Amir to address UN General Assembly on Tuesday · 2018-09-22 · Mohammed, H E Sheikh Meshal bin Hamad Al Thani, Qatar’s Ambassador to the United States of America, and Sheikha

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Amir to address UN General Assembly on TuesdayQNA

DOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani heads the delegation of the State of Qatar to the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly, which takes place at the UN’s headquarters in New York in the US.

H H the Amir will deliver a speech during the opening session of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.

The 73rd session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 73) opened on September 18 while the first day of the high-level General Debate will be on Sep-tember 25, and is scheduled to

last for nine working days. The theme for the General

Debate this year is “Making the United Nations relevant to all people: global leadership and shared responsibilities for peaceful, equitable and sus-tainable societies”. It is also the theme of the 73rd session of the

General Assembly.In the morning (opening)

session of first day of General Debate, UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, will present a report, and the President of the General Assembly, María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, will deliver a statement.

Tomorrow, the UNGA will hold a high-level plenary meeting on global peace in honour of the centenary of the birth of Nelson Mandela, known as the Nelson Mandela Peace Summit.

The UNGA will hold a high-level meeting on September 26 on the fight against tuberculosis, as agreed by member states in February 2018. On September 27, the UN will hold a compre-hensive review of the progress achieved in the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases, which will be the third high-level meeting of the UNGA on the issue.

H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, during the WISENY Education Forum in New York where Her Highness was joined by H E Sheikh Meshal bin Hamad Al Thani (right), Qatar’s Ambassador to the United States of America. PIC: AR AL BAKER

Sheikha Moza participates

in WISENY Education ForumQNA

NEW YORK: H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF), attended the WISENY education forum in New York yesterday, which was organised by the World Inno-vation Summit for Education (WISE), a member of QF.

During the opening plenary session, Her Highness was joined by the UN Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, H E Sheikh Meshal bin Hamad Al Thani,

Qatar’s Ambassador to the United States of America, and Sheikha Alya bint Ahmed bin Saif Al Thani, the Permanent Representative of Qatar to the United Nations.

Her Highness then toured and participated in various workshops and learning labs, exchanging ideas with leading experts on how to use inno-vation to tackle rising edu-cation challenges, like refugee learning and unequal edu-cation access among others.

Held under the theme Learning Revolutions: Creating Educational Environments for Empowerment and Inclusion,

WISENY gave over 350 edu-cators, experts and thought leaders from around the world a platform to share their opinions and solutions, as well as network to democratise the global education conversation.

WISENY was the first event kicking off the 2018 Global Goals Week, a series of events focused on driving progress toward the Sustainable Devel-opment Goals (SDGs), during the opening of the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly and under the aus-pices of the UN Foundation.

→SEE ALSO PAGE 2

On time performance rate of QAS hits above 99.5% SACHIN KUMAR THE PENINSULA

DOHA: Qatar Aviation Services (QAS), the ground handling subsidiary of Qatar Airways, del ivered outstanding performance last year.

It achieved a mis-handling rate of 0.62 percent per 1,000 passengers, which is one of the lowest in the industry. The ground handling company at Hamad International Airport (HIA), also achieved an on time performance rate of above 99.5 percent in 2017.

QAS provides all ground handling services at airport for all commercial, private and cargo operators.

“The QAS team handled more than 45 million pieces of baggage, with a mis-handling rate of 0.62 percent per 1,000 passengers, one of the lowest in the industry, resulting in the production of more than 129,000 load sheets safely,” said the annual report of Qatar Airways released recently.

“Serving more than 34 million passengers annually, the ground handling provider handled more

than 212,000 flights in 2017, deliv-ering an on time performance rate of above 99.5 percent, as well as meeting the special assistance needs of 730,000 passengers,” added the report.

QAS had handled more than 38 million passengers, over 250,000 aircraft movements and 30.1 million pieces of baggage at HIA in 2016-17. The company gives credit to its skilled workforce for its out-standing performance.

“QAS’s outstanding success and its customers’ satisfaction can be attributed to the team’s training and skill level,” said the report. “QAS’s 24/7 operation is vital to the state-of-the-art airport’s smooth running, delivering solu-tions for a seamless passenger experience from curb-side to boarding-gate, for all foreign air-lines, as well as the ever-expanding cargo facility,” it added.

QAS also achieved an effi-cient on time delivery of cargo, which exceeded two million tonnes per year and has an average growth rate of 25 percent per annum.

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Qatar showcases investment potential in West VirginiaTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: To further promote economic, trade and investment cooperation between Qatar and the US, a high-level Qatari dele-gation led by Minister of Economy and Commerce, H E Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim Al Thani met with West Virginia Governor and Senior US officials in the US.

West Virginia Governor Jim Justice received the Minister and hosted a working lunch in honour of the Minister of Economy and Commerce and the accompanying delegation. Discussions touched on efforts to bolster joint cooperation in the economic sector.

Sheikh Ahmed held talks with Danny Jones, Mayor of Charleston, West Virginia; Steve Roberts, President of the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce; Senator Mitch Carmichael, Pres-ident of the West Virginia Senate; Craig Blair, Chair of the State Senate Finance Committee; Eric Nelson, Chair of the State House Finance Committee; Steve Roberts, Team Captain for Lead-ership and Transformation at West Virginia Chamber of Com-merce; David Haden, Chairman

of Finance Audit and Facilities Planning Committee on the Board of Governors at Marshall University.

In several rounds of discus-sions, both the parties discussed the potential opportunities to bolster bilateral trade in light of the economic potential and resources of both countries. The

meetings also touched on the positive outcomes of the first phase of Qatar’s Economic Roadshow in the US, which kicked off in April.

During the meeting, H E Sheikh Ahmed shed light on the incentives and legislative and administrative advantages that Qatar offers to stimulate and attract investment, including a law regulating non-Qatari investments. The law allows foreign investors 100 percent

ownership across all sectors and commercial activities and facil-itates the access of investors into the Qatari market.

Officials also stressed the importance of exchanging visits between Qatari and American businessmen and encouraging cooperation between gov-ernment agencies and the

private sector to the benefit of both countries.

During the meeting with Steve Roberts, President of the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, H E Sheikh Ahmed extended invi-

tation to businessmen in West Virginia to visit Qatar in order to learn more about the investment opportunities.

The series of meetings held in West Virginia is part of the ongoing bilateral visits and meetings.

The first phase of Qatar’s Economic Roadshow in the US, which kicked off in April, fea-tured four economic forums in the cities of Miami, Washington, DC, Charleston and Raleigh. The

forums were organised by the Ministry of Economy and Com-merce in cooperation with the Qatar Chamber, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Qatari Busi-nessmen Association, the Qatari-US Business Council and a number of official US bodies.

The tour featured economic forums, bilateral discussions, meetings between Qatari busi-nessmen and their American counterparts, affiliated exhibi-tions and roundtable sectorial discussions in the fields of real estate, investment, hospitality, tourism, hotel, technology, health, medicine, banking, law, public-private partnerships and infrastructure projects.

Qatar and the US enjoy close economic and trade relations, which have reflected positively on the volume of bilateral trade, which reached about QR21bn in 2017. The US is Qatar’s first trading partner and primary source of imports, with 16.3 percent of Qatar’s imports coming from the US.

More than 650 American companies currently operate in Qatar, of which 117 are fully owned by US citizens.

→SEE ALSO PAGE 3

Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani

heads the delegation of the State of Qatar to

the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly.

The session opened on September 18 and the

first day of the high-level General Debate will

be on September 25.

02 SUNDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 2018HOME

Amir greets President of MaliQNA

DOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani sent yesterday a cable of congratulations to the Pres-ident of the Republic of Mali, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, on the occasion of his country’s Independence Day.

Deputy Amir H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Thani also sent a cable of congrat-ulations to the President of the Republic of Mali. Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani also sent a cable of congrat-ulations to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Mali, Sou-meylou Boubeye Maiga, on the occasion of his country’s Independence Day.

Amir condoles death of President of VietnamQNA

DOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani sent yesterday a cable of condolences to the General-Secretary of the Communist Party of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Nguyen Phu Trong, on the death of the President of Vietnam, Tran Dai Quang.

Deputy Amir H H Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Thani also sent a cable of condo-lences to the General-Sec-retary. Prime Minister and Interior Minister H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani also sent a cable of condolences to the General-Secretary on the death of the President of Vietnam.

Qatar condemns explosion in AfghanistanQNA

DOHA: The State of Qatar has strongly condemned the bomb explosion that took place in north Afghanistan’s Faryab province and left a number of children dead and injured.

In a statement issued yes-terday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated Qatar’s firm position on rejecting violence and terrorism regardless of motives and reasons.

The statement expressed the condolences of the State of Qatar to the families of the victims and the government and people of the Afghan-istan, wishing the injured a speedy recovery.

Ashghal partially opens new interchange on F-Ring RoadTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: The public Works Authority ‘Ashghal’ has opened sections of a new interchange on F-Ring Road.

They were opened in presence of Eng. Youssef Al Emadi, Highway Department Manager; Saoud Al Ansari, Al Thumama Stadium project manager; Brigadier Mohamed Maarifiya, Traffic Safety and Engineering Department manager; Sheikha Al Jefairi, Central Municipal Council member, along with Ashghal offi-cials and project engineers.

The new interchange will provide free flow traffic between Doha, north and south and direct connection with Al Thumama Stadium. The new achievement is part of the World Cup infra-structures, which Ashghal is keen on accelerating the works for and delivering them ahead of schedule.

The new project is a vital interchange in the country, con-sisting of two levels including a main bridge, four loop bridges and four underpasses for vehicles as well as two pedestrian bridges and six tunnels for pedestrians and bicycles.

The opening included accesses from the F-Ring Road to the G-Ring Road in both direc-tions, as well as a one and a half kilometre road linking the new interchange to the Umm Bisher Interchange, which runs from two to five routes. In addition to opening two loop bridges and two carriageways and a 3km service road along the F-Ring road.

The completion of the inter-change will be a major link con-necting the Southern Part of Doha Express Highway with the main Doha Expressway and 22 Feb-ruary Street, connecting the south of the country to its north via Doha. It is located on the F-Ring Road and directly connects to the

G-Ring Road and the Southern Part of Doha Express Highway with the E-Ring Road, Rawdat Al Khail Road, Industrial Area Road and Doha Expressway.

The interchange will serve many residential areas such as Al Thumama, Mesaimeer, Abu Hamour and Nuaija and enhancing the traffic flow coming from the southern area’s of Al Wakra, Al Wukair and Doha.

The new achievement is part of the infrastructure preparations for the World Cup, whereas the Public Works Authority is keen to accelerate the pace of work and hand over World Cup projects ahead of schedule. Once complete, the new interchange will serve Al Thumama Stadium, one of the World Cup stadiums.

The new interchange will include safe passages for the

public, with two bridges and six tunnels to facilitate safe access to the matches.

Upon completion, the inter-change will provide free traffic flow for those coming from Hamad International Airport, Mesaimeer and the Industrial Area, in addition to those coming from the southern area’s and Al Wakra Stadium towards Al Thumama Stadium.

Project Engineer, Hassan Al-Ghanim said that large parts of the interchange were opened more than five months ahead of schedule, while the full inter-change will be completed in the second quarter of 2019.

For his part, Saoud Al Ansari, Al Thumama Stadium project manager stressed that the inter-change is an access point for three key facilities; it will provide direct access to Al Thumama Stadium, link traffic coming from Al Wakra Stadium and Ras Bu Abboud Stadium.

Amir sends message to Venezuelan PresidentQNA

DOHA: Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has sent a written message to President Nicolas Maduro of Bolivarian Republic of Vene-zuela, pertaining to bilateral relations and ways of boosting and developing them. The message was handed by the Ambassador of the State of Qatar to Vene-zuela, Rashid bin Mohsen Abdullah Fetais, during a meeting with Executive Vice-President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Delcy Rodrguez.

Call for joint efforts

to prevent diabetes

among childrenFAZEENA SALEEM THE PENINSULA

DOHA: Advanced research and innovations in preventing and treating diabetes for mothers and children with or at risk of the disease is being discussed in Doha over three days.

The conference on under-standing molecular mechanisms in cardiovascular biology, dia-betes, obesity and stroke (CUDOS 2018) began yesterday at Qatar National Convention Centre (QNCC).

The conference is hosted by Sidra Medicine under the theme ‘Childhood Diabetes: from Novel Discoveries to Clinical Practice.’ It aims at improving lives through cutting edge research and finding solutions for various problems associated with childhood dia-betes and complications.

CUDOS 2018 has brought together hundreds of local and international academia, clini-cians and different healthcare professionals.

“This is a truly important event addressing increasing chal-lenges in healthcare, not just in Qatar but across the world. The global nature of this problem is well reflected from the interna-tional expertise assembled here,” said Professor the Lord Darzi of Denham, Vice Chair of the Board of Governors for Sidra Medicine, in a televised address during opening session of the con-ference. “This event is rooted in developing practical imple-mentable, improvements in care, that will encourage all to keep the needs of the patients in mind. At CUDOS 2018 we are here to discuss how to transfer novel dis-coveries into clinical practice,” he added.

In the Mena region, according to the International Diabetes Federation one in six live births are affected by

hyperglycaemia in pregnancy and over a million children and adolescents have type 1 diabetes. A growing number of children are being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. In Qatar 17% are dia-betic, 11-20% have gestational diabetes and 5% of the popu-lation is pre-diabetic.

Sheikh Dr Mohammed bin Hamad Al Thani, Director of Public Health Department at the Ministry of Public Health in his presentation on ‘Innovative Research in Reducing Diabetes Burden in Qatar’ highlighted that research is an important com-ponent in delivering public health. “Research on diabetes is an investment in public health services. Research has to be eval-uated and find the best practices to address the problem of childhood diabetes. Institutions should work together with inter-national and local partners,” he said.

Peter Morris, CEO, Sidra Medicine, Christof von Kalle Chief Research Officer, Sidra Medicine, Dr Kholode Al Obaidli Chief Learning Officer, Sidra Medicine and Dr Ammira Sarah Akil Sidra Research Branch, Con-ference Chair and Organizer also addressed the opening session.

The programme of CUDOS 2018 includes keynote lectures, plenary sessions, experts opinions, round table discussions and posters presentations. An exhibition is also being held on the sidelines of the conference.

At the end of the conference, the participants are expected to identify, discuss and understand the research priorities for Type 1 diabetes in Qatar. Facilitate research development in under-standing the environmental determinant of Type 1 diabetes and understand the potential in development of newer technol-ogies for a cure to childhood obesity and Type 1 diabetes.

Peter Morris (second left), CEO, Sidra Medicine, and Sheikh Dr Mohammed bin Hamad Al Thani (third left), Director of Public Health Department at the Ministry of Public Health, with other officials during the opening session of CUDOS 2018 at QNCC.

Sheikha Moza participates in WISENY Education Forum

H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF), at the WISENY Education Forum in New York yesterday, which was organised by the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), a member of QF. PIC: AR AL-BAKER

Qatar, US defence ties discussedQNA

DOHA: The Commander of the Amiri Air Defence Forces, H E Brigadier General (Pilot) Hamad Mubarak Al Dawai Al Nabit, met yesterday with the Commander of the Central Command of the

US Central Command Lt. General Michael Garrett, and his accompanying delegation.

During the meeting, they discussed the Qatari-US rela-tions in the defence field, and ways of enhancing them, besides exchanging operational

expertise. Training opportunities and planning for future projects between the two friendly coun-tries in the military field were also discussed. The meeting was attended by a number of senior officers of the Qatari armed forces.

Qatar attends inauguration of President of Mali

Minister of State H E Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kawari with President Ibrahim Boubakar Keita of the Republic of Mali.

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: The State of Qatar participated yesterday in the inauguration ceremony of Pres-ident Ibrahim Boubakar Keita of the Republic of Mali, for a new term, as well as the celebration of the national day and the military parade held on the occasion.

The State of Qatar was rep-resented at the inauguration ceremony by Minister of State H E Dr Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kawari.

The Minister met with Pres-ident Ibrahim Boubakar Keita and conveyed to him the greetings of Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, wishing the President success and people of Mali further progress and development.

For his part, the President of Mali entrusted the Minister of State to convey his greetings to H H the Amir, wishing him good health and well-being and the Qatari people for further devel-opment and prosperity.

The meeting was attended by the Ambassador of the State of Qatar to the Republic of Mali,

Ahmed bin Abdulrahman Al Sunaidi .

03SUNDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 2018 HOME

QC to continue holding introductory workshops on entry and exit lawTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Qatar Chamber announced that it would continue to regularly conduct awareness workshops that shed light on the recent amendments to the law regulating the entry and exit of expatriates and their residency.

The Chamber’s statement issued yesterday said that the second workshop will be held today, followed by the third on Tuesday, the fourth on Wednesday while the fifth seminar will be held on Sep-tember 30 and the last one will be on October 3.

The chamber called on all private companies to attend the seminars, noting that it would conduct such workshops to reach all companies and busi-nessmen in the country.

The aim of organising work-shops is to raise awareness among companies, institutions and employers on new amend-ments in the law. .

The workshops are being held through co-operation and co-ordination between Qatar Chamber (QC), Minister of Interior (MoI), and Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs (MADLSA) with a view to give

more details to companies, insti-tutions and employers about the amendments, especially with regard to the procedures and controls to determine the 5 percent of workers in private sector companies whose departure from the country require prior approval/per-mission. The legislation allows employees of a private company to leave without an exit permit except for 5 percent of its workers, which is a percentage determined by the employer based on the nature of some sensitive jobs such as those in exchange companies, gold shops and so on.

Al Wakra Hospital offerslatest services at Burns Unit THE PENINSULA

DOHA: Qatar’s only dedicated Burns Unit, located at Hamad Medical Corporation’s (HMC) Al Wakra Hospital, uses the latest equipment and techniques to treat both severely burned patients and those with minor burn related injuries.

The unit has a dedicated operating room, inpatient rooms, an occupational therapy room, consulting rooms for out-patients, and reception and recovery spaces. The modern, purpose-built facility is situated over two floors at Al Wakra Hospital.

The unit has received 7,900 patients at its outpatient clinics last year. Staff also cared for 108 patients with burn related injuries who were treated in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, 263 patients who required sur-gical intervention, 230 patients who were treated as inpatients, and 175 patients who received reconstructive burn treatment at Al Wakra Hospital’s Plastic Surgery Division.

Between January and June of this year, the Burns Unit received 4,340 patients at its outpatient clinics.

“Each year our Burns Unit provides comprehensive burn care to patients of all ages. We treat patients from the time of acute injury through to long-term rehabilitation. Many of our patients are transferred from other hospitals here in Qatar,” said Parwaneh Al Shibani (pic-tured), Assistant Executive

Director of Nursing at Al Wakra Hospital.

“In addition to the burn care provided by our specialised team of doctors, nurses, and physiotherapists, we work closely with government agencies including the General Directorate of Civil Defense, the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, and Primary Health Care Corporation, as part of our program to prevent burn injuries,” said Al Shibani.

Through public education efforts, the unit is working to prevent burn injuries and to provide information about the importance of the timely and adequate treatment of burns.

As part of our public edu-cation program we also work to correct misconceptions about the treatment of burn injuries in order to reduce complications that can be caused by the improper treatment of burns,” said Al Shibani.

The Burns Unit at Al Wakra Hospital was relocated from

Rumailah Hospital in 2014. The state-of-the-art facility was moved to Al Wakra as part of HMC’s efforts to transform many of its key clinical services in response to managing t h e h e a l t h c a r e requirements of Qatar’s growing population.

“The care a patient needs depends upon the severity of the burn. More serious

injuries will require treatment by a larger multidisciplinary team. While located at Al Wakra Hospital, patients treated by the Burns Unit have access to the combined knowledge and expertise of clinicians working across HMC. This means a patient who is critically ill may first be monitored at the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Hamad General Hospital, before being transferred to the Burns Unit once their condition stabilizes,” said Al Shibani.

“Patients treated at the Burns Unit are supported around the clock by physicians from more than a dozen medical and surgical specialties, including neurosurgery and vas-cular surgery. We work together as a team to assess a patient’s injuries and develop the most appropriate course of care,” she added. In the case of pediatric patients with burn injuries, staff at the Burns Unit work closely with the Pediatric Emergency Centers and Sidra Medicine.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs H E Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani met yesterday separately with the United Nations Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mark Lowcock (left) and the UN Under-Secretary-General for Counter-Terrorism, Vladimir Voronkov (right). The Deputy Prime Minister also met the Director of the International Crisis Group, Robert Malley. The meetings were held on the sidelines of the meetings of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Discussions during the meeting dealt with enhancing cooperation between the State of Qatar and the United Nations, combating terrorism and development partnership, as well as issues of common interest.

Deputy PM & UN officials discuss ways to enhance ties in combating terrorism and developing partnership

Minister of Economy and Commerce meets West Virginia Governor

Minister of Economy and Commerce H E Sheikh Ahmed bin Jassim Al Thani with West Virginia Governor Jim Justice. The Governor hosted a working luncheon in honour of the Minister and the accompanying delegation.

The initiative also intends to augment frequent meeting with entrepreneurs, field trips for existing and successful projects.

In addition to the priority in partic-ipating in the bazaars that “Bedaya” fre-quently hosts under the condition that the participant should be an SME owner and between the age of 16 to 35.

The initiative’s first activities included organising a product photo-shoot by mobile phone workshop, which included three sessions each lasting for three hours.

The three sessions of the workshop aimed to support Qatari entrepreneurs by educating them the technicalities involved in photography of various products such as food, beverages, clothing, accessories.

Many others by using their smart phones in an attractive and professional way, which will help them promote their goods, increase their sales, eliminate the need of special photographer to shoot their product portfolio, thereby reducing cost.

During the first session, photogra-phers Ammar Al Qamash and Latifah Al Darwish, from Phone Art Qatar initiative interested in professional photography by smart phones, highlighted how to use mobile phones in a professional way to photograph F&B products. Apparels, clothes and accessories where covered in the second photography session of the workshop.

