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THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER 2016 • 5 MOHARRAM 1438 • Volume 21 • Number 6941 thepeninsulaqatar @peninsulaqatar @peninsula_qatar 2 Riyals

Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani met in his office at Al Bahr Palace yesterday morning, Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of State, Cabinet Member and Chief Executive Officer of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). Dr Sultan Al Jaber conveyed the greetings of UAE President H H Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and UAE Vice-President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The Emir entrusted the Minister with conveying his greetings to the UAE President and the UAE Vice-President.

Emir meets UAE MinisterPanel to oversee building of pedestrian bridges

The Peninsula

DOHA: The State Cabinet yesterday approved a draft decision by the Minister of Municipality and Environment establishing a committee that will oversee construction of pedestrian bridges to ensure they meet the required conditions and standards.

The Cabinet’s ordinary meeting at Emiri Diwan, chaired by the Prime Minister and Interior Minister, H E Sheikh Abdullah bin

Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani also approved a draft decision to establish a permanent committee to manage seaports.

The Cabinet denounced the US passing of the JASTA bill as a violation of international law and the principle of the sovereignty of states. It said that passing the law represented a danger-ous precedent in relations between countries and will have negative consequences.

The committee overseeing pedestrian bridges will supervise and monitor different phases of implementing the project, design, building and operation. It will follow up on the company carrying out the project and ensure that the construction is progressing within the set timeframe and is compati-ble with the designs. The committee will be chaired by a representative of the Min-istry of Municipality and Environment and will comprise representatives from all the authorities concerned, the QNA reported.

According to reliable sources, formation of the committee follows on a government decision to set up pedestrian bridges in traf-fic “black spots” across the city that witness more run-over accidents, like Industrial Area and Salwa Road. The first air-con-ditioned pedestrian bridge in the country was opened recently near Street No. 1 in Industrial Area. The role of the permanent committee to manage seaports is to operate the ports, in coordination with the author-ities concerned. The committee will also follow up on and regulate work at the ports and oversee all employees there. It will also present a quarterly report to the Minister of Interior on the progress at seaports. The committee will be chaired by a representa-tive of the Ministry of Interior and will have representatives of all designated authorities.

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The Peninsula

DOHA: The Caribbean Commu-nity has declared its support for H E Dr. Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kawari, Cultural Adviser at the Emiri Diwan and Qatar’s candidate to the post of Unesco Director-General, describing him as the “strongest can-didate” to the post.

The announcement, made by Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, who is currently on a visit to Doha heading a

ministerial delegation, came after his meeting with Al Kawari yesterday.

Browne said that his government is working on the abolition of entry visas between Qatar and Antigua and Barbuda and eventually between Qatar and the Caribbean region.

He also said that his government has decided to appoint an ambassa-dor to Qatar soon, pointing out that diplomatic and official procedures are under way for the appointment and presentation of the Ambassador’s credentials to the Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

Talking to reporters before the meeting, Browne said that the Dominican Republic, the Federation

of Saint Kitts and Nevis, the Repub-lic of Trinidad and Tobago and the Republic of Haiti and the rest of the Caribbean Community have man-dated him to study which candidate the group will support to take up the post of Director-General of Unesco, adding that they have already decided to support Qatar’s candidate, the strongest candidate for this post.

He pointed out that Qatar did the right thing when it chose Dr. Hamad Al Kawari owing to his distinguished reputation in both Qatar and at the international level.

He added that he met Al Kawari and took note of his programme which attaches special attention to the Caribbean countries and the African countries as well as other countries of the world, in addition to his interest in culture, science and education.

This is why the Caribbean nations support Qatar’s candidate, whose

vision for the Unesco is expected to be a new start for this prestigious organisation, said Browne.

On bilateral relations between Qatar and his country, Browne said that his government is seeking to build strong and deep-rooted rela-tions based on mutual understanding and cooperation in many fields.

He hoped that his meetings in Doha, which will discuss bilateral

Dr. Al Kawari’s vision for Unesco is expected to be a new start for this prestigious organisation.

The government of Antigua and Barbuda is working on the abolition of entry visas between Qatar and Antigua and Barbuda and eventually between Qatar and the Caribbean region.

Caribbean Community supports Dr. Al Kawari’s candidacy

By Mohammed Osman

The Peninsula

DOHA: The Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani yesterday attended the ceremony honouring 100 teachers to mark the World Teachers Day.

Addressing the function at Katara, the Minister of Education and Higher Educa-tion H E Dr Mohammed bin Abdul Wahed Ali Al Hammadi said, “We mark this day to acknowledge the mission of teachers, and in appreciation of their role and the great difference they are making every day in our life. “

“Improvement of teachers’ financial and professional status is on top of our priority, and our country has achieved international standards thanks to its wise leadership. Qatar has teachers from all over the world and this shows the status teachers enjoy here and the care they are getting,” said Al Ham-madi. Addressing the teachers the minister said, “As teachers you need to act as fathers and mothers for the students because you are entrusted with their education and upbring-ing”. “This honoring has great meanings

and educational implications and is a dis-tinguishing mark on our career journey”, said Abdullah Al Nuaimi, Director of Ahmed bin Hanbal Independent School, delivering a speech on behalf of the teachers who were honoured on the occasion.

The government has developed qual-ity training programmes for teachers, and enhanced their role in a decision making through teachers’ consultation commit-tees and implementing rules and regulation enhancing teachers status, he added.

During the ceremony a joint message

from heads of UN Agencies in Qatar was read by Faryal Khan, Programme Specialist for Education at Unesco Doha Office.

The 2030 agenda for Sustainable Devel-opments makes critical connection between education and development and the goals of this agenda “cannot be achieved unless we increase the supply of qualified teachers and empower them to be agents of educa-tion change in the lives of the students they teach” said Khan in her speech.

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By Raynald C Rivera

The Peninsula

DOHA: Tourist arrivals in Qatar for the first three quarters of the year crossed the two million mark, highlighted by a substantial increase in the number of visitors from the GCC which can be attributed to the week-long Eid in Qatar celebrations.

According to a report by Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA), Qatar has welcomed a total of 2,182,769 visitors for the first three quar-ters of this year. In September, the country

received 255,805 visitors, most of whom are GCC nationals attracted by the Eid Al Adha cel-ebrations which lasted for a week.

The Eid in Qatar celebrations is one of the highlights in the country’s tourism calendar which typically attracts many visitors from all over the Gulf region.

As expected, Saudi Arabia nationals consti-tuted the biggest percentage of visitors arriving in Qatar with a total of 746,598 Saudi visitors from January to September, 106,014 of who came in September alone.

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Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani at Teachers’ Day celebrations in Katara yesterday.

Over 2 million tourists visited Qatar until Sept

The Caribbean Community has declared its support for H E Dr. Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kawari.

agreements, would further strengthen these relations. He called on Qataris to invest in his country as it enjoys democracy

and stability and as it is also a tourist destination.

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Permanent committee to manage seaports also gets Cabinet approval.

100 teachers honoured

Ambitious Qatar chase World Cup lifeline in South Korea

HOME 02 THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER 2016

Qatar ‘can act as bridge between East and West’

By Mohammed Iqbal

The Peninsula

DOHA: The Canadian Muslim Youth Federation based in Canada, is seek-ing support from Qatari youth forums in introducing Islam as a religion of peace and tolerance to the Western community in general and the Cana-dian society in particular.

Abdul Hameed Jawad, President of the federation and a member of the rul-ing Liberal Party in Canada, is on a visit to Qatar to share views and experi-ences with Qatari youth organisations.

Jawad is also a member of the Inter-national Union of Muslim Scholars, chaired by prominent Qatar-based Islamic scholar Dr. Yousuf Al Qaradawi.

“We want to share our experiences with organisations taking care of youth in Qatar. At the same time, we want to explain the reality of Islam as a religion of peace, love and respect to the Westerners. What is going on now in some Arab and Islamic countries does not represent Islam or Muslims,” Jawad said in an interview with The Peninsula. “We as Canadian Muslims

like to have strong relationship with our neighbours and our government and we want to exercise the freedom of religion in our country in a nice way,” he added.

Jawad believes that Qatar, with its wise and moderate policies, can act as bridge between the East and the West. “I hope relations between Qatar and Canada would continue and strengthen further. Qatar can play a great role as bridge between eastern and Western countries, espe-cially in this situation (of conflict and turmoil),” he said.

He said the Liberal Party led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that wiped out the Conservative party from power in the last elections has fulfilled its promises to the Canadian Muslim community.

“We have been telling the Muslim community in Canada that Islam is a religion of peace and co-existence and we are part of the Canadian soci-ety. We must explain our beliefs to the Canadian society in general. The Muslim community started working with the new Prime Minister during the elections and we gave a strong support. He (the Prime Minister) did what he promised to the Muslims. He welcomed 25,000 Syrian refugees to

Canada,” said Jawad.He said there

are over 10 Muslim m e m b e r s i n parliament and one Muslim woman is a minister. He feels that the peace-loving, multi-cultural Canadian society is not negatively i n f l u e n c e d b y incidents in the Arab/Islamic world and the resulting media campaign against Islam and Muslims. The impact of Islamophobia is limited to very few areas, he added.

“We try our best to resist the negative

media campaign and explain the real-ity of Islam to the Canadians. We have a lot of Islamic scholars who partici-pate in popular TV programmes. We also use the Internet and social media for this purpose,” said Jawad.

QNA

GENEVA: National Human Rights Committee (NHRC) Chairman Dr. Ali bin Samikh Al Marri yesterday met United Nations High Commis-sioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid bin Ra’ad, as part of strate-gic partnership between NHRC and the Office of the High Com-missioner.

Talks dealt with cooperation and mutual activities at local, regional and international levels and mechanisms of following up on recommendations of the two global conferences both sides organised in November 2014 on challenges of security and human rights in the Arab region and in January 2016 on the role of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in the Arab region.

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar University College of Medicine (QU-CMED) enrolled 93 new students to its Class of 2022, which began its journey towards the MD degree last September. This is an increase of 16 percent in the number of students enrolled last year.

About 73 percent of the new applicants were accepted into the first year (General Medicine) and 27 percent as Foundation students.

At a rate of 62 percent, the major-ity (58) of the new students are Qatari. Nine transfer students were also admitted into Class of 2022, coming from other colleges within QU and 13 Qatari students admitted last year to the Medicine Foundation have joined the cohort.

All Qatari applicants who met the criteria were admitted. International applicants competed for the remain-ing seats. The admission process this year was highly competitive with 1,009 students applying.

Of them, 616 met admission cri-teria and 15 percent were enrolled. For international students, the cut-off high-school GPA was at a minimum of 99.0 percent. They come from international, Independent and community schools in Doha. Four students interrupted studies at medical schools in the UK and Saudi Arabia and transferred to QU-CMED.

The new students participated

in a Boot Camp on August 29-31 to orient on the MD programme and familiarise with CMED culture, pol-icies and team members.

They also visited Hamad Gen-eral Hospital and attended a cardiac pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) work-shop held by Hamad International Training Centre (HITC).

The third day of the Boot Camp was organised by second-year stu-dents (Class of 2021) who offered a student perspective on the college’s culture and student life.

Dr. Nora Al Mutawa, Head, Clin-ical Training, Primary Health Care Organization (PHCC), gave a presen-tation on primary healthcare centres

and family medicine. Prof Egon Toft, QU Vice-Pres-

ident for Medical Education and CMED Dean, said: “The excellent per-formance of year one students has encouraged the college to maintain admission criteria for this year.

“With an eye on the increase in the number of applicants, the admission committee is looking into the possibility of revising crite-ria and processes to ensure a suitable balance between quality and indi-vidualised focus, and maximise the number of graduates to meet the high demand in the healthcare sector for locally trained highly qualified med-ical doctors.”

58 nationals among 93 students

enrol in QU-CMED Class of 2022Continued from page 1

Browne added that his govern-ment is working on putting into place infrastructure and legislation to ensure stability and protection of foreign investment.

Dr Al Kawari said he was pleased to have the backing of the Caribbean community. He said Qatar’s nomination of one of its sons to the post was because it wanted to deliver a message to the world on the importance of education and culture in establishing peace. It was a message that reached the mem-bers of the Caribbean community, he added.

Al Kawari said he is aware of the significance of the Caribbean islands, a matter he highlighted in his candidacy bid and that he

realises the needs of islands along with South American and African nations for Unesco’s support.

He said Unesco, despite its efforts, can still play a bigger role as many humanitarian and charitable organisations are looking forward to cooperating with the organisa-tion. This would happen only after Unesco succeeds in conveying its message to the world, he added.

Dr. Al Kawari highlighted Qatar’s role in cooperating with Unesco in initiatives, including ‘Edu-cate a Child’, which will enable 10 million children to access educa-tion by this year-end.

The Dominican Republic; Fed-eration of Saint Kitts and Nevis; Republic of Trinidad and Tobago; and Republic of Haiti are members of the Unesco Executive Board.

Dr. Al Kawari highlightsQatar-Unesco cooperation

Continued from page 1

The Cabinet also approved the Minister of Public Health’s draft decision on reforming the Supreme Medical Committee and another decision on forming a med-ical committee. It also approved the application of provisions of Law No. 24 of 2002 on retirement and pen-sion of Qatari employees of some entities.

The weekly meeting endorsed draft agreements on air services

with Mongolia; and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and a draft memorandum of understand-ing for cooperation in the field of health between the Ministry of Public Health and Belarus’ Minis-try of Health. The Cabinet reviewed the Minister of Interior’s memo on the final report with regard to the results of the work of the committee formed to study all aspects of using the smart card as proof of identity for GCC citizens and develop mech-anism for it.

Continued from page 1

The growth in year-to-date (January-September) GCC visitor arrivals was dominated by visits by nationals of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which increased by eight per-cent and 17 percent, respectively compared to 2015.

Visits by Bahraini and Kuwaiti nationals were up by three per-cent and two percent, respectively; while visits by Omani nationals were down by five percent. Over-all, year-to-date arrivals from the GCC grew by 7 percent compared to the same period in 2015.

Meanwhile, visitors arriving on Qatar-Oman tourist visa increased by two percent year-to-date com-pared to the same period in 2015. Visits by nationals of the Americas also increased by five percent com-pared to the same period in 2015.

As Qatar welcomes its first cruise ship on October 18, carry-ing tourists from 45 countries, QTA projects further modest increases in visitor arrivals during the cur-rent month. Thirty-two cruise ships carrying 50,000 passengers are expected during the cruise sea-son which ends in April.

Further increase in tourist arrivals is anticipated in the future with travel facilitation schemes announced recently, including the easing of transit visa rules, new procedures to accelerate the entry of tourists arriving on cruise ships, and an agreement with VFS Global, which will pave the way for an online tourist visa process-ing system.

Cabinet approves decisions and deals

GCC tourist arrivals

increase by 7%

Minister of Education and Higher Education H E Dr. Mohammed bin Abdul Wahed Ali Al Hammadi with some of the teachers honoured at the event. Pic: Baher Amin / The Peninsula

Canadian Muslim Youth Federation President seeks support of Qatari youth forums in introducing Islam as a religion of peace and tolerance to the Western community in general and the Canadian society in particular.

Abdul Hameed Jawad, President, Canadian Muslim Youth Federation, and member of the ruling Liberal Party in Canada, speaking to The Peninsula. Pic: Kammutty VP / The

Peninsula

QNA

DOHA: Dr. Obaid Ahmed Al Obaid, Director of the United Nations Centre for Training and Documen-tation in the field of Human Rights for Southwest Asia and the Arab region in Doha praised the posi-tive developments in the field of human rights and the clear com-mitment to the rule of law in Qatar.

“The steady commitment to the rule of law embodies, with-out doubt, the positive impact of the entrenched culture of human rights in the country,” he said, adding Qatar is committed to pro-viding its international reports and actively participates in discussions at the international level.

Dr. Obaid, who was appointed Director of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Yemen, also praised

the development of human rights institutional work in Qatar and the political will to advance in the field, which requires greater under-standing of the community about these positive developments.

He highlighted the role of the National Human Rights Commit-tee (NHRC) and its support for the centre and its activities and events which aim at promoting the culture of human rights, particularly in the region and cited NHRC’s role in the establishment of the Arab Network for National Human Rights Institu-tions in Doha.

Dr. Obaid said the centre, through cooperation with the network, was able to spread its message and achieve its objectives.

He said the Human Rights Department at the Ministry of Interior is an important part-ner to the centre and that both sides implemented joint activi-ties and launched initiatives to

raise awareness about human rights and spread its culture in the community.

He also highlighted the role of the department locally and inter-nationally in the areas of training and rehabilitation, spreading the culture among the ministry’s employees and the community and educating inmates of penal institu-tions. He also praised efforts of the Human Rights Department at the Foreign Ministry as a partner of the centre that contributed to its crea-tion and providing its requirements and developing its work.

Dr. Obaid said the UN centre, the first in the field in Qatar, has achieved the desired success in the past five years, thanks to sup-port by the state and cooperation and assistance of the concerned authorities, which resulted in organising activities, conferences and visits of international human rights officials to Doha.

Continued from page 1

“To achieve universal primary education by 2030 we need 24.4 million or more teachers” and the number become “greater for sec-ondary education with 4.4 million secondary school teachers,” she emphasised.

The UN marked this year event under the theme ‘Valuing Teach-ers, Improving their Status’. Khan

said teaching could be an attractive, first-choice if teachers were valued commensurate with the immense value they provide to our children and if their professional status reflected the enormous impact their profession has on our shared future. “We celebrate this occasion by reaffirming our commitment to the standards and aspirations it represents and by redoubling our efforts to achieve them,” said Khan.

Qatar praised for human rights strides Dr. Al Marri meets UN official

Students of Class of 2022 attending the Boot Camp.

24.4 million teachers needed to

achieve universal primary education

HOME 03 THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER 2016

The Peninsula

DOHA: Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) has launched ‘Early Detection Saves Lives’ campaign to mark the Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

The initiative aims at educat-ing women at risk of breast cancer, increasing their knowledge of signs and symptoms and empowering them to take charge of their breast health. It features activities, includ-ing a conference jointly organised with Primary Health Care Corpora-tion (PHCC) and Qatar Cancer Society (QCS).

The conference on October 29 and 30 at the Sheraton Grand Hotel, Doha, will bring leaders and health-care professionals from around the world to share knowledge and exper-tise in breast cancer screening and the latest information about mam-mograms and early detection.

Also, there will be information booths in some of HMC’s hospi-tals, including Al Wakrah Hospital, Hamad General Hospital, The Cuban Hospital and the National Center for Cancer Care and Research (NCCCR).

Officials at the booths will inform patients and their families, visitors and staff about signs and symptoms of breast cancer and educate them on the importance of prevention and early detection in reducing the risk of the disease and saving lives.

An event to celebrate the breast cancer team at HMC, also known as the ‘Pink Team’ will be held on Octo-ber 31 at Bayt Al Dhiyafa at Hamad Bin Khalifa Medical City to acknowl-edge their efforts, reward teamwork and recognise their contribution to HMC’s delivery of high-quality care to patients.

Dr. Salha Bujassoum Al Bader, Senior Consultant, NCCCR, and Director, Breast Cancer Programme, HMC, said, “Breast cancer is by far the most common cancer in Qatar and one in eight women will develop it in their lifetime. Education, preven-tion and diagnostic services remain at the frontline of the battle against breast cancer.

“Breast changes can show up on mammograms before the patient or doctor can feel a lump. We encour-age women aged 45 and above to be screened for breast cancer, stay phys-ically active and eat a healthy diet. Our breast cancer team is happy to participate in the awareness cam-paign because we believe early detection can save lives,” Dr. Bujas-soum added.

A social media campaign starts this week and runs throughout the month to share information about breast cancer with the public and provide support to those affected by the disease. For details about the campaign, please follow HMC on Twitter: @HMC_Qatar and Insta-gram @HMC_Qatar.

The Peninsula

DOHA: H E Sheikha Hind bint Hamad Al Thani has been appointed Chairperson of the Board of Trustees of Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU). She will assume the posi-tion in addition to her role as Vice Chairperson and CEO of Qatar Foundation (QF).

Sheikha Hind will lead HBKU’s board, ensuring the success of the university and its vision and mission.

“HBKU has witnessed tremen-dous growth with the development of its integrated academic pro-grammes and national research capabilities,” she said.

“The new Board of Trustees will offer invaluable insight and exper-tise to the research university as it continues to target its strategic

objectives and tackle critical challenges facing Qatar and the region. The board will also play a leading role as the university endeavours to create new and innovative learning opportu-nities that help build human capacity and further support Qatar as it moves towards building a diverse and sustain-able economy,” Sheikha Hind added.

“Each of the board mem-bers shares HBKU’s vision and together, we will guide the uni-versity’s path forward as a national source of knowledge that serves government, indus-try and the wider community in Qatar,” she added.

The board comprises six members in addition the Chairper-son. They are Minister of Economy and Commerce H E Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim Al Thani, who is also

Qatar Petroleum Vice Chairman and Qatar Financial Centre Authority Deputy Chairman; Khalid Ahmed Al Mannai, Vice Chairman, Executive

Committee, Mannai Corporation; Dr. Moncef Slaoui, Chairman, Glo-bal Vaccines, GlaxoSmithKline PLC; Dr. Samira Omar, Director-Gen-eral, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research; Dr. Kang Sung-mo, Pres-ident, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology; and Prof. Ikhlaq Sidhu, Chief Scientist and Founding Director, Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology, University of Califor-nia Berkeley’s and Founder of Fung Institute for Engineering Leadership.

HBKU President Dr. Ahmad M Hasnah also sits on the board as an ex-officio member.

