All set for sixth CMC elections on Tuesday - Gulf Times

In brief

GULF TIMES

published in

QATAR

since 1978SATURDAY Vol. XXXX No. 11152

April 13, 2019Sha’baan 8, 1440 AH www. gulf-times.com 2 Riyals

Bharat Utsav highlightsIndia’s cultural diversity

QATAR | Page 16 SPORT | Page 1

Al Sadd chase more records, Al Rayyan fi ght to stay in top-4

National Museum an ‘enriching experience’ for diplomatsBy Joey AguilarStaff Reporter

Visiting the National Museum of Qatar (NMoQ) has become an enriching experience not only

for residents and students in the coun-try but also for diplomats.

“I am deeply impressed by the vi-sionary lines and forms of the mu-seum’s external design, which reinter-prets in an innovative way the concept of “desert rose”, a traditional symbol of the Arab culture,” Italian ambassador Pasquale Salzano told Gulf Times.

The envoy accompanied Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte during his visit to NMoQ on April 3, and was welcomed by Qatar Museums (QM) Chairperson HE Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.

NMoQ, a stunning architecture de-signed by renowned French architect Jean Nouvel, and home to an array of rare and unique collections, continues to draw a large number of local and for-eign visitors daily since it opened to the public on March 28.

During the Italian PM’s visit, Sal-zano said HE Sheikha Al Mayassa ex-plained the conceptual vision behind the National Museum and guided them through the exploration of its rich en-vironment.

“All collections are absolutely out-standing, but I was particularly in-terested in those galleries telling the story of the origins and the people from earliest times, which enriched signifi -cantly my knowledge of the history of Qatar,” he noted.

One of the highlighted items in the galleries include “Motherland” (2018), a work by Hassan bin Mohamed al-Thani (b. 1962), which expresses and represents the artist’s “connection and appreciation for the land, motherhood and national identity.”

A large-scale sculpture, Motherland portrays a traditional dhow docked on the shore and pays homage to the Gulf’s last generation of women who wore the battoula.

Apart from the Pearl Carpet of Baro-

da, which was embroidered with around 1.5mn Basra pearls, another major col-lection is the Al Zubarah Qur’an (in two volumes). It was transcribed by Ahmed bin Rashid bin Juma’a bin Khamis bin Hilal al-Mureikhi who completed the work on October 28, 1806.

“I would like to congratulate HE Sheikha Al Mayassa, QM and the Qa-tari people for this great achievement which shows the commitment of the country and its wise leadership to pro-mote knowledge and preserve cultural heritage,” Salzano said.

“I am sure that NMoQ will signifi -cantly contribute to strengthen cultural exchanges and dialogue with Italy and the international community, while encouraging the social development of the Qatari community,” he added.

To Page 2

A night view of the National Museum of Qatar. PICTURE: Joey Aguilar

Swedish ambassador Ewa PolanoItalian ambassador Pasquale Salzano

FM meets French counterpart

HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Aff airs Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani met yesterday in Paris with Minister of Europe and Foreign Aff airs of France Jean-Yves Le Drian. During the meeting, they discussed bilateral relations and means of developing them, besides topics of mutual interest. They also discussed the Declaration of Intent on the establishment of a strategic dialogue between the two countries signed in February that includes defence and security, health, education, culture, sports, economy and investment, and the fight against terrorism and extremism. The dialogue will play a prominent role in opening up prospects for enhancing co-operation and monitoring its development in all fields for the benefit of both countries and peoples. Page 2

QATAR | Reaction

Qatar condemnsexplosion in PakistanQatar expressed yesterday its strong condemnation of the explosion that took place in a local market in Pakistan’s Quetta city, leaving a number of people killed. The Ministry of Foreign Aff airs renewed, in a statement released yesterday, Qatar’s position of rejecting violence and terrorism, regardless of the motivations and reasons. The statement expressed Qatar’s condolences to the families of the victims, the government, and people of Pakistan. Page 12

QATAR | Weather

Thundery rain, strongwind forecast for todayThundery rain with sudden strong wind is expected today, the Met off ice has forecast. The off shore forecast adds high seas too. Inshore, wind could reach up to 35 knots by evening with thundery rain, whereas off shore, wind could touch 38 knots, again with thundery rain. The maximum temperature of 29C is expected at Dukhan and Abu Samra and a minimum of 21C at Abu Samra. Yesterday, a maximum of 34C was recorded at Doha and a minimum of 22C at Abu Samra.

ARAB WORLD | Confl ict

Battles intensifyaround Libya capital Forces answering to Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar battled units that back Tripoli’s unity government on the edge of the capital yesterday, days into a new round of conflict that has killed dozens and displaced thousands. Gunfire and blasts rang out and smoke rose as forces backing the fragile UN-backed government of Fayez al-Sarraj attempted to block an off ensive by Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA). Page 3

Sudan’s military councilchief says stepping downAFPKhartoum

Sudan’s military council chief General Awad Ibn Ouf an-nounced yesterday he was step-

ping down, just a day after he was sworn in following the ouster of vet-eran president Omar al-Bashir.

“I hereby announce my resignation as head of the Transitional Military Council and the appointment of the person, in whose experience and suit-ability I trust to bring this ship to a safe shore,” Ibn Ouf said on state television.

“I announce the selection of General

Abdel Fattah al-Burhan Abdulrahman to succeed me as president of the mili-tary council.” Ibn Ouf also said that before stepping down he had fi red his deputy in the council Lieutenant Gen-eral Kamal Abdelmarouf.

Meanwhile, the Sudanese group spearheading a nationwide protest movement described Ibn Ouf’s deci-sion to step down as a “victory” for the people.

“The stepping down of General Awad Ibn Ouf is a victory of the peo-ple’s will,” the Sudanese Professionals Association said.

Jubilation erupted across the capital in response to the resignation.

Protesters vowed yesterday to chase out the country’s new army rulers, as a military council appealed for foreign economic aid.

“We want your donations, as we have some economic issues,” the head of the military council’s political com-mittee, Lieutenant General Omar Zain al-Abdin, told Arab and African diplo-mats in a televised meeting.

He denied that Thursday’s oust-ing of Omar al-Bashir after months of protests was a military coup, vowing there would be a civilian government.

“The role of the military council is to protect the security and stability of the country,” Abdin said.

All set forsixth CMCelectionson TuesdayBy Ayman Adly Staff Reporter

Voting for the sixth election to the Central Municipal Council (CMC) will take place on Tues-

day, April 16, according to the Amiri Decree No 4 for 2019.

The CMC has 29 seats, out of which two have been already won uncontested; Constituency No 7 (New Al Slata) and Constituency No 27 (Al Zakhira). There are 94 candidates, including fi ve women, in the fray for the remaining 27 seats.

The current CMC has two women members. The term of the council is four years. The fi rst election to the CMC was held on April 8, 1999, and the fi rst council held its fi rst session on May 15 the same year.

Each Qatari adult, men and women alike, have the right to vote in the CMC election. The voting will be held from 8am to 5pm at centres across the coun-try, and the winners will be announced the same day.

The candidates have been conduct-ing intensive campaigning, including on social media, with their voters to explain their agenda and the services that they could off er them. The candi-dates have been holding regular meet-ings. While some take place at the can-didate’s house lounge (majlis), others

host the sessions at the majlis of key fi gures in their constituency to discuss their future programmes and what they have to off er the people of the area.

A number of billboards can be seen across the country, within each con-stituency with candidates expressing their vision for the CMC. Considered the only elected body of representa-tives in the country, the CMC is not a legislative entity. Rather, it is con-cerned with all the municipal aff airs and services in the country and the re-lated issues, where the members voice the concerns and demands of their vot-ers regarding related issues.

Accordingly, CMC members present their suggestions at the council for discussion at a public biweekly ses-sion open to the media. Most of such suggestions are often referred to CMC services and utilities committee for further study and consultation with representatives from the departments and authorities concerned to work out suitable recommendation for the issues of concern. These recommendations are then addressed to the targeted de-partment or ministry through the Min-istry of Municipality and Environment.

In the meantime, the council would follow-up the updates on the actions taken regarding these recommendations and has the right to ask for clarifi cation to the relevant response. To Page 2

Candidates conducting intensive campaigning

QATAR

Gulf Times Saturday, April 13, 20192

Volunteers gain event experience in lead-up to 2022Volunteers who registered

to help Qatar prepare for the FIFA World Cup 2022

are already receiving bespoke skills training and experience in the lead-up to the tournament.

The Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC) recently provided 400 volunteers for the A R Rahman concert, hosted at Khalifa International Stadium, and 350 for the 2019 CAF Super Cup fi nal, which was hosted re-cently in Qatar for the fi rst time, sc.qa reports.

Since launching the volunteer-ing programme in September 2018, the SC has compiled a data-base of 60,000 Qatar-based vol-unteers that the Community En-gagement team regularly reaches out to support various events.

More than 6,000 applications were received to volunteer at the Rahman concert and the SC col-laborated with Qatar Volunteers Group, which has been active for eight years, to select the most suitable people for the occasion and manage them on the day.

The SC also collaborated with the Volunteer and Civic Engage-ment Centre at Qatar University to provide opportunities at the recent CAF Super Cup fi nal be-tween Espérance de Tunis and Raja Casablanca.

One volunteer, Faisal Akhtar, said: “I feel privileged to be se-lected as a volunteer for the concert and CAF fi nal. It was a great experience to help me understand how much eff ort is required to make one event suc-cessful. It helped me understand the importance of planning, team management and peer learning.

“One moment I can’t forget is when an old man approached me and asked me to have a selfi e. I am not a celebrity or VIP but at this moment I felt I made a dif-ference and I had done some-thing good and was part of something great.”

Another to volunteer her time at both events was Maha Mohamed. She said, “It was an honour to be part of the team, and even more so to be assigned as team leader. I learned so much in such a short space of time, and am very grateful to the SC and Community Engagement team for providing us with these unique opportunities. It means so much to me. The work comes from the heart.”

Mead al-Emadi, the SC’s Community Engagement man-ager, shared her words of en-couragement for the volunteers. She said, “Working as a volun-

teer now will give participants an advantage when applying for FIFA’s Qatar 2022 volunteer pro-gramme, which will cover vari-ous aspects of the tournament, including match day manage-ment.

“In the past few weeks, we have hosted a major event at a World Cup venue and an exciting football match, gathering fans from various countries. This has given volunteers incomparable experience, applicable when fans from across the world visit us in 2022.

“This is all part of our ef-forts to activate and engage with our volunteers. Utilising opportunities such as this – at one of our FIFA World Cup venues – will help us plan and deliver our mega-event in 2022, including crowd man-agement, way-finding and au-dience services.”

Over the coming years, volun-teers will contribute towards nu-merous Qatar 2022 milestones, including stadium launches and test events. They will support a range of functions, including event management, hospital-ity, marketing, communications, audience management, security, medical services and more, the report adds.

HE the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Aff airs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani met French Senate President Gerard Larcher and a number of members of the senate, yesterday in Paris during his visit to France. During the meeting, they discussed bilateral relations and means of supporting and developing them, in addition to a number of topics of mutual interest.

FM meets French Senate president

HE the Minister of Culture and Sports Salah bin Ghanem bin Nasser al-Ali met with Oman’s Minister of Heritage and Culture, Sayyid Haitham bin Tariq al-Said, during his visit to the Sultanate to attend the 32nd meeting of the Gulf Co-operation Council Committee of Ministers of Youth and Sports. During the meeting, they discussed aspects of cultural co-operation between the two countries.

Culture minister holds dialogue with his Omani counterpart

QRCS completes relief project for PNG earthquake victimsQatar Red Crescent So-

ciety (QRCS) has com-pleted a relief inter-

vention to help the victims of earthquakes and fl oods in Pa-pua New Guinea, with funding from Qatar Fund for Develop-ment (QFFD). The project was co-ordinated with Papua New Guinea Red Cross Society (PN-GRCS) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). It was designed to al-leviate the suff ering of those aff ected by the earthquake, by providing shelter, water, and sanitation aid for Pinu village, Gabadi Kairuku Hiri District, Central Province.

A relief delegation was sent from Doha to hold co-ordina-tion meetings with relevant partners, and update the fi eld action plan accordingly. They worked hard to overcome the challenges, fi nish all the ship-ment clearing and logistics, and conduct the packaging and dis-tribution process.

A total of 200 families, or

1,200 persons, received house-hold hygiene kits, water buck-ets, cooking pots, jerry cans, and blankets. In preparation for the coming monsoon season, a stockpile of relief items was stored at ICRC warehouses, to ensure timely response. These included 400 household hy-giene kits, 700 tarpaulins, 700 kitchenware kits, 1,200 water buckets, and 1,000 blankets.

QRCS head of Disaster Pre-

paredness, Subhi Fahid Ejjeh, said, “The partnership started last year in September, with a memorandum of understand-ing (MoU) signed between PN-GRCS and QRCS to help the vulnerable people whose lives were aff ected by disasters”.

Ejjeh expressed QRCS’s thanks to the Government of Papua New Guinea and the Na-tional Disaster Offi ce for fa-cilitating the release of relief

containers from the port. “This donation was made by Qatar, through QFFD, for the benefi t of earthquake victims in Hela last year, and the people aff ected by fl oods early in January 2019. We hope to continue working close-ly with PNGRCS,” Ejjeh added.

Pinu disaster chairman, Kevau Ao, commended the joint work by PNGRCS and QRCS to bring relief to his vil-lage. “I was surprised to see that the hygiene kits had all the necessary items for both men and women. We are very happy for these contributions to our living standards. Such assist-ance was quite useful and met the needs of the aff ected popu-lation,” he stated.

PNGRCS secretary-gener-al, Uvenama Rova, welcomed the support from QRCS. “The items received will go towards helping the people whose lives have been devastated by natural disasters,” he said. “PNGRCS appreciates this support from QFFD through QRCS”.

Amiri Air Force holds graduation ceremony for advanced courseThe Amiri Air Force organised the graduation ceremony for the advanced course (for off icers), which was held from January 6 to April 11, at the Amiri Air Force, in the presence of Deputy Commander of the Amiri Air Force, Major-General (Pilot) Ahmed bin Ibrahim al-Malki. Commander of the Air Training Centre Brigadier General Rashid bin Saif al-Khayareen attended

the ceremony along with off icers of the centre.The course covered a number of military topics including tactical exercises, assessment of the position and orders of operations, leadership and military administration, in addition to tactical air operations, ground and air transport and other subjects. The course saw the participation of 16 off icers, 14 of them from Kuwait.

Major-General (Pilot) al-Malki expressed his appreciation for the eff orts made by those tasked with training and trainers in preparing and qualifying this group of graduates. The commander of the Air Training Centre said that the training was successful according to the reality in the field. “This represents an achievement that contributed to providing the air force with trained cadres,” he said.

Katara organises Kyrgyzstan art show

Katara - the Cultural Vil-lage has organised an art exhibition, ‘Boz Jol’, in

co-operation with the embassy of Kyrgyzstan in Doha.

The exhibition, held in Build-ing 19, was opened in the pres-ence of a number of artists. It includes 30 diff erent artworks that focus on the Kyrgyz philos-ophy and culture, according to the offi cial Qatar News Agency.

The artists who contributed to the exhibition said ‘Boz Jol’ is a “symbolic representation of world duality, where there is space for a choice of the Path”. The innermost, Middle, “is the only true path where a person goes his whole life”, they added.

“Since ancient times, the Kyr-gyz people lived in harmony with nature, and this Path is a sign of the nature of nomads,” the art-

The exhibition is being held in Building 19 of Katara.

ists explained in a statement. “The Path of a person who accommo-dated the Universe and the Earth inside. This Path is the unity of the microcosm and macrocosm.”

Katara assistant general man-ager Ahmed al-Sayyed said the

exhibition “is very impressive and represents the Kyrgyz culture and their rich heritage of arts”.

The exhibition continues un-til April 16, according to infor-mation available on the Katara website.

Hollywood couple dwell on nuances of fi lmmakingTaking a NU-Q audience

on a journey through Hollywood history with

examples from their own work, acclaimed cinematographer and director John Bailey and his wife, the award-winning fi lm editor, Carol Littleton, focused much of a joint presentation on present and future fi lmmaking.

Speaking to faculty, staff , and students at NU-Q, Bailey, who is also the president of the Acad-emy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Oscars), and Littleton noted that because it is cheaper to create content digitally today’s

fi lms have much more material for fi lmmakers to work with and has created new challenges.

As a result, Bailey said, dra-matic structure and character integrity have become the most important and challenging ele-ments in fi lmmaking today. Lit-tleton added that what happens is that “when it comes to budg-eting time, fi lm editors are now spending more time combing through footage rather than fo-cusing on the editing process.”

The conversation with Bailey and Littleton was moderated by NU-Q Dean Everette E Dennis.

“While drawing on decades of experience, some with the most iconic fi lms of our time, Bailey and Littleton pointed to the changes in fi lmmaking brought about by the digital age, while also off ering a gift for storytelling and fi lm his-tory that added a richness to their presentation and brought the his-tory of Hollywood alive for our community,” Dennis said.

During the session, the cou-ple screened scenes from two of their fi lms, Silverado (1985) and The Accidental Tourist (1988), and discussed the diff erences in approach – from building a sus-

penseful scene with American cowboys in the Wild West, to using close-up shots and warm lights to develop the ambience for characters in an intimate scene.

The visit was organised in col-laboration with Qatar Museums and Doha Film Institute.

They also discussed fi lm his-tory, narrative development, and documentary fi lmmaking.

Bailey’s portfolio in fi lm and documentary stretches far and wide, including scores of nomi-nated and award-winning fi lms like Mishima: A Life of Four Chapters (1985), The Sisterhood

of Travelling Pants (2005), and License to Wed (2007). He is also a member of the American Socie-ty of Cinematographers, a cultur-al, educational, and professional organisation dedicated to the ad-vancement and progress of cin-ematography. Bailey earned his graduate degree at the University of Southern California in 1968. His most recent accomplishment was his election to the presidency of the Academy in 2017.

Littleton, an Emmy Award re-cipient, has had a successful ca-reer in fi lm editing and was elect-ed as a member of the American

Cinema Editors – an honorary society of fi lm editors who are selected based on the quality of their fi lm editing, their educa-tion, and their dedication to fi lm editing. She was also a member of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts

and Sciences from 1999-2002, and served as president of the Motion Picture Editors Guild during that late 1990s. Littleton’s work includes the famous science fi ction fi lm, E.T. the Extra-Ter-restrial (1982), which was written and directed by Steven Spielberg.

John Bailey and Carol Littleton during a presentation at NU-Q.

The beneficiaries are all smiles as they receive relief materials distributed by QRCS.

NMoQ an ‘enriching experience’ for diplomatsFrom Page 1

Other important items dis-played in the galleries also in-clude “The Celebration Chair”, a gold-plated wood and red velvet chair made in India in 1935 and was commissioned by Sheikh Ali bin Abdullah al-Thani. He used the chair for offi cial celebrations and events.

Swedish ambassador Ewa

Polano described NMoQ as “a beautiful building; elegant, im-pressive and unique,” stressing that “the extraordinary col-lections on display will give Qatar’s population and all the international visitors in the coming years another jewel of cultural highlight in Doha.”

The envoy is looking forward to bringing more Swedish dele-gations and guests to Qatar and

NMoQ in the near future.The envoy congratulated

Qatar, its wise leadership His Highness the Amir, and HE Sheikha Al Mayassa for the launch of NMoQ, which tells the story of Qatar in an immer-sive and innovative way.

“I feel grateful to serve as ambassador here in this fas-cinating country. Qatar is full of surprises and the creativ-

ity of the leadership of Qatar continues to impress me,” she stressed.

According to QM, the NMoQ, spread over a gross fl oor area of 52,000sq m, and with a route extending more than 1.5km, is set out chronologically, begin-ning with the period before the peninsula was inhabited by hu-mans and continuing up to the present day.

All set for sixth CMCelectionsFrom Page 1

The CMC could be cred-ited with recommending many of the advances wit-nessed in the country’s mu-nicipal aff airs such as the banning of the workers’ ac-commodation complexes within family residential area, the newly issued regu-lations to allow more build-ing areas within the residen-tial villas, installing street lights in many areas and giv-ing them appropriate names, in addition to various other services demanded by the council such as increasing the number of fuel stations, development of the beaches, beautifi cation of streets and the creation of many parks and gardens within various residential neighbourhoods.

What distinguishes the election campaign of the candidates is that all of them abide by the traditions and high ethical values of the country, with the process go-ing on quietly and smoothly with each candidate keen on maintaining direct contact with the voters.

There are no signs of any direct criticism against rival candidates. Each candidate only talks about what he or she has off ered and could of-fer in collaboration with the authorities concerned.

REGION/ARAB WORLD

3Gulf Times Saturday, April 13, 2019

Thousands displaced as battles intensify around Libya capitalAFP Tripoli

Forces answering to Libyan strong-man Khalifa Haftar battled units that back Tripoli’s unity government on the

edge of the capital yesterday, days into a new round of confl ict that has killed dozens and displaced thousands.

Gunfi re and blasts rang out and smoke rose as forces backing the fragile UN-backed government of Fayez al-Sarraj attempted to block an off ensive by Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA). Dozens of people have been killed and more than 300 wounded over the last eight days, the World Health Organisation said yesterday.

The United Nations said the fi ghting had driven 8,000 people from their homes and that “displacements from areas aff ected by the clashes in and around Tripoli continue to surge”.

“Many families remain stranded inside confl ict-aff ected areas,” with supplies run-ning short, UN spokesman Rheal Leblanc told reporters in Geneva.

French authorities said yesterday they were in touch with all parties to Libya’s confl ict. But they did not confi rm a report in Italy’s La Repubblica, citing a source at the French presidency, saying Haftar had sent envoys to Paris several hours before he launched his off ensive on Tripoli on April 4.

“Like our partners, we talk to all parties in the Libya confl ict, in order to obtain a cease-fi re”, said Agnes von der Muhll, a spokesper-son for France’s foreign ministry.

“We were not warned about the off ensive on Tripoli, which we condemned when it was launched,” she said.

The LNA and Haftar refuse to recognise the authority of Sarraj’s Government of Na-tional Accord (GNA). Haftar, a former mili-tary commander under toppled dictator

Muammar Gaddafi who later lived in the United States, has the support of key Arab state, Egypt and Russia.

