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BUSINESS | Page 1
INDEX
QATAR
3 – 8, 30, 31
9
REGION
ARAB WORLD
10, 11
INTERNATIONAL 12 – 27
COMMENT
BUSINESS
28, 29
1 – 7, 14 – 16
CLASSIFIED
8 – 13
SPORTS
1 – 12
Qatar storm
into Gulf Cup
final after
defeating
Oman 3-1
QATAR | Conference
HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani receiving Algerian Prime Minister
Abdulmalek Sellal at the Emiri Diwan yesterday. They discussed bilateral relations
and ways to develop them during their meeting. Regional developments were also
reviewed. The meeting was attended by HH the Deputy Emir Sheikh Abdullah bin
Hamad al-Thani. Also present were HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior
Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani, a number of ministers and the
delegation accompanying Sellal. The Qatari and Algerian prime ministers later cochaired the fifth meeting of the joint Qatari-Algerian supreme committee. Pages 4, 5
GCC ministers
to meet in Doha
The foreign ministers of the Gulf
Co-operation Council (GCC) member
states will hold the 133rd ministerial
meeting in Doha tomorrow. HE
the Foreign Minister Dr Khalid bin
Mohamed al-Attiyah will chair the
meeting. Page 4
AFGHANISTAN | Blast
Suicide bomber kills
45 at volleyball match
A suicide bomber detonated
his explosive vest in a crowd of
spectators at a volleyball match in
Yahya Khel district in Afghanistan
yesterday, killing 45 people, an official
said, as foreign troops withdraw from
the country after more than a decade
of fighting. Page 25
World powers and Iran discuss
extending nuclear deal deadline
AFP
Vienna
W
orld powers and Iran began
discussing late yesterday
whether more time is needed
to reach a nuclear deal, a US official
said, as they struggled to overcome
major gaps barely 24 hours before a
deadline.
The ﬁve permanent members of the
UN Security Council and Germany (the
P5+1) have been locked in talks with
Iran for months to turn an interim deal
struck in Geneva that expires today
into a lasting accord.
Such an agreement, after a 12-year
standoff, is aimed at easing fears that
Tehran will develop nuclear weapons
under the guise of its civilian activities,
an ambition it hotly denies.
But a last-ditch diplomatic blitz in
Vienna in the last few days to secure
a deal appeared to be unable to bridge
major differences, forcing negotiators
to question whether more time is a better option. Page 9
+0.66
+0.87%
in
Thundershowers, accompanied by
strong winds, are expected until 6pm
today in Qatar, according to the Met
Office. Doha and some other parts
of the state experienced scattered
rains last night. While it is expected
to remain mostly cloudy onshore
with chances of rains at times, the
offshore areas may witness scattered
thundershowers. Winds offshore
are likely to be in the region of 8
to 25 knots while they could vary
anywhere between 15 and 20 knots
in the onshore areas. Page 31
-91.12
-0.66%
d
Showers expected
until this evening
76.51
+91.06
+0.51%
NYMEX
he
is A R 8
7
AT 19
Q since
QATAR | Weather
13,754.89
bl
In brief
QE
17,810.06
Latest Figures
GULF TIMES
Emir meets Algerian PM
DOW JONES
pu
QIC to raise $250mn
from convertible notes
SPORT | Page 1
MONDAY
Vol. XXXV No. 9551
November 24, 2014
Safar 02, 1436 AH
www. gulf-times.com 2 Riyals
Doha to host
international
opera awards
This is the first time the
International Opera Awards Oscar Della Lirica - are being held
outside its native place Italy
By Joey Aguilar
Staff Reporter
Q
atar will host the fourth edition of the prestigious International Opera Awards
- Oscar Della Lirica - for the first
time in the Middle East, at Katara,
the Cultural Village, on December
12.
“The annual awards will honour
various achievements of musicians
and artistes of opera and classical
music from different parts of the
world,” Katara general manager Dr
Khalid bin Ibrahim al-Sulaiti told a
press conference yesterday.
This is the first time the International Opera Awards are being held
outside its native place Italy.
“Hosting such a prestigious
event highlights Qatar’s cultural
excellence and the strategic importance of Katara as a cultural centre,”
he explained.
“Katara aspires to become a
beacon and a place that brings together authors, writers, inventors
and educated people from different
cultures of the world,” Dr al-Sulaiti
pointed out.
The event, promoted by the Verona Bella Arena Foundation and
other organisations, was established to honour, popularise and
re-launch the world of Lyric Opera, recognised as part of the World
Cultural Heritage movement. It is
deeply rooted in Italian and European history and is now open to new
interpretations.
Organisers have invited wellknown opera artistes to the event.
Katara will also honour Qatari
musician-artist Abdul Aziz Nasser
Obeidan, composer of Qatar’s national anthem.
“He enriched the Katara musical
library and we consider him as an
asset. He is a devoted Qatari artist
who had numerous performances
and received many awards,” said Dr
al-Sulaiti.
The International Opera Awards
categories are divided into 13 categories: soprano, tenor, baritone,
mezzo-soprano, bass, contralto,
conductor, orchestra, choir, corps
de ballet, costume designer, director, and set designer.
For every new edition of the
event, the organising committee
chooses eight categories among the
13.
Katara also announced that a
number of special awards would be
given in memory of some of the legends of the opera arts.
Dr al-Sulaiti noted that they had
organised a press conference in Milan recently where 40 international
and popular websites announced
the staging of the awards in
Doha.
Dr Alfredo Troisy, secretarygeneral of the Verona Bella Arena
Foundation, said they would involve some of the biggest music and
opera associations in the world.
While they receive many nominations of various artistes for different categories, he noted that a
jury of international experts would
select the winners.
“What we would like to set to this
event is the first co-operation relationship that can be the basis of a
cultural bridge with Qatar between
Verona and Doha,” he stressed. “I
am convinced that culture and art
have no borders, it goes beyond the
borders and it is a universal concept.”
Darwish Ahmed, Katara’s marketing and international relations
department manager and the deputy director of the Cultural Affairs
Department, attended the press
conference. Page 6
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
3
QATAR
Emir honours Uruguay ambassador
HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani met the outgoing Ambassador of Uruguay to Qatar Jose Luis Remedi
at the Emiri Diwan yesterday. The Emir presented the ambassador the Sash of Merit in recognition of his efforts to
enhance relations between Qatar and Uruguay. The Emir wished the ambassador success in his future posting and
relations between Qatar and Uruguay further progress and prosperity. The Uruguayan ambassador thanked the Emir
and officials in the State for their co-operation during his tenure.
Wakra Hospital to add new evening clinics
A
l Wakra Hospital
(AWH) is adding
new evening clinics
for urology and ultrasound
services.
The new evening urology clinics will be open from
3pm to 7pm from Sunday
through Wednesday, in addition to the day clinics
which operate from 7am to
3pm on weekdays.
The clinics provide specialised medical assessment
and management of all adult
male urological problems
and offer a number of therapeutic procedures. Around
three clinics, staffed by a
consultant and specialists
in various ﬁelds of urology,
will be running daily.
The Urology Outpatient
Department was established
in AWH in April 2012. Since
its opening, a total of 11,259
patients have received medical assistance at the OPD
clinics. From January to
September this year, some
2,561 diagnostic and therapeutic procedures have been
performed in the clinics.
The hospital’s ultrasound
clinic for Obstetrics and
Gynecology is now open
every Monday, Tuesday and
Wednesday from 3pm to
7pm. A new MRI session will
run every Wednesday from
3pm to 9pm, starting in December. This is in addition to
the MRI sessions which currently run from Sunday to
Tuesday from 3pm to 9pm.
Head of the Urology De-
partment at AWH, Dr Ahmed
Shamsodini stated: “In order to address the growing
numbers of patients who are
seeking our services, we are
delighted to announce the
extended hours of operation
through the evening clinics.
This is part of our endeavour
to offer high-quality urological management to an even
greater number of patients
as many of them are unable
to visit the morning and afternoon clinics due to work
commitments.”
Dr Mahmoud al-Heidous,
AWH assistant medical director, said: “We have introduced these new clinics
and extended opening hours
in response to patient demand. It is great news that
our skilled team at Al Wakra
Hospital will be able to help
more people get the treatment they need, at a time
convenient to them.”
Emergency services for
urgent care are offered at anytime, including after clinic
hours on weekends and holidays at the Emergency Department in the hospital.
Faced with the challenge
of providing secondary and
tertiary care to a rapidly-increasing population, HMC
is delivering improvements
across its network. Expanding existing services to allow more patients to access
them, at more convenient
times, is a key part of HMC’s
strategic response to that
challenge.
4
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24 , 2014
QATAR
Sheikha Moza
meets Algerian
prime minister
QNA
Riyadh
H
S
H the Chairperson of Qatar Foundation for
Education, Science and Community Development Sheikha Moza bint Nasser yesterday met
Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal and his accompanying delegation in Doha yesterday.
During the meeting, they discussed prospects of
co-operation in the ﬁeld of education and scientiﬁc
research.
They also discussed the possibility of partnership
between the ‘Educate A Child’ programme and Algeria,
which is a strategic partner in Africa.
The meeting also looked at ways of enhancing cooperation in human resources sector. Page 5
Qatar’s envoy to
Saudi presents
credentials
HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser holding talks with Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal. They discussed prospects of co-operation in the fields of
education and scientific research, as well as possibility of partnership between the ‘Educate A Child’ Programme and Algeria. PICTURE: AR al-Baker/HHOPL
GCC foreign ministers to
meet in Doha tomorrow
QNA
Doha
T
he foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council
(GCC)
member-states
will hold the 133rd ministerial meeting in Doha
tomorrow. HE the Foreign Minister Dr Khalid
bin Mohamed al-Attiyah
will chair the meeting.
In a statement released
yesterday, GCC Secretary
General Dr Abdullatif bin
Rashid al-Zayani said
the ministerial meeting
will prepare for the 35th
session of the Supreme
Council of GCC leaders,
which will also be held
in Doha from 9 to 10 December.
The GCC foreign ministers will discuss reports
on GCC strategy, dialogues among the GCC
and foreign countries and
latest regional and international developments.
They will also hold
separate meeting with
Jordanian and Moroccan foreign ministers
to discuss ways to enhance strategic partnership and relations
with these countries,
in addition to another
meeting with Yemeni
foreign minister to discuss the latest developments in Yemen.
The foreign ministers
will, as well, hold a meeting with the Advisory
Board of the GCC Supreme Council to discuss
a number of issues.
Awqaf ministry team to attend Kuwait meeting
The Ministry of Awqaf
and Islamic Affairs,
represented by the
Zakat Fund Department,
will take part in the 11th
meeting of the GCC Zakat
institutions, due to start
today in Kuwait.
Qatar’s delegation to the
meeting will be led by the
Fund’s Director Jassim
bin Mohamed al-Kubaisi
who will present a paper
on the Qatari Zakat Fund’s
dealings with donors.
The 11th meeting of the
GCC Zakat institutions
will discuss a host of
issues, including the
obstacles facing Zakat
organs, the GCC Zakat
diploma programme, a
proposal for promoting
charity projects of GCC
Zakat institutions via a
unified site and review of
successful projects.
audi Deputy Minister of
Foreign Affairs Prince Abdulaziz bin Abdullah bin
Abdulaziz al-Saud received a
copy of credentials of Sheikh
Abdullah bin Thamer al-Thani,
Qatar’s ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Prince Abdulaziz bin Abdullah
bin Abdulaziz al-Saud wished
ambassador Sheikh Abdullah bin
Thamer al-Thani success during his tenure and wished further progress and prosperity to
Qatar-Saudi relations.
Qatar-Vietnam
ties reviewed
HE the foreign minister’s
assistant for foreign affairs met
the Vietnamese Deputy Foreign
Minister Pham Quang Vinh in
Doha yesterday. The meeting
dealt with bilateral ties and means
to develop them in addition to
topics of mutual interest.
Defence minister
back from US
HE the Minister of State for
Defence Affairs Major General
Hamad bin Ali al-Attiyah and
his accompanying delegation
returned to Doha yesterday after
several days’ official visit to the
United States of America.
Qatar envoy meets
Somalia’s minister
Somalia’s Minister of Culture and
Higher Education Duale Adam
Mohamed held talks with Charge
d’affaires of Qatar’s embassy
in Somalia Hasan bin Hamza
Asad Mohamed in Mogadishu
yesterday.
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
5
QATAR
HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani holding
talks with Prime Minister of Algeria Abdelmalek Sellal yesterday.
HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani and Algerian Prime Minister Sellal chairing the
the 5th meeting of the Qatari-Algerian supreme committee in Doha yesterday.
Qatar, Algeria sign pacts, PM chairs meeting
QNA
Doha
Q
atar and Algeria yesterday signed a raft of
agreements and memoranda of understanding following the 5th meeting of the
Qatari-Algerian supreme committee co-chaired by HE the
Prime Minister and Minister of
Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin
Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani and
the Prime Minister of Algeria
Abdelmalek Sellal.
At the outset of the meeting,
the Prime Minister and Interior
Minister welcomed the Algerian
Prime Minister and his accompanying delegation, expressing
satisfaction at the growth of the
two countries’ relations.
He praised the positive results
of the four previous joint supreme
committee meetings, which led to
the signing of several agreements
and memoranda of understand-
ing between the two countries
in various ﬁelds, contributing to
the development of bilateral relations. He stressed the importance
of Qatar-Algeria relations, and
the activation of all bilateral cooperation agreements.
During the meeting, the two
sides discussed the existing bilateral relations and means to
bolster them in addition to several regional and international
issues of mutual concern.
Several Qatari ministers and
the members of the official delegation accompanying the Algerian prime minister attended the
meeting.
Later the Prime Minister and
Minister of Interior and the Algerian Prime Minister signed the
minutes of the Qatari-Algerian
supreme committee meeting.
They also witnessed the signing of following memoranda of
understanding and agreements:
1. An agreement on co-operation and exchange of news
between Qatar News Agency
(QNA) and the Algerian Press
Service (APS).
2. The ﬁrst implementation
programme in tourism.
3. The second implementation
programme of the co-operation
agreement in the ﬁeld of youth.
The Prime Minister praised
the positive results of the
four previous joint supreme
committee meetings,
which led to the signing
of several agreements
and memoranda of
understanding
4. The second implementation
programme of the co-operation
agreement in the ﬁeld of sports.
5. The fourth implementation
programme of the education cooperation agreement.
6. The ﬁrst implementation
programme of co-operation in
the ﬁeld of higher education.
7. The third implementation
programme for media agreement.
8. The ﬁrst implementation
programme for co-operation in
the ﬁelds of ﬁshing under the
co-operation MoU on ﬁsheries.
9. The second implementation
programme in the cultural ﬁeld
under the cultural co-operation
agreement.
10. The twinning protocol between national libraries.
11. MoU in the ﬁeld of water
resources.
12. MoU on the areas of consumer protection, economic
control and combating commercial fraud.
13. A bilateral agreement on
mutual administrative assistance for the optimum application of customs law to suppress,
investigate and combat customs
violations.
Later the Prime Minister hosted a luncheon banquet in honour
of the Algerian premier and the
accompanying delegation.
HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani and Algerian
Prime Minister Sellal witnessing the signing of an agreement between Qatar and Algeria yesterday.
6
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
QATAR
QU and Sidra sign
partnership pact
Q
atar University (QU) and
Sidra Medical and Research Centre (Sidra)
signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) yesterday
to foster research, develop academic and scientiﬁc relationships, and facilitate academic
and technical exchange.
“This initiative between
QU and Sidra is a
demonstration of the
two organisations’
commitment to the
realisation of the
objectives of the Qatar
National Vision 2030 as
it aims to develop and
empower our people
to be able to sustain a
prosperous society”
Dr Hassan Rashid al-Derham, QU vice-president for Research, and Dr
Abdulla Mohamed al-Kaabi, executive vice-chief medical officer Sidra
and a member of the Office of Sidra Chief Executive Officer
exchanging the MoU.
The agreement was signed
by Dr Hassan Rashid al-Derham, QU vice-president for
Research, and Dr Abdulla Mohamed al-Kaabi, executive vicechief medical officer Sidra and
a member of the Office of Sidra
Chief Executive Officer.
The purpose of the MoU is to
identify the areas of interest,
and articulate a mutual strategic
intent for further development
and collaboration and facilitate
the work of QU’s Laboratory
Animal Research Centre (LARC)
in those areas.
Dr al-Derham said: “This initiative between QU and Sidra is a
demonstration of the two organisations’ commitment to the re-
alisation of the objectives of the
Qatar National Vision 2030 as
it aims to develop and empower
our people to be able to sustain a
prosperous society”.
“The agreement will further
empower QU’s LARC in its efforts to realise its mission of providing quality animal husbandry
and veterinary care to support
QU’s leading role in education
and research,” he added.
Dr al-Kaabi said: “Sidra’s
partnership with QU signiﬁes
the growing importance of developing talent, research and
knowledge in Qatar. Our partnership can help build a thriving and sustainable future in the
ﬁeld of science and medicine.
We hope that through shared
areas of interest, such as joint
research, training and educational initiatives, exchange
programmes and student sponsorships; we can create the landscape necessary for the delivery
of globally relevant research and
ultimately contribute towards
advanced healthcare services in
the country”.
LARC Director Dr Hamda alNaemi said: “The agreement
between QU and Sidra opens opportunities for collaboration between the two parties. It serves as
an umbrella to develop scientiﬁc
relationship between LARC and
Sidra in various areas of interest such as establishing joint research projects or programmes,
and developing training programmes for professional staff ”.
Shahry Super Pack promotion made permanent
O
oredoo yesterday announced that the Shahry
Super Pack promotion
has been made a permanent addition to their growing postpaid
portfolio.
The Shahry Super Pack promotion gives Shahry customers
unlimited free local calling minutes to call Ooredoo mobile and
landline numbers for QR150 per
month, as well as 200 international minutes for making calls
to 121 countries and 1GB of mobile data.
Since its launch in August,
Ooredoo has seen an unprecedented surge for the Shahry
Super Pack, with many prepaid
customers switching to postpaid.
Other Shahry Smart Packs
start from QR15 and goes up to
QR 750. Each pack is valid for
30 days and is automatically re-
newed at the end of the cycle. A
host of add-ons are also available to bring customers “the lowest ever rates” for international
calling and data.
A Shahry Super Pack could be
bought from any of the Ooredoo
Shops or premium dealers.
International Opera Awards
Katara general manager Dr D Khalid bin Ibrahim al-Sulaiti announcing at a press conference the
hosting of the fourth edition of the International Opera Awards – Oscar Della Lirica - for the first
time in the Middle East, at Katara, the Cultural Village. Dr Alfredo Troisy, secretary-general of
the Verona Bella Arena Foundation, and Darwish Ahmed, Katara’s marketing and international
relations department manager and the deputy director of the Cultural Affairs Department, were
present. “The annual awards will honour various achievements of musicians and artistes of
opera and classical music from different parts of the world,” Dr al-Sulaiti said.
PICTURE: Thajudeen.
Increased acceptance of Seha
among Qatari nationals
T
he National Health Insurance Scheme – Seha
– has seen more than
605,000 visits to health services providers in the six months
since the scheme was expanded
to cover all Qatari nationals.
The Seha provider network
has grown to over 150 providers over the same period – well
ahead of the target of 100 providers by the end of 2014 – offering Qatari nationals more
choice and ﬂexibility.
Seha saw just 242 complaints
made over the course of the six
months, 215 of which have been
resolved with the remainder
under investigation.
Stage 1 of the scheme was
launched on 17 July 2013 providing health insurance coverage
for Qatari national females aged
12 and above for a select set of
maternity and women’s healthcare services. The scheme was
expanded to cover all Qatari nationals for the full spectrum of
basic healthcare services with
the launch of Stage 2 on 30 April
2014. Dental coverage and physiotherapy was included in June.
“At the National Health Insurance Company (NHIC) we are
here to serve the nation and to
play our part in building a world
class health sector in line with
the National Health Strategy and
the Qatar National Vision 2030.
“Our mission is to provide
the people of Qatar with access
to the best healthcare possible
and to assure every member of
the Qatari family that they need
not worry should they fall ill,
because Seha provides them
with the ﬂexibility and choice
to seek the quality healthcare
they need,” explained Dr Faleh
Mohamed Hussain Ali, acting
CEO NHIC.
NHIC has set up Seha information booths at key hospitals,
including Al Ahli, Al Emadi,
Doha Clinic, Hamad General,
Al Khor Hospital, Al Wakra
Road crash leaves three
motorists severely injured
T
wo expatriate men and a Qatari woman narrowly escaped death when their vehicles crashed into each other
at a roundabout in Wakrah, local Arabic daily Al-Arab
reported yesterday.
The woman was driving her car at the roundabout and going
straight when a bus, trying to take a U-turn, crashed into her
car. The woman’s car overturned several times and settled on
the other side of the road, while the bus ran over the pavement
and its driver was thrown out of it.
The woman sustained severe injuries and the police patrols
and civil defence personnel who hurried to the scene had to cut
part of the car door to get her out of it. All the three injured
were immediately carried by the ambulances to Wakra Hospital for treatment.
Expatriate gets
3-year jail for
drug trafficking
A Doha Criminal Court has
sentenced an Asian expatriate
to three years in jail and a
fine of QR200,000 for drug
trafficking and consumption,
local Arabic daily Arrayah
reported yesterday.
Further, the court ordered
the accused to be deported
after serving his sentence.
However, the lawyer of the
accused appealed the ruling
and asked that his client
should be acquitted. Besides,
he asked the court to deal
with his client with leniency
and mercy and release him
after spending the period he
had already remained in jail
after the first ruling.
The accused was arrested
while possessing marijuana
for the purpose of selling and
consuming it, the daily added.
Indian embassy
Open House on
November 28
The Indian embassy will hold
an Open House on November
28 to address any urgent
consular and labour problems
of Indian nationals in the State
of Qatar.
The Open House will be held
from 5.30pm to 6.30pm.
Written information on
issues/cases proposed to be
discussed with the embassy
may be given from 5.30pm
to 6pm. This will be followed
by meeting with embassy
officials from 6pm to 6.30pm.
Hospital, Cuban Hospital and
the Women’s Hospital. Over
16,000 inquiries by the public
were made at the information
booths in the six months since
the launch of Stage 2 while
more than 27,000 calls were
made to the Seha call centre.
During the ﬁrst year of Seha,
a number of Disease Management Programmes were
launched, like the Maternity
Programme, which treated
34,990 Qatari women during
Stage 1 of the scheme, and the
Diabetes Management Programme, an added long-term
beneﬁt for Seha members.
Introduced in May 2014,
the programme provides support and education to enable
patients to live healthier lives
and delay the onset of diabetesrelated complications. The programme is open to adult Seha
beneﬁciaries who have been
diagnosed with Type 1 or Type
2 diabetes.
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
7
QATAR
Philippine labour official
stresses no ‘delay’ in
deploying OFWs to Qatar
By Peter Alagos
Business Reporter
Some of the actors from Sound of Music, an award-winning and classical musical play, attended the press
conference yesterday. PICTURE: Nasar TK
Sound of Music set for
Qatar debut on Nov 26
By Joey Aguilar
Staff Reporter
A
ward-winning
and
classical musical play,
the Sound of Music, will debut in Qatar from
November 26-29.
The musical will be staged at
the Qatar National Convention
Centre.
“The production was played
in Dubai twice and in Bahrain,
the last was in 2012 and this has
been refreshed and renewed, it’s
a new cast,” said Lucy HunterJames at a press conference yesterday. She was joined by Paul
Robinson, who will play Captain
von Trapp and some of the 26
actors mostly coming from London’s West End and Broadway.
The production comprises
nearly 50 individuals from London and a similar number comes
from the State Media, the organiser and presenter of the musical.
She told reporters that specta-
tors will have a “lovely journey”
throughout, featuring a host of
lavish costumes and sets as well
as live orchestra and music from
start to ﬁnish. The musical will
last for two hours and 20 minutes with a 20-minute break.
Lucy noted that the crowd will
also see a lot of scripts besides
singing and dancing.
“But it is a very clear script
and such a beautiful love story,”
she said.
While the Sound of Music is
played in various parts of the
world, a member of the cast said
every performance always has
something new since they usually sing a couple of extra songs
and engage the audience.
The leading character pointed
out that watching a live stage
performance is far different from
watching its movie.
Asked to compare the audience in the Middle East with
those in the West, she said it is
“more exciting and extra special” in this part of the world
because it does not happen very
often.“In the Western part, obviously you have a huge market,
a huge amount of choice, plays,
musicals and concepts to go and
see everyday,” she explained.
“There is a lot of excitement in
the air, a lot of possibility.”
Lucy has performed in various musicals held in London and
Dubai.
These include Oliver!, Blood
Brothers, Fame Annie and The
Wizard of Oz.
Monzer al-Samad, executive
manager at State Media, told
reporters that to bring such a
show with a huge production is
not simple. It took them nearly a
year for the planning, he added.
The Sound of Music had received ﬁve Oscars, including
Best Picture. Its soundtrack
stands in history as the best selling musical of all time going to
Platinum more than 12 times.
Some of the popular songs in
the musical include Do Re Mi,
The Lonely Goatherd, Climb
Ever’ry Mountain, Edelweiss and
Sixteen Going on Seventeen.
V
isiting Philippine Labour Secretary
Rosalinda Baldoz has addressed issues involving the purported “delays” in the deployment of Overseas Filipino
Workers (OFWs) to Qatar.
She stressed that documents for OFWs
undergo a streamlined processing system.
Speaking before Qatar-based employers and foreign placement agencies at the
Qatar Chamber yesterday, Baldoz clariﬁed
that the so-called delays could be traced to
either the principal employer or the recruitment company.
“It would be very easy for us to look into
that (delays) because all processes at the
Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) have been streamlined and
certiﬁed as ISO-compliant quality management system,” Baldoz said.
She added: “For every transaction, they
(POEA) already have a list of very clear documents required and the required process
cycle time.”
This was seconded by POEA administrator Hans Cacdac, who said that it would
only take ﬁve to six days to register a foreign
employer or principal, and two to three days
to document a Filipino worker.
He also said the POEA had recently discussed issues involving “grey areas” raised
by Philippine recruiters when streamlining
the documentation process.
“We had agreed to facilitate the process as
long as the Philippine recruiter could show
us in writing and guarantee that the particular ‘grey area’ that was not in the rules is a
legitimate transaction and a legitimate type
of work for a Filipino worker,” Cacdac said.
He also said that the POEA has a special
set of rules for Filipino housemaids, which
he noted are “stricter,” according to Philippine laws and POEA rules and regulations.
Labour attache Paul de Jesus also said
that some cases involved a one or two-day
delay but this was due to missing docu-
Philippine Labour Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz speaks while Qatar Chamber board member
Rashid al-Athba looks on. PICTURE: Nasar TK
ments, pending the submission of the foreign placement agency or principal employer.
“Complete documents submitted by
agencies and employers are released in the
afternoon following a two-day processing
cycle…But you also have to allow us the opportunity to make certain veriﬁcations and
to validate the document submitted,” he
emphasised.
He said documents should be “clean” and
contain no erasures. “Documents that contain erasures or suspicious changes will be
returned to the ﬁler.”
During her visit to Qatar, Baldoz also met
with HE the Minister of Labour and Social
Affairs Abdullah Saleh Mubarak al-Khulaiﬁ
to discuss issues affecting OFWs.
Baldoz told Gulf Times that during the
meeting they had agreed to convene on January 2015 the joint labour committee, which
was formed in 2007.
Asked if she had the chance to glean Qatar’s new labour laws, Baldoz said: “Not
yet.”
“We will look at their labour laws and if
anything there would be advantageous to
our workers then we have no reason to apply amendments,” she explained.
She added: “For policies that appear to
be conﬂicting with our laws, we would need
time to reconcile them, to determine how
they would be applied. We would also like
to know what are the terms and conditions
on recruitment, selection, employment of
domestic workers here because this is not
part of their labour laws and that is the
big difference.”
8
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
QATAR
QDA, Asthma Qatar Network sign agreement
Q
atar Diabetes Association
(QDA)
and Asthma Qatar
Network yesterday signed
a friendship agreement to
strengthen co-operation in
the future initiatives.
This agreement will raise
awareness about diabetes
and asthma in the society
and will help give individuals the access to medical advices provided by
specialists.
The World Health Organisation considers asthma and diabetes chronic
diseases that last for long
time and spread within the
communities.
According to the WHO,
there are more than 50mn
people with diabetes or
asthma across the world.
The agreement was
signed by QDA executive
director Dr Abdulla alHamaq and, Asthma Qatar
Network CEO Khalifa Salman al-Muhanadi in the
presence of executives
and consultants from both
organisations.
“We are proud to sign
this agreement with Asthma Qatar Network, as it
opens new horizons for
strategic co-operation to
raise awareness of chronic
diseases. We value the role
of Asthma Qatar Network
as it is the ﬁrst and only
platform that is dedicated
to asthma and contributes
in health development,”
Dr al-Hamaq said.
“We always welcome
knowledge exchange with
other parties, and are
conﬁdent of the fruitful
results we will get from
this co-operation with
Asthma Qatar Network.
The advantages that both
parties will get will increase people’s knowledge
of our activities which are
necessary for our society,”
he added.
Al-Muhanadi stressed
that the agreement is a new
step for supporting the
research in the ﬁelds that
beneﬁt both associations.
“We hope it is only the
beginning for strategic cooperation between us, and
look forward to increasing
our effort to accomplish
our goals.”
102 health,
educational
buildings in
the works
By Ramesh Mathew
Staff Reporter
A
Dr Abdulla al-Hamaq and Khalifa Salman al-Muhanadi shaking hands after the signing
ceremony.
number of school buildings, the construction of which were announced
at the beginning of last year are
through the last stages of completion across
Qatar, Ashghal authorities have said in their
annual report.
An amount of QR4.2bn was earmarked for
the construction of 102 buildings, of which
44 were for educational institutions, spread
all over the country. Of the schools, the construction of six complexes is already over.
Besides, a large number of buildings in
the health sector and recreation facilities are
also being developed in different parts of the
country.
Steady progress has been reported in the
development works being carried out in the
health sector, notably in the Hamad Medical Corporation’s facilities including the
surgery department. In all, 18 projects were
assigned in the health sector, of them some
of them have already been delivered, the
report said.
Among those projects accomplished in the
ﬁnancial year 2013-14 were the renovation of
the Qatar Radio & TV Corporation Complex,
development of the ﬁshing harbour complex
in Ruwais Port, six schools, work at Al Khor
Park including installation and maintenance
related works of playgrounds, 10 kindergartens, refurbishment works for outdoor playgrounds in 20 schools in Doha, demolition of
the old boundary wall of graveyard in Al Ruwais and its reconstruction, and the renovation works at the General Postal Corporation
building in West Bay.
The construction of most of the schools
tendered last year is in progress. They in-
cluded 15 kindergartens, most of which
would be ready for commissioning in the
coming months.
Ten new schools and as many kindergartens will start functioning soon. The schools
which will become operational are in Doha,
Al Asiri, Madinat Khalifa North, Al Luqta, Al
Gharrafa, Al Shahaniya.
The new kindergartens will be located in
Fereej Al Murra, Al Thumama, Rawdat Legdeim, Al Wajba, Al Duhail, Al Kharaitiyat,
Umm Salal Ali and Al Mirqab.
As already announced in this columns
QR1.2bn has been earmarked for the construction of new projects in the healthcare
sector.
The major allotments are for work at Hamad General Hospital, health centres in Al
Nuaim, Al Muntaza. Al Karaana, Al Rouda
and Al Leghwairiya and the wellness centre
in Umm Salal.
Some of the new projects in healthcare,
including the centres in Al Muntaza, Al
Nuaim, Al Karanaa, Al Leghwairiya, Al Rouda, Umm Salal and Communicable Diseases
Hospital are expected to be ready in the next
few months.
The complex featuring the gynecology
section and rehabilitation centre at Hamad
Medical City, which has been earmarked a
whopping QR2bn for completion, will be
ready early next year, according to Ashghal
authorities.
The project, spread over approximately
227,000sq m, has a facility to park 1,100
cars. The gynecology section has 190 beds
and 53 baby beds whereas the rehabilitation
centre will have 200 beds on its completion.
The Naufar Centre for Rehabilitation in
Muaither, spread over more than 50,117sq
m, is also being given a new facelift at a cost
of QR459mn.
An artist’s impression of one of the new facilities in Hamad Medical City.
Sewage treatment plant in
Doha North to cost QR8bn
A
number of major sewage treatment
works are currently under way across
the country, according to the Public
Works Authority (Ashghal).
Information sourced from the authority’s 2013-14 annual report shows that the
QR8bn Doha North Sewage Treatment
Works is among the prominent projects currently being executed.
The project, the largest for an integrated
drainage system, will serve approximately
900,000 residents around the north of Doha
and West Bay in addition to the western areas of Doha, The Pearl-Qatar and Lusail city
(under development).
The drainage system includes a sewage
treatment plant with a capacity of 245,000
cubic m per day and a sewage pumping station for treated sewage effluent.
According to the report, the drainage sys-
tem covers the stretch starting from Duhail
to The Pearl-Qatar as well as Umm Salal and
Al Kharaitiyat.
The formal commissioning of the project
is expected soon.
Similar drainage sewage treatment works
are also going on in Doha South.
The other ongoing works include the upgrade and refurbishing of a package treatment plant at Al Jamailiya and North Camp,
expansion of the Industrial Area sewage
treatment plant (Phase 2), extension works
of the Al Khor treatment plant (phases 1 and
2) and maintenance and operations of the
Doha South treatment plant.
The report says some of the other major
works are in different stages of tendering.
These include the Al Thakira sewage treatment works and Madinat al Shamal sewage
works.
A view of the Doha North Sewage Treatment Works.
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
9
REGION
Iran, powers
eye extension
of nuclear
deal deadline
A last-ditch diplomatic blitz
in Vienna to secure a deal
appears to be unable to
bridge major differences
Agencies
Vienna
W
orld powers and Iran
began discussing late
yesterday
whether
more time is needed to reach a
nuclear deal, a US official said,
as they struggled to overcome
major gaps barely 24 hours before a deadline.
The ﬁve permanent members
of the UN Security Council and
Germany (the P5+1) have been
locked in talks with Iran for
months to turn an interim deal
struck in Geneva that expires
today into a lasting accord.
Such an agreement, after a 12year standoff, is aimed at easing
fears that Tehran will develop
nuclear weapons under the
guise of its civilian activities, an
ambition it hotly denies.
But a last-ditch diplomatic
blitz in Vienna this week to secure
a deal appeared to be unable to
bridge major differences, forcing
negotiators to question whether
more time is a better option.
“Our focus remains on taking steps forward toward an
agreement, but it is only natural that just over 24 hours from
the deadline we are discussing a
range of options both internally
and with our P5+1 partners,” a
senior US State Department ofﬁcial said.
“An extension is one of those
options. It should come as no
surprise that we are also engaged in a discussion of the options with the Iranians,” added
the official.
“This does not mean that we
are not continuing to discuss the
broad range of difficult issues
and working to make progress
on all the issues that need to be
part of a comprehensive agreement.”
US Secretary of State John
Kerry met Iranian counterpart
Mohamed Javad Zarif yesterday
for the sixth time since Thursday in an attempt to break the
deadlock. Neither commented
publicly afterwards.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, a key player who arrived yesterday afternoon, also
met both Zarif and Kerry separately as well as German Foreign
Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Britain and France’s ministers
had also arrived in Vienna while
their Chinese counterpart was
due early today.
“What a deal would do is take
a big piece of business off the
table and perhaps begin a long
process in which the relationship not just between Iran and
us but the relationship between
Iran and the world, and the region, begins to change,” US
President Barack Obama in an
ABC News interview aired yesterday.
Diplomats on both sides say
that the two sides remain far
apart on the two crucial points
of contention: uranium enrichment and sanctions relief.
Enriching uranium renders it
suitable for peaceful purposes
like nuclear power but also at
high purities for the ﬁssile core
of a nuclear weapon.
Tehran wants to massively
ramp up the number of enrichment centrifuges—in order, it
says, to make fuel for future reactors—while the West wants
them dramatically reduced.
Iran wants painful UN and
Western sanctions that have
strangled its vital oil exports
lifted, but the powers want to
stagger any relief over a long
Woman in
volleyball
match case
out on bail
AFP
Tehran
A
Kerry and Zarif shake hands prior to their meeting at the Palais Coburg in Vienna yesterday.
period of time to ensure Iranian
compliance with any deal.
In view of the difficulties—
and of the dangers posed by a
complete collapse—many experts have long believed that
the negotiators would put more
time on the clock.
An Iranian source said earlier yesterday, while stressing at
that point that adding time was
not yet on the table, that the extension “could be for a period of
six months or a year”.
Another extension - as happened with an earlier deadline
of July 20 - carries risks of its
own including possible fresh US
sanctions that could lead Iran to
walk away.
Arms Control Association
analyst Kelsey Davenport said
that an extension of six months
to a year “would not ﬂy” with
the other parties.
Any extension “will have to be
very short because there are too
many hardliners, particularly in
Washington and Tehran, that
Bahrain govt, opposition
trade charges over polls
AFP
Manama
C
ontroversy clouded yesterday
Bahrain’s ﬁrst election since
authorities quelled protests led
by Shias, with the opposition mocking
government boasts of more than 50%
turnout.
The focus was on turnout, a key
marker of the poll’s validity after an
opposition boycott, and the count was
still under way after Saturday’s election
to a 40-member parliament.
The official electoral commission put
turnout at 51.5%, but the Shia opposition, which has dismissed the polls as a
“farce”, said only 30% of eligible voters
had cast their ballot.
Both sides also traded accusations of
electoral malpractice, with the opposition saying tens of thousands of people were pressured to vote, while the
authorities accused Shia militants of
preventing others from reaching polling stations.
“Lying, insults and ridicule are the
weapon of the defeated,” wrote Infor-
mation Minister Sameera Rajab on her
Twitter account, retaliating to claims
of vote rigging.
The legislative polls were the ﬁrst
since security forces in the kingdom
crushed Arab Spring-inspired protests
led by Shias in 2011.
“It was an astonishing turnout. It
was unprecedented,” wrote columnist
Hisham al-Zayani in Al Watan daily,
insisting the fraud claim was the result
of a failed boycott.
Voting closed at 1900 GMT on Saturday after a two-hour extension decided by the electoral commission.
An hour later the commission’s head,
Sheikh Khaled al-Khalifah, who is also
justice minister, said initial estimates
showed 51.5% of registered voters
turned out to vote.
The high turnout “puts an end to
confessionalism in Bahrain”, he said in
reference to the opposition’s boycott
call.
Almost 350,000 Bahrainis had been
called to elect the lower house of parliament.
Al Wefaq, the main Shia opposition
group, dismissed the official turnout
ﬁgure as “amusing, ridiculous, hardly
credible”.
Government officials were “trying
to fool public opinion and ignore the
large election boycott by announcing
exaggerated ﬁgures”, the group said in a
statement early yesterday.
The Shia opposition instead cited
a turnout ﬁgure of “around 30%”, allowing a possible 5% difference either
way.
It also accused the authorities of
forcing tens of thousands of state employees and others to vote or face consequences.
Government officials, for their part,
accused Shia militants of provoking
incidents which blocked roads in Shia
areas of the capital Manama to prevent
people from voting.
Security forces ﬁred teargas to disperse the demonstrators, some them
masked and armed with petrol bombs,
in Shia villages on Saturday.
The political rivals have struggled
to bury their differences through a
so-called “national dialogue” that fell
apart despite several rounds of negotiations.
Action to protect migrant workers urged
AFP
Kuwait City
I
nternational rights and labour
groups called yesterday for urgent
action to protect migrant workers
from abuse in Gulf countries.
Ahead of a meeting this week of
Gulf and Asian labour ministers, 90
groups issued a statement saying
millions of Asians and Africans are
facing abuses including unpaid wages, confiscation of passports, physical violence and forced labour.
“Whether it’s the scale of abuse of
domestic workers hidden from public
view or the shocking death toll among
construction workers, the plight of
migrants in the Gulf demands urgent
and profound reform,” said Rothna
Begum, Middle East women’s rights
researcher at New York-based Human Rights Watch.
HRW was one of the signatories
of the statement, along with other
groups including Amnesty International, the International Trade Union
Confederation and the International
Domestic Workers Federation.
Ministers from the Gulf Co-operation Council and Asian countries
are meeting in Kuwait on November
26 and 27 for the third round of the
so-called Abu Dhabi Dialogue on labour migration.
About 23mn foreigners, including
at least 2.4mn domestic servants,
live in the six-nation GCC.
The rights groups called for comprehensive laws to protect migrant
labourers and reform the kafala
system to allow workers to change
employers without permission from
their sponsors.
Representatives of some of the
groups also held a seminar at Kuwait
University on the plight of domestic
workers in the Gulf.
Begum said that reports and investigations by HRW and other
rights groups have found common
patterns of abuse against domestic
workers in the Gulf including unpaid
wages, no rest periods, excessive
workloads, food deprivation and
confinement in the workplace.
In several cases, domestic workers
reported physical or sexual abuse and
had been in situations of forced labour, including trafficking, she said.
Marieke Koning of the International Trade Unions Confederation
said GCC states signed a landmark
International Labour Organisation
Convention issued in 2011 to extend
the labour laws coverage to domestic
workers, but none implemented it.
Begum said GCC states are studying a model common contract for domestic workers. Qatar and the UAE
both have a draft law for domestic
helpers.
Bahrain has reformed its labour
law to extend some benefits to maids,
while Saudi Arabia issued a decision
last year granting domestic workers a nine-hour rest per day and one
month’s leave after two years of service, Begum said.
Most of those regulations, however, lack enforcement and have not
been successful in halting abuse
against domestic workers, she said.
want to sabotage this deal”, she
said.
Last
year’s
negotiations
opened secret talks between
Tehran and Washington, which
have transformed relations between two countries whose
deep enmity has been one of the
central facts of the Middle East
since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.
This year, the United States
and Iran have found themselves
on the same side on the battleﬁeld against Islamic State militants, especially in Iraq where
both Washington and Tehran
provide military support to the
Baghdad government.
But without a nuclear deal,
two countries that have labelled
each other the “Great Satan”
and a member of the “axis of
evil” are destined to remain enemies.
Sanctions, tightened sharply
since 2010, are inﬂicting severe
damage to Iran’s economy, while
the United States and Israel have
said they reserve the right to use
force to destroy any Iranian nuclear bomb programme.
Both US President Barack
Obama, a centre-left Democrat,
and Iranian President Hassan
Rohani, a Shia cleric elected on
a pledge to reduce Iran’s isolation and improve the economy,
would have to sell any deal to
sceptical hardliners at home.
Washington would also have
to win acceptance from Israel
and Saudi Arabia. Kerry briefed
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu by phone on Saturday and Saudi Arabia’s Foreign
Minister Saud al-Faisal in person at the Vienna airport yesterday.
“Iran must not be allowed to
set itself up as a nuclear threshold state,” Netanyahu said about
his conversation. “There is no
reason for it to retain thousands
of centrifuges which would allow it to enrich uranium for a
nuclear bomb in a short period
of time.”
British-Iranian woman
controversially
jailed
months ago in Tehran after trying to attend a men’s volleyball match was released on
bail yesterday pending an appeal
court verdict, her family said.
The case of Ghoncheh Ghavami, a law graduate from London,
has been surrounded by confusion since her lawyer said earlier
this month that the 25-year-old
had been sentenced to a year in
prison for committing propaganda against the Iranian regime.
That reported jail term has
been denied by judicial authorities, but in a fresh twist Ghavami’s mother Susan Moshtaghian
said a judge had agreed to let
her daughter leave jail on bail
of 1,000,000,000 Iranian rials
(around $30,700).
“Right now, my daughter is
freed until the Court of Appeal
issues the ﬁnal verdict,” she told
the Isna news agency in a report
in which she also appeared to
conﬁrm the initial prison sentence.
Saying that the one-year jail
term and an additional twoyear restriction on leaving Iran
had been communicated to
her, Moshtaghian added: “My
daughter merely defended herself in the preliminary court and
insisted on herself being innocent.
“We hope she’ll be acquitted
by the appeal court of the charges.”
Ghavami was detained outside
Azadi (“Freedom” in Persian)
Stadium in the capital on June
20, having gone there to watch a
volleyball match.
10
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
ARAB WORLD
Divided cabinet approves Jewish nation-state law
Reuters
Jerusalem
A
divided cabinet approved
yesterday a bill to anchor
in law Israel’s status as
the nation-state of the Jewish
people, legislation critics say
could undermine its democratic
foundation and the rights of its
Arab minority.
Right-wing supporters of the
initiative, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have
pledged such a law, which has
widened rifts within his governing coalition, would guarantee full
equality for all of Israel’s citizens.
A ﬁnal wording of the bill is
still pending, and Israel’s attorney general has cautioned
against giving Jewish values,
based on religion and history,
prominence over democratic
principles in law-making and
judicial rulings.
The measure pitted centrist
ministers against right-wing
and ultranationalist cabinet
members, who outvoted them
15 to seven to approve three
versions of the bill likely to be
merged later.
Officials said the legislation
would be brought to parliament
on Wednesday for preliminary
ratiﬁcation.
Palestinians had rejected
Netanyahu’s demand they recognise Israel as a Jewish state,
voicing concern that could deny
Palestinian refugees a claimed
right of return to homes they
left or were forced to ﬂee during
Israeli-Arab wars.
Legislators from the country’s
Arab minority have described
the bill as racist, noting that at
least one version of the proposed law would leave Hebrew
as Israel’s only official language
- and demote Arabic to “special
status”.
Netanyahu has submitted his
own wording for the law, listing
14 principles that include declaring that “the State of Israel is
democratic and founded on the
principles of liberty, justice and
peace in accordance with the visions of the Prophets of Israel”.
The Israeli leader’s draft,
which was released to the media,
pledges to “uphold the individual rights of all of Israel’s citizens”,
but also says that only the Jewish
people have a right of self-determination in the State of Israel.
The phrasing appears to rule
out any binational state with the
Palestinians, but makes no ref-
Arab FMs
to discuss
Jerusalem
tensions
Israel moves
to target Arab
residency and
welfare rights
Netanyahu has promised
a raft of tough measures
to tackle the violence in
East Jerusalem, in a nod to
hardliners within his rightwing Likud party
AFP
Jerusalem
T
he Israeli government is to
seek powers to strip Arabs
of their residency and welfare rights if they or their relatives
participate in unrest, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said
yesterday.
His comments at the weekly
cabinet meeting came as Interior
Minister Gilad Erdan used existing powers to revoke the residency
of a Palestinian who had already
served 10 years in prison for his
role in a 2001 bombing.
Netanyahu told ministers that
the proposed change to the law
would seek authority to revoke the
rights of any Arab resident who
took part in, or incited, violence,
even stone-throwing.
He said the proposals would
complement the policy of demolishing the family homes of those
involved in attacks on Israelis
which his government adopted in
annexed Arab East Jerusalem earlier this month despite condemnation by human rights watchdogs.
“It cannot be that those who
attack Israeli citizens and call for
the elimination of the State of Israel will enjoy rights such as Na-
tional Insurance—and their family members as well, who support
them,” Netanyahu told ministers.
“This law is important in order
to exact a price from those who
engage in attacks and incitement,
including the throwing of stones
and ﬁrebombs,” his office quoted
him as saying.
Annexed Arab East Jerusalem
has been hit by months of unrest,
which has spread across the occupied West Bank and to Arab communities inside Israel.
Last Tuesday, two Palestinians
burst into a Jerusalem synagogue
with meat cleavers and a gun and
killed four rabbis and a policeman
who came to their aid, in the city’s
deadliest violence in six years.
The following day, Israeli forces
demolished the East Jerusalem
home of a Palestinian who killed a
young woman and a baby with his
car last month before being shot
dead by police.
Punitive house demolitions
have been used by Israel for years
in the West Bank but the policy
was halted in 2005 after the army
said they had no proven deterrent
effect.
Their introduction in annexed
Arab East Jerusalem this month
drew condemnation from human rights groups, which said the
practice amounted to collective
punishment as the victims were
not the perpetrators of attacks but
their families.
Palestinians in East Jerusalem
have residency rights but not
Israeli citizenship. Their residency entitles them to freedom
of movement as well as social
beneﬁts, such as national insurance or health insurance, and its
revocation entails loss of those
beneﬁts.
Netanyahu has promised a raft
of tough measures to tackle the
violence in East Jerusalem, in a
nod to hardliners within his rightwing Likud party as talk grows of
an early general election.
The interior minister yesterday
revoked the residency and welfare
rights of Palestinian Israel resident Mahmud Nadi, who served
10 years in prison for driving a suicide bomber to a Tel Aviv nightclub where he killed 21 people in
2001.
Nearly all Arabs in Israel have
citizenship but a small number
have only residency rights.
By contrast, the vast majority of Palestinians living in East
Jerusalem hold residency rights,
not citizenship. For them, taking
citizenship would be tantamount
to accepting Israel’s seizure of the
eastern sector of the city during
the 1967 Six-Day War.
The decision to strip Nadi, who
comes from the northern West
Bank town of Qalqilya, of Israeli
residency was communicated
to him in a letter sent by Erdan,
which gave no explanation of the
timing of the move.
“In these circumstances, given
the severity of your actions and
the ﬂagrant breach of trust as a
resident of Israel... I have decided
to make use of my authority to
cancel your permanent residency
in Israel,” Erdan wrote.
erence to the independent country they seek in the Gaza Strip
and the occupied West Bank and
East Jerusalem in a stalled, USbrokered peace process.
“A ﬂag, anthem, the right of
every Jew to immigrate to the
country, and other national
symbols. These are granted only
to our people, in its one and only
state,” Netanyahu said in public
remarks at the cabinet meeting.
AFP
Cairo
T
Halawa’s daughter cries during his funeral in Gaza City yesterday.
Troops kill Palestinian along Gaza border
Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian in the Gaza Strip
near the border with Israel yesterday, the Palestinian
health ministry said, the first such fatality since a 50day war ended in August.
The Israeli military said it fired at two Palestinians
who approached Israel’s security fence with the
Hamas Islamist-dominated enclave, hitting one of
them, after they ignored shouts to halt and warning
shots.
The health ministry said Fadel Mohamed Halawa,
32, was killed in the incident, east of Jabalya refugee
camp.
One of Halawa’s relatives said he had been
searching for song birds, which nest in trees near
the Israeli border and command high prices in Gaza
markets.
Israel has long designated areas along its frontier
with the Gaza Strip as “no-go” zones for Palestinians,
citing concerns that militants could plant bombs or
carry out surveillance of Israeli patrols.
he Arab League will hold
an extraordinary meeting
next week to discuss the
situation in the Palestinian territories in the presence of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, an official said yesterday.
The meeting on November 29
comes as East Jerusalem is roiled
by months of unrest, which has
spread across the West Bank and
to Arab communities inside Israel.
Four rabbis and a policeman were killed last week when
two Palestinians carrying meat
cleavers and a pistol launched a
rare attack on a place of worship,
in Jerusalem’s deadliest violence
in six years.
Arab foreign ministers meeting on Saturday will discuss the
latest unrest as well as plans by
the Palestinians to seek “membership in UN agencies”, Arab
League deputy chief Ahmed Ben
Helli told reporters.
The Palestinians have said
they will submit a draft resolution to the UN Security Council
later this month, calling for an
end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories within two
years.
The text, which the Palestinians have been discussing for
weeks, is expected to be vetoed
by the United States.
The Palestinians have said
they will seek membership of the
International Criminal Court,
where they could sue Israeli ofﬁcials over alleged war crimes, if
the US wields its veto power.
Ben Helli said the Arab foreign
ministers will also discuss Israeli
activities in Jerusalem, which he
said is “pushing the region to (an)
explosion” of violence and compromising peace efforts.
Tensions have been rife in
Jerusalem, where right-wing
Jews are pressing for the right
to pray at Al Aqsa mosque compound.
Killer cop charged
with manslaughter
Reuters
Jerusalem
I
A man walks inside the torched house in Khirbet Abu Falah yesterday.
W Bank home torched in suspected settler attack
AFP
Ramallah
S
uspected Jewish extremists ﬁrebombed a house in
a Palestinian village in the
occupied West Bank early yesterday, its mayor said, pointing the
ﬁnger of blame at local settlers.
“At 4am, settlers came and
threw Molotov cocktails at a
house which partly burned
down,” said Masud Abu Mura,
mayor of Khirbet Abu Falah,
northeast of Ramallah.
He said four women were inside the house at the time, but
they all escaped unharmed.
Near the house, the assailants
scrawled “Death to Arabs” in Hebrew.
Mohamed
Abdelkarim
Hamayel, whose aunt and two
female cousins live in the house,
said the assailants were believed
to be from the Shilo settlement, a
few kilometres to the north of the
village.
“In the middle of the night,
my aunt woke up when she heard
voices speaking Hebrew. Some-
one knocked on the door but she
didn’t answer because she was
afraid,” he said.
“They threw a teargas canister
and several Molotov cocktails at
the balcony which caught ﬁre.”
Israeli police, who are responsible for all settler-related incidents in the West Bank, said forensic investigators and members
of the nationalistic crime unit
were at the scene.
“It is a two-storey house and
the ﬁre caused major damage to
the ground ﬂoor,” spokeswoman
Luba Samri said.
On November 12, a mosque
in the neighbouring village of Al
Mughayir was set ablaze in another arson attack blamed on local settlers.
Yesterday’s attack bore the
hallmarks of so-called “price
tag” violence—a euphemism for
nationalist-motivated hate crime
by Jewish extremists aimed at
Arab property.
Such attacks began as a reaction to state moves against the
settlements but have since escalated into a much broader expression of xenophobia.
srael charged a policeman
yesterday in the fatal shooting of a teenage Palestinian
protester, accusing him of deliberately switching his rubber bullets for the live round that killed
the youth.