The new appointees bring to HBKU a wealth of diverse lead-ership experience in Qatar and overseas and share a commitment to ensure HBKU succeeds in its mis-sion to provide an exceptional level of transformative education and research in Qatar.

Sheikha Hind is HBKU Board of Trustees Chairperson Breast cancer awareness drive launched

H E Sheikha Hind bint Hamad Al Thani

HMC lines up activities as part of the ‘Early Detection Saves Lives’ campaign to mark the Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

The Peninsula

DOHA: The Ministry of Economy and Commerce caught 137 violations of consumer protection law by com-mercial outlets last month.

The maximum number of viola-tions was related to failing to use the Arabic language in declarations and statements related to products; and not providing sales invoices in Ara-bic, among others.

The Ministry intensified its inspection campaign last month to ensure compliance by the suppli-ers with the obligations stipulated in law No. 8 of 2008 on consumer

protection. The move came within the framework of the Ministry’s keenness to monitor markets and commercial activities to crack down on price manipulation and protect consumer rights.

Some outlets were caught for using false and deceptive informa-tion when describing, advertising or displaying products; failing to announce prices of services/prod-ucts; charging prices higher than those declared; and selling and dis-playing expired products, among others. Fines imposed by the Min-istry on the erring outlets included closures and penalties starting from QR5,000 to QR30,000, as per the law and regulations of the Consumer

Protection and Anti-Commercial Fraud Department.

The Ministry stressed that it will not tolerate any violations of the Consumer Protection Law and its regulations and will intensify the inspection campaign to crack down on violations. The Ministry also said it will refer those who violate laws and ministerial decrees to compe-tent authorities to take action and protect consumer rights.

It urged consumers to report any violations to the Consumer Protec-tion and Anti-Commercial Fraud Department through Call Centre 16001; email: [email protected]; and Twitter MEC_QATAR; and Instagram MEC_QATAR.

137 violations of consumerprotection law detected last month

The Peninsula

DOHA: Doha Municipality last month shut down 13 food outlets and registered 82 violations dur-ing 1,084 inspection visits.

Veterinary doctors at the health monitoring section inspected 545 tonnes of local fish of which 36 tonnes were destroyed. It also checked 832 tonnes of imported fish and destroyed 14 tonnes.

In the Central Market, veteri-narians inspected 62,410 animals for slaughtering and 533 were destroyed. They also checked 8,830 tonnes of imported fruits and vegetables and destroyed 73 tonnes.

13 erring food outlets shut last month

HOME04 THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER 2016

Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani with President of the Republic of Singapore Tony Tan in Singapore yesterday. Foreign Minister conveyed to Tony Tan the greetings of Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

FM meets Singapore President

Second Arab Diabetes Congress next monthThe Peninsula

DOHA: The second Arab Diabetes Medical Congress will be held in Doha in November and discuss preven-tion and control of the disease in the region.

The congress will be organised in collaboration with the Qatar Diabetes Association and Maarefah Management and supported by Rashid Centre for Dia-betes and Research, the Saudi Diabetes and Endocrine Association, and Saudi Pharmaceutical Society.

The congress will focus on a number of important issues related to diabetes, through scientific lectures, workshops, panel sessions and share information and strategies for prevention and control of the disease.

Discussions will also include about detection and prevention of Type 2 diabetes, early intervention in children and adult patients, obesity, insulin resist-ance and type 2 diabetes in children and adolescents, among other important topics in order to control the disease in the region.

Dr Doaa Said, Managing Director, Maarefah Man-agement, said, “Diabetes complications expenditure reaches up to 11 percent of global expenditure on health-care sector, which requires to develop ways to prevent and fight the disease, and to intensify efforts and research to get the appropriate treatment while working to help patients to avoid complications.”

“Arab Diabetes Medical Congress attracts leading international researchers and experts, which contrib-utes to the exchange of ideas and the latest information on complications especially in Middle East,” she added.

Key speakers at the conference include Dr Abdullah Al Hamaq, Executive Director, Qatar Diabetes Associa-tion, Dr Mahmoud Zirie, Senior Consultant and Head of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism Department of Medicine, HMC, Kamil M Salamah, General Secretary, Saudi Diabetes & Endocrine Association, KSA, Moataz Basha, Director of Metabolic & Bariatric Surgery, HMC and Ebaa Al Ozairi, Consultant Endocrinologist, Ameri-can Board of Physician Nutrition Specalist, Kuwait.

By Raynald C Rivera

The Peninsula

DOHA: The future for Qatar’s culi-nary industry has never looked better with numerous restaurant brands joining the fray along with many hotels in the pipeline in the run-up to World Cup 2022.

As Qatar prepares for World Cup 2022 and as part of the country’s National Tourism Sector Strategy 2030, Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) has been in the forefront of diversifying its tourism offerings which include the food sector with a number of initiatives such as the

Qatar International Food Festival. QTA has also been forging part-

nerships with the private sector in this regard. The upcoming Hospital-ity Qatar 2016 - the three-day hotels, restaurants, and cafes (HORECA) event which is licensed by the QTA, is an added value to its drive to develop this important sector.

“Doha’s culinary landscape is getting bigger and better every year as new hotels, restaurants and brands are coming here. We are very excited about the brands, restaurants and chains which are continuously coming to Qatar,” Chef Baran Yucel, Chairman of Qatar Culinary Professionals (QCP) told The Peninsula.

Chef Baran was speaking on the sidelines of a Chef’s Table gathering in preparation for Salon Culinaire 2016, which is the biggest culinary competition in the country and one of the much-anticipated features of the annual Hospitality Qatar organ-ised by IFP Group from October 18 to 20 at Doha Exhibition and Con-vention Centre. For the second consecutive year, IFP has part-nered with QCP in organising Salon Culinaire.

The influx of many brands of restaurants to the country signals a vibrant culinary scene and presents huge opportunities for culinary professionals.

“For sure the coming of new brands to Qatar will affect the food tradition and habits in the country. And as Qatar’s population increases, the number of hotels and restau-rants also rises which is good for us because it means opening more doors to culinary professionals,” said Chef Baran.

“Our profession is based on food and food and creativity will never end. The culinary world keeps get-ting bigger and bigger. The trend is changing; nourishment methods are showing progress and differences,” he added.

As chairman of QCP, he expressed satisfaction of the strides made by the group in so short a time.

“QCP is a non-profit organization founded two years ago. Our com-munity is getting bigger every year. Right now we have 450 professional chefs and 46 corporate members who are supporting us. Now we are recognized and supported by QTA,” he said. Open to anyone who have professional culinary background, QCP is a professional chefs net-work which provides the platform for them to interact and share ideas on culinary trends.

“Recently, we competed at the Global Chefs Challenge in Greece with support from QTA and came back with very good results,” he said.

Doha’s culinary landscape getting better: QCP chiefQTA has been in the forefront of diversifying its tourism offerings which include the food sector with a number of initiatives such as the Qatar International Food Festival.

QRCS and KRCS review projects in Lebanon

QNL to host seminar on ‘new trends in global library environment’The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar National Library (QNL) will host a public seminar on ‘New Trends in the Global Library Environ-ment’. The event is part of its schedule of monthly programmes designed to support the public service sec-tor in Qatar and spread knowledge throughout the community.

The seminar will be presented by Eric van Lubeek, the Vice Presi-dent of the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) for Europe, Mid-dle East, Africa and Asia, and aims to familiarise participants with the OCLC, which was established in 1967 as a worldwide library cooperative.

Additionally, QNL will provide a free training session on selected children’s and teen book databases, where participants will be intro-duced to QNL’s online resources and trained on how to successfully use

them with younger readers. Teach-ers, parents, librarians and educators are encouraged to attend this hands-on workshop.

The popular monthly Research Skills Workshop returns in October to offer free research skills for a wide range of disciplines and subject areas. The workshop covers four modules: Research Tool Kit, Search Strategies and Techniques, Citing Resources and Writing Research Papers.

To further encourage young people, students and the wider com-munity to embrace reading, QNL continues to hold its monthly book discussion with the book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg. This nonfic-tion book explores the reasons and the root causes that hinder women in achieving leadership roles, and details solutions that can empower them to get ahead and achieve their full potential.

In addition, QNL, a member of Qatar Foundation for Education, Sci-ence and Community Development (QF), will offer a free workshop on the English Writing Process tailored for undergraduate students who want to further their understanding of the stages of the English writing proc-ess. The hands-on workshop includes brainstorming, creating, editing and developing of content.

This month, QNL’s online resource training workshop tackles the subject of Qatar Humanities with hands-on training on selected databases that include: Cengage Collection, JSTOR, Cambridge Core, OneClickDigital, OverDrive and Zinio. In line with QF’s mission to unlock human potential and create a progressive society, QNL aligns itself by organising these activities with the objectives of the Qatar National Vision 2030 through spreading knowledge and cultivat-ing creativity for future generations.Participants at a book discussion held at the Qatar National Library.

The Peninsula

DOHA: A delegation of Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) and Kuwait Red Crescent Society (KRCS) visited a number of joint humanitarian projects in North and Beqaa Gov-

ernorates. Maha Al-Barjas, KRCS Secretary-General, had an over-view of the work done by the two organizations in service of Syrian refugees and the host communities in Lebanon.

She was accompanied by Omar Katerji, head of QRCS mission in

Lebanon, Musaed Al-Anzi, head of KRCS mission in Lebanon, and some staff of the two missions.

Al-Barjas stressed the impor-tance of projects conducted jointly with QRCS, especially those targeted at refugee children, who need spe-cial care.

Qatar to give $10m aid to AfghanistanQNA

BRUSSELS: Minister of State for Foreign Affairs H E Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi stressed Qatar’s keenness to push for-ward the wheel of development in Afghanistan to achieve secu-rity and stability in the country.

He announced a Qatari dona-tion of $10m to help achieve prosperity and peace in Afghani-stan, $6m of which will be directed to printing curricula and the remaining will be used to support development projects. Al Muraikhi was speaking at the Conference on Afghanistan, organised by the EU in partnership with Afghan gov-ernment. He said Qatar has been committed to providing political and financial support to Afghani-stan, offering $56.5m in the form of in-kind and humanitarian aid in addition to other donations.

HOME 05THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER 2016

Students across Qatar Foundation (QF) schools honoured local teachers for their commitment and dedication to educating young students in a series of celebrations marking the International Teachers’ Day yesterday. Classrooms and teacher staffrooms took on a party atmosphere as teachers and pupils celebrated the annual event. QF extended its thanks to teachers for the increasingly important role they play in fulfilling its mission to help Qatar on its journey.

Teachers’ Day at Qatar Foundation

Pinoy Fiesta begins at Lulu outlets

The Peninsula

DOHA: Lulu Hypermarket Group, like previous years, has organised the Pinoy Fiesta in a big way this year as well. The fiesta was inaugurated by Wilfredo Santos, Ambassador of the Philippines to Qatar, yesterday at Lulu Hypermarket, D-Ring Road branch, in the presence of Mohamed Althaf, Director of Lulu Group Inter-national, and various other Lulu officials and dignitaries, and senior executives from the leading organ-izations in the retail industry.

By organising the fiesta, Lulu endeavours to celebrate the culi-nary heritage and food habits of Philippines and highlight and pro-mote the best quality Filipino food products and agricultural pro-duce among the local community. Lulu Group has been organising the Pinoy Fiesta for many years as part of their annual food festivals. However, unlike previous years, this year they have exclusively focused on the Phil-ippine food and food habits taking into consideration its long heritage as compared to other cuisines and the various colonial influences to which it has been subjected to in the annals of history.

Central to any Philippine meal is rice, whether it is breakfast, lunch or dinner, from north to south of Philip-pines. Meat and fish are also common in all dishes. It is a bold combination of the sweet, sour and spicy. Filipino

palates prefer a sudden influx of fla-vour and it is more flamboyant in appearance.

Filipino food is often delivered in a single presentation, giving the par-ticipant a simultaneous visual feast, aromatic bouquet, and a gustatory appetizer. Filipinos love to eat, and since they are naturally hospitable and gregarious, food is the basis of their social life.

In the vastness of innumerable islands and with so many diverse cultures and cuisines, Philippines remains unique among the most beautiful countries because of its rich natural resources and the most hospitable people.

Philippines holds a unique posi-tion as the only country in Asia influenced by the cultures and food habits of both the sides of the Pacific — from its neighbors in the region of Malaysia, Indonesia, China, India

and Mexico. Add to the cooking pot Spain and the United States, they have a vibrant mix of all these cul-tures, which gives them an identity among other communities.

Extensive promotion campaigns and price-buster offers for next two consecutive weeks have been planned on many import items and in association with familiar brands viz., Mama Sita’s, Ligo, Delmonte, CDO, Lucky Me, Selecta, UFC Century etc.

As for agricultural produce from Philippines, heavy stock of Langsat, White Onion, Parsley Curly, Philip-pine Mango, Garlic, Morning Glory Leaves, Beans sprout, Paksoi, Baby Paksoi, Saba, Calamanci, Guyabano, Mangosteem wild, Jicamas, Dragon fruit, Durian, Pomelo, Papaya, Tanglad, Kamote white & violet, Kamias, Ube, Rambuttan, Pandan leaves, Pineapple, Banana, Seno-rita Banana, Sweet corn and Hass

Avocado etc. are on display and will be available throughout the festival period.

Lulu management indicated that a raffle draw has been organized for the customers who buy any of the offered items for QR25, whereby the participants are entitled to win 15 ‘To & Fro’ air tickets in the Manila sector.

Spearheaded by the retail divi-sion Lulu Hypermarkets, Lulu Group has interests in imports & exports, Trading, Shipping, IT, Travel & Tour-ism and Education.

Currently the Group operates 129 state-of-the-art Shopping Malls, Hypermarkets, Export and re-export houses, Meat processing plants, Gar-ment manufacturing units and IT Training Institutes etc. Lulu Group International has a vast organi-zational structure of over 38,400 employees comprising of 37 differ-ent nationalities.

Georgetown to host Arab music concert The Peninsula

DOHA: Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q) will host an Arab music concert featuring Lebanese singer Oumeima El-Khalil (pic-tured) and musician Hani Siblini. The event will be held in the main Georgetown University auditorium on Monday October 10 at 6:00 p.m.

El-Khalil, who is known for her performance of classical Arabic songs, will take the stage alongside Siblini, her husband and musical partner. Siblini, a talented composer, pianist and keyboard player, has worked with El-Khalil on popular songs such as “A young man and a young girl,” “Days,” and the famous hit “I said I will write to you.”

“I firmly believe that hosting such

events and bringing in renowned art-ists gives us the opportunity to relate their creative works to the cultural and linguistic topics that we focus on in our academic field,” said Abbas Al-Tonsi, director of the Arab Language Program at GU-Q. “In this context, artists are keen on maintaining the Arab musical heritage while reflecting a contemporary musical experience as it is lived by Arab citizens.”

The Peninsula

DOHA: Stakeholders from Qatar’s public, private, academic, and research sectors gained insights that will guide their contribution to an in-depth overview of the nation’s research landscape, through a training workshop hosted by Qatar Foundation Research and Develop-ment (QF R&D) in collaboration with the Ministry of Development Plan-ning and Statistics (MDPS).

The two-day exercise at Qatar National Convention Centre, attended by 111 participants from 69 entities involved in research, prepared the ground for MDPS’ 2015 Research and Development Survey, which aims to measure Qatar’s research and development inputs – such as human capacity,

infrastructure and facilities, and investments – to track progress, draw global comparisons, and sup-port future planning.

Using internationally-recognised methodology, the survey – focus-ing on inputs during 2015 – will collate statistics and information from throughout Qatar’s research and development ecosystem, allow-ing key findings to be identified. The workshop, organised by QF R&D’s Office of Policy, Planning, and Eval-uation (PPE), outlined the survey’s concept and components, and how to prepare and submit data, while also providing a networking opportunity for representatives from various sec-tors and research fields.

“Levels and areas of investment, workforce numbers and charac-teristics, physical infrastructure, and other inputs are important

parameters for gauging where a nation’s research and development effort stands,” said Dr Frans Van Den Boom, Executive Director, PPE.

“The purpose of this survey is to gather information that provides visi-bility, and allows Qatar’s research and development inputs to be monitored, evaluated, and benchmarked against other nations. It is designed to pro-duce comprehensive insight, which is why we are providing training, guid-ance, and clarity to Qatar’s research and development stakeholders, giv-ing them a framework through which they can contribute information, expe-rience, and expertise.

“We are delighted to be working with the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics, whose involvement in such a valuable exer-cise for research and development in Qatar is pivotal.”

QF R&D and Ministry hold workshop ahead of key research survey

Minister of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs H E Dr Issa bin Saad Al Jafali Al Nuaimi with the US Ambassador to Qatar, Dana Shell Smith, in Doha.

Minister meets US envoy

Philippine Ambassador to Qatar Wilfredo C Santos (fourth left) cuts a ceremonial cake to mark the opening of Pinoy Fiesta 2016 at the Lulu Hypermarket, D-Ring Road, in the presence of Mohamed Althaf (third right) Regional Director, Lulu Group, Qatar and other officials yesterday. Pic: Kammutty VP / The Peninsula

By organising the fiesta, Lulu endeavours to celebrate the culinary heritage and food habits of Philippines.

HOME06 THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER 2016

Indonesian President Joko Widodo receiving the credentials of Ahmed Jassim Al Hamar as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the State of Qatar to Indonesia. The Indonesian President wished the Ambassador success in his duties.

Qatar envoy in Indonesia

The Peninsula

DOHA: Joyalukkas Group has launched Think Pink 2016 under the theme #MomINeedYou. The campaign is aimed at motivating all women, especially mothers, to conduct self-examinations diligently and regularly for breast cancer.

While breast cancer deaths in the UAE have declined by almost 10%, and late detection of the dis-ease has gone down from 64% to 16%. There is a growing concern about the rise in incidences amongst women under 40 years of age.

#MomINeedYou comprises a month-long multimedia campaign featuring children of UAE residents and their personal messages encour-aging their mothers to conduct regular self-examinations. A viral video initiative will present what UAE mothers believe is the most important thing they do for their families’ vis-à-vis what their fam-ilies think should be their priority.

“When we took the ‘pink pledge’ in 2011,” says Sonia Alukkas (pic-tured), Director, Joyalukkas Group, “we put the strength of our entire network across 11 countries behind it and received an overwhelmingly positive response from over 10 mil-lion customers. Our commitment to raising awareness and prevent-ing breast-cancer related deaths remains strong today, perhaps made even stronger because of the support

of many health organizations and specialists in the UAE.”

The Think Pink campaign, supported by the Dubai Health Authority, was launched in October 2011 and has successfully increased awareness of the benefits of early detection against breast cancer with the cooperation of over 40 health organizations. To date, more than 40,000 participants have bene-fited from the campaign’s free breast screening facilities and community awareness activities.

“This year,” says Joy Alukkas, Chairman & MD, Joyalukkas Group,

“we wanted to drive home the mes-sage that early detection saves not only the lives of women, but also that of their children. We are all aware of how devastating late detection of breast cancer can be for the victims, but sometimes we forget that it is the children whose mothers are diagnosed with cancer that stand to lose the most. ‘Mom I Need You’ is a heartfelt plea to all women to take care of them so that no child is left behind to suffer the consequences.”

“As a mother,” says Jolly Joy, Director & Head of CSR, Joyalukkas Group, “my family is very important to me and the wellbeing of my chil-dren is my priority. Sometimes they need to remind me to slow down and take care of myself too. This is the thought behind this campaign. A mother will never refuse a sincere request from her child. In the same way, we hope every woman out there would not ignore our reminder and they would set aside a tiny bit of time to conduct a self-exam so they can be with their children for longer.”

Children are the focus of this campaign, and they have the opportunity to send their personal message to their moms and encour-age them to make an online pledge to conduct regular self-examina-tions via Facebook. In appreciation of the participants’ efforts, Joyaluk-kas is giving away a diamond set worth AED 2,500 to the best mes-sage posted.

Joyalukkas launches Think Pink 2016

The Peninsula

DOHA: The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) has recently organ-ized, in collaboration with Ministry of Education and Higher Education, Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) and Hamad Medical Cor-poration (HMC), two workshops on the new WHO growth charts among the independent school students between the ages of 5 and 19 years.

About 80 participants compris-ing male and female nurses from the independent schools and nursing

supervisors from PHCC partici-pated in the workshops.The aim of the workshops was to train the par-ticipants on how to use and apply the new WHO growth standards between the ages of 5-19 years.

The workshops also shed the light on malnutrition cases including weight gain or loss, identify students’ growth problems, establish a spe-cial database system on students’ growth pattern in addition to con-structing a control and monitoring system of students’ health conditions especially with regards to obesity and overweight and how to register

these data and maintain them in the students’ health records at the health clinic or at school.

Worth mentioning that the two workshops come as part of Qatar National Nutrition and Physical Activ-ity Action Plan (2011-2016) that aims to reduce the burden of obesity and non-communicable chronic diseases which are related to heart diseases, diabetes, high blood pressure among the citi-zens and residents alike. It should be noted that these growth charts have been applied since 2010 among the children from birth up to 5 years in healthy child clinic at PHCC centres.

QC aid for flood victims in Sudan

The Peninsula

DOHA: Qatar Charity has provided urgent aid to 35,000 victims of floods in Hameshkoreib, Kassala state of eastern Sudan. The floods cut off water pipelines, destroyed more than 2,000 houses, displaced people and caused shortage of food and shelters.

Kassala governor, local officials and victims thanked the Qatari phi-lanthropists for their aid.