His forces swept from their eastern stronghold through Libya’s sparsely popu-lated desert, including parts of the south, before announcing their assault on to Tripoli.

Haftar’s men were fi ghting GNA troops in the southern suburbs of the capital yes-terday, particularly in Ain Zara, Wadi Rabi and Al-Swani, about 20 kilometres from the city centre. AFP journalists saw an air raid in

Wadi Rabi, while other witnesses reported another air strike in Tajoura, in the eastern suburbs of the capital, apparently targeting a military academy.

“A column of smoke was rising from this site into the sky,” witnesses said.

Anti-aircraft fi re was also heard in the re-gion, near the capital’s Mitiga airport which was hit by the LNA in an air strike on Tuesday. An air strike yesterday targeted an “empty and unused” barracks south of Zouara, near the Tunisian border, about 100 kilometre west of Tripoli, a security source said.

The strike did not cause casualties, the source said, attributing the attack to Haftar.

The United Nations had vowed to push on with a planned national conference set to be-gin tomorrow to draw up a roadmap to elec-tions, but

has postponed it as the fi ghting escalated.The long-mooted polls are meant to turn

the page on years of turmoil that have en-gulfed the north African country since

Gaddafi was deposed in 2011. World pow-ers, the UN and Nato have called for calm in Libya, but the clashes have shown no sign of abating.

Libya has long been a major transit coun-try for migrants desperate to reach Europe via the Mediterranean, with many held under abject conditions in detention centres.

International aid groups have warned mi-grants could be used as human shields or for-cibly recruited to fi ght.

The International Organisation for Migra-tion said yesterday it had fl own 160 migrants to Mali — with some destined to return to the Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso — late Thurs-day.

“We continue to support a safe and digni-fi ed return for migrants to their home coun-tries,” said Othman Belbeisi, IOM Libya chief of mission, in a statement.

“Our teams are working around the clock to provide much needed humanitarian sup-port in Tripoli and across Libya.”

Troop fi ring kills Palestinian teenAFPGaza City

A Palestinian teenager was shot dead by the Israeli army yesterday during

renewed clashes on the Gaza border, the health ministry in the Palestinian enclave said.

A ministry spokesman said Maysara Abu Shaloof, 15, was “shot in the stomach by the (Israeli) occupation east of Jab-alia,” referring to a demonstra-tion site in northern Gaza.

At least 48 others were taken to hospital with a variety of injuries from clashes at sev-eral spots along the border, the ministry said without elabo-rating.

An Israeli army spokesman said that “approximately 7,400 demonstrators” took part in various incidents along the frontier.

“The fi ghters were hurling rocks and there were several at-

tempts to breach the security fence,” he said.

“Troops responded with riot dispersal means and fi red in ac-cordance with standard oper-ating procedures.”

He had no comment on any Palestinian casualties.

Palestinians in Gaza have for more than a year gathered at least weekly along the border for often-violent protests, call-

ing on Israel to end its blockade of the enclave.

Israel says it is protecting its borders and accuses the Hamas which runs Gaza of orchestrat-ing the protests.

An AFP correspondent said yesterday’s protests were smaller than in the past. At least 264 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israeli forc-es since the protests began.

The mother of Palestinian teenager Maysara Mussa Abu Shalof, who was killed at the border fence during a protest, reacts during his funeral in the northern Gaza Strip, yesterday.

Libyan protesters attend a demonstration to demand an end to Khalifa Haftar’s offensive against Tripoli, in Martyrs Square, yesterday.

Palestinian paramedics carry an injured protester during a demonstration near the border in the southern Gaza Strip, yesterday.

Iranians march to protest over Guards’ blacklistingReutersDubai

Thousands of Iranians carrying signs reading “I’m a Guard too” and

“Down with USA” marched yesterday to protest against the US designation of the elite Rev-olutionary Guards as a foreign terrorist organisation.

State television showed crowds shouting “What’s America thinking? Iran is full of Guards” after leaving prayers at Tehran University yesterday on their way to a rally in a nearby square.

Similar state-sponsored pro-tests were held across Iran, it

said. Iranian offi cials have con-demned US President Donald Trump’s decision on Monday to blacklist the Islamic Revolu-tionary Guards Corps (IRGC), a step is likely to raise tensions in the Middle East.

Tehran retaliated by naming the regional United States Cen-tral Command (Centcom) as a terrorist organisation.

“Americans should know that this is a self-infl icted blow, meaning that they are jeopardising the security of their own troops in Centcom and across the world,” General Kioumars Heydari, head of the regular army’s ground forces, was quoted as saying yester-day by the semi-offi cial ISNA

news agency. The estimated 125,000-strong Revolutionary Guards also command the vol-unteer paramilitary Basij and control Iran’s ballistic missile programme.

The United States has already blacklisted dozens of entities and people for affi liations with the IRGC, but had not previ-ously targeted the organisation as a whole.

“Today, it has been proven to the people of the world and of this region in particular that America is the mother of all terrorism,” said Tehran prayers leader Ayatollah Mohamadali Movahedi Kermani, clad in a Revolutionary Guards uniform, state media reported.

The long-tense relations between Tehran and Wash-ington took a turn for the worse last May when Trump pulled out of a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers, reached before he took office, and reimposed sanctions.

Revolutionary Guards com-manders have repeatedly said that US bases in the Middle East and US aircraft carriers in the Gulf are within range of Iranian missiles.

Tehran has also threatened to disrupt oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf if the United States tries to strangle Iran’s economy by halting its oil exports.

Iranians chant slogans during an anti-US rally following prayers in Tehran, yesterday.

Agitators in Algeria demand more changeReuters Algiers

Hundreds of thousands of protesters rallied in Al-giers for an eighth suc-

cessive yesterday to demand the departure of the ruling elite, witnesses said, as Algeria pre-pares for a presidential election in July.

Police in anti-riot gear fi red tear gas in the evening to disperse a crowd of several hundreds of youths in the city centre, wit-nesses said, after an otherwise largely peaceful march joined by families throughout the day.

Police arrested 108 people af-ter clashes with “infi ltrators” among the protesters who injured

27 policemen, a police statement said. President Abdelaziz Boute-fl ika stepped down after 20 years in power 10 days ago, bowing to pressure from the army and weeks of demonstrations mainly by young people seeking change in the North African country.

But the protests, which began on Feb 22 and have been largely peaceful, have continued as many want the removal of an elite that has governed Algeria since inde-pendence from France in 1962 and the prosecution of people they see as corrupt fi gures.

Boutefl ika has been replaced by Abdelkader Bensalah, head of the upper house of parliament, as interim president for 90 days until a presidential election on July 4. “No to Bensalah,” the pro-

testers chanted yesterday.Reuters correspondents at the

scene estimated the crowd size at hundreds of thousands of people as on previous Fridays, although there was no offi cial count.

“We want the prosecution of all corrupt people” and “no to the gang”, said banners held up by marchers.

Many protesters waved Alge-ria’s white, green and red cres-cent moon fl ag. One of them, who gave his name as Nawal, told Reuters: “We came out today to say that Bensalah’s position is unconstitutional.”

Ali Badji, a 52-year-old gro-cer, holding his son on his shoulders, said: “We are still sticking to our demands.We want a radical change.”

Swiss national gets jail term on terror chargesAFPRabat

A Moroccan court has sentenced a Swiss citi-zen arrested in connec-

tion with the murder of two Scandinavian hikers to 10 years in prison on terrorism charges, his lawyer said yesterday.

Kahlil Idriss said the man, identifi ed only as Nicolas P, 33, was convicted Thursday in the city of Sale, near Rabat, in a case unrelated to the double murder.

A dual Swiss-Spanish citi-zen was among more than 20

people arrested after Danish student Louisa Vesterager Jes-persen, 24, and 28-year-old Norwegian Maren Ueland were found beheaded on December 17 in the High Atlas mountains south of Marrakesh.

Nicolas P was arrested in January for having had con-tact with the Swiss-Spanish national as well as compatri-ots with ties to Syria, Idriss said. He was found guilty of “forming a terrorist group”. The lawyer said he has filed an appeal on the basis that his client had signed a police re-port in Arabic without having read it.

Eff orts to forge a political deal between Kurdish-led authorities in northern Syria and the Syrian government are at a standstill and President Bashar-al Assad’s ally Russia is to blame, a Syrian Kurdish off icial said. The Kurdish-led authorities revived eff orts to negotiate a deal with Damascus earlier this year in the wake of a US decision to withdraw its forces from their areas, hoping Moscow would mediate an agreement that would preserve their autonomy. Badran Jia Kurd, a Syrian Kurdish off icial involved in the political track, said the talks had gone nowhere. “The Russians froze the initiative which Russia was sup-posed to carry out and it did not begin negotiations with Damascus,” he said.

Damascus talks ‘going nowhere, Russia to blame’

DIPLOMACY

AFRICA

Gulf TimesSaturday, April 13, 20194

Suspected militants kidnap two Cuban doctors in KenyaAFP Nairobi

Suspected Somali Al She-baab militants kidnapped two Cuban doctors in

northeastern Kenya yesterday and killed their police escort of-fi cer, offi cials said.

Kenya and Somalia are work-ing together to pursue the ab-ductors, they said.

The operation happened as the two doctors — a general practitioner and a surgeon — were going to work in the town of Mandera, near the border with Somalia.

“Today at around 9:00am, suspected Al Shebaab militants abducted the two Cuban doc-tors stationed at the Mandera County Referral Hospital,” the

county’s governor, Ali Roba said in a statement.

Kenyan police spokesman Charles Owino said the assail-ants used two Toyota Probox cars to block the vehicle that the doctors were travelling in.

One of two police offi cers escorting them “was shot by the attackers and died on the spot. The attackers succeeded to abduct the two doctors and crossed the border with them,” said Owino.

The driver of the doctors’ ve-hicle was arrested and is being questioned, he said.

A senior police offi cer, who asked not to be named, said: “From the modus operandi and the fact that they went towards the Somalia border, we have reasons to believe that the kid-nappers are Al Shebaab.”

“Our security agencies are working with Somalia Govern-ment Security agencies to pur-sue the abductors into Somalia with the objective of rescuing

the victims,” Kenyan police chief Hillary Mutyambai said in a statement.

The two doctors, whose names have not been released,

are part of a group of about 100 Cubans who came to Kenya last year to help boost health serv-ices.

Al Qaeda-linked Al Shebaab militants have been waging an insurgency against Somalia’s foreign-backed government for over a decade.

Last November, an armed gang seized Silvia Romano, 23, an Italian charity worker, in the southeastern town of Chakama.

Her whereabouts are un-known.

Police at the time warned against any speculation that the Shebaab may have been in-volved in her abduction.

The Shebaab, an Al Qaeda af-fi liate, have been fi ghting since 2007 to topple Somalia’s fragile government, which is backed by a 20,000-strong African Union

force, Amisom. The Shebaab fl ed fi xed positions they once held in Mogadishu in 2011, and have since lost many of their strongholds. But they retain control of large rural swathes of the country, and continue to wage a guerrilla war against the authorities, striking at the heart of Somalia’s government.

The group has carried out a number of attacks in Kenya in reprisal for the country’s par-ticipation in Amisom. Kidnap-pings in Kenya are relatively rare but can have a devastating impact on tourism, a major in-come-earner.

In 2011, a British man, David Tebbutt, was killed and his wife, Judith, was kidnapped by gun-men who took her into Somalia and held her for ransom for six months.

South Africa’s main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Mmusi Maimane (centre) walks with supporters at a small gathering of Marikana community members as part of his election campaign trail ahead of general elections, in Marikana, yesterday.

Campaign trailEbola death toll in DRC passes 750: WHOAFP Geneva

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed more

than 750 people, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said yesterday, ahead of a key review on the severity of the epidemic.

WHO’s latest toll for the out-break declared in eastern DRC last August came as the agency’s International Health Regula-tions emergency committee was meeting in Geneva.

In October that committee held off declaring Ebola in DRC “a public health emergency of international concern,” but has decided to review the situation amid a series of worrying devel-opments.

As of April 9, nearly 1,200 cases of the virus have been re-ported in the affected provinc-es of North Kivu and Ituri, with 751 people dead, the WHO said.

The Red Cross has said that transmission is accelerating while Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has warned that the in-ternational response is failing to bring the epidemic under control. Poor security owing to the presence of armed groups, coupled with resistance of some communities to seeking treatment, has hampered the fight to stem the spread of the disease.

WHO spokesman Tarik Jas-arevic told reporters in Geneva yesterday that security con-cerns, including recent attacks on health facilities, has made it impossible to maintain a sus-tained response.

When health workers are unable to get to communities because of unrest, “no people are being vaccinated, there is no treatment (and) people are staying at home and infecting other people.”

“Now we see that we are re-gaining that access and it is normal when you start regain-ing that access that you start seeing those cases that you have not seen when you didn’t have access, and that partially explains the rise in numbers,” he said.

WHO defines a public health emergency of international concern as “an extraordinary event” that poses risks to mul-tiple states and requires “a co-ordinated international re-sponse.”

Two people, including a soldier and a vigilante, were killed when two female suicide bombers detonated their explosives in northeast Nigeria’s Borno state, military and militia sources said yesterday. The bombers quickly blew themselves up on Thurs-day in bid to evade arrest when they were stopped by troops and militiamen outside the garrison town of Monguno.“We lost a solider and a civilian vigilante in the explosion which also injured another soldier,” a military off icer who did not want to be named, said.“Two female suicide bombers were involved in the incident,” he added. One of the bombers panicked when they were being questioned and detonated her explosives, kill-ing her while her accomplice “took to the heels”, added a militia leader in the town. “The soldiers and the vigilante pursued her and when she realised they were closing in on her she explod-ed, killing a soldier and a civilian JTF (militia),” said the militia, who didn’t want to be identified for fear of off icial sanction. He said another soldier sustained injuries in the incident. Monguno, 135 kilometres north of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, houses a military base and camps for people displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency. The town which lies in the Lake Chad area has been repeatedly attacked by the militants who have made several failed attempts to overrun the base. Suicide bombings are the hallmarks of the Boko Haram faction loyal to longtime leader Abubakar Shekau, targeting civilian targets.

Ghana police said yesterday they have arrested another sus-pect over the killing of an investigative journalist who helped to expose graft in African football. Ahmed Hussein-Suale, part of a team that carried out an undercover investigation, was gunned down as he returned to his home in the Accra suburb of Madina on January 16. The shooting sent shockwaves through Ghana, one of the most stable democracies in West Africa and a beacon of media freedom. “The Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team arrested the suspect in a targeted police operation near the West Hills Mall,” senior police off icer Kwaku Boadu-Peprah said. He said the suspect was picked up in Accra on Thursday. “We have transferred him to the CID (criminal investigation department) for further investigations and hopefully he would be processed for court in the coming days,” he said. Ghana ranked 23rd out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders (RSF) 2018 World Press Freedom Index — up three places on the previous year.

Two killed in suspected ‘Boko Haram’ suicide attack in Nigeria

Ghana police arrest another suspect over journalist’s killing

UNREST

CRIME

Security off icers and civilians stand next to the car where gunmen abducted two Cuban doctors as they were going to work, in Mandera county, Kenya, yesterday.

AMERICA5Gulf Times

Saturday, April 13, 2019

US President Donald Trump is giving “strong considerations” to the

proposed idea of releasing un-documented migrants into cit-ies run by opposition Democrats who have instituted immigrant-friendly policies.

There are some 11mn esti-mated undocumented migrants in the US.

“Due to the fact that Demo-crats are unwilling to change our very dangerous immigration laws, we are indeed, as reported, giving strong considerations to placing Illegal Immigrants in Sanctuary Cities only,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Sanctuary cities – usually Democratic run – are local ju-risdictions that refrain from co-operating with federal immi-gration authorities and detain undocumented immigrants for possible deportation.

The Washington Post re-ported earlier that the idea, as initially fl oated, was to release immigrants already in detention into so-called sanctuary cities.

Citing homeland security of-fi cials and leaked e-mails, the Post said White House offi cials fi rst broached the plan in No-vember, asking offi cials at sev-eral agencies whether members of a caravan of migrants could be

arrested at the border and then bused “to small- and mid-sized sanctuary cities”.

The White House told the Immigration and Customs En-forcement agency (ICE) that the plan was intended to alleviate a shortage of detention space, but would also send a message to Democrats, the Post said.

The suggested policy was pushed back within the ICE, with a top offi cial saying it was rife with concerns and noting “there are PR risks as well”.

After the White House pressed the issue again earlier this year, the ICE rebuff ed it as “inappropriate”.

The Post said a White House offi cial and a spokesman for the department of homeland se-curity said the proposal was no longer under consideration.

“This was just a suggestion that was fl oated and rejected, which ended any further dis-cussion,” a White House state-ment said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s hometown of San Francisco is one of those places.

In remarks to reporters yes-terday, Pelosi said she was not aware of the newspaper report.

But she added: “It’s just an-other notion that is unworthy of the presidency of the United States and disrespectful of the challenges that we face, as a country, as a people, to address who we are, a nation of immi-grants.”

“The extent of this admin-istration’s cynicism and cru-elty cannot be overstated,” said Pelosi spokeswoman Ashley Etienne. “Using human beings – including little children – as pawns in their warped game to perpetuate fear and demonise immigrants is despicable.”

The threat is the latest salvo from the president on immi-gration, as he seeks to tighten borders and crack down on new arrivals, part of a policy that includes building a wall on the southern border.

Last month, he warned Mexi-co that he was imminently plan-ning to shut the two countries’ shared border, only to back off the idea at the last minute, as the adverse economic impact became apparent.

It is unclear the president

could legally or logistically carry out the plan.

The sanctuary cities do not adhere to federal regulations on immigration.

Trump accused the “radical left” of supporting open borders and said the proposal “should make them very happy!”

However, the idea of open borders is largely anathema to the centre-left Democratic Party, which favours controlled immigration, improved asylum policies and regularising the status of many undocumented people, especially children.

The administration has re-portedly in the past tried to convince offi cials at the Depart-ment of Homeland Security to put undocumented people in sanctuary cities, but they re-fused.

Trump has shaken up the de-partment, with Kirstjen Nielsen resigning this week as secretary of homeland security, while the president himself pulled back his nominee for the immigration enforcement agency, saying he wanted to go in a tougher direc-tion.

The number of immigrant detainees in ICE custody has approached 50,000 in recent months, the Post said, an all-time high that has strained the agency’s budget.

Trump threat to send migrants to sanctuary citiesDPA/Reuters/AFPWashington

Pelosi: It’s just another notion that is unworthy of the presidency of the United States.

Trump: we are indeed, as reported, giving strong considerations to placing illegal immigrants in sanctuary cities only.

Nielsen: resigned this week as secretary of homeland security.

Tens of thousands of people took part in an emotional memorial on Thursday in

Los Angeles for the slain rapper Nipsey Hussle, praising his ef-forts to end violence and improve troubled neighbourhoods.

The Staples Centre arena was packed to the rafters for the ceremony, while many others watched on television and on-line as the city bid farewell to the Grammy-nominated artist, shot dead in broad daylight outside his own clothing store on March 31.

Police have said that the kill-ing, which triggered an outpour-ing of grief in Los Angeles and among Hussle’s music industry peers, was gang-related and per-sonal in nature.

Crowds of mostly young black and Latino people wear-ing T-shirts with pictures of the 33-year-old bearded rapper started early on Thursday to fl ow toward the Staples Centre, the sports arena which hosted a me-morial service for Michael Jack-son in 2009.

A giant portrait of Hussle, who had Eritrean roots and was born Ermias Asghedom, adorned the stadium’s facade.

About 21,000 seats off ered for free on the Internet were snapped up in a matter of minutes.

The crowd was so big the com-memoration started an hour late – with a DJ playing Hussle’s 2018 debut album Victory Lap, which

earned him a Grammy nomina-tion.

Numerous celebrities were present, including fellow rap-per Snoop Dogg as well as sing-ers Anthony Hamilton and Stevie Wonder.

Hussle found minor com-mercial success but was revered among his peers, and his shock death triggered an outpouring of tributes from hip hop royalty.

Snoop Dogg noted that Hus-sle had composed songs for rival gangs – both the Crips to which he belonged, but also for their enemies, the Bloods.

The rapper’s coffi n, surround-ed by hundreds of fl owers, was placed in the middle of the stage where members of his family took turns to speak.

“Everything he said in the mu-sic was who he was,” his brother Samuel Asghedom said.

In a letter read out at the cer-emony, former president Barack Obama remembered Hussle,

whose music he got to know through his two daughters.

“He set an example for young people to follow and is a legacy worthy to follow,” Obama wrote, alluding to the rapper’s social work in the poor and mainly black Crenshaw neighbourhood of Los Angeles.

“While most folks look at the Crenshaw neighbourhood where he grew up and see only gangs, bullets and despair, Nipsey saw potential. He saw hope,” Obama said. “He saw a community that, even through its fl aws, taught him to always keep going.”

After the ceremony, a pro-cession began winding its way through that neighbourhood, where thousands of fans already lined the 40km (25-mile) route waiting to pay their last respects.

Eric Holder, 29, has been ar-rested for the murder and has pleaded not guilty.

The reasons for the killing are not known.

Tens of thousands remember slain rapper Nipsey HussleAFPLos Angeles

Nipsey Hussle’s procession passes his Marathon Clothing store after his memorial at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles.

A photo of late US rapper, recording artist and social activist Nipsey Hussle holding a baby is displayed on a screen during his memorial service at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles.

Students at Georgetown Univer-sity have approved a fund that would benefi t the descendants of

slaves sold by the elite Jesuit school in the 1800s.

Creation of the reparations fund was approved in a student referendum and the results were announced late on Thursday.

The Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA) said 2,541 stu-dents voted in favour of the measure, while 1,304 opposed it.

It would levy a $27.20 fee on stu-dents each semester to create a fund for the descendants of 272 slaves sold by the university’s Jesuit founders in 1838 to pay off debt.

The fund would be the fi rst of its kind in the country.

It would be administered by a board made up of students and descendants of the slaves to provide money for the education of descendants and other charitable purposes.

The results are not binding on the university, which was founded by Jesuits in 1789 and is located in the Georgetown neighbourhood of Wash-ington.

