Volume 24 | Number 8056 | 2 Riyals Saturday 26 October 2019 | 27 Safar 1441 www.thepeninsula.qa BUSINESS | 15 SPORT | 20 WorldSBK: Rea seals Kawasaki title after all-British fight for supremacy in Race 1 20 Qatari companies to take part in Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna 2020 Blockade measures against Qatar ‘contrary to NAM principles’ QNA BAKU The State of Qatar participated yesterday in the 18th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), in Baku, Azerbaijan. Minister of State for Foreign Affairs H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi headed the delegation of the State of Qatar to the Summit. H E the Minister affirmed Qatar’s com- mitment to the principles and objectives of the Movement and its work to enhance the important role it plays in facing inter- national challenges and risks, and to con- tinue to coordinate the positions of Member States in international forums to achieve their interests and enhance their capabilities in influencing decisions. Al Muraikhi stressed that the illegal and unjustified blockade on the State of Qatar constitutes a threat and a breach of collective action, adding that there is no doubt that the unilateral and coercive measures imposed by the blockade states are contrary to NAM principles. The Minister pointed to the contents of the political declaration issued by the last ministerial meeting of the Movement held in New York on September 24, 2019, where it reaffirmed the rejection of uni- lateral actions by some countries that may lead to a violation of the UN Charter, inter- national law and human rights, as well as the rejection of the use of coercive measures for political purposes in view of their negative impact on the rule of law at the international level and on interna- tional relations, stressing the non-recog- nition of any unilateral measures, including economic measures and arbi- trary travel restrictions, and the need for solidarity with the Movement States facing such measures. He explained that out of the keenness of Qatar on security, peace, and stability in the region, it has called since the beginning of the blockade, and still, to resolve this crisis through uncon- ditional dialogue based on mutual respect. He pointed out that Qatar has spared no effort to engage in any active partici- pation in NAM events, pointing to Qatar’s hosting of the third ministerial meeting of the Movement’s countries on the advancement of women in 2012. The Minister explained that Qatar is engaged in practical activities to develop collective cooperation and continues to develop friendly relations and bilateral cooperation with the Movement coun- tries in addition to the partnership with them in international initiatives and issues of common interest. H E Al Muraikhi pointed out that no country, whatever its capabilities and resources, can tackle problems such as climate change, epi- demics, drugs, trafficking in persons, tran- snational organized crime and other global challenges, which requires us to join efforts to find appropriate solutions to meet these challenges. P3 Over 250 brands on display as 16th Heya Arabian Fashion Exhibition opens RAYNALD C RIVERA THE PENINSULA Stunning fashion shows and inspiring talks headlined the opening day of the 16th Heya Arabian Fashion Exhibition yesterday at Doha Exhibition and Convention Centre. Ibtihaj Al Ahmadani, Exec- utive Board Member at Qatar Chamber of Commerce and Industry, officially launched the five-day event held under the patronage of H E Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. Representatives from Qatar National Tourism Council (QNTC), ambassadors, media and renowned fashion and lifestyle bloggers as well as representa- tives from Heya organisers, Design Creationz attended the opening ceremony with Halima Aden, the first hijabi top model as special guest. The five-day exhibition has brought together under one roof more than 250 brands from 11 countries showcasing the latest in Arabian and modest designs, as well as discussions which focus on the fashion industry, latest trends, beauty, textiles, and sustainable fashion. “We are delighted to once again partner with Design Cre- ationz to bring the 16th edition of Qatar’s pre-eminent fashion event, the Heya Arabian Fashion Exhibition that showcases our rich heritage and talent. We are thrilled to see such a large increase in the number of local entrepreneurs participating in this edition,” said Jawaher Al- Khuzaei from QNTC. For this edition, Heya brings to the limelight the largest display of Arabian designers with Qatari brands representing 75% of participants, the highest per- centage of local participation ever recorded to date. Apart from local brands, designers from Kuwait, Oman, India, Turkey, Lebanon, Morocco, China, Indonesia, Italy and Georgia are taking part in the exhibition. “We also welcome participating designers from all over the world, and hope they enjoy the event as well as Qatar’s authentic experiences,” said Al Khuzaei. Esraa Abel, spokesperson for Design Creationz, said: “We are proud to have more than 250 brands participate this year, with many returning ones exempli- fying what Heya stands for; a space for industry experts, leaders and entrepreneurs to collaborate and come together under one roof helping each other evolve. We are thrilled with the turnout and look forward to welcoming visitors over the next few days.” Kicking off the fashion shows were spectacular collections by Debaj, Al Baccarat Fashion, Malo Italy, Faggioli Atelier, Atelier.C Firenze and Positivity Couture. Designs by Tahani Al Otaibi, Apple Wang, Al Baccarat Fashion, Bebe Collection, Sweet Dolce, Lialy Line and Kyra were also showcased on the catwalk later in the night. “I am thrilled to be sharing my collection with Qatar and the world here at Heya Arabian Fashion Exhibition. This is truly an exceptional platform that gathers all modest fashion lovers from around the globe under one roof to showcase their creations and to learn more about the latest trends in the industry,” said Tahani Al Otaibi, fashion designer of her own line, Tahani Al Otaibi. Halima Aden shared her journey to success and the rise of modest fashion on the inter- national fashion scene at “Celebrity Talk: Breaking bound- aries, a history of firsts” hosted in collaboration with Narges Raiss, Contributing Editor for Harper’s Bazaar, Grazia Arabia and Esquire Qatar. P3 Ibtihaj Al Ahmadani, Executive Board Member at Qatar Chamber of Commerce and Industry, inaugurating the 16th Heya Arabian Fashion Exhibition at Doha Exhibition and Convention Centre yesterday. PIC: SALIM MATRAMKOT/THE PENINSULA Qatar Digital Government Training Program to launch 2020 plan at QITCOM THE PENINSULA DOHA The Qatar Digital Government Training Program (QDGTP), an initiative of the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC), will be launching its 2020 training plan on the sidelines of Qatar IT Conference and Exhi- bition (QITCOM 2019) to be held from October 29 to November 1 at the Qatar National Convention Center in Doha. This is the first time a year- long plan will be announced by the initiative. Initiated in 2016, QDGTP was created to boost government ICT professionals’ capacity to serve the 2020 Digital transformation of Qatar’s government. Its objective include training and certifying the professionals and to support their career progression in order to maximize the benefits of the programme. QDGTP provides training in IT domain for government employees in partnership with top IT companies and it has con- ducted over 134 certification exams, 85 sessions with 1,207 training seats till the third quarter (Q3) of 2019. For the 2020 training plan, QDGTP will be offering over 95 different training courses including various certification exams in Oracle, Cisco, Microsoft and Project Management for more than 2,000 participants. 40 percent of the training sub- jects are new in the market and the courses will cover more than 47 percent of global trend in IT professional certification. For the first time ever, trainings in digitalization technologies is being introduced as well as Oracle, 365 Office and Windows 11 complete paths respectively. Visitors to the QDGTP booth at QITCOM 2019 will have the opportunity of accessing the training plan and book their seat to be a part of the trainings. They can also participate in quizzes and short test for a chance to win exam vouchers and training seats. Commenting on the occasion, Reem Al Mansoori, Assistant Undersecretary of Digital Society Development Sector, Ministry of Transport and Communications, said: “The MoTC is delighted to launch the 2020 training plan which is aimed at further enhancing the capacity of our IT employees in the government sector. By pro- viding support and training to those talented in the ICT domain, including fresh grad- uates and CTOs, QDGTP is helping to sharpen their expe- rience in line with the Qatar Digital Government strategy.” Qatar attends Nato meeting with partner countries in Resolute Support Mission QNA BRUSSELS The State of Qatar participated in the meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organ- ization (Nato) countries with Operation Resolute Support Mission partner nations at the level of defence ministers, which was held at Nato headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. Deputy Prime Minister and Min- ister of State for Defence Affairs, H E Dr Khalid bin Mohammed Al Attiyah headed the State of Qatar’s delegation to the meeting. The meeting dealt with supporting the peace process in Afghanistan, reaf- firming the collective commitment of the countries participating in the Res- olute Support Mission to maintain their support for the mission in parallel with efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan. During the meeting, participating countries were asked to increase material and human support to make this mission a success. Ambassador of the State of Qatar to the Kingdom of Belgium and Head of Qatar’s Mission to the EU and Nato Abdulrahman bin Mohammed Al Khu- laifi, Qatar’s Defense Attache to Belgium Brigadier Abdullhadi Mubark Al Hajri, and several senior officers in the armed forces attended the meeting. Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi, stressed that the illegal and unjustified blockade on Qatar constitutes a threat and a breach of collective action, adding that there is no doubt that the unilateral and coercive measures imposed by the blockade states are contrary to NAM principles. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Affairs, H E Dr Khalid bin Mohammed Al Aiyah, during the meeting of Nato countries with Operation Resolute Support Mission partner nations, at Nato headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, yesterday. 20 Cosm
Welcome message from author
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
Volume 24 | Number 8056 | 2 RiyalsSaturday 26 October 2019 | 27 Safar 1441 www.thepeninsula.qa
BUSINESS | 15 SPORT | 20
WorldSBK: Rea seals Kawasaki title after all-British fight for supremacy in Race 1
20 Qatari companies to take part in
Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna 2020
Blockade measuresagainst Qatar ‘contraryto NAM principles’QNA BAKU
The State of Qatar participated yesterday in the 18th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), in Baku, Azerbaijan. Minister of State for Foreign Affairs H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi headed the delegation of the State of Qatar to the Summit.
H E the Minister affirmed Qatar’s com-mitment to the principles and objectives of the Movement and its work to enhance the important role it plays in facing inter-national challenges and risks, and to con-tinue to coordinate the positions of Member States in international forums to achieve their interests and enhance their capabilities in influencing decisions. Al Muraikhi stressed that the illegal and unjustified blockade on the State of Qatar constitutes a threat and a breach of collective action, adding that there is no doubt that the unilateral and coercive measures imposed by the blockade states are contrary to NAM principles.
The Minister pointed to the contents of the political declaration issued by the last ministerial meeting of the Movement held in New York on September 24, 2019, where it reaffirmed the rejection of uni-lateral actions by some countries that may lead to a violation of the UN Charter, inter-national law and human rights, as well as the rejection of the use of coercive measures for political purposes in view of their negative impact on the rule of law at the international level and on interna-tional relations, stressing the non-recog-nition of any unilateral measures, including economic measures and arbi-trary travel restrictions, and the need for solidarity with the Movement States facing such measures. He explained that out of
the keenness of Qatar on security, peace, and stability in the region, it has called since the beginning of the blockade, and still, to resolve this crisis through uncon-ditional dialogue based on mutual respect.
He pointed out that Qatar has spared no effort to engage in any active partici-pation in NAM events, pointing to Qatar’s hosting of the third ministerial meeting of the Movement’s countries on the advancement of women in 2012.
The Minister explained that Qatar is engaged in practical activities to develop collective cooperation and continues to develop friendly relations and bilateral cooperation with the Movement coun-tries in addition to the partnership with them in international initiatives and issues of common interest. H E Al Muraikhi pointed out that no country, whatever its capabilities and resources, can tackle problems such as climate change, epi-demics, drugs, trafficking in persons, tran-snational organized crime and other global challenges, which requires us to join efforts to find appropriate solutions to meet these challenges. �P3
Over 250 brands on display as 16th Heya Arabian Fashion Exhibition opensRAYNALD C RIVERA THE PENINSULA
Stunning fashion shows and inspiring talks headlined the opening day of the 16th Heya Arabian Fashion Exhibition yesterday at Doha Exhibition and Convention Centre.
Ibtihaj Al Ahmadani, Exec-utive Board Member at Qatar Chamber of Commerce and Industry, officially launched the five-day event held under the patronage of H E Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.
Representatives from Qatar National Tourism Council (QNTC), ambassadors, media and renowned fashion and lifestyle bloggers as well as representa-tives from Heya organisers, Design Creationz attended the opening ceremony with Halima Aden, the first hijabi top model as special guest.
The five-day exhibition has brought together under one roof more than 250 brands from 11 countries showcasing the latest in Arabian and modest designs, as well as discussions which focus on the fashion industry, latest trends, beauty, textiles, and sustainable fashion.
“We are delighted to once again partner with Design Cre-ationz to bring the 16th edition of Qatar’s pre-eminent fashion
event, the Heya Arabian Fashion Exhibition that showcases our rich heritage and talent. We are thrilled to see such a large increase in the number of local entrepreneurs participating in this edition,” said Jawaher Al-Khuzaei from QNTC.
For this edition, Heya brings to the limelight the largest display of Arabian designers with Qatari brands representing 75% of participants, the highest per-centage of local participation ever recorded to date.
Apart from local brands,
designers from Kuwait, Oman, India, Turkey, Lebanon, Morocco, China, Indonesia, Italy and Georgia are taking part in the exhibition. “We also welcome participating designers from all over the world, and hope they enjoy the event as well as Qatar’s authentic experiences,” said Al Khuzaei.
Esraa Abel, spokesperson for Design Creationz, said: “We are proud to have more than 250 brands participate this year, with many returning ones exempli-fying what Heya stands for; a
space for industry experts, leaders and entrepreneurs to collaborate and come together under one roof helping each other evolve. We are thrilled with the turnout and look forward to welcoming visitors over the next few days.”
Kicking off the fashion shows were spectacular collections by Debaj, Al Baccarat Fashion, Malo Italy, Faggioli Atelier, Atelier.C Firenze and Positivity Couture. Designs by Tahani Al Otaibi, Apple Wang, Al Baccarat Fashion, Bebe Collection, Sweet Dolce, Lialy Line and Kyra were also showcased on the catwalk later in the night.
“I am thrilled to be sharing my collection with Qatar and the world here at Heya Arabian Fashion Exhibition. This is truly an exceptional platform that gathers all modest fashion lovers from around the globe under one roof to showcase their creations and to learn more about the latest trends in the industry,” said Tahani Al Otaibi, fashion designer of her own line, Tahani Al Otaibi.
Halima Aden shared her journey to success and the rise of modest fashion on the inter-national fashion scene at “Celebrity Talk: Breaking bound-aries, a history of firsts” hosted in collaboration with Narges Raiss, Contributing Editor for Harper’s Bazaar, Grazia Arabia and Esquire Qatar. �P3
Ibtihaj Al Ahmadani, Executive Board Member at Qatar Chamber of Commerce and Industry, inaugurating the 16th Heya Arabian Fashion Exhibition at Doha Exhibition and Convention Centre yesterday. PIC: SALIM MATRAMKOT/THE PENINSULA
Qatar Digital Government Training Program to launch 2020 plan at QITCOMTHE PENINSULA DOHA
The Qatar Digital Government Training Program (QDGTP), an initiative of the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC), will be launching its 2020 training plan on the sidelines of Qatar IT Conference and Exhi-bition (QITCOM 2019) to be held from October 29 to November 1 at the Qatar National Convention Center in Doha.
This is the first time a year-long plan will be announced by the initiative. Initiated in 2016, QDGTP was created to boost government ICT professionals’ capacity to serve the 2020 Digital transformation of Qatar’s government. Its objective include training and certifying the professionals and to support their career progression in order to maximize the benefits of the programme.
QDGTP provides training in IT domain for government employees in partnership with top IT companies and it has con-ducted over 134 certification exams, 85 sessions with 1,207 training seats till the third quarter (Q3) of 2019.
For the 2020 training plan, QDGTP will be offering over 95 different training courses including various certification
exams in Oracle, Cisco, Microsoft and Project Management for more than 2,000 participants. 40 percent of the training sub-jects are new in the market and the courses will cover more than 47 percent of global trend in IT professional certification. For the first time ever, trainings in digitalization technologies is being introduced as well as Oracle, 365 Office and Windows 11 complete paths respectively.
Visitors to the QDGTP booth at QITCOM 2019 will have the opportunity of accessing the training plan and book their seat to be a part of the trainings. They can also participate in quizzes and short test for a chance to win exam vouchers and training seats.
