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QATAR
139UNDER SIEGE
DAY
TH
QNA
The airlift that Qatar recently set to evacuate the victims of
the ter-rorist attack on the Somali capital Mogad-
ishu, is continuing its duties, upon the directives of Emir H H
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
The number of wounded who have been transferred for treat-ment
outside Somalia through the air bridge reached 100, where Qatar
pays the cost of treatment in a number of hospitals outside
Somalia.
A high-level medical team from the Qatari Armed Forces and Hamad
Medical Corporation over-saw the transportation and evacuation of
critically injured patients for treatment outside Somalia. Last
Tuesday, a C17 plane of the Emiri Air Force arrived at Mogadishu
airport carrying Qatar’s aid including medical supplies and first
aid in support of the victims of these terrorist bombings.
The flight was accompanied by a team from the Qatar
International Search and Rescue Group and an integrated medical
team from the Qatari Armed Forces and Hamad Medical
Corporation.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Qatar has taken over the
coor-dination process to receive and provide medical services to
the injured in the hospitals that have been accredited.
The Standing Committee for Rescue, Relief and Humanitar-ian
Assistance in the affected areas of the brotherly and friendly
countries headed by Lekhwiya is responsible for the provision of
relief materials and coordination with the concerned authorities to
deliver them to
those affected by the terrorist attack in the sisterly Republic
of Somalia last week which resulted in scores of deaths and
injuries.
Meanwhile, Ambassador of the State of Qatar to Sudan, H E Rashid
bin Abdulrahman Al Nuaimi, paid a visit to the injured Somalis who
were taken to Khartoum for treat-ment following the attacks in
Somali capital recently, as part of Qatar’s efforts to treat
them.
A total of 171 injured Somali and their escorts were flown by
Qatari military aircraft in two batches last Tuesday and Wednes-day
to Khartoum for treatment at a number of public and private
hospitals.
The Ambassador said that a staff member of the Embassy has been
assigned to the permanent field monitoring of the injured and their
escorts, and coordination with the Embassy to facilitate their
requests and treatment pro-cedures. Al Nuaimi praised the great
efforts made by the Suda-nese government for treating the
wounded.
Qatar airlifts and treats 271 Somali blast victims
Poultry farms in Qatar achieve 75% self-sufficiency post
siege
Sidi Mohamed The Peninsula
The General Directorate of Traffic has warned young-sters
against drifting and reckless driving otherwise the violation may
lead to confisca-tion of vehicles for three month, an official at
the General Direc-torate of Traffic at The Ministry of Interior
said.
“The vehicles of the violators and stunt-drivers are seized in
case of violating the law and this confiscation of vehicle is a
max-imum period of three months”, the source added.
The punishment also included hefty fines which might reach up to
QR3,000 and the cases of repeated violations are transferred to
public prosecu-tion, he added.
“In case the driver indulged in drifting destroys public
prop-erties, they must pay the cost of the loss occurred. For
examples if the driver make a damage to the road, the Public
Works
Authority “Ashghal” is the body to take legal action against the
said person and the General Directorate of Traffic will trans-fer
his case to Ashghal to register a complaint in the court”, he
added.
The Investigation Section of the General Directorate of the
Traffic strictly monitor such cases. People are cooperating with
the department and the res-idents can send pictures of violators
and the investigation
section will follow them, the offi-cial added.
The problem and difficulties being faced by the section to
control such reckless driving behavior is the fact that these
stunt-drivers choose places which are far from the eyes of the
police; they choose places like Salwa Road, Al Sailiya, and Airport
road.
The official said that the peo-ple used to ask the department to
introduce strict monitoring
mechanism against such reck-less drivers.
Earlier a source told The Peninsula that in case the drift-ing
is practiced in residential areas which might expose peo-ple’s life
to danger, vehicle would be booked for 90 days and “may be
transferred to the public prosecution depending on the nature of
the offence.”
Many residents are com-plaining from this practice and say that
“the problem of stunt-drivers is that they even practice this
violation near schools and anyone can see the skid marks of tires
on the streets around the schools and this may attract stu-dents to
imitate them. The punishment must be increased against those who
are doing the drifting near of schools and in residential areas”,
said Jassem, a resident in Duhail.
Another resident also men-tioned that the youngsters who were
indulged in such practices choose places and times when no one
could notice them.
Irfan Bukhari The Peninsula
Owing to the opening of Hamad Port and launch of new shipping
lines after imposition of blockade, Qatar’s maritime and logistics
company, Milaha, is set to ben-efit from higher earnings of global
shipping industry.
“Milaha stands to benefit in the near term from higher earn-ings
across the shipping industry, a trend that should also support
Qatar’s broader maritime trade ambitions,” said a recent report
titled “Qatar to benefit from new shipping services” released by
Oxford Business Group.
The report points out that on September 22, the Baltic Dry Index
– the main sea freight index that tracks rates for ships carrying
dry bulk – reached a near three-and-a-half-year high of 1502.
Average daily earnings for Cape, Panamax
and Supramax vessels stood at $22,392, $12,006 and $10,723,
respectively, up from $15,202, $5790 and $7019 in the previ-ous
year. The OBG report predicts that new (shipping) serv-ices will
support Qatar’s efforts to diversify its trading partners, a target
underpinned by the country’s $7.4bn Hamad Port.
It particularly mentions two new services launched last month.
On September 17 the Swiss-based Mediterranean Shipping Company and
Taiwan’s Yang Ming Transport Corpora-tion both opened new weekly
lines to Hamad Port.
Four ships, each with the capacity to accommodate 6000
containers, including 400 reefer containers, have begun operating
on MSC’s new East Mediterranean Service, which runs between ports
in Turkey, Greece, India, Oman and Qatar.
Continued on page 3
Vehicles used for drifting may be impounded for 3 months Milaha
to benefit from global shipping industry earnings
A wide-angle view of West Bay skyline along the Corniche. Pic:
Kammutty VP / The Peninsula
Architectural splendour
Sanaullah Ataullah The Peninsula
Qatar has achieved 75 percent self-suf-ficiency in poultry and
over 47 per-cent in dairy
production and after the blockade an increase of 25 percent and
20 percent was recorded respectively.
“The credit of a sudden increase goes to the dairy and poultry
farms which acted quickly for increasing their production capacity
to meet growing demands of local market availing the opportunity to
grab the mar-ket shares of blockading countries,” said Farhud Hadi
Al Hajari, Head of the Live-stock Department at the Ministry of
Municipality and Environment.
The self-sufficiency rate of the country in poultry production
had reached 75
percent from 50 percent during the pre-blockade period, Al
Hajari told a talk show aired by Al Rayyan TV under “Tarheeb”
program recently.
Al Hajari said Qatar had also achieved 47.3 percent
self-sufficiency in dairy products from 27.5 percent recorded
before the block-ade. However, he said the self-sufficiency in red
meat production witnessed mar-ginal change from 14 percent to 14.2
percent.
The Head of the Livestock Department also revealed new projects
that aim at bringing Qatar in the position of export for dairy and
poul-try products.
“The Department issued a total of 25 new licences for dairy and
poultry farms after the blockade,” said Al Hajari. He said that
construction works on 13 projects – 10 dairy farms and three
poultry farms has begun and existing farms were also being
expanded to increase the production.
“With the completion of 13 new projects and expan-sion of
existing farms, the self-sufficiency rate of the country in milk
production will reach to 196.6 percent,” said Al Hajari adding that
additional production would be surplus that could be exported. He
said that the daily milk consumption of the country ranges between
600 and 650 tonnes.
“With the help of new projects, the local poultry products will
cover 257 per-cent need of local market making huge surplus in
chicken and egg production,” said Al Hajari. He said the production
of red meat would also reach to 21 percent of total need of the
country.
Continued on page 3
QATAR has strongly con-demned the attacks that targeted mosques
in Afghani-stan and resulted in a number of deaths and injuries. In
a statement, the Ministry of For-eign Affairs reiterated the State
of Qatar’s firm stance rejecting violence and terrorism regard-less
of motives and reasons.
The statement also stressed Qatar’s total rejection of
tar-geting places of worship and intimidating civilians. The
Ministry’s statement expressed Qatar’s condolences to the families
of the victims, the gov-ernment and people of Afghanistan, and
wished the injured a speedy recovery.
At least 72 people were killed when suicide bombers targeted
mosques in Kabul and the western province of Ghor. The suicide
bomber detonated his device inside a mosque in Dasht-e-Barchi, a
western part of Kabul.
See also page 7
A total of 171 injured Somali and their escorts were flown by
Qatari military aircraft in two batches last Tuesday and Wednesday
to Khartoum for treatment at a number of public and private
hospitals.
Qatar strongly condemns attacks in Afghanistan
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02 SATURDAY 21 OCTOBER 2017HOME
The Peninsula
Aster DM Healthcare, marked the Interna-tional Infection Control
Week the Global Hand Hygiene Day by spreading awareness among
healthcare professionals.
Week long activities being held at the Aster Hospital and Aster
Medical Centers across the country until tomorrow (Saturday), with
an ultimate aim to enhance patient safety.
Studies have shown that although compliance rates are improving,
significant per-centage of health care workers fail to consistently
wash their hands between patients. Most of studies have strongly
correlated that the basic cause of any disease is infection spread
through the hands.
At Aster, infection preven-tion and control program is driven by
guidelines, recom-mendations and regulations governing practice
that are issued by the Ministry of Pub-lic Health and other groups
those are stakeholders in patient and healthcare worker safety.