The prosecutors’ decision to
level a charge of manslaughter
rather than murder drew criticism from the boy’s father, who
said there was ample proof the
killing was premeditated.
Nadim Nuwara, 17, was shot in
the chest during a demonstration in May at which Palestinians
hurled stones at Israeli forces in
the occupied West Bank. A second teenage protester was killed
but Israel has made no arrest in
that case, citing lack of evidence
as an autopsy was not carried out.
CCTV footage suggested neither youth posed any immediate
threat to the troops stationed
more than 60m away, in that
neither appeared to be throwing stones when they were shot.
Their deaths stoked Palestinian
fury at Israel in the weeks after
US-sponsored peace talks collapsed in April.
The accused, a member of the
paramilitary border police, was
Prison guards sit beside the accused policeman at Jerusalem District
Court yesterday.
arrested on November 12. His
name has not been released for
publication. He denies wrongdoing in the incident, which occurred near an Israeli prison and
the Palestinian town of Beitunia.
An indictment ﬁled at Jerusalem District Court said the policeman had slipped a live bullet
into his ammunition clip, which
was meant to hold only non-lethal blank rounds with which to
propel rubber bullets mounted
separately on the riﬂe muzzle.
“The defendant used the
blanks magazine so that his live
ﬁre, as opposed to rubber-bullet
ﬁre, would not be observed,” the
indictment said, adding that
he had targeted Nuwara’s torso
“with the intent of causing him
grave injury, and while anticipating the possibility that he
would cause his death”.
Manslaughter, killing without the clear intention to cause
death, carries a maximum 20year jail term in Israel though
judges can hand down lighter
sentences. Murder, killing intentionally, usually carries a life
term.
“All indications show the killing was deliberate and premeditated. It was not random ﬁre,”
Nuwara’s father, Siam, said. “A
manslaughter charge is unacceptable. What sentence might
he get if the charge is manslaughter?”
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
11
ARAB WORLD
Runoff likely
after ‘historic’
presidential
poll in Tunisia
Exit polls show that Essebsi
clinched 47.8% of the vote
with Marzouki trailing at
26.9%, a state television
report says
AFP
Tunis
B
oth leading candidates in
Tunisia’s ﬁrst free presidential election since
the 2011 revolution sparked the
Arab Spring predicted a runoff
as each claimed to be ahead after yesterday’s vote.
The election is a milestone
in the North African country
where a popular uprising set off
a chain of revolts that saw several Arab dictators toppled by
citizens demanding democratic
reform.
The campaign manager for
incumbent Moncef Marzouki
said he is neck and neck with
Beji Caid Essebsi, the pre-polling favourite among 27 candidates vying for the top job.
“At the worst we are even but
at best we’re between two and
four percent ahead,” Adnene
Mancer told reporters after
polling closed.
“Our chances are good as we
go into a runoff ” next month, he
said.
But the camp of Essebsi, an
87-year-old former premier
whose anti-Islamist Nidaa
Tounes party won October parliamentary polls, said he was
ahead.
Essebsi, “according to preliminary estimates, is ahead and
has a large lead”, his campaign
manager Mohsen Marzouk told
journalists.
But despite Essebsi being
“not far short” of the absolute
majority needed to win outright, a second round was likely,
Marzouk added.
Exit polls conducted by a private organisation showed that
Essebsi had clinched 47.8% of
the vote with Marzouki trailing
at 26.9%, a state television report said.
Official results from what
Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa
called a “historic day” will be
known by Wednesday and a
runoff will be held at the end of
December if there is no outright
winner.
Despite Tunisia’s march to
democracy being fraught by crisis, it has still won international
plaudits for not slipping into the
post-revolution chaos seen by
other Arab Spring states, namely its neighbour Libya.
EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini called the election a further step in Tunisia’s
“democratic transition” and
said it was up to the people to
“complete the electoral process
with transparency and respect”.
Whatever the outcome, Tunisians hailed the election as
a landmark which they hoped
would lead to economic and political stability.
“This election is very important. It’s the culmination of the
revolution and something that
we really should not pass up,”
said an electoral observer who
gave his name only as Moez.
Some 5.3mn people were
eligible to vote, with tens of
thousands of police and troops
deployed to guarantee security
amid fears Islamist militants
might seek to disrupt polling.
Other candidates included
ministers who served under
ousted dictator Zine al-Abidine
Ben Ali, left-winger Hamma
Hammami, business magnate
Slim Riahi and a lone woman,
magistrate Kalthoum Kannou.
Bechir Yahyaoui could hardly
control his emotions as he voted
in Tunis, saying that for once
Jail terms
for Egypt
students
conﬁrmed
AFP
Cairo
A
Essebsi gestures after casting his ballot at a polling station in Tunis. Below: Marzouki casts his vote in Sousse.
he was “voting for who I want,
with no pressure, no bribes”.
“Before (under Ben Ali) you
had to go and vote, regardless
of the outcome. This time the
election is free and transparent,” he said.
But Marzouki’s campaign
manager said he was concerned
that “fraud” had been committed
by the Essebsi camp, and urged
election monitors to stay vigilant
until the count was complete.
Polling stations opened at
0700 GMT and closed at 1700
GMT, but voting was restricted
Iraqi forces ‘liberate’
two towns held by IS
to just ﬁve hours in about 50
localities near the Algerian border, where armed groups are active.
Until the revolution, Tunisia
knew only two presidents—Habib Bourguiba, the “father of
independence” from France in
1956, and Ben Ali, who deposed
him in a 1987 coup.
To prevent another dictatorship, presidential powers have
been restricted under a new constitution, with executive prerogatives transferred to a premier
from parliament’s top party.
Essebsi’s campaign focused
on “state prestige”, with a wide
appeal to Tunisians dissatisﬁed
with Islamist rule in the postrevolution era.
But his critics have warned
that Essebsi is out to restore the
old regime, having served under
both former presidents.
Marzouki argues that only
he can preserve the gains of the
uprising, while his critics say he
hijacked the spirit of the revolution by allying himself with the
moderate Islamist party Ennahda in 2011.
n Egyptian appeals court
yesterday conﬁrmed jail
terms for at least 85 students convicted of illegal demonstrations and vandalism in
protests backing ousted Islamist
president Mohamed Mursi, ofﬁcials said.
Hundreds of students have
been tried in civilian courts after
violence on campuses, bastions
of pro-Islamist activists following the army’s overthrow of
Mursi in July 2013.
His student supporters have
clashed regularly with security
forces on university campuses
since a nationwide government
crackdown left hundreds of people dead and thousands jailed.
More than 200 Mursi supporters have also been sentenced
to death after speedy mass trials,
which the United Nations criticised as “unprecedented” in recent history.
A Cairo appeals court upheld verdicts sentencing at least
85 students in separate cases
to jail terms of up to ﬁve years
after ﬁnding them guilty of illegal protests, illegal assembly,
vandalism and joining a terrorist group, judicial sources and a
lawyer said.
Defence
lawyer
Mukhtar
Mounir, who represented nine defendants, conﬁrmed the outcome.
“A Cairo misdemeanour court
of appeals conﬁrmed the verdict
against 85 students, including
ﬁve female students... for violent clashes in Al Azhar University,” said Mounir, who attended
yesterday’s session.
The verdict can still be appealed at the Court of Cassation.
Reuters
Baghdad
I
raqi forces said yesterday they retook two towns north of Baghdad
from Islamic State ﬁghters, driving
them from strongholds they had held
for months and clearing a main road
from the capital to Iran.
There was no independent conﬁrmation that the army, Shia militia and
Kurdish peshmerga forces had completely retaken Jalawla and Saadiya,
about 115km northeast of Baghdad.
Many residents ﬂed the violence long
ago.
At least 23 peshmerga and militia
ﬁghters were killed and dozens were
wounded in yesterday’s ﬁghting,
medical and army sources said.
“We have liberated Jalawla and
Saadiya,” said Mala Bakhtiar, a senior official in the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan party, speaking by phone
from a nearby town. He estimated 50
IS ﬁghters may have been killed out of
a force of 400.
Iraq’s Shia-led government, backed
by US-led air strikes, has been trying
to push back IS since it swept through
mainly Sunni Muslim provinces of
northern Iraq in June, meeting virtually no resistance.
Last week the army broke a
months-long siege of the country’s
largest reﬁnery north of Baghdad, but
Iraqi pro-government forces stand guard on a road during the operation to
retake Saadiya yesterday.
IS ﬁghters continue to take territory in
the western province of Anbar, which
shares borders with Syria, Jordan and
Saudi Arabia.
The militants have been ﬁghting in
the last two days to take full control
of the Anbar provincial capital Ramadi. Yesterday, Iraqi and foreign jets
struck IS ﬁghters near central Ramadi,
provincial council member Mahmoud
Ahmed Khalaf said. Clashes continued in the city, he said.
Jalawla and Saadiya are located in
Diyala province which is mainly under
the control of the Baghdad government forces and Kurdish peshmerga.
Recapturing the towns would help
secure the Kurdish-controlled towns
of Kalar and Khanaqin to the north
as well as nearby dams and oilﬁelds,
peshmerga secretary general Jabbar
Yawar said. It would also allow the road
to be reopened between Baghdad and
Khanaqin, close to the Iranian border.
While IS forces have not advanced
into Baghdad, they hold a ring of
towns around the capital and have
claimed responsibility for a series of
bombings in Shia districts of the city.
A car bomb in the Shia town of Yousuﬁya, 30km southeast of Baghdad,
killed ﬁve people yesterday, police
and medics said. Two other bombs in
towns near the capital killed four.
Syria rebels attack northern Shia villages
AFP
Beirut
F
ierce ﬁghting pitted regime loyalists against rebels backed by
Al Qaeda yesterday, after insurgents launched an offensive aimed at
seizing two Shia villages in northern
Syria, a monitoring group said.
Elsewhere, Islamic State (IS) ﬁghters shot down a government warplane
over the eastern province of Deir alZor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The villages of Nubol and Zahraa in
war-battered Aleppo province have
been under rebel siege for a year and
a half.
Late Saturday, the rebels and their
allies from Al Qaeda affiliate Al Nusra
Front launched a major assault aimed
at taking the villages, although they
have yet to do so, the Observatory said.
“Fierce clashes have raged since
midnight on the edges of Nubol and
Zahraa,” it said.
The Britain-based group described
the offensive as “the most violent”
since the rebels and Al Qaeda besieged
the villages. Observatory director
Rami Abdel Rahman also said it was
the ﬁrst time that Al Nusra Front had
made advances in the area.
The militants announced their role
via Twitter.
“The mujahedeen (have launched) an
offensive against the rawafed in the villages of Nubol and Zahraa,” the group
said, using a pejorative term for Shias.
At least eight rebels and militants
and one civilian have been killed since
Saturday night, the Observatory said.
The main forces defending Nubol
and Zahraa are pro-regime militiamen
and ﬁghters from Lebanon’s Shia Hezbollah movement.
Activists say previous rebel attempts to seize Nubol and Zahraa
failed after the rebels were pressured
by their US backers into retreating, for
fear of sectarian massacres.
Several aid convoys have entered
Nubol and Zahraa in recent months.
The Observatory says the rebel goal
is to ease the Syrian army’s pressure
on their fellow insurgents in Aleppo
city, the scene of heavy ﬁghting since
July 2012.
The monitoring group also reported
25 regime loyalists killed in ﬁghting
and rebel ambushes in Zibdin east of
Damascus on Saturday.
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12
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
AFRICA
Boko Haram rebels
kill 48 ﬁsh vendors
Boko Haram continues to slaughter
unimpeded
AFP
Lagos
Reuters
Harare
S
uspected Boko Haram extremists
killed 48 ﬁsh vendors after setting
up a roadblock near Nigeria’s border
with Chad, the head of their association
said yesterday, in the latest violence to hit
the country’s volatile northeast.
“Scores of Boko Haram ﬁghters blocked
a route linking Nigeria with Chad near the
ﬁshing village of Doron Baga on the shores
of Lake Chad on Thursday and killed a
group of 48 ﬁsh traders on their way to Chad
to buy ﬁsh,” Abubakar Gamandi, head of the
ﬁsh traders association, told AFP.
Gamandi said the attackers set up a
barricade at Dogon Fili, 15km from Doron
Baga in Borno state, and stopped a convoy
of ﬁsh vendors around midday, slaughtering some of them and drowning others in
the lake.
“The Boko Haram gunmen slit the
throats of some of the men and tied the
hands and legs of the others before throwing them into the lake to drown,” Gamandi
told AFP by telephone from Maiduguri,
the Borno state capital.
It was unclear if the motive for the gruesome attack was robbery or if there were
other reasons for the killings. Boko Haram
has at times targeted residents seemingly
indiscriminately in its deadly insurgency.
Doron Baga, 180km from Maiduguri, is
the base of the Multi-National Joint Task
Force (MNJTF), comprising troops from
Nigeria, Chad and Niger ﬁghting the Islamist group.
The MNJTF was formed in 1998 to ﬁght
trans-border crime but its mandate was
expanded as part of efforts to tame the
Boko Haram insurgency in the restive region.
Gamandi claimed the assailants killed
Mugabe
changes
his party’s
charter
Z
A screengrab taken in July shows the leader of the Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau.
all of their victims without using their
guns.
“The attackers killed their victims silently without the use of the gun to avoid
attracting attention from the multi-national troops,” he said.
Kaloma Zarami, a ﬁsh vendor in Maiduguri, said he learned of the killings from
other traders in Doron Baga.
“The news came to us late yesterday
through some of our colleagues who came
from Doron Baga to inform us of the incident because there is no telephone service
in the area,” he said.
“We lost 48 people in the attack. Some
were slaughtered and others were thrown
into Lake Chad with their hands and legs
tied and left to drown,” he added.
A military officer in Maiduguri conﬁrmed the attack but said details were
sketchy.
“We heard of the attack near Doron Baga
but we don’t have any details because the
area falls under the operational jurisdiction of the MNJTF,” the military officer
said.
News of the attack was slow to emerge
due to the destruction of mobile phone
towers in the area by Boko Haram in previous attacks.
Incessant Boko Haram attacks have
disrupted ﬁshing and farming along the
shores of Lake Chad. Fishermen from
Doron Baga have been forced to abandon
ﬁshing and have turned to importing dried
ﬁsh from neighbouring Chad.
Gamandi said the Dogon Fili route provided the safest passage for traders from
Doron Baga to Chad as other routes are infested with Boko Haram gunmen who rob
and kill travellers.
Last December at least seven ﬁshermen
were killed when Boko Haram Islamists
attacked Doron Baga in a nighttime raid
that left many homes burnt.
In August, the Islamists raided Dogon
Baga and kidnapped 97 people after killing
28 villagers.
The hostages, including women and
children, were loaded on speed boats and
ferried across the lake into Chad.
Chadian troops rescued 85 of the hostages when they intercepted a convoy of
buses transporting them from the shores.
More than 13,000 people have been
killed since the insurgency began in 2009
and Boko Haram is now said to be in control of more than two dozen towns in Nigeria’s northeast in its quest for a hardline
Islamic state.
The Islamists have made major gains
over the past 18 months and violence has
continued at a relentless pace in three
northeastern states that had long been under a state of emergency.
The emergency measures expired this
week and President Goodluck Jonathan
has yet to get a parliamentary approval for
an extension.
imbabwe’s
president
Robert Mugabe has
changed the constitution of his ruling ZANU-PF
party to allow him to directly
appoint his deputies, giving
the 90-year-old sole power
to anoint his successor, party
sources said yesterday.
Until now Mugabe and his
two ZANU-PF deputies have
been elected by members from
the country’s 10 regions. The
deputies automatically took
up the same posts in government.
The changes to the ZANUPF charter enacted at an
all-night meeting of its politburo give Mugabe an even
tighter grip at a time when
deputy president Joice Mujuru
has been accused of plotting
to oust him at a party congress
next month.
ZANU-PF’s chairman told
reporters that the party had
agreed “far-reaching amendments” to its constitution.
He declined to give details but two senior ZANUPF members at the marathon
meeting of the party’s top executive body told Reuters Mugabe would now appoint his
deputies, giving him unassailable control of a party he has
led since 1975.
“There will no longer be
elections for deputies. They
will all be appointees now and
the logic is that this will bring
cohesion in the party,” one of
the officials said.
The changes will be adopted
by a larger Central Committee
this week before endorsement
at the December 2-7 congress, where Mugabe is set to
be elected unopposed as party
leader.
Proponents of the amendments argued that elected
deputies were creating parallel centres of power, the party
sources said, leading to factional fights as party members position themselves to
eventually take over from
Mugabe.
Mugabe, who has run Zimbabwe since independence
from Britain in 1980, has refused to name a successor but
Mujuru and justice minister
Emmerson Mnangagwa have
long been seen as likely successors when Africa’s oldest
head of state dies or retires.
In the last three weeks,
Mujuru has been systematically stripped of support,
with her allies either suspended or fired for backing
her. State media have also accused her of plotting to challenge Mugabe.
Mujuru has denied the
charges and says public calls
by Mugabe’s wife Grace and
state media for her to resign
are unconstitutional.
Pistorius kin jail visit
may have bent rules
Namibians to vote electronically
AFP
Pretoria
O
Namibian opposition party Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA) supporters cheer up during the last General Election campaign rally in Windhoek on Saturday. In a first
for Africa, Namibians will cast their ballots electronically in this month’s presidential and legislative polls, the election commission said Friday. Over 1mn voters, or just
about half of the nation’s 2.3mn people, are due to vote on November 28.
scar Pistorius, serving a ﬁve-year prison
sentence for killing
his girlfriend, received a long
visit from his brother and sister for his 28th birthday that
may have bent the rules of his
incarceration, a South African
newspaper reported yesterday.
Carl and Aimee Pistorius
were able to visit the doubleamputee track star for nearly
two hours on Saturday morning at Pretoria’s central prison,
the Sunday Times reported.
Pistorius is technically allowed ﬁve hour-long visits per
month, the paper said.
His siblings also brought
balloons, gifts and a birthday cake bought outside the
prison, which would usually
not be allowed, the paper said,
while their vehicles did not
appear to have been searched.
Prison services spokesman
Logan Maistry told the paper
that Pistorius had not been receiving special treatment, but
that an investigation would be
opened to look into the allegations.
Oscar Pistorius
Because of his physical disability, Pistorius, sentenced in
October, is being held in the
prison’s hospital ward.
The fallen Paralympian gold
medallist shot and killed his
girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp at
his upmarket home in Pretoria
in the early hours of Valentine’s Day in 2013.
He said he shot the 29-yearold model four times through a
locked bathroom door because
he thought she was an intruder. He was found guilty of
culpable homicide, escaping a
harsher murder conviction.
Prosecutors are appealing
his prison term, which they
have called “shockingly light”.
Under South African law the
double-amputee could serve
just 10 months in jail.
The application for appeal is
set for December 9.
Ebola-hit Sierra Leone’s cocoa leaves bitter taste
AFP
Sierra Leone
C
ocoa farmer Sam Turner grips
tight as his bike wobbles along
the country track in Ebola-hit
eastern Sierra Leone, groaning under
the weight of beans harvested a month
late.
The arable district of Kenema—at the
centre of the outbreak of the deadly epidemic in May—has been under quarantine for three months and its onceabundant, verdant landscape is going
to seed.
To make matters worse, the rainy
season has continued far longer than
usual, and Turner forlornly points to
his still green but already pitted pods.
“The harvest is late and it’s not going to be good. We didn’t start early
enough. The rain has destroyed a lot,”
he says back on the plantation.
Turner has roped in the whole family
to work and he deals out the odd judicious clip around the ear as his children,
aged eight and ten, bicker and jostle for
pickings in the branches.
The Turners are lucky to have escaped an Ebola epidemic which raged
through Kenema and neighbouring
Kailahun at the height of summer before spreading west, leaving in its wake
around 1,200 deaths.
The two eastern districts are experiencing a slowdown in the spread, but
Turner and his family, like all farmers in
the area, are still playing for high stakes.
“Prices are falling, to 4,000 leones
($0.92) per pound. Buyers no longer
come. Ebola is really setting us back,”
he sighs.
Ebola, an aggressive tropical pathogen causing a fever which can lead
to unstoppable internal and external
bleeding, spreads fear as quickly as
pestilence.
Farmers who were lucky enough to
escape the contagion have downed
tools in their droves.
According to an initial evaluation of
the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, at least 40% of farm
hands in Kenema and Kailahun have
abandoned their posts or died.
In the most productive agricultural
areas, 90% of plots have been unattended during the epidemic.
Amid the eastern region’s crocodileinfested swampland and dense forests
of African teak and khaya trees, thousands of acres of savannah lie neglected
and fallow, the grass uncut for months.
Kenema’s capital, a bustling export
hub of the same name, attracts traders
from across the country and beyond
who bargain with small farmers and
large plantation holders alike.
In October and November they come
for cocoa, while the coffee season starts
in February.
A number of exporters—Tropical
Farms, Randlyn Holdings, the Capitol
Trading Company and others—line the
main road through Kenema city.
All day motorcycles, taxis and vans
drive up and unload bags of beans in
warehouses monitored by armed men.
“Last year at the same time, we were
still unloading at midnight,” says Bassam Dayoub, head of Dayoub Trading.
“Today, I do about 300 bags of 65 kg a
The arable district of Kenema—at
day, compared to about 2,000 bags last
the centre of the outbreak of the
deadly epidemic in May—has been year. We don’t have enough product.”
Dayoub says that even if there were
under quarantine for three months
enough produce to ship out, transporand its once-abundant, verdant
tation is a major issue.
landscape is going to seed.
Every day at 5pm army and police
The country is working gradually to checkpoints lock down the district, and
return to pre-war levels of cocoa pro- no one can get in or out until 9am.
“Because of Ebola, the buyers no
duction and is just 5,000 off the target
longer come. People are afraid to travel
of 25,000 tonnes per year.
But it remains a small player com- because of all the roadblocks. They
pared with neighbouring Ivory Coast, have to spend the night on the road,”
Dayoub says.
which produces 1.75mn tonnes.
Almost a decade after a ruinous 11year civil war shattered industry and
agriculture, Sierra Leone’s chemicalfree soil remains one of its principal
assets.
The European Union plays up the
“organic” certiﬁcation of its plantations, and its cocoa and coffee beans are
a sought-after commodity.
The journey from Kenema to Freetown, where hauliers’ goods are
shipped to Turkey and the Netherlands, can take two days now, whereas it took just a few hours before
Ebola.
He says prices are rising.
“Suddenly, the prices are rising because volumes are declining,” says
Dayoub, adding that he is buying cocoa
from farmers at $2.50 a kilo, a rise of 25
in a few months.
At Capitol Trading, Hassan Hashim,
the boss, turns over 600 bags a day but
he, too, expects to export less—“70% of
last year’s volume: 1,500 tonnes, maximum”, he predicts.
The price of cocoa on global commodity markets shot up to 3.5-year
highs in September on fears that Ebola’s spread would disrupt the harvest in
top exporters Ivory Coast and Ghana,
but has since pulled back as speculators
pulled out of the market.
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
13
AFRICA
Afrik Fashion Show
Kenyan troops
kill dozens in
Somalia raid
The Kenyan raid into Somalia
may raise the stakes in the
battle against Shebaab
Reuters
Nairobi
K
enyan security forces have
pursued and killed more
than 100 militants and
destroyed their camp in Somalia
after the ambush of a Nairobibound bus that killed 28 people,
deputy president William Ruto
said yesterday.
Somalia’s Islamist Al Shebaab
militants have claimed responsibility for the attack on Saturday,
when gunmen ordered passengers on the bus to recite Koran
verses and shot dead non-Muslims - 19 men and nine women who could not.
The group said the killing outside Mandera, a town in the far
northeast near the Somali and
Ethiopian borders, was in retaliation for raids on mosques in the
southern port city of Mombasa.
Kenyan police said on Saturday that security forces pursued
the attackers as they ﬂed to Somalia after the ambush.
“Two successful operations
were carried out against the perpetrators of these murderous executions across the border. Our
Relatives of those who were killed in the bus attack cry as the bodies
of their loved ones arrive at Chiromo mortuary in Nairobi yesterday.
retaliatory action left in its trail
more than 100 fatalities,” Ruto
told a news conference in Nairobi.
Ruto said a camp used by the
attackers and four “technicals”
- pick-up trucks mounted with
guns - were also destroyed.
“Our message to them is clear
- you may sneak and attack innocent civilians. But for any attack
on Kenya and its people, we shall
pursue you wherever you go,”
Ruto said.
Saturday’s attacks drew international condemnation from Somalia, Britain, the United States
and the United Nations.
Former prime minister Raila
Odinga called on the government
to do more to counter the country’s deteriorating security.
“When can we expect an end
to this desperate state of affairs?
Where is the bottom?” Odinga,
now an opposition leader, asked
in a statement.
Last week, police in Mombasa
shot dead one man and arrested
almost 400 others when they
raided four mosques that they
said were being used to recruit
militants and store weapons.
Al Shebaab killed at least 67
people in a gun and grenade raid
on the Westgate shopping mall
in Nairobi last September, saying it was revenge for attacks on
its ﬁghters by Kenyan troops in
Somalia.
During the Westgate attack,
some of the victims were killed
after the gunmen weeded out
non-Muslims for execution by
demanding they recite the Shahada, the Muslim profession of
faith.
That and other attacks in the
past year on the coast and in
Nairobi have prompted Western
nations to issue travel warnings,
hitting the tourism industry.
Experts have blamed poor
command structures and intelligence sharing for Kenya’s problems ﬁghting the militants in the
past, but Ruto said improved coordination had assured the success of the weekend raid against
the attackers.
Police this week closed the
four mosques in Mombasa, a
largely Muslim city unlike much
of Kenya where Christians make
up 80 percent of the population,
on the grounds they had come
under the inﬂuence of hardliners.
“Any place of worship that
wilfully hosts terror platforms
disqualiﬁes itself from the sanctity of a place of worship,” Ruto
said.
A model takes part in the ninth ‘Afrik Fashion’ in Abidjan. Designers from Benin, Burkina Faso,
Niger, Togo, Senegal and Ivory Coast attended at the African fashion trade show and presented
their latest creations.
Burkina interim leaders set to
ﬁnally unveil new government
AFP
Burkina
B
urkina Faso’s interim leaders are expected to unveil a new government
lineup yesterday, with the country
anxious to see the extent of military inﬂuence under civilian president Michel Kafando.
Kafando, a former diplomat, took office
on Friday to steer the west African nation for a transitional period after veteran
president Blaise Compaore was toppled in
a wave of popular unrest last month.
But intense wrangling over cabinet
posts delayed the announcement of the
government to be headed by interim prime
minister Isaac Zida, who led a military
power grab after Compaore was ousted on
October 31.
An army officer close to Zida said the
cabinet lineup would be announced at
around 1700 GMT after being ﬁnalised
overnight.
The shape of the new government
was initially expected to be unveiled on
Thursday, and then Saturday, but has
been held up by differences between the
rival parties.
One source said the delay was caused by
the army’s opposition to several ministe-
army wanted all the most important positions in the 25-member government,
including defence, internal security, and
mining.
Civilians chosen by the military were to
get the foreign, ﬁnance, justice, and budget posts, according to the document.
That would leave Kafando free to name
only relatively minor ministers, such as
industry, communication and scientiﬁc
research.
Some civil society representatives have
voiced concern over Zida’s appointment
and some residents of Ouagadougou called
it a betrayal of their “revolution”.
Both Kafando and Zida are barred from
Burkinese interim president Michel Kafando standing in elections scheduled to be held
in November next year under the transi(R) with Niger’s President Mahamadou
tion deal.
Issoufou at an official handover ceremony
But a diplomat said: “Make no mistake,
attended by African heads of state on Friday.
it’s (Zida) who will lead the country.”
Zida, 49, was appointed premier by
rial candidates proposed by civil society
Kafando on Wednesday, a day after the
groups.
Zida formally handed power to Kafando, former UN ambassador was sworn in as
a 72-year-old former foreign minister and interim leader.
Chosen after negotiations between pocareer diplomat, in a ceremony attended
litical parties, the army and civil society,
by six African heads of state on Friday.
However, despite the civilian shift, it Kafando has emphasised his “humility”
is expected that the military will retain a as a ﬁgure entrusted with “power that belongs to the people”.
strong say in government.
Kafando has pledged he will not
An early draft cabinet list prepared by
the military and seen by AFP showed the let his landlocked nation of 17mn peo-
ple become a “banana republic”.
He vowed to punish those responsible for excesses during the 27-year rule
of Compaore, who was very close to slain
Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhaﬁ and Liberian warlord-turned-president Charles
Taylor, currently jailed for war crimes.
“We will settle accounts with all those
who have abused justice and who think
they can syphon off public funds,” Kafando said.
“The message of the people is clear and
we have heard it,” he said. “No more injustice, no more chaos, no more corruption.”
Compaore, meanwhile, ﬂew into Morocco Friday on a visit from Ivory Coast,
where he ﬂed after an uprising against
a constitutional change that could have
enabled him to extend his hold on power.
Under intense international pressure,
and the threat of sanctions if the military retained the post of head of state, an
agreement was thrashed out to work towards elections in November 2015.
Burkina Faso notably exports cotton and
gold, but almost half the population lives
on less than a dollar a day and many are
subsistence farmers.
Every change of regime in the country
has been triggered by a coup since independence from France in 1960, when it
was called Upper Volta.
Opposition party
office is raided
AFP
Lagos
N
igeria’s main opposition party claimed
yesterday that security agents had ransacked its ofﬁce in Lagos, arresting workers and seizing documents,
in the latest ﬂareup ahead of
February elections.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) said 28 workers were arrested during the
raid on its data centre in Lagos early Saturday, which the
party likened to the Watergate
burglary in the United States
in the 1970s.
“Over 50 security operatives drafted from Abuja
blocked the two major street
entrances to the APC data
entry centre, pulled down
the gates, and spent over two
hours ransacking and vandalising the centre,” APC spokesman Lai Mohamed told AFP.
“More than a dozen computers were destroyed. The
server was also vandalised
along with other equipment in
the building,” he said.
“Saturday’s attack is an-
other one in the string of attacks and illegal actions of
the PDP-led administration,”
Mohamed said, referring to
president Goodluck Jonathan’s ruling Peoples Democratic Party.
He described the raid as the
worst political scandal in Nigeria’s history and likened it to
the Watergate scandal that led
to the resignation of US president Richard Nixon in 1974.
“Just like the Watergate
scandal in the USA, the statesponsored security operatives
apparently acting at the behest of the ruling PDP government turned the office
upside down, and pulled out
and vandalised everything in
sight,” he said.
He called for an inquiry to
ﬁnd those responsible for the
raid, which came on the day
the APC warned the government against a plan to arrest
the speaker of the house of
representatives after he quit
the ruling party for the opposition. Speaker Aminu Tambuwal was also tear-gassed
on Thursday as police tried to
prevent him and others from
entering the chamber.
Booming malls, a sign of Angola’s middle class
AFP
Luanda
“
It’s a great joy for Angolans,” says Luciano Manuel,
nudging his trolley through
a huge supermarket in the Angolan capital of Luanda.
During almost 30 years of civil
war, “we’ve never had a supermarket like this - it’s a undeniable gain, and another sign of
Angola’s development”, he said,
combing the aisles of Kero, a local hypermarket chain.
Supermarkets and shopping
malls are signs of Angola’s rising middle class as the southwest
African nation’s economy has
grown rapidly in the last decade
thanks to its large oil resources.
Retailer Kero has jumped on
the burgeoning prosperity, opening a dozen branches in the past
four years with two more set to
Canned food piled up in a market in Cabinda.
open soon, bolstering a local
workforce of 5,000.
Domestic products make up
30% of total sales, creating more
local jobs, according to a recent study by consultancy ﬁrm
Deloitte.
Not far from the polished
ﬂoors and well-lit aisles of the
supermarket, at the far end of the
parking lot, a group of women
sit back in plastic chairs under a
tree.
They are selling cellphone airtime, vegetables and exchanging
dollars for Angolan kwanza.
“We set up here after the supermarket opened,” says Maria.
“It’s a great location. There are a
lot of pedestrians so there are lots
of opportunities to make a sale.”
This coexistence of formal and
informal economies is reﬂected
across Angola, a nation where
extreme poverty and newfound
wealth live cheek by jowl.
After the devastation of a violent civil war between 1975 and
2002, oil has fuelled the country’s economy, which has grown
by 3.9% this year and is expected
to expand by 5.9% in 2015, according to the IMF.
While many complain that the
oil wealth has mainly lined the
pockets of the elite, the sprouting of big shopping centres is a
sign of more people in the middle
class, currently about a ﬁfth of
the population.
“In the last 10 years, we have
witnessed the growth of a middle
class both in Luanda and the rest
of the country,” said Feizal Esmail, who is helping build a mall
with 240 stores in Luanda.
He’s already planning a shuttle
service for shoppers from more
remote provinces.
Economics professor Justino
Pinto de Andrade says increasing
wealth is also changing lifestyles
and social mores.
“A section of the population
has seen its purchasing power
increase and, because they work
during the week, they concentrate their shopping on the weekend,” he said.
“At the big malls they can buy
everything they need at once,” he
added.
“And there’s more evidence
for this social dynamic: more
small cars, high-rise real estate
projects, and the spreading use of
credit cards.”
In this regard Angola reﬂects
a growing trend across the continent.
A third of Africans - about
370mn people - now belong to
the middle class, according to an
African Development Bank study
published in late October.
By African standards, these individuals spend between $2 and
$20 a day, and have access to water, electricity, cars and a number
of household goods like televisions and refrigerators.
But the middle class is still far
from a dominant group in Angola, said sociologist Joao Nzatuzola.
An August study by economists from South Africa’s Standard Bank put Angola’s middle
class at 21% of the population.
By 2030, they estimate the country will have an extra 1mn middle
class households.
But 54% of the population still
live on less than $2 a day.
For many, street trading or
traditional markets remain their
sole source of revenue.
“The multiplication of supermarkets has not overtaken street
trading, which is still ﬂourishing,” said Nzatuzola.
Nelson Pestana, professor at
the Catholic University of Angola, sees the emergence of supermarkets as a test for small
traders, but not an insuperable
one.
“The arrival of supermarkets
poses a challenge to small businesses, but the informal sector is
more resilient because it has advantages not offered by the malls,
like selling used goods or negotiating prices,” said Pestana.
A bigger threat could ultimately be the Angolan government’s plans to regulate informal
trade, organising a network of
traditional markets in licensed
premises.
14
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
AMERICAS
Controversial Washington ex-mayor Barry dies at 78
AFP
Washington
F
Marion Barry: “A fixture in DC
politics for decades”
ormer Washington mayor
Marion Barry, who left ofﬁce in disgrace and went
to prison on drug charges only
to return for a fourth term, has
died aged 78.
US President Barack Obama
was among those paying tribute to Barry yesterday, calling
him “a ﬁxture in DC politics for
decades” and praising him for
his role in the civil rights movement.
“Through a storied, at times
tumultuous life and career, he
earned the love and respect of
countless
Washingtonians,”
Obama said in a statement.
The Washington Post, citing
hospital officials in the US capital, said the mayor was in cardiac arrest when he arrived and
could not be revived.
Barry, the Mississippi-born
son of a sharecropper, dominated local politics in Washing-
Buffalo area
braces for
ﬂoods after
record snow
Reuters
Buffalo
E
mergency workers ﬁlled
thousands of sandbags
yesterday as the area
around Buffalo, New York braced
for potential ﬂooding as warming temperatures began to melt
up to 7ft (2m) of snow.
Hundreds of members of the
New York National Guard were
in Erie County and Buffalo to
help with ﬂood prevention after
days of work to clear roads and
dig homes and cars out of the
record snow from a storm that
killed 13 people.
The National Weather Service
said roads could ﬂood quickly from snow melt, since the
storm blocked drains, and issued
warnings for potential ﬂooding
of four rivers and creeks.
“We hope to get back to business on Monday. Government
offices will be open. Schools will
be open. We are sending teams of
structural engineers in to inspect
any school that might have the
potential of a structural problem,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters on
Sunday at a news brieﬁng.
Cuomo said the state had
prepared in case of widespread
ﬂooding, moving in hundreds
of pumps, tens of thousands of
sandbags and putting together a
robust evacuation plan.
Three
sandbagging
machines and 176,500 sandbags
were among the supplies taken
to staging areas. Ellen Przepasniak, spokeswoman for the Erie
County emergency operations
effort, said sandbags would be
quickly deployed to cities and
towns that report rising waters.
State agencies have also deployed high axle vehicles that
can drive on ﬂooded roads,
pumps, water bottles, a water
tank and other emergency material, the governor’s office said.
Roofs collapsed and some
people were stuck in their cars
for more than 24 hours when the
heaviest snow fall in memory hit
areas of New York state along
the Great Lakes. The November
storm system, dubbed the “Knife
Storm,” lasted for three days.
The National Weather Service
said higher temperatures - rising
to 50F (10C) yesterday and 60F
today - could rapidly unlock up
to 6in of water.
“Snowmelt is well underway
and will continue through Monday. It is this snowmelt that will
ultimately cause the ﬂooding
concerns,” the weather service
said on its website.
“It is warming up already, it’s
in the 40s right now and based
on the temperatures we’ve been
dealing with, it’s pretty balmy,”
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown told
CNN news yesterday morning.
ton for many years starting in
the mid-1970s despite repeated
scandals and multiple arrests.
The most notorious incident
came during his third term as
mayor when he was arrested in
January 1990 for crack cocaine
use and possession in an FBI
sting operation caught on video.
The “mayor for life” was sentenced to six months in prison,
but swept back into the city’s
top post in 1994.
Barry, who also served many
terms on the DC Council and
was head of the board of education, was able to parlay his
political disgrace into a theme
of redemption during the 1994
election.
More recently, in 2009, Barry,
who was serving again as a city
councilman, was arrested for
allegedly stalking a woman.
In his early terms Barry
gained recognition as a charismatic leader who used the city
administration to further his
ambitious social programs including jobs for the poor.
In his DC Council biography,
Barry wrote that he lived by the
motto “always ﬁghting for the
people.”
But by his later terms Barry’s
fortunes and those of the city
had begun to sag. The municipal
deﬁcit ballooned, crime rose,
and a close mayoral conﬁdant
was convicted for misuse of
public funds.
Current Washington Mayor
Vincent Gray said in a statement
he would work with Barry’s
family and city officials to plan
official ceremonies “worthy of a
true statesman of the District of
Columbia.”
Local media said Barry died
having just been released from
another hospital earlier Saturday evening after being admitted for observation, following
what the local NBC affiliate reported was a urinary tract infection.
Barry had a kidney transplant
ﬁve years ago and had also suffered from prostate cancer and
diabetes.
A security guard puts up police tape outside of the Buzz Westfall Justice Center where a St. Louis County grand jury is considering
whether or not to charge Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting of Michael Brown yesterday in Clayton, Missouri.
Anxious Ferguson waits
for grand jury’s decision
Agencies
Ferguson, Missouri
A
fter a fourth straight night
of low-level protests in
Ferguson, Missouri, anxious residents still did not know
yesterday when a grand jury will
return a decision on whether to
charge a white policeman who
shot an unarmed black teen to
death this summer.
It appeared that the St. Louis
suburb, which has become a
ﬂashpoint for US race relations since Officer Darren Wilson killed 18-year-old Michael
Brown on Aug. 9, will have to
wait until at least today and perhaps longer for an announcement.
The 12-member grand jury
adjourned and will not resume
meeting behind closed doors
until today, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, citing an
unidentiﬁed St. Louis County ofﬁcial. Reuters could not conﬁrm
that report.
Media reports had suggested
the panel would have a decision
by this weekend. There have been
nightly rallies and a high-proﬁle
law enforcement presence.
A lawyer for Brown’s family
criticised how prosecutors have
handled the grand jury process,
which has dragged on longer
than many expected.
The
attorney,
Benjamin
Crump, told ABC’s This Week
programme yesterday it was the
ﬁrst time in his 20 years of practising law that a prosecutor had
not recommended charges to a
grand jury hearing a case.
“Why you can’t come in and
recommend charges right now
based on the probable cause?”
Crump said, a reference to witnesses who said Brown had his
hands up in the air, signalling
surrender, when the officer shot
him. Wilson’s supporters say he
shot Brown in self-defence.
St. Louis County prosecutors
have said the grand jury’s decision will be announced at a news
conference, but the date, time
and location remain unknown.
Crump said he expected to get
about six hours notice before an
announcement.
Steady rain put a dampener on
Saturday night’s demonstrations
in Ferguson. About 40 protesters, mostly teenagers, strode up
and down a main street, waving upside-down US ﬂags and
home-made placards and chanting, “We’re young, we’re strong,
we’re marching all night long.”
Convoys of law enforcement
vehicles patrolled after dark, and
for a fourth straight night other
protesters gathered outside police headquarters while a helicopter with a spotlight buzzed
overhead.
As on previous evenings, demonstrators brieﬂy blocked the
road and there were at least two
arrests: an activist from Chicago
who has been detained three
times since Wednesday, and a
man identiﬁed as a Washington,
DC-based reporter.
St. Louis, the mostly black
suburb of 21,000 with an over-
whelmingly white police force
and town government, has been
on edge for several days in anticipation of the jury’s decision.
Metal interlocking fences
and orange plastic barricades
sealed off the Buzz Westfall Justice Center in Clayton, another
suburb of the city of St. Louis
and where the grand jury has
been meeting, with a handful
of uniformed officers on duty
outside.
A police officer unfurled yellow tape saying, “St Louis Police Lines” and “Do Not Cross”
around the barricades, watched
by a clutch of journalists in the
rain.
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon
has declared a state of emergency and called in National Guard
troops to back up police, which
protesters have criticised as
heavy-handed.
Brown’s mother, Lesley McSpadden, told demonstrators
on Saturday night they should
remain peaceful whatever the
grand jury decides.
Voters crave ‘that new car smell’: Obama
AFP
Washington
A man walks past a collapsed structure on his farm following a massive snowstorm in Cowlesville, New
York, on Saturday. Warm temperatures and rain were forecast for the weekend in Buffalo and western
New York, bringing the threat of widespread flooding to the region bound for days by deep snow.
B
arack Obama says voters in the US are going
to want “that new car
smell” when the 2016 presidential campaign comes along
to choose his successor.
Obama’s
former
secretary of state Hillary Clinton is
strongly fancied to run on the
Democratic ticket for the White
House, although she has repeatedly refused to conﬁrm she
wants to do so.
“I think the American people, you know, they’re gonna
want, you know, that new car
smell,” Obama said in an interview broadcast yesterday on
ABC News.
“You know... they wanna
drive somethin’ off the lot
that... that doesn’t have as
much mileage as me.”
Obama, in the interview conducted in Las Vegas on Friday,
described Clinton as a friend
and said they speak regularly.
He believes she would be “a
formidable candidate” and “a
great president.”
“And she’s not gonna agree
with me on everything,” he
added. “One of the beneﬁts of
running for president is you can
stake out your own positions.”
Facebook ‘newspaper’ spells trouble for media
AFP
Washington
F
acebook’s move to fulﬁl
its ambition to be the personal “newspaper” for its
billion-plus members is likely
to mean more woes for the ailing
news media.
The huge social network has
become a key source of news for
many users, as part of a dramatic
shift in how people get information in the digital age.
Company
founder
Mark
Zuckerberg told a forum in early
November that his goal is to
make Facebook’s newsfeed “the
perfect personalised newspaper
for every person in the world.”
Zuckerberg said that while a
newspaper provides the same
information to every reader,
Facebook can tailor its feed to
the interests of the individual,
delivering a mix of world news,
community events and updates
about friends or family.
“It’s a different approach to
newspapering,” said Ken Paulson, a former editor of USA Today who is now dean of communications at Middle Tennessee
State University.
“It’s neither good nor bad,
but it’s something a traditional
newspaper can’t do.”
With Facebook, editorial decisions about what members see
are made not by a journalist, but
an algorithm that determines
which items are likely to be of
greatest interest to each person.
This may concern the traditional journalism community,
but even some media experts
acknowledge that Facebook appears to be able to deliver more
of what people want to see, in an
efficient way.
“It’s intimate, it’s relevant,
it’s extraordinarily timely and
it’s about you. That’s more than
any newspaper can do,” said Alan
Mutter, a former Chicago daily
newspaper editor who is now
a consultant for digital media
ventures.
Mutter said that as newspapers cling to their “ancient”
business model, organisations
like Facebook are making the
news more personal.
And he said the trend will
continue as younger readers
shun print in favour of digital
and mobile platforms.
Nikki Usher, a George Washington University journalism
professor specialising in new
media, said Facebook conﬁgures
its news feed using an algorithm
taking into account tens of thousands of factors.
“Facebook has all the data to
tell you what all of your friends
are reading, so you have a better
chance of seeing things that you
are interested in,” she said.
“The reason Facebook has so
many engineers and data scientists is to continually make the algorithm better. The algorithm gets
stronger as more people use it.”
Facebook is a source of news
for at least 30% of Americans,
and a major driver of traffic to
news websites, according to a
Pew Research Center study.
This gives the social network
enormous power over the news
media, which is increasingly
dependent on traffic from Facebook and other social platforms.
Even though Facebook is
known for its computer coding,
it still must make editorial decisions, Usher points out.
“What’s scary is how reactive
a position it puts news organisations, which are trying to guess
Facebook’s next move,” she said.
“That’s a lot of power to put in a
single organisation.”
Facebook, Google and other
tech ﬁrms jealously guard their
algorithmic formulas. But observers note that a single tweak
of that formula can have impor-
tant consequences for news organisations.
“News organisations are trying to build their strategy around
trying to guess the algorithm,
and ultimately that’s a losing
strategy,” Usher said.
But with traditional news media hurting, it remains unclear
how the industry can support
the kind of journalism needed to
keep people informed as it has in
the past.
Mutter said what people read
may change - it may be sponsored or subsidised in a way that
may or may not be transparent.
“It won’t necessarily be real
journalism, but it will be content,” he said.
Paulson said that while Facebook can deliver much of the in-
formation from newspapers, “it
would be hard pressed to capture
the soul” of traditional print news.
“Freedom of the press was
established to keep an eye on
people in power and inform the
community,” he added. “There’s
a tremendous public spirit component that you can’t address
with an algorithm.”
Paulson said that while Facebook is a useful platform for
sharing, it will not underwrite
the kind of investigative journalism upon which newspapers
often pride themselves. With
journalism retrenching, that
weakens the entire democratic
process.
“We get the kind of news we
deserve and are willing to pay
for,” Paulson added.
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
15
ASEAN
Colour Run
King meets
premier,
ministers
easing
health
concerns
Reuters
Bangkok
T
hailand’s King Bhumibol
Adulyadej met the country’s prime minister and
two other ministers yesterday,
helping to ease concern over his
health after he was admitted to
hospital last month.
Bhumibol, 86, attended an
official ceremony at Bangkok’s
Siriraj Hospital where he is being
treated following an operation to
remove his gallbladder.
Prime
Minister
Prayuth
Chan-ocha, a former army
chief who led a May coup that
helped remove the remnants
of an elected government, attended the ceremony with the
ministers. Photographs released
by the Royal Household Bureau,
which tightly controls information about the royal family, show
Prayuth, dressed in a white uniform, bowing and the king sitting on a golden chair.
The meeting was originally
scheduled for Friday but the palace said doctors had advised the
king to cancel the engagement,
raising public concerns over the
monarch’s health.
Participants throw coloured powder during the Colour Run in Jakarta, Indonesia yesterday. The 5km event sees runners get covered in coloured powder from head to toe.
Two senior Thailand policemen
charged with royal defamation
AFP
Bangkok
T
wo high-ranking Thai
police officers have been
arrested for royal defamation, an official said yesterday, a rare charge against senior
public servants as lese majeste
cases mount following a May
coup.
Central Investigation Bureau
chief Pongpat Chayapun and
his deputy Kowit Vongrongrot
have been charged under the
strict lese majeste law, a police
spokesman said.
Under the law, which is Section 112 of the Thai criminal
code, anyone convicted of insulting the king, queen, heir
or regent faces up to 15 years in
prison on each count.
“The two police officers have
been arrested and charged under Section 112,” national police
spokesman Prawut Thavornsiri
said, conﬁrming their names
and positions.
He would not conﬁrm where
they were being held or give any
other details of the arrests.
Rights groups say there has
been a rise in both charges and
convictions under Thailand’s
royal slur law — one of the
strictest in the world — since
the army seized power on May
22.
Under martial law — declared
two days before the coup by
then-army
chief
Prayut
Chan-O-Cha, who is now premier — suspects are now tried
under military courts, where
there is no right to appeal.
Earlier cases were handled in
civilian courts.
The royal family is a highly
sensitive topic in the politically turbulent kingdom where
86-year-old King Bhumibol
Adulyadej, the world’s longest
reigning monarch who is currently in a Bangkok hospital, is
revered by many as a demi-god.
The law is designed to protect the monarchy from insult,
but academics say it has been
politicised in recent years as
the king’s reign enters its twilight. Many of those charged
have been linked to the “Red
Shirt” movement, whose activists are broadly supportive of fugitive former premier
Thaksin Shinawatra.
It is rare for high-ranking
public servants to face charges under the law.
Last week a Thai radio
show host was sentenced by a
military court to five years in
jail for royal defamation.
Early in November a
24-year-old student was
jailed for two-and-a-half
years for defaming the monarchy.
And in another recent case
a 28-year-old musician was
sentenced to 15 years in jail
for writing insulting Facebook posts about the royals
between 2010 and 2011.
The coup was the latest
twist in Thailand’s longrunning political conflict,
which broadly pits a Bang-
kok-based middle class and
royalist elite, backed by parts
of the military and judiciary,
against rural and workingclass voters loyal to Thaksin.
Yesterday afternoon two
government ministers, accompanied by Prayut, were
sworn in before the king at
Bangkok’s Siriraj hospital,
the Royal Household Bureau
said in a statement.
The ceremony took place
two days after it was scheduled as the palace Friday said
the king’s medical team had
advised against him granting
an audience.
Suspected IS
supporters
arrested
DPA
Kuala Lumpur
T
wo women and one man
were arrested on suspicion of supporting Islamic
State militants in Malaysia, a
news report said yesterday.
The 34-year-old wife of a
suspected jihadist charged in
court earlier this month and a
28-year-old events manager
were arrested at a train station in
Kuala Lumpur Friday, according
to the New Straits Times.
The 33-year-old male suspect
was arrested at a bus terminal,
the report added.
Fuel price rise tests Indonesia leader’s poverty pledge
AFP
Jakarta
I
n an old cemetery in the Indonesian capital, Enur’s family
and others live in makeshift
houses between tombstones, a
handful of the millions of poor
people that new President Joko
Widodo has pledged to help.
But Widodo’s promise to close
a fast-growing wealth gap is
looking tougher after his decision last week to hike subsidised
fuel prices, which observers
warn will hit the poor hard as
food prices rocket due to higher
transportation costs.
While the reduction in government subsidies is widely
viewed as the right move towards getting Southeast Asia’s
top economy back on track, for
those at the bottom it will mean
a harder time in the short term.
Enur, 40, who earns about
50,000 rupiah ($4) a day to feed
his family by driving a construction truck and selling fried
snacks, sees no other choice
than to borrow more to deal with
an expected spike in inﬂation.
“What else is there to cut?
Should I halve our daily rice intake? My children will be crying
in hunger,” said the father of two,
who has another child on the
way and goes by one name.
It is the same story for his
neighbours at the Jakarta cemetery, many of whom work as
scavengers in the city’s rubbish
dumps, hunting for plastic bottles and cardboard boxes that
they can sell on to scrape by.
About 100mn Indonesians,
A recent photo shows shanty houses on a river bank in Jakarta. Right: A man receives direct cash transfers (400,000 rupiah or $32.73) from the government at a post office.
out of a population of 250mn,
have missed out on the country’s
sustained economic boom over
the past decade, living below or
just slightly above the poverty
line.
The country’s Gini coefficient,
which measures income inequality, rose from 31% in 2001
to 41% in 2012, one of the fastest rates in Asia, the World Bank
said. The higher the ﬁgure, the
less evenly wealth is distributed
in an economy.
The gap is all too clear in Jakarta, a sprawling metropolis
where ﬂashy Lamborghini sports
cars zoom past people hauling
wooden carts ﬁlled with rubbish
that they are trying to sell, and in
which they sleep at night.
In the short term, the increase
in fuel costs risks widening this
gap. Fuel prices rose more than
30%, to 8,500 rupiah (70 US
cents) for a litre of petrol and
7,500 rupiah for diesel, but are
still among the cheapest in the
world.
While it is Indonesians
wealthy enough to own cars and
motorbikes who mainly beneﬁtted from the subsidies, they are
not the ones who are hardest hit
when the payouts are cut, observers warn.
The government predicts inﬂation will increase by around
2% in the coming weeks but the
poor, who often live in remote
places where it is more difficult
to transport food, will face even
higher price rises.
Inﬂation was 4.8% year-onyear in October.
Nevertheless, observers agree
that Indonesia had no choice but
to reduce the subsides that gobble up a huge chunk of the state
budget, particularly at a time
growth is slowing and the money
is needed to help the economy.
“It is a bitter pill that we have
to swallow because we need it,”
Asep Suryahadi, the director of a
think-tank focusing on poverty,
SMERU, told AFP.
They also say that any inﬂation spike is likely to be temporary -- after an increase
in the fuel price last year, the
rate jumped initially but then
dropped back.
Widodo, who took office last
month, argues that in the long
term the money can be diverted to aid the poorest, through
programmes aimed at helping
the country’s many millions of
hard-pressed farmers and ﬁshermen.
Just before the fuel price was
increased, Widodo, known by his
nickname Jokowi, also launched
a system of beneﬁt cards to help
the poorest across the sprawling
archipelago.