Commenting on the occasion, Reem Al Mansoori, Assistant Undersecretary of Digital Society Development Sector, Ministry of Transport and Communications, said: “The MoTC is delighted to launch the 2020 training plan which is aimed at further enhancing the capacity of our IT employees in the government sector. By pro-viding support and training to those talented in the ICT domain, including fresh grad-uates and CTOs, QDGTP is helping to sharpen their expe-rience in line with the Qatar Digital Government strategy.”
Qatar attends Nato meeting with partner countries in Resolute Support MissionQNA BRUSSELS
The State of Qatar participated in the meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organ-ization (Nato) countries with Operation Resolute Support Mission partner nations at the level of defence ministers, which was held at Nato headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
Deputy Prime Minister and Min-ister of State for Defence Affairs, H E
Dr Khalid bin Mohammed Al Attiyah headed the State of Qatar’s delegation to the meeting.
The meeting dealt with supporting the peace process in Afghanistan, reaf-firming the collective commitment of the countries participating in the Res-olute Support Mission to maintain their support for the mission in parallel with efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan.
During the meeting, participating
countries were asked to increase material and human support to make this mission a success.
Ambassador of the State of Qatar to the Kingdom of Belgium and Head of Qatar’s Mission to the EU and Nato Abdulrahman bin Mohammed Al Khu-laifi, Qatar’s Defense Attache to Belgium Brigadier Abdullhadi Mubark Al Hajri, and several senior officers in the armed forces attended the meeting.
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi, stressed that the illegal and unjustified blockade on Qatar constitutes a threat and a breach of collective action, adding that there is no doubt that the unilateral and coercive measures imposed by the blockade states are contrary to NAM principles.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Affairs, H E Dr Khalid bin Mohammed Al Attiyah, during the meeting of Nato countries with Operation Resolute Support Mission partner nations, at Nato headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, yesterday.
20
Cosm
02 SATURDAY 26 OCTOBER 2019HOME
Speaker of the Shura Council meets Governor, Mayor of Turkey’s Rize
QNA DOHA
THE Speaker of the Shura Council H E Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud met yesterday with Governor of Turkey’s province of Rize Kemal Ceber and Mayor of Rize Rahmi Metin, on the occasion of His Excellency’s participation in the first meeting of the Executive Council of the Asian Parlia-mentary Assembly.
During the meeting, they
reviewed bilateral relations
and ways of boosting them
in addition to issues of com-
mon concern. Several members
of the Shura Council and H E
Ambassador of the State of
Qatar to the Republic of Tur-
key, Salem bin Mubarak Al Shafi
attended the meeting.
OFFICIAL NEWS
WEATHER TODAY
Courtesy: Qatar Meteorology Department
Minimum Maximum29oC 35oC
HIGH TIDE 02:56 – 14:45 LOW TIDE 09:15 – 22:27
Misty at first becomes relatively hot day-
time with local clouds and chance of
thundery rain at places by afternoon.
FAJRSHOROOK
04. 21 AM05. 38 AM
11. 18 AM02.32 PM
05. 00 PM06. 30 PM
ZUHRASR
MAGHRIBISHA
PRAYER TIMINGS
WEATHER TODAY
Courtesy: Qatar Meteorology Department
Minimum Maximum29oC 35oC
HIGH TIDE 02:56 – 14:45 LOW TIDE 09:15 – 22:27
Misty at first becomes relatively hot day-
time with local clouds and chance of
thundery rain at places by afternoon.
FAJRSHOROOK
04. 21 AM05. 38 AM
11. 18 AM02.32 PM
05. 00 PM06. 30 PM
ZUHRASR
MAGHRIBISHA
PRAYER TIMINGS
HBKU emphasises importance of higher education institutions in achieving SDGsTHE PENINSULA DOHA
Encouraging Qatar’s higher education institutions (HEI) to play a more active role in achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Devel-opment Goals (SDGs) was among the issues discussed at a recent meeting hosted by Hamad Bin
Khalifa University’s (HBKU) College of Law.
Organised in partnership with the Unesco Office for the Gulf States and Yemen, and the Regional Office in Beirut, The Role of Higher Education Institutions in Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) pro-vided HEI representatives with
information regarding the SDGs, as well as Targets and Means of Implementation.
Participants considered which goals specifically align with their expertise and strategy in order to develop a roadmap for their implementation.
Speaking after the meeting, Dean Susan L. Karamanian of the
HBKU College of Law remarked, “HEIs can be leaders in promoting SDGs. They can develop and implement campus programs to protect the environment; they can use their broad reach to engage the community beyond the uni-versity. Similar initiatives enacted elsewhere should inspire HEIs in Qatar and the wider region. We
hope that the issues and topics dis-cussed at this meeting provided ample food-for-thought to move Qatar’s SDGs initiatives forward.”
“Today’s workshop under-scores the important role that uni-versities can play in promoting and achieving the UN’s SDGs. HBKU’s College of Law is already leading these efforts regionally.
We are spearheading the impor-tance of triangular cooperation and partnerships in promoting the SDGs through the Association of Environmental Law Lecturers in Middle and North Africa (ASSELLMU), a robust network of regional partners that launched last year through the College of Law.
Public Parks Department unveils ‘Farm Your Country’ programmeTHE PENINSULA DOHA
The Ministry of Municipality and Environment’s Public Parks Department in collab-oration with Al Faisal Without Borders Foundation held a
event to introduce ‘Farm Your Country’ programme.
The fourth edition of the program was attended by a number of coordinators and supervisors of participating schools to introduce them to the ‘Farm Your Country’ and
the mechanism and plan of the programme during the year.
In its fourth season this year, 34 schools of various stages are participating along with a number of students with special needs for the first
time. Their participation is part of efforts to integrate this important segment of students in such community programmes.
It is worth mentioning that the Ministry of Municipality and Environment represented
by the Public Parks Department organises the event within the one million trees project as part of its keenness on the important role of agricultural projects in environmental sustainability and development.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Affairs, H E Dr Khalid bin Mohammed Al Attiyah, met yesterday with Minister of Defence of the Republic of Turkey, General Hulusi Akar, at Nato headquarters, in Brussels. The ministers reviewed bilateral relations and ways of enhancing them in various military fields. The meeting also touched on the latest developments in the region.
Deputy PM meets Turkish Defence Minister
03SATURDAY 26 OCTOBER 2019 HOME
Qatar reviews ties with Lesotho, Nicaragua
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi met separately with Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Relations of the Kingdom of Lesotho Lesego Makgothi and Foreign Minister of Republic of Nicaragua Denis Moncada Colindres on the sidelines of the 18th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, held in Baku, the Republic of Azerbaijan. During the meetings, they reviewed bilateral cooperation relations and issues of common concern.
Al Muraikhi meets ICRC PresidentMinister of State for Foreign Affairs H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi met with President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Peter Maurer, on the sidelines of the 18th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, held in Baku, the Republic of Azerbaijan. During the meeting, they reviewed the joint declaration of intent between the State of Qatar and the ICRC, which was recently signed in New York, as well as issues of common concern.
HMC holds International Medical Physics Certification Board examinationsTHE PENINSULA DOHA
For the first time in the Middle East, Hamad Medical Corpo-ration (HMC) hosted the Inter-national Medical Physics Certi-fication Board (IMPCB) exami-nations.
The exams, which were held at HMC’s Medical Education Center from October 20 to 24, attracted 45 candidates from as far afield as Mexico, Ecuador, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. This is the highest number of candidates to sit for the IMPCB exams.
Dr. Huda Al Naemi (pic-tured), Executive Director of Occupational Health and Safety and President of the Middle East Federation for the Organization of Medical Physics (MEFOMP), welcomed all members of the organizing examination com-mittee and exam candidates to the event, which is held in col-laboration with HMC’s Medical Education Department, led by Dr. Abdullatif AlKhal.
“This is a great opportunity for 15 of HMC’s medical physi-cists to be internationally cer-tified as qualified in their spe-cialties without the need to travel
abroad. Hosting the IMPCB exams comes in line with HMC’s objective to provide world-class continuing professional edu-cation and training opportunities to its workforce. It is also inter-national recognition of Qatar and HMC as a hub for medical physics certification. HMC has worked hard for long time to host this international event in Qatar and we now feel proud to see the fruit of our hard work,” said Dr. Al Naemi.
Prior to these exams, a two-day medical physics workshop was conducted as an opportunity for continuous
professional education for medical physicists specialising in radiotherapy, diagnostic imaging and nuclear medicine.
The three-part examination is conducted by a team of seven IMPCB examining faculty selected by the Board Exami-nation Committee.
The mission of the Interna-tional Medical Physics Certifi-cation Board (IMPCB) is to support the practice of medical physics through a certification program to achieve the goal of improving the quality of patient care in diagnostic and thera-peutic medicine.
The IMPCB con-ducts a three-part Board Examination in several medical physics imaging and therapy sub-spe-cialties worldwide, with emphasis on parts of the world that lack c e r t i f i c a t i o n programs.
Over the past two years examinations have been held in Mexico, Bangladesh, Italy (several times), Czech Republic, Austria and Chile.
QU’s College of Engineering & Gas Processing Center organise CO2 management workshopTHE PENINSULA DOHA
Qatar University (QU) College of Engineering (CENG) and QU’s Gas Processing Center recently organised a CO2 Management Workshop to discuss the latest advances in carbon management and highlight potential solutions to the main challenges facing the world in general and Qatar in particular.
During the meeting, partici-pants from more than ten entities, representing industry, government and academia, dis-cussed key issues related to carbon management and climate change, such as CO2 capture and sequestration, enhanced gas and oil recovery, CO2 conversion to valuable products, CO2 eco-nomics, emission policies as well as environmental impact assessment.
Present at the event were Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies Prof. Ahmed Massoud, GPC Director Prof. Muftah El Naas and CENG faculty members and staff.
In his welcoming remarks, GPC Director, Professor Muftah El Naas said, “This workshop is a great forum to share the latest CO2 research at Qatar University and collaborating institutions.
The workshop offers a good opportunity to seek feedback from national and international industrial players that help the center shape its future research directions and align them with the national needs and interna-tional commitments.”
GPC Associate Research Professor Dr. Abdelbaki Benamor, delivered a compre-hensive overview of carbon capture & utilisation research activities at the centre, high-lighting the major achievements observed by the centre in the last three years and its plans.
The CENG Department of Chemical Engineering, repre-sented by Dr. Kazi Khoda and Dr. Fadwa El Jack, presented research activities related to the impacts of flare management on climate change in Qatar.
In his talk, Dr. Ahmed Badran from QU’s College of Arts and Sciences, highlighted the key issues for GCC countries in climate negotiations.
Dr. Frederic Babonneau from ORDECSYS, a R&D consul-tancy based in Geneva, pre-sented the economic assessment of the importance and role of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies in long-term climate strategies for GCC Countries.
Attorney-General meets UN Director-GeneralAttorney-General and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption Centre (ROLACC) H E Dr. Ali bin Fetais Al Marri met yesterday with the Director-General of the United Nations, Tatiana Valovaya, and a number of her assistants at UN office in Geneva. During the meeting, H E the Attorney-General expressed his congratulations to Valovaya on her new position and wishes her success in her duties. The two sides also discussed prospects for joint cooperation between the ROLACC and the United Nations Office on Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption issues. The meeting was attended by the Permanent Representative of the State of Qatar to the UN Office in Geneva, Ali Khalfan Al Mansouri.
Over 250 brands on display as 16th Heya Arabian Fashion Exhibition opensFROM PAGE 1
A talk on “The International Fashion Scene in Parallelism to the Arabian Vogue” with Jeannie Lee, Head of Buyers at Galleries Lafayette, and Chris-topher Fink, VCUArts Chair of Fashion was also held yesterday.
Today, visitors can enjoy an array of fashion-forward events including a beauty workshop presented by Bioskinspa with tips on skincare at 5pm, a workshop by VCUArts Qatar at 6pm, and a workshop by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, participating at Heya for the first time at 6.35pm, in addition to a talk by Elsbeth Blekkenhorst from Elisabietta fashion brand on “How to create your own online fashion brand.”
Running until Tuesday, Heya is a ladies-only event. Children below 13 years old are not allowed at the exhibition.
Blockade measures against Qatar ‘contrary to NAM principles’FROM PAGE 1
The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi, said that that the Summit is a renewed oppor-tunity for the NAM Member States to reaffirm their com-mitment to the principles and purposes of the Movement, and a way to enhance pluralism and cooperation among Member States to face challenges and achieve common goals based on the principles of international law and the goals and objectives of the Movement, and Charter of the United Nations, including the friendly relations between states, resolving disputes by peaceful
means, establishing a culture of peace, not using or threatening force, and respecting the sover-eignty of states and not inter-fering in their internal affairs.
H E the Minister pointed out that multilateral action faces an unprecedented crisis and threats for decades.
He pointed out that in light of the contemporary interna-tional changes and successive events, the international com-munity is in dire need to strengthen the bonds of under-standing and rapprochement, stressing that civilizational dia-logue between peoples and nations is the best way to realize this goal.
HE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi pointed out that the Middle East is suffering from multiple crises that have nega-tively affected millions of people in the region, threatening entire generations and destroying the opportunities for social and eco-nomic development.
He considered that these crises require the international community to strive to support peaceful solutions in accordance with international law to achieve sustainable peace.
Al Muraikhi added that the work is underway to establish a global center to apply behavioral visions to violent extremism and
terrorism based in Doha, within the framework of the effective partnership between the State of Qatar and the UN in the fight against terrorism.
H E the Minister also pointed out that out of the keenness of the State of Qatar, as an active partner with the international community to tackle climate change as a major challenge for sustainable development, Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani announced at the Climate Action Summit in New York last month that the State of Qatar has contributed $100m to support small island developing states and least developed countries.
04 SATURDAY 26 OCTOBER 2019MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA
At least 27 dead as fresh protests engulf IraqREUTERS BAGHDAD
At least 25 protesters were killed in Iraq yesterday when security forces used tear gas and an Iranian-backed militia opened fire to try to quell renewed demonstrations against corruption and economic hardship, security sources said.
A government intelligence officer and a member of the powerful Asaib Ahl Al Haq militia were killed in a clash with pro-testers in the southern city of Amara, police sources said.
Nearly 1,800 people were injured nationwide, according to medical sources, as demon-strators vented frustration at political elites they say have failed to improve their lives after years of conflict.
“All we want are four things: jobs, water, electricity, and safety. That’s all we want,” said 16-year-old Ali Mohammed who had covered his face with a T-shirt to avoid inhaling tear gas, as chaotic scenes overwhelmed Baghdad’s central Tahrir Square.
Sirens wailed and tear gas canisters landed amid groups of young protesters draped in Iraqi
flags and chanting “with life and blood we defend you Iraq.”
The bloodshed is the second major bout of violence this month. A series of clashes two weeks ago between protesters and security forces left 157 people dead and over 6,000 wounded.
The unrest has broken nearly two years of relative stability in Iraq, which lived through foreign occupation, civil war and an Islamic State (IS) insurgency between 2003 and 2017. It is the biggest challenge to security since IS was declared beaten.
Yesterday, eight protesters were killed in Baghdad, the Iraqi Human Rights Commission said. At least five of them were pro-testers struck by tear gas can-
isters, security sources said.In the south, at least six pro-
testers were killed when members of the Iranian-backed Asaib Ahl Al Haq (AAH) militia opened fire on protesters who tried to set fire to the group’s office in the city of Nasiriya, according to security sources.
Eight people were killed in Amara city, including six pro-testers, one AAH member and one intelligence officer, police sources said. Three protesters were killed in oil-rich Basra and one in Samawa, security sources said.
Interior Ministry spokesman Khalid Al Muhanna said at least
68 members of the security forces were injured.
The sometimes violent dem-onstrations erupted in Baghdad on October 1 and spread to southern cities.
They pose the biggest chal-lenge to Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi since he took office just a year ago. Despite prom-ising reforms and ordering a broad cabinet reshuffle, he has so far struggled to address the protesters’ discontent.
