming main character in the dark US political series “House of Cards,” initiated the impeachment process that finally forced Rousseff out of off ice this August.

Unionised workers at Chile’s state-owned copper miner Codelco are mulling going on a company-wide strike, possibly by mid-November, if the government does not make progress on a number of demands, union leaders said. Codelco, the world No. 1 copper producer, returns all its profits to the state and is funded by a mixture of capitalisation and debt. The Copper Mining Federation (FTC), which serves as the umbrella organisation for Codelco’s unions, will ask Chile’s government for permanent capitalisation for the company and to overturn a law that requires that 10% of Codelco’s revenues support Chile’s defence budget.

Disapproval of President Michel Temer’s government is rising as he seeks to restore Brazil’s fiscal discipline via unpopular austerity measures, with his government now barely more popular than that of his ousted predecessor Dilma Rousseff , a poll published yesterday said.Pollster MDA said the number of people who consider Temer’s government “bad” or “terrible” has risen to 36.7% from 28% in a previous poll in early June, while those who rate it as “great” or “good” has edged up to 14.6% from 11.3%. Disapproval of the way Temer himself is governing has also grown, rising to 51.5% from 40.4% in June.

Representatives from Colombia’s right-wing opposition could meet with leaders of the Farc rebels to discuss potential changes to a peace accord signed by the guerrillas and the government, opposition leader Alvaro Uribe said. Hardliner Uribe, an ex-president, current senator and leader of the right-wing Democratic Center party, had previously said his group would not meet with the rebels, who signed a peace deal with the government last month to end 52 years of war. Colombians rejected the accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc, in a surprise plebiscite result this month. Uribe spearheaded the “No” campaign.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has a seemingly insurmountable lead in voter intentions ahead of elections in three weeks that are expected to deliver him a new term with his wife as vice president. A survey published by the M&R polling institute credited the 70-year-old onetime leftist rebel with 64% support. His nearest rival was seen with just 8 % support. The largely sidelined opposition has called the looming November 6 vote a “farce.” It wants the election to be put off until next year. Ortega, who is widely seen as being heavily influenced by his wife, Rosario Murillo, is refusing to allow in international election observers.

Lawmaker behind Rousseff impeachment arrested

Codelco unions eyestrike at copper mines

Poll shows disapprovalof Temer growing

Colombian opposition maymeet Farc on peace deal

Survey gives Ortegabig lead ahead of vote

LAW AND ORDER INDUSTRIAL ACTIONTREND U-TURN POLITICS

Argentine girl’sbrutal rape,murder sparknew demosAFPBuenos Aires

The brutal killing of a 16-year-old girl who was allegedly raped and im-

paled on a spike by drug dealers has sparked outrage in Argen-tina, where protesters staged a “women’s strike” yesterday.

Lucia Perez, a high school stu-dent in the resort city of Mar del Plata, died on October 8 after be-ing brought to the hospital by two men who said she had overdosed on drugs.

But after doctors noticed signs of violent sexual penetration, in-vestigators pieced together a dif-ferent story.

Prosecutors say the two men drugged, raped and impaled her, causing pain so excruciating that she went into cardiac arrest and died.

The lead prosecutor, Maria Isa-bel Sanchez, could barely hide her disgust.

“I know it’s not very profes-sional to say it, but I’m a mother and a woman, and I’ve seen a thousand things in my career, but nothing equal to this litany of ab-horrent acts,” she said.

The killing is just the latest in-cident of horrifi c gender violence in Argentina, which has seen more than a year of mass marches to protest brutality against women.

Last year in June, protests broke out nationwide over a trio of gruesome killings: a kinder-garten teacher whose estranged husband slit her throat in front of her class; a 14-year-old girl whose boyfriend allegedly beat her to death because she got pregnant; and a woman whose ex-boyfriend stabbed her to death in broad day-light at a Buenos Aires cafe.

In the latest protest, wom-en across the country went on “strike” at 1pm (1400GMT), tak-ing to the streets dressed in black. One organiser, Sabrina Cartabia, said the goal was to protest not only Perez’s killing, but a culture that values women less than men.

That is visible in statistics such as the unemployment rate, she said: 9.3% nationally, but 12% for women.

“In a context of social inse-curity, with children to care for and no access to economic au-tonomy, it’s much more diffi cult to overcome domestic violence,” said Cartabia, a lawyer for an advocacy group called the Wom-en’s Network.

Perez met her alleged killers a day before her death, when she and a friend approached them to buy a marijuana joint, prosecu-tors say.

The men — Matias Farias, 23, and Juan Pablo Offi diani, 41 — were known for selling drugs near her school and had prior convic-tions.

Investigators say they forced Perez to consume a large amount of cocaine to incapacitate her, then raped her.

“Her nose was purple from all the cocaine they made her take,” said her father, Guillermo. “We can’t understand such barbar-ity. It’s impossible to understand,” said her mother, Marta Montero.

Together, the couple led a pro-test on Saturday in Mar del Plata that drew 1,000 people demand-ing the judge deny bail for the al-leged killers.

Despite the protest — and a long string of others in recent months — at least four other women in Argentina have been killed by their husbands or exes since Pe-rez’s death.

Nationally, domestic violence kills one woman every 36 hours on average.

Argentina is one of 16 Latin American countries that have written the crime of “femicide” into their penal codes, setting down harsher punishments for the killing of a woman by a man when gender plays a part in the crime.

But the authorities are not do-ing enough, argued Cartabia, who says Argentine society needs a wake-up call on women’s vulner-able place within it.

Anger as Venezueladelays state electionsReutersCaracas

Elections for Venezuela’s state governorships will be held in 2017 rather than

December as expected, the elec-tion board said, giving the un-popular socialist government more breathing space before go-ing to the polls.

Critics say authorities have de-layed the elections — and are also seeking to derail an opposition push for a referendum to recall President Nicolas Maduro — be-

cause they are frightened of let-ting Venezuelans have their say.

Maduro, who replaced the popular Hugo Chavez in 2013 af-ter his death, has seen his ratings halve to just over 20 % amid a deep economic crisis in the Opec nation.

The 23 state governors’ four-year terms were to end in early January, with elections antici-pated for December.

But National Election Board head Tibisay Lucena, who the op-position says is close to the gov-ernment, said they would instead be held toward mid-2017.

Although Lucena did not give reasons, government offi cials have said exceptional measures are justifi ed because of a US-led “economic war” against them and the oil price crash.

“This decision by the elec-tion board is part of a dangerous trend by a regime clearly acting outside the constitution,” the opposition Democratic Unity coalition said.

With Chavez suff ering from cancer but having just won re-election himself, the socialists swept to victory in 20 states in the last regional elections in 2012.

But opinion polls show they would currently fare badly in any election, and government sources have said they are hoping for an oil price recovery to help them.

The opposition has pushed for a referendum this year to remove Maduro and trigger a new presi-dential election.

But even if they collect the 4mn signatures needed to trigger the plebiscite, in a drive later this month, such a vote could only take place next year.

Under Venezuela’s consti-tutional rules, that means that should Maduro lose a referen-

dum next year, his vice president would take over rather than there being a new election, dashing the opposition’s hopes of ending 17 years of socialism.

Meanwhile, Maduro warned that various opposition parties were at risk of losing their legal status and needed to renew their registry with the electoral board if they wanted to participate in the 2017 state polls.

“If they fl out the law...then the governor elections will come and we will participate (alone)...It’s a real, possible, probable scenario,” he said.

Venezuelan lawmaker Diosdado Cabello (centre) greets supporters during a demonstration in Caracas.

PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN23Gulf Times


A blue-eyed young ‘chai wala’ (tea seller) from Pakistan, who became an Internet sensation after his photo was posted on Instagram, has got the job of a model.Retail site fitin.pk has signed on the youngster, Arshad Khan, as a model for an undisclosed amount and his first shoot is already out, the Dawn reported yesterday.His photo was posted by an aspiring photographer, Jiah Ali, on October 14.It was picked up in the West, including the popular US website Buzzfeed.One of 18 siblings, Arshad hails from Kohat and has been making tea at Islamabad’s Sunday Bazaar for three months.He has never been to school.According to Dawn, Arshad doesn’t know when his photo-graph was taken or who took it.

More than a thousand stray dogs have been poisoned to death by municipal workers in Karachi after a deluge of complaints about ani-mals biting women and children, an off icial said yesterday.A total of 1,050 dogs were culled in the campaign.Estimates suggested 2,000 more would be targeted in the next phase.Rehan Hashmi, the chairman of the municipal jurisdiction, said authorities had been flooded with complaints of stray dogs biting people and suggested the extermination programme was necessary because the city lacked the resources to rehome the dogs or put them in pounds.“Had there been some better resources or options, I would love to switch to that,” Hashmi said, adding: “They are living beings after all.”A handful of activists and veteri-nary surgeons are fighting to find a middle ground between stray dogs and a population that find them unclean.Few families outside the upper classes keep dogs as pets, though some people use them to guard their homes — meaning there is little demand for rescue dogs.Conservative figures estimate the feral dog population of Karachi could be up to 35,000.The city sees as many as 15,000 reports of dog bites a year, ac-cording to Isma Gheewala, head of Karachi’s Animal Care Centre.