The third session of the workshop encompassed a larger landscape including the tricks to take perfect shots for diverse other range of products such as perfumes, watches and many others.

During the three sessions of the workshop, the members acquainted themselves with the basics of photog-raphy, did trials, evaluated the positive and negative sides of each trial, and

practiced the art of taking perfect pic-tures as well as took feedback from the instructor.

On this occasion, Reem Al-Sowaidi, General Manager of Bedaya Center, said:“Thanks to these workshops, the attendees were able to acquire the basics of professional photography through their mobile phones to display and market their products in the best way by publishing them on social networking sites.”

“Mobile photography has become a marketing skill that saves entrepreneurs’ time, effort and money, which is reflected positively on their business,” she added.

“Through the “Bedaya’s Friends” ini-tiative, we seek to offer a range of spe-cialized workshops that help entrepre-neurs market their products by letting them select the topics that might help them, held them in the presence of spe-cialists in those areas,” said Reem. “Today, we were honored by the presence of photographers Ammar Al Qamash and Latifah Al Darwish from Phone Art Qatar initiative to inform the audience about one of the most important elements in the marketing of products to increase the volume of business and direct communication with different segments of society,” Reem added.


‘Bedaya’s Friends’ initiative launchedTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Bedaya Center for Entrepreneurship and Career Development (Bedaya Center), a joint initiative by Qatar Development Bank

and Silatech, launched the “Bedaya’s Friends” initiative.

This workshop entitles its members to attend workshops, take part in deciding the workshops titles and scope of work.

The participants at the workshop.

Qatar takes part in Seatrade Cruise Med in LisbonTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Minister of Transport and Communications H E Jassim bin Saif Al Sulaiti paid a visit to Qatar’s pavilion at the Seatrade Cruise Med exhibition, which opened in Portuguese capital Lisbon on Wednesday.

The Minister was accom-panied by Qatari Ambassador to Portugal Saad bin Ali Al Mohannadi.

The Minister and his accom-panying delegation were briefed on the Qatari pavilion, its dis-plays and the importance of the exhibition where Qatar Tourism

Authority (QTA) and Qatar Ports Management Company (MWANI Qatar) participate.

He hailed the efforts of those in charge of the pavilion.

Seatrade Cruise Med brings together buyers and sellers for two days and is expected to attract more than 26,000 of preregistered guests, more than 160 exhibitors from 60 countries and over 30 com-panies working in cruise tourism that will put their ideas, products and services on display.

Seatrade Cruise Med coin-cides with cruise tourism

season in numerous areas in the Middle East, including in

Arabian Gulf countries. This season is poised to be

the largest ever in Qatar as the number of visitors via cruise

ships coming to Qatar are expected to exceed 140,000.

Minister of Transport and Communications H E Jassim bin Saif Al Sulaiti (third right) at the Qatar’s pavilion at the Seatrade Cruise Med exhibition, which opened in Portuguese capital Lisbon.

On time performance rate of QAS hits above 99.5%CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

On the ramp, the QAS team maintained an opera-tional capability of more than 94 percent for 1,800 motorised and more than 3,500 non-motorised items of ground service equipment.

QAS, which was estab-lished in 2000, provides premium, end-to-end ground services to international air-lines, heads of state and VVIPs, private fleets, exec-utive charter flights and cargo operators. It has a multicul-tural team of more than 8,000 highly-ski l led employees from 54 countries.

QAS holds ISAGO, ISO 9000 and Regulated Agent 3 certifications. It is a member of the IATA Ground Handling Partnership, and is active in several IATA Technical Groups: IATA Ground Oper-ations Manual; Load Control and Messaging; Ground Service Equipment and Envi-ronment; and the Airside Safety Group.


More career counselors need of the hour

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: The US Embassy, in part-nership with Qatar Career Development Center (QCDC), a member of Qatar Foundation (QF), and the Ministry of Education and Higher Educa-tion’s Academic and Career Advising Office, conducted the 4th annual Career Counselors Training Program from Sunday to Thursday last week.

More than 70 government and private schools participated in this year’s program.

US Chargé d’Affaires, William Grant commended the Ministry of Education and Higher Education’s Office of Academic and Career Advising and QCDC for their efforts in supporting a career development and life skills program in Qatar’s schools,

“We are proud to partner with the Academic and Career Advising Office at the Ministry of Education and QCDC for a fourth year on this program. Career guidance and life skills training is integral for preparing students for a successful future in the workforce, and we applaud the work of the Ministry,

in particular, and its core of ded-icated counselors and educators for making these important pro-grams possible,” said William Grant.

Jane Lowery, an expert counselor with more than 30 years’ experience in the field of career and college counseling, led participants through more than 25 sessions over the course of five days, including a ‘mock admissions committee’ activity that provided counselors with a first-hand look at how college admissions decisions are made.

Special guest speakers – including admissions officers from Georgetown University Qatar, Weill Cornell Medical College – Qatar, Texas A&M Uni-versity in Qatar, and Carnegie Mellon University Qatar – pro-vided complementary sessions to ensure that counselors received a variety of input from experts in the field.

Commenting on the training program, Abdullah Al Mansoori, Director of QCDC, said the center is pleased to partner with the US Embassy in Qatar and the Min-istry of Education and Higher Education to contribute to efforts aimed at fostering a career guidance culture in Qatar.

“The Career Counselors Training Program complements and builds on the training QCDC has offered to more than 70 counselors on the use and inte-gration of our Career Advising

System (CAS), which QCDC recently launched across public schools in Qatar to offer career guidance services for students. We will continue to assess new opportunities to further equip counselors with the necessary skills to support Qatari youth, the main target and ultimate bene-ficiaries of QCDC’s various pro-grams,” Al Mansoori explained.

Head of Academic and Career Advising Office at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, commented on the importance that the Ministry accords to academic and career counseling, in recognition of the latter’s role in raising the awareness and preparedness of youth toward choosing the

educational and professional paths most suitable to their skills.

She said: “Both Minister of Education and Higher Education H E Dr Mohammed bin Abdul Wahed Ali Al Hammadi, and Fawziya Al Khater, Assistant Undersecretary for Educational Affairs at the Ministry, have been paying the greatest attention to the Ministry’s initiative to improve academic counseling for secondary education.

This initiative aims to provide a variety of learning opportunities which enable students to build their capacities in order to effec-tively contribute to the workforce in Qatar and society as a whole. It therefore plays an invaluable role in better preparing students

for the upcoming phases of higher education and the professional market.”

“Our goals can only be achieved by raising career coun-seling awareness among stu-dents and across all social sectors. The responsibility of achieving this goal lies in large part on the academic counselor, who plays a major role in coor-dinating and managing the process of academic and career counseling with effectiveness and competence. We value our partnership and collaboration with The American Embassy and QCDC and appreciate their role in educating students in service of Qatar’s National Vision 2030,” she concluded.

The participants at the 4th annual Career Counselors Training Program.

More than 70

government and

private schools

participated in this

year’s program.

InterContinental Doha Hotel holds activities for BestBuddies QatarDOHA: InterContinental Doha Hotel recently organised multiple activities for Best Buddies Qatar members. The members were from Amal Center for Children with Special Needs, Jassim Bin Hamad Independent Secondary School for Boys, Al Sanawiya Secondary School for Boys, Al Tamakon School for Comprehensive Education, Umm Hakeem Seconday School for Gilrs and Al-Shamila Secondary School for Girls.

The hotel management team welcomed the members and Elie Saliba, Resident Manager, gave a greeting speech, where he expressed their gladness to involve Best Buddies Qatar into IHG CSR undertakings. Appreciating the cooperation and support to the hotel, Best Buddies Qatar granted it with the grat-itude certificate and trophy.

The members shared joyful and memorable time during painting, decorating a cake and preparing their own pizzas. InterContinental Hotel Doha officials teamed-up with them in all activities.

Laalei Abu Alfain, Exec-utive Director of Best Buddies Qatar, said: “We thank Inter-Continental Doha Hotel for expanding our cooperation and for their support to Best Buddies Qatar mission to enhance life of persons with disabilities though social inte-gration and one-to-one long l a s t i n g m e a n i n g f u l friendships.”

Saliba said: “At IHG, an integral part of our strategy is approach to governance and doing “the right thing”. Due to the commitment to serve the local community we launched “True Hospitality for Good”.

New course puts focus on detecting terrorism financingTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: The Institute of Criminal Studies of the Public Prosecution concluded the first training course organised by the Institute about combating money laundering, detecting and prosecuting terrorism financing and forfeiting the assets of criminals.

The two-week training course was organised in collaboration with US Department of Justice and the FBI at the Public Prosecution headquarters, and about 30 par-ticipants from a number of gov-ernment representatives partici-pated in the session.

The First Attorney General and the Director of the Judicial

Inspection Department Ibrahim Abdullah Al Qubaisi honored the participants in the session and handed them the certificates.

The participants stressed that the financing of terrorism and money laundering are considered crimes that pose a threat to soci-eties, which requires unifying efforts and developing strategies

to confront these phenomena.The Institute of Criminal

Studies aims to train members and assistants of the Public Prose-cution to develop and modernize and develop their scientific research, organize seminars and cultural meetings, in addition to specialized dialogues, and prepare scientific studies and researches.

Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Doha, Phillip Nelson, attending the opening of the course praised Qatar’s role in the fight against terrorism and money laundering, stressing that Qatar is an important partner of the US in this field. He also added that the US is satisfied with Qatar’s role in fight against terrorism.


QRCS hosts IFRC election committee meetingTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: The 24th meeting of the Election Committee of the Inter-national Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has been convened over three days, in preparation for the forthcoming elections of the Federation’s Governing board at the headquarters of Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS).

The meeting was attended by Fernando José Cardenas Guerrero (Colombian Red Cross – Chair of Committee), Cisse Abdourahmane (Mali Red Cross – member for Africa), José Ben-jamin Ruiz Rodas (El Salvador Red Cross – member for Americas), Dr. Fawzi Oussedik (Qatar Red Crescent Society – member for Asia Pacific), Jelena Darmanovice Dubak (Mon-tenegro Red Cross – member for

Europe), and Lucie Laplante and Corinne Orlik (IFRC - Secretariat Staff), said a release.

Following the opening remarks and approval of agenda items, the attendees discussed the Election Committee’s report submitted to the Governing Board’s 37th session in June. Then, they examined the election criteria, in light of the report, as well as Rules of Procedure of the

Committee.Over the following two days,

the participants appointed the chairs and members of com-mittees during the 22nd Session of the General Assembly (scheduled for December 2019), outlined their Rules of Pro-cedure, elected the chair and members of the Youth Com-mission during the same session, developed the 2018-2019 action plan for appointment and election of committee members, and determined the date and place for the next meeting.

“In accordance with Articles 28 and 33 of the Constitution, the Election Committee is appointed by the General Assembly, on the proposal of the Governing Board,” said Dr. Oussedik in an exclusive. “It consists of one member of each of four geo-graphical regions (Africa, the

Americas, Asia, Europe) and a Chair”.

The Committee’s tasks, he explained, include receiving all applications for the posts of Pres-ident, Vice-Presidents, and

members of the Governing Board; drawing up objective cri-teria for nominations; ensuring that members proposed for con-stitutional bodies reflect the agreed criteria and that

the principles regarding a fair geographical distribution and gender are followed; establishing an election timetable; arranging secret ballots; and announcing the results of all votes.

The dignitaries at the meeting.

The handing over of the keys of the Kia Cadenza to the winner of the Fan Zone Raffle, Anas Alnemrat, at a ceremony held at the Al Sadd showroom of Kia Qatar.

Following the

opening remarks and

approval of agenda

items, the attendees

discussed the Election

Committee’s report

submitted to the

Governing Board’s

37th session in June.

Media scholars to discuss digitisation and state of Internet at NU-QTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: In celebration of its 10th anniversary, Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q) is organizing a symposium – The State of the Internet and Digital Future – to address emerging trends and the socio-economic implications of internet use around the world. “The symposium is a platform for the discussion of important issues related to global media devel-opment and Internet use while giving our community a chance to hear from experts and leaders in the field,” said Everette E. Dennis, dean and CEO at NU-Q.

“It also bridges between NU-Q and the World Internet Project of which we are a proud member institution and work closely with on a number of research projects.”

The speakers will include Jeffrey Cole, director of the World Internet Project (WIP) and head of the Center for the Digital Future at USC Annenberg in Los Angeles. He will be joined by two of his dis-tinguished WIP colleagues and scholars Professors Sergio Goday Etcheverry of the Catholic University of Chile and Andreina Mandelli of Bocconi University of Milan, Italy. The panels will also include several

faculty members from NU-Q. The conference will also see

the launch of NU-Q’s latest report – a one-of-a-kind five-year retrospection of its annual Media Use in the Middle East survey. The surveys examine attitudes and perceptions towards political expression on the internet, online regulation and privacy, entertainment and cultural preservation.

The retrospection provides much-needed intelligence and practical data for industry and public policy on media con-sumption and use in Arab nations that include, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, with a special focus on Qatar.

“Qatar has been a central focus in our study for several reasons including our proximity and the growing demand for scholarly research and intelli-gence on media consumption in this highly-advanced and connected community,” said Dennis. He added, “Qataris are not only some of the most dig-itally connected citizens in the world, they are also perhaps the most unique in their digital use. This study provides an under-standing into the communi-cation ecosystem and reveals the socio-cultural changes in Qatar.”

THE PENINSULA

DOHA: Al Attiya Motors, platinum sponsor of the FIFA World Cup 2018 Aspire Fan Zone event, along with a represent-ative from Aspire Zone Foun-dation (AZF); Khayria Al Absi (Sales Manager, Sponsorships and Partnerships), handed over the keys of the Kia Cadenza to the winner of the Fan Zone Raffle, Anas Alnemrat in a turnover ceremony held at the Al Sadd showroom of Kia Qatar.

Alnemrat, a Jordanian national aged 34, was ecstatic at being the winner of the Fan Zone raffle draw and stated that his initial reaction was surprise and disbelief when he was given the news that he had won a Kia Cadenza V6. When asked for his opinion on the Kia brand, he stated that he, admired “Kia vehicles because of their abun-dance of features, coupled with their affordability” and now that he has won one, he has plans to upgrade to the full option version of the Cadenza.

The Khalifa International Stadium Fan Zone attracted more than 80,000 spectators within three weeks, since it opened on June 15, 2018, giving football fans a chance to expe-rience the FIFA World Cup Russia, 2018 on giant screens with state-of-the-art LED tech-nology in a temperature-con-trolled environment for comfort and convenience.

“We were happy with our

partnership with Kia Qatar. We believe that this collaboration contributed to the huge success of Aspire Fan Zone and created more interaction with the audience.” said Nasser Abdulla Al-Hajri, Director of Communi-cation and PR at AZF. “The fan Zone was another demonstration of the vital role AZF plays in terms of supporting sports and engaging fans around the major

events.” Al Hajri added.The event was sponsored by

Al Attiya Motors & Trading Co., the official distributor of Kia vehicles in Qatar and was attended by Group CRM & Mar-keting Manager, Isam El Bashier along with key members of the AMTC staff. Al Attiya, in a statement, stressed Kia Qatar’s position as a strong supporter of the Qatar 2022 Vision saying,

“We are always eager to lend our support and encouragement to sporting opportunities like the Aspire Fan Zone event in Qatar and do our part for the Qatar 2022 Vision as seen by the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy. We look forward to a long and continued relationship with the Aspire Zone Foundation as well as future endeavours that we can be a part of.”

Kia Cadenza given to Fan Zone Raffle winner


Supershield-DESCO to showcase new concrete waterproofing technology THE PENINSULA

DOHA: Supershield Italy, in partnership with Doha Engi-neering Services Co (DESCO), is presenting in Qatar its new LCT (Liquid Crystalline Tech-nology) for waterproofing and protecting concrete structures and infrastructure.

Supershield has established its reputation not only in the world of concrete water-proofing, protection and dura-bility enhancement, but also in various other fields of con-struction industry like thermal insulations, high performance coatings, architectural coatings, anti-slip treatments, industrial floors treatments and many more, by carefully integrating marketing and research

strategies around the needs of their customers.

The new Liquid Crystalline Technology, a chemical

treatment, when added to the concrete mix as an additive or spayed on concrete, increases its durability by sealing pores, capillaries and micro-fractures with a needle-like crystalline formation that is insoluble and highly resistant.

The new technology is based on Supershield DPC Technology of cement-based products, tested by Supershield since 1998 worldwide.

The Liquid Crystalline Technology is easier to apply. Being water-based and more environment-friendly, the range covers additives, resto-ration and protection products for concrete. The LCT is the result of extensive research in the concrete behaviour and its durability. For concretes where

permeability reducing admix-tures or coatings have limita-tions, the Liquid Crystalline Technology waterproofs and enhances the concrete dura-bility both under hydrostatic and non-hydrostatic pressure and is well suitable for buildings and mass concrete

structures like bridges, flyovers, hydraul ic and marine structures.

It is a very unique, highly effective and the most advanced crystalline tech-nology available today for con-crete protection.

Supershield-DESCO is

participating in the Big 5 Qatar Exhibition for Building Services which will be held from tomorrow to Wednesday at Doha Exhibition and Con-vention Centre. A technical presentation will be held on Tuesday in stall no. J42, Hall No. 1, from 12 noon.

QC’s aid projects in Indonesia benefits 8,000 familiesTHE PENINSULA

DOHA: Qatar Charity has distributed 100 income-gener-ating projects to the families of orphans, whom it sponsors in the city of Aceh Besar of Aceh Province, Indonesia.

The distribution was made in a ceremony, which was attended by Ahmed Jassim Al Hamar, Ambassador of Qatar to Jakarta, and a number of local officials.

The projects included 17 cow farm projects, 29 sewing machines, 12 selling carts, eight small shops, four transport vehicles, three goat farm projects, two coconut milling machines, five rice harvesters, nine gasoline filling projects, 11 small projects for cottage industries.

Qatar Charity has paid special attention to productive projects since the establishment of its office in Indonesia in 2005.

The total number of QC’s economic empowerment projects implemented for poor families and the families of orphans, who are sponsored by the charity so far, has reached 8,000, of which 189 projects were distributed during the year 2018. In a speech at the inaugu-ration ceremony held for the

implementation of the new batch of projects, Iskandar Shukri, Deputy Governor of Aceh Province, said “Qatar Charity is one of the few international humanitarian organisations that came in conjunction with the 2005 tsunami.

The charity has been playing an active role in taking care of

orphans, serving needy people and implementing various devel-opment projects without interruption.”

For his part, Dawood Bakiyeh, representative of the Minister of Religious Affairs, said “We know QC’s humanitarian efforts very well. We have seen its various projects that serve

orphans and poor families. We will continue to provide the charity with all the support to implement its projects.”

The Ambassador of Qatar to Indonesia, Ahmed Jassim Al Hamar, stressed that Qatari people always stand by their Indonesian brothers in their plights, provide them with relief aid and contribute to imple-menting development projects in their country, noting that at these moments when we are cel-ebrating the distribution of these productive projects to the fam-ilies of the orphans to econom-ically empower them, there is a team to provide relief assistance to the earthquake victims in the island of Lombok.

He added that the Qatari-Indonesian relations are strong, not only in the provision of aid, donations and financial support, but also in other fields, and cul-minated in the visit of Amir His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin

Hamad Al Thani, to Indonesia and the signing of several mem-orandums of understanding.

“Our presence here is an encouragement to you to con-tinue your support for such good projects that have a quick impact,” the Ambassador said to donors in Qatar.

The ceremony concluded with a speech by Karam Zeinhom Aly, manager of QC’s office in Indonesia, in which he said, “Aceh is a significant place for the doers of good, from which charitable projects funded by Qatari philanthropists has expanded and flowed into all other parts of Indonesia through Qatar Charity.

He pointed out that some 8,000 income-generating projects have been implemented so far, noting that Qatar Charity pays special attention to pro-duction tools and income-gen-erating projects to change peo-ple’s lives for the better.

The beneficiaries of income-generation projects of QC in Indonesia with Ahmed Jassim Al Hamar, Ambassador of Qatar to Jakarta, and other officials.

Kahramaa-TEES in pact to boost cybersecurity SANAULLAH ATAULLAH THE PENINSULA

DOHA: As Qatar General Elec-tricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) is on road to trans-forming its manually-operated systems to smart technologies which assumed importance to enhance cyberseucity, the Corpo-ration has signed a collaborative agreement with Texas A&M Engi-neering Experiment Station (TEES), represented by Texas A&M Cybersecurity Center in the USA to ensure cybersecurity for its operations.

“We hope that the cooper-ation between Kahramaa and TEES lead to set up an umbrella organisation for the authorities concerned to cybersecurity in the country,” Kahramaa President Eng Essa bin Hilal Al Kuwari told The Peninsula on the sidelines of the press conference held to announce the agreement.

He said that the agreement is being implemented in phases. “First phase is the signing of the agreement, in the second phase a study will be conducted to assess the situation of Kahramaa networks and in the third phase a schedule will be made to send Kahramaa engineers to get training about cybersecurity,” said Al Kuwari.

The agreement was signed at Texas A&M University at Qatar by Kahramaa President and Chair of the SGC-Q Steering Committee Engineer Essa bin Hilal Al Kuwari, and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Texas A&M at Qatar Dr. Ioannis G. Economou,

Kahramaa President said, “This further cooperation repre-sented in one of its important centers, namely the Texas A&M Cybersecurity Center is an

excellent embodiment of an extended successful partnership between our two entities.”

He added, “Smart grid helps utilities conserve energy, reduce costs, increase reliability and transparency, and make proc-esses more efficient. However, it increases use of IT-based electric power systems, which can increase cybersecurity vulnera-bilities, which increases cyber-securitys importance.”

This new agreement expands a previous partnership between Kahramaa and TEES, to inves-tigate smart grid technologies and challenges to implemen-tation on the Qatar grid through the Texas A&M Smart Grid Center (SGC) and its Qatar extension (SGC-Q).

The initial study aims to give recommendations to advance efficient use of electric energy and the full transform of the elec-tricity grid in Qatar into a smart

grid, promote collaboration to investigate smart grid challenges, and deliver innovative and effective smart grid solutions.