Despite the Opec member country’s vast oil wealth, many Iraqis live in poverty, have limited access to clean water,
electricity, basic healthcare or decent education as the country tries to recover from years of conflict and economic hardship.
Many Iraqis view the elite as subservient to one or other of Iraq’s two main allies, the United States and Iran. Many suspect these powers use Iraq to pursue their struggle for regional influence via proxies uncon-cerned with ordinary people’s needs. “They hit us last night and again this morning. We don’t have any demands anymore, we want the government toppled,” said demonstrator Salah Mohammad.
A member of the Iraqi security forces hands out packs of foam for people to collect food being given out during an anti-government demonstration in the central city of Najaf, yesterday.
Supporters of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement raise their hands as they stand before security forces while gathering at Riad Al Solh Square in the capital Beirut, on the ninth day of protest against tax increases and official corruption.
Protests could push Lebanon into chaos: NasrallahREUTERS BEIRUT
Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned yesterday that nationwide protests could push the country into chaos, collapse and, “God forbid”, civil war.
Supporters of Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed group with widespread influence in Lebanon, meanwhile scuffled with anti-government protesters who have been on the streets for days, angered by corruption and the near collapse of the economy.
Nasrallah rejected the dem-onstrators’ calls to bring down the government. The country endured a catastrophic civil war between 1975 and 1990.
“We do not accept the fall of the presidency nor do we accept the government’s resig-nation and we do not accept, amid these conditions, holding early parliamentary elections,” Nasrallah said.
Praising the protest movement for achieving “unprecedented” economic reforms announced this week, he said Lebanon must now search for ways to move forward
and prevent a dangerous power vacuum. Nasrallah is considered one of the country’s most influ-ential figures. Hezbollah, a Shia group, has a presence in gov-ernment and a well-armed
militia that has fought in Syria for President Bashar Al Assad.
The protests that have par-alysed Lebanon took a more violent turn yesterday when groups supporting Hezbollah
pushed into a peaceful demon-stration in Beirut, scuffling with protesters and forcing riot police to intervene. Dressed in plain black T-shirts common to Hez-bollah supporters, the men
shouted “we heed your call, Nasrallah”.
Two protesters were wounded in the scuffles, Leba-non’s Red Cross said. Riot police with masks and batons were dis-patched to the square to defuse the situation as people began hurling stones and sticks. The scuffles came just an hour before Nasrallah spoke in a television broadcast. For a ninth day yes-terday, Lebanon saw protests that have cut roads, closed schools and shut banks nationwide.
Emergency reform measures and an offer of dialogue with protest representatives by the president have so far failed to defuse anger or persuade people to leave the streets. The protests have been fuelled by dire eco-nomic conditions and anger at the political elite accused of misman-agement of funds and plundering state resources for personal gain.
Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s said the gov-ernment’s limited ability to address the demonstrators’ demands could harm confidence in the banks and have an adverse effect on foreign exchange reserves.
More Russian military arrive in Syria under peace dealREUTERS MOSCOW/ANKARA
Russia sent about 300 more military police and more than 20 armoured vehicles to Syria yesterday under an accord between Ankara and Moscow that has halted Turkey’s military incursion into northeast Syria.
The deal, sealed on Tuesday by Presidents Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin, requires that Russian military police and Syrian border guards remove all Kurdish YPG militia from within 30km of the Turkish border by next Tuesday.
The military police, from the southern Russian region of Chechnya, will help with the withdrawal of Kurdish forces and their weapons to 30 km of the Syrian-Turkish border, Interfax news agency reported the defence ministry as saying.
Ankara regards the YPG as a terrorist group aligned with Kurdish militants who have waged an insurgency in southeast Turkey since 1984.
Turkey launched its offensive against the YPG on Oct. 9 after President Donald Trump ordered U.S. forces out of northeast Syria. Ankara halted its assault under a U.S.-brokered ceasefire that called for a YPG withdrawal from the border area. The Putin-Erdogan deal built on and widened that agreement.
Yemen govt strikes power-sharing deal with southern rebels
AFP/RIYADH
Yemen’s southern separatists have struck a power-sharing deal with the internationally-recognised government aimed at ending a conflict simmering within the country’s long-running civil war, sources on both sides said.
The deal would see the secessionist Southern Transi-tional Council (STC) handed a number of ministries, and the government return to the southern city of Aden, according to officials and reports in Saudi media.
Security Belt Forces —dom-inated by the STC — in August took control of Aden, which had served as the beleaguered gov-ernment’s base since it was ousted from the capital Sanaa by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in 2014.
The clashes between the sep-aratists and government forces, who for years fought on the same side against the Huthis, had raised fears the country could break apart entirely.
Botswana President Masisi wins hotly-contested pollsAFP/GABORONE, BOTSWANA
Incumbent president Mokgweetsi Masisi (pictured), yesterday won a five-year term in Botswana’s elections which saw his ruling party secure more than 51 percent of parlia-mentary votes, the chief justice said.
“Dr. Mokgweetsi Eric Keabetswe Masisi is elected President of the Republic of Bot-swana,” chief justice Terrence Rannowane announced. The main opposition protested the outcome, saying the ballot had been “mas-sively rigged.” The Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), which has ruled since inde-pendence from Britain in 1966, was declared the winner after attaining the minimum 29 parliamentary seats required to form a gov-ernment following Wednesday’s vote.
Masisi thanked voters, saying he was “humbled” that they had entrusted the BDP.
“As the President of Botswana for the next 5 years, I’m blessed and privileged to serve you and promise that I’ll continue to do so with integrity, compassion, humility and honesty,” he said in a tweet.
An unofficial tally showed the ruling
BDP won 38 seats in the 12th parliament -- a slight improvement from the 37 attained in the 2014 election. The largest opposition, the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), lost two seats compared to the previous election, securing only 15 seats this time.
The Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF), endorsed by the former President Ian Khama, got three seats and one smaller party bagged just one seat in the national assembly.
Around 931,000 of the country’s 2.2 million people registered to vote in the par-liamentary and local elections.
Activist floats poll challenge against AbiyAFP/ADDIS ABABA
A high-profile Ethiopian activist at the centre of violence that left 16 people dead this week has accused Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of acting like a dictator and said he might challenge him in elections planned for next year.
In an interview yesterday at his residence in Addis Ababa, the capital, Jawar Mohammedsaid that Abiy — named Nobel Peace Prize laureate two weeks ago — seemed to be taking Ethiopia back to “the old ways” of authoritarian rule.
“He has resorted to the early signs of dictatorship, of trying to intimidate people, even his very close allies who helped him come to power who happen to disagree with some of the policies and positions and ideologies he’s advocating,” Jawar said. “Intim-idation is the start of authoritarian rule.”
Violence erupted in Addis Ababa and in much of Ethiopia’s Oromia region on Wednesday after Jawar
accused security forces of trying to orchestrate an attack against him -- a claim police officials denied.
Amnesty International says 16 people are confirmed dead and that the actual toll is likely higher.
The defence ministry said yes-terday that it was deploying forces to seven hotspots to try and restore order, according to the state-affil-iated Fana Broadcasting Corporate.
Jawar is credited with promot-ingprotests that swept Abiy to power last year, but he has recently become critical of some of Abiy’s policies.
Both men are members of the Oromo ethnic group, Ethiopia’s largest.
Their feud highlights divisions within Abiy’s Oromo support base that could complicate his bid to secure a five-year term when Ethiopia votes in elections currently planned for May 2020.
Jawar said that running against Abiy was “one possibility,” though he also said he could be convinced to back Abiy if he changes course.
“I want to have an active role in the coming election. In what capacity I’m not sure, but I want to make sure that the influence I have in the country has a positive contribution,” he said.
After two days of violent pro-tests, tensions had cooled Friday in Addis Ababa, though the damage inflicted by the unrest there and across Ethiopia’s Oromia region was still being tallied.
“Up to now we have confirmed 16 people dead, but the number must be more than that because new reports are emerging which we have not confirmed,” Amnesty researcher Fisseha Tekle said.
He said the violence had included instances of security forces opening fire on protesters but was increasingly taking the form of ethnic and religious clashes.
“Some people have lost their lives with sticks, with machetes, some houses have been burned. People have been using even bullets and light arms to kill each other, to fight each other,” he said.
The bloodshed is the second major bout of violence this month. A series of clashes two weeks ago between protesters and security forces left 157 people dead and over 6,000 wounded.
Dry land
05SATURDAY 26 OCTOBER 2019 ASIA
A man carrying a trunk filled with government files to load it on a truck in Srinagar yesterday, as part of the bi-annual Darbar move or shifting of government offices from Srinagar to Jammu. The Darbar Move is the age-old tradition of shifting the civil secretariat and other government offices to Jammu during the winter months and reopening in Srinagar in summer.
BJP and JJP to form govt in Haryana, Dushyant to be Deputy CMIANS/NEW DELHI
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) yesterday sealed the deal for government formation in Haryana, with the latter’s Dushyant Chautala (pictured), as the Deputy Chief Minister.
In a day of fast-moving developments, Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur first arrived at the residence of Dushyant Chautala at 18 Janpath here and then took him along in his vehicle to Home Minister and BJP President Amit Shah’s residence.
At Shah’s residence, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar was also present with BJP working President J P Nadda. After initial talks, the leaders addressed a joint press conference where Shah made in the announcement.
“The two parties have decided to form the government to respect the mandate of the people. It has been decided that the Chief Minister will be from the BJP and the Deputy CM from the JJP,” he said. On his part, Dushyant Chautala said that his party has decided to support the BJP “for the stability of the gov-ernment in Haryana”.
Khattar said that the party has called a meeting of the leg-islators and will meet the Gov-ernor today to stake their claim.
The BJP won 40 seats in the October 21 Assembly elections, seven down from its 2014 total and six short of a simple majority in the 90-member House. The JJP, which is less than a year old, won 10 seats.
The BJP, which had secured
the support of seven Inde-pendents as well as former min-ister Gopal Kanda, has now decided not to include the latter’s name in the list of MLAs sup-porting it, after the party faced large-scale ire on social media for taking his support. Kanda is accused abetting the suicides of his then airline’s employee, Geetika Sharma, in 2012, and her mother early next year.
With Dushyant Chautala’s decision to align with the BJP, the Chautala clan is making a comeback to power after 15 years, when the JJP leader’s grandfather Om Prakash Chautala was defeated by the Congress in the 2004 elections.
Modi picks trusted aide Murmu as J&K GovernorIANS/NEW DELHI
The 1985 batch Gujarat cadre IAS officer, Girish Chandra Murmu, was handpicked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for taking up the challenging job of the first Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, which comes into existence as Union territory from October 31.
Holding a Business Admin-istration degree from the Bir-mingham University, G.C. Murmu is perceived as one of the most trusted serving bureaucrats in the Union Government. Before 2014, when Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, Murmu, who hails from Odisha, was his Prin-cipal Secretary and was tasked to monitor all the prestigious projects of the state government.
On March 1 this year, Modi elevated Murmu as Expenditure Secretary from his earlier post of Special Secretary, Revenue,
Ministry of Finance. Murmu is known for skills in effective implementation of government schemes.
Sources said that Murmu, who keeps a low profile, was hitherto handling several important assignments in Revenue Department and later in the Expenditure. As Expend-iture Secretary, he worked in close coordination with the Prime Minister’s Office as well
as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
Earlier Modi had appointed B V R Subrahmanyam as Chief Secretary of Jammu and Kashmir, much before the abro-gation of Article 370, considered as one of the most important decisions of the Modi gov-ernment. Subrahmanayam, a senior IAS officer of Chattisgarh cadre, had worked with PM Modi in his first tenure.
Sources said Modi had per-sonally selected Subrahmanyam for the important role of the Chief Secretarty of Jammu and Kashmir where senior IAS officer demonstrated extraordinary skills in handling law and order and overall administration of a territory which faced curfew for several weeks.
Meanwhile, the incumbent Mizoram Governor P S Sreed-haran Pillai after hearing the news of his new posting reacted by saying, “everything is for good,”. The 65-year old Pillai is presently the Kerala state BJP president and is one of the most sought after criminal lawyer in the state. “Prime Minister had asked me if I was interested to work outside Kerala. I have accepted the decision of the national leadership of the party. I see this as another way to serve the people,” he said. Incidentally, Pillai is the third Ker-alite to be appointed as Mizoram Governor.
Brazil lifts visa necessity for Indians, ChineseAGENCIES/NEW DELHI
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro said the country will lift visa necessity for Indian and Chinese tourists and busi-nessmen. The announcement came during his official visit to China to strengthen bilateral ties, according to Indian magazine Business Today.
Bolsonaro has an open doors policy since he took office at the beginning of the year in a bid to attract foreign investment into Brazil. The Brazilian government ended visa requirement for the US, Canada, Japan and Australia earlier this year.
Brazil is working to implement a policy to facilitate faster entry for Indian travellers into the country, the Embassy of Brazil confirmed yesterday.
Pollution levels in India’s capital hit the worst this yearREUTERS/NEW DELHI
Pollution levels in India’s capital New Delhi have hit their worst for the second time in October -- earning a “very poor” rating and indicating air quality could deteriorate further after the Hindu festival of Diwali.
The air quality index, which measures the concentration of poisonous particulate matter, touched 388 in New Delhi on Friday, according to US embassy data, way above the “safe” limit of 60. The index measures the con-centration of tiny poisonous particulate matter — PM2.5, particles that are less than 2.5 microns in diameter and can be carried deep into the lungs, causing deadly diseases including cancer and cardiac problems. Senior government officials, who did not wish to be identified because they are not authorised to talk to media, said the main reason behind the sharp deterioration in air quality was a lack of wind speed.
A thick, toxic haze could envelop New Delhi and neighbouring cities if the
authorities fail to clamp down on fireworks to celebrate Diwali, the Hindu festival of light that falls tomorrow. Air quality usually starts worsening in New Delhi ahead of Diwali.
The Supreme Court last year allowed the use of only “safe and green firecrackers”, for a maximum two hours, and only in desig-nated areas such as parks, aiming to lessen the risk to health. But authorities failed to enforce the decree and crackers continued to crackle late into the night. As a result, PM 2.5 levels in some parts of the city soared to 689 the next day, indicating emergency conditions.
To avoid a repeat of last year and wean residents away from bursting tens of thou-sands of firecrackers, New Delhi authorities are offering residents laser light shows to mark Diwali this weekend. Other than the smog triggered by firecrackers, smoke from the surrounding countryside, where farmers at this time of the year burn the crop residue in their fields to prepare for winter sowing, causes pollution in New Delhi and surrounding cities.
Congress to counter PM’s ‘Mann ki Baat’ with ‘Desh ki Baat’IANS/NEW DELHI
In a bid to counter Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Mann ki Baat” monthly radio talk, the Congress is starting its “Desh ki Baat” programme from today and will telecast it live on social media platforms.
The first episode, to roll from 11 am on Saturday, will be done by party spokesperson Pawan Khera.
Congress’ Social Media head Rohan Gupta said that “Desh Ki Baat” will address the concerns of the common man and question the government on their failures, unmet promises and crucial public issues like the economy, agrarian crisis, rising prices, alarming statistics on crime, unemployment and much more.
A senior party leader said: “The Congress Social Media Team is coming up with a new series called ‘Desh Ki Baat’ to talk about the real issues plaguing the country.
“With the assembly election results, the mandate of the people is clear. People’s issues need to be addressed, you can no longer digress... (Our) Increasing support implies that people have put their faith in the Congress.
“And as a responsible oppo-sition in the country, Congress will raise issues that concern the public. Each episode will address the most pressing issues and will be hosted by p a r t y l e a d e r s a n d spokespersons.”The party leader also said that the media is not giving due coverage to Congress.
P S Sreedharan PillaiGirish Chandra Murmu
A man sits on the banks of Sangam — the area around the confluence of rivers Ganges, Yamuna, and mythical Saraswati — after floodwaters receded in Allahabad, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, yesterday.
