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Times of Oman - November 25, 2015
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WEDNESDAY, November 25, 2015 / 13 Safar 1437 AH timesofoman.com wtimesofoman.com facebook.com/timesofoman twitter.com/timesofoman blog.timesofoman.com ISO 9001:2008 Certifi ed Company
We wish to remind the new generation of the high purpose of their forefathers who braved the storms of the violent seas in order to provide us with a wholesome standard of living.
on the occasion of the 26th National Day
FROM THE WORDS OF HIS MAJESTYTHE SULTAN
‘His Majesty’s Wisdom’
e-visa reprieve for air passengers to the UAE
REJIMON [email protected]
MUSCAT: Expatriates fl ying to Dubai will be able to get visa upon arrival, airlines said.
Quoting a statement from Col Talal Ahmed Al Shangeti, the UAE’s General Director of Air-ports Aff air Sector, an Oman Air
offi cial said that earlier visa-on-arrival was revoked and as of this morning, the Dubai government has re-started visa-on-arrival fa-cility until the website is updated to receive e-visa applications.
“Oman Air will also accept pas-sengers without e-visa until the December-end as per the UAE airports’ statement,” Usama Ka-
rim Al Haremi, Senior Manager of Corporate Communication and Media at Oman Air, said.
The statement from the UAE says they are updating the e-visa system and improving the process to make it user-friendly for the travellers. Therefore, they don’t have any objection to any airlines operating in the GCC region to
carry passengers without an e-visa approved permit.
“This improvement will con-tinue until the end of December this year and we shall update you about any progresses,” the state-ment added.
Two UAE-based low budget airlines —fl ydubai and Air Ara-bia—have confi rmed that passen-gers on their fl ights are being pro-vided visa-on-arrival by the UAE authorities, depending on their eligibility.
“Expatriates fl ying to Dubai on our fl ights are being provided vi-sa-on-arrival by UAE authorities,” an offi cial from fl ydubai said.
Even after the UAE authorities revised the visa-on-arrival facil-ity norms for expatriates in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries on October 1, passen-gers travelling on fl ydubai contin-ued to get visa-on-arrival.
However, on November 18, they stopped providing visa-on-arrival
for passengers and on Tuesday, they have again started giving it to passengers fl ying with them to Dubai.
On October 1, the UAE an-nounced that regardless of their professional status, expatriates would have to apply for an e-visa to enter the UAE through air, sea or by road.
Earlier, depending on their pro-fessions, many expatriates were able to procure visa-on-arrival.
However, now everyone, bar-ring passport holders from certain countries, will have to apply for an e-visa to travel.
“We have got the advisory from fl ydubai. Passengers fl ying on fl ydubai to Dubai will be eligible for visa-on-arrival depending on professional status,” Mohan Ku-mar, a top offi cial at the Majan International Agencies Travel & Tourism LLC, said.
Majan acts as a general service agent for fl ydubai in Oman. >A6
Some airlines
confi rmed that
passengers on
their fl ights are
getting visa-on-
arrival in the UAE
His Majesty sends greetings
MUSCAT: His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said has sent a ca-ble of congratulations to Presi-dent Desire Delano Bouterse of Suriname on the occasion of his country’s Independence Anniversary.
In his cable, His Majesty the Sultan has expressed his sincere congratulations along with best wishes to President Bouterse and his country’s people.
Bosnia and HerzegovinaHis Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said has also sent a cable of greetings to Dr. Dragan Covic, Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, on the occasion of his country’s Na-tional Day. In his cable, His Maj-esty the Sultan has expressed his sincere greetings along with his best wishes to Dr. Covic and his country’s people. -ONA
C A B L E S
A2Parts of Oman receive rainfall
OMANUse genuine tour operators to Kerala
2Omanis visiting Kerala have been advised to bank on accredited tour
operators to avoid being cheated, the state tourism board said. “We have come across cases in which foreign tourists are being betrayed by unaccredited tour operators,” said Kerala tourism offi cial. >A3
OMANBids for Muscat port operations shifting
3Contracts for projects in Phase 1 of South Batinah Logistic Area, designed
to help smoothen the relocation of commercial cargo operations from Muscat’s Port Sultan Qaboos to Sohar Port, will be launched in the fi rst quarter of 2016, a top offi cial in charge of the project, said. >A6
OMANDar Al Atta’a offers discount on books
1Charitable organisation Dar Al Atta’a’s ‘Let’s Read’ initiative’s “Big Book Sale”
event, to be held on November 28 at the Al Qurum Complex, will off er a 50 per cent discount on all books that are on sale that day. The big book sale will be organised between 10am and 1pm. >A2
T O P T H R E E I N S I D E S T O R I E S
Girl students clear debris from beach to mark National Day
REJIMON K [email protected]
MUSCAT: A group of young Omani girl students cleaned the debris from a beach, to mark the National Day celebrations. The Times of Oman features the brave eff orts of the young girls as part of its #OmanPride campaign.
“Everyone celebrated National Day with rallies. We wanted it to be diff erent. In our curriculum, we study about plastic pollution. So we thought of doing something to protect our environment from the danger of plastic pollution. That is how we decided to clean up the plastic polluting the Al Hail beach side,” Sheikha Mohammed Al Rawahi and her friends from the Tabarak Private School told the Times of Oman.
About 35 students from Class XI and XII took part in the beach clean-up.
“Many go to the beach side with plastic bottles, plates, bags etc and leave them while return-ing. This plastic aff ects every waterway, sea and ocean in the world. When we damage our water systems, we are putting
our own well-being at risk,” Al Rawahi and her friends said. The clean-up lasted for three hours.
Muneer Thazhe Purayil, an English teacher, who led the group during the clean-up campaign held under the su-pervision of the Rwaa Najim, girls’ section supervisor, and Hisham Talaat, the English De-partment head, said the girls have been trying to spread this
message to their neighbourhood and among friends.
“Many students, who partici-pated in the clean-up, admitted that they used to throw plastic items on the beach; however, they have vowed that they would never do it again. This itself reveals that our eff orts have not gone in vain,” Purayil said.
Go Green“The eff ort was part of a cam-paign called “Go Green,” aimed at spreading environment aware-ness and best practices among friends. We have decided to con-tinue these types of celebrations on other holidays, which would create an environment aware-ness in the minds of the new gen-eration and create some environ-mentalists,” she added.
According to the United Na-tions Environment Programme (UNEP), around 80 per cent of marine debris is from land-based sources, mainly the tourism-related litter on the coast, such as the waste left by beach go-ers, including food and beverage packaging, cigarettes and plastic beach toys.
P R E V E N T I N G P O L L U T I O N
ENVIRONMENT AWARENESS: About 35 students from Class XI and XII of Tabarak Private School
took part in the beach clean-up drive. – Supplied photo
DESTINATION DUBAI: Earlier, expatriates used to procure visa-on-
arrival in the UAE depending on their profession.
TURKEY DOWNS RUSSIAN JETTurkey shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border, saying it had violated its air space, one of the most serious publicly acknowledged clashes between a NATO member country and Russia for half a century. >A7
A2 W E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
OMAN
Dar Al Atta’a’s ‘Let’s Read’ initiative off ers 50 per cent discount on booksTimes News Service
MUSCAT: Charitable organisa-tion Dar Al Atta’a’s ‘Let’s Read’ ini-tiative’s “Big Book Sale” event, to be held on November 28 at the Al Qurum Complex, will off er a 50 per cent discount on all books that are on sale that day.
The big book sale will be held between 10am and 1pm. The ini-tiative was reinstated on October 31 and will be held on the last Sat-urday of every month.
Jane Jaff er of the ‘Let’s Read’ in-itiative spoke of Oman’s fi rst char-ity bookshop, saying: “Come and
visit Oman’s fi rst charity book-shop, we have a great selection of fact and fi ction for all. All the pro-ceeds go to Maktabati, Oman’s fi rst mobile library and the ‘Let’s Read’ campaign to promote the love of reading among children in Oman.
First charity bookshop“Our location is shop 116, fi rst fl oor, the Al Qurum Complex and our opening hours are between 10am and 1pm and from 5pm to 8pm Saturday to Thursday and from 5pm to 8pm on Friday.”
This Oman’s fi rst charity book-shop, which has both fact and fi c-
tion books. It is also planning to start some programmes aimed at encouraging good reading habits among children and teenagers.
For the love of readingDar Al Atta’a’s ‘Let’s Read’ cam-paign has been promoting a love for reading among children in Oman since 2007.
The campaign’s committee achieves its aims in a variety of ways, by setting up play rooms, libraries and reading areas in hos-pitals, schools and nurseries.
Each month, it collects used books and holds a sale at
the Al Qurum Complex.
Story-telling sessionsIt also conducts story-telling ses-sions in schools and buys books and distributes them among chil-dren in the outlying areas. Every year, it holds a “Big Book Day” event that includes literacy activi-ties and story-telling sessions.
Annual competition The campaign’s annual Children’s Writing Competition attracts hun-dreds of entries from all over the country. Many winning entries have been published.
B I G B O O K S A L E Rainfall in parts of Sultanate
Staff Reporter
MUSCAT: Several areas in Oman received moderate to heavy rainfall on Tuesday.
While light rains fell in Muscat, Sohar received heavy rainfall, ac-cording to the Directorate General of Meteorology and Air Naviga-tion (DGMAN), which monitors weather conditions in Oman.
The other areas which re-ceived rainfall, include Quriyat, Shinas and Rustaq.
In its 24-hour outlook, DG-MAN said, “Clear to partly cloudy skies over Musandam Governo-rates, coasts facing Sea of Oman and Al Hajjr mountains with iso-lated rains.”
Waterspout spottedA waterspout had been spotted on the Sur coast, a weather en-thusiast said. A waterspout is an intense columnar vortex (usu-ally appearing as a funnel-shaped cloud) that forms over a body of water. It is connected to a tower-ing cumuliform cloud or a cumu-lonimbus cloud. In the common form, it is a non-super cell tor-nado over water.
“A waterspout appeared in the Sur sea. It’s a rare phenomenon, which occurs during cyclone season. Skies are cloudy too,” Bader Ali Al Baddaei, an admin-
istrator of www.rthmc.net, a lo-cal Web-based forum that dis-cusses weather in Oman, told the Times of Oman.
On Sunday, the meteorology department had predicted heavy rainfall in the northern parts of Oman till the end of the week.
In the Sunday’s advisory, the meteorology department added that Oman will likely witness a deep depression as moderate to heavy rain is expected in Musan-dam and North Al Batinah, while other governorates will witness varied rain showers, except for in Dhofar and Al Wusta. Forecast-ers also noted that temperatures will drop, which indicates that winter is just around the corner.
Northwesterly winds will be-come fresh to strong (from 15 to 25 knots) starting from Tuesday, along Oman’s coasts and changes in sea conditions will be from moderate to rough until Saturday.
While light rains
fell in Muscat,
Sohar received
heavy rainfall
RAIN IMPACT: A waterspout
was spotted on the Sur coast, a
weather enthusiast said. – Bader
Ali Al Baddaei/ www.rthmc
Come and visit Oman’s fi rst charity bookshop, we have a great selection of fact and fi ction for all. All the proceeds go to Maktabati, Oman’s fi rst mobile library and the ‘Let’s Read’ campaign to promote the love of reading among children
Jane Jaff er, ‘Let’s Read’ initiative
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OMANW E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
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‘Use accredited operators only for touring Kerala’
REJIMON K [email protected]
MUSCAT: Omanis visiting the south Indian state of Kerala have been advised to only depend on accredited tour operators to avoid being cheated, a top offi cial from the state tourism board said.
“We have come across cases in which foreign tourists are being betrayed by unaccredited tour operators. So, we advise tourists to have a safe trip by taking assis-tance of accredited tour operators listed on our website,” P. I. Sheik Pareeth, director of Kerala tour-ism, said.
Special off ers“Moreover, the accredited tour operators often come up with slashed rates and special off ers. So, it is always good to depend on them,” the director stated.
The offi cials made these com-ments on the sidelines of a business-to-business meeting arranged in Muscat for tour op-erators from India and Oman to promote tourism in Kerala, which has been listed as one of the 50 must-see places globally by Na-tional Geography.
According to the director, the
government website also has the names and contact numbers of accredited guides, who can speak Arabic.
“In 2014, some 18,000 Omanis visited Kerala and this number is growing. We are looking at an
around 15 per cent rise in the to-tal number of tourists visiting the state this year on the back of multiple initiatives being under-taken,” the director said.
As Kerala celebrates the year-long ‘Visit Kerala’, the government
has announced special off ers and packages for tourists.
“Omanis are eligible for a visa-on-arrival facility to visit India. Out of the nine airports in India, which provide visa-on-arrival fa-cility for Omani tourists, two are in Kerala,” the director added.
Rising tourist numbersIn 2014, foreign tourist arriv-als into Kerala were pegged at 9,23,366, up 7.6 per cent from 2013. Meanwhile, among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) coun-tries, visitors from Saudi Arabia in 2014 topped the list with 48,346, the United Arab Emirates stood in the second position with 17,475 numbers, and Oman was ranked third, with 17,239.
According to reports, more than 400,000 tourists from the GCC countries and the Middle East and North Africa region have visited India in the last two years.
Omanis are eligible
for visa-on-arrival
in India. Out of nine
airports having
such facilities,
two are in KeralaTOURIST HOTSPOT: P I Sheik Pareeth, director of Kerala Tourism,
advised tourists to have a safe trip by taking assistance of accred-
ited tour operators listed on the department’s website. – Shabin E
Shabab Oman II,
INS Tarangini
set off for India
MUSCAT: In response to the Royal Orders of His Majesty Sul-tan Qaboos bin Said, the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, the Royal Navy of Oman’s Shabab Oman II vessel sailed to the friend-ly Republic of India on its second international journey (the Omani Indian Friendship Bridge 2015).
Shabab Oman II, which will remind everyone of Oman’s rich marine history and the modern achievements of the Sultanate, will be accompanied by the Indian training sail ship ‘Tarangini.’
Farewell ceremonyAn offi cial farewell ceremony was held at the Port Sultan Qaboos un-der the auspices of Sayyid Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, secretary gen-eral of the Foreign Ministry.
The chief guest, senior offi c-ers and invitees boarded the ship and bid farewell to the ship’s crew, who gave an overview en-route the vessel. The event was attended by Major General Matar bin Salim Al Balushi, commander of the Royal Army of Oman, Rear Admi-ral Abdullah bin Khamis Al Raisi, commander of the Royal Navy of Oman, a number of undersecre-taries, senior SAF offi ces, some ambassadors of the friendly and sisterly countries, members of the State Council, Majlis Al Shura and a number of other invitees. -ONA
F R I E N D S H I P J O U R N E Y
Ensure proper disposal of garbage.
Don’t litter a beautiful country like OMAN.
A4 W E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
OMAN
Omani products expo to be held in Ethiopia
Times News Service
MUSCAT: To meet the growing de-mand of the Ethiopian market, the organising committee of the Omani Products Exhibition (OPEX) will hold OPEX 2016 from April 11 to 14, to promote local products in the East African market.
OPEX held a coordination meeting with business owners on Tuesday at the Waljat College of Applied Sciences in Knowledge Oasis Muscat to discuss prepara-tions for the exhibition.
Organised by a committee formed by Public Establishment
for Industrial Estates (PEIE), the Public Authority for Invest-ment Promotion and Export Development (Ithraa), and the Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OCCI), the Omani Products Exhibition in Ethiopia aspires to further promote Omani products and boost trade rela-tions with Ethiopia.
The meeting discussed the latest updates from the prepara-tions for the exhibition and own-ers of companies and industri-alists were informed about the participation process, the advan-
tages and the support that will be provided.
Integrated eff ortsBy participating in OPEX 2016, the companies will eventually support the integrated eff orts of PEIE, Ithraa and OCCI to pro-mote Omani products and ad-vance their exports.
The committee noted that Af-rica in general and Ethiopia in particular were selected to be the next destination for OPEX due to its promising and encouraging market as signifi cant opportuni-
ties are available for investors in Ethiopia. The committee aspires to witness positive outcomes for this exhibition by achieving the desired objectives of entering the African market.
According to a research con-ducted by Ithraa, 59 products have the potential to penetrate the Ethiopian market, including agro food, building materials, fur-niture and furnishing materials, aluminium and plastics, among many others.
Great opportunityOPEX to be held in Addis Ababa and will off er visitors the op-portunity to become acquainted with Omani products under one platform. The event will also of-fer a great opportunity for busi-ness-to-business meetings and interactions between Omani in-dustrialists and their Ethiopian counterparts. It should be noted that the most recent OPEX event was held in Jeddah in 2015, where around 120 companies showcased their products and 3000 visitors to the exhibition were briefed on the locally manufactured prod-ucts. OPEX events were also held in Riyadh, KSA in 2012; Doha, Qatar in 2013; and Dubai, United Arab Emirates in 2014.
Omani products
exhibition in Ethiopia
aspires to further
promote Omani
products and boost
trade relations
with EthiopiaGOING PLACES: OPEX held a coordination meeting with business
owners on Tuesday at the Waljat College of Applied Sciences in
Knowledge Oasis Muscat, to discuss preparations for the exhibi-
tion. – Supplied photo
Oman Air hires 21 nationals for pilot training courseTimes News Service
MUSCAT: Oman Air’s drive to recruit Omani pilots is bearing fruit, with 21 nationals joining the Cadet Training Programme of the national carrier.
The programme involves ini-tial fl ight training at the ENAC Toulouse, France, for 18 months. Upon successful completion of their initial fl ight training, the candidates go on to undertake a type rating course, which will qualify them to become members of Oman Air’s fl ight crew.
The recruitment drive was launched earlier this year with the aim of expanding opportunities for Omani nationals to become pilots with the airline. Applications were accepted from Omanis with good educational results, aged between 17 and 26 years. The study costs are being covered by Oman Air. Paul Gregorowitsch, chief execu-tive offi cer (CEO) of Oman Air, commented: “We are delighted to welcome these 21 young Omanis to Oman Air. Following the suc-cessful completion of their train-ing, each new pilot will become an invaluable part of the airline.”
“As the national carrier of the Sultanate of Oman, it is vital that we off er employment and career progression opportunities to as many young Omanis as possible. Furthermore, it is important that we demonstrate the capacity, ca-pability and commitment of the Omani people throughout our in-ternational network.
“These new pilots therefore represent an investment not just in the future of Oman Air, but also
in the future of our nation.”Captain Ali Hassan Sulaiman,
chief offi cer, Flight Operations at Oman Air, added: “As Oman Air continues its ambitious fl eet and network expansion programme, and as we introduce new aircraft, such as the B787 Dreamliner, the airline requires an increased number of pilots. This off ers us an opportunity to provide the rel-evant training to ensure that the number of Omani pilots that we employ continues to grow. Our resulting recruitment drive has been a huge success. The degree of enthusiasm with which it was greeted throughout Oman has been both surprising and satisfy-ing, showing that Oman Air en-joys a remarkable degree of sup-port amongst Omani citizens.”
Milestone“This is yet another milestone for the Omanisation drive that the national carrier of the Sultanate has adopted since its inception, as we send our fi rst batch of ca-det pilots with scholarships fully funded by Oman Air. On behalf
of Flight Operations, we would like to thank the company’s Board of Directors and the CEO for their commitment to supporting Omani talent and capability,” Su-laiman added.
Dr Rashid bin Mohammed Al Ghailani, chief offi cer, Human Resources at Oman Air, con-cluded: “As one of Oman’s largest employers, we take pride in em-ploying Omani nationals at every level of Oman Air. We are com-mitted to the Sultanate’s policy of Omanisation, and our objective is to reach 62 per cent Omanisa-tion across Oman Air by the end of 2015. Within fl ight operations, our aim is that 48 per cent of our pilots should be Omani by the end of this year. By 2020, we aim to reach 70 per cent Omanisation, with 60 per cent of all pilots being Omani. This latest group of Oma-ni trainee pilots therefore repre-sent an important step for Oman Air. In many ways, they represent the future of our company. We are very pleased that they have cho-sen to join us on our journey to become the best.”
O M A N A I R
McDonald’s Oman introduces new ‘Create Your Taste’ menuTimes News Service
MUSCAT: McDonald’s Oman (Al Daud Restaurants LLC) has launched its fi rst “Create Your Taste” option at the McDonalds Sarooj restaurant.
“Create Your Taste” is a new menu option and experience plat-form built around the concept of customisation.
McDonald’s Oman is the fi rst restaurant in the Sultanate to launch this kind of new platform. As an initial step, it will be availa-ble at the McDonald’s Sarooj out-let and will be available in other outlets in the near future.
Gourmet ingredientsUsing a new line of gourmet in-gredients, customers can create their own burger in a very con-
venient way, which will be served to them at their table. Customers will be able to place their orders by self-ordering and using state-of-the-art digital screens.
They will then have the oppor-
tunity to see their food prepared right in front of them using the highest quality choice of pre-mium Halal Angus beef, garden-fresh vegetables, signature sauces and new options for buns.
High-tech experienceTo cap off the distinctive and high-tech dine-in experience, tables will be outfi tted with GPS devices so that food is delivered directly to customer’s tables by the service team.
“As a modern and progres-sive brand we aspire to cater for our consumers evolving needs. And today is a testimony in this journey with the introduction of ‘Create Your Taste’ in Oman,” said Ali K. Daud, Develop-ment licensee and president of McDonald’s Oman.
C U S T O M I S A T I O N
30,000 European tourists expected to visit SalalahTimes News Service
SALALAH: Starting March 2016, a weekly direct fl ight is scheduled to fl y from Bratislava, Slovakia’s capital, to Oman’s southernmost governorate of Dhofar.
It follows from a partnership agreement signed between Hy-drotour, the largest tour operator in the Eastern European nation, and two of Muriya’s hotels, the fi ve-star Salalah Rotana Resort and the four-star Al Fanar Hotel and Residences.
With this agreement, Muriya’s tourism development will welcome 2,500 Slovak tourists to the Salalah beach bringing the total number of European tourists arriving at the company’s fl agship destination to more than 30,000 annually.
“The deal is a natural progres-sion of our continuous eff orts to actively promote the Sultanate as a year-round tourist destination,” said Ahmed Dabbous, chief execu-tive offi cer (CEO) of Muriya Tour-ism Development.
“According to a recent industry survey, outbound tourism from Eastern Europe is a key growth market for the global travel and tourism industry. This is a market that is yet to reach maturity; there-
fore, we have identifi ed it as a key opportunity to grow tourist arriv-als in the Governorate of Dhofar and to Oman.”
The infl ux of tourists in the Gov-ernorate of Dhofar has grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years. According to fi gures from the National Centre for Statistics and Information, tourist arrivals have grown at an annual rate of 16.3 per cent in recent years, with 2014 alone experiencing a 24 per cent jump in visitation. Occupan-cy rates have also reached record levels, with four and fi ve-star ho-tels registering rates higher than 71 per cent.
Hossam Kamal, general man-ager of the Salalah Rotana Resort said, “The Salalah Rotana Re-sort has experienced a consistent year-on-year growth in occupancy rates. With this deal in place, we expect to book an additional 6,500 room nights in spring 2016.”
Mikuláš Milko, general man-ager of Hydrotour said, “Tourists from Slovakia will appreciate the quality of service, professional staff and the willing management, which is able to react to their re-quests so that they can enjoy the beautiful beach and the magical Indian Ocean.”
T O U R I S M
NEW PLATFORM: McDonald’s
Oman is the fi rst restaurant in
the Sultanate to launch this
kind of new platform. – Jun Estrada
NEW HORIZONS: This latest group of Omani trainee pilots repre-
sents an important step for Oman Air. – Supplied photo
We are delighted to welcome these 21 young Omanis to Oman Air. Following the successful completion of their training, each new pilot will become an invaluable part of the airline
Paul Gregorowitsch, CEO, Oman Air
Expat arrested for cables theft
Times News Service
MUSCAT: An Asian national was arrested for trying to steal electric cables from a house, a Royal Oman Police (ROP) offi -cial from Al Buraimi said.
The offi cial said that they re-ceived a report about an Asian expatriate, who had tried to steal electric cables from a house during its construction.
On reaching the spot, the of-fi cers arrested the suspect with the cables.
Five arrestedA senior ROP offi cial said nar-cotics control offi cers in the North Al Batinah Governorate had foiled a drug smuggling at-tempt via the sea near Wilayat Shinas. Offi cers were able to ar-rest fi ve individuals, who were carrying two plastic bags full of heroin. Preliminary investiga-tions revealed that they intend-ed to sell the drugs.
Legal procedures have been initiated in both the cases.
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Jaalan Hospital openedTimes News Service
MUSCAT: To mark the 45th National Day celebrations, the Ministry of Health announced the inauguration of Jaalan Hos-pital in the South Sharqiyah Governorate.
The hospital, built at a cost of OMR7,321,817.363, includes an outpatient clinic, medical
laboratories, an x-ray labora-tory, an emergency room, and a birthing room.
Muqniyat clinicMeanwhile, also celebrating the National Day, the ministry start-ed operating the Muqniyat Health Clinic in the A’Dahira Governo-rate. It cost OMR1,261,600.900 to build the clinic.
The Muqniyat Health Clinic includes a male and female out-patient unit, a dental unit, a child, maternity and immunization care unit, as well as a surgery room and x-ray lab.
Also included in the clinic are a medical laboratory, a medical archive room and a pharmacy along with other administrative departments.
S O U T H S H A R Q I Y A H
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OMANW E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
Out of the total project area of 95 square kilometres in South Al Batinah, the Phase 1 covers 3 square kilometres
Ahmed Al Azkawi, Project Director- South Al Batinah Logistics Project
Bids for shifting Muscat port operations to Sohar next year
REJIMON K [email protected]
MUSCAT: Contracts for pro-jects in Phase 1 of South Batinah Logistic Area, designed to help smoothen relocation of commer-cial cargo operations from Mus-cat’s Port Sultan Qaboos to Sohar Port, will be launched in the fi rst quarter of 2016, a top offi cial in charge of the project, said.
“Out of the total project area of 95 square kilometres in South Al Batinah, the Phase 1 covers 3 square kilometres. The dry port, the nucleus of the project, is in-cluded in this Phase.
“Work for the dry port is pro-gressing and bids for other pro-jects in Phase 1 will be announced in Q1 of 2016,” Ahmed Al Az-kawi, Project Director- South Al Batinah Logistics Project, told
the Times of Oman in an exclusive interview.
“Local and international con-sortium have been prequalifi ed and invited to bid to operate and manage the nation’s fi rst dry port in South Al Batinah,” Azkawi said.
According to the offi cial, the hub will support related infra-structure projects to turn the Sultanate into a logistics gate-way to the wider Gulf and Middle East region.
“The project is located at the interface between Muscat and Al Batinah Governorate, home to more than 50 per cent of Oman’s population.”
This makes it a unique loca-tion for a Logistics Centre, which will support the socio-economic development of the area, Azkawi said. The logistic hub will include
four main activities dedicated to logistics, commercial activi-ties, light industries and public services.
“The entire project, which will be completed in the coming 25 years in fi ve phases, is designed in such a way that it will have ho-tels, schools, shopping malls and all other facilities within the area, thus enabling workers to work and live in the same area. In this way, this project will stand out from other industrial areas,” Az-kawi added.
In March 2015, the Oman Lo-gistics Company signed two agreements worth OMR3.5m for the development of the South Al Batinah Logistics Area. The fi rst agreement was related to the de-sign and construction of the dry port in the logistics area. The sec-
ond agreement was signed to pre-pare the master plan and detailed design for Block 1 (approximately 3 million sq metres) of the logis-tics area which includes internal roads and utility services.
“When completed, the hub will serve as a dry feeder port, half-way between Muscat and Sohar Port. As a customs bonded area, maritime freight originating from or destined for Muscat can be de-posited or collected from the hub without the need for shippers and consignees to travel all the way to Sohar. From the Sohar end, deliv-eries to and from the hub will be undertaken by the Sohar Port or its representatives, thereby ena-bling shippers and consignees to benefi t from signifi cant transport costs besides saving time,” Azka-wi added.
Work for the dry port is progressing and
bids for other Phase 1 projects will be
announced in the fi rst quarter of 2016
MUSCAT: Assigned by His Maj-esty Sultan Qaboos bin Said, Sultan bin Salim Al Habsi, Sec-retary General of the Supreme Council for Planning (SCP), left on Tuesday to lead the Sultan-ate’s delegation at the 31st ses-sion of the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation of the Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation (COM-CEC), due to be held in the Turkish Capital, Istanbul.
The meeting is being held to re-view the report of the COMCEC strategy and its implementation mechanism, besides discussing the OIC’s action programme, the latest global economic develop-ments and the inter-trade among the OIC member states.
It also seeks to strengthen fi nan-cial cooperation among the OIC member states and discuss various sectors’ role to develop economy, such as enhancing the private sec-tor’s role in the economic coopera-tion, as well as discussing a range of topics of common concern. -ONA
C O M C E C
MEGA PROJECT: An artist’s impression of the Phase 1 project of the South Batinah Logistic Area.
Horizon Fitness to promote healthy livingTARIQ AL [email protected]
MUSCAT: Horizon Fitness’s new and mixed 24-hour fi tness cen-tre in Al Hail South will strive to promote a healthy lifestyle, rather than just body building.
The 2,200-square metre fa-cility is one of the largest in the Sultanate, which features the lat-est high-tech equipment and ma-chinery, with a free weight area, a one-on-one training area, as well as a sauna, steam room and hot tub; in addition to a fully dedi-cated retail store selling fi tness products, such as supplements and whey proteins.
Some people feel intimidated in a gym when they see other seemingly more fi t people, but the Times of Oman asked how the new facility could lessen the intimida-tion factor for customers.
Duncan D’Ewes, Sales and Marketing manager, said, “There is defi nitely a correlation between the intimidation factor and pure body and weight lifting.
“The way to deal with the in-timidation factor is to provide a variety of services geared towards cardio, functional training and
various other elements like that.”He continued, “It takes away
the element of big muscles and body building and rather drafts the gym and the classes as a life-style choice. Lifestyle choices are not intimidating, body building and weight lifting is quite intimi-
dating.” Obesity and diabetes are among some of the most common conditions experienced by people, based on the lifestyle choices they make and they are encouraged to visit a gym and fi tness centre to improve their life longevity.
Longevity, life expectancy“If you look at the statistics in Oman, the eff ect of our current lifestyle choices and the eff ect that it has on people’s longev-ity and life expectancy. If we get people in the gym even thrice a week for thirty minutes at a time, then that is a life changing thing that we are trying to do here,” said D’Ewes.
Women might feel uncom-fortable working out alongside men, but Horizon Fitness has a female only location. However, mixed gyms are becoming a trend within the Omani community, ac-cording to a survey conducted by Horizon Fitness.
“We conducted a survey and the feedback we got from the Omani population, as well as the expat population, is that they prefer mixed locations,” said D’Ewes.
There are several mixed gyms in the Sultanate, the biggest in
Athaiba, which has seen a large number of ladies participating in the gym for the past year.
The fi tness centre is also equipped with an ‘Engine Room,’ which is designed to push indi-viduals to their personal limit and maximize results in less time.
The conditioning method en-sures the body focuses on ‘real world movement’ using proven training techniques that create everyday dynamic strength. The workout is enjoyable and safe, yet challenging and engaging enough to be highly motivational.
Aerobic performanceAll individuals are monitored to ensure they put in the same amount of eff ort, resulting in the achievement of gratifying results in cardio vascular and aerobic performance, strength and con-ditioning, muscle endurance and mobility.
The environment in the new facility is non-intimidating, wel-coming and motivational, with a friendly and helpful staff , which has been professionally trained to make sure that users get the best possible experience for their fi tness.
N E W C E N T R E O P E N E D
The 2,200-square metre facil-
ity is one of the largest in the
Sultanate. – Jun Estrada
State Council approves panel to study draft budget, 9th planMUSCAT: State Council on Tuesday approved the formation of the ad hoc committee to study the draft state budget for 2016 and the draft 9th fi ve-year plan (2016-2020).
At the beginning of the ses-sion, Dr. Yahya bin Mahfoudh Al Mantheri, Chairman of the State Council, said the agenda of the meeting includes approving the minutes of the fi rst regular ses-sion (the procedural session) and discussion on the proposal made by the Offi ce of the State Council on the changes in the permanent committee.
Permanent committees The meeting also approved the members of the permanent com-mittees and the distribution of the members on the permanent committees.
The members discussed the proposal made by the Offi ce of the State Council on the reforma-tion of the permanent committee
and approved the distribution of the members on the permanent committees. It also approved the proposal on forming an ad hoc committee to study the draft state budget for 2016, the draft 9th fi ve-year plan ( 2016-2020) .
New sessionIt was also decided that the third public session will be held on De-cember 15 and 16, 2015.
Meanwhile, Abdulqadir bin Salim bin Abdullah Al Dhahab was elected as Head of the Legal Committee while Issa bin Said bin Suleiman Al Kiyoumi as Deputy Head.
As for the Economic Com-mittee, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdullah bin Hamad Al Harthy was elected as Head of the Com-mittee while Salam bin Said bin Salim Al Shaqsi as Deputy Head.
Social committee Dr. Hamad bin Suleiman bin Salim Al Salmi was elected as
Head of the Social Committee while Dr. Wafa bint Salim bin Ali Al Harasiyah as Deputy Head.
As for the Education and Re-search Committee, Dr. Abdullah bin Mubarak bin Salim Al Shan-fari was elected as Head of the Committee while Dr. Zuhoor bint Abdullah bin Salim Al Khanjari-yah as Deputy Head.
Dr Ahmed bin Ali bin Moham-med Al Mashekhi was elected as Head of the Media, Culture and Tourism Committee while Mo-hammed bin Hamad bin Ali Al Masroori as Deputy Head.
The State Council on Tuesday held its second regular session of the 1st annual sitting of the sixth term under the aegis of Chair-man of State Council. -ONA
S E C O N D R E G U L A R S E S S I O N
Travel to UAE
Hameed Moideen, manager at Oman Wings Travel and Tours, also confi rmed having received an advi-sory from fl ydubai. An offi cial from Air Arabia in Muscat also said that passengers fl ying to Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah are being provided visa-on-arrival by UAE authorities.
Air Arabia fl ies 17 times per week to Sharjah and four times per week to Ras Al Khaimah.
Meanwhile, an offi cial from Emirates, which also fl ies to the UAE from Oman, said the de-cisions are taken by the UAE government. “Quick travel to the UAE has become a herculean task. It is aff ecting business. Some get e-visa and some don’t,” PE Lalachen, a Muscat-based businessman, said.
Under the previous rules, busi-nessmen and women, and their families from countries, such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh or the Philippines living in Oman, whose countries don’t have a treaty with the UAE could claim visa-on-arriv-al if their job titles were of senior roles, such as accountants, doctors, lawyers or engineers. But now all have to seek an e-visa.
European Union countries with whom the UAE has a treaty are un-aff ected by the new ruling, as are countries, such as New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Ma-laysia and Andorra, that all have pacts with the UAE. According to the new norms, a GCC residence entry permit is valid for 30 days be-fore entry from the issuance date, and allows a stay period after entry of 30 days, which can be extended to 60 days.
