Eid prayer at Al Aqsa Mosque

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Volume 23 | Number 7559 | 2 RiyalsSaturday 16 June 2018 | 2 Shawwal I 1439 www.thepeninsula.qa

Eid Mubarak

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Amir performs Eid prayer, receives well-wishers

QNA

DOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani yesterday morning performed Eid Al Fitr prayer with citizens at Al Wajba praying area.

H E Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Khalifa Al Thani, H H Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Personal Representative of the Amir, H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Khalifa Al Thani, and H E Sheikh Jassim bin Khalifa Al Thani took part in the prayer.

Amir also took twitter to con-gratulate people of Qatar and all Muslims across the world on Eid Al Fitr. “I congratulate the Qatari people and esteemed residents on Eid Al Fitr and I pray to Allah

the Almighty to grant our dear country more happiness and prosperity. I also extend my congratulations to the Arab and Muslims, wishing them good, safety and stability,” Amir tweeted

Speaker of the Advisory Council, H E Ahmed bin

Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud, along with a group of Their Excellencies Sheikhs, ministers and ambassadors also per-formed the prayer in addition to citizens at Al Wajba praying area.

Dr Thaqeel Sayer Al Shammari, Court of Cassation

judge and Supreme Judiciary Council member, who led the prayer delivered the Eid sermon in which he thanked God for his grace on Muslims as they completed the fast and highlighted the benefits of fasting. He called on the Muslims to worship God

Almighty and follow pillars of Islam. He also urged Muslims to do good deeds, work in line with God’s directives, visit each other and maintain ties with kinship as a good trait of believers. He also pointed to the virtues of the Islam religion, which encourage cooperation in

righteousness and piety and ensuring the security and pro-tection of the homeland and obe-dience to the guardians. Scores of worshippers performed the Eid prayer in mosques and praying areas across the country.

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UN top court to hear Qatar’s complaint against UAETHE PENINSULA

DOHA: The UN’s highest court yesterday decided to hold public hearings this month in an urgent case filed by Qatar accusing the UAE of human rights violations and discrim-ination.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, said yesterday it is going to “hold public hearings from June 27 to 29, in the pro-ceedings instituted by the State of Qatar on June 11 against the United Arab Emirates, at the Peace Palace in the Hague, the seat of the Court.”

The hearings will be devoted to the request for the indication of provisional measures submitted by Qatar.

Qatar’s lawyers will lay out their arguments before the International Court of Justice on June 27 and Abu Dhabi will

also be given the chance to respond, the statement added.

A year ago Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt abruptly severed ties with Qatar on false allegations.

Qatar “requests the court as a matter of urgency” to order Abu Dhabi to “cease and desist... any form of racial dis-crimination against Qatari individuals.”

Qatar’s foreign ministry denounced last Monday “human rights violations arising from the UAE’s discrim-ination against Qatar and Qatari citizens” and demanded Abu Dhabi to “make full repa-rations, including compen-sation for the harm suffered as a result of the UAE’s actions.”

“The UAE deprived Qatari companies and individuals of property and assets and denied fundamental access to education, medicine and justice in the UAE courts,” the ministry said.

Eid celebrated with full fervourSACHIN KUMAR THE PENINSULA

DOHA: Eid Al Fitr, that marked the culmination of the holy month of Ramadan, was cele-brated with full fervor in Qatar. Malls, parks, beaches and other public places were filled with people who were dressed in the best clothes to match their festive mood.

The festivities were doubled as Eid has coincided with FIFA World Cup this year, giving soccer lovers oppor-tunity to enjoy matches in spe-cially created Fan Zones across Doha.

The first day of Eid started with Eid prayers performed in early morning at the different Eid gahs and mosques across the country where people were

present in a large number. The homes were decorated to welcome their guests who came for exchange greetings. Children made the most of Eid by collecting gifts from elders and going out for different entertainment programme.

Many fun-filled activities were planned in advance by the authorities to make this Eid a memorable experience.

Qatar Tourism Authority’s fifth edition of Qatar Summer Festival (QSF) has kicked off from Thursday. From the first to the fifth day of Eid Al Fitr, the participating malls in the fes-tival have planned special free entertainment shows for shoppers and families looking for some indoor fun. The shows are being performed three times a day on rotation at all participating malls. The

participating malls include Al Khor Mall, Al Mirqab Mall, B Square Mall, Doha Festival City, Gulf Mall, Hyatt Plaza, Landmark Mall and Mall of Qatar. Lagoona Mall is also par-ticipating with special World Cup activities, allowing shoppers to watch the tournaments matches live. Many families headed to the Entertainment City set up at the Doha Exhi-bition and Convention Centre.

Spread out over the expansive ground floor of the Doha Exhibition and Con-vention Centre, the City’s key features include the worlds largest bouncy castle, an 18-hole mini-golf course, an ice skating rink, exciting rides, skill games, video games, as well as live entertainment shows.

→CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

Nationwide drive to reduce plastic waste SANAULLAH ATAULLAH THE PENINSULA

DOHA: Ministry of Municipality and Environment has intensified efforts to curb disposal of plastic waste at random places which takes years to decompose causing environmental pollution.

Under the initiative, the Ministry has started providing separate bins at places to ease the recycling process which is

also helping cut cost of the waste sorting. A nationwide campaign is also underway to create awareness among people about using garbage bins properly.

“The move aims at encour-aging citizens and expatriates to use the alternatives of plastic bags and creating awareness among them to throw plastic waste like wrappers and water bottles at designated places and bins,” said Omar Salim Al Naimi, Head of the Department of Envi-ronmental Protection, Natural

Reserves, and Wildlife.Al Naimi urged people to

avoid using plastic items as much as possible while speaking at a talk-show on Al Rayyan TV recently.

“One time using plastic bags should be replaced with paper bags which could be used many times,” said Al Naimi adding that bags made of other stronger materials rather than plastic could be used for longer.

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Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani congratulated people of Qatar and all Muslims across the world on Eid Al Fitr. “I congratulate the Qatari people and esteemed residents on Eid Al Fitr and I pray to Allah the Almighty to grant our dear country more happiness and prosperity.”

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani during the Eid Al Fitr prayer at Al Wajba praying area, yesterday. →SEE ALSO PAGES 2 & 3

Muslims perform Eid Al Fitr prayer at Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, yesterday.

Amir exchanges Eid greetings with ErdoganDOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has exchanged greetings on the occasion of Eid Al Fitr with President of the Tunisian Republic, Beji Caid Essebsi, and President of the Republic of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in two phone calls made by His Highness last evening.

02 SATURDAY 16 JUNE 2018HOME

Amir performs Eid Al Fitr prayer

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani performs Eid Al Fitr prayer with citizens at Al Wajba praying area, yesterday morning. BELOW: H H the Amir receives Their Excellencies Sheikhs, officials and citizens.

03SATURDAY 16 JUNE 2018 HOME

Amir receives scores of well-wishers

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani receiving Their Excellencies Sheikhs, Ministers, Ministries’ Undersecretaries, Advisory Council members, heads of diplomatic missions accredited to Qatar as well as army and police officers, and heads of national institutions and departments and citizens.

HMC official provides tips for healthy eating THE PENINSULA

DOHA: Reem Al Saadi (pictured), Director of Dietetics and Nutrition at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), has said that avoiding heartburn and indigestion in Eid Al Fitr can be as simple as being more thoughtful about food choices and portion size.

She said that the conclusion of a month of fasting combined with the celebration of Eid can lead to many people overindulging, par-ticularly on foods that are high in fat, sugar, and salt further noting that mindfulness and restraint are key to avoiding stomach aches and maintaining good digestion, said a statement. “Having a light breakfast, especially during the first day of Eid, eating slowly, and chewing each mouthful thoroughly

will help set you up to enjoy the day’s celebrations. Try to be thoughtful about both what you eat and portion size. Eating smaller meals is better for your digestive system and preparing smaller por-tions will also help avoid food spoilage and waste. Foods that are higher in fat can be more difficult for some people to digest so try to limit these foods,” said Al Saadi.

She said that our bodies are designed to eat smaller meals throughout the day, noting that large meals burden the digestive system and can cause bloating, gas, and low energy levels as the body struggles to digest.

She further stated that it is important to concentrate on quality as much as quantity, consuming foods from all the major food groups. She has also recommended

remaining physically active.To help re-adjust to normal

eating patterns post-Ramadan, Al Saadi has recommended eating smaller portions and eating more frequently. She has also recom-mended slowly adjusting the timing of the evening meal, noting that it is important to stop eating when you begin to feel full.

She said that eating foods that are light but high in protein, like shrimps, and increasing the amount of fresh fruits and leafy green vegetables eaten is recom-mended. She also suggested eating plenty of fiber-rich foods as they can help prevent constipation. She said that it is advisable to limit sweets and highly processed car-bohydrates such as cakes and bis-cuits and she highlights that sugar-sweetened beverages and soft

drinks should be consumed in moderation as these foods have little to no nutritional value and can cause bloating.

“Aim to limit your con-sumption of highly processed car-bohydrates and processed meat products. When possible, opt for fat-free meats and ensure foods you consume have been safely pre-pared. Foodborne illnesses are a major cause of abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea,” said Al Saadi.

She said that when possible it is best to eat meals prepared at home, noting that eating at home allows you to control the ingre-dients in your food. She also sug-gested avoiding fast food but says it is possible to eat healthily when eating at restaurants, noting that today most fast food resultants are

able to cater to a variety of dietary requirements and have ‘healthier’ options on their menu.

Introduced two years ago, the Ramadan Health website is Qatar’s first online resource devoted to health and wellness during the Holy Month. Visit the Ramadan Health website at www.hamad.qa/ramadanhealth, or download the app to your phone or tablet by searching for ‘Qatar Health’ (available for iOS and Android operating systems).

Qatar keen to protect rights of persons with disabilitiesQNA

NEW YORK: Qatar stressed its keenness on continuing to implement its obligations towards the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, noting that it spares no effort to foster, protect, empower and integrate persons with disabilities at the national and international levels.

This came in Qatar’s statement delivered by H E Ambassador Sheikha Alia Ahmed bin Saif Al Thani, the Permanent Represent-ative of Qatar to the United Nations, at the 11th session of the Con-ference of States Parties to the Con-vention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which began on Tuesday at the UN headquarters.

Her Excellency said that Qatar was among the first States to ratify the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2008. Since then, Qatar has made great strides in achieving and embedding the principles and foundation of Qatar’s National Vision 2030, including achieving equality and justice for all groups and sectors of society, including persons with disabilities.

She added that the State of Qatar has made continuous efforts to promote the rights of persons with disabilities in terms of addressing their rights and issues in detail in the relevant legislation and laws and providing resources necessary for implementation at the executive level in various fields

(education, health care, employment, adequate housing and access to public and private facilities as well as cultural and sports facilities, etc.), ensuring that they are not left behind by the rapid development of the State of Qatar.

The Ambassador noted many plans and strategies for persons with disabilities adopted by Qatar, most recently the National Autism Plan 2017-2021 to improve the lives of people with autism.

“We are proud that the State of Qatar is now considered to be among the developed countries in the field of care for persons with disabilities. Qatar currently has 34 specialized bodies that offer spe-cialized services for people with disabilities.” She added that Qatar

believes in the importance of investing information and commu-nication technology to unlock the potential of people with disabilities and help them achieve inde-pendence and self-reliance. For this purpose, it launched the Digital Inclusion Strategy and the Mada Assistive Technology Center, which is working hard to help people with disabilities to attain their goals and access to equal opportunities in education and work so that they can live independently.

In this context, HE the Ambas-sador referred to Gulf Region Edu-cation Assistive Technology (GREAT) organized by the Mada Center in April 2018 under the aus-pices of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, in cooper-

ation with the Ministry of Edu-cation, Hamad Bin Khalifa Uni-versity and the US Assistive Tech-nology Industry Association.

The survey provided info on the needs of persons with disabil-ities, identified types of disabilities in the State, and provided analysis of data and data collected in order to promote integration within society, she added.

Concluding, the Ambassador stressed that the Qatar is keen to continue to implement its obliga-tions towards the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabil-ities and that it spares no effort to foster, protect, empower and inte-grate persons with disabilities at the national and international levels.

Amir performs Eid prayerCONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

After performing Eid Al Fitr prayer, Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani received scores of well-wishers on the advent of Eid Al Fitr at Al Wajba Palace.

His Highnesses received after Eid prayer H E Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al-Thani, HE Speaker of the Advisory Council Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Zaid Al Mahmoud, Their Excel-lencies Sheikhs, Ministers, Ministries’ Undersecre-taries, Advisory Council members, and citizens.

H H the Amir also received heads of diplo-matic missions accredited to Qatar as well as army and police officers, and heads of national institutions and departments. The well-wishers expressed their sincere congratulations and blessings to H H the Amir.

H E Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Khalifa Al Thani, H H Personal Representative of the Amir Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani, H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Khalifa Al Thani, and H E Sheikh Jassim bin Khalifa Al Thani attended the reception.

At afternoon, H H the Amir received more well-wishers, including Their Excellencies sheikhs and citizens. H H Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Personal Representative of H H the Amir attended the reception.

Gazans perform Eid prayer

04 SATURDAY 16 JUNE 2018MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

Coalition forces seize entrance

to airport in Yemen’s HodeidahREUTERS

ADEN: Forces from an alliance of Arab states seized the entrance to the airport in Yemen’s main port city yesterday, in an offensive against Houthi movement that the United Nations fears could trigger a famine imperilling millions of lives.

The swift advance was an important early success for the Saudi-led alliance, which launched the operation in Hodeidah three days ago and says it can seize the city quickly enough to avoid interrupting aid to the millions facing starvation.

“We saw the resistance forces in the square at the north-western entrance to the airport,” said a Hodeidah resident, referring to Yemeni allies of the Saudi-led coalition. Two Yemeni military officials allied to the coalition confirmed this.

Alliance-backed Yemeni forces tweeted that they had also seized the airport’s southern entrance and were advancing down a main road towards the Hodeidah seaport.

Residents said battles had been fought in the Manzar neigh-bourhood abutting the wall around the airport. “There have been terrifying bombing runs since the morning when they

struck Houthi positions near the airport,” said fish vendor Ammar Ahmed. “We live days of terror that we have never known before.”

Apache attack helicopters hovered over Manzar, firing at Houthi snipers and fighters in schools and other buildings, said another resident, who asked not to be identified. Houthi forces had entered homes overlooking the main road to go onto the roofs. Dozens of Manzar resi-dents fled to the city centre on motorcycles, the resident said.

Streets elsewhere in the city were empty despite the Eid holiday marking the end of the Ramadan fast. Houthi fighters amassed in the city centre where a hospital put out a call for blood donations, the resident said. Medical sources said 23 wounded

civilians had arrived from Manzar.