Independent candidates win Kashmir local electionsAP/SRINAGAR
Independent candidates have overwhelmingly won village council elections held in Indian-controlled Kashmir months after New Delhi imposed a harsh security crackdown and stripped the region of its semi-auton-omous status.
The elections were boycotted by most political parties, including those whose leaders were sym-pathetic to the Indian government but have been detained since the August 5 crackdown.
Chief Electoral Officer Shailendra Kumar said inde-pendent candidates won the chairmanships of 217 areas, fol-lowed by candidates from Prime
Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party in 81 areas. The voters were village council members, and the general public did not partic-ipate. Modi’s party did not boycott the elections.
Kumar said in a statement that elections were conducted in 280 areas, while chairmen in 27 others ran unopposed. Indian officials are hoping the election of local council leaders will lend credibility to Indian rule amid a political vacuum and contend they will represent local interests in development work.
Most of the candidates and thousands of council members have lived for months in hotels
in Srinagar, the region’s main city, because of security con-cerns. In the past, militants fighting against Indian rule have targeted candidates.
Both rebels and separatists have called elections in Kashmir an illegitimate exercise under military occupation.
The Modi government says removing a constitutional pro-vision that gave Kashmir some measure of autonomy since independence from British rule in 1947 was necessary to give rights afforded other Indian cit-izens, usher in greater economic development and do away with the sense of separateness that BJP leaders say has cultivated the separatist movement.
SC: No going back on flats demolition order in KochiIANS/NEW DELHI
The Supreme Court yesterday said it will not retract from its order on the demolition of the Maradu flats in Kochi on the Kerala coast.
A bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra rejected the prayer of builders’ association Confed-eration of Real Estate Devel-opers Association of India (CREDAI), which urged the court to reconsider its order on the Maradu flats. The associ-ation had recommended putting the flats to some other use instead of demolition.
“We are not going back from our demolition order. Our order is final and this matter cannot be agitated afresh,” the court said, rejecting Credai’s plea. The court reiterated that there was no question of going back on the order.
“An order is an order, and it has to be complied,” the court said citing the instances of hun-dreds of deaths caused by floods.
“People are dying in floods and due to other natural calam-ities. Who is responsible? Builders or authorities, who let this (illegal construction) happen. Therefore, we must fix the responsibility,” said the court.
This observation was made in the context of illegal con-struction in the coastal area, which doubles the impact of environmental calamities.
The court also asked the Kerala government to give Rs 2.5m interim compensation each to all the Maradu flat owners, after it was revealed that they had received less amounts on this account. Some flat owners recommended that a court-appointed committee process the compensation as per the sale deed of the flats.
With Dushyant Chautala’s decision to align with the BJP, the Chautala clan is making a comeback to power after 15 years, when the JJP leader’s grandfather Om Prakash Chautala was defeated by the Congress in the 2004 elections.
06 SATURDAY 26 OCTOBER 2019ASIA
Sharif granted bail on medical groundsAP LAHORE
A top Pakistani court yesterday ordered convicted former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif released on bail so he can seek medical treatment at home or abroad, his family and a defense lawyer said.The decision was announced by the Lahore High Court after hearing a petition from Sharif’s brother, Shahbaz Sharif, who heads the main opposition Pakistan Muslim League party.
But it doesn’t mean that the former premier will automati-cally be freed as he faces another appeal hearing for bail next week.
Nawaz Sharif was rushed
from prison to the government hospital in Lahore on Monday, after his health condition was said to have deteriorated. He has remained there under super-vision of prison authorities.
The 69-year-old Sharif, who served three times as prime min-ister, has had a history of health problems, including heart
disease.His lawyer Ashtar Ausaf said
court authorities cannot release Sharif immediately until they hear a separate appeal set for next Tuesday. That hearing per-tains to the second corruption conviction against Sharif, he added.
“We are grateful to God. We are grateful to the judiciary which has granted bail to Nawaz Sharif who is facing a compli-cated disease,” Sharif’s brother told reporters outside the court in Lahore. “I request the nation to pray for speedy recovery of its leader,” Sharif.
Maryam Aurangzeb, a spokeswoman for Sharif, said she hopes he will be granted bail
in the second case as well so that he can receive medical treatment at a hospital of his choice. So far, it was unclear whether Sharif would wish to travel for treatment outside Pakistan.
When Sharif was taken to hospital on Monday, his doctors initially believed he had con-tracted dengue fever, which is rampant across Pakistan. But later medical tests concluded that his immune system mal-functioned, which was the reason for a concerningly low platelet count.
Panicked over his deterio-rating health, Sharif’s family petitioned the court in Lahore, requesting his release.
During his political carrier,
Sharif faced many upheavals but could never overcome the death of his wife at a London hospital in 2018.
While he was in London vis-iting his wife Kulsoom Nawaz in hospital, a Pakistan court con-victed and sentenced him and his daughter Maryam Nawaz on corruption charges. They were arrested on their return home and taken to prison to serve their sentences.
Sharif’s 12-year conviction in one case was suspended but he was serving a seven-year jail term when the country’s anti-graft body in the past weeks began questioning him in another case, related to his fam-ily’s sugar mills.
Nato defends commitment to Afghan missionAFP BRUSSELS
Nato will keep reshaping its deployment in Afghanistan to ensure it is “sustainable,” the transatlantic alliance’s chief said yesterday, as members reaf-firmed their commitment to the long-running mission.
The promise came at the at the end of a meeting of Nato defence ministers whose second and final day was largely focused on the 16,000-strong deployment in Afghanistan as it grapples with increased Taliban attacks and uncertainty over US strategy.
US President Donald Trump has already unnerved allies by abruptly pulling US forces out of northern Syria this month, opening the way for Nato member Turkey to launch a dis-puted operation to crush the Kurdish militias it regards as “terrorists”.
That situation dominated the first day of the meeting.
Trump also created waves last month on Afghanistan by scuppering a secret summit with Taliban leaders and Afghan Pres-ident Ashraf Ghani that was meant to consider a draft deal under which the US could withdraw its thousands of troops.
Natp Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg presented an unruffled position on Afghan-istan, saying: “Nato remains committed and we continue to support the Afghan forces.”
He added that, while the US-led Nato deployment would be “constantly adjusted,” its con-tinued presence was needed “to send a message to the Taliban that they need to compromise” to reach a peace deal.
He also stressed that the sit-uations in Syria and Afghanistan were “two totally different things,” as Nato was not involved in Syria.
China is seen stepping into the diplomatic void created by the US on Afghanistan.
It has invited a Taliban
delegation to an “intra-Afghan” conference in Beijing being held next Tuesday and Wednesday, a spokesman for the militants, Suhail Shaheen, said this week.
The Taliban refuse to talk to the Afghan government, and Shaheen said any attendance by Afghan officials in Beijing would be on the understanding they were representing only them-
selves and were low-ranked.Beijing has not confirmed the
conference, but says it is “willing to facilitate” the Afghan peace process. The United States has not reacted to the alleged Chinese move.
But the US State Department on Thursday urged restraint as Afghans wait for results from September 28 elections.
Preliminary results have been delayed for what Afghani-stan’s electoral authorities said were technical issues. The last polls in 2014 were marred by allegations of rigging.
Days ahead of the election, the Trump administration cut $160m in direct funding to Afghan authorities, citing corruption.
Acting US Secretary for Defence, Mark Esper (centre), with Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg (right) as Britain Defence Minister Ben Wallace (left) arrives on the second day of defence ministers’ meeting at the Nato headquarters, in Brussels yesterday.
Nawaz Sharif’s lawyer, Ashtar Ausaf said court authorities cannot release Sharif immediately until they hear a separate appeal set for next Tuesday.
US ‘concerned’ as Pakistan activist says father detainedAFP WASHINGTON
Washington has said it was “concerned” by reports that the father of a Pakistani activist who fled the country has himself been detained, the latest incident to fuel fears of a clampdown on dissent.
Alice Wells, assistant sec-retary of state for South and Central Asia, tweeted her concern late Thursday over “reports of the continued
harassment of Gulalai Ismail’s family, and her father’s detention today”.
She said the US called on Pakistan to “uphold citizens’ rights to peaceful assembly, expression, and due process”.
Wells tweeted after Ismail — a women’s rights activist who fled to the US and is seeking asylum — said her father Mohammad Ismail had been taken away by unknown men earlier Thursday outside a court in Peshawar, a western city near
the border with Afghanistan.Rabia Mehmood, a Pakistan
researcher for Amnesty Interna-tional, tweeted that he was in the custody of the cybercrime wing of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).
Yesterday, Ismail tweeted a copy of what she said was the initial investigation report showing that her father had been accused of “hate speech and false information against Government institutions of Pakistan” on social media.
FIA officials had no imme-diate comment. A senior Paki-stani security source who spoke to AFP over WhatsApp said: “We (have) nothing to do with this.”
Gulalai Ismail is an interna-tional award-winning activist who has championed the rights of Pakistani girls in a deeply patriarchal country.
Then she began speaking out against violence and disappear-ances allegedly carried out by the army in northwestern Pakistan — a red line for the powerful
security establishment which has run the country for much of its history.
Fearing for her life, she went on the run for four months before turning up in the US in September.
She said during an interview in Washington last month that she fears for her parents, saying they have become socially iso-lated, with security forces inter-rogating anyone who so much as texts them.
Nepal rapperVTEN underpolice custodyAFP KATHMANDU
Police in Nepal have arrested an up-and-coming rapper for using “vulgar language” in a song, authorities said yesterday, in the latest incident to spark fears over free speech in the Himalayan nation.
Several journalists, artists and regular citizens have been arrested for online postings or for expressing their political beliefs since the ruling com-munist party won power in 2017.
Samir Ghising, known as VTEN, “has been arrested for using vulgar languages in his song, which is unacceptable for our society,” Sahakul Thapa, a senior police officer, said.
His song “Hami yestai ta ho ni bro” (“We are just like this bro”), has been viewed more than 19 million times on YouTube since it was uploaded in June but was taken down after his arrest on Thursday.
The lyrics contain several swear words, use a slang term for the police and speak about smoking marijuana, which is illegal in Nepal.
Thapa said Ghising had also posted a picture on Facebook in which he wore a police uniform without authorisation.
The 22-year-old rapper could face up to a year in jail or a fine of $90 or both.
Popular rapper Manas Ghale said it was not justifiable and discouraged artists from pursuing their talent.
Sri Lanka presidential hopeful vows to free soldiers and rebelsAP/COLOMBO
The presidential front-runner in Sri Lanka promised he would rehabilitate and release all military personnel accused of human rights abuses in the long civil war.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s manifesto said that Tamil Tiger rebels who are imprisoned for war-related activities would also be released after rehabilitation.
During the war, Rajapaksa was a powerful defence official under his brother and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. He himself has been accused of condoning rape, extrajudicial executions and abductions, charges he denies. He is considered the top candidate in the elec-tions scheduled for Nov. 16.
By mentioning “rehabilitation,” his pledge differs from his previous promise to release all detained soldiers soon after he is elected, which was questioned as possibly bypassing legal pro-cedures. It wasn’t clear what it meant by reha-bilitation and Rajapaksa and his camp have not explained it further.
The manifesto also reiterates his previous pledge that he will not recognise a resolution
Sri Lanka co-sponsored at the United Nations human rights body promising to investigate alle-gations of war crimes against government troops and Tamil Tiger rebels.
“Even though we took steps to pardon, reha-bilitate and release 13,784 Tiger members who surrendered with arms, such steps were not taken in relation to soldiers who faced different accusations related to the wartime,” the man-ifesto said.
It says that steps will be taken to “system-atically rehabilitate and reintegrate” into the society as free citizens not only the soldiers but also members of the Tamil Tigers who are facing different accusations related to the war.
Sri Lanka’s government ordered Tamil rebels and any civilian with remote relationship to the rebel group to surrender after they were boxed inside a narrow strip of land in the final days of the war in 2009. The government released the official number of 13,784 people who surrendered but families say they saw bus-loads of their relatives taken away by soldiers never to be seen again. A protest demanding information on their missing relatives has con-tinued for years.
Sri Lanka People’s Front party presidential election candidate and former wartime defence chief Gotabaya Rajapaksa waves at the party members next to his brother former president and opposition leader Mahinda Rajapaksa during the launching ceremony of his election manifesto in Colombo, yesterday.
Bomb attacks in Afghanistan leave 7 deadAP KABUL
A Taliban suicide attack yesterday targeted a convoy carrying officials from Afghan-istan’s intelligence service, killing five people including a child in eastern Nangarhar province, the provincial gover-nor’s spokesman said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the explosion in the center of the provincial capital Jalalabad. The powerful blast wounded 21 people, including six security per-sonnel, said Attaullah Khogyani.
Hours later, a second explosion targeted a checkpoint at the congested entrance to Jalalabad killing two security personnel. Six people were wounded, said Khogyani.
The explosion happened near a bus stand crowded with people heading t the capital of Kabul.
The attacks are the latest in near daily attacks carried out by insurgents. Nangarhar has become increasingly violent in recent years as both the Taliban and an IS militant group affiliate are active there.
Last week, more than 60 people were killed in a brutal attack on a mosque in the province, and more than 100 were wounded. No one claimed responsibility for that attack, and the Taliban condemned it, denying involvement.
The United Nations has condemned the growing number of civilian casualties, with more than 8,000 killed and wounded so far this year.
The UN called on all sides in the conflict to protect civilians.
Nangarhar has also been the scene of battles between Taliban and IS fighters, whose members include disgruntled Taliban opposed to negotiating a peace settlement, as well as Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, some from Arab countries and Uzbeks, many of whom were members of the Islamist Movement of Uzbekistan.
Gunmen stopped a police van that was taking David Navarro, the mayor of the small southern town of Clarin, to the state prosecutor’s office in the central city of Cebu and shot him dead, authorities said.
07SATURDAY 26 OCTOBER 2019 ASIA
China, Brazil strengthen tiesChina’s President Xi Jinping (left), receiving a jacket from Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro at the end of the signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People, in Beijing yesterday.
Philippine mayoron Duterte’s‘narco’ list shotdead in CebuAFP MANILA
A Philippine mayor tagged by President Rodrigo Duterte as a “narco-poli t ic ian” was ambushed while in police custody and killed yesterday, police said, the latest official on the leader’s blacklist to be tar-geted by unknown gunmen.
Gunmen stopped a police van that was taking David Navarro, the mayor of the small southern town of Clarin, to the state prosecutor’s office in the central city of Cebu and shot him dead, authorities said.
City police had arrested Navarro, who was visiting on official business, late on Thursday after he allegedly assaulted a masseur, a Cebu police officer who asked not to be named, said.
Following the attack, in which one of Navarro’s police escorts was also injured, the gunmen escaped, police said.
Local television footage showed two women named by the station as the politician’s sib-lings crying and hugging a bloodied body sprawled on the road beside a police van.
The Philippines has a violent and often deadly political culture, but rights monitors have expressed concern that Duterte’s signature drug war — which has led to the killings of thousands of narcotics suspects by police — may be emboldening assailants.
On March 14, ahead of May elections, Navarro’s name had turned up in a list of 44 mostly local officials put out by Duterte, who accused them of being “involved in the deadly game of drug trafficking”.
Duterte had also released a longer list in 2016 of more than 150 judges, mayors and other local
officials allegedly linked to drugs.On that list, Mayor Vic’ente
Loot of the central town of Daanbantayan later survived a 2018 ambush, while Mayor Jed Mabilog of the central city of Iloilo went into hiding in 2017.
Two other mayors in the longer list, Rolando Espinosa and Reynaldo Parojinog, were killed by police in 2016 and 2017 respectively. Espinosa was shot dead inside a police jail.
Mayor Antonio Halili, who was assassinated by a sniper as he attended a flag-raising cer-emony outside his office in Tanauan city near Manila last year, was linked by Duterte to illegal drugs hours after the attack.
