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• HRH the Crown Prince yesterday officially inaugurated the Embassy of the Kingdom of Bahrain in Rome.

• HRH the Crown Prince commended Pope Francis for spreading the message of peace and coexistence.

Rome

His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince,

Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minis-ter, yesterday met with Giuseppe Conte, Prime Minister of the Ital-ian Republic, at the Palazzo Chigi in Rome.

During the meeting, HRH the Crown Prince conveyed HM the King and HRH the Prime Minis-ter’s wishes of progress and pros-perity for the Italian Republic and its people.

HRH the Crown Prince not-

ed that bilateral ties continue to move from strength to strength under the leadership of HM the King, as evidenced by high-level exchanges and the inauguration of Bahrain’s Embassy in Rome.

HRH the Crown Prince recog-nised economic and trade ties as the cornerstone of bilateral relations, underscoring that these ties and the agreements that will be signed during the visit will continue to boost shared pros-perity far beyond the borders of both nations.

Later, HRH the Crown Prince and the Prime Minister then ex-changed views on regional and international issues of common concern. A number of senior of-ficials from HRH’s official dele-gation also attended the meeting.

Earlier during the day, HRH the Crown Prince officially inaugu-rated the Embassy of the King-dom of Bahrain in Rome, Italy.

HRH the Crown Prince noted that the inauguration of Bahrain’s Embassy marks a new milestone in bilateral relations, which have continually deepened over the past 50 years.

HRH the Crown Prince identi-fied Bahrain’s Embassy in Rome

as a new platform for collabo-ration, noting that the mission would promote a stronger trad-ing partnership between the two countries.

His Royal Highness went on to highlight the concerted efforts of Bahrain’s diplomatic engage-ments and Bahraini diplomats, which expand the Kingdom’s in-ternational network, strengthen cooperation with friendly nations and drive national development.

HRH the Crown Prince con-

cluded by underlining the King-dom’s determination to work closely with its Italian partners to broaden collaboration at all levels.

Later, HRH the Crown Prince unveiled a commemorative plaque, marking the official open-ing of the Embassy.

HRH the Crown Prince’s offi-cial delegation, Ambassador Elis-abetta Belloni, Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation

of the Italian Republic, and a number of Italian officials, also attended the inauguration cer-emony.

Separately, HRH the Crown Prince met His Holiness Pope Francis at the Apostolic Palace, in the Vatican City State.

During the meeting, HRH the Crown Prince conveyed HM King Hamad’s greetings, wishing the Vatican City State continued pro-gress and prosperity.

HRH the Crown Prince em-phasised that Bahrain’s develop-ment is closely aligned with the Kingdom’s deep-rooted values of diversity and co-existence, prin-ciples that ensure unity in the Kingdom’s multicultural society.

HRH the Crown Prince noted that growing bilateral ties with the Vatican City State stand as a testament to HM King Ham-ad’s determination to promote peaceful coexistence, underlining the Kingdom’s commitment to interfaith dialogue.

HRH the Crown Prince com-mended Pope Francis for spread-ing the message of peace and co-existence, noting that these prin-ciples are building blocks through which societies can thrive.

Building bonds of

friendship HRH the Crown Prince holds talk with Italy Premier, Pope Francis

Tourism co-operation deal Rome

Industry, Commerce and Tourism Minister Zayed

Alzayani and Ministry of Cul-tural Heritage and Activities and Tourism (MiBAC) Under-secretary of State Lorenza Bo-naccorsi yesterday signed a co-operation agreement. The deal was sealed on the sidelines of the visit of His Royal High-ness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander

and First Deputy Prime Min-ister to Italy. This agreement aims to increase tourism flows by encouraging individual and organised trips between the two countries, in addition to strengthening partnership in the field of promoting food and agricultural products and var-ious tourism products, includ-ing sustainable tourism. The two countries also commit to intensify cooperation between administrative structures and organise training programmes

Bahrain ‘free of coronavirus’ Manama

The Ministry of Health yesterday declared the

Kingdom free of the novel coronavirus.

It refuted the allegations, which were published in a local newspaper claiming two students who returned from the city of Wuhan, Chi-na, had been diagnosed with the virus.

In a statement issued last night, the ministry urged the public to seek accurate infor-mation from official sources.

The ministry said that it is monitoring the develop-ments of the disease, adding that it has taken preventive measures, including screen-ing at entry border points.

The ministry has also al-located hotline 17246769 round the clock to reply to the queries of citizens and residents regarding the nov-el coronavirus. See Pages 2, 6

China Embassy press conference TDT | Manama

Chinese Embassy in the Kingdom will host a

press conference on corona-virus control from 10 am to 11:30 am on Thursday, Feb-ruary 6, 2020 at its premis-es, it is learnt.

Chinese Ambassador Mr Anwaer will make a speech on coronavirus control and the situation in China at the press conference apart from speaking to members of the media, a press release is-sued by the embassy said yesterday.

HRH the Crown Prince with Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte.

HRH the Crown Prince being received by Pope Francis at Apostolic Palace in Vatican. HRH the Crown Prince inaugurates the Kingdom’s Embassy in Rome.

02TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2020

His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander, and First Deputy Prime Minister, yesterday met the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. During the meeting, HRH the Crown Prince stressed the importance of further strengthening relations with the Vatican City State, noting the Kingdom’s commitment to inter-faith understanding and cultural diversity. HRH the Crown Prince highlighted that the Kingdom’s diverse society has embraced all religions and faiths, and is a reflection of HM the King’s far-reaching vision of peace and harmony.

His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister, yesterday met with Dr Ahmad bin Salim bin Mohammed Ba Omar, Dean of the Arab Diplomatic Corps and Ambassador of the Sultanate of Oman to the Italian Republic, Prince Faisal bin Sattam bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the Italian Republic, and Shaikh Azzam Mubarak Sabah Al Sabah, Ambassador of the State of Kuwait to the Italian Republic, on the sidelines of an official visit to the Italian Republic. During the meeting, HRH the Crown Prince highlighted the successful role played by Ambassadors in serving the interests of their countries and their citizens.

Information and eGovernment Authority (iGA) Chief Executive, Mohammed Ali AlQaed has praised the efforts of the National Institution for Human Rights (NIHR) in promoting principles and values aimed at creating a human rights culture. Mr AlQaed’s comments were made during a meeting with NIHR Chairperson, Maria Khoury, in the presence of NIHR Secretary General, Yasser Ghanim Shaheen and other representatives of the organisation. He welcomed them, applauding their accomplishments, particularly in organising human rights training programmes and workshops, and co-operating with various official bodies and local and international organisations to encourage protecting human rights.

• The panel shall co-ordinate with the National Committee for Disaster Management regarding suspicious cases or when a case is detected in the country.

Manama

The Cabinet yesterday chaired by Deputy Prime Minister, His Highness

Shaikh Mohammed bin Mubar-ak Al Khalifa, has vowed to step up measures to tackle coronavi-rus threat in the Kingdom.

The session was informed about the efforts and precau-tionary measures being taken to prevent novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) from reaching the kingdom.

While reviewing the latest de-velopments of the epidemic, the Cabinet stressed the importance of further ramping up strict pre-ventive measures, including the formation of a team, led by the President of the Supreme Coun-cil for Health, Lieutenant-Gen-eral Dr. Shaikh Mohammed bin Abdulla Al Khalifa, to address

the risk of coronavirus infection and manage the precautionary and preventive measures med-ically.

The panel shall co-ordinate with the National Committee for Disaster Management re-garding suspicious cases or when a case is detected in the country.

Among other things, the ses-sion reviewed the progress of the implementation of four ed-ucational and service projects ordered by HRH the Prime Min-ister in the Muharraq Governo-rate and Hamad Town.

They include the establish-ment of new schools in Qalali and Hamad Town, the restora-tion of schools in the Muhar-

raq Governorate and increasing cleaning services at schools, a memorandum submitted by the Minister of Education, and

referred by the Cabinet to the Ministerial Committee for Fi-nancial and Economic Affairs and Fiscal Balance, as well as to the Ministerial Committee for Development and Infrastruc-ture Projects, said.

In the same context, the ses-sion followed up on the progress of the implementation of HRH Premier’s directives to meet the service educational needs of Barbar villagers, as highlighted in another memorandum pre-sented by the Minister of Ed-ucation.

The Cabinet was informed about the procedures taken so far, including the needs of the Education Ministry regarding human resources and construc-

tion aspects, through the new construction plan put forward by the same Ministry for the years 2020-2030 to cover the needs of the governorates regarding new schools, the maintenance of the temporarily evacuated ones and the maintenance of all schools

during the same period.The Cabinet reviewed the

progress of 102 development projects being implemented under the supervision of the Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning Ministry in the roads and sanitation, as well as construction and main-tenance sectors, at an estimated value of BD 379 million. They in-clude 20 roads projects, costing BD 171 million, 53 sanitation pro-jects, worth BD 121 million, and 29 construction and building projects, costing BD 86 million.

The session also took note of the tenders that had been awarded and launched in 2019 in the three sectors mentioned above.

Cabinet session vows to step up measures to tackle corona threat

Session briefed on efforts in place to deal with suspicious cases of coronavirus infection

HH Shaikh Mohammed

102development projects

are being currently implemented by the Ministry of Works,

Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning.

The recently-elected body of PTI Overseas Bahrain chapter held an introductory press conference at Spice Court Restaurant in Sitra. Mr Nadeem Babar, President, Hanif Malik, Senior VP, Ghulam Murtaza, General Secretary and Dil Afsar, Additional General-Secretary and PTI Core Committee and community members were present at the press conference.

Members of the Bahrain Defence Force’s special duty force group participating in the Saudi Arabia-led Arab Coalition Restoring Hope operation in Yemen were honoured at a ceremony held under the patronage of His Highness Major General Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, National Security Adviser and Commander of the Royal Guard, at Isa Air Force Base. Major General Hamad Khalifa Al Nuaimi, Deputy Commander of the Royal Guard, presented the medals awarded by His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the Supreme Commander, to BDF officers, non-commissioned officers and staff in appreciation of their dedicated efforts, loyal contributions and great role in standing with their brothers.


Asian given three years sentence for beating cops, resisting arrest

Defendant attacked policemen while they attempted to handcuff him

• A second defendant involved in the case, a female European national, received one-year imprisonment sentence.

• Pieces of hashish, pipes and other tools used to consume drugs were confiscated from the house of the defendant.

TDT | Manama

The First High Criminal Court has sentenced an Asian man to three years

imprisonment and fined him BD3,000 after finding him guilty of assaulting policemen as he resisted arrest.

Court files showed that the man was convicted of consum-ing drugs and was wanted after being handed down a six month imprisonment sentence at the time of incident.

While apprehending him,

he attacked the two policemen who were attempting to hand-cuff him.

A second defendant involved in the case, a female European national, received one-year im-prisonment sentence and was fined BD1,000 for consuming drugs. They were both ordered to be permanently deported after completing serving their impris-onment sentences.

The incident dates back to Oc-tober 17 last year, when the An-ti-narcotics Directorate in Interi-or Ministry was tipped-off about

the location of the man, who was wanted in a drugs abuse case.

A force of two civilian police-

men moved to the man’s resi-dence to arrest him.

The defendant, who was ap-parently smoking hashish with his girlfriend, the second de-fendant, tried to shut the door by force at the time the policemen reached his doorstep to prevent them from entering, according to Prosecutors.

According to cops’ testimonies, the defendant resisted arrest by beating one of the policemen and caused injuries that included bruises and cuts.

The policemen also told the

interrogators that the defendant disposed of a piece of hashish in the toilet and while resisting the cops he yelled at his girlfriend to do the same and get rid of the remaining.

However, the European lady didn’t move and abided to the instructions of the policemen.

Pieces of hashish, pipes and other tools used to consume drugs were confiscated from the house of the defendant.

Additionally, urine and blood tests proved that both defend-ants were consuming hashish.

Media readiness for BIAS discussedManama

Bahrain International Airshow (BIAS)’s im-

portant role in boosting the Kingdom’s status as a pioneering regional and international hub in the exhibition and conference industry has been empha-sised.

This came during a work meeting which con-vened yesterday between the National Communi-cation Centre (NCC) and a team from the Ministry of Transportation and tel-ecommunication to dis-cuss implementation of the media plan for the air show which will be held under the patronage of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa in No-vember.

NCC Chief Executive Ahmed Mohammed Al Mannai underscored the centre’s keenness to sup-port BIAS, being a land-mark event in the inter-national exhibition and conference industry.

He stressed that a com-prehensive communica-tion plan is being mapped out by NCC to project the event in the way it de-serves given its regional and international impor-tance.

For his part, BIAS Direc-tor at the Transportation and Telecommunication Ministry Yusef Mahmood praised the NCC’s efforts in supporting the previous edition of the exhibition, pointing out the close fol-low-up of Personal Rep-resentative of His Majesty the King and Chairman of BIAS High Organising Committee His Highness Shaikh Abdullah bin Ham-ad Al Khalifa.

He also lauded the ef-forts of Transportation and Telecommunication Minister Kamal Ahmed and the organising team to consolidate the Kingdom’s status on the international air shows map.

3,000Bahraini dinars in fine

was imposed on the first defendant by the First High Criminal Court.

Special ‘parking permits’ for Hoora, Gudaibiya residents

• According to the Traffic Law, violators of paid parking zones could be subjected to paying fines ranging from BD20 to BD100, in accordance with the repetition of the offence.

TDT | Manama

For the first time in Bahrain, residents of certain areas in the Capital will soon receive

special stickers that would ex-empt them from paying for park-ing their vehicles at paid parking zones in their areas, it was recent-ly confirmed.

This came in a reply by Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning Minister Essam Khalaf to a parliamentary question raised by MP Adel Al Assoomy on the issue of parking spaces in Hoora and Gudaibiya areas in the eastern parts of the Capital.

Mr Khalaf confirmed that the Ministry has begun issuing stick-ers (parking permits) to exempt citizens living in Hoora and Gu-daibiya areas from paying parking fees.

Mr Al Assoomy, who represent both areas (first constituency in the Capital Governorate), has re-peatedly criticised the Govern-ment’s decision to install parking meters in residential neighbour-hoods, describing the action as “an unreasonable decision and was not thoroughly studied”, and demanding their immediate re-moval.

Mr Al Assoomy earlier submit-ted a parliamentary proposal to exempt the residents of both areas from paying the parking fees, and asked the minister if his ministry has any alternative mechanisms or parking spots for the residents of both areas.

“We are not against organising traffic movement in commercial areas, which is desirable because regulation is necessary, but arbi-trariness and the lack of clarifica-tion of the mechanism for citizens is unacceptable. Citizens must not be troubled with new financial burdens and confusion should be avoided,” Mr Al Assoomy com-mented earlier.

In his reply to Mr Al Assoomy’s

queries, Mr Khalaf confirmed that the ministry is applying a new system to issue special stickers for those exempted from paying

parking fees.The minister revealed that the

system has been tested in Hoora and Gudaibiya, adding that the system will be generalised on all four governorates of the Kingdom.

“The ministry exempted the residents from paying the park-ing meters fees by issuing a spe-cial sticker for the residents to be placed inside the vehicle so that it is clear to traffic policemen, and this system is currently being applied for the first time in Gu-daibiya and Hoora areas as a trial period. This procedure will be generalised to all governorates of the Kingdom,” the minister men-tioned in his reply.

Mr Al Assoomy praised the move and demanded to swiftly implement it in all areas to serve citizens. A Bahraini resident of the area, who preferred to maintain anonymity, informed that they

have heard about the proposed stickers, but they were not con-tacted by the authorities yet. Be-sides, it could not be verified if the plan includes non-Bahrainis, who

form the majority of residents in the area.

Tribune earlier reported that citizens and residents living Hoo-ra and Gudaibiya, which are two of the most congested areas in the Kingdom, expressed their rejec-tion to the move to install parking meters right at their doorsteps, demanding the government to find an alternative solution.

As previously reported, the me-ters, which charge 200 fils per hour, disallow parking in the same spot for more than two hours and the residents say the move has added to their parking ordeal, which is now more than a decade old.

According to the Traffic Law, violators of paid parking zones could be subjected to paying fines ranging from BD20 to BD100, in accordance with the repetition of the offence.