Aid agency CARE Interna-tional quoted its last staff member in Hodeidah as saying: “The situation is very scary, scarier than it has ever been before. We can hear the fighting coming close and the situation is really changing for the worse.”

The coalition of Arab states has battled with little success for three years to defeat the Houthis, who control the capital Sanaa, the Hodeidah port and most of Yemen’s populated areas. The assault on Hodeidah is the alli-ance’s first attempt to capture such a well-defended major city.

“We are at the edges of the airport and are working to secure it now,” the Arab coalition said in a statement to Reuters. “Operational priority is to avoid civilian casualties, maintain the flow of humanitarian aid, and allow for the UN to press the Houthis to evacuate the city.”

The assault is a gamble by the Arab states, who insist they can swiftly capture the port without major disruption to aid supplies in a country already experiencing the world’s most pressing humanitarian crisis.

The United Nations, which struggled but failed to find a dip-lomatic path to head off the assault, fears the fighting will cut

off the only lifeline for most Yemenis. Around 22 million depend on aid and 8.4 million are at immediate risk of starvation.

Western countries have long given the Arab states tacit diplo-matic backing and sell them bil-lions of dollars a year in arms. But that support could falter if the assault provokes the feared humanitarian catastrophe.

“I urge all parties to the conflict to meet their obligations to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure and take active steps to respect international humanitarian law,” said David Beasley, head of the UN World Food Programme.

Capturing Hodeidah would

give the Arab coalition the upper hand in the war, in which it has fought since 2015 to restore an exiled government driven out by the Houthis. But a successful operation would require cap-turing a city of 600,000 people without inflicting damage that would destroy the port.

Civilians are fleeing if they have anywhere to go, or staying and bracing for a battle.

“My family left for Sanaa yes-terday but I stayed behind alone to protect our home from looters,” said Mohammed Abdullah, an employee of the Houthi administration.

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi say

the Houthis are a proxy force for Iran, their regional arch-rival. The Houthis, from a Shia minority, deny being Tehran’s pawns. Instead, they say they took power in a popular revolt and are defending Yemen from invasion by its neighbours.

Houthi leader Abdel-Malek Al Houthi called on his followers late on Thursday to head to the frontlines to fight the “instru-ments of the United States and Israel”. “The Yemeni coast has been a strategic target for the invaders throughout history and confronting the aggression is a national duty in the face of the danger of foreign occupation.”

Palestinians perform Eid Al Fitr prayer at Israeli border in Gaza City, yesterday.

23 presidential candidates cleared for Zimbabwe’s July voteAFP

HARARE: A record 23 presi-dential candidates were cleared on Thursday to run in Zimba-bwe’s elections due on July 30, including incumbent Emmerson Mnangagwa and young oppo-sition leader Nelson Chamisa, the country’s electoral commission announced.

It is the first election in Zim-babwe since veteran leader Robert Mugabe was ousted fol-lowing a brief military takeover in November last year, after 37 years in power.

The July election will be a key test for Mnangagwa, nick-named the ‘Crocodile’, who suc-ceeded the long-serving autocrat Mugabe seven months ago, and remains untested at the ballot box.

He has pledged to hold free and fair elections as he seeks to mend international relations.

Mnangagwa has already invited Western observers, including the European Union and the Commonwealth for the first time in more than a decade, to monitor the polls.

Previous elections in Zim-babwe have been marred by electoral fraud, intimidation and violence, including the killing of scores of opposition supporters in 2008. Candidates vying to contest next month’s presi-dential, parliamentary and local polls had just one day to submit their candidacy to one of several specially convened electoral courts across the country.

Mnangagwa, 75, of the ruling ZANU-PF party and Chamisa, 40,

of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party are the presidential front-runners.

“I submitted the papers for his excellency honourable Emmerson Mnangagwa,” said justice minister and Mnan-gagwa’s election agent Ziyambi Ziyambi at the Harare High Court. Chamisa’s election agent, Jameson Timba, said the MDC was confident of victory.

“Nelson Chamisa has been successfully nominated as the presidential candidate for the coming elections... Chamisa is the next president of Zimbabwe,” Timba told journalists in Harare.

The opposition has com-plained of irregularities ahead of the much-anticipated vote and called for the full electoral roll of voters to be published.

They have also demanded that the ZEC be overhauled so that it includes fewer members with ties to the powerful military which is seen as backing Mnangagwa.

This year’s vote has attracted more candidates than usual. The 2013 elections attracted five can-didates while the 2008 polls were contested by only four hopefuls.

“This may be due to a sense of political liberalisation and rel-ative peace as opposed to the highly polarised and violent political contestation between the Mugabe-led Zanu-PF and the MDC,” said Gideon Chitanga of the Johannesburg-based Political Economy Southern Africa think-tank.

“The election campaigns

have so far been peaceful,” he said. The opposition has also been hugely fragmented.

“It is a rather sad reflection of Zimbabwean politics that so many with no chance think they can win. This will split the oppo-sition, the unknown question is to what extent,” said Piers Pigou of the International Crisis Group.

A pre-poll survey by Afro-barometer published last week showed that Zanu-PF would attract 42 percent of the vote compared to 31 percent for the MDC, meaning the election could go to a run-off in September .

To register successfully, presidential candidates had to pay a $1,000 (850 euro) fee and be nominated by at least 100 registered voters from across the country’s 10 provinces.

Yemen’s pro-government forces firing a heavy machine gun at the south of Hodeida airport, in Hodeida province, yesterday.

Houthi fighters amassed in the city centre where a hospital put out a call for blood donations. Medical sources said 23 wounded civilians had arrived from Manzar.

Watchdog: Sudan in new drive to gag press freedom

KHARTOUM: Sudanese security agents confiscated entire print-runs of three newspapers this week in what media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said yesterday was a new drive to “gag” press freedom in the African nation.

Agents of Sudan’s pow-erful National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) confiscated copies of Al-Tayar, Alyoum Altaly and Al-Jareeda over the past few days and also interrogated some journalists for covering “sensitive issues,” the media watchdog said in a statement.

RSF said the entire print-runs of Al Tayar were seized on June 10 and 11 in the latest bid by NISS agents to “gag the press” after it published a column that said President Omar al-Bashir’s resignation might help in reviving the country’s ailing economy.

“They reminded me that there are red lines and that I should have known the pres-ident was one of them,” Al-Tayar reporter Shamael al-Nur, who wrote the column on June 9, was quoted as saying by RSF after she was twice interrogated by NISS agents. Security agents seized copies of Alyoum Altaly on Wednesday, just days after preventing Al-Jareeda from distributing its copies in Khartoum, RSF said.

“The NISS must stop operating as an editorial police that censors journalists and systematically sup-presses any critical publi-cation, listing taboo subjects as it pleases,” head of RSF’s Africa desk, Arnaud Froger, said in the statement.

“The survival of a free press in Sudan is at stake.”

Security agents had seized copies of several newspapers in a similar crackdown in January after they criticised the gov-ernment over soaring bread prices. Media in Sudan are frequently targeted by NISS agents for their reporting, especially for publishing articles that criticise gov-ernment policies.

Jewish party vows to quit Israel govt over army billANATOLIA

JERUSALEM: United Torah Judaism (UTJ), a right-wing Jewish religious party, has vowed to withdraw from Israel’s governing coalition if the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) approves a draft law on compulsory military service.

“The crisis over the military service draft law has returned again to haunt the governing coalition and threaten its stability,” the Israeli Broadcasting Corp. reported yesterday. It went on to point out that the Council of Torah Sages (CTS), a rabbinical pol-icy-making body, had instructed the UTJ’s six MPs to withdraw from Israel’s governing coalition if the Knesset approved an amended version of the draft law. “The CTS of Agudat Yisrael, the Hasidic faction of UTJ, has instructed its representatives in the Knesset to quit the [governing] coalition if the draft law is passed -- unless it is done in coordination with them and with their approval,” Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported Thursday evening.

law was set to expire in September “so the Knesset must pass an alternative law before then”.

Turkey slams election observation mission reportANATOLIA

ANKARA: Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy yesterday responded to a question on the interim report of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on the upcoming elec-tions in Turkey.

“In the process of holding the Presidential and 27th General

Parliamentary Elections in a free, transparent and fair manner in accordance with the interna-tional standards, we continue our cooperation with interna-tional organizations,” Aksoy said in a statement.

“An interim report released yesterday by OSCE Election Observation Mission, that is cur-rently functioning in our country, has been reviewed carefully,” he

added. He underlined that elec-tions in Turkey are held in line with democratic standards.

“However, it is seen that the interim report includes certain comments, even of political nature, that do not coincide with reality,” Aksoy added. “Our cooperation based on complete transparency with the OSCE mission will continue. It is a uni-versal and fundamental principle

that election observation mis-sions work in an unbiased and objective manner.”

Aksoy went on to say that all observer missions in Turkey are expected to carry out their functions accordingly. Eight international organizations, including OSCE, will observe Turkey’s presidential and general elections on June 24.

During Election Day, the

observers will mainly monitor voting procedures such as counting, casting and recording votes without interrupting polling boards. The observers will prepare a report by moni-toring campaigning process, election participation and whether international election standards are upheld.

Six candidates are con-testing the presidential race.

05SATURDAY 16 JUNE 2018 HOME

AAP threatens to intensify protest in DelhiAFP

NEW DELHI: With the Centre deploying more police force near the Lt. Governor’s house, the AAP yesterday appre-hended moves to break the four-day-old sit-in strike by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal even as his Deputy Manish Sisodia threatened to intensify their agitation.

Rushing an ambulance along with a team of over 20 doctors added to panic in the AAP camp, which deputed its General Secretary Sanjay Singh to meet Home Minister Rajnath Singh in a bid to sort out the issue. After the meeting, Sanjay Singh claimed that the Centre had agreed to take up the current situation in Delhi with Lt. Governor Anil Baijal and find a solution to the row over governance.

Rajnath Singh is likely to meet the Prime Minister to discuss the situation even as Kejriwal wrote to Modi seeking his intervention.

“The IAS officers in Delhi have been on strike for the last three months and this had badly affected several (admin-istrative) works. In order to get this strike ended, my three ministers and I have been camping in the Lt Governor office for the last five days, but your Lt Governor is not taking any action”, Kejriwal wrote in the letter.

He said since the IAS officers in the Delhi

administration are directly under the Central government’s control, he had written to the Prime Minister on Thursday also over the issue but got no response.

“The issues to be discussed in the NITI Aayog meet scheduled on June 17 will have to be exe-cuted by these IAS officers only... These IAS officers have been barred (by the Centre) to come to meetings called by Delhi Min-isters. Tell me, will you be able to do any work if IAS officers stop coming to the meetings called by you?” Kejriwal said.

“I hope the IAS officers’ strike will be ended before June 17 so that I can attend the NITI Aayog meet that day,” he added.

Kejriwal, along with Sisodia and Cabinet ministers Saty-endar Jain and Gopal Rai, has been camping in the Raj Niwas — the official accommodation-cum-office of Lt Governor Anil Baijal — since Monday evening.

They have been demanding a direction to the IAS officers working in the Delhi adminis-tration to end their undeclared strike.

Flood fury in Assam, close to 400,000 affectedIANS

GUWAHATI: Close to 400,000 people continued to be marooned yesterday by floods that have hit the state, with the surging waters of many rivers inundating fresh areas affecting both people and agricultural lands. The Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) said a total of 386,570 people have been affected in the seven flood hit districts.

A total of 668 villages in Hojai, Cachar, Golaghat, Hailakandi, Karimganj, Karbi Anglong(East) and West Karbi Anglong districts have been displaced.

“The flood waters have fully damaged 325 houses besides state and National Highways at different places,” an ASDMA official said, adding that rainfall had also triggered landslides at Mahur, Harangajao, Maibang and Dima Hasao.

The landslides in Dima Hasao and on the Lumding-Badarpur hill section have also snapped

train services to Assam’s Barak Valley, Mizoram and Tripura. The Northeast Frontier Railway has suspended and cancelled several trains yesterday. The district administrations have pressed into service the National Disaster

Response Force, the State Dis-aster Response Force and Assam Rifles in the flood affected areas for search and rescue operations.

A total of 471 persons have been rescued from Karimganj

district, Hailakandi, Cachar and Golaghat. Relief Camps were opened in Karimganj, Hailakandi, Karbi Anglong (East) and Golaghat with 67,175 inmates, the ASDMA officials said.

A resident standing on the roof of a partially submerged car after a heavy downpour in Agartala.

Bangladesh’s Awami League leader shot deadIANS

DHAKA: A leader of the country’s ruling Awami League party was shot dead yesterday by unidentified men while he was heading home after offering prayers in a mosque in Dhaka.

Farhad Hossain, 52, General Secretary of the Awami League’s Badda Union wing, was sprayed with bullets as he came out of Baitus Salam Jame Mosque after offering Jumma prayers, bdnews24.com reported.

He sustained bullet wounds in his head and chest. Badda area is known for gangland violence and turf wars.

“Farhad Hossain was shot dead on the spot when he was leaving the mosque after Jumma prayers,” said Police Inspector Abul Kalam Azad. The police did not immedi-ately confirm the motive for the killing. Police said two men opened fire on Hossain from their motorbike and sped away.

Another report said that criminals opened fire on police at Gudaraghat checkpost on Badda-Gulshan Link Road while passing the area in a CNG-run auto-rickshaw after the murder.

The latest killing mirrors the murder of another Awami League activist in April over an internal conflict in the same area. Amongst the leaders of the Awami League, five have become the Pres-ident of Bangladesh, four have become the Prime Min-ister of Bangladesh and one became the Prime Minister of Pakistan. The incumbent Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, has headed the party since 1981.

India faces worst long term water crisis in its historyREUTERS

NEW DELHI: India faces the worst long-term water crisis in its history as demand outstrips supply and millions of lives and livelihoods could be at risk, said a think tank chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

By 2030, water demand is projected to be double the supply, implying severe scarcity for hundreds of millions of

people. The shortage will even-tually shave around 6 percent off gross domestic product, the report said.

About 200,000 Indians die every year due to inadequate access to safe water and 600 million face high to extreme water stress, the National Institute for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog said on Thursday, citing data by independent agencies.

“Critical groundwater resources that account for 40 percent of India’s water supply are being depleted at unsus-tainable rates,” the report said, calling for an immediate push towards sustainable man-agement of water resources.

“India is suffering from the worst water crisis in its history and millions of lives and live-lihoods are under threat,” it said.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh is likely to meet the Prime Minister to discuss the situation even as Kejriwal wrote to Modi seeking his intervention.

US deeply dismayed over Maldives prison sentencesAP

COLOMBO: The United States said it is dismayed by the prison sentences given to an ex-Maldivian president and two Supreme Court judges and urged the government to uphold the rule of law.

