16
‘Private kitchen on busy street’ demolished TDT | Manama Mohammed Zafran M unicipal authorities in the Southern Gov- ernorate have demol- ished a private kitchen allegedly set up by a group of Asians right in the middle of a busy street in Riffa. The move follows efforts by the municipal officials to tackle encroachment of public place and rule violations. “The cabin was built on Al Be- heer Street in Riffa. It was being used as a kitchen by a group of Asian bachelors and this was in violation of rules. The authori- ties have taken action by demol- ishing the cabin,” sources said. “According to the law, one must take authorisation from the Ministry of Housing, Mu- nicipalities and the Supreme Council For Environment to set up a cabin,” the sources added. The Southern Governor- ate has also been carrying out an intense campaign to crack down on violations related to roadside businesses. The Inspection and Licens- ing Inspection Department has recently held numerous inspection efforts. According to reports, the violating businesses used the space space in front of their shops to either sell their prod- ucts or to use it as a work- space thereby encroaching the road. Recently 17 violations were uncovered on Al Hajiyat street in Riffa alone. The municipality has in- formed the owners of these shops of the need to respect the law and conduct commercial activity in accordance with the procedures in force in the King- dom. 03 Terror convict’s sentence upheld 04 ‘Kingdom, a major target of hackers’ 06 Norway airlifting 1,300 passengers off cruise ship 8 Messi drawing comes alive! 7 WORLD OP-ED CELEBS Jennifer Lopez to release new single with French Montana Pop star Jennifer Lopez has revealed that she has collaborated with rapper French Mon- tana for her new song “Medicine”. P14 SUNDAY MARCH 2019 200 FILS ISSUE NO. 8060 Why Jacinda Ardern matters to the contemporary world? Elba in talks to join Andy Serkis in ‘Mouse Guard’ 14 CELEBS 24 WHATSAPP 38444680 TWITTER @newsofbahrain MAIL [email protected] WEBSITE newsofbahrain.com FACEBOOK /nobmedia LINKEDIN newsofbahrain INSTAGRAM /nobmedia CLAMPS ON DON’T MISS IT A cabin set up by Asian workers being razed in Riffa. All businesses that do not comply with the warning will face further action. MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS Difficult divorce Over one million take part in Brexit protest march in London European Union leaders have given Prime Minister Theresa May a two week reprieve before Britain could leave the bloc. London H undreds of thousands of people opposed to Britain’s withdraw- al from the European Union marched through central Lon- don yesterday to demand a new referendum as the deep- ening Brexit crisis risked sink- ing Prime Minister Theresa May’s premiership. After three years of tortu- ous debate, it is still uncertain how, when or even if Brexit will happen as May tries to plot a way out of the gravest political crisis in at least a gen- eration. Marchers set off in central London with banners pro- claiming “the best deal is no Brexit” and “we demand a People’s Vote” in what organ- isers said was more than one million people strong and the biggest anti-Brexit protest yet. See Page 12 A female fighter of the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) flashes the victory gesture while celebrating near the Omar Oilfield in the eastern Syrian Deir Ezzor province yesterday the victory over Islamic State. The SDF yesterday said that the Islamic State group’s five-year “caliphate” is over after the militants’ defeat in Syria. See Page 5 Evil dead I hope we can all agree that we are now at the moment of decision. THERESA MAY Bahrain condemns terrorist attacks Manama B ahrain has condemned the terrorist attacks that targeted the Ministry of La- bour in Mogadishu, Somalia, and the terrorist blast that hit Helmand Province in Af- ghanistan. The Foreign Ministry ex- pressed its sincere condo- lences to the families of the victims and wished those injured in the terrorist acts a speedy recovery. It affirmed Bahrain’s sol- idarity with Somalia and Afghanistan in confronting all forms of terrorism and extremism. It reiterated Bahrain’s firm stance, rejecting violence, extremism and terrorism regardless of their motives. Houthi camps targeted Aden T he Saudi-led Arab coa- lition targeted Houthi military camps in Sanaa on Saturday, Al Arabiya TV re- ported yesterday. Eyewitnesses from the area said that the coalition air force targeted the Al Dailami air base with three raids, two raids on Beit Atran and another camp in a different location. This comes hours after the Houthis announced the fall of a coalition aircraft in the outskirts of Sanaa, ac- cording to media published by the Houthis.

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Page 1: FACEBOOK /nobmedia mail@newsofbahrain.com …...revealed to them my wish of kill-ing police officers. They agreed with me to make the bomb and we made one. “Before we set it off,

‘Private kitchen on busy street’ demolished TDT | Manama Mohammed Zafran

Municipal authorities in the Southern Gov-ernorate have demol-

ished a private kitchen allegedly set up by a group of Asians right in the middle of a busy street in Riffa.

The move follows efforts by the municipal officials to tackle encroachment of public place

and rule violations. “The cabin was built on Al Be-

heer Street in Riffa. It was being

used as a kitchen by a group of Asian bachelors and this was in violation of rules. The authori-ties have taken action by demol-ishing the cabin,” sources said.

“According to the law, one must take authorisation from the Ministry of Housing, Mu-nicipalities and the Supreme Council For Environment to set up a cabin,” the sources added.

The Southern Governor-ate has also been carrying out an intense campaign to crack down on violations related to roadside businesses.

The Inspection and Licens-ing Inspection Department has recently held numerous inspection efforts.

According to reports, the violating businesses used the space space in front of their shops to either sell their prod-ucts or to use it as a work-space thereby encroaching the road.

Recently 17 violations were uncovered on Al Hajiyat street

in Riffa alone. The municipality has in-

formed the owners of these shops of the need to respect the

law and conduct commercial activity in accordance with the procedures in force in the King-dom.

03 Terror convict’s sentence upheld

04‘Kingdom, a major target of hackers’

06Norway airlifting 1,300 passengers off cruise ship

8

Messi drawing comes alive! 7WORLD

OP-EDC E L E B S

Jennifer Lopez to release new single with French MontanaPop star Jennifer Lopez has revealed that she has collaborated with rapper French Mon-tana for her new song “Medicine”.P14

SUNDAYMARCH 2019

200 FILS ISSUE NO. 8060

Why Jacinda Ardern matters to the contemporary world?

Elba in talks to join Andy Serkis in ‘Mouse Guard’ 14 CELEBS

24WHATSAPP38444680

TWITTER@newsofbahrain

[email protected]

WEBSITEnewsofbahrain.com

FACEBOOK/nobmedia

LINKEDINnewsofbahrain

INSTAGRAM/nobmedia

C L A M P S O N

DON’T MISS IT

A cabin set up by Asian workers being razed in Riffa.

All businesses that do not comply with

the warning will face further action.

MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS

Difficult divorce

Over one million take part in Brexit protest march in London

• European Union leaders have given Prime Minister Theresa May a two week reprieve before Britain could leave the bloc.

London

Hundreds of thousands of people opposed to Britain’s withdraw-

al from the European Union marched through central Lon-don yesterday to demand a new referendum as the deep-

ening Brexit crisis risked sink-ing Prime Minister Theresa May’s premiership.

After three years of tortu-ous debate, it is still uncertain how, when or even if Brexit will happen as May tries to plot a way out of the gravest political crisis in at least a gen-eration.

Marchers set off in central London with banners pro-claiming “the best deal is no Brexit” and “we demand a People’s Vote” in what organ-isers said was more than one million people strong and the biggest anti-Brexit protest yet.

See Page 12

A female fighter of the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) flashes the victory gesture while celebrating near the Omar Oilfield in the eastern Syrian Deir Ezzor province yesterday the victory over Islamic State. The SDF yesterday said that the Islamic State group’s five-year “caliphate” is over after the militants’ defeat in Syria. See Page 5

Evil dead

I hope we can all agree that we are now at the moment of

decision. THERESA MAY

Bahrain condemns terrorist attacksManama

Bahrain has condemned the terrorist attacks that

targeted the Ministry of La-bour in Mogadishu, Somalia, and the terrorist blast that hit Helmand Province in Af-ghanistan.

The Foreign Ministry ex-pressed its sincere condo-lences to the families of the victims and wished those injured in the terrorist acts a speedy recovery. 

It affirmed Bahrain’s sol-idarity with Somalia and Afghanistan in confronting all forms of terrorism and extremism. 

It reiterated Bahrain’s firm stance, rejecting violence, extremism and terrorism regardless of their motives. 

Houthi camps targeted Aden

The Saudi-led Arab coa-lition targeted Houthi

military camps in Sanaa on Saturday, Al Arabiya TV re-ported yesterday.

Eyewitnesses from the area said that the coalition air force targeted the Al Dailami air base with three raids, two raids on Beit Atran and another camp in a different location.

This comes hours after the Houthis announced the fall of a coalition aircraft in the outskirts of Sanaa, ac-cording to media published by the Houthis.

Page 2: FACEBOOK /nobmedia mail@newsofbahrain.com …...revealed to them my wish of kill-ing police officers. They agreed with me to make the bomb and we made one. “Before we set it off,

02SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019

The third edition of the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival concluded yesterday in Saudi Arabia. The closing ceremony was held at Southern Sayahad under the patronage of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. Deputised by His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, HM the King’s Representative for Charity Works and Youth Affairs and Supreme Council for Youth and Sports (SCYS) Chairman His Highness Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa attended the final ceremony. Royalties and other senior officials representing Arabian Gulf countries were also present at the site of festival, which covered four thousand square metres divided into different sections.

National Guard Commander General Shaikh Mohammed bin Isa Al Khalifa attended military parade held by the Pakistani Army marking Pakistan Day, which falls on the 23rd of March. Pakistani president, senior military leaders and other personalities representing brotherly and friendly countries attended. Shaikh Mohammed expressed congratulations to Pakistani President Arif Alvi and to the friendly Pakistani people on this occasion, commending the military parade delivered by the Pakistani Army.

Flag hoisting ceremony was held at the Pakistan Embassy

yesterday, marking the Pakistan Day with traditional fervour and enthusiasm. Chief Guest

on the occasion was Pakistan Ambassador Afzaal Mahmood. Mr

Mahmood welcomed the guests, club members and prominent

business community members. National patriotic songs were

sung. Traditional breakfast was served to all the guests.

Separately, the day was marked at Pakistan Club, where Mr

Mahmood was the chief guest. Guest of honour was MP Sawson

Kamal. Rehan Ahmed, Chairman, Pakistan Club welcomed the

guests, club members and participants.

Page 3: FACEBOOK /nobmedia mail@newsofbahrain.com …...revealed to them my wish of kill-ing police officers. They agreed with me to make the bomb and we made one. “Before we set it off,

03SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019

Charcoal Grill17213860/17729115

Lanterns Juffair branch only17666517/17224417

FreeFull Tandoori Chicken !With purchase of minimum BD 10/- or moreDelivery & takeaway only

Until 31st March

Terror convict’s sentence upheld A police officer was injured in Abu Saiba explosion

TDT | Manama

The High Appeals Court has upheld the life in prison sentence issued

against a Bahraini man, who was part of the team, which made an improvised bomb and detonated it in Abu Saiba.

The explosion on February

24, 2017, had left a police of-ficer injured apart from causing damages to a police vehicle and a mosque’s windows.

According to prosecutors, the defendant had the intention to murder police officers, therefore he decided to make the bomb with the help of other unknown men.

He used Telegram to commu-nicate with other terrorists in order to get their help in con-structing the bomb and detonate it. 

“I talked with two men and revealed to them my wish of kill-

ing police officers. They agreed with me to make the bomb and we made one.

“Before we set it off, we had monitored the police patrols’ movement in the area and had a clear understanding about the

best time to trigger it,” the de-fendant told prosecutors.

According to the case files, the defendant had also planted a fake bomb at the scene. He was tried on the grounds of carrying out terror activity.

I talked with two men and revealed to them

my wish of killing police officers. They agreed with me to make the

bomb and we made one. DEFENDANT

Asian robbers lose appeals

• The duo were charged on grounds of robbery and physical assault.   

TDT | Manama

The High Appeals Court has upheld the sentence is-

sued against two Asian men convicted of rob-bing BD50 from a Mana-ma restaurant last year.

They were earl ier handed down five years in prison each, followed by immediate deporta-tion from the Kingdom.

It’s said that the pair barged into the res-taurant at dawn while several employees were inside.

“And they beat them using a plank before making off with BD50,” the investigators said.

Police investigations, however, managed to uncover their identities and they were arrested.

One of the two con-firmed to prosecutors that they were behind the robbery.

Thus, they were re-ferred to the High Crim-inal Court for trial. 

The duo were charged on grounds of robbery and physical assault.   

Ferris wheel to add to F1 attractions TDT | ManamaMohammed Zafran

In a first, a giant Ferris Wheel will add to the attractions at Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain

Grand Prix. The 15th edition of the Formula

1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix  will feature a number of new attrac-tions and among them will be the vending area at the Bahrain Inter-national Circuit’s (BIC) Formula 1 Village that will feature a gigantic ferris wheel and a star flyer, the BIC said in a statement.

“Come March 28 to 31, the fun and excitement will be “limitless” for all, especially with what BIC has in store for this truly special occasion.

“Furthermore, there is a Vene-tian Carousel for young children to enjoy, plus “The Mummy’s Tomb” haunted house for those brave enough to take on a little fright.

“The Ferris Wheel and Star Fly-

er can be seen from miles away. Their colossal stature can be in-timidating for some, but both offer a unique kind of thrill that must be experienced by everybody,” the BIC added.

The Ferris Wheel is 42 metres in height and it boasts 27 gondolas. The Star Flyer, meanwhile, towers at 60 metres height and it has 16 gondolas.

“This ride will make you feel

like you are flying around like a bird in circles while being capti-vated by a magnificent view.”  

“The Venetian Carousel offers the perfect thrill for young chil-dren to enjoy with their family members. Such a ride is always a favourite at carnivals and theme parks, and now it can also be ex-perienced at BIC.

“The Mummy’s Tomb is set to make visitors feel some chills and thrills. Those who enter must try to not be afraid as Mummies from ancient history come back to haunt them,” the BIC stated.

Other entertainment attractions at BIC are an F1 Fanzone, stage and roaming performers, and the pair of headlining concerts featuring Mar-tin Garrix and Kygo on the Friday and Saturday of the race weekend.

For further information on the Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2019, visit bahraingp.com or call the BIC Hotline.The Ferris Wheel will add to the fun and excitement at Bahrain Grand Prix.

The Ferris Wheel and Star Flyer can be seen from miles away. Their colossal stature can be intimidating for some, but both offer a unique

kind of thrill that must be experienced by everybody.

BIC

Page 4: FACEBOOK /nobmedia mail@newsofbahrain.com …...revealed to them my wish of kill-ing police officers. They agreed with me to make the bomb and we made one. “Before we set it off,

04SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019

‘Kingdom, a major target of hackers’Workshop highlights the need to protect financial institutions from hackers

TDT | Manama

The Kingdom, which is home to over 400 finan-cial institutions, is a ma-

jor target of hackers from across the world, said Yacoub Al Awa-dhi, CEO of NGN International, a system integration company.

This came as NGN Internation-al organised a a Cyber Security Workshop at the Capital Club in Manama, in collaboration with Group-IB, an international cy-bersecurity company.

The event was held in the presence of senior information security professionals from a number of leading Bahraini banks.

Mr Al Awadhi highlighted that Group-IB’s products and servic-es provided by NGN in the Gulf region are state-of-the-art cyber security tools and solutions rely-ing on unique cyber intelligence and proactive threat hunting tai-lored to all financial institutes in Bahrain and the rest of the GCC.

“We offer these advanced solutions at a time when we are witnessing a surge in hacker at-tacks against vital institutions such as government, banking, energy, and healthcare,” he said.

“The presence of more than

400 financial institutions in Bahrain makes it a major target for many hackers around the world,” he added.

The co-operation between NGN and Group-IB extends to providing quality training for Bahrainis in cybersecurity and closing the skills gap in the re-lated market in the region.

“There are over 900 Bahraini graduates in ICT courses and figures indicate that there are about one million vacancies

in cyber security around the world,” he stated.

Group-IB specialists have trained law enforcement agen-cies, corporate security teams, and universities around the world, as well as experts with-in Group-IB’s official partners, Interpol and Europol. The new programme becomes available for Bahraini companies thanks to the NGN-Group-IB partner-ship.

Vice President of Internation-

al Business at Group-IB Nicho-las Palmer highlighted that the co-operation with NGN will play an important role in the devel-opment of Bahrain’s national economy.

