Gulf Times

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Qatar bourse
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upgrade
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GULF TIMES
WEDNESDAY Vol. XXXVII No. 10183
August 17, 2016
Dhul-Qa’da 14, 1437 AH
www. gulf-times.com 2 Riyals
Qatar face Germany in handball quarters
Additional
paediatric
clinics open
at Sidra
In brief
QATAR | Economy
Bond offer
‘successful’
An offer of QR3bn ($825mn) of
Qatar government bonds, the
first domestic government bond
offer this year, was successful
and showed liquidity in the Qatari
banking system is healthy, a central
bank official told Reuters yesterday.
“It was a very successful auction
with big demand. It shows liquidity is
fine. The demand was fine from both
Islamic and conventional banks,”
the official said. He did not provide
further details of the sale, saying
they would be announced later.
The Sidra Outpatient Clinic
currently has over 25 clinics,
allied health and clinical services
and will be fully operational by
January 2017
REGION | Toll
S
Rocket kills seven
civilians in Saudi
Saudi Arabia suffered its worst
civilian death toll yesterday in crossborder shelling from Yemen. A rocket
fired by rebels in Yemen killed seven
civilians in Najran city in the highest
reported number of non-combatant
casualties in the kingdom’s south.
“It killed four citizens and three
residents,” the civil defence
spokesman in Najran city said of the
rocket strike, the official Saudi Press
Agency reported. Page 4
AMERICA | Release
The US in largest
detainee transfer
Fifteen Guantanamo Bay detainees
have been transferred to the United
Arab Emirates, the largest such
release in years, the Pentagon
announced yesterday.
The latest transfers bring the
remaining population of the
detention centre down to 61. Since
the September 11, 2001 attacks, about
780 inmates have been housed in
the US military-run facility. Page 4
Qatar handball team captain Abdulrazzaq Murad celebrating after the team beat Argentina 22-18 on Monday to reach the
quarter-finals at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Qatar next face Germany today for a spot in semi-finals. Page 1 Sport
Inspectors destroy five tonnes of
watermelons unfit for consumption
I
nspectors from Doha Municipality’s
Health Department yesterday destroyed five tonnes of watermelons
at the Abu Hamour Central Market as
the fruits were found “unfit for human
consumption”.
The move came as part of the daily
inspection tours conducted at the market to ensure the safety of products on
display.
The watermelons were deemed unsuitable for consumption due to some
changes in their colour and taste, it was
learnt.
But good-quality watermelons were
still available in large numbers at the
fruits and vegetables market yesterday,
being offered at prices starting from
QR5 for a medium-sized piece.
Vendors also displayed various types
of local dates at the market, with some
available for QR8 for a box of 8kg. Better
varieties were available for up to QR20
for the same amount.
In general, prices of most vegetables
and fruits were around the average levels
for this time of the year. Some, though,
were priced a bit on the higher side.
A box of 7-8kg of tomatoes cost
QR20-25, with a smaller box being sold
for QR14. The price of a box of eggplants, weighing around 6-7kg, ranged
between QR15 and QR25 depending on
Watermelons at the Abu Hamour Central Market. PICTURE: Ministry of Municipality
and Environment Twitter page
the variety and size, while a similar box
of cucumbers cost QR15-35. Potatoes
cost QR15-25 per sack.
Grapes, meanwhile, were available for
prices starting at QR10 for a mediumsized box, going up to QR35.
While most of the products on display were imported ones, the dates had
largely been procured from local sources.
Despite the good availability of fruits
and vegetables, there were not too many
customers at the market yesterday.
Those present were keen to wrap up
quickly as they did not want to spend
Marijuana haul at airport
T
he General Authority of Customs
(GAC) has foiled an attempt to
smuggle seven kilos of marijuana
into the country.
The contraband was found hidden
inside the bag of an Asian passenger at
Hamad International Airport.
The Customs officer-in-charge ordered a full search of the man’s baggage on suspecting foul play. The illicit
drugs were then found hidden in a bag,
wrapped in plastic.
Legal procedures were initiated
against the accused, who was referred
to the authorities concerned.
GAC president Ahmed bin Ali alMohannadi thanked the officer who detected the smuggling attempt and lauded him for his alertness while on duty.
Al-Mohannadi also honoured the
officer, stressing that Customs personnel played a vital role in protecting the
country against the harmful effects of
narcotics.
The contraband found in the passenger’s bag.
GAC president Ahmed bin Ali alMohannadi with the Customs officer
responsible for the seizure.
much time there in the heat.
At the fish market, prices of almost
all varieties were slightly higher than
other days though many were available
in good quantities.
The price of small tuna started at
QR8/kg, while prawns cost QR15-50
depending on the size and origin. Some
varieties cost even more.
Small sheri fish cost QR12/kg, sardines QR8-10, small hamour QR15 and
zubaidi QR30.
Though the fish market is a closed,
air-conditioned facility, the number of
customers was limited there as well.
idra Medical and Research Center (Sidra) has announced the
opening of three additional paediatric clinics at the Sidra Outpatient
Clinic. Neurosurgery, urology and
orthopaedics consultation clinics are
now open for referral-based paediatric patients.
The paediatric urology clinic,
headed by Dr Joao Luiz Pippi Salle,
the division chief of paediatric urology, will provide consultation for
children with acquired and congenital
lesions of the kidney, ureters, bladder,
urethra, gonads and genitalia, and the
counselling and therapy of antenatally
(occurring or present before birth)
identified lesions.
Dr Salle and his team also apply “innovative surgical techniques” for the
treatment of urinary incontinence,
reconstruction or revision of the renal pelvis and also treat children born
with atypical genitalia.
The paediatric neurosurgery clinic
is under Dr Khalid al-Kharazi , who is
the acting division chief of paediatric
neurosurgery. The clinic will provide
paediatric consultation for the treatment of brain and spinal diseases in
children including brain tumours,
traumatic brain injuries and hydrocephalus.
Dr Kharazi’s team also treats spinal tumours, craniosynostosis (a rare
condition in which a baby develops or
is born with an abnormally-shaped
Currently, the Sidra Outpatient Clinic is
accepting referral-based patients from
Hamad Medical Corporation, Primary
Health Care Corporation and the QF
Primary Health Care Centre.
skull) and congenital malformations.
The paediatric orthopaedics clinic
is headed by Dr Jason Howard, who is
the division chief of orthopaedic surgery. This clinic is staffed by fellowship-trained paediatric orthopaedic
surgeons and experienced nursing and
allied health professionals. The clinic
specialises in the treatment of general
paediatric orthopaedic conditions including: clubfoot, hip dysplasia, limb
deformity, and others.
The clinic will also accept referrals for more specialised paediatric
orthopaedic conditions including
neuromuscular disorders (eg. cerebral
palsy) and spinal deformities (eg. scoliosis).
Currently, the Sidra Outpatient
Clinic is accepting referral-based
patients from Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), Primary Health
Care Corporation and the QF Primary
Health Care Centre. While consultations with the Sidra surgical team
are based out of the Sidra Outpatient
Clinic, all surgical procedures and
operations are currently being conducted at HMC hospitals.
Sidra is collaborating closely with
other healthcare institutions in Qatar
to expand the referral network as and
when more clinics and services are
launched. The Sidra Outpatient Clinic
currently has over 25 clinics, allied
health and clinical services and will be
fully operational by January 2017.
Sidra Medical and Research Center
will be a groundbreaking hospital, research and education institution, focusing on the health and well-being
of children and women regionally and
globally. Sidra represents the vision
of HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser who
serves as its chairperson. The hightech facility will not only provide
world-class patient care but will also
help build Qatar’s scientific expertise
and resources.
Sidra is also part of a dynamic research and education environment
in Qatar and through strong partnerships with leading institutions around
the world, it is creating an intellectual
ecosystem to help advance scientific discovery through investment in
medical research.
Stage set for comedy festival
M
ixing stand-up, storytelling
and surrealism, Doha prepares for a three-day comedy festival running from August 18 to
20 as part of the Qatar Summer Festival (QSF) celebrations.
Organised by Social Studios and
presented by Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA), the Doha Comedy Festival
will see 18 comedians from around
the region perform at Qatar National
Convention Centre from 8pm to 11pm .
The popularity of the show, which
featured its first edition last year, is
evident this year as it returns with
three times the number of stand-up
talents.
Though unheard of just a few years
ago, solo stage comics have now blossomed across the Middle East, drawing huge crowds in countries, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, the
UAE, Yemen, Lebanon and Jordan.
Popular comics from around the
Arab world expected to gather in
Qatar for the festival include: Badr
Saleh, Fadi al-Shahry, Abdullah Saidan, Wadah Sewar, Ahmed al-Shammari, Ibrahim Khairallah , Mohamed
Qaraawi, Rajai Kawas, Abdulrahman
al-Shaikhi, Bashar al-Jazzaf, Zaid
al-Soudaa, Mouad Alnafii, Mutassem
Trabzoni, Nicholas Khoury, Ibrahim
Saleh, ‘Shiyyab’, along two Qatari talents, Hamad al-Amari and Mohamed
al-Tamimi.
“Our aim is to boost the entertainment sector in Qatar by sowing the
seeds for home-grown talent. Standup comedy is inspired by the region’s
culture and tradition, and bringing
together Arab talents from around the
Middle East region is a way to enrich
the viewers’ experience,” Social Studios managing director Hamzeh Zaher
said.
“Qatar is a pioneer in so many fields,
and, since comedy is a reflection of a
society’s reality, the Doha Comedy
Festival seeks to mirror this advancement in the entertainment industry
by growing local talent and attracting
renowned regional talent,” he added.
QSF is organised by QTA in partnership with the private sector to energise
hospitality, retail and entertainment
sectors, especially in traditionally offpeak seasons.
More Qatari talent will be showcased on the festival’s stage this year,
with Mohamed al-Tamimi joining Hamad al-Amari for the first time.
Al-Tamimi has performed 18 standup routines in Qatar so far, with performances in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia
planned for the coming period.
“My routine will revolve around my
daily personal situations in Qatar as a
result of my interaction with a specific
sect from the society. I call on everyone to come and join us and enjoy the
show,” he said.
Al-Amari was first inspired to join
the comedy scene in Ireland, where he
was born and raised. He has so far performed 65 stand-up routines in Qatar
and is founder of the YouTube channel
“Assa Ma Shar”.
2
Gulf Times
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
QATAR
Rota opens
registration
for leadership
programme
R
each Out To Asia (Rota),
in partnership with ExxonMobil, has opened
registration for its annual Leadership Training Programme,
Youth Challenge, which aims to
develop the leadership, communication and community service
skills of young people in Qatar.
Extensive training provided
during the Rota Leadership
Training Programme will better
prepare candidates, aged between 16 – 26, to play an active
role in the development of their
communities and engage in local
and international humanitarian
action.
The first phase of Rota’s
three-phase Youth Challenge
project will take place from October 26 - 29 in Doha and will
focus on leadership and the fundamentals of team work with a
specific focus on social project
management.
Abdulla al-Bakri, Community Development Manager, Rota,
said: “Since it began in 2013,
the programme has assisted
youth to hone their leadership
skills and lay the foundation
for a successful future. As the
future leaders of tomorrow, our
youth will go on to represent
Qatar at a regional and international level one day, it is imperative they have the necessary
know-how to become effective
leaders.”
At the start of the training
programme participants will
be provided with a detailed description of the project, including work mechanism, types of
projects required from groups,
and implementation requirements.
Alistair Routledge, President
and General Manager for ExxonMobil Qatar, said: “Our partnership with Rota enables us to
fulfil our shared objective of
empowering youth in Qatar, as
the annual Leadership Training
Programme demonstrates. It’s
an honour to join forces with
Rota and to be able to offer our
strategic input to help Qatar’s
youth become the successful
and highly skilled leaders of
tomorrow. ExxonMobil Qatar
is committed to harnessing the
potential of Qatar’s youth, as
we believe it is key to cultivating Qatar’s thriving society.”
Registration for the Rota
Leadership
Training
Programme, part of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and
Community Development (QF),
closes mid-October. Interested
participants are encouraged visit
the website: www.reachouttoasia.org
Following an initial screening
process, shortlisted candidates
will be required to attend a brief
interview. Successfully selected
candidates will be announced
from September 5 until midOctober.
The third and final phase of
the Rota Leadership Training
Programme will end in March
2017 at EMPOWER, Rota’s annual youth-led conference,
where participants will be required to deliver a final project
presentation.
Almana Motors opens new Ford
and Lincoln service centre
A
lmana Motors Company,
the exclusive distributor of Ford and Lincoln in
Qatar, has opened a new service
centre in the Industrial Area.
The new facility will allow the
company to better serve customers and further its commitment to providing the “highest
level of customer care”, it has
said in a statement.
Measuring 7,800sqm, the
new facility is located on larger
premises adjacent to its previous
location in the Industrial Area,
Street 23.
“It has been designed to offer a greater luxurious comfort
for visiting Ford and Lincoln car
owners. The new layout allows
for dedicated customer service
desks and client waiting areas,
in addition to private rooms,” the
statement notes.
The new service centre is operated by 36 certified technicians, who have the necessary
training to meet all requirements across the Ford and Lincoln model line-ups. Whether
it’s a routine oil change or a more
complicated engine repair, the
new centre will be able to facilitate all customer needs, the
company has said.
“Moving our service centre to
these new facilities is in line with
our mission to focus on customer
care while offering professional
and international standards,”
said Ian Partridge, general manager, Almana Motors Company.
“Our team of highly skilled technicians is on hand to provide the
very best service to all our clients’ vehicle needs and, through
additional tools available within
the new facility, we can now offer faster service times to our
customers.”
The new service centre is open
seven days a week, from 7am to
9pm. While walk-ins are welcomed, customers are encouraged to make prior appointments through Almana Motors’
call centre.
Message from Venezuelan president
Humidity
levels to
rise today
A
HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani received a written message from Venezuelan
President Nicolas Maduro, pertaining to relations between Qatar and Venezuela and ways to
develop them. HE the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Sultan bin Saad al-Muraikhi was handed
the message yesterday when he met Delcy Rodriguez Gomez, Venezuelan vice-president for
political sovereignty, peace and security, and minister of the people’s power for foreign affairs.
Ooredoo announces Mobile
Money Suzuki car winner
O
oredoo has announced
the winner of its Ooredoo
Mobile Money (OMM)
Suzuki competition. The winner, Stephen Okyere, received
his prize in a ceremony held at
Ooredoo’s headquarters.
Okyere, a labourer from Ghana, said: “I can’t believe this has
happened to me. I can’t thank
Ooredoo enough for this prize
and the Ooredoo Mobile Money
Team for giving me this chance.
I use Ooredoo Mobile Money because it’s simple to understand,
reliable, and the fees are affordable. I wholeheartedly encourage
everyone to use the service and
enter the next competition as I
am proof that dreams really can
come true.”
To win the competition, customers simply have to transfer
money internationally or purchase Ooredoo services with
Ooredoo’s award-winning mobile money service via their
mobile phone or the Ooredoo
Money App.
New customers can register
for Mobile Money for free with
a valid Qatar ID at any Ooredoo Shop, by dialing *140#,
or by simply downloading the
free “Ooredoo Money” App on
their mobile and following the
simple on-screen instructions.
Once registered, users can
check their balance, transfer
money around the world instantly through MoneyGram,
and complete daily tasks such
as Hala top-up (with 10% extra
credit) recharge data (with 25%
extra recharge bonus). Users can
also pay Ooredoo bills or send
money locally to another mobile,
securely and reliably, 24 hours a
day, seven days a week.
For more information, customers can ask about Mobile
Money in any Ooredoo Shop or
visit the Mobile Money section
on the Ooredoo website.
Stephen Okyere receives the prize from Ooredoo officials.
rise in humidity levels is
expected in Doha and the
eastern/northern coastal
areas of Qatar today along with
a slight drop in temperature, the
Met department has said.
Low visibility is also likely at
some places in the early hours of
the day, according to the weather
report.
The detailed forecast for inshore areas today says hazy to
misty conditions are expected
in some places at first, followed
by a hot day with slight dust and
some local clouds. It will be relatively humid by night.
Hazy to misty conditions are
also likely in offshore areas.
Visibility, meanwhile, may drop
to 2km or less in some places.
Yesterday, a maximum temperature of 47C was recorded in
Sheehaniyah, Batna and Turayna, followed by 46C in Karanah
and Jumayliyah. In the capital,
the mercury level reached a high
of 44C in the Qatar University
area and 43C in the Doha airport
area.
Today, the maximum temperature is expected to be 41C in
Doha and Abu Samra and 40C in
Dukhan.
Ministry recalls
Lexus models
T
he Ministry of Economy
and Commerce (MEC)
has announced the recall
of Lexus IS-F models of 20102011, IS-Convert/GX460 models of 2009-2011 and ES350 and
IS250 models of 2006-2011 due
to a defect in the airbag inflator
kit on the passenger side.
The recall is being carried out
in collaboration with Abdullah
Abdulghani & Bros Co, dealer of
Lexus vehicles in Qatar.
The ministry has said the recall campaign comes within the
framework of its ongoing efforts
to protect consumers and ensure
that car dealers follow up on vehicle defects and repairs.
The MEC will co-ordinate
with the dealer to follow up on
the maintenance and repair
works and communicate with
customers to ensure that the
necessary repairs are carried out.
The ministry has urged all
customers to report violations
to its Consumer Protection and
Anti-Commercial Fraud Department through the call centre: 16001, e-mail: info@mec.
gov.qa, Twitter: @MEC_Qatar,
Instagram: MEC_Qatar and the
mobile app for Android and iOS:
MEC_Qatar.
QU announces admissions Domasco unveils ‘immersive offer’
for Fall 2016 semester
D
Q
atar University (QU) has
announced that it admitted 2,441 Qatari and
1,214 non-Qatari students for
Fall 2016.
All Qatari applicants who
achieved the acceptance criteria
were admitted on the bases of
availability and capacity within
each college and major, QU said
in a statement.
The admission decisions are
correlated with students’ attendance to orientation sessions
that will be held from September
3 to 8, the statement notes.
Attending New Student Orientation is mandatory to acquaint and familiarise new students with the opportunities
that QU offers. Orientation days
are distributed based on the college of enrolment.
September 3 and 4 are the two
orientation days specified for
male students while September
5 to 8 have been assigned for female orientation sessions. Failing
to attend the orientation session
would cancel the student’s admission for this semester, QU said.
The New Student Orientation
is the starting point for all new
students in order to be fully prepared from their very first day of
the semester.
The orientation includes the
following opportunities: meet
the college deans and department heads and get to know them
closely in order to know whom to
seek help from during the aca-
demic and university life; meet
and interact with other students
in their college by participating
in activities; seek advice from
current QU students and learn
about various academic support
and student services available to
them; receive academic advice
and course selection through
meeting with academic advisers; and know how to use the QU
portal and email.
The QU Parents Programme
will hold an open day on September 24 to promote community partnership between the
university and students’ parents.
Parents will be invited to join a
campus tour to know more about
QU’s facilities and the adopted
teaching mechanism within QU.
oha Marketing Services
Company (Domasco), the
authorised distributor for
Honda in Qatar, has announced
an “immersive offer” for customers.
With the purchase of every
new 2016 Honda Accord, customers will get up to QR10,000
cash-back along with a Samsung Gear VR virtual reality headset and Galaxy S7 Edge
smartphone, Domasco has said
in a statement.
“The always popular, benchmark-setting Honda Accord redefines the segment standards
with its luxurious and intelligent
features. With its generous interior dimensions, the Accord
provides outstanding leg and
shoulder room for all occupants.
Stylish and upscale cabin features high-quality materials,
exemplary fit and finish along
with advanced seating comfort
and ergonomics,” the statement
notes.
The refined cockpit of the Accord focuses on an advanced and
intuitive driving interface with
the full 8-inch colour Intelligent Multi-Information Display
(i-MID). The i-MID can display
audio settings, turn-by-turn directions, time and trip information, LaneWatch and Rearview
Camera displays, incoming calls,
SMS text messages, and parking
sensor alerts. Audio dial controls
make it easy to select radio stations, music tracks and more,
while the Electric Parking Break
engages with the push of a button and enhances convenience
for the driver.
Integrated dual exhaust with
chrome finishers combined with
The Honda Accord.
18” aluminium wheels project a
sporty, nimble image, and LED
daytime running lights enhance
visibility while accenting the
sharp exterior styling.
The Accord’s top safety ratings reflect Honda’s commitment to overall vehicle safety.
The 2016 Accord comes with a
Doha-based customer is MashreqMillionaire
M
ashreqMillionaire has
announced
Dohabased
Puthenveetil
Suryanarayanan as the winner of
QR1mn in the recent draw. The
“longest standing and risk free”
saving scheme has created more
millionaires over the years than
any other programme in the region.
The winner described the
prize as “unbelievable”. “I’m still
pinching myself as I have never
won anything like this before.
I intend to deposit this money
in my family’s name, to secure
their future, partially in Mashreq
itself and I’m also planning to
donate some of it to charity. I am
very grateful to Mashreq Qatar
for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity given to me,” said a
beaming Suryanarayanan.
The winning certificate for
QR1mn was handed over to
Suryanarayanan by Tooran Asif,
Head of Retail Banking Qatar
and Maryam al-Muhannadi –
C-Ring Road Branch Manager,
Mashreq Qatar, at a specially
organised event held at C-Ring
Branch.
“Suryanarayanan is among
more than 200 customers
who have been made
millionaires over the years”
Asif said: “Suryanarayanan is
among more than 200 customers who have been made millionaires over the years”.
“As one of the most innovative savings schemes in the
region,
MashreqMillionaire
has consistently proven to be a
risk free – capital guaranteed
investment opportunity that
changes the lives of customers
forever. We offer MashreqMillionaire certificates for QR
1,000 each that can be purchased within minutes through
our award winning online banking system or our branches,”
Asif concluded.
The winner is seen with Mashreq Qatar officials.
total of six airbags – front, front
side and side curtain.
Talking about the special
“back to school” offer, Domasco
managing director Faisal Sharif
said: “Coupled with this intelligent and luxurious car, we are
giving the key to an immersive
mobile virtual reality experience. With the Samsung Gear
VR virtual reality headset and
Galaxy S7 edge smartphone,
endless hours of entertainment
awaits our customers.”
Greig Roffey, head of sales and
marketing at Domasco Honda,
added: “The Accord retains Honda’s best-selling qualities while
displaying a luxurious style,
sporty performance and a vast
array of smart features. We invite
everyone to visit our showroom
and take advantage of the cashback offer up to QR10,000.”
Gulf Times
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
3
QATAR
Turkish first deputy
prime minister
hails Emir’s support
QNA
Doha
T
urkish First Deputy
Prime Minister Omer
Faruk Korkmaz has
praised HH the Emir Sheikh
Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani’s
support for Turkey and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
and his stand against the
failed coup attempt, which he
said proved the distinct relations between the two countries and the two peoples.
In an interview with Qatari
daily Al Sharq published yesterday, Korkmaz highlighted
the developing relations between Qatar and Turkey at
all levels, especially after the
failed coup attempt, affirming that bilateral relations
will grow further in the coming period .
He called on Qatar to invest in the field of education
in Turkey, emphasising that
this would fill a major gap
after the Turkish government closed all schools of
the “parallel entity”. He also
expressed surprise at the
existence of many European
universities in Turkey, but
no Arab university.
About the results of the
investigation into the failed
coup attempt, Korkmaz said
that so far the official investigations have not indicated
that there are any states involved in the failed coup attempt, but said that there are
doubts about the involvement of some countries.
Omer Faruk Korkmaz
On the readiness of the
“parallel entity’’ to carry
out the failed operation, he
explained that the entity
claim that they stay away
from politics and that they
are a far cry from plots and
intrigues and they are loyal
to the state and the Turkish
people. They also claim that
their leader Fethullah Gulen
does not aim to hold political positions, but he only
aims to serve his followers
and supporters, Korkmaz
added.
He pointed out that if
the putschists have any
demands and objections
to the performance of the
president and the government, they must declared
that democratically and not
by warplanes and tanks,
stressing that the United
States has been asked to
hand over Gulen to Turkey.
About the existence of
a relationship between
Fethullah Gulen and the
Kurdistan Workers’ Party
(PKK), Omer Faruk Korkmaz said that it is normal
that the two sides co-operate with each other to overthrow the Turkish state, and
what “concerns us is that
both organisations carry out
terrorist operations against
Turkey and its people.”
On the other hand, Korkmaz indicated that Turkish president’s recent visit
to Russia was positive, ex-
pressing his belief that there
is a desire to restore normal
relations after Russia understood what was being
plotted to spoil the relations
between the two countries.
He added that the Russian
president was in permanent
contact with Turkish president during the failed coup
attempt, which confirms
Russia’s standing with the
Turkish state and its understanding that the “parallel entity’’ seeks to strain
relations between the two
countries.
He also emphasised that
the coming days will witness co-operation in all internal and external files at
the highest possible level.
On Syria, Korkmaz said
Turkish and Russian presidents discussed the issue, especially since there
are two different points of
view, stressing that Turkey
will not give up its stance
towards the Syrian issue
and his country’s position
is clear since the outbreak
of the revolution which is
with the desire of Syrian
people to obtain freedom
and dignity and to have a
democratic government,
noting that this will be
achieved only with a new
transition stage without
Bashar al-Assad.
Korkmaz stressed that
the committee formed between the two countries is
an evidence that both sides
agree on the need to resolve
the crisis.
4
Gulf Times
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
REGION/ARAB WORLD
15 Guantanamo detainees transferred to UAE
AFP
Washington
F
ifteen Guantanamo Bay
detainees have been transferred to the United Arab
Emirates, the largest such release
in years, the Pentagon announced
on Monday.
The latest transfers bring the
remaining population of the de-
tention centre down to 61.
Since the September 11, 2001
attacks, about 780 inmates have
been housed in the US militaryrun facility.
According to a State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, 12 of the men
are from Yemen and three are Afghans.