Citizens must not be troubled with

new financial burdens and

confusion should be avoided.

MR AL ASSOOMY

A parking meter installed in a neighbourhood in Gudaibiya.

Stickers like these are being issued by the ministry to exempt residents from paying parking fees.

The meters which charge 200 fils per hour, disallow parking in the same spot for more than two hours.

An ordinary scene in Hoora and Gudaibiya, where it is difficult to find a parking spot.


HRH Prime Minister’s Sustainable Development Award role stressed

Award committee committed to carry out the vision and aspirations of HRH the Premier

Manama

A co-ordination meeting for His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince

Khalifa bin Salman Al Khali-fa’s Sustainable Development Award convened yesterday at the Prime Minister’s Court un-der the chairmanship of Shaikh Hussam bin Isa Al Khalifa.

It was attended by Anna Ti-baijuka, member of the award’s committee, the Advisory Board of the International Day of Conscience, Under-Secretary General and former Executive Director of the UN-Habitat, af-ter returning from a visit to the UN headquarters in New York where she had held meetings with senior officials.

The meeting cast light on preparations to celebrate the International Day of Conscience which will be observed on April 5 after being approved by the UN in line with an initiative by HRH the Premier to back the international efforts aimed at fostering global solidarity, peace, stability and security, promoting development and countering all forms of violence, fanaticism, division and discrimination.

The meeting also shed light on

His Royal Highness Prime Min-ister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa’s Sustainable Devel-opment Award and its role in stimulating individual and col-lective efforts to achieve growth.

It also spotlighted prepara-tions for “Bahrain Visions” fo-rum which is organised by the Kingdom of Bahrain annually at the UN headquarters in New York in conjunction with the General Assembly’s meetings in September 2020.

The forum aims to boost Bah-rain’s contribution to the inter-

national community’s efforts to confront challenges to sustain-able development, peace and stability.

Shaikh Hussam bin Isa Al Khalifa affirmed keenness of the award’s committee to carry out the visions and aspirations of HRH the Prime Minister in supporting the international sustainable development efforts, being a cornerstone in promot-ing peoples’ welfare.

He pointed out that the cel-ebration of the first edition of the International Day of Con-

science on April 5 represents a unique international event and reflects respect of the international community for HRH the Premier’s initiatives to support growth, stability and peace.

Shaikh Hussam pointed out success of “Bahrain Visions” fo-rum in the past two years, stress-ing that all capabilities will be dedicated to enhance the fo-rum’s role as a platform to ex-change views on issues related to global development, security and peace.

For her part, Anna Tibaiju-ka lauded success of His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khali-fa’s Sustainable Development Award in backing the sustain-able development efforts and serve humanity.

She described HRH the Pre-mier’s initiatives as an assertion of his keenness to put the inter-national community before its responsibility of protecting the security and stability of mankind and promoting global peace and prosperity.

Shaikh Hussam, Anna Tibaijuka at the meeting.

NMS student excels in ‘Ganit challenge’TDT | Manama

Noah Mikhail Andrade, a Grade X student of the

New Millennium School, DPS Bahrain, made his alma mater proud by completing the level 2 and securing a position among the top 100 meritorious students, in the Aryabhata Ganit Challenge 2019.

Noah secured rank in the National Level ‘Ganit Challenge’ conducted by the Central Board of Second-ary Education for schools around the world.

This computer-based contest aimed at promot-ing competencies among students through joyful as-sessment.

It also helped students to identify, encourage and nurture the talent in Math-ematics and apply the same to their daily life.

The Chairman, Dr Ravi Pillai, Managing Direc-tor, Ms Geetha Pillai and Principal, Mr Arun Kuu-mar Sharma congratulated Noah, his teachers and par-ents for this commendable performance.

Noah Mikhail Andrade

Khalid bin Hamad Innovation and Artificial Intelligence Contest preparation reviewed

TDT | Manama

The High Organising Com-mittee of Khalid bin Hamad Innovation and Artificial

Intelligence Competition has held a meeting to review the recent developments with regards to the preparations for holding the third edition of the prestigious contest.

The event was chaired by the Head of the High Organising Com-mittee, Shaikh Ali bin Abdulrah-man Al Khalifa, Deputy CEO of Resources and Information Affairs at Bahrain Polytechnic and was attended by Hamad Al Saei, Micro-soft representative, Mohammed

Al Hussaini, Al Moayyed Com-puters representative, Ahmed Al Shaikh, Director of HH Shai-kh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa

Media Office and Mr Ali Hassan, Deputy Head of the IT Department at Bahrain Polytechnic.

At the beginning of the meeting,

Shaikh Ali welcomed the attend-ees before discussing the items listed on the agenda of the meet-ing. Furthermore, the meeting

approved the suggested dates for launching the competition as well as the supporting workshops.

It also discussed the possible ways for upgrading the contest via supporting students post the competition in order to make their projects real so they can bene-fit the government or the private sectors.

Furthermore, the committee praised the support provided by HH Shaikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa Media Office and its con-stant follow-up on the progress of the preparations for organising the event in a bid to make it an enormous success.

Quartet gets six months jail for burning tyres TDT | Manama

The Fourth High Crim-inal Court yesterday

sentenced four defendants to six months imprisonment each for burning tyres on a road in Sitra.

The defendants were charged by the Public Prosecution on December 17, 2018, with intentionally risking people’s lives and properties and they inten-tionally compromised the safety of private and public transport by burning tyres on the road, as shown in the results of the investi-gation.

Court files showed that the four defendants burnt the tyres on the road in Block 605 in Sitra with the intention of disturbing public order, halt the traffic movement and spreading chaos.

Police investigation led to the first defendant, who confessed to the crime and led to the rest of the defend-ants, who also confessed in the interrogation to their crime.

Bahrain’s keenness on boosting tolerance stressedManama

The King Hamad Global Centre for Peaceful Co-ex-istence and This is Bahrain

society held a meeting with the Labour and Social Development Ministry’s Directorate for NGO’s Support and a delegation from the British Charity Commission which is on a visit to Bahrain to benchmark openness and peace-ful co-existence in the kingdom.

The meeting was attended by Board of Trustees Chairman of the King Hamad Global Cen-tre for Peaceful Co-existence Dr Shaikh Khalid bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, This is Bahrain soci-ety President Betsy Mathieson, NGO’s Support Director Najwa Abdellatif Janahi and Projects

Director at the British embassy in Bahrain Chris Thompson.

The meeting spotlighted ways

of benefiting from the British ex-perience and boosting coopera-tion in carrying out joint projects

regarding houses of worship.Dr Shaikh Khalid bin Khali-

fa Al Khalifa affirmed the cen-

tre’s keenness on availing of the experience of prominent in-ternational institutions in the development and social fields and benefiting from the British expertise in boosting tolerance and peaceful co-existence among the youth.

He pointed out the centre’s efforts, since its establishment, to provide many quality pro-grammes to promote those val-ues, in line with the directives of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.

The British Charity Commis-sion delegation expressed appre-ciation of the centre’s goals and programmes to project the king-dom’s pioneering experience in fostering peaceful coexistence and religious freedom.

The meeting in progress.

The meeting spotlighted ways of benefiting from the British experience and boosting cooperation in carrying out joint projects regarding houses of worship.

05

world

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2020

My anxiety is that we do not want to get back to a

system where you have a lot of very,

very, laborious surveillance by

our hard-pushed security services....

when a custodial version might be

betterPRIME MINISTER BORIS JOHNSON

Rubik’s Cube “Mona Lisa” goes on sale in ParisParis

A street art Rubik’s Cube ver-sion of the “Mona Lisa” is

expected to sell for up to 150,000 euros ($166,000) when it goes under the hammer in Paris this month.

Made from 330 Rubik’s Cubes by the French artist Invader -- famous for his ceramic Space Invaders figures inspired by the vintage pixelated video game -- is called “Rubik Mona Lisa”.

It is the first of a series of works in which the artist has recreated some of the great paintings of art history in Ru-bik’s Cubes. Invader, whose real

name is Franck Slama, claimed that they the foundational cre-ations of a new art movement called “Rubikcubism”.

He has glued Space Invad-ers works to walls in more than 33 countries, and even inspired smartphone applications for fans trying to track them down.

”Rubik Mona Lisa” will go on sale at Artcurial on the Champs-Elysees in Paris on Feb-ruary 23 as a part of auction fea-turing some of the biggest names in street art.

Invader made “Rubik Mona Lisa” in 2005 and has since gone on to recreate Edouard Manet’s

Impressionist masterpiece “Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe” (“Lunch-eon on the Grass”) as well as Gustave Courbet’s ever-con-troversial “The Origin of the World” in Rubik’s Cubes.

The cube, a cult children’s puzzle in the 1980s, was invent-ed by the Hungarian sculptor Emo Rubik as a teaching tool to explain three-dimensional forms to his architecture stu-dents.

A blockbuster Leonardo da Vinci show at the Louvre mu-seum in Paris, which holds the “Mona Lisa”, finishes at the end of this month.

Invader’s version of the ‘Mona Lisa’ was the first in a series of his recreations of classic paintings

UK police search homes in terror stabbing probe• Sudesh Amman, 20, who was wearing a fake suicide vest, was shot on a busy shopping street

• He stole a knife from a cheap goods store, then attacked a woman, then a man further up the high road

• Amman was recently freed after serving part of his sentence for a string of terror offences

• Prime Minister Boris Johnson said plans would be announced to change the system on handling the release of convicted terrorists

AFP | London

British police were search-ing two homes on Monday after shooting dead an ex-

tremist who knifed two people in London in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group, as the government vowed a review of the system for the early release of convicted terrorists.

Sudesh Amman, 20, who was wearing a fake suicide vest, was shot on a busy shopping street in south London on Sunday.

IS’s propaganda arm called Amman “an IS fighter and he carried out the attack in re-sponse to a call to target nation-als” of countries belonging to the global coalition fighting it.

Amman was recently freed early from prison after serving part of his sentence for a string of Islamist-related terror offenc-es -- namely the possession and distribution of terrorist docu-ments.

Counter-terror officers were conducting searches at one ad-dress in south London and one in Bishop’s Stortford, north of the capital near London Stan-sted Airport.

Amman had been arrested in London in May 2018 on sus-picion of planning a terrorist attack. He was jailed for three years and four months in De-

cember 2018 for 13 separate of-fences.

As part of what police said was a “proactive counter-terrorism surveillance operation”, armed officers were following him on foot following his release.

PM plans law changeSunday ’s incident in the

Streatham district came just over two months after a simi-lar incident when armed police shot dead a convicted terrorist

on early release near London Bridge in the heart of the city.

He had stabbed two people to death after attending a prisoner rehabilitation conference.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said plans would be announced later Monday to change the sys-tem on handling the release of convicted terrorists.

He had previously promised such changes following the Lon-don Bridge attack.

“What was he (Amman) doing out on automatic early release and why was there no system of scrutiny, no parole system to check whether he was really a suitable candidate?” he told reporters.

“Looking at the problems we have with re-educating and re-claiming and rehabilitating peo-ple who succumb to I*******m, it’s very, very hard and very tough -- and it can happen that the instances of success are re-ally very few.

“My anxiety is that we do not want to get back to a system where you have a lot of very, very, laborious surveillance by our hard-pushed security ser-vices.... when a custodial version might be better.”

London Mayor Sadiq Khan meanwhile told ITV television he was “angry” that the govern-ment had not already acted to change the law.

The Labour party politician

said there were “roughly” more than 70 people in London who have been convicted of a terror-ist offence, served time in prison and have been released.

Britain downgraded its ter-ror threat level from “severe” to “substantial” -- the third-highest of five levels, warning a terror-ist attack is considered “likely” rather than “highly likely” -- in early November.

That was its lowest rating in more than five years.

ShockAmman had been staying in a

nearby hostel for newly-released prisoners, according to British media.

He stole a knife from a cheap goods store, then attacked a woman, then a man further up the high road, before being gunned down.

Eyewitness video footage showed him writhing on the pavement outside a pharmacy as plain-clothes armed police of-ficers pointed hand-held weap-ons at him and urged passers-by to get to safety.

Amman had a dark vest with silver canisters strapped to his body.

“I’m still shocked,” said Kark-er Tahir, who works in a barber’s shop on the winding high street. “He was running and he was shot. Police keep saying to him, ‘Don’t move’.

“He was alive, on the floor, a few minutes. I can see him moving his head.”

Tahir said the police told him and his customers to leave through a back exit in case Am-man’s vest exploded.

- Two in hospital -Police cordons remained in

place at the scene in Streatham on Monday.

Forensics officers in protec-tive suits and officers in dark uniforms could be seen work-ing outside the pharmacy where Amman was shot dead.

The male victim, who is in his 40s, was in a non-life-threaten-ing condition in hospital while the woman, in her 50s, has been discharged from hospital, police said.

Another woman in her 20s has minor injuries, thought to have been caused by broken glass fol-lowing the police shooting of Amman. She was continuing to receive treatment in hospital.

Police officers conduct a search on Streatham High Road in south London after a man was shot dead by police

Police forensic officers work on Streatham High Road in south London on February 3 after a man was shot dead by police on Sunday

Police forensics officers work outside of Boots store on Streatham High Road in south London


China virus toll tops 360• 57 new deaths confirms single-biggest daily increase

• National death toll reached 361

• Exceeds 349 fatalities from SARS

• China ‘urgently needs’ medical gear and masks

• The G7 countries -- Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the United States -- have all confirmed cases of the virus

• As of Monday, 17,205 people have been infected across China, the majority in and around Wuhan

AFP | Beijing

China said yesterday it ur-gently needed medical equipment and surgical

masks as the death toll from a new coronavirus jumped above 360, making it more deadly than the SARS crisis nearly two dec-ades ago.

The 57 new deaths confirmed yesterday was the single-biggest daily increase since the virus was detected late last year in the central city of Wuhan, where it is believed to have jumped from animals at a market into humans.

The virus has since spread to more than 24 countries despite many governments imposing unprecedented travel bans on arrivals coming from China.

The World Health Organiza-tion has declared the crisis a global health emergency, and the first foreign death from the virus was confirmed in the Phil-ippines on Sunday.

“What China urgently needs at present are medical masks, protective suits, and safety gog-gles,” foreign ministry spokes-woman Hua Chunying told a press briefing.

Authorities in provinces that are home to more than 300 mil-lion people -- including Guang-dong, the country’s most popu-lous -- have ordered everyone to wear masks in public in an effort to contain the virus.

But factories capable of producing around 20 million masks a day are only operating at between 60 and 70 per cent of capacity, industry department spokesman Tian Yulong said, adding that supply and demand remained in “tight equilibrium” as a result of the Lunar New Year break.

Tian said authorities were tak-ing steps to bring in masks from Europe, Japan and the US, while the foreign ministry said coun-tries including South Korea, Ja-pan, Kazakhstan and Hungary had donated medical supplies.

All but one of the 57 new deaths reported Monday were in Wuhan and the rest of Hu-bei province, most of which has been under lockdown for almost two weeks.

The national death tol l reached 361 -- exceeding the 349

m a i n -l a n d f a -t a l i t i e s f r o m the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2002-03.

The number of infections also jumped significantly, passing 17,200.

SARS, caused by a pathogen similar to the new coronavirus and also originated in China, killed 774 people -- with most other deaths in Hong Kong.

Economic woesThe virus is taking an increas-

ing economic toll, shutting down businesses across China, curbing international travel and impact-ing production lines of major global brands.

The Shanghai stock market plunged almost eight percent Monday on the first day of trad-ing since the holiday as investors played catch-up with last week’s global retreat.

In Wuhan, which has been transformed from a bustling in-dustrial hub into a near-ghost town, residents have been liv-ing in deep fear of catching the virus.

The city’s medical facilities have been overwhelmed, with state news agency Xinhua re-porting Monday that 68 medical teams of 8,300 staff had been sent to Hubei.

And amid mounting pressure, the government has been racing to build two new hospitals to treat the infected.

The first of those, a 1,000-bed facility, was due to open on Mon-day, just 10 days after construc-tion began.

However, with the death toll surging in Wuhan and other ar-eas of Hubei, it was not immedi-ately clear what overall impact the hospitals would have on con-taining the epidemic.

