MONDAY Vol. XXXVII No. 10139
July 4, 2016Ramadan 29, 1437 AH www. gulf-times.com 2 Riyals GULF TIMES
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QATAR
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QATAR
REGION
ARAB WORLD
INTERNATIONAL
COMMENT
BUSINESS
CLASSIFIED
SPORTS
26, 27
1 – 5, 7 – 12
6, 7
1 – 12
2 – 9, 28
10
11,12
13 – 25
INDEX
SPORT | Page 1
BUSINESS | Page 1
Food and beverage sector fi rms urged to get certifi cations
Serena grabs 300th Grand Slam win
RAMADAN THOUGHT
Prayer times
Fasting times
Wealth and children are the adornment of the life of this world. But the good righteous deeds, that last, are better with your Lord for rewards and better in respect of hope. (Qur’an 18:46)
Iftar today ............................. 6.31pmSuhoor tomorrow ..............3.19am
Fajr....3.19 Zuhr....11.38 Asr....3.01 Maghrib.....6.31 Isha.....8.01
REGION | Grief
Cables of condolences HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, HH the Deputy Emir Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Thani and HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani yesterday sent cables of condolences to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud of Saudi Arabia on the death of Prince Mansour bin Faisal bin Saud bin Abdulrahman al-Saud.
QATAR | Congratulations
Emir greetsBelarus leaderHH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, HH the Deputy Emir Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Thani and HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al-Thani have sent cables of congratulations to Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko on his country’s Independence Day.
REGION | Measures
Kuwait to beef up security at oil sitesKuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) said yesterday it would reinforce security measures at oil installations in co-ordination with the country’s interior ministry. Page 10
In brief
The festivity is organised by the Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) and its partners
Qatar is all set to welcome resi-dents as well as visitors from abroad to numerous entertain-
ment activities and shows at 17 venues across the country for Eid al-Fitr cel-ebrations.
Themed as “Capture Joy”, the fes-tivity is organised by the Qatar Tour-ism Authority (QTA) and its partners “aimed at providing a unique celebra-tion that highlights the culture and heritage of the country”.
City Center Doha, Dar Al Salam, Ezdan, Hyatt Plaza, Al Khor and La-goona malls will host a variety of family entertainment shows for families and children from 5pm to 10pm, according to QTA. Entry is free.
Visitors will have the chance to watch Alice in Wonderland at City Center Doha, Sleeping Beauty at Dar Al Salam Mall, Iftah Ya Simsim at Hyatt Plaza Mall, Dora’s Friendship Fiesta at Al Khor Mall, and Snow White at La-goona Mall.
A group of performers, including Drummers Parade, Fritters, Hungry
Chefs, Walkabout Birds, Koka Stilt Walkers and Live Statue, will be mov-ing around inside these malls to enter-tain visitors, especially children.
Besides parades, visitors will also get a chance to see Doctor Bubble, Equilibrium on the Reels, Comedy Show, Tanoura Performance, Ardha Traditional Dance, Oriental Dabke and Kids Magician in all the participating malls.
A musical show under the theme “A Child’s Dream” will be staged at Ka-tara – the Cultural Village’s esplanade as part of its four-day Eid programme, which are to conclude daily with a spectacular fi reworks display.
A number of activities such as row-ing, wireless car racing, and pony rid-ing will be held at Aspire Zone from 3pm to 6pm from the fi rst day of Eid. Fees range from QR5 to QR25.
The Ministry of Interior is organising several musical and cultural shows for various expatriate communities during the Eid holidays at diff erent locations.
The Pearl-Qatar has also lined up a series of entertainment and recreation-al activities from July 6 to July 8 (4pm to 9pm) that includes Eid shopping ba-zaar “Al Maqtoora” at the Medina Cen-
trale’s indoor arena of Souq Al Medina.QTA is sponsoring a theatrical per-
formance titled Tar Al Wazir, an Arabic comedy that tackles some of the issues in Qatar and the other GCC nations. Popular stars Abdulaziz Jassim, Abdul-Nasser Darwish and Huda Sultan are the main performers. The shows are at 6.30pm and 9.30pm at the Qatar Na-tional Theatre, with ticket prices rang-ing from QR50 to QR500.
Souq Waqif will also host a children’s play titled The Hunter and the Pirates at the Al Rayyan Theatre between 4.30pm and 6.30 pm with tickets ranging from QR30 to QR300.
Sightseeing at the Al Dosari Zoo and Game Reserve at Al Sheehaniya is also set to welcome visitors from day two to fi ve of Eid al-Fitr from 4pm to 7pm for free.
For extreme sports lovers, the Sea-line Beach Resort will host paragliding activities for fi ve days from 3.30pm to 6.30pm. Al Samriya Equestrian Acad-emy will off er horse riding seven days from 8.30am to 6pm with a fee.
A free tour will be organised to the Sheikh Faisal bin Qassim Al Thani Mu-seum at Sheehaniya area, which will be open from 8.30am to 6pm. Visitors un-
der 8-years old can enter free, but those in the nine to 18 age group will pay QR10 and 18 above, QR15. Aqua Park, located
along Salwa Road at Exit 29, will cel-ebrate Eid for three days from noon to 6.30pm. Pages 3, 26, 28
Qatar gears up for Eid al-Fitr celebrations
All major shopping destinations across Qatar are witnessing a heavy rush, ahead of Eid al-Fitr. A clogged road in Doha’s souq area. PICTURE: Noushad Thekkayil
France hammer Iceland to book Germany showdownAFPParis
Olivier Giroud scored two goals and set up another as the Euro 2016 hosts France thrashed
Iceland 5-2 yesterday to set up a semi-fi nal clash against world champions Germany.
Giroud fi red France ahead after just 12 minutes at a rain-drenched Stade de France with Paul Pogba then heading in his fi rst goal of the tournament to dou-ble the hosts’ lead.
Dimitri Payet struck two minutes before half-time to put France in com-plete control and Antoine Griezmann raced clear to add a fourth to round out France’s fi rst-half blitz.
Iceland, who beat England 2-1 to reach the last eight, put on another never-say-die performance.
Kolbeinn Sigthorsson and Birkir Bjarnason grabbed second-half con-solation goals either side of Giroud’s second but Iceland were overpowerd by France’s domination.
Didier Deschamps’ men will take on Germany in Marseille on Thursday for a place in the fi nal, while Iceland will re-
turn home as heroes after a remarkable run in their fi rst appearance at a major tournament.
“Germany are the best team, there is no doubt about that, even if Italy gave them a few scares. But we are there in the fi nal four,” said Deschamps.
Iceland, who had never beaten France
in 11 attempts, kept faith with the side that shocked England, making Euro-pean Championship history as the fi rst team to name an unchanged line-up for their fi rst fi ve matches
Samuel Umtiti became the fi rst French outfi eld player to make his in-ternational debut during a major fi nals
since 1966 as the Barcelona-bound defender replaced the suspended Adil Rami.
Moussa Sissoko fi lled in for N’Golo Kante, who was also serving a one-match ban, on the right side of midfi eld as Deschamps stuck with the 4-2-3-1 that helped France fi ght back to beat the Republic of Ireland in the last 16.
Sluggish starts had been a hallmark of France matches in the tournament, but the hosts quickly seized control at the Stade de France with Hannes Hall-dorsson smothering Payet’s early eff ort at the second attempt.
It took less than a quarter hour for France to make the breakthrough though.
Giroud raced onto Blaise Matuidi’s fl oated ball over the defence and drilled through the legs of Halldorsson.
Iceland, who fought back in style against England after conceding an early opener in their last 16 tie, could not replicate a similar response and fell further behind on 20 minutes.
Antoine Griezmann’s right-wing corner found a leaping Pogba who towered above Jon Dadi Bodvarsson to power in his fi rst goal of the European Championship.
Jon Dadi Bodvarsson skied over after Aron Gunnarsson’s long throw caused trouble inside the French penalty area, but Les Bleus had wrapped up their place in the last four by half-time.
After Giroud knocked down a loop-ing cross to Griezmann, the Atletico Madrid striker teed up Payet whose low drive whistled into the far corner two minutes before the break.
Griezmann tucked away France’s fourth on the stroke of the interval, running onto Giroud’s pass and lifting a deft chip over Halldorsson to move clear in the race for the Golden Boot with his fourth goal.
Sigthorsson, who netted Iceland’s winner against England, scored for the second game running after pok-ing in Gylfi Sigurdsson’s cross on 56 minutes.
But France replied with Giroud beat-ing Halldorsson to a Payet free-kick, and the Arsenal striker was withdrawn immediately having been booked ear-lier in the competition.
Iceland were rewarded for their per-severance though as they grabbed a second goal when Bjarnason headed in Ari Skulason’s cross on 84 minutes. Sports Pages 2, 3
France’s players celebrating after the Euro 2016 quarter-final football match at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, near Paris yesterday.
Emir to receive Eid well-wishers
HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani will receive well-wishers at Al Wajbah Pal-
ace on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr on the fi rst day of the Eid, the Emiri Diwan an-nounced yesterday.
Immediately after the Eid prayer un-til 6:30am, HH the Emir will receive their excellencies sheikhs, ministers, the Speaker of the Advisory (Shura) Council, ministries’ undersecretaries,
Shura Council members and citizens.From 6:30am to 6:45am, the Emir will
receive heads of diplomatic missions.From 6:45am to 7am, the Emir will
receive the armed forces and police offi cers as well as directors of depart-ments and national institutions.
The Emir will also receive immedi-ately after the Asr ( afternoon) prayers until 4:15pm their excellencies sheikhs and citizens.
MoI working hours during holidays
The Ministry of Interior (MoI) has announced that its departments that serve the public such as
the General Directorate of Nationality, Borders & Expatriate Aff airs, General
Directorate of Traffi c and Criminal Evi-dence & Information Department will work from 8am to 12noon during the Eid al-Fitr holidays, which began yes-terday and runs until July 11.
ReutersWashington
The White House yesterday con-demned bombings in Baghdad that killed nearly 120 people and
wounded 200, saying the attack only strengthened the United States’ resolve to confront Islamic State (IS) militants.
“We remain united with the Iraqi people and government in our com-bined eff orts to destroy ISIL,” the White House statement said, using an acro-nym for the self-declared Islamic State.
A refrigerator truck packed with ex-
plosives blew up in Baghdad’s central district of Karrada, killing 115 people and injuring at least 200.
In a second attack, a roadside device exploded around midnight in a mar-ket in al-Shaab, a Shia district, killing at least two people, police and medical sources said.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the bloodshed in a statement cir-culated online by supporters of the ex-tremist group.
It said the truck blast was a suicide bombing.
The attack on the shopping area of Karrada is the deadliest since US-
backed Iraqi forces last month cleared Islamic State militants from their stronghold of Fallujah, an hour’s drive west of the capital.
The market bombing was the deadli-est so far this year.
The head of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, has said Islamic State may fi nd targets away from battle-fi elds where the group has faced losses.
“To compensate for territorial losses, ISIL (Islamic State) will probably rely more on guerrilla tactics, including high-profi le attacks outside territory it holds,” Brennan told lawmakers last month. Page 12
Baghdad attacks strengthen US resolve, says White House
QATAR
Gulf Times Monday, July 4, 20162
CID to intensify security patrols during Eid, summer holidaysThe Criminal Investigation
Department (CID) will in-tensify security patrols in
residential areas, public places and commercial centres during the summer to ensure that no untoward incident takes place.
This comes as part of prepa-rations for the Eid holidays and summer vacation, with the Min-istry of Interior (MoI)’s Public Relations Department issuing a report that lists a number of dos and don’ts for Qatar’s inhabit-ants to ensure safety at home and abroad during the travel period.
Many people are expected to visit their native countries or other destinations during this period and the MoI advisory covers a wide range of issues, seeking to ensure a hassle-free trip for all.
How to secure the houseSpeaking on the need to en-
sure the security of one’s home before beginning a trip, Criminal Investigation Department (CID) director Brig Jamal Mohamed al-Kaabi urged individuals and families who intend to travel to take “necessary precautions and secure their homes one way or the other”. He also advised them not to leave valuables or money in the house; instead, they should deposit the same in banks.
He stressed that security pa-trols in residential areas, public places and commercial centres will be stepped up during the summer to ensure that no rob-bery, theft or other unlawful acts takes place.
Brig al-Kaabi also advised people to ensure the safety of their vehicles before travelling
by parking them inside their compound and not leaving them in public places in order to avoid damage and theft. Further, he urged citizens as well as resi-dents to inform the local police station about the duration of their travel, if they have valu-ables in the house, and ensure that all doors and windows are properly shut before leaving.
Safety measures at homeMeanwhile, Lt Col Hus-
sain Aman Ali, assistant direc-tor of the Prevention Depart-ment, Civil Defence, said people should be especially cautious while using electrical appliances and household items such as air-conditioners, exhaust fans and LPG cylinders during the summer. All safety and security measures should be followed at home, he stressed.
Those spending the summer months outside the country should take precautions such as switching off the gas cylinder, ensuring the safety of windows and doors, not keeping chemi-cals or fl ammable items inside the house and keeping a proper fi re extinguisher at home, he said. Also, family members who stay back at home should be trained in how to properly use an extinguisher.
He advised people not to overload the power grid and get periodic inspections of electri-cal connections done by tech-nicians who have the required expertise. They should also keep thermoelectric devices away from curtains, upholstery and infl ammable materials. Besides, all electrical appliances should be unplugged before leaving the
house, especially exhaust fans. Airport security
Highlighting the need for travellers to abide by security and safety requirements, Air-port Security Department direc-tor Brig Eissa Arar al-Rumaihi stressed the importance of not carrying any banned items as specifi ed on air tickets and at airline counters. Advanced tech-nology will reveal any banned item that passengers may be car-rying and this may cause delays for them.
Passengers should not carry other people’s luggage without prior knowledge as they may be exposed to legal accountability if it contains a banned item. Also, it is better not to carry any excess baggage if not absolutely nec-essary. Brig al-Rumaihi asked passengers to co-operate with airport security, immigration and Customs offi cers, and follow safety the guidelines on board the fl ight.
Meanwhile, Brig al-Rumaihi reminded passengers that they have to produce their boarding pass and travel documents for inspection while entering the departures area at the airport. A passenger and his/her bag-gage should pass through a se-curity check and may be asked to undergo additional screening in accordance with procedures followed at international air-ports. The traveller must place all metal objects in the basket al-located for inspection and make sure that s/he takes them back before leaving the security area.
Baggage screening Maj Abdullah Abdul-Hadi al-
Dossari, head of the inspection
section at the department, said there are a number of prohibited items that should not be carried in a travel bag.
These include sharp materi-als that are not permitted in-side handbags - nail scissors and clippers, razors of all kinds except those inside a plas-tic sheath, all types of knives, cutlery, screwdrivers, lighters, sharp tools, shears except that are no more than 3cm in length, ropes, dartboards, catapult (dart), billiard tools, all kinds of sports rackets, climbing and ski-ing sticks, toy weapons - plas-tic or metal, needles (except used for medical purposes with proof), body sprays, measuring tapes, meat and fi sh, paints, etc. In case any of the above items is
found in one’s hand luggage, it will be confi scated.
It is also not allowed to carry more than 1litre of liquid sub-stances, sprays, pastes and gels, with a single pack measuring not more than 100ml, which has to be kept in a transparent plastic bag which is easy to open and close. The size of the bag should not exceed 20×20 cm.
Hazardous materials that are not allowed to be transported in luggage includes weapons, ex-plosives, ammunition, fi reworks, all kinds of fl ammable materials, fl ammable liquids, acids, batter-ies containing fl uids, fl ammable or non-fl ammable compressed and poisonous gases, gas cylin-ders, radioactive materials, pes-ticides, weed killers, arsenic, cy-anide and infectious substances such as bacteria and germs, among others.
Airport Passports De-partment
Col Mohamed Rashid al-Mazroui, director of the Airport Passports Department, asked Qatari citizens and expatriates to keep in mind a set of instruc-tions and tips so to have a safe trip. These include ensuring the validity of their passport – it should not be less than three months if the traveller is head-ing to any Arab country and six months for a European country. It is also important to make sure that all passports and tickets are with the travellers before start-ing from home.
He advised travellers to obtain the exit permit (if required) well in advance and reach the airport three hours prior to the fl ight departure to complete the proce-
dures with ease. He also remind-ed them of the importance of following the instructions of se-curity personnel and the depart-ment’s staff because they always work for the passengers’ benefi t.
Airport passport counters
Captain Nasser Abdul Karim al-Humaidi, head of the Air-port Passports Section, asked passengers heading for pass-port control counters after get-ting their boarding pass to fol-low fl oor marks in front of the counters. There are 78 counters and 22 e-gates.
He also urged travellers to ac-tivate the e-gate service on their smart ID cards through Met-rash2 or any MoI Services Centre in the country as doing so will help save time and eff ort.
Exit permitsMaj Nasser Jaber al-Maliki,
head of the Exit Permit Section at the Airport Passports Depart-ment, advised travellers to en-sure that exit permits have been obtained - for those who require the same - before leaving for the airport. In case of any delay in obtaining the exit permit, per-sonal sponsors can approach the MoI offi ce in the departures lounge to get it issued.
He called on minor Qataris and residents to obtain the exit permit electronically through the Metrash2 mobile app, MoI e-services portal or Hukoomi web portal before heading for the air-port or any of the other border posts.
Maj al-Maliki also urged ex-patriates to check the legal age of their children. Many residents leave for the airport without
paying attention to the age of their children and then fi nd out at the passport control counters that their children need an exit permit as they have exceeded 18 years.
Travel through Abu Samra land border
Capt Adel Alawi al-Yafi , sec-retary of the Abu Samra border post, urged people travelling by road to ensure the safety of their vehicle, availability of all secu-rity facilities and validity of the driver’s licence and vehicle per-mit. He also reminded them that the vehicle should be registered in the passenger’s name or s/he should have authorisation to travel with it.
He noted that Qatari nation-als travelling by car through the Abu Samra post should ensure the validity of their passports and those wishing to travel to the other GCC countries us-ing their ID cards need to carry smart ID cards. While exiting the GCC countries, they should use the same travel document that they used to enter that country - whether it is an ID or a pass-port. They should also ensure there is no travel ban on them, the passports of those travelling with them are valid and they also have valid visas for the destina-tion country.
He added that the main re-quirements for expatriates are to ensure the validity of their pass-port – and that it is not damaged – and residence permit, besides obtaining visas for the countries to be visited. They should also check the validity of the pass-ports and residence permits of their family members.
A large number of people are expected to pass through Hamad International Airport during the Eid and summer holidays. File picture
QATAR3Gulf Times
Monday, July 4, 2016
MoI to hold mega Eid events for communitiesA slew of musical and
cultural shows will highlight this year’s
‘Communities Eid al-Fitr 2016 Celebrations’ organ-ised by the Ministry of Inte-rior (MoI).
In a statement, MoI’s Public Relations Depart-ment announced yesterday that Indian, Sri Lankan, Nepalese and Korean expa-triate communities will be holding their shows beside the Asian Town cricket sta-dium at Doha’s Industrial Area in the fi rst two days of Eid from 5pm to 11pm.
The Al Wakrah Sports Club will host activities of the Bang-ladeshi and Pakistani expatri-ate communities on the fi rst day of the celebration.
During the event, work-ers will be given a chance to showcase their talents in singing and dancing on stage. Main attraction will include musical and band perform-ances at every venue.
For the Indian commu-nity, teams and organisations
registered under the Indian Cultural Centre such as San-skriti Qatar, Thirumuttam, Vishwakalavedi and Banghya Parishat will be performing various cultural and tradi-tional dances and shows.
In addition, the Skills De-velopment Centre’s team will take part in the event by showcasing Arabic and In-dian folk dance along with a performance from the SDC Music Club.
On behalf of Sri Lankan community in Qatar, the Sri Lankan Co-ordination Com-mittee will participate in the celebration by presenting songs, dramas, Sri Lankan folk dances while the Korean community will participate with a Korean DJ music show on fi rst day of Eid.
Members of the Non Res-idents Nepalese Association will take to the stage with their traditional songs and dances presented by Kha-tang samaj, Magar samaj, Bishwakarma samaj and Fewa Cultural Family.
Pakistan’s famous artistes, including Khalid Malak, Hashmat Sahar, Gul Nawaz, Zardad Bulbul, Khalidah Yas-min, Nadiya Gul, Radmi and Mina Gul, are expected to en-thral the crowd at the Wakrah Sports Club from 6pm on the fi rst day of Eid.
On the same day, the Bangladeshi community will also hold its activities at the indoor football stadium of Wakrah Sports Club from 6pm with a speech on Ram-adan and Eid.
Several Islamic songs will be sung until the Maghrib prayer call, then a cultural programme will start with an Eid song by all performers.
Participating local musi-cal groups Srabon, Chironton Baul, Probashi Baul, Bonga-bondhu Shanskritik Jote, Aotopar, community chil-dren’s dance group and com-edy troupe will perform in se-quence.
The celebration will also engage the audience in a singing and dancing com-
petition as part of a spe-cial episode, giving them a chance to win prizes.
In Al Khor Industrial Area, MoI has partnered with the Barwa Group to celebrate Eid with workers, company employees and their families, and visitors at the Barwa Workers Sports Complex from 5.30pm.
MoI is urging all commu-nity members to take part in the ‘Communities Eid al-Fitr 2016 Celebrations’ at vari-ous locations in the country. Entry is free and visitors will have a chance to win prizes from a raffl e draw.
Organisers have also set up a separate area for fami-lies in each venue.
MoI said the programme is supported by Qatar Rail as diamond sponsor, QDVC and Joannou & Paraskevaides as main sponsors, Al Muftah group and Rotana group, Al Marai and Team Time as as-sociate sponsors. Asian Town and Ibn Ajyan projects have sponsored the venues.
QSTec, a member of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF), recently hosted a series of educational workshops for children, enabling the young participants to build solar lanterns out of recycled materials. As part of its Shams Generation programme, the initiative combines art, science, recycling and solar energy. The week-long programme took place during the holy month of Ramadan after Iftar at Katara Cultural Village as part of the popular Katara Ramadan Festival. Some children are seen with solar lanterns.
Solar lantern workshops for children
QATAR
Gulf Times Monday, July 4, 20164
Stable weather expected during Eid holidaysStable weather is ex-
pected in the country during the Eid al-Fitr
holidays, the Qatar Met department has said.
While there are no warnings for this period – from today until July 9 - and the weather will be suitable for all kinds of activities, the Met depart-ment has reminded people not to expose themselves to direct sunlight during the day.
In a report yesterday, the department said it was expected to be hot during the day with slight dust in some places at times, which might turn to blowing dust by mid-day in certain ar-eas on Friday and Satur-
day. Northwesterly-north-easterly light to moderate winds are expected during this period, blowing at 5-15 knots, which may “become fresh” by midday in some places on Friday and Satur-day and reach a speed of 22 knots.
The sea level, mean-while, is likely to be “light to moderate”, measuring 1-3/4ft.
The highest and lowest temperatures are expected to range from 41-44C and 33-35C, respectively.
The country had been experiencing strong winds and dusty conditions over the past few days, leading to a drop in visibility in many places. Yesterday, however,
the Met department said in posts on social media that the windy conditions were expected to weaken gradu-ally and all warnings would be cancelled.
The forecast for inshore areas today says it will be very hot during the day with some clouds. Slight to blowing dust is expected in some places at times.
Slightly dusty condi-tions have been forecast in off shore areas.
Yesterday, the highest temperature recorded in the country was 44C in the Doha airport area, Messaied and Turayna, followed by 43C in the Qatar University area and Al Rayyan, among other places.
QIB branches at malls to work in evening
Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) has announced that during the Eid al-Fitr
holidays, its branches at The Gate Mall, Dar Al Salam and City Center will remain open from the evening on the second day of Eid as per regular bank-ing hours.
After the Eid holidays, all 31 QIB branches will resume regular work in the morning and evening shifts. The regular working hours for The Gate Mall, Dar Al Salam and City Center branches are from 9am to 2.30 pm and from 3.30pm to 9pm, Saturday until Thursday, and from 4pm to 9pm on Friday.
QIB e-channels will also be available 24/7 through Internet banking, the QIB mobile bank-ing application, call centre and over 170 ATMs and cash depos-it machines spread across the country.
Traff ic police off icials greeted motorists on Doha Corniche yesterday with flowers and booklets as part of a Ramadan campaign to improve public awareness on road safety. PICTURE: Shaji Kayamkulam
Road safety awareness drive
QATAR5Gulf Times
Monday, July 4, 2016
Qatar Airways’ fi rst fl ight to Marrakech touches down
The inaugural Qa-tar Airways fl ight to tourist favourite
Marrakech landed at Me-nara Airport on July 1, giving customers travelling from the Moroccan city access to more than 150 destinations worldwide.
On board fl ight QR1395 was a Qatar Airways del-egation led by Dr Hugh Dunleavy, the airline’s chief commercial offi cer, who was greeted by Marrakech Me-nara Airport general manag-er Nawal Mounir, Morocco’s Minister of Tourism Lahcen Haddad and Qatari coun-sellor to Morocco Mansour Abdullah al-Sulaiteen.
To celebrate the fi rst fl ight, Qatar Airways hosted an Iftar for VIPs, offi cials, authorities, trade and media in Marrakech.
Qatar Airways Group chief executive Akbar al-Baker said, “Marrakech is one of Morocco’s most pop-ular cities for tourists, and it is our pleasure to off er this vibrant destination to our customers, while also open-ing up seamless connectiv-ity to more than 150 cities around the world to those travelling from Morocco through our hub at Hamad International Airport.
“As one of the country’s economic centres, there is immense potential in Mar-rakech, both in terms of tourist and business travel, and we are pleased to off er the services of the world’s best airline to passengers travelling for all purposes.”
With a population of more than 920,000, Mar-rakech is the fourth larg-est city in Morocco and the second city served by Qatar Airways, with fl ights three times a week from Doha
on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday via Casablanca. The return fl ight from Marra-kech travels directly non-stop to Doha.
Qatar Airways began its Morocco operations in 2002. Today, customers can fl y daily on Qatar Airways’ Boeing 787 Dreamliner to
Casablanca from Doha. Additionally, through a
codeshare partnership with Royal Air Maroc, Qatar Airways off ers customers the opportunity to “seam-lessly connect” to destina-tions throughout Morocco, Spain as well as north and west Africa, with the addi-
tional benefi t of “enhanced frequent fl yer benefi ts”, ac-cording to a statement.
Import and export busi-nesses in Morocco are also expected to benefi t from the new service, which provides up to 33 tonnes of belly-hold cargo capacity a week, the statement notes.
The Qatar Airways delegation to Marrakech was led by Dr Hugh Dunleavy (right), who was greeted by Lahcen Haddad (centre) and Mansour Abdullah al-Sulaiteen (left).
Flight QR1395 being welcomed with a water salute at Marrakech Menara Airport.
QATAR
Gulf Times Monday, July 4, 20168
298 mosques, prayer grounds ready for Eid
LuLu Exchange Company celebrated its third anniversary yesterday in the presence of customers and the senior management of the company and LuLu Group International at the D-Ring branch in Doha.
LuLu Exchange marks anniversaryBarwa Bank concludes ‘Ramadan Campaign 2016’Barwa Bank has concluded
its Ramadan Campaign 2016 entitled “#My_Ra-
madan_Moments,” which was geared at highlighting the holy month’s “honourable values and charitable work.”
During the holy month, the campaign’s offi cial video, which aims to invite the public to cele-brate the sacred month’s values, customs, and traditions, reached a total of more than 100,000 views on the bank’s Facebook page, which contributed in de-livering the bank’s message to all segments of Qatar’s society.
Similarly, the bank launched the sixth edition of its Ramadan football tournament, and grant-ed QR64,000 to Qatar Char-ity and Eid Charity associations as part of the bank’s promise to triple the registration fees of the annual tournament.
The tournament, which saw the participation of 16 teams, concluded with a coronation ceremony for the “Qatar Char-ity” team, where Talal Ahmed al-Khaja, Chief Group Com-munications Offi cer at Barwa
Bank, awarded cash and sym-bolic prizes to the best perform-ing teams and players, while also delivering fi nancial contribu-tions to each of the two charities.
While the “Qatar Charity” team won the championship ti-tle for Barwa Bank’s Ramadan football tournament, “Ezdan Holding” team fi nished second, followed by third place winner, “Kafood” team.
Khalid al-Subaie, acting Group CEO of Barwa Bank, said: “Barwa Bank’s Ramadan foot-ball tournament is one of the bank’s multi-purpose initia-tives that promotes sports and healthy living among commu-nity members and celebrates the holy month’s spirit of together-ness and teamwork, in addition to promoting the values of love,
giving, and sports spirit. “The initiative is a part of
Barwa Bank’s wider Ramadan campaign that we launched this year, which is part of our brand’s Corporate Social Responsibility programme and contributes to the realisation of the Qatar National Vision 2030’s social and human development goals. Congratula-tions to this year’s tournament winners and we are honoured to give back to the community we serve, by donating triple the pro-ceeds to charity.”
Additionally, Barwa Bank or-ganised an Iftar event for Qatar Foundation for Elderly People Care (Ihsan) to honour and com-mend their charity’s eff orts.
Talal al-Khaja said: “Our team’s celebration of the holy month of Ramadan with our elders while enjoying Iftar with them came as an expression of our thanks and indebtedness. It is a token of gratitude and ap-preciation, as well as a practical demonstration of the value of giving and solidarity as a beacon that lights the way for Qatar’s younger generations.”
During the holy month, the bank also held its 2016 Annual Gala ceremony along with a staff Suhoor event to celebrate Ram-adan and pay tribute to its top performing team members.
The Gala ceremony honoured 30 of Barwa Bank Group’s top-notch talents with this year’s Business Excellence Award for their relentless eff orts and exemplary performance that played a role in boosting the Group’s profi ts, reducing its costs, providing outstanding customer value, and improving operational effi ciencies.
The bank also recognised employees who completed fi ve years or more as team members in the Group. Recognition certif-icates were also awarded to “The First Investor” employees who completed 10 and 15 years.
Barwa Bank’s Ramadan Cam-paign 2016 “#My_Ramadan_Moments” was organised in the framework of its Corporate So-cial Responsibility, which is a core element of the bank’s brand that is centred on “putting peo-ple and communities fi rst.”
Expat gets two-year jailfor illicit drug tradeA Doha Criminal Court has
sentenced a Sri Lankan man to two years in jail
and a fi ne of QR200,000 for il-licit drug consumption and trade.
Local Arabic daily Arrayah re-ported yesterday that the court also ordered his deportation upon serving his sentence.
A secret source of the Drug Prevention Department of the Ministry of Interior had reported to his superior that the defend-ant off ered to sell him some quantity of the illicit drug mari-juana for QR1,000.
The source was instructed to go along with the defendant and proceed with the deal.
The whole process was moni-tored by the police after obtain-
ing the necessary legal approv-als.
At the agreed time and place, both the defendant and the source met and the former handed the source a plastic bag containing the illicit drug and took the money.
Immediately, police person-nel arrested the defendant and took him to his accommodation from where more marijuana was found.
A blood test proved that he used to consume marijuana. At the interrogation, the defendant admitted his guilt.