Pakistani teaseller turns model

Over thousandstray dogs killed

CAREER

HYGIENE

Imran Khan summoned on ‘shutdown’ day

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has is-sued notices to Pakistan

Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) Chair-man Imran Khan and Secretary General Jahangir Tareen, asking them to appear before it on No-vember 2 — the day of the party’s planned siege of Islamabad — in connection with the disqualifi -cation references against them.

The two references were fi led with the National Assembly speaker by Pakistan Muslim League-N lawmakers and were referred to the ECP last month after Ayaz Sadiq deemed them to be valid references that war-ranted further action.

“Please take notice and be in-formed that the reference cited as subject has been fi xed for hearing on November 2, 2016, at 10am. You are therefore required to appear before the ECP in per-son or through counsel on the above mentioned date and time failing which the matter will be decided in your absence,” the notice reads.

The speaker had rejected four references seeking disqualifi ca-tion of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and other members of his family after holding that no question of disqualifi cation had arisen.

In all, eight disqualifi cation references were fi led with the speaker -four against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, two against Imran and one each against Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awa-mi Party chief Mehmood Achak-zai and PTI’s Tareen.

Apart from the four against the PM, one of the references fi led against Imran and the one against Achakzai were rejected on grounds of “insuffi cient evi-dence”.

The reference against Imran mentioned his off shore company and properties abroad, income, the fact that he had not disclosed an investment to the ECP and his alleged misstatements about his Bani Gala house.

It alleges that Imran had pur-chased a fl at in London through an off shore company in 1983 and did not disclose this fact until 2016.

Another allegation against him is about his sprawling Bani Gala residence, which he had declared to be a gift from his ex-wife.

However, the record shows that he claimed to have pur-chased the land at a rate of Rs145,000 per kanal in 2011. (1 kanal is 5445sq feet).

“Imran gifted Rs6.5mn to his ex-wife Jemima Khan in the year 2001-02. She purchased 45 kanals of land at Mohra Noor, Is-lamabad, with that amount.

Later, she transferred that land to Khan, who declared it a gift in his wealth statements fi led with the Federal Board of Rev-enue (FBR).[This] establishes that the gift-back arrangement was made by Khan to launder his black money.

Besides the aforementioned 45 kanals, Jemima also pur-chased 255 kanals at Mohra Noor with an amount of Rs36.98mn.”

The reference also goes on to question the sources of income that he used to construct the palatial house, accusing him of concealing his investment in the Grand Hyatt Hotel on Constitu-tion Avenue in the declaration of assets submitted to the ECP for the year 2014.

It also accused the PTI chief of keeping the ownership of his London apartment at 165- Dray-cott Avenue a secret until a tax amnesty scheme was announced by the government in the year 2000.

The reference against Tareen, meanwhile, alleged that as a fed-eral minister during the Mush-arraf regime, he had received a Rs101 mn loan from the Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited (ZTBL) in the name of Tandlianwala Sugar Mills, which was later written off in 2005.

“Tareen concealed facts while submitting his nomination pa-pers for the general elections in 2013 and by-elections in 2015,” the reference stated.

It has been over a month since the ECP received these referenc-es from the speaker.

Under the law, the commis-sion is supposed to decide any reference sent to it within three months.

InternewsIslamabad

Imran Khan

Malala urges Muslims to unite for peace

Pakistan’s Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, giving a speech yesterday

in the Emirates, urged Muslims to respect the “true message of Islam” and unite against wars in their countries.

The 19-year-old, who was shot in the head by the Taliban in 2012 after she had publicly advo-cated education for girls, urged the world’s Muslims to “come together...and follow the true message of Islam as they join hands in the struggle for peace”.

“We cannot talk about invest-ing in our future in this region without calling for an end to

these bombings and these at-tacks,” she told a conference in the southern Gulf emirate of Sharjah on the future of women in the Middle East.

“We must not forget that the majority of those suff ering be-cause of these confl icts and wars are Muslims,” said Malala, refer-ring to confl icts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

“I cannot stop thinking of those 500,000 children in Mosul right now under a threat to be used as

human shields,” she said of the Iraqi city where an off ensive has been launched to retake it from the Islamic State jihadist group.

She called for empowering the younger generation, espe-cially women, with the educa-tion needed “to bring peace and prosperity to their countries”.

The youngest-ever Nobel re-cipient stressed the need for men to support women in their attempt to receive “quality education”.

Malala moved to England where she received medical treatment after the shooting.

She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 jointly with India’s Kailash Satyarthi, a fel-low education activist who made similar calls at the Sharjah con-ference yesterday.

AFPSharjah

Pakistani activist for female education and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Malala Yousafzai, delivers a speech during a conference entitled “Investing in The Future: Building the resilience of women and girls in the Arab region” yesterday in the United Arab Emirate of Sharjah.

“We cannot talk about investing in our future in this region without calling for an end to these bombings and these attacks”

Two Americans killed

in ‘insider attack’

Two Americans includ-ing a civilian were killed yesterday when a gun-

man opened fi re near a Nato base in Kabul yesterday, the military coalition said, with Afghan offi cials calling it an “insider attack”.

No insurgent group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, which highlights grow-ing insecurity in Afghanistan as the Taliban step up their na-tionwide insurgency.

“One US service member and one US civilian died as a re-sult of wounds sustained in Ka-bul today,” Nato said in a state-ment, adding that three other Americans were wounded in the incident.

“The two individuals were killed during an attack near a coalition base by an unknown assailant, who was later killed.”

Defence ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri earlier said one Nato soldier had been killed and fi ve others were wounded by a gunman wearing military

uniform, indicating it was a so-called insider attack.

Nato said the Americans were conducting duties as part of their mission to train, advise and assist Afghan forces when they came under attack, adding that an investigation had been launched into the incident.

“Anytime we lose a member of our team, it is deeply pain-ful,” said General John Nichol-son, the top US and Nato com-mander in Afghanistan.

“Our sympathies go out to the families, loved ones, and the units of those involved in this incident.

To those who continue to target coalition forces...(we) will continue to pursue our mission to help our partners create a better Afghanistan.”

So-called “green-on-blue” attacks — when Afghan sol-diers or police turn their guns on international troops — have been a major problem dur-ing Nato’s long years fi ghting alongside Afghan forces.

Gunmen wearing Afghan military uniforms shot dead two Romanian soldiers in the southern province of Kandahar in May.

In a similar attack in August last year, a man wearing an Afghan military uniform shot dead two American soldiers in the southern opium-rich prov-ince of Helmand.

And in April last year an American soldier was killed in a fi refi ght between US and Afghan troops in eastern Af-ghanistan.

Western offi cials say most such attacks stem from per-sonal grudges and cultural misunderstandings rather than insurgent plots.

The killings have bred fi erce mistrust between local and for-eign forces even as the rate of such incidents has dropped in recent years.

Nato troops have adopted special security measures in re-cent years to try to counter the threat.

Insider attacks have also plagued Afghan troops, deplet-ing morale and causing mis-trust within security ranks.

In September, two Afghan soldiers with suspected Taliban links killed at least 12 of their comrades as they slept in the volatile northern province of Kunduz.

AFPKabul

Pakistani satellite service to monitor CPEC

The Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Re-search Commission

(Suparco) will provide com-prehensive satellite service to monitor the $46bn China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and address its security concerns.

This was said by a Suparco delegation during a meeting with President Mamnoon Hus-sain at the presidency, offi cial sources confi rmed here yester-day.

According to a spokesman for the president, Suparco Chair-man Qaiser Khurram briefed Hussain on the commission’s ongoing satellite development projects and its role and contri-bution in completion of CPEC projects.

The president appreciated the technology-based support the commission is providing to the CPEC in major areas.

The meeting was informed that Suparco was providing complete geo sensing of the entire corridor from Gwadar to Khunjerab (Pak-China bor-der).

The president expressed sat-isfaction that all related insti-tutions were contributing to completion of projects under the CPEC and said the role of Suparco in this regard was of great signifi cance.

He also praised the role of Suparco in the country’s eco-nomic progress and develop-ment and said the commission needed to brief government departments on its capabilities for optimum utilisation of its expertise in agriculture, water resources, healthcare, educa-tion, disaster management and environment monitoring.

Suparco should also promote awareness among the public about usefulness of space tech-nology.

The president said the CPEC would pave the way for economic development not

only of Pakistan but also of the whole region, adding that immense employment oppor-tunities and other avenues for economic progress would be created.

A source in the presidency said that Suparco’s satellite service would help secure those CPEC areas which were vul-nerable to terrorist attacks and criminal activities.

He said Prime Minister Na-waz Sharif and President Hus-sain would have access to the satellite service and would be able to monitor CPEC projects on their computers.

The service would also help curb encroachments and land grabbing along the corridor, the source added.

The Senate’s Standing Committee on Planning and Development was on Mon-day informed that people had started encroaching land along the CPEC and settling there and it would be difficult for the authorities to remove them.

The satellite service will help monitor the pace of infrastruc-tural development like con-struction of roads and estab-lishment of power generation units and economic zones along the corridor.

A Special Security Division (SSD) comprising over 4,500 security personnel is being es-tablished to ensure security of CPEC-related projects and Chinese nationals.

The terms of reference for the division are being prepared, which will be discussed with the provinces.

The planning and develop-ment ministry has allocated one per cent of the total cost of CPEC projects for funding the SSD.