This included immediate cash
handouts for the poor families to
cushion the impact.
However analysts believe that
such moves are insufficient to
stave off the short-term effects
of a broad rise in the cost of everyday goods.
“These cards are an intervention to solve a long-term problem,” said Sonny Harmadi, an
economist from University of
Indonesia’s demographic institute.
While he is worried about the
looming price increases, Enur is
also patiently looking to the long
term, and hopes the new government might ﬁnd him a secure
job.
“Give us a job, a barn where we
can do the simplest of tasks such
as making shirts, stitching buttons, and give us houses next to
it,” he said.
16
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
AUSTRALASIA/EAST ASIA
RESCUE COMPLETE
CONSERVATION
DIPLOMACY
HOMES DESTROYED
ESPIONAGE
Death toll rises to 5 after
huge China earthquake
Tasmanian Devils are
‘back from the brink’
Xi wraps Pacific talks
with Fiji aid boost
39 hurt as strong quake
rattles Japan ski resort
Man photographs China
base for ‘foreign spy’
The death toll from a 5.9 magnitude earthquake
that struck a remote part of China’s southwest
rose yesterday to five, as media reported the
injured have all been successfully rescued. The
quake struck 39km northwest of Kangding in
the mountainous west of Sichuan province
at 0855 GMT Saturday. The latest toll was
reported by state news agency Xinhua, which
also adjusted the number of injured from 60 to
54. Three were said to be in critical condition.
“Within nine hours, emergency services were
able to successfully rescue all those injured,”
Xinhua said, without giving details on the
current state of the rescue operation.
A research and breeding programme has brought
the critically endangered Tasmanian Devil back
from the brink of extinction. The outlook for the
noisy and fierce-looking marsupial is now the best
it has been in a decade, Tasmania’s Environment
Minister Matthew Groom told yesterday’s Hobart
Mercury newspaper. The devils, which are
native to the island, were being wiped out by a
transmissible cancer that caused facial tumours.
The disease was first detected in 1996. “The
challenge for the devil is not over, but as a species
the devil is more secure now than it has been
for a decade,” Groom told the newspaper. A new
vaccine is also about to be tested on wild devils.
Chinese President Xi Jinping injected a further
70mn yuan (US$11.4mn) of aid money into Fiji
as he wrapped up a round of talks yesterday in
the Pacific nation. Xi held talks with Fiji’s Prime
Minister Voreqe Bainimarama and seven other
island nation leaders, who form the nucleus of
a 12-nation Pacific voting bloc in the UN. “I hope
my visit can open a new chapter in bilateral
friendly and co-operative relations,” Xi told
the leaders of Samoa, Vanuatu, Niue, Tonga,
Federated States of Micronesia, Cook Islands,
and Papua New Guinea. The talks also involved
signing memoranda of understanding on a
range of issues including climate change.
A strong 6.2 magnitude earthquake in central Japan
left 39 people injured, seven seriously, and wrecked
homes in a popular ski resort. The quake struck
at 10.08 pm local time (1308 GMT) on Saturday at
a depth of 10km at the epicentre, in the north of
Nagano Prefecture. The government yesterday
confirmed that the quake injured 39 people,
destroying houses and snapping water pipes, with
the worst damage in mountainous areas. In Nagano
Prefecture’s famous Hakuba Village, many homes
were toppled and destroyed. Bird’s-eye footage by
public broadcaster NHK showed houses reduced to
rubble. Around 30 people trapped in houses were
rescued, Jiji Press said.
A Chinese man was arrested for selling pictures
of an aircraft carrier base to a foreign spy. The
man, who was surnamed Cao, was detained in
the eastern port city of Qingdao in April with a
camera, telescope, computer and “other tools”,
state broadcaster China Central Television
said. Cao told Chinese security officials he
was selling the pictures to an individual who
claimed to be a “military magazine editor”,
CCTV said on its website. “The ‘editor-in-chief’
is actually an overseas spy,” the report said.
The report also said Cao had sneaked into a
military airport to take pictures for his contact
for a “generous premium”.
North Korea again lashes
out over UN rights ruling
AFP
Sydney
AFP
Seoul
A
N
orth Korea’s top military
body yesterday warned of
“catastrophic consequences” for supporters of a UN resolution
censuring its human rights record, as
state media reported its leader presiding over a fresh military exercise.
A resolution urging the UN Security Council to refer the North’s
leadership to the International
Criminal Court for possible charges
of “crimes against humanity” passed
by 111 to 19 with 55 abstentions at a
UN General Assembly human rights
committee last week.
The resolution, introduced by Japan and the European Union and cosponsored by some 60 nations, drew
heavily on the work of a UN enquiry
which concluded in February that
the North was committing rights
abuses “without parallel in the contemporary world”.
The North since then has repeatedly slammed the resolution as a
political “fraud”. On Thursday it
warned that it was being pushed into
conducting a fresh nuclear test.
The National Defence Commission (NDC), chaired by the country’s
leader Kim Jong-Un, said yesterday
the resolution amounted to a “war
declaration” which “dared take issue with the dignity of our supreme
leadership”.
The resolution makes no mention
of Kim but notes the UN enquiry’s
ﬁnding - that the “highest level of
the state” has responsibility for the
rights abuses.
The dignity of its leader “cannot be
bartered for anything”, the NDC said
in a statement, adding that Japan as
well as South Korea and the US - cosponsors of the UN resolution - were
Pyongyang’s “primary target.”
“The US and its followers will be
wholly accountable for the unimaginable and catastrophic consequences to be entailed by the frantic
‘human rights’ racket against the
(North),” it said.
Mum quizzed
after new-born
baby found in
Sydney drain
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un looks through a pair of binoculars at a military drill in this photo released yesterday by North Korea’s Korean Central News
Agency in Pyongyang.
As Pyongyang ramped up its
threats, Kim guided a major military
drill involving sea transport and amphibious landing craft, the state-run
news agency KCNA said.
The NDC also said that South Korean President Park Geun-Hye would
not be safe “if a nuclear war breaks
out” on the Korean peninsula, and its
attacks could make Japan “disappear
from the world map for good”.
The isolated state has staged three
Christmas cheer!
atomic tests - most recently in 2013,
which was its most powerful test to
date.
Last week, the US-Korea Institute
at Johns Hopkins University said on
its 38 North website that new satellite
imagery suggested Pyongyang may
be ﬁring up a facility for processing
weapons-grade plutonium.
South Korea said last week its
military was on standby, and the US
Thursday described the North’s re-
newed threat of a nuclear test as a
“great concern”.
Yesterday’s threat and the report
of Kim’s military trip coincided
with the anniversary of Pyongyang’s
shock bombardment of a border island that killed four South Koreans.
The shelling of Yeonpyeong island
in 2010 was the ﬁrst such attack on
civilians since the end of the 1950-53
Korean War and brieﬂy sparked fear
of all-out conﬂict.
Taiwan ruling party faces rout
in biggest ever local elections
AFP
Taipei
W
Miniature chocolate Terracotta Warriors wearing Santa Claus hats are
displayed at a hotel for the Christmas celebrations in Xi’an, Shaanxi
province. Three hundred miniature replicas of the Terracotta Warriors
were made by 10 pastry chefs in 10 days from about 100kg of chocolate.
Seoul’s military, which since then
has reinforced troops and weaponry
on the island, on Friday staged a liveﬁre exercise there as part of a major
annual nationwide drill.
The North reacted angrily to the
drill, accusing the South of pushing
the peninsula to the “brink of war.”
The South’s Hoguk exercise,
which ended on Friday, involved a
record number of 330,000 troops
this year.
ustralian police were questioning a mother yesterday after passing cyclists who
had heard crying found her new-born son
abandoned in a 2.5m deep drain in Sydney.
New South Wales police said a group of cyclists were riding on a bike track along a highway in western Sydney yesterday morning
when they heard the sound of crying coming
from a nearby drain.
“We actually thought it was a kitten at ﬁrst,
but when we went down there we could hear
exactly what it was, you could deﬁnitely tell it
was a baby screaming,” David Otte, one of the
cyclists, told The Daily Telegraph.
“We’re just thinking about the little fella,
he’s a beautiful, beautiful baby.”
Police said the concrete slab covering most of
the drain was so heavy it needed several people
to lift it.
“With the assistance of several passers-by
we managed to raise a large concrete slab which
covers the inspection pit of the stormwater
drain,” Inspector David Lagats told reporters.
“Officers climbed into the drain and located a
baby wrapped in a striped hospital blanket, approximately 8ft down on the bottom of the pit.”
The baby, who police fear may have been
dropped through a gap into the drain, was taken
to hospital conscious and breathing and remains in a serious but stable condition, Lagats
said.
He added that the baby was malnourished
and between two days to a week old. The Telegraph reported that the boy may have been in
the drain since Tuesday.
Lagats said the cyclists found the baby just
in time, as a heatwave later swept through the
state, with temperatures rising as high as 40
degrees Celsius in some areas.
“He was already malnourished and dehydration would have taken effect so I would have
had grave fears for the child’s welfare had it
been exposed to this weather for the rest of the
day,” Lagats said.
“It’s a horriﬁc incident... but with all the
teamwork from the bystanders too, it was a
good result and hopefully the child will survive,” the police officer said.
Investigators spent several hours searching
hospital records and knocking on doors before
they tracked down the 30-year-old mother,
who is now being interviewed at a police station.
ith public fears of Chinese
inﬂuence growing, a slowing economy and a series of
food scandals, Taiwan’s ruling party is
facing a rough ride in the island’s biggest ever local elections - seen as a barometer for the 2016 presidential race.
Campaigning is well under way with
almost 20,000 candidates contesting
a record 11,130 seats, and analysts predict the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang
government will take a serious knock.
“The Kuomintang party is very likely
to lose ground in the vote, it’s just a
matter of to what extent,” said Tung
Chen-yuan, social science professor at
Taipei’s National Chengchi University.
From mayors of the country’s six
municipalities to county chiefs, city
councillors and village leaders, the
elections on November 29 could see
new faces at every level of local government.
Campaign tactics so far have ranged
from traditional street rallies to bizarre efforts to garner attention.
One Kuomintang candidate for
mayor of Tainan cast herself as a “dark
horse” against her more popular DPP
opponent - by riding a black horse
down the city’s streets.
Meanwhile an independent candidate for mayor in the city of Kaohsiung
stripped to his underpants on stage as
he drew his candidate number, shouting: “Naked to meet you, honesty is
the best policy”.
It was, perhaps, an offbeat nod to allegations of vote buying which have dogged
election campaigns in some areas.
Government ﬁgures say more than
2,400 people are being investigated, both candidates and supporters,
mostly in rural locations.
Two suspects were detained Friday
accused of bribing college students in
a county council election.
“The public feels apathetic over the
vote, so candidates are resorting to
publicity grabbing tactics, rather than
focusing on critical issues,” said one
Kuomintang official, who did not want
to be named.
The vote comes at the end of a turbulent year which saw Taiwan’s parliament occupied in March for three
weeks by student protesters over a
controversial trade deal with China,
sparking mass rallies.
Ties with Beijing have warmed
since the Kuomintang came to power
in 2008, with trade booming and millions of Chinese tourists visiting the
island each year.
But the improved relationship has
led to domestic anxiety that Taiwan is
too reliant on the mainland.
Taiwan broke away from China after the Communist Party took power
in 1949. Beijing has never recognised
the island’s sovereignty and has said it
wants to reuniﬁy, by force if necessary.
More than 12mn people are eligible
to vote in the six municipalities alone,
out of the island’s total population of
23mn.
Stagnant income levels and soaring
housing prices are a major source of
complaint among voters, particularly
for younger generations.
The Kuomintang is also under ﬁre
over a string of food safety scandals,
the latest of which prompted the resignation of the health minister after
more than 1,000 restaurants, bakeries and food plants were found to have
used tainted cooking oil - known as
“gutter oil”.
“The Kuomintang has even seen
their support from the military, teachers and government employees - who
have long been stalwarts of the party shaken after cuts to their pensions and
beneﬁts,” says Tung.
Currently, the Kuomintang dominates three municipalities in the
north, including Taipei City, and one
in the centre, while the opposition
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
holds two in the south.
But even the key Taipei mayoral
seat is under threat - DPP-backed independent candidate Ko Wen-je has
a strong lead over the Kuomintang’s
Sean Lien in opinion polls.
Recent polls by three major newspapers put Ko’s lead at between seven
and 14%.
Young voters are set to shun the ruling party. “I believe lots of young peo-
ple would prefer to vote for the DPP
who have more reformist ideals,” Shih
Yen-ting, a graduate school student
who participated in the spring protests, told AFP.
Long-time supporter of the
Kuomintang, Claudia Wu, said she
would abstain to reﬂect her disillusionment. “I’m not going to vote this
time as I was really disappointed in the
poor performance of the government,”
said Wu, who works for a construction
company in Taipei.
“Food safety is the most basic demand from the people. The government has to ﬁll the people’s stomachs,” she added.
The anonymous Kuomintang official said: “The most important thing
is for candidates to win back voters’
passion for the party.”
Taiwan will go to the polls in early
2016 to elect a new president after Ma
Ying-jeou completes his second and
last four-year term.
The DPP has said the local elections
are an important prelude, calling on
supporters to cast a “no-conﬁdence”
vote.
Pro-Kuomintang think tank National Policy Foundation also emphasised the local vote’s signiﬁcance.
“If the results substantially change
the present political landscape, they
could impact the 2016 presidential
vote,” it said in a research paper, “and
even inﬂuence Taiwan’s political ecology in the next 10 years”.
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
17
BRITAIN/IRELAND
DISRUPTION
MEDIA
HEALTHCARE
VIOLENCE
TRAGEDY
London railway station
evacuated after fire
Pro-independence daily
launched in Scotland
Mental health nursing
cuts slammed
Fire bomb attack
on police station
Windsurfer pulled
from sea dies
One of London’s busiest railway stations,
Charing Cross, was evacuated yesterday after
a fire caused by a suspected electrical fault, the
British Transport Police (BTP) said. The incident
generated a lot of traffic on social media, in part
because Britain raised its terrorism alert in August
to the second-highest level, saying militants
operating in Syria and Iraq posed the biggest
security threat. Pictures from the scene showed
part of a stationary passenger train on fire with a
crowd looking on. Nobody was hurt and there was
no suggestion the incident was malicious, a BTP
spokesman said. The incident caused disruption
to train services.
A new pro-independence daily newspaper
entitled The National is to be launched in
Scotland today, the editor revealed. Richard
Walker, who edits the Sunday Herald weekly
title, told a rally of Scotland’s pro-separation
governing Scottish National Party (SNP) in
Glasgow that he would be running the new daily
paper. It will be on sale for a pilot period of five
days to see if there is sufficient demand for such
a daily paper. The Sunday Herald was the only
Scottish newspaper which came out in favour of
independence in the run-up to the September 18
referendum, when Scottish residents voted 55%
to 45% to remain part of the United Kingdom.
A large drop in the number of mental health nurses
and shortages in inpatient beds are “unacceptable”
and a “false economy”, the head of the nurses’
union has said. Dr Peter Carter, chief executive of
the Royal College of Nursing, said there are 3,300
fewer posts in mental health nursing, and 1,500
fewer beds, compared with 2010. Last month
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced
an injection of £120mn to improve mental health
services. But Dr Carter urged the government
to take action “now” to mitigate the cuts, which
had come at a time of “unprecedented demand”
for services with one in four people estimated to
experience a mental health problem.
A police station has been targeted in an overnight
petrol bomb attack in Northern Ireland. Officers
from the Warrenpoint station in Co Down who
were out on patrol in the early hours of the
morning discovered the device when they
returned around 3.30am. The petrol bomb was
thrown over the perimeter wall into the station
yard but failed to ignite. Inspector Colin Patterson
said some minor damage had been caused to a
vehicle parked in the yard. “We will be viewing
footage from the station security cameras, but I
would also like to appeal to anyone who noticed
any suspicious activity in the vicinity of the police
station to contact officers,” he added.
A windsurfer has died after apparently getting
into difficulties in the water. The Coastguard
was alerted after the occupants of a dinghy
spotted windsurfing gear in the water off
Langstone Harbour, near Portsmouth,
Hampshire, at about 12.15pm on Saturday. A
man, aged in his 50s, was found floating face
down in the water near Hayling Island. He was
brought back to shore before being flown
by the Coastguard to hospital, where he was
pronounced dead. Hampshire police say they
are in the process of notifying his next of kin
and said his death was not being treated as
suspicious.
Police
cracks
down on
errant
cyclists
Melinda Gates honoured
Immigration
target unlikely
to be met,
admits May
London Evening Standard
London
T
he number of ﬁnes given
to cyclists in London more
than doubled to almost
15,800 last year, as police launched
a campaign against unsafe bike
riding.
Cyclists were caught jumping 4,896 red lights — a four-year
high. The total number of £50
ﬁnes imposed across the capital last year spiralled to 15,786,
compared with 6,286 in 2012, according to ﬁgures obtained by the
Standard.
Police raised £789,000 from
tickets for offences such as ignoring traffic lights and signs, failing to stop for officers, not having
suitable lights or carrying unauthorised passengers. In November
2013 the Met launched Operation
Safeway after the deaths of six cyclists on London’s roads in a fortnight.
Officers patrolled 166 blackspots and ﬁned almost 6,000 bike
users in November and December
last year — mostly for cycling on
pavements and jumping lights.
The operation is ongoing, with
5,851 cyclists ﬁned in the ﬁrst
seven months of this year alone.
Fourteen cyclists died on London’s
roads in 2013. So far this year 11
have been killed.
There has also been a huge rise
in the number of cyclists. Daily cycle journeys in London increased
from 320,000 in 2002 to 580,000
in 2012, according to Transport for
London ﬁgures.
Ann Kenrick, chairwoman of
the London Cycle Campaign’s
board of trustees, said: “When I
see a cyclist jump a red light I turn
to the cyclist next to me in despair.
“We need to tell cyclists to put
out the message that they have to
follow the rules like everyone else.
But we need infrastructure, so cyclists don’t take risks, like dedicated cycle lanes.”
Mayor Boris Johnson has unveiled a “Crossrail for bikes” plan,
featuring an 18-mile east-west
route that would take one of the
Embankment’s road lanes.
Home secretary gives
clearest sign yet that
Cameron’s pledge to reduce
net influx of people by
general election won’t be
achieved
Guardian News and Media
London
T
Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, presents the Chatham House (The Royal Institute of
International Affairs) Prize 2014 to Melinda Gates at the Banqueting House, Whitehall, London.
The annual Chatham House Prize is awarded to the person who is deemed by Chatham House
members to have made the most significant contribution to the improvement of international
relations in the previous year.
Water levy protests ‘dent’
Irish PM party popularity
Reuters
Dublin
T
he popularity of Irish
Prime Minister Enda
Kenny’s
party
has
slumped since it announced
the first non-austerity budget
in seven years last month and
mass protests against new water charges began, an opinion
poll showed.
Only 22% of voters said they
would vote for Kenny’s centreright Fine Gael party, down
6 percentage points since
the October 14 budget and
14 points since its election in
2011, the RED C-Sunday Business Post opinion poll, said.
It was the lowest rating the
party has ever had in a Red C
poll.
Fine Gael has been rocked
by mass protests against new
water charges and a series of
scandals about poor management at the company set up to
administer them.
Water services had been
paid for from general taxation.
The biggest beneficiaries of
the protests have been leftwing Sinn Fein party which is
the most popular party with
22% and Independents/Others
on 27%.
The Fine Gael has been
rocked by mass protests
against new water charges
and a series of scandals
about poor management
at the company set up to
administer them
Sinn Fein’s popularity was
unchanged compared to the
last RED C poll in an apparent sign recent accusations in
parliament that members of
the party had failed to properly
report sex abuse had not had a
significant impact.
The three parties that have
formed the backbone of all
Irish government’s since the
1930s, Fianna Fail, Fine Gael
and Labour, now have less than
50% of the vote between them,
the poll said, highlighting the
possibility of a major realignment of Irish politics at elections due in early 2016.
Kenny’s coalition government with Labour has overseen a dramatic recovery in
the Irish economy from a disastrous real estate crash and
banking crisis that forced an
international bailout in 2010.
Ireland last year became
the first eurozone country to
exit an international bailout
and the economy is forecast
to grow almost 5% this year,
which would likely make it the
best performing in the eurozone.
But many people who took
part in two mass protests in
recent weeks said they were
not feeling the recovery and
accused the government of
unfairly targeting the poor
with cutbacks.
heresa May has issued
the clearest declaration by the government
yet that it will fail to meet its
target to reduce net migration
to the tens of thousands by the
general election next year.
In a blow to David Cameron,
who issued a “no ifs, no buts”
pledge to meet the target, the
home secretary said it was
“unlikely” the government
would achieve that goal.
Speaking on the Andrew
Marr Show on BBC1, May said:
“It is of course unlikely that
we are going to reach the tens
of thousands by the end of the
parliament. Why is that? It is
because we have seen increasing numbers of people coming from across Europe, partly
because our economy is doing
better than other economies
across Europe. We have been
doing what we can in relation
to EU migration but there is
more to be done.”
May’s intervention comes as
the prime minister prepares to
deliver a long-awaited speech
on immigration.
The Sunday Times reported
that he is expected to draw on
proposals by the Open Europe
thinktank to block access to
in-work benefits, such as tax
credits, to EU migrants for two
Paddington premiere
years. Downing Street believes Britain has to block access to benefits and reform the
EU’s rules on free movement
of people if the Tories are to
counter the Ukip threat.
The government has reduced migration from outside
the EU. But it has missed the
net migration target because it
has no control over immigration from full member states
of the EU.
The home secretary, who
watered down the prime minister’s 2011 migration pledge
to a mere “comment” earlier
this month, made clear Cameron would seek to tackle free
movement of people if he renegotiates Britain’s EU membership after a Tory election
win.
May said: “It is only the
Conservative party that is
guaranteeing people that if
in government after the May
2015 election then we will renegotiate our relationship
with the EU. Free movement
will be one of those issues that
we will be dealing with. I believe we can win that negotiation because I see within Europe there is greater mood
now for looking at this issue of free movement and
dealing with the problems
people are seeing in relation to free movement.
That is about cutting out
abuse. But it is more
than that.”
Ministers have
made clear in private for over a
year that they
have no expectation
of
Emission zone plan
hits Nissan cab launch
London Evening Standard
London
N
Australian actress Nicole Kidman and her husband
musician Keith Urban arrive for the world premiere of
Paddington in London yesterday.
meeting the prime minister’s
pledge to bring net migration
below 100,000 by the time of
the election.
The home secretary indicated earlier this month that
there was little chance of
meeting the target when she
was asked on the Today programme to explain the missed
goal. May said: “When we
made that comment, when we
said … we would be aiming to
bring the net migration down
to the tens of thousands and
we wanted to do that within
this parliament - yes we were
very clear that was what we
wanted to do.”
In a speech in April 2011 the
prime minister issued an unequivocal declaration to bring
down immigration. Cameron
said at the time: “I believe that
will mean net migration to this
country will be in the order of
tens of thousands each year,
not the hundreds of thousands
every year that we have seen
over the last decade.
“Yes, Britain will always be
open to the best and brightest from around the world and
those fleeing persecution. But with us, our
borders will be under control and immigration will be at
levels our country
can manage. No ifs.
No buts. That’s a
promise we
made to the
British people, and it’s
a promise
we
are
keeping.”
issan has suspended plans
to launch a new London
taxi before Christmas
amid doubts triggered by plans
for an Ultra-Low Emission Zone
(ULEZ).
The car giant said the plan had
also cast doubt over its development of an advanced green electric
model.
Nissan had been poised to
launch its petrol-powered cab in
the capital in December, with a
zero-emission, electric version to
follow next year.
But it said it was impossible to
ﬁnalise launch plans for the two
cabs until it knew the outcome of
the consultation, which closes in
January.
The ﬁnal ULEZ Scheme Order
won’t go before the Mayor for approval until the spring. The zone
would not come into effect until
2020, but rules governing the sale
of new cabs would come in two
years earlier.
Nissan fears regulations outlined in the consultation, requiring
all new taxis registered in London
to be zero-emission by 2018, mean
its new petrol cab would be obsolete in three years. The NV200 has
cost millions to develop.
It also said that until it knew the
requirements for new cabs under
the ULEZ, such as the range needed for an electric taxi and guidance
on charging points, it would have
to suspend development of its
greener London cab.
Steve McNamara, General Secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association, said: “I suspect
the main reason Nissan are not
proceeding with the project is that
there is no proper infrastructure
for charging electric vehicles in
London. There’s not one rapid
charger within six miles of Charing Cross, leaving London falling
behind the rest of the world.”
A Nissan spokesman said:
“Nissan is a strong supporter of air
quality and CO2 reduction measures and is encouraged to see the
recent consultation launched by
the Mayor’s office.
“However if this were implemented then our planned petrol
taxi, designed to meet the challenging London taxi standards...
would be obsolete a few years after
introduction”
18
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
BRITAIN
Probe launched as hospital A&E delays soar after units’ closure
London Evening Standard
London
A
n independent investigation has been ordered
into soaring A&E delays in
west London following the closure of two casualty units.
NHS England is examining
whether the decline in performance at Northwick Park and
Ealing hospitals is linked to the
axing of the A&Es at Hammersmith and Central Middlesex.
The probe was requested by local GPs after London North West
Healthcare NHS Trust, which
runs Northwick Park and Ealing,
recorded the worst delays in the
country for patients waiting to be
treated at main A&Es.
In the week to October 19, it
saw just 67.8% of patients within
four hours. The following week,
it was 73.3%.
‘Cannibal’
victim had face,
neck injuries,
inquest hears
Postmortem on Cerys Yemm,
killed by Matthew Williams at
a south Wales hostel, records
provisional cause of death
Guardian News and Media
London
A
young woman who was
killed in an apparent cannibal attack died of “sharp
force trauma” to her face and
neck, a coroner has heard.
Cerys Yemm, 22, was murdered by Matthew Williams,
34, after he lured her back to his
room in a hostel in south Wales.
Williams, who had been released from prison just a few
weeks before the attack at the
Sirhowy Arms in the village of
Argoed, near Blackwood, died
after a police officer shot him
with a Taser.
Cerys Yemm, 22, was
murdered by Matthew
Williams, 34 , after he
lured her back to his
room in a hostel in south
Wales
D S William Davies, who is
leading the investigation, told
the inquest in Newport: “Police
received a 999 emergency call at
1.23 am on November 6. On arrival officers found the body of
a female on the ﬂoor of a hotel
room.
“She was pronounced dead at
the scene by paramedics. In the
room with Cerys Yemm was a
male identiﬁed as Matthew Williams. He was arrested and detained but died a short time later.
His death will be the subject of a
separate report.”
The inquest heard a post-
mortem examination on Yemm
carried out by Home Office pathologist Richard Jones recorded
a provisional cause of death as
sharp force trauma to the face
and neck. Sharp force trauma injuries are usually wounds caused
by any implement having a sharp
edge such as a knife or broken
glass.
Davies, of Gwent police, said
the investigations into both
deaths were ongoing.
Gwent coroner David Bowen
released Yemm’s body so her
family can hold a funeral, which
is expected to be a private service. None of her family attended
the ﬁve-minute hearing.
Bowen adjourned the inquest
until April while the police investigation continues.
Williams and Yemm, who
worked for the clothes shop
Next, are believed to have met on
a night out in Blackwood. Friends
have said he invited her back to
the hostel where he was staying,
promising to get her a taxi home.
After hostel staff heard a woman’s cries, owner Mandy Miles
burst into the room. She has said
Williams was covered in blood
and had black eyes.
Miles said: “I can still see the
amount of blood and the stillness
of her, there were no signs of life
at that point. I said to Matthew:
‘Do you know what you’re doing
to that girl?’ He said: ‘That’s no
girl.’”
Williams was staying at the
hostel, which is used by Caerphilly council to place single
homeless men. A serious further
offence review will take place
to see if lessons can be learned
from the case amid claims that
Williams was unable access the
medication he needed to control
his paranoid schizophrenia.
Questions have been raised over
how he was being monitored after being released from prison for
a violent offence. Gwent police
are investigating Yemm’s murder while the Independent Police
Complaints Commission is looking into the use of the Taser.
In the last four weeks, 2,813
patients have waited more than
the four-hour NHS target to be
seen.
Dr Mark Spencer, clinical lead
for the Shaping a Healthier Future programme behind the A&E
changes in North West London,
claimed the increased delays
were not a result of the closures
but were due to more people
seeking emergency treatment.
“Undoubtedly we are not
happy with the performance,” he
told the Standard. “At the moment, a lot of this is unexplained.
We need to look at that. If we are
wrong, we will ﬁnd out how we
got it wrong and not do it again.
It’s not good care. If you had a
relative stuck on a trolley for
four hours you would be pretty
cheesed off. Whether it has an
impact on mortality is hard to
say.”
The A&E closures at Ham-
mersmith and Central Middlesex, on September 10, were
the first in a series of changes
to emergency care approved by
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt a
year ago.
The next changes will see
Ealing and Charing Cross rebuilt
as £80mn “local hospitals” performing day surgery, with their
A&Es becoming “emergency
centres” run by GPs and emergency nurse practitioners.
B
oris Johnson has revealed that he is refusing to pay a tax demand
issued to him by US authorities - despite previously lambasting the US embassy in
London over its failure to pay
the congestion charge.
The mayor of London, who
was born in New York and holds
a US passport as well as a British one, visited the country last
week to promote his book and
said during an interview with
NPR (National Public Radio) that
he had been hit with a demand
for capital gains tax.
He said the US demand related
to his ﬁrst home in the UK, which
was not subject to capital gains
tax in England.
All US citizens, including
those with dual citizenship, are
legally obliged to ﬁle a tax return
and liable to pay US taxes, wherever they are living, even if the
income is earned abroad.
Asked whether he would
pay the bill, Johnson initially
avoided the question. But when
it was put to him a second time,
he replied: “No is the answer.
I think it’s absolutely outrageous. Why should I? I think,
you know, I’m not a … I, you
know, I haven’t lived in the US
for, you know, well, since I was
five years old … I pay the lion’s
share of my tax, I pay my taxes
to the full in the United Kingdom where I live and work.”
Johnson said the US
demand related to his
first home in the UK,
which was not subject
to capital gains tax in
England
Johnson, who is bidding to
return to parliament at the next
general election and has been
tipped to replace David Cameron
as leader if the Tories lose power,
was then asked why he continued to carry a US passport, to
which he responded: “It’s very
difficult to give up.”
lian Bell claimed that an emergency department run by GPs
and without an intensive care
unit and blue-light ambulances
“isn’t an A&E that the public
would recognise”.
Dr Spencer insisted Northwick
Park was now “safer” than before
as it was relying on fewer agency
staff and locum doctors, and the
number of emergency consultants “on the shop ﬂoor” had increased.
Explosion injures 14
Gas workers are seen by the ‘Churchill Hyatt Regency’ hotel after what appeared to have been a gas explosion hit the hotel in London. At least 14 people were reportedly
injured in the explosion. The cause of the explosion is under investigation but it is believed it was caused by a leaking gas pipe, a spokesperson of the fire department
was cited in media reports.
‘Four or ﬁve’ terror plots
foiled, says police chief
AFP
London
B
ritish police have foiled
four or ﬁve suspected
terror plots this year, the
country’s most senior police ofﬁcer said yesterday ahead of a
week-long campaign to enlist
the public’s help in countering
the threat.
“We’ve said on average over
the last few years it’s been
about one (plot) a year, but
this year alone we think four
or five,” Scotland Yard commissioner Bernard Hogan-
Howe told BBC television. He
added: “Certainly we’ve seen
a change to the momentum...
we’ve seen a change to the
frequency and the seriousness of the types of plots that
we’re looking at.”
More than 250 counter-terrorism arrests have been made
so far this year, according to police sources. Most recently, three
people were charged in London
last week over an alleged plot
which media reports said included a plan to behead somebody in Britain.
Hogan-Howe said the threat
from so-called “lone wolf” at-
tacks by individuals or small
groups was causing “growing
concern”, and warned their ability to act quickly left little time
for the security services to intervene.
But he said the public could
help by being more vigilant, particularly in crowded places and
transport hubs where attacks are
more likely to happen.
For a week starting today, police will hold a series of events
across Britain to let ordinary
people and businesses know
how they can help by identifying
and reporting suspicious behaviour.
London mayor not
to pay US tax bill
Guardian News and Media
London
The department of health insists that the hospitals will continue to provide “A&E services”
but campaigners believe the units
are being downgraded.
A department of health
spokesman said: “Local people can be reassured that, as the
health secretary made clear to
Parliament last year, Ealing hospital will continue to provide
A&E services.”
But Ealing council leader Ju-
Johnson has continually
pressed the US embassy to pay
unpaid fines it has incurred
for the congestion charge. The
embassy has refused to do so,
claiming the charge is a tax and
therefore its diplomats are immune.
During a visit to the UK by
Barack Obama in 2011, Johnson
reportedly asked him for a £5mn
cheque for unpaid congestion
charges but the US ambassador
intervened before the president
could answer.
By last year the amount the
US embassy owed in congestion
charge ﬁnes had risen to more
than £7mn, the most of any diplomatic mission in the capital.
Johnson would also be liable to
pay US income tax as he earns well
above the foreign-earned income
exclusion - the level up to which
no tax is paid on income earned by
US citizens overseas - which was
set at $97,600 last year.
As mayor, he earns a salary of
£144,000 and on top of that he is
paid £250,000 a year for his column.
The campaign will also urge
people to question charities
about where their money is going, amid concerns that some
are being used to channel funds
to militants.
“If the public, the businesses
and police work together with
the security services then that’s
an incredibly powerful team,”
Hogan-Howe said.
The national terror threat
was raised in August to “severe”,
meaning an attack is highly likely, but the police chief said the
message was to “keep calm but
be aware”.
He repeated fears that Brit-
ons who have gone to fight with
rebel groups in Iraq and Syria
might return to use their new
training and experience to attack Britain.
But he did not comment on a
claim by an opposition Labour
lawmaker that as many as 2,000
Britons are ﬁghting overseas four times the official estimate
of 500.
Khalid Mahmood, an MP for
the city of Birmingham, told
the Sunday Telegraph newspaper that in his area there was a
“huge problem” of people going
to ﬁght with the Islamic State
(IS) group.
Ex-PM Brown to quit
Commons ‘on a high’
Agencies
London
F
Johnson: tax demand ‘absolutely outrageous’
ormer prime minister
Gordon Brown is to announce that he is standing down as an MP, according
to reports.
Brown, 63, will soon conﬁrm
that he will quit at the general
election in May, after playing
a key role in the Scottish independence referendum campaign,
sources have said.
The Labour MP has focused
on charity work and his role as
United Nations special envoy
for global education since his
resignation as prime minister
in 2010.
An ally told the Sunday Mirror newspaper: “Gordon has
conﬁrmed to friends that he will
stand down at the election in
May. He wants to go out on a high
after effectively salvaging the
campaign to keep the UK together in September. He will focus on
his charity work.”
Brown was ﬁrst elected to Parliament in 1983 and was prime
minister from 2007 to 2010 and
chancellor from 1997 to 2007.
His last-minute intervention
in the referendum debate was
widely credited with helping the
pro-union Better Together campaign to victory.
A timetable he championed for
devolving more powers to Scotland was later endorsed by the
three UK party leaders in their
vow for greater autonomy for the
Scottish Parliament in the event
of a No vote.
A series of impassioned
speeches, culminating in
an eve of poll rallying cry
in Glasgow, was also widely
praised.
Brown had been tipped to
stand for the Scottish Labour
leadership following the shock
resignation of Johann Lamont
last month, but instead made
clear he had no intention of returning to front-line politics.
He won the Kirkcaldy and
Cowdenbeath seat with a majority of more than 23,000 in the
last election.
Former Labour chancellor
Alistair Darling has also announced that he is to stand down
as an MP at the next general election in the wake of the referendum.
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
19
EUROPE
French city bans street advertising
Commercial street advertising will be banned in Grenoble to make
way for trees and community noticeboards, the eastern French
city’s new Green mayor announced yesterday.
“The municipality is taking the choice of freeing public space in
Grenoble from advertising to develop areas for public expression,”
the office of Eric Piolle, of the French Greens, said.
Between January and April, 326 advertising signs, including 64
billboards, will be taken down and the city’s outdoor advertising
contract will be cancelled.
In place of the hoardings, “about 50 young trees will be planted
before spring”, the mayor’s office said.
Starting in January, officials will offer local cultural and social groups
free advertising space.
The new signs will be smaller and aimed “not only at drivers, but
also pedestrians”, said Lucille Lheureux, deputy in charge of public
spaces for the city.
There is a dispute over how much the greening of Grenoble’s streets
and cancelling of the old advertising contract will cost the city.
The mayor’s office said the city used to pull in €600,000 a year
selling advertising space, but that this figure had been expected
to drop to €150,000 in the new year due the wider slump in
advertising rates.
€20,000 fine for defacing Colosseum
A Russian tourist caught red-handed trying to carve his initials on a
wall of Rome’s Colosseum was ordered on Saturday to pay a fine of
€20,000 ($24,700), Ansa reported.
The 42-year-old was using a sharp-edged stone to engrave a large K,
some 25cm tall, onto the brick surface, the Italian news agency said.
The judge also handed down a suspended four-month jail sentence.
He was the fifth visitor to the Colosseum to be penalised for
defacing the famous monument this year.
The others were an Australian father and son, and two teenagers,
from Canada and Brazil.
The Roman daily Il Messaggero said authorities would increase
the number of surveillance cameras and step up visual and audio
warnings against vandalism.
The Colosseum, the biggest amphitheatre built during the Roman
Empire standing 48.5m (159’) tall, welcomes more than 5mn visitors
a year.
Long-delayed repairs to the 2,000-year-old monument, once used
for bloody gladiatorial contests, began in September.
Funded by Italian billionaire Diego Della Valle,the refurbishment is
expected to end in 2016.
Regional votes test
Renzi’s popularity
AFP/Reuters
Rome
T
wo Italian regions voted
yesterday in elections seen
as a test of popularity for
youthful centre-left Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.
Some 5.4mn people are eligible
to vote in the polls in Emilia-Romagna, a wealthy central region,
and southern Calabria, Italy’s
poorest.
Renzi, the 39-year-old former
mayor of Florence who became
prime minister last year, initially enjoyed wide praise for his
dynamic, modern style, but his
popularity has been eroded by
the economic crisis, unemployment and social tensions.
Renzi’s popularity peaked in
June shortly after a landslide
WWII bomb found in French city
Three thousand people were evacuated from their homes in the
centre of the French city of Rennes yesterday while a huge British
bomb from World War II was defused.
The 250kg (550-pound) bomb was found near the city’s town hall
during the building of a new metro line in the capital of the Brittany
region of western France, mayor Nathalie Appere told AFP.
She said it was packed with 70kg of high explosives and police
bomb disposal experts faced a very “delicate operation” to disarm it.
Police evacuated all homes and businesses within 270m of the
scene, including a fire station and 90 residents of a home for the
elderly while the operation took place.
Rennes, a major railway junction, was the target of several raids by
Britain’s RAF during the war, including a major attack in 1944.
E-cigarettes judged to be non-drug
The tobacco alternative, e-cigarettes, are not a drug under German
law, the country’s federal administrative ruled this week in a victory
for the growing e-cigarette industry.
The devices emit a vapour from a nicotine liquid. If the liquid had
been judged to be a medication, it would have required testing and
clearance as a drug.
The ruling means the product can continue to be sold in Germany at
tobacco stalls and by online merchants.
Giving a verdict in an appeal by e-cigarette merchants and
manufacturers, judges in the eastern city of Leipzig ruled that
pharmaceuticals law does not apply because the liquid serves a
therapeutic purpose and does not improve health.
German authorities had vainly attempted to restrict sales of the
products, arguing that they were subject to pharmaceuticals laws.
60 Germans died fighting for IS
Some 60 Germans have been killed while fighting under the banner
of the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq, the head of the German
domestic intelligence service said yesterday.
“About 60 people from Germany have died or killed themselves, at
least nine in suicide attacks,” Hans-George Maassen told the Welt
am Sonntag newspaper.
5.7-magnitude quake rattles Romania
A 5.7-magnitude quake shook eastern Romania on Saturday evening
and was felt as far away as the capital Bucharest, the National
Institute for Earth Physics said, though no injuries were reported.
The epicentre of the earthquake was in the Vrancea region, some
200km northeast of Bucharest.
Renzi: his popularity has been eroded by the economic crisis,
unemployment and social tensions.
victory in European parliament
elections, but his ruling party has
been steadily slipping lower in
opinion polls since, as the economy stutters and joblessness remains stubbornly high.
The public mood has soured in
recent weeks, with labour unions
marching through cities, and
clashes between police and residents in poorer neighbourhoods
of Milan and Rome after dark.
Opinion polls suggest the candidates from Renzi’s Democratic
Party (PD), which is still by far
the country’s biggest party, are
favourites to win over a divided
centre-right.
Local factors will play a big role
in the ballots, which were called
after the outgoing governors
were forced to resign in corruption scandals, but they remain
Renzi’s ﬁrst electoral test since
winning 41% of the European
vote.
Renzi campaigned in both
regions this week and scuffles
broke out between police and
demonstrators awaiting his arrival in Parma, one of EmiliaRomagna’s main cities.
On Friday evening in Calabria,
Renzi appealed to deep-rooted
local concerns about high joblessness, organised crime and
lower availability of childcare
than in the industrialised north.
Soon after toppling his predecessor in a party coup, Renzi was
nicknamed “Demolition Man”
Grillo: wants to consolidate its position as Italy’s second-largest party.
for his commitment to breaking
old Italian political structures,
but he has yet to deliver promised
reforms and revive the economy.
Planned changes to labour
laws that impede hiring and ﬁring – partly blamed for Italy’s
economy shrinking around 9%
since 2007 – have met ﬁerce union opposition.
The right-wing Northern
League, which is exploiting
growing anti-immigrant sentiment, is focusing on Emilia.
Party leader Matteo Salvini appealed on Facebook to his “Emiliani and Romagnoli friends” to
vote for his party’s candidate.
The anti-establishment 5-Star
Movement, whose leader Beppe
Polish poll results ﬁnally
published after glitches
AFP
Warsaw
P
oland’s electoral commission ﬁnally published
last weekend’s local election results overnight on Saturday, after computer glitches
had stopped the vote count and
called the balloting process into
question.
The delay in publishing the
results prompted opposition
parties to question the credibility of the vote, though President Bronislaw Komorowski on
Wednesday called the idea of an
election re-run “complete madness”.
Poland’s largest opposition
party said the result of the local
elections, which gave the ruling
Civic Platform (PO) party the
highest number of provincial
assembly seats, was “dishonest”.
“We believe the results announced by the PKW are un-
true, dishonest, not to simply
say falsiﬁed,” Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the Law and Justice
(PiS) party, told a news conference, adding his party would
appeal the vote in courts.
Official results of the November 16 election were announced
by the state election commission PKW late on Saturday following technical glitches that
delayed the vote count.
PO’s victory deﬁed an exit
poll which showed PiS ahead of
PO by a wide margin.
Such an outcome would have
given the party its ﬁrst nationwide victory in nine years.
Final results showed the centre-right PO won 179 seats in
provincial assemblies. The conservative bloc led by PiS came
second, securing 171 seats.
The junior ruling coalition
partner Polish Peasant Party
(PSL) won 157 seats, while the
Democratic Left Alliance (SLD),
which joined earlier PiS calls for
a re-run of the vote, secured 28
seats. The election commission
said nearly 18% of votes were
invalid.
Kaczynski called for a demonstration on December 13
against the election result.
“This is a big issue for Poland, for Polish democracy,
because approving such a situation means simply a change of
regime, means pushing Poland
eastwards,” he said.
Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz
dismissed the opposition calls
as an attempt to undermine democracy in Poland, European
Union’s largest ex-communist
economy.
“Questioning of the election
results by opposition leaders is
an act that only beneﬁts partisan interests,” Kopacz said in a
letter to party members read out
by the administration minister.
“It has one effect – it is an attempt to destroy the fundamentals of democracy.”
The delay in publishing the
results, caused by the failure of
a piece of software intended to
aid the vote count, led eight out
of nine members of the election
commission, including its head,
to say they will resign.
Regional elections are held
every four years to choose mayors, provincial assembly members and other local authorities.
The Polish government has
been led by Kopacz since late
September, following former
premier Donald Tusk’s resignation after he was tapped to become the next European Council chief.
The country is now preparing
to join the eurozone.
Poland is obliged to join the
single currency bloc as part of
its 2004 European Union entry
deal but has dragged its feet on
the move, which would require
it to amend its constitution.
More than 30mn voters were
eligible to cast ballots to pick
nearly 47,000 municipal and
regional representatives and
about 2,500 mayors.
Norwegian prodigy Carlsen retains chess title
AFP
Moscow
N
orwegian prodigy Magnus Carlsen retained
his title as World Chess
Champion yesterday, defeating
rival Viswanathan Anand for the
second year in a row.
The
23-year-old
world
number one beat India’s Viswanathan, title-holder of the
championship from 2007 to
2013 when he was dethroned by
Carlsen, in the 11th game of the
competition.
“I am very happy,” Carlsen
was quoted as saying by Russian press agency Tass. “It was a
very difficult match, much more
difficult than last year. Anand is
a very strong chess player, but
he had practically no chance of
winning.”
Carlsen had been playing since November 8 against
Viswanathan, who is nearly 20
years his senior, in the Russian
Black Sea resort of Sochi.
The victory will mean €1mn
($1.2mn) in prize money for
Carlsen just a week before his
24th birthday.
“Overall, throughout the
match, Carlsen played better
than I did,” Viswanathan was
quoted as saying by Tass. “I
tried, but the risk didn’t work
out. Carlsen didn’t make a mistake. I had nothing left to do but
take risks.”
Carlsen turned grandmaster at 13 and in 2010, aged only
19, became the youngest player
in history to be ranked world
number one.
He won the Candidates Tournament in 2013 to earn the right
to challenge Anand.
His breakthrough in chess
came in 2004, when as a
13-year-old he defeated Russian
former world champion Anatoly
Karpov, forced Russian legend
Garry Kasparov to a draw, and
became a grandmaster.
Before Carlsen captured the
championship crown in 2013,
the last Westerner to hold the
title was American legend Bobby
Fischer who relinquished it in
1975.
Carlsen missed by a few weeks
becoming the youngest world
champion, a record set by his
one-time coach Kasparov in
1985.
Introduced to chess by his
father, Carlsen showed signs of
genius as a toddler.
At the age of two, Carlsen
knew by heart all the major car
brands and later memorised the
long list of Norway’s municipalities, with their ﬂags and administrative centres.
Sibling rivalry with one of his
sisters sparked his interest in
chess, which soon led to his ﬁrst
competition at the age of eight.
Carlsen has been hailed by
Kasparov as a Harry Potter-type
“super-talent”.
A fashion model in his spare
time, he made it to the Time
magazine list of the 100 most
inﬂuential people in the world
in 2013.
Anand, who remains one of
the most popular sports ﬁgures
in cricket-mad India, and his
opponent enjoyed a remarkably
similar rise in their careers since
they were talented teenagers.
Anand, 44, became an international master at 15, was
crowned Indian champion at 16,
won the world junior title at 17
and became the country’s ﬁrst
grandmaster at 18.
His longevity and persever-
Carlsen playing against Anand for the FIDE World Chess Championship 2014 in Sochi. The Norwegian
retained his title.
ance – he won his ﬁrst world
title in 2000 – has often been
compared with that of cricket
superstar Sachin Tendulkar, the
world’s batting record-holder.
The soft-spoken family man,
who lives in Spain with wife Aruna and three-year-old son Akhil,
is far removed from his temperamental predecessors like Bobby
Fischer, Boris Spassky, Anatoly
Karpov and Kasparov.
Grillo made a surprise visit to
Emilia-Romagna on Friday,
wants to consolidate its position
as Italy’s second-largest party.
Turnout will also indicate
whether voter apathy is still rising.
In Calabria, 46% voted in the
European elections, versus 70%
in Emilia-Romagna.
Emilia’s outgoing governor,
PD-affiliated Vasco Errani, resigned in June after being convicted of fraud. Giuseppe Scopelliti governed Calabria until
March when he was given jail
time for abuse of office and false
accounting.
Polls closed at 2200 GMT and
results will be announced today.
Paintings
found at
Greece’s
biggest
ancient
tomb
AFP
Thessaloniki
P
aintings of daily life have
been discovered on columns at Greece’s biggest
ancient tomb at Amphipolis in
the northern region of Macedonia, the Greek culture ministry
said on Saturday.
“After cleaning the columns,
images of people, objects and
utensils were uncovered,” Culture Minister Kostas Tassoulas
said at a press brieﬁng on the
discovery at the site.
The paintings may help solve
the mystery of who is buried at
the highly-decorated tomb from
the time of Alexander the Great.
A skeleton was found at the
site earlier this month.
“We will have the ﬁrst indications (about the identity) after
the bones are examined at an
anthropological laboratory,” said
Lisa Mendoni, a top official at
the culture ministry.
Archaeologists had to dig
their way past huge decapitated
sphinxes, break through a wall
guarded by two caryatids and
empty out an antechamber decorated with stunning mosaics to
ﬁnally ﬁnd the tomb’s occupant.
The culture ministry said on
November 12 that the remains
were clearly those of “a powerful
personality, which can be seen
from this unique tomb”, with
speculation rife that it could be
that of Roxana, Alexander’s Persian wife, his mother Olympias,
or one of his generals.
Whoever was buried at the
massive fourth-century BC
structure, historians say it is
highly unlikely to have been Alexander himself, who conquered
the Persian empire and much
of the known world before his
death at the age of 32.
A team from the University of
Thessaloniki plans to use threedimensional tomographic imagery to search the area for other
tombs.
The archaeologist in charge of
the dig, Katerina Peristeri, is set
to hold a press conference about
the discoveries on November 29
in Athens.
20
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
EUROPE
Francis to push
Europe to act
against racism
AFP
Vatican City
P
Pope Francis acknowledges the crowd on his arrival for the canonisation ceremony of six men and
women, in Saint Peter’s Square at the Vatican, yesterday.
220 Syrian
migrants
rescued off
Cyprus
AFP
Nicosia
S
ome 220 Syrian migrants
crammed onto a ﬁshing
boat were rescued off the
northern coast of Cyprus yesterday as the vessel hit rough seas
in the Mediterranean, authorities said.
Turkish Cypriot authorities
were able to rescue the passengers including a number of children in an operation lasting several hours in bad weather, local
police said in a statement.
The boat had signalled for help
when it was some 300m off the
coast near the port of Kyrenia in
the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is recognised
only by Turkey.
The passengers were transferred to another vessel and
later taken to a gymnasium in
Kyrenia.
The statement said 13 migrants were taken to hospital but
that their lives were not in danger.
The others were sent back
later in the day by ferry to the
southern Turkish port city of
Mersin, from where they had set
off.
Turkey has become a hub
for illegal immigrants seeking
to reach western Europe, with
many setting their sights on
Italy.
The UN refugee agency says
that more than 2,500 people
have drowned or disappeared so
far in 2014 while trying to cross
the Mediterranean.
ope Francis is expected to
take Europe to task over
racial and religious intolerance during a visit to the European parliament tomorrow, as
the crisis-hit continent battles
growing populism and the spectre of radicalisation.
It will be the second visit
by a Pope to the parliament in
the French city of Strasbourg lightning, four-hour trip which
will see Francis address both
lawmakers and the Council of
Europe.
The Pontiff has in the past
dubbed Europe a “tired” continent which has lost its way, criticising its high unemployment,
a declining birthrate and poor
treatment of the marginalised
and elderly by those in thrall to
“the idol of money”.
The climate has changed
greatly since the last papal visit
to the French city in 1988, and
Vatican watchers say the Argentine Pontiff will have to ﬁght
harder to be heard in an increasingly secular continent.
The 77-year old Pontiff had
been criticised for neglecting
Europe since his election in February last year, preferring to focus on areas of potential growth
for the Roman Catholic Church,
such as Asia.
He then surprised many by
choosing Albania – a poor country outside the European Union –
as his ﬁrst destination, a decision
which experts said underlined his
desire to see European ideals applied across borders rather than
along
institutionally-deﬁned
lines.
The Pope is expected to repeat
his call for greater tolerance, social inclusion and dialogue as a
recourse to a rise in racism and
radicalisation in countries hit
hard by the economic crisis and
Pope declares sainthood of two Indians, four Italians
Pope Francis conferred sainthood on two Indians and
four Italians yesterday, praising their “creative” commitment to helping the poor.
Francis added to the roster of Catholic saints a Keralite
mystic nun, an Indian priest and social reformer, the
former Bishop of Vicenza, and three members of the
Franciscan order.
“They responded with extraordinary creativity to the
commandment of love of God and neighbour,” Francis
told crowds in Saint Peter’s Square in the Vatican.
“Their preference for the smallest and poorest was
the reflection and measure of their unconditional love
of God,” said Francis, who chose his own papal name
after the saint of Assisi, who symbolises austerity and
love for the poor.
Portraits of the newly sanctified hung from Saint Peter’s Basilica, in front of which 5,000 Keralite Catholics
and two local government ministers joined the crowd,
according to the Union of Catholic Asian News.
Carmelite nun Sister Eufrasia was sanctified with
Kuriakose Elias Chavara, who founded the sisterhood
she belonged to.
Eufrasia, canonised six years after India’s first female
saint, was born to an aristocratic family in 1877 and
took a vow of chastity aged nine.
the austerity measures imposed
to overcome it.
Nationalist, Eurosceptic and
anti-immigration parties in several countries scored victories in
European Parliament elections in
May on the back of widespread
frustration with Brussels.