Three men to be jailed, deported for assaulting debt collection employee
Three African men have been sentenced to three years in jail and subse-
quent deportation by a Doha Criminal Court, local Arabic daily Arrayah reported yesterday.
The trio were convicted by the court for attacking a debt collection employee in the In-dustrial Area, stealing a sum of QR672,600 from him, in addi-
tion to a cash counting machine. The issue started when the
victim was doing some work in the Industrial Area collect-ing money due to his company from some clients.
As he was heading towards his vehicle after collecting cash, two of the defendants ap-proached him and stopped him.
Then, one of them hit him
on his head with a piece of iron and the other grabbed from him, the bag of money and a cash counting machine.
Later, the two defendants ran away to the vehicle which was driven by their third ac-complice and escaped. When the defendants were arrested by the police, they confessed during the interrogation.
The Ministry of Endow-ments and Islamic Aff airs (Awqaf) has prepared 298
mosques and prayer grounds, including 35 mosques and places reserved for women, in various areas of the country for the Eid al-Fitr prayer.
The Ministry announced that Eid al-Fitr prayers will be per-formed at 5:03am.
“Our team’s celebration of the holy month of Ramadan with our elders while enjoying Ift ar with them came as an expression of our thanks and indebtedness”
QATAR9Gulf Times
Monday, July 4, 2016
Price ofHamourshoots up,may touchQR100/kgBy Ramesh Mathew Staff Reporter
The retail price of Hamour, one of
the most sought after varieties of fi sh is likely to cross QR100 per kg in the coming days, traders said yesterday.
The price of the fi sh yesterday was QR90 per kg at the Doha Cen-tral Market and a little more at the retail outlets outside, they said.
They attributed the jump in the price to the growing demand for the fi sh in the second half of the holy month of Ramadan as well to the dwindling catch owing to ex-tremely windy conditions in the last few days.
The windy weather has seriously hit fi shing for more than 72 hours, and the situation is not likely to improve at least until tomorrow, sources said.
Also because of the hot weather, most fishermen have
reduced the quantum of their catch, the sources added. They may reduce it further in the coming days as a significantly
large section of the regular cus-tomers among the expatriates have already left the country on vacation. Shamal Safi was
priced at about QR50 per kg and Mackerel QR17 yesterday.
Curiously enough, King fi sh was comparatively cheaper yesterday
and it was available at about QR33/kg. However, it is expected that falling availability may push up the prices in the next few days.
The availability of fish has fallen owing to a host of reasons, one of them being windy conditions.
Many Qataris to spend Eid vacation in UK, SwitzerlandBy Joey AguilarStaff Reporter
The UK and Switzerland are the two most popular des-tinations for many Qataris
vacationing abroad during the Eid al-Fitr holidays this year, accord-ing to travel agencies.
These two countries have good weather and they are also safe, like many other European destina-tions, and halal food is also avail-able in several hotels and restau-rants for Muslim visitors, a travel agent told Gulf Times.
“London has always been a fa-
vourite,” he said. “Paris (France) and Istanbul (Turkey) have been left behind because of safety con-cerns , I suppose.”
Last week, Turkey suff ered yet another terror attack at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport, leaving more than 40 dead and hundreds injured.
The travel agent added that even regular customers who fre-quently travel to Turkey, mostly Qatari families, have cancelled their bookings this Eid and opted for Switzerland. Some will be trav-elling to other European countries such as Germany, Italy and Aus-tria.
While families have booked their
vacations in UK destinations such as Edinburgh and Scotland, oth-ers will be going to Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, according to the travel agent.
Besides Europe, it is learnt that three Southeast Asian countries are becoming popular for many Qataris, especially during the Eid holidays.
An employee of another agency noted that Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia have been drawing an increasing number of Qatari and Emirati vacationers.
“Thailand offers a lot of things such as delicious food, beaches (outside Bangkok), medical tour-
ism and spa, as well as other touristic attractions,” he said. “It is also family-friendly and halal food is found almost every-where.”
The Thai embassy in Doha post-ed a 21.54% increase in the number of visitors from Qatar (mostly na-tionals) in 2015 compared to 2014. Meanwhile, the embassy of Singa-pore saw a 4.1% increase in arrivals last year.
Malaysia, like Singapore, also gets a fair share of Qatari visitors because of the modern tourism infrastructure and easy availabil-ity of halal food in restaurants and hotels.
The travel agent also observed that many Qatari families who spent their vacation in these three countries last year have booked their holidays again for the same destinations.
“In fact, they have even booked the same hotel where they stayed last time, which means they en-joyed their stay there previously,” he added.
Based on the travel agency’s records, around 80% of Qatari cus-tomers prefer European countries during the Eid holidays. Some 10% go to Asia while the remaining 10% prefer to visit other GCC countries such as the UAE and Oman.
Sidra appoints Ferguson as CMOSidra Medical and Research
Centre (Sidra) has an-nounced the appointment of
Dr John Ferguson as chief medical offi cer (CMO).
Dr Ferguson will provide criti-cal physician input and counsel in the day-to-day clinical services at Sidra.
He will be involved in overseeing Sidra’s patient- and family-centric focus via clinical advancements; quality improvement and patient safety; as well as adopting the lat-est technologies and best practice methodologies to ensure the eff ec-tive care of patients at Sidra.
“Dr Ferguson’s appointment represents another important milestone as we get ready for two facilities - our outpatient clinic becoming fully operational by Jan-
uary 2017 and the preparation for the phasing of in-patient services at the main hospital,” said Peter Morris, chief executive offi cer of Sidra.
“Dr Ferguson will play a criti-cal role in incorporating the latest advances in paediatric and mater-nity services at Sidra. His wealth of experience and commitment to high quality healthcare delivery is a great fi t with our key mission to provide patients with world class healthcare services in an innova-tive and ultramodern setting.”
Dr Ferguson joins Sidra from Austin Health, a major tertiary hospital in Melbourne, Australia, with almost 1,000 beds and over 8,000 staff . Austin Health is also the provider of several state wide quaternary services, including liv-
er transplant, spinal services, and the Victorian Respiratory Support Service.
Prior to Austin Health, Dr Fer-guson was part of an Australian team tasked with developing two new hospitals and three new clin-ics in Kuwait City.
Dr Ferguson expressed delight in being appointed as the CMO at Sidra, which he described as an in-novative hospital that is embarking on an exciting journey of growth and development.
“I look forward to the opportu-nity to lead Sidra’s healthcare ef-forts to provide world-class care for the children and women of Qa-tar.”
Dr Ferguson has been a mem-ber of the Post Graduate Medi-cal Council of Victoria since 1997 and has undertaken numerous ac-creditation assessments of hospi-tals throughout Victoria as well as sitting on several subcommittees including the Accreditation Com-mittee and the Medical Workforce Committee.
In addition, he has held mem-
bership of a number of govern-mental committees and has been a lecturer for the University of Mel-bourne’s clinical school.
Dr Ferguson originally graduat-ed from the University of Queens-land and spent the fi rst 12 years of his career in clinical medicine, including in rural general practice and emergency medicine.
He holds a fellowship in Medi-cal Administration, a post gradu-ate diploma and a masters degree in health services management and has been involved in various aspects of medical management in Victoria since 1990, includ-ing the posts of executive direc-tor, medical services at Bendigo Health Care (1994-2004) and Ballarat Health Services (2004-2006).
Melanie Ampler, who won 250gm gold in the Malabar Gold & Diamonds’ ‘Win up to 10kg of gold’ campaign raff le draw, receives her prize in the presence of a government off icial and the jewellery group’s off icials including branch head Bosco Francis.
Gold winner Eid holidaysfor Kahramaaservices centres
All Qatar General Water and Elec-tricity Corporation (Kahramaa) subscribers’ services centres will
be closed during Eid al-Fitr holidays.However, all the technical teams of
Kahramaa have been directed to be ready for any emergency in co-operation with the unifi ed call centre 991 round-the-clock to respond to any complaints and inquiries.
This is meant to provide consumers with uninterrupted water and electricity supplies. Consumers can contact Kah-ramaa also from outside Qatar on 00974 44494000. The water tanker fi lling sta-tions would be working during Eid holi-days according to special working hours schedule to cater to Kahramaa custom-ers.
Dr John Ferguson
RAMADAN/REGION
Gulf Times Monday, July 4, 201610
Eid prayer described
The etiquette of Eid
Eid prayer is a strongly recom-mended and important act of worship in Islam and the Proph-
et, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, never neglected it. The Prophet is reported to have ordered men, women and children to proceed to the Eid prayer ground.
Even menstruating women are en-couraged to attend the Eid sermon but they should keep away from the prayer area.
It is highly recommended to have ritual ablution (Ghusl) and to wear the most beautiful garments and the best perfumes one possesses.
It (i.e., the Eid Prayer) consists of two Rak’ahs (unit of prayer). Ibn ‘Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, said: “The journey prayer consists of two Rak’ahs, the Adha prayer consists of two Rak’ahs, and the Fitr prayer con-sists of two Rak’ahs as well, and they are complete prayers not shortened according to what the Prophet, sallal-laahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, said.”
The fi rst Rak’ah begins with the
Takbeer [saying: Allaahu Akbar (Al-lah is the Greatest)] as the case is in all other prayers. Then Imaam (followed by the praying Muslims) recites seven Takbeeraat (plural of Takbeer). In the second Rak’ah there are fi ve Takbeeraat other than the transmission Takbeer (i.e., the one recited when the Imam and the praying Muslims stand up to perform second Rak’ah). ‘A’ishah, may Allah be pleased with her, said: “The Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, used to recite Takbeer in (the prayers of Eid) Al-Fitr and Al-Adha, seven Tak-beeraat in the fi rst (Raka’ah) and fi ve in the second one other than the two Tak-beeraat that precede the Rukoo’ (bow-ing).”
Imaam Al-Bahawi, may Allah have mercy upon him, said: “This is the opinion of most of the well-versed scholars of the Companions, may Al-lah be pleased with them all, and those who followed them that there are seven Takbeeraat in the fi rst Rak’ah of the Eid prayer other than the fi rst Takbeer
(Takbeeratul Ihram), and fi ve Takbeer-aat in the second Rak’ah other than the transmission Takbeer and all be-fore reciting (verses from the Glorious Qur’an). This was narrated from Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, ‘Ali, may Allah be pleased with them, and others.”
When the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, was done with the Tak-beeraat, he used to recite the Faatihah (the fi rst chapter) of the Holy Qur’an) then he recites “Qaaf, By the Glorious Qur’an,” [chapter 50] in the fi rst Rak’ah and Al-Qamar [chapter 54] in the sec-ond one.
Sometimes he, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, used to recite Al-’Alaa Surah [chapter 87] in the fi rst Rak’ah and Al-Ghashiyah Surah [chapter 88] in the second one.
The rest of the acts of the Eid prayer are as those of any other prayer; noth-ing is diff erent.
It is of the Prophetic Sunnah that the Eid sermon should follow the Eid prayer.
Eids or festivals are moments of celebration common to all nations. The festivals of non-
believing nations are associated with worldly matters such as the birth of a nation or its decline, the appoint-ment or crowning of a ruler, his mar-riage, or the beginning of a season like spring, and so on. As for Muslims, their festivals (Eids) are associated with their religious rituals. They have only two festivals or Eids: Eid Al-Fitr (Celebration of the end of Ramadan) and Eid Al-Adha (festival of sacrifi ce).
When the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, came to Madinah and found the people celebrating two days he said: “What are these occa-sions”? They said: “We used to cel-ebrate them in Jaahiliyya (before the coming of Islam)”. He, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, then said : “Allah has replaced them for you with the two better days (i.e. Eid Al-Fitr and Eid Al-Adha)”. These two festivals which Allah prescribed to the Mus-lims are part of the rituals of Islam which should be commemorated and the purposes of which should be un-derstood.
Rules Pertaining to Eid:1. It is forbidden to fast on the day
of both Eids, as it is understood from the hadith narrated by Abee Sa’eed that the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, forbade the fasting of the two Eids.
2. It is recommended that both men and women observe Eid prayer in an open fi eld as is clear in the hadith narrated by Um Atiya, may Allah be please with her, who said: “We used
to be ordered to come out on the day of Eid and even to bring the virgin girls from their houses and menstru-
ating women so that they might stand behind the men and say takbir along with them and hope for the bless-ings of that day for purifi cation from sins”. Since menstruating women (who stay away from the musallah) as well as those who are virgin are com-manded to observe Eid prayer, there is no doubt that the men, old and young are even strongly commanded to ob-serve it.
3. Eid prayer should be performed before the khutba of Eid as is con-fi rmed in the hadith narrated by Ibn Amr, Abee Sa’eed, and Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with them.
4. It is recommended that the Im-aam makes Takbeer (Allahu Akbar) during the prayer, seven times in the fi rst Raka’at and fi ve in the second. This has been confi rmed by the com-panions of the Salaf (our righteous predecessors).
5. It is recommended that the Im-aam recites in the fi rst Raka’at Surah Al-A’alaa (chapter 87) and Surah Al-’Ghaashiah (chapter 88) in the sec-ond. Other reports also show that the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, used to recite Surah Qaaf (chapter 50) and Surah Al-Qamar (chapter 54) as is confi rmed in Sahih Muslim.
6. There is no Sunnah prayer either before or after Eid prayer as Ibn Ab-bas, may Allah, be pleased with him, narrated that whenever the Prophet, sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam, went for Eid prayer, he used to pray two Raka’at (of Eid) but nothing before or after them.
Yemeni shop owners sell sweets in the capital Sanaa yesterday, ahead of Eid al-Fitr.
Yemenis shop for Eid
UAE protests arrestin US, calls to avoidnational dress abroadAFPDubai
The United Arab Emirates sum-moned yesterday a senior US diplomat to protest the “abusive
treatment” of a UAE citizen as it advised citizens to avoid wearing national attire abroad.
The foreign ministry expressed “dis-content” to US embassy deputy chief of mission Ethan Goldrich and demanded clarifi cations over the detention of an Emirati businessman suspected of be-ing a militant.
The 41-year-old, visiting the United States for medical treatment, was wear-ing a white robe and Arab headdress on Wednesday when he was arrested at a hotel in Cleveland, Ohio after an em-ployee suspected he had pledged alle-giance to the Islamic State (IS) group,
apparently in a phone call.The foreign ministry said it expressed
“discontent over the abusive treatment by the Ohio police of a UAE citizen” as well as the posting of a video showing his arrest, which contained “defama-tion of the UAE national.”
“The UAE cares for the safety of its citizens and, therefore, demands clari-fi cations about this incident,” it said in a statement carried by WAM state news agency.
Goldrich “apologised” for the inci-dent, pledging to get clarifi cations from authorities in the state of Ohio, WAM said.
A video of the incident, posted on Youtube, shows several policemen armed with rifl es take down Ahmed al-Menhali, and then handcuff and search him.
“They were brutal with me. They pressed forcefully on my back. I had
several injuries and bled from the force-ful nature of their arrest,” Menhali said, quoted in The National daily.
The Emirati foreign ministry, in a statement posted on Twitter, urged citizens “not to wear the national dress during their travel, especially in public areas, to ensure their own safety”.
After confi rming that Menhali posed no danger, the policemen let go of the Emirati man, who said he collapsed and needed treatment in hospital.
Menhali had been in the United States since April for treatment after a brain stroke suff ered last year, said Emarat Al-Youm, another UAE daily.
Anti-Muslim incidents have spiked in the United States on the back of deadly IS attacks in the West that prompted presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to call for a temporary ban on Muslims en-tering the country.
Kuwaiti MPs raise their hands as they vote during a parliament session at the Kuwait’s National Assembly in Kuwait City yesterday. Kuwait said it plans to tap the international debt market through bond issues to finance its budget deficit after recording a first shortfall in 16 years.
Kuwait to beef up security at oil sites
Saudi border guards foil infiltration attempt by 33 people
AgenciesKuwait City
Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) will rein-force security measures at oil
installations in co-ordination with the country’s interior ministry, a KNPC offi cial spokesman said yester-day.
“Intensive security plans to protect oil installations and facilities will be supported by the military and taken up after co-ordinating with the Min-istry of Interior and its subsidiary bodies,” Khaled al-Asousi was quoted
as saying by state news agency KUNA yesterday.
He did not provide further details.A year ago an Islamic State group su-
icide bomber killed 27 people when he blew himself up inside a Shia mosque in Kuwait City, the fi rst attack of its kind in the major oil-exporting state.
Opec-member Kuwait pumps 3mn barrels of crude per day and has three refi neries with a combined capacity of 930,000 bpd.
Meanwhile, Kuwait said yesterday it plans to tap the international debt market through bond issues to fi nance its budget defi cit after recording a fi rst shortfall in 16 years.
The oil-rich Gulf state plans to “borrow up to 3bn dinars ($10bn) in US-denominated bonds from inter-national markets, in both conven-tional and (Islamic) sukuk issuance,” Finance Minister Anas al-Saleh told parliament.
The ministry will borrow another 2bn Kuwaiti dinars ($6.6bn) in both conventional and Islamic instruments from the domestic market, Saleh said.
It will be the country’s fi rst foreign debt in around two decades. Par-liament yesterday overwhelmingly passed the budget for 2016/2017 pro-jecting a huge defi cit due to the slump in oil prices. BUSINESS Page 12
The maritime patrols of the border guards in Makkah region yesterday foiled an infiltration attempt by a group of people while trying to enter the waters of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the range of responsibilities of Laith sector aboard a wooden boat
coming from the Sudanese beaches, Saudi Press Agency (SPA) quoted the spokesman of the border guards in Makkah region, Colonel Saher bin Mohamed al-Harbi as saying.The 33 people were from different nationalities (21 Sudanese, five
Ethiopians and seven Chadians), including six women and five children.The colonel stated that legal procedures against the offenders will be completed in accordance with the border security regulation.
REGION/ARAB WORLD11Gulf Times
Monday, July 4, 2016
Turkish ship arrives with Gaza aidAFPAshdod, Israel
A Turkish ship carrying aid for Gaza arrived in Israel yesterday, a week after the
two countries agreed to restore ties that soured over a deadly raid on an aid fl otilla.
The Lady Leyla container vessel docked at Ashdod port in the af-ternoon after departing on Friday,
an AFP journalist reported.Its contents were to be un-
loaded, inspected and sent on to the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, hit by three wars with Israel since 2008 and under an Israeli blockade.
The Panama-fl agged ship was carrying 11,000 tonnes of sup-plies including food packages, fl our, rice, sugar and toys, the Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
Turkey had initially pushed for
a lifting of Israel’s blockade on Gaza as part of the negotiations to normalise ties, but Israel rejected this.
A compromise was eventually reached allowing Turkey to send aid through Ashdod rather than directly to the Palestinian en-clave.
Israel says the blockade is nec-essary to prevent Hamas from receiving materials that could be used for military purposes, but
UN offi cials have called for it to be lifted, citing deteriorating condi-tions in the territory.
Turkey’s ruling Islamic-rooted AKP party has friendly ties with Gaza’s Hamas rulers, and Presi-dent Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been a vocal supporter of the Pal-estinian cause.
Turkey and Israel were formerly close regional allies, but fell out in 2010 when Israeli commandos killed 10 Turkish activists in a raid
on an aid fl otilla seeking to run the blockade on Gaza.
Under the reconciliation deal, Israel will pay $20mn in com-pensation to the families of those killed.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promoted the eco-nomic benefi ts of restoring ties, with talk of building a pipeline to Turkey to export Israeli gas, and the need to fi nd allies in the tur-bulent Middle East.
Lady Leyla, a humanitarian aid ship sent from Turkey to the Gaza Strip, docked at the Israeli southern port of Ashdod.
Khamenei: Iranwon’t co-ordinatewith US on SyriaAFPTehran
Iran will never co-or-dinate with the United States in Syria and other
regional confl icts, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khame-nei said in remarks published on his website yesterday.
“We don’t want such a co-ordination as their main objective is to stop Iran’s presence in the region,” Khamenei said in a transcript from a speech to university students.
Iran and Russia support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s fi ght against armed rebels and militants, includ-ing those of the Islamic State (IS) group.
Tehran rejects any co-ordination with the US-led coalition that is also bomb-ing the militants in Syria and Iraq.
Khamenei repeated de-mands for the US to stop interfering in the region and said Washington was still acting aggressively despite last year’s nuclear accord with world powers to end Iran’s isolation.
“Americans are still en-gaged in hostility against the nation of Iran, be it the Con-gress or the US administra-tion,” he said.
Iran complains it has not benefi ted from the nuclear deal since it came into force in January, with interna-tional banks still fearful of doing business with Tehran due to remaining US sanc-tions.
“Those who believe in looking to the West for the progress of the country have lost their minds because wis-dom tells us to learn from ex-perience,” Khamenei said.
Khamenei said on Sat-urday night that no new oil and gas contracts for inter-national companies will be awarded without necessary reforms.
The Iran Petroleum Con-tract (IPC) is a cornerstone of the country’s plan to raise crude production to the pre-sanctions level of 4mn bar-rels per day (bpd), and the Opec member desperately needs $200bn in foreign money to reach its goal.
Oil majors have said they would only go back to Iran if it made major changes to the buy-back contracts of the 1990s, which compa-nies such as France’s Total or Italy’s Eni said made them no money or even incurred losses.
The launch of contracts has been postponed several times as hardline rivals of pragmatist President Has-san Rouhani resisted any deal that could end the buy-back system, dating back more than 20 years, under which foreign fi rms are banned from booking reserves or taking equity stakes in local companies.
“These contracts will not be signed unless the neces-sary reforms are implement-ed in the framework of na-tional interests,” Khamenei was quoted as saying by the Tasnim news agency yester-day.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivering a speech to university students on Saturday in Tehran.
Egypt rights watchdogslams disappearancesAFPCairo
Egypt’s human rights council said yesterday that the authorities’
human rights record had not improved, noting a string of enforced disappearances by the police and abuse of pris-oners.
The National Council for Human Rights, the coun-try’s offi cial rights watch-dog, made the remarks in an annual report.
“The human rights situ-ation in the country has not changed in spite of the adoption of the new con-stitution two years ago,” the report said.
It added that the council had raised 266 cases of en-forced disappearances with the interior ministry, of whom 27 were since revealed to have been released while 143 remained in pretrial de-tention.
The ministry responded
that 44 of the missing peo-ple had not been arrested, and may have disappeared for other reasons, including to join militant groups, the council’s report said.
The cases were docu-mented between April 2015 and the end of March this year.
“Human rights causes have not yet become a prior-ity for the state,” it said.
Rights groups had ac-cused Egypt of extensive abuses that spiked after the military overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in 2013, unleashing a bloody crackdown on his followers.
The report also criticised the state for failing to pass eff ective legislation to curb torture, although it ac-knowledged that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had tried to end the abuses.
Sisi has spoken out against police abuses and several policemen have been put on trial over the deaths of detainees.
12 Gulf TimesMonday, July 4, 2016
ARAB WORLD
People gather at the site of a suicide car bomb in the Karrada shopping area, in Baghdad yesterday.
IS-claimed Baghdadblast kills at least 119AFPBaghdad
A suicide car bombing claimed by the Islam-ic State group ripped
through a busy Baghdad shop-ping district yesterday, killing at least 119 people in the deadliest attack this year in Iraq’s capital.
The blast hit the Karrada district early in the day as the area was packed with shoppers ahead of this week’s holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.
It came a week after Iraqi security forces recaptured Fal-lujah from IS, leaving Mosul as the only Iraqi city under the militant group’s control.
The bombing also wounded more than 180 people, security offi cials said.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi visited the site of the at-tack and vowed “punishment” for the perpetrators, his offi ce said.
Abadi’s offi ce later an-nounced three days of mourn-ing for the victims.
The blast set buildings ablaze, and fi remen were still work-ing to extinguish them some 12 hours later.
Men carried the bodies of
two victims out of one burned building and a crowd of people looked on from the rubble-fi lled street as emergency personnel worked at the site.
A member of the civil defence forces said that it would take “a number of days” to recover the bodies of the victims.
Hussein Ali, a 24-year-old former soldier, said six workers at his family’s shop were killed, their bodies so badly burned they could not be identifi ed.
“I will return to the battle-front. At least there, I know the enemy so I can fi ght him.
But here, I don’t know who I’m fi ghting,” Ali said.
IS issued a statement claim-ing responsibility for the suicide bombing, saying it was carried out by an Iraqi as part of “ongo-ing security operations”.
The militant group said the
blast targeted Iraq’s Shia Mus-lim majority.
UN Iraq envoy Jan Kubis con-demned the “cowardly and hei-nous act of unparallelled pro-portions,” calling on authorities to bring those responsible to justice.
Offi cials said another explo-sion in the Shaab area of north-ern Baghdad killed at least one person and wounded four yes-terday, but the cause of the blast was disputed.
US National Security Council spokesperson Ned Price said the attacks “only strengthen our resolve to support Iraqi security forces as they continue to take back territory” from IS.
Bombings in the capital have decreased since IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in June 2014, with the militants apparently occupied
with operations elsewhere.But the group has struck back
against Iraqi civilians after suf-fering military setbacks.
A video posted on social media showed men — appar-ently angry at the government’s failure to prevent the carnage in Karrada — throwing rocks at what was said to be Abadi’s convoy.
A bystander could also be heard cursing at Abadi in an-other video.
But the premier struck a con-ciliatory tone over anger direct-ed towards him.
“I understand the emotional feelings and actions that oc-curred in a moment of sad-ness and anger,” Abadi said in a statement.
In May, Baghdad was rocked by a series of blasts that killed more than 150 people in seven days.
With thousands of vehicles moving in and out of the city each day, such bombings are diffi cult to prevent.
But there are also fl aws in security measures in the city, especially the continued use of fake bomb detectors at check-points years after the man who sold them to Iraq was jailed for fraud in Britain.
Iraqi forces completely re-
captured Fallujah, a city 50km west of Baghdad, from the mili-tants a week ago.
Anti-government fi ghters seized Fallujah in early 2014 and it later became one of IS’s main strongholds in the country.
IS’s defeat there was com-pounded by a devastating series of air strikes targeting militant forces as they sought to fl ee the Fallujah area.
Iraqi and US-led coalition aircraft destroyed hundreds of IS vehicles and killed dozens of fi ghters in two days of strikes against militant convoys after the end of the Fallujah battle, offi cials said.
With Fallujah retaken, Iraqi forces are now setting their sights on second city Mosul, the last major population centre held by IS in Iraq.
In addition to Mosul, IS still holds signifi cant territory in Nineveh province, of which it is the capital, as well as areas in Kirkuk to its west and Anbar to its south.
The militant group seized control of large parts of Iraq and Syria in mid-2014, declaring an Islamic “caliphate”, committing widespread atrocities and or-ganising or inspiring a series of deadly attacks in Western cities and across the Middle East.
Arab League condemns bombing
The Arab League has strongly condemned the terrorist bombing that targeted Karrada neighbourhood in central Baghdad in the early hours of the morning, killing and wounding dozens of people.Arab League Secretary General Ahmad Abu al-Ghait
expressed in a statement yesterday rejection of the Arab League of all terrorist acts that undermine security and stability of Iraq, affirming the League’s firm support of Iraq in denouncing all forms and manifestations of terrorism.
43 killed inSyria armyshelling ofrebel townAFP/ReutersBeirut/Damascus
Fierce government bom-bardment of an oppo-sition-controlled Syr-
ian town has killed 43 people, among them children and medi-cal staff , a monitoring group said yesterday in a new toll.
Hours of air strikes and shell-ing on Saturday struck Jayrud, 60km northeast of Damascus, according to the Syrian Observ-atory for Human Rights.
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said two medics were among the dead, as well as wom-en and children. One of those killed was Amjad al-Danaf, head of Jayrud’s medical centre.
Activists mourned him online and said he was killed in an air raid as he was trying to treat res-idents wounded in the attacks.
The bombardment – the fi rst on Jayrud in at least two years – began after Syria’s armed forces said Islamist militants killed a government pilot when he was forced to eject from his plane on Friday.
In a statement, the military had pledged that the attack on its pilot “will not go unpunished”.
Early yesterday, Abdel Rahman said prominent fi gures in Jayrud had reached an agreement with government offi cials that rebel fi ghters would leave the town and hand over the pilot’s body in ex-change for a halt to the shelling.
Meanwhile, Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad, fi ghting a civil war that has ruined the country economically and fragmented it regions, issued a decree to form a new cabinet yesterday that kept key ministers in place.
The cabinet comes after he appointed on June 22 a new gov-ernment led by former electric-ity minister Emad Khamis, a member of Assad’s Baath politi-cal party since 1977
The lineup announced on state media keeps the key de-fence, foreign aff airs and interior portfolios unchanged.
Ex-central banker Adeeb Mayaleh, who has played a lead-ing role in defending the lo-cal currency after its steep falls against the dollar, was appointed economy minister.
The Syrian confl ict has cost the country more than $200bn in economic losses and dam-age to infrastructure, driving its GDP down to less than half its 2011 level.
It has also caused the Syrian pound to lose more than 90% of its value despite concerted at-tempts to support it.
Critics say Syrian govern-ments do not wield much politi-cal power in a system dominated by the president and the power-ful security forces.
The Damascus-based govern-ment controls most of the war-torn country’s major population centres in the west, with the ex-ceptions of Idlib and the rebel-held neighbourhoods of Aleppo, once Syria’s biggest city.
Libya oil authoritiesagree to unify ranksAFPBenghazi
Rival leaders of Libya’s National Oil Corp have agreed to unify their ranks,
in a move expected to strengthen the country’s vital oil industry ravaged by years of confl ict, the NOC said.
Oil is Libya’s main natural re-source with reserves estimated at 48bn barrels, the largest in Africa.
But production slumped in the aftermath of the 2011 revolt that ousted dictator Muammar Gaddafi as rival militias battled for control of oil terminals and two rival governments emerged.
The Tripoli-based NOC was also split up by the confl ict, with its legitimacy challenged by a ri-val oil corporation based in the east of the country and key in-stallations coming under attack.
But the two administrations have decided to bury the hatch-et and “unify the National Oil Corporation”, the NOC said in a statement late Saturday.
It said NOC chairman Mus-tafa Sanalla would retain his post while Nagi el-Maghrabi, his counterpart appointed by the Libyan unity government’s rivals in eastern Libya would become a member of the board.
The company also agreed to relocate its headquarters to the eastern city of Benghazi.
‘Aggressive’steps againstWest BankPalestiniansAgenciesTel Aviv
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday an-nounced “aggressive”
measures against Palestinians in the West Bank, in response to new deadly attacks against Is-raelis.
“We are using various means, including aggressive measures that we have not used in the past,” Netanyahu told his cabinet in Jerusalem.
The new measures include cordoning off the entire Hebron district on the southern West Bank, aff ecting 700,000 people, he said.
Palestinian gunmen in the Hebron area on Friday shot dead
a Jewish rabbi in front of his chil-dren in a road ambush.
On Thursday, a Palestinian from the area infi ltrated the Jew-ish settlement of Kiryat Arba, entered a house and stabbed to death a 13-year-old Israeli girl in her bed.
Netanyahu said the Israeli military had revoked all per-mits to enter and work in Israel for residents of the Palestinian village of Bani Naim, where the knife attacker and other assail-ants had come from.
Reinforcements were also se-curing roads used by settlers in the area, Netanyahu said.