The industrial city of Wen-zhou, 800 kilometres (500 miles) to the east, was placed under a similar lockdown to Wuhan on Sunday and its nine million people ordered to stay indoors.

Travel curbsThe emergence of the virus

coincided with the Lunar New Year, when hundreds of mil-lions travel across the country for family reunions.

Originally scheduled to end last Friday, the holiday was ex-tended by three days to give au-thorities more time to deal with the crisis.

But some major cities -- in-cluding Shanghai -- extended it again, and many schools and universities have delayed the start of new terms.

Road traffic on Sunday, when hundreds of millions of people would have been expected to re-turn to their cities of work, was down 80 percent, the transport ministry said.

Train journeys were down 74 percent on last year, ac-

cording to Xinhua, and plane trips a fifth.

Many companies offered staff the option to work from home or defer travel , or simply re-mained closed.

Stopping the spread The G7 coun-

t r i e s - - C a n a d a , France, Germany, Italy,

Japan, Britain and the Unit-ed States -- have all confirmed cases of the virus.

The US, Australia, New Zea-land and Israel have banned for-eign nationals from visiting if they have been in China recently, and they have also warned their own citizens against travelling there.

Many nations have evacuated hundreds of their citizens from China -- with some forcing them into quarantine on their return -- and more airlines are cancelling services to the mainland.

The foreign ministry Mon-day criticised the US for being the first to evacuate nationals without providing “substantial assistance” to China.

The US actions had caused “panic”, said spokeswoman Hua Chunying.

Mongolia, Russia and Nepal have closed their land borders, while semi-autonomous Hong Kong announced Monday it was closing all but two land cross-ings.

Also on Monday the Cruise Lines International Associa-tion, that represents some of the world’s largest operators, said vessels will deny boarding to passengers and crew who have recently travelled to China.

Last week over 6,000 passen-gers spent around 12 hours in lockdown on the Costa Smeralda cruise ship in an Italian port un-til two Chinese tourists feared to have the virus tested negative.

China is set to open a new hospital built in 10 days to care for coronavirus patients

‘ V i r u s i s t h e e n e m y , n o t u s ’ , s a y s

W u h a n w o m a n

Lucy Huang, a documentary maker living in Beijing, is unable to see her family in Wuhan, the epicentre of an ongoing virus epidemic. She says people from the region are being stigmatised in the wake of the outbreak.

Group evacuated from China to France test negative

Aix-en-Provence | France

Tests for the coronavirus on about 20 people who

arrived on France on an evac-uation flight from China have come back negative, authori-ties said Monday.

A total of 254 people ar-rived in France on Sunday from the Chinese city of Wu-han, where the deadly virus was first detected, on the sec-ond such flight.

Thirty-six of those on board displayed symptoms of the coronavirus, Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said on Sunday.

Sixteen of those were flown back to their respec-tive countries, but about 20 stayed at Istres airport in the south of France to undergo further testing. They includ-ed French and non-European nationals.

So far in France, six cas-es of coronavirus have been detected.

Thirty six of those aboard the latest flight had shown symptoms of the coronavirus

Australia virus evacuees head for island quarantine

Sydney

A flight carrying evacuees from the epicentre of

the deadly China virus out-break landed in Australia late Monday ahead of a 14-day quarantine at a notorious off-shore immigration detention centre.

The Qantas charter flight carrying 243 passengers -- including 89 children -- touched down at an Air Force base near the remote Western Australian town of Exmouth.

The Australian citizens and permanent residents on board were due to be flown in smaller planes to Christmas Island, an Australian territo-ry in the Indian Ocean.

Officials say the evacuees will be held separately from a Sri Lankan family of four fighting their deportation.

Australia is just the latest country to evacuate its cit-izens from Wuhan. Japan, the United States and France are among those that have al-ready sent extraction flights.

Australia has now barred entry to non-citizens or residents arriving from China

Indonesians protest use of island for virus quarantineNatuna | Indonesia

Hundreds of residents of a remote Indonesian island

protested Monday at the gov-ernment’s decision to use it to quarantine evacuees from the Chinese city at the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak.

Indonesia has evacuated 237 citizens and one foreign na-tional, married to an Indone-sian, from Wuhan.

The evacuees, mostly stu-dents, landed Sunday and will be quarantined for 14 days on Natuna island, which lies be-tween Borneo and Peninsular Malaysia.

“The government’s decision to quarantine Indonesians who returned from China has made people feel uneasy, so we strongly reject it,” Fadillah, one of the protesters who like many Indonesians goes with one name, said.

The protesters, wearing

green surgical masks, demon-strated in front of the local par-liament building, demanding the local authorities relocate the evacuation centre away from a residential area.

In response to the growing protest on the island, Presi-dent Joko Widodo said the re-turnees had to be quarantined to ensure they were in good health before they can return home.

“Those people are healthy, however several stages are needed in health protocol be-fore they can be returned to their family,” Widodo said.

Health officials disinfect the evacuees from Wuhan

The coronavirus has spread to more than 24 countries, despite many governments imposing unprecedented travel bans on people coming from China


China is home to a grow-ing population of pet

owners, with pet-related spending in China reach-

ing 170.8 billion yuan ($23.7 billion) in 2018, according to a report

by Pet Fair Asia and pet website Goumin.com.

KNOW WHAT

Chinese turn to social media to feed stranded pets in virus city• The hashtag “save the pets left behind in Wuhan” became the third-most searched term

AFP | Beijing

China’s unprecedented quarantining of virus-hit Wuhan has separated

millions from their families -- and many from their pets, prompting worried owners and kind strangers to take to social media to ensure left-behind an-imals are looked after.

The hashtag “save the pets left behind in Wuhan” became the third-most searched term on the Twitter-like Weibo platform Monday, receiving millions of views from those unable to re-turn to the city, where the virus is believed to have originated, and others willing to help.

“Please help me feed my cat”, one user posted on January 30.

On Monday, he used the hash-tag to post the happy news he had found a “young man” who had agreed to go and feed his cat Maomao.

“In the video chat, after the man opened the door Maomao meowed so miserably, no one has been home for more than a dozen days...” he said.

More than 2,000 people also

joined a group created by the Wuhan Small Animal Protection Association on Chinese chat app QQ to look for “kind-hearted people” willing to feed pets left behind in Wuhan by owners unable to enter the city.

One member on Monday asked if anyone would be willing to feed a pet snake. “I’m worried to death” the user, who posted anonymously, said. “I didn’t let him hibernate this winter be-

cause he’s a baby snake.”That post had no takers as of

late Monday.“If any cats and dogs are

stranded and you can let me in, I can help you feed them on livestream,” wrote Katherine Cui in eastern Zhejiang prov-ince -- where the city of Wen-zhou was placed under a similar lockdown to Wuhan on Sunday.

“I have many pets at home, and plenty of cat food, dog food

and kitty litter, I know too well how important fur babies are.”

The drive to save pets comes after multiple Chinese media reports said apartment com-plexes had banned pets to stop the spread of the virus, as well as unverified reports that peo-ple had thrown animals to their deaths for similar reasons.

While the novel coronavi-rus is believed to have crossed over from animals to humans at a Wuhan market known for selling live wildlife, the World Health Organization has said on its Weibo account there is “no evidence that dogs, cats and other pets can catch the novel coronavirus.”

A man carries his dog in a shopping bag at a pet fair in Shanghai. China is home to a growing population of pet owners, with pet-related spending in China reaching nearly $24 billion in 2018

Xi Jingping says coronavirus control most important task

Reuters | Beijing

Chinese President Xi Jin-ping yesterday said coro-

navirus control was the most important task at the moment, China’s state television report-ed.

China will promote scientif-ic research and development

of drugs and vaccines, it quot-ed a politburo meeting chaired by Xi as saying.

China will stabilise con-sumption and accelerate the start of new investment pro-jects, it said. It will also closely monitor economic operation and focus on the impact from the virus outbreak, it added.

Chinese President Xi jinping speaks during a meeting with Tedros Adhanom, director general of the World Health Organization, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China

Chinese citizens use tracker apps to avoid infected neighbourhoodsReuters | Shenzhen, China

Chinese citizens are using mapping programmes

and travel trackers in a bid to avoid neighbourhoods with infections of the coronavirus and to better prepare for the dangers they face.

Both data mapping com-pany QuantUrban and a third-party Wechat mi-ni-program developer have created platforms that take official information on the neighbourhoods where con-firmed cases live and map it geographically so that users can guage how close they are to infection sites.

While the WeChat pro-gramme, called “YiKuang” - or “Epidemic Situation”, covers the southern cities of Shenzhen and Guangzhou, QuantUrban’s browser-based maps also cover nine other cities in the province.

“Shenzhen might have a major outbreak in the next few days, and government data comes out slowly,” said April, a Shenzhen-based manager who declined to give her full name.

“Seeing the map is a psy-chological comfort. You can’t guarantee there won’t be fresh cases, but you can avoid an area that’s already h i t , ” s h e

said.Confirmed cases in Shen-

zhen have climbed rapidly to 245 as of Monday, mak-ing the southern tech capital the worst-affected of China’s main cities - Beijing, Shang-hai and Guangzhou. It has a large population of migrant workers from the heavily af-fected central provinces.

“We wanted to annotate the information on the map so that the public could bet-ter see how epidemic sites are distributed more intuitively, and also remind everyone to make adequate protection,” said Yuan Xiaohui, QuantUr-ban’s co-founder and CEO.

Volunteers also help the team to keep the map up to date as the government re-leases data daily, she said.

Yikuang also relies on vol-unteers to keep up to date and originally denoted neighbor-hoods with confirmed cases with a skull and crossbones logo. It has since changed to less alarming exclamation points after users on social media platform Weibo com-plained they would cause panic.

“If I know that there are sick people nearby, I can take steps to be extra cautious,” Steven Liu, a finance student, told Reuters. “I live between Shenzhen and Guangzhou,

and these maps are really great there.”

Cruise ships to ban recent China visitors: global body

• More than 6,000 tourists were temporarily confined to their cruise ship at an Italian port last week

Frankfurt am Main

Cruise lines worldwide will deny boarding to passen-

gers and crew who have recent-ly travelled to China, a global industry body said Monday, as fears grow over the deadly new coronavirus.

In a statement, the Cruise Lines International Associa-tion (CLIA) said its members were taking extra precautions to

prevent an outbreak of the virus on board cruise ships, where infections can spread rapidly.

“CLIA Members have sus-pended crew movements from mainland China and will deny boarding to any individual, whether guest or crew, who has travelled from or through main-land China within the previous

14 days,” the body’s Hamburg office said.

CLIA represents some of the world’s largest and best-known cruise lines, including TUI, AIDA, MSC, Costa, Royal Carib-bean and Carnival Cruises.

The cruise companies were also carrying out careful screen-ing of passengers and crew be-

fore boarding, and changing itineraries where necessary, CLIA said.

The industry body added that cruise ships were well equipped to deal with health emergencies.

“The cruise industry is one of the most well-equipped and experienced when it comes to managing and monitoring health conditions of passengers and crew,” the statement said.

All ships are fitted with med-ical facilities and have medical professionals “available around the clock”, it added.

In a sign of growing anxiety, more than 6,000 tourists were temporarily confined to their cruise ship at an Italian port last week after two Chinese passen-gers fell ill.

A ban on recent visitors to China

Communities hunts for travellers from virus epicentreBeijing

Communities in China are of-fering cash rewards, knock-

ing on doors and questioning people trying to enter their neighbourhoods -- but they’re not looking for criminals.

They’re searching for anyone coming from Wuhan, the central city at the epicentre of a deadly virus epidemic that has sparked fear -- even panic -- in China and beyond.

The end of the extended Lu-nar New Year holiday this week-end has raised concerns that the new coronavirus could spread further as people travel across the country.

In Beijing, neighbourhoods have sealed themselves off -–

some with homemade barriers –- to force visitors or anyone re-turning home from the holiday to register their travel history.

One district in northern Shi-jiazhuang city is even offering cash incentives of 2,000 yuan ($288) for reporting anyone who has travelled to Wuhan in the past two weeks.

For some communities, an-

yone who has visited central Hubei province -- of which Wu-han is the capital -- is no longer welcome at all.

“Even if you live here, you can’t enter,” said a securi-ty guard at the entrance of a Beijing neighbourhood when asked about returning Hubei residents.

“Those from Hubei could

bring the infection here,” he said, wearing a blue mask. “If you’re from Hubei, you have to notify the neighbourhood committee.”

A week ago, China’s health commission urged villages around the country to leave “no blind spots” when investigating where people have travelled.

But with the holiday ending on Monday, local governments are under pressure to root out those who have visited the hard-hit province of Hubei.

“If they look unfamiliar or are dragging a suitcase, I’ll ask them to register,” said a woman work-ing at a compound in Beijing.

“I’m pretty worried,” she add-ed, only offering her surname, Mei.

Passengers arriving in Beijing are being checked for fever, a symptom of the coronavirus infection

The ultrastructural morphology exhibited

by the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), which was identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory illness first

detected in Wuhan, China, is seen in an

illustration released by the Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S


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

JAMES HAINES YOUNG

Last week, US President Donald Trump announced his peace plan and world leaders, he

said at the White House ceremony, were calling him nonstop to get on board.

But the only one he could name was “Boris”; we assume he means Britain’s prime minister.

Reactions to the plan around the world have been markedly formu-laic.

Some countries have welcomed the initiative, provided it leads to a resumption of the long-dead nego-tiations to end the Palestinian-Is-rael conflict – although it won’t, as Palestinians have already roundly rejected it.

The same countries have said they support “any effort to achieve a just and comprehensive peace”.

They say it is a “good starting point”.

In diplomatic speak, this is all holding copy. Filler.

The statements from around the world were the diplomatic equiv-alent of a smile and a nod at Mr Trump without any intention to act. They have more to do with the countries’ relations with America than their view of Palestine.

Sadly, unless there is a war in Gaza, the international community no longer prioritises the peace pro-cess or the occupation of Palestine. That was laid bare when 110 Gazans were killed and thousands wounded by Israeli soldiers between March 30 and May 15, 2018, during protests against Mr Trump moving the em-bassy to Jerusalem. The reactions in Europe and elsewhere were state-ments of concern and calls not to use excessive force even as Israeli snipers shot children and a doctor

treating the wounded.On the flip side, few countries

seem willing to praise a plan that was drafted by America and Israel without consulting any Palestinians. A plan that supposedly resolves the questions of Israeli settlements and Jerusalem before talks have even begun. And a plan that only offers Palestinians vague promises of a state under US-monitored condi-tions.

For many states, keeping the Trump administration on your side is of the upmost importance. Since he took office in early 2017, Mr Trump has blasted old allies and cosied up with historic rivals. He has waged a trade war with China and tried to bully Nato partners to stump up more cash.

But one thing is clear to anyone looking to master the art of making deals with Mr Trump – flattery is a valuable chip.

No world leader has pulled this off quite to the same extent as Mr Netanyahu. This American presi-dent is the “best friend Israel has ever had in White House”, Mr Ne-tanyahu said he spoke at the peace plan announcement. His address devoted whole paragraphs to prais-ing Mr Trump’s administration, Mr Trump’s policies and Mr Trump himself.

The strategy paid off. Accord-ing to Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, the peace plan “is 100 per cent the ideas I personally heard many times from Netanyahu and his negotiators”.

Mr Erekat went further in his statement last Wednesday. “I can assure you that the American so-called peace team have only copied and pasted Netanyahu’s and the

settlers’ councils’ plan, and also de-manded statements of appreciation from some states,” he said.

Mr Netanyahu’s flattery and praise, along with a White House team filled with ideologues rather than experts, gave a prime minster fighting not only for his job but to stay out of prison, his dream peace plan.

The Israeli leader is not alone in using flattery to stay on Mr Trump’s radar.

Mr Johnson got his name check in the announcement. The UK prime minister then reciprocated the next day in Parliament, rejecting criti-cism of the plan from the British opposition and urging Palestinians to engage with the US.