Europe is also grappling with
the departure of hundreds of
citizens for Syria and Iraq, where
they openly join jihadist groups
and urge others to follow.
The leader of the world’s 1.2bn
Roman Catholics will likely call
for more to be done to tackle
youth unemployment – which
stands at an average 21.6% in the
continent – and to care for those
ﬂeeing war zones and persecution.
His visit has sparked protests
in some quarters, with critics
slamming European Parliament
head Martin Schulz’s decision
to invite a religious leader to address a secular body.
Decaying complex shelters
generations of migrants
By Helene Colliopoulou, AFP
Athens
A
group of people – Greeks,
Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians,
Bulgarians,
Iranians,
Turks – gather around a steaming pot outside a dilapidated
building complex from the 1930s
set in the heart of Athens.
Dubbed the Ta Prosfygika, meaning “The Refugees”,
the once stately complex was
erected on what is now plum
real estate in downtown Athens
to house some of the hundreds
of thousands of Greeks chased
from Turkey between the two
world wars.
Under the international 1923
Lausanne Treaty closing one of
the last chapters of the Great
War, Greece and Turkey exchanged each other’s migrant
populations – 385,000 Turks
living in Greece and 1.3mn Greek
settlers in Turkey.
Some of their descendants
still live in the decaying complex, others around the pot are
recently-arrived refugees eking
out a living in economicallycrippled Greece.
“It’s our Sunday get-together,
the proof we can help each other
in these difficult times, struggle
against alienation,” said Lucas P
as he poured tomato sauce over
noodles.
Lucas, a bank employee,
works as a volunteer every Sunday, helping to cook for about
100 people here, immigrants as
well as homeless Greeks.
For the past several years these
people have been squatting in
around half of the 228 small
housing units initially built for
an earlier generation of refugees.
“We all live together, cheek
by jowl,” said Aras Hosien. “The
Greeks help the foreign children
to learn the language, they throw
parties, show movies. It’s like a
family.
Hosien, 34, is an Iraqi Kurd
who shares his apartment with
an Iranian from the southern
city of Shiraz.
The lobby of one of the buildings has been turned into a sort
of activity centre for children –
there are around 30 of them aged
between ﬁve and 15.
The walls are adorned with
paintings and the letters of the
Greek alphabet.
“The children have difficulties at school, and we try to help
them,” said Vaguelis, 31, who
was a squatter here three years
ago and still serves on the residents’ co-ordination team.
The complex stretches for
eight blocks along a central artery of the Greek capital, its
crumbling facades an eyesore
near the Supreme Court, police
headquarters, and major hospitals.
Across the way is the stadium
of Athens’ premier football club
Panathinaïkos.
It stands on 1.5 hectares
(nearly four acres) of prime real
estate.
For now the wastelands between each block serve as carparks during the working week.
“These stone buildings, with
characteristics of the Bauhaus
style, were the Greek idea of
public housing at the time,” said
Yannis Polyzos, a professor of
urban planning at the Athens
Polytechnic.
The German modernist Bau-
haus art school deeply inﬂuenced design and architecture
across Europe between the two
wars, and the decaying complex,
which has been declared a “national heritage”, cannot be demolished, said Polyzos.
The cash-strapped government that owns the major part
of the building is avid to sell at
a proﬁt to help balance its books
rather than invest in restoration
work.
The remaining 30-odd private owners, descendants of the
original refugees of whom only
a few still reside in the complex,
too would like to sell.
“Living conditions are abysmal in these derelict buildings
that offer very little sanitation,”
said one of the private owners,
who asked to remain anonymous.
“I’m not a racist, I understand
that these people have to live
somewhere, but the authorities
need to force them out because
the complex is worth a lot of
money,” he added.
Some of the squatters would
agree.
“It’s not a good life for our
children here,” said Mohanomo
Kezari, an Afghan refugee who
ﬂed to Greece with his family to
escape the Taliban, but who, like
many others dreams of moving
on elsewhere in Europe.
“I’d rather go live somewhere
else, in Sweden, Germany or
Austria,” he said.
But many of the Prosfygika
squatters are content with life
within this multicultural community, defending it as a “social
self-management and cohabitation project for people of different origins”.
Right: Children are seen at the
entrance to their apartment
building at the prosfygika
complex in central Athens.
Below: A view of the ‘Prosfygika’
complex. Wedged between the
Supreme Court of Greece and
the police headquarters, this
is hardly the place you would
imagine Greek and immigrant
squatters. This architectural
marvel dating back to the 30’s
originally built for Greek
refugees fleeing Turkey after
World War I is known as
Prosfygika, meaning Refugee
House in Greek.
Chavara founded two Carmelite congregations in India
in the 19th century, and decreed that every church
should have its own school.
Applause rang out yesterday when Francis said the
Italian saints – who between them founded refuges
for pilgrims, street urchins and the sick – could inspire
citizens today.
“May the example of the four Italian saints help the
dear Italian people to rekindle the spirit of collaboration and harmony for the public good, and to look to
the future with hope,” Francis said, after a month punctuated by protests and strikes across the country.
The Italian saints were Giovanni Antonio Farina, Bishop
of Vicenza in the late 1800s; missionary Ludovico da
Casoria, and fellow Franciscans Nicola da Longobardi
and Amato Ronconi.
The often decades-long process of considering a person for sainthood must normally wait until they have
been dead for five years, and have been credited with
bringing about two miracles.
A pope can bypass the five-year rule, as Francis’s
predecessor Benedict did for John Paul II, who had in
turn started the process of sanctifying Mother Teresa
of Calcutta within five years after her death in 1997.
See also page 22
However, in an editorial published yesterday in the Vatican
daily l’Osservatore Romano,
Schulz rejected the criticism
and said that he believed Francis would “wake Europe from its
lethargy”.
“As president of the parliament I can only say that the
church has played a leading role
in limiting the material and immaterial damage from the economic crisis,” Schulz said.
While the European People’s Party (EPP) – the largest
in parliament – was founded by
Christian Democratic parties in
the 1970s, ties to the Catholic
Church have eroded over time
and the Vatican has little clout in
contemporary European politics.
According to the Italian Catholic news agency SIR, the parliament’s directorate-general for
external policies published an
internal report ahead of Francis’s
visit which ﬂagged up major dif-
ferences between the Vatican and
Europe on issues from the free
market to gender theories.
Many, particularly in the
church’s
conservative
arm,
will be watching closely to see
whether Francis will address
hot-button topics such as gay
marriage, abortion and euthanasia – particularly after a slew
of recent legislative changes in
European countries.
He has warned Catholic leaders against focusing too much on
divisive issues and has avoided
making strong pronouncements
on such topics himself.
He is more likely, 25 years after the fall of the Berlin wall, to
urge Europeans to continue on
the path of inclusion rather than
lending their ears to those who
would bolster borders.
On the 100th anniversary of
the start of World War I, Francis
may also call for peace in Ukraine
and other conﬂict zones.
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
21
EUROPE
Russia will not
allow isolation
over Ukraine
Reuters/AFP
Moscow
P
resident Vladimir Putin
blamed the West for worsening relations with Russia
since the Ukraine crisis and said
that Moscow would not allow
itself to become internationally
isolated behind another “Iron
Curtain”.
In an interview published by
state news agency Tass yesterday, Putin also said Western
sanctions against Moscow, combined with the slide in the rouble
and oil price falls would have no
“catastrophic consequences” on
Russia’s economy.
The United States and the
European Union have imposed
sanctions on Russia over its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean
peninsula and ratcheted them up
over Moscow’s backing for separatists ﬁghting Kiev troops to
split east Ukraine.
“We understand the fatality
of an ‘Iron Curtain’ for us,” Putin was quoted as saying. “We
will not go down this path in any
case and no one will build a wall
around us. That is impossible!”
Russia’s ties with the West are
at their worst since the Cold War
because of Ukraine, where more
than 4,300 people have been
killed since violence erupted in
the east mid-April.
As the West pressures Moscow over Ukraine, Putin accused
Washington and Brussels of disregarding Russia’s interests.
“When Russia starts ... safeguarding people and its interests,
it immediately becomes bad (in
the view of the West), he said.
“You think it’s over our position
over east Ukraine or Crimea? Absolutely not! If it wasn’t for that,
they would have found a different
reason. It has always been like
that.”
The sanctions hit Russia’s
weak economy and sparked a
slide in the rouble, which shed
about a third of its value this year.
Economic woes are exacerbated by a sharp drop in the global
price for oil, one of Russia’s main
exports.
“If the price of energy is lowered on purpose, this also hits
those who introduce those limits,” Putin said, adding that major producers such as the United
States and Saudi Arabia could be
in cahoots to lower prices and
harm the Russian economy.
He said that big supply, which
he blamed for the price fall, came
The freight train carrying parts of the wreckage of the Malaysia
Airlines passenger jet to Kharkiv.
from the US shale ﬁelds, Libya
and Saudi Arabia, as well as from
Iraq, including what he said were
black market sales by Islamic
State militants who hold swathes
of that country.
However, he struck a deﬁant
tone on possible consequences
for the Russian stagnant economy.
“It’s far from certain that
sanctions, sharp falls in the oil
price (and) the depreciation of
the national currency will cause
negative effects or catastrophic
consequences only for us. No
such thing will happen!”
Putin also did not rule out running for the presidency again in
2018 when his current term expires, though he denied he wanted to rule until death.
He ﬁrst came to Russia’s top
job as acting president on the
Putin
breaks
silence
on family
AFP
Moscow
R
Putin: We understand the fatality of an ‘Iron Curtain’ for us. We will
not go down this path in any case and no one will build a wall around
us. That is impossible!
last day of 1999, remaining the
country’s paramount leader ever
since.
“Yes, the possibility exists of
my standing as a candidate again.
Whether or not it will happen, I
don’t know yet,” Putin said.
He said that although the constitution allows him to stand for
another term, “that absolutely
doesn’t mean that I will take such
a decision. I will look at the general context, my inner feelings,
my mood”.
“Is it really necessary to think
about this now? 2014 isn’t yet
over and you’re talking about
2018,” Putin asked.
At the same time, the Russian
president ruled out staying on
forever.
“No, that’s wrong for the
country, it’s harmful, and I don’t
need it,” Putin said.
Under the Russian constitution, Putin is allowed to hold ofﬁce for a maximum of two consecutive terms.
After completing his second
consecutive term in office in
2008, he got around the constitutional limit by swapping roles
with Dmitry Medvedev and serving as prime minister for one
term, before returning to the
presidency.
Now aged 62, Putin would turn
72 in 2024. Soviet leaders Stalin
and Leonid Brezhnev held onto
power to a more advanced age,
dying at 74 and 75 respectively
while still in office.
Putin had last commented in
2013 on whether he would run for
a fourth term, saying: “I do not
rule it out.”
Cadets swear allegiance to
east Ukrainian rebel state
AFP
Donetsk
Dutch complete MH17
wreckage recovery
Reuters/AFP
Amsterdam
A
week-long operation to
clear the wreckage from
the crash site of Malaysia
Airlines ﬂight MH17 in Ukraine
has been completed, the Dutch
government said yesterday.
A cargo train took pieces of the
Boeing 777 aircraft to the eastern
Ukrainian town of Kharkiv.
The wreckage will be transported to the Netherlands and
reconstructed as part of the investigation into the cause of the
disaster on July 17.
“Despite the complex circumstances and local safety situation, the team was able to work as
planned,” said a statement issued
by Dutch authorities, the Dutch
Safety Board (OVV). “A few parts
of wreckage were too big for
transport by train and arrived in
Kharkiv by truck yesterday.”
The crash, believed to have
been caused by a surface-to-air
missile ﬁred from pro-Russian
rebel territory, killed all 298 passengers and crew, two-thirds of
them from the Netherlands.
“When the wreckage has arrived in Kharkiv, transportation
to the Netherlands will be prepared,” the OVV said. “At this
point it cannot be said when and
in what way this transport will be
carried out.”
Kiev and the West have
claimed that the airliner was shot
down in the conﬂict-torn area by
separatist ﬁghters using a BUK
surface-to-air missile supplied
by Russia.
Moscow denies the charges,
pointing the ﬁnger at Kiev.
So far 289 victims had been
identiﬁed through body parts
recovered from the site, but no
wreckage had yet been retrieved
due to safety issues.
Most of the victims on the
ﬂight from Amsterdam to Kuala
Lumpur were Dutch nationals.
Investigators began the removal operation a week ago
under the auspices of monitors
from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe
(OSCE) amid fears that full-scale
ﬁghting could break out again in
the area.
“Despite the complex circumstances and local safety situation, the team was able to work
as planned under the guidance of
the OSCE,” the OVV said, hailing
good co-operation from “local
services”.
Some debris not considered
useful to the investigation was
left at the site, the OVV said, and
would be picked up by local services.
N
ot long ago, the cadets at
the military academy in
east Ukraine’s industrial
hub of Donetsk swore allegiance
to the Ukrainian ﬂag.
Now, as ﬁghting rumbles on
between pro-Russian insurgents
and government forces, they are
pledging an oath of loyalty to the
rebels’ self-proclaimed “Donetsk
People’s Republic (DNR)”.
“As I enter into the Donetsk
military academy I promise to
serve the country,” some one
hundred teenagers in military
uniforms and black great coats
chanted at a recent ceremony. “I
promise to be a worthy heir to
the traditions of my people, its
armed forces and to respect the
culture and customs of my country: the DNR.”
Before them stood Alexander
Zakharchenko, the head of this
unrecognised Kremlin-backed
statelet, in combat fatigues.
“The life of the republic and
our citizens will one day be in
your hands and you will be protected. Protected from all our
current and future enemies,” he
told the teenaged cadets.
The boys, he says, will one day
become the future “backbone ofﬁcers of the army of the DNR”.
After that he took a walkabout
among the large number of relatives that had come to attend the
ceremony, shaking hands and
stirring them with more rhetoric.
“Do not forget that we are a
republic. The army is one of the
official attributes of the republic,” he tells one person. “People
Zakharchenko, leader of the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’, at a swearing-in ceremony for
military school cadets in Donetsk.
died for that ﬂag, carried out attacks with the ﬂag. Some say it is
not recognised, but for us it is a
sacred symbol.”
Mothers, fascinated, listened
in. They ﬁlmed the charismatic
leader with their laptops and giggled when they caught his gaze.
Victoria, her hair red and lips
redder, could not hide her pride
in her son for swearing allegiance
to the new republic.
“Quite simply, he made his
choice,” said the 40-year-old
mother.
Another parent Olga, 32, sent
her son Dmitry to military school
“to become a man”.
What is important, she said, is
that her son grows up into “a future protector of the homeland”.
“We do not have anything
against Ukraine,” Olga, who was
wrapped up against the cold in a
fur coat, said. “But what is happening now is not our fault.”
One elderly woman brieﬂy
broke the protocol, shouting
to her grandson Vladik to turn
round and smile for the camera.
The embarrassed adolescent
did his best to ignore the shouting.
In the distance the thud of
shelling could be heard occasionally from the deadly clashes
between Kiev’s army and the
rebels forces that have left over
4,300 dead since April.
ussian President Vladimir
Putin, who is ﬁercely
protective of his private
life, said yesterday that his two
daughters – who had reportedly
lived abroad with their foreign
partners – now live in Moscow.
In a rare glimpse into the Russian ruler’s notoriously secretive family life, Putin told the
Tass news agency that he tries
to meet his daughters Maria, 29,
nicknamed Masha, and Yekaterina, 28, known as Katya, every
month.
“I have a packed work schedule. Even my daughters I only
see once or twice a month, and
then I need to pick my moment,”
Putin said in an unusually frank
interview.
Asked what country his
daughters live in, the former
KGB officer said: “In Russia,
where else?”
“Of course, they live in Moscow. We meet at home,” Putin
added.
Maria was forced to ﬂee her
home in the Netherlands after a missile allegedly supplied
by Moscow downed Malaysia
Airlines ﬂight MH17 in eastern Ukraine killing 298 people,
mostly Dutch nationals, according to unconﬁrmed reports this
summer.
The mayor of the Dutch city
of Hilversum, which lost several
inhabitants in the July 17 crash,
called for her to be deported
before retracting his “unwise”
comments.
Ukrainian activists even published photos and the address of
her alleged “luxury apartment”,
urging people to protest outside.
Yekaterina was reportedly
set to marry the son of a South
Korean general in 2010 but the
rumour was denied by Putin’s
spokesman.
Putin is never officially photographed with his daughters and
most Russians do not know what
they look like, unlike his predecessor Boris Yeltsin’s notoriously high-proﬁle daughter Tatyana
Yumasheva, who was one of his
closest aides.
Putin’s own love life has long
been the subject of rumours. He
was ﬁrst linked to former Olympic rhythmic gymnast Alina
Kabayeva several years before
his divorce from his wife of 30
years, Lyudmila, a former Aeroﬂot stewardess, was announced
last year.
In 2008 Moskovsky Korrespondent newspaper reported
Putin was about to wed Kabayeva, who is 31 years his junior.
The newspaper’s owner closed
it shortly afterwards.
“There is a private life in
which no one should interfere
– I’ve always had a low opinion
of those with snotty noses and
erotic fantasies who delve into
the lives of others,” Putin said at
the time.
Kabayeva is now the head of
a powerful pro-Kremlin media
group, after resigning her seat
in the Duma, the Russian lower
house of parliament, as an MP
for Putin’s United Russia Party.
Lyudmila Putina has all but
vanished from public view after their divorce was ﬁnalised in
April.
EU learns lessons a year after start of Ukraine crisis
By Alix Rijckaert , AFP
Brussels
W
Yanukovych: took the EU by
surprise when he pulled the plug on
the association agreement last year.
hen Ukraine pulled
out of its association agreement with
the European Union a year ago,
kicking off its revolution, it took
Brussels by surprise.
Twelve months later the EU is
still learning bitter lessons about
geopolitics and Russian aggression, experts say.
“We walked into a ﬁght almost
without realising it,” Vivien
Pertusot, an expert at the IFRI
think-tank in Brussels, told AFP.
“Even the experts, the universities that follow this closely were
surprised.”
The Ukraine-EU association agreement was supposed
to be the culmination of long efforts to bring Kiev back in from
the cold, only for pro-Russian
president Viktor Yanukovych to
pull the plug on November 21,
2013 in favour of closer ties with
Moscow.
There then came weeks of
protests, the ﬂight of Yanukovych after dozens of protesters
were massacred in February,
and the annexation of Crimea
by Russia the following March,
while Brussels stood by largely
helpless.
The conﬂict in eastern
Ukraine between pro-Kremlin
rebels and government forces
then began in April and has since
claimed more than 4,300 lives,
including nearly 300 on a Malaysian Airlines plane shot down
over the region.
“Nobody had predicted this
chain reaction, maybe not even
Russia,” said Giselle Bosse of
Maastricht University of in the
Netherlands.
The EU has since had to face
searching questions.
Most crucially, did it sow the
seeds of the conﬂict with its
push eastwards over the past
decade into the former Soviet
and Warsaw pact states that
used to be Russia’s backyard, especially when Moscow is trying
to reassert itself?
The EU had to realise that
Moscow sees a Western
military threat behind
everything it does
“The (European) Commission
did not realise the geopolitical
implications opened up by the
association agreement that it
was negotiating” with Ukraine,
said Pertusot, adding that the
country of 45mn people should
instead have been an example of
the beneﬁts of EU “soft power”.
While European officials and
experts were concentrating on
the technical details, Poland and
the Baltic states were thinking
more politically, trying to “set
down an irreversible barrier”
with Russia and stop it having
free rein in the region.
“The EU might have triggered
something it didn’t mean to,”
she said.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin’s
Russia, seeking to restore its international clout two decades
after the fall of the Soviet Union,
saw Brussels’ behaviour as part
of a broader Western conspiracy,
experts said.
“The EU ... became increasingly coupled with Nato in
Russia’s perception. When the
Eastern Partnership’s offer materialised ... Russia adopted an
overtly confrontational position
vis-à-vis the EU,” Laure Delcour
and Hrant Kostanyan said in a
paper for the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS).
Russia has long felt threatened by the “Eastern Partnership” that the EU launched ﬁve
years ago with Ukraine, Georgia,
Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan
and Belarus.
The ﬁrst three ﬁnally signed
the association and free trade
deal in June, marking a leap forward in relations with Brussels,
even if it is not planning to integrate them any further for now,
and winning hundreds of millions of euros in funding.
Russia meanwhile has tried to
create its own club, setting up
a customs union and Eurasian
economic union bringing together Kazakhstan, Belarus and
Armenia, which enters into force
on January 1, 2015.
Moscow’s war with Georgia in
2008 and a gas war with Ukraine
at the start of 2009 also showed
Moscow could take more aggressive action.
But the Eastern Partnership
does not bear all the blame for
Russia’s involvement in Ukraine
since March, experts say.
“The Russian reaction has
much more to do with Nato and
Russia’s security interests than
with the EU as such,” said Bosse.
Russia’s main concern in
Ukraine was to secure its strategic naval base in Sevastopol,
Crimea, she said. “It was predictable that if Russia feels insecure enough it would seek to
extend its security zone, like any
other great power does.”
In future the EU had to realise that Moscow sees a Western
military threat behind everything it does, something that
Brussels seems not to have factored in in the past.
“The EU should not forget
that the shadow behind us is
Nato – you have to be aware you
have this shadow,” she added.
22
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
INDIA
ACCIDENT
VOTING TOMORROW
WAGE WOES
TIGHT SCHEDULE
7 killed as bus falls
into Himachal gorge
Campaigning ends for first
phase of Jharkhand polling
Tea plantation owner is
lynched in West Bengal
Modi will only attend
Saarc summit in Nepal
END OF AN ERA!
Seven people, including two women, were killed
yesterday when a privately-owned mini-bus
rolled down a gorge in Himachal Pradesh’s
Sirmaur district. The bus rolled down a 500ft
gorge. The bus driver was among the dead,
police said. Nine people were also injured in the
accident which took place near Haripurdhar
in Sangrah, one of the remotest areas in the
state, some 95 km from Nahan. They have
been admitted to government hospitals in
Haripurdhar and Sangrah. The bus was going
to Baddi town from Ratwa village, Additional
Superintendent of Police N.S. Negi told IANS over
the phone. Most of the victims were locals.
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi yesterday
addressed two election rallies in Jharkhand,
the last day of campaigning for the first phase
of polls in the state. Besides Sonia Gandhi,
her son and party vice president Rahul
Gandhi also addressed two rallies Saturday.
Polling will be held in the state in five phases.
In the first phase tomorrow, voting will be
held for 13 of the 81 seats. Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and several central ministers
such as Rajnath Singh, Ravi Shankar Prasad
and Piyush Goyal held poll rallies. Bharatiya
Janata Party’s (BJP) national president Amit
Shah had kicked off the party campaign.
Angry workers have hacked to death the owner of
a tea plantation in eastern India over a payment
dispute, police said yesterday, underscoring
festering labour unrest in the region. Rajesh
Jhunjhunwala, 45, was dragged out in the middle
of discussions and attacked by the irate mob
at the Sonali tea estate in Jalpaiguri district of
West Bengal state, a local police officer told AFP
over phone. “Our preliminary investigations
have revealed that there was some issue of
payments. It appears he was attacked by some
sharp weapons,” P T Bhutia said. Police were
also searching the neighbouring villages as the
culprits fled after the incident at the estate.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel
to Nepal to attend only the Saarc Summit
in Kathmandu on November 26-27 and not
go to Janakpur, Lumbini and Muktinath, the
government said yesterday. The external
affairs ministry said this was decided due to
Modi’s “unavoidable domestic commitments
and pre-scheduled travels within” India.
“There has been widespread interest in the
prime minister’s schedule in the upcoming
visit. Due to (Modi’s) unavoidable domestic
commitments and pre-scheduled travels, he
will travel only to Kathmandu to attend the
Saarc Summit,” the spokesman said.
Workers dismantle the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant
at a ship-breaking yard in Mumbai.
Bulletproof jackets,
arms recovered from
Rampal’s ashram
IANS
Barwala, Haryana
T
The tapestry with the image of Kuriakose Elias Chavara (left) and Mother Euphrasia Eluvathingal are displayed during a canonisation ceremony led by Pope Francis at Saint
Peter’s square in Vatican City.
Catholics celebrate
two Kerala saints
Around 4,000 devotees from Kerala
reach Vatican to witness their proud
moment
By Ashraf Padanna
Thiruvananthapuram
T
housands of believers thronged the
tombs of Kuriakose Elias Chavara
(1805-1871) and Euphrasia Eluvathingal (1877-1952) as Pope Francis II
formally declared them as saints at the
Vatican yesterday.
The priest is revered across regions
and religious communities in Kerala for
spreading the message of empowerment
through education and the nun dedicated her life to the service inspired by him
were among the six who were conferred
with sainthood.
The other four new saints eligible for
public veneration were Italians.
Besides special prayers and celebrations at the tomb of the priest at Mannanam in Kottayam and Ollur in Thrissur
where the nun was interred, processions
were taken out in cities and town across
the state welcoming the new saints.
Bells pealed in many Catholic churches
as the function took place in the Vatican.
Hundreds of thousands of people
watched the at the canonisation ceremony, televised live by India’s major national
as well as regional televisions, from their
homes and at public venues in parishes.
Governor P Sathasivam inaugurated
the celebrations in the state capital while
Chief Minister Oommen Chandy attended a mass in his hometown of Puthuppally.
Nearly 4,000 people from Kerala, including P J Kurien, deputy chairman of
Rajya Sabha, India’s upper house of parliament, Kerala ministers P J Joseph and
K C Joseph, and 25 bishops attended the
ceremony in Rome.
India’s Catholics now have three native saints to seek intercession-all from
the southern Indian state, whose 19%
of population is Christian, and from the
he Haryana Police’s ongoing search operation inside the Satlok Ashram of
self-styled godman Rampal has
led to the recovery of two bulletproof jackets, more weapons and
over 4,200 sticks among other
things, officials said yesterday.
A police department spokesman
said that two bullet proof jackets,
four .315 bore riﬂes, ﬁve .12 bore
riﬂes and other ammunition were
found yesterday at the ashram during the search operation.
The recovery was made on a
day when police’s special investigation team (SIT) brought Rampal
back to his ashram in custody for
investigations. Rampal was arrested by the police Wednesday
after a high-voltage stand-off and
clashes between his supporters
and security forces.
The SIT had earlier claimed
that it had found a “huge cache”
of weapons and ammunition from
the ashram complex. These included three .32 bore revolvers,
19 air guns, two double-barrel .12
bore guns, two .315 bore riﬂes, and
ammunition for these weapons.
Haryana’s Director General of
Police S N Vashisht and Inspector General of Police Anil Kumar
Rao also visited the ashram complex yesterday.
Police recovered 4,250 sticks,
171 helmets, 235 pairs of black uniforms (meant for Rampal’s private
commandos), 12 petrol bombs and
other equipment used by his supporters to prevent the security
forces from entering the 12-acre
ashram complex, located near
Barwala town in Haryana’s Hisar
district, 210km from Chandigarh.
Police had earlier found a
bullet-proof enclosure for giving sermons, a bullet-proof
SUV, a personal swimming pool,
several air-conditioners including 1ACs even in his bathrooms,
ﬂat-screen LED TVs, gym equipment, massage beds and other
luxuries lined up for Rampal. The
spokesman said that the search
operation would continue at the
ashram for the next few days.
Rampal has been slapped with
cases of murder, attempt to murder, sedition, rioting, illegal detention and others. Six people
- ﬁve women and an infant - lost
their lives in the stand-off between Rampal followers and security forces last week.
Officials charged for 2013
hanging bridge collapse
By Ashraf Padanna
Thiruvananthapuram
K
Governor P Sathasivam at the celebrations in Thiruvananthapuram.
same denomination of Syro Malabar
Church.
Sister Alphonsa of Bharananganam,
also in Kottayam, became the ﬁrst native
saint in 2008.
Cardinal Mar George Alenchery of the
Syro Malabar Catholic Church, who led
a brief prayer session after the ceremony,
said to get two saints on one day was a
historic blessing.
“Am so happy that God has blessed
us all through this historic event and we
have now two saints and that happened
on a single day, so today is very special,”
he told a television channel on phone
from Vatican city.
Prayers began at the St Mary’s Church,
Ollur, at 7am. Sr. Euphrasia was Mother
Superior at the St. Mary’s Convent there.
St Joseph’s Monastery at Mannanam,
where the mortal remains of the priest
were interred after initial burial at Koonammavu in Kochi, also witnessed thousands of devotees gathering for prayers
and sharing joy. A rosary rally was held
there.
Chandy inaugurated a public meeting while his ﬁnance minister K M Mani
inaugurated the housing projects being
implemented as part of the celebrations.
Mani also ﬂagged off a water procession
along River Pampa at Kainakary the ancestral village of Chavara.
Chavara Achen and Evuprasiamma, as
they are popularly known in Kerala, were
cleared by the Pope for sainthood on April 3.
Kuriakose Chavara was born February
10, 1805, at Kainakary near Alappuzha
as the son of Iko Kuriakose Chavara and
Mariam Thoppil. At the young age of 13,
he began his priesthood studies.
He entered the seminary in 1818 and
was ordained November 29, 1829. Chavara became Vicar General for the Archdiocese of Verapoly (near Kochi) in 1861.
Chavara was also a social reformer and
believed that intellectual development
and education of women was the ﬁrst
step towards overall social welfare.
He ﬁrst introduced the system called
“A school along with every church”,
which was successful in making free edu-
cation available for everyone.
He died January 3, 1871, aged 65.
Sister Euphrasia was born as Rosa Eluvathingal October 7, 1877, at Edathuruthy
(Ollur) in Thrissur district. She joined
Congregation of the Mother of Carmel
and received her veil as a nun in May
1900.
She died August 29, 1952.
Sister Euphrasia was declared a Servant of God in 1987, followed by Venerable
July 5, 2002.
She was declared as “Blessed” December 3, 2006, by Cardinal Mar Varkey
Vithayathil, the Major Archbishop of the
Syro Malabar church.
The two of them also belong to the
same Carmelite congregation of the Syro
Malabar Catholic church in the state and
more importantly the women’s congregation was founded by Chavara Achen.
On November 29, the church will hold
a thanksgiving mass and public meeting
in the port city of Kochi , to be attended
by Archbishop Salvatore Pennacchio, the
papal ambassador to India, and Chandy.
erala’s Vigilance and
Anti-Corruption Bureau
(VACB) has booked four
officials for corruption in building what is billed as the longest
hanging bridge in South India.
The 320m bridge at Madakkal
connecting the mainland to the
remote island across Valiyaparamba backwaters in the northern Kasaragod district collapsed
within two months after it was
opened to the public.
Revenue Minister Adoor Prakash inaugurated the suspension
bridge on April 29, 2013 and it
collapsed on June 27, fortunately
at a time when there were very
few people on the bridge, averting a major tragedy.
Valiyaparamba is the third
largest backwater of Kerala separating a 23km long island from
the mainland. The bridge was
seen as a great relief for children
of this part of the island who had
to depend on the risky boat ride
to reach mainland schools besides.
Police sources said cases were
registered against officers of the
Kerala Electrical and Allied Engineering Company (KEL) namely
KH Shaji, KM Soman, VT Narayana Pillai and TK Muraleedharan.
The KEL, which was awarded
the contract to build the bridge
at a cost of Rs39.3mn, like other
inefficient state-run companies
notorious for draining the exchequer, brought a private ﬁrm
to execute the work.
Preliminary
investigations
found that the work was completed disregarding the speciﬁcations and “draining” around
Rs3.5mn in the process, ultimately leading to its collapse.
The government decided to
construct 33 suspension bridges
across the state after a boat tragedy in Malappuram and the construction began in 2011. A damaged railing was noticed on the
inaugural day itself, forcing the
authorities to regulate traffic.
Its 29m high pillar collapsed
ﬁrst before the entire bridge being submerged in the water. Two
people aged 47 and 58 who were
in the middle sustained injuries
as it fell. They were rescued by
ﬁshermen passing by.
The bridge was not reconstructed nor has the debris been
removed so far.
Conﬁdent government ready to face winter session
By Prashant Sood, IANS
New Delhi
F
resh from its assembly polls
successes, a conﬁdent BJPled government is expected
to push for the passage of key
economic bills, including on the
insurance sector, in the winter
session of parliament beginning
today.
But the depleted opposition
has vowed to expose the “double
speak” of the Bharatiya Janata
Party and oppose the dilution of
legislation passed by the previous Congress-led government.
The session is being held after
Prime Minster Narendra Modi
scripted a historic success for his
party in Haryana and Maharash-
tra, boosting the conﬁdence of a
government that will soon complete six months in office.
The session, the ﬁrst after the
expansion of the council of ministers this month, will have 22
sittings and will end December
23.
The session will coincide with
assembly elections in Jammu
and Kashmir and Jharkhand. In
both states, the BJP is conﬁdent
of taking power or, in Kashmir, at
least be a kingmaker.
The session will see a unity of
sorts by the opposition after the
Lok Sabha rout. The Samajwadi
Party, Janata Dal-United, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Janata DalSecular have agreed to team up
in parliament. “There will be coordination among these parties,”
JD-U’s K.C. Tyagi told IANS.
He said the government would
ﬁnd the going tough if it tried to
pass the insurance amendment
bill in the Rajya Sabha where it
does not have a majority.
“The government also
faces the task of building
consensus around
the Insurance Laws
Amendment Bill, for which
the select committee report
is expected by the second
week of December”
The bill, which seeks to raise
foreign direct investment (FDI)
in the insurance sector to 49%
from 26% now, is being examined by a select committee of the
Rajya Sabha.
States have voiced concern
on the Goods and Services Tax
(GST) Bill.
Congress general secretary
Shakeel Ahmed said his party
will expose the “double speak”
of the BJP on the insurance and
GST bills.
“When we pushed for their
passage, the BJP created hurdles... If the bills had been
passed, the country would have
beneﬁted,” he said.
The Congress also wants to
raise the issue of black money
stashed abroad by Indians and
oppose moves to dilute the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGREGA)
and the Land Acquisition Bill.
But the Congress is ready to
support those steps of the gov-
ernment which it feels are in the
interests of the people.
The Trinamool Congress is
expected to toughen its stand
against the government following the arrest of its Rajya Sabha
MP Srinjoy Bose in the Saradha
scam.
Officials said the government
agenda for the session could include a bill to resolve problems
related to ponzi schemes.
The government has promulgated two ordinances - the Coal
Mines (Special Provisions) Ordinance, 2014 and the Textile
Undertakings (Nationalisation)
Laws (Amendment and Validation) Ordinance, 2014.
Bills to replace both these ordinances would be brought during the session.
Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas
Naqvi said the government was
ready to discuss all issues with
the opposition.
“We will work with the cooperation of the opposition parties,” Naqvi told IANS.
According to PRS Legislative
Research, a research initiative
which tracks the work of parliament, there are 67 bills pending
before the house.
Of these, nine were introduced in the monsoon session
of parliament, while 40 of these
were introduced in the 15th
Lok Sabha during the UPA II
government. Eighteen bills are
pending from earlier Lok Sabhas.
Shreya Singh of PRS Legisla-
tive Research said a number of
bills lapsed at the end of the 15th
Lok Sabha.
“These included the GST Bill,
the Public Procurement Bill and
the Citizen Charter Bill. It is now
upto the new government to decide which of these lapsed Bills
it wants to reintroduce in Parliament,” she said.
“The government also faces
the task of building consensus around the Insurance Laws
Amendment Bill, for which the
select committee report is expected by the second week of December,” she added.
Starting with this session, the
Rajya Sabha has decided to shift
its Question Hour from 11am to
noon, and has also extended its
sitting time by an hour.
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
23
INDIA
Jaitley attacks Didi
over Saradha scam,
Burdwan probe
IANS
New Delhi
U
(From left) Bollywood actor Vivek Oberoi, All-India Anti-Terrorist Front chairman M S Bitta and actor Akshay Kumar pay tribute yesterday to policemen who lost their lives in the
November 26, 2008, militant attack in Mumbai.
Network launched for
coastal surveillance
IANS
Gurgaon
I
n order to strengthen India’s
coastal surveillance, Defence
Minister Manohar Parrikar
yesterday dedicated the National
Command Control Communication and Intelligence Network
(NC3I) and Information Management and Analysis Centre (IMAC)
here.
The NC3I, which interlinks
20 naval and 31 Coast Guard
monitoring stations to generate a seamless real-time picture
of India’s nearly 7,500-km-long
coastline, comprises a terrestrial
and VSAT secure network, coastal
surveillance and decision support
software and the IMAC.
It will be the single-point cen-
tre interlinking the newly-formed
coastal radar chain.
“India has to neutralize the
presence of forces of neighbouring countries in the Indian Ocean.
The project is the reply of the nation to what happened on November 26, 2008,” an official said,
referring to the Mumbai terror attack.
The official also noted that India’s Exclusive Economic Zone
(EEZ) offshore is one and a half
times of the land mass and has
extremely high potential which
needs to be guarded.
For this, the Indian Navy needs
data which would be provided by
the IMAC, which would herald a
new era in the arena of coastal security by collecting, co-relating
and implementation of data fusion from various coastal security
sensors and networks, the official
said.
Parrikar, however, pointing
towards the gaps in the project,
said the distance between Karwar
and Mangalore is about 350km
but there is no radar point on this
stretch. On this stretch, Bhatkal
is important which needs close
monitoring. Similarly, a radar
point is needed between Goa and
Ratnagiri.
He, however, noted that in
terms of coastal surveillance,
the nation was in a better position than earlier and more than
37,000 vessels were being tracked
through this system.
Navy chief Admiral R K Dhowan said the NC3I will provide a
comprehensive maritime domain
awareness network.
Noting that India was a mari-
time nation with 90% of its
trade through the sea, he said:
“We have about 5,000 merchant
ships around us and thousands of
boats.
There are chances of sea piracy
also. The project will enable the
Indian Navy to provide safe seas
for resurgent nation.”
Assistant chief of naval staff
(communications, space and network centric operations) Rear Admiral K K Pandey said the NC3I
system currently comprises 46
radars and 30 additional radars are
planned to ﬁll all the gaps.
The hubs are linked by high
speed optical ﬁbre networks and
satellite links serve as a back-up
in case of emergency, he said,
adding that apart from coastal
radars and optical sensors, it also
draws information from auto-
matic identiﬁcation systems ﬁtted on merchant ships and has a
comprehensive shipping database
of world registers of shipping for
analysis of traffic.
The network was built by Bharat
Electronics Limited (BEL) which
has sourced customised software
from the US’ Raytheon.
The project, which was approved by the Defence Acquisition Council in 2012, has become
operational in 15 months at a cost
of Rs45.3bn.
Minister of State for Defence
Rao Inderjeet Singh, Indian Coast
Guard Director General Vice Admiral A G Thapliyal, Navy vice
chief Vice Admiral Sunil Lanba,
deputy chief Vice Admiral R K
Patnaik and BEL CMD S.K. Sharma were also present on the occasion.
Modi’s Hindu nationalists eye power in restive Kashmir
By Parvaiz Bukhari, AFP
Srinagar
A
s armed police in bulletproof vests patrolled the
tense streets of India’s only
Muslim majority state, Bharatiya
Janata Party candidate Avatar
Singh forecast victory for the
Hindu nationalists in Kashmir’s
upcoming elections.
“My godfather Modi Ji’s development initiatives make me conﬁdent that I will win,” Singh said,
referring to India’s new BJP prime
minister while out canvassing in
the town of Tral last Thursday.
Just hours later, three suspected
separatist rebels were shot dead in
a stark reminder of the tensions
in the picturesque Himalayan region, which is claimed by both
India and Pakistan and has been
the scene of two wars between the
neighbours.
About a dozen rebel groups
have been ﬁghting Indian forces
since 1989 for Kashmir’s independence. Tens of thousands of
people, mostly civilians, have died
in the violence.
So the idea of Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s BJP taking even a
share of power in Kashmir would
have been unthinkable only a few
months ago.
But Modi’s landslide May general election win and a meltdown
in support for the incumbent
chief minister after deadly ﬂoods
in September have given the BJP
hope of a breakthrough.
Separatist hardliners have
called for boycott of the vote, a
move that could play to the BJP’s
advantage.
Voting begins in the ﬁve-phase
election tomorrow, with results
due on December 23.
Analysts say the BJP is almost
certain to fall short of an outright
majority in the 87-member assembly.
But they also say it has drawn
up a strategy of military precision
to mop up in the Hindu majority
Jammu area, and then cut a deal
with one of the smaller Muslim
parties to become the lead player
in a coalition.
“Jammu is like a launching
pad,” said Mehmood-ur-Rashid,
an analyst based in Srinagar.
The BJP battleplan is “to sweep
Jammu, and then cobble together
some kind of a loose coalition with
individual winners in Kashmir,” he
added.
Speculation is rife that the BJP
will link up with the small People’s Conference, a formerly proseparatist party which now argues that economic growth is the
best way of improving the lives of
Kashmiris.
Its leader Sajjad Lone met Modi
this month in Delhi, telling reporters he had felt “respected and
humbled” by the talks.
The BJP is even ﬁelding 32 Muslims candidates in the 70 seats it
is contesting, including 25 in the
restive Kashmir Valley.
The party won 11 seats in the
last elections in 2008, its best ever
performance.
The BJP is enjoying a honeymoon period after Modi’s victory
over the previously ruling Con-
State Assembly candidate Avatar Singh (centre) poses with supporters
ahead of filing his election nomination papers in Tral.
gress party, winning a string of
state elections since May.
Singh, a member of Kashmir’s
small Sikh population, hopes to
persuade voters that Modi’s party
is best placed to improve their livelihood by pointing to green shoots
of recovery at national level.
Modi has made ﬁve visits to the
state as premier, including during
Diwali last month when he promised more ﬂood relief.
“We in the BJP consider Jammu,
Kashmir and Ladakh as extremely
close to our hearts,” Interior Minister Rajnath Singh said at a rally
last week.
One handicap is the BJP’s longstanding pledge to scrap a constitutional provision known as Article 370, which allows Kashmir to
make its own laws.
One of its candidates in Srinagar, Hina Bhat, even said she
would “pick up a gun” if the article was removed.
While talk of scrapping the article plays well at a general election, the leadership has been more
circumspect while campaigning
in the state.
“Article 370 is a national issue
for us and there should be an extensive debate over its utility,” Rajnath Singh said.
While there is anger over the
Modi government’s response to
the September ﬂooding, which
killed around 200 people, most of
the ire has been directed towards
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah
and his ruling National Conference party.
Thousands of residents are still
homeless as winter sets in. Business leaders have put the total
losses from the ﬂoods at around
$17bn.
Abdullah has admitted his administration was overwhelmed by
the scale of the ﬂoods - the worst
in nearly a century.
He says he is best placed to defend the state’s special status, accusing the BJP of “talking in different voices”.
“In Jammu, they talk about
abrogating Article 370 and in
the Valley they say that if people
want, it will remain,” he told reporters.
Pundits are predicting a major
fall in his centre-left party’s support.
Many commentators have said
the real contest this time would be
between the BJP and the People’s
Democratic Party which advocates “self-rule”.
The separatist boycott of the
polls suffered its ﬁrst setback in
2008 elections, when turnout
crossed 60%.
Tral has a history of low turnout
and few voters voiced support for
the BJP - although Ghulam Rasool, who lives near the candidate
Singh, said he would consider
voting for the BJP as “he has been
good a neighbour”.
Bashir Ahmed Wani, whose son
is one of Kashmir’s most wanted
militants, said he wouldn’t vote
out of principle, but acknowledged that could help the BJP.
“Many people may end up voting for the PDP even if they support a boycott as the fear of the
BJP winning is worse,” he said.
nion Finance Minister Arun Jaitley yesterday slammed
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for her
reactions to the arrest of leaders of her Trinamool
Congress in the Saradha chit fund scam as well as her statements in the Burdwan blast case.
In an article posted on Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) website, Jaitley wrote: “I was deeply disappointed with Mamata
Didi’s reaction to the interrogation and arrest of some of
TMC leaders in the Sharada hit fund scam.
“Some individuals connected with the TMC have been involved in making easy money from the Ponzi schemes it was
incumbent on any responsible leader to purge the party of
such leaders. It is regrettable that Mamata Didi instead of doing that has chosen to identify herself with the cause of these
leaders,” he said.
The senior BJP leader also raised questions about Banerjee’s intentions for terming the Burdwan blasts as stagemanaged.
“The National Intelligence Agency (NIA) has arrested several people who have engineered the blast. They are enemies
of the state.
“The West Bengal police or other intelligence agencies have
no substantive material to establish that the blast was stagemanaged. If there is no such material, why has Didi (Banerjee)
chosen to allege that the blast was stage managed,” he asked.
“Such allegations clearly help the actual culprits. This is
neither responsible nor nationalistic,” he said.
The Trinamool hit back seeking to know the source of BJP’s
massive funds spent during the elections.
“Let me ask the BJP leadership a few straight questions.
Where did the BJP raise their billions of dollars to spend in
the Lok Sabha elections? How much money was spent on
Maharashtra and Haryana elections? Where is the party getting its massive funding to continue the lavish spending in
Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand? Why don’t they provide
transparent accounts for this unprecedented splurge?” said
Trinamool Rajya Sabha chief whip Derek O’Brien in a statement posted on the party’s official website.
“If the nation gets to know how much black money the BJP
has spent this year on elections, the party will get black-listed.”
He made three charge against the BJP-led central government: “This is all part of a devious BJP master game plan;
The current PM used this narrative throughout his election
campaign in Bengal. This wasn’t a mere coincidence. It was
a plan; The NSA is a known RSS sympathizer. These devious
plans are all conceived, drafted and approved at RSS headquarters.”
New Delhi to host 4th business
meet with the Arab League
C
ommerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will inaugurate the 4th India-Arab conference here on Wednesday to advance ties with a region so crucial for the
country’s energy security besides accounting for some
$200bn worth of bilateral merchandise trade.
The two-day event is being organised by the Federation
of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI),
in association with the Ministry of External Affairs and the
22-member League of Arab States, that is home to some
7.22mn Indians.
“The objective of the conference is to promote bi-directional ﬂow of investment and to facilitate the process of seeking investable projects across sectors, open to joint business
ventures,” FICCI said in a statement.
“It also seeks to provide an ideal platform to promote the
export of Indian expertise, extend technical know-how to
member states of the League of Arab States and act as an example for setting up identical business models and improve
their human resources.”
The organisers also sought to underline the fact that the
member nations of the League of Arab States are a major destination for India’s exports, thanks to a collective GDP of nearly
$3tn. Their investments to India top $3.5bn since April 2000.
The two-day conference comes against the backdrop of the
ﬁrst senior officials meeting between India and the 22-member league here earlier this month where emphasis was laid
on expanding business ties, especially in energy and information technology.
24
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
LATIN AMERICA
CRIME
TRAVEL
LAW AND ORDER
SPORTS
PROPOSAL
Five females of family
murdered in Honduras
US, Mexico reach
aviation agreement
31 arrested for violence
at Mexico demonstration
Soccer match suspended
after racist insults
Peru outlines tax cuts
to revive economy
Five females from one family were found hacked
to death in their home in northern Honduras, the
La Prensa newspaper reported. The dead were
the mother, 47, her three daughters aged 16 to 23
and a nine-year-old granddaughter. The killings
took place in the town of La Lima. A 11-year-old girl
was also injured in the attack. The father of the
three daughters discovered the bloodbath when
he came home from work. Further details were
not available. The slayings come just days after
the bodies of Miss Honduras, Maria Jose Alvarado
Munoz, 19, and her older sister Sofia Trinidad were
found buried. Sofia Trinidad’s boyfriend was the
main suspect in the case, an official said.
The US and Mexico have reached an agreement
to expand passenger and cargo air service that
would remove current limits on the number
of airlines that can provide passenger service
on routes between the two countries, the US
transportation department said. As a result,
it said, some routes might see new carriers
entering the market, and airlines already
in the market could consider offering service
to new destinations. Cargo airlines could
also benefit, with expanded opportunities to
provide service to new locations unavailable
under the current agreement, the department
said in a news release.
Police have arrested 31 people for violent acts
during the largely peaceful demonstrations in
Mexico City for justice over the fate of 43 missing
students, the authorities said. The demonstrations
late Thursday, which were led by relatives of
the missing students from Ayotzinapa teacher’s
training college, brought together 30,000 people.
Masked youths committed acts of violence first
near Mexico City’s international airport, and later
before the National Palace, the seat of the Mexican
government, despite calls from speakers to
remain peaceful. “These young people had several
objects in their possession to cause damage,”
Mexico City mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said.
San Marcos de Arica striker Emilio Renteria was for
the second time in two weeks the target of Chilean
fans’ racist insults, this time prompting the referee
to suspend a match against Deportes Iquique.
Arica led 1-0 thanks to a Renteria header when
referee Julio Bascunan suspended the match near
the 70-minute mark due to Iquique fans’ repeated
racist abuse. The referee had previously halted
play for several minutes as the racist chants began
following Renteria’s goal. Renteria, a Venezuelan,
was visibly affected by the abuse. Racism has
become a serious issue in South American soccer,
with Peru, Brazil and Argentina among those
trying to crack down on discrimination.
Peru is planning to introduce a law to cut
corporate and personal taxes as part of a
reform package that analysts welcomed as an
“audacious” attempt to revive a slowing economy.
The government will submit a bill to Congress
that will seek to gradually reduce company
income tax to 26% by 2019 from the current
30%, announced Finance Minister Alonso Segura
following a cabinet meeting. “The change (will)
incentivise investment ... so companies have
greater income and productivity,” Segura told
journalists. Peru’s economic growth has fallen to
five-year lows as mineral exports have tumbled
on lower global prices and weaker production.
Mexican police
play havoc with
president’s
security pledge
Reuters
Mexico City
R
estoring order to a country torn apart by drug violence was Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s ﬁrst
promise when he took power two
years ago, but corruption and
police brutality have handed him
the biggest crisis of his rule.
Local police abducted 43 trainee teachers in the southwestern
city of Iguala on September 26
and handed them over to a drug
gang. The gang almost certainly
murdered them and torched their
bodies, the government says.
The case, still not closed, has
infuriated Mexicans and highlights the scale of the challenge
that Pena Nieto faces in trying to
end shocking violence and impunity.
“What we’re seeing are the
results of many years of deterioration, complacency and denial by successive governments,”
said Eduardo Olmos, a former
mayor of the northern city of
Torreon, who purged all but one
of its 1,000-strong police force
in 2010 when it was inﬁltrated by
the Zetas drug gang.
Such cases mean police are
held by most Mexicans to be inept and massively corrupt, better known for breaking the law
than for solving crimes.
Former president Ernesto
Zedillo said the rule of law in
Mexico is in a “really bad” state.
There are no easy solutions. The
country has thousands of different police forces, with each
of about 2,500 municipalities,
31 states and the capital Mexico
City boasting its own.
Salaries run as low as 5,000
pesos ($370) per month, encouraging corruption, and training is
poor.
Drug cartels and other gangs
routinely buy off police to at
least turn a blind eye to their operations, and sometimes to take
part in murders and kidnappings, like in Iguala.
In Torreon, which lies at the
crossroads of key smuggling
routes, the Zetas recruited police
for their war with now captured
drug lord Joaquin ‘Shorty’ Guzman, whose henchmen controlled police in the neighbouring
city of Gomez Palacio.
When Olmos brought in an
army general to clean up Torreon,
the police rebelled, surrounding
and occupying his office. He responded by ordering the entire
force to take tests to prove their
loyalty. All but one either failed
the tests or deserted. Even with a
new force, purges continued for
the rest of Olmos’ term as mayor
because the city struggled to hire
clean cops and prevent them being corrupted.
In Iguala, dozens of local police
have been arrested in the hunt for
the killers of the 43 students, and
the rest of the 380-strong force
have been removed pending the
investigation.
Iguala’s mayor Jose Luis Abarca, his wife and its former police
chief are suspected of masterminding the kidnapping of the
students with local drug gang
Guerreros Unidos.
Two decades ago, Guerrero was
mired in a similar scandal when
police massacred 17 farmers.
Soon afterward, president
Zedillo created a new, improved
force, the federal police. But
problems persisted, and the federal police was accused of a spate
of abuses under the presidency
of Pena Nieto’s predecessor,
Felipe Calderon.
In 2012, a group of them were
charged with the attempted
murder of two CIA operatives.
Zedillo’s successors have one by
one carried out their own police
overhauls, with limited success.
Pena Nieto recently launched
a military force within the federal police, or gendarmerie - albeit
at barely one tenth of the size he
had envisaged when he was running for president.
In a country where 98% of
crimes go unsolved, justice is
frequently non-existent. Hardly
a week goes by without a new
scandal.
Maduro meets supporters
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores speak to supporters during a meeting with students outside Miraflores Palace in Caracas.
Brazil ‘to unveil budget cuts
with new economic team’
Reuters
Sao Paulo
B
razilian President Dilma
Rousseff ’s new, still unconﬁrmed
economic
team is preparing budget cuts
for 2015 that will be announced
next week, newspaper Folha de
S. Paulo reported yesterday.
The paper did not give an
amount for the proposed cuts.
Citing an unnamed aide to
the president, it said that the
measures would be unveiled
along with the names of Rousseff ’s new ﬁnance minister and
Vazquez favourite to win
Uruguay presidential vote
Reuters
Montevideo
L
eftist ruling party candidate Tabare Vazquez is a
clear favourite to win Uruguay’s presidential election this
month, buoyed by widespread
affection for the country’s outgoing leader and strong economic growth.
Opinion polls show Vazquez,
who was president in 2005-10,
trouncing Luis Lacalle Pou of
the centre-right National Party
by between 13 and 17 percentage
points in the November 30 runoff.