A plan to strengthen security in Kiryat Arba and other settle-ments in the area would be dis-cussed at the next cabinet meet-ing, Netanyahu said.
The Israeli military arrested some 13 Palestinians overnight, including the sister of the Kiryat Arba knife attacker, who was be-ing questioned.
Hundreds of people, includ-ing President Reuven Rivlin, attended the funeral of Rabbi Michael “Miki” Mark yesterday in the Jewish settlement of Otn-iel, south of Hebron.
The rabbi’s wife and two of 10 children were injured in Friday’s shooting attack.
Meanwhile, Israel yesterday
barred the Hebron governor from entering its territory after he visited the family of a Pales-tinian who killed a US-Israeli teenage girl in her sleep, offi cials said.
The decision to bar mayor Kamal Humeid from Israel was taken by COGAT, the Israeli de-fence ministry unit which man-ages civilian aff airs for Palestin-ians in the West Bank and liaises with Gaza.
A statement said Humeid had paid a condolence visit to
Tarayra’s family and was there-fore “barred from entering Isra-el” and that he had been stripped of “his privileges”, without elab-orating.
Humeid said on Facebook he does not enjoy any special privi-leges and has “no business in Israel” that would lead him to enter the Jewish state.
A day after Thursday’s attack, 48-year-old Israeli Michael Mark was killed after his car was fi red on by a suspected Palestin-ian gunman south of Hebron.
Palestinians wait to cross an Israeli army checkpoint yesterday at a road next to the Palestinian town of Al-Fawwar south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, as Israeli soldiers stand guard during the funeral procession of Israeli Michael Mark, who was killed on July 1 after his car was fired on by a suspected Palestinian gunman.
Two-state solutionslipping away: UNReutersJerusalem
A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian con-fl ict is slipping away, the
UN special co-ordinator for Middle East peace warned yes-terday, after both sides shrugged off criticism by international mediators.
A report released on Friday by the so-called Quartet – United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia – called on Israel to stop its policy of build-ing settlements on occupied land and restricting Palestinian development.
Israeli policy “is steadily erod-ing the viability of the two-state solution,” it said.
It also urged the Palestinian Authority, which exercises lim-ited self-rule in the West Bank, take steps to end incitement to violence against Israelis, con-demn “all acts of terrorism” and do more to combat them.
“The Quartet report sounds an alarm bell that we are on a dangerous slope towards a one-state reality that is incompatible with the national aspirations of both peoples,” wrote Nickolay
Mladenov, UN special co-ordi-nator for the Middle East peace process, in a commentary e-mailed to journalists yesterday.
He also addressed Palestin-ian and Israeli criticism of the Quartet report.”Who will make the argument that more can-not be done to end incitement?” he asked.”Can anyone question that illegal settlements are not undermining the prospect for a two-state solution?”
Israel welcomed parts of the Quartet report but signalled no change in settlement building, saying the document “perpetu-ates the myth that Israeli con-struction in the West Bank is an obstacle to peace”.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Palestin-ian refusal to recognise Israel as a Jewish state is at the heart of the impasse. A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas expressed disappoint-ment that the Quartet did not call for full Israeli withdrawal to lines that existed before the Is-rael captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem in a 1967 war.
The Palestinians want an inde-pendent state in those areas and in the Gaza Strip, a coastal enclave controlled since 2007 by Hamas.
AFRICA13Gulf Times
Monday, July 4, 2016
Pistorius trial divides South AfricaBy Sinikka Tarvainen, DPA Johannesburg
A criminal case that has captivated South Africa and the world for three-and-a-half years will culminate on
Wednesday when Oscar Pistorius is sen-tenced for the murder of Reeva Steenkamp.
The minimum murder sentence in South Africa for a fi rst-time off ender is 15 years, but time already served in prison and mitigating circ*mstances could al-low the 29-year-old to get away with less, legal experts told DPA.
“My gut feeling is he will get 12 years,” criminal lawyer Llewellyn Curlewis said.
The double-amputee Olympic sprinter fi red four shots at his model girlfriend through a toilet door in his Pretoria home on February 14, 2013.
During his trial from March 2014 to the following September, Pistorius said he heard a noise from the toilet at night and thought it was a burglar.
The prosecution accused him of ly-ing and depicted him as an abusive and trigger-happy hothead who murdered Steenkamp after a quarrel.
Pistorius was once South Africa’s golden boy, the hero who overcame his disability to become an international su-perstar.
A nation in shock watched his fall from grace during the trial broadcast live on television, as he wept and vomited on hearing testimonies about Steenkamp’s agony and autopsy.
Judge Thokozile Masipa accepted Pis-torius’ version and sentenced him to fi ve years for manslaughter.
But in December 2015, the Supreme Court of Appeal overturned the man-slaughter verdict and changed it to murder.
As Masipa heard more testimonies in June during the re-sentencing hearings, the proceedings yielded little new evi-dence.
But it gave both the prosecution and the defence the opportunity to stage emotionally powerful scenes which could have some impact on the judge’s decision, experts said.
The court watched Steenkamp’s 73-year-old father break down in the witness stand, saying he stabbed himself with diabetes syringes to share the pain his daughter had felt.
A sobbing Pistorius walked on his stumps to demonstrate how vulnerable he felt, to make the court understand why he would have fi red in panic when imag-ining that an intruder was threatening him and Steenkamp.
The top appeals court did not question Masipa’s interpretation that Pistorius mistook Steenkamp for an intruder, but rejected her argument that he may not
have been fully conscious that his shots could kill someone.
Masipa can deviate from the manda-tory 15-year sentence on the basis of “substantial reasons and compelling evi-dence,” said law professor Stephen Tu-son from Johannesburg’s Witwatersrand University.
South African courts have allowed some murder convicts to walk free, such as women who killed abusive husbands, according to Tuson.
In Pistorius’ case, mitigating circum-stances could include his physical vul-nerability and a psychologist’s testimony that he is unlikely to reoff end, Tuson added.
The athlete has already served one year in Pretoria’s Kgosi Mampuru II prison for his initial manslaughter conviction, be-fore being released into house arrest at his uncle’s mansion in October 2015.
The Supreme Court of Appeal’s mur-der verdict puts Masipa under pressure to
issue a sentence tougher than her initial one, Curlewis said.
The Constitutional Court denied Pis-torius the right to appeal the murder verdict, but his defence — as well as the prosecution — may appeal Masipa’s new sentence.
An eventual appeal is, however, unlikely to succeed, unless the sentence deviates extensively from the norm, Curlewis said.
Pistorius will eventually be eligible for parole after serving half of his sentence.
The Pistorius case will go down in the history books, not only because of the defendant’s celebrity status, but also be-cause it allowed most South Africans to follow a trial live for the fi rst time, crimi-nal lawyer Keith Gess said.
Gess said he believes the trial showed a well-functioning judiciary and “has increased public trust in the country’s criminal system.”
The trial allowed South Africans to proc-ess traumas linked to the country’s apart-heid past, said professor Sarah Nuttall from the Institute for Social and Economic Re-search at Witwatersrand University.
Pistorius’ violence may have reawak-ened black memories of white brutality under the racial segregation in force from 1948 to 1994, while the athlete’s fear of an imaginary — presumably black — in-truder refl ected whites’ “fear of the black man,” Nuttall said.
While many South Africans do not criticize the technical aspects of the trial, they do feel Pistorius received special treatment for being wealthy and white.
“He has got the money, so he will get away easily this time as well,” said Johan-nes, a janitor.
“If he were black, he would have been thrown into jail for the rest of his life,” said Fanie Phiri, a plumbing contractor.
Pistorius ... unlikely to re-off end
Niger Delta Avengers claims oil rig attacksReutersYenagoa, Nigeria
The Niger Delta Avengers, a militant group which has been carrying out attacks on Nigerian oil facilities in
the last few months, yesterday claimed responsibility for fi ve new attacks in the southern energy hub since Friday.
Until today, the group had not laid claim to any attacks in the Niger Delta — the source of most of the Opec member’s oil — since June 16.
Petroleum ministry sources said in late June that a month-long truce had been agreed with militants.
But the Avengers said they did not “re-member” agreeing to a ceasefi re.
Attacks in the Niger Delta have pushed Nigerian crude production to 30-year lows, although the Nigerian National Pe-troleum Corp (NNPC) said last week that output was rising due to repairs and a fall-off in attacks.
In messages posted on Twitter early yes-terday, the Avengers said they had attacked a pipeline connected to the Warri refi nery operated by NNPC on Friday night.
They added that on Saturday night they blew up two lines close to Batan fl ow station in Delta state run by NPDC, a sub-sidiary of NNPC.
The militants also said two Chevron
facilities close to Abiteye fl ow station, in Delta state, came under attack in the early yesterday.
Residents in some of these areas re-ported hearing blasts.
“All fi ve operations” were carried out by Avengers “strike team”, the group said.
An NNPC spokesman could not be contacted to comment on the group’s statements.
“As a matter of long-standing policy, we do not comment on the safety and secu-rity of our personnel and operations,” said Chevron spokeswoman Isabel Ordonez.
The militants say they want a greater share of Nigeria’s oil wealth — which accounts for around 70% of national in-
come — to be passed on to communities in the impoverished region and for areas blighted by oil spills to be cleaned.
On Thursday, President Muhammadu Buhari hosted a group of community leaders from the Delta and urged them to pacify people in the restive region where anger is widespread.
Eric Omare, of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) which represents the Delta’s biggest ethnic group, said the “resumption” of attacks was “worrisome”, adding that the government had failed to build on goodwill generated by the oil minister’s visit to the region in June. “The federal government has not taken any practical step towards resolving the issues,” he said.
Models walk wearing Vivian Bennet designs during the African Fashion show in Lagos on Saturday night. The Africa Fashion Week began at the weekend in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital glamorous to celebrate Africa’s stupendous, glamorous fashion and style. The three-day event features catwalk and fashion shows from over 50 designers across the continent, including upcoming to established designers.
African designsSmelly seaweed hits beaches in Sierra LeoneAFPFreetown
Sierra Leone yesterday launched a clean-up op-eration after the beaches
around the capital Freetown be-came clogged with foul-smelling seaweed, hitting tourism and fi shing.
At Lumley Beach in the west end of the city, the white sands have become covered with a brownish-yellow carpet, forcing motorists and fi shermen to use masks to ward off the stench since the invasion began a week ago.
A local environmentalist es-timated that there are now more than four tonnes of seaweed de-posited over the sparkling sands, with the capital’s 14 other beach-es also badly aff ected.
Veteran beachcomber Salifu Deen told AFP while strolling on the outskirts of the beach, “the seaweed is back in volumes and the stench is unbearable.”
“Most locals and particularly tourists will be put off by the smell,” he said.
Tourism Minister Sidi Yahya Tunis told AFP on Saturday work was beginning to clean the beaches.
“We have undertaken a mas-
sive mechanism for a daily clear-ing exercise using dredgers. The weeds are taking over the beaches and this is unfortunate,” he said.
Professor Percival Showers of the Institute of Marine Biology and Oceanography, Fourah Bay College, said the seaweed had come from the Sargasso Sea, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, carried by unusual weather pat-terns.
Hardest hit by the deposits are fi shermen and fi shmongers who depend on the daily catch to supply local markets and nearby hotel chains.
“It is diffi cult for me to face my family as I can see the dis-appointment on the faces of my wife and four children when I re-turn home in the evening with-out a catch. We cannot even cast our nets as all we fi sh out are sea-weeds with tormenting smells,” said fi sherman Mustapha Ko-roma.
Fishmonger Mariatu Bundu was equally despondent.
“For many days now, we have gone to the various beaches and returned empty handed. I am worried that I would soon lose my customers as some have said they would rather eat meat in-stead,” she said.
Gbagbo aides home from 5-year exileReutersDakar
Four senior aides to former Ivory Coast President Lau-rent Gbagbo have returned
home from exile in Ghana more than fi ve years after his ouster in a war over a disputed election, a step the leader of his party said would aid reconciliation.
The four men, who included former defence Minister Kadet Bertin, were persuaded to return following negotiations with the government and guarantees that they would not face charges re-lated to the civil war.
Accompanying Bertin were Ka-cou Brou, leader of Gbagbo’s Fesci youth militia, Yaon Franck, a pres-idential bodyguard, and Watchard Kedjebo, another militia leader.
Five years after the confl ict that killed 3,000 people, the country, the world’s leading co-coa producer, has been reborn as
one of Africa’s economic stars, held up by many as a model of post-confl ict reconstruction.
But deep-seated tensions be-tween supporters of Gbagbo and those of President Alassane Ouattara — who won the war with French backing — continue to simmer.
Pascal Affi N’Guessan, leader of Gbagbo’s Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), confi rmed late on Saturday that the four men had returned by plane on Thursday and met Defence Minister Alain Donwahi and Minister for Social Cohesion Mariatou Kone.
A government spokesman did not immediately respond to a re-quest for comment.
“They’re back,” N’Guessan told Reuters by telephone.
“It’s good for reconciliation, but they also need to free all the political prisoners,” he said, re-ferring to members of Gbagbo’s regime currently in jail for al-leged war crimes.
Israel seeks to raise Africa profi le with Netanyahu visitAFPJerusalem
Israeli Prime Minister Ben-jamin Netanyahu is set to make his fi rst trip as premier
to sub-Saharan Africa, seeking new trade partners and marking the 40th anniversary of a hostage rescue in which his brother died.
It will mark a rare visit by a sitting Israeli prime minister to sub-Saharan African nations.
While no offi cial itinerary has been announced, Netanyahu is expected to visit Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia and Rwanda.
Israel’s cabinet approved a proposal on June 25 to open of-fi ces of Israel’s Agency for Inter-national Development in the four countries. Netanyahu told the cabinet that his visit “is part of a major eff ort on our part to return to Africa in a big way”.
“This is important for Israeli companies and for the state of Israel. It is also important for the countries of Africa,” he said.
The trip comes at a time when Israel is launching a $13mn aid package to strengthen economic ties and co-operation with African countries, said Netanyahu’s offi ce.
Israel would also provide African states with training in “domestic security” and health, it said.
“Israel’s comparative advan-
tage in these fi elds has created great interest in African coun-tries seeking training from Is-rael,” it said. “The African con-tinent constitutes vast potential for Israel in very many areas.”
Netanyahu has publicly ac-cepted an invitation from Ken-yan President Uhuru Kenyatta.
He said he wants to make the trip close to the anniversary to-day of the July 4, 1976 Israeli hostage rescue in Uganda, in which his brother died.
Israel’s dealings with Africa currently constitutes only 2% of its foreign trade, leaving plenty of room for growth.
Beyond diplomacy and trade, the trip will have deep personal meaning for Netanyahu.
His brother Yonatan was killed in July 1976 as he led a com-mando raid in Entebbe, Uganda, to free passengers aboard an Air France plane hijacked by two Palestinians and two Germans.
About 100 Israeli and Jewish hostages were freed in the raid but 20 Ugandan soldiers and seven hijackers were killed, along with several Ugandan civilians.
Yonatan Netanyahu was the lone casualty among the Israeli assault team. Netanyahu has called the rescue operation “a very dramatic national experi-ence” and “for me, obviously, one of great personal consequence”.
AMERICAS
Gulf Times Monday, July 4, 201614
A critically injured man lies on the ground as he receives assistance after an explosion in central park in New York yesterday. The New York Police Department (NYPD) said one person was injured.
Explosion in central park
Clinton ‘pleased’ to meet federal agentsAFPWashington
Hillary Clinton says she was “pleased” to speak with the FBI about her use of personal e-mail
while serving as secretary of state, but re-fused to discuss reports that she will not face charges.
In an interview aired yesterday, Clin-ton acknowledged it was unwise for her husband to meet with America’s top law enforcement offi cer, with the encounter coming in the midst of the FBI investi-gation that has dogged her campaign to become the fi rst female president of the United States.
“Hindsight is 20/20,” Clinton told NBC’s Meet the Press programme, noting that both Bill Clinton and attorney general Loretta Lynch have said they would not do it again.
The pair held an impromptu meeting at the airport in Phoenix, Arizona this week.
Clinton, who was interviewed by the FBI on Saturday for about 3.5 hours, refused to speculate on the timeline or possible conclusions of the FBI investigation, and would not comment on reports saying she would not be charged.
“I was eager to do it and I was pleased to have the opportunity to assist the depart-ment in bringing its review to a conclu-sion,” Clinton said.
She has apologised for exclusively us-ing a private e-mail account and her own server during her time as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.
Opponents argue that this breached rules about protecting classifi ed docu-ments from cyber attack and may have amounted to a crime.
The latest NBC News/WSJ poll shows Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump with a strong lead over Clinton – 41% to 25% – on honesty and trustworthi-ness.
“I’m going to continue to put forth my record, what I have stood for, do every-thing I can to earn the trust of the voters of our country. I know that’s something that
I’m going to keep working on, and I think that’s, you know, a clear priority for me,” she said.
“When you’ve been in the eye of the tor-nado for as long as I have, I know there’s a lot of incoming fi re, I accept that.”
The interview came on the long Inde-pendence Day weekend when most Amer-icans are preoccupied with family and friends, and before the Democratic Na-tional Convention where Clinton is set to be offi cially named the party’s presidential nominee.
“Timing of FBI interview, between pri-maries and convention, probably good timing for @Hillaryclinton. Best to get it behind her,” ex-White House aide David Axelrod commented on Twitter.
Clinton, who declined to comment fur-ther on the probe, promised that “I will continue to be as forthcoming as I can”.
“I’ve been answering questions now for over a year. I’ve released more than 55,000 pages of my emails for the public to read for themselves,” she said.
Lynch has acknowledged that the tar-mac meeting with Bill Clinton last Mon-day “cast a shadow” over the investigation into his wife’s use of emails just months before the November general election.
Lynch said she would respect the de-cisions of the FBI and prosecutors on whether to charge Hillary Clinton.
The former top US diplomat said she learned of the meeting “in the news”.
“It was a short, chance meeting that oc-curred. They did not discuss the depart-ment of justice’s review. I know that some have nonetheless viewed the meeting in a diff erent light,” Clinton said.
She said planes carrying her husband and Lynch apparently landed at about the same time. They exchanged hellos and chatted about grandchildren, golf and their mutual friend and former at-torney general Janet Reno, Hillary Clin-ton said.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump sparked outrage Saturday after calling rival Democrat Hil-lary Clinton corrupt in a tweet featuring the Jewish Star of David symbol.
The six-pointed star was superimposed on a pile of $100 bills with the message “most corrupt candidate ever!” – which many took as a potent anti-Semitic refer-ence to stereotypes about Jews and money.
“When I see Trump’s anti-Muslim scare tactics or anti-Jewish optics, it’s all evil and needs to be named,” responded one Twitter user.
Trump later deleted the tweet and re-placed it with a new image that used a cir-cle instead of a star. The original tweet is still posted on various media outlets.
The tweet is Trump’s latest remark to prompt accusations of bigotry, having previously called for banning Muslims from entering the United States, and de-scribing Mexicans as rapists and criminals.
Hillary Clinton
ReutersLondon
Michael Cimino, whose roller-coaster career as a Hollywood fi lm director included Oscar-
winner The Deer Hunter and legendary box offi ce fl op Heaven’s Gate, has died.
He was 77.The success of The Deer Hunter, a
1978 fi lm about the Vietnam War star-ring Robert De Niro, made Cimino one of the most sought-after directors in Hollywood.
The fi lm won fi ve Academy Awards, including best picture and best director.
Cannes Film Festival director Thi-erry Fremaux tweeted the news on Saturday that Cimino died peacefully, “surrounded by his family and the two women who loved him. We loved him too.”
The cause of death was not immedi-ately known.
US media reports said Cimino died at his home in Los Angeles, citing the Los Angeles County coroner’s offi ce.
Offi cials at the coroner’s offi ce did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to Variety, friends phoned the police when they could not reach him and he was found dead on Saturday.
Word of Cimino’s death triggered tributes from admirers including De Niro, who said their work together was something he will always remember. “He will be missed,” De Niro said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.
The Deer Hunter, which explored the impact of the Vietnam War on a small town of steel workers in Pennsylvania, was also a big boost for the careers of Meryl Steep and Christopher Walken, who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times described it as “one of the most emo-tionally shattering fi lms ever made”.
But after that movie’s runaway suc-cess, Cimino followed up in 1980 with Heaven’s Gate, an epic Western that New York Times critic Vincent Canby called “an unqualifi ed disaster.”
The fi lm came in way over budget at $36mn, three times the average cost of a movie in those days, and Cimino’s ca-reer never fully recovered.
“He went from a big Oscar fi lm to suddenly being a pariah — everybody’s whipping boy,” Kris Kristoff erson, who
starred in the fi lm, told the Los Angeles Times in 2004. “Everybody who didn’t get to do a fi lm blamed Heaven’s Gate, saying all the money went to Heaven’s Gate.”
Born in New York City to a wealthy family, Cimino earned a master’s degree in architecture at Yale University.
He was a well-known director of TV commercials before directing his fi rst movie, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, a crime drama starring Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges, in 1974.
After the fl op of Heaven’s Gate, Cimi-no’s comeback fi lm in 1985, Year of the Dragon, starring Mickey Rourke as a New York City cop, failed to excite ei-ther moviegoers or critics.
He followed up with The Sicilian, based on a Mario Puzo novel; and Des-perate Hours, a remake of a Humphrey Bogart fi lm about a fugitive, starring Rourke and Anthony Hopkins.
Both fi lms were panned by critics and largely ignored by fi lmgoers.
His fi nal Hollywood fi lm, 1996’s The Sunchaser, a drama about a doc-tor, played by Woody Harrelson, who is kidnapped by a dying patient, didn’t fare any better and marked the end of Cimino’s career.
Deer Hunter directorCimino dies aged 77
Man hurtin shootingoutside mosqueReutersHouston
A doctor headed for morning prayers at a Houston mosque was
reportedly ambushed by three masked men who shot and wounded him yesterday, a day after a Muslim man was beaten outside a Florida mosque.
The victim of the Texas in-cident, identifi ed as Arslan Tajammul, an eye specialist, was undergoing surgery and was expected to survive, ac-cording to KTRK, an ABC tel-evision affi liate.
The doctor had parked his car and was walking to the Madrasah Islamiah mosque when he was ambushed and shot twice at about 5.30am EST (0930 GMT). His three attackers fl ed on foot, KTRK reported.
The victim was able to toss his cell phone to someone at the entrance to the mosque on Bintliff Drive and DeMoss Drive , in southwest Houston, and ask them to call 911, the TV station said.
Houston police did not im-mediately respond to a request for information.
A Muslim man was beaten Saturday outside a Florida mosque attended by the gun-man who killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub, though authorities and a Muslim civil rights group diff ered as to whether the attack was racially motivated.
The St Lucie County Sher-iff ’s Offi ce said the assault outside the Fort Pierce Islamic Center was reported around 4.11am local time and that deputies found the victim, who had been punched in the head and face, bleeding from the mouth.
The suspect, 25-year-old Taylor Anthony Mazzanti, was arrested shortly thereafter and booked on a charge of felony battery, the offi ce said.
“Interviews by the deputies and supervisors on scene and a written witness statement completed by the victim do not indicate any racially-motivat-ed comments were made by the suspect prior to, during or after the incident,” sheriff Ken Mas-cara said in a statement.
Mascara said the investiga-tion was ongoing.
The Florida branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) gave a diff er-ent account of the incident.
The organisation said a sen-ior offi cial with the Muslim non-profi t, ICNA Relief, was with the victim and that the attacker approached spouting racial slurs and other off ensive language.
CAIR said the attacker, who is white, allegedly said: “You Muslims need to get back to your country,” before assault-ing the victim, who was not identifi ed by CAIR or authori-ties. CAIR said the victim was Muslim and attended the Is-lamic Center.
The Islamic Center’s imam had requested extra security following the mass shooting last month by Omar Mateen at the gay nightclub Pulse in Or-lando, about 120 miles to the north, according to CAIR and mosque spokesman Wilfredo Ruiz.
Ruiz said Mateen had infre-quently attended the mosque.
Mateen, who was killed by police after a three-hour siege inside the club, declared himself to be an “Islamic sol-dier” and pledged allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State militant group, accord-ing to emergency call tran-scripts released by the FBI last month.
Ruiz criticised the Sheriff ’s Offi ce for not giving them ad-ditional security, saying: “This should not have happened.”
Sheriff Mascara said state-ments on the attack made by mosque offi cials and CAIR in-cluded “untruthful rhetoric”.
ReutersBoston
The son of a Boston police captain was indicted on fresh charges in connec-
tion with an alleged plot, in-spired by Islamic State, to det-onate bombs fi lled with nails and ball bearings in crowded public places, federal prosecu-tors said on Thursday.
Alexander Ciccolo, 23, of Adams, Massachusetts, was charged with attempting to use weapons of mass destruc-tion in the planned attack, the offi ce of the US attorney’s of-fi ce for Massachusetts said in a statement.
He also faces a single count of attempting to provide ma-terial support to a “foreign terrorist organisation”. Au-thorities said the suspect was inspired by Islamic State, a militant group accused by Tur-key of carrying out a suicide attack at Istanbul’s main air-port that killed 42 people this week.
Ciccolo, as known as Ali Al Amriki, was arrested in July 2015 after he received four fi re-arms, including a Colt AR-15 rifl e, from a witness who was co-operating with the Western Massachusetts Joint Terrorism Task Force.
The suspect was recorded saying he planned to set off pressure cookers filled with gun powder, nails and ball bearings in college cafeterias and other places where peo-ple congregate, prosecutors said.
Before his arrest, police ob-
served Ciccolo buying a pres-sure cooker similar to those used in the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, which killed three and injuring 264 people. FBI agents had put Ciccolo under surveillance af-ter being alerted to some of his posts on social media.
Law enforcement authori-ties also found partially con-structed Molotov co*cktails when searching Ciccolo’s apartment. The devices con-tained a mixture of Styrofoam and motor oil designed to stick to the skin of victims after ex-ploding, they said.
The suspect was initially charged with illegal possession of a fi rearm and assaulting a nurse at a county jail.
Ciccolo has received mental health treatment since child-hood, sources familiar with the family told Reuters last year. His father had alerted authori-ties to his concerns about his son’s activities, the sources said.
If convicted in the charge of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, Ciccolo faces a sentence of life in prison and a fi ne of $250,000.
It was not known whether Ciccolo had an attorney, and the US attorney’s offi ce could not be reached for comment.
Police captain’s son faces new chargesin bomb plot case
The suspect was recorded saying he planned to set off pressure cookers fi lled with gun powder, nails and ball bearings in college cafeterias and other places where people congregate
Gun shop raffling riflefor Orlando victimsA suburban Chicago gun shop said on Thursday it will raff le off a semi-automatic rifle to benefit victims of the Orlando mass shooting despite backlash because the weapon is similar to the one used in the massacre.The shop, Second Amendment Sports in McHenry, Illinois, has sold more than 100 tickets for $5 each for the July 31 raff le of a Smith & Wesson M&P 15 rifle, which the shop typically sells for $669, co-owner Bert Irslinger Jr said by telephone.Proceeds from the raff le, in addition to a $2,000 contribution from the store, will benefit the OneOrlando Fund, set up for the victims of the June 12 shooting at the gay nightclub Pulse that killed 49 people in the worst mass shooting in US history.Gun control groups decried the raff le plan. The Orlando shooter used a Sig Sauer MCX, a semi-automatic rifle like the Smith & Wesson that is being raff led.“This is like raising money for victims of the Titanic by raff ling a cruise. Does Second Amendment Sports have no sense of decency?” Kristen Rand, legislative director of lobbying group Violence Policy Center said in an e-mailed statement.Irslinger, who owns the store with his father Bert Sr, defended the raff le.“This is not a gun issue; this is a terrorist issue and a hate crime. That’s where we’re taking a stance,” Irslinger Jr said. “There’s definitely been backlash. Not in the store, but we’ve had people call. That’s not uncommon in the firearms industry. I just hope they’re finding their own way to support.”Irslinger said the shop has previously held raff les to benefit no-kill animal shelters and cancer survivors. “This has been the fastest raff le I’ve ever sold,” he said.
Clinton’s e-mail blunder has been exploited by her opponent Trump
Singapore to pursue fi rms over fi res, despite Indonesian ireAFPJakarta
Singapore is refusing to back down in its pursuit of those responsible for
haze-belching forest fi res in Southeast Asia last year, despite struggling to bring the perpe-trators before the courts and drawing a sharp rebuke from neighbouring Indonesia.
Forest fi res are part of an an-nual dry-season problem in Indonesia, started illegally to quickly and cheaply clear land for cultivation — particularly for palm oil and pulpwood.
But last year’s haze outbreak was among the worst in mem-ory, shrouding Malaysia, Sin-gapore, and parts of Thailand in acrid smoke and forcing school closures as pollution reached
hazardous levels and thousands fell sick across the region.
Singapore has served notice to six Indonesian companies it believes may have cleared land by burning but could target others as investigations con-tinue, according to Singapore’s ambassador to Indonesia Anil Kumar Nayar.
“We are going after, to put it starkly, the bad guys that are causing this problem,” he said in an interview last week.
However, the city-state’s eff orts to punish Indonesian companies under its own anti-haze law have become a fl ash-point with Jakarta.
Singapore argues that inter-national rules allow states to take action — even if harm is be-ing caused by activities outside its jurisdiction — but Jakarta has questioned how Singapore
could pursue Indonesian citi-zens for prosecution, especially in the absence of a ratifi ed ex-tradition treaty between the neighbours.
The latest sabre-rattling came after Singapore issued a court warrant in May to detain a director of an Indonesian com-pany linked to the haze while he was in the city-state.
Afterwards, Indonesia’s En-vironment Minister Siti Nur-baya Bakar said that she would be reviewing her ministry’s co-operation with Singapore on environmental issues.
“Singapore cannot step fur-ther into Indonesia’s legal do-main,” Bakar told reporters in June.
Her spokesman declined to comment further on the matter when contacted.
Nayar reiterated that Singa-
pore wasn’t crossing any line pursuing these companies and was within its rights to enforce its law.
“We are not doing some-thing that is extraordinary. It is not targeting any country, or anybody’s sovereignty,” he said.
The law threatens local and foreign firms with fines of up to $100,000 Singaporean dol-lars ($74,000) for every day Singapore endures unhealthy haze pollution.
So far just two of the com-panies have responded to the court order, Nayar said, with-out naming specific firms.
Singapore has repeatedly asked Indonesia for details about companies — such as maps showing who owns what concessions — but says Jakarta has not provided any informa-
tion.Singapore would “con-tinue to press”, Nayar said, but added the evidence needed to prosecute these compa-nies could be found by other means.“We could go that way as well, but at the end of the day this is part of a legal proc-ess. We want to be working with the Indonesian govern-ment,” he said.
One of Indonesia’s main arguments is that a regional approach to solving the haze crisis would be more effective than individual action.
“They (Singapore) know our view on this, on how we can best address this issue of haze through the Asean mecha-nism,” ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir said.
The Association of South-east Asian Nations has an agreement to create a haze-
free region by 2020, though it took 14 years to be fully rati-fied.
Nayar says regional progress on curbing haze has been slow.
Fellow Asean member Ma-laysia, which also suffers dur-ing the haze outbreaks, has ex-pressed interest in adopting its own law similar to Singapore’s to pursue errant companies.