InternewsIslamabad

Afghan troops causing ‘more civilian casualties’

Afghan civilians are paying the price for increased fighting in

populated areas around the country, the United Nations reported yesterday, with gov-ernment troops responsible for a growing share of civilian casualties.

At least 2,562 civilians died and another 5,835 were wound-ed in the confl ict in Afghanistan in the fi rst nine months of this year, UN offi cials said.

A similar number of civil-ian casualties occurred in the

same period in 2015, indicat-ing rates may be levelling off at near-record levels after steadily increasing since the UN began monitoring them in 2009.

Ground fi ghting between pro-government forces and Is-lamic militants caused nearly 40% of all the casualties.

Children have been particu-larly hard hit by the fi ghting, with 639 young people killed and 1,822 wounded, for an in-crease of 15% over last year.

The Taliban and a handful of smaller groups have been fi ghting to topple the Western-backed government, 15 years after the Taliban lost power in a US-led military operation.

“Increased fighting in densely populated areas makes it imperative for par-ties to take immediate steps to ensure all feasible pre-cautions are being taken to spare civilians from harm,” Tadamichi Yamamoto, the UN’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, said in a statement.

Casualties caused by pro-government forces rose 42% compared to last year, with 623 deaths and 1,274 injured, UN investigators reported.

That includes a spike of 72% in casualties from air strikes by the Afghan air force and its in-ternational allies.

At least 133 people were killed and 159 were injured in air strikes, with two-thirds of those casualties attributed to the Afghan air force, the UN said.

The Taliban and other mili-tant groups still accounted for more than 60% of the overall casualties, with 1,569 civilian deaths and 3,574 injured, the report showed.

The UN condemned anti-government attacks that have directly targeted civilians, in-cluding a bombing in the capi-tal, Kabul, in July that killed at least 85 people and injured 413.

That attack was claimed by Islamic State.

Reuters Kabul

A Special Security Division (SSD) comprising over 4,500 security personnel is being established to ensure security of CPEC-related projects and Chinese nationals

A truck driver cleans the mirror of his decorated truck in Charsadda outside Peshawar, Pakistan.

Art on wheels

PHILIPPINES


Duterte says sea arbitration case to take ‘back seat’Reuters Beijing

The South China Sea ar-bitration case will “take the back seat” during

talks with China, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said yesterday in Beijing, add-ing that he would wait for the Chinese to bring up the dispute rather than doing so himself.

Duterte arrived in Beijing on Tuesday with at least 200 top business people to pave the way for what he calls a new commer-cial alliance, amid deteriorating ties with longtime ally the Unit-ed States.

The effort to engage China, months after the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled over South China Sea disputes in favour of the Philippines, marks a reversal in Philippine foreign policy

since Duterte took office on June 30.

China refused to participate in the arbitration case or recog-nise its fi ndings.

Speaking to reporters at his hotel, Duterte described the judgment as a “piece of paper”.

“It would not be in keep-ing with courtesy and goodwill if I am the one to open it,” he said.”And you will say, will it take a back seat? Of course, it has to take the back seat.”

China has welcomed the shift in tone that has added to strains between the Philippines and the United States, even as Duterte has vowed not to surrender any sovereignty to Beijing.

Duterte said on Sunday he would raise the arbitral ruling, and vowed not to deviate from the tribunal’s award.

Speaking in Beijing, Duterte said he did not want to make any “hard impositions” on the South China Sea, and would

wait for Chinese President Xi Jinping to raise the subject.

“I have to be courteous and I

have to wait for your president to mention it in passing for me to respond,” he said.

“It is in the broader outline of talks that we have agreed.

But as a matter of courtesy, and the oriental way, we will always wait because I am a visi-tor. I cannot destroy the good-will just by blurting out some-thing.”

In a series of confl icting statements, Duterte has insult-ed US President Barack Obama and the US ambassador in Ma-nila for questioning his war on drugs, which has led to the deaths of 2,300 people.

He told Obama to “go to hell” and alluded to severing US ties.

Speaking earlier, Philip-pine Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay said territorial disputes between China and the Philip-pines may take a lifetime to re-solve, but should not prevent warming ties.

Yesterday, Philippine Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon Lopez told reporters in Beijing that Bank of China had agreed

to provide a $3bn credit facility for infrastructure investments in the Philippines.

Yasay reiterated that the thaw with China was “not going to erode our close ties with the rest of our allies and traditional partners”.

“As we renew our ties with this great nation, it does not mean that we are weakening ties with the rest of the mem-bers of the international com-munity.

This is at the core of the inde-pendent foreign policy that our president has moved and put forward,” he said.

After weeks of anti-American rhetoric, Duterte said the Phil-ippines would maintain its ex-isting defence treaties and its military alliances.

China has expressed support for Duterte’s drug war, even as it has sparked concerns in West-ern capitals about extra-judicial killings.

President Rodrigo Duterte attends a news conference during his visit in Beijing yesterday.

Police van runs over anti-US protestersAFPManila

A Philippine police van yesterday rammed and ran over baton-wielding

protesters outside the US em-bassy in Manila, with the driver of the vehicle saying he pan-icked because he feared being mobbed.

Hundreds of protesters had gathered at the embassy to voice support for President Ro-drigo Duterte’s recent tirades against the United States, the Philippines’ longtime ally, and call for American troops to leave the country.

Television footage showed protesters hitting the vehicle with long sticks and breaking through a security cordon close to the embassy.

Police also fired tear gas and used their batons to strike back at protesters.

At one stage the van reversed quickly into dozens of people then forward again, running over a man, who was able to

stand up and stumble away.“They were trying to take

over the vehicle, trying to over-turn it,” the vehicle’s driver, police officer Franklin Khu, told reporters afterwards, ac-cording to ABS CBN television, which filmed the incident.

Asked if he panicked, Khu said: “Of course, our vehicle was overturning and if they seized control, they could run down other policemen.”

Police chiefs said some of the protesters had sustained minor injuries, although rally organ-isers said 50 were hurt and five had been taken to hospital.

Photos showed a second man trapped underneath the van af-ter it had stopped, with his leg and hips under one of the back tyres. He was later seen limping away.

Police insisted the protesters had instigated the violence.

“We had to disperse them.They started it. They were try-ing to enter the embassy,” Chief Inspector Arsenio Riparip, one of the officers overseeing the incident, said. But the protest-

ers accused the police of start-ing the violence.

“It was the police who at-tacked the protesters. First they rammed the police vehicle against the people. Then they released tear gas and hit us with truncheons,” said one of the or-ganisers, Amirah Lidasant.

Christina Palabay, sec-retary-general of the leftist rights group Karapatan, said 31 protesters were arrested.

Palabay slammed the police reaction as excessive, even if a few of the protesters had insti-gated the violence.

“They don’t have to run down people because of what some protesters did,” she said.

National police spokesman Senior Superintendent Dion-ardo Carlos said in a statement that Manila police had been ordered to conduct an inves-tigation to determine if proper procedures had been followed in dispersing the group.

“The PNP (Philippine Na-tional Police) assures the pub-lic that the investigation will determine the liabilities of all

Policemen block protesters during a rally in front of the US embassy in Manila yesterday.

personalities from both sides whose involvement led to the violent incident,” he said.

US embassy spokeswoman Molly Koscina declined to com-

ment on yesterday’s violence, referring media inquiries to the local police.

The Philippines has for dec-ades been one of the US’ most

important and loyal allies in Asia, but Duterte, who describes him-self as a socialist and has close links to communists, has threat-ened to cut ties as he shifts closer

to Beijing. This has partly been in response to US criticism of Duterte’s anti-drug campaign, which has killed thousands of people.

Millions on alert for super typhoonAFPManila

Millions of people in the Philippines were on high alert yesterday for

one of the strongest typhoons to ever hit the disaster-battered country, with authorities warn-ing of giant storm surges and de-structive winds.

Super Typhoon Haima was forecast to hit remote communi-ties in the far north of the coun-try later, bringing winds almost on a par with catastrophic Super Typhoon Haiyan that claimed more than 7,350 lives in 2013.

“We only pray we be spared the destruction such as the previous times, which brought agony and suff ering,” President Rodrigo Duterte said in Beijing, where he is currently on a four-day visit.

“But we are ready. Everything has been deployed.”

Haima has a weather band of 800 kilometres putting more than 10mn people across the northern parts of the Philip-pines’ main island of Luzon within its reach, according to the government’s disaster risk man-agement agency.

Haima was approaching the Philippines with sustained winds of 225 kilometres an hour and gusts of 315 kilometres an hour, according to the state weather bureau.

Authorities warned coastal communities to expect storm surges of fi ve metres or higher.

“It’s already started. The wind

is strong, the waves are big,” said Julie Hermano, manager of a small resort in Santa Ana, a coastal town of about 30,000 people that is in the typhoon’s direct path.

“Some residents have been panic-buying food in markets because we were told it’s going to be a super typhoon.

We’ve already tied down our water tank and prepared our (power) generator set.”

The Philippine islands are of-ten the fi rst major landmass to be hit by storms that generate over the Pacifi c Ocean.

The Southeast Asian archi-

pelago endures about 20 major storms each year, many of them deadly.

The most powerful and dead-liest was Haiyan, which de-stroyed entire towns in heav-ily populated areas of the central Philippines.

“We are possibly dealing with a typhoon that is even stronger than Typhoon Yolanda (as Haiy-an was known in the Philippines) in 2013.