Todd Olson, the school’s vice-pres-ident for student aff airs, said the uni-versity “values the engagement of our students”.

“Our students are contributing to an important national conversation and we share their commitment to ad-dressing Georgetown’s history with slavery,” Olson said in a statement.

“We understand that the goals of the student referendum are to honour the 272 enslaved individuals sold by the Maryland Jesuits in 1838,” he said. “This student referendum provides

valuable insight into student perspec-tives and will help guide our continued engagement with students, faculty and staff , members of the descendant community, and the Society of Jesus.”

The Georgetown referendum comes as Democratic candidates for presi-dent debate whether the US should provide compensation to the descend-ants of African-American slaves.

Barack Obama, America’s fi rst black president, and 2016 Democratic nom-inee Hillary Clinton did not support compensation for the descendants of slaves.

However, several 2020 Democratic hopefuls, including Senator Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio, have come out strongly in favour of reparations.

Georgetown University has an un-dergraduate enrolment of more than 7,000. Tuition for undergraduates in the 2019 fi scal year is $53,520.

Students at US university approve fund to benefi t slave descendantsAFPWashington

Chicago sues Smollett over costs of investigating alleged attackThe city of Chicago filed a lawsuit on Thursday against Jussie Smollett, seeking three times the damages it said it incurred in the investigation of a hate crime that authorities allege the Empire actor staged.The lawsuit, which did not specify the amount of damages, was filed in Cook County Circuit Court more than two weeks after prosecutors dismissed the criminal charges against Smollett alleging that he fabricated the January 29 attack.Chicago off icials previously said they would sue Smollett after he refused a demand by the city for $130,000 to cover police overtime costs to investigate the actor’s claims.The lawsuit said Chicago would seek “three times the amount of the damages the city sustained”.Smollett, 36, who is black and gay, ignited a firestorm by telling police on January 29 that two apparent supporters of President Donald Trump struck him, put a noose around his neck and poured bleach over him while yelling racist and homophobic slurs on a Chicago street.

After weeks of investigation, Chicago police determined that Smollett cooked up the scheme – in which they allege he hired two brothers to pose as his attackers – because he was dissatisfied with his salary on Empire.Smollett, best known for his role on the Twentieth Century Fox Television hip-hop drama, has said he has always been truthful about the incident.He was charged in February with staging the incident and filing a false police report, but Cook County State’s Attorney’s Off ice prosecutors dropped all charges against the actor in March.Outgoing Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel described the decision as “a whitewash of justice”.Smollett admitted no wrongdoing, but he agreed to do community service and give up $10,000 in bond money.It remains to be seen whether Chicago’s mayor-elect, Lori Lightfoot, will pursue the legal case when she takes off ice on May 20.

ASIA

Gulf Times Saturday, April 13, 20196

Sweets giant probes ‘attack’ on Bangladesh factory workersThe Dutch sweets giant

behind the Mentos and Alpenliebe brands has

pledged to investigate after its workers in Bangladesh said they were attacked, just weeks after setting up a union.

The new trade union’s gen-eral secretary Kamrul Hasan said about 20 unknown at-tackers wielding sticks entered a factory run by Perfetti Van Melle earlier this week and beat him up.

A spokeswoman for the com-

pany, which has its headquar-ters in the Netherlands, ex-pressed regret over the incident and said it had taken steps to protect workers.

“Securing the safety of our employees at work is our re-sponsibility,” Saskia Huuskes told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by e-mail.

“We are investigating the in-cident and we have taken meas-ures to protect the safety of all employees in our factory.”

The rights of workers in Bangladesh, a global manufac-turing hub, have come under increased scrutiny in recent years, particularly since the

Rana Plaza factory collapse in 2013 that killed 1,100 people.

Workers at the factory in Gazipur, near the capital Dhaka, said they had earlier received threats over their plans to un-ionise, and accused local man-agers of inaction over the attack on Tuesday.

“They entered the factory and threatened everyone. They beat me up in front of com-pany offi cials and no one did anything,” said Hasan.

The incident was reported to police, who said it had been a fi ght between two groups of workers in the factory, contradicting Hasan’s account.

The union’s president Kam-rul Hasan Palash said the com-pany’s local managers had op-posed the formation of a union for the factory’s 250 permanent workers.

“After we formed the union, we applied to the ministry to get it registered as per the law,” he said.

“When the management came to know about this, they did not allow me and four others to enter the factory for fi ve days. I was threatened.”

Perfetti Van Melle said it adhered to local labour laws, which allow for the formation of unions.

“A workers union was es-tablished and approved by the relevant authorities by the end of February this year,” Huuskes added.

The company, which has operated in Bangladesh since 2004, said it was still building a relationship with the union and had provided training for workers on their rights.

The union has submit-ted a list of demands ranging from better-quality food in the canteen to higher pay.

“I have been working here for 10 years and yet my salary is just 13,000 taka ($155) per month. This is just one of the issues

that we want to talk about. And it’s something that we can do now, because we have a union,” said Palash.

Managers at Perfetti Van Melle held talks with workers on Thursday to try to address staff concerns over the incident.

Experts say Bangladesh’s record on workers’ rights has improved since the Rana Plaza disaster, which put its gar-ment industry under the global spotlight.

But progress in other sec-tors has been slower, said Amirul Haque Amin, head of the National Garments Workers Federation.

Thomson Reuters FoundationDhaka

Five dead in Hanoi blaze

At least fi ve people were killed and three missing after a deadly fi re early

yesterday morning engulfed sev-eral manufacturing workshops and warehouses in Hanoi, state media reported.

The fi re engulfed small plants making recycling bins and silica gel sachets as well as storage cen-tres for frozen goods and wooden products, according to the offi -cial Vietnam News Agency.

“Authorities found and took out the bodies of fi ve victims of the fi re at the workshops,” VNA reported after the fi re in Hanoi’s residential Nam Tu Liem district.

“Authorities are rushing to fi nd three remaining people,” it added.

Confl icting media reports said the toll was above fi ve but the fi gures could not be immediately confi rmed.

The fi re was extinguished by dawn and police are still investi-gating the cause.

Images from the scene showed fi refi ghters removing bodies from the charred site, with sheet metal roofi ng collapsed among the burnt debris.

Witnesses said the overnight blaze quickly swallowed the workshops and warehouses, in-formal commercial buildings commonly seen across Hanoi.

“In just 20 minutes, the fi re from the plastic workshop went up really high... no one was able to approach it because the fi re was too strong,” witness Vu Van Can told state-run news site VnExpress.

Big blazes are relatively com-mon in Vietnam, where fi re pre-vention and fi refi ghting services remain underdeveloped.

Thirteen people were killed in an apartment complex fi re in Ho Chi Minh City last year after the high-rise was engulfed in fl ames overnight, trapping many inside their homes.

AFPHanoi

8 killed as bus falls into ditch

At least eight people, in-cluding three children, were killed and 20 others

injured when a passenger bus veered off the road and fell into a ditch in Bangladesh yesterday.

The accident took place in the country’s Joypurhat district, 249km northwest of Dhaka, in the afternoon, the Daily Star reported.

The bus fell into the ditch in Baniapara area on Bogur-Joy-purhat highway after its driver lost control over the steering, said Masud Rana, a fi refi ghter who was engaged in rescue op-eration at the spot.

The bus was heading towards Bogura from Joypurhat, he added.

District’s police chief Rash-idul Hasan confi rmed the toll and said rescue operation was continuing.

IANSDhaka

As drought bites, Thai cities urged to rein in festive water fi ghts

A worsening drought in parts of Thailand has prompted monks and

conservationists to appeal to city dwellers to temper tradi-tional New Year celebrations, which are marked by peo-ple throwing large quantities of water at each other in the streets.

The dry season is more acute than usual because of the El Nino climate pattern, the meteorological depart-ment has said, and more than a quarter of the country’s main reservoirs have reported low water levels.

The drought situation is “quite serious”, said Pimch-anok Vonkorpon, a commerce ministry offi cial.

But there is little evidence of it in Bangkok, where shops are hawking large, colourful water guns and buckets ahead of Songkran, which runs from April 13 to 15.

The annual festival is known as the world’s biggest water fi ght, drawing hundreds of thousands of tourists, mostly to Bangkok and other cities.

“In the rural areas, the suf-fering is more obvious, and monks include the message of water conservation in their teachings,” said Somboon Chungprampree, executive secretary for the Interna-tional Network of Engaged Buddhists in Bangkok.

“It is harder to deliver the message in the city, especially to well-to-do residents and tourists. Often, it is the poorer farmers who bear the bur-den of drought,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Tourism makes up about 12% of Thailand’s economy,

and Bangkok was the world’s most visited city last year, drawing more than 20mn people.

Earlier this month, hotels in the north reported cancel-lations as wildfi res caused by dry conditions smothered nine provinces with toxic air.

The call to save water was more urgent in 2016, when Thailand suff ered its worst drought in decades.

At the time, authorities in Bangkok cut the number of Songkran festival days, imposed a curfew for wa-ter fi ghts, and appealed to revellers to sprinkle rather than splash.

This year, there has been no offi cial announcement, although festivities in Bangkok will be on a smaller scale because of prep-arations for the coronation of Thailand’s new king.

The popular backpacker district of Khaosan Road, which usually sees a free-for-all water fi ght, has cancelled celebrations ahead of the ceremonies in May.

But saving some water in Bangkok will not aff ect levels in reservoirs or help farm-ers, said Sucharit Koon-tanakulvong, an associate professor of water resources engineering at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University.

“Reminding people in Bangkok to use less water be-cause of drought in parts of the country is good and nec-essary - but it does not have a material impact,” he said.

Sucharit has talked to au-thorities about creating a col-our-coded indicator for water levels across the country, sim-ilar to an air quality index.

“That can help create great-er awareness of conservation. But there is little interest in such an index,” he added.

Thomson Reuters FoundationBangkok

Thai off icials take part in a procession to deliver sacred water from the Grand Palace to the Interior Ministry for upcoming coronation ceremony for Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn in Bangkok yesterday.

Procession for royal ceremony

Lanka’s ex-offi cial sued over alleged murder

Sri Lanka’s former defence secretary Gotabaya Ra-japakse, who oversaw the

crushing of Tamil Tiger rebels under his brother Mahinda Ra-japakse’s rule a decade ago, is being sued in two cases in the United States for his alleged role in torture and murder, ac-cording to a lawyer and court documents.

Gotabaya, popular among many Sri Lankans for his role in winning a 26-year war that ended in 2009, has expressed interest in running for presi-dent in elections later this year.

Since the end of the war Gotabaya has been accused by rights groups of multiple crimes during the civil war, in-cluding extrajudicial killings.

He has rejected the allegations.Milinda Rajapaksha, Gota-

baya’s spokesman, said the former defence secretary has yet to receive “any offi cial doc-ument or notice” on the cases.

“We see this as pure politi-cal revenge, part of propaganda designed to tarnish his image by vested interests for their own political mileage,” Rajapakshe said, without elaborating.

The South Africa-based Inter-national Truth and Justice Project (ITJP), in partnership with US law fi rm Hausfeld and human rights lawyer Scott Gilmore, fi led a civil damages case in California this week against Gotabaya on behalf of a Tamil torture survivor, Roy Samathanam.

The case alleges that Sa-mathanam was detained in the capital Colombo in September 2007 by the Terrorism Investi-gation Division of the Sri Lanka

police, who reported directly to Gotabaya, and was physically and psychologically tortured and forced to sign a false con-fession before being released in August 2010.

“Samathanam had no options left to seek justice in Sri Lanka or at the United Nations,” Gilmore said. “That’s why we brought the case in the United States when we found Gotabaya Rajapakse returning to California.”

Gotabaya, a dual US-Sri Lanka citizen, is planning to renounce his US citizenship as required by Sri Lankan law to run for president, his close al-lies have said. His spokesman did not confi rm this.

The case, fi led in US District Court for the Central District of California, was brought under the Torture Victim Protection Act, which gives torture vic-tims legal redress in US courts,

Hausfeld said in a statement.A statement from ITJP said

that Gotabaya was formally served with notice of the case in a supermarket parking lot in Pasadena, California, on Sunday after being tracked by private investigators.

In a separate case, Ahimsa Wickrematunga, the daughter of murdered investigative editor Lasantha Wickrematunga, fi led a complaint for damages on April 4 in the same US District Court in California for allegedly instigat-ing and authorising the extraju-dicial killing of her father, docu-ments seen by Reuters showed.

In her complaint, Ahimsa said that after the murder of her fa-ther in January 2009 Gotabaya and his allies obstructed her “eff orts to seek justice in Sri Lanka by tampering with wit-nesses and engaging in a pattern of coercion and intimidation”.

ReutersColombo

Residents watch a wooden chariot during the Bisket Jatra Festival, held to mark the Nepalese New Year in Bhaktapur, some 12km east of Kathmandu, yesterday. The festival began on April 10. It will be celebrated for nine days by the ethnic Newar community in Bhaktapur.

Nepal festival Nepal bans online game on concerns over children

Nepal has banned the hugely popular but brutal online game

“PlayerUnknown’s Battle-grounds” over concerns about its impact on children, offi cials said yesterday.

In the multiplayer game, commonly known as PUBG, players parachute onto an island and scavenge for weapons and equipment to kill others and survive. The last player or team standing wins.

Nepal’s telecommunication authority issued a circular to all Internet service providers on Thursday to block PUBG on in-

struction from the Kathmandu district court.

“We sought an order from the court to ban PUBG after fl oods of complaints from par-ents, guardians and school or-ganisations to block the game citing psychological impact on teenagers and students,” sen-ior police offi cial Dhiraj Pratap said.

The survival-themed battle game, made by South Korean fi rm Bluehole Inc, has been downloaded more than 100mn times around the world since it was launched in 2017.

Parents and educators say the game incites violence and distracts students from their studies.

Saugat Joshi, 28, an oc-casional player said parents

should instead speak to their children about better gaming habits.

“Banning is not a solution. Right now PUBG is viral but next year there might 10 oth-ers, we can’t ban everything,” Joshi said.

Last year, China announced new controls on the number of games that can be played online, limited new releases, and imposed rules on underage players to reduce their screen time.

PUBG is also banned in the Indian state of Gujarat, where dozens of people have been ar-rested for playing.

A minister in the coastal In-dian state of Goa has described PUBG as “a demon in every house”.

AFPKathmandu

Nepal off ers 5-year visa for US citizensNepal has began issuing five-year, multiple-entry tourist visas to US citizens.US embassy consul Mike Mussi joined Nepal Immigration director general Eshor Poudel to witness the handover of the first five-year, multiple-entry tourist visas issued by Nepal to American citizen travellers, according to a statement issued by the US embassy in Kathmandu.The US has been issuing five-year visas to Nepali travellers for many years. With this facility, Nepal has adopted the same visa terms for American visitors, greatly facilitating the closer and deeper ties between the US and Nepal.“Visa reciprocity is a standard and longstanding principle in visa policies worldwide. US and Nepal governments have been working towards establishing reciprocity for all types of visas since October 2017,” noted the statement.Establishing parity in the visa regimes between the US and Nepal provides an opportunity to increase the number and frequency of American tourists and business representatives visiting Nepal, which will benefit Nepal’s economy.

ASIA/AUSTRALASIA7Gulf Times

Saturday, April 13, 2019

Kim gains more power in N Korea leadership shuffl eAFPSeoul

North Korea has replaced its long-serving head of state with a close aide to

leader Kim Jong-un, promoting a man who was placed on a US sanctions list last year for alleged human rights abuses, state media said yesterday.

The move came as part of a top-ranking reshuffl e that ana-lysts said further cemented Kim’s already unshakeable grip on pow-er.

Kim also acquired a new title, and now becomes “the supreme representative of all the Korean people” — a newly-created role that observers say makes him more like a modern national lead-

er, on a par with other country’s presidents and prime ministers. Kim Yong-nam, the now-91-year-old who held the position of the North’s head of state — an almost entirely ceremonial role —

for almost 20 years, was replaced by Choe Ryong Hae, the state-run KCNA said.

As the new president of the Supreme People’s Assembly, Choe is technically head of state,

although real power in North Korea is wielded by Kim and his immediate family. The reshuf-fl e comes at a time of heightened diplomatic activity that has seen Kim Jong-un hold landmark summits with the leaders of the US, China and South Korea.

Born in 1950, Choe is consid-ered Kim Jong-un’s right-hand man — frequently referred to as the regime’s “virtual number two offi cial”, having been key to the party’s hierarchy since the 1980s. Some reports have even suggest-ed that one of Choe’s sons is mar-ried to Kim Jong-un’s powerful sister, Kim Yo-jong.

Choe is also one of the three North Korean offi cials placed un-der sanctions by the US last year over human rights abuse allega-tions. Analysts said, however, the

existing strictures on Choe will have little impact on his future diplomatic endeavours, as long as its nuclear dialogue with the US continues.

“Kim Yong-chol, the North’s top nuclear negotiator, also has been sanctioned by Washing-ton since 2010,” Ahn Chan-il, the president of the World Insti-tute for North Korea Studies in Seoul, told AFP. “But he visited Washington without a problem earlier this year. Washington will always make exceptions — as long as Pyongyang has something to off er.” Kim’s new job adds to a

growing list of titles he has ac-crued since he took power after the 2011 death of his father. Ana-lysts say it may also indicate a change in the country’s constitu-tion that concentrates more au-thority in the young leader.

“If Pyongyang indeed revised its constitution, then it just means Kim Jong-un now has more power than ever,” said ana-lyst Ahn.

“If that’s the case, Kim will be the one who will be offi cially representing Pyongyang both at home and abroad”.

Unlike his father, Kim Jong-il,

the young Kim has increasingly greeted foreign heads of state and visiting dignitaries, performing the functions of a modern head of state. Jeong Young-tae, an analyst at the Institute of North Korean Studies in Seoul, says the new title is part of Pyongyang’s eff orts to “secularise” Kim and his power.

“Kim Jong-un wants to re-brand North Korea as a ‘normal’ socialist country in the world stage,” he told AFP. “The new ti-tle ‘representative’ is a break from some of his previous titles that are redolent of a religious cult.”

Kim Jong-un

A general view of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea held at the Mansudae Assembly Hall in Pyongyang.

Kim Yong-nam

Tsunami warning lifted after

strong quake hits off IndonesiaAFPLuwuk

A strong 6.8-magnitude earthquake rocked east-ern Indonesia yesterday,

the United States Geological Survey said, triggering a brief tsunami warning that sent pan-icked residents fl eeing to higher ground. The quake struck at a relatively shallow depth of 17km off the east coast of Sulawesi island, the USGS said, where a 7.5-magnitude quake-tsunami around the city of Palu killed more than 4,300 people last year.

Indonesia’s disaster agency issued a tsunami warning for coastal communities in Mo-rowali district, where residents were advised to move away from the coast. The warning was later lifted by the agency, which had estimated the wave at under a half a metre (20 inches). Video footage from Luwuk city showed scared residents — some car-rying children — running from their homes and racing to higher ground on motorcycles.

The USGS warned that con-siderable damage was possible in poorly built or badly designed structures. But it was not im-mediately clear how much dam-age was caused by the quake or if there were any casualties.

Hapsah Abdul Madjid, who lives in Luwuk city in Banggai district, Central Sulawesi, where the tremor was felt strongly, said people fl ed to higher ground and the electricity was cut, adding that residents panicked as fears soared over an imminent tsu-nami. The tremor off the eastern coast of Sulawesi is on the other side of the island from disaster-hit Palu, where residents still felt the quake despite being hun-dreds of kilometres away.

“I ran straight outside after the earthquake — everything

was swaying,” 29-year-old Palu resident Mahfuzah told AFP. Thousands in Palu were still living in makeshift shelters six months after the late September disaster with at least 170,000 residents of the city and sur-rounding districts displaced and entire neighbourhoods still in ruins, despite life returning to normal in other areas of the tsu-nami-struck city.

The force of last year’s quake saw entire neighbourhoods lev-elled by liquefaction — a process where the ground starts behav-

ing like a liquid and swallows up the earth like quicksand.

Apart from the damage to tens of thousands of buildings, the disaster destroyed fi shing boats, shops and irrigation sys-tems, robbing residents of their income.

Indonesia has said the dam-age bill in Palu topped $900mn. The World Bank has off ered the country up to $1bn in loans to get the city back on its feet. Indone-sia is one of the most disaster-prone nations on Earth due to its position straddling the so-called Pacifi c Ring of Fire, where tec-tonic plates collide.

Last year was a particularly tough one, however, with more than 2,500 disasters ranging from a series of deadly earth-quakes to killer landslides and volcanic eruptions. The sprawl-ing archipelago is dotted with more than 100 volcanoes, in-cluding one in the middle of the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra islands that erupted in late 2018 and unleashed a tsu-nami that killed more than 400 people.

Indonesian residents rushing for higher ground fearing a tsunami after a strong 6.8-magnitude earthquake rocked Luwuk, in Central Sulawesi of eastern Indonesia.

Indonesia president leads in opinion pollsFive days ahead of Indonesia’s general election, President Joko Widodo retains a double-digit lead over his challenger, retired general Prabowo Subianto, three opinion polls published this week show. The election in the world’s third-biggest democracy is a re-peat of the 2014 contest, and the incumbent has been comfort-ably ahead in most surveys after winning by almost six percent-age points last time around.Three recent surveys by Indo-polling, Roy Morgan and Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) showed Widodo likely to win between 54 and 57% of the vote. Prabowo, as he is usually known as in Indonesia, has between 32 and 37% of the vote, the surveys conducted in the first weeks of April show. The SMRC survey published yesterday showed 6.3% of voters remain undecided, down from as many as 25% several months ago.

The opposition has disputed the findings of surveys putting it behind, saying big turnouts at its rallies showed it had far stronger support, as well as its own survey. It has also claimed to have uncovered data irregularities aff ecting millions of people in the election rolls and vowed to take legal action, or use “people power”, if its complaints were not resolved. Several videos appeared online this week ap-pearing to show thousands of voting papers stuff ed in bags at a warehouse in neighbouring Malaysia, with many seeming to have been already marked.One showed people holding up ballots, saying they were marked in favour of Widodo, as well as for a member of one of the political parties backing him. Arief Budiman, chairman of In-donesia’s election panel, said he would send a team to Malaysia to investigate, along with off icials

from the election supervisory agency. “There’s no decision on whether (overseas) voting will be postponed in Malaysia,” he said by text message.The agency had received a report from Malaysia that punc-tured ballots in favour of Widodo had been found inside a plastic bag and a black diplomatic bag at two shophouses, a superviso-ry off icial, Ratna Dewi Pettalolo, said by telephone. Another supervisory off icial, Mochammad Afiff udin, said in a statement 550,000 overseas Indonesians were set to vote to-morrow in Malaysia, with 319,293 due to mail their votes.The Widodo campaign did not immediately respond to a re-quest for comment but a senior campaign off icial was quoted by the Detik.com news portal describing the incident as an attempt to discredit it. Prabowo’s campaign denied any involve-ment.