The UK prime minister has court-ed Mr Trump and it seems to have paid off – the American commander

in chief has lots of good things to say about the divisive UK leader in return. But why is Mr Johnson so concerned about the opinion of the US president? With the UK having

left the European Union last Friday, the government is desperate for a good trade deal with America to kick-start its vision for what it bills as an outwardly facing, internation-al business-focused UK.

On the European continent, countries and the bloc itself are more likely to stand together and have strength in numbers so can afford to be less effusive. In Euro-pean capitals, the statements have been typically bland, even when calling for talks to start from the long-established point of a two-state solution on the basis of 1967 borders.

Hugh Lovatt, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Re-lations, agreed that the “tranquil” statements from European states had more to do with relations with the Trump administration than Palestine.

THE ROOTS OF EDUCATION ARE BITTER, BUT THE FRUIT IS SWEET.ARISTOTLE

QUOTE OF THE DAY

CON COUGHLIN

Britain’s future ambitions after it finally completes the tortu-ous process of ending its mem-

bership of the European Union on Friday can best be summed up by the inscription on the 50 pence coin that has been specially minted for the occasion: “Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations.”

This bold statement, which has the blessing of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, neatly sums up the desire to heal the bitter divisions that have arisen both in the UK and Europe dur-ing the three-and-a-half years since the British people first took the his-toric decision to end their country’s 40-odd-year membership of the EU.

When Britain first joined what was then the European Economic Community on January 1, 1973, the six-nation bloc was little more than a trade association that sought to boost the economic strength of its members through easing trade restrictions.

Today the EU, following Britain’s departure, is grown into an organisa-tion formed of 27 nations comprising 450 million people whose ultimate objectives lie well beyond the narrow confines of trading arrangements. The EU’s ultimate goal is to create a federal European superstate based on the model of the United States, with member states subscribing to a common purpose in key areas, such

as economic development, foreign policy and security.

Indeed, it was the EU’s insistence on pursuing ever closer political and economic union that ultimately re-sulted in Britain’s departure.

Looking back over the past four decades of Britain’s EU member-ship, London’s commitment to the European project had always been half-hearted, to say the least. For ex-ample, successive governments, both Conservative and Labour, resisted calls to ditch the pound sterling in favour of joining the EU’s single cur-rency, the euro, the most visible sym-bol of the EU’s quest for ever-closer integration.

And Britain stubbornly refused to join a range of other EU-led initiatives, such as the Schengen Agreement, which banished internal border checks between EU member states.

The ability of EU workers to move freely within the union, especially after the creation of the single market in 1993, turned out to be a key factor in Britain’s decision to leave the EU, as it resulted in Britain being flooded by hundreds of thousands of work-ers from poorer countries in eastern Europe – such as Poland, Romania and Hungary – and undercutting the wages of British workers.

Now, with Britain finally making its exit from the EU, the arguments over the whys and wherefores of the

decision to leave are a subject for fu-ture historians to discuss. For when Britain wakes up to its new dawn of post-EU membership on Satur-day morning, it will face a variety of daunting new challenges, not least the precise nature of its future rela-tionship with the EU. And it is this context that the government will be hoping that the positive tone of the inscription on the new 50p coin will be reciprocated both in Brussels and

in the wider world beyond.In terms of Britain’s future rela-

tionship with the other 27 remain-ing member states, it is important to remember that Britain is not leaving Europe. Irrespective of the terms of the future trading relationship to be struck in the forthcoming negotia-tions that are due to be completed by the end of December, Britain is keen to maintain a constructive relation-ship with the EU – one that goes well

beyond trade and encompasses other key areas of bilateral cooperation, such as security.

Britain’s desire to leave on friendly terms can be seen in the attitude Mr Johnson has adopted since becoming prime minister last July, in which he has deliberately taken a non-con-frontational tone with his EU coun-terparts, frequently referring to them as “our European friends”.

The EU, too, has much to lose by not

On the European continent, countries and the bloc itself

are more likely to stand together and have strength in numbers so can afford to

be less effusive. In European capitals, the statements

have been typically bland, even when calling for talks

to start from the long-established point of a two-state solution on the basis

of 1967 borders.


Whether Trump wins

re-election in November or not, Israel

is already setting

about the annexation

of West Bank settlements

and the Jordan Valley

The choice of the British people to Brexit will be vindicated

The UK is still an

economic, military and

diplomatic power, and it can be more effective as a partner –

rather than a member – of

the EU



JAMES HAINES YOUNG

Last week, US President Donald Trump announced his peace plan and world leaders, he

said at the White House ceremony, were calling him nonstop to get on board.

But the only one he could name was “Boris”; we assume he means Britain’s prime minister.

Reactions to the plan around the world have been markedly formu-laic.

Some countries have welcomed the initiative, provided it leads to a resumption of the long-dead nego-tiations to end the Palestinian-Is-rael conflict – although it won’t, as Palestinians have already roundly rejected it.

The same countries have said they support “any effort to achieve a just and comprehensive peace”.

They say it is a “good starting point”.

In diplomatic speak, this is all holding copy. Filler.

The statements from around the world were the diplomatic equiv-alent of a smile and a nod at Mr Trump without any intention to act. They have more to do with the countries’ relations with America than their view of Palestine.

Sadly, unless there is a war in Gaza, the international community no longer prioritises the peace pro-cess or the occupation of Palestine. That was laid bare when 110 Gazans were killed and thousands wounded by Israeli soldiers between March 30 and May 15, 2018, during protests against Mr Trump moving the em-bassy to Jerusalem. The reactions in Europe and elsewhere were state-ments of concern and calls not to use excessive force even as Israeli snipers shot children and a doctor

treating the wounded.On the flip side, few countries

seem willing to praise a plan that was drafted by America and Israel without consulting any Palestinians. A plan that supposedly resolves the questions of Israeli settlements and Jerusalem before talks have even begun. And a plan that only offers Palestinians vague promises of a state under US-monitored condi-tions.

For many states, keeping the Trump administration on your side is of the upmost importance. Since he took office in early 2017, Mr Trump has blasted old allies and cosied up with historic rivals. He has waged a trade war with China and tried to bully Nato partners to stump up more cash.

But one thing is clear to anyone looking to master the art of making deals with Mr Trump – flattery is a valuable chip.

No world leader has pulled this off quite to the same extent as Mr Netanyahu. This American presi-dent is the “best friend Israel has ever had in White House”, Mr Ne-tanyahu said he spoke at the peace plan announcement. His address devoted whole paragraphs to prais-ing Mr Trump’s administration, Mr Trump’s policies and Mr Trump himself.

The strategy paid off. Accord-ing to Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, the peace plan “is 100 per cent the ideas I personally heard many times from Netanyahu and his negotiators”.

Mr Erekat went further in his statement last Wednesday. “I can assure you that the American so-called peace team have only copied and pasted Netanyahu’s and the

settlers’ councils’ plan, and also de-manded statements of appreciation from some states,” he said.

Mr Netanyahu’s flattery and praise, along with a White House team filled with ideologues rather than experts, gave a prime minster fighting not only for his job but to stay out of prison, his dream peace plan.

The Israeli leader is not alone in using flattery to stay on Mr Trump’s radar.

Mr Johnson got his name check in the announcement. The UK prime minister then reciprocated the next day in Parliament, rejecting criti-cism of the plan from the British opposition and urging Palestinians to engage with the US.

The UK prime minister has court-ed Mr Trump and it seems to have paid off – the American commander

in chief has lots of good things to say about the divisive UK leader in return. But why is Mr Johnson so concerned about the opinion of the US president? With the UK having




THE ROOTS OF EDUCATION ARE BITTER, BUT THE FRUIT IS SWEET.ARISTOTLE

QUOTE OF THE DAY

CON COUGHLIN

Britain’s future ambitions after it finally completes the tortu-ous process of ending its mem-

bership of the European Union on Friday can best be summed up by the inscription on the 50 pence coin that has been specially minted for the occasion: “Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations.”

This bold statement, which has the blessing of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, neatly sums up the desire to heal the bitter divisions that have arisen both in the UK and Europe dur-ing the three-and-a-half years since the British people first took the his-toric decision to end their country’s 40-odd-year membership of the EU.

When Britain first joined what was then the European Economic Community on January 1, 1973, the six-nation bloc was little more than a trade association that sought to boost the economic strength of its members through easing trade restrictions.

Today the EU, following Britain’s departure, is grown into an organisa-tion formed of 27 nations comprising 450 million people whose ultimate objectives lie well beyond the narrow confines of trading arrangements. The EU’s ultimate goal is to create a federal European superstate based on the model of the United States, with member states subscribing to a common purpose in key areas, such

as economic development, foreign policy and security.

Indeed, it was the EU’s insistence on pursuing ever closer political and economic union that ultimately re-sulted in Britain’s departure.

Looking back over the past four decades of Britain’s EU member-ship, London’s commitment to the European project had always been half-hearted, to say the least. For ex-ample, successive governments, both Conservative and Labour, resisted calls to ditch the pound sterling in favour of joining the EU’s single cur-rency, the euro, the most visible sym-bol of the EU’s quest for ever-closer integration.

And Britain stubbornly refused to join a range of other EU-led initiatives, such as the Schengen Agreement, which banished internal border checks between EU member states.

The ability of EU workers to move freely within the union, especially after the creation of the single market in 1993, turned out to be a key factor in Britain’s decision to leave the EU, as it resulted in Britain being flooded by hundreds of thousands of work-ers from poorer countries in eastern Europe – such as Poland, Romania and Hungary – and undercutting the wages of British workers.

Now, with Britain finally making its exit from the EU, the arguments over the whys and wherefores of the

decision to leave are a subject for fu-ture historians to discuss. For when Britain wakes up to its new dawn of post-EU membership on Satur-day morning, it will face a variety of daunting new challenges, not least the precise nature of its future rela-tionship with the EU. And it is this context that the government will be hoping that the positive tone of the inscription on the new 50p coin will be reciprocated both in Brussels and

in the wider world beyond.In terms of Britain’s future rela-

tionship with the other 27 remain-ing member states, it is important to remember that Britain is not leaving Europe. Irrespective of the terms of the future trading relationship to be struck in the forthcoming negotia-tions that are due to be completed by the end of December, Britain is keen to maintain a constructive relation-ship with the EU – one that goes well




On the European continent, countries and the bloc itself

are more likely to stand together and have strength in numbers so can afford to

be less effusive. In European capitals, the statements

have been typically bland, even when calling for talks

to start from the long-established point of a two-state solution on the basis

of 1967 borders.


Whether Trump wins

re-election in November or not, Israel

is already setting

about the annexation

of West Bank settlements

and the Jordan Valley

The choice of the British people to Brexit will be vindicated

The UK is still an

economic, military and

diplomatic power, and it can be more effective as a partner –

rather than a member – of

the EU

The blow for the European Union from Brexit and given the US solidarity that accompanies it and can be translated maybe into a major privileged bilateral Great Britain-US trade agreement.


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be followed by you and been supporting your vi-sion for India since 2012. Why make Dividends taxable (double tax) up to 42.7% for Indians & tax-free for foreigners? Isn’t it harassment of honest Indian tax-payers who voted you to power?

@porinju

There have been no signs of mutation to

the #coronavirus, and al-though people showing no symptoms can spread the virus, they appear to be less contagious, says an infectious disease doc-tor from Beijing Ditan Hospital during a press conference

@CGTNOfficial

The UAE, home to long-haul carriers

Emirates and Etihad Airways, is suspending flights to mainland China outside of Beijing. It says those flying from Beijing will be subject “to a six-to-eight hour compre-hensive medical screen-ing at the airport.” - @AP

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

editorial stances)




“These relations, which are pred-icated on common security con-cerns, I think have priority over the Palestinian issue,” he said. Simply, in Brussels, issues like Iranian missiles and fighting ISIS are of more impor-tance than a Palestinian state.

In Beijing, the view is simply that a peace plan has to start from the basis laid down in UN resolutions – appearing to a call for a return to past efforts but in effect saying very little of substance.

At an emergency meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Coopera-tion on Monday, the body affirmed commitment to “solutions based on international resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative”. Countries including the UAE and Saudi Arabia reaffirmed their commitment to the Palestinian cause. It too simply called for solutions based on the old approach.

Moscow has perhaps issued the most interesting response yet by making almost no mention of the proposal, even as President Vladimir Putin hosted a triumphant Mr Netanyahu on his return from Washington. In the joint news con-ference, Mr Putin simply did not mention the plan even as Mr Net-anyahu talked almost exclusively about it.

On Sunday, five days after the announcement, Russian news agencies cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying: “We see the reaction of a wide range of Arab states which have sided with the Palestinians in rejecting the plan. This, obviously, makes one think about its feasibility.”

No concerns then in the Kremlin about the opinions of Mr Trump. Russia, it seems, is more focused on relations in the region that in

the West.But, many in Brussels, Beijing,

Moscow and the Middle East will probably be hoping that – now the long-delayed plan is out – Mr Trump will move on. Faced with a looming 2020 election and fresh from an impeachment inquiry, the president has a busy year ahead.

With Palestinians unlikely to agree to a sit-down, the peace talks aspect of a settlement is stuck.

Many are simply happy to issue statements that Mr Trump could read as praise but say very little while they bide their time to see who wins the 2020 election. A change in the White House in No-vember will probably consign the Trump plan to a brief footnote in history.

But if Mr Trump wins again and he remains focused on implement-ing his deal, then countries will need to start taking a stance, be that for or against. Only then will the issue of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process be back on the inter-national agenda.

Worryingly though for Palestin-ians, Israel is already setting about the annexation of West Bank set-tlements and the Jordan Valley and solidifying the existing reality of oc-cupation into permanence. Indeed, Mr Trump has already recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the occupation of the Golan Heights.

Biding time in the internation-al community leaves Palestinians alone to face the darkening future. In the words of the famed Palestin-ian poet Mahmoud Darwish: “The Palestinians are the only nation in the world that feels with certainty that today is better than what the days ahead will hold.”

1797The Riobamba earthquake strikes Ecuador, causing up to 40,000 casualties.

1801John Marshall is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States.

1810The Royal Navy seizes Guadeloupe.

1820The Chilean Navy under the command of Lord Cochrane completes the 2-day long Capture of Valdivia with just 300 men and 2 ships.

TODAY DAY IN

HISTORY

Three years ago, with the referendum of June 23, 2016, the British people decided with a percentage of almost 52 per cent and with 71.8pc participation the exit of Great Britain from the European

Union. This great result was undoubtedly the first major, painful de-feat for the under German-controlled European Union of banks and multinationals.

However, the exit of Great Britain from the European Union, which was scheduled to take place on 29 March 2019, after exactly two years before had been activated the article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon, which allows members-states to leave the union, ultimately it did not happen because of a failure to reach an agreement with the Brussels establishment.

This act of exit, which unfortunately did not take place on 31 October 2019 and during the second major extension and which will liberate Great Britain from the shackles of the European Union, shows on the one hand full respect for the will of the British people and on the other hand conflicts with those who are trying in various ways to delay or even cancel the proud Brexit.

Following the parliamentary hurdles raised by opposition parties in front of Brexit and Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s agreement with the European Union, was given another extension of the Brexit deadline, this time until 31 January 2020.

The recent elections on 12 December 2019 resulted in the over-whelming victory of Boris Johnson and the conquest of necessary majority with 365 seats from the 650 seats in the lower house of British parliament. So, the Prime Minister has already moved on approval of the withdrawal agreement, which was approved by a large majority in the House of Commons on 20 December 2019.

It is more than certain that with Brexit is not going to be the end of the world for Great Britain as it did not happen when it chose to stay out

of the eurozone. And as eminent experts say, the British economy after a short problematic period will be signif-icantly strengthened from a competitive point of view. So there is no doubt for any perspicacious observer and analyst that in the medium and long term, Great Britain, which will fully regain the ability to pursue national policy in all areas, will prosper out of an undemocratic and highly bureaucratic plan in which Germany has a dominant role.

However, the supporters of the stay of Great Britain in the European Union essentially want the British people’s will to be annulled and the referendum thrown into the trash following the result of which did not cause any immediate economic crisis as they were warning. So they sow fear and terror by inflating and magnifying any short-term negative effects.