Meanwhile, a GCC accompanied entry permit is valid for 60 days be-fore entry from the issuance date, and the stay period after entry is 60 days, which can be extended by an-other 60 days.
E - V I S A
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Sayyid Badr meets Deputy Emir of QatarDOHA: Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Thani, Deputy Emir of Qatar, on Tuesday met with Sayyid Badr bin Saud bin Harib Al Busaidi, Minister Responsible for Defence Aff airs and his GCC counterparts taking part in the 14th meeting of the GCC Joint De-fence Council, in Doha. The lead-ers discussed means of enhancing and developing military coopera-tion among the GCC countries. They also reviewed means of en-hancing joint cooperation and ties among the GCC countries.
Sayyid Badr bin Saud bin Har-ib Al Busaidi, Minister Respon-
sible for Defence Aff airs, chaired the Sultanate’s delegation.
The meeting, which was attend-ed by Dr. Abdul Latif bin Rashid Al Zayani, GCC Secretary General, discussed enhancing existing mil-itary cooperation to serve the GCC common interests and joint objec-tives. The delegation accompa-nying the Minister Responsible for Defence Aff airs taking part at the 14th meeting of the GCC Joint Defence Council included Lt.Gen Ahmed bin Harith Al Nab-hani, Chief of Staff of the Sultan’s Armed Forces, top SAF offi cers and Omani envoy to Qatar. -ONA
D O H A M E E T I N G
Salim Al Habsi to take part in OIC meeting
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Turkey downs Russian jet near Syrian border
ANKARA/MOSCOW: Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border on Tues-day, saying it had repeatedly violated its air space, one of the most serious publicly acknowl-edged clashes between a NATO member country and Russia for half a century.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said the plane had been at-tacked when it was 1km (0.62 mile) inside Syria and warned of “serious consequences” for what he termed a “stab in the back”.
“We will never tolerate such crimes like the one committed today,” Putin said, as Russian and Turkish shares fell on fears of an escalation between the former Cold War enemies.
Each country summoned a diplomatic representative of the other and NATO called a meeting of its ambassadors for Tuesday afternoon. Russian Foreign Min-ister Sergei Lavrov cancelled a visit to Turkey that had been due on Wednesday. Footage from pri-vate Turkish broadcaster Haber-turk TV showed the warplane going down in fl ames in a wood-land area, a long plume of smoke trailing behind it. The plane went
down in area known by Turks as “Turkmen Mountain”, it said.
Separate footage from Turkey’s Anadolu Agency showed two pilots parachuting out of the jet before it crashed. A deputy com-mander of rebel Turkmen forces in Syria said his men shot both pi-lots dead as they came down.
A video sent to Reuters earlier appeared to show one of the pilots immobile and badly wounded on the ground and an offi cial from the group said he was dead. Rus-sia’s defence ministry said one of its Su-24 fi ghter jets had been downed in Syria and that, accord-ing to preliminary information, the pilots were able to eject. “For the entire duration of the fl ight, the aircraft was exclusively over Syrian territory,” it said.
The Turkish military said the aircraft had been warned 10 times
in the space of fi ve minutes about violating Turkish air space. Offi -cials said a second plane had also approached the border and been warned. “The data we have is very clear. There were two planes ap-proaching our border, we warned them as they were getting too close,” a senior Turkish offi cial told Reuters.
“We warned them to avoid en-tering Turkish air space before they did, and we warned them many times. Our fi ndings show clearly that Turkish air space was violated multiple times. And they violated it knowingly,” the offi cial said.
A second offi cial said the inci-dent was not an action against any specifi c country but a move to de-fend Turkey’s sovereign territory within its rules of engagement.
A US offi cial said US forces were not involved in the down-ing of the Russian jet, which was the fi rst time a Russian or Soviet military aircraft has been publicly acknowledged to have been shot down by a NATO member since the 1950s. — Reuters
Russian President
Vladimir warned
of ‘serious
consequences’ for
what he termed a
‘stab in the back’
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VIDEOW W W.T I M E S O F O M A N . C O M
SHOT DOWN: A combination picture taken from video shows a
war plane crashing in fl ames in a mountainous area in north-
ern Syria after it was shot down by Turkish fi ghter jets near the
Turkish-Syrian border on Tuesday. – Reuters/Reuters TV/Haberturk TV
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INDIAW E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
India, Singapore sign deal on strategic partnership
SINGAPORE: India and Singa-pore signed a joint declaration on strategic partnership and nine bilateral accords on Tuesday, the second day of Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi’s visit to this city state.
Modi and Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong signed the joint declaration on strategic partnership to elevate bilateral re-lations to a “strategic partnership to deepen and broaden engage-ment in existing areas of coopera-tion and catalyse new ones rang-ing from political, defence and security cooperation to economic, cultural and people to people con-tact”, an offi cial statement said.
“The strategic partnership is also a framework to contribute to greater regional stability and growth,” it added.
Besides this, two agreements
on defence cooperation and loan of artifacts from India to Singa-pore, two executive programme/operationalisation documents on arts and culture, and white-ship-ping, and fi ve memorandums of understanding (MoUs) on cyber security, civil aviation, knowledge exchange in the fi eld of planning, urban planning, and combating drug traffi cking were also signed.
Defence cooperationThe agreement on defence coop-eration enhances cooperation in the fi eld by providing for defence ministers’ dialogue, joint exer-cises between armed forces, and cooperation between defence industries to identify areas of co-production and co-development, the statement said.
The second agreement “extends the loan of Indian artifacts to the Asian Civilisations Museum of Singapore”. The operationalisa-tion document on arts and culture is on an “executive programme on cooperation in the fi elds of the arts, heritage, archives and library” between the Indian and Singaporean governments for the years 2015-2018.
The second operationalisation document has been signed follow-ing the technical agreement on sharing white-shipping or com-mercial shipping information about movement of cargo ships between the Indian and Singapore navies signed on July 21, 2015.
“Following the signing of tech-nical agreement between the two navies on sharing white-shipping
information in July 2015, both na-vies have established a two-way linkage. This has enhanced bilater-al cooperation in the area of mari-time security,” the statement said.
The MoU on cyber security was signed between the Indian Com-puter Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) and the Singapore Computer Emergency Response Team (SingCERT),
“The MoU promotes closer cooperation and exchange of in-formation pertaining to cyber security between the computer emergency response teams of the two countries by establishment of a broader framework for future dialogue; exchange of informa-tion on cyber-attacks; research collaboration in smart technolo-gies; exchange of information on
prevalent cyber security policies and best practices as well as pro-fessional exchanges,” the state-ment said.
The MoU on civil aviation “fa-cilitates mutual cooperation in a number of mutually agreed areas of civil aviation services and air-port management beginning with Jaipur and Ahmedabad airports”.The third MoU promotes knowl-edge and information exchange in areas such as urban planning, waste water management, solid waste management and public-private partnerships between India’s NITI Aayog and the Sin-gapore Cooperation Enterprise (SCE). The MoU on combating drug “facilitates and enhances cooperation by exchange of in-formation on trends in the illicit manufacture and those arrested on drug traffi cking charges and establishes direct contact points” between the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) of India and the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) of Singapore.
“Capacity building, skill up-grading and knowledge develop-ment are also identifi ed as areas of cooperation,” the statement said.
The fi fth MoU was signed be-tween the Town and Country Planning Organisation of India and the Singapore Cooperation Enterprise in Capacity Building in the fi eld of urban planning and governance.
It provides for participation of government offi cials from India in capacity-building programmes in areas such as urban planning and management.
The documents were signed following bilateral talks between Modi and Lee here.
After the signing of the docu-ments, external aff airs minis-try spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted that the two prime min-isters noted the importance of culture between the two countries and encouraged more exhibitions, exchanges and interactions. - IANS
Prime Minister Modi
and his Singaporean
counterpart Lee
Hsien Loong signed
the joint declaration
on strategic
partnership to boost
bilateral relations
to a ‘strategic
partnership’ to
deepen and broaden
engagement in
existing areas
of cooperation BOOSTING TIES: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, shakes hands with Singapore’s Prime
Minister Lee Hsien Loong, during a signing ceremony for the India-Singapore Strategic Partnership
and memorandum of understanding at the Istana in Singapore, on Tuesday. - Reuters
Sheena died of asphyxia caused by strangulation
MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: Shee-na Bora died due to asphyxia as a result of strangulation, according to a medical report that is part of the CBI chargesheet in the sensa-tional murder case in which her mother Indrani Mukherjea is the key accused.
The report was prepared by a fi ve-member medical board formed by the Government-run All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) based in New Delhi.
“Death in this case is due to as-phyxia as a result of strangulation by the way of ligature or manual cannot be ruled out,” said the re-port. The report also said the hu-man skeleton, sent for examina-tion and believed to be of Sheena’s, was of a female aged about 23.
It put the time of death at about three years ago. These details broadly matched with Sheena, who was aged 24 at the time of her murder in April 2012. The report maintained that the body was re-covered from a remote place and was suggestive of discrete dispos-al of corpse and concealment of prime evidence (body).
“The deceased had skeletal burns (burning of bones) which is only feasible in the case of deep burns. It is observed that there were pan-body burns over skel-eton, which suggests the extent of burns were massive and inten-tion was to destroy the whole body to conceal the prime evidence of death investigation.”
Sheena was allegedly strangled in a car and then her body was burnt and dumped in a forest in Raigad. Indrani (43), her former husband Sanjeev Khanna and her ex-driver Shyamvar Rai have been chargesheeted in the murder case.
Meanwhile, former media baron Peter Mukherjea is being evasive during his interrogation by CBI team here which grilled him for several hours on Tuesday after he was shifted from Mumbai in con-nection with the murder case of his step-daughter Sheena Bora. -PTI
R E P O R T
FIVE INJURED IN CHOPPER CRASHThe wreckage of a chopper which crashed while carrying a disaster management team,
near Meluri in Nagaland on Tuesday. A four-member disaster management team had a
narrow escape when their Pawan Hans helicopter crash-landed at Meluri Helipad in Phek
district of north-east Indian state of Nagaland. All the four passengers and the pilot sus-
tained minor injuries, the offi cial said. - PTI
BJP loses Madhya Pradesh seat to Congress; TRS wins anotherB H O PA L / H Y D E R A B A D : Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost its fi rst parliamentary seat on Tuesday after the party’s spectac-ular 2014 Lok Sabha victory when it failed to retain the Ratlam-Jhabua constituency in a bypoll in central-Indian state of Madhya Pradesh losing to Congress in a setback coming close on the heels of its Bihar drubbing.
The defeat in a BJP-ruled state that helped Congress increase its tally to 45 in the Lower House reverses the trend in the six ear-lier Lok Sabha bypolls where the incumbent parties had retained their seats.
The strength of BJP comes down to 281 in the 543-member House. The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), however, retained the Warangal (SC) Lok Sabha seat on Tuesday as Pasu-noori Dayakar won by a massive
margin of nearly 460,000 votes, defeating the candidates of Con-gress and the BJP-TDP combine.
All the eight bypolls were necessitated either due to seats being vacated or death of sitting members.
BJP’s Nirmala Bhuria was trounced by former union minis-ter Kantilal Bhuria of Congress in Ratlam-Jhabua (ST) seat which the saff ron party had won in 2014 during the landslide victory in the state bagging 27 of the 29 seats.
In a sign there was no sympa-thy wave, Kantilal Bhuria defeat-ed Nirmala Bhuria, daughter of Dileep Singh Bhuria, whose death necessitated the bypoll, by a con-vincing margin of 88,832 votes.
The bypoll was a prestige battle for Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who had addressed 27 rallies in six days in Ratlam and Jhabua.
“The wave of BJP’s defeat has started from Jhabua and would spread to the entire state and in the country,” a jubilant Kantilal said.
However, riding on ‘sympa-thy wave’ after the death of sit-ting MLA Tukoji Rao Puar, an erstwhile royal of Dewas, BJP retained Dewas Assembly seat where its candidate and Puar’s wife Gayatri Raje Puar defeated Congress’s Jai Prakash Shastri by a margin of 30,778 votes.
BJP opened its account in the 60-member Manipur Assem-bly by winning the bypoll in two constituencies of Thangmeiband and Thongju, trouncing Congress in both the seats with Joykis-han Singh and Bishwajit Singh emerging winners. Former Mi-zoram health minister Lal Than-zara of Congress won the bypoll to Aizawl North-III Assembly seat with a thumping majority. - PTI
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INDIAW E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
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India won’t agree to phase out fossil fuels this century
NEW DELHI: India would reject a deal to combat climate change that includes a pledge for the world to wean itself off fossil fuels this century, a senior offi cial said, underlying the diffi culties coun-tries face in agreeing how to slow global warming.
Almost 200 nations will meet in
the French capital on November 30 to try and seal a deal to prevent the planet from warming more than the 2 degrees Celsius that scientists say is vital if the world is to avoid the most devastating eff ects of climate change.
To keep warming in check, some countries want the Paris agreement to include a commit-ment to decarbonise -- to reduce
and ultimately phase out the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas that is blamed for climate change — this century.
India, the world’s third larg-est carbon emitter, is depend-ent on coal for most of its energy needs, and despite a pledge to expand solar and wind power has said its economy is too small and its people too poor to end use of
the fossil fuel anytime soon. “It’s problematic for us to make that commitment at this point in time. It’s certainly a stumbling block (to a deal),” Ajay Mathur, a sen-ior member of India’s negotiating team for Paris, told Reuters in an interview this week.
“The entire prosperity of the world has been built on cheap energy. And suddenly we are be-
ing forced into higher cost energy. That’s grossly unfair,” he said.
Mathur said India, whose po-sition at climate talks is seen by some in the West as intransigent, was committed to the 2 degrees ceiling as a long-term goal and was confi dent a deal would be reached.
But he said Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi’s government wanted an agreement that required coun-tries like India to do more over time as they become wealthier, rather than an “ideology-driven process” committing everyone to ending carbon usage.
India also wants to see rich na-tions’ pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions subjected to tough-er reviews than those of develop-ing nations, and Mathur warned against an “external penal regime that will only turn people back”. India, whose 1.2 billion people produce far lower emissions per capita than the world average, in October committed to slow the rate of growth in its carbon output by a third over the next 15 years.
While the pledge was welcomed by some environmentalists, others worry that India’s huge population and rapid industrialisation mean heavy future use of carbon will tip the balance in the global fi ght against climate change.- Reuters
Modi’s government
wanted an agreement
that required
countries like India
to do more over time
as they become
wealthier, rather than
an ‘ideology-driven
process’ committing
everyone to ending
carbon usage
COMMITTED: A truck is loaded with top soil at the Jharia burning coal fi eld in Dhanbad district in
Jharkhand. India, whose 1.2 billion people produce far lower emissions per capita than the world
average, in October committed to slow the rate of growth in its carbon output by a third over the
next 15 years. - Reuters fi le photo
Aamir under fi re for his remarks on intoleranceNEW DELHI: Superstar Aamir Khan on Tuesday came under at-tack from Bharatiya Janata Party and some in the fi lm industry for his remarks on intolerance in the country as the saff ron party linked his statement to a “deep political conspiracy” of Congress to malign the country.
But he was defended in equal measure by Congress and some other political parties and fi lm celebrities who said the govern-ment should not brand its critics as unpatriotic and threaten them for “speaking truth”.
An ambassador of ‘Incredible India’, a government’s campaign to promote tourism, Khan was at the centre of a raging debate a day after he expressed “alarm and despondency” over the rise in in-cidents of intolerance in the last six to eight months.
“Kiran (his wife) and I have lived all our life in India. For the fi rst time, she said, should we move out of India... She fears for her child, she fears about what the atmosphere around us will be,” the actor said on Monday in an interaction at the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journal-ism ceremony organised by the Indian Express.
BJP fi elded its national spokes-person Shahnawaz Hussain at a press conference in Mumbai to unleash a counter attack on Khan.
“Where will Aamir and his family go other than India? There is no other better country like In-dia and no better neighbour than a Hindu for an Indian Muslim. What is the situation in Muslim countries and Europe. There is intolerance everywhere,” he said.
Shielding him from the at-tack, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi said the govern-ment should instead of brand-ing all those who question it and the prime minister as “unpatri-otic, anti national or motivated” reach out to people to understand what’s disturbing them.
“That’s the way to solve prob-lems in India — not by bullying, threatening and abusing!” Rahul said, a view that was shared by CPM leader Sitaram Yechury.
“Now an actor has spoken fear-lessly — will the BJP admit it was a manufactured charge, that Bi-har polls were why people were speaking up?
“Aamir Khan spoke about diffi -cult issues with ministers present in audience. He should be heard and not threatened for speaking truth to power,” CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said in a series of tweets.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal “admired” Khan for “speaking up” against growing intolerance and insecurity in the
country, and asked the Centre to take steps to instill sense of secu-rity among people.
“Every word that Aamir Khan said is so true. I admire him for speaking up,” Kejriwal tweeted.
Hussain also took a swipe at the Congress Vice President for coming out in support of Aamir Khan. He said there was a “deep political conspiracy” by the Con-gress to defame the country by harping on an atmosphere of in-tolerance in India.
“This shows Congress com-plicity in the campaign to malign the country. Congress cannot tolerate an elected government and a popular prime minister. When the country is progressing under the leadership of Narendra Modi, Congress is creating an at-mosphere to malign the country,” he charged.
Congress leader and actor Khushboo batted for Khan, say-ing you don’t have to be in power to speak for people of this coun-try. She also defended the artistes who have returned their awards. “Those who have returned awards don’t work for any par-ticular party but for the nation.”
Khan’s colleagues in the fi lm industry vented their ire on the 50-year-old celebrated actor with one of them asking him why he did not talk of leaving the country during “worse times” earlier.
BJP MP Yogi Adityanath took a swipe at Khan, saying nobody has stopped him from leaving In-dia if he wants to and it will help reduce the country’s population.
Union Minister Kiren Rijiju said his comments on intoler-ance were completely misplaced and such remarks only bring the image of country and the In-dian Prime Minister Narendra Modi down. - PTI
V I O L E N T R E A C T I O N S
PROTESTS: BJP workers put
black ink to the poster of actor
Amir Khan during a protest
against his statement, in Patna,
on Tuesday. - PTI
No policy paralysis; GDP to touch 8% this year: Panagariya
BEIJING: Rejecting criticism that the policy paralysis has re-turned to haunt the NDA in view of critical legislations getting stuck in Parliament, NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya says the economic growth this year may touch eight per cent due to implementation of various critical economic reforms.
He asserts that projects are be-ing cleared and gathering speed and ease of doing business has improved.
“In the last quarter meaning January to March, 2016, I expect that we would touch eight per cent mark, hopefully cross it a bit,” he told PTI here in an interview.
He said the economic growth for the entire year is expected to be at 7.5 per cent to eight per cent.
“We might get full eight per cent because I also expect the fi rst quar-ter growth rate which has been at seven per cent for 2015-16 will be revised upwards,” he said.
“We will continue to make pro-gress. When we come to the last year of the present term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, I would expect it would be near the double digit,” he said. - PTI
R E J E C T I N G C R I T I C I S M
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PAKISTAN W E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
Woman pilot killed as trainer jet crashes
ISLAMABAD: A female Paki-stani Air Force pilot was killed on Tuesday when her trainer jet crashed near the central town of Mianwali, the military said, the fi rst such loss for the country’s tiny community of women pilots.
The crash happened during “routine operational training”, the air force said in a statement. A second pilot survived.
“Squadron Leader Saqib Ab-basi and Flying Offi cer Marium Mukhtiar were on a routine op-
erational training mission when it encountered a serious in-fl ight emergency during the fi nal stages of the mission,” the air force said.
“Ensuring safety of life and property of civilian population on ground, both the pilots ejected and the aircraft crashed near Kundian, Mianwali.”
Mukhtiar is the fi rst female pi-lot of the Pakistan Air Force to be killed while on duty. The air force had 19 women pilots in 2013, the last year for which the fi gure was immediately available.
The crash is the latest deadly accident to hit pakistan’s military.
In May, a military helicopter carrying diplomats to inspect a tourism project crashed, killing seven people, including the am-bassadors of Norway and Philip-pines. In August, another mili-tary helicopter being used as an air ambulance crashed near the northern district of Mansehra, killing 12 people. — Reuters
The jet crashed
during ‘routine
operational training’,
the air force said
Russian investors interested in energy, automobile sectorsISLAMABAD: A delegation of Russian businessmen, led by Il-dar Mingaleev, Deputy Minister Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Republic of Tatarstan, vis-ited the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI), expressing their interest in in-vesting in Pakistan’s energy and automobile sectors.
“The delegation has held nego-tiations with Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) and Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDC) to explore the possibility of joint ventures in the oil and gas explora-tion fi eld,” said Mingaleev.
Karachi to Lahore pipeline: Pa-kistan, Russia seal $2 billion en-ergy deal. “Russia’s largest energy company Gazprom is interested in supplying LNG to Pakistan while RT Global Resources, part of the Russian state corporation Rostec, will construct a 1,100km North-South gas pipeline in Pakistan by 2020 to link LNG terminals from Karachi to Lahore.”
Russian investors are also in-terested in investing and entering into joint ventures for the manu-facturing of heavy-duty trucks, passenger cars and other special-ised vehicles, shipbuilding and manufacturing of gas turbines and compressors. “Russia has estab-lished free economic zones with tangible tax benefi ts to foreign investors,” he said and suggested “Pakistani investors should set up textile units in Russia to capture the huge regional market.”
The Trade Development Au-thority of Pakistan is planning to take a business delegation to Rus-sia and ICCI members will also be part of the delegation that will look for business opportunities.
Important countrySpeaking on the occasion, ICCI President Atif Ikram Sheikh said Russia was an important country with which Pakistan wanted to de-velop close relations. “Cooperation with Russia is the key to achieving Pakistan’s goal of better trade with Central Asia,” Sheikh said, add-ing “Pakistan wants to strengthen trade, economic, scientifi c and technical cooperation with Russia for mutual benefi ts.”
He highlighted energy defi cit as a major issue facing Pakistan
due to which the industry suff ered and asked Russia to help in over-coming the problem by exploring investment and joint venture av-enues in the sector.
“Pakistani products includ-ing textiles, surgical instruments, leather products, fruits and veg-etables and others have great po-tential in Russia,” he emphasised, proposing frequent exchange of trade delegations that could ex
An offi cial of the Ministry of Commerce said delegations of businessmen and government of-fi cials would visit Russia, Belarus and other Central Asian countries to step up business interaction in the respective markets.
At the same time, he said, Paki-stan would continue facilitating and off ering incentives to local in-vestors. — Express Tribune
F O R E I G N I N V E S T M E N T
More than 1.2m farmers to benefit from Kissan Package, says PMISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has said over 1.2 million farmers across the coun-try will benefi t from the recent-ly-introduced Kissan Package.
“The relief package is meant for their betterment,” Prime Minister Nawaz claimed while addressing a ceremony in con-nection with the scheme in Jhang on Tuesday.
The prime minister said price of diesel had been reduced to aid poor farmers.
“Although the price of diesel was reduced due to the price reduction in global market, our government did not try to take any advantage out of it. Instead, we facilitated our farmers.”
Some circles, he added, tried their best to stop the relief from reaching farmers.
“Some people who claim to be working for farmers’ ben-efi t tried their best to stop the relief package. However, we went to the court to have it re-stored because we care about our farmers,” Nawaz said, ap-parently criticising Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chair-man Imran Khan.
Imran Khan tried to stop Kissan Package, says Shahbaz
The premier said his govern-ment was not only working in Punjab but in all provinces, re-gardless of the respective pro-vincial governments.
“I personally visited the quake-hit areas in Khyber-Pa-khtunkhwa (K-P) and extended complete support for the reha-bilitation of the people.”
Earlier during the day, the prime minister announced the construction of Gilgit-Sk-ardu Expressway at a cost of Rs50 billion.
Addressing the cheque distri-bution ceremony for quake vic-tims in Gilgit, Nawaz assured “the federal government will provide best possible assistance for important development pro-jects in Gilgit-Baltistan.”
Expressway“The expressway way will be connected with China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to increase economic activities in the area,” he said, adding an air-port for jet service will also be constructed in Gilgit.
Nawaz added eff orts were being made to strengthen de-mocracy in Gilgit-Baltistan and a committee was working to workout political reforms in the area.
Lauding Governor Gilgit-Baltistan Mir Ghazanfar Ali’s services, who took oath on Tuesday, the premier reiterated the former would work for the welfare of the people of Gilgit-Baltistan.
Prime Minister along with Minister for Kashmir Aff airs Barjees Tahir, and Gilgit-Bal-tistan Chief Minister Hafi z Hafeezur Rehman, among oth-ers attended the oath-taking ceremony.
“Eff ective measures must be taken for the development of tourism in Gilgit-Baltistan,” he added. — Express Tribune
B E T T E R M E N T S C H E M E
NAB acquits Zardari in 18-year-old cases
ISLAMABAD: A National Ac-countability Bureau (NAB) court acquitted on Tuesday former pres-ident Asif Ali Zardari in the SGS-Cotecna references against him, Express News reported.
On November 11 Account-ability Court Judge Muhammad Bashir reserved the verdict after both parties concluded their ar-guments over acquittal applica-tions of the Pakistan Peoples Party co-chairman in the SGS-Cotecna corruption cases.
SGS – a Swiss inspection, veri-fi cation, testing and certifi cation company – corruption case is the continuance of a reference fi led in 1997 that accused late Bena-zir Bhutto and her spouse to have gained off a contract between the SGS and the government. Cotecna case is about the award of a con-tract to the Swiss company after allegedly receiving six per cent bribe on revenue proceeds.
“The court today, has honour-ably acquitted Asif Ali Zardari, in 18-year-old reference cases for which he had spent eight years in prison,” the counsel for the for-mer president, Farooq H Naek said while addressing the media.
Earlier, in his arguments, Naek, reiterated that the real record of both references was not present and only photocopies were pre-sent before the court. In such a situation, he said, cases could not be taken forward and his client should be acquitted.
On a previous hearing, the judge had remarked that the record con-sisted of attested copies asking if the real record of the references could be obtained or be available with the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). — Express Tribune
S G S - C O T E C N A R E F E R E N C E S
CARRYING THE HARVESTA woman carries caulifl ower harvested from a fi eld outside Faisalabad, Pakistan on Tuesday. — Reuters
TRAGIC END: A handout image supplied by the Media Wing of
the Pakistan Air Force shows Flying Offi cer Marium Mukhtiar,
who was killed in a training accident near Mianwali, Pakistan on
Tuesday. – Reuters/Pakistan Air Force/Handout
Russia has established
free economic zones
with tangible tax
benefits to foreign
investors. Pakistani
investors should set up
textile units in Russia
to capture the huge
regional market
Ildar MingaleevDeputy Minister Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Republic of Tatarstan
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Essa bin Mohammed Al ZedjaliMohamed Issa Al ZadjaliAnees bin Essa Al Zedjali Ahmed Essa Al Zedjali
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Marc Champion
If the fi rst casualty of war is the truth, maybe the second is common sense. It’s become common to declare that Europe’s borderless travel zone
must go if security is to be restored after the ter-rorist attacks in Paris. Before abandoning part of the European Union’s most popular achievement — freedom of movement — let’s think it through.
The argument goes roughly like this: Because borderless travel, established in stages through the 1990s and 2000s, never secured Europe’s external frontier and intelligence sharing, and because the European Union is too feckless to make that hap-pen now, the best recourse is to resurrect national borders and put the maintenance of security back into the hands of national governments.
Three pieces of evidence are generally provided. First, the Paris attacks were planned in Belgium, a divided state with an ineff ectual intelligence ser-vice that allowed the Brussels district of Molen-beek to become a safe zone for Europe’s extrem-ists. Belgium’s failures thus became the problems of its neighbours, too.
Exhibit No. 2 is that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the leader of the Paris attacks and already one of Eu-rope’s most wanted men, was able to travel from Syria to Brussels and back again in 2014, with-out detection. Finally, weapons: Belgium has a lively black market in arms that can be bought by extremists and brought onto a train or driven to points-anywhere in the EU to launch an attack. Shut the borders, the theory goes, and Belgium’s failure to clamp down on its illegal arms trade be-comes less concerning.
It would be absurd to argue that these failures didn’t occur. But would repetition be prevented if Europe’s internal borders were permanently resurrected, as France has done temporarily after the Paris attacks?
The fi rst thing to say is that even when there were border controls between the 26 European countries that are signatories to the Schengen Agreement that established the free-travel zone from 1995, traffi c fl ows were so great that most cars were waved through, unchecked. That was in the 1980s and ‘90s, when cars drove at least 500 million fewer passenger miles per year across Eu-rope than they do now. Restoring Europe’s internal borders today would be like putting border checks on state lines between New York and Washington.
How many cars travelling on I-95 would actu-ally be stopped? Let’s say systematic checks were made, turning I-95 into a parking lot. Even then it would be no panacea. On the night after the Paris attacks, French police set up checks along the road to Belgium and stopped Belgian-born Salah Ab-deslam, the one Paris gunman who didn’t detonate his suicide belt, three times, according to the law-yer of the man who helped him escape. The police let Abdeslam go because they didn’t recognize him. The manhunt continues.
How about weapons? Europe’s illegal small-arms trade draws on weapons that weren’t reg-istered when tougher regulations were imposed in countries such as France. It also involves arms traffi cked from the ex-Yugoslav countries (where Bosnians alone are estimated to hold 750,000 pri-vate guns left over from the war), and weapons that were neutralized for sale as souvenirs or props and are subsequently reactivated. Restoring Europe’s internal borders might help a little with one part of this trade — imports from the western Balkans — but not by much, according to Nicholas Marsh, a fi rearms researcher at the Peace Research In-stitute Oslo. Putting Belgium in an isolation bub-ble wouldn’t fi x the problem, either. According to a 2010 French government estimate, there were about 4,000 automatic rifl es circulating in Paris suburbs such as Saint-Denis, where Abaaoud was found and killed. Someone determined enough to give up his life is unlikely to be deterred from fi nding a gun in Paris, if the softer Belgian option is closed. To address the terrorist threat, Europe’s governments would need to do what they should do anyway to bring the Schengen system up to date. They would need to harden external borders, preferably by putting them entirely under a jointly run agency such as the EU’s Frontex, using a com-mon terrorist watchlist and fi ngerprint database. That way, for example, agents at the free- travel zone’s Balkan borders — in Slovenia and Hungary — could check cars and trains heading north.
The EU should also put more resources into its existing eff ort to drain the ex-Yugoslav swamp of weapons and should do a better job of clearing out extremists cells in weak-link countries such as Belgium. But above all, the answer to nearly all these problems is better intelligence and intel-ligence sharing. That’s more likely to happen by modernizing a shared system than by retreating behind resurrected national borders. - Bloomberg View
Sushma’s eff orts to repatriate UP youth praiseworthyI refer to the story, ‘Uttar Pradesh Youth to be repatriated from Pakistan: Sushma’, Times of Oman (November 24), and congratulate the foreign ministries of both the countries, and indeed the NGOs
across the borders, for seriously taking up such humanitarian issues and for all their eff orts in getting these children repatriated. I am sure that such gestures will touch the hearts of millions and bring the people of both India and Pakistan closer to each other in times to come. Humanity by its nature has immense power to spread its arm across the geographical borders. — Mohammad Osama Rawat, Ruwi
Heads need to roll after Green Shirts’ pathetic show in fi nalThis refers to the news story‚ ‘India rout Pakistan 6-2 to emerge Asian champs’. I was neither surprised nor dismayed as Pakistan capitulated to India. The Green Shirts had been pathetic throughout the tournament. It was sheer luck that they had scraped through to the fi nals. This debacle should
see some heads rolling, especially the team’s coach. Also, those re-sponsible for the selection of these incompetent players should resign too. Furthermore, the players who played dismally should be shown the door and make way for genuinely talented players. I cannot imag-ine how such a team had ever been selected. — Imtiaz Khan, Mabella
T I M E S O F O M A NW E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5A12
Why ending free travel won’t make Europe safe
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Added charm for Wahiba SandsMUSCAT: The Wahiba Sands, the popular tourist destina-tion for all visitors seeking to savour desert life, has a new landmark, Golden Sands Resort, which began its operations in mid-September, has added a new charm to Wahiba Sands. Located off road in the desert of Wahiba Sands, the resort is 200km away from Muscat. It has added a new attraction to Wahiba Sands, which has been classifi ed as a unique type of desert in the world, characterised by sand dunes that reach up to 30 metres in height.
1930: An earthquake in Shizouka, Japan kills 187 people.
1947: The Big Four meet to discuss the German and European economy.
1963: The body of assassinated President John F. Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
1964: Eleven nations give a total of $3 billion to rescue the value of the British currency.
M O S T R E A DTIMESOFOMAN.COM
M O S T P O P U L A R V I D E O
M O S T S H A R E DFACEBOOK.COM/TIMESOFOMAN
The diplomatic eff ort to forge an international agreement
to mitigate climate change is undergoing a fundamental shift. The top-down approach that has
guided the eff ort since 1992 is slowly being replaced by a bottom-
up model. bit.ly/pragmatismclimate
OLIVER GEDEN
It is staggering to be so close to IS’s self-declared capital, Raqqa, that you can hear it. Distant, low thuds on the
horizon. Kurdish YPG fi ghters are just 30km from Raqqa. One of them,
Bahoz, told me how — three days earlier — he had heard 14 airstrikes
slam into the near distance. bit.ly/iskurdlibya
NICK PATON WALSH
In Pakistan, even businesses established years ago are not just
battling day-to-day operational woes, but also regulatory ones.
Bringing in investment is not as much of a task as is persuading
investors to stay. Economic research shows over-regulation
doesn’t work. bit.ly/investmentpakistan
AISHA SARWARI
F R O M O U R A R C H I V E S
T O D A Y I N H I S T O R Y
Oman placed among the few countries which has had no impact from terror.
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WORLDW E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
Seven killed in Sinai hotel attack
CAIRO: IS militant group’s Egyp-tian branch claimed responsibility for a bombing that killed at least seven people in a hotel in North Sinai on Tuesday where judges overseeing a parliamentary elec-tion were staying.
A militant tried to drive a car bomb into the hotel in the provin-cial capital Al Arish before secu-rity forces opened fi re, causing the car to explode, the military and a witness said. A suicide bomber
broke into the hotel restaurant and blew himself up and a gunman entered the guest rooms area and killed a judge, they said. Seventeen people were wounded, the Health Ministry said. “A brother... seeking martyrdom hit with his car bomb the security force protecting the Swiss (Inn) hotel where 50 judges were staying, only to be followed by a lion... who broke into the judg-es’ base with his automatic weap-on... then blew up his explosive belt among them,” Sinai Province said in a statement circulated by its fol-lowers on Twitter.
The group has carried out simi-lar attacks in the region as part of its bid to topple the Cairo govern-ment. It said two of its members carried out the attack. The Inte-rior Ministry said there were two attackers but the military and a witness said there were three mili-tants. It was not immediately pos-sible to clarify the contradiction.