A Maldives court sentenced ex-President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom to one year, seven months and six days in prison on Wednesday for failing to hand over his mobile phone to inves-tigators after he was accused of plotting to overthrow the

government. Two Supreme Court judges, Abdulla Saeed and Ali Hameed, who were arrested with Gayoom were given the same sentences for the same offense on Wednesday.

Saeed and Hameed previ-ously had been given jail sen-tences for allegedly influencing lower court decisions.

US State Department spokes-woman Heather Nauert said in a statement that the US is “deeply dismayed” by reports that they were sentenced without a fair trial, and that it casts “serious doubt” on the government’s

commitment to the rule of law.Maumoon Abdul Gayoom,

who ruled the Indian Ocean archipelago state from 1978 to 2008, is the second former pres-ident to be jailed under President Yameen Abdul Gayoom’s rule. He was arrested in February on charges of attempting to over-throw the government of Yameen, his half-brother.

Maldives, known for its expensive tourist resorts, became a multiparty democracy in 2008, ending Gayoom’s 30-year strongman rule. However, Yameen, who was elected in

2013, has rolled back much of the democratic gains.

Mohamed Nasheed, who was the country’s first freely elected president in 2008, was earlier given a 13-year sentence in a trial widely criticized for due process violations. However, he was granted asylum in Britain when he went there on leave from prison for medical treatment.

Yameen’s former vice pres-ident, Ahmed Adeeb, two former defense ministers, a prosecutor general and opposition law-makers are among those who have been jailed during

Yameen’s tenure. All of the trials have been criticized for alleged lack of fairness.

With all of his potential opponents either in jail or in exile, Yameen is preparing to run for re-election in September vir-tually unopposed.

In the statement released Thursday, Nauert said the sen-tences also call into question the willingness of the Maldives gov-ernment “to permit a free and fair presidential election in Sep-tember that reflects the will of the Maldivian people.”

Nauert called on Maldives to

release all political prisoners and ensure that parties and candi-dates are able to campaign freely. A five-member Supreme Court bench in February ordered the release and retrial of Nasheed and other prisoners, calling their s e n t e n c e s p o l i t i c a l l y motivated.

However, Yameen declared a state of emergency and had Saeed, Hameed, and Gayoom arrested. Later the three remaining Supreme Court judges overturned their previous decision to release the political prisoners.

Police arrest fourth suspect in Shujaat Bukhari’s murderIANS

SRINAGAR: The Jammu and Kashmir Police yesterday said it had arrested a fourth suspect in the murder of senior journalist Shujaat Bukhari, whose killing has sent shockwaves in the state and beyond.

S P Pani, the Inspector General of Police of Kashmir zone, said Bukhari’s killing here on Thursday evening -- two days before Eid -- along with his two security guards was a terror crime.

“We have released the picture of three terrorists on a motorcycle who were involved in this terror crime. That picture is in public domain.

“Based on another video, a bearded man is seen picking up a pistol from the site of the crime and vanishing. This video was released by us seeking public cooperation.

“With the help of the public, this person has been arrested. We have also recovered the pistol which this person picked

up from the crime site.“Based on his interrogation

we recovered the clothes he was wearing at the site of the crime. A Special Investigation Team (SIT) has been constituted to investigate this crime.”

The police officer said the security guards of Bukhari had been issued two 9 mm pistols.

The police had recovered one pistol after the terror attack while the second was missing. The missing pistol was recovered from the arrested fourth suspect.

Pani called the killing of Bukhari, whose funeral in Bar-amulla yesterday was attended by hundreds amid a spontaneous general strike, was “a highly sen-sitive case”. Jammu and Kashmir police chief S.P. Vaid earlier told reporters: “Rest assured, we will get the killers.”

Top sources said the police suspect Naveed Jat alias Abu Hanzullah, an LeT terrorist to have been among the three assassins seen escaping on a motorcycle after the murder.

Abu Hanzullah had escaped from Srinagar’s Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital with the help of LeT accomplices on February 6. Two policemen were killed in that incident.

Meanwhile, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Hansraj Gangaram Ahir yesterday con-demned the brutal killing of renowned journalist Shujaat Bukhari outside his office in Sri-nagar and said none of the accused involved in the murder will be spared.

“It is a sad incident. We condemn the killing of such a prominent media person. The Chief Minister has initiated an inquiry into the matter. The

accused will be punished. None of the accused in this case will be spared,” he told media persons after conducting a review meeting on narcotics matters of eastern India.

Bukhari, the editor-in-chief of Rising Kashmir, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen outside his office on Thursday evening.

Terming the Kashmir situ-ation as a “big issue” for the country for many years, Ahir claimed the ongoing suspension of anti-terror operations in the state have been appreciated by the locals there but Pakistan and the local terrorist forces are trying to instigate unrest in the Valley.

Journalists holding placards during a silent protest against the killing of Syed Shujaat Bukhari, the editor-in-chief of local newspaper “Rising Kashmir”, in Kolkata, yesterday.

Kerala CM assures action against top cop’s daughterIANS

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan yesterday promised strict action against a top police officer’s daughter accused of beating up a junior policeman.

“The government views this incident very seriously and strict action will be taken (on) how a junior police official was treated by the daughter of a senior police officer,” Vijayan told the media after meeting Reshma, the wife of victim policeman Gavaskar.

“Instructions have already gone to the police authorities to see that strict action is taken against the culprit. Such an incident should not have happened in the first place but now that it has, all steps will be taken to ensure it’s not repeated.”

Gavaskar, the official driver to Additional Director General of Police Sudesh Kumar, was hospitalised after the alleged assault.

Eid prayers

06 SATURDAY 16 JUNE 2018ASIA

Pakistani Muslims offer Eid Al Fitr prayers, marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, in Peshawar, yesterday.

US drone strike kills Pakistan Taliban chiefAP

KABUL: A US drone strike in northeastern Kunar province killed Pakistan Taliban chief Mullah Fazlullah, the insurgent leader who ordered the assas-sination of Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, an Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman said yesterday.

In a telephone interview, Mohammad Radmanish said Fazlullah and two other insur-gents were killed early Thursday morning, just hours before Afghanistan’s Taliban began a three-day cease fire to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid Al Fitr. The three-day holiday follows the end of Islam’s holy month of Ramadan when devout adherents fast from sunrise to sunset.

However, Sakhi Mashwani, a Parliamentarian from Kunar province told the Associated Press that Fazlullah, along with five other insurgents, died when the strike slammed into the vehicle in which they were driving. Mashwani said dozens of people, including Fazlullah’s brother, Moheen Dada, gathered yesterday in the Ghaz-iabad district of Kunar province, to offer prayers for the dead Taliban leader.

According to a statement attributed to US Forces-Afghan-istan spokesman Lt. Col Martin O’Donnell, the US carried out a “counterterrorism strike” Thursday in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan targeting “a senior leader of a designated terrorist organization.” The statement did not say whether the strike had killed anyone and did not identify Fazlullah as the target. However, the statement did

note that the drone attack did not violate a cease-fire announcement made June 7 by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. The Taliban’s promise of a tem-porary truce came on Monday.

Radmanish said the drone attack took place in Marawara district, near the border.

Pakistan’s military refused to comment on the report of Fazlullah’s death saying any information would have to come from Washington. Yet Fazlullah’s death would be welcome news in Pakistan, where the government has repeatedly complained that Fazlullah and his Tehrik-e-Taliban had found safe havens across the border in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Kabul and Wash-ington both complain that Pakistan has for years allowed Afghanistan’s Taliban free movement as well as medical treatment for battlefield wounds.

Still, the recent cease-fire announcement by Afghanistan’s Taliban is being at least partially credited to Pakistan, which some observers say has been pressing the leadership to accept President Ghani’s recent peace overtures.

In his Eid greeting this week, Afghan Taliban chief Haibatullah Akhunzada repeated the Taliban demand for direct talks with the United States before opening negotia-tions with the Afghan government.

Three Pakistani soldiers dead in shootout on Afghan borderAFP

MIRANSHAH: Three Paki-stani soldiers were killed yesterday when militants launched an attack on army posts along the border with Afghanistan from across the frontier, military officials said.

The shootout, which also left five insurgents dead, occurred in the Shawal area of North Waziristan tribal dis-trict, part of a semi-auton-omous region where the army has been battling Taliban and Al Qaeda linked militants for years. A statement from the Pakistan army said “multiple” assaults were launched on bases along the border.

“Security forces valiantly repulsed all attempts to overrun posts and inflict major damage,” the statement said. North Waziristan is part of Pakistan’s tribal belt — a block of seven districts along the country’s northwest border with Afghanistan which are home to an esti-mated five million people, mainly ethnic Pashtuns.

Military operations to flush militants from the tribal districts, have pushed the insurgents across the border.

Pakistan is building a fence along its 2400km border with Afghanistan, which it hopes will fortify the frontier. It believes militant attacks are meant to halt con-struction work on the fence.

The US has repeatedly accused Pakistan of allowing the tribal areas to harbour militants fighting in Afghan-i s t a n — a n a l l e g a t i o n Islamabad has consistently denied. The latest attack came hours after reports that a US drone strike had killed the Pakistani Taliban chief Mullah Fazlullah, who had established sanctuaries in Afghan areas.

Ex-PM Najib may face charges of money laundering, misappropriation of propertyREUTERS

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian authorities investigating scandal-hit state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) are considering charging former prime minister Najib Razak with money laundering and misap-propriation of property, a source familiar with the matter said.

Najib, who founded 1MDB in 2009, is the subject of a money laundering and cor-ruption probe, after reports that millions of dollars made their way into his personal bank accounts from the fund and its former subsidiary, SRC Interna-tional. The former premier has consistently denied any wrong-doing in relation to 1MDB.

Najib, 64, suffered a shock loss in the May 9 general election, the first change of gov-ernment since Malaysia gained independence from Britain in 1957. Mahathir Mohamad, who

was elected prime minister, has vowed to bring back funds allegedly siphoned from 1MDB and punish those responsible.

Malaysia’s new Attorney General Tommy Thomas said on Tuesday his office was studying possible criminal and civil action, after receiving investi-gation papers on 1MDB from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).

A source close to the inves-tigations told Reuters Najib may be charged with dishonest mis-appropriation of property under the Malaysian Penal Code. The source declined to be identified as they were not authorised to speak on the matter.

The offence carries a maximum jail sentence of five years, a fine and whipping. The law, however, forbids men over the age of 50 years from being whipped. Any fine would be decided by the court depending on the offence and amount

misappropriated. According to the source, Najib may also face money laundering charges, which would carry a maximum sentence of 15 years’ jail and a fine of no less than five times the value of the laundered proceeds.

It is now up to the attorney-general to decide whether or not to accept the recommendations, file different charges or call for further investigations. The pre-vious attorney general cleared Najib of wrongdoing in relation to 1MDB. MACC and the attorney-general’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

Najib’s spokesman did not respond to requests for comment. Najib said this week that if he was charged on “political grounds” he was con-fident the courts would find him innocent. 1MDB is the subject of money-laundering probes globally, including the United States, Switzerland and Singapore.

Filipino Muslims mark Eid in ruins of war-torn MarawiAP

MARAWI: Muslim residents of a southern Philippine city devas-tated by last year’s bloody militant siege celebrated the Islamic holiday of Eid Al Fitr yesterday in gunfire-riddled mosques while many whose homes were leveled by the fighting prayed in tent shelters.

A few thousand people walked past burned homes to Marawi city’s landmark, the pock-marked Golden Mosque, to cele-brate the three-day feasts marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. In an evacuation center elsewhere in the lakeside city, the homeless prayed in the open for an end to their misery.

“What happened to us is very painful because not only our livelihood was destroyed, even our faith in Islam was destroyed, the future of our children was destroyed, everything was

destroyed,” Soawair Saripada told The Associated Press.

The holiday is a poignant reminder of how life has crept back to normalcy for thousands who have returned home, but

also of uncertainties for many others eight months after troops, backed by airstrikes and artillery fire, quelled the five-month insurrection by Islamic State group-aligned fighters.

“We hope peace will return here in Marawi and the gov-ernment will help us with the damage,” said Salek Omar, 76, who lives near the Golden Mosque in the Saduc

neighborhood. While a few small stores have opened and pedes-trians and cars once again ply the streets outside the huge, decades-old mosque, the scars of last year’s violence were still evident every-where: the carcasses of burned homes, damaged minarets, walls and loudspeaker stands and shat-tered glass.

Omar, a former government employee, brought his wife and some of his children and grand-children to the sprawling mosque compound, where he has celebrated Eid since he was a child, except for last year, when hundreds of militants with Islamic State-style black flags occupied buildings and commu-nities a few days before Ramadan. More than 300,000 residents, including Omar, fled the mosque-studded city and outlying towns as gunbattles erupted.

Vietnam police to prosecute American for causing public disorderREUTERS

HANOI: Police in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City on Friday issued a prosecution order for an American man of Viet-namese descent for his alleged involvement in a protest over government plans for economic zones last week, state media reported.

William Anh Nguyen, born in 1985, was one of thousands of people who pro-tested on Sunday against a draft law to develop eco-nomic zones under which land leases of up to 99 years will be offered to investors. The protesters fear the leases may be snapped up by investors from powerful neighbour China, with which Vietnam has a rocky history.

Nguyen was “gathering and causing trouble” in Ho Chi Minh City and was filmed on camera urging others to climb over barricades, the state-run Vietnam News Agency reported.

Ho Chi Minh police said on their website yesterday that they were dealing with 310 people over the protests and that seven of them were criminal cases. It was unclear if Nguyen was one of the seven.

They said initial investi-gations showed there were signs of political opponents and reactionary groups having incited people to protest and destabilise the security and political situation.

Fazlullah, along with five other insurgents, died when the strike slammed into the vehicle in which they were driving.

Filipino Muslims take part in Eid prayers at Luneta Park in Manila, yesterday.

Imran to run for Karachi East seatINTERNEWS

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s parliamentary board yesterday awarded tickets to candidates from Sindh for the National Assembly, besides offi-cially announcing that PTI chairman Imran Khan would be contesting the election from NA-243 (Karachi East).

The party had previously announced 24 candidates from Sindh and withheld the announcement on the remaining seats for various reasons, including internal disputes on some of the constituencies.

The PTI also announced that

it would not entertain any com-plaint on the issue of award of party tickets after the expiry of the deadline. According to the official announcement by the PTI’s Central Media Department, Imran Khan will contest from NA-243 Karachi East-II constit-uency comprising areas of Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Jamshed Quarters and census charges No 12 and 13 of Karachi East.

The contest has become all the more interesting as Imran Khan will be facing chief of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan Khalid Maqbool Sid-diqui and former deputy speaker of the Sindh Assembly Shehla

Raza of the Pakistan Peoples Party from the same constituency.

Reeling from a recent exodus of ‘electables’ and senior members from its ranks, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) of former president Asif Zardari appears to be in a quandary over finding suitable candidates to field from Punjab in the July 25 general elections. Sources in the party said that since a large number of PPP bigwigs had joined the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), the PPP leadership in the province had the tough task of nominating new candidates, especially from central Punjab.