The relief convoy provided 2,100 food baskets, 2,100 tarpaulins, 2,100 mattresses, 2,100 blankets as well as an integrated medical clinic equipped with laboratory and phar-macy. An environmental sanitation campaign was carried out including pesticide and cleaning activities and educational lectures.

The Director of Relief Manage-ment at QC, Mohammed bin Rashid

Al Kaabi, said that the urgent aid provided by Qatar Charity in Hameshkoreib was a brotherly and humanitarian gesture.

Al Kaabi said that the relief team would continue to provide food, shel-ter and health services to the affected people and would try to alleviate their physical and psychological

burdens. Adam Jamaa, the Gover-nor of Kassala State, commended the efforts made by Qatar in enhancing communication between the Arab nations and in providing aid and shelter.

The Minister of Urban Planning and Public Utilities, the Chairman of Higher Committee for Emergency in

Kassala State, Kamal Al Deen Jaa-far, also appreciated Qatar Charity efforts. It is worth mentioning that Hameshkoreib contains the larg-est Quran memorization institute in Sudan, which has more than 7,000 students from all over Sudan and neighbouring Arab and African countries.

Bedaya Summer Camp concludes The Peninsula

DOHA: The Bedaya Center for Entre-preneurship and Career Development (Bedaya Center), a joint initiative by Qatar Development Bank and Silatech, successfully concluded a summer camp organised for girls studying in high schools and universities. The stu-dents enjoyed the activities that took place in the first week in addition to

getting an opportunity to experience the work environment during the sec-ond week of the camp.

Reem Al-Sowaidi, General Man-ager of Bedaya Center, said: “We were keen on allocating a camp for girls during summer time. This was aimed at enabling them to identify the fundamentals of Qatari working environment prior to the comple-tion of the annual holiday season. We strongly believe that this will

prepare them to enter into the realm of practical life, and provide a fruit-ful job shadowing experience.”

“The camp gave all participat-ing girls an opportunity to see the different types of jobs and helped them to follow the staff closely while carrying out their work by accompa-nying them throughout the work day. They also gained expertise that will qualify them to become successful employees in the future,” she added.

Residents of eastern Sudan receiving aid packets from Qatar Charity of�cials.

Qatar Charity has implemented several projects in Kassala state of Sudan.

Workshop held on WHO growth chartsParticipants of the seminar.

HOME / MIDDLE EAST 07THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER 2016

Qatar’s Minister of Justice H E Dr Hassan bin Lahdan Al Mohannadi, along with other GCC ministers and officials, during their 28th annual meeting in Riyadh, yesterday. The agenda of the two-day meeting includes a discussion of the Qatari initiative to establish the Arab network for legal experts.

GCC Justice Ministers’ meeting in Riyadh

Reuters

TRIPOLI/ROME: More than 4,650 migrants were saved on Tuesday off the Libyan coast and 28 bodies recovered, bringing the total number of people rescued in the last 48 hours to nearly 11,000, Italy’s coast guard said yesterday.

More than 20 people were reported to have suffocated in the hold of one overloaded fishing boat, bringing the total death toll for Monday and Tuesday to 50.

Italian officials said three women saved on Monday had given birth over the past 24 hours on a coast guard vessel that was bringing some 1,000 refugees to Sicily. The women and their three children were all reported to be in good health.

The coast guard said the migrants on Tuesday were rescued from 33 boats, including 27 rubber dinghies and one wooden boat that was believed to have been carry-ing around 1,000 people.

A photographer working for AFP, who was aboard a ship chartered by a Spanish NGO to help with the res-cue missions, was quoted as saying that he had counted 22 bodies on that boat. He told Italian media he thought other corpses were still in the hold.

At its closest, Libya is some 290 km (180 miles) from the Italian island of Lampedusa and people smugglers have taken advantage of the chaos in the north African state to use it as their main staging post in the region for journeys to Europe. The coast guard said new rescue operations were underway yesterday, but far fewer than on the pre-vious two days. “Obviously the good weather has played an important role in explaining the large number of recent arrivals,” a coast guard spokesman said.

The latest surge in new arrivals means at least 142,000 migrants have reached Italy since the start of the year and around 3,100 have died making the perilous trip. An estimated 154,000 came to Italy in 2015 and 2,892 died.

The vast majority of refugees come from Africa, includ-ing Nigeria, Eritrea, Guinea, Gambia, Sudan, Ivory Coast and Somalia.

The migrants are brought to Italy, where EU and Ital-ian officials work together to identify and fingerprint the asylum seekers. European law says migrants must stay in the country where they first enter the bloc and Italy is increasingly struggling to deal with the grow-ing numbers.

As part of a deal to relieve pressure on Europe’s frontline states in the migration crisis, the European Commission last year devised a plan aimed at moving thousands of new arrivals away from Italy and Greece towards other EU members.

Under the scheme, up to 40,000 migrants could be relocated from Italy over two years, but so far only a few hundred have been flown out with many EU allies appar-ently reluctant to welcome in asylum seekers and refugees.

Reuters

DUBAI: Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) warned Saudi naval vessels taking part in military exercises in the Gulf yesterday not to get close to Ira-nian waters, in a sign of heightened tensions between the two regional rivals.

Saudi Arabia began naval war games including live fire exercises on Tuesday in the Gulf and Strait of Hor-muz, the world’s most important oil route.

Tehran and Riyadh are fighting several proxy wars in the Middle East, including in Syria and Yemen, but both have been cautious about direct military con-frontation. “The Revolutionary Guards naval forces believe this war game is mainly to create tension and destabilise the Persian Gulf,” the IRGC said in a state-ment published on Tasnim news agency.

About 17 million barrels per day, or about 30% of all seaborne-traded oil, passed through the Strait of Hormuz in 2013, according to the US Energy Informa-tion Administration.

The United States, the kingdom’s leading non-Arab ally, said in August and September that IRGC vessels “harassed” US warships several times in the Gulf in incidents that Washington described as “unsafe and unprofessional.”

Reuters

LONDON/DUBAI: Intensive care wards in Yemen’s hospitals are filled with emaciated children hooked up to monitors and drips - victims of food shortages that could get even worse due to a reorgani-sation of the central bank that is worrying importers.

With food ships finding it hard to get into Yemen’s ports due to a virtual blockade by the coalition that has backed the government during an 18-month civil war, over half the country’s 28 million people already do not have enough to eat, according to the United Nations.

Yemen’s exiled President,

Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, last month ordered the central bank’s head-quarters to be moved from the capital Sana’a, controlled by Houthi rebels in the north, to the southern port of Aden, which is held by the government. He also appointed a new governor, a member of his gov-ernment who has said the bank has no money.

Trade sources involved in importing food to the Arab penin-sula’s poorest country say this decision will leave them finan-cially exposed and make it harder to bring in supplies.

Diplomats and aid officials believe the crisis surrounding the central bank could adversely affect ordinary Yemenis.

“The politicisation of the

central bank and attempts by the parties in the conflict to use it as a tool to hurt one another ... threaten to push the poorest over the edge,” said Richard Stanforth, humani-tarian policy adviser with Oxfam.

“Everything is stacked against the people on the brink of starva-tion in Yemen.”

The effects of food short-ages can already be seen. At the children’s emergency unit at the Thawra hospital in the port of Hodaida, tiny patients with skin sagging over their bones writhe in beds. Hallways and waiting rooms are crowded with parents seeking help for their hungry and dying children.

Salem Issa, 6, rests his stick-thin limbs on a hospital bed as his

mother watches over him. “I have a sick child, I used to feed him bis-cuits, but he’s sick, he won’t eat,” she said.

A nurse said the ward began taking in around 10 to 20 cases in April, but now struggles with 120 patients per month.

The World Food Programme says half Yemen’s children under five are stunted, meaning they are too short for their age because of chronic malnutrition.

Importers were already strug-gling to buy food from abroad because $260m worth of their funds were frozen in Yemeni banks, while Western banks had cut credit lines. Since then, importers have guaranteed much of the risk of financing shipments themselves.

New famine fears loom in Yemen

11,000 migrants rescued in last 48 hours off Libya

Iran tells Saudi navy vessels to avoid its waters

MIDDLE EAST08 THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER 2016

Reuters

BEIRUT: Syria’s army will reduce air strikes and shelling on rebel-held eastern Aleppo on humanitar-ian grounds, it said yesterday, after mounting international criticism of it and Russia.

Last month, the army — backed by Shia militias from Lebanon and Iraq, and by Russian jets — launched a new offensive involving one of the five-year-old war’s heaviest bom-bardments in eastern Aleppo after a week-long ceasefire collapsed.

Air strikes and shelling on rebel-held eastern Aleppo, and insurgent shelling of the government-held west of the city, have killed hundreds of civilians since the offensive began on September 19, according to resi-dents and war monitors.

The ferocity of the bombardment,

which has included repeated air strikes on hospitals in rebel-held areas, has drawn intense criticism from aid agencies, with the UN’s rights chief on Tuesday warning it may amount to a war crime.

It has also created new friction between the United States, which backs some rebel groups, and Rus-sia, which supports President Bashar Al Assad and led to Washington breaking off talks with Moscow over renewing the ceasefire.

In a statement distributed by a Syrian military source, the army’s general command said its decision yesterday to reduce air strikes and shelling came after it had succeeded in cutting off all entry roads into Aleppo used by insurgents.

It said the decision had been taken to improve conditions for civil-ians, whom it said were being used as human shields, and to allow people who wanted to leave to get to safer areas. The conflict has killed hun-dreds of thousands of people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population. The rebel-held eastern zone of the city has been effectively

besieged by the army and its allies since mid-September, and about half of its approximately 275,000 inhab-itants may want to leave as food and fuel runs short, the UN said on Wednesday.

Since the offensive began, the army and its allies have made ter-ritorial gains in the northern part of Aleppo, capturing the Handarat refugee camp, and have also taken control of smaller areas in the south and in the city centre.

The Syrian military source also said the army had yesterday gained control of several factories in the industrial district of Al Oweija, south of Handarat camp.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor of the war, confirmed the government’s gains in that area and said that fierce battles were raging on other fronts in Aleppo, including around Bustan Pasha and Suleiman Al Halabi.

Meanwhile, analysis of satellite imagery of a deadly attack on an aid convoy in Syria last month showed that it was an air strike, a UN expert

said yesterday. At least 20 people were killed in the attack on the UN and Syrian Arab Red Crescent convoy at Urm al-Kubra near the northern city of Aleppo, which destroyed 18 of 31 lorries, a warehouse and clinic.

The United States blamed two Russian fighter jets that it said were in the skies above the area at the time of the incident. Moscow denies the charge and says the convoy caught fire.

Anatolia

CAIRO: Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood group has called for an international investigation into the killing of a senior group leader in a police raid.

Egyptian security forces shot dead Mohamed Kamal, a member of the Brotherhood’s Shura Council, the group’s highest decision-making body, and his aide during a police raid on their apartment south of Cairo late Monday.

“The Brotherhood calls for an international probe into liquidating symbols of national work and unarmed revolutionaries in cold blood and without trial,” Brotherhood spokesman Mohamed Montaser said in a statement.

Egyptian authorities claim Kamal, 61, and his aide were killed in a shootout during the raid.

The authorities accuse Kamal of being the founder of the Brotherhood’s armed wing and blame him for a spate of attacks on security forces, including last year’s assassination of prosecutor-general Hisham Barakat.

Egypt has been roiled by turmoil since the military deposed Mohamed Mursi, the coun-try’s first freely elected president, in a 2013 coup.

Ever since, Egyptian security forces have launched a harsh crackdown on the Brother-hood, killing hundreds and detaining thousands for allegedly inciting violence.

Israel hits Hamas posts

AFP

ANKARA: Iraq and Turkey summoned their respective ambassadors in an increasingly acrimonious dispute between the two neigh-bours ahead of a planned operation to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from jihadists.

Ankara called in the Iraqi ambassador while Baghdad said it had decided to sum-mon the Turkish envoy following bitter verbal exchanges, the two foreign ministries said.

The Turkish parliament at the weekend extended by one year a government mandate allowing its troops to deploy on Iraqi soil — as well as Syrian territory — a decision the Iraqi parliament then rejected, calling for the with-drawal of the Turkish troops.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also warned of possible sectarian consequences arising from the Mosul operation, prompt-ing the Iraqi foreign ministry to summon the Turkish ambassador over “provocative Turk-ish statements on the battle to liberate Mosul.”

Mosul, Iraq’s second city, was seized by the Islamic State (IS) group in 2014 after multiple Iraqi divisions collapsed when faced with the jihadist assault.

But Baghdad is now planning, with help from the US-led coalition against IS, a major operation to retake the city, and Ankara has

made clear it does not want to the left on the sidelines. Ankara has an undisclosed number of troops in the Bashiqa camp training Iraqi fighters who hope to take part in the fight to recapture Mosul.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said the troops were in no way there with the aim of being an “occupying force”. “Where was the Iraqi government when Daesh (IS) captured Mosul in a day... We have difficulty understanding this decision (of the Iraqi parliament),” he sniped.

The Turkish foreign ministry called the parliament’s decision “unacceptable”.

Erdogan suggested at the weekend any liberation of Mosul had to be conducted by those with ethnic and religious ties to the city, objecting to the use of Shia militiamen or anti-Ankara Kurdish forces.

Turkey is an overwhelmingly Sunni Mus-lim country with increasingly close ties to Sunni Muslim kingpin Saudi Arabia.

As he did with regard to Syria, Erdogan indicated he was particularly troubled by any use of fighters linked to the Kurdistan Work-ers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a 32-year insurgency inside Turkey and whose para-military headquarters are in northern Iraq.

“The game played by Shia militias and members of the terrorist organisation linked to the PKK — in complete contradiction of the region’s sectarian and ethnic structure,

its cultural sensitivities — must be disrupted,” he said.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s army said it clashed with Islamic State over the border in Syria, leaving one soldier and 23 militants dead, as Ankara stepped up an operation to clear insur-gents from the frontier region. Three other Turkish soldiers were wounded in the battle near the Syrian village of Ziyara over the past 24 hours, part of Ankara’s “Euphrates Shield” offensive, the military added yesterday.

A Syrian rebel commander taking part in the “Euphrates Shield” operation told Reuters that Islamic State had fought furiously dur-ing a battle for the village of Turkman Bareh, which was captured by rebels this week.

The commander said Islamic State had drafted in reinforcements to the area, not far from Dabiq, a village with symbolic importance to the militants since it is cited in the Koran as the scene of an apocalyp-tic battle.

“We expect resistance in the remain-ing villages,” the commander said. Turkey’s entry into Syria has raised concerns of a fur-ther escalation in an increasingly fraught regional conflict.

Ankara says its efforts to cleanse its border region of Islamic State militants are legitimate under international law as self-defence after months of rocket attacks and bombings in cit-ies along the boundary.

AFP

RABAT: Morocco will elect a par-liament tomorrow for the first time since an Islamist-led government took office following Arab Spring uprisings that toppled leaders across the region.

The Islamist Justice and Devel-opment Party (PJD) came to power in 2011 after swelling protests prompted concessions from King Mohammed VI, the scion of a monar-chy that has ruled the North African country for 350 years. A new consti-tution reduced some, though not all, of the king’s near-absolute powers as autocratic regimes fell in Tuni-sia, Egypt and Libya.

Prime Minister Abdelilah Ben-kirane’s PJD says a second term would allow it to continue its lim-ited economic and social reforms. Heading a coalition that includes

communists, liberals and conserva-tives, it retains considerable support among the urban middle classes that have largely abandoned the left in favour of Islamist parties.

But it has been weakened by ris-ing unemployment and what critics say is a failure to deal with corrup-tion. The party has faced a string of scandals within its ranks including a major drugs bust, a dodgy land-grab deal and the suspension of two vice presidents. It also faces a resurgent liberal opposition Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), formed in 2008 by a close adviser to the king.

The PAM pitches itself as the defender of women›s rights and lib-eral social mores, and aims to bring more women into parliament, where they hold just 67 out of 395 seats.

The PJD accuses its rival of being the party of the palace, part of a shadowy parallel state controlling political life. If it holds on to power, the PJD will remain an essential part

of Moroccan politics, “despite the feelings it rouses at the palace and among the globalised bourgeoisie,” said Pierre Vermeren, a historian of the Maghreb region.

A victorious PJD would try to take the opportunity to gain more space from the monarchy for joint decision-making, he said. But the decisive clout in Morocco remains in the hands of King Mohammed VI —regardless of who is in government.

“The king is de facto the exclusive decision maker on a series of long-term and strategic matters,” including foreign policy and big infrastructure projects, according to an analy-sis from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washing-ton-based think tank. At the same time the monarchy can present the successful inclusion of an Islamist party “as a sign of the ongoing proc-ess of democratisation following the adoption of the 2011 constitutional amendments,” it added.

Iraq-Turkey row over Mosul operation

Supporters of Morocco’s Party of Authenticity and Modernity (PAM) gather during a meeting in Kenitra, yesterday, ahead of the upcoming parliamentary election.

Morocco votes tomorrow after five years under Islamist rule

Syrian army says it will reduce Aleppo air strikesAFP & Anatolia

GAZA CITY: Israel’s military struck several Hamas positions in the Gaza Strip yesterday after a rocket launched from the Pales-tinian enclave hit a nearby Israeli city, with no casualties reported on either side. The rocket hit Sderot, part of which lies less than a kilometre northeast of the Gaza Strip, run by Islamist movement Hamas, the Israeli military said.

The area was closed off and bomb disposal teams were work-ing at the site, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. A small Salafist group — followers of an ultra-conservative brand of Sunni Islam who oppose Hamas — claimed responsibility for the attack. “Thanks to God, the so-called Sderot settlement was targeted by a homemade rocket,” the Ahfad Al Sahaba group said in a statement. The same group has claimed responsibility for other recent attacks but Israel holds Hamas responsible for all such rocket fire.

Shortly afterwards, Hamas security sources said Israeli tank fire struck a post run by its mili-tary wing, the Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades, east of Beit Hanoun near the border with Israel.

Three air strikes also targeted other bases in the Khan Yunis area in the south of the enclave, the sources said, while two oth-ers hit Hamas posts near Gaza City, a journalist reported. The Israeli military did not immedi-ately comment.

The Israeli army and Palestin-ian militants in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008 and there are frequent flare-ups along the border. Israel often responds to rocket fire from Gaza with air and tank strikes. In August, it carried out dozens of retaliatory strikes after a rocket hit Sderot, a far larger response than usual. Israeli media reported that attack was the first time downtown Sderot had been struck by a rocket from Gaza since the last war in 2014.

Israel navy intercepts

Gaza-bound aid ship

GAZA CITY: The Israeli navy has intercepted the Zaytouna-Oliva, a Gaza-bound aid ship, accord-ing to the initiative’s organizers.

Sondos Ferwana, a media spokeswoman for the Interna-tional Coalition for the Fourth Freedom Flotilla, said that “con-tact with the Zaytouna has been lost”. According to Ferwana, Israeli gunboats have surrounded the ship — from all directions — effectively stopping it from reaching the shores of the block-aded Gaza Strip.

Israeli daily The Jerusalem Post, however, quoted military sources as saying that the navy was preparing to tow the ship —which is carrying humanitarian aid and a number of activists — to the Israeli port of Ashdod.

The ferocity of the bombardment, which has included repeated air strikes on hospitals in rebel-held areas, has drawn intense criticism from aid agencies, with the UN rights chief warning it may amount to a war crime.

Brotherhood urges

probe into killing

American actress Lindsay Lohan with a Syrian family living in the Sultanbeyli district of Istanbul, Turkey, yesterday. Lohan gave presents to the children during her visit.

Putin and Erdogan discuss SyriaMOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan discussed over the phone yesterday the need to increase inter-national efforts to reduce the conflict in Syria, the Kremlin said.

“The need to increase the international community’s efforts to build a peaceful political process in (Syria), to create conditions for de-escala-tion of the situation and to address the acute humanitarian problems was emphasised,” the Kremlin said in a statement.

ASIA / AFRICA 09THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER 2016

PHNOM PENH: Cambo-dia’s opposition party yesterday welcomed a sign of cooling political tension after authorities refrained from arrest-ing its leader, Kem Sokha, on his emergence from months of being holed up in party headquarters.

The top leader of the main opposition Cambo-dian National Rescue Party is in self-exile to avoid arrest over a case he says was raked up for political reasons, while Sokha, had stayed in the headquarters since May 6, to avoid what he said were separate trumped-up charges.

Cambodia oppn

leader leaves HQ

after 5 months

Ethiopia opens new rail line

Congo urges UN to deport S Sudan rebelsReuters

KINSHASA: Authorities from the Democratic Republic of Congo have issued an ultimatum to the country’s UN peacekeeping mission to deport South Sudanese rebels rescued by UN forces, the mission (MONUSCO) said yesterday.

Opposition leader Riek Machar and more than 750 supporters fled into Congo in August following fierce fighting in the South Sudan capital of Juba.

“They were evacuated by MONUSCO from notheastern Congo to receive medical care and most are being held on three UN bases in east-ern Congo,” the mission said.

“There was an official document that was submitted to the Special Representative of the Secretary General setting an ultimatum, in a general manner, for the departure of these troops,” spokesman Felix Basse

said. “They must leave Congo -- eve-ryone knows that,” he added.

He did not specify when the ulti-matum expires, adding that talks were continuing with the Congolese and South Sudanese governments as well as regional organisations to find a solution.

However, no third country has yet stepped up to take them in, raising fears that the situation could threaten regional stability.

The influx of rebel fighters from volatile neighbours is a sensitive theme in Congo, where the flow of Hutu militiamen from neighbor-ing Rwanda after its 1994 genocide helped trigger years of regional con-flict in eastern Congo that killed millions.

