02New deals widen spheres of joint co-operation

04

Plans in place to ‘boost crackdown on’ illegal donation collectors at mosques

06China virus death toll rises above 420

8

Takaful awarded highest Financial rating of ‘A-’10BUSINESS

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Al-Selawe, Chimaev heat up title fight The war of words has begun for the biggest fight of the year in Sweden and Europe. BRAVE Combat Federation world champion Jarrah Al-Selawe has fought back at his future opponent Khamzat Chimaev with yet another provoking image on social media. P16

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Officers promoted on BDF anniversaryManama

His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the Supreme Commander, yesterday issued a Royal Order, promoting 677 Bahrain Defence Force (BDF) officers, from vari-ous ranks.

The royal order was issued marking the Kingdom’s celebra-tions of the BDF’s 52nd Anniver-sary, observed every February 5.

On the occasion, BDF Com-mander-in-Chief, Field Mar-shal Shaikh Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, conveyed greetings

from HM King Hamad and His Royal Highness Prince Sal-man bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister, to the promoted

officers, as well as their wish-es of further success in serving the kingdom and enhancing its progress, under HM the King’s leadership.

On the same occasion, BDF Commander-in-Chief issued an order, promoting 3,474 military and civil non-commissioned and servicemen from various ranks.

The Commander-in-Chief congratulated the promoted officers, non-commissioned of-ficers and servicemen, wishing that the promotions will moti-vate them to exert more efforts while performing their patriotic

duties in defending the nation and achieving more progress for the BDF and the Kingdom, under the leadership of HM the King,

the Supreme Commander. His Majesty exchanged ca-

bles of congratulations with His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, marking the occasion.  

HM the King also exchanged similar cables of congratula-tions with His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister. HRH the Premier and HRH the Crown Prince also exchanged similar cables of congratulations on the occasion. 

His Majesty

677BDF officers were

promoted by His Majesty marking the occasion.

Growing trade ties Deals worth 330 million signed between Bahraini and Italian firms

• HRH the Crown Prince emphasised the importance of bilateralism as a means to further enhance international co-operation.

• HRH the Crown Prince praised the EDB’s role in attracting foreign direct investments, through the variety of plans and initiatives.

Manama

His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander, and First Deputy Prime Minister, yesterday attended a business reception in Rome, organised by the Bahrain Economic Develop-ment Board (EDB) in co-opera-tion with large Italian enterpris-es, on the sidelines of an official visit to the Italian Republic.

During the reception, HRH the Crown Prince underlined the importance of further strength-ening the Kingdom’s economic competitiveness through the adoption of initiatives aimed at enhancing sustainable diversifi-cation efforts, in line with Bah-rain’s Economic Vision 2030. 

HRH the Crown Prince not-ed that promoting the capacity for innovation is key to provid-ing favourable conditions for investment opportunities and economic growth, which are the foundations of the Kingdom’s comprehensive development goals, led by HM the King. 

HRH the Crown Prince went on to highlight the Kingdom’s achievements, praising Team Bahrain’s continued efforts sup-porting Bahrain’s long-term de-

velopment aimed at delivering a promising future for all Bahraini

citizens.HRH the Crown Prince em-

phasised the importance of bilat-eralism as a means to further en-hance sustainable development and international cooperation across the economy, adding that strong Bahraini-Italian relations have resulted in the signing of a number of important agree-ments within the manufacturing, logistics, tourism and commer-cial sectors.

HRH the Crown Prince went

on to praise the EDB’s role in attracting foreign direct invest-ments, through the variety of plans and initiatives organised to showcase investment oppor-tunities within Bahrain.

HRH the Crown Prince then witnessed the signing of a num-ber of agreements between Bah-raini and Italian enterprises, worth €330 million.

The Minister of Finance and National Economy, Shaikh Sal-man bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, took part in an official delegation visit to the Italian Republic, led by HRH the Crown Prince.

During the visit, the minister affirmed that the delegation will seek to broaden Bahraini busi-ness relations beyond traditional areas and deepen the engage-ment of Bahrain’s private sector with the global market.

The minister welcomed the wide-range of agreements signed between the private sectors of both countries, worth EUR 330 million, noting that economic ties form a key pillar for Bah-raini-Italian cooperation, which continues to grow as trade be-tween the two countries reaches new heights.

He took time to highlight the strength of the Kingdom’s national economy, noting that ongoing diversification efforts have increased productivity and competitiveness while creating quality opportunities, in line with the principles enshrined in Bahrain’s Economic Vision 2030. 

HRH the Crown Prince with Shaikh Salman and other dignitaries during the business reception organised by the EDB in Rome.

Promoting the capacity for innovation is key to providing favourable

conditions for investment opportunities

and economic growth. HRH THE CROWN PRINCE

EU rejects Trump plan for Mideast Brussels

The European Union yesterday rejected US President Donald Trump’s proposal for securing peace in the Middle East and ex-pressed concern about Is-rael’s plans to annex more Palestinian land.

Trump’s plan, which was unveiled last week, would foresee the eventual creation of a Palestinian state, but it falls far short of minimal Pal-estinian demands and would leave sizeable chunks of the occupied West Bank in Is-raeli hands.

In a statement, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell underlined the bloc’s com-mitment to a two-state solu-tion, based along the 1967 lines, with the possibility of mutually agreed land-swaps, made up of the state of Israel and “an independent, demo-cratic, contiguous, sovereign and viable state of Palestine.”

Borrell said the US initi-ative “departs from these internationally agreed pa-rameters.”

“To build a just and lasting peace, the unresolved final status issues must be decid-ed through direct negotia-tions between both parties,” Borrell said. “This includes notably the issues related to borders, the status of Jerusa-lem, security and the refugee question,”

Trump’s plan was wel-comed by Israeli Prime Min-ister Benjamin Netanyahu, but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has dis-missed it as “nonsense.” Gulf Arab states also rejected the White House plan as “bi-ased.” While Israeli officials were present for its unveil-ing, no Palestinian repre-sentatives attended.

02WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2020

New deals widen spheres of joint co-operation Rome

HRH the Crown Prince’s visit to Italy saw many agreements and MoUs signed between the leading firms of both nations.

As part of the delegation, Al-ba’s Chairman of the Board of Directors Shaikh Daij bin Sal-man Al Khalifa met with key Italian companies, including Fluorsid, FATA and Techmo Car, where important agreements were signed to advance com-mercial opportunities for both parties. 

Commenting on the occasion, Shaikh Daij said: “Alba is pleased to be part of the Bahraini dele-gation to Italy led by HRH the Crown Prince, Salman bin Ham-ad Al Khalifa. As one of the key contributors to Bahrain’s econ-omy, Alba is deeply committed to realising the Kingdom’s Eco-nomic Vision 2030. Through these signed agreements, Alba aims to further strengthen its relationship with Fluorsid, FATA and Techmo Car as well as ex-plore more avenues for future collaboration.”

Alba has an existing contract with Fluorsid for the supply of 15,000 to 20,000 tonnes of smelter grade Aluminium Fluo-ride, around 70 per cent of Alba’s yearly requirements. FATA is the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contractor for Alba’s Port Capacity Upgrade Project, part of Alba Line 6 Ex-pansion Project, while Techmo is a producer of high-end mo-bile and stationary equipment for the aluminium and metal production sector and enjoys a long-standing commercial rela-

tionship with Alba.Separately, the Gulf Petro-

chemical Industries Compa-ny (GPIC) yesterday signed an agreement with the Italian oil-

field services company Saipem to study the feasibility of various projects in Bahrain.

The agreement is part of GPIC’s strategy to expand oper-

ations and build on recent suc-cesses by studying the viability of implementing new projects within its industrial complex at Sitra and leverage the discov-

ery of Bahrain’s largest oil field, which was announced in 2018.

In a statement to mark the occasion, the Minister of Oil, Shaikh Mohammed bin Khalifa

Al Khalifa, expressed the sup-port of the National Oil and Gas Authority (NOGA) to all its sub-sidiary companies, noting their contribution to the development and sustainability of the Bah-raini economy and attraction of foreign investments into the Kingdom.

In this regard, the minister highlighted that the strategy for Bahrain’s Oil and Gas sector is in line with the Kingdom’s com-prehensive development goals, led by HM the King, and receive the continuous support of HRH the Prime Minister and HRH the Crown Prince. 

The Minter of Oil highlighted GPIC’s proven excellence in pro-duction and marketing, adding that the company’s expansion projects have the full support of both the government and share-holders. The Minister of Oil add-ed that the agreement signed with Saipem will enhance GPIC’s ability to increase production, expanding its contribution to the Kingdom’s economy, in line with

Many agreements signed between Bahrain and Italian firms

In the presence of HRH the Crown Prince, President of GPIC, Dr Abdulrahman Jawahery, signs the agreement. In the presence of HRH the Crown Prince, Alba Chairman Shaikh Daij bin Salman Al Khalifa, signs the agreement.

Mr Al Zayani signs the agreement to boost Bahraini exports to Italy. Shaikh Khalid signs co-operation agreement.

‘Life a cyclic process, just like seasons in nature’

• Swami Amritaswarupananda is the Vice-Chairman of Mata Amritanandamayi Math and the President of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, the math’s deemed-to-be-university.