For his part, Economou said, “For more than 100 years, TEES has engineered solutions to real-world problems, with significant input and collaboration from industry and government. Texas A&M at Qatar and its TEES exten-sions are proud to continue that tradition in Qatar, and this part-nership with Kahramaa is just the latest example of these strong ties to industry. We are proud to col-laborate with Kahramaa as it works to transform its utilities and power grid into a smart, cybersecure grid for the benefit of Qatar and its people.”

Under this collaboration agreement, TEES experts will study the current situation in Kahramaas grid and give recom-mendations for current and f u t u r e d e v e l o p m e n t

opportunities for the corporation to become a pioneer as a cyber-secure grid.

The agreement will also establish an industry consortium, to study current and future devel-opment opportunities for the State of Qatar where needed, and a mechanism to develop and manage projects related to cybersecurity.

This agreement will also enable sharing expertise and research studies in several areas, including cybersecurity assessment and vulnerability, malware infrastructure analysis and related research areas, such as critical infrastructure protection.

Moreover, through this col-laborative agreement, TEES will offer certificate programs and training opportunities for Kah-ramaa nominees to acquire cybersecurity knowledge and skills for their careers.

Dr Ioannis G Economou (left), Associate Dean of Texas A&M University at Qatar, and Eng Essa bin Hilal Al Kuwari, President of Kahramaa, during the signing of MoU on cybersecurity at Texas A&M Engineering University yesterday. PIC: BAHER AMIN / THE PENINSULA

AG Consultancy opens office in Qatar THE PENINSULA

DOHA: AG Consultancy WLL inaugurated its office in Qatar on September 18.

It was inaugurated jointly by AG Consultancy Chairman, Abdulla Ibrahim A M Al Sada, Director Office Customs, Hamad Port; Dr. M Aleem, Third Secretary L&CW, Embassy of India in Qatar, and Hassan Chougule, Chairman of DPSMIS School.

The inauguration event was graced by community leaders in Qatar and businessmen including K M Vergese, Pres-ident IBPC; Milaan Arun, Pres-ident ICC; Baburajan, Vice-President of ICBF and Managing Director Skills development Centre; Mahesh Gowda, GS ICBF and Managing Director MBR Technologies; Nigel Couper, GM Northcroft Middle East, and Sheetal Kulkarni, Muhibah.

AG Consultancy WLL spe-cialises in advice to con-struction clients on claims and

dispute resolution. AGC also advices on cost and contract management, quantity sur-veying services, tendering and procurement.

AG Consultancy WLL is led by Managing Director, Avinash Gaikwad, who has been advising his clients in Qatar since 2010 with 20 strong years of experience worldwide including, UK, UAE and India.

He is a fellow member of RICS and IIQS and member of CIArb and President Elect for AACE Qatar Section.

The officials of AG Consultancy WLL and other recourse persons during the inauguration of its office in Qatar.

Supershield-DESCO

will participate in the

Big 5 Qatar Exhibition

for Building Services,

which will be held

from tomorrow

to Wednesday at

Doha Exhibition and

Convention Centre. A

technical presentation

will be held on

Tuesday in stall no.

J42, hall no. 1, from

12 noon.

AG Consultancy WLL

specialises in advice

to construction

clients on claims and

dispute resolution.

AGC also advises on

cost and contract

management,

quantity surveying

services, tendering

and procurement.

08 SUNDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 2018 MIDDLE EAST

Gunmen attack Iran military parade; 25 dead AP

TEHRAN: Gunmen disguised as soldiers attacked an annual Iranian military parade yesterday in the country’s oil-rich southwest, killing at least 25 people and wounding 53 in the bloodiest assault to strike the country in recent years.

The attack in Ahvaz saw gunfire sprayed into a crowd of marching Revolutionary Guardsmen, bystanders and gov-ernment officials watching from a nearby riser. Suspicion imme-diately fell on the region’s Arab separatists, who previously only attacked unguarded oil pipelines under the cover of darkness.

Iran’s President Hassan Rowhani vowed a “crushing response.” The Islamic State (IS) militant group claimed to have carried out the rare assault in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, while Iranian officials accused “a foreign regime” backed by the

United States of being behind it.“The response of the Islamic

Republic of Iran to the smallest threat will be crushing”, Rowhani said on his official website, after addressing a similar military parade in Tehran to commem-orate the start of the 1980-1988 war with Iraq.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the attack near the Iraqi border was carried out by “terrorists recruited, trained, armed & paid by a foreign regime”.

“Iran holds regional terror sponsors and their US masters accountable for such attacks,” he wrote on his Twitter account. That further raises tensions as Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers is in jeopardy after Pres-ident Donald Trump withdrew America from the accord.

“Iran will respond swiftly and decisively in defence of Iranian lives,” Zarif wrote on Twitter.

The attack came as rows of Revolutionary Guardsmen marched down Ahvaz’s Quds, or Jerusalem, Boulevard, which like many other places around the country saw an annual parade marking the start of Iran’s long 1980s war with Iraq.

Images captured by state tel-evision showed journalists and

onlookers turn to look toward the first shots, then the rows of marchers broke as soldiers and civilians sought cover under sus-tained gunfire.

“Oh God! Go go go! Lie down! Lie down!” one man screamed as a woman fled with her baby.

In the aftermath, paramedics tended to the wounded as sol-diers, some bloodied in their dress uniforms, helped their comrades to ambulances.

The state-run IRNA news agency said the attack killed 25 people and wounded 53, citing “knowledgeable sources” without elaborating. It said gunmen wore Guard uniforms and targeted a riser where mil-itary and police commanders were sitting.

“We suddenly realised that some armed people wearing fake military outfits started attacking the comrades from behind (the stage) and then opened fire on women and children,” an

unnamed wounded soldier told state TV.

“They were just aimlessly shooting around and did not have a specific target.” Details about the attack remained unclear immediately afterward. The semi-official Fars news agency, which is close to the Guard, meanwhile said two gunmen on a motorcycle wearing khaki uniforms carried out the attack.

Khuzestan Gov. Gholamreza Shariati told IRNA that two gunmen were killed and two others were arrested.

State TV hours later reported that all four gunmen had been killed, with three dying during the attack and one later suc-cumbing to his wounds at a hospital.

Who carried out the assault also remained in question. State television immediately described the assailants as “takfiri gunmen,” a term previously used

to describe the Islamic State group. Iran has been deeply involved in the fight against IS in Iraq and has aided embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad in his country’s long war.

But in the hours following the attack, state media and gov-ernment officials seemed to come to the consensus that Arab separatists in the region were responsible. The separatists, however, previously only con-ducted pipeline bombings at night or hit-and-run attacks.

The Islamic State group later claimed responsibility in a message on its Amaaq news agency, but provided no evi-dence it carried out the assault. The militants have made a string of false claims in the wake of major defeats in Iraq and Syria.

In Tehran, Hassan Rouhani watched a military parade that included ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel and US military bases.

A soldier running past injured comrades lying on the ground at the scene of an attack on a military parade in Tehran, yesterday. RIGHT: Iranian women and soldiers taking cover next to bushes at the scene.

Only Abbas able to make peace: OlmertRAMALLAH: Mahmoud Abbas is the only Palestinian leader capable of striking a peace deal with Israel, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert said in comments broadcast yesterday after the two men met in Paris.

“The only person among the Palestinian people who is capable of doing it and who proved in the past that he is completely committed to do it is Dr Mahmoud Abbas, and that’s why I have an immense respect for him,” he said.

He was speaking to the official television station of the Abbas-headed Palestinian Authority after their meeting.

Cyclists lift their bicycles during the “Car-Free Day” in central Ankara, yesterday.

Car-Free Day

Lebanon Navy rescues many from sinking Cyprus-bound boatAFP

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Navy rescued dozens of people, including Syrians, from a sinking boat off the country’s northern coast yesterday, the military and a security source said, adding one child had died.

The military said in a statement it responded early yesterday to a sinking boat with at least 39 Syrian nationals on board “who were heading to Cyprus via an illegal route”.

“A navy patrol unit imme-diately headed there, retrieved the body of a five-year-old child and rescued the rest” of the passengers, it said.

Four of those rescued were taken to nearby hospitals with the help of the Lebanese Red Cross, the statement added.

The Red Cross confirmed that it was involved in the rescues, but declined to give any further details.

A security source said that Palestinian refugees were also among those rescued.

“The child who died was a Palestinian refugee from the Nahr Al Bared camp,” in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, the source said.

The four people being treated in hospital included one Palestinian woman and three Syrians, the source added.

The United Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR) has registered nearly one million Syrian ref-ugees in Lebanon.

Humanitarian representa-tives and government officials say the number is likely much higher, since many refugees who have fled Syria’s civil war to Lebanon are not officially registered with the United Nations.

Tens of thousands of Pales-tinian refugees also live in Lebanon, in a dozen squalid camps spread across the country.

Earlier this month, Cyprus announced it was looking to broker a repatriation agreement with Beirut because of an increased influx of migrants from Lebanon to the Mediterranean island.

Interior Minister Constan-tinos Petrides said his country faces one of the largest migratory flows per capita, with 4,022 asylum requests in the first eight months of 2018 — 55 percent more than in the same period last year.

Over 600 irregular migrants held in TurkeyANATOLIA

ANKARA: At least 624 migrants were held yesterday across Turkey, according to security sources.

In the northwestern Edirne province, a total of 313 migrants were held during patrols of gen-darmerie forces in several dis-tricts. Separately in the

northwestern Kirklareli province, security forces held 78 people attempting to illegally cross into Europe.

In a separate operation, in the Dikili district of the western Izmir province, 51 irregular migrants from Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Ghana and Eritrea were held. They were spotted in a rubber boat off Dikili and

planning to cross to Greece. A total of 28 Afghan and Pales-tinian nationals, including women and children, were rounded up in the northwestern province of Canakkale’s Ayvacik district. In the Baskale, Ipekyolu and Ercis districts of the eastern Van province, 147 migrants were held by local gendarmerie forces.

Turkey, Russia and Iran to hold meeting on Syria in New YorkQNA

PARAMARIBO: A trilateral meeting on Syria will be held in New York with the foreign ministers of Turkey, Russia, and Iran, Turkey’s foreign minister said.

Speaking at a joint news con-ference in Surinam with his

Surinamese counterpart Yldiz Pollack-Beighle, Mevlut Cavu-soglu said the decision to hold the tripartite meeting came after “technical” planning in Ankara over the last three days.

In wake of Sochi agreement, “cease-fire must be fully estab-lished and focus should be on political solution,” Cavusoglu

was quoted as saying. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, stipulated estab-lishment of a 15 to 20km disar-mament zone in Idlib, Syria’s last opposition stronghold. Ankara and Moscow also signed a mem-orandum of understanding calling for the “stabilization” of

Idlib’s de-escalation zone, in which acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.

Under the pact, opposition groups in Idlib will remain in areas where they are already present, while Russia and Turkey will do joint patrols in the area to head off renewed fighting.

On the bilateral relations

with Suriname, Cavusoglu said Ankara is eager to boost friendly relations with Paramaribo in all areas, adding the two countries agreed to develop economic cooperation.

He also said a visa-free travel will improve the contact between businesspeople and upgrade bilateral trade volume.

19 soldiers held over FETO linksANKARA: A total of 19 suspects were arrested in counterterrorism operations across Turkey for their alleged links to the Fetullah Terror Organisation (FETO), the terrorist group behind 2016 defeated coup attempt in Turkey, police sources said yesterday.

An arrest warrant had been issued for some 20 sol-diers by the Chief Public Pros-ecutor’s Office in Ankara.

The soldiers — all serving lieutenants — are suspected of communicating with “covert imams” of FETO.

FETO and its US-based leader Fetullah Gulen orches-trated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016, which left 251 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.

“The response

of the Islamic

Republic of Iran to

the smallest threat

will be crushing”,

Rowhani said on

his official website,

after addressing

a similar military

parade in Tehran to

commemorate the

start of the 1980-1988

war with Iraq.

09SUNDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 2018 AFRICA

South Africa’s DA launches poll campaign AFP

JOHANNESBURG: South Africa’s largest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA) yesterday launched its campaign ahead of highly contested elec-tions due next year.

DA leader Mmusi Maimane told several thousands of sup-porters dressed in the party colour blue at an open space in a poor section of Johannesburg’s CBD, that the campaign “will be our most ambitious election campaign yet”.

He took a jibe at the ruling ANC which has governed the country since the dawn of democracy in 1994 saying it had let down South Africans while it allowed corruption to fester.

“Every promise this gov-ernment has made has turned out to be an empty promise. After two decades of freedom, our people are still no closer to being free. “The South Africa I see today looks nothing like the

vision of the South Africa I saw in 1994. It doesn’t look anywhere near and it looks like we are moving away from it.” “What was a dream is fast becoming a nightmare,” he told cheering supporters.

He promised to “fix this gov-ernment, I want to fix South Africa”. “Only one party takes clean, corruption-free gov-ernment seriously, and that is the DA,” he said.

The DA, which has already

reduced the ANC’s election majority during the 2016 local government vote, will seek to erode its support further at the general election due between May and August of next year.

Support for the ruling party dipped during the rule of scandal-marred ex-president Jacob Zuma which saw it lose control of the economic hub Johannesburg and the capital Pretoria in municipal polls two years ago.

Zuma’s successor Cyril Ram-aphosa has vowed to fight cor-ruption and is on a drive to tackle soaring unemployment, which currently stands at about 28 percent.

Under its first black leader Maimane, the DA party climbed to 24 percent in the 2016 local vote.

For long it has been con-sidered a middle class white party, but its black membership has grown considerably since Maimane took over in 2015.

Democratic Alliance North West leader Joe McGluwa dances with a flag as Mpumalanga leader Jane Sithole and other provincial leaders join in, during a rally in Johannesburg, yesterday.

The DA, which has

already reduced

the ANC’s election

majority during the

2016 local government

vote, will seek to

erode its support

further at the general

election due between

May and August of

next year.

18 Al Shabaab extremists dead in US airstrike AP

JOHANNESBURG: A US military airstrike has killed 18 Al Shabaab extremists after US and local forces came under attack in southern Somalia, the US Africa Command said yesterday.

The airstrike was carried out in self-defence on Friday about 50km northwest of the port city of Kismayo, the US statement said.

Two other Al Shabab extremists were killed by Somali forces “with small arms fire

during the engagement,” it said.No US or partner forces were

killed or injured, an AFRICOM spokesman, Nate Herring, said. The airstrike was carried out after extremists were “observed manoeuvring on a combined patrol” of US and Somali forces, while the US also responded with “indirect fire,” Herring said.

The US has carried out more than 20 airstrikes this year against the Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab, the deadliest Islamic extremist group in sub-Saharan Africa. US military involvement

in Somalia has grown since Pres-ident Donald Trump early in his term approved expanded oper-ations against Al Shabaab. Dozens of drone strikes followed. Late last year the military also carried out its first airstrike against a small presence of fighters linked to the Islamic State in northern Somalia.

Since the expanded opera-tions, two US military personnel have been killed in Somalia.

A service member was killed in May 2017 during an operation about 64km west of Mogadishu.

And in June, one US special oper-ations soldier was killed and four US service members wounded in an “enemy attack” as troops with Somali and Kenyan forces came under mortar and small-arms fire in Jubaland.

The US currently has about 500 military personnel in the Horn of Africa nation.

Al Shabab, which seeks to establish an Islamic state in Somalia, was pushed out of Mogadishu in recent years but continues to control rural areas in the south and central regions.

Its fighters continue to attack the bases of a multinational African Union force that remains largely responsible for security as Soma-lia’s fragile central government tries to recover from decades of chaos.

In the next few years Somali forces are expected to take over responsibility for the country’s security as the AU force with-draws. Concerns about their readiness remain high, and the UN Security Council recently voted to delay the handover’s target date to December 2021.

The capsized ferry MV Nyerere in Lake Victoria, Tanzania.

Nigerians vote to elect governor of key stateAFP

OSOGBO, NIGERIA: Voters in the southwestern Nigerian state of Osun went to the polls yesterday to elect a new governor amid growing concerns about free and fair voting, six months ahead of a presidential election.

The Osun vote is seen as a litmus test for President Muhammadu Buhari’s popu-larity as he seeks a second term in February.

The 75-year-old retired general who led a military regime in the 1980s was elected in 2015.

Voting opened in most polling booths in Osun around 8am with long queues of voters in Osogbo, the state capital, and other towns and villages across the state. “You can see that people are already exercising their civic responsibility,” elec-toral official Sodipo Oladapo said. “All those on the queue will be accredited and allowed to vote until 2pm when the exercise will end,” he said.

There was a large turnout as long lines were still observed in some centres after the stip-ulated time. Electoral officials said those already in queues

before 2pm would vote, while voting had ended in a few centres. According to the Inde-pendent Electoral Commission of Nigeria (INEC), 1.2 million voters are eligible to vote for the candidates of 48 political parties participating in Satur-day’s vote.

Osun is part of Nigeria’s southwest which includes the economic capital Lagos and a region crucial to Buhari’s re-election as he faces a formi-dable challenge from an array of high-profile opposition can-didates. The leading candidates jostling for the Osun governor’s seat include Gboyega Oyetola of Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) and Ademola Adeleke, nicknamed “the dancing senator” because of his penchant for dancing in public.

Adeleke is the candidate of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

He is also an uncle of Nigerian Afropop star Davido, whose real name is David Adedeji, and from a wealthy and political family in Ede, some 20km from the capital.

Though Davido was not around to vote, his father, Adedeji Adeleke and the PDP voted in the town.

Tanzania ferry disaster toll at 207AFP

NAIROBI: The death toll from a crowded ferry capsizing in Lake Victoria rose sharply to 207 yesterday, a Tanzanian minister said, as rescue workers found a lucky survivor.

Public radio quoted the transport minister as updating the number of dead from 170 earlier in the day.

Joseph Mkundi, a lawmaker for the Ukerewe district, said there were 41 known survivors among the passengers of the MV

Nyerere — a ferry built to carry 100 people, according to state media. It capsized on Thursday close to the pier on Ukara Island.

Although hopes were fading of finding any more survivors by day three of the search effort, workers rescued an engineer who had managed to locate a pocket of air in the vessel.

According to Mkundi, the engineer had shut himself into a “special room”. Tanzanian President John Magufuli on Friday ordered the arrest of ferry management. Witnesses

said the ferry sank when pas-sengers rushed to one side to disembark as it approached the dock. Others blamed the captain, saying he had made a brusque manoeuvre.

In a speech, Magufuli said “it appears clear that the ferry was overloaded.” He added: “negli-gence has cost us so many lives... children, mothers, students, old people.

“I ordered the arrest of all those involved in the man-agement of the ferry. The arrests have already begun,” he added.

Congo reports Ebola death close to busy Ugandan borderAP

KINSHASA, CONGO: A Congolese woman who refused an Ebola vaccination and then disappeared has died of the virus near the heavily travelled border with Uganda, which is preparing to begin vaccinations as needed.

The confirmed Ebola death announced by local authorities highlights the challenges health

workers are facing in a region of northeastern Congo that had never experienced an outbreak of the haemorrhagic fever before.

Authorities have fought rumours and trained community members including traditional healers in efforts to calm and educate nervous residents.

The 32-year-old woman had assisted in the burials of other Ebola victims and health

workers had followed her as a possible case, but she refused a vaccination and disappeared from the city of Beni, said the vice governor of Ituri Province, Pacifique Keta.

She died on Thursday at a hospital in Tshomia, on Lake Albert.

It is the closest a confirmed Ebola death in the current out-break has been to Uganda, which has said it was making

arrangements with the World Health Organization to vac-cinate health workers and other high-risk populations as needed. Three thousand vaccine doses will be imported.

Congo’s health ministry said that as of Friday there have been 116 confirmed cases, including 68 deaths, of Ebola in the out-break that was declared on August 1. More than 10,000 people have been vaccinated.

Ebola monitoring has been taking place at the border and Uganda is considered what WHO calls “very high risk.” “To date, health workers in Uganda have responded to over 100 Ebola alerts that have been found to be negative for the Ebola virus,” WHO’s country office there has said.

The UN health agency has not recommended travel restrictions.

106 dead in Tripoli clashes since AugustANATOLIA

TRIPOLI: The death toll of the armed clashes that have rocked the Libyan capital Tripoli since late last month rose to 106 people as of yesterday, while cautious calm currently prevails Tripoli, according to Libya’s Tripoli-based Health Ministry.

In armed clashes between militias affiliated with Libya’s UN-backed unity government since August 26, 106 people have been killed, 365 others injured and 18 people have gone missing, the Health Min-istry announced yesterday.

The violence first erupted after Libya’s Seventh Infantry Brigade accused the Tripoli Revolutionary Brigade (affil-iated with the Interior Min-istry) of attacking its positions on the city’s southern outskirts.

On Thursday alone, 11 people were killed — including five civilians — and another 33 injured, according to Libya’s Tripoli-based Health Ministry. On Sep-tember 4, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) declared a cease-fire after dozens had reportedly been killed.

Nigeria unions to strike over Chevron disputeBLOOMBERG

LAGOS: Nigeria’s oil unions say they are ready to call a nationwide strike to protest a decision by US oil giant Chevron Corp to close out thousands of employment contracts at the end of the month.

‘We have already placed our members on red alert should the management of Chevron remain adamant to rescind its anti-labour decision,” the leaders of two unions representing blue-collar and managerial-level workers said in a joint statement yesterday. Chev-ron’s decision is harmful to both the workers in the sector and Nigeria’s economy, they said.

Chevron plans to close current job contracts and replace them with new ones in November. The unions say the move is in violation of existing contracts and are appealing to the government to have the contracts rolled over instead.

Since the Gulf crisis’

outbreak, Kuwait,

along with the US,

has been pursuing

diplomatic efforts

aimed at creating the

conditions conducive

to holding a summit

in Washington that

involves officials

from Doha and their

counterparts from the

blockading states.