HK scientists say new research points to universal antibody drug for HIVREUTERS

HONG KONG: A team of AIDS researchers in Hong Kong says its new research, tested on mice, indicates a functional cure for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, eventually leading to a new antibody that could be used for both prevention and treatment.

The findings, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, come as China faces a growing epidemic among high-risk groups,

The UN-supported AIDS Data Hub says about 850,000 people in China are infected with HIV, which disables the immune system and makes people far more vulnerable to infections and disease.

A team led by Professor Chen Zhiwei at Hong Kong Univer-sity’s AIDS Institute says its discovery, tested on mice, shows the new antibody can help control the virus and eliminate infected cells. The antibody would be able to treat all varieties of HIV - a first, Chen said - as there is no one vaccine to treat the many different types of HIV viruses. “For our newly discovered bispecific antibody, it works for all of them, so that’s the major difference,” Chen said.

07SATURDAY 16 JUNE 2018 EUROPE

Britain’s Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, sat in a jaunting car alongside its Jarvey, the driver, Pa Murhill, on the grounds of Muckross House in Killarney, Ireland, yesterday.

Duchess of Cornwall in Ireland

UK: New settlement visa for Turkish business peopleANATOLIA

LONDON: Turkish business-people and their families in Britain under a popular visa programme will be able to apply for a settled status after five years, the UK government announced yesterday.

A Home Office statement announced the end of a restriction on applications from July 6, which was introduced in March this year. The

announcement came with a series of changes to UK immi-gration rules.

“A new settlement category for Turkish businesspeople, workers and their families who are in the UK under the EU-Turkey European Communities Association Agreement (ECAA),” the Home Office said. “This means that Turkish workers and businesspeople will be able to settle in the U.K. after five years as e i ther an ECAA

businessperson or ECAA worker (or equivalent points based system routes), as long as the most recent period of leave was under the ECAA,” it said.

“This category was first announced in March 2018 after an Upper Tribunal ruling meant the previous route had to close,” it added.

In March, the office had said they would introduce into the immigration rules “a new Indef-inite Leave to Remain (ILR)

category for current Turkish ECAA businesspersons,” announcing a halt on new appli-cations to settle in the country for such persons.

It had said the decision was made after a UK tribunal ruling in a case related to an application from a Turkish national’s wife, Hacer Aydogdu.

The Home Office had said applications until March 16 would continue to be processed and those who would like to stay

in the UK and carry on under the Ankara Agreement visa would be able to apply for extensions of “up to three years at a time, provided they continue to meet the relevant requirements.”

With the latest update, Turkish citizens who are in the UK with such visas would be able to apply after a total of five years for an ILR visa, which would make them live and work in the U K w i t h o u t f u r t h e r restrictions.

Hawking’s voice beamed during burialLONDON: A message from late British astrophysics giant Stephen Hawking was beamed towards the nearest black hole yesterday as his remains were laid to rest in London’s Westminster Abbey.

With celebrities and science enthusiasts from around the world in attendance, the ashes of the theoretical physicist were interred by the graves of fellow science greats Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.

A specially-written musical piece by Greek com-poser Vangelis featuring Hawking’s famous synthesised voice was beamed into space by radio waves from a European Space Agency sat-ellite dish in Spain. The ESA said the six-minute message, drawn from a speech Hawking gave about preserving the planet, was being transmitted towards the black hole 1A 0620-00, which was dis-covered in 1975 and is located 3,500 light years from Earth.

Cambridge sticks to indirect fossil investmentsREUTERS

LONDON: Cambridge University said it would keep investing in funds that hold shares in fossil fuel companies, despite public pressure from hundreds of its academics.

One of the most eminent academic institutions in the world, Cambridge Uni-versity has an endowment fund (CUEF) of just under £3bn, the vast majority of which is invested indirectly through funds.

“Disengagement from any funds that have even small fossil fuel components,

or that would require CUEF to step back from investments in alternative energy initiatives by global companies currently regarded as fossil fuel companies, would result in significant limitations on the CUEF’s ability to invest as successfully as in the past,” Cambridge said.

Any weakening in the performance of the fund would mean less support to academic activities, it said late on Thursday, adding it had no direct investment in fossil fuel companies and wanted to avoid any direct investment in coal and tar sands, while keeping any

indirect investment in those areas to a minimum. Last year, Cambridge’s prin-cipal governing body Regent House, including some 5,000 staff, voted in favour of full divestment from fossil fuels.

In April, about 350 Cambridge aca-demics signed a letter to the university and its colleges, which are largely inde-pendent from the university’s central administration and have their own invest-ments, urging them to excise fossil fuel investments.

Signatories included chemist David King, who was Britain’s Special

Representative for Climate Change until last year after a seven-year stint as the government’s Chief Scientific Advisor.

Shortly afterwards, BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley urged Cambridge University not to yield to pressure to cut its invest-ments in fossil fuels and pointed to BP’s donations to the university.

Cambridge Zero Carbon Society, a divestment campaign group, has called for the resignations of members of the University finance office, including Finance Director David Hughes, who for-merly worked for BG, now part of Shell.

UK for closest possible security pact with EU after Brexit REUTERS

BERLIN: Britain wants to cement its foreign policy and security ties with the European Union via the “closest possible cooperation agreement” for when it leaves the bloc, a British minister said.

Britain was also open to a close partnership with Europe on a crisis intervention force post-Brexit, depending on key details, cabinet office minister David Lidington told the Frank-furter Allgemeine newspaper.

Those details would include ensuring London’s control over any deployment of British troops, he said. As Europe’s biggest military power along with France, Britain is central to European security efforts but has long blocked defence

integration, fearing the creation of an EU army.

Separately, the European Commission, which is handling the Brexit talks with Britain, released on Friday a document setting out both the British and EU positions in initial talks on future foreign, security and defence cooperation.

While member states also want to keep close security ties after Brexit, Britain’s desire set out in the EU document for “a new security partnership that goes beyond any existing third country arrangements” clashes with the Commission’s view.

“The modalities of the future relationship should reflect the third country status of the UK,” the Commission said in its doc-ument, stressing Britain’s future status as a non-EU nation.

A group of EU countries agreed in March to develop their first joint defence projects under a pact that excludes Britain, giving London a taste of life outside the bloc’s foreign policy decision-making process.

The 25 signatories also delayed a decision on whether to let non-member states join the projects, prolonging uncer-tainty over any future role for Britain. The Commission’s doc-ument also said that the new relationship “should be formalised”.

One possibility, Lidington said, would be to have the British foreign minister partic-ipate each quarter in meetings of the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council, although EU officials have so far ruled out such a possibility.

Macron seeks common ground with Italy on immigrationREUTERS

PARIS: President Emmanuel Macron yesterday urged Italy’s new prime minister to work with France, Germany and Spain on resolving migration issues rather than siding with an anti-immigration “axis” emerging within the European Union.

Smiling and calling each other “my friend”, Macron and Italian premier Giuseppe Conte sought to bury the hatchet in Paris after a diplomatic squabble erupted this week over Rome’s refusal to accept a migrant rescue ship at its ports.

There is concern in Paris over what stance Italy’s

anti-establishment government, led by lawyer Conte and with the head of the populist League

party as deputy, will take on pan-European issues such as eurozone integration and asylum. “I hope deeply that France and Italy will work hand-in-hand, together, to propose and contribute European solutions, in particular with partners like Spain and Germany,” Macron said during a news conference with Conte alongside.

The row between Paris and Rome over the fate of the Aquarius, a ship with more than 600 migrants aboard, including women and children, drew in Pope Francis and sewed division across Europe, straining German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s fragile coalition.

The two leaders avoided reporters’ questions about their verbal jousting earlier in the week and tried to present a united front. “There have been days that were a little tumul-tuous, but we are in perfect agreement,” said Conte, who only two days ago had described France’s stance on immigration as “hypocritical”.

Conte said there was a need to create European-run immi-gration offices outside Europe in order to handle asylum requests in order to prevent “voyages of death”.

More than 3,000 migrants died attempting to cross the Mediterranean in 2017, the fourth straight year that the death toll has topped this figure, according to the UN Migration Agency (IOM).

Most migrants attempting to reach Europe from Africa take the sea route from Libya to Italy, but last year saw a spike in the number of people departing from Morocco to Spain instead.

The origin of the dispute between France and Italy lies in Europe’s inability to share responsibility for handling the influx of migrants fleeing war and poverty.

French President Emmanuel Macron (right), and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, shake hands at the end of a joint news conference at the Elysee Palace in Paris, yesterday.

Paris open-air booksellers eye Unesco statusAFP

PARIS: After baguettes and bistros, second-hand booksellers along the banks of the Seine River in Paris are pushing to be recognised as one of the world’s cultural treasures on Unesco’s list of “intangible heritage”.

Calling themselves “the biggest open-air bookshop in the world”, the “bouquinistes” and their dark green stalls have been a fixture of the

French capital since the 17th century. Nearly 1,000 stalls belonging to 226 registered booksellers stretch along both sides of the riverbanks — which have already been on Unesco’s her-itage list since 1991.

“We are spreaders of knowledge, with phenomenal diversity, incredible personalities — we play almost a philosophical role in the city,” said Gildas Bouillaud as he dusted off his col-

lection in the shadow of Notre-Dame cathedral.

Even Francois Mitterrand con-tinued to visit the stands during his 1981-1995 presidency, strolling with two of his bodyguards in tow.

Yet despite paying no rent for their spots, making a living has become increasingly difficult, with some earning more money from tourist trinkets than hard-to-find tomes from France’s literary giants.

“Faced with the crisis among booksellers, the competition from multimedia and this increasing lack of education, we’re hoping to put the spotlight on us,” said Jerome Callais, president of the Bouquinistes association.

“We’re as important for tourists as the Eiffel Tower.” — ‘Antiques of the city’ — “City Hall should pay us, we’re a sort of spectacle,” says Mathias Grandis de Portefaix, 67.

A file picture of French “Bouquinistes” set up their stalls on the promenade above the Seine river in Paris.

There is concern in Paris over what stance Italy’s anti-establishment government, led by lawyer Conte and with the head of the populist League party as deputy, will take on pan-European issues such as eurozone integration and asylum.

Treaty by treaty, world leaders built a great body of laws and covenants and committed to upholding them. Today there is a great cynicism about the global order they constructed - never fully global, never very orderly - but although it may have been partial, the progress they ensured was immense.

YOMIURI SHIMBUN

08 SATURDAY 16 JUNE 2018VIEWS

Without human rights, we won’t survive

FFour years as the UNhigh commissioner for human rights have brought me many luminous encounters and

desperate struggles, much painful and shocking information, and some pro-found lessons that may take many years to fully assimilate.

I have constantly circled back to the drafting of the Universal Decla-ration of Human Rights in 1948, where this story truly began. It was a time of slaughter and terrible suf-fering, with broken economies and nations emerging from the ashes of two global wars, an immense gen-ocide, atomic destruction and the Great Depression. Finding solutions that could ensure global - and national - peace was a matter of the starkest kind of survival. Committing to the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was crucial. They were not philosophical goals: This was life or death.

There could be no peace without justice. There could be no durable development without promotion of broad social progress and better standards of life, for all, in larger freedom. The men and women who survived the two world wars under-stood this utterly. It was in their

bones.Treaty by

treaty, world leaders built a great body of laws and covenants and com-mitted to upholding them. Today there is a great cyn-icism about the global order they constructed - never fully global, never very orderly - but although it may have been partial, the progress they ensured was immense.

But that generation is departing quickly, and with them the living

memory of the lessons that were so painfully clear to them. Now, rather than advancing toward greater freedom, justice and peace, the world

is going backward - to a landscape of increasingly strident, zero-sum nationalism, where the jealously guarded, short-term interests of indi-vidual leaders supplant and destroy efforts to find common solutions.

We are moving backward to an era of contempt for the rights of people who have been forced to flee their homes, because the threats they face there are more dangerous even than the perils of their voyage. Backward to a time when military operations could deliberately target civilians and civilian sites such as hospitals, and chemical gases were openly used for military purposes and against innocent families.

We are moving backward to an era when racists and xenophobes deliberately inflamed hatred and dis-crimination among the public, while carefully cloaking themselves in the guise of democracy and the rule of law. Backward to an era when women were not permitted to control their own choices and their own bodies - when criticism was crimi-nalized and human rights activism brought jail, or worse.

This is the way that wars are made: with the snarl of belligerence and the smirk of dehumanization; the lash of injustice and the incremental erosion of old and seemingly wea-risome checks. The path of violence is made up of the unreckoned conse-quences of banal, incidental brutality seeping into the political landscape.

Here is one lesson: Intolerance is an insatiable machine. Its wheels, once they begin to function at a certain amplitude, become uncon-trollable - grinding deeper, more cruelly and widely. First one group of people is singled out for hatred; next it will be more, and then more, as the

machine for exclusion accelerates into violence, and into civil or inter-national warfare - feeding always on its own rage, a growing frenzy of grievance and blaming. As that tension begins to peak, no obvious mechanism exists that is capable of decompressing and controlling its intensity, because the machine func-tions on an emotional level that has very little contact with reason. Release may come only after tre-mendous violence. This is something those of us who work for human rights have witnessed time and again.

We are at a pivotal moment in history, now, as contempt for human rights spreads. Xenophobes and racists have emerged from the shadows. A backlash is growing against advances made in women’s rights and many others. The space for civic activism is shrinking. The legit-imacy of human rights principles is attacked, and the practice of human rights norms is in retreat.

What we are destroying is, quite simply, the structures that ensure our safety.

The destruction of Syria is a mur-derous parable, written in blood, that brings home yet again that horrific spiraling of incremental human rights violations into absolute destruction.

The organized campaigns of vio-lence against the Rohingya in Myanmar - Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing economy in 2016 - yet again reminds us that economic growth will never maintain peace and security in the face of biting discrimination. In 2017 - 2017! - we once again saw the specter of genocide, and once again, we did very, very little to stop it from happening.

So, in a sentence, what is the one core lesson that has been brought

ZEID RA’AD AL HUSSEIN THE WASHINGTON POST

QUOTE OF THE DAY

I hope deeply that France and Italy will work hand-in-hand,

together, to propose and contribute

European solutions, in particular with partners like Spain and Germany.

Emmanuel Macron French President

Ties with US, S Korea necessary to solve abduction issue

How can the issue of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea be solved in parallel with realizing the denu-

clearization of the North? The Jap-anese government must work out a meticulous strategy for a summit meeting with the North.

Tokyo and Pyongyang have started making arrangements for a summit between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea. It is assumed that the summit will be held with Abe visiting Pyongyang or on the sidelines of an international conference. A high-ranking official of the Foreign Ministry has contacted a North Korean official in Mongolia.