Government spokesman Lambert

Mende said the government has decided that the South Sudanese must leave Congo but declined to provide additional details on the gov-ernment’s ultimatum.

The spokesman for Mach-ar’s rebel force, the SPLM-IO, said on Tuesday that it was prepared to receive those that had fled back in South Sudanese territory that it claims to control.

“We have hundreds of our mil-itary personnel on (our) side of the Congolese border. We want the UN to transport them to our controlled areas,” James Gatdet Dak said.

South Sudan’s government applauded Democratic Republic of Congo’s ultimatum.

“We would like to warmly wel-come and appreciate the government

of (Congo) for the wise decision to expel the remnants of Riek Machar from their soil,” deputy government spokesman Akol Paul Kordi said recently.

Hundreds have been killed in battles that broke out in the world’s youngest nation in July between troops loyal to Machar and President Salva Kiir, his long-time political foe.

More than 20,000 South Suda-nese refugees have crossed into Congo this year, according to the UN Refugee Agency.

The UN Refugee Agency is a pro-gramme mandated to protect and support refugees at the request of a government or the UN itself and assists in their voluntary repatria-tion, local integration or resettlement to a third country.

Kenya election

officials quit after

months of gripe

NAIROBI: All 10 members of Kenya’s election com-mission have resigned, the government said, after months of protests by the opposition which accused the body of bias that made it unfit to oversee elections due next August.

The resignations at the Independent Elec-toral and Boundaries Commission are the result of cross-party talks to address grievances voiced at weekly protests that began in April in which at least four people were killed, raising concerns of a return to election-related violence.

Germany to open Niger base

to support UN Mali missionReuters

YANGON: Campaigners are calling for Myanmar to review the con-victions of 20 Muslims jailed on terrorism charges after the Southeast Asian country repealed an author-itarian law under which they were convicted.

President Htin Kyaw had signed off on a bill abolishing the notorious Emergency Provisions Act of 1950, which was frequently used by pre-vious military governments to quash dissent, his office said.

But the repeal is not retro-active, and the convictions of 20 Myanmar Muslims serving lengthy prison terms under the law were not being reviewed, ruling party and

government spokesmen have told Reuters, despite activists’ concerns about the judicial process.

“It is incumbent upon the gov-ernment to review cases that involve defendants who possibly were wrongly convicted under this law,” said Matthew Smith, founder of cam-paign group Fortify Rights.

“To not do so raises some serious questions about the government’s commitment to ensuring the pris-ons are free from political prisoners.”

Aung San Suu Kyi, the democ-racy hero and Nobel laureate who assumed power in April after win-ning elections last year, has been criticized for not speaking up for Myanmar’s Muslim minority.

Communal violence in the west-ern Rakhine State displaced about 125,000, most from the Rohingya

Muslim group. Riots have broken out elsewhere in the Buddhist-major-ity country, while anti-Muslim hate speech has proliferated online.

Lawyers and family members told Reuters the 20, most hailing from central Myanmar, were travel-ling to a wedding in the eastern Shan State in August 2014 when they were detained by military intelligence officials, accused of plotting ter-rorist atrocities and charged under the 1950 law.

In January 2015, 19 men and women were sentenced to 14 years in prison each and a boy, who was 15 when he was arrested, got seven years, said lawyer Khin Moe Moe.

“Usually we’re not able to defend people in cases involving Military Security Affairs. They have a policy to never lose,” she said’

An official document was submitted to the Special Representative of the Secretary General setting an ultimatum for the departure of Sudanese rebels.

North Korean

embassy official

‘defects’ in Beijing

AFP

SEOUL: A ranking North Korean embassy official in Beijing has defected, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said yesterday, while a separate report suggested two embassy staff had sought asylum with the Japanese mission there.

If confirmed, it would mark the latest in a recent series of high-profile North Korean defec-tions that some observers see as a sign of growing instability within the leadership in Pyongyang.

Yonhap, quoting an anon-ymous source “familiar with Pyongyang affairs,” said the offi-cial had disappeared with his family in late September.

The source said the official was responsible for sourcing medical supplies for a clinic in Pyongyang that caters to North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and his family.

South Korea’s Unification Min-istry, which has a general policy of not commenting on defections, especially by senior officials, said it was unable to confirm the report.

In a separate report, the South Korean daily, JoongAng Ilbo, said two senior staffers at the North Korean embassy in Beijing had asked for asylum in Japan.

The newspaper cited an anon-ymous source as saying the two officials were not diplomats, but attached to a government office.

Japan’s top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga denied that any approach had been made to the Japanese mission.

“There’s no truth in the reports that North Korean asylum seekers contacted the Japanese embassy, and we’re not aware of any situation involving North Koreans hoping to defect to Japan,” Suga said.

Ouattara asks parliament to ‘turn page’ with new constitution

Watchdog to question

Zuma in Gupta probe

Myanmar asked to review terror case

Reuters

JOHANNESBURG: South Africa’s public protector will question Pres-ident Jacob Zuma this week over allegations he was influenced by the wealthy Gupta family in mak-ing government appointments, her office said yesterday.

The Gupta family became household names in South Africa after Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas dropped a political bombshell earlier this year when he said they offered to secure him his boss’s job.

Zuma says the Guptas are his friends but denies they have influ-enced political appointments.

Public Protector, Thuli Madon-sela, will meet with Zuma on

Thursday (today), her spokeswoman said.

“We will hear his version of events and he may have information for us that we will need to consider against our own findings,” Madon-sela told Business Day newspaper recently.

Presidency spokesman Bon-gani Majola confirmed the meeting would take place, Business Day said. Majola did not respond to a request for comment.

Zuma has come under increased criticism in recent months from opponents and members of his own party over a series of corrup-tion scandals.

The chairman of AngloGold Ashanti, Sipho Pityana, yesterday became the latest business leader to call for Zuma to resign, calling him the “sponsor in chief” of corruption.

Reuters

ABIDJAN: Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara called on par-liament yesterday to approve a new constitution that he says will draw a line under years of turmoil and war but which the opposition calls a backward step for democracy.

Ouattara promised during his re-election campaign last year to remove the constitution’s require-ment for presidential candidates to have parents who are both natural-born Ivorian citizens, a sore point in a country that has long attracted immi-grants from neighbouring countries.

Nationality was at the heart of a crisis that began with a 1999 coup and included a 2002-2003 civil war that split the West African nation in two for eight years.

The draft constitution submitted to parliament by Ouattara softens the clause, which had been used by his opponents to bar him from elections and was a symbol of exclusion, par-ticularly of northerners like him,

whose family ties often straddle borders.

“This is the occasion to defini-tively turn the page on the successive crises our country has known, to write new pages in our history by proposing a new social pact,” Ouat-tara said at the National Assembly.

“Today, the time has come for us to define together what kind of nation we want to build. The time has come to decide what we want to leave behind for our children.”

The Parliament has until Octo-ber 15 to approve the text in order to submit it to the public in a

referendum on oe before October 30.Other revisions include removing

a maximum age of 75 for presiden-tial candidates and making it easier to change the constitution in future.

Opposition politicians and some civil society groups have criticised the drafting process as lacking

consensus and transparency.Pascal Affi N’Guessan, the head

of Gbagbo’s FPI party, now the main opposition, criticised the proposed creation of the post of vice-presi-dent and a senate, a third of whose members would be appointed by the president, among other changes.

Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara speaks to present to the parliament the draft of a new constitution, in Abidjan, yesterday. RIGHT: Ivory Coast’s parliament members attend the speech of President Ouattara.

AFP

NIAMEY: Germany will build a mil-itary base in Niger to support the UN mission fighting jihadists in neigh-bouring Mali, Berlin’s ambassador to Niamey said yesterday.

Bernd von Munchow-Pohl also announced in a speech to mark the anniversary of Germany’s reuni-fication seen by a journalist that German Chancellor Angela Mer-kel would visit Niger in the next few days.

“With the establishment of a German military airbase in Niamey in support of the MINUSMA mission in Mali, which Niger has supported

since the beginning, a new chapter in our cooperation has begun,” he said, using the acronym for the UN mission in Mali.

“(Germany) is ready to engage more in the Sahel region (and) assume even more responsibility,” he said.

“Niger is a central partner for us in this respect (and) a key country in the fight against terrorism and illegal migration” from West Africa.

The US and France already operate bases in Niger as part of the battle against jihadists in the Sahel region -- principally in Libya and Mali. They have also deployed drones to Niamey and Agadez in the north to monitor jihadist movements.

A security guard stands guard during the inauguration of the new train line linking Addis Ababa to the Red Sea state of Djibouti, in Addis Ababa, yesterday.

VIEWS10 THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER 2016

Financial aid is what Afghanistan desperately needs. A war against Taliban doesn’t come cheap, especially when that war reduces the economy to ruins and the government remains crippled to even attempt a repair. The international community is responding

to this emergency with a decision to raise some $13bn to fund Afghanistan through 2020.

Representatives of more than 70 governments who met in Brussels offered their help and also agreed to try to revive the stalled peace process in Afghanistan to help restrain a resurgent Taliban 15 years after the Nato-led US forces tried to oust them. The European Union is leading all these efforts and the bloc has another noble objective of utmost importance behind the plan: stem the flow of Afghan migrants into Europe. The US Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also attended the talks.

The meeting on Afghanistan in Brussels on Tuesday comes at a critical time for Afghanistan. As countries get embroiled in

crises of varying urgency, both at home and abroad, like the Syrian war and migrant crisis in Europe, old conflicts get relegated to the background. Afghanistan has been struggling for attention. The pullout of US forces has led to a resurgence of Taliban, who have been making steady advances (the latest being their entry into the city of Kunduz a few days ago, though Afghan forces have recaptured the city square from their control) and despite all the training they received, Afghan forces have been unable to defeat their enemy. Any delay in international aid would have further strengthened the Taliban.

Federica Mogherini, who coordinates EU foreign policy, said there was an understanding “to work on a common basis for regional political support for the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan.” The EU realises that peace in Afghanistan is impossible without help from its neighbours and regional powers and it is planning to bring together the United States, China, India, and Pakistan for this purpose. But bringing together countries which have diverse and conflicting interests in Afghanistan will be a daunting task.

No peace efforts can succeed without cooperation from the Taliban, who now remain stubbornly unwilling to enter negotiations. Taliban will not give up guns as long as they retain control of their territory. But the international aid can help strengthen the Afghan government and its forces against the insurgents.

At the same time, President Ashraf Ghani must focus on reforms – economic, social and political – to improve governance and build confidence in his government at home and abroad.

Aiding Afghanistan

President Ashraf Ghani must focus on reforms to improve governance and build confidence in his government.

Quote of the day

Neither Turkey’s presence in Bashiqa nor its operation right now in Syrian territory are aimed at occupying or interfering with the domestic affairs of these countries.

Numan KurtulmusTurkey’s Deputy Prime Minister

E S TA B L I S H E D I N 1996

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFDR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK AL-SHAFI

[email protected]

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[email protected]

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EDITOR IAL

EDITORIAL TEL: 44557741 / 44557743 FAX: 44557746 / 44557758 P. O. BOX: 3488, DOHA, QATAR E-MAIL: [email protected] TEL: 44557837 / 780 FAX: 44557870 CLASSIFIED: 44557857 E-MAIL: [email protected] / HOME DELIVERY TEL: 44557809 /839 FAX: 44557819 E-MAIL: [email protected]

While the world has been inun-dated w it h photos and reports about

Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s brutal and unrelenting siege on Aleppo, reports over the last week about the murder and injuries of children are even more staggering, serving as fur-ther proof that the international community must pursue more aggressive means to respond to what the United Nations has long called war crimes and crimes against humanity.

On October 3, the United States announced it was “sus-pending its participation in bilateral channels with Russia,” a welcome step after Russia’s blatant bad faith efforts and com-plicity in Assad’s brutality. But much more is needed, in light of the dire circumstances in Aleppo. The United States should lead a serious effort to establish a mul-tinational no-fly zone for Aleppo.

According to Unicef, almost 100 children were killed and 223 children seriously wounded dur-ing a recent five-day period, as the Syrian and Russian govern-ments continued their onslaught of Aleppo. These are not children killed at the hands of a deranged killer or radical extremists, rather children murdered by their own government with complicity of a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Assad’s siege has also targeted hospitals, thus leaving the injured with only limited possibility of finding basic care. Unicef also reports that children who have low chances of survival are often left to die due to limited capacity and sup-plies. Assad’s breach of the recent ceasefire and the Syrian and Rus-sian bombing of a humanitarian convoy decimated any hopes of relief, even one that might come in a relatively small dose.

The international community can no longer allow this com-plete disregard for humanitarian law, human rights, and human

decency to continue unanswered. The United States must put teeth into UN Ambassador Samantha Power’s wordscalling the situa-tion in Aleppo “soul-shattering,” “barbarism” and “grotesque,” and Secretary of State John Kerry naming it “inexcusable.” Words are no longer sufficient to push back on Assad and Putin’s bru-tality, and to lend any credibility to an international system that is remiss in protecting innocent children.

A US-led effort to establish a no-fly zone for Aleppo would offer some relief to besieged pop-ulations, but equally important it would send a signal that the international community will not sit by idly as Assad and Rus-sian President Vladimir Putin flout international law. Allowing a dictator to mercilessly kill his own most vulnerable citizens and then block international efforts to provide basic relief shows the international community, and by extension international law, as feckless and sets a devastat-ing example for other dictators who would similarly brutalise their opponents and innocents.

And though it may still be far off in the future and despite the fact there is no political solu-tion in sight, it is worth thinking ahead: There will eventually be an end to this conflict and the process of rebuilding a nation is made even more difficult by the growing record of increasingly brutal abuses with impunity. A generation is being lost to the rav-ages of war.

The United States must show leadership on this issue, but it cannot advance this alone. It should speak to both the moral obligation and direct interests of both European and Arab nations to see the carnage in Aleppo addressed. These nations are on the front line of receiving ref-ugees fleeing the conflict, and

have a moral stake in seeing such bloodshed of children and other vulnerable people ended. The French and Spanish-led UN Secu-rity Council Resolution calling for an end to all flights over Aleppo is a positive sign, and offers a great starting point for reinvigorating a discussion about a no-fly zone, a conversation that has continued on and off over the past several years in Europe. Germany has more recently sent mixed signals about a no-fly zone, with Chan-cellor Angela Merkel opposing the idea and her foreign minis-ter supporting it. Merkel had been a supportive voice in earlier dis-cussions about a no-fly zone, and could be encouraged to reinvig-orate her leadership of Europe’s moral obligation for those suffer-ing at the hands of Assad’s brutal regime.

Former CIA Director and Commander of US Central Com-mand General David Petraeus has made clear that establishing a no-fly zone is doable in the current conditions. And credible actors on the ground, including White Helmet head Raed Al Saleh, have called on the international com-munity to establish such a no-fly zone.

This is naturally not a pana-cea to the entire Syrian conflict. Nor would this address all of

the forces that are committing civilian deaths in Aleppo. But if the international community is unwilling to act until it has a full or perfect solution to the entire conflict or every threat, it is giv-ing a green light to Assad and Putin to take any actions it sees fit until that solution is found. And ultimately giving these two leaders such leeway will make a political solution even more difficult to reach than it already is. Allowing Putin and Assad to gain the upper hand militarily, through a so-called counterrrorism campaign that includes opposition figures and innocent people, diminishes the likelihood that Russia and Syria will feel any need to come to the table in good faith and likewise significantly lessens the possi-bility that opposition actors will trust any international process led by actors who were unwill-ing to stand up to Assad and Putin on something as foundational as their aggression against innocent civilians.

The international community can no longer afford to be frozen in the face of the most egregious violations of humanitarian and human rights standards while it wades through the serious dif-ficulties of reaching a political settlement.

A no-fly zone offers a pos-sible path to ameliorating the massive suffering in Aleppo, to pushing back on blatantly ille-gal international action, and to mobilising more international action on Syria. It will require steady-handed leadership in Washington, European capitals and New York, driven by a pro-found moral obligation to protect vulnerable populations, a com-mitment to international law and human rights, and a pragmatic view on how this complicates the long-term resolution of this conflict.

US has to put teeth into its warnings to Assad & Putin

By Nicole Bibbins Sedaca The Washington Post

The international community can no longer allow this complete disregard for humanitarian law, human rights, and human decency to continue unanswered.

People inspect a damaged site after air strikes in Karam Houmid neighbourhood in Aleppo.

OPINION 11THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER 2016

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 mailed to the Editor-in-Chief.

Why delay doesn’t make sense in Mosul

By Michael Knights

Al Jazeera

At the end of January, Ger-many’s neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD) introduced a bill in Meck-lenburg-Western Pomerania’s

parliament to fine or throw in prison every foreigner who enters the state with-out the proper paperwork. The proposal was the latest in a long line of inflam-matory proposals the NPD has put forth since it gained seats in the state’s par-liament in 2006. Like every other NPD proposal, it was voted down.

In March 2016, I wrote a piece in Al Jazeera that asked the question: what would happen if the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) lost control of Mosul tomorrow? The piece was a reaction to conventional wisdom that Mosul could not be liberated in 2016, as publicly stated by US intelligence offi-cials at the time.

The Iraqi security forces (ISF) ulti-mately did advance quicker than most observers had anticipated. And with the ISF preparing to surround ISIL’s Iraqi cap-ital in the next four to six weeks, it has suddenly become fashionable to think about the “day after” in Mosul.

On September 27, The New York Times ran an op-ed by the dedicated Iraq-watcher Ramzy Mardini, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council, under the provocative title “Don’t Defeat ISIS, Yet”.

Mardini’s argument is that Iraqi soci-ety in the ISIL-held areas has been too atomised under “a complex patchwork of ethnic, tribal and religious militias” for post-conflict stabilisation to be possible without extensive preparation.

The author’s policy prescription is for US President Barack Obama “to postpone the military campaign … [and] devote his

remaining time in office to pressure the Abadi government to build a single mil-itary force that is tailored to liberate the rest of Nineveh”, the province led from Mosul. That would indicate no effort to liberate Mosul until at least the end of January 2017.

Then on September 29, the editorial board of The Washington Post weighed in with its leading editorial headline claiming: “The Obama administration is pushing Iraq into further chaos.”

The acceleration of the Mosul offen-sive was characterised as “not good news” because the Iraqi government was “rushing the operation forward even though it lacks a strategy to secure and govern the multiethnic city”.

In order to get the operation started before US presidential elections on November 8, the Post accused the White House of prodding Iraq to move faster than they should on Mosul.

The Post also noted the absence of “serious steps to resolve long-standing disputes with Sunni and Kurdish leaders over territory, revenue and the delega-tion of powers to local governments”. This meant that “the Mosul offensive is setting the stage for a potentially catastrophic Day After problem”.

Though prudence is understandable,

I would argue that calls for the US-led coalition to delay the Mosul offensive are somewhat impractical.

The US earned huge contempt in Iraq for withholding our air strikes to enforce political compromises in the summer of 2014 even as ISIL massed in Baghdad’s suburbs. We will not repeat this mis-take again. Many Iraqi actors also want to liberate Mosul soon, not least the Iraqi generals along the front who sense the enemy is collapsing. Other Iraqi forces will not wait if the coalition applies the brakes, notably the Iranian-backed elements of the Hashd al-Shaabi, the Popular Mobilisation Forces.

These are the predominately Shia militias who are only narrowly being restrained from taking part in the urban fighting in Mosul, the single most disas-trous potential development that could befall the Mosul operation and a key rea-son to press on.

The Washington Post’s critique that no grand bargain has yet been struck with the Kurds over disputed areas is an indication of pie-in-the-sky thinking: in Iraq the real deal-makers know that the confidence to make grand bargains had to be built up gradually through tactical deals struck at lower levels.

If we wait to liberate Mosul until a

grand bargain is struck on disputed hotspots such as Kirkuk and its oil, we will be fighting our way into a city full of young men who cannot remember a time before ISIL.

As we have learned so often over the past eight years, there may be a cost to potential courses of action but there can be a higher cost to inaction.

Probably the most constructive and practical comment on Mosul came from the former US military governor of Mosul, General David Petraeus, who wrote in The Washington Post on August 12, about his experiences running the newly occu-pied city in 2003-2004.

Petraeus noted that his mission was difficult but he did not equate complex-ity with hopelessness. Instead he broke the challenges down into a range of tasks relating to post-conflict security, recon-struction and representative governance.

The challenges of governing post-conflict Mosul are not simple and they may ultimately exceed the Iraqi govern-ment and Kurdistan Region’s capacity to cooperate, but they are not insurmount-able challenges.

Indeed there are more pre-existing mechanisms for governance (such as a legally elected provincial council and governor) and security (such as a set of

Iraqi military commands led by trusted US-backed commanders) than Petraeus could draw upon in 2003.

As important, Mosul’s Sunni Arab majority is not looking forward to its privileged existence being trampled by an unsettling new order, as was the case in 2003. Today’s traumatised Moslawis are close to being liberated from a 30-month nightmare under a medieval dictatorship.

As long as Shia militias and Kurdish Peshmerga stay out of the city - outcomes the coalition has genuinely worked hard to ensure - then Mosul’s Sunnis may give the security forces a chance.

In 2003-2004 Petraeus and the US 101st Airborne Division made great gains in stabilising Mosul and winning the trust of locals, only to see Shia police com-mandos and sectarian decision-making in Baghdad undo the progress. In 2008-2011 the ISF nearly stabilised Mosul with US help by putting local leaders in charge, but again a sectarian wind from Baghdad wiped away the gains.