We must therefore brace our-selves for the possible eff ects of a typhoon of this magnitude,” government executive secretary Salvador Medialdea said in a

statement. “We call on all gov-ernment agencies to be on high-est level of preparedness and to take all necessary precautions.”

In the northern regions ex-pected to be worst hit, tens of thousands of people sought refuge in schools and other makeshift evacuation centres as authorities raised the highest “signal fi ve” typhoon alert.

Flights to the north were also suspended and schools were closed.

Power to some areas was cut off late yesterday as strong winds heralding Haima’s landfall brought down electricity lines.

The Philippine capital of Ma-nila is about 450 kilometres south of where Haima is forecast hit. Authorities said the city, with about 12mn people, was not expected to be badly aff ected although it would experience some rain.

Haima is forecast to have passed over the Philippines by tomorrow and then track to-wards southern China.

Haima is the second typhoon to hit the northern Philippines in a week, after Sarika struck on Sunday claiming at least one life and leaving three people

missing.

Evacuees from the coastal villages take shelter inside an evacuation centre as Typhoon Haima locally named Lawin approaches, in Alcala town, Cagayan province, north of Manila yesterday.

Iloilo airport among Asia’s top 12: survey

The Iloilo International Airport

(IIA) is one of the 12 best airports

in Asia, according to a 2016

survey of the interactive travel

site “The Guide to Sleeping in

Airports,” Manila Times reported.

Also, Davao International Airport

(DIA) landed No 26 when the trav-

el website released passengers’

reviews of the best and worst

airports. The IIA and DIA were

among the 81 airports with 36

operating commercial flights all

over the country managed by the

Civil Aviation Authority of the Phil-

ippines (CAAP). The travel website

also came up with the results of

other Asian airports such as Rajiv

Gandhi Airport in Hyderabad,

India, (13), Suvarnabhumi Airport

in Bangkok, Thailand (17), Jakarta’s

Soekarno-Hatta International Air-

port (20), Nagoya Chubu Centrair

International Airport in Japan

(25) and Kaohsiung International

Airport in Taiwan (29).

The Top 10 Best Airports in Asia

2016 as voted by travellers are

Changi International Airport in

Singapore; Seoul in Incheon,

South Korea; Haneda Airport,

Tokyo; Taipei’s Taoyuan; Kansai

airport in Osaka; Hong Kong’s

Chek Lap Kok; Kuala Lumpur;

Narita International Airport in To-

kyo; Mumbai, India and Nanjing

Lukou in China.

Senator keen on

reopening of

probe into killingsBy Jeff erson AntipordaManila Times

Senator Panfi lo Lacson is willing to push for the reopening of the inves-

tigation by the Senate Com-mittee on Justice and Human Rights on the spate of extra-judicial killings if there are new witnesses or evidence that will corroborate the tes-timony of confessed hitman Edgar Matobato.

Lacson, the vice chairman of the panel, admitted that he wanted to hear the testi-monies of the witnesses from the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) who were not al-lowed to testify by Sen. Rich-ard Gordon, the chairman of the committee.

“I am open to reopen (the investigation). The only quali-fi cation is I need somebody or something that will corrobo-rate or buttress Matobato’s testimony. I also want to hear the CHR witnesses,” Lacson said in an interview with re-porters.

Matobato claimed that President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the killings of crimi-nals when he was the mayor of Davao City.

But Gordon said Matobato

was not a credible witness be-cause of the inconsistencies in his statements.

The panel is expected to re-lease its report on the investi-gation after absolving Presi-dent Rodrigo Duterte of any involvement in the extra-ju-dicial killings and dismissing the existence of the so-called Davao Death Squad.

But Lacson said he believes that the investigation is not complete because the wit-nesses from the CHR were not allowed to give their tes-timonies.The senator said he requested Gordon to allow the presentation of the remaining CHR witnesses during the last committee hearing but he did not push it because Gordon was so annoyed.

“He (Gordon) was very pas-sionate, caught in the moment, he has issues with Sen. (Leila) de Lima that time, and I didn’t want to insist,” Lacson said.Gordon did not allow the CHR to present its witnesses after one its commissioners called him “unfair” and a coward.

De Lima welcomed Lacson’s willingness to reopen the in-vestigation but she admit-ted that it would be diffi cult to fi nd witnesses who would corroborate Matobato’s testi-mony.

SRI LANKA/BANGLADESH/NEPAL25


Lanka exhumes body of ex-army spy over murder

Sri Lankan police yester-day exhumed the body of a retired army spy whose

supposed suicide note claimed responsibility for the 2009 murder of a prominent anti-es-tablishment newspaper editor, a police offi cer said.

The 52-year-old former mili-tary intelligence offi cer was found hanging at his home in central Sri Lanka fi ve days ago and was buried shortly after-wards, the senior police source said.

But police now suspect the suicide note found in his pocket at the time of his death may not be genuine and want to deter-mine his link to any criminal ac-tivity that could have led to his murder.

“There had been lapses in the fi rst autopsy and the body is exhumed to carry out fresh fo-rensic tests,” the offi cer said on condition of anonymity.

“We are looking at his fi nger-prints to see if he had been involved in any criminal activity.”

Investigators have begun checking his phone records

and bank accounts since his retirement nine years ago.

Last month authorities reo-pened the investigation into the January 2009 killing of editor Lasantha Wickrematun-ga, a fi erce critic of the then-strongman president Mahinda Rajapakse.

A serving military intel-ligence offi cer is already in custody in connection with Wickrematunga’s death, which sparked an international outcry and shone a spotlight on vio-lence against the media.

Last month authorities also exhumed Wickrematunga’s body to conduct a fresh autopsy after fears that forensic evi-dence may have been tampered with or falsifi ed to mislead the investigation.

Wickrematunga was the chief editor of the Sunday Leader newspaper which had accused Rajapakse’s then-powerful de-fence secretary brother Gotab-haya of kickbacks in arms pur-chases, including an aircraft deal.

Last year a former minister in Rajapakse’s government ac-cused Gotabhaya of running a death squad and ordering the hit against the editor.

The newspaper was highly critical of rights abuses by troops against ethnic minority Tamils during the island’s long-running separatist confl ict that ended in 2009.

Some 17 journalists and me-dia employees were killed in Sri Lanka under Rajapakse’s regime.

A suicide note claiming role in the 2009 murder of a newspaper editor was found from 52-year-old former military intelligence off icer who reportedly hung himself at his home last week

AFPColombo

Sri Lanka police exhume body of former army spy over murder.

Victim kin receive compensation: A retired Sri Lankan army lieutenant, who was charged with murdering an LTTE member in 1998, yesterday paid Rs2mn to the victim’s fam-ily as per a High Court ruling.

The Colombo High Court in August had sentenced the of-fi cer to two years of rigorous imprisonment and suspended him for 10 years over the death of Robert Velinthan in custody in 1998.

The offi cer was accused of shooting carelessly and murder-ing a handcuff ed Velinthan in Point Pedro town in Jaff na dis-trict as the latter was trying to fl ee the army’s custody.

According to United Na-

tions estimates, more than 40,000 civilians were killed in Sri Lanka during the fi nal phase of the three-decade long Tamil confl ict.

The Sri Lankan government disputes the casualty numbers.

Goat forces pilot to halt landing at Nepal airportAn unusual member of Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu security team forced a passenger plane to abandon its landing last week.The Bhutan Airlines flight was on its final approach when a goat was spotted on the runway, prompting crew to initiate a go-around, or “goat around”, as the Aviation Herald reported.The Airbus A319-100 then ascended out of the narrow Kathmandu valley and entered a hold, while airport staff captured the goat and removed it from the area.The aircraft, which had flown a 70 minute journey from Paro in Bhutan with 68 passengers and eight crew, landed safely 40 minutes after its first attempt.A preliminary investigation found the goat came from the army battalion responsible for airport security, as the animal had appeared in a high security area.Tribhuvan International Airport is Nepal’s only international airport and is served by major international airlines including Qatar Airways, Etihad and Singapore Airlines.The incident is not the first time animals have caused trouble at the airport, which according to the Himalayan Times has been plagued by a variety of wildlife, including monkeys, dogs, cows, rats, rodents, cats and even buff alo.After suff ering numerous bird strikes and receiving criticism for its lack of wildlife management experts, the airport deployed local hunters to patrol the area.“The TIA now has a five-member hunter squad being active round the clock only at the airside areas,” an airport spokesman told the Himalayan Times.

Unesco urges Bangladesh to scrap Sundarbans plant

The United Nations has urged Bangladesh to halt construction of a huge

coal-fi red power plant near the Sundarbans, warning of a serious threat to the delicate ecosystem of the world’s largest mangrove forest.

The UN’s culture and science agency Unesco said there was a high chance pollution from the plant would “irreversibly dam-age” the Sundarbans, which straddles the border of India and Bangladesh and is home to endangered Bengal tigers and rare dolphins.

It also provides a barrier against storm surges and cy-clones that have killed thou-sands of people in impoverished coastal villages and islands in recent years, and was declared a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1997.

The planned 1,320 megawatt Rampal plant, a joint project by India and Bangladesh, would be powered each year by nearly 5mn tonnes of coal transported by boat along the ecosystem’s fragile waterways.

Scheduled to open in 2018, the plant would also discharge nearly 125,000 cubic metres a day of chemically-tainted water used to cool generators, according to design specifi ca-tions.