Every healthcare worker including doctors; nurses; paramedical,
housekeeping and administrator staff have equal role in infection
pre-vention and control activity.
Aster DM Healthcare is observing International Infec-tion
Control Week the Global Hand Hygiene Day as a con-tinuous
commitment towards infection prevention and con-trol for the
wellbeing of patients and healthcare workers.
Aster marks International Infection Control Week
Washington The Peninsula
Qatar Foundation Interna-tional (QFI) has brought together four
students from Los Angeles, California; Portland, Oregon; and
Tucson, Arizona, and seven students from Qatar for the 6th Annual
Qatar Leadership Conference (QLC).
The students will present globally-focused service learn-ing
projects that they created, each of which meets one of the 2030
United Nations Sustaina-ble Development Goals (SDGs).
The conference, started on October 19 until today, is a joint
project run by The Hague Inter-national Model United Nations
(THIMUN) Qatar and Northwest-ern University in Qatar. It is the
largest professional development conference in the Middle East
devoted to high school students and their teachers, designed to
develop student and teacher leadership within schools, with
particular focus on the Model United Nations program.
Students were selected to attend the QLC based on their
participation in YALLAH (Youth
Allied to Learn, Lead and Help) Commit to Action (C2A), a
program piloted by QFI in part-nership with the National Youth
Leadership Council (NYLC) to develop global citizenship and
leadership skills among QFI’s youth community. “We are com-mitted
to engaging high school students in activities that are meaningful
to them,” said Mag-gie Mitchell Salem, executive director of QFI.
“Students par-ticipating in C2A and QFI’s other Youth Engagement
activities connect the SDGs with practi-cal, local action that
improves communities and connects stu-dents with their peers from
dozens of other countries including Qatar.”
The three workshops that the QFI students created and will
present include:
Managing A Community Project at 17: A Survival Guide – An
interactive workshop that explores engaging youth, mar-keting
community project
ideas, and funding challenges (Global Goal 15).
Using the Sustainable Devel-opment Goals to Take Action in your
Community – An arts-based educational workshop for young students
to teach them how to help protect life below water (Global Goal
14), and a workshop to improve sanitation conditions (Global Goal
6) for the homeless population in Portland, Oregon
Using Advocacy and Global Collaboration to Further the
Sustainable Development Goals – Innovative advocacy cam-paigns
implemented in three schools to address access to quality education
(Global Goal 4), and a workshop using online collaboration, virtual
service showcasing, and cross-cultural exchange to create surveys,
community meetings and a poster contest to raise
awareness around responsible consumption and production (Global
Goal 12)
QFI has launched applica-tions for the 2017-2018 YALLAH Commit
to Action program to train and mentor a new cohort of students and
inspiring projects revolving around the Sustainable Development
Goals. Interested high school students may apply at
qfi.fluidreview.com
The Peninsula
In the framework of its contin-uous efforts to support voluntary
youth initiatives, NAMA Center, one of Qatar Foundation for Social
Work’s (QFSW) Centers, participates in the Fourth International
Volun-teering Youth Forum.
The Forum is being organ-ised by Qatar University under the
patronage of the Minister of Culture and Sports H E Salah bin
Ghanim Al Ali,
T h e I n t e r n a t i o n a l
Volunteering Youth Forum is sponsored by a number of lead-ing
institutions in Qatar, namely NAMA Center (Platinum Spon-sor), HDC
(Golden Sponsor), Ibtikar (Bronze Sponsor), Qatar Charity
(Community Partner), and Al Rayyan Channel (Media Sponsor).
The 3-day long forum at Qatar University started on Octo-ber 19
and will end today.
Students from GCC universi-ties, with more than 400 students are
participating in the event in addition to volunteers. The forum
will also host a number of aca-demics and specialists in
community service.
In its fourth edition, the forum discusses the ways and means of
promoting voluntary work and community service in Gulf
universities, with volunteer-ing be addressed as a necessity and
learning source for individ-ual and community building. It will
also draw lines connecting Qatar University students, par-takers
from other universities with voluntary initiatives, and specialists
from participating
countries. The most successful experiences in the field of
com-munity responsibility, which represent a source of inspiration
for those interested in voluntary work, will also be shared.
The forum’s objectives will be achieved through the
presen-tation of academic papers by academics and specialists, as
well as working papers for a range of projects implemented by Qatar
University and other universities as part of participating projects
and initiatives. This is in addition to the presentation of a
series of
workshops in the field of social e n t r e p r e n e u r s h i p
a n d leadership.
On this occasion, Maryam Bint Abdullatif Al Mannai, Acting
Executive Director at NAMA, said: “Our participation in the
Inter-national Volunteering Youth Forum comes in the context of
implementing the strategic direc-tions of NAMA Center, foremost of
which is nurturing human cap-ital with youth representing its
backbone, owing to their ability to create, innovate and meet the
needs of the community.”
NAMA Center aims to nurture human capital
QLC showcases inspiring talents of students
Students pose for a photograph at the 6th Annual Qatar
Leadership Conference.
The Peninsula
H E Sheikh Abdulla bin Saoud Al Thani, Governor of Qatar Central
Bank and Chairman of Qatar
Development Bank, is currently on a visit to Sweden from
Octo-ber 18-21 together with Abdulaziz Al-Khalifa, CEO of Qatar
Devel-opment Bank.
Sheikh Abdulla was invited by Mikael Damberg, Sweden’s Minister
of Enterprise and Inno-vation, for a knowledge sharing visit
focused on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the areas of
financial technology, bio-med-ical technology, and waste-to-energy
technology. The delegation also contains repre-sentatives from
Qatar Financial Center, said a statement issued by Embassy of
Sweden in Qatar.
During the visit of Sheikh Abdulla, Governor of Qatar Cen-tral
Bank, the Qatari delegation met with several important Swedish
public sector, academia, a n d p r i v a t e s e c t o r
representatives.
The visit was hosted by Mikael Damberg, Swedish Min-ister of
Enterprise and Innovation, who had invited Sheikh Abdullahbin Sauod
Al Thani to Sweden.
Along the QCB Governor in the delegation is Abdulaziz bin Nasser
Al Khalifa, CEO of Qatar Development Bank, Sheikh Kha-lid bin Saod
Al Thani, Director of QCB Financial Stability & Statis-tics
Department, Michael Rayn, Executive Manager at Qatar Financial
Centre, Abdulrahman bin Hesham Al Suwaidi, CEO Office Manager at
QDB, and Rauf Mammadov, CEO Advisor at QDB.
The meetings will also be attended by Abdulaziz Al Naemi,
Chargé d’affaires of the Embassy of the State of Qatar in
Stock-holm. Ewa Polano, Ambassador of Sweden to Qatar, is also
accompanying the Governor on his visit to Stockholm.
During the visit, Sheikh Abdulla and Abdulaziz Al Khal-ifa met
with the Delegation’s host Mikael Damberg, Swedish Min-ister for
Enterprise & Innovation. This meeting was also attended by
representatives from Vinnova, the Swedish Agency for Innova-tion
and Entrepreneurship Promotion, and SISP, Swedish Incubators and
Science Parks.
A meeting was also held with Sheikh Abdalla’s Swedish
coun-terpart, Stefan Ingves, Governor of the Swedish Riksbank.
A major focus during the visit to Stockholm was knowledge
sharing in the area of Financial
Technology, which is currently a prioritised area for Qatar
Development Bank.
Sweden has a highly devel-oped ecosystem for the incubation of
financial technol-ogy startups, and is strongly recognised in this
field. After London, Stockholm has the sec-ond highest number of
financial technology startups in Europe. Because of this, Stockholm
is a perfect model city for Qatar to engage with in knowledge
shar-ing efforts, and this has been recognized by both Qatar
Devel-opment Bank and Qatar Central Bank.
Because of this, a Financial Technology Roundtable Semi-nar was
hosted for the delegation by Business Sweden. The Semi-nar was
attended by the full Qatari delegation, and on the
Swedish side by representatives from several key private sector
financial technology companies and banks, including SEB, Seam-less,
HiQ, Verisec, Behaviosec, Chromaway, Me2Yo, Beam Wal-let Nordic,
and others. A separate meeting was held with EQT, a Swedish private
equity firm spe-cial iz ing in f inancial technology.
Another focus area for Qatar Development Bank and for the
delegation was innovation and entrepreneurship in bio-medi-cal
technology. Because of this, meetings were held with Dr. Niclas
Adler, Chairman of Karo-linska Development, and Dr. Hans Wigzell,
Professor Emeri-tus and former President of Karolinska Institute’s
Nobel Prize Committee.
The Karolinska Institute (KI) is one of the best medical
research institutions and univer-sity hospitals in the world, and a
member of the prestigious Emeri List published by Qatar’s MoE.
KI proudly counts among its alumni several prominent Qatari
doctors in leading positions. Dur-ing this meeting, collaboration
opportunities between Sweden and Qatar in the field of bio-medical
technology and innovation was discussed, with a focus on how both
parties can
leverage their strengths to form a mutually beneficial
relation-ship, both on the research and commercial sides.
Another area in which Swe-den is a world leader is waste
management. As is well known, Sweden today imports waste from other
countries and con-verts it to energy, resulting in Sweden having
the lowest per-centage of waste ending up in landfills in the
world. As such, Sweden is the best country to learn from in this
field, and a knowledge sharing visit was held to Smart City Sweden,
under the tagline “Waste to Energy – Waste as a Resource”.