The Pentagon has previously
struggled to find a third country to
take Yemeni detainees, given that
they can’t go home because of the
civil war in their nation.
“The United States is grateful
to the government of the United
Arab Emirates for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing US efforts to close”
Guantanamo, the Pentagon said in
a statement.
Once transferred, former inmates are usually freed subject to
supervision and undergoing rehabilitation programmes.
Amnesty International USA
welcomed the announcement as
a sign President Barack Obama
is serious about closing the controversial facility before he leaves
office.
“It’s a significant repudiation of
the idea that Guantanamo is going to be open for business for the
indefinite future,” Naureen Shah,
Amnesty International USA’s security and human rights program
director, said.
One of those transferred is an
Afghan called Obaidullah, who allegedly had hidden land mines in
2001. He was detained for 14 years
without trial.
Monday’s announcement represents the largest transfer of
prisoners under the Democratic
Obama administration.
“The continued operation of
the detention facility weakens
our national security by draining
resources, damaging our relationships with key allies and partners,
and emboldening violent extremists,” Ambassador Lee Wolosky,
the special envoy for Guantanamo
closure, said in a statement.
“The support of our friends and
allies -- like the UAE -- is critical
to our achieving this shared goal.”
Obama urgently wants to close
the facility before he leaves office
at the start of next year but has
been continually thwarted by Republican lawmakers.
Still, the United States has in
recent months accelerated the rate
at which detainees who have been
approved for transfer are released
from the facility. When Obama
took office, there were 242 detainees at Guantanamo.
Houthis used talks
to rearm: coalition
AFP
Riyadh
T
he Saudi-led coalition battling rebels in Yemen accused the militants yesterday of using peace negotiations
to rearm, after an escalation of
fighting following the talks’ suspension.
“They were deceiving people
by this negotiation, to re-organise
their force, re-supplying their
forces and getting back to fighting.
They don’t have any political
agenda,” Brigadier General Ahmed
Assiri, the coalition’s spokesman,
said.
He said the coalition, which
launched strikes against the Shia
Houthi rebels in March last year,
would do “whatever it takes” to
Saudi-led coalition probes ‘strike on hospital’
The Saudi-led coalition bombing
rebels in Yemen launched an
investigation yesterday after
an air raid that allegedly killed
14 people at a hospital Doctors
Without Borders supports.
The Paris-based aid agency
said another 24 people were
wounded in the strike that hit the
hospital on Monday in Abs in the
rebel-held province of Hajja.
A Doctors Without Borders
(MSF) staffer was among the
dead, it said.
UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon said he was “deeply
disturbed” by the intensification
of air raids in Yemen.
Meanwhile, shells fired by
Houthis killed seven civilians in
southern Saudi Arabia, Saudi
state television reported.
Saudi Ekhbariyah television said
projectiles fired by the rebels
landed at an industrial area in the
southern city of Najran.
restore security in Yemen.
Coalition warplanes resumed
major strikes around the rebelheld capital Sanaa last week following the collapse of the talks
in Kuwait after three fruitless
months of negotiations. Since
then bombing has continued.
The coalition says the suspension of the talks followed increased ceasefire violations by
the rebels, who are allied to forces
loyal to former Yemeni president
Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Assiri said the rebels had violated the ceasefire -- which was
in conjunction with the UN-brokered talks – “since day one”, Assiri said.
As a result, the coalition was
forced to provide “reactive” air
support to Yemeni troops while
the talks continued, he said.
Now that heavier bombardments have resumed, the coalition
aims to support Yemen’s government to regain control of the
country as well as to protect Saudi
borders, Assiri said.
Days before the suspension of
peace talks on August 6, 12 Saudi
soldiers were killed in border
clashes during the most serious
fighting in months along the frontier.
Last week, the coalition said it
intercepted two ballistic missiles
fired at southern Saudi Arabia.
Questioned over what has
been accomplished by almost 18
months of fighting, Assiri said the
rebels are weaker than they were
in March last year when coalition
operations began.
But the “smuggling (of) weapons to Yemen does not stop,” he
said, despite a coalition blockade
of the territory.
Riyadh accuses its regional
rival Tehran of supporting the
Houthis.
Asked how long the coalition
can sustain the operation, Assiri
said that the operation was “for
national security, for (the) stability of the region”.
“It takes whatever it takes,” he
said.
Yemeni security forces take part in a raid in Ja’awla a northern neighbourhood of Aden where they found
an underground storage reportedly used by rebels to store weapons and ammunition yesterday. Yemeni
authorities have trained hundreds of soldiers in Aden over the past two months to retake the nearby
province of Abyan.
West Bank youth killed in
clash with Israeli troops
Agencies
Ramallah, West Bank
A
Palestinian
youth
was killed yesterday
and dozens of protesters were injured during
clashes with Israeli troops
at the Fawwar refugee camp
in the occupied West Bank,
the Palestinian health ministry said.
The dead youth was
named Mohamed Abu
Hashhash, according to
Hebron hospital official
Walid Zaloum, who said
Abu Hashhash was killed
by a bullet that entered
through his back and struck
above his heart.
The Palestinian health
ministry said he was 17
years old.
Abu Hashhash is the first
Palestinian fatality this
month in a confrontation
with Israeli forces.
The forces surrounded
the camp early yesterday
and began questioning residents and searching homes,
the agency said, citing locals.
Groups of residents
threw stones and explosive
devices at the soldiers, who
were at the refugee camp to
conduct a weapons search,
according to the Israeli
army.
The soldiers responded by using riot dispersal
methods, including tear
gas, and firing .22-calibre
rounds.
At least five Palestinians
were taken to a local hospital in Yatta for their injuries,
the official Palestinian Wafa
news agency said.
An ambulance transporting a young man who had
been seriously injured in
the scuffles was allegedly
stopped by Israeli forces
from leaving the camp for
about an hour, the Maan
agency said, citing locals.
Members of the Palestinian Red Crescent and medics evacuate on a stretcher a Palestinian youth who was wounded during
clashes with Israeli soldiers conducting searches in the Palestinian al-Fawwar refugee camp, south of the West Bank city of
Hebron, yesterday.
Iran arrests suspected British spy
DPA
Tehran
I
ran has arrested a dualnational it suspects of
working for the British
secret services, Public Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said yesterday.
The individual, who has
citizenship in Iran and a
second unspecified Western nation, was arrested last
week on suspicion of carrying out economic espionage
for the British, Dolatabadi
was quoted by Tasnim news
agency as saying.
Iran does not recognise
dual nationality.
In April, Nazanin Za-
ghari-Ratcliffe, a dual national of Iran and Britain
who worked for the Thomson Reuters Foundation,
was arrested at Tehran’s
airport as she tried to leave
the country.
She was detained for 45
days before being charged
of working for the Western
secret services, according to
ISNA news agency.
In Iran, those found guilty
of espionage could face the
death penalty or a long spell
in prison.
Similar cases in the past
have failed for lack of evidence, or the accused have
been expelled from the
country following political
negotiations.
Gulf Times
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
5
ARAB WORLD
Russia launches first Syria Libyan forces
retake central
air raids from Iranian base area of Sirte
AFP
Moscow
R
ussia said yesterday its
warplanes flew out of an
Iranian airbase for the first
time to bomb militant groups in
Syria, as fighting raged for control
of the ravaged city of Aleppo.
The deployment marks a major
switch in the bombing campaign
the Kremlin launched in September to support Syrian leader
Bashar al-Assad, as until now
Moscow had only flown raids out
of its bases in Syria and Russia.
Russia’s defence ministry said
long-range bombers and fighter
jets took off from the Hamedan
base in western Iran and “conducted a group air strike against
targets of the Islamic State and
Jabhat al-Nusra” in Aleppo, Deir
Ezzor and Idlib.
The strikes destroyed militant
targets including weapons depots
and command centres, “killing a
large number of fighters,” Moscow said.
The Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights said air raids yesterday against two rebel-held
districts in Syria’s second city of
Aleppo killed 19 civilians.
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said the strikes on
Tariq al-Bab and Al-Sakhur,
which left three children among
the dead, were carried out by either Russian or regime aircraft
and had also wounded dozens of
people.
Fighting for control of the
shattered city, a former economic
hub in northwestern Syria, has
intensified after regime troops
seized control of the last supply route into rebel-held areas in
mid-July.
An AFP correspondent in east-
A resident of the Tariq al-Bab neighbourhood of Aleppo inspects the damage caused by reported air
raids that targeted rebel-held areas in the northern city yesterday. Air raids on two rebel-held districts
of Syria’s battleground second city Aleppo killed 19 civilians, including three children.
ern districts of Aleppo said there
were heavy air strikes throughout
Monday night and into the day
yesterday in Tariq al-Bab and AlSakhur.
Men were seen pulling debris
and rubble from the ground floor
of a building, while others zipped
corpses into black body bags.
The increased fighting has
raised concerns for the estimated
1.5mn civilians still in Aleppo,
including some 250,000 in rebelheld areas.
Since mid-2012, Aleppo has
been divided between opposition control in the east and government forces in the west, with
both sides exchanging accusations of indiscriminate attacks
against civilians.
The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria said in a statement
it was “gravely concerned for the
safety of civilians” in Aleppo and
called for “immediate attention
and response” to their plight.
Human Rights Watch accused
Syrian and Russian warplanes of
having repeatedly used incendiary weapons against civilians
in northern Syria, saying it had
documented their use at least 18
times since June.
Iran and Russia are the two
firmest backers of the Assad re-
gime, with Tehran commanding
thousands of troops fighting for
him on the ground as Russia provides airpower.
Both oppose calls for Assad to
step down in a bid to resolve the
conflict that has killed more than
290,000 people since it erupted
in March 2011.
Moscow has so far used warplanes stationed at its Hmeimim
airbase outside the Syrian coastal
city of Latakia, as well as ships in
the Caspian Sea and a submarine
in the Mediterranean, to bombard
Syrian territory.
But Hmeimim – which a senior Russian official said recently
Moscow is looking to expand into
a permanent facility – is home
to only short-range planes and
fighter jets, meaning long-range
bombers had to be deployed from
southern Russia.
The use of the Iran base could
help boost Moscow’s firepower
by cutting the time it takes for its
jets to reach their targets, military
analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said.
“Bombers can transport more
bombs if their flight time is
short,” he said.
Ali Shamkhani, secretary of
Iran’s Supreme National Security
Council, told state news agency
Irna that Moscow and Tehran
“exchange capacities and facilities” in the fight against terrorism in Syria.
An unnamed military source
told Interfax news agency on
Monday that Russia had also sent
requests to Iran and Iraq to fire
cruise missiles across their airspace.
Russian deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov was in
Tehran on Monday, where he discussed the “high mutual interest”
of deeper co-operation between
Russia and Iran in the Middle
East, his ministry said.
Defence
Minister
Sergei
Shoigu has held several meetings
over the past year with Iranian
counterpart General Hossein
Dehghan, most recently in June
in Tehran, where they pledged to
deliver a “decisive” battle against
“all terrorist groups”.
Shoigu also said in comments
aired on Monday that Russia
and the United States were close
to joining forces in some form
around Aleppo.
But US State Department
spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau
refused to confirm any collaboration.
Reuters
Sirte, Libya
L
ibyan forces said yesterday
they had taken one of the
last districts in central Sirte
held by Islamic State militants,
battling snipers and car bombs in
their campaign to recapture the
entire city.
Forces aligned with Libya’s
UN-backed government in Tripoli
are three months into a campaign
to oust Islamic State from their
former North African stronghold
and have encircled the militants
in a shrinking section of the city
centre.
Since Aug. 1, their progress has
been aided by US air strikes on Islamic State vehicles, weapons and
fighting positions.
The US Africa Command said it
had carried out a total of 48 strikes
as of Sunday.
The Libyan forces are composed mainly of brigades from the
western city of Misrata.
After they secured key sites
south of central Sirte last week,
fighting shifted into neighbourhood Number 2, which the brigades said they had now captured.
“On Tuesday morning clashes
erupted that led successfully to
the recapture of neighbourhood
Number 2 with the co-operation
of a tank unit to confront Islamic
State snipers,” said Rida Issa, a
spokesman.
“The neighbourhood is now
completely under control of our
forces,” he said, adding that his
side had also made incursions
into neighbourhood Number 1,
situated in the heart of Sirte, the
hometown of late Libyan dictator
Muammar Gaddafi.
The Misrata-led forces had
faced four vehicle-borne bombs,
two of which they had destroyed
on the ground before they could
reach their targets, Issa said.
“One unfortunately exploded
near our forces but there are no
casualty figures, and the fourth
one was bombed by a warplane.
We do not know whether it was
US air strike or our air defence.”
The government-backed forces
have been carrying out their own,
regular air strikes over the Mediterranean coastal city with a fleet
of ageing fighter jets.
At least three combatants from
those forces had been killed and
30 wounded in yesterday’s clashes, according to Akram Gliwan,
a spokesman at Misrata’s central
hospital.
Morocco arrests four over alleged IS ties
Morocco yesterday arrested four men allegedly linked to the Islamic
State militant group and planning attacks in the kingdom’s economic
capital Casablanca, the interior ministry said.
It said authorities had dismantled “a terrorist cell of four extremists
who were active between Casablanca and Mograne”, a rural area some
50km (30 miles) north of political capital Rabat.
Initial findings in the investigation pointed to the men having “pledged
allegiance” to IS and preparing to attack “vital sites in Casablanca”, it
said.
6
Gulf Times
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
AFRICA
Marikana massacre marked
AFP
Johannesburg
S
Miners gather during the rally.
outh African opposition
parties slammed the ruling
ANC yesterday for failing to
deliver on its promises, four years
after police killed 34 striking
miners at Marikana in a massacre
that shocked the world.
“There has been no justice that
has taken place for those who
died in Marikana,” Mmusi Maimane, leader of the main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA),
told reporters.
He was speaking at a rally of
thousands of miners commemorating the fourth anniversary
of the worst police violence in
South Africa since the end of
white-minority rule in 1994.
The Marikana mine workers
were gunned down on August
16, 2012 after police were deployed to break up a strike at the
Lonmin-owned platinum mine
northwest of Johannesburg.
Four years later, nobody has
been prosecuted for the shootings, while miners continue to
live in dire poverty.
“It has become quite clear that
if you are poor and you are black
and you are not connected, this
government simply does not care
for you,” said Maimane.
His comments come just two
weeks after the African National Congress (ANC) suffered its
worst poll results since 1994, losing majority control of the largest
metropolitan areas, including the
capital Pretoria and business hub
Johannesburg.
Traditionally an ANC stronghold, residents of Marikana’s
Wonderkop township where
most of the miners live instead
voted for the radical left Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in
the August 3 local elections.
“We are going to make sure
that our people in this ward get
houses, water and electricity,”
EFF leader Julius Malema told the
crowds at yesterday’s rally. “We
are eating this elephant called the
ANC piece by piece.”
The ruling party was notably
absent at the rally.
Instead, the government released a statement saying that it
“joins the nation in remembering
this tragic event”.
DA leader Mmusi Maimane and
EFF leader Julius Malema (right)
addressing the rally.
“In the four years since the
tragedy, government has been
hard at work to address the revitalisation of distressed mining communities, and to find
sustainable solutions that are of
benefit to all,” it said.
But many were sceptical of the
progress made.
When rock drill operators in
Marikana launched their strike
four years ago, they demanded
a minimum wage of 12,500 rand
($940).
It is a goal they still haven’t
reached, with inflation and the
depreciating rand cutting into
whatever wage increases they
have received.
“As we speak today, we are still
struggling, we are still fighting
for the same demand of 12,500,”
said Siphamandla Makhanya,
one of the leaders of the 2012
strike.
“Workers have forged closer
and closer towards what the other died for – they are closer now
than any other time to the 12,500
demand, but that’s the only thing
that has changed,” Zwelinzima
Vavi, former general secretary of
the powerful ANC-allied trade
union group Cosatu, told local
broadcaster ANN7. “The squalor,
the poverty all over – very little
has changed since 2012.”
A lengthy judicial inquiry into
the shooting led by retired judge
Ian Farlam recommended an investigation into the conduct of
then-police commissioner Riah
Phiyega, but no-one has been
directly prosecuted for the massacre.
“The Farlam Commission has
come and gone and yet numerous
questions remain unanswered,”
Association of Mineworkers and
Construction Union (AMCU)
head Joseph Mathunjwa told the
thousands of gathered miners.
“There are still no answers as to
why 500 heavily-armed police
with artillery and helicopters
shot and killed those workers
here.”
Zambia police arrest 150 over election protest
AFP
Lusaka
Z
ambian police said yesterday
that they had arrested 150 opposition activists over protests
that erupted after President Edgar
Lungu was declared the winner of a
highly-contested vote.
Supporters of opposition leader
Hakainde Hichilema took to the
streets in Southern Province after
the election results were released on
Kenya sacks
poll officials
Kenya will replace its
top electoral officials, a
cross-party parliamentary
committee said yesterday,
granting victory to the
opposition which had
branded them biased and
led protests for them to be
sacked.
Nine new commissioners
will take over the
Independent Electoral and
Boundaries Commission
well before next August’s
general election, a key
demand of Raila Odinga’s
opposition CORD coalition
which said it had feared a
rigged vote.
At least four people died
in protests that CORD
had been staging weekly,
raising concerns of a
return to ethnic violence
that killed 1,200 people
after a disputed election
in 2007.
The protests began in April
but CORD suspended them
after President Uhuru
Kenyatta’s ruling Jubilee
coalition agreed to form
a joint parliamentary
committee to resolve the
dispute.
That committee issued its
report yesterday.
Vaccination
drive starts
The Democratic Republic
of the Congo and
Angola began one of the
biggest ever emergency
vaccination campaigns in
Africa this week, working
with the World Health
Organisation (WHO)
to curb a yellow fever
epidemic that has killed
hundreds this year.
Health officials expect to
vaccinate 14mn people
over the next 10 days,
including some 8.5mn
in the Congolese capital,
Kinshasa, where the
disease’s presence has
sparked fears of a far wider
spread.
Vaccinations started in
Angola on Monday and
about 41,000 health
workers have been
deployed across more
than 8,000 sites with
17.3mn syringes available
regionally, the WHO said.
There are about 6,000
suspected cases in the
region.
Monday, blockading roads with logs
and burning tyres.
“The people of Southern Province
were very sure that Hichilema was
going to win ... and this sparked riots
... resulting in the arrest of 150 people,” the province’s police commissioner Godwin Phiri in a statement.
Hichilema, who heads the United
Party for National Development
(UPND), has rejected Thursday’s
poll as rigged and the party said it
would formally challenge the result.
The 54-year-old businessman
hails from the south and enjoys
widespread support in the region.
Hichilema, who was making his
fifth bid for the presidency, claimed
that there were clear signs of fraud
and vote rigging over the four days it
took to release the results.
The poll results put Lungu narrowly ahead with 50.35% of the vote
against 47.63% for Hichilema, a difference of about 100,000 votes.
The outbreak of violence prompted Lungu to call for calm, telling
supporters his swearing-in would
be delayed due to the rejection of the
results by the opposition.
“I am appealing to you to be
peaceful,” Lungu told supporters at
a rally. “We have a bit of time before
I am sworn in, because I hear some
people have gone to court.”
“This is not to say the election was
fraud. By going to court they cannot frustrate the will of the people.
Zambians are magnanimous. They
will wait for the judicial process to
be exhausted until their president is
sworn in.”
Gulf Times
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
7
AMERICAS
Trump pledges
‘extreme vetting’
of immigrants
Trump is trying hard to align his message
with popular requirements
AFP
New York
D
onald Trump has laid out a US blueprint for defeating global terrorism
in partnership with Nato and Middle
East allies, demanding extreme restrictions
on immigration and likening the fight to the
Cold War.
The Republican nominee, who is tanking
in the polls following weeks of self-inflicted
disasters, made his pitch to be a security
strongman as the Democratic vice president
accused him of imperilling the lives of Americans.
“We will defeat radical Islamic terrorism
just as we have defeated every threat we faced
at every age,” said Trump in Ohio, a battleground state considered essential to winning
the US presidential election.
His foreign policy address marked the latest attempt by the Trump campaign to get
their maverick candidate back on message as
his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton surges
ahead in the polls.
Watering down his highly contested assertion that Barack Obama and Clinton created
the so-called Islamic State extremist group,
Trump said IS was “the direct result of policy
decisions” made by the president and former
secretary of state, referencing chaos in Iraq
and Libya.
He claimed the extremist group, which is
the target of US-led air strikes and Special
Forces operations in Iraq and Syria, was “fully
operational” in 18 countries and had “aspiring branches in six more”.
The real-estate tycoon and former reality TV star promised to end the US policy of
“nation building” and called for a “new approach” in partnership with foreign allies to
“halt the spread of radical Islam”.
Trump vowed to work “very closely” with
Nato, sidestepping previous criticism of the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization after saying that a Trump presidency would not automatically leap to members’ defence.
“I have previously said Nato was obsolete
because it failed to deal adequately with terrorism.
Since my comments, they have changed
their policy and now have a new division focused on terror threats, very good,” he said.
Trump said he believed the United States
could find “common ground with Russia” in
the fight against the IS group – a claim bound
to do little to silence critics who accuse him
of being soft on Russian president Vladimir
Putin.
He said his administration would “aggressively pursue joint and coalition military operations to crush and destroy ISIS”, another
name for IS, and be a “friend to all moderate
Muslim reformers in the Middle East”.
At home he demanded new immigration
screening, saying that the perpetrators of a
series of attacks in the United States – including the September 11, 2001, hijackings,
the 2013 Boston bombings and the recent
mass shooting in an Orlando nightclub – involved “immigrants or the children of immigrants”.
“We should only admit into this country
those who share our values and respect our
people,” he ventured, promising to temporarily suspend immigration from “the most dangerous and volatile regions of the world” that
export terrorism.
“In the Cold War, we had an ideological
screening test. The time is overdue to develop
a new screening test for the threats we face
today. I call it extreme vetting.”
On the home front he also proposed setting
up a “commission on radical Islam” which
would include “reformist voices in the Muslim community” to root out jihadist networks
and stop radicalisation of young Americans.
The Clinton campaign responded by stating that any policy submitting immigrants to
ideological tests was a “ploy”.
But vice president Joe Biden, who on Monday hit the 2016 campaign trail with Clinton
for the first time, trashed Trump as unqualified for the White House and accused him of
endangering the lives of US troops.
Biden’s folksy demeanour and ability to
connect with working-class voters is considered an asset for Clinton particularly among
blue-collar white male voters who lean toward her Republican rival.
“No major party nominee in the history of
the United States of America has known less
or been less prepared to deal with our national security than Donald Trump,” Biden said.
Trump’s accusation that Obama and Clinton created the Islamic State group had imperilled the lives of US troops, Biden said.
“If my son were still in Iraq and I say to all
those who are there, the threat to their life has
gone up a couple of clicks,” he said.
Meanwhile, The New York Times reported
that corruption investigators in Ukraine say
an illegal, off-the-books payment network
earmarked $12.7mn in cash payments in
2007-2012 for Paul Manafort, now Trump’s
campaign chairman.
Manafort denied any wrongdoing, saying
he had “never received a single ‘off-the books
cash payment’”, or worked for the governments of Ukraine or Russia.
Donald Trump was to take his presidential
campaign to Milwaukee, yesterday, the latest US city to be rocked by violent protests
following the fatal police shooting of a black
man.
Curfew brings quieter night in Milwaukee
Reuters
Milwaukee
M
ilwaukee’s curfew on teenagers and community leaders’
calls for restraint brought
relative calm to the city overnight after
two nights of riots sparked by the fatal
shooting of a black man by a black police officer.
Sylville Smith, 23, was killed on Saturday afternoon after he was stopped
for acting suspiciously and then fled.
Authorities said he was carrying an
illegal handgun and refused orders to
drop it when he was shot.
Peaceful demonstrations in the
Sherman Park area where Smith died
turned into violent protests on Saturday and Sunday nights.
Shots were fired, and some rioters
torched businesses and police cars.
Angry crowds pelted riot police with
bottles and bricks.
Eight officers were wounded, and
dozens of people were arrested, police
said.
One person suffered a gunshot
wound.
But Monday night was much quieter
after a citywide curfew for teenagers
took effect at 10pm (0300 GMT). Police said there were six arrests and no
reports of major property damage.
“We think we are in, comparatively
speaking, a positive place,” Milwaukee police chief Ed Flynn told reporters as it became apparent the curfew
was being respected. “We had folks
from the community step forward
to take a leadership role in reducing
tensions.”
Milwaukee has become the latest US
city to be gripped by unrest after highprofile police killings of black men over
the past two years.
Many of the officers involved in the
earlier shootings were white, however,
and the victims were unarmed.
Famed for its breweries, Milwaukee
is one of the most racially divided US
cities, with a black population plagued
with high levels of unemployment that
are absent in the mostly white suburbs.
Mayor Tom Barrett said on Monday that nightly curfews on teenagers
would remain in place “for as long as
necessary”.
Barrett has urged state officials to
release a video of Smith’s shooting as
soon as possible in hopes that, by corroborating the police department’s
account, it would convince protesters
that the use of deadly force was justified.
Barrett said he had not seen the
video.
Wisconsin state law requires police
shootings be investigated by an independent state agency, which controls
such evidence.
Flynn said on Sunday that the body
camera video showed Smith was holding a gun and had turned toward the
officer, and appeared to show that the
officer acted within the law.
Because the audio from the video
was delayed, the police chief said, it
was unclear when the officer fired his
weapon.
“It appears at this hour that a lot
of parents and guardians have taken
very, very seriously the curfew that has
gone into effect tonight,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel quoted Mayor Tom
Barrett as saying.
“There were groups of young people
in particular, who were travelling in the
streets,” Barrett told a news conference
Monday.
“Those people, in my mind, were
deliberately trying to damage a great
neighbourhood, in a great city.”
The curfew for minors under the age
of 18 began at 10pm.