Indonesia’s disaster agency issued a tsunami warning for coastal communities in Morowali district. The warning was later lifted by the agency

Australians go to the polls in a ‘fair go’ election on May 18ReutersSydney

Australians will go to the polls in a general election on May 18 after Prime

Minister Scott Morrison fi red the starting gun yesterday on a campaign set to be fought over taxation, climate change and in-equality.

Morrison and his main op-ponent, Labor party leader Bill Shorten, both used the Austral-ian phrase “a fair go” to frame their campaigns around a na-tional sense of equality and op-portunity, albeit from very dif-ferent angles.

Opinion polls have had centre-left Labor well ahead for years and show that the coalition of Morrison’s Liberals and the ru-ral-focused Nationals party is headed for a resounding defeat. “It’s an enormous mountain to climb,” said political science pro-fessor Paul Williams from Grif-fi th University in Brisbane. “If (Morrison) were to pull this off it would be one of the greatest comebacks in political history,” he said.

Morrison led his pitch to voters with his conservative coalition’s economic credentials, fram-ing the election as a referendum on its record of managing Aus-tralia’s fi nances. “So the choice to be made by Australians on the 18th of May is like it always is at every election, and that is: who do you trust to deliver that strong economy which your essential services rely on?” he told report-ers in Canberra.

However, Morrison’s coalition governs in minority and must win seats to hold power. It has also had three prime ministers in

six years, with leadership insta-bility a major reason for its poor showing in opinion polls. Labor promised higher wages and an end to tax breaks that favour the wealthy under its slogan “A Fair Go for Australia”.

“We can manage the economy in the interests of working- and middle-class people,” Shorten told a news conference he called in a suburban backyard in the southern city of Melbourne. “When everyday Australians are getting a fair go, this economy hums.”

Asked for his response to La-bor’s campaign, Morrison re-plied: “I believe in a fair go for those who have a go.” The cam-paign will run for fi ve weeks but the major parties are set to suspend their campaigns on the Easter public holidays and Anzac Day on April 25, a war remem-brance day in Australia and New Zealand. Morrison’s pitch comes

just as the economy shows signs of beginning to slow. Consumer spending has weakened as home prices fall after a prolonged property boom and high debt levels weigh on sentiment.

The International Monetary Fund said overnight stimulus may be needed in Australia and fi nancial markets are fully pric-ing in the probability of at least one interest rate cut later this year.

Markets reacted modestly, with the announcement no sur-prise for a poll that must be held

by the end of May. Morrison’s pre-election budget last week promised tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners, while projecting the fi rst budget sur-plus in more than a decade.

Labor promised to match the tax cuts for middle-income earners and pledged bigger con-cessions for lower-paid work-ers. It will fund the income tax cuts by curbing capital gains tax discounts, seeking greater taxes from multinationals and banks, and scrapping a favourable tax scheme for property investors called negative gearing, the par-ty said. “Labor’s higher tax and regulation agenda may be a neg-ative for Australian assets, but this could be partly off set in the short term by more targeted fi s-cal stimulus,” said AMP Capital Chief Economist Shane Oliver.

“The May election presents a starker choice than has been the case since the 1970s and so suggests greater uncertainty for investors than usual,” he said. It will be Morrison’s fi rst elec-tion as leader since he replaced former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in August after a party-room revolt.

That did little to improve the coalition’s weak poll numbers and the government remains divided over energy and social policies. “I think the zeitgeist is changing a little bit away from fi scal rigour to fairness,” said Mark Triffi tt, a public policy lec-turer at the University of Mel-bourne. “There are a lot of peo-ple that take that fi scal rigour and budget surplus as very, very fundamental, but I think that’s shifting back into: ‘What’s the point of having a budget sur-plus if I feel like I’m not getting ahead?’,” he said.

Australia’s opposition Labor leader Bill Shorten (right) and local Labor candidate Shireen Morris (centre) chat with ten-year-old Tom Davis (left) and his dog Fonzie during a media event on the first day of the election campaign in Melbourne.

An escalator from a shopping floor leading up to the Canopy Park of Jewel Changi Airport in Singapore. A sprawling retail complex with the world’s tallest indoor waterfall is what Singapore hopes will bring more travellers and visitors to the airport to shop and dine. The $1.3bn Jewel complex will open on April 17.

Canopy Park

Labor promised higher wages and an end to tax breaks that favour the wealthy under its slogan “A Fair Go for Australia”

Six killed as train derails, hits house in ChinaRescuers have recovered the bod-ies of six people in central China after a cargo train carrying alumin-ium ore hurtled off the tracks and crushed a house, local authorities said yesterday. At around 10pm on Wednesday the 25-car train derailed from an escape siding and overturned, hitting a house in Gongyi, Henan province. Search and rescue operations concluded early yesterday morning after the bodies of four crew members and two villagers were found. Rescue eff orts were diff icult as the crew accommodation car and the first 14 wagons overturned and lay on top of each other, and were heaped together with a large quantity of aluminium ore, the Gongyi government said. The train is owned by Chalco, China’s largest state-owned aluminium producer. Each car held 60 tonnes of aluminium ore, authorities said. Authorities are still investigating the cause of the accident.

Abbott urgesPM to blockAssange’sextraditionGuardian News and MediaLondon

The shadow home secre-tary, Diane Abbott, has urged Theresa May to

block the extradition of Julian Assange to the US in the same way she intervened in the case of the computer hacker Gary McKinnon.

In 2012, as home secretary, May halted McKinnon’s extra-dition on human rights grounds after doctors warned he was at risk of suicide if sent to face trial in the US. Abbott said similar grounds should be used to block Assange’s extradition.

On Thursday, the Wikileaks founder was arrested on behalf of the US authorities, who have charged him with involvement in a computer hacking conspiracy.

The 47-year-old faces up to 12 months in a British prison after he was found guilty of breach-ing his bail conditions. The US charge could attract a maximum jail sentence of fi ve years, ac-cording to the US department of justice.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s To-day programme yesterday, Ab-bott said: “If you remember the McKinnon case, the Americans insisted on extraditing him. He had done this massive computer hack, but his real crime was to have embarrassed the American military and security service.

“In the end the then home secretary, Theresa May, blocked his extradition on what she said were human rights grounds. We think there may be human rights grounds in relation to Assange.” Abbott described the allegations facing Assange from two women in Sweden as “serious”, but said charges were never brought.

She said: “If the Swedish gov-ernment wants to come forward with those charges I believe that

Assange should face the criminal justice system.” But she added: “It is not the rape charges, se-rious as they are, it is about WikiLeaks and all of that embar-rassing information about the activities of the American mili-tary and security services that was made public.

“He is at the very least a whistleblower and much of the information that he brought into the public domain, it could be ar-gued, was very much in the pub-lic interest.

Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, has also urged the gov-ernment not to extradite As-sange, saying he had exposed evidence of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Almost 12 hours after Assange was arrested, Corbyn tweeted: “The extradition of Julian As-sange to the US for exposing evi-dence of atrocities in Iraq and Af-ghanistan should be opposed by the British government.” He ac-companied his social media post with a video tweeted by Abbott, which she said showed leaked Pentagon footage of a 2007 air strike in Iraq that implicated US armed forces in the killing of ci-vilians and two journalists.

Addressing the House of Commons yesterday, Abbott said Assange was in the “crosshairs of the US administration” over his whistleblowing activities.

She said: “On this side of the house we want to make the point that the reason we are debating Ju-lian Assange this afternoon, even though the only charge he may face in this country is in relation to his bail hearings, is entirely due to the whistleblowing activities of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.” She added: “It is this whistleblow-ing into illegal wars, mass murder, murder of civilians and corrup-tion on a grand scale, that has put Julian Assange in the crosshairs of the US administration.”

Farage launches Brexit Partyahead of European electionsAFPCoventry

Nigel Farage launched his Brexit Party’s campaign yesterday for the Euro-

pean Parliament elections — a vote Britain was never meant to take part in but which is now be-ing seen as a referendum on its stalled drive out of the EU.

The former UK Independence Party (Ukip) leader was a leading light of the pro-Brexit camp in a bitterly divisive 2016 referendum that voted to pull Britain out of the European Union after nearly half a century.

He now hopes to transform Prime Minister Theresa May’s

failure to complete the split by its original March 29 deadline into big gains for Britain’s EU foes.

“I genuinely believe right now this nation, we are lions led by donkeys,” Farage told his maiden campaign event in Coventry — a mediaeval central England city left in ruins by World War II bombing raids.

Britain has found itself in the embarrassing position of having to prepare for a European vote three years after deciding to leave the bloc.

May’s struggle to get her EU divorce terms approved by par-liament forced the other 27 na-tions at a summit earlier this week to grant Britain a second Brexit extension that could run

up to October 31.This requires the UK to fi eld

candidates for the May 23 Euro-pean Parliament election.

Farage said the chaos showed that Britain’s leaders were “pret-ty much incompetent”. Support-ers of the 55-year-old former commodities trader wholeheart-edly agreed.

Social worker Richard Harris said he signed up to be a Brexit Party member to deliver “the biggest slap in the face for the party political system that we’ve had in generations”.

“We need to break away from the two party system,” the 37-year-old said.

Those trying to do just that in-clude a new group of prominent

pro-European lawmakers who broke from May’s Conservatives and the main opposition Labour Party in February.

The Independent Group (TIG) is re-branding itself as “Change UK” and commands 11 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons.

Its overarching ambition is to keep Britain in Europe by forcing a new Brexit referendum that in-cludes the option of reversing the fi rst one’s results.

“We are clear: Brexit is prov-ing to be undeliverable,” Change UK spokesman Chuka Umunna — a telegenic 40-year-old native Londoner who quit Labour — said in an introductory campaign statement.

“We believe the people should

have the fi nal say on this matter, and the best option is for the UK to remain a full member of the European Union.”

The European vote off ers a range of startup parties a rare chance to grab the national lime-light — and secure treasured funding should they actually win seats in Strasbourg.

An outfi t called The Renew Party kicked off its campaign by promising to give a voice to “peo-ple from outside politics” who still view themselves as Europe-ans and believers in causes such as fi ghting climate change.

It said it was “ready to speak up for disenfranchised voters who cannot rely on the Conservative and Labour parties”.

Britons going to terrorhotspots face 10 years jailGuardian News and MediaLondon

British citizens travelling to live in foreign terrorism hotspots could face up to 10

years in prison under controversial new laws.

The Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019 came into force yesterday and creates a criminal off ence of entering or remaining in a “designated area” overseas.

Ministers unveiled the meas-ure last year as part of eff orts to boost authorities’ ability to tackle the threat from so-called foreign fi ghters. The act allows the home secretary to designate an area, subject to parliamentary approval.

In order to use the power, Sajid Javid would need to be satisfi ed that it is necessary to restrict UK nationals and residents from trav-elling to or remaining in the area in order to protect the public from a risk of terrorism. An individual found to have entered or remained in a designated area could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

The act also gives border guards

the power to stop and search indi-viduals without suspicion on the grounds of tackling “hostile state” activity, and criminalises the viewing of terrorist-linked mate-rial online.

Exemptions have been written into the legislation to protect those who have a legitimate reason for being in a designated area or con-ducting research online, such as journalists. But campaigners for press freedom and human rights watchdogs have raised serious concerns about the legislation.

A joint statement from nine organisations including Index on Censorship and Reporters With-out Borders last year warned the “vaguely defi ned” crime of hostile state activity would give border guards wide-ranging powers to stop, search and detain.

The signatories said a journal-ist taking a domestic fl ight could be stopped without any suspicion of wrongdoing and it would be an off ence for the journalist not to answer questions or hand over materials, with no protection for confi dential sources.

The cross-party joint commit-tee on human rights said last year

the legislation risked crossing the line on human rights and could re-strict free speech and curb access to information.

More than 900 individuals “of national security concern” from the UK have travelled to take part in the confl ict in Syria, the Home Offi ce estimates. Of these, about 20% have been killed overseas and about 40% have returned to the UK.

Figures disclosed in the Com-mons last year suggested that only about 10% of returnees have been prosecuted over “direct action” in Syria, although the government says a signifi cant proportion of those who have come back were assessed as no longer being of na-tional security concern.

Javid said: “These new laws give the police the powers they need to disrupt terrorist plots earlier and ensure that those who seek to do us harm face just punishment. As we saw in the deadly attacks in London and Manchester in 2017, the threat from terrorism con-tinues to evolve and so must our response, which is why these vital new measures have been intro-duced.”

Prison offi cer getspayout over assaultGuardian News and MediaLondon

A prison offi cer left with permanent brain damage after an attack at a chil-

dren’s jail run by G4S has spo-ken about his continued belief in rehabilitation after receiving a “substantial” settlement from his former employer.

Ryan Goodenough, who was 21 at the time, was assaulted by in-mates while supervising outdoor activity in the grounds of Oakhill secure training centre, near Mil-ton Keynes. He was taken to hos-pital and found to have a serious brain injury after being hit on the head with a radio.

Goodenough was in an in-duced coma for two-and-a-half weeks and emerged with perma-nent brain damage, which con-tinues to aff ect his memory and balance. He spent two months in Oakleaf rehabilitation centre in Northampton.

G4S admitted liability for his injuries and agreed to pay a set-tlement. The company admit-ted breaching its duty of care to Goodenough by allowing him

to be in charge of six inmates on his own, against the ratio stipulated in guidelines of one to three. Goodenough, who had been working at Oakhill for three months, should not have been in charge of six people alone.

Goodenough, who wanted to return to his role but was un-able on medical grounds, told the Guardian: “I am past anger and I wish them (the inmates) the best in their future and hope they change before it’s too late.

“I don’t believe in resent-ment or bitterness as it benefits no one. You’re expected to be angry and hateful, which it is OK to be, but when you hold a grudge it makes young people feel isolated and pushes them further away from bettering themselves.

“It’s a diffi cult job but needs to be done, and is made harder by a society that appears to want to punish as opposed to rehabili-tate. We as workers have to undo the negative societal infl uences indoctrinated across many years, usually in a short space of time. The work has to be continued in the community for it to be suc-cessful.”

Anger at climate change

Demonstrators take part in a protest against climate change in London yesterday.

8 Gulf TimesSaturday, April 13, 2019

BRITAIN

London housing approved in area with illegal pollution levelsGuardian News and MediaLondon

A south London housing development has been ap-proved in an area where air

pollution is so high that residents will be advised to keep their win-dows closed.

Nitrogen dioxide exceeds legal limits on the busy road where the development is planned, next to the A2 in Lewisham. An air qual-ity assessment carried out on be-

half of the developers found lev-els of 56.3 micrograms per cubic metre in the area – far above the legal limit of 40μg/m3.

The highest estimate of NO2 inside the development was also above legal levels at 43.7μg/m3, which would aff ect residents on the fi rst fl oor.

The assessment includes the guidance: “With opening win-dows the developer should ad-vise the future occupants that their health could be at risk due to relatively high levels of air pol-

lution in the area.” Rosamund Adoo-Kissi Debrah, a campaign-er from Lewisham whose daugh-ter’s death has been linked to air pollution, called the decision “an absolute disaster”.

Her daughter, Ella Roberta Kissi-Debrah, was nine when she died of acute respiratory failure and severe asthma. NO2 lev-els near their Lewisham home were consistently above the legal limit. The attorney general has approved a new inquest into the death.

“They have learned nothing from my daughter’s death, noth-ing at all. It is an insult,” said Kis-si-Debrah.

Despite the developer’s warn-ings over air quality, Lewisham council deems it a “low priority consideration” in its planning re-port, rejecting solutions to miti-gate against the risk of high air pollution.

In one section, the council re-jects providing glazing on the ba-sis of a prediction that “air pollu-tion levels should fall as vehicle

emissions in the area reduce”.Instead, the council agrees to

fi nance marketing materials so that “occupiers/residents … are notifi ed of the potential air pol-lution risks to human health”. It states that such information “would be likely to take the form of marketing information, lease-hold clause and welcome pack”.

Claire Holman, an air quality expert, said interior air pollution can also be dangerous – such as pollution arising from using cleaning materials, toiletries, or

a wood-burning stove, meaning it does not always make sense to keep windows shut.

Holman, chair of the Institute of Air Quality Management, said residents would fi nd it diffi cult to know when they should be able to open their windows. “People know whether it’s too hot inside, or too noisy outside, but sensing poor air quality is more diffi cult. They may open their windows during pollution events without realising.” She added: “I have a problem with leaving it up to the

individual. People’s awareness of air quality is not great enough.”

The developer has agreed to pay £7,500 towards monitoring air quality near the development, as it sits in an air quality manage-ment area – an area which is un-likely to meet national air quality objectives.

The developer has also agreed to contribute £17,500 towards planting trees nearby and make further contributions towards pedestrian safety, better street signs and parking.

Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage and British journalist Annunziata Rees-Mogg (right) look on at the launch of The Brexit Party’s European Parliament election campaign in Coventry yesterday.

EUROPE9Gulf Times

Saturday, April 13, 2019

The Ukrainian comedian tipped to become presi-dent and his incumbent

rival travelled to Paris and Berlin yesterday to seek international backing, nine days before the run-off in a high-stakes vote.

French President Emmanuel Macron fi rst hosted comic Vo-lodymyr Zelenskiy, a political novice, for talks in Paris before meeting later with current Presi-dent Petro Poroshenko.

Polls show Zelenskiy, whose only political experience to date involves playing president on TV, easily defeating Poroshenko for the leadership of a country seen as a buff er between Europe and Russia.

Poroshenko, who is anxious to make up ground lost to Zelenskiy by showing off his experience, travelled earlier in the day to Ber-lin to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin.

Ukraine’s fi ve-year war with Russian-backed rebels in the country’s east, a confl ict in which France and Germany have at-tempted to broker peace, was one of the main talking points.

France and Germany are part of the so-called Normandy quartet, along with Russia and Ukraine, created to try and broker an end to the confl ict between Kyiv and

Moscow-backed separatists.The war has killed 13,000 peo-

ple since 2014.Poroshenko, a 53-year-old

tycoon who made a fortune in chocolate, has positioned him-self as the only candidate able to stand up to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Yesterday he downplayed the signifi cance of Zelenskiy’s out-sider status, telling reporters in Berlin: “We have politicians who are not part of the political sys-tem but that also exists in other parts of Europe. Ukraine is not an exception.”

Ahead of the Paris and Berlin visits, he had vowed to defend against what he called West-ern “attempts” to lift sanctions against Russia, imposed after its 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.

Kyiv and its Western allies ac-cuse Russia of supporting the rebels militarily.

Moscow denies that.After his meeting, Porosh-

enko released pictures on social media of himself and a smiling Macron looking comfortable and close together on the steps of the Elysee palace.

“Happy to meet with Ukraine’s sincere friend,” he wrote.

For 41-year-old Zelenskiy, a consummate showman who has managed to tap into frustration with mainstream politics fi ve years after Ukraine’s 2014 revo-lution, winning an audience with Macron, also aged 41, was a coup.

“It was a very positive meet-ing. A meeting during which the two men got to meet each other,

heard opinions on the develop-ment of both bilateral ties and the country,” his campaign chief Ivan Bakanov told AFP.

The president and candi-date discussed the confl ict in Ukraine’s east, corruption, eco-nomic reforms and “of course, the second-round run-off ,” Bakanov added.

Zelenskiy has suggested in-cluding Britain and the US in the Ukraine peace talks.

Zelenskiy has shunned tradi-tional rallies, instead continuing to perform satirical shows during the campaign.

Macron’s decision to welcome the candidate – breaking with tradition whereby leaders usually only receive foreign politicians of their ranking – caused some an-noyance in Kyiv.

“This is a very unpleasant and strange situation,” a high-rank-ing Ukrainian diplomatic source told AFP.

Sources in the French presi-dency linked the decision to Zel-enskiy’s success in the fi rst round of voting on March 31, when he won 30% of the vote, nearly dou-ble that of Poroshenko.

“France is showing that it knows what direction the Ukrainian electorate is heading in and that it has to make contact,” said Leonid Litra, an analyst at the Kyiv-based New Europe Centre.

A poll released on Thursday showed the entertainer winning 61% of the vote in the second round, compared with just 24% for Poroshenko.

While the campaign has de-

scended into farce at times, with both men undergoing drugs tests at Zelenskiy’s insistence, the stakes are high for Ukraine, a country of 45mn that is one of Europe’s poorest.

Speaking in Berlin, Porosh-enko said he would relish a de-bate with his opponent, “so that Ukrainians know they are sup-porting a real candidate and not a virtual candidate”.

In 2014, Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and war erupted in the east.

Before the confl ict with sepa-ratists began, Zelenskiy had struck a conciliatory tone, saying that he was ready to “kneel” in front of Putin to avoid a military confl ict.

However, after the fi rst round of the vote, he said he would ask the Kremlin for compensation for the war and for taking Crimea.

Earlier in the day, German Chancellor Merkel said in a joint news conference with Porosh-enko that Germany will continue to stand by Ukraine with respect to its territorial integrity.

She came out in favour of pur-suing diplomatic contacts in the so-called Normandy Format over the confl ict in the east of the country, where pro-Russian separatists have seized control.

“I believe we should continue to work in this format,” Merkel said, while acknowledging the “diffi cult conditions” in pursu-ing the dialogue.

Merkel has been criticised for meeting Poroshenko, although not Zelenskiy, while Macron met both men yesterday.

Ukraine presidentialrivals court French, German leadershipAFP/DPAParis

Merkel and Poroshenko at their joint press conference after talks in Berlin.

Zelenskiy (second left) with French President Macron and other off icials at the Elysee Palace in Paris.