“It shall further develop its cy-ber security expertise, since the Kingdom is key Middle East’s financial powerhouse.

“Its rapid economic develop-ment and commitment to im-proving investment climate did not go unnoticed not only for the

world’s financial industry lead-ers but also notorious hacker groups eager to have their finger in the pie.

“This step will help to attract more investments to the King-dom and the region by inter-national institutions including banks and airlines, strength-ening Bahrain’s position as a leading ICT hub in the region,” explained Mr Palmer.

“This cooperation with NGN will help protect against poten-

tial cyber breaches and protect the internal networks of gov-ernment entities, banks and pri-vate companies. Furthermore, we will work through our part-nership in training to fill the shortage of cyber security staff in Bahrain and the region,” he added.

“Major government, private institutions, and banks need to rethink their approach to pro-tection from cyber threats. Cy-ber protection should not only be defensive but make use of early warning systems and the elimination of threats in the bud. It is time to turn the tables, stop being victims and start hunting for cyber threats,” he added.

Bahrain among destinations affected by cancellation of Oman Air flights

TDT | ManamaMohammed Zafran

The Kingdom is among those affected by cancella-tion of Oman Air flights to

more than a dozen destinations, it emerged.

Flights to Calicut, Hyderabad, Riyadh, Goa, Amman, Calicut, Bahrain, Dubai, Mumbai, Goa, Salalah, Karachi, Doha, and Ban-galore are among the other desti-nations affected.

The carrier conveyed in a state-ment that it will rebook guests on alternative flights to their desti-nations. 

“Passengers who are due to travel during the said period should check the flight status or

contact our call centre on +968-24531111,” the statement said.

“As a result of the Public Au-thority for Civil Aviation direc-tives on suspending operations of Boeing 737 Max, certain flights until March 30 to a number of des-

tinations have been cancelled. We are rebooking guests on alterna-tive / next available flights to their destinations,” Oman Air stated.

Oman Air decided to suspend the operations of all Boeing 737 Max aircraft, based on directives

issued by the Sultanate’s Pub-lic Authority for Civil Aviation (PACA).

Meanwhile, the operation of Boeing B737 MAX aircraft across Bahrain airspace has been sus-pended as a precautionary meas-ure, it was revealed.

Bahrain has joined a long list of countries in banning the Boeing

737 Max from being flown. This follows the tragic crash

of the Ethiopian Airlines which operated the Boeing 737 Max that led to the death of all 157 aboard the flight.

According to the Civil Avia-tion Affairs, the aircraft has been banned from flying over the King-dom’s airspace.

“The suspension of this aircraft is a precautionary measure follow-ing the tragic crash of the Ethiopi-an Airlines,” an official source said.

Similar steps have been taken by the civil aviation authorities around the world.

Many countries around the world including the United Arab Emirates, UK, Saudi Arabia and UK have banned the aircraft.

Mr Al Awadhi speaks at the workshop.

Major government, private

institutions, and banks need to rethink their

approach to protection from cyber threats.

MR PALMER

Northern Municipality projects reviewed Manama

Following the directives of His Royal Highness

Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, and the follow-up of Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning Minister and the Munici-palities Affairs Undersec-retary, the Northern Area Municipality team carried out a field visit to Jid Al Haj to identify the needs of the villagers there.

  Northern Area Munic-ipality’s Director-Gener-al, Lamya Al Fadhal, said that her visit is in line with HRH the Prime Minister’s directives to meet the local villagers directly and iden-tify their needs regarding services and facilities, as well as municipal work.

S h e a d d e d t h a t t h e Northern Area Municipal-ity is cooperating with the representative of the first constituency at the local Municipal Council to meet the needs of the local vil-lagers.

She asserted that the Jid Al Haj beach will be re-vamped and cleaned, and a new kids’ play area will be prepared.

Member of the local Mu-nicipal Council, Dr Sayed Shabr Ibrahim Al Wadae, praised the Northern Mu-nicipality’s efforts in fol-lowing up on the needs of Jid Al Haj village, extending thanks to HRH Premier for his remarkable interest in the needs of the Northern Governorate’s first constit-uency, and keenness to pro-vide the necessary service needs to the local citizens.

‘Sky Forum’ discussion held TDT | ManamaHarpreet Kaur

In collaboration with the London-based art organisa-tion, The Wapping Project

and Bahrain Authority for Cul-ture and Antiquities organised a public discussion yesterday at the Bahrain Fort Museum under the theme  ‘Sky Forum’ to pro-mote discussion on combining art and science.

The series of three public events titled ‘Look Up at the Sky’ curated by Scottish-Danish artist Shona Illingworth, aims to develop her latest project ‘To-pography of Air’, which will de-but at Bahrain National Museum in March 2020.

“The event features presenta-tions and discussions bringing together scientists, archaeolo-

gists, historians and artists and will provide a significant contri-bution to my installation Topol-ogies of Air,” Shona Illingworth told Tribune. 

“Topography of Air project which is commissioned and is funded by The Wapping Pro-ject, London to support artist’s residency, event series and the art exhibition is part of the Brit-ish Council’s cultural relations mission.”

“The mission aims to build greater trust and understanding between the UK and the Gulf through projects in arts, educa-tion and science which is funded by the UK government’s Depart-ment of Digital Culture, Media and Sports with the aim to sup-port UK museums and cultural institutions to collaborate with new partners in the Gulf.”

“In order to share UK arts and culture exhibitions, each artist will be accompanied by an edu-cation and outreach programme to facilitate the exchange of arts, culture and heritage exhibitions with young people interested in arts and culture.”

“Moreover, Topologies of Air is an immersive multi-screen

sound and video installation examining the impact of accel-erating geopolitical, technolog-ical and environmental change on the composition, nature and use of airspace. The work aims to invite the audience look up and consider the air above their heads not as a void, free space, but a multi-layered, complex cultural and legal space, that is shared and personal, with a long history and rapidly changing future.”

“This sensory and captivating piece brings together extensive conversations with scientists, researchers, lawyers, philoso-phers, economists, astronomers, archaeologists and many others with evocative images shot in places such as Other Hebrides in Scotland, Canadian Northern Territories, Greenland, Austral-

ia, the Gulf among others, and archival footage looking at the airspace from a multitude of perspectives.”

“The series of events will con-clude with a workshop titled ‘Imagining Sky’, which includes a number of workshops explor-ing children’s perspective on the sky at the present time and how they imagine it to look to them in the future through drawing, writing, film and discussion ses-sions.”

“As an artist, my work encom-passes a range of media includ-ing video, sound, photography and drawing which is known for immersive video and mul-ti-channel sound installations, and evocative, research-led practice in which I explore the dynamic processes of memory,” she added.

The suspension of this aircraft is a

precautionary measure following the tragic

crash of the Ethiopian Airlines.

OFFICIAL SOURCE

As an artist, my work encompasses a range of media including video,

sound, photography and drawing which is known for immersive video and

multi-channel sound installations.

MS ILLINGWORTH

Page 5: FACEBOOK /nobmedia mail@newsofbahrain.com …...revealed to them my wish of kill-ing police officers. They agreed with me to make the bomb and we made one. “Before we set it off,

05

world

SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019

‘Caliphate’ wiped out• The Kurdish-led force and foreign intelligence have screened more than 60,000 people since January, around 10 percent of them jihadists turning themselves in

AFP | Baghouz, Syria

Kurdish-led forces pro-nounced the death of the Islamic State group’s

nearly five-year-old “caliphate” Saturday after flushing out die-hard jihadists from their very last bastion in eastern Syria.

Fighters of the US-backed Syr-ian Democratic Forces raised their yellow flag in Baghouz, the remote riverside village where jihadists of a variety of national-ities made a desperate, dramatic last stand.

The SDF’s victory capped a deadly six-month operation against the final remnants of the caliphate which once stretched across a vast swathe of Iraq and Syria, and held seven million people in its sway.

World leaders hailed the vic-tory as a major landmark in the fight against IS and its ideology, but warned that the group that spurred a spate of global terror attacks was far from defeated.

“Syrian Democratic Forces declare total elimination of so-called caliphate and 100 per-cent territorial defeat of ISIS,” spokesman Mustefa Bali said in a statement, using another acronym for IS.

In Al-Omar, an oil field used by the SDF as a staging base, fighters in their best fatigues laid down their weapons and broke into song and dance.

They joined top Kurdish and Arab tribal officials, as well as a leading US envoy, for a ceremony unveiling a monument to their fallen comrades and celebrating the landmark victory.

The state proclaimed in mid-2014 by fugitive IS supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi started collapsing in 2017 when paral-

lel offensives in Iraq and Syria wrested back its main hubs Mo-sul and Raqa.

The nearly five years of fight-ing against the most brutal jihad-ist group in modern history left major cities in ruins and popu-lations homeless.

Aid emergency For weeks, the ghostly figures

of the caliphate’s last denizens hobbled out of the besieged vil-lage, famished, often wounded but sometimes still defiantly proclaiming their support for IS.

The Kurdish-led force and for-eign intelligence have screened more than 60,000 people since January, around 10 percent of them jihadists turning them-selves in.

Most of the people evacuated from the smouldering ruins of Baghouz in recent days were relatives of IS members who now fill overcrowded camps further north in Syria’s Kurdish-con-trolled region.

The biggest of them, Al-Hol, is struggling to host 74,000 people, including at least 25,000 school-aged children.

Among them are thousands of foreigners from France, Russia, Belgium and 40-plus countries that are in most cases unwilling to take them back.

“The needs are huge and the camp is overwhelmed,” Peter Maurer, president of the Inter-national Committee of the Red Cross said Friday upon return-ing from a five-day visit to Syria.

Still a threat Speaking at the ceremony in

Al Omar, top SDF commander Mazloum Kobane warned that a

new phase had begun in anti-IS operations.

The US has vowed to draw down its forces in Syria, but Ko-bane appealed for sustained co-alition assistance to help smash sleeper cells “which are a great threat to our region and the whole world”.

The jihadists retain a presence in eastern Syria’s vast Badia de-sert and various other hideouts from which they could wage the kind of deadly guerrilla insur-gency that accompanied the rise of the Islamic State group.

John Spencer, a scholar at the Modern War Institute at West Point, warned that while the geographic caliphate had been dismantled, IS was far from de-feated.

IS “is a terrorist organisation, all they have to do is put down their weapons and try to blend in with the population and just escape,” he told AFP. “They’re not gone, and they’re not going to be gone.”

After almost five years of fight-ing and heavy losses, the Kurds are now exposed to threats from both Damascus and Turkey.

A female fighter of the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) flashes the victory gesture

Fighters of the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) dance as they celebrate near the Omar oil field in the eastern Syrian Deir Ezzor province

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) raising their flag atop a building in the Islamic State group’s last bastion in the eastern Syrian village of Baghuz after defeating the jihadist group

A source of potential terror attacks had had been

eliminated, but the threat remains and the fight

against terrorist groups must continue

EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT

The fall of the group’s last bastion is a critical

milestone that had delivered a crushing blow to IS

WILLIAM ROEBUCK, AN ENVOY TO THE US-LED COALI-TION FIGHTING IS

A new phase in the fight against terrorists is

beginning. The target was now to eliminate IS sleeper

cellsMAZLOUM KOBANE, THE OVERALL COMMANDER OF

THE SYRIAN DEMOCRATIC FORCES

It is an important step, but it is nonetheless clear that IS continues to represent a considerable threat. We

shall not underestimate that threat

HEIKO MAAS, GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER

The bastion’s fall is a historic milestone in the

fight against IS. The British government remained

committed to eradicating their poisonous ideology

THERESA MAY, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER

Fighters of the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) walking on a road in the fallen Islamic State group’s last bastion in the eastern Syrian village of Baghuz after defeating the jihadist group

Syrian Democratic Forces declare total

elimination of so-called caliphate and 100 percent

territorial defeat of ISIS

MUSTEFA BALISPOKESMAN

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06SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019

26 dead in central China tour bus fireBeijing, China

Twenty six people were killed and 30 injured after a

tourist bus caught fire in central China, local officials said.

The vehicle burst into flames as it drove through Hunan prov-ince Friday with 56 people on board -- including 53 passen-gers, two drivers and a tour guide -- according to local au-thorities.

The injured, including five in a critical condition, were rushed to hospital for treatment.

The two drivers were de-tained and an investigation into the cause of the accident is under way, according to a statement posted on the city of Changde’s official social media account on Weibo.

Grisly car accidents are com-mon in China, where transport

authorities struggle to enforce safety regulations, which are often flouted.

Some 58,000 people were killed in traffic accidents across the country in 2015, the latest year for which the data is avail-able publicly.

Violations of traffic laws were blamed for nearly 90 percent of accidents that caused deaths or injuries that year.

In November, at least 13 peo-ple died when a bus plunged off a bridge in Chongqing munici-pality, after the driver got into a fist fight with a passenger who had missed her stop.

Search and rescue teams dis-patched more than 70 boats, as well as a team of scuba divers and underwater robots, to find the wreckage and retrieve bod-ies from the water.

Rare albino penguin makes debut at Polish zooWarsaw, Poland

A rare three-month-old albino penguin made its first pub-

lic appearance at a zoo in the Polish Baltic port city of Gdansk, where its keepers claim it is the only one of its kind in captivity.

The all-white African black-foot penguin was born on De-cember 14, but zoo staff decid-ed to keep its arrival secret as they were unsure the vulnerable newborn would survive.

Zoo staff are waiting until they are able to determine its sex to name the youngster.

“As far as we know, there is no other such specimen alive (in captivity) in the world,” Michal Targowski, director of the Gdansk Zoo, told the TVN24 commercial news channel.

“The baby is active, in good

health, eats well and, what’s very important, its parents are taking very good care of it,” Tar-gowski said.

To ensure its safety, the youngster is being kept with a small group of six adults, includ-ing its parents, part of a group of 70 penguins living at the Gdansk Zoo.

“We’re really doting on him so that nothing bad happens to him”, Targowski, explaining that other penguins in the troop could take exception to the ba-by’s unique look and harm it.

African black-footed pen-guins, also known as jackass penguins due to their braying noise, have been rated as endan-gered since 2010 after suffering from commercial fishing, short-age of prey and pollution. An unique albino penguin (R) is pictured at the Gdansk Zoo

Highlights of Pakistan Day parade in Islamabad. Pakistan National Day commemorates the passing of the Lahore Resolution, when a separate nation for the Muslims of The British Indian Empire was demanded on March 23, 1940.

P a k i s t a n N a t i o n a l D a y

A long-range ballistic Shaheen II missile

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, his Malaysia’s counterpart Mahathir Mohamad

Visiting Azerbaijani troops

Commandos of Special Services Group (SSG)

Pakistani President Arif Alvi (C) arrives

Africa cyclone death toll surges past 600, ‘worst yet to come’

Beira, Mozambique

The death toll from a pow-erful cyclone that pum-

melled swathes of southern African countries, flooding thousands of square kilo-metres, on Saturday surged past 600 as diseases stalked

tens of thousands of survivors.At least 417 people have died

in Mozambique, according to government, bringing to 676 the total deaths when com-bined with those from neigh-bouring Zimbabwe.

Cyclone Idai smashed into the coast of central Mozam-bique on Friday last week, unleashing hurricane-force winds and rains that flooded the hinterland and drenched eastern Zimbabwe leaving a trail of destruction.

Relief and rescue efforts entered a second week in the central parts of the impover-ished coountry.

The UN, warning of more suffering, stepped up calls for help in Mozambique as aid agencies struggle to assist tens of thousands of people bat-tered by one of southern Af-rica’s most powerful cyclones.

Flood water covers the ground between rubble where there once use to be houses at an informal settlement in Beira

Norway airlifting 1,300 passengers off cruise ship

AFP | Oslo, Norway

Emergency services said yesterday they had begun airlifting 1,300 passen-

gers off a cruise ship in trouble off the Norwegian coast.

The Viking Sky cruise ship sent an SOS message due to “en-gine problems in bad weath-er”, southern Norway’s rescue centre said on Twitter, while police reported that the pas-sengers would be evacuated by helicopter.

“The boat only has one work-ing engine and the winds are rather strong. Therefore we would prefer to have the pas-sengers on land rather than on board the ship,” police chief Tor Andre Franck said.

By 4:30 pm (1430 GMT) 100 people had been evacuated, with four helicopters involved in the airlift.

“It will take time to evacuate

everyone,” Franck said.The incident occurred

mid-afternoon off the More og Romsdal area of western Norway.