10 SUNDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 2018VIEWS

A look at the Kuwait-US alliance

This month’s meeting between the Amir of Kuwait H H Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah and US President Donald Trump raised

important questions about the prospects for resolution of the Gulf dispute. The Kuwaiti ruler’s visit also brought other ongoing crises in the region—from Yemen to the escalation of tension between the Islamic Republic of Iran and its traditional adversaries in the region and Washington—to the fore.

The two head of states’ meeting was their third in only a year-and-a-half. The Kuwaiti ruler and Trump first met on the sidelines of the historic summit held in Saudi Arabia in May 2017 which was the American president’s first overseas trip since entering the Oval Office. The second took place in September 2017 and, like the third, took place in the White House.

In July, Kuwait’s Deputy Foreign Min-ister Khalid Al Jarallah announced that Kuwait was considering an American pro-posal to establish a regional strategic alliance aimed at countering Iranian influence, which the Amir and Trump dis-cussed during this month’s meeting. Trump asked Kuwait’s ruler to use his influence to prepare the region for this planned alliance. Yet this alliance’s dimensions are unclear, yet the stated objective is to establish a mil-itary system between the Gulf states, along with Egypt and Jordan, that has been termed an “Arab Nato” under American auspices.

Since the Gulf crisis’ outbreak, Kuwait, along with the US, has been pursuing dip-lomatic efforts aimed at creating the con-ditions conducive to holding a summit in Washington that involves officials from

Doha and their counter-parts from the block-ading states. Kuwait has invested heavily in these efforts due to, primarily, two deep national interests in seeing to it that

the Gulf crisis resolves. First, despite being a close ally of Riyadh, Kuwait has recently demonstrated growing independence from Saudi Arabia’s geopolitical shadow. Put simply, Kuwaitis have concerns about receiving the “Qatar treatment” from the Kingdom because of Kuwait’s relatively autonomous foreign policy.

Second, Kuwait views the Gulf Cooper-ation Council (GCC) as a sub-regional organization worth preserving for the sake of uniting Arab Gulf states in the face of regional threats from Islamic State (ISIS) and Shia/Alawite militias in Iraq and Syria, to an ascendant Iran across the Gulf and violent non-state actors in Yemen. In, what appears to be, a post-GCC period, Kuwait has major concerns about the future of the emirate’s security and sovereignty. Over the past three decades, Kuwait has made serious efforts to strengthen the GCC as an

institution, thus restoring the GCC’s rele-vance remains a high priority for the coun-try’s ruler amid this era of uncertainty and major strategic shifts in the Gulf’s geopo-litical order.

Much like the Kuwaiti Amir, Wash-ington also views the GCC’s demise as a troublesome development, which will undermine US-Arab efforts to contain Iranian expansionism in Gulf, the Levant, and Yemen. Yet although the US has been supportive of Kuwaiti diplomacy throughout the Gulf crisis, given the zero-sum nature of the dispute, as well as the agendas of the involved parties’ leaders, both the American and Kuwaiti govern-ments have had to come to terms with the high probability of the crisis not resolving any time in the foreseeable future.

Regardless of the GCC’s institutional dysfunctionality, Kuwait is adapting to new regional conditions and positioning itself, along with the Sultanate of Oman, as a “neutral” Arab Gulf state that pushes for political solutions to the Arab world’s raging conflicts. In Yemen’s case, Kuwait held talks in 2016 aimed at resolving the conflict, only to fall short of positive results due to the two sides’ intransigence, along with limited Houthi trust in the Al Sabah rulers given that Kuwait officially joined the Saudi-led campaign against the Ira-nian-backed rebellion in 2015. Kuwait has also sought to promote peace in the Northern Gulf by providing Iraq with assistance in the aftermath of recent unrest erupting in Basra and other underserved parts of the war-ravaged country. Kuwait has also committed to coordination with the US in parts of Iraq and Syria which have been liberated from ISIS.

Nonetheless, despite American support for Kuwaiti diplomacy vis-à-vis certain regional files, there are areas where Kuwait City and Washington do not see eye to eye. Informed sources stated that Trump called on the Kuwaiti Amir to take a tougher stance against Tehran by imposing sanctions on Iran and freezing Kuwait’s trade with its Persian neighbor. Yet given Kuwait’s geo-graphic proximity to Iran, the emirate’s internal sectarian dynamics, and national economic/energy interests, it is doubtful that the White House will successfully bring Kuwait into the anti-Iranian bandwagon with Abu Dhabi, Manama, and Riyadh.

Regarding the question of Palestine, Kuwait’s government has maintained solid contacts with virtually all Palestinian fac-tions, including Hamas, which the US State Department designates a terrorist organi-zation, and which has extremely negative relations with other Arab Gulf states, chiefly the UAE. In contrast to other GCC states that recent have signaled growing interest in deepening their tacit alliances with the Jewish State, Kuwait has drafted UN resolutions condemning Israeli crimes in Gaza and issued rhetoric in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.

Having suffered from the Iraqi

invasion and subsequent occupation in 1990/1991, Kuwait’s foreign policy is largely informed by the emirate’s percep-tions of regional threats to its sovereignty. At the same time, Kuwait’s experience throughout the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, the Gulf’s tanker war, and Tehran-spon-sored Shia terrorism on home soil throughout that decade have prompted the Al Sabah rulers to avoid an excessively confrontational relationship with Iran.

While the Trump administration is keen to back Kuwait’s efforts to bring about a diplomatic settlement to the Gulf crisis, it remains to be seen how the White House interprets Kuwait’s relationship with Iran. As noted by high-ranking US government officials, the Trump adminis-tration is pressuring Arab allies to align with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi against the Islamic Republic.

Odds are good that Washington will receive support from Kuwait when it comes to countering Iranian proxies in the Gulf such as Lebanese Hezbollah and Iraq’s host of radical armed Shia factions, but given the risks that Kuwait would have to accept if it becomes more overtly hostile to Tehran and pushes for Iran’s economic isolation, it is doubtful that the Al Sabah rulers will implement changes in its Iran foreign policy that please the Trump White House. That Kuwait—like Qatar and Oman—did not voice support for Trump’s decision to pull Washington out of the nuclear accord in May illustrates this bal-ancing act that Kuwait is seeking to maintain.

Unquestionably, Kuwait and the US have so many shared interests in the chaotic Middle East, and the US remains Kuwait’s ultimate security guarantor. Thus, the alliance is set to remain strong throughout the Trump presidency despite certain issues that may raise various degrees of friction in bilateral affairs. Nonetheless, Kuwait is certainly adapting to new realities in a post-GCC era that are taking shape against the backdrop of a rel-ative decline in American hegemony in the Middle East. Added to the mix are percep-tions in capitals worldwide that Trump is a brash and somewhat unhinged leader, which unsettle countries such as Kuwait that rely on Washington for defense.

Within this context, Kuwait is investing in deeper ties with China and other powers to hedge its foreign policy in an increas-ingly multipolar geopolitical balance of power. The Trump administration would be wise to take stock of how excessively pressuring Kuwait on certain regional issues such as Iran’s role in the Gulf’s (in)security architecture and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have potential to push the emirate further away from Washington’s sphere of influence in an increasingly polarised Middle East.

The writer is Director of Gulf International Center.

DR. KHALID AL-JABER

QUOTE OF THE DAY

The situation (in Yemen) had deteriorated in an alarming way in recent

weeks and that the crisis may be approaching a tipping point, beyond

which it will be impossible to prevent

massive loss of life.

Mark Lowcock

UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs

Trump makes it harder for China to cut a deal

As promised, Pres-ident Donald Trump has escalated his trade war against

China — announcing tariffs of 10 percent on another $200 billion in goods, plus a threat to raise the levy to 25 percent next year. Nearly half of China’s exports to the US now face Trump’s taxes on trade.

The president boasts that the latest measure will bring in a lot of revenue. Indeed it will — but remember where that revenue will come from. Trump’s tariffs are first and foremost a tax on American consumers. They’ll also hurt U.S. companies operating in China or using Chinese

components, help their rivals in other countries, increase business uncertainty, and further undermine the rules-based global trading system.

In addition, a new concern is growing — that, with each escalation, Trump is making it harder for China to come to terms. Far from backing down, its gov-ernment announced retali-atory tariffs of 5 percent to 10 percent on $60bn of US imports.

In economic terms, these make no more sense for China than Trump’s tariffs do for the US, but trade wars are about politics as much as eco-nomics. China’s government can’t afford to be seen as suf-fering a humiliating defeat at

Trump’s hands.The US administration

appears to be baffled by this. The White House statement announcing the new tariffs blasts China for retaliating against earlier measures and warns that any further defiance will lead to the US levying tariffs on virtually all Chinese imports. But backing China into a corner is unlikely to make Beijing surrender. It has other options, even when it runs out of US imports to tax.

Over half of US com-panies in China surveyed in a recent poll say they’re already being harassed by increased inspections, slower customs clearance and other regu-latory hurdles. One top

Chinese official has warned darkly that the country could cut off exports of key compo-nents to US manufacturers if tensions worsen. Chinese leaders could easily engineer a further slide in the yuan.

Trump’s basic goal is as ill-informed as his method. It shouldn’t be to shrink trade with China, much less cripple its economy.

It should be to encourage China to be a better economic partner. That means reducing its discrimination against foreign companies, adhering to the spirit as well as the letter of its World Trade Organization obligations, and halting the forced transfer of US technology to local Chinese partners.

Qatar Airways has

become one of

the world’s most

highly-respected

airlines,

competing on a

scale very few

airlines achieve.

CHAIRMANSHEIKH THANI BIN ABDULLAH AL THANI

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFDR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK [email protected]

ACTING MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED SALIM [email protected]

DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORMOHAMMED OSMAN ALI [email protected]

ESTABLISHED IN 1996

EDITORIAL

Flying higher

Qatar Airways is spreading its wings. Despite the illegal blockade against Qatar, the airline continues to thrive and grow. This can be gauged from the fact

that Qatar’s national airline has launched 24 new desti-nations since the blockade and has expanded its network to over 150 destinations around the world.

A strategic and rapid response from Qatar Airways when neighbouring countries illegally blocked Qatar’s airspace on June 5, 2017 put the airline in a position of strength. Within 10 weeks new destinations to Sohar, Prague and Kyiv were announced and launched, while other routes saw an increase in frequency and capacity, thus swiftly redeploying capacity with a view to soften the impact of being illegally blockaded from 18 regional gateways.

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker said: “I am pleased to say that thanks to our robust business planning, swift actions in the face of the crisis, our pas-senger-focused solutions and dedicated staff, the impact has been minimised – and has certainly not been as neg-ative as our neighbouring countries may have hoped for”.

Also, just six weeks after the start of the blockade, Qatar Airways proved to the world that its neighbours had failed to reach their objective in reducing the airline to collapse by instead winning the coveted title of ‘Skytrax Airline of the Year’ for the fourth time in less than 10 years. The airline also took home awards for ‘World’s Best Business Class’, ‘Best Airline in the Middle East’, and ‘World’s Best First Class Airline Lounge’.

Qatar Airways has become one of the world’s most highly-respected airlines, competing

on a scale very few airlines achieve. Passengers have rec-ognised the airline’s commitment to the values of safety, security, innovation and quality of service. The airlines’ annual report for 2017/18 said that during the financial year, Qatar Airways Group continued apace with the expansion of its investment portfolio to include an initial 9.94 percent stake in Cathay Pacific, which has since increased to 9.99 percent, as well as a 49 percent share of AQA Holding, the parent company of Meridiana fly, which was relaunched as Air Italy in February 2018.

It is noteworthy that Qatar Airways has not wavered from its strategy and vision of constant growth and devel-opment. It was the first airline in the world to take delivery of the Airbus A350-1000 in February 2018. In addition, the airline added 20 other aircraft to the fleet throughout the financial year, increasing the total number to 213, as of March 31, 2018.

Qatar Airways recently announced that it will launch direct flights to Kenya’s second city, Mombasa, in addition to existing flights to Nairobi, opening up the country’s beautiful coasts to international holiday-makers. Adding more destinations and fleet in the coming years, Qatar Airways aims to connect more people, continue and offer its passengers outstanding levels of comfort and style.

BLOOMBERG

Telephone lines

have been opened

and commercial

flights restarted

allowing people to

call and see their

relatives and friends

for the first time

in decades. The

two countries have

also exchanged

ambassadors and

reopened old trade

routes.

11SUNDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 2018 OPINION

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Refugees stranded in Bosnia allege Croatianpolice brutality

Ethiopia and Eritrea’s second rapprochement

MERSIHA GADZO

GOITOM GEBRELUEL AL JAZEERA

Brutally beaten, mobile phones destroyed, strip-searched and money stolen. These are some of the experiences refugees

and migrants stranded in western Bosnia report as they describe encounters with Croatian police.

The abuse, they say, takes place during attempts to pass through

Croatia, an EU member, with most headed for Germany. Bosnia has emerged as a new route to Western Europe, since the EU tightened its borders. This year, more than 13,000 refugees and migrants have so far arrived in the country, compared with only 755 in 2017.

In Velika Kladusa, Bosnia’s most western town beside the Croatian border, hundreds have been living in makeshift tents on a field next to a dog kennel for the past four months.

When night falls, “the game” begins, a term used by refugees and migrants for the challenging journey to the EU through Croatia and Slovenia that involves treks through forests and crossing rivers. However, many are caught in Slovenia or Croatia and are forced to return to Bosnia by Croatian police, who heavily patrol its EU borders. Then, they have to start the mission all over again. Some told Al Jazeera that they have attempted to cross as many as 20 times.

All 17 refugees and migrants inter-viewed by Al Jazeera said that they have been beaten by Croatian police — some with police batons, others punched or kicked.

According to their testimonies, Croatian police have stolen valuables and money, cut passports, and destroyed mobile phones, hindering

their communication and navigation towards the EU. “Why are they treating us like this?” many asked as they nar-rated their ordeals. “They have no mercy,” said 26-year-old Mohammad from Raqqa, Syria, who said he was beaten all over his body with batons on the two occasions he crossed into the EU. Police also took his money and phone, he said.

Mohammad Abdullah, a 22-year-old Algerian, told that officers laughed at a group of migrants as they took turns beating them.

Croatia’s Interior Ministry told Al Jazeera that it “strongly dismisses” allegations of police brutality. In an emailed statement, it said those attempting to cross borders know they are acting outside of the law, and claimed that “no complaint so far has proved to be founded.” At a meeting in late August with Croatian Prime Min-ister Andrej Plenkovic, German Chan-cellor Angela Merkel praised Croatia for its control over its borders. “You are doing a great job on the borders, and I wish to commend you for that,” Merkel said.

But according to a new report, the UNHCR received information about 1,500 refugees being denied access to asylum procedures, including over 100 children. More than 700 people reported violence and theft by Croatian police. Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify all of the claims against police, because many of the refugees and migrants said their phones - which held evidence — were confiscated or smashed. However, the 17 people interviewed separately reported similar patterns of abuse.

Shams and Hassan, parents of three, have been trying to reach Germany to apply for asylum, but Croatian authorities have turned them back seven times over the past few months.

Four years ago, they left their home in Deir Az Zor, Syria, after it was

bombed. “They took 1,500 € ($1,745) from me and they took my husband’s golden ring. They also broke five of our mobiles and took all the SIM cards … They detained us for two days in prison and didn’t give us any food in the beginning,” Shams said, adding they cut her Syrian passport into pieces.

No Name Kitchen, a volunteer organisation that provides assistance to refugees and migrants on the Balkan route, has been documenting serious injuries on Instagram. In one post, the group alleges that Croatian police twice crushed a refugee’s orthopaedic leg.

Peter Van der Auweraert, the Western Balkans coordinator for the International Organization for Migration, says he has heard stories of police brutality, but called for an inde-pendent investigation to judge how alleged victims sustained injuries.

“Given the fact that there are so many of these stories, I think it’s in everyone’s interest to have an inde-pendent inquiry to see what is going on, on the other side of the border,” Van der Auweraert said.

“The use of violence is clearly not acceptable. It’s not acceptable under European human rights law, it’s not acceptable under international human rights law and it is to my mind also, not necessary. It is possible to control borders in a strict matter without violence.”

Ethiopia and Eritrea took one more important step towards normalising their relations on September 17, when Eritrean

President Isaias Afwerki and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed signed a peace agreement. A week earlier, during the Orthodox New Year’s celebrations, the leaders of the two countries met on the border town of Zalambessa to re-open the common border.

The rapprochement that began in June has been marked by a number of symbolic gestures and events, including official state-visits by both leaders. During Isaias Afwerki’s visit to Addis Ababa on July 14, the strongman who is known for his stern image and carefully choreographed speeches, emotionally declared to the Ethiopian prime min-ister “you are our leader now”.

Abiy then proclaimed to the cheering crowd: “when we become one, Assab will be ours,” in reference to the symbolic Eritrean Red Sea port, which was once part of Ethiopia. This hasn’t been simply a process of rap-prochement between two states; it almost seems like a social reunification.

Telephone lines have been opened and commercial flights restarted allowing people to call and see their rel-atives and friends for the first time in decades. The two countries have also exchanged ambassadors and reopened old trade routes.

The international community has welcomed these developments with

enthusiasm. The secretary-general of the United Nations, Antonio Gutteres, hailed the reconciliation as “illustrative of a new wind of hope blowing across Africa”. Peace between these two nations was long overdue and has already had some positive effect on the Horn of Africa. But the two countries have gone through a similar euphoric moment before — in 1993 when Eritrea got its independence from Ethiopia. That rapprochement, however, did not end well.

The secession of Eritrea was sup-ported by the new government of Ethiopia at that time and was cele-brated internationally as an ideal sepa-ration. Then, five years later, Africa’s deadliest war broke out between the former allies. What made this conflict extraordinary — even in a global context — was that it took place under conditions of extensive economic inter-dependence and social integration between the two states.

Today, as the two countries start rebuilding their relations, it is absolutely crucial that they revisit this moment of history and do not repeat its mistakes.

The peaceful secession of Eritrea from Ethiopia in 1993 marked the beginning of the first rapprochement between the two nations after the end of the 30-year-long civil war.

The Ethiopian People’s Revolu-tionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) had both fought against the Ethi-opian communist military government, the Derg, and by the early 1990s had taken power in Addis Ababa and Asmara respectively. There was a common understanding that the Derg had been the sole source of past ani-mosity and a convergence of interests between the two states was uncritically taken for granted.

The emergence of two young and charismatic revolutionaries — Ethio-pia’s Meles Zenawi and Eritrea’s Isaias Afwerki — was hailed internationally as a landmark moment in which the “next generation” of African leaders was taking over. Their first diplomatic act after the partition was to sign a cooper-ation agreement known as the Asmara Pact. The 25-protocol agreement was an ambitious plan to integrate the two nations in all sectors, including defence.

Eritrea’s economy was in practice already integratedinto Ethiopia’s, as around 80 percent of its export products were destined for its neighbour. At the same time Ethiopia relied on Eritrea’s main port as a trans-portation hub for most of its trade with the world.

After the partition, the Eritreans were allowed to keep almost all the benefits of Ethiopian citizenship, but with a sovereign state of their own. In practice both peoples continued to live as if they were still one state.

In his first visit to Ethiopia after the secession in 1993, President Afwerki declared that after economic inte-gration, the two countries could move towards political integration. His Ethi-opian counterpart, Zenawi, was also convinced this was inevitable.

Due to these fraternal sentiments and optimistic expectations, important aspects of the relations between the states, including the demarcation of the common border and currency exchange rates, were resolved. They were simply not considered priorities in the first years after independence.

Ethiopians and Eritreans were therefore caught off-guard when a dispute over a relatively unimportant piece of land turned into a full-blown war in 1998.

The war was fought with the same emotional zeal with which cooperation and integration had been pursued only a few years earlier. The two govern-ments were unyielding and fought for two years in a deadly war that claimed more than 100,000 lives.

During the war and the subsequent decades of hostility, people on both sides saw it as the product of betrayal and deceit, rather than as an outcome of conflicting interests and policies.

Regardless of who is to blame for the conflict, both governments have to take responsibility for not doing enough to resolve differences peacefully.

While it is unlikely that history will repeat itself with another major military conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, it is nevertheless important for the two states to establish clear mechanisms for arbitration and communication. After all, in the early 1990s, a war between the two was also deemed extremely unlikely.

Bosnia has emer-

ged as a new

route to Western

Europe, since the

EU tightened its

borders. This year,

more than 13,000

refugees and

migrants have so

far arrived in the

country, compared

with only 755 in

2017.

The international community and the governments and people of Ethiopia and Eritrea have been des-perate for peace, and now that it’s seemingly here, no one seems to be interested in confronting the thorny issues. Indeed, according to local customs it would be inappropriate to revisit the past during reconciliation.

Nostalgia and notions of fra-ternity have come back with the new rapprochement. While the historical and cultural affinity of the Ethiopian and Eritrean peoples is undeniable, this shouldn’t be the basis for diplo-matic relations. This approach has been tried in the past and has failed - with severe consequences.

The basis for the relationship ought to be based on a dispassionate recognition that Ethiopia and Eritrea are two sovereign states with indi-vidual interests that will not always overlap. Rights, responsibilities and mechanisms for managing disputes that will inevitably emerge must be clearly formulated.

Ethiopia and Eritrea find them-selves in one of the world’s most conflict-prone neighbourhoods. A number of regional and domestic political actors currently feel left out or marginalised by the peace process and have an incentive to sabotage it.

Two months after the peace dec-laration, the demarcation of the common border, which was the crux of the two-decades-long stalemate, is yet to begin and there already seem to be disagreements on how to proceed.

The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (part of the EPRDF), which governs the Ethiopian regional state bordering Eritrea, does not seem to agree with the federal government’s approach to demarcation. It keeps repeating publicly that the physical demarcation has to involve the resi-dents of the borderlands.

12 SUNDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 2018ASIA

Political war of words erupt in India over Rafale dealIANS

NEW DELHI: A political war broke out yesterday with Congress President Rahul Gandhi terming Prime Minister Narendra Modi a “thief” and “corrupt” in the Rafale deal as the BJP hit back saying the Gandhi family is out on bail and is the “source of all corruption in the country”.