On Sunday, there were 30 instances
of shots fired, Flynn said.
Officers did not return gunfire all
night, in a show of “tactical and strategic restraint”, he said.
Bullets struck an armoured police
vehicle’s windshield, and a rock broke
through a police car windshield, sending glass fragments into the eyes of two
officers, the chief said.
Another officer’s “riot helmet received a graze wound to the back of it,
probably from a firearm”, Flynn said,
adding that the officer had not suffered
serious injuries.
City politician Khalif Rainey — who
represents the Sherman Park neighbourhood — issued a plea for peace
Monday, calling Milwaukee residents
to “put down the bricks and put away
the guns”.
“Yes, our neighbourhood has problems.
Yes, it is unjust that many of us are
denied economic opportunities because of the colour of our skin and the
zip code in which we were born.
Yes, too many of our young people
are mired in frustration, hopelessness
and crime,” Rainey said.
“But you can’t fix the roof of a burning house.”
The Milwaukee officer who shot
Smith was now staying with relatives
out of town for fear of his safety, Flynn
said.
Alberta may sue over speared bear
Reuters
Toronto
A
lberta may file charges against
an American hunter who published a video of himself killing
a black bear with a spear, wildlife officials said yesterday as the Canadian
province moved to ban spear hunting.
The video, which sparked outrage
online, shows a man baiting a trap for
a black bear and then impaling the bear
with a spear with a camera attached to
it.
Alberta
environment
ministry
spokesman Kyle Ferguson said the
spear hunt was “unacceptable” and
“archaic”.
“We will introduce a ban on
spear hunting this fall,” he said.
“In the meantime, we have asked
Fish and Wildlife officers to investigate this incident to determine if
charges are warranted under existing laws.”
Local media reported the video depicts Josh Bowmar, a javelin thrower
and hunter, and that he had first uploaded the video in June.
It appears to have been taken down,
but has since been uploaded onto other
YouTube accounts.
“I drilled him perfect,” Bowmar jubilantly tells the camera. “That was the
longest throw I ever thought I could
ever make.”
Bowmar runs an Ohio-based fit-
ness company and had been a university athlete, according to the business’
website.
He was not immediately available
for comment.
In an e-mail to the Toronto Star
newspaper, Bowmar said he believes
it was an ethical kill and that “no one
cares more about these animals than
us hunters”.
Last July, American dentist Walter
Palmer touched off a global controversy when he killed Cecil, a rare blackmaned lion, with a bow and arrow outside Hwange National Park in Western
Zimbabwe.
The country said it would not charge
him because he had obtained legal authority to conduct the hunt.
Mashuk Uddin, brother of Thara Uddin, and imam Akonjee’s son Saif Akonjee arrive at the Queens
Criminal Court for the arraignment of Oscar Morel in Queens.
NY man due in court, charged
with slaying of imam
Reuters
New York
A
New York City man was
due in court yesterday to
face charges he gunned
down and killed a Muslim imam
and his assistant on a street in
the borough of Queens over the
weekend, police said.
Oscar Morel, 35, of the borough of Brooklyn, was charged
with second-degree murder just
hours after hundreds of mourners gathered for the outdoor funeral of the two men on Monday.
The killings shocked the
neighbourhood’s Bangladeshi
community.
Morel has been charged with
one count of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of
second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, Queens district attorney Richard A Brown
said in a statement yesterday.
Morel faces the possibility of
life in prison without parole if
he is convicted of killing Imam
Maulama Akonjee, 55, and Thara
Uddin, 64.
“The defendant is accused of
the murder of a highly respected
and beloved religious leader and
his friend,” Brown’s statement
said. “Their deaths are a devastating loss to their families and
the community that they served
as men of peace.”
Brown said Morel’s motivation remained unclear and that
the possibility it was a hate
crime was one theory being explored.
Robert Boyce, the New York
police department’s chief of
detectives, told a news conference on Monday that surveillance video showed the suspect
getting into a black GMC sport
utility vehicle after the shootings.
That vehicle was then involved in a hit-and-run three
miles away in Brooklyn shortly
afterward.
After officers located the
SUV, the suspect rammed a detective’s car several times in an
attempt to escape, but was arrested, Boyce said.
He said the suspect is believed to have worked at a warehouse in Brooklyn.
Citing
unnamed
police
sources, the New York Times,
the New York Daily News and
other outlets reported yesterday that detectives who
searched Morel’s basement
apartment in Brooklyn found
an unlicensed revolver hidden
in a wall that authorities believe he used in the executionstyle killings.
Police also found clothes in
his apartment that matched
what the gunman had been
wearing, according to the media
reports.
Akonjee and Uddin were shot
in the head at close range after
leaving Saturday prayers at the
Al-Furqan Jame Mosque in the
Ozone Park neighbourhood of
Queens.
Police said there was no
known connection between the
man being questioned and the
murder victims.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, addressing the funeral, promised the
city would bolster the police
presence in the neighbourhood
even though the motive behind
the killings was still unclear.
Page 17
8
Gulf Times
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
ASEAN
Suu Kyi heads
to China with
dam project
clouding ties
Reuters
Yangon
M
yanmar leader Aung
San Suu Kyi is heading to China today
for what is likely to be her
government’s biggest diplomatic test, with the fate
of a suspended dam project,
backed by China but opposed
by many people in Myanmar,
in the balance.
Myanmar’s former military
rulers were shunned by the
West and close to China, which
has been on a diplomatic offensive since Suu Kyi’s government came to power in April,
aiming to forge good ties with
its resource-rich southern
neighbour.
Finding a solution to the
$3.6bn Myitsone dam project
will be important for Suu Kyi
who needs China’s co-operation in talks with Myanmar’s
ethnic minority armed groups
operating along northern borders with China.
“If the Chinese leaders
bring up a specific issue like
the controversial Myitsone
mega-dam project, of course
we’ll explain to them what
we’ve been doing,” Myanmar
foreign ministry permanent
secretary Aung Lynn told
Reuters. Former Myanmar
President Thein Sein angered
China in 2011 when he suspended work on the hydropower dam, at the confluence
of two rivers in the Ayeyarwady river basin, after it drew
widespread protests on environmental grounds.
About 90 % of the dam’s
power would have gone to China. At the time, Suu Kyi also
called for the project’s suspension.
China said in March it
would push the government to
resume the project, insisting
the contract was still valid.
A government commission
has begun reviewing several
hydropower projects, including Myitsone, and is due to report by Nov 11.
China’s Global Times newspaper, an influential tabloid
published by the Communist
Party’s People’s Daily, said
yesterday the commission was
a “sign that might herald the
restoration of the China-invested project”.
It also noted that Suu Kyi
was visiting China ahead of
a trip to the United States in
September, and that China’s
friendship with Myanmar was
crucial.
“As Myanmar’s largest
neighbour, it is necessary for
Suu Kyi to attach importance
to China,” the newspaper
said.
Other Chinese projects in
Myanmar have also proved
controversial, including the
Letpadaung copper mine,
which has sparked repeated
protests, and twin Chinese oil
and gas pipelines across the
country. Suu Kyi will be in
China for four days at the invitation of Premier Li Keqiang.
She will also meet President
Xi Jinping.
Elements in China have for
years maintained contacts
with northern Myanmar rebel
groups and militias, some of
which are led by ethnic Chinese commanders, so China’s
help could be key as Suu Kyi’s
government seeks to promote
peace and stability in lawless
border regions.
Her government is holding a
peace conference, with most of
the country’s ethnic minority
armed groups due to take part,
on Aug 31.
Singapore arrests two
over Pokemon Go fight
AFP
Singapore
T
wo Singaporean men
have been arrested after getting into a fight
triggered by the hugely popular mobile phone game Pokemon Go, local police said yesterday.
The fight broke out between
a motorist and a pedestrian on
Sunday at the carpark entrance
of a mall in Singapore’s popular Orchard Road shopping
district.
According to a police statement, the pedestrian was
playing the augmented reality game on his phone while
crossing the road.
The motorist honked his
horn at the player, setting off
an argument which led to the
fight. Both men were arrested
Two killed by
ammonia leak at
chemical plant
Two workers were killed and
three injured by an ammonia
leak yesterday at a Malaysian
chemical plant, the company
said.
“Five contractors were affected.
The company however regrets
to inform that two fatalities
have been reported,” Petronas
Chemicals Group said in a
statement. The firm is a unit of
state energy group Petronas.
The leak happened at its plant
in the eastern state of Sabah.
Petronas Chemicals produces
a range of petrochemical
products including olefins,
polymers and fertilisers.
The company said the leak had
been contained and authorities
are investigating the cause.
Petronas is Malaysia’s only Fortune 500 firm and the single
largest source of government
revenue and of national
export earnings.
for affray, an offence which
carries a jail term of up to a
year, a Sg$5,000 ($3,700) fine
or both.
They were the first people
to be arrested in the city-state
— where fights in public are
rare — in connection with the
game.
Pokemon Go enables users
hunt fictional digitised animal
characters like the furry yellow Pikachu, which have been
scattered around the world,
often in unlikely locations.
The game has become a global craze, with crowds of players dashing to locations to try
to snag characters.
In the ten days since it
launched in Singapore, the police have issued safety warnings urging pedestrians to be
aware of their surroundings
and watch out for traffic while
playing.
Getting ready for I-Day celebrations
Schoolchildren parade with Indonesian national flags a day before the Independence day at Kuta on the resort island of Bali yesterday. Indonesia today marks the 71st
anniversary of its independence from Dutch rule.
Indonesian president
vows to defend territory
AFP
Jakarta
P
resident Joko Widodo
pledged yesterday to defend “every inch” of Indonesia’s land and maritime
territory, following clashes with
Chinese vessels around Indonesian islands in the South China
Sea.
In a state of the nation address he also said Indonesia was
“actively involved” in seeking a
peaceful solution to the broader
regional dispute about ownership of islands in the Sea.
Widodo’s underscoring of Indonesia’s sovereignty over the
Natunas islands — and the resource-rich waters surrounding
them — comes at a time of high
maritime tensions between Beijing and Jakarta after repeated
clashes there.
“We are developing regions
like Entikong, Natuna, and
Atambua so the world can see
that Indonesia is a big country,
and every inch of its land and
water is truly taken care of,” he
said in a televised address which
did not refer directly to China.
Entikong and Atambua are re-
Indonesian President Joko Widodo delivers a speech at the parliament in Jakarta yesterday.
mote Indonesian territories bordering Malaysia and East Timor
respectively.
His comments come as Jakarta
prepares to mark independence
day celebrations today by scuttling dozens of foreign boats
seized for illegally fishing in Indonesian waters.
The government has previously said that Chinese ships
would be among those scuttled.
The sinking in May of a large
Chinese vessel ship caught fish-
Second arrest warrant issued
over Thai tourist site blasts
AFP
Bangkok
A
military court in southern Thailand has issued a
second arrest warrant for
an unnamed suspect involved in
last week’s co-ordinated bomb
and arson attacks against a
string of tourist resort towns,
police said yesterday.
No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing spree,
which hit tourist towns in the
country’s south, killing four
and wounding dozens, including European visitors.
One man was detained last
week on suspicion of carrying
out one of the arson attacks.
But yesterday’s warrant was
the first to tie a suspect directly
to planting one of the bombs.
“The military court in Nakhon
Si Thammarat has issued an arrest warrant for attempted arson
and bomb material possession,”
General Srivara Rangsipramkul told reporters, referring to a
town in Thailand’s south.
He did not name the suspect
or provide further details about
their alleged involvement.
The attacks — which included bombs in the popular
tourist destinations of Hua Hin,
Phuket and Phang Nga — were
highly unusual in a country
where foreign visitors are rarely
caught up in political violence.
Authorities have remained
tight-lipped on the motive of
the attackers or the identities of
anyone detained.
Thailand’s junta, which seized
power in 2014, and the police
quickly ruled out international
terrorism, saying the perpetrators were “local saboteurs”.
A number of analysts say the
most likely culprits are therefore militants who have fought a
lengthy but local insurgency in
Thailand’s three southernmost
provinces.
The attacks bore many hallmarks of the southern insurgents, who never claim their
operations, including co-ordinated multiple strikes and the
type of devices used.
But the junta leadership has
been adamant that the deep
south conflict has not spread
north, fearful that such an admission might harm the crucial
tourism industry.
Instead they have hinted at
involvement of factions within the so-called “Red Shirt”
movement loyal to ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
The military toppled Thaksin
in 2006 sparking years of debilitating protests culminating in a
second coup against an elected
administration run by his sister
Yingluck in 2014.
The Red Shirts have denied
any suggestion of involvement
and accused the junta of using the bomb blasts to roll out a
fresh crackdown against them.
ing illegally around the Natunas drew a sharp rebuke from
Beijing. Unlike several of its
Southeast Asian neighbours, Indonesia has long maintained it
has no maritime disputes with
China in the South China Sea
and does not contest ownership
of any territory there.But Beijing’s claims overlap Indonesia’s
exclusive economic zone — waters where a state has the right to
exploit resources — around the
Natunas.
There has been a rise in clashes there between Indonesian patrol and navy boats and Chinese
fishing vessels and coastguards.
After one such encounter in
June, Widodo visited the Natunas on a warship.
His defence minister has since
outlined plans to improve an
airstrip and deploy surface-toair missiles, drones and other
military hardware to the remote
islands. In his wide-ranging address Widodo also warned that
Indonesia must respect human
rights or risk failing to become a
“productive, developed, or winning” country.
The former furniture salesman promised upon election
in late 2014 to address historic
rights abuses. But he has since
been criticised for authorising
the execution of drug traffickers,
remaining silent during an antigay backlash and appointing an
alleged war criminal as his security minister.
Minister sacked for
dual citizenship
AFP
Jakarta
I
ndonesian President Joko
Widodo sacked his energy
minister late Monday just
weeks after filling the key cabinet post, following revelations
his new appointee improperly
held Indonesian and United
States passports.
Arcandra Tahar, a former oil
and gas executive who lived in
the US for 20 years, was dismissed as a cabinet minister following days of controversy surrounding his dual citizenship.
Indonesian law does not allow for dual nationality.
An Indonesian must renounce their citizenship should
they take another passport.
Questions about Arcandra’s
citizenship began swirling at
the weekend when it emerged
that he possessed US and Indonesian passports.
Tahar held US citizenship
since being naturalised four
years ago, but had not surrendered his Indonesian passport.
“To respond to public questions regarding the citizenship
of energy and mining minister
Arcandra Tahar, and after obtaining information from various sources, the president has
decided to honourably remove
Arcandra Tahar,” State Secretary Pratikno said.
Pratikno, who like many Indonesians goes by one name,
said in a televised address that
Tahar’s dismissal would take
effect yesterday.
Gulf Times
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
9
AUSTRALASIA/EAST ASIA
S Korea
releases
N Korean
restaurant
defectors
Claims of refugee abuse
are fabricated: Nauru
AFP
Seoul
AFP
Sydney
S
auru has dismissed as
“fabricated” claims that
asylum-seekers
faced
violence, abuse and humiliating
treatment while living in Australian immigration facilities on
the Pacific island, saying that
the refugees had become political pawns.
The release of more than
2,000 leaked reports of incidents on Nauru detailing allegations of widespread abuse and
self-harm, including children
wanting to kill themselves, have
sparked new calls for a parliamentary inquiry.
Hitting back at the claims
contained in the leaked documents, which date from 2013 to
2015, the Nauruan government
said asylum-seekers had made
up most of them in hope of being
relocated to Australia.
outh Korea said yesterday that its intelligence
service had finished investigating 13 North Korean
restaurant workers whose joint
defection triggered accusations
from Pyongyang that they were
kidnapped.
A unification ministry official
said that the dozen waitresses
and their manager had been “released into society” last week.
They had all been working at a
North Korea-themed restaurant
in China.
Their arrival in the South in
April made headlines as the largest group defection for years.
While Seoul said they fled
voluntarily, Pyongyang claimed
they were kidnapped by South
Korea’s National Intelligence
Service (NIS) and waged a vocal
campaign through its state media for their immediate return.
For all North Korean defectors, life in the South begins with
intensive NIS interrogation that
can last for months and is aimed
at weeding out possible spies.
They are then sent to a resettlement centre for three months’
training, after which they are
free to start new lives in South
Korean society.
Arguing that the high-profile
nature of the restaurant workers’
case made them unusually vulnerable, the NIS had announced
in June that they would remain
in protective custody rather than
being sent to the centre.
Now that they have been released, the unification ministry
said it would provide no further
details of their situation “for
safety reasons”.
Nearly 30,000 North Koreans
have fled poverty and repression
at home to settle in the capitalist
South.
But group defections are rare,
especially by staff who work in
the North Korea-themed restaurants overseas.
N
“Most refugee & advocate
claims on Nauru fabricated to
achieve goal to get to Aust. So
called ‘reports’ based solely on
these claims,” the government
tweeted yesterday.
In a second tweet, the republic accused the Australian leftwing media, Greens MPs and
refugee advocates of “using refugees as pawns for their political
agendas. Very sad”.
Australia, which since 2013
has denied asylum-seekers arriving by boat resettlement even
if they are found to be refugees
and sends them instead to Nauru
or Papua New Guinea’s Manus
Island, has also expressed scepticism about the reported incidents.
Australia’s Immigration Minister Peter Dutton last week said
that some of events reported in
the leaked files involved “false
allegations of sexual assault”.
“Because in the end people have paid money to people
In this handout picture taken on August 10 and released on Monday
by GETUP, an injured Afghan at the Manus Island detention centre
is lying on the floor after he was allegedly attacked by a group of
Papua New Guinean men whilst out on a day release. Australia is
facing growing opposition demands for an inquiry into its treatment
of asylum-seekers on remote Pacific islands after further allegations
emerged of abuse against refugees.
smugglers and they want to
come to our country,” the minister said.
“Some people have even gone
C
hina leads the world in
connecting everyday devices to the Internet, but
is creating huge hacking vulnerabilities for itself and others by
doing so, renegade American
software pioneer John McAfee
warned yesterday.
Hackers had already been able
to gain control of devices such as
safes and heating controls, and
take over the computer systems
of automobiles and aeroplanes,
he said.
“China is taking the lead in
putting intelligence into devices,
from refrigerators to smart thermostats, and this is our weakest
link in cyber security,” he said in
Beijing.
“I am hoping that in the short
time I am here I can raise a warning flag that we have to take security of these devices even more
importantly than our large computers or our smart phones,” he
told a conference of Internet security professionals. “Because
there are so many more of these
ers and refugees on the island
suffered “severe abuse, inhumane treatment, and neglect”.
The report accused Australia’s
government of failing to address
serious abuses as it pursued
what appeared to be a “deliberate policy to deter further asylum-seekers from arriving in the
country by boat”.
Offshore detention has bipartisan support in Australia, but
doctors, lawyers and refugee advocates have strongly criticised
the camps, arguing that some
asylum-seekers suffer from
mental health problems due to
their prolonged and indefinite
detention.
In April, a young Iranian refugee died after setting himself on
fire on Nauru.
Canberra has long defended
its policy of denying asylumseekers resettlement in Australia, saying it has prevented deaths
at sea and secured the nation’s
borders.
World’s first quantum
satellite is launched
AFP
Beijing
C
China’s quantum satellite – nicknamed Micius – blasts off from the Jiuquan satellite launch centre in
China’s northwest Gansu province.
Software maverick
McAfee warns China
of hacking weakness
AFP
Beijing
to the extent of self-harming
and people have self-immolated
in an effort to get to Australia
and certainly some have made
false allegations,” he added.
However, the documents have
sparked demands for greater
scrutiny of operations in Nauru,
where some asylum-seekers
have lived for three years, with
refugee advocates and journalists rarely granted access.
“Instead of smearing vulnerable refugees, the Nauru and
Australian governments should
be investigating human rights
violations and putting an end
to them,” said Amnesty International’s senior director for research, Anna Neistat.
“The evidence is incontrovertible and Australia is going
to have to end this shameful
chapter of its history and resettle these refugees,” she said in a
statement yesterday.
A report based on interviews
last month with those detained
on Nauru conducted by researchers from Amnesty International and Human Rights
Watch found that asylum-seek-
devices, and the more that are
connected, then the higher the
risk of a potential hack becomes.”
McAfee, 70, is the colourful
founder of an antivirus software
company who once fled Belize
after police sought to question
him in a murder case.
He has since returned to the
United States, where he announced he was running for
president.
He amassed an estimated
$100mn fortune during the early
days of the Internet in the 1990s,
but lost most of it to bad investments and the financial crisis.
He was living with a 17-yearold female in Belize when police
came looking for him to discuss
the killing of his neighbour – a
crime of which he maintains his
innocence.
He was briefly incarcerated
and fled the Central American
country.
McAfee’s at times dire and
alarming speech in Beijing came
as his new company MGT Capital
prepares to launch cyber security
products later this year.
“Our species has never before
faced a threat of this magnitude.
hina has launched the
world’s first quantum
satellite, state media reported, in an effort to harness
the power of particle physics to
build an “unhackable” system
of encrypted communications.
The launch took place at
1.40am in the southwestern
Gobi Desert, the official Xinhua
news service said, and comes as
the US, Japan and others also
seek to develop applications for
the burgeoning technology.
Beijing has poured enormous
resources into the race, one of
several cutting edge projects the
world’s second largest economy
has pursued as part of its massive national investment in advanced scientific research, on
everything from asteroid mining to gene manipulation.
The satellite – nicknamed
Micius after a 5th century BC
Chinese philosopher and scientist – will be used in experiments intended to prove the
viability of quantum technology to communicate over long
distances.
It would also further investigations into some of the
more unusual properties of
sub-atomic particles, including
“quantum entanglement”, Xinhua said.
The term describes what Albert Einstein described as the
“spooky” phenomenon of particles exerting influence on each
other at a distance, including
the ability for paired particles
to mirror each other at fasterthan-light speeds.
Unlike traditional secure
communication
methods,
China’s proposed system uses
photons to send the encryption
keys necessary to decode information.
The data contained in the
bursts of subatomic particles
is impossible to intercept: any
attempts at eavesdropping will
cause them to self-destruct,
Xinhua said, letting users know
that their communications have
been compromised.
Scientists have shown the
trick can be used to transmit
messages over relatively short
distances: the current record is
around 300km, according to an
article in the journal Nature.
But technical hurdles have
kept long-range communication out of reach.
The satellite will attempt to
send secure messages between
Beijing and Urumqi, the regional capital of Xinjiang in the
country’s far west.
Success will require the satellite is precisely oriented to its
earth-bound receiving stations,
Xinhua said.
“It will be like tossing a coin
from a plane at 100,000m above
the sea level exactly into the
slot of a rotating piggy bank,”
the agency quoted the project’s
chief commander, Wang Jianyu,
as saying.
Developing the new technology is a major goal for Beijing,
which included it in its most
recent five-year plan, released
in March.
“The newly-launched satellite marks a transition in China’s
role – from a follower in classic
information technology (IT)
development to one of the leaders guiding future IT achievements,” Xinhua quoted Pan
Jianwei, the satellite project’s
chief scientist.
China “can expect a global
network of quantum communications to be set up around
2030”, he said.
Beijing had previously identified the development of quantum technology as a national
priority.
But Edward Snowden’s revelations of spying operations by
the US National Security Agency heightened China’s pursuit
of spy-proof methods.
The country is also one of
several working on building the
world’s first quantum computer, which would use subatomic particles’ properties in
processors that can operate at
speeds far faster than current
technologies allow.
McAfee speaking at the China Internet Security Conference in Beijing.
And we have not noticed it by and
large,” he said. “You may thinking I am exaggerating, that I am
an alarmist. I am friends with
many of the hackers who have
the capability to do enormous
damage if they so chose.”
Chinese companies such as
Xiaomi have been praised for innovation in adding Internet connectivity to a variety of devices
including air purifiers and rice
cookers, allowing users to switch
them on from work or on their
way home.
Such connections create new
weaknesses that could leave users’ networks especially vulnerable to hacking, McAfee said.
However, in a briefing with reporters he also commended Bei-
jing’s protection of its domestic
Internet, which is heavily censored and blocks many foreign
websites, for its seeming security
against the large-scale breaches seen recently in the United
States.
“You may notice that last year
America suffered hundreds of
major hacks from all around the
world,” he said, and added that
he had “heard nothing” of similar hacks on China.
“Now perhaps that’s the government’s control of the press,
I don’t know,” he said. “But I do
know that within certain industries of China, the awareness
of cyber security threats is far
greater than our awareness in
America.”
Japan issues warning of heavy rain,
winds as tropical storm nears Tokyo
Unemployed Japanese man arrested for
not paying taxi fare after 850km trip
Authorities in Japan have issued heavy rain and strong wind
warnings as a tropical storm swirled towards the country’s heavily
populated eastern coast, urging caution over possible flooding.
Tropical Storm Chanthu, packing wind speeds of up to 108kph, was
several hundred kilometres southeast of Tokyo in the Pacific Ocean
yesterday evening, the meteorological agency said.
On its current track it may make landfall in eastern Japan, including
Chiba prefecture, southeast of Tokyo, early this morning before
heading through the Tohoku region of northern Japan, the agency
said.
The storm was expected to affect a wide area, the agency said,
cautioning the public to prepare for strong winds and flooding.
It rained intermittently in Tokyo from afternoon yesterday but there
were no reports of injuries or damages due to the approaching
storm.
A Japanese man was arrested for allegedly stiffing a taxi driver after
having promised to pay when embarking on an 850km (528-mile)
journey, police said yesterday.
Takafumi Arima, 26 and jobless, climbed into the cab in Yokohama,
south of Tokyo, late on Saturday and told the driver to go to Matsuyama
on the island of Shikoku in southwestern Japan, a Matsuyama police
officer told AFP.
Arima had allegedly said he would pay the fare upon arrival and the
driver believed him, the officer added.
But after driving overnight for more than nine hours, the fare meter
came to ¥270,000 ($2,600) and Arima confessed that he had no
money, the officer said.