“ I t i s d a n g e r o u s to encounter engine problems in these wa-ters which hide nu-merous reefs,” Franck added.

Other boats had also been sent to the area and a reception centre set up on shore to accommodate the evacuees.

“The ship has dropped anchor and one of its en-gines is working. It is cur-rently around two kilo-metres (1.2 miles) off the coast,” said a spokesman for the rescue centre, Ein-ar Knutsen, said.

“For the moment, all is going well,” he said.

The cruise ship Viking Sky is pictured near the west coast of Norway at Hustadvika near Romsdal.

China toll hits 64, man rescued after 40 hoursBeijing, China

The death toll in a chem-ical plant explosion in

China rose to 64 but rescu-ers found a survivor among more than two dozen still missing in the debris of one of the country’s worst in-dustrial accidents in recent years. The explosion in the eastern city of Yancheng injured hundreds and flat-tened an industrial park.

The local fire brigade pulled a man in his 40s from the rubble of the destroyed chemical plant around dawn on Saturday, accord-ing to a statement on the city government’s official Weibo account.

School shooting survivor takes own lifeMiami, United States

A teenager who survived the Parkland school shooting in

Florida has killed herself while struggling with survivors’ guilt, local media reported Friday.

Sydney Aiello, 19, was a stu-dent at Marjory Stoneman Douglas last February 14 when a former student opened fire with a semiautomatic weapon, killing 14 students and three staff members.

Among the dead were two of Aiello’s best friends, Meadow

Pollack and Joaquin Oliver.Her parents told local news

CBS4 that she had been treat-ed for PTSD, and suffered from survivor’s guilt, when a victim fixates on why they were the one to live, not someone else.

Her mother, Cara, told CBS Miami that Aiello had had a difficult time with her college classes “because classrooms now scared her.”

Aiello graduated from high school in July. She was a yoga enthusiast, and took part in the

national student movement seeking legal changes on gun control policy.

Stoneman Douglas students became crusaders against gun violence under the banner “March for Our Lives,” lob-bying for tougher gun control laws and organizing protests and rallies.

Meadow’s father, Andrew Pollack, told the Miami Herald that his “heart goes out to those poor, poor parents.

“It’s terrible what happened. Meadow and Sydney were friends for a long, long time,” Pollack said.

Sydney Aiello (Courtesy of CNN)

Page 7: FACEBOOK /nobmedia mail@newsofbahrain.com …...revealed to them my wish of kill-ing police officers. They agreed with me to make the bomb and we made one. “Before we set it off,

07SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019

KNOW WHAT

NASA publishes images of the meteor no one sawWashington, United States

NASA on Friday published satellite photos of a power-

ful meteor which appeared just above the Bering Sea on Decem-ber 18 but went unnoticed until months later.

The explosion unleashed around 173 kilotons of energy, more than 10 times that of the atomic bomb blast over Hiroshi-ma in World War II.

Images captured minutes af-ter the fireball disintegrated in the atmosphere show the shad-ow of the meteor’s trail cast on top of clouds, elongated by the sun’s low position.

The super-heated air turns the clouds to an orange tint in the meteor’s wake.

The photographs were tak-en by two NASA instruments on board the Terra satellite.

A still image was taken at

2350 GMT, while five of the of nine cameras on the Multi-an-gle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument took anoth-er sequence of photos at 2355, which NASA collated into a GIF that shows the orange trail

NASA estimates that the mete-or occurred at 23:48 GMT.

Meteors are rocks from outer space that become incandes-cent upon entering earth’s at-mosphere as a result of friction. They are also known as shoot-ing stars. Pieces which survive intact and hit the ground are known as meteorites.

It was the most powerful ex-plosion in the atmosphere since the fireball that burst over the Russian town of Chelyabinsk in 2013. That was 440 kilotons, and left 1,500 people injured, mostly from glass flying out of smashed windows.

This time around, the blast oc-curred over waters, hundreds of kilometers off the Russian coast.

The first photo of the event was taken by a Japanese weather satellite and published only this week.

The image shows the path the meteoroid traveled and its point of explosion (lower right)

The Gulf emirate’s Burj Khalifa tower lit the previous night with an image of New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in appreciation of her solidarity position with her country’s Muslim community following the March 15 massacre of 50 worshippers in a mosque in Christchurch by an Australian white supremacist

Dubai projects NZ PM’s image on iconic skyscraper

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Dubai has projected the im-age of New Zealand pre-

mier Jacinda Ardern onto its iconic Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest skyscraper, in thanks for her response to last week’s mosque shootings.

Dubai ruler Sheikh Moham-med bin Rashid Al-Maktoum praised Ardern’s “support to the Muslim community” af-ter a white supremacist gun-man attacked two mosques on March 15, killing 50 people.

“ T h a n k y o u P M @ j a -cindaardern and New Zealand for your sincere empathy and support that has won the re-

spect of 1.5 billion Muslims after the terrorist attack that shook the Muslim community around the world,” he wrote on Twitter.

A photo from Dubai’s Public Diplomacy Office showed Burj Khalifa lit up with a picture of Ardern in a hijab, warmly embracing a Muslim affect-ed by the tragedy, under the word “peace” in Arabic and English.

Ardern has been widely praised for her handling of the tragedy, meeting victims’ families and moving quickly to tighten gun laws while call-ing for global efforts against extremism online.

Messi drawing comes alive!AFP | Dhaka, Bangladesh

A young Bangladeshi archi-tect has earned fame after

his digital drawing of footballer Lionel Messi was matched in real life six years later.

Suhas Nahian’s 2013 artwork shows Messi dribbling past a group of players in green and white, leaning his head forward as one of the defenders grabs his red-and-blue Barcelona jersey.

Photos of Messi shot during a recent match against Real Betis show him in an almost iden-tical pose, complete with one defender on the ground as the Argentinian charges through.

“I painted something 6 years ago, and football gods made the image come true,” Suhas, 29, said on Instagram.

He said that he watched the La Liga match, which saw Messi score a hat-trick as Barcelona won 4-1, but noticed nothing ex-ceptional until a friend phoned him and excitedly pointed out the striking similarities.

“I looked back and found those are actually very similar.” he said. “It was fascinating. I was surprised.”

Suhas, who now owns an ar-

chitecture firm, said the digital painting he drew as a student in 2013 was shared by a foot-ball fan page called Plaantik at that time.

“I am glad my only painting brought me so much fame, as it has been published in many Spanish, Argentine and Indian media,” he said.

Suhas said he did not choose Betis’s white and green jersey for his artwork consciously.

“Barcelona’s jersey is very vi-brant with blue and red, so from the point of colour I wanted to paint the rest of the painting in green so that Messi stays in focus,” he said.

“So I chose this green and white jersey, not specifically thinking of Betis but from the sense of colour.”

Suhas said his artwork was part of a football-themed series that he wanted to do includ-ing Messi’s dribbling, Cristiano Ronaldo’s header and Xavi’s turn.

“I am a Barcelona fan but I admire all great players. This is why I wanted to draw this foot-ball series. But after the painting on Messi’s dribbling, I could not complete the rest,” he said.

This combination of pictures created on March 23, 2019 shows (top) painting of Bangladeshi architect Suhas Nahian, 29, in Dhaka on March 23, 2019 (down) Barcelona’s Argentinian forward Lionel Messi (R) shoots to score a goal during the Spanish league football match between Real Betis and FC Barcelona at the Benito Villamarin stadium in Seville on March 17, 2019.

French police out in force to prevent ‘yellow vest’ violenceParis, France

Th o u s a n d s o f p o l i c e fanned out across Paris and other French cities

Saturday for the 19th consecu-tive week of “yellow vest” pro-tests, as the government faced intense pressure to avoid a re-peat of the rioting and looting that marred last week’s rally in the capital. Hundreds of demon-strators began marching shortly after midday from a square in the south of Paris across the city towards Montmartre in the north, with banners calling for President Emmanuel Macron to “Get Lost!”

Authorities banned demon-strations in a large area in the west of the city, including the Champs-Elysees, the scene of

last Saturday’s rampage by hun-dreds of black-clad agitators.

Dozens of police vehicles, in-cluding armoured trucks and water cannons, encircled the Arc de Triomphe at the top of the iconic avenue, with officers searching people’s bags and pa-trolling in front of boarded-up storefronts.

“It would have been asking for trouble to go to the Champs, after the repression they’ve an-nounced,” said Jean-Paul Ton-son, a 57-year-old civil servant.

“But we’re going to keep showing up, we’re not going to back down,” he said.

The interior ministry said 8,300 people had turned out for protests across France as of 2:00 pm (1300 GMT), including 3,100 in Paris.

Yellow Vest protesters gather in front of the Sacre Coeur Basilica ontop of the Montmartre hill in Paris

The fireball’s explosion unleashed 173 kilotons

of energy - more than 10 times what the atomic bomb unleashed over

Hiroshima during World War II

Indonesia busts Russian smuggling drugged orangutanDenpasar, Indonesia

A Russian tourist at-tempting to smuggle a

drugged orangutan out of Indonesia in his suitcase to bring home and keep as a pet has been arrested in Bali, police said. Andrei Zhestkov was detained in Denpasar airport late on Friday while passing through a security screening before a planned flight back to Russia.

S u s p i c i o u s o f f i c e r s stopped him and opened his luggage to find a two-year-old male orangutan sleep-ing inside a rattan basket. “We believe the orangutan was fed allergy pills which caused him to sleep,” Bali conservation agency official I Ketut Catur Marbawa said.

Page 8: FACEBOOK /nobmedia mail@newsofbahrain.com …...revealed to them my wish of kill-ing police officers. They agreed with me to make the bomb and we made one. “Before we set it off,

SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019

Hon. Chairman Najeb Yacob Alhamer | Editor-in-Chief Mahmood AI Mahmood | Deputy Editor-in-Chief Ahdeya Ahmed | Chairman & Managing Director P Unnikrishnan | Advertisement: Update Media W.L.L | Tel: 38444692, Email: [email protected] | Newsroom: Tel: 38444680, Email: [email protected] & circulation: Tel: 38444698/17579877 | Email:[email protected] | Website: www.newsofbahrain.com | Printed and published by Al Ayam Publishing

SUSHIL AARON

Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, has been exemplary in her

response to the massacre in Christchurch, where 50 Muslims were killed in two mosques by an Australian white supremacist and his accomplices.

Arden provided a frame for national grief by embracing the Muslim immigrant community and by firmly insisting, in a tweet after the attack, “Many of those affected will be members of our migrant communities — New Zea-land is their home — they are us.” She set the tone for the country’s response, framed the incident as a terrorist attack and insisted that her country will reject violent extremism.

Ardern, 38, took over as prime minister in October 2017, after generating a measure of “Jacinda-mania” and leading her New Zea-land Labour Party to victory. Her stature as a serious progressive politician has not been affected by her celebrity status; Ardern leads in polls even as some of her policies receive mixed reviews.

Christchurch marks a turning point for Ardern and for New Zea-land. She has set high benchmarks for messaging and leadership dur-ing this crisis. She is expected to

unveil specific proposals to re-form the country’s gun laws be-fore March 25. Ardern, wearing a black scarf, comforted families of the victims — a remarkable ges-ture given the reactions Muslim women’s headgear provokes in many Western countries.

New Zealanders have followed their leader’s example. Citizens are declaring that the attacker does not speak for them, dona-tions are pouring in for fami-lies, condolence books are being signed, flowers placed in front of mosques. On March 17, church congregations sang New Zea-land’s soaring national anthem that speaks about “men of every creed and race” gathering before God’s face in a “free land.”

Through the aftermath, Ardern has consciously sought to rein-force state ideology and elevate it above private prejudice. She rec-ognises politics as the domain that decides a nation’s values and is providing strong narrative direc-tion for a society suddenly dealing with exposed fault lines. She is reminding Kiwis to come to terms with the altered composition of her nation and, in fact, told Don-ald Trump that the best way he could support New Zealand was by offering “sympathy and love for all Muslim communities.”

On March 19, while speaking in the Parliament, she told the grieving families, “We cannot know your grief, but we can walk with you at every stage.” And in a pathbreaking gesture, Ardern said she will never mention the

name of the terrorist, thus with-holding the notoriety he sought. She implored others to “speak the names of those who were lost, rather than name of the man who took them.”

Ardern is emerging as the de-finitive progressive antithesis to the crowded field of right-wing strongmen like Trump and Viktor Orban of Hungary, whose careers thrive on illiberal, anti-Muslim rhetoric.

Like its exceptional prime min-ister, New Zealand has a national culture unlike any other in Europe or the Americas. Its isolation and distance makes its distinctive-ness possible, and the difference is palpable. It is a spectacularly beautiful country with a popu-lation of 5 million occupying an area larger than Britain. Though an urbanised country with a stable developed economy, it has a pace and an outlook of life that seem at odds with the extractive demands of modernity.

Migrants from developing countries relate easily to friendly Kiwis and are often surprised to see children and adults walk the streets barefoot. There are superb public libraries and innumera-ble public spaces in the form of beaches, bays and parks. Com-munity ties are crucial, work-life balance matters, long weekends are sacred.

Public-funded advice bureaus help migrants settle in. The streets are safe, schools are free and uni-versity costs are relatively mod-est. Kiwis complain about lack

of public investment in special-ised health care but it is already impressive for a foreigner: a full course of prescribed antibiotics costs $3.43. New Zealand grapples with neoliberal pressures but is

attempting to hold on to its social democracy.

Of course, the country has its problems. Lack of housing is a serious concern, attributed to a property market spiked report-

edly by Chinese investors over the years. Maori communities seek compensation for histori-cal dispossession, which is being addressed by a tribunal and con-scious promotion of indigenous

THERE IS NO BETTER THAN ADVERSITY. EVERY DEFEAT, EVERY HEARTBREAK, EVERY LOSS, CONTAINS ITS OWN SEED, ITS OWN LESSON ON HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR PERFORMANCE THE NEXT TIME. MALCOLM X

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Why Jacinda Ardern matters to the contemporary world? New Zealand Prime Minister is emerging as a progressive anti-thesis to right-wing strong men like Trump

CHARLIE WARZEL

Late on March 16, Facebook shared some dizzying sta-tistics that begin to illustrate

the scale of the online impact of the New Zealand massacre as the gunman’s video spread across so-cial media.

According to the social network, the graphic, high-definition video of the attack was uploaded by us-ers 1.5 million times in the first 24 hours. Of those 1.5 million copies of the video, Facebook’s automat-ic detection systems automatical-ly blocked 1.2 million. That left roughly 300,000 copies ricocheting around the platform to be viewed, liked, shared and commented on by Facebook’s more than 2 billion users.

YouTube dealt with a similar deluge. As The Washington Post re-ported on March 18, YouTube took “unprecedented steps” to stanch the flow of copies of the video that were mirrored, re-uploaded and, in some cases, repackaged and edited

to elude moderation filters.In the hours after the shooting,

one YouTube executive revealed that new uploads of the attack-er’s livestream appeared on the platform “as quickly as one per second.”

The volume of the uploads is staggering — for what it says about the power of the platforms and our collective desire to share horrific acts of violence. How footage of the murder of at least 50 innocent peo-ple was broadcast and distributed globally dredges up some deeply uncomfortable questions for the biggest social networks, including the existential one: Is the ability to connect at such speed and scale a benefit or a detriment to the great-er good?

The platforms are not directly to blame for an act of mass terror, but the shooter’s online presence is a chilling reminder of the power of their influence. As Joan Donovan, the director of the Technology and Social Change Research Project at Harvard, told me in the wake of the shooting, “if platform companies are going to provide the broadcast tools for sharing hateful ideologies, they are going to share the blame for normalising them.”

Numerical disclosures of any

kind are unusual for Facebook and YouTube. And there’s credit due to the platforms for marshalling resources to stop the video from spreading. On one hand, the stats could be interpreted as a rare bit of transparency on behalf of the companies — a small gesture to signal that they understand their responsibility to protect their users and rein in the monster of scale that they built.

But Facebook and YouTube’s choice to pull back the curtain is also a careful bit of corporate mes-saging. YouTube chose to share just one vague stat, while Facebook never mentioned how many views, shares or comments 300,000 vide-os received before they were taken down. It’s less an open book and more of an attempt to show their work and assuage critics that, de-spite claims of negligence, the tech giants are, in fact, “on it.”

Most troubling, it’s also a bid to reframe the conversation toward content moderation rather than addressing the role the platforms play in fostering and emboldening online extremism.