Jakarta has promised tough-er action in the wake of last year’s haze disaster, which turned skies yellow in Indo-nesia’s part of Borneo island and dealt the economy a $16bn blow.
The government announced in May it would no longer grant new land for palm oil plantations, and established a new agency to restore millions of hectares of carbon-rich peatlands susceptible to fires.
Doctors again drain water from Thai king’s brain
AFPBangkok
Doctors treating Thailand’s ailing King Bhumibol Adulyadej have drained
a fresh build-up of water on the brain, the palace said yesterday, in the latest in a series of updates of the 88-year-old’s health.
Subject to an intense person-ality cult, Bhumibol’s frail health is a matter of signifi cant public concern.
The king is confi ned to a wheelchair and rarely seen in public but in recent months the palace has begun releasing regu-lar updates on his health.
His reign has spanned seven tumultuous decades and most Thais have never known another monarch.
Analysts say the kingdom’s decade-long political crisis is in part motivated by elites jostling to secure their primacy once his reign ends.
Bhumibol has spent most of the past two years hospitalised in Bangkok for a series of ailments, including bacterial infections, breathing diffi culties, heart problems and hydrocephalus (water on the brain). An X-ray on June 30 found the amount of fl u-id draining from the king’s brain through a catheter “was less than normal,” the Royal House-hold Bureau said.
“The medical team asked per-mission to adjust the catheter to drain more fl uid on July 2...the result was satisfactory,” it added.
In June Bhumibol also under-went an operation to widen ar-teries in his heart.
Yesterday’s statement said tests showed his heart muscle was now functioning “satisfac-torily.”
Bhumibol is the world’s long-est-reigning monarch and is seen by most Thais as a unifying force in a nation bitterly divided along political lines.
His image is embossed by rit-ual — Thai schoolchildren learn of his good works, cinema-goers must stand for the royal anthem, while giant portraits of the mon-arch tower over most major roads.
But detailed discussion of his reign and the role of the mon-archy is all but impossible in Thailand because of one of the world’s strictest lese majeste laws.
Use of the laws has skyrocket-ed in the last two years since the military took over in a coup with some people jailed for as much as 30 years.
File photo shows a man on a boat cleaning the river as haze covers the buildings in Singapore.
Royal revolution as Yogyakarta leader signals move for female heirAFPYogyakarta
Courtiers in elaborate outfi ts danced to the gentle tinkling of Javanese music as the Sultan of
Yogyakarta looked on, a scene that has played out in much the same way for cen-turies in the tiny Indonesian kingdom.
But the recent ceremony to mark the 70th birthday of Hamengku Buwono X, Indonesia’s last sultan with real political power, had one key diff erence from pre-vious celebrations — many of his rela-tives refused to attend.
A bitter feud has erupted at the heart of the kingdom on Java island, after the rul-er signalled he wants his eldest daughter to become the sultanate’s fi rst female monarch after he leaves the throne.
Indonesia is home to numerous small kingdoms. But while other provinces now elect political rulers and their sultans are largely ceremonial fi gures, Yogyakarta’s sultan serves as both royal leader and gov-ernor of the city and its surrounding areas.
Jakarta allowed the Yogyakarta royal family to keep power as the central gov-ernment was grateful for the sultanate’s support for independence in 1945 after a long period of Dutch colonial rule.
The sultan still maintains many of the trappings of Javanese royal rule in the kingdom, which has a history stretch-ing back to the 16th century. His main residence is a traditional Javanese palace complex, known as a Kraton, and im-
portant events are celebrated with much pomp and circ*mstance.
But the sultan’s push to make the eld-est of his fi ve daughters — he has no sons — the fi rst female monarch of Yogyakarta has transformed him into an unlike-ly champion for gender equality, and threatens to overturn hundreds of years of tradition in the conservative sultanate.
It has sparked a furious row with his family, who say he is breaking rules laid down to govern the sultanate, amid specu-lation that his brothers were jockeying to fi ll his position.“A female sultan is an im-possibility,” the sultan’s cousin, Kanjeng Raden Tumenggung Jatiningrat, said. He added that a female ruler could not oversee rituals in the mosque or other ceremonies
that have traditionally been led by men.Hamengku Buwono, who has been
on the throne 27 years, last year set in motion the process for his daughter to become monarch by giving her the ti-tle “Gusti Kanjeng Ratu Mangkubumi”. While he has not confi rmed publicly that she is the crown princess, in Java-nese culture — where much is conveyed through symbolism rather than anything said out loud — the signs are clear.
The title Mangkubumi, which trans-lates from Indonesian as “the one who holds the Earth”, was the same one given to the sultan when he was made crown prince several decades ago. She was also entrusted with the task of “attempting to bring safety, happiness and prosperity to
the world”, another indication she would succeed her father.
And the sultan made small changes to his own lengthy royal title — removing a word normally only used by men and tweak-ing another — to make it gender-neutral, opening the door for a woman to take over. The sultan has defended the move, saying there is nothing stopping him from making changes in his kingdom and he has to adapt as Indonesia modernises.
“The Yogyakarta palace doesn’t have a hereditary tradition that can’t be changed, and all ruling sultans can intro-duce changes,” he told local media.
Still, many disagree with him, from his relatives to local groups. “The king should maintain the tradition as it was originally, because this is a kingdom,” said Abdurrahman, from local hardline group Islamic Jihad Front, who like many Indonesians goes by one name. But it is not the fi rst time there has been a female monarch in diverse Indonesia, but which has had Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms over the centuries and is home to about 300 diff erent ethnic groups.
Queens at times ruled over the ancient Majapahit empire, which covered large parts of what is now Indonesia from the late 13th to the early 16th centuries, as they did in Aceh, on western Sumatra island, when it was an independent sultanate.
Nevertheless the row looks unlikely to be resolved any time soon, and it cast a long shadow over the recent celebration, which marked the anniversary of the sul-tan’s coronation as well as his birthday.
Myanmar state sees anti-Muslim protestsAFPYangon
Myanmar’s bitterly-divided Rakhine State saw mass protests
yesterday as thousands of Buddhists, including monks, demonstrated in a show of op-position to a government edict referring to Muslim communi-ties in the restive province, or-ganisers said.
Anti-Muslim rhetoric has spiked across Myanmar recent-ly, with two mosques torched by Buddhist mobs in just over a week in a country where sectar-ian violence has left scores dead since 2012.
Home to around 1mn state-less Rohingya Muslims, Rakhine State has been hardest hit by re-ligious violence that has left tens of thousands of the persecuted minority in fetid displacement camps.
The Rohingya are reviled by Rakhine Buddhists who refuse to recognise any shared rights to the province and instead call them “Bengalis” — or illegal im-migrants from nearby Bangla-desh.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s new gov-ernment has sought to defuse the row over the term Rohingya instead ordering offi cials to refer to “Muslim communities in Ra-khine.” But protesters yesterday
said that too was unacceptable as it hands Muslims recognition in a Buddhist state.
“We reject the term ‘Muslim communities in Rakhine State’,” Kyawt Sein, protest organiser in Sittwe, said, adding more than 1,000 people, including monks, had joined the rally in the state capital.
Rally-goers there shouted slo-gans including ‘Protect Rakhine State,’ while a protest in the town of Thandwe drew similar num-bers.
“Bengalis should be called Bengalis,” Phoe Thar Lay,a lead-er of a local Rakhine youth group said, adding that 17 townships across Rakhine were participat-ing in protests yesterday after-noon.
Most Rohingya live cut off from the Buddhist community in displacement camps or remote settlements since sectarian riots tore Rakhine apart in 2012.
Persecution and poverty have forced tens of thousands to fl ee by sea, but the dangerous traf-fi cking route south through the Bay of Bengal was closed late last year during a Thai crackdown on people smuggling.
Suu Kyi, a veteran democ-racy activist who championed her country’s struggle against repressive military rulers, has drawn criticism from rights groups for not taking up the cause of the Rohingya.
A recent photo shows the traditional royal orchestra performing for Sultan Hamengku Buwono X, who holds the dual roles of sultan of the kingdom of Yogyakarta and local governor, during a ceremony to mark his 70th birthday.
ASEAN15Gulf Times
Monday, July 4, 2016
Australia’s political par-ties began horsetrading yesterday to break an an-
ticipated parliamentary deadlock after a dramatic election failed to produce a clear winner, raising the prospect of prolonged politi-cal and economic instability.
The exceptionally close vote leaves Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s centre-right Lib-eral Party-led government in a precarious position, potentially needing the support of inde-pendent and minor parties.
It has also opened the door to the possibility, albeit less likely, that the main opposition Labor Party could win enough back-ing from the smaller parties to form government itself, although Turnbull said yesterday that he remained “quietly confi dent” of returning his coalition to power for another three-year term.
“I can promise all Australians that we will dedicate our eff orts to ensuring that the state of new
parliament is resolved without division or rancour,” Turnbull, who accused Labor of waging a dirty tricks campaign, told re-porters in Sydney.
Police said they were consider-ing whether to investigate thou-sands of text messages sent to voters on Saturday by the Labor Party purporting to be from the state healthcare service Medi-care, warning the service would be privatised by a coalition gov-ernment (see report on the left).
Labor leader Bill Shorten said Australians had rejected Turn-bull’s mandate for reform like cuts to healthcare and a A$50bn ($37bn) corporate tax break over 10 years.
“What I’m very sure of is that while we don’t know who the winner was, there is clearly one loser: Malcolm Turnbull’s agen-da for Australia and his eff orts to cut Medicare,” Shorten told re-porters in Melbourne.
The election was meant to end a period of political turmoil in which Australia which has had four prime ministers in three years.
Instead it has left a power vac-uum in Canberra and fuelled talk of a challenge to Turnbull’s lead-ership of the Liberal Party, less than a year after he ousted then prime minister Tony Abbott in a party-room coup.
If the coalition fails to form a government, it would be the fi rst time in 85 years an Australian ruling party has lost power after its fi rst term in offi ce.
The uncertainty is likely to spook markets when they reo-pen today, with analysts warning Australia’s triple A credit rating could be at risk and predicting a fall in the Australian dollar and the share market (see report on Business page 9).
Vote counting could take a week or more, and the coalition will rule under caretaker provi-sions in the interim.
Offi cial electoral data for the House of Representatives showed a 3.4% swing away from the gov-ernment, with about two-thirds of votes counted.
Electoral Commission projec-tions give the coalition 67 seats in the 150-seat lower house, against
Labor’s 71 and fi ve to independ-ents and the Greens Party.
A further seven seats were in the balance.
That leaves independents, whose election campaigns ranged from economic protec-tionism to anti-gambling and policies to improve the treatment of asylum seekers, as kingmakers.
Small parties are likely to hold the balance of power in the Sen-ate, with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation on track to win between two and four seats, marking the return of the anti-immigration activist to parliament after an al-most 20-year absence.
Confi rming that talks were already underway, independent member of parliament Andrew Wilkie said that Turnbull had called him just to “open lines of communication”.
Stirling Griff , a Nick Xeno-phon Team candidate who is on track to win a senate seat, said that the party was scrambling to pull together its wishlist for negotiations after being caught off -guard by the coalition’s poor performance.
Speculation has also begun about the ability of Shorten and Turnbull to hold onto the leader-ship of their parties.
Turnbull was under the most pressure, having ousted Abbott on a promise of stability and then called the election in a risky bid to sweep out independents in the upper house who were blocking his economic agenda.
Turnbull had some of the high-est poll ratings of an Australian leader on record shortly after he snatched the top job from Abbott in September.
But that popularity soured as he appeared to bend his centre-right values on issues like climate change and same sex marriage under pressure from the right of his party.
Aussie poll cliff -hanger leaves country in limboReutersSydney
Turnbull leaves a press conference in Sydney yesterday, a day after the country’s general election was held.
Police look into election text messageDPASydney
A campaign message sent by the main opposition party in Australia has
come under scrutiny after it was sent as a text from the govern-ment healthcare provider.
The political message on elec-tion day on Saturday appeared to have come from Medicare, and warned voters that it would be privatised if the Liberal coalition won enough votes to form a gov-ernment.
Federal police said they would investigate the “receipt of text messages allegedly sent from Medicare.”
The health ministry offi ce and the department of human serv-ices, which is responsible for Medicare, said that the messages were fraudulent and had not been sent by them.
The Labor Party’s Queensland branch confi rmed it had sent the messages to voters’ phones, urg-ing them not to vote for the coa-lition, according to local Guard-ian newspaper.
“The message was not in-tended to indicate that it was a message from Medicare, rather to identify the subject of the text,” a spokesman was quoted as saying. “The message was consistent with Labor’s message throughout the campaign. There should be no surprise that this was not a government message.”
Earlier, Prime Minister Mal-colm Turnbull had raised the prospect of the investigation during a post-election speech, describing the text as “an ex-traordinary act of dishonesty”.
He accused the Labor Party of running “some of the most sys-tematic, well-funded lies ever peddled in Australian politics”.
“This is the scale of the chal-lenge we faced. And regrettably more than a few people were misled. There’s no doubt about that,” he told supporters.
Divisive Australian politi-cian Pauline Hanson, who once claimed Asians were
in danger of swamping the coun-try, was yesterday on the cusp of being re-elected to parliament after a near 20-year absence.
She is one of a host of minor party candidates or independ-ents on track to win upper house Senate seats, as voters disillu-sioned with the ruling conserva-tives and Labor opposition opted for change.
The fi nal counts are not yet
settled but Hanson, who rose to prominence in the 1990s as head of the right-wing, anti-immi-gration One Nation party she co-founded, is forecast to again be headed to Canberra.
“I have got no problems with anyone – if they have got a prob-lem with me, that’s their issue, not mine,” she said, adding that the major parties needed to start listening to grassroots Austral-ians.
“I’m the person that’s going to come in, like the cleaner, if they don’t clean your house properly you get rid of them and you have a clean sweep of the broom,” she said.
But Hanson, who wants a halt to Muslim immigration and have a national inquiry into whether Islam is a religion or a politi-cal ideology, has already created waves.
Greens leader Richard Di Na-tale said it was “certain” Hanson had made a successful return to the parliament and his party would do all it could to keep her in check.
“The Greens will stand against her racist and bigoted agenda,” he said. “There is no place for bigot-ry, for the sort of hatred that she is spreading through her views, that have no place in a modern 21st century Australia.
“We will be the opposition to her in the Senate, taking it right up to her and letting her know that we would rather be a coun-try that doesn’t pray on people’s fears and anxieties but appeals to their better nature.”
Hanson, who famously ditched her fi sh and chip shop to repre-sent Queensland in the national parliament, lost her seat in 1998 and quit as One Nation’s leader in 2002.
She announced her return to lead One Nation after a 12-year hiatus in 2014, saying that she felt there was no choice given voter disillusionment with other parties.
Anti-immigration Hanson on cusp of return to CanberraAFPSydney
This picture taken on Saturday shows Hanson with an election placard as she stands with supporters during a function on election night in the city of Ipswich, west of Brisbane.
At least 14 people have died in the last four days and eight are missing as
heavy rains hit southern China, state-run Xinhua news agency reported yesterday, citing the fl ood agency.
Some 9,000 houses have collapsed and crops have been damaged on 710,000 hec-tares of farmland, according to the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.
Losses from the fl ooding so far are an estimated 9.1bn yuan ($1.37bn).
Rainfall has been 20% high-er than in previous years along the Yangtze, with people living by the river facing the pros-pect of fl oods, and barriers and control eff orts under threat, said Chen Guiya, Yangtze River Water Resources Committee deputy director.
Some 120,000 people had to be evacuated from their homes in the provinces of Hubei, Jaingsu and Zhejiang.
Chen warned that the situa-tion was critical.
“Flood control facilities, especially main dykes, along the Yangtze River have been reinforced since 1998 to stand severe fl oods, but rising water levels have damaged many riv-erbanks in the middle and low-er reaches of Yangtze, posing
great danger,” Xinhua quoted Chen as saying.
The national meteorologi-cal authority renewed its high alert for heavy rain in the southern and south-western regions, with two new waves of rainstorms expected in the next 10 days.
The fi rst typhoon of the year was expected to hit the east coast next week.
The Yangtze River saw its fi rst fl ood peak on Friday.
The Three Gorges Dam in-creased water discharge to al-low the peak to pass through.
The second fl ood peak was expected to move along the river yesterday, Xinhua re-ported.
Thousands of soldiers, fi re-fi ghters and relief workers are working around the clock to shore up fl ood control along the river.
Troops in Hubei used a ton of explosives to open a sluice channel for an overfl owing reservoir near several key rail-way and highway routes on Saturday.
A dam breach of the reser-voir could put about 70,000 lives in danger, Xinhua quoted local offi cials saying.
In a separate incident not on the river, eight people died when a factory wall measuring over 2m tall collapsed in heavy rain in the city of Wuhan, bur-ying pedestrians underneath it.
Fresh rains in China lead to 14 deaths as the Yangtze swellsDPABeijing
This picture taken on Saturday shows a stadium is flooded after heavy rainfall in Ezhou, Hubei province.
New Zealand police have arrested three men after fi nding a record 35kg of
cocaine in a diamante horse-head sculpture that drug smug-glers had sent from Mexico.
Yesterday, police in the city of Auckland asked the public for help in identifying a man “be-lieved to speak with a Spanish-sounding accent”, who had been fi lmed on CCTV in a city centre hotel.
The haul, discovered in May in
the 400kg diamante-encrusted sculpture, is “New Zealand’s largest-ever cocaine seizure”, the police said in a statement on Saturday.
“This is obviously an ex-tremely large amount of co-caine, and in the past we’ve only found very small amounts of this drug.
Prior to this, the average amount of cocaine seized by po-lice each year was around 250g,” Detective Senior Sergeant Colin Parmenter said.
The unusual sculpture had aroused the suspicions of cus-toms offi cials, who on closer
inspection found 35 bricks of high-grade cocaine hidden in-side, worth $10mn.
The arrested include a 44-year-old Mexican and a 56-year-old US citizen.
35kg of cocaine found in horse sculptureDPAWellington
An undated handout photo obtained yesterday shows a large diamante-encrusted horse head from Mexico from which New Zealand police said they have seized a record $10mn worth of cocaine hidden inside.
China will hold military drills in the disputed South China Sea, the gov-
ernment said yesterday, ahead of an international tribunal ruling over Beijing’s maritime claims in the resource-rich area.
The drills will be held in wa-ters around the Paracel Islands from July 5 to 11, with other ships prohibited from entering the waters during that time, a short statement by the maritime safe-ty administration said.
The military exercises come as an international tribunal in The Hague prepares to rule on a case brought by the Philippines chal-lenging China’s claims in the strategic waterway.
Manila lodged the suit against Beijing in early 2013, saying that after 17 years of negotiations it had exhausted all political and diplomatic avenues to settle the dispute.
Beijing, which asserts sov-ereignty over almost all of the South China Sea despite rival claims from Southeast Asian neighbours, insists that the Per-manent Court of Arbitration has no jurisdiction over the issue and has boycotted the proceedings.
Basing its claims on a vaguely defi ned “nine-dash” Chinese map dating back to the 1940s, it has rapidly turned reefs into ar-tifi cial islands capable of hosting military planes.
Manila contends that the “nine-dash” line has no basis under international law and Bei-jing has no “historic” claim to the ocean.
China plans drills in disputed watersAFPBeijing
Man sentenced to death for bus blazeA court in northern China has sentenced a man to death for starting a bus fire in January that killed 18 people, the government said.Flames engulfed the bus in front of a furniture store in the northern region of Ningxia, state media has previously reported.Thirty-three people were injured.The court in regional capital Yinchuan sentenced Ma Yongping to death after finding him guilty of using an “extremely cruel form of crime”, the Yinchuan government said on its off icial microblog.
16 Gulf TimesMonday, July 4, 2016
AUSTRALASIA/EAST ASIA
Unused water cannonsto be sold off : KhanLondon Evening StandardLondon
Sadiq Khan has said he will sell the Metropolitan po-lice’s three controversial
water cannon and use the money for youth services.
The mayor said it “beggars belief” that City Hall was paying to store the devices which have been banned from use.
His predecessor Boris John-son approved the purchase of the second-hand water cannon from Germany for more than £200,000 two years ago.
Scotland Yard chiefs had said after the London riots that they wanted the policing tools at their disposal in the event of a future emergency.
But 12 months later Home Secretary Theresa May blocked a bid to allow their use on the streets of London on the grounds of medical risk.
Since then they have been stored at a site, understood to be the Met’s training facility near Gravesend in Kent, where they
are used for training purposes.During his fi rst State of Lon-
don debate, Khan said: “One of the deals Boris Johnson managed to do with the Germans was to buy three water cannon. What I’m going to do is sell them and use the money for youth services.
“This shows the inability of Boris Johnson to get a good deal. Second hand, paid almost £250,000. We’re paying for stor-age facilities for these water can-non. That beggars belief.”
The new mayor made several quips at the expense of his pred-ecessor, who has pulled out of the race to become prime minister.
Asked who he would like to see as the next Conservative leader, he said: “I want a serious grown-up, which is why it’s good it won’t be Boris Johnson.”
It comes after Johnson was teased by May during her own leadership launch about the wa-ter cannons which she banned from use.
“Last time he did a deal with the Germans, he came back with three nearly-new water can-nons,” she quipped.
Tributes paid as actressAherne dies of cancerGuardian News and MediaLondon
One of Britain’s best loved comedians, Caroline Aherne, has died at the
age of 52 following a battle with lung cancer.
Aherne, whose infl uential and innovative comic creations in-cluded The Royle Family, The Fast Show and her spoof chat host Mrs Merton, died at her home in Greater Manchester on Saturday.
Having previously been treat-ed for bladder and eye cancer, the award-winning actress and tel-evision writer revealed two years ago that she had been diagnosed with lung cancer.
Earlier this year Aherne - a smoker who also struggled with alcoholism – became the voice behind the government’s One You health campaign to persuade people to cut down on cigarettes and alcohol.
Although she had largely with-drawn from the public eye, she
was also the narrator of the Chan-nel 4 reality series Gogglebox.
Aherne rose to prominence in 1994 in the guise of her cre-ated character Mrs Merton, who presided over the Bafta-winning mock chatshow, The Mrs Merton Show, during which celebrities found themselves on the receiv-ing end of outrageous faux naive questions.
Perhaps Aherne’s most memo-rable moment on the show was when she asked Debbie McGee, the partner of magician Paul Dan-iels: “So, what fi rst attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?”
Aherne had struggled with health problems for years and in June 2014 appeared in Manches-ter at the launch of the Macmil-lan Cancer Improvement Part-nership, a £3.4mn scheme to co-ordinate cancer care in the city. During the event, she said a sense of humour had helped her in her battle against the disease. That year her brother Patrick revealed “the form of lung can-cer that she is suff ering from is
genetic and linked to the retino-blastoma she had as a baby”.
Born in London to Irish par-ents, Aherne considered Man-chester her home. She lived there from the age of two, and in her career used the city as the base for her groundbreaking sitcom The Royle Family, which she wrote and starred in. The show won two Baftas in 2000, and an-other in 2007 for best situation comedy. Within moments of her death being confi rmed, tributes fl ooded social media. Actress Sue Johnston, who played the Royle mother, Barbara, said: “I am dev-astated at her passing and I am numb with grief.”
Ralf Little, who starred along-side Aherne as her brother An-tony in the sitcom, wrote on Twitter: “Sorry for silence – I just … don’t know what to say. What a sad, sad day. We’ve lost another one of our best. A character. A legend. A boss. A sister, real and (for me) fake. A boss. A writer. An actor. A genius. A friend. Big, big heart. Goodbye. X.”
Unis fearBrexitfundingfalloutAFPCambridge
Britain’s shock Brexit vote has left the country’s uni-versities worried about its
impact, whether on exchange programmes or research fund-ing.
In Cambridge, southeast England, students at the world-famous university’s 31 colleges have left for the summer, but among the teaching staff still here the word Brexit is on eve-ryone’s lips. “It’s the only topic of conversation, even a week later,” Athene Donald, master of Churchill College, said, adding that it was still “far too early to know what the consequences are going to be”.
The stakes, for Cambridge and the country, are high: over 125,000 European students were enrolled this year in British uni-versities, or 5% of the total, while 15% of academic staff come from other EU countries, according to Universities UK (UUK).
British universities received £836mn in subsidies and re-search contracts in the 2014-15 academic year alone.
In the wake of the June 23 ref-erendum, numerous universi-ties have sought to reassure their students from other EU coun-tries, notably on the question of tuition fees.
EU students have until now not paid the same as their coun-terparts from elsewhere in the world, who have to stump up for International Status fees, which can be much higher.
“In 2016-17, the fees will be the same, and you will still have access to the government loan” as do British students on Home Fee status, said Michael Arthur, president of University Col-lege London in a video posted on YouTube aimed at European students.
“If you’re thinking of coming to study with us after that time... we believe that nothing will have changed then either,” he said, while adding: “We’re seeking clarifi cations on that from the government at the moment.”
May, Leadsomdivided overthe timing of exit from EU
ReutersLondon
The two leading candidates to be the next prime min-ister yesterday diff ered on
how urgent it was to trigger Ar-ticle 50, the formal step that will kickstart Britain’s negotiations with the European Union on the terms of its exit from the bloc.
Home Secretary Theresa May, the front-runner who cam-paigned for a ‘Remain’ vote in the June 23 referendum, said Britain needed to be clear about its negotiating stance and she would not be rushed into trig-gering the article this year.
Junior Energy Minister And-rea Leadsom, who has emerged in the early days of the contest as May’s strongest rival from the ‘Leave’ camp, struck a more ur-gent tone, saying Britain needed to “get a grip and make progress”.
Britons voted by 52% to 48% to leave the bloc it had joined in 1973 and Prime Minister David Cameron said the next morning he would resign over his failure to keep the country in.
Adding to the political turbu-lence, the vast majority of the main opposition Labour Party’s lawmakers openly denounced leader Jeremy Corbyn as unfi t for the job but he has refused to re-sign, citing grassroots support.
Five candidates are vying to
succeed Cameron as Conserva-tive Party leader and prime min-ister, and the fi eld will be whit-tled down to two by the party’s lawmakers over the summer, before grassroots party members pick the winner by September 9.
Media reports yesterday sug-gested that some Conservative lawmakers who back May were trying to persuade Leadsom and other candidates to stand down so that May could be quickly installed in Downing Street to bring back stability and make quicker progress towards nego-tiating the terms of Brexit.
But asked about this in an in-terview on ITV, May said she would not favour the so-called “coronation” scenario.
“I think there should be a con-test. I think it’s important that members have their opportunity to have their say and I think that what people want to hear is what the arguments are and people putting those arguments togeth-er,” she said.
EU leaders have been putting pressure on Britain to trig-ger Article 50 quickly to avoid a prolonged period of uncertainty that is also destabilising for the other 27 member states.
“We’ve got to be clear about what our negotiating stance is before we trigger that Article 50, because once we trigger it then all the processes start,” said May.
Once the article is invoked, the clock starts ticking for a deal on the terms of Brexit to be agreed within two years.
“What is important is that we do this in the right timescale and we do it to get the right deal for the UK,” said May.
But Leadsom, who was one of the most passionate advocates of Brexit during the referendum campaign, said she would invoke the article as quickly as possible.
“We need to get on with it, we need to seize the opportunity,” she told BBC television.
“It’s about giving certainty to businesses, it’s about saying to the world ‘we’re open for busi-ness’. Let’s start getting some free trade agreements started as soon as we can. We need to get on with it, we need to get a grip and make progress.”
On the subject of immigra-tion, May appeared to distance herself from a long-standing Conservative goal to reduce im-migration to tens of thousands annually from over 300,000 currently.
“We can bring immigration down to sustainable levels,” May said, adding that one of the strongest messages from the Brexit vote was a popular yearn-ing for more control in this area.
“What I’ve also discovered over the last six years (as interior minister) is that this is some-where where you’re constantly having to work at it, so you can’t just set a time period,” she said, adding that it was not all about numbers.
“There are factors you can’t always predict, what the timing and numbers...will be.”
Conservative party leadership candidate Andrea Leadsom leaves the BBC television centre in London after appearing on The Andrew Marr Show in London yesterday.
Sadiq Khan: condemns Johnson’s purchase.
Tories urged to off er assurances to EU citizens living in BritainGuardian News and MediaLondon
Leading fi gures from the Leave and Remain cam-paigns have called on the
Tory leadership candidates to make an “unequivocal statement” that EU citizens living in the UK are welcome after a spate of hate crimes since the referendum.
There are between 2mn and 3mn EU citizens living in the UK and 1.2mn British citizens living in other EU countries. Uncertainty
and anxiety among EU nationals living in Britain have spread fol-lowing limited assurances so far provided by the Prime Minister, David Cameron, and the Home Secretary, Theresa May, currently the frontrunner to succeed him.
During his resignation, Cam-eron said the status of EU nation-als in the UK would not change while negotiations over Britain’s future relationship with the EU were live, a pledge repeated by May in her leadership launch.
The call for assurances to EU citizens came in a letter to the
Sunday Telegraph signed by Leave proponents including Conserva-tive MEP Daniel Hannan, Labour’s Gisela Stuart and Ukip’s Douglas Carswell, as well as Remain sup-porters including Labour’s Yvette Cooper and TUC general secre-tary, Frances O’Grady. Academics and industry fi gures also signed the letter, voicing fears over pos-sible disruption to services and businesses.
“We would urge the govern-ment, opposition parties and every candidate standing to be the next Conservative party leader
– and hence prime minister – to make an unequivocal statement that EU migrants currently living in the UK are welcome here, and that changes would apply only to new migrants,” the letter said.
By honouring a clear commit-ment made by the Vote Leave campaign to protect the status of EU migrants, the letter said the UK “puts itself in a strong posi-tion to seek a reciprocal commit-ment from other EU members that EU citizens in the UK and UK nationals in other EU countries should be able to continue to live
and work in those countries”.Tim Farron, the Liberal Demo-
crat leader, has demanded that EU nationals living in the UK be given guarantees that they will have the right to stay indefi nitely. Farron, who joined tens of thousands on a pro-EU march in London on Sat-urday, said the government’s cur-rent position was both inhumane and would damage the British economy. “There are plenty of decent people who voted for leave who do not want to see Europeans who live in the UK in our commu-nities forced to uproot their lives,”
he said. “There must be a cast-iron guarantee that their futures can be in the UK: the country they now call home.”
Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, has made simi-lar demands, calling for immedi-ate guarantees on the residency status and rights of EU nationals living in Scotland. She made the demand in letters to Cameron and the fi ve Tory candidates, say-ing it was imperative the UK gov-ernment respected the rights of Scotland’s 173,000 EU citizens.
Honouring a commitment
to EU nationals would send a message, said the signatories of Sunday’s letter. They wrote: “It would also send a clear state-ment to the extreme minority – who appear to believe they have licence to attack and harass mi-grants – that the British public fi nds their views repugnant and unwelcome in our society.”
New research from ICM for the independent thinktank Brit-ish Future fi nds that 84% of the public supports letting EU mi-grants stay – including 77% of Leave voters.