In a report published late Tuesday, Unesco said the plant’s construction would result in a substantial increase in shipping and dredging in the area.

It recommended that the plant be relocated “to a more suitable location, where it

AFPDhaka

Mangrove trees in the Sundarbans near Khulna some 350km southwest of Dhaka.

would not impact negatively on the Sundarbans”.

The present site is just 14kms (nine miles) north of the Sunda-rbans.

There was no immediate com-ment from Bangladesh authori-ties or from the joint-venture company behind the $1.7b power plant.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has defended the project and rejected concerns about it as politically motivated.

But it has sparked protests in Bangladesh, where hundreds of campaigners marched from Dhaka to the Sundarbans earlier this year to demand the project be cancelled.

On Tuesday, dozens of people were injured when police fi red

tear gas at hundreds of cam-paigners who were marching to the Indian embassy in Dhaka with a letter urging the Indian prime minister to scrap the project.

“Unesco has done a respon-sible job,” said Anu Moham-mad, a university professor who has been leading the campaign against the power plant.

“The government should heed their call and scrap the project. The sooner it is scrapped, the better for the Sundarbans.”

There was no immediate com-ment from the Bangladesh gov-ernment or the Bangladesh-In-dia Friendship Power Company Limited, which is setting up the plant at Rampal.

Company spokesman Anwarul

Azim said preliminary work had been completed and construc-tion would begin soon, but de-clined to comment directly on the report.

“They (Unesco) raised the concerns to the Bangladesh gov-ernment and the Bangladesh government will respond,” he said.

Unesco has asked the gov-ernment for a progress report by December on the state of conservation of the section of the Sundarbans that is a World Heritage site.

In its report it said the forest was also threatened by the con-struction of the Farakka Barrage on the river Ganges in the Indian state of West Bengal, which was reducing the fl ow of fresh water.

Ruling AL leader hacked to death

A leader of the Janata League, a front or-ganisation of the ruling

Awami League in Bangladesh, succumbed early yesterday to injuries sustained in a dead-ly attack the previous night, media reported.

Sheikh Swadhin Monir, president of Fatulla Awami Ja-nata League, was attacked near his house in Fatulla upazila of Narayanganj on Tuesday night, Dhaka Tribune reported.

Monir’s nephew Ashraf Hos-sain said: “My uncle had a feud with local Swechchhasebok League leader Mir Hossain Miru relating to the business of cable connection in the area.”

“Miru’s supporters stabbed my uncle and two aunts while they were returning home from

a relative’s house on Tuesday night.”

The injured were taken to Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) where Monir succumbed to his injuries.

DMCH police outpost sub-inspector Bachchu Mia said: “Monir died at the hospital around 6.00am today.”

Meanwhile, a court in east-ern Sylhet has city has police to conduct a fresh investiga-tion into blogger Ananta Bi-joy Das murder and submit a supplementary charge-sheet before it.

Sylhet Metropolitan Magis-trate Court-3 Judge Haridash Kumar passed the order.

Assistant public prosecutor Khokon Kumar Datta said the court rejected the charge-sheet submitted by Criminal Inves-tigation Department (CID) due to errors in the charge-sheet as the CID had recommended

exempting 11 people from the charge-sheet.

On August 28, CID inspector Arman Ali submitted a charge-sheet against fi ve people in the murder case.

Of them, two are now in jail while the others absconding.

The CID also recommended exempting 11 more people, in-cluding an alleged extremist blogger Shafi ur Rahman Farabi, from the charge-sheet as no evidence of their involvement in the killing was found.

On May 12, 2015 blogger Ananta was hacked to death by a group of assailants in broad daylight at Subidbazar Banka-lapara in Sylhet city.

Ananta was also a writer of the ‘Mukto-Mona blog’, found-ed by blogger Avijit Roy who was murdered on February 26, 2015, almost three months ago after he had come home from the USA.

IANSDhaka

Nepal to table charter amendment by Nov 6

Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Da-hal yesterday said the

government aims at tabling a constitution amendment pro-posal in the parliament before November 6 and will try to build consensus among the major stakeholders, including the agitating Madhesis.

While addressing the parlia-ment to inform about his re-cently concluded visit to Goa to attend the Brics-Bimstec Outreach Summit earlier this week, he said discussions were underway for the same so as to table the proposal within next three weeks, before the Chhath festival which is considered major in this country.

Dahal also informed the lawmakers that the draft of the proposal was at its fi nal stage.

He, however, admitted that talks held among the

major parties so far had not been much fruitful in this regard; hence, the govern-ment was doing further homework to make the discussions more fruitful.

The government has ac-corded top priority to con-clude the constitution amendment process in consensus of the main op-position CPN-UML and agitating parties and groups, including Madhesis, Tharus and Janajatis, he said.

“I want to assure you,” he said, addressing the disgrun-tled groups, “Your genuine concerns will be addressed.”

The Madhesi parties and ethnic minority groups have been pressing the govern-ment to amend the con-stitution at the earliest for addressing their demands relating to re-demarcation of provincial boundary and other relating to more rights and representation to the marginalised communities.

AgenciesKathmandu

Dhaka committed to work for chemical weapons free worldBangladesh has expressed its commitment to continue to promote the creation of a world free of chemical weapons, the country’s foreign ministry said yesterday.“Bangladesh, as a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention, would continue to promote peaceful use of chemicals and create a world free of chemical weapons,” Xinhua news agency quoted Bangladesh Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali as saying.Aki was meeting with Ahmet Uzumcu, director general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in Dhaka.They exchanged views on enhancing mutual cooperation in promoting the full and eff ective implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.The visiting director general commended Bangladesh’s strong commitment towards chemical safety.He was particularly happy with the eff orts by the Bangladesh authorities in implementing various provisions of the convention.Uzumcu is currently on a two-day visit to Dhaka at the invitation of the Bangladeshi government.

Nepal and India joint commission to hold fourth meetingThe fourth meeting of the India-Nepal Joint Commission, the top bilateral body at the foreign minister-level, will be held on October 26-27 in New Delhi, an off icial said yesterday.The Joint Commission meeting on October 27 will be followed by a foreign secretary-level meeting, Nepal’s ministry of foreign aff airs said in a statement.During the recent state visit of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal to

India, both sides had agreed to hold the meeting “at the earliest”.Foreign Minister Prakash Sharan Mahat and his Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj will lead the respective delegations at the meeting that will review and assess all facets of bilateral relations and will give a direction to the future course, said the statement.The meeting will also dwell upon a wide range of bilateral issues and try to find a way out, including

expediting the India-funded projects and setting up of a joint mechanism at the government level to monitor progress of these projects in Nepal.Besides, the meeting will also try to work out a time-bound plan to complete the pending projects, it said.Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Premier Dahal had agreed to expedite the pending projects through a bilateral monitoring mechanism.Earlier, the joint commission meeting was scheduled for August

20-22 in New Delhi, but it was cancelled after a change of guard in Kathmandu. The third meeting was held in Kathmandu in 2014 after a gap of 23 years.The joint commission is a high-level mechanism that aims to review India-Nepal relations in the areas of politics and security, trade and investment, water resources and power, connectivity, development assistance and education and culture.

By Ahmad Pathoni DPA/Jakarta

When Indonesian President Joko Widodo came to power two years ago after a closely fought

election, he faced an opposition majority in the legislature bent on obstructing him. Today the tables have turned.

Joko’s coalition now holds some 67% of the parliamentary seats after two key coalition parties switched allegiance in a move attributed to his astute political manoeuvring.

“Jokowi has been very successful in consolidating his power,” said Emrus Sihombing, a political analyst at Pelita Harapan University.

“Now there’s hardly opposition to his policies,” he said.

Joko, a former furniture businessman, won the presidential election in 2014 promising to boost economic growth and eradicate corruption.

“We’re seeing progress in the infrastructure sector, with the construction of new power plants, roads and railway lines, and people

appreciate that,” said Ari Kuncoro, an economics professor at the University of Indonesia.

“With the favourable political climate, Jokowi can implement his economic plans without hindrance,” he said.

Public satisfaction with Joko’s performance has also increased, according to a recent poll.

A survey released in September by the Jakarta-based private think tank Centre for Strategic and International Studies found that Widodo’s popularity rose nearly 16%, to 66%, from last year.

Joko enjoys high approval ratings for his perceived success in improving food security, strengthening the domestic industry and developing the country as a maritime power – among

his key campaign promises, according to the poll.

He has also won plaudits for making healthcare and education more accessible for the poor.

The president has jetted across the far-fl ung archipelago to inaugurate and inspect various infrastructure projects, as part of his signature hands-on leadership style.

“God willing, Papua and West Papua (provinces) won’t be dark anymore by 2019,” Joko said after inaugurating six power plants in Papua on Monday.

Joko has courted China to help build the country’s infrastructure, whose dilapidated state is seen as an impediment to strong growth.

China is building a 140km high-speed railway connecting the capital Jakarta and Bandung in West Java, while direct foreign investment from China has also increased.

The Indonesia economy grew 5.2% year-over-year in the second quarter.

“Indonesia needs to achieve economic growth of more than 6% if it wants to create more jobs,” Ari said.

Joko is not without his critics. His appointment of a former military chief with a dubious human rights

record has raised doubts about his commitment to solve cases of past rights abuses, including army excesses in the rebellious Papua region.