We shouldn’t let them do it.Content moderation is impor-

tant and logistically thorny, but not existential. Through the im-

plementation of new monitoring systems and the constant tweaking of algorithmic filters, and robust investments in human intervention and comprehensive trust and safety policies written by experts, com-

panies can continue to get better at protecting users from offensive content. But for those in the press and Silicon Valley to obsess over the granular issues of how fast so-cial networks took down the video

is to focus on the symptoms instead of the disease.

The horror of the New Zealand massacre should be a wake-up call for Big Tech and an occasion to interrogate the architecture of so-

We’re asking the wrong questions of YouTube and Facebook after New Zealand It’s time for a real conversation about the infrastructure and incentives that big tech provides far-right extremists

Page 9: FACEBOOK /nobmedia mail@newsofbahrain.com …...revealed to them my wish of kill-ing police officers. They agreed with me to make the bomb and we made one. “Before we set it off,

SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019

Hon. Chairman Najeb Yacob Alhamer | Editor-in-Chief Mahmood AI Mahmood | Deputy Editor-in-Chief Ahdeya Ahmed | Chairman & Managing Director P Unnikrishnan | Advertisement: Update Media W.L.L | Tel: 38444692, Email: [email protected] | Newsroom: Tel: 38444680, Email: [email protected] & circulation: Tel: 38444698/17579877 | Email:[email protected] | Website: www.newsofbahrain.com | Printed and published by Al Ayam Publishing

SUSHIL AARON

Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, has been exemplary in her

response to the massacre in Christchurch, where 50 Muslims were killed in two mosques by an Australian white supremacist and his accomplices.

Arden provided a frame for national grief by embracing the Muslim immigrant community and by firmly insisting, in a tweet after the attack, “Many of those affected will be members of our migrant communities — New Zea-land is their home — they are us.” She set the tone for the country’s response, framed the incident as a terrorist attack and insisted that her country will reject violent extremism.

Ardern, 38, took over as prime minister in October 2017, after generating a measure of “Jacinda-mania” and leading her New Zea-land Labour Party to victory. Her stature as a serious progressive politician has not been affected by her celebrity status; Ardern leads in polls even as some of her policies receive mixed reviews.

Christchurch marks a turning point for Ardern and for New Zea-land. She has set high benchmarks for messaging and leadership dur-ing this crisis. She is expected to

unveil specific proposals to re-form the country’s gun laws be-fore March 25. Ardern, wearing a black scarf, comforted families of the victims — a remarkable ges-ture given the reactions Muslim women’s headgear provokes in many Western countries.

New Zealanders have followed their leader’s example. Citizens are declaring that the attacker does not speak for them, dona-tions are pouring in for fami-lies, condolence books are being signed, flowers placed in front of mosques. On March 17, church congregations sang New Zea-land’s soaring national anthem that speaks about “men of every creed and race” gathering before God’s face in a “free land.”

Through the aftermath, Ardern has consciously sought to rein-force state ideology and elevate it above private prejudice. She rec-ognises politics as the domain that decides a nation’s values and is providing strong narrative direc-tion for a society suddenly dealing with exposed fault lines. She is reminding Kiwis to come to terms with the altered composition of her nation and, in fact, told Don-ald Trump that the best way he could support New Zealand was by offering “sympathy and love for all Muslim communities.”

On March 19, while speaking in the Parliament, she told the grieving families, “We cannot know your grief, but we can walk with you at every stage.” And in a pathbreaking gesture, Ardern said she will never mention the

name of the terrorist, thus with-holding the notoriety he sought. She implored others to “speak the names of those who were lost, rather than name of the man who took them.”

Ardern is emerging as the de-finitive progressive antithesis to the crowded field of right-wing strongmen like Trump and Viktor Orban of Hungary, whose careers thrive on illiberal, anti-Muslim rhetoric.

Like its exceptional prime min-ister, New Zealand has a national culture unlike any other in Europe or the Americas. Its isolation and distance makes its distinctive-ness possible, and the difference is palpable. It is a spectacularly beautiful country with a popu-lation of 5 million occupying an area larger than Britain. Though an urbanised country with a stable developed economy, it has a pace and an outlook of life that seem at odds with the extractive demands of modernity.

Migrants from developing countries relate easily to friendly Kiwis and are often surprised to see children and adults walk the streets barefoot. There are superb public libraries and innumera-ble public spaces in the form of beaches, bays and parks. Com-munity ties are crucial, work-life balance matters, long weekends are sacred.

Public-funded advice bureaus help migrants settle in. The streets are safe, schools are free and uni-versity costs are relatively mod-est. Kiwis complain about lack

of public investment in special-ised health care but it is already impressive for a foreigner: a full course of prescribed antibiotics costs $3.43. New Zealand grapples with neoliberal pressures but is

attempting to hold on to its social democracy.

Of course, the country has its problems. Lack of housing is a serious concern, attributed to a property market spiked report-

edly by Chinese investors over the years. Maori communities seek compensation for histori-cal dispossession, which is being addressed by a tribunal and con-scious promotion of indigenous

THERE IS NO BETTER THAN ADVERSITY. EVERY DEFEAT, EVERY HEARTBREAK, EVERY LOSS, CONTAINS ITS OWN SEED, ITS OWN LESSON ON HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR PERFORMANCE THE NEXT TIME. MALCOLM X

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Why Jacinda Ardern matters to the contemporary world? New Zealand Prime Minister is emerging as a progressive anti-thesis to right-wing strong men like Trump

CHARLIE WARZEL

Late on March 16, Facebook shared some dizzying sta-tistics that begin to illustrate

the scale of the online impact of the New Zealand massacre as the gunman’s video spread across so-cial media.

According to the social network, the graphic, high-definition video of the attack was uploaded by us-ers 1.5 million times in the first 24 hours. Of those 1.5 million copies of the video, Facebook’s automat-ic detection systems automatical-ly blocked 1.2 million. That left roughly 300,000 copies ricocheting around the platform to be viewed, liked, shared and commented on by Facebook’s more than 2 billion users.

YouTube dealt with a similar deluge. As The Washington Post re-ported on March 18, YouTube took “unprecedented steps” to stanch the flow of copies of the video that were mirrored, re-uploaded and, in some cases, repackaged and edited

to elude moderation filters.In the hours after the shooting,

one YouTube executive revealed that new uploads of the attack-er’s livestream appeared on the platform “as quickly as one per second.”

The volume of the uploads is staggering — for what it says about the power of the platforms and our collective desire to share horrific acts of violence. How footage of the murder of at least 50 innocent peo-ple was broadcast and distributed globally dredges up some deeply uncomfortable questions for the biggest social networks, including the existential one: Is the ability to connect at such speed and scale a benefit or a detriment to the great-er good?

The platforms are not directly to blame for an act of mass terror, but the shooter’s online presence is a chilling reminder of the power of their influence. As Joan Donovan, the director of the Technology and Social Change Research Project at Harvard, told me in the wake of the shooting, “if platform companies are going to provide the broadcast tools for sharing hateful ideologies, they are going to share the blame for normalising them.”

Numerical disclosures of any

kind are unusual for Facebook and YouTube. And there’s credit due to the platforms for marshalling resources to stop the video from spreading. On one hand, the stats could be interpreted as a rare bit of transparency on behalf of the companies — a small gesture to signal that they understand their responsibility to protect their users and rein in the monster of scale that they built.

But Facebook and YouTube’s choice to pull back the curtain is also a careful bit of corporate mes-saging. YouTube chose to share just one vague stat, while Facebook never mentioned how many views, shares or comments 300,000 vide-os received before they were taken down. It’s less an open book and more of an attempt to show their work and assuage critics that, de-spite claims of negligence, the tech giants are, in fact, “on it.”

Most troubling, it’s also a bid to reframe the conversation toward content moderation rather than addressing the role the platforms play in fostering and emboldening online extremism.

We shouldn’t let them do it.Content moderation is impor-

tant and logistically thorny, but not existential. Through the im-

plementation of new monitoring systems and the constant tweaking of algorithmic filters, and robust investments in human intervention and comprehensive trust and safety policies written by experts, com-

panies can continue to get better at protecting users from offensive content. But for those in the press and Silicon Valley to obsess over the granular issues of how fast so-cial networks took down the video

is to focus on the symptoms instead of the disease.

The horror of the New Zealand massacre should be a wake-up call for Big Tech and an occasion to interrogate the architecture of so-

We’re asking the wrong questions of YouTube and Facebook after New Zealand It’s time for a real conversation about the infrastructure and incentives that big tech provides far-right extremists

Hon. Chairman Najeb Yacob Alhamer | Editor-in-Chief Mahmood AI Mahmood | Deputy Editor-in-Chief Ahdeya Ahmed | Chairman & Managing Director P Unnikrishnan | Advertisement: Update Media W.L.L | Tel: 38444692, Email: [email protected] | Newsroom: Tel: 38444680, Email: [email protected] & circulation: Tel: 38444698/17579877 | Email:[email protected] | Website: www.newsofbahrain.com | Printed and published by Al Ayam Publishing

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I want to thank the people of Malda for

their affection & enthu-siastic support at today’s election rally. We in the Congress Party recommit ourselves to working for the people of Bengal & to strengthening the emo-tional bond we have, that has stood the test of time.

@RahulGandhi

I welcome PM Modi’s message to our people.

As we celebrate Pakistan Day I believe it is time to begin a comprehen-sive dialogue with India to address & resolve all issues, esp the central is-sue of Kashmir, & forge a new relationship based on peace & prosperity for all our people.

@ImranKhanPTI

President Trump’s attacks on the late

John McCain mark the first time in memory where a President has picked a fight with a dead man and lost. Mc-Cain was no saint, but he was a brave and pa-triotic man. Hitting him when he can’t hit back is repellent.

@brithume

Kamala Harris’ big new thing: In Texas

today, she’ll call for an unprecedented federal investment in raising teacher pay. Good mes-sage for a female domi-nated, heavily unionized profession.

@hookjan

Disclaimer: (Views expressed by columnists are personal and need not necessarily reflect our

editorial stances)

culture. Mental health comes up as an under-discussed issue and public infrastructure needs more investment.

Cities like Auckland grew rap-idly in the last decade owing to

thousands of foreign students and workers, which increased pressure on services in ways that Kiwis did not expect. Many New Zealanders are still getting used to diversity and often regret that “the country has changed.” This yields resentment among some that right-wing figures seek to stoke. Muslims have been subject to racial slurs and hate speech since the Sept 11 attacks in the United States, but as Mohamed Hassan, a Kiwi journalist put it, not in ways that one’s “life would be on the line.”

But there is a vibrant political debate on immigration and about the need to import skilled labor without provoking domestic ten-sions — all conducted without rancor or vitriol. Migrants will not deny sensing subtle forms of exclusion in securing jobs or promotions at work, but the in-grained commitment to everyday

civility among New Zealanders is something an immigrant appreci-ates the most.

Ardern has a tough road ahead to ensure that the country’s “pro-file” does not change. The chal-lenges she faces resonate with those in other democracies. It remains to be seen if in her case normative habits and deliberative practice can prevail over nasty right-wing subcultures that are amplified by technology, social media and weapons.

Combating bigotry and prej-udice entails both law enforce-ment and cultural change. The former is easier, the latter less so. Ardern will need to use her country’s civility to confront so-cial divisions rather than allow it to foster silences that block a fuller expression of equality for marginal groups.

Her government will need to craft newer meanings of national belonging to translate the tolerat-ed and unwanted into the desira-ble. Democratic discourses must ultimately aim to bridge ethnic silos and parallel cultural lives.

It is an challenge fraught with risk for a liberal politician, as a perceived overreach in so-cial engineering can provoke a conservative backlash. It is not easy dealing with both a grieving community and a nation whose self-image has been dented. Right now her moral clarity is inspiring the world.

(Sushil Aaron is an Indian journalist currently based in New Zealand.)

1977Morarji Desai became the Prime Minister of India, the first Prime Minister not to belong to Indian National Congress.

1980El Salvadorian Archbishop Óscar Romero is assassinated while celebrating Mass in San Salvador.

1986The Loscoe gas explosion leads to new UK laws on landfill gas migration and gas protection on landfill sites.

1989In Prince William Sound in Alaska, the Exxon Valdez spills 240,000 barrels (38,000 m3) of crude oil after running aground.

TODAY DAY IN

HISTORY

Happiness begins at

home

It was the tiny mountain kingdom of Bhutan that first initiated the practice of linking individual and

community happiness to development with a Happiness Index that measured the well-being of the nation and was given more weightage than economic scales. Why, the phrase ‘gross nation-al happiness’ was first coined by the Fourth King of Bhutan, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, in 1972 when he declared, “Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross Domestic Product”.

Today, the UN issues the annual World Happiness Report as part of its Sustainable Development Solutions Network. It contains articles, and rank-ings of national happiness based on respondent ratings of their own lives, which the report also correlates with various life factors.

The 2019 report saw Bahrain ranked at No 37 on a list of 157 countries. We are at No 3 in the GCC, behind UAE and Saudi Arabia. Undoubtedly, the mean-ing of happiness – which is itself a very subjective thing – has changed since it was acknowledged in 1972 as affecting a

country’s development. Today, happiness needs to be meas-ured through the prism of new developments: technologies, 21st century social norms and government policies that have driven those changes.

I am confident that our leaders and our government, with the recently-announced focus on the people’s physi-cal well-being, will boost our happiness. Bahrain already is a welfare state that strives to provide all basic essentials for its citizens from health care to housing to education. And in all these areas, we get world-class facilities. Now, we are tightening the focus so that we take on the more difficult challenges such as chronic dis-eases like diabetes, cancer and

cardiac health. Just like governments have a respon-

sibility towards ensuring citizens’ hap-piness, we, the people, too have the re-sponsibility towards our country. In a thousand tiny ways, everyday we can make our beloved Bahrain a better place.

Simple things like taking your own cloth bag to the shops and cutting back on plastic use, not littering our public parks and beaches, why, even avoiding wrong parking on busy roads during Friday prayers – each action contrib-utes to Bahrain’s overall happiness.

On the larger stage, raising law-abid-ing children, teaching the next genera-tion right from wrong so that they are good citizens and most importantly, doing so by setting an example for them to follow. 

The home is the cradle of the com-munity and the community reflects our world. Let us be the happiness we want for ourselves.

(Captain Mahmood Al Mahmood is the Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Tribune and the President of the Arab-African Unity

Organisation for Relief, Human Rights and Counterterrorism)

CAPT. MAHMOOD AL MAHMOOD

The home is the cradle of the

community and the community

reflects our world. Let us be

the happiness we want for

ourselves.

Why Jacinda Ardern matters to the contemporary world? New Zealand Prime Minister is emerging as a progressive anti-thesis to right-wing strong men like Trump

Ardern will need to use her country’s civility to

confront social divisions rather than allow it to

foster silences that block a fuller expression of equality for marginal

groups.

cial networks that incentivise and reward the creation of extremist communities and content.

Focusing only on moderation means that Facebook, YouTube and other platforms, such as Reddit, don’t have to answer for the ways in which their platforms are me-ticulously engineered to encourage the creation of incendiary content, rewarding it with eyeballs, likes and, in some cases, ad dollars. Or how that reward system creates a feedback loop that slowly pushes unsuspecting users further down a rabbit hole toward extremist ideas and communities.

On Facebook or Reddit this might mean the ways in which people are encouraged to share propaganda, divisive misinforma-tion or violent images in order to amass likes and shares. It might mean the creation of private com-munities in which toxic ideologies are allowed to foment, unchecked. On YouTube, the same incentives have created cottage industries of shock jocks and livestreaming communities dedicated to bigotry cloaked in amateur philosophy.

The YouTube personalities and the communities that spring up around the videos become impor-tant recruiting tools for the far-right

fringes. In some cases, new features like “Super Chat,” which allows viewers to donate to YouTube per-sonalities during livestreams, have become major fundraising tools for the platform’s worst users — essen-tially acting as online telethons for white nationalists.

Part of what’s so unsettling about the New Zealand shooting sus-pect’s online persona is how it lays bare how these forces can occa-sionally come together for violent ends. His supposed digital footprint isn’t just upsetting because of its content but because of how much of it appears designed to delight

fellow extremists. The decision to call the attack a “real life effort post” reflects an eerie merging of conspiratorial hate from the pages of online forums and into the real world — a grim reminder of how online communities may be em-boldening and nudging their most violent and unstable individuals.