TDT | Manama

Swami Amritaswarupananda, the head disciple of world-renowned humanitarian and spiritual leader Mata Amritanandamayi, was in the Kingdom on a two-day visit.

At an event held at the Indian Club on Monday, Swami Amritaswarupananda spoke on the topic ‘The circle of life’.

Quoting Mata Amritanandamayi, he said, “Life is cy-clic. All of nature is cyclic. The seasons—spring, summer, fall and winter—are circular in nature. They come and go. The entire solar system—the sun, earth, the moon and stars—also travel on circular paths. Night and day are cyclic. So, time also must be cyclic.”

He gave several examples from everyday life to drive the points home. He said, “Everything good and bad that happens in our life, in the whole universe, is cyclic. Love is a cyclic. Peace is cyclic. War is cyclic. Most of our books are cyclic. Even our movies are cyclic in nature; the same theme presented differently.” “Old wine packed in attractive new bottles,” he added.

Swami Amritaswarupananda is the Vice-Chairman of Mata Amritanandamayi Math and the President of Amri-ta Vishwa Vidyapeetham, the math’s deemed-to-be-uni-versity.

Swami Amritaswarupananda offers the spiritual discourse at Indian Club.

Swami Amritaswarupananda being received at Shree Krishna Temple in Manama.

03WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2020

New deals widen spheres of joint co-operation

the directives of HRH the Crown Prince.

In another develop-ment, Shaikh Moham-med and Chairman of Tatweer Petroleum, and Claudio Descalzi, Chief Executive Of-ficer of Italian oil and gas company Eni, yes-terday signed an agree-ment to explore new areas for collaboration during a high-level visit to the Italian Republic led by His Royal High-ness, Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander, and First Deputy Prime Minister.

The agreement will fa-cilitate joint assessments as well as the launch of new initiatives in areas of mutual interest, in-cluding renewable ener-gy, the supply of Lique-fied Natural Gas (LNG) supply, and exploration.

Shaikh Mohammed recognised the delega-tion’s visit as a platform to further expand in-vestment opportunities in the energy sector, and underlined the benefits of further increasing the exchange of expertise as a means to advance the Kingdom’s oil and gas sector.

Among others, Export Bahrain, the national ex-port promotion agency, signed an agreement with SACE, the Italian Export Credit Agency, to increase exports be-tween the two countries.

Under the agreement, Export Bahrain and SACE agreed to exchange in-formation on business opportunities to fur-ther promote exports, including utilising the exchange of knowledge to aid capacity building.

MoUs mark new era of co-operation between Bahrain, Italy

Gulf Air flights to MilanRome

Gulf Air, the national car-rier of the Kingdom, has announced its plans to be-gin operating a year-round daily nonstop service between Bahrain

International Airport and Milan Malpensa Airport in Milan, Italy, starting from July 2020.

The announcement, which was made during a business lunch or-ganised by the Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB), is part

of Gulf Air’s expansion strategy and coincides with the official opening of the Kingdom of Bah-rain’s embassy in Rome. 

Gulf Air’s highly professional network planning team, com-posed primarily of young Bahrai-

nis, ensures the success of pro-posed destinations by measuring feasibility in terms of market size, trade growth and average airfare – all of which are factors that the new Milan route satisfies. 

Gulf Air has also announced

that it will begin operating its first Airbus A321neo aircraft, serving a number of European destina-tions, including Milan. The new aircraft will feature flatbed seats and a state-of-the-art inflight en-tertainment system. 

In the presence of HRH the Crown Prince, Shaikh Mohammed signs the agreement. HRH the Crown Prince being received at TechnipFMC.

HRH the Crown Prince with Claudio Descalsi, CEO of Italian Company Eni.HRH the Crown Prince with Alexandro Profumo, Leonardo CEO

04WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2020

Plans in place to ‘boost crackdown on’ illegal donation collectors at mosques

Measure aims to protect legitimate charity organisations

• The ministry stated that obtaining required permit is compulsory and violators will face consequences. 

• The Directorate of Religious Affairs has been assigned to receive applications and issue licences.

TDT | Manama

The government is imple-menting a crackdown on unlicensed donation col-lectors at mosques, it emerged.   

Donation collectors who visit mosques to fundraise, need to have a permit for doing so, ac-cording to Labour Ministry

sources. The measure is being taken to

protect legitimate charity organ-isations and curb illegal fund-raisers.

The Ministry of Labour has de-cided to intensify its crackdown on organisations amidst increas-ing violations, the ministry said.

The ministry stated that ob-taining required permit is com-pulsory and violators will face consequences. 

The ministry also urged any NGO wanting to send money abroad need to obtain a permit as well.

Exploiting children by having them collect money on the roads and public places would also not be tolerated, the ministry stated.

“Fundraising should be done in accordance with the laws and regulations of the country. Those who break the law will face ac-tion.” 

The ministry stressed the need to abide by legal measures to ob-tain the necessary licences before collecting donations, in compli-ance with the legal provisions governing fundraising for public purposes.

The mandatory procedures are in compliance with the law-de-cree 21/ 2013 on regulating fund-raisers for public purposes, edict 47 / 2014 on issuing the executive bylaw for law-decree 21/ 2013. 

The ministry urged all indi-

viduals who are raising funds or receiving donations for religious purposes – such as alms-giving, mosque construction, persons in their capacity as clerics etc - to re-port and apply for a licence as per the formula put at their disposal.

The Directorate of Religious Affairs has been assigned to re-ceive applications and issue li-cences by filling in the application form.

Competent authorities will

facilitate procedures and guide the applicants to all that meets the public interest and serves all parties.

The ministry stressed the terms cited in the decree to regulate donations which are raised in Bahrain or abroad so as to serve society as well as religious and charity institutions.

It underlined its role, ever since the promulgation of the afore-mentioned law-decree, to stream-line procedures and facilitate measures to ensure maximum benefit for those desiring to raise donations, adding that it has since received a lot of applications.

The ministry underscored the importance of regulating fund-raisers, stressing its role in en-forcing transparency in collecting funds and donations, conserving charities, and ensuring raised funds are not misused for illegal ends. 

Donation collectors should obtain necessary licences.

Fundraising should be done in accordance with the laws and regulations of the

country. Those who break the law will face

action. LABOUR MINISTRY

Deported European woman re-enters Bahrain using friend’s passport ‘to stay with boyfriend’

TDT | Manama

A European woman, who was earlier deported from the Kingdom af-ter being convicted in a pros-titution case, was caught af-ter re-entering Bahrain two months later using her friend’s passport, it was recently re-vealed.

Justifying her act, the wom-an told the prosecutors that she couldn’t stay away from her boyfriend, a GCC national, who is residing in Bahrain.   

The woman is now facing trial before the First High Criminal Court, which recent-ly ordered to adjourn the case to February 12 this year to an-nounce its verdict in the case.

Court files show that the de-fendant was caught in 2018 in a prostitution case and she was deported in September in the

same year. She travelled to a GCC coun-

try, and there, she stole her friend’s passport and used it as if it was her own to travel to Bahrain two months later.

According to the details of the case, the woman succeeded in entering the Kingdom, but, the investigation of Bahrain International Airport Police proved that she was deport-

ed on September 5, 2018, and launched a search operation to nab her.

The defendant was eventu-ally found residing in one of the hotels in the Capital and she was immediately appre-hended, according to Prose-cutors.

In the interrogation she confessed to her crime and told the interrogators that she was deported in September in 2018 because of her involve-ment in a prostitution case.

Moreover, she said in her statements that in December of the same year, she stole a passport from her friend while they were staying in a GCC country and used it to enter Bahrain again, justifying her action for the fact that she wants to stay with her boy-friend, a Gulf national, who’s staying in Bahrain.   

A delegation from Botswana Vision 2030 was briefed during a visit to the Civil Service Bureau (CSB) about Bahrain’s experience on the Organisational Performance project (Takamul) and ways to integrate it with Bahrain Economic Vision 2030, the Government Action Plan and national strategic initiatives. The delegation was informed about the system used for monitoring and assessing performances, conveying reports and enabling all employees, regardless of their capacities and titles, to use it. Opportunities and challenges in using the system were reviewed with the delegation.

Delegation briefed on Takamul

The defendant was eventually found residing in one of the hotels in the Capital and she

was immediately apprehended.

PROSECUTORS

Carjacker loses appealTDT | Manama

The First High Criminal Court of Appeal recently upheld a six years im-prisonment sentence issued last year against a Bahraini national for stealing a car, ramming into five cars and injuring two po-licemen.

The Public Prosecution charged the 39-year-old on May 21 last year of assaulting public security personnel, car-jacking and damaging five ve-hicles, including a police patrol vehicle.

The case originated back in May 2019 when the defendant stole a car from Souq Waqf area in Hamad Town in broad day-light, while the owner of the car

was inside one of the shops and left his car running for less than 10 minutes.  

After reporting the case to the police, search and investi-gation led to the vehicle on the next day.

When a police patrol ap-proached the defendant who was inside the stolen vehicle, he drove off and a car chase began, according to Prosecutors.