If Washington and other coalition capitals should focus on any timeline, it should be on the necessity of stretching the coalition’s support to Iraq after Mosul. In other words, don’t try to postpone Mosul, but do stay engaged in stabilis-ing Mosul for longer.

A file picture shows a fighter of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant holding an ISIL flag and a weapon on a street in the city of Mosul.

Assange’s message gets lost in the bluster

By Margaret Sullivan

The Washington Post

There was a time when Julian Assange believed in redact-ing personal information that

could hurt individuals before his WikiLeaks organisation flooded the Internet with hacked or leaked documents.

There was a time when he even was willing to meet with representa-tives of the US government before he put out potentially damaging mate-rial from government files.

But these days Assange, holed

up for four years now in the Ecua-doran Embassy in London, fighting rape charges he denies, is more extreme. His original vision of “rad-ical transparency” has morphed into something reckless.

And that’s unfortunate. Because much of his message is an important one: Secrecy promotes corruption. People deserve to know what their governments are doing.

But with his abusive Twitter pres-ence and his weird behavior, he’s gone too far. Not long ago, WikiLeaks released vast troves of information that made public the medical records of individuals all around the world. Even the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has said publicly that a no-redaction pol-icy is dangerous.

And at the same time, Assange seems to be playing disinformation games that might affect the US pres-idential campaign. WikiLeaks had promised a big information dump on Tuesday morning that many thought would hurt Hillary Clinton’s pros-pects for the presidency.

But that never happened. It

was all a big tease that had Donald Trump’s supporters salivating, and then crushed.

Later in the day, Assange said by video link that the information would be forthcoming before the election, but he insisted that its purpose is not to hurt Clinton.

Has Assange gone around the bend? Journalist Glenn Greenwald, a strong advocate for transparency and civil liberties and co-founder of the Intercept, doesn’t see it that way.

“Any changes are of degree, not category or level,” Greenwald told me by phone Tuesday, and he said that, despite “vociferous disagreements,” he still considers himself a WikiLe-aks defender.

Greenwald, who helped bring Snowden’s NSA material to light, views what happened Tuesday as entirely in keeping with WikiLe-aks’ operating principle: “They don’t reveal what they have and they engage in disinformation to protect what they think is their mission.”

The mission is that information - unfiltered, unredacted, what Assange calls “pristine” - is inherently good.

And nothing should be allowed to taint it.

“WikiLeaks’ view that sunlight is a disinfectant is absolutely correct, but it’s a question of where to draw the line,” said Ben Wizner, direc-tor of the American Civil Liberties Union’s speech, privacy and technol-ogy project.

“There is a tension between transparency and privacy,” Wizner added. Good judgment is important in finding the right balance.

But if Assange recognises that, he doesn’t seem to care.

And that’s where he parts ways with even those who believe most fervently that governments hide too much, and that democracy can’t flourish in the dark.

How much of this is driven by politics?

Greenwald, for one, certainly doesn’t see Assange as opinion-free but thinks his politics may be misunderstood.

“I think he has goals and objec-tives,” Greenwald said. It’s not that he’s trying to destroy any particular candidate or promote another one,

but rather that his position is “in opposition to the power orthodoxy.”

If you don’t like the establish-ment, he pointed out, you’re not going to be in Clinton’s corner.

But he called it “overblown nonsense” to say that Assange is promoting a Trump presidency or Vladimir Putin’s agenda.

Although Greenwald thinks Assange and company sometimes act irresponsibly for no reason, he still sees WikiLeaks as “on balance a net force for good.”

A prime example was WikiLeaks’ release this past summer of the Dem-ocratic National Committee emails that gave citizens important insight into the deep flaws of that secretive organization.

Still, I can’t get past the harm that can be done when no reasoned thought is brought to bear.

Over the years, Assange has tried different models of carrying out his revolutionary vision. Where he’s ended up is a place most people - even those who most enthusiasti-cally believe in transparency - find hard to defend. I know I can’t.

The US earned huge contempt in Iraq for withholding our air strikes to enforce political compromises in the summer of 2014 even as ISIL massed in Baghdad’s suburbs. We will not repeat this mistake again.

Over the years, Assange has tried different models of carrying out his revolutionary vision. Where he’s ended up is a place most people - even those who most enthusiastically believe in transparency - find hard to defend.

SINGAPORE: A diver has died after being stung in the chest by a stingray at a Singapore aquarium, the aquarium’s owner said yesterday.

Philip Chan, 62, head diver at Under-water World Singapore (UWS), was preparing the animals for trans-fer to another aquarium on Tuesday when he was injured.

The 62-year-old diver was taken to hospital where he died later in the day.

“This was a tragic accident,” Haw Par Corpo-ration, which owns UWS, said in a statement.

Diver dies of

stingray attack

in Singapore

ASIA / PHILIPPINES12 THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER 2016

Duterte may face obstacles in cutting US reliance: Experts

Reuters

WASHINGTON: Philippine Pres-ident Rodrigo Duterte would face major obstacles to following through on his threat to reduce purchases of US weapons in favour of Russian and Chinese arms, including re-training a military deeply accustomed to work-ing with the US, experts said.

Duterte said in speeches in

Manila on Tuesday that the United States did not want to sell missiles and other weapons to the Philippines, but that Russia and China had told him they could provide them easily.

His comments were the latest in a near-daily barrage of hostility toward the US that has raised ques-tions about the long-standing alliance that is important to the US strategy of rebalancing its forces toward Asia and countering an assertive China.

Angered by US expressions of concern over his war on drugs, Duterte insulted President Barack Obama, threatened to call off joint military exercises with Washington and started to contrast the former colonial power with its geopolitical rivals Russia and China.

US officials have downplayed Duterte’s remarks, focusing instead on the decades-long alliance which they have sought to bolster in recent years in response to China’s moves

to enforce its claims over the South China Sea.

The US is the single largest pro-vider of arms to the Philippines, according to figures maintained by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), which tracks military expenditures globally.

The two countries have become more intertwined militarily in the last two years, holding more exercises and training, and making more US ship and aircraft visits under Pres-ident Barack Obama’s shift of US military forces and diplomatic efforts toward Asia in the face of China’s rise.

The Philippines is the largest recipient of US funds in the Asia-Pacific region under the Foreign Military Financing programme, which is provided by the United States to help countries purchase American-made weapons and equip-ment. It received $50m under FMF in the 2015 fiscal year.

That dependence on US weapons and systems means the Philippine military would have to re-tool its command-and-control structure if it wanted to switch to Chinese or Russian systems, said Richard Javad Heydarian, a professor at De La Salle University in Manila and a former advisor to the House of Representatives.

“There will be some problems with configuration,” Heydarian said.

“It takes years for the Philip-pines’ army to re-orient itself with new technology.”

The Philippines spent $3.9bn on its military in 2015, according to SIPRI data. That spending has risen nearly every year since 2010, when it stood at $2.4bn, the data show.

Though Russia in particular could offer high-quality weapons systems, the Philippines would have to take into account their interoperability with existing American stock, said

Lyle Goldstein, an expert on Chi-nese maritime issues at US Naval War College.

“You can’t just buy a radar from this country and a missile from that country,” Goldstein said.

“The weaponry has to work together.”

He noted that many Philippine officers were educated in the United States, linking the countries’ military cultures closely.

The military relationship between the United States and the Philippines goes well beyond arms sales, extending to training exercises and support for maintenance.

Russia and China do not have the same reputation of providing com-prehensive training and support, said Amy Searight, until earlier this year the US deputy assistant secretary of defense for the South and Southeast Asia.

“The US is well known for being

quite good at that full spectrum of support to build capabilities,” said Searight, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“It’s not just the weapons or the armaments or vehicles or equip-ment. It’s using those to build real capabilities.”

Most likely, Duterte’s aim is to signal to China that he is willing to tinker with existing US-Philippines military cooperation, even if on the margins, Heydarian said.

That might mean relocating the annual US-Philippines “Balika-tan” military exercises away from the South China Sea, or refusing to further expand American military access to Philippine bases, he said recently.

Duterte could also be trying to strengthen his position in order to get better prices on military equip-ment from the US, experts said.

AFP

HONG KONG: Hong Kong democracy campaigner Joshua Wong returned home yesterday after being deported from junta-run Thailand, where he was due at events commemorat-ing a massacre of student activists, as supporters blamed China for his detention.

The bespectacled Wong, 19, famed for his galvanising role in the city’s 2014 pro-democracy “umbrella movement”, was held upon arrival at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport.

“At around 1am Hong Kong time, I arrived in Bangkok airport, around 20 police force and immigration department came and held my pass-port immediately,” Wong said.

Wong added he was forced into a cell in Bangkok airport police sta-tion for around 12 hours, with Thai authorities refusing to let him con-tact family or lawyers.

“When I asked them what is the reason for detaining me, they just say that we will not give you any expla-nation, and you have been blacklisted already.”

Political party Demosisto, co-founded by Wong this year, said it “strongly condemns the Thai gov-ernment for unreasonably limiting Wong’s freedom and right to entry”.

Speculation swirled that Thai-land’s military government was acting under pressure from regional superpower China -- a key ally who has lavished investment and dip-lomatic support on a junta lacking international friends following its 2014 coup.

Thai student activist Netiwit Chotipatpaisal, who invited Wong to speak in Thailand, said police had told him of a “written letter from the Chinese government to the Thai gov-ernment concerning this person”.

An airport immigration official confirmed there had been an “order” to detain Wong but declined to say who issued it.

But junta spokesman Lietenant General Sansern Kaewkamnerd said: “There had been no instruction or order given, pertaining to Mr Wong.”

“Mr Wong had been active in resistance movements against other foreign governments, and that if such actions were taken within Thai-land, they could eventually affect

Thailand’s relations with other nations,” the spokesman added.

Netiwit later led a few dozen stu-dents wielding umbrellas -- in a nod to Wong’s movement in Hong Kong -- in a protest at a Bangkok campus, shouting “Joshua Wong has the right to be here”.

Wong has been a perennial thorn in Beijing’s side since emerging as an

unlikely leader of protests against Chinese political domination of the city.

Last year, he was similarly barred from entering Malaysia, where offi-cials sent him back to Hong Kong citing fears his planned talks would damage ties with Beijing.

The Thai military has also bus-ily suppressed its own student

pro-democracy protests since its 2014 power grab.

But it would not be the first time the kingdom’s junta has appeared to act under pressure from China.

“The Thai military government has kowtowed to China in the past, to Thailand’s own detriment,” said Thi-tinan Pongsudhirak, a politics expert at Chulalongkorn University.

HK activist deported from Thailand ‘at China’s request’

Vietnam slashes

jail term for

dissident blogger

HANOI: A Ho Chi Minh City court slashed the sentence of a convicted blogger whose family helped the communist regime during the Viet-nam War, his lawyer said yesterday, a rare reprieve for a dissident in the authoritarian country.

Nguyen Dinh Ngoc is one of scores of activists and bloggers behind bars in Vietnam, which has one of the worst press freedom rankings in the world.

The 50-year-old, known by his pen name Nguyen Ngoc Gia, had his sentence reduced from four years to three, his lawyer Ha Huy Son said.

3 dead as Typhoon Chaba hits S KoreaReuters

SEOUL: Typhoon Chaba battered southern parts of South Korea with violent wind and heavy rain yester-day, killing at least three people and flooding the country’s main port and industrial sites and disrupting pro-duction at some factories.

The storm hit the island of Jeju overnight and one person was reported missing amid widespread power outages and damage to homes

and other buildings. Twenty-six flights linking the holiday island to the mainland and to China were cancelled.

The port in the city of Busan was shut for a second day as Chaba whirled past and headed east towards Japan. An official at the country’s biggest port said it was expected to reopen later in the day.

Work at Hyundai Motor’s two factories in the city of Ulsan, which produce the Accent cars and Sante Fe sport utility vehicles, was sus-pended because of “inflow of

water”, a company spokeswoman said recently.

Operations were also suspended at some shipyards along the south coast, Yonhap news agency said.

Five people were killed in Busan and Ulsan, media reports said. The Ministry of Public Safety and Secu-rity put the death toll at three with three missing.

Chaba was expected to weaken and was likely to be a tropical storm by the time it reaches Japan, accord-ing to the Tropical Storm Risk tracker service.

Pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong shows a notice of expulsion offered by Thai immigration, after he arrived at Hong Kong Airport in Hong Kong, yesterday.

Coast guards try to rescue crew members of a stranded passenger ship in the aftermath of Typhoon Chaba in the southern city of Yeosu, yesterday.

Taiwan appoints pro-China politician as APEC envoyReuters

TAIPEI: Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen yesterday appointed a pro-China politician to represent her at a meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders next month, offering an olive branch to Beijing amid an impasse in relations.

Official communications between Taipei and Beijing have halted since Tsai, distrusted by China as the leader of a pro-independence party, took power in late May, and refused to stick to principle that Taiwan is part of China.

James Soong, leader of the People First Party, a splinter group from the China-friendly opposition Nationalists, is to represent Tsai at a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping set for mid-Novem-ber in Peru. “Soong’s rich academic background, experience and contacts will enable him to precisely convey to the international community the all-round status of our development,” the Presidential Office said in a statement.

Philippine government set to talk peace with fugitive Moro leaderAnatolia

ZAMBOANGA CITY: The Philippine president is expected to soon meet and hold talks with fugitive Moro leader Nur Misuari in the southern city of Davao to advance peace in the country’s Muslim south.

President Rodrigo Duterte has said that the Moro National Lib-eration Front (MNLF) founder -- wanted for a siege on a southern city in which around 200 people died and tens of thousands were displaced -- would be given safe

passage and has described him as one leader who maintains influ-ence and stature among all Moro rebels.

The government is in the proc-ess of consolidating all agreements with all Moro groups in an effort to finally achieve peace in the south.

Late Tuesday, however, he rejected a plan by Misuari to bring his own men to Davao for talks.

“That would not be possible anymore. First, he is facing charges and if at all he is allowed to go out, he cannot bring arms,” the Philip-pine Daily Inquirer quoted Duterte as saying in a speech.

“I don’t care if he will do that, that would not bother me, but the fact is the military and the police will not allow it, and I won’t run roughshod with them if I insist it my way.”

Duterte has instead offered to fetch the 77-year-old from Sulu and bring him to Davao for talks, but has not said when such a meeting will take place.

Misuari is wanted for staging a bloody siege in the majority Chris-tian city of Zamboanga in 2013 to protest a peace process by rival group the Moro Islamic Libera-tion Front (Milf).

You can’t just buy a radar from this country and a missile from that country. The weaponry has to work together: Expert.

PAKISTAN 13THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER 2016

Nations begin to raise $13bn in aid for Kabul

Reuters

BRUSSELS: Regional powers agreed to try to revive Afghanistan’s stalled peace process after almost 40 years of conflict, the EU’s foreign policy chief said yesterday, as governments began to raise some $13bn to fund the country through 2020.

With the government in Kabul facing a resurgent Taliban 15 years after US forces helped oust the mil-itants, more than 70 governments in Brussels promised further finan-cial support.

The European Union is lead-ing the effort, partly with the aim of slowing Afghan migrant flows into Europe. As well as funding, the EU focused on getting stalled peace negotiations back on track by bringing together the United States, China, India, and Pakistan at a din-ner on Tuesday night.

Federica Mogherini, who coor-dinates EU foreign policy, said there was an understanding “to work on a common basis for regional political

support for the peace and reconcili-ation process in Afghanistan.”

“Yesterday night we found com-mon ground to support this process with a regional perspective and the European Union will try to facilitate this,” Mogherini said.

There have been several attempts in recent years to broker a settlement between the West-ern-backed government in Kabul and the Taliban, but all have failed. Without the militants at the table, experts say it is hard to envisage a meaningful solution.

HAZARAS STAGE PROTESTThe EU and Afghanistan signed

a political agreement this month to make it easier to return Afghans whose asylum requests fail.

European governments, facing increasing opposition from voters to immigration at home, have pressed Afghanistan to accept more repa-triations, saying that many parts of the country, including the capital Kabul, are safe.

That policy has faced sharp crit-icism from aid groups and others who point to the widening Taliban insurgency across the country and the frequent suicide attacks that hit Kabul.

Several hundred members of Afghanistan’s mainly Shia Haz-ara minority, which has been targeted by Taliban and Islamic State militants, protested outside

the conference venue.“(President) Ashraf Ghani and his

government is here for European and other countries’ aid and assistance in return for accepting a deal to send us back to a war zone,” said Ali Reza, holding a banner with the words: “We Will Not Go Back”.

While the West wants more social, political and financial reforms from Afghanistan, EU migration aid is not linked to the Brussels conference, but was raised by European minis-ters including Hungary and Bulgaria.

“I hope that the newly signed repa-triation agreement with Afghanistan will be implemented in practice,” Ger-man Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters.

TALIBAN PEACE TALKS?Two people briefed on Mogherini’s

dinner, attended by US Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon among oth-ers, told Reuters that Chinese and Indian officials were willing to con-sider peace talks.

Pakistan continues to harbour Afghan Taliban, the United States says. India is unconvinced the mil-itants have changed, judging by the way they rule the 10 percent of Afghan territory they control, one official said. “There are several coun-tries that actually can help come together, and I urge Russia, China, Pakistan, India and Iran to think about the special role that they could

play in this region in order to make a major difference ... in reaching peace with the Taliban,” Kerry told the donor conference.

But there remain divisions about if, or when, to include Taliban mili-tants. Even if they were invited, it is unclear whether the movement would take part. Hope was briefly raised in 2015 when Taliban officials met the Afghan government in neighbouring Pakistan, but that process was short lived, and the Taliban insist that for-eign forces must leave Afghanistan before peace talks can begin. They are also on the offensive, and battlefield successes have exposed the defensive limits of Afghanistan’s Nato-trained armed forces.

Kerry calls on

Taliban to heed

peace deal with

Hekmatyar

Reuters

BRUSSELS: The Taliban should look at the example of a deal between the Afghan government and militant commander Gulbud-din Hekmatyar as a path to an “honourable” peace in Afghani-stan, US Secretary of State John Kerry said yesterday.

Kerry told an international conference in Brussels to raise funds for the Western-backed Afghan government that the Taliban could not win on the battlefield.

He pointed to a peace agree-ment announced last week with the Hezb-i-Islami militant group headed by Hekmatyar, “one of the country’s most notorious figures.”

“This a model for what might be possible ... I think the message from every person here would be to the Taliban, take note,” Kerry said.

“There is a path forward towards an honourable end to the conflict that the Taliban have waged — it is a conflict that can-not and will not be won on the battlefield. A political settlement negotiated with the Afghan gov-ernment is the only way to end the fighting, ensure lasting stabil-ity, and achieve a full drawdown ultimately of international mili-tary forces, which is their goal,” he said.

“Their goal of ridding Afghan-istan of external forces will not occur by ... the continued insur-gency, it will come though peace,” Kerry added.

Last week’s agreement requires Hekmatyar to cease violence, cut all ties with interna-tional militant groups, and accept the Afghan constitution, including its guarantee of rights for women and minorities.

“In return for keeping these commitments, Hekmatyar’s group will be able to emerge from the shadows to rejoin Afghan society,” Kerry said.

The agreement will grant Hekmatyar amnesty for past offences and the release of cer-tain Hezb-i-Islami prisoners. The Kabul government also agreed to press for the lifting of interna-tional sanctions on Hekmatyar.

The Brussels conference is expected to pledge more than $3bn a year of development assistance to the Afghan gov-ernment and Kerry said this was a sign that the world would stand by Afghanistan, where the United States and its allies have been battling the Taliban since 2001.

Afghan forces battle Taliban for third day in KunduzAP

KABUL: Afghan forces battled the Taliban in the northern city of Kunduz for the third straight day yesterday and American helicop-ters provided air support to troops on the ground in the wake of the multi-pronged attack on the city launched by insurgents this week.

The fighting in Kunduz, which fell briefly to the Taliban a year ago, came as Afghanistan’s leaders and officials from over 70 nations gath-ered in Brussels, seeking to drum up billions of dollars for the cash-strapped Kabul government as it battles the powerful Taliban insur-gency and rampant corruption.

Afghan Gen Qasim Jungalbagh, the provincial police chief, said

Taliban gunmen launched fresh attacks on Afghan forces in Kun-duz from the south and east early yesterday.

He said “clearance operations” have begun inside the city but that heavy clashes continue on the out-skirts. “Once again insurgents attacked our forces from two dif-ferent directions and heavy battles are taking place to the south and east of the city,” Jungalbagh said.

Since pushing into Kunduz on Monday and briefly hoisting their flag at a main intersection, the Taliban were pushed back but their fighters hunkered down in residential homes, slowing the coun-ter-offensive by the Afghans.

The US military was providing air support to Afghan forces fight-ing yesterday to secure a number of

areas in the city, US Army Brig Gen Charlie Cleveland said.

The US military spokesman described the fighting as “sporadic,” saying that since Tuesday night, “US forces have conducted two engage-ments from the air to defend friendly forces.” He did not provide further details.

Jungalbagh said 42 insurgents have been killed and more than 25 others wounded in the battles. Ear-lier, the Defence Ministry said five Afghan security personnel were killed and 13 others wounded.

Dr Hamid Alam, Kunduz provin-cial department director, said that more than 160 civilians “wounded as a result of clashes” have been admit-ted to the city’s public hospital in the past three days. He gave no further details.

An Afghan National Army commando aims his weapon amid ongoing fighting between Taliban militants and Afghan security forces in Kunduz, yesterday.

Afghanistan’s Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State John Kerry and other leaders pose for a family photo at a meeting on Afghanistan at the EU Headquarters in Brussels, yesterday.

EU leading peace effort to stem flow of Afghan migrants into Europe.