Media reports suggested that some Conservatives were trying to persuade Leadsom to stand down so that May could be quickly installed in Downing Street
Home Secretary Theresa May said Britain needed to be clear about its negotiating stance and added she would not be rushed into triggering the article this year
BRITAIN17Gulf Times
Monday, July 4, 2016
EUROPE
Gulf Times Monday, July 4, 201618
Senior European political fi gures appealed yesterday for the EU to set aside lofty
debate as it struggles with Brex-it-style populism, and instead to focus on measures which clearly benefi t citizens.
Leading the charge, Ger-man Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble – a linchpin of the Berlin coalition government – scorned “political sermons”, in-stitutional reform and changes to EU treaties as proposed fi xes for Europe’s faultlines.
“This is not a time for grand visions,” the 73-year-old veteran minister, long a passionate sup-porter of the European project, told Welt am Sonntag weekly.
“The situation is so serious that we have to stop playing the usual European and Brussels
games,” Schaeuble said. “The EU is facing an acid test, perhaps the greatest in its history.”
Schaeuble, a member of Chan-cellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said that the EU had to work “with speed and pragmatism” to un-
lock growth and thus create jobs.He sketched initiatives from
a common energy policy to job training to harmonising national defence procurements.
The CDU’s coalition partners, the Social Democrats, meanwhile stressed strengthening the safety
net for the poor or unemployed – two big factors in the perceived collapse of confi dence in the EU.
The goal must be to “not only create competition but also so-cial security”, said Vice-Chan-cellor Sigmar Gabriel, describing the crisis in Greece as a pointer of a possible north-south split in Europe.
In the southern French town of Aix-en-Provence, the European commissioner for economic pol-icy, Pierre Moscovici, called for “strong initiatives ... to reinvent Europe”.
“Status quo cannot be a reply to Brexit,” he said, referring to the June 23 referendum in which a majority of Britons voted to leave the EU.
The vote dealt a body-blow to European federalists, who want the bloc’s states to come into an ever-tighter embrace.
Critics of federalism have ar-gued that many citizens are hos-
tile to Euro-centralism.They contend Brussels is not
addressing concerns about jobs, living standards and migration.
Moscovici threw his weight behind widening and extending the so-called Juncker Plan – a scheme named after European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker which uses EU funds as a lever for investment in areas such as energy, infrastruc-ture and research.
The three-year plan, running from 2015 to 2018, has funds of €21bn ($23.39bn) from the EU budget and the European Invest-ment Bank (EIB), with the hope that this will leverage private in-vestment of €315bn.
In its current form, the Juncker Plan “is probably insuffi cient, both in scale and timeframe”, Moscovici told journalists at a business meeting in Aix.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde,
who also attended the meeting, said that the EU had to do more to project its image so that citizens were more aware of some of the benefi ts of membership.
“When for instance the Eu-ropean Investment Bank makes very big investments in areas but doesn’t say very much and peo-ple aren’t aware of it, without there being a measure of Europe’s economic eff ectiveness, that’s incredible,” Lagarde said. “It means that the talk will continue to be about ‘excessive regulation, bureaucracy, it’s all Brussels’ fault’.”
Pollsters say regions of Brit-ain such as Cornwall, Wales and Yorkshire which have been huge benefi ciaries of EU funds were also those that voted hugely in favour of leaving the Union.
Lagarde said laconically that Britain’s exit should simplify de-cision-making in the EU.
“Now that the English have, in
inverted commas, left ... at least there are a number of things that I’ve heard European commis-sioners say, one after another, ‘’it’s so complicated – we can’t do it because of the British’,” La-garde said. “Perhaps there are now things that should be envis-aged, as the British won’t be at the negotiating table.”
Lagarde did not elaborate, but French Economy Minister Em-manuel Macron said that the British departure could open the way to strengthening the euro-zone.
“We have become a bit para-lysed in thinking that there taboo geographical areas, and we have spent months and months not daring to meet as members of the eurozone, thinking it would up-set the Poles and British.”
Moscovici reiterated ideas for boosting the 19-country euro-zone, with a common budget and a “common economic policy”.
Call for pragmatism as EU charts futureAFPAix-en-Provence, France
Schaeuble: This is not a time for grand visions.
Lagarde: Britain’s exit should simplify decision-making in the EU.
An installation by re-nowned artist Christo, which allows people to
walk on the waters of a northern Italian lake, closed yesterday, after attracting more than twice the number of visitors organis-ers had expected.
The June 18-July 3 Floating Piers project on Lake Iseo, about 90km east of Milan, is a 3km, 16m-wide bright yellow fl oat-ing structure that connects the Monte Isola island and San Pao-lo islet with the shore.
Bulgarian-born, New York-based Christo Vladimirov Ya-vachev, known for previous spectacular public installations such as gift-wrapping the Re-ichstag building in Berlin and the Pont Neuf in Paris, said that visitors “feel like they are walk-ing on water – or perhaps the back of a whale”.
It is made of 100,000sq me-tres of “shimmering yellow fab-ric, carried by a modular fl oating dock system of 220,000 high-density polyethylene cubes”, the artist said on a promotional website.
According to the Corriere della Sera newspaper, while there was an expectation that about 500,000 people would go through the experience, the
fi nal number of visitors is likely to be in region of 1.2mn.
On Saturday, when visiting times were restricted to 12pm-6.30pm because of bad weather, 80,000 people showed up, local authorities said in a statement.
This was only 30,000 fewer than Friday, when the Piers were accessible throughout the day.
“We continue to be amazed by the record number of visi-tors coming to experience The Floating Piers – each day we are seeing more and more people,” operations director Vladimir Yavachev said before the fi nal weekend opening.
Access to the installation is free, but Christo had to give up on his original idea to leave it open 24 hours a day, because of the occasional bad weather, but also to allow repairs and give local communities night-time respite from the constant fl ow of people.
Long queues have been a con-
stant feature of the installation, and at the most congested times the authorities suspended or deliberately delayed train serv-ices to tiny Lake Iseo to slow down the number of arrivals.
The Floating Piers is Christo’s
fi rst major project since his wife and artistic partner Jeanne-Claude died seven years ago.
Once dismantled, the 220,000 plastic cubes that make up the installation will be in-dustrially recycled.
Last day to walk on water at Christo’s Floating PiersDPARome
A woman takes a a selfie on the installation ‘The Floating Piers’ by Bulgarian-born artist Christo Vladimirov Yavachev, known as Christo, at the installation’s last weekend near Sulzano, northern Italy.
People walk on the ‘The Floating Piers’.
Former French Socialist prime minister Michel Ro-card, hailed a “visionary
statesman”, died on Saturday aged 85, his son Francis told AFP.
Rocard served as prime min-ister for three years from mid-1988 under Francois Mitterrand, the two-term Socialist president who led the country from 1981 to 1995.
Mitterrand appointed Rocard to succeed future centre right president Jacques Chirac after a period of unprecedented left-right “cohabitation”.
Rocard, noted for his pro-European stance, died in a Paris hospital, said his son Francis Ro-card, an astrophysicist.
President Francois Hollande paid tribute to a man he called “a great fi gure of the Republic and of the Left”.
Current Prime Minister Manuel Valls spoke of his “great sadness” at the loss of a “vision-ary statesman”.
Party grandees queued up to praise Rocard’s role in re-shap-ing the French Left over the past fi ve decades.
Party fi rst secretary, Jean-Christophe Cambadelis, indicat-ed that “it is a part of ourselves which dies with Michel”, but added: “We shall continue your battles.”
In describing Rocard as a “man of conviction”, former party leader Martine Aubry said that the Socialists and the French Left “has lost one of its great fi gures and many of us feel profound sadness”.
Finance Minister Michel Sap-in also paid tribute, saying that “Michel Rocard was able to rec-oncile the Left with the economy and establish a fruitful dialogue between the Left and business”.
Sapin described Rocard’s
passing as “an immense loss”.On the political right, former
president Nicolas Sarkozy, hailed Rocard’s rejection of sectarian-ism and his “statesmanship” while former right-wing prime minister Alain Juppe recalled his “agile mind, historical per-spective, his appetite for debate without concession but without sectarianism”.
Born on August 23, 1930 in the Parisian suburb of Courbevoie, Rocard attended the elite Na-tional School of Administration ENA, eventually carving out a high-fl ying political career in a revamped and modernised So-cialist Party under Mitterrand.
Rocard became leader of the then United Socialist Party in 1967 as the French Left battled for unity between traditionalists and modernisers and two years later stood for the presidency.
But he obtained just 3.5% to exit in the fi rst round beaten by two hard Left fellow candidates who also fell by the wayside as conservative Georges Pompidou triumphed two months after the resignation of Charles De Gaulle.
Rocard served several terms as a lawmaker for the Yvelines re-gion on the outskirts of Paris and 17 years as mayor of the town of
Confl ans-Sainte-Honorine.In 1974, he joined Mitterrand’s
newly-founded Socialist Party (PS) and soon became a vocal critic of the traditional left.
He decided not to stand in Mitterrand’s way as the latter successfully won a second term in 1988, after which he was ap-pointed premier.
Rocard served in the post for three years before being “fi red” as he saw it.
While in the top government job, Rocard signed a landmark auto-determination agreement ending unrest in the French Pa-cifi c Ocean archipelago of New Caledonia.
Overwhelmingly elected PS fi rst secretary in 1993, the party slumped only a year later with Rocard at the head of its list to its worst ever election score – 14.49% in European polls, barely ahead of a radical leftist group led by controversial former Mar-seille football club chairman Ber-nard Tapie.
Rocard promptly dropped thereafter any idea of present-ing himself as the “natural” PS candidate for the presidency but instead headed for the European Parliament where he served until 2009.
Former French PM Rocard dies aged 85AFPParis
Rocard in 2012.
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy an-nounced plans to quit his
role as head of France’s Les Re-publicains party on Saturday, setting up a potential bid to be-come head of state for a second time.
Supporters of Les Republic-ains and other right and centre-right parties will vote in Novem-ber to decide who will be their candidate in the 2017 presiden-tial election.
The winner will face the far-right National Front’s Marine Le Pen and a Socialist candidate, likely to be President Francois Hollande.
Sarkozy would not be able to run in those presidential prima-ries if he remained head of the party.
He would need to resign two weeks before the application deadline on September 9.
“This national council will be my last one as president of Les Republicains,” he told a party meeting, calling for a fair contest and no acrimony between the potential nominees.
“This primary will be a time of competition between some strong personalities, between people of signifi cant talent,” he said. “When the right goes into battle it has a front on the left and a front on the extreme right. That is why it is unacceptable that we should attack each other.”
For much of this year, centre-right rival Alain Juppe has out-paced Sarkozy in opinion polls, but the man who was president between 2007 and 2012 is making a comeback among party sup-porters, a recent survey showed, a sign the battle could be more open than many thought.
Sarkozy sets up presidential bid by quitting party roleReutersParis
Senior German politicians are calling for improve-ments to the European
Union, just over a week after Britons voted to leave the bloc.
In a referendum held on June 23, Britain voted 52% to 48% in favour of quitting the EU – a de-cision that caused major losses in global fi nancial markets and raised concerns about the EU’s future prospects.
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said the timeframes Brussels usually operates with were too big and politicians there had taken too long to make decisions on the migrant crisis last year.
He urged members to be prag-matic and take an “intergov-
ernmental approach” to solve problems whenever this was the case.
“You soon realise if the Com-mission isn’t managing some-thing or if we’re getting bogged down in the (European) Council. And that’s when governments have a responsibility,” Schaeu-ble said in an interview with Welt am Sonntag newspaper.
He said that reforming Euro-pean institutions or changing European treaties would take too long and denied that he was calling for the Commission’s power to be reduced.
However, German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel called for the ranks of EU Commis-sioners to be streamlined and for Brussels to reconsider how it allocates its budget.
“A Europe in which 27 Com-missioners want to prove them-
selves doesn’t make sense. It would be good to downsize in this respect,” he told the news-paper Neue Osnabruecker Zei-tung in an interview published on Saturday.
Gabriel, who is also Germa-ny’s vice-chancellor, said the EU should reassess if it should still put around 40% of funds towards agriculture while much less money is pumped into re-
search, innovation or education.And European Parliament
President Martin Schulz, a German, wrote in a piece for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that the Commission should be turned into “a real European government” subject to parlia-mentary control from the Eu-ropean Parliament and a second chamber made up of represent-atives of member states.
Germany’s ministers urge improvementsReutersBerlin
Schulz: the Commission should be turned into ‘a real European government’.
EUROPE19Gulf Times
Monday, July 4, 2016
Syrian refugees living in Turkey could eventually be granted Turkish citizen-
ship, President Recep Tayyip Er-dogan has signalled, a plan that has sparked controversy at home.
“I want to announce some good news,” media quoted Er-dogan as saying late on Saturday at a dinner to break the Ramadan fast in Kilis province, on the Syr-ian border. “We are going to help our Syrian friends in off ering them the chance, if they want it, to acquire Turkish nationality.”
The interior ministry will shortly announce how the citi-zenship procedure would work, Erdogan said.
He did not specify whether all of the 2.7mn Syrians that Turkey is hosting would be able to apply,
and gave no details on eligibility criteria or how long the process would take.
“We regard you as our broth-ers and sisters – you are not far from your homeland, but only from your homes and your land,” Erdogan told a group of Syrian refugees in Kilis. “Turkey is also your homeland.”
Ankara has refused to grant refugee status to Syrians who have fl ed the devastating war across the border since 2011, re-ferring to them as “guests”.
Only a select group have been granted work permits and resi-dency.
The country’s open-door poli-cy to Syrian refugees was initially a source of pride for many Turks.
But more and more have come to resent the new arrivals, seeing them as a drain on state resources and rivals for scarce jobs.
In Kilis, where Erdogan spoke,
refugees now outnumber the na-tive Turkish population.
Life is a struggle for most Syr-ians in Turkey, who mainly live off odd jobs that are often insuf-fi cient to feed and house a family.
The country is also hosting some 300,000 Iraqis who have fl ed the Islamic State (IS) group.
Erdogan’s announcement sparked fi erce debate on social media, with many Turkish Web users questioning whether it was a good idea.
“Granting citizenship shouldn’t depend on what one person wants. We need a referen-dum!” wrote Mahomet Mahomet on Twitter.
The hashtag #ulkemdeSuri-yeliistemiyorum (“I don’t want Syrians in my country”) trended on Twitter, though some users denounced the reaction as racist.
“The reaction is racist pure and simple – before everything else
we need a measured response,” tweeted Omer Sloukas.
Some critics suggested the move might be a bid by Erdogan to register an army of thankful Syrian voters who might back his plans to boost his presidential powers.
The Turkish strongman is accused of increasing authori-tarianism since he came into power as 2002 as prime minis-ter becoming the country’s fi rst directly-elected president two years ago.
He is seeking to change the constitution to give Turkey a presidential system, a proposal that has prompted staunch criti-cism from the parliamentary op-position.
To achieve his goal, he would need a three-fi fths majority in parliament to call a referendum on the issue, or a two-thirds ma-jority for direct approval.
Syrian refugees may get citizenship in TurkeyAFPAnkara
Erdogan: Turkey is also your homeland.
The fi rst reports came in at dawn.
A growing number of fl imsy rubber dinghies, packed with migrants from sub-Saha-ran Africa, in diffi culty in the Mediterranean Sea.
By the time the ship Topaz Responder arrived on the scene, some 20 nautical miles (37km) off the Libyan coast, on June 23, its crew counted 21 infl atable boats.
By the end of the day, the ves-sel and other ships had plucked about 5,000 people from more than 40 boats, according to the Italian coastguard.
One person died before they arrived.
“I was on the boat for fi ve hours at sea ... I didn’t feel good because it wasn’t safe,” said Afi gu Barrie, 20, a student from Sierra Leone rescued by the crew of the Topaz Responder. “Now I’m comfortable. I appreciate this so much. I thank God.”
Europe’s worst immigra-tion crisis since World War II is showing little sign of a slow-down in the fl ow of people head-ing across the sea from North Africa to Italy.
According to the Internation-al Organisation for Migration (IOM), 225,095 migrants and refugees have arrived in Europe by sea so far this year.
There have been 2,889 deaths in the Mediterranean compared with 1,838 in the fi rst six months of 2015.
Last week, thousands of peo-ple were pulled from interna-tional waters in just days, ac-cording to the Italian coastguard, as people smugglers increased operations in good weather.
Many set off from Libya.Reuters photographer Darrin
Zammit Lupi on board the To-paz Responder, operated by the privately funded Malta-based Migrant Off shore Aid Station (MOAS), witnessed one major rescue operation, also involving other humanitarian and navy ships and the Italian coastguard.
MOAS was founded in 2014 by entrepreneurs Christopher Catrambone and his wife Regina in response to the tragic death of several hundred migrants who drowned when their boat sank off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa in October 2013.
It says it has since rescued more than 15,000 people.
“The pressure is there, it hasn’t abated in any way. You still have a very strong and steady fl ow of Africans com-ing on the central Mediterra-nean route,” Ian Ruggier, MOAS head of operations, said. “I think nothing has happened since last year to change that ... there is still a signifi cant number of people wanting to leave Libyan shores.”
The Topaz Responder had been at sea for six days conduct-
ing patrols before it was called to help last week by the Rome Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre.
Upon arrival, it launched one of its two Fast Rescue Daugh-ter Craft (FRDC), named after Syrian brothers Aylan and Galib Kurdi whose deaths while trying to reach Greece from Turkey last year made global headlines.
The crew on the smaller ves-
sel, including two rescue swim-mers and a medic, approached the nearest overcrowded dinghy and began throwing life jackets to those on board.
The Topaz Responder drew closer and the FRDC nudged the dinghy against the ship, al-lowing the migrants to scramble aboard.
Many dropped to their knees in prayer while waiting to be
frisked by security personnel before the ship went to help an-other dinghy.
“I feel so good,” said Osman Kalokoh from Sierra Leone. “So relieved.”
In total, 382 migrants, most from West Africa, were rescued that day by the Topaz Respond-er, including babies.
People hugged one another and others cried loudly.
Then they slept, exhausted by a journey that had begun months before in the hope of fi nding a new life in Europe.
Later they were transferred to an Italian coastguard ship bound for Sicily.
“Being in Europe now, I want to continue my education. I want to learn something better,” Barrie said. “I want to be better tomorrow.”
Witnessing migrants being rescued at seaBy Darrin Zammit Lupi, ReutersAboard the Topaz Responder
This picture taken on June 23 shows migrants resting on the deck of the Migrant Off shore Aid Station (MOAS) ship Topaz Responder after being rescued around 20 nautical miles off the coast of Libya.
Mosque opens after long struggle
A Saudi-funded mosque in Nice opened its doors for the first time on Saturday, after a 15-year tussle with the local town hall.The Nicois En-nour Institute mosque received authorisation to open early on Saturday from the local prefect, substituting for town mayor Philippe Pradal, who recently took over from Christian Estrosi.Estrosi was implacably opposed to the construction of the mosque and in April had secured the green light to sue the French state in a bid to block its opening in the southern city.He had accused the building’s owner, Saudi Arabia’s Islamic Aff airs Minister Sheikh Saleh bin Abdulaziz, of “advocating Shariah” and wanting to “destroy all of the churches on the Arabian peninsula”.Estrosi, mayor since 2008, said that the project which was initiated under his predecessor in 2002 was unauthorised.However the mosque’s opening was described as “a real joy” by Ouassini Mebarek, head of a local religious association.“But there is no smug triumphalism,” he told AFP. “This is recognition of the law, and a right to freely practise one’s religion in France in accordance with the values of French Republic.”Ten Muslim faithful entered the mosque’s basem*nt, which can hold 880 worshippers, for evening prayers.“A Muslim prefers the house of god to his own home, provided it is beautiful,” said Abdelaziz, one of the worshippers who came to pray with his son Mohamed.In the room reserved for women Amaria, a mother from neighbouring Moulins said: “Today we are happy. Happy and relieved to have found this place ... we are tired of hiding ourselves, we aren’t mice!”
Seventeen supporters of the Islamic State (IS) extrem-ist group entered Europe as
refugees, Frankfurter Allgemein-en Zeitung reported on Saturday,
citing German intelligence.Most of them are either dead
or in custody, the report said, adding that two of them were part of the group of terrorists who attacked Paris in November.
Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of Germany’s domestic in-telligence agency, was quoted as
saying there was “reliable evi-dence” that the 17 were working on behalf of IS.
He said that while IS did not need to use known refugee routes it was “a show of power” on part of the terrorist group.
Last month, three Syrians were arrested in three diff er-
ent German states on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack in Dusseldorf on behalf of IS.
The authorities said that the three had been posing as refu-gees and living in asylum-seek-ers’ homes.
The alleged plot foresaw two militants blowing themselves up
with explosive vests in the west-ern German city’s historic centre and the remaining men killing as many people as possible with fi rearms.
In recent months, police have conducted a series of raids tar-geting Islamists sent to Germa-ny on behalf of Islamic State.
Thus far, there has been no major terrorist attack on Ger-man soil.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s promise of sanctuary brought some 1.1mn migrants to Ger-many in 2015, with most from confl ict zones in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
17 IS supporters entered Europe as refugees, report saysDPABerlin
Italian Prime Minister Mat-teo Renzi has rejected press reports suggesting that his
government was unhappy about the way Bangladeshi authorities responded to the Dhaka terror-ist attack that killed 20 civil-ians, including nine Italians.
The Il Messaggero newspaper alleged that the Bangladeshi se-curity forces who stormed the restaurant where people were being held hostage were poorly equipped, did not warn Italy about the action, and refused aid off ers from US and British intelligence forces.
“I think that by now any kind of discussion or polemic is pret-
ty much pointless,” Renzi said in an interview with the SkyTG24 news channel.
“From the fi rst minute, it was a situation that was very diffi -cult to handle,” he added.
Renzi said the attackers were “ready to do anything” and “got in aiming to kill and succeeded”.
Italian authorities have sent a plane to Dhaka to recover the bodies of the victims.
Renzi denies friction with DhakaDPARome
Renzi: From the first minute, it was a situation that was very diff icult to handle.
German arms exports al-most doubled last year to their highest level
since the beginning of this cen-tury, a German newspaper said yesterday, citing a report from the economy ministry that is due to be presented to the cabi-net on Wednesday.
Newspaper Welt am Sonntag said the value of individual ap-provals granted for exporting arms was €7.86bn ($8.75bn) last year compared with $3.97bn worth of arms exports in 2014.
It said that the economy ministry had pointed to spe-cial factors that boosted arms exports such as the approval of four tanker aircraft for Britain worth €1.1bn.
In February German Econ-omy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said that preliminary fi gures showed that Germany had giv-en approval for around €7.5bn worth of arms shipments in 2015.
The Federal Offi ce for Eco-nomics and Export Control (Bafa), a subsidiary of the econ-omy ministry, is responsible for licensing arms export deals and Gabriel had promised to take a
much more cautious approach to licensing arms exports, espe-cially with regard to the Middle East.
Germany is one of the world’s main arms exporters to Euro-pean Union and Nato countries and has been cutting its sales of light weapons outside those states.
Last year the government re-jected 100 applications for arms export approvals – the same number as in the previous year, Welt am Sonntag reported.
It said that Berlin had given 12,687 applications the green light in 2015 – 597 more than in the previous year.
Germany’s arms exports ‘almost doubled’ in 2015ReutersBerlin
Tiger kills keeper at Spain zooA tiger attacked and killed a zookeeper in its cage at a Spanish animal park on Saturday, the local Red Cross service said.The grim discovery of the keeper’s body was made around 5pm (1500 GMT) at the Terra Natura park in the southeastern coastal resort town of Benidorm.“The tiger was still in the cage with the 37-year-old keeper,” a Red Cross spokesman told AFP.Zoo staff put the animal to sleep with sedative darts after which the emergency workers were able to get in.There was no word on the incident from the local police.The Terra Natura in Benidorm, which is in Spain’s Alicante province, presents itself on its website as “a new generation” animal park, with a habitat area created for each of 200 species of animals.
Italian town hopes for hug records
The mediaeval town of Bergamo in northern Italy was preparing yesterday to beat a record for the world’s biggest collective hug, a stunt by the local tourist board to publicise a heritage site.More than 14,000 people have registered to line up around the 5km perimeter of the 500-year-old walls that surround the historic upper city of Bergamo, organisers Visit Bergamo said on their website.The Hug of the Walls event was scheduled to start at 6pm (1600 GMT) and last about two hours, they added.The walls are part of defence structures built by the Republic of Venice in northern Italy and modern-day Croatia and Montenegro during the 15th and 17th centuries, which have been submitted as candidates for Unesco World Heritage status.Breaking up into couples, people in Bergamo are supposed to simultaneously hug for at least 10 seconds, while an off icial from the Guinness World Records association monitors proceedings to make sure that conditions are respected.The record to beat was set by 10,738 people during a music festival in Ayacucho, Peru, in 2012.Organisers aim to also achieve a second record for the longest hug relay: participants have to line up and, starting from the front, should turn around to hug their neighbour, one after the other, until the last standing person.The current record for the longest hug relay was established in May in China by 960 people, Visit Bergamo said.
Gulf Times Monday, July 4, 2016
INDIA20
Tamil NaduRoundupBy Umaima Shafiq
Girl commits suicide over morphed photo
A 21-year-old college girl committed suicide on finding her morphed photos on Facebook at Elampillai in Salem.Vinupriya’s suicide note said the police ignored her complaint, while her parents refused to believe her. She hanged herself from a ceiling fan in her room. A day later, police arrested her neighbour, 21-year-old Suresh, who confessed to the crime over unrequited love. He was traced by cyber crime police.In another breakthrough, Chennai police have arrested a man for the June 24 murder of Swathi, a 24-year-old engineer at the busy Nungambakkam railway station. Ramkumar, 24, was picked up from his hometown in southern Tirunelveli district. He slit his throat when police came to arrest him. However immediate hospitalisation saved his life and he will be brought to Chennai for further interrogation. Over 100 policemen from several districts were involved in Ramkumar’s manhunt. Police used the railway station’s surveillance footage, hand drawn sketches and cell phone records to track Ramkumar.In another incident, Aishwarya, 26, an employee of a leading insurance company, was arrested for fatally knocking down a construction worker while driving a luxury Audi car at Rajiv Gandhi road in suburban Chennai. Police said Aishwarya and her two friends were drunk and had been returning from an all-night party. The victim Munusamy, 54, was trying to cross the road.
Associate of missing film director held
Vijay Pandian, an associate of film director Madhan, who has been missing from Chennai since May 29, was arrested last week. Madhan was a managing partner of Vendhar Films and closely associated with SRM business conglomerate. He, Vijay and three others are accused of selling SRM’s medical college seats to 67 students for Rs20mn. Vijay is being interrogated at a secret location.On May 29, Madhan ostensibly left home for his off ice but a note in his car parked at the Chennai airport claimed that he was going to the holy city of Kasi to get ‘salvation’. A countrywide alert has been issued for Madhan based on his family and SRM management’s complaints.
Actor Vikram’s daughter gets engaged
Award winning film actor Vikram’s daughter Aksh*ta will get engaged to Manu Ranjith, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief M Karunanidhi’s great grandson, on July 10 in Chennai.The wedding will be held next year. The couple had been courting for some time and decided to get married recently. Manu Ranjith is the son of C K Ranganathan, the owner of cosmetic and food conglomerate CavinKare.Vikram debuted in the 1990 film En Kadhal Kanmani and rose to fame in 1999 with the Tamil film Sethu. Among his other box off ice hits are Gemini, Samy, Dhill, Dhool, Samurai, Pithamagan and others. He has won seven national and state awards. He has essayed roles of blind, deaf mute autistic and hunchback characters will finesse.
8-month-old gets liver transplantIn a rare medical feat, doctors of Chennai’s Global Health City hospital saved an eight-month-old baby girl from Andhra Pradesh with a rare liver ailment last week. Gnana Sai has congenital biliary atresia, a rare disorder that is found in one among 10,000 children. Gnana Sai’s father Ramanappa, had even appealed for euthanasia in his native Chittoor town. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu heard about the case and arranged for Gnana Sai’s treatment free of cost in Chennai. Both parents have off ered themselves as donors. Doctors are hopeful of Gnana Sai’s 95% recovery.
Plastic roadshelp tacklewaste andharsh weatherThe environmentally conscious approach to road construction was developed in India around 15 years ago in response to the growing problem of plastic litter
Guardian News and MediaChennai
Jambulingam Street in Chen-nai is a local legend. The tar road in the bustling Nun-
gambakkam area has weathered a major fl ood, several monsoons, recurring heat waves and a steady stream of cars, trucks and auto-rickshaws without showing the usual signs of wear and tear.
Built in 2002, it has not de-veloped the mosaic of cracks, potholes or craters that typically make their appearance after it rains. Holding the road together is an unremarkable material: a cheap, polymer glue made from shredded waste plastic.
Jambulingam Street was one of India’s fi rst plastic roads. The environmentally conscious ap-proach to road construction was developed in India around 15 years ago in response to the growing problem of plastic litter. As time wore on, polymer roads proved to be surprisingly durable, win-ning support among scientists and policymakers in India as well as neighbouring countries like Bhutan.
“The plastic tar roads have not developed any potholes, rut-ting, ravelling or edge fl aw, even though these roads are more than four years of age,” observed an early performance report by In-dia’s Central Pollution Control Board. Today, there are more than 33,000km of plastic road in In-dia, and roughly half are in Tamil Nadu. Most are rural roads, but a small number have also been built in cities such as Chennai and Mumbai.
Adding fl exible materials to strengthen tar roads is not a new idea. Commercially made polymer-modifi ed asphalts fi rst
became popular in the 1970s in Europe. Now, North America claims 35% of the global market. Modifi ed asphalts are made from virgin polymers and sometimes crumb rubber (ground tyres). They are highly versatile: Illinois uses them to build high-traffi c truck roads, Washington State uses them for noise reduction and in rural Ontario they are used to prevent roads from cracking after a harsh winter. Polymerised asphalts also tend not to buckle in extreme heat the way conven-tional roads do - plastic roads will not melt unless the tempera-ture goes beyond 66C, compared to 50.2C for ordinary roads - and are frequently used on roads in the Middle East.
But even in the US, cost is a signifi cant barrier. The most widely used polymer, styrene-butadiene-styrene, can increase the price of a road by 30-50%. In India, high-stress roads like runways and expressways are in-creasingly using polymer modi-fi ed asphalts made by manufac-turers like DuPont.
While polymer roads in the US are made with asphalt that comes pre-mixed with a polymer, plastic tar roads are a frugal invention, made with a discarded, low-grade polymer. Every kilometre of this kind of road uses the equivalent of 1m plastic bags, saving around one tonne of asphalt and costing roughly 8% less than a conven-tional road.
Dr R Vasudevan, a chemistry professor and dean at the Thia-garajar College of Engineering in Madurai, came up with the idea through trial and error, sprinkling shredded plastic waste over hot gravel and coating the stones in a thin fi lm of plastic. He then added the plastic-coated stones to mol-ten tar, or asphalt. Plastic and tar bond well together because both are petroleum products. The process was patented in 2006.
A modifi ed version of the road which adds road scrap to plas-tic-coated gravel was tested out in March this year on a highway
connecting Chennai with Villu-puram. It was the fi rst time plas-tic road technology was used for a national highway. It is expected to reduce construction costs by 50%.