Additionally, the Governor and the Abdulaziz met with
Maria Rankka, CEO of the Stock-holm Chamber of Commerce,
following up on her visit to Doha last year. Additional meetings
and visits included a study visit to KTH, the Royal Institute of
Technology, and its innovation and incubation space, among
others.
The visit of Sheikh Abdulla bin Saoud Al Thani and Abdulaziz bin
Nasser Al-Khalifa to Sweden symbolizes the close relations of the
two countries, and a strengthened commitment between Sweden and
Qatar in the areas most relevant to Qatar National Vision 2030. It
was an important step in the deepening bilateral relationship
between the two nations.
Qatar-Sweden collaboration opportunities discussed
Mikael Damberg, Swedish Minister for Enterprise & Innovation
(left) and Stefan Ingves, Governor of the Swedish Riksbank.
H E Sheikh Abdulla bin Saoud Al Thani (left) , Governor of Qatar
Central Bank and Chairman of Qatar Development Bank.
A major focus during the visit to Stockholm was knowledge
sharing in the area of Financial Technology, which is currently a
prioritised area for Qatar Development Bank.
Another area in which Sweden is a world leader is waste
management. As is well known, Sweden today imports waste from other
countries and converts it to energy, resulting in Sweden having the
lowest percentage of waste ending up in landfills in the world. As
such, Sweden is the best country to learn from in this field, and a
knowledge sharing visit was held to Smart City Sweden, under the
tagline “Waste to Energy – Waste as a Resource”.
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03SATURDAY 21 OCTOBER 2017 HOME / MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA
Geneva Reuters
A plague epidemic has killed 94 people on the island of
Madagascar and could spread further, the World Health Organization
said yesterday.
WHO’s Africa emergencies director, Ibrahima Soce Fall, told
reporters in Geneva the organi-sation was racing to stop both
the Madagascar plague and an outbreak of the Ebola-like Mar-burg
virus in Uganda that it was confident it could contain.
Plague is endemic in Mada-gascar, but the outbreak that has
caused 1,153 suspected cases since August is especially wor-rying
because it started earlier in the season than usual, it has hit
towns rather than rural areas, and it is mainly causing pneu-monic
plague, the most deadly
form of the disease.The outbreak already looks
big when compared with the 3,248 cases and 584 deaths reported
worldwide from 2010 to 2015. Fall said the risk to Madagascar
remained very high, although the international risk was very low.
WHO has deliv-ered antibiotics to Madagascar to treat up to 5,000
patients and as a prophylactic dose for up to 100,000 people who
might be
at risk, as well as 150,000 sets of p e r s o n a l p r o t e c
t i v e equipment.
About 2,000 healthworkers are tracing people who have had
contact with plague sufferers, which should allow the disease to be
controlled relatively quickly, Fall said.
“I’m confident that with the strong team we have on the ground,
combined with more partners coming and health
workers, we will be able very quickly to reverse the trend.”
In Uganda, WHO hopes to halt an outbreak of Marburg, a highly
infectious haemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola, which killed a
50-year-old woman on Oct. 11, three weeks after her brother died of
similar symptoms.“The positive thing is that Uganda is very used to
man-aging this kind of outbreak,” Fall said.
94 dead in Madagascar plague outbreak
Istanbul Anatolia
Turkey’s president yes-terday lashed out against the US and some
European coun-tries for failing to
support Turkey’s fight against terrorism.
Speaking to reporters after the D-8 summit in Istanbul, Recep
Tayyip Erdogan singled out recent public displays in sup-port of
terrorist groups and terrorist group leaders.
Referring to a banner of con-victed terrorist leader Abdullah
Ocalan being displayed by US-supported forces after taking the city
of Raqqah, Syria, this week, Erdogan said: “They [PKK/PYD] hung a
poster of the terrorist leader somewhere there in Raqqah. How can
America explain this? When you speak, you say the PKK is a
‘terrorist organization’.”
Despite recognizing the PKK as a terrorist group -- and against
strong Turkish protests -- the US has long armed and equipped the
Syrian PKK/PYD, calling it a “reli-able ally” in its war against
Daesh.
Referring to a weekend inci-dent in which supporters of the
PKK terrorist organization hung a poster of Ocalan from the
Paris headquarters of a major news agency, Agence France Presse
(AFP), Erdogan added: “France also hung a poster of the terror-ist
leader from a building of its own state TV. Police watched it
[happening] from there. How can they explain this?” \ The PKK --
listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the EU and US --
has
killed more than 1,200 Turkish security personnel and civilians
since July 2015.
Erdogan continued: “They [the PKK] march in Germany. During the
march, under police supervision, there is every kind of chant, and
they march together with those posters.”
On Monday, around 500 pro-PKK demonstrators gathered at Kennedy
Square in Frankfurt and
shouted anti-Turkey slogans, without any confrontation from the
police.
Some of the PKK sympathiz-ers carried banned posters and flags
of the terrorist group, although Germany’s Interior Min-istry
prohibited such posters and flags earlier this year.
Erdogan added: “When we hold bilateral talks, they say, ‘We
stand by you in fight against ter-rorism.’ We do not believe you.
You do not stand by us. “If you stood by us, you would not pro-tect
all of these with the police.”
Erdogan added that the states of the D-8 -- an economic group
consisting of eight emerging economies from the Muslim world -- are
resolved to help Tur-key fight terror groups such as Fetullah
Terrorist Organization (FETO) and the PKK. He said that especially
on FETO and the PKK, D-8 members are determined to show solidarity
and offer coop-e r a t i o n , i n c l u d i n g
intelligence-sharing.
US & Europe not supporting Turkey’s terror war: Erdogan
Erdogan said: “They [PKK/PYD] hung a poster of the terrorist
leader somewhere there in Raqqah. How can America explain this?
When you speak, you say the PKK is a ‘terrorist organization’.”
Baghdad Reuters
Iraqi forces took control yes-terday of the last district in the
oil-rich province of Kirkuk still in the hands of Kurdish Peshmerga
fighters following a three-hour battle, security sources said.
The district of Altun Kupri, or Perde in Kurdish, lies on the
road between the city of Kirkuk - which fell to Iraqi forces on
Monday - and Erbil, capital of the semi-autono-mous region of
Kurdistan in northern Iraq that voted in a referendum last month to
secede from Iraq against Bagh-dad’s wishes. A force made up of
U.S-trained Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service units, Iranian-backed
Popular
Mobilisation and Federal Police began their advance on Altun
Kupri at 7:30am, said an Iraqi military spokesman.
“Details will be communi-cated later,” the spokesman said in a
short posting on social media.
Kurdish Peshmerga forces withdrew from the town of Altun Kupri,
located on the Zab river, after battling the advanc-ing Iraqi
troops with machine guns, mortars and rocket pro-pelled grenades,
security sources said.
It was not immediately clear whether there had been any
casualties in the fighting. The Iraqi forces have advanced into
Kirkuk province largely unopposed as most Peshmerga forces withdrew
without a fight.
Iraqi forces end takeover of oil-rich Kirkuk province
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a news
conference in Istanbul, yesterday.
Gaza City AFP
A high-ranking Hamas delegation began a visit to Iran yesterday
to inform its backers in Tehran about reconciliation efforts with
rival Palestinian faction Fatah, an official from the Islamist
movement said.
The group led by deputy chief Salah Al Aruri will meet senior
Iranian officials over the next several days, the rep-resentative
said on condition of anonymity, after Israel insisted it will not
recognise any unity Palestinian govern-ment unless Hamas cuts off
ties with Tehran.
The two Palestinians fac-tions have agreed a landmark deal to
end a decade-long split and seek to form a unity government along
with other parties, as per the informa-tion available.
Official: Hamas delegation visits Iran
Qatar’s Minister of Foreign Affairs H E Sheikh Mohammed bin
Abdulrahman Al Thani has sent a written message to the Minister of
Economy and Finance of the Republic of Italy, Pier Carlo Padoan,
pertaining to bilateral relations between the two countries. The
message was handed over by Ambassador of the State of Qatar to
Italy, Abdulaziz bin Ahmed Al Malki, during a meeting with
Diplomatic Advisor to the Italian Minister of Economy and Finance,
Michele Quaroni.
Message to Italy
The Peninsula
Carnegie Mellon Univer-sity in Qatar (CMU-Q) has announced the
Dean’s List for the spring 2017 academic semester, recognising 126
students for exemplary academic performance.
“To earn a place on the Dean’s List is no small feat. In each
and every class, stu-dents are challenged to delve deep, think
creatively, study and review, and work very, very hard. The
students who are on the spring 2017 Dean’s List have risen to the
chal-lenge, and I congratulate them and wish them contin-ued
success,” said Michael Trick, dean of CMU-Q.
In the spring semester, 29 seniors, 52 juniors, 22 sophomores
and 23 fresh-men from each of CMU-Q’s programs—biological sci-e n c
e s , b u s i n e s s administration, computer science and
information systems.
CMU-Q recognises 126 students
Continued from page 1
Yang Ming, meanwhile, launched its China Gulf Express Service
with a single vessel that can also carry 6000 contain-ers. The
ship’s route takes in Shanghai, Ningbo, Xiamen and Shekou ports in
China, Kaohsi-ung (Taiwan), Port Klang (Malaysia) and Hamad
Port.
On Hamad Port, OBG report says that the port has been in partial
operation since late 2015, when it began catering to vessels
carrying roll-on/roll-off
cargo, livestock and heavy equipment. However, the facil-ity is
now able to accommodate large container ships for the first time.