Driving on Khalifa Bin Sal-man Highway towards the Cap-ital, the only stop he faced was the traffic signals near Bahrain Financial Harbour junction.

There, the two policemen blocked his way with the police patrol vehicle and asked the de-fendant to get out of the car.

However, the defendant at-

tempted to escape again, hitting the patrol vehicle, four other cars and both policemen who were on foot.

The defendant was eventually controlled, handcuffed and tak-en to the police station.

In the investigation, he claimed that he was under the influence of drugs prescribed to him by doctors at the Psychiatry Hospital, and told the police-men that he wasn’t aware of his actions and doesn’t remember anything.

It was uncovered when the defendant’s criminal record was reviewed that there were 35 complaints lodged against him to the police earlier.

These complaints includ-ed several assault cases, some against his own father, theft and carjacking cases.

The court sentenced him last year to six years imprisonment and ordered him to pay for the damages he caused to the five vehicles he rammed into.      

‘Mathematics challenge’ success for NMS student

TDT | Manama

Advait Mandar, a Grade IX student of the New Millennium School, DPS Bahrain, made his alma mater proud by completing the level 2 and securing a position among the top 100 meritorious stu-dents, in the Aryabhata Ganit Challenge 2019.

Advait secured rank in the national level ‘Ganit Challenge’ conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education for schools around the world.  

This computer-based con-test aimed at promoting com-petencies among students through joyful assessment. It also helped students to identi-fy, encourage and nurture the

talent in Mathematics and ap-ply the same to their daily life.

The Chairman, Dr Ravi Pil-lai, Managing Director, Gee-tha Pillai and Principal, Arun Kuumar Sharma congratulated Advait, his teachers and par-ents for this commendable per-formance.

I was under the influence of

drugs prescribed by doctors at

the psychiatric hospital. I don’t

remember anything I did.

DEFENDANT

Advait Mandar

05

world

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2020

No takers for Indonesia’s ‘pluck a tyre off the croc’ contestPalu | Indonesia

Indonesia has called off a con-test offering a cash reward to anyone brave enough to remove a motorbike tyre stuck around the neck of a giant crocodile.

Authorities in Palu, capital of Central Sulawesi, said no would-be crocodile wrangler stepped forward to take up the challenge of removing the unwanted neck-lace from the 13-foot (4-metre) reptile.

The contest was rolled out last month, but made headlines again last week when an unspec-

ified reward was offered.The local conservation agen-

cy offered few details about the reward -- or how outsiders might pull off the dangerous task -- but its chief said the mon-ey would come out of his own pocket

Conservationists who fear the croc is being slowly strangled have been trying -- and failing -- for years to find a way to un-tangle the beast.

Rumours circulated that pop-ular TV personality Panji the Explorer -- Indonesia’s answer

to late Australian “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin -- was keen for another shot after a failed attempt two years ago.

Officials said a team from the environment ministry will now redouble efforts to free the croc from its rubber stranglehold.

“The contest has been can-celled,” said Central Sulawesi Natural Resources Conserva-tion Agency Head Hasmuni Hasmar.

“But we now have back up from the ministry and govern-ment experts to help us.”

Authorities have cancelled a reward offered for anyone who could remove a tyre from the neck of a wild crocodile in Indonesia

Warrant issued for S.Africa’s Zuma, suspended until May• Zuma’s lawyers told the court that he was ill and receiving treatment abroad

Johannesburg

A South African court yes-terday issued an arrest warrant for embattled former president Jacob Zuma after he failed to appear for a pre-trial hearing over corrup-tion charges he faces related to a 1990s arms deal.

But execution of the warrant will be deferred until May 6 when the case is due to resume.

Zuma’s lawyers told the court that he was ill and receiving treatment abroad.

The High Court in the south-eastern city of Pietermaritz-burg issued the warrant after it questioned the authenticity of the sick note said to have been signed by a military doctor.

“The court accepts that Mr Zuma may be unwell,” said

judge Dhaya Pillay. “But this court needs reliable evidence that Mr Zuma is indeed ill.”

“It is not clear that (the doc-tor) is indeed a regular practi-tioner,” she said.

Zuma’s lawyer Dan Mantsha told reporters outside the court-room that “our courts have no sympathy, no compassion”.

“We are very concerned when courts issue warrants under the circumstances like this when the whole country knows that president Zuma is not well ... indeed president Zuma under-went two operations in early January this year,” he said, add-ing the country knew Zuma was outside the country.

“When you start to issue war-rants under such circumstances, people start to question wheth-er we are all equal under the law,” said Mantsha.

Zuma was due in court on Tuesday for a pre-trial hearing in a case that has seen numerous legal turns over a decade and a half.

He is alleged to have taken bribes worth four million rand ($270,000) related to a $3.4 bil-lion arms deal in 1999 when he was deputy president.

In all Zuma faces 16 charges of fraud, graft and racketeering related to the purchase of fight-er jets, patrol boats and military equipment when he was deputy to the country’s second black president, Thabo Mbeki.

Both Zuma and French de-fence company Thales, which supplied equipment for navy vessels, deny the charges.

Zuma was forced to step down in 2018 by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party after a nine-year reign marked by corruption allegations and dwindling popularity.

Former South African president Jacob Zuma faces 16 charges of fraud, graft and racketeering related to an arms purchase in the 1990s, when he was deputy leader

Taiwan duo in hot water for smuggling heroin in noodlesBangkok

Two Taiwanese men have been caught trying to smuggle 15 kilograms of her-oin in packets of instant noo-dles from a Bangkok airport, Thai police said, in a kingdom which is a key regional drug route.

Police found the haul inside packets of MAMA noodles -- a Thai brand ubiquitous across Asia -- as well as tins of prickly heat powder.

The pair were trying to re-turn to Taiwan when they were arrested on January 30 at Suvarnabhumi Airport after a tip-off, police said Monday, without saying from where the heroin originated.

The lawless border areas of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos have for decades been a hub for heroin.

But the large-scale produc-tion of synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine, ketamine

and fentanyl has overtaken heroin in recent years.

Opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar fell 11 percent in 2019 from the year before, ac-cording to data released Tues-day by the United Nations Of-fice on Drugs and Crime.

But the agency said the re-gion still has around three mil-lion heroin users in a market worth $10 billion.

Thai police found 15 kilograms of heroin inside packets of MAMA noodles and tins of prickly heat powde

Spain court doubles jail term for Picasso-smuggling bankerMadrid

A Spanish court yesterday doubled the jail term hand-ed to a former top banker for smuggling a 26-million-euro Pi-casso painting out of the coun-try onboard a yacht.

Former Bankinter boss Jaime Botin, who is 83, was found guilty last month with a Madrid court sentencing him to 18 months in prison and a 52.4-million-euro fine ($58.4 million)

But in a rare turnaround two weeks later, the judge raised the sentence to three years and a 91.7-million-euro fine following what she said was an “error in the imposition of the penalty”, court documents released on Tuesday showed.

Under the initial ruling, Bo-tin -- who also served as a top executive at Santander Bank -- had not been expected to spend time behind bars as first-time offenders are usually spared jail for sentences of under two

years if convicted of a non-vio-lent crime.

It was not immediately clear whether Botin would now be

jailed, given his advanced age.Entitled “Head of a Young

Girl”, the work was painted by Picasso in Catalonia in 1906

during his pre-Cubist phase. It was purchased by Botin in London in 1977 and brought back to Spain.

Since 2012, Botin, whose fam-ily are founder members of the Santander banking group, had been trying to obtain authori-sation to export the painting in order to auction it at Christie’s in London.

However, the culture ministry refused on grounds there was “no similar work on Spanish territory” from the same period in Picasso’s life, with its decision confirmed by Spain’s National Court in May 2015, which de-clared it “unexportable” due to its “cultural interest”.

But barely three months lat-er, the painting was found by French customs officers on board a yacht docked at a har-bour on the island of Corsica, who found documents attesting to its value and seized it, saying it had been packaged up to be sent to Switzerland.

The Picasso painting “Head of a Young Woman” was seized by French customs agents on board a yacht docked in Corsica in July 2015

Bangladesh drug kingpins surrender as deadly crackdown continuesCox’s Bazar | Bangladesh

Dozens of Bangladeshi drug kingpins surrendered in a meth hub along the border with Myanmar, authorities said Tuesday, as fears grow over a Philippines-style violent crackdown against traffickers.

Addiction to “yaba”, a cheap and addictive methampheta-mine pill, has soared in the im-poverished South Asian nation in recent years, experts say -- even in remote rural villages.

Authorities say the border towns have become hotspots for trafficking as Rohingya ref-ugees -- 740,000 of whom fled Myanmar in 2017 following a military crackdown -- turn to drug smuggling to try and make ends meet.

Some 21 smugglers from Teknaf -- a major transit point used by dealers to bring in tens of millions of yaba pills from Myanmar’s border states -- surrendered late Monday, police said.

The smugglers also sur-rendered thousands of yaba pills as well as weapons, while swearing publicly never to smuggle or sell narcotics again.

The soaring addiction rate has sparked a Filipino-style

anti-drug campaign, with se-curity forces killing nearly 500 alleged traffickers -- including dozens of Rohingya refugees -- from May 2018, rights groups say.