Vazquez, 74, ended his ﬁrst
term with approval ratings hitting 70% for his blend of promarket economic policies and
welfare programmes that set
the South American nation on a
path of robust growth and falling
poverty levels.
The constitution bars presidents from seeking consecutive
terms so Vazquez resumed his
work as an oncologist and in 2011
said he was quitting politics.
Three years later, however, he
is again running for the ruling
Broad Front coalition.
“I remember how bad things
were economically before 2005,”
said shopkeeper Horacio Miranda, recalling when one in three
Uruguayans lived in poverty.
“I’ll vote Vazquez because with
the Broad Front we’ll live better.”
“I remember how bad
things were economically
before 2005. I’ll vote
Vazquez because with
the Broad Front we’ll live
better”
Vazquez beat pollsters’ expectations in the ﬁrst round of voting on October 26. He won 47.8%
support while 41-year-old Lacalle Pou, viewed by supporters
as a fresh political face to take on
the Broad Front, trailed with just
30.8%.
Political pundits said Lacalle Pou, a surfing enthusiast,
lacked convincing answers to
voters’ main concerns: high
taxes squeezing the middle
class, rising crime and deteriorating health services.
A demoralised opposition is
lamenting a missed opportunity. “It was like a bucket of cold
water,” National Party senator
Gustavo Penades said of the ﬁrst
round results.
Vazquez goes into the runoff
sure of strong support from rural
voters, with whom Lacalle Pou
struggled to connect.
In Uruguay’s agricultural hinterlands, affection runs deep
for the outgoing president Jose
Mujica. His straight-talking,
unpretentious style has made
him a popular ﬁgure although
his groundbreaking legalisation
of the commercial production
and sale of marijuana upset more
conservative voters.
The 79-year-old ex-guerrilla
last week spurned a $1mn offer
for his beat-up Volkswagen Beetle, which has become a symbol
of his modest lifestyle. During
the decade of Broad Front rule,
Uruguay’s $55bn economy has
grown an average 5.7% annually.
“The Broad Front is reaping the
rewards of 10 years of economic
growth and social reforms,” said
political analyst Alfonso Garce.
other cabinet members.
Three of the country’s leading newspapers reported on Friday that Rousseff will appoint
Joaquim Levy, head of the asset management arm of Brazil’s
second-largest private bank
Bradesco SA, in a bid to regain
investor conﬁdence and revive
economic growth.
A government official said
Levy was highly likely to be ﬁnance minister. Other sources
said the new ministers would be
announced on Wednesday. The
presidential palace has declined
to comment on speculation over
the names of the new ministers.
Levy, head of the asset management arm of Brazil’s second
largest private bank Bradesco
SA and a former government
treasury secretary, emerged as a
candidate for the job on Thursday after Bradesco’s chief executive reportedly turned it down.
The University of Chicagotrained economist is a proven
ﬁscal hawk who helped Brazil
obtain its investment grade rating while he was treasury chief
between 2003 and 2006 by
checking spending and overhauling its debt structure. Many
investors have expressed hope
that Levy will pull off some-
Concert
thing similar this time if his appointment is conﬁrmed. They
have said hefty budget cuts are
needed to restore conﬁdence in
an economy that has been stagnant for four years.
Another leading paper, Estado de S. Paulo, reported yesterday that Rousseff is facing opposition from within her leftist
Worker’s Party over University
of Chicago-trained economist
Levy.
The paper said the conﬁrmations, which were expected last
week, were delayed in order to
give Congress time to pass a law
allowing the country to miss its
Magazine’s Petrobras
claims anger govt
AFP
Brasilia
B
Lead singer of US band Real Estate, Martin Courtney,
performs during a concert as part of the ‘Movistar spring
fauna’ festival in Santiago de Chile, Chile.
2014 primary surplus target and
give the new economic team a
fresh start.
A sharp deterioration of
Brazil’s ﬁnances under Rousseff has put the once-booming
economy in the sights of rating
agencies and eroded investor
conﬁdence in the country.
The government plans to
deduct 106bn reais, or 2.15%
of gross domestic product off
the target, according to a planning ministry report published
on Friday. It needs Congress
to pass the bill making the goal
more ﬂexible for the new target
to become official.
razilian authorities have
blasted a news magazine
for media “manipulation”
as the government of President
Dilma Rousseff battles an escalating kickbacks scandal at
state-owned oil giant Petrobras.
Rousseff ’s press service lambasted Veja magazine for alleging that jailed former Petrobras
director and whistleblower
Paulo Roberto Costa had sent
her e-mail alluding to the payments in 2009.
Veja did not reproduce any
evidence to back its claim but
alleged Costa wrote to Rousseff as he sought to blindside
attempts by the federal accountability office (TCU) to
halt three Petrobras reﬁnery
projects, thereby preventing
any possibility of kickbacks
from those schemes.
Rousseff’s press service
slammed Veja’s interpretation as “another episode of
journalistic manipulation.” A
statement read: “After trying
to interfere in the results of the
presidential election ... Veja is
now trying to fool its readers
by insinuating that, in 2009,
the siphoning off of money by
Paulo Roberto Costa, Petrobras
director ﬁred in March 2012 by
President Dilma’s government,
was already known about.
“(But) the illegal practices
of Paulo Roberto Costa only
came to light in 2014, thanks
to investigations carried out by
the federal police and justice
ministry.
“Once again, Veja is misinforming its readers and trying
to manipulate the facts,” the
statement concluded.
Rousseff, a former Petrobras
board chair, has vowed not to
interfere in the investigation
into Brazil’s biggest company.
But Ronaldo Caiado, leader of
Brazil’s opposition Democrats,
urged Rousseff and predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
to appear before the congressional investigation.
On the eve of last month’s
presidential election, Veja
quoted detained money dealer
Alberto Youssef as testifying
that Rousseff knew about a
kickbacks scheme.
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
25
PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN
Saarc summit may facilitate Pak-India talks resumption
Internews
Islamabad
T
he eight-member South
Asian Association for
Regional
Co-operation
(Saarc) Summit next week in
Nepal’s capital Kathmandu is
expected to act as facilitator
for paving the way for restoration of stalled dialogue between
Pakistan and India, diplomatic
sources here say.
India’s High Commissioner
to Pakistan Dr A T C Raghavan
has reached New Delhi for consultations and it is understood
that India is working on methods for restoration of talks with
Pakistan as pressure across the
world is mounting on the South
Asian nuclear states to engage in
talks. The sources said that Pakistan would be forthcoming for
resumption of talks with India
on any echelon but the initiative
for the purpose will have to come
from New Delhi as it had severed
the talks.
“We are civilised people
and in our culture such
occasions ask for decency”
Sources said India may re-
think and re-prioritise restoration of dialogue with Pakistan
before the visit of US President
Barack Obama to India who will
be visiting New Delhi in January 2015. He will be the guest
of honour in the ceremonies of
Indian Republic Day on January
26. Sources said that the United
Bomber kills 45 people at
Afghan volleyball match
Bomber walked into crowd
and detonated explosives
vest, says spokesman
for Paktika provincial
governor; Most casualties
were civilians ; No claim of
responsibility
Agencies
Kabul
A
suicide bomber killed at
least 45 people when he
attacked a crowd of spectators at a volleyball match in
eastern Afghanistan yesterday.
The attack, which wounded 60
more, took place in a village in
Yahyakhail district in Paktika
province, one of the most unstable areas in the country.
The bomber entered a large
crowd, wearing a belt with explosives, and blew himself up
in the middle of spectators and
players, said Mokhles Afghan,
spokesperson for the governor of
Paktika.
The match was part of a youth
tournament between three districts of Paktika, and as a result
most casualties were young people.
“There were no checkpoints,
and that is the reason the suicide
attacker could enter this area,”
he said.
According to Bahawul Khan, a
member of Paktika’s provincial
council, there were also eight
members of the local police
among the dead.
The attack happened at 5pm,
when the local health clinic was
closed, so all the wounded had
to be transferred to the hospital
in the provincial capital Sharana,
said Ali Khan, provincial head of
public health.
“I and my friends were watching the game and we were cheering each time our team scored,”
Abdulhay, an 11-year boy being
treated for minor injuries in hospital in Sharana, the provincial
capital of Paktika, said by telephone.
“Then I heard a boom that
threw me back unconscious. I
opened my eyes in the hospital
and don’t know if my friends are
dead or alive.”
There was no immediate response from the Taliban, the
Islamabad to buy
copters from Russia
Internews
Islamabad
I
n a major breakthrough in
bilateral relations after Moscow recently lifted an embargo on arms sales to Islamabad,
defence authorities of Pakistan
and Russia have ﬁnally given the
go-ahead for purchase of Mi35M
helicopters from Russia.
“The matter remained under
consideration for many months.
Now we have given Russians ﬁnal go-ahead for the purchase of
these helicopters,” Defence Minister Khawaja Asif was yesterday
quoted by Dawn.com website as
saying.
“We must forget what
Russia did in the past and
look forward to a new
beginning in the region”
The Mi-35M is a multi-purpose transport helicopter for
combat missions capable of operating round the clock in mountainous terrain. The minister
said these helicopters would be
used in the ﬁght against militants.
“Russia has now placed Pakistan in category B from D for
arms sales, which means that
Pakistan can buy weapons from
Russia’s defence market,” Asif
said.
He brushed aside an impression that the Russian defence
minister’s visit to Pakistan might
annoy New Delhi and Washington, saying that IslamabadMoscow ties were not “at the
cost of our relations with any
other country”.
He termed it independent diplomacy, adding that Russia is
a regional power and Pakistan
cannot ignore it.
“After US-Nato forces withdrawal from Afghanistan, security will be a bigger challenge for
Afghanistan. So Pakistan wants
Russian engagement in the Afghan peace process,” Asif said.
“We must forget what Russia
did in the past and look forward
to a new beginning in the region.” “Pakistan sees Russia and
China’s presence in the region as
a source of peace and stability.
This is why all three are getting
closer on strategic matters,” Asif
remarked.
On relations with India, he
said Moscow’s top defence official was briefed about the situation on eastern borders and relations with India.
insurgent group behind many of
the attacks across Afghanistan.
“The suicide attacker was on
a motorcycle, he detonated himself in the middle of a volleyball
match,” Attaullah Fazli, deputy
governor of Paktika, said.
“A lot of people including
some provincial officials and the
police chief were there. About 50
people have been killed, and 60
injured, a lot of them seriously.”
“The scale of the attack and its
aftermath is shocking,” he said.
“We have asked Kabul to send
us helicopters to take some of
the critically wounded for treatment”, Afghan said.
President Ashraf Ghani, who
came to power in September,
swiftly condemned the attack,
describing it as “inhumane and
un-Islamic”.
“This kind of brutal killing of
civilians cannot be justiﬁed,” he
said in a statement that put the
toll at 45 people dead.
One eyewitness, Khushal, 25,
said that he saw a man in a traditional shawl get off his motorbike before blowing himself up.
Paktika was also struck by
a massive suicide blast in July,
when a bomber driving a truck
packed with explosives killed at
least 41 people at a busy market
in Urgun district.
A suicide bombing at a
mosque in the northern province
of Faryab in October 2012 killed
42 people, while another suicide
blast at a shrine in Kabul on the
Shiite holy day of Ashura in December 2011 killed 80.
Yesterday’s attack occurred
on the same day that the lower
house of parliament approved
agreements to allow about
12,500 Nato-led troops to stay
on next year.
US-led Nato combat operations will ﬁnish at the end of
this year, but the Taliban have
launched a series of offensives
that have severely tested Afghan
soldiers and police.
Armed opposition groups in
Afghanistan are vehemently
opposed to the security agreements, which Ashraf Ghani ordered his security adviser Hanif
Atmar to sign on 30 September,
in one of his ﬁrst acts as president.
The upper house of parliament has yet to ratify the deals.
The attack emphasises the
challenge the president faces
tackling an insurgency that has
ﬂared up over the past months.
As foreign troops withdraw, Taliban militants have intensiﬁed
assaults on government troops,
particularly in provinces in the
east and south.
Paktika has borne the brunt of
the attacks. Bordering some of
Pakistan’s volatile tribal areas,
the province is rife with insurgent activity, including from the
Pakistan-based Haqqani network. In July a suicide attacker
detonated a car bomb at a busy
market square in Urgon district,
killing at least 42 people.
According to western security
officials, the threat of attacks
and kidnappings in eastern Afghanistan increased when the
Afghan intelligence service captured two senior Haqqani leaders in the neighbouring Khost
province a month ago.
Yesterday evening, however,
no group had taken responsibility for the attack.
Vintage car show
Visitors gather during a car show organised by the Vintage and Classic Car Club of Pakistan in
Peshawar. More than 40 vintage and classic cars were on display from all across Pakistan, some
coming all the way from Karachi.
States is among the countries
that have impressed upon India
to resume dialogue with Pakistan.
A close associate of Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif on
foreign affairs said that “if
the host prime minister in
Kathmandu makes the In-
dian Prime Minister Narendra
Modi sit across the table and
ask Sharif to have a word with
him, one shouldn’t expect
from Pakistan that it would
decline.”
“We are civilised people and
in our culture such occasions ask
for decency,” he added.
Afghan lower
house approves
foreign troops
staying on
Agencies
Kabul/Washington
A
fghanistan’s
lower
house of parliament
yesterday
approved
agreements that will allow
about 12,500 Nato-led troops
to stay on next year as the national army and police struggle to hold back the Taliban.
US-led Nato combat operations will ﬁnish at the end of
this year, but the Taliban have
launched a series of recent
offensives that have severely
tested Afghan soldiers and police.
The new Nato mission —
named Resolute Support —
will focus on supporting the
Afghan forces, in parallel with
US counter-terrorism operations.
The
Bilateral
Security
Agreement with the United
States, and a similar pact with
Nato, were the source of huge
friction between the Afghan
government and its allies under previous president Hamid
Karzai.
But Ashraf Ghani, who became president in September,
reset ties by signing the longawaited deals on his ﬁrst day in
power.
Ghani welcomed lawmakers’ overwhelming vote in favour of the two agreements
yesterday and said he awaited
the prompt approval of the upper house.
“It is a good step in
strengthening Afghanistan’s
national sovereignty,” Ghani
said in a statement.
“The Afghan security forces
will be in charge of full security of their country, and
will be further equipped and
strengthened.”
Karzai’s refusal to sign the
security accord came to symbolise the breakdown of Afghan-US relations after the
optimism of 2001, when the
Taliban regime was ousted
from power with US assistance.
A senior administration ofﬁcial said President Obama
has approved plans to give
US military commanders a
wider role to ﬁght the Taliban
alongside Afghan forces after
the current mission ends next
month.
The decision made in recent
weeks extends previous plans
by authorising US troops to
carry out combat operations
against the Taliban to protect
Americans and support Afghanistan’s security forces.
Obama had announced
in May that US troop levels
would be cut to 9,800 by the
end of the year, by half again in
2015 and to a normal embassy
presence with a security assistance office in Kabul by the
end of 2016.
Under that plan, only a
small contingent of 1,800 US
troops was limited to counterterrorism operations against
remnants of Al Qaeda. The
new orders will also allow operations against the Taliban.
“To the extent that Taliban
members directly threaten the
United States and coalition
forces in Afghanistan or provide direct support to Al Qaeda, we will take appropriate
measures to keep Americans
safe,” the official said.
A report by the New York
Times late on Friday said the
new authorisation also allows
the deployment of American
jets, bombers and drones.
The announcement was
welcomed by Afghan police
and army commanders after
heavy losses against the Taliban this summer.
“This is the decision that
we needed to hear ... We could
lose battles against the Taliban without direct support
from American forces,” said
Khalil Andarabi, police chief
for Wardak province, about an
hour’s drive from the capital
and partly controlled by the
Taliban.
Afghan government forces
remain in control of all 34 provincial capitals but are suffering a high rate of casualties,
recently described as unsustainable by a US commander
in Afghanistan.
More than 4,600 Afghan
force members have been
killed since the start of the
year, 6.5% more than a year
ago. Despite being funded
with more than $4bn in aid
this year, police and soldiers
frequently complain they lack
the resources to ﬁght the Taliban on their own.
“Right now we don’t have
heavy weapons, artillery and
air support. If Americans
launch their own operations
and help us, too, then we will
be able to tackle Taliban,”
said senior police detective
Asadullah Insaﬁ in eastern
Ghazni province.
The Taliban said it is undeterred by the US announcement.
“They will continue their killings, night raids and dishonour
to the people of Afghanistan in
2015. It will only make us continue our jihad,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujajhid said.
Kabul eyes paradigm shift in relations with Pakistan
Internews
Peshawar
T
raditionally, the Afghan
media has always been
sceptical and dismissive
of Pakistan. Yet, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s visit to Pakistan last week has made a cross
section of the media appear optimistic.
Even with suspicion and
some unfavourable comments,
the majority of Afghan political commentators have attached
high hopes to Ghani’s maiden
state visit to Pakistan on November 14-15. During his stay,
Ghani vowed to bridge trust
deﬁcit and open a new chapter in
bilateral relations.
A visible change could also be
seen in the approach of the National Directorate of Security
(NDS), the Afghan intelligence
agency, to spare Pakistan when its
spokesperson Haseeb Siddiqi addressed a news conference about
the growing number of Taliban
attacks in Kabul and other cities.
Afghan electronic and print
media was more focused on
Ghani’s visit than its Pakistani
counterpart. All major Afghan
TV channels hosted debates on
the possible outcome of the visit,
particularly Islamabad’s role in
peace talks with the Taliban.
Pashto and Dari language
newspapers wrote editorials and
published op-eds on the importance of the visit. And despite
some mistrust, a majority of the
political observers were convinced that Ghani’s visit would
be much more fruitful than his
predecessor Hamid Karzai’s 20
trips to Islamabad.
Pashto daily Sarnevesht described the visit as a good start,
insisting that Pakistan should
help the peace process and exert
pressure on the Taliban to prepare for peace talks. “It should
drive the Taliban, who oppose
peace, out of its area or eliminate
their hideouts and sanctuaries,”
the daily said in an editorial this
week.
Hasht-e-Subh, an independent Dari-language daily, viewed
Ghani’s visit to the army’s General Headquarters in Rawalpindi
as a signiﬁcant step.
“This was unprecedented. In
order to achieve stability and a
strong economy, Afghanistan
needs constructive strategic
relations with Pakistan. And if
Pakistan wishes to overcome its
economic and security problems, which are damaging it internally, it has to stop pushing
an India-centric policy towards
Afghanistan,” wrote the daily.
Afghan papers also highlighted what they termed Pakistan’s
important role in the peace
process with the Taliban. Without the co-operation of regional
countries, especially Pakistan,
the peace process will fail and
remain incomplete in Afghanistan, they said.
“If Afghanistan and Pakistan
work together with complete
sincerity and transparency, they
can make it easier for the peace
process to succeed,” said The
Daily Afghanistan.
The pro-government Pashto
daily, Weesa, said Afghans “can
pin hopes” on thinking that the
visit has opened a new chapter in bilateral relations. “Afghans want peace and tranquillity. They want an end to the
devastating war and to live in a
peaceful atmosphere with their
neighbours. If Pakistan helps the
Afghan people and officials honestly meet these desires, there is
no more good news than this for
our people,” the daily said.
The Dari-language independent daily Hasht-e-Subh
described the role of Pakistan’s
security establishment as very
important in the stability of Afghanistan. “There is no doubt
that if the Pakistani government,
especially the Pakistani army,
co-operates with the Afghan
government, the situation in the
region will improve,” it said.
State-owned daily Anis said
the recent developments in Pakistan show the country’s political and military leaders have now
agreed they should “make use
of the opportunity and pursue
a mild policy towards the new
government of Afghanistan.”
Like Pakistani leaders, Ghani
also had a clear approach to the
relationship. “Pakistan is continuously our partner.” “We have overcome obstacles of 13 years in three
days, thank you,” Ghani said during
the joint presser with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on November 15.
He also received a pledge from
senior Pakistani civilian and
military leaders to help in the
urgently-needed reconciliation
process.
Pakistan’s Adviser on Foreign
Affairs, Sartaj Aziz, said Pakistan
will “facilitate” the peace process but it is up to Kabul to “take
the initiative as with whom it
wants to talk, where, and how.”
While interacting with the Afghan media in the company of
President Ghani, Aziz had rightly pointed out Pakistan cannot
force anyone for talks but will
help when the Afghan government takes the initiative.
The Pakistan Foreign Ministry on Thursday termed the visit
“very successful as it was rich
not only in symbolism but also in
substance.”
The ministry’s spokesperson,
Tasnim Aslam, said the agreed
minutes contain 42 decisions
and they cover a broad range in
trade, economy and connectivity.
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
27
SRI LANKA/BANGLADESH/NEPAL
Bangladesh
arrests nine
in crackdown
on militants
Reuters
Dhaka
B
angladesh has arrested
four members of an outlawed militant group, including the chief of its women’s
wing, as well as ﬁve suspects in
a southern city, police said yesterday, as authorities stiffen a
crackdown on militants.
The arrest follows Indian
security officials’ exposure
of a plot last month targeting Prime Minister Sheikh
Hasina. Two members of a
banned Bangladesh group
were killed in an explosion
while building bombs in India’s eastern state of West
Bengal, just over the border
with Bangladesh.
Police said they arrested
Fatema, the chief of the women’s wing of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, whose husband Sajid
was arrested by Indian police
in connection with the West
Bengal blast.
“Fatema and three men were
arrested in a raid in Dhaka and
we also recovered a huge quantity of bomb-making materials
and explosives,” police spokesman Monirul Islam told a news
conference.
The group also planned to
assassinate Bangladesh’s main
opposition leader, Khaleda
Zia, Indian officials said. She
and Hasina have dominated
the country’s politics for more
than a decade.
“Fatema and three
men were arrested in
a raid in Dhaka and
we also recovered a
huge quantity of bombmaking materials and
explosives”
During interrogation, Begum reportedly confessed that
she trained at least 25 women,
including ﬁve Bangladeshis, in
Burdwan’s Simulia area.
Last week, a team headed by
the chief of India’s main counter-terrorism arm, the National Investigations Agency, held
talks with Bangladeshi officials
in Dhaka and handed over a list
of 11 suspects thought to be
hiding there.
Another ﬁve suspected militants, including a Pakistani
and a Saudi national, were arrested yesterday at a hotel in
the southern port city of Chittagong, police official Banaj
Kumar Majumdar told Reuters by telephone, but which
group they belong to is not yet
known.
Under Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh has been working closely with India to tackle militant
groups, including the handover
of those India suspects of stirring up trouble in its remote
northeast.
The Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen
was thought to have been lying low since a crackdown by
authorities after it detonated
nearly 500 bombs almost
simultaneously on a single
day in 2005 across Bangladesh, including in Dhaka, the
capital.
Subsequent suicide attacks
by its militants on several
courthouses killed 25 people
and left hundreds injured.
A security van taking
members of the group to
court earlier this year was
targeted by gunmen who
opened ﬁre and tossed bombs
at the vehicle.
Nepal bus crash toll climbs to 14
IANS
Kathmandu
T
he toll from last week’s
deadly bus accident in
Nepal rose to 14, including one Indian, as rescue operations entered in its third day
yesterday.
The passenger bus carrying more than 50 people had
skidded off a narrow stretch in
Jajarkot district’s mountainous region and plunged into the
Bheri river in western Nepal on
Thursday. On day one, officials
conﬁrmed that ﬁve people were
killed and around 45 remained
missing.
The bus had completely submerged into the water soon
after it fell around 80m off the
road.
Sakil Miya, 29, of Raxual,
Bihar was among those who
lost their lives as the death
toll yesterday climbed to 14
after officials retrieved bodies of nine more persons from
the strong water currents of
the river, Himalayan Times
said.
According to the Jajarkot
district police office, more
than 36 passengers are still
estimated to be missing.
Apart from an Indian, rest of
the victims are said to be locals
as efforts were on to trace those
who are still unaccounted for.
Some of the bodies had
crushed under the bus which
made it difficult for the divers
to recover.
Local people with the help
of police, army and armed police force personnel are carrying out search and rescue operations. A team of deep divers
have also been pressed into
service.
Road accidents are on rise in
Nepal as more than 62 people have
died in ﬁve separate accidents
in the last one month.
Bad
roads,
negligence,
speeding and overloading were
the main reasons behind these
accidents, police said.
Opposition presidential candidate Maithripala Sirisena offering flowers at the temple of top Buddhist monk Maduluwawe Sobitha in Colombo
yesterday.
Opposition secures Buddhist
backing for Sri Lanka vote
AFP
Colombo
S
ri Lanka’s main opposition
candidate yesterday won
important backing from a
top Buddhist monk campaigning to scrap the executive presidency and return the country to
a parliamentary democracy.
Former agriculture and health
minister Maithripala Sirisena,
who defected on Friday to challenge his former boss President
Mahinda Rajapakse in the January 8 election, visited monk
Maduliwawe Sobitha to receive
his blessings.
“I applaud your courage to
enter the fray only to scrap the
presidency and bring back parliamentary democracy, ensure
rule of law and end corruption,”
Sobitha said while blessing
Sirisena in front of reporters and
TV cameras at his temple.
The monk is a key ﬁgure campaigning for political reforms in
the majority Buddhist nation of
20 million. He had been the spir-
itual guide of former president
Chandrika Kumaratunga who
is also backing the 63-year-old
Sirisena for the presidency.
The monk expressed regret
that Rajapakse had failed to deliver on promises to abolish the
1978 constitution, which gave
strong powers to the executive including immunity from
prosecution.
Sirisena told reporters he
would launch his campaign
after visiting two more Buddhist shrines in the central and
the north-central region of the
island on Monday.
“We will not engage in violence, character assassination
or any such thing,” Sirisena said.
“We hope the campaign will be
peaceful.”
Almost all previous elections
in the country have been marred
by assassinations, bomb attacks
and widespread campaignrelated violence.
The authorities have already
removed the elite police commando unit which protected
Sirisena while bodyguards of
By Mizan Rahman
Dhaka
T
Vehicles passing through the prepared welcome gate for 18th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) summit in Kathmandu
yesterday. The Saarc summit got under way on November 22 and will conclude on November 27.
Jamaat chief challenges death sentence
J
amaat-e-Islami chief Motiur
Rahman Nizami, sentenced
to death by the International
Crimes Tribunal (ICT) for 1971
war crimes, yesterday ﬁled appeal with the Supreme Court
challenging the death penalty.
Tajul Islam, a counsel for Nizami, ﬁled the appeal.
On October 29, the threemember ICT unanimously condemned Nizami to death for
crimes against humanity, including genocide and the murder of intellectuals, during the
Liberation War.
The ICT sentenced the Jamaat
boss, the I971 commander-inchief of Al Badr, a secret killing
squad of Jamaat-e-Islami, the
capital punishment each on four
counts of charges of war crimes,
“I applaud your
courage to enter the
fray only to scrap the
presidency and bring
back parliamentary
democracy, ensure
rule of law and end
corruption”
Sources close to the president said at least another
dozen SLFP legislators have
been identiﬁed as trying to
defect but they would not be
suspended as yet.
Rajapakse called the election
two years ahead of schedule in
an apparent attempt to seek a
fresh mandate before his party’s
popularity tumbles further, after dropping over 21 percent in
September local elections.
While Rajapakse remains
popular with voters from the
Sinhalese majority after he won
a 37-year war against Tamil
separatists in 2009, critics say
he has become increasingly
authoritarian.
A key coalition partner,
the JHU, or party of Buddhist
monks, walked out of the government on Tuesday, accusing
Rajapakse of failing to deliver
promised democratic reforms.
Rajapakse is also struggling to
avoid international censure over
claims his troops killed 40,000
Tamil civilians in the bloody ﬁnale of the ﬁghting, an issue that
has overshadowed his ongoing
chairmanship of the Commonwealth.
After his meeting with Sobitha, Sirisena had a closeddoor meeting with rights activists to discuss plans to push
through reforms if he is elected.
“He was basically told of the
work carried out by civil society
over the years pressing for democratic freedoms and reforms,”
media rights activist Sunil Jayasekera said. “It is up to him to
carry it forward.”
Ban on manpower
export agencies lifted
Welcome gate
By Mizan Rahman
Dhaka
three other defecting ministers
have also been withdrawn.
Rajapakse’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) has also
suspended ﬁve members who
pledged support to Sirisena.
terming Al Badr a criminal
organisation.
Attorney General Mahbubey
Alam said the death verdict
awarded to Nizami by the ICT-1
on October 29 had satisﬁed the
prosecution and the state will
argue against his appeal.
“The court was convinced
that justice will fail if he was not
given the maximum penalty for
the number of killings and genocide he committed.”
Eight out of the 16 war crimes
charges levelled against him had
been proven and Nizami was
handed death for four charges
and life terms for four others.
The 71-year old was already
carrying a death sentence in the
infamous Chittagong 10-truck
arms haul case.
He served as a minister until 2006 when the Jamaat was
in power in coalition with the
Bangladesh Nationalist Party.
he Bangladesh government yesterday lifted restrictions on manpower
export by private agencies to
boost the supply market for
overseas recruiters.
Cautioning the ministry
of expatriates welfare and
overseas employment to remain vigilant, Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina said: “We don’t
want to stop the business of
manpower exporters or recruiting agencies. Their business will continue, but there
should be no exploitation of
distressed people in the name
of business ... there would be
proﬁt, but there should not be
100% proﬁt to make the poor
people paupers.”
The prime minister said this
in her introductory speech in
a meeting with officials of the
Ministry of Expatriates Welfare
and Overseas Employment and
its different organisations held
at the ministry’s conference
room in the capital.
The government-to-government (G-to-G) recruitment
system, introduced for the ﬁrst
time for employment of Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia,
failed to click as Bangladesh
could send only 5,000 workers, a number far less then
announced earlier.
Due to the G-to-G system,
Bangladesh is failing to send
more workers abroad to traditional markets as the government officials cannot negotiate
recruitment deals as private
recruiters can.
According to Bangladesh
Bank, around 450,000 migrants managed overseas jobs
in 2013, down by more than
33% from 680,000 in 2012.
The number of migrant
workers returning to Bangladesh has also increased because the government could
not resolve the problems related to the legal status of
Bangladeshi migrant workers
the United Arab Emirates and
Kuwait through diplomatic
channels. These three destinations accounted for approximately 54% and 56% of our
total remittance inﬂow for the
last two years although overseas workers’ remittances and
readymade export earnings
have emerged as two pillars of
the Bangladesh economy.
The prime minister asked
the ministry to prepare a database of the Bangladeshi workers to leave no scope for exploitation of workers and said:
“You’ll (ministry) have to look
into the matter so that no one
could confuse or exploit the
Bangladeshi workers who want
to go abroad for jobs.”
Stressing the need for creating newer employment opportunities abroad, Hasina
said the ministry will have to
identify which country has
higher demand for what kinds
of works.
About 9mn Bangladeshi expatriates work abroad, are a big
source of foreign exchange.
Hasina said the training institutes under various ministries, including the expatriates
welfare and overseas employment, labour, play key role
preparing them through proper
skills training.
The PM stressed the need for
coordination among the training institutes of various ministries in different trades and
vocations for generating more
local and foreign employment
opportunities.
Referring to the recent trend
of making attempts by the
fortune seekers to cross the
sea, including the seizure of
a Malaysia-bound trawler by
the navy and coast guard with
about 600 people on board,
Hasina said: “I just wonder
why people taking too much of
life risk want to cross the sea …
this is very unfortunate.”
28
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
COMMENT
Chairman: Abdullah bin Khalifa al-Attiyah
Editor-in-Chief : Darwish S Ahmed
Production Editor: C P Ravindran
P.O.Box 2888
Doha, Qatar
[email protected]
Telephone 44350478 (news),
44466404 (sport), 44466636 (home delivery)
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GULF TIMES
A big step forward
in the ﬁght against
wildlife crime
It is laudable that the ﬁrst global operation led by
Interpol and supported by the International Consortium on
Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC), targeting individuals
wanted for serious environmental crime, has been
announced recently.
The initial phase of Interpol’s Operation “Infra-Terra”
(International Fugitive Round Up and Arrest), is targeting
nine fugitives wanted for environmental crime, in particular
wildlife crime. The entire operation is meant to catch 139
fugitives wanted by 36 member countries for a variety of
environmental crimes, including illegal ﬁshing, wildlife
trafficking, illegal trade and disposal of waste, illegal logging
and trading in illicit ivory.
The Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade
in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has
added its voice to support its ICCWC partners in asking for
the public’s assistance to provide information that could
help track down the suspects whose cases were selected for
this initial phase.
The CITES chief of
Enforcement Support,
Ben Janse van Rensburg
has described the
operation as a big step
forward in the ﬁght
against wildlife criminal
networks. Pointing
out that historically,
countries have not drawn
on these law enforcement
tools to hunt down
fugitives wanted for offences against the natural heritage,
he conveyed the appreciation of the CITES Secretariat to
governments that are making use of this mechanism and
strongly support the initiative to combat wildlife crime and
the kingpins behind it.
Wildlife crime has become a serious threat to the security,
political stability, economy, natural resources and cultural
heritage of many countries. The extent of the response
required to address this threat effectively is often beyond
the sole remit of environmental or wildlife law enforcement
agencies, or even of one country or region alone.
It was reported on Friday that as many as 1,200 rhinos have
been poached in South Africa this year for their horn, scuppering
multiple efforts authorities to curb the slaughter of the endangered
species. The vast Kruger National Park has been hit the hardest by
poachers, with 672 killed inside the park.
Last year, 1,004 beasts were poached in parks across the
country. The latest statistics prove that a large number of
heavily armed poachers continue to defeat all the protection
measures.
It is in this context that the new operation has to be seen.
The global mission will extend efforts beyond national
borders and across range, transit and destination states in
support of a collective global response to ﬁght such crime.
Technical and ﬁnancial support for the operation is offered
by the ICCWC, thanks to the generous contribution of the
European Union. Information on the possible location of
the targets of Operation Infra-Terra, or any internationally
wanted persons, can be sent to Interpol’s Fugitive
Investigative Support unit. Information can also be given
anonymously to any national “Crime Stoppers” programme.
With 180 member states, CITES remains one of the
world’s most powerful tools for biodiversity conservation
through the regulation of trade in wild fauna and ﬂora.
CITES regulates international trade in over 35,000 species
of plants and animals, including their parts and products,
ensuring their survival in the wild, with beneﬁts for the
livelihoods of local people and the global environment.
The CITES permit system seeks to ensure that
international trade in listed species is sustainable, legal and
traceable. The 15th conference of the Parties to CITES was
held in Doha in March 2010.
CITES regulates
international
trade in over
35,000 species
of plants and
animals
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Germany’s credit-fuelled
expansion comes to an end
We need to stimulate
growth and increase
inﬂation without
generating higher private or
public leverage
By Adair Turner
London
W
ith recent data showing
that German exports
fell 5.8% from July
to August and that
industrial production shrank by 4%,
it has become clear that the country’s
unsustainable credit-fuelled expansion is ending.
But frugal Germans typically do
not see it that way. After all, German household and company debt
has fallen as a share of GDP for 15
years and public debt, too, is now on a
downward path. “What credit-fuelled
expansion?” they might ask.
The answer lies in the reality of our
interconnected global economy, which
for decades has depended on unsustainable credit growth and now faces a
severe debt overhang.
Before the 2008 ﬁnancial crisis hit,
the ratio of private credit to GDP grew
rapidly in many advanced economies – including the US, the United
Kingdom and Spain. Those countries
also ran current-account deﬁcits,
providing the demand that allowed
China and Germany to enjoy exportled expansion.
Credit-driven growth enabled some
countries to pay down public debt.
The ratio of Irish and Spanish public
debt to GDP, to cite two examples,
fell signiﬁcantly. But the overall
advanced-economy debt/GDP ratio,
including public and private debt,
grew from 208% in 2001 to 236% by
2008. And total global debt rose from
162% of world GDP to 175%.
Credit growth fuelled asset-
price increases and further credit
growth, in a self-reinforcing cycle
that persisted until the bubble burst
and confidence collapsed. Faced
with falling asset prices, households
and companies then attempted to
deleverage.
The ratio of household debt to
GDP in the US has indeed fallen – by
15% since 2009. But the debt did not
go away; it simply moved from the private sector to the public sector.
Private deleveraging depressed the
economy as households cut consumption and businesses cut investment.
Tax revenues fell and social expenditures rose. Fiscal deﬁcits therefore
soared. As a result, for every percentage reduction in private debt, the ratio
of public debt to GDP rose by a greater
amount.
This was a repeat of Japan’s experience over the last 25 years. After the
country’s 1980s credit boom went
bust, large ﬁscal deﬁcits were essential
to prevent a severe depression. But
the inevitable consequence was that,
while Japanese companies slowly
deleveraged, public debt rose to 245%
of GDP.
Leverage shifted not only from
private to public sectors, but also
among countries. From 2002 to
2008, China’s total debt/GDP ratio
was relatively stable and below
150%. It is now around 250%. This
was the deliberately chosen policy
response to deleveraging in advanced
economies.
Fearing that post-crisis recession in
advanced economies would produce a
socially dangerous decline in Chinese employment, the government
instructed its banks to open the credit
ﬂoodgates, triggering an infrastructure and housing-construction boom.
Commodity and capital goods producers – such as Germany – beneﬁted
from credit-driven demand.
Household and company debt
grew rapidly in many other emerging
markets as well. Overall emergingmarket debt has grown from 114% to
151% of GDP, and total global leverage
is 37% higher than it was in 2008. As
the recent 16th Geneva Report on the
Global Economy puts it, “Deleveraging? What deleveraging?”
Today’s total debt level seems both
unsustainable and impossible to reduce without depressing the economy.
Eurozone rules demand ﬁscal consolidation, but the result is slow growth,
which makes deleveraging even more
difficult. Likewise, Japan raised its
consumption tax in April to cut the
ﬁscal deﬁcit, but the increase has
tipped the economy into recession.
Relying solely on
ultra-easy monetary
policy is dangerous
China now faces the dilemma that
arises in the late stage of any credit
boom. Faced with falling property
prices and credit growth, should it
accept a hard landing as inevitable,
or keep the boom going, which would
undoubtedly lead to bigger problems
later? Whatever its choice, growth
will slow signiﬁcantly, and inﬂation
already is well below the central bank’s
4% target.
Slower growth in major markets
in turn depresses Germany, until
recently, the eurozone economy’s
only strong motor. And simultaneous
slowdowns in Japan, China and the
eurozone threaten to slow the US and
UK recoveries. With global growth
anaemic and inﬂationary expectations
falling, further growth in debt looks
unsustainable. And yet total global
leverage continues to rise.
This poses two questions to
which orthodox economics and
conventional policy have provided
an inadequate response. First,
how can we ensure that economies
grow without rapid private credit
growth, which leads to crisis and a
debt overhang? Second – and the
crucial issue today – how can we
escape the debt trap in which past
credit growth has left us?
As the International Monetary
Fund’s latest Global Financial Stability Report warns, relying solely
on ultra-easy monetary policy is
dangerous. It encourages excessive financial risk-taking, increases
inequality, and can work only by
regenerating the rapid private credit
growth that got us into this mess in
the first place.
Relying on competitive exchange
rates, meanwhile, is collectively impossible. The Bank of Japan considers
a weak yen crucial to its quantitative
easing strategy.
The European Central Bank hopes
that negative interest rates will help
drive the euro down. And in China,
economists are discussing the merits
of a lower renminbi to offset the impact of a cooling property market.
But the whole world cannot devalue
against other planets. If all countries
except the US devalue, the US economy will face the deﬂationary impact of
their attempted deleveraging.
We need to stimulate growth and
increase inﬂation without generating
higher private or public leverage. The
only way to do that is to run increased
ﬁscal deﬁcits, permanently ﬁnanced
by central-bank money.
Otherwise, the world will either become mired in deﬂation and slow growth,
or will need to accept further increases in
leverage – thereby simply postponing the
problem and making it still more intractable. The end of Germany’s credit-fuelled
expansion has now made that choice clear.
- Project Syndicate
z Adair Turner is a senior fellow at the
Institute for New Economic Thinking
and at the Centre for Financial Studies
in Frankfurt.
An official demonstrating the capabilities of a germ-zapping robot at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. The US military has enlisted a new germ-killing weapon in the
fight against Ebola - a four-wheeled robot that can disinfect a room in minutes with pulses of ultraviolet light. Resembling a taller, skinnier version of R2D2 from Star
Wars, the robots are operating at three military medical centres and about 250 other American hospitals are using the machines to destroy pathogens.
Can robots help stop the Ebola outbreak?
By Dan De Luce
Washington/AFP
T
he US military has enlisted
a new germ-killing weapon
in the ﬁght against Ebola - a
four-wheeled robot that
can disinfect a room in minutes with
pulses of ultraviolet light.
Resembling a taller, skinnier version
of R2D2 from Star Wars, the robots
are operating at three military medical
centres and about 250 other American
hospitals are using the machines to
destroy pathogens.
Sending out 1.5 pulses per second
in a 3m radius, the robots use xenon, a
non-toxic gas, to create the ultraviolet
rays that eradicate germs faster and
more thoroughly than any human
cleaning crew, officials said.
“The robot is currently part of our
Ebola mitigation strategy, but will be
used across the hospital to combat a
variety of other pathogens known to
cause hospital acquired infections,”
said Alton Dunham, a spokesman for
Langley Air Force Base, which acquired one of the robots in October.
Although ultraviolet light has
been around for decades as a tool for
cleaning, the new robot uses environmentally-friendly xenon instead of
mercury-vapor bulbs that are sloweracting and toxic, according to Texasbased Xenex Disinfection Service,
which manufactures the machines.
Researchers say the disinfecting bot
is just one example of how autonomous devices could play a crucial role
in the ﬁght against the Ebola outbreak
in West Africa.
“Robots could reduce
the number of times
humans handle
contaminated waste”
At a conference this month organised by the White House linking
up universities across the country,
scientists and aid workers concluded
that robots could help haul contaminated waste or enable health workers
to remotely interview patients.
The General Dynamics Land Systems MUTT, a robotic wagon, was
cited as a machine already in existence
that could be deployed now to help
health workers in West Africa, said
Robin Murphy, a professor of computer science and engineering at Texas
A&M University.
“The major takeaway was that
robots do exist that could be immediately repurposed now to protect Ebola
health workers,” Murphy said in a
report on the November 7 brainstorming session.
But any robots sent over would have
to ﬁt into the wider medical effort,
take the local culture into account and
avoid imposing radical new procedures on stressed health workers, she
said.
As a virus that spreads through
direct human contact, Ebola demands
medical equipment and methods that
shield a doctor or a nurse from the risk
of infection.
Like surgical masks, robots can offer
a way for patients to be treated and
monitored while reducing the risk of
infection for the physician.
“Robots could reduce the number
of times humans handle contaminated
waste or the number of people needed
to carry a litter,” Murphy said.
But a clinic in Liberia or Sierra
Leone presents challenges to robots
designed in more pristine, Western
settings, and Wi-Fi access, ample
electrical power, batteries and ﬂat
ﬂoor surfaces may not be readily available in areas where the robots are most
needed.
There are no immediate plans
to send the Xenex robot to West
Africa but concern over the
Ebola outbreak has underscored the
wider problem of hospital-associated infections in the US and other
Western countries.
Hundreds of patients in America
die every year of infections contracted
during a hospital stay, including from
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus
aureus (MRSA), according to government statistics.
Dozens of the hospitals that have
used the Xenex robot have reported
a reduction in hospital infections,
according to Melinda Hart, a spokeswoman for the robot company.
The robot’s ultraviolet light can disinfect surfaces and hidden areas that
even the most diligent human cleaner
cannot reach.
“The robot is able to eliminate the
risk of human error,” said Hart.
Given widespread public fears over
Ebola, the Xenex robots are a reassuring presence to patients and medical
workers, said Colonel Wayne Pritt,
commander of the US Air Force 633rd
medical group at the Langley base.
“The Xenex device adds a level of
surety to the process of disinfection
that wasn’t possible before. With
Ebola, that translates to increased
conﬁdence in staff and patients alike,”
Pritt said.
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
29
COMMENT
Where on earth have I put them!
I worry that I will spend
whatever time I have
left wandering the Earth
looking for things I can’t
ﬁnd
By Sharon Randall
Tribune News Service
W
hen you think of growing old, what’s your
greatest fear?
Do you worry about
having enough income to live on?
I worry about that sometimes. But I
think, hey, I’ve been poor before, there
are worse things that could happen. I
don’t know what those things are, but
I’m sure there are lots of them.
Do you fear losing your youth and
your get-up-and-go, getting all
wrinkled and gray and, of all things,
uncool?
I don’t worry about any of that stuff.
It’s too late. They already happened to
me years ago.
My biggest fear about getting old
is simple. I worry that I will spend
whatever time I have left wandering
the Earth looking for things I can’t
ﬁnd. For example:
I can’t ﬁnd my glasses because
they’re on top my head.
I can’t ﬁnd the glass of water I was
drinking because I drank it and put the
glass in the sink.
I can’t ﬁnd the keys that I always keep
in my purse, because somehow, the ﬁrst
ﬁve times I looked for them there, they
were nowhere to be seen. Then on the
sixth time, when I looked again - after
taking apart my car, my house and my
sanity - they showed up, in the purse
where I always keep them.
I could swear I spend half my
waking hours looking for stuff I
can’t find. And not just my own
stuff. My husband’s, too.
Recently, he walked out of the
bedroom, where he had been putting
away his laundry, and said to me (in
that accusing tone he always takes
when he tries to blame me for losing
or breaking something that he lost or
broke himself) “Did you do something
with my red boxer shorts? I can’t ﬁnd
them anywhere.”
“Don’t fancy yourself,” I said.
“What would I possibly do with your
red underwear?”
“I know you don’t like those shorts,”
he said. “You told me never to buy red
ones again.”
Allow me to explain. I come from
a long line of germaphobic women
who ﬁrmly believe that some things
- sheets, towels and especially
undergarments - need to be washed in
hot water.
Do you know what happens if you
wash something red in hot water?
Dear Sir,
As a new expatriate in Qatar I had to
undergo medical check-up as part of
the resident visa procedure recently.
I had the check-up at the Industrial
Area clinic which is run by the Qatar
Red Crescent Society.
As a newcomer to Qatar, I have great
hopes mixed with a tinge of tension.
Qatar is known as one of the most
hospitable places in the world. Qatari
nationals are courteous and honest,
true to their traditions and culture.
Humanitarian values are held in high
esteem in the local society. All these
give me great hope and conﬁdence.
But unfortunately my experience
at the Industrial Area clinic was not
an encouraging one as I witnessed
the way the clinic staff, most of them
expatriates themselves, dealt with
people visiting there. Visitors to the
clinic were made to line up close to the
X-ray section somewhat rudely. This,
I feel, could have been done in a polite
way. Most of the workers in the queue
were ignorant of procedures like these.
But that doesn’t mean they could not
be dealt with in a better way.
The staff, I felt, should undergo
appropriate awareness sessions
and frequent in-service training to
improve the way they interact with
zSharon Randall can be reached at
PO Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077,
or on her website: www.sharonrandall.
com
Weather report
Letters
Need for more
politeness
That’s right, you end up with a whole
load of pink.
“The only thing I have against those
red boxers,” I said, “is they happen
to be red. It doesn’t mean I got rid of
them.”
“Well, I looked everywhere,” he
said, “and I can’t ﬁnd them.”
Talk about throwing down the
gauntlet. For some reason, if he says he
can’t ﬁnd something, I feel duty bound
to start looking.
I looked everywhere. In the hamper.
The closet. The dresser drawers.
Under the bed. Behind the toilet (you
don’t even want to know what you can
ﬁnd back there.) In the washer and
dryer. I even checked the lint screen.
I gave him a look. “Did you leave
those shorts some place?”
He rolled his eyes.
“I’m not accusing you,” I said,
“I’m just saying. They have to be
somewhere. How about the case where
you keep your bass?”
He plays bass in a band. Sometimes
they play late.
“Be serious,” he said.
“Well?”
“They’re not in my bass case!”
I checked. They weren’t there.
Have you ever spent hours looking
for something that cost next to
nothing and you’re not even sorry that
it’s gone?
“Tell the truth,” he said. “Did you
give them to Goodwill?”
“I tried,” I said, “but they wouldn’t
take them.”
Finally, we gave up and decided to
go in the hot tub to soak off a little
frustration.
My husband went to the bedroom to
change into his swim trunks. A minute
later, he came back laughing.
“Look what I found!” he said,
waving the boxers like a ﬂag.
“I don’t believe it! Where did you
ﬁnd them?”
“Well,” he said, with his face turning
almost as red as the boxers, “I was
wearing them.”
If I lose my mind, will you help me
ﬁnd it?
Three-day forecast
workers visiting the clinic for their
health checks which are mandatory for
all newcomers to Qatar. It is especially
so since the clinic is associated with
a renowned charity doing exemplary
work in many parts of the world.
I hope the authorities concerned
will look into the matter and take
necessary steps to make the place
more welcoming.
Thufail M K
(e-mail address supplied)
Root out
radicalism
Dear Sir,
Many people and states condemn
the Islamic State (IS or ISIS) group
for its barbaric activities yet no one
seems to speak out about the way it
functions and recruits new members.
Not much has been published as to
why so many youth, especially from
developed countries like the UK and
Australia, have become a recruitment
target for forces like IS. Even at the
level of the UN, the only focus that is
being considered is to how to tackle IS
militarily to destroy the group.
Common sense dictates that just
trimming does not solve the problem
of a diseased tree; it needs to be
eradicated from its roots.
Radicalisation of people has mainly
two aspects: religious and economical.
Let’s look at the religious aspect
ﬁrst. It is abundantly clear to Muslims
and non-Muslims alike that forces like
IS have no roots in Islam and are misrepresenting it on all fronts. Anyone
who reads the Holy Qur’an with focus
and understanding can never be
radicalised.
Second and perhaps the most
fundamental reason why many
educated young people are
joining forces like IS, is the rise of
unemployment in Western nations.
Young people who have high
education, sometimes even with
doctorates, cannot ﬁnd jobs. This has
caused frustration among youth who
become an easy recruitment target for
militant forces like IS.
One has to address fundamental
causes like these which will eventually
uproot this diseased tree.
Muslims must grasp the true
teachings of Islam. The Muslims states
in speciﬁc and the world in general
need to learn to act with justice.
Muslim states should denounce
sectarian violence which is being
fuelled indirectly by some states in
order to generate revenue through
promoting warfare and keeping the
Islamic world from unifying.
The solution to joblessness lies in
economic revival by scrapping policies
based on interest rates. The economic
crisis of 2008 should be an eye-opener
to all states of the world that the
current economic system based on
TODAY
interest and usury is not sustainable.
The world needs to realise this.
Otherwise this disease will spread to
all parts of the world and no weapons
will be able to contain it. Muslim
states need to unify and become
stronger in brotherhood so that once
again we can see those days when
Lebanon was progressing, Beirut was
being called Paris of the Middle East
and Baghdad was matching Europe in
its splendour.
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Live issues
How probiotics are soldiers against illness
By Barbara Quinn
The Monterey County Herald/Tribune
News Service
W
ho would have guessed
that cowboys sitting
around a campﬁre eating
beans would be feeding
their bodies’ good bacteria? In our gut
(a cowboy term for “intestinal tract”)
we have trillions of good guys called
“probiotics” - beneﬁcial bacteria that
protect us from the bad bacteria that
can make us sick. Here’s how they
work:
More than 1,000 species of
microbes live in our digestive tract.
Some are beneﬁcial and some are
harmful. When the good guys
outnumber the bad, we digest our
food better, have less diarrhea and
constipation, and are protected from
infectious diseases. Some evidence
even suggests that good bacteria can
help us stay lean.
Probiotics don’t wear white
hats but they can be identiﬁed by
their distinctive titles. Common
family names include Lactobacillus
and Biﬁdobacterium - sometimes
abbreviated L. and B. respectively.
Species within these families include
acidophilus and casei. Probiotics are
further identiﬁed by distinct strains
with speciﬁc actions within the body.
More than 1,000
species of microbes
live in our digestive
tract
For example, Lactobacillus
rhamnosus GG is a well-studied
probiotic for digestive health found
in a product called Culturelle.
Bifodobacterium lactis - a
probiotic found in Activia yogurt was found to protect the lining of
the intestinal tract in people with a
sensitivity to gluten.
Perhaps the most studied use
of probiotics is in the prevention
of diarrhoea due to antibiotic use.
Lactobacillus GC, L.rhamnosus,
and S.boulardi have been shown to
be effective good guys in this arena.
Dan Active - a yogurt that rounds
up L. bulgaricus, S.thermophilus,
and L.casei - lowered the risk for
antibiotic-associated diarrhea caused
by the bad germ, Clostridium difficile
(aka “C.dif”).
Probiotics in food run with the
cultured crowd. Yogurt, buttermilk
and keﬁr as well as fermented
vegetables like kimchi and sauerkraut
are home to many of these good guys.
Look for products that feature “live
and active cultures.”
Just like rough and tough cowboys,
good gut bacteria need to be fed. They
thrive on ﬁbres found in whole grains,
fruit, vegetables and beans, of course.
These “prebiotic” dietary ﬁbres thus
nourish the good “probiotics” that
keep us well. When we eat a varied
diet, we ingest a posse of these good
guys to more effectively ﬁght the bad
guys.
A 2014 update on probiotics for
human health from Martin Floch
at Yale University lists how speciﬁc
strains of probiotics have been used
to prevent or control diseases of
the digestive tract, especially those
related to diarrhea and bowel disease.
Yet we still have much to learn about
which probiotics are useful for certain
medical conditions.