Two judges, four policemen and a civilian were killed, the Interior Ministry said. The military said the three militants were killed.
The blasts followed Monday’s second round of voting in Egypt’s parliamentary election. Egyptian elections are monitored by the ju-
diciary with judges running poll-ing stations, observing the voting and counting ballots. “This bru-tal incident is a failed attempt to hinder the state from building its institution but we assure all that it will increase the drive and insist-ence of the armed forces and the Interior Ministry to weed out the roots of terrorism in North Sinai,” a military statement read.
The attack happened early in the morning and started with the car bomb, Swiss Inn manager Mo-hamed Mahana told Reuters.
Suicide bomber“The security forces shot the sui-cide bomber and his car and his tyres blew up but he kept driving until he got to the hotel entrance then the explosion happened. It was huge.”
A second suicide bomber came in through the beach and into the hotel restaurant, breaking its win-dow, before blowing himself up, said Mahana.
The restaurant was empty. “A third attacker sneaked into the hotel through the side where the guest rooms are and shot passers by, killing one judge, before a secu-rity offi cial shot him.” — Reuters
A militant tried to
drive a car bomb
into the hotel in the
provincial capital
Al Arish before
security forces
opened fi re, causing
the car to explode
The group has carried out similar attacks in the region as part of its bid to topple the Cairo government. It said two of its members carried out the attack.
THE SITE OF ATTACK: Emergency personnel and security forces stand next to ambulances outside
the Swiss Inn hotel in the Egyptian town of El Arish, in the Sinai peninsula, following an attack on the
hotel by two suicide bombers and a gunman on Tuesday. – AFP
A14
GLOBAL EYEW E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
BAHRAIN: A woman uses her phone to take photos of Aaron Shum’s $2 million guitar exhibited at
the watch and jewellery exhibition Jewellery Arabia 2015 in Manama, Bahrain, on Tuesday. – Reuters AFGHANISTAN: An Afghan child plays with a tyre on a street in Kandahar, Afghanistan on Tuesday. – AFP
FRANCE: People look at the Eiff el Tower illuminated in the colours of the French tricolour fl ag in tribute to the victims of the November 13 attacks in Paris. – AFP
GERMANY: Frozen branches are seen against the morning sun on a
fi eld in Warngau near Munich, Germany, on Tuesday. – Reuters
CHINA: A boy gestures to a KINGER Robot at the World Robot Exhi-
bition during the World Robot Conference in Beijing. – Reuters
THE PHILIPPINES: An employee from the Bureau of Customs shows items from the Marcos Jewellery
Collection before the appraisal inside the Central Bank in Manila, Philippines, on Tuesday. The Marcos
Jewellery Collection were part of the wealth that was confi scated from the family of the deposed
former president Ferdinand Marcos after they fl ed from the Philippines in 1986, local media reported.
The collection of about 750 pieces of jewellery was valued at $6-8 million in 1991, and some can now
command much higher prices, Christie’s jewellery expert David Warren said. – Reuters
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A15
WORLDW E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
Fearing an imminent Paris-style attack, Belgium has extended a maximum security alert in Brussels until next Monday but said the metro system and schools may open again on Wednesday
Hunt for Paris attacks fugitive enters 11th day
PARIS/BRUSSELS: The man who provided lodging for the pre-sumed mastermind of the Paris at-tacks will go before an anti-terror-ism judge on Tuesday as the hunt for suspected gang member Salah Abdeslam, Europe’s most wanted fugitive, entered its 11th day.
Frenchman Jawad Bendaoud said before he was detained by police last Wednesday that he had been asked to put up two people for three days in an apartment in St. Denis north of Paris, but he had no idea one of them was the attackers’ ringleader.
It was in this fl at that Abdel-hamid Abaaoud, the suspected leader of the attacks claimed by IS militant group, died during a police raid along with Hasna Ait-boulahcen, a woman believed to be his cousin, and an as yet uni-dentifi ed third person.
Under French counter-ter-rorism laws, Bendaoud must be charged or released on Tuesday.
The Paris attacks that killed 130 people on Friday, November 13, at the national sports stadium, a concert venue and bars and res-taurants in heart of the capital, shocked a city already struck by gunmen in January.
As millions of Americans pre-pare to travel for the US Thanks-
giving holiday on Thursday, the US State Department issued a global alert of “increased terrorist threats”. The agency said on Mon-day current information suggest-ed that IS, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, and other groups continued to plan attacks in multiple regions.
French investigators are still piecing together exactly who did what when and have launched a massive hunt to fi nd Abdeslam, suspected of being the eighth at-tacker mentioned by IS when it claimed responsibility for the killings. Abdeslam, 26, fl ed to Belgium the day after the shoot-ings and his presumed presence in Brussels was one of the factors behind a security lockdown that brought the city to a virtual stand-still over the weekend.
Fearing an imminent Paris-style attack, Belgium has extend-ed a maximum security alert in Brussels until next Monday but said the metro system and schools may open again on Wednesday.
Belgium has been at the heart of investigations into the attacks since France said two of the sui-cide bombers in Paris had lived there. Four people, including two
who travelled with Abdeslam back to Brussels, have been charged with terrorist off ences in Belgium. Abdeslam’s brother Bra-him blew himself.
While major shopping cen-tres in Brussels remained closed on Tuesday, two Ikea furniture stores on the edge of town reo-pened, along with some of the larger supermarkets in the city.
The Magritte museum re-mained shut, however, and Brus-sels had yet to decide whether to open its Christmas market on Friday in the historic Grand Place, where workers have set up stalls with an armoured person-nel carrier in the background.
“We are at the time of year when we are supposed to have a lot of people, and increase busi-ness. And there the problem with the attacks is people are scared and are afraid of leaving their homes,” said Brussels toy shop worker Laeticia Shalaj.
Belgium’s King Philippe phoned King Mohammed of Mo-rocco on Monday to ask for help in tracking down the militants behind the attacks, Belgium’s In-terior Ministry said.
A French police source said last week that Morocco tipped off Paris that Abaaoud, one of IS’s most high-profi le European re-cruits, was in France at the time of the attacks rather than in Syria as widely believed. — Reuters
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WORLDW E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
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Children worst hit by climate change impacts
BARCELONA: Governments meeting in Paris next week must agree a strong new deal to curb global warming because they owe it to the world’s children, with hun-dreds of millions highly exposed to the impacts of climate change, the UN children’s agency said.
Nearly 530 million children live in extremely fl ood-prone ar-eas, the vast majority in Asia, in-cluding over 300 million in coun-tries where half or more of the population is poor, UNICEF said in a report ahead of the two-week Paris climate talks.
Nearly 160 million children live in parts of the world that suf-fer severe drought, over half of them in Africa, and more than 115 million are in places at high or extremely high risk of tropi-cal cyclones, it added. Countries have already promised to try to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, to avoid the most damag-ing future eff ects of worsening extreme weather and rising seas.
But national plans to curb planet-warming emissions, made ahead of the Paris conference, are not enough to meet that goal.
“We know what has to be done to prevent the devastation cli-mate change can infl ict. Failing to act would be unconscionable,”
UNICEF’s executive director, An-thony Lake, said in a statement.
The agency’s report said sci-entifi c projections showed “the more ambitious the action taken to reduce emissions, the more children will be saved from the worst eff ects of climate change”.
“We must also deal with the im-pacts of the carbon already emit-ted into the atmosphere. Children are already feeling the eff ects of climate change,” the report said. “We need to prepare now to help make the world’s children as re-silient as possible.”
Severe weather conditions harm children by increasing mal-nutrition and spreading diseases that are major killers, includ-ing malaria and diarrhoea, the UNICEF report said.
Climate change can also trigger a vicious cycle. “A child deprived of adequate water and sanitation before a crisis will be more af-fected by a fl ood, drought, or se-vere storm, less likely to recover quickly, and at even greater risk when faced with a subsequent crisis,” it added.
UNICEF called for the needs of the most vulnerable people, including children, to be priori-tised in eff orts to adapt to climate change, as well as measures to protect those displaced by dis-asters or inhospitable environ-ments. Children should also re-ceive education and training on climate change, and be allowed to play a central role in helping ad-dress it, the report said. — Thomson
Reuters Foundation
Nearly 160 million
children live in parts
of the world that
suff er severe drought,
says UNICEF report
Two journalists among fi ve go on trial in VaticanVATICAN CITY: Five people, including two Italian reporters, went on trial in the Vatican on Tuesday, to outrage from rights’ groups, on charges arising from publication of books portraying mismanagement and corruption.
At the fi rst session, dominated by procedural issues and dubbed “Kafk aesque” by one of the de-fendants, journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi said they had done nothing wrong and had simply fulfi lled their pro-fessional duty.
“I am incredulous in fi nding myself here as a defendant in a country that is not mine,” Fitti-paldi told the court, adding that publishing news was protected by the Italian constitution as well as European conventions and universal declarations on human rights. The trial, being heard by three non-clerical judges in the sovereign city-state, stems from publication of two books which depict a Vatican plagued by mis-management, greed and corrup-tion and where Pope Francis faces stiff resistance from the old guard to his reform agenda.
Two of the offi cials indicted, Spanish Monsignor Angel Lucio Vallejo Balda, who was number two at the Vatican’s Prefecture for Economic Aff airs, and Italian laywoman Francesca Chaouqui, a public relations expert, were ar-rested earlier this month.
Balda and Chaouqui were both members of a non-defunct com-mission Francis set up in 2013 to study economic and administra-tive reforms.
Vatican employee Nicola Maio, Balda’s assistant, also went on trial.
EmbarrassedThe Vatican was embarrassed and angered by the books, which it said used information that should never have been allowed to leave the walls of the city state.
The leaks are one of the biggest internal scandals to hit the papa-cy of Pope Francis and are remi-
niscent of the “Vatileaks” furore that preceded the resignation of former Pope Benedict in 2013. The Italian media has dubbed the latest episodes “Vatileaks II”.
The Vatican has said “Mer-chants in the Temple” by Nuzzi and “Avarice” by Fittipaldi, give a “partial and tendentious” version of events and has accused the writers of trying to reap fi nancial advantages from receiving stolen documents. The books were pub-lished earlier this month.
Both journalists complained they had been forced to accept court-appointed lawyers and had been given documents needed for their defence only days, or hours, before the trial started.
Fittipaldi told reporters that he had not met his lawyer until the trial was about to start. The court ruled that a senior Vatican judge would have to decide if outside lawyers could represent the two but that judge was out of Rome. The next session was set for Monday.
Nuzzi told reporters during a break that the trial was “absurd and Kafk aesque” but it would not stop him from publishing more books. In their indictment, pros-ecutors said Balda, Chaouqui and Maio formed “an organised crim-inal association” with the aim of “divulging information and docu-ments concerning the fundamen-tal interests of the State”.
Nuzzi and Fittipaldi, wrote books based on the leaks. Their indictment said both “solicited and applied pressure, especially on Vallejo Balda, to obtain secret documents and information.
Both have complained that they have had to accept court-ordered lawyers accredited to the Vatican and not allowed to use Italian lawyers.
The defendants risk jail sen-tences of up to eight years.
The human rights watchdog, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), urged the Vatican on Monday to withdraw the charges. — Reuters
M I S M A N A G E M E N T A N D C O R R U P T I O N
BLEAK FUTURE: Nearly 530 million children live in extremely
fl ood-prone areas, the vast majority in Asia, including over 300
million in countries where half or more of the population is poor,
UNICEF said in a report ahead of the Paris climate talks. – Reuters
MARKEWWW.TIMESOFOMAN.COMW E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5B
Muscat
5,742.50 - 19.61
- 0.34%
Dubai
3,209.21- 45.93
- 1.41%
Abu Dhabi
4,239.92- 10.46
- 0.25%
Saudi Arabia
7,202.72+ 53.11
+ 0.74%
Kuwait
5,765.04- 8.64
- 0.15%
Bahrain
1,230.54 + 2.29
+ 0.09%
Qatar
10,675.74- 160.45
- 1.48%
CURRENCY RATES* DRAFT RATES (OMR1)* GOLD PRICES*Forex rates vs OMR1*
US Dollar ................................. 2.58
Euro .............................................2.41
Pound ........................................... 1.70
Indian Rs ............................. 172.09
Pak Rs ................................... 269.47
Bangla Taka.......................198.37* Rates are as of Nov. 24
Source: Bank Muscat
Indian Rs ....................................172.15
Pakistan Rs .............................273.68
Sri Lanka Rs ............................367.10
Bangla Taka...........................206.00
Phil Peso ................................... 122.00
* Rates as of Nov. 24 Source: Oman UAE Exchange
Muscat 24ct per gm (OMR) .......13.80
Muscat 22ct per gm (OMR) .......13.30
Dubai 24ct per gm (Dh) ........... 129.00
Dubai 22ct per gm (Dh) .............122.25
* Rates as of Nov. 24
Source: Malabar Gold & Diamonds
Type ............................Delivery...........Price
Oman Crude ............. (Spot) ........$39.44
Dubai Crude ............. (Spot) ........$39.24
Murban Crude ........ (Spot) ........$40.76
Arabian Light ......... (Spot) ......... $37.74
N.Sea Brent ............... (Spot) ........$44.94
West Texas Int ....... (Spot) .........$41.90
CRUDE OIL PRICE
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Consortium wins $2.8b Liwa Plastics key project contract
Times News Service
MUSCAT: A joint venture be-tween the Netherlands-based CB&I and CTCI Corporation of Taiwan has won the $2.8 billion worth engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to build a steam cracker and as-sociated utilities of Liwa Plastics Industrial Complex project in So-har from the state-owned Oman Oil Refi neries and Petroleum Industries Company (Orpic), ac-cording to a release from CB&I.
This is the fi rst EPC package, among four packages, for build-ing the $5.2 billion Liwa Plastics Industrial Complex and the other packages are a polymer unit, a natural gas liquids extraction unit and a 300 km-long NGL pipeline from Fahud to Sohar.
Scope of workThe scope of work includes EPC for a grassroot-level 880,000 tonnes per annum ethylene plant, pygas unit and MTBE unit, as well as all the related off -sites and
utilities. CB&I’s scope of work also includes the construction of cryo-genic and atmospheric storage tanks and pipe spool fabrication.
Latest technologyAs previously announced, the cracker will employ CB&I’s lat-est, proven ethylene technol-ogy, including highly selective SRT cracking heaters, and its in-novative recovery section design, featuring low-pressure separation and mixed refrigeration.
“CB&I is pleased to have been
selected for this signifi cant pro-ject following the successful com-pletion of the front end engineer-ing and design of the Liwa Plastics Project for Orpic,” said Philip K Asherman, CB&I’s president and chief executive offi cer.
“This new award builds upon the successful relationship between Orpic and CB&I and is a testament of our customer’s confi dence in our experience and world-class project execution capabilities.”
Orpic earlier said that Liwa Plastics Industries, which will go
on stream by 2018, will produce polyethylene, polypropylene and butene. Oman will produce poly-ethylene for the fi rst time and it is going to be the fi rst natural gas extraction project to produce high value petrochemical products in the country.
A joint venture of
the Netherlands and
Taiwan fi rms have
won the fi rst EPC
contract to build a
steam cracker unit
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MARKETW E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
Oman Air continues to support small business unitsTimes News Service
MUSCAT: Oman Air has contin-ued its support for small to me-dium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the Sultanate by participating in the Oman SME Summit. The event was held at the Al Bustan Palace Hotel, Ritz Carlton recent-ly and aimed to ‘reinvigorate the SME market in Oman’.
As the offi cial airlines partner of the Oman SME Summit, Oman Air enjoyed a high profi le through-out the event. Further, Oman Air’s chief executive offi cer, Paul Gregorowitsch, played a dynamic role in the proceedings and took part in a panel discussion. The panel considered the rules and regulations which apply to SMEs in Oman, SME’s contribution to
the National Economy and the im-portance of training prior to set-ting up an SME.
Paul Gregorowitsch comment-ed: “It was an honour to have been asked to participate in the Oman SME Summit. And it was a pleas-ure to have the opportunity to share Oman Air’s perspective and my business experience with po-tential owners of SMEs.
“The Sultanate of Oman is ac-tively pursuing a development plan which focuses on diversifi -cation, industrialisation and pri-vatisation. And young Omanis are being encouraged to enter the workforce and contribute to Oman’s GDP. SMEs are essential to the growth and sustainability of Oman’s economy over the coming years. It was therefore very satis-
fying to have played a role in rais-ing awareness of the vast potential that SMEs hold for Oman’s future success. “A shining future awaits many of those potential SME owners who attended the Oman SME Summit. We look forward to seeing them achieve success and make a vital contribution to the life of this nation.”
Oman Air’s participation in the Oman SME Summit continues its ongoing commitment to the development of small and medi-um-sized businesses in Oman. In addition to entering into com-mercial partnerships with a range of Omani SME’s, the airline has also held seminars about the is-sue, provided facilities as well as direct and indirect support to in-dividual businesses.
In addition, Oman Air has part-nered with the Al Raff ad Fund to run a workshop, held in Muscat lately, which emphasised the im-portance of backing special needs students to develop their skills and gain employment. As part of the workshop, a presentation was given for the students. This out-lined the signifi cance of economic independence, and described the steps necessary to create one’s own business.
Oman Air’s support for SMEs in Oman forms part of its compre-hensive CSR programmewhich includes support for social and en-vironmental causes, providing em-ployment and career progression policies through its Omanisation policy, and promoting access to air travel for the people of Oman.
O M A N S M E S U M M I T
PANEL DISCUSSION: Oman Air’s support for SMEs in the Sultan-
ate forms part of its comprehensive corporate social responsibility
programme. - Supplied picture
Opec to hold the line as $40 crude looms
LONDON: It will take more than $40 crude to make Opec change its mind, analysts said before the group’s December 4 meeting in Vienna.
In the year since the Organi-sation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) chose to defend its market share, and let prices sink, a 44 per cent plunge in crude has slashed members’ revenues by almost half a trillion dollars. Un-deterred, the group will press on with its strategy to batter rival pro-ducers when ministers meet next week, according to 30 analysts and traders surveyed by Bloomberg.
Saudi Arabia, Opec’s biggest member, appears determined to see through its plan to eliminate a supply glut by squeezing out competitors like US shale drillers, even as the resulting price collapse spurs dissent from Venezuela, Al-geria and Iran. The kingdom’s tac-
tic is “having the intended eff ect” as non-Opec supply heads for its steepest retreat since the fall of the Soviet Union, according to the In-ternational Energy Agency (IEA).
“There’s no reason to expect any change of heart,” said Antoine Halff , a senior fellow at the Cen-tre on Global Energy Policy at Co-lumbia University. “The strategy is working out, it’s just not solv-ing the problem overnight. The market is rebalancing, and there’s pressure on shale oil production, but it will take time.”
Equilibrium priceFor some Opec members, opposed to the kingdom’s plan since they unveiled it last November, the cost has been too high.
Venezuela, facing a 10 per cent economic contraction this year that would be the steepest in the world, has repeatedly called for a
summit between Opec and other producers to end the crisis. Oil prices may drop to as low as the mid-$20s a barrel unless Opec takes action to stabilise the mar-ket, Venezuelan Oil Minister Eu-logio Del Pino said on Sunday, advocating the group adopt an “equilibrium price” of $88 that would cover the cost of new invest-ment in production capacity.
Brent crude, the benchmark for about half the world’s crude, closed as low as $42.69 a barrel in August, the weakest in more than six years. Prices have lost about 44 per cent in the past 12 months and were at $45.28 a barrel at 8:33am London time. Yet even as prices languish below levels most members need to balance
their budgets, the initiative failed to win the backing of the group’s dominant Gulf-based producers.
Chief architectWhile Saudi Arabia isn’t immune to the crisis, which has forced it to burn through currency reserves and tap bond markets to plug a 20 per cent budget defi cit, the king-dom still has enough fi nancial fi re-power to see the strategy through.
“Saudi Arabia is the chief ar-chitect of Opec’s new policy, and despite calls by other members to reconsider, we expect them to re-main steadfast,” said Harry Tchi-linguirian, head of commodity markets strategy at BNP Paribas in London.
Their “experiment in letting prices bring adjustments to the world’s oil balance has yet to run its course,” he added.
One change ministers could agree is an increase in the group’s output target as Indonesia rejoins after a seven-year hiatus that was triggered by the Asian country’s wilting oil production.
The ceiling may be raised to 31 million barrels a day, from the cur-rent 30 million, according to two Opec offi cials who asked not to be identifi ed. — Bloomberg News
The group will press on with its strategy to
batter rival producers when ministers meet
next week, according to analysts and traders
– Bloomberg fi le picture
India plans tax incentives for housing sector NEW DELHI: India will off er more tax breaks to encourage investment in the housing sec-tor as Prime Minister Narendra Modi looks to revive economic activity in Asia’s third-largest economy, two people familiar with the matter said.
Finance minister Arun Jaitley has asked the state-owned Na-tional Housing Bank to design a programme to attract invest-ments in the housing sector. The move comes shortly after a gov-ernment panel recommended that salaries of federal employees rise 24 per cent rise, which would be the fi rst increase in their base pay since 2008. The 13-member S&P BSE Realty Index rose the most in two weeks as of 1:43 p.m. local time. Housing Develop-ment & Infrastructure Ltd., DLF Ltd. and Indiabulls Real Estate Ltd. led the gains.
India’s economy is poised to miss the government’s target of at least 8 per cent growth as a global slowdown hurts exports, credit growth is near a 20-year low and bad loans are climbing. Modi’s government is increasing wages and pensions to spur consump-tion, a move that also puts its fi s-cal defi cit target at risk.
Wage billThe wage increases would cost the government $15 billion in the next fi nancial year start-ing on April 1. In a meeting with heads of state-owned banks and fi nancial institutions on Novem-ber 23, Jaitley said he would look
at off ering tax incentives to spur investment in housing, two offi -cials present in the meeting said, asking not to be identifi ed due to government rules. Finance min-istry spokesman D S Malik de-clined to comment.
Home sales in India’s top 8 property markets fell 4 per cent in the quarter through June from a year earlier, while unsold inven-tory rose by 18 per cent, according to Liases Foras, which estimates it will take at least 45 months to fi nd buyers for unsold homes in Mumbai alone. - Bloomberg News
H O U S I N G S E C T O R
Home sales in India’s
top eight property
markets fell 4 per cent
in the quarter through
June from a year
earlier. Modi plans
to build 20 million
houses by 2022 to
meet demand for an
urban population that
is projected to swell
to 600 million by 2031.
US economy growsWASHINGTON: The US econ-omy expanded at a faster pace in the third quarter than previously reported, refl ecting a smaller hit from eff orts to rein in bloated in-ventories.
Gross domestic product (GDP), the value of all goods and services produced, rose at a 2.1 per cent annualised rate, up from an initial estimate of 1.5 per cent, Commerce Depart-ment fi gures showed on Tuesday in Washington.
The report also showed corpo-rate profi ts slumped while work-er incomes jumped.
The consumer continues to power the US economy, with cheap gasoline giving households the means and greater job secu-
rity giving them the confi dence to spend. Still, company stockpiles remained elevated compared with sales, indicating that new orders and production will cool further to clear shelves and ware-houses heading into 2016.
“You’re getting more growth in the third quarter and perhaps that could come at the expense of less growth in the next cou-ple of quarters,” Jim O’Sullivan, chief United States economist at High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, New York, said before the report. Still, the backdrop for consumer spending remains positive, as “the labor market is continuing to improve, which au-gurs well for wage income to ac-celerate.” — Bloomberg News
C O M M E R C E D E P A R T M E N T D A T A
B3W E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
MARKET
TO ADVERTISECall: 24726666
Berger Paints launches new coating range
Times News Service
MUSCAT: Berger Paints, world leader in colour mixing technol-ogy, has announced the launch ofi ntumescent and fl ame re-sistant coating that provides pre-cious time in the event of a fi re.
Intumescent paint and fl ame resistant coatings are suitable for structural building materials such as stone, plaster and steel structures.
While the coating is inert at low heat, it swells to provide a blanket of insulation at high temperature by increasing in volume and de-creasing in density. This acts as an expanded layer of low conduc-tivity at high temperature so that the heat is delayed and reduced in reaching the steel structure, stalling the fi re from turning out of control.
While it provides additional safety to any building or home, it is highly recommended for use in constructions that require the highest level of fi re protection such as large multi-storey offi ces and hotels as well as public build-ings such as schools, hospitals, municipal offi ces, retail outlets, supermarkets, leisure centres and airports.
There is no compromise in the fi nal look of the building as it is used as an undercoat with specif-ic primer and is compatible with any topcoat and fi nish.
At an event held to announce
the launch, experts explained the advantages of the new prod-uct as well as the unique product services off ered by Berger Paints, whichmade its foray in Oman in 2000 as a joint venture between the Al Hassan Group and Asian Paints Limited.
The event was attended byP K Raj, general manager, Asian Paints (Middle East);Salim Sulaiman Al Sharji, sales ex-ecutive, Asian Paints (Middle East);Rajarshi Banerjee, senior manager for marketing and sales at Asian Paints (Middle East) and DrFransPaap from ExovaWar-ringtonFire, UK.
“It has taken a while for people to understand the advances in converting a coat of ‘paint’ into a fi re fi ghter and even more time to communicate the value and im-portance to the people in the in-dustry. However, the extra margin of protection intumescent coat-ing off ers to people and property is critical and should be used to the maximum. In the long run, it is worth the cost and eff ort,” say-sthe general manager.
The launch was accompa-nied by a series of workshops and training sessions presented by DrPaap, an expert especially fl own in for the event, who has over 29 years of experience working on assessments of fi re resistant constructions and reac-tion to fi re behaviour of materials and products.
DrPaap held a session for the students of the International Col-lege of Engineering and Manage-ment in addition to workshops/training attended by offi cials from the ministries of housing, de-fence, fi sheries and Royal Oman Police (ROP) as well as consult-ants, architects and professionals from furniture joinery.
Other than the product, the training series covered topics such as fi re risk in construction industry, key areas of fi re risk and international standards. All those who attended the workshop were felicitated with certifi cates.
Berger Paints has close to 40,000 colour mixing shops in the world. It is known for its in-novative products that are deco-rative and attractive and safe and environment-friendly at the same time.
In Oman, it currently has a plant in Ghala that produces a wide range of products that pri-marily include architectural coat-ings, wood fi nishes and industrial coatings. A second factory is be-ing setup in Sohar that on com-pletion will be the largest paint factory in Oman covering an area of 50,000 square metres.
In 2012, it was bestowed with the Green Innovation Award in recognition of the pioneering work done on Royale Matt Emul-sion, Oman’s fi rst lead free, low VOC, APEO free interior emul-sion.
Intumescent paint
and fl ame resistant
coatings are suitable
for structural
building materials
such as stone,
plaster and steel
structures
Maintenance contract for Duqm township awardedTimes News Service
MUSCAT: Duqm Development Company (DDC), which is devel-oping Duqm Frontier Town, has awarded the construction con-tract of the operation and mainte-nance (O&M) building to Golden Horizon Trading & Contracting Company, a contractor specialised in the construction of residential complexes.
O&M building will comprise of administration offi ces for the operation and maintenance de-partment, a maintenance work-shop and a staff accommodation
equipped with the basic comfort requirements with a dining hall and an entertainment room.
Fully equipped“The construction of O&M build-ing is a continuation to the devel-opment of the basic amenities of Duqm Frontier Town, the building is well designed and fully equipped to cater to the operation and main-tenance requirements of the town to ensure the comfort of the resi-dents,” said Sheikh Ibrahim Sultan Alhosni, CEO of DDC.
“The project is awarded to Gold-en Horizon as it fulfi lled the tender
requirements, in addition it is an implementation of DDC’s direc-tion towards supporting the small and medium enterprises (SMEs),” he added.
Engineer Nasser Said Al Mush-ily, general manager, Golden Ho-rizon said, “We are delighted to have been awarded the project by Duqm Development Company for the construction of O&M building at Duqm Frontier Town, we affi rm our commitment to provide the best of our capabilities to deliver the project with the expected qual-ity and the given timeframe in the contract.”
D U Q M D E V E L O P M E N T C O M P A N Y
Riyada conducts mentorship programme for entrepreneursTimes News Service
MUSCAT: An open day was re-cently conducted by the Public Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises Development (Ri-yada) for the participants of the second mentorship programme.
The programme is considered one of the most important initia-tives off ered by Riyada for eff ec-tive transfer of knowledge from well-respected business leaders (mentors) to young dynamic en-trepreneurs (mentees).
The open day aimed to encour-age new SMEs and business lead-ers to join the third networking
programme and receive feedback from the participants of the sec-ond batch of the same programme through a session that discussed the benefi ts of the initiative.
Qais M. Al Yousif, board mem-ber at Riyada and head of men-
torship committee, said, “We as the mentorship committee of Riyada are pleased to announce the opening of registration for the third batch of the mentor-ship programme, which started in 2013.”
N E T W O R K I N G P R O G R A M M E
MAKING A POINT: Experts explained the advantages of the new
product as well as the unique product services off ered by Berger
Paints. — Supplied picture
– Supplied picture
B40 W E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
Bank Muscat committed to sus‘Let’s Do More’ vision the driving fo
The journey of Bank Muscat began more than three decades ago with the mission of creating value for every
individual and the nation. Thanks to the endorsement by the largest banking family in Oman, Bank Mus-cat prides itself to be the leading bank in the Sultanate. During the past 33 years since its inception in 1982, Bank Muscat has always fo-cused on reaching out with banking service excellence, being closely as-sociated with the progressive march of the nation in all realms. The trust and confidence reposed by the peo-ple and the nation have helped the bank to maintain its leading posi-tion. AbdulRazak Ali Issa, Chief Execu-tive, said: “Coinciding with the 45th National Day celebrations, Bank Muscat is proud to join the nation in congratulating and extending best wishes to His Majesty Sultan Qa-boos bin Said, the architect of mod-ern Oman. Since the beginning of the blessed Renaissance and during the last 45 years, the Sultanate has recorded significant achievements covering the economic and social dimensions as a result of the inspir-ing leadership of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said. Banking is one of the most impor-tant pillars of the Sultanate’s econo-my which has evolved over the years with new dynamics brought about by globalisation, liberalisation and technological innovations. Comple-menting the impressive achieve-ments made by the Sultanate under the leadership of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos, Bank Muscat remains com-mitted to contributing to further progress of the nation, prosperity and welfare for all.”As a forward looking financial insti-tution, Bank Muscat is committed to the development and progress of Oman vis-à-vis its operations. Over the years, the bank has accom-plished this in many ways by part-nering with the government and industries in projects of national importance. Bank Muscat enjoys the legacy of a stable leadership and competent Management Team, committed to initiating changes that lead to sustainable success. The bank has adopted innovative strategies to equip Omani employees to take up leadership positions in tandem with future challenges. In step with the directive of His Majesty Sultan Qa-boos to accord priority for human resources development, the bank focuses on efforts to provide career growth opportunities for compe-tent Omani employees and believes investment in youth is the key to achieving sustainable benefits to the financial sector in Oman.As the flagship bank in Oman, Bank Muscat enjoys 38 per cent market share of assets worth over RO 12 billion. The bank posted a net profit of RO 136.2 million for the 9-month
period ending 30 September 2015 compared to RO 126.7 million re-ported during the same period in 2014, an increase of 7.5 per cent.Bank Muscat is the leading provider of Corporate Banking services in Oman. In Project & Structured Fi-nance, the bank’s expertise in key sectors along with innovative struc-turing capabilities has enabled to cater to the financing requirements of various large-scale projects in the Sultanate. During 2015, Bank Muscat signed one of the largest real estate financial transactions in the Sultanate in recent years with Saraya Bandar Jissah developing Oman`s luxurious Integrated Tour-ism Complex (ITC) in Muscat. The bank maintains its leadership posi-tion in Project Finance by playing an integral role in key infrastructure projects. As part of its commitment to sustainable development, along-side participation in large-scale projects, the bank has taken stra-tegic steps to strengthen the small and medium enterprise (SME) sec-tor in Oman. Aimed at broadening financial access for entrepreneurs,
the bank took the lead in launching a unique non-collateral SME finance addressing the critical requirement of SME finance without collaterals. Promoting self-employment initia-tives boosting the national econo-my, the bank has also made available non-collateral finance for micro and small businesses. With a solid pipeline of mandates, the bank continues its leading posi-tion and dominance of the invest-ment banking business in Oman. The Asset Management division also remains the biggest wealth manager in Oman and a leading player in the region with total As-sets Under Management (AUM) of $1.8 billion.The Treasury & Capital Markets (T&CM) division is the only entity in the country to offer a full suite of treasury products and services, including hedging for foreign ex-change requirements, managing interest rate risks, eliminating com-modity price risks from businesses and offering fixed income invest-ment opportunities across the re-gion and globe.
Aimed at sustaining the Sultanate’s economic development, Bank Mus-cat has succeeded in inculcating a strong savings culture in Oman. Mak-ing a lasting difference in the lives of customers, al Mazyona, the flagship savings scheme in Oman, is targeted at all nationalities and segments, in-cluding ladies, youth, children and high savings balance customers, to help them develop a strong savings habit critical for the future develop-ment of Oman.Marking Oman’s 45th Renaissance anniversary, Bank Muscat raised the 2015 al Mazyona prize money to RO 9 million. Structured on the thematic ‘45’ reflecting the Sultanate’s 45 years of Renaissance under the leadership of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the 2015 al Mazyona savings scheme campaign has been hugely successful in reaching out to the peo-ple with the ‘Save More, Dream Big’ call to action, guaranteeing more for everyone to share in the biggest prize money in Oman and the region. Nota-bly, the bank organised a special 45th National Day draw rewarding cus-tomers with big prizes totaling RO 450,000 shared by 10 winners.
Bank Muscat attaches great impor-tance to encouraging prudent sav-ings and spending habits and has tai-lored al Mazyona with this objective in mind. Bank Muscat understands customer expectations and big prize money is not the only way by which al Mazyona seeks to transform the lives of prudent savers. The scheme is tar-geted to accommodate all segments, including asalah Priority Banking, al Jawhar Privilege Banking, ladies, youth, children and customers in all regions, thereby inculcating prudent savings habit among citizens who are responsible for the future develop-ment of Oman.Complementing the government ef-forts as part of the national devel-opment objectives, Bank Muscat is committed to facilitating a ‘home for every family’, especially the youth who constitute the future of Oman. baituna is the preferred home fi-nance in Oman, offering citizens and residents easy access to mortgage fi-nance, thereby strengthening the role of the real estate sector in boosting the national economy. baituna home finance is designed to help families fulfill their dream homes, facilitating
quality homes at affordable prices. With women comprising a major customer segment, Bank Muscat of-fers unique products and services aimed at enriching their lives. The Zeinah suite of products and ser-vices is based on the premise that women prefer to use special banking services that preserve their privacy. Catering to the unique needs, Zeinah offers privacy and a relaxed bank-ing atmosphere for women at Bank Muscat branches. Zeinah customers maintaining a minimum balance of RO 100 are eligible to participate in al Mazyona prize draws for three exclu-sive weekly prizes of RO 1000 each. Oman is witnessing the increasing role of women in workplace and edu-cation. As women manage their financial responsibility, the need for new and specific banking products and ser-vices has emerged. Zeinah addresses this need offering a personal and comfortable banking environment for women.The personalised banking platform of asalah Priority Banking aligns a distinct value proposition with the needs of high-end customers and pro-
vides a differentiated and specialized banking experience. asalah custom-ers are served by qualified Relation-ship Managers (RM) at exclusive asalah Priority Banking centres in select branches across the Sultanate. Leveraging its unmatched nation-wide branch presence, Bank Muscat offers asalah Priority Banking ser-
vices across all regions through a net-work of asalah centres.Further reiterating commitment to providing a distinct banking experi-ence, Al Jawhar Privilege Banking is targeted at the bank’s core customer segment. Designed around the unique lifestyle and banking requirements of the largest customer segment, Al
Jawhar is the first-of-its-kind privi-lege banking service in Oman. In the vibrant world of privilege banking, the distinctive identity says it all. Reflecting the elegant lifestyle of cli-ents, Al Jawhar is an affirmation of the preferential treatment designed around their unique lifestyle and banking requirements.