Nevertheless, Brexit will not only have negative impacts on Great Britain, but also on the European Union. Brexit un-doubtedly threatens the unity of the union and creates an example of secession that other countries are likely to follow in the future (Domino Effect), while the lack of Great Britain financial contribution (around ten billion annually) will significantly affect the community budget. At the same time the Great Britain’s major trading partners (Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Belgium) will be significantly affected, while the European Union as a whole will cease to have the largest share of world GDP and be the largest trading power interna-tionally, giving its position in the US and China.

The blow for the European Union from Brexit and given the US sol-idarity that accompanies it and can be translated maybe into a major privileged bilateral Great Britain-US trade agreement, is much more than crucial and can prove fatal for the European Union and the Euro-zone, at a time when the latter is experiencing a prolonged economic and political crisis, which has been on the rise lately.

So in the face of heightened power competition between world powers (US, China, Russia, EU) it is more than obvious that the Donald Trump government and the American deep state have decided to curb German influence in the area of the western camp and prevent deci-sively the enforcement of German wills in European space.

Today’s vision against the rotten, totalitarian and highly neoliberal German European Union, which is the most failed experiment of eco-nomic and political union between different nation-states in history, can only be the equal co-operation of free European peoples and sovereign independent democratic countries from one end of Europe to the other.

In closing I would like to stress emphatically that nothing more can not prevent the will of the British people, who have been trained many centuries with the democratic traditions and with the precepts of free-dom and independence, to liberate his country from the iron shackles of the European Union. Those who were calling for a second referen-dum in order to emerge what they want, that is actually to blackmail democracy, received their response - which was essentially a strong slap - from the dominant people in the elections of 12 December 2019.

(Isidoros Karderinis is a novelist, poet and columnist. He has published seven poetry books and three novels. He can be reached at [email protected].)

A new chapter in European history

ISIDOROS KARDERINIS




reaching a mutually beneficial accord with London.

The cheap quip this week by Ire-land’s prime minister, Leo Vadadkar, that Britain would become a “small country” following its departure could not be further from the truth. Post-Brexit, it will still retain its seat as one of the five permanent mem-bers of the United Nations Security Council, giving it enormous political and diplomatic clout on the world stage.

In addition, Britain’s military and intelligence services remain the envy of Europe. It is the only European country apart from France that boasts its own nuclear weapons arsenal, while its armed forces – which are about to see two 65,000-ton Queen

Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers enter service – still remain Europe’s most powerful military force. These are considerations that will need to be factored into the EU’s calculations as it ponders its future relationship with Britain as, without ongoing British support, Europe could find its security requirements seriously compromised.

Add to this the fact that the British economy, which is currently growing at a far greater rate than the Eurozone and is projected to continue doing so by reputable institutions like the IMF, remains the fifth-largest in the world. And it is clear that it is very much in the EU’s interests to reach a reasonable post-Brexit settlement with London.

That said, Mr Johnson and his min-isters have made it abundantly clear that they see Brexit as an opportunity for Britain to sign new trade deals with the rest of the world, with a wide-ranging UK-US agreement be-ing their top priority. The Gulf is another area, as well as Australia, India and Japan, where Britain will be hoping to expand its existing trade ties.

So, rather than having regrets that Britain is finally leaving the EU, there are many reasons for op-timism that Brexit will ultimately prove that the people made the right choice after all.


The choice of the British people to Brexit will be vindicatedBritain’s desire to leave on friendly terms can be seen in the attitude Mr

Johnson has adopted since becoming prime minister

last July, in which he has deliberately taken a

non-confrontational tone with his EU counterparts,

frequently referring to them as “our European

friends”.

10

business


Gulf Air resumes services to Erbil

Manama

Gulf Air celebrated its re-sumption services to Erbil

in Iraq as its flight GF233 landed in Erbil International Airport at 1630 on 02 February 2020.

Upon arrival, a celebratory event was held at the airport which saw the attendance of Gulf Air’s Chief Operations Of-ficer Capt. Suhail Ismaeel and the airline’s Country Manager in Iraq Isa Shah, other dignitaries,

travel industry representatives and airport officials.

Capt. Suhail Ismaeel said: “With three weekly direct flights between Bahrain and Erbil supplemented with great connectivity through our hub,

this destination promises to be a key route within our growing network.”

Gulf Air’s flights to Erbil will further strengthen the airline’s existing Iraqi routes of Baghdad and Najaf.

Officials during a celebratory event held at Erbil International Airport

INOVEST acquires stake in WPC products companyTDT | Manama

INOVEST announced acquiring a substantial stake in a lead-ing composite industrial manufacturing company based in

Kuwait. The company is currently one of the only specialized regional

manufacturer of Wood Plastic Composite (WPC) products with a wide range of business to business and business to customer real estate, design, and construction applications.

The investment, valued at US$4 billion globally, comes on the back of demand drivers in Kuwait and Bahrain from the construction and contracting industries.

Commenting on the deal, Yasser Al Jar CEO of INOVEST said, “We expect to conclude the acquisition formalities by the first quarter of 2020 and to therein work closely with our partner to realize the company’s substantial growth potential.”

INOVEST’s Chief Investment Officer, Talal Al Mulla, noted, “WPC products come with their impressive list of attributes from being anti-corrosive, flame and water retardant, having longer-term resilience, as well as far lower cost of production in comparison to counterpart products.”

The deal signing

UAE discovers trillions of cubic feet of shallow gas reserves

Abu Dhabi

The United Arab Emirates, a leading OPEC producer, announced yesterday the

discovery of huge gas reserves, saying the find would help the Gulf state achieve self-suffi-ciency.

Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) said about 80 trillion cubic feet (2.2 trillion cubic metre) of shallow gas resourc-es were discovered between the emirates of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the largest of the sev-en-member UAE.

“This new discovery reinforc-es the nation’s goal of achieving gas self-sufficiency, enabling major development projects,” it said in a statement.

Leaders of Abu Dhabi and Du-bai witnessed the signing of an agreement between ADNOC and Dubai Supply Authority for the exploration and development of the gas resources.

In November, Abu Dhabi an-nounced new discoveries of sev-en billion barrels of oil to raise the UAE’s total crude reserves to 105 billion barrels, the world’s sixth largest.

It also announced the discov-ery of 58 trillion cubic feet of conventional gas, boosting total reserves to 273 trillion cubic feet as well as 160 trillion cubic feet of unconventional gas.

Most of these reserves are lo-cated in Abu Dhabi.

Yesterday’s statements gave no details on the timeframe for the new gas resources to be-come onstream or the estimated cost of the projects.

Shallow gas resources are re-serves found trapped not too deep from the surface but they need advanced technology for production.

The produced gas will be sup-

plied to Dubai which currently imports most of its gas needs from neighbouring Qatar which is under embargo by a Saudi-led coalition that includes the UAE.

The agreement “reinforces ADNOC’s commitment to ensur-ing a sustainable and economic gas supply and achieving gas self-sufficiency”, said the firm’s CEO, Sultan al-Jaber.

Throughout 2018, ADNOC

granted concession rights in existing and new oilfields to several international com-panies, and earmarked some $132 billion to invest in the oil sector over the next five years.

ADNOC plans to boost gas pro-duction for UAE to become a net exporter and also to raise crude output capacity to four million bpd in 2020 and to five million bpd a decade later.

Sea front promenade in the Emirati capital Abu Dhabi with the ADNOC headquarters (Abu Dhabi National Oil Company) office complex (C) in the foreground

Most major Gulf stocks extend losses; Aramco touches lowReuters

Most major Gulf stocks extended their declines

yesterday in line with their global peers, amid fears the coronavirus epidemic would hit Chinese demand. Dubai bucked the trend, helped by its financial services.

Qatar’s index dropped 1.1 per cent; all the stocks in its index fell except one. Mesaieed Pet-rochemical plunged 5.2pc and Commercial Bank lost 2.3pc.

Saudi Arabia’s benchmark index retreated 0.6pc with Samba Financial Group shed-ding 2.7pc, a day after it report-ed a decline in its annual profit before tax and zakat.

Saudi British Bank dropped 3pc. Saudi Aramco reversed course to close flat after reach-ing its lowest since it began trading on Dec. 11.

The stock fell in the previous sessions after Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement said that it had launched rockets and drone strikes at Saudi targets, including Aramco oil facilities.

The Abu Dhabi index re-versed course to close down 0.8 p c . F i r s t A b u D h a b i Bank declined 1.7pc and In-ternational Holding slid 3.1pc, ending 11 days of gains. Last week, it posted higher annual profit and said it would open talks to acquire Al Seer Marine Supplies & Equipment.

Outside the Gulf, Egypt’s blue-chip index slipped 0.1pc. Telecom Egypt lost 7.6pc, end-ing four straight days of gains.

The rally was triggered by Vodafone Group’s deal to sell its 55pc stake in Vodafone Egypt. Last week, Telecom Egypt said it had no inten-tion of selling its 45pc stake in Vodafone Egypt.

In Dubai, the index edged up 0.2pc with its largest listed developer, Emaar Properties, rising 1.3pc, Oman Insur-ance surged 11.3pc, its biggest intraday gain since August.

On Monday, the insurer signed a sale and purchase agreement to acquire an addi-tional 49pc stake in its subsid-iary Dubai Starr Sigorta.

Closing Bell SAUDI 0.6pc to 8,113 pts

ABU DHABI 0.8pc to 5,077 pts

DUBAI 0.2pc to 2,771 pts

QATAR 1.1pc to 10,252 pts

EGYPT 0.1pc to 13,878 pts

BAHRAIN p 0.2pc to 1,663 pts

OMAN 0.6pc to 4,116 pts

KUWAIT 0.4pc at 6,977 pts

Cyprus wins back UK halloumi trademarkNicosia

Cyprus has regained the trademark rights in Britain

to its renowned white cheese halloumi after an official blun-der saw it lose its brand pro-tection in 2018, officials said yesterday.

Commerce Minister George Lakkotrypis said Cyprus regis-tered the “halloumi” trademark

at the UK’s Intellectual Proper-ty Office on January 31, after losing it in May 2018 through a bureaucratic blunder.

“We believe this re-registra-tion is a significant develop-ment, not only because it cor-rects a serious mistake made by the ministry, but because it will also ensure our exports to the UK will continue to rise, re-gardless of Brexit,” Lakkotrypis

told reporters.The UK is the biggest mar-

ket for the popular squeaky cheese, absorbing 40 percent of halloumi exports generating around $91 million a year.

Cyprus expects to yield $330 million in exports from hal-loumi by 2023.

The government has admit-ted it was culpable in losing the British legal battle over hal-loumi last time but said this suc-cess “corrected” past failures.

Cyprus has regained the trademark rights in Britain to its renowned white cheese halloumi


Gold and Bentleys: Lebanese spend big to salvage savingsAFP | Beirut

Companies are closing and restaurants are half empty

but in the gloom of Lebanon’s worst economic crisis in dec-ades, luxury jewellers, supercar dealerships and art galleries are doing brisk business.

Worried that their life savings might vanish with a collapse of the banking sector, some Leb-anese are syphoning cash from their accounts and buying the most expensive goods they can get their hands on.

Banks have slapped restric-tions on withdrawals and over-seas transfers, leading some de-positors to use cashier’s checks to spend savings they fear would otherwise be depleted by a hair-cut or a devaluation.

“Our sales have trebled since November,” said Karl Kenaan, a Beirut-based real estate broker. “There’s a huge demand.”

Companies encouraging Leb-anese to offload their savings by investing in property have launched advertising campaigns on billboards and on social me-dia.

“People want to diversify their investments as a precaution against the threat that hovers above the banking sector and the national currency,” Kenaan said.

To be on the safe side, many choose to buy flats and houses outside of Lebanon for fear the property market could collapse too.

“Secure your savings with a property investment in Greece you can pay for in Lebanon,” reads a Facebook ad for a real estate agency.

Gold is goldenThe Lebanese pound has been

officially pegged to the dollar

since 1997 but it has lost a third of its value on the parallel mar-ket recently.

With the prospect that Leb-anon might restructure or de-fault on its debt after years of economic mismanagement and corruption, many Lebanese fear that an official devaluation of the pound will slash their savings.

The loss of confidence in a banking sector that was once a source of national pride is such that deposits in Lebanon have slumped by $12 billion over the first 11 months of 2019.

For years, deposits had been fuelled by the influx of money from Lebanon’s vast diaspora and Gulf residents who were attracted by high interest rates.

These rates, however, have

decreased significantly since December, further dissuading depositors abroad and at home from putting their money in the bank.

Despite the controls slapped by banks to prevent capital flight, Lebanese depositors can still ask for cashier’s checks and they are using them to buy goods they feel will not depreciate or can be easily resold abroad.

“More and more clients are buying gold coins, chains, brace-lets and necklaces, only for their monetary value,” said one jew-eller whose business has 14 branches nationwide.

One car dealer who also asked not to be identified said Lam-borghinis and Bentleys some-times fetching $400,000 were

still in demand “even as auto sales are generally plummeting”.

Art in the cart“Sure, these cars gradually

lose some of their value but for many buyers it’s a case of trying not to lose everything,” he said.

Artworks, a traditional safe investment in times of crisis, are being snapped in Beirut’s edgy galleries.

“Lately I’ve had visits from people I’ve never seen before in my gallery,” one owner said. “They basically want to see the largest paintings, buy the most expensive pieces.”

Those who are unsure what to spend their money on tend to pull as much cash as possi-ble from the bank and keep it

at home.According to the banking au-

thorities, $3 billion have been withdrawn from banks and hoarded at home since Sep-tember, triggering a rush on safes.

“Our sales have gone up 50 percent,” said Khalil Chehab, a retailer who specialises in safes and lock boxes.

“Banks used to be our main clients before the crisis broke out, now it’s their customers who are coming to us,” he said, adding that some buyers were ready to spend up to $20,000 on high-end safes.

“People are no longer looking for any kind of profit. They just want to save their money, at any price.”

Despite bank controls to prevent capital flight, Lebanese depositors can still ask for cashier’s checks and they are using them to buy goods they feel will not depreciate or can be easily resold abroad

Billboards advertising real estate in the area of Dbayeh, north of Beirut

Worried that their life savings might vanish with a collapse of the banking sector, some Lebanese are emptying their accounts to buy property and luxury goods

Dubai will build ‘hypercars’ from October in Silicon Oasis

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates

W Motors, the first manufacturer of high-performance

luxury sports cars in the Mid-dle East, laid the foundation stone for its automotive fa-cility at Dubai Silicon Oasis, UAE, marking the first man-ufacturing facility of its kind in the Middle East with an in-vestment exceeding $USD100 Million.

Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman of Dubai Silicon Oasis and Chairman and Chief Executive of Emir-ates Airline and Group, laid the foundation stone during an event that was attended by Dr. Mohammed Al Zarooni, Vice Chairman & CEO of DSOA, and Ralph R. Debbas, W Motors Founder & CEO.

The state-of-the-art auto-motive facility sees W Mo-tors Founder & CEO Ralph R. Debbas’ vision of driving the

region’s automotive industry become a reality. Spread over 120,000 sqft., the project’s first phase is set to be completed by 2020. Production of all W Mo-tors vehicles will move to this location including the limited series Fenyr SuperSport, up-coming new vehicles, electric and autonomous models, and all vehicles under the compa-ny’s Special Projects Division.

Phase One will be divided into three blocks: the Manu-facturing Division will com-prise a mechanical workshop, an assembly area, a “Concept & Prototype” manufacturing zone, and will feature the lat-est machines equipped with advanced smart technologies for production of carbon fibre, aluminum and other parts.

The main Headquarters will include Design, Engineering, R&D and Training Centres along with autonomous and technology development de-partment.

Ahmed bin Saeed laying foundation stone for W Motors Facility in Dubai Silicon Oasis

Shanghai stocks plunge on virus fears; pound slides after BrexitAFP | London

Chinese equities plunged almost eight per cent yes-terday as nervous traders

returned from their extended Lunar New Year break, hit by fears that the deadly coronavi-rus could hammer the country’s economy.

The steep losses led another sell-off across Asia following a painful week for global markets with the virus death toll top-ping 360 people and more than 17,000 infected, and govern-ments around the world ban-ning flights to and from China.

Oil prices hit 13-month lows at the start of Asian trading on expectations that crude demand could slide as the virus hits eco-nomic output.