Estonia, Poland deny entry to Russian ship

EU states Estonia and Poland said yesterday that they had blocked

a Russian training ship from entering their waters because some on

board are cadets from Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014.

Estonia’s foreign ministry had denied the STS Sedov sailing vessel

permission on Wednesday after learning that it was carrying students

from a maritime university based in Crimea.

Poland’s foreign ministry said yesterday that Prime Minister Mateusz

Morawiecki had decided to follow suit for the same reason.

“The prime minister’s decision is to refuse” entry to the vessel to the

port of Gdynia, foreign ministry spokeswoman Ewa Suwara said.

Earlier, Estonian foreign ministry spokeswoman Sandra Kamilova told

AFP: “Estonia does not recognise the illegal annexation of Crimea and,

in our estimation, issuing a permission to the training ship would have

contradicted the Crimea annexation non-recognition policy.”

The EU considers Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea to be illegal and

demands that it be reversed.

After Estonia’s statement, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman

Maria Zakharova took to Twitter to describe the move as an “unfriendly

and provocative step”.

Russian media then reported that the ship was headed towards Gdynia

in Poland.

The diplomatic spat comes just days before a planned Moscow visit

by Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid to open the renovated Estonian

embassy there and to meet counterpart Vladimir Putin.

Relations between Moscow and Tallinn have been fraught since Estonia

broke free from the crumbling Soviet Union in 1991, joining both the EU

and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) in 2004.

More recently Estonia and fellow Baltic states Latvia and Lithuania

have been spooked by their Soviet-era master’s annexation of Crimea

and its more aggressive stance in what Moscow considers to be its own

backyard.

A young vulture who got stranded last year in Tur-key more than 2,000km

from her nest fl ew home to Serbia yesterday – by plane.

Dobrila, a young female griff on vulture, is part of a protected col-ony of around 70 pairs in western Serbia’s Uvac Gorge.

She was found injured and ex-hausted last year over 2,200km (1,370 miles) away near the Turk-ish city of Diyarbakir, where au-thorities intervened to get her repatriated.

She returned to Belgrade to a celebrity welcome, fl own back on a Turkish Airlines commer-cial plane in a special crate and met on arrival by Serbian Envi-ronmental Protection Minister Goran Trivan and Turkey’s am-bassador Tanju Bilgic.

“I am happy our operation was a success ... Dobrila will now go back to Uvac and if she ever re-

turns to Turkey we would be glad ... to take care of her,” Bilgic told reporters.

Dobrila (‘The Good One’ in Serbian) will now undergo health checks before being returned to the Uvac Gorge, where she will be initially placed in a cage to adapt

and learn how to feed on her own.Griff on vultures nest on steep

cliff s and feed on animal car-casses.

The young birds often start wandering until they reach ma-turity and choose a colony.

They can fl y great distances

and birds marked in Serbia have been spotted as far away as Israel and near Basra in Iraq, ornitholo-gists say.

Serbian vulture fl ies home from Turkey ... by planeReutersBelgrade

A cage with Dobrila, a female griff on vulture, is unloaded after arriving at the Nikola Tesla Airport in Belgrade.

Dobrila is seen inside her cage after arriving at the Nikola Tesla Airport.

A Dutch doctor at the centre of an IVF scan-dal fathered at least 49

children, an organisation rep-resenting parents and children born through his now-closed clinic said yesterday.

Jan Karbaat, who died in 2017, is the father of 49 chil-dren born after women visited his Rotterdam clinic where he used his own sperm instead of sperm from a chosen donor to inseminate them, Defence for Children said.

Results of DNA tests con-ducted yesterday at a hospi-tal in the southeastern city of Nijmegen “showed that 49 children in the case are direct descendants of the late Kar-baat”, the organisation said in a statement.

“The results confi rm serious suspicions that Karbaat used his own sperm at his clinic,” Defence for Children added.

The controversial case be-came public after a Dutch court ruled in February that the results of Karbaat’s DNA test should be made available to parents and children to con-duct their own comparisons.

Before his death, aged 89, Karbaat reportedly admitted to having fathered about 60 children in his time at the dis-credited clinic which closed in 2009 amid reports of irregu-larities.

Karbaat later also admitted to mixing sperm from various donors and issuing fraudulent donor documentation, the Dutch daily newspaper NRC reported.

The group of suspected

“Karbaat children” dragged his family to court to force them to release Karbaat’s DNA profi le, which was kept locked in a safe.

The Karbaat family’s lawyers had argued that their clients’ right to privacy had to be re-spected.

“However, with the judges agreeing to the paternity test, the judge placed the children’s rights above those of Karbaat and his family,” Defence for Children adviser Iara de Witte said.

“Now, after years of uncer-tainty, the plaintiff s can fi -nally close a chapter and start processing the fact that they are one of Karbaat’s many de-scendants,” De Witte said.

One of the children, Eric Lever, recently told the NRC newspaper that he was “not angry with Karbaat”.

“I don’t get the feeling that he cheated my mother,” he told the NRC paper. “She re-ally wanted a child and could not have one with my parental father.”

The Defence for Children added it was likely that Karbaat sired even more donor children than the 49 who were revealed yesterday.

“Sperm belonging to the late doctor was also distributed to other clinics,” Dutch news agency ANP quoted the organ-isation as saying.

The organisation has ap-pealed to anybody who may suspect that Karbaat was their donor father to apply to a Dutch database for DNA matching.

Applicants can apply in writing to an offi cial body called the FIOM, which main-tains a DNA database to match children conceived via anony-mous donors.

Late Dutch doctor‘fathered’ at least 49 in IVF scandalAFPThe Hague

Sweden’s Prosecution Au-thority will charge three police offi cers over the

fatal shooting of a 20-year-old with Down’s syndrome and autism in August last year, in a case that has raised concerns over the use of deadly force.

Eric Torell, who had the mental age of a three-year-old, died in a hail of bullets after sneaking out of his home in Stockholm in the middle of the night to play.

Police fi red 25 shots at Torell in a residential courtyard be-lieving a toy pistol he was car-rying was a real weapon.

Torell, was hit three times.Two of the shots hit him in

the back.“I have decided that the po-

lice who have been charged for the shooting did not follow the procedures they should have done and had they done so, they would have realised that Eric – the victim – was not a threat,” prosecutor Martin Tiden told reporters.

Two offi cers were charged with misconduct and one with causing another person’s death.

Tiden said that the police were justifi ed in opening fi re at Torell, who did not respond

when asked to put down his gun, but that they should have stopped fi ring when Torell turned away from them.

Torell’s death caused a pub-lic outcry and raised questions over the use of deadly force by Swedish police.

“I hope that we get clar-ity about what happened, how it could go so wrong and that they change the way police are trained because this can’t be allowed to happen,” Torell’s mother told news agency TT.

Offi cers have shot and killed an average of one person per year over the last 20 years, ac-cording to police statistics.

However, numbers have been increasing, with six peo-ple shot to death in 2018 and an average of 3.2 over the last fi ve years.

In the US, 992 people were shot dead by police in 2018, according to the Washington Post’s database. The popula-tion of the US is about 330mn against Sweden’s 10mn.

In the United Kingdom, which has a population around 60mn, four people were shot to death by police in 2017-18 and six in 2016-17, according to government statistics.

Sweden’s National Police Commissioner Anders Thorn-berg has asked the government to review the rules surrounding the use of fi rearms.

Sweden charges cops over fatal shootingof man with autismReutersStockholm

A man charged with the murder of Slovak investi-gative journalist Jan Ku-

ciak has confessed to shooting him, Slovak independent public

television RTVS said on Thurs-day, quoting police sources.

The killing last year of Kuciak, and his fi ancée Martina Kusniro-va, sparked massive protests that led to the resignation of prime minister Robert Fico.

RTVS reported on its Facebook page that police sources said a

former soldier identifi ed only as Miroslav M had confessed ear-lier that day during fi ve hours of questioning by the police.

Daily Dennik N and website aktuality.sk, where Kuciak had reported on fraud cases involving politically connected business-men before he was found shot

dead at home with his fi ancée in February 2018, each quoted their own police source as saying the same thing.

Both news outlets identifi ed the man as Miroslav Marcek.

The reported confession in-dicated that a second person among fi ve people charged in the

murder and who are in custody was co-operating with the police in the high profi le case.

Slovakia’s special prosecutor’s offi ce, which oversees the case, told RTVS that it would not com-ment on an active case.

Police arrested four people last September.

Man charged with Slovak journalist’s murder confessesReutersBratislava

Bosnian Serb leader rejects 1995 Srebrenica massacre as a ‘myth’

Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik has accused the country’s Muslim community and the wider world of propagating a “myth” in viewing the 1995 killings in Srebrenica as genocide.“Every people needs a myth – and the Bosnians didn’t have any. They tried to construct the myth of Srebrenica. It is a false myth – this myth doesn’t exist,” Dodik told broadcaster RTRS.Bosnia has comprised two entities – Serb-run Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation – since the 1992-1995 war ended.But Srebrenica remains emblematic of the worst excesses of that conflict with more than 8,000 men and young boys massacred by Bosnian Serb forces.While most Serbian leaders both in Serbia itself and Bosnia do not deny a massacre occurred, some do call into question the death toll at Srebrenica and reject that what happened there was genocide.Dodik, elected last year as the Serbian member in the tripartite Bosnian presidency alongside Bosnian and Croatian counterparts, was speaking at a conference entitled Srebrenica, reality and manipulations, organised in the Bosnian Serb capital of Banja Luka.

Parties hit byTV, fundingclampdownAFPNew Delhi

The Supreme Court yester-day ordered parties to name anonymous donors behind

tens of millions of rupees in fund-ing as hostilities intensifi ed in the country’s mega-election.

The order came ahead of the second round of voting and after the election watchdog called for a clampdown on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal tel-evision channel, saying it breached campaign rules.

While Modi and his opposi-tion rival Rahul Gandhi returned to the campaign trail, the coun-try’s top court gave parties seven weeks to name people who have bought “electoral bonds” in recent months.

Rival parties are said to be spending up to $7bn on the elec-tion, which started on Thursday and runs through to May 19, and funding sources have come under the spotlight.

The bonds — bought for be-tween $15 and $140,000 and then given to a designated party — are controversial because they are anonymous.

The election commission and watchdog groups which took the case to the Supreme Court said the bonds should be ended because of the risk of businesses making se-cret contributions to infl uence de-cisions.

Modi’s government, which in-troduced the bonds in 2017, op-posed naming donors.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the biggest benefi ciary of the bonds, according to the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), one of the groups behind the case.

More than $150mn in bonds were bought in 2018, according to the Factly Indian data journalism portal.

Experts estimate that at least the same amount was bought in the months ahead of the election.

According to the ADR, the BJP — the world’s biggest political party — received about $150mn in total donations in 2018, of which more than half came from anonymous sources.

Congress brought in about $30mn and about 60% was anony-mous.

The prime minister, who won a landslide in 2014 and is consid-ered frontrunner in this race, faced increased pressure after the elec-tion commission said his NaMo TV breached campaign rules.

The commission ordered NaMo TV, which is sponsored by the BJP, to submit all of its content for ap-proval.

Under election rules, any con-tent deemed campaign material — including adverts, fi lms and even social media — needs permission from the independent watchdog.

NaMo TV shows 24-hour pro-grammes on Modi rallies, speeches, and even rap songs and dance rou-tines devoted to the normally aus-tere leader.

It was being broadcast as normal yesterday.

The order was the commission’s second blow to the Modi campaign in 48 hours, after it postponed the release of a fl attering movie about the 68-year-old prime minister until after voting fi nishes.

Producers of the fi lm insisted they had no links to the BJP.

But the commission said the fi lm PM Narendra Modi, which tells of the Hindu nationalist leader’s as-cent from selling tea at a train sta-tion to prime minister, could not be released during the election.

Modi and Gandhi kept up their punishing schedule of rallies ahead of the next vote on April 18.

Modi has sought to portray him-self as tough on national security.

“To kill terrorists in their dens is a policy of a new India,” Modi thundered at an election rally on Thursday.

Gandhi and Congress have sought to focus on the economy and the fate of many minorities who say they feel more threatened under the Hindu nationalist gov-ernment.

“This is the ‘New India’ they want, one completely devoid of unity and brotherhood,” said Con-gress.

In Thursday’s fi rst day, voter turnout averaged 66%, accord-ing to the Hindustan Times daily, compared to 70% in the 2014 polls.

Congress ready to contestsolo in Delhi as AAP dithersIANSNew Delhi

The Congress yesterday said the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was backtracking

from the seat-sharing “pact” between the two parties by seek-ing its extension outside Delhi, and that the party would fi ght all the seven seats in the national capital alone if no agreement was reached.

Talking to the media here, Congress leader P C Chacko said that AAP was keen on an alliance with the party in Delhi and so was Rahul Gandhi de-spite strong reservations of the party’s Delhi unit as the objec-

tive was to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Chacko, who is also the Con-gress’ Delhi in-charge, said dis-cussions were held between him and AAP leader Sanjay Singh and the two parties worked out a formula under which AAP was to fi ght four of the seven seats in Delhi while the remaining three seats were to be contested by the Congress.

“The policy of the Congress in the country today is to go for al-liance with parties which aim to defeat the BJP and join us in this fi ght,” he said.

Admitting that the Congress and the AAP had been fi ghting with each other and that there was bitterness between the two

parties, Chacko said: “But we both understand that there is a political necessity and we should come together to defeat the BJP in Delhi.” He said the last election fought in Delhi was the munici-pal corporation polls in which the Congress had a vote share of 21% and the AAP 27%, which formed the basis of the seat-sharing agreement.

“Delhi has the ideal situa-tion in which the Congress and the AAP can come together to defeat the BJP in all the seven seats. The seat-sharing dis-cussions were held with this understanding. We also arrived at a pact. Then there was a sug-gestion from the AAP that it wanted to also discuss Haryana

and other seats,” Chacko said.He said the Congress was of

the opinion that the political sit-uation in one state was diff erent from the other, and that it was not practical or feasible to have an understanding in Haryana and Punjab.

“We accepted the political ne-cessity and arrived at a pact. But the AAP on Wednesday said it was not ready for a pact in Delhi,” he said.

“We were willing and we are willing. But since they (AAP) have taken a diffi cult approach, the Congress is going to fi ght on its own,” he said.

“Even today I say with full au-thority that the Congress is ready for an alliance with the AAP,

provided it sticks to the discus-sions we had corresponding to our strength in Delhi. But if they (AAP) wants to extend the pact to other states, it is not practical,” the Congress leader said.

Chacko added that with the AAP not taking “a practical view” of the matter, the central election committee of the Congress has discussed on the seven seats in Delhi and has almost decided the candidates for four seats.

According to sources, the four likely Congress candidates are former Union minister Ka-pil Sibal from Chandani Chowk, Ajay Maken from New Delhi, Raj Kumar Chauhan from north west Delhi and Jai Prakash Agarwal from north east Delhi.

Veterans’ protest petitionhit by fake allegationsIANSNew Delhi

An online petition to Presi-dent Ram Nath Kovind by veterans protesting

against the politicisation of the armed forces has been marred in controversy as some whose names fi gure in the protest letter have distanced themselves from the campaign.

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman called it a “fake let-ter” claiming Air Chief Marshal N C Suri and Gen S F Rodrigues, who were listed among those signed, have both come out to say that their consent was not taken.

She said it was worrying that fake petitions were being signed. The minister said the President’s House had not even received the petition.

The petition had protested against the politicisation of armed forces in the wake of com-ments like “Modiji ki Sena” made by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

It contained names of 156 of-fi cers but it was not clear on whose behest the campaign was initiated. Among those named were former navy chief Arun Prakash who is active on social media and shares his views fre-quently on burning issues.

The opposition had accused the government of politicising the armed forces and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s elec-tion speech is under the Election Commission’s scanner.

In the petition dated April 11, the veterans urged the president to take “all necessary steps to ur-gently direct all political parties that they must forthwith desist from using the military, military uniforms or symbols, and any actions by military formations or personnel, for political purposes or to further their political agen-das”.

They said that “some concerns have caused considerable alarm and disquiet among both the serving and the retired personnel of the forces”.

They have also objected to the use of pictures of Indian Air

Force Wing Commander Abhi-nandan Varthaman – who was captured by Pakistan and then released – in posters along with the image of soldiers in election hoardings and campaign.

“It is very worrying if people are writing fake letters and al-legations are being levelled by vested groups. It is highly con-demnable. It is happening at the time of elections,” said Sithara-man.

Former IAF chief Suri, one of the eight former chiefs of armed forces on the list of signatories, said he has contended that armed forces should remain apolitical but said that his consent was not sought for the letter.

Rodrigues denied signing the letter and called it fake news.

“I don’t know what it is all about. All my life, we had been apolitical. After 42 years as an offi cer, it is a little late to change. We in the services have always done what the government in power ordered us...,” he said.

But some other veterans told media houses that they had given their consent to the letter.

EC turning polls intoa farce, says NaiduIANSAmaravati

A day after polling in And-hra Pradesh, which was marred by the malfunc-

tioning of some EVMs, Chief Minister and TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu yesterday blasted the Election Commission for what he called “turning the elections into a big farce”.

Declaring war on the poll panel, Naidu said its insistence on use of a non-reliable technology, refusal to count VVPAT slips, transfer of offi cials and its other moves at the behest of Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi raised serious questions over its credibility.

At a news conference, the Tel-ugu Desam Party (TDP) chief said that he had never seen such an in-sensitive, irresponsible and use-less Election Commission.

Naidu said he was ready to go to any extent in his struggle to save democracy, which he said, was being endangered by relying on Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) which can be manipulat-ed. Accusing the EC of bias, Naidu wondered why democracy should

be at the mercy of machines.Claiming that 35% of the EVMs

malfunctioned during the polling in the state on Thursday, Naidu said voters had to suff er as some of them waited till the early hours of yesterday to cast their votes.

“Polling at many booths start-ed at 1pm and ended at 6pm. Some people voted at 3.30am. Do you have commitment to-wards the country? Do you care for democracy vote? The Elec-tion Commission should answer,” Naidu charged.

He took strong exception to deputy election commissioner Umesh Sinha calling the EVM malfunctioning a small issue and said at one stage 4,600 EVMs were not functioning.

“Your own CEO (chief elec-toral offi cer) could not vote. What about the common man? What do you say about this,” Naidu asked.

The TDP leader also ques-tioned the EC about the qualifi ca-tion and credibility of technicians it recruited to repair the EVMs. “Who are these people? How were they recruited? What is the guarantee that these people are not doing any manipulation in the EVMs,” he asked.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday again nudged NCP president Sharad Pawar to denounce a proposal to make two “Prime Ministers” – one for Jammu and Kashmir and another for India as propounded by some Congress allies. Modi’s comments came again at a rally in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra – Pawar’s home turf. “We have no expectations on this from Congress, they are reaping what they sowed. But what’s wrong with you, Sharad Pawar? For how long will you keep quiet on this demand for two prime ministers? Your party’s name has ‘nationalist’ in it, but is it only to defraud the people of the country?” Modi asked.

Union Minister Maneka Gandhi was issued a show-cause notice after she kicked off a controversy when she told the Muslims in Sultanpur in Uttar Pradesh to vote for her if they wanted her to get their work done after she wins from the constituency. Addressing a rally in Turab Khani village, the BJP leader said she would not give jobs to Muslims if they did not vote for her. She added she would not like it if she won without the support of the Muslims. Maneka’s three-minute speech went viral on social media, leading to outrage for its blatant communal content. The Congress has termed her statement “scandalous”. Maneka claimed her remarks were quoted out of context.

The Kerala Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) has filed charges against its former director Jacob Thomas accusing him of misusing his off icial position and causing a loss of Rs14mn to the exchequer while buying dredger equipment as director of ports between 2009 and 2014. The decision comes after the state government rejected Thomas’ request for voluntary retirement to contest the Lok Sabha election from Chalakudy. Jacob is facing suspension in the case since December and still has 18 months of service left. The case against Jacob was earlier dismissed by a court. Thomas was suspended last year on charges of violating the All India Service Rules.

The Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) has resolved to withdraw support to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition government in Goa, its working president Deepak Dhavalikar said yesterday. “The party has formally resolved to withdraw support to the Goa government. A letter will be submitted to the Governor Mridula Sinha any time soon,” Dhavalikar told the media in Panaji, a day after the MGP’s central committee passed a resolution to support the Congress in the Lok Sabha polls. The MGP had been in alliance with the BJP since 2012. But after the death of late Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, diff erences emerged between the two parties.

The BJP yesterday approached the Election Commission seeking action against Congress president Rahul Gandhi for repeatedly calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi “a thief” and also attributing to the Supreme Court things it did not say in the Rafale jet case. A BJP delegation comprising Union Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi met EC off icials in New Delhi and also alleged that the poll panel had ignored their earlier complaints against Gandhi on the issue. “The Congress president is using abusive words and statements that are untrue. He is repeatedly calling the prime minister a thief without any evidence,” Sitharaman told reporters.

Modi prods Pawarto attack Congress

Maneka issued noticefor communal remarks

Kerala anti-graft body filescharges against ex-chief

MGP withdraws supportfor Goa government

BJP protests over Rahulinsults against premier

TACTICSOUTRAGE DECISION POLITICSANGER

10 Gulf TimesSaturday, April 13, 2019

INDIA

West Bengal chief minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo Mamata Banerjee gestures as she speaks during an election campaign rally in Kurseong hills some 42kms from Siliguri yesterday.

Police personnel stand in a queue to cast their postal ballots at a polling station in Ahmedabad yesterday.

LATIN AMERICA11Gulf Times

Saturday, April 13, 2019

Two killed in Brazilbuildings’ collapseAFPRio de Janeiro

Two people were killed in Brazil yesterday when two buildings collapsed in a

hillside neighbourhood near Rio de Janeiro, a region hard hit by heavy rain and fl ash fl oods, fi re-fi ghters said.

The adjoining four-storey structures were inundated as the Itanhanga neighbourhood, 30kms west of downtown Rio, was drenched along with the rest of the region three days ago, re-sulting in multiple deaths.

At least two other people were injured when the buildings col-lapsed, said the fi refi ghters, who managed to pull three people out alive.

Neighbours said the buildings crumbled early in the morning.

“There was a loud noise, the buildings collapsed and there was a great cloud of dust,” said Muzema resident Isabel Cris-tina, 42. “A friend who lived in the building was rushed to the hospital along with his family,” she said.