“In terms of human rights, I give him zero,” said Haris Azhar, the head of the local human rights group Kontras. “Not a single past rights abuse case has been solved,” he said.

Joko’s tacit alliance with the military has raised concerns about the return of military control over civilian life.

Under Joko, the military has been given non-combat roles including increased security functions, helping police in combating terrorism and drug traffi cking, as well as serving as advisers in the government’s food self-suffi ciency programme.

“Indeed, constrained within a tangle of oligarchic politics, Jokowi has to do what needs to be done to advance his political goals,” wrote Emirza Adi Syailendra, an analyst with the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

“The puzzling question is, however, whether these political transactions will, in the long run, be worth it for Indonesia’s democratic progress,” he added.

P.O.Box 2888Doha, Qatar

[email protected] 44350478 (news),

44466404 (sport), 44466636 (home delivery) Fax 44350474

Chairman: Abdullah bin Khalifa al-AttiyahProduction Editor: C P Ravindran


COMMENT26

GULF TIMES

Killer satellites, blinding lasers, sophisticated jammers: the world’s military powers are quietly readying for a war in outer space – at the risk of fuelling a dangerous new arms race.

US military offi cials have in recent years sounded growing alarm about the potential vulnerabilities of their satellites, which underpin US military power.

Initially, the reserve of the United States and the Soviet Union, space has now become accessible to an ever-expanding multitude of nations and private fi rms.

And Moscow and Beijing are keen to show off their space-attack capabilities, a deep worry for US strategists.

“We are changing the culture in our space enterprise because we need to get our heads around... what happens if a confl ict on Earth extends to space. How will we defend our assets?” Air Force secretary Deborah Lee James said at an event last month.

In 2015, the mysterious behaviour of a Russian satellite fuelled speculation about Moscow developing possible attack satellites, capable of manoeuvring through space and approaching a target.

Without warning or explanation, the craft positioned itself for several months between two Intelsat satellites

in geostationary orbit, coming to within 10km of one, before eventually moving away again.

“Our satellites are crucial for our national security infrastructure,” said Victoria Samson of

the Secure World Foundation, which works to develop the safe and sustainable use of space.

“The fact that another entity can come close to them and interfere with their work is very unsettling to US national security,” she added.

China, too, has demonstrated its ability to send a small, low-orbit satellite capable of manoeuvring toward another craft.

Teresa Hitchens, senior research scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, said that China in 2013 launched three small satellites into orbit, one of which had a robotic grappling arm.

For the Pentagon and many US experts, it is clear America should speed up military eff orts in space, and prevent its communications network from becoming the armed forces’ Achilles heel.

“The Department of Defence has aggressively moved out to develop responses that we see coming from China and Russia. I believe it’s essential that we go faster in our responses,” General John Hyten, head of the Air Force’s Space Command, told lawmakers in September.

The United States has since 2004 possessed a mobile jamming station which, from the ground, can block satellite communications.

America has already tested using a missile to blow up a satellite, and has recently acquired four satellites that can manoeuvre in orbit and inspect or monitor other space objects.

Space war could be devastating for humans, as a single exploded satellite would leave a trail of debris that in turn could damage other satellites in a chain reaction of destruction.

The threat of a new arms racein outer space

Two years after election, Widodo’s popularity surges

Space war could be devastating for humans

For the upcoming months, La Niña favours colder winters in the northern US and drier conditions across the southern tier

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2016 Gulf Times. All rights reserved

Stronger-than-expected La Niña may be brewingLa Niña, characterised by cooler-than-normal surface waters in the equatorial Pacifi c Ocean, has not offi cially been in place since the fi rst quarter of 2012

By Karen BraunReuters

Many have doubted forecasts calling for the onset of the fi rst La Niña in almost fi ve years,

believing that its failure to materialise in convincing fashion last summer – as originally predicted – means that it may be off the table for 2016-17.

But in recent weeks, the oceans and atmosphere have been pulling everything into place to facilitate a potentially stronger La Niña than previously thought, so those who follow commodities markets may want to take a second look.

Last Thursday, the US Climate Prediction Center reissued the La Niña watch that was removed in early September. The watch indicates that conditions are favourable for the phenomenon’s development within the next six months.

El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), with its cool phase La Niña and warm phase El Niño, is one of the most reliable long-term indicators for global climate. The ENSO phases can have drastically diff erent impacts on commodities worldwide – from energy use to grain yields.

La Niña, characterised by cooler-than-normal surface waters in the equatorial Pacifi c Ocean, has not offi cially been in place since the fi rst

quarter of 2012. But recently, cooling sea surface temperatures in the key Niño 3.4 region have touched the levels of early 2012.

CPC now says there is a 70% chance that La Niña will develop during the Northern Hemisphere autumn 2016 and there is a 55% chance it will persist during winter 2016-17. This is up from last month’s forecast of a 40 to 45% chance of development.

The environment has not fully committed to the La Niña cycle for Northern Hemispheric winter as the sea surface temperature anomalies have at times hesitated to maintain the downward plunge.

But there are larger-scale features in

the oceans and atmosphere that appear consistent with soon welcoming a full-on La Niña, rather than a borderline event or a neutral ENSO.

Over the past few months, there has been a considerable shift in the Pacifi c Decadal Oscillation or PDO, a large-scale, long-term climate variability in the North Pacifi c Ocean that is closely associated with ENSO cycles.

A positive PDO index is associated with anomalously cool waters and below-average sea level pressure in the interior North Pacifi c, while a negative PDO index is the inverse scenario. Positive PDO is often correlated with El Niño and negative

PDO typically coincides with La Niña. The PDO index has been unusually

positive over the past two years, which is not surprising given the record-strong El Niño observed late last year. Since 1900, the fi rst six months of 2016 and 2015 ranked third and fourth for highest average PDO index, behind 1941 and 1940.

But the index has been on a steep decline over the past couple of months, and September’s reading of 0.45 was the lowest value since February 2014. PDO has not been negative since December 2013.

This substantial shift in overall oceanic-atmospheric conditions certainly makes a good case for La Niña, so a close watch on PDO trends over the next few months may hint at whether La Niña conditions could stick around, or whether neutral ENSO or a reversal back to El Niño is possible in 2017.

Another climate indicator, the Madden-Julian Oscillation or MJO, has also been paving the path for La Niña via the trade winds, which are among the most important elements in determining ENSO phase.

MJO is a cluster of thunderstorms that circles the globe every 30 to 90 days and is instrumental in bringing rainfall to more drought-prone regions in the tropics. In recent weeks, the MJO cluster has been very prominent in the Western Pacifi c Ocean.

This is crucial for the development of La Niña because the persistent low pressure from the storm activity in the Western Pacifi c is highly conducive to strengthening the trade winds. The stronger the trade winds in this region, the more La Niña is favoured.

The equatorial trade winds have become much more consistently favourable for La Niña than they had been just a couple months ago. While the cooler waters required for La Niña have existed within the ocean for some

time now, the trade winds did not allow them to surface until late June.

Also highly infl uential in the ENSO cycle is the Southern Oscillation Index, or SOI, which is a measure of the pressure tendency between Tahiti and Darwin, Australia. A positive SOI index is supportive of La Niña and negative values favour El Niño.

While SOI and the trade winds often go hand-in-hand, they do not always follow the same tendency. This was particularly the case in late 2014 when conditions seemed to overwhelmingly favour development of a strong El Niño, but since SOI and the trade winds were out of sync, El Niño was not able to pick up notable strength until mid-2015.

The trade winds and SOI are currently aligned in favour of La Niña to the greatest degree in three years. Together with MJO, SOI and the trades operate on a shorter time scale than features like PDO, but all three will play a key role in the degree to which La Niña arises in the Pacifi c this year.

For the upcoming months, La Niña favours colder winters in the Northern US and drier conditions across the southern tier.

Parts of Southeast Asia that dried out during last year’s El Niño may be subject to heavier bouts of rain over the next few months as La Niña tends to introduce a wetter pattern to the Western Pacifi c Rim. Australia is included on this list, though the Aussies and several areas of Southeast Asia were saved last year from El Niño’s typical parching by an increase in MJO activity.

Heading into Northern Hemispheric spring and summer, Atlantic hurricane activity generally increases with La Niña and Eastern Pacifi c hurricanes are fewer. El Niño often suppresses Atlantic hurricane activity while amplifying it in the Eastern Pacifi c.

Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo congratulating former transportation minister Ignasius Jonan, left, after the latter was sworn in as the new energy and mineral resources minister, during a ceremony at the presidential palace in Jakarta last Friday.

“Indonesia needs to achieve economic growth of more than 6% if it wants to create more jobs”

COMMENT

Is fl ossing your teeth a waste of time?Live issues

Gulf Times Thursday, October 20, 2016 27

With greater scope for longer-term thinking, executives would make decisions that have a long-term payoff , even if they are costly today

By Mark RoeCambridge

An often-heard refrain, increasingly voiced in US politics, is that corporate America is excessively

infl uenced by short-term stock-market considerations. While the US presidential election is not particularly focused on policy at the moment, the campaign will soon end, at which point people will govern and policies will be adopted.

Given that both Republicans and Democrats have criticised short-termism, it is possible that some of those policies might aim to address it. They are unlikely to make any diff erence.