The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency also said Mariano Blanco, who was killed by unknown gunmen at his office in the southern town of Ronda last year, was also on the govern-ment’s narcotics watchlist.
Philippine police say they have killed just over 5,500 drug suspects who fought back against arrest, but rights groups say the true toll is four times higher and may amount to crimes against humanity.
International Criminal Court prosecutors have launched a preliminary probe of the drug war killings, and the UN’s top human rights body has approved a review.
Design flaw a factor in Lion Air crash: Indonesian probeAFP JAKARTA
A design flaw, inadequate pilot training and poor flight crew performance contributed to a Boeing jet crashing in Indo-nesia last year, killing all 189 people on board, investigators said yesterday.
The Lion Air disaster was fol-lowed months later by a second crash — involving the same model of aircraft — when an Ethiopian Airlines plane went down with 157 people aboard, leading to the global grounding of Boeing’s entire 737 MAX fleet.
The crashes had thrown a spotlight on the MAX model’s Manoeuvring Characteristics Aug-mentation System (MCAS), an anti-stall mechanism, that pilots
in both planes had struggled to control as the jets careered down-wards. Yesterday, Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee said there were flaws in Boeing’s design of the anti-stall system and of its certification by US regulators. “The design and certification of this feature was inadequate,” a summary of the report said, referring the MCAS.
The MCAS was vulnerable to a sole sensor that it relied on for inputs, and 737 MAX pilots were not properly briefed on how to handle a malfunction, it said.
“The aircraft flight manual and flight crew training did not include information about MCAS,” the report said.
A sensor on the doomed jet’s system was “miscalibrated” and the problem was not caught by
Lion Air maintenance crews, it said, after the plane’s previous flight also experienced loss-of-control problems.
The report also said the emergency was not “effectively managed” by the crew, who had previous performance issues.
An earlier report released by international regulators said the US Federal Aviation Adminis-tration lacked the manpower and expertise to fully evaluate the jet’s MCAS when it certified the plane. Yesterday’s report comes after Boeing — facing scores of lawsuits — replaced the chief of its commercial plane division this week, the most sig-nificant executive departure since the 737 MAX grounding plunged the US-based company into crisis seven months ago.
Police hunt stolen diamond worth $1.8mAFP/TOKYO
Japanese police were on the hunt yesterday for a stolen diamond worth more than $1.8m after the pricey piece was discovered missing from a jewellery trade show outside Tokyo.
“The diamond stolen on Thursday was valued at 200 million yen. We believe it was stolen from a display case,” a police spokesman said. The 50-carat loose diamond was on display at a three-day show in Yokohama city where companies from Japan, Russia, China and elsewhere are showcasing their sparkly wares. The theft was noticed by an employee who noticed the item was missing and realised that the display case was unlocked. The item, belonging to a Japanese firm, appeared to be the only piece taken from the show.
North Korea tells South to raze its buildings at flagship resortAFP SEOUL
North Korea yesterday told Seoul to come and demolish buildings at a tourist resort that were constructed by South Korean companies, days after leader Kim Jong Un called them “unpleasant-looking” and ordered their replacement.
The flagship Mount Kumgang complex, on one of the peninsula’s most scenic mountains, was once a symbol of economic cooperation between the two Koreas that drew hundreds of thousands of Southern visitors.
However tours came to an abrupt end in 2008 after a North Korean soldier shot dead a Southern tourist who strayed off the approved path, and Seoul suspended travel.
Pyongyang has long wanted to resume the lucrative visits, but they would now violate international sanctions imposed on North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic weapons programmes.
The North made its latest demands in a note sent Friday to Seoul’s unification ministry, which handles inter-Korean relations. The message told South Korean officials to “come to the Mount Kumgang complex and dismantle (the Southern) facilities... on an agreed-upon date”.
It also said that the two sides should discuss the matter by exchanging documents, not in face-to-face meetings, according to the ministry.
Earlier this week, Kim crit-icised the appearance of the buildings constructed by Southern companies including Hyundai Asan, according to North Korean state media.
Kim visited the resort, which opened in 1998, and lam-basted the “shabby” buildings as “a hotchpotch with no national character at all”, the official KCNA news agency reported on Wednesday.
Rangers pose with new signage marking a permanent ban on climbing Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock, at the base of the monolith at Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park in Australia’s Northern Territory.
Australia’s Uluru closed to climbersAFP ULURU
Australia’s Uluru was perma-nently closed to climbers yes-terday evening to meet the wishes of Aboriginal people who hold the red monolith sacred, but hundreds of tourists scaled it in the final hours before the ban.
With the last-ever climbers due back by sunset, rangers shut the entry gates to the world-famous site also known as Ayers Rock. The ban, first announced in 2017, had long been sought by the traditional Aboriginal owners of the land, the Anangu, whose connection to the site dates back tens of thousands of years.
There were already signs at the base of the rock imploring visitors not to climb it, but these were not often heeded, especially in recent months as a surge of tourists made
last-minute ascents. “I came here just to see it but it is the last day pos-sible (to climb Uluru), so I have decided to try it,” Polish tourist Matt Oswiecimiki said.
Tourists are still being encouraged to visit the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park where they can take in the monolith from its base, walk around its perimeter and learn about its indigenous heritage at the cultural centre. “It’s enough for me to walk around and see the rock,” Japanese tourist Masahira Suda said.
The 25-year-old said he did not judge fellow tourists for scaling Uluru but he was refraining at the request of the Aboriginal custodians.
More than 395,000 people visited the park in the 12 months to June 2019, according to Parks Australia — about 20 percent more than the previous year.
Around 13 percent of those who visited during that period made the climb, park authorities said.
Uluru has great spiritual and cultural significance to indigenous Australians, and the Anangu people will hold a ceremony today to mark the climbing ban. Indig-enous Affairs Minister Ken Wyatt likened the recent increase in tourists climbing Uluru to “a rush of people wanting to climb over the Australian War Memorial”.
“Our sacred objects, com-munity by community, are abso-lutely important in the story and the history of that nation of people,” he told national broad-caster ABC. Traditional owners have long encouraged people to refrain from climbing the site for its cultural significance, to protect it from further environ-mental damage and to ensure visitors’ safety.
China blasts ‘arrogance and hypocrisy’ of Pence speech
AFP BEIJING
Beijing slammed US Vice- Pres-ident Mike Pence for his “arro-gance and hypocrisy” yesterday after he voiced support for Hong Kong democracy pro-testers and accused the NBA of kowtowing to China.
Foreign ministry spokes-woman Hua Chunying said at a regular press briefing that the United States should “cease expressing irresponsible opinions”. In a wide-ranging speech on US-China relations, Pence on Thursday also lashed Beijing over its trading behaviour, assertive military posture and treatment of reli-gious minorities.
Pence rebuked the NBA for “siding with the Chinese Com-munist Party and silencing free speech” over a tweet by Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey earlier this month that voiced support for demonstrations in Hong Kong.
Hua hit out at the US for losing “all trace of morality and trustworthiness” and urged Washington to “cease actions that harm the relations and mutual trust between the two countries”.
She accused Pence of “attempting to distract the American public by slandering other countries” and decried the United States’ “stubborn withdrawal from international treaties and agreements”.
Philippines loses bid to recovermillions from estate of MarcosAFP MANILA
The Philippine government has lost a decades-old legal effort to seize millions of dollars from the estate of former dictator Fer-dinand Marcos, a court said yes-terday, accusing state prose-cutors of failing to produce admissible evidence.
Lawyers had submitted “defective” evidence consisting mostly of poor-quality photo-copies, some of which were no longer readable, Justice Alex Quiroz of a special anti-graft court said in a release of the October 14 decision.
The ruling was another blow to efforts to recover the late dic-tator’s alleged ill-gotten wealth after the court also ruled in favour of Marcos’s estate on another multi-million-dollar case in September.
After a bloodless “people power” revolt chased Marcos into US exile in 1986, the Philip-pines launched a global bid to recover at least $10bn in assets that the Marcoses and their
cronies acquired using funds allegedly stolen from state coffers over his 20-year rule.
It has recovered 172.6bn pesos ($3.4bn at current market rates) so far, according to the government agency tasked with tracking down the assets.
A lawyer for the Marcos family declined to comment, while President Rodrigo Duterte’s spokesman Salvador Panelo said his government does not interfere with the courts. The office of the Ombudsman that handles hidden wealth cases did not respond to a request for comment.
About a dozen forfeiture cases against the Marcoses have yet to be resolved. The heirs returned to the Philippines after the patriarch died in exile in Hawaii in 1989, later getting themselves elected to congres-sional seats and local posts.
Rodrigo Duterte’s election in 2016 cemented their comeback as the government gave the ex-president’s remains a hero’s burial and publicly floated the idea of winding down the hunt for his hidden wealth.
Out of its strategic vision of the Qatar National Vision 2030, the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) has for years been implementing initiatives and programs aimed at building an integrated digital society and enhancing the digital skills of the Qatari people.
08 SATURDAY 26 OCTOBER 2019VIEWS
MoTC unveils ambitious plans to build an integrated digital society
In his speeches and public com-ments, Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, has stressed the importance of investing in
human development. As citizens and residents form one of Qatar’s most val-uable resources, it is imperative to provide the skills necessary to prepare the digital transformation of the economy and enable them to contribute to future development.
Out of its strategic vision of the Qatar National Vision 2030, the Min-istry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) has for years been imple-menting initiatives and programs aimed at building an integrated digital society and enhancing the digital skills of the Qatari people. The aim is to enable people of all social categories to con-tribute to the country’s economic and cultural development through safe and efficient use of technology, and provide the Qatari market with a qualified labor force capable of implementing and dealing with smart city solutions.
These efforts started in 2014, when the ministry (the then Ministry of Infor-mation and Communications Tech-nology - ictQATAR) launched the digital inclusion strategy to reach out to all sectors of society through a carefully thought-out program of digital awareness, secure access to modern technology, and necessary training and support for all members of society.
Through its “digital inclusion” strategy, the ministry sought to reach out to those at risk of digital exclusion through awareness, access, training and support. The strategy identified six cat-egories of people at risk of digital
exclusion: Non-working Qatari women and women with low ICT skills; school dropouts/stu-dents who did not progress to higher edu-cation/young people with low ICT skills; small com-munities outside Doha; elders and retirees; people with special needs; and low-skilled lab-orers/domestic workers and service staff.
Under this initiative, women were provided with a set of basic skills to enable them to use ICT. The initiative also increased women’s awareness of social media as a channel to promote small businesses, raised awareness of e-government services such as the Hukoomi portal, and improved women’s ability to access those services online.
Also, as part of its effort to advance its digital inclusion strategy, the min-istry expanded its iParks initiative, which it launched in 2007, to provide free connectivity to visitors of public parks in the country and facilitate their access to the internet. The number of users of these networks has since been on a near-constant increase.
The Ministry of Transport and Com-munications has pursued a large number of programs that promote digital inclusion for migrant workers, the most prominent of which is the ‘Better Connections’ program, which helps employers provide ICT access by setting up computer halls in workers’ residences. The Ministry has also worked with employers to increase training opportunities for workers and develop content in six different lan-guages so that all workers and employees can benefit.
Today, we are seeing a clear impact of these programs on the lives of expa-triate workers, enabling them to inte-grate fully into digital society. According to the latest data released by the Min-istry of Transport and Communications, the Better Connections program has so far provided more than 16,000 PCs to migrant workers who were trained by 1,000 volunteers in collaboration with
several participating employers. To date, some 1,500 ICT halls have been opened at expatriate residences in Qatar as part of the Better Connections program.
The impact of the program on migrant workers has had positive results and has been documented by official and non-official studies. According to the Social and Economic Survey Research Institute (SESRI) at Qatar University, 95 percent of workers involved in the program have seen an improvement in the quality of life in Qatar and 90 percent of them said that ICT halls made their lives easier in Qatar. Further, 99 percent of the respondents said the program made it much easier for them to communicate with friends and family. Also, 99% of the respondents said having an Internet access enables them to stay up to date with the latest news and events in their home countries.
About 98 percent of workers reported that training programs, offered through “Better Connections”, were useful to them. While 95 percent of the users said the program offered a great opportunity to learn new skills, 98 percent leveraged the Internet to enhance communication with important people in their lives. Addi-tionally, 93 percent of the beneficiaries said the program helps them to relax and relieve stress. Additionally 91 percent said “Better Connections” helped them increase their productivity at their workplace.
Another survey by non-profit organization ‘Reach Out To Asia (ROTA)’, which included 887 digital champions selected from a group of migrant workers to undergo training and then to train their peers, showed that all respondents (100 percent) felt appreciated and respected by their peers as their knowledge doubled and because they were chosen to be cham-pions for digital inclusion. Representa-tives of the companies (supervisors of the halls) reported positive changes among migrant workers since the start of the program. According to the ROTA study, 99 percent of workers felt appre-ciated at work as being trained in ICT tools, while 100 percent felt more moti-vated to acquire new knowledge and improve their skills.
To ensure the sustainability and success of the program, the Ministry of Transport and Communications launched the Green Computer Club ini-tiative in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education and the Ministry of Municipality and Envi-ronment. The initiative set up Green Computer Clubs at secondary schools across Qatar to contribute to the process of refurbishing the computers donated from several entities. After being updated and refurbished,
computers are delivered and installed at ICT facilities at workers’ accommo-dation units countywide with the “Better Connections” program.
The programs and initiatives geared towards the development of the digital society have not overlooked groups of people with disabilities and older persons. The Assistive Technology Center Qatar (MADA), a private, public-benefit institution established in 2010, has contributed to establishing the prin-ciples of digital inclusion and the building of a digital community acces-sible to people with functional limita-tions and disabilities.
At the national level, the MADA Center, being a center of excellence in digital access in Arabic language, has achieved a digital accessibility rate of 94 percent amongst government websites, while Qatar ranks fifth globally on the Digital Accessibility Rights Evaluation Index (DARE).
According to MADA’s 2018 annual report, in terms of education, the Center has provided 1236 IT solutions for stu-dents with disabilities, trained and accredited 40 teachers and specialists as super users of assistive technology (AT), developed three major AT stations, and developed seven AT educational solutions within the MADA Innovation Program. The report also pointed out that the center developed 234 specialist training programs and provided 46 AT school kits. The Center also supported 2251 students with disabilities to access quality education, while the number of teachers and specialists trained was about 4026.
It is evident from all these initiatives and achievements that Qatar continues to evolve regionally and internationally in building an integrated digital society. This is evidenced by the fact that Qatar is ranked 27th globally in the “Global Information Technology Report” pub-lished by the World Economic Forum and the INSEAD Business School 2016.
According to the Global Competi-tiveness Report 2019, published annually by the World Economic Forum (WEF), which covers 140 countries around the world, Qatar ranked eighth globally in the pillar of ICT readiness. It also ranked first in the world index of Internet users and the penetration of high-speed Internet services (broadband).
The latest data issued by the Min-istry on Qatar’s progress in the use of the Internet indicates that 95 percent of Qataris were able to use the internet in 2017 against 85 percent in 2013, while 95.8% of households had an Internet connection. Some research has shown that Qatari community members spend an average of about 45 hours per week on the Internet, nearly twice as much as their peers in other countries.
THE PENINSULA DOHA
QUOTE OF THE DAYNato remains committed
and we continue to support the Afghan
forces. While the US-led Nato deployment would be constantly
adjusted, its continued presence was needed to
send a message to the Taliban that they need
to compromise.
Jens Stoltenberg Nato Secretary-General
As Qatar Airways is fast becoming a leading airline of the world with continuous launch of new destinations across the globe, traffic on Hamad International Airport is also witnessing an enormous increase making the expansion plan a necessity.
CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI
EDITOR-IN-CHIEFDR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK [email protected]
ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM [email protected]
DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED OSMAN ALI [email protected]
ESTABLISHED IN 1996
EDITORIAL
A timely step
After winning international accolades in recent years for its state-of-the-art facilities and impeccable services, Hamad International Airport has announced embarking
on an expansion plan that will enhance airport’s capacity to serve 60 million passengers a year. As Qatar Airways is fast becoming a leading airline of the world with continuous launch of new destinations across the globe, traffic on Hamad Inter-national Airport is also witnessing an enormous increase making the expansion plan a necessity.