Stewards of our broken online ecosystem need to accept respon-sibility — not just for moderating the content but for the cultures and behaviours they can foster. Accept-ing that responsibility will require a series of hard conversations on behalf of the tech industry’s most powerful companies. It’ll involve big questions about the morality of the business models that turned these startups into money-print-ing behemoths. And even tougher questions about whether connec-tivity at scale is a universal good or an untenable phenomenon that’s slowly pushing us toward disturb-ing outcomes.

And while it’s hardly the con-versations Facebook or YouTube want to have, they’re the ones we desperately need now.

(Charlie Warzel, a New York Times Opinion writer at large, covers

technology, media, politics and online extremism.)

We’re asking the wrong questions of YouTube and Facebook after New Zealand It’s time for a real conversation about the infrastructure and incentives that big tech provides far-right extremists

The YouTube personalities and the communities

that spring up around the videos become important

recruiting tools for the far-right fringes.

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KNOW WHAT

10

business

SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019

Visual discovery startup Pinterest files for IPOSan Francisco, United States

Pinterest, the online visual discovery firm with an es-

timated 250 million users, filed for a public share offering Fri-day, the latest of the big ven-ture-backed startups to hit Wall Street.

The San Francisco-based on-line bulletin board that connects people with interests including food, fashion, travel and lifestyle said it would trade under the symbol PINS on the New York Stock Exchange.

“Pinterest is where more than 250 million people around the world go to get inspiration

for their lives,” said the com-pany said in its filing with the Securities and Exchange Com-mission which is expected to seek a valuation of some $12 billion.

“They come to discover ide-as for just about anything you can imagine: daily activities like cooking dinner or deciding what to wear, major commitments like remodeling a house or training for a marathon, ongoing pas-sions like fly fishing or fashion and milestone events like plan-ning a wedding or a dream va-cation.”

Documents for the initial

public offering showed Pinter-est lost $63 million in 2018 on revenue of $755.9 million. That compared with a loss of $130.0 million on $473 million in 2017 revenue. Launched in 2010, Pin-terest brings in money from its role in online shopping and from advertising.

It becomes the latest of the richly valued tech startups worth more than $1 billion, sometimes called “unicorns,” to hit Wall Street. Ride-hailing giant Lyft is expected to begin trading next week and rival Uber is likely to announce terms of its IPO soon.

Pinterest’s headquarters in San Francisco

The research firm eMarketer expects

Pinterest’s global ad revenues to hit $1 bil-lion this year, making

up just 0.3 percent of the total digital ad

spending

Food carnival comes to LuLu Hypermarket

A Food Carnival featuring world cuisine was inaugurated at LuLu Hypermarket in the Atrium Mall, Sar by Shaikh Khalifa Bin Duaij Al Khalifa, President of HRH the Crown Prince’s Court. The Carnival will run until April 6 and features an interactive exploration of different cuisines, cookery contests and the visit of famous TV celebrity Lakshmi Nair, whose travel-cum-cookery show is very popular. During her visit, Dr Lakshmi will judge a cookery contest for the traditional Indian ‘payasam’ dessert. There is also a pasta cooking contest and a children’s cookery contest. The event will also feature promotions on foodstuff as well as a variety of cookery demos

Deep Foundation Masterclass Manama

Total foundation solu-tion (TFS) is bringing

its first ever Masterclass to Bahrain on 24 March 2019 at the Intercontinental from 5PM – 8PM.

It is a free to attend event with speakers enlightening the attendees on Soil im-provement and Soil Inves-tigation techniques.

Total foundation solution FZCO is based out of Dubai specialising in the supply of Piling, Foundation, Soil Investigation and Soil Im-provement equipment.

GPIC exceeds production targets • Sets new per day production record

• New record of 8,311 working days without a lost time accident

• Exported 49,325 metric tons of Ammonia, 408,076 metric tons of Methanol and 667,721 metric tons of Urea

• China and Brazil top export partners

TDT | Manama

Gulf Petrochemical Indus-tries Company (GPIC) ex-ceeded all its production

targets for 2018, announced Chairman, Dr Ahmed Ali Al Sharyan.

The company, Dr Al Sharyan said, achieved new records by the end of 2018 which includes an increase of 20,000 metric tons over the original target in Urea production. New record production of 2,078 metric tons of Urea per day was also achieved.

The total production during the summer (July - August) for Urea was 120,456 metric tons.

“The combined efforts of all

had resulted in reduced spend-ing and increased production, despite the global challenges

that the petrochemical indus-try had witnessed in the last one year,” said Dr Al Sharyan

speaking during GPIC’s 5th Extraordinary General Meet-ing (EGM) and its 40th Annual General Meeting (AGM) under the Chairmanship of the Min-ister of Oil, Sheikh Moham-med bin Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa.

Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC) of Kuwait was represented by the Company’s Finance Manager Khalid Al Kandari whereas the Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) was represented by its VP-Glob-al Finance Reporting & Control-lership Khalid Ali Al-Garni.

GPIC President Dr Abdulrah-man Jawahery said the company had achieved a new record of 8,311 working days without a lost time accident, which translates to over 30.2 million hours since May 2002.

GPIC exported a total of 49,325 metric tons of Ammonia, 408,076 metric tons of Methanol and 667,721 metric tons of Urea,

all of which were exported to their final destination on board 59 vessels. In addition, 798 met-ric tons of bagged Urea and 1,629 metric tons of Methanol were allocated to the local market, in support of Bahrain’s agricultural and industrial sector.

China and BrazilChina and Brazil account-

ed for the largest share of the Company’s total exports at 18 per cent each, followed by India with 16pc and Taiwan with 14pc.

The Company exported a total of 1.13 million tons of Ammonia, Urea and Methanol, 1pc high-er than the original target for 2018.

Dr Jawahery said that the carbon dioxide recovery unit continued to help reduce emis-sions and maintain environmen-tal safety according to Bahrain government standards set up in coordination with the Supreme Council for the Environment.

GPIC officials during its 5th Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) and 40th Annual General Meeting (AGM)

Iraq PM asks MPs to fire governor over deadly ferry capsizeBaghdad, Iraq

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi made a for-

mal request to parliament yesterday to fire the gov-ernor of Niniveh province where 100 people were killed in a ferry capsize.

Most of those killed in Thursday’s sinking on the Tigris River were women and children headed out of Iraq’s second city Mosul for a Mother’s Day picnic on the Kurds’ Nowruz New Year holiday.

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11SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019

Ebdaa Bank seeks to benefit from

Bahrain’s position as a regional

center for financial technology through

the application of innovative

technology solutions at the bank

DR KHALED WALEED AL-GHAZZAWI

CEO OF EBDAA MICROFINANCE BANK – BAHRAIN

NBB extends branch operating hours TDT | Manama

National Bank of Bahrain (NBB) said it is extend-

ing the operating hours of its branches, effective 1 April 2019, to enhance customer service.

Bank’s updated opening hours, which vary per partic-ipating branch, is available on www.nbbonline.com.

C o m m e n t i n g , N a b e e l Ahmed Mustafa, Head of Net-work Management and Strat-egy said, “With NBB’s ongoing commitment and focus on en-hancing the customer journey,

we are delighted to announce further tangible service im-provements that make banking - both online and in-branches - easier, more convenient and accessible.”

Nabeel Ahmed Mustafa

Ebdaa Bank plans to adopt technology solutions: CEO

• Ebdaa in talks to issue credit cards

• Mulling options with cos on soft loans

TDT | Manama

Ebdaa Bank, a micro-fi-nancing bank in the Kingdom, has announced

plans to implement innovative technology solutions, within the bank, in a bid to benefit from Bahrain’s position as a regional centre for financial technology.

The bank also said it is cur-rently looking forward to co-operating with a commercial bank to issue credit cards to disburse loans and for client loan payments, after obtaining the approval of the Central Bank of Bahrain.

Dr Khaled Waleed Al-Ghaz-

zawi, CEO of Ebdaa Microfi-nance Bank – Bahrain said that the bank has entered into talks with financial companies on the provision of soft loans to new segments of beneficiaries,

including low-income workers who want to start micro-en-terprises.

Speaking at the third edi-tion of the Arab Banks Union conference, held in Jordan, Dr Al-Ghazzawi provided an over-view of Bahrain’s experience in the application of modern finan-cial technology in the banking sector.

“Ebdaa Bank seeks to ben-efit from Bahrain’s position as a regional centre for financial technology through the appli-cation of innovative technology solutions at the bank,” he said.

“This will further enable us to provide financial services to our customers in a manner that ensures the highest degree of ease, transparency and effec-tiveness,” he added.

Through the efforts of the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB), Bahrain has developed into a leader in the use of financial

technology in banking. “The CBB has activated the process of digital transformation and innovation in the financial and banking sector within the King-dom,” he said.

During a session on ‘The Role of Financial Technology in the Service of Small and Medium Enterprises’ at the conference, Dr Al-Ghazzawi stated that the Arab Gulf Development Pro-gramme (AGFUND) supports the transformation in all its banks, in the Arab region, towards a paper-free environment while utilising the latest technology tools.

“In the framework of its ap-plication of the concept of fi-nancial inclusion, AGFUND is also keen to encourage its bank customers to switch to digital banking, especially in poor areas where the residents are not fully aware of dealing with modern technologies,” he added.

The third edition of the Arab Banks Union conference held in Jordan

BCCI Majlis on “food wealth” TDT | Manama

The Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry

(BCCI) is holding its 10th and final Majlis meeting today from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in Al Majlis Hall of Bait Al Tijjar.

T h e M a j l i s w i l l b e themed “food wealth” and

will discuss issues of con-cern to the food sector in Bahrain.

Chairman of the Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry Sameer Nass extend-ed an invitation to all BCCI members and those concerned to attend the meeting.

Italy, China sign new ‘Silk Road’ protocol

Rome, Italy

Italy yesterday signed a “non-binding ” protocol

with China to take part in Bei-jing’s new “Silk Road” of trans-port and trade links stretching from Asia to Europe.

In doing so, Italy became the first G7 country to sign up for the massive project which has sparked unease in the US and the European Union as China aspires to a greater world role.

Visiting Chinese President XI Jinping and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte both attended a ceremony for the signing of 29 memoranda of understanding which Italian media said were worth 5.0 to 7.0 billion euros ($5.6 to 8.0 billion).

Also signing the accords were the chairman of Chi-na’s chairman of the Nation-al Development Commission He Lifeng and Italian deputy prime minister and Minister of Economic Development Luigi Di Maio.

Italian financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore said the value of the Chinese investments could rise to 20 billion euros but would for now be limited to the strategic ports of Genoa and Trieste.

Italian firms to benefit in-clude the Ansaldo group, which wins a contract for mak-ing turbines, and the Danieli group, which lands a 1.1 billion euro deal to build an iron and steel plant in Azerbaijan.

The accords also foresee

the opening up of the Chinese market for Italian oranges as well as a partnership for Chi-nese tourism giant Ctrip, nota-bly with Rome’s airports.

Cultural tie-ups including town twinnings are also on the agenda while Beijing is pushing to have several Serie A football matches played in China -- although that would currently contravene regula-tions of the game’s governing body FIFA.

‘Opportunity - and risk’“We are well aware, with

this memorandum of under-standing, that there is risk as well as opportunity,” said sec-retary of state for the economy Michele Geraci, who spent a decade working in China.

Italy has made a point of giv-ing a full welcome to Xi, de-spite the misgivings in Wash-ington and Brussels.

Critics say Beijing’s ambi-tious maritime, rail and road venture is “predatory” and overwhelmingly favours China and Chinese companies.

But Friday, Xi rejected any idea of a conflict of interest af-ter talks with his Italian coun-terpart Sergio Mattarella.

“China wants commercial exchanges to go both ways and for investment to flow in both directions,” Xi said.

Mattarella responded that business must go “in both di-rections... with fair competi-tion, respecting intellectual property rights while fighting counterfeit goods”.

(From L) China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Italy’s Economy Minister Giovanni Tria and Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte attend a signing ceremony at Villa Madama in Rome

China should continue to open up its economy, Apple’s Cook• Apple in January revealed that it took a hit in the “Greater China” region

Beijing, China

Apple chief executive Tim Cook yesterday urged

China to keep opening up its economy as local rivals bit into the profits of the US tech giant caught in the crosshairs of a trade spat between Beijing and Washington.

“We have seen China contin-ue to change and evolve... We encourage China to continue to open up,” he said during a speech at the annual China De-velopment Forum in Beijing on Saturday.

“We see that as essential not only for China to reach its full potential, but also for the global economy to thrive.”

Apple in January revealed that it took a hit in the “Greater China” region, where revenue plunged almost 27 percent in the most recent quarter.

The dip had been expected following the company’s rev-enue warning in December, where Apple admitted that iPhone sales and overall earn-

ings would be below most fore-casts, citing economic weak-ness in China and trade fric-tions between Washington and Beijing.

Lower priced local rivals such as Huawei, Xiaomi and Oppo have also been nibbling at the California tech giant’s market share in China.

Cook has been a critic of the US-China trade war that has spooked global markets. Last year, he used the China Devel-opment Forum as a venue to urge leaders of China and the

US to let “calm heads prevail” and to avoid an escalation of tariffs.

Most of Apple’s flagship products are assembled in China, leaving the California tech giant acutely vulnerable to Trump’s tariffs.

During his speech on Satur-day, Cook called for partner-ships based on “openness and trust” where world players can work together to solve some of the biggest problems facing the planet including poverty, inequality and climate change.

Apple CEO Tim Cook attends the Economic Summit held for the China Development Forum in Beijing

China to cut time for patent review by 15 percent: Xinhua

Reuters

China will reduce the time needed for pat-

ent review by at least 15 per cent in 2019, the Xin-hua news agency reported yesterday.

The review time for trademarks will also be re-duced to within 5 months, Xinhua reported without giving further details on the trademark or patent review timeframes. It was citing remarks made by the deputy head of National Intellectu-al Property Administration, Gan Shaoning, at the 20th China Development Forum.

The administration will further strengthen protec-tion of intellectual property by optimizing the mecha-nisms governing intellec-tual property, raising the costs for IP infringements, and treating all market enti-ties as equals in terms of IP protection, Xinhua reported citing Gan.

People attend the China Development Forum in Beijin

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12SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019

Responding to the Need for Change

When an organisation faces challenges from di-rect-competitors, the marketplace or from transfor-mations in the far environment such as new compe-

tition from disruptors, leaders have no choice but to manage through these challenges and lead change. But change always involves high levels of resistance and risk.

In the face of resistance and risk, leaders must embrace this need and then communicate to all stakeholders the inevitabil-ity of change; it has to happen. The logic of transforming an enterprise-culture is hard to escape when the market in which it is operating is changing. But there is often huge resistance from not only employees but also from senior individuals on the board and from shareholders.

These resistors must re-group and then mobilise to stress to all employees there is no option but to move forward through the stormy waters of competitive pressures, changing mar-

kets and far environmental factors.

Even in organisations where the owner, board of directors or C-Suite have become aligned and have agreed this need to trans-form the enterprise, there is almost always one major and fundamental difficul-ty; the conflict between an existing culture embedded in the enterprise, defining ways things are done and the need to become some-thing different.

Powerful, defensive emo-tional responses are a real-ity for people whose lives are intertwined in the cur-rent-culture of an organi-sation. Anxiety and fear are powerful negative emotions driving how people think and feel. These are the en-emies of creativity, innova-tion and productive change, which are needed given the volatile, uncertain, unsta-ble, complex and ambiguous marketplaces where we are all striving for sustainable success.

Obstacles to change and causes of the symptoms which work against change are nearly always under-pinned by unresponsive command and control senior management approaches. This is often exacerbated by excessively hierarchical approaches to communication through the enterprise and a lack of the nec-essary skills, experience and knowledge by the management team; all playing a part in the inability to respond effectively.

In a command-and-control enterprise where leaders micro-manage and constantly intrude, they will make personal deci-sions without consulting those closest to the action. This will lead to demotivated employees and will cause many and varied minor and major negative issues, reducing the opportunities for effective change and transformation, which will ultimately lead to substantial financial damage and potentially – failure.

Owners, the board and the C-Suite need to ensure they identify and choose the right change-champions, both internal employees and external consultants to aid with this difficult process of change and transformation. They need to endorse these chosen change-agents, empowering them to see-through change-agendas.

The change-agents need to be allowed the freedom to form and work in fluid teams, without the confines of seniority or sta-tus. Leaders and change-agents need to develop and deploy the right capabilities enabling them to ensure successful change; analysis, intervention and implementation.