During the recent US-North Korea summit, US President Donald Trump raised the abduction issue and sug-gested that Kim meet with Abe. Kim replied, “I understand.” Kim did not

refer to the North’s conventional standpoint that “the abduction issue has already been resolved.” It is laudable that Kim’s flexible stance toward dialogue has been elicited.

No one other than Kim can reveal the entire picture of the abductions and make a decision to return the abductees to Japan. It is reasonable to try to break the stalemate in the abduction issue through a meeting of the top leaders of the two countries.

North Korea had pledged to conduct a reinvestigation of the abductees, but suspended it unilat-erally. If Japan demands a reinvesti-gation anew, it is imperative to ensure it is carried out absolutely by the North. In a meeting with immediate families of abductees still remaining in North Korea, Abe said, “I will confront North Korea directly to resolve the issue.” The families of abduction victims have been swayed by the North’s insincere responses in the past, only to have their hopes betrayed. The same mistake must not be repeated.

If the abduction issue is resolved in a package with the issue of nuclear and missile development, it will open a path to normalization of diplomatic relations with North Korea. Economic cooperation based on the Japan-North Korea Pyongyang Declaration will be made possible, too. How can Tokyo draw a concession from Pyongyang by presenting such a scenario? Japan’s diplomatic strategy will be tested in this regard.

It is essential for Japan to keep close cooperation with the United States and South Korea.

A matter of concern is that Trump has been showing a conciliatory stance toward the North.

In a press conference held after the summit with Kim, Trump expressed the idea of suspending joint military exercises with South Korea as long as US-North Korea talks proceed smoothly. Various kinds of military exercises are indispensable to maintaining the proficiency levels of troops.

A study recently conducted by Doha International Family Institute (DIFI) has also revealed that the blockade has adversely impacted inter-family interactions and relationships.

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFDR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK AL-SHAFIeditorinchief@pen.com.qa

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM MOHAMEDm.salim@pen.com.qa

DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED OSMAN ALI osman@pen.com.qa

ESTABLISHED IN 1996

EDITORIAL

Unending trauma must end now

On the eve of Eid Al Fitr, the blessed festival of spending happy times with family and loved ones, many families again went through the pain of sep-

aration. This is the third Eid which they were forced to spend lacking company of their loved ones due to ongoing blockade of Qatar by the three GCC countries. Last year two Eids – Eid Al Fitr and Eid Al Adha – witnessed the same scenes.

A study recently conducted by Doha International Family Institute (DIFI) has also revealed that the blockade has adversely impacted inter-family interactions and rela-tionships, and has made the affected families more vul-nerable to individual and collective trauma and psycho-logical stresses.

When siege was imposed on Qatar on June 5 last year, diplomats were given 48 hours to leave the four block-ading countries while hundreds of Qatari citizens who were living with their families or studying or working in the three GCC countries were also ordered to leave within 14 days.

The same time-frame was given by the blockading countries to their citizens to leave Qatar or be subjected

to criminal sanctions in the form of hefty fines and/or detention or revoking citizenship.

Along other human rights violations, crimes related to family separation and forced deportation have been widely condemned not only in the region but also by the leading global human rights organizations.

Women from the three Gulf states (Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain), whose husbands and children were Qataris faced pressure from their states of origin to leave Qatar or face the risks of losing their citizenship. “Women who contacted their embassies within the 14 days following June 5 were reportedly instructed to return

alone to their country of origin,” according to OHCHR report released in November 2107. Many people with relatives in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain, including elderly or sick parents for instance, have also been refrained from traveling to these countries, fearing they would not be allowed to return to Qatar.

Coming back to DIFI study, it has assessed the impact of the blockade examining the unique experiences of the mixed-marriage families, in which one of the spouses is a native of one of the blockading Gulf countries, and rela-tives living in one of these countries.

DIFI Executive Director, Noor Al Malki Al Jehani said: “The blockade has had unprecedented consequences not only on the Qatari families, but also on families where one of the spouses is a national of the blockading countries and lives in Qatar.”

It is the time that the whole world community with a unified voice must come forward to force the blockading countries to exclude people and their basic rights from the political dispute and respect human rights guaranteed by international laws and universal values.

Hodeida is a crucial hub for humanitarian aid; two-thirds of the Yemeni population depends on food and goods flowing through the port. And urban fighting could put countless civilian lives at risk, displace hundreds of thousands of people and disrupt efforts to alleviate Yemeni suffering.

09SATURDAY 16 JUNE 2018 OPINION

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On trade, Merkel joinsTrump on the low road

The world’s most dire humanitarian crisis may get even worse

LEONID BERSHIDSKY

ISHAAN THAROOR THE WASHINGTON POST

After failing to persuade President Donald Trump that punitive tariffs on European imports aren’t a good idea,

Chancellor Angela Merkel has apparently decided to fight back by taking a page from his playbook and manipulating facts.

“Trade surpluses are still calculated in a relatively old-fashioned way, based only on goods,” Merkel told a business conference organized by her party on Tuesday. “But if you include services in the trade balance, the US has a big surplus with Europe.”

That sounds like the reverse of Trump’s inaccurate complaint that Europe is running a huge trade surplus with the US thanks to unfair market practices. In fact, the barriers, of the tariff and non-tariff varieties, are pretty evenly aligned, with Europe at a slight advantage. Trump cherry-picks specific imbalances, such as Europe’s higher import duty on cars. Merkel is doing the same, and her statements aren’t necessarily true, either.

The US Census Bureau estimates the US-EU trade balance in both goods and services at $101.2 billion in favor of Europe for 2017 and $30.4

billion in favor of Europe for the first quarter of 2018. There are no equivalent European data yet, though, and official numbers on the two sides of the Atlantic have differed for years. The EU has tended to report lower services exports to the US than US sources.

To make her point, the chancellor seems to rely on data that more closely track US estimates of the trade relationship than the numbers provided by European Union or German record-keepers. When it comes to services alone, the US Trade Representative put the surplus with the EU at $55 billion in 2016. But Eurostat’s number for that year is starkly different: According to the agency, Europe’s services trade deficit with the US only amounted to 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion). That’s not a huge imbalance.

At a briefing on Wednesday, Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert said the chancellor was referring to broader measures of economic interaction. He said the focus shouldn’t be on the trade balance, but on the current account, which includes investments, income from investments and other international transfers.

On that basis, Seibert said, the US has a current account surplus of $14 billion vis-a-vis the EU. The data come from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis. But they’re also contradicted by Eurostat figures, which estimated that the EU had a 170 billion euro surplus with the US in 2017. Eurostat has promised to address the discrepancies with US statisticians.

Even the data for Germany alone contradicts Merkel’s narrative of victimization on trade. The

Bundesbank estimates that Germany had a current account surplus of 51.5 billion euros vis-a-vis the US last year. That includes a goods trade surplus of 54.5 billion euros and a services surplus of 3.4 billion euros, offset by a negative income balance.

But then, data sources and the data themselves don’t matter in the current environment. As Europeans have found out after months of trying to stave off Trump’s tariffs, numbers don’t sway the US president. There’s no way to discuss a messy, complex picture of mutual investment, trade and tax avoidance schemes, marred by huge statistical discrepancies, with a leader who has promised voters to negotiate better terms of trade with the rest of the world.

The only thing Merkel can conceivably do is fight back. “We have been challenged,” she said in her speech on Tuesday.

So Merkel the conscientious academic, known for her studiousness and careful preparation, is showing Trump that two can play the cherry-picking game with numbers whose greatest value is as rhetorical devices to please the domestic political base. She’s treating the trade war between Europe and the US as a contest of wills rather than an academic dispute.

That’s a bad sign. This sort of contest is sure to escalate before the parties are tempted to look for a compromise, and escalation means the trade war will hurt more industries, and ultimately more workers, than it has already affected both in Europe and the US It would be a far better idea to let statisticians work out their differences first, so that everyone can at least operate with the same set of numbers - but it may be too late.

This week, Yemen’s already-brutal civil war may be entering an even deadlier and more worrying phase. An

Emirati-led offensive is underway against the port city of Hodeida, which is controlled by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels. Security ana-lysts and aid agencies fear that a pro-tracted siege of Hodeida may only deepen Yemen’s misery. Hodeida is a crucial hub for humanitarian aid; two-thirds of the Yemeni population depends on food and goods flowing through the port. And urban fighting could put countless civilian lives at risk, displace hundreds of thousands of people and disrupt efforts to alle-viate Yemeni suffering.

“It is the lifeline of the country,” said Lise Grande, the top UN humani-tarian official in Yemen, to my col-leagues. “If you cut that port off, we have a catastrophe on our hands.” She predicted that as many as a quarter million Yemenis could die of violence,

hunger and illness.Many readers will be all too

familiar with the grim statistics. Thou-sands of civilians have died since March 2015. A Saudi-led blockade and the collapse of infrastructure have led to shortages of virtually everything, especially food and medicine. Some 8 million people are on the brink of famine, and more than 1 million have been infected with cholera. By one estimate, around 50,000 Yemeni children died of starvation, malnu-trition or disease last year alone.

The Saudis and the Emiratis, the principal foreign powers that inter-vened on behalf of Yemen’s routed government in 2015, argue that aid will move much faster once they have freed the city from the Houthis. Buoyed by key defections in the Houthi ranks, the coalition sees the city’s potential capture as the victory that will tilt the war definitively in their favour.

“What most observers fail to

understand, after just tuning in to Hodeidah, is that the UAE and its Yemeni partners have been preparing to liberate the port since 2016 to weaken the Houthis, create leverage for negotiators, limit the rebels’ ability to import Iranian-provided arms, and bring the port back up to full capacity as a humanitarian import hub,” wrote Middle East expert Michael Knights for the National.

But others in the international community are more skeptical. The Houthis appear primed for a bitter defense of Hodeida that will likely turn into a publicity nightmare for the Saudis and Emiratis as civilian deaths mount. UN officials, who administer a weapons-inspection program at the port, are not con-vinced by arguments that the port has been used to smuggle Iranian weaponry to the Houthis. Even the United States, which is refueling coa-lition aircraft and supplying it with intelligence and munitions, long cau-tioned against an outright assault.

“It’s a city with a large number of residents who are not to blame for this war and now find themselves at the front line,” said Frank McManus, the Yemen country director at the International Rescue Committee, to the Wall Street Journal. “Both sides of the conflict have a responsibility to ensure these people are protected.”

The warring parties don’t seem committed to that responsibility. “For uprooted villagers, reaching safety has meant crossing front lines, dodging airstrikes and mortar rounds, and traversing roads and fields seeded with land mines,” reported my col-league Sudarsan Raghavan. “Villagers have often slipped out of their homes under the cover of darkness to avoid rebels who have been preventing people from fleeing and pressing children to take up arms.”

And the intensification of the battle makes the prospect of a nego-tiated peace less likely. Martin Grif-fiths, the UN’s beleaguered special envoy, has been working fitfully to bring the various factions to the table. “Further military escalation will have serious consequences on the dire humanitarian situation in the country and will have an impact on my efforts to resume political negotiations to reach an inclusive political settlement to the conflict in Yemen,” Griffiths said in a statement earlier this week. “I cannot overem-phasize that there is no military solution to the conflict.”

The Emirati-led ground offensive on Hodeida began in earnest only

The US Census Bureau estimates the US-EU trade balance in both goods and services at $101.2 billion in favor of Europe for 2017 and $30.4 billion in favor of Europe for the first quarter of 2018.

after the coalition appeared to get the tacit backing of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. While US offi-cials are at pains to stress they are not party to the conflict, the Trump administration’s top diplomat made a Monday statement on Hodeida that, despite notes of caution, did not warn against attacking the city.

Gregory Johnsen, a resident fellow at the Arabia Foundation in Washington and a former member of a Yemen panel of experts at the UN Security Council, suggests that the Trump administration sees eye-to-eye with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi about the need to confront Iran in the Arabian peninsula. Yemen’s civil strife did not begin as a regional proxy war. But broader geopolitics now suffuse the country’s various fiefdoms and turf wars in a conflict that involves Sudanese mercenaries, UAE commandos and Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah.

10 SATURDAY 16 JUNE 2018EUROPE

Merkel stands firm against demands to close bordersAP

BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel remains firmly opposed to unilateral moves to turn some refugees back at the border — as demanded by conservative allies in her own government — her spokesman said yesterday, warning such action would weaken the European Union.

Tempers within the gov-ernment have frayed over the issue in recent days and the dispute has raised questions over Merkel’s future, as nationalist forces already in power else-where in Europe turn up the heat on the long-serving chancellor for her welcoming stance toward migrants.

Among Merkel’s sharpest critics is Bavarian Governor Markus Soeder, whose Christian Social Union is taking an increas-ingly hard line ahead of a state election this fall, even though it forms part of the governing coa-lition at the national level.

Soeder and his party’s leader, Horst Seehofer — Germany’s Interior Minister — want to send police to the southern border to turn back migrants who have

registered as asylum-seekers in other European countries. Merkel has warned that such a move could shift the burden onto countries such as Italy and Greece that have struggled to cope with the influx of migrants coming across the Mediter-ranean. “We must not contribute to weakening the European Union and purely national measures setting the tone again in Europe,” said Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert.

“Then Europe wouldn’t play the strong role in the world that’s required now,” he told reporters in Berlin in a sign of how jittery the German establishment has become, a hoax tweet suggesting Seehofer had broken up his

party’s decades-old alliance with Merkel’s conservatives was picked up widely by German media, briefly sending the euro currency into a nosedive against the dollar.

Other members of Merkel’s government turned to name-calling yesterday, with Andrea Nahles, the leader of Germany’s centre-left Social Democrats, accusing Soeder of “behaving like a bonsai Trump.” Nahles said her party, which is also a member of the governing coa-lition in Berlin, backs Merkel’s call for a Europe-wide consensus on how to tackle the issue of

irregular migration.“We won’t allow the panic of

the (Bavarian) state government to take all of Germany and Europe hostage,” she said.

Soeder says his party, which is fearful of losing voters to the far-right Alternative for Germany in the Bavarian election on Oct. 14, wants to “put the needs of our population centre-stage.” His words echo those of populist politicians in other European countries such as Austria, Britain and Italy, where fear of migrants has tilted politics to the right in recent years.

Commentators in Germany have noted that the spat is one of the biggest crises for Merkel, who was recently elected for a fourth term with only a narrow majority. However it ends, this week’s crisis has underlined that there are limits to her power.

Wolfgang Bosbach, a member of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, told broad-caster n-tv on Friday that some in her party side with Soeder on the issue. Soeder’s CSU and Mer-kel’s CDU campaign together in national elections and have a joint group in the national parliament.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (left) and Secretary-General of Nato Jens Stoltenberg arrive to hold a joint press conference in Berlin, yesterday.