Hamad International Airport (HIA) recently reported wel-coming a record-high total of 10.7 million passengers in the third quarter of 2019, making it the busiest quarter and summer the airport has ever seen. The record-breaking third quarter saw passenger numbers growing by 10.71 percent compared to the previous year. In July this year, HIA achieved second place in the prestigious 2019 Travel + Leisure World’s Best Awards. First receiving this award in 2017, HIA again posi-tioned itself as a leading global aviation hub, with redefined airport experiences for travellers from around the world.
Hamad International Airport’s second phase expansion plan includes construction of an indoor tropical garden, a water feature, new cargo terminal, new transfer area to shorten
passengers’ connection time, landscaped retail and F&B space and other new features.
Definitely, these measures will not only significantly enhance passenger experience but will also strengthen HIA’s case for being number one airport in the world. The focal point of airport’s expansion project is the spec-tacular 10,000sqm indoor tropical garden in a central concourse as well as a 268sqm water feature.
The second phase of expansion of the airport consists of Phase A and B. Phase A of the current expansion will comprise of the central concourse linking con-courses D and E. Construction will commence by early 2020 and will increase the airport’s capacity to more than 53 million passengers annually by 2022. Phase B, which will be completed after 2022, will extend concourses D and E to further enhance the airport’s capacity to more than 60 million passengers annually.
The expansion plan also includes 11,720sqm of landscaped retail and F&B space, which will enhance the multi-dimensional offerings of the five-star airport by integrating world-class art collection and refreshing environment of lush greenery with contemporary retail and dining concepts among other leisure attractions and facilities under one expansive terminal.
“The expansion of Hamad International Airport is a vital part of the future success of the Qatar Airways Group, and of course of the country’s preparations to host the 2022 World Cup and beyond. It is also a strong sign that Qatar’s economy is robust and acts as a further economic stimulus, providing excellent opportunities for local and international contractors,” said Akbar Al Baker, Group Chief Executive, Qatar Airways, addressing press conference held on the sidelines of Cityscape Qatar.
In a recent study, the institute noted that in 2017, for the first time, the number of arrivals in the east was higher than departures — even without taking Berlin into account which for years has seen this trend.
09SATURDAY 26 OCTOBER 2019 OPINION
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OFFICETEL: 4455 7741 / 767FAX: +974 4455 7758
MANAGING EDITORTEL: 4462 7505
DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORTEL: 4455 7769
LOCAL NEWS SECTION TEL: 4455 7743
BUSINESS NEWS SECTION TEL: 4462 7535
SPORT NEWS SECTION TEL: 4455 7745
ONLINE SECTION TEL: 4462 [email protected]
PUBLIC RELATIONSTEL: 4455 [email protected]
ADVERTISING DEPARTMENTTEL: 4455 7837 / 780FAX: 4455 7870 [email protected]
CLASSIFIED DEPARTMENTTEL: 4455 [email protected]
SUBSCRIPTION & DISTRIBUTIONTEL: 4455 7809 / 839FAX: [email protected]
D-RING ROADPOST BOX: 3488DOHA - [email protected]
All thoughts and views expressed in these columns are those of the writers,not of the newspaper.
All correspondence regarding Views and Opinion pages should be sent to editor-in-chiefoffice or mailed to the [email protected]
Serbia’s Russianflirtations are just that
Go East: Germans return home 30 years after Wall’s fall
LEONID BERSHIDSKY BLOOMBERG
ISABELLE LE PAGE AFP
Yesterday, Serbian Prime Min-ister Ana Brnabic went to Moscow to sign a free trade deal with the Eurasian Eco-
nomic Union (EEU), Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hapless European Union clone. It’s an economically insignificant deal for both sides, but it’s meant as a pointed reminder to the
EU and the U.S. that when it comes to the Balkans, Western institutions are not the only game in town.
The truth of the matter, however, is that they are. Though Putin’s offer of mediation and support to foreign regimes is finding takers in the Middle East and, increasingly, in Africa, Russia has much less to offer Balkan countries than even Turkey or China, let alone the EU. Secure in that knowledge, EU leaders won’t worry too much about Serbia, a candidate for accession to the bloc, going rogue.
The economic background of the Serbian deal with Russian’s answer to the EU is lackluster. The Balkan nation already has free trade agreements with Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, the three biggest economies in the EEU, a bloc built by Moscow as an EU alternative for post-Soviet nations. The new agreement extends the coop-eration to Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, neither of them a top 50 trading partner for Serbia nor a candidate for vastly increased trade volumes. (Armenia, for example, specializes in liquor and tobacco exports, but they are also among Serbia’s specialties.) For Russia, too, Serbia is relatively unimportant as an economic partner: The country generated $2.1 billion in trade turnover last year, 0.3% of Rus-sia’s total. Most notably, Serbia, which didn’t follow the EU in imposing
Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia, serves as a replacement supplier of fruit and vegetables, totaling $256 million last year.
This is, in other words, not the kind of watershed choice that Ukraine faced in late 2013 between EEU mem-bership and an association deal with the EU. Both Russia and the EU were equally big trading partners for the country. The dilemma was so fateful and feelings about it so intense in Ukraine that then President Viktor Yanukovych was deposed months after refusing, under Russian pressure, to sign the EU deal.
Still, Serbia’s trade agreement is an act of mild rebellion. The EU doesn’t recognize the Russia-led trade bloc as a negotiating partner, demanding that Russia first follow the Minsk agreements on pacifying eastern Ukraine. As Serbia worked on the deal, it received repeated warnings from the EU that this repre-sented an unwelcome detour from the European path. As Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak put it, “If you are serious about your European ori-entation then obviously you make political decisions that bring you closer to it. This is not one of them.”
Serbia has been told again and again that it will have to terminate any free trade deals when it joins the EU. This is understood in both Belgrade and Moscow. But when is that, exactly? Serbia’s accession negotia-tions started in 2014, and there’s still no end in sight.
This year’s EU report on Serbia’s progress indicates that there’s still much to be done in every area the parties are discussing. The EU is unhappy with President Aleksandar Vucic’s domineering political style. The normalization of Serbia’s rela-tions with Kosovo remains a thorny issue. Besides, there’s no reason for the Serbs to expect an open arms welcome even if they do everything the EU wants from them: French Pres-ident Emmanuel Macron’s opposition to starting accession talks with North Macedonia and Albania underscores his desire to slow down EU enlargement.
So Serbia flirts with Russia to
show it has an alternative while the EU drags its feet. The trade deal is only part of it. Vucic has also made a show of expanding military cooperation with Russia. On Thursday, the Russian defense ministry announced Russia’s advanced anti-aircraft systems, the S-400, had been delivered to Serbia for a joint exercise. Besides, Russia has gifted to Serbia six MiG-29 fighter planes, 30 tanks and 30 armored vehicles. But Serbia buys Russian weapons, too; they make up almost half of Russia’s exports to the Balkan nation, totaling $490 million in 2018.
For the Kremlin, too, all this is a way to thumb its nose at Europe and the West in general. As Balkan nations seek EU and North Atlantic Treaty Organization membership, Moscow is doing its best to show an alternative is available - not just to Serbia, but to North Macedonia, another nation where a Slavic majority is relatively Russia-friendly.
These efforts are mostly for show, however, because no country can match the EU’s combined economic pull. Italy’s turnover with Serbia is 56% higher than Russia’s, and that’s just one EU member state. Last year, Serbia’s foreign direct investment inflow from the EU reached 2.1 billion euros ($2.3 billion), about 60% of the total, compared with less than 7% from Russia and China each. There will be Russian weapons sales and natural gas exports and Chinese attempts to increase influence through infrastructure projects including a high-speed railroad, but Serbia’s economic alignment with these countries can never match that with its European neighbors.
No wonder Serbia chose a free trade deal with the EEU rather than seeking full membership. According to a recent poll, only 17.6% of Serbs would like their country to join this bloc, while 47.6% favor EU mem-bership and 34.8% are for total neutrality.
The EU shouldn’t worry too much, and the Kremlin shouldn’t get too excited: Serbia’s path leads into the EU, even if, as with many other recent accessions, the going is excruciatingly slow.
For years after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the mantra for millions of former East Germans was to “Go
West” for better jobs and opportunities.
But three decades on, an increasing number are returning to their roots to seek a fresh start.
With new industries taking shape and offering a variety of career paths, better childcare options and relatively cheap housing, the former communist states are starting to look a lot more attractive to young families.
Take the Hoffmanns for instance.Peggy, 29, had wanted to return to
the office full-time after having two children, but in western Germany, she felt a stigma associated with working mums. Undeterred, she looked all over and finally found a job in insurance in the eastern city of Magdeburg last year.
Crucially, another key piece of the puzzle fell into place quickly — a
full-day childcare spot for her two sons rather than the half-day offers in the west.
“For a woman who works, that’s the dream,” said Peggy, in her apartment in Glindenberg, a village in the suburbs of Magdeburg.
Despite the initial reluctance of her husband Carsten, the family moved back to the couple’s native state of Saxony-Anhalt.
A decade ago, she had joined Carsten in Stuttgart, where he had gone for his studies, driven, he said, by a wish to “discover something new”.
The return “was very difficult for me in the beginning,” said the 33-year-old, explaining that he had to give up a full-time job in the knowledge that wages in the east lagged behind those in the west.
But he, too, managed to find employment and without taking a pay cut. The Hoffmanns are the kind of family that Saxony-Anhalt and the other former communist states
badly need. While regional and federal governments have pumped hundreds of billions of euros (dollars) into reviving the east, com-panies drawn by subsidies and other favourable conditions complain that any investment plans are often ham-pered by the severe lack of skilled workers.
The east “lost about 1.2 million people between 1991 and 2017”, said Nico Stawarz, researcher at the Federal Institute for Population Research in Wiesbaden.
The first exodus wave came right after reunification, when the com-munist-run industries collapsed. The second wave happened in 2000, when unemployment shot up to almost 20 percent among the working-age population. And it was the young and well-educated who fled, leaving a fast-ageing population behind.
The researcher noted the diffi-culties of making up for such a dra-matic brain drain, but said that the positive trend was that the outflow has stopped.
In a recent study, the institute noted that in 2017, for the first time, the number of arrivals in the east was higher than departures — even without taking Berlin into account which for years has seen this trend.
“We see positive developments in the east,” Stawarz said.
The economy is perking up, unemployment rates are falling and attractive urban centres with univer-sities are gaining attention. Even though there are no global statistics, several reports document a rise in the returns of the so-called “Ossis” (after the word Ost for East).
Most are between 29 and 45 years old, having spent about a decade in the west, started a family and are returning “for a better quality of life”, said Stawarz. Among the pull factors are more comprehensive childcare, lower property prices and proximity to older relatives.
Local governments have also pulled out all the stops to attract the sons and daughters of the region back.
Saxony state has set up an office called “Return, Saxons”,
The EU shouldn’t worry too much, and the Kremlin shouldn’t get too excited: Serbia’s path leads into the EU, even if, as with many other recent accessions, the going is excruciatingly slow.
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has its “mv4you” while Saxony-Anhalt has gone with a “Welcome Centre” to help ease their returns. Not to be outdone, the Christian Democrats in Thuringia are pro-posing to offer 5,000 euros ($5,500) as a bonus for returnees.
Job fairs are also organised annually, particularly on December 27 -- a strategic date as families typically return then to visit elderly relatives over Christmas.
The regions have no choice but to roll out the red carpet, said Kerstin Mogdans, who coordinates help for returnees at the “Welcome Centre” in Magdeburg, and who took care of the Hoffmanns.
“People won’t move here at any price,” she said. “That’s why it’s important for the companies to know that they need to present attractive offers.”
A year after their move, the Hoffmanns say they feel at home now.
Soon, they’ll move from their rental apartment to a house they bought in Glindenberg. Even if they felt at home in the west, they said they were sometimes surprised to hear people say during a conver-sation dismissively: “You are such an Ossi.”
“It’s no big deal,” said Peggy, “But we told ourselves, well the fact that this separation once existed is still in their heads,” even among the generation born after the fall of the wall.
In fact, on returning to Saxony-Anhalt, they found themselves labelled “Wessis” for Westerners.
“But since then, we’ve been able to dispel the misunder-standing,” she said, with a broad smile.
A file picture of the Berlin Wall near the Reichstag building. For nearly three decades the forbidding Berlin Wall separated communist East Germany from the West, becoming the emblem of the post-World War II split of Europe into Soviet and Western spheres.
10 SATURDAY 26 OCTOBER 2019HOME
Qatar, at the UN Secretary-General’s climate summit in New York last month, pledged $100m to help least-developed countries and struggling small islands cope with climate threats, Joe Thwaites, a finance researcher with the US-based World Resources Institute, said.
11SATURDAY 26 OCTOBER 2019 EUROPE
Nations pledge $9.8bn to global climate fundREUTERS LONDON
Wealthier countries yesterday promised nearly $9.8bn over the next four years to an interna-tional fund to help poorer nations develop cleanly and adapt to climate stresses, with nearly a dozen nations doubling their previous commitments.
The total was slightly higher than the $9.3bn committed to the Green Climate Fund (GCF) at its first pledging conference in 2014, and came despite the absence of commitments by previous major donors such as the United States.
Climate finance analysts welcomed the stepped-up pledges — 11 of the 27 donor gov-ernments doubled their previous commitments — but said the totals were not rising as fast as the climate-change threats poor nations must deal with.
“It’s quite clear we have gov-ernments all over the world declaring climate emergencies, and far more finance from all sources is needed to adequately address the challenge,” said Joe Thwaites, a finance researcher with the US-based World Resources Institute.
In its first five years the fund
received total promises of a little over $10bn. But because the United States, under President Donald Trump, reneged on two-thirds of its initial $3bn pledge, and currency values changed, it effectively had only $7.2bn to spend, said Yannick Glemarec, its Executive Director.
The new commitments, if fulfilled, will effectively give it 70% more money to spend each year, with additional pledges likely in coming months, he said. The funding is still a drop in the ocean compared with the esti-mated $3 trillion to $7 trillion a
year needed to shift the world’s economy onto a more sus-tainable and climate-friendly path, Glemarec said.
The GCF so far has allocated about $5.2bn to 111 projects in 99 countries. They range from green, low-cost housing in Mon-golia’s polluted capital and a methane-fuelled rapid-transit bus system in Karachi to restoring climate-threatened ecosystems in Namibia.
The GCF has committed to spend half of its funding on efforts to help poorer countries adapt to climate threats, which rarely attract significant private or government finance. Most of the donors making fresh contri-butions came from Europe, though New Zealand, South Korea, Japan and Canada also committed funds, with New Zealand and South Korea pledging to double previous donations.
The fund will remain open for additional contributions throughout its next term, GCF officials said. Thwaites said Belgium was expected to commit to doubling its previous $100m pledge to the fund in coming months, and Mexico had attended this week’s pledging conference in Paris too.
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, and Green Climate Fund’s Executive Director Yannick Glemarec pose for a family photo with governments delegates during the Pledging Conference of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) for the First Replenishment in Paris, France, yesterday.
Qatar, at the UN Secretary-General’s climate summit in New York last month, pledged $100m to help least-developed coun-tries and struggling small islands cope with climate threats,
Thwaites said. Both rich and poor governments are expected to improve their climate action plans — created as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change — by the end of 2020.
Many developing-nation plans rely heavily on external funding to meet their most ambitious goals to put in place everything from renewable energy to storm early warning systems.
EU keeps Britain guessing on length of Brexit lifelineAFP BRUSSELS
EU members delayed a decision yesterday on how long to postpone next week’s Brexit deadline, giving British Prime Minister Boris Johnson space to push for an early general election.