One caution: Even though
probiotics are “Generally Recognised
As Safe” by the US Food and Drug
Administration, they should not be
used willy nilly, especially in people
with critical illnesses.
zBarbara Quinn is a registered
dietitian and certiﬁed diabetes
educator at the Community Hospital of
the Monterey Peninsula. Email her at
[email protected]
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Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
QATAR
Sheikh Faisal Centre inaugurated
at business college in Chicago
T
he new Sheikh Faisal Centre for Entrepreneurship
in the Middle East at DePaul University’s Driehaus College of Business in Chicago has
been inaugurated by HE Sheikh
Faisal bin Qassim al-Thani on
behalf of Al Faisal Without
Borders Foundation (ALF).
The new centre aims to foster
entrepreneurship through exchange programmes that will allow DePaul University students
to study in Qatar, while giving
Qatari students the opportunity
to go to Chicago to work with
business college faculty and
alumni. The long-term collaboration supports entrepreneurship and business development
in Qatar and the Middle East.
Sheikh Faisal bin Qassim alThani, chairman, ALF, said the
launch marks a milestone for
entrepreneurship for students at
DePaul University and students
in Qatar.
He said that Qatar has
launched many initiatives to
support enterprise and is investing heavily to enhance op-
Qatar International
Motor Show to
begin on Feb 6
Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) has
announced that the fifth edition
of the Qatar International Motor
Show will be held from February
6 to 10, 2015, at the Qatar National
Convention Centre (QNCC) in
Doha.
The motor show will continue
to grow in size and visibility,
and showcase the passion this
region has for the automotive
industry, QTA has said in a
statement, adding that automobile
aficionados, motorsports
enthusiasts and professionals
from the automotive sector are
eagerly waiting for the fifth edition
of the event after experiencing
five days of excitement last year.
Hosted by QTA in conjunction with
q.media and Fira de Barcelona,
the Qatar International Motor
Show has become one of the
most talked-about international
annual events in the automotive
calendar. The fourth edition of the
show was held between February
21 and 25 at QNCC and clocked
an unprecedented registration of
online passes prior to the show
and a record-breaking 70,000
visitors from over 100 countries,
according to the statement.
The fifth edition is slated to
surpass the previous one in terms
of participation and number of
visitors, QTA has said.
The venue is being designed
specifically to celebrate the
fifth edition and will have an
environment charged with
adrenalin associated with
motorsports. The show will exhibit
notable international car and
motorcycle brands that will display
their latest models in the luxury,
sport, mid-size and SUV segments.
Visitors can witness and
participate in presentations,
hosted talks, photo exhibitions and
a whole spectrum of automobilerelated activities at the motor
show, which is a highly interactive
platform. Motorsports celebrities
and experts are expected to
enthral visitors as well.
portunities in the private sector, providing many ﬁrst-class
educational facilities to support
the next generation to become
tomorrow’s leaders achieve
success.
Ray Whittington, dean of the
Driehaus College of Business,
said: “Our faculty and successful alumni entrepreneurs look
forward to working with emerging entrepreneurs from Qatar
and throughout the Middle East
to support their continued development into a thriving, professional class. The centre will
also provide a great opportunity for DePaul students to gain
real-world experience on an
international stage.”
The newly-formed centre
will also hold an annual conference in Chicago that convenes an international audience of business leaders in an
effort to expose students to the
business world. It will serve as
a source of professional knowledge for Qatar entrepreneurs
and those who do business in
the Middle East. Sheikh Faisal
will also host a business competition in Qatar for emerging
entrepreneurs.
Both parties believe that this
initiative will strengthen the
entrepreneurial spirit at both
DePaul and in Qatar. “Al Faisal
Without Borders Foundation is
a strong supporter of Qatar’s vision and this agreement will help
to accelerate knowledge transfer,
which is very important for success in business,” Sheikh Faisal
observed.
“With a booming economy
and excellent educational system we are sure that this centre
will foster the entrepreneurial
spirit and help to fuel Qatar’s
thriving economy.”
The Sheikh Faisal Centre will
facilitate a Young Entrepreneur
Academy that develops new
generations of Qatari and US entrepreneurs and business leaders through student exchange
programmes.
DePaul plans to host a group
of Qatari students each summer
on its Chicago campus where
they will work with the business
college faculty and alumni entrepreneurs to apply entrepreneurship theory and practice in
developing their own business
plans.
Additionally, a group of
Driehaus College of Business
students who are enrolled in
programmes related to business development in the Middle
East will have the opportunity
to participate in a study abroad
programme in Qatar.
DePaul University is a private university in Chicago, Illinois, founded in 1898, and
serving nearly 25,000 students.
The Driehaus College of Business is one of the oldest business
schools in the US.
The launch of The Sheikh
Faisal Centre was also attended
by Abdullatif al-Yafei (ALF general manager), Patricia Donoghue (interim president of DePaul University, Chicago), Tarek
El Sayed (group chief ﬁnancial
officer, Al Faisal Holding and
managing director of Aamal
QSC), and Ali Mare (executive
director, ALF).
HE Sheikh Faisal bin Qassim al-Thani with al-Yafei, Donoghue, El Sayed, Mare and another official at the
launch of the Sheikh Faisal Centre for Entrepreneurship in the Middle East at DePaul University in Chicago.
Based in Qatar, ALF is a charitable foundation that promotes
sustainable development and
improved quality of life for
QRC launches workshop on
‘national shelter system in US’
Q
atar Red Crescent (QRC)
yesterday launched a
workshop titled “national shelter system in the US.”
The two-day event is in participation with the American
Red Cross, the International
Federation of Red Cross and
Red Crescent (IFRC), Qatar’s
Shelter Committee, and Qatar
Computing Research Institute
(QCRI).
The objective is to review
the US experience in collective
shelter during disasters and
explore how to make use of it,
in the course of sharing experience and enhancing co-operation with different components
of the International Red Cross
and Red Crescent Movement.
The opening ceremony was
attended by Saleh bin Ali alMohannadi, QRC secretarygeneral; Brigadier General Hamad bin Othman al-Dehaimi,
secretary-general of the Permanent Emergency Committee and operation director of
Qatar’s Civil Defence; and
Anne palmer, division disaster
state relations director at the
American Red Cross.
Al-Mohannadi welcomed the
guests and partners, conﬁrming
that QRC plays a principal role
in disaster preparedness and
has considerable potential and
strong relationship with IFRC,
the International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC), and 189
National Societies worldwide.
“Following the establishment of the Shelter Committee, which we are honoured to
be a member of, it was advisable to utilise experiences in the
international arena, remarkably the American Red Cross,
Al-Mohannadi welcomes the workshop participants yesterday as Brigadier General al-Dehaimi and
Palmer look on.
which plays an essential role in
disaster response locally and
internationally, particularly in
sheltering.
“This will help the State of
Qatar have a top-level shelter
system. In tandem with the Permanent Emergency Committee, we have already conducted
certain studies and measures,
which, together with this workshop, would be an excellent
start to get some basic information and avoid past mistakes,”
he added.
Palmer thanked QRC for giv-
ing the American Red Cross the
opportunity to be a part of the
workshop. She explained that
the US is particularly vulnerable to all sorts of disasters,
from hurricanes to ﬂoods to
tornadoes to volcanoes.
“We have seen a real need
for key shelter centres across
the nation to provide disasters
response services, so that leaders can have an understanding of our national recourses,
the affected communities,
their needs, and how governments and NGOs can work to-
gether to effectively allocate
resources especially in terms
of large-scale response,” she
pointed out.
Palmer concluded by hoping that the Qatari programme
will make a big success, and
that the American Red Cross
will share beneﬁcial experience
and data from its already existing national system, which was
established in 2006 following
Hurricane Katrina and saw enhancements in collaboration
with the Federal Emergency
Management Agency.
people around the world. Aiming at managing development
programmes and providing humanitarian and relief aid, the
philanthropic not-for-proﬁt organisation partners with governments, charities and other NGOs
around the world.
Vodafone helps
refurbish 1,700
handsets in
ﬁve months
V
odafone Qatar has announced that is has
helped refurbish a total
of 1,700 handsets over the last
ﬁve months.
The initiative is in line
with the company’s focus on
sustainability and follows in
the steps taken by Vodafone
globally to reduce waste and
prolong products’ lifecycle,
according to a statement.
Between April and October,
Vodafone has refurbished a
total of 137,713 handsets across
16 markets, including Qatar.
The initiative kick-started in June, shortly after the
launch of Vodafone 4G in
Doha, and allowed customers to exchange their old
handsets with a 4G-enabled smartphone to enjoy
Vodafone 4G.
Old handsets were then refurbished by HYLA Mobile,
which also ensured 100%
data security for customers
by professionally wiping the
phones before refurbishing or
reselling.
To run this initiative, Vodafone partnered with HYLA
Mobile, formerly known as
eRecycling Corps, one of the
world’s leading providers of
products and services that
capture, extend and optimise the life and value of used
mobile phones.
The trade-in scheme is a
permanent offer from Vodafone through which any cus-
tomer can trade in their phone
at any Vodafone store in Qatar.
Customers can check the value of their phone prior to the
trade-in via http://www.vodafone.qa/en/smartphones/
special-deals/tradein
Dana Haidan, head of CSR
and sustainability at Vodafone
Qatar, said: “At Vodafone, we
aim to reduce the environmental impacts of our products and services, empowering our customers to make
more sustainable choices. For
many years, we have encouraged customers to return their
unwanted handsets and accessories to Vodafone for reuse, where possible, and for
recycling... through the new
trade-in scheme, we offer
both consumers and business
customers an attractive incentive to return used phones and
tablets, which is store credit.”
“We’re very happy to be
partnering with Vodafone in
Qatar to deliver such an initiative, which has considerable
economic, environmental and
social beneﬁts to the community it serves. At HYLA
Mobile, we are transforming the wireless ecosystem by
helping consumers realise and
take advantage of the residual
value of their used devices and
are providing a reliable and
responsible way of collecting,
processing and distributing
used mobile phones,” HYLA
Mobile said.
Ras Laffan Community in tie-up with INJAZ Qatar
T
he Ras Laffan Community Outreach Programme
(COP) has announced its
partnership with INJAZ Qatar to
support the Maqad Al Duha Programme, organised by the Quodorat Training and Development
Centre.
Maqad Al Duha aims to provide support to an important
group of society, namely female retirees and senior citizens who have life skills and
practical experiences that
can be utilised and taught to
younger generations, by encouraging the spirit of volunteerism among them, and promoting their full participation
at community events.
Between 2014 and 2016,
Maqad Al Duha will transfer the
knowledge and experiences of
these women to younger generations of Qataris, either through
conducting training workshops
in schools, or organising site
visits to various facilities of the
state, and in turn activate their
roles in the community as valuable and active contributing
members.
In partnership with INJAZ
Qatar, experienced volunteers
among the retired women will be
engaged in teaching the organisation’s curricula, by co-ordinating with the schools located
in the northern region. Thus, for
the ﬁrst time, INJAZ Qatar will
serve as a link between retirees
and schools. Typically, INJAZ
Qatar relies on the efforts of employees from various companies
to teach its curricula at several
secondary and preparatory local
independent schools, and universities in Qatar.
A total of 10 retired women
have been registered to teach
INJAZ Qatar’s curricula at the
participating schools in the
northern region from November
through January, for an hour per
week over the span of ﬁve to six
weeks.
Moza al-Mohannadi, the
community liaison lead at Ras
Laffan COP, said, “We consider elders as a very important
group in our communities due
to their wide range of expertise
and skills. We believe that they
can be used as a resource for the
beneﬁt of society, and this is
what we are doing through our
sponsorship of the Maqad Al
Duha Programme.”
COP aims to build communication bridges based on trust
and co-operation between the
industrial companies located
in the northern region of Qatar
and the local community. It also
serves to beneﬁt the local community as a whole by working in
partnership with public institutions in supporting several cul-
tural, educational, health, environmental, security and safety
initiatives.
The programme supports
industrial companies in the
northern region, including Qatar
Petroleum, Al Khaleej Gas, RasGas, Qatargas, Dolphin Energy
Limited, Pearl GTL and Oryx
GTL; and covers Smaismah, Al
Daayen, Umm Qarn, Al Khor, Al
Dhakira, Al Kaaban, Al Ghariyah,
Al Ghuwairiya, Madinat Ash
Shamal, Al Ruwais, Abu Az Zuluf
and Fuwayrit.
The programme also supports
several initiatives across various
ﬁelds, whether cultural, educational, health, environmental,
safety or security, and contributes in providing direct support
to local programmes/facilities,
such as community cultural
centres, youth centres, women’s associations and several
community initiatives.
Officials and resource persons at an event organised by the Ras Laffan Community Outreach Programme.
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
31
QATAR
Ooredoo contest
winners meet brand
ambassador Messi
A
group of 12 talented
young people had the
chance to meet sporting
hero and Ooredoo brand ambassador Leo Messi in Barcelona, Spain, this week, as Ooredoo’s “Simply Do Wonders”
competition concluded.
The young sports fans won
the competition after uploading videos of themselves displaying their football skills to
the dedicated website, Simplydowonders.com. They were
ﬂown from countries across
Ooredoo’s footprint on an allexpenses-paid trip to meet
and show their football skills
to Messi at training facilities in
Barcelona.
While visiting Barcelona, the
children also saw Messi playing football during an official
match.
The winners came from Tunisia, the Maldives, Qatar, Indonesia, Algeria, Kuwait and
Palestine. The company also
extended two additional places
for children from Gaza.
“This talented group of
young people is an inspiration.
Despite the challenges many of
them face, they are passionate
about football and the life op-
portunities that sport can provide. The reason I began the Leo
Messi Foundation and teamed
up with Ooredoo is to let children know that if they work
hard, they really can do wonders. Ooredoo’s support for this
contest and their ongoing work
to promote sport and healthy
lifestyles is a great example of
how leading companies can
make a difference,” said Messi.
“This
competition
has
brought football fans from
around the world together and
showcased the skills and aspirations of young people. Working with Leo Messi has enabled
us to reach a whole new audience, and we hope that together
we can keep them engaged and
supported through our initiatives for young people,” said Dr
Nasser Maraﬁh, Group CEO of
Ooredoo.
“Simply Do Wonders” was
Ooredoo’s ﬁrst ever global communication campaign with
Messi and involved a television
commercial as well as advertising across media. During its run,
more than 11mn people viewed
the advertisement online, making it the most-seen video ever
from an Arab brand on YouTube,
according to a statement.
Ooredoo Group received over
500,000 posts on Instagram,
110,000 engagements with the
brand on Twitter and 130,000
new fans on Facebook during
the period, awarding the Ooredoo Group Facebook page the
number one telecommunications proﬁle in terms of engagement in July, according to SocialBakers. The TV commercial
was also named the 10th top
viral video in the world during
the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
The company is continuing to
work with the Leo Messi Foundation on its ongoing mobile
health clinic programme, which
provides healthcare services for
remote areas in Indonesia, Myanmar, Algeria and Tunisia.
In Indonesia, 16 mobile
health clinics have provided
free healthcare services for
more than 600,000 people. The
mobile health clinics have been
particularly effective following
natural disasters and emergencies, and have now expanded
their activities to include providing medicine, vaccinations
and education on infectious
diseases for children and their
families.
Messi with the youngsters.
HE Dr al-Kuwari and HE Sheikha Mayassa with officials of QPI and Qatar Shell and others.
Qatar Brazil 2014
platinum sponsors
honoured at MIA
Q
atar Museums honoured
the platinum sponsors of
the Qatar Brazil 2014 Year
of Culture - Qatar Petroleum International (QPI) and Qatar Shell
- during a VIP private gala dinner
held recently at the Museum of
Islamic Art featuring Brazilianinspired cuisine and entertainment.
The event was attended by HE
the Minister of Culture, Arts and
Heritage Dr Hamad bin Abdul
Aziz al-Kuwari and Qatar Museums chairperson HE Sheikha
Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa
al-Thani.
The Years of Culture is an annual initiative by Qatar Museums
and co-organised by the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage,
aiming to forge new partnerships
between Qatar and the world
through cultural exchange in the
areas of community, culture and
sport.
As platinum sponsors of Qatar
Brazil 2014, QPI and Qatar Shell
have provided long-term support
to Qatar Museums and the ministry in presenting cultural programming that brings the people of Qatar and Brazil together
to create mutual understanding
that will last generations.
Nasser al-Jaidah, CEO of
QPI, said: “Qatar Petroleum International is proud to be sponsoring the Qatar Brazil Year of
Culture, an important initiative that aims to expand knowledge, develop creative leaders
and drive progress in support
of Qatar National Vision 2030.
Following QPI’s investment in
Brazil’s oil-producing project,
BC-10, the Years of Culture
initiative provided us with the
opportunity to demonstrate our
strong commitment to building
global partnerships and creating a positive impact in the international communities where
we operate.”
Wael Sawan, managing director and chairman of Qatar Shell
Companies, said: “Qatar Shell,
in partnership with Qatar Petroleum International, is honoured
to be the platinum sponsor of
the Qatar-Brazil Year of Culture,
which brings us and other key
organisations in Qatar together
to celebrate the richness of Qatari and Brazilian cultures and to
appreciate their distinctive contributions to the world.”
Guests at the event had the
opportunity to explore the BC-10
exhibition, showcasing the strategic partnership with QPI and
Shell. Under an agreement, QPI
has acquired ownership in an oil
production project called Parque
das Conchas (BC-10), located in
offshore Brazil. QPI shipped the
ﬁrst internationally acquired oil
cargo for Qatar from the BC-10
project earlier this month.
The Qatar Brazil 2014 events to
date have been highly successful,
according to a statement.
Early in the year, Qatar Brazil
2014 and the National Museum
of Qatar hosted Kheit, an international fashion design competition, for students from Virginia
Commonwealth University in
Qatar and the Centro Universitário Belas Artes de São Paulo
in Brazil.
Brazil was also well-represented during the Qatar International Food Festival in March
at the MIA park. The Qatar Brazil zone attracted thousands of
visitors to take part in Brazilian
dance, music and food over the
course of the three-day festival.
During each month this year,
Doha Film Institute and Qatar
Museums have screened Brazilian movies as part of the Brazil
Cinema Showcase.
In June, the photography exhibition Qatar Brazil: A Journey
from the Amazon to the Desert
opened at Katara, featuring the
works of two Qatari photographers from the Qatar Photographic Society as they journeyed across Brazil with Qatar
Museums, as well as works from
two Brazilian photographers’ exchange trip across Qatar.
In July, Qatar Museums’ exhibition Pearls opened to great
acclaim at the renowned Museu
de Arte Brasileira (Brazilian Museum of Art) in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Qatar Museums and the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage also hosted Qatar Week in
Sao Paulo, Brazil, where numerous Qatari artisans travelled to
showcase Qatari cultural traditions, including music, coffee,
henna and ardha.
Qatar Museums and Qatar Fine
Arts Association has collaborated
with Brazilian artist and curator
Luiz Dolino to host a contemporary art exhibition with works by
Qatari and Brazilian artists.
Then, on October 30, the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra performed a concert featuring Brazilian conductor Claudio Cohen
as part of the Year of Culture.
Finally, Qatar had the opportunity to experience the tastes,
sounds and excitement of Brazil
during the Brazil Festival at MIA
Park from November 6 to 8.
Rota drive to enhance local youth’s capabilities
T
he organisers of the `Back
to the Future’ campaign of
Qatar Foundation’s Reach
Out to Asia have announced their
forthcoming campaign aimed at
enhancing the capabilities of the
local youth and empowering them
for major initiatives in future.
At a brieﬁng yesterday the organisers said they were expecting 32 talented individuals who
they hope to develop in to enlightened individuals by the end
of the programme.
Changes, the youth organisation of which some of the organisers were members, it was told,
is working to create frameworks
of developmental thoughts of the
country’s youth to help them cope
with the requirements of the time.
Selected youths, mostly in the
age group 15-17 will undergo intensive training programme to be
hosted by professional trainers.
The workshops that the organise will hold in the coming days
will focus on enhancing the hid-
den talents and capabilities of
the participants.
The main goals of the organisation, they said, is to provide
youth with projects that promote the culture of devotion in
the areas of voluntary assistance,
charitable and awareness works.
To give the youth a proper direction to utilise their talents,
and direct resources to support
the development of educational
concepts among members of the
society.
Season’s first rains
Strengthening the noble values of the community and build
bridges of communication and
understanding.
Among those present at
the briefing were Founder
and President of the Changers Khader Ibrahim Sulaiman,
last year’s participants Rashid
al-Kuwari and Sarah al-Sabah
and Rota’s Community Development Manager Abdullah
al-Bakri and trainer Mukthar
al-Mukthar.
QDF opens Giorgio Armani boutique at HIA
Q
Doha received the first rains of the season yesterday evening. Thunder showers, accompanied
by strong winds, have been forecast until 6pm today by the Met Office. Earlier, scattered rains
were forecast today and tomorrow in many places in Qatar. Picture shows a scene from C Ring
Road. PICTURE: Hussain Ali
The organisers of the `Back to Future’ programme explaining the features of their campaign.
atar Duty Free (QDF) has
announced the official
opening of its Giorgio
Armani boutique at Hamad International Airport (HIA).
Adding to the overall shopping
experience of passengers looking
for luxury brands as they travel
through the airport, and supporting QDF’s strategy of positioning HIA as a world-class retail hub for global travellers, this
is the ﬁrst Giorgio Armani boutique to be opened in any airport
in the Middle East, according to a
statement by QDF.
The launch follows the opening of Armani Junior in September at the airport, which
has already proved popular with
passengers enjoying the mix of
global brands available within
the 25,000sqm of retail space
at HIA. This is the ﬁrst Armani
Junior boutique in the world to
be opened in an airport environment, the statement adds.
“Qatar Duty Free welcomes
these exciting new additions to
the brand lineup at Hamad International Airport,” said Keith
Hunter, senior vice-president
of QDF. “At Qatar Duty Free, we
are entirely focused on satisfying the needs of our passengers
by hand-picking brands that will
go that extra mile and make the
maximum effort to appeal to our
travelling guests. Giorgio Armani
and Armani Junior not only meet
these expectations but surpass
them on every level, as our guests
will discover when they visit our
new boutiques.”
The Giorgio Armani boutique
covers an area of over 190sqm
and is entirely dedicated to
ready-to-wear collections and
accessories for men and women.
Brushed silk - which is the main
material used in the boutique,
walls lined with special fabric
panels and contrasting backlit
onyx, ﬂoors ﬁnished with beige
Giorgio Armani boutique at HIA.
polished stone and large Armani/
Casa greige linen carpets add an
intimate and reﬁned touch, while
a visually striking, shiny fauxﬁnished ceiling emphasises the
boutique’s sophisticated and elegant atmosphere. Invisible downlights outline the space and shine a
direct light onto the garments and
accessories on display, according
to the statement.
At HIA, QDF offers 40,000sqm
of combined retail, food and beverage facilities. With more than
70 retail outlets offering a wide
range of designer labels, fashion,
electronics, gourmet foods and
more, QDF at HIA caters to all
passengers’ tastes. In addition,
more than 30 cafes and restaurants offer a selection of global
and local cuisine.
SPORTS DEALS | Page 3
SURPRISE MOVE | Page 6
Qatar, French
firms explore
construction
China rate cut
knocks legs
off yuan rally
Monday, November 24, 2014
Safar 02, 1436 AH
ALFARDAN GROUP PARTNER: Page 16
GULF TIMES
BUSINESS
Qatar key regional
growth market:
Rolls-Royce Cars
chief executive
QIC eyes $250mn from convertible notes
By Santhosh V Perumal
Business Reporter
Q
QIC board has okayed $250mn convertible notes.
atar Insurance Company (QIC),
a dominant risk provider, is
raising $250mn (QR910mn) by
issuing convertible notes to the General
Retirement and Social Insurance Authority (GRSA) as part of its efforts to
shore up the capital base and strengthen the solvency regime.
“As per the solvency and capital adequacy reviews conducted by the company, it is projected that we need to increase the capital at the end of 2015 or
during 2016, in line with the projected
future expansion plans,” QIC vice
chairman Abdullah bin Khalifa al-Attiyah said, officiating as the chairman of
the general assembly of shareholders.
Based on the reviews and analysis,
the QCI board has resolved to issue
convertible notes totalling $250mn
with maturity of ﬁve years and annual
coupon, which is yet to be agreed upon.
The notes, which could be converted
any time after three years of issuance
and priced at a premium once converted, will not exceed 8mn shares, which
represent only 5% of the current share
capital.
While preparing the future business
plan for the coming years, the company
has factored in the targeted expansion
in the global and reinsurance activities,
in addition to the expected growth in
the local and regional operations (direct
insurance) as a result of the upcoming
infrastructure development projects
planned across the region, al-Attiyah
said.
Together with these projected business plans, he said, “QIC has conducted appropriate reviews and analysis to
ensure that the solvency and the capital adequacy norms are maintained to
meet the anticipated future expansion
in activities that would be sufficient
to bring us to the level of international
standards adopted by global insurance
and reinsurance supervisory and regulatory bodies.”
The GRSA has offered to solely and
fully acquire these convertible notes.
The board agreed to this offer taking
into consideration that the national
capital has to be given priority in any
future expansion plans of the company,
and also because the GRSA is a govern-
ment entity and as such, no limit is imposed upon the number of shares it can
hold in the company as per Article (7) of
the company’s amended Articles of Association.
QIC, which led the domestic insurance companies consortium in covering one of the major projects of Doha
Metro, has successfully acquired the
UK-based Lloyds Syndicate operations
Antares Holdings Limited in a QR1bnplus deal, which was fully ﬁnanced
through its internal funds.
Currently, Antares Holdings, together with the reinsurance company
of QIC ‘Qatar Re’, constitutes the key
pillars of QIC’s international operations which currently represent around
60% of the overall insurance revenue
for QIC. This was reﬂected in the net
proﬁt of QR780mn achieved at the end
of September 30 compared to QR535mn
during the same period of last year.
The mammoth infrastructure development programme, in the run-up to
both 2022 FIFA World Cup and 2019
World Athletics Championship, has
provided ample opportunities to the insurance sector, prompting many global
players to set their foot in Qatar.
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
3
BUSINESS
Qatar, French ﬁrms
explore construction
prospects in sports
By Peter Alagos
Business Reporter
M
embers of a French business
delegation met with Qatari
businessmen yesterday to expand trade relations and explore opportunities in construction-related projects
in the sports industry.
France-Qatar Business Council chairman Yves-Thibault de Silguy and the
accompanying delegation composed of
some 32 French companies were welcomed by Qatar Chamber officials led by
board member Mohamed Mahdi al-Ahbabi at the QC headquarters.
Arnaud Berthet of French Team 4
Sport (FT4S) delivered a presentation on
smart city and sports infrastructures, as
well as sports event management.
Berthet said FT4S aims to promote
partnerships between Qatar and France
by introducing French ﬁrms to Qatari developers and local ﬁrms and inform decision makers and advisers about “French
know-how.”
“We also want to propose a large scope
of expertise with high added value in
one global portfolio from management
of large integrated projects to innovative
and proven solutions for speciﬁc needs,
small and medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs) to large groups, and ﬁnancing to
design, implementation, management,
operation and maintenance,” he said.
Berthet added that FT4S has expertise
from four clusters, namely construction
and transportation; energy and environment; security and telecommunications;
and communication, events and services
“to answer Qatar’s needs.”
Al-Ahbabi said the meeting also served
as a follow-up of the Qatar-French Business Forum, which was attended by HH
the Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad alThani during his official visit to France
in June.
This was echoed by French Ambassador Eric Chevallier, who assured that
French companies “could match Qatar’s
desire for excellence,” speciﬁcally preparations related to the country’s hosting of
the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Speaking to Gulf Times on the sidelines, de Silguy underscored the importance of “frequent contacts” between
French and Qatari businesses.
“These meetings create a good business climate and investment relations.
It opens the opportunity to present an
Qatar Chamber board member Mohamed Mahdi al-Ahbabi (centre) and other QC officials.
French Ambassador Eric Chevallier. Right: France-Qatar Business Council chairman Yves-Thibault de Silguy. PICTURES: Nasser TK
offer, get to know the country well, speciﬁcally its business climate and political
situations that are supportive to investments,” de Silguy said.
He said the meeting was the initiative
of Medef International (Mouvement des
Enterprises de France International),
a global organisation represented by
800,000 French companies.
Big-ticket companies such as Dassault
Aviation, Alstom, GDF Suez, Groupe
SNCF, Bouygues Construction, Thales,
and Vinci as well as innovative SMEs
were present during the meeting.
Marc Auberger, president of Future
French Champions (FCC), elaborated on
the €300mn partnership forged between
CDC International Capital, the investment subsidiary of Caisse des Dépôts
Group, and Qatar Holding on June 23,
2013.
The partnership, Auberger said, was
based on a shared approach of investment, corporate governance, and development strategies with the objective
of ﬁnancing the development of French
enterprises to promote future French
champions.
With the intention to invest a minimum of €15mn per transaction, Auberger
said, “FCC would seek companies that
demonstrate strong commercial viability
and high growth potential, could beneﬁt
from potential business opportunities in
relation to Qatar and the greater Mena
(Middle East and North Africa) region,
and the expected return of the investment must be in line with private equity
markets.”
Amwal wins ‘Best Asset Manager’ in Qatar award
I
ndependent asset management ﬁrm
Amwal has been awarded “Best Asset
Manager” for the fourth consecutive
year by Emea Finance in recognition of
the company’s investment performance
track record.
Amwal CEO Fahmi Alghussein said,
“I am delighted that our team was recognised for our disciplined and robust
investment process once again. We take
pride in being the only asset manager in
Qatar whose fund has outperformed the
index every calendar year since 2006.”
He added, “Amwal’s Qatar Gate Fund
over the past ﬁve years has successfully
achieved gross returns of 57% above the
benchmark Qatar Exchange Price Index
and was ranked the No 1 equity fund in
the Mena region for 2013.”
In 2014, Amwal was appointed the
manager for Al Hayer GCC fund. “We
are conﬁdent that we will replicate our
home market success in a wider GCC
context using the same rigorous fundamental approach to investing”, Alghussein said.
Amwal’s ﬂagship products include the
Qatar Gate Fund, in partnership with
Ahli Bank as well as the Al Hayer GCC
Fund, in association with Doha Bank.
Both products aim to achieve sustainable
long-term capital appreciation.
“Over the past 16 years, Amwal’s performance and pioneering investment
approach have earned the respect of investors and industry peers both in Qatar
and the region. We are conﬁdent that
this award further cements our strong
positioning and market leadership and
encourages us to continue offering innovative products and services that
deliver maximum sustainable return on
QNB lead sponsor
of Euromoney Doha
Conference 2014
Q
NB has announced its lead
sponsorship of the 2014 Euromoney Conference to be
held in Doha today and tomorrow at
the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.
The conference, entitled “Global
Finance: Re-launched,” is considered a “major event” in the ﬁnancial
world, bringing together industry
leaders from around the world to discuss pressing global ﬁnancial issues,
especially those relating to Qatar and
its economy.
Held under the patronage of HE the
Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin
Khalifa al-Thani, the conference will
feature a host of prominent speakers,
including HE the Minister of Finance
Ali Sherif al-Emadi, HE the Governor
of the Qatar Central Bank Sheikh Abdullah bin Saud al-Thani, and Rodrigo de Rato, former managing director
of the International Monetary Fund.
“QNB’s sponsorship of the event
is part of its commitment to promote
ﬁnancial excellence in Qatar and
elsewhere and in nurturing ﬁnancial
knowledge and expertise in the country to pump new knowledge into the
economy and achieve the 2030 national vision,’ said QNB Group acting
CEO Ali Ahmed al-Kuwari, who will
be among the main speakers at the
event.
Euromoney magazine was created
in 1969 to cover the re-emergence of
the international cross-border capital markets. The Euromarket, after
which the magazine was named, was
the predecessor to today’s mainstream global capital markets.
The publication has championed
the capital market and its growth to
become “the prime magazine” of the
wholesale ﬁnancial world, its institutions, and its readers.
QNB said it was proud to be a frequent recipient of the Euromoney
awards, which the magazine bestows
during an annual awarding ceremony
to recognise industry leaders.
The bank also said its recent award,
“Best Bank in the Middle East,” has
reﬂected QNB’s “excellent services”
to clients across its network operating in more than 26 countries across
three continents with a total of more
than 14,000 employees in 610-plus
locations. Page 16
investments,” Alghussein said.
Established in 1998 by founder and
chairperson Sheikha Hanadi bint Nasser
bin Khaled al-Thani, Amwal was Qatar’s
ﬁrst independent asset management
ﬁrm that supported the development of
the ﬁnancial services industry in Qatar.
A leading asset management ﬁrm
with a track record in managing equities, Amwal offers non-banking ﬁnancial advice to Qatari investors and helps
them realise wealth and asset management aspirations, according to a statement.
QSE drops
below 13,800
By Santhosh V Perumal
Business Reporter
T
he Qatar Stock Exchange
yesterday fell below the
13,800
level, mainly
dragged down by telecom, consumer goods and banks.
Local retail investors hurriedly squared off their positions,
which led the 20-stock Qatar
Index (based on price data) to
fall 0.66% to 13,754.89 points as
volumes also shrank.
Large, mid and micro cap equities largely came under selling
pressure in the market, which
is, however, up 32.52% year-todate.
The index that tracks Shariah-principled stock was seen
melting faster than the other
indices in the bourse, where realty and banks stocks together
accounted for about 73% of the
total trading volume.
The Total Return Index shed
0.66% to 20,515.29 points,
the All Share Index by 0.6% to
3,491.19 points and the Al Rayan Islamic Index by 0.94% to
4,655.26 points.
Market capitalisation shrank
0.63%, or about QR5bn, to
QR745.92bn with large, mid, micro and small caps losing 0.94%,
0.5%, 0.48% and 0.16% respectively.
Telecom
stocks
deﬂated
1.27%, followed by consumer
goods (0.82%), banks and ﬁnancial services (0.81%), industrials (0.52%), realty (0.22%),
transport (0.12%) and insurance
(0.08%).
About 70% of the stocks
were in the red with major losers being QNB, Industries Qatar,
Ooredoo, Qatar Islamic Bank,
Masraf Al Rayan, Vodafone Qatar, Al Meera, Aamal Company
and Barwa.
However, Ezdan, Mazaya
Group, Islamic Holding Group
and Salam International Investment bucked the trend.
Qatari retail investors’ net
selling surged to QR42.68mn
against QR18.21mn the previous
trading day.
However, non-Qatari individual investors turned net buyers to the tune of QR18.28mn
compared with net sellers of
QR20.05mn last Thursday.
Foreign institutions’ net buying fell to QR14.39mn against
QR18.85mn on November 20.
Domestic institutions’ net
buying was down to QR10.07mn
compared to QR19.41mn the
previous trading day.
Total trade volume fell 34% to
7.92mn shares, value by 25% to
QR599.59mn and transactions
by 29% to 5,673.
The telecom sector’s trade
volume plummeted 81% to
0.15mn equities, value by 45% to
QR10.63mn and deals by 42% to
167.
The insurance sector saw its
trade volume plunge 79% to
0.07mn stocks, value by 82% to
QR3.78mn and transactions by
77% to 65.
The consumer goods sector’s
trade volume tanked 552% to
0.54mn shares, value by 45% to
QR68.66mn and deals by 45%
to 521.
There was a 39% decline in
the transport sector’s trade volume to 0.47mn equities, 43% in
value to QR22.78mn and 30% in
transactions to 271.
The
industrials
sector’s
trade volume fell 36% to
0.94mn stocks, value by 33% to
QR107.14mn and deals by 35% to
1,325.
The market witnessed a 35%
decline in the real estate sector’s
trade volume to 2.5mn shares,
38% in value to QR72.88mn and
29% in transactions to 950.
The banks and ﬁnancial
services sector trade volume
was down 8% to 3.25mn equities, value by less than 1% to
QR313.62mn and deals by 12%
to 2,374.
In the debt market, there was
no trading of treasury bills and
government bonds.
Oil, global equities support Gulf markets
A slight rebound in oil prices
and a rally in global equities
supported most stock markets
in the Middle East yesterday, but
profit-taking continued in Qatar.
Brent crude climbed back above
$80 a barrel and global stock
markets also rose on Friday after
China made a surprise interest
rate cut and the European
Central Bank indicated it would
step up asset purchases.
China is a major market for Gulf
petrochemicals firms such as
Saudi Basic Industries (Sabic),
shares of which jumped 2.4%
yesterday and helped Saudi
Arabia’s index to a 1.1% gain.
Most other stocks also rose, but
Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) edged
down 0.4% after the telecoms
operator suspended chief
executive Khalid al-Kaf after the
company restated 18 months of
previously announced earnings,
wiping out $381mn of prior
profit.
Egypt’s index rose 0.2% as
shares in Amer Group climbed
by 5.5% after the company said
it would split its core real estate
business from its hospitality,
retail, food and entertainment
operations.
“Given the lack of listed
securities in retail, food and
hospitality segment in Egypt,
the non-real estate business
could get a premium valuation
from local as well as foreign
investors,” Harshjit Oza,
property and banking analyst at
Cairo-based Naeem brokerage,
said in a note.
Dubai’s index gained 1.5%
as most stocks rose. Emaar
Properties, the emirate’s largest
listed developer, was the main
support with a 3.7% rise to 11.30
dirhams.
Abu Dhabi’s index edged up
0.1% on the back of Aldar
Properties’ 2.2% gain. Shares in
National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah
(RAKBank) rose 2.1% to 9.65
dirhams after breaking through
resistance at 9.30 dirhams in the
previous session.
Elsewhere in the Gulf, Kuwait’s
index inched up 0.1% to 6,995
points; Oman’s index rose 0.9%
to 7,139 points, while Bahrain’s
measure added 0.5% to 1,449
points.
4
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
BUSINESS
Iran may propose 1mn bpd Opec cut in Saudi talks
Bloomberg
Dubai
I
ran may propose that Opec
cuts its output target by as
much as 1mn barrels a day to
prop up prices when the country’s oil minister meets his Saudi
counterpart as the group gathers
this week, Mehr News reported.
Bijan Namdar Zanganeh and
Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister Ali
al-Naimi will confer on the sidelines of the meeting in Vienna of
the Organisation of Petroleum
Exporting Countries to deﬁne
a common view among its 12
members for supporting crude
prices, state-run Mehr reported, without saying where it got
the information. An official in
Iran’s ministry didn’t immediately comment when contacted
by phone.
Opec, supplier of about 40%
of the world’s oil, will meet November 27 in the Austrian capital to assess its collective output
amid a supply glut and a 27%
drop in prices this year. Half the
analysts in a Bloomberg survey
last week forecast that Opec
would cut production to shore
up prices, while the other half
said they didn’t see it deviating
from an official 30mn barrel-aday production target.
“It would be supportive to the
market,” Tom James, managing
director of consultancy Navitas
Resources, said by phone from
Dubai, referring to a possible
Opec cut. “I’m not sure it would
be enough to really push up prices and to get them back into the
$90s.”
The drop in Brent crude, with
the global benchmark trading at
less than $80 a barrel last week,
has prompted speculation of
an Opec cut. Officials from oilproducing countries stepped
up diplomatic visits before the
group’s meeting, discussing how
to react to the plunge in prices to
a four-year low.
James said he expects Opec
will refrain from announcing any
output reduction this week since
he sees prices stabilising. Rather
the group will monitor prices
and demand into the ﬁrst quarter
next year to determine if a cut is
warranted at that time, he said.
Saudi Arabia, Opec’s biggest
member, remains committed to
seeking stable prices, Al-Naimi
said November 12 in Mexico Rafael Ramirez, Venezuela’s Opec
representative, visited Algeria,
Qatar, Iran and Russia. Zanganeh
traveled to the United Arab
Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait.
Zanganeh may also meet with
Alexander Novak, Russia’s energy minister, in Vienna this week,
Mehr reported. Russia, while
not an Opec member, said it will
send Novak and Igor Sechin,
head of state-controlled OAO
Rosneft, the country’s largest
crude producer, for meetings
with Opec officials.
Two-thirds of global oil production comes from non-Opec
producers, Suhail Al Mazrouei,
the UAE’s energy minister, said
in comments on his Twitter account yesterday. Producers, par-
ticularly those pumping crude
from shale formations, “shall
be concerned as we are in Opec”
about stability in crude markets
and about ﬁnding a sustainable
balance between supply and demand, he said.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince
Saud al-Faisal met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in
Moscow November 21, and the
countries said in a joint statement they’ll coordinate on “issues” affecting the energy and
oil markets, without giving more
detail. Saudi Arabia and Russia
are the world’s two biggest oil
exporters.
International sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear
programme are choking the Persian Gulf nation’s crude exports.
The government in Tehran is
negotiating with the US and ﬁve
other world powers for an agreement to lift the curbs.
The countries have set a November 24 deadline for ﬁnal
agreement, three days before
Opec meets.
Opec will meet on November 27 in the Austrian capital to assess its collective output amid a supply glut
and a 27% drop in prices this year.
Opec divided on
output before
crucial meeting
AFP
London
T
he Opec oil producers will hold one of its
toughest and most
signiﬁcant meetings in recent years as, faced with
sliding prices, its members
must contemplate whether
to cut output.
Ahead of Thursday’s
meeting of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries in Vienna,
home to the cartel’s headquarters, its dozen member countries are split on
what direction to take after
a 30% drop in crude prices
since June has slashed revenues.
Opec’s poorer members,
led by Venezuela and Ecuador, have called publicly for
a cut in output, while Iran
has hinted at a need to reduce production.
But the Opec’s Gulf
members, led by Saudi
Arabia, are rejecting calls
to pump out less oil unless
they are guaranteed market
share in the highly competitive arena, according to
analysts.
Separately,
Russia—
which is not a member of
Opec but is nevertheless
a major crude producer—
declared on Friday that it
was considering cutting its
oil production in a bid to
revive falling prices.
Opec produces about
one third of global crude
at more than 30mn barrels
per day.
According to the International Energy Agency,
which advises on energy
policy, Opec pumped out
30.6mn bpd in October—
above its 30mn bpd target.
“The next meeting of the
Organisation of Petroleum
Exporting
Countries...
should be the most interesting since the change
from individual quotas to a
group target in early 2012,”
said Tom Pugh, an analyst
at Capital Economics research group.
“The key driver (behind tumbling prices) has
been increasing supply,
although other triggers
for Brent’s slump from
$115 in June have included
weak demand, particularly from Europe and China,
and the strength of the US
dollar.
The decline has probably
also been compounded by
panic selling by producers
and investors.”
On Friday, the price of
benchmark Brent North
crude oil traded at $79.56
a barrel.
Rather than cut its ofﬁcial output ceiling, Opec
could decide to reduce the
amount it is over-producing. “The minimum consensus that appears likely
to be reached at Opec’s
meeting is a commitment
to better comply with the
official production target
of 30mn bpd,” Commerzbank analysts said in a note
to clients.
Ahead of the meeting,
the world’s top oil producer
Saudi Arabia has cut what
it charges US customers, in a move seen aimed
at maintaining its market
share as it is faced with increasing competition from
oil extracted from shale
rock in the US.
Pugh said that “any cut
in the cartel’s production
target will simply be as a
response to lower demand
for its oil, rather than a
concerted attempt to push
up prices”.
Faced with surging US
output—crude
production in the world’s biggest
economy is set to hit a 45year high of 9.5mn bpd in
2015 - Venezuela has called
for a meeting of Opec and
non-Opec countries to address the slide in oil prices.
Amer Group to split into two companies
Egyptian real estate company Amer Group plans to
split into two companies in
an attempt to create more
opportunities for its development business and boost
trading in its shares.
The company, which
owns hotels, restaurants
and shopping malls, said in
a statement that it would be
divided into a development
business called Amer Holding Group and a smaller
company named Porto
Holding.
“The goal of the division
is to obtain the true value of
the company’s shares in the
market by shedding light on
all activities in a clear manner,” Chairman Mansour
Amer told reporters.
He said that Amer Holding Group would be responsible for all real estate and
hotel investment services,
along with its restaurants
and commercial centres,
while Porto Holding would
include all of the company’s
“Porto” projects, which
include several resorts and
spas in the Ain Sokhna area
on the Red Sea.
Investor relations director Riad Refaat had earlier
told Reuters that growth in
real estate activity in Egypt
had prompted the split to
maximise development
opportunities and boost
its liqudity on the stock
exchange.
The proposed reorganisation of the company is
subject to shareholder
approval, Amer said, and a
division of assets, liabilities
and equity would be made
“at book value at the effective date of the split”.
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
15
BUSINESS
World’s drug bill
will reach $1.3tn
in 2018: Study
Bloomberg
New York
Worldwide spending on medicines will reach almost $1.3tn
by 2018, as new treatments for
hepatitis C and cancer come to
market and as people around
the globe use rising incomes to
buy pharmaceuticals.
The new drugs, such as
Gilead Sciences’s $1,000-per-pill
hepatitis C treatment, will help
drive the increase in spending
up 30% from 2013 levels, according to a report published by
the IMS Institute for Healthcare
Informatics, the research arm
of IMS Health Holdings, which
tracks drug prescriptions and
sells the data.
As drug spending rises, health
systems and nations will have
to make decisions on how they
allocate budgets, said Murray
Aitken, IMS Institute’s executive
director, in a telephone interview. “The focus now is, how do
we get value from the trillion
dollars we’re spending?”
The US will remain the top
spender per capita in 2018, and
drug prices there are under
increasing scrutiny by health
insurers and lawmakers. IMS
forecasts Americans will pay an
average of $1,409 a person in
2018, up from $1,075 last year, a
faster rate of growth than the expansion of the population. China,
the world’s second-biggest pharmaceutical market, is forecast to
spend $124 per capita in 2018, an
increase from $72.
While new, high-price
medicines will drive spending in
developed countries, population
growth and rising incomes —
and more access to healthcare —
will raise spending in Africa, Asia
and elsewhere, IMS found.
Other types of health spending, such as on hospitals and
doctor visits, won’t necessarily
rise in proportion, said Aitken. In
some cases, drugs can lower total spending by keeping patients
out of the hospital or doctor’s
office, he said.
New hepatitis C drugs, including Gilead’s medicines Sovaldi
and Harvoni, and Johnson &
Johnson’s Olysio, are already
pushing up spending this year,
Aitken said. From 2014 to 2018,
the world will spend $100bn on
the new medicines.
About 3.2mn Americans have
the liver infection, and the new
drugs do away with side-effect
heavy injections while vastly
improving chances of a cure.
Cancer drugs will take an
even bigger role in driving up
spending in the US and worldwide in coming years. There are
120 oncology drugs in the final
stage of testing before approval
by regulators, and another 374
in the mid-stage trials. Global
spend on cancer medicines
will grow by 50% to more than
$100bn in 2018, according to
IMS.
Only France and Spain will see
spending on drugs decrease in
the next five years, IMS found.
This trend is due to strict cost
controls implemented by the
two countries after the global
financial recession, said Aitken.
Telecom ﬁrms call for change to
BT’s broadband ‘monopoly’
Reuters
London
B
ritain’s biggest telecoms
service providers have
ﬁled a complaint to media regulator Ofcom demanding greater competition in the
business broadband market,
where they say BT has an effective monopoly.
The UK Competitive Telecommunications Association
(UKCTA), said other companies
should be allowed to lay their
own cables in BT ducts and use
their own equipment to control BT cables, saying it would
improve service and encourage
innovation.
The group, which includes
ﬁrms such as Sky, EE , TalkTalk,
Virgin Media and Vodafone,
also said many consumers did
not know who was responsible
for the network when services
were disrupted.
BT’s
network
business
Openreach, which manages
the national telecoms network, continues to dominate
the business end of the market,
30 years after the company was
privatised.
A BT spokesman said in a
statement that forcing Openreach to open up access to BT
ducts would increase costs and
that the company was voluntarily publishing its service performance to reﬂect its
commitment to improving
service.
“The UK has a vibrant
wholesale business connectivity market, with strong competition and innovation amongst
a large number of providers,”
he said.
BT’s network business Openreach, which manages the national
telecoms network, continues to dominate the business end of
Britain’s broadband market.
Swedish banker and industrialist Jacob Wallenberg speaks in this picture taken on May 6, 2014. Wallenberg, the 58-year-old head of one of Europe’s most enduring family
dynasties, is trying to work out how the empire controlling much of Sweden’s economy could look with a woman or someone without the family name at the helm.
Sweden’s Wallenberg
dynasty prepares
for sixth generation
Roughly 30 members
of the sixth generation,
aged between 15 and 30,
are contenders to see if
they could one day run
Wallenberg’s Investor
holding company
Reuters
Stockholm
J
acob
Wallenberg,
the
58-year-old head of one
of Europe’s most enduring
family dynasties, is trying to
work out how the empire controlling much of Sweden’s economy could look with a woman
or someone without the family
name at the helm.
Roughly 30 members of the
sixth generation, aged between
15 and 30, are contenders to see if
they could one day run Wallenberg’s Investor holding company
and several foundations with
major stakes in Electrolux, Atlas
Copco and Ericsson.
There are no clear favourites
and the job could also go to an
outsider, but whoever is picked
to lead an empire so famous a
popular beef dish takes the family name, will have to decide if it
should invest in new and faster
growth companies beyond its
ﬁnancial and industrial roots.
In egalitarian Sweden, the family is seen as a model of how
to expand a company through
generations without squabbles
and the appointment will be
made according to experience
rather than assertions of birthright.
Wallenberg, who has not indicated he plans to step down,
organises seminars for some
young family members at an old
estate.
“They have to get the experience, and then we’ll see what
happens. And the sixth generation is in the middle of that right
now,” said Jacob Wallenberg, sitting in his wood-panelled office
ﬁve minutes’ walk from Stockholm’s Royal Palace.
The empire began in 1856
when Andre Oscar Wallenberg
founded Stockholms Enskilda
Bank, now part of SEB. The
family’s fame and inﬂuence
grew with the company, helped
by the construction of a wealthy
Stockholm suburb and one scion who became a hero for saving Jews in Hungary in World
War II.
While many family empires
implode in feuds or have the
assets split by an ever growing number of descendents, the
Wallenbergs have so far avoided
this.
They began channelling their
wealth into non-proﬁt foundations in 1917, which control over
50% of voting rights in Investor
and other assets in an empire
that is today largely run by Jacob
and his cousin Marcus.
“The Wallenbergs separated
the money from the power,” said
Gunnar Wetterberg, author of
“Wallenberg — A family empire”.
“The harmony that appears to
exist today between the cousins
is not at all a foregone conclusion.”
The Wallenbergs are wealthy
but not among the top 100 richest Swedes listed by magazine
Veckans Affarer. Jacob Wallenberg earned some $320,000 last
year in salaries from his chairmanship of Investor, according
to the ﬁrm’s annual report.
“It sort of boils down to that
we are not personally owners
of this. We cannot run into the
squabble part,” Wallenberg said.
“I have to go to a job and earn my
living, like everyone else.”
He gradually took over from
his grandfather. He had worked
at SEB after spending several
years in the navy and getting an
MBA in the US.
History has made the family
wary of the pressures of the job.
Jacob’s uncle, Marc Wallenberg,
slated to assume the helm of the
empire, committed suicide in
1971, shocking Sweden.
His daughter, Caroline Ankarcrona,
made
headlines
when she became the ﬁrst female family member to sit on
the board of the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation and
Jacob Wallenberg said he would
like to see more women coming
through.
Under Jacob and Marcus Wallenberg as well as CEO Borje
Ekholm — a family outsider —
Investor has moved into unlisted
companies from medical services to schools. Unlisted ﬁrms
have jumped to nearly a quarter
of Investor’s holdings.
Still with most holdings in a
comfort zone of listed blue chips,
some investors would like a more
aggressive strategy. It is something the Wallenberg’s largely
fend off, with a priority on long
term planning rather than quarterly deadlines.
Others say Investor has moved
too slowly. It entered healthcare
and champions R&D spending,
but it shunned high growth consumer technology, in contrast to
family-run Kinnevik.
“I think he (Jacob) is a bit risk
averse,” said an executive who
has worked with Wallenberg for
more than a decade.
Some point to rival Swedish
holding company Kinnevik and
its bold bets on fast-growing
online ventures such as Zalando,
but for all that Investor shares
are up 129% over the past three
years versus an 82% gain in Kinnevik.
“Over time I wouldn’t be
surprised if you saw one or two
more unlisted companies,” said
Wallenberg. “But is it something
where you see quick moves,
signiﬁcant moves? No. “We’re
working on buying to hold rather
than buying to sell.”
Business relationships fostered over more than a century
often give even existing holdings
an edge when deals are struck
in sectors familiar to the Wallenbergs, such as in Electrolux’
$3.3bn buy of General Electric’s
appliances business.
“I think when it comes to
the long-term relationship between GE and Electrolux, it went
through the Wallenbergs,” said
Electrolux chairman Ronnie
Leten.
“When it comes to the CEOs
of these big international companies, the Wallenbergs know
these people.”
Takeda ordered to pay $155,000 over destruction of Actos ﬁles
Bloomberg
Wilmington, Delaware
T
akeda Pharmaceutical Co was
ordered by a jury to pay $155,000
over the destruction of documents about its Actos diabetes medicine after the panel concluded the
missing ﬁles blocked a man from proving his claims the drug caused his cancer.
Jurors in state court in Martinsburg,
West Virginia, deliberated about three
hours on Thursday before concluding Takeda officials intentionally destroyed ﬁles about the development
and marketing of Actos, Michael Miller,
the plaintiff ’s lawyer, said in an interview. The panel awarded compensatory
damages to retired bakery worker Richard Myers, Miller said.
Jurors found the systematic docu-
ment destruction blocked Myers from
having access to evidence that could
have proved his claims that Takeda
failed to adequately warn about the
diabetes drug’s bladder-cancer risks,
Miller said.
The West Virginia verdict comes
more than a month after a state court
jury in Pennsylvania ordered Takeda to
pay $2mn to a former Actos user over
her bladder cancer and two weeks after
a federal judge in Louisiana concluded
a punitive damages against the drug
maker were justiﬁed.