OPEC members and their ally Russia will convene a technical meeting this week to analyse oil price falls since the outbreak of a coronavirus epidemic, a source close to the cartel said on Sunday.

Brent North crude dropped to $55.42 per barrel and WTI to $50.42 on Monday -- the lowest levels since January 2019. Prices recovered in European trading.

In foreign exchange, sterling slid one pc versus the dollar on Monday, hit by worries over post-Brexit trade deal negoti-ations after Britain’s exit from

the European Union last Friday, dealers said.

The pound’s tumble helped to lift London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index.

Sterling’s slide is “general-ly good for companies whose shares are priced in pounds but who earn in foreign currencies including the dollar”, noted Russ Mould, investment direc-

tor at AJ Bell.Elsewhere, “Chinese stocks

played catch-up... as its mar-kets reopened after more than a week’s closure”, said Mould.

“While the scale of this move-ment is enormous in terms of daily stock market action, it es-sentially puts China’s market more in line with how the Hong Kong index has reacted in the

past few weeks.”Analysts have warned that the

virus outbreak could slash glob-al growth this year, throwing a spanner in the works just as economies were showing signs of stabilising after more than a year of slowing.

Observers said that with China being a crucial part of the global trade infrastructure, other countries would also be badly hit, while major corporate names have frozen or scaled back their Chinese operations, threatening the global supply chain.

The World Health Organiza-tion last week invoked a global health emergency but stopped short of recommending trade and travel restrictions that could have had a bruising effect on China.

Still, JP Morgan Asset Man-agement strategist Tai Hui re-mained relatively upbeat about the future.

“As the number of infections is still likely to rise in the weeks ahead, we would expect the Chinese onshore equity market to come under pressure,” he said in a note.

“That said, we still believe that economic activities should recover swiftly once the number of new cases comes under con-trol, and subsequently market sentiment should also improve.”

Key figures around 1115 GMTLondon - FTSE 100: 0.5 pc at 7,321.40 pts

Frankfurt - DAX 30: 0.2 pc at 13,007.73

Paris - CAC 40: 0.3 pc at 5,821.37

EURO STOXX 50: 0.2 pc at 3,649.14

Shanghai - Composite: 7.7 pc at 2,746.61 (close)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng: 0.2 pc at 26,356.98 (close)

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: 1.0 pc at 22,971.94. (close)

New York - DOW: 2.1 pc at 28,256.03 (close)

Pound/dollar: at $1.3060 from $1.3206 Friday

Euro/pound: at 84.73 pence from 83.99 pence

Euro/dollar: at $1.1067 from $1.1093

Dollar/yen: P at 108.42 from 108.35

Brent Crude: 0.5 pc at $56.36 per barrel

West Texas Intermediate: 0.2 pc at $51.67


I see no need to bind ourselves

to an agreement with the EU. We will restore full

sovereign controls over our borders,

immigration, competition, subsidy rules, procurement

(and) data protection.We will not engage in some cut-throat race

to the bottomJOHNSON SAID IN A SPEECH AT THE OLD ROYAL NAVAL COLLEGE, WHICH CHRON-

ICLES BRITAIN’S PAST AS A MARITIME SUPERPOWER

Johnson, Barnier trade blows over post-Brexit tiesAFP | London

Britain and the EU laid down yesterday their red lines for post-Brexit trade

talks, offering contrasting vi-sions for their future relation-ship that raise the prospect of clashes to come.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson envisioned his coun-try as a global champion of free trade, emphatically rejecting EU insistence on full alignment with Brussels.

But he still pledged not to “undermine EU standards”, af-ter the UK finally went its own way on Friday after nearly half a century in the bloc and an 11-month transition period began.

Worries over trade negoti-ations sent the pound sinking more than 1.1 percent against the dollar in London midday deals on Monday.

“I see no need to bind our-selves to an agreement with the EU,” Johnson said in a speech at the Old Royal Na-val College, which chronicles Britain’s past as a maritime superpower.

“We will restore full sovereign controls over our borders, im-migration, competition, subsidy rules, procurement (and) data protection.”

He added: “We will not engage in some cut-throat race to the bottom.

“We are not leaving the EU to undermine European standards. We will not engage in any kind of dumping, whether commercial, social or environmental.”

In Brussels, EU chief Brex-it negotiator Michel Barnier formally offered a deep future relationship but only as long

as Britain makes guarantees to trade fairly.

‘Level playing field’Barnier said fisheries and fair

trade would be his top priorities in the talks, with a special focus on denying Britain “unfair com-petitive advantages”.

Brussels will offer a close post-Brexit trading relation-ship -- but will demand tough terms on fisheries and a level playing field for businesses, he said.

His vision flies in the face of that of Johnson, who insists that Britain’s alignment with Euro-peans on rules and regulations defies the spirit of Brexit and was a thing of the past.

“We are ready to offer a highly

ambitious trade deal as the cen-tral pillar of this partnership, including zero tariffs,” Barnier told a news conference.

“We must now agree on spe-cific and effective guarantees to ensure a level-playing-field over the long term,” he said.

“That means a mechanism to uphold the high standards we have on social, environmental, climate, tax and state aid matters today and in their future devel-opments.”

‘Better’ than EUJohnson railed against protec-

tionism as a brake to the growth of the world economy and ar-gued Britain had no more reason to meet EU standards than the bloc has to meet British ones.

“There is no need for a free trade agreement to involve accepting EU rules on compe-tition policies, subsidies, so-cial protection, the environ-ment or anything similar, any more than the EU should be obliged to accept UK rules,” he said.

Both sides have until the end of the transition period to reconcile their positions, with Johnson flatly refusing to extend the negotiating period beyond December 31.

Until then, Britain has agreed to abide by the rules of EU membership, but failing a deal, the two sides would resort to the most basic of relationships with border checks and high tariffs causing big shocks to the

cross-channel economy.Johnson, a polarising figure

accused of glossing over the complexity of leaving the EU, is in a rush to seal a deal and deliv-er the “independence” promised by Brexiteers.

This would also open the way for Britain to seal ambitious trade deals across the globe, most notably with the United States.

Brussels has repeatedly warned Britain the depth of fu-ture trade ties depends on how closely London adheres to EU standards -- what is known as maintaining the level playing field.

‘Utmost importance’“The closer the UK wants

to be, the easier the access to the single market. But nothing comes for free,” European Com-mission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters.

“It’s of utmost importance, and therefore I think it’s only a matter of fairness to also play by the rules,” she said.

Britain has asked for the EU’s trade deal with Canada to be used as a model, which Euro-peans consider acceptable on tariffs and quotas, but too weak on provisions to guarantee fair trade.

Barring that Johnson said Britain would be happy to match the EU’s current ties with far-away Australia, which in-clude tariffs, quotas and some basic cooperation on product safety.

Barnier’s negotiating mandate will be discussed and approved by the EU’s 27 member states lat-er this month with direct trade talks with London to begin in early March.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged to restore full sovereign controls over a number of areas as Britain and the EU begin to ponder their post-Brexit future

EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier insisted on the need for effective guarantees to ensure a level playing field for businesses over the long term

Russia’s anaemic 2019 growth highlights Kremlin challengeMoscow

Russia’s economic growth slowed to 1.3 per cent last

year, the state statistics agency said yesterday, emphasising the challenge the Kremlin faces as it boosts spending to stir the economy from its lethargy.

Russia’s economy, long bat-tered by Western sanctions and highly dependent on high prices for its energy exports, slowed considerably from the 2.5pc growth registered in 2018 and failed to meet even the govern-ment’s forecast of an increase of 1.4pc.

Sluggish economic growth and five years of falling real in-comes highlight the challenge the government faces as Pres-ident Vladimir Putin, whose popularity among Russians has been due in no small part to a period of prosperity he oversaw in the 2000s, has set a target of having Russian the economy outpace the rest of the world next year.

Citing preliminary data, the Rosstat statistics agency said that GDP last year was 109.3 tril-lion rubles ($1.7 trillion).

Economists pointed out that the slowdown was mainly due to household spending, which weakened to a 2.3pc increase from 3.3pc in 2018, and exports, which fell by 2.1pc after growing by 5.5pct in the previous year.

The economy was boosted

by mining (2.7pc), financial (9.7 pc), and transportation sectors (2.1pc).

At the beginning of his fourth presidential term in 2018, Pu-tin set a goal of reaching four percent economic growth with the help of a hugely ambitious “national projects” programme.

Russia’s economy had only just returned to growth in 2017 after two years of recession thanks to low oil prices and Western sanctions over Mos-cow’s role in the Ukraine crisis.

But despite Putin’s plan, a real acceleration of the economy failed to take place even though a rise in global oil prices boosted the key energy sector.

During his annual state of the

nation address last month, Putin said that the real incomes of Russians should receive a “con-siderable” boost.

“To obtain such dynamics we have to launch a new invest-ment cycle,” Putin said as he announced new cash payouts for births and the extension of child benefit plans.

Boosting growthDmitry Dolgin, chief econ-

omist at ING Bank in Moscow, said the figures were not a sur-prise.

“This is why the whole of 2019 was dedicated to how to boost growth,” Dolgin said, not-ing that the economy’s anaemic performance had cost Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev his job last month.

“It’s clear that investments are the weakest link,” he said, adding that investment statistics for last year were comparable to those from 2008.

After announcing a broad constitutional reform during the state of the nation address last month, Putin dismissed Med-vedev’s cabinet and appoint-ed a new government headed by former tax chief Mikhail Mishustin.

The new prime minister said authorities needed to reassure the business community and stimulate the growth of invest-ment.

Capital Economics said late last month that the Russian gov-ernment’s recent focus towards policy loosening would likely lead to faster economic growth over the next 12-18 months.

“But prolonged stimulus would also erode the strength of Russia’s balance sheet, making the economy more vulnerable to a fall in oil prices,” the UK-based consultancy said.

Capital Economics estimated that Russian economic growth would rise to 1.8 percent this year and then fall back to 1.3 percent in 2021.

Renaissance Capital said it expected growth in Russia to double to 2.6pc in 2020 and stay at 2.5pc next year, pointing to consumption and investment growth amid monetary and fis-cal easing.

1.3 per cent growth is far from the 4pc rate sought by the Kremlin

YouTube to ban ‘manipulated’ content linked to electionsWashington

YouTube said yesterday it would remove election-re-

lated videos that are “manipu-lated or doctored” to mislead voters, as part of its efforts to stem online misinformation.

The Google-owned video service said it was taking the measures as part of an effort to be a “more reliable source” for news and to promote a “healthy political discourse.”

Leslie Miller, YouTube’s vice president of government af-fairs and public policy, said in a blog post that the service’s community standards prohibit “content that has been techni-cally manipulated or doctored in a way that misleads users ... and may pose a serious risk of

egregious harm.”The policy also bans content

which aims to mislead peo-ple about voting or the census processes.

The move comes amid grow-ing concern about so-called “deepfake” videos altered by using artificial intelligence which can create credi-ble-looking events, but also “shallow” fakes that use more rudimentary techniques to de-ceive viewers.

Trump says up in polls ahead of impending acquittalWashington

US President Donald Trump on Saturday claimed his

polling numbers were up af-ter the Senate paved the way for his acquittal next week on impeachment charges of abuse of power.

The Senate on Friday re-buffed Democratic calls for new witnesses at Trump’s tri-al, with a vote on whether to acquit him due on Wednesday -- the day after he gives his

annual “State of the Union” speech.

Trump is all-but-assured of being acquitted by the Senate, where Republicans hold 53 seats to 47 for the Democrats. A two-thirds majority, or 67 senators, is needed to remove a president from office.

“Trump poll numbers are the highest since election, de-spite constant phony Witch Hunts!” the president tweeted from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

THE GENTLEMEN (15+)(CRIME/ACTION) OASIS JUFFAIR: 11.15 AM + 1.45 + 4.15 + 6.45 + 9.15 + 11.45 PMOASIS JUFFAIR (VIP): 12.30 + 5.45 + 11.00 PMCITY CENTRE: 11.30 AM + 2.00 + 4.30 + 7.00 + 9.30 + 12.00 MN + (1.00 AM THURS/FRI)CITY CENTRE (VIP I) : 10.45 AM + 1.15 + 3.45 + 6.15 + 8.45 + 11.15 PMSEEF (I): 11.00 AM + 1.30 + 4.00 + 6.30 + 9.00 + 11.30 PMSEEF (II): (12.30 MN THURS/FRI)WADI AL SAIL: 10.45 AM + 1.15 + 3.45 + 6.15 + 8.45 + 11.15 PM

MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY, CHARLIE HUNNAM, HENRY GOLDING

THE TURNING (15+)(HORROR/THRILLER)OASIS JUFFAIR: 1.45 + 6.45 + 11.45 PMCITY CENTRE:10.30 AM + 12.45 + 3.00 + 5.15 + 7.30 + 9.45 + 12.00 MN + (1.00 AM THURS/FRI)SEEF (II):11.30 AM + 1.45 + 4.00 + 6.15 + 8.30 + 10.45 PM + (1.00 AM THURS/FRI)WADI AL SAIL:10.30 AM + 3.00 + 7.30 + 12.00 MN

MACKENZIE DAVIS, FINN WOLFHARD, BROOKLYNN PRINCE

JUST MERCY (PG-13)(DRAMA)CITY CENTRE: 11.30 AM +2.30 + 5.30 + 8.30 + 11.30 PMSEEF (II): 12.15 + 5.45 + 11.15 PMWADI AL SAIL: 2.30 + 8.00 PM

BRIE LARSON, MICHAEL B. JORDAN, JAMIE FOXX

THE LAST FULL MEASURE (PG-15)(DRAMA/WAR) CITY CENTRE: 12.30 + 3.00 + 5.30 + 8.00 + 10.30 PMSEEF (II): 3.15 + 8.45 PMWADI AL SAIL:12.00 + 5.30 + 11.00 PM

CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER, SAMUEL L. JACKSON, SEBASTIAN STAN

PANGA (PG-13)(HINDI/ROMANTIC/DRAMA/SPORT) From Thursday 23rd 7.00 PM onwardsOASIS JUFFAIR: 12.00 + 2.45 + 5.30 + 8.15 + 11.00 PMCITY CENTRE: 11.45 AM + 2.45 + 5.45 + 8.45 + 11.45 PMSEEF (II): 12.15 + 3.00 + 5.45 + 8.30 + 11.15 PMWADI AL SAIL: 12.00 + 5.45 + 11.30 PM

KANGANA RANAUT, JASSIE GILL, RICHA CHADHA

STREET DANCER 3 (PG-15)(HINDI/DANCE/MUSIC/COMEDY) OASIS JUFFAIR:11.00 AM + 2.00 + 5.00 + 8.00 + 11.00 PMCITY CENTRE:11.15 AM + 2.15 + 5.15 + 8.15 + 11.15 PMSEEF (II): 11.30 AM + 2.30 + 5.30 + 8.30 + 11.30 PMWADI AL SAIL: 2.45 + 8.30 PM

VARUN DHAWAN, SHRADDHA KAPOOR, RAGHAV JUYAL

TOY GUARDIANS (G)(ANIMATION/ACTION/ADVENTURE) CITY CENTRE: 11.00 AM + 1.00 + 3.00 + 5.00 PMSEEF (II): 10.30 AM + 12.30 + 2.30 + 4.30 PM

MITCH SANDRINGHAM,JULIA NOBLES,CATIA NATHANSON

AL NIHAYA (PG)(KUWAITI/ACTION/COMEDY) SEEF (II): 6.30 + 8.30 + 10.30 PM

EBRAHIM AL-SHEAKHLI, MESHAAL ALFARHAN, MOHAMMED ALHMLY

BAD BOYS FOR LIFE (PG-15)(ACTION/COMEDY/CRIME)OASIS JUFFAIR: 12.30 + 3.15 + 6.00 + 8.45 + 11.30 PMOASIS JUFFAIR (VIP): 3.00 + 8.15 PMCITY CENTRE (IMAX 2D): 3.15 + 6.00 + 8.45 + 11.30 PMCITY CENTRE: 11.15 AM + 2.00 + 4.45 + 7.30 + 10.15 PM + (1.00 AM THURS/FRI) CITY CENTRE (ATMOS): 10.30 AM + 1.00 + 3.45 + 6.30 + 9.15 + 12.00 MN CITY CENTRE (VIP II) : 12.00 + 2.45 + 5.30 + 8.15 + 11.00 PMSEEF (II): 10.30 AM + 1.00 + 3.45 + 6.30 + 9.15 + 12.00 MN + (12.30 MN THURS/FRI)WADI AL SAIL: 12.45 + 3.30 + 6.15 + 9.00 + 11.45 PM