“This additional facil-ity is pivotal for Qatar as recent regional
tensions have meant that Doha-bound cargo can no longer be
transferred from larger ships to smaller vessels in the UAE and at
ports in Oman as was previously the case.”
The report suggests that the construction of separate termi-nals
designed to handle general cargo, cereal, livestock and
vehicles at Hamad Port is expected to support pursuit of these
goals.
Separately, according to statistics released by Mwani (Qatar
Ports Management Com-pany) last week, ports of Qatar have seen a
steep rise in the movement of cargo in the last s ix months (Apri l
to September).
Ports in Qatar have seen strong surge in the movement of general
cargo, containers, livestock and aggregates. The movement of
containers from
ports has jumped by around 81 percent during April - Septem-ber
period this year. According to stats, Mwani Qatar handled 83,260
Twenty Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) in September 2017 compared to
46,056 TEUs in April this year.
Movement of general cargo witnessed 376 percent surge since June
2017 and 26 percent rise since April 2017 as, the company cleared
148,217 tonnes of general cargo in Sep-tember 2017 compared to
31,105 tonnes in June and
117,614 tonnes in April.Mwani Qatar in cooperation
with its partners had, in the past few months, inaugurated a
number of new direct shipping lines between Hamad port and a number
of ports in the region and beyond.
The new routes connected Qatar ports to Sohar and Sala-lah ports
in Oman, Shuwaikh Port in Kuwait, Karachi port in Pakistan, Izmir
port in Turkey, Mundra and Jawaharlal Nehru Port, also known as
Nhava Sheva Port, in India.
Milaha to benefit from global shipping industry earnings
Continue from page 1
“We sped up the projects immediately after the siege however the
plans were already there to meet the requirements of local market.
We were mov-ing according to our plans looking for an alternative
source and expanding the facilities to increase the production but
the blockade changed everything drastically,” he added. Al Hajari
said that livestock sector was growing at the rate of 21 per-cent
during past five years. Recent statistics reveal the pop-ulation of
livestock including goat, sheep, cow and camels crossed one million
in the country.
Speaking on sudden rise of
dairy and poultry production, Al Hajari said that credit goes to
the farms that worked day and night to increase their capacity to
meet the growing demand in local market. “We visited the farms
after blockade and were surprised to see their prepara-tions to
increase the capacity,” he added. Al Hajari also thanked consumers
for preferring local products. “All products taken to the markets
are being sold out, nothing is left to be brought back to the
stores,” he added.
Regarding the state support to the farms, Al Hajari said that
the Department provides all necessary support to business owners
like conducting feasi-bly studies, guidance for suitable projects
and closely
following up the projects to remove any obstacle in the way of
the implementation.
Meanwhile, a local dairy farm has imported new batch of cows
from different sources. A number of dairy and poultry farms that
were producing only for personal use before the blockade have
expanded their farms to commercial level.
“We started breeding sheep and chicken for commercial purpose
about three months ago when the demand surged,” Mohamad Absarul,
in-charge of a livestock farm at Umm Salal suburb told The
Peninsula. “Now we have about 3,000 sheep and 2,000 chicken. We
produce about 30 crates egg per day,” he added.
Poultry farms in Qatar achieve 75% self-sufficiency:
Official
-
04 SATURDAY 21 OCTOBER 2017MIDDLE EAST
Blantyre AFP
Malawian police said yesterday that 124 people had arrested
after a vigilante mob killed two men accused of being “vampires”
trying to obtain human blood for rituals.
The killings bring the death toll to nine as vampire rumours
have swept the country’s southern region since last month, forcing
authorities to impose a night-time curfew. “One person was burned
and another stoned to death by angry mobs in incidents on Thursday
for being suspected to be blood suckers,” police spokesman Ramsy
Mushani said. The lat-est killings took place outside Blantyre, the
country’s com-mercial capital, where angry mobs clashed with police
and blocked main roads to pro-test against the alleged vampire
threat. Police chief said the arrests had been made in a
“coordinated operation”.
Nairobi Reuters
Kenya’s opposition leader Raila Odinga, who says he will boycott
a presidential election re-run due next week, said yesterday he
would announce a “way forward” the day before the scheduled poll,
raising the possibility he might participate after all.
At a memorial in western Kenya for opposition support-ers killed
in protests against the vote set for October 26, Odinga told his
supporters not to attack “innocent people” including peo-ple who
support his rival President Uhuru Kenyatta.
He did not comment on an announcement by the electoral board
chief executive Ezra Chi-loba earlier yesterday that he would take
three weeks’ leave.
Kenya is holding the re-run after the Supreme Court threw out
the result of an August 8 election won by the incumbent Kenyatta
but disputed by the challenger Odinga. The opposi-tion leader has
refused to participate in the re-run, argu-ing that reforms were
needed first to prevent fraud.
The opposition has demanded Chiloba resign, and the announcement
that he will not participate in running the vote suggests progress
in behind-the-scenes negotiations
involving Western diplomats and religious and civil society
lead-ers. Uncertainty over whether Odinga will participate in the
election and concerns that it may not proceed peacefully have left
Kenya, a traditionally stable Western ally in an often chaotic
region, mired in political crisis.
The volatile build-up to the October 26 vote has revived
memories for Kenyans of ethni-cally charged violence that killed
around 1,200 people after a dis-puted election in 2007, when Odinga
also lost and disputed the result.
Chiloba told Reuters that, in light of the opposition’s demands,
he was going on leave, and that all arrangements for next week’s
vote were in place.
At least 45 people died nationwide in a police crack-down on
opposition supporters after the August vote, including a six-month
old baby struck on the head by a police baton.
With Odinga yet to respond to Chiloba’s decision to go on leave,
diplomats said they were unsure what would happen next.
“The crystal ball is very cloudy at the moment,” a senior
western diplomat in Nairobi told Reuters. “The situation is
chang-ing by the hour.”
The electoral board has said next week’s election will go ahead.
Odinga met its chairman Wafula Chebukati on Thursday
and later told reporters that if there were serious
consultations and serious reforms, the oppo-sition could review its
boycott.
Chebukati had said a day earlier that he could not guar-antee
the election would be free and fair, citing interference from
politicians and threats of vio-lence against colleagues. A fellow
board member resigned this week after fleeing to the United States,
saying she feared for her
life. The opposition has held near-daily protests demanding
electoral reforms and the sack-ing of board officials. Police said
on Friday four people were killed as a result of their
interventions to stop demonstrations.
Kenyatta has meanwhile urged Kenyans to come out in large
numbers to vote, insisting the ballot be held. On Thursday, he
snubbed an invitation to meet Chebukati, saying he would
instead spend the time campaigning.
In a speech in Nairobi on Fri-day, Kenyatta said the election
must not divide the nation or push it to the brink. Disruptions of
the vote by “those who thrive in chaos and relish anarchy” would
not be tolerated, and security forces “have been enhanced and
appropriately deployed to maintain law and order”, he said.
Beirut AP
A US-backed Syrian force declared vic-tory over the Islamic
State group in its former “capital” of
Raqqa yesterday, declaring the northern Syrian city free of any
extremist presence after a four-month battle that left it in
ruins.
At a press conference held inside the city, the Kurdish-led
force known as the Syrian Dem-ocratic Forces formally handed over
administration of the dev-astated northern city to a council made
up of local officials and tribal leaders and a 3,000-strong
US-trained police force tasked with governance and security.
In a highly symbolic move, the press conference was held inside
the city’s sports stadium which Islamic State militants had turned
into an arms depot and a huge prison where they incar-cerated and
tortured their opponents.
“Our victory is one against terrorism, and the liberation of
Raqqa marks the latest chapter
in the fight against terrorists in Syria,” said Talal Sillo, a
spokes-man and senior SDF commander.
Standing before a backdrop of shattered and collapsed
build-ings, Sillo appealed to the international community and aid
organizations to assist with the city’s reconstruction. The UN and
aid organizations estimate about 80 percent of the city is
destroyed or uninhabitable.
Associated Press drone foot-age from Raqqa showed the extent of
devastation caused by weeks of fighting between Kurd-ish-led forces
and the Islamic State group and thousands of
bombs dropped by the US-led coalition.
Footage from Thursday shows the bombed-out shells of buildings
and heaps of concrete slabs lay piled on streets littered with
destroyed cars. Entire neighborhoods are seen turned to rubble,
with little sign of civil-ian life. The video showed entire blocks
in the city as uninhabita-ble with knocked-out walls and blown-out
windows and doors, while some buildings had sev-eral stories turned
to piles of debris. The stadium that was used as an arms depot and
prison by the extremists appears to have suffered less damage
compared
with surrounding buildings.“We call upon all countries
and peace-loving forces and all humanitarian organizations to
participate in rebuilding the city and villages around it and help
in removing the scars of war that were inflicted by the (IS)
group,” Sillo said.
Sillo said 655 local and inter-national fighters lost their
lives fighting IS during the four-month battle for Raqqa. He added
that
residents will be allowed to start returning to the city once
the mines and explosives are removed. In other cities that the
extremists lost earlier, experts worked for weeks to remove booby
traps and explosives that kept maiming and killing people long
after IS left.
Long before the ground offensive by the Syrian Demo-cratic
Forces began in Raqqa in early June, warplanes pounded
the city for months. The US-backed Kurdish-led SDF announced
Tuesday they have driven IS militants out of the city after weeks
of fighting.
The fall of Raqqa marks a major defeat for IS, which has seen
its territories steadily shrink since last year. IS took over
Raqqa, located on the Euphrates River, in January 2014, and
trans-formed it into the epicenter of its brutal rule.