“The driver then called police, which led to Arima’s arrest,” the officer
said, adding his motive of the road trip was unknown and was to be
investigated.
Three soldiers dead as tank slips
and plunges into river in Taiwan
AFP
Taipei
T
hree soldiers were killed
when a tank slipped and
plunged into a river during heavy rains following an
annual firing drill in southern
Taiwan, officials said yesterday.
The CM11 armoured vehicle carrying five soldiers was
returning to camp in southern Pingtung county around
10.30am (0230 GMT) after
completing the firing test when
it slipped from a bridge and fell
upside down into the Wangsha
river, the army said.
The driver managed to escape
with light injuries but four others were trapped inside the vehicle and showed no signs of life
when they were rescued.
The army initially said they
were all killed but later revised
the death toll to three as one
soldier was revived after emergency treatment and was transferred to a military hospital in
neighbouring Kaohsiung city.
“We are still investigating the
cause of the accident,” said Al-
The CM11 armoured vehicle lies upside down in a river, killing three
of the five soldiers inside.
fonso Yang, a military spokesman.
According to the army, the
driver was unable to make a left
turn when the vehicle fell into
the river.
President Tsai Ing-wen expressed her condolences and
demanded the military speedily
investigate the cause of the incident, her spokesman said.
The accident happened days
before Tsai is due to preside
over an annual live-fire exercise
codenamed “Han Kuang 32”
(Han Glory), also in Pingtung
county next week, the island’s
main yearly drill.
10
Gulf Times
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
BRITAIN
Historical re-enaction
Deliveroo
apologises
over pay in
tech clash
Reuters
London
F
Historical re-enactors portraying members of the 82nd Airborne 505th regimental combat team of the United States Army take part in the ‘Lytham 1940s Wartime Festival’ in
Lytham St Annes, north west England. The two-day festival features displays, exhibitions, musical entertainment and live-action re-enactment of life during the Second World War.
Choudary faces jail over
‘inviting support for IS’
Anjem Choudary has been on the
brink of imprisonment for a while
Reuters
London
A
njem Choudary, Britain’s most
high-profile Islamist preacher
whose followers have been linked
to numerous plots across the world, has
been found guilty of inviting support for
Islamic State (IS).
Choudary, 49, was convicted at London’s Old Bailey court of using online lectures and messages to encourage support
for the banned group which controls large
parts of Syria and Iraq.
He is well-known abroad, making regular TV appearances in the wake of attacks
by Islamist militants to blame Western
foreign policy for targeting Muslims. But
in Britain, the tabloids denounce him as a
“hate preacher”.
“These men have stayed just within the
law for many years, but there is no one
within the counter terrorism world that
has any doubts of the influence that they
have had, the hate they have spread and
the people that they have encouraged to
join terrorist organisations,” said Dean
Haydon, head of London police’s Counter
Terrorism Command.
Prosecutors said that in postings on social media, Choudary and his close associate Mizanur Rahman, 33, had pledged allegiance to the “caliphate” declared by Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi and said Muslims had a
duty to obey or provide support to him.
Both men, who had denied the terror-
Anjem Choudary: denies the terrorism charges
ism charges and claimed the case was politically motivated, were found guilty last
month but their convictions could not be
reported until yesterday for legal reasons.
They are due to be sentenced in September and could face a jail sentence of up to
10 years each.
Choudary, the former head of the now
banned organisation al-Muhajiroun, became infamous for praising the men responsible for the 9/11 attacks on the United States and saying he wanted to convert
Buckingham Palace into a mosque.
Despite his often controversial comments and refusal to condemn attacks by
Islamists such as the London 2005 bomb-
ings, Choudary has always denied any
involvement in militant activity and had
never been previously charged with any
terrorism offence.
Rahman served two years in jail for encouraging followers to kill British and
American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq
during a protest in 2006.
Al-Muhajiroun has been regarded as
a breeding ground for militants since it
was founded in the late 1990s by Syrianborn Islamist cleric Omar Bakri, who was
banished from Britain in 2005, and was
banned under anti-terrorist laws in 2010.
Police said it was suspected of being the
driving force behind the London bombings
while Michael Adebolajo, one of the men
who hacked to death British soldier Lee
Rigby on a London street in 2013, had attended protests Choudary had organised.
Last year, the trial of a teenage Muslim
convert found guilty of plotting to behead
a soldier in London was told he had fallen
in with al-Muhajiroun.
The group’s influence is said to extend
far beyond Britain.
Those connected to it include Abu
Hamza al-Masri, jailed for life in the United States last year for terrorism-related
offences.
Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the gunman who
shot and killed a soldier in Canada’s capital and then stormed parliament in 2014,
followed Choudary on Twitter, although
the preacher told Reuters at the time he
had no links to him.
“Over and over again we have seen people on trial for the most serious offences
who have attended lectures or speeches
given by these men,” Haydon said in a
statement.
Both Choudary and Rahman say they
abide by a “covenant of security” which
forbids Muslims from carrying out attacks
in non-Muslim lands where their lives and
well-being are protected.
“We’re living in a global community
and no doubt Muslims around the world
who have their eye on what’s happening in
Syria and Iraq or want to know about the
Shariah (law) will come across us at one
point or another,” Choudary told Reuters
in 2014.
“That does not mean that we’re encouraging people to carry out any acts of terrorism.”
ood delivery firm Deliveroo apologised on
Monday and said British riders could opt out of its
new payment system after it
became the latest high-flying
tech start-up to face criticism
for the employment terms given to its staff.
The London-based company, valued at more than $1bn
after a recent funding round,
said a proposed plan to pay
riders per delivery and not per
hour had been a trial that its
staff could opt out of if they
preferred.
The new system of payment
per delivery had prompted staff
protests, criticism from the
government and condemnation from the opposition Labour party which accused Deliveroo of offering a return to a
piecemeal “Victorian system”
by cutting costs and increasing
insecurity for staff.
“We communicated this to
our drivers really badly.
I believe I should apologise
for that,” Dan Warne, managing director of UK and Ireland,
told Reuters.
“If they don’t like the lack
of security that they feel they
would have with the per delivery system...
then they can revert to the
old system and we’re very
comfortable doing that.”
The dispute echoes similar
standoffs in the United States
and elsewhere between staff
and fast-growing tech platforms such as Uber which provide an instant service to customers through workers who
are self employed.
With their distinctive black
and teal jackets, Deliveroo
riders have become a familiar
sight on London streets since
the firm started trading in 2013,
delivering food from restaurants which do not have their
own delivery service.
The firm, which competes
with the likes of Just East and
UberEats, says it has around
6,000 riders in Britain, with
3,000 in London, using either
mopeds or, more commonly,
bikes.
Active in 12 countries across
Europe, Asia and the Middle
East, Deliveroo tested a system in five areas in London
last week where riders received
£3.75 per delivery rather than
the current £7 per hour plus
one pound per delivery.
Deliveroo said they believed
the new system would enable riders to earn more while
working fewer hours and said
that during the trial the average
hourly fees for riders had doubled at the busiest times.
But Deliveroo’s new pay
scheme has made headlines in
Britain where there is mounting public anger over low pay
and job insecurity.
A Deliveroo rider in London.
Workers aged 25 or over are
entitled to receive the national
living wage of 7.20 pounds, but
those who are self employed do
not.
Two drivers for taxi app Uber
have taken the firm to an employment tribunal in Britain,
arguing they should get holiday
and sick pay.
“Individuals cannot opt out
of the rights they are owed,
nor can an employer decide
not to afford individuals those
rights,” said a spokesman for
the department of business,
energy and industrial strategy
when asked about Deliveroo.
The dispute in Britain follows two years of court and
regulatory battles in Silicon
Valley, the spiritual home of
tech startups, over how dozens
of on-demand delivery companies pay drivers as contractors rather than as full-time
employees.
“I think that we are in an
evolving industry, an evolving
economy and there’s a changing nature in the way people
work,” Warne said.
British employers have
turned more cautious about
hiring and the price of homes
for sale fell by the most since
late 2015, according to surveys
that added to signs the economy has stumbled since the
Brexit referendum.
But shoppers seem to have
brushed off the shock of the
June vote to leave the European
Union, another survey showed,
suggesting consumer spending
will soften the hit.
Many economists believe
Britain is heading for a recession followed by years of slow
growth because of uncertainty
about its future trading relationship with the EU.
Earlier this month, the Bank
of England cut interest rates
and took other measures to
soften the impact of Brexit,
which it believes will push up
the unemployment rate sharply.
One of Monday’s surveys
showed the proportion of employers expecting to increase
staffing over the next three
months dropped from 40%
before the vote to 36% after it.
The CIPD, a human resources group, and staffing firm
Adecco Group UK & Ireland,
also said one in five employers
expected to reduce investment
in training and skills as a result of Brexit, which will push
up the cost of imports because
of the fall in the value of the
pound. Seven per cent planned
to invest more.
UK backs expansion of world’s largest wind farm
Reuters
London
B
ritain yesterday approved plans to expand
an offshore wind farm project that could
ultimately have more than 600 turbines
spread across an area of the North Sea more than
twice the size of London.
The Hornsea Two windfarm project, to be
built by Dong Energy, is part of Britain’s push
to invest in new electricity generation capacity
needed to overcome a squeeze on power supplies in the next decade.
All but one of Britain’s existing nuclear plants,
which produce around a fifth of the country’s
electricity, are set to close by 2030 as they come
to the end of their operational lifespans.
And the government plans to close coal-fired
plants by 2025 as a part of its efforts to meet climate targets.
Plans for a new 18bn pound nuclear power
plant, Hinkley C, are currently under review
amid spiralling costs and concerns over Chinese
investment in the project.
If built, Hornsea Two, some 89km off the
coast of Yorkshire, will have 300 turbines and is
Hinkley Point A and B nuclear power stations are seen near Bridgewater in Britain.
expected to generate around 1.8GW of electricity, enough to power up to 1.6mn homes, Dong
Energy said in a statement.
The Danish company has already secured
planning permission for the adjacent 1.2GW
Hornsea One development.
Earlier this year, Dong Energy made a final decision to go ahead with this project, which it said
could begin generating electricity in 2020 and
would be the world’s largest offshore wind farm.
“We have already invested 6bn pounds
($7.79bn) in the UK, and Hornsea Project Two
provides us with another exciting development
opportunity in offshore wind,” Brent Cheshire,
Dong Energy’s UK Chairman said.
The two sites together, at 3GW, would also
have a similar capacity to the Hinkley C nuclear
project, which, if it goes ahead would be built
by French company EDF with financial backing
from a Chinese state-owned company.
The government said its next round of renewable funding will focus on offshore wind and has
said around 10GW of capacity could be installed
by the end of the decade.
Prime minister Theresa May has told
China’s leader that Britain wants to strengthen
trade and business ties, an attempt to reassure
the world’s second largest economy after London delayed a $24bn nuclear project.
May’s surprise decision to review the building of Britain’s first nuclear plant in decades upset China, which questioned whether Chinese
money was still welcome in Britain just weeks
after the June 23 Brexit vote to leave the European Union.
After Beijing’s expression of frustration, May
wrote to President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang saying Britain attached great importance
to Sino-British cooperation.
Britain “looks forward to strengthening cooperation with China on trade and business and
on global issues”, China’s foreign ministry said,
citing the letter.
A source in May’s office confirmed the contents of the letter, which was hand-delivered by
Alok Sharma, parliamentary under secretary of
state at the foreign and commonwealth office:
“This is part of what you’d expect the prime
minister to do in terms of our relations with the
wider world. It’s all part of Britain remaining
an outward-looking country as we head toward
Brexit,” the source said.
China’s $11.3tn economy is currently more
than four times as big as Britain’s at $2.4tn.
Cast as the jewel illustrating a ‘Golden Era’ of
relations between the two powers, the financing deal for the Hinkley Point nuclear project in
southwestern England was signed in Downing
Street during a state visit to Britain by Xi last
year.
May’s predecessor, David Cameron, said the
Hinkley Point project was a sign of Britain’s
openness to foreign investment, but May is
concerned about the security implications of
the planned Chinese investment, according to a
former colleague.
May’s most striking corporate intervention
since winning power in the turmoil which followed the Brexit vote indicates a more cautious
view of Chinese investment and a willingness to
take a tough line with EU allies such as France.
Under plans drawn up by Cameron, French
utility EDF and China General Nuclear Power
Corp would fund the cost of building two Areva European Pressurised Water Reactors at the
Hinkley C nuclear plant in Somerset.
Gulf Times
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
11
EUROPE
France
defends
ban on
burqini
Reuters
Paris
T
he French government has
defended municipal bans
on body-covering Muslim burqini (also spelled burkini)
swimwear but called on mayors
to try and cool tensions between
communities.
Three Mediterranean towns –
Cannes, Villeneuve-Loubet and
Sisco on the island of Corsica –
have banned the burqini, and Le
Touquet on the Atlantic coast is
planning to do the same.
The mainly conservative mayors who have imposed the ban
say the garment, which leaves
only the face, hands and feet
exposed, defies French laws on
secularism.
The burqini debate is particularly sensitive in France given
deadly attacks by Islamist militants, including bombings and
shootings in Paris which killed
130 people last November, which
have raised tensions between
communities and made people
wary of public places.
The socialist government’s
minister for women’s rights,
Laurence Rossignol, said municipal bans on the burqini should
not be seen in the context of
terrorism but she supported the
bans.
“The burqini is not some new
line of swimwear, it is the beach
version of the burqa and it has
the same logic: hide women’s
bodies in order to better control
them,” Rossignol told French
daily newspaper Le Parisien in an
interview.
France, which has the largest Muslim minority in Europe,
estimated at 5mn, in 2010 introduced a ban on full-face niqab
and burqa veils in public.
Rossignol said the burqini
had sparked tensions on French
beaches because of its political
dimension.
“It is not just the business of
those women who wear it, because it is the symbol of a political project that is hostile to
diversity and women’s emancipation,” she said.
On Saturday, a brawl broke out
between Muslim families and a
group of young Corsicans in Sisco after a tourist took pictures of
women bathing in burqini.
The mayor banned burqinis on
Monday.
Apart from the Paris attacks,
a Tunisian deliberately drove
a truck into crowds in Nice on
July 14, killing 85 people, and
a Roman Catholic priest had
his throat cut in church by two
French Muslims.
The string of attacks have
made many people jumpy.
On Sunday, 41 people were injured in a stampede in the Riviera town of Juan-les-Pins when
holiday makers mistook the
sound of firecrackers for gunfire.
Villeneuve-Loubet mayor Lionnel Luca, member of the hardline Droite Populaire faction of
the conservative Les Republicains party, said the burqini was
an ideological provocation.
“Since the Nice attack, the
population is particularly sensitive,” he told Le Parisien.
He said the burqini raised hygiene issues and could make rescue at sea more difficult.
The Collective against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) filed a
complaint yesterday against the
bans with the Conseil d’Etat,
France’s highest administrative court, which is expected to
hand down a ruling in the coming days.
Turkey seeks 1,900-year
prison term for Gulen
AFP
Istanbul
T
urkish prosecutors have
demanded two life sentences and an additional
1,900 years in prison for USbased Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Ankara for
masterminding last month’s attempted coup.
But in a step back from threats
to reintroduce the death penalty
in the wake of the July 15 failed
putsch, Prime Minister Binali
Yildirim said a fair trial would
represent a harsher punishment
for coup plotters than execution.
Ankara is sweeping ahead
with a crackdown that has seen
some 100,000 people either detained or lose their jobs, worrying Western allies, with simultaneous raids yesterday against
companies in Istanbul suspected
of helping to finance the Gulen
movement.
Gulen, who lives in a secluded
compound in Pennsylvania, has
vehemently denied that he and
his supporters were behind the
coup attempt.
In a 2,527-page indictment
approved by prosecutors in the
western Usak region, Gulen is
charged with “attempting to
destroy the constitutional order
by force” and “forming and running an armed terrorist group”
among other accusations, the
Anadolu news agency reported.
The so-called Fethullah Terror Organisation (FETO) – the
name Ankara gives the group led
by Gulen – had infiltrated state
archives through its members in
the state institutions and intelligence units, according to the
indictment.
The group has used foundations, private schools, companies, student dormitories, media
outlets and insurance companies to serve its purpose of taking control of all state institutions, it added.
It has also collected funds
from businessmen in the guise
of “donations” and transferred
the money to the US through
front companies, and by using
banks in the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Tunisia,
Morocco, Jordan and Germany,
Anadolu reported.
The symbolic punishment of
two life sentences and an addi-
tional 1,900 years in prison for
Gulen is one of the heaviest ever
demanded in Turkey since the
death penalty was abolished in
2004 as part of the country’s bid
to join the European Union.
Yesterday Yildirim called for
a fair trial instead of the death
penalty for suspected coup plotters, in comments seen as softer
after Erdogan had suggested
that the government could bring
back capital punishment.
“A person dies only once
when executed,” Yildirim said in
parliament. “There are tougher
ways to die than the death (penalty) for them. That is an impartial and fair trial.”
The prospect of the death
penalty being restored had
stunned the EU, which makes
the abolition of capital punishment an unnegotiable condition
for joining the bloc.
Erdogan said yesterday that
it was only natural to discuss
whether to introduce the death
penalty after the botched coup,
and blasted Europe for its criticism.
“If the people have such a demand, (parliament) will discuss
it,” he said.
Yildirim: There are tougher ways to die than the death (penalty) for
them. That is an impartial and fair trial.
Turning to Europe, Erdogan
said if what Turkey faced had
taken place in the West, “they
would both introduce capital
punishment and declare a nonstop state of emergency”.
“Believe me, they do not have
the patience, strength and faith
that we have,” he said.
Turkey declared a threemonth state of emergency after
the coup and the sheer magni-
tude of the crackdown prompted
worries among its EU partners.
Yesterday police raided dozens of companies in Istanbul in
search of 120 suspects including
chief executives, Anadolu said.
The suspects are accused of
financing Gulen’s activities, but
the identity of the firms was not
immediately clear.
Erdogan has vowed to eradicate businesses, charities and
Wave of car burning moves to poor Stockholm suburb
Reuters
Stockholm
A
wave of car burnings
across Sweden that has
seen more than 2,000
vehicles damaged or destroyed
this year, moved on Monday
to the Stockholm suburb of
Husby, where riots began three
years ago and spread across the
capital’s poorer suburbs.
Police have arrested only one
suspect – a 21-year-old male
in the southern city of Malmo
whose car contained cans of
gasoline – and they are appealing for help nationwide in a
country that prides itself on its
low levels of crime.
“This crime is very hard to
investigate,” Malmo police’s
Lars Forstell said. “We don’t see
any patterns and we don’t have
any suspects.”
“We need all the help we can
get,” he said.
Yesterday the centre-right
opposition called on the government to act and the Justice
Firefighters extinguish a fire which had damaged cars after the vehicles were set alight late on
Monday, in Malmo.
Department told Reuters that
an action plan would be presented in the “next couple of
days”.
The fires have centred on
Stockholm and Malmo – Sweden’s third biggest city, and
2,027 vehicles have been set
on fire in total between January and July, according to the
Swedish National Council for
Crime Prevention.
In August alone, 48 vehicles
were set on fire in Malmo and
60 more in June and July.
On Monday, 13 cars were set
alight in several different parts
of the city.
Late on Monday, two cars
were set on fire in Stockholm’s
Husby and seven cars were set
on fire in the southern suburb
of Haninge.
No arrests have been made.
“We can’t say if it is youngsters or criminals or whatever.
We assume little things but we
don’t know,” Stockholm police
spokesperson Kjell Lindgren
said.
The 2013 riots started a
debate about social inequality, poverty and immigration in
Sweden and Malmo University
criminology researcher, Manne
Gerell, said it was typically disadvantaged young men who
were responsible for the fires.
“There are a few major reasons. One that is often mentioned is that these youth or
young men, when interviewed,
say it is fun or exciting,” he said.
Vienna zoo hails rare birth of giant panda twins
AFP
Vienna
A
This handout picture taken on Monday and released yesterday
by the Schoenbrunn zoo in Vienna shows a video grab of Yang
Yang holding her twins.
giant panda on loan
from China to Austria
has given birth to two
naturally conceived twins, an
exceptionally rare event for the
endangered species, Vienna’s
famous Schoenbrunn Zoo said
yesterday.
Measuring around 15cm (6”),
the pink, hairless cubs arrived
on August 7, it announced in a
statement.
Initially the zoo thought
mother Yang Yang had only given birth to one panda because
the delivery happened inside a
dark nesting box and was only
observed via an infrared camera.
More than a week passed before zookeepers realised there
was a second one.
“The cubs have little round
bellies and panda mummy Yang
Yang is very relaxed,” zoologist
Eveline Dungl said. “You rarely
see them because Yang Yang
constantly warms them between her paws ... what you can
hear very clearly are their suckling and grunting noises when
she feeds or licks them.”
In accordance with Chinese
tradition, the cubs will only be
named after 100 days because
up to 50% of newborns do not
survive, Dungl explained.
But so far the siblings, which
are being monitored around the
clock, are doing very well, she
added.
Female pandas are only fertile
for a couple of days every year.
Yang Yang and her partner
Long Hui, both aged 16, are already the proud parents of Fu
Long, Fu Hu and Fu Bao, born
in 2007, 2010 and 2013 respectively – and all conceived naturally.
The twins are expected to
have their first public outing in
four months’ time.
schools linked to Gulen, calling
them “terror organisations” and
“nests of terror”.
Gulen, a reclusive cleric in
who has lived in the US since
1999, has been repeatedly accused of running a “parallel
state” since a corruption scandal
embroiling then premier Erdogan and several of his ministers
erupted in 2013.
Ankara wants Washington to
extradite Gulen to face trial, indicating that any failure to deliver him will severely damage ties.
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu discussed the extradition process in a telephone call
yesterday with US counterpart
John Kerry, the foreign ministry said, and US Vice-President
Joe Biden is due to visit Turkey
to discuss the issue later this
month.
Turkey has meanwhile sent a
file to Greece asking for the extradition of eight soldiers who
fled in a helicopter soon after the
coup, Anadolu said.
The eight men – two commanders, four captains and two
sergeants – were given a month’s
extension for their asylum requests last month.
Finnish
health
minister
resigns
Reuters
Helsinki
F
innish Health Minister
Hanna Mantyla said yesterday that she was stepping down for personal reasons
just as the three-party ruling
coalition seeks to finalise a complicated healthcare reform that
nearly led to the government’s
collapse last year.
The reform aims to tackle the
rising cost of caring for Finland’s
ageing population by cutting
spending by €3bn ($3.4bn), part
of a wider, long-term €10bn national savings plan.
But the three coalition partners have struggled to agree on
some aspects of the reform, including whether the healthcare
sector should be opened up further to private players.
In November, Prime Minister
Juha Sipila threatened to break
up the coalition when the partners clashed over the allocation
of resources between districts.
Mantyla has been the Finns
party’s lead negotiator on the
healthcare reform.
A Finns party member, parliamentarian Pirkko Mattila, will
be her replacement and starts
next week, the party said.
Finns Party leader Timo Soini,
who is also the foreign minister, told a news conference the
healthcare reform was on track
but challenging.
“There are no major disagreements, but coalition parties
have different priorities... and
nothing is ready until the whole
package is ready. It is a difficult
reform, as we saw last year,” he
said.
Call for global database for women exposed to Zika
By Marlowe Hood, AFP
Paris
S
wiss doctors have asked
thousands of colleagues
worldwide to provide data
for the first global registry of
women exposed to Zika, the
team’s lead researcher said yesterday.
Such a database is urgently
needed to better understand the
deadly virus and how it is transmitted, said David Baud, a physician in the obstetrics research
unit of the University Hospital in
Lausanne.
“Potentially thousands of
pregnancies are affected worldwide,” he told AFP.
Zika can cause crippling birth
defects, and is suspected to trigger other neurological disorders.
The disease has swept through
Latin America, the Caribbean
and beyond since 2015, prompting the World Health Organisation (WHO) to declare an international public health emergency
in February this year.
As of early August, 65 countries have reported mosquitoborn transmission in the last 20
months.
Initially thought to be spread
only via the blood-sucking insects, Zika is now thought to be
conveyed through sex and blood
transfusions as well.
But much remains unknown.
“Does sexual transmission to
a pregnant woman also induce
foetal abnormality? Why do
some babies developed abnormalities while others don’t? Who
is at risk?”
“The only way to answer these
questions is with ‘big data’,”
which can reveal otherwise hidden patterns, Baud said by phone.
What the world has seen so far
could be “the tip of the iceberg”,
he added.
Estimates vary widely, for example, as to what percentage of
foetuses of women infected with
Zika during the first trimester
are at risk of microcephaly, characterised by brain damage and
small heads.
Research on French Polynesia,
hit by Zika in 2013, put the odds
at one in a hundred, while another study from Brazil – the country hit hardest by the epidemic so
far – concluded that the risk was
twice that high.
Yet another team of scientists
reported foetal problems in 29%
of women exposed to Zika during
their pregnancies.
Some of the more than 4,000
gynaecologists and obstetricians
to whom the appeal was made
have provided data on patients –
who remain anonymous – using
standardised online forms.
To encourage contributions,
Baud has promised that doctors
who participate will be listed as
co-authors in future journal articles.
National and professional associations have also pledged
to pass on the request to their
members.
Baud said he would publish
preliminary findings after his
team had information for 100
women, but that the statistically
significant threshold for new
findings is 1,000.
At present, details on only 160
pregnancies exposed to Zika can
be found in the scientific literature, and gaps often make comparisons difficult or impossible.
The new online registry gathers data on the general health of
the women, blood profiles, medications taken, exposure to different viruses, and other relevant
factors.
Last week, US health authorities declared a public health
emergency in Puerto Rico due to
the outbreak of Zika, which has
now infected 10,000 people.
The United States registered
its first locally transmitted cases
of Zika in Florida in July.
Since February 2016, 11 countries have reported evidence of
person-to-person
infections,
probably via sex.