More than 25,000 people were also arrested for alleged-ly taking part in drug-dealing activities.

The deadly crackdown saw 102 yaba traders surrender to the country’s home minister last February, also in Teknaf.

Police said those who sur-rendered Monday would not escape prosection, but would be given fair opportunities to fight their cases.

Members of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) search people at the exit point of Suhrawardy Udyan park during a drive against drugs, in Dhaka

06WEDNESDAY, FEBRIARU 5, 2020

China virus death toll rises above 420• Readies thousands of new hospital beds

• Fifty patients arrived at a new military-run facility

• Hong Kong and the Philippines have also reported deaths

• Local Communist Party secretary Ma Guoqiang acknowledged Friday that officials had worsened the spread

AFP | Beijing

Hundreds of empty beds lined an exhibition centre converted into a makeshift hospital at the ep-icentre of China’s deadly virus epidemic yesterday, awaiting coronavirus patients.

Authorities are scrambling to provide facilities, beds and med-ical treatment for an influx of sick people in Wuhan in central Hubei province, the ground-ze-ro of China’s fight against the virus.

The disease has killed more than 400 people and infected a further 20,000 in China, nearly all of them in Hubei, and spread to two-dozen countries since it emerged in December.

Hong Kong and the Philip-pines have also reported deaths, and the World Health Organi-zation has declared the crisis a global health emergency.

State media said the converted exhibition centre, along with a nearby gymnasium, will house an extra 3,400 beds and provide “emergency treatment and clin-ical testing” for those infected with the virus in Wuhan.

In its daily update Tuesday, China’s National Health Com-mission said there had been 64 new deaths from the virus -- all in hardest-hit Hubei province -- bringing the national toll to 425.

Other coronavirus patients be-gan arriving yesterday at a field hospital in Wuhan built from scratch in under two weeks, state media said, following a round-the-clock construction marathon that became a national social media sensation.

Fifty patients arrived at the military-run facility, the state-backed China Daily reported, with images showing workers in protective suits pushing people in wheelchairs up a ramp and into the pre-fabricated struc-ture. As reports surfaced of bed shortages in hospitals in Wuhan, construction began on Huoshen-shan -- “Fire God Mountain” in Chinese -- on Friday January 24.

Workers toiled day and night amid a forest of earthmovers and trucks carting materials around the site, southwest of the centre of the city of 11 million.

On the side of one of the trucks, the isolated city’s new rallying cry -- “Let’s go Wuhan!” -- was written on a banner.

Leishenshan (“Thunder God Mountain”), another hospital on an adjacent site, is set to start admitting patients on Thursday, with 1,600 beds.

Fire and thunder are tradi-tionally associated in China with protection against illnesses.

Fire and thunderAll workers wore masks, as

mandated by the authorities for the entire population of Wuhan, and were checked for fevers dur-ing their breaks.

By the following Friday, they had laid 400 prefabricated ship-ping-container-like rooms, after setting concrete foundations and routing the power supply to the complex.

The two-floor facility was handed over to the army on Sunday and will be staffed with 1,400 military medics, including some with experience dealing with SARS and Ebola.

State media had initially re-ported that patients would begin arriving Monday -- inside the 10-day timeframe authorities had set out when construction began.

Authorities said the Wuhan facilities were modelled on the Xiaotangshan hospital in Bei-jing, which was built from pre-fabricated structures in barely a week to treat patients infected by SARS in 2003.

That pathogen killed 349 peo-ple in China and hundreds more in Hong Kong and abroad.

However, with the death toll surging in Wuhan and elsewhere in Hubei province, it was not immediately clear what over-all impact the hospitals would have on the virus spreading elsewhere.

The city also plans to convert three existing venues, including a gymnasium and an exhibition centre, into hospitals, the Wu-han government said.

The three buildings will be turned into healthcare facilities with a total of 3,400 beds to take in patients with mild symptoms.

Sixty-four new deaths were confirmed on Tuesday -- surpassing Monday’s record to post the new biggest daily increase since the virus was detected late last year in the central city of Wuhan

The 1,000-bed facility was built to relieve hospitals swamped with patients in Wuhan, the city in Hubei province at the epicentre of the national health emergency

World Bank calls for global effort against virusWashington

The World Bank called on Monday for countries to step up programs to fight the new coronavirus outbreak, and said it was considering mobi-lizing its own resources against the disease.

“We are calling on all coun-tries to strengthen their health surveillance and response sys-tems, which is essential to con-tain the spread of this and any future outbreaks,” the institu-tion said in a statement.

“The World Bank Group is reviewing financial and tech-nical resources that can be mobilized quickly to support affected countries,” and also “closely coordinating with in-ternational partners to acceler-ate the international response.”

The World Bank said it was “monitoring the wider eco-

nomic and social impacts of this crisis,” and would support “China’s efforts to respond, in-cluding its efforts to maintain resilience in its economy.”

International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgie-va said last week that negative impacts on the economy in the first half of 2020 were likely but “it would be irresponsi-ble to offer any speculations around what may happen.”

Since breaking out in China, the new coronavirus has spread worldwide and infected 17,200 people amid fears it could slow the global economy

Red Cross official fired for failuresBeijing

A top Red Cross official working at the epi-centre of China’s coronavirus outbreak was dismissed for dereliction of duty, authorities said yesterday, following local anger over a lack of access to donated medical equipment.

Hubei Red Cross Vice President Zhang Qin was fired for “dereliction of duty while receiv-ing and distributing donated funds and goods”, according to a statement on the Hubei province party discipline commission’s website.

Two other officials received disciplinary warnings for the same charge, it added.

The local chapter of the charity was the tar-get of online anger last week as social media users and Chinese media asked why frontline doctors in the stricken province were still un-der-equipped despite donations pouring in.

Under local law, Chinese authorities super-vise the charity’s “performance of its functions and duties... and exercise supervision over its activities”.

The Red Cross Society of China said it had received 849 million yuan ($121 million) in cash donations as well as supplies as of January 31.

Chinese news outlet Caixin reported on Sat-urday that Red Cross warehouses in Wuhan were full of donated supplies, including medical masks, but local hospitals still had to wait for hours to receive small amounts of equipment.

Secretary-general Jagan Chapagain said on Monday that he supported the “deliberate” decision by Red Cross officials to withhold a number of the donated masks in Wuhan because they were not safe for use by health professionals working on the frontline.

“Clearly the Wuhan Red Cross hasn’t dealt with this type of situation recently, (and) they had to massively scale up in a short period of time, so to have some shortcomings is not totally unnatural,” he added.

The organisation said on Sunday it was send-ing personnel from its headquarters to Wuhan in order to “ensure that the use of donated funds and materials is standardized, efficient, open and transparent”.

On Tuesday China’s National Health Com-mission admitted it was still facing “supply and demand conflicts” regarding protective gear, namely masks and suits, in Hubei.

Medical staff in protective clothing delivering supplies to the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital

Disabled Chinese boy dies while father in virus quarantineBeijing

A disabled boy has died after being left to fend for him-self when his father was quar-antined over the deadly new coronavirus in China’s Hubei province.

Yan Cheng, who was confined to a wheelchair because of cer-ebral palsy, was abandoned at home when his father was iso-lated because of a fever.

The 17-year-old, who could not speak, walk or eat by him-self, and whose mother died several years earlier, had no one to feed him or help him with daily life.

His father, Yan Xiaowen, was taken into quarantine on Jan-uary 22, and diagnosed with the potentially deadly virus five days later.

He posted a desperate plea for help on social media, calling for someone to go and look after his son.

But the post, entitled “An ap-peal for help from a father diag-nosed with novel coronavirus”, came too late.

The teenager died on January 29, according to a statement by the Hongan county govern-ment.

“Yan Xiaowen was unable to take care of Yan Cheng’s daily

life (because of being in isola-tion)... so he entrusted his rel-atives, village cadres and vil-lage doctors to take care of Yan Cheng,” the county government said.

The boy’s death has cost sen-ior local figures their jobs.

The local Communist Party secretary and mayor were fired because they had “failed to fulfil their responsibilities”, officials said.

The son’s cause of death had yet to be confirmed, they said.

News of the tragedy sparked an outpouring of rage and grief on social media, where author-ities in Hubei have already been criticised for withholding infor-mation about the infection.

On Weibo, the hashtag “The father of Hubei’s cerebral palsy victim speaks out” had been read 270 million times by Tues-day morning.

A hashtag about the mayor being fired had been viewed 66 million times.

07WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2020

HIV drugs touted as weapon in war on coronavirusBangkok

As doctors scramble to contain the fast-spread-ing coronavirus, a potent brew of anti-retroviral and flu drugs has emerged as a possi-ble defence against the myste-rious sickness that has killed hundreds.

But the science is inconclusive on whether they are actually ef-fective and experts say success-ful treatment could take years.

Here is what we know -- and don’t know -- about the drugs deployed against the SARS-like virus.

Why anti-retrovirals?Patients diagnosed with the

common flu are often prescribed an antiviral drug widely known as Tamiflu.

But the seasonal flu is “very different from the Chinese coro-navirus”, said Sylvie van der Werf at the Paris-based Pasteur Institute.