Not only has the problem of short-termism been woefully exaggerated, but the policy proposals for addressing it are severely lacking. Consider Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s proposal – which Vice President Joe Biden has endorsed – to use the capital gains tax to encourage shareowners to hold on to their stock for a longer time.

The idea is that when shareowners furiously trade their stock, corporate executives feel pressed to ensure high earnings every quarter, so that the share price does not fall. Investment in, say, research and development, despite its long-term benefi ts, can induce shareowners to sell, punishing the company with a declining stock price.

Today, the lower capital gains rate is available on shareholder profi ts made when selling stock held for one year or more. Clinton and her advisers hope, instead, to tax capital gains at ordinary rates for stock held for up to two years, after which the rate would decline by four percentage points per year until, after several years, it reached the current long-term rate, which tops out for wealthy investors at 20%.

If stockholders know that holding a company’s stock will eventually allow them to benefi t from a lower tax

rate, the argument goes, they will be more willing to withstand a drop in that company’s quarterly earnings. With greater scope for longer-term thinking, executives would make decisions that have a long-term payoff , even if they are costly today.

The plan certainly sounds reasonable. The problem is that a falling tax rate for capital gains will not stop most stockholders from trading; at most, it will impel some of them trade less often. Executives will still have to worry about the price that

traders accord to their stock. Of course, curtailing the velocity of

trading may have other eff ects, both good and bad. If too many resources and too much brainpower are now devoted to fi nding slight underpricing or overpricing of stock, Clinton’s programme might be a good thing, as it would help to reallocate those resources. If, however, less trading makes markets more volatile and unpredictable, taxing short-termism could turn out to be a cure worse than the disease.

In any case, Clinton’s programme will not achieve its stated goal of inducing those doing the trading, and thus setting stock prices, to take a longer-term perspective. Nor will it make corporate executives less concerned about the next quarter’s results. Prices will, after all, still be going up and down.

There is another reason the proposal will not be eff ective: many of the largest shareowners are institutions that don’t pay tax anyway, such as pension funds

and foundations. And many other stockholders buy and sell within a year, even though it means paying the full tax rate. Their decision-making time horizon will not be aff ected by a long phase-in of the more advantageous tax rate.

But the fact that Clinton’s plan will not achieve its goal is not exactly the end of the world. Contrary to widespread belief, stock-market-induced short-termism is probably not much of an economic handicap anyway. There is considerable (though not conclusive) evidence that it is not nearly as widespread – or as problematic – as many think.

Consider this: four of the 10 biggest companies in the United States today, measured by stock-market capitalisation, are Amazon, Apple, Alphabet (Google) and Microsoft. None of them can be accused of failing to invest in R&D or other long-term, sometimes even visionary, projects. And the stock market supports all of them well. If they can do it, others can – and surely do.

Simply put, ending short-termism has turned into a bigger political issue than it deserves to be. It is a cause that resonates widely not because short-termism is hampering the economy, but because saying that it is justifi es protecting those with a stake in the status quo – well-paid employees; CEOs and senior managers; and board directors – from rapid change.

The bottom line is that there are bigger, more pressing problems to address. And, even if short-termism were a major problem, Clinton’s tax proposal would not resolve it. The good news here is that the plan is not particularly high on Clinton’s agenda, leaving a chance that she might not feel compelled to implement it when elected. – Project Syndicate

Mark Roe is a professor at Harvard Law School.

The chimera of stock-market short-termism

By Dr Luisa Dillner London

“I don’t need to fl oss” is a sentence my dentist never used to hear – not until recently, when the latest

Dietary Guidelines for Americans stopped recommending it. Now, lots of his patients are telling him they’ve stopped. Despite the NHS advising daily fl ossing – and almost all dentists being fans of interdental cleaning – an investigation by Associated Press found “little proof that fl ossing works”.

But how can it not be good for you? Between our teeth are interdental sites coated in dental plaque. Plaque is a layer of bacteria mixed with organic matter that coats teeth and causes gum infl ammation (gingivitis) and tooth decay.

Early warning signs include bleeding gums. Toothbrushes get rid of plaque

from other surfaces, but are not so good between teeth. Surely fl oss can reach the parts that brushes can’t?

The lack of good research emerged in a 2011 systematic review by the Cochrane Oral Health Group. Its summary of results from 12 studies found only weak evidence that fl ossing (plus brushing) reduces bleeding from gums, and none for plaque reduction. But good studies are hard to do.

The quality of fl ossing varies. One study showed that professional fl ossing fi ve times a week can reduce tooth decay – a result not seen in any studies of self-fl ossing – so it’s clearly a skill. Experts advise moving the fl oss, held in a C shape, away from the gum in an up-and-down motion.

However, the Cochrane paper actually said that, although the research was poor, the benefi ts of fl ossing probably outweighed any risks. Bleeding gums is a risk factor in developing chronic gum disease than can destroy the bone underneath.

Professor Damien Walmsley, a scientifi c adviser for the British Dental

Association, says that brushing teeth twice a day with a fl uoride toothpaste and only occasionally eating sugar treats after meals is the best way to prevent tooth decay. He believes fl ossing is of little value and that small interdental brushes are better at cleaning the gaps between teeth.

No one, however, is arguing that fl ossing isn’t useful for dislodging unsightly food stuck between teeth. My own dentist, Richard Travers, thinks we can drop the daily enslavement and reduce fl ossing to twice a week, increasing if our gums start bleeding.

His gut feeling, from what he sees, is that both fl ossing and interdental brushes are useful. And, in a recent feature in the British Dental Journal, senior dentists including Phil Ower, the president of the British Society of Periodontology, announced that they still fl oss their own teeth. – Guardian News and Media

Caff eine could help prevent dementiaBy Karen HerzogMilwaukee Journal Sentinel/TNS

A new study suggests a signifi cant relationship between caff eine and dementia prevention, though

it stops short of establishing cause and eff ect.

The study, published in The Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, found higher caff eine intake in women age 65 and older was associated with reduced odds of developing dementia or cognitive impairment.

Among the 6,467 women in the study, self-reported caff eine consumption of more than 261 milligrams of caff eine was associated with a 36% reduction in the risk of dementia over 10 years of follow-up. That level is equivalent to two to three 8-ounce cups of coff ee per day, fi ve to six 8-ounce cups of black tea, or seven to eight 12-ounce cans of cola.

“While we can’t make a direct link between higher caff eine consumption and lower incidence of cognitive impairment and dementia, with further study, we can better quantify its relationship with cognitive health outcomes,” said Ira Driscoll, the study’s lead author and a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

“Research on this topic will be benefi cial not only from a preventative standpoint but also to

better understand the underlying mechanisms and their involvement in dementia and cognitive impairment,” she said.

Researchers know that caff eine binds to pre-existing adenosine receptors in the brain, so the fi ndings point to a potential mechanism worth further exploring to determine

a causative eff ect, Driscoll told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

“The mounting evidence of caff eine consumption as a potentially protective factor against cognitive impairment is exciting given that caff eine is also an easily modifi able dietary factor” with few risk factors, Driscoll said.

The study was unique because researchers had an unprecedented opportunity to examine over time the relationships between caff eine intake and dementia incidence in a large group of women who consumed diff erent amounts of caff eine, according to Driscoll.

The fi ndings come from participants in the Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Driscoll and her research colleagues used data from 6,467 postmenopausal women age 65 and older who reported some level of caff eine consumption. Intake was estimated from questions about coff ee, tea and cola beverage intake, including frequency and serving size.

In 10 years or less of follow-up with annual assessments of cognitive function, 388 of these women received a diagnosis of probable dementia or some form of global cognitive impairment.

Those who consumed above the median amount of caff eine for this group (with an average intake of 261mg per day) were diagnosed at a lower rate than those who fell below the median (with an average intake of 64mg per day).

The researchers adjusted for risk factors such as hormone therapy, age, race, education, body mass index, sleep quality, depression, hypertension, prior cardiovascular disease, diabetes, smoking and alcohol consumption.

A trader working on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Three-day forecast

TODAY

SATURDAY

High: 35 C

Low : 25 C

High: 36 C

Low: 24 C

Weather report

Around the region

Abu DhabiBaghdadDubaiKuwait CityManamaMuscatRiyadhTehran

Weather todayM SunnySunnyM SunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunny

Around the world

Athens BeirutBangkok BerlinCairoCape Town ColomboDhakaHong KongIstanbulJakartaKarachiLondonManilaMoscowNew DelhiNew York ParisSao PauloSeoulSingaporeSydney Tokyo Clear

Max/min22/1425/2032/2611/0428/1827/1629/2633/2330/2718/1332/2632/2414/0729/2603/0136/2121/1915/0731/1925/1332/2619/1426/16

Weather todayP CloudySunnyS T StormsS ShowersSunnyM SunnyS T StormsSunnyP CloudyP CloudyS T StormsSunnyM CloudyT StormsCloudySunnyRainM CloudyT StormsM SunnyS T StormsS Showers

Fishermen’s forecast

OFFSHORE DOHAWind: NW-NE 03-13 KTWaves: 1-3 Feet

INSHORE DOHAWind: SW-NW 05-15 KTWaves: 1-2 Feet

High: 36 C

Low: 25 C

FRIDAY

Hazy at places at first becomes moderate temperature daytime with some local clouds

Sunny

Sunny

Max/min36/2333/1634/2437/2136/2434/2634/1922/13

Weather tomorrowSunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunny

Max/min35/2333/1733/2336/2134/2633/2634/19

Max/min23/1725/2131/2609/0428/1819/1329/2533/2228/2720/1232/2532/2413/0631/2503/036/2222/1214/0522/1722/1332/2528/1720/14

Weather tomorrowS ShowersM SunnyS T StormsS ShowersSunnyS ShowersShowersSunnyHeavy RainP CloudyT StormsSunnyP CloudyT StormsCloudySunnyS ShowersP CloudyS T StormsP CloudyS T StormsM SunnyCloudy

22/11

QATAR


Video Home receives LG award for highest TV sales in MideastVideo Home & Electronics

Centre has been award-ed by LG for the high-

est growth in television sales amongst the distributors from the Middle East.