Juliana Carvalho, 34, moved to

the Muzema favela in Itanhanga a month ago and bought a home in front of the buildings that collapsed. She had just woken when she heard the commotion and managed to escape with her daughter. “My home shook. We ran and didn’t look back,” she said.

Muzema is hard to reach be-cause of the widespread damage caused by the unusually heavy rain across the region, which began late Monday and con-tinued into Tuesday, triggering fl ash fl ooding that turned some streets into raging rivers and swept away vehicles.

Heavy runoff from neighbour-ing hills gushed through some apartment buildings and shops, leaving behind mud and debris.

Like many poor neighbour-hoods west of Rio de Janeiro, Muzema is run by militias loyal to criminal gangs that use vio-lence to enforce their rule.

The gangs sell land rights and control access to city services such as water and electricity.

“Municipal control techni-cians need police support to carry out operations in that place,” the mayor’s offi ce said on Twitter.

Petrobras stops diesel pricehike at Bolsonaro’s behestReutersBrasilia/Rio de Janeiro

Brazil’s Petroleo Brasileiro SA cancelled a diesel price hike yesterday at the be-

hest of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, spooking investors wary of political interference at the state-run oil fi rm.

Preferred shares dropped 4.3% in Sao Paulo trading as the abrupt reversal raised doubts about pledges to separate politics from business at Petrobras, which sold fuel at a loss for years under pres-sure from previous governments.

Although Bolsonaro vowed orthodox economic policies in his far-right presidential cam-paign last year, his fi rst 100 days in offi ce have raised concerns that more populist factions in his government may have an upper hand over free-market voices.

Petrobras announced on Thursday afternoon it would raise diesel prices by 5.7% to the highest level since October, eff ective yesterday, then dis-closed it was backing off in an

early-morning securities fi ling.In a radio interview yesterday,

Vice President Hamilton Mour-ao said Bolsonaro had pressured Petrobras to cancel the price hike, but added he had “absolute certainty” that it was a one-time matter.

Bolsonaro called Petrobras chief executive Roberto Castello Branco late Thursday to address the sharp price hike after dis-cussing the matter with his chief of staff , according to a source in the presidential palace.

Petrobras did not immedi-ately respond to requests for comment on Bolsonaro’s role in the decision. Last year, a huge truckers strike over high diesel prices paralysed much of Brazil and led the government to inter-vene in Petrobras’ pricing policy.

Then-CEO Pedro Parente quit in protest and the company’s share price was nearly halved in a month. Petrobras updated its diesel pricing policy last month, saying prices would not be re-adjusted more than once every 15 days and reaffi rming it would not price the fuel below parity

with international markets.“It’s a shame because all that’s

been said by the government up to now is that you’re going to have prices tied to international prices, and Petrobras is going to have independence when it comes to pricing policy,” said Adriano Pires, a consultant at Brazil’s Center for Infrastructure.

He added that the move could complicate Petrobras’ plans to sell two groups of refi neries over fears the government might in-tervene in refi nery fuel pricing.

That sale would raise several billion dollars if successful.

Analysts at UBS led by Luiz Carvalho pointed to a March announcement that Petrobras would take part in a gas tender in Israel, an ally of the Bolsonaro government, as evidence that the price hike reversal is likely part of a larger trend of govern-ment interference at the fi rm.

Petrobras said in the fi ling yesterday its current hedge po-sition allowed it to delay a price revision for “some days,” with-out detailing its plans for a fu-ture readjustment.

Blackoutsthreatendeath blowto industriesReutersValencia, Venezuela

The latest power outage started another tough week for factory owner

Antonello Lorusso in the city of Valencia, once Venezuela’s in-dustrial powerhouse.

For the past month, unprec-edented nationwide blackouts have paralysed the factory and the rest of the country, cutting off power, water and cell service to millions of Venezuelans.

Lorusso’s packaging plant, Distribuidora Marina, had al-ready struggled through years of hyperinfl ation, vanishing client orders, and a fl ight of employees.

Now the situation was worse.For the whole of March,

Lorusso said, his company pro-duced only its single daily ca-pacity: 100 tonnes of packaged sugar and grains.

When Reuters visited on April 8, he was using a generator to keep one of his dozen packaging machines working to fulfi l the single order he had received.

Power had been on for a few hours, but was too weak to run the machines.

“There is no information, we don’t know if the blackouts will continue or not,” said Lorusso, who has owned the factory for over 30 years.

He said the plant had just a day’s worth of power over the previous week.

Power has been intermittent since early March, when the fi rst major blackout plunged Ven-ezuela into a week of darkness.

Electricity experts and the op-position have called the govern-ment incompetent at maintain-ing the national grid.

President Nicolas Maduro has accused the opposition and the US government of sabotage.

Venezuela’s industry has col-lapsed during six years of reces-sion that have halved the size of the economy.

What is left is largely outside of the capital Caracas, the only big city that Maduro’s govern-ment has excluded from a power rationing plan intended to re-strict the load on the system.

In Valencia, a few multina-tional companies like Nestle and Ford Motor cling on.

But the number of companies based there has fallen to a tenth of the 5,000 there were two dec-ades ago, when Maduro’s pred-ecessor Hugo Chavez became president, according to the re-gional business association.

The government said on April 4 that the power rationing plan meant Valencia would spend at most three hours a day without electricity, but a dozen executives and workers there said outages were still lasting over 10 hours.

Generators are costly and can only power a fraction of a busi-ness’s operations, they said.

Many factories have shut down.

“The game is over. Companies are entering a state of despair due to their non-viability,” said an executive of a food company with factories in Valencia, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Companies this year are oper-ating below 25% of capacity, ac-cording to industry group Con-industria.

It estimated companies lost about $220mn during the days in March without power, and would lose $100mn more in April.

Nestle’s factory, which pro-duces baby food, halted during the fi rst blackout in early March and operations again froze two weeks later, with employees sent home until May, according to Rafael Garcia, a union leader at the plant.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo poses for a picture with Chile’s President Sebastian Pinera and Chile’s Foreign Minister Roberto Ampuero at the presidential palace La Moneda, in Santiago, Chile, yesterday.

Pompeo defends USsanctions on VenezuelaReutersSantiago

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo yesterday defended sanctions on

Venezuela and said countries in the region would understand that the US was not the “malign actor” in the socialist-run coun-try’s deepening economic and political crisis.

Pompeo was embarking on a three-day visit to Chile, Para-guay and Peru, a clutch of fast-growing countries in a region where Washington concerns are focused on China’s growing presence, as well as the Ven-ezuelan crisis.

It will be the fi rst time since 1965 that a US secretary of state has visited Paraguay, a symbolic

gesture that experts say under-scores US commitment to the region.

Pompeo will also travel to-morrow to Cucuta, a Colombian border city receiving signifi cant numbers of Venezuelan migrants fl eeing hunger and violence in their homeland.

Venezuela’s crisis is expected to dominate the trip as the US pressures President Nicolas Maduro to step down and urges more countries to join the coali-tion supporting opposition lead-er Juan Guaido.

The region has seen a shift in recent years towards right-lean-ing presidents that have backed Guaido.

“This is an historic opportu-nity,” Pompeo told reporters en route to Chile’s capital Santiago, where he touched down in the

early hours of yesterday morn-ing.

The region contained coun-tries that “were truly market driven, democratic in ways that we haven’t had in South America for decades,” he said.

The visit comes as Washing-ton considers more sanctions against Maduro’s government and pushes Russia to remove its troops from Venezuela.

Critics have warned that heavy sanctions could hurt ordinary Venezuelans, already suffering from hyperinflation and food and medicine short-ages.

Pompeo said the people rec-ognised the US was not to blame for the country’s crisis.

“I think they understand who the malign actor is here and I think they’ll see all the countries

in the region, including the US, as truly trying to help them,” he said.

Roberta Braga, a director of the Adrienne Arsht Latin Amer-ica Center at the Atlantic Coun-cil, said she expected Pompeo to fl ag the importance of Peru’s leadership as part of the Lima Group regional bloc in address-ing Venezuela’s crisis.

“At the top of the priority list for Pompeo’s trip this week will be to continue to reinforce and strengthen the coalition that has been built in support of Guaido,” Braga said.

“Pompeo will likely reiterate the administration’s prior warn-ings to external actors, including China, Cuba and Russia, to not intervene in the crisis.”

While most Western nations have recognised Guaido as head

of state, Russia, China and Cuba have stood by Maduro.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said this week Vene-zuela’s economy was expected to contract by one-fourth in 2019, and a further 10% in 2020 — a greater collapse than it projected in October.

During his travels, Pompeo is expected to highlight the gains from economic and trade co-operation with the US, whose regional infl uence has been in-creasingly challenged by China.

China, whose booming economy over the past two decades has driven up demand for raw materials, is already the top trade partner for nations from tiny Uruguay to Brazil, Latin America’s largest econo-my and the world’s top soybean exporter.

A man is carried on a stretcher as rescue workers are seen at the site of a collapsed building in Muzema community, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, yesterday.

Red Cross aid to Caracas to triple as Maduro softens stanceGuardian News and MediaWashington

The International Commit-tee of the Red Cross is to triple aid to Venezuela, a

day after the crisis-riven coun-try’s leader approved the deliv-ery of humanitarian assistance.

The organisation announced the increase in the face of mounting calls for the UN to recognise the scale of the crisis facing Venezuela, and amid con-

tinued moves by the Trump ad-ministration to persuade other countries to back its calls for the removal of President Nicolas Maduro.

With the health system in collapse, and food and electric-ity shortages now common-place, the Maduro government has been accused of deliber-ately minimising the scale of the problems facing the country even as millions have fl ed over its borders.

A joint report last week by

Human Rights Watch and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health urged the UN to take a lead in what it described as a “complex hu-manitarian emergency” that demanded a “full scale” inter-national response.

The 71-page report docu-mented rising maternal and infant deaths, the unchecked spread of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles and diphtheria, and sharp increases in the transmission of malaria,

tuberculosis and other infec-tious diseases.

Announcing the aid increase, the Geneva-based organisation said: “The ICRC has tripled its budget for operations in Vene-zuela from about $9mn to about $24.6mn. The fi nancial boost will see the ICRC expand its work on four pressing humani-tarian issues: migration, health, water and sanitation, and deten-tion.”

The pressure for increased aid to the oil-rich but imploding

country follows clumsy eff orts by the Trump administration to politicise the delivery of US aid to shore up support for opposi-tion leader Juan Guaido, whom Washington and dozens of other countries have backed as interim leader over Maduro.

Maduro, however, enjoys the support of Russia – a veto-wielding member of the UN Se-curity Council – and Cuba.

The war of words between Washington and Caracas fl ared up again on Wednesday when

Mike Pence, the US vice-presi-dent, called on the UN to revoke the credentials of Maduro’s rep-resentatives. On the same day, the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, described the Maduro government in Congress as “a true threat to the United States of America”.

For his part, Maduro has long denied the country is suff ering from a humanitarian crisis and blames US sanctions for its eco-nomic woes.

Peter Maurer, the ICRC presi-

dent, was in Venezuela this week, the fi rst visit to the coun-try by the organisation’s head in a quarter of a century.

“I am satisfi ed with the will-ingness of the authorities to work with us to address the hu-manitarian needs we have iden-tifi ed in a consensual way,” Mau-rer said in the statement.

The subject of humanitarian relief has become tense in Ven-ezuela following a standoff over aid between Maduro’s govern-ment and Guaido.

PAKISTAN

Gulf Times Saturday, April 13, 201912

A suicide bomb blast ripped through an outdoor Pa-kistani market yesterday,

killing at least 20 people, offi cials said.

Body parts littered the scene and injured people screamed for help as black smoke cloaked the market after the explosion.

Some 48 people, including three security personnel, were wounded in the blast in the southwestern city of Quetta, capital of resource-rich Balu-chistan province, offi cials said.

With some of the injured in critical condition, rescuer Abdul Hamid Achakzai said that the death toll might go up.

Photographs circulated on so-cial media showed dead bodies piled up on trucks, injured being taken to hospitals and the mar-ketplace awash with blood.

Baluchistan is the focus of the $57bn China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a transport and energy link planned between western China and Pakistan’s

southern deepwater port of Gwa-dar.

The attack came after a lull of at least a year in violence against the mainly Shia Hazara minor-ity in the province, though there have been isolated shootings.

The blast took place at Hazar Ganji, a fruit and vegetable mar-ket on the outskirts of Quetta.

“I was loading a small truck and I heard a huge bang and it seemed as if the earth beneath me had shaken and I fell down,” said Irfan Khan, a labourer, from his hospital bed. “The atmos-phere was fi lled with black smoke and I could not see anything, I could hear people screaming for help and I was also screaming for help.”

He said the air was “fi lled with the stinging smell of burnt hu-man fl esh”.

At least eight of the dead be-long to the Hazara community, Quetta city police chief Abdul Razzaq Cheema said, adding that one paramilitary offi cial from a squad deployed to guard the community at the market was also killed.

He initially said that the ex-

plosive device was hidden be-tween sacks of potatoes, but, later, he and the provincial home minister, Zia Langau, told a news conference that a suicide bomber exploded his device among the people in the market.

The minister also said that two children were among the dead.

“The bomber seemed to be disguised as one of the labour-ers when he exploded his device,” another police offi cial, Bahram Mandokhel, told Reuters. “We have found his head and other body parts.”

No group immediately claimed responsibility.

Hazaras have been frequently targeted by Taliban and Islamic State (IS) militants and other Sunni Muslim militant groups in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

They have been heavily tar-geted in Afghanistan in attacks claimed by an affi liate of Islamic State.

Yesterday’s bloodshed came two days after authorities freed Ramzan Mengal, a top leader of a banned sectarian group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), police chief Cheema said.

Mengal had been detained for three months under maintenance of public order regulations, he said.

The LeJ has worked both with Al Qaeda and Islamic State in Pakistan and has claimed several co-ordinated attacks in Balu-chistan.

A faction of the Pakistani Tali-ban has claimed the market at-tack, saying that they collabo-rated with the LeJ.

There was no immediate con-fi rmation from the LeJ.

Ethnic Baluch separatists are also battling what they call unfair exploitation of the province’s gas and other resources.

In 2013, three bombings killed more than 200 people in Haz-ara neighbourhoods, prompting security forces to escort Hazara buses to the market.

The same practice was fol-lowed yesterday, but the blast took place in the market.

Hazaras make up roughly 500,000 of the city’s 2.3mn peo-ple.

“Targeted for their religion by sectarian armed groups, (Haz-aras) have suff ered many such

tragedies over several years. Each time there are promises that more will be done to pro-tect them, and each time those promises have failed to material-ise,” Omar Waraich, an offi cial of rights group Amnesty Interna-tional, said in a statement.

“Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government has made important commitments to protect all re-ligious groups. Those commit-ments must translate now into policies to eff ectively protect the Hazaras of Quetta, ending more than a decade of bloodshed.”

Khan himself “strongly con-demned” the attack.

“Deeply saddened and have strongly condemned the terrorist attack in Hazarganji market area of Quetta targeting our innocent people. I have asked for an im-mediate inquiry and increased security for the ppl. Prayers go to the families of the victims and for early recovery of the injured,” the prime minister tweeted.

President Dr Arif Alvi con-demned the blast and expressed sorrow over the loss of life.

In a statement, he termed it a “heinous act of terrorism which is a reminder for us as nation that few remnants of this menace are still left to be eliminated totally”.

Condemning the attack, Infor-mation Minister Fawad Chaud-hry prayed for eternal peace for the departed souls and early re-covery of the injured.

He said the terrorists wanted to target the process of progress and development by harming peace in the country.

The valiant people of Paki-stan have been boldly facing the menace of terrorism and time is not far when terrorists will be completely eliminated from the country, the minister added.

Opposition Leader in the Na-tional Assembly Shehbaz Sharif prayed for the departed souls and expressed condolences to the grieving families of the victims.

He said the nation and its in-stitutions have rendered great sacrifi ces to eliminate terrorism from the soil.

Pakistan Peoples Party chair-man Bilawal Bhutto Zardari

wrote on Twitter: “Condemn the terrorist attack in #Quetta. The government must stop dragging its feet and take action to counter violent extremism. Thoughts and prayers with the families of the victims.”

US ambassador to Pakistan Paul W Jones also issued a strong condemnation of the attack.

“We strongly condemn to-day’s terrorist attack on a market in Quetta. We off er our deepest condolences to the victims and their families,” the US embassy in Islamabad’s Twitter account posted.

Baluchistan Governor Aman-ullah Khan Yasinzai, Chief Min-ister Mir Jam Kamal Khan and Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar also condemned the at-tack.

Violence in Pakistan has dropped signifi cantly since the country’s deadliest-ever militant attack, an assault on a school in the northwestern city of Pesha-war in 2014 that killed more than 150 people, most of them chil-dren.

Quetta market attack leaves 20 dead, 48 injuredReuters/AFP/DPA/InternewsQuetta/Islamabad

Security off icers inspect the site of a bomb blast at the fruit market in Quetta.

Thousands of Pakistanis clad in white gathered in the central city of Jhang

yesterday to make a human im-age of Christchurch’s Al Noor mosque, where 50 people were killed by a white supremacist four weeks ago.

Drone images showed wor-shippers standing in formation, their snow-white traditional shalwar kameez and prayer caps in stark contrast to the emerald

green of a public fi eld, as a second group formed the words “Islam is peace” nearby.

Huge New Zealand and Paki-stani fl ags were also displayed along with a giant banner which read: “Solidarity with the mar-tyrs of Christchurch from Paki-stan.”

The tribute was organised by the Muslim Institute, a non-government organisation aimed at promoting peace and stability in the Muslim world, which also released the drone footage.

Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian and self-avowed white supremacist, has been charged with 50 counts of mur-der and 39 of attempted murder after opening fi re at the Linwood and Al Noor mosques on March 15.

Nine of the victims were of Pa-kistani origin.

One, Naeem Rashid, was post-humously given an award for bravery by Pakistan after he ap-parently tried to tackle the gun-man before being shot.

Tribute organisers praised the New Zealand government af-ter what had been a “very tough time” for Muslims in the coun-try – especially Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

Her response “not only soothed the wounds of Muslims but also assured them that Mus-lims in their country are safe”, Sahibzada Sultan Ahmad Ali, a religious scholar and one of the organisers, told AFP.

“We worked really hard to make this model,” one partici-pant, Noor Hassan, told AFP of the tribute.

“It was so pleasant that we were ready to stand like this for the whole day,” he added.

Thousands gather in Jhang to form image of Christchurch mosqueAFPJhang

Pakistanis gather to form an image of the Christchurch Al Noor mosque, in solidarity with the mosque attack victims, in Jhang, Punjab province.

The federal government has decided to introduce a mobile app for real-

time collection of general sales tax (GST) charged by hotels and restaurants throughout the country.

The fi nal decision on this matter will be taken after consultation with all relevant stakeholders.

The app will send consumers an instant receipt confi rming tax collection from them and help enhance government’s revenue from food and accom-modation sector.

According to documents, the fi nance ministry penned a letter to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) in this regard, following which the latter de-cided to review the recom-mendation of a mobile app for hotels and restaurants.

The letter observed that all luxury hotels and restaurants in the country collected GST besides their usual bills.

Even the restaurants that do not provide computerised bills charged sales tax, the letter continued.

“It is unconfi rmed whether the tax, charged by hotels and restaurants, is actually depos-ited in the national treasury and within prescribed time limit or not,” it added.

Furthermore, the app can be integrated with the tax mecha-nism so that GST payments are made on real-time basis.

The system would benefi t the government by transfer-ring taxes to the national ex-chequer instantly.

On the other hand, it would also ensure the consumers that their payment has entered the national treasury.

The regional tax offi ce of Is-lamabad, an institution func-tioning under the FBR, has in-stalled a Web-based restaurant invoice system throughout the city.

According to the sources, the system permitted the FBR to digitally monitor payments received by the restaurants in Islamabad.

The data from the newly installed systems was sent to the regional tax offi ce with in-structions to classify restau-rants under diff erent catego-ries as per threshold of their electricity and gas bills and charge taxes accordingly.

Government plansto introduce mobile app for tax collectionInternewsIslamabad

The provincial forest de-partment has lodged a case against the vice-

chancellor of Baluchistan Uni-versity, after a large number of trees in the varsity premises were cut down.

“Around 45 trees of Quetta pine were cut down in the uni-versity premises last week,” of-fi cials said, adding that a case had been registered against the vice-chancellor on behalf of a guard of the forest depart-ment, Mohamed Ramzan.

The conservator of the forest department, Niaz Kakar, said Quetta pine trees are the oldest trees on the campus.

“Under forest laws, there

is no permission to cut down these trees,” Kakar said, add-ing these trees were planted in 1970 after its saplings were brought from Iran.

However, the university has denied the allegations and said it had no information about the action taken by the forest department.

“We have no offi cial infor-mation about the fi rst infor-mation report lodged by the forest department against the university,” Baluchistan Uni-versity spokesman Amir Ham-za said. “The university is tak-ing care of all trees and saplings inside the university premises.”

However, he said, some trees had withered because of a long dry spell in Quetta and season-al diseases, forcing the institu-tion to cut down a few trees.

Case lodged against Baluchistan varsityInternewsIslamabad

Action againstcable operatorsPakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) chairman Mirza Saleem Baig has warned of strict action against cable operators who air Indian channels.Addressing a press conference, Baig said that cable operators should air more Pakistani channels. “Cable operators do not have permission to air Indian television channels.”He added that direct-to-home (DIH) service will be launched by November in Pakistan.

Indian langurs seen in Kasur villagesAt least three langurs (a species of monkey native to South Asia) have been sighted in some villages of the district, creating excitement and fear among locals.The langurs, according to locals, seen in Khara and Vadana villages, have migrated from Indian side, where these are also called Hanuman langurs.As the news about presence of langurs spread, a large number of people gathered in these villages to see them.The locals said these langurs were seen perched on cellular company towers, minarets of mosques, and upper-most branches of trees.Some of the locals claim these primates were seen roaming on the roofs of houses in search of food, creating panic among the residents, especially women and children.They said the langurs haven’t hurt anyone so far, as they mostly stay away from humans.Some of the villagers claimed that five langurs were seen in the area.A few months ago, a langur was seen in Kasur city, but wildlife department off icials failed to catch it.