Moving along with the times, Bank Muscat offers the right mix of tradi-tional and electronic banking chan-nels for the Sultanate’s youth-domi-nated population. Product innovation and improved lev-el of service by Bank Muscat for both conventional and electronic channels is the key to making a difference in banking excellence. Marked by speed, convenience and security, electronic banking channels, notably mobile banking, internet banking and ATM/CDM network, enable financial trans-actions anytime from anywhere, serv-ing as a boon for people on the move. Bank Muscat customers are increas-ingly moving to electronic banking channels, the preference being mainly
due to factors such as the adaptive and flexible nature of services. The bank is focused on adding value and engag-ing customers through their preferred banking channels.With the largest electronic channel network in Oman, innovations adopt-ed by Bank Muscat are characteristic of the network of 645 ATMs/CDMs, more than 10,000 point of sales (PoS) machines and the Call Centre offering 24/7 banking service.In tune with the banking require-ments of a young, tech-savvy genera-tion, Bank Muscat enjoys an edge in hi-tech products and services, in-cluding electronic payment and web-based services. The bank’s state-of-the-art mobile
banking service has made banking truly mobile for customers who can bank 24/7 ‘anytime, anywhere’. The mobile banking service is available in both English and Arabic.The enhanced ‘Anytime, Anywhere’ internet banking by Bank Muscat of-fers an array of service to retail and corporate customers. The simple-to-use 24/7 service is available in both English and Arabic at https://www.bankmuscatonline.comIn step with innovation reflecting technological trends in future bank-ing, Bank Muscat launched Oman’s first electronic branch in the banking sector. The eBranch located at Oman Av-enues Mall elevates banking experi-
Moving with the times - Righand electronic banking chann
Modern icon of banking excellence
B A N K I N G C H A N N E L S
Al Mazyona inculcates strong savings culture in OmanS A V I N G S C U L T U R E
Epitomising the distinct Omani heritage, the Bank Muscat brand has evolved over the years to become a towering presence not only in the banking sector but in all arenas of the Sultanate. Endowed with a glob-al outlook, Bank Muscat remains Omani at heart. The bank has adopt-ed innovative ways to consistently build the brand to sustain loyalty of customers and growth in business. The bank strives to establish its leadership role in all realms of ac-tivities. Bank Muscat recognises that building strong brand equity is an important recipe for success. The brand is associated with its commit-ment to the development of Omani citizens and progress of society in which it does business. The Bank Muscat brand is reckoned as a prolific innovator wherein the first association is the element of in-novation. Catering to the Sultanate’s traditional as well as tech-savvy young population, Bank Muscat has adopted innovative ways to build the brand. New trends in the field of branding adopted by Bank Muscat reflect that the institution is moving away from the traditional line to non-conven-tional utlisation of media, includ-ing social media. Bank Muscat is a trendsetter in this field.The physical logomark of Bank Muscat has evolved from a flat, stat-
ic one-colour to a 3D and youthful enhanced logomark. The typograph-ic element has evolved from a stand-ard typeface to a unique typeface, using Arabic motif designed to re-semble Khanjar curves and points. Typography is written in lower case in keeping with the modern way (in-ternet society) of talking in a quiet, controlled and confident voice to
match the bank’s new vision – ‘Let’s Do More’. Bank Muscat is a modern icon of banking excellence marked by con-sistent innovation and strategic marketing initiatives. Exciting and inspiring brand touch points offer a
unique banking experience for the largest banking family in Oman.Coming to the specifics of Bank Muscat logo, the khanjar reflects the deep traditions of Oman. The logo directly takes you to the country and its traditions. The bank’s name re-fers to the capital city of the country. One of the successful elements of Bank Muscat brand is its simplic-ity. The brand name is easy to pro-nounce and recall.The Sultanate’s capital city has a long history and citizens are very proud of it. The Bank Muscat brand propagates Oman to which citizens have a strong emotional association. The name of the capital city of the country evokes a sense of attach-ment and the people of Oman love Bank Muscat brand as they feel they are a part of it.In recognition of banking service excellence, Bank Muscat has been honoured with all major local, re-gional and international awards. In 2015, the accolades included the Best GCC Employer Brand by the Employer Branding Institute, CMO Asia; Best Bank in Oman by Eur-omoney and Global Finance; Best Banking Brand by Business Today; Best Performing Listed Company in Oman, OER Top 20. The bank also topped Omani companies in the Forbes Top 500 Companies in Arab World.
The year 2015 marks a momentous occasion for Bank
Muscat, the flagship financial services provider in
the Sultanate, which reckons itself a Renaissance
achievement under the leadership of His Majesty
Sultan Qaboos bin Said. Marking the Sultanate’s 45th
Renaissance anniversary, the bank lined up year-long
activities and initiatives to commemorate the glorious
achievements of the Sultanate envisioned by
His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said.
AbdulRazak Ali IssaChief Executive
Endowed with a global
outlook, Bank Muscat
remains Omani at heart. The
bank has adopted innovative
ways to consistently build
the brand to sustain loyalty
of customers and growth in
business.
Living up to its commitment to sus-tainable development, Bank Muscat lays great importance to corporate social responsibility (CSR) initia-tives. Central to the bank’s social respon-sibility programmes is the Green Sports initiative launched in 2012 to promote Oman as a sporting nation in general and the national game of football in particular. As part of the programme, the bank in a record time achieved notable success in developing green fields in all parts of the Sultanate. The initiative marked a milestone as the bank signed agreements with 15 new beneficiaries for 2015. In all, 49 sports teams have benefitted from the unique social responsibility ini-tiative in four years. In 2015, the bank widened the scope of Green Sports initiative beyond the greening of football fields. From this year, sports teams seeking Green Sports support can choose from four options, i.e to either green their foot-ball fields with natural or synthetic turf, or avail support to affix flood lights or water desalination equip-ment to facilitate greening of fields in areas facing problems of water salinity. The move is aimed at providing wid-er representation to teams to build sustainable sports infrastructure in all parts of the Sultanate. The consistent progress of the Green Sports initiative confirms the bank’s commitment to the programme aimed at providing ample opportu-nities for young Omanis to develop their sporting talents in an ideal en-vironment.
The programme is expected to go a long way in developing the sporting skills and talents of Omani youth, thereby promoting the game of foot-ball in Oman. The Green Sports initiative reiter-ates the bank’s support to Oman’s youth who represent the future of Oman. True to its commitment to support-ing varied sporting activities in the country, Bank Muscat remains at the forefront in offering the required en-
couragement to youth.Aimed at nurturing the future generations of Oman, the Jesr Al Mustaqbal education programme launched by the bank in partnership with the Ministry of Higher Educa-tion focuses on providing youth from families under the social welfare programme with an opportunity to continue their higher education. Extending support to needy homes across the Sultanate, the ‘Tadhamun’ programme initiated by the bank in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Development supports homes in dire need of renovation and pro-vides basic electronic home appli-ances to low-income families.Aimed at supporting youth to em-bark on entrepreneurial ventures, the bank widened the scope of al Wathbah Academy training pro-gramme to benefit 30 participants in Batinah and Dhofar governorates, with new al Wathbah Academy in Sohar and Salalah, taking the total number of beneficiaries to 45 in the year of Oman’s 45th Renaissance an-niversary.The unique al Wathbah Academy was launched by the bank in 2014 as part of its commitment to sus-tainable social development, com-plementing government efforts in strengthening the role of SMEs in the economic development of Oman. The CSR initiative is aimed at equip-ping youth with self-employment skills boosting the country’s pro-gress and development.Bank Muscat publishes annual Sus-tainability Report highlighting the impact of its activities on the econ-omy, environment and society. The report demonstrates the bank’s com-mitment to sustainability reporting as a powerful tool in its decision-making as well as corporate policy and strategy.The bank recognises that sustaina-ble development is the key to achiev-ing long-term benefits spanning en-vironmental, economic, social and cultural dimensions. The bank is focused on achieving long-term profitability with social and environmental responsibility.
0 W E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5 B5
tainable development of Oman force to banking service excellence
In about three years of operations, Meethaq, the pioneer of Islamic banking in Oman from Bank Mus-cat, has attained the leading posi-tion in Islamic banking industry in the Sultanate in terms of financing receivables, branch network, prod-ucts and services, IT infrastructure development and human resources. The bank is also playing a key role in financing projects of national sig-nificance, thereby contributing to the growth and development of the economy. The notable finance facilities offered by Meethaq in 2015 include the re-financing facility of RO 78 million
signed with Oman Shipping Com-pany for its three very large crude carriers (VLCCs). Meethaq Islamic financing receiva-bles amounted to RO 482 million as of 30 September 2015 compared to RO 385 million in the same period of 2014.The Meethaq branch net-work has touched 13 since inception of operations in 2013. The bank also recently launched Hafawa Prior-ity Banking service for high saving Meethaq customers.Meethaq offers a full suite of Islamic banking products and services, in-cluding savings account, current ac-count, home finance, auto finance,
credit card and mobile banking. The bank has invested in staff, systems and controls to ensure the service is delivered in a professional, seg-regated and fully Shari’a compliant manner. Meethaq has adopted the best practices in Islamic banking and finance worldwide to combine a robust model which protects cus-tomers and complements the Islam-ic banking industry. Every Meethaq product goes through the process of Shari’a compliance certification by the Shari’a Supervisory Board and is created in line with the guidelines of the Central Bank of Oman. As the pioneer of Islamic banking
in Oman, Meethaq stands out for its independent Shari’a Supervisory Board, separate capital allocation from shareholders’ money, unique risk management tools, complete fund segregation, separate books of account, Shari’a based core banking system, stand-alone Islamic banking branches and proper profit distribu-tion mechanism among investment account holders/depositors. The adoption of AAOIFI standards (Ac-counting & Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions) distinguishes Meethaq Islamic banking practices in terms of stand-ardisation of products and services.
Ushering in a new era of strategic growth, the bank has set ambitious goals for the coming period. The bank’s ‘Let’s Do More’ vision is a powerful articulation of the con-tributions of a loyal, productive workforce, and customer-service focused solutions for all partners. The core focus of the vision is to further strengthen the standards in customer service.Being faithful to its vision, the bank continues to earn the trust of all stakeholders, providing a unique banking and financial experience to customers who are an integral part of the bank‘s journey of success. The ‘Let’s Do More’ vision road-map reflects the essence of Omani values in the service delivery. Bank Muscat continuously measures the service delivery and continuously innovates to address customer needs, ensuring value for all stake-holders. The dynamic vision reflects the readiness to face future challenges and sums up the bank’s confidence and determination to stretch the
boundaries in banking excellence. Doing more is the forte of Bank Muscat - more for the economy,
more for the community, and more for the environment. The bank has incorporated sustainable best prac-tices and is fully equipped to guide customers through all stages of banking life, whether it be savings, investments, financing or just reli-able financial advice. With the largest network of 137 branches, ATMs and CDMs spread across Oman, as well as mobile banking and internet banking, Bank Muscat has emerged as the bank of first choice in the Sultan-ate. In contributing to sustainable development, the prime objective of the bank is to serve all customer segments ranging from children, youth and women to corporates and small and medium enterprises (SMEs). In step with the dynamic ‘Let’s Do More’ vision, the focus of Bank Muscat is clear – create a sustain-able financial platform for society and business and thereby contrib-ute to the Sultanate’s economic growth. Committed to supporting economic growth and sustainable
development, the bank utilizes every opportunity to reiterate part-nership in building the nation by creating opportunities for indi-viduals and businesses to grow and prosper. The assurance of being in safe hands is the confidence enjoyed by the largest banking family in Oman.Bank Muscat enjoys investment grade credit ratings of ‘A1’ by Moody’s and ‘A-’ by Standard & Poor’s. The bank’s biggest footprint and presence across the Sultanate with 137 branches and world class products and services are helping to make the vital differentiation, with the focus on its ‘Let’s Do More’ vision. Outside Oman, the bank has a branch each in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, as well as Representative offices in the UAE and Singapore which focus on financial institu-tions and trade business. With the best and most knowledgeable team in the country, Bank Muscat remains committed to providing a world class banking experience.
ence to new levels of convenience and delight. The exclusive facilities in-clude a self-service zone for both retail and corporate customers to execute day-to-day banking transactions. The eBranch is open from 9 am to 10 pm to help customers visit the branch at their convenience and complete the banking requirements at their own pace. Driven by innovation and the lat-est technological trends, the eBranch presents a unique facility from Bank Muscat that helps both retail and corporate customers bank at conveni-ence.Complementing the largest network of branches in the Sultanate, Bank Muscat has further added conveni-ence and value-added services with
evening banking service, from 8.00 am to 5.00 pm (Sunday to Thursday), in 16 branches across the Sultanate.The branches offering evening bank-ing service are Ruwi, Al Amerat, Op-era House, Muscat City Centre, Al Khuwair, Seeb, Al Khoud, Barka main, Sohar main, Salalah main, Falaj Al Qa-bail, Buraimi, Ibri Jubail, Safalat Ibra, Sur Afiah and Firq.Aimed at accommodating people’s busy schedules, the extended banking hours at all key locations benefit cus-tomers who face difficulties in visit-ing the bank during morning hours. The facility reflects the bank’s com-mitment to making banking conveni-ent and centered around customer‘s needs.
ht mix of traditional nels
Meethaq sets benchmark for Islamic banking service
I S L A M I C B A N K I N G
Dynamic vision ushers in new era of strategic growth
Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives gain momentum
C O M M I T M E N T
In step with the
dynamic ‘Let’s Do
More’ vision, the
focus of Bank Muscat
is clear – create a
sustainable financial
platform for society
and business and
thereby contribute
to the Sultanate’s
economic growth.
B6 W E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
ROUND-UP
Bank Sohar organises events on National Day
MUSCAT: Bank Sohar, on the occasion of the Sultanate’s 45th National Day, organised special gatherings at its head offi ce and several branches covering various regions of its nationwide opera-tions. The events were organised in order for the management and staff to join in the celebrations of this joyous occasion and to hon-our and thank His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said for wisdom, lead-ership and vision for the develop-ment and prosperity of Oman.
The primary event was held at the bank’s headquarters at MBD under the auspices of Tawfeeq bin Abdul Hussein Al Lawati, mem-ber of Majlis Al Shura – Muttrah and attended by Rashad Ali Al Musafi , acting CEO, senior offi -cials of the bank and staff .
Commenting on the event, Ra-shad bin Ali Al Musafi r said, “It was only through the wise guid-ance and benevolent rule of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said that Sultanate of Oman was trans-formed into the modern progres-sive nation we live in today. It was under his guidance that the Sul-tanate established its fi rst modern government structure and saw its modern source of wealth begin to materialise.”
“His Majesty has also fi rmly es-tablished himself and the Nation as a beacon of peace and prosper-ity in the region. Such an achieve-ment is nothing short of a testa-ment to His Majesty’s visionary outlook for the country. As such, we are proud to be able to bring together the Bank Sohar family from across the Sultanate to cel-ebrate his achievements, as well as pay tribute to 45 years of his wise and benevolent leadership and the growth and heritage of the country,” he added.
Throughout the events, which
took place simultaneously on the morning of November 19, the at-mosphere was lively and joyous. Each of venues refl ected the spirit of national pride and unity with the national colours of red, white and green dominating the décor complemented by music from tra-ditional Omani bands.
In addition to the traditional Omani band, the event at the head offi ce witnessed a stage perfor-mance by the Madinat Al Sultan Qaboos Private School children portraying the traditional Omani dance, a residing of a poem by one of the Bank staff family members, concluding with a cake cutting ceremony by the chief guest and executive members of the bank to mark the joyous occasion.
“On this occasion and on be-half of the Bank, I would like to congratulate His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said and wish him the best of health. I would also like to extend our congratulations to the people and residents of the Sultanate on this glorious occa-
sion. We consider it a privilege for us at a bank to be able join in the National Day celebrations and convey a message of solidar-ity, loyalty and pride on this glori-ous occasion. As we approach the New Year we look towards 2016 as a continuation of the growth and prosperity for the Bank as well as the continuing success and achievement enjoyed by this great country and its people,” said Rashad Al Musafi r.
In addition to the staff celebra-tions, the bank also launched a limited time off er for its Al Mu-mayaz auto loan in commemo-ration of the 45th National Day, which will end on November 26.
As part of the off er, customers who purchase a new or used ve-hicle during the off er period and fi nance it through the bank’s Al Mumayaz auto loan facility will be eligible for interest rates start-ing from just 4 per cent based on the tenor of the loan and with ab-solutely no processing fees, con-cludes a press release.
Primary event was
held at the bank’s
headquarters at MBD
under the auspices
of Tawfeeq bin Abdul
Hussein Al Lawati,
member of Majlis Al
Shura – Muttrah and
attended by Rashad
Ali Al Musafi , acting
CEO of the bank
Bahwan Cybertek, ISB complete yet another module on marketing MUSCAT: Indian School of Busi-ness (ISB), a leading management and executive education provider in Asia along with Bahwan Cy-bertek, Global Business group, completed successfully module on ‘Marketing excellence for prof-itable growth’ under the certifi -cate programme in general man-agement for business executives in Oman span over 6 months.
The highly interactive and re-fl ective session used case sce-narios and small group discus-sions which provided the base for understanding marketing and got even managers with no exposure to marketing, to appreciate the role of marketing and the power of marketing strategy.
It encouraged participants to share their understanding or the lack of it to clarify and establish relevant marketing. Participants got an opportunity to apply the learning from the classroom and thus deepen learning, ultimately realizing the relevance of the knowledge in actual work situa-tions, says a press release.
The programme discussed the essential dimension of market-
ing strategy to deliver tangible results. The programme was de-livered by Professor Siddharth S. Singh, director of Fellow Pro-gram In Management, ISB, PH D(Marketing from K.L. Kellogg School Of Management. Profes-sor Siddharth S. Singh’s research broadly focuses on a fi rm’s ability to achieve sustainable competi-tive advantage. His work focuses on helping fi rms evaluate custom-ers, identify the ‘right’ customers for acquisition and retention, and profi tably manage customer rela-tionships over time.
After the successful comple-tion of this module, participants
are currently applying their class-room learning at their respective organisations, through the action learning projects and are looking forward to the next module that focuses on ‘Strategic thinking and execution excellence’ due to start in December of 2015.
The ideal candidates for this programme are executives with more than ten years of experience who aspire to reach the next level of leadership through enhancing their general management competen-cies. As the program is spread over six months, this ensures that work-ing professionals can continue their learning without any disruption of
their work schedules. Successful candidates will receive the ‘Cer-tifi cate programme in general man-agement for business executives’ from the ISB’s Centre for Executive Education.
This programme is a collabora-tive eff ort of the Centre for Execu-tive Education (CEE) at the In-dian School of Business (ISB), one of the largest executive education providers in Asia and BCT, one of Oman’s foremost business hous-es. The objective of this initiative is to provide executive education courses focused at grooming mid-dle and senior management in the Sultanate of Oman
E X E C U T I V E E D U C A T I O N
NBO conducts training course for new recruits
MUSCAT: National Bank of Oman (NBO) recently launched a new batch of its fl agship ‘Core Banking Programme’. A total of 33 new employees have enrolled in this programme to complete an all-round training before taking up job functions within the bank across business units.
NBO has been developing and delivering a number of bespoke programs especially designed to meet the needs of its people. This program is custom-made for those who are new to the bank, says a press release.
“National Bank of Oman has been a strong advocate of empow-ering employees through training programmes. This programme is an integral part of our talent de-velopment strategy and it refl ects the bank’s strong commitment to nurturing young talent,” said, Nasser Al Hajri, chief human re-source offi cer and head of corpo-rate aff airs at NBO.
“As we continue to implement our learning and development strategy, which is aligned to our organization goals in creating a learning organization, we are de-
lighted to see this new batch of qualifi ed and young employees enroll in this programme. We are hopeful that these new joiners will play a major role in the bank’s ongoing journey,” he added.
The 10-week intensive course into the theory and practice of banking involves classroom train-ing as well as hands on approach covering a range of areas includ-ing banking systems and opera-tions, processing transactions, sales strategies, and delivering top-class customer experience among others.
The training also involves prac-tical training modules through various role plays in a virtual branch setting, equipping train-ees to gain on-the-job banking experience whilst preparing them for critical roles within the bank.
The bank has a wide variety of training and development pro-grammes off ered by its training arm, Academy of Excellence. It has been consistently delivering a diverse mix of high-quality tech-nical and soft-skill courses aimed at spearheading the bank’s trans-formation journey.
S K I L L S D E V E L O P M E N T
Candy Crush craze at Markaz Al BahjaMUSCAT: Candy Crush, the fa-mous game, has taken Oman by storm with unlimited fun happen-ing only at Markaz Al Bahja. Shop-pers enjoyed crushing the candies on huge screens using the latest technology and also had a chance to experience the Candy Crush ambience with fun activities, says a press release.
Two players at a time were given smart phones and had to play the
Candy Crush game starting from level 1 until level 10 within 15 min-utes and by just using one life. The lucky winners received OMR10 each of Markaz Al Bahja shopping vouchers and very excited to play the game again.
Those who missed the game, still have an opportunity to experience and play Candy Crush game only at Markaz Al Bahja from November 26 to 28 between 6pm and 10pm
P O P U L A R G A M E
Omasco celebrates 45th National DayMUSCAT: In celebration of Oman’s 45th National Day and recognition of the country’s tre-mendous achievements since its founding, Omasco celebrated the day in the presence of the manage-ment and staff at all its locations and branches.
Hussain Al Lawati, Omasco man-aging director, along with senior management spoke to the associ-ates about what the day represents.
Omasco locations and branches were decorated with Oman’s fl ags, and other decorations. A photo booth was also part of the initia-tive organised in celebration of the National Day. The day was marked
with a quiz competition based on Oman’s rich history that was held at the Wattayah showroom. Partic-ipants had the opportunity of win-ning exciting prizes and surprises.
“On this occasion, I would like to express my heartfelt congratu-lations to His Majesty Sultan Qa-boos bin Said, and the government, all Omanis, and all those that have worked towards fulfi lling national aspirations and hopes. As we cel-ebrate National Day, we must re-member that we are moving closer each year to fulfi lling His Majesty’s vision for an ever prosperous Oman; a vision that is steadily becoming reality,” said Hussain Al Lawati.
B I G D A Y
Ominvest elects new board of directorsMUSCAT: Oman International Development and Investment Company (Ominvest), one of the oldest and the largest investment companies in Oman, successfully held its Ordinary General Meeting (OGM) recently.
In line with the merger agree-ment between Ominvest and Oman National Investment Corporation Holding (ONIC Holding), the OGM was called to elect a new board of directors, says a press release.
As a result of the election pro-cess, Ominvest’s new board com-prises the following 10 members: Khalid Muhammad Al Zubair,
Sheikh Hassan Ahmed Mohamed Al Nabhani, Taya Jandal Ali, Jamal Shamis Saoud Al Hooti, Saif Said Salim Al Yazidi, Ceruseri Srini-vasan Badrinath, Sheikh Khalid Abdullah Ali Al Khalili, Qais Mo-hammed Moosa Al Yousef, An-war Hilal Hamdoon Al Jabri and Shaheen Mohammed Amin.
The new board of directors met after the OGM and elected Khalid Muhammed Al Zubair as chair-man of the board and Sheikh Has-san Ahmed Mohamed Al Nabhani as deputy chairman. Shadi Hamid Ahmed Zghoul was appointed as secretary of the board.
O R D I N A R Y G E N E R A L M E E T I N G
L&T Oman celebrates National Day
MUSCAT: Larsen and Toubro Oman (L&T Oman) celebrated the glorious occasion of 45th Oman Na-tional Day at Hotel Al Falaj in Ruwi.
The celebration started with prayer to the Almighty for the good health of His Majesty Sultan
Qaboos bin Said, followed by the Oman national anthem and a cul-tural programme by national staff .
National and expatriate employ-ees warmly exchanged wishes for peace, prosperity and harmony for the country and its people.
E X P R E S S I O N O F J O Y
B7W E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
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RECRUIT
QUOTES
The joy of life comes
from our encounters
with new experiences,
and hence there is no
greater joy than to have
an endlessly changing
horizon, for each day
to have a new and
different sun.
— Christopher McCandless
When you wake up
every day, you have
two choices. You can
either be positive or
negative; an optimist or
a pessimist. I choose to
be an optimist. It’s all a
matter of perspective.
— Harvey Mackay
Correction does much,
but encouragement
does more.
— Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe
Yesterday is not ours to
recover, but tomorrow is
ours to win or lose.
— Lyndon B. Johnson
MUSCAT: In further strengthen-ing the long-standing business re-lationship between Oman Air, the national carrier of the Sultanate, and Bahwan Travels, one of the largest travel agencies in Oman, Mahfood Al Harthy, chief sales offi cer and Mustapha Elhamoui, commercial manager Oman from Oman Air recently visited Suhail
Bahwan Group headquarters and met Amal Suhail Bahwan, manag-ing director and board member of Suhail Bahwan Group.
Both discussed ways to further promote the national carrier as the preferred airline among cor-porates as well as support the airline’s new routes through its marketing activities
Boeing DreamlinerAl Harthy presented Amal Bahwan a scale model of Boe-ing Dreamliner aircraft that has recently joined Oman Air’s fl eet. Bahwan Travels has been working closely with Oman Air in promoting both inbound and outbound tourism, says a press release.
Bahwan Travels, Oman Airdiscuss stronger business ties
C O R P O R A T E S T R A T E G Y
B8
ROUND-UPW E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
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Renault Fluence
comes with
exciting benefi ts
L&T Electromech
staff celebrates
45th National Day
MUSCAT: Renault Oman from Suhail Bahwan Group has an-nounced a unique off er for cus-tomers on the Renault Fluence till December 31 .
Renault’s exclusive off er com-prises a plethora of benefi ts on most of their top selling models as well as their newly launched models in 2015. Renault’s sedan segment comprises a prestig-ious line-up of cars that include the sleek Renault Fluence, the strikingly good looking Renault Safrane and the newly launched Renault Symbol and Renault Megane, says a press release.
The SUV/Crossover range comprises the Renault Duster, Renault Koleos and the all-new 2015 Renault Captur and lastly the recently launched LCV ve-hicle – the Renault Dokker Van.
Customers will be entitled to receive assured cash gift of OMR1,000 on Renault Fluence 1.6L/2.0L along with other ben-efi ts that include free registra-tion, 6 years unlimited mileage warranty and 2 years/ 30,000km free service (whichever is earli-er). Customers will also receive free AAA/Road Assistance card for the fi rst year only and as supported by AAA Oman. The scheme is applicable for all cus-tomers purchasing Renault ve-hicles for personal use only.
The upbeat Renault Fluence comes in a new look with the 1.6 16V 115 CVT X-Tronic automat-ic gearbox and the 2.0 16V 140 CVT X-Tronic automatic gear-box. Fitted with a new petrol engine that is powerful and dy-namic (117hp and 156Nm), Flu-ence sparks with energy. With the CVT X-Tronic next-genera-tion automatic gearbox, the 2.0 16V 140 combines responsive-ness and low fuel consumption. CVT technology – Continu-ously Variable Transmission – allows for smooth gear shift-ing with instant responses and no bumps. The new Fluence is comfortable, dynamic and lively with low fuel consumption.
MUSCAT: Staff members of Larsen & Toubro Electromech decorated their offi ce with na-tional fl ags and balloons to mark the glorious occasion of 45th Oman National Day.
Omani colleagues celebrated the occasion by cutting a cake and displaying the successful journey of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said. Expat and Omani staff unanimously ex-pressed their appreciation and gratitude to His Majesty the Sultan for the development and progress achieved by the coun-try under HM’s benevolent rule, says a press release. The event concluded with prayers for the good health and long life of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said and people of Oman.
A U T O M O T I V E
G R A T I T U D E
alizz Islamic bank supports ODAMUSCAT: alizz Islamic Bank, as part of its corporate social respon-sibility eff orts towards combating diabetes in Oman, recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Oman Diabetes Association. This tie-up is con-cluded as the global community celebrates the World Diabetes Day, the world’s largest diabetes aware-ness campaign, says a press release.
Held at the City Seasons Hotel,
the signing ceremony was pre-sided by Sayyida Dr Noor bint Ba-dar Al Busaidy, president of Oman Diabetes Association (ODA), and Aisha bint Abdullah Al Kharusi, chief marketing offi cer of alizz Islamic bank. The ceremony was also attended by a number of the bank’s senior management team and ODA team.
Sayyida Dr Noor bint Badar Al Busaidy, president of ODA, on the
partnership with alizz Islamic bank: “I am delighted to have such a strong partner like alizz Islamic bank on board, supporting our ac-tivities throughout the country. Together we are taking an impor-tant step towards supporting our vision to permanently cure diabe-tes in the Sultanate.”
The number of diabetics in Oman is expected to rise 124 per cent between 2012 and 2030.
C O M B A T I N G D I A B E T E S
MB Holding Group celebrates 45th National Day in AzaibaMUSCAT: MB Holding Group of Companies organised a special celebration at its headquarters in Azaiba on the occasion of the 45th National Day. The event was attended by employees and key offi cials from various group com-panies in Oman. It was a pleasur-able and colourful event for the employees as they were enter-tained by a series of activities spe-cifi cally organised for them, says a press release.
Dr Mohammed Al Barwani, chairman of MB Holding, com-mented on the occasion: “We are an Omani company and it is natu-ral that we celebrate such an oc-casion with our employees who form a diverse collection of na-tionalities. Together we form one big family living together in this beautiful country. Today we come together to share our joy and ex-press our love and loyalty to His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said and to this nation by celebrating this epic landmark.”
The entire Azaiba head offi ce has been decorated in national colors for the last one week. The almost three-hour-long pro-gramme started with recitation from the Holy Quran after which the audience listened to the speech delivered by His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Al Said in 1970 when he took over the reigns of the Sultan-ate. At this juncture Said Al Jabri, director – Corporate Operations, MB Holding, delivered a welcome address, highlighting the progress the nation has made under His Majesty’s rule.
Dr Mohammed Al Barwani and vice-chairperson Sharifa Al Har-thy were then welcomed on stage
to cut the cake themed in national colours to mark the occasion. A quiz was also conducted iabout the history of Oman. Colleagues who were fi rst to answer correctly were given prizes.
“We regard our employees as the most important and essential part of our business. This is yet another occasion where we all come together as one to celebrate Oman`s 45th National Day. Ex-hibiting diff erent shades of our nation’s identity and sharing that with our colleagues, strengthens team spirit and bridges the gap between cultures through mutual understanding of each other’s tra-ditions,” Said Al Jabri added.
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STEYN UNLIKELY TO PLAY IN THIRD TEST, SAYS AMLA>C2
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India hold edge over South Africa
NAGPUR: Leading 1-0 in what has now eff ectively become a three-game series after the wash-out at Bengaluru, India would be looking to deliver the knock-out blow on South Africa and sew up the rubber in the third cricket Test commencing here on Wednesday.
With the VCA Stadium pitch in Jamtha here sporting a dry look and promising to off er copious turn to spinners, another low-scoring cat-and-mouse contest is on the cards in the penultimate game of the series with India hold-ing the aces because of its superior spin attack.
Both the teams would be a bit rusty going into the game with no play being possible in the second Test at Bengaluru after the open-ing day’s proceedings following the end of the fi rst Test in Mohali inside three days.
Having knocked down the visi-tors for scores of 184, 109 and 214
in the three completed South Af-rican innings so far in the series, the Indian spin attack poses the biggest threat to the visitors in this do-or-die game which they must win to keep the contest alive for the fourth and last match at Delhi.
Barring the odd wicket to the medium pacers or to a run-out, the Indian spinners have done the bulk of the damage against a side which has played them with a lot of concern and suspicion.
As such, India have a lot going in their favour even if their batsmen, barring opener Murali Vijay and one-down Cheteshwar Pujara, did not do anything signifi cant in the low-scoring fi rst Test at Mohali.
The encouraging return to form of opener Shikhar Dhawan after a string of low scores with a fl uent, unbeaten knock of 45 with seven fours in India’s strong reply of 80 for no loss to the visitors’ paltry 214 in the rained-out Bengaluru
game is another plus.Though shot out for 201 and 200
in the opening match at Mohali, Vijay who scored 75 and 47 in the two innings did not feel the hosts’ batting was a cause for worry.
“The confi dence is really high as for now because we had a good game (in Mohali) and the fi rst day (in Bengaluru) was in our favour. I don’t think batting is a worry for us because everybody is one match away from a big knock and this match may be the one,” he insisted yesterday.
The key to South Africa turning around the fortunes is the willing-ness of their batsmen to confront the spin threat posed by Ravichan-dran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja on a track that could be tailor-made for them.
Leg spinner Amit Mishra is also expected to regain his spot in the playing eleven after being left out in the second Test and the triple
spin attack is again going to test the nerves of South African batsmen.
South Africa’s ODI captain A B de Villiers has been the one to lead the way with a classy 85 at Ben-galuru on his milestone 100th Test match.
Mishra dismissed dangerous De Villiers both times at Mohali and this much-expected battle is going to be watched with great interest.
Unless the Proteas batsmen, especially captain Hashim Amla and Faf du Plussis, strike form and take on the Indian spinners to lend support to de Villiers, their proud achievement of not having lost a Test rubber overseas since 2006 in Sri Lanka is under serious threat.
Amla scored a magnifi cent 253 fi ve years ago to lead the Proteas to a huge score at this ground and lay the platform for Steyn to produce an incisive spell and knock the stuffi ng out of the hosts with a sev-en-wicket haul in the fi rst innings.
South Africa would hope that a return to this venue would help their skipper, who did not score many runs in the preceding T20 and ODI rubbers too.
The Proteas are also faced with the groin injury to their premier fast bowler Steyn, who is doubtful for the upcoming Test after he had sat out of the previous one in Bengaluru.