The award was presented at the recent annual conference of LG in Korea with distributors from the Middle East to discuss business plans for the year 2017.

The team from Video Home was also given a tour of the R&D facility of LG and taken through the product roadmap for 2017 of new products that will be intro-duced in Qatar.

C V Rappai, director and CEO of Video Home & Electronic Centre said: “We are proud to receive this recognition, it is all the more special to us as this year we are also celebrating our 30 years of partnership with the LG Brand. Qatar is a rapidly growing market in the GCC and the premium television segment continues to show robust growth with demand for new technolo-gies like OLED on the rise. This award also demonstrates the consumer confi dence in LG tel-evisions.

“LG introduced the OLED TV in Qatar last year which greatly helped increase the sales of tel-evisions in Qatar. Coined as a revolutionary new technology, OLED allows televisions to dis-play true black in a way other TV technologies sold today just cannot. With this incredible precision, OLED TVs can render crisp, nuanced images down to the most precise details. OLED’s

deep black also serves as the per-fect backdrop for rendering vi-brant colours without light noise interfering with the picture.

“LG’s technological advance-

ments in OLED technology is also promising with the potential it has created by expanding the market share in the premium TV market. According to latest re-

ports, LG plans to triple its OLED TV sales while the company dou-bles its UHD TV global market share. Research fi rm IHS esti-mates that the size of the UHD

TV market would expand by up to 150% by the end of 2016, while the OLED TV market volume would triple during this year.”

Video Home general man-

ager Mohamed Anis, assistant general manager (fi nance) Uday Bhagat and divisional manager (LG TV) Rajesh Menon received the award from LG Gulf presi-

dent Y G Choi. LG Gulf general manager J D Lee, TV Product head (Korea) S J Moon and LG TV Gulf sales manager Gulam Mah-boob were present.

Video Home and LG off icials after the award ceremony.

LuLu summer promotion ‘off ers 50% discount’The LuLu Summer Sale is

on at all LuLu outlets un-til November 5.

“Prices will be slashed up to 50% on garments including menswear, children’s wear, la-dies’ wear, saris, churidhar, chu-ridhar material, footwear, and ladies’ bags,” a statement said.

World-class brands, includ-ing Hush Puppies, Crocs, Ree-bok, Skechers, Woodlands, Nike, Converse, Francajel, Dick-ies, Josef Seibel, Sapatoterapia, Louis Philippe, Van Heusen, Al-len Solly, Arrow, Wrangler, Kill-er, Lee, Eten, John Louis, Arezzo, De Backers, Marco Donateli, Cortigiani, Sero and Oxemberg are available on sale.

“There would be attractive promotions in other sections as well,” the statement explained. The objective of the promotion is to meet the requirements of the customers “at highly rea-sonable and modest prices.”

Also launched is the ‘Win 1,500 Free Trolleys with LuLu’ promotion for the second time in Qatar. Customers buying su-permarket items will have the opportunity to win the full trol-ley of items shopped by them for free while making payment

at the checkout on the POS ma-chine. The promotion, entirely controlled by the computer system, will continue until No-vember 6 at LuLu outlets at D-Ring Road, Al Gharrafa, Al Khor Mall and Barwa City.

Another off er titled ‘15/20 Deals’ on selected items in all categories will continue un-

til October 23. Further, select household items are available at 25% discount and select home furnishing items at 20% dis-count.

Nestle has also launched a promotion in co-ordination with LuLu Group wherein cus-tomers purchasing Nescafe products worth QR30 are en-

titled to get a coupon to win a Quad bike and other prizes in-cluding cooler, grill, sleeping bag and tent. This promotion will continue until October 25 and the mega draw will be held on October 27.

Customers will also get more savings if they do their purchase on LuLu-Doha Bank credit card.

The LuLu Summer Sale is on at all outlets until November 5.

Qatari students drive rise in QU college admissionsThe strength of Qatar Uni-

versity College of Busi-ness & Economics (QU-

CBE) has risen to 4,110 with the admission of 899, comprising 75% Qataris during Fall 2016.

This was revealed by CBE dean Dr Khalid Shams M A al-Abdulqader at a press briefi ng to outline the key achievements, developments and future plans for the academic year 2016-2017.

Management and Market-ing Department head Dr Bader al-Esmail, Finance & Econom-ics head Dr Salem Nechi and Accounting and Information Systems head Dr Mostafa Kamal Hassan were also present.

Dr al-Abdulqader outlined the four pillars of the college’s new strategic plan, which are: gradu-ating high-qualifi ed profession-als who will contribute to Qatar’s growth and progress, establish-ing new graduate programmes

specially designed to meet the needs of the labour market, pro-moting student engagement in research activities that develop their skills, and advancing a culture of community engage-ment through the development of a new strategy for expansion in executive education, and the promotion of application ses-sions in key areas such as human capital management, business analyses and project manage-ment.

The CBE dean stressed the importance of strengthening links with the College’s Advisory Council and various sectors of society through the establish-ment of partnerships with gov-ernmental and non-governmen-tal institutions in Qatar.

He also referred to the recent agreement which was signed with “Big Four” accounting fi rms – Deloitte, Ernst & Young

(EY), KPMG and Pricewater-houseCoopers (PwC).

“This agreement aimed to establish collaboration on the development and the delivery of a tax awareness training pro-gramme for CBE students”, he said, adding, “The training ses-sions will be provided at QU dur-ing the 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 academic years. They are de-

signed to highlight key points in international tax principles and Qatari tax law, and will use in-dicative examples.”

Dr al-Abdulqader also high-lighted the PhD Programme in Business Administration, launched this year. The pro-gramme is accredited by the As-sociation to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).

“This demonstrates the quality of our programmes since only 5% of business colleges in the world are accredited by AACSB.”

Dr al-Esmail explained the College’s Management and Mar-keting Department comprises a total of 829 students, includ-ing 658 Qatari nationals. The number of faculty has increased to 36.

Dr al-Esmail also noted that the department made a number of achievements such as the proposal of 252 new English and Arabic programmes for Fall and Spring 2016, and the publication of 48 papers in high-level jour-nals and conferences, among many others.

On the College’s Finance & Economics Department, Dr Nechi noted that the department off ers accounting courses in Ar-abic for the Arabic track, while restructuring the Management Information Systems (MIS) Ma-jor in line with the needs of the labour market.

“During the academic year 2015-2016, the department ap-proved a restructuring of the Master of Accounting pro-gramme into two tracks – thesis track and non-thesis track. The proposal is yet to be approved by the university, and we expect to

implement changes in Fall 2016.” “The Department also es-

tablished a new 4 + 1 master’s programme. This fi ve-year ac-counting programme will allow students to complete the Bach-elor of Business Administration (BBA) in Accounting and the Master of Accounting (MAC) programmes in fi ve years in-stead of six. The fourth year of the programme is a transition in which students complete their bachelor’s degree and start their master’s degree.”

Dr Nechi noted that the de-partment will continue to ad-vance its research initiatives through the organisation of re-search forums and seminars on tax awareness with the aim to ensure a full engagement with the community, the establish-ment of research groups and the improvement of research

metrics.

QU-CBE off icials at the press briefing.

QCS, Woqod in pact for health awarenessQatar Cancer Society

(QCS) and Qatar Fuel (Woqod) have signed a

three-year agreement for health awareness in the community, es-pecially on cancer.

The agreement was signed by Sheikh Dr Khalid bin Jabor al-Thani, chairman of Qatar Can-cer Society and Ibrahim Jaham al-Kuwari, CEO of Woqod.

Sheikh Dr Khalid said the agreement seeks to promote awareness of the diseases, among diff erent segments of so-ciety, which cannot be achieved without the support and co-operation of the institutions and agencies operating in the coun-try.

“Promotion of health educa-tion in the community is a shared responsibility and we thank Wo-qod for their generous support for the cause of health awareness programmes and events.”

Al-Kuwari said the agreement is within the company’s com-mitment to social responsibility by providing material and moral support to the activities and events of Qatar Cancer Society, as well as participating in aware-ness campaigns and other activ-ities carried out by the society.

Woqod is the gold sponsor of the Breast Cancer Conference or-ganised by QCS in collaboration with several other healthcare or-ganisations in the country.

The conference will be held at Sheraton Doha on October 28-29 under the slogan, ‘Present Standards and New Perspec-

tives.’ Over 2,500 scientists, researchers and delegates from diff erent countries will discuss a number of topics related to breast cancer including the lat-est developments in the treat-ment of the disease, preventive measures and future steps to contain the disease.

Sheikh Dr Khalid bin Jabor al-Thani and Ibrahim Jaham al-Kuwari exchange the agreement.

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