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FRIDAY | JUNE 24, 2016 | RAMADHAN 18, 1437 AH
VOL. 35 NO. 223 | PAGES 20 | BAISAS 200
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editor@omanobserver.om
Editor-in-Chief
ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI
Oman Establishment for Press, Publication and Advertising
PO Box 974, Postal Code 100, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman
SMARTPHONE GAZING IN THE DARK CAN MAKE YOU ‘BLIND’ P10
OMAN
Health Ministry sets
priorities for 5 years
MUSCAT: Dr Ahmed bin Mohammed al
Saeedi, Minister of Health in a statement
to Oman Arabic newspaper, explained
that the Ministry of Health will strive
to find alternative sources for funding
while paying more attention to building
constructive partnership with the private
sector. “We are aware that the ninth
five-year plan coincides with changing
economic conditions and falling oil
prices but we are relying on the results
of the previous achievements and the
well-qualified human resources. SEE P2
WORLD
Court blocks Obama
immigration plan
WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court
on Thursday dealt President Barack
Obama a harsh defeat by blocking
his plan to spare millions of illegal
immigrants from deportation in a
split 4-4 ruling he called frustrating to
those aiming to fix America’s broken
immigration system. The ruling, coming
seven months before Obama’s term in
office ends, marked the latest success
that his Republican adversaries have had
in thwarting a major policy initiative of
the Democratic president.
SEE P3
Yemen demands
rebel withdrawal
KUWAIT CITY: The Yemeni government
said on Thursday that rebels must
withdraw from all territory they have
seized since 2014 and hand back
control of state institutions ahead of any
political settlement. The statement is a
new blow to proposals put forward by
UN mediators in an effort to close the
gap between the warring parties. On
Wednesday, the rebel delegation said it
would not sign up to any deal on military
and security issues until there was
agreement on a consensus president
and a national unity government to
oversee the transition.
SEE P6
CHILE DOWN COLOMBIA TO REACH FINAL P18
KNIFE EDGE: Even with a vote to stay, Cameron could struggle to repair the rifts in his party, hold on to his job
LONDON: Britons voted on Thursday
on whether to stay in the European
Union in a referendum that could
change the face of Europe and is
being nervously watched by financial
markets and politicians across the
world. Results are expected by Friday
early morning
A British exit, or Brexit, would
deprive the 28-member EU of its
second-biggest economy and one of
its two main military powers, sending
political shockwaves across the
continent. After four months of bitter
campaigning, polling stations opened
at 0600 GMT and closed at 2100, with
results expected to be announced by
the 382 individual local counting areas
between around 0100 and 0300 on
Friday.
Prime Minister David Cameron,
who is for “Remain”, called the vote
under pressure from the anti-EU
wing of his Conservative Party and
the surging UK Independence Party
(UKIP), hoping to end decades of
debate over Britain’s ties with Europe.
Even with a vote to stay, Cameron
could struggle to repair the rifts in his
party and hold on to his job.
The “Leave” campaign says Britain’s
economy would benefit from a Brexit.
“Remain” says it would cause financial
chaos and impoverish the nation for
years or even decades to come.
Two polls conducted on Tuesday
and Wednesday found “Remain” was
in the lead, although the overall picture
from the last few days of polling was
In or out of EU?
A woman holds up a placard in favour
of the remain camp by a polling station
in north London on Thursday. — AFP
A woman rides a bicycle as she leaves a polling station at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea, west London on Thursday. — AFP
of a vote that was too close to forecast.
An Ipsos MORI poll for the Evening
Standard newspaper found support for
“Remain” on 52 per cent and “Leave”
on 48 per cent.
A Populus poll found “Remain” 10
points ahead on 55 per cent.
Cameron voted early, and said on
Twitter: “Vote Remain so that our
SALALAH: Water from heavy
downpour in Dhofar entered Salalah
Airport terminal buildings through the
ceiling on Wednesday night, the Ministry
of Transport and Communication said
in a statement. Salalah witnessed heavy
rainfall on Wednesday. Salalah Airport
was among the facilities affected where
rain seeped through the ceiling and
flooded the terminal.
Photos and videos of the flooded
airport went viral on social media.
The Ministry of Transport and
4
P
VACCINES SOON
Iraqi soldiers in Fallujah on Thursday. — Reuters
5
NO NSG CONSENSUS OVER INDIA’S
MEMBERSHIP BID
P
TRUMP LANDS IN SCOTLAND
AFTER NOMINATION
P
7
WEATHER TODAY
MUSCAT
MAX: 340C
MIN: 300C
SALALAH
MAX: 310C
MIN: 270C
SUNRISE 05.20 AM
PRAYER TIMINGS
FAJR: 03:51
DHUHR: 12:09
ASR: 15:26
MAGHRIB: 18:56
ISHA: 20:26
NIZWA
MAX: 420C
MIN: 220C
It is only the third referendum in
British history.
The first, also about membership
of what was then called the European
Economic Community, was in 1975.
The
campaign,
which
has
exposed bitter divisions in the ruling
Conservative Party, was dominated
by immigration and the economy
IS offensives could Salalah airport terminal flooded
displace 2.3m Iraqis
INSIDESTORIES
SUU KYI MET BY FRENZIED FANS
ON VISIT TO THAILAND
children and grandchildren have a
brighter future.”
His main rival, former London
mayor Boris Johnson, who is the
favourite with bookmakers to succeed
Cameron, tweeted: “Now is the time to
believe in this country and #VoteLeave.
Let’s make today our Independence
Day.”
and shaken by the murder of pro-EU
Labour lawmaker Jo Cox last week.
Traders, investors and companies
were braced for volatility on financial
markets whatever the outcome of
a vote that both reflected, and has
fuelled, an anti-establishment mood
also seen in the United States and
elsewhere in Europe.
Sterling gained 1.5 per cent against
the dollar on Thursday, breaking above
$1.49 for the first time since December
2015 after the Ipsos MORI poll was
released. SEE ALSO P7, P8 and P13
BAGHDAD:
Upcoming military
offensives in Iraq against IS, including
an assault on the northern city of Mosul,
could displace at least 2.3 million people,
the United Nations humanitarian
coordinator for Iraq said on Thursday.
The prediction of such a vast
humanitarian
emergency
creates
additional complications for the Iraqi
government and its US allies, who have
announced plans for offensives to drive
IS fighters this year from most of their
Iraqi territory.
More than 3.4 million people across
Iraq have already been forced by conflict
to leave their homes, according to the
United Nations.
In the past month, 85,000 people
fled Fallujah, an IS stronghold an hour’s
drive from Baghdad, amid a military
campaign that has recaptured large
parts of the city.
Most of the displaced are from Iraq’s
minority community, raising concerns
among officials that US-backed military
gains against IS will not bring stability to
Iraq more than 13 years after a US-led
invasion toppled Saddam Hussein.
IS fighters swept through much of
northern and western Iraq two years
ago and declared a caliphate to rule
over territory there and in neighbouring
Syria.
The extremists have lost ground in
recent weeks to a number of enemies
on several fronts in both countries, with
the main battles still looming for the
caliphate’s two de facto capitals, Mosul
in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.
Lise Grande, the UN humanitarian
coordinator for Iraq, said in an
interview that at least 430,000 more
people could be displaced this year in
Anbar, Iraq’s sprawling desert province
stretching west from Fallujah to the
Syrian border.
Government forces have retaken
several cities in Anbar from IS in the
past six months and are still pressing up
the Euphrates river valley towards the
border town of Qaim.
— Reuters
The Ministry of Transport
and Communications to
probe the incident.
Communications confirmed the leakage
at the airport.
“The Ministry of Transport and
Communications confirms what was
circulating on social media regarding
the leakage in the new Salalah Airport.
The ministry immediately formed a
team to fix the leakage as well as launch
an investigation on the issue.”
“According to the contractor’s initial
report, the gutters on the roof were
clogged and are being cleaned,” it said.
The team formed by the ministry will
run an investigation into the leakage in
co-operation with experts in the field.
The ministry said the contractor of
the project will be responsible for the
safety and maintenance of the airport.
Solar plane makes first Atlantic crossing
Zika, dengue
antibodies
found: Study
PARIS: European scientists announced on Thursday they had found
antibodies which attack Zika, a discovery they hope will pave the way for a
protective vaccine against the braindamaging virus.
The antibodies — frontline soldiers
in the immune system — “efficiently
neutralise” Zika in human cells in lab
dishes, and are also effective against
its cousin virus dengue. The discovery “could lead to the development of
a universal vaccine” against both diseases, they hoped. The Zika-zapping
molecules were obtained from people
who had been infected with dengue
and whose immune systems had produced antibodies to fight that disease.
“The antibodies could be used, for
example, to protect pregnant women
at risk of contracting the Zika virus,”
said Felix Rey of France’s Institut Pasteur who co-authored the twin studies,
published in Nature and Nature Immunology.
— Reuters
Solar Impulse 2, piloted by Swiss aviator Bertrand Piccard, flies over Spanish air
force aerobatic team Patrulla Aguila before landing at San Pablo airport in Seville
on Thursday. — Reuters
MADRID: A solar-powered plane made
history on Thursday by becoming the
first such aircraft to successfully cross the
Atlantic Ocean, the Solar Impulse team
announced on Twitter.
“We want to represent the new world,
the world of #cleantechs,” Pilot Bertrand
Piccard posted on Twitter after the plan
landed safely in Spain. “The #futureisclean
and it starts now!”
The plane, named Solar Impulse 2,
completed the flight in 70 hours and
landed at Seville’s airport. This is the first
time a solar plane has ever crossed the
Atlantic. The trip took nearly 20 hours less
than originally estimated.
The two scientists behind the project,
Piccard and Andre Borschberghope this
endeavour will draw attention to the
possibilities of using renewable energy
sources for a wide variety of things.
The carbon fibre plane has a wingspan
of 72 metres. The journey began in
March 2015 in Abu Dhabi, the capital of
the United Arab Emirates and has been
making sometimes interrupted progress
eastward ever since.
Fuelled solely by solar energy, the
plane was launched from New York on
Monday. — dpa
inside
s deoman
o a
oman
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OMANDAILYOBSERVER
F R I DAY l J U N E 2 4 l 2 0 1 6
Health Ministry sets priorities for next five years
KEY AREAS IN FOCUS: Priority for sustaining achievements, medical cities, human resources development and medical education
MUSCAT:
Dr
Ahmed
bin
Mohammed al Saeedi, Minister of
Health, affirmed that the ministry has
set priorities for the next five years,
specifically activating the healthcare
system, preparing new health policies,
sustaining the existing achievements
while focusing on the construction
of integrated medical cities, investing
in human resources development,
restructuring medical education and
boosting healthcare spending.
In a statement to Oman Arabic
newspaper, he explained that the
Ministry of Health will strive to find
alternative sources for funding while
paying more attention to building
constructive partnership with the
private sector.
“We are aware that the ninth fiveyear plan coincides with changing
economic conditions and falling oil
prices but we are relying on the results
of the previous achievements and
the well-qualified human resources.
Besides, the strategies of the ninth
five-year plan are capable of coping
We are aware that the ninth
five-year plan coincides
with changing economic
conditions and falling oil
prices but we are relying on
the results of the previous
achievements and the wellqualified human resources.
Besides, the strategies of
the ninth five-year plan are
capable of coping with the
rapidly changing conditions
as these strategies focus on
finding sources of funding
with the rapidly changing conditions pushing ahead for more efficiency and
as these strategies focus on finding productivity,” the minister said.
sources of funding and investments so
The health system in the Sultanate
as to preserve the achievements while is facing several setbacks, the
and investments so as to
preserve the achievements
while pushing ahead
for more efficiency and
productivity
DR AHMED BIN MOHAMMED AL SAEEDI
Minister of Health
most notable of them being the assistant medical cadres.
demographic and epidemiological
These challenges have prompted
changes, the rising cost of healthcare us to rethink the importance of
services, scarcity of medical and developing the healthcare system
and lay down a long-term strategy
that is capable of overcoming
such difficulties, the minister pointed
out.
Rain-drenched Salalah
all set to receive tourists
SALALAH: With the onset of the Khareef season, Dhofar has started receiving rains, turning the governorate
endearingly temperate in contrast to the rest of the region. Salalah, with its cool clime and tourist attractions
during the season, draws thousands of visitors from within and outside the Sultanate every year. This year also
Salalah is all set to play host to the ever-increasing number of holidaymakers.
Agriculture
Minister receives
AAAID Chairman
MUSCAT: Dr Fuad bin Jaafar al
Sajwani, Minister of Agriculture
and Fisheries, received in his office
on Thursday Mohamed bin Obaid
al Mazrouei, Chairman of the Arab
Authority for Agricultural Investment
and Development (AAAID), currently
visiting the Sultanate.
The two sides reviewed avenues
for the agricultural and fisheries
investment in the Sultanate, as well as
projects implemented by the Sultanate
to enhance food security.
AAAID hailed the Sultanate’s
permanent support for the authority in
implementing its investment activities.
The meeting was attended by
Dr Ahmed bin Nassir al Bakri,
Under-Secretary of the Ministry
of Agriculture and Fisheries for
Agriculture and some officials at the
ministry. — ONA
MSM general index gains 8 points
MUSCAT: Muscat Securities Market (MSM) general index (30) on
Thursday added 8.20 points, comprising a rise by 0.14 per cent to
close at 5796.93 points, compared to the last session, which stood at
5788.73 points.
The trading value on Thursday stood at RO 4,035,375, comprising
a rise by 39.00 per cent compared to the last session, which stood at
RO 2,903,245.
The report released by MSM pointed out that the market value
rose by 0.03 per cent to reach about RO 16.99 billion.
The report added that the value of shares bought by non-Omani
investors reached RO 88,000 comprising 2.19 per cent. The value of
shares sold by non-Omani investors reached RO 479,000 comprising
11.87 per cent. The net non-Omani investment declined by 9.68 per
cent to RO 391,000. — ONA
Oman oil price
declines 55 cents
MUSCAT: Dubai Mercantile Exchange
(DME) said that Oman oil price (August
delivery) reached $46.74.
The DME statement on Thursday said
that the price of Oman oil declined 55 cents
from the price of Wednesday, which was
$47.29.
The average price of Oman oil (July
delivery 2016) has stabilised at $44.33, thus
$4.93 per barrel higher than June delivery
2016. — ONA
late
atenews
e s
lateSupreme
news
Court
OMANDAILYOBSERVER
F R I DAY l J U N E 2 4 l 2 0 1 6
UP IN ARMS AGAINST REFORMS
3
blocks Obama
migrant plan
SETBACK: The 4-4 decision left in place a
2015 lower-court ruling stalling the plan
A general view shows the Place de la Bastille square during a demonstration against the series of controversial labour reforms in Paris. Paris riot police swarmed the French
capital’s historic Bastille area on Thursday as protesters gathered for the latest march in a marathon campaign against labour reforms that has seen recurring violence. — AFP
MASKED MAN TAKES HOSTAGES
Police shoot dead cinema
attacker in Germany
Baltimore police officer found not
guilty in Freddie Gray death
WASHINGTON: A police officer in
Baltimore, Maryland, has been acquitted
of all charges on Thursday in the death of
an African-American man who suffered
a severe spinal injury while in police
custody, in a case that set off days of
rioting in the US East Coast port city.
Caesar Goodson, who drove the police
van in which Freddie Gray was injured,
faced the most serious charge in the case,
second-degree murder, and other counts.
Gray, 25, died in April 2015 after
suffering a fatal injury while in the back of
a police wagon. He was handcuffed and
shackled but not secured by a seat belt as
required under police department policy.
Gray’s death was one of the most
prominent cases in a string of deaths of
black men in police interactions that have
exposed racial tensions and poor relations
between police and the African-American
community.
Goodson was the third Baltimore
officer to face trial in the incident.
One officer’s trial late last year in
ended with the jury unable to reach a
unanimous decision. Another officer
facing only misdemeanour charges was
found not guilty on May 23 in a bench
trial. Goodson, 46, waived his right to
a jury, leaving the judge to reach an
eventual verdict.
Gray suffered a severe neck injury after
his arrest on April 12,2015, apparently
while being transported in the back of a
police van.