In four out of five cases, the virus causes no symptoms.
Those who do feel sick have
reported fever, rash, body aches
and conjunctivitis, or pink eye.
Baud and three colleagues
published a comment explaining
their initiative in the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases.
12
Gulf Times
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
INDIA
British-era bunker
found in Mumbai
IANS
Mumbai
A
Mourners look on during the funeral of four civilians at Aripanthan Magam village in Budgam district on the outskirts of Srinagar.
5 killed in fresh
Kashmir strife
AFP
Srinagar
S
ecurity forces shot dead five people and wounded another 20 during
protests yesterday in Kashmir, according to witnesses and security sources.
Four people were killed in Aripanthan
village after residents took to the streets
to protest what they said were aggressive
tactics by members of the security forces
during an overnight patrol designed to enforce a curfew.
One resident said one protester was
killed immediately after members of
the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF)
opened fire and another three died of their
injuries.
A further 12 protesters were taken to a
nearby hospital for treatment.
The identities of the four who died were
not immediately known but all were young
men.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a
security official confirmed to AFP “a patrol party fired on the protesters.
Four have died”. Another protester was
shot dead in Larkipora village in south
Kashmir after residents clashed with
paramilitary troopers, according to witnesses.
A senior police officer in the region and
witnesses told AFP that forces fired live
rounds during the protests that also left
eight people injured.
The deaths come a day after a total
of nine people were killed in a series of
clashes and gun battles across the region,
including a commander of the CRPF.
Authorities have imposed a curfew in
large parts of Kashmir since July 9 during an upsurge in violence sparked by the
killing of a top militant commander called
Burhan Wani in a gunfight with security
forces.
More than 60 civilians, mostly young
men, have been killed in clashes between
protesters and security forces, and thousands more injured in the region’s worst
violence since 2010.
forgotten 150m long, underground British-era bunker
has been unearthed inside
the sprawling Raj Bhavan complex
at Malabar Hill in south Mumbai,
an official said yesterday.
Governor C V Rao and his wife
Vinodha and senior officials went
around the bunker yesterday.
Around three months ago, some
old-timers informed the Governor
of the existence of a tunnel inside
the Raj Bhavan on the shores of the
Arabian Sea.
He asked to get it opened.
Accordingly, on August 12, the
PWD staff broke open a temporary
wall that had been erected at the
tunnel’s entrance on the eastern
side.
The revelation was surprising.
Instead of what was believed
to be an underground tunnel, it
turned out to be a huge barrack
with 13 rooms of varying sizes
spread over an area of more than
5,000 square feet.
The bunker opens with a 20-feet
tall gate and a ramp on the western
side.
There are long passages connecting small to medium room on
both sides.
The bunker’s rooms are named
Shell Store, Gun Shell, Cartridge
Store, Shell Lift, Pump and Workshop and there are scores of lamp
recesses in the gangway.
Though the underground bunker
had apparently been closed after
India’s independence in 1947, it has
remained surprisingly intact and
has a drainage system with inlets
for fresh air and light.
An aide to the Governor said that
according to the book, “History of
Raj Bhavans in Maharashtra”, it was
formerly known as Government
House and served as the residence
of the British Governors since 1885
when Lord Reay converted it into a
permanent residence.
Before that, while the Malabar
Hill residence served as the Summer Residence of British Gover-
Maharashtra Governor C V Rao and his wife Vinodha pose outside a
British-era underground bunker found in Maharashtra Raj Bhavan in
Mumbai.
nors, the Government House at
Parel was the Governor’s official
residence.
After the discovery of the Bunker, Rao has said he would consult
experts to preserve it.
Maharashtra Raj Bhavan is built
on lush green 50 acres of land at
100 students to receive training as interfaith dialogue practitioners
By Ashraf Padanna
Thiruvananthapuram
T
he Vienna-based King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Cultural Dialogue
(KAICIID) will help train 100
young volunteers to promote inter-religious dialogue in Kerala.
This “fellow initiative” Peace
Education and Training (PET)
was unveiled at the G20 Interfaith
Conference held in Thiruvananthapuram recently in the wake of
increasing Daesh (Arabic for Islamic State) activities in the state.
At least 21 youngsters, including six women, three of them in
advanced stages of pregnancy, and
four children, disappeared from
the state in June, and some of them
later informed their parents that
they were with the “Islamic State”
fighters.
However, Indian intelligence
agencies could not either confirm
them joining Daesh or their whereabouts so far even after the arrest
of some of the people allegedly engaged in indoctrination.
“This will be an academic
project for trainers of peace build-
ing and interreligious engagements
at various levels from healthy dialogues to harmonious coexistence
with selected 100 students,” KAICIID fellow Dr Abbas Panakkal
said.
KAICIID is an intergovernmental organisation jointly established
by Austria, Saudi Arabia, Spain
and The Holy Sea and collaborated
with the UN agencies, national
governments and internationally
active religious and interreligious
groups.
“We promote and employ interfaith dialogue to support conflict
prevention and resolution, sustainable peace and social cohesion,
mutual respect and understanding among different religious and
cultural groups and counteract
the abuse of religion to justify oppression, violence and conflict,” he
said.
They select the candidates
through aptitude tests and motivation sessions.
“After successful completion of
the pilot project, a peer team will
take the feedback and evaluate the
influence of peace education and
training,” he said.
“The primary responsibility is
to develop materials and modules
Abbas Panakkal
built on the antiquity, chronicle,
memoir and development policy
to equip these students with an
interreligious understanding in
Kerala where Muslims and Hindus
had developed better co-existence
from prehistoric time.”
Muslims constitute 26.56% of
Kerala’s 33.3mn population which
is 54.73% Hindu and 18.38%,
Christian.
The project will impart intensive
training activities for two months
from early September.
Dr Panakkal has started visiting
educational institutions meeting
potential candidates.
The course materials will also be
available online besides real and
virtual contact classes.
The participants will get certificates from KAICIID which meets
all expenses including transport
and accommodation.
“This will be an academic training to facilitate interreligious rendezvous by developing a sense of
virtuousness, integrity, coexistence, shared heritage and tradition
of peace and harmony in everyday
life,” he explained.
It includes convincing authorities the need of peace studies and
IRD training in institutions, discussions on new curriculum development, faculty meeting on modules and allocation of class hours,
workshop of composing modules
for trainers and facilitators and
directions for practical sessions in
the society.
“The aim also includes the creation of interreligious awareness
among the future religious leaders.
The students will get lessons
in interfaith experiences and ac-
tivities and enhance their skills
through proper training to make
them peace builders,” he said.
“It will nurture a religious society that longs for interreligious engagements and coexistence to foster openness and develop a creative
sense for intercultural and interfaith understanding and actions.”
The project will also formulate a systematic syllabus and
mechanisms for peace education
and training besides creating new
awareness.
“This is a pilot program. So we
thought of beginning with students from various institutions.
We will have a larger target group
in the next phase,” said Dr Panakkal,
also a project co-ordinator of
G20 Interfaith Summit and director of international relations,
Ma’din Academy, Kerala.
“We hope the complete the entire project in Kerala within six
months. It will set a model for universities here to follow.”
“In the following year, these
selected students will be trainers,
and they could influence the community and society they serve in
future, contributing to sustainable
development.”
Malabar Hill, lashed by Arabian Sea
on three sides. It has its own private
beach and a mile long forest.
In October 2010, a huge and
well-maintained tunnel believed
to be over two centuries old was
discovered in the premises of
Mumbai GPO.
ABVP seeks arrest of
Amnesty officials over
anti-India slogans
IANS
Bengaluru
A
bout 200 Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad
(ABVP) activists protested here yesterday, seeking the arrest of Amnesty India representatives
for organising an event where anti-India slogans were
allegedly raised.
As the activists marched towards the Police Commissioner’s office to submit a memo, police blocked them at
Raj Bhavan. When the ABVP activists refused to disperse,
police caned them and took about 30 of them into preventive custody.
“Registering an FIR and filing a case of sedition and
rioting against the organisation (Amnesty) is an eyewash as they (police) are trying to hush up the issue.
We want the organisers and those who raised anti-India
slogans to be arrested and jailed,” ABVP city convener
Prem told the media.
“Police not only gave the organisation permission to
hold the event but also did not act against the anti-national elements though they were present at the event
when the slogans were raised,” Prem said.
Police booked a sedition case against Amnesty India on
Monday night for the anti-India slogans allegedly raised
at the event it organised here on August 13.
“We have booked a case of sedition and rioting under
various sections of the Indian Penal Code against Amnesty on a complaint that anti-India slogans were raised,”
Deputy Police Commissioner T R Suresh told IANS.
The charges, including sedition, rioting, unlawful assembly and promoting enmity were mentioned in the FIR
police filed two days after the ABVP lodged the complaint
with audio-video evidence.
The activists also protested against Amnesty on Sunday at United Theological College in the city centre where
the event was held.
“We are investigating the complaint and checking the
video to ascertain the charges and identify those who
raised the slogans for culpability,” Suresh said.
The sedition charge under section 124A of the IPC
amounts to an attempt to cause hatred or contempt or
excite disaffection towards the government of India.
The 90-minute event was held, ostensibly, to interact
with a few Kashmiri families who were victims of human
rights violations in the state.
The FIR has not named any individual but implicated
Amensty India for holding the event and allegedly allowing slogans to be raised against the country and the
Indian Army.
Claiming they were yet to receive a copy of the FIR from
police, Amnesty executive director Aakar Patel regretted
that holding an event to defend constitutional values was
being branded ‘anti-national’.
“As police were informed about the event in advance,
they were present at the venue. Registering a case of sedition on a complaint against us shows a lack of belief in
fundamental rights and freedom in the country,” Patel
said in a statement here.
Gulf Times
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
13
INDIA
Social media helps bring aid to Assam’s flood-affected
By Azera Parveen Rahman, IANS
Jorhar
I
n this age of social media, no event
can remain ignored for long and the
floods in Assam are no exception.
Every year, floods hit the northeaster
state, ravaging districts and affecting
millions of people. This year, the devastation was on a bigger scale, with
many calling it the worst floods in the
last two decades.
Even as people and animals grappled to
survive, help came from across the country. And social media played a big role
in that. As the mainstream media kept
flashing news of flooded roads and traffic
jams in Gurugram in the National Capital Region, far away from the spotlight
heartbreaking photographs of people
grappling for their lives in Assam’s floods
started circulating on social media.
As posts began to be ‘shared’, such
as news about the hapless rhino calves
orphaned in Kaziranga, it caught the
much-needed attention of many across
the state’s borders. Attention translated into enquiries, and finally to the
much-required relief efforts.
Among the many who stepped forward to help were people from Chennai.
Having themselves seen and lived
through a terrible episode of floods last
year, people from all walks of life got in
touch with NGOs or government agencies,
some simply reached out to friends in Assam, to bring relief material like dry ration,
clothes, medicines and other necessities.
Chennai-based Shravan Krishnan, a
wildlife conservationist, is one of those
who used the social media extensively to
put together relief efforts for the victims
of the Assam floods. “Along with some
of my friends in Chennai, I decided to
help in Kaziranga after we saw some
horrific pictures of people and animals
suffering. We rescue wild animals in
Goa Tourism
lambasted in
CAG report
IANS
Panaji
T
he Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG)
has hauled up Goa’s tourism ministry on
multiple grounds — from beach cleanliness to tourist safety and, more generally, for poor
planning.
The scathing criticism, contained in its latest
report, ironically comes at a time when the ministry has been patting itself on the back for a 30%
rise in footfall this year.
“The follow-up audit of promotion of tourism
in Goa shows some action has been initiated by
the department for implementing recommendation relating to construction of sewerage and solid waste management projects and commencement of tourism projects.”
“However, the department is yet to implement
recommendations regarding introduction of a
new tourism policy. The cleanliness and amenities for tourists are still lacking,” the CAG report
said.
Criticising the tourism authorities for not
binding enough safeguards into multi-crore contracts awarded to beach cleaning contractors, the
report said that performance on this count was
below par.
“We observed that the beach cleaning works
by the contractors was unsatisfactory due to
non-deployment of adequate manpower, nonplacing of adequate dust bins and non-removal
of garbage. The mechanical cleaning envisaged
in the contract was yet to commence. It was also
seen that the department has not initiated any
measures to penalise persons who litter at tourist
places,” the report said.
The CAG report has also said that the ministry
shortchanged the issue of safety of tourists, by
undercutting on the number of personnel deputed for safety of the around four mn tourists who
visit the state every year.
Safety apart, the CAG also pointed out the lack
of promised facilities like parking lots, changing rooms and toilets on Goa’s popular beaches,
which account for most of the tourism footfalls.
“Except for the construction of a parking lot
at Baga and toilets and changing rooms in Calangute, there were no changes in the infrastructure
facilities like parking, toilets, changing rooms and
access roads,” the report said.
“Seven beaches out of 13 verified by the audit
team along with department personnel did not
have identified parking lots, eight did not give
toilets and 12 were without changing rooms,” the
report further stated.
“Only five vehicles out of 12 available were being utilised for patrolling. Further, only 92 policemen (500 personnel had been promised for tourist
safety) of India Reserve Battalion were deployed
at tourist places and no action was initiated to
create the additional 500 posts,” the report said.
The report also observed slackness on the part
of the tourism authorities as far as effective tourism promotional measures are concerned.
“We observed that the department has not
framed any plan, policy or guidelines for electronic and print media campaigns, advertisements and promotional activities,” the report
said.
It also said that the inability of the tourism
ministry to integrate environment impact assessment (EIA) processes at the feasibility stage of
tourism projects had led to delays in their completion.
“The GTDC (Goa Tourism Development Corp)
apprised that EIA was not required in usual government projects. The reply was not acceptable
on ground of inordinate delays in execution of
central financial assistance projects owing to
public agitations, coastal zone management issues and dropping of two projects (Goa Haat and
Convention Centre),” the report said.
Goa’s conventional tourist season starts in October and winds up in March, when the mild winter sun works as a good break for travellers from
Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany and other
European countries from the harsh winter in their
countries.
About 4mn tourists visit Goa annually, nearly
half a million of whom are foreigners.
Chennai, like snakes, deer, and monkeys. So we thought we could help. Plus,
we have the experience in helping during floods, since we played a big role in
rescue and relief work during the Chennai floods last year,” Krishnan told IANS.
Kaziranga was one of the worst affected in the floods which came in three
waves this year. Nearly 90% of the national park was inundated, along with
villages in the vicinity. After meeting
officials of the Wildlife Trust of India
(WTI), they found out that eight rhinos
calves which were orphaned and rescued, were in need of milk formula.
“We put together a fundraiser and
were able to contribute 50kg of lactogen (baby milk formula) for the rhino calves,” Krishnan said. He and his
teammates, Nishanth and Robin, continued their efforts once back in Chennai, and thanks to his social media following, they raised Rs400,000 for the
flood-affected animals.
The upkeep of a rhino calf, especially
its milk requirement, is an expensive
everyday affair — a calf needs about six
packets of lactogen every day.
The wildlife centre called for help to
adopt a calf for two years by taking care
of its expenses. A shopkeeper in Bokakhat, the town in the vicinity of Ka-
ziranga National Park, said that all shops
ran out of lactogen once word spread
that the rescued calves need milk. “The
locals volunteered to donate milk packets... we heard that a lot of people from
outside Assam have also volunteered to
send milk for the rhino calves. This is
heartening news,” said Arun Das.
The immediate need is of medicines,
since the risk of water-borne and vector-borne diseases loom large. “Social
media is a powerful tool. We in Assam
and in the northeast feel ignored by the
mainstream media regarding our issues,
but the social media is helping us turn
the tide,” said teacher Lakshmi Gogoi.
Knots that bind ...
A man arranges rakhis at his roadside stall in Kolkata ahead of the Hindu festival of Raksha Bandhan tomorrow.
Most primitive primate bones found in Gujarat
IANS
New York
A
cache of exquisitely preserved 25 tiny bones,
found in a coal mine in
Gujarat, appear to be the most
primitive primate bones yet discovered, according to an analysis by an international team researchers.
The bones, belonging to ancient, rat-sized, tree-dwelling
primates, represent a very early
stage of primate evolution, the
researchers said.
“These are the best preserved
and most primitive bones we
have from the first five mn years
of primate evolution, but there’s
not enough evidence currently
for us to figure out when these
primates reached India or where
they came from,” said one of the
researchers Kenneth Rose, Professor Emeritus at Johns Hopkins
University School of Medicine.
Researchers from Des Moines
University in the US, H N B
Garhwal University, Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology,
Dehradun, Panjab University,
Chandigarh and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels also contributed to the study published
online in the Journal of Human
Evolution.
Their assessment of the bones
bolsters the idea that primates
native to what is now India
played an important role in the
very early evolution of primates,
mammals that include humans,
apes and monkeys.
“All other primate bones found
so far around the world clearly
belong to one or the other of
the two primate groups, called
clades: Strepsirrhini and Haplorhini,” Rose said.
“But many of the Gujarat
bones show features that do not
clearly belong to one clade or the
other,” Rose said.
This suggests that the little
primates represent a very early
stage of primate evolution, according to Rose and lead author
Rachel Dunn, Assistant professor
at Des Moines University.
The newly discovered group
of 25 tiny bones, all from somewhere below the neck of the
animals, are considerably more
primitive than the oldest known
primate
fossil,
Teilhardina,
which first appears in deposits at
the beginning of the Eocene, almost 56mn years old.
They are also more primitive
than a relatively complete skeleton of the primate Archicebus,
found recently in China and dat-
ed to about 55mn years ago, the
study said.
Their analysis, Rose said, suggests the Gujarat primates are
close descendants of the common ancestor that gave rise to the
adapoids and omomyids found
on the northern continents.
The Gujarat primates were
adapted for climbing the tall dipterocarp trees of ancient rainforests but were less specialised
than present-day leaping lemurs
or slow-climbing lorises, according to the researchers.
Their limbs and joints suggest
more generalised climbing, as in
present-day mouse lemurs and
dwarf lemurs.
Because of such features, the
researchers are not sure which
clade some of the bones belonged
to, suggesting that they represent the most primitive primate
anatomy known.
Modi makes a name abroad, his minister unmakes it
W
e have had multiple
reports of your minister for sports trying to
enter accredited areas at venues
with unaccredited individuals.
When the staff try to explain that
this is not allowed, they report
that the people with the minister
have become aggressive and rude
and sometimes push past our
staff…Should our protocol team
be made aware of further examples of this type of behaviour, the
accreditation of your minister
will be cancelled and his privileges at Games withdrawn.”
That was Sarah Peterson, Continental Manager for Rio 2016
Organising Committee, writing to Rakesh Gupta, the Indian
Chef-de-Mission. The minister
concerned is none other than Vijay Goel, the former head of the
Delhi unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who, after being
put to pasture for more than two
years, was given a lifeline in the
form of a Rajya Sabha seat and
subsequently elevated to the post
of a junior minister.
In diplomatic parlance, Peterson’s letter is equivalent to Goel
being warned of being persona
non-grata.
Rio de Janeiro is a long way
away from Delhi and the minister and his cronies must have
felt that they could introduce
Brazilians to the VIP culture
which they indulge in profusely
back home. Goel has denied any
wrongdoing. Of course what else
Delhi Diary
By A K B Krishnan
do you expect from an Indian
politician? Even when caught
with their pants down, they can
come up with excuses of the most
implausible nature.
Goel says he had walked on to
the field of play to “encourage”
the Indian hockey team. Empirical evidence shows the “encouragement” had had little impact
on the players. The team lost to
Belgium in the quarter-finals. Be
that as it may, did the minister
really think that his presence on
the field would make a difference
apart, of course, from the fact
that it would have been a distraction for the players?
Reports suggest that Goel was
more interested in taking “selfies” with the players which, one
can surmise, will soon adorn the
‘ego wall’ of the minister’s office.
If you were to ask me how many
times Goel had visited the Indian
hockey team at Delhi’s national
stadium, which is just a five minutes’ flight for the crow from the
minister’s bungalow, during its
practice sessions to boost its mo-
rale for these Games, I am sorry
I don’t have an answer. But you
can very well take a guess and it
will be the right one!
Officials and politicians accompanying Indian sports teams
have always been a law unto
themselves. The discrimination
begins the moment they take
off to foreign shores. While the
athletes are shunted out to the
economy seats—most famously
described by Shashi Tharoor as
“cattle class”—these officials,
who are duty-bound to look after the welfare of the men and
women under their charge, travel
business class and some even get
themselves upgraded to first class.
On landing, the athletes have to
share rooms in games villages and
such other accommodations as
are provided by the organisers but
the officials ensconce themselves
in five-star hotels with all the attendant luxury.
Minister Goel is not the first to
be charged with flouting the established norms of the host nation or the event as such. Just two
years ago at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games Indian Olympic Association secretary-general Rajeev Mehta was arrested for
drunken driving.
If Goel has gone to Rio to boost
the morale of Indian participants
in the Games, Haryana’s Sports
Minister Anil Vij is going one
better by leading a nine-member
team of politicians and officials,
including the media advisor to
the state chief minister. Again,
your guess is as good as mine as
to what such an individual has
to do with the Olympic Games.
Additional Chief Secretary K K
Khandelwal, who is part of the
delegation, explained the noble
intent behind the visit: “Apart
from encouraging players, the
aim is to see how such an event
is organised. We have scheduled
a number of meetings with officials. How to use the infrastructure that is made at a subsequent
stage after the event gets over
will also be seen and analysed,”
Did anyone bother to tell
Khandelwal that India is nowhere near hosting the Olympic
Games? And if the delegation
wanted to study how facilities
like stadiums are used after the
Games, they should have gone to
the venues like London or Beijing
where the previous two Games
were held. The sorry state of facilities that Delhi built for the
2010 Commonwealth Games is a
grim reminder that officials who
go on these “study” tours return
none the wiser but of course with
bags-full of goodies for their near
and dear ones.
Vij, too, explained why he was
going. “Haryana’s delegation has
timed its trip to Rio in sync with
the events in which Haryana’s
sportspersons are participating.
It will be a boost to our state’s
players.”
But then the minister showed
his magnanimity when he said:
“But that does not mean that we
will not watch players of other
states in the Olympics.”
Really? Players from Andhra
Pradesh, Punjab etc. owe a big
“thank you” to Vij!
The earlier Congress governments had been hauled over the
coals for letting ministers and
officials go on foreign junkets at
the drop of a hat. Prime Minister
Narendra Modi took office with
the promise that that bad old order will change. But has it?
Almost from the day he became Prime Minister, Modi had
been globe-trotting trying to sell
the India story to heads of states
and governments and CEOs of
multinational corporations in his
attempt to attract foreign investments to this country. Except
for his diehard enemies, almost
everyone will admit that Modi
has done a wonderful job so far.
But people like Vijay Goel, if left
alone, are more than capable of
undoing what Modi has so painstakingly achieved through his
travels. With friends like these…
In a democracy,
it has to be
even-handed
T
he Chief Justice of India
is very annoyed. And for
good reason too. The Modi
government is dragging its feet
on the appointment of judges to
the higher courts even as cases
are piling up beyond counting
and Justice Tirath Singh Thakur
is trying to do all he can and a bit
more to set things right.
Perhaps that “bit more” part
went a little overboard on India’s
Independence Day on August 15.
It is the day when the Prime
Minister takes the centre stage—
she/he does it every day at every
event, but August 15 is extra special—by addressing the nation
from the ramparts of Delhi’s historic Red Fort. This was Modi’s
third speech and it went on for
nearly 120 minutes as he elaborated on his government’s achievements one by one and also laid out
a road map for the future.
But Justice Thakur is annoyed
that “our popular Prime Minister” did not say a word about
how he planned to tackle the judicial appointments issue. If he
had written to the Prime Minister about his misgivings it would
have been par for the course. But
Justice Thakur chose an open
forum to air his views which, according to many observers, could
only be viewed as criticism of the
government.
Judges of the Supreme Court
and even High Courts sometimes
make asides in the course of their
judgements that are critical of the
executive. These are debated and
discussed and, more often than
not, praised for their candour
and relevance. But to “criticise”
the Prime Minister’s Independence Day speech is definitely a
first for a Chief Justice of India
and opinions are divided on Justice Thakur’s speech to lawyers at
a function in the national capital.
While senior Supreme Court
lawyer Aryama Sundaram and
former cabinet secretary TSR
Subramanian were of the view that
the Chief Justice should have been
a little more circumspect, usual
suspects like Aam Aadmi Party’s
national convenor and Delhi Chief
Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Congress Party spokesperson Randeep
Surjewala felt that Justice Thakur
had said what had to be said.
Between them the executive
and the judiciary have to keep a
fine balance without which democracy itself will be meaningless. Agreed that it was perhaps
the last resort for Justice Thakur
to say these things so openly, but
imagine a scenario if the Prime
Minister or the Cabinet Secretary or the Chief Election Commissioner, not to forget the three
chiefs of the armed forces, take to
airing their views in similar fashion. Mind boggles!
14
Gulf Times
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
LATIN AMERICA
Medina is
sworn in
for second
term as
president
Dino-mania
AFP
Santo Domingo
T
he Dominican Republic’s President
Danilo Medina was sworn in yesterday for his second term, after riding
an economic boom to win re-election in a
landslide despite deep and lingering poverty.
Dressed in a white suit with the red, white
and blue presidential sash draped across his
chest, Medina took the oath of office before
the Caribbean tourist paradise’s National
Assembly.
His audience included Presidents Nicolas
Maduro of Venezuela, Evo Morales of Bolivia
and Rafael Correa of Ecuador, three of Latin
America’s most outspoken leftists.
Medina, a 64-year-old economist and
head of the centrist Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), won the country’s May 15
election with 62 % of the vote after pushing through a constitutional amendment to
allow him to stand for a second four-year
term.
On the eve of his second inauguration, his
government boasted of its accomplishments
over the past four years: investment in education, loans and support for small farmers,
and a sharp drop in poverty, from 42.2 % of
the population to 32.3 %. The economy grew
seven % last year and is on track to grow six
% this year, according to the UN’s Economic
Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.