White House strikes down

anti-Pakistan petition

Internews

ISLAMABAD: The White House has shut down an ongoing petition that sought to designate Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism, saying that it is doing so on suspicion of fraud.

In a blurb captioned, ‘Closed Petition’, the White House announced that the “petition has been archived because it did not meet the signature requirements. It can no longer be signed.”

The petition had, until October 21, to gather 100,000 signatures to merit a response from the White House under the rules of the programme that initiated such petitions.

At closure, the petition had 625,723 signatures, but the White House said the page might have included fraudulent signatures. The petition was hosted on a White House web page called “We the People”, which is open to all and, therefore, does not enjoy the security that pro-tected government web pages do.

The petitioners, mostly US citi-zens of Indian origin, claimed that the designation was “important to

the people of United States of Amer-ica, India and many other countries which are continuously affected by Pakistan-sponsored terrorism”.

The decision to end the peti-tion hugely disappointed the Indian community in the United States, which was hoping to force the US administration to take a public posi-tion against Pakistan on this issue.

US officials, however, were also alarmed because the move had the potential of pitting citizens of Indian origin against those who came from Pakistan.

Last week, Pakistani-Americans too introduced a “We the People” petition, seeking to declare India a terrorist state for supporting militants in Balochistan, Fata and Karachi. The application is close to achieving the required 100,000 signatures.

White House officials, however, referred only to “technical issues with some of the signatures” while talking to various media outlets about why they decided to end the anti-Pakistan petition.

A separate legislation, moved in the US House of Representatives on September 20, also seeks to des-ignate Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism.

Army says India distracts from terror fightBloomberg

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s army said elevated tensions with India after violence in the Kashmir region is distracting the country from bat-tling terrorist groups inside its own borders during a crucial stage of its military campaign.

“There is hypocrisy that is visi-ble on one side: They keep on saying publicly that the region needs to be free of terrorism,” Asim Bajwa, the army’s top spokesman, said in an interview on Tuesday in the northern military garrison city of Rawalpindi. “We are at a very criti-cal stage of fighting this war of terror and eliminating terrorism from our soil forever, but they are escalating on the eastern border.”

Tensions between the nuclear-armed nations deteriorated after militants killed 19 Indian soldiers in the Kashmiri town of Uri last month. India said it retaliated last week with surgical strikes on what it called ter-rorist camps on Pakistan’s side of the so-called Line of Control, which divides the region.

Pakistan has denied involve-ment in the Uri attacks and has rebutted India’s assertion that its forces launched attacks on the

Pakistani-controlled side of the line, saying there had merely been a heavy exchange of fire at the bor-der. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sought to isolate Pakistan internationally without sparking fur-ther conflict, though there have been additional episodes of firing across the border in recent days.

‘Concluding Stages’“They are escalating the whole

environment between the two countries,” said Bajwa, a lieutenant general. “This doesn’t suit Paki-stan especially at this time. We are focused and moving towards our concluding stages.”

Relations between India and Pakistan are often tense, and the countries have fought three wars since the partition of British India in 1947. India has accused Pakistan of using terrorist groups to achieve its foreign-policy goals, while Pakistan has said normal relations between the countries can be restored only when Kashmir’s status is resolved.

Bajwa said Pakistan is pre-pared to respond to “conventional” and “unconventional” threats from India, despite both countries seek-ing in recent days to curb tensions.

Pakistan would safeguard its sovereignty, he said. “We’ll go to any extent to defend every inch of

our country.” India’s Ministry of External Affairs spokesman Vikas Swarup said by phone that India does not respond to comments from Pakistani army officials. Asked about comments suggesting India was escalating the conflict with Pakistan, Swarup referred to the September 29 statement on India’s attack made by India’s Director General of Mili-tary Operations, Ranbir Singh, who said the retaliation was based on “credible and specific” information and that the army did not have “any

plans for continuation of further operations.”

Despite the violence, Pakistan’s security situation has improved in recent years given an army push against insurgents after more than 100 students were massacred by the Pakistani Taliban at a military school in 2014 in the northern city of Peshawar.

About 449 people died in ter-rorist-related attacks last year, the fewest in 10 years, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal.

Members of Pakistan Muslim League protest in Karachi.

INDIA14 THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER 2016

Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe (left) shakes hands with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi at Hyderabad House in New Delhi yesterday. Wickremesinghe said regional grouping Saarc should work towards ensuring there is no cross-border terror in India or the South Asian region.

Wickremesinghe in New Delhi

NEW DELHI: As the demand for sharing evidence of the surgical strikes grew louder, Minister of State for Home Affairs Hansraj Gangaram Ahir yesterday said the footage has already been handed over to the Prime Minister’s Office by the Army.

The Minister said a call on making the video public rests with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The video footage has been handed over to the government by the Army,” Ahir told IANS on phone from Mumbai.

Asked if the government planned to share the video, he said: “No such decision has been taken yet, a call can only be taken by the Prime Minister.” “A nation has its own policies and one needs to practise restraint. People like Sanjay Nirupam and Arvind Kejriwal listen to Pakistan. The DGMO did the briefing and everyone in India believes it,” he said. Meanwhile, a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Secu-rity (CCS), chaired by the Prime Minister, was held during which the situation along the Line of Control was reviewed.

Officials from the Defence Ministry, meanwhile, said there were no discussions on releasing the video. The officials did not specify if a final stand on the issue has been taken. Former Army Chief Gen-eral JJ Singh (retd), meanwhile, said sharing a footage will not be in national interest.

Surgical strikes video given to PMO

Pakistan officer admits India carried surgical strikes

IANS

NEW DELHI: A senior Pakistan police officer has admitted that India indeed carried out surgical strikes in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and killed at least five soldiers and several militants in an operation that Islam-

abad denies happened.Ghulam Akbar, the Superintend-

ent of Police (Special Branch) of the Mirpur Range in Paksitani Kashmir, told CNN News18 TV channel that the strikes took place at many sectors on the early hours of September 29.

The news channel said yester-day that one of its journalists, Manoj Gupta, posed as Inspector General of Police Mushtaq while speaking to Akbar over telephone.

The channel aired excerpts of the conversation, quoting Akbar as say-ing that he personally knew about the strikes.

The Indian operation, he said, occurred at Samana in Bhimber, Haz-ira in Poonch, Dudhniyal in Neelam and Kayani in Hathian Bala, the bor-der sectors on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control (LoC).

Akbar said the Pakistan Army cordoned off all these areas imme-diately after the Indian incursion.

“Sir, that was night... you can say

roughly 3-4 hours... between 2 am and 4 or 5 am... The attack contin-ued between that time.

“There were attacks on sepa-rate places... Several places were attacked... They also met (with) resistance,” Akbar said.

The news channel said Akbar stated that the Pakistan Army was caught unawares by the Indian attack and lost five soldiers.

The channel said it had the names of the slain Pakistani soldiers but didn’t reveal them.

The Mirpur police officer also claimed that the bodies of an unknown number of terrorists were quickly removed by the Pakistani military and taken away in ambu-lances. He said the bodies many have been buried in villages.

Akbar also revealed that the Pakistani Army facilitates the move-ment of terrorists in forward areas and arranges for their crossing over to India, the channel said. “The army

brings them, sir... it is in their hands,” Akbar said.

He said he doesn’t know about the accurate number of terrorists killed because the Pakistan Army protects the jihadi infrastructure from even the local authorities and police.

The admission by the senior police officer came even as Paki-stan has repeatedly trashed Indian claims that its commandos crossed the LoC and destroyed seven terror launch pads and killed an unknown number of militants.

Pakistan even took a group of local and foreign journalists to some areas near the LoC to claim that the surgical strikes never happened.

The Indian Army carried out the operation to avenge the September 18 killing of 19 Indian soldiers in a terror attack on a military base in Jammu and Kashmir. India said the suicide attackers were from the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and infiltrated from Pakistan.

The operation occurred at Samana in Bhimber, Hazira in Poonch, Dudhniyal in Neelam and Kayani in Hathian Bala, the border sectors on the Pakistani side of LoC.

SC raps Govt on non-compliance of Food Act by drought-hit states IANS

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court yesterday slammed the Central gov-ernment for doing nothing to tell the states to comply with the top court’s directions to supply food grain to the poor in drought-affected states under the National Food Security Act.

A bench of Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice NV Ramana said: “We will discharge the Union of India (as respondents from the case) if it is not able to do anything.”

The apex court asked petitioner-organisation Swaraj Abhiyan to file an affidavit to flag five or six court directions issued on May 11 that were not complied with by the drought-hit states across the country for initia-tion of contempt proceedings.

During the course of hearing, the petitioner’s counsel Prashant Bhushan said the contempt proceed-ings should not only be against the states concerned but also the Centre.

Taking a dim view of the Cen-tre’s approach, Justice Lokur said: “The moment we ask you questions, it is construed as if we are attacking the government of India.”

As Additional Solicitor General

PS Narasimha sought to play down the ‘small issue’ of states not setting up ‘Food Commissions’ to monitor implementation of the act, Justice Lokur observed: “An Act of Parlia-ment is being violated with impunity. (It) is not a small issue.”

The bench asked Narasimha to explain what he had said in the affi-davit on the matter.

Section 16 (1) of the Food Security Act, 2013, says: “Every state govern-ment shall, by notification, constitute a state Food Commission for the pur-pose of monitoring and review of implementation of this Act.”

However, most state govern-ments, taking recourse to the act’s Section 18, have saddled other existing commissions with addi-tional responsibility of the Food Commissions. Section 18 provides for the designation of any commis-sion or body to function as the state Food Commission. Clearly exas-perated over non-compliance with the apex court orders and the Cen-tre informing the bench that it had sent a communication to the states on the matter, Justice Ramana said: “If this is the way the matter is going on, there is no need to hear it. We are wasting your time.”

“An Act passed by Parliament has

to be followed by the states. Let them say they don’t bother about the Act,” Justice Lokur said.

He asked Narasimha: “Is there a remedy under the Constitution if states don’t comply with the laws passed by Parliament?”

The Additional Solicitor Gen-eral pointed to Article 365 which says that when a state does not com-ply with the Centre’s orders issued in exercise of its powers under the Constitution, the President can hold that a situation has arisen wherein the government of the said state can-not be carried on in accordance with the constitutional provisions.

The Supreme Court’s strong observations came during the course of hearing on the compliance of sev-eral apex court directions dated May 11, given in the judgment on a public interest litigation by Swaraj Abhiyan.

The organisation had sought the court’s intervention for relief to the poor in drought-affected states, including Gujarat, Bihar and Har-yana. Justice Ramana said: “We are not getting any feel or visible change except that funds have been released. The mechanism has failed. The Acts of Parliament and direc-tions of the (top) court are not being implemented.”

Cabinet approves

amendments to

HIV & AIDS Bill

IANS

NEW DELHI: The Union Cabinet approved amendments to the HIV and AIDS (Prevention and Control) Bill 2014, extending the ambit of protections for HIV-positive peo-ple, prohibiting discrimination in jobs and education and improved healthcare access and privacy statutes. The cabinet meeting here was chaired by Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi.

Civil society groups from across the country, including peo-ple living with HIV, welcomed the approval of the amendments.

The provisions of the bill seek to address HIV-related dis-crimination, strengthen existing programmes by bringing in legal accountability and establish for-mal mechanisms for inquiring into complaints and redress-ing grievances. “The Bill, makes provision for appointment of an ombudsman by state governments to inquire into complaints made under the Act,” said Union Health Minister JP Nadda.

The proposed law aims to prevent and control the spread of HIV and AIDS, prohibits dis-crimination against affected persons, provides for informed consent and confidentiality with regards to their treatment, places obligations on establishments to safeguard rights of persons living with HIV arid create mechanisms for redressing complaints.

The bill mandates that “no person shall be compelled to dis-close his HIV status except with his informed consent, and if required by a court order”.

Welcoming the move, National Coalition of People Living with HIV President Manoj Pardesi said: “We have been demanding passage of this bill for the last 10 years. I hope the bill is passed in the upcoming Winter Session of the Parliament”.

Police detain bogus call centre workers over US tax scamAFP

MUMBAI: Police said yesterday they had detained and questioned more than 750 bogus call centre workers accused of stealing millions of dollars from American citizens by posing as United States tax officials.

Some 200 officers raided seven premises masquerading as call

centres in Mumbai in a massive oper-ation on Tuesday night following a tip-off, a senior police official said.

“A total of 772 employees were detained. Out of this 70 were for-mally arrested and the others were released but investigations against them are ongoing,” said Sukhada Narkar, a spokesperson for police in the Thane suburb of Mumbai.

Police allege that the accused would telephone Americans and

pretend to be officials from the Internal Revenue Service, the US government body responsible for collecting taxes.

They would tell the person at the end of the phone that they had defaulted on their tax payments and owed money.

After duping the victims into revealing their bank details they would then withdraw money from their accounts, Narkar said, adding

that the fraud had been going on for over a year.

She said police believe that the fraudsters were making around Rs10m ($150,000) a day. “We have booked them under various sections of Indian penal code and action will be taken against these bogus call centres and their employees,” she added.

Narkar said Indian police had not worked with US authorities on

the case, although there have been reports in American media about similar-sounding scams, which authorities have said might be oper-ated out of India.

US and other foreign firms, drawn by India’s large, educated and cheaper English-speaking work-force farmed out a wide range of jobs from answering bank client calls and answering train timetable inquiries to IT support.

A man fishes on the shores of the Arabian Sea in Mumbai yesterday.

Fishing in Mumbai shoresLeT operative gets life-term for plotting attacks in BengaluruIANS

BENGALURU: A sessions court sen-tenced convicted Kashmiri militant Bilal Ahmed Kota to life imprison-ment for plotting to carry out terror attacks in the city as a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) outfit operative nearly a decade ago.

“Bilal Ahmed Kota alias Imran Jalal has been sentenced to life imprisonment for hatching a criminal conspiracy to attack IT firms and vital installations in Bengaluru,” said ses-sions court Judge K M Hiremath here.

The court, which convicted Kota under the Unlawful Activities

(Prevention) Act, the Arms Act and the Indian Penal Code (IPC), said the mil-itant would also serve a 10-year jail term concurrently on another count.

On an Intelligence Bureau tip-off, the state anti-terrorism cell arrested Kota in the city on January 5, 2007 as the prime accused and recovered in a search operation an AK-47 assault rifle, 200 rounds of live ammuni-tion and five hand grenades from his rented house at Hosapete in Ballari district, about 330km from Ben-galuru. Five others accused in the terror case, including three of Paki-stani origin, still remain at large.

According to the chargesheet filed by the city crime branch in the case, Alqama alias Lala Khan, Khalid and

Azam Cheema were all from Paki-stan, while Basharat is a resident of Kashmir and Rajesh is a resident of Pune in Maharashtra. “Khan was the operational commander of LeT in India and Cheema, a native of Sialkot, was a former ISI agent in Pakistan,” said Special Public Prosecutor C A Ravindra.

Kota, who studied at a private polytechnic in the city over two dec-ades ago, opened a handicraft store at the world famous heritage site Hampi near Hosapete later. “Kota received arms training at one of the LeT jihadi camps at Muzzafarabad and oper-ated for some time from Islamabad in Pakistan during 1995-99,” recalled Ravindra.

INDIA 15THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER 2016

IANS

NEW DELHI: The central government constituted a high-level technical team to visit the Cauvery basin area to assess the ground reali-ties there.

Central Water Com-mission Chairman GS Jha heads the team, consti-tuted by the Ministry for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation.

The team was set up in pursuance to the October 4 Supreme Court order ask-ing the Cauvery Supervisory Committee to visit the river basin area in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu to assess the ground situation and report back to it by Octo-ber 17. The team members will converge at Bengaluru on October 7 for a prepara-tory meeting. It will submit its report to the Supreme Court on October 17.

The other member of the team include CWC member S. Masood Husain, Chief Engineer, Krishna and Godavari Basin Organi-sation, RK Gupta, Chief Secretary or his repre-sentative from the states of Tamil Nadu and Karna-taka and one chief engineer each from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Puducherry.

The bench of Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit on Tues-day directed constituting the supervisory committee headed by the CWC chair-man. The panel is expected to visit Hemavathi, Harangi, Krishna Raj Sagar and Kabini reservoirs in Kar-nataka and Mettur, lower Bhavani dam and Amaravati reservoirs in Tamil Nadu.

Govt sets up

team to assess

Cauvery

basin issue

Govt to speed up defence deals with US

Reuters

NEW DELHI: The government is trying to hasten a deal with the United States to buy Predator drone aircraft for military surveillance, one of several defence and nuclear projects the two sides are pursuing in the final months of the Obama administration.

India’s request for 22 Predator Guardian drones made in June is in an advanced stage of negotiations. The two sides hope to make enough progress so only administrative tasks remain by the time President Barack Obama leaves office, government officials in New Delhi said.

“It is progressing well. The aim is to complete the main process in the next few months,” said one of the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has built personal ties with President Barack Obama, whose signature for-eign policy move has been a strategic pivot to Asia from the Middle East.

The United States has dislodged Russia as the top arms supplier to India. New Delhi is also on the cusp of sealing a US nuclear reactor deal

worth billions of dollars.In return, Washington has given

New Delhi access to high-end mil-itary technology, such as a new system to launch planes off aircraft carriers, and leaned on other coun-tries to give India membership in the Missile Technology Control Regime, which cleared the way for the sale of the unarmed Predator.

The country’s military has also asked for the armed version of the Predator to help target suspected militant camps in Pakistan but US export control laws prohibit such a transfer. US Defence Secretary Ash-ton Carter, who visited New Delhi in April, is expected to make a final trip there towards the end of the year.

“The administration is eager to get as much done as is humanly possible. They believe the condi-tions and the personnel in both capitals are uniquely favorable at the moment, and are eager to con-solidate and institutionalise the progress,” said Jeff Smith, director of Asia Security Programs at the Amer-ican Foreign Policy Council.

Republican presidential candi-date Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy statements have raised questions in India and other Asian nations about a US pullback from Asia. Trump has said US allies, such as Japan and South Korea, should pay more towards their defence.

He told the New York Times in an interview in March he could with-draw US troops from bases in Japan, and raised the idea of letting Japan and South Korea develop their own nuclear arsenals.

“It is a serious concern, and may lead to Chinese pre-eminence in Asia far sooner than expected,” said Dhruva Jaishankar, a specialist on India-US ties at Brookings India.

But Trump adviser Walid Phares, an American scholar and expert on radicals and counter-terrorism, said India had no reason to worry.

The two sides hope to make enough progress to buy 22 Predator drone aircraft so only administrative tasks remain by the time US President Obama leaves office.

Delhi L-G holds meeting with Kejriwal on tackling diseasesIANS

NEW DELHI: Delhi Lt. Governor Najeeb Jung held a review meeting with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal (pictured), Health Minister Satyendar Jain and senior officers on tackling vector-borne diseases in the National Capital Territory.

Jung directed all Delhi govern-ment departments and the three municipal corporations in the national capital to work in tandem

to tackle diseases like dengue and chikungunya. The L-G asked Jain to review every week the steps taken to control the diseases. The meeting comes in the wake of Supreme Court orders on Tuesday that directed the Lt. Governor and the Chief Minister to join hands to contain the spread of chikungunya and dengue in the NCT.

“The L-G insisted that all con-cerned must continue to put in their best efforts and intensify them, espe-cially in the wake of recent rains. He insisted on making the public aware-ness campaign more robust since

breeding of mosquitoes has still not abated,” a statement from the L-G’s office said.

Jung’s directions came at a review meeting he held with all stakeholders in the matter. The commissioners of the East, North and South Municipal Corporations Jung that the garbage dumps in all municipal wards were cleaned twice every day.

The L-G had last week directed for cleaning of dumps twice a day. Jung had asked Northern Railway authorities to increase the frequency of ‘mosquito terminator’ trains, since

people living along the tracks were particularly vulnerable. “The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation officials were asked to ensure no water collects at construction sites of the DMRC and adequate fumigation to check breed-ing of mosquitoes,” it added.

Jain informed Jung that Delhi hospitals were well equipped to han-dle fever cases and currently 355 government-run fever clinics are functioning, including on Sundays.

He said the number of patients suffering from vector-borne diseases has decreased in hospitals.

Water is sprayed over coal to be used to generate electricity at a coal-fired power plant of Essar Power in Salaya village in Gujarat.

Coal-fired power plant

Railways working

to run trains

fully on solar

power: Minister

IANS

NEW DELHI: Union Minister Suresh Prabhu yesterday said Railways are working to run fully solar-powered trains in the future.

Prabhu said this after flagging-off the first freight train which featured a newly-developed guard van, which uses solar power to run fans and lights.

The minister further said that powering fans and lights in the newly-developed guards van through solar panel-produced power will help in reducing the carbon footprint of the railways.

According to the railways, the new guards van has been designed to address shortcomings in brake vans by providing facilities like lighting and fans, which comes as a relief for the guards of the goods trains.

“The facilities are powered by solar energy making the guard van environment-friendly. We care for our environment,” the Railway Minister tweeted.

Prabhu said the Railways is committed to providing “good working conditions” to its employees.

“Indian Railways committed to providing good working conditions for its employees and customers,” Prabhu tweeted.

“The new guard van has light, fans, charging point, bio-toilet.”

The newly-developed guard van also features GPRS (General Packet Radio Services) -aided monitoring system.

One dead & two

missing in Bengaluru

building collapseReuters

NEW DELHI/BENGALURU: At least one person died and two were missing after a five-storey building in Bengaluru collapsed yesterday, local officials said.

The building, which was still under construction, is sit-uated in the city’s Bellandur neighbourhood which is home to many upscale apartment blocks and offices of technol-ogy companies.