US-backed Syrian forces declares victory in Raqqa
Mogadishu AP
Thousands of anguished Somalis gathered to pray yesterday at the
site of the country’s deadliest attack, while the US military said
it had resumed its fight against extrem-ist group Al Shabab with a
drone strike.
“This pain will last for years,” said a sheikh leading the
prayers, as long lines of mourners stood in front of flattened or
tangled buildings. More than 300 people were killed and nearly 400
wounded in Saturday’s truck bombing in Mogadishu, with scores said
to be missing.
The US drone strike occurred
Monday about 56km southwest of the capital, the US Africa
Com-mand told The Associated Press. It said it was still assessing
the results.
Al Shabab has been blamed but has not commented on the bombing,
which Somali intelli-gence officials say was meant to target
Mogadishu’s heavily forti-fied international airport. Several
countries have embassies there.
The US has stepped up mili-tary involvement in the
long-fractured Horn of Africa nation since President Donald Trump
approved expanded oper-ations against the group early this year.
The US has carried out at least 19 drone strikes in Somalia since
January.
Eyes on Odinga as election board official takes leave
Female fighters of Syrian Democratic Forces gesture the “V” sign
while onboard a pick up truck in Raqqa, yesterday.
The video showed entire blocks in the city as uninhabitable with
knocked-out walls and blown-out windows and doors, while some
buildings had several storeys turned to piles of debris. The
stadium that was used as an arms depot and prison by the extremists
appears to have suffered less damage compared with surrounding
buildings.
Somalis pray for victims yesterday in Mogadishu on the scene of
a massive truck bomb attack.
US military targets rebels after Mogadishu attack
124 held in Malawi over ‘vampire’ lynching: Police
Supporters of Kenya’s opposition leader Raila Odinga of the
opposition National Super Alliance (NASA) coalition shout slogans
at a political rally at the Kamukunji Ground in Nairobi,
yesterday.
Aden AFP
A drone strike targeting a car killed three sus-pected Al Qaeda
members, including a leader in the southern Yemen prov-ince of
Abyan, local officials said yesterday.
They said the apparent US strike was carried out late Thursday
in the Sumaa area of the province, with the lead-er’s body left
“incinerated” and his two bodyguards also killed. A similar drone
strike on Sunday in Marib province, east of the Yemeni capital
Sanaa, killed five suspected Al-Qaeda militants. The United States,
the only gov-ernment to operate drones over impoverished country,
considers the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to be
the radical group’s dangerous branch.
3 dead in Yemen drone strike
-
05SATURDAY 21 OCTOBER 2017 ASIA
Devotees hold up clothes and umbrellas to receive rice as
offerings being distributed by a temple authority on the occasion
of the Annakut festival in Kolkata, yesterday.
Ooredoo Announcement Flexi Data AllowanceEffective from 21
November 2017, the new data rate of Ooredoo’s Hala Flexi Cards and
Packs will be 5 MB for 1 Flexi Point, instead of the existing 8MB
for 1 Flexi Point. This data rate is valid for all denominations of
Flexi Cards and Packs.
New DelhiIANS
New Delhi was shrouded in a thick toxic haze yesterday after a
night of fren-z i e d D i w a l i
fireworks sent the air quality plummeting despite a ban on their
sale aimed at thwarting a repeat of last year’s ‘airpocalypse’.
India’s Supreme Court had banned the sale of firecrackers ahead
of the Hindu festival of lights to prevent a repeat of last year’s
post-Diwali air pollution crises that left Delhi’s 20 million
residents gasping for weeks.
But late Thursday the read-ings for PM10 pollutants hovered
around 1,100 microgram per cubic metre in some parts of the city --
11 times above the pre-scribed air quality levels of World Health
Organisation.
PM10 particles measure less than 10 microns or 10 millionths of
a metre -- several times thin-ner than a human hair.
Air quality data from the
state-run Delhi Pollution Con-trol Committee showed pollution
levels in a crowded neighbour-hood hit 1,179 around midnight as
firework displays reached a crescendo.
Residents of Delhi, rated the most polluted city by WHO in 2014,
showed little consideration for the ban, purchasing crackers
illegally or using those bought earlier.
The levels had subsided through the night but were still
“severe” in several districts
across the capital Friday afternoon.
Nobel peace laureate Kailash Satyarthi said he was pained by
Delhi’s nonchalant attitude.
“Delhiites continue to choke on pollution. It is a reflection of
our dismissive & disrespectful attitude towards society, law
& justice. When will we learn,” he wrote on Twitter.
The spike in levels came on a day when a report in the Lan-cet
medical journal said pollution had claimed as many as 2.5 mil-lion
lives in India in 2015, the highest in the world.
Globally the number of deaths due to environmental pol-lution
stood at nine million - three times more than AIDS, tuberculosis
and malaria com-bined, the study said.
Delhi’s air quality typically worsens at the onset of winter,
due to pollution from diesel engines, coal-fired power plants,
industrial emissions and atmos-pheric dust.
Levels of PM2.5 -- the finer particles linked to higher rates of
chronic bronchitis, lung
cancer and heart disease -- have soared since the beginning of
this month when millions of farmers in the city’s north burn
post-har-vest crop residue.
The court on October 9 had banned sale of firecrackers across
the city in anticipation of last year’s catastrophic levels of
pollution. But it did not put any restrictions on the bursting of
fireworks.
Last year’s Diwali festivities took pollution levels to a record
high -- the worst in nearly two decades -- forcing the govern-ment
to shut schools and close down a coal-fired power plant.
On Tuesday an environmen-tal watchdog ordered the shutting down
of all diesel gen-erators and the city’s lone coal-fired power
plant as part of a slew of measures to curb
pollution. Experts however say the air
quality will remain considerably cleaner this year, thanks to a
favourable wind system.
“The wind system will not allow stagnation of smoke over the
city. We will have better air this time,” said Gufran Beig, chief
scientist at India’s state-run Sys-tem of Air Quality Weather
Forecasting and Research.
New DelhiAFP
India yesterday welcomed US Sec-retary of State Rex Tillerson’s
comments that Washington would rather work with New Delhi than
Beijing over the next century, saying it shared his optimism about
their burgeoning relationship.
Speaking ahead of a visit to India next week, Tillerson called
Wednes-day for deeper cooperation with India in the face of growing
Chinese influence in Asia and said Washing-ton wanted to promote a
“free and open” region led by prosperous democracies.
President Donald Trump’s top diplomat also said Beijing
sometimes acted outside international conven-tions, citing the
South China Sea dispute as an example.
India welcomed the comments, saying they “highlighted our shared
commitment to a rule-based inter-national order”, the Indian
foreign ministry said in a statement.
“We appreciate his positive eval-uation of the relationship and
share his optimism about its future directions.”
Tillerson’s remarks came hours after Chinese President Xi
Jinping’s speech at the Communist Party congress signalled that
Beijing
intended to play a greater role in world affairs.
The unexpectedly sharp com-ments were seen as a warning to
Beijing that Washington would build regional alliances to counter
China’s ever-growing power, while promoting free trade and open sea
lanes.
Beijing responded Thursday by saying that America was
biased.
“We hope the US side can look at China’s development and role in
the international community in an objective way, and abandon its
biased views of China,” foreign min-istry spokesman Lu Kang
said.
Experts say stronger US-India
ties could act as a counterweight to an increasingly assertive
China, which has been building its military and acting increasingly
assertively on the world stage.
India has historically avoided alliances, preferring to maintain
cautious relations with both Wash-ington and Beijing, but Trump has
developed a warm relationship with Prime Minister Narendra
Modi.
Tillerson will visit New Delhi next week for talks but the exact
dates have yet to be announced.
His visit will also take him to Pakistan, India’s arch-rival and
nuclear-armed neighbour.
India hails Tillerson’s call for deeper ties to counter
China
New DelhiIANS
The Congress yesterday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of
being “arrogant” over his remarks on redevelopment of the Kedarnath
shrine after the flash floods of 2013, saying he has disrespected
the people of Uttarakhand and also slammed him for wearing “Italian
glasses” at the holy place.
“Prime Minister Narendra
Modi does baba’s darshan wear-ing an Italian brand Bulgari
glasses. Similarly, he promises to develop a ‘New India’ through
those Italian glasses,” said Con-gress spokesperson R P N
Singh.
“He spoke with arrogance at baba’s shrine,” he said and added
this is the first time somebody gave a speech with his back towards
the shrine. Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala, in a video
message, said: “By vis-iting Kedarnath today (Friday),
Modiji has not only disrespected people of Uttarakhand but also
showed his arrogance.”
His remarks came after the Prime Minister accused the Con-gress
of rejecting his proposal of redeveloping the Himalayan shrine of
Kedarnath after the devastating flash floods in 2013.
Firing salvos at Modi, Surjew-ala asked: “After the 2013
disaster, is it only Modiji who is capable of redeveloping
Uttarakhand? Was the work done by the then state
government, people and the dev-otees of Shiva to redevelop
Kedarnath a waste? Out of 130 crore people, is none capable of
redeveloping Kedarnath other than Modiji?” He said: “When the ruler
turns arrogant, then his downfall is very close.” He urged the
Prime Minister to not disre-spect the people of the state, saying:
“Shiva does not ask for help, he asks for devotion.”
“And those who devote themselves, they get the fruits of
their devotion. Modiji should maintain at least some humility at
the door of Shiva,” Surjewala added.