So far, the new coronavirus has infected tens of thousands worldwide and killed more than 420 people mostly in mainland China.

Two weeks ago Chinese doc-tors confirmed they had been giving anti-HIV drugs to corona-virus patients in Beijing, based on a 2004 study during the out-break of Severe Acute Respira-tory Syndrome, or SARS, that showed “favourable” responses.

Used together, lopinavir and ritonavir decrease the amount of HIV cells in a patient’s blood, stripping back the virus’s ability to reproduce and attack the im-mune system.

Doctors have also combined the treatment with another an-ti-flu drug called oseltamivir, hoping the creative cocktail can sap the new coronavirus of its strength.

In Thailand, where there are 19 confirmed cases, a 71-year-old Chinese patient returned a negative test within 48 hours of being given the three drugs.

But Thai doctors cautioned the medicine needed to be given under supervision due to pos-sible side effects or it clashing with pre-existing medications.

Does it actually work?In short, we don’t know for

sure.The 2004 study showed an-

ti-retrovirals used on patients with SARS had “substantial clin-

ical benefits”, experts in China said.

But random trials on 41 coro-navirus patients had “limita-tions”, according to the research, which was published in medical journal The Lancet on January 24.

The researchers were not able to obtain complete samples from the patients’ lower respiratory tract -- which is suspected to be the target site of the new coro-navirus -- and there were not enough patients to verify results.

“Further studies in outpatient,

primary care, or community set-tings are needed to get a full pic-ture,” they wrote.

What’s big pharma doing?Biotech firms are working on a

suite of treatment options.Cal i fornia-based Gilead

Sciences said they are working with Chinese authorities on clin-ical trials to determine if remde-sivir -- a drug used to treat SARS -- is effective against the new coronavirus.

Meanwhile three teams around the world -- in China, Australia and the Pasteur In-stitute in France -- have now succeeded in cultivating the new coronavirus in the laboratory.

That could lead to pinpoint-ing its “Achilles’ heel” by un-derstanding how it replicates in cells, said Christophe d’En-fert, the institute’s scientific director.

But as of now there is no spe-cific treatment against it, World Health Organization spokesper-son Tarik Jasarevic said.

“More investigations and anal-ysis of the epidemiological data is still required,” he told AFP.

So what shouldyou do?The best approach for the gen-

eral public is to try and “stay healthy” so your immune sys-tem can offer a robust response to the threat of the virus, said Singapore’s health minister Gan Kim Yong.

But for already infected pa-tients, hospitals must provide

supportive care to prevent com-plications.

“Chances are if you already have underlying medical condi-tions... your defences are weak and your organs may already be impaired, and therefore the risk of death is higher,” he told parliament Monday.

Developing a successful solu-tion may take months or years, he added.

Home remediesand quackeryBut misinformation has pro-

liferated online about home and traditional remedies.

A liquid made with honey-suckle and flowering plants used in traditional medicine was in-itially claimed to “inhibit” the virus, sparking frenzied buying

in China.But Chinese state media lat-

er sounded a more cautionary note, as researchers warned of potential side effects from the medicine.

In India, where there are three reported confirmed cases, the government has touted ancient homeopathy and Ayurveda rem-edies as the answer.

The jury is out on the effec-tiveness, and doctors still recom-mended that patients be treated in a hospital.

Online posts erroneously identified saline -- basic salt water -- as a coronavirus killer in Australia, while in Thailand social media touted that an an-tiseptic should be sprayed in a person’s mouth.

The antiseptic company Beta-dine has refuted the claim.

Two weeks ago Chinese doctors confirmed they had been giving anti-HIV drugs to coronavirus patients in Beijing

Best approach

The best approach for the general public is to try and stay healthy so your immune system can offer a robust response to the threat of the virus, said Singapore’s health minister Gan Kim Yong

A passenger checks herself with a digital infrared thermometer at Kuala Lumpur International Airport

Traditional Chinese medicines have been touted as treatment for the coronavirus

Indonesian women arrested for spreading coronavirus hoaxBalikpapan | Indonesia

Two Indonesian women who allegedly posted misinfor-mation online about the deadly coronavirus have been arrested, police said, as they warned doz-ens of hoaxes were being rapidly shared by the country’s millions of internet users.

The pair were taken into cus-tody in Balikpapan, a city on Borneo island, in the past few days after separately posting rumours on their social media accounts that a local resident was infected and undergoing treatment.

Indonesia has yet to report a confirmed case of the virus, which emerged in a Chinese market at the end of last year and

has since killed at least 425 peo-ple in China and spread around the world.

“They posted a hoax on their Facebook account that a Balik-papan resident has been diag-nosed with coronavirus,” local police spokesman Ade Yaya Suryana said yesterday.

“They were spreading lies.”The women -- a farmer and

a maid -- could face up to three years in prison if convicted un-der laws banning the spread of misinformation, he added.

Indonesia’s communications ministry has warned that it has spotted at least 50 online hoaxes about the virus recently.

The Southeast Asian archi-

pelago has one of the world’s biggest internet audiences, with some 130 million people online.

At the weekend, more than 230 Indonesians arrived home after Jakarta received Bei-jing’s go-ahead to repatriate its nationals living near the epicentre.

The returnees will be isolated for 14 days at a hospital in Natu-na, a cluster of islands bordering the South China Sea.

Their arrival has set off pro-tests in regional capital Ranai where demonstrators called on officials to ditch plans to quarantine the returnees near a residential area over safety concerns.

The pair -- pictured centre in pink and green -- were taken into custody after separately posting virus rumours on their social media

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2020

Hon. Chairman Najeb Yacob Alhamer | Editor-in-Chief Mahmood AI Mahmood | Chairman & Managing Director P Unnikrishnan | Advertisement: Update Media W.L.L | Tel: 38444692, Email: sales@newsofbahrain.com | Newsroom: Tel: 38444680, Email: news@newsofbahrain.comSubscription & circulation: Tel: 36458394 | Email:subscription@newsofbahrain.com | Website: www.newsofbahrain.com | Printed and published by Al Ayam Publishing

BARIA ALAMUDDIN

Taking a random district in the West Bank and calling it Al-Quds is no more a magical method for conjuring up a capital city than taking a swath of the Amazon jungle and calling it London.

Circling an area of the Negev desert on a map and writing “ag-ricultural” over the top doesn’t miraculously make the sands bloom into irrigated gardens to eternally nourish the inhabitants of Gaza.

Boasting about state-of-the-art road systems, customs facilities, hospitals, and an underground tunnel connecting Gaza to the West Bank is all very nice. But given that these pledges rely on still-unconfirmed foreign donors, Jared Kushner could have prom-ised gold-plated pavements and diamond-studded street lighting.

Previous peace plans necessi-tated that the wild-eyed Zionist fanatics in dozens of tiny settle-ment “outposts” would be sent packing back to Israel. Kushner’s plan not only gives them the right to remain, but Palestinian lands are dissected to accommodate roads and supporting infrastruc-ture for even the most remote and provocative locations. The map provided with the plan is suffi-ciently vague to allow settlers to carve out additional kilometers of “natural growth.” It is difficult to imagine a bigger incentive for settlers to inaugurate hundreds

of new sites, hoping that a future US president may give the nod to additional “facts on the ground.”

As well as announcing the severance of security contacts with Israel, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was right to respond with “a thousand no’s,” given Benjamin Netanyahu’s in-flexibility over the fundamental issues. Fruitful negotiations re-quire at least some shared con-sensus on the parameters for discussion. The deal was also angrily rejected in states circling Israel, where about 1.5 million Palestinian refugees reside. The cancelation of refugees’ right of return is just one of the issues that will have long-term conse-quences for these nations.

The deal’s promised incentives are dependent on Palestinians agreeing to the wholesale theft of their territories, and disarm-ing of all militant groups. Based on previous precedents, even if Palestinians bent over backwards to do everything they were told, Israel could still exploit flimsy security pretexts to permanently obstruct the implementation of plans for industrial zones, con-necting roads and other infra-structure.

The global media almost uni-versally acknowledged that this deal offers Israel everything, while being a nonstarter for the Palestinians and trampling on the religious rights of the millions of Christians and Muslims who venerate the many holy sites in these territories. The Economist described Donald Trump’s deal as the “steal of the century,” not-ing that the new Palestinian “cap-ital” amounted to a “few grim neighbourhoods, such as Abu

Dis and Shuafat, that sit on the other side of a hulking concrete separation barrier.”

It is easy to dismiss Trump’s proposals as a meaningless side-show concocted by two deeply problematic leaders drowning in corruption allegations. The nau-seating adoring gazes, back-slap-ping and effusive compliments with which this incestuously ne-gotiated travesty was launched say everything we need to know about its intended beneficiaries.

However, with Netanyahu rushing to annex the immense territorial concessions carved from the occupied Jordan Val-ley, West Bank, Jerusalem and Golan Heights, we shouldn’t be in denial that this is a catastroph-ic game-changer; representing the demise of three decades of post-Oslo relative consensus over

the parameters of a two-state deal. Future, more enlightened, US presidents will have to ex-pend almost unconceivable po-litical capital in rowing back on Trump’s sovereignty giveaways.