Steyn had taken 10 wickets in the innings victory notched up by South Africa at this venue fi ve years ago and if he is declared unfi t to play it would be huge blow to the visitors’ chances on a track where the ball is expected to keep low.
Steyn bowled for a short while in the nets here yesterday morning, raising the visitors’ hopes.
Steyn’s fast bowling partner Morne Morkel, who himself has come off an injury lay-off on their long tour sustained during the ODI series, said they are keeping their “fi ngers crossed”.
“Dale (Steyn) bowled this morn-ing. It was a pleasing thing for us to see. Obviously groin is a tricky sort of injury. So I think we will keep monitoring and give him 9 AM (before toss) on Wednesday to decide,” he told reporters here yesterday.
South Africa have fl own in the tall Marchant de Lange as a cover for Steyn, but it remains to be seen whether he will take the fi eld with-out having had suffi cient prepara-tions, in case the latter is ruled out.
The tourists have already lost the services of another frontline pacer, Vernon Philander, and his replacement Kyle Abbott played in the rain-ruined Bengaluru game.
Morkel was candid when he spoke about the challenges faced by his team’s bowlers on Indian tracks. “Coming here as a fast bowler we weren’t expecting fa-vours, we knew that the wickets would turn,” he had said. >C2
Both the teams would
be a bit rusty going
into the game with no
play being possible
in the second Test
at Bengaluru after
the opening day’s
proceedings following
the end of the fi rst
Test in Mohali
inside three daysTALKING STRATEGY: Team India Director Ravi Shastri, skipper Virat Kohli and other players at a practice session in Nagpur. – PTI
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Debate on the nature of track is beyond my understanding: Kohli
NAGPUR: India’s Test captain Virat Kohli has consciously stayed away from the debate surrounding the nature of the pitches prepared for the ongoing South Africa series as he feels that these discussions are “beyond his understanding”.
“That wicket debate is out of my understanding. I don’t know why there is so much (hue and) cry about the wickets in India. We ab-solutely have no problems in play-ing on this sort of a wicket. If both teams don’t agree on playing on a particular wicket, then it is not suited for a game of cricket. But we have no problems,” the skipper wasn’t exactly amused while fi eld-ing queries on whether Jamtha track will be a spin-friendly one.
Kohli reiterated that his team does not discuss the condition of pitches. “We haven’t had any sort of talk about the track. Whoever wants to talk about the track is free to talk about it. As I said, we will decide a combination according to how the wicket will play over a span of fi ve days and not how it looks for the fi rst time,” said Kohli.
The wicket, as per reports, is ex-pected to assist the spinners and the ball is also expected to keep low, a big help for the spinners have run through the South Afri-can batting order in the three com-pleted innings in the series so far.
Kohli indicated that the playing XI will be decided after assessing the condition.
“In a Test side, according to the conditions, I feel you should have a couple of all-rounders, one a spin-ning all-rounder and one a seam-ing all-rounder. It’s just that one slot which brings balance to the team and must be decided accord-ing to the conditions we are play-ing in. Other than that anything could be a possibility,” Kohli said.
“Assessing the nature of the wicket, we have got to make a few changes. Obviously, I won’t dis-close it here. We possibly might
make a few changes according to the conditions,” he added.
He said though there has not been much cricket in the two Tests, especially at Bengaluru, the team members were in good nick for the game ahead.
“Mohali was a positive result for us but that was a long time back. What happened in Bangalore is something that was not in our con-trol. Remember one fi ne tour that India had to Sri Lanka, it was a 20 or 22-day tour and only one day of cricket was possible,” Kohli said, referring to India’s tour of 1993-94 to the island nation. - PTI
The wicket, as per
reports, is expected
to assist the spinners
and the ball is also
expected to keep
low, a big help for the
spinners have run
through the South
African batting
order in the three
completed innings
in the series so far
NO TO DEBATE: India captain Virat Kohli during a practice session
ahead of the Test match against South Africa in Nagpur. – PTI
NAGPUR: South Africa are unlikely to have the services of their premier pace bowler Dale Steyn for the second match running as he was yet to fully recover from a groin injury, said visiting team skipper Hashim Amla on the eve of the third and penultimate Test against India.
“Dale Steyn won’t probably play in this Test match, I don’t think his injury has recovered fully,” said Amla.
“Yes, not having Dale in the team is a setback because not having the best bowler in the world is never a nice thing. But we’ve got to deal with it, and we’ve got some good reserves. Hopefully, the guys who play will get a chance to stand out,” he remarked.
Steyn grabbed 10 wickets after South Africa amassed over 500 runs to infl ict a humiliating innings defeat on India when the two teams met fi ve years ago at the same VCA Stadium in Jamtha.
South Africa have fl own in Marchant de Lange as the back-up pacer ahead of the match.
With South Africa trailing 0-1 in the four-Test rubber, Amla conceded the team’s bat-ting has failed to click, while hoping for a turnaround in this Orange City. “We haven’t played our best Test cricket. If one goes back in the past, at Mohali I’d defi nitely say that in the fi rst three innings, we were defi nitely in it.
If India got bowled out for 200, and we got bowled out for 187, I think it’s fair refl ec-tion that the game was pretty poised up until the last innings, in which we didn’t do too well, obviously. In the fi rst day of the last Test, we didn’t bat well again.
“So it hasn’t been our full-fl owing Test cricket that we’re normally used to.This will be great for a start that hopefully
in Nagpur we can get on to the pitch and put up a performance that the South African team is used to. The issue has been more with the lack of runs than the lack of wickets.
“Hopefully, we’ll get the runs and continue to play the game to win.”
The Proteas batsmen have
come a cropper against the Indian spin attack and asked about the wicket prepared for the third game, Amla remarked wryly, “Well, it looks like a good cricket wicket, one that we kind of expect in the sub con-tinent. They’ve played three spinners in the fi rst game as well, so it’s nothing new.” - PTI
Steyn unlikely to play in third Test, says Amla
AT PRACTICE: South African player Hashim Amla during a
practice session ahead of the 3rd Test match against India, in
Nagpur on Tuesday. – PTI
India hold the edge in do-or-die battle for Proteas
“For us, mental preparation was always going to be the key, espe-cially bowling well with a reverse-swinging ball.
That has been the big strength for us over the last couple of years and that is how we achieved suc-cess in India in the past.”
South Africa will have to hold their nerves in the game here if
they want to win the make-or-break battle.Teams (from):India: Virat Kohli (Captain), Murali Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Ra-hane, Rohit Sharma, Wriddhiman Saha, R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Amit Mishra, Varun Aaron, Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar,
Umesh Yadav, KL Rahul, Stuart Binny and Gurkeerat Singh Mann.
South Africa: Hashim Amla (Captain), AB de Villiers, Dean El-gar, Faf du Plessis, Temba Bavuma, JP Duminy, Stiaan van Zyl, Dane Vilas, Dane Piedt, Simon Harmer, Imran Tahir, Dale Styen, Morne Morkel, Kyle Abbott, Kagiso Raba-da, Marchant de Lange. - PTI
P R E V I E W
< FROM
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SPIN TRIO: From left, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin and Amit Mishra prepare to bowl dur-
ing a practice session. – Reuters
Kohli voices
support for
day-night Tests
NAGPUR: Indian Test captain Virat Kohli has voiced his sup-port for day-night Tests, the fi rst of which will feature Aus-tralia and New Zealand at the Adelaide Oval from November 27. He added that it is a big ex-periment and looks like an ex-citing concept.
“It is a landmark Test. It is a big experiment. It is a big step towards changing something in Test cricket. I am hopeful that it will work. I also hope it can be another option as well,” Kohli told reporters here. Kohli also praised the two teams, Australia and New Zealand on taking up the challenge of playing in the fi rst ever day and night Test.
“I’m glad two teams have ac-tually agreed to play an offi cial Test like that as an experiment. Credit to Australia and New Zealand. Hopefully it will be better for the game. It will be a step which we all will remem-ber few years down the line. Let’s hope so,” he said. — IANS
S U P P O R T
Britain counting on Murrays to bring home Davis Cup
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Why adamant PCB agreed to play defiant India in Sri Lanka
NEW DELHI: With Sri Lanka all set to turn hosts for the upcoming bilateral series between India and Pakistan next month, the venue has come as a relief for the Pa-kistan Cricket Board (PCB) as it also solved the broadcasting rights issue, which could have been a problem.
While sources in Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) said that they are gearing up for the marquee series, they would only come out with a statement once PCB task-force
chairman Giles Clarke makes an offi cial statement.
The Dubai-based broadcasters Ten Sports will be broadcasting the series in India and Pakistan, which will also mean that PCB will not need to compromise on their revenue, which is highly depend-ant on a series with India.
“Had the series been in India, the broadcasting rights would have gone to Star Sports as they have exclusive rights of covering India’s home series. Even if you would
have termed it as Pakistan’s home series in India, there could have been legal ramifi cations,” a senior BCCI offi cial said on Tuesday.
“Ten Sports has broadcasting rights of international cricket matches held in Sri Lanka as they are rights holder for the Sri Lan-kan national cricket team. While Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) has just started in Bangladesh, it was the island nation that was most convenient option for the PCB top brass,” the source added.
It is no secret that PCB’s multi-million deal with their broadcast-ers hinges largely on the fact that an India series will be held.
“If India does not play Pakistan in this period than atleast 60 per-cent of the total bid amount will be reduced by the successful broad-casters,” a PCB source said.
So it was no wonder that PCB’s last throw of dice was a series in Sri Lanka which would enable Ten Sports to broadcast the series.
The source also said that the
undisclosed amount for broadcast rights that PCB had bagged was mainly due to the fact that its in-ternational calendar for next fi ve-years included two home series against India on ‘neutral’ venue.
India has not played a full bilat-eral Test series against Pakistan since 2007 when Pakistan toured India. Since than although Paki-stan toured India for a short one-day series in the winter of 2012-13, the PCB didn’t earn anything from it. - PTI
With Ten Sports as
broadcasters, Sri
Lanka was Pakistan
Cricket Board’s
preferred venue for
the December series
against India. A fi nal
word on the series
is still awaited
India beat Bangladesh
KOLKATA: An impressive all-round display drove India to a four-wicket win over Bang-ladesh in an Under-19 cricket tri-series match at the Ja-davpur University ground here on Tuesday.
Chasing Bangladesh’s total of 222/7, the hosts crossed the line with four wickets and eight balls to spare. Wicket keeper-bats-man Rishabh Pant top scored for India with a knock of 51 runs while rival captain Mehidy Has-san Miraz’s 87 runs with the bat and fi gures of 2/50 with the ball went in vain. The Indians were off to a fl yer as Pant (51) and Ishan Kishan (24) put on a partnership of 67 runs in 5.4 overs. Kishan got out thereafter but left-handed Pant continued clobbering the bowlers.
Bangladesh crawled back into the contest with quick wickets but knocks from A.N. Khare (41) and Washington Sundar (50) helped the home side inch clos-er to the target.
M.K. Lomror (not out 19) and M.J. Dagar (not out 11) then fi nished it off as the Indians grabbed their third win on the trot.
Earlier in the day, after elect-ing to bat, Bangladesh rode on a classy knock of 87 runs from Miraz to post a challenging score of 222/7. — IANS
U - 1 9 C R I C K E T
LONDON: Britain will attempt to win the Davis Cup for the fi rst time in 79 years this weekend when they take on Belgium in Ghent, although if they do suc-ceed the Scottish town of Dun-blane could argue its name should be enscribed on the trophy.
World No. 2 Andy Murray and his brother Jamie, who grew up in Dunblane, have propelled Brit-ain through the draw, with Andy churning out vital singles wins and teaming up with his elder sib-ling in the doubles.
That is likely to be the scenario again at the Flanders Expo, be-ginning on Friday, where despite 13,000 home fans trying to cheer Belgium to their fi rst ever Davis Cup, Britain will start favourites.
Twice Grand Slam champion Andy Murray is the class act of the fi nal — a repeat of the 1904 match when the British Isles won 5-0 with brothers Laurence and Reggie Doherty starring. Mur-ray’s commitment to the cause this year has been immense.
The 2013 Wimbledon cham-pion is undefeated, winning two singles against the United States in Glasgow in March.
Against France in the quarterfi -nals at Queen’s Club, the Murrays joined forces to win the doubles with Andy winning both his sin-gles in a 3-1 victory — the second against Gilles Simon when he was down on both knees with fatigue.
Then came the semifi nal against Australia, again in Glas-gow, when the 28-year-old crushed Bernard Tomic, having won a gripping doubles fi ve-setter with Jamie the previous day, to send Britain into the fi nal for the fi rst time since 1978.
He fl ew into Belgium on Mon-day -- a country on high alert after the Paris attacks -- having lost two of his three matches at the ATP World Tour Finals last week.
How he adapts to the quick switch to indoor clay will be crucial for Britain captain Leon Smith.
“The reality is that if Andy gets injured or ill, then it would be a very diffi cult match to win,” Mark Cox, who played for Britain in the 1978 fi nal, said. “Leon has done well to bond the team and get some performances from James Ward, well beyond what realisti-cally would be expected.
“But the whole run to the fi nal has relied on Andy’s performanc-es and it has been great to see Jamie rising to the challenge and becoming a force in doubles.”
Roger Federer, who won the trophy for the fi rst time last year for Switzerland, believes Murray will decide the tie.
“Britain are the favourites, in my opinion, because they have Andy in the team,” he said.
Federer, however, believes Bel-gium should not be dismissed, es-pecially with world No. 16 David Goffi n in their ranks.
“Belgium are at home. I really like Goffi n, a great player. Good attitude. I feel like he’s the kind of guy that can handle pressure,” he said. Goffi n will likely be up against Britain’s 100th-ranked debutant Kyle Edmund in the opening match — a must win rub-ber for the hosts.
Murray is likely to play Bel-gium No. 2 Steve Darcis, who won the fi fth rubber in the semifi nal against Argentina, although cap-tain Johan Van Herck could save him for what could be a potential title-decider in Sunday’s reverse singles. - Reuters
T E N N I S
ALL SET: From left, Britain’s Dominic Inglot, Kyle Edmund, Britain’s captain Leon Smith, Andy Mur-
ray, James Ward and Jamie Murray pose during a press conference ahead of the Davis Cup World
Group fi nal against Belgium at Flanders Expo in Gent. – AFP
TRAINING SESSION: Belgium’s David Goffi n, left, and Davis Cup captain Johan Van Herck take part
in a training session ahead of the Davis Cup World Group fi nal. – AFP
Confi dent Coutinho pushing himself to become even better
LONDON: Liverpool mid-fi elder Philippe Coutinho be-lieves he has become a more complete player and said he is always striving to make him-self better after putting in a string of fi ne performances in recent weeks.
The 23-year-old Brazilian picked up the club’s player of the season award after he scored fi ve goals and set another seven in the Premier League last sea-son and helped the Merseyside club to a sixth place fi nish and a spot in the Europa League.
Coutinho had a quiet start to the campaign but has burst into life under the stewardship of new manager Juergen Klopp and has scored four goals, in-cluding a brace in the Reds’ dis-mantling of champions Chelsea on Oct. 31.
“It’s been personally a good year for me, with big moments, some good goals and receiving awards,” Coutinho, who scored in Liverpool’s 4-1 victory over Manchester City on Satur-day, was quoted as saying on the club’s website (www.liver-poolfc.com). — Reuters
F O O T B A L L
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Mata recalls ‘genius’ Best as United eye win against PSV
MANCHESTER: Midfi elder Juan Mata hailed George Best “a genius forever” as an injury-hit Manchester United aim to mark the 10th anniversary of the North-ern Irishman’s death with a Cham-pions League victory against PSV Eindhoven on Wednesday.
Best, who made 361 appearances for United and helped them win the European Cup in 1968, died on No-vember 25, 2005 at the age of 59 af-ter a long struggle with alcoholism.
“Yesterday, I watched a docu-mentary about his life and football career,” Spaniard Juan Mata wrote in his weekly blog on kicca.com on Monday.
“He was one of the best players of Manchester United and one of the best in the history of football, no doubt, and also an idol for sev-eral generations that still remem-ber him today.”
Louis van Gaal’s side could be without nine front-line players for the visit of Dutch champions
PSV in Group B after defender Phil Jones (ankle) and midfi elder Ander Herrera (hamstring) were injured in the Premier League win at Watford.
Striker Wayne Rooney is also a doubt after missing Saturday’s
match with an illness, while 19-year-old French forward An-thony Martial has a foot injury.
United could also be without James Wilson, who injured his knee in training on Friday, while Michael Carrick damaged an ankle
on England duty, Marouane Fel-laini has yet to return from a calf injury and Antonio Valencia will be out until January after having surgery on a foot problem.
Old Traff ord fans could be plan-ning a hot reception for PSV’s
Hector Moreno, whose sliding tackle resulted in Luke Shaw’s broken leg in United’s 2-1 away defeat in their opening match of the group in September.
Group leadersUnited have since beaten VfL Wolfsburg and CSKA Moscow at home as well as drawing 1-1 in Moscow to lead Group B by one point from PSV and Wolfsburg.
“We could make an important step to fi nish fi rst in our group in the Champions League and we could climb to the top of the Premier League. This is how we face this new week,” added Mata, referring also to Saturday’s Pre-mier League game against leaders Leicester City.
PSV trail table-toppers Ajax by four points in the Dutch league, and manager Philip Cocu blames a lack of concentration after they squandered yet another lead be-fore rescuing a 2-2 draw against Willem II Tilburg on Saturday.
“It is deteriorating further,” said Cocu after watching a fi fth lead for PSV this season end in either a draw or defeat.
“It has happened too many times. In matches against top opposition we rise above our potential. But these kind of games are just as im-portant. We also have to bring our motivation to these games.”
Manchester United won the last of their three European titles in 2008 and lost to Barcelona in the fi nal in 2009 and 2011.
Last year they fi nished seventh in the Premier League and missed the competition for the fi rst time since the 1995-1996 season. - Reuters
Louis van Gaal’s
United could be
without nine front-
line players for
the visit of Dutch
champions PSV
in Group B
DOUBTFUL STARTER: Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney, centre, trains along with his teammates at
their training ground in Manchester on Tuesday. – Reuters
Morata-Dybala partnership could give Juventus added edge against Man CityTURIN: Juventus need to beat Manchester City to reach the Champions League knockout stag-es on Wednesday and many fans still believe the best way to achieve this is by fi elding Alvaro Morata and Paulo Dybala together in attack.
At the start of the season, Ju-ventus supporters were eagerly anticipating the new partnership between Morata and 22-year-old Dybala, bought from Palermo to replace his fellow Argentine Car-los Tevez.
Yet the pair have started only fi ve of Juve’s 17 competitive matches this season as the Serie A champions have stumbled. In-stead, coach Massimiliano Allegri has preferred Mario Mandzukic as his main target man even though the Croatia forward has clearly struggled. Morata, often fi elded wide on the left, recently admitted that he has not yet got into gear.
Allegri has insisted that Dybala needs more time to settle and can-not take on an out-and-out strik-ing role. Wednesday, however, could be the right moment to give the pair another try.
Dybala scored the winning goal against AC Milan on Saturday, taking his Serie A tally to six.
“I am happy with what I’m doing and there is always going to be com-petition for places, but everyone is helping me to settle in,” he said. “I know that I can do much more.”
“I was always convinced of his quality, just as I am of other players, but it’s normal he needed time to settle,” Allegri said. “Dybala is im-proving, he has important abilities and did very well between the lines. He works hard too and in time he’ll become a great support striker.”
Juventus, Serie A champions for the last four seasons, have had
to rebuild since the departures of Tevez, Andrea Pirlo and Arturo Vidal, with injuries making Al-legri’s life even more diffi cult.
He will have to reshuffl e his midfi eld on Wednesday as Her-nanes is suspended and Sami Khedira has a thigh injury.
Saturday’s win was their third in a row and suggested that things are starting to come together, even if Allegri was still not satis-fi ed with their display.
Juventus, unbeaten in Group D, are second with eight points from four games, one less than City
who have already qualifi ed.“The important thing is to try
to recover our performance,” said City coach Manuel Pellegrini, whose side were thrashed 4-1 at home to Liverpool on Saturday. “We are not going to go to Juven-tus just to try to draw.” - Reuters
F O O T B A L L
TO RECOVER: Manchester City’s Gael Clichy, cetnre, runs with the ball durng a team training session
at the City Football Academy in Manchester on Tuesday. – AFP
LONDON: Manchester City now have enough experience of playing against the Euro-pean elite to mount a serious challenge in the Champions League, Sergio Aguero has said.
“Now most of us have enough
experience,” Aguero said. “We have very good players who are going to do a lot for us and I think we are on the right path.
“In the last few Champions Leagues we have maybe not had the experience.”
“In all our previous runs we would have wanted to move into the next round without any hitches, but now we are more experienced and we are devel-oping naturally,” the 27-year-old striker added. - Reuters
City have experience for CL challenge: Aguero
UEFA ‘accept’ doping, says Wenger
LONDON: Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has accused European football’s governing body UEFA of accepting doping because they allowed his team’s defeat by Dinamo Zagreb to stand despite one of the Croatian club’s players failing a drugs test.
After Dinamo beat Arsenal 2-1 in their opening Champi-ons League Group F match in September, midfi elder Arijan Aremi tested positive and was banned for four years. The club are appealing.
Under UEFA rules the result of a match stands if only one player fails a test.
“You cannot say ‘okay, they had a doped player and the re-sult stands’” Wenger told re-porters ahead of Tuesday’s re-turn match in London.
“That means you basically ac-cept doping. If doesn’t look logi-cal, especially if you (test) only three players.”
More blood testsLast week Wenger called for more blood testing in football.
The following day, he said, UEFA testers visited the club’s training ground for the fi rst time he could remember in his 19 years as Arsenal manager.
Dinamo’s manager Zoran Mamic said it was fair that the win should count.
“Mr Wenger can talk about what he wants but there are other people who make deci-sions about that,” he told a news conference.
“I don’t think there is a prob-lem with doping in football,” Wenger added. - Reuters
F O O T B A L L
Security beefed upMADRID: Spanish government authorities in Madrid have tight-ened security with 30 percent more police offi cers at the Euro-pean Champions League football game on Wednesday between Atletico Madrid and Turkish side Galatasaray at the Vicente Calde-ron Stadium.
The step comes as part of pro-tective measures against any ter-rorism attempt.
Speaking to reporters at Madrid police headquarters, the govern-ment delegate in Madrid, Concep-cion Dancausa explained that the match is high risk because it is in the UEFA Champions League.
Dancausa added that all mass gatherings of people will be pro-tected and therefore there will be 30 percent more police offi cers and the club has increased the number of private security guards. - IANS
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Vatsal lifts U-10 titleMUSCAT: Vatsal Manikandan was crowned the champ of the new breed of players when he claimed the under—10 singles ti-tle at the Falcon Insurance Com-pany-sponsored Annual Tennis Tournament organised by the Indian Social Club (ISC) Muscat.
Justifying their top billing, the top two seeds battled it out for the under-10 title with top seed Vat-sal Manikandan taking on second seed Praneeth Raj in the fi nal.
It was Praneeth who made early inroads into the match and grabbed a 3-1 lead before Vatsal got his act together and broke Pra-
neeth to level at three-games-all. A tense battle ensued thereaf-
ter. Vatsal showed consistency in his ground strokes and powered to 5-4 lead.
Praneeth was serving to stay in the match but squandered a 40-15 advantage as Vatsal put his op-ponent under pressure and broke Praneeth to win the under-10 singles title with a 6-4 verdict in the fi nal.
Vatsal had advanced to the fi -nal with an emphatic 6-0 victory over Mikhail Sarit in the semi-fi nal and Praneeth defeated J. Kaavya 6-2 in the other semifi nal.
I S C T E N N I S
FINALISTS: Vatsal Manikandan, left, and Praneeth Raj.
FIFA seeking life ban for Platini: Lawyers
PARIS: Former French football great Michel Platini, until recently seen as the man to lead soccer’s governing body FIFA out of its worst ever graft crisis, could face a life ban from the sport if recom-mendations from FIFA ethics in-vestigators are followed.
FIFA’s ethics committee has completed an inquiry into accusa-tions of corruption against Platini, who as a player led French football out of the doldrums in the 1980s before becoming one of the sport’s most powerful offi cials, and FIFA President Sepp Blatter.
A media consultant represent-ing Platini’s lawyer Thibaud d’Ales said ethics committee offi cial Va-nessa Allard had recommended a
life ban for the Frenchman, who is head of European soccer’s govern-ing body UEFA.
“I can confi rm that she is pro-posing to the ethics committee a ban for life,” the consultant said.
Allard’s report has been passed to FIFA ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert who is due to is-sue a verdict by the end of the year.
Swiss authorities opened crimi-nal proceedings against Blatter in September over a 2 million Swiss franc ($1.97 million) payment from FIFA to Platini in 2011. The case was part of a broader scandal that broke around FIFA in May when 14 offi cials including two ex-vice presidents were indicted in the United States.
Disgusted by corruptionPlatini, who in May said that he was disgusted by corruption within FIFA, and Blatter have both been suspended for 90 days. They deny wrongdoing.
Blatter’s former public relations offi cer and confi dant Klaus Stoe-hlker said the Swiss did not want to “go into detail for now” on what the committee had recommended in his case.
“He was very surprised at the news about Platini,” Stoehlker added.
Platini, still determined to run in February’s election for president in Zurich, has registered as a can-didate but FIFA’s electoral com-mittee has said his bid cannot be processed while he is suspended.
He could be allowed back into the race if the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) accepts his appeal against the 90-day ban but could then be eliminated again if Eck-ert’s panel hands him a long-term ban in its fi nal verdict.
If that happens, Platini would also have to quit his role as Eu-ropean body UEFA’s president which he has held since 2007.
For a long time, Platini was con-sidered the natural successor to Blatter who has weathered one
crisis after another in his 17 years as FIFA president.
The FIFA scandal is one of the biggest of several corruption af-fairs shaking world sport. Inter-national athletics has also suff ered revelations of doping, largely af-fecting Russia, and corrupt manip-ulation of anti-doping test results.
Financial problems Platini was one of the most gifted players of his generation and in-spired a French team which played with an exuberant Gallic fl ourish that delighted international audi-ences during the early to mid 1980s.
He went on to coach the na-tional team, then played a key role in helping France host the 1998 World Cup before moving on to become a member of the FIFA and UEFA executive committees in 2002 and, fi nally, UEFA presi-dent in 2007.
The FIFA payment to Platini was made in 2011 for work Platini had completed nine years earlier, the Swiss attorney-general’s offi ce has said, adding Platini was con-sidered “between a witness and an accused person.”
Platini says the payment was delayed only because of fi nancial problems at FIFA. - Reuters
A media consultant representing Platini’s
lawyer Thibaud d’Ales said ethics committee
offi cial Vanessa Allard had recommended a
life ban for the Frenchman, who is head of
European soccer’s governing body UEFA
Platini could be allowed
back into the race if the
Court of Arbitration for
Sport accepts his appeal
against the 90-day ban but
could then be eliminated
again if Eckert’s panel
hands him a long-term
ban in its final verdict
African athletics body defends Diack over doping, fraudNAIROBI: The Confederation of African Athletics (CAA) believes its offi cials are targeted nega-tively in the fi ght against doping that is bedevilling track and fi eld discipline at the moment.
CAA believes embattled Inter-national Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) former presi-dent Lamine Diack of Senegal is being condemned without trial for abetting doping, reports Xinhua.
“For some days, the African athletics family is living some particularly diffi cult moments due to allegations against some of its members, mainly (honorary) president Lamine Diack, as part of an investigation led by the In-dependent Commission of World Anti-Doping Agency,” CAA presi-dent Kalkaba Malboum said in a statement on Tuesday.
French police are investigating the son of Diack and the former head of its anti-doping depart-ment, amid the corruption crisis engulfi ng international athletics.
Papa Massata Diack, Valentin Balakhnichev, Alexei Melnikov, and Gabriel Dolle have been charged with various alleged breaches of the IAAF code of ethics. Papa Massata Diack is a former consultant to the IAAF, Balakhnichev is the former presi-
dent of the All-Russia Athletic Federation (ARAF), Melnikov is a former chief ARAF coach for long distance walkers and run-ners, and Dolle is the former di-rector of the IAAF’s anti-doping department.
“Without judging on the ongo-ing investigation — all people who are mentioned in this matter fully benefi t from the presumption of innocence. It is our duty to talk to you and to all the family members whom I call to unity, peace and serenity especially in this diffi cult moment,” Malboum, who is also an IAAF council member, said.
“Despite this turbulence aim-ing at Africa, we still show our loyalty, our aff ection and our full support to president Lamine Di-ack who has devoted himself, soul and body for decades to serve this discipline both on continental and world levels,” said Malboum.
Kenya’s IAAF council mem-ber David Okeyo is also being investigated by the Kenya Anti-Fraud Unit and Criminal Inves-tigation Department for his role in signing a new Nike deal that saw the American sports fi rm pay $500,000 as signing fees for the offi cial to use. Nike signed a deal with Kenya, lasting 10 years up to 2022. - IANS
N E G A T I V E L Y T A R G E T E D
Former coach Ancelotti willing to return to Real
ROME: Italian coach Carlo Ance-lotti has said that he would like to return to coach Spanish football gi-ants Real Madrid but “not this sea-son”. “I would go back to Real, just like I would go back to Paris Saint-
Germain or Chelsea,” Efe quoted Ancelotti as saying on Monday.
“I had some fantastic experienc-es abroad, but when I left Madrid I decided to take a year off and that is how it is,” the former manager of
Real Madrid said in an interview with Italy’s RAI radio.
Ancelotti, however, defended the current coach of Real, Rafael Benitez after his side’s 0-4 defeat against Barcelona at the Santiago
Bernabeu stadium on Saturday.The Italian tactician explained
that every coach has his ideas and applies them on the fi eld while it is the start of the season and there is time to fi x things. - IANS
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TELY BOYS DEFEAT NTECH TO LIFT CRICKET TITLETely Boys defeated Ntech to lift the title at the tape ball fl oodlight cricket tournament
organised by Team 050 at Haafa Ground in Salalah. A total of eight teams took part in
the tournament. In the fi nal, Ntech batted fi rst and scored 52 for one in eight overs. Tely
Boys chased the target in 4.5 overs without losing any wicket. Individual awards went to
Tely Boys’ Shamsu (player of the fi nal), Ntech’s Badsha (best batsman) and Ashkar (best
bowler), and Tely Boys’ Mashmool Shanu (man of the series). — Supplied photo
FC Goa set to tackle NorthEast at homeFATORDA: FC Goa chief coach Zico feels that his team will remain unaff ected by the 0-4 thrashing at the hands of Atletico de Kolkata (ATK) in their last game as they prepare to tackle NorthEast United FC in a crucial Indian Super League (ISL) clash here on Wednesday.
FC Goa were fl ying high after defeating Mumbai City FC 7-0 at home, but suff ered a huge set back in their last game when they lost to ATK, though the loss did not al-ter their position on the ISL points table drastically as they continue to occupy the second spot.
“Our victory against Mumbai City did not aff ect us as you see that we lost the next game against Kolkata. The loss against Kol-kata will soon be forgotten. We must stay focused and carry on, although I must mention that the loss against Kolkata was largely due to their merit,” Zico said at the pre-match media briefi ng here on Tuesday.
Even though FC Goa had de-feated NorthEast United 3-1 in the away clash, Zico is aware he cannot relax at this juncture.
“Every game is a must win now. All games are important,” said Zico, indicating they cannot af-ford to lose any more in the com-petition now, as it would aff ect their chances of qualifying for
the semifi nals. The former Brazil legend said he will have to look at the team in training to fi nd out the availability of players with doubts over Gregory Arnolin, Lu-ciano Sabroza and Rafael Coelho, all of whom are injured.
NorthEast United, on other hand, have scripted a remarkable turnaround after starting the campaign with consecutive loss-es in the fi rst three matches, but now fi nd themselves in the run-ning to qualify for the semifi nals.
Coach Cesar Farias said he always believed in his team and knew they would come good at some stage of the league phase.
“We played well in those three games and there was no reason for us to put our heads down. There were also eight players unavailable because of injuries at that time,” explained Farias.
NorthEast United have 16 points in their bag from 11 match-es and are placed among the top four at the moment. A win will embolden them especially since they play their last two matches at home against Delhi Dynamos (November 28) and FC Pune City (December 2).
“If you look at it with a cool head, a point should be good enough. A point will be good while three points will be excel-lent,” said Farias. - IANS
I S L
FA’s new ‘safety-fi rst’ rules for concussionLONDON: The Football As-sociation (FA) has issued new safety-fi rst guidelines on how to identify whether a player has been concussed following an injury and how soon they should be allowed to return. The guidelines state that a player suspected of being concussed should be immediately removed from play or training and must not return to play that day.
In cases where concussion is proved, an adult player can only return to play after 19 days at the earliest, while the earliest possi-ble return for an under-19 player is 23 days. “The paramount prior-ity for The FA is player safety, and so the publication of these con-
cussion guidelines is integral to achieving an unprecedented high level of care and safety for players at all levels,” said Dr Ian Beasley, the FA’s head of medical services.
The issue of concussion gained prominence in England after the death of former West Bromwich Albion striker Jeff Astle in 2002, at the age of 59. Astle, known for his skill at heading, died from a brain condition most commonly associ-ated with boxers, known as demen-tia pugilistica or boxer’s disease.
The new guidelines were drawn up in consultation with a panel of experts to address fears over rising head injuries across all sports. - Reuters
F O O T B A L L
Chennai thrash Delhi
CHENNAI: Jeje Lalpekhlua struck twice as Chennaiyin FC produced a stellar display to thrash Delhi Dynamos FC 4-0 in an Indi-an Super League (ISL) clash at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium here on Tuesday.
Jeje found the net in the 40th and 54th minutes after Mendoza Valencia (17th minute) and Bruno Pelissari (21st) had given the hosts an early 2-0 lead.
Chennaiyin, who were lying at the bottom of the ISL table a couple of matches ago, have now climbed to the fourth spot with 16 points from 12 games. Delhi on the other hand, missed the chance to go top of the table as they con-tinue to lie at the third spot with 18 points from 11 matches.
Both teams made a cautious start, but host Chennaiyin were seeing more of the ball in the open-ing stages of the match.
It was the visitors, however, who had the fi rst big chance of the game when Adil Nabi played Flor-ent Malouda through on goal in the 13th minute. But the Frenchman shot wide of the target.
Chennaiyin took the lead short-
ly after. A long ball from Jeje saw Delhi goalkeper Toni Doblas rush out of his line hoping to clear the threat posed by a rampant Mendo-za who was chasing down the ball alongside Souvik Chakraborty. Do-blas’ headed clearance fell straight to Mendoza who side-footed the game’s opener into an open net.
Pelissari almost made it 2-0 soon after, but he couldn’t keep his eff ort on target. The Italian though, had a second bite at the cherry in the 21st minute after Lal-pekhlua had his initial shot saved by Doblas. The rebound came di-rectly at Pelissari who made no mistake this time around as he scored Chennaiyin’s second past three Delhi defenders in goal.