Communication and alignment are keys to leading these change and transformation agendas in enterprises. The first role for change-agents is to communicate to all in the enterprise how failure to change is a greater risk than doing nothing; something has to be done. The risks of not reacting to threats, the risks of falling behind customer-demands or the risks of not keeping up with competitive pressures are too great.

The change-agents need to get close to customers; listen to what they have to say about delivery when compared to com-petitors and ask themselves, are we delighting and exciting customers and clients.

They also need to listen to each and every employee because they will know so much more than most senior management realise.

Missing out on any of these steps will almost certainly lead to failure for any change-process or transformation programme.

MIKE ORLOV

(Mike Orlov is a Partner at Stepping Stone Global, a Bah- rain-based boutique strategic management consultancy. He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Manage- ment. Email: [email protected])

Obstacles to change and causes of the symptoms which

work against change are nearly always under-pinned by

unresponsive com-mand and control

senior management approaches.

Oman minister arrives in Sri LankaReuters | Colombo

Oman’s oil minister ar-rived in Sri Lanka on Sat-urday to participate in

the launching of a $3.85 billion oil refinery project, government officials in Colombo said, three days after Oman said it had not yet agreed to invest in the fa-cility.

The arrival of Mohammed bin Hamad Al Rumhy could mean that the project - Sri Lanka’s

biggest foreign direct invest-ment deal - is back on track. However, there is no immediate sign of a formal deal involving Omani investment.

Sri Lankan officials said on Tuesday Oman’s oil ministry planned to take a 30 per cent stake in the project.

A Singapore company con-trolled by India’s Accord Group would invest the other 70pc. The storage tanks part of the facility would be owned fully by

the Accord entity.But on Wednesday, Oman de-

nied knowing about its part in the plan to build the refinery on Sri Lanka’s southern coast.

“He [Oman’s oil minister] is here to take part in the ground breaking ceremony for the oil tanks of the refinery,” a senior official at Sri Lanka’s strategic development ministry said.

Officials from Oman’s oil ministry were not immediately available for comment.

The refinery is being con-structed near a $1.4 billion port at Hambantota that is controlled by China Merchants Port Hold-ings.

Another government official confirmed the minister’s arriv-al and his participation at the ceremony in Hambantota on Sunday.

There are also plans in place by China Harbour Engineer-ing Corp to build an investment zone alongside the port.

Bahrain India Society (BIS) has elected a new board of directors for the period 2019 -2021 at a meeting held at the Capital Club. The new office bearers are Chairman Raj Damani, Vice Chairman Abdulrahman Mohamed Juma, Secretary General Madhavan Kallath, Treasurer P S Balasubramanyam, Director - Public Relations Soman Baby. Other directors: Ahmed Jawahery, Talal Mannai, Vijay Boloor, V K Thomas, Kishore Mathur and Harish Gopinath. BIS, which is the leading society consisting of representatives of both Bahraini and Indian community, is involved in programmes aimed at further strengthening the business, cultural, social and educational ties between Bahrain and India.

Anti-Brexit protesters mass in British capital for rallyLondon, United Kingdom

With Britain mired in political paralysis over Brexit hundreds

of thousands of pro-Europe-ans thronged London on Sat-urday calling for another ref-erendum on EU membership, in one of the biggest protests in decades.

Organisers estimated around a million opponents of Britain’s departure from the European Union joined what they called the “Put it to the people march”, descending on the capital by road and rail from across the country.

Wielding an array of an-ti-Brexit signs and EU flags, people first gathered at Hyde Park before walking the approx-imately two-mile route to West-minster -- whistling, cheering and chanting “people’s vote”.

“The message is clear: stop Brexit,” said the leader of the Liberal Democrats Vince Cable, who led the vast crowd which set off at lunchtime ahead of a rally outside parliament.

“We are now a Remain coun-try. Nearly 90 percent of young voters who weren’t allowed to vote in 2016 would vote to re-main,” he added.

In Westminster speakers in-cluding Scotland’s First Min-ister Nicola Sturgeon, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and oppo-sition Labour deputy leader Tom Watson began addressing attendees from early afternoon.

A host of other political fig-ures also joined the demonstra-tion, including Independent Group MPs who quit Britain’s two mainstream parties -- the Conservatives and Labour --

earlier this year in protest at their Brexit policies.

“One million marching for Britain’s place in Europe -- a worthy fight,” said Chris Leslie, one of the breakaway lawmak-ers.

Four generationsA majority of MPs voted

against holding another nation-wide poll on the issue earlier this month, and it remains a longshot bid by Remainers.

But with the protest coming just days after EU leaders grant-ed a delay to Brexit, people are increasingly hopeful they could still force a public vote.

“I was too young to vote in the last referendum,” science student Calypso Latham, 19, told the BBC.

“It’s going to affect my ca-reer with research grants so I definitely wanted to come and protest.”

This week’s agreed delay to Brexit, which was set for March 29, has prompted Prime Minis-ter Theresa May to make a re-newed bid to win MPs’ backing for her divorce deal.

If she succeeds, Britain will depart on May 22 under the terms of the withdrawal agree-ment the prime minister struck with Brussels last year.

But if lawmakers defeat the accord again, as expected, Lon-don must outline a new plan or face a no-deal Brexit as early as April 12 -- unless it decides to request another extension and hold European Parliament elections in May.

Hosted by the People’s Vote pressure group, Saturday’s pro-test follows a similar demon-stration in October that drew an estimated half a million people.

Organisers have arranged hundreds of coaches and even chartered a train to bring pro-testers from all corners of the country to the capital.

Stephen Goodall, a 96-year-old World War II veteran, trav-elled 200 miles (300 kilometres) by train from southwest Eng-land alongside four genera-tions of his family including his great-granddaughter.

“I am an old man and the out-come won’t affect me -- but it will affect my family and many people that I know for years to come,” he said ahead of the event.

A puppet head of Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May spearing a representation of the British Economy is taken on a march and rally organised by the pro-European People’s Vote campaign for a second EU referendum in central London

Page 13: FACEBOOK /nobmedia mail@newsofbahrain.com …...revealed to them my wish of kill-ing police officers. They agreed with me to make the bomb and we made one. “Before we set it off,

Manou the Swift fea-tures Kate Winslet, Willem Dafoe as the

seagull “parents” of an adopt-ed swift. It’s the first time they perform together, and also a first for LUXX Studios using AMD to power the graphics.

Known for their visual ef-fects for films as Wes Ander-son’s The Grand Budapest Hotel or productions as Inde-pendence Day: Resurgence or White House Down, the Ger-man LUXX Studios has taken a step in another direction, with Manou the Swift, an animated film about a swift that grows up believing he is a seagull like his parents.

He strives to swim, fish and fly like them but seems not very gifted. At summer race he finds out why. To his great shock he was adopted as one of the much-hated Swifts. His family still stands by him, especially his brother Luc. When seagulls and swifts get

into trouble Manou fights like a hero – mixing the best of in-ventive swift and courageous seagull.

Directed by Christian Haas and Andrea Block, founders of LUXX Studios, the film represents a milestone for the company, as it is its first full-length, animated feature. Manou the Swift is, according

to authors, “an Ugly-Duck-ing-meets-Romeo-and-Juli-et tale of an orphaned swift raised by seagulls, voiced by Kate Winslet and Willem Dafoe.” It’s a debut for Kate Winslet and Willem Dafoe as far as performing together, although you’ll never see them on screen in this film, only hear their voices.

The actors in this story are birds, lots of them, apparently. The animation represented a challenge for the team at LUXX Studios, despite their experience as a postproduc-tion company for VFX and an-imation since 2006, and they created a complete anima-tion feature film pipeline for “Manou the Swift” on 64bit

management tools “to han-dle thousands of shots with ten thousands of Tasks, Feed-backs, Storyboards, Preview clips, Royal Render Jobs and more. We decided to design our own hand tailored tools to be faster, flexible and more powerful on productions.”

As Warren Eng, Product Marketing Manager for pro-fessional graphics at AMD writes in a note published on the AMD Community blog, “one of the biggest challenges for small, independent studios like LUXX is budget. Large, established players in the business can throw as much as $100 million or more at an animated film. LUXX has a budget of $9.5 million, rough-ly 1/10 the budget typically allocated for a major animated production. They need to find efficiencies wherever they can so that they can make the film look amazing without break-ing the bank.”

M O V I E R E V I E W

13 SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019

CHANGE OF NAME

I, JOHN VIJU THACHEPPILLY JOHN F/O ANGEL MARY, holder of Indian Passport No M4597379 dated 10/03/2015 issued at Bahrain, having permanent residence at Thacheppilly House , Palliport P.O, Ernakulam, Kerala – 683515. Presently residing at Flat no. 11, Bldg No. 1118, Road No. 2925, Block No. 329, Salmaniya, Bahrain do hereby change my daughter name as (Given Name) ANGEL, (Surname) MARY, objection if any may be forwarded to Embassy of India , P.O.Box 26106, Bldg No. 1090, Road No. 2819, Block 428, Al Seef , Kingdom of Bahrain.

I, BINU THOMAS F/O JOVITTA SUSAN BINU holder of Indian Passport No. L3421436 dated 02-04-2014 issued at BAHRAIN having permanent residence at CHAMAKKALAYIL HOUSE, PUNNAKKADU PO, KOZHENCHERRY, PATHANAMTHITTA DT., KERALA – 689 652, INDIA presently residing at FLAT: 11, ENTRANCE: 39, SH.KHALID AVENUE, RIFFA / AL SHARQI 0907, SOUTHERN GOVERNORATE - BAHRAIN do hereby change my Daughter name as (Given Name) JOVITTA SUSAN (Surname) BINU. Objection(s), if any, may be forwarded to Embassy of India, P.O. Box No. 26106, Bldg. 1090, Road 2819, Block 428, Al-Seef, Bahrain.

OASIS JUFFAIR1- US (15+) (HORROR/THRILLER) NEW

LUPITA NYONG’O, ELISABETH MOSS, ANNA DIOPDAILY AT: 1.15 + 6.15 + 11.15 PM DAILY AT (VIP): 3.15 + 8.15 PM

2- KESARI (15+) (HINDI/ACTION/DRAMA) NEW AKSHAY KUMAR, PARINEETI CHOPRA, BHAGYASHREE

DAILY AT: 11.45 AM + 2.45 + 5.45 + 8.45 + 11.45 PM

3- FIVE FEET APART (PG-15) (DRAMA/ROMANTIC) NEW

HALEY LU RICHARDSON, COLE SPROUSE, MOISES ARIASDAILY AT: 10.45 AM + 3.45 + 8.45 PM

4- HOTEL MUMBAI (18+) (CRIME/THRILLER/DRAMA) NEW

DEV PATEL, ARMIE HAMMER, NAZANIN BONIADIDAILY AT: 11.30 AM + 4.15 + 9.00 PM

5- MARD KO DARD NAHIN HOTA (PG-15) (HINDI/AC-TION/ADVENTURE/COMEDY) NEW

ABHIMANYU DASANI, GULSHAN DEVAIAH, RADHIKA MADANDAILY AT: 2.00 + 6.45 + 11.30 PM

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DAILY AT: 11.15 AM + 1.45 + 4.15 + 6.45 + 9.15 + 11.45 PM DAILY AT (3D): 2.00 + 6.30 + 11.00 PM DAILY AT (VIP): 12.45 + 5.45 + 10.45 PM

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BRIANNA DENSKI, JENNIER GARNER, KEN HUDSON CAMPBELL

DAILY AT (KIDS CINEMA): 10.30 AM + 2.30 + 4.30 + 6.30 + 10.30 PM

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14-KODATHI SMAKSHAM BALAN VAKEEL (PG-13) (MALAYALAM)

DILEEP, MAMTA MOHANDAS, PRIYA ANANDDAILY AT: 12.15 + 5.45 + 11.15 PM

CITYCENTRE1- US (15+) (HORROR/THRILLER) NEW

LUPITA NYONG’O, ELISABETH MOSS, ANNA DIOPDAILY AT: 11.30 AM + 2.00 + 4.30 + 7.00 + 9.30 PM + 12.00 MN + (12.30 MN THURS/FRI)DAILY AT (VIP I): 10.30 AM + 1.00 + 3.30 + 6.00 + 8.30 + 11.00 PM

2- KESARI (15+) (HINDI/ACTION/DRAMA) NEW

AKSHAY KUMAR, PARINEETI CHOPRA, BHAGYASHREEDAILY AT: 11.30 AM + 2.30 + 5.30 + 8.30 + 11.30 PM

3- FIVE FEET APART (PG-15) (DRAMA/ROMANTIC) NEW

HALEY LU RICHARDSON, COLE SPROUSE, MOISES ARIASDAILY AT: 11.15 AM + 1.45 + 4.15 + 6.45 + 9.15 + 11.45 PM

4- HOTEL MUMBAI (18+) (CRIME/THRILLER/DRAMA) NEW

DEV PATEL, ARMIE HAMMER, NAZANIN BONIADIDAILY AT: 10.30 AM + 1.00 + 3.30 + 6.00 + 8.30 + 11.00 PM

5- MANOU THE SWIFT (PG) (HINDI/ANIMATION/AD-VENTURE/DRAMA) NEW

WILLEM DAFOE, KATE WINSLET, ROB PAULSENDAILY AT: 12.00 + 2.00 + 4.00 + 6.00 PM

6- DAMASCUS ALEPPO (PG-13) (ARABIC/DRAMA) NEW DOURAID LAHAM, SABAH JAZAIRI, SALMA MASRI

DAILY AT: 12.00 + 2.15 + 4.30 + 6.45 + 9.00 + 11.15 PM

7- CAPTAIN MARVEL (PG-13) (ACTION/ADVENTURE) BRIE LARSON, GEMMA CHAN, SAMUEL L. JACKSON

DAILY AT (ATMOS): 10.30 AM + 1.00 + 3.45 + 6.30 + 9.15 PM + 12.00 MN DAILY AT:(1.00 AM THURS/FRI)DAILY AT (IMAX 3D): 12.00 + 2.45 + 5.30 + 8.15 + 11.00 PM DAILY AT (VIP II): 11.30 AM + 2.15 + 5.00 + 7.45 + 10.30 PM

8- WONDER PARK (PG) (ANIMATION/ADVENTURE/COMEDY)

BRIANNA DENSKI, JENNIER GARNER, KEN HUDSON CAMPBELL

DAILY AT: 10.30 AM + 12.30 + 2.30 + 4.30 + 6.30 + 8.30 + 10.30 PM DAILY AT (ARABIC DUBBED): 11.30 AM + 3.30 + 7.30 + 11.30 PM

9- ESCAPE ROOM (PG-15) (THRILLER) TAYLOR RUSSELL, LOGAN MILLER, DEBORAH ANN WOLL

DAILY AT: 10.30 AM + 12.45 + 3.00 + 5.15 + 7.30 + 9.45 PM + 12.00 MN

10- BADLA (PG-15) (HINDI/THRILLER/CRIME) AMITABH BACHCHAN, TAPSEE PANNU, TONY LUKE

DAILY AT: 12.15 + 4.45 + 9.15 PM

11- GRETA (15+) (THRILLER/CRIME) *- CHLOE GRACE MORETZ, ISABELLE HUPPERT, MAIKA MONROE

DAILY AT: 8.00 + 10.00 PM + 12.00 MN

12-COLD PURSUIT (15+) (ACTION/CRIME/DRAMA) LIAM NEESON, EMMY ROSSUM, LAURA DERN

DAILY AT: 11.00 AM + 1.30 + 4.00 + 6.30 + 9.00 + 11.30 PM

13- FIGHTING WITH MY FAMILY (15+) (DRAMA/COME-DY/BIOGRAPHY)

DWAYNE JOHNSON, FLORENCE PUGH, JACK LOWDENDAILY AT: 12.30 + 2.45 + 5.00 + 7.15 + 9.30 + 11.45 PM

14-THE UPSIDE (PG-15) (COMEDY/DRAMA) KEVIN HART, BRYAN CRANSTON, NICOLE KIDMAN

DAILY AT: 10.45 AM + 1.15 + 3.45 + 6.15 + 8.45 + 11.15 PM

15-NADI ELREGAL EL SERI (PG-15) (ARABIC/COMEDY) KARIM ABDULAZIZ, GHADA ADEL, MAJDE ALKIDDAWI

DAILY AT: 12.15 + 2.30 + 4.45 + 7.00 + 9.15 + 11.30 PM

16-GLASS (PG-15) (THRILLER) JAMES MCAVOY, BRUCE WILLIS, SAMUEL L. JACKSON

DAILY AT: 12.30 + 3.00 + 5.30 + 8.00 + 10.30 PM

17-HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD (PG) (ANIMATION/ACTION/ADVENTURE)