Dr Vasudevan’s lab contains all the raw materials he needs to make a plastic road: shredders, a gas cylinder, a wok – and a pile of garbage. “This is my raw mate-rial,” Vasudevan says, pointing to a small pile of bags, plastic cups and foam packaging. These ma-terials are the dregs of the plas-tic world, worthless even to rag pickers who cannot recycle them. Vasudevan melts shredded plastic over low heat to avoid emissions. Polystyrene is toxic when burned but, when softened, it makes an excellent pothole fi ller.
In India, plastic roads serve as a ready-made landfi ll for a cer-tain kind of ubiquitous urban trash. Flimsy, single-use items like shopping bags and foam packaging are the ideal raw ma-terial. Impossible to recycle, they are a menace, hogging space in garbage dumps, clogging city drains and even poisoning the air. Delhi’s air, in particular, has been called a “toxic pollutant punch-bowl” partly due to contami-nants from plastic-fuelled street bonfi res.
However, urban plastic roads are still a rarity in India. Chennai was an early adopter of the tech-nology, building its plastic roads from waste materials donated by the public. One satellite town even off ered a gram of gold as an incentive for citizens to collect discarded plastic bags in 2012. But a year later, the plan was aban-doned, because the city could not produce enough shredded plastic waste. It was also rumoured that infl uential road builders, threat-ened by the prospect of pot-hole-free roads, had scuttled the project. Late last year, the mayor of Chennai announced the plastic road project was being revived, triggered in part by the devasta-tion to Chennai’s roads after the fl oods of 2015.
Left unity under a cloud over Congress tie-upIANSNew Delhi
Left unity in West Bengal seems to have taken a beat-ing due to the “working
relation” between the Commu-nist Party of India (Marxist) and Congress in the eastern state.
While CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury says that the tacit understanding between the party and the Congress can continue, the Forward Bloc, a constituent in the Left Front, has raised a red fl ag against the “dou-ble standard” of Marxist leaders.
“The issue of electoral debacle in West Bengal fi gured promi-nently at the three-day meeting
of Forward Bloc central commit-tee in Delhi this week. The as-sembly election result of Bengal is a severe jolt to the Left Front. The entire Front leadership has failed,” a senior Forward Bloc leader said. “It is time the CPM admits its blunder” of aligning with the Congress.
That admission would be the “fi rst step on part of the CPM to take the corrective measure,” he said. Or else, the Left unity will be in a shambles and help the Trinamool Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party, he added.
Yechury has alleged “murder of democracy” in West Bengal and said a “broadest possible coalition” will be worked out to fi ght the Trinamool regime in the
state. And perhaps that’s how he wants to justify the partnership with the Grand Old Party of In-dia.
However, the Left Front part-ners are not buying that argu-ment.
In its statement the Forward Bloc said: “CPM leaders con-fused the general public with their double standards. Some of the leaders were ready to share the election platform with the Congress and some of them were reluctant.”
Observers point out that the reference was about former West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee who shared the dais with Congress vice presi-dent Rahul Gandhi at an election
rally in Kolkata’s Park Circus.“It was an erroneous move,” a
senior Forward Bloc leader said, referring to the top-notch bon-homie.
However, some senior For-ward Bloc leaders said it would be improper to blame the ‘Ben-gal brigade’ of CPM completely. The leading Communist party’s central leadership under Yechury had a major role in forging the al-liance with the Congress.
But this alliance was at the cost of Left unity, said those opposed to the Congress-Left adjust-ments.
“The CPM virtually aban-doned the Left unity, confused the voters and depended upon the Congress for electoral gains,”
another senior Forward Bloc leader said.
Forward Bloc leaders also said tie-up with the Congress in West Bengal did not help the Left Front at all. Rather, it was the Congress that benefi ted from the alliance, they felt. “The Left support base boosted Congress’s share of votes,” these leaders said.
In the 2016 assembly election in West Bengal, the vote share of the CPM nosedived to 19.7%, a signifi -cant drop for a party that helmed the state between 1977 and 2011.
The Forward Bloc has now de-cided that a delegation of party leaders will meet central leaders of the CPM to share their con-cerns regarding the Left unity and the future roadmap. They
are also in touch with other Left constituents like the Revolution-ary Socialist Party (RSP).
“The leading party of the Left Front did not consult other par-ties before making the adjust-ments (with the Congress). The CPM fi nalised the adjustments and other parties were forced to accept it,” a Forward Bloc leader close to party’s secretary general Debabrata Biswas said.
The animosity of the Com-munist leaders towards the Con-gress is nothing new even though the Left parties have often done business with the Congress at the national level. Left politics in states like Kerala, Tripura and West Bengal is based on anti-Congress plank and ideology.
Sabarimala refuses to let CAs hold meetingIANSThiruvananthapuram
The Sabarimala temple management in Kerala has disallowed a three-
day ‘residential meeting’ of chartered accountants after the organisers made “all arrange-ments” and posted the invita-tion on their website.
“It has been decided that it would be inappropriate to hold a meeting since the temple is open on those days and the devotees would be present in good numbers,” Ajay Tharayil, a member of Travancore Deva-som Board (TDB), which man-ages the temple, said.
“We have, however, said that the meeting can be held at the
foothills of the temple at Pam-ba. A similar meeting took place there last month,” said Tharayil.
The residential meeting was organised by the Kollam branch of the Southern India Regional Council (SIRC) of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and was to take place from July 18 to 20 with the participants scheduled to have a “darshan” of Lord Ayyappa each day.
The meeting was to have dis-cussions on subjects like ‘Ac-counting standards, an SME approach’ and ‘Search and sei-zure under Income Tax Act’ by about 100 chartered account-ants who were expected to take part.
S Renjith, chairman of the Kollam chapter of the SIRC,
said he was surprised to read about the development in yes-terday’s newspaper.
“All arrangements were done and now with a change we will not be able to hold the event where it was originally planned. Now we will have to sit down and decide what needs to be done,” said Renjith.
Situated in the mountain ranges of the Western Ghats at 914m above sea level, Sabar-imala temple is 4km uphill from Pamba river in Pathanamthitta district, around 100km from here.
It is dedicated to Ayyappa and is one of the most famous temples in Kerala. The visitors are expected to observe 41-day fasting, celibacy, restraint in diet, and other rules.
Shoppers throng a market ahead of Eid al-Fitr festival in Bhopal yesterday.
Eid shopping peaks
Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken speaks during an anti-government protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Saturday.
Anti-government protest
21Gulf TimesMonday, July 4, 2016
INDIA
Banda Singh Bahadura great warrior: PMIANSNew Delhi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday described the early 18th century
Sikh military commander Banda Singh Bahadur as a “great war-rior” and said farmers for the fi rst time got their rights and the common man felt empowered due to his eff orts.
“Baba Banda Singh Bahadur-ji was not just a great warrior but was also very sensitive towards common people. After getting inspiration from Guru Gobind Singh-ji, he imbibed values of a warrior and embarked on a new journey for social development,” Modi said at a function here to mark the 300th anniversary of the Sikh military commander’s martyrdom.
“During Baba Banda Singh Bahadur-ji’s time, for the fi rst time, farmers were given their rights, the common man felt
empowered, poor people and the minorities felt secure. He fa-voured economic freedom.”
The prime minister also re-leased a book on the Sikh war-rior.
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal were also present on the occa-sion.
Last month, Finance Minis-ter Arun Jaitley released a com-memorative silver coin marking Banda Singh Bahadur’s 300th martyrdom day.
Delhi’s Aam Aadmi Party gov-ernment has also been keenly associating itself with the Sikh military commander’s mar-tyrdom anniversary, recently putting out newspaper adver-tisem*nts to announce renam-ing of the Barapulla fl yover after Banda Singh Bahadur.
These commemorations and announcements come months ahead of assembly elections in Punjab to be held in 2017.
Kejriwal starts Punjab visit,assembly polls key agendaIANSAmritsar
Thronged by hundreds of people, Delhi Chief Min-ister Arvind Kejriwal yes-
terday started a three-day polit-ical tour of Punjab with prayers at two famous shrines in the Sikh holy city.
A lone protester threw some pamphlets towards Kejriwal as he stepped out of the Golden Temple complex, blaming the Aam Aadmi Party leader for the razing of a ‘piao’ (drinking wa-ter point) outside the histori-cal Sis Ganj Gurdwara in Delhi’s Chandni Chowk area.
The man was taken away by security personnel as an unfazed Kejriwal continued with his pro-gramme.
Kejriwal off ered prayers at the holiest of Sikh shrines, the Har-mandar Sahib, popularly known as Golden Temple, and later
went to the nearby Hindu Dur-giana Temple.
This is Kejriwal’s second tour of Punjab this year. He made a fi ve-day trip to various parts of the state in February.
The visits are in connection with the assembly elections to be held in Punjab in February next year for which the AAP is posing a serious challenge to the ruling Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance and the opposition Con-gress.
Kejriwal’s visit to the state started under the shadow of an AAP legislator in Delhi, Naresh Yadav, being named in a case fi led over the sacrilege of the Qur’an in Punjab’s Muslim dominated town of Malerkotla in Sangrur district recently.
Yadav has been booked by Punjab police in the conspiracy behind the sacrilege incident.
The AAP legislator is in charge of party in Punjab. AAP lead-ers accuse the Shiromani Akali
Dal-BJP alliance government of trying to implicate its leaders in false cases.
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal yesterday refused to be drawn into the controversy over the criminal case against the AAP legislator saying that the police were investigating the matter.
The AAP said its leaders will meet Punjab Director General of Police Suresh Arora today over the issue.
Yadav was booked after the main accused Vijay claimed he was paid Rs10mn by the AAP legislator to do so.
The police said they will sum-mon Yadav for questioning.
“We will meet Punjab DGP at 10am. The people of Punjab un-derstand the dirty politics of the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP alliance and will give a befi tting reply to them,” Sanjay Singh, the AAP convener for Punjab, tweeted.
Agni-V stuck due to technical problems, saysDRDO chiefIANSNew Delhi
India’s indigenous nuclear-capable intercontinental bal-listic missile (ICBM) Agni-V,
which can reach targets as far as Beijing, has been stuck due to a technical snag with its battery and not because of any other considerations, a senior offi cial said.
“The problem is solvable and the next testfi ring of Agni-V is expected by the year-end,” De-fence Research and Develop-ment Organisation (DRDO) chief S Christopher said.
Asked about the much-de-layed fourth test of Agni-V, Christopher said: “It has been delayed because of a technical snag,” adding: “There is a prob-lem with the battery.”
Asked about the timeframe for the next test, the DRDO chief said: “Our colleagues have said the issue can be resolved. We will do a test before the end of this year.”
The DRDO chief also dis-missed reports that the test was postponed due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US.
“The reasons for delay are only technical,” Christopher said.
Earlier reports had said that the fourth test of Agni-V sched-uled for December 2015 was postponed to January 2016 and then to March, but was resched-uled due to the prime minister’s visit to the US.
Modi was in the US from June 6 to 8. This was his fourth visit to
the US after assuming offi ce two years ago.
The missile was fi rst tested in April 2012 and then in Septem-ber 2013.
The last test was carried out on January 31, 2015, from a mo-bile canister, under then DRDO chief Avinash Chander, widely known as the man behind the Agni series of missiles, on the last day of his tenure.
In the canisterised launch, a gas generator inside the canister ejects the missile up to a height of about 30m. A motor is then ignited to fi re the missile on-wards.
Soon after, DRDO sources had said India planned at least three more tests, and aimed at handing over the missile for user trials by mid-2016.
The Agni-V is the most ad-vanced version of the indige-nously built Agni, or Fire, series, part of the Integrated Guided Missile Development Pro-gramme (IGMDP) that started in the 1960s and was once overseen by A P J Abdul Kalam, who later became the Indian president.
Agni’s earlier versions, which have been inducted in the armed forces, can reach anywhere in Pakistan and parts of western China.
Agni-V is a three-stage mis-sile designed to carry an over one-tonne warhead. Its 5,000km range gives it the farthest reach among all Indian missiles.
India joined the US, Russia, the UK, France and China, which boast ICBM capabilities, when it fi rst tested the Agni-V in 2012.
Border Security Force (BSF) personnel use a speedboat to patrol along the Teesta River on the border with Bangladesh near the Barun border post some 80km from Siliguri yesterday, following an attack and siege in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka.
Border patrolling intensified
Modi govt could havedone more: economistIndia disappoints optimists, and pessimists, says Ruchir Sharma
IANSNew Delhi
The Indian economy lets down both optimists and pessimists, with
several positives like a drop in crony capitalism and reforms push but also some concerns like increasing protectionism, according to Morgan Stanley’s principal tactician, economist Ruchir Sharma.
The chief global strategist for one of the largest fi nancial services fi rms that manages around $1.5tn in assets, also said while Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government was voted to power due to resentment, it could have done more given the mandate it got.
Sharma, who has authored a new book - The Rise And Fall Of Nations: 10 Rules Of Change
In The Post-Crisis World - said if there is one factor that stands out in India’s favour it is the infl ow of foreign direct invest-ment, which touched a record level of $51bn last fi scal year.
“My favourite line in the book is that India disappoints both optimists and pessimists,” Sharma said during an inter-view, and added when hopes run high, there is disappointment, but when the country manages to avoid a crisis, like it did in in 2013, there is optimism.
Sharma also spoke about the perils of globalisation losing charm and localisation taking over.
“In India today, one of the big problems is that globally, the number of protectionist meas-ures has gone up signifi cantly in the post crisis world - I call it ‘BC’ and ‘AC’ or ‘Before Crisis’ and ‘After Crisis’ world,” he said.
“The number of protectionist measures India has taken is very signifi cant. But what has hap-pened in India currently is the
fact that India is at the forefront of it. No country has taken more protectionist measures than In-dia,” he said.
“I think it’s not a positive sign because at the end it is the con-sumer who gets hurt.”
Asked about the Modi gov-ernment’s performance, Shar-ma sought to put his opinion in context, and said economic reasons played a key role in the mandate for the National Dem-ocratic Alliance (NDA) in the 2014 elections.
“Back then there was re-sentment at things like crony capitalism, corruption and high infl ation. One thing we really underestimate is how much a killer high infl ation can be for a government. Because that re-ally hurts the poor the most,” Sharma said.
“Now, compared to what we expected, it is a little disap-pointing. But the incremental reforms are better (in India) than many parts of the world where there are no reforms,” he said. “But there has been a huge increase in FDI. Among the major economies India is at the top.”
Sharma also felt India has come a long way from the time when the success of businesses was dependent upon the rela-tionship of its top brass with ministers and government of-fi cials.
“The good thing in India is crony capitalism seems not to be doing well now - compared to last decade when you saw a
massive increase. The value of crony capitalists has signifi -cantly gone down over the last 5-6 years. That is something I fi nd positive.”
On Modi’s “Make in In-dia” programme, Sharma said it sounds good, but was also too early to gauge its success. Nonetheless, he felt, despite the shrinking value of global exports, there is space for coun-tries like India to become man-ufacturing hubs.
“All I know it is a very tough environment for manufacturing and exports globally. The world is in doldrums. Exports are do-ing very poorly, global export growth has virtually come to a halt,” he said.
“But China is vacating the manufacturing space, particu-larly the low-end space. And that share is going to countries like Vietnam, Bangladesh, and even Cambodia. I wish more of that came to India. Huge do-mestic market advantage is also there (in India).”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks at an event organised to mark the 300th martyrdom anniversary of Baba Banda Singh Bahadur in New Delhi yesterday.
Lok Sabha member Pappu Yadav was yesterday booked in the Bihar capital city in a case of instigating protesting students to immolate themselves, police said. “An FIR was lodged at the Buddha Colony police station by the district administration against Pappu Yadav for instigating students demanding postponement of Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) main examinations to immolate themselves,” a district police off icial said. The MP from Madhepura constituency was last year expelled from the Rashtriya Janata Dal for six years for anti-party activities. According to reports, Pappu Yadav met the students and supported their demand.
At least eight tribal girls from Mizoram were rescued from a car while being traff icked to Gujarat, police said yesterday. Two tribal youths were arrested in this connection, the police said. “They were rescued from a small vehicle on Saturday night while being traff icked to Gujarat via Guwahati,” police inspector Ratanmani Debbarma said. “During interrogation the girls gave diff erent versions about their journey. Seven of them are inmates of refugee camps in Kanchanpur in north Tripura where tribals from Mizoram live. Another teen aged girl is a class nine student from Mizoram,” he said. Debbarma said the police have called refugee leaders who said they were unaware of the girls’ journey.
A tribal woman in West Bengal’s Burdwan district was found living with the decomposed body of her father, police said yesterday. The incident in Mukhtarpaar in the Burdwan district came to light on Saturday when the stench coming out of the house caused the locals to suspect foul play and approach the police. Police, who subsequently disposed of the body, said it was kept as part of a tribal practice. “Inside the house, we found the decomposed body of Panchu Soren, who must have died at least 4-5 days back,” said a police off icer. Earlier in June 2015, a Kolkata man was found living with the skeletons of his sister and two dogs for months.
Texts from the holy books of various religions will be incorporated in the curriculum of government schools in Haryana from this month, a minister said yesterday. The subject of moral education which includes religious texts from Bhagavad Gita (Hindu religion), Qur’an (Islam), the Bible (Christianity) and Guru Granth Sahib (Sikhism) will be introduced at a programme to be held in the Kurukshetra University auditorium on July 5. Haryana Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma said moral education would be introduced as a subject for students from class six to 12. “All religions focus on character building,” Sharma said.
President Pranab Mukherjee yesterday extended his greetings and felicitations to the government and people of the East African country of Rwanda on their national day. “On behalf of the government, the people of India and on my own behalf, it is with pleasure that I extend warm greetings and felicitations on the occasion of your National Day,” Mukherjee said in a message to his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame. He said India continues to stand with the Rwandan people and government in their eff orts to build a harmonious society based on democracy, peace and justice for all people as the country commemorates the 22nd year of the 1994 genocide.
Pappu Yadav booked for instigating protesters
Eight girls rescued while being traff icked to Gujarat
Woman found living with father’s corpse
Religious texts to be included in curriculum
Mukherjee greets Rwanda on national day
COMPLAINT CRIMESHOCKER EDUCATION FELICITATIONS
The Bharatiya Janata Party yesterday dubbed Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi’s off er of providing legal aid to five Islamic State suspects arrested in Hyderabad as “betrayal” of the country and said the proposed move will give “oxygen” to terrorists. However, the MIM leader and Hyderabad MP hit back and wondered if the discharge of Sadhvi Pragya Thakur in the Malegaon blast case and
not appealing against bail to Aseemanand in the Mecca mosque bomb blast case would not have the same result. Commenting on Owaisi’s off er, federal minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said the MP was “directly or indirectly helping the IS.” BJP leader Srikant Sharma said: “Helping people involved in acts of terrorism is a betrayal of the country. On the one hand, you condemn the IS and, on the other, you support those involved in such acts.”
Owaisi act a betrayal: BJPSharma: optimistic
22 Gulf TimesMonday, July 4, 2016
LATIN AMERICA
Rio police under fi reafter high-profi le theftAFPRio de Janeiro
Rio’s mayor, Eduardo Paes, on Saturday harshly criticised what
he called a lack of police lead-ership in efforts to fight ram-pant crime a month before the city hosts the Olympic Games.
Referring to the hijacking on Friday of a newly arrived shipment of German television equipment to be used at the Olympics, Paes said the police need to work harder.
“I respect the police force. I think they lack lead-ership,” he said on Globo television.
“I think there needs to be leadership in the state, someone to say ‘Come on, let’s take action, let’s work,’” he said.
“People need to have se-curity,” he said. “I think it has gone beyond the limits. There’s a lack of minimal leadership.”
The truckload of equipment for Germany’s ARD and ZDF
television was hijacked shortly after importation on Friday as the goods were being driven through the Olympic host city. The stolen goods, worth about $445,000, were recovered the same day.
Rio will become the fi rst South American city in his-tory to host the Olympics on August 5. However, there are growing fears about the ability of police to control crime dur-ing the event.
There were 1,715 murders in Rio de Janeiro state just be-tween January and April, up 15 percent on the same period last year. Non-lethal crimes like street robberies are also on the rise.
Police mounted street pro-tests last week, saying that they have not been fully paid for months as Rio state’s budg-et hovers on the edge of bank-ruptcy.
The federal government, already tackling the worst re-cession in Brazil for decades, has delivered an emergency bailout to the state, which is also struggling to pay staff at hospitals.
Petroperu fi ned, chiefousted over oil spillsReutersLima
The Peruvian government has dismissed the head of Petroperu, German
Velasquez, and fi ned the state-owned energy company about $3.5mn after the third oil spill in the Amazon this year from its four-decades-old pipeline.
Energy and Mines Minister Rosa Maria Ortiz said Petrope-ru had been illegally pump-ing crude through the 1,106km pipeline, which was supposed to have been closed for repairs following two spills earlier this year.
“That’s a serious off ence and that’s what must be sanctioned,” Ortiz said on local broadcaster RPP.
Velasquez, whom Ortiz said formally resigned, declined to comment.
Petroperu denied it had been transporting oil through the pipeline but declined to com-ment on where the leaked crude
in the latest rupture came from.Environmental regulator
OEFA said Petroperu would have to pay about $3.5mn for the lat-est spill of about 600 barrels, detected on Friday, and for the company’s “repeated and sys-tematic failure of its environ-mental obligations.”
Public outcry over persist-ent problems with the pipeline could build pressure for reforms at Petroperu during the govern-ment of centrist President-elect Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who will take offi ce on July 28.
There have been 23 oil spills from the pipeline since 2011, ac-cording to the ombudsman’s of-fi ce.
The two ruptures earlier this year spilled some 3,000 barrels in the remote Amazonian region of Loreto, polluting rivers and prompting an indigenous com-munity to hold Petroperu offi -cials hostage to press for aid.
OEFA said earlier last week that it had fi ned Petroperu about $3mn for a spill in 2014, raising the possibility of additional fi nes
for other past leaks that could hurt the company’s bottom line at a time of low crude prices.
Petroperu mainly transports and commercialises oil products in Peru, a relatively small pro-ducer of crude.
Support had been growing for the company to take part in oil production through partner-ships with private companies before this year’s spills.
Kuczynski, a 77-year-old former investment banker, will replace outgoing President Ol-lanta Humala, a former left-leaning military offi cer who backed off his initial plans to try to strengthen Petroperu in the style of Brazil’s Petrobras.
It is unclear if a new Petroperu chief will be named before the end of Humala’s fi ve-year term next month.
Before operations were sus-pended in February, Petroperu’s pipeline transported about 5,500 barrels of oil per day to its Talara refi nery, mostly from block 192, operated by Pacifi c Exploration & Production Corporation.
Argentina ‘isenjoying aninvestment revolution’DPABuenos Aires
Argentina has learned from its “traumatic” mistakes and is enjoying “an invest-
ment revolution” that presents huge opportunities, Argentinian President Mauricio Macri said.
In an interview with DPA and four other German media out-lets ahead of a trip to Europe to attract more funds, the centre-right Macri, 57, who took offi ce in December, said Argentina is in a transition period so that 2017 can bring lower infl ation and a return to economic growth.
DPA: What were your main achievements in these fi rst few months in government and what is still outstanding?
Macri: The main achievement is to have started to establish that the path of progress is linked to telling the truth, to improving in-stitutional quality in the country.
That means embarking on a long path to improve the state, the independence of the justice system, the end of impunity, understanding that the whole process we have committed to, which is an Argentina that ad-vances towards zero poverty, re-quires job creation and job crea-tion requires investment, which means generating trust.
That is why it is so important to be honest about the economy, to have solved the fi nancial con-fl icts we had. Argentina has not grown in fi ve years, it has not created jobs in fi ve years.
DPA: The government said economic recovery would hap-pen in the second quarter of the year. Why do you think it is tak-ing longer than expected?
Macri: Recovery will not be even. There are already some in-dustries that have recovered: the farming industry, which is the country’s main engine, is undergo-ing a revolution in investment. We have put in place the most impor-
tant infrastructure plan in history, where I hope German fi rms can come and take part and help build.
We are increasing investment levels month by month. All export industries are functioning better, although there are sectors that clearly are not. We needed to make very diffi cult decisions in the fi rst half of the year, without forgetting that everyone should be part of this transformation. That is why we took really important social measures, so this transition is as little traumatic as possible.
DPA: Was it politically costly with regard to public opinion to set a date for recovery when peo-ple do not yet feel it at home?
Macri: I said the second half of the year was going to be better than the fi rst. I did not say all of Argentina’s problems would be solved by the second half of the year. This is a long path, things do not happen from one day to the next but by taking small steps every day. And we are tak-ing small steps every day.
DPA: How long do you think it will take to overcome the leg-acy you received from former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (2007-15)?
Macri: Unfortunately, Argen-tina is like a house where you ar-rive and the previous tenant has destroyed everything. The fi rst instance is the worst, because you have to do construction work, tear out the plumbing, lay new fl oors. But you know that, if you do that, things will be better. That is where we are right now.
And I think Argentina is a country with so much talent, so much entrepreneurial spirit, so many natural resources, that we will turn it around very fast and that we will be growing by next year.
Argentina will be en route to doubling its production of food-stuff s. We currently produce enough for 400mn people and in less than six years we will pro-duce enough for 800mn.
Former Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner waves upon arriving at the Jorge Newbery airport in Buenos Aires. The Argentinian Federal Police on June 30 raided Kirchner’s accountant Victor Manzanares’ off ice in Rio Gallegos, Santa Cruz province.
In the limelight
‘Impatience’ over Haitipolitical crisis rising: UNAFPPort-au-Prince
Haiti’s political crisis is generating increas-ing ‘impatience’ within
the international community, weeks after its interim presi-dent’s mandate expired, the UN peacekeeping chief said.
Haiti was sucked into a power vacuum in June when its acting president Jocelerme Privert’s mandate ended without any successor in sight.
Parliament had elected Privert in February for a 120-
day term when Haiti’s previ-ous president, Michel Mar-telly, left office without a replacement.
Under the latest electoral cal-endar, a new president is not scheduled to take offi ce until next February.
“We have lost a year and Haiti has lost a year,” said UN head of peacekeeping operations Herve Ladsous at a Port-au-Prince press conference.
“Within the international community, impatience begins to emerge,” he added.
After three weeks of delibera-tions, the island nation’s parlia-
ment has failed to decide on a new provisional government plan.
The National Assembly ad-journed on Tuesday without a resolution, following 15 hours of heated negotiations.
“The international commu-nity cannot replace you — this is your responsibility. It’s up to you to fi nd a formula to over-come the current stalemate,” said Ladsous, referring to Hai-ti’s parliament.
“This situation generates tensions and therefore risk in terms of security.”
Haiti, the Americas’ poorest
country, has been embroiled in deep political crisis since the election’s fi rst round last Oc-tober 25 prompted outcry from the opposition.
The Haitian government de-clared those results null based on the conclusions of an inde-pendent commission that the vote was plagued by “massive fraud.”
The country will start from scratch and hold two new rounds of voting on October 9 and January 8, a costly decision that has international powers uneasy.
According to the Haitian
electoral calendar, the new president will be named on Jan-uary 30, 2017.
The UN peacekeeping mis-sion Minustah has operated in Haiti since 2004, and the withdrawal process remains stalled as political instability persists.
Ladsous said the world body will assess the situation later this summer.
The Security Council is slated to decide whether to renew the operation’s mandate in October. The mission currently includes 2,366 soldiers, 2,374 police of-fi cers and 1,200 civilians.
Authorities have announced new measures to combat an increase in air pollution in Mexico City. Off icials reported an increase in related ailments such as asthma. Ozone levels surged in March, prompting authorities to declare the first air pollution alert in more than a decade.
Smog covers Mexico City
Mexico has criticised a US decision not to prosecute police off icers who fatally shot a Mexican man — apparently unarmed — in 2015 in Washington state. Mexico’s foreign ministry expressed disappointment in the justice department’s decision not to bring criminal charges against the off icers responsible for the death of Antonio Zambrano Montes on February 10, 2015. A bystander captured the moment on video. It showed 35-year-old Zambrano Montes running from off icers in Pasco before throwing his hands up, being hit by bullets, and falling to the ground. The video’s release prompted major demonstrations and drew international attention.
Argentina’s double-digit inflation has shown signs of easing this month, the central bank said as it cut its 35-day reference rate for the eighth week in a row. As part of its effort to get Latin America’s No. 3 economy out of the doldrums while containing consumer prices, the bank sliced 75 basis points off the interest rate to 30.75%. In a statement announcing the cut, the bank cited “a declining tendency in inflation during the month of June.” By lowering the rate and making local bonds less attractive, policymakers hope businesses will direct more cash toward brick-and-mortar investments needed to stimulate growth.
The lead singer of a Mexican folk band famous for its “narco ballads” about drug traff icking was shot in an upscale Mexico City neighbourhood, the city prosecutor’s off ice said. Alan Ramirez is the latest “narcocorrido” artiste to be attacked or killed in recent years, but the first victim of such violence in the swanky neighbourhood of Polanco. “Our dear companion is recovering,” tweeted his band, Banda MS, which gave concerts on Thursday and Friday at the National Auditorium in Polanco. The “narcocorrido” genre, created in the Mexican state of Sinaloa — home of kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman — draws inspiration from the exploits of drug traff ickers.
Murders in El Salvador plunged 51% in June compared with the same month last year, police said, attributing the drop to new government security measures even as gangs pointed to a recent truce to explain the decline. The country registered 331 homicides last month, around 11 per day compared with 677 in June 2015, police director Howard Cotto said. In April, the government launched new programmes aimed at regaining control of prisons and areas occupied by gangs, which Cotto said have helped boost gang member detentions and weapons seizures. However, gang spokesmen said the decline in murders was thanks to a truce reached in March.
The four-month annual ban on lobster fishing in the Caribbean was has been lifted in Central American countries and the Dominican Republic. The ban – in effect since March 1, to protect the reproductive cycle of the species, was lifted on Thursday. “The ban has ended, as of July 1 …the new fishing season begins,” said the Central America Fisheries Sector Organisation in a statement. The regional agency lauded both industrial and informal fishermen for compliance of the ban “aware that promoting management measures ensures their fishery resources for current and future generations.”
US clean chit for off icers inMexican killing slammed
Argentine central bank cuts reference rate
‘Narcocorrido’ singershot in Mexico City
Murders in El Salvador drop by half in June
Lobster fishing ban liftedin Dominican Republic
DISAPPOINTMENT ECONOMYCRIME LAW AND ORDER DECISION
PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN23Gulf Times
Monday, July 4, 2016
Islamabad calls for end to drone strikes
Pakistan has called for the immediate cessation of drone strikes that violate
the territorial integrity and sov-ereignty of states.
Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Pakistan’s ambassador Dr Maleeha Lodhi condemned the continued use of drones and described the strikes as blatant disregard of existing international commitments on the use of re-motely piloted aircraft.
She highlighted the recogni-
tion by member states of the notion that counter terrorism measures violating territorial in-tegrity and sovereignty of states can be counterproductive and also fuel violent extremism.
Ambassador Lodhi’s speech followed the adoption by the 193-member world body of the resolution on the UN Global Counter Terrorism Strategy. This condemnation comes a fortnight after the one by Pakistan’s envoy in the UN Security Council.
According to a press release, during the negotiations of the resolution that spanned over a month, Pakistan made “strenu-
ous eff orts to further strengthen international commitments re-garding illegal drone strikes and their impacts”.