The area, which surrounds a lake of the same name, has seen a construction boom in recent years.

Officials said a security guard had been killed and three construction workers remained trapped. Rescuers with dogs were still at scene late yesterday.

Four people have been pulled out from under the debris.Adid Inamdar, a manager at a nearby hotel who reached

the scene minutes after the collapse said the team had pulled out one person whose leg was stuck inside the debris.

“We could only see the back of another person. We removed the concrete blocks above him and he was bleed-ing profusely. His head was severely damaged.” Police and rescue workers look for survivors in the rubble at the site of the collapsed building in Bengaluru yesterday.

Adarsh scam: High Court orders probe into ‘benami’ flatsIANS

MUMBAI: Expressing dissatisfaction with a Central Bureau of Investiga-tion report on its probe into ‘benami’ flats in the controversial Adarsh Soci-ety, the Bombay High Court yesterday directed the agency to probe it further.

After going through the CBI report, a division bench comprising Justice AS Oka and Justice AA Sayed said it was “not satisfied” and asked the agency to probe the matter further and file its report by December 16. Earlier on September 2, when CBI submitted its report, the court refused to accept it saying that the agency had not applied its mind with respect to several issues raised in a public interest litigation against the society. Activist Pravin

Wategaonkar, who had filed the PIL, alleged that senior bureaucrats and politicians owned ‘benami’ flats in the Adarsh Soceity as a ‘quid pro quo’ for clearing files of the society in viola-tion of norms.

He had even demanded that the Maharashtra government reveal the names of two top officials who had dealt with the Adarsh Society files at the relevant period and allegedly were allotted ‘benami’ flats.

Wategaonkar pointed out that during the initial stages of the probe, the CBI had arrested one of the promoters of the society in 2011, Kanhaiyalal Gidwani, and sought his custody as he held ‘benami’ flats for two politicians. Gidwani and his family owned a total of 10 flats in the society and the sources of funding or their real ownership was still unclear,

the PIL said. One of the prime accused in the scam, Gidwani died of a heart attack in November 2012.

In his PIL, Wategaonkar said the CBI has not named the two politicians owning two each of these ‘benami’ flats either in the chargesheet or any-where else during the probe.

He sought the court’s direction to the CBI to either produce any docu-ments or police reports, or carry out an independent probe on these miss-ing names. The court had directed the CBI to probe the matter of ‘benami’ flats further and submit a fresh report on this particular aspect by December 16. The Adarsh Cooperative Housing Society scam was first unearthed in November 2010 and involved grabbing of flats cheap in the upmarket Colaba area which were meant to house Kargil war heroes and war widows.

King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden (third right) and Queen Silvia of Sweden (fourth right) are welcomed as they arrive at Tegel airport in Berlin yesterday. The Royal couple of Sweden started their four-day visit to Germany.

Royal visit

EUROPE16 THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER 2016

Frenchman Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Scottish-born Fraser Stoddart and Dutch scientist Bernard won the prize in Chemistry.

Agencies

MOSCOW: Russia said yesterday it was suspending its nuclear and energy research agreement with the United States as a countermeasure against Washington for imposing sanctions on Russia over Ukraine.

The government also said it was terminating for the same reasons an agreement between its nuclear corpo-ration Rosatom and the US Department of Energy on feasibility studies into conversion of Russian research reac-tors to low enriched uranium.

On Monday, President Vladimir Putin (pictured) suspended a treaty with Washington on cleaning up weapons-grade plutonium, signalling he is willing to use nuclear disarma-ment as a new bargaining chip in

disputes with the United States over Ukraine and Syria.

“The regular renewal of sanctions against Russia, which include the suspension of Russian-American coop-eration in the field of nuclear energy demands the adoption of countermeas-ures against the US side,” the Russian

government said on its website.The agreement on co-opera-

tion in nuclear- and energy-related scientific research, signed in 2013, provided the legal framework neces-sary to expand work between US and Russian nuclear research laboratories and institutes in nuclear technology and nonproliferation, among others.

The uranium agreement, signed in 2010, provided for feasibility stud-ies into the conversion of six Russian research reactors from dangerous highly enriched uranium to more secure low enriched uranium.

Putin yesterday called for a boost of Russia’s defences to keep the nation “strong” as he opened the new parlia-ment session amid a fresh upsurge in tensions with the United States.

He addressed the State Duma after a crushing victory for ruling party United Russia at elections last

month that could help smooth the way for him to claim a fourth term as president in a vote set for 2018.

“We need to strengthen security and defence capability of our country to assert its position on the interna-tional stage,” Putin told deputies.

As the authorities tussle over a belt-tightening new budget, Putin said “spheres that directly influence people’s well-being” like health and education remain a priority.

But Putin’s speech was mostly focused on the need to keep Russia “strong”. “We must all unite, coordi-nate our efforts, obligations and rights to maintain Russia’s historical supreme right—to be strong,” Putin said.

For the first time the new parlia-ment—with United Russia controlling over 75 percent of the seats—includes lawmakers from Crimea peninsula that Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.

AP

STOCKHOLM: Three scientists won Nobel Prize in Chemistry yester-day for developing world’s smallest machines, 1,000 times thinner than a human hair with potential to revolu-tionise computer and energy systems.

Frenchman Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Scottish-born Fraser Stoddart and Dutch scientist Bernard “Ben” Fer-inga share the 8m kronor ($930,000) prize for the “design and synthesis of molecular machines,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

Machines at the molecular level have taken chemistry to a new dimen-sion and “will most likely be used in the development of things such as new materials, sensors and energy storage systems,” the academy said.

Practical applications are still far away — the academy said molecular

motors are at the same stage that elec-trical motors were in the first half of 19th century — but potential is huge.

Stoddart, 74, a chemistry pro-fessor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, has already devel-oped a molecule-based computer chip with 20 KB memory. Researchers believe chips so small may revolu-tionise computer technology the way silicon-based transistors once did.

Feringa, a professor of organic chemistry at University of Gronin-gen, the Netherlands, leads a research group that in 2011 built a “nanocar,” a minuscule vehicle with four molecu-lar motors as wheels.

The academy said the laureates’ work has inspired other research-ers to build increasingly advanced molecular machinery, including a robot that can grasp and connect amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Researchers are also hop-ing to develop a new kind of battery using this technology.

“I feel a little bit like the Wright brothers, who were flying 100 years ago for the first time and then people were saying ‘why do we need a flying machine?’” Feringa, 65, told reporters in Stockholm by phone. “And now we have a Boeing 747 and an Airbus. So that is a bit how I feel.”

Speaking to French TV channel itele, Sauvage, 71, called the news a memorable moment and a big surprise.

“I have won many prizes, but the Nobel Prize is something very special.

It’s the most prestigious prize, one most scientists don’t even dare to dream of in their wildest dreams,” he said.

Stoddart’s daughter Alison said he was “absolutely ecstatic” at the honour.

Molecular machines are mole-cules with controllable movements, which can perform a task when energy is added, the academy said.

It said Sauvage made the first

breakthrough in 1983 when he linked two ring-shaped molecules together to form a chain. Stoddart took the next step in 1991 by threading a molecu-lar ring onto a molecular axle, while Feringa was the first to develop a molecular motor in 1999 when he got a molecular rotor blade to spin contin-uously in the same direction.

The academy sa id the

“miniaturisation of machines” is just in its initial phase, with potentially “thrilling” developments ahead.

“The molecular motor is at the same stage as the electric motor was in the 1830s, when scientists displayed various spinning cranks and wheels, unaware that they would lead to electric trains, washing machines, fans and food proc-essors,” the academy said.

EU countries angry over Yahoo email scanning

Reuters

LONDON: Yahoo’s decision to scan clients’ email accounts at the behest of the US authorities has prompted questions in Europe as to whether EU citizens’ data had been compromised, and could help derail a new trans-Atlantic data sharing deal.

A section of media reported on Tuesday that Yahoo complied with a classified US government demand to search customers’ incoming emails for specific information provided by US intelligence officials.

Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner, the lead Euro-pean regulator on privacy issues for Yahoo, said yesterday it was making enquiries about the matter.

European politicians called on the European Commission, the European Union’s executive body, to look into the issue and lawyers said a legal challenge to the new EU-US data sharing deal agreed earlier this year was now more likely in Europe.

“Any form of mass surveillance infringing on the fundamental pri-vacy rights of EU citizens would be viewed as a matter of consid-erable concern,” the regulator in Dublin, where Yahoo’s European headquarters is based, said in a statement.

Yahoo said it was “a law abid-ing company, and complies with the laws of the United States”.

It declined to confirm whether it scanned users’ emails or to say whether Europeans’ emails were intercepted.

Johannes Kleis a spokesman with BEUC, an umbrella group for European consumer organisations, called on other EU data protection authorities to investigate Yahoo.

Fabio de Masi, a German mem-ber of the European Parliament with the leftist Die Linke party, said he had submitted a formal request to EU High Representa-tive for External Affairs Federica Mogherini asking her to seek clar-ification from US authorities about the treatment of EU data.

Ashley Winton, a data protec-tion and privacy lawyer with Paul Hastings, said the revelations that Yahoo had helped the authorities scan user emails could prompt cli-ents to ditch Yahoo.

Portugal’s ex-PM

Guterres poised

to be next UN

Secretary-General

Reuters

UNITED NATIONS: Former Por-tuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres is poised to be the next United Nations Secretary-Gen-eral and is expected to be formally recommended to the 193-member General Assembly for election by the Security Council today, diplo-mats said.

Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, president of the 15-mem-ber council for October, said he hoped the council would unani-mously recommend Guterres, who was also the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from June 2005 to December 2015.

Guterres will replace Ban Ki-moon of South Korea, who will step down at the end of 2016 after serving two terms. Guterres was prime minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002.

“Today after our sixth straw poll we have a clear favorite and his name is Antonio Guterres,” Churkin told reporters with his 14 council colleagues standing behind him on Wednesday.

“We wish Mr Guterres well in discharging his duties as the Secretary-General of the United Nations for the next five years,” Churkin said.

Reuters

ROME: Italian police said yesterday they had captured a fugitive Calabrian mafia boss hiding in a secret room in his own home five years after he escaped the clutches of the law dur-ing a hospital visit.

The 54-year-old boss, Antonio

Pelle, was on the Interior Ministry’s list of the country’s most dangerous fugitives. He faces a 20-year sentence for drug and arms smuggling, and for being a member of a mafia clan.

A police video of the arrest showed Pelle’s head peak out from the top of a large wardrobe in his home in Benestare, a small town on the toe of Italy’s geographical boot.

As he talks to the police, he

climbs down and is handcuffed.“Fifty of us searched the two-sto-

rey villa where Pelle had always lived (prior to becoming a fugitive), but it took a very attentive eye to discover his hiding place,” police commander Francesco Ratta said in comments broadcast on TV.

Pelle had been silently lying in a niche built behind the wardrobe dur-ing the police search until he was

discovered, police said. The room contained a mattress, a fan, some bottles of water and cash, the video showed.

First arrested and jailed in 2008, Pelle slipped away from captivity three years later when he was sent to hospital for urgent medical treatment.

Prosecutors said he was the act-ing head of the Pelle-Vottari crime family, of which six members were

murdered in Duisburg, Germany, in 2007 as part of an ongoing feud with a rival clan from the Calabrian town of San Luca.

Over the past two decades the Calabrian mafia, known as the ‘Ndrangheta, has become Italy’s most powerful and wealthy organised crime group thanks to its role as one of Europe’s biggest importers of South American cocaine, investigators say.

AP

NANTERRE, FRANCE: French far-right firebrand Jean-Marie Le Pen wants a court to force the party he founded to let him back in, after he was expelled for anti-Semitic com-ments that embarrassed his daughter Marine as she pursues the French presidency.

The 87-year-old Le Pen argued yesterday in a court west of Paris that his expulsion from the National Front last year violated party proce-dures. He has said it was a decision made by an “execution squad.”

“I expect victory,” Le Pen told reporters before at the trial, where he is hoping to be able to rejoin the party and its leadership — and

demanding €2m ($2.2m) for his suffering.

“That’s a minimum he is owed for the immense loss” to his morale and reputation, his lawyer, Frederic Joachim, told reporters.

The party expelled Le Pen for a series of remarks considered a lia-bility to the party’s image, including referring to Nazi gas chambers as a “detail” of World War II history. Le Pen contends his comments fall within domain of freedom of expression, though he has been convicted repeat-edly of racism and anti-Semitism.

The remarks drove a deep and lasting divide in his family and party. Marine Le Pen has distanced herself from her father’s extremist views since taking over the National Front in 2011. She is named in the lawsuit, but didn’t appear at yesterday’s trial.

Her more mainstream poli-ticking has turned her into one of France’s most popular politicians, and she’s campaigning for president in next year’s elections on an anti-immigration, anti-European Union platform.

Jean-Marie Le Pen won three earlier court battles against his former party over his initial suspen-sion and a proposed vote by party members on his status as honorary president-for-life. The party defin-itively expelled him in August 2015, the move he is now contesting in court. Asked if he was saddened to be taking his daughter to court Wednesday, he said, “I’m too old to be sad.” He said he could envision restoring ties with his daughter.

“Why not? Life always starts tomorrow,” Le Pen said.

Three win Nobel for tiniest ‘machines’

The Royal Academy of Sciences members present 2016 Nobel Chemistry Prize during a news conference by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden yesterday. The winners of the 2016 Nobel Chemistry Prize (FROM LEFT:) Jean-Pierre Sauvage, J Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L Feringa are displayed on a screen.

Russia suspends N-research pact with US

Italy captures mafia fugitive hiding in secret room

Le Pen protests expulsion from party in French court

EUROPE 17THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER 2016

Queen Mathilde of Belgium visits the exhibition “La trahison des images” (The Treachery of Images) on Belgian surrealist painter Rene Magritte (1898-1967) at the Centre Pompidou modern art museum, also known as Beaubourg, in Paris, France, yesterday.

Admiring art

German Chancellor Angela Merkel carries an apple basket as she poses with German ‘Apple and Flower Queens’ presenting collections of apples from a variety of German orchards ahead of a cabinet meeting at the Chancellery in Berlin, yesterday.

Fruit pageant

The British Prime Minister promised curbs on immigration and on generous welfare benefits. She vowed to improve workers’ rights and control exploitative capitalists.

AP

LONDON: UK Prime Minister Theresa May laid out the shape, if not the detail, of her vision for Britain yes-terday, saying government should play a bigger role in people’s lives than it has under some of her Conservative predecessors.

May told the Conservative Par-ty’s annual conference that she would govern from “the new centre ground of British politics, built on the values

of fairness and opportunity.”Her version of the centre ground

adopted ideas from both the left and the right. On one hand, May promised curbs on immigration and on gener-ous welfare benefits. On the other, she vowed to improve workers’ rights and control exploitative capitalists.

“A change has got to come, and we are going to deliver it,” May said.

In a striking change of tone from Cameron — who combined social liberalism with fiscal austerity and light-touch economic regulation — May attacked corporate bosses who dodge tax and raid employees’ pen-sion funds. She signaled she would take a more interventionist economic approach, saying “government can and should be a force for good.”

She said the government would open more selective schools to improve education, invest in large-scale infrastructure projects, fight racial discrimination and build “a country that works for everyone,” regardless of race, religion, parent-age or place of birth.

In a populist pitch to those who voted to leave the EU — includ-ing supporters of UK Independence Party — May criticised elites who find

patriotism “distasteful” and “concerns about immigration parochial.”

Some have accused the Conserv-atives of pandering to xenophobia with promises to impose new curbs on immigration and promote Brit-ish workers over foreign ones. Home Secretary Amber Rudd said that com-panies could be forced to disclose what percentage of their workforce was from other countries.

May repeated her intention to launch formal exit talks with the EU by the end of March. She said Britain would seek to retain a close relation-ship with the bloc, with continued free trade in goods and services. But she said the UK would not cede con-trol over immigration, a conflict with the EU’s principle of free movement that could prove a sticking point in negotiations.

Hundreds of thousands of Euro-pean workers have moved to Britain in the last decade — and hundreds of thousands of Britons also live in other EU countries.

May said the UK would not “retreat from the world” when it leaves the EU, instead becoming “a confident global Britain that doesn’t turn its back on globalisation but

ensures the benefits are shared by all.”May’s speech struck a stark con-

trast with Britain’s only other female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher,

an enthusiastic free-marketeer who once said “there is no such thing as society,” only individuals and families.

“There is more to life than

individualism and self-interest,” May said. She even praised taxes, saying “tax is the price we pay for living in a civilised society.”

Ukraine warns

citizens against

Russia travel

Reuters

KIEV: Ukraine warned its citi-zens yesterday against travelling to Russia, saying they were at risk following an increase in harass-ment and detentions of Ukrainians by Russian security services.

The move is further testimony to breakdown in relations between the one-time allies in wake of Rus-sia’s annexation of Crimea in early 2014.

“On the territory of the aggres-sor-state, the number of unjustified detentions of our citizens has increased,” the Ukrainian foreign ministry said in a statement.

“Russian law enforcement bodies treat Ukrainians roughly, using unacceptable methods of physical and psychological pres-sure, torture and other acts,” it said, warning citizens against travelling to or through Russian territory.

On Monday a Ukrainian jour-nalist was arrested by Russia’s FSB security service and accused of gathering secret information about Russian defence and secu-rity bodies — charges Ukrainian authorities said were trumped up.

The arrest has prompted Ukrainian authorities to consider introducing visa requirements for Russian citizens on the expecta-tion that Russia will tighten rules for Ukrainians wishing to travel to Russia. Travelling between Ukraine and Russia had already become more complicated since the introduction of tit-for-tat direct flight bans in October 2015.

AP

LONDON: Britain’s notorious under-cover reporter has been found guilty of trying to pervert course of justice in a development that may put brakes on a prominent journalistic career.

Reporter Mazher Mahmood, known as a master of journalistic “sting” operations often based on posing as a Middle Eastern tycoon, was convicted at the Old Bailey courthouse yesterday along with his driver Alan Smith.

The 53-year-old reporter was found guilty of tampering with evi-dence in the collapsed drug trial of pop star Tulisa Contostavlos and now faces possible jail time.

The case against her was dis-missed in 2014. It had been based

on an elaborate sting operation Mahmood conducted for the Sun newspaper.

In the sting, Mahmood posed as a successful film producer and dis-cussed a movie role for the singer in which she would share screen time with A-list star Leonardo DiCaprio.

Prosecutors said he and Smith manipulated evidence during the trial. Contostavlos said after the charges against her were dismissed that she had been the victim of “a horrific and disgusting entrapment.”

Detective Constable Jim Mor-rison said case is “a reminder that perverting course of justice is a very serious offence that goes to heart of our justice system.”

He also faces a number of civil cases that have been filed against him. Mahmood and Smith are set to be sentenced on October 21.

AFP

LONDON: Nigel Farage ruled out returning to lead Britain’s anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP) yester-day after his successor unexpectedly stepped down just 18 days into the job.

Diane James’s resignation plunges Britain’s third biggest party into fur-ther disarray as it grapples with in-fighting and an existential crisis following the vote to leave the EU.

Farage said he remains techni-cally in charge of UKIP as the official

papers recognising James’s election on September 16 had not yet been processed by Electoral Commission.

But Faragesaid he had no inten-tion of returning to the post he held for most of the past decade.

“It is time for somebody else to do the job,” Farage told Sky News, adding that he would not return to perma-nently lead UKIP, “not for $10m”.

He quit the leadership follow-ing the June 23 vote to leave the EU, saying his life’s ambition had been achieved, but his departure robbed UKIP of its one high-profile figure.

The election of the little-known

James, a 56-year-old member of the European Parliament, and the fulfil-ment of the party’s primary objective led some to question its future.

UKIP won 12.6 percent of the vote in the 2015 election, making it the third largest in terms of votes cast, but it only has one member of parliament (MP) under Britain’s first-past-the-post system.

Party chairman Paul Oakden said James’s departure was “unfortunate” but said UKIP’s National Executive Committee would meet on October 17 to begin choosing her successor.

“We are not a party dominated

by individuals. We have the ability to move on, to move forward,” he said.

“I would be surprised if we did not have a new leader in place by the end of November.”

James announced her resigna-tion for “personal and professional reasons” late Tuesday, issuing a statement that laid bare the tensions within the party.

“It has become clear that I do not have sufficient authority, nor the full support of all my MEP colleagues and party officers to implement changes I believe necessary and upon which I based my campaign,” she said.

Two Brussels

cops stabbed in

suspected

‘terrorist attack’

AP

BRUSSELS: A knife-wielding man stabbed two police officers in Brussels yesterday in an incident that may be terror-related, Belgian prosecutors said.

It was the latest attack on law enforcement officials in a nation that has been on high alert since 32 people were killed in suicide bombing attacks in the Brussels airport and subway on March 22.

According to state-run broadcaster RTBF, the assail-ant yesterday stabbed one officer in the neck and the other in the abdomen in the city’s Schaerbeek neighbourhood, then fled.

He was stopped by a second group of police. He broke nose of one officer, who shot the man in the leg, after which he was detained, RTBF said.

Federal Prosecutor’s Office spokesman Eric Van Der Sypt said “we have reason to believe it is terror-related,” but declined to give details of what had occurred or explain why prosecutors think the attack was linked to terrorism.

“The injuries to the police officers were not life threaten-ing,” said Van Der Sypt.

In August, a machete-wield-ing man shouting “Allahu Akbar!” attacked and seriously wounded two policewomen in the southern Belgian city of Mons. The assailant was shot dead. The attack was later claimed by the IS extremist group, which also claimed the Brussels suicide bombings.