Senior diplomats said they would reconvene on Monday or Tuesday next week, thus perhaps fewer than 72 hours before Britain is set to break away from the bloc. Johnson is struggling to call an election he hopes will give him a majority to pass the divorce deal he struck with EU leaders last week.
But the British opposition wants to know whether Europe will agree to delay departure before agreeing to a snap poll -- and October 31 remains the official deadline. After what EU negotiator Michel Barnier said were “excellent discussions”, European Commission spokes-woman Mina Andreeva said work among member states “will continue in coming days”.
Two diplomats said the ambassadors set an informal deadline of late Monday or early Tuesday to decide — just two days before the current Brexit deadline. Senior European diplomats who attended the meeting confirmed the 27 non-British members had agreed in principle that some kind
of delay is in order.They also agreed that their
capitals could decide on its length by written procedure, rather than by holding a leaders’ crisis summit in Brussels next week.
But, with France pushing for a shorter delay to keep the pressure on Westminster, and Germany and Ireland backing a three-month pause until January 31, the decision is not done.
“Depending on how things
evolve in the UK, we’ve given ourselves until the start of next week,” a senior diplomat said.
“It’s clear that if a decision is taken in the UK on whether or not to hold an election -- the date of the election will weigh on the consultations,” he said.
But the EU’s decision has not been formally made and British MPs will have to decide on Monday whether or not to approve Johnson’s demand for
a general election this year.In the meantime, Johnson
has put on pause his efforts to ratify the withdrawal agreement — after MPs rejected a bid to speed it through in just three days — leaving Brexit in limbo.
“Take ‘no deal’ off the table and Labour will absolutely support an election,” main oppo-sition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said, suggesting a long delay must be guaranteed before
a vote. Johnson’s Conservative cabinet colleagues, however, backed him on his demands to press on with plans for a vote regardless.
“Because of the actions of par-liament, we are going to get this delay, but we will see what the EU has done in response of parlia-ment’s request,” Finance Minister Sajid Javid told Sky News.
“We cannot keep on having delay after delay after delay.” When the ambassadors last met on Wednesday, Germany and Ireland backed postponing Brit-ain’s departure until January 31, France sought a shorter delay and others were on the fence.
“It’s one thing to say we’d like to have elections, it’s another to say they have been organised,” France’s minister for European affairs Amelie de Montchalin said. “We’re not doing political fiction, we need facts in order to make decisions,” she said.
On Thursday, Johnson demanded an election on December 12 that he hopes will give him a majority to ratify the Brexit withdrawal agreement he struck with EU leaders last week.
But he needs a two-thirds majority in the current par-liament in order to approve a poll and the British opposition is split, with some holding out for a second referendum on Brexit itself. An anti-Brexit protester waving an EU flag outside the Houses of Parliament in London yesterday.
Russian soldier has nervous breakdown, shoots dead 8AFP MOSCOW
A Russian soldier yesterday opened fire on troops at a Siberian military base, killing eight and injuring two, officials said, blaming the attack on a possible “nervous breakdown”.
The incident took place at an army base in the Chita region in eastern Siberia during a change of guard. “The serviceman who opened fire has been detained,” the defence ministry said.
Russia’s Investigative Com-mittee, which probes major crimes, said the shooter was a conscript named Ramil Sham-sutdinov and launched a murder case.
The base is located in the town of Gorny which is closed to all outsiders without a special permit and is managed by the Ministry of Defence directorate
responsible for maintaining Rus-sia’s nuclear arsenal.
Officials claimed the incident was not work related. “The actions of the serviceman could be the result of a nervous breakdown caused by personal circumstances not connected to his military duty,” the defence ministry said, quoted by Russian news agencies. The wounded were hospitalised, the ministry said.
Andrei Kurochkin, the deputy chairman of soldiers rights organisation Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers, said that in general such cases of mass murder are the result of abuse and total desperation.
“Commanders just close their eyes to cases of systematic bullying,” he said. Senior officers leave victims with no means of complaining by confiscating their phones and overseeing all
conversations with relatives, he said. “They say it’s to protect state secrets, but in reality that’s the last priority,” he said.
When such cases are probed, “investigators come to the base and interview soldiers who have already been briefed on what to say,” Kurochkin said.
State news agency TASS, quoting a source, said two of the victims were officers, while the rest were conscripts and con-tract servicemen. TASS said the two wounded were in a serious condition and would probably be flown to Moscow for treatment.
A commission chaired by Deputy Defence Minister Andrei Kartapolov was on its way to the base. Brutal hazing rituals were a major problem in the Russian army in the 1990s but this has significantly improved in recent years.
Belgium’s future queen Elisabeth turns 18AFP BRUSSELS
Belgium’s likely future queen Elisabeth was feted for her 18th birthday yesterday in a symbolic moment for the royal house of the EU nation.
“Eighteen years is the tran-sition to adulthood... The country can count on my commitment,” Elisabeth said, dressed in an ivory dress beside a visibly moved Queen Mathilde and the reigning King Philippe.
“Happy birthday, my dear Elisabeth. Spread your wings, be happy. This is what I wish you wholeheartedly,” the king told the eldest of his four children in a ceremony broadcast live on national TV.
Elisabeth’s prospects of ascending to the throne are still relatively far off, given that her father is 59 and has reigned since 2013. But the ceremony organised at the elegant Royal
Palace in Brussels looked like an early coronation, with the entire government and key political leaders attending.
Now of age and first in the order of succession, Elisabeth is on the path to become the first queen of Belgium, a country that has known only kings since its creation in 1830. Originally, the Belgian constitution stipulated that accession to the throne was reserved for the descendants of Leopold I by order of primogen-iture “to the perpetual exclusion of women”.
But the Salic law was abol-ished in 1991, as Belgium finally caught up with other modern monarchies with famous queens such as Victoria and Elizabeth II in Britain and the Netherlands with Beatrix and Juliana. At the palace bash, Elisabeth was joined by 80 young people from all over Belgium who also cele-brated their 18th birthday in 2019.
UK museum names blind beetle after ThunbergAFP LONDON
Britain’s Natural History Museum yesterday named a tiny, blind and wingless beetle after climate activist Greta Thunberg. The honey-coloured insect, measuring less than one millimetre, was discovered in the Kenyan capital Nairobi in the 1960s.
But it apparently remained nameless until the venerable London museum’s scientific associate Michael Darby stepped in. “I am immensely impressed with the work of this young campaigner and wanted to acknowledge her out-standing contribution in raising awareness of environmental issues,” Darby said.
Sweden’s Thunberg, still only 16, has injected a burst of energy into the climate change movement since launching her first school strikes one year ago. She has also become a global pop culture icon. But she has never before been linked to an insect. Max Barclay, a senior curator at the 146-year-old museum, said “the name of this beetle is particularly poignant”.
“It is likely that undis-covered species are being lost all the time, before scientists have even named them, because of biodiversity loss,” said Barclay. “So it is appropriate to name one of the newest dis-coveries after someone who has worked so hard to champion the natural world and protect vul-nerable species.”
289 police injured in Catalan protestsAFP MADRID
Nearly 300 police were injured in the violent protests which erupted across Cata-lonia following the jailing of nine Catalan separatist leaders earlier this month, the Spanish government said yesterday.
A total of 289 police officers were injured in the clashes, including 154 from Catalonia’s regional police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra, government spokeswoman Isabel Celaa told a news con-ference following a weekly cabinet meeting.
As forensic experts began the process of identifying the victims, a human rights activist said at least one of them might have been a Vietnamese woman.
12 SATURDAY 26 OCTOBER 2019EUROPE / AMERICAS
UK police arrest man and woman over truck deathsREUTERS GRAYS, ENGLAND
Police investigating the deaths of 39 people in a truck near London said they had arrested a man and a woman yesterday on suspicion of human traf-ficking amid signs that some of the dead may be Vietnamese.
As forensic experts began the process of identifying the victims, a human rights activist said at least one of them might have been a Vietnamese woman.
Police have said they believe the dead were Chinese but Beijing said the nationalities had not yet been verified.
“We hope that the British side can as soon as possible confirm and verify the identities of the victims, ascertain what happened and severely punish criminals involved in the case,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing.
Police said they had detained the man and woman, both aged 38, in Warrington, northwest England, yesterday on suspicion of conspiracy to traffic people and of 39 counts of manslaughter.
The 25-year-old truck driver remains in custody after being arrested on suspicion of murder following the discovery of the bodies in the back of his refrig-erated truck in the early hours of Wednesday.
He has not been formally identified but a source familiar with the investigation named him as Mo Robinson from the Portadown area of Northern Ireland. Detectives will decide
later whether to charge him with an offence, release him or ask a court for more time to question him.
The victims — 31 men and eight women — are being moved to a hospital mortuary from a secure location at docks near the industrial estate in Grays about 30km east of London where the bodies were found.
Post-mortem examinations were beginning to determine how exactly they died while forensic experts sought to identify the deceased.
Hoa Nghiem from Human Rights Space, a civic network based in Vietnam, said at least one of the deceased might have been Vietnamese.
Pham Thi Tra My, 26, sent a text message to her mother saying she could not breathe at about the time the truck con-tainer was en route from Belgium to Britain, Hoa said.
“I’m sorry Mom. My path to abroad doesn’t succeed. Mom, I love you so much! I’m dying bcoz I can’t breath... I’m from Nghen, Can Loc, Ha Tinh, Vietnam... I am sorry, Mom,” the message said according to Hoa.
She said Tra My had gone to China and was planning to reach
England via France. “Our contact is getting more alerts that there could be more Vietnamese people in the truck,” Hoa said on Twitter.
VietHome, an organisation for the Vietnamese community, said it had received news from 10 families that their loved ones were missing. Hanoi’s London embassy was coordinating with British police, the official Vietnam News Agency reported.
China’s Global Times, which is published by the ruling Communist Party’s official Peo-ple’s Daily, said in a editorial that Britain should bear some responsibility for the deaths. “It is clear that Britain and rel-evant European countries have not fulfilled their responsibility to protect these people from such a death,” the widely read tabloid said.
It added that Britain appeared not to have learned its lesson from the Dover incident two decades ago. The police investigation is focused on the movement of the trailer prior to its arrival at Purfleet docks near Grays little more than an hour before the bodies were found, and on who was behind the sus-pected human trafficking.
Irish company Global Trailer Rentals said it owned the trailer and had rented it out on October 15. The firm said it was unaware of what it was to be used for.
The refrigeration unit had travelled to Britain from Zee-brugge in Belgium and the town’s chairman, Dirk de Fauw, said he believed the victims died in the trailer before it arrived in the Belgian port.
A fire truck is pictured, as a wind-driven wildfire continues to burn in Canyon Country, north of Los Angeles, California, US, yesterday.
Tens of thousands evacuated as wildfires rage in CaliforniaAFP LOS ANGELES
California firefighters battled through the night to contain a fast-moving wildfire driven by high winds that was threatening to engulf thousands of buildings.
Around 40,000 people were told to flee the Tick Fire, which was raging across 4,000 acres just north of Los Angeles.
The blaze broke out on Thursday afternoon, burning several homes and structures and forcing the closure of a major highway and a number of roads, as some 500 firefighters backed by air tankers and heli-copters battled the flames.
There were no immediate reports of injury.
“We are urging everybody to evacuate at this time,” a fire department spokesman said.
The fire erupted as much of the state was under a red-flag warning because of gusty winds, high temperatures and low humidity which make perfect conditions for wildfires.
In a northern California town, some 2,000 people were ordered to evacuate after a brush fire erupted on Wednesday, quickly growing from a blaze of a few hundred acres into a 16,000-acre inferno, California fire officials said.
About 500 responders battled the fire fed by wind gusts topping 110km per hour. Mandatory evacuation orders were issued for the community
of Geyserville and nearby vine-yards after the fire started in a mountainous area and quickly spread, crossing a highway and moving toward homes, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office said.
Winds out of the north were driving the fire as firefighters struggled to save homes.
Another brush fire in San Bernardino County, about 60 miles east of Los Angeles, also prompted evacuation orders as it quickly burned 75 acres.
Power was cut to some 180,000 customers in the northern part of the state and similar preemptive shutoffs affected thousands of customers further south due to conditions that are ripe for wildfires.
‘Young army’ recruitsA boy holds a grenade launcher at a military hardware exhibition during a swear-in ceremony for new recruits of the Russian military-patriotic club “Yunarmia” (Young army) in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol, Crimea, yesterday.
Backlash as US Justice Deptartment opens criminal probe into Russia investigationAFP WASHINGTON
Democrats accused President Donald Trump yesterday of using the US Justice Department as a political tool after it opened a criminal probe into its own handling of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
News of the inquiry, which suggested wrongdoing by justice officials in the previous adminis-tration of Barack Obama, leaked late on Thursday as the White House struggled to push back against a Democratic-led impeachment investigation tar-geting the Republican president.
The inquiry could further muddy the political waters in Washington, raising questions about the now-ended Russia investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller that saw 34 individuals and three
companies indicted, and eight convictions including top members of Trump’s 2016 election team. Trump’s Repub-lican allies said the inquiry could shore up the president’s long-standing claim that the Mueller investigation was a “witch hunt” based on “fake news”.
But Democrats said it was a clear effort by Trump-allied Attorney General Bill Barr to shift attention from the congressional impeachment probe as it accu-mulates strong evidence that Trump abused his office in pres-suring Ukraine to help his 2020 re-election campaign, violating US election law.
The latest inquiry raises “profound new concerns that the Department of Justice under Attorney General William Barr has lost its independence and become a vehicle for President Trump’s political revenge,” said senior House Democrats Jerry
Nadler and Adam Schiff in a statement.
“If the Department of Justice may be used as a tool of political retribution or to help the president with a political narrative for the next election, the rule of law will suffer new and irreparable damage.” The White House said the Justice Department probe aims at transparency. “The point of the investigation is to make sure the DoJ and FBI under the Obama administration in 2016 wasn’t being used as a tool to influence the elections,” said Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway on Fox News.
The criminal inquiry has grown out of an initial internal probe led by federal prosecutor John Durham, the US attorney for Connecticut, into the begin-nings of the 2016 investigation into whether members of Trump’s campaign colluded with Moscow’s sweeping effort to influence the election.
Russian ‘agent’ Maria Butina released from US prisonAFP WASHINGTON
Maria Butina, the Russian gun advocate who built a network of high-level Republican contacts before being arrested for spying, was freed from US prison yes-terday after serving nine months, the Bureau of Prisons said.
Butina was handed over to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau and was expected to be deported back to Russia, where she has been cele-brated by the government as a victim of unjust, politically-moti-vated charges in the United States.
The only Russian arrested and convicted in the three-year investigation of Moscow’s inter-ference in US politics, Butina parlayed ties with the NRA firearms lobby into a network of high-level Republican allies.
That network brought her into contact with President Donald Trump before his 2016 election, as well as with one of his sons.
The 30-year-old native of Siberia said she was on a quest to establish better relations between Russia and the United States, and enrolled in university in Washington while living with
a Republican operative.But she was arrested in July
2018 on allegations she was engaging in espionage, though she had no connection with Rus-sia’s established spy agencies.
In December, Butina entered a plea deal on a charge that she acted as an illegal, unregistered foreign agent, and was sen-tenced to 18 months in prison, half of which was credited as already served.
The Russian foreign ministry made her into a cause celebre, placing a picture of her with the word “Free Butina” at the top of its social media pages. There was no immediate comment from Butina or her lawyer, but Russian media said she was expected back as early as Saturday.
Even with her release, her case remained murky. US pros-ecutors watered down early allegations that she was an oper-ative of Russia’s intelligence agencies, and described her only as backed by a powerful Moscow politician, Alexander Torshin, who is close to President Vladimir Putin. But they main-tained that she had a mission to infiltrate US political circles in an operation to “spot and assess” potential espionage targets.
Portugal’s first black women lawmakers take officeAFP LISBON
Members of Portugal’s new par-liament took up office yes-terday, among them the coun-try’s first black women law-makers who campaigned on promises to fight racism and inequality.