The boom is thanks largely to tourism
dollars from foreigners flocking to the country’s luxury hotels and beaches.
But lingering poverty “will continue to
threaten stability in the long term,” warned
the economist Pavel Isa Contreras.
More than 3mn of the island’s 10mn people are still estimated to live in poverty.
Dominican Republic President Danilo
Medina acknowledges lawmakers’ applause
after receiving the presidential sash at the
national congress in Santo Domingo.
Some political analysts warn that Medina, fresh off a crushing victory, is unlikely
to make deep structural changes needed to
secure long-term growth.
“He is not a reformist at heart,” the Eurasia Group consultancy summed up after his
win.
The PLD party has been in power for 12
years in the Spanish-speaking country,
which shares the island of Hispaniola with
its troubled neighbour, Haiti.
The president, who faced seven challengers, has profited from a divided opposition
and the breakup of the once-powerful Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD).
His top rival, Luis Abinader, came from a
PRD breakaway faction.
In a country that endured the dictatorship
of Rafael Trujillo (1930-1961), US military
interventions, and lifetime politicians such
as three-time president Joaquin Balaguer,
some voters worry about the PLD’s iron grip
on power.
Medina, however, can brush that off: he
enjoys an 89 % approval rating, according to
a pre-election poll by Mexican consultancy
Mitofsky, making him the most popular
leader in Latin America.
A man pushes a pram while visiting the Cal Orcko Cretaceous Park in Sucre, Bolivia.
‘El Chapo’ son may be among
Mexico abduction victims
AFP
Mexico City
M
exican authorities said
yesterday they are investigating whether the
son of dreaded drug lord Joaquin
“El Chapo” Guzman was among a
group of people kidnapped from a
bar in the resort city of Puerto Vallarta.
Seven gunmen in pickup trucks
descended on the upscale bar and
restaurant Monday around dawn
and abducted multiple victims, in
what investigators have called a
likely settling of scores between rival drug cartels.
The authorities initially said 10
to 12 people had been kidnapped,
but after analysing security camera
footage and interviewing witnesses,
they said there were in fact six men
abducted.
They said one of them may have
been Ivan “El Chapito” (Little
Chapo) Guzman, whose father is
the jailed boss of the powerful Sinaloa cartel.
“The possibility exists,” Jalisco
state prosecutor Eduardo Almaguer
told Radio Formula.
Ivan is one of several Guzman
sons who have been active in running the Sinaloa cartel, whose dominance in Puerto Vallarta has been
eclipsed since a rival gang, Jalisco
New Generation, emerged in 2010.
El Chapito is known for his flashy
lifestyle, flaunting his luxury cars,
private planes and exotic jungle cats
in social media accounts purported
to belong to him.
His father is currently in a maximum security federal prison in the
northern city of Ciudad Juarez, after staging a spectacular jailbreak
last year only to be recaptured in
January.
The chief prosecutor said only
Maduro ratings fall
to nine-month low
Opposition urges
boycott of election
‘farce’ in Nicaragua
V
enezuelan President Nicolas
Maduro’s approval rating fell to
a nine-month low of 21.2% in
July amid calls from government critics for a recall referendum next year,
according to a local pollster Datanalisis.
The poll of 1,000 people, conducted July 13-21, also showed more
than three-quarters of those surveyed disapproved of Maduro’s tenure, while 93.6% saw the country’s
situation negatively.
Only 22.1% believed that Maduro
should finish his term.
Maduro’s three-year tenure has
been marked by a severe deterioration in the country’s economy, with
daily looting and food riots due to
shortages of the most basic goods.
Triple-digit inflation, a collapse of
the local currency on the black market and severe recession have added
to the country’s woes.
The 53-year-old president blames
the country’s crisis on an economic
war waged by the opposition and
Washington.
On Friday, Maduro raised the
country’s minimum wage 50%,
making it equal to $23 a month at the
black market exchange rate.
Thousands
of
Venezuelans
streamed across the border with
Colombia on the weekend to buy to
buy food and other basics as the two
countries’ borders were officially
reopened after being closed by Venezuela a year ago.
The timing of the referendum over
the president is critical because recalling Maduro in 2016 will trigger
fresh elections, while a successful
vote to remove him after January 10,
2017 would mean the vice president
would takeover as head of state for
the remainder of the current term
through early 2019.
Maduro’s approval ratings hit their
nadir in October at 21.1%, though
they rose to 33.1% in February, according to Datanalisis figures. The
poll had a margin of error of 3.04%.
fake identity documents had been
found at the scene of Monday’s kidnapping, in a posh restaurant called
La Leche in the Pacific coast city’s
chic hotel district.
He said initial evidence suggested
Jalisco New Generation was behind
the kidnapping.
Jalisco New Generation emerged
after the death of the local boss of
the Sinaloa cartel, Ignacio “Nacho”
Coronel.
It has become one of violenceplagued Mexico’s most powerful
drug gangs in recent months by defying the authorities with a series of
brazen attacks and ambushes.
AFP
Managua
N
Cuban policemen stand guard near a hotel as fans wait for American pop star Madonna in Havana on Monday.
Madonna celebrates 58th birthday in Havana
AFP
Havana
M
adonna yesterday celebrated her
58th birthday in Havana, dancing to
Cuban beats during a night on the
town and drawing crowds as she toured the
city.
The Material Girl’s visit got a write-up in
the Cuban Communist party’s official newspaper, Granma, which reported that she
“toured different city squares to start the first
day of her visit, which will last until Wednesday.”
It said the US pop superstar was in Cuba
with her eldest daughter, Lourdes, a 19-year-
old model whose father is Cuban dancer and
fitness trainer Carlos Leon.
American photographer Steven Klein and
stylists B Akerlund and Andy Lecompte are
travelling with them, it said.
Madonna posted a picture of herself to her
Twitter account with the caption “Cuba Libre.” It shows her wearing a revealing black
dress with yellow flowers and smiling as she
tips a black hat.
Videos posted online by fans show her
dressed in the same outfit strolling through the
streets of Old Havana and dancing to Cuban
beats at a restaurant in the historic city centre
as onlookers cheer. The news site Cubadebate
said Madonna is planning a “big party” with
the “rhythms and flavors” of Cuba.
Madonna is the latest in a string of US
celebrities to visit Cuba since its historic
rapprochement with long-time enemy the
United States was announced in December
2014.
Leonardo DiCaprio, Beyonce, Jay-Z, Katy
Perry, Kanye West, Usher, Paris Hilton, and
Kim, Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian have all
toured the Caribbean island recently.
US citizens are still officially banned from
travelling to Cuba as tourists under the embargo Washington has maintained on Havana
since the 1960s.
But President Barack Obama’s administration has loosened travel restrictions, enabling
more Americans to make the trip under permitted categories such as “cultural exchanges.”
icaragua’s opposition called Monday for a boycott
of November presidential
and legislative elections,
dismissing the vote as a
“farce” engineered to reelect President Daniel Ortega and allow him to start
a ruling family dynasty.
“We herewith declare
the absolute invalidity of
these fraudulent elections
and demand real elections,” the National Coalition for Democracy said in
a statement read by a representative, Violeta Granera, at a news conference.
She said the November 6
election — in which Ortega
is seeking a third straight
term with his wife as his
running mate — “will only
go to strengthen a dynastic
dictatorship.”
The coalition urged voters to “reject...this electoral farce,” abstain from
voting or cast a blank ballot.
Ortega, a 70-year-old
former leftist rebel, has
tightened his grip on power this year. His current
rule dates back to 2007,
after he served a previous
term between 1985 and
1990.
The supreme court in
June ordered the ouster of
the head of a key opposition party, and the electoral
tribunal has stripped many
opposition lawmakers of
their seats and replaced
them with deputies hewing
to the government line.
Ortega has also said he
will not permit foreign observers in to monitor the
elections.
Polls suggest the president and his wife, Rosario
Murillo, enjoy majority
support in the electorate.
The opposition is made
up of small parties which,
together, would garner
no more than six % of the
vote.
Murillo, already chief
government spokesperson
and a cabinet minister, is
seen by many in the opposition as an eminence
grise.
If the couple are victorious in the November election, which appears likely,
she will become vice president.
Nicaragua is one of the
poorest countries in the
Western Hemisphere.
Ortega has championed
plans for a canal to cut
across the country to rival
the one in Panama.
But so far the Hong
Kong-based
company
meant to carry out the
$50bn project has not
started work on it.
Gulf Times
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
15
PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN
Pakistan PM
reiterates stand
on Kashmir
IANS
Islamabad
P
rime Minister Nawaz
Sharif yesterday reiterated his resolve to extend
Pakistan’s moral, diplomatic
and political support to the “indigenous freedom struggle” in
Jammu and Kashmir.
Sharif made the remarks to
Sardar Yaqoob Khan, the outgoing President of the Pakistani
side of Kashmir, Radio Pakistan
reported.
The prime minister said the
world needed to take stock of the
latest “brutalities against unarmed innocent Kashmiri people
who are heavily sacrificing for
attainment of their inalienable
right to freedom”.
Sharif’s remarks came a day
after Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day speech, openly came
out in support of “freedom” for
Balochistan and the Kashmir
governed by Pakistan.
Islamabad termed Modi’s Red
Fort speech a “diversionary tactic”. Foreign policy chief Sartaj
Aziz said: “The contrast between
the Indian Kashmir and the Azad
Jammu and Kashmir could not
be more stark.”
The Kashmir Valley is witnessing weeks of unrest triggered by the July 8 killing of rebel
commander Burhan Wani.
Five civilian protesters were
killed in firing by security forces
yesterday, taking the death toll to 65.
All educational institutions,
shops, public transport and
other businesses have remained
shut since July 9, a day after
Wani was killed.
Meanwhile, a Pakistani newspaper said yesterday that relations between India and Pakistan look bleak after the two
countries indulged in a war of
words on their Independence
Days on August 14 and 15.
“At the moment, things do
The world needed to
take stock of the latest
“brutalities against
unarmed innocent
Kashmiri people who
are heavily sacrificing
for attainment of their
inalienable right to
freedom”
indeed look bleak between Pakistan and India and it would
require extraordinary diplomatic
manoeuvring to reshape relations from here,” the Daily Times
said in an editorial.
It said “things are spiralling
from bad to worse” as Pakistan
and India have engaged in a war
of unsavoury words.
Pakistan dedicated its Independence Day on August 14 to
the cause of “independence” in
Jammu and Kashmir where militants are fighting against Indian
troops.
New Delhi in turn accused Islamabad of exporting “interna-
tional terrorism, cross-border
infiltrators, weapons, narcotic
and fake currency”. And on
Monday, Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi, in his annual Independence Day address, openly
came out in support of “independence” in Balochistan, Gilgit
and Pakistan-held Kashmir.
The Times said there was
“sadly...nothing new about any
of this as Pakistan and India
have long held intransigent positions, and indulged in political
point scoring that has effectively
precluded the possibility of any
meaningful progress (in negotiations)”.
While urging New Delhi to
talk Kashmir, the daily said Pakistan must address India’s security concerns and apprehend
all those linked to cross-border
terrorism.
However, it said that Modi’s
“confrontational” stand visa-vis Pakistan on India’s Independence Day was “in appallingly bad taste”.
“Modi’s remarks would worsen Pakistan-India relations and
give teeth to Pakistan’s allegations,” it said.
The News International too
said that neither India nor Pakistan was in any mood for diplomacy now.
Pakistan offers India pact on non-testing of N-arms
Pakistan yesterday offered
India a bilateral arrangement
on “non-testing of nuclear
weapons”.
“In the larger interest of
peace and stability in the
region, as also in the global
context, Pakistan has indicated
the possibility that the two
countries may consider a
bilateral arrangement,” the
Foreign Office said.
“The bilateral non-testing
arrangement, if mutually
agreed, could become binding
immediately without waiting
for the entry into force of
the CTBT at the international
level,” a Foreign Office
statement said.
Such a pact “could set the tone
for further mutually agreed
measures on restraint and
avoidance of arms race in South
Asia”, it said.
Both India and Pakistan are
nuclear powers.
But neither has signed the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT).
Memorial
mural
Afghan women walk past a
mural bearing the image of
Afghan AFP reporter Sardar
Ahmad (right) painted on a
barrier wall at the Ministry of
Information and Culture in
Kabul on August 15. Sardar
Ahmad, 40, was shot dead
along with his wife and two
of his three children when
four teenage gunmen
attacked the Serena hotel in
Kabul on March 21, 2014.
Pak Taliban faction denies
links to Islamic State, Qaeda
Reuters
Islamabad
A
Pakistani
Taliban
breakaway faction that
claimed responsibility
for the bombing of a hospital
last week said yesterday it had
no links with Islamic State,
whose leadership also said it
was behind the attack.
Jamaat-ur-Ahrar,
which
briefly declared allegiance to
Islamic State in 2014, said in an
audio statement that its fight
was solely against the Pakistani state and that linking it to
trans-national Islamist militant networks was wrong.
“We want to make it clear
that our movement has no connection to Daesh or Al Qaeda,”
Pakistan’s most populous province, Punjab, is all set
to introduce ‘camera integrated fining’ on traffic rules
violations which will be enforced after amendments
to the relevant laws.
Official sources say Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has
also approved increase in all traffic violations fine for
motorcyclists (over-speeding, red-lane violation, etc.,)
by Rs100 besides increasing fine for juvenile driving
from Rs300 to Rs500.
After approval of the summary, a bill to this effect will
be presented to the Punjab Assembly in the next session for final endorsement to the proposed amendments, an official privy to the information here said.
He said that traffic violators would receive fine tickets
at home address under the newly- approved scheme.
The cameras would take snapshots of violation as
evidence and the traffic official concerned, after analysing it, would dispatch the fine ticket to the violator’s
home address, giving him a specific time period to
pay fine.
That heightened fears that IS
had gained a firmer foothold in Pakistan, a country of 190mn people
where a myriad of local militant
outfits exist with the means of
launching major attacks.
Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, behind a
series of bombings including
in a public park in Lahore in
March, has never specifically
disavowed Islamic State before.
Khorasani made no mention of the Quetta bombing in
the audio message released on
Tuesday.
The group, designated a
“global terrorist” group by
the United States earlier this
month, emerged in 2014 after
Khorasani, the Pakistani Taliban commander in the Mohmand tribal area, broke off to form
his own organisation.
In the statement, Khorasani
said his group had no intention
of fighting to install Islamic law
beyond Pakistan.
He also said that there
were no Islamic State fighters
present in the areas where his
fighters were operating, largely
along the lawless border with
Afghanistan in Pakistani tribal
areas.
Islamic State has been trying to expand its presence in
Afghanistan and Pakistan as its
territory shrinks in Syria and
Iraq but faces competition from
local militants.
Security officials and analysts say that Islamic State remains - for now - more of a
“brand name” in South Asia
than a cohesive militant force in
much of the region.
Girl, parents drown in latest ‘selfie’ deaths
AFP
Peshawar
‘Camera-integrated fine’ for traffic violations
the group’s leader, Omar Khalid
Khorasani said, using the Arabic acronym “Daesh” to refer to
Islamic State.
“Those in Daesh or Al Qaeda
or any other mujahideen movement are our Muslim brothers.
But we do not have any organisational link with any of
them. With Daesh and Al Qaeda
we have never had an organisational link before, and even today we have no organisational
link with them,” Khorasani said.
Jamaat-ur-Ahrar
claimed
responsibility within hours
for the suicide bomb in the
southwestern city of Quetta
that killed more than 70 people, most of them lawyers, on
August 8. Later, Islamic State,
based in Iraq and Syria, also
claimed responsibility.
A
n
11-year-old
girl
drowned yesterday after falling into a river in
northern Pakistan while attempting to take a selfie and her
parents also died trying to save
her, officials said.
The drownings occurred
in the Kunhar river that flows
through Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
province, at a hilly tourist spot
in Beesian village, some 200km
north of Islamabad.
The deep, rocky and fastflowing river is popular for
white-water rafting.
“The girl, Safia Atif, was trying to take a selfie along the
river when she slipped and fell,”
local police official Arshad Khan
said, explaining the incident
was witnessed by other tourists.
Safia’s mother Shazia Atif
then jumped in to save her
daughter but was swept away.
“Seeing both his wife and
daughter drowning, the father
Atif Hussain also jumped in to
rescue them but he met a similar fate,” Khan added.
“The dead bodies of the
mother and daughter have been
recovered while we are still
looking for the body of Hussain,” he added.
He said the parents were doctors from Punjab province and
had taken their family to the
area on holiday.
They are survived by a nine-
year-old daughter and sixyear-old son who witnessed the
event.
“Both of them are in the protective custody of the local administration and they will be handed
over to their family members when
they arrive,” he said.
The incident was confirmed
by other administration officials and family members of the
deceased.
One official said the government had put up signs warning
people not to go near the river.
Afghan air force needs more pilots, as well as more planes
Pilot shortages mean some
planes stand idle; Afghan air
force tiny, demands on it are
growing; Coalition advisers
saying skill levels improving;
Troops, police fighting
Taliban desperate for more
air support
Reuters
Kabul
T
he Afghan air force is limited not only by its size.
Despite
numbering
only 130 aircraft, there are not
enough pilots and crews to fly
them all.
The shortage is hampering
Afghan security forces’ ability
to fight Taliban militants, who
are once again gaining territory
in the north and south of the
country.
Troops on the ground are crying out for more air support,
which ranges from firing on the
enemy to evacuating casualties
from the battlefield.
The day Afghan aircraft can
meet the high demand is still a
long way off.
“Three weeks ago, two of our
policemen were wounded in a
fight with the Taliban and we
waited for five days to transfer
them to a hospital,” said a border
police commander in the eastern province of Kunar, who spoke
anonymously because he was not
authorised to speak to the media.
“Sometimes we have to wait a
week for a helicopter to evacuate
our casualties,” added the officer, stationed in a remote area
close to the Pakistani border.
Advisers for the US-led Nato
coalition, which is training Afghan armed forces now the alliance’s main combat mission is
over, say they are struggling to
field enough experienced pilots
and crews.
“Our challenge is the human capital,” said Colonel Troy
Henderson, commander of the
US
Air Force’s expeditionary advisory group in Kabul, noting it
is relatively easy to buy aircraft
but more difficult and slower to
find and train pilots.
The roughly 130 aircraft are
not enough, according to Major
General Abdul Wahab Wardak,
commander of the Afghan air
force.
And the problem is now compounded by a lack of trained
crews for existing aircraft.
The United States has provided a growing number of more
advanced aircraft in the past
year, seeking to make up for the
withdrawal of most international forces.
But in the process of building
a special operations air wing and
training crews to fly new aircraft
like the small A-29 attack aircraft and C-130 cargo planes,
coalition advisers had to pull
experienced pilots from other
Crew members of a C208 cargo airplane prepare for flight at a military airfield in Kabul.
units, Henderson said.
As the US-led coalition scaled
back operations, Afghan air force
missions more than doubled
from 10,060 in 2014 to 22,260
in 2015.
From January to May 2016,
Afghan aircraft flew 6,930 missions.
US Air Force combat sorties
dropped from nearly 13,000 in
2014 to fewer than 6,000 in 2015,
with a corresponding decrease in
support and reconnaissance missions from around 60,000 in 2014
to just under 33,000 in 2015.
As more aircraft have been
fielded by the Afghans, crew
shortages are limiting the deployment of widely used aircraft
that form the backbone of the air
force.
Among the unit that flies
small Cessna C-208 propeller
transport planes out of Kabul,
for example, there are six crews
for 12 aircraft, Henderson said.
Twenty-four pilots are scheduled to rotate in soon, which will
minimise, but not completely
overcome the shortage, he added.
“We have a critical situation,” said C-208 pilot Saifuddin
Popal, speaking at Kabul airport
as he prepared to fly another load
of passengers to a military base
in southern Afghanistan.
On the return trip, he might be
carrying more passengers, casualties or cargo, and may have to
make several stops on the way,
he added.
“Sometimes we fly from 7am
until 6pm. We have a limit and
if we fly more we become exhausted.”
At least nine aircraft were
lost last year, most to accidents
or maintenance issues, officials
said.
So far in 2016, the Afghan air
force has lost only two Mi-17
helicopters, which advisers said
indicated that pilots were becoming more experienced.
Aircraft have been a lifeline
over the past year to ground
troops cut off by Taliban fighters
in areas like Helmand and Kunduz, but the lack of crews means
the air force cannot keep up, said
Nazar Mohamed, another transport pilot.
“There are fewer pilots and
more operations,” he said, running through pre-flight preparations in the cramped cockpit of a
C-208. “If there are deaths and
injuries everywhere, how can
our schedules keep up?”
Despite the challenges, retention remains relatively high in
the air force, with month-tomonth rates usually above 90%,
according to the US military.
For the latest officer class of
110 students, there were around
2,000 applicants, said a US officer who advises Afghan recruiters.
But finding qualified applicants can be a challenge, as pilots, crew chiefs, and maintenance workers have to be literate
and usually must be able to speak
English.
Foreign contractors have been
used to help with maintenance,
but officials have been hesitant
to use them in more sensitive
military roles, or in a way that
the Afghan government may not
be able to afford in the long term.
Coalition trainers are sometimes used to help fly C-208s,
but both coalition pilots and foreign contractors are only allowed
to fly to international bases,
Henderson said.
Pilots and other crew members are being trained abroad as
well as in Afghanistan, Wardak
said, including the United States,
Czech Republic and United Arab
Emirates.
Even once pilots have been
trained, gaining experience can
take years, said US Brigadier
General David Hicks, who commands the coalition’s air force
training operation.
“They are young,” he said of
incoming Afghan pilots. “These
guys are out front, leading the
sorties, and they’re making the
decisions that I didn’t make until
I’d been flying for three, four or
five years. Building that experience just takes time.”
16
Gulf Times
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
PHILIPPINES
CRIME
Duterte seeks P3.35tn
national budget for 2017
Manila Times
Manila
T
he Duterte administration
yesterday asked Congress
for a P3.35-tn national
budget for 2017, up by 12% from
this year’s outlay, with the increase going to the country’s
hosting of next year’s Asean
meetings and rice subsidies for
the poor.
President Rodrigo Duterte
sought a tenfold increase in the
budget of the Office of the President (OP) to P20bn.
Of this amount, P19.3bn will
go to maintenance and other operating expenses, while P747mn
will be for personnel services.
Capital outlay is just at
P660,000.
Secretary Benjamin Diokno of
the Department of Budget and
Management attributed the rise
to the country’s hosting of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) meetings next year,
which will cost P15bn.
“We are hosting the golden
anniversary of Asean which is
at P15bn. This is really under the
OP.
Once the budget is approved,
this amount will be disbursed to
various agencies that will need
the money for the Asean hosting,” Diokno told reporters after
submitting the Duterte administration’s maiden budget proposal.
Also contributing to the increase was Duterte’s Executive
Order (EO) No 1 which placed 12
agencies under the supervision
President Duterte
of a top aide, Cabinet Secretary
Leoncio “Jun” Evasco Jr
The Duterte administration also hiked the budget for
the conditional cash transfer or
Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino
Programme, to P78.7bn in 2017
from P62bn this year, to include
rice subsidies for the poor as
promised by the president during the campaign.
This was included under the
proposed P129.9-bn budget of
the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)
submitted to Congress.
Of the P78.7bn, P23.4bn will
be spent for rice allowances of
3mn CCT households.
Eligible households will be
given 20 kilos of rice monthly for
12 months starting 2017.
There are at least 4.62mn
families under the programme.
“There are cases where there
are two beneficiary families in
the same household. This [rice
subsidy]is 20 kilos per household
times 12 [months]. This is not a
one-to-one correspondence.
Every beneficiary [family] will
72 Quezon City cops
relieved from posts
for alleged drugs link
Manila Times
Manila
S
eventy-two Quezon City
policemen were relieved
from their posts on Monday because of their alleged involvement in illegal drugs.
Quezon City Police District
(QCPD) Senior Supt Guillermo
Eleazar said the policemen
come from different stations
and units.
Some were members of Anti-Illegal Drugs Units.
“We will subject them to
investigation and validation
to make sure that the ongoing change we effected will be
to the maximum, to attain the
change expected by all of us, so
that the people of Quezon City
will feel more secure about
their police,” Eleazar said in a
news briefing.
He said 69 of the police officers were reported to have
“alleged involvement in illegal
drugs.”
“There is an Inspector and
Chief Inspectors who were
also included in the list, along
with junior police officers with
the ranks of PO1, PO2s and
SPO3s and 4.”
The list included three
operatives from Police Station 1 (PS-1), two from PS-2
(Masambong), 12 from PS-3
(Sangandaan), six from PS-4
(Novaliches), four from PS-5
(Fairview), two from PS-7
(Cubao), five from PS- 8 (Libis), 13 from PS-9 (Anonas),
ten from PS-10 (Kamuning),
three from PS-11 (Galas),
eight from PS-12, one from
ANCAR (Anti-Carnapping).
Three of the police officers
are facing charges of violation of R.A. 9745 (Anti-Torture Act), theft and arbitrary
detention; three have pending cases of robbery, extortion, illegal arrest, arbitrary
detention, perjury and planting of evidence.
Eleazar said the relieved policemen will be
reassigned to the District
Headquarters Support Unit
(DHSU) in Camp Karingal,
Quezon City.
Last month, the QCPD also
relieved 53 anti-drug personnel but 17 were cleared from
involvement in illegal drugs
and were returned to their
posts.
Eleazar said the 69 police
officers will be investigated.
Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno (fourth from left) submits the Duterte administration’s proposed
P3.35-tn national budget for 2017, dubbed ‘A Budget for Real Change,’ to House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez
(seventh from left).
be given rice subsidy,” Diokno
said.
Beneficiaries get cash incentives provided they comply
with the following conditions:
children should be present in
school 85% of the time and family members should undergo
regular medical check-ups and
attend family development sessions.