He fell into a coma and died one week
later. Gray had been taken into custody
for carrying an illegal switchblade knife.
— dpa
WASHINGTON: The US Supreme
Court on Thursday dealt President
Barack Obama a harsh defeat by
blocking his plan to spare millions of
illegal immigrants from deportation in
a split 4-4 ruling he called frustrating
to those aiming to fix America’s broken
immigration system.
The ruling, coming seven months
before Obama’s term in office ends,
marked the latest success that his
Republican adversaries have had in
thwarting a major policy initiative
of the Democratic president. It also
guarantees that immigration will
remain a prominent part of the
campaign ahead of the November 8
election in which voters will pick his
successor.
“For more than two decades now,
our immigration system... has been
broken, and the fact that the Supreme
Court was not able to issue a decision
today doesn’t just set the system back
even further, it takes us further from the
country that we aspire to be,” Obama
said at the White House.
The 4-4 decision left in place a 2015
lower-court ruling blocking the plan,
which was never implemented.
Obama called the ruling frustrating
to those who want to “bring a
rationality” to the immigration system
and to allow the estimated 11 million
immigrants in the country illegally to
“come out of the shadows.”
Obama’s 2014 plan was tailored to let
roughly 4 million people — those who
have lived illegally in the United States
at least since 2010, have no criminal
record and have children who are US
citizens or lawful permanent residents
— get into a programme that shields
them from deportation and supplies
work permits.
The issue of illegal immigration has
featured prominently in the presidential
campaign.
“In the end, it is my firm belief that
immigration is not something to fear,”
Obama said.
“We don’t have to wall ourselves off
from those who may not look like us
right now, or pray like we do, or have
a different last name, because being an
American is something more than that.
What makes us American is our shared
commitment to an ideal that all of us
are created equal.” — Reuters
78 dead, 200 hurt as extreme weather hits China
German special police walk past a cinema complex after a masked man
with a gun and ammunition belt opened fire in the small western town of
Viernheim, near Frankfurt, on Thursday. — Reuters
VIERNHEIM, Germany: A masked
man took hostages at a cinema in
western Germany on Thursday
before police stormed the complex
and shot him dead, police said.
No other people were injured, a
police spokesman said.
The attacker, who carried a rifle or
“long gun”, acted alone and appeared
to have been a “disturbed man”, the
Interior Minister of Hesse state, Peter
Beuth, told the regional parliament.
Police had not identified the man
or established his motive, spokesman
Bernd Hochstaedter said, adding that
nothing immediately pointed to him
having a militant background.
German
television
showed
pictures of heavily-armed police,
wearing helmets and body armour,
storming the Kinopolis complex in
Viernheim, south of Frankfurt, and a
couple fleeing the building.
Cinema employee Guri Blakaj
said the gunman, who appeared to
be aged between 18 and 25 and was
about 1.7 metres tall, entered the
cinema at around 3 pm and told
workers to get into an office.
He then went into a cinema
theatre. Blakaj, who said there
were about six workers and 30
cinemagoers in the building, then
heard shots fired.
Police special forces stormed the
building and shot him.
There was still a heavy police
presence at the scene into the late
afternoon, and a helicopter circled
overhead. — Reuters
BEIJING: Hurricane-force winds,
Debris of damaged houses is seen after a
freak hailstorms, pounding rain and
tornado hit Funing county, Yancheng, Jiangsu
a tornado killed 78 people in China’s
province, China, on Thursday. — Reuters
eastern province of Jiangsu on Thursday
and injured nearly 500 others, 200 of
them critically, Xinhua reported.
The storms hit Yancheng city around
2:30 pm (0630 GMT), with witnesses
saying whole villages had been levelled
and huge trees felled, China’s official
news agency said.
Winds of up to 125 kilometres
per hour struck the city and outlying
suburbs, destroying houses, according
to the report.
“I heard the gales and ran upstairs
to shut the windows,” said Xie Litian,
62, from Donggou township in Funing
County, told Xinhua.
“I had hardly reached the top of the
stairs when I heard a boom and saw the
entire wall with the windows on it torn
away.”
Saying that all the other houses in her
Photos of the scene show dazed wood and toppled poles.
summer rainstorms have been heavier
neighbourhood had been destroyed, she residents near homes reduced to rubble
Many parts of China have been than usual, causing damage across the
added: “It was like the end of the world.” amid tangled telephone wires, splintered lashed by torrential rains this week as country. — AFP
The majority Republicans adjourned the House and said there would be no more votes until after the July 4 holiday
Democrats hold all-nighter in Congress over gun control
WASHINGTON:
Democratic
lawmakers staged an all-night sit-in into
Thursday morning in the US House of
Representatives to push for gun control
legislation after the nightclub massacre
in Orlando, even though Republicans
went home for a holiday break.
After raucous scenes that nearly
erupted into a fist-fight, the majority
Republicans adjourned the House in the
early hours of Thursday morning and
said there would be no more votes until
after the July 4 holiday.
The Democrats stayed behind and
more than two dozen of them still
occupied the House floor on Thursday
morning, 24 hours after they took it over
to demand Republican leaders allow a
vote on gun-related legislation.
The protesting lawmakers rotated in
and out of the chamber, sitting in the
US House Speaker Paul Ryan speaks
about the House Democrats’ sit-in
over gun-control laws, during a news
conference on Capitol Hill in
Washington, on Thursday. — Reuters
aisles and in front of the podium, often
chanting and singing. After the House
leadership closed down the chamber’s
television cameras, individual members
broadcast video of their protest on
Facebook Live and Periscope.
“We are going to hold the floor of
the House of Representatives... until we
can get the majority to do their jobs and
give us a vote,” Representative Debbie
Wasserman Schultz told CBS “This
Morning.”
Such dramatic tactics by legislators
are rare in the US Capitol and the protest
underscored how sensitive the gun
control issue has become after the June
12 shooting in which a gunman pledging
allegiance to IS killed 49 people.
Democrats were seeking votes on
legislation to expand background checks
for gun purchases, as well as measures
to curb the sale of weapons to people on
government watch lists.
Democratic leaders bought pizza and
Chinese food for the protesting members
on Wednesday night and Senator
Elizabeth Warren provided donuts,
said Representative Mark Takano of
California.
“I’ve eaten more carbohydrates in sort
of one 12-hour period than I have in the
last several months,” he said.
Republicans, angry about losing
Democrats were seeking
votes on legislation to
expand background checks
for gun purchases, as well
as measures to curb the sale
of weapons to people on
government watch lists.
control of the chamber for most of
Wednesday, denounced the sit-in.
Chaotic scenes ensued when several
Republican representatives charged the
chamber floor and yelled at protesting
Democrats, prompting a confrontation
that nearly descended into fisticuffs.
Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan
attacked the sit-in as nothing more than a
publicity stunt that is helping Democrats
raise 2016 election campaign funds.
“We’re reviewing everything right
now as to what happened and how
we can bring order to this chaos,” he
said on Thursday. “This is the people’s
house. This is Congress, the House of
Representatives, and they’re descending
into chaos.”
On Wednesday, Democrats held up
signs honoring gun violence victims
during the votes and sang “We Shall
Overcome,” the anthem of the civil rights
movement.
Ryan called for decorum but could
scarcely be heard over Democrats
chanting “No bill, no break!” to demand
action on guns before the recess.
— Reuters
asia
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F R I DAY l J U N E 2 4 l 2 0 1 6
Widodo sails to South China Sea islands
Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo visited the Natuna Islands aboard a
warship on Thursday, making a bold move to assert sovereignty over the
area in the southern reaches of the South China Sea after Beijing stated its
“over-lapping claim” on nearby waters.
Suu Kyi met by frenzied
fans on visit to Thailand
THOUSANDS MOURN MUSICIAN
PEERLESS STATUS: Crowds craned to grab a fleeting glimpse
of a politician who strides over Myanmar’s democracy movement
Thousands of Pakistanis on Thursday thronged the streets of Karachi to attend the funeral of Amjad Sabri, one of the country’s
best-known Sufi musicians, who was gunned down a day earlier in what police called an “act of terror”. — AFP
Parliamentarians want raise in salaries
ISLAMABAD: In May this year,
members of the Standing Committee
on Rules of Procedure and Privileges
had recommended that the salaries
of members of parliament should be
brought at par with the maximum
remuneration given to a federal
secretary in grade 22, as well as
enhancing the allowances and medical
facilities available to them.
The committee also approved
two draft bills seeking to amend the
Chairman and the Speaker (Salaries,
Allowances and Privileges) Act 1975,
and the Members of Parliament
(Salaries and Allowances) Act 1974.
Under the proposed amendments,
lawmakers had asked that their current
salaries be raised from around Rs
36,000 to Rs 200,000 — an increase of
450 per cent — along with a sizeable
increase in their travel allowances and
an increase in the amount of business
class air tickets available to them and
their family members.
However, the committee’s report
attracted flak, particularly from the
media, on the grounds that legislators
had no call to demand such a salary
package.
Responding to criticism the Pakistan
Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) had publicly
issued a statement declaring that the
party rejected the proposed increase in
legislators’ salaries.
But on Wednesday, even though
PTI chief whip Dr Shireen Mazari
was in the house at the time, the party
didn’t oppose when the government
announced amendments empowering
itself to increase salaries through a
simple notification.
Dr Mazari admitted that lots of PTI
lawmakers had signed the amendments
for an increase in their salaries as there
was a general feeling that the pay scales
needed to be rationalised.
When reminded about her party’s
policy in the past, Dr Mazari said, “I
think it was the timing and the sheer
increase that was earlier proposed
which was opposed by the PTI
leadership.
But as far as rationalisation of the
salary structure is concerned, I agree
that it needs revision at par with what
bureaucrats get.” — Internews
SAMUT
SAKHON,
Thailand:
Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi arrived
on Thursday in Thailand to a frenzied
welcome from some of the hundreds of
thousands of her compatriots who have
sought work and sanctuary from war
across the border.
Thai police struggled to hold back
a boisterous thousands-strong crowd
of migrant workers, many holding
aloft framed photos of the nation’s star
politician while chanting “Mother Suu,
Mother Suu”.
Although cocooned by security
guards, crowds craned to grab a fleeting
glimpse of a politician who strides over
Myanmar’s democracy movement and
exerts a powerful moral force among
her countrymen wherever they are.
Aung San Suu Kyi arrives at Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok on Thursday. — Reuters
“I am so happy, I love Aung San Suu
the total number of Myanmar nationals
Kyi... today is the first time I have seen
in Thailand at three million.
her,” said 32-year-old Banyar Taik, who
Suu Kyi, who is Myanmar’s de facto
works at a tuna processing plant.
leader despite being barred from the
It is Suu Kyi’s highest profile overseas I want to hear the voices from
presidency, vowed to support migrants
visit since her pro-democracy party our nationals. Please speak
in discussions during her three-day trip.
took power in April, ending nearly half
openly about we can do for you
“I want to hear the voices from our
a century of military domination.
nationals. Please speak openly about we
Her government has seeded hopes and what you expect
can do for you and what you expect,”
for a new era of prosperity that could
she said. But she did not field questions
eventually convince the army of lowpaid Myanmar labourers in Thailand to
AUNG SAN SUU KYI from reporters in keeping with the tight
Foreign Minister and State Counsellor control she has exerted over political
return home. The two Southeast Asian
messaging since her party took power
neighbours have travelled in starkly
in April. Suu Kyi enjoys a peerless status
different directions in recent years.
to many Myanmar people who see her
Seeking to escape poverty at home, Thailand’s manual workforce.
some one million registered Myanmar
Tens of thousands of others work as symbol of defiance through the dark
migrant workers form the backbone of illegally, with some estimates putting junta years and a beacon of hope. — AFP
N Korea rules out nuclear talks resumption
BEIJING:
North Korea has “no
thoughts” of resuming six-party talks on
its nuclear programme, a top Pyongyang
official said on Thursday in Beijing,
despite the repeated urging’s of its
closest ally China.
The North quit the now-stalled
negotiations aimed at curbing its nuclear
weapons programme in 2009, and soon
afterwards carried out its second atomic
test. The talks are hosted by China, and
include South Korea, the United States,
Russia and Japan.
Beijing, the North’s main diplomatic
protector and economic benefactor,
wants to revive negotiations, although
Washington, Seoul and Tokyo all insist
Pyongyang — which carried out two
missile launches earlier this week —
must first take some tangible steps
towards denuclearisation.
Choe Son-Hui, Deputy DirectorGeneral of the North American affairs
bureau in Pyongyang’s foreign ministry,
said in Beijing: “For now, we have no
thoughts about taking part in talks to
discuss the DPRK’s denuclearisation.”
She was in the Chinese capital for an
Ties between China and the
North have become strained
in recent years as Pyongyang
has pressed ahead with
internationally-condemned
nuclear tests.
North Korean Talks Deputy Representative Choi Sun-Hee (C) speaks to the media at
the gates of North Korea’s Embassy in Beijing on Thursday. — AFP
annual security forum, which includes
representatives from each of the six
parties.
“Under these circumstances where
the US hostile policy is still there,
DPRK is not in a position to talk
about denuclearisation of the Korean
peninsula,” she told reporters in English
outside the country’s embassy, using its
official name.
Ties between China and the North
have become strained in recent years
as Pyongyang has pressed ahead with
internationally-condemned
nuclear
tests, and with Kim Jong-Un yet to visit
Beijing since inheriting power from his
father, who died in 2011.
After a string of failures in recent
months, North Korea successfully tested
two powerful Musudan medium-range
missiles on Wednesday, one of which
flew 400 kilometres into the Sea of Japan
NSG cautioned against imposing
‘technological apartheid’ on Pakistan
ISLAMABAD: An official of the
Strategic Plans Division (SPD)
cautioned the Nuclear Suppliers Group
(NSG) on Wednesday against imposing
‘technological apartheid’ on Pakistan
as he urged fair and simultaneous
consideration
of
his
country’s
application for the membership of the
group along with the Indian claim.
“Pakistan wants simultaneous entry
into the NSG with other non-NPT states
that aspire to participate in the group.
This would require a fair and
simultaneous consideration of the two
membership applications submitted by
the non-NPT states,” Zahir Kazmi, a
director at the SPD said while speaking
at the Centre for International Strategic
Studies.
His comments came a day before
the NSG, at its meeting in Seoul, begins
considering membership applications
particularly those of India and Pakistan.
India’s candidature is being pushed
by Western countries, but Pakistan’s
hope is that the NSG adopts a nondiscriminatory approach on the issue of
admitting non-NPT states.
Pakistan’s key ally China and a few
other states have called for deliberations
on the accession of non-NPT countries
and adopting a uniform standard on the
issue.
Based on the sense emerging from
the consultative meeting held in Vienna
on June 9, it is assumed that consensus
on new memberships is unlikely.
Kazmi, while underscoring the socioeconomic imperative of Pakistan’s quest
for civil nuclear energy technology, said:
“Denial would be apartheid and would
be seen as a message to the people of
Pakistan from some in the international
community that they do not want us to
progress.”
He asked the NSG members to stand
with the people of Pakistan in their
efforts for sustainable development
“rather than imposing a technological
and political apartheid”. Speaking
about Pakistan’s credentials for the
membership, he said his country met
the criteria except for NPT requirement,
which India too did not fulfil.
“Pakistan’s application stands on
solid grounds of technical experience,
capability
and
well-established
commitment to nuclear safety and
security. We have a complete programme
for harnessing peaceful uses of nuclear
energy and have operated secure and
safeguarded power plants for 42 years,”
Kazmi maintained. — Internews
(East Sea). Existing United Nations
measures prohibit North Korea from
using ballistic missile technology.
After Pyongyang conducted a fourth
nuclear test on January 6, followed by a
long-range rocket launch on February
7, the UN Security Council adopted its
most punishing sanctions yet against
North Korea.
Any further measures would
require the support of veto-wielding
permanent council member China,
which has shied away from additional
action in favour of calls for resuming
the six-party talks.
— AFP
Neelum-Jhelum power project
gets record Rs 100 bn financing
KARACHI: A consortium of 16
banks has arranged Rs 100 billion
sukuk for the Neelum-Jhelum
Hydropower Project in what is
the country’s biggest ever funds
mobilisation for a public sector
entity.