Reuters

PARIS: A Paris swimming pool yes-terday inaugurated a new heating system using warmth recovered from sewers in a bid to cut costs and reduce carbon emissions.

The Aspirant Dunand pool in Paris’ 14th arrondissement is the latest in a series of French public buildings to use heat pumps to recy-cle residual warmth from showers, dishwashers and washing machines in its sewage pipes.

French waste and water group Suez, which has a 30-year con-tract to run the installation, already operates a dozen such heating sys-tems around the country, including in pools in Paris suburb Levallois and in Annemasse, and in schools, apartment blocks and administrative

buildings. It is building three to four new installations per year.

“The potential is enormous. Wherever there are sewers, we can recover heat,” said Bertrand Camus, head of Suez water in France.

France has some 400,000km of sewage networks, where water tem-perature typically ranges between 13 degrees Celsius in winter and 20 degrees Celsius in summer.

With a stainless steel lining on the inside of sewage pipes, Suez recuper-ates 4 to 8 degrees of that warmth and boosts it to about 50 degrees for use in space heaters or as hot water. The technology is similar to low-temper-ature geothermal energy.

Suez says the cost ranges from €200,000 for a pool to €1m ($1.12m) for an apartment block, and that such projects pay for themselves over eight to nine years without subsidies and at normal energy prices.

May vows centrist govt after EU exit ‘revolution’

Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May shakes hands with delegates as she leaves the stage after giving her speech on the final day of the annual Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, yesterday.

UK jury convicts reporter

for tampering evidence

Farage rules out UKIP return after successor quits

Sewer warmth to heat Paris swimming pool

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (second left) meets with Hollywood actors Lukas Haas (second right) and Jamie Foxx (right) at Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, yesterday.

In company of stars

AMERICAS18 THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER 2016

Both Democrats and Republicans appeared willing to concede that the only debate between the vice-presidential candidates was unlikely to alter the trajectory of the race.

AP

WASHINGTON: Republican Mike Pence won bipartisan plaudits for a calm and collected performance in the vice-presidential debate. But Democrat Tim Kaine was claiming mission accomplished for forcing his opponent to confront —or not — Don-ald Trump’s long list of provocative remarks.

Pressed by Kaine to defend his running mate throughout the 90-minute debate, Pence mostly dodged, sidestepped or let the moment pass by. He vouched for the billionaire’s tax history, but was less vocal when

challenged about Trump’s tempera-ment or his inflammatory words about women and President Barack Obama.

“I can’t imagine how Governor Pence can defend the insult-driven, me-first style of Donald Trump,” said Kaine, the Virginia senator and Hil-lary Clinton’s No. 2.

Still, even Clinton’s team wasn’t claiming that Kaine had come out on top. Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta said only that Kaine had suc-ceeded in his “strategic mission” to challenge Pence to defend his con-troversial running mate.

“, Pence was smooth, he seemed sort of likable, but he didn’t get the job done,” Podesta said yesterday on MSNBC. Trump disagreed, saying, “I watched. He won.”

And Pence, campaigning in Vir-ginia, said “some people” thought he had won but that “from where I sat, Donald Trump won the debate.”

Both sides appeared willing to concede that the only debate between the vice-presidential candidates was unlikely to alter the trajectory of the race. After all, this year’s rollicking presidential campaign has been all about the passionate emotions — positive and negative — that both candidates of the top of the ticket stir up for many American voters.

Yet for Republicans worried their voters won’t show up at the polls,

Pence’s steady performance could help assuage concerns that this year’s Republican ticket has veered away from the party’s core beliefs.

Like Pence, Kaine also found himself in the role of defender. He rebutted Pence’s attacks on Clin-ton’s family foundation, her emails and her struggles persuading voters that she’s trustworthy. Kaine said he and his wife trust Clinton “with the most important thing in our life” — their son, a Marine who would serve under Clinton if she wins.

Yet for the most part, Kaine was determined to make the show-down a referendum on Trump’s character. Typically relaxed and easygoing, Kaine adopted a pugilis-tic approach as he slammed Trump and condemned his praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Pence frequently avoided tak-ing the bait — a shrewd move for a conservative who could have eyes on Oval Office himself if Trump loses in November. Instead, he sought to defuse the line of attack by arguing pre-emptively that it was the Dem-ocrats — not Trump — waging an insult-filled campaign.

He didn’t dispute reports that the businessman might not have paid any federal taxes for years as a result of suffering more than $900m in losses in 1995.

AFP

WASHINGTON: Bill Clinton created fresh problems for his presidential candidate wife when he criticised the way US health care works under Barack Obama’s reforms as “crazy,” prompting Republican Donald

Trump to seize on the misstep. The former president has a rep-

utation for speaking in a more freewheeling style than Democrat Hillary Clinton does on the campaign trail, and his remarks in Flint created a hiccup for his wife.

Bill Clinton had sought to explain shortcomings of complex US system of health care coverage under both

public and private insurance.Obama’s reforms have enabled

millions of people to obtain subsidised health coverage, including millions of previously uninsured Americans.

“The people that are getting killed in this deal are small-business peo-ple and individuals who make just a little too much to get any of these sub-sidies,” Clinton told a crowd in Flint.

Chicago City

Council approves

Emanuel’s plan

for police probes

AP

CHICAGO: The Chicago City Council yesterday approved Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to create a new agency to investigate police shootings and misconduct alle-gations even as critics say it’s not strong enough to keep a close eye on a police force with a reputation for brutality.

After months of community hearings, the new agency will replace Independent Police Review Authority, which was discredited by long delays in completing investiga-tions that nearly always sided with officers. The council vote was 39-8.

“This is far from perfect but it shows we want to move forward,” said Alderman Ariel Reboyras. “It is a great step in the right direction.”

Leslie Hairston, who voted against the ordinance, said it doesn’t go far enough and leaves the mayor, his office and those who work for him with too much authority to hire and fire people for new agency. She added that “noth-ing in this ordinance provides any more transparency than IPRA.”

Emanuel has been under pres-sure to strengthen oversight of the police since the release of a video in December last year showing the 2014 death of Laquan McDonald, a black teenager shot 16 times by a white police officer. The video sparked repeated protests and calls for Emanuel to resign. The officer was eventually charged with murder.

Reuters

HAVANA/BOGOTA: Colombia’s gov-ernment and Marxist guerrillas went back to the drawing board after a peace deal they painstakingly nego-tiated over four years was rejected in a shock referendum result.

In a vote that confounded opinion polls and was a disaster for President Juan Manuel Santos, Colombians nar-rowly rebuffed the pact on Sunday as too lenient on the rebels.

Lead negotiators Humberto de la Calle and Sergio Jaramillo were back at a Havana convention center meeting counterparts from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to see what the rebels are willing to do, the govern-ment said.

The Cuban capital had been the venue since 2012 for talks between the two sides that reached an accord to end Colombia’s 52-year war.

All sides, including “No” voters, who carried the day on Sunday by less than half a percentage point, say they want an end to war, and the two parties have kept their ceasefire.

But there is vehement opposition — led by hardline former President Alvaro Uribe — to major planks of the previous deal, including guaran-teed congressional seats for the FARC and immunity from traditional jail sentences for leaders.

A renegotiation seems to depend on whether the FARC would accept tougher conditions, maybe com-bined with a softening of Uribe’s demands. After years of refusing to meet negotiators, Uribe has now said

he is willing to seek a joint solution.Santos and Uribe will meet, the

president’s office said.Santos early yesterday decreed

that a government ceasefire put in place in August would be extended until the end of the month in a bid to allow time to salvage the deal. The original ceasefire was nulli-fied when the peace accord was rejected in the plebiscite. He did not say if the ceasefire would be extended further.

“I hope we can advance with the accord and with the dialogue so we can solidify the corrections and the agreements that will allow us to move forward on a solution to this conflict,” Santos said in a statement.

The statement appeared to worry rebels, who questioned what would happen after October 31.

“From then on, does the war continue?” FARC leader Timochenko tweeted, while rebel commander Pastor Alape advised rebel fight-ers to seek safe positions to avoid provocations.

Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin said the deci-sion whether to officially renegotiate the accord lies with the FARC.

The rebels said they would remain “faithful” to the negotiated accord, and Twitter messages from FARC leadership appeared to sug-gest reluctance to change the terms at this stage.

“The thing is, just as the gov-ernment has its deal breakers, so does the FARC, so we have to see if it is willing to reopen the accord,” Holguin told reporters. “There was no Plan B, we believed the nation wanted peace.”

AFP

RIO DE JANEIRO: Former Brazil-ian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva downplayed the defeat of his Workers’ Party in recent municipal elections, calling the trouncing part of the “beauty of democracy.”

“Sometimes you win and some-times you lose. If it were written that the Workers’ Party could never lose, that would mean we did not create

a political party,” he told reporters yesterday. Amid a deep economic recession and with corruption charges against several of its leaders, including Lula himself, the Workers’ Party suffered a major blow on Sun-day, losing in the first round almost two thirds of the municipalities it had won just four years ago.

The party’s worst setback was its loss of Sao Paulo’s city hall, where Workers’ Party mayor Fernando Haddad was defeated by Joao Doria from the centrist PSDB.

A second round runoff had been widely predicted but Doria won out-right with 53 percent of the vote.

“Those who lost in 2012 win now, and those who win now may lose in 2018 or 2022. That is beauty of democ-racy, rotation of power and a change in people who govern,” Lula said.

Lula, who was popular when he left office in 2010, has been charged by prosecutors with taking bribes in a vast embezzlement scheme centered on state oil company Petrobras that they say he oversaw while president.

AP

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI: Rescue workers in Haiti struggled to reach cutoff towns and learn the full extent of the death and destruction caused by Hurricane Matthew as the storm began battering the Bahamas yester-day and triggered evacuations along the US East Coast.

At least 11 deaths had been blamed on the powerful storm dur-ing its weeklong march across the Caribbean, five of them in Haiti. But with a key bridge washed out, roads impassable and phone com-munications down, the western tip of Haiti was isolated and there was

no word on dead and injured.Forecasters said the high winds,

pounding rains and storm surge were already beginning to have an impact in the southern Bahamas as the storm, with top sustained winds of 115kph.

A day earlier, Matthew swept across a remote area of Haiti with 230kph winds, and government lead-ers said they weren’t close to fully gauging the impact in the vulnera-ble, flood-prone country where less powerful storms have killed thou-sands living in flimsy shacks.

“What we know is that many, many houses have been damaged. Some lost rooftops and they’ll have to be replaced while others were totally destroyed,” Interior Minister Francois Anick Joseph said.

The hurricane also rolled across the sparsely populated tip of Cuba overnight, destroying dozens of homes in Cuba’s easternmost city, Bara-coa, and leaving hundreds of others damaged.

There were no immediate reports of deaths or large-scale devastation, though the waves had picked up a large shipping container and dropped it three blocks inland from the shore.

Yesterday Matthew was passing east of the Bahamian island of Inagua, moving over open water on a fore-cast path expected to take it very near the Bahamas capital of Nassau and then Florida’s Atlantic coast by today evening.

At 1200 GMT Matthew’s eye was about 85km east-northeast of Cabo

Lucrecia, Cuba. Matthew was head-ing north at 17kph.

Matthew will likely pose a threat to Florida by today and other areas of the East Coast afterward.

Florida cancelled school classes along its Atlantic coastline and South Carolina Govovernor Nikki Haley also announced plans which began yester-day afternoon to evacuate a quarter million people, not counting tourists, from its vulnerable coastline.

The hurricane centre said winds had slightly decreased overnight as Matthew dropped from a Category 4 to a Category 3 storm yesterday. But forecasters warned Matthew could re-strengthen slightly and said Matthew would remain a powerful and danger-ous storm over coming days.

Pence gets wide praise as Kaine lands jabs on Trump

Democratic nominee Senator Tim Kaine (left) and Republican nominee Governor Mike Pence debate during their vice-presidential debate at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia.

Clinton’s remarks on health care spark fresh row

Colombia govt and rebels begin fresh talks

Brazil’s Lula downplays party defeat

Hurricane Matthew moves into Bahamas after battering Haiti

Residents walk in flooded area after Hurricane Matthew struck in Les Cayes, Haiti, yesterday.

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Acne sufferers’ cells may be protected against aging

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An aerial view of old and new buildings of Qatar National Museum. Pic by @basitqu

The Peninsula

DOHA: Staying true to its commit-ment of going further and beyond fitness, Fitness First Middle East — one of world’s leading fitness brands, announced the grand re-launch of its premium fitness facility at City Cen-tre Doha.

Sprawling across 2,548 square metre of well-equipped fitness space, the club has been relaunched to accommodate specialised fitness solutions which will help fitness enthu-siasts go further in their fitness goals.

Offering exclusive and separate facilities for both men and women, the club has best-in-class exercise equip-ment and a great environment to work out and unwind.

The expansive facility features group exercise and spinning studios, freestyle, free weights and strength area with the latest functional train-ing equipment. The club also features an extensive range of Life Cardio Equipment such as treadmills, bikes, elliptical machines, Power Mill and New Flex Striders and brand new Octa-gon equipment.

Separate fitness spaces for both

men and women have been designed keeping in mind convenience to make fitness a habit and discipline.

Reiterating their vision and mis-sion, George Flooks, Chief Operating Officer, Fitness First Middle East, said; “With a new generation of fitness enthusiasts waking up to the benefits of fitness and good health; we wanted to give them the innovation in fitness

solutions they deserve along with support and inspiration from expert trainers. The revamped spaces of this club are in line with the demand for specialised and experienced fit-ness solutions. We look forward to

motivating and engaging more number of people on a fitness mission.”

Encouraging fitness as a lifestyle with modern and tech-savvy facilities, the club now offers its members fit-ness with an edge. Members can opt for personal training by internation-ally certified fitness instructors and make full use of the luxurious chang-ing rooms with saunas and a relaxation area or the exclusive members lounge with wireless internet and complimen-tary drinks.

Confirming its leadership position by further pushing fitness boundaries with advanced technology and world-class membership services, this Fitness First club is all set to motivate mem-bers to optimise their fitness routines and go further in chasing fitness goals.

Providing mult i-funct ional equipment for a wholesome 360 fit-ness and wellness experience; the Fitness First club at City Centre Doha is a fitness haven. To know more about its expansive fitness solutions and tailor-made workout regimes to suit your health goals, visit the re-launched facility, today!

Fitness First Doha facility revamped

Officials posing for a group picture.

By Raynald C Rivera

The Peninsula

DOHA: Two sculptures by renowned Iraqi artist Dia Al Azzawi will soon join the growing collection of public art installations which continue to fascinate millions of visitors arriv-ing at Hamad International Airport (HIA) every year.

Khalid Yousef Al Ibrahim, Chief Strategic Planning Officer, Qatar Museums (QM), said the sculptures to be installed in the coming weeks are part of QM’s thrust to make art an integral part of people’s daily life through its public art programme.

“Through our programme, we will continue to provide opportu-nities for everyone to access and interact with art and culture in their daily lives, from parks, at Qatar Uni-versity, at hospitals and in HIA.

“Specifically, in the coming

weeks we will add to the world-class collection of art objects created by local, regional and international artists throughout HIA by unveiling the sculptures by Azzawi which will inspire millions of visitors and residents travelling through the airport.”

Al Ibrahim was speaking at a press gathering yesterday at Idam in Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) to announce exhibitions and events QM has prepared this autumn, including Al Azzawi’s retrospective as one of the highlights.

Believed to be the largest solo exhibition by an Arab artist, the expo will run in two venues — Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art and QM Gallery Al Riwaq — and feature 546 works across 50 years and a range of media.

Born in Baghdad in 1939, Al Azzawi has been a central figure in Iraq’s art scene and is considered one

of the most important artists of the Arab world. His major retrospective in Qatar displays QM’s impetus in the

promotion of artists from the Arab world.

“We will continue to celebrate the influence and impact of Arab art-ists more generally in addition to championing e s t a b l i s h e d , h o m e -grown artists such as Yousef Ahmad and Faraj Daham,” said Al Ibrahim.

‘I am the cry, who will give voice to me? Dia Al Azzawi: A Retro-spective (from 1963 until tomorrow)’ will open on October 16 at Mathaf and October 17 at Al Riwaq and run until April 16. Another exhibition, ‘Frag-ments’ by Arab artist Mahmoud Obaidi will open on October 18 and run until

January 30 at QM Gallery at Katara. The expo by the Iraqi-Canadian artist

retraces the ‘organised chaos’ that led to the destruction of Iraq.

In line with Qatar China 2016 year of Culture, a photography exhibition will be inaugurated next month featuring works of four Chi-nese and two Qatari photographers who travelled to each other’s coun-try to document another way of life and another culture.

From November 2 to 5, QM, the Ministry of Culture of China and the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Culture will hold the Chinese Festival at MIA Park. It will include perform-ances by Zhejiang’s leading artistes, a Chinese market, Chinese tea house, stage, photography exhibition space, food stalls and children’s area.

Ali Al Kubaisi, Chief Archaeology Officer; Khalifa Al Obaidly, Director of Artists in Residence; Mohamed Nasser Al Othman; Namka Beschi and Maryam Al Thani also spoke at yesterday’s media event.

Two sculptures by Iraqi artist to be installed at HIA

Khalid Yousef Al Ibrahim, Chief Strategic Planning Officer at Qatar Museums, giving an update of upcoming events at MIA yesterday.

Pic: Abdul Basit / The Peninsula

The Peninsula

DOHA: Lulu Hyper Market gave QR275,000 to Sheikh Thani bin Abdul-lah Foundation for Humanitarian Services (RAF) as donations collected from shop-pers. The money was generated from a donation drive launched by Lulu Hyper Market. The campaign entitled “Tawawwq and Tabarru” (donate through shopping) launched in the holy Month of Ramadan on third consecutive year.

The donation handover ceremony was held at Lulu Hyper Market D-Ring Road branch. The event was attended by Ahmad Yusuf Fakhro, Head of Financial Resources and Media from RAF and Mohamad Altaf, Group CEO of Lulu Hypermarket; Mohamad Shijan, Regional Director of Lulu Hypermar-ket for GCC; and Mohammad Shanwaz, Regional Director of Lulu complexes in Qatar and Egypt. Mohamad Salah Ibrahim, Deputy

Director General of RAF and Ahmad Yusuf Al Fakhro received the cheque of QR275,000 from the officials of Lulu Hypermarket.

The campaign included more than 400 products including electric appliances, household items, and foodstuffs among others. Lulu earmarked 15 to 20 percent of the profits to support charity works and humanitarian aid at its five branches located at Al Matar, Al Gharrafa, Lulu Center, Al Khor and Barwa.

The campaign of Lulu Hyper Market played key role in creating awareness about donations through participating the community for charity work, said Fakhro.

The customer donated indirectly for a charity cause through shopping at the branches of Lulu Hypermarket, he added. I hope the partnership between RAF and Lulu will be continue in future to serve the needy people in the country and abroad as well, said Fakhro.

Lulu hands QR275,000 to RAF as donations collected from shoppers

Officials from Lulu Hypermarket handing over a cheque of QR275,000 to RAF officials in a ceremony at Lulu D-Ring Road branch.

The Peninsula

DOHA: Ooredoo yesterday announced that its Globe Kabayan Pack offer is now permanent, meaning every-one in Qatar can continuously take advantage of its low rates.

The Globe Kabayan Pack offers super affordable rates for calls to the Globe Telecom network in the Philippines and has become perma-nent due to unprecedented demand for the offer in Qatar.

With the offer, any new or existing Hala customer who subscribes to the Globe Kabayan Pack will get 600 minutes valid for 30 days, for just QR50, to call any number on the Globe Telecom net-work in the Philippines.

To subscribe to the Globe Kabayan Pack, customers need to simply SMS ‘GLO’ to 121. The pack is renewed automatically every month.

Ooredoo has also announced the Globe Kabayan Pack can be re-subscribed after consuming the 600 minutes, meaning customers can continue to chat to their loved ones for less. As one of the most popular operators in the Philippines, Globe Tel-ecom has nearly 50 million customers, so this new per-manent rate will provide great savings for people who regu-larly connect with friends and family in the country. Oore-doo has a full range of options for Hala and Shahry custom-ers looking to save money on international calling.

Ooredoo’s Globe Kabayan Pack offer permanent

20 THURSDAY

FAJR

SHOROOK

ZUHR

ASR

MAGHRIB

ISHA

04.12 am05.28 am

11.22 am02.45 pm

PRAYER TIMINGS

05.18 pm06.48 pm

Minimum: 24o C Maximum: 37o C

HIGH TIDE 08:15 - 19:15LOW TIDE 01:00 - 14:30

Hazy at places at first becomes hot day-

time and slight dust, relatively humid by

night.

WEATHER6 OCTOBER 2016

DOHA: Ambassador of the Repub-lic of Kazakhstan to Qatar, Askar Shokybayev, visited The Peninsula offices yesterday.

Dr. Khalid Al-Shafi, Editor in-Chief, welcomed the ambassador who came with other Embassy officials and was briefed about the newspaper’s mission and vision.

Dr. Al-Shafi toured the ambassa-dor around the editorial department where he met with staff of various sections of the department.

They talked about the close bilat-eral relations between Qatar and Kazakhstan in various fields since the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries. Shokybayev expressed satisfaction of The Peninsu-la’s coverage, team and facilities and said he looked forward to further coop-eration with the newspaper.

Kazakh envoy visits The PeninsulaThe Ambassador of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Askar Shokybayev, with The Peninsula Editor-In-Chief, Dr. Khalid Al-Shafi at the newspaper’s office in Doha, yesterday. Pic: Qassim Rahmatullah/The Peninsula

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