Ambassador Lodhi empha-sised that the conclusions and recommendations of the report of the Human Rights Council on the use of drones was the “fi rst step in the right direction”.
The Pakistani envoy wel-comed the consensus on the res-olution, which she said served as a strong signal against the scourge of terrorism.
She also appreciated a re-newed focus on the preventive approach to terrorism, which
included addressing the root causes of terrorism as well as the internal and external drivers of violent extremism.
For Pakistan, ambassador Lo-dhi said, such an approach was closely linked to promoting a culture of peace.
The UN Declaration and Plan of Action - now included in the resolution at Pakistan’s initiative stresses the need to resolve protracted con-flicts, ensure full realisation of the people’s right to self-determination and addressing xenophobia and all forms of discrimination on the basis of
religion, culture and ethnicity. Last month, Pakistan’s envoy
Tehmina Janjua had urged the UN Human Rights Council to respond to loss of lives, human rights violations and breach of its territorial sovereignty because of drone attacks - the latest one taking out Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Mansoor in May.
The strike has once again strained Pak-US ties with Islam-abad terming the attack a ‘viola-tion of sovereignty’ and the US vowing to continue targeting terrorists on Pakistani soil.
There have been 424 drone at-tacks in Pakistan between 2004
and 2016, according to the Bu-reau of Investigative Journalism, with 373 strikes coming under the Obama administration. At least 2,500-3,000 casualties have reported in these strikes, of which at least 350-420 are said to be civilians.
A White House report released on July 1 claimed US drones killed only 64 to 116 civilians in 473 strikes launched between January 20, 2009 and December 31, 2015 in areas ‘outside of active hostilities’, which include Paki-stan, Yemen, Libya and Somalia. Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria were excluded in the report.
InternewsIslamabad
Maleeha Lodhi
Flash fl oods kill 43 in northern PakistanOvernight fl ash fl oods
killed at least 43 people in northern Pakistan, the
majority in a remote village that did not receive an evacuation warning before the waters hit washing away most of the set-tlement, offi cials said yesterday.
The heavy monsoon rains be-gan late Saturday and were con-centrated mainly in the north-western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which has been badly aff ected by fl ooding in re-cent years that some scientists have linked to climate change.
The worst hit district was Chitral, on the country’s north-west border with Afghanistan, where the fl ood waters killed 41 people in the village of Ursoon near the Afghan border, which is home to some 100 families, dis-trict mayor Maghfi rat Shah said.
Eighty-two homes in the vil-lage were aff ected by the waters, a rescue services statement said, with some of them swept away, along with a mosque and an army post.
“Sixteen of the dead were of-fering prayers in the mosque when it was swept away by the fl ood,” said Latifur Rehman, a spokesman for the provincial disaster management authority.
At least eight of the victims were soldiers, and another eight bodies were swept over the bor-der into Afghanistan, senior lo-cal offi cial Osama Waraich said.
Rehman said a military-led rescue and relief operation was now underway, with helicopters being used to reach the aff ected people and provide them with tents, food and medical aid.
Falah-i-Insaniat Founda-tion, the charitable wing of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba mili-tant group, were among the fi rst at the scene providing relief.
An AFP reporter in Ursoon said survivors who had lost their
homes were waiting for aid un-der open skies surrounded by mud and debris where their vil-lage once stood.
Nearby villages had received fl ood warnings from the local authorities, but Ursoon was not alerted in time, the reporter said.
Separately, two Chinese engi-neers were killed and fi ve Paki-stani workers injured when the heavy rains caused the roof of a construction site to collapse at Tarbela Dam, also in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Rehman said.
Prime Minister Nawaz Shar-if’s offi ce issued a statement ex-
pressing his grief and sorrow.Heavy rains and flash flood
claim many victims each year, with poorly built homes across the country, particularly in rural areas, susceptible to col-lapse during the annual spring and monsoon rains in July-Au-gust
In April rains and landslides killed 127 people in Khyber Pa-khtunkhwa, the Gilgit-Baltistan region and Pakistani Kashmir.
During the rainy season last summer, torrential downpours and fl ooding killed 81 people and aff ected almost 300,000 across the country.
The worst fl ooding in recent times occurred in 2010 and cov-ered almost a fi fth of the coun-try’s total land mass.
Nearly 2,000 people were killed, 20mn aff ected and huge tracts of prime farmland de-stroyed.
Rapid deforestation brought about by decades of illegal log-ging in the country’s north and the growth of farming along the river Indus in the south is be-lieved by experts to have exac-erbated the eff ects of the annual fl oods.
Energy-starved Pakistan re-lies on a multitude of dams and
barrages to prevent Himalayan rivers from fl ooding and help meet its power needs, but some academics believe the slowing of rivers due to the structures mean that silt accumulates, decreasing their capacity.
A research paper commis-sioned by conservation group WWF and published in 2000 looked at various countries, and warned of similar consequences.
It noted the drainage of wet-lands as well as deforestation associated with dams led to a loss of natural “sponges” to ab-sorb flood waters during rainy season.
AFPUrsoon, Pakistan
Pakistani residents aff ected by flooding gather on higher ground alongside floodwaters in the village of Nagar in Chitral yesterday. Overnight flash floods killed at least 43 people in northern Pakistan.
Preserving centuries-old method of grinding wheat
Residents of the katchi abadi along the Haro River in Hassanabdal have kept
their centuries-old water-run fl our mills known as jandars.
The mills are powered by fast-fl owing water from the nearby river, which turns the heavy grindstone to produce fl our.
Though there are many ma-chine-run fl our mills in the area, residents of Hassanabdal and its surrounding areas prefer to grind their wheat grains in the tradi-tional water-run mills due to a wide-held belief that wheat from jandars is of better quality and tastes better than mass produced fl our. Owners do not charge mon-ey for grinding wheat, rather take a share from the ground fl our.
“Flour ground in water mills remains safe from insects and other pests for many months. That is why you see so many people waiting with sacks of wheat to be ground,” said a jandar owner Khalid Mehmood.
Mehmood has been operat-
ing his watermill since he was a young boy and said he will con-tinue with his forefathers’ busi-ness.
In reply to a question, he said that while there is a long list of benefi ts of watermill ground fl our, the one disadvantage is that the process is very time consuming. It takes several hours to grind a kilo-gramme of wheat, he said.
“I have been operating this mill for a long time and I charge less than what machine-run fl our mills do. For grinding 2,000kg of fl our, we take 50kg of fl our,” said Nisar Khan, the owner of another jandar.
He said the mill has been in his family for generations, adding that traditional water mills are environment-friendly and do not consume fuel.
Because it does not need elec-tricity to run, people of the area do not have to worry about the shortage of fl our when during prolonged hours of load-shed-ding, said Shahid Khan, a local fl our mill operator whose fam-ily has been in the profession for many decades.
The cost of machine-ground
fl our increases with increases in the prices of fuel, he said.
“Jandar-produced fl our is cheap because the owner only keeps a kg of fl our for grinding 5kg,” he said, adding that there were no factors such as fuel to drive the price up.
“Flour from water-run mills tastes better which is why people come from far away to grind their wheat,” said Sadaqat Ali, who had travelled 20km to the mill.
Another regular customer at the mill, Dr Arshad said fl our from the mill does not spoil for month and that the mills also do not harm the environment as it does not require fuel.
The traditional jandars cater to the fl our requirements of the local population. Comprising of a small 12x14 foot room and only requiring a small capital invest-ment, these mills grind wheat and maize fl our in fi ne and super fi ne quality in addition to chokar (chaff ) and sooji.
A local archaeologist, AG Lone, said the jandars of Hassanabdal are almost 300 years old. “They should be preserved for the future generations,” he said.
InternewsIslamabad
A traditional water mill on a stream in a valley near Hassanabdal.
Pakistan to bring tribals home from Afghanistan
The government has started preparations to bring home around
7,000 families who had mi-grated to Afghanistan when the military operation Zarb-e-Azb was launched in North Waziristan Agency in June 2014.
Kamran Ahmad Afridi, po-litical agent of North Waziris-tan, said that eff orts are being made to start the return proc-ess of the displaced Pakistani families from Afghanistan in the last week of July or fi rst week of August.
“Initially, the plan was to start bringing them home from July 20, but it was de-layed so that the computer-ised national identity cards (CNICs) of these residents of North Waziristan could be first verified by Nadra,” he said.
He put at 30,000 to 40,000 the total number of Pakistanis from North Waziristan presently liv-ing in Afghanistan. He said about 30% of them were living in camps and 40% with their relatives while the remaining had gone to Kabul and other places.
Kamran Afridi said return forms have been sent through tribal elders to Afghanistan to
be fi lled up by the dislocated Pakistani families. He ex-plained that every family has to provide details about the names of their members and CNIC along with their tribe and village.
He added that the iden-tifi cation process would be completed once the CNICs are verifi ed by Nadra while taking care that militants aren’t able to come back along with the returnees.
He said some preliminary work was done earlier by ask-ing the displaced families to provide details of their live-stock, vehicles and other as-sets.
He said a jirga of elders of the sub-tribes that shifted to Afghanistan was held at the border town of Ghulam Khan in North Waziristan to consult them about the plan to bring them home.
According to Kamran Af-ridi, the Afghanistan-based Pakistani families would be asked to enter Pakistan at the Ghulam Khan border in batch-es of 200.
“The government would provide transport to carry the returning Pakistani families to the Bakkakhel camp in Fron-tier Region Bannu. Like the other temporarily displaced persons, they too would be provided the Watan cards for getting compensation,” he said.
InternewsPeshawar
US envoy discusses Afghan peace process
The US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Olson, met with top Pakistani diplomat in Islamabad on Saturday and “discussed the regional security situation and eff orts for peace and stability in Afghanistan,” off icials said.Ambassador Olson is visiting Pakistan at a time when relations between Pakistan
and the US are tense over the drone strike that killed Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour and the US blockade of the F-16 fighter plane sale, Xinhua reported.The visit is also seen important at a time when relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan are also tense over recent border skirmishes that had caused casualties on both sides last month.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif after permission of his doc-tors is likely to reach home one day before Eid al-Fitr. Though usually heart patients who undergo open surgery are advised complete rest for at least one and half months, PM Nawaz Sharif will take minimum rest.He will consult his surgeons in London on next Tuesday and after the last medical checkup and with their permission soon will leave UK for Pakistan to reach home before Eid.
Two Chinese engineers and two Pakistani nationals were killed as the shuttering of the Tarbela Dam collapsed in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, police said yesterday. The shuttering col-lapsed during construction work on the Tarbela Dam extension project, a local police off icial said.Four other people, including two Chinese nationals, were injured during the accident.
Sharif likely to return home one day before Eid
Two Chinese among four killed in dam accident
POLITICS
TRAGEDY
Police shoot dead fi ve more drug dealersBy Nelson S Badilla & Jeff erson Antiporda Manila Times
The number of drug casu-alties again rose yester-day after fi ve suspected
drug dealers were shot dead by Manila policemen in Quiapo district.
Chief Inspector Michael Garcia, head of the Manila Po-lice District’s (MPD) Station 3, said the fi ve were gunned down when they engaged the lawmen in a gun battle.
He added that police op-eratives found the suspects, members of a big drug syndi-cate operating in Manila, in a makeshift house on Castillejos and Duque de Alba streets in Quiapo.
Garcia said the fi ve were no-torious shabu dealers.
The MPD, he added, has been monitoring their movements but it was only yesterday morn-ing that the police were as-signed to get them tracked them down in their hideout.
Police investigators recov-ered four fi rearms, money, 200 grams of shabu, and several drug paraphernalia.
The police offi cial declined to give further details.
Also yesterday, police found the bodies of two suspected drug pushers under the Quezon Bridge also in Quiapo around 3am. The faces of the two men were covered with duct tape.
A piece of paper with the message
“Do not emulate me, I am a pusher!” was taped to their faces. Garcia said police had yet to determine the cause of death although he admitted that the two were apparently “salvaged” or summarily executed.
There had been a rise in the killing of drug suspects by the police and suspected vigilantes since President Rodrigo Duterte declared an all-out war on ille-gal drugs.
Since he won the presidential elections on May 9, at least 69 drug suspects had been killed by the police.
Of this number, 54 died from May 10 to June 20, 2016.
On June 30, the day Duterte took offi ce, policemen in Bula-can province launched an anti-
drug traffi cking blitz and killed nine drug suspects.
Another suspect was also killed by police in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental, on Fri-day.
With Duterte encouraging them, police had already killed dozens of suspected criminals since his election victory.
His threat that drug users and dealers will be killed prompt-ed thousands to surrender en masse.
With dozens of drugs sus-pects turning themselves in every day, Senator Panfi lo Lac-son said it is possible that Du-terte’s campaign promise to stop crime and illegal drugs in six months will come to pass.
“At the rate the war against illegal drugs is gaining ground, now I can say it is doable within six months,” he pointed out.
Lacson, who will likely head the Senate Committee on Pub-lic Order and Dangerous Drugs in the 17th Congress, however, noted that the only concern is if the Philippine National Police
(PNP) will be able to sustain the campaign during Duterte’s en-tire term.
According to the senator, suspected criminals should still undergo due process.
Lacson said while he sees the six-month target of the Duterte administration do-able, sustaining it for six years may be diffi cult because it will depend on the consistency of
the PNP in implementing the marching orders of the presi-dent. He noted that the coun-try’s problem in criminality, drugs and corruption within the PNP worsened because of the failure of the past admin-istration to grant the PNP chief authority that is equal to their responsibility.
Lacson said peace and order suff ered because the PNP chiefs were not allowed to initiate their own programme.
“The chief PNP has to get clearance from Malacanang or the Napolcom (National Police Commission) fi rst before re-lieving a town’s police chief,” he explained.
Lacson said PNP chief Ron-ald “Bato” dela Rosa will have to clarify with the president if he will be given commensurate authority over his men.
Duterte earlier said he would give de la Rosa a free hand in choosing offi cers to be as-signed to key positions and that he will not interfere in the assignments.
A member of the Philippine National Police (PNP) investigation unit shows illegal firearms along with confiscated methamphetamine, known locally as shabu and Philippine pesos, seized from suspected drug pushers during an operation by the police in Quiapo city, Metro Manila yesterday.
Funeral workers carry the body of one of the five suspected drug pushers killed in a police operation in Quiapo city, Metro Manila.
Lawmaker claims nation ‘will not see public hangings under Duterte govt’By Llanesca T PantiManila Times
The country will not see public hangings during the term of President Ro-
drigo Duterte even if Congress will rush a measure reinstat-ing capital punishment, Buhay party-list Rep. Lito Atienza said yesterday.
Atienza noted that a bill that seeks to restore death penalty is yet to be passed. Also, he said the trial of a suspect until his or her conviction could take as long as fi ve years, thus, it is likely that Duterte’s wish to hang convicted criminals will not happen during his term.
Atienza cited the previous cases of Leo Echegaray, Eduardo Agbayani, Dante Piandiong, Ar-chie Bulan, Jesus Morallos, Pab-lito Andan and Alex Bartolome who were put to death through lethal injection at an average of 61 months after they committed their crimes.
Echegaray was convicted for raping his 10-year-old step-daughter in September 1994. The sentence was affi rmed by the Supreme Court in June 1996. Echegaray’s appeal was denied in January 1999. He was executed a month later.
“If we look at the cases of the seven convicts put to death by lethal injection during Presi-dent Joseph Estrada’s term, they were all executed around fi ve years after they committed their crime. Even assuming Congress railroads the revival of the death penalty and it takes eff ect by early 2017, the initial convicts with fi nal verdicts would start coming in only by the fi rst half of 2022 or the last six months of the president’s term,” Atienza said.
“Five years of waiting is ac-tually a best-case scenario. That does not include potential lawsuits and appeals before the Supreme Court on the consti-tutionality of judicial executions by hanging,” he added.
The death penalty was intro-duced in the Philippines in the
1920s. It was abolished in 1987 and again restored in 1999 and Congress abolished it again in 2006.
Atienza said instead of push-ing the death penalty, the Du-terte administration should concentrate on eff ectively sup-pressing crime by stamping out corruption in law enforcement, the prosecution service, the courts and in prisons.
“It would be better for the new Congress to push for criminal justice system reforms and en-sure that every felon is instantly nabbed, prosecuted, convicted and caged forever. This is our best strategy to fi ght crime, to dissuade other would-be of-fenders,” the congressman, who is against the death penalty, pointed out.
He said while the 1987 Con-stitution allows Congress to reimpose the death penalty, the Charter also forbids “cruel, degrading or inhumane punish-ment.”
The former Manila mayor invoked Section 19 of the Bill of Rights that reads, “Exces-sive fi nes shall not be imposed, nor cruel, degrading or inhu-man punishment infl icted. Nei-ther shall the death penalty be imposed, unless, for compel-ling reasons involving heinous crimes, the Congress hereafter provides for it.”
“The death penalty has ab-solutely no place in a civilised nation wholly devoted to the value and dignity of human life,” Atienza said.
But for Rep. Rodel Batocabe of Ako Bicol party-list, Atienza’s scenario is impossible under a Duterte administration.
“That’s Atienza’s wishful thinking. With President Du-terte’s resolve in ending illegal drug trade and obliterating drug pushers, Atienza will be in for a surprise,” Batocabe, a lawyer like Duterte, said.
“It will not be far-fetched that he will start counting the body bags of convicted drug lords and pushers sooner than he ever expected,” Batocabe added.
Aquino’s ex-classmate to handle Marcos’ pleaBy Jomar CanlasManila Times
A classmate of former president Benigno Aquino at the Supreme Court (SC) is set to handle an election protest fi led by former
senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr against Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo.
This development could give Robredo, now the highest elected offi cial of Aquino’s Liberal Party (LP), an edge over Marcos, who claims he was cheated in the vice presidential race in the May 9 elections.
Marcos’ case accusing Robredo and the LP of election fraud went to Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa via raffl e last July 1, an unim-peachable source at the SC told Manila Times.
Caguioa and Aquino were classmates from el-ementary to college at Ateneo de Manila University. Caguioa was Aquino’s sixth appointee to the high tribunal, and was previously Justice secretary and chief presidential legal counsel.
Caguioa was reportedly prevailed upon by Aqui-no to be his last appointee to the SC after Associate Justice Martin Villarama Jr was persuaded to retire ahead of schedule on January 16, to skirt the ban on appointments during the election period.
Another SC source predicted there would be a “huge fear” that Aquino would approach Caguioa to see to it that Marcos won’t wrest the vice presi-dency from Robredo, whose top campaign donor was the former president’s celebrity sister Kris Aquino.
“It’s good that the Supreme Court is a collegial body. The SC justices will see to it that there will be a just and fair ruling,” the SC source pointed out.
The court en banc sits as the Presidential Elec-toral Tribunal (PET) in hearing election protests in-volving the posts of president and vice president, in accordance with the 1987 Constitution.
While Caguioa is also a classmate of Marcos’ lawyer-wife Liza Araneta-Marcos, Caguioa has closer relations with Aquino, the source said.
Only the PET has the power to determine wheth-er Robredo should be unseated as vice president, and could order an election recount.
The PET, composed of the chief justice and 14 as-
sociate justices, had handled protests involving the hotly contested vice-presidential races between Sen. Loren Legarda and Vice President Noli de Cas-tro in 2004, and former Interior secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas and Vice President Jejomar Binay in 2010. Both cases were eff ectively abandoned after Legarda and Roxas ran for senator and president, respectively.
Robredo was proclaimed winner of the vice-presidential race with 14,418,817 votes, or 263,473 votes ahead of Marcos.
Marcos, son and namesake of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos, lodged his 1,000-page petition on June 29, the day before Robredo took her oath of offi ce. Marcos is seeking an immediate ballot re-count as well as the examination, system audit and verifi cation of the voters’ receipts, election returns and related election documents.
Attached to Marcos’ petition are 20,000 pages of affi davits, certifi cates of canvass and other docu-ments supposedly pointing to the manipulation of results done through a supposed conspiracy among the Liberal Party, the Aquino administration, the Commission on Elections and automated vote-counting machine provider, Smartmatic Corp.
Marcos questioned the results in 39,221 clustered precincts in 25 provinces and fi ve highly urbanised cities.
Palace plans special agency to deal with media killingsBy Joel M Sy Egco Manila Times
Malacanang will issue separate orders im-plementing freedom
of information (FOI) and es-tablishing a “superbody” that will deal with media killings, before President Rodrigo Du-terte’s fi rst State of the Nation Address (SONA) later this month.
Palace Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said President Duterte’s legal team was “fi ne-tuning” both orders, with the executive or-der (EO) mandating transpar-ency in government transac-tions through FOI expected to be released as early as this week, likely on Wednesday.
“It is safe to assume that we can have it signed by the pres-
ident this week or next week,” Andanar said of the FOI EO yesterday.
He noted that the FOI was one of Duterte’s election promises, and would be a tool to implement the president’s campaign against graft and corruption.
“The best days are yet to come,” the Palace offi cial said in an interview over state-run Radyo ng Bayan.
Andanar added that he re-minded the president about the FOI during ceremonies for the assumption to offi ce of the new Philippine National Police chief, Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa, last Friday.
The “Task Force on Me-dia Killings” will be formed through an administrative or-der, he said.
Both orders, according to Andanar, were being prepared
jointly by his offi ce and the offi ce of Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea. “It will be one of his more important announcements during the SONA.
Let’s hope,” he told Manila Times in an interview.
The new superbody, Anda-nar said, would be Duterte’s response to the pressing problem of journalist kill-ings, which has placed the Philippines on the list of the most dangerous countries for members of the press.
“The killings must stop.The task force on media
killings will be mandated to do this,” he added.
“My offi ce and I as secre-tary am pushing for it,” An-danar, a broadcast journalist prior to his appointment to the Duterte administration, said.
Army hopes to check Abu Sayyaf activities by year-end
By Fernan Marasigan Manila Times
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is send-ing more troops to Sulu
to constrict the terrorist Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and hope-fully fi nish their terroristic ac-tivities by year-end.
“That is our objective, that is our goal (before the year ends),” said Lt. Gen. Eduardo Ano, Army commander after he disclosed that two more battalions have been sent to Sulu.
This brought to 10 the number of battalions sent to Sulu fol-lowing the spate of kidnappings perpetrated by the ASG and the subsequent execution of two Canadian hostages, John Ridsdel and Robert Hall, not to mention the deployment of special units.
“That’s the main objection ac-tually in the entire Sulu, to con-strict the movement of the ASG and force them to fi ght security forces and stop their illegal ac-tivities.” He disclosed that the government’s operation is for the long term: “That’s the govern-ment operation. It is not just for the short term, but a long-term operation until we fi nish off the Abu Sayyaf in Sulu,” he added.
According to Ano, resources will be poured into the strong-holds of the group to achieve the military’s objective.
Marcos: victim of cheating?
Health dept gets ready for rainy season
By Jaime R Pilapil Manila Times
The Manila Health Department (MHD) yesterday announced that prepara-tions for the rainy season are in place,
including mechanisms to cope with any out-break of diseases which usually accompany it.
MHD head Dr Benjamin Yson said water-borne diseases such as cholera, typhoid and diarrhoea, along with the more common ail-ments such as colds, respiratory tract infec-tions and leptospirosis can be treated fast and
effi ciently – and for free – in any of Manila’s health centres and hospitals. Yson said the MHD’s budget this year had been increased by 2.49 %, from P722mn to P740mn, so that the department was able to hire additional person-nel and render better services.
Meanwhile, the health offi ce is conduct-ing a continuous feeding programme for se-verely underweight children in Manila’s public schools, otherwise called the Nutribun project, which has benefi ted the very poor among el-ementary pupils.
“Improvement in nutrition has helped many of our poor children in fi ghting diseases espe-cially this monsoon season,” said Yson.
24 Gulf TimesMonday, July 4, 2016
PHILIPPINES
SRI LANKA/BANGLADESH/NEPAL25
Gulf Times Monday, July 4, 2016
Dhaka denies IS link after cafe carnage
Bangladesh said yesterday the attackers who slaugh-tered 20 hostages at a res-
taurant in Dhaka were well-edu-cated followers of a homegrown militant outfi t who found ex-tremism “fashionable”, denying links to the Islamic State group.
As the country began two days of mourning for victims, details have emerged of how the assail-ants spared the lives of Muslims while herding foreigners to their deaths.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina vowed to drag Bangladesh back from the brink, warning of a concerted bid to turn one of the world’s most populous nations into a failed state, while her gov-ernment has continued to deny links between the assault and international jihadist networks.
The Islamic State group
claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it had targeted a gathering of “citizens of crusad-er states” at the Western-style cafe on Friday night.
But Home Minister Asaduz-zaman Khan said the killers – six of whom were shot dead in the siege – were members of the homegrown militant outfi t Jamaeytul Mujahdeen Bangla-desh (JMB), a group banned over a decade ago.
“They have no connections with the Islamic State,” Khan said.
National police chief Shahidul Hoque told reporters that inves-tigators would explore the pos-sibility of “an international link” but added that “primarily, we suspect they are JMB members”.
The bodies of 20 hostages were found in pools of blood after commandos stormed the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe to end the standoff , in which two po-licemen were also shot dead in a fi erce gunbattle at its outset.
Six of the gunmen were killed by the commandos in the fi nal stages of the siege, but one was taken alive and was being inter-rogated by Bangladeshi intelli-gence.
Security offi cials said most of the victims – 18 of whom were foreigners – were slaughtered with sharpened machete-style weapons.
Hasina’s government has pre-viously blamed a string of deadly attacks against religious minori-ties and foreigners on domestic opponents but the latest will heighten fears that IS’s reach is spreading.
Analysts say that the govern-ment is wary of acknowledg-ing that groups such as IS or Al Qaeda have gained a foothold over fears that it will frighten off foreign investors.
But Shahedul Anam Khan, an analyst for the Dhaka-based Daily Star newspaper, said the attack meant the government could no longer plausibly deny their presence.
“While one is not sure that these people are organically linked to the international extremist groups, the government must own up to the reality that the footprints of the IS in this country is very real and no amount of denying can alter the fact,” he wrote.
There was mass condem-nation of the killing in Dhaka, where fl ags were being fl own at
As Bangladesh begins two days of mourning for victims, details emerge of how the assailants spared the lives of Muslims while herding foreigners to their deaths
AFPDhaka
A woman speaking before leaving a floral arrangement at a road block leading to an upscale cafe that was the scene of a bloody attack in Dhaka on July 16.
Awami leader’s son identifi edamong hostage-takers
One of the fi ve gunmen who launched Friday’s terror attack in Dhaka has been
identifi ed by an Awami League leader as Rohan Ibne Imtiaz, the son of another leader of the ruling party’s city unit, even as the attack which claimed 20 lives – mostly of foreigners – was claimed by the Islamic State terror group.
Rohan has been recognised as the son of S M Imtiaz Khan Babul, a leader of the party’s Dhaka city chapter and Bang-ladesh Olympic Association’s deputy secretary general.
Babul lodged a police com-plaint on January 4 this year stating that his son was missing.
“We have identifi ed him (Ro-han) as Imtiaz Babul’s son af-ter going through the pictures that came up in the media and on Facebook,” Mukul Chowd-hury, a vice-president of the re-cently defunct Awami League’s Dhaka city unit committee, told bdnews24.com.
Babul was the youth and sports secretary of the same committee Chowdhury had served.
The Awami League currently
IANSDhaka
half-mast at government offi ces, while prayer services were being held across the country.
Italy was mourning the death of nine citizens in the attack while seven Japanese were also killed.
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe spoke of his “profound an-ger that so many innocent people have lost their lives in the cruel and nefarious terrorism”. Pope Francis also joining the welter of condemnation.
The other victims were an American citizen and a 19-year-old Indian who was studying in California.
A Bangladeshi worker at the
cafe who survived the massacre told how the attackers split the diners into groups of foreign-ers and locals, making clear that their targets were non-Muslims.
“They took me and two of my colleagues and forced us to sit on chairs, with our heads down on the table,” the survivor told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“They asked me whether I was a Muslim. As I said yes, they said they won’t harm or kill any Mus-lims. They will only kill the non-Muslims.
“All the time I prayed to Allah, keeping my head down. Several times I vomited.
“They warned us not to raise our heads but at one point I raised my head slightly and saw a bloodied body on the fl oor.”
The worker described the kill-ers as appearing to be universi-ty-educated, a point echoed by Khan.
“They are all highly educated young men and went to univer-sity. No one is from a madrassa,” the minister said.
Asked why they would have become Islamist militants, Khan said: “It has become a fashion.”
The attack, by far the deadliest of a recent wave of killings claimed by IS or a local Al Qaeda off shoot,
was carried out in the upmar-ket Gulshan neighbourhood which is home to the country’s elite and many embassies.
Last month authorities launched a crackdown on local jihadists, arresting more than 11,000 people but critics allege the arrests were arbitrary or de-signed to silence political oppo-nents.
Bangladesh’s main Islam-ist party has been banned from contesting polls and most of its leaders have been arrested or else executed after recent trials over their role in the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.
Policemen looking into the back garden of an upscale cafe in Dhaka yesterday a day after a bloody siege ended with the death of 20 foreign hostages.
rules the country and is one of the two largest political parties of Bangladesh.
Former classmates have up-loaded a photo combo in the social media of Rohan with his parents and a photo – reportedly released
by the Islamic State – that moni-toring group SITE Intelligence published on Twitter as one of the Dhaka cafe attackers.
The hostage crisis at the cafe at Dhaka’s upscale Gulshan neigh-bourhood ended in bloodbath af-
ter army commandos raided and freed 13 hostages.
The army said six attackers had been killed in the counter-strike and that 20 hostages were found slaughtered inside the restaurant.
Families of Japanese victims head to Dhaka in shock after attack
The families of seven Japa-nese killed by Islamist militants in Bangladesh
prepared yesterday to retrieve the remains of their loved ones, in shock at the deaths of the de-velopment aid workers caught up in one of the most brazen at-tacks in the South Asian nation’s history.
“I’m really embittered,” Fumie Okamura, mother of victim Ma-koto Okamura, 32, said before the families boarded a govern-ment fl ight to Bangladesh capi-tal Dhaka, where 20 people were killed in an upmarket restaurant on Friday.
Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida met the families be-fore they left and promised them the government’s utmost support.
Makoto Okamura, an employ-ee of construction consulting fi rm Almec Corp, was working on an urban-transport project commissioned by the Japan In-
ternational Co-operation Agen-cy, which manages the Japa-nese government’s overseas aid projects.
“My son wanted to help de-veloping countries,” his moth-er said by phone from her home on the eastern outskirts of To-kyo. “He wanted to work in the fi eld of urban transport engi-neering, which was his dream since when he was in junior high school.
“I’m a doting mother, but I’m proud to say he was the perfect son.”
Japan has been heavily in-volved in Bangladesh infrastruc-ture projects since Prime Minis-ter Shinzo Abe pledged in 2014 to provide support for what
is one of the world’s poorest countries.
“It was an unpardonable act of terrorism,” Abe told reporters after a National Security Coun-cil meeting to discuss Friday’s attack.
Italians and Americans were also among the victims of the attack, which could damage the confi dence of the expatri-ate community in Bangladesh, many of whom work for multi-nationals in the country’s $26bn garment industry.