The National Bank of Pakistan
(NBP), which leads the consortium,
has the largest share (of around Rs
35 bn) in the funds being raised
under Shariah-compliant tool.
Mufti Ahsan Waqar, Chairman
of NBP’s Shariah board, said that
financial closure for the sukuk
has been achieved and the bonds
would be ready to trade on the stock
market after completion of other
formalities.
A signing ceremony for the
financing agreement was attended
by President and CEO of NBP Syed
Iqbal Ashraf, Water and Power
Development Authority (Wapda)
Chairman Zafar Mahmood, Wapda’s
Member Finance Anwaarul Haq
and Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower
Company
(NJHPC)
CEO
Muhammad Zubair, among others.
The NJHPC, which is managing
the 969-megawatt project located
in Muzaffarabad (Azad Jammu and
Kashmir), has assigned the NBP the
role of ‘mandated lead arranger’ for
the arrangement through issuance
of rated, secured and privately
placed sukuk to partially finance the
construction.
Pakistan has struggled to
attract foreign investment in the
power sector, particularly for the
hydroelectric projects which have
vast scope for investment and
profitability. However, the response
was not positive except China which
has agreed to invest in Pakistan’s
power sector under long-term loans
for power generation. — Internews
MISSION DANGEROUS
Indonesian Arief Affandy passes the time before breaking fast atop a skyscraper during the holy month of Ramadhan in the
nation’s capital Jakarta. Undertaking daring missions to capture vertigo-inducing selfies has become a regular pastime for this
small band of “rooftoppers”, who dodge security and risk certain death to get the perfect shot. — AFP
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F R I DAY l J U N E 2 4 l 2 0 1 6
HANDICAP: India’s entry into elite group opposed as it did not sign Non-proliferation Treaty
5
No NSG consensus over India’s membership bid
SEOUL/TASHKENT: A lack of
consensus amid strong opposition from
several countries led by China thwarted
India’s bid for NSG membership in
Seoul on Thursday night even as Prime
Minister Narendra Modi urged Chinese
President Xi Jinping in Tashkent to
consider New Delhi’s bid on its merit.
The
Indian
application
for
membership to the 48-nation Nuclear
Suppliers Group was taken up at a
post-dinner special session in the
South Korean capital where heads of
delegation of NSG are holding a plenary,
highly informed sources in Seoul said.
The sources said several countries
led by China opposed the idea of letting
India in on the grounds that New Delhi
was a non-signatory to the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Those
siding with China included Brazil,
Austria, New Zealand, Turkey and
Ireland.
Signing the NPT is one of the main
requirements to be part of the elite club
of nations that regulate global nuclear
trade and technology.
China had earlier brought up
Pakistan’s NSG application that
virtually stonewalled India’s chances of
getting into the bloc without signing the
Non-proliferation Treaty.
China had been insisting that if any
concession is given to India, the same
should apply to Pakistan which has
an alleged bad track record on nonproliferation after it was said to have
sold atomic weapons technology to
Libya, Iran and North Korea.
The
sources
said
Pakistan’s
application didn’t come up for the
discussion.
The issue of considering applications
of non-NPT countries, including India,
was not on the main agenda of the
NSG’s closed-door plenary.
But several diplomatic sources said
that Japan raised the issue in the opening
The sources said several
countries led by China
opposed the idea of letting
India in on the grounds
that New Delhi was a nonsignatory to the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday met Chinese President Xi Jinping in
Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
session. It was later decided that the
matter would be discussed at the special
session convened by Chairperson
Rafael Grossi of Argentina.
Argentina and South Korea along
Swamy’s new target is Economic Affairs Secy
AN OFFICIAL RICK
Mexico’s Ambassador to India, Melba Pria reads documents as she travels in her official vehicle, an autorickshaw, to attend a
media interaction in New Delhi. — AFP
IN BRIEF
Modi meets Uzbek President
TASHKENT: India and Uzbekistan on Thursday took note of their growing defence cooperation and called for enhanced security ties as Prime Minister Narendra Modi held
bilateral talks with Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov here on Thursday.
President Karimov welcomed Modi on his second visit to Uzbekistan within a
year and Modi thanked Karimov for support to India’s membership of the Shanghai
Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Modi also conveyed the government decision to
extend e-tourist visa facility to Uzbekistan.
“Both leaders recalled old historical and cultural connections and discussed ways to
further expand and strengthen relations. Modi conveyed decision to extend e-Tourist
Visa to Uzbekistan and to organise a Festival of India and an Indian Trade Exhibition
in Uzbekistan to mark 25 years of Uzbekistan’s independence and 25th anniversary
of establishment of diplomatic relations with India,” said a Ministry of External Affairs
(MEA) statement after the talks.
“Both leaders noted co-operation was growing in defence and an MoU on Cyber
Security had been concluded.
They called for more cooperation in security,” it added.
This was their second bilateral meeting since Modi went to Uzbekistan in July last
year during his visit to the five Central Asian countries.
Arrest warrant against Saritha Nair
KOCHI: The one-member panel probing the “solar scam” on Thursday issued an arrest
warrant against Saritha Nair, a key accused in the fraud that has shaken political circles
in Kerala. The G Sivarajan Commission probing the scam asked the police to present
Nair before it on June 27.
The commission was irked after Saritha’s counsel appeared on her behalf to seek
more time for her appearance as she was unwell and had to undergo a surgery on her
hand. The commission observed that she has been purposely keeping away as she did
not turn up on three previous occasions as asked.
She had made numerous allegations against top Congress leaders, including
erstwhile Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, a few of his cabinet colleagues and
legislators, and told the commission that she had substantive evidence to prove her
allegations.
Woman fitted with cow’s heart valve
MUMBAI: A 52-year-old woman suffering from a severely damaged heart valve was
successfully treated with a replacement surgery and implanted with a cow’s pericardial
valve at a Mumbai hospital.
Amita Patki was diagnosed with aortic aneurysm — enlargement of the aorta.
An aneurysm is a bulge or “ballooning” in the wall of an artery, which carries
oxygen-rich blood from the heart to the rest of the body.
An overstretched and weak aorta can burst, causing serious bleeding and leading
to death.
A 2D Echocardiogram — also known as echo test — revealed to the doctors at
Nanavati Super Speciality Hospital that the valve damage was in an advanced stage.
“We performed a surgery on her and replaced the defunct valve with a biological
bovine pericardial valve,” said Hemant Pathare, Surgeon (Cardiovascular and Thoracic)
at Nanavati Super Speciality Hospital. — IANS
with several key member nations,
including the US, Britain, Italy, Mexico,
Switzerland, France and Russia,
have been supportive of India’s NSG
aspirations.
Earlier, Prime Minister Modi, who
met President Xi in Tashkent on the
sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation
Organisation (SCO) summit in the
Uzbekistan capital, urged China to
judge India’s application on its “merit”.
“Prime Minister Modi urged China
to make a fair and objective assessment
of India’s application and judge it on its
own merit,” External Affairs Ministry
Spokesperson Vikas Swarup briefed
reporters in Tashkent.
In Beijing, the Chinese Foreign
Ministry said the opposition to India’s
membership won’t impact bilateral ties
between them.
“We do not believe that it is an issue
concerning the bilateral relationship
between China and India,” Foreign
Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying
told the media, adding that the two
countries “have agreed that we would
make joint efforts to develop closely
knit relationship”.
Ahead of the Seoul plenary, India
made hectic diplomatic efforts to secure
the membership in the grouping which
works on the principle of consensus and
allows a new member only if all existing
members agree.
Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar is
in Seoul as part of India’s diplomatic
outreach to push through the NSG.
— IANS
NEW DELHI: Firing a fresh salvo on
Thursday, BJP leader Subramanian
Swamy targeted Economic Affairs
Secretary Shaktikanta Das while
making light of Finance Minister Arun
Jaitley’s support for the official, saying
that he can directly speak to the prime
minister on the issues raised by him.
Swamy also put on hold his demand
for sacking Chief Economic Advisor
Arvind Subramanian following the
government’s strong support for him
but said that he “will wait for events to
prove truth.”
Jaitley and the BJP had on
Wednesday strongly backed Arvind
Subramanian after Swamy demanded
his sacking.
Swamy suggested on Thursday that
he did not place much value on Jaitley’s
remarks.
“What Jaitley says or does not say, I
have nothing to do with it. I can talk to
party president and the Prime Minister,”
Swamy told reporters in response to
questions concerning the Finance
Minister’s remarks.
“I have said what I had to say. I was
told that they knew everything. So if
they have forgiven him (Subramanian),
I have no objections,” Swamy said,
adding he will talk to BJP chief Amit
Shah and Prime Minister Narendra
Modi when required.
Swamy had earlier in the day
made remarks about Das which were
contested by Jaitley.
A Twitter user had asked for the
removal of Das and Swamy replied that he
feels a case is pending against the officer
for assisting former Finance Minister
P Chidambaram.
Replying to the tweet, Swamy said:
“I think there is a property deal case
The CM made the appeal at annual Urs at the shrine of Baba Chamliyal
At Sufi shrine, Mehbooba seeks
India-Pakistan dialogue
SAMBA (J&K): Chief Minister
Mehbooba Mufti on Thursday urged
India and Pakistan to revive their peace
process for the sake of peace in Jammu
and Kashmir.
The Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP) leader made the appeal after
joining thousands at the annual Urs at
the shrine of revered Sufi saint Baba
Chamliyal in Ramgarh sector near the
Pakistan border.
Resuming the stalled India-Pakistan
reconciliation was imperative to bring
about peace in Jammu and Kashmir and
beyond, she said.
The Chief Minister also pitched for
opening new cross-border meeting
points to expand people-to-people
contacts between the divided Jammu
and Kashmir.
“We are working with the government
of India for opening the SuchetgarhSialkot, Kargil-Skardu, NowsheraMirpur and some other roads to expand
people-to-people contacts.”
She added: “Suchetgarh has the
potential of becoming Jammu and
Kashmir’s Wagah, as was envisioned by
Mufti Mohammad Sayeed,” her father
and predecessor who died in January.
Mehbooba Mufti said in the long
run Suchetgarh could become another
trading point with Pakistan like
Salamabad and Chakan-da-Bagh.
She said Suchetgarh had been taken
The chief minister also
pitched for opening new
cross-border meeting points
to expand people-to-people
contacts between the
divided Jammu and Kashmir
up for development as a border tourism
destination.
This would involve restoring the
old Octroi Post, constructing a multipurpose hall, developing a water body
and landscaping the lawns to enhance
the ambience of the place.
Every year devotees from India and
Pakistan converge at the border near
the sanctum sanctorum to pay their
obeisance to Baba Chamliyal, revered
by people in both countries.
While Pakistan Rangers offered
‘Chaddar’ for the shrine, the civil
administration of Samba and the Border
Security Force handed over ‘Shakkar
and Sharbat’ (holy soil and water) to the
Rangers.
Felicitating people on both sides of
the border for exhibiting affectionate
cultural bonding, the chief minister said
Chamliyal village would be developed
to promote border tourism.
Interacting with the media, she
called for highlighting the cultural
camaraderie between the people of
India and Pakistan.
“If hostilities can become news,
why can’t such cultural bonhomie?”
she asked, adding Chamliyal village
could become a hub for India-Pakistan
reconciliation.
“I hope our good intentions are
reciprocated by our neighbour,” she said,
adding that people-to-people contacts
must be encouraged to end mistrust
and create a congenial atmosphere for
dialogue. The Chief Minister said that
like siblings locked in endless rivalry,
India and Pakistan had bickered for well
over six decades.
“Transforming that rivalry into a
mature, productive relationship will
be difficult but the consequences of
continued animosity will be much
worse,” she said. And normalising
relations would be a boon for business
in both countries, she added.
“It may sound simplistic, but
building relationships is the key to
peace and economic prosperity in the
subcontinent.”
The festival is also celebrated by
devotees for three days at Saidanwali
village on the Pakistani side of the zero
line. — IANS
pending against him for assisting
PC swallow Mahabalipuram prime
locations.”
Jaitley strongly supported his
ministry official.
“An unfair and false attack on a
disciplined civil servant in the Finance
Ministry,” the minister tweeted.
Swamy also posted a series of tweets
concerning Arvind Subramanian, a day
after the government strongly backed
the economist.
“If an Indian, held patriotic, can
advise a foreign nation where he works,
to twist India’s arm, is to be forgiven,
then I suspend my demand,” Swamy
said.
Swamy said he would wait for events
to bear out his allegations against
Subramanian.
“If BJP Union government says
that we know all about AS (Arvind
Subramanian) but still he is an asset,
then I will suspend my demand and
wait for events to prove truth.”
“AS to US Congress: “US initiatives by
discriminating against India companies
and exporters will exert pressure on
India to open up” AS 13/3/13!.”
— IANS
OFFICER’S DEATH
AAP wants
Jung arrested
over murder
NEW DELHI: The AAP on Thursday
demanded the sacking and arrest of Lt
Governor Najeeb Jung and two BJP
leaders in connection with an NDMC
officer’s murder. Jung said the AAP’s
charges were “frivolous”.
Aam Aadmi Party leader Raghav
Chadha said that emerging facts
revealed that Jung and BJP’s Maheish
Girri and Kanwar Singh Tanwar were
linked to M M Khan’s murder. “They
should be arrested,” Chadha told the
media.
Both Girri, an MP from Delhi, and
Tanwar, a former legislator in Delhi,
have repeatedly denied any links with
Khan’s May 16 killing.
The AAP also sought an impartial
probe into the entire episode, in which
police have arrested a hotelier for
alleged links to the murder of Khan,
who reportedly rejected a bribe to
settle a case in the hotelier’s favour.
Khan, who was the estate officer
with the New Delhi Municipal Council
(NDMC), was shot dead outside his
home by unidentified gunmen.
Chadha said Delhi Police should
immediately stop reporting to Jung as
no impartial probe would be possible
as long as the Lt Governor remained in
charge of the police.
“The Lt Governor should resign
immediately... Or the central
government should sack him. The
LG should also be arrested and
investigated,” said the AAP leader.
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F R I DAY l J U N E 2 4 l 2 0 1 6
Former UN diplomat indicted for bribery dead
Former UN General Assembly President John Ashe, who had been indicted on charges of accepting $1.3
million in bribes, has died at age 61, his lawyer said on Wednesday. Ashe, who served as president of the
assembly two years ago and was also the ambassador of Antigua and Barbuda to the UN, died in his home in
New York, said Jeremy Schneider, his lawyer, noting he did not know definitively the cause of death. — dpa
Yemen govt
demands rebel
withdrawal
SELFIE DURING CAMPAIGN RALLY
TERMS SET: It is a new blow to proposals in
an effort to close gap between the warring parties
Ciudadanos party leader Albert Rivera poses for a selfie during a campaign rally for Spain’s upcoming general election in front
of Spain’s parliament in Madrid on Thursday. — Reuters
Syrian forces clash with IS in Manbij
AMMAN: US-backed Syrian forces
fought IS militants on Thursday inside
the city of Manbij for the first time since
they laid siege to the militant stronghold
near the Turkish border, a monitor said.
The British-based Observatory for
Human Rights said heavy clashes were
taking place in western districts of
Manbij after the alliance of Kurdish and
Arab fighters swept into the city near the
Kutab roundabout, almost 2 km from
the city centre.
An official with the US-led coalition
fighting IS in Syria and Iraq said the
fighting was taking place on the “edge”
and the “outskirts” of Manbij city.
Japan firm rolls out
smile-rating app
TOKYO: How do you know if you’ve
got that winning smile? There’s an
app for that.
Japanese cosmetics firm
Shiseido says it has come up with
a system to rate a person’s smile by
measuring facial movements.
Users look into a tablet device
with the app, and it gives them a
reading on the quality of their smile
on a scale of zero to 120.
The app can also tell them how
their smile is seen by others in
various categories — trustworthy,
elegant, attractive, beautiful,
positive, friendly and lively.