As the controversy over former French President Francois Hollande’s remarks that the Modi government asked them to chose a private firm as offset partner in the Rafale deal snowballed, both the Defence Ministry and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad maintained that the Indian government had no role in the choice of the offset partner.

Both suggested that Reliance was chosen by Dassault as early as 2012 much before Narendra Modi became Prime Minister. However, the Congress rejected their claim on Dassault-Reliance deal in 2012 and asked them to produce the relevant records.

Earlier, both the French gov-ernment and Dassault Aviation contradicted Hollande’s claim on choosing of Indian industrial partners.

Rahul Gandhi led the Con-gress charge yesterday following Holland’s remarks and said the former French President had called him a “thief” in the Rafale deal. He also sought a Joint

Parliamentary Committee probe into the agreement to purchase 36 fighter jets from France.

“Now what the ex-President of France is saying is that the Prime Minister of India is a thief... that is what the statement is saying. It is very important for the PM now to either accept Hol-lande’s statement and say that he is telling the truth or that Hol-lande is not telling the truth and here is the truth,” Gandhi said.

“It is the question of dignity of office of PM, it is a question related to defence, future of our jawans, Air Force. What I am sur-prised by is that the PM is

completely silent,” he said, adding that he had a one-on-one meeting with Hollande.

Referring to Modi having earlier described himself as a “chowkidar (watchman)”, Gandhi said he had given a “free gift” of Rs30,000 crore to his industrialist friend.

“We are absolutely con-vinced that PM of India is corrupt. The question is now clearly settled in the minds of the Indian people that the country’s watchman is a thief. This has gone in the minds of the people.” He said the Rafale aircraft was negotiated for Rs526 crore by the UPA government but purchased for Rs1,600 crore by the Modi government.

Prasad attacked Gandhi and saying “irresponsible, shameless and baseless” remarks were being made against the Prime Minister by a family which is out on bail in the National Herald case and “is the source of all cor-ruption in the country”.

“Rahul Gandhi’s statement is utterly irresponsible. He is playing into the hands of Pakistan and China by insisting on the disclosure of the price and other details which will help our enemies. I charge Rahul Gandhi is trying to help Pakistan,” he said.

Prasad said there was evi-dence to show that the choice of offset partner, a Reliance company, was made in 2012

itself during the UPA rule and a proper MoU existed between Dassault and Reliance industry as early as on February 13, 2013.

He said the choice of the private firm in place of HAL was entirely that of Dassault. “In fact the UPA had ditched the HAL,” he said.

“I don’t know the reasons and compulsions of the former French President to say what he had said,” Prasad said and made a reference to a question of con-flict of interest being raised against the former French Pres-ident whose partner’s film was co-produced by the private firm.

The Defence ministry also referred to the alleged conflict of interest and said the reported

statement by the former President perhaps needs to be seen in its “full context” The Defence Min-istry also said that the decision on offset partner was a commercial decision of the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), which was taken as early as 2012 when the UPA was in power.

Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala termed Prasad and Defence Ministry’s remarks as “totally false and utter rubbish.” “No such contract or MoU was ever signed between Dassault Aviation and Mukesh Ambani’s company. We challenge the Law Minister and Defence Minister to make any such record public. As there is no record, the lies will be exposed,” he said.

A Friday night statement by the French government said it is in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners who have been, are being or will be selected by French companies.

In its statement of Friday night, Dassault Aviation, manu-facturer of Rafale jets, said the offsets contract is delivered in compliance with the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 regulations.

“In this framework, and in accordance with the policy of ‘Make in India’, Dassault Aviation has decided to make a part-nership with India’s Reliance Group. This is Dassault Aviation’s choice,” it said

Police detain Indian Youth Congress activists during a protest against the Rafale fighter jets deal, in New Delhi, yesterday.

Congress heads for landslide victory in PunjabZila Parishad pollsIANS

CHANDIGARH: The ruling Congress in Punjab yesterday won the most seats in the Zila Parishad and Panchayat Samiti elections and headed for a landslide victory as counting was underway. The main opposition AAP in the state assembly faced a humil-iating defeat.

Out of 113 Zila Parishad seats — out of a total of 354 — for which results have been declared, the Congress won 106, the BJP-Akali combine six and independents won one. The Aam Adami Party had not won a single seat.

In Patiala, the home con-stituency of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, the Con-gress has won 43 Panchayat Samiti seats and the Shi-romani Akali Dal four.

The Akalis suffered a humiliating defeat in their home turf Muktsar as the Congress won 10 of the 13 Zila Parishad zones.

All six Zila Parishad seats in Ludhiana were won by the Congress.

The Congress won a majority in Gurdaspur by securing 154 of the total 213 Panchayat Samiti zones. In Zila Parishad, the Congress won 15 of the 25 seats and was leading in the remaining seats.

Out of the total 148 seats of the Panchayat Samiti in Bathinda, the Congress won 31, Akalis four and the AAP and independents three each. The counting for 107 seats is on.

Sporadic skirmishes, mainly between the Congress and the Akalis, were wit-nessed during the Zila Parishad and Panchayat Samiti polls on September 19.

The voting percentage was 58 per cent.

A total of 354 Zila Parishad and 2,900 Pan-chayat Samiti members will be elected. There are 22 Zila Parishads and 150 Panchayat Samitis in the state.

Every rupee now reaching desired end, claims ModiIANS

JANJGIR CHAMPA, CHHAT-TISGARH: Attacking the Congress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday said unlike earlier times, there is no corruption in his government and every rupee meant for development is reaching the desired end.

He said that after coming to power, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government ended the system of giving benefit of social

schemes selectively to those who voted for a particular party, or those close to some politicians.

Speaking at a rally here, Modi said more roads were con-structed in Chhattisgarh in the last four years than built since Independence.

“Wasn’t there money available before? (Road Transport and Highways) Department before? Engineers before? And people’s demand before? Yet it didn’t happen. Why? “That’s

because, as one of the Congress Prime Ministers said, only 15 paise out of every rupee spent on development reached the vil-lages,” the Prime Minister said.

Making a reference to Con-gress’ election symbol, he said: “Which was this hand which made rupee to value only 15 paise? Today, the development is hap-pening for one reason — the same rupee, which then accounted for 15 paise worth of work, is today leading to 100 paise worth of

work. That’s why the work is now visible,” Modi said.

He added that while poor always demanded that they should be given homes and many political parties promised it during polls, this never happened.

“There were big slogans about eliminating poverty. But did poor get homes? And even if they did, it were the peons of some big bureaucrat, or a servant of some politician,” he said.

The Prime Minister added

that his government changed the system and decided there will be no discrimination based on caste, religion or vote bank.

“We decided that schemes will be made for all and they should benefit everyone. We decided that by 2022 — which marks 75 years of Independence — no family in India would be left without a home and the poorest of poor will have a roof over their heads...not just those who are thought of as a vote bank,” he said.

Punjab Police personnel stand along a road under an umbrella as heavy rain falls in Amritsar, yesterday.

Wet policing

India, Australia try to rescue injured Navy commanderIANS

MUMBAI: India, Australia and other international agencies have launched a massive effort to rescue a seriously injured Indian Navy commander participating in the Golden Global Race (GGR) 2018, an official said here yesterday.

Commander Abhulash Tomy is sailing aboard an indigenously built sailing vessel, SV Thuraya, which overturned and dismasted during stormy weather.

The sailor said he has suf-fered severe back injury, immo-bilising him aboard the vessel on the 84th day in the GGR competition, around 5,020 kms from Kanyakumari in the Indian Ocean.

Late on Friday, Commander Tomy managed to relay a message on his SatPhone indi-cating his condition and seeking help, though he was safe.

The messages were picked up by Indian authorities and Australian Rescue Coordination Centre, Canberra, which is now coordinating a rescue mission jointly with several agencies including the Australian Defence Department and the Indian Navy, a defence spokes-person said here.

“Commander Tomy’s boat was dismasted in extremely rough weather and sea con-dition, with wind speed of 130kmph and 10-metre high waves. He was in the 3rd position out of 11 international

participants in the GGR com-petition having sailed over 10,500 nautical miles in 84 days since the race started on July 1,” said the spokesperson.

All out efforts are now underway to rescue the sailor with the involvement of a civilian business jet for a visual search of the stranded S V Thuraya, Aus-tralian military aircraft, besides civilian aircraft which have been requested to attempt communi-cation with Tomy.

A French fishing vessel, Osiris and a Royal Australian Naval ship, HMAS Ballarat, are preparing to set sail from Free-mantle Port, Western Australia, tomorrow. Tomy is approxi-mately 1,900 nautical miles from Perth on the country’s west coast.

From India, the Indian Navy’s stealth frigate INS Satpura, a Chetak helicopter and a tanker INS Jyoti Mission are engaged in the rescue mission.

In a latest update, the organisers, GGR said that “there is no indication at this stage if the mast and rigging have been cut away from the hull to prevent damage or are still laying beside the hull”.

Now in its Golden Jubilee year, the 30,000-miles long GGR, kicked off from Les Sables-d’Olonne, France, with all participants sailing solo around the world in around 260 days, to return to the starting point.

Sumitra bats for simultaneous pollsIANS

SHIMLA: Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan yesterday favoured Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s concept of simultaneous Lok Sabha and assembly elections in the country, saying time and again the election code of conduct hampers development.

Mahajan was speaking at the conference of Commonwealth

Parliamentary Association Region-IV here, attended by Vidhan Sabha Speakers, Deputy Speakers and legislators from Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir and Gujarat, and host Himachal Pradesh.

“We are just sharing our views to take our concerns forward. We are not here to take any decision,” she said.

“India had earlier followed the system of simultaneous elec-tions to the Lok Sabha and the

Vidhan Sabhas. We need to ponder over the issue. In the midst of elections one after another in the country, the election code of conduct normally hampers the development process and the schemes get stuck,” she said.

Mahajan said only after proper debate and taking into consideration all issues, including constitutional aspects, the country has to take a decision.

As the controversy

over former French

President Francois

Hollande’s remarks

that the Modi

government asked

them to chose

Reliance as offset

partner in the Rafale

deal snowballed, both

the Defence Ministry

and Law Minister

Ravi Shankar Prasad

maintained that the

Indian government

had no role in the

choice of the offset

partner.

13SUNDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 2018 ASIA

India’s decision to cancel meeting disappoints PakistanAFP

ISLAMABAD: India’s decision to cancel rare talks with Islamabad was disappointing, Imran Khan said yesterday, one day after New Delhi accused Pakistan’s prime minister of harbouring an “evil agenda”.

India pulled the plug on a meeting between its foreign minister and her Pakistani counterpart set for next week on the sidelines of a major UN conference, just one day after saying it would go ahead.

The foreign ministry in New Delhi blamed the about-face on recent actions that had revealed Pakistan’s “evil agenda” and the “true face” of Khan, who hit back on Twitter yesterday.

“Disappointed at the response by India to my call for resumption of the peace dia-logue,” he wrote.

“However, all my life I have come across small men occu-pying big offices who do not have the vision to see the larger picture.”

New Delhi said it cancelled the talks after the “latest brutal killings of our security per-sonnel by Pakistan-based

entities” and the recent release of a series of Pakistani postage

stamps “glorifying a terrorist and terrorism”. India did not

specify which killings it was referring to in its statement, but earlier this week, an Indian border guard in the disputed territory of Kashmir was killed and his body mutilated.

Three policemen were then found dead on Friday after being abducted in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Pakistan also recently issued postage stamps of Burhan Wani, a charismatic Kashmiri militant commander killed by Indian troops in July 2016, whose death sparked a wave of violent protests in the territory.

India has long accused Pakistan of arming rebel groups in Kashmir. In a statement from its foreign

office, Pakistan said on Friday it had “nothing to do with” the deaths, accusing India of spreading “motivated and malicious propaganda”.

The meeting in New York between Indian Foreign Min-ister Sushma Swaraj and Paki-stan’s Shah Mehmood Qureshi — on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly debate — was only confirmed on Thursday. It came after Khan wrote to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi calling for a resumption of talks between the nuclear-armed foes.

High-level talks between India and Pakistan are rare. Indian media described the meeting would have been the first in nearly three years.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan speaks to members of media in Islamabad, Pakistan.

“Disappointed at the

response by India to

my call for resumption

of the peace dialogue,”

Prime Minister Imran

Khan tweeted.

Eight Afghan children dead while playing with mortar shellAFP

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, AFGHAN-ISTAN: Eight children, including four siblings, were killed in Afghanistan when a mortar shell they were playing with exploded, relatives said yesterday, adding to the ever-growing civilian toll in the 17-year war.

Another six children were wounded in the blast on Friday, including two who had lost limbs

and were in a critical condition in a hospital in the northwestern province of Faryab.

All the children were aged between five and 12. “They found an unexploded mortar shell and brought it near our house,” Shukrullah, an uncle of four of the children killed, said. “They didn’t know what it was and were trying to open it when it suddenly exploded.” Mohammad Alam, who was a cousin of four

of the children, said he heard a “big explosion”. “I rushed to the site and saw the kids covered in blood,” Alam said.

“They had found an unex-ploded shell and were playing with it when it went off.” Offi-cials were quick to blame the explosion on the Taliban, which last week captured Koh-e-Sayad village where the children lived.

The militants had planted a mine near a security checkpoint,

Faryab police spokesman Abdul Karim Yoresh said.

“On Friday afternoon the children were passing the area when the mine hit them,” Yoresh said. Children are often killed or maimed by explosive devices left over from decades of conflict, carelessly discarded or deliber-ately planted.

Civilians, including children, have borne the brunt of the con-flict which began with the US-led

invasion in 2001 that toppled the Taliban regime. UN figures show 3,179 children were killed or wounded in 2017, accounting for almost one-third of the total civilian casualties for the year.

Improvised explosive devices, such as remotely deto-nated or pressure-plate bombs, killed or wounded 545 of them. Unexploded ordnance claimed the lives of 142 children and wounded 376 in the same period.

INTERNEWS

ISLAMABAD: The PML-N has been afforded a rare opportunity to give the ruling PTI a tough time inside and outside the parliament after the Islamabad High Court (IHC) suspended the accountability court’s verdict in the Avenfield reference.

On Wednesday, the IHC moved to suspend the account-ability court’s judgment, setting Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law Capt (retd) Safdar free on bail.

The respite might be short-lived for the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) as the case remained pending in court, but political analysts viewed the

suspension of the Sharifs’ jail term a rare boon ahead of by-elections.

Background discussions with senior PML-N leaders suggested that the PML-N hoped to eke out maximum political benefit after the release of the former PM from Adiala Jail.

By-polls are scheduled to be held on 11 National Assembly, 13 Punjab Assembly, nine Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly and two seats each of Sindh and Balo-chistan Assembly.

PML-N, it is learnt, is eyeing to secure most seats in Punjab, considered to be its stronghold.

The party is also eyeing to capitalize on the death of Nawaz’s wife, Kulsoom Nawaz.

Kulsoom breathed her last on September 11 in London after her year-long battle with cancer.

She was brought to Lahore and buried at Jati Umra. The PML-N announced a three-day mourning period and described the deceased as the “mother of democracy”.

Interestingly, after Nawaz’s government was toppled by former military ruler General (retired) Pervez Musharraf on October 12, 1999, Kulsoom played a pivotal role in keeping the party unified in face of sub-stantial challenges.

Kulsoom Nawaz, who is still a popular political icon among PML-N supporters, the N-League hopes that the party would be

able to attract sympathy vote in the by-polls.

The PTI-led coalition gov-ernment took some unpopular decisions in the mini-budget announced on Tuesday, increasing the incidence of taxes on the salaried class besides hiking electricity and gas tariffs.

PML-N leaders insisted that this would allow them to out-perform the PTI in the by-elec-tions. “This is a much-needed respite,” commented a PML-N senator, requesting anonymity, on the release of the Sharifs.

“The party was in disarray. Workers and leaders alike were disheartened. Our party’s (political) future was uncertain. In his (Nawaz’s) absence, the

party appeared to be without hope.

Shehbaz Sharif’s leadership was rife with internal rifts, resentment and all that. Nawaz’s release would help settle things (within the party).”

Veteran PML-N leader Rana Sanaullah said that Nawaz, Maryam and Safdar should have been released a long time ago.

“Since day one, our stance has been categorically clear: Mian sahib, his daughter and son-in-law were victims of a flawed accountability process akin to a witch-hunt. It is heart-ening to see that justice has finally been served. IHC has done the right thing. We hope justice will prevail in future too.”

Pakistani Muslims offering noon prayers in Karachi recently.

Mass prayers

Sharifs’ release from jail: A good omen for PML-N

INTERNEWS

PESHAWAR: The Swat district in northwest of Pakistan never had so much representation in the government as it is having during the rule of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

This has raised expectations of the people that Swat would receive special attention from both the federal and provincial governments.

For the first time ever, Swat got a chief minister when Mahmood Khan was unex-pectedly chosen by the PTI chairman Imran Khan for the coveted job. In fact, he is the first chief minister from Malakand division, which has seven districts including Swat.

In the provincial cabinet, Swat got two berths when Dr Amjad Ali was made minister for mineral development and Mohibullah Khan was appointed minister for agri-culture. Both had been advisors to Chief Minister Pervez Khattak during PTI’s first term in office from 2013-2018. Mahmood Khan was a minister in the Pervez Khattak-led government.

Amjad Ali, who is a phy-sician, had won two provincial assembly seats in the July 25 general election in Swat while Mohibullah had retained his seat, PK-8. Both Mahmood

Khan and Mohibullah Khan belong to the Matta tehsil in Swat. A tehsil getting two cabinet positions, including that of chief minister, appears to be unprecedented.

Swat also got represen-tation in the federal cabinet when Murad Saeed, the young PTI firebrand and an animated participant in TV talks shows, was made minister of state for c o m m u n i c a t i o n . H i s appointment was expected as he is considered close to Prime Minister Imran Khan. While the people of Swat are generally happy that their district had got record representation in the present government, they would like to wait and see as to how much their valley would benefit from this rather over-representation.

Hit by armed conflict, earthquake and floods during the last 13 years, they argue that Swat didn’t get the attention it deserved. Swat gave 100 per cent victory to the PTI in the recent election as the party won all three National Assembly and the eight provincial assembly seats. Many Swatis argued that their district deserved bigger representation in the federal and provincial governments after having voted overwhelm-ingly for the PTI to enable all its candidates to win election from Swat.

INTERNEWS

PESHAWAR: After facing defeat in the July 25 general election in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the demoralised Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has opted to stay away from the assembly by-elections scheduled to be held on October 14.

The Election Commission of Pakistan has announced by-elections. A total of 158 candi-dates, including three women, are in the run.

The PPP had fielded candi-dates on almost all national and provincial assembly constitu-encies f rom Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the general

election. It could win only four provincial assembly constitu-encies. The declining interest of the PPP’s central and provincial leadership is visible due to the fact that no party meeting was held after the party’s defeat in the general election or before the by-election to discuss the situation.

INTERNEWS

LAHORE: Special teams have been formed by the Punjab School Education Department (SED) to monitor security arrangements, enrolment targets and plantation drives at public and private schools.

The department issued a notification which gave orders to the chief executive officers of district education authorities of all 36 districts across the province.

Designated teams will make surprise visits to public and private schools. Officers will visit category A+ and cat-egory A schools and will review security arrange-ments. During the inspection, the schools’ enrolment targets will also be scrutinised as well as the progress on plantation drives.

INTERNEWS

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan will chair the first meeting of the Council of Common Interests (CCI), with water, energy issues figuring high on the agenda along with discussion on launching a national cleanliness drive in the country.

The 39th meeting of the CCI has been scheduled to be held tomorrow in the PM office, adding six new and five old agenda items on the table to be presented by different ministries.

The six new agenda items include: discussion on the import of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and an amendment to the Petroleum (Exploration and Production) Policy 2012 to be presented by the Min-istry of Energy, Petroleum Division.

The policy is an attempt to announce an incentive package for oil and gas explo-ration companies interested in working in the frontier region. The Petroleum Policy provides an incentive package for onshore areas on the basis of risk and investment requirements.

The Ministry of Energy would take the provinces on board and seek approval for creating one more zone for the onshore exploration of oil to oil and gas exploration companies in the frontier region along with other amendments in the Petroleum Policy 2012.

The second important agenda is harmonisation of standards and enforcement between the Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority and pro-vincial food authorities.

Special teams formed to monitor schools across Punjab

Khan to chair CCImeeting, energyissues top agenda

Swat gets unprecedented representation in PTI govt

PPP stays away from KP province by-elections

The April presidential

election will be a

re-run of the 2014

vote, with Jokowi

pitted against

Prabowo. The

President surprised

observers last month

when he announced

Ma’ruf Amin, a Muslim

cleric and the leader

of the world’s biggest

Islamic organization,

as his running mate.

14 SUNDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 2018ASIA

Indonesia gears up for long

presidential poll campaignBLOOMBERG

JAKARTA: Indonesia’s upcoming election will be fought on the economy and jobs with the coun-try’s ailing currency set to be a key issue, vice-president candidate Sandiaga Uno said since joining the race.

As Indonesia gears up for a long presidential campaign that begins today, the main oppo-sition has outlined a platform that includes a shake-up of labour laws and measures aimed at boosting domestic and foreign investment.

Uno, the running mate to former general Prabowo Subianto, said the government of President Joko Widodo had been too slow to respond to pres-sures on the rupiah. The currency has tumbled almost 9 percent against the dollar this year.

The 49-year-old Uno, who made his fortune with an investment holding company he co-founded in the wake of the 1997-98 crisis, said the gov-ernment had been too slow with reforms. Uno was named as the opposition’s vice-president can-didate last month.

Widodo, known as Jokowi, has stepped up action in recent months in response to the

deepening rout in the currency. As an incumbent running against a candidate who has never held public office, Jokowi is naturally vulnerable to attacks on his per-formance as President, said Marcus Mietzner, an associate professor at the Australian National University.

“Whether or not these attacks will resonate or not does not really depend on Jokowi or Prabowo; rather, that depends on developments in the global economy in the next six months,” Mietzner said.