The DSWD will maintain a
Sustainable Livelihood Programme involving micro-enterprise development and employment facilitation for half a
million families.
Affordable housing for the
poor will have P15.4-bn budget.
Of this amount, P12.6bn will
go to the National Housing Authority for socialised housing,
particularly the resettlement of
informal settlers from danger
zones and housing assistance for
calamity victims.
A P7.3-bn allocation was proposed for the Department of
Transportation, for the resettlement of informal settlers to be
affected by the North to South
Railway Project.
“This shows our commitment
to the policy of no demolition
without relocation to provide
support to those who will be dis-
placed by our efforts to ramp up
transportation projects,” President Duterte said in his budget
message.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) meanwhile sought
a P130.6-bn budget for next
year, 15% higher than this year’s.
“This will be used to intensify
the AFP’s counter-terrorism efforts and to protect our borders,”
Duterte said.
The Revised AFP Modernisation Programme in particular
will get P25 bn to acquire more
weapons and equipment for soldiers.
The Philippine National Police
(PNP) sought P110.4bn, higher
by 24.6% than this year’s budget.
The PNP plans to hire 10,000
additional police officers and to
fund its “capability enhancement programme.”
“My government will double or even triple its efforts to
bring drug pushers and crime
syndicates behind bars as well
as to put a stop to terrorism,”
the president said in his budget
message.
Diokno also said there would
be a budget for new 550-bed
hospitals and rehabilitation centres for 2017, with each centre
costing P700mn.
The president promised to increase the salaries of policemen,
soldiers, and other uniformed
personnel.
“We will pursue a law that
increases the base pay of uniformed personnel [and]reforms
the pension system of retirees,”
said Duterte in his budget message.
Manhunt
launched for
armed group
The Caraga Region police
launched a manhunt for a group
of armed men involved in a shooting incident that wounded six
farmers, including a minor on Saturday evening in Purok 7, Zillovia
village in Talacogon town, Agusan
del Sur. Chief Inspector Charity
Galvez, Caraga police spokeswoman, identified the wounded
victims as Albert Gomez, 54; Eduardo Hecali, 57; Antonio Bautista,
50; Jomar Tawide, 20; Mark Jean
Tawide, 21; and a 12-year-old boy.
The victims were drinking liquor
at the house of Gomez, except for
the minor who was sitting beside
the victims, when the suspects
arrived and opened fire at them.
The gunmen escaped on board
motorcycles.
TRAGEDY
Teenager who
rescued drowning
victims dies
A 19-year-old boy died after rescuing three people in a beach resort
in Mariveles on Sunday. Rovic
Valcalares, 19, from Cagayan de Oro
City, among teenagers who were
on-the-job training at a shipbuilding
and bridge construction company
in Pasig City, Metro Manila, went
swimming at a resort in Agwawan
in barangay Sisiman. He and some
companions rescued the three
beach-goers who had shouted for
help as the water became turbulent.
Valcalares’ body was recovered on
Monday morning.
ACCIDENT
Three-vehicle
crash kills 1
A driver died instantly while 20
passengers were injured after
a mini-bus figured in a head-on
collision with a Manila-bound bus
early Monday morning in Rosales,
Pangasinan. A tricycle and its driver
and three passengers were also hit.
Nine dead, six missing amid flooding
DPA
Manila
N
ine people were killed
and six went missing
after days of heavy monsoon rains caused flooding and
several accidents in the Philippines, disaster relief officials
said yesterday.
More than 20,000 people were
also forced to flee their homes
in the affected areas, including
the capital Manila, according to
Ricardo Jalad, head of the country’s Office of Civil Defence.
Most of those killed drowned
in floods and swollen rivers,
while two died when a collapsed
wall crushed their homes, he
added.
Four of the missing are workers who were trapped in a tunnel
project in the eastern province
of Quezon when a flashflood occurred, while two are fishermen
who sailed in the bad weather,
Jalad said.
Heavy rains have battered a
wide area in eastern and northern
parts of the Philippines since last
week, according to the weather
bureau. The rough weather was
expected to continue throughout
the week after a new low pressure
area was spotted off the country’s
eastern coast,
the bureau said, warning of
the possibility for more floods
and landslides.
Children swimming in floodwaters of Manila bay, metro Manila.
Marcos files complaint against election panel
Manila Times
Manila
F
ormer senator Ferdinand
“Bongbong” Marcos Jr has
yesterday sought the help
of the Supreme Court amid his
ongoing election protest, accusing the Commission on Elections
(Comelec) of defying the high
court’s order to preserve and
protect all data and equipment
used during the May 9 elections.
In a seven-page manifestation, Marcos said the Comelec
issued a “highly irregular” order to strip the data in the Vote
Counting Machines (VCMs) and
Canvassing and Consolidation
System (CCS) laptop units.
This was despite the Precau-
tionary Protective Order (PPO)
issued by the Supreme Court sitting as the Presidential Electoral
Tribunal (PET), which is hearing
Marcos’ allegations of election
fraud against Vice-President
Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo.
Vic Rodriguez, spokesman
of the former senator, said the
Comelec pushed through with
the stripping even after the Marcos camp wrote the poll body
four times asking it to preserve
and secure all the data and audit
logs contained in servers used
during the elections.
“Instead of replying to the
written requests and complying
with its Constitutional mandate
to preserve the integrity of the
elections, the Comelec decided
to unilaterally issue its highly
questionable resolution on 12
July 2016,” Rodriguez told reporters after the filing the manifestation.
Rodriguez pointed out that
on July 12, the PET publicly announced that it had granted Marcos’ prayer for a protective order in
accordance with PET rules.
However, Marcos found out
that on the same day, the Comelec issued a resolution approving
the backup of SD cards and CCS
units in connection with the
stripping of the VCM and CCS
scheduled on July 16.
“Was the timing of the same
merely coincidental or was it
meant to indirectly violate the
terms of the PPO? Second, (since
the stripping activity would be
done on July 16, or four days after
the public announcement of the
PPO) was the Comelec trying to
fast-track the stripping activity
before the PPO could be officially served on them?” the Marcos
manifestation said.
Rodriguez said the stripping
of the VCMs and CCS units
raised the possibility that election data could be tampered with
because the Comelec resolution
itself had admitted that “the audit logs during the election will
be modified to include the activity performed after election.”
He also noted that the Comelec limited the stripping activity
to its warehouse in Santa Rosa,
Laguna when there were six
other warehouses — in La Union, Albay, Cebu, Zamboanga del
Sur, Misamis Oriental and South
Cotobato — which were said to
have been kept secret from political parties and candidates.
Rodriguez also claimed that
many of Marcos’ witnesses were
harassed by supporters of Robredo.
Witnesses from Quezon, Cavite, Leyte, Masbate, Northern
Samar, Cebu City and Zamboanga City complained that
they were being forced to recant
their statements in exchange for
money, he said.
Others were threatened with
criminal cases for perjury or falsification.
“Next week, protestant Marcos will be submitting an additional manifestation to this honourable tribunal and submit the
testimonies of the complaining
witnesses,” Rodriguez said.
Lawyer Vic Rodriguez, spokesman of former senator Ferdinand
Marcos Jr, talks to reporters after filing a seven-page manifestation
asking the Supreme Court to take the Commission on Elections to
task for defying the tribunal’s order to preserve and protect election
data and equipment. He also bared attempts to pressure witnesses in
Marcos’ election protest into backing out.
Gulf Times
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
17
SRI LANKA/BANGLADESH/NEPAL
Central bank says no plans to sue Fed, SWIFT
Reuters
Dhaka/New York
B
angladesh’s central bank said it
has reversed its plans to sue the
Federal Reserve Bank of New
York and the SWIFT money transfer
network, and instead intends to seek
their help recovering $81mn stolen by
cyber thieves in February.
“At the moment we have no plan to
go for any legal action against the Fed
bank or SWIFT; rather we will seek
their assistance,” said Subhankar Saha,
the spokesman for Bangladesh Bank.
He declined to provide reasons for
the turnabout. A source close to the
Asian central bank last month said it
was preparing litigation to seek compensation, claiming errors by the New
York Fed and SWIFT had made Bangladesh Bank vulnerable.
In the February heist, hackers issued
false transfer orders on the SWIFT network to move funds out of Bangladesh
Bank’s account at the Fed.
Bangladesh’s finance minister had
also said in March he was weighing legal action.“We only assessed different
options, including the legal (option),”
Saha said yesterday. “We look forward
to co-operation both from the Fed and
SWIFT.”
Officials from the Fed and Bangladesh Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul
Muhith were not immediately available
for comment. The shift came as meetings were to begin in New York yesterday
between officials from Bangladesh Bank,
the New York Fed and SWIFT.
It also comes after the New York Fed
last week published its standard contract with correspondent banks, which
spells out that the burden of preventing
and reporting breaches lies largely with
the correspondent bank, in this case
Bangladesh Bank. Saha said there was no
link between the decision not to pursue
a lawsuit and the contract. “We were assessing options, and we prefer co-operation,” he said.
Deputy Governor Abu Hena Mohamed Razee Hassan, who is heading the
Bangladesh Bank team in the New York
meetings, said the bank operates under
the standard Fed contract.
He did not comment on any possible
lawsuit. The standard contract includes a
requirement for the correspondent bank
Slain imam was beloved
in Bangladeshi enclave
I
Lankan
navy
arrests
illegal
migrants
Agencies
Colombo
S
ri Lanka Navy prevented an
illegal migration attempt
to Australia by boat and
detained 18 would-be asylum
seekers yesterday.
The naval personnel apprehended the 18 Sri Lankans who
were heading towards Australia
in the seas 40 nautical miles off
Batticaloa on Monday morning,
ColomboPage online newspaper
reported. The migrants left from
Valaichchenai onboard a MultiDay Fishing Vessel named “Blue
Star”.
The Navy managed to seize
them on a tip-off received by
intelligence personnel and the
suspects were brought to the
Trincomalee harbour.
Subsequently the personnel
were handed over to the Criminal Investigation Department
— Maritime Division for further investigations.
The Navy warned the general public not to involve in
high risk sea-borne migration
to Australia based on false information provided by human smugglers and reiterated
that such attempts would finally end up in them getting
arrested.
In the Feb 4 heist, the hackers peppered the Fed with payment requests,
four of which were filled. Much of the
money disappeared into casinos in the
Philippines.Reuters reported last month
that Bangladesh Bank did not realise it
had been hacked and did not attempt to
alert the New York Fed until two days after the money had been sent.
By that time, a weekend in New York,
the Fed took two more days to respond.
Reuters also reported that the New
York Fed attempted and failed to cancel
the payments and did not immediately
inform Bangladesh Bank of its efforts.
Nepal’s factions
urged to unite
for stability
Reuters
New York
mam Maulama Akonjee was
a devout spiritual leader
beloved by his Bangladeshi
Muslim community, according
to those who knew him in the
New York City neighbourhood
where he lived, worshipped and
died violently.
Nearly everyone who knew
the cleric and his religious associate Thara Uddin asked the
same question: What reason
would anyone have to gun down
two revered, humble men as
they left their mosque in the
Ozone Park section of Queens
on Saturday?
In a diverse neighbourhood
with a reputation for tolerance
and relatively low crime, the
mystery has raised suspicions
among many residents that the
brazen, daylight murders were
inspired by hatred of their religious or ethnic identities.
An outdoor funeral was held
for the two men on Monday.
Badrul Khan, founder of
Ozone Park’s Al Furqan Jame
Mosque, said he had known
Akonjee for a long time.
The 55-year-old cleric, a father of seven, emigrated to the
United States from Bangladesh
several years ago, he said.
Judging from what he knew
about the imam, Khan said he
could think of only one reason
the fatal shooting could have
happened: “This is a hate crime,
nothing else.”
Police say the gunman
stalked the men, who were
dressed in religious garb, as
they left Al Furqan on Saturday afternoon and then shot
them point-blank in the heads
to “immediately” notify the US central
bank when it learned it was hacked, and
to give the Fed “a reasonable opportunity
to act” on cancellation requests.
The Fed was bound to then “make reasonable efforts” to halt any fraudulent
payments it had made.
The New York Fed is liable for acting
on unauthorised payments only if it does
not comply with agreed authentication
messages, or fails to exercise good faith
when filling a payment request, according to the contract.
The published contract notes litigation must be heard in a US court.
Reuters
Beijing
C
A man cries as community members take part in a protest to demand end to hate crime after the funeral
service of Imam Maulama Akonjee, and Thara Uddin in the Queens borough of New York City.
before fleeing. A man was being questioned by detectives on
Monday, but he had not been
charged in connection with the
killings.
A motive had not yet been
established, and police had not
discovered a connection between the suspect and victims.
Khan, who spoke at the funeral for the two men in Ozone
Park on Monday, told Reuters
that the imam was a man of
simple routines who lived and
breathed his religious faith.
“This imam is a speaker, a
translator for us,” Khan said,
referring to the cleric’s role on
interpreting the Qur’an. “His
whole life was his job, praying
here, then going home.”
Akonjee never expressed political views in public, but in-
stead was known for his kindness, humility and abhorrence
of violence, Khan said.
Rana Miah, 38, said he had
known Akonjee since 2003.
Miah’s brother is married to the
imam’s daughter.
“He taught people at the
mosque and visited them at
their homes to teach them, with
what time he had. He also used
to cook for his family,” Miah
said. Miah said Akonjee and
Uddin used to walk together
from the mosque to the block
where they both lived.
Akonjee had booked a ticket
to return to Bangladesh at the
end of the month to visit his
mother, who is ill, Miah said.
Hasina Aktar, 33, a stayat-home mother, said her father and husband both go to
Al Furqan mosque to pray. She
described the imam as a “nice,
decent” man of strong faith,
and she couldn’t imagine why
anyone would target him.
“He never fought. He encouraged Muslims in the community to pray, encouraged us
to pray five times every day, to
come to the mosque, to remember Allah.”
She said she was inclined to
think the murders were motivated by hate.
Aktar said she has become
afraid to wear her hijab in public, not because of the killings
but because of what she sees
is an escalating national anger
against Muslims.
The funeral took on political
overtones given the circumstances of the killings.
hina’s Foreign Minister
Wang Yi said yesterday
he hoped all political factions in Nepal would unite and
promote stability, after Nepal
sent an envoy to Beijing to clear
up questions over the future of
bilateral agreements.
Nepal’s Maoist Prime Minister Prachanda, 61, who led a
decade-long insurgency that
ended a feudal monarchy, replaced communist KP Oli this
month amid uncertainty about a
slew of deals made by Oli during
a visit to Beijing in March.
Those deals included permission for Nepal to use Chinese
railways, roads and ports to trade
with third countries, and signalled a shift by the landlocked
Himalayan nation away from its
traditional reliance on overland
trade with its southern neighbour, India.
Wang told the envoy, one of
Prachanda’s trusted lieutenants from the insurgency period,
Krishna Bahadur Mahara, that
China’s friendship toward Nepal
would not change even with the
political shift.
“China expects that all political forces in Nepal will strengthen unity and jointly advance
Nepal’s peace, stability and development,” Wang said.
He said China hoped “to
carry out the consensus already
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (right) speaks with Nepal Premier’s
special envoy Krishna Bahadur Mahara (left) during their meeting at
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing yesterday.
reached by the two countries’
leaders” and deepen cross-border transport, trade and energy
co-operation, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Mahara told Wang the foundation of bilateral ties was firm
and would not change because
of the new government, according to the Chinese statement.
Prachanda led a Nepali uprising in the name of the Chinese
revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, but it did not enjoy the
overt backing of Beijing.
The conflict ended in 2006
when the rebels laid down their
arms under a peace deal.
Instability in the young republic — Prachanda is the eighth
prime minister in as many years
— has also raised doubts over
a planned visit by President Xi
Jinping in October, which would
be the first by a Chinese president in two decades.
Mahara had said he was carrying an invitation from President Bidhya Devi Bhandari to
the Chinese leader to come as
planned.
Nepali officials have said
Prachanda would send another
deputy, Bimelandra Nidhi, as an
emissary to India this week to
give reassurances that closer ties
with China would not come at a
cost to India.
China and India compete for
influence in Nepal.
Flood-hit elephant that travelled 1,700km dies Four
AFP
Dhaka
A
n elephant thought to have travelled at least 1,700 kilometres from
India into Bangladesh after becoming separated from its herd by floods died
yesterday despite last-ditch efforts to save
him.
The distressed animal was tranquillised
three times in sometimes dramatic bids
to try to transport him to a safari park in
Bangladesh, after he washed across the
border in late June.
He was eventually given huge amounts
of saline and chained in a paddy field in a
northern village to help him recover, but he
was “too weak and tired” from his ordeal,
officials said.
“It breathed its last at around 7am (0100
GMT),” the government’s chief wildlife
conservator Ashit Ranjan Paul said.
“We have given our highest effort to save
the animal. At least 10 forest rangers, vets
and policemen have constantly followed it
for the last 48 days. But our luck is bad,” he
said.
Paul said the animal likely travelled more
than 1,700 kilometres from the northeastern Indian state of Assam after being separated from his herd in severe flooding.
The animal ran amok and charged into
a pond after Bangladesh forest officials hit
him with a tranquilliser dart last Thursday.
Local villagers jumped into the pond to
save the four-tonne animal from drowning
by stopping it from toppling into the water.
A mahout was also critically injured
during another rescue effort on Monday
after being kicked by the again tranquillised elephant.
Local media blamed excessive tranquillising for the animal’s death, saying he became too weak to stand.
But Paul said the long journey was responsible, adding that rescue efforts had
been hampered by the thousands of curious villagers following him.
“In the end it became too tired by travelling such a great length. It had been separated from its herd for some two months
and did not get the nutrients that it needed,” he said.
“Thousands of villagers followed it everyday as it entered into Bangladesh and
then travelled to villages and river islands
across the Brahmaputra river.”
women
held in
cafe attack
probe
Reuters
Dhaka
B
Bangladeshi residents gather around the body of an elephant swept into the
country from India by floodwaters in Jamalpur yesterday.
Activists protest against thermal power plant
IANS
Dhaka
A
ctivists of Pragatishil Chhatra
Jote, an alliance of Left-leaning
student organisations in Bangladesh, yesterday blocked Dhaka roads
to protest against a $1.5bn power plant
near Sundarbans, the world’s largest
mangrove forest which straddles both
Bangladesh and India.
The agitating students blocked Dha-
ka’s Shahbagh intersection, one of the
major public transportation hubs in
Dhaka, and staged demonstration for
about one hour demanding cancellation
of the Rampal Thermal Power Plant’s
construction, Xinhua news agency reported.
Naima Khaled Monika, Pragatishil
Chhatra Jote leader, said they will stage
demonstrations across the country tomorrow.
She urged the government not to go
ahead with the proposed 1,320 MW plant,
to be built in Bagerhat district, about
180km from Dhaka. Protesters also held a
procession on the Dhaka University campus and broke through police barricades.
Several persons were injured during
a scuffle with the law enforcers while
breaking through the barricades.
According to the protesters, discharge
from the plant like fly ash and sulphur
dioxide will have disastrous consequences for the fauna and flora of the
mangrove forest — a Unesco World Heritage site. Amid severe criticism from
many power experts and green activists,
the Bangladesh Power Development
Board (PDB) and Indian National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) in April
2013 signed three major agreements for
implementation of the plant.
Under the deals, the Bangladesh-India Friendship Power Company, a joint
venture between the PDB and the NTPC
with 50:50 share, will implement the
project in which officials claim that super
critical technology would be used to curb
the much talked-about carbon emission.
angladeshi security forces
said yesterday they had
arrested four women suspected of being members of a
home-grown militant group
blamed for an attack on a Dhaka
cafe last month in which 22 people were killed.
Five young men attacked the
upmarket cafe on July 1, an assault claimed by Islamic State.
Three of the attackers were
from affluent Dhaka homes who
had broken off contact with their
families months earlier.
Police believe that Jamaatul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, a
banned group that has pledged
allegiance to Islamic State,
played a role in organising the
group.
The four women were arrested in an overnight raid in the
capital, based on information
from a regional militant leader
who was detained last month,
said Rapid Action Battalion
spokesman Mizanur Rahman
Bhuiya. “Three of them are
students of a private university
and the other one is working as
an intern in the Dhaka Medical
College and Hospital,” he told
Reuters.
18
Gulf Times
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
COMMENT
Chairman: Abdullah bin Khalifa al-Attiyah
Production Editor: C P Ravindran
P.O.Box 2888
Doha, Qatar
editor@gulf-times.com
Telephone 44350478 (news),
44466404 (sport), 44466636 (home delivery)
Fax 44350474
GULF TIMES
Amid green shoots
of recovery, oil market
awaits deal on output
Oil bulls have taken heart from a few words of
optimism emanating from Opec.
Global oil prices jumped after Opec’s president said
last week the group will hold informal talks in Algiers
next month and Saudi Arabia signalled it’s open to
discussing an output freeze to stabilise markets. Prices
hit the highest levels in more than five weeks in early
trade yesterday.
Amid rising hopes of a deal to freeze production, hedge
funds increased their bullish long positions in West
Texas Intermediate crude by 17,154 futures and options
combined during the week ended August 9, according to
the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Meantime, US oil producers added rigs for the seventh
week in a row, the longest period of expansion since the
final days of the drilling boom in early 2014, according to
Bloomberg. Rigs rose by 15 to 396, after seven were added
last week, Baker Hughes said on Friday.
This year’s uptick in prices, along with companies’
increased efficiency, has prompted Moody’s Investors
Service to raise its global outlook for integrated and
independent oil and gas producers to “stable” from
“negative” for the first time in nearly two years.
Producers seem to have hit a bottom, said Steven Wood,
managing director for the energy team at the rating
agency.
Despite green shoots of optimism in the market, it
still is not a rosy path
of steady recovery for
the oil market. Not all
analysts are convinced
that the Saudi comments
will translate into an
output freeze when
Opec members meet in
Algeria on September
26-28. Russia, Iran, Iraq,
Nigeria, Libya, all pose
hurdles.
Tehran argues it needs
to regain market share
lost during years of sanctions softened only in January;
Opec’s second largest producer Iraq has agreed with
oil majors on new contract terms which will see output
rise further next year by up to 350,000bpd; current
production declines in Nigeria and Libya only raise
question of what level they should limit supplies at.
Russia, with its output hovering near an all-time
high of 10.85mn bpd, has sent conflicting signals on
a dialogue, while continuing to boost production.
Interestingly, Saudi Arabia itself has raised its output
to record levels in July due to rising seasonal domestic
demand and its customers asking for more.
The International Energy Agency expects non-Opec
output to rise by 300,000 bpd next year.
Oil, for sure, is much more than a fuel. It is a force even
bigger than its trillion dollar market; a fact explained
beyond doubt by the impact of consistently lower oil
prices on the Middle East as well as the whole world.
True, few analysts expect oil prices to return to the
high levels seen a few years ago any time soon. But oil
companies say global energy future envisages rising
demand and population growth, making oil an important
fuel for decades to come. Despite the emergence of
renewables, global energy security depends mainly on
fossil fuels for the foreseeable future.
The world is in need of a stable oil market with price
equilibrium.
EU leaders should present
a clear choice to Britain
If Britain becomes the
only European country
apart from Russia to
exclude itself from the EU
single market, it will not
succeed economically
By Anatole Kaletsky
London
T
he legend of King Canute
describes how an early
Anglo-Saxon king showed
his subjects the limits of royal
power. Canute set his throne by the sea
and commanded the rising tide to turn
back. When the sea rose as usual and
soaked Canute, he told his courtiers:
“Now let all men know how empty is
the power of kings.”
British Prime Minister Theresa
May, whose motto is “Brexit means
Brexit”, seems to believe that Canute’s
message was about democracy, not
astronomy: he should have held a
referendum. Though May opposed the
United Kingdom’s withdrawal from
the European Union, she now has a
new mantra: “We will make Brexit a
success because people voted for it.”
This is nonsense. If Britain becomes
the only European country apart
from Russia to exclude itself from
the EU single market, it will not
succeed economically, regardless of
how people vote. Democracy would
not have prevented the ocean tides,
driven by gravity, from drowning
Canute if he had stayed on his throne,
and a referendum will not turn
back the economic tides driven by
globalisation.
Businesses understand this.
That is why Britain now faces what
economists call “radical uncertainty”,
a situation where risks cannot be
rationally quantified, making changes
in interest rates, taxes and currency
values largely ineffective. As the
Bank of England has noted, many
investment and hiring decisions will
now be delayed until Britain’s trading
terms are clarified. If Brexit goes
ahead, this will take many years.
As Britain’s economy sinks into
recession, and the government’s
promises of a quick “successful Brexit”
prove unrealistic, public opinion
will shift. May’s small parliamentary
majority will come under pressure,
not least from the many enemies she
made by purging all of former prime
minister David Cameron’s allies from
office. The main decisions on Brexit
will therefore be made not in London
but in Brussels and Berlin.
In making these decisions,
European leaders must answer two
questions: Should Britain keep the
main benefits of EU membership if
it rejects EU rules and institutions?
And should some of these rules and
institutions be reformed to make the
EU more attractive to voters, not just
in Britain but throughout Europe.
Britain now faces
what economists call
“radical uncertainty”
The answers to both questions are
obvious: “No” to the first; “Yes” to the
second.
EU leaders should present a clear
choice: either Britain remains an
EU member after negotiating some
additional reforms to satisfy public
opinion; or it disengages completely
and deals with the EU on the same
basis as “any country in the World
Trade Organisation, from Afghanistan
to Zimbabwe”, which is how Britain’s
Institute for Fiscal Studies describes
the most plausible alternative to full
membership.
By making exit conditions nonnegotiable, while offering room for
manoeuvre on the terms of continuing
membership, Europe could shift
attention to the second, constructive
question: Can voters be persuaded to
feel positive again about the EU?
Addressing this question
seriously would focus attention on
the many tangible benefits of EU
membership beyond technocratic
abstractions about the single market:
environmental improvements, rural
subsidies, financing for science,
infrastructure, and higher education,
and the freedom to live and work
throughout Europe.