EDUCATION IS WHAT SURVIVES WHEN WHAT HAS BEEN LEARNED HAS BEEN FORGOTTEN.B. F. SKINNER

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Nearly six million Arab citizens throughout Palestine aren’t going anywhere. These

proposals address neither their grievances nor their

statehood aspirations. By kill-ing off the Oslo parameters with proposals premised on ethnic cleansing and apart-

heid, Kushner and Netanyahu will force Palestinian national

aspirations to be expressed within new guises.

Forget two states,

Trump’s plan prescribes apartheid

The deal’s promised incentives are dependent on Palestinians agreeing to the wholesale theft

of their territories

SHOLTO BYRENES

As the death toll from the current coronavirus ris-es, the organism itself re-mains invisible to the human eye but signs of the fear it arouses are very visible. On a recent trip to the Malaysian island of Penang it seemed that everyone, from the airport staff to our taxi driver, was wearing face masks. We had to have our temperatures taken to enter the hotel, while all the pharmacies we passed had no-tices saying that they had run out of masks.

Fear can turn readily to ob-session and then panic. There are close links between China and South East Asia, with tens of millions from the former tak-ing holidays in the latter every year. It is no surprise that cases of infection by the virus have been found throughout the region; the first fatality outside the main-land has been confirmed in the Philippines.

Sadly, it was therefore predict-able that a rise in xenophobic in-cidents targeting not just Chinese but other Asians too have been recorded in countries far away, including France, Italy, the UK, Australia and Canada. In Rome, the director of a music school told students from China, South Ko-rea and Japan to stay home until doctors had declared them free from the virus. South-east and east Asians have faced hostility in

a range of western countries, with the backlash so great in France that a hashtag, #JeNeSuisPasUn-Virus – I am not a virus – has been trending among Chinese French residents.

All this serves to remind us of the tremendous importance of combating fake news – the force driving much of this. Strange, sensationalist stories about the dangers of eating Chinese food have been in circulation. In Can-ada, the head of Toronto’s public health department warned that misinformation was creating “un-necessary stigma against mem-bers of our community”.

One Australian newspaper called the coronavirus a “Chinese virus”, despite the country’s for-mer race discrimination commis-sioner, Tim Soutphommasane, pointing out that “viral diseases don’t have ethnic, racial or na-tional characteristics”.

In Indonesia, a WhatsApp mes-sage warned that buying Chinese clothes could lead to infection. In Malaysia, the situation was getting so out of hand a week ago that Dzulkefly Ahmad, the health minister, told reporters: “We have two problems at hand. One is the virus, but the more pressing one is the viral fake news on the spread of the virus.” To counter this, he said: “We will have daily updates and hope the public will go to reliable sources for news instead of believing what goes viral on social media.”

Despite repealing an Anti-Fake News Act passed in 2018, the Ma-laysian authorities fortunately still have the tools to back up in-formation campaigns with pu-nitive action. So far, six people have been arrested for spreading misinformation about the virus under the Communications and Multimedia Act – a law that has

real teeth, as convictions can lead to a fine of up to RM50,000 (Dh44,610) or a one-year jail sen-tence.

Singapore has also used its relatively new Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manip-ulation Act, or Pofma, to move against those posting falsehoods about the virus online. Lee Hsien

Loong, the city-state’s prime min-ister, was unapologetic about do-ing so. “People who are making up stories, people who are de-liberately fomenting fear, uncer-tainty and doubt,” he said, “we’ve acted promptly against them us-ing Pofma.”

Both countries have been right to do so, as it might be a miracle

Governments around the world need

to police the truth more

carefully, but also introduce

critical thinking

into school curriculums

Fake news about coronavirus is infecting the world

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2020

Hon. Chairman Najeb Yacob Alhamer | Editor-in-Chief Mahmood AI Mahmood | Chairman & Managing Director P Unnikrishnan | Advertisement: Update Media W.L.L | Tel: 38444692, Email: sales@newsofbahrain.com | Newsroom: Tel: 38444680, Email: news@newsofbahrain.comSubscription & circulation: Tel: 36458394 | Email:subscription@newsofbahrain.com | Website: www.newsofbahrain.com | Printed and published by Al Ayam Publishing

BARIA ALAMUDDIN

Taking a random district in the West Bank and calling it Al-Quds is no more a magical method for conjuring up a capital city than taking a swath of the Amazon jungle and calling it London.

Circling an area of the Negev desert on a map and writing “ag-ricultural” over the top doesn’t miraculously make the sands bloom into irrigated gardens to eternally nourish the inhabitants of Gaza.

Boasting about state-of-the-art road systems, customs facilities, hospitals, and an underground tunnel connecting Gaza to the West Bank is all very nice. But given that these pledges rely on still-unconfirmed foreign donors, Jared Kushner could have prom-ised gold-plated pavements and diamond-studded street lighting.

Previous peace plans necessi-tated that the wild-eyed Zionist fanatics in dozens of tiny settle-ment “outposts” would be sent packing back to Israel. Kushner’s plan not only gives them the right to remain, but Palestinian lands are dissected to accommodate roads and supporting infrastruc-ture for even the most remote and provocative locations. The map provided with the plan is suffi-ciently vague to allow settlers to carve out additional kilometers of “natural growth.” It is difficult to imagine a bigger incentive for settlers to inaugurate hundreds

of new sites, hoping that a future US president may give the nod to additional “facts on the ground.”

As well as announcing the severance of security contacts with Israel, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was right to respond with “a thousand no’s,” given Benjamin Netanyahu’s in-flexibility over the fundamental issues. Fruitful negotiations re-quire at least some shared con-sensus on the parameters for discussion. The deal was also angrily rejected in states circling Israel, where about 1.5 million Palestinian refugees reside. The cancelation of refugees’ right of return is just one of the issues that will have long-term conse-quences for these nations.

The deal’s promised incentives are dependent on Palestinians agreeing to the wholesale theft of their territories, and disarm-ing of all militant groups. Based on previous precedents, even if Palestinians bent over backwards to do everything they were told, Israel could still exploit flimsy security pretexts to permanently obstruct the implementation of plans for industrial zones, con-necting roads and other infra-structure.

The global media almost uni-versally acknowledged that this deal offers Israel everything, while being a nonstarter for the Palestinians and trampling on the religious rights of the millions of Christians and Muslims who venerate the many holy sites in these territories. The Economist described Donald Trump’s deal as the “steal of the century,” not-ing that the new Palestinian “cap-ital” amounted to a “few grim neighbourhoods, such as Abu

Dis and Shuafat, that sit on the other side of a hulking concrete separation barrier.”

It is easy to dismiss Trump’s proposals as a meaningless side-show concocted by two deeply problematic leaders drowning in corruption allegations. The nau-seating adoring gazes, back-slap-ping and effusive compliments with which this incestuously ne-gotiated travesty was launched say everything we need to know about its intended beneficiaries.

However, with Netanyahu rushing to annex the immense territorial concessions carved from the occupied Jordan Val-ley, West Bank, Jerusalem and Golan Heights, we shouldn’t be in denial that this is a catastroph-ic game-changer; representing the demise of three decades of post-Oslo relative consensus over

the parameters of a two-state deal. Future, more enlightened, US presidents will have to ex-pend almost unconceivable po-litical capital in rowing back on Trump’s sovereignty giveaways.

EDUCATION IS WHAT SURVIVES WHEN WHAT HAS BEEN LEARNED HAS BEEN FORGOTTEN.B. F. SKINNER

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Nearly six million Arab citizens throughout Palestine aren’t going anywhere. These

proposals address neither their grievances nor their

statehood aspirations. By kill-ing off the Oslo parameters with proposals premised on ethnic cleansing and apart-

heid, Kushner and Netanyahu will force Palestinian national

aspirations to be expressed within new guises.

Forget two states,

Trump’s plan prescribes apartheid

The deal’s promised incentives are dependent on Palestinians agreeing to the wholesale theft

of their territories

SHOLTO BYRENES

As the death toll from the current coronavirus ris-es, the organism itself re-mains invisible to the human eye but signs of the fear it arouses are very visible. On a recent trip to the Malaysian island of Penang it seemed that everyone, from the airport staff to our taxi driver, was wearing face masks. We had to have our temperatures taken to enter the hotel, while all the pharmacies we passed had no-tices saying that they had run out of masks.

Fear can turn readily to ob-session and then panic. There are close links between China and South East Asia, with tens of millions from the former tak-ing holidays in the latter every year. It is no surprise that cases of infection by the virus have been found throughout the region; the first fatality outside the main-land has been confirmed in the Philippines.

Sadly, it was therefore predict-able that a rise in xenophobic in-cidents targeting not just Chinese but other Asians too have been recorded in countries far away, including France, Italy, the UK, Australia and Canada. In Rome, the director of a music school told students from China, South Ko-rea and Japan to stay home until doctors had declared them free from the virus. South-east and east Asians have faced hostility in

a range of western countries, with the backlash so great in France that a hashtag, #JeNeSuisPasUn-Virus – I am not a virus – has been trending among Chinese French residents.