“The verdict is the death knell for
Takeda because it establishes once and
for all that they intentionally destroyed
evidence to bar bladder-cancer victims
from proving the drug harmed them,”
Miller said.
Myers, 71, is the eighth Actos patient
to take his suit to trial and the ﬁfth to
win a damages award from a jury, based
Ex-Actos users contend in court
filings Takeda researchers
ignored or downplayed
concerns about the drug’s
cancer-causing potential before
it went on sale in the US
on data compiled by Bloomberg News.
“We are considering our options,
including an appeal” of the ﬁnding the
company wilfully and intentionally destroyed Actos ﬁles, Kenneth Greisman,
a US-based spokesman for Takeda, said
in an e-mailed statement.
More than 3,500 Actos suits have
been consolidated before US District
Judge Rebecca Doherty in Lafayette,
Louisiana, for pretrial information exchanges, according to court dockets.
The company faces another 4,500 cases
in state courts in Illinois, West Virginia,
California and Pennsylvania, according
to court records.
Sales of Actos peaked in March 2011
at $4.5bn for Takeda and accounted for
27% of the company’s revenue at the
time, according to data compiled by
Bloomberg.
Actos has generated more than $16bn
in sales since its 1999 release, according to court ﬁlings. Takeda now faces
generic competition from Ranbaxy
Laboratories.
Ex-Actos users contend in court ﬁlings Takeda researchers ignored or
downplayed concerns about the drug’s
cancer-causing potential before it went
on sale in the US and misled US regulators and doctors about the medicine’s
risks.
In 2013, juries in California and Maryland ordered Takeda to pay a combined
$8.2mn in damages over the company’s
handling of the drug. Those verdicts
later were thrown out by judges. The
company also has won defense verdicts
in two cases in state court in Las Vegas
and one in state court in Illinois.
Takeda faced its largest Actos verdict in April, when a federal court jury
in Lafayette, Louisiana, ordered the
drug maker and partner Eli Lilly & Co to
pay a combined $9bn in punitive damages to a man who blamed the drug for
his bladder cancer. A judge last month
cut the award by more than 99% to
$36.8mn and both companies have
vowed to appeal the verdict.
Myers’ lawyers argued during the
West Virginia trial that over an eightyear period starting in 2002, Takeda
officials waged an effort to destroy Actos-related ﬁles as part of its litigation
strategy.
Officials wiped computer hard
drives, deleted e-mail ﬁles and destroyed paper records of executives
who helped develop and market Actos,
Miller alleged in court ﬁlings.
Takeda’s lawyers countered the company didn’t destroy the Actos documents to hide them from plaintiffs and
had proper document-retention policies in place. The company also said it
already had produced “a host” of Actos-related ﬁles in the litigation.
“Takeda didn’t destroy documents
intentionally and has restored almost
all of the documents and submitted
them,” Kazumi Kobayashi, a Takeda
spokesman, said in a phone interview.
Monday, November 24, 2014
BUSINESS
GULF TIMES
BANKING ON KNOWLEDGE
Qatar real estate driven by economic stability and infrastructure development
By Dr R Seetharaman
The US housing market remains fragile;
however, home prices are rising at more
than double the annual increase in wages.
Affordability can become a serious issue
unless there is a significant rebound in
wages. Home builder confidence has
since improved and US housing construction is starting to ramp up.
The Commerce Department reported
that construction of single-family homes
rose 4.2% in October 2014, which is the
third gain in the past four months. The
Bank of England (BoE) had earlier taken
series of steps this year to cool Britain’s
housing market. However, housing market
seems to be slowing faster than the BoE
had been banking on. The British lenders
have recently cut back on mortgages,
which indicates that the rapid growth in
Britain’s property market is slowing down.
In Hong Kong, the price rise has been
driven by interest in small flats. After
home prices reached record highs from
2009, the market sagged this year as
China tried to calm prices with controls
such as lending restraints and limits on
multiple purchases. In annual terms,
prices fell 2.6% in October 2014. According to a recent study, Saudi Arabia needs
300,000 residential units every year over
the next 15 years. In Riyadh, the lack of
affordable homes is especially acute with
a shortage of 225,000 residential units.
Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA)
is issuing licences to allow leading banks
to offer real estate financing there is with
the expectation of a revival in demand in
the residential and commercial property
market.
The UAE market is showing signs of
stability. Abu Dhabi’s residential and
commercial segments remained strong
and healthy during the July-September
quarter. Dubai real estate market during
the third quarter was flat. During the summer, the market saw fewer transactions
and in some locations the rentals slowed
down as well.
In Oman, the demand for free-hold
properties is increasing more than ever as
the demography is changing with people
moving from rural areas to cities. The
total value of real estate sales contracts in
Oman by end of August 2014 stood at OMR765mn and surged by close to 70% since
2013. During the same period, the amount
of fees collected on all property transactions reached OMR28.2mn, representing
an increase of 65.9%.
In Kuwait, total sales reached KD372mn, up 16% year-on-year till Sept 2014.
Sales in the residential sector was down
by 23% year-on-year. The underperformance of the sector could be attributed to
the small number of available properties
coming online. The investment sector
continued to see strong growth in sales,
as the sector offered relatively attractive
returns. Sales reached up 73% year-onyear. Commercial sector sales remained
subdued compared to average activity
over the last year.
House rents in Qatar rose 8.2% yearon-year in October, mainly due to the
country’s surge in population, according
to the Ministry of Development Planning
Qatar top regional market,
says Rolls-Royce Cars CEO
R
olls-Royce Motor Cars’
chief executive officer,
Torsten
Müller-Ötvös,
visited Qatar recently to hold
meetings with officials of RollsRoyce Motor Cars Doha, part
of Alfardan Group and the sole
authorised dealer of the ultraluxury marque in Qatar.
The visit marks strong recognition by the pinnacle brand
for the dealer’s impressive performance in recent years, in particular for its consistent ranking
among the top-ﬁve performing
regional dealers in terms of sales.
“The
excellent
results
achieved by Rolls-Royce Motor
Cars Doha year-on-year have
helped contribute signiﬁcantly
to the brand’s exceptional sales
in the Middle East, which in turn
has helped fuel our growth globally,” said Müller-Ötvös during
his visit to Qatar.
“Qatar’s discerning customers, whose tastes and exacting
requirements are met by our extraordinary cars, also demand a
pinnacle dealership experience,
which is perfectly delivered by
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Doha.
I want to therefore take this opportunity to thank the team in
Qatar for its unwavering pursuit of excellence and commitment to our brand.” Qatar was
the fastest-growing market for
Rolls Royce Motor Cars in the
Middle East last year, with its
Doha dealer achieving a sales
increase of 37% over 2012. This,
Hussein Alfardan (third right) with Mohamed Kandeel, chief operating officer, Alfardan Group – Automotive Operations; Omar Alfardan; Brett
Soso, regional director (Middle East, Africa and Latin America), Rolls-Royce Motor Cars; Müller-Ötvös; and Richard Carter, director (Global
Communications) Rolls-Royce Motor Cars in Doha.
coupled with the recent announcement of a further 37%
surge for the third quarter of
this year, clearly demonstrates
the success of the company’s
business strategies and increasing strength of the ultra-luxury
car market in Qatar.
During the course of MüllerÖtvös’ visit, Omar Alfardan,
president and CEO of Alfardan
Group, discussed with the
delegation the importance of
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Doha’s
ongoing focus on exceptional
customer service, its premium
facilities to cater for the brand’s
ongoing growth, and future
plans to ensure continued success.
“Alfardan Group’s continuing pursuit of luxury, sophistication and excellence is clearly
demonstrated in our partnership
with Rolls-Royce; underlining
the success of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Doha as one of the region’s top-performing distributors of premium automobiles.
We are pleased with the visit of
Müller-Ötvös, which emphasises the strength of our partnership though our shared passion
towards luxury and excellence.
I believe that our distinct business culture and leadership sta-
tus within niche luxury markets
are important factors that have
contributed in offering an ownership experience at every step
of the Rolls-Royce journey; recognised in the pursuit of excellence and quality through every
aspect of this iconic brand, by
offering the very best in craftsmanship, engineering, driveability and exclusivity,” Alfardan
said.
3rd annual Euromoney Qatar conference to focus on realty
The 3rd annual Euromoney Qatar conference that opens
in Doha today is set to examine a full range of key topics
impacting the national, regional and global economies,
with the real estate sector set to be a particular area
of focus. The two-day conference based on the theme
“Global finance: re-launched,” will be held at the RitzCarlton Doha.
Qatar’s fast-growing economy and rising population are
creating significant opportunities for investors, as well
as for local and international banks. Real estate prices hit
record highs in June 2014, after rising 28.9% year-onyear, according to Qatar Central Bank’s Real Estate Price
Index (REPI).
Increasing real estate activity has delivered a knock-on
effect on bank lending levels.
According to Qatar Central Bank, loans to the real estate
and contracting sectors were now worth more than 20%
of all credit advanced by commercial banks in Qatar.
A special panel on “Building the future: opportunities in
the Qatari real estate sector,” will be held on the second
day of the Euromoney Qatar conference. Panel speakers
will include Jeremy Scott, senior associate — real estate,
Al Tamimi & Company and Peter Bibby, director and
Qatar country manager, Colliers International.
Richard Banks, director, Euromoney Qatar Conference,
said, “Population growth and increasing development
are creating strong demand for housing and office
space within Qatar, particularly as work on many of
the country’s mega-projects picks up speed. This
year’s Euromoney Qatar Conference will examine the
changing regulatory climate that will make it easier for
international financial organisations to play a bigger role
in this dynamic and fast-changing market.”
The Euromoney Qatar Conference, which is co-hosted
by Qatar Central Bank, has become a financial industry
must-attend event. Prominent figures from Qatar who
are scheduled to speak include Ooredoo chairman HE
Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohamed bin Saud al-Thani, Amwal
founder and chairperson Sheikha Hanadi Nasser bin
Khaled al-Thani, and Aisha Mohammed Saad al-Nuaimi,
investment director, General Retirement and Social
Insurance Authority (GRSIA).
Other panels include “Changes in the global regulatory
environment and their impact on the GCC Eurozone
outlook for 2015”, “Trading and issuance implications
of post-crisis debt market’s liquidity”, and “The world in
2015: the macroeconomic outlook”.
The Euromoney Qatar Conference 2013 brought
together more than 600 people from 30 countries for
a multiplatform — live and online — financial debate in
Doha. This year’s Euromoney Qatar will bring together
even more of the world’s leading players and thinkers
in finance, with a cross section of Qatar’s financiers and
international investors.
and Statistics (MDPS). The real estate
lending in Qatar was up by 3.5% YTD; however, real estate sector witnessed drop in
foreign currency lending. Industrial land is
scarce in Qatar. However, residential property demand is picking up. Office supply is
in excess. The mall activities are expected
to increase and give a boost to retail property. There is also growth in Qatar’s tourism activities, which result in expansion
of hotels. The real estate sector in Qatar is
expected to surge in the coming years on
account of huge infrastructure development. The developments at Pearl-Qatar
and Lusail City indicate the fast growth
of real estate sector in Qatar. Qatar’s real
estate will be driven by economic stability
and infrastructure development.
Dr R Seetharaman is Group CEO of Doha
Bank. The views expressed are his own.
QDB ﬁnances 25
SME projects for
QR130mn in ’14
Q
atar Development Bank
has ﬁnanced some 25
small and medium enterprises projects with a total
value of QR130mn this year as
QDB’s “indirect lending” programme named ‘Al Dhameen’
extended ﬁnancial support to
a total 120 projects of startups
so far.
Al Dhameen programme is
an indirect loan facility that
will guarantee commercial
bank loans to private companies, in collaboration with
other banks and ﬁnancial institutions.
By providing funds and ﬁnancial guarantees for these
projects, QDB said it “seeks to
promote the entrepreneurial
spirit of the private sector and
offer services that will facilitate the development, growth
and diversity of the national
economy.”
QDB chief executive ofﬁcer, Abdulaziz bin Nasser alKhalifa, said: “Success does
not happen by chance; it is a
choice. It is the result of hard
work and the innovative policies that we have implemented
to help SMEs overcome ﬁnancial obstacles, sharing success
and working together with our
partner banks in Qatar, rather
than competing with them. “
Al Khalifa said, “Al Dhameen
has helped SMEs in Qatar overcome the challenges they face
when seeking commercial ﬁnancing. The programme has
also helped banks overcome
reservations about ﬁnancing
small and medium-sized companies due to the high-risk ratio of some in the sector.
“QDB’s role, in collaboration
with partner banks, is to work
together to outline the needs of
these companies and provide
the best all-around support to
small and medium-sized enterprises. After loan disbursement, the partner banks develop lasting partnerships with
SMEs and follow their progress
in the market.
The purpose of Al Dhameen
is to work with partner banks
and not to compete with them,
ensuring the success and development of the Qatar’s SME
sector and the wider private
sector.”
Al Dhameen was launched
in 2010 by QDB to encourage
banks to ﬁnance SMEs that have
a short credit history or have
no collateral to support borrowing. The programme does
not provide direct ﬁnancing to
SMEs, but rather offers business
owners a facility to receive the
required ﬁnancing for a project
from a partner bank, through issuing guarantees in favor of that
bank. Under the guarantees, Al
Dhameen vouches for 85% of
the loan value not exceeding
QR15mn. So far, Al Dhameen
has provided guarantees worth
nearly half a billion Qatari riyal to SMEs through nine Al
Dhameen partner banks.
QDB recently organised a
training course for customer
relations managers and credit
officers at Al Dhameen partner
banks in order to build their expertise and equip them with the
best skills in the ﬁeld of credit
and project evaluation.
QDB regularly hosts such
trainings to help managers on
the ground provide the right
support for SMEs, explaining
ﬁnancing opportunities and
mechanisms for reducing risks
for the bank and, ultimately,
helping their customers.
The Qatar
Development
Bank
building
at Grand
Hamad Street
in Doha. QDB
regularly
hosts
trainings
to help
managers
provide the
right support
for SMEs
World class Business school to operate from The Shard
Denise Marray
Gulf Times Correspondent
London
W
arwick Business School
(WBS), whose Executive
MBA is ranked in the world’s
top 20 by the Financial Times, has made
The Shard its London base.
From next year, the part-time Executive MBA, part-time MSc in Finance,
part-time MSc in Human Resource
Management and Executive Education
courses will be available from the prestigious building.
The WBS MBA has some impressive alumni, including David Smith the
newly appointed chief ﬁnancial officer
of Rolls-Royce Holdings, and Bernardo
Vieira Hees, CEO of H J Heinz Company.
Professor Mark Taylor, dean and professor of Finance at Warwick Business
School (WBS) at Warwick University,
spoke to Gulf Times about why he sees
The Shard as the ideal choice for WBS.
“We chose to locate in The Shard
for a number of reasons. The actual
building itself is a bold statement. We
like to think WBS is changing the way
the world thinks about business and
management. We try to bring a fresh
perspective to our research and teaching. In a very symbolic sense, locating
in The Shard seemed the right thing to
do. It is a young, exciting building — it
has such an innovative design by Renzo
Piano — it ﬁts in with our ethos of being
young and dynamic,” he said.
He explained that WBS, with its diverse range of business programmes,
wanted a central location within easy
access to the ﬁnancial districts of The
City of London and Canary Wharf.
“We didn’t want to be located within
The City itself because we want to do
Taylor: The right thing to do.
more things than purely ﬁnance. The
Shard scores highly because it is located
just across London Bridge from the City
of London with strong and easy links to
Canary Wharf. “Being right next door
to London Bridge, the transport network couldn’t be better. It’s a fantastic
location giving access to the whole of
London.
“The area around London Bridge is
going through a renaissance. It is an increasingly important cultural and business district,” he said.
He also values being part of a richly
diverse business community. Neighbours in The Shard include includes
intellectual property lawyers, a venture capitalist, a global media brand, a
New York based investment bank, the
world’s largest hospital group and an
international energy business. Famous
names including Al Jazeera, Foresight
Group and Tiffany & Co are all located
in the stunning building.
The adjacent News Building has been
let in its entirety to News UK, bringing
some of the UK’s most illustrious me-
dia brands to London Bridge Quarter,
including Dow Jones, The Wall Street
Journal, The Times, The Sunday Times,
Times Literary Supplement, The Sun,
and one of the world’s leading book
publishers, HarperCollins.
Before becoming Dean of WBS in early
2010, Professor Taylor was a Managing
Director at BlackRock, the world’s largest
asset manager, where he ran the European arm of a large global macro investment
fund. He has also been an Economist at
the Bank of England, was for ﬁve years
a senior economic advisor at the International Monetary Fund in Washington
DC, and began his career as a foreign exchange trader in the City of London.
He has also held professorships at
Cass Business School, at Oxford University and at Liverpool University, and
was Visiting Professor of Finance at the
Stern School of Business at New York
University.
Asked to comment on the impact of
Qatari investment in the UK he said:
“The Qatar Investment Authority has
$170bn worth of assets. Their investments in the UK tend to be in long
term, wealth creating opportunities.
Their investments contribute to improving the infrastructure. The Shard,
for example, is an amazing addition to
London and, therefore, to the British
economy.”
He was also asked to give his view
on London’s drive to become a leading centre for Islamic Finance. He responded: “Given the amount of money
being invested from Islamic sources,
it is only reasonable that principles of
Islamic ﬁnance should be followed in
some sense. London is still the world’s
international ﬁnancial capital and
centre and, therefore, one would have
thought that London would want to
develop its Islamic ﬁnance expertise.”
FOOTBALL | Page 4
FORMULA ONE | Page 5
Messi
breaks La
Liga scoring
record
Lewis hammers
it home with
win in Abu
Dhabi finale
Monday, November 24, 2014
Safar 2, 1436 AH
BOXING
GULF TIMES
Super Manny nails
Algieri to retain
welterweight title
SPORT
Page 9
FOOTBALL
SPOTLIGHT
Asadalla double puts
Qatar in Gulf Cup final
against Saudi Arabia
Saudis advance to title match with thrilling 3-2 win over UAE
Qatar’s Ali Asadalla (R) celebrates with Meshaal Abdulla after scoring against Oman during the semi-final of the 22nd Gulf Cup in Riyadh yesterday. At bottom, Qatar players show their joy after the match.
Sports Reporter
Riyadh
Q
atar raised their game a few
notches just when it mattered to storm into the ﬁnal of the Gulf Cup with a
convincing 3-1 victory over Oman at
the King Fahd International stadium
yesterday.
They will take on Saudi Arabia
in the ﬁnal on Wednesday after the
hosts edged out the UAE 3-2 in the
second semi-ﬁnal.
Having made the business end of
the tournament on the back of three
patchy draws in the group phase during which they clearly looked out
of place, Qatar needed to summon
as much positive intent as possible
against Oman who had been shaping
up well in their quest for their second
Gulf Cup title.
And yesterday, the Al Annabi did
it in style, ﬁrst a Hassan al-Haydos
penalty cancelling out Oman’s lead
in the 36th minute, and then Ali
Asadalla providing them a comfortable cushion with two ﬁne strikes in a
span of 10 minutes in the second half.
Qatar’s inability to ﬁnd the net
during the group phase – they scored
only once in three matches – had
been a major worry for coach Djamel
Belmadi and the team management.
But based on yesterday’s evidence
they appear to have buried their goal
jinx and looking ahead to their ﬁnal
against … on Wednesday.
“It was only a matter of time we hit
form,” Belmadi said during the postmatch press conference. “We were
unlucky not to score many goals earlier in the tournament, but we knew
it would surely come,” the Algerian
added.
However, it was now plain sailing for Qatar, especially during the
ﬁrst half as Oman, who had thrashed
ten-time champions Kuwait 5-0 to
top Group B, dominated the early exchanges and looked threatening.
They ﬁnally found the mark in
the in the 24th minute through Raed
Ibrahim Saleh, who volleyed home
powerfully from close after the ball
fell in his path off the head of Qatar’s
Meshaal Abdulla following a free
kick.
Qatar fell under pressure and would
have suffered a morale-shattering
blow just six minutes later had Ali
al-Busaidi taken full advantage of a
serious lapse in defence. But with the
Qatar goalkeeper Qassim Burhan at
his complete mercy having advanced
forward, all al-Busaidi could do was
lob the ball over the post, much to his
team’s shock.
With relief written large over their
faces, Qatar stepped up their attacks and
soon were rewarded in the form of a penalty when Meshaal’s goalward thrust was
hacked down by Oman goalkeeper Ali alHabshi in the 36th minute.
Al-Habshi received a yellow card
for his tackle, the double whammy
coming a few seconds later when alHaydos sent him the wrong way from
the spot.
Qatar came back with renewed determination in the second half and
took charge of the proceedings. With
better coordination and some crisp
passing they pressured the Omani
defence into making mistakes, with
the result that a goal looked inevitable
And sure enough, it came in the
59th minute. Meshaal had a great
chance to score from close, but the
ball hit the upright and Asadalla, who
was lurking inside the box, slammed
home the rebound.
Eight minutes later, Asadalla
scored in similar fashion. Meshaal
once again missed an opportunity
to register himself on the score
sheet by crashing the ball into the
woodwork, and Asadalla took full
advantage of the situation by lobbing the rebound over goalkeeper
al-Habshi who had advanced a few
yards.
“We made some silly errors in the
defence and paid the penalty,” Oman
coach Paul Le Guen said.
“After taking the lead we should
have never allowed the opposition to
get back into the game, but we conceded a penalty and that gave Qatar
the opportunity they were looking
for.”
Boycott
not an
option:
German
football
boss
DPA
Berlin
A
World Cup boycott in protest over FIFA’s handling of
the corruption probe into the
awarding of the 2018 and 2022
World Cups is not a serious option, the
head of the German Football Federation
(DFB) says.
“Threats receive attention but the
scenario is not a serious option,” Wolfgang Niersbach said in an interview
published yesterday.
Niersbach said the DFB did not want
to use threats but “give thought to how
we can deal with this problem together.”
The former English Football Association chairman David Bernstein said last
week the FA should help force reforms
from football’s world ruling body FIFA
and join its European counterpart UEFA
in a boycott of the next World Cup if
there is no change.
German Football League (DFL) president Reinhard Rauball has said UEFA,
one of FIFA’s six continental federations, could consider leaving the world
body unless it did not carry out meaningful reforms and make public an ethics report into the two next World Cups,
which were awarded to Russia and Qatar respectively.
In an interview Saturday, DFL chief
executive Christian Seifert was highly
critical of FIFA’s handling of the award
of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
“You do not know whether to be surprised or ashamed any more,” he told
the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
“As a respectable organisation you
can no longer feel represented by FIFA,
one no longer feels part of it.”
Niersbach was critical of the results
FIFA ethics committee report which he
said was meant to clear up the unanswered questions over the World Cup
awards but “turned out to be unfortunately rather a damp squid.”
In his interview with Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung, Niersbach said
UEFA member countries could still ﬁnd
a candidate to run against Joseph Blatter for the role of FIFA president next
year.
“I do not rule out that before January
24 (the deadline for candidates) there
will be a European candidate,” he said.
“This possible option is currently being discussed inside UEFA,” he added.
Niersbach also put forward January
2023 for discussion as a possible date
for the 2022 Qatar World Cup.
In August UEFA president Michel
Platini ruled out standing against Blatter, who is aiming to win a ﬁfth term as
president when the election takes place
on May 29.
Blatter, who has been accused by the
European associations of going back on
his word not to stand again, currently
faces competition only from former
FIFA official Jerome Champagne, who
is considered to have little chance of
victory.
Harold Mayne-Nicholls, the former
president of the Chilean Football Association, is also considering whether
to stand.
In the discussion on moving the Qatar World Cup from the summer to winter months, Niersbach said one option
for UEFA could be staging the tournament in January 2023. This would avoid
a clash with the 2022 winter Olympics
and allow a shorter preparatory period
near to the Christmas period. FIFA has
proposed January/February and November/December as possible dates.
The European Club Association (ECA)
has meanwhile said the tournament
could be held from late April to the end
of May.
2
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
FOOTBALL
SERIEA
SPOTLIGHT
Cool-headed Cagliari
hold Napoli in thriller
Hodgson
plans England
get-togethers
‘We had the game under control, but gifted Cagliari too many chances’
AFP
London
E
ngland manager Roy
Hodgson has revealed
that he hopes to re-unite
his squad for mid-season
get-togethers in a bid to bridge
the gap until their next ﬁxtures
in March.
England’s 3-1 victory over
Scotland in a friendly last Tuesday saw them end the year with
a run of six consecutive wins,
which they last achieved in June
2006.
But with four months due to
elapse until they play Lithuania and Italy in March, Hodgson does not want his players to
forget about their international
commitments.
“It would be nice if we could
get them together on one or two
occasions,” Hodgson told journalists earlier this week.
“Either as a whole group,
which would be perfect, or if
that wasn’t possible, either in
two groups—maybe a Manchester, northern group and a south
group—and at least have an
evening with them at one stage
in the Premier League calendar
where they don’t have three
matches in a week.
“I’d have to talk to the clubs
about that, because I don’t
have the right, but I would like
to think, with my relationship
with the managers, if I said,
‘Look, we’ve got a meeting between ﬁve o’clock and eight
o’clock. Can you send us your
players on a Thursday night,
when there’s nothing going on
for them?’, I would be very surprised if any of them said, ‘No,
we don’t want to do it.’
“And I’ve already broached
the subject with the players and
they’re already on board.”
Hodgson added: “It’ll be a
continuation of maybe talking
about what we’re trying to do,
and then hopefully there’d be a
dinner where we could ask them
a few questions. You know,
‘How are things going?’”
AFP
Rome
C
ool-headed
Cagliari
fought back from a
two-goal deﬁcit to
claim a precious 3-3
draw away to Napoli yesterday, which left Rafael Benitez’s
men six points behind secondplaced Roma.
Juventus had restored their
three-point lead at the top of
Serie A with a 3-0 rout of Lazio
at the Olympic Stadium on Saturday, after Roma had momentarily drawn level thanks to a 2-1
win away to Atalanta.
Napoli were hoping to make it
three wins on the trot to maintain their title push but Benitez’s men blew a two-goal lead
provided by Gonzalo Higuain
and Gokhan Inler as tenacious
Cagliari fought back to claim a
share of the points.
Benitez told Sky Sport after the game: “We had the
game under control, but gifted
Cagliari too many chances.
“We started with the right attitude, but then we took our foot
off the pedal and let our intensity drop.”
Cagliari coach Zdenek Zeman
said the secret to claiming an
“important point”—the Sardians are now two above the drop
zone—was adopting the correct
mental approach.
“If you have the right mentality, if you focus on playing football, the results will come,” said
the wily veteran.
“If you’re patient, sooner or
later the goal-scoring opportunities come your way.”
Higuain, who now has seven
goals this season, struck for the
ﬁfth consecutive league game
when he hit a curling shot from
just inside the area past Alessio
Cragno after 11 minutes.
Inler doubled Napoli’s lead
with a daisycutter from 30 yards
that had Cragno clutching at
thin air, but Napoli’s two-goal
joy was short-lived.
Cagliari centre-forward Victor Ibarbo pounced on a Napoli
defensive blunder to ﬁre past
Rafael and reduce the arrears
seven minutes before the interval.
Brazilian forward Diego Farias levelled matters two minutes
after the restart when he ran
unhindered to the back post to
meet Luca Rossettini’s header.
Smiles were back on Napoli’s
faces just after the hour when
Jonathan De Guzman sent a
ﬁne angled header past the outstretched Cragno, but Farias
levelled again six minutes later
when he was picked out by Ibarbo’s pass at the back post.
Elsewhere,
Fiorentina
grabbed a precious 2-1 win away
to Verona thanks to Juan Cuadrado’s 62nd minute winner after
Nico Lopez had levelled the visitors’ 16th-minute opener from
Gonzalo Rodriguez just before
the interval.
Sampdoria, who are one
point adrift in fourth, spurned
‘This is my team’
It is two and a half years
since Hodgson succeeded Fabio Capello as manager and despite England’s abject display at
the World Cup in Brazil, where
they went out in the group
phase, there have been signs of
progress.
Hodgson has successfully
presented opportunities to
Danny Welbeck and Raheem
Sterling, who have become
ﬁrst-team stalwarts, and has
also blooded young players such
as Luke Shaw, Calum Chambers
and Ross Barkley.
Asked how close he felt he
was to creating his own England team, he said: “I’ll put my
hand up for this team here (that
played against Scotland).
“You’ve got to be careful of
always looking for some sort of
vision. You can only be the team
that you are.
“If we could play as well as
that and do the things we’re
doing, which I think are the
right things to be doing, in game
after game, I’ll settle for that
now.
“But the one thing I will proﬁt
by is the fact that in a year and a
half’s time, this under-25 team
will be an under-27 team.
“Players at the moment who
have played twice for England,
like Nathaniel Clyne, or once,
like Fraser Forster (actually
three times), or seven or eight
times, like Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (actually 20), they might
be up at 10, 15, 20 caps.
“They might be up in good
Premier League games and
Champions League games, and
that’s got to be to their advantage and to my advantage.”
England are currently six
points clear of second-place
Slovenia in their Euro 2016
qualifying group. They host
Lithuania in their next qualiﬁer
on March 27 before visiting Italy
for a friendly on May 31.
Myanmar hold Malaysia
in Suzuki Cup clash
Napoli’s Argentinian forward Gonzalo Higuain (L) vies
with Cagliari’s Italian defender Luca Rossettini during the
Italian Serie A match in Naples yesterday. (AFP)
the chance to leapfrog Napoli
into third after settling for a 1-1
draw away to struggling Cesena.
The hosts opener the scoring
through defender Stefano Lucchini on the hour mark but saw
Constantin Nica turn the ball
into his own net 13 minutes from
time to hand Sinisa Mihajlovic’s
visitors a share of the spoils.
Antonio Di Natale scored his
200th Serie A goal on what was
his 400th league appearance
when he gave Udinese a 1-0
half-time lead against Chievo,
who saw Ivan Radovanovic hit
a 74th-minute leveller to grab a
point.
Parma’s woes continued,
meanwhile, with Roberto Do-
nadoni’s side succumbing 2-0
to promoted Empoli, leaving
them rooted to the bottom with
10 defeats having leaked 30
goals in 12 games.
In Sunday’s late match AC
Milan host Inter Milan in the
city derby in what will be Roberto Mancini’s ﬁrst game in
charge following his return as
coach of the Nerazzurri.
Milan sit in eighth place, 14
points adrift of Juventus with
Inter, who sacked Walter Mazzarri nearly a fortnight ago, a
point further adrift in eighth.
Genoa, in ﬁfth, host Palermo
on Monday when a win for the
hosts would push them up to
fourth place.
Underdogs Myanmar held 10-man Malaysia to a goalless draw in
a bad-tempered opening Suzuki Cup Group B match which was
delayed by more than hour by heavy rain and thunderstorms.
Malaysia midfielder Gary Steven Robbat was sent off for a second
bookable offence in the 34th minute as Myanmar controlled possession but could not find the goal which would have given them a first
win in the biennial tournament for Southeast Asia sides since 2008.
Malaysia, 2010 winners, had their own chances to grab a first win
under new coach Dollah Salleh but a fifth-minute effort from forward Amri Yahyah was rightly ruled out for offside.
Their threat diminished as the tetchy game played on the artificial
turf at the Jalan Besar Stadium wore on with the Turkmenistan official dishing out a high number of yellow cards.
Defending champions Singapore were hosting tournament favourites Thailand in the second Group B match on Sunday, with the top
two from the group qualifying for the two-legged semi-finals.
FOCUS
Brisbane axe coach after poor A-League start
Reuters
Sydney
B
risbane Roar sacked coach Mike
Mulvey yesterday after ﬁve defeats in the ﬁrst six games of the
new season left the A-League
champions languishing in the lower
reaches of the table.
Just six months after he was named
A-League coach of the season for leading Brisbane to their third title in four
years in May, Mulvey was handed his
notice in the wake of a 1-0 defeat to
Melbourne Victory.
“Head coach Mike Mulvey met with
Brisbane Roar FC management today.
As a result, he will step down,” club
managing director Sean Dobson said in
a statement.
“Brisbane Roar FC thanks Mike Mulvey for his contribution to the success
of the club since his appointment as
interim coach in December 2012 and as
Brisbane Roar head coach in February
2013.”
An own goal late in the second half
from Jade North consigned the Roar to
Saturday’s loss at the Docklands Stadium and added further impetus to Melbourne Victory’s title bid.
Victory sit third in the standings
three points behind pacesetters Perth
Glory, who beat Wellington Phoenix 2-1
on Friday despite having Ruben Zadkovich sent off in the 61st minute for a
dangerous tackle.
Midﬁelder Zadkovich had only been
on the pitch for 17 seconds as a substitute but Daniel De Silva’s scrappy second minute effort combined with Andy
Keogh’s volley on the hour mark proved
enough to give Glory a sixth win from
seven matches.
Adelaide United moved into second
place on 17 points after a convincing
2-0 win in yesterday’s game at Central Coast Mariners courtesy of a ﬁrsthalf brace from Spanish forward Pablo
Sanchez.
Brisbane are not the only high ﬂyers
from last season struggling as Western
Sydney Wanderers remained rooted to
the bottom of the table after Saturday’s
1-1 home draw with Newcastle Jets.
The Asian champions took an early
lead through Tomi Juric’s thunderbolt
of a volley but Argentine playmaker
Marcos Flores equalised with a delicate
ﬂick in the 27th minute and the Jets held
on for a point.
Western Sydney’s bid for a ﬁrst win
of the season is now destined to continue until next weekend’s derby against
Sydney FC, who won 2-1 at Melbourne
City on Saturday thanks to two goals
from Austrian marquee striker Marc
Janko.
Singapore backtracks on plan to
limit players over 30
Organisers of Singapore’s domestic soccer league have
completed an embarrassing U-turn on plans to limit the
number of players aged over 30 from competing for clubs
in the S.League after several complaints of ageism.
S.League bosses announced earlier this month that the 10
clubs competing in next year’s campaign would only be
allowed to register five players aged 30 and above with
at least three required to be 25 or under in their 22-man
squads.
That move bought a wave of criticism from players at the
end of their careers, who felt they were being unfairly punished as the S.League pushed to help give more playing
opportunities to younger players.
“Following discussions, the S.League and the club chairmen have decided not to implement the new rules. The
decision was taken after careful consideration of the appeals made by some affected players,” the League said in a
statement late on Saturday.
“The S.League’s goal is to always improve the standard
of football to make it more exciting and competitive. The
clubs must also be able to compete at the regional
level.
“To achieve these goals, there will be a continued and
greater emphasis on performance, a high level of fitness
and the ability to play at a high intensity for all players in
the S.League.”
Players are already required to complete a bleep fitness
test in order to compete in the S.League.
The league is one of Asia’s weakest with organisers routinely trying new ploys to raise interest in a product which
struggles to attract fans despite the country’s love for the
sport.
Thousands in the small Southeast Asian citystate routinely
sit up till early hours to watch their favourite Europe-based
stars, while local S.League clubs are only able to attract a
couple of hundred to matches.
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
3
FOOTBALL
EPL
SPOTLIGHT
Liverpool lose but
Spurs win against
lesser lights
‘Obviously we concede poor goals, but we have no-one to blame but ourselves’
Crystal Palace’s Joe Ledley (2nd L) vies with Liverpool’s
Raheem Sterling during the English Premier League
match at Selhurst Park in south London yesterday. (AFP)
AFP
London
L
iverpool squandered an
early lead and lost 3-1
at Crystal Palace while
Tottenham
Hotspur
came from behind to beat Hull
City 2-1 as two of the Premier
League’s big boys experienced
contrasting fortunes against the
lesser lights yesterday.
Spurs needed a 90th minute
goal from Christian Eriksen to
win at Hull, who took the lead
through former Spurs midﬁelder Jake Livermore after nine
minutes but lost their way after
Gaston Ramires was sent off after 50 minutes.
Spurs dominated from then
on, equalising through Harry
Kane after 61 minutes when he
was ﬁrst to react after an Eriksen
free kick rebounded back off a
post, before the Dane scored the
winner in the dying minutes.
Palace condemned Liverpool
to a third straight league defeat
beating them with goals from
Dwight Gayle, Joe Ledley and
a superb curling free kick from
Mile Jedinak after Rickie Lambert scored his ﬁrst goal for the
club to put them ahead in the
second minute. The results saw
Palace move up from 19th to 15th
while Spurs climbed from 12th
to 10th. Liverpool slipped from
11th to 12th while Hull dropped
a place from 5th to 16th.
Rickie Lambert scored his ﬁrst
Liverpool goal to put the visitors ahead inside two minutes,
but Dwight Gayle—who scored
twice in the 3-3 draw—equalised
15 minutes later. With the visitors once again toiling in attack,
Ledley and Jedinak scored twice
in the last 12 minutes to condemn Liverpool to three consecutive league defeats for the ﬁrst
time since April 2012.
“We’re low on conﬁdence
at the moment in terms of the
results and I think that sort of
tempo and intensity of our game
has just dropped right off,” said
Rodgers, whose side have lost
their last four games in all competitions. “Obviously we concede poor goals, but we have
no-one to blame but ourselves.
As the manager, I take full responsibility for that.”
Rodgers’s team, who ﬁnished
second to Manchester City last
season, now sit in 12th place,
a huge 18 points below lead-
Results & standings
Crystal Palace.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Hull City. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Standings
Liverpool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Tottenham Hotspur. . 2
P W D
Chelsea
12
Southampton 11
Manchester City12
Manchester Utd12
Newcastle Utd 12
West Ham Utd 12
Swansea City 12
Arsenal
12
Everton
12
Totten Hotspur 12
Stoke City
12
Liverpool
12
W Brom. Albion 12
Sunderland
12
Crystal Palace 12
Hull City
12
Aston Villa
11
Leicester City 12
Burnley
12
Qns P Rangers 12
10
8
7
5
5
5
5
4
4
5
4
4
3
2
3
2
3
2
2
2
L
F A Pts
2 0 30 11 32
1 2 23 5 25
3 2 24 13 24
4 3 19 15 19
4 3 14 15 19
3 4 20 16 18
3 4 16 13 18
5 3 20 15 17
5 3 22 19 17
2 5 16 17 17
3 5 13 15 15
2 6 15 18 14
4 5 13 17 13
7 3 12 19 13
3 6 17 21 12
5 5 14 17 11
2 6 5 16 11
4 6 11 18 10
4 6 8 20 10
2 8 11 23 8
ers Chelsea, and face a crucial Champions League game
away to Ludogorets Razgrad on
Wednesday. It was a ﬁrst win in
six matches for Neil Warnock’s
Palace, who leapt out of the relegation zone and up to 15th.
“It’s massive. We needed
that, big time,” Palace captain
Jedinak told Sky Sports. “We
knew it was going to be a diffi-
cult game. We didn’t help ourselves by conceding so early on,
but I think the reaction from the
boys after that was ﬁrst-class.”
A groin injury to Mario Balotelli saw Lambert handed only
his second league start for Liverpool and he quickly made his
presence felt on a sodden afternoon.
With barely 90 seconds on
the clock, Adam Lallana hoisted
a pass over the Palace defence to
his former Southampton teammate, who ghosted in behind
Liverpool old boy Martin Kelly
before beating Julian Speroni.
But just like last season, Palace refused to lie down, equalising in the 17th minute when
Gayle followed up after Yannick Bolasie’s skidding low shot
cannoned back into play off the
left-hand upright.
It took a last-ditch block from
Javier Manquillo to prevent Bolasie from putting Palace ahead
shortly before half-time, but
with Liverpool toothless in attack, it was the hosts who eventually prevailed.
Bolasie was again the creator
for their second goal, in the 78th
minute, brilliantly ﬂicking the
ball over Dejan Lovren wide on
the Palace right and crossing for
Ledley to slot a ﬁrst-time shot
between Simon Mignolet’s legs.
Liverpool’s misery was complete three minutes later when
Jedinak arced a glorious 25-yard
free-kick into the top-right
corner to end his side’s ﬁvegame winless run in style.
In the day’s other game, Danish playmaker Christian Eriksen
scored a ﬁne 90th-minute winner to earn Tottenham Hotspur
a morale-boosting 2-1 win away
to 10-man Hull City.
Former Spurs midﬁelder Jake
Livermore ﬁred Hull ahead in
the eighth minute, but the hosts
lost Gaston Ramirez early in the
second period after he was sent
off for kicking out at Jan Vertonghen. Harry Kane equalised
in the 61st minute, sweeping
home after Eriksen’s free-kick
hit the post, before the Dane
drove in a late winner that left
Mauricio Pochettino’s side in
10th place.
Chelsea moved seven points
clear at the summit by beating West Bromwich Albion 2-0
on Saturday, although secondplace Southampton can trim the
gap back to four points by winning at Aston Villa today.
Van Gaal backs United
keeper De Gea to
keep improving
AFP
London
L
ouis van Gaal is adamant
David de Gea can still get
better despite witnessing
the Manchester United
goalkeeper produce a superb
performance in the 2-1 Premier
League win against Arsenal.
The Spanish number one kept
the Gunners at bay with a manof-the-match display at the
Emirates to propel United into
the top four for the ﬁrst time this
season.
De Gea made vital saves
throughout to deny Jack
Wilshere, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Santi Cazorla and Alexis
Sanchez before Olivier Giroud’s
stoppage-time consolation in
north London.
Yet, although De Gea’s heroics combined with goals from
Wayne Rooney and a Kieran
Gibbs own goal gave United victory, Old Trafford boss van Gaal
claims the best is all ahead of the
24-year-old stopper.
“I think they were shots from
outside the 60m. I have also
played and when it is outside the
60m the goalkeeper has more
beneﬁt than the player,” said van
Gaal. His quality is exactly on
the line. I’m used to this quality. But he also has to improve in
other aspects of the game.
“When I say that then you
think I am crazy. But I am not
crazy, believe me.”
Van Gaal was unimpressed by
United’s performance, despite a
ﬁrst away win of the season, and
highlighted the ease at which
they conceded possession to Arsenal, particularly in the opening
20 minutes.
The Dutchman, whose side
now face winnable home games
against Hull and Stoke, added: “I
have to say the ﬁrst 35 minutes
we gave the ball away so easily that it’s not possible for a top
team. Because of that, Arsenal
created a lot of chances.
“Fortunately we have a very
good goalkeeper and after the
ﬁrst 35 minutes you saw that we
are coming back in the game and
created a few possibilities.
“But I said at half-time. When
we keep the ball, when we show
conﬁdence then we shall create
many chances.
“We created at least three big
chances. (Angel) Di Maria could
ﬁnish the game also.
“But also twice the pass was
easy to give to Di Maria and
Wayne Rooney and the pass was
not right.
“That was not a difficult pass
in my opinion so we have to improve that.”
For Arsenal, the loss means
they have made their worst
start to a season in 32 years after
dropping to eighth. Midﬁelder
Jack Wilshere was fortunate to
escape action from referee Mike
Dean for an apparent headbutt
on Marouane Fellaini.
Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger
claimed he did not get a clear
view of the ﬁrst half incident.
“I haven’t seen it because
it was on the other side and I
haven’t seen what happened
there well enough. Overall it
was a fair game, physically committed but I didn’t see any bad
things on the pitch,” he said.
Yet Wenger was crystal clear
on his opinion towards the Gunners defence, labelling their performance as “naive”.
He added: “We were not efﬁcient enough in the ﬁnal third,
defensively and we made a mistake at the back which they took
advantage of. That’s the history
of the game. We had plenty of
chances.
“You have to be efficient in
top-level games and we were
not efficient enough in our good
periods, but there were a lot of
positives in the game.
“Even if we are very, very
disappointed, we have to keep
that and rectify. At the moment
defensively we are a bit naive.
The second goal was just after a
corner and we were not cautious
enough.
“I don’t know why we had
nobody at the back at all—you
could see straight away that giving a two against one in your own
half means you will be punished
against these players.”
DAVID DE GEA
BUNDESLIGA
Hamburg win 101st derby to escape bottom three
AFP
Berlin
H
amburg escaped the
Bundesliga’s bottom
three yesterday with
a 2-0 win at home to
10-man Werder Bremen, which
pushed Borussia Dortmund back
into the relegation places.
Latvia striker Artjoms Rudnevs was Hamburg’s hero as he
netted his ﬁrst goal of the season
on 84 minutes after coming off
the bench, before Bremen goalkeeper Raphael Wolf pushed the
ball into his own net in the third
minute of stoppage time.
Bremen ﬁnished with 10 men
after captain Clemens Fritz was
sent off for a second yellow card
on 90 minutes, while the result
left Bremen 17th after the 101st
north German derby.
The victory, only Hamburg’s
third of the season, lifts then
up to 15th and drops last season’s runners-up Dortmund
down into 16th following their
2-2 draw against Paderborn on
Saturday after throwing away a
two-goal lead.
There was more bad news
for Borussia yesterday when it
was conﬁrmed Germany winger
Marco Reus, who scored their
second at Paderborn, has been
ruled out until January after
tearing ligaments in his right ankle—his sixth ankle injury this
year.
Bundesliga leaders Bayern
Munich ﬁnish the weekend seven
points clear after warming up for
Tuesday’s Champions League
clash at Manchester City with a
4-0 hammering of 10-man Hoffenheim.
Pep Guardiola’s Bayern have
RESULTS
Hamburg.............2 Werder Bremen0
VfB Stuttgart.0 Augsburg.........................1
already claimed their last 16
place as group winners with
two Champions League games
to spare and have now opened
an ominous gap in the German
league.
Mario Goetze and Robert
Lewandowski scored ﬁrst-half
goals at Munich’s Allianz Arena
as the hosts cruised into the
lead.
Germany captain Bastian
Schweinsteiger made his ﬁrst
appearance of the season off the
bench, 132 days after the World
Cup ﬁnal, as Bayern scored twice
in the last 10 minutes through
Arjen Robben and Sebastian
Rode.
Hoffenheim ﬁnished with 10
men after striker Adam Szalai
was sent off on 90 minutes following a foul on Brazil defender
Dante.
Bayern’s iron grip on this season’s league title was tightened
by results elsewhere as they extended their unbeaten run to 21
matches.
Second-placed
Wolfsburg
had their eight-match winning streak ended at Schalke
04 while third-placed Borussia Moenchengladbach also
lost ground with a 3-1 defeat
at Eintracht Frankfurt to fall 10
points behind the Bavarians.
Schalke boss Roberto di
Matteo warmed up for Tuesday’s visit of his former club
Chelsea, who sacked him in
2012 just six months after winning the Champions League,
with a 3-2 victory over Wolfsburg as Cameroon striker Eric
Choupo-Moting scored twice.
Ten-man
Borussia
Moenchengladbach slumped to
a second straight defeat despite
Norway midfielder Havard
Nordtveit giving them a sixthminute lead, only for Frankfurt to hit back and claim a 3-1
win.
Hertha Berlin climbed up to
13th after their 2-1 victory at
Cologne, thanks to Cameroon
midfielder Marcel Ndjeng’s late
winner.
Bayer Leverkusen, who host
Monaco as leaders of their
Champions League group on
Wednesday, warmed up with a
3-1 win at Hanover 96 to move
up to fourth in the table, while
Mainz are eighth after drawing
2-2 with Freiburg.
Hamburg SV’s Artjoms Rudnevs (C) and his team mates celebrate
after scoring during the Bundesliga match against Werder Bremen in
Hamburg yesterday. (Reuters)
4
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
FOOTBALL
SPOTLIGHT
DEVELOPMENT
Messi breaks Liga
goalscoring record
with hat-trick
‘When I scored this goal, I couldn’t imagine I could break any record’
Barcelona’s Argentinian forward Lionel Messi (top) is
thrown into the air by his teammates as they celebrate
his new record after he scored during the Spanish league
match against Sevilla FC at the Camp Nou stadium in
Barcelona on Saturday. (AFP)
Wigan chief Whelan
threatens to quit over
racism row
Reuters
London
W
igan
Athletic
chairman
Dave
Whelan says he
will resign if the
English FA ﬁnd him guilty
of racism over comments he
made defending the appointment of controversial manager
Malky Mackay.
Whelan, who also owns the
Championship (second-tier)
club, was accused of antiSemitism and condoning racism when speaking to the
Guardian newspaper last week.
He later apologised for causing offence and said he had
been misquoted as using the
word “chink” to describe a
Chinese person and saying that
“Jewish people chase money
more than everybody else”.
The FA issued a statement
saying it was “very concerned”
about the remarks and had
written to Whelan, giving him
three days to respond before
deciding what action to take.
The 77-year-old now says he
will quit if he is charged with
racism.
“Should they even suggest
I’m guilty I would immediately resign,” Whelan told ITV
News. “I’m absolutely antiracist, always have been, always will be”.
The Wigan chairman had
been speaking to the newspaper to defend his appointment
of former Cardiff City boss
Mackay, who is under FA investigation for sending allegedly sexist, racist and homophobic texts when in charge at
the Welsh club.
It is Mackay’s ﬁrst job since
leaving Cardiff under a cloud
last year following a falling-out
with club owner Vincent Tan.
Malaysian businessman Tan
has labelled both Whelan and
Mackay as racists following the
Wigan owner’s remarks, and
said the club would regret hiring the manager.
Moyes upbeat after Sociedad
debut despite tepid dra
AFP
Barcelona
L
ionel Messi became the
all-time top goalscorer
in La Liga history with
a hat-trick as Barcelona
swept aside Sevilla 5-1 on Saturday to remain two points adrift
of league leaders Real Madrid.
Messi, 27, moved level with
legendary Basque striker Telmo
Zarra when he opened the scoring with a trademark free-kick
to register his 251st goal in his
289th appearance in the Spanish
top ﬂight.
A Jordi Alba own goal brieﬂy
brought Sevilla level early in the
second-half, but Neymar swiftly
restored Barca’s advantage before Ivan Rakitic made the game
safe when he headed home Luis
Suarez’s enticing cross against
his old club.
Messi then took over as he
slid in to convert Neymar’s low
cross to set the new record and
extended it moments later with
a precise low ﬁnish to round off
a ﬁne evening for Luis Enrique’s
men against a side that started
the evening just two points adrift
of the Catalans.
“When I scored this goal, I
couldn’t imagine I could break
any record, let alone this one
previously held by the great
Telmo Zarra,” wrote Messi on his
Facebook page alongside his ﬁrst
Barca goal against Albacete in
May, 2005.
“I was only able to achieve
this because of the support I
have had from so many people
during my time here and I would
like to dedicate this achievement
to you all.”
Earlier, Real Madrid saw off
Basque minnows Eibar’s dreams
of a giant-killing thanks to a
Cristiano Ronaldo double to
register their 14th consecutive
win in all competitions with a
4-0 victory.
Champions Atletico Madrid
remain four points off the top
as they overcame Malaga 3-1
at the Vicente Calderon thanks
to goals from Tiago, Antoine
Griezmann and Diego Godin.
At the other end of the table,
Real Sociedad moved a point
clear of the relegation zone
in former Manchester United
manager David Moyes’s bow as
the Basques new coach as they
drew 0-0 away to Deportivo la
Coruna.
Sevilla were expected to pose
a serious threat to a Barca side
that has struggled in recent La
Liga outings.
However, the hosts had complete control of the game in the
ﬁrst-half and could have been
in front before Messi’s historic
strike as the Argentine’s ﬁrst
effort of the match was smothered by Beto and the Portuguese
‘keeper then denied Luis Suarez
from a narrow angle.
Messi’s moment came midway through the ﬁrst-half as his
free-kick curled perfectly into
Beto’s top right-hand corner to
register his 12th goal of the season.
Only some frantic defending kept the Andalusians in the
game as Barca ended the half
strongly as Nico Pareja slid in
to prevent Suarez his ﬁrst Barca
goal after Alba had nutmegged
Beto and the Portuguese ‘keeper
showed smart reactions to deny
Neymar from the resulting corner with an outstretched leg.
Suarez frustrated
All of Barca’s good work in
the ﬁrst 45 minutes was undone
just over 60 seconds after the
restart, though, as Vitolo eased
past Gerard Pique down Sevilla’s left and his low cross was
bundled into his own net by the
unfortunate Alba.
It took the hosts just two minutes to make amends, however,
as Xavi’s free-kick was headed
low into the far corner by Neymar.
Suarez’s search for his ﬁrst
Barca goal will stretch into a
ﬁfth game, but the Uruguayan
did provide his fourth assist in
four outings with a great run
and cross which left Rakitic with
a simple task to make it 3-1.
Neymar unselﬁshly squared
for Messi to move out on his own
ahead of Zarra when he tapped
home the Brazilian’s low cross
and he was then thrown into the
air by his teammates in celebration. However, the four-time
World Player of the Year wasn’t
ﬁnished as he sealed his 27th
Barcelona hat-trick from Neymar’s pass 13 minutes from time.
Real Madrid also enjoyed a
comfortable afternoon in unfamiliar surroundings on their
ﬁrst league visit at the 5,000 capacity Ipurua stadium in Eibar.
The European champions had
more than a touch of fortune in
the ﬁrst half as James Rodriguez
headed home the opener despite
Ronaldo and Karim Benzema
appearing to be in an offside
position in the build-up to the
goal. Ronaldo then doubled the
lead himself with a mishit shot
that looped beyond Xabi Irureta
just before the break.
Benzema smashed home the
third 20 minutes from time before Ronaldo rounded off the
scoring from the penalty spot.
“The objective is to continue
with this run because the team is
playing well and the players are
motivated,” said Real boss Carlo
Ancelotti.
“But the season is very long
and we need to continue with
this type of attitude.
David Moyes was disappointed with the second-half performance of his Real Sociedad players in Saturday’s drab 0-0 draw at
Deportivo La Coruna but the Scot said he nonetheless enjoyed
his La Liga coaching debut.