WILL SMITH, MARTIN LAWRENCE, VANESSA HUDGENS

DOLITTLE (PG)(ADVENTURE/COMEDY/FAMILY) OASIS JUFFAIR (KIDS CINEMA): 10.45 AM + 1.00 + 5.30 + 7.45 + 10.00 PMCITY CENTRE (IMAX 2D) :11.00 AM + 1.00 PMCITY CENTRE: 12.00 + 2.15 + 4.30 + 6.45 + 9.00 + 11.15 PMSEEF (II): 11.45 AM + 2.00 + 4.15 + 6.30 + 8.45 + 11.00 PMWADI AL SAIL: 12.45 + 5.15 + 9.45 PM

ROBERT DOWNEY JR., ANTONIO BANDERAS, MICHAEL SHEEN

1917 (PG-15)(WAR/ACTION/DRAMA) 1917 CITY CENTRE:11.00 AM + 1.30 + 4.00 + 6.30 + 9.00 + 11.30 PMSEEF (II): 10.30 AM + 1.00 + 3.30 + 6.00 + 8.30 + 11.00 PM

GEORGE MACKAY, DEAN-CHARLES CHAPMAN, MARK STRONG

JUMANJI THE NEXT LEVEL (PG-15)CITY CENTRE: 12.45 + 3.30 + 6.15 + 9.00 + 11.45 PM + (12.45 MN THURS/FRI)SEEF (II): 12.30 + 3.15 + 6.00 + 8.45 + 11.30 PM

DWAYNE JOHNSON, JACK BLACK, KEVIN HART

AL FELOUS (THE MONEY) (PG-15)CITY CENTRE: 11.15 AM + 1.45 + 4.15 + 6.45 + 9.15 + 11.45 PMSEEF (I):10.45 AM + 1.15 + 3.45 + 6.15 + 8.45 + 11.15 PM

TAMER HOSNY, ZEINA, KHALID EL-SAWI

FROZEN 2 (PG)(ANIMATION/ADVENTURE/COMEDY) CITY CENTRE: 11.30 AM + 1.45 + 4.00 + 6.15 + 8.30 + 10.45 PMSEEF (II): 11.00 AM + 3.30 + 8.00 PM

KRISTEN BELL, IDINA MENZEL, JOSH GAD

SPIES IN DISGUISE (PG)OASIS JUFFAIR (KIDS CINEMA):3.15 PMCITY CENTRE: 11.15 AM + 1.30 + 3.45 + 6.00 + 8.15 + 10.30 PMSEEF (II): 1.15 + 5.45 + 10.15 PM

WILL SMITH, TOM HOLLAND, KAREN GILLAN

UNDERWATER (PG-15)CITY CENTRE:7.00 + 9.15 + 11.30 PM

KRISTEN STEWART, T.J. MILLER, JESSICA HENWICK

MASAMEER: THE MOVIE (PG)(ANIMATION/COMEDY) CITY CENTRE: 10.45 AM + 3.45 + 8.45 PM

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

MALEFICENT 2: MISTRESS OF EVIL CITY CENTRE: 1.15 + 6.15 + 11.15 PM

ANGELINA JOLIE, TERESA MAHONEY, MICHELLE PFEIFFER

CHHAPAAK (PG-15)(HINDI/DRAMA) SEEF (I): 10.45 AM + 1.15 + 6.45 + 9.15 + 11.45 PM

DEEPIKA PADUKONE, VIKRANT MASSEY, MADHURJEET SARGHI

TANHAJI:THE UNSUNG WARRIOR OASIS JUFFAIR : 11.00 AM + 4.00 + 9.00 PMSEEF (I): 3.00 + 8.30 PM

AJAY DEVGN, SAIF ALI KHAN, KAJOL

BIG BROTHER (PG-15)(MALAYALAM) OASIS JUFFAIR:10.45 AM + 4.45 + 10.45 PM

MOHANLAL, ARBAAZ KHAN, ANOOP MENON, SARJANO KHALID, HONEY ROSE, SIDDIQUE

ALA VAIKUNTHAPURRAMLOO (PG-15)(TELUGU) OASIS JUFFAIR: 1.45 + 7.45 PMSEEF (I):12.00 + 5.30 + 11.00 PM

ALLU ARAVIND,S. RADHA KRISHNA, ALLU ARJUN, POOJA HEGDE, TABU, NIVETHA PETHURAJ

DISCO RAJA ()(TELUGU) From Friday 24th SEEF (I): 3.45 PM

RAVI TEJA, PAYAL RAJPUT, SATYA

ANJAAM PATHIRA (PG-15 )(MALAYALAM) OASIS JUFFAIR:12.00 + 2.45 + 5.30 + 8.15 + 11.00 PMSEEF (I) : 12.15 + 3.00 + 5.45 + 8.30 + 11.15 PMWADI AL SAIL: 3.15 + 8.30 PMAL HAMRA : 12.00 + 6.00 + (12.00 MN THURS/FRI)

KUNCHACKO BOBAN, SHARAFUDHEEN, INDRANS

SHYLOCK (PG-15)(MALAYALAM)OASIS JUFFAIR: 11.00 AM + 1.30 + 4.00 + 6.30 + 9.00 + 11.30 PMSEEF (I): 11.30 AM + 2.00 + 4.30 + 7.00 + 9.30 + 12.00 MNWADI AL SAIL: 12.45 + 6.00 + 11.15 PMAL HAMRA : 3.00 + 9.00 PM

MAMMOOTTY,MEENA,SIDDQUE,RAJKIRANA

13 TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 202014 TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2020

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

Yesterday’s solution

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

Yesterday’s solution

S U D O K UAcross1- Does some tailoring; 5- Motion picture; 9- Italian wine city; 13- Crazy as ___; 15- “A Jug of Wine...” poet; 16- Will of “The Waltons”; 17- In agreement; 18- Graf ___; 19- Editor Wintour; 20- Needlefish; 21- Precious stones; 23- Truman of literature; 25- Timbuktu’s land; 26- Furry swimmers; 27- Sarcastic; 30- It may be picked; 31- Multitude; 32- Pertaining to the management of public wealth; 37- Not ___ many words; 38- Seductively beautiful woman; 40- Small mountain; 41- Chef’s measure; 43- Sri ___; 44- Credit-tracking corp.; 45- Hawaii’s largest industry; 47- Lama pacos; 50- Lacoste of tennis; 51- Threat finale; 52- Pervasive quality; 53- HBO alternative; 56- Bausch & Lomb brand; 57- Holds up; 59- Spud; 61- Tease; 62- Prepare a book or film for release; 63- Movie critic Roger; 64- Vintner’s prefix; 65- Phooey!; 66- JFK postings;

Down 1- Dutch name of The Hague; 2- Lohengrin’s bride; 3- Heath; 4- Mama’s boy; 5- Vast; 6- Little devils; 7- Dundee denial; 8- Building; 9- Godly love; 10- Spanish Mister; 11- Camp sights; 12- Dies ___; 14- Undo; 22- Quarterback Manning; 24- Env. notation; 25- Windows predecessor; 26- On a single occasion; 27- Voucher; 28- Bang-up; 29- Bear up there; 32- Ocean flier; 33- Chicago’s airport; 34- Start of something small?; 35- Kinds; 36- A type of bake; 38- Magician; 39- Hawkeye’s home; 42- School orgs.; 43- Crescent-shaped; 45- Expects confidently; 46- Done, to Donne; 47- ___ having fun yet?; 48- Russian revolutionary leader; 49- Disney dog; 51- ___ take arms against...; 52- Slightly; 53- Editor’s note; 54- Mother of Ares; 55- Scraps; 58- Name of a feudal Japanese clan; 60- Actor Vigoda;

The Rhythm Section: the semi-reluctant assassinThe Rhythm Section is

a 2020 American ac-tion drama film direct-

ed by Reed Morano and writ-ten by Mark Burnell, based on Burnell’s novel of the same name.

The film stars Blake Live-ly, Jude Law, and Sterling K. Brown, and follows a griev-ing daughter who sets out for revenge after discovering the plane crash that killed her family was no accident.

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an ap-

proval rating of 33% based on 110 reviews, with an average rating of 4.74/10. The website’s critical consensus reads: “Blake Lively delivers an impressive lead per-formance, but The Rhythm Sec-tion plods predictably through a story that could have used some flashier riffs.”

On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score 44 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating “mixed or average reviews”.

Audiences polled by Cine-maScore gave the film an aver-

age grade of “C+” on an A+ to F scale, and PostTrak reported it received an average 2.5 out of 5 stars, with 35% of people saying they would definitely recom-mend it.

Writing for Variety, Peter De-Bruge stated that Blake Live-ly–unlike the protagonists in Atomic Blonde, Red Sparrow and La Femme Nikita–dis-played “near-incompetence in the face of danger [that] makes her relatable in ways very few cinematic assassins have ever been.”

Star Blake Lively contin-ues to be an underrated

onscreen chameleon in Reed Morano’s chilly

actioner

M O V I E R E V I E W

DON’T MISS IT

14 TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2020

22nd February, 2020

Please Call / WhatsApp: +973 38862215, 33784481, 33911860

C L A S S I F I E D S CHANGE OF NAME

I, SATISH MANGALA GOWRI, Wife of SATISH MUTHIYALU, holding Indian passport no

L3416328, dated 10/02/2014 issued at BAHRAIN, having

permanent address( full address in India) 129,

ARISIPALAYAM MAIN ROAD, LEIGH BAZAAR, SALEM -

636009, TAMIL NADU, INDIA. Presently residing at

(full address in Bahrain) FLAT 54, BUILDING 386, ROAD3910, BLOCK 339, UMM AL HASSAM,

KINGDOM OF BAHRAIN will henceforth be known as (Given

name) MANGALA GOWRI (surname) SATISH.

Objection(s) if any, may be forwarded to the embassy of India, P.O.Box 26106, Al Seef,

Kingdom of Bahrain.

Jennifer Lopez, Alex Rodriguez planning a summer weddingLos Angeles

Actress-singer Jennifer Lopez and basketball

icon Alex Rodriguez are planning a summer wedding.

A source told Us Weekly that J.Lo and A-Rod “are get-ting married this summer”, reports aceshowbiz.com.

This is not the first time t h e couple is report-

ed to be eyeing a s u m m e r w e d d i n g . Back in 2017,

Life & Style m a g a z i n e claimed that the pair were

planning a romantic wed-ding in Cuba.

A source told the maga-zine that the two of them “know what they want, and they want to be husband and wife, sooner rather than later. They’ll be married by the summer!”

Akshay’s last-minute tips to daughter Nitara before her karate examMumbai

Bollywood Khiladi Akshay Kumar was recently spotted giving last-minute tips to his

‘Karate Girl’ Nitara before her mar-tial arts exam.

Akshay’s wife and author Twin-kle Khanna took to Instagram on Sunday, where the actor is seen giving tips to his seven-year-old daughter Nitara on a few fiery kicks.

“One last kick before she leaves for her first karate exam. #karategirl,” Twinkle captioned the image.

The image currently has garnered 203K likes on Instagram.

Akshay and Twinkle married on January 2001. They also have a son named Aarav.

On the work front, Akshay has an ex-citing slate of work coming up this year. He will be seen next in Rohit Shetty’s cop drama film “Sooryavanshi”.

Kangana’s bharatnatyam pose in Jayalalithaa biopic wows social mediaMumbai

A new st i l l f rom the upcoming Kangana Ranaut-starrer “Thalai-

vi” defines the film’s subject, the late J. Jayalalithaa, as a dance icon.

“Thalaivi” is a biopic of Jay-alalithaa, who was a filmstar and renowned dancer before she forayed politics, and went onto become Chief Minister of

Tamil Nadu.In the new still, Kangana is

seen in a Bharatanatyam pose. The photograph was shared by the film’s creative producer Brinda Prasad on Twitter.

“Madam J. Jayalalithaa was a great dancer & here pre-senting you the look of #Kanga-naRanaut as #Jayalalithaa from #Thalaivi,” Prasad tweeted.

Showering love upon Kan-gana over the new still, a Twit-ter user wrote: “Unbelievable transformation.”

Beyonce, Jay Z didn’t get up as mark of respect to national

anthem at Super Bowl LIVLos Angeles

American singer Be-yonce and Jay Z along with their kid Blue Ivy

chose not to stand up during Demi Lovato’s performance of the national anthem at Su-per Bowl LIV on Sunday (local time).

The couple was sitting to-gether, a few rows back from the field, and they clearly did not make an effort to get up during Demi Lovato’s perfor-mance. A guy, who appears to be a bodyguard of theirs, was standing though, as was pretty much everyone else around them, reported TMZ.

Afterward, American DJ, DJ Khaled came and said hi to the family and then dabbed up the security guard. Even after

the apparent statement they made, everyone seemed to be in a pretty good mood.

Jay has also teamed up with the NFL to shine a light on police brutality, the crimi-nal justice system and other causes important to him and the black community.

Shakira, Jennifer Lopez perform hits at Super Bowl LIV halftime show

Los Angeles

Shakira along with several backup dancers opened the ‘Super Bowl LIV’ halftime

show before she performed ‘Em-pire’.

According to Fox News, Sha-kira, known for her dancing abilities took a moment to prove that her hips don’t lie before per-forming “Whenever, Wherever,” adding a dance with a rope that she performed when on tour.

The 43-year-old star then launched into ‘I Like It’ as sing-er Bad Bunny took the stage with her.

As the show was designed to be a celebration of Latino cul-ture, the performance includ-ed multiple Spanish-language songs.

The songstress also performed her hit number ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ to loud cheers.

After which Lopez took the entry with a loud shout out “Mi-ami are you ready?”

The 50-year-old actor stripped off her black leather bodysuit and revealed a silver bodysuit. Her pole dancing along with the song ‘Waiting for Tonight’ was one of the major attractions to the event.

CHANGE OF NAME

I, GAYATHRI JAYAPRAKASH MENON, daughter of

JAYAPRAKASH NARAYANA MENON, holding Indian passport no L1432484, dated 01/09/2013

issued at KUWAIT, having permanent address (full address in India) FLAT NO 1A HARBOUR

POINT, KURISUPALLY, OPP. COCHIN SHIPYARD, RAVIPURAM,

ERNAKULAM, KERALA 682015. Presently residing at ( full

address in Bahrain) VILLA 2583, ROAD 6261, BLOCK 362, BILAD

AL QADEEM, will henceforth be known as (Given name) GAYATHRI JAYAPRAKASH

(Surname) MENON.Objection(s) if any, may be

forwarded to the embassy of India, P.O. Box 26106, Al Seef,

Kingdom of Bahrain.

Los Angeles

Reliance Entertainment and Amblin Partners war drama “1917”, World War I master-

piece, emerged as the big winner at the 2020 British Academy of Film and Televisions Film Awards (BAF-TAs), taking home seven awards out of the nine categories it was

nominated in, including Best Film.“1917” won in the categories

of Best Film, Best Director for Mendes, Outstanding British Film, Best Special Visual Effects, Best

Cinematography, Best Pro-duction Design and

Best Sound at the star-studded cere-

mony on Sunday night here, re-

ports dailymail.co.uk.

Actress Re-nee Zellwe-ger, 50, con-

tinued her win-

ning streak by picking up the trophy in the Leading Actress category for her role as Judy Garland in the namesake biopic “Judy”, with Joaquin Phoenix, 45, taking home the Leading Actor award for his role as Joker in the comic drama of the same name.

Talking after his win, Mendes said: “In the midst of all this hoopla it’s sometimes easy to forget the actual experience of shooting a movie, I kind of had a director’s paradise in this film that I will never have again. The best producers really the best and most supportive, an incredible case.