Uno said a government led by Subianto, known as Prabowo,

would provide incentives including tax breaks that encourage businesses to invest and which would help cut into the current-account shortfall. He said there’s a need for “very deep structural reform”. “They have not done enough and I think they’ve even made it worse by focusing on an infrastructure drive that centers around the dominance of state-owned enterprises,” he said of the Widodo administration.

“We would be focused on infrastructure that creates jobs.” A Prabowo government would address Indonesia’s skills gap with vocational training. They would also look to overhaul the country’s labour laws in a bid to remove impediments for busi-nesses, including foreign com-panies wanting to establish in Indonesia.

The April presidential election will be a re-run of the 2014 vote, with Jokowi pitted against Prabowo. The President surprised observers last month when he announced Ma’ruf Amin, a Muslim cleric and the leader of the world’s biggest Islamic organization, as his running mate.

Jokowi’s first term has been driven by his nation-building

Joko Widodo (second right) and Ma’ruf Amin (right) show the serial number 01 during the draw and the determination of the 2019 Presidential Election serial number in Jakarta, Indonesia. The candidate pair of President and Vice-President gets the serial number 01, and Prabowo Subianto-Sandiaga Uno gets the serial number 02.

agenda, including more than $300bn worth of infrastructure projects aimed at better con-necting the vast Indonesian archipelago. In an annual budget address to parliament last month, the President said he was turning his attention to creating more jobs and called for a deepening of reforms for the nation to escape the “middle-income trap”. The first survey released after the candidates registered

with election authorities showed Jokowi and Amin with 52 percent support over Prabowo and Uno with about 30 percent. More than 18 percent of those surveyed were undecided.

Prabowo has demonstrated that he’s an aggressive cam-paigner and was able to make up ground on Jokowi in the final weeks of the 2014 race. A former special-forces commander during the authoritarian leader

Suharto’s 32-year reign — he was also previously married to one of Suharto’s daughters — Prabowo forged a reputation as a no-nonsense leader. He has also been trying cultivate an image of being in touch on issues such as jobs and the cost of living.

Uno, who resigned as deputy governor of Jakarta to team with Prabowo, said the key issues in the presidential election would be jobs, prices and corruption.

Naval drillIndonesian patrol boat Kurau sails with Japanese destroyers Inazuma and Suzutsuki during their joint naval drill in the Indian Ocean, in Indonesia, yesterday.

Police raid Maldives opposition headquarters ahead of voteAFP

COLOMBO: Maldivian police raided the opposition campaign headquarters yesterday, the opposition said, on the eve of today’s presidential election that international monitors fear will be rigged.

Police stormed the Mal-divian Democratic Party (MDP) office in Male during the afternoon without a warrant and carried out a search, the party said in a statement.

For their part, police said in a brief statement that they acted to prevent “illegal activities”. An MDP official outside the building said party workers were pre-vented from going in to the cam-paign headquarters, but no arrests had been made.

Campaigning came to an end at 6pm (1300 GMT) and any canvassing after the deadline is a criminal offence.

The police action followed a street rally by MDP supporters carrying yellow flags of the party. President Abdulla Yameen’s supporters also took to the streets in another part of the small capital city.

Earlier in the day, the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) said the political envi-ronment in the tourist paradise was heavily tipped in favour of Yameen and they did not expect

a fair contest.“The ANFREL denounces

recent developments... which ensure that the upcoming pres-idential election of September 23 cannot be considered free and fair,” the group said.

It said it was recognised by the Maldivian Elections Com-mission and given accreditation to monitor the voting, but that its staff were denied visas to enter the country. A number of international journalists have also been denied permission to cover the polls.

“It appears that Maldivian authorities are granting visas only to observers and monitors they perceive as friendly, while using ANFREL’s name and that of other applicants in an attempt to gain international legitimacy,” the organisation said.

The statement came a day after exiled former leader Mohamed Nasheed urged the international community not to accept the outcome of what he said would be a flawed ballot.

Nasheed, the country’s first democratically-elected leader, told reporters in neighbouring Sri Lanka that Yameen would “lose the election” but would “hold onto power” after rigging the electoral process.

ANFREL also asked foreign governments to be vigilant about the election and predicted

“sombre events” for the 340,000 Maldivians in a country otherwise known as a paradise for well-heeled tourists.

Nasheed was forced to withdraw from the contest after the Maldives election com-mission disqualified him because of a 2015 terrorism conviction.

The United Nations has said Nasheed’s conviction and 13 year jail term were politically moti-vated and asked Yameen’s gov-ernment to overturn the decision and pay him reparations.

Nasheed has lived abroad since travelling out of the country on prison leave. His MDP is the only challenger in Sunday’s vote after securing the support of all other opposition parties.

A relatively unknown poli-tician, 54-year-old Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, is backed by Nasheed to try and beat Yameen, who came to power following a controversial run off against Nasheed in the 2013 election.

The second round of voting then was delayed, giving Yameen more time to pull together a coalition.

The United States and European Union have expressed deep concern over Yameen’s actions, and rights activists have called for sanctions on the pres-ident and his aides.

Supporters of the Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen ride on their bikes during the final campaign rally ahead of the presidential election in Male, Maldives, yesterday.

Australian filmmaker to be deported from CambodiaAFP

PHNOM PENH: An Australian filmmaker who received a royal pardon from Cambodia will be deported soon, immigration officials said, a day after he was released from a six-year sentence in a case Human Rights Watch has called “a ludi-crous charade”.

James Ricketson, 69, was given jail time three weeks ago for “espionage and collecting harmful information that could affect national defence” by a Phnom Penh court. He was then issued a royal pardon on Friday, after strongman premier Hun Sen requested it from the Cam-bodian king.

Keo Vanthan, spokesman for the immigration department, said: “We are looking for a flight for him.” Ricketson’s lawyer Kong Sam Onn confirmed this, adding that the Australian’s visa to stay in Cambodia had expired.

The embattled filmmaker had been in prison since last June, after footage emerged of him using a drone to film a rally of the now-defunct opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP).

His six-day trial — which

rights groups have slammed as a farce — showed him to be defiant and combative, and fea-tured a surprise appearance by Hollywood director Peter Weir who served as a character witness for his friend.

The prosecution accused Ricketson of working as a film-maker in Cambodia as a front for spying activities, but the verdict failed to name which country he was allegedly spying for. His truncated prison term came after a series of activists and opposition lawmakers were freed in the weeks fol-lowing July’s national election, which critics have said was neither free nor fair.

The CNRP, which had served as the sole legitimate opposition force to Hun Sen’s ruling Cam-bodian People’s Party, was dis-solved in the lead-up to the con-troversial poll, clearing the path for the CPP to take all 125 par-liament seats.

This effectively rendered Cambodia a one-party state, which the international com-munity has decried as a death knell to democracy. After the poll Hun Sen — who has been in power for more than three decades — returned to a pattern of easing up on dissent.

Singapore Airlines bans lion bones in cargoAFP

SINGAPORE: Singapore Airlines said that it has stopped accepting lion bones for cargo after the carrier was singled out in a report for transporting the animal parts from South Africa.

Campaigners have long called for a ban on the con-troversial trade in big cat bones, which are sought after for medicine and jewellery in Southeast Asia.

Singapore Airlines was the sole carrier importing lion bones from South Africa to Southeast Asia last year, according to a report released in July by the non-profit EMS Foundation and animal rights group Ban Animal Trading.

At least 800 lion skeletons had been exported with the blessing of the South African government in 2017, the report said, making it the world’s largest exporter of lion bones.

The airline said on Friday that it had stopped accepting lion bones as cargo, but did not say when the policy had come into effect.

China has rejected

the findings of the

UN Committee on the

Elimination of Racial

Discrimination and

said the report was

“based on so-called

information that is yet

to be verified and has

no factual basis”.

15SUNDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 2018 ASIA

Walking a tightropeA performer walks a tightrope during a display of traditional Korean games in Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul yesterday. South Korea is marking the annual three-day ‘Chuseok’ mid-autumn harvest festival.

US criticises treatment of Uighurs in new China rowAFP

WASHINGTON: The United States late on Friday denounced China’s treatment of its Uighur Muslims in unusually strong terms, adding to a growing list of disputes in increasingly turbulent relations between the two powers.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo voiced alarm after a United Nations report described the mass internment of Uighurs under the pretext of preventing extremism in the western Xin-jiang region where the minority group is concentrated.

“Hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of Uighurs are held against their will in so-called re-education camps where they’re forced to endure severe political indoctrination and other awful abuses,” Pompeo said in a speech on the state of religious freedom around the world. “Their reli-gious beliefs are decimated,” Pompeo said.

In a letter to Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, both Republican and Democratic members of Con-gress late last month called for sanctions on Chinese officials implicated in the internment of Uighurs. Pompeo did not say whether the United States would take punitive measures.

The Trump administration itself has faced criticism at home and abroad for its stance on Muslims, with the president as a candidate calling for a com-plete ban on Muslims entering the United States and, soon after taking office, barring entry to citizens of several Muslim-majority countries.

Pompeo also expressed concern about the fate of Chris-tians in China, who he said had been targeted in a government crackdown. The government, he

said, has been “closing churches and ordering followers to sign papers renouncing their faith”.

In an interview earlier in the week, Pompeo had described China as a greater threat to the United States than Russia, saying that Beijing was a “non-trans-parent government”. “It treats our intellectual property hor-ribly, it treats its religious minor-ities horribly,” he told Fox News.

China has rejected the findings of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said last month that the report was “based on so-called infor-mation that is yet to be verified and has no factual basis”. Hua added that China was doing what was needed to combat extremism and terrorism on its western frontier.

Uighurs have long com-plained of systematic discrimi-nation in the region, which activists call East Turkestan, with tensions especially rife in areas that have seen large-scale migration from China’s dom-inant Han ethnicity.

The Uyghur Human Rights Project, an advocacy group that uses an alternative spelling for the minority group’s name, has estimated that an entire 10 percent of the population has been detained as part of an

indoctrination campaign.In Beijing, meanwhile, China

summoned the US ambassador yesterday to lodge an official protest over sanctions imposed by the United States against a Chinese military organisation for buying Russian fighter jets and missiles, state media said. The announcement came a day after China called on the United States to withdraw the sanctions or “bear the consequences”.

The spat adds to tensions between the two global powers over trade, China’s treatment of religious groups and the Asian country’s claims to disputed islands in the South China Sea.

Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang summoned Ambassador Terry Branstad and “lodged solemn represen-tations over US sanctions against (the) Chinese military,” the People’s Daily said in a brief report online.

On Thursday, Washington placed financial sanctions on the Equipment Development Department of the Chinese Defence Ministry, and its top administrator, for its recent pur-chase of Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and S-400 surface-to-air missile systems.

Officials said it was the first time a third country has been punished under the CAATSA sanctions legislation for dealing with Russia, and signalled the Trump administration’s will-ingness to risk relations with other countries in its campaign against Moscow.

Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said the US move was a “a flagrant breach of basic rules of international relations” and “a stark show of hegem-onism” that severely damages relations between the two countries and their militaries, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Hong Kong opens high-speed rail link with mainland ChinaAP

HONG KONG: Hong Kong yesterday opened a new high-speed rail link to inland China that will vastly decrease travel times but also raises concerns about Beijing’s creeping influence over the semi-auton-omous Chinese region.

Costing upward of $10bn and taking more than eight years to build, the system aims to transport more than 80,000 passengers daily between the Asian financial center of 7 million people and the neigh-boring manufacturing hub of Guangdong province.

The train travels the 26km through Hong Kong to Shenzhen across the border in China in just 14 minutes, down from about 1

hour currently. The through-train to Guangdong’s capital Guangzhou will take just over half an hour, about 90 minutes faster than current service.

Once across the border, pas-sengers can link up with Chinese sprawling nationwide high-speed rail network serving more than 44 destinations, including Shanghai, Beijing and the western city of Xi’an.

Passengers will clear Chinese immigration at the line’s newly built West Kowloon terminus, the source of major legal controversy when it was revealed that mainland Chinese law would apply within roughly one-quarter of the station’s area.

Some opposition lawmakers argued the move would be a

violation of the Basic Law, Hong Kong’s mini-constitution under which it retained its own legal system and civil liberties after reverting from British to Chinese rule in 1997.

That guarantees Hong Kong the right to maintain rights such as freedom of speech and assembly — which are routinely violated on the mainland — until 2047. Legal matters related to defence, foreign affairs and national security fall under Beijing purview.

However, Beijing’s tight control over the city’s politics and a continuing crackdown on politicians calling for greater economy and democratic reforms have spurred worries about an erosion of Hong Kong’s remaining autonomy.

Coastal clean-up driveVolunteers participate in collecting garbage from Manila bay during the 33rd International Coastal Clean-up in Manila yesterday. Around 8,000 volunteers participated during the clean-up a week after Typhoon Mangkhut ravaged the country causing garbage to pile up caused by strong waves.

Australian teen who hacked Apple to face sentencing this weekBLOOMBERG

SYDNEY: An Australian teenager who pleaded guilty to hacking Apple Inc systems carried out the attacks over the course of almost two years and showed “a high degree of skill and persistence,” a court heard.

Investigators in the case recovered about 1 Terabyte of sensitive information copied from the tech giant’s systems during attacks over about 22 months between 2015 and 2017 by the defendant and another person, a prosecutor told a Chil-dren’s Court.

The now adult defendant,

who was 16 at the time the hacking began and cannot be named under Australian law that protects the identity of juvenile offenders, faces two charges in relation to the hacking and will be sentenced on September 27.

One of the charges carries a maximum sentence of two years custody, while the other carries a maximum sentence of 12 months. Together with a boy who was two years younger, the teenager “modified and copied a large volume of data that was sensitive both from a privacy and commercial point of view,” the prosecutor told the court.

The offenses involved “a high

degree of skill and persistence,” according to the prosecutor. Identities of other parties in the case and the precise location of the court cannot be disclosed under laws intended to protect the defendant’s identity.

Apple said that customers’ personal data was not compro-mised as a result of the offenses. “In this case, our teams dis-covered the unauthorized access, contained it, and reported the incident to law enforcement,” the company said in an emailed statement.

The company contacted the FBI who passed on the allega-tions to the Australian Federal

Police, The Age newspaper reported last month, citing an earlier hearing. A search of the defendant’s family home uncovered files and instructions saved in a folder titled “hacky hack hack,” according to the newspaper’s report.

The defendant’s access to Apple’s systems was blocked on at least one occasion after late 2016 and he was later able to regain entry, the prosecutor said in the court hearing.

In an exchange on the WhatsApp messaging service in April 2017, the defendant and a second person speculated whether Apple’s aversion to

negative publicity would prevent the company from taking any action after the firm discovered their use of a virtual private network to gain access to systems, the prosecutor said.

While the hacking had begun out of curiosity and an interest in Apple, the defendant “did not remain commercially disinter-ested,” according to the prose-cutor. No evidence has been put before the court that the teenager had any commercial gain from the attacks.

The defendant, now a college student, had made efforts to redeem himself, his lawyer told the hearing.

Japan space robots start asteroid surveyAFP

TOKYO: A pair of robot rovers have landed on an asteroid and begun a survey, Japan’s space agency said yesterday, as it conducts a mission aiming to shed light on the origins of the solar system.

The rover mission marks the world’s first moving, robotic observation of an asteroid surface, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The round, tin-shaped robots successfully reached the Ryugu asteroid a day after they were released from the Hay-abusa2 probe, the agency said.

“Each of the rovers is oper-ating normally and has started surveying Ryugu’s surface,” JAXA said. Taking advantage of the asteroid’s low gravity, the rovers

will jump around on the surface — soaring as high as 49 feet and staying in the air for as long as 15 minutes — to survey the aster-oid’s physical features.

“I am so proud that we have established a new method of space exploration for small celestial bodies,” said JAXA project manager Yuichi Tsuda. The agency tried but failed in 2005 to land a rover on another asteroid in a similar mission.

Hayabusa2 will next month deploy an “impactor” that will explode above the asteroid, shooting a 2kg copper object to blast a small crater into the surface. Hayabusa2, about the size of a large fridge and equipped with solar panels, is the successor to JAXA’s first asteroid explorer, Hayabusa — Japanese for falcon.

Vatican, China sign landmark accordREUTERS

BEIJING: The Vatican yesterday signed a landmark agreement giving it a long-desired say in the appointment of bishops in China, though critics labelled the deal a sellout to the Communist government.

The provisional agreement was signed in Beijing by deputy foreign ministers from both sides. The Vatican said the accord, a breakthrough after years of negotiations, was “not political but pastoral”.

However, diplomats have said the accord was a possible precursor to a resumption in diplomatic relations with Beijing after 70 years. Beijing does not allow countries to have diplomatic relations with both China and Taiwan.

Vatican sources have said the deal will not be published and can be reviewed and fine-tuned in the future. The Vatican said that as part of the deal, Pope Francis had recognised the legitimacy of the seven remaining state-appointed Chinese bishops who had been named without papal approval and had re-admitted them into the Church.

Vatican sources have said that a few bishops appointed by Rome will cede their places to bishops who had been appointed by Beijing.

In future, new bishops first will be proposed by members of local Catholic communities together with Chinese author-ities. The names of candidates will be sent to the Vatican and the Pope will make a final decision, the sources said.

16 SUNDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 2018EUROPE

UK urges EU to engage with Brexit proposalsREUTERS

LONDON: Britain said yesterday it would not capitulate in Brexit talks and again urged its EU partners to engage with its proposals, as ministers in Paris and Berlin suggested the next move in the negotiations should come from London.

British Prime Minister Theresa May on Friday demanded new proposals and respect from European Union leaders, saying after a summit in Austria that talks had hit an impasse — a position her foreign minister reinforced yesterday, even if that meant leaving the bloc next March without a deal.

“If the EU’s view is that just by saying no to every proposal made by the United Kingdom, we will eventually capitulate and end up either with a Norway option or indeed staying in the EU... then they’ve profoundly misjudged the British people,” British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt (pictured) said.

“We may be polite, but we have a bottom line. And so they need to engage with us now in

seriousness.”May’s defiant statement was

welcomed yesterday by many in the British press that had seen the Salzburg summit as a failure for her. The Daily Express said it was “May’s finest hour”.

But initial reactions from across the English Channel sug-gested France and Germany were digging in too.

EU leaders and May have said they want to get a deal agreed in October, to be finalised in November.

In Paris, Minister for European Affairs Nathalie

Loiseau said that, while France still believed a good Brexit deal was possible, it must also prepare for a ‘no deal’ outcome.

Britain’s vote to leave “cannot lead to the EU going bust,” she said on France Info radio. “...That’s the message we have tried to send for several months now to our British coun-terparts, who may have thought we were going to say ‘yes’ to whatever deal they came up with.”

In Berlin, German Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Roth said the other 27 EU states were striving to achieve reasonable solutions.

“The blame game against the EU is therefore more than unfair. We can’t solve the problems that are arising on the island (Britain) due to Brexit,” he said on Twitter.

After May’s Friday statement, European Council President Donald Tusk said that the results of the EU’s analysis

of that plan had been known to Britain for many weeks. But Hunt said that there was a dif-ference between rhetoric and substance.

“On the substance of the Chequers proposals, we have not had a detailed response,” he said, adding that EU proposals for the

Irish border would mean that it was impossible “to leave the EU intact as one country”.

Hunt also said Britain’s economy would be able to withstand a no-deal Brexit, saying it was “absolutely right” that many Britons were now content to leave the EU without a deal.

Around 52 percent of Britons voted to leave the EU in a refer-endum in 2016 and 48 percent to stay.

“Even in a situation where we aren’t able to come to an agreement, we would be trading on World Trade Organisation terms. It would be bumpy, it would be difficult, but we would find a way to survive and prosper as a country,” Hunt said.

“We’ve had far bigger chal-lenges in our history. But it’s not our desired outcome.”

In Berlin, magazine Der Spiegel said Germany’s gov-ernment expected the impact of a no-deal Brexit on its labour market to be “relatively small”. It cited a government response to a request for information from the far-left Linke party.

Report: Ministers to quit if PM does not change courseREUTERS

LONDON: Some of British Prime Minister Theresa May’s ministers will demand a “Plan B” on her Brexit proposal next week and could quit if she does not change course, the Telegraph news-paper reported, citing unnamed sources.

Ministers will demand an alternative plan to her “Chequers” proposal at a Cabinet meeting on Monday, the Telegraph said.

The Telegraph said there was “speculation” that work and pensions minister Esther McVey might walk out of tomorrow’s meeting if no new proposal was presented, while international development minister Penny Mordaunt was also tipped as a pos-sible resignation candidate, though the newspaper said friends denied she would resign.

The Telegraph said Sajid Javid, the interior minister, favoured a deal that would make it easier for Britain to sign trade deals, but was unlikely to quit.

Russians rally again over pension reformAP

MOSCOW: For yet another weekend, thousands rallied across Russia yesterday to protest the government’s plan to raise the eligibility age for retirement pensions by five years.

Several thousand people attended a Moscow rally organised by the Communist Party and other leftist groups, which was authorised by city officials.

Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov called for rolling back the proposed changes, arguing that the gov-ernment should redistribute resources to avoid raising the pension age.

“They keep reaching into your pockets,” he told protesters, who waved red flags.

The government’s plan to lift the retirement age to 65 for men and 60 for women has irked a wide range of Russians from all political factions.

Older Russians fear they won’t live long enough to collect significant benefits while younger generations are worried

that keeping people in the work-force longer will limit their own employment opportunities. The proposal has also dented Pres-ident Vladimir Putin’s popularity.

Dmitry Orlov, who came to Moscow from his home city of Kostroma to join the rally, denounced the Russian govern-ment’s move as a “robbery.”

“It can’t be that our country doesn’t have money for its people, the people who spend their whole lives working and paying deductions for their pen-sions,” he said.

Similar protests were also held yesterday in many cities across Russia’s 11 time zones, most of them sanctioned by authorities.

Several hundred demon-strators rallied against the pension age hike in Sevastopol in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

“This is a very serious issue for me, because it touches upon my life, my children, my parents who haven’t retired yet,” said Olga Konitskaya, 30, a protester in Sevastopol.