CATE BLANCHETT, JONAH HILL, GERARD BUTLERDAILY AT: 1.30 + 5.30 + 9.30 PM

18-ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL (PG-15) (ACTION/ADVEN-TURE/ROMANTIC)

ROSA SALAZAR, CHRISTOPH WALTZ, JENNIFER CONNELLYDAILY AT: 10.45 AM + 4.00 + 9.15 PM

19-JOHNNY ENGLISH STRIKES AGAIN (PG) (COMEDY/ACTION/ADVENTURE)

ROWAN ATKINSON, OLGA KURYLENKO, EMMA THOMPSONDAILY AT: 2.45 + 7.15 + 11.45 PM

20-AQUAMAN (PG-15) (ACTION/ADVENTURE) JASON MOMOA, AMBER HEARD, NICOLE KIDMAN

DAILY AT: 1.15 + 6.30 + 11.45 PM

SEEF (II)1- US (15+) (HORROR/THRILLER) NEW

LUPITA NYONG’O, ELISABETH MOSS, ANNA DIOPDAILY AT: (12.45 MN THURS/FRI)

2- KESARI (15+) (HINDI/ACTION/DRAMA) NEW AKSHAY KUMAR, PARINEETI CHOPRA, BHAGYASHREE

DAILY AT: (12.45 MN THURS/FRI)

3- FIVE FEET APART (PG-15) (DRAMA/ROMANTIC) NEW

HALEY LU RICHARDSON, COLE SPROUSE, MOISES ARIASDAILY AT: 10.45 AM + 1.15 + 3.45 + 6.15 + 8.45 + 11.15 PM

4- HOTEL MUMBAI (18+) (CRIME/THRILLER/DRAMA) NEW

DEV PATEL, ARMIE HAMMER, NAZANIN BONIADIDAILY AT: 11.30 AM + 2.00 + 4.30 + 7.00 + 9.30 PM + 12.00 MN

5- MANOU THE SWIFT (PG) (HINDI/ANIMATION/AD-VENTURE/DRAMA) NEW

WILLEM DAFOE, KATE WINSLET, ROB PAULSENDAILY AT: 11.15 AM + 3.45 + 8.15 PM

6- ULAN (PG-15) (FILIPINO/DRAMA/THRILLER) NEW MARCO GUMABAO, ANGELI BAYANI, KYLIE VERZOSA

DAILY AT: 11.30 AM + 1.30 + 3.30 + 5.30 + 7.30 + 9.30 + 11.30 PM

7- DAMASCUS ALEPPO (PG-13) (ARABIC/DRAMA) NEW DOURAID LAHAM, SABAH JAZAIRI, SALMA MASRI

DAILY AT: 12.30 + 2.45 + 5.00 + 7.15 + 9.30 + 11.45 PM

8- MIRAI (PG) (ANIMATION/ADVENTURE/DRAMA) NEW

DANIEL DAE KIM, REBECCA HALL, JOHN CHODAILY AT: 10.30 AM + 12.30 + 5.00 + 9.30 PM

9- THE BRAND NEW ADVENTURES OF ALADIN (PG-15) (ADVENTURE/COMEDY) NEW

KEV ADAMS, JAMEL DEBBOUZE, VANESSA GUIDEDAILY AT: 2.15 + 6.45 + 11.15 PM

10- CAPTAIN MARVEL (PG-13) (ACTION/ADVENTURE) BRIE LARSON, GEMMA CHAN, SAMUEL L. JACKSON

DAILY AT: 11..15 AM + 2.00 + 4.45 + 7.30 + 10.15 PM + (1.00 AM THURS/FRI)

11- WONDER PARK (PG) (ANIMATION/ADVENTURE/COMEDY)

BRIANNA DENSKI, JENNIER GARNER, KEN HUDSON CAMPBELL

DAILY AT: 10.45 AM + 12.45 + 2.45 + 4.45 + 6.45 + 8.45 + 10.45 PM DAILY AT (ARABIC DUBBED): 11.45 AM + 3.45 + 7.45 PM

12-COLD PURSUIT (15+) (ACTION/CRIME/DRAMA) LIAM NEESON, EMMY ROSSUM, LAURA DERN

DAILY AT: 1.15 + 5.45 + 10.15 PM

13-THE UPSIDE (PG-15) (COMEDY/DRAMA) KEVIN HART, BRYAN CRANSTON, NICOLE KIDMAN

DAILY AT: 2.30 + 7.00 + 11.30 PM

14- CAPHARNAUM (18+) (ARABIC/DRAMA) KAWTHAR AL HADDAD, NADINE LABAKY, FADI YOUSEF

DAILY AT: 11.45 AM + 4.15 + 8.45 + 11.45 PM

15-HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD (PG) (ANIMATION/ACTION/ADVENTURE)

CATE BLANCHETT, JONAH HILL, GERARD BUTLERDAILY AT: 1.45 + 5.45 + 9.45 PM

SEEF (I) 1- US (15+) (HORROR/THRILLER) NEW

LUPITA NYONG’O, ELISABETH MOSS, ANNA DIOPDAILY AT: 11.00 AM + 1.30 + 4.00 + 6.30 + 9.00 + 11.30 PM

2- KESARI (15+) (HINDI/ACTION/DRAMA) NEW AKSHAY KUMAR, PARINEETI CHOPRA, BHAGYASHREE

DAILY AT: 12.00 + 3.00 + 6.00 + 9.00 PM + 12.00 MN

3- MARD KO DARD NAHIN HOTA (PG-15) (HINDI/AC-TION/ADVENTURE/COMEDY) NEW

ABHIMANYU DASANI, GULSHAN DEVAIAH, RADHIKA MADANDAILY AT: 12.15 + 2.30 + 4.45 + 7.00 + 9.15 + 11.30 PM

4- ESCAPE ROOM (PG-15) (THRILLER) TAYLOR RUSSELL, LOGAN MILLER, DEBORAH ANN WOLL

DAILY AT: 2.00 + 6.30 + 11.00 PM

5- BADLA (PG-15) (HINDI/THRILLER/CRIME) AMITABH BACHCHAN, TAPSEE PANNU, TONY LUKE

DAILY AT: 11.15 AM + 1.45 + 4.15 + 6.45 + 9.15 + 11.45 PM

6-NADI ELREGAL EL SERI (PG-15) (ARABIC/COMEDY) KARIM ABDULAZIZ, GHADA ADEL, MAJDE ALKIDDAWI

DAILY AT: 11.45 AM + 4.15 + 8.45 PM

7- TOTAL DHAMAAL (PG-13) (HINDI/COMEDY/ADVEN-TURE)

AJAY DEVGN, MADHURI DIXIT, ANIL KAPOORDAILY AT: 3.30 + 9.00 PM

8- KUMBALANGI NIGHT (PG-13) (MALAYALAM) SHANE NIGAM, SOUBIN SHAHIR, FAHADH FAASIL

DAILY AT: 12.30 + 6.00 + 11.30 PM

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2- KESARI (15+) (HINDI/ACTION/DRAMA) NEW AKSHAY KUMAR, PARINEETI CHOPRA, BHAGYASHREE

DAILY AT: 11.00 AM + 2.00 + 5.00 + 8.00 + (11.00 PM THURS/FRI)

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DAILY AT: 1.15 + 6.15 + (11.15 PM THURS/FRI)

6- WONDER PARK (PG) (ANIMATION/ADVENTURE/COMEDY)

BRIANNA DENSKI, JENNIER GARNER, KEN HUDSON CAMPBELL

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AL HAMRA1- OTTAM (PG-15) (MALAYALAM) NEW

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2- TO LET (PG-13) (TAMIL) NEW P SANTOSH SREERAM, SHEELA RAJKUMAR, AADHIRA

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2- KESARI (15+) (HINDI/ACTION/DRAMA) NEW AKSHAY KUMAR, PARINEETI CHOPRA, BHAGYASHREE

DAILY AT: 11.15 AM + 2.15 + 5.15 + 8.15 + 11.15 PM

3- FIVE FEET APART (PG-15) (DRAMA/ROMANTIC) NEW

HALEY LU RICHARDSON, COLE SPROUSE, MOISES ARIASDAILY AT: 11.00 AM + 1.30 + 4.00 + 6.30 + 9.00 + 11.30 PM

4- HOTEL MUMBAI (18+) (CRIME/THRILLER/DRAMA) NEW

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DAILY AT: 1.15 + 6.15 + 11.15 PM

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7- WONDER PARK (PG) (ANIMATION/ADVENTURE/COMEDY)

BRIANNA DENSKI, JENNIER GARNER, KEN HUDSON CAMPBELL

DAILY AT: 11.00 AM + 1.00 + 3.00 + 5.00 + 7.00 + 9.00 PM

Manou the Swift: Kate Winslet, Willem Dafoe voice the lovely kids treat

A scene from ‘Manou the Swift’

Page 14: FACEBOOK /nobmedia mail@newsofbahrain.com …...revealed to them my wish of kill-ing police officers. They agreed with me to make the bomb and we made one. “Before we set it off,

Diane Kruger dreamed of being female Bond

Los Angeles

Actress Diane Kruger, who has played the role of a spy in “The Operative”, says she had a dream of playing female James Bond in films.

In an interview to The I Paper, Kruger spoke about her upcoming film and her dream of being the first woman to portray 007 - who is currently played by Daniel Craig, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

She said: “I always thought it must be so cool to be James Bond. But the realities of being a spy are closer to what we did. It’s cool, but I don’t dream about it anymore.”

“The Operative” follows a rogue spy from Israel’s feared national intelligence force Mos-sad, who vanishes while attending her father’s funeral.

14 SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019

For Reservations, Call:Umm Al Hassam 17728699 Seef District 17364999

Is Aishwarya Rai pregnant with second child?Mumbai

A photograph of Aishwarya Rai Bachchan doing the rounds on so-cial media has made fans speculate

that the actress and former Miss World may be pregnant with her second child.

The Goan Everyday photographed Aishwarya strolling bare foot on a beach with actor and husband Abhishek Bach-chan and was wearing a white shirt and a pair of shorts. Looking at her bulging stomach, a couple of Twitter users felt

Aishwarya was pregnant with her second child.

A social media user asked if the actress was pregnant. Another re-plied: “No she’s not”.

An excited fan tweeted: “I am also waiting Aish to having one more baby.”

Aishwarya married Ab-hishek in 2007. They wel-comed their first child, Aaradhya, a daughter, in 2011.

Michelle Pfeiffer finds Catwoman whipLos Angeles

Almost 27 years since she starred as Catwoman in “Batman Returns”, actress Michelle Pfeiffer has found

part of her character’s costume.On Friday, the 60-year-old actress,

who played the love interest to Michael Keaton’s caped crusader in the 1992 f i l m , went on Instagram, where

she showed off Cat-woman’s whip in a video clip, re-ports foxnews.com.

“Look at what I found,” she told her social media follow-ers. “Needs a little TLC.”

Earlier this year, Pfeiffer joined Insta-gram with another throwback of herself in the iconic role.

“MEOW Instagram,” she wrote alongside a clip of Catwoman doing backflips as she moves towards Batman and the villain Penguin before the building behind her explodes.

Efron, Seyfried join animated ‘Scooby-Doo’ film

Los Angeles

Actors Zac Efron and Amanda Seyfried have been roped in to voice

the characters of Fred Jones and Daphne Blake respective-ly in the upcoming animat-ed Scooby-Doo feature film “Scoob”.

It was revealed earlier this month that Will Forte is set to voice Norville “Shaggy” Rogers,

while Gina Rodriguez would be voicing Velma Dinkley, reports variety.com.

The mystery-solving teens and their talking Great Dane Scooby-Doo first appeared half a century ago on the animated TV series “Scooby-Doo: Where Are You?,” which was creat-ed by Hanna-Barbera and first aired in 1969.

Plot details of the mov-ie involve the Scooby-Doo

characters teaming up with other characters in the Han-na-Barbera universe to save the world from the evil Dick Dastardly.

Tony Cervone is directing “Scoob.” His credits include “Space Jam”, Cartoon Net-work’s “The Looney Tunes Show” and “Scooby-Doo! Mys-tery Incorporated”.

“Scoob” will open on May 15, 2020.

Elba in talks to join Andy Serkis in ‘Mouse Guard’

Los Angeles

Actor Idris Elba is in talks to join ac-tor-filmmaker Andy

Serkis and Thomas Bro-die-Sangster in the fanta-sy-action movie “Mouse Guard”.

The film will be directed by “Maze Runner” film-maker Wes Ball, reports variety.com.

N e t w o r k F o x i s p l a n n i n g a l ive-ac-tion movie t h r o u g h p e r -for-

mance capture technology employed in the “Planet of the Apes” films, in which Serkis starred as the ape leader Caesar.

David Peterson creat-ed, wrote, and illustrated the “Mouse Guard” series, which launched in 2006 and is set in a medieval times world without hu-mans. The stories centre on a brotherhood of mice sworn to serve their fellow species.

Matt Reeves, director of “War for the Planet of the Apes” is producing “Mouse Guard” along with Ross Richie and

Stephen Christy. Joe Hartwick

Jr. is also produc-ing it.

Jennifer Lopez to release new

single with French Montana

Los Angeles

Pop star Jennifer Lopez has revealed that she has collab-orated with rapper French

Montana for her new song “Medicine”.The single will release on April 5.‘’Wish I could give you guys a taste of

my new single, Medicine, ft. @french-montana !! I CAN’T WAIT for you all to hear it! Want to be the first to listen?’’ she posted on Instagram.

Lopez, who recently got engaged to Alex Rodriguez, has not come up

with an album since 2014’s ‘A.K.A.’, but she recently released the track

“Limitless” from her movie “Sec-ond Act”.

Los Angeles

Rapper Cardi B is suing bloggers for claiming she is a “prostitute with herpes”.

Cardi filed the lawsuit against Latasha K, who has a blog called

unWinewithTashaK. She’s angry about 23 videos Tasha’s posted over the last 14 months.

According to the suit, Tasha posted a video last April saying

Cardi’s baby might be born with in-tellectual disabilities. The inference

seems to be Cardi was doing drugs that would harm then-unborn Kulture, reports

tmz.com.She’s also suing Starmarie Ebony Jones, who,

according to the suit, posted a video in September accusing Cardi of doing cocaine, engaging in prosti-tution. Jones allegedly says of Cardi, “Just a Grammy nominated prostitute running around spreading her herpes”.

Rapper Cardi B to sue bloggers for defamation

Michelle Pfeiffer

Idris Elba

Cardi B

Amanda Seyfried and

Zac Efron

Jennifer Lopez

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15

sports

SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019

Sterling downs Czechs • Pogba and Griezmann show class as France sweep past Moldova in Euro qualifying

• Raheem Sterling hits hat-trick in England demolition of Czech Republic

AFP | Paris

Raheem Sterling showed that he is coming of age on the international stage

as his hat-trick saw England start their Euro 2020 qualify-ing campaign by hammering the Czech Republic 5-0, while Antoine Griezmann inspired France to a battering of Mol-dova.

Manchester City attacker Sterling had scored just two goals in his first 45 caps, but he now has five in his last three international appearances fol-lowing Friday’s treble, which helped England storm to the top of Group A ahead of Monday’s trip to Montenegro, who drew 1-1 at Bulgaria.

Sterling opened the scoring in the 24th minute when he tapped home Jadon Sancho’s cross, and struck twice more in the second half to put the result beyond doubt after Harry Kane fired home his 21st England goal from the penalty spot.

“It was a beautiful team per-formance and I was happy to help the team get the win,” Ster-ling said.

Sterling has 24 goals for club and country this term and his impressive form is a fry cry from the dark days when he was vil-ified as England crashed out of Euro 2016.

“I’m just being confident in myself, I’m trying to get in are-as and take shots, not to worry about anything,” he added.

England carried the momen-tum from a run to the World Cup semi-finals and qualifi-cation for the last four of the Nations League into the Euro qualifiers and blooded young hopeful Sancho, who impressed on his full England debut.

The 18-year-old who has shone in the Bundesliga for Borussia Dortmund, gave Eng-land fans further cause for ex-citement, with his potential adding to that of Sterling and Kane coming into their prime.