Robin Singh tried to pull one back for Delhi in the 29th minute courtesy of another defence-split-ting pass from Malouda. His shot was tipped behind for a corner by Apoula Edel who looked resolute in the Chennaiyin goal.
Things got worse for Delhi Dy-namos FC before half-time. Ra-fael Augusto found Mendoza bril-liantly with space on the left. The Colombian then played the perfect low cross to fi nd Lalpekhlua in the box who calmly fi nished to make it 3-0 for the hosts fi ve minutes be-fore the break.
Delhi’s marquee player-cum-coach Roberto Carlos responded by bringing on Richard Gadze for Nabi before the interval. The speedy
Ghanaian tried to inject some im-petus into Delhi’s attack but the score remained 3-0 at the interval.
The game was put beyond any reasonable doubt nine minutes into the second period when Lal-pekhlua got his second of the night. It was Mendoza again who caused havoc in Delhi’s penalty box as a fl ustered Dynamos defence some-how kept out his shot. Lalpekhlua, however, was in the right place at the right time to make it 4-0 after the ball dropped to him in the midst of chaos inside the penalty area.
But the Dynamos to their credit, never stopped trying to fi nd a way back into the game. But Chennai-yin’s huge lead proved to be too big a defi cit to overcome. - IANS
Jeje found the net
in the 40th and
54th minutes after
Mendoza Valencia
and Bruno Pelissari
had given hosts
Chennaiyin an
early 2-0 lead
DOMINANT DISPLAY: Chennaiyin FC’s Steven Mendoza and Jeje Lalpekhula celebrated after scoring a
goal against Delhi Dynamos FC during their Indian Super League match at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium
in Chennai on Tuesday. – PTI
Fatma advances in Rabat tournamentMUSCAT: Omani ace Fatma Al Nabhani made a winning start in the ITF Pro Circuit $10,000 Rabat tournament in Morocco.
According to information re-ceived here, the top seeded Omani eased to a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Mo-roccan wild card Ghita Benhadi in her singles fi rst round match.
Fatma next plays Croatian qual-
ifi er Mariana Drazic, who moved up after defeating another Moroc-can wild card Lilya Hadab 6-1, 1-6, 6-2. Fatma will also be in action in the doubles competition, where she is teaming up with Spanish girl Olga Parres Azcoita. The top seeds were given a fi rst round bye and will start their campaign in the quarterfi nals.
T E N N I S
WINNING START: Fatma Al Nabhani
WWW.TIMESOFOMAN.COM
LeisureSECTIONC L I F E STY L E W E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
While driving on the Nizwa-Muscat highway, many a times the panoramic green view of date palm trees lining the wide wadi in Fanja must have forced you to slow down your car and peep through the window. Next time, take the detour and explore Fanja. It is one of the most picturesque villages perfect for a picnic, camping, or a day tour that can be reached in less than one hour’s drive from Muscat. >>
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T H E H I D D E N B E A U T Y
Story Mohammed Shafeeqe
Photography MMG Photographers
LIFESTYLEC8 W E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
T R A V E L T I P S
The village clad in rich heritage and history is next to an exten-sive palm grove that runs alongside Wadi
Fanja, and the approach is one of the most scenic views that Oman has to off er.
Taking the exit on the high-way from Muscat, a new majestic mosque under construction is the fi rst charm of the modern Fanja that welcomes us. The little town is a mix of modern and old charms with supermarkets, petrol pumps, eating joints, beauty saloons, ATM, old market place, fi sh ven-dors, and the traditional souq.
The souq is renowned for its pottery where you can wander round the market bargaining for locally produced pots, local fruits and, farm fresh vegetables, and woven goods made from palm leaves. In ancient times, traders and bedouins would bring their goods, including perfumes, spices, rugs and handicrafts to sell in the market. The souq is an array of small shops that off er everything from handmade merchandise to local honey, spices, dried fruits, and ghee. It is learnt that Fanja was once a business hub and the wealthy people of Fanja had ex-panded their trade ties to Zanzibar, India, and Africa.
Many people from Fanja and the neighbouring villages come to the souq either as buyers or sell-ers who exhibit their products. The souq showcases a wonderful collection of handicrafts that are
locally made. The pottery items, usually used as decorative pieces, are well-made and beautifully decorated with diff erent shapes and colours. There are also cof-fee pots, leather goods, antiques, and household products as well as dried fi sh displayed in the yard of the souq. This outstanding souq also includes artistic products made of wood such as decorated boxes, called Mandoos, in, which people used to keep clothes.
The village has a dramatic tower perched on top of a hill of-fering spectacular views of the surrounding scenery and the wadi below. The wadi is beautiful as it is surrounded by date palms and other trees. The peaceful and tranquil place off ers ambience for a great day out. Wadi Fanja of-ten has running water especially after usual seasons of rain. Most of the residents and visitors en-joy lovely evenings here, espe-cially on weekends. Explore the wadi bed; you see a lot of fami-lies gather and doing barbecue, children playing in the water.
Fanja has many afl aj that are used as the source of water for farms. Some of these afl aj are Al Rasah, Al Sharjah and Tawi Man-soor. According to the locals, there are two afl aj — East and West Hamam afl aj — with hot water, which is believed to have proper-ties that can cure skin diseases.
The road crosses the wadi on a bridge, take a right deviation into the palm trees and go on till you see the old houses behind the trees.
Leave the car and climb to one of the watchtowers to have a great view of the green valley below. It is a bit of a climb. Resist the tempta-tion to go straight up as there are a number of much easier paths. A portrait of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said will welcome you to the village. The dark alley way takes you to a bygone era as you see rows of ruined mud houses. It is refreshingly cool inside with one of the all-around holes always in a good position to catch a breeze. View to the Nizwa motorway in the distance and the old houses of Fanja right below with in-between wadi Samail and Fanja’s abundant green gardens. It is a treat to watch the green date palm garden, the falaj that water the garden all the time, the majestic mountains and the Wadi Fanja from the top.
This old world charm is one of the fascinating factors about Fan-ja. Fanja’s rich cultural heritage refl ects the ancient past of the city. Some archaeological studies, in-cluding projects by Sultan Qaboos University, have found out that the old village had a glorious history. However, Fanja off ers a unique mixture of old and new landmarks that represent the real image of the town. There are many ancient buildings like towers, castles and old houses built of mud on the mountains overlooking the wadi, and new structures as well.
These old cannons that protect-ed the town from rival incursions, the castle and mud structures have withered extreme weather and, later, human interventions to sur-vive for more than 400 years, but
the future remains bleak as the historical place is in the throes of fading into oblivion. Majority of the villagers had moved to other parts of the new-look Fanja town. But there are a few who still live in refurbished houses as they are reluctant to leave the village that fed them from the time of their birth. Mud bricks were main construction material for the houses and castle, while multi-storeyed structures were made utilising the trunks and leaves of the date palm trees. Fanja’s ancient civilisation still exists along with modern development; it is a place with a hidden beauty that is yet to be explored.
HOW TO GET THEREDrive out of town on the Muscat to Nizwa road for about 25km and take the right turn off the highway at the Fanja sign. Follow the road through the town passing the po-lice station and market, go over the valley bridge, and take the next right. Follow the road passing the fort on your right, the road gets narrower. You might want to park the car here and explore on foot. Take a left at the small conveni-ence store, turn right at the junc-tion, and follow the hill up and up until you see the gateway to the old town with the painting of His Maj-esty Sultan Qaboos bin Said. Enjoy the cool breeze and nice surround-ings. While coming back, head to the wadi and take a dip in the calm waters. You do not need a 4X4 to visit Fanja, but if you want to ex-plore the wadi it is a must. —[email protected]
T R A V E L T I P S
The old world charm is one
of the fascinating factors
about Fanja. Fanja’s rich
cultural heritage reflects
the ancient past of the city.
It offers a unique mixture of
old and new landmarks that
represent the real image of
the town
Preparing for a trip and
enjoying it has never
been this easy, thanks to
advancements in the
latest technology. So
before you grab your
bag and go, make sure
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Travel Technology Must HavesExploring a new locale is half the fun of a vacation, so plan ahead to ensure you leave yourself time to wander and money to do it with. There are several smartphone apps that can be downloaded for free, and they can be used to com-pare prices on airline tickets, hotel stays, and event options.
Worried about losing your luggage on your fl ight? Get a luggage tracker. This compact device clips to your luggage and allows you to track its whereabouts with your smart-phone or tablet. It’s always better to know where your luggage is, even if the answer may horrify you.
No one likes to think about the worst, especially on vacation. Accidents, however, do happen and having an emergency cell-phone on you isn’t a bad idea. Emergency cellphones run on AA batteries so you don’t have to worry about charging them. In fact, just one battery can last 15 years if the phone isn’t used. These phones also have built-in panic sirens and even an SOS fl ash. Make sure to add a local SIM card if you are travelling abroad. — Courtesy of Brandpoint
If you’ve ever left your read-ing glasses behind at home because you were afraid of losing them while travelling, a pair of Foster Grant Multi Focus Advanced Readers can help. These glasses off er three diff erent magnifi cation zones in a single pair of reading glasses, allowing you to use your glasses as readers, but still focus on things far away. The result is that you’ll never have to take your reading glasses off or risk losing them while you’re travelling.
Plan Ahead Find your Luggage In Case of EmergencyMulti-Focus Glasses
Phot
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LIFESTYLEC9W E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
WHAT’S CATCH-22SITUATION?It is something like invoking logic in an illogical manner. Or it is like a logic that proves “A precedes B and B precedes A”. A bit weird? This will eventually form a circular logic having the pillar of illogical dogmas. A big zero that absolves everything. Zero originates from zero and rest in zero.
Now, shift your focus to the bat-tle ground. “Is everything fair in love and war?” We have been con-ditioned to believe so. So as to nur-ture alternate thoughts, we have to unlearn a few.
Let us assume the military per-sonnel on the battleground. Can it be that, everyone is being driven
by the spirit of patriotism? Not al-ways. But in reality, many of them are trying to save their life also.
Here you have Yossarin, our protagonist who is an indolent bombardier. No wonder he was employed to fl y the fi ghter and there is guarantee to return alive. On records, Yossarin and others were fi ghting against the enemy of the state.
But in real sense, Yossarin’s foe was the one who is pushing him towards the mishap. It boils down to the country he represents in the war itself. The primordial hu-man psyche to save their lives is the guiding spirit of Yossarin. But there is a stumbling block –“Great Loyalty Oath of Crusade – Catch-
22”. The hilarious and baleful de-scription of the war scenario and the vain attempt of almost loony characters are described in 453 pages. The apt succinct of the novel could be, “A wild, moving, shocking, hilarious, raging, ex-hilarating, giant, roller-coaster of a book” . This is written by famous literary critic Maurice Dolbier.
Joseph Seller’s narration gives an alternate literary experience. The story is not told in a lin-ear fashion and was expressed through the characters and their portent feeling.
The central theme itself is about the pandemonium associated with the circular logic. This is a novel gained “cult classic” status after
several years of publication. The best accolade for Joseph Seller could be the addition of a new phrase in dictionary “Catch-22”.
Whether you love or hate — we are not immune to Catch-22. — Reviewed by Sajith Nair
CATCH-22Y O U R F A V O U R I T E B O O K
ARE YOU A PROLIFIC READER? Which is your favourite book? Pick one and send in your thoughts on it.
by Joseph Heller
Why do you love playing drums?I fi nd it interesting. Drums are a form of re-treat and being behind the kit is magical. I guess I should share my reasons too. I spent my school years hitting table tops with my fi ngers. There was just something pleasur-able in exploring diff erent sounds of one surface. I learnt guitar, keyboard, and bass guitar. But I realised that percussion makes me happier as I fi nd a special pleasure in exploring diff erent sounds. Above all, I was born into a musical family.
How did you get into it?A close friend of mine, who was involved in learning music since his school days, and I decided to form a band (Arabic music). That is how Mayasim Band was born in 1997.
Later I joined some other friends to form a Latin band called Majan Band (Lat-in music). I got more experience in dif-ferent styles of music after I joined many bands in Muscat.
How can I get into it?It should come naturally to you.
What’s your pro-tip?Perfect practice. Get into practice schedules with your bandmates as a run up to a tour. This isn’t as much learning the songs as it is conditioning your body and building up your muscle memory. Whether you’re a sloppy Black Flag style band or a machine of a band like Dream Theatre, you need to rebuild that chemistry. So when you hit the stage there’s nothing to worry about.
Contact info/resources for Learning Drumsin Muscat
Classic Music and Arts Institute +968 2448 9847
THE HOBBYIST
Akbar Al BalushiDrummer
Phot
ogra
phy:
Sup
plie
d
BEAT ITThe drums are a form of retreat and being behind the kit is magical
FIND-IT-ALLC10 W E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
CITY CINEMAContact (10 am to 6PM) 24567664 | 68 www.citycinemaoman.netfacebook.com/citycinemaoman
SHATTISpectre (Action | Thriller) (PG12) Cast: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz2:30, 9:15, 11:55 PMThe Hunger Games: Mockingjay-2 (3D) (Adventure | Sci-Fi) (PG12) Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson3:15, 6:00, 8:45, 11:30 PMThe Hunger Games: Mockingjay-2 (2D) (Adventure | Sci-Fi) (PG12) Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson4:15, 6:45 PMSecret in their Eyes (Mystery | Thriller) (12+) Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman2:15, 9:30, 11.45 PMA Perfect Day (Drama) (PG) Cast: Benicio Del Toro, Tim Robbins5:15 PMEyal Harifa (Comedy) PG127:30 PM
MUSCAT GRAND MALLThe Hunger Games: Mockingjay-2 : 3D (Adventure/Sci-Fi) PG12Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson1:00, 3:45, 8:45, 11:30 PMGold Class : 3:00, 8:30, 11:15 PMHatched: Chicks Gone Wild : 2D (Anima-tion/Fantasy) (PG)12:15PMSecret in their Eyes : 2D (Thriller) (12+)Cast : Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts1:45, 6:30 & 11:45PMA Perfect Day : 2D (Drama) (PG)Cast : Benicio Del Toro, Tim Robbins6:45PMSpectre : 2D (Action/Thriller) PG12Cast : Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz
4:00 & 9:00PMGold Class : 5:45PM
PANORAMA MALLHunger Games: Mockingjay part 2 (3D) Cast : Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson2:00, 5:15, 8:30, 11:45 pm (Action) (PG12)Hunger Games: Mockingjay part 2 – (Ac-tion) (PG12) VIP LOUNGE 3:00, 8:15, 11:00 pmHunger Games: Mockingjay part 2 (Action, Adventure)(4D)(PG12)Cast : Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth2:00, 5:15, 8:30, 11:45 pmSpectre (Action, Adventure) (PG12)8:45, 11:30 pmSpectre (Action, Adventure)(PG12) VIP LOUNGE: 5:30 pmPrem Ratan Dhan Payo (Hindi, Family)(PG)5:15, 8:30 pmSecret In Their Eyes (Mystery, Thriller)(2D)(12+)Cast : Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts
2:30, 11:45 pmA Perfect Day (Drama)(2D)(PG)Cast : Benicio Del Toro, Tim Robbins, Olga Kurylenko4:45 pmEyal Harifa (Arabic, Comedy)(2D)(PG12)6:45 pm
AZAIBA Spectra – 2D (PG12) Action, ThrillerCast: Daniel Craig, Ralph Fiennes4:00, 11:30 PMVedalam – 2D (PG) Action, MasalaCast: Ajith Kumar, Shruti Hasan3:00, 8:30 PMPrem Ratan Dhan Payo – 2D (PG) FamilyCast: Salman Khan, Sonam Kapoor2:00, 5:05, 8:15, 10:00, 11:30 PMHatched: Chicks Gone Wild – 2D (PG) Animation, Fantasy2:30 PMThe Hunger Game : Mocking Jay Part 2 – 3D (PG12) Adventure, Sci-Fi Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson2:15, 4:45, 6:45, 9:15, 11:45 PM
Amar Akbar Anthony - 2D (12+) Comedy Cast – Prithviraj Sukumaran, Namitha 5:45, 7:15 PM
RUWIScreen 1Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (Family) – PGCast : Salman Khan, Sonam Kapoor3.30, 6.45, 10.00 PMScreen 2The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 – 2D (Action/Sci Fic) – PG12Cast : Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson3.45, 6.45, 9.45 PMScreen 3Amar Akbar Anthony- Malayalam – PG12Cast : Prithiviraj, Jaya Surya3.45, 6.45 PMSpectre (Action) – PG12Cast : Daniel Craig, Ralph Fiennes9.45 PM
SURThe Hunger Game - Mockingjay 2 3D (Action | Adventure | Sci Fi ) (PG12)
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson4:30, 7:30, 9:00, 11:30 PMTiger House (Action ) (12+)Cast: Kaya Scodelario, Gougray Scott7:00, 10:00 PMPrem Ratan Dhan Payo (Family) (PG) Cast: Salman Khan, Sonam Kapoor4:30 PMAmar Akbar Anthony( Malayalam) (12+)Cast: Prithviraj Sukumaram, Jayasurya11:30 PM
SOHAR
Spectre - 2D (PG12) Action |ThrillerCast : Daniel Craig, Ralph Fiennes3:00, 6:15 PMPrem Ratan Dhan Payo - 2D (PG) FamilyCast : Salman Khan, Sonam Kapoor2:30, 8:15, 10:30 PMThe Hunger Game : Mocking Jay Part 2 - 3D (PG12) Adventure, Sci-FiCast : Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson3:15, 6:00, 8:45, 11:30 PMThe Hunger Game : Mocking Jay Part 2 - 2D (PG12) Adventure, Sci-FiCast : Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson 7:50 PMSecret in Their Eyes - 2D (12+) Mystery Cast : Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman 2:30, 5:45, 11:45 PMTiger House - 2D (12+) Action |DramaCast : Kaya Scodelario, Dougray Scott4:40, 11:30 PMA Perfect Day - 2D (PG) DramaCast : Benicio Del Toro, Tim Robbins5:45 PMAmar Akbar Anthony - 2D (M) (12+) ThrillerCast : Prithviraj Sukumaran, Namitha 9:00 PM
BURAIMI
The Hunger Game: Mocking Jay– 3D (Adventure, Sci-Fi) (PG12)Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson 4:45, 6:15, 9:00, 11:30PMTiger House – 2D (Action, Crime) (12+)Cast: Kaya Scodelario, Dougray Scott, Ed Skrein7:30, 11:15PMSecret in Their Eyes – 2D (Mystery,
Thriller) (12+)Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts4:15, 9:30, 11:45PMPrem Ratan Dhan Payo– 2D (Family) (PG)Cast: Salman Khan, Sonam Kapoor, Neil Nitin Mukesh4:00, 8:45PMAmar Akbar Anthony– 2D (Comedy, Thriller) (12+)Cast: Prithviraj Sukumaran, Namitha, Jayasurya, Indrajith7:00PM
SALALAH
The Hunger Game : Mocking Jay Part 2
(3D) (PG12) (Adventure, Sci-Fi)
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson,
Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson
10:45AM, 6:30, 9:00, 11:35PM
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay- Part 2
(2D) (PG12) (Adventure/Sc-Fi)
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson 3:30PM
Spectre (2D) (PG12) (Action /Thriller)
Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Ralph Fiennes
12:30, 3:10PM
Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (2D) (PG) (Family)
Cast: Salman Khan, Sonam Kapoor
11:00AM, 8:00, 11:15PM
A Perfect Day (2D) (PG) (Drama)
Cast: Benicio Del Toro, Tim Robbins
1:35, 6:00PMSecret in Their Eyes (2D) (12+) (Thriller) Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman10:30AM, 2:15, 11:55PMEyal Harifa (2D) (PG12) (Arabic)(Comedy) 7:15PMAmar Akbar Anthony (2D) (12+) (Mal) Cast: Prithviraj Sukumaran, Namitha 9:15PM ( Comedy/ Thriller) Vedalam (2D) (PG) (Tamil) (Action | Masala) Cast: Ajith Kumar, Shruti Hasan, Laxmi Menon4:25PM
CINEMA SCHEDULE CHILDREN BELOW THE AGE OF 3 YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED IN THE CINEMA | BOX-OFFICE COUNTER OPENS 30-MINUTES PRIOR TO THE SCREENING OF THE FIRST SHOW
ROYAL OMAN POLICE
Emergencies and inquiries: 9999
General Directorate of
Passport and Residence 24569603
Directorate General
of Customs 24521109
Traffic violations inquiries 24510228
Public Relations Admin 24560099
EMBASSIES IN OMAN
Afghanistan 24698 791/4
Algeria 24605 593
Bahrain 24 605 074/133
Bangladesh 24 698 660
Brazil 24640100
Brunei 24 603533
China 24 696782
Cyprus 24 699815
Egypt 24 600 982/411
France 24681 800
Germany 24835000
India 24684500
Indonesia 2469 1050
Iran 24 696 944/7
Iraq 24603642
Italy 24693727
Japan 24 601 028
Jordan 24692760/1/3
Kazakhstan 24 692418
Kenya 24 697664
South Korea 24 691490
Kuwait 24 699628
Lebanon 24 693208
Libya 24603466
Malaysia 24698329/643
Morocco 24696152/3
Nepal 24696177
Netherlands 24603706
Pakistan 24603439
Palestine 24601312
Philippines 24605335
Qatar 24 691 153/2/4
Russia 24602894
Saudi Arabia 24601705
Senegal 24694139
Somalia 24697977
South Africa 24647300
Spain 24691101
Sri Lanka 24697841/2
Sudan 24697875
Switzerland 24603267
Syria 24697904
Tanzania 24601 174
Thailand 24 602684/5
Tunisia 24603486
Turkey 24697050/1/2
UAE 24400000
United Kingdom 24609000
United States 24643400
Yemen 24600815
PHARMACIES
Round the clock
Al Hashar Pharmacy, Ruwi 24783334
Apollo Medical Centre,
Hamriya 24782666
Muscat Pharmacy, Ruwi 24702542
Salalah 23291635;
Atlas Pharmacy, Ghubra 24503585
Muscat Region
Apollo, Al Hamriya 24787766
Muscat, A Seeb Market 24421691
Muscat, Al Khuwair 24485740
Muscat, Al Hail South 24537080
Dhofar Region
Muscat, Al Nahdha Road,
Salalah 23291635
HOSPITALS
Al Amal Medical & Health Care
Centre 24485052
Atlas Hospital
Ruwi 24811743/
Ghubra 24504000
Al Musafir Specialised
Medical Clinic 24706453
Hatat Polyclinic LLC,
Ruwi 24563641
Azaiba 24499269
Sohar 2683006
Al Raffah Hospital 24618900/1/2
Al Massaraat Clinic &
Laboratory 24566435
Al Makook Medical
Coordinance Centre 24499434
Apollo Medical Centre,
Hamriya 24787766, 24787780
Capital Polyclinic 24707549
Badr Al Samaa Polyclinic,
Ruwi 24799760/1/2
Capital Clinic, Seeb 24420740
Ceregem National Raak 24485633
Dr Harub’s Clinic 24563217
Elixir Health Centre 24565802
Emirates Medical Centre 24604540
1st Chiropractic Centre 24472274
Lifeline Hospital Salalah 23212340
International Medical
Centre LLC 24794501/2/3/4/5
Kims Oman Hospital 24760100
24 Hrs Emergency 24760123
Lama Polyclinic, Sohar 26751128
MBD 24799077
Al Khuwair 24478818
Magrabi Eye and
Ear Hospital 24568870
Muscat Private Hospital 24583600
Welcare Diagnostic and Treatment
Centre, Al Khuwair 24477666
Al-Hayat Polyclinc LLC 22004000
AIRLINE OFFICES
Muscat Airport Flight information
(24 hours) 24519456/24519223
Aeroflot 24704455
Air Arabia 24700828
Air France 24562153
Air India 24799801
Air New Zealand 24700732
Biman Bangladesh Airlines 24701128
British Airways 24568777
Cathay Pacific 24789818
Egypt Air 24794113
Emirates Air 24404400
Ethiopian Airlines 24660313
Gulf Air 80072424
Indian 24791914
Iran Air 24787423
Japan Airlines 24704455
Jazeera Airways 23294848
Jet Airways 24787248
Kenya Airways 24660300
KML Royal Dutch Airlines 24566737
Kuwait Airways 24701262
LOT Polish Airlines 24796387
Lufthansa 24796692
Malaysian Airlines 24560796
Middle East Airlines 24796680
Oman Air 24531111
Pakistan International
Airlines 24792471
Qatar Airways 24771900
Qantas 24559941
Royal Jordanian 24796693
Saudi Arabian Airlines 24789485
Singapore Airlines 24791233
Shaheen Air 24816565
SriLankan Airlines 24784545
Swiss International
Airlines 24796692
Thai Airways 24705934
LISTINGS
LONG DISTANCE BUS TIMINGS (OMAN NATIONAL TRANSPORT COMPANY SAOC) *SUBJECT TO CHANGE
FROM MUSCAT (RUWI)
Dept Destination Arrival Operatingtime time days
QURIYAT - SUR - JAALAN (ROUTE 36)
15:00 Quriyat 16:30 Daily
15:00 Sur 18:00 Daily
15:00 Jaalan 19:30 Daily
TO AL BURAIMI (ROUTE 41)
06:30 Sohar 08:50 Daily
06:30 Buraimi 11:00 Daily
08:00 Buraimi 14:30 Daily via Ibri
13:00 Sohar 15:45 Daily
13:00 Buraimi 17:40 Daily
16.00 Sohar 18.35 Daily
16.00 Buraimi 20:20 Daily
TO SINAW (ROUTE 52)
17:30 Sinaw 20:50 Daily
TO YANQUL (ROUTE 54)
14:30 Nizwa 16:50 Daily
14:30 Yanqul 19:30 Daily
TO IBRI (ARAQI) (ROUTE 54)
08:00 Nizwa 10:20 Daily
08:00 Al Araqi 12:30 Daily
TO SUR (ROUTE 55)
07:30 Sur 12:00 Daily
14:30 Sur 18:45 Daily
TO FAHUD - YIBAL (ROUTE 62)
06:30 Fahud 10:30 Daily
06:30 Yibal 11:15 Daily
TO MARMUL-SALALAH (ROUTE 100)
07:00 Salalah 20:00 Daily
10:00 Marmul 20:30 Daily
10:00 Salalah 23:30 Daily
19:00 Salalah 07:40 Daily
TO MARMUL (ROUTE 101)
06:00 Marmul 16:50 Daily
SALALAH TO DUBAI (ROUTE 102)
15:00 Dubai 07:00 Daily
TO DUBAI (ROUTE 201)
06:00 Sohar 08:30 Daily
06:00 Dubai 11:30 Daily
13:00 Sohar 15:30 Wed,Thur
13:00 Dubai 18:30 Wed,Thur
15:00 Sohar 17:35 Daily
15:00 Dubai 20:55 Daily
TO DUBAI VIA FUJIRAH & SHARJAH (ROUTE 204)
07:00 Fujairah 11.45 Daily
07:00 Sharjah 13.30 Daily
07:00 Dubai 14.00 Daily
TO MUSCAT (RUWI)
Dept Destination Arrival Operatingtime time days
FROM JAALAN-SUR-QURIYAT (ROUTE 36)
05:30 Sur 06:45 Daily
05:30 Quriyat 08:30 Daily
05:30 Ruwi 10:00 Daily
TO AL BURAIMI (ROUTE 41)
07:00 Sohar 08:55 Daily
07:00 Ruwi 11:40 Daily
13:30 Ruwi 20:20 Daily via Ibri
13:00 Sohar 14:55 Daily
13:00 Ruwi 17:40 Daily
13:00 Sohar 19:20 Daily
17:00 Ruwi 22:15 Daily
TO SINAW (ROUTE 52)
07:00 Ruwi 10:25 Daily
TO YANQUL (ROUTE 54)
06:00 Nizwa 08:40 Daily
06:00 Ruwi 11:00 Daily
TO IBRI (ARAQI) (ROUTE 54)
15:40 Nizwa 17:55 Daily
15:40 Ruwi 20:20 Daily
TO SUR (ROUTE 55)
06:00 Ruwi 10:45 Daily
14:30 Ruwi 19:00 Daily
TO YIBAL - FAHUD (ROUTE 62)
12:30 Fahud 13:15 Daily
12:30 Ruwi 17:30 Daily
TO SALALAH -MARMUL (ROUTE 100)
07:00 Ruwi 19:50 Daily
10:00 Marmul 13:15 Daily
10:00 Ruwi 22:30 Daily
19:00 Ruwi 07:30 Daily
TO MARMUL (ROUTE 101)
06:00 Marmul 16:30 Daily
DUBAI TO SALALAH (ROUTE 102)
15:00 Salalah 07:00 Daily
TO DUBAI (ROUTE 201)
07:30 Sohar 10:50 Daily
07:30 Ruwi 13:40 Daily
13:00 Sohar 16:15 Thur-Fri
13:00 Ruwi 19:10 Thur-Fri
15:30 Sohar 18:45 Daily
15:30 Ruwi 21:35 Daily
FROM DUBAI VIA FUJIRAH/SHARJAH (ROUTE 204)
16:00 Sharjah 16:30 Daily
16.00 Fujairah 18.15 Daily
16.00 Ruwi 23.00 Daily
@SHATTI @RUWI
Secret in their Eyes (Mystery | Thriller) (12+) Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole KidmanTiming: 2:15, 9:30, 11.45 PM
@PANORAMA MALL
Hunger Games : Mockingjay part 2 (Action, Adventure) (PG12) (4D)Cast : Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam HemsworthTimings : 2:00, 5:15, 8:30, 11:45 pm VIP Lounge: 3:00, 8:15, 11:00 pm
Amar Akbar Anthony- Malayalam (PG12)Cast : Prithiviraj, Jaya SuryaTiming: 3.45, 6.45 PM
Dhuhr 11.59pm
Asr 3.04pm
Maghrib 5.25pm
Isha 6.39pm Fajr (Tomorrow) 5.08am
PRAYER TIMINGS
BAHJA CINEMAFilm information 24540856 / Advance Booking 24540855Website: www.albahjacinemaoman.com
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (Adventure / Sci-Fi) Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth2.00, 4.30, 7.00, 9.30 & 11.55 pm CP No: 3015 (PG12)Tiger House (Action / Crime / Drama) Cast: Kaya Scodelario, Dougray Scott, Ed Skrein12.30, 10.00 & 11.55 pm CP No: 3016 (12+)Spectre (Action / Adventure / Thriller)Cast: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Ralph Fiennes2.30 p.m. CP No: 2965 (PG12)Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (Hindi / Drama)Cast: Salman Khan, Sonam Kapoor, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Anupam Kher7.00 pm CP No: 2996 (PG)A Perfect Day (Drama) Cast: Benicio Del Toro, Tim Robbins, Olga Kurylenko12.30 & 5.00 pm CP No : 3017 (PG)
STAR CINEMAFilm information 24791641 / 24786776Website: www.isurf.co.om
Amar Akbar Anthony (Mal) (Act/Drama) Cast: Prithviraj, Jaya Surya, Indrajith & Namitha 3-30, 6-30 & 9-30 Pm Cinema Main Vedalam (Tamil) Act Cast: Ajith, Shruthi Hassan & Lakshmi Menon 3-30, 6-30 & 9-30 Pm Cinema – 2 Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (Hindi ) (Act) Cast : Salman Khan,Sonam Kapoo6-45 & 9-45 Pm Cinema- 4 Akhil (Telugu) (Rom/Act)Cast : Akhil Akkineni & Sayesha Saigal 3-45 Pm At Cinema - 4 Thoonga Vanam (Tamil) Thriller Cast : Kamal Hassan & Trisha 3-45, 6-45 & 9-45 pm At Cinema-3Next Change: Anarkali (Mal); Inji Iduppazhagi (Tamil); Size Zero (Telugu) Programmes are subject to change
WEATHER
290
Maximum
220
Minimum
TEMPERATURE
55-80%RELATIVE HUMIDITY
Send us a colour photograph of the child (below 17 years) whose birthday you are celebrating, along with his/her full name, date of birth, address, telephone number and
parents’/your name to Times of Oman, With Love, PO Box 770, PC 112, Ruwi or through e-mail to
INSIA IBRAHIM November 25, 2013
AYERA SAGAR November 25, 2013
KARTHIKA VINOD November 25, 2008
WITH LOVE
DUBAI: Emirates has released its newest range of toys, the Fly with Me Animals for infants and tod-dlers and specially designed Fly with Me Lonely Planet activity bags for those aged between six and 12 years old. The new toys are now available on board, ahead of the up-coming holiday season.
Emirates’ Fly with Me Animals is a new take on its signature kid’s products, replacing the popular Fly with Me Monsters. The toys are designed for infants and children up to eight years old and are meant to be both entertaining and educa-tional. Each character represents a specifi c region and will help chil-
dren learn more about its habitat.The fi rst four animals to make
their debut on board are: Lewis the Lion from Africa, Peek U the Panda from China, Enrico the Monkey from Latin America, and Leila the Camel from the Middle East. Four new Fly with Me Animals will be introduced every six months.
The animals will be featured across three product lines: the Travel Buddy, which comes with a plastic toggle allowing the toy to be hung in the car, on a pram or in the cot; the Carry Buddy, a dual pur-pose toy and blanket; as well as the Magnetic Sketcher for young ones to express themselves creatively.
The Fly With Me magazine on board has also been revamped to feature the animals. The activity-fi lled publication is produced ex-clusively for Emirates’ young fl yers.
“Over 4 million children travel with us each year, which makes young travellers among our most important customers. We know how challenging it can be for parents to keep their children occupied and happy on fl ights. We’ve ensured that every aspect of the travel experience is catered for, from toys and kids’ entertainment to special meals on board, and even family check-in ar-eas. We are committed to ensuring a smooth travel experience for fami-
lies,” said Adel Al Redha, Emirates’ Executive Vice-President and Chief Operations Offi cer. In addition to the Fly with Me Animals, Emirates has partnered with Lonely Planet to create activity bags containing travel content tailored for children. The Fly with Me Lonely Planet products come in four variations – two specially designed Kid’s Ret-ro-Style Rucksacks, and two Kid’s Cool Bags. These products will be refreshed every 12 months.
Each bag features diff erent con-tent to encourage a sense of ad-venture in young travellers. These include fold-out world maps, travel journals, plastic drink bottles, cards with world facts and various educa-tional books exclusive to Emirates.
Families can look forward to even more enhancements by the end of the year. This includes a new range of kid’s greeting cards to cel-ebrate special occasions on board, and refreshed photo cards for cabin crew to capture special moments with an instant Polaroid camera.
Meal times on board have also been given extra attention. The spe-cial meals off ered to children aged between two and 12 years old will be served on newly designed meal trays featuring the iconic Emirates cabin crew and pilots.
Children travelling on Emir-ates will be kept occupied with its award-winning infl ight entertain-ment system, ice Digital Wides-creen, which features over 25 dedi-cated kids TV channels and over 40 classic Disney movies.