The demonstrations went on peacefully, unlike a wave of unauthorised pension protests earlier this month organised by opposition leader Alexei Navalny that led to the detention of over 1,000 people across Russia.

Navalny, the anti-corruption activist who is Putin’s most visible foe, had called for

protests against the pension age hike before he was sentenced to 30 days in jail for organising a January protest over a different issue. He is set to be released from custody tomorrow.

Putin has responded to the protests by offering some con-cessions, but argued that the age hike is necessary because rising

life expectancies in Russia could exhaust the nation’s pension resources if the eligibility age remains the same.

The Kremlin-controlled lower house, the State Duma has given only a preliminary approval to the pension changes bill and is yet to hold a decisive second reading.

Supporters of left-wing political parties and movements holding a banner that reads, “Against pension genocide” during a rally against the pension reform, in Moscow, yesterday.

Al Jazeera Balkans Documentary Film Festival kicks offANATOLIA

SARAJEVO: The Al Jazeera Balkans Documentary Film Festival opened in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo.

Many participants from the Balkans and Europe took part in the opening ceremony of the international festival, which is being held for the first time.

The Danish documentary ‘Lost Warrior’ directed by Soren Steen Jespersen and Nasib Farrah was screened at the opening of the festival.

Speaking before the opening ceremony, Tarik Dodic, managing director of Al Jazeera Balkans, said he hopes the festival will be the start of a long-lasting tradition.

Dodic said important films of “brilliant” directors will be shown during the festival.

A total of 15 documen-taries will compete and three awards will be presented.

The festival aims to support documentaries and writers focusing on universal humanitarian values and social issues.

It will run until September 25 in Sarajevo’s “Cinema City”.

Britain’s Foreign

Secretary Jeremy Hunt

said that, If EU’s plan

is to say no to every

UK proposal to force

Britain to capitulate,

they have profoundly

misjudged British

people.

Lumina Festival in CascaisAn installation is displayed during the Lumina Light Festival in Cascais, Portugal. Light shows and art installations brightened the streets of Portugal’s Cascais resort town on Friday for the seventh edition of the “Lumina” festival, a dazzling crowd puller showcasing the work of national and international artists. The event aims to “celebrate colours and forms in all their nuances, senses and aspects”, according to the organisers. It also hopes to highlight the historical heritage of Cascais.

Model gets jail term over rival’ s deathAP

LONDON: A British fashion model has been sentenced to at least 25 years in prison for murdering a more successful rival during a fight over a love interest.

At London’s Old Bailey courthouse on Friday, Judge Wendy Joseph sentenced George Koh, 24, after he was convicted of stabbing Harry Uzoka through the heart outside Uzoka’s home.

Joseph said the murder was especially tragic because Uzoka was “so young, able and generous.”

The victim was repre-sented by London’s Premier Model Management and had modeled for GQ and Zara.

Prosecutors said two men feuded after Koh claimed to have connection with Uzoka’s girlfriend. In January, Koh sent Uzoka a message chal-lenging him to a fight. Uzoka was stabbed during the con-frontation that followed.

Second Swiss region to vote on ‘burqa ban’AFP

GENEVA: A second Swiss canton will vote today on whether to introduce a regional “burqa ban”, a law that would prohibit all face-covering garments in public spaces.

The ballot in northeastern St Gallen is to be held as voters across the country also determine whether a mora-torium on genetically modified crops should become a full-out ban.

St Gallen is expected to follow the example of southern canton of Ticino, where a law was introduced two years ago which appeared to be aimed at burqas and other veils.

A text stipulating that “any person who renders themselves unrecognisable by covering their face in a public space, and thus endangers public security or social and religious peace will be fined” was adopted by lawmakers in St Gallen late last year.

That law passed the regional parliament with support from

the populist right and centre parties — but the issue is being put to the people after the Green Party and Young Socialists demanded a referendum.

The text, first drafted fol-lowing uproar in the canton over a girl who wore a full-face veil to school, is problematic, according to Fredy Fassler, a socialist in charge of security and justice in St Gallen.

It does not define when a woman wearing a burqa con-stitutes a danger, and critics “worry the sanctions will be unpredictable and arbitrary”, he said.

Switzerland’s government last year opposed an initiative aimed at creating a nationwide burqa ban, saying it should be up to the regions to determine if such measures are appropriate.

All Swiss voters will even-tually cast ballots on the issue after the populist right-wing Swiss People’s Party gathered the 100,000 signatures needed to put any subject to a refer-endum as part of Switzerland’s direct democratic system.

17SUNDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 2018 EUROPE

Former Austrian minister tapped to lead oppnAP

BERLIN: Austria’s main opposition party is set to make a former health minister its new leader after ex-Chancellor Christian Kern announced his departure.

The Austria Press Agency reported that Kern said the party’s top leadership unan-imously endorsed Pamela Rendi-Wagner, a 47-year-old doctor. She will be the first woman to lead the center-left Social Democrats.

A party meeting on Tuesday will formally nom-inate her as chairwoman.

Rendi-Wagner is a rel-ative newcomer, having joined the party only 1 ½ years ago.

Kern announced last week he was stepping down to become the party’s top can-didate in next year’s European Parliament election.

Greenpeace protests oil project in FranceAFP

PARIS: Fountains were tinted black in several French towns yesterday during protests against plans by oil giant Total to drill near a coral reef at the mouth of the Amazon.

The protesters insist the plan threatens a “unique” natural habitat.

“The Amazon reef is not an oil well” and “Defend the Amazon reef,” read banners held aloft by supporters of Green-peace and environmental group ANV-Cop21 as they converged on some 30 towns including Paris, Rennes in the west, Bor-deaux in the south, and Nancy in the east.

At the stylish early nine-teenth century Lions de Nubie fountain in Paris’ La Villette dis-trict, some protesters daubed themselves with molasses, waded into the water and smeared the sticky black goo on the structure.

“Total insists on going after oil when there are ecosystems and jewels of (ecological) diversity to preserve. It’s no longer the age of oil but of tran-sition” to cleaner forms of energy, Greenpeace campaigner Edina Ifticene said.

The protests came as Total was preparing to unveil the findings of a new study into the planned project’s impact to Bra-zilian authorities.

Greenpeace has documented the existence of coral in the target area.

In late May, Brazil’s environ-mental agency Ibama urged Total to look deeper into the con-sequences of drilling, judging its initial study “insufficient.”

“We have four months to respond. We are being asked to undertake extra studies and we shall do so,” Total chairman Patrick Pouyanne said at the time, insisting the company would ensure the plan respects the environment.

At the same time, the company rejected as “non-existent” the risks highlighted by opponents.

Greenpeace said the coral reef, discovered in 2016 — some three years after Total bought

exploration blocks just a handful of kilometres away, is larger than first thought and extends into the area where Total wants to drill.

It is concerned of the effects of a potential oil spill on the ecosystem and nearby

coastal mangrove. “We have to stop this abuse.

The oil firm should not drill near this ecosystem and near this mangrove which, if touched by an oil slick would be impossible to clean up,” insisted Ifticene.

A child looks at Greenpeace activists as they stand in a fountain with a sign which reads “ The Amazon Reef is not a fountain of oil” during a protest, in Nantes, western France, yesterday.

Russia throws doubt on joint space station with US

Suspects in tourist’s death in Greek courtAP

ATHENS: Suspects in the Greek murder trial stemming from the fatal beating of 22-year-old American tourist Bakari Henderson have appeared in court for the opening of proceedings, but the session has been post-poned until September 27 due to procedural issues.

Court officials said six defendants charged with murder were in court in the southern city of Patras, while three other defendants facing lesser charges were repre-sented by their lawyers.

One Greek, seven Serbs and a British citizen of Serbian origin have been charged with taking part in the deadly assault on Herd-erson, of Austin, Texas, in July 2017 on the Greek island of Zakynthos.

The beating was recorded by a security camera at a bar in Zakynthos’ popular Lagana resort.

German govt faces collapse over spy chiefREUTERS

BERLIN: The fate of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s unwieldy six-month-old government is hanging in the balance as the three coalition parties seek again this weekend to resolve their dispute over Germany’s scandal-tainted spymaster.

The coalition parties agreed on Tuesday to transfer spy chief Hans-Georg Maassen to the interior ministry following accu-sations that he harboured far-right views after he questioned the authenticity of video footage showing radicals hounding migrants in the eastern city of Chemnitz.

But the compromise deal, which would put Maassen in a better paid job, unravelled on Friday when Andrea Nahles —leader of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), junior partner in Merkel’s conservative-led coalition — said it was a mistake.

Merkel and her Bavarian ally Horst Seehofer agreed to review the deal and the chancellor said the three party leaders wanted to find a sustainable solution this weekend.

A source from one of the parties said no meeting was planned for yesterday.

Annegret Kramp-Karren-

bauer, general secretary of Mer-kel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), wrote to party members to say the CDU thought the planned talks should be used “to clarify whether all coalition partners can continue to unite together behind the common mission”.

She said there must no longer be any doubt about whether the governing parties were able and willing to tackle the issues that mattered to people.

Former SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel told magazine Der Spiegel: “If the grand coalition doesn’t manage to do what the people expect of it - namely sta-bility and an ability to act - it has lost its raison d’etre.”

Kevin Kuehnert, who leads the SPD’s youth wing and cam-paigned against the formation of the ‘grand coalition’, told news-paper Die Welt that the deal was incomprehensible for many Germans and was undermining

trust.“The coalition should not be

maintained at any price,” he said. He also suggested the coalition would not last until this legis-lative period ends in 2021.

Nahles had been widely crit-icised by SPD members for agreeing to the deal, with some calling for the party to quit the coalition. Some members praised her on Saturday for admitting the mistake and seeking to correct it.

Polls published this week showed 72 percent of voters had less confidence in the gov-ernment and almost half of Germans were in favour of a new election, reflecting discontent with the handling of the Maassen affair.

Support for Merkel’s con-servative bloc — made up of her CDU and Seehofer’s Christian Social Union (CSU) — slumped to a new low of 28 percent, a poll showed on Friday, while the

far-right Alternative for Germany — which backed Maassen — hit a record high of 18 percent, ahead of the SPD on 17 percent.

Christian Lindner, leader of the opposition Free Democrats, said on Twitter late on Friday that revisiting the Maassen deal would result in the coalition breaking up or costing at least Seehofer or Nahles their job.

Senior German conservative Volker Bouffier told the Funke group of newspapers that the coalition could only continue if all partners realised they needed to stop arguing.

The ‘grand coalition’ only took office in March, almost six months after an election, due to the lack of other viable gov-erning options.

It got off to a bumpy start, with Merkel only managing two months ago to end a painful row with the CSU over immigration.

AP

MOSCOW: Russia’s space agency chief said yesterday that it wouldn’t accept a second-tier role in a Nasa-led plan to build an outpost near the moon, but Roscosmos spokesman quickly clarified that Russia is still staying in the project.

Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying that

Russia wouldn’t be reduced to a junior partner in the Nasa-led project to build lunar orbital platform called Gateway in 2020s.

“I believe that Russia can’t afford itself to participate in other countries’ project on second-tier roles,” Rogozin said when asked about the Gateway during a meeting with young space engi-neers, according to Tass.

He noted that Russia was working to develop heavy-lift

rockets that would allow it to build its own orbital platform near the moon, possibly in coop-eration with some BRICS coun-tries - a grouping that includes Brazil, China, India and South Africa along with Russia.

A few hours later, Roscosmos spokesman Vladimir Ustimenko clarified that Rogozin didn’t mean to say Russia was bailing out of the Nasa-led project.

“Russia hasn’t refused to take

part in the project of the lunar orbital station together with the United States,” Ustimenko was quoted by Tass as saying. He added “we stand for equal, part-nership-style cooperation.”

Earlier this month, Rogozin has raised some consternation by saying that an air leak spotted at the International Space Station was a drill hole that happened during manufacturing or in orbit. He didn’t say if he suspected any

of the current crew of three Americans, two Russians and a German aboard the station.

Rogozin, who until May served as a deputy prime min-ister in charge of military and space, long had been known for his brash style and anti-Western rhetoric. He has failed to stem a decline of the Russian space industries, which have been dogged by launch failures and other problems.

Migrants arrive in SpainMigrants are seen after disembarking a rescue boat at the port of Malaga, southern Spain, yesterday.

Chancellor Angela

Merkel and her

Bavarian ally Horst

Seehofer agreed to

review the deal and

the chancellor said the

three party leaders

wanted to find a

sustainable solution

this weekend.

Pope arrives in Lithuania; begins Baltic states tourREUTERS

VILNIUS: Pope Francis arrived in Lithuania yesterday to begin a four-day visit to the Baltic states, carrying a message of solidarity as they look warily towards a newly aggressive Russia nearly 30 years after they broke away from the then-Soviet Union.

The pontiff will spend two days in Lithuania before moving on to Latvia and then Estonia.

He was greeted at Vilnius airport by Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, a military brass band and a group of children waving Vatican flags and singing songs.

He then left for the Pres-idential Palace in central Vilnius to make his first address.

The trip is the first by a pope to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia since 1993. A quarter of a century later, the coun-tries are members of Nato and the euro zone but the past still looms large in a region subject in turn to Soviet and Nazi oppression and where religious persecution left a traumatic legacy.

In Lithuania, Francis will visit the Vilnius Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights, a former Soviet KGB prison where hundreds were murdered and thousands shipped off to Siberia.

Romania ruling party chief wins vote of supportREUTERS

BUCHAREST: The leader of Romania’s ruling Social Demo-crats Liviu Dragnea retained control of the party, defeating dissenters who said his criminal record had made him a liability, but his victory seems likely to heighten political infighting.

A past conviction in a vote-rigging case earned him a sus-pended jail term which pre-vented him from being prime minister. And he is due next month to launch an appeal against a three and a half year prison sentence passed in a separate abuse of office case.

He is also under investi-gation in a third case on sus-picion of forming a criminal group to siphon off cash from state projects, some of them

EU-funded.But he emerged unscathed

from an eight-hour meeting of the party’s executive committee on Friday at which he won a comfortable majority of support, beating off critics who wanted him out.

Dragnea led the party to a sweeping victory in a December 2016 parliamentary election, but since then its attempts to weaken the judiciary have dominated the public agenda.

An attempt to decriminalise several corruption offences last year via emergency decrees triggered massive protests and was ultimately withdrawn. Changes to criminal codes this year invited comparisons with Poland and Hungary, which are embroiled in a standoff with Brussels over the rule of law.

18 SUNDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 2018AMERICAS

Trump warns JusticeDepartment, FBIAP

SPRINGFIELD: President Donald Trump has issued an ominous warning about the Justice Department and the FBI, promising more firings to rid a “lingering stench” after reports that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein discussed secretly recording Trump.

Trump, at a political rally yesterday in Missouri, did not explicitly mention the Rosenstein furor.

But the president lashed out against what he perceives as anti-Trump bias in the Justice Department and cited the firings he already has orchestrated. The dismissals have unnerved many in federal law enforcement and raised fears about the future of the special counsel’s Russia investigation, which Rosenstein oversees.

“You’ve seen what happened in the FBI and the Department of Justice. The bad ones, they’re all gone. They’re all gone,” Trump said. “But there is a lin-gering stench and we’re going to get rid of that, too.”

One person present during Rosenstein’s remarks said the second-ranking official was being sarcastic. The New York Times said Rosenstein raised the idea of using the 25th

Amendment to remove Trump as unfit for office. Rosenstein said the story is “inaccurate and fac-tually incorrect.”

It was the latest storm to buffet the White House.

Trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen, is cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Trump has backed off his plan to declassify documents related to that probe, and the fate of his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, remains uncertain.

Negotiations are continuing with the Senate Judiciary Com-mittee about a possible appearance by Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault at

a high school party more than three decades ago.

Trump made the future of Kavanaugh and the federal judi-ciary a centerpiece of his rally in Springfield, which was designed to support Missouri’s attorney general, Josh Hawley, in his race against Democratic Sen Claire McCaskill.

“I don’t know who she is with but she is not with the state of Missouri,” Trump said. “(Kavanaugh) is a fantastic man, a fantastic man. She won’t vote for him.”

But Trump, who used Twitter yesterday to cast doubt on Ford’s claim, preached optimism on Kavanaugh, saying “he was born for the US Supreme Court” and reassuring the crowd that “it’s going to happen. It’s going to happen.”

He added: “We have to fight for him, not worry about the other side. And by the way, women are for that more than anybody would understand.”

When Hawley praised Trump’s judicial picks, the crowd began chanting Kavanaugh’s name.

The reports about Rosenstein created even greater uncertainty about his future at a time when Trump has lambasted Justice Department leadership and pub-licly humiliated both Rosenstein

and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

More broadly, it’s the latest revelation that could affect Mueller, who is investigating possible coordination between Russia and Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016.

To Trump’s dismay, Sessions stepped aside from that issue soon after he took office, and it was Rosenstein who then appointed Mueller. Trump has resisted calls from conservative commentators to fire both Ses-sions and Rosenstein and appoint someone who would ride herd more closely on Mueller or

dismiss him.A number of key FBI officials,

including Director James Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe, have been fired since Trump took office.

Republicans view the McCaskill-Hawley contest as one of their best chances of flipping a seat in the Senate, where the GOP has a slim 51-49 edge. Polls show the race is a toss-up.

Democrats are hoping the enthusiasm that’s put the GOP-led House in play will spill over to the Senate, though the political map there is much tougher. McCaskill is among 10

Democratic incumbents seeking re-election in states Trump won — some by wider margins than in Missouri.

On Thursday, Trump was in Nevada to campaign for Sen. Dean Heller, among the GOP incumbents considered to be the most vulnerable in the Nov. 6 election.

With the chances of Repub-licans keeping control of the House looking increasingly dif-ficult, the White House has fixated on keeping the Senate as a bulwark against any Demo-cratic effort to impeach and then remove Trump from office.

US President Donald Trump at a rally at JQH Arena in Springfield, Missouri, yesterday.

You’ve seen what

happened in the FBI

and the Department

of Justice. The bad

ones, they’re all gone.

They’re all gone. But

there is a lingering

stench and we’re

going to get rid of

that, too: Trump

Obama turns political attention to PennsylvaniaAP

PHILADELPHIA: Barack Obama turned his political attention yesterday to Pennsylvania— a state Donald Trump won in 2016.

The former president cam-paigned in Philadelphia with two leading Democrats running for re-election, Gov Tom Wolf and US Sen Bob Casey.

At a campaign rally at the Dell Music Center in Phila-delphia, Obama implored Penn-sylvanians to vote in November because the election was more consequential than any he could remember.

“This time, it really is dif-ferent. This time, the stakes really are higher,” Obama said. “The consequences of any of us sitting on the sidelines are far more dangerous.”

During the speech Obama

made no mention of his suc-cessor in the White House by name, but urged voters of all

parties — not just Democrats —to vote to restore honesty, decency and lawfulness to

government.In the November 6 contests,

Democrats are trying to oust Republicans in four US House districts and more than a dozen state legislative seats in the Phil-adelphia area alone. Obama twice carried Pennsylvania in his presidential races, and Demo-crats hope the state can help them retake control of Congress from the GOP.

C a s e y ’ s R e p u b l i c a n opponent, Rep Lou Barletta, said that Obama’s visit will stir up GOP voters in an election year when their party faces an uphill battle to retain its Capitol Hill majorities. Obama will “energise those blue-collar Democrats who worried about their jobs under Obama and went out to vote for Donald Trump,” Barletta said.

“On President Obama’s

watch, we had our slowest eco-nomic recovery since World War II and Democrats lost more than 1,000 seats,” said Michael Ahrens, a spokesman for the R e p u b l i c a n N a t i o n a l Committee.

“If he wants to help energize Republicans this election too, we’re happy to have him.”

Democrats in other states where Obama has campaigned recently say his stops have drawn big crowds, giving the party a chance to organise, update voter contact lists, motivate new donors and boost volunteerism. Obama planned a fundraiser after the Philadelphia rally.

Obama has endorsed more than 80 Democrats in more than a dozen states. A second round of endorsements is expected this fall.

Former President Barack Obama (centre) joins Senator Bob Casey (left) and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf on stage at the end of a campaign rally for Democrats, in Philadelphia, yesterday.

Kavanaugh’s accuser gets more time to decide on testimonyAFP

WASHINGTON: The woman whose assault allegation threatens to bring down Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee was given until today to decide on testifying in the Senate, after the US president claimed her accusation could not be true.

Christine Blasey Ford, a California professor who says conservative judge Brett Kavanaugh carried out a violent assault against her when he was 17 and she was 15, insists she is ready to testify under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

But she rejected a Friday evening deadline imposed by the committee’s Republican leader, Chuck Grassley, to agree to his terms for the hearing, which should take place on Wednesday.

Friday night, in a tweet addressing Kavanuagh directly, Grassley said he had given Ford

more time to decide — until 2:30 pm (1830 GMT) Saturday, US media said.

“Judge Kavanaugh I just granted another extension to Dr Ford”, Grassley wrote, adding Ford should decide “so we can move on.”

“I want to hear her. I hope u understand,” he added. “It’s not my normal approach to be indecisive.”

Ford has said she wants to testify on Thursday at the ear-liest and to be able to call as a witness a man who she says was present during the assault, when they were all teenagers attending private schools near Washington.

But the committee’s Repub-lican leadership has turned down those demands.

After several days of main-taining a relatively neutral posture, Trump took off the gloves Friday to declare that Ford could not be believed.

Trump rejected the credi-bility of Ford’s claim.

Trump border wall going up in TexasAFP

LOS ANGELES: The United States was to begin construction in Texas yesterday of part of President Donald Trump’s border wall designed to curb illegal immigration, which he calls a security threat.

Running along six kilo-metres of the 2,000-mile border with Mexico, the new section will replace existing fencing along the boundary between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, US Customs and Border Protection said in a statement.

“This new wall will be far

more durable and far more effective in deterring would-be illegal entrants,” Aaron Hull, Chief Patrol Agent in the El Paso sector, said in the statement.

It said the existing fencing will be replaced by 5.4 metre steel post barrier which allows Border Patrol agents to see through to the other side.