“I thought Raheem was elec-tric. He has looked like that all week in training. I’m pleased for him, it is a special night for him,” coach Gareth Southgate said.

“I think he’s really matured as a person and a footballer. He’s hungry for goals and hit-ting things instinctively without thinking too much.”

Griezmann shines for France France also got off to a per-

fect start after an older head in Antoine Griezmann spurred the world champions on to a com-

fortable 4-1 victory at Moldova.Griezmann opened the scor-

ing with his 27th France goal in the 24th minute of their Group H encounter before crossing for Raphael Varane to double the scores three minutes later.

Olivier Giroud equalled David Trezeguet as Les Bleus’ third highest scorer of all time with his 34th international goal nine minutes before the break and Kylian Mbappe completed the rout with three minutes left, be-fore Vladimir Ambros claimed a late consolation for Moldova.

Griezmann would have had two more assists had Giroud and Paul Pogba been more clinical in front of goal, but France’s display was easily enough for the three points and top spot in the group ahead of Iceland and Turkey, 2-0 winners against Al-bania and Andorra respectively.

“We played a very consum-mate first half in terms of con-trol and attacking organisation. The second half was less fulfill-ing due to substitutions,” said coach Didier Deschamps.

Raheem Sterling curls in his second and England’s third goal

First-time attractions add to ‘Limitless’ fun for fans at F1 Bahrain GP at BICTDT | Manama

The 15th edition of the For-mula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain

Grand Prix promises to be one like none other.

This year’s spectacle of rac-ing and entertainment is set to feature a handful of firsts in Bahrain International Cir-cuit’s (BIC) Formula 1 Village vending area.

Come March 28 to 31, the fun and excitement will be “Limitless” for all, especially with what BIC has in store for this truly special occasion.

For the first time ever, a gi-gantic Ferris Wheel has been set up at the circuit along with a towering Star Flyer.

Furthermore, there is a Venetian Carousel for young children to enjoy, plus “The Mummy’s Tomb” haunted house for those brave enough to take on a little fright.

The Ferris Wheel and Star Flyer can be seen from miles away. Their colossal stature can be intimidating for some, but both offer a unique kind of thrill that must be experienced by everybody.

The Ferris Wheel is 42 me-tres in height and it boasts 27 gondolas from where those inside can marvel at the sce-nic views of the surrounding area. The Star Flyer, mean-while, towers 60 metres high and it has 16 gondolas. This ride will make you feel like you are flying around like a bird in circles while being captivated

by a magnificent view. The Venetian Carousel of-

fers the perfect thrill for young children to enjoy with their family members. Such a ride is always a favourite at carnivals and theme parks, and now it can also be experienced at BIC.

The Mummy’s Tomb is set to make visitors feel some chills and thrills. Those who enter must try to not be afraid as Mummies from ancient histo-ry come back to haunt them.

Other entertainment attrac-tions at BIC are an F1 Fanzone, stage and roaming performers, and the pair of headlining con-certs featuring Martin Garrix and Kygo on the Friday and Saturday of the race weekend.

The Ferris Wheel and Star Flyer to be seen at BIC

KNOW

BETTER

Sterling has 24 goals for club and country

this term

Bahrain Special Olympics team grab 39 medalsTDT | Manama

Bahrain had yet another hon-orable finish at the recent-

ly-concluded Special Olympics World Games 2019 in Abu Dhabi, where they took home 39 medals (16 gold, 12 silver, 11 bronze).

The nationals made history in this edition of the Special Olympics, held in the Middle East for the first time, where 7,500 athletes competed in 24 Olympic-style sports over seven days.

B a h r a i n P a r a l y m p i c s Committee chairman Shai-kh Mohammed bin Daij Al Khalifa led high-ranking of-

ficials in welcoming mem-bers of the Bahrain delega-tion on return from the UAE capital.

Bahrain Paralympics Committee chairman Shaikh Mohammed bin Daij Al Khalifa welcomes members of the Bahrain special Olympics team

‘Estijabah’ a key to sport development: Al NusufTDT | Manama

Bahrain Olympic Com-mittee (BOC) secretary

general Mohammed Al Nu-suf asserted the keenness of HH Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa to devel-op sports in Bahrain by set-ting up pioneer initiatives, including the national youth and sports development programme ‘Estijabah’.

Esijabah, AKA ‘Response’, was launched by HH Shaikh Nasser , representative of His Majesty the King for Charity Works and Youth Affairs, and Supreme Coun-cil for Youth and Sports Chairman, last year in April.

This first-of-its-kind pro-gramme, which mainly aims to further boost the youth and sports sectors in the kingdom. It is regarded as one of several programmes recommended by HH Shai-kh Nasser in recent years.

Al Nusuf commended the step taken by HH Shai-kh Nasser to launch Esti-jabah, and affirmed the im-portance of such initiative, which looks to optimize the investment of sports facili-ties in accordance with an integrated plan that con-tributes to enhancing the financial resources of youth and sports sectors.

Bahrain excel at Kowat Al Rami Championship

TDT | Manama

Bahrain team won 5 med-als (1 gold, 2 silver and 2

bronze) at the Kowat Al Rami Championship held in Thai-land recently.

The medals were won by Mohammed Abdulamir (55-kg gold), Abdulla Khoury (95kg silver), Hussain Al Samahiji (60kg silver), Ali Salman (60kg bronze) and Mahmood Zuhair (65kg bronze).

The marital-art sporting event was organized by the World Federation of Kowat Al Rami and Self Defence with some of the world’s best martial arts athletes taking part.

Bahrain Olympic Committee (BOC) secretary general Mo-hammed Al Nusuf received members of the Bahrain team at his office in Seef.

Led by Bahrain Mixed Mar-ital Arts Federation president Khalid Al Khayyat, the Bah-rain team was congratulated by Al Nusuf, who commended the results and efforts of the Bahraini athletes and team of-ficials to achieve this honour-able result.

Al Nusuf said the results un-derlines the respected repu-tation of martial arts, and the improved level of the game in the country, which reflects the hard work of the federation in implementing its programs and plans to develop the game in the country.

The BOC secretary gener-al asserted the committee’s keenness to further support the federation with all its ca-pabilities and resource in an attempt to maintain their ef-ficiency and achievements, regionally, and internationally.

BOC secretary general Mohammed Al Nusuf with members of Bahrain team

Ronaldo draws blank on Portugal return in Euro qualifier

AFP | Lisbon

Ukraine snuffed out Portu-gal on Cristiano Ronaldo’s

return to international football, defending stoutly as they held the European champions to a goalless draw in their opening Euro 2020 Group B qualifier.

Ronaldo was handed the captain’s armband by Portugal coach Fernando Santos for his comeback nine months since he last played for his country, in the 2018 World Cup, but the Juventus attacker couldn’t help his side find a way past Andriy Shevchenko’s stubborn outfit.

The draw was the first time Santos’ side have failed to score at home in 19 matches and

leaves them second in the group behind Luxembourg, who beat Lithuania 2-1.

“We didn’t play as we want-

ed to. We started slowly, not pressing the way we wanted,” said Manchester City midfield-er Bernardo Silva.

Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal (L) vies for the ball with Ruslan Malinovskyi of Ukraine

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Serena survives scare to advance in MiamiAFP | Miami

Serena Williams survived an “irresponsible” second set

lapse on Friday to see off Swe-den’s Rebecca Peterson 6-3, 1-6, 6-1 in her second-round opener of the WTA and ATP Miami Open.

“I wasn’t really happy with my performance,” admitted the 23-time Grand Slam cham-pion, who is playing in just her third tournament of 2019 hav-ing lost in the Australian Open quarter-finals before retiring in the second set of her third-round match against Garbine Muguruza with a viral illness at Indian Wells last week.

“Had to take a lot of time off the last week,” she said. “It’s definitely not easy at all. But I’m through it. That’s that. I’ve just got to get my game back to where I know it can be.

“I told myself at the end of the second set that I could not lose this match.

“I knew that I could play a lot, lot, lot better. I just had to be better. At this point it was irresponsible to be playing

the way I was playing in the second set.”

Williams, an eight time winner in Miami, was just re-lieved to make it through to the third round where she will meet China’s Wang Qiang who thrashed Britain’s Jo Konta, the 2017 Miami Open cham-pion, 6-4 6-0.

The former world number one was certainly rusty in her first ever match against the 63rd-ranked Swede, despite starting strongly and easing into a first set lead.

Peterson, however, who lost in the first round in Indian Wells, produced some excel-lent tennis in the second and managed to break down Wil-liams’s serve to take the match into a deciding set.

As the South Florida sun began to lower, Williams ap-peared to struggle with her ball toss.

“It was interesting, because first of all it was dark out there, which was really odd,” Wil-liams said. “I wasn’t sure if there should be lights. The shadow was so intense it was actually dark.

“Then there was light, but only on my side. That was weird because I literally couldn’t see.

“But I need to just move on and really focus on playing bet-ter or not being in the tourna-ment much longer.”

16SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2019

I knew that I could play a lot, lot, lot

better. I just had to be betterSERENA WILLIAMS

Djokovic, Osaka win openersIndian Wells champion Dominic Thiem and fifth seed Kei Nishikori face early exits at Miami Open

• Novak Djokovic dominates Bernard Tomic to advance in Miami

• Naomi Osaka opened her campaign by outlasting Yanina Wickmayer

AFP | Miami

Novak Djokovic put his Indian Wells disap-pointment behind him

on Friday at the ATP and WTA Miami Open with a ruthless 7-6 (7/2) 6-2 destruction of Austral-

ian Bernard Tomic to move into the third

round.T h e S e r b i a n w o r l d

number one endured a meek exit at the hands of German Phil ipp Kohlschreiber in the

California desert but arrived desperate to land what would be a record seventh title in South Florida.

Tomic, the current world No. 81, gave the 31-year-old a

few problems yet the Australian

struggles to consistently c h a l l e n g e t h e b e s t players and

t h i s

was evident once again as Djok-ovic eased through the gears at Hard Rock Stadium with just one hour and 13 minutes on the clock.

“In Indian Wells I wasn’t feel-ing my best,” conceded Djokovic who won 81% of points on his first serve and hit 11 aces.

“Everyone has nerves coming onto center court regardless of how much experience you have and what your ranking is. You care about it and if you are nerv-ous that means you care.

“I commonly feel like that. This was my first time playing at this new stadium, it felt like being indoor a little bit. It’s unique.

“Now hopefully,” he added, “I can build some momentum.”

On a day that saw Djokovic, top-ranked woman Naomi

O s a - k a a n d 2 3 - t i m e G r a n d

S l a m champi-on Ser-

ena Wil-liams advance, the shock of the day was the departure of Indian Wells Masters winner Dominic Thiem, who was beaten 6-4, 6-4 by highly rated Polish 22-year-old Hubert Hurkacz.

Elsewhere, there was disap-pointment for Kei Nishikori.

The fifth seed lost to Serbian Dusan Lajovic 2-6, 6-2, 6-3 but reigning champion John Isner outlasted Italian qualifier Loren-zo Sonego 7-6 (7/2), 7-6, (9/7).

Japanese star Osaka had to keep her emotions in check as she opened her campaign by outlasting Yanina Wickmayer 6-0, 6-7 (3/7), 6-1.

Since winning her second consecutive Grand Slam title in January at the Australian Open, Osaka has failed to go deep in Dubai or Indian Wells.

But she appeared in solid form against 141st-ranked Wickmayer, despite losing her way in the middle of an entertaining match at Hard Rock Stadium.

The 21 year-old was forced to dig deep after the Belgian, who reached the Miami Open last eight in 2010, forced a third set as Osaka’s game badly dipped.

‘Just breathe’ “In the second set, I got really

emotional, so in the third, I just tried to shut off my feelings,” Osaka said. “I started think-ing about winning and not the things I could do in order to win. I had a dip and she started play-ing really well.

“I just had to breathe and regroup,” she said. “I find my-self doing it often when I am in emotional situations, it’s like an

energy saver.”Next up in the third round

is Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-Wei, who defeated American Alison Riske 6-2, 7-5.

The pair had a rollercoaster clash in the Australian Open at the start of 2019 with Hsieh a set and 4-1 up in Melbourne only to lose a dramatic third-round encounter.

There will be a repeat of last

week’s WTA final in Indian Wells between Bianca Andreescu and Angelique Kerber.

Canadian 18-year-old An-dreescu, who brilliantly won her maiden WTA title in Califor-nia, beat American Sofia Kenin 6-3,6-3 to book a third-round meeting with three-time Grand Slam winner Kerber, who saw off Russia’s Karolina Muchova 3-6 6-3 6-3.

Novak Djokovic of Serbia returns a shot to Bernard Tomic of Australia

Machac crowned singles champion TDT | Manama

Eighteen-year-old Tomas Machac of the Czech Re-

public yesterday became the latest champion to be crowned at Bahrain Tennis Club’s (BTC) annual International Tennis Federation (ITF) showcase.

Machac clinched the Men’s Singles title in the $15,000 Bahrain ITF World Tennis Tour 2019 after defeating fourth seed Tim Van Rijthoven of the Neth-erlands 6-3, 6-3 in an exciting final played in gusty conditions.

The championship battle was the first meeting between the two finalists and it marked a fit-ting ending to an entire week’s display of top-class tennis ac-tion at the BTC hardcourts in Juffair.

“I feel very happy for this win; this is a perfect moment for me as I didn’t expect this result against such a tough opponent,” said Machac, who claimed his first title of 2019 on this year’s ITF men’s calendar.

Van Rijthoven, aged 21, added: “He was just too good today. You always want to win, but reach-ing the final of a tournament

like this is still a very good result overall.”

Machac and Van Rijthoven were presented their respective trophies in an awarding ceremo-ny held right after their match.

Handing over the glittering silverware were Minister of Youth and Sports Affairs Ayman Tawfiq Almoayyed, His Majesty the King’s Youth and Sports Ad-visor Saleh Isa bin Hindi, Bah-rain Tennis Federation (BTF) Vice-President Shaikh Abdu-laziz bin Mubarak Al Khalifa, Bahrain Olympic Committee Secretary General Mohammed Hassan Al Nusuf, and BTC Pres-ident Khamis Al Muqla.

Also on hand at the awarding were former BTF President Dr. Tawfiq Almoayyed, BTC Board

Member Dr. Faisal Al Mosa-wi, Bahrain Duty Free Head of Business Support Sujat Ameen, Ebrahim K Kanoo Senior Man-ager of Toyota and Lexus Mar-keting Ayman Shehadeh, and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at the Royal Thai Embassy Thanis Na Song Khla.

Machac started the match strong and took a 2-0 lead in the first set. Van Rijthoven an-swered by taking the next two games and then both players held serve over the next three. Machac then broke his rival for a 5-3 lead and then closed the set out in style with a love game.

In the second set, Machac raced out to a 4-2 lead but the Van Rijthoven got one back to

reduce the deficit to a single game. But Machac was in unde-niable form, and he finally broke his rival for one last time in the match to secure the champi-onship.

“I feel I played very well to-day,” said Machac, who now has four career titles on the ITF World Tennis Tour. “The com-petition here in Bahrain was just perfect; the level of the players was very high and I like the club very much. I hope to be here again next year and play.”

Van Rijthoven commented: “There was a lot of wind to-day and I have a very aggressive style of play, so that was kind of a factor. But Tomas played very well and I am still satisfied with second place.”

Tomas Machac with organisers and sponsors of the event

Serena Williams of the United States returns a shot to Rebecca Peterson of Sweden

Messi to miss Morocco friendly after injury on Argentina returnAFP | Madrid

Lionel Messi will miss Argen-tina’s friendly against Mo-

rocco next week after picking up a groin injury in the shock 3-1 defeat to Venezuela on Friday as he made his first internation-al appearance since the 2018 World Cup.

Barcelona star Messi started the fixture following a self-im-

posed eight-month exile in which he missed six friendlies since the tournament in Russia, which they exited in the last 16 at the hands of eventual cham-pions France.

The Argentine Football Fed-eration tweeted the injury up-date following the loss at Atlet-ico Madrid’s Wanda Metropol-itano stadium.

Gonzalo Martinez has also

been ruled out of the fix-ture in Tangier with a thigh problem.

S a l o m o n R o n d o n a n d Jhon Murillo gave Venezue-la a two-goal advantage at the break.

Argentina forward Lautaro Martinez halved the deficit be-fore Josef Martinez scored from the spot to claim the spoils in the friendly.

Argentina’s Lionel Messi takes a free-kick

Naomi Osaka