Germany wants EU-wide safety system for truck ‘blind spots’AP

BERLIN: Germany’s transport minister wants trucks fitted with compulsory ‘blind spot’ safety systems to prevent pedestrians and cyclists from being killed by careless drivers.

Properly arranged mirrors normally ensure that truck drivers can see all areas in front of and beside their vehicles. But a series of fatal accidents in recent months has strengthened calls from road safety activists for more stringent measures.

Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer plans to meet with truck manufac-turers, freight companies, cycling advocates and police to discuss the use of sensors to aid drivers. His spokesman Ingo Strater said Friday “the minister would prefer to introduce such systems as soon as possible” but is also bound by European vehicle approval rules.

The group ADFC says 21 cyclists have been killed by right-turning trucks so far this year in Germany.

Germany fires head of scandal-hit asylum agencyREUTERS

BERLIN: Germany’s Interior Minister has dismissed the head of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), which is mired in a scandal over irregularities in making asylum decisions, a spokesman said yesterday.

The decision by Horst See-hofer, leader of the Bavaria-based Christian Social Union (CSU), comes at the height of dispute over immigration that threatens to splinter Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc. Merkel’s Christian Dem-ocrats (CDU) and CSU sister party are at odds over how to tackle the issue of migrants, which is also causing strain among members of the European Union. BAMF chief Jutta Cordt had come under criticism after an internal review by BAMF of 4,568 asylum rulings had found that the Bremen branch knowingly and regularly disregarded legal regulations and internal rules.

Labour market rule red line in EU talks REUTERS

ZURICH: Special measures to protect Swiss wages and working conditions remain a red line in the country’s nego-tiations for a new relationship with the European Union, Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis said yesterday.

Earlier this week, Cassis signaled that Switzerland was prepared to take a flexible approach to labour market rules in its talks with the EU, indicating movement on a potential stumbling block for any deal. But yesterday he stressed how important keeping these rules was for Switzerland. “The flanking measures for the free movement of persons are still disputed, for us (they are) simply a red line,” Cassis told an event in Bern.

Switzerland in 2004 intro-duced “flanking measures” to

protect Swiss wages and working conditions, two years after a deal to let EU citizens live and work in the country came into effect. Such free movement is a prerequisite for Swiss access to the EU single market. Britain’s exit from the European Union also made concessions difficult, he said.

“The EU could move here, but at the negotiating table the EU diplomats hear ‘Switzerland’ and immediately think of ‘UK’. Every concession to Switzerland suddenly creates a precedent for Brexit,” Cassis added.

Switzerland and the EU aim to hammer out an accord on a treaty this year, with negotia-tions heating up before the summer break. If the current negotiations do not succeed, both sides will have to look for a solution after the Swiss and EU elections, which are due to take place next year, Cassis said.

Spain unveils measures to help migrantsAP

MADRID: Spain’s new center-left government unveiled a series of measures yesterday to “put people’s rights first” in the coun-try’s migration policies.

The Spanish cabinet took the first steps toward extending public health care to foreigners without residence permits, Edu-cation Minister Isabel Celaa announced, saying the gov-ernment would have a decree ready in six weeks.

Celaa also said the gov-ernment planned to assess how to remove — “without losing any security” — the barbed wire capping the border fences of Ceuta and Melilla, the two Spanish enclaves in North Africa. Those fences are often stormed by scores of migrants trying to reach Spanish territory from Africa.

The moves — along with Spain’s welcoming of the Aquarius, a rescue boat carrying hundreds of migrants that was

refused entry by Italy and Malta this week in the Mediterranean — showed a sharp break between new Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and his prede-cessor, Mariano Rajoy, whose conservative administration had a stricter approach on migration.

Rajoy had blocked free health care for some migrants in 2012 as a cost-cutting measure. His government also refused to remove the barbed wire border fences criticized as cruel and inefficient by rights groups. “You can have security in your borders without having to harm people,” Celaa said, adding that Sanchez’s Socialist-led government “is going to put people’s rights first.” The Aquarius rescue boat is expected in the Spanish port of Valencia on Sunday.

Tens of thousands of people from Africa, the Mideast or Asian countries flee violent conflicts or extreme poverty each year by attempting perilous journeys to Europe in smugglers’ dinghies across the Mediterranean.

Two Ukraine soldiers killed after peace talksAFP

KIEV: Two Ukrainian soldiers died and six were wounded in a new uptick of fighting between government troops and Russian-backed rebels in the east following high-profile peace talks, the military said yesterday.

The latest casualties came despite efforts to revitalise a long-stalled peace process in the simmering war.

“The situation on the frontline has significantly deteriorated over the past 24 hours,” military spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk told reporters.

Separatist forces used heavy weapons including tanks, artillery and large-calibre mortars.

A series of periodic truce deals have helped lower vio-lence levels in two breakaway regions in Ukraine’s industrial east but have not fully ended the bloodshed.

PM Morawiecki raps Poland’s top court ahead of EU visitREUTERS

WARSAW: Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki criticised his country’s Supreme Court yesterday, saying Communist-era judges still worked there, in comments likely to irk the EU ahead of a deadline for settling a row over court independence.

The EU’s executive Com-mission has given Morawiecki’s right-wing government until late June to resolve the dispute over reforms that Brussels says threaten judicial independence. It has threatened to cut Poland’s access to generous EU funds.

The European Commission’s First Vice President Frans Tim-mermans is due to visit Warsaw on Monday to try to convince the government to reverse its reforms of the judiciary.

“There are still judges in the Supreme Court dating back to

martial law. And present judges from the Supreme Court were issuing shameful sentences against freedom and democracy fighters,” Morawiecki told a Polish-French economic forum.

Poland’s Communist gov-ernment declared martial law in 1981-83 in an attempt to suppress the country’s pro-democracy

movement. Poland threw off Communist rule in 1989 and joined the EU in 2004.

At the start of July, 39 percent of Supreme Court judges will retire under broader reforms that the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party says will make the courts more efficient and free from the Communist legacy.

Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki during a Cabinet meeting in Warsaw.

Merkel has warned that turning back migrants could shift the burden onto countries such as Italy and Greece that have struggled to cope with the influx of migrants coming across the Mediterranean.

Muslims perform Eid Al Fitr prayer at the Mevlana Mosque in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, yesterday.

Eid Al Fitr prayer in Rotterdam

11SATURDAY 16 JUNE 2018 AMERICAS

Trump accuses FBI of plotting against himAP

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump disputed findings by the Justice Department yesterday that former FBI Director James Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email probe was not politically motivated, declaring that the FBI was biased “at the top level” and “plotting against my election.”

The Department’s Inspector General report, while critical of the FBI and Comey personally, did not find evidence that political bias tainted the inves-tigation of Clinton’s email prac-tices in the months and days leading up to Trump’s election.

But yesterday, after tweeting that he did a “great service” to the nation by firing Comey, Trump marched out to the White House North Lawn to talk with “Fox & Friends” for more than half an hour, claiming the report “totally” exonerated him, then pointing to accomplishments he said he’s achieved and com-plaining about not getting proper credit.

Then he turned to other reporters and went over the same list for another 20 minutes.

On the inspector general report that found no political bias in the FBI’s final conclusions, he

said, “The end result was wrong. There was total bias.” “Comey was the ring leader of this whole, you know, den of thieves. It was a den of thieves,” he said.

Trump’s comments followed the IG’s 500-page report that said Comey was “insubordinate” in his handling of the Clinton investigation because he broke agency protocol. The report also rebuked FBI officials for exchanging anti-Trump text messages during the 2016 campaign.

But it said, “We found no evi-dence that the conclusions by the prosecutors were affected by bias or other improper consid-erations; rather, we determined

that they were based on the prosecutors’ assessment of the facts, the law and past department practice.” Trump’s supporters have argued that the findings are proof of political bias at the FBI’s highest levels that then tainted the Russia investi-gation, first led by the FBI and now by special counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller’s probe includes a look into whether Trump himself tried to obstruct justice by firing Comey.

Trump said Friday, as he has before, that the Mueller probe, too, “has been totally dis-credited.” “The IG Report is a total disaster for Comey, his minions and sadly, the FBI,” Trump tweeted earlier. “Comey will now officially go down as the worst leader, by far, in the history of the FBI. I did a great service to the people in firing him. Good Instincts.” Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told “Fox & Friends” that the report casts doubt on whether Trump will ever agree to an interview with Mueller’s team because “why would he get interviewed by a corrupt inves-tigation?” Trump himself said he had “reservations.” Thursday’s report documents in painstaking detail one of the most conse-quential investigations in

modern FBI history and reveals how the bureau, which for decades has endeavored to stand apart from politics, came to be entangled in the 2016 presi-dential election. It underscores efforts by FBI and Justice Department leaders to juggle developments in the Clinton investigation - she had used

private email for government business while secretary of state - with a separate probe that was then unknown to the American public into potential coordi-nation between the Trump cam-paign and Russia.

Clinton supporters believe Comey’s actions, far from hurting Trump, may well have torpedoed

her chance of becoming pres-ident. The report suggests that text from Peter Strzok, who was later dropped from Mueller’s team, “implies a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects.” It did not find evi-dence that those views seeped into the investigation.

US President Donald Trump speaks during an interview with Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy (right) at the White House lawn in Washington, DC, yesterday.

US judge sends Trump’s former campaign chief Manafort to jailREUTERS

WASHINGTON: A federal judge yesterday sent President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, to jail pending trial, after Special Counsel Robert Mueller charged him last week with witness tampering.

It was the latest episode in the fall of Manafort, a longtime political operator and busi-nessman who has been a focus of Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 US presidential election.

US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington revoked Manafort’s bail, sending him to jail.

“I have no appetite for this.

But in the end, I cannot turn a blind eye,” she said. “You’ve abused the trust placed in you.” Manafort has been indicted by Mueller in both Washington and Virginia on a raft of charges, including conspiracy against the United States. His trial in the Washington case is scheduled for September. He had remained on home confinement in Alex-andria, Virginia, and had been required to wear an electronic monitoring device.

Manafort’s trial on the related charges in Virginia is set for July 25. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Mueller, whose investigation has overshadowed Trump’s presidency, is investigating whether the president’s 2016

campaign colluded with Moscow and whether Trump has unlawfully sought to obstruct the Russia probe. Trump has called Mueller’s investigation a witch hunt and has denied wrongdoing.

Jackson had previously rebuffed Manafort’s repeated requests to end his home con-finement in exchange for pledging $10 million in real estate as collateral.

A June 8 indictment charged Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik, a Manafort aide and political operative with alleged ties to Russian intelligence, with tampering with witnesses about their past lobbying for Ukraine’s f o r m e r p r o - R u s s i a n government.

Kathleen Manafort, wife of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, departs without him after his arraignment on a third superseding indictment by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on charges of witness tampering, at US District Court in Washington, yesterday.

US to house migrant children in tents near Mexico borderAFP

CHICAGO: President Donald Trump’s administration is erecting tent structures near the US-Mexico border in Texas to house the increasing number of migrant children in government custody, US media reported.

Children who are traveling alone or have been separated from relatives can be held by authorities under US rules, while Trump’s administration has also backed separating immigrant children from parents, including those seeking asylum, as part of efforts to deter illegal immigration.

The new temporary shelter site is located near an official border crossing point about 35 miles (55 kilometers) southeast of the city of El Paso, and will initially house 360 children in large air-conditioned tents, according to media reports.

The shelter was expected to be ready in the next few days. A similar “temporary holding

center” was constructed in 2016 at the same location for unac-companied migrant children and detained families.

The existing network of more than 100 government shelters has begun to fill up. Another Texas shelter, a con-verted Walmart building, is housing as many as 1,500 boys aged 10 to 17.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which is tasked with caring for the children, had been considering military bases as potential sites for additional temporary shelters, according to media reports. The shelter near El Paso is the first to be erected by the administration.

Texas State Representative Mary Gonzalez, a Democrat whose district includes the El Paso area, tweeted that the shelter was not appropriate for children.

“Nor is it a location that has adequate numbers of coun-selors or therapists to assist these children,” she said.

Trump praises new Italy PM ConteAFP

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump yesterday hailed Italy’s novice Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, as “very strong” on immigration, days after the European nation rejected a ship loaded with migrants.

“New prime minister of Italy is great. Got to meet him” at the Group of Seven summit last week in Canada, Trump told Fox News during a wide-ranging interview at the White House. “Very strong on immigration -- like I am, by the way,” the president added. Conte is a political novice. Weeks ago he was a little-known academic, but on June 1 the anti-establishment 53-year-old was suddenly propelled to the helm of one of the eurozone’s largest economies.

Italy then triggered a row with European nations when it refused to allow the Aquarius, a rescue ship with 629 migrants aboard, to dock at its ports.

Connecticut school to be named after ObamaAP

NEW HAVEN: A new Connecticut elementary school will be named after former President Barack Obama.

New Haven Public Schools administrators, civic leaders and officials gathered on Thursday at the Southern Connecticut State University campus to break ground on Barack H Obama Magnet Uni-versity School.

The 64,000-square-foot school will serve nearly 500 students from pre-kinder-garten through fourth grade. It will replace the Strong 21st Century Communications School. New Haven Superin-tendent Carol Birks said the district was continuing the former president’s “com-mitment to urban education.” Officials say SCSU students will get a chance to gain in-class experience at the new school.

AP

LAWRENCE: A 14-year-old boy has died after being shot in the head during a fight at another teen’s birthday party in suburban Indianapolis.

Lawrence police Deputy Chief Gary Woodruff said yes-terday that Daron Johnson was taken off life-support on Thursday night and has died. Daron was declared brain dead earlier this week. Police have said a fight between two people

at the clubhouse of the Lions Club in Lawrence escalated into a fight between two groups Sat-urday night. Several shots were fired. Four others between the ages of 11 and 14 were wounded. Police don’t believe Daron was involved. A 14-year-old boy was arrested and another teen is being sought. Police are investigating. Woodruff says “nothing good results from 14 year olds carrying handguns to a birthday party.”

14-year-old boy dies after Indiana birthday party shooting

Why many Americans aren’t benefiting from robust US economyAP

WASHINGTON: “The economy,” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell declared this week, “is doing very well.” And it is. Steady hiring has shrunk unemployment to 3.8 percent - the lowest since the 1960’s. Consumers are spending. Taxes are down. Inflation is tame. Factories are busy. Demand for homes is strong. Household wealth is up.

Yet the numbers that collec-tively sketch a picture of a vibrant

economy don’t reflect reality for a range of Americans who still feel far from financially secure even nine years into an economic expansion.

From drivers paying more for gas and families bearing heavier child care costs to workers still awaiting decent pay raises and couples struggling to afford a home, people throughout the economy are straining to succeed despite the economy’s gains.

They are people like Katy Cole, a 33 year-old music teacher from North Creek, New York,

who’s still repaying her student loans. It took her two years of working a second job to repair her credit and amass enough money to try to buy a home with her boyfriend. She just gave birth last month - the fourth child in her blended family - which means having to take unpaid leave from her school job.