All this serves to remind us of the tremendous importance of combating fake news – the force driving much of this. Strange, sensationalist stories about the dangers of eating Chinese food have been in circulation. In Can-ada, the head of Toronto’s public health department warned that misinformation was creating “un-necessary stigma against mem-bers of our community”.

One Australian newspaper called the coronavirus a “Chinese virus”, despite the country’s for-mer race discrimination commis-sioner, Tim Soutphommasane, pointing out that “viral diseases don’t have ethnic, racial or na-tional characteristics”.

In Indonesia, a WhatsApp mes-sage warned that buying Chinese clothes could lead to infection. In Malaysia, the situation was getting so out of hand a week ago that Dzulkefly Ahmad, the health minister, told reporters: “We have two problems at hand. One is the virus, but the more pressing one is the viral fake news on the spread of the virus.” To counter this, he said: “We will have daily updates and hope the public will go to reliable sources for news instead of believing what goes viral on social media.”

Despite repealing an Anti-Fake News Act passed in 2018, the Ma-laysian authorities fortunately still have the tools to back up in-formation campaigns with pu-nitive action. So far, six people have been arrested for spreading misinformation about the virus under the Communications and Multimedia Act – a law that has

real teeth, as convictions can lead to a fine of up to RM50,000 (Dh44,610) or a one-year jail sen-tence.

Singapore has also used its relatively new Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manip-ulation Act, or Pofma, to move against those posting falsehoods about the virus online. Lee Hsien

Loong, the city-state’s prime min-ister, was unapologetic about do-ing so. “People who are making up stories, people who are de-liberately fomenting fear, uncer-tainty and doubt,” he said, “we’ve acted promptly against them us-ing Pofma.”

Both countries have been right to do so, as it might be a miracle

Governments around the world need

to police the truth more

carefully, but also introduce

critical thinking

into school curriculums

Fake news about coronavirus is infecting the world

Hon. Chairman Najeb Yacob Alhamer | Editor-in-Chief Mahmood AI Mahmood | Chairman & Managing Director P Unnikrishnan | Advertisement: Update Media W.L.L | Tel: 38444692, Email: sales@newsofbahrain.com | Newsroom: Tel: 38444680, Email: news@newsofbahrain.comSubscription & circulation: Tel: 36458394 | Email:subscription@newsofbahrain.com | Website: www.newsofbahrain.com | Printed and published by Al Ayam Publishing

TOP

4TWEETS

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01

The Democrat Caucus is an unmitigated dis-aster. Nothing works, just like they ran the Country. Remember the 5 Billion Dollar Obamacare Web-site, that should have cost 2% of that. The only per-son that can claim a very big victory in Iowa last night is “Trump”.

@realDonaldTrump

The human toll of Agent Orange, used during the Vietnam War, has been tremendous. A number of U.S. service members who came in contact with the chem-ical would battle com-plications attributed to it. Agent Orange has been linked to cancers and other fatal diseases. #WorldCancerDay

@VVMF

A possible vaccine for the 2019 novel coronavirus, which has infected over 17,000 and killed at least 360 since late 2019, is stored in a lab in Texas. It was first developed for SARS, but researchers think it could be just as effective in 2020.

@dcexaminer

Iowa is charming and everything but let’s all admit that if we saw this sloppy, chaotic, slap-dash voting system employed in another country we’d call for UN election mon-itoring.

@TimAlberta

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

editorial stances)

The Arab League issued a stronger-than-expected state-ment, unanimously rejecting Trump’s proposals, “which fail to address the bare minimum of the Palestinian people’s aspira-tions and rights, while violating established parameters of the peace process enshrined in in-ternational law and relevant UN resolutions.” The UN and EU have likewise emphasised the neces-sity of compliance with UN res-olutions. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson showed none of these reservations, urging Pales-tinians to engage with the plan, although his foreign secretary later expressed “concerns” that Israel was rushing ahead to an-nex much of the West Bank.

A deal that is so fundamentally at odds with international law is only possible because of the

carnage that leaders like Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping have wreaked upon mechanisms of international justice and con-flict resolution. Putin and Xi have gridlocked the UN Security Council, while Trump’s acolytes advocate an absolutist model of presidential power that rejects all legal constraints.

This is also visible in Naren-dra Modi’s heavy-handed ad-dressing of the Kashmir question and other issues of religious and citizenship rights in India; Chi-na’s internment of more than 1 million Uighur citizens; Bashar Assad’s continued genocidal campaigns; Iran’s paramilitary expansionism; and Myanmar’s purges of the Rohingya. Nobody is awaiting serious international efforts to address these injus-tices and, in the absence of any reassertion of the primacy of in-ternational law, these examples will proliferate.

Nobody is happier than the likes of Daesh and Iran, which are using their many media or-gans to agitate against this deal. Trump and Netanyahu play into the terrorist narrative of betray-ing prospects for a dignified peace. Just as Al-Qaeda exploited Muslim outrage over Jerusalem, these fundamental injustices pro-vide copious lighter fuel for the decades of violence and terror-ism to come.

Kushner boasts that, for the first time, Netanyahu has com-mitted to a two-state proposal. Why? Because this isn’t a two-state solution. The envisaged Pal-estinian entity (which won’t ever see daylight) lacks any trappings of statehood: Sovereignty, con-tiguous territories, a capital, con-

trol of borders, armed forces, etc. However, the deal also (for now) blocks the drift toward a one-state solution, in which Pales-tinians could enjoy fair political representation. These proposals thus represent neither a one nor a two-state solution, but instead are a recipe for apartheid.

US and Israeli experts are also describing these proposals as creating apartheid Bantustans. Israeli rights group B’Tselem warned of the consequences of Palestinians being “relegated to small, enclosed, isolated en-claves, with no control over their lives.”

Trump and Netanyahu’s blue-print for apartheid is only sus-tainable as long as Israel enjoys military supremacy, under-pinned by billions of dollars of US support; as long as there are no sustained mass uprisings by Palestinians; and in the absence of consolidated international pressure. 

Nearly six million Arab citizens throughout Palestine aren’t go-ing anywhere. These proposals address neither their grievances nor their statehood aspirations. By killing off the Oslo parame-ters with proposals premised on ethnic cleansing and apartheid, Kushner and Netanyahu will force Palestinian national aspi-rations to be expressed within new guises. For those of us who have lived through multiple his-toric bouts of bloodletting and conflict, we can only view the future with extreme dread.

(Baria Alamuddin is an award-win-ning journalist and broadcaster in the

Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has

interviewed numerous heads of state.)

1939Generalísimo Francisco Franco becomes the 68th “Caudillo de España”, or Leader of Spain.

1941World War II: Allied forces begin the Battle of Keren tocapture Keren, Eritrea.

1945World War II: General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila.

1958Gamal Abdel Nasser is nominated to be the first president ofthe United Arab Republic.

TODAY DAY IN

HISTORY

that malicious falsehoods have not yet led to outright violence and even deaths. In too many oth-ers, however, the elevation of free speech into a kind of holy grail of human rights that should nev-er be marred by any restrictions has allowed fake news to flourish and spread unchecked. I refer here not just to misinformation

about the coronavirus. Fake news – or downright lies – have been a particular poison to political discourse in America, as I have previously written, where free-speech laws set a particularly high bar for defamation and libel.

This has provided cover not just for the near-unending series of outlandish claims and plain untruths that appear on President Donald Trump’s twitter feed, but also a state of affairs whereby figures in public life have false-ly accused their rivals of crimes with no legal rebuke for doing so. And this is not new. The Trump administration might be particu-larly blatant in its promotion of “alternative facts”, but the ground has been laid for such unashamed disregard for the truth for dec-ades.

One answer to this lies in po-

licing the truth more carefully, in clamping down and being un-afraid to prosecute when neces-sary. For any “human right” to tell lies that cause real damage and leave publics bewildered about what and whom to believe is not worth the dignity of so exalted a title.

Another lies in education, and in this Finland provides a superb example. The country incor-porated a programme to instil critical thinking and to develop how to assess reliability of infor-mation into its national school curriculum in 2016. Thousands of government employees and civil servants have also been trained in the approach over the past few years. It has had results. Accord-ing to one annual survey of 35 European countries, Finland is now the most resistant by far to fake news.

There are lessons to be learned here; and I do not have space now to go into the role of big tech, nor the puzzling gullibility of many who used to rely on trusted media that checked their facts but now appear to believe anything that appears on their phone.

But the falsities leaking and swirling around the coronavirus epidemic should sharply focus our attention once again on fake news. In the short term, it might not be as harmful as this fright-ening new infection. In the long term, though, it is undoubtedly far, far more dangerous.

Fake news about coronavirus is infecting the worldThere are lessons to be

learned here; and I do not have space now to go into

the role of big tech, nor the puzzling gullibility of many who used to rely on trusted

media that checked their facts but now appear to

believe anything that appears on their phone.

Wide Angle

JOEL INDRUPATI

The #hashtag: Fad, trend or megatrend?

Slowly, but surely, the hashtag is growing in cyber-space to prodigious proportions.If email has made the “at sign” or the “commercial at” or “@” symbol famous, social media has made the “hash sign” or “pound” or “#” symbol famous.