LIFESTYLEC11W E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
Shadow Play
Have you been able to capture the beauty of an
off -the-beaten-path destination in Oman? Send
your pictures with a caption & geo-locator to:
Location: 23°17’43.5”N 57°27’55.6”E
I N T H E N E W S
Emirates Launches New Toys for Young Travellers
LIFESTYLEC12 W E D N E S DAY, N OV E M B E R 2 5, 2 0 1 5
DANGEROUS ROADSImagine driving down a scenic road in some exotic,
far-fl ung locale when the railing disappears around
the bend, the road narrows to practically a trail,
and thousands of feet below — if you squint —
you can see the skeletal remains of cars long lost.
Sometimes the road that is less travelled is for a
reason — they might take your life.
The World’s Most
05 ATLANTIC ROADNORWAYConsidered one of the most scenic road trips in Europe, the Atlantic Road has its dark moments. The fi ve-mile highway links islands between Kristansund and Molde, boasts eight bridges, and has an infamous stretch along the ocean that gets battered by massive waves and fi erce winds during storms. Conditions get crazy enough that you’ll wish you stayed in Oslo.
03 JAMES DALTON HIGHWAYALASKAIf we’ve learned anything from Ice Road Truckers on the History Channel, it’s that the roads in Alaska suck. And the most infamous sucky road is the James Dalton Highway, a 414-mile passage between the Arctic Sea oil fi elds and civilisation. Winter is unfortunately peak season for drivers, and high winds and icy conditions turn the road into a slip’n’ slide for truckers.
07 VITIM RIVER BRIDGESIBERIAYou’d think Vitim River Bridge would be called “Victim River Bridge,” considering its reputation as one of the scariest roads in the world. But lucky enough, there have been no reported fatalities on the road. Which seems strange until you realise just how few people dare to drive here. The answer is ... not many. The super-old structure is barely wide enough for a standard car and there are no railings — just iced over decaying wood (it is Siberia, after all) that could collapse at any moment.
06 FEDERAL HIGHWAY 1MEXICOThis road is straight up loco. Spanning 1,000 miles along the Baja Peninsula, and heavily used by freight trucks transporting goods to remote towns and villages, the road snakes through the mountains and along cliff s. It’s a heart stopper on its own, but what’s even scarier: drivers don’t need to pass a driving test in six Mexican states, meaning you could possibly be sharing that road with texting-addicted amateurs.
04 GUOLIANG TUNNEL ROADCHINAThe literal English translation for the mile-long Guoliang Tunnel Road is “road that tolerates no mistakes”. Built by 13 local villagers in the Taihang Mountains (many of whom died during construction), the chiselled mountain tunnel measures only 15ft high by 12ft wide, but provides us with unbelievable views of the Chinese landscape through 30 “windows” that were cut out of the cliff . Not only is it one of the steepest roads in the world, but it’s become one of the area’s top tourist attractions to be visited ... on foot.
01 OLD YUNGAS ROADBOLIVIAWe’d rather hitchhike the Highway to hell than take our chances on Old Yungas Rd (aka: “The Death Road”), considered the most dangerous in the world. The 40-mile stretch linking La Paz to Coroico hugs cliff s that overlook a sprawling canyon and features so many sharp turns that you’d think drivers would putter along at 10mph rather than take a chance. They don’t. More than 200 people a year fall to their death in trucks, cars, and public buses.
02 KARNALI HIGHWAYNEPALJust like Old Yungas Road, the 155-mile Karnali Highway in the Himalayas of West Nepal is a death wish (approximately 50 people die there a year). The dirt road’s surface is so bad that even cyclists who fl ock there for the stunning views are often like, “maybe not today.” And as you can imagine, vehicles that attempt to drive the road tend to slide on patches of dirt and choke on steep climbs.
W W W.T I M E S O F O M A N . C O MSECTION
CONNECT H E D A I LY G U I D E
D
D4 VACANCY CARGO D8
W E D N E S D AY, N O V E M B E R 2 5 , 2 0 1 5
RENT D2
FOR HIRE WITH OPERATORS1. Back Hoe Loaders (Shovels): 5 Nos2. 10 Tons Vibratory Roller Compactor: 1 No.3. 42 Mtrs. Concrete Pump Putzmeister: 1 No.4. 45 Cbm Tippers: 2 Nos5. 50 M height, 50 Boom tower cranes: 5 Nos.
Please contact – Mr. Ravi on 96529679Email – [email protected] / [email protected]
*Tourist visa arranged
Email: [email protected] classifi [email protected].: 24726666 Ext: 413 / 430 /431 / 456 / 461
FOR RENT
Room, kitchen & bath in north
Ghobrah include E/W & AC split
200/- R.O. Contact: 92811110
Excellent offi ce 5 rooms Al Khu-
wair O.A. Bank building 850/-R.O.
Contact: 94232344
4 BHK villa for rent Al Khuwair
650/- O.R Contact: 94232344
2 BHK Honda road Ruwi.
Contact: 99224748 /99332297
House for rent in AL Amerat oppo-
site offi ce Justice, 3rooms, Majlis
, 4 toilets, living room ,food hall &
kitchen. Contact: 99252494
D2 W E D N E S D AY, N O V E M B E R 2 5 , 2 0 1 5
DAILY GUIDE
5 BHK villa at Mabela 7 for Rent.
Contact: 99428221/ 99269912
A Bedroom along with separate
bathroom available for rent for an
Executive Bachelor in Al Khuwair
(near Zawawi Mosque). Contact
92138451
Flats in Qurum, Al Wallaj, 3 rooms,
Majlis, dining room, kitchen,
3 bathrooms. Contact: 98044421
2 BHK with spilt A/C in W.K behind
Sana fashion. Contact: 96708000
1 BHK with split A/C in Darsait
opposite Muscat Municipality.
Contact: 96708000
2 BHK with spilt /AC in MSQ oppo-
site AL Fair. Contact: 96708000
Indian school Darsait (ISD), 2BHK
Spacious fl ats, ground fl oor air
conditioners provided , OMR 350/-
including full maintenance . Ideal
for south Indian families.
Contact: 99076557
Urgent apartment for rent: First
Floor, Purpose built one bedroom,
bath, Kitchen with balcony and a
drawing & dinning. 2 Minutes walk
from Indian School Muscat.
Contact - 99346265
Beautiful villa directly on beach in
best location in Shatti Qurum 1800
OMR. Contact: 95887572
Flat available for rent 2 bedrooms
hall, 2 toilets, 1 kitchen & balcony
with proper sun light & ventila-
tor location or Mabela north very
close to Indian school AL Seeb rent
R.O 230/-. Contact: 99432496
Luxurious 2 BHK fl at with 3 toilets ,
store , equipped kitchen & split A.C s
at Mumtaz area with free
GYM & party, hall rent 410 R.O.
Contact: 92622506
1.2 BHK M.B.D. Contact: 92144045
1BHK Darsait I.S.D school R.O 225/-
Contact: 92144045
Furnished rooms attached bath for
Indian bachelor Al Falaj area - Ruwi
& for lady in Wadi Kabir near Mars
Hypermarket -
Contact 96202458/96761960
1BHK new bldg with A/C curtains
near Khimji mart MBD. Contact:
99061408 /99024039
Furnished offi ce, accommodation
available Walja.
Contact: 96246625
2.3 BHK Ghobrah R.O 350/- / 400/-.
Contact: 92144045
Villa at Al.Khuwair having six
bedrooms, six bathrooms, sitting,
dinning, hall, kitchen Etc.
Contact - 24833972/ 24833974/
99367448
1BHK Mumtaz R.O 250/-.
Contact: 92144045
1.2.3 BHK fl ats 8 villas.
Contact: 97799175
5B/R villa in Mumtaz area and 4
B/R villas in Mawalah next to the
wave for rent. Contact: 97296105
Flats for rent near Indian school in
Wadi Kabir. Contact 99777122
House in Al Khoud commercial dis-
trict, 4rooms, Majlis, 2 kitchens,
3 bathrooms. Contact: 98044421
1BHK fl at near Star Cinema 220/-.
Contact 99358589 /95570288
Shops in AL Amerat industrial area
near shell station.Contact: 98044421
Deluxe , spacious & air conditioned
two bedroom fl ats with good qual-
ity fi nishes , wardrobes & secured
basement parking are available for
rent in Azaiba north , close to 18th
November street. Contact: 93888666
/24493666/99228454
Villa for rent in Wadi Kabir.
Contact: 95562646
NEW FLAT FOR RENT1/2 BHK Flat at Mutt rah, near Oman fl our mills, 10 min. from corniche.
equipped with split unit ACs, internet points, free-to-air dish connecti on, CCTV
monitored, basement parking. Rent RO.250/350 (Negoti able) per month.
Contact : 99229263; 93221054; 95215289
FOR RENTSPACIOUS – 2 BHK,
3 bathrooms Flatwith Split AC at Muttrah
Prime LocationContact : 93202733
Spacious 2 BHK fl at on Penthouse
behind Sultan Center, Azaiba –
RO.425/- p.m.
Contact: 99849325/99824803
One / two, B/R RES / Comm. direct-
ly from own ER near medical college
Bausher. Contact: 92158031
2 BHK in Al Meera MKT building in
Al Khuwair available. Rent RO420.
Contact 94047434
Sohar: 3BHK AND 4BHK FLATS, R.O 200 and R.O 215 respectively.
(New Building with CCTV camera
with Split A/C). Contact: 99881426 /
92123699
DAILY GUIDEW E D N E S D AY, N O V E M B E R 2 5 , 2 0 1 5 D3
FOR SALE
Running furniture showroom for urgent sale.
Ladies beauty parlor sale at Mutt rah.
Contact - 91135930
Flats and Houses for rent in Wadi
Kabir and Sidab best price.
Contact: 95555162/95755953
Flat for rent in Amerat two bed-
room, one hall. Contact: 91141097
2 Bedroom centrally air con-
ditioned fl at in CBD, Central
bank area. Contact: 24714625/
94460790
2 Bedrooms fl at with hall, 2
bathrooms in Darsait near Muscat
Municipality. Contact: 92584715
/24700120
1000 SQ mtrs industrial land for
rent in Ghala suitable for ware
house workshop etc. Contact:
24700120 /92584715
Spacious separate room with A/c
and Bed, for non-cooking Asian
bachelor, behind Shell fi lling
station, Ghobrah round about.
Contact: 94263390
2 B/R Apartment Executive Fully
Furnished @ Al Khuwair 33
1 B/R Apartment Executive Fully
Furnished @ Al Khuwair 33
1 B/R Flat - Fully Furnished @
Salalah Near New Lulu.
2 B/R Flat - Fully Furnished
American standard @ Salalah.
5 B/R Villa - Fully Furnished @
Madinat Al Ilam
5 B/R Villa - Unfurnished @
Madinat Al Ilam
5 B/R Villa - Unfurnished @
Al Mawalah North Brand New
Please Contact: Atlas Real Estate
& Rent A Car LLC. 24834888,
99249069 / 92888376 92888374
Email: [email protected]
For Rent Flats in Darsait -
94051789-97201688
For Rent Flats in Ghala Heights -
94051789-97201688
For Rent Flats in Wadi Kabir -
94051789-97201688
For Rent Fully Furnished
apartments in Boucher (35) -
94051789-97201688
For Rent fl ats in Muttrah-
Contact – 94051789-97201688 CONTD ON PG 7
New Building in Muttrah, 2 B/D
Room Flat + Setting Room, 3 Baths+
Kitchen with split unit Ac’s. Behind
Khimjis main offi ce/opposite to
Oman House Call 99419712
Deluxe beach front villa at AL
Hail North with 5 bedrooms and
staff quarter having excellent
fi nishes is available for immediate
occupation. Contact: 93888666/
244493666/99228454
2BHK near Oman house behind
Khimji, H.O. Contact: 95865686
Air conditioned two bedroom fl ats
centrally located at AL Khuwair
are available for rent.
Contact: 93888666/24493666
/99228454
New warehouse for rent at Ghala
Ind. Area. 800 & 2500 approx sqms
near Hotel Al-Madinah Holiday Gha-
la. Container can enter. Immediate
access to roads & highways.
Contact : 94583320
Three bedroom fully furnished
apartment in UAE Cornish area.
Contact: 99326318
1BHK fl at Darsait near
MCT Municipality 220/-.
Contact: 99342661
2 & 3 BHK Al Khuwair.
Contact: 99024730
3 Bedroom fl at at Al Khuwair.
Contact: 99447257/97014234
Flat for Rent 1/2 BHK Flat at Mut-
trah, near Oman fl our mills, 10 min.
from Corniche.Equipped with split
unit ACs, internet points, free-to-air
dish connection, CCTV monitored,
basement parking. Rent RO.250/350
per month. Contact: 99229263;
93221054; 95215289
Beauty Salon for urgent sale in
Azaiba prime location behind
Al Fardan building. With sponsor and
1 staff and 1 ready visa clearance.
Call: 95318629 / 95169411
Running dental clinic in Quriyat for
sale Contact: 96534564
Ladies saloon with 2 staff for sale in
Mawalah. Contact 94197589
Printing Press for sale at Musanah.
Contact – 99645150
Offi ces for Rent Gala-
Contact –94051789-97201688
For Rent Duplex villa in Qurum
29- 94051789-97201688
3BHK Qurum P.D.O light 350/-.
Contact: 99342661
For Rent Offi ces & Showrooms in
Al Khoud- 94051789-97201688
For Rent offi ces in Qurum op-
posite city center- 94051789-
97201688
New pent house 219 meters,
3 bedrooms Each own toilet , serv-
ant room with toilet laundry area ,
kitchen with store elevator avail-
able AL Khuwair 39 rent R.O 575/-
family only. Contact: 99207840
For Rent Mini Furnished Apart-
ment in Qurum- 94051789-
97201688
For Rent Flats in Mawalah
south-94051789-97201688
For Rent brand new villas in
Al Ansab- 94051789-97201688
For Rent Offi ces & Showrooms in
Muttrah -94051789-97201688
Single BHK fl at available in Honda
road Ruwi. Contact - 24833972/
24833974/99367448
RESTAURANT/ CAFÉ FOR SALE
An established and functi oning restaurant/ café
available for sale in prime locati on at Qurum.
Well –furnished and equipped
for instant launch. Please contact:
95126949
SERVICES REQUIRED IN OMAN
We are looking for a suitable sub-contractor to carry out installation and supervision of
GRP Sectional Water tanks. Interested parties may contact by e-mail :
[email protected] or call 99104461
FOR SALE2013 Model Mitsubishi Diesel tanker in good condition is to be sold on the maximum off er.Mileage :- 28,000 kmContact -Mr. Mohan 93214717/93214707
GENERAL ELECTRONICS SERVICES LLC
CONTACT: 99627299 / 93327841
BRING HOME - LIVE MUSIC & CINEMA
HOME THEATER&
KARAOKE
New villa at Mawalah south 5 bed
room, family hall, Majlis, bath.
Contact: 99332367
2BHK Wadi Kabir near Kuwaiti
mosque. Contact: 97007934/
92629232
2 BHK Flats for rent Mut-
trah near Oman house. Contact:
97007934/92629232
6 shops in South Mawalah
Contact: 96420432
Studio in souk Al Khoud behind
of Al Ahali bank with 2 BR toilet+
kitchen in 2 fl oor 160RO.
Contact 99738881
Flats and shops for rent in Ruwi
Honda road Mumtaz area. Contact:
97293708 /92433127
New fl ats for rent Darsait Al Sahel.
Contact: 99311525 / 92533356
Villa with 5 rooms, two sitting
rooms, 5 toilets and kitchen at
Al Hail North. Contact: 91130875
Flat for rent at Wadi Al Kabir next
Al Hassan.co, 2 bedroom, 3 WS,
1 sitting room. Contact: 99210008
600 SQT commercial fl at for rent
opposite Oman fl ourmill Darsait
more details. Contact: 91214849/
99364735
FOR RENT
D/C Pick-Ups, 3 Ton Trucks, Cars, Buses, Stati on Wagons, Prime Movers, Hiabs, Swg. Tankers,
Diesel Tankers, Water Tankers, Skip Trucks, Trailers, Dozer, Sideboom, Excavators, Shovels,
Rollers, Graders, JCB for sale on “as is where is basis”
USED & SCRAP VEHICLES & EQUIPMENT FOR SALE
Interested parti es may please contactbetween 9 AM to 4 PM from Saturday to Thursday on
99235977 / 92880784
AVAILABLEFOR RENT
100 Sq Mts Showroom On Ground Floor at Darvesh Building,
Near Royal Hospital.Contact Person
Mr. Mudassir : 99314330Mr. Sajeev : 98157340
Villa in Arjan complex near Seeb
stadium 4BHK, 1 living room,
1 majles, 1 extra room in ground
fl oor. Contact 93219597
Coff ee shop for rent Jifnain.
Contact: 93340597
2 BHK fl at available for rent in
Darsait. Contact: 99357586
FOR SALE, ACC.AVAIL
DAILY GUIDED4 W E D N E S D AY, N O V E M B E R 2 5 , 2 0 1 5
SITUATION WANTEDSITUATION VACANT
Email: [email protected] classifi [email protected].: 24726666 Ext: 413 / 430 /431 / 456 / 461Fax: 24812624
DOMESTIC HELP
CATERING
ADMIN
ENGINEER/TECH/MECH
ENGINEER/TECH/MECH
DRIVER
MEDICAL
MEDICAL
ACCOUNT. & FINANCE
ARCHITECTSALES / MARKETING
Wanted Nurse and Omani Re-ceptionist for a well established
dental centre in Mawalah South.
Contact – 93431024/ Email –
Wanted GP Doctor with MOH
license, job location in muscat
with good salary and benifi ts.
Drop ur cv at
Urgently required Philipina Nurse with MOH license at pro-
metric parsed. Contact: 99724013
Canary clinic MBBS Indian female doctor with 3 years experi-
ence MOH license if she has. Good
off er salary. Contact 94395199
Email: [email protected]
Wanted, Gynecologist, G.P, Pharmacist and Lab Technician for a polyclinic in North Bathina.
Contact: 95081010
Email: [email protected]
A reputed Wellness Center is
looking for MOH licensed or Pro-metric Passed Physiotherapist, Nurse and Occupational therapy. Please send your CV to :
Wanted female Gynecologist, female
Staff Nurse – 2 no., Dental Asst, female
Lab Tech from India or Filipino with
MOH license & data flow for Al Saadi
Specialized Medical Centre in Mussana.
Contact 92025033, [email protected]
WANTEDCivil Engineer (Building Construction)
2 Nos
Qualification: BE in Civil Engineering
Electro Mechanical Engineer (Building
Services)1 No.
Qualification: BE in Electrical or
Mechanical Engineering
Send detailed resume to
MISCELLANEOUS
MISCELLANEOUS
Sales man / Interior Designer want-
ed for prestigious interior design and
offi ce furniture Supply Company. Ex-
perience and drivers license needed
excellent remuneration package.
Email: [email protected]
Media Company needs sales male /female not required experience,
only to have good knowledge on
Muscat area, having driving license.
Having some knowledge on
designs) send CV to:
magicfi [email protected]
Wanted a experienced out door sales man for a screen printing fi rm
with valid Oman driving license and
graphics designer with Arabic &
English knowledge, P.B Box: 2635 PC:
112 Email: [email protected]
Required van Sales man cum delivery executive with 1-2 yrs exp
& valid GCC driving license.
Please post your resume to:
Looking for Executi ve Sales
and Sales Engineers with experience in
earthmoving equipments, cruchers, quarry & mining
industry. Email:
Urgently required for a reputed
company in Oman (Tyre, Battery
& Lubricant division) Sr. Execu-tives/Executive-5 nos (Sohar, Ni-
zwa & Muscat), Techno Commer-cial Professional-5nos, Driver (Omani)-1no. Required minimum
3-5 yrs experience in the same
fi eld with market exposure hold-
ing valid Omani driving license
or GCC. Kindly fwd your CV’s to
Contact: (+968)93891700
ENGLISH TEACHERSWANTED IMMEDIATELY
FOR VARIOUS LOCATIONSMUSCAT | IBRI | SOHAR | NIZWA
SALALAH | BARKA | BURAIMIKHABOURAH | KHASAB
92325542 | 93657915 | [email protected]
BEAUTY
Urgently wanted Lady Beautician
at Sur call after 10 am
Contact: 99771763.
Branded salon in Muscat requires a beautician with skills of: Mani-
cure, Pedicure, Nails techniques,
Massage, Facial and waxing.
Contact- 98500222
Full time living House maid required for an Indian female in
Al Ghobrah. Contact: 97084023
Urgently required a Kerala House maid for small family (2 members)
aged around 40-45 visa available.
Contact: 99324343
Small Omani family in Muscat
requires an educated House maid. Contact – 98500222
Required experienced part / full time house keeper for company
CEO. Contact: 98458542
Need excellent cook & housekeep-er. Contact Whatsapp: 95887572
We are looking for Chief Finan-cial Offi cer, Male 40- 45 years old,
Bachelor of Science in Account-
ancy with 5 - 15 yrs. of experience.
Contact: +968 24702133
Email: [email protected]
1. Service Administrator: A qualifi ed Electro/Automobile/Electric Diploma holder with minimum 2 years’ experience on deskjobs such as preparing
quotation, supplier correspondence, warranty claims etc. Age between 25 – 30.2. Accountant:
A qualifi ed B.Com/M.Com/C.A. Inter accountant with minimum 4 years’ experience in accounting with banking knowledge.
Age between 25-30.Attractive Salary and terms Off ered
VACANCY
Candidates with NOC or on visit visa can apply, please drop your CV at [email protected]
VACANCIES FOR HEAVY DUTY TRUCK DRIVERS
An excellent grade internati onal company is looking for Heavy Duty Truck Drivers
with valid Omani Driving Licence and NOC. Please send your CV with copy of valid Omani Driving
Licence and a copy of NOC.Fax number 24480417
Email: [email protected]
1. Electrical Engineer (B.tech with relevant experience in MEP works (Gulf experience preferred)2. Accounts Manager - (CA with minimum 5-10 years gulf experience)3. Purchase Manager (Degree with minimum 5-10 years gulf experience in constructi on fi eld. D/L preferred)4. Recepti onist (Omani Nati onal) (Knowledge in MS offi ce and good communicati on skill in English)5. HR Manager (5-10 years gulf experience in enti re HR functi ons and policies)6. Driver (Omani Nati onal) - Driver required for 3 ton pickup (Full ti me)
URGENTLY REQUIRED
Send detailed resume to [email protected]:99845439
SECT. /OFFICE
We are looking for Experienced Omani Receptionists and Omani PRO (Public Relation Offi cer) for
our organization Ayaan Health-
care centre. Contact – 93676708
Email: [email protected]
Chief Financial Offi cer (CFO)
Looking for dynamic and talented individuals to join our team in
Oman for the position of Chief Financial Offi cer.
with at least 5 years experience in the relevant fi eld for a group of
companies associated with Petroleum,please apply, with confi dence and
send your [email protected]
INSURANCE MARKETING EXECUTIVE
Well established Insurance Broking fi rm looking for Omani
Nati onals/Expats Insurance Sales Executi ve
having not less than 3-4 years’ experience in Oman and good
Insurance exposure in Oman Market.
Interested candidates, please send your cv to :
CIVIL ENGINEERDiploma
(8-10 years experience)Preferably in GCC &
having Omani driving license and knowledge in
estimation.Please send your CV’s to
A reputable law fi rm in Oman is seeking an
Account/Administrative Assistant
required:- Accounting experience required - Administrative experience required- Computer literate- Willing to learn
Please send your cv to [email protected]
Urgently required ACCOUNTANT
Minimum 2 years experience must be able to
handle accounts up to fi nalizati on.
Good knowledge of MS-Offi ce and accounti ng soft ware.
Email your Cv to : [email protected]
ASSISTANT RETAIL MANAGER
Use the email -recruitment@afl aggroup.com
• To support GM in developing Muscat based stores• 5 years past Retail store operations experience • Omani or Expatriate (must have NOC if moving jobs)• Full Time or Part Time (fl exible hours )• Omani Driving License • Team player & good communicator• Written & spoken English
REQUIRED A SUPERVISOR
For Travel Agency with minimum 5 years’ experience in the
Sales, marketi ng and Ticketi ng, with Oman Driving License,
Interested candidates can send their CV to:
Urgently Required One General Cook (Experience in Indian/
Chinese) for Hotel Apartment –
Tel: 99797170 /
Fax : 24490735
Email – [email protected]
Engineering consultancy offi ce looking for Architect with experi-
ence in Oman (portfolio needed)
[email protected] 96649374 -
99441122
Instrumentation & controls Technician with 2-3 years experi-
ence preferably in water sector
and having valid driving license
Send CV to [email protected] or
call Ph:+968 99450811
WASTE MANAGEMENT AND WATER TREATMENT
SPECIALIST Looking for dynamic and talented
individuals to join our team in Oman for the position of
“waste management and water treatment specialist”
with at least 5 years experience in the relevant fi eld.
And one in-house specialist [email protected]
VACANCIES FORHEAVY DUTY TRUCK
DRIVERSA excellent grade company is looking for heavy duty
truck driver with valid driving license (Oman/ Dubai)
Please send CV with copy of license.
Fax: 24817276 Mob: 93728515
Email: [email protected]
URGENTLY REQUIRE Expatriate
HEAVY DUTY DRIVER (Hiab / JCB)
With valid Omani Driving License for a reputed
Telecom/IT Company.
Contact 99068080/92697382
VACANCYOil Service Company is
looking for Finance Manager: HSE Manager &
HR Specialist With relevant experience in
oil industry.Contact:
URGENTLY REQUIRED FEMALE
(any nationality)
SERVER/ HOSTESSES & Marketing
for a reputed Hospitality Company.
Please apply within 2 days.
Email: [email protected]
GSM - 94203204
Urgently required Admin / Accountant with minimum
4 years experience with valid
Omani driving should be fl uent in
Ms Offi ce applications and tally.
Fax: 24564459
Email: [email protected]
Wanted heavy driver. Contact: 91770195
Urgently required one experi-enced house Driver to work in
capital area. Contact: 93888666/
24493666/ 99228454
Heavy duty driver with valid
driving license and experience.
Contact: 94107090 or 95398929
Email: alkharusi.international@
gmail.com
We require Omani driver with valid
visa, Cont: 92680323/91425640.
Wanted driver. Contact 91025698
Instrumentation & controls Technician with 2-3 years
experience preferably in water
sector and having valid driving
license Send CV to
call Ph:+968 99450811
Wanted Civil Engineer, with mini-
mum 4 years experience in Oman
supervising building construction.
Noc and D/L Must. Send CV to
HVAC Technician with GCC
experience in installation of spilt /
package ducted AC Units, ducting
design ETC. Contact: 93214193
Email CV:
Civil Engineer with minimum fi ve
years, PDO Experience, earth work
and building construction (PDO
driving license preferred.
Please send CV to
Contact: 99150203/91404425
Medical CARE Centre, Al Seeb,
requires General Practitioners and
Pharmacist, Please Mail CV-
or call 97884856.
Required General Physician, Gynecology, Lab Technician & Pharmacists. Contact: 95133572
Email: [email protected]
SITUATION VACANTSales & Marketing Executive
Qualification : Minimum Graduate
Job : Product marketing, product innovation, branding Target group – India, Pakistan & other nationals
Experience : 5 years in a Financial Institution /
Exchange Co. with Sales & Marketing
background
Language : Must be proficient in English. Hindi, Urdu &
Malayalam communication ability will be preferred.
Age : Not over 40 years
Salary : Attractive
No. of positions : 2(two)
Please send your CV by email:[email protected], [email protected]
SITUATION VACANTPosition Qualification Experience
Branch Manager Diploma 6 months
Network Administrator Diploma in 6 months
Computer
Internal Audit & Diploma 6 months
Compliance in Accounting
Public Relation Clerk Third Secondary
Positions for Omani nationals onlyAttractive Salary
Please send your CV by email : [email protected], [email protected]
MEP Engineer with minimum fi ve
years PDO / ministry experience.
Please send CV to
Contact: 99150203/91404425
SITUATION WANT-SIT. VACANT
SITUATION WANT-SIT. WANTED
DAILY GUIDEW E D N E S D AY, N O V E M B E R 2 5 , 2 0 1 5 D5
SITUATION WANTEDSITUATION WANTED
ACCOUNT. & FINANCE
ACCOUNT. & FINANCE
ARCHITECT
HOSPITALITY
DRIVER
DRIVER
ADMIN
ADMIN
ENGG. / TECH./MECH.
ENGG. / TECH./MECH.
CATERING
DESIGNER/DRAUGHTSMAN
Egyptian male B.S degree tourism
& hotels (10 years experience)
2 in Oman in hotels management
have Oman driving license
looking for suitable job.
Contact: 91695779
Email: [email protected]
Indian male/31yrs with hotel
management degree, 03 yrs ex-
perience in F&B services at 5 star
hotel Dubai & 05 yrs in American
6 star cruise liner as Butler. Has
Oman driving license.
Contact no 91135371
Dutch male qualifi ed commer-
cial pilot (Faa-ME-IR certifi ed) is
looking for job openings in middle
east. [email protected]
Indian male 24, B.Tech electri-
cal & electronics engineer and
P.G. Diploma in automation &
SCADA with 2 years experience
Kerala electricity board, looking
for suitable placement. Contact:
95340253 /92914336 Email:
Indian male 21, B.Tech, Mech
Engineering + quantity analyzer/
controller looking for suitable
placement. Contact: 92914336/
96585010
Email: [email protected]
Indian Male 23yrs Fresh Me-
chanical Engineer presently on a
visit visa looking for placements
in service/sales/purchase/project
engineer. Contact Ajith 91791724
Indian male B.Tech electrical
2 years experience seeking oppor-
tunities. Contact: 93570984
Indian 30 yrs B.E civil Engineer
8 year experience with Oman D/L
& NOC available.
Contact: 95962450 Email:
Indian male (Btech mechanical)
1 year, experience in planning
drawing, inspection, administra-
tion looking for suitable job.
Contact: 94112207
Email: [email protected]
B.E civil Engineer having 11 years
experience with NOC looking for
job. Contact: 95690780
Email: [email protected]
Mechanical Engineer graduated
from Caledonian college Oman
with NDT Level 2 ( ASNT ) and
solid works looking for suitable
placement currently on family
visit visa having valid Oman D/L.
Contact: 95990677
Email: [email protected]
Structural Draughtsman having
10 years experience in engineer
consultancies N.O.C available.
Contact: 00968 97612846
BE Electrical with 14 years experi-
ence in projects & maintenance
industry and power sector up to
132 KV, NOC & DL available.
Ph: 99015463 / +919447249212 ;
email: abhi_lash2@rediff mail.com
Sri Lankan Engineer (27 Years
old) – B.Sc Engineering (Hon)
Mining / Geotechnical Presently
in Muscat, 1.5 years experi-
ence.91295802 /
Indian Male, Mechanical Engineer
having 1year experience, on visit
visa looking for suitable job.
Contact: 97416564,
Email:[email protected]
Civil Site Engineer building and
roads 04 years experience.
Contact 92613467
Email: [email protected]
Indian male , 29 yrs electrical
design engineer , having 5 years
of gulf experience in oil & gas /
construction fi eld specialization
in load calculations cable sizing &
selection, earthing , transformer
selection etc having GCC valid li-
cense , looking for an suitable job.
Contact: 00968-98052942
Email: [email protected]
M.Tech Civil, certifi cate attested,
Indian, 18.8 year experience seeks
suitable position. Contact: 98327311
Email: [email protected]
25 Years experienced MEP pro-
fessional is available to associate
with nationals to set up & run mep
consultancy or contracting busi-
ness with full p/l responsibility,
full investment expected by the
national. contact – 97754141
Civil Engineer 11 years experience
in construction, having driving
license & NOC. Contact: 94194399
Email: [email protected]
Indian male B.Tech electrical
2 years experience seeks place-
ment. Contact: 93570984 Email:
Engineer Mechanical (BR) Indian
male, with NDT Level 2 (ASNT),
works, 2 years above experience
(as mechanical QC Engineer and
SME Engineer) seeking suitable
placement (on visit visa). Contact:
90249803 / 00919446048596
Email: [email protected]
Civil Engineer diploma holder 1
years experience site supervision
level 2, 2D, 3D Revit languages
English, Malayalam and Hindi
Tamil looking challenging career.
Contact: 98058242
Email: [email protected]
Experienced Light Duty Driver,
Fluent in English, Arabic Well
knowledge of Oman Areas Seeking
Suitable placement 97950869
Light driver, looking for job.
Contact: 98372745/99090362
Light driver. Contact: 95084826
Looking for Job driving.
Contact: 97418036
Driving with car, looking for job.
Contact: 97095200
Driver with new car looking for
job.contact: 95873286
Heavy duty driver (Exp 3years)
seeking suitable job.
Contact 91372623
Pakistan male light vehicle driver
8 yrs GCC exp looking for job.
Contact: 96393805
Light duty driver looking for job.
Contact: 98356230
Driver (light & heavy duty) valid
gulf /Indian) looking job.
Contact: 95175192
AutoCAD d/ man 7 years exp in
GRC gypsum marble.
Contact: 96967862
Creative Designer with 8+ years
experience in web, graphic, video
editing, outsourcing looking for a
suitable placement in a reputed
company. Contact 97276004
25 years male BA. English ,
Qualifi ed as mast in digital
animation having 5 yrs ex in
character animation special-
ized Auto Desk mago and motion
building software knowledge,
seeking suitable placement.
Contact: 97917357
Professional architect 3ds max
(interior, exterior) looking for pri-
vate work. Contact: 96041201
Architect (B. Arch) 5 years experi-
ence seeking job. Contact 96146645
Email: [email protected]
Indian male B.Tech IT 3 years
experience windows / Ulinux /
network administration on visit
visa. Contact: 93311963
Email: [email protected]
Experienced female D. Arch Engg
seeking job AutoCAD (2D, 3D), 3D
Max, and revit Photoshop.
Contact: 98907341
Email: [email protected]
Female seeking job in graphic de-
signing, admin, MS offi ce Photoshop,
CorelDraw, 3D Max.
Contact: 94536117
Email: [email protected]
Indian male B.Tech (E& C) MCSE,
CCNA having 1.5 years of
experience seeks job.
Contact 99257702 Email:
Indian male MC.A 2 years
experience in software knowledge
of Java ASP Net,
network in techno park Kerala.
Contact: 9920940
Male 31 Years, IT 6 year’s online
marketing experience in India
seeks suitable placement.
Contact-91175265
Net work Engineer with
experience degree in computer
science, CCNA, MCSA.
Contact: 92346191
Cooks (Arabic Indian) gulf exp
looking job. Contact: 99531802
EDUCATION
Egyptian woman resident has
considerable experience in the
administration and secretarial
executive for companies.
Contact: 97221126
Legal advisor (Egyptian)| experi-
ence in international arbitra-
tion, contracts and labor law
and administration looking for a
company. Contact: 99664890
Senior HR , professional MBA ,
12 yr GCC experience at manage-
rial recruitment, administration
, policy formulator working with
a leading construction co (4000
plus employees) looking for a im-
mediate change over , NOC avail-
able. Contact: 94017306
Email: [email protected]
Indian male - 25 years - MBA (
HR & marketing) with one year
experience on visit visa looking
preferably for suitable HR/ ADMIN
/ marketing jobs .contact : Mr.