“But even if you have a 120
rating smile, it doesn’t mean
it’s the best smile,” a company
spokeswoman said. “For instance,
a smile could be perceived as
more elegant even when the
overall rating is 80.” Starting from
July, Shiseido will start testing the
app on 5,000 Japan Airlines flight
attendants, who will use it daily for
several months. — AFP
“The reporting I’ve had puts them on
the edge and the outskirts for some areas
which I describe as the outer (part) of the
city rather than city proper,” said British
Army Major General Doug Chalmers,
deputy commander for strategy and
sustainment with Operation Inherent
Resolve. He was speaking with reporters
in Washington via video link.
The Syria Democratic Forces (SDF),
including a Kurdish militia and Arab
allies that joined it last year, launched
the campaign late last month with the
backing of US special forces to drive
IS from its last stretch of the SyrianTurkish frontier.
If successful it could cut the militants’
main access route to the outside world,
paving the way for an assault on their
Syrian capital Raqqa.
Manbij is in a region some 40 km
from the Turkish border and since the
start of the offensive on May 31, the
SDF has taken dozens of villages and
farms around it but had held back from
entering the city with many thousands
of people still trapped there.
The Observatory estimated that
around 8,000 people have fled from
Manbij in the past few days when
fighting escalated on its outskirts.
— Reuters/dpa
KUWAIT CITY: The
Yemeni
government said on Thursday that
rebels must withdraw from all territory
they have seized since 2014 and hand
back control of state institutions ahead
of any political settlement.
The statement from the government
delegation to peace talks in Kuwait is a
new blow to proposals put forward by
UN mediators in an effort to close the
gap between the warring parties.
On Wednesday, the rebel delegation
said it would not sign up to any deal on
military and security issues until there
was agreement on a consensus president
and a national unity government to
oversee the transition.
The peace road map put forward
by UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh
Ahmed proposed the formation of
a unity government in tandem with
the withdrawal and disarmament of
the rebels, although he acknowledged
major differences between the two sides
on their sequencing.
The government delegation said
“nothing has been agreed” in two
months of negotiations in Kuwait.
“There can be no talk of any political
arrangements before the (rebel) militias
completely withdraw and hand over
their weapons, and state institutions and
agencies are restored to the legitimate
government,” it said.
“Any political partnership in the
future must be between political parties
Veteran pro-democracy lawmaker
charged with corruption in HK
HONG KONG: A veteran prodemocracy lawmaker was charged on
Thursday by Hong Kong’s corruption
bureau over a payment from one of the
city’s best-known anti-China media
tycoons in a case he described as a
political move.
Leung Kwok-Hung —known locally
as “Long Hair” — is a prominent activist
from the League of Social Democrats.
He was arrested and charged with one
count of misconduct in public office
by the city’s Independent Commission
Against Corruption (ICAC).
He is accused of receiving
HK$250,000 ($32,000) “in relation to
his public office” from the founder of
Apple Daily newspaper Jimmy Lai. The
paper is highly critical of Beijing.
Leung said his arrest had “political
meaning”
just
months
before
parliamentary elections.
“Everyone
Leung is accused of receiving
HK$250,000 ($32,000) “in
relation to his public office”
from the founder of Apple
Daily newspaper Jimmy Lai.
in Hong Kong will understand what
it means,” Leung said of his arrest.
With his trademark ponytail and Che
Guevara T-shirts, Leung has been a
defiant figure in Hong Kong’s legislature
since winning a seat in 2004.
“I am a very well-known opposition
(figure) of Hong Kong, there might be
some kind of political meaning,” he told
said. “It will create a lot of political effect
just before the next election.”
When asked if he denied the charge,
Leung said: “I’ll do it in court formally”.
Leung has not revealed whether he
is planning to stand in the September
parliamentary vote. Lai’s spokesman
Mark Simon said they had no comment.
A government statement on
Thursday said Leung, 60, was charged
with “wilfully and intentionally,”
carrying out misconduct by failing to
declare the acceptance of HK$250,000
from Lai between May 2012 and June
2016.
“The case arose from a corruption
complaint,” the statement said. Leung is
on bail and will appear at a magistrates
court on Friday morning. Hong Kong
was returned to China by Britain in 1997
and is ruled under a “one country, two
systems” deal.
— AFP
and groups that have no militias.”
Despite a 15-month-old military
intervention in support of the
government of President Abedrabbo
Mansour Hadi, the rebels and their
allies remain in control of swathes of
territory they have overran since 2014,
including the capital Sanaa.
More than 6,400 people have been
killed since the intervention began, the
majority of them civilians, and there has
been growing international pressure for
an end to the conflict. But as the talks
in Kuwait have dragged on, there have
been a growing number of breaches of
a UN-brokered ceasefire that went into
effect on April 11.
Meanwhile, residents of a village
in central Yemen said Houthi fighters
shot dead seven farmers on Thursday
while searching for the leader of a progovernment militia. Residents of the
village of Nadara in Ibb province said
the Houthis could not find the militia
commander but blew up his house and
killed seven men working in the fields.
The Houthis said the attack was a
raid on a “terrorist cell” and that eight
Al Qaeda fighters had been killed in the
operation, according to the Houthi-run
state news agency Saba.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
(AQAP) has exploited the war to seize a
vast swath of the country, winning new
recruits and enriching themselves from
oil smuggling.
— AFP/Reuters
China to tear
up ‘poisoned’
school running
tracks
SHANGHAI: Chinese authorities
will remove substandard running
tracks from schools, called
“poisoned tracks” by the media
due to the industrial waste used to
build them, after students fell ill
using the sports facilities, said the
Ministry of Education.
The Ministry, which called
the recent incidents “poisoned
running track” cases, said
environmental protection and
quality watchdogs would inspect
newly-built synthetic tracks and
order ones that didn’t meet safety
standards to be removed.
The move comes after
incidents at schools in Beijing,
Jiangsu, Guangdong and other
provinces,
where
children
suffered nosebleeds, dizzy spells
and coughing after using the
tracks, raising safety fears about
the materials used to build them.
“The Education Ministry
is taking the recent spate
of ‘poisoned track’ cases on
campuses in a number of
locations very seriously,” the
ministry said in a statement late
on Wednesday.
The Ministry added it would
raise oversight of officials and
school personnel involved in the
construction of school running
tracks and sports stadiums.
“People in positions of
responsibility, whose negligence
leads to sporting facilities falling
below quality standards or even
being ‘toxic’, will face resolute
and serious punishment without
mercy.”
— Reuters
ENHANCING BILATERAL TIES
German Chancellor Angela Merkel (L) and Austrian counterpart Christian Kern
shake hand after a press conference at the chancellery in Berlin on Thursday. — AFP
The accord, capping three years of talks, paves the way for a final peace deal to end a conflict born in the 1960s
Colombian president, FARC commander to sign ceasefire accord
HAVANA: Colombia’s president and
the FARC rebels’ top commander was
scheduled to sign a historic ceasefire
deal in Havana on Thursday that brings
them close to ending the last major
leftist insurgency in Latin America after
more than five decades of war.
The accord, capping three years of
talks, paves the way for a final peace deal
to end a conflict born in the 1960s out
of frustration with deep socio-economic
inequalities and that outlived other
major uprisings in the Americas.
“On my way to Havana to silence
for ever the guns,” said President Juan
Manuel Santos on his Twitter feed
before the ceremony, which is due to be
attended by United Nations SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-Moon.
The FARC, or Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia, was one
of many 20th century Latin American
guerilla movements inspired by Marxist
and displaced millions.
Most others were either quashed
by right-wing military governments or
convinced to lay down their arms and
join conventional politics by the 1990s,
while the FARC went on to wage the
Western Hemisphere’s longest running
war.
Santos and FARC commander
Rodrigo Londono, better known by his
nom de guerre Timochenko, were set to
sign the ceasefire accord in a televised
ceremony later. The two sides will
complete negotiations for a final deal by
July 20, the president said this week.
Santos has staked his legacy on an
agreement with the FARC and said it
would add as much as two percentage
A newspaper vendor puts on display newspapers with headlines about the ceasefire points annually to economic growth
agreement between the government and the FARC guerrillas in downtown Bogota
in the South American country rich
on Thursday. — AFP
in commodities like oil, coal, gold and
ideology and the success of the 1959 revolt before exploding into a cocaine- coffee.
The two sides have already agreed
Cuban revolution. It began as a peasant fuelled war that killed at least 220,000
The FARC, or Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia, was
one of many 20th century Latin
American guerilla movements
inspired by Marxist ideology
and the success of the 1959
Cuban revolution.
on most items on the talks agenda in
Cuba, including thorny issues such as
land reform and participation by former
rebels in Colombia’s political life.
The ceasefire, which includes terms
for the FARC’s demobilization, laying
down of arms, and security for former
fighters, does not begin until the final
deal is signed.
The remaining point on the agenda
is the terms for overall implementation
of a peace accord and how a national
referendum on the deal will be organised.
“This accord is a big breakthrough, but
much remains to be done,” said Adam
Isacson of the Washington-based Latin
America think-tank WOLA. The FARC
must work to convince it own ranks of
the deal while Santos must convince the
Colombian people at large, he said.
The signing ceremony on Thursday
will be presided by Cuban President
Raul Castro and Norwegian Foreign
Minister Borge Brende, representing
countries that mediated the talks.
Also attending are Venezuelan
President Nicolas Maduro, US Special
Envoy Bernie Aronson, Chilean
President Michelle Bachelet. Santos
has promised the final accord will
be put to the Colombian people in a
— AFP
plebiscite.
eureferendum
e e e du
eureferendum
d
Scots back EU with an eye on ‘Scoxit’
OMANDAILYOBSERVER
F R I DAY l J U N E 2 4 l 2 0 1 6
Key voices that
stand out
A woman holds up a placard in favour of the
remain camp in north London. — AFP
LONDON: Politicians, business chiefs, faith leaders
and rock stars alike have been making their voices
heard on Britain’s EU referendum ahead of Thursday’s vote. Here are some of the key players in the
debate from the political jungle, and beyond.
‘REMAIN’ CAMP
David Cameron: The prime minister’s future is
hanging in the balance: If Britain votes out, he is
likely to face immediate pressure to quit.
Several pro-Brexit Conservative MPs are calling
for him to step down after the referendum in any
case over his handling of the “Remain” campaign.
Jeremy Corbyn: The veteran MP and socialist
leader of the main opposition Labour Party has
come out for the “Remain” camp, despite a backbench career of euroscepticism.
His enthusiasm for staying in the EU is
lukewarm and largely based on EU membership
preventing the possible agenda of pro-Brexit
Conservatives.
Sadiq Khan: The new Labour mayor of London
has tried to put the emphasis on the positive aspects of staying in rather than the risks of leaving.
He says staying in will safeguard the City of London
financial district.
Nicola Sturgeon: Leader of the secessionist Scottish National Party, Scotland’s first minister has
threatened to call a second referendum on Scottish
independence if the rest of Britain votes out but
Scotland votes in.
Richard Branson: The entrepreneur raised the
spectre of a trade war if Britain were to leave the
EU, saying it would be “one of the saddest days for
Great Britain”.
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby: The
leader of the world’s Anglicans warned that
Britain was in danger of “succumbing to our worst
instincts” by voting to leave the EU over fears of
immigration.
Ken Loach: “The European Union as it stands is
a neo-liberal project, but if we leave, then we’ll
be faced with a very right-wing government,” the
veteran leftist film director said.
Matt Damon: The US actor made a transatlantic
plea for a ‘Remain’ vote, dismissing the “insane idea
that the best path for Britain is to cut loose from
Europe and drift out to sea”.
‘LEAVE’ CAMP
Boris Johnson: The charismatic and unorthodox
former London mayor has emerged as the figurehead of the Vote Leave campaign.
If Brexit happens, he is the bookmakers’ favourite to replace Cameron.
Nigel Farage: Leader of the anti-EU, anti-mass
immigration UK Independence Party, Farage is outside the Vote Leave official campaign. He has put
EU immigration at the heart of UKIP’s street-level
campaign and toured smaller towns and cities on
a battle bus.
Michael Gove: The justice minister and hitherto
Cameron loyalist is the most high-profile Conservative cabinet minister to break ranks with the prime
minister. His attacks against the prime minister
have become increasingly personal.
Gisela Stuart: The chair of the official Vote Leave
campaign is a German immigrant and a rare Brexitsupporting Labour MP. Her softly-spoken style
provides a counterpoint to the rhetoric of Farage
and Johnson.
Julian Assange: The WikiLeaks founder alleges
that British authorities “repeatedly use the EU
as political cover for its own decision-making”,
highlighting the European Arrest Warrant that has
seen him holed up in Ecuador’s London Embassy
for four years on Sunday.
John Cleese: ‘The Monty Python’ comedian and
actor blamed bureaucrats for taking away “any
trace of democratic accountability” from the EU.
James Dyson: While most business leaders have
made the case for ‘Remain’, the renowned inventor
backs Brexit, calling warnings of a trade war “absolute cobblers”.
Sol Campbell: The former England footballer
claims that free movement within the EU was
hindering the national team. “Sometimes when I
watch a (Premier League) side with some pretty
mediocre foreign footballers, I am thinking ‘where
is the English talent?’,” he wrote.
Roger Daltrey: The Who rocker will “definitely be
voting out”, saying the EU was “created by stealth”.
— AFP
7
EU FAVOURED: Polls show Scots are far more favourable to the EU than the divided Britons
GLASGOW: In sunny Glasgow, many voters
said they wanted Britain to stay in the European
Union on Thursday but were well aware that an
overall Brexit result could lead to Scottish independence.
“Being in the EU is an advantage for Scotland. It would be silly to leave,” said Gemma
Rosaria, a 24-year-old office worker, arriving to
vote in the EU referendum in the Broomhouse
area of east Glasgow, Scotland’s biggest city.
“I don’t want a Brexit but if there’s a Brexit
that could be an advantage for Scotland because
we can have a new referendum,” said Rosaria,
adding that she had voted for independence in
2014.
Scotland’s independence bid, led by the Scottish National Party (SNP), was thwarted in that
vote, which unionists won by 55 per cent to 45
per cent.
The pro-EU SNP, which dominates Scottish
politics, still wants independence but says it will
only call for another referendum if a clear majority of Scots back it after a Brexit vote.
“If we were to leave the EU, I’d prefer to break
from the UK,” said Michael Renfrew, an economics student with a ginger beard and beach
shoes.
“The decision-making and the power would
become far too centralised in London,” the
23-year-old said.
Amanda Walker, a 42-year-old teacher, added: “Better stay with what we got.” Pointing to
her ginger-haired daughter, who was in a school
uniform, she added: “This vote is important for
her”.
In the car park outside, David Turner, a local SNP councillor, was trying to win over any
If we were to leave the EU, I’d
prefer to break from the UK
MICHAEL RENFREW
Economics student
Scotland’s First Minister and Leader of the SNP, Nicola Sturgeon and her husband Peter Murrell,
leave after casting their votes at Broomhouse Community Hall in east Glasgow. — AFP
undecided voters.
“In Scotland, there will be a large ‘Remain’
vote,” the 49-year-old said, as he handed out
leaflets.
Polls have shown Scots are far more favourable to the EU than fellow Britons, who are
heavily divided.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has
said Scotland’s expected massive vote for staying
in the EU could hold the balance on a national
level.
“I think it’s really important to keep Scotland
and the UK in the EU because there’s lots of jobs
and trade and investment that depends on our
place in the single market,” Sturgeon said, casting her vote.
“The polls see this on a knife edge across the
UK which makes it really important to go out
and vote today if you want to make sure that our
place in the European Union is protected and
we don’t allow Tory divisions to drag us out of
Europe,” she added.
The campaign has pitched Prime Minister
David Cameron, who led the “Remain” camp,
against fellow Conservatives on the “Leave”
side, including popular ex-London mayor Boris
Johnson.
Several people were concerned that Britain
leaving the EU would strengthen the centralisation of power in London.
Vincent Mellon, an assistant physiotherapist
speaking in central Glasgow, said England and
Scotland were “supposed to be equal parties”.
“If only England voted out, that would not be
fair,” he said, adding: “People that are leading the
‘Out’ campaign have no interest in Scotland”.
But Alex Blackshire did not want to hear talk
about another independence referendum.
“There’s been so much division during the
last campaign. I don’t want it to happen again,”
the 25-year-old executive said.