“As far as the numbers saying everyone is working, that’s great,” Cole said. “But is everybody sur-viving? I don’t think so. In a great economy, everybody is thriving - and not just a certain group.”

When analysts at Oxford Eco-nomics recently studied American spending patterns, they found that the bottom 60 percent of earners was essentially drawing on their savings just to maintain their lifestyles. Their incomes weren’t enough to cover expenses.

“Many people are still living on a paycheck-to-paycheck basis,” said Gregory Daco, head of U.S. economics at Oxford.

Daco and other economists describe the economy as funda-mentally healthy, a testament to

the durable recovery from the 2008 financial crisis. The job market, in particular, is booming. But even many people who have jobs and are in little danger of losing them feel burdened and uneasy.

Even with inflation running at a relatively low 2.4 percent, one particular expense is weighing on anyone idling in traffic: Gasoline prices have surged 24 percent over the past year to a national average of $2.94 a gallon, according to AAA. That’s the highest average since 2014.

On the inspector general report that found no political bias in the FBI’s final conclusions, Trump said: “The end result was wrong. There was total bias. Comey was the ring leader of this whole, you know, den of thieves. It was a den of thieves.”

12 SATURDAY 16 JUNE 2018AMERICAS

Nicaragua renews talks to end spiraling crisis AFP

MANAGUA: Nicaragua’s prom-inent bishops yesterday convened rival government and civil group representatives to discuss reviving talks aimed at ending a spiraling crisis that’s now left at least 162 dead.

The Central American coun-try’s Catholic clergy had earlier this week scheduled the 10:00am (1600 GMT) meeting, at which they were to present their mediation proposal as well as embattled President Daniel Ortega’s long-awaited response.

The previous evening, Nic-aragua’s Center for Human Rights (CENIDH) had raised to 162 the toll since anti-gov-ernment protests broke out two months ago.

At least four people were killed — including a 15-year old altar boy — on Thursday, when armed paramilitaries and pro-government gangs attacked activists guarding demon-strators in the cities of Leon, Nagarote, Masatepe and Tip-itapa, according to the CENIDH.

Ortega-backed repression appeared to spike throughout the country during Thursday’s national 24-hour strike called by the National Alliance for Justice and Democracy, a coa-lition of students, entrepreneurs and other civil leaders.

“Ortega continues with his criminal policy against the

people of Nicaragua, because he doesn’t want to leave power even though people are asking him to leave,” Azhalea Solis, a representative of the coalition, said. Delegates from that group will go to Friday’s meeting, which Ortega’s Foreign Minister Denis Moncada was also to attend.

The church previously called off talks with Ortega after a march led by victims’ mothers turned deadly at the hands of Ortega-backed forces last month.

Nicaragua’s descent into chaos was triggered on April 18 when relatively small protests against now-scrapped social security reforms were met with

a government crackdown.Those demonstrations

mushroomed into a popular uprising that has seen activists brandishing homemade mortars and slingshots clash violently with anti-riot police and pro-Ortega paramilitaries.

Calls for the ouster of the leftist leader -- a major force in Nicaraguan politics for the better part of 40 years -- along with his wife and vice president Rosario Murillo are growing increasingly vehement.

Many activists are demanding expediting the next presidential election set for late 2021 in a bid to oust Ortega, who has remained steadfast in his desire to maintain power.

Truck drivers rest under a truck while waiting for protesters to clear a roadblock in Diriamba, 40km from Managua, yesterday.

Colombia’s vote will determine future of peace deal tomorrow REUTERS

BOGOTA: Colombians will choose either a business-friendly protégé of a powerful ex-president or a leftist former guerrilla as their new head of state tomorrow, with the future of a historic peace accord and the nation’s economic model hanging in the balance.

Ivan Duque, hand-picked by former hardline president Alvaro Uribe, is predicted to win Sunday’s runoff as he is polling about 20 points ahead of Gustavo Petro, a former mayor of Bogota and one-time member of the now-defunct M19 rebel group.

At stake is the implemen-tation of a 2016 peace agreement with the Revolu-tionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which brought an end to five decades of

conflict with the Marxist rebel group, and whether Latin Amer-ica’s fourth-largest economy will abandon its traditionally market-friendly posture.

“A Duque victory wouldn’t mean the end of the peace agreement, but it could mean it’s reduced to a minimum,” said Yann Basset of Rosario Uni-versity. “A Petro victory would probably mean a difficult period of economic uncertainty.” The 41-year-old Duque made a name as senator for his staunch opposition to the peace deal negotiated by outgoing Pres-ident Juan Manuel Santos, who once counted Uribe among his backers before falling out with him over the talks.

Duque has promised changes to the accord, which he slams as far too lenient on former rebels. His pledge to jail commanders for war crimes has

sparked concern among some Colombians that he could upset the deal and send fighters back to the trenches.

Petro has criticized the deal as not resolving deep rural ine-quality but says he will keep it intact. It remains to be seen what changes, if any, Duque can make to the deal, which was upheld by the constitutional court. Whoever takes office as president on August 7 faces a tough time. The $320bn economy remains weak, a new wave of drug trafficking crime gangs have moved into areas once controlled by the FARC and almost a million Venezuelan migrants have crossed into Colombia, looking for food and work. He was ousted from office for allowing garbage to pile on Bogota’s streets when he was mayor, before being reinstated.

Venezuelan lawmaker tells of time in Maduro’s jailsREUTERS

CARACAS: A year and a half in Venezuela’s feared prison system, deprived of food and water, caused opposition lawmaker Gilber Caro (pictured) to lose 18 kg (40 lb), about a fifth of his body weight, he said.

At one point, Caro says he used a needle and thread to sew his lips shut for a five day hunger strike to protest at conditions. Prison authorities denied this account, which Reuters could not independently verify.

Now the 43-year-old, who was freed from jail in early June along with other opposition activists, said he wants to denounce the tactics employed by President Nicolas Maduro’s government, despite a ban on those released talking to the media.

The unpopular Maduro has cast the release of dozens of opposition members as a peace

gesture following his re-election to a new six-year term last month, which was condemned by most Western nations as an undemocratic farce. The United States imposed new sanctions on Venezuela’s all-important oil industry.

In an interview, Caro, a leading member of hardline opposition party Popular Will, recounted how Venezuelan authorities moved him between solitary confinement in different jails to prevent him ever feeling settled. He said he was given scant food and water and barred from seeing family members or lawyers. At his first jail in the city of San Juan de Los Morros in the state of Guarico, Caro said he spent four months without speaking to anyone.

“What I experienced was total isolation,” Caro said, his face gaunt from weight loss.

The opposition and rights groups say Maduro’s leftist

administration is holding hun-dreds of political prisoners on trumped up charges intended to stifle dissent in the South American nation of 32 million people. They accuse the courts of pro-government bias.

The government denies the detainees are political prisoners. It says they were fairly jailed for committing violent crimes during protests.

Caro weighed less than 58 kg when he left the prison, his lawyer Ramon Carmona said. An official at the Carabobo prison said he was not authorized to speak and referred comment to the Prisons Ministry.

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Saturday 16 June 2018

PAGE | 15PAGE | 15Renault to stay

in Iran despite US sanctions

Tesco steps up challenge to rivals with new price cuts

Japan okays economic plan that allows more foreign workersAP

TOKYO: Japan’s Cabinet yesterday adopted an economic plan that would allow more foreign workers as the rapidly aging country seeks to make up for its declining workforce.

Under the plan, Japan would relax visa requirements in sectors facing severe labour shortages such as nursing care, agriculture, construction and transport — new categories it would start accepting in addition to highly skilled professionals.

The workers would be allowed to stay in the country for only up to five years as vis-itors, not as immigrants. They would not be allowed to be accompanied by family members — a measure that

would encourage them to leave Japan when their visas expire and not become part of Japanese society. Japan also sets high standards for language skills and cultural understanding.

Still, the decision under-scores Japan’s need to fill its labor shortage, forcing it to put aside its reluctance to accept outsiders. “As we have faced a severe labor shortage at small and medium-size companies, we need to allow more foreign workers with certain levels of expertise and skills, not just those with highly specialized skills that we have accepted,” said economic and fiscal policy minister Toshimitsu Motegi. “We need people who can start immediately.” The basic eco-nomic plan for 2018 needs

parliamentary approval before it can take effect.

Motegi said the plan is not a scheme to acquire cheap labor or a change to Japan’s immi-gration policy.

The number of foreign workers in Japan has nearly doubled over the past five years to 1.28 million last year. The fastest growing group is Viet-namese, whose population grew

by 40 percent from a year earlier, many of them doing con-struction and nursing care jobs.

Officially, Japan only grants visas for highly skilled technical professionals, but small com-panies often take advantage of visa loopholes for foreign stu-dents and others on technical internship programs for training, putting them to work in factories and other low-skilled jobs.

Bank of Japan’s Governor Haruhiko Kuroda speaks during a press conference about the monetary policy, at the Bank of Japan headquarters in Tokyo, yesterday.

Trump sets $50bn in China tariffsAP

WASHINGTON: Vowing to cut US trade deficits and protect the nation’s high-tech “crown jewels,” US President Donald Trump said yesterday he’s levying a 25 percent tariff on up to $50bn worth of Chinese imports, instantly escalating a trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies.

China’s government quickly responded that it would “fight back strongly” with penalties of the same scale on American goods. Trump said he was ful-filling a campaign pledge to crack down on what he contends are China’s unfair trade practices and efforts to undermine US technology and intellectual property. During an impromptu appearance on the White House North Lawn, the President hailed

his “very big tariffs” on China.“You know we have the

great brain power in Silicon Valley, and China and others steal those secrets. And we’re going to protect those secrets. Those are crown jewels for this country,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends.” Asked about inciting a trade war, he said, “There is no trade war. They’ve taken so much” already.

The US tariffs will cover 1,102 Chinese product lines

worth about $50bn a year. Those include 818 products, worth $34bn a year, remaining from a list of 1,333 the administration released in April. After receiving public comment, the US removed from the list hundreds of products, including televisions and some pharmaceuticals, according to a senior adminis-tration official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.

The government will start to collect the tariffs July 6.

The administration also is targeting an additional 284 Chinese products, which it says benefit from China’s aggressive industrial policies, worth $16bn a year, but won’t impose those tariffs until it collects public comment. US companies that rely on the targeted imports —and can’t find substitutes — can

apply for exemptions from the tariffs. “It’s thorough. It’s mod-erate. It’s appropriate,” US Trade Rep. Robert Lighthizer said. He added: “Our hope is that it doesn’t lead to a rash reaction from China.”

“The Chinese side doesn’t want to fight a trade war, but facing the shortsightedness of the US side, China has to fight back strongly,” the Chinese Commerce Ministry said in a statement.

“We will immediately introduce the same scale and equal taxation measures, and all economic and trade achieve-ments reached by the two sides will be invalidated.” The Com-merce Ministry said it also is scrapping deals made with Washington in talks aimed at defusing a sprawling trade dispute.

Boeing creates one-stop shop for jets and services in Airbus battleREUTERS

PARIS: Boeing has reorganised its sales operations as part of a push into services that has helped it take a lead over rival jet maker Airbus this year.

Boeing set up a standalone division in 2017 to build a $50bn business in services for civil and defence aircraft. These can include repairs, crew ros-tering, parts and even wind forecasts. It previously offered only limited services.

Now sales of jetliner services have

been brought under the same umbrella as plane sales, headed by senior vice president Ihssane Mounir, Boeing Co’s overall commercial sales chief.

The previously unreported move, which started late last year, is designed to increase the number of deals and boost profits as it will make it easier for Boeing to sell high-margin services at the same time as it sells planes.

The change comes as airlines try to keep a lid on costs by planning jet purchases and long-term oper-ations together. “We approach the

campaigns in a much more compre-hensive way than we have ever done before,” said Mounir, whose role was expanded to include responsibility for jetliner-related services across the group.

“So the price and inherent capa-bility of the airplane are just one thing that we are bringing to the table. I’m not going to go beyond that, or I will be divulging the secret sauce.” Airbus and Boeing dominate the jet market, worth $5 trillion over 20 years. Airbus is also developing services but has not

brought sales together yet — though it may do so in future. Boeing officials say recent sales wins for Boeing’s 787 plane over Airbus’ A330neo have involved “multiple plays” of which coupling jets and services can be one element.

Mounir’s 600-strong sales team has won orders for 376 planes, or 70 percent of new commercial jet orders this year. Airbus has the rest of the main market with 161 planes. Analysts say success for the 787 and a potential new mid-market Boeing jet depends

in part on clipping the wings of the latest version of Airbus’ older com-petitor, the A330.

European industry sources say Boeing slashed 787 prices to “kill” the A330. Mounir, 46, who was pro-moted to one of the industry’s most daunting jobs in October 2016, denied this.

“It has not been a price game (or) a price strategy,” Mounir said when asked about the claim, adding mul-tiple factors including improved reli-ability had boosted the 787.

Argentina seeks to reassure amid currency crisisAFP

BUENOS AIRES: Argentina’s Economy Minister Nicolas Dujovne sought to reassure markets yesterday after the peso plunged more than 6.0 percent against the dollar the day before, leaving it at a record low.

Dujovne told reporters he understood the turbulence of the last few days concerned investors in Latin America’s third-largest economy. “We are working to normalize the exchange market and smooth the fluctuations we have seen in the last few days, always based on the currency floatation program,” he said.

“Even in this program it is possible to have a currency scheme with soft fluctuations and we think that we are on the way to being able to put it into practice.” Dujovne was speaking after the government replaced Central Bank governor Federico Sturzenegger late Thursday as

the run on the peso gained pace.The reshuffle was announced

after Dujovne held a crisis meeting with Argentina’s center-right President Mauricio Macri.

His replacement, finance minister Luis Caputo, will be tasked with laying out a path ahead amid investor complaints of an incoherent strategy.

The Argentine currency has dropped 30 percent against the dollar after a currency crisis in April and May, followed by a 8.6 percent drop this week.

Last week, the IMF announced a 50 billion dollar (43 billion euro) standby loan as Latin America’s third largest economy sought help to stabilize its economy and currency exchange market. “The liquidity that we will be pouring into the market in the coming weeks will contribute to significantly reduce those turbulences that we have seen in the foreign exchange market,” Dujovne said.

Pedestrians walk past an electronic board showing currency exchange rates in Buenos Aires’ financial district, yesterday.

China’s government quickly responded that it would “fight back strongly” with penalties of the same scale on American goods.

15SATURDAY 16 JUNE 2018 BUSINESS

Renault to stay in Iran despite US sanctionsAFP

PARIS: French carmaker Renault will maintain its presence in Iran while taking measures to avoid the risk of penalties for breaching renewed US sanctions, CEO Carlos Ghosn (pictured) said yesterday. “We will not abandon it, even if we have to downsize very strongly,” he said at the annual share-holders’ meeting in Paris.