Singh also attacked Modi for the redevelopment work of the
shrine. “After devastating flash floods in 2013, the UPA
govern-ment formed a Cabinet Committee, which sanctioned Rs 8,000
crore for the redevelop-ment. Our government had already released
Rs 2,200 crore out of the total amount.”
Delhi chokes on toxic haze despite fireworks ban
A policeman wearing a mask controls the traffic at a busy road
on a smoggy morning in New Delhi, yesterday.
Ban ignoredLate on Thursday the readings for PM10 pollutants
hovered around 1,100 microgram in some parts of the city.
Residents ignored ban by purchasing crackers illegally or using
those bought earlier.
Congress slams Modi for wearing Italian glasses at Kedarnath
India tops global pollution deaths: StudyNew DelhiReuters
Pollution caused nine million deaths in 2015 - three times more
than Aids, tuberculosis and malaria combined - scientists said,
calling for governments in poor countries to act.
India fared worst, with 2.5 million people dying early because
of pollution, followed by China with 1.8 million deaths, according
to The Lan-cet Commission on Pollution and Health, a two-year
initi-ative seeking to highlight the issue. One in six of all
deaths worldwide are caused by pol-lution, and the vast majority
occur in developing countries, the report in The Lancet med-ical
journal said.
“With globalisation, min-ing and manufacturing shifted to poorer
countries, where environmental regulations and enforcement can be
lax,” said Karti Sandilya, one of the authors and an adviser to
envi-ronmental group Pure Earth.
“People in poorer countries - like construction workers in New
Delhi - are more exposed to air pollution and less able to protect
themselves from expo-sure, as they walk, bike or ride the bus to
workplaces that may also be polluted.” In contrast, many people in
developed countries commute to air-con-ditioned offices in
air-conditioned cars, he said.
ThiruvananthapuramIANS
Veteran CPI-M leader and former Kerala Chief Min-ister V S
Achuthanandan turned 94 yesterday.
He is currently one of the country’s oldest and active
pol-iticians, and except for a slight slowing of his movements,
Achuthanandan continues to remain sharp. He also loses no
opportunity to take on his critics and on issues concerning the
people. The veteran on Friday morning was busy attending to calls
from well-wishers greeting him and also a steady stream of visitors
calling on him.
As usual the media was present in large numbers. He also heard a
new song on himself. Of late, Achuthanandan has been
maintaining a low profile when it comes to attacking his arch
rival - Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
Vijayan was made the Chief Minister in May last year, after
Achuthanandan was asked to lead the assembly election cam-paign.
After the CPI-M won the election, Achuthanandan was given the
decorative title of “Kerala’s Castro”.
In order to keep him under check, Achuthanandan was made
chairman of the Admin-istrative Reforms Commission and was given
cabinet status.
Now all eyes are on what move Achuthanandan would make after a
difference of opin-ion has surfaced on what political relations the
CPI-M should have with the Congress party.
Achuthanandan turns 94, still going strong
Annakut festival
-
06 SATURDAY 21 OCTOBER 2017ASIA
GenevaReuters
Nearly 340,000 Rohingya children are living in squalid
conditions in Bang-ladesh camps where
they lack enough food, clean water and health care, the United
Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) said yesterday.
Up to 12,000 more children join them every week, fleeing
violence or hunger in Myanmar, often still traumatised by
atroc-ities they witnessed, it said in a report “Outcast and
Desperate”.
In all, almost 600,000 Rohingya refugees have left northern
Rakhine state since August 25 when the UN says the Myanmar army
began a cam-paign of “ethnic cleansing” following insurgent
attacks.
“This isn’t going to be a short-term, it isn’t going to end
anytime soon,” Simon Ingram, the report’s author and a Unicef
official, told a news briefing.
“So it is absolutely critical
that the borders remain open and that protection for children is
given and equally that children born in Bangladesh have their birth
registered.”
Most Rohingya are stateless in Myanmar and many fled with-out
papers, he said, adding of the newborns in Bangladesh: “With-out an
identity they have no chance of ever assimilating into any society
effectively.”
Safe drinking water and toi-lets are in “desperately short
supply” in the chaotic, teeming
camps and settlements, Ingram said after spending two weeks in
Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
“In a sense it’s no surprise that they must truly see this place
as a hell on earth,” he said.
One in five Rohingya chil-dren under the age of five is
estimated to be acutely malnour-ished, requiring medical attention,
he said.
“There is a very, very severe risk of outbreaks of water-borne
diseases, diarrhoea and quite conceivably cholera in the
longer-term,” he added.
Unicef is providing clean water and toilets, and has helped
vaccinate children against mea-sles and cholera, which can be
deadly, he said.
The agency is seeking $76 million under a $434m UN appeal for
Rohingya refugees for six months, but is only 7 percent funded, he
said, speaking ahead of a pledging conference in Geneva on
Monday.
UN agencies are still demand-ing access to northern Rakhine,
where an unknown number of Rohingya remain despite UN
reports that many villages and food stocks have been burned.
“We repeat the call for the need for protection of all
children in Rakhine state, this is an absolute fundamental
requirement. The atrocities against children and civilians
must end,” Ingram said.“We just must keep putting
it on the record, we cannot keep silent.”
BeijingAFP
Beijingers are going with-out barbecue. Construction sites have
halted work. Factories hundreds of kilome-tres away have halted
production.
Despite all-out efforts to give the Chinese Communist Party blue
skies for its twice-a-dec-ade congress, Beijing’s notorious smog
has cloaked the mega-city in its trademark toxic haze.
The capital typically enjoys an unusual succession of clear days
when the party holds major events, with smoke-churning factories
ordered to shut down.
Even restaurants famous for flavourful shish kebabs turned off
their barbecues, with a waiter telling diners at one eatery this
week that the lamb delicacies would be off the menu during the
congress.
President Xi Jinping had invoked the fight against air
con-tamination during his wide-ranging speech to open the congress
on Wednesday.
“We need to prevent pollu-tion from its source, continue the
action against air pollution, and win the battle for blue skies,”
Xi said.
But the smog appeared to have not received the party directive
as it enveloped the city all week, prompting many Bei-jingers to
don masks for protection.
The counts of PM2.5 -- harmful microscopic particles that
penetrate deep into the lungs -- reached 115 Friday afternoon,
according to readings from the US embassy.
The World Health Organiza-tion’s recommended maximum exposure is
25 over a 24-hour period.
“It looked polluted out the window so I put on my mask,”
said Euphie Zheng, on the way to her IT job in central
Beijing.
China’s national air quality forecasting system attributed the
pollution to low atmos-pheric pressure and weak winds.
Beijingers have coined terms for past events that bring purer
air as the government shuts down factories and introduces other
measures to limit pollution.
In Spring there was “two meetings blue” for the clear skies
enjoyed during the session of C h i n a ’ s r u b b e r - s t a m p
parliament.
In 2014, then US President Barack Obama was welcomed with
pristine air for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
Beijingers deemed it “APEC Blue.”
For the party congress, “I was expecting blue skies,” said
Primavera Liu, a 33-year-old
translator speaking through a grey smog mask. She did not think
the smog would affect the political machinations under-way. “Xi’s
probably used to the pollution,” she said. “It’s normal.”
In recent years, the Chinese have become more attuned to the
hazards of air pollution.
A new study published in The Lancet medical journal this week
reported that pollution claimed nine million lives world-wide in
2015. Almost half of those deaths occurred in India and China.
Another study found air pol-lution in northern China cut life
expectancy by three years, com-pared with southern China.
The study, published in Sep-tember by the University of Chicago,
looked at life expect-ancy north of the Huai River, where the
government supplies residents with coal-fired heat in winter.
Rohingya refugees wait for relief supplies at Thaingkhali
refugee camp in Ukhia, yesterday.
Rohingya refugee children in dire state: UnicefFood shortage
Lack of food, clean water and health care put the lives of
children in danger at refugee camps in Bangladesh: Unicef
Almost 600,000 Rohingya refugees have left northern Rakhine
state since August 25.
Japan braces for election-day typhoon rainsTokyoAFP
A typhoon is expected to lash Japan with heavy rains tomorrow,
poten-tially weighing on turnout as millions of voters head to the
polls in the world’s third-biggest economy.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appealed to voters to cast their
ballots early as Typhoon Lan moves towards Japan bringing
driving rain across the country on election day.
“It’s rare to see typhoon rains over such a large swathe of the
Japanese archipelago in Octo-ber,” Eiju Takahashi, an official with
the Japan Meteorological Agency, said.
Only the northern island of Hokkaido is expected to be
spared the downpour on Sun-day, added Takahashi.
Abe himself cast his vote on Wednesday in Tokyo, telling
reporters that the weekend elec-tion “would decide Japan’s future”
and urging voters to cast ballots early in anticipation of bad
weather.
Turnout has declined to below 60 percent in the last two general
elections. The last
election in December 2014 saw a record-low rate of 52.66
percent.
“If it rains on Sunday, the turnout rate will not rise and that
would benefit the ruling bloc,” said Mikitaka Masuyama, polit-ical
scientist at the National Graduate Institute for Policy
Studies.
Swing voters tend to abstain on rainy days while staunch
sup-porters of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its
coali-tion partner Komeito show up to voting stations whatever the
weather, observers say.
“If the turnout rate hits a new record low, that would probably
mean the ruling bloc maintains a two-thirds major-ity” said
Hidenori Suezawa, financial and fiscal analyst at SMBC Nikko
Securities.