Authority seals MPA Hostel’s canteenThe Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Food Safety and Halal Food Authority has sealed the MPA Hostel’s canteen after a detailed inspection of its kitchen.In a statement here, the authority’s director general, Riaz Khan Mahsud, said that the food authority had the mandate to check every food outlet in the province and take necessary action in public interest.He said that provision of safe and healthy food would be ensured in all areas of the province.Sharing details, the authority’s director operations Khalid Khan Khattak said that the canteen was checked for personal and food hygiene.He revealed that both personal hygiene and food safety situation were not satisfactory.He added that China salt was also recovered from the premises, which had already been banned by the Supreme Court in 2018.He said that a team of relevant off icials would continue to visit the canteen in order to ensure implementation of food safety standards.Another off icial, Dr Murad Ali, said that the canteen was sealed for three days and instructions for improvement had been given to the owner.

PHILIPPINES13Gulf Times

Saturday, April 13, 2019

US ships to continue sailing in South China Sea despite warningBy Dempsey ReyesManila Times

Despite a warning coming from China not to start any trouble at the South

China Sea (SCS), the United States yesterday maintained it would continue its operations there under international laws.

“The United States will fl y, sail and operate everywhere in-ternational law allows. That’s it. I wish we had a longer state-ment for you, that’s the sim-ple truth,” Lt Gen Eric Smith, commander of the Japan-based US 3rd Marine Expeditionary Forces, said at a news briefi ng after the Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) war drills’ closing ceremony at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City.

The US made the stand af-ter Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Beijing was hoping that “nonregional forces” would refrain from “stirring up trouble” within the contested South China Sea (West Philippine Sea).

Lu was asked about recent ex-ercises conducted by Philippine Navy ships and Washington’s USS Wasp near the Scarborough (Panatag) Shoal in line with the annual Balikatan war games.

Smith noted that the US would continue its operations even after the warning made by China.

Lt Gen Gilbert Gapay, com-mander of the military’s South-ern Luzon Command and the Balikatan director for the Phil-

ippines, said the presence of US forces in the West Philippine Sea was part of the yearly war exercises.

Gapay added that for Ba-likatan 2019, there was an “in-crease” when it came to the par-ticipation of several countries.

According to him, there was a 30% jump in personnel and

6% in equipment use.“The presence is not really

to agitate or anything else, but purely for training, so nobody should be alarmed of the pres-ence of all those forces during the Balikatan,” Gapay said in a news briefi ng.

This year, Washington incor-porated for the fi rst time its F-35B Lightning 2 plane on board the USS Wasp for the Balikatan war games.

From humanitarian assist-ance disaster relief, the 2019 Balikatan military exercises fo-cused on maritime security and counter-terrorism operations, which included drills on am-phibious landing and live-fi re training.

“We brought everything we could bring because our part-nership with the Philippines is so good. This is a partnership and a mutually respectful, ben-efi cial partnership, so I brought everything I can because I get so much out of this training,” Smith said.

Gen. Benjamin Madrigal Jr, Armed Forces of the Philippines chief, said Manila had always been “respective” when it came to actions coming from foreign nations.

“We are all undertaking re-spective independent actions, we have a good rapport here,” Madrigal told reporters.

“Of course, what we want is continued freedom of naviga-tion within the areas we are covering,” he said.

Nearly 1.38mn aff ected by power interruptionsBy Jordeene B LagareManila Times

About 1.38mn customers were struck by power in-terruptions that hit por-

tions of Metro Manila and neigh-bouring provinces as some power plants remained offl ine or were not operating at full capacity.

“1.38mn customers are aff ected so far and counting on today’s MLD (manual load dropping),” Manila Electric Co (Meralco) spokesman Joe Zaldarriaga said in a text message yesterday.

Meralco implements rotating brownouts or MLD in its coverage area when there is a shortage of power supply.

The shortage prompted the National Grid Corp of the Philip-pines (NGCP) to declare red and yellow alerts in the entire Luzon grid that lasted for several hours.

In its advisory, the country’s grid operator said the red alert was raised from 9am and lasted until 10pm.

The yellow alert was also up from 8am to 9am and 10pm to

11pm. The NGCP raised the two alerts “due to major generation inadequacy,” according to the De-partment of Energy (DoE).

The DoE attributed the power shortage to inoperable power plants.

These are San Miguel Consoli-dated Power Corp (SCPC) Unit 2 (150 megawatts); Sual Unit I of Team Energy and San Miguel (647MW); Southwest Luzon Power Generation Corp (SLPGC) Unit 2 of DMCI (150MW); Pag-bilao Unit 3 of Team Energy and AboitizPower (420MW); and South Luzon Thermal Energy Corp. (SLTEC) Unit 1 of Ayala (135MW).

The DoE cited the supply de-fi ciency to DMCI’s Calaca Unit 2 (100 megawatt) that is not op-erating at full capacity, as well as 827MW from previously ap-proved outages caused by sched-uled maintenance works.

In an advisory, Meralco said 234MW from 112 accounts par-ticipated in its interruptible load programme (ILP), a scheme aimed at alleviating supply crunch in the power grid by voluntarily reduc-

ing the amount of load connected to the distribution grid during peak hours of the day.

This caused the power inter-ruptions in Manila, Quezon City, Caloocan City, Parañaque City, Pasay City, San Juan City, Las Piñas City, Valenzuela City, Mal-abon City, Navotas City, Pasig City, Taguig City, Muntinlupa City, Mandaluyong City, Marikina City and Makati City in Metro Manila; and in Plaridel, Malolos City, San Rafael, San Ildefonso, Pandi, Norzagaray, Dona Reme-dios Trinidad, Angat, Paombong, Hagonoy, Calumpit, Meycauayan, Santa Maria, Marilao, Bocaue, Pulilan, Baliuag, San Jose del Monte City and Balagtas in Bula-can.

Power interruptions also hit Imus, General Trias, Dasmar-iñas City, Trece Martirez City, Tagaytay City, Silang, Naic, In-dang, Amadeo, Bacoor, Noveleta, Kawit, Cavite City, Tanza, Rosa-rio, General Mariano Alvarez and Carmona in Cavite; Cabuyao, Liliw, Magdalena, Majayjay, Nag-carlan, Rizal, San Pablo City, Bay, Calamba, Calauan, Los Banos,

Pila, Santa Cruz, Victoria, Biñan, Santa Rosa, San Pedro and Ala-minos in Laguna; Lucena City, Tayabas, Pagbilao, Candelaria, Dolores, San Antonio and Tiaong in Quezon; Batangas City, Talisay, San Pascual and Santo Tomas in Batangas; Taytay, Cainta and San Mateo towns in Rizal; and Apalit and San Simon in Pampanga.

Peak demand was higher at 10,623MW against available ca-pacity at 10,206MW as of 1pm yesterday.

The DoE said the power situ-ation would improve next week when some power plants resume normal operations.

“We see an improvement of the system for Saturday and Sunday due to low demand on weekends,” the DoE said. “The energy family is expected to have a better deter-mination of the week’s outlook by Sunday,” it added.

The department said Sual Unit 1 of Team Energy and SLTEC Unit 1 of Ayala will be back on the grid today, while SCPC Limay Unit 2 and Pagbilao Unit 3 of TeaM En-ergy and AboitizPower will go on-line on April 16.

Philippine and American soldiers mount amphibious exercises in Zambales.

President to explain wealth ‘in due time’By Ralph VillanuevaManila Times

After an investigative re-port raised questions about his and his fam-

ily’s wealth, President Rodrigo Duterte said he would hide such matters from the public, but would explain his allegedly ill-gotten riches in “due time.”

The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) earlier released a series of re-ports about the wealth of Du-terte and his children —Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Car-pio and former Davao City vice mayor Paolo Duterte — saying

they all became signifi cantly richer during their time in of-fi ce.

The reports also accused the family of having undisclosed businesses.

In a speech during the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino- Lakas ng Bayan campaign rally in Bacolod City in Negros Occidental, Du-terte admitted that he, indeed, has money.

“I am rich? I will hide it. Why will I tell you where I put the money? You are all idiots. May-be I will be robbed,” the presi-dent said.

He added that he would ex-plain the alleged wealth “in due time.”

Duterte slammed the reports as “trash.” “Do not believe the trash of the opposition. I will explain it (wealth),” he said.

The president denied allega-tions that he is corrupt, saying he had been living within his means.

“You know I’ve been mayor for 23 years, I’ve been a pros-ecutor for nine years, I’ve been in the practice of law four years before that, I have not lost even in the presidency. But if you tell me… Look at their trash. I do not have transactions with the government because I do not allow transactions, contracts to reach my table,” he said.

“All I have is my salary,

P200,000. I have two families, that is just enough,” the presi-dent added.

Duterte’s latest statement came roughly a week after he said his family’s businesses were not the concern of the public.

Earlier, he also slammed the reports as “black propaganda.”

The president said those who wrote the reports were “paid hacks.”

“Investigative journalists are attacking me and my children, all about lawyering. What do they care about what happened to my law offi ce? My law offi ce, it was formed with Atty. Fabio-sa, the sibling of the basketball player,” Duterte added.

Duterte says Sara will not run for presidencyBy Catherine S Valente Manila Times

President Rodrigo Duterte does not want Davao City Mayor Sara “Inday” Du-

terte-Carpio to run for president in the next elections.

In his speech during a cam-paign rally in Bacolod City, Duterte dispelled talk that his daughter was being groomed as his successor.

“I will advise her to lay off . But if I know she will not run for president,” Duterte said.

“Inday is very wise. She just wants to shake the tree so the ripe fruit will fall. Shaking the tree and getting rid of the dried leaves and everything. If you ask me, I will not allow her to run,” he added.

The president, who will step down in 2022, said a president gets very little pay and has to en-dure insults and criticisms.

“I apologise for saying this. It does not pay well, and the things that you have to endure because you are there,” Duterte said.

“You get insults, you get criti-

cism for things that you know are not true,” he added.

The Davao mayor heads the regional party Hugpong ng Pag-babago.

She has been actively cam-paigning for Senate candidates supportive of her father’s ad-ministration. She has also de-nied that she was eyeing the presidency, saying she was only helping her father.

But Sara previously said she would decide if she will run for president or not in 2021.

“Running for president is not an overnight decision. It needs money, machinery, but the most important thing is wisdom and guidance from the Lord because it will be diffi cult if it’s not in-tended for you,” she said.

“It depends on the circum-stances. Maybe, let’s just set a deadline, in January of 2021,” Sara added.

The younger Duterte is seek-ing re-election as Davao City mayor in the May 13 mid-term elections.

The shortage prompted the National Grid Corp of the Philippines (NGCP) to declare red and yellow alerts in the entire Luzon grid that lasted for several hours.

Two Filipinas‘hired’ as surrogates barred from travel

Two Filipinas who were “hired” to

be surrogate mothers allegedly in

Hong Kong were stopped from

leaving the country after the

Bureau of Immigration discovered

that they were actually bound

for China, Manila Times reported.

Grifton Medina, Immigration Port

Operations Division chief, said

in a statement that the bureau’s

travel control and enforcement

unit (TCEU) intercepted the alleged

victims only known as Ria, 32;

and Ellie, 28 who were checked

in at a Cebu Pacific flight at the

immigration departure area of the

Ninoy Aquino International Airport

Terminal 3. Medina said the victims

who were both former overseas

Filipino workers admitted to im-

migration off icers that they agreed

with the arrangement to carry the

babies of others so that they could

support their families. “They imme-

diately confessed during interview

that they were actually bound

for China where their services as

surrogate mothers were engaged

for a fee of P300,000,” Medina

said in his report to Immigration

Commissioner Jaime Morente.

“Both victims said that their visas

will be processed in Hong Kong,”

he said. The women were turned

over to the Justice department’s

Inter-Agency Council Against Traf-

ficking for further investigation and

assistance. A surrogate mother is

a woman who agrees to become

pregnant and give birth to a child

for another person. A surrogacy ar-

rangement is usually sought when

pregnancy is medically impossible

or when pregnancy risks are dan-

gerous for the mother. Medina said

the women were intercepted after

seeing that the arrangement exploits

women whose wombs were treated

as commodities to meet the repro-

ductive needs of rich people who

were unable to bear a child.

Sara Duterte-Carpio: lacking father’s support

Foreign dept urges Filipinos to quit LibyaBy Bernadette E TamayoManila Times

The Philippine embassy in Libya yes-terday reiterated its appeal to Fili-pinos in Tripoli to move to safer lo-

cations as clashes there were expected to intensify.

Chargé d’aff aires and embassy head of mis-sion Elmer Cato called on Filipinos in Tripoli

and surrounding areas “to have themselves and their dependents repatriated as soon as possible. “The Department of Foreign Aff airs (DFA) on April 8 raised the crisis alert level in Tripoli from 2 to 3, or voluntary repatriation, to ensure the safety of Filipinos amid tensions in the Libyan capital.

Filipinos were also advised to avoid traveling to Tripoli until the situation nor-malises.

“The embassy is issuing this appeal while

it is still in a position to assist because once the fi ghting reaches the capital, its capacity to respond to requests for assistance would be severely aff ected,” Cato said.

“For those who choose to remain in Tripo-li, please continue to remain vigilant and to exercise extreme caution. Those working or living near areas where the fi ghting is tak-ing place should remain indoors and restrict their movement,” he said on the embassy’s Facebook page.

Gulf Times Saturday, April 13, 2019

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Microsoft’s work withChina military varsityraises eyebrows

Microsoft has been collaborating with researchers linked to a Chinese military-backed university on artificial intelligence, elevating concerns that US firms are contributing to China’s high-tech surveillance and censorship apparatus.

Over the past year, researchers at Microsoft Research Asia in Beijing have co-authored at least three papers with scholars affiliated with China’s National University of Defence Technology (NUDT), which is overseen by the Central Military Commission.

The research covers a number of AI topics, such as face analysis and machine reading, which enables computers to parse and understand online text.

While it is not unusual for US and Chinese scholars to conduct joint research, Microsoft’s work with the military-backed NUDT comes amid increasing scrutiny around China-US academic partnerships, as well as China’s high-tech surveillance drive in the northwest region of Xinjiang.

“The new methods and technologies described in their joint papers could very well be contributing to China’s crackdown on minorities in Xinjiang, for which they are using facial recognition technology,” said Helena Legarda, a research associate at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, who

focuses on China’s foreign and security policies.

“Many of these advanced technologies are dual-use, so they could also contribute to the PLA’s (People’s Liberation Army’s) modernisation and informatisation drive, helping the Chinese military move closer to the 2049 goal of being a world-class military,” she added.

A Microsoft spokesman said that the company’s researchers “conduct fundamental research with leading scholars and experts from around the world to advance our understanding of technology.”

In each case, the research “fully complies with US and local laws” and is published to “ensure transparency so everyone can benefit from our work,” he said.

The growing concerns around human rights violations in Xinjiang have also added pressure to US firms with business in the region, where some 1mn Uighurs and other mostly Muslim Turkic language-speaking minorities are held in re-education camps, according to a UN panel of experts.

In February, US biotechnology manufacturer Thermo Fisher announced it would stop selling equipment used to create a DNA database of the Uighur minority to China.

That same month, a security researcher exposed a massive database compiled by Chinese tech firm SenseNets, which stored the personal information and tracked the locations of 2.6mn people in Xinjiang.

At the time of the data leak, Microsoft was listed as one of SenseNets’ partners.

The company declined to comment.But experts have also stressed that, in the case of NUDT,

Microsoft’s co-published work is open and publicly accessible.“The authors are basically sharing with the rest of the world

how to replicate their approaches, models, and results,” said Andy Chun, an adjunct computer science professor at City University of Hong Kong.

That allows others to potentially “build upon, enhance and expand this research,” he said.

Microsoft Research Asia also tends to focus on long-term research or projects that are not immediately transferable to applications, such as those that could be used to monitor or suppress a population of people, pointed out Yu Zhou, a professor at Vassar College, who studies globalisation and China’s high-tech industry.

And while such concerns are certainly valid, it may be difficult for AI researchers to avoid China, she said.

“It’s a field where Chinese researchers have made quite a lot of advancements, and they are generating data which is the raw material for this industry — so how are you going to avoid that?”

“China is using facial recognition technology for crackdown on minorities”

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CHAIRMANAbdullah bin Khalifa al-Attiyah

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFFaisal Abdulhameed al-Mudahka

Deputy Managing EditorK T Chacko

Production EditorAmjad Khan

By Giorgio Chiovelli, Stelios Michalopoulos, and Elias PapaioannouLondon

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention. Since

the treaty entered into force, armed confl icts in Africa and elsewhere have steadily receded, and democratisation, coupled with international monitoring, has led to a reduction in the use of landmines and other improvised explosive devices (IEDs) worldwide. At the same time, inspiring individuals and organisations have continued to navigate diffi cult environments to assist victims and clear minefi elds.

But that progress is now at risk. According to the Landmine Monitor 2018, the use of landmines/IEDs is rising at an alarming pace, as are fatalities and injuries from these devices. Most of the casualties are in Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Nigeria, Myanmar, and Libya, where rebel militias, government forces, and extremist groups such as the Islamic State have laid new minefi elds. Because of past and ongoing contamination, the explosive remnants of war continue to aff ect the lives of millions of people, particularly civilians and children, in around 50 countries.

As the international community focuses primarily on limiting the use of landmines, preventing deaths, and assisting the injured, much less attention goes to how these devices threaten post-confl ict recovery eff orts. The estimated 1mn IEDs deployed in Yemen and thousands of similar devices in Syria narrow considerably the path to peace and reconstruction in these countries.

Complicating matters further, clearance operations are slow, relying on imperfect detection methods and incomplete information. Many minefi elds were created years or even decades ago, and may have been moved by rockslides, fl oods, or other natural causes.

Demining suff ers from co-ordination problems, as the process is fragmented among various nongovernmental organisations and UN agencies. Governments’ weak post-confl ict state capacity makes planning and coordination even harder. The high cost of clearing mines often leads to donor

fatigue. Given these challenges, how should demining eff orts proceed?

For the past few years, we have studied the impact of landmine clearance in Mozambique, the only country to have progressed from being “heavily contaminated” (in 1992) to “landmine free” (as of 2015). Between 1977 and 1992, Mozambique suff ered from a civil war that left hundreds of thousands of people dead from violence, malnutrition, and hunger. More than 4mn of the country’s roughly 14mn people were displaced.

According to a 1992 Human Rights Watch report, parts of Mozambique had been “reduced to a stone age condition” and would have to be rebuilt “from scratch.” Thousands of minefi elds scattered throughout the country, however, made reconstruction challenging. Government troops had used mines to ring-fence villages, towns, and basic infrastructure, while RENAMO, a militant group backed by Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa, had used them extensively in its strategy of terror. There were even older minefi elds left from the country’s 1964-1974 war of independence, when both independence fi ghters – FRELIMO – and the Portuguese military used them for various reasons. Militias, thugs, and even commercial companies

used landmines for military purposes, protection, and terror.

While early post-war assessments suggested that there were as many as 1mn landmines strewn across Mozambique in 1992, our data uncovered around a quarter-million devices across 8,000 hazardous areas. Yet, whatever the precise number, it takes only a few mines to terrorise civilians and curtail economic activity.

In our study, we tracked how the evolution of local economic activity in Mozambican localities, refl ected in satellite images of nighttime light density, responded to mine clearance operations between 1992 and 2015. We found that economic activity picked up modestly upon full clearance, implying that demining does indeed facilitate development. More important, we determined that demining results in larger relative gains when it specifi cally targets roads and railroads, as well as villages that host agricultural markets.

Demining key areas associated with transportation networks leads to large increases in aggregate economic activity because it has positive spillovers even in areas that were never contaminated. Counterfactual policy simulations suggest that Mozambique’s highly fragmented demining process probably resulted in sizeable losses compared to

what could have been achieved with a more coordinated eff ort targeting the central nodes of the country’s limited transportation network

Much like Tolstoy’s unhappy families, every civil war is destructive in its own way, implying a need for caution when extrapolating research fi ndings from any single confl ict study. Nonetheless, our research points to some general lessons for the international community as it plans for the reconstruction of Yemen, Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan, and continues demining eff orts in Colombia, Cambodia, and many African countries.

First, those leading demining eff orts should take a panoramic view to identify spatial interconnections and areas hosting transportation infrastructure and local and regional marketplaces. To be sure, prioritisation is complicated by other considerations, including the need to facilitate the return of refugees, maintain peace, distribute aid, and so forth; nevertheless, considering the economic potential of clearance in key areas would help ensure long-term success.

Second, Mozambique’s experience holds a lesson for those in the international community who are hesitant to expand the Mine Ban Treaty to cover anti-tank (anti-vehicle) landmines, which are still deemed legal, owing to their supposed “strategic importance.” As our fi ndings show, by threatening intra-regional fl ows of goods, people, and ideas, anti-vehicle landmines threaten economic development and a post-confl ict recovery.

Sadly, International Mine Awareness Day (April 4) has never been more relevant, given the continued use of these deadly devices in confl icts around the world. In addition to helping the victims of mines, the international community urgently needs to step up its clearance eff orts. The process demands a strategic, holistic, and coordinated approach to ensure that demining leads to sustainable economic development and lasting peace. – Project Syndicate

Giorgio Chiovelli is a Research Fellow at the London Business School. Stelios Michalopoulos is Associate Professor of Economics at Brown University. Elias Papaioannou is Professor of Economics and Academic Director of the Wheeler Institute of Business and Development at the London Business School.

Clearing the ground forpost-confl ict reconstruction

Closing Europe’s confi dence gapBy Ana PalacioMadrid

In Spanish, the word confi anza has a double meaning. On one hand, it describes a fi rm trust in something or someone – the kind of trust that

people around the world, from Brazil to the United States to North Africa, increasingly lack in their leaders and even governance systems. On the other hand, confi anza refers to confi dence in oneself – something that is in particularly short supply in Europe.

In fact, the European Union is suff ering from a defi cit of confi anza in both senses. This is a uniquely dangerous mix, because a lack of trust and self-confi dence is leading the EU not just to outsider politics and even outlaw politicians, but also to policy paralysis, public outrage, and an utter inability to determine its own destiny. Both before and after next month’s European Parliament election – which will precede a new European Commission and a new European Council president – this defi cit must urgently be addressed.