Harish Ravindranathan / mail ID
90189964
25 years of experience in Account,
Sales, Marketing & Administration
in Poultry Industry, seeking suitable
placement immediately. Contact:
+91 9704075855/+968 96500893
Email: sanaullah.sheikh@rediff mail.
com
Indian female M.Tech electron-
ics IELTS 6.5 experience in VLSI
project training seeks placement
in education / training /
Admin fi eld in family visa now.
Contact: 90195131
Email: [email protected]
MBA (HR & marketing) & B.Com,
Indian male 28 yrs, 2 years exp
in Qatar having Oman driving
license, currently on family visa in
Salalah (NOC available.
Contact: 98138376 Email:
Indian male 24, B.E. Civil Eng’g
with 2 years experience as Struc-
tural Engineer looking for suitable
job in Muscat. 97355352
Indian male 27yrs, mechanical
engineer (energy engineering
M.Tech & HVAC diploma) with
4 yrs experience on visit visa,
seeking suitable placement.
Contact: 98791735
Email: [email protected]
Indian male 25 years diploma in
mechanical engineering having 2.5
years experience in piping fabrica-
tion, plumping and fi re fi ghting
knowledge in AutoCAD seeking
suitable placement.
Contact 92733482
Email: [email protected]
Indian Male, 23 years PG dip in
petroleum engineering & B.Tech in
mechanical engineering, holding
UAE driving license seeks suitable
placement immediately.
Contact: 95880127 / 95084905
Email: [email protected]
B.Sc in Civil Engineer 12 yrs exp
in Dubai and South Africa on
construction and infrastructure
having Dubai license currently on
visit looking suitable position.
Contact: 91206763
Email: [email protected]
B.Tech Safety Engineer, 10 years
exp, NOC available, seeking suit-
able placement, Mob: 97061817,
Email: jayanamuu1977@gmail.
com
Mechanical Engineer, 24 yrs
Indian male, 2yrs experience (L+T
Port) as maintenance Engineer
sear citing for a suitable job on
visit visa. Contact: +968 92685011
Email: srinathvijayanavs@gmail.
com
Indian Male 34yrs diploma (EEE)
available with 13 yrs experience in
electrical power plant on LV & HV,
and can work with electrical
drawings currently on visit visa.
Contact: 93502487
Email: [email protected]
Electrical Engineer 13 years ex-
perience HV/ LV in Oman 5 years,
Oman valid D/L to NOC.
Contact: + 0091- 9946570903
Email: [email protected]
Ref: no-Oman 97095094
Indian female M.SC B.Ed, 3 years
experience looking for suitable
placement. Contact: 94420033
Email: [email protected]
Indian Female B.Ed. and B.C.A. and
IELTS certifi ed with 5yr U.A.E. exp.
and 6 months Oman exp. in teaching
primary and secondary students
looking for a teacher’s job.
Email: [email protected].
Mob. 97384206.
Three years driving experience in
Muscat language known English,
Arabic, and Hindi, Bengali.
Contact 97462781
Light duty driver looking for job.
Contact: 98356230
Light duty driver looking for job.
Contact: 93131542
Indian male driver 3yrs experi-
ence seeking for suitable placemen.
Contact: 93663493
Bangladeshi male light vehicle
driver with 2 yrs exp looking for job.
Contact: 93761597
Sudanese female Electrical En-
gineer graduated with distinction
excellent knowledge and inter-
ested in protection.
Contact: 98133281
Electrical Engineer Indian male
29 years, having 5 years of experi-
ence in industrial automation and
utility maintenance in India (MRF
Tyres) seeking suitable place-
ment. Contact: 92789995 Email:
Civil Engineer 6 yrs Exp in Oman
with license. Contact: 98975528
Mechanic Tractor Diesel Engines
& Hydraulic, 25 years Experience
in Multinational Companies.
Contact - 91685048
Medical Lab Technologist 5 years
experience willing to work in
Oman. Contact: 97007930
Road and construction Engineer
with 5 years exp in Oman.
Contact: 97646908
Indian female M.Tech (electri-
cal power system) having gulf
experience in family visa seeking
suitable placements in Oman.
Contact: 91001194 /94306164
Civil Engineer 8 years experience
in Oman as a project engineer for
governmental & private projects.
Contact – 90164912
B.E civil Engineer having 5
years experience in Oman with
construction companies need
suitable placement.
Contact: 98180524
Civil Engineer (4 years ) hav-
ing total 5 years experience in
building construction ( 2 years , 8
months in Oman) looking for suit-
able placement D/L available.
Contact: 94450270
Indian male , 26 years , electrical
engineer with 3 years of experi-
ence seeking employment in a
reputed fi rm.
Contact: 92953046 Email:
B.E Biomedical Engineer 5 years
experience in the subfi eld (hospi-
tal / company) looking for suitable
placement. Contact 92084807
Email: bonnygeorge1005@gmail.
com
Civil Engineer B.E , 06 years expe-
rience in Oman having D/L
seeking for a suitable position .
Contact 95961336
Email: [email protected]
Electrical Engineer (diploma +
BSC) available on visit visa in the
fi eld of MEP WITH 10 years
experience in GCC Dubai.
Contact: 93372389
Email: [email protected]
Indian female, MBA HR & Finance,
having 1 year experience, seeking
suitable placement. Currently in
Oman. Contact: 96052366.
Sr. Accountant ( CA- inter) Indian
male 31 years having 9 years
experience in fi nance & accounts
looking for suitable placement.
NOC available and valid Oman
D/L. Contact: 94108678 Email:
Indian male highly resulted
oriented and self driven CA Inter
qualifi ed accountant with over
more than 14 years of experience
in auditing, fi nance and
accounts seeks placement.
Contact: 93405047
Finance controller 15 years
experience in Oman contracting,
consultancy, trading oil & gas
tourism IT etc project fi nancing
feasibility ERP cost control.
Contact: 98571309
Male Indian with 7 years experi-
ence in accounting & 6 years expe-
rience in sales and marketing very
good knowledge of tally currently
in Muscat on a visit visa.
Contact: 96148427
Email: [email protected]
Experienced Female Senior
Accountant looking for suitable
alternative. Contact: 99849325
Sr. accountant M.com (fi nance)
2 yrs in Oman seeking suitable
placement NOC Available with
immediate joining.
Contact: 92404608
Email: jin_75@rediff muil.com
Indian male, 23 years, MBA fi -
nance MNC 2 years experience in
accounts, currently in Oman seek-
ing for suitable position. Contact:
Yahya Manager 96930855
Indian female 28yrs, B.com, 7yrs
call center/accounts/admin/
marketing experience, currently
on visit, seek suitable placement.
Contact Rashmi 96746698.
ACCA member / B.com (3.7 years
experience) looking accounts /
audit job. Contact: 97769145
Email: [email protected]
Part time accounting, also contact
for auditing, tax reports and feasi-
bility study – 91044655
B.com, 25 years male, 3 years exp
release available on visa, seeks
placement accounts / comm. Asst.
Contact: 94693593
Accountant 8 years experience in
Oman 4 years Indian male project
management 4adneud skills in
JUE (tally .9) NOC available ready
to join immediately.
Contact: 95364896 /92912347
Email: [email protected]
28/ male MBA – fi nance /B.com –
accountant with 4 years of Dubai
/ India experience looking for a
suitable placement.
Contact: 90187483 Email:
Senior Accountant Indian male
18 yrs of exp, CA article ship com-
pleted. Currently on visit, seeking
suitable placement.
Contact – 98569025 / 97498809
Accountant job wanted 8 years
experience 5 years in Indian 3
years in Oman knowledge of tally
ERP- 9 NOC available.
Contact: 91162503
Male Indian 27, working as
fi nance analyst having three years
Oman experience with Driving li-
cense looking for suitable position.
Mob:98097009,
Certifi ed Public Accountant, Filipino Male 26 years old, Bache-
lor of Science in Accountancy with
5 yrs. of experience now on visit
visa. Looking for suitable opening.
Contact: +968 91409308 Email:
IT
Well experienced team available to provide feasibility reports & business solutions, product
development, risk management methods for startups, progressive,
defunct operations. Creating of ERP modules.
Contact - 93343251 Email: profi [email protected]
A result oriented professional B.E.(Mech), 30+ years experience in
Oil & Gas Projects, Fabricati on, R & M and Services. Seeking job as
GM, CEO, Country Head. NOC & immediate availability.
Phone : +91 9773828663, Email : [email protected]
SKILLED
Store keeper with minimum 5
years experience, should have
experience in handling offi ce
furniture and fl uency in tally & bar
coding software etc. Interested
candidates can apply by mail:
fax: 24818818
Well experienced aluminum fabricator. Contact 24505708
/92248407 Freelance services of accounting,
auditing, taxation and feasibility
report - 91720465
Indian lady, bachelor degree in
Preparatory Programme (BPP)
and Bachelor of Commerce
(BCom), completed training
course in MS Word, Excel, Power
Point and Outlook from KTI look-
ing for full time / part time job
opportunity in Oman.
Contact 92437568, 96795853,
Email: [email protected]
SENIOR ACCOUNTANT, with
13yrs experience, 6 yrs Oman
in manufacturing, trading &
contracting Cos, capable of
handling all accounting, fi nance,
banking, L/C, import, export &
fi nalization seeks placement. NOC
Available. Call+968-98932752,
mail:[email protected]
Indian female 5+ yrs Oman exp in
Accounts tally looking for suitable
placement in W.K to Qurum area.
Contact: 95580416
Part time accountant services
from senior accountant M.com
15 years Oman exp.
Contact: 97441960
Part time Accountant services
available to handle all accounts
related work up to fi nalization on
monthly basis. Contact: 96247295
B.SC Hons (fi nance & accounts)
having 2 years experience in ac-
counts, male looking for suitable
job on visit visa. Contact: 91420128
CMA & CIA professional Finance Manager with 10 years middle
eastern experience, inclusive of
Managerial experience with lead-
ing F&B companies. For further
information, kindly
Contact: + 971566561199
Email: [email protected]
Male 24 yrs MBA in marketing
fi ancé seeking immediate place-
ment. Contact: 96112920
Accountant Indian female having
5 years exp in fi nalization, audit
and administration in GCC pres-
ently in Muscat seeking suitable
position. Contact 97323574
Email: sreeja@[email protected]
10 years Gulf & 4 years Oman ex-
perience in HR / Admin & logistics
fl uent in Arabic / English with D/L
looking for suitable position.
Contact 95824598
Qualifi cation B.com accounting
BE mechanical engineer course
completed experience 17 years
HR administration, parches store,
quality assurance.
Contact: 93820512 Email:
Indian male MBA graduate (HR)
with 19 years of gulf experience
(6 years in Oman) seeking suit-
able job can join immediately
with NOC. Contact: 99103763
/99519841
5 years of experience in software
and 1yr in administrator looking
for any software of any offi ce suit-
able jobs or any work from home
jobs. Contact: 91711326 Email:
Female Indian 9+ yrs experience
in administration customer sup-
port offi ce coordination with good
computer skill now on visit visa
looking for suitable openings.
Contact: 99285440
Indian female, Masters in HR,
having 4 + years Oman experience
in media management and HR,
looking for openings in HR, Educa-
tion, Admin, Corporate communi-
cations. Contact 98252030
Indian male MBA- UK 18 yrs Gulf
exp in Administration/ HR & Pub-
lic relationship. Fluent in Arabic/
English with D/L. Looking for suit-
able position. Contact - 99897280
Indian Female, MBA-HR having
8+ experience in Administration/
HR, Customer Support, Offi ce
Coordinator with good Computer
skill, Now on Visit Visa, looking
for suitable position. Contact:
90196235
26 yrs male, MBA, 3+ years experi-
ence in Administration in MNC,
seeks suitable placement.
Contact 95041201
Email: [email protected]
DAILY GUIDED6 W E D N E S D AY, N O V E M B E R 2 5 , 2 0 1 5
SITUATION WANTED
MISCELLANEOUS
MISCELLANEOUS
Email: [email protected] classifi [email protected].: 24726666 Ext: 413 / 430 /431 / 456 / 461Fax: 24812624
Indian Male 33 yrs, BCA ,10 years
experience(India & Oman) IT
Support, System administrator/su-
pervisor looking for suitable Job.
#95448561.
Indian female accountant 5 years
of experience in accounting tally,
offi ce coordination,And admin, cur-
rently on visit visa. seeking suitable
placement Contact: 95684179
Indian male 23yr BA TTM (travel
and tourism management) with
advanced diploma in supply chain
logistics and shipping manage-
ment, exp in logistics (cha) seek-
ing in suitable placement.
currently on visit visa(oman)
Contact;90291092
email: [email protected]
Indian male, 19 years oman exp.
in purchase, material coordinator
in building/pipe line 9yrs & fac-
tory production fi eld 10yrs.good
computer skills & D/L & with NOC.
looking for suitable placement.
[email protected] con-
tact: 99008101
Part- Time Accountant, well
experience senior accountant, do-
ing all type of accounting works,
Finalization, Budgeting available.
Contact 98803439
Indian male B.Eng. in IT, MCSA,
MCSE, 3yrs exp. in IT support,
valid Omani D/L seeking suitable
placement in IT/Network/
Server support. Contact 92607532
Indian Males 32 years, Dip. In
Hardware & Networking with 10
years of hands-on experience.
Currently on visit visa seeking im-
mediate placement in IT Support
or relevant jobs. Good knowledge
of Hardware & Networking.
Contact: 9416 9341 /
Indian male, 19 years experience
in purchase, material coordinator
in building construction & factory
production fi eld, have good com-
puter skills & driving license and
NOC. Looking for a suitable place-
ment. Contact: 99008101
Male Accountant Indian, B.com,
2 Year experience currently
working in Oman. NOC available,
doing accounts in Tally and Excel
searching for suitable Job. Email:
91894487, 98789958
Indian male B.Eng. in IT, MCSA,
MCSE, 3yrs exp. in IT support,
valid Omani D/L seeking suitable
placement in IT/Network/Server
support. Contact 92607532
Indian Mechanical Engineer (16 Yrs Exp), Knowledgeable in
Monitoring of workshop setup,
Workshop run, Business Develop-
ment, ISO certifi cation, Quotation,
Tender, Account verifi cation,
Sohar Area, Mb. 94215208’
Indian male, 27 BSC nurse 4.5
years experience in India. Pro
metric passed with 61% Data fl ow
processing, ACLS, BLS passed.
Now on visit visa.
Mob: 98926621, 94361049
e-mail: [email protected]
Electrical Engineer, B-Tech, with
4 Yrs experience in India, 3 YEARS
IN MRF and one year in KSEB.
Available on Visit Visa.
Contact: 94741401 :Email:
Sudanese male...telecom engineer
11 yrs. exp in IT support, Network-
ing, Security systems, Server
support, IT sales and marketing,
management .Seeking suitable
placement. Contact 91182027
Electronics/Electrical/Instru-
mentation Design Engineer with
2+ years of experience, having a
Bachelors Degree in Instrumenta-
tion Technology. Seeking for a job,
currently on visit visa.
Contact- 90142166 /
Mail: [email protected]
Sales & Marketing/ Business
Development Executive: - B.Tech.
(Electrical & Electronics) MBA in
marketing having 9 years of expe-
rience seeking a suitable position.
Contact (97043494)
Purchase & Stores In charge – Hav-
ing continues 13 years experience
in a single fi rm, looking for a place-
ment. # 99627427, 96154564
Indian male be electrical and pg
in power systems (transmission &
distribution) with one year experi-
ence on visit. Seeking placement
contact – 94669679/
email [email protected]
ACC. AVAILABLE
Sharing room available for family
/executive bachelor, near Oman
house. Contact: 96753740
Room with bath for executive bach-
elor near A/C fl at, hotel.
Contact: 99643845
Furnished rooms attached bath for
Indian bachelor in Al Falaj
Ruwi & lady in Wadi Kabir.
Contact 96202458 /96761960
3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, sitting
room, Kitchen & store including
utilities bills at Al hail.
Contact 92817777
Furnished sharing accommodation
in ruwi near O.K. Center for non-
cooking indian bachelor.
Gsm 9880-5474
Furnished single rooms available
for executive bachelors at Ruwi.
Contact: 98049288
Bed space / sharing accommodation
available for executive bachelor near
to Mars hypermarket Wadi Kabir.
Contact: 93137816
1 Bedroom with bathroom available
for rent. Only Indian female.
Contact - 92394614
Single room bathroom in Darsait
R.O 140/-. Contact: 93289652
1BHK fully furnished spacious for
rent CBD, ideal for family or two
bachelors easy access to Main road
near Sheraton hotel with all
electronics & furniture.
Contact: 96444400 /5pm -10pm
Single room for expat Indian bach-
elors near Al Aktham restaurant
Al khuwair for RO 120. Water and
electricity included.
Contact : 98803261
Big room available near Hamriya
R/A for Muslim couple / small family
/ Executive bachelor rent 150/- per
month including W+ E.
Contact : 99495131
1 Bedroom with attached Bath, fully
furnished, separate entrance at
Mabela for ladies only.
Contact : 99634841
SALES / MARKETING
Indian male 25 age, MBA market-
ing (fresher) PGDM (HR) fl uency
in English, Arabic, Hindi looking
for suitable job currently in Oman
on visit visa. Contact: 97127799
Email: [email protected]
07 years Dubai 02 years Oman
experience in sales marketing MBA
in marketing diploma in marketing
with Dubai, Oman driving license
studied in S.E.O online sales & mar-
keting E-commerce looking for job.
Contact: 97367321
Young, 24 years, MBA graduate
(HR & Mktg) with experience,
working in Salalah, NOC available,
seeks suitable placement in
muscat. Gsm 9205-1929
Indian male 26, 4 years experi-
ence in sales and marketing D/L ,
seeking suitable placement.
Contact: 95137733
Email: [email protected]
Purchase experienced 8 years in
Construction Company Indian male
45 yrs, release & D/L available.
Contact: 90268183 / 96987234
Indian male 29 , BHM , 6 years
overall 3 yrs in Oman in sales with
D/L NOC available to join immedi-
ately. Contact: 92594055
Indian male MBA, 8 years experi-
ence in hospitality industry sales
& marketing looking for suitable
job now in visit visa.
Contact: 92115860
Indian male, 26 years, B. Pharm
graduate having 3 years experience
in marketing / sales looking for a
suitable job. Contact: 94145992
Email: syedanasmustafa1989@
gmail.com
Indian male, MBA with 8 yrs expe-
rience in sales and marketing with
Omani D/L , NOC available.
Contact: 96746107
Sales Engineer 5 years experi-
ence looking for a placement.
Contact: 91411043
Indian male MBA marketing 2
years Oman experience with valid
Oman driving license looking for
a suitable position NOC available.
Contact: 91202335
Email: [email protected]
Sales Manager having 12 years
experience M.B.A in sales & mar-
keting having valid GCC driving
license seeking suitable place-
ment, NOC available.
Contact: 98125226
Indian male, 25 yrs, 1 year experi-
ence in auditing and 10 month in
sales. Currently on visit visa seek-
ing suitable placement.
Contact 97142538
Indian Male 32, MBA (Marketing &
Finance) with 10 years experience
in Marketing of Banking Products
& Insurance Industry. Seeking for
a Job in Oman. Contact: 93576980,
97750460
Email: [email protected]
Marketing Executive/Merchan-
diser, Omani License, BA 8 years
Experience in Multinational
Groups. Contact 97601343
SKILLED / UNSKILLED
Mason, SH / carpenter, steel fi tter
gulf & Indian exp looking job.
Contact: 95175192
Electrician, plumber (exp gulf / In-
dian) looking job. Contact 95175192
MANAGER/ SUPERVISOR
MEDICAL
MISCELLANEOUS
Purchase Offi cer with 8 years
experience in Oman having Oman
D/L and NOC, looking for urgently
placement. Contact: 96174564
The Business Development Man-
ager, Iraqi, Experience 15 Years
Inside and outside Oman follow-
ing activities: construction(Very
strong and qualifi ed to bringing
business for civil work Or any
type of the construction work for
many million per year with a good
experience in pricing and collect
payment and cash management of
the company & marketing projects
& investments& tenders & real
estate. Contact: - 92385033
MBA (marketing) with 17 years
experience in freight forwarding/
logistics industry in GCC & Oman.
Presently working as branch
manager in Muscat. Looking for a
suitable position. Release and NOC
available. Contact: 99856331
Manager Finance, M.Com/MBA
-thorough knowledge & more than
20 years of experience with start-up
skills. Group consolidation and audit.
: Bank dealing for corporate credit/
funding.: Ability to handle Group
of companies on professional way.
Contact: 00968-91279373,
20 yrs experienced MEP Manager seeks suitable placement
NOC available. Contact: 97892269
Manager MBA (Finance) 13+ yrs
experience in Oman with knowledge
of fi nance admin purchase logistics
costing looking for suitable position
with D/L. Contact : 93826090
Email: [email protected]
The Business Development Manager, Iraqi, Experience 15
Years Inside and outside Oman
following activities: tenders& real
estate& construction & marketing
projects& investments& trans-
portation & Marine services&
companies management& develop
business. Contact :- 92385033
Indian male with 9 years experi-
ence in business development
looking for suitable placement NOC
available. Contact: 92573230
Indian Dentist having 7 years
experience prometric cleared
seeking suitable placement.
Contact: 95706223
GP doctor with MOH license and
PDO experience seeks job off er.
Contact-96528807
An experienced Indian male GP
with MOH license and NOC, looking
for good placements in the capital
areas only. Pl contact 96386388
Arabic male general practitioner
with MOH license looking for a
suitable placement in Muscat.
Contact: 95618680
Male staff Nurse, 4 years of hospi-
tal experience in Oman with MOH
license and driving license.
Contact: 99502456/ 99831657
Indian female dentist prometric
cleared seeking suitable
openings in Muscat.
Contact: 95585807/92880267
Graduate, computer literate, experi-
enced in sales, credit control,
accounts, omani d/l , seeks suitable
placement. Gsm 9880-5474
Indian male, 27 years SAP –
CRM certifi ed associate fresher
P.G (English) having 5 years of
experience in marketing, com-
munication and designing on visit,
seeks suitable placement. Contact:
90196845 Email: joshjk99@gmail.
com Web: www.joshjk.net
Indian male B.SC graduate having
experience of 30 years in inspec-
tion, testify and QA – Industrial
technical textiles and tyre indus-
try. Currently in Oman with visit-
ing visa. Contact: 93375690
24 years Indian female MSC -
Biotechnology 1 year exp.in clinical
microbiology, worked in ICRISAT
for project work as Trainee, looking
for suitable job. Contact: 92619048
Email: [email protected]
B.E Civil (fi rst class) site / project
Engineer with 3 years of expe-
rience in residential building
projects Ms. Offi ce AutoCAD on
visit visa valid till Dec 2nd (week),
looking for a suitable job.
Contact: 96692175
Email Id: [email protected]
Indian male B.Com Graduate look-
ing for job in admin sales or ac-
countant with valid Oman driving
license ready to join.
Contact: 98093949
Indian female, 26, M.sc biotech-
nology now in family visa seeks
suitable placement.
Contact: 95210498/
99850321/93093466
Omani national with bachelor in
management looking for suitable
placement please call: 91908052
or Email:
IT
Age 28 years experience 2years &
8 month in IT accounting technical
skill, java, J.S.P tally Peachtree M.S
excel, SQL ,Working java program-
mer India , accountant , Dubai
,Qualifi cation MCA, B.C.A
mathematic visit visa.
Contact: 95673451
Indian female M.Tech in electron-
ics Engg 2 yrs industrial exp in IT
& robotics research seeking oppor-
tunities in academy or industry.
Email:mariaannajoseph@gmail.
com Contact: 91306840
Indian female, MCA, Oracle & ACL
certifi ed, 5+ years of experience in
Data Analysis, IT Administration,
Accounting and Offi ce Administra-
tion etc. holds valid Oman driving
license, seeking suitable opening.
Mob: 98579241.
B.Tech Computer Science fresh
graduate looking for suitable job.
Android application marketing
services. Valid D/L also available.
Contact 91024385
IT Indian male B.Tech computers,
networking 1 years experience in
Database support on visit.
Contact: 96376061
Email: [email protected]
Male 26 years , BSc IT with years
4 years experience , currently on
visit visa looking for any IT sup-
port job. Knowledge of hardware
& net working, environment,
programming languages, Linux
environment.
Contact: + 968 95369856 /
968 24781651 Email:
Looking for a part time accounting
& admin job. Contact 99196621.
Indian (Kerala) Male, 32yrs, look-
ing for a job as Accounts Assistant/
Cashier/ Salesman (indoor), having
5 yrs experience in Oman. Current-
ly on Visit Visa. Contact-94410485,
Email: [email protected]
FOR SALE
Shop for sale Ghala Sanaiya main
Junction (prime location) shop for
sale. Contact: 92696479
Sale house & offi ce furniture & elec-
tronic items. Contact : 99834373/
96642500/22010080
Used Hiab truck 15 ton and forklift
3and 5 ton. Contact: 99326318
For Sale Luxury Apartments in
Bousher (35) - 95056808-97201688
Running barber shop for sale in
Ruwi with all equipments.
Contact: 99343735
Beauty parlor for sale Muttrah.
Contact: 93142676
For Sale: Equipped carpentry work-
shop with 10 working employees at
Sohar. Contact: 95728453
ACC. WANTED
SIT. WANTED
Sharing Accommodation Required
for Non cooking Executive Lady in
Darsait /Ruwi/
Wadikabir. Contact: 99360615
For sale Fully Furnished apart-
ments in Bousher (35) - 95056808-
97201688
For sale villas in Al Khoud -
95056808-97201688
Beauty parlour at Mabela for sale.
Contact: 96131261
A running restaurant for sale near
Oman oil petrol Pump Al Uqdah
(Barka). Contact: 99059013
For sale 8 Apartments (Total area
850 SQM approximate) in “Bait Al
Noor” occupying two full fl oors
(7th and 8th fl oors). The building
is opposite to GMC car showroom
facing the main road (Sultan Qaboos
Road). Excellent location for best
visibility of signboard for any
corporate. Contact 94194071
for details.
Marketing or Business develop-
ment-BSC in marketing 5 years
of experience looking for suitable
position. Contact (99522233)
Indian male accountant, 12 years
experience, looking for a full time
or part time job. Experience in tally
also. Contact-98983122
31 years, Indian male PG in HR
, with 5 yrs Professional experi-
ence in HR in Construction Oil &
Gas Oman seeking for a suitable
placement(NOC Available).
Contact me on 93488914, email-
FEMALE SYRIAN ARCHITECT
,new graduate have good experi-
ence in architect programs, auto-
cad 3d max ,sketch up , Photoshop
,sketch up, searching for a job full
time or part time, for
Contact : 97482871
DAILY GUIDEW E D N E S D AY, N O V E M B E R 2 5 , 2 0 1 5 D7
SITUATION WANTEDSERVICES
A/C maintenance, installation spilt
A.C and maintenance window A/C
and ducted and package the reunites.
Contact: Asad Abbas 98667326
GUARANTEED CLEANING: Carpet & sofa shampooing,
Contact 99314807/24792998
Water proofi ng ABUQABAS-
Contact 99320217/24788722
Carpet Shampoo, marble & tile
polishing, pest control & anti-
termite treatment, general clean-
ing painting,Plumbing, Electrical,
shifting. Contact Mundhir Al-Rizaiqi
trading. L.L.C. Contact: 24810137,
99450130
Window & split unit A.C servicing &
repairing. Contact: 99557080
Split & window unit A.C servicing &
maintenance. Contact: 96236476
House shifting & transporting.
Contact 92490422
MARBLE CRYSTALLIZATION restore the original shine of
your marble. Contact 24793614/
99314807
Window & split unit A.C ser-
vicing & maintenance. Contact
93769089 / 95323517
Split & window A/c servicing &
maintenance. Contact: 93769089 /
95323517
Cleaning & carpet shampooing, Ocean Center LLC.
Contact: 99884591
Pest control treatments. Ocean Center LLC.
Contact: 99344723
House shifting. Contact:
99657644/98518013
Marble Restoration, Mosaic tiles
polishing, carpet shampooing,
maintenance. contact ABU QABAS-
99320217 /24788722
WEBSITE
WEB, ERP and Business Intel-
ligence (BI) creation and manage-
ment at rock bottom price.
Contact: http//webviewoman
CLASSES
IELTS & TOEFL
Academic / General
Target Band 8
TQT Institute.
Ph #
24480800 / 99347202
Classes for bakery, cup cakes, icing
decorations. Contact: 96202458
/96761960
Karate and self defense classes
at Azaiba 18 Nov Street. RO 10 per
month twice a week Monday and
Tuesday 6. 30 TO 7. 30. PM
CONTACT 98294551
COMPUTER
SERVICESWe Provide Cleaners,
Offi ce boys, Cleaning Contracts, General cleaning etc.
Al Mudakhir Nati onal Est. LLC Contact : 94277020
Classes for Spoken EnglishTOEFL / GRE / GMAT / SAT
Excellent Guidance and Coaching Satisfaction Guaranteed
IELTS PREPARATION Target Band 8.0
EAGLES INSTITUTE92325542 | 93657915 | 93657917 | Email: [email protected]
NRI
Plot with three BHK in Calicut
city, Kerala for details.
Contact: 99735584
11 Cent land with house for sale,
Ernakulum dist 14 km from airport
Contact: 91101457
2BHK 1100SQMT fl at with 300
SQMT Terrace allotted parking with
luxury amenities for sale in Dona
Paula Panjim Goa Indian price 95
lakes. Contact: 0091-9823674576 /
00968- 97488872
Ayurvedic treatment for joint
pain, backache, paralysis, massage
steambath, obesity, Spondylitis,
Ideal Care Ayurvedic Clinic,
18 November Street Azaiba.
Contact: 99639695 / 98342990
Ayurvedic treatment for backache,
paralysis, arthritis etc & massage,
All Season (Vaidyaratnam).
Contact 24475280 / 95371664 /
92504980
www.siddhayur.com
FREE INFORMATION ABOUT ISLAM. If you would like to know
more about Islam, please call:
99425598, 99250777, 99353988,
99253818, 99341395, and
99379133. For ladies: 99415818,
99321360, 99730723
Orvisit:www.islamfact.com
GOOD NEWS
GOOD NEWS
MANPOWER
Housemaid, cooks waiter , helper
driver ( light & heavy ) mason
carpenter steel fi tter, skilled &
unskilled categories , immigration
service from India & Philip-
pine. Contact: Al Aidi Manpower
24484232/99531802 Email:
SITUATION WANT-
ED
BUSINESS
Sub contractor available for
shuttering & steel works,
hill cutting & fi lling works.
Contact: 93299940
Ware house space for rent at
Ghala and Barka up to
20000/- Sqm. Contact 99509460
/ 93731363
An investor requested in a print-
ing press in Muscat.
Contact: 99498949
MANPOWER Tile Masons, Masons, Electricians, Plumbers, False Ceiling / Gypsum Works and Carpenters required
immediately on Labor supply basis.Interested parti es please contact
GSM: 96775023 / 96775024
TRANSPORTATION
Muttrah to Bausher. Contact:
99022790/24712088
Transportation. Contact: 96538078
Transportation. Contact 99508282
Transportation. Contact:
95190627
Transportation available Ruwi to
Al Khuwair, Ghubra & Azaiba.
Contact: 91103909
MATRIMONIAL
35 years Bombay based Sunni
Muslim divorcee girl (Degree
holder) seeking alliance.
Contact: 92886145
Suitable match for punjabi ,sikh,
ramgharia girl, 1982 born, 5”5”,
bachelor of design.
Contact- 00968 98581868,
Indian male christian 40yrs.
working in muscat.looking for life
partner.divorced or single.
Contact :91429811
Keralite R.C. Boy, 30yrs, 161cm,
MBA (Finance) Working in Oman
seeking suitable alliance. Contact:
92290247 / 97302978
Nambiar boy, 29 years Kerala, MBA
(marketing), working in Oman, seeks
suitable alliance. Contact: 99322891
Seeking alliance for our son
from Muslim families. Interested
families Contact: 99889590
MV SALE
Mitsubishi lancer 92 model very
good running condition RE GN up
to 6/11/2016 R.O 500/-.
Contact: 92545269
BMW 318/ 2003 for sale.
Contact 96364990
Ford focus, automatic, 2010
model, silver colour, expat driven,
58000 kms, dealer serviced, regis-
tration till sep 2016, price ro 2750.
Contact- 93207590
Nissan Altima 2.55, 2012
excellent condition agency
maintained. Contact: 97717152
Tucson automatic 2009 model
black color very good conduction
registration up to 2016 price R.O
2950/-. Contact: 98196845
AVAILABLE
Party & Wedding equipment rentals.
Full line, from Tables, Linen & Skirt-
ing, Chairs & Chair covers, Cutlery,
Crockery, Glassware, Chafi ng Dishes,
Ice Sculptures, to Large Sound
Systems and spectacular lighting.
Call Andrea 9606 2222 for Catering
and Croyden 9623 5555 for Sound &
Light. ww.tunesoman.com,
E-mail: [email protected]
*Classifi ed Advertisement space booking with text, should be done
till 12.00 noon for next day’s publication. * Subject to space
availability
RENT A CAR
Best Rates for Saloon. Tel: 99826300 / 97869042,
Al farzdaq Al Fedi Trad and Cont
Maintenance services electric,
plumbing and A/C. Contact:
96524904 / 94285064
A/C Maintenance & servicing,
fridge, washing machine & dish
washer repairing, painting &
cleaning services, electrical &
plumbing. Contact: 99447257
/97014234 / 24504281
DRIVING
Learn driving with professional.
Contact: 94022250
Balloons for all occasions birthday,
celebration, grand opening, wed-
ding, party, national day all type
of balloons, designs work please
Contact: 95194801 /96594592
Luxurious villas in a Gated community with all the modern facili�es at
Vakathanam By-Pass (MC road-NH 220)Web: www.royalcastles.inemail: [email protected]
+968 92855909, +91 9961 11 9988
royal castles royal castles vakathanam, kottayamvakathanam, kottayam
D8 W E D N E S D AY, N O V E M B E R 2 5 , 2 0 1 5
DAILY GUIDEEmail: [email protected] classifi [email protected].: 24726666 Ext: 413 / 430 /431 / 456 / 461Fax: 24812624
Dolphin Watch, Dhow Cruise with
Buffet, & Land Tours Al- Ainain
Marine Tours contact 98029602,
92808636
TOURS
SITUATION WANTEDCARGO
ABDULHAKIM AL BIMANI TRADING & CONTRACTOR
Expert in Shipping cargo by sea & air to Zanzibar, Pemba, Dar es Salam in Tanzania, Burundi, Th e Philippines,
Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.Reasonable price.
Contact: 97440625/95416662Email: [email protected]
*Classifi ed Advertisement space booking with text, should be done till 12.00 noon for next day’s publication. * Subject to space availability