That is significant as Abe’s conservative LDP needs a two-thirds
majority in both houses of parliament in order to pro-pose changes
to the country’s constitution.
“On the other hand, if the turnout rate rises to the 60-per-cent
level, new (opposition) parties may make a leap for-ward,” he
said.
The key question is how heavy the rain is, said Suezawa. “If it
is cloudy or there is light driz-zle, turnout may rise as families
may abstain from outings ... but if rains heavily, it could weigh
on the turnout rate,” he said.
People listen to the speech by Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
during an election campaign in Tokyo yesterday. Campaigning began
on October 10 for the October 22 lower house election.
Nuclear weapons a ‘matter of life and death’ for N Korea
MoscowReuters
Pyongyang does not plan to hold any talks with Washington about
its nuclear programme, a senior North Korean diplomat said
yesterday, declaring that pos-sessing nuclear weapons was a matter
of life and death for North Korea, the RIA news agency
reported.
Tension has soared on the peninsula following a series of
weapons tests by North Korea and a string of increasingly
bel-licose exchanges between US President Donald Trump and North
Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Trump, in a speech last month at the United Nations, threatened
to “totally destroy” North Korea if necessary to defend itself and
allies and called the North’s leader a “rocket man” on a suicide
mission.
Choe Son-hui, director-general of the North American department
of North Korea’s foreign ministry, told a non-proliferation
conference in Moscow Washington would “have to put up” with
North
Korea’s nuclear status, RIA reported.
“This is a matter of life and death for us. The current situ-a t
i o n d e e p e n s o u r understanding that we need nuclear
weapons to repel a potential attack.” “We will respond to fire with
fire.”
Pyongyang would regard any attempts to strangle the country via
UN Security Coun-cil sanctions as an attempt “to declare war”.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, addressing the same
conference earlier on Fri-day, urged world powers to get behind a
joint Russian-Chinese roadmap for settling the crisis over North
Korea’s weapons programme.
“We are convinced that its implementation will promote the
lessening of military activ-ity and tension on the Korean peninsula
and the forming in Northeastern Asia of a system of equal and
indivisible secu-rity,” he said.
The plan proposes a mora-torium on North Korea’s missile and
nuclear weapons tests, while South Korea and the United States
suspend holding military exercises.
East Timor govt faces uncertainty after defeatDiliAFP
East Timor’s new govern-ment has suffered a major setback after
opposition parties vetoed its policy pro-gramme, a blow that could
see the impoverished young democracy return to the polls.
The Fretilin party, which won the July election by a nar-row
margin, did not receive enough votes to govern alone and has formed
a minority coa-lition government with the Democratic Party.
With only 30 seats in the 65-seat house, the government relies
on confidence and sup-ply from other parties in parliament.
Prime Minister Mari Alkat-iri said the defeat in parliament on
Thursday was “poison to my
government”. “I asked every-one to remain calm, I will go to you
and talk to you,” Alkatiri said in tears following the vote.
The bill outlined the gov-ernment’s five-year strategic plan for
the impoverished young democracy and included initiatives to
improve health, infrastructure and better access to clean
water.
East Timor analyst Damien Kingsbury, from Australia’s Deakin
University, said if the government failed to pass the bill again
the country could return to the polls. “The president has two
choices he has either to call for a majority in parliament to
choose a new leader and appoint a new prime minister or the country
goes to election, proba-bly January next year. That would seem the
most likely outcome at this stage,” Kingsbury said.
Smog defies China’s Communist Party congress
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07SATURDAY 21 OCTOBER 2017 ASIA
A municipal worker fumigates a street to prevent the spread of
dengue fever and other mosquito-borne diseases in Rawalpindi,
Pakistan, yesterday.
Fumigating the street
KabulAFP
Nearly 60 people were killed when suicide bombers blew
themselves up in two separate
mosque attacks in Afghanistan yesterday, officials said, capping
a bloody week in the war-torn country.
In the first attack, on a Shia mosque in the Afghan capital
Kabul, at least 39 people includ-ing women and children were killed
and 45 others wounded when a suicide bomber exploded his device as
worship-pers gathered for evening prayer.
“Unfortunately this evening a suicide bomber detonated himself
among the worshippers inside a mosque in Dasht-e-Bar-chi
neighbourhood of Kabul city,” Kabul police spokesman Abdul Basir
Mujahid told AFP.
Interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish confirmed the attack
toll on Twitter.
“I was in the mosque bath-room when I heard a blast. I rushed
inside the mosque and saw all the worshippers covered in blood,”
Hussain Ali said.
“Some of the wounded were fleeing. I tried to stop someone to
help me help the wounded but everyone was in a panic. It took
ambulances and the police about an hour to reach the area.”
Social media users launched an online campaign calling on people
to donate blood for the wounded being treated at two hospitals.
Police initially said a
gunman entered the Imam Zaman mosque in a heavily Shi-ite
neighbourhood in the west of the city and opened fire on
worshippers.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the grisly
attack but recent assaults on Shiite mosques in Afghani-stan have
been carried out by Islamic State militants, who belong to the
rival Sunni branch of Islam.
In the second assault, a sui-cide bomber detonated himself in a
Sunni mosque in the impov-erished and remote central province of
Ghor, killing at least 20 and wounding 10, Danish said.
A senior local police com-mander who is believed to have been
the target of the attack in Dolaina district was among the dead,
district governor Mohsen Danishyar said, although there was no
immediate claim of responsibility.
Danishyar put the death toll as high as 30.
The attacks cap one of the bloodiest weeks in Afghanistan
in recent memory, with more than 120 people already killed and
hundreds more wounded in four separate Taliban attacks on police
and military bases.
Including Friday’s victims at the two mosque attacks, the death
toll for the week now stands at more than 180.
In three of the Taliban attacks the assailants used bomb-laden
Humvees stolen from Afghan government forces to blast their way
into targets, as militants step up direct a t t a c k s o n s e c u
r i t y installations.
The last attack on a Shiite mosque in Kabul happened on
September 29 as Muslims pre-pared to commemorate Ashura, one of the
holiest days in the Islamic calendar.
Six people were killed when a suicide bomber posing as a
shepherd blew himself up near Hussainia mosque, one of the biggest
Shiite centres in the city, as worshippers gathered for Fri-day
prayers.
An attack on another Shiite mosque in the city on August 25
killed 28 people and wounded around 50 others.
Four attackers who set off explosions and fired gunshots laid
siege to the mosque in the north of the capital for four hours as
dozens of men, women and children had gathered for Friday
prayers.
In recent years, the Taliban and Islamic State jihadists have
repeatedly targeted the minor-ity Shiite community, who number
around three million in overwhelmingly Sunni Afghanistan.
SydneyReuters
The parliament of Austral-ia’s second largest state passed
legislation yester-day to allow terminally ill patients to seek
medical help to end their lives, a bill that is expected to act as
a catalyst for the rest of the country to adopt similar laws.
Any resident of Victoria state
over 18, with a terminal illness and with less than 12 months to
live can request a lethal dose of med-ication, the bill permits.
Anyone that is too ill to administer the dos-age can ask for a
doctor to help.
Many countries have legal-i s e d e u t h a n a s i a o r
physician-assisted deaths, including Canada, the Nether-lands,
Switzerland, and some states in the United States.
B u t A u s t r a l i a ’ s
federal government has opposed legalising euthanasia even though
the remote Northern Territory became the first jurisdiction in the
world to do so in 1995.
The federal government enacted its own legislation to override
the Northern Territory law in 1997 under rules allowed by the
constitution. State law can not be overridden.
The passage of the bill in Vic-toria is expected to herald
assisted death legislation in other Australian states.
“It is a landmark moment. Other states are likely to follow. We
have seen this in other juris-dictions and I expect once
politicians see how the system works, they will adopt similar
models,” said Ben White, direc-tor of the Australian Centre for
Health Law Research at Queens-land University of Technology. The
issue has divided lawmakers
and medicinal professionals. Vic-torian premier Daniel Andrews
introduced the bill following his father’s death from cancer in
2016.
An opponent of the legalisa-tion, Michael Gannon, president of
the Australian Medical Asso-ciation, which represents medical
practitioners, said state law should not change because of the
death of Andrews’ father. He later apologised for the comment.
Nearly 60 dead in suicide attacks on Afghan mosques
Blasts in Kabul & Ghor
At least 39 people, including women and children, were killed as
Shia mosque targeted in Kabul.
At least 20 killed in suicide blast at a Sunni mosque in the
impoverished province of Ghor.
Asad Afridi emerges as favourite to lead Pakistani Taliban
factionPeshawarReuters
Senior militant commander Asad Afridi has emerged as the
favourite to become the new leader of a deadly Pakistani Taliban
faction, militant sources said yesterday, days after a US drone
strike killed the group’s chief. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), a splinter
faction of the Pakistani Taliban, has killed hundreds of people in
bomb attacks and is considered one of the most dan-gerous militant
groups in the nuclear-armed South Asian nation.
The killing of JuA chief Omar Khalid Khorasani was a major boost
for Pakistan’s anti-mili-tancy campaign and is likely to help ease
tension with uneasy ally the United States days ahead of a visit by
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
Two JuA commanders told Reuters Afridi was nominated to take
over during a meeting in Afghanistan by the group’s shura, or
leadership council. “Asad Afridi was close to Omar Khalid, who had
declared him his deputy,” said one JuA commander.
A second JuA militant, who is a member of the shura,
confirmed Afridi was nominated as the new chief.
Khorasani was seen as rul-ing the group with an iron fist.