By excluding spurious intermediate
options such as the “Norwegian” or
“Swiss” models – which May has,
in any case, rejected, because they
imply free movement of people – the
EU could make Brexit’s economic
implications unequivocally clear.
London would cease to be Europe’s
financial capital because regulations
would be deliberately changed to
shift business activities into EU
jurisdictions. For the same reason,
many UK-based export industries
would become non-viable.
Facing this prospect, businesses
on both sides of the English Channel
would be impelled to campaign
openly for Britain to keep full EU
membership, instead of quietly
lobbying for special deals for their
own sectors. The media might even
point out the constitutional absurdity
of a representative democracy
treating a narrow referendum
majority as permanently binding on
parliamentary decisions.
Hard-core nationalists might pay
no attention, but enough marginal
Eurosceptics would probably
reconsider their positions to flip the
52%-48% Brexit majority the other
way.
The reversal of public opinion would
become near-certain if European
leaders genuinely heeded UK voters’
message, not by facilitating Brexit, but
by recognising the referendum as a
wake-up call for EU reform.
Suppose EU leaders invited the
British government to negotiate
on the policies that dominated the
referendum and are also fuelling
resentment in other European
countries: loss of local control over
immigration; the transfer of power
from national parliaments to Brussels;
and erosion of social models that
depend on strong bonds of citizenship
and generous welfare states.
Imagine, for example, that
EU leaders endorsed Denmark’s
recent proposal to allow national
governments to differentiate between
welfare payments to citizens and
recent immigrants, or that it extended
to all of Europe the Swiss plan for an
“emergency brake” against sudden
immigration surges. Imagine them
easing the counterproductive budget
and banking rules that have suffocated
southern Europe. Imagine, finally,
that the EU acknowledged that
centralisation of power has gone too
far and formally ended the drive for
“ever closer union.”
Such reforms are considered
unthinkable in Brussels, because
they would require treaty changes
and could be rejected by voters. But
voters who opposed previous EU
treaties for centralising power would
almost certainly welcome reforms
that restored authority to national
parliaments. The real obstacle to
reform is not the difficulty of treaty
change; it is the bureaucracy’s
resistance to ceding power.
The European Commission remains
obsessed with defending the acquis
communautaire, the collection of
powers “acquired” by the Union,
which EU doctrine dictates must
never be returned to nation-states.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the Commission
president, and his chief of staff,
Martin Selmayr, have even welcomed
Brexit as a chance to “strengthen the
acquis” by centralising power even
more.
Juncker, like May, should recall
King Canute. The tide of national
democracy is rising across Europe, and
slogans about “ever closer union” will
not reverse it. European leaders must
acknowledge reality – or watch Europe
drown. - Project Syndicate
zAnatole Kaletsky is chief economist
and co-chairman of Gavekal
Dragonomics and the author of
Capitalism 4.0, The Birth of a New
Economy.
The
International
Energy Agency
expects
non-Opec
output to rise
by 300,000bpd
next year
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British Prime Minister Theresa May: Though May opposed the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union, she now has a new mantra: “We will make Brexit
a success because people voted for it.” This is nonsense. If Britain becomes the only European country apart from Russia to exclude itself from the EU single market, it
will not succeed economically, regardless of how people vote.
The hidden danger of big data
By Carlo Ratti and Dirk Helbing
Cambridge
I
n game theory, the “price of
anarchy” describes how individuals
acting in their own self-interest
within a larger system tend to
reduce that larger system’s efficiency. It
is a ubiquitous phenomenon, one that
almost all of us confront, in some form,
on a regular basis.
For example, if you are a
city planner in charge of traffic
management, there are two ways you
can address traffic flows in your city.
Generally, a centralised, top-down
approach – one that comprehends
the entire system, identifies choke
points and makes changes to eliminate
them – will be more efficient than
simply letting individual drivers make
their own choices on the road, with
the assumption that these choices, in
aggregate, will lead to an acceptable
outcome.
The first approach reduces the cost
of anarchy and makes better use of all
available information.
The world today is awash in data.
In 2015, mankind produced as much
information as was created in all
previous years of human civilisation.
Every time we send a message, make
a call, or complete a transaction, we
leave digital traces. We are quickly
approaching what Italian writer
Italo Calvino presciently called the
“memory of the world”: a full digital
copy of our physical universe.
As the Internet expands into new
realms of physical space through
the Internet of Things, the price of
anarchy will become a crucial metric
in our society, and the temptation to
eliminate it with the power of big data
analytics will grow stronger.
Examples of this abound. Consider
the familiar act of buying a book
online through Amazon. Amazon has a
mountain of information about all of its
users – from their profiles to their search
histories to the sentences they highlight
in e-books – which it uses to predict
what they might want to buy next.
The world today is
awash in data
As in all forms of centralised
artificial intelligence, past patterns
are used to forecast future ones.
Amazon can look at the last 10 books
you purchased and, with increasing
accuracy, suggest what you might
want to read next.
But here we should consider what
is lost when we reduce the level of
anarchy. The most meaningful book
you should read after those previous
10 is not one that fits neatly into an
established pattern, but rather one
that surprises or challenges you to
look at the world in a different way.
Contrary to the traffic-flow
scenario described above, optimised
suggestions – which often amount
to a self-fulfilling prophecy of your
next purchase – might not be the best
paradigm for online book browsing.
Big data can multiply our options
while filtering out things we don’t
want to see, but there is something to
be said for discovering that 11th book
through pure serendipity.
What is true of book buying is also
true for many other systems that are
being digitised, such as our cities
and societies. Centralised municipal
systems now use algorithms to
monitor urban infrastructure, from
traffic lights and subway use, to waste
disposal and energy delivery.
Many mayors worldwide are
fascinated by the idea of a central
control room, such as Rio de Janeiro’s
IBM-designed operations centre,
where city managers can respond to
new information in real time.
But with centralised algorithms
coming to manage every facet of
society, data-driven technocracy is
threatening to overwhelm innovation
and democracy. This outcome should
be avoided at all costs.
Decentralised decision-making
is crucial for the enrichment of
society. Data-driven optimisation,
conversely, derives solutions from a
predetermined paradigm, which, in
its current form, often excludes the
transformational or counterintuitive
ideas that propel humanity forward.
A certain amount of randomness in
our lives allows for new ideas or modes
of thinking that would otherwise be
missed. And, on a macro scale, it is
necessary for life itself.
If nature had used predictive
algorithms that prevented random
mutation in the replication of DNA,
our planet would probably still be at
the stage of a very optimised singlecell organism.
Decentralised decision-making
can create synergies between human
and machine intelligence through
processes of natural and artificial
co-evolution. Distributed intelligence
might sometimes reduce efficiency in
the short term, but it will ultimately
lead to a more creative, diverse and
resilient society. The price of anarchy
is a price well worth paying if we
want to preserve innovation through
serendipity. - Project Syndicate
zCarlo Ratti directs the Senseable
City Laboratory at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and heads
the World Economic Forum’s Global
Agenda Council on Future Cities. Dirk
Helbing is professor of computational
social science at the Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology (ETH) in
Zurich and heads the FuturICT and
Nervousnet initiatives.
Gulf Times
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
19
COMMENT
Faster, higher, stronger... and cleaner
It is against the spirit of
the Games to stand by and
reap huge profits while the
city that opens its doors to
the world bears crushing,
generational costs
By Yuriko Koike
Tokyo
T
he Summer Olympic
Games in Rio de Janeiro are
underway, and as much as
I would like to sit back and
watch every hour of them (I admit,
I snuck a peek of the wondrous
Kohei Uchimura competing for
his gymnastics gold medal), I find
myself engrossed in a different
kind of spectatorship: I’m poring
over spreadsheets, contracts and
organisational charts.
Now that I have been elected
governor of Tokyo, which will host the
2020 Games, I am quickly preparing
myself and my team for the gruelling
tests of management that lie ahead
of us.
In particular, we must become
world-class cost-control accountants,
so that the Games are a success not
just for the athletes, but also for the
citizens of Tokyo and all Japanese. We
want to take pride in our Games, and
we cannot do that if we hobble future
generations with debt. The Tokyo
they inhabit must not be dotted with
white-elephant structures that served
a single purpose in 2020, only to mar
the skyline for years and decades after.
Admittedly, I am coming to the task
late in the day, and some of the plans
for the Games – such as the layout of
event spaces around the city – have
already been set into motion by my
predecessors.
My immediate predecessor as
Cranes at a construction site are reflected on a commercial building in Tokyo. The Japanese capital will host the 2020
Games. Olympic host cities have often been saddled with debt, and their cityscapes have been laden with unused and
unusable sports facilities.
governor of Tokyo, Yoichi Masuzoe,
resigned over a spending scandal, so
I doubt that prudent budgeting has
been the credo in planning for the
Games up to now.
My team will conduct a careful
forensic review of contracts already
signed in preparation for the Games,
with our purpose being to put the
interests of Tokyo’s citizens and the
athletes who will compete here first.
As with many past Games in other
cities, cost overruns are already piling
up, and those leading the process
so far appear to have done little to
prevent waste.
In fact, I suspect that public
anxiety about government profligacy
contributed to my election. Though
my team and I face a steep learning
curve, we also have a clear goal: a
successful 2020 Games that enhances
– rather than derails – Tokyo’s future.
We’ve started by acquainting
ourselves with the Games’ history,
with an eye on the long-term
economic and social impact on host
cities. Sadly, the record isn’t good.
Olympic host cities have often
been saddled with debt, and
their cityscapes have been laden
with unused and unusable sports
facilities. And, worst of all, the
Games too often bring public
corruption that lingers long after
they’ve gone, like a chronic infection
for the host city’s politics.
Part of the reason for this poor
historical record is that the process
for organising and managing the
games is often dispersed, leaving
no real accountability. National
governments of course assume partial
responsibility, and bear part of the
cost, but government officials have far
too many responsibilities to devote
themselves to the process entirely.
As such, the host-city government
itself often picks up the slack and
bears the lion’s share of the cost. But,
again, because of limited resources
and expertise, to say nothing of
venality, city governments are not well
positioned to control costs.
Finally, there are organising
committees made up of local grandees
and businesspeople, who help raise
funds for the Games. But these
committees also have significant
influence over key decisions about
government outlays, such as where
major facilities will be built, who will
build them, and so forth.
Under this fractured arrangement,
everyone is responsible for everything,
which means that no one is
responsible for anything. Hence the
Games’ disheartening record of waste,
corruption, and public debt.
My government will manage the
Games very differently. First, we will
introduce transparency in contracting.
This is a taxpayer-funded event
for public consumption, so those
bidding on government projects
should not expect the same level of
confidentiality as in private-sector
contractual arrangements. After all,
there is nothing secret about the
biggest sporting event in the world.
Second, we will delegate oversight
of the Games to specially selected
accountants and anti-corruption
specialists. There is simply too much
money at stake for “business as usual.”
Finally, we will remind other
stakeholders of their own
responsibilities. The International
Olympic Committee (IOC), corporate
sponsors, and television networks
around the world should all want the
Games to be affordable and free of
corruption.
It is against the spirit of the Games
to stand by and reap huge profits while
the city that opens its doors to the
world bears crushing, generational
costs.
When I travel to Rio to accept the
Olympic flag that will be raised over
the Tokyo Summer Games, I will ask
the IOC how it intends to safeguard
the spirit of the Games, in Tokyo and
in all the Olympics going forward.
The Olympic motto has long been
“Faster, Higher, Stronger”. I intend
to propose to the IOC, and to the
Olympic sponsors that, in Tokyo, we
add a fourth objective: cleaner.
Only when we guarantee a cleaner,
corruption-free Games for the host
cities – and a cleaner, doping-free
Games for the athletes – will we truly
live up to the Olympic spirit.— Project
Syndicate,
zYuriko Koike, incoming governor
of Tokyo, was Japan’s former defence
minister, national security adviser, and
a member of the National Diet.
Weather report
Letters
Three-day forecast
TODAY
Safe roads
are up to us
Dear Sir,
With reference to the report on road
crash statistics in Qatar (“First half of
year sees 3,114 road accidents”, Gulf
Times, August 14), thanks should go to
the Ministry of Development Planning
and Statistics (MDPS) for its great
efforts in collecting and compiling
the necessary data and making them
public.
Qatar, according to the data
presented in the report, has one road
accident death every alternate day.
Seventeen accidents occur daily,
resulting in injury to people and or
damage to vehicle or property. Both
these figures are on level with the ones
in developed countries if ones takes
into account Qatar’s population and
the number of vehicles on road.
However, the number of traffic
violations at 801,524 in the last six
months is alarming and raises the
red flag. In terms of safety, every
traffic violation is a near-miss that
could have led to an accident. In
other words, near-miss is a potential
situation that may have resulted in
injury or damage in slightly different
circumstances.
To improve road safety, we need to
lower the number of traffic violations
first. Qatar, in general, has very good
roads, clear markers, no heavy rain
and educated drivers. The Traffic
Department is putting stringent
controls, more surveillance and fines
to curb unsafe behaviour.
The MDPS figures show that there
are 4,380 traffic violations on a day.
For this, we are all responsible and
we should take a pledge and assure
the Traffic Department that we will
bring this figure to half by the end of
this year. By putting safety first and
integrating safe behaviour into our
daily activity (including driving) we
can achieve accident reduction. Let us
contribute to prevent injury and save
life.
Vijaykumar Dhandha
(Address supplied)
Change watering
time at garden
Dear Sir,
I would like to thank the Ministry
of Municipality and Environment
(Baladiya) authorities for maintaining
the Old Airport Garden in good
condition. But it will be great if the
timing of the watering through the
sprinkler system at the garden is
changed.
The sprinklers are now put on
from around 7pm to 10pm. This is
the time people and children come
to the garden for walk and play. As
water sprinklers are put on, the whole
garden becomes wet, including some
benches.
It becomes slippery and very
inconvenient to walk around the
High: 41 C
Low : 33 C
garden after the watering. The
garden is for people to enjoy and
relax. Hence it is requested that
Baladiya authorities change the
water sprinkler timing at the Airport
Garden to start from 11pm when it is
empty.
Expected low visibility early morning
at places.
THURSDAY
High: 40 C
Low: 33 C
NT
Sunny
(Full name and e-mail address
supplied)
FRIDAY
High: 41 C
Low: 32 C
Please send us
your letters
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Live issues
Need to declutter? Don’t bother
By Oliver Burkeman
New York
I
t’s a mysterious truth of
the digital era that we can
build self-driving cars and
astronauts can tweet from
space – yet there’s still no halfdecent, non-maddening system for
organising the photos you take on
your smartphone. Actually, it’s not
that mysterious: there are simply
too many photos.
Back in pre-digital days, when
nobody owned more than a few
thousand snaps, arranging them
in albums made sense. Then came
software that tried to replicate albums,
which worked for a bit.
But now that it’s normal to return
from a day trip with 100 snaps, a
threshold’s been breached.
Naturally, the same goes for
e-mails, electronic documents,
bookmarked websites and so on: we’re
each expected to manage a volume
of data that once might have kept a
whole government department fully
occupied.
“I spent days experimenting
with neurotic tagging systems,
tedious backup processes and album
management,” Brian Chen wrote in
the New York Times recently, before
concluding that the only way to
manage your photos is to give up.
Rather than
obsessing over
tidiness, look for
peace of mind
whatever your
surroundings
Upload them, blurry mistakes and
all, to the least bad service, Google
Photos. Then rely on its search
function to find what you need when
you need it.
For those of us with neat-freak
tendencies, it’s a harsh truth we
have to keep relearning: treating
your digital “possessions” like your
physical ones is a loser’s game.
You could spend a lifetime trying
to keep them tidy. But as Chen notes,
you’d be making a bad “search/sort
tradeoff ”: it would take so long, and
search technology is now so good,
that you’d be wasting countless
hours. That’s also why you should
abandon your complex hierarchy of
e-mail folders and use a single archive
instead, and chuck every document
into an “everything bucket” app, such
as Evernote.
Accept the mess – which, if you
like keeping things orderly, won’t
feel good at first. I speak as someone
who regularly deletes e-mails from
my spam and trash folders, not
because I need the space but because
it offends me to think they’re still
there.
Letting go of the craving for
tidiness isn’t only useful in a digital
context, though: it applies to physical
possessions, too.
Listen to Marie Kondo and other
evangelists of a clutter-free life, and
you’d be forgiven for thinking that the
key to serenity in a consumerist world
is getting rid of your stuff.
Yet that soon becomes a fixation
on getting your surroundings just
right – when being “zen”, in this
context, is really a matter of finding
peace of mind whatever your
surroundings.
In a recent case study (which I found
via Science Of Us), neurologists in
Lisbon told of a 65-year-old woman
who, following a stroke, temporarily
lost her sense of “mine”.
None of her material possessions
– or her cats – felt like hers, though
she knew intellectually that they
were. The feeling vanished after a few
days. But it didn’t seem to make her
miserable, and to me it sounds rather
healthy.
Instead of trying so hard to get
organised or decluttered, you could
try asking: how much of your
disorganisation could you afford to
stop caring about?- Guardian News
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20
Gulf Times
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
QATAR
Mathaf’s curatorial camp
aims to promote creativity
B
uilding on the success of
the 2015 inaugural programme, Mathaf: Arab
Museum of Modern Art, Doha
organises its second Curatorial
Summer Camp from September
4-9.
The camp highlights Mathaf’s
commitment to exploring artistic production and curatorial
practices, and builds on the history of curatorial, educational
and community engagement
programmes designed by the
museum to stimulate creativity,
enquiry, appreciation and debate
around modern and contemporary art in the region.
Local and regional curators are
invited to participate in the sixday camp that includes a series
of lectures, talks, discussions,
tours and other creative presentations by curators and professionals in the field.
Guest lecturers this year include curators Vasif Kortun,
director of Research and Programmes of SALT Istanbul; and
Kristine Khouri, independent
researcher and curator. They
join Mathaf director Abdellah Karroum, museum’s curators and local archive specialists to participate in a variety
of sessions during the Curatorial Summer Camp. Topics addressed in the programme include curating archives, artist’s
archives and regionally specific
Mathaf hosts Curatorial Summer Camps annually.
possibilities for documenting,
archiving and sharing histories
of cultural production, exhi-
bitions and other creative encounters in the Arab region.
Members of Qatar’s artistic
and creative community participated in 2015’s successful
three-month programme that
featured a number of presentations and workshops delivered by curators including
Qatar Airways unveils rebranded
cabin crew recognition scheme
Q
atar Airways’ Customer
Experience team has
announced the rebranding of its cabin crew recognition
programme – Kafou, which
means “job well done” and the
addition of colleague feedback
to help recognise superior service as it happens on board Qatar
Airways flights.
Kafou combines feedback
from multiple sources and consolidates the data into a single
system for easier processing,
faster recognition of stellar
cabin crew, and integration into
the cabin crew performance
system.
Kafou elevates the former
recognition programme for
the benefit of Qatar Airways’
10,000 cabin crew members
with faster feedback loops and
the ability for the Customer
Experience leadership team to
provide kudos and share customer and colleague feedback.
Customers can continue to
provide feedback in their preferred method – through direct
feedback on board, via “Tell Us”
forms provided on all aircraft,
or via “Tell Us” on the Qatar
Airways website, http://www.
qatarairways.com/qa/en/tellus.page. Feedback is factored
in to the cabin crew member’s
review of overall guest experience delivery and is taken into
consideration for their annual
performance review and career
progression path.
Qatar Airways senior vice
president Customer Experience
Rossen Dimitrov said: “We encourage our crew members on
Qatar Airways’ new cabin crew recognition programme, Kafou means “job well done.”
board to constantly challenge
themselves to deliver customer
experience that is personalised,
purposeful, and pleasant.
“Qatar Airways is extremely
proud of the young men and
women who serve as our brand
ambassadors on board, and
their commitment to excellence, and as such, we wanted
to extend upon our existing
feedback programme, so that
all of us – fellow colleagues and
our loyal passengers – can take
part in congratulating cabin
crew for a job well done.”
The programme re-launch
was celebrated yesterday at an
official ceremony in Doha, recognising cabin crew who best
demonstrate the values that
have helped make Qatar Air-
ways on board service worldclass. Jonathan Michelsen,
Elbert Hernandez, Hiba Rqfiq,
Clarence Virtudazo and Nathanael Hovee were recognised for
Safety First, Ambassadors of
the Brand, Business Awareness,
and Leadership.
The cabin crew community
at Qatar Airways is highly-diverse, comprising over 120 na-
tionalities, speaking more than
160 languages.
Qatar Airways cabin crew
have consistently ranked as one
of the world’s best cabin crews,
including being awarded Best
Airline Staff Service in the Middle East three times. For a full list
of Qatar Airways’ awards, follow
http://www.qatarairways.com/
us/en/our-awards.page.
Carolyn Christov–Bakargiev,
Juan Gaitan, Jean-Hubert Martin and Egyptian artist Wael
Shawky, with Mathaf curators
and educators.“Our curatorial summer camp follows initiatives such as Project Space,
dedicated to new tendencies in
artistic production and emerging curatorial practices and
highlights the role that the museum plays as a site of knowledge production and debate,
and our commitment to sharing
new perspectives on art in relation to its contexts,” Mathaf director Abdellah Karroum said.
The programme interrogates
curatorial thinking and practices
to introduce ideas and debates
on art discourse and the practical application of curating. The
programme is open to local and
regional creative professionals,
students and scholars interested
in developing a contemporary
critical discourse on practices in
art and curating.
Those interested in applying
should e-mail a one page letter
of interest, CV and a 250 word
curatorial proposal related to
curating archives, to: MathafCuratorialTeam@qm.org.qa by
August 18.
The Curatorial Summer
Camp initiative comes as part
of Mathaf’s ongoing curatorial
and research project, Doha Art
Map, a collaborative mapping
experiment to locate creativity and artistic production in
Doha.
Airline offers discounts
for summer festival
Q
atar Airways is offering
discounts of up to 25%
off on flights to Doha,
as well as offers on Qmiles and
more, to entice tourists from the
GCC region, to experience the
Qatar Summer Festival celebrations.
The special promotion, delivered in partnership with Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA), is
available on flights to Doha from
Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain and Oman, in both Economy
and Premium cabins.
Travellers from Doha can also
enjoy a special summer promotion of up to 40% on select
destinations across the national
carrier’s expanding network to
more than 150 destinations.
The Qatar Summer Festival is
a month-long series of special
events, promotions and entertainment for families, reflecting
the rich culture and heritage of
Qatar. Taking place this month,
the nationwide festival is one
of the largest annual events in
Qatar, attracting visitors from
throughout the GCC region.
This year the festival will see
the largest-ever Entertainment
City at the Doha Exhibition and
Convention Centre, featuring
games, rides, entertainment, and
food. The festival programme
also features a three-day Doha
Comedy Festival, “Street Madness” at Al Gharafa Sports Club,
and firework displays at the Corniche to celebrate the opening
and closing of the festival.
Qatar Airways senior vice
president Commercial GCC, Levant, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Africa,
and Indian sub-continent, Ehab
Amin, said: “There is no better
time to invite our friends from
across the region to visit Doha
and experience the exciting Qatar Summer Festival.
“With 25% discount on flights
to Doha, travellers can also take
advantage of incredible hotel
deals and enjoy an amazing entertainment programme during
the Qatar Summer Festival. We
want to spread the word that
Qatar is the number one choice
for families looking for a getaway
this August, and we are pleased
to be able to facilitate travel to
our home city.”
QTA chief marketing and
promotions officer Rashed alQurese said: “The Qatar Summer Festival is one of the marketing initiatives planned by
QTA for the annual festival calendar to encourage families from
the region to come and enjoy the
innovative festival entertainment programme during the
month of August.
“We are particularly encouraged by the extremely positive
response at the festival venues
so far, and we look forward to
welcoming further visitors from
throughout the region.”
As part of the summer promotion, travellers can take advantage of special discounts
and packages in 56 hotels in
Qatar, choosing from “pay for
two nights and stay for three” or
“pay for five nights and stay for
six” in hotel apartments by visiting www.qatarsummerfestival.
qa/en/promotions.
Travellers must book to travel
by August 31 to benefit from
these great offers.
Flights can be booked through
any Qatar Airways sales office, preferred travel agents, or
through qatarairways.com.
Mannai Auto in ‘guaranteed buyback’ promo on GMC’s Acadia, Terrain
M
2016 GMC Acadia SLT
annai Auto has launched a
limited time offer giving all
new owners of GMC Acadia
or Terrain models the option to resell
their vehicles to Mannai Auto at the
maximum redeemable value of the car,
considering usage and age.
The buyback offer is open to all
customers and can be redeemed if the
customer has to leave the country.
It is valid for new vehicle purchases
until the end of August 2016.
Mahmoud Skhiri, general sales
manager of Mannai Auto Group said:
“We expect all our vehicles to perform
at the highest level every time a customer gets behind the wheel.
GMC customers are looking for
premium drive quality coupled with
advanced styling and technology.
This is the major reason customers choose GMC. Our new summer
campaign offering guaranteed buyback to customers, if required, is an
extension of this brand philosophy.
We are committed to delivering dependability and reliability in everything we do.”
The offer will help people and their
families in Qatar buy a brand new vehicle with the assurance that they can
return it to Mannai Auto without worrying about finding a new buyer for
their vehicles if they are to leave the
country.
Skhiri added: “Mannai Auto
launched a similar offer in 2015 with
a guaranteed buyback option that
gave vehicle owners a premium price
against market depreciation.
That successful campaign continues to be implemented today as a majority of those qualifying owners are
using their buyback option to upgrade
to the latest models.
So we are confident that this campaign, in addition to providing assurance to people who want to invest in
a family vehicle, will also build confidence in new owners who will love the
performance, styling and convenience
of owning a GMC.”
This offer is valid in conjunction
with independent financial solutions offered by banks in Qatar, as
per the terms and conditions of each
institution.