Even in Glasgow, there were a few exceptions
to the pro-EU mood.
Taxi driver James Ballantine, 44, said he
would be voting to leave the European Union.
“There are too many migrants from Europe.
People come here and get jobs, benefits,” he said,
at the wheel of his cab.
“We need to take back control of our country.” — AFP
German daily vows to concede
1966 World Cup goal if Brexit fails
POLLING FEVER
A voter leaves after casting his ballot at a polling station set up inside a residential house in Rochdale, northern England. — AFP
BERLIN: German newspapers
waded into the Brexit debate
on Thursday, with the country’s
top-selling tabloid promising to
concede in a decades-old World
Cup row if the Brits vote to remain in the European Union.
“Dear Brits, if you remain in
the EU, we will even acknowledge the Wembley goal,” ‘Bild’s’
headline said, referring to a disputed goal by England player
Geoff Hurst in the 1966 World
Cup final, which Germans have
argued did not cross the line.
Other pledges to Brits listed
on ‘Bild’s’ front page include
to refrain from making jokes
about Prince Charles’ ears, to
stop using suntan lotion out of
solidarity with sunburnt Brits,
and to put its clocks back an
hour to align with British time.
The conservative daily ‘FAZ’
also referenced the disputed
1966 Wembley goal by showing
a back-and-white picture of the
ball bouncing on the goal line,
accompanied by the headline ‘In
or out?’
German newspapers unanimously featured the Brexit vote
on their front pages, with at least
five national and regional publications launching emotional
appeals to the British electorate.
“Don’t leave us this way!”
Berlin daily ‘Berliner Zeitung’
said on its front page, adding:
“Britain is voting on Brexit,
and many Europeans have the
jitters. What we like about the
Brits and why we hope they will
stick around.” ‘Der Tagesspiegel’
featured two Remain campaigners together, their faces painted
with the EU flag and the Union
Jack. — dpa
While Trump has not studied the Brexit issue closely, he feels Britain should walk away
Trump lands in Scotland after nomination
WASHINGTON: Donald Trump takes his first
international trip since presumptively clinching
the Republican presidential nomination, jumping out of the US political frying pan and into
the ‘Brexit’ fire by arriving in Scotland on Friday.
The New York celebrity billionaire is scheduled to attend the ceremonial re-opening of his
Trump Turnberry golf course on the very day
that the British will wake to learn whether they
have voted to remain in the European Union
or backed the historic move to defect from the
28-member bloc.
With the intense and bitter campaign in
Britain coming down to the wire, and Prime
Minister David Cameron invoking wartime
spirit to call on citizens not to “walk away” from
European democracy, Trump repeated his position that the British should leave the EU.
In some ways the trip is reminiscent of
Barack Obama’s high-profile voyage to Germany in July 2008 before he was president.
Like Trump, Obama was his party’s presumptive nominee, having prevailed in a bitter
primary battle against Hillary Clinton, but not
yet the official party flagbearer.
But Trump stands starkly apart in his approach to Europe. While Obama spoke to a
crowd of tens of thousands about his dreams
of moving on from the divisive George W Bush
era and wooing a unified Europe, Trump has
triggered alarm on the continent.
In December Trump blasted Europe’s “weak
When you look at the things that
are going on over there, my inclination would be go it alone and
go back to where you came from
DONALD TRUMP
US presidential candidate
Donald Trump gestures during a media event on the sand dunes of the Menie estate, the site for
Trump’s proposed golf resort in Scotland. — Reuters
leaders.” Three months later, after terror attacks
in Brussels, he warned that Europe had “very,
very severe” problems with containing extremism.
In May Britain’s Cameron blasted Trump’s
position as “stupid, divisive and wrong.”
Trump shot back: “It looks like we’re not going to have a very good relationship.”
On Wednesday he stirred the pot more, proclaiming Europe’s migration crisis a “mess” and
that while he has not studied the Brexit issue
closely, he feels Britain should walk away.
“When you look at the things that are going on over there, my inclination would be go it
alone and go back to where you came from,” he
told Fox News. “That’s just my feeling.”
On Saturday Trump will visit his International Golf Links course in the coastal village of
Balmedie, Scotland.
A neighbour of the property, David Milne, is
flying a Mexican flag in protest of the real estate
magnate’s visit.
He says Trump fought with him over the
boundaries of their properties, then erected a
fence and sent Milne the bill.
Trump said earlier in the month that he
would also visit Ireland, but the nation is not on
his itinerary.
“We are still in the process of finalising the
schedule and hope to visit Ireland as well,” campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks said. She declined to provide a date. — AFP
analysis
analysis
l
8
OMANDAILYOBSERVER
F R I DAY l J U N E 2 4 l 2 0 1 6
As polls loom, far-right targets small town Australia
JONATHAN BARRETT
A
irralie Smith, the political activist helping drive
Australia’s newest and arguably best organised far
right party, addresses the small crowd with her
hands open, arms extended over the lectern, as if
reaching out for converts.
Australia, she said, must get out of the “irrelevant” United Nations refugee convention.
Every industry in Australia is dominated by
“left-wing socialist agendas”. After almost two
decades of political silence in Australia, the far
-right is making itself heard again.
Smith, a mother-of-three and one of the most
visible Australian Liberty Alliance (ALA) candidates, is one of several anti-Islam, overtly patriotic political hopefuls trying to secure a place in the
country’s next parliament at the July 2 national
election.
The rise of the ALA and other far right parties
in Australia echoes what has been seen in Europe,
where centrist governments are being challenged
and the United Kingdom has been pressured to
hold a referendum on its European Union membership.
The ALA, inspired and launched last year
by popular far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders, tre best-known for its annual V8 car race.
“It’s not going to all be resolved the next term
called for a 10-year moratorium on Muslim immigration well before US presidential candidate of government, it’s not,” Smith told two dozen
supporters at a recent meetDonald Trump proposed a
ing in the town three hours
similar policy.
west of Sydney.
The broader move“But unless people like
ment has waged campaigns
against issues such as for- The rise of the ALA and other me are in there, we don’t
a hope.”
eign aid, halal food labelling
far-right parties echoes what haveThose
people include
and mosque-building along
Pauline Hanson, the popuwith more mainstream top- has been seen in Europe,
list politician who ushered
ics such as sales of farmland where centrist govts are
the modern Australian
to foreigners.
being challenged and the UK in
far-right movement with her
In 2015 and 2016, street
tough stances against migrarallies organised by anti- forced to hold a referendum
tion and asylum seekers in
Muslim groups the United on its EU membership.
the 1990s. “People are strugPatriots Front and Reclaim
gling, they can’t even get the
Australia turned violent as
services provided to them let alone bring other
rival protesters clashed in several cities.
But the more polished political campaign to people in,” said Hanson, whose policies include a
win seats in parliament is being waged in Aus- call for curbs on immigration and a ban on Muslim refugees.
tralia’s regional centres.
Political parties including the ALA and HanThe often lively meetings are held in town
halls, community centres and lawn bowling clubs son’s One Nation have focused on winning a seat
in towns like Bathurst, a former gold mining cen- in the Senate, as opposed to the House of Repre-
sentatives. Polls are predicting a close contest between the ruling Liberal-National coalition and
main opposition Labor Party, meaning even a few
far-right senators could have a major influence.
Peter Chen, politics and media lecturer at the
University of Sydney, said they have already had
an impact on Australian politics.
“Certainly the mainstream parties, as they
have reached consensus around asylum seekers
and offshore detention shows that they have attempted to adopt or at least co-opt the core policy
messages of some of these far right groups,” said
Chen, referring to Australia’s policy of housing
asylum seekers and refugees in offshore processing centres.
It remains unclear whether the increased profile of far right candidates will translate into political influence on July 2. The centrist Nick Xenophon Team is expected to attract considerable
support from those protesting against the policies
of the major parties, and the Australian Greens
have become the country’s established third party. Analysis of voting intentions by think-tank
The Australia Institute has found that Hanson
will likely win a Senate position.
Blackhole test for relativity
MARIËTTE LE ROUX
A
desert telescope has focused with unprecedented sharpness on a star circling a
supermassive black hole thought to lurk at the centre of our Milky Way galaxy,
excited astronomers announced on Wednesday.
This means they will be able to observe the star’s movements in more detail
than ever before, in an important test for Albert Einstein’s theory of general
relativity.
Dubbed S2, the star lies about 25,000 light years from our Solar System.
It is the celestial body known to make the closest approach to our galaxy’s
central black hole, named Sagittarius A, on a 16-year elliptical orbit. S2 is a
relative youngster in astronomical terms — no more than 100 million years
old. It has been studied before, but in much less detail than can now be observed by the European Southern Observatory’s Gravity instrument in Chile’s
Atacama desert.
“The Gravity observations will be about 15 times more accurate,” said
project leader Frank Eisenhauer of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, and recalled “a lot of high fives” when S2 came
into focus. Gravity combines the light from Europe’s four largest telescopes to
create a combined 130-metre (427-foot) diameter lense with “much sharper”
imaging.
It will seek out miniscule but telltale deviations in the movement of gas
and stars swirling around Sagittarius A — ultimately proving its existence.
Sagittarius A is thought to be four million times more massive than our Sun.
Black holes are regions in space-time where mass is collapsed into such a
small area that gravity takes over completely, and nothing, not even light, can
escape — making them invisible.
Their existence is inferred from the behaviour of objects nearby, including
stars swirling around them as planets orbit our Sun.
Black holes were theorised in Einstein’s gravity theory, which was published in 1915 and still forms a bedrock of modern physics.
It has withstood every single experimental test to date, but the theory fails
to explain some of the forces in the Universe — particularly those at the subatomic, quantum level. If Einstein was right, the Gravity team would expect to
see minute changes in S2’s orbit in the extreme gravity environment nearest
Sagittarius A. And they managed to set up their instrument just in time. In
2018, S2 will make its closest approach to the black hole on its egg-shaped
orbit — “just” 17 light hours or 18 billion kilometres (11 billion miles) away. It
will travel at nearly 30 million kilometres per hour or 2.5 per cent of the speed
of light, just out of reach of the black hole’s all-devouring reach.
“The trick is to measure its (S2’s) orbit in the year before and the year after
its closest approach, because the effects of general relativity strongly increase
when you approach the black hole,” Eisenhauer said. It would resemble an
“extra kick” as the star shaves past, “and it’s this ‘kick to the orbit’ we want to
see,” he said. The next time S2 will be this near will be in 16 years.
If Britain becomes the first member state to leave the EU, it could trigger the beginning of the end for a beleaguered union mired in a migration crisis, economic woes and a growing threat of terrorism.
EU faces big changes, with or without Britain
DANNY KEMP
T
he atmosphere in Brussels has been surreal
for weeks — business goes on as usual, officials are barred from using the word “Brexit”
and life proceeds as if Britain’s EU referendum does not exist.
But this phoney calm belies the fact that,
whether Britons vote to leave or remain on
Thursday, the European Union will have to
make some of the biggest changes in its history in order to survive.
If Britain becomes the first member state
to leave the EU, it could trigger the beginning of the end for a beleaguered union
mired in a migration crisis, economic woes
and a growing threat of terrorism.
Even if it stays, the status quo will not
be an option, with the questions raised by
Britain’s referendum reverberating around a
continent that is losing faith in the post-war
European dream.
“Whatever its result is going to be, we
must take a long hard look at the future of
the union.
We would be foolish if we ignored such a
warning signal as the UK referendum,” EU
President Donald Tusk warned this week.
The first problem the EU’s fractious leaders will face after the vote is finding any
agreement on the way forward, when they
have found it so hard to make deals on other
crises.
“There is all this sentiment that Europe
must change in order to survive,” Chris
Bickerton, a lecturer at Britain’s Cambridge
University and author of The European Union: A Citizen’s Guide, said.
“But if you go through the practical details you quickly come up against these difficulties.”
A British exit will plunge the EU into
years of bitter divorce negotiations between
Brussels and London, although in some
quarters at least there are hopes it will at
least let the rest of the bloc get on with its
work.
“It’s very possible that the EU institutions
will have this ‘back to work, back to normal’
reflex’,” Vivien Pertusot, Brussels-based analyst with the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI), said.
That may be easier said than done.
France and Germany have discussed a
joint plan for Europe after the British vote.
French President Hollande said Wednesday he would launch “Europe-wide initiatives” whatever the result in Britain.
But Berlin and Paris are already at loggerheads over the integration of the eurozone,
meaning any plan will “strictly adhere to
security and defence”, a senior eurozone official said on condition of anonymity.
“Trying to quickly agree anything on the
economy is too difficult.”
If Britain remains in the EU, Prime Minister David Cameron has already warned
that he will return to Brussels to push for
more reform on freedom of movement on
top of the renegotiation deal that he secured
The fear in many European
capitals is that either way, the
result could trigger a domino
effect of referendums in other
countries.
in February.
“I think reform doesn’t end on June 23,
the voice of reform will be strengthened, because we will have had a referendum,” Cameron said on Wednesday.
Free movement is a core EU value and
Britain will face severe opposition.
More likely are changes to the rules of
the Schengen passport-free area, which has
already been semi-dismantled by Europe’s
migration crisis.
The fear in many European capitals is that
either way, the result could trigger a domino
effect of referendums in other countries.
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen on
Tuesday urged all EU states to follow Britain’s example, and eurosceptics in the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden have made
similar calls for referendums.
Tusk has warned that a British leave vote
could lead to the “destruction of not only the
EU but also of Western political civilisation.”
Bickerton said it would unlikely be a “terminal blow”, given the core role of the EU
in much of European political life, but that
it would herald a fundamental change and
a move towards a far looser kind of union.
“I don’t think it would suddenly disappear but over the longer term we might see
it slowly decline and become something different,” he said.
The danger for the EU is that even after
if makes changes following the British referendum, it will still not be able to quell the
forces of history tearing it apart.
“Even Bremain doesn’t change the general mood,” Janis Emmanouilidis, director
of studies at Brussels-based think-tank European Policy Centre, said, referring to the
opposite of Brexit.
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FRIDAY | JUNE 24, 2016 | RAMADHAN 18, 1437 AH
www.omanobserver.om
editor@omanobserver.om
Giving hope for
orphans
Allah has shown amazing ways to raise awareness of His love for orphans. This
awareness had led to action, and thousands of orphans are taken care of by Al Rahma
Group of Charity in Oman. Islam shows a great deal of sympathy for orphans.
In the Quran the word “orphan” is mentioned 23 times in 12 different forms in 12
different Surahs or chapters... P11
His Eminence
SHAIKH AHMED BIN HAMAD AL KHALILI
Grand Mufti of Oman
Thoughts for the Day
with
Hatim Al Abdissalaam
Check out our videos on Youtube of Hatim Al Abdissalam
sharing important and meaningful insights daily
regarding the holy month and how you can make your
Ramadhan a meaningful one. Enter this link on your
search bar to get to our channel: http://bit.ly/1L1GAFK
Don’t forget to subscribe!
Q
A
A person didn’t fast during Ramadhan for
almost 10 years without any reason, what
should he do?
He must compensate for those missed 10
years and make amends by fasting for two
consecutive months or by feeding 60 people.
Quran
Verse of the Day
On the Day when the Spirit and
the angels stand in row. They
will not speak, unless it be one
permitted by the Most Merciful,
and he will say what is right.
(Al Naba’)
insideOman
10
OMANDAILYOBSERVER
F R I DAY l J U N E 2 4 l 2 0 1 6
lifestyle
QSWATI BASU DAS
AXISSWATI@GMAIL.COM
D
uring the fasting
period
of
the
holy month of
Ramadhan,
a
combination
of
gentle
stretching
and breathing exercises does a lot of
difference and even speeds up the
elimination of toxins with the system.
The intense routine of fast from dawn
to dusk, keeping the body and mind
strong to deal with the job stress is
much important while topping up with
shedding off those extra pounds from
the body mass. Though most shelve
their exercise routine during Ramadhan,
a huge number of fasting people are
joining the art of living to make this holy
month more healthy and spiritual.