Public trust in EU leaders and institutions took a serious hit after the 2008 fi nancial crisis. By then, the original purpose of the European project – to support peace on the continent after the devastation of World War II – had lost its purchase on public opinion. Europeans had gotten used to peace. Meanwhile, “Europe” became focused on the broader – and vaguer – goal of championing “shared values.” That objective underpinned the establishment of the formal EU institutions.

For voters, however, lofty ideals were not the point. Europe had achieved peace through prosperity; mutually benefi cial economic relations were the key to deterring confl ict. But, as the memory of the war faded, the means became the ends. Prosperity was all that mattered.

So, when markets crashed in 2008, and Europe was engulfed by a series of crises (which were exacerbated by fl aws in the European architecture), the public lost confi dence that the

European project was even viable, let alone desirable. These doubts intensifi ed as other trends – including globalisation, automation, and the emerging dominance of Big Tech – transformed economies and societies, creating new sources of insecurity.

Economies had become much broader than societies, and thus lacked the social underpinnings of the past. Add to that the expansion of the regulatory state, and citizens felt a perceptible loss of agency.

The resulting uncertainty has produced fear and frustration, fuelling popular anger not just at fl aws in the system, but also at the system itself – and the “elites” who had “imposed” it. Aided by opportunistic politicians, mainstream political parties have become the enemy, and experts have lost credibility. Truth itself is under attack.

An eff ective response to this challenge must be broad, multilayered, and robust. In European countries – and in the Western democracies more broadly – such a response requires political leaders to engage more deeply with citizens, together with eff orts to build societal resilience. At the European level, it also demands the development of a clear raison d’être that extends beyond prosperity. But it also means the construction of a more eff ective, results-oriented institutional arrangement.

The EU has been an intergovernmental, rather than a transnational, endeavour

since at least the fi nancial crisis. Agenda-setting and decision-making authority lies with national governments, and, by default, powerful members, especially Germany, and disruptive mavericks, such as Hungary and Poland, dominate these processes.

During the fi nancial crisis, Europeans looked to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, not then-European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, for a solution. Despite the declaration by Barroso’s successor, Jean-Claude Juncker, that his Commission represented a “last chance” for winning back the support of citizens, Merkel has also dominated decision-making these last fi ve years. This is exemplifi ed by migration, where time and again decisions impacting the EU as a whole, including the bloc’s agreement with Turkey, were taken in Berlin with little or no consultation. This is the reality.

And yet the European Parliament and the Commission have sought to increase their own powers. This is the wrong way to achieve a meaningfully central place in policymaking. Instead of attempting to off set the power of member states by expanding their competencies, these institutions should focus on comparative advantage.

For the European Parliament, this could mean establishing itself as a source of facts, ideas, and vision, rather than as a co-legislator, given how

little appetite there is for surrendering sovereignty even over the most practical issues. At a time of disinformation and confusion, the Parliament could conduct credible studies and disseminate authoritative research, much like the House of Lords does in the United Kingdom.

For the European Commission, the goal should be to strengthen its role as protector of the spirit and vision of the EU treaties, while taking responsibility for proper policy implementation. This would require the Commission to stop trying to show at every opportunity that it is the captain of the ship. As these last years have shown, without political buy-in, it cannot follow through on any course it charts, whether on migration, energy independence, or defence. This failure undermines the EU’s credibility, while wasting time and resources.

As for the European Council, it must act more as a collegium and less a loudspeaker for the views of certain capitals in setting direction. Here the role and personality of the Council’s incoming president, who will set the tone, is crucial.

By focusing on rebuilding confi anza in both its forms, the next Commission, Parliament, and Council can bolster the EU’s legitimacy and facilitate progress in core areas, such as consolidating the euro and completing the single market and banking union. This new, stronger EU would be far better equipped to defend European interests and values on the world stage, which would bolster public trust further.

But if the EU institutions fail to show the needed humility and vision, no such virtuous circle will emerge. The European ship could continue to drift along aimlessly; worse, it will take on water until, ultimately, it sinks. In the stormy seas of escalating great power competition, that will happen more quickly than EU leaders seem to recognise. – Project Syndicate

Ana Palacio is former minister of foreign aff airs of Spain and former senior vice president and general counsel of the World Bank Group. She is a visiting lecturer at Georgetown University.

File photo: Mozambique is the only country to have progressed from being “heavily contaminated” (in 1992) to “landmine free” (as of 2015).

European Parliament building

COMMENT

Gulf Times Saturday, April 13, 2019 15

The future of economic growthBy Jim O’NeillManchester

Last month, I wrote about the growing divide between economic theory and real-

world economic conditions, and reminded readers that economics is still a social science, despite whatever loftier ambitions its practitioners may have. Nonetheless, when it comes to the specifi c question of what drives economic growth in the long term, one can still off er rigorous predictions by focusing on just two forces.

Specifically, if one knows how much a country’s working-age population will grow (or shrink), and how much its productivity will increase, one can predict its future growth with considerable confidence. The first variable is reasonably predictable from a country’s retirement and death rates; the second is more uncertain. Indeed, the reported slowdown in productivity across advanced economies since 2008 is widely regarded as an economic mystery.

Is it really a mystery, though? Consider the following table, which shows GDP growth since the 1980s for the larger economies, the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), and the “Next Eleven” (N-11) most populous developing countries.(See Table)

With the fourth column (2011-2020) showing what my colleagues and I had projected back in 2001 when we coined the BRIC acronym, one can observe diff erences between what was forecast and what has happened

this decade (2011-2017*). For the world as a whole, we predicted growth of just over 4% in the current decade, owing to the rise of China and the other major BRICs. And it is precisely for that reason that growth in the 2001-2010 period was stronger than in the preceding decades, when the persistence of 3.3% annual growth led some economists to conclude that the global economy had reached its full potential.

Now consider what has actually happened. Growth in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, China, and (arguably) India has come close to what we predicted. But the same cannot be said for the eurozone, Brazil, and Russia, whose poor performance must refl ect weak productivity, given that our predictions had already accounted for demographic trends.

It is worth noting that no major country or region has performed better than we predicted back in 2001. The table shows that there can be some asymmetry between actual and potential growth, and that such divergences are not random. On the contrary, the eurozone, Brazil, and Russia clearly have underlying problems that need to be addressed.

Of course, we also may have been too optimistic about these economies’ long-term potential in the fi rst place. Such is the nature of a social science. Whether any of them can achieve strong productivity growth will depend on a variety of factors, not least the policies they have in place. At this point, it would be a pleasant surprise if any of them achieved the level

of growth that we predicted for 2021-30.

It is also worth noting that the US and the UK registered growth close to the level we predicted despite their weak productivity gains, owing to the rapid increase in employment in both countries. But with the unemployment rate having reached near-historic lows, and with public policy turning against immigration, it will be mathematically impossible to achieve the same level of

employment growth in the decade ahead. For overall growth to continue, productivity must improve.

When it comes to the next decade, much of the focus lately has been on China, whose current slowdown seems to have taken markets by surprise. It should not have. As we predicted almost 20 years ago, China will struggle to attain growth above 5% in the 2021-2030 period, for the simple reason that its workforce growth will

have peaked. While pessimists will no doubt fi nd validation in the further Chinese growth disappointments that are to come, optimists can point to the fact that 5% annual growth in China is nominally equivalent to 15-20% growth in Germany. At this stage in China’s development, faster growth would actually be quite extraordinary.

It is equally predictable that India will start to grow at a much faster rate than China, simply

because its workforce still has a lot of growing left to do. The real question is whether India can implement strong productivity-enhancing reforms. If it can, it could be the one major economy to exceed expectations in the next decade. But even failing that, India will soon overtake the UK and France to become the world’s fi fth-largest economy; it will overtake Germany at some point in the next decade, possibly by 2025.

Meanwhile, unless Brazil and

Russia reduce their dependence on the commodity-price cycle, they will only ever experience strong growth during price spikes. With or without reform, Russia is already heading for another disappointing decade as a result of its demographics. Brazil, on the other hand, could register growth close to what we originally predicted if it could implement diffi cult social and health reforms. But that is a big “if.”

As for the eurozone, we appear to have been too optimistic, even though we foresaw a decline in potential growth to 1.5%. Nowadays, most forecasters put the region’s growth potential at around 1%. If Germany cannot shift to a more domestic-demand-driven growth model, that projection will probably turn out to be correct. Yet while most press coverage has focused on Germany’s falling exports and manufacturing output, the country’s services sector remains strong. For its own sake as well as for Europe’s, Germany should embrace that strength permanently.

Among the loose assortment of N-11 countries – most of them in Asia and Africa – are some fast growers like Vietnam. Others, especially Nigeria, have remarkable potential given their demographics, but will never reach it unless they undertake signifi cant reforms. In that, they have something in common with many of the advanced economies. – Project Syndicate

Jim O’Neill, a former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management and a former UK Treasury Minister, is Chair of Chatham House.

LEGAL HELPLINE

Punishment for alcohol-related off enceBy Dr Nizar KocheryDoha

Question: My friend who is hav-ing a liquor licence was arrested by police and now there is a case against him. The paper received from police station mentioned criminal law No 273. He was not drunk at the time of arrest. He was waiting in the car for another friend. Please explain what the law says. What will be the punishment for the off ence mentioned?

AX, Doha

Answer: According to Article 273 of Penal Law, anyone who sells or buys, delivers or receives, transports or pos-sesses alcohol or alcoholic beverages, or deals with alcohol in any way for the purpose of trade or promotion shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fi ne not exceeding QR10,000, or with both. In addition to this, the court can also order deportation of the person.

Liquidator to settlecompany’s debts

Q: We are employees in a procure-ment company in Doha and based on contracts we mainly supply materials to diff erent clients. Pres-ently, our company is facing huge fi nancial crises due to pending payments from various clients. Our salaries are also pending for the last few months. Now the company management has decided to stop operations in Qatar and they have initiated steps to liquidate the com-pany. The company owes money to its suppliers also. In that case, how can we get the due salaries as the fi rst priority? Is there any law in that regard? Please advise.

AT, Doha

A: If the company has appointed a liquidator, then submit your claim against the company to the liquida-tor. The liquidator will settle the company’s debts after deducting the liquidation expenses including the liquidator fees in the following order: (1) amounts due to the employees, (2) amounts due to the state, (3) rent due to landlord who leased the property, and (4) other due amounts each in accordance with its preference with respect to relevant laws.After clearing the company debts, the liquidator should pay up the partners the value of their monetary shares of capital and to allocate the surplus among them in proportion to the

profi t quota of each. The company’s assets will be distributed among the partners by sorting, following the principles prescribed for distribu-tion of the joint property, unless the articles of association of the company stipulates otherwise.

Reopening case withnew evidence

Q: I fi led a criminal case against a person for cheating and the case was rejected due to insuffi cient ev-idence by the public prosecution. I had a document to substantiate my case which got misplaced when I changed my accommodation. Now I have found the document. Can I reopen the case? Or do I need to make a new complaint against him? Please advise.

QB, Doha

A: As per Article 148 of the criminal procedure, the order of insuffi cient evidence to proceed with the criminal

action issued by the Public Prosecu-tion shall not preclude the reinvestiga-tion whenever there is new evidence strengthening the charge. Such new evi-dence includes testimony of witnesses as well as records and other documen-tation that had not been previously presented to the Public Prosecution and strengthens the evidence that was found insuffi cient or may serve to clarify and determine the truth.

Recovering lossesfrom sub-contractor

Q: We sub-contracted electri-cal works to another company in a project wherein our company is main contractor. As per the main contract, the client agreed to supply the materials as per the specifi cation. We have supplied the materials received in a good condi-tion to the sub-contractor. The conditions of main contract are also applicable to sub-contractor. Recently we received a letter from the sub-contractor that the materi-

als are not in a good condition. On enquiry, it was found that the sub-contractor failed to keep the mate-rials in good condition. The client may take action against us for the recovery of loss. In such a case, can we recover the losses from the sub-contractor? What is the law in this regard? Please advise.

NA, Doha

A: According to Article 685 of the civil law, if the work materials are provided by the employer, the contractor shall use all reasonable care to protect such materials, comply with the technical practices for the proper use of such ma-terials, account for the materials to the employer, and return to the employer any remaining part of such materials. Where such materials are not fi t for use, either in whole or in part, due to the negligence or technical ineffi ciency of the contractor, he shall pay the value of such materials to the employer, together with indemnity, as applicable.

Please send your questions to [email protected]

LEGAL SYSTEM IN QATARAccording to Article 291 of Criminal Procedure Code, the cassation appeal shall be fi led within 60 days from the date of judgment in the presence of the parties, or from the date of expiry of the objection or time for appeal, or from the date of the judgment issued on them, in addition to the time of distance. The reasons on which the appeal is based shall be submitted at this time. The court shall consider the appeal as inadmissible, if not made within the time limit. If the appeal is fi led by the Public Prosecution, its reasons shall be signed by a chief prosecutor at least. If it is submitted by another person, then the reasons shall be signed by an attorney authorised to plead before the Court of Cassation. In this case, the proxy document should be deposited upon fi ling the appeal.No reasons other than those sub-mitted in the time specifi ed for the appeal shall be stated before the Court of Cassation. However, the court may make a cassation appeal in favour of the convicted person of its own accord if it becomes clear to it, from what is stated in the docu-ments, that the appealed judgment is defective for public order reasons, or based on violation of the law or on mistake of application or interpreta-tion, or that the court which issued the judgment was not constituted in accordance with the law, or had no jurisdiction to decide on the case, or if, after the issuance of the appealed

judgment, a more favourable law for the suspect was applicable to the facts of the case. As per Article 293, the Cassation Court shall request attachment of the case fi le of the appealed judg-ment within three days of the fi ling of the appeal report. The court which issued the appealed judgment shall send the case fi le within a maximum of six days from the date of receiving the request.The appellant of an issued judgment with a custodial penalty shall request the temporary stay of the execution of the judgment issued against him until the appeal is decided. The court shall immediately arrange a hearing

for considering the request, and shall notify the public prosecution. If the court orders the stay of the penalty execution, it orders a bail to be de-posited or whatever procedures that prevent the suspect from fl eeing. The court shall fi x a hearing for consider-ing the appeal on a date not exceed-ing six months. The court shall judge on the appeal, without pleading, after reading the report prepared by one of its members. The Court may hear the statements of the Public Prosecution, and the attorney of the convicted person, if necessary.According to Article 295, the Cassa-tion Court may bring an appeal for cassation of the whole judgment or part thereof, and may refer the case to the issuing court to reconsider by a newly constituted panel of judges. The court to which the case has been referred to shall be bound by the cas-sation judgment in matters decided by it. The appeal submitted by the person convicted of custodial penalty shall expire if not presented for execution before the date fi xed for the appeal hearing by cassation.As per Article 299, if the reasoning of the appealed judgment included a mistake in the application of the law, or there was a mistake in stating its provisions, and the adjudged penalty of the crime is prescribed in the law, the Court shall correct its mistake, and decide, in such a case, to reject the appeal.

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16 Gulf TimesSaturday, April 13, 2019

QATAR

President of Bulgaria at Sheikh Faisal Museum

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev and his accompanying delegation on Thursday paid a visit to Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani Museum, on the sidelines of his off icial visit to Qatar. HE Sheikh Faisal bin Qassim al-Thani welcomed the Bulgarian president and the accompanying delegation, who received a briefing on the museum, QNA reported. The museum is considered one of the most prominent heritage centres of Qatar thanks to its rich collection, which includes cultural and heritage artefacts from diff erent regions, civilisations and times. It comprises heritage collections related to the cultures of the sea and the Bedouin in Qatar and other Gulf states, as well as the rare collection of classic cars, manuscripts, books and ancient coins in addition to a section dedicated to carpets. Gifts were exchanged at the end of the tour. Bulgarian President Rumen Radev left Doha yesterday afternoon. The president and his accompanying delegation were seen off upon their departure from Hamad International Airport by HE the Minister of Transport and Communications Jassim Seif Ahmed al-Sulaiti, ambassador of Qatar to Bulgaria Rashid bin Ali al-Khater, and ambassador of Bulgaria to Qatar Metin Kazak.

Qatar University celebrates academic achievements on CHS Day

Qatar University (QU) Col-lege of Health Sciences (CHS) held the CHS

Day to celebrate its remarkable achievements for academic year 2017-2018, with many of its part-ners, students and faculty mem-bers.

The ceremony was attended by QU president Dr Hassan Rashid al-Derham, as well as several QU

vice presidents and deans of QU Health Colleges, including CHS dean and director of the QU Bio-medical Research Center (BRC) Prof Asma al-Thani.

Certifi cates of appreciation were distributed with CHS part-ners to 195 clinical preceptors and fi eld practice supervisors of three CHS programmes, namely, bio-medical science, human nutrition

and public health. Prof al-Thani thanked Aspetar, Hamad Medi-cal Corporation, the Ministry of Public Health, Qatar Diabetes As-sociation, Qatar Foundation, and Primary Health Care Corporation for their generous contributions in supporting the students during their practical training.

The event also included a spe-cial ceremony where 141 stu-

dents were honoured for being part of the Dean’s List in the past academic year. Additionally, 83 students from biomedical sci-ence, human nutrition and public health programmes took part in a white coat ceremony which signi-fi es and celebrates the entering of their fi rst stage of clinical practice to their respective degrees. The college also celebrated the suc-

cessful passing of 15 Biomedical Sciences graduates of the Ameri-can Society for Clinical Pathology Board of Certifi cation exam.

Dr al-Derham commended QU Health and CHS for their remark-able achievements that estab-lished a standardised curriculum with great aspirations to keep in pace with the latest development in health education as off ered by

the most prestigious institutions worldwide.

He affi rmed that QU is devoted to modernisation and curriculum development in order to ensure a high international standing of the university by virtue of its signifi -cant contribution to both inter-national and national scientifi c communities.

The ceremony concluded with

a recognition of distinguished CHS faculty members for their research and teaching excellence, and six students from the Em-power Generations Consortium for National Capacities in Life Sciences, three of whom won the Science Innovation award and the other three for having completed their internship at Sidra Medi-cine.

Senior QU off icials at the CHS Day celebrations. PICTURE: Nasar K Moideen A group of students during the white coat ceremony.

April Festival ends at Souq Waqif and Souq Al Wakrah

The April Festival concluded at both Souq Waqif and Souq Al Wakrah yesterday, amid great turnout from the public. In a statement, director of Souq Waqif Mohammed al-Salem said the April Festival succeeded in achieving the goals set for it by the festival committee of the Private Engineering Off ice, pointing out that during the festival thousands of people gathered in venues designated by Souq Waqif for the festival and designed to meet the requirements of all families.The western arena of Souq Waqif was filled with large crowds, watching the African circus performances, while the young people played smart games. Abdul Aziz Nasser Theater presented first show of ‘Snow White’. Al-Salem also praised the eff orts made by the organising committee of the festival. Talking to QNA, director of Souq Al Wakrah Khalid Saif al-Suwaidi said that the festival has seen a large turnout estimated at more than 80,000 visitors, as all the facilities were booked without exception, highlighting that there were no problems or diff iculties faced during the organisation of the festival.

A scene from April Festival. PICTURE: Ram Chand

Bharat Utsav highlights India’s cultural diversityBy Joseph VargheseStaff Reporter

Indian Cultural Centre (ICC), under the aegis of Indian embassy, organised a mega-

cultural fest, titled ‘Bharat Ut-sav 2019’ yesterday to mark the Qatar-India Year of Culture at Sheraton Doha.

Held in association with the embassy and other ICC as-sociate organisations and In-dian schools, the event featured performances by two touring Indian troupes who presented some classical dance forms from diff erent Indian states. It was followed by a thematic per-formance by the members of Indian associations and school students.

Before the start of the cultural programmes, there was a formal function where a souvenir was released to mark the occasion.

Indian ambassador P Ku-maran, ICC president A P Manikantan, Teyseer Motors president Adel Abdul Rahman al-Mannai, members of the dip-lomatic community from vari-ous missions in Qatar, senior In-dian community leaders as well as a number of dignitaries and guests were present.

Welcoming the gathering, ICC president highlighted the cultural diversity of India and the deep rooted ties between India and Qatar. He also spoke about the eff orts of the com-munity members and the school students in presenting such an elegant show.

“We had about 15 events since

the start of the India-Qatar Year of Culture in January. It show-cases the cultural diversity of India. We had presented vari-ous dances forms such as classi-cal dance and folk items, music programmes including Indian classical, fusion music as well as other music programmes. We

have also arranged art and pho-tography exhibitions. Today we are presenting another classical dance performance by two re-nowned Indian classical dance troupes,” noted Indian envoy Kumaran.

The fi rst performance, a clas-sical dance, Bharatanatyam,

performed by Uma Nambudiri-pad, Satya Narayanan, Vidya Ravindran Anand, and Jay Que-haeni Reddy highlighted a tra-ditional Indian form of dance and the artistes mesmerised the audience.

The second item, comprising three genres of Indian dance,

Mohiniyattam, Kuchipudi and Odissi, was performed by Ka-lamandalam Swarnadipa Ma-hanta, Subha Jena and Sumanjit Chakraborty.

The other programmes were presented by Bangiya Parishat, Qatar – Navratri festival, Bha-vans Public School – Diwali, Birla Public School – Holi fes-tival, Bunts Qatar – Yakshagana festivals, DPS Modern Indian School – New Year Celebra-tions-Sambalpuri dance, Gu-jarati Samaj Qatar – Kite festival and Dandiya, Indian Women’s Association – Women Empow-erment and Ladies Festival, Kerala Social and Cultural As-sociation, Doha – Mohiniyat-tam, Maharashtra Mandal Qa-tar – Lezim, MES Indian School – Oppana, North India Asso-ciation, Qatar – Baishakhi Fes-tive song and Bhangra, Shan-tiniketan Indian School-Onam celebrations – Thiruvathira, Te-langana Praja Samithi – Batthu-kama-Dussehra Festival and Ut-tarakhand Association of Qatar – Uttarakhand festival.

Dignitaries with the souvenir to mark ‘Bharat Utsav 2019’. PICTURES: Jayan Orma

Bharatanatyam performance by the visiting Indian troupe.

The event featured performances by two touring Indian troupes who presented some classical dance forms from different Indian states