“When the market reopens, the fact of having stayed will certainly give us an advantage,” he predicted.

US President Donald Trump announced in May that he was

pulling out of the hard-fought 2015 deal in which world powers offered Tehran sanctions relief in exchange for restraints on its nuclear programme.

The US exit means renewed sanctions on Iran, while

international companies doing business there will face penalties if they do not quit the country in between 90 and 180 days.

Companies including aircraft maker Boeing, French energy giant Total and Danish shipping group Maersk have announced plans to pull out, while Nike has stopped supplying Iran’s football team with boots. Renault’s rival PSA, which produces the Peugeot and Citroen brands, has also announced it will quit Iran to abide by the US sanctions.

But Ghosn signalled that Renault, which counted 160,000 cars sold in Iran last year out of its total 3.76 million, would try

to stay in the country. “We have a future in Iran,” he insisted. “However, we are not going to do so to the detriment of Renault’s interests — we will be watching closely to make sure our presence in Iran does not provoke direct or indirect reprisal measures on the part of American authorities.” Ghosn said a Renault team working on the issue was “in direct contact with the American adminis-tration to work out what can be done and what cannot be done”.

The company has not sold its cars in the United States since abandoning the market in the 1980s.

H&M revenue stagnates as retailer tries to clear inventoryBLOOMBERG

STOCKHOLM: Hennes & Mauritz AB is reeling from discounts that are eroding sales as the struggling Swedish clothing retailer tries to reduce a record level of inventory.

Sales were unchanged in local currencies, including value-added tax in the three months through May, the Stockholm-based company said in a statement yesterday.

Revenue excluding tax rose 1.2 percent to 51.9bn kronor ($5.9bn), missing the average analyst estimate. The stock fell as much as 4.1 percent in early trading.

“It’s worrying,” said Magnus Raman, an analyst at Han-delsbanken who estimates like-for-like sales for the past 12

months have dropped 6.8 percent, making it harder to invest in improving the business. “The consensus estimate was already at very low levels and still the company doesn’t manage to meet them.” H&M’s

report comes three days after Zara parent Inditex SA reported weaker-than-expected sales in its first quarter. European clothing retailers had suffered from unusually cold weather in the first months of this year.

People gather next to the H&M-owned brand, Arket’s first store in Stockholm, Sweden.

Tesco steps up challenge to rivals with new price cutsREUTERS

LONDON: Tesco said a drive to lower prices for customers had boosted its quarterly sales, in an ominous warning for rivals three years after Britain’s biggest retailer embarked on a turnaround programme.

Tesco, which was forced to rebuild after a 2014 accounting scandal capped a downturn in trading, said a move to lower prices on fresh food brands towards the end of its first quarter reflected a growing c o n f i d e n c e i n i t s performance.

The lower prices, plus a relaunch of its own-brand products, helped the group to counter adverse weather and post first-quarter underlying sales in its home market up 2.1 percent, in line with forecasts.

“Our growth plans are on track and we are pleased with the momentum in the business,” Chief Executive Dave Lewis (pictured) said.

“We remain well-placed to serve our customers better and

deliver on our medium-term financial ambitions.”

The lower prices are likely to be welcomed by customers in Britain where a string of retailers have struggled in a tough market.

Britain’s supermarket sector has been upended in recent years by the rapid growth of discount groups Aldi and Lidl and the growing pop-ularity of online sales, forcing traditional groups Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Walmart’s Asda and Morrisons to work harder.

New Zealand to tax tourists to fund infrastructureWELLINGTON: New Zealand announced plans yesterday to introduce a tourist tax and increase other fees for inter-national visitors to fund infra-structure development in the face of a tourist boom.

Tourism numbers in the country of 4.5 million have surged by nearly a third in the past three years to 3.8 million in the year to April.

“This rapid growth has impacted on the costs and availability of publicly-pro-vided infrastructure,” Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis said. “Many regions are struggling to cope and urgently need improved infrastructure, from toilet facilities to carparks.” A tax of NZ$25-35 ($17-24) would be imposed on international visitors from mid-next year.

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AL KHOR

ASIAN TOWN

The Incredibles (2D) 10:30am, 1:00, 3:30, 6:00, 8:30 & 11:00pm Deadpool 2 (2D/Action) 10:00am, 12:45, 3:30, 6:15, 9:00 & 11:45pm Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2D/Action) 12:45, 3:30, 6:15, 9:00 w& 11:45pm The Little Witch (2D) 10:00am, 12:10, 2:20 & 4:30pm Race 3 (2D/Hindi) 10:00am, 1:10, 4:30, 7:45 & 11:00pm Hotel Artemis (2D) 6:40, 8:50 & 11:00pm Maya: The Bee 2 (2D) 10:00am, 12:00noon, 2:00, 4:00 & 6:00pm Leilet Hana Wa Srour (Arabic) 10:00am, 12:00noon, 2:00, 6:00 & 10:00pm Hereditary (2D) 8:00, 10:10pm & 12:20am A Woman In The Time Of Blockade (2D/Arabic) 4:00, 8:00pm & 12:00midnight Abla Tamtam 10:00am, 12:00noon, 2:00, 4:00, 6:00, 8:00, 10:00pm & 12:00midnight The Incredibles (2D/IMAX) 10:00am, 1:00, 6:00, 8:45pm Deadpool 2 (2D/IMAX) 12:30, 3:45, 8:30 & 11:30pm Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (3D/IMAX /Action) 10:15am, 3:10, 6:00, 10:15 & 11:20pm

Golisoda 2 (2D/Tamil) 9:30am; The Incredibles 2 (2D/Animation) 11:45am; 3:45 & 6:00pm; Race 3 (2D/Hindi) 2:00, 6:30, 8:15 & 11:30pm; Maya: The Bee 2 (2D/Animation) 2:30 & 5:00pm; Abla Tamtam (2D/Arabic) 9:30pm; B Tech 4:35, 8:10, 6:00 & 11:05pm7 Din Mohabbat In (2D) 4:30pm Leilet Hana Wa Srour 7:00pm Deadpool 2 (2D/Action) 9:00 & 11:15pm Naa Nuvve (2D/Telugu) 11:15pm

ROYAL PLAZA

Deadpool 2 (2D/Action) 9:30am; 6:45, 9:00 & 11:15pm The Incredibles 2 (2D/Animation) 11:45am; 2:00 & 4:15pm Maya: The Bee 2 (2D/Animation) 9:30am 1:00 3:00 & 4:45pmRace 3 (2D/Hindi) 10:00am, 4:30, 6:30 & 11:15pm Golisoda 2 (2D/Tamil) 2:15pm Hotel Artemis (2D/Action) 7:30pmHeriditary (2D/Horror) 9:15pm Abla Tamtam (2D/Arabic) 9:30pm B-Tech (2D) 11:30pm

The Incredibles 2 (2D/Animation) 9:45am; 2:30, 4:45 & 7:00pm; B-Tech (Malayalam) 9:30am & 12:15pm; Maya: The Bee 2 (2D/Animation) 2:45 & 4:30pm; Deadpool 2 (2D/Action) 3:00, 9:15 & 11:30pm; A Woman In The Time Of Blockade (2D/Arabic) 6:30pm; Al Risalah (2D/Arabic) 5:30pm Race 3 (2D/Hindi) 12:00noon; 8:00, 11:00 & 11:30pm; Heriditary (2D/Horror) 9:00pm

Kaala (Tamil) 12:00noon & 9:00pm Naa Nuvve (Telugu) 6:30pmRace 3 (Hindi) 12:00noon, 3:00, 6:00, 9:00, 11:00pm, 12:00midnight & 03:00am; Uncle (Malayalam) 3:45pm & 02:00amB-Tech (Malayalam) 12:30, 8:30pm & 02:00amAravindante (2D/Malayalam) 9:00pm E. Ma. Yau (2D/Malayalam) 11:30pm

Race 2 (Hindi) 11:30am, 2:30, 5:30, 8:30 & 11:30pmThe Incredibles 2 (2D/Animation) 11:45am & 8:00pmNaa Nuvve (Telugu) 12:45 & 8:30pmGolisoda 2 3:15 & 11:00pm Kaala (Tamil) 5:00pm & 01:15amB-Tech (Malayalam) 5:45pm & 01:30amJurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2D/Action) 2:15 & 10:30pm

B-Tech (2D/Malayalam) 10:30am, 1:30, 7:10pm Deadpool 2 10:30am, 1:10, 3:00, 5:30, 8:00 & 11:30pmJurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2D/Action) 10:30am, 4:30 & 10:10pm Leilet Hana Wa Srour (Arabic) 1:00 & 9:10pmRace 3 (Hindi) 10:30am, 1:40, 3:40, 4:50, 8:15, 8:30, 10:30 & 11:20pm

Kaala is a Tamil-language action drama film written and directed by Pa. Ranjith and produced by Dhanush under his banner Wunderbar Films.

FLIK Mirqab

KAALA

Yestserday’s answer

B Tech 4:35, 8:10, 6:00 & 11:05pmDead Pool 2 2:20, 3:10, 4:45, 5:35, 6:15, 7:10, 8:00, 9:35, 10:00, 10:25 & 12:35pm Incredibles 2 5:00 & 7:30pm 3D 3:30Jurassic World 3:35 & 10:00pm 3D 5:45 & 8:20pmLeilet Hana Wa Srour 8:35, 10:35pm & 12:35am Maya The Bee 2:40, 3:10, 4:30 & 6:20pm Race 3 7:50, 11:20pm & 12:00midnight 3D 9:15 & 10:55pm

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MarketWatch

16 SATURDAY 16 JUNE 2018MORNING BREAK

FAJRSHOROOK

03. 14 AM

04. 43 AM

11. 34 AM

02. 57 PM

06. 27 PM

07. 57 PM

ZUHRASR

MAGHRIBISHA

PRAYER TIMINGS

HIGH TIDE 05:45 – 19:30 LOW TIDE 02:00 – 11:45

Hot daytime with slight dust to blowing

dust at places at times.

WEATHER TODAY

Courtesy: Qatar Meteorology Department

Minimum Maximum 32oC 43oC

Delicious Pakistani mangoes tantalise taste buds at event THE PENINSULA

DOHA: As a part of the 70th Anniversary Celebrations of Pakistan, the Embassy of Pakistan hosted ‘Mango Suhoor’ at Ramadan Tent, Ritz Carlton Hotel, on June 12.

It was attended by businessmen, dip-lomats, dignitaries from press and electronic media and Pakistani notables living the State of Qatar. During the Suhoor, guests from all walks of life interacted with one another and congratulated Shahzad Ahmed, Ambas-sador of Pakistan to the State of Qatar, officers and staff of Pakistan Embassy on organising such an event through which they enjoyed the most famous and delicious vari-eties of Pakistani mangoes. Besides, the guests were entertained with traditional Pakistani meal.

Shahzad Ahmad, Pakistani envoy to Qatar, with other officials during the Mango Suhoor organised by Pakistan Embassy at Ramadan Tent, Ritz Carlton Hotel.

Abdullah Al Mamoon, Member of Srabon Orchestra, enthrals audience at the Eid celebrations organised by the Ministry of Interior at the Labour City near Asian Town in Industrial Area, on the first day of Eid. RIGHT: Audience cheer at the Eid Celebrations. PIC: SALIM MATRAMKOT / THE PENINSULA

Visitors enjoy the fireworks at Katara as part of Eid Al Fitr celebrations. RIGHT: Visitors during the Eidiyet event at Katara. PIC: BAHER AMIN / THE PENINSULA

Dora’s Friendship Fiesta Show at Mall of Qatar. PIC: ABDUL BASIT / THE PENINSULA

Eid celebrated with full fervourCONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

For many soccer lovers, this Eid is different from pre-vious years. The football world cup has coincided with Eid and authorities have set up Fan Zones Entry where entry is free and they are hosting entertainment and fun activ-ities for the whole family.

Fans enjoyed live matches yesterday at Qatar Fan Zone at Ali Bin Hamad Al Attiyah Arena in Al Sadd and Aspire Fan Zone FIFA 2018 Russia World Cup at Khalifa Interna-tional Stadium. Many families

preferred to celebrate Eid night at beaches and parks away from the glitz of malls. Five major beaches in Qatar have been renovated with shades, cafeterias, washrooms and green areas to welcome visitors during this Eid hol-idays. Corniche of Al Wakrah City, Al Shamal Corniche, Cor-niche of Al Khor City, Semaisima Beach and Doha Corniche have been equipped with new facilities.

Authorities have also planned entertainment pro-gramme for labours. The Min-istry of Interior yesterday

organised Eid celebrations at Labour City near Asian Town at Industrial Area and Barwa Community at Al Khor. The

programme included many entertainment activities along with shorts educational talks on the rights labours. To make

the event more engaging, question-answer sessions were also held where winner were given gifts.

Eid prayers organised at Abu Bakr Siddiq Independent School in Doha, yesterday. PIC: SALIM MATRAMKOT / THE PENINSULA

Nationwide drive to reduce plastic wasteCONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Al Naimi said that plastic waste takes years to discompose posing threats to the environment and human being. “We distribute garbage bags at picnic places specially at beaches during weekends and other official holidays and camping areas during the season asking visitors to put the plastic waste inside the bags and discard them at designated places,” said Al Naimi.

He said that discarding plastic waste properly had enabled the department concerned to carry it for recycling purpose putting an end of its disposal at random inshore and off-shore protecting marine and wildlife.

“Now we have Mesaieed Waste Recycling Plant which is recycling some plastic waste,” said Al Naimi adding that the outputs of the plant are being used by local industries to make products.

“The Ministry is running the awareness campaign about plastic waste at various level. We organised

awareness lectures at schools, univer-sities and major shopping complexes on different occasions specially on environmental days,” said Al Kuwari.

The campaign received good

response from the market specially schools and companies. A kindergarten operating in Al Aziziya distributed mini replicas of garbage bins made of papers to the students to educate them

since childhood about the importance of discarding waste properly.

“We helped the students in making paper bins, taught them practically how to use and finally handed over to them to carry to their homes after school,” a teacher told The Peninsula.

Responding to the campaign of the Ministry of Municipality and Envi-ronment, a major commercial outlet recently introduced environmentally-friendly reusable bags to the customers to reduce the uses of regular plastic bags.

To encourage the costumes to opt using reusable bags, the outlet launched an attractive offer as for pur-chasing the featured reusable bag for the first time they will get life time replacement.

Under a special recycling program, a set of garbage bins to collect four types of waste including organic waste, tree leaf, plastic bottles and glass mate-rials have been placed at Al Khor Park where the visitors are asked to dispose the waste accordingly.

Children are tasked to put wastes in proper bins at an awareness programme organised by the Ministry of Municipality and Environment recently.

Qatar embraces Eid Al Fitr with festive mood