The most meaningful time of the
year, fasting during Ramadhan seeks
purification that leads to spiritual
growth. As physically fasting holds a
lot of benefits for the body by giving
it a chance to rejuvenate the digestive
organs and eliminate many toxins from
the body, so does it boosts up the mental
stamina, believe experts. The power to
deal with ailments like blood pressure,
insomnia, pain, anxiety, the art of living
sessions have proved wonders to the
fasting population.
Fasting considered as a part of yoga,
offers a bag of good health and strong
mind. “Yoga practice complements
fasting.
Fasting,
breathing,
meditation and yoga are all
interlinked.” says Smita Seth, Art
and Living Practioner of Yoga and
Meditation.
As body releases most of its
toxin while fasting, the holy month
of Ramadhan is considered the best
month to help the toxin flow out of the
body. “Detoxification is a normal body
process of eliminating or neutralising
the toxins resulting from biochemical
functions through the colon, liver,
kidneys, lungs, lymph nodes and skin,
and fasting precipitates this process
because, when food no longer enters the
body, the latter turns to its fat reserves
for energy. “ says Smita
The locals are more attracted
Detox and make Ramadhan more healthy
Detox facts
as you fast
B
Kashmiri Muslim students
practice yoga. — AFP
Bringing in some
positive lifestyle change
during Ramadhan
has made people opt
for a healthy detox
fasting while balancing
discipline and
resilience
towards the benefits it can offer during
these fasting days. “Most people opt for
detox fasting.
It not only burns down the fat but
converts it into energy, and during the
fast they releases the stored chemicals
from the fatty acids into the system and
then eliminated through the organs.”
With most of the working
population of the Sultanate what
matters most during the fasting
month is the work related stress
they undergo.
Theories suggest the drop of
blood sugar during fasting pushes
the cells to work harder to utilise other
forms of energy. “A number of studies
have shown that yoga helps reduce stress
and anxiety. It can also enhances mood
and overall sense of well-being.”
Yoga is believed to trigger the healing
process as the energy diverted away
from the digestive system.
Lack of exercise not only pounds
up on the body mass but it also slows
down the detox process making the
body feel more fatigued and can also
crop up symptoms of migraines. “Since
there is no food to mobilise the system,
the energy is directed towards the
metabolism and immune system,” says
Smita.
Amazed to know how yoga effects
a fasting body and soul 25-year-old
Noor is regular jogger and yoga student.
“I can feel a lot of difference during
these fasting month than I usually do
when I don’t fast and perform my daily
exercises. Doing the breathing exercises
and small meditation sessions has
helped to gain clarity on my work-desk
as well as maintain a healthy digestive
routine.”
“As practice sessions are intense in
most of the levels, beginners can relax
and listen to the demand of their body
and reciprocate as per the need yet detox
and distress themselves during these 30
days of fasting.”
As detox fasting is gaining its
popularity, so is the intake of right
nutrition while breaking the fast. The
reathe deeply to allow oxygen
to circulate more completely
through
your
system.
Transform stress by emphasising
positive emotions.
Practice hydrotherapy by taking
a very hot shower for five minutes,
allowing the water to run on your
back. Follow with cold water for 30
seconds. Do this three times, and
then get into bed for 30 minutes.
Sweat your body through yoga
exercise, walking and jogging
can eliminate wastes through
perspiration.
Eat plenty of fiber, including
brown rice and organically-grown
fresh fruits and green vegetables.
Cleanse and protect the liver by
taking herbs such as drinking green
tea. Take vitamin C, which helps the
body produce glutathione, a liver
compound that drives away toxins.
right intake of juices, soups, water, cool
homemade fresh juices, minerals such
as iron present mainly in dates and
avoiding saturated fat will not only help
to maintain a healthy routine but will
make one feel the holy month rewarding
and energetic.
Questions
We reached
reeaached out to a few people to ask them three
questions regarding how they spend the holy month.
Ali Saleh al Ajmi
Assistant PR Manager,
Zeenah pr
Smartphone gazing in the dark can make you ‘blind’
I
n a warning to those who sleep
with their devices next to them,
researchers have found two
women who were affected by transient
smartphone “blindness” — a condition
where they went blind in one eye after
gazing at smartphones in the dark.
The first patient — a 22-year-old
woman in England — had a habit of
gazing at her smartphone before falling
asleep.
“She would lie on her left side and
look at the screen primarily with her
right eye.
Her left eye was often covered by
the pillow,” www.npr.org reported on
Thursday.
The other patient in her 40s had
similar problems when she woke up
before sunrise and checked the news on
her smartphone before sitting up.
It had been going on for about a year,
ever since she had injured her cornea.
Around the same time, she bought a
smartphone, the report added.
“They were looking at their
smartphones and they just happened
to have one eye covered because they
were lying in bed,” Omar Mahroo,
ophthalmologist at Moorfields Eye
Hospital in London and an author
reported in a paper published in The
New England Journal of Medicine.
“In both cases, nothing bad was
going on,” Mahroo said, adding that it is
just that one retina was adapted to light
and the other to dark.
“The retina is pretty amazing
because it can adapt to lots of different
light levels, probably better than any
camera,” he noted.
Retinas constantly adjust when
someone leaves a room and enters a
slightly dimmer room or goes inside
after being outdoors.
But these two women experienced
a rare scenario in which that change
would actually be noticeable.
To get to the root of the problem,
the researchers asked the two patients
to view the smartphone with just the
left eye and then just the right eye on
separate occasions. They realised that
the eye going temporarily “blind” was
always the one that was being used to
look at the bright screen.
To confirm this further, Mahroo
went in a dark room and with one eye
covered, looked at a smartphone for 20
minutes before turning off the screen.
“It did actually feel quite strange,” he
said.”It would be very alarming if you
didn’t know what was going on.”
After flashes of dim light, the retina
that had been exposed to the screen
took longer to adjust to new light
settings.
According to Mahroo, several other
patients have said they experienced
concerning vision loss because of
smartphone use.
“We don’t know of any ill effects” as
of now but it can be jarring, the authors
noted.
What does fasting mean to you?
It is a moral and spiritual characteristic of Islam. Besides
abstaining “completely” from food and drink, fasting instills the
Islamic values of sincere love, optimistic outlook on life, and
patience and selflessness.
How do you feel when you fast?
I feel the pains of deprivation but I try to endure it patiently. It
provides me with a transparent soul, a clear mind and a light
body. Besides it shows me a new way of wise savings and sound
budgeting. Fasting enables people to master the art of mature
adaptability. We can easily understand the point once we realise
that fasting makes people change the entire course of their daily
life.
What does Iftar mean to you and with whom you want to
spend the Iftar time?
It is the moment of reward for your patience during the day.
It is happiness for all Muumins, reminds me of the rewards in
the day of judgment. I usually spend Iftar time with my family,
my wife and my children. It is the time where family members
gather to have their Iftar meal.
Healthy diet, walnuts may help fight ageing effects
E
ating an overall healthy diet, including certain foods such as walnuts and other whole
foods, may reduce the risk of physical function impairments throughout the ageing
process in women, a new study has found.
Women who consumed 1-2 servings of walnuts per week (1/4 cup per serving) showed
reduced risk of developing impairments in physical functions, the study said.
Walnuts are unique among nuts in that they are primarily composed of polyunsaturated
fat (13 grams per ounce), which includes alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), the plant-based
omega-3 fatty acid.
They are the only nut to contain a significant amount of ALA with 2.5 grams per one
ounce serving, the study noted.
“There is a lot of research that looks at specific health conditions in ageing, such as diabetes
and heart disease, but less attention to research on quality of life and ability to maintain
independence with ageing,” said Francine Grodstein, Professor at Brigham and Women’s
Hospital and Harvard Medical School in the US.
Further, a higher intake of fruits and vegetables, lower intake of sugarsweetened beverages, trans fat and sodium and moderate alcohol intake were
diets most associated with reduced rates of incident physical impairment.
Among food components, the strongest relations were found for
increased intakes of oranges, orange juice, apples, pears, romaine or leaf
lettuce and walnuts.
Overall diet quality, rather than individual foods, may have a greater
impact on reducing risk of physical function impairments, emphasised
the paper published in the Journal of Nutrition.
For the study, the team looked at data from 54,762 women in the
Nurses’ Health Study, which tracked women for over 30 years.
Between 1992 and 2008, the team examined these participants’
association between the dietary habits of the participants and subsequent
impairment in physical function.
insideoman
ramadhan
OMANDAILYOBSERVER
F R I DAY l J U N E 2 4 l 2 0 1 6
celebratingfaith
Help to spread
a smile across
the faces of
orphans
BY KABEER YOUSUF AND RAHMA ALI
C
are and attention for orphans has been of
paramount importance in Islam and the
religion which shuns embezzling of
orphan’s property or wealth as the
eighth great sin makes sure that
these children are loved and
cared for. The pure and true religion of Allah
orders its members to have mercy and to be
merciful towards all creatures. In this regard
Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him)
said ‘those who care for orphans and me are
close to each other like the two fingers in
paradise’.
“Like this it is asked from believers to be
adorned with mercy, and to deal with kindness
towards one and other, especially toward those
who are in need of mercy”.
The orphans are among those who need mercy and
they ask from us to deal with them in good way!
Islam shows a great deal of sympathy for orphans. In the Quran
we see that the word “orphan” is mentioned 23 times in 12 different forms in
12 different Surahs or chapters. A day for orphans in Oman was dedicated on
June 22 at the Princes’ Hall in Seeb Iftar, and a lot of fun and frolic for these
young minds to enjoy and cherish forever in their lives. The event included
more than 500 orphans from as many as 2,700 registered with the Al Rahma
Charity Association. The primary aim of the event was to generate funds
for these children for their Eid celebrations and studies as well as providing
them with an evening full of fun and entertainment. They walked in with
bewilderment in their eyes and sooner, they were all happy and joyful and
as they left at night, they had become closer to each other and bade adieu
wishing each other to see again soon.
Dr Abdulmunim bin Mansour al Hasani, Minister of Information and
Sayyid Faisal bin Turki al Said, Director-General, Marketing and Media, of
the Public Authority for Investment Promotion and Export Development
(ITHRA) spared their time for the orphans and attended the event.
“It is important to have some sort of entertainment for these kids so that
they can thrive towards their goals in life while helping them feel that they are
not alone”, Wafa Naufali from the Al Rahma, organiser of the event told the
Observer. Nearly 20 companies have come forward to help the association in
generating funds for its operations and according to Wafa, 99 per cent of the
event cost was covered by them.
“In all, there are 2,792 orphans and here we have 700 kids attending the
event. If our supporters which is around 3,000, can donate 10 Rials each, we
would be able to collect 30,000 and that is more than enough for these kids to
enjoy their Eid Al Fitr and their education in full.”
She added that the main reasons behind these kids being made orphans
are accidents, drug abuse, cancer or their parents away at an early stage in
their lives. Wafa further said that the response from young volunteers is
amazing and really enterprising and they are looking for more such dedicated
volunteers. Al Rahma Association was formed by Umm Hood and Rahma
who were so touched by the cause of orphans in the country. They began
with small donations and now, its home for thousands of children across the
country.
“And give to the
orphans their property,
and do not substitute
worthless (things) for (their)
good (ones) and do not devour
their property (as an addition)
to your own property; this is
surely a great sin.” (Holy
Quran 4:2)
11
FRIDAY | JUNE 24, 2016 | RAMADHAN 18, 1437 AH
business
CRUDE OIL PRICE
Oman Crude ---------------$ 46.74
Brent Crude -----------------$ 49.89
Light Crude -----------------$ 49.08
SOURCE: REUTERS
BIZ BUZZ
Swiss BSI appeals
$100 m penalty
GOLD PRICES
Oman 24 Kt per gram --------------------------RO 16.20
Oman 22 Kt per gram --------------------------RO 15.55
UAE 24 Kt per gram -------------------------AED 153.00
UAE 22 Kt per gram ------------------------AED 143.75
CURRENCY RATES (RO 1)
US Dollar------------------------------------------------ 2.60
Euro --------------------------------------------------------2.28
British Pounds ----------------------------------------1.75
Indian Rupee ------------------------------------- 175.01
Pakistan Rupee ---------------------------------- 272.46
Philippine Peso --------------------------------- 120.81
SOURCE: MALABAR GOLD AND DIAMONDS
World’s 2nd-biggest sovereign
fund sees oil glut until mid-2017
www.omanobserver.om
editor@omanobserver.om
GULF STOCK MARKET
Muscat ------------------------------------------------- 5,788.73
Abu Dhabi-------------------------------------------- 4,497.85
Dubai --------------------------------------------------- 3,375.87
Qatar ---------------------------------------------------- 9,919.41
Kuwait ------------------------------------------------- 5,409.17
Bahrain ------------------------------------------------ 1,112.59
Saudi --------------------------------------------------- 6,532.42
Pound reaches
2016 peak
POSITIVE OUTLOOK: Opec says excess supply would ease over the coming quarters
LUGANO: Private bank BSI, which is
being acquired by EFG International
AG, is challenging a 95 million Swiss
franc ($100 million) penalty issued by
Switzerland’s financial regulator over the
lender’s ties to 1Malaysia Development
Bhd.
“BSI believes that Finma’s procedure
leading to the decision was flawed in
many respects and Finma’s decision as
such is disproportionate and incorrect,”
the Lugano, Switzerland-based company
said in e-mailed statement on Thursday,
after lodging an appeal with the
country’s Federal Administrative Court.
Finma’s move last month coincided
with Singapore’s financial regulator’s
decision to strip BSI of its banking license
over ties to troubled 1MDB.
VW owners split on
diesel scandal
LOWER SAXONY: Volkswagen AG’s
typically close-knit owners publicly split
for the first time over the diesel crisis
after the German state of Lower Saxony
withheld support for two executives
under investigation for their role in the
scandal. Volkswagen’s second-largest
shareholder abstained from what is
typically a ceremonial vote at the annual
meeting, declining to back former CEO
Martin Winterkorn and current VW brand
chief Herbert Diess.
Lower Saxony representatives plan
to speak in greater detail about their
decision on Thursday.
“During the current proceedings,
the state of Lower Saxony doesn’t want
to give the slightest impression that it
positions itself in any way,” the German
state said in a statement. — Bloomberg
Positive global
cues buoy Indian
equity markets
MUMBAI: Positive global indices,
coupled with a stable rupee and
recent economic decisions of the
government, buoyed the Indian
equity markets on Thursday.
Consequently, the key indices
provisionally closed the day’s trade
with appreciable gains, as healthy
buying was witnessed in banking,
automobile and healthcare stocks.
The wider 51-scrip Nifty of the
National Stock Exchange (NSE) edged
up by 66.75 points or 0.88 per cent, at
8,270.45 points.
The barometer 30-scrip sensitive
index (Sensex) of the BSE, which
opened at 26,753.20 points,
provisionally closed at 27,002.22
points (at 3.30 pm) — up 236.57
points or 0.88 per cent from the
previous close at 26,765.65 points.
The Sensex touched a high of
27,060 points and a low of 26,736.52
points during the intra-day trade.
In contrast, the BSE market
breadth was tilted in favour of the
bears — with 1,495 declines and
1,095 advances.
On Wednesday, the key indices
closed flat after a volatile trade
session, as uncertain global cues,
profit booking and a weak rupee
depressed investors.
— IANS
DUBAI: The global oil glut will probably
persist until at least next summer as
markets take time to absorb excess
crude in storage, according to the head
of research at the world’s second-largest
sovereign wealth fund.
Supply and demand for oil are coming
back into balance, and the response
of shale producers to rising prices will
help determine how high crude can
go, Christof Ruehl, the global head
of research at Abu Dhabi Investment
Authority, said on Wednesday in an
interview in Dubai.
Ruehl’s view that the re-balancing
will take until at least the middle of
2017 contrasts with the more optimistic
outlook of some industry leaders and
analysts who foresee demand nearing
supply by the end of this year.
“The markets should work with the
inventory overhang and then re-balance
only once that overhang is gone,” Ruehl
said.
“When the winter season comes,
we will have a clearer idea at which
level this re-balancing occurs,” he said,
adding that he expects the process “will
go at least to the summer” of 2017.
Markets are recovering from excess
supply after OPEC decided in 2014 to
let its members pump without limits
in a struggle for sales with higher-cost
producers including US shale drillers.