The $22m project is to be completed in about seven months.

In April, the Border Patrol announced the start of con-struction of a 20-mile stretch of wall to replace an existing barrier in Santa Teresa, New Mexico.

Much of the border already has fencing or other barriers, but Trump has ordered a “con-tiguous, and impassable physical barrier,” which scientists say would threaten more than 1,000 species of animals.

Congress has so far approved $1.6bn of $25bn Trump had sought for his wall.

He initially demanded that Mexico pay for the barrier, which added to tensions between the two neighbors.

Many of the migrants trying to reach the United States are fleeing gang violence and poverty in Central America.

Guatemalan migrants among 8 dead in vehicle accidentAP

PHOENIX: Arizona residents and Guatemalan immigrants in the US illegally were among eight people killed earlier this week in a head-on crash on a highway near the historic prison town of Florence, authorities said.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety released the names of some of the people killed in

the collision late Wednesday on State Route 79 involving an SUV and a Buick sedan about 193km north of the Mexico border.

Officials have not said whether the SUV was being used for a smuggling operation. But court records show the driver and passenger of the vehicle were previously convicted of immigrant smuggling charges.

Federal court records show

45-year-old Rodney Palimo pleaded guilty in March 2008 to a misdemeanor count of aiding and abetting an alien. He was ini-tially charged with a felony count of transporting an immigrant in US without permission.

Guatemala’s Foreign Min-istry said in a statement from Guatemala City that the coun-try’s Tucson consulate was investigating the nationalities

and identities of those killed. It said two of the dead men carried Guatemalan identity documents and a third had no papers.

The ministry said it was in contact with the relatives of the Guatemalan victims identified thus far. Reports by both US and Guatemalan officials agreed that another three men believed to be Guatemalans were hospi-talised with injures.

Police probe deaths in Nevada as murder-suicideAP

HENDERSON: Police in the Las Vegas-area city of Hend-erson said they are investi-gating as a murder-suicide the apparent shooting deaths of a man, a woman and two boys, ages 15 and 5, whose bodies were found in a burning home.

The names of the dead were not immediately made public by the Clark County coroner.

Henderson police Lt. Kirk Moore said yesterday that they were found on Thursday evening after officers arriving to neighbours’ reports of gunshots found the house on fire.

Firefighters quickly doused flames and dis-covered the bodies. Moore said it did not appear that fire caused the deaths.

The relationship between the four was not disclosed.

Moore told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that it looked like the 27-year-old man killed the 35-year-old woman, the two children and then himself.

The modest two-storry home is in a residential tract off Interstate 11 in south-eastern Henderson, a sub-urban city of about 300,000 people some 24km southeast of downtown Las Vegas.

A murder–suicide is an act in which an individual kills one or more other persons before killing themselves.

19SUNDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 2018 AMERICAS

US preparing ‘actions’

on Venezuela: PompeoREUTERS

WASHINGTON: The United States is preparing a “series of actions” in the coming days to increase pressure on the Vene-zuelan government, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (pictured) told Fox News yesterday.

“You’ll see in the coming days a series of actions that con-tinue to increase the pressure level against the Venezuelan leadership folks, who are working directly against the best interest of the Venezuelan people,” Pompeo said. “We’re determined to ensure that the Venezuelan people get their say.”

He did not give further details on the nature of the planned actions.

Venezuela’s information ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration has steadily increased sanctions against officials in the leftist government of President Nicolas Maduro, accusing it of stifling democracy by jailing

opposition leaders.Last year, Washington

imposed sanctions prohibiting trading new debt and equity issued by the Venezuelan gov-ernment and its state oil company PDVSA.

It has imposed several rounds of sanctions on gov-ernment officials, including on Maduro.

Venezuela’s economy has collapsed under Maduro, with annual inflation running at 200,000 percent, and staple foods and basic medicine increasingly difficult to obtain, which has led to mass emigration.

Pompeo’s warning comes ahead of the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York next week attended by heads of state from around the world.

Maduro has not attended the meetings since 2015 and this week said he may not attend the gathering because of concerns about his safety.

In August, two drones exploded over an outdoor rally in Caracas where Maduro was giving a speech, injuring seven soldiers and leading to the arrest of over a dozen suspects, including several military officials.

The Venezuelan leader described it as an assassination attempt.

US Secretary of State

Mike Pompeo said:

We’re determined

to ensure that the

Venezuelan people

get their say.

Women FMs meet in CanadaAFP

MONTREAL: Women foreign ministers from around the world kicked off a first-of-its-kind meeting yesterday, bringing together more than half of the world’s top women diplomats in Montreal.

Women are “key to finding solutions to the political, eco-nomic and social challenges facing our societies,” Canada’s top diplomat Chrystia Freeland

said at the opening of the two-day summit.

The meetingl centres on four topics: women in politics and positions of leadership; strengthening democracy; pro-moting peace and security and eliminating gender-based violence.

“I will always promote equal representation and respect for the rights of women and girls” Freeland said, because “when we are all involved in the

decision-making process, our societies become stronger, our economies and our middle class become more prosperous and our countries safer.”

Freeland is co-chairing the meeting with EU foreign affairs representative Federica Mogh-erini. At the opening session, both expressed hope that this meeting will mark the beginning of a tradition of cooperation between women ministers.

FROM LEFT: Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland; Namibian Foreign Minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah; European Union Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini and Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante during the Women Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Montreal, yesterday.

Tornado hits Ottawa area; many injuredAFP

OTTAWA: A tornado sparked chaos near the Canadian capital Ottawa yesterday, injuring dozens as homes were damaged, cars flipped over, and over 130,000 people left without power, local media said.

Meteorologists reported gusts whipped up to around 190kph, with the city of Gatineau, about five miles north of the capital, taking the brunt.

Images on social media showed homes with damaged rooftops and trees torn apart, as debris was seen swirling through the air in dramatic video footage.

“There was a power cut and less than a minute later, the wind began to hit the windows,” Vincent-Carl Leriche, who filmed the video, said.

“The debris was flying eve-rywhere, I had never see any-thing like it except in

Hollywood,” the 30-year-old, from Gatineau’s Mont-Bleu neighborhood said, adding he saw sofas and freezers that had been blown into the street.

Ottawa emergency services official Anthony Di Monte told local media around 30 people were injured, five seriously.

Meanwhile, electricity company HydroQuebec reported over 130,000 cus-tomers were without power in the Ottawa area Friday evening.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged residents to check on neighbours who might need help.

“We’re monitoring the sit-uation and thinking of everyone affected,” he said on Twitter.

A weather alert was put in place Friday afternoon for all of southern Ontario and Quebec. Winds eased by the time they reached greater Mon-treal, which was hit by heavy rains but escaped major damage.

Damaged buildings and vehicles are seen after a tornado hit the Mont-Bleu neighbourhood in Gatineau, Quebec, yesterday.

Ninth journalist murdered in Mexican stateAFP

TUXTLA GUTIÉRREZ: Gunmen killed a Mexican journalist who had received threats after reporting on corruption in the southern state of Chiapas, his newspaper said, in what was at least the ninth murder of a reporter in the country this year.

Mario Gomez, a reporter with El Heraldo de Chiapas, is the latest victim in a wave of vio-lence against the press in Mexico, the second-deadliest country in the world for journalists after war-torn Syria, according to the watchdog group Reporters Without Borders.

“He had recently filed a complaint because he was

receiving threats,” a colleague at the paper said on condition of anonymity.

Gomez, 35, had also been threatened in 2016 for publishing articles on corruption by two state officials, according to the media rights group Article 19.

El Heraldo said Gomez, a general news correspondent in the town of Yajalon, was leaving his house to go to work when two unidentified men arrived and “murdered him in cold blood” with a series of shots to the abdomen at point-blank range.

Gomez was taken to the hos-pital but died of his wounds, said the paper, where he had worked for the past eight years.

“We call for an exhaustive investigation to find those responsible for this crime,” his colleagues wrote in an editorial published on the newspaper’s website.

The state prosecutor’s office said in a statement it would “follow all lines of investigation to shed light on this reprehen-sible crime and bring those responsible to justice.”

Racked by violent crime linked to its powerful drug cartels, Mexico registered a record number of murders last year: 28,702.

That included at least 11 murdered journalists.

Asking questions about the multibillion-dollar narcotics

trade, government corruption or the links between the two can be a deadly job in Mexico.

Including Gomez, at least nine journalists have been mur-dered so far this year in the country in possible retaliation for their work.

More than 100 have been murdered in Mexico since 2000.

The vast majority of the cases have gone unpunished -- as do more than 90 percent of violent crimes in Mexico.

It was not immediately clear whether Gomez was enrolled in the Mexican government’s pro-tection program for journalists and human rights activists, launched in 2012 in a bid to stop such crimes.

US to open Muslim fashion exhibitANATOLIA

WASHINGTON: A museum in San Francisco is opening a new exhibit highlighting the fashion of Muslim women.

Contemporary Muslim Fashions is set to open today at the de Young Museum in the Golden Gate Park of San Francisco.

The collection spotlights the traditions, cultures, as well as global trends that shape the fashion of Muslim women, who are adherent to the world’s second largest religion.

“There are those who believe that there is no fashion at all among Muslim women, but the opposite is true, with modern, vibrant, and extraor-dinary fashion scenes, particu-larly in many Muslim-majority countries,” Max Hollein, former Director and CEO of the Fine

Arts Museums of San Francisco said in a statement.

The exhibit features almost 60 different designers from dif-ferent parts of the globe, including Qatar, Turkey and Indonesia.

It opens at a turbulent time for Muslims in the West, as many countries have taken legal moves to ban Muslim women dress. In Denmark, wearing the niqab, a face veil, has been banned by the government.

France also banned wearing the niqab in public places in 2011, and in 2016 there was outrage when the government defended the ban on burkini swimsuits, which deterred Muslim women from being able to go to public beaches.

But the museum was not stopped by this, and continued to work to create the collection.

“Fashion is at its best when it both adapts to the needs of society and reflects its social and political undercurrents,” said Jill D’Alessandro, Curator in Charge of Costume and Textile Arts.

The de Young Museum says this is the first major exhibit of its kind to address Muslim clothing in such a way.

The modest fashion industry, currently valued at $44bn, is beginning to gain attraction from Western fashion outlets as they want to cater to Muslims.

Last year, Nike began to market a sports hijab and used bronze medal winning Muslim athlete Ibtihaj Muhammad as the face of the campaign.

The exhibit will run from September 22 until January 6, and after will move to Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt, Germany.

Travel still dangerous in CarolinasAP

BLADENBORO: Travel remained dangerous yesterday in south-eastern North Carolina, where the governor warned of “treacherous” floodwaters more than a week after Hurricane Florence made landfall, and urged residents to stay alert for flood warnings and evacuation orders.

Gov Roy Cooper said nine of the state’s river gauges are at major flood stage and four others are at

moderate stage, while parts of Interstates 95 and 40 will remain underwater for another week or more. Emergency management officials said residents whose homes were damaged or destroyed will begin moving into hotel rooms next week.

South Carolina also has ordered more evacuations as rivers con-tinue to rise in the aftermath of a storm that has claimed at least 43 lives since slamming into the coast more than a week ago.

North Carolina Emergency Management Director Michael Sprayberry said that major eastern counties continue to see major flooding, including areas along the Black, Lumber, Neuse and Cape Fear rivers. The Cape Fear river is expected to crest today and remain at flood stage through early next week.

He said residents who register with the Federal Emergency Man-agement Agency will be able to begin moving into hotels tomorrow.

Guatemalangets 16 yearsjail for crashAP

INDIANAPOLIS: A man from Guatemala living illegally in the US was sentenced to maximum of 16 years in prison for a driving crash that killed Indianapolis Colts line-backer Edwin Jackson and his Uber driver.

A Marion County judge sentenced Manuel Orrego-Savala after hearing emo-tional testimony from Jack-son’s mother and the widow of Jeffrey Monroe, the 54-year-old driver Jackson had hired from the ride-sharing service the night of the deadly February crash.

Orrego-Savala, 37, pleaded guilty in July to two counts of operating a motor vehicle with a blood-alcohol content of .15 or more, causing death. The sentence marked the maximum possible under his plea agreement.

Investigators said the twice-deported Orrego-Savala had a blood-alcohol content of 0.19 when his truck crashed into Jackson and Monroe on February 4 along Interstate 70.

Monroe, of Avon, Indiana, had pulled over when the 26-year-old Jackson became ill. Both men were standing outside Monroe’s car on the highway’s shoulder when Orrego-Savala’s truck crashed into them.

Officers walk through floodwaters caused by Hurricane Florence near the Todd Swamp, in Longs, South Carolina, yesterday.

20 SUNDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 2018MORNING BREAK

FAJRSHOROOK

04. 06 AM

05. 23 AM

11. 26 AM

02. 53 PM

05. 32 PM

07. 02 PM

ZUHRASR

MAGHRIBISHA

PRAYER TIMINGS

HIGH TIDE 03:45 – 16:15 LOW TIDE 09:15 – 23:00

Misty to foggy at places by early morning,

becomes hot and relatively humid day-

time, Humid by night.

WEATHER TODAY

Courtesy: Qatar Meteorology Department

Minimum Maximum 31oC 38oC

Siamese Fighting Fish also known as Betta splendens, mostly exported to United States from Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore, is seen in an aquarium in Chicago, United States.

Gorgeous fighter...

Ancient treasures on show in Germany reveal turbulent pastAP

BERLIN: An arrowhead firmly lodged in the skull of an ancient fallen warrior and a voluptuous woman’s form carved from ivory are among more than 1,000 major archaeological discoveries being brought together for the first time.

The exhibition opening on Friday at Berlin’s Gropius Bau museum reveals how war, art and migration have left their mark in Germany since the Stone Age.

The show spans more than 300,000 years, starting with a sleek wooden spear used by one of the pre-human species that once roamed the continent long before homo sapiens arrived.

Neanderthal hand axes show how our ancient cousins fled the approaching ice age southward — the first tangible evidence of climate refugees — while the ivory “Venus of Hohle Fels” and similar etchings on slate dated to between 40,000 and 35,000 BC attest to early Europeans’ fasci-nation with the female form, pursued by artists ever since.

“The basis of Europe’s common cultural heritage can be found going back thousands of years,” said Christina Haak, Deputy Head of the Berlin State Museums that helped bring the objects together from museums

across Germany. Often, the exact nature of the objects is unclear: The Nebra sky disk, a plate-size object of gold and bronze, depicting the sun, moon phases and the Pleiades star cluster, is considered one of the first astro-nomical depictions in history but may also have had religious significance.

Dated to around 1600 BC, the disk is only a few hundred years older than three spectacular hats made from sheet gold first believed to have been worn by early Celtic priests, but which may also have served as prim-itive calendars.

Many of the artifacts in the exhibition, which runs until January 6, show how strongly progress was linked to the movement of people, goods and ideas into and across Europe.

“Migration is not the mother of all problems. It is the beginning of all innovation,” said Matthias Wemhoff, Director of Berlin’s Museum of Prehistory and Early History. Wemhoff cited the wealth of objects found during the recent construction of a new subway line in Cologne, where artifacts from all over the Roman Empire prove the city was an early melting pot of cultures.

Alongside the stony face of a structure was the perfectly pre-served gravestone of a trader by

the name of Sextus Haparonius Iustinus, who sold cosmetics and perfumes long before the city became known for its Eau de Cologne.

Germanic smiths copied Roman helmets and later

designed their own weaponry, including the Ulfberht swords that became prized by warriors throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. Fashions came and went, including the habit of binding babies’ skulls so they grew conical

heads — a practice documented in what is now Bavaria and the Crimean Peninsula around AD 500.

Likewise, the search for elusive formulas for turning mundane materials into gold, represented by the remains of an alchemist’s workshop from the 16th century, hasn’t survived, though the thirst for knowledge and profit lives on in Germany’s high-tech industries.

Some of the objects on display, all of which were found in the past two decades in what is now Germany, are still shrouded in mystery. The skull with the arrowhead is part of a massive trove of bones and weapons that archaeologists believe could be the earliest known remains from a large-scale battle in human history.

While another ancient mil-itary confrontation - the Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC that pitted the Egyptian and Hittite armies against each other in what is now Syria — has been well docu-mented, no physical evidence of it has yet been found.

About 4,800km away in the Tollense valley on the frigid plains of northern Germany, thousands of Bronze Age warriors were also going to battle at almost the same time. So far, nobody knows why, or who they were.

Funerary crown of the Kingdom of Dahomey dating from 1860-1889 is pictured at the Quai Branly Museum-Jacques Chirac in Paris.

Africa’s nomadic herders help, not harm, land and planet: UNREUTERS

ITALY: Nomadic herders across Africa can work in tandem with farmers and produce sustainable food without damaging the land or harming the planet, experts and pastoralists said yesterday.

Pastoralists manage their land in a way that keeps carbon in the soil instead of releasing it into the atmos-phere as climate-changing emissions — contrary to the belief of many governments around the world - according to a top United Nations official.

Many countries discourage herders — from for-bidding them to graze in certain areas to granting pas-toral land to businesses and mistakenly believe they hurt the environment as they roam to find pasture for their animals, said Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

“Some countries consider herders as criminals because they cross boundaries and protected areas,” she said at a food festival in Turin, Italy, hosted by non-profit Slow Food. “But these are the traditional herder areas since time immemorial.” “The meat and products the pastoralists produce and care for are organic... And they move when the land they use is reaching its limit so that’s a sustainable practice,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation at the biennial food festival. In Cameroon, herders have managed to ease tensions and keep the land healthy, said Musa Usman Ndamba from the Mbororo tribe.

The “alliance farming” model allows pastoralists and farmers in 20 communities in Cameroon’s northwest region to share the same piece of land, said Ndamba, the vice-president of MBOSCUDA - a group working to protect the rights of Mbororo herders.

Herders use the land in the dry season, with cattle droppings fertilising the soil, while farmers cultivate the same land during rainy season, he said.

Farmers increase their yields of organic produce, and come dry season, herders’ cattle eat the remaining crops, making the animals healthier, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“It is like a win-win situation,” he said, but warned that pastoralists face the threat of losing their ancestral lands.

IANS

NEW YORK: Researchers have developed a novel blood test for pregnant mothers that can, with nearly 90 percent accuracy rate, predict the probability of having a child that will be diagnosed with autism.

According to studies, if a mother has previously had a child with autism, the risk of

having a second child with the developmental disorder is approximately 18.7 percent, whereas the risk in the general population is approximately 1.7 percent.

Pregnant mothers who have had a child with autism before were separated into two groups based on the diagnosis of their child whether the child had autism or not. Then these

mothers were compared to a group of control mothers who have not had a child with autism before. The results showed that while it is not possible to determine during a pregnancy if a child will be diagnosed with autism by age 3, they did find that differences in the plasma metabolites are indicative of the relative risk for having a child with autism.

New blood test in pregnancy to predict autism

Scientists fear non-pest insects are decliningAP

OXFORD: A staple of summer — swarms of bugs — seems to be a thing of the past. And that’s got scientists worried.

Pesky mosquitoes, disease-carrying ticks, crop-munching aphids and cock-roaches are doing just fine. But the more beneficial flying insects of summer — native bees, moths, butterflies, ladybugs, lovebugs, mayflies and fireflies - appear to be less abundant.

Scientists think something is amiss, but they can’t be certain: In the past, they didn’t systematically count the population of flying insects, so they can’t make a proper comparison to today. Never-theless, they’re pretty sure across the globe there are fewer insects that are

crucial to as much as 80 percent of what we eat.

Yes, some insects are pests. But they also pollinate plants, are a key link in the food chain and help decompose life.

“You have total ecosystem collapse if you lose your insects. How much worse can it get than that?” said University of Delaware entomologist Doug Tallamy. If they disappeared, “the world would start to rot.” He noted Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson once called bugs: “The little things that run the world.”

The 89-year-old Wilson recalled that he once frolicked in a “Washington alive with insects, especially butterflies.” Now, “the flying insects are virtually gone.” It hit home last year when he drove from suburban Boston to Vermont and decided

to count how many bugs hit his wind-shield. The result: A single moth.

The un-scientific experiment is called the windshield test. Wilson recommends everyday people do it themselves to see. Baby Boomers will probably notice the difference, Tallamy said. Last year, a study that found an 82 percent mid-summer decline in the number and weight of bugs captured in traps in 63 nature preserves in Germany compared with 27 years earlier. It was one of the few, if only, broad studies. Scientists say similar comparisons can’t be done else-where because similar bug counts weren’t done decades ago. “We don’t know how much we’re losing if we don’t know how much we have,” said University of Hawaii entomologist Helen Spafford.

IANS

LONDON: Insulin, which plays a key role in managing blood sugar, also has potential against colitis — a chronic bowel inflammation, finds a study.

The study, conducted on mice, showed that chronic bowel inflammation can be treated effectively by injecting insulin into the rectum. Insulin works because it activates a gene inside the bowel cells, which has an antioxidant effect and thus may be able to protect the bowel cells from inflammation.

“Existing treatments attack the bowel’s immune system, dampening it, instead our method strengthens the bowel cells’ own defence. It appears to work equally well, and it can probably be used in combination with existing treatments,” said Jorgen Olsen, Professor at the Uni-versity of Copenhagen in Denmark.

For the study, published in the scientific Journal of Crohn’s and Colitis, the team examined the effect of the treatment in a series of tests on mice with chronic colitis of the type Colitis Ulcerosa. The cause of these bowel disorders is unknown but they cause patients great dis-comfort and can involve bloody diarrhoea, anaemia, stomach ache and weight loss. The researchers have studied the effect of the insulin treatment. The team found that treatment with insulin led to a 50 percent drop in the amount of inflam-mation, compared to the salt-water control treatment. Based on the positive results, the researchers will now test the treatment in clinical trials on humans.

Insulin can help treat chronic bowel inflammation

Documents

Amir to address UN General Assembly on Tuesday · 2018-09-22 · Mohammed, H E Sheikh Meshal bin Hamad Al Thani, Qatar’s Ambassador to the United States of America, and Sheikha