“Our organisation used to be a one-man show. All powers were in
the hands of Omar Khalid Kho-rasani,” the second commander said.
Khorasani was killed during a series of US drone attacks this week
in which at least 30 people were killed on the Afghan side of the
border. His killing follows a slight thaw in relations between
Islamabad and Washington, seemingly sparked by the Paki-stan army
last week freeing a US-Canadian couple.
New Zealand election result stokes fearsof
migrationWellingtonReuters
Temporary workers and foreign students previ-ously drawn to New
Zealand on the promise of gaining residency will start leaving en
masse, migration agents say, as the incoming coalition government
prom-ises to cut record migration.
The tie-up between the traditionally centre-left Labour Party
and nationalist New Zealand First represents an abrupt shift in the
formerly open door policy that fuelled strong economic growth but
has also been blamed for soaring house prices and growing
inequality.
“We are told (foreign) stu-dents are working as many hours as
possible to make as much quick money as possi-ble on the
understanding there is no more path to res-idency, and they will
need to return home,” said Connor Brady, immigration adviser and
manager director at agency New Life Global.
New Zealand had almost 122,000 international stu-dents in 2016,
up 40 percent from three years earlier, led by China and India.
New Zealand has devel-oped a particularly close economic
relationship with China, signing the OECD’s first free-trade deal
with Beijing in 2008 and welcoming record Chinese investment and
immi-gration in recent years.
But Prime Minister-elect Jacinda Ardern and her coa-lition
partner Winston Peters have found common ground in “fortress New
Zealand” type policies that align more with the populist movements
across Europe and the US.
Australia’s Victoria state edges towards permitting
euthanasia
ManilaReuters
Philippine President Rod-rigo Duterte was eager to credit new
ally Beijing in the death of militant leader Isnilon Hapilon,
saying it was a Chinese rifle that fired the bul-let that finished
off Islamic State’s “emir” in Southeast Asia.
The smoking gun that took out the region’s most feared insurgent
on Monday was one of the 100 sniper rifles donated by China,
Duterte said, although the ranger unit conducting the operation
said the shot was fired from a heavier weapon mounted on an
armoured vehicle.
Duterte is a huge fan of the Chinese rifles and took a pot-shot
himself in the direction of militants in Marawi City recently.
Addressing businessmen and diplomats, he singled out ambas-sador
Zhao Jianhua for China’s support that led to the crucial
killing.
“I would like to officially inform you, Ambassador Zhao, that
the rifle that killed Hapilon was a sniper rifle made in China,”
Duterte announced late on Thursday, to warm applause from the
crowd.
But the version of the final hours of the life of Hapilon and
another rebel leader,
Omarkhayam Maute, posted on the Facebook page of a member of the
Army Scout Rangers, tells a different story.
The blow-by-blow account on “Scout Ranger Books”, posted the day
Hapilon was killed, tells of how the 8th Scout Ranger Company was
engaging mili-tants and was not aware the rebel commanders were
among those they killed, until fleeing hostages told them.
The soldiers operating at night used thermal imaging on an
armoured vehicle and the shot that killed Hapilon came from a gun
mounted on top of it, according to the account. No mention was made
of Chinese weapons or snipers.
Prior to Duterte’s remarks, two soldiers in that vehicle told
CNN Philippines the fixed weapon was remote controlled. A general
in Marawi in
command of the armoured assets told Reuters the fixed weapons
are 50-calibre machine guns.
Duterte has made a big effort to befriend China and has
fre-quently praised its leadership while in contrast, chiding
defence treaty ally the United States, its biggest source of
weapons and expertise, for what he calls hypocrisy and for
treat-ing his country “like a dog”.
Duterte lauds China role in rebel’s death 26 injured in attack
at key Pakistan port QuettaReuters
Unidentified men threw a grenade into a labourers’ hostel in the
Pakistani port of Gwadar wounding 26 of them, police said
yesterday, in an attack likely to raise concern about security for
the Pakistani sec-tion of China’s “Belt and Road” initiative.
There was no claim of responsibility for the attack, one of
three on Thursday in the gas-rich southwestern province of
Baluchistan, a key section of the plan for energy and transport
links connecting western China with the Middle East and Europe.
“They labourers were having dinner at the hostel when
motorcyclists attacked them with a grenade,” police official Imam
Bakhsh said.
Separatist rebels in Balu-chistan, fighting against what they
see as the unfair exploi-tation of the province’s resources, have
for years attacked energy and infra-structure projects, including
the Gwadar deep-sea port on the Arabian Sea.
Philippine soldiers from Marawi are welcomed home by their
relatives at Villamor Airbase in Manila, yesterday.
-
The US administration has cleared a critical hurdle on the way
to rewrite the US tax code, after the Senate approved a
multi-trillion dollar budget blueprint on Thursday. The Senate
voted 51-49 to pass the budget resolution. The Senate’s passage of
budget blueprint will help
unlock a procedure that Republicans plan to overhaul the tax
code. For the Republicans, the overhauling of American tax system
is crucial to achieve their campaign promises.
Trump lauded the vote on Twitter, saying it would be the “first
step toward massive tax cuts for the American people.” “The Budget
passed late last night, 51 to 49,” he wrote yesterday morning. “We
got ZERO Democrat votes with only Rand Paul (he will vote for Tax
Cuts) voting against ... This now allows for the passage of large
scale Tax Cuts (and Reform), which will be the biggest in the
history of our country!”
US stock futures indicated a stronger session on Wall Street
yesterday, after the Senate narrowly passed the blueprint. European
shares rebounded from their worst day in two months. The passage of
budget blueprint is seen as a move paving the way for the tax
reform that many investors believe it will help keep the bull
market alive.
The recently unveiled America’s tax code, which proposes to
dramatically lower taxes on businesses and many households, is
facing roadblocks on many counts. Chief among them is that the plan
does not provide much detail on how to pay for a plan that analysts
have estimated could cost trillions of dollars, according to the
detractors.
The framework, a joint product of the Trump administration and
Republican leadership, proposes for lowering the corporate rate
from 35 to 20 percent. It would also bring down the rate for
so-called pass-through businesses to 25 percent. It proposes cuts
to personal and business tax rates, in line with previous Trump
campaign and House Republican proposals.
Two Wall Street giants had openly come out against President
Donald Trump’s tax reform proposals. Billionaire investor Warren
Buffet and BlackRock Chief Executive Larry Fink suggested in
separate interviews that the corporate rate may not have to be cut
as deeply as proposed. “We have a lot of business…I don’t think any
of them are non-competitive in the world because of the corporate
tax rate”, Buffet told CNBC.
“What is being proposed is a pretty large expansion of our
deficits.” Fink told Bloomberg TV.
IMF has issued a caution on the US tax reforms. Going by the
overall debt level and the off-the-balance-sheet obligation of the
US, the fund feels that ‘whatever the tax reform plan looks like’,
it should not increase the deficit. ‘Over the medium term, “tax
reform” should be revenue enhancing’, IMF chief economist Maurice
Obstfeld said after publishing IMF’s latest global economic
forecasts last week.
President Donald Trump’s budget director Mick Mulvaney was quick
to react to IMF and other critics. He accused them of wanting the
reforms to fail. The sceptics of the plan were “heavily invested in
it not working out”, he said.
The Democrats believe that the tax cuts would largely help the
wealthiest Americans. They are also sceptical about the White
House’s claim that corporate tax cuts would raise wages for the
middle class.
08 SATURDAY 21 OCTOBER 2017VIEWS
E S T A B L I S H E D I N 1 9 9 6
CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI
EDITOR-IN-CHIEFDR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK
[email protected]
ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM
[email protected]
US tax reform push
QUOTE OF THE DAY
The battle against Islamic State did not end with the fall of
Raqqa and France will maintain its military effort as long
asnecessary.
Emmanuel Macron French President
The framework, a joint product of the Trump administration and
Republican leadership, proposes for lowering the corporate rate
from 35 to 20 percent.
The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and the Deputy Chief Commander of
the Armed Forces of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Mohammed bin
Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan is per-
ceived as the “mentor” of the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia
Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. King Salman’s ill health has led
to the relegation of most of his responsibility to his son Crown
Prince Mohammad bin Salman. He is by a stretch the most powerful
leader in terms of economic and military might in the Middle East.
He controls one of the richest entities in the world Aramco, the
state own energy giant. Bin Salman is also the Defense Minister and
the leader of the coalition cur-rently battling armed insurgency in
Yemen.
Mohammed bin Zayed has been a key player in building confidence
in Bin Sal-man’s short political career. According to the Wall
Street Journal Bin Salman had an amicable relationship with Qatar
however as tensions escalated in the Gulf he had to choose between
Doha and the UAE, he chose the latter.
This indicates the influence Mohammed bin Zayed have over the 32
years old Crown Prince. Since their first meeting “at a social
event in the desert ” their relationship has blossomed. This has
elevated the political status of Bin Zayed and that of a previously
obscured UAE in the region. However the deep state in Saudi Arabia
has been skepti-cal of the role and politics of UAE in the region
and that is creating cracks in their relationship.
First, contrary to the general belief there is still no
consensus between the UAE and Saudi Arabia on the post-war
political makeup in Yemen. The core objective of the coalition is
to drive out the Houthis and forces loyal to the former president
of Yemen Ali Abdullah Saleh.
However the two Gulf States differ on the role of the
internationally recognised government of President Abd Rabbu
Man-sour Hadi. According to Jacqulyn Meyer Kantack a researcher
from the Critical Threat Projec