BP Plc Chief Executive Officer Bob
Dudley said on June 16 that he expected
the market to come into balance by the
end of 2016, while the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries said
in its latest monthly market report that
excess supply would “ease over the
coming quarters.”
Average annual US production
would decline by 665,000 barrels a day in
2016 and 420,000 in 2017 at the current
level of rig count, Goldman Sachs Group
Inc said in an e-mailed note on June 6.
West Texas Intermediate crude traded
above $50 a barrel on Wednesday as US
industry data showed a decline in crude
stockpiles. WTI futures have gained
more than 90 per cent since dropping to
a 12-year low in February.
Oil production and exports will
become less volatile after disruptions
end in Libya, Nigeria and Canada, said
Ruehl, who worked previously as BP’s
chief economist before joining ADIA,
the largest sovereign wealth fund after
Norway’s. Such outages have supported
this year’s rally in crude prices, he said.
“What it takes to get to $60 is very
simple: some more supply disruptions,”
he said earlier on Wednesday in an
interview with Bloomberg TV. “What
it takes to stay down is some of that oil
coming back.”
Shale producers in the US and
elsewhere would only ramp up
What it takes to get to $60
is very simple: some more
supply disruptions. What it
takes to stay down is some of
that oil coming back
CHRISTOF RUEHL
Head of research
Abu Dhabi Investment Authority
production if they have “reasonable
expectations that prices will not be
back to $30 or $20 in a few weeks time,”
Ruehl said. “The stronger and faster
shale production reacts to higher prices,
the more limited the price increases,” he
added.
— Bloomberg
Oil trades near $50 after US supplies decline
NEW YORK: Oil traded near $50 a
barrel after US crude production and
stockpiles dropped and as investors
await the outcome of a UK vote on
whether to remain in the European
Union.
Futures for August delivery rose as
much as 1.7 per cent in New York, as
European stocks gained for a fifth day
and the euro added 0.8 per cent against
the dollar. US crude production fell for
14 of the last 15 weeks to the lowest since
September 2014 and inventories slid by
917,000 barrels last week, according
to data from the Energy Information
Administration.
Oil has fluctuated the past week
as uncertainty about the outcome of
the UK vote drove volatility in global
markets.
Crude in New York has advanced
about 90 per cent from the lowest level
in 12 years in February as disruptions
from Nigeria to Canada and falling
output in the US eased a global surplus.
“Production declines continue to
accelerate,” Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst
at consultants Energy Aspects Ltd, said
in a report.“But crude demand has
faltered” and so “crude stockdraws will
moderate for now.”
West Texas Intermediate for August
delivery gained as much as 82 cents
to $49.95 a barrel on the New York
Mercantile Exchange and was at $49.94
at 11:31 am London time. The contract
lost 72 cents to $49.13 on Wednesday.
Total volume traded was about 22
per cent below the 100-day average.
Brent for August settlement rose
as much as 97 cents, or 1.9 per cent, to
$50.85 a barrel on the London-based
ICE Futures Europe exchange. Prices on
Wednesday fell 74 cents, or 1.5 per cent,
to $49.88. The global benchmark crude
traded at a premium of 90 cents to WTI.
Crude stockpiles at Cushing,
Oklahoma, the delivery point for WTI
and the biggest US oil-storage hub,
dropped by 1.28 million barrels to 65.2
million, according to the EIA report.
While nationwide supplies dropped
to 530.6 million barrels, they remain
more than 100 million barrels above
the five-year average, according to EIA
data. — Bloomberg
LONDON: The pound climbed
to the strongest level this year
as voters started casting their
ballots in a UK referendum on its
European Union membership.
While a gauge of sterling
advanced for a second day, a
measure of implied overnight
price swings versus the dollar
climbed to the highest level on
record.
“We saw the pound recover
further overnight,” said Thu Lan
Nguyen, a foreign-exchange
strategist at Commerzbank AG in
Frankfurt. “From now on, market
participants will wait and see.”
Sterling rose 1.2 per cent to
$1.4889 as of 11:59 am London
time after reaching $1.4947, the
highest level since Dec. 28.
The
UK
currency
strengthened 0.4 per cent to
76.55 pence per euro. The pound
surged 2.4 per cent to 157.28 yen.
The euro gained 0.9 per cent to
$1.1397. Bloomberg’s British
Pound Index, which tracks
sterling against seven major
peers, climbed 1 per cent.
The pound has acted as a
barometer of voting sentiment
since the start of the campaigning
in February, rising or falling
depending on which side of the
debate was gaining momentum.
The pound has climbed more
than 7 per cent since sliding to
a seven-year low of $1.3836 on
February 29, about a week after
former London Mayor Boris
Johnson said he would support
Brexit. That put him at odds with
Prime Minister David Cameron
and Chancellor of the Exchequer
George Osborne, who warned
of the economic risks of the UK
leaving the world’s biggest single
market.
— Bloomberg
Panama has spent more than $5.5 billion expanding its century-old canal to take on bigger freighters
Enlarged Panama Canal to boost US-Asia trade
PANAMA CITY: With its capacity
boosted by nearly three times, Panama’s
enlarged canal — set to be inaugurated
on Sunday — is expected to stimulate
trade between the United States and
Asia, and steal business from the rival
Suez canal.
“A good deal of the commerce
between Asia and the east coast of the
United States can pass through directly
on Neopanamax ships, which will help
both sides,” Nicolas Ardito Barletta,
a former Panamanian president and
former vice president of the World
Bank in Latin America, said.
Neopanamax ships, as their names
suggest, are new generation cargo
vessels built specifically to pass through
the broadened Panama Canal.
They can carry up to three times
the number of containers the previous
generation of smaller Panamax ships
do.
Panama has spent the past nine
years — and more than $5.5 billion —
View of containers in the port of Balboa, near the Panama Canal on Thursday. — AFP
expanding its century-old canal to take
on bigger freighters.
New locks and a wider shipping lane
will allow vessels as wide as 49 metres
(160 feet) and as long as 366 metres
(1,200 feet) to pass through.
The aim is to greatly increase the
amount of cargo transiting the 80
kilometre (50-mile) long waterway
linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
“We are at the dawn of a great time
for Panama and the world, thanks to
the impact the canal’s expansion will
have,” Panama’s Vice President Isabel
De Saint Malo said.
Five per cent of commercial
maritime traffic already passes through
the canal, particularly between ports
in America, China, Japan and South
Korea.
To a lesser degree, it also serves
South America and Europe.
On Sunday, a Chinese Neopanamax
freighter, named the COSCO Shipping
Panama for the occasion, will be
the first to officially go through the
broadened canal.
Asian exporters, shipping groups
and US logistical and trade companies
should be the first to benefit from the
modified canal, says Carlos GuevaraMann, a Panamanian political science
professor at Florida State University.
American consumers will also see
advantages, ending up paying “less
for imported items from China and
neighbouring countries”, he predicted.
In general, the costs of doing trade
worldwide should decrease, as should
polluting emissions, because a fewer
number of bigger ships would be
hauling goods, specialists say.
“The Panama Canal’s expansion
will greatly boost world trade,” Ardito
Barletta said. “Bigger ships will be able
to transit and that will bring down the
transaction and logistic costs.”
The United States is the canal’s
largest client by far, transporting some
160 million tonnes a year through the
waterway.
China is next, with 48 million
tonnes, then Chile with 29 million
tonnes and Japan with 22 million
tonnes.
With room for bigger ships now,
the main market the canal is looking to
attract is transporting liquefied natural
gas from the United States to Asia,
mostly Japan.
— AFP
omaninternational
business
14
OMANDAILYOBSERVER
F R I DAY l J U N E 2 4 l 2 0 1 6
BlackBerry misses sales estimates
BlackBerry Ltd reported earnings that exceeded analysts’ earnings estimates but
came up short on revenue, dragged down by ever-shrinking smartphone sales that
offset efforts to boost the company’s bottom line through software products.
Cheap LNG may lure 50 more nations to gas from oil
EDINBURGH: The number of liquefied
natural gas importers may more than
double as a glut damps prices and
encourages nations to ditch crude,
according to Wood Mackenzie Ltd.
More than 50 countries may switch to
LNG, with demand from new importers
accounting for about 150 million metric
tonnes per year (7.2 trillion cubic feet of
gas) by 2025, amid an oversupply of the
fuel and tankers to carry it, according to
Noel Tomnay, Vice President Research
Global Gas and LNG at the consultant.
That’s about 61 per cent of the current
global market.
“You’ve got easy access to shipping
and you’ve got easy access to supply, and
you’re going to get, we believe, further
rises in the oil price whereas LNG prices,
at spot level, are probably going to be
quite flat,” Tomnay said in an interview
in London.“The opportunity is going
to become increasingly compelling for
markets to switch in to gas.”
Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan increased
the number of LNG importers to 34 last
year, helping offset the first decline in
Asian purchases since 2009, according
to the International Group of LNG
Importers.
Markets are forming as countries
consider switching to gas from crude
after prices for the fuels diverged, with
spot LNG in Japan sliding 45 per cent
this year as Brent oil gained 35 per cent.
Demand and supply on the LNG
market won’t align until 2021, according
to the International Energy Agency,
which estimates that the crude market
will balance next year.
This year, WoodMac expects five new
importers of the gas chilled to minus 162
degrees Celsius (minus 260 Fahrenheit)
to turn it into a liquid for transport by
ship.
They are Colombia, Jamaica, Malta,
Gulf Business Card directory
launched in Oman
Suroor Rahman, Managing Director of Topad Advertising, hands over a copy of the
10th Gulf Business Card Directory to Mustafa Keethadath.
MUSCAT: Gulf Business Card
directory, a unique product of
Doha-based advertising and event
Management Company Mediaplus was
released at a glittering function held in
Muscat recently.
Suroor Rahman, Managing Director
of TOPAD Advertising, Oman
launched the directory by handing over
a copy to Mustafa Keethadath, Director
of Kerala-based Safe Home Developers.
Addressing a packed crowd at
the releasing ceremony Amanulla
Vadakkangara,
CEO,
Mediaplus
explained the idea of business card
directory and observed that it was
effective and useful to connecting
people on a large scale.
“The
information explosion witnessed by the
world today has made business more
and more challenging and it demands
to be more and more relationship
oriented for business success.
It was after thorough market
research and analysis we ventured up
on the directory and it has proved to
be successful as we were growing every
year in spite of economic crisis in the
market.
We have come to the Oman market
with the tenth edition and wish to
explore the possibility of penetrating to
the market with positive presence.”
Gulf Business Card Directory has
become one of the most sought after
tool for developing intra-Gulf business
especially in the SME sector.
“We have the whole directory online
(www.gbcdonline.com)
facilitating
people all over the world to refer to the
directory as and when they require.
The mobile application launched this
year has increased the scope of this
publication”, Suroor added.
The directory facilitating the
business community to interact among
themselves for mutually rewarding
enterprises contain business cards of
individuals and establishments which
can be a ready reference of all the
leading business concerns in the entire
region. Rahmathulla Sidheeq and
Fazalul Haque were among those who
attended the function.
China banks write off
$300 bn in bad loans
BEIJING: Chinese banks have written
off more than $300 billion of bad loans
in the past three years, an official said
Thursday as Beijing seeks to reassure
investors that the country can cope with
its mounting debt problem.
The giant figure comes as Beijing has
made getting credit cheap and easy in
an effort to boost slowing growth in the
world’s second-largest economy.
But analysts have warned that a
debt-fuelled rebound might be shortlived and ballooning borrowings risk
sparking a financial crisis as bad loans
and bond defaults increased.
Wang Shengbang, a high-ranking
official with the China Banking
Regulatory Commission (CBRC), said
the country’s banks had seen their nonperforming loan ratios rise consistently
for four and a half years, reaching 1.75
per cent at the end of March.
But they were well-prepared to
handle the losses, he said, adding
domestic lenders had written off two
trillion yuan ($304 billion) of bad loans
over the past three years.
“Current figures show the banking
sector’s operation is generally stable
and the risks are under control,” he told
reporters at a briefing.
“The CBRC took precaution
measures in advance and in 2011
required banks to set aside more in
provisions while the economy was in
an upturn cycle so that we were able to
accomodate huge writedowns when the
economy was in a downturn cycle,” he
said.
China’s total debt hit 168.48 trillion
yuan at the end of last year, equivalent
to 249 per cent of the national GDP,
top government think tank the China
Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) has
estimated.
The most worrying risks lie in
the non-financial corporate sector,
particularly in state-owned enterprises
(SOEs), Li Yang, a senior CASS
researcher said last week.
— AFP
Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan
increased the number of
LNG importers to 34 last
year, helping offset the first
decline in Asian purchases
since 2009.
the Philippines and Abu Dhabi.
While markets such as Bangladesh
can easily turn to LNG, most the new
entrants, including El Salvador, Ghana
and Kenya, would be switching from
naphtha, diesel and fuel oil and require
investment in infrastructure such as new
pipelines and power plants, Tomnay
said.
That would be a boon for suppliers
MUSCAT SECURITIES MARKET
and companies that provide floating
storage and regasification units, which
are a quicker and cheaper way to receive
the fuel and pump it into local networks
than traditional land-based terminals.
Hoegh LNG Holdings Ltd will
provide an FSRU to Colombia, while
Excelerate Energy will supply a floating
terminal to Abu Dhabi.
LNG suppliers from French energy
company Total SA to trading house
Noble Group Ltd have said they are
looking at emerging markets for future
demand growth.
While it will be harder for trading
companies to enter new markets due to
financing constraints, they may benefit
from relationships formed supplying oil
to those markets, Tomnay said.
To help the countries start imports,
some suppliers may offer one-stop
solutions and develop partnerships for
building infrastructure, Tomnay said.
Floating power plants may be used
to allow a regas facility to operate
alongside generators, he said. Longterm contracts will be needed to support
the construction of infrastructure, and
governments in most of these markets
would prefer a link to oil as a “default
position,” to avoid risks associated with
other indexes, he said.
— Bloomberg
international
business
siness
Sterling firms, stocks wobble ahead of Brexit vote
Tesco reports Q2 of UK sales growth
Tesco, Britain’s biggest retailer, on Thursday reported a second successive quarter of UK
underlying sales growth indicating the firm is making steady progress under CEO Dave Lewis.
Tesco said sales at stores in its home market open over a year rose 0.3 per cent in its fiscal first
quarter.
HONG KONG: Sterling rose and Asian
stocks crept higher in cautious trade
on Thursday though many investors
sought shelter in safe-haven assets such
as the yen and government debt as they
braced for Britain’s vote on its fate in the
European Union.
Sterling climbed to a six-month
high against the dollar, cementing an
impressive 6 per cent rise since last week
as investors squared short positions
ahead of the referendum later in the day.
European stocks are expected to
open flat to slightly higher.
While two opinion polls published
late on Wednesday, a few hours before
voters were due to begin to cast their
votes, showed the “Remain” camp
nudging ahead in the closely divided
campaign, trading activity in Asian
hours remained erratic, thin and
cautious.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific
shares outside Japan rose 0.2 per cent.
Many markets in Asia were flat to
slightly negative with China’s main
index among the biggest losers.
Japan’s Nikkei was a notable exception
with the market up nearly 1 per cent.
“Most people at this point expect a
rise in the market” on expectations the
vote will favour Britain staying in the
EU, said Isao Kubo, an equity strategist
at Nissay Asset Management.
“But you never know, and it will be
clear by tomorrow so you don’t want to
take new positions now.”
Various market volatility indicators
edged higher in the run-up to the
referendum.
A volatility gauge for the Hong Kong
stock market has climbed to more than
A pedestrian stands next to an electronic stock indicator in the window of a security company in Tokyo on Thursday. — AFP
25 compared with around 18 at the end
of December while the more popular
VIX index approached its highest levels
seen this year.
Investors remained largely on the
sidelines ahead of the referendum as
a closely fought vote meant any large
positions taken before the outcome was
vulnerable to being stopped out.
A Bank of America Merrill Lynch
fund manager poll last week found
investors’ cash levels at their highest
since November 2001.
Some investors such as George Soros
expect the value of the British pound to
decline by as much as 15 per cent from
current levels in the event of a British
exit from the EU.