The three women, who all trace their origins to Guinea-Bissau, an impoverished former Portuguese colony in west Africa, won office in the October 6 general election when Prime Minister Antonio Costa’s Socialists were re-elected but without an absolute majority.
A total of 89 women were elected — an unprecedented number in the 230-seat par-liament — following a new gender parity law requiring that 40 percent of elected law-makers are female. Portugal has a significant minority popu-lation from its former African colonies in Angola, Mozam-bique, Sao Tome and Principe, Guinea Bissau, and Cape Verde as well as Brazil.
Campaigners complain of discrimination in areas ranging from education to housing, employment to the justice system and of a shortage of black faces in business, the media and pol-itics, although progress has been made in recent years.
After taking office in 2015, Costa, who is of Indian descent, nominated Portugal’s first black cabinet minister, appointing Francisca Van Dunem, who was born in Angola, as justice min-ister. She is keeping the post in Costa’s new cabinet.
The best known of the new-comers is Joacine Katar Moreira, 37, an anti-racism activist who moved to Portugal from Guinea-Bissau when she was just eight and headed a list of upstart eco-socialist party LIVRE, or “FREE”, winning the new formation’s first and only seat in parliament.
Call for security probe of TikTokAFP WASHINGTON
Two senior US senators called for the government to study national security risks possibly posed by Chinese-owned video app TikTok, saying it could leave American users vulnerable to Beijing’s spying.
With 500 million users worldwide, TikTok has exploded in popularity in the past two years, offering a platform to produce and publish music-synced videos up to 60 seconds long.
In a letter to acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican Senator Tom Cotton
suggested that TikTok’s owner ByteDance could be forced to share user information with Chinese intelligence. It could also conceivably offer Beijing’s spies a backdoor into users’ smart-phones and computers.
“With over 110 million down-loads in the US alone, TikTok is a potential counterintelligence threat we cannot ignore,” they wrote, urging the intelligence community to “conduct an assessment of the national security risks” posed by the app.
Chinese laws could compel the company “to support and cooperate with intelligence work controlled by the Chinese Communist Party,” the sen-ators said.
With 99.99 percent of the ballots counted, the country’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) declared Morales had secured 47.1 percent of the vote, against 36.5 percent for his closest rival Carlos Mesa — just scraping past the 10 point margin of victory required for an outright win.
13SATURDAY 26 OCTOBER 2019 AMERICAS
Apartment For Sale in Central London in Paddington
A new apartment 3 Bedrooms, 2 Bathrooms, Balcony, underground parking. 978 Sq.Ft SpaceFacing the water canal5 mins away from Paddington Train Station
Price: 1,790,000 Sterling Pounds
Call: 30188882
FOR SALE
Bolivia’s Morales declared winner in disputed electionAFP LA PAZ
Bolivia’s Evo Morales was offi-cially declared the outright winner of presidential elections after a disputed vote count that triggered violent protests and furious allegations of fraud from the opposition.
The United States, European Union and Latin American coun-tries responded to the result, which would hand Morales a fourth successive term, by calling for a run-off vote to restore trust and confidence in the electoral process.
With 99.99 percent of the ballots counted, the country’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) declared Morales had secured 47.1 percent of the vote, against 36.5 percent for his closest rival Carlos Mesa — just scraping past the 10 point margin of victory required for an outright win.
The Organization of American States (OAS) had expressed concern over the vote count, which first showed Morales and Mesa headed for a runoff, before shifting dramati-cally Monday to give the pres-ident a wider lead.
The European Union said Thursday it shared the OAS
assessment “that the best option would be to hold a second round to restore trust and ensure the full respect of the democratic choice of the Bolivian people.” Violent protests have raged all week, and fresh clashes broke out Thursday between sup-porters of both sides in Santa Cruz, the economic capital and opposition stronghold.
Offices in the city housing Bolivia’s electoral authority were set on fire overnight, as security forces clashed with demonstrators in La Paz and elsewhere.
The new mandate means Morales, already Latin America’s longest-serving president, will
remain in power until 2025. He stood for a fourth successive term despite Bolivia’s consti-tution limiting presidents to two consecutive mandates.
Mesa accused Morales’s party, the Movement for Socialism (MAS), of “electoral fraud” after it declared Morales the winner before official results were announced.
Speaking at a rally in La Paz alongside center and right wing parties as well as business leaders, Mesa called for a second round and urged his supporters to maintain pressure in the streets.
On Wednesday, he said he would not recognize results tallied by the tribunal, which he accused of manipulating the count to help Morales win. The TSE has been heavily criticized for its conduct of the count process, including by its own vice-president, who resigned.
The governments of the United States, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia all called on Bolivia’s government “to restore credibility in its electoral system” by allowing a second round run-off.
The US State Department updated its travel alert for Bolivia, urging “increased caution... due to civil unrest”. On
Bolivian President Evo Morales speaking to supporters in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Monday, after the release of partial election results showed Morales just ahead of Mesa, mobs torched electoral offices in Sucre and Potosi, while rival supporters clashed in La Paz.
Morales, 59, tried to change the term limits provision in Bolivia’s constitution but lost a
referendum on the subject in 2016. A year later, though, he obtained Constitutional Court permission to run again. Critics accuse him of filling the court with loyalists.
The onetime union leader has led Bolivia for the past 13 years, though his popularity has
waned amid allegations of cor-ruption and authoritarianism.
Morales points to a decade of economic stability and con-siderable industrialization as his achievements, while insisting he has brought “dignity” to Bolivia’s indigenous population, the largest in Latin America.
Argentina’s President and presidential candidate of the Juntos por el Cambio party, Mauricio Macri (right), applauds as First Lady Juliana Awada waves a national flag during the closing rally of his campaign in Cordoba, Argentina.
Brazil’s Lula to wait until November for top court rulingAFP BRASÍLIA
Brazil’s Supreme Court said late on Thursday that it would decide in November on whether to overturn a law requiring convicted criminals to go to jail after losing their first appeal, in a case that could have implications for jailed ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
A favourable ruling could result in the release of scores of convicts,
among them Lula, a former leftist leader who is serving eight years and 10 months for corruption.
If the court overturned the law as it is, convicted criminals seeking appeal would not be taken into custody until the end of the entire legal process. In theory, that would apply retroactively to him and others.
The 11 justices were expected to finish voting, but they announced that because only four justices had their decisions in, the ruling would come
next month. Analysts expect it will be released during the first week of the month. Lula is among scores of high-profile political and business leaders caught up in the sprawling corruption probe known as “Operation Car Wash.” The popular leftist leader has been incarcerated at the federal police headquarters in the southern city of Curitiba since April 2018.
Lula was sentenced to almost 13 years in jail in February in a separate cor-ruption case and still faces another half
dozen corruption trials. He has denied all the charges, arguing they were polit-ically motivated to prevent him from competing in the 2018 election, ultimately won by President Jair Bolsonaro.
If he is released, Lula’s criminal record will prevent him from resuming his political career. That could change, however, if the Supreme Court were to decide in a separate case that Justice Minister Sergio Moro, who convicted Lula when he was a judge in 2017, had been biased.
Argentina heads to polls tomorrowAFP BUENOS AIRES
Voters in Argentina will cast ballots tomorrow in a general election expected to hand the presidency to center-left Per-onist candidate Alberto Fern-andez — and bring to an end the crisis-plagued rule of pro-business leader Mauricio Macri.
Fernandez — whose running mate is former president Cristina Kirchner — is widely tipped in opinion polls to obtain the 45 percent of votes needed to secure an outright victory in the first round.
“With Cristina, we’re going to put Argentina on its feet... We’re sure that we know what to do,” Fernandez said at his final rally Thursday in Mar del Plata, 400km south of Buenos Aires.
In August’s primaries, Fern-andez garnered 49.5 percent of
the vote compared to only 33 percent for Macri, whose nearly four years in power have been marked by economic woes.
And polls indicate Fernan-dez’s lead has only grown since then. Macri’s popularity has fallen off sharply over the last year in which Argentina has been in recession.
The poverty rate has risen to more than 35 percent, inflation for the year to September was at almost 38 percent, while the peso has depreciated 70 percent since January 2018. A currency crisis last year forced Macri to turn to the IMF to secure a $57bn bail-out loan. That, and the austerity measures Macri subsequently was forced to announce, proved highly unpopular in a country where the spending power of many ordinary Argentines has dropped dramatically.
Macri blamed Argentina’s
economic woes on previous Per-onist governments under Kirchner (2007-15) and her late husband Nestor (2003-07). “We don’t want this form of gov-ernment any more. They’ve tried to come after our liberty,” Macri said at his last campaign rally in the central city of Cordoba.
It would take a remarkable swing in the polls for Argentina’s 34 million registered voters to even give Macri the chance of a second round run-off in November. But no matter who wins, they will be faced with a divided country.
Macri has urged voters to keep faith with the country’s current path, promising a better future at the end of the road. “Don’t let the difficulties make you doubt all the things we’ve achieved, about how we want to live. Don’t let them abandon our dreams,” Macri said on Wednesday.
Colombianpolitical clansseen set towin electionsREUTERS BOGOTA
Colombians go to the polls tomorrow to choose provincial governors, mayors and regional legislators in elections that could influence the 2022 pres-idential contest, following cam-paigning marred by violent attacks on candidates.
The vote is likely to emphasise the power of regional political families rather than parties, analysts said, especially as many candidates are backed by coalitions com-posed of rival factions.
The winners will be well-placed to influence national contests in 2022, experts said.
Unlike last year’s presidential elections, when voters largely split between left and right-wing can-didates, President Ivan Duque’s Democratic Center party and leftist parties will have only limited wins, said Ariel Avila of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation thinktank. “Everything seems to indicate that political machines have aligned, organized and political clans will win,” he said.
It is not unusual for disparate factions to unite behind candi-dates for local elections in Colombia, giving regional power-brokers more sway with presi-dential contenders to negotiate benefits for their areas.
About 36.6 million people are eligible to vote for their choice of 32 governors, more than 1,000 mayors and thou-sands of regional and local leg-islative positions, government figures show. Seven candidates have been killed, a dozen attacked and more than 100 threatened, says voting rights group the Electoral Observation Mission.
Demonstrators are sprayed by riot police water canons during a protest against Chile’s state economic model in Valparaiso, yesterday.
Transport protests worsen chaos in Chile’s capitalREUTERS SANTIAGO
Chilean truck and taxi drivers brought gridlock to the capital’s highways yesterday in a protest against high road tolls that added to a week of rowdy demonstra-tions over social inequality.
Protests that started over a hike in public transport fares boiled into riots, arson and looting that have killed at least 16 people, injured hundreds, and caused millions of dollars of damage to businesses and infrastructure.
Traffic was snarled yesterday along some major access points to Santiago as tractor trailer trucks, cars and taxis slowed to a crawl, honking horns, waving Chilean flags and bearing signs of protest at toll rates.
“No more tolls! Enough with the abuse!” read bright yellow-and-red signs plastered to the front of large trucks.
Chile’s unrest is the latest in a flare-up of protests in South America and round the world — from Beirut to Barcelona — each with local triggers but also sharing underlying anger at social disparities and ruling
elites. Chileans on social media, meanwhile, were planning “The Largest March in Chile” , with rallies expected to paralyze major cities. “These protests were necessary,” said street vendor Sergio Perez as he pre-pared a fruit stand. “But they’ve made everything difficult, espe-cially getting around.”
The streets of downtown Santiago were littered with trash and broken glass and reeked of tear gas early yesterday from the latest marches and clashes. Downtown traffic was light as many businesses and schools remained close. Vandals set fire to underground transport trains and stops last weekend, sowing $300m in damage and hobbling public transportation.
Chile’s military has since taken over security in Santiago, a city of 6 million now under a state of emergency with night-time curfews.
President Sebastian Pinera, a billionaire businessman, told the nation on Thursday that he had heard “loud and clear” the demands of Chileans. He said he would send a bill to Congress soon to boost pensions by 20 percent for the elderly.
14 SATURDAY 26 OCTOBER 2019CLASSIFIEDS
SERVICES
ARTECHSage Accounting, Peachtree, QuickBooks, Dynacom,
Tel: +974 44375654 E-mail: [email protected]
ACCOUNTING SOFTWARES
GEM ADVERTISING & PUBLICATIONS(Overseas Newspaper Advertisements)
44442001 - GSM: 55783303
ADVERTISING OVERSEAS NEWSPAPER
ATTESTATION
CLEANING AND MAINTENANCE
CALIBRATION SERVICES
WOKEER INDUSTRIAL AREA
660 02 704 E-mail: [email protected]
LABOUR CAMP FOR RENT
QUEENS LAND SERVICESBusiness Set-up and Sponsorship.
77776917 [email protected]
INVEST IN QATAR
ARMSTRONG
555 54 274 E-mail: [email protected] www.armstrongmachinery.com
GENERATORS SERVICING
HELPLINE GROUP
Tel: (+974)-44271100 Mob: 77711129 Web: helplinehrconsulting.com
HR CONSULTATION
ARMSTRONG
: 660 41 449 E-mail: [email protected] www.iescoqatar.com.
SEWAGE & WASTE REMOVAL
SCAFFOLDING
APOLLO ENTERPRISES SCAFFOLDING DIVISION44693334
44416274 GSM: 55521089/55560246/55536285
REAL ESTATE
AL MUFTAH SERVICES 44634444/44010700 55542067/55823100
TRANSLATION
HELPLINE GROUP
Tel: (974)-44271100 Mob: 70114857Email: [email protected]
ASIA TRANSLATION & SERVICES CENTRE
ARMSTRONG
555 54 274 E-mail: @armstrongmachinery.com www.armstrongmachinery.com
A/C MAINTENANCE & SERVICES
ALWASEEM TRANSLATION & SERVICES CENTER
-
BUSINESS SET-UP
HELPLINE GROUP
HELPLINE GROUP
Tel: (+974)-44271100MOB: 77711129 Email: [email protected]
AL HAYIKI TRANSLATION & SERVICES EST. PARTY KINGDOM
44353501/ 44366431 E-mail: [email protected]
PARTY ITEMS & BALLOON DECORATION
ARMSTRONG
: 557 80 396 E-mail: [email protected] www.iescoqatar.com.
PORTA CABINS (Sales & Rentals)
MASSAGE
KOTTAKKAL AYURVEDIC MASSAGE CENTRE
44360061 GSM: 33453697
KERALA AYURVEDIC MASSAGE CENTER - FOR LADIES.
44147741, 50007714
AUTHENTIC THAI MASSAGE CENTERS
ARMSTRONG
: 557 80 396 E-mail: [email protected] www.iescoqatar.com.
PORTABLE & CHEMICAL TOILETS (Sales & Rentals)
MEDIA SERVICES
RENT A CAR
AL MUFTAH RENT A CAR
OASIS RENT A CAR
6641 7354 4413 0011 -
REGENCY FLEETS
44433822/44554046/44554048 44554047 Airport Branch (24hrs): 70482655
NATIONAL - ALAMO RENT A CAR
5547 8150, 5040 0624
BUDGET RENT A CAR,
IMMIGRATION SERVICES
WATER TANK CLEANING
AL MUTWASSIT CLEANING & PEST CONTROL
443679 99 - GSM. 55875920/55860432
CAPITAL CLEANING COMPANY
GSM: 55565328/ 33189899 44582257 E-mail: [email protected]
WOKEER INDUSTRIAL AREA
660 02 704 E-mail: [email protected]
WAREHOUSE FOR RENT
ARMSTRONG
: 557 80 396 E-mail: [email protected] www.iescoqatar.com.
USED CONTAINERS (Sales & Rentals)
ARMSTRONG
557 80 396 [email protected] www.iescoqatar.com
EVENT RENTALS/ ABLUTIONTOILETS
AL MUTWASSIT CLEANING & PEST CONTROL
44367555 30029977/55875920 E-mail: [email protected]
CAPITAL CLEANING COMPANY W.L.L.
44582257 33189899/ 55565328E-mail: [email protected]
Related Documents