In this strange hashtag world – hang on, let me tag this write-up as #HashtagWorld - the importance of an issue or a topic is now measured by the number of times it gets tweeted, retweeted, or shared, within a certain time.

And hashtags in posts are helping users to quickly access millions of tweets and webpages that are ‘trending’. All based on specific hashtag-ed words and phrases.

Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are all supporting hashtags now and they are helping us find, categorise, and sort our favourite topics, pictures, and postings.

It all started with Twitter actually. When in 2007, soft-ware developer Chris Messina proposed, in a tweet, that Twitter should begin grouping topics using the hash symbol.

Though Twitter initially rejected the idea, by October 2007 some citizen journalists had begun using the hashtag #SanDiegoFire, at Messina’s suggestion, to tweet updates

on a series of forest fires in San Diego. And the practice of hash-tagging took

off. It left Twitter with no choice but to embrace it.

Even Facebook which was reluctant for long had to finally accept the use of hashtags from 2013.

Thanks to hashtags, we are now able to know what the world is talking about, quickly.

It is enabling social media analysts to know what people around the world, and people even in very specific regions of a large city are most interested in – actually, even at a certain point of time on a certain day.

It is also helping us understand what is really ‘trending’ and what is going ‘viral’.

Recently, the hashtag #MeToo trend-ed for several weeks and many celebri-ties in Hollywood and many bigwigs in Politics had to run into hiding to escape the accusations from their victims of sexual harassment.

I remember our marketing professor who had explained to us, ‘fad, trend and mega trend’, during a lecture on Product Life Cycles.

Roughly speaking (1) a ‘fad’ quickly gains in popularity and may fade just

as quickly (2) a ‘trend’ is a bit slower-paced than fad, but represents something that is occurring on a much wider scale and (3) a ‘megatrend’ is the long-lasting one, and can go on for years.

To paraphrase, if the fad of using snapchat filters may die out soon, the trend of using smartphones is unlikely to. And the mega trend of using hashtags may not go easily.

The use of hashtags is in fact a trend than is becoming a megatrend. Especially because the world is discovering how quickly it can see specific topics and specific webpages.

I found out that hashtags.org actually gives its users analytic tools to see the trends of several specific hashtags. But even without special tools, simple hashtag links are easy to track.

For instance, I checked the trends yesterday evening (Tuesday, 4 Feb at about 6 pm Bahrain time) on twitter for what people are posting. Among the top topics worldwide were K-pop singers’ birthdays #HappyJiSungDay with 532000 tweets, and #OurMagicalMiracleTaehyun with 262000 tweets.

Compared to that #IowaCaucusDisaster was a mere 41,300 tweets. #coronavirus is trending too but with less tweets. Quite clearly, youth can skew the truth.

News journalists use these hashtags and drive some topics to trend. And of late, these hashtags are also being manipulated by political parties and their IT Cells.

So, it looks like we will be caught-up in this megatrend of #hashtagworld for long.

(The writer’s twitter handle: @joelindrupati)

The use of hashtags is in fact a trend

than is becoming a megatrend.

Especially because the world is

discovering how quickly it can see

specific topics and specific webpages.

I found out that hashtags.org

actually gives its users analytic tools

to see the trends of several specific

hashtags. But even without special

tools, simple hashtag links are

easy to track.

10

business

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2020

Takaful awarded highest Financial rating of ‘A-’TDT | Manama

Takaful International Com-pany has been assigned a Financial Strength Rating of (A-) Excellent with a stable outlook and a Long-Term Is-suer Credit Rating of “a-“ by AM Best Rating Agency.

The rating, Takaful said, re-flects the sound financial posi-tion enjoyed by the company, being the only takaful provider in the kingdom to be rated (A-) Stable Outlook.

AM Best said the rating re-flects the efficiency of oper-ational performance, the ro-bust procedural system on the performance of risks, and the strong link it has with its par-ent company and Gulf Insur-ance Group.

The statement also high-lights that Takaful Interna-tional Co. is at an advantageous position with its synergized operations with gig-Bahrain and its pioneering position in the kingdom’s takaful market.

Essam Mohamed Al-Ansari, CEO of the company, expressed his happiness at receiving the financial and credit ratings.

The move, he said, reflects the company’s position as a strategic pioneering market leader having a prominent role in setting the fundamentals of the takaful industry in the kingdom since its establish-ment in 1989.

The CEO said that the com-pany focuses on enhancing operational capacity in Bah-

rain and becoming distinctive addition as a member of Gulf Insurance Group expending around the MENA region.

He noted that the company has adopted a balanced un-derwriting and investment strategies that had positively affected the company’s finan-cial results.

A special ceremony was held to honour Youth and Sports Affairs Minister Ayman Almoayyed, Bahrain national football team coach Helio Souza and his support staff for winning the 24th Gulf Cup in December. It was hosted by Al Hawaj Group at its Seef Mall outlet. Present were the ministry’s assistant under-secretary for sports and establishments’ affairs Dr Shaikh Saqr bin Salman Al Khalifa, Al Hawaj Group chairman Jawad Al Hawaj, general manager Abdul Wahab Al Hawaj and Ahlia University managing director Professor Abdulla Yusuf Abdulwahab Al Hawaj.

Banagas held a joint exercise on emergencies in compressor station No. (7) in continuation of its cooperation with the Ministry of Interior represented by the General Directorate of Civil Defense. The exercise evaluated emergency response systems and the effectiveness of the firefighting team and support team in managing the emergency and evacuation process. Dr Shaikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, the Company’s Chief Executive, expressed his thanks and appreciation to the General Directorate of Civil Defense for their continuous cooperation.

Most of Gulf markets gain• Bank Aljazira gains on higher profit

• Aramco closes down at 33.85 riyals

• TAQA extends gains on ADPower proposal

• Brent crude stood at $54.88 a barrel by 1135 GMT

• Saudi Arabia’s benchmark index rose 0.3pc.

Reuters

Most Gulf stock mar-kets rose yesterday, supported by bank-ing shares, following a rebound in oil prices on hopes for new output curbs from OPEC and its allies.

The Organisation of the Pe-troleum Exporting Countries and its allies are considering cutting crude output by 500,000 barrels per day, as demand shrinks because of the corona-virus outbreak in China, people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday.

Brent crude stood at $54.88 a barrel by 1135 GMT, up 43 cents, or nearly 0.8 per cent.

Saudi Arabia’s benchmark in-dex rose 0.3pc. Al Rajhi Bank added 0.8pc and Banque Sau-di Fransi 2.8pc. Bank Aljazira closed up 1.9pc after it posted a rise in annual profit that it at-

tributed to lower zakat charges. State-owned Saudi Aramco

fell 0.3pc to 33.85 riyals ($9.02).

The Abu Dhabi index rose 0.4pc as First Abu Dhabi Bank gained 0.7pc.

Abu Dhabi National Energy Company soared 14.9pc, extend-ing the previous session’s gains.

Abu Dhabi Power Corpora-tion (ADPower) is planning to take control of the energy firm in an asset swap that would create a combined utility with assets worth a total of about 200 billion dirhams ($54.45 billion).

Nasdaq-Dubai listed port op-erator DP World added 0.9pc after it reported growth in 2019 volume, handling 71 mil-lion twenty-foot equivalent units.

Outside the Gulf, Egypt’s

blue-chip index was up 0.3pc, driven by a 0.3pc gain in Com-mercial International Bank as it reported an increase in fourth-quarter profit. It also proposed a cash dividend of 1.25 Egyptian pounds ($0.0794) per share for 2019.

Qatar’s index edged up 0.2pc. Qatar National Bank , the Gulf’s largest bank, gained 1.7pc. Me-saieed Petrochemical was up 2pc.

In Dubai, the index slipped 0.1pc, hurt by a 1.2pc drop in developer Emaar Properties and a 0.7pc drop in Emirates NBD Bank .

However, Dubai Investments ended 2.3pc higher following a higher annual profit.

Closing Bell SAUDI 0.3pc to 8,138 pts

ABU DHABI 0.4pc to 5,096 pts

DUBAI 0.1pc to 2,767 pts

QATAR 0.2pc to 10,270 pts

EGYPT 0.3pc to 13,915 pts

BAHRAIN 0.1pc to 1,664 pts

OMAN 0.7pc at 4,145 pts

KUWAIT at 6,975 pts

An investor watching stock movements at the Saudi Stock Market (AFP)

Essam Mohamed Al-Ansari, CEO

Volkswagen’s Skoda targets Indian revival with tougher safety, emission rulesReuters | New Delhi

Skoda is hoping government moves to drag regulations for cars sold in India up to developed market standards will help turn around its for-tunes in a market where it has stalled.

The Volkswagen-owned Czech carmaker has been tasked with helping its Ger-man parent achieve a 2025 tar-get of a 5 per cent market share in India, which is dominated by home-grown automakers including Maruti Suzuki, Tata

Motors and Mahindra & Ma-hindra.

Among the new rules are tighter emissions standards, pushing up the costs for do-mestic carmakers and forcing many to increase prices in In-dia, which is expected to be-come the world’s third-largest car market by 2026.

Their cars have typically been designed to meet strict-er standards than were need-ed in India, that meant their cars were over-engineered and more expensive.