“Yes it’s a war movie we made, but it’s about home and it’s about family, and to be able to say to my children, and especially my inspiration by beau-tiful wife Alison, thank you so much indeed.”

After winning Best Film, Mendes said: “Thank you BAFTA for giving us a really wonderful night, thank you very very much and thank you to people who have gone to see this movie, it’s still on!,’’ he then thanked all the crew and cast involved with the production.”

Baftas 2020: ‘1917’, ‘Parasite’ win big

Kangana Ranaut

Akshay Kumar and Nitara

Milla Jovovich

Beyonce

Jay Z and Blue Ivy

Milla Jovovich welcomes

third daughterLos Angeles

Actor Milla Jovo-vich and her husband, di-

rector Paul WS Anderson have become proud parents of a baby girl. Accord-ing to Us Weekly, the couple wel-comed their third daugh-ter on Sun-

day.

The “Resident Evil” star revealed over the weekend that the baby was due on February 2.

“Due date is tomorrow so getting ready to go to the hospital at anytime now! It’s funny because I thought having our third would be a piece of cake, but I’m actually really nervous, now that I know what to expect! Anyway, hopeful-

ly the next post I make will be a picture of our newest little girlie girl! Wish me luck every-o n e,” Jovov i c h wrote alongside a selfie.

Best ActorJoaquin Phoenix“Joker”

Best ActressRenee

Zellweger“Judy”

Best Supporting

ActorBrad Pitt

“Once Upon a Time in

Hollywood”

Best Supporting

ActressLaura Dern “Marriage

Story”

Best DirectorSam Mendes

“1917”

Shakira, Jennifer Lopez

Alex Rodriguez

Djokovic takes aim at Federer’s Slams

Eight isn’t enough for Novak Djokovic as the superstar Serb savours one of the most dramatic grand slam triumphs of his illustrious careerAFP | Melbourne

Novak Djokovic put Roger Federer on notice as he won his 17th Grand Slam

title at the Australian Open and warned he was going all-out for the Swiss’s record of 20 -- and his mark for weeks as world number one.

Djokovic, who came through a mid-match slump to win his eighth title in Melbourne, is relentlessly totting up the vic-tories that could soon end the debate over who’s the greatest in history.

The five-set victory over Dominic Thiem was his eighth in eight finals in Melbourne, putting him alongside Federer and Nadal as the only men to win the same Slam eight times.

It makes Djokovic, 32, the first man in the Open era, and only the second in history, to win Grand Slam titles in three different decades -- and as a not-insignificant bonus, returns him to world number one.

In an ominous sign for his rivals, the Serb has started the year unbeaten with Wimbledon, the French Open, the Tokyo Olympics and the US Open all lying in front of him as tantalis-ing opportunities.

He is clear-sighted about his goals: overtaking Nadal’s 19 Ma-jor titles and Federer’s 20 to become the all-time Grand Slam

king, and outdoing the Swiss master’s record 310 weeks in the top ranking.

Djokovic has so far clocked up 276 weeks as number one and could pass second-placed Pete Sampras’s 286 in April, and Federer’s 310 on October 5.

“Obviously at this stage of my career, Grand Slams are the ones I value the most. They are the ones I prioritise,” said Djokovic, adding “there’s a lot of history on the line”.

“Grand Slams are one of the main reasons why I am still competing and still playing full season, trying to obviously get the historic number one (re-cord). That’s the other big goal,” he said.

‘Huge win’

With five Major titles in just over two years, and unbeaten by Nadal and Federer at the Grand Slams since 2014, there’s no question who’s now the leading member of the Big Three.

The latest rankings tell the story at the top of men’s tennis: Djokovic is number one, Nadal, one year older at 33, is second and 38-year-old Federer is a rel-atively distant third.

Seven-time Major winner Mats Wilander said Djokovic’s win in Melbourne sets a mark-er for a year in which he could sweep all before him.

“At the end of the year, we could have two players on 20 or

two on 19 or even more because Novak can win all four,” he said.

“This is a huge win for him go-ing forwards. A loss here would have been very difficult to get confidence and come back.

“But the door is open for him to start climbing through it and talk about being the greatest ever.”

As he jets out of Melbourne, his name etched yet again on the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup, Djokovic warned that his confidence and expectations were soaring.

“I’m super-happy with the way I started the season. It kind of sets the tone for the rest of the year,” he said.

15

sports


Serbia’s Novak Djokovic (L) pats Switzerland’s Roger Federer after his victory during their men’s singles semi-final match

KNOW WHAT

Djokovic is the first man in the 52-year open

era to win grand slam titles in three different decades, and just the

second in history after Ken Rosewall snared majors in the 1950s,

1960s and 1970s

Team members of Nelofar Events and NDC Bahrain pose with their trophies after the final of CBA Division D T-20 cup. Nelofar Events lifted the title by defeating NDC by 9 wickets. Saeed bagged the Man of the match final award

Man Utd’s Solskjaer backs Martial to regain scoring touchReuters | London

Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has

backed Anthony Martial to re-discover his scoring touch and says the French forward is giv-ing the club “everything” both on pitch and training ground.

The 24-year-old has scored 12 goals in all competitions in an injury-hit season but has just

one in the last six matches as United struggle for goals in the absence of striker Marcus Rash-ford, who is nursing a stress fracture in his back.

“He’s giving us everything. He’s been asked to play -- he has started the last eight games -- and running probably 20% more than he did when I came here,” Solskjaer told reporters.

“We’ll give him more sup-

port, give him rest when he deserves it ... he’s been asked to play too much as well, especially now when Marcus is injured.

“I know he’s tired, but he’s never ever dodged a training session. He’s train-ing, he’s available for every game, so I’m delighted with him.”

Rashford scored 19 goals in all competitions before injury struck while acade-my graduate Mason Green-

wood has chipped in with 10. The club also signed 30-year-old Nigerian Odion Ighalo on loan from China’s Shanghai Shenhua on transfer deadline day.

Handanovic a doubt for Milan derby after Inter confirm finger fractureOmnisport | Milan

Inter goalkeeper Samir Han-danovic is set to miss the

Milan derby this weekend af-ter fracturing a finger.

Handanovic sat out the 2-0 victory over Udinese on Sun-day after hurting his finger in training, with Daniele Padelli making his Serie A debut for Inter in his stead.

While no time frame was provid-ed for the Slovenia international’s re-turn to action, he seems unlikely to recover in time to face Milan at San Siro on Sunday.

“ S a m i r Handanovic has under-g o n e a n X-ray ex-amination following an injury to

his left hand suffered in train-ing,” a statement published by Inter yesterday read.

“Results showed a hairline fracture to his little finger. His condition will be reassessed on a daily basis.”

Before confirmation of the injury was provided by the club, reports in the Italian media suggested Handano-vic could be facing up to four weeks on the sidelines.

In the week after the derby against Milan, Inter face Napoli in the first leg of

t h e i r Coppa Italia

semi-final and fellow Scu-detto challengers Lazio at the Stadio Olimpico.

Antonio Conte’s men also have a Europa League last-32 tie against Ludogorets to come before taking on reigning Serie A champions Juventus on March 1.

South Africa not fazed by playing world champions England

Reuters | Cape Town

New South Africa cap-tain Quinton de Kock

says facing world champi-ons England will be just like playing any other team as they prepare for the three-match one-day international series starting at Newlands today.

South Africa are seeking to rebuild after a disastrous World Cup in England last year in which the hosts claimed the trophy in thrilling fashion with victory over New Zealand in the final.

This will be England’s first match since the decider at Lord’s in July.

“It is just like playing any other team,” De Kock told reporters yesterday. “Just be-cause you have a World Cup doesn’t change anything. It is still the normal England team we will play against.

“I remember last time they came here (in 2016) we did pretty well and won the series. So it doesn’t really matter if they are World Cup winners or not. It is the same as if we

are playing Australia, India, Bangladesh, or whoever.”

South Africa have struggled in both the ODI and test for-mats in the last 12 months, and while there could be a certain amount of experimentation as they begin a new cycle to the 2023 World Cup, De Kock says most important is to get a series win.

“We have new guys that have come in and they bring a lot of energy. We have guys who will potentially make their debut, so the team is very excited,” he said.

“We are in a rebuilding phase and we are looking forward to the next World Cup squad. We want to give the opportunities to youngsters and help them grow as cricketers.

“But for this series, we just want to win. There is a lot of time to give opportunities, but for us right now it is better to get a series win, just for the morale of the team.”

England have rested Ben Stokes, arguably the world’s best all-rounder, but De Kock says there is still much quality in the squad.

South Africa’s Quinton de Kock celebrates running out Australia’s Marcus Stoinis with team mates (file photo)

Samir Handanovic Anthony Martial


Vincent names 13 for Jordan camp Bahrain Basketball Association announced the new roster ahead of Fiba Asia qualifiers

TDT | Manama

Bahrain national basket-ball team head coach Sam Vincent has reduced his

squad of 24 players to 13 as they continue to prepare for their upcoming qualifiers for the 2021 Fiba Asia Cup.

The Bahrain Basketball As-sociation announced the new roster yesterday.

The Bahrainis are in Group D of the qualification process along with India, Lebanon and Iraq.

Their 0first game will be against their Indian counter-parts at home on February 21. They then travel directly to Bei-rut to play against their Leba-nese counterparts on February 24.

The 13 players remaining on the national team include three from defending league champi-ons Muharraq, namely Ahmed Aldurazi, Ali Shukrallah and Mohammed Buallay; two from Khalifa bin Salman Cup holders Riffa, including Subah Hussain and Mohammed Salman; three from Al Ahli including Moham-med Qurban, Maytham Jameel

and Hesham Sarhan; four from Manama, namely Mohammed Hussain, Ahmed Abdulaziz and Ameer brothers Mohammed and Muzamel; and Al Najma’s natu-ralised big man CJ Giles.

The team have already been practising locally under Vincent at the Khalifa Sports City arena in Isa Town. They are scheduled to travel to Jordan on Sunday for an overseas training camp, dur-ing which they will play a num-ber of tune-up games against local opposition.

Manama big man Ahmed Na-jaf is also a part of the national team roster but he will not be travelling with the team to Am-man for their camp.

Meanwhile, Riffa’s superstar forward Mohammed Kuwayed was left off as Vincent decided he is still not at peak condition, having only recently returned from being sidelined for several months due to injury.

Vincent’s assistant coach on the national team is Ayoob Haji.

Following this month’s qualifi-

ers, there will be a long break be-fore their next game on Novem-ber 26, which is away against Iraq. They then play away once again against India on Novem-ber 29.

Their final two qualifiers will be held in February of next year, both at home against Lebanon and then Iraq.

The top two teams from each of the six qualification groups

book their tickets to the Fiba Asia Cup, while the third-placed teams go to another stage of qualification, where another four final spots will be up for grabs.

Bahrain players in action during drills

Subah Hussain takes a jump shot during practice

Battles set to intensify in drag racing season’s penultimate round at BIC

TDT | Manama

Bahrain International Cir-cuit (BIC) hosts the fourth

round of the 2019/2020 Bah-rain Drag Racing Champion-ship (BDRC) this week and the head-to-head battles are set to level up in intensity.

As the penultimate round of the season, competitors will be going all out for wins, podium places and points.

The series is the region’s biggest and most competitive championship and it attracts top drag racers from all over the world, including many leg-ends of the sport.

More than 130 participants were entered in the 16 compe-tition categories in the previ-ous round and even more are expected this time.

The first two days of the event today and tomorrow will see participants fine-tuning their cars and motorbikes in Test and Tune. Qualifying will then be held on Thursday, to be followed by the elimina-tions at Race Day on Friday.

BIC’s quarter-mile drag strip hosts all the action. BIC is a member of the prestigious Worldwide Network of the USA-based National Hot Rod Association (NHRA), allowing the Bahrain championship

to run under the prestigious NHRA banner.

Test and Tune will be held from 6pm to 11pm on both nights, while Qualifying will be from 4pm to 11pm. Race Day will begin from 4pm on Friday and continue until the completion of all events.

The 16 competition classes include 12 for cars and four for motorbikes. The cars cat-egories consist of Street 4 and 6, Outlaw FWD, Super Street 6-Cyl, Outlaw 6-Cyl, Street V8, Super Street V8, Competition 4.5, Outlaw 10.5, Pro Mod, In-dex 10.5, Index 9.5 and Index 8.5. For motorcycles, the class-es include Street Fight Bikes, Street Bikes, Super Street Bikes and Pro Bikes.

All are welcome to attend the fourth round of the season. Tickets can be purchased at the gate. For Test and Tune, they are BD2 apiece on each day. For Qualifying and Race Day, tickets are BD5 at the Start Line Grandstand, while tickets are BD3 for the Batel-co Grandstand. Children aged from three to 12 years old can attend for half the price.

Following this week’s meet-ing, the 2019/2020 season comes to a close with the championship finale from Feb-ruary 25 to 28.

A car in action at BIC

Man City must do better next season, says GuardiolaReuters | London

Pep Guardiola refused to criticise his players but said

they must do better next sea-son after Manchester City wast-ed numerous chances, missed a penalty and had Oleksandr Zinchenko sent off in a 2-0 Pre-mier League loss at Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday.

The Spaniard took close to an hour to appear for his post-match news conference, prompting talk of a dressing down for his players after a sixth league loss of the season which left them 22 points be-hind leaders Liverpool.

But Guardiola was giving lit-tle away, bemoaning an unu-sually bad day at the office for his feared strike force that has helped City rack up more than 100 goals in all competitions this season.

“They (Liverpool) are un-stoppable with a lot of points...now is the target for the (other) competitions and quality for the

Champions League next sea-son,” Guardiola said.

“The distance is so big and next season we have to do bet-ter.”

City had 18 goal attempts compared to Tottenham’s three, the hosts taking the lead in the 63rd minute when debutant Ste-

ven Bergwijn volleyed home with Jose Mourinho’s side’s first attempt on target.

Despite playing the last 30 minutes with 10 men after Zinchenko’s red card, City en-joyed nearly 70 percent posses-sion overall but Sergio Aguero wasted several good chances

and Ilkay Gundogan had a pen-alty saved by Spurs keeper Hugo Lloris before missing a sitter.

“We are there in the six-yard box and we are not able to score,” Guardiola, whose side have failed to score in consec-utive matches for the first time in his reign.

“One day it will click.”With their hopes of a third

successive Premier League ti-tle all over bar the shouting, Guardiola said motivation was not a problem for his side. The Champions League, however, is not their priority.

“We played well, but we lost the game. (Spurs) arrived in (the box) twice and scored two goals. I don’t have too many things to say about our performance,” he said.

“We have to accept it and work on that. We need to ana-lyse that. Football is to create chances and concede few. We played to win the game. I didn’t see a lack of desire to win or that we’re far away.”

Pep Guardiola, Manager of Manchester City reatcs during the match

‘No hard feelings’ says Spurs’ Alli on Sterling’s mistimed tackleReuters | London

Tottenham Hotspur mid-fielder Dele Alli said he

bears no ill will towards Ra-heem Sterling after being on the receiving end of a bruising tackle from the Manchester City forward during Spurs’ 2-0 win over the Premier League cham-pions on Sunday.

Sterling ’s attempt to win the ball saw him step on Alli’s ankle but the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) did not deem the challenge worthy of a red card, angering Spurs boss Jose Mourinho who was adamant the England man should have been sent off.

Alli carried on playing be-fore he was substituted in the

70th minute and Spurs, who play an FA Cup fourth round replay against Southampton on Wednesday, are yet to provide an update on the severity of his injury.

“We were speaking about it at halftime and we are good friends,” Alli told reporters. “I know what sort of player Ra-heem is and he would never in-tentionally try to hurt someone.

“There are no hard feelings. He is a fantastic player and we move on.”

The tackle was similar to last month’s incident where Arsenal striker Pierre-Emer-ick Aubameyang was sent off on VAR review and banned for three games when his mistimed tackle nearly in-

jured Crystal Palace’s Max Meyer.

“I am not sure (if it was a red

card) to be honest,” Alli added. “I have not had a proper look back at it.

Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling reacts as Tottenham Hotspur’s Dele Alli receives medical attention after sustaining an injury

8 5 Tourism co-operation deal - News of Bahrain

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