Makoto Okamura’s boss, Tamaoki Watanabe, was res-cued after being shot in the at-tack. Six other Japanese men and women aged from their twen-ties to eighties were killed, chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters.
Among the victims were engineer Koyo Ogasawara, of Katahira & Engineers In-ternational, and Nobuhiro Kurosaki, of Oriental Con-sultants Co, domestic media reported. The government would not disclose the names of the victims.
ReutersTokyo
“My son wanted to help developing countries ... he wanted to work in the fi eld of urban transport engineering, which was his dream since when he was in junior high school”
Lanka seeks to ward off dengue crisis
Authorities in Sri Lanka have launched a cam-paign to stamp out den-
gue from the country, amid reports of more than 20,000 suspected cases in the fi rst six months of this year.
According to offi cial data, 20,954 suspected dengue cases have been reported across the country so far this year, with 31 deaths, Efe news reported.
More than 46% of these were reported in the western province which includes the districts of Colombo, Gampaha and Kalutara.
With recent rains creating
ideal breeding conditions for the dengue-carrying Aedes mosquito, experts fear the situation will only worsen.
The campaign was launched by police, army and health au-thorities, who aim to destroy breeding areas, educate people about the disease and take legal action against anyone maintain-ing environments suitable for the breeding of dengue mosquitoes.
In Colombo, which is reportedly the hardest hit area, workers were seen fumigating streets, buses and dumpsites in recent days.
Inspections of houses, gov-ernment buildings and vacant lands were also carried out by health offi cials and police.
Since Thursday, steps have been taken to pursue legal ac-
tion against 139 people found in the inspections to be main-taining mosquito breeding grounds.
The Ministry of Health said notices were also issued to oth-er 853 people.
Dengue, which carries symptoms including fever, headache, muscle pain and rashes, is a recurring problem in Sri Lanka with an average of 15,000 cases reported in the fi rst six months of the year be-tween 2010 and 2015.
The World Health Organisa-tion estimates that globally there are 50 to 100mn dengue infec-tions annually, while research from the University of Oxford and the Wellcome Trust puts the number of infections at 390mn.
IANSColombo
WB raises concern over quake fund distribution by Nepal
The World Bank (WB) has raised a serious concern over the Nepalese govern-
ment’s plan to distribute hous-ing grant to the earthquake af-fected people in two instalments instead of current arrangement of three instalments.
The WB, which leads Multi Donors Trust Fund (MDTF), ad-ministering over $500mn fund to support the housing grant for the earthquake aff ected house-holds, wrote a letter to Nepal Fi-nance Minister Bishnu Poudel on Thursday reminding him about the principles under which do-nors agreed to provide assistance
while warning against breaching those principles.
The Nepalese government has announced providing $1,846 (Rs200,000) for each household aff ected by last year’s deadly earthquake. As per the agree-ment reached with the donors, grant will be distributed in three instalments based on the four principles of equity, safer construction, ownership and transparency.
However, last week, Nepal Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli told the parliament that the gov-ernment would discuss with the WB-managed fund to alter the current arrangement in favour of providing two instalments.
But, in a letter to fi nance min-ister, WB country manager for
Nepal Takuya Kamata has re-minded that the principles of grant distribution under which grant should be disbursed in three instalments fi rst as fast tranche release upon certifi -cation of eligibility while the subsequent two disbursem*nts will be made upon achieve-ment of defi ned milestones in reconstructing houses.
“These are the modalities through which the World Bank is authorised to provide fi nancial support to the programme. Each payment will be subject to cer-tifi cation by competent techni-cal personnel in order to ensure that the grants are used to build houses according to safer stand-ards using local materials and enhanced traditional construc-
tion techniques,” reads a letter obtained by Xinhua.
A senior World Bank offi cial said that the use of word ‘authorised’ in the letter means the WB is not authorised to provide funds going against the agreed principles.
“The WB is concerned that con-verting the three phases of pay-ments into two could result in breach of the principle of building back better as people would seek to build houses without following pa-rameters of making houses earth-quake resistant,” WB offi cial said.
The multilateral donors have also reminded that other de-velopment partners involved in the rural housing reconstruc-tion programme also follow the same principles and modalities in their respective support.
IANSKathmandu
The world needs to improve the way land is evaluated in order to unlock its true potential and reverse the alarming pace of land degradation, like the loss of 24bn tonnes of fertile soil and 15bn trees every year, according to a report from the International Resource Panel (IRP).
Erosion, nutrient depletion, acidifi cation, salinisation, compaction and chemical pollution have left 33% of the world’s soils either moderately or highly degraded.
If current conditions continue, then 320-849mn hectares of land will be converted to cropland by 2050 at the expense of the world’s savannas, grasslands and forests.
As a result, greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture may increase from 24% to 30%. As the global population expands, climate change intensifi es and more people move to urban areas, it will become increasingly diffi cult to sustainably produce enough food, fuel and fi bre to meet demand without further depleting the world’s fi nite land resources.
Released a fortnight ago in Beijing at a high-profi le event to mark the World Day to Combat Desertifi cation, the IRP’s latest report says that evaluating the long-term potential of land will help the world sustainably meet this demand. It looks at a series of tools that can help policy makers and land managers unlock the full potential of land, allowing
them to use resources more effi ciently.
“Land potential evaluations must be completed and applied before changes in land use or management are implemented,” says the IRP, which is a consortium of 34 internationally
renowned scientists, over 30 national governments and other groups hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The report warns that no farmer or nation can aff ord to invest in land management systems that ignore existing knowledge and information.
“To feed the world’s people, we will need to get the best we can out of the land,” said Ibrahim Thiaw, deputy executive director of UNEP. “But to make sure that we leave the environment in a healthy state, so that future generations can also feed their people, breathe clean air, build resilience to climate change, and use the resources nature provides to enrich their lives, we need to do the best we can for that land.
“The International Resource Panel, in this study of the benefi ts of land evaluation, has again shown us a way to do more and better with less, and, at the same time, deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that the world agreed to last year.”
One of the pivotal targets of the SDGs is achieving land degradation neutrality by 2030.
The aim is to maintain or increase the amount of healthy and productive land available today by preventing future land degradation while increasing the effi ciency of our current land management practices.
Evaluating the land’s potential to ensure sustainable development in the right places and using the right practices are key to achieving this and the IRP report is a good fi rst step in the direction.
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Gulf Times Monday, July 4, 2016
COMMENT26
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“To feed the world’s people, we will need to get the best we can out of the land”
If a Muslim wastes some resources by extravagance, he is directly wasting the right of others, of those who could have been satisfi ed by the wasted things, besides those of the future generation as well
By Mohamed Abdel Raouf Jeddah
Eid al-Fitr (Al-Eid al-Saghir) is an important religious holiday that marks the end of Ramadan,
the Islamic holy month of fasting, and is celebrated by Muslims all over the world.
On this festive occasion, people usually buy new clothes, cook traditional food, greet and visit their families and neighbours, off er gifts and money to their younger relatives, go on picnics to public parks and beaches, arrange big parties and huge feasts, and so on.
Unfortunately, Eid celebrations these days are often extravagant and cause pollution and harm to the environment.
For instance, the community spaces, including parks and other places, are always left with a lot of
litter and tonnes of waste after the celebrations.
Many people also buy a lot of new clothes that they really do not need.
A quick look at some of the recent Eid holidays in the region reveals some interesting facts. In Cairo Zoo alone, authorities lifted 50 tonnes of garbage after Eid al-Fitr in 2015! In Amman, sanitation workers collected over 15,000 tonnes of household waste during the Eid al-Fitr holidays in 2014, according to the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM). So, Eid al-Fitr, in many ways, is becoming an occasion of over-consumption that creates pollution and waste problems.
Now is the occasion therefore to seize the opportunity and adopt exemplary behaviour in relation to the environment and hope that this responsible pro-environmental lifestyle will be observed during Eid and continue all year round.
Islam advises balance and moderation in all matters.
Extravagance is the opposite of moderation and results in crossing the proper limits of consumption of resources.
The Qur’an warns believers against
extravagance in eating and drinking.Allah the Exalted says: “O children
of Adam, take your adornment at every masjid, and eat and drink, but be not excessive. Indeed, He likes not those who commit excess.” (Al Araf:31)
Thus, a true Muslim should do his best to celebrate and at the same time reduce his environmental footprint by consuming less, recycling, and avoiding over-consumption.
A Muslim must not be extravagant in consumption, whether of food, cloth or natural resources.
As cited in the Qur’an: “Eat and drink of that which Allah has provided and do not act corruptly, making mischief on the earth.” (Al Baqarah: 60)
The idea of “footprint” is already rooted in Islamic culture and values, and there are many examples and verses in the Qur’an and Sunnah that urge Muslims to reduce their footprint and ask them to live lightly on earth.
The Qur’an describes believers of Allah as those who “walk on the Earth in humility” (Qur’an, 25:63).
Governments and local authorities also can play a key role in encouraging people towards environment-friendly behaviour during Eid.
Among the ideas that can be implemented is to encourage the use of public transportation to reduce traffi c pollution.
The Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) introduced a plan to reduce traffi c congestion and reduce pollution during the Eid al-Fitr
holiday in 2015 by off ering 10 buses for free transit from the Dubai Mall to the Dubai World Trade Centre.
In 2014, the Abu Dhabi police warned the public against using or buying fi reworks. According to Col Humaid Saeed al-Afreet, head of fi rearms and explosives, “fi reworks can potentially cause physical damage as well as environment pollution”.
Islam emphasises a peaceful equal society. Extravagance goes against this principle of equality.
If a Muslim wastes some resources by extravagance, he is directly wasting the right of others, of those who could have been satisfi ed by the wasted things, besides those of the future generation as well.
While planning for the Eid al-Fitr celebrations, it is imperative that we think twice before buying food, clothing and other items in excess keeping in mind the need to protect the environment.
As people go to community parks and other holiday destinations during Eid, we must strictly avoid throwing trash around.
Let us strive to celebrate Eid in an eco-friendly way by shifting towards a greener lifestyle and striving to incorporate sustainable practices.
Wish you all an eco-friendly Eid al-Fitr!
The writer is the sustainability research programme manager at the Gulf Research Center.
Let us all celebrate a green Eid al-Fitr
A Fourth of July coincidence that teaches a lotBy Jay Ambrose Tribune News Service
It was never great, say some cynics in response to Donald Trump’s talk of making America great again, but you don’t have to be a
Trump fan to say oh, yes, it was - or a bleary-eyed optimist to say it still is.
For those dubious of such patriotic assurance this Fourth of July, here is a possible solution: Go behind the scenes of an incredible coincidence and see how greatness can dance with inevitable faults but arrive at good ends.
On July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the ratifi cation of the Declaration of Independence, two prime players in its creation died - Thomas Jeff erson, 82 years old, and John Adams, 90.
They were the last of the founders who told the British to get going because they preferred life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
A brilliant man, Adams repeatedly stood up for what was right when what was wrong would have advanced his career. He was a leader in spelling out fundamental American principles.
He played a key role in getting a decent treaty from the British after the Revolutionary War and, as the second president, accomplished much to keep the American experiment charging ahead.
What many consider a disgrace was his backing of the Alien and Sedition Acts, which among other things aimed to shut up a critical press.
This was a constitutional aff ront, said Jeff erson, a champion of limited government put out with this Federalist favouring a stronger, more empowered federal presence.
Jeff erson challenged him for the presidency, won and, as one of his achievements, expanded the nation with his Louisiana Purchase. He is hit a lot these days. The main reason is that he owned slaves, but what many get wrong about him is thinking he did not see the contradiction between liberty for some and bondage for others.
He in fact fought for laws to inhibit slavery and believed in eventual
emancipation through democratic procedures.
Especially toward the end of his life, he worried that the splendid union he, Adams and others had helped forge would be split apart because of this issue.
What happened, of course, was the Civil War, and we should not forget what president Abraham Lincoln said at the Gettysburg Battlefield, namely that America had been “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men were created equal”. The war, he said, was “testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure”. What he forecast was that we would “have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by
the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”.
As the author Gary Wills says about that speech, Lincoln took words from the Declaration and gave them new life in an idealism that keeps fi ghting on.
It whipped segregation.It made possible the election of a
black president, and, as that president said in a speech to students at Howard University this year, they are better off than any previous black generation even though they still have issues of justice to confront.
In their last 14 years of life, Jeff erson and Adams began exchanging letters about their beloved country, becoming close friends at a distance.
On the day of their deaths, Adams’ famous last words were, “Thomas Jeff erson still survives”. Actually, Jeff erson had already died, but in a way, both survive, their ideals of liberty, equality of respect and opportunity, inalienable rights and the consent of the governed survive.
They have much to combat every direction you look, but there are also many pluses, and our greatness will not lose unless we give up on these ideals or even the idea that political antagonisms can do good and sometimes heal as well.
Jay Ambrose is an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service. Readers may e-mail him at [emailprotected]
Act now to reverse the alarming pace of land degradation
Islam advises balance and moderation in all matters
A Pakistani girl praying in a mosque in Karachi. The holy month of Ramadan is coming to a close. While planning for the Eid al-Fitr celebrations, it is imperative that we think twice before buying food, clothing and other items in excess keeping in mind the need to protect the environment.
Thomas Jeff erson and John Adams.
COMMENT
Drone strikes have been a sticking point in US-Pak ties
By Kamran Rehmat Doha
Pakistan on Friday reiterated a call to immediately nix the controversial CIA drone programme that it sees as a
violation of “territorial integrity and sovereignty of states”.
Dr Maleeha Lodhi, the country’s permanent representative to United Nations, drove home at the General Assembly that counter-terrorism measures violating territorial integrity and sovereignty of states could be counterproductive while also fuelling violent extremism.
Pakistan is top of the pile where casualties - a signifi cantly high number of civilians amongst them - from drone strikes are concerned.
Lodhi’s reaction followed Obama administration’s decision to release information about a civilian casualty count - a departure from its longstanding unwillingness to even recognise any such occurrence - during the period 2009-2015.
The administration released the data - three years after it fi rst promised to do so - estimating that between 64-116 civilians apart from 2,372-2,581 militants (in 473 strikes) were eliminated as a result of the unmanned predators’ target-shooting.
The tally, it said, included those outside the war zones although no country was specifi ed.
Independent watchdogs, non-governmental organisations and rights groups weren’t taken in by the administration’s math; they could hardly be faulted since not only does the count appear signifi cantly smaller
than what has been reported in the international media and accounted for by these dedicated scrutinisers - despite the obvious diffi culty in obtaining an accurate scorecard thanks to the very secretive nature of the programme and accessibility - the continuing ambiguity was akin to that proverbial inverted fi nger in terms of probity.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ), an independent not-for-profi t organisation based in London that pursues research, investigations, reporting and analysis, in collaboration with renowned global media houses, and which boasts critical acclaim on the covert drone programme, puts the civilian death count as a result of the strikes in Yemen, Libya, Pakistan and Somalia at 380-801.
“While any disclosure of information about the (US) government’s targeted-killing policies is welcome,” Jameel Jaff er, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, told the BIJ, “the government should be releasing information about every strike - the date of the strike, the location, the numbers of casualties, and the civilian or combatant status of those casualties.
“The public has a right to know who the government is killing - and if the government doesn’t know who it’s killing, the public should know that,” he said.
Jennifer Gibson, staff attorney at Reprieve, a London-based human rights organisation that works with the international media to help the most vulnerable on the planet and raise awareness about the unlawful CIA drone strikes, felt Washington may have missed the boat.
“For three years now, President Obama has been promising to shed light on the CIA’s covert drone programme. Today, he had a golden opportunity to do just that. Instead, he
chose to do the opposite. He published numbers that are hundreds lower than even the lowest estimates by independent organisations.
The only thing those numbers tell us is that this administration simply doesn’t know who it has killed,” Gibson said.
“Back in 2011, it claimed to have killed “only 60” civilians. Does it really expect us to believe that it has killed only four more civilians since then, despite taking hundreds more strikes? The most glaring absence from this announcement are the names and faces of those civilians that have been killed,” she said.
In Pakistan, drone strikes have been a
sticking point in relations with the US.The sovereignty breach is seen as
a betrayal for all the monumental losses that the country has suff ered for fronting the US-led global war-on-terror.
Pakistan has lost more than 60,000 lives, including civilians and military; and $120bn in material terms, according to unoffi cial but widely quoted fi gures, since it was coerced to join the war 15 years ago.
Talking of drone strikes alone, according to the BIJ, there have been 424 strikes in Pakistan in this time - a remarkable 373 under Obama, who was handed a Nobel Peace Prize less than nine months into offi ce to his
own surprise - with more than 2,500 killed, including 350 civilians.
This includes 69 children in one single strike on a seminary in Chenegai (Bajaur region) in 2006 alone!
The contrast with former president George W Bush - with a pronounced war-mongering repute and under whom the drone programme was initiated - couldn’t be starker.
Where Bush authorised 51 strikes in seven years, Obama ratcheted it up to 373 - 128 in 2010 alone - in a still unfi nished eight-year presidency, according to BIJ.
Despite the surge, the civilian casualty percentage remains low for
Obama - 5.6% to Bush’s eight.When citing the “illegality” of the
action, critics, in particular, point to the noncombatants running the covert programme.
The indiscriminate use of force has led to large-scale civilian casualties with the profound disadvantage that it breeds extremism and anti-Americanism - when innocents die and are dismissed as “collateral” - against the intended purpose of quelling it.
Nevertheless, the executive decision by President Obama to institutionalise a reporting process on the drone programme - following pressure from foreign governments and rights organisations/groups - for the next commander-in-chief suggests there may be some light at the end of the tunnel.
The willingness to recognise that some sort of transparency is in order, is welcome - as noted by Naureen Shah, director of Amnesty International USA’s Security and Human Rights Program.
“(The) disclosure is a crucial shift away from the Obama Administration’s longstanding policy of concealing information about civilians killed in drone strikes,” she said in a statement.
“It is a vital step in dismantling the dangerous precedent of a global, secret killing programme. President Obama’s willingness to comprehensively assess the impact of (the) drone programme and to apologise and compensate victims, will ultimately infl uence his human rights legacy and set a clear benchmark for the next administration and the one after that,” Shah noted.
“This is not the end of the public conversation on US drone strikes, but just the beginning,” she enthused, in what many hope, will fi nd a more receptive ear in the White House.
The writer is Community editor.
Drone transparency long overdue
Live issues
Common interests will help drive relationships
Letters
By Judi Light Hopson, Emma H Hopson and Ted Hagen Tribune News Service
Do you struggle to make some of your relationships work? You may feel awkward or stressed in trying to form a
bond.In making an eff ort to create
closeness with someone, you may have trouble developing a basic friendship.
If so, think about the activities you might enjoy with this person.
For example, if you feel awkward around your mother-in-law, try to change something.
Come up with a plan, so that both of you can share something fun or meaningful in life.
“I make it a point to ask my mother-in-law to go driving around with me on Sundays,” says a woman we’ll call Kim.“My mother-in-law absolutely loves cruising beautiful neighbourhoods, and so do I.”
Kim says she has never found any other ritual in common with her husband’s mother.
“We’ve tried shopping together, and that didn’t work,” laughs
Kim.“We’ve tried taking walks, and we couldn’t think of anything to talk about. But, the Sunday afternoon cruising did it! We’ve bonded over the lovely houses.”
Whatever works is the way to go.If your cousin comes to town once
a year, fi nd out the main activity that would please this person. Figure out a way to enjoy it yourself. This way, you
can make a plan.“My husband and I nearly divorced
a year after we got married,” says a friend of ours we’ll call Jackie.“It felt like our common bond was slipping! We didn’t like the same movies, travel destinations or restaurants. I was panic stricken, thinking one of us needed to bail!”
Jackie fi nally came up with three things she enjoyed, which her spouse enjoys as well. They love to hike, camp and watch the news.
“I swear, our whole relationship hinges on these three things,” Jackie declares.“We literally keep our conversations on track by fi guring out how to share what we actually have in common.”
Jackie and her hubby do OK. So far, they’ve hiked many hundreds of miles.
They’ve camped all over the country.
In addition, they discuss news headlines over dinner every night.
When you plan an activity with your child, neighbour or sibling, you create something for both of you to look forward to.
Having these kinds of experiences over time creates memories as well.
Dale, a divorced dad, once told us spending time with his own children felt awkward. He was worried his kids hated him. We advised Dale to let his two teenage sons make a list of activities they enjoy. Dale could then pick from the list what he fi nds appealing.
“We fi nally decided that watching baseball and trying new restaurants
are our favourite activities together,” Dale told us recently.
An associate of ours, Carla, explains that good rituals and routines help with stepchildren as well. She couldn’t click with her new husband’s three teenagers for the fi rst two months they were all together.
“I felt stress every time I opened my mouth,” says Carla.“I thought they were trying to sabotage me.”
She goes on to say that she asked each of the kids what they enjoyed most. All three like swimming and water sports.
“I had never tried a jet ski, but I bought us one,” says Carla.“It’s working! When we’re out there goofi ng off on the lake, we can kind of escape from the world. These kids are having a good time, and they’ve all told me they enjoy spending time at our house.”
Judi Light Hopson is the executive director of the stress management website USA Wellness Cafe at
(www.usawellnesscafe.com).
Emma Hopson is an author and a nurse educator. Ted Hagen is a family psychologist.
CommonenemyDear Sir,
The brutal terrorist attack at a restaurant in the diplomatic enclave in Dakha highlights the threat that terrorism poses to all South Asian countries.
The fact that the eatery, Holey Artisan Bakery, popular with foreign offi cials and expatriates, is located near the embassies of various nations raises security concerns.
The attack has claimed the lives of 28 people.
For more than one year, violence by militant groups has been on the rise in Bangladesh. Intellectuals, rights activists and liberal bloggers have been targeted in a terror campaign by extremist groups.
The Islamic State (IS) group is being suspected to be behind these attacks but most likely the mayhem is created by homegrown terrorists.
The latest attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery was the most brutal ever. And it doesn’t matter whether homegrown terrorist groups or foreign ones are behind the attacks, the most
important thing is that they need to be rooted out.
Governments need to crush such violent groups before they carry out another big attack.
They don’t attack just individuals, they attack the entire humanity. And they are misusing religion to satisfy their sick minds.
Countries of the region need to expand security co-operation to fi ght the common enemy.
Political and other problems cannot be solved through terror-ism. As has been said, no griev-ance, no goal, no cause can excuse terrorist acts.
Ramesh G Jethwani (e-mail address supplied)
Irresponsible attitude
Dear Sir,
The letter, “Unfair fares” (Gulf Times, July 3), points to the airlines’ irresponsible attitude to their pas-sengers.
Whenever any holiday seasons
start, they hike their fares, realising very well that people will be travelling more then.
There are no fi xed prices and they fl uctuate, depending solely on the demand and supply factor.
Why can’t the airline companies
increase fl ights to meet the rising demand for seats instead of increasing the prices? Profi ts should not be the sole motive of any sector.
MB(Full name and address supplied)
When you plan an activity with your child, neighbour or sibling, you create something for both of you to look forward to
Please send usyour lettersBy e-mail [emailprotected] 44350474Or Post Letters to the EditorGulf TimesP O Box 2888Doha, Qatar
All letters, which are subject to editing, should have the name of the writer, address and phone number. The writer’s name and address may be withheld by request.
Gulf Times Monday, July 4, 2016 27
Three-day forecast
TODAY
WEDNESDAY
High: 45 C
Low : 34 C
High: 44 C
Low: 33 C
Weather report
Around the region
Abu DhabiBaghdadDubaiKuwait CityManamaMuscatRiyadhTehran
Weather todaySunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunny
Around the world
Athens BeirutBangkok BerlinCairoCape Town ColomboDhakaHong KongIstanbulJakartaKarachiLondonManilaMoscowNew DelhiNew York ParisSao PauloSeoulSingaporeSydney Tokyo Rain
Max/min36/2729/2433/2624/1337/2321/1131/2631/2732/2829/2233/2436/2922/1431/2430/1333/2728/2123/1627/1224/2232/2716/0732/23
Weather todaySunnySunnyS T StormsP CloudySunnySunnyT StormsT StormsT StormsP CloudyS T StormsP CloudyM CloudyS T StormsS T StormsS ShowersP CloudyM CloudySunnyRainM SunnyM Sunny
Fishermen’s forecast
OFFSHORE DOHAWind: NW-NE 08-18 KTWaves: 3-5 Feet
INSHORE DOHAWind: NW-NE 08-18/22 KTWaves: 1-2/3 Feet
High: 44 C
Low: 33 C
TUESDAY
Very hot daytime with some clouds and slight dust to blowing dust at places at times
Sunny
Sunny
Max/min41/2944/2939/3147/3139/3338/3143/2736/25
Weather tomorrowSunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunnySunny
Max/min40/2944/2838/3047/3240/3239/3343/28
Max/min35/2529/2431/2524/1236/2416/0930/2630/2632/2726/2133/2435/2921/1032/2422/1335/2629/2322/1327/1424/2132/2717/0828/23
Weather tomorrowSunnySunnyT StormsS ShowersSunnyRainT StormsT StormsT StormsS T StormsS T StormsP CloudyP CloudyS T StormsS T StormsP CloudyS ShowersShowersM SunnyRainS T StormsRainCloudy
36/25
Katara plans spectacular shows to celebrate Eid Katara is all set to celebrate
Eid al-Fitr with a four-day ‘exclusive and full-
fl edged programme of fun and excitement.’
A musical under the theme, A Child’s Dream will be staged at the Katara esplanade with three-daily performances in Arabic and English.
The musical will bring togeth-er the arts of acrobatics, circus, clowns and pantomime and rib-bon dancers on a special stage, equipped with cutting-edge lighting and sounds systems.
“It is one of Katara’s known traditions now that we culmi-nate our Ramadan Festival with Eid al-Fitr extravaganza and festive season,” Katara general manager Dr Khalid bin Ibrahim al-Sulaiti said.
The fi rst show will be in Ara-bic, scheduled to start at 7pm while the second show will be in English and beginning at 8.30pm daily, followed by the third show in Arabic at 9.30pm.
Eid gifts will also be presented to children at 6.45pm and 9pm,
with a dazzling display of fi re-works following to light up the sky at night, and which is ex-
pected to enthral visitors.“We strive to off er children
and families in Qatar and those
from abroad happy and special times as it is an opportunity for many to escort their families and
friends out and join our joyful shows during the Eid holidays,” the offi cial observed.
Dr al-Sulaiti noted that Katara has become a prominent tourism destination in Qatar today, with its services appreciated by local and foreign visitors.
“We promise all of our guests, from all age categories and back-grounds, an unforgettable Eid experience with special shows performed in Arabic and English through full-range family-cen-tric social, cultural and artistic programme,” he said.
“That is a focal message Ka-tara has always been keen to send: we are a platform of love, peace and human co-existence for all.”
“Our exclusive programmes are aimed at attracting wider audiences that add real value to Qatar’s cultural and tour-ism scene,” the Katara offi cial stressed.“Our reputation speaks for us and we call upon all to join the Katara Eid Festival and enjoy the spectacular shows and stun-ning displays of fi reworks.”
Visitors will see a fireworks display every night during the four-day Eid celebration at Katara.
Preparations are underway at Katara for the Eid celebration.
Pearl-Qatar’s festivities to spotlight family eventsThe Pearl-Qatar, United
Development Com-pany’s (UDC) flagship
project and one of the larg-est urban developments in the country, has prepared a line-up of entertainment ac-tivities during the Eid al-Fitr holiday, set to run from July 6 to 8.
UDC announced yesterday that the festive activities, in addition to an Eid shopping bazaar dubbed as ‘Al Maq-toora,’ will give residents and visitors the opportunity to spend memorable times with their families from 4pm to 9pm.
The Pearl-Qatar will host a rich entertainment pro-gramme in Medina Centrale’s indoor arena of Souq Al Me-dina, featuring a range of rec-reational activities for families and children that will appeal to all ages and interests.
These will include game booths, a drawing and col-ouring station, stilt walkers, face painting, clowns, balloon twisting and decorations, and mascots, among others.
Popcorn, cotton candy and ice-cream will also be distrib-uted at the venue.
‘Al Maqtoora’ Market Ba-zaar, which will also be located in Souq Al Medina alongside the main event, is one of sev-eral ways UDC and The Pearl-Qatar are partnering with local entrepreneurs by giving them a platform to promote their businesses.
Organised by Bedaya Cen-tre, which supports Qatari start-ups, ‘Al Maqtoora’ is set to exhibit food, fashion items, perfumes, jewellery, acces-sories, drawings and creative designs.
The carefully-planned Eid activities build on a success-ful track record of previous family events which have witnessed a huge turnout and many happy faces catering fun to the community while reflecting Qatar’s genuine heritage and deep rooted cul-ture.
Also, as an iconic site of Qa-tar, The Pearl-Qatar off ers res-idents and visitors unmatched shopping, dining and leisure experiences, making the island a unique retail and entertain-ment hub in the country that plays a key role in driving tour-ism to the country especially during Eid holidays.
An exterior view (above) and an interior view of The Pearl-Qatar’s Souq Al Medina.
HBKU students connect with legal communityHamad Bin Khalifa Uni-
versity’s (HBKU’s) Col-lege of Law and Public
Policy held a special Ramadan event for students from its Juris Doctor (JD) graduate law pro-gramme .
The event aimed at bring-ing the students together with leaders from Qatar’s legal com-munity and celebrating the col-lege’s fi rst programme of legal internships, held throughout the summer.
The JD, the first programme launched by the college, deliv-ers a customised legal curricu-lum that uses innovative meth-ods of instruction focusing on meeting the needs of the Gulf region’s most important indus-tries.
The internships have been organised to off er students the chance to experience the prac-tice of law and solidify the theo-retical understanding of legal is-sues and concepts.
“The JD programme is the fi rst-of-its-kind in the region and the nature of this pro-gramme fosters innovation and resourcefulness within our stu-dents while greatly developing their legal knowledge,” said Prof Clinton Francis, founding dean, College of Law and Public Policy.
“I am delighted the students are getting the opportunity to enjoy internships at a variety
of organisations across Qatar, and am grateful to all of those offering internships. Such real-world experience work-ing alongside legal profes-sionals can only enhance their knowledge and build connec-tions that will have a lasting
positive benefit for all in-volved.”
Prof Francis’ comment came at a Suhoor hosted by the Col-lege of Law and Public Policy which off ered an opportunity for the JD students to gather to-gether with a wide range of local
legal stakeholders and discuss the practical aspects of their education. Among those attend-ing the Suhoor were representa-tives of the Qatar International Court Dispute Resolution Cen-tre, Sultan Al Abdulla & Partners law fi rm, Ghada M Darwish law
fi rm, Al Sulaiti law fi rm and the Supreme Committee for Legacy and Delivery.
The summer internship pro-gramme is part of an undertak-ing by HBKU’s College of Law and Public Policy that students’ learning experience be in line
with the needs of Qatari society and involve interaction with the community. Other initiatives from the JD programme include a Legal Leadership Speaker Series, where prominent legal experts from across the country are in-vited to visit the college to share
their knowledge and experience with students.
The JD postgraduate degree programme is available to can-didates who hold an under-graduate degree in any major from an accredited college or university.
Participants in the Suhoor.
28 Gulf TimesMonday, July 4, 2016
QATAR
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