Former Manchester United and Everton manager Moyes took
over this month at San Sebastian-based Sociedad and the match
at Depor’s Riazor stadium in rainy Galicia was his first taste of
Spanish top-flight competition.
Sociedad created some decent chances in the first half but
Depor had the upper hand in the second and the visitors were
ultimately fortunate to come away with a point.
They are 14th after 12 matches with a mere 10 points and only
two victories to their name.
“I really enjoyed it, I was really looking forward to managing in
La Liga,” Moyes said at a news conference.
“I was disappointed with the second half,” he added.
“I thought we had done enough in the first half to be in the lead
but we started the second half slowly and we gave away possession far too easily and too many times.
“They were the better team in the second half but I thought we
were the better team in the first.”
Moyes, who has only just started learning Spanish and was
speaking through an interpreter, said it was going to take time
for him to get to know the Sociedad players and begin to make
his mark on the Basque club.
“I don’t know the players well enough to give a comprehensive
view on all of them yet,” he said.
“It will take some time but hopefully we can see some quick
results and some improvement in the team over the coming
months.
“Overall I was really pleased with how the players went about it, I
thought their attitude was very good tonight.
“I wasn’t happy with just a point, I want to win. But in the end
maybe a draw was a fair result.”
FOCUS
Ronaldo well on the way to smashing La Liga mark
Reuters
Madrid
W
hile Barcelona forward Lionel Messi
was busy breaking the all-time La
Liga scoring record on Saturday,
Cristiano Ronaldo took a step
closer to smashing the best for
a single season of 50 goals also
held by his Argentine rival.
Ronaldo struck twice in a 4-0
win for leaders Real Madrid at
Eibar and the Portugal forward
has now scored an incredible 20
goals in 11 appearances in Spain’s
top ﬂight this term.
If the World Player of the Year
continues at his current pace, his
tally for the season will be more
than 60, comfortably surpassing
Messi’s record set in 2011-12.
The 29-year-old Ronaldo,
who missed Real’s defeat at Real
Sociedad in August due to injury, is the ﬁrst player to reach 20
goals in the opening 12 rounds of
La Liga.
“A lot of people are envious
about what he has achieved and
about what he can accomplish,”
Real’s Brazil fullback Marcelo
told reporters.
“Cristiano always works hard,
he’s a top professional with a
huge desire to learn and help the
team.”
Since he joined Real from
Manchester United in 2009,
Ronaldo has netted 197 La Liga
goals, while Messi’s record set
on Saturday with a hat-trick
against Sevilla is 253.
Real’s victory at tiny Eibar,
who are appearing in Spain’s top
ﬂight for the ﬁrst time, maintained their two-point lead over
second-placed Barca at the top.
The European champions are
next in action on Wednesday
when they play at FC Basel in
the Champions League having
already qualiﬁed for the last 16.
Ronaldo has scored 70 goals
in Europe’s elite club competition, one fewer than Messi and
former Real and Schalke 04 forward Raul.
CRISTIANO RONALDO
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
5
FORMULA 1
Lewis hammers it home
with win in Abu Dhabi
Hamilton races to his 11th win in 19 races to win the title by 67 points over Mercedes team-mate Rosberg
Reuters
Abu Dhabi
Hamilton files
Born: January 7, 1985, in Stevenage, England
A
tearful Lewis Hamilton joined
the elite ranks of double Formula One world champions yesterday after a nerve-racking drive
to victory in the ﬂoodlit season-ending
Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
In a race overshadowed by the everpresent spectre of mechanical failure
after the Briton’s Mercedes teammate
Nico Rosberg suffered an early loss of
power, Hamilton powered to his 11th win
in 19 races.
The 29-year-old, who took his ﬁrst
title with McLaren in 2008, became
Britain’s ﬁrst multiple champion since
Jackie Stewart in 1971 and only the
country’s fourth.
“Lewis, thank you very much for not
letting the British public down,” Britain’s
Prince Harry told him over the radio from
the pit wall as the chequered ﬂag came
down. “You are an absolute legend.”
Hamilton, crying on the podium as
the anthem sounded and with his voice
cracking in later interviews, performed
a slowing down lap with the British ﬂag
ﬂuttering from the cockpit and the words
‘Hammer Time’ written on it.
“World champion. Oh my God, I can’t
believe it, thanks everyone,” he had
shouted over the radio before parking
up and embracing his father, pop star
girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger and family.
The victory was a record 16th of the
season for Mercedes, who had already
collected the constructors’ crown, and for
the ﬁrst time the winner took 50 points
in an unprecedented and controversial
double points ﬁnale.
“This has been just an incredible
year. I can’t believe how amazing,” said
Hamilton. “This is the greatest moment
in my life. It feels very surreal.
“(Winning in) 2008 was special but the
feeling I have now is above and beyond.
It’s the greatest feeling I’ve ever had.
Thanks so much everyone.”
Rosberg ﬁnished 14th after starting
on pole position and 17 points adrift,
the much-vaunted ‘duel in the desert’
becoming a nightmare after dark for the
German son of Finland’s 1982 champion
Keke.
LOSING BRAKES
He had suffered problems from the
25th of 55 laps, then complained about
losing brakes as he fell down the order,
still hoping against hope that a similar
Hamilton was a winner in
every category of karting, taking his first British title by the
age of 10, and joined McLaren’s
young driver programme in
1998. He was European Formula A kart champion in 2000,
with current Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg runner-up.
The Briton won the 2003
Formula Renault UK title with
10 race wins, the 2005 Formula
Three Euro series with 15 wins
and the 2006 GP2 championship, following on from Rosberg.
Hamilton made a sensational F1 debut with McLaren in
2007, aged 22. In his opening
race in Australia he finished
third, was second in the next
four races and then won the
sixth and seventh races in
Canada and the United States.
Mercedes’ British driver Lewis Hamilton celebrates winning the world title with his teammate Nico Rosberg and other team
members in Abu Dhabi yesterday. (Below) Hamilton hugs his girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger after winning the Abu Dhabi GP. (Reuters)
misfortune might befall Hamilton and
revive his chances.
When the team asked him to pit and
retire with only a handful of laps to go,
Rosberg asked to stay out so he could at
least end the season on track.
“Sorry it didn’t work out but you drove
like a champion,” said Mercedes technical
head Paddy Lowe. “We come back next
year to have another go.”
Rosberg,
who
gallantly
shook
Hamilton’s hand afterwards, did not need
to tell anyone that he was disappointed
but he said it anyway.
“All in all, Lewis deserved to win the
championship. What happened to me
had no impact, it did not change anything
so there is no point focusing on that,” he
said.
“He did just a little bit better than
me. The positive is I’ve been the better
qualiﬁer over the last two years and that
gives me a good base. I came very close
and it is a pity it did not work out.”
Brazilian Felipe Massa ﬁnished second
for Williams in the race, after looking like
he could win it, with Finnish teammate
Valtteri Bottas third.
“Not bad for an old man,” said a
delighted Massa after his best result since
2012, when he was at Ferrari.
Behind them, Australian Daniel
Ricciardo ﬁnished fourth for Red Bull
with Hamilton’s former McLaren teammate Jenson Button ﬁfth in what may
have been his last race in Formula One.
Force India duo Nico Hulkenberg and
Sergio Perez were sixth and seventh while
outgoing four-times champion Sebastian
Vettel was eighth in his last race for Red
Bull before moving to Ferrari.
The man he will replace at the Italian
team, double world champion Fernando
Alonso, was ninth and ahead of Finnish
teammate Kimi Raikkonen.
His run of 2007 podiums
ended after nine in a row and
he ended the season second
overall with four wins, one
point behind champion Kimi
Raikkonen.
In 2008, Hamilton won the
title, aged 23 years and 301
days. At the time he was the
youngest ever world champion
and he took the title in thrilling
style with an overtaking move
on the last corner of the last
lap of the last race in Brazil.
In 2009, Hamilton finished
fifth overall. He was fourth in
2010, fifth in 2011 and fourth
in 2012. He then moved to
Mercedes for the 2013 season
on a three-year contract.
Hamilton won 11 races
this season to Rosberg’s five,
becoming the most successful British driver of all time in
terms of race wins (33).
ABU DHABI GRAND PRIX RESULTS
1. Lewis Hamilton (GBR/Mercedes)
2. Felipe Massa (BRA/Williams)
3. Valtteri Bottas (FIN/Williams)
4. Daniel Ricciardo (AUS/Red Bull)
5. Jenson Button (GBR/McLaren)
6. Nico Hulkenberg (GER/Force India)
7. Sergio Perez (MEX/Force India)
8. Sebastian Vettel (GER/Red Bull)
9. Fernando Alonso (ESP/Ferrari)
10. Kimi Raikkonen (FIN/Ferrari)
11. Kevin Magnussen (DEN/McLaren)
12. Jean-Eric Vergne (FRA/Toro Rosso)
13. Romain Grosjean (FRA/Lotus)
14. Nico Rosberg (GER/Mercedes)
15. Esteban Gutierrez (MEX/Sauber)
16. Adrian Sutil (GER/Sauber)
17. Will Stevens (GBR/Caterham) 1 lap
Drivers’ standings (top 10)
1. Lewis Hamilton (GBR) 384 pts
2. Nico Rosberg (GER) 317
3. Daniel Ricciardo (AUS) 238
4. Valtteri Bottas (FIN) 186
5. Sebastian Vettel (GER) 167
6. Fernando Alonso (ESP) 161
7. Felipe Massa (BRA) 134
8. Jenson Button (GBR) 126
9. Nico Hulkenberg (GER) 96
10. Sergio Perez (MEX) 59
1hr 39min 02.619sec
+2.500
+28.800
+37.200
+1:00.300
+1:02.100
+1:11.000
+1:12.000
+1:25.800
+1:27.800
+1:30.300
+1:31.900
1 lap
1 lap
1 lap
1 lap
Constructors’ standings
1. Mercedes 701 pts
2. Red Bull 405
3. Williams 320
4. Ferrari 216.0
5. McLaren 181.0
6. Force India 155.0
7. Toro Rosso 30.0
8. Lotus 10.0
9. Marussia 2
6
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
GOLF
SPOTLIGHT
AUSTRALIAN MASTERS
Stenson defends
his title in Dubai
Scott denied
by masterful
bunker shot
from Cullen
A final-round two-under 70 gave world number four a final tally of 16-under 272
Reuters
Melbourne
N
ick Cullen nervelessly struck a sublime bunker shot for
a tap-in par putt on
the last hole to win the Australian Masters by a stroke in
Melbourne and frustrate Adam
Scott’s bid for a hat-trick of titles yesterday.
Clinging to a one-stroke lead
on the 18th, Cullen’s approach
shot found a steep sandtrap left of the green, but the
unheralded South Australian
put his recovery within two
feet of the hole to seal the biggest win of his career on a sundrenched afternoon at Metropolitan Golf Club.
“I was trying to concentrate,”
an ecstatic Cullen, wearing the
winner’s ‘gold’ jacket, told reporters. “I knew Adam was one
shot back. I didn’t really want
to have to go into a playoff with
him... I got lucky hitting a great
bunker shot on the last and
didn’t have a very long putt.
I was glad it wasn’t any longer
because I was nervous enough
over that.”
The bearded 30-year-old’s
round of three-under 69 gave
him a nine-under total of 279,
one ahead of a trio of com-
patriots in world number two
Scott (68), James Nitties (70)
and Josh Younger (69).
After struggling with an
opening round of 73 in searing northerly winds, Scott
was forced to play catch-up
all week and though he started
yesterday four strokes adrift,
the 34-year-old came agonisingly close to dragging Cullen
into a playoff.
Bidding for a record third
successive win in the A$1 million ($867,000) tournament,
Scott birdied the 12th, 14th and
17th holes to push to eight-under but his monster birdie putt
on the par-four 18th lipped out
to the groans of a packed gallery, giving Cullen, four groups
behind, vital breathing space.
“Today was deﬁnitely the
best I’ve swung my club, putted and chipped and did everything well today,” Scott told
reporters.
“It’s just hard. Some of the
pins were really tough today.
I made a couple of errors like
probably most everyone did,
and probably from where I was
I needed to make none.”
American Boo Weekley shot
a second successive 70 to ﬁnish
ﬁve behind on tied 15th while
former US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy crashed to a threeover 75 to ﬁnish seven adrift.
Henrik Stenson of Sweden poses with his trophy after winning the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai yesterday. (Reuters)
AFP
Dubai
H
enrik Stenson successfully defended his title at the $8 million
DP World Tour Championship
in dramatic fashion, making two
birdies on the ﬁnal two holes to win by two
shots yesterday.
A ﬁnal-round two-under par 70 gave
world number four Stenson a ﬁnal tally
of 16-under par 272, two better than his
three Ryder Cup team-mates - world
number one Rory McIlroy (68), number
seven Justin Rose (69) and number 22 Victor Dubuisson (68).
Ireland’s Shane Lowry (66) was alone in
ﬁfth place at 13-under par, while England’s
22-year-old Tyrell Hatton (70), Sweden’s
Robert Karlsson (69) and South African
Louis Oosthuizen (66) were tied for sixth
on 12-under par.
The Swede seemed to have put himself
out of contention when he made a rare
blunder on the Earth course of Jumeirah
Golf Estates, slicing his tee shot with an
LEADING FINAL SCORES
272 - Henrik Stenson (SWE) 68-66-68-70
274 - Rory McIlroy (NIR) 66-70-70-68, Victor Dubuisson (FRA) 71-68-67-68, Justin
Rose (ENG) 71-66-68-69
275 - Shane Lowry (IRL) 66-71-72-66
276 - Louis Oosthuizen (RSA) 69-71-70-66,
Robert Karlsson (SWE) 71-68-68-69, Tyrrell Hatton (ENG) 70-68-68-70
277 - Branden Grace (RSA) 72-67-68-70,
Joost Luiten (NED) 70-69-68-70, Rafael
Cabrera-Bello (ESP) 73-64-65-75
278 - Sergio Garcia (ESP) 73-69-69-67,
Tommy Fleetwood (ENG) 69-74-67-68,
Jamie Donaldson (WAL) 72-70-67-69,
Thorbjorn Olesen (DEN) 67-70-69-72
iron out of bounds for a double-bogey six
on the par-four 11th hole. Stenson was
tied with Spain’s Rafael Cabrera-Bello
until then, but conceded two shots to his
consistent playing partner. He then made
a crucial 12-foot putt for par at the 12th,
while Cabrera-Bello ended up with a bogey and the lead was down to one.
Still leading by one shot after 15 holes,
Cabrera-Bello’s chances met a watery
grave on the par-four 16th, when he found
the fairway bunker off the tee and ended
up making a double-bogey after hitting his
third shot into the water.
The Spaniard was completely out of the
race when he hit his tee shot into water on
the par-three 17th for a second successive
double-bogey.
However, neither could take advantage
of their tee shots on the par-ﬁve 18th, and
were joined on 14-under par by Dubuisson, who picked up a shot on the last.
Stenson, who ﬁnished second on the
Race to Dubai, picked up a cheque of
$2.13 million ($1.33mn for the victory and
$800,000 as Race to Dubai bonus pool),
said: “It feels great. I’m exhausted to say
the least. Again, it was hot out there, and it
was a tricky day. On the back nine the wind
picked up and I didn’t play my best, and I
had a shocking hole on 11 and that kind of
put me back. But I didn’t give up.
“I was hanging in there and made a couple of important par putts on 12 and 16.
That kind of kept me in the ballgame and
ROUND-UP
Nick Cullen of Australia wearing the gold jacket holds the
trophy after winning the Australian Masters at the Metropolitan
golf club in Melbourne. (AFP)
FOCUS
Singapore’s Mamat marches
to Manila Masters triumph
Agencies
Manila
S
ingaporean Mardan Mamat
romped to an emotional six-shot
win at the $1 million Manila Masters yesterday to preserve his playing privileges on the Asian Tour for another two years.
The 47-year-old entered the week in
danger of losing his card but a three-under-par 69 in the wind at the Jack Nicklaus designed Manila Southwoods Golf
and Country Club was more than enough
to claim his fourth Asian Tour title and
ﬁrst since the 2012 Philippine Open.
“It means a lot to me,” said Mamat, who
fell to his knees and kissed the green after closing with a par at the last. “This is
my last year of exemption and I needed to
play well to keep my card. I wanted to win
again to keep my exemption for the next
few years.”
Mamat entered the day with a four-shot
lead and his steely focus resulted in ﬁve
birdies and two bogeys which were enough
for a fourth round in the 60s this week and
a 20-under total of 268. His playing partner Kiradech Aphibarnrat struggled in the
conditions on the way to a three-over 75,
allowing Frenchman Lionel Weber to ﬁnish second after a closing 70.
hit it to a foot on 17, and had a one-shot
cushion up the last there and hit a lovely
pitching wedge that secured it.
“I’ve had a couple close calls this year
to get my win and it wasn’t to be earlier.
Eventually you get something if you stick
around, and I surely did that today so I’m
very pleased with that.”
The new European number one McIlroy could not win the two trophies he was
aiming for, but he said he would have been
surprised if he had won the tournament
the way he had been playing all week. “It
could have been different. But at the same
time, I never expected 14-under to have a
remote chance of winning this golf tournament,” said McIlroy, who had already
won the Race to Dubai before the start of
the week.
“It just seemed like no-one really took
the tournament by the scruff of the neck
and went with it. The two guys, Rafa and
Henrik, were on 16 for quite a while, and
sort of stayed there. I just didn’t play well
enough to win this week, and if I had have
won by playing like that, it would have
been a bit of a surprise.”
MATSUYAMA WINS IN PLAYOFF
ON JAPAN RETURN
Hideki Matsuyama won the Dunlop Phoenix tournament on his return to Japan after winning a playoff following a dramatic
ﬁnal round.
Overnight leader Matsuyama, who cap-
tured his maiden victory on the US PGA
Tour earlier this season, won on the ﬁrst
extra hole after countryman Hiroshi Iwata
had forced a playoff with a blazing round
of 63 at the shoreline course in Miyazaki,
on the western tip of Japan.
Beginning the day with a two-shot lead,
the 22-year-old Matsuyama closed with a
one-under-par 70 after birdying the ﬁnal
two holes for a 15-under total of 269.
Iwata self-destructed in the playoff,
taking six shots to reach the green and
leaving Matsuyama to complete formalities. American supernova Jordan Spieth,
who ﬁnished joint runner-up to Bubba
Watson at this year’s US Masters, ﬁnished
in a tie for third on 14 under at the $1.7
million tournament after a round of 69.
Matsuyama, who earned $340,000,
joins an illustrious roll-call of former winners including Tiger Woods (2004-05),
Tom Watson (1980, 1997) and Seve Ballesteros (1977, 1981).
Australia’s Brendan Jones tied for third
with Spieth after shooting a 68 while
South Korea’s Hur In-Hoi claimed ﬁfth on
12 under par after a 69.
Japanese media darling Ryo Ishikawa,
once dubbed the country’s answer to Tiger
Woods, showed he was still struggling to
rediscover his best form, ﬁnishing tied for
31st after a 71 gave him a one-under total
of 283.
Woods working with new
swing teacher Como
AFP
Miami
T
iger Woods, who plans
to return to competition
in less than two weeks
after a three-month absence, said on Saturday that he is
working with a new coach, Chris
Como, on his swing.
Woods, who has been plagued
by back issues and underwent
back surgery in March, broke ties
with swing coach Sean Foley in
August. “Happy to have Chris
Como consulting and working
with me on my swing. I’m excited
to be back competing,” Woods
said on his Twitter account.
The 14-times major winner is
expected to tee it up at the Hero
World Challenge, his annual
tournament beneﬁting the Tiger
Woods Foundation starting on
Dec. 4 at Isleworth near Orlando,
Florida. The Texas-based Como,
36, has also worked with South
African former Masters champion Trevor Immelman, Australian Aaron Baddeley and American
Jamie Lovemark.
Woods said he was introduced
to Como this summer by four-
time PGA Tour winner Notah Begay, his friend and former college
teammate at Stanford.
“Subsequently we had several good conversations about
the golf swing,” Woods said in
a statement. “I’ve worked with
him about a month since I started
practicing. Chris will consult and
work with me during the year.”
After missing the cut at the
PGA Championship following a
back issue, Woods decided to shut
down for several months and announced he was parting with Fo-
ley, his coach of four years.
Woods, 38, played just eight
times worldwide in a winless 2014
and after surgery to alleviate a
disk issue missed the Masters and
the US Open and ﬁnished 69th at
the British Open.
The longtime former world
number one, who held the top
spot in May 2014, has slipped to 23
in the world rankings. Woods won
eight events on the PGA Tour with
Foley, but none were major championships. His last major victory
came at the 2008 US Open.
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
7
SPORT
SPOTLIGHT
BASEBALL
James return fails
to spark Cavaliers
over Raptors
Red Sox favourite to
land Sandoval
Agencies
New York
T
he Boston Red Sox have
the best shot at signing
free agent third baseman
Pablo Sandoval despite
a better offer from the San Diego Padres, according to the San
Francisco Chronicle.
The Boston Globe reported
Friday that the Red Sox offered
Sandoval a ﬁve-year, $95 million
contract.
Sandoval was in Boston
early in the week to meet
with the Red Sox, who have
been pursuing him since free
agency began. Sandoval’s
visit to Boston reportedly
included dinner with Red
Sox slugger David Ortiz
‘They’re No 1 in the East right now and they showed why tonight’
The Padres either offered Sandoval more than $100 million or
a six-year deal. Sandoval reportedly is leaning toward Boston’s
offer, but the San Francisco Giants have been asked to submit
another bid to re-sign him.
During spring training, the
Giants offered Sandoval a threeyear, $40 million extension,
which he rejected.
Sandoval was in Boston early
in the week to meet with the Red
Sox, who have been pursuing him
since free agency began. San-
doval’s visit to Boston reportedly
included dinner with Red Sox
slugger David Ortiz.
The Giants are interested in
retaining Sandoval, who helped
them win their third World Series title in ﬁve years in October.
Sandoval, 28, batted .279 with
16 home runs and 73 RBIs. He is a
career .294 hitter.
zInﬁelder Josh Satin agreed to
a minor-league contract with the
Cincinnati Reds on Saturday.
Satin spent parts of the past four
seasons with the New York Mets.
In 2013, he batted .279 in 75 games
with the Mets but spent the majority of the season in the minor leagues.
zFree agent ﬁrst baseman
Adam LaRoche and the Chicago
White Sox agreed on a two-year
deal worth $25 million.
The 35-year-old LaRoche hit 26
homers last season while a member
of the Washington Nationals.
NFL
Louis Williams of the Toronto
Raptors tries to drive around
LeBron James of the Cleveland
Cavaliers during the second
half of their NBA game at
Quicken Loans Arena in
Cleveland on Saturday.
Seahawks may
use Sherman as
wide receiver
Agencies
New York
S
DPA
Los Angeles
T
he return of LeBron James was
supposed to make the Cleveland Cavaliers the best team in
the Eastern Conference. But on
Saturday night, they lost their fourth
straight game to the best team in the
Eastern Conference.
James and the Cavaliers continued to
struggle, squandering an 18-point lead in
a 110-93 home loss to the Toronto Raptors, who got a career-high 36 points
from reserve Lou Williams.
“They’re No 1 in the East right now
and they showed why tonight,” Cavaliers
guard Kyrie Irving said. “They were playing team basketball and they won. They
beat us tonight, fair and square.”
The Cavaliers (5-7) fell to 2-4 at home.
They scored the game’s ﬁrst 12 points and
held a 26-8 lead less than eight minutes
into the contest but collapsed over the
last three quarters as their problems on
offense and defense continued.
“We’re a very fragile team right now,”
James admitted. “Any little adversity
hits us, we just shell up. This is not even
the lowest it can get for us.”
James was held to 15 points for the
second time this week and was on the
bench for the last six minutes. The fourtime Most Valuable Player, reacquired
by Cleveland after spending four successful seasons in Miami, has averaged
just 18.5 points on just 41 percent shooting during the slide, well below his lofty
standards.
Williams led the comeback by the
Raptors, sinking 11-of-19 shots and 15of-15 free throws. He sparked rallies in
the second and third quarters, and Toronto pulled away in the second half.
“He changed the game when he came
into the game. We lost the tempo that we
had,” James said.
Williams came on late in the ﬁrst
quarter and scored 19 points in under
eight minutes, helping Toronto close to
39-38. His three-pointer closed the half
and gave the Raptors a 56-54 lead.
“I just wanted to come in and play my
style of basketball - to come in with a lot
of energy and create a spark,” he said.
Williams and Kyle Lowry combined
to score Toronto’s last 11 points of the
third quarter. DeMar DeRozan opened
the ﬁnal period with six straight points,
opening a 91-73 lead for the Raptors.
James scored just four points in the
New York Knicks guard Pablo
Prigioni (L) puts up a shot past
Philadelphia 76ers guard Michael
Carter-Williams in the second half
of their NBA game at Madison
Square Garden in New York on
Saturday.
second half and sat down for good with
6:20 to play. He made 6-of-12 shots and
had 10 assists but also committed ﬁve of
Cleveland’s 20 turnovers.
“I’m very positive, more positive than
I thought I’d be right now,” James said.
“I can’t be negative at all. Once I crack,
it trickles down to everybody else. I
would never do that to these guys.”
Lowry scored 23 points and DeRozan added 20 for the Raptors (11-2),
who have won four in a row. Kevin Love
scored 23 points and Kyrie Irving added
21 for the Cavaliers.
“I haven’t had a losing record in my
career and will not have one here,”
Cleveland coach David Blatt said.
Elsewhere:
Houston Rockets 95, Dallas Mavericks
92: James Harden scored ﬁve of his 32
points in the ﬁnal 30 seconds as the host
Rockets - playing without injured star
centre Dwight Howard - stopped the
Mavericks’ six-game winning streak.
German juggernaut Dirk Nowitzki was
held to 11 points on 4-of-18 shooting for
Dallas.
New Orleans Pelicans 106, Utah Jazz
94: Anthony Davis scored a career-high
43 points and grabbed 14 rebounds for
the visiting Pelicans. Gordon Hayward
scored 31 for the Jazz.
New York Knicks 91, Philadelphia
76ers 83: Carmelo Anthony scored 25
points for the host Knicks, who handed
the winless 76ers their 13th straight
loss.
Washington Wizards 111, Milwaukee
Bucks 100: Paul Pierce scored 25 points
and John Wall added 19 and nine assists
for the visiting Wizards, who have won
ﬁve of six. Greece’s Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 20 points for the Bucks.
San Antonio Spurs 99, Brooklyn Nets
87: Tony Parker scored 22 points and
Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green added
21 each as the host Spurs handed the Nets
their sixth loss in seven games.
Miami Heat 99, Orlando Magic 92:
Chris Bosh had 32 points and 10 rebounds
and Mario Chalmers scored 24 points to
offset 33 points and 17 boards by Montenegro’s Nikola Vucevic to lift the visiting Heat.
Phoenix Suns 106, Indiana Pacers 83:
Former Pacer Gerald Green scored 23
points off the bench for the Suns, who
improved to 4-1 on their six-game road
trip. Indiana center Roy Hibbert sprained
an ankle in the ﬁrst quarter and did not
return.
Sacramento Kings 113, Minnesota
Timberwolves 101: DeMarcus Cousins
totaled 31 points and 18 rebounds as the
visiting Kings overcame 29 points by
Timberwolves rookie Andrew Wiggins
and handed Minnesota its seventh loss in
eight games.
eattle Seahawks coach
Pete Carroll said he has
considered using cornerback Richard Sherman as a wide receiver.
The Seahawks’ passing game
is ranked 30th in the NFL as
they average less than 192 yards
per game.
One idea that has emerged is
using Sherman on offense. He
played wide receiver at Stanford
until a knee injury forced him to
switch to cornerback.
“He’s been very clear in that
intent for a long time around
here,” Carroll told Seattle radio station KIRO on Friday.
“It’s always been a conversation that we’ve had, and if I
need him I’m going to him and
he knows that.” Sherman told
the Seattle Times earlier in the
week that he would like to play
wide receiver.
“I’d be pretty good,” he said.
“Shoot, you can hardly touch
(receivers). So if you could
hardly touch me, I’d have a nice
day.”
The Seahawks host the Arizona Cardinals in a key NFC West
matchup on Sunday.
zBuffalo Bills defensive end
Jerry Hughes was ﬁned $22,050
for unsportsmanlike conduct by
the NFL.
The NFL said that Hughes
“directed abusive language towards an official” during the
Bills’ Nov. 13 game against the
Miami Dolphins. It is not clear
what he said.
Hughes said he told the officials that they missed a holding
penalty against the Dolphins
but got no explanation as to why
no penalty was called.
NHL
Price stops 33
shots as Canadiens
blank Bruins
Agencies
Washington
M
ontreal
continued
their mastery over
Boston as Carey Price
stopped 33 shots and
the Canadiens beat the Bruins
2-0 for the ninth time in their last
10 regular-season meetings.
The Canadiens, who have the
best record in the NHL at 15-51, have also won all three games
against the Bruins this season.
Islanders 4, Penguins 1
Center Anders Lee scored one
of New York’s three period goals
as the Islanders beat Pittsburgh
to move into a tie for ﬁrst place
in the Metropolitan Division in
front of a raucous sellout crowd
at Nassau Coliseum. The Islanders, who won 5-4 in the shootout
on Friday in Pittsburgh, have won
three successive games and eight
of nine to improve to 14-6-0.
Flyers 4, Blue Jackets 2
Defenseman Braydon Coburn
got his ﬁrst goal and assist of the
season, goaltender Steve Mason
made 20 saves and Philadelphia snapped a four-game losing
streak.
Left winger Brayden Schenn,
right winger Wayne Simmonds
and defenseman Mark Streit also
scored goals for the Flyers.
Lightning 2, Wild 1
Captain Steven Stamkos scored
his team-leading 14th goal of the
season to help the Lightning capture their eighth victory at home.
Stamkos is tied with Dallas
Stars center Tyler Seguin for the
league scoring lead.
Maple Leafs 4, Red Wings 1
Center Tyler Bozak scored two
goals, including a short-handed
goal early in the third period to
snap a tie, and Toronto beat Detroit. Bozak also scored his ninth
goal of the season into an empty
net late in the third period.
Flyers 4 Blue Jackets 2
Defenseman Braydon Coburn
got his ﬁrst goal and assist of the
season, goaltender Steve Mason made 20 saves and the Flyers snapped a four-game losing
streak with a 4-2 victory over the
Columbus Blue Jackets.
Left winger Brayden Schenn,
right winger Wayne Simmonds
and defenseman Mark Streit also
scored goals for the Flyers (8-92).
Predators 3, Panthers 2 (SO)
Goalkeeper Roberto Luongo
did everything in his power to
steal two points for the Florida
Panthers with 48 saves but Nashville Predators center Filip Forsberg beat him on the fourth round
of a shootout to give Nashville a
3-2 win.
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
9
BOXING
SPOTLIGHT
Pacquiao beats Algieri to
retain welterweight title
Pacquiao drops Algieri to the canvas six times during the 12-round contest to win an overwhelming unanimous decision
AFP
Macau
F
ilipino ring icon Manny Pacquiao comprehensively dismantled
American Chris Algieri to retain
his World Boxing Organization
welterweight title at the Cotai Arena in
Macau yesterday.
Pacquiao dropped Algieri to the canvas six times during the 12-round contest in the southern Chinese city to win
an overwhelming unanimous decision,
119-103, 119-103, 120-102 on the judges’ cards. Algieri, the unbeaten WBO
light welterweight champion, was outclassed from the start, with the eightdivision world champion Pacquiao
knocking the Long Islander down in the
second round, twice in both the sixth
and ninth rounds, and ﬁnally again in
the 10th.
Pacquiao was landing punches at will
as the quick Algieri tried to run, slip
and hide from the onslaught. But the
congressman from Sarangani province
really turned it when he smashed Algieri to the canvas with a devastating
straight left in the sixth.
The American only just beat the
count and dropped to one knee moments later as blows rained in from all
angles. He somehow survived and was
knocked down twice more in the ninth
and then again in the 10th, with one left
sending him sprawling across the ring
and head over heels backwards into the
corner.
“I’m satisﬁed with the result,” said
Pacquiao. “I did my best. I was trying for a knockout but he was fast and
keeps moving.”
“He’s perfected his style,” said Algieri. “He’s perfected the art of ﬁghting
like Manny Pacquiao. He hurt me once
when he buzzed me with a left hook.
But that was the only time.”
Algieri holds a master’s degree and
an ambition to become a doctor once
his boxing days are over. All week in
the build-up, his trainer Tim Lane had
been declaring that he would destroy
Pacquiao by “master boxing”.
They proved hollow words and Pacquiao’s Hall of Fame trainer Freddie
Roach mocked them afterwards. “The
master boxer was given a master class
by Professor Pacquiao,” said Roach.
Roach raised a laugh when he told
reporters he had resorted to an unusual
tactic to try to get Pacquiao to ﬁnish Algieri with a knockout. “Eleventh round,
I said ‘I want you to knock him out’,”
said Roach.
“He says ‘In Jesus’s name?’ I said,
‘If that’s what you want me to say?’ He
said “yeah”. So I said ‘Knock him out—
in Jesus’s name!’, he laughed. “Really
I tried everything I could to get that
knockout.”
Pacquiao’s victory will inevitably
heighten calls for him to face the unbeaten Floyd Mayweather in what could
be the ﬁrst billion-dollar ﬁght in history. “I really want the ﬁght. The fans
deserve it,” said Pacquiao afterwards,
throwing down a challenge by imitating a new TV commercial in which he
mocks Mayweather.
It brought huge cheers from the
sellout 13,202 crowd at the Venetian
Macau venue, where the vast majority
appeared to be Filipinos. Many hundreds more of Pacquiao’s compatriots
were waiting patiently outside for just
a glimpse of their national hero, having
arrived at the venue in the early hours
of Sunday to ﬁnd all the tickets gone.
Back in the Philippines, the nation
stopped to watch en masse. “The Filipinos were united in celebrating the victory of our national ﬁst, Congressman
Manny Pacquiao in his ﬁght against
Chris Algieri in Macau,” said President
Benigno Aquino’s spokesman Herminio Coloma in Manila.
Manny Pacquiao of the Philippines (right) lands a left hook over Chris Algieri of the US during their World Boxing Organization welterweight title bout at the Cotai Arena in Macau yesterday. (AFP)
MAYWEATHER TOLD ‘NO EXCUSES’, FIGHT PACQUIAO
Macau: Manny Pacquiao, his promoter
and his trainer all threw down the
gauntlet to Floyd Mayweather after
the Filipino boxer comprehensively
battered the latest challenger to his
world welterweight crown into defeat
yesterday.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been
wanting this fight, it has to happen,”
said the eight-weight world champion
at the Venetian Macau after knocking
down Chris Algieri six times on his way
to a huge points victory.
“The fans deserve it. It’s a good thing
that we talk about that fight. It’s time
to say yes,” added the World Boxing
Organization welterweight champion.
His promoter Bob Arum and trainer
Freddie Roach were even more direct
to lose in a fight against Pacquiao. He
has a perfect 47-0 record and has won
world titles at five different weights,
but a defeat at the Filipino congressman’s hands could blot that streak.
Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach
claimed there would always be a question mark over the pair’s careers if they
never met in the ring. “I think there
will ... always be an asterisk on their
records,” said Roach.
“Let’s face it, the best should fight
the best and they’ve been the best
guys out there. This is something that
will haunt them forever if it doesn’t
happen.”
Roach said as much he wanted Mayweather to come to the table, he also
knew that it would be the toughest as-
in calling out unbeaten light middleweight champion “Money” Mayweather, who competes with Pacquiao for
the moniker “best pound-for-pound
boxer in the world”.
Mayweather and his promoters have
previously found reasons to avoid the
fight, but the 82-year-old Arum, who
has been trying to secure the match
for almost four years, said “enough is
enough”. “No excuses. Manny knocked
Algieri down six times in one fight.
That’s twice as many knockdowns as
Mayweather has had in all his fights in
the last 12 years,” he taunted. “All they
have to do to is pick up the telephone.
I’ll be at the phone. Manny will be at his
phone,” added Arum.
Mayweather potentially has more
signment of his glittering Hall of Fame
training career to prepare Pacquiao for
it. “He will be the best opponent that
we’ve ever faced. I will really have to
do my homework with Mayweather because he puts a lot of things together a
lot better than most fighters.”
However Roach was more confident
that it would happen after Pacquiao’s
latest demolition job on the WBO light
welterweight champion Algieri. “Put it
this way, I’m starting to watch tapes of
Mayweather,” he revealed.
Pacquiao mocks Mayweather in a
new TV commercial for Footlocker
which he mimicked in the post-fight
press conference. “He’s going to fight
me?! Yes! Yes!” squealed Pacquiao to
huge laughter all round.
FOCUS
Vargas retains WBA super lightweight crown in Macau
AFP
Macau
A
merican Jessie Vargas outpointed his Mexican rival
Antonio DeMarco yesterday
to retain his World Boxing
Association super lightweight title in a
pulsating ﬁght in Macau.
The champion from Las Vegas, with
legendary ﬁghter Roy Jones Jr making
his debut as a trainer in his corner, got
the better of his valiant opponent in a
ﬁght which exploded into life from the
ﬁfth round onwards.
Both men were heavily marked at the
end of a toe-to-toe 12-round battle,
in which the unbeaten Vargas (26-0)
consistently landed the better shots to
take a unanimous decision 116-112 on
all three judges’ scorecards.
DeMarco (31-3-2) had many moments when he seemed to be getting on
top, particularly in the ninth when he
wobbled Vargas with a ﬁerce straight
left which sent him reeling back into
DeMarco’s own corner.
But Vargas showed enough craft to
step it back up when he needed to with
combinations of his own, even trying
a Jones Jr-style wind-up right “bolo
punch” and the verdict was never in
doubt. It was the ﬁrst big ﬁght on the
undercard of the Manny PacquiaoChris Algieri clash and Pacman’s trainer Freddie Roach was in DeMarco’s
corner “DeMarco was just too patient,”
Roach told reporters after the decision
was announced. “Too many times he
was just throwing one punch at a time.
I begged him to get busy.”
In the second world title ﬁght,
Ukraine’s double Olympic gold medallist Vasyl Lomachenko handed out a
boxing lesson to the experienced Thai
Chonlatarn Piriyapinyo.
The man from Odessa easily retained
his World Boxing Organization featherweight title, which he won in only
his third professional ﬁght earlier this
year after one of the greatest amateur
careers in history—one defeat in 397
bouts.
Piriyapinyo had only lost once in
his 52 ﬁghts before yesterday and was
dropped to the canvas for the ﬁrst time
in his career in the fourth round, after
a vicious series of half-a-dozen headsnapping punches culminated in a
ring-shaking left hand.
But the bell sounded before Lomachenko could ﬁnish the job and the
tough Thai recovered enough to see out
the contest to the full 12-round distance despite being picked off at will by
the lightning quick Lomachenko.
So hard were Lomachenko’s shots
that he suffered a broken left hand in
the 10th round. All three judges gave
it to the Ukrainian by an overwhelming
margin of 120-107.
Lomachenko declared after that he
has designs on becoming the undisputed featherweight champion.
ZOU BATTERS “MINI-MANNY” TO
EARN WORLD TITLE SHOT
China’s double Olympic gold medalwinning ﬂyweight Zou Shiming dismantled an experienced and durable
Thai opponent over 12 rounds to earn
a world title shot next year. In just his
sixth ﬁght the Chinese gave his best
performance since turning pro after
winning gold at London 2012. The unbeaten Kwanpichit Onesongchaigym
by contrast was in his 28th pro bout
and raised cheers among the huge Filipino contingent with his uncanny resemblance to Manny Pacquiao.
Gulf Times
Monday, November 24, 2014
11
SPORT
TENNIS / DAVIS CUP
SPOTLIGHT
Joy and tears for
Federer as Swiss win
French
Davis Cup
dream lives
on, says
coach
‘It’s an enormous pleasure for me, I’ve waited 15 years for this’
AFP
Lille
F
AFP
Lille, France
R
oger Federer gave Switzerland its ﬁrst Davis Cup title in yesterday in Lille by
pounding Richard Gasquet
of France in straight sets in the ﬁrst of
the ﬁnal’s reverse singles.
Federer romped to a 6-4, 6-2, 6-2
win to hand the Swiss an unbeatable
3-1 lead after Stan Wawrinka had won
the opening singles of the match and
the world number two and four had
teamed up to win the doubles on Saturday.
It was one of the greatest sporting
triumphs for Switzerland, the 14th nation to win the Davis Cup, and a huge
personal milestone for Federer to go
with his 17 Grand Slam titles, six Masters titles and Olympic doubles gold.
It left him with just an Olympic
singles gold to win in Rio in 2016 to
become just the third man, after great
rival Rafael Nadal and Andre Agassi,
to win all four Grand Slam titles, the
Olympic title and the Davis Cup.
“It’s an enormous pleasure for me,
I’ve waited 15 years for this,” Federer
said. “This has been a perfect weekend in a crazy atmosphere and all the
Swiss fans helped us enormously.
But he refused to accept that ﬁnally
winning the Davis Cup made him the
greatest player of all-time. “That’s of
no importance to me, what matters is
that I enjoy playing tennis,” he added.
Federer had expected to play JoWilfried Tsonga in the ﬁrst of Sunday’s two rubbers, but the French
number one, who lost to Wawrinka
in four sets on Friday, was struggling
with an arm injury and generally out
of sorts.
In came Gasquet with the monumental task of defeating Federer and
opening the door for the possibility
of the in-form Gael Monﬁls defeating
Wawrinka in the decider.
Another world record crowd of
27,488 roared their support for Gasquet
as the two players came out into the red
claycourt set down inside one half of a
roofed over Lille football stadium.
Switzerland’s Roger Federer celebrates after beating France’s Richard Gasquet in the fourth rubber of the Davis Cup final in Lille yesterday. (AFP)
STRUGGLING
The 33-year-old Swiss superstar executed an exquisite half-volley to bring
up break point in the third game and
sealed that with a superb backhand
down the line.
Gasquet could make no inroads at
all on the Federer serve and he was
struggling manfully each time to hold
his own.
Federer failed to convert two set
points at 5-4 up, but another love
service game did the trick in the following game.
When Federer broke serve to open
the second set, the heads visibly went
down in the French camp, while the
outnumbered Swiss supporters got to
their feet.
The merest point earned by Gasquet on the Federer serve brought
an ear-splitting reaction from the
French fans and the occasional rendition of ‘La Marseillaise’.
But it was all to no avail as a calm-asyou-like Federer brought up three more
break points and converted the second
of those to pocket the second set.
Gasquet put up some desperate late
ﬁght at the start of the second set,
garnering a few points on the Federer
serve, but he failed to earn a single
break point.
The pressure on his own serve was
all the more acute and a tired-looking
backhand, which sailed well wide,
handed Federer the ﬁnal break of
serve he needed.
Two games later it was all over, Federer falling to his knees in celebration after a ﬁnal perfect backhand
drop shot. He then shed some tears as
he savoured a hugely emotional win
The French team looked miserable
on the closing ceremony podiums as
they watched Federer get his hands on
the Davis Cup for the ﬁrst time after
years of trying.
“(Federer) was exceptional in every
aspect of his play,” French captain
Arnaud Clement said. “Richard (Gasquet) tried to be aggressive but Roger
was just stunning.
“It’s hard for us to take but on the
day we have to say that the Swiss were
the better team.”
Swiss path to Davis Cup glory
1st round (Novi Sad, Serbia)
Serbia 2 Switzerland 3
Straight-forward win for the Swiss pair
with Novak Djokovic, Janko Tipsarevic
and Viktor Troicki all absent for a variety
of reasons. Swiss take winning 3-0 lead
and reverse singles wins for Serbs are
meaningless.
Quarter-finals (Geneva, Switzerland)
Switzerland 3 Kazakhstan 2
Federer and Wawrinka expected to
win easy, but a shock opening defeat
for Wawrinka lets the Kazakhs into the
match and then the Swiss pair lose the
doubles. The reverse singles though
save the Swiss.
Semi-finals (Geneva, Switzerland)
Switzerland 3 Italy 2
Straight set wins for Federer and
Wawrinka set the Swiss up for a quick
win, but then the Swiss pair again slump
to doubles defeat. Federer though puts
the tie away with a straight sets win
over Fabio Fognini in the first of the
reverse singles
Final (Lille, France)
France 1 Switzerland 3
Honours shared on the first day with
Wawrinka defeating Jo-Wilfried Tsonga
and Gael Monfils beating Federer. But
the Swiss pair are superb in winning the
doubles and Federer wins first of the
reverse singles against Richard Gasquet.
(From left) Switzerland’s Marco Chiudinelli, Roger Federer, captain Severin Luthi, Stan Wawrinka and Michael Lammer celebrate. (AFP)
rench Davis Cup dreams were shattered once again in Lille yesterday,
the loss to Switzerland being the
third straight for them in the ﬁnal
of one of the oldest and most prestigious
events in sport.
In 2002, they lost 3-2 to Russia in Paris
and in 2010 they also lost 3-2 to Serbia in
Belgrade.
That means that they are stuck on nine
wins overall, level with Britain in third
equal place, in the long history of a tournament which is held in the highest esteem in
France.
All the more galling it is because time is
running out for a so-called golden generation of French players led by Jo-Wilfried
Tsonga, Gael Monﬁls, Richard Gasquet and
Gilles Simon.
For all their talent not one of them has
won a Grand Slam title and the Davis Cup
title remains as elusive as ever.
Asked what had prevented his players
from winning against the Swiss when everything seemed to be in their favour just a
few days before the start of the ﬁnal in Lille,
captain Arnaud Clement said sheer quality
had won through in the end.
“Honestly from the tennis point of view
the Swiss team was superior, better than we
were,” he said.
“Maybe we could have used some details
in our favour to turn around some matches
and the tie. But if you look at the tie as a
whole, you can see that the Swiss players
are at a higher level than us.
“They’re top one (Federer is actually
at two in the rankings) and top four of the
world. We prepared for that as much as
we could. But we knew that beating them
would need an exceptional performance.
“So what we are looking for is maybe big
victories on a regular basis in major tournaments during the year so that our players
can be at a higher level.
“It’s a lot and a little at the same time.”
There were excuses available for the
French notably the right-arm injury that
Tsonga aggravated at their training camp in
Bordeaux.
He was clearly not at his best in losing in
four sets to Stan Wawrinka in the ﬁrst singles and he then had to pull out of the doubles and the reverse singles.
But the Swiss had their troubles too with
Roger Federer’s back injury and the brief
fallout involving him and Wawrinka the
previous weekend in London.
But throughout the week in Lille, the
Swiss came over as more relaxed and better
prepared than the French.
According to France’s coaching technical director Arnaud di Pasquale, experience was key in Lille with Federer at 33 and
Wawrinka at 29 having years of it behind
them.The French still have some time left
on their side, he believes.
“They still have a few years to play. How old
is Federer (33). He won the Davis Cup. That
was the only trophy he didn’t have,” he said.
“But our French players are younger and
they still have very good years ahead of
them. I am sure they really want to go and
get this trophy. I don’t believe they will stop
with this failure.”
Al-Attiyah, Ippolito win FIM elections
Appreciation for QMMF
Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation (QMMF) president Nasser Khalifa al-Attiyah with Vito Ippolito after the two were re-elected as the vice president and president of the FIM
respectively. While al-Attiyah was elected for his second straight term, Venezeulan Ippolito won his third presidential election.
Kuwaiti co-driver Salem al-Thefiri (of Ahmed al-Qashmi)
presents a memento to QMMF general secretary Mohamed
Saad al-Morakhi as an appreciation for QMMF’s support to
rallying in the GCC at Qatar National Rally on Saturday.
Monday, November 24, 2014
SPORT
GULF TIMES
FINA WORLD SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS (25M)
Gold medals in Europe are
in the past, says Stjepanovic
‘I would say as a Serbian, obviously Novak Djokovic is an inspiration’
T
his year’s FINA World Swimming
Championships (25m) in Doha is not
only a highlight event in the global
sporting calendar but is lining up to be
the must-attend event in Qatar this year. Over
ﬁve days, the world’s fastest swimmers will
compete at Hamad Aquatic Centre for the ultimate prize – title of World Champion.
In an interview ahead of the Championships,
Serbian swimmer Velimir Stjepanovic said that
he has already moved over his two gold medals
at the European Championships (LC) in Berlin
earlier this year, and what inspires him, among
other things.
Q. What are your targets and ambitions for
the World Championships this year?
As I always say, ﬁrst I have to make ﬁnals and
then anything can happen. The competition is
pretty strong in my events but I’ll still be going
to try and get the medal.
Q. How do you feel about your European
Championships medals and has it changed
your approach or preparation for the
World Championship in Doha?
I’ve sort of tucked that away as the new season has started and focused on what’s next for
me. It didn’t really change my team’s approach
to training. We were always going to try and do
all the World Cup races as practice for swimming under difficult conditions. That is new, so
we will see how this approach affects me at the
World Championship.
Q. We all know diet is important in training and competing but for a swimmer
what’s important and what can we learn
from a swimmer’s diet?
Swimmers in general have a high calorie intake; I try to eat as healthy as possible though.
It’s important because the difference in the way
you feel in a session can change based on what
you ate. A lot of swimmers will have a ritual as
to what they eat on competition days so they
know they are fully prepared.
Q. What keeps you motivated to stay as
one of the leading swimmers in the world,
and who inspires you?
My top two reasons would be that I like winning and I hate losing. But I also love swimming
and want to inspire children to participate in
sport in general because the atmosphere in any
sporting event is amazing. I would say as a Serbian, obviously Novak Djokovic is an inspiration; he is someone everyone looks up to.
Q. You’re currently based in Dubai, but
Serbian swimmer
Velimir Stjepanovic
train with Serbian strength and conditioning coach Marko Bukovic. Does it help
to have Serbian training coaches around
you while you’re living away from home?
I was born in Abu Dhabi and have lived in Dubai my whole life, so I would say both UAE and
Serbia are my homes. However, it really helps
me keep my Serbian speaking level much higher
as I spend more of my days talking in Serbian
than English.
Q. How has working with Marko changed
how you feel in the water?
Obviously Marko helped a lot when I had my
QATAR BASKETBALL LEAGUE
Jaish, Arabi post wins
By Sports Reporter
Doha
Q. What is your main focus ahead of the
Meet FINA World
C’ships mascot Bahoor
W
ith just days to go
until the 12th FINA
World Swimming
Championships
(25m) begins in Doha on December 3, Bahoor, the Arabian seahorse and official mascot of the
Championships, will be out and
about in Doha to spread the excitement across the community.
Bahoor will be at Virgin
Megastore, Villaggio, on Thurs-
Al Wakrah’s Adamu Saaka (left) in action against El Jaish during their Qatar Basketball League
match at Al Gharafa Sports Club yesterday. PICTURE: Othman al-Samaraee
Summer Olympics in Rio? Will you be focusing on the Freestyle events like the 200m
and 400m that you’ve had recent success in?
I’m going to stick with my three events that
I’ve done so far; trying to get A cuts for Rio in
the 200m and 400m Freestyle, and the 200m
Butterﬂy.
BOTTOMLINE
By Sports Reporter
Doha
D
espite strong performances
by Adamu Saaka and Calvin
Cage, Al Wakrah could not
begin their Qatar Basketball
League campaign with a win. Saaka
scored a match high 33 points, while
Cage dunked 28 points, as Wakrah
went down to El Jaish 89-111 at Al
Gharafa Sports Club yesterday.
For Jaish, Shawn Taggart was the
leading scorer with 28 points. Taggart dunked 11 two-pointers and six
free-throws, apart from snapping up
14 rebounds.
Jaish consistently scored 26-29
points every quarter, with 28 points
coming in the last quarter.
Despite trailing throughout the
game, Wakrah came close in the
third quarter when they had managed to bring down the deﬁcit to
four at 61-65. However, their scoring dipped and they were only able
to score 11 points in the last quarter.
Jaish’s Vernon Macklin and Alioune Ndoye scored 20 points each
while Fadi Abilmona and Kelvin
Parker pitched in with 12 points
apiece.
Other players to get into double
ﬁgures for Wakrah were Mohamed
Ouiri (14) and Donald Rashad (10).
Earlier yesterday, Kevin Rogers
(22) and Mansour Elhadary (18) combined well for 40 points as Al Arabi
beat Al Khor 70-59. Drago Pasalic
scored 14 points for the eventual
winners. For Khor, Shavon Coleman
top-scored with 25 points, while
Kevin Bridgewaters and Emanuel
Willis pitched in with 16 and 15
points respectively.
Khor went into the second quarter
leading at 15-11, but then on could
not do much to force a win.
Tomorrow, Al Rayyan will take on
Qatar Sports Club in the 5pm match,
while Al Ahli will face off with Al
Gharafa at 7pm.
back problems. His training coupled with gym
time has made me feel much stronger, especially when it comes to my legs and explosive
power. This showed in my dives during the European Long Course events.
day, November 27, at 5pm.
Apart from posing for photos
with fans, Bahoor will be giving away exclusive FINA World
Swimming Championships merchandise to lucky fans who come
wearing the national colours of
their favourite swimmer.
A perfect choice of mascot for
the ﬂagship event in Doha, the
sea creature calls the crystal waters of Qatar’s coastline its home
where it elegantly yet powerfully
glides through the water.
The 12th FINA World Swimming Championships will bring
together the world’s best swimmers – Olympic legends, World
Record holders and World
Champions — to compete for
glory over ﬁve days. To be held at
Hamad Aquatic Centre from December 3-7, 2014, morning heats
start at 9:30am and the ﬁnals will
take place at 6pm.
Fans can purchase tickets
at Virgin Megastores or online
at
tickets.virginmegastore.qa
starting at QR10. For more information, log on to www.wscdoha2014.com or follow @FINA2014Doha on Twitter.