On Thursday, sterling was changing
hands at $1.4798, after hitting $1.4847,
its highest against the dollar in 2016.
The demand for the perceived safehaven yen remained broadly intact with
the dollar adding just 0.2 per cent to
104.63 yen , while the euro gained 0.6
per cent to 118.67 yen.
“It will be hard for the market to
move until the poll results are released.
The pound obviously will take centre
stage. But other European currencies
and particularly dollar/yen also bear
watching as the pair will reflect swings in
risk sentiment,” said Shin Kadota, chief
Japan FX strategist at Barclays in Tokyo.
governments and central banks have
warned may spark turmoil.
Confidence in bitcoin was also
shaken this week as another virtual
currency ether plunged after a hack
removed some digital money, while a
bitcoin exchange temporarily suspended
trading this week amid technical issues.
“With
the
Brexit
deadline
approaching we’re starting to see a
genuine concern for what’s to come, and
this of course has been reflected across
the global markets space, which does
include bitcoin,” said Ryan Rabaglia,
head of wholesale product management
at ANX International in Hong Kong.
“We had a surprise earlier this
week of a prominent exchange having
technical difficulties.
As it is in the world of bitcoin, when
that happens, everyone panics and
assumes the worst.”
— Bloomberg
Gloom puts Turnbull on
back foot in mining state
PERTH: In the one-time engine room
of Australia’s resources bonanza, Prime
Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s election
pledge of creating jobs and growth is
ringing hollow for many voters.
An economic downturn in Western
Australia and claims the Liberal state
government squandered the proceeds
of the mining boom are a fillip for the
opposition Labour party ahead of the
July 2 election.
Polls indicate Labour could make its
first net gain in the state in almost two
decades, loosening the prime minister’s
grip on power nationally.
“Where is Turnbull going to get the
jobs from?” said Bernadette Heath, 55,
at a shopping centre in the electoral
district of Burt — one of four lower
house seats being targeted by Labor
around the state capital, Perth.
“There are no jobs to be had.” Her
57-year-old husband, Brian, took a 40
per cent pay cut in his mining industry
job amid the downturn, she said.
Western Australia, whose vast
Pilbara region is the world’s biggest
supplier of iron ore, is no stranger to
boom and bust years.
But it’s criticism that state Premier
Colin Barnett mismanaged the once-ina-lifetime commodity supercycle that
F R I DAY l J U N E 2 4 l 2 0 1 6
15
Greek bonds rise first
time after ECB waiver
Bitcoin loses 25 per cent in five days
HONG KONG: Bitcoin plunged for a
fifth day as concern Britain will vote to
leave the European Union waned and a
hack suffered by another cryptocurrency
undermined confidence in such digital
assets.
Bitcoin slid 6.1 per cent to $573.84 as
of 1:31 pm in Hong Kong on Thursday,
data compiled by Bloomberg show,
extending a precipitous drop from a
two-year high reached just last Friday.
The price has lost about 25 per cent
in the five-day period.
Bitcoin, like gold, has been tracking
the odds of Brexit on the eve of the
referendum on Thursday as investors
speculated over such an outcome, which
OMANDAILYOBSERVER
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is surrounded by aboriginal dancers as
he attends the Kenbi Native land claim ceremony near Darwin. — AFP
could prove contagious for Turnbull’s
Liberal Party at a federal level.
Barnett, who’s been premier since
2008, rode the crest of the mining
boom, as Chinese demand for the state’s
natural resources drove unprecedented
wealth in the region.
Unskilled workers earned in excess
of A$200,000 ($150,000) as the world’s
biggest miners including BHP Billiton
Ltd and Rio Tinto Group ramped up
production.
Property prices across the state
surged, with apartment rents in some
remote mining towns exceeding those
of Manhattan penthouses.
The state government racked up
debt as it raced to build infrastructure,
including new roads, hospitals and a
A$1.5 billion sports stadium, to cater
for an expanding population.
When a global supply glut combined
with faltering Chinese demand, the
state’s fortunes turned. Australia lost
its Aaa credit rating from Moody’s
Investors Service in 2014, having lost
an equivalent ranking from S&P Global
Ratings a year earlier. — Bloomberg
Before the vote, exchanges and
market regulators moved in to tighten
risk management systems.
Singapore’s stock exchange said it
has raised the amount of cash firms
must pledge to cover trading positions
while central banks stood by to pump in
emergency cash.
The euro rose 0.4 per cent to
$1.13430, while the dollar index, which
tracks the greenback against a basket of
six rival currencies, slipped 0.1 per cent
to 93.479.
Government bonds held firm with
10-year Japanese bonds yielding 0.13 per
cent while the spread between 10- and
two-year debt also held steady at 95 basis
BIZ BRIEF
BOJ’s Kiuchi calls for
review of negative
rates policy
KANAZAWA: Dissenting Bank of
Japan board member Takahide Kiuchi
(pictured) said the central bank
should review its negative interest
rate policy, give itself more time to
hit its 2 per cent inflation target,
and warned that the demerits of its
massive monetary stimulus were
outweighing the benefits.
A prolonged period of ultra-low
interest rates, brought about by
the BOJ’s huge asset purchases,
and the adoption of negative rates
had destabilised the bond market
and damaged the central bank’s
credibility, Kiuchi said on Thursday.
“The additional (positive) effects
of quantitative and qualitative easing
(QQE) have been diminishing,” Kiuchi
told business leaders in the western
coastal city of Kanazawa. ”Numerous
side effects of QQE seem to be
increasing steadily,” he said.
Kiuchi’s views are not shared
by the majority on the BOJ’s ninemember board, but his doubts over
Governor Haruhiko Kuroda’s radical
stimulus policies are gradually gaining
support.
The BOJ’s policies are aimed at
ending two decades of deflation and
stagnant growth, but nearly three
years of aggressive money printing
has failed to accelerate inflation,
which fell for the second straight
month in April as external headwinds
discouraged firms from raising wages
and keep households from spending.
The BOJ surprised markets in
January by adding negative rates to
its asset-buying programme in a fresh
bid to accelerate inflation, but Kiuchi,
who voted against the decision, said
it had impaired the credibility of the
bank’s monetary policy by reducing
the predictability of its actions.
The move has also failed to
address an unwelcome rise in the yen,
while shares have weakened, drawing
criticism that the BOJ had succeeded
only in confusing rather than calming
markets. — Reuters
ATHENS: Greece’s government
bonds rose along with the region’s
peripheral securities after the
European Central Bank agreed
to made the nation’s debt eligible
for
collateral,
allowing
the
country’s lenders access to cheaper
refinancing.
Greece’s 10-year bonds advanced
for the first time in three days, while
the yield on notes due in July 2017
slid to the lowest in two weeks. The
waiver has been reinstated after its
suspension in February 2015 when
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s
government said it wouldn’t meet
the terms of the nation’s then-bailout
programme.
Greek lenders can now pledge
the nation’s junk-rated debt against
regular
central-bank
funding.
However, the ECB said it still won’t
buy the nation’s sovereign securities
as part of its asset-purchase plan
and will examine the possibility
points.
Crude oil prices rose after settling
down more than 1 per cent on
Wednesday, after the US government
reported
a
smaller-than-expected
inventory drawdown.
Brent added 0.7 per cent to $50.21
at a later stage. Europe’s core
government bonds were confined
to narrow trading ranges as Britain
began voting on whether to remain a
member of the European Union.
“For Greek government bonds
the ECB decision is good news,”
said Daniel Lenz, a market strategist
at DZ Bank AG in Frankfurt.
“Greece showed more willingness
for compromise this time and the
creditors did not want to have
additional headline risk, given the
Brexit referendum. In case there is no
Brexit, I would expect more demand
for Greek government bonds.”
a barrel after shedding 1.5 per cent on
Wednesday, while US crude was up 0.7
per cent at $49.48 after giving up 1.4 per
cent in the previous session.
Spot gold plumbed a two-week low
of $1,260.36 an ounce and was last down
0.4 pct at $1,261.24. — Reuters
Asia-Pacific region wealth exceeds N America
PARIS: Private wealth in the Asia-Pacific region surpassed that of North America for the
first time last year, fueled by stronger economies and real estate markets, according to
a Cap Gemini SA report.
Millionaires’ assets in Asia-Pacific countries surged almost 10 per cent to $17.4
trillion, outstripping North America’s $16.6 trillion, Cap Gemini said on Thursday.
European wealth rose 4.8 per cent to $13.6 trillion, while Latin America and Africa
declined, the Paris-based consulting firm said. Global wealth advanced 4 per cent to
$58.7 trillion. China’s millionaire population rose 16 per cent, the biggest increase in
the survey. The US, Japan and Germany still have more high-net-worth individuals,
though, and there are more than four times the number of American millionaires than
Chinese ones.
China, the US and India are expected to be the key drivers of growth in high-networth individuals’ assets through 2025, by which time millionaires globally will have
$106 trillion, according to the report.
Wealth in the Asia-Pacific region will climb 142 per cent to $42.1 trillion, while the
Middle East and Africa will be the two other fastest-growing areas, Cap Gemini said.
Cap Gemini surveyed more than 800 wealth-management companies across
15 major wealth markets. A high-net-worth individual is defined as someone with
investable assets of $1 million or more, excluding his or her primary residence and
certain collectibles and consumer items, according to the company.
— Bloomberg
Afghan Sikh Jagtar Singh Laghmani, 50, accepts money from a customer at
his traditional herb shop in Kabul, Afghanistan. — Reuters
Indonesia effectively lowers bond tax to zero
JAKARTA: Indonesia will bear a withholding tax on interest payments on its global
bonds, effectively reducing the rate to zero, in a bid to lower the highest yields in
Southeast Asia.
The incentive applies to its Islamic and non-Islamic foreign-currency notes issued
overseas, according to a Finance Ministry rule formalised June 17.
The measure takes retroactive effect from Jan 1 and covers levies on gains from
bond buybacks, exchanges and from payments for third-party services, such as fees of
rating companies and legal consultants, rendered during the debt offer.
The ministry announced the plan in May, saying the move would help lower
government bond yields and result in lower interest costs on corporate debt.
Domestic investors were subject to a 15 per cent withholding tax on the nation’s
bonds, while foreign funds were charged 20 per cent.
“This incentive will be a positive catalyst for Indonesia’s global bond yields to fall as
much as the 15 to 20 per cent tax, or more,” said Ariawan, a fixed-income analyst at PT
BNI Securities in Jakarta.“Tax receipts will decline, but only slightly as the amount isn’t
significant.” Ariawan, like some Indonesians, uses only one name.
The yield on Indonesia’s dollar debt due January 2026 fell three basis points to
3.84 per cent as of 3:56 pm in Jakarta, compared with 2.60 per cent on comparable
Philippine notes, data compiled show.
— Bloomberg
perspective
business
16
OMANDAILYOBSERVER
F R I DAY l J U N E 2 4 l 2 0 1 6
*Pound’s day arrives as history shows what’s possible
DECISION DAY
I
t’s finally here: the day when
Britain decides on its 43-year
membership of the European
Union.
And whichever side wins,
the pound will be the focus of
attention in financial markets around
the world.
The UK currency may have rallied in
four of the past five days, but gauges of
the risk of significant declines and price
swings are either at, or close to, record
highs.
The 30 per cent drop predicted by
Julius Baer Group Ltd on a Brexit vote
— and even the 20 per cent and 11 per
cent declines foreseen by George Soros
and Goldman Sachs Group Inc — would
count among the very steepest for
sterling in UK history.
It’s been a year of extremes for the
pound, and the past few days have been
no exception.
Sterling dropped to a two-month
low a week ago as polls showed the
“Leave” campaign surging ahead, before
wiping out its year-to-date loss as proEuropeans regained the initiative.
As for the result due on Friday,
high-street betting patterns may have
suggested a “Remain” result was virtually
in the bag, yet recent surveys suggested
national opinion was split almost down
the middle.
“If we get a vote to leave, the reaction
in the pound market will be voracious
— it would be a very, very historic
moment for sterling,” said Paul Lambert,
London-based head of currencies at
Sterling dropped to a twomonth low a week ago as
polls showed the ‘Leave’
campaign surging ahead,
before wiping out its
year-to-date loss as proEuropeans regained the
initiative.
An illuminated "In or Out" sign is pictured outside a house in Hangleton near Brighton in southern England, on Thursday as
Britain holds a referendum on whether to stay or leave the European Union. — AFP
Insight Investment Management Ltd, a
Bank of New York Mellon Corp unit that
manages about $540 billion.“Liquidity
would be the biggest problem in the
immediate aftermath.
Options markets certainly indicate
a move of 20 per cent lower in sterling
over days and weeks would certainly be
possible.”
‘Relief Rally’
While recent sterling moves imply
Britain will opt to stay in the EU, a
“Remain” result would mean a “relief
rally” of 3 per cent to 4 per cent, Lambert
said.
The last time the UK currency rose
anything like that much was in October
2008, when it climbed 5 per cent over
two days.
Prime Minister David Cameron,
Bank of England Governor Mark Carney
and the International Monetary Fund’s
Christine Lagarde are among global
leaders to warn about the risks to the UK
of quitting the EU, which is the world’s
biggest single market and buys about
half of Britain’s goods and services.
Most economists in a Bloomberg
survey earlier this month predicted the
pound would fall below $1.35 the day
after a “Leave” vote.
A plunge of that size on a single
day — 9 per cent from Thursday’s level
*No safety for traders on Brexit day
MARKET RISK
as liquidity shortages loom
We’ve actually gotten
notices from all our
counterparties saying that
they might not be able to
provide pricing, that their
prices might turn into
indicative pricing during a
period of time, that they
might suspend algorithmic
trading
ANDY MAACK
Head, Vanguard foreign exchange
for all currency futures and options
from June 22 to June 24 to ensure fair
and orderly trading.
CME modified limits “based on the
strong likelihood of increased price
volatility expected to result from the
‘Brexit’ vote,” it said on its website.
As investors navigate a potential
Brexit, worsening liquidity raises
the difficulty of unloading or adding
positions. It also heightens the risk
that there will be repeats of the bouts
of turbulence that have rocked global
markets in the past year.
Consider that New Zealand’s
currency suffered its biggest intraday
drop in 30 years in August, the same
week that dozens of US exchange-traded
funds diverged from the value of their
underlying shares.
In January, the South African rand
tumbled 9 per cent in 15 minutes before
rebounding, and last week, a measure of
volatility in Group-of-Seven currencies
rose to a four-and-a-half-year high.
Polling indicates a close race. Bank
of England officials have warned about
the risk of a “Leave” victory for the UK
economy, while the Federal Reserve left
interest rates unchanged last week and
cited a potential British exit as a factor
in its decision.
POSITIVE VIEW
Euro will strengthen
with or without Brexit
T
B
ond and currency
traders seeking refuge
as the UK votes on
membership in the
European Union may
find that the world’s
financial-market havens aren’t so safe.
There are already signs that liquidity,
the ability to trade without affecting
prices, has been deteriorating in some
investment oases in advance of the
ballot. The yen strengthened as much as
0.6 per cent in the space of a minute on
Thursday before giving up much of the
gains almost immediately. It was little
changed at 104.41 per dollar at 7:42 am
London time.
Liquidity has dropped by about a third
in European sovereign bonds, according
to David Page, a senior economist in
London at AXA Investment Managers.
Vanguard Group Inc, which manages
about $3.5 trillion, is hearing from
currency dealers that they may provide
indicative, rather than firm, prices in
the event volatility climbs. In the pound,
which is at the centre of global scrutiny,
some investors are reluctant to hold spot
positions, according to Europe-based
traders.
“Everybody’s just preparing for the
potential of a shortage of liquidity,” said
Andy Maack, head of foreign-exchange
trading at Vanguard in Malvern,
Pennsylvania. “For the first time I
can remember, we’ve actually gotten
notices from all our counterparties
saying that they might not be able to
provide pricing, that their prices might
turn into indicative pricing during a
period of time, that they might suspend
algorithmic trading.”
Australia & New Zealand Banking
Group Ltd joined lenders including
UBS Group AG and Societe Generale
SA in cautioning clients that its ability
to provide the usual levels of currency
liquidity as well as pricing could be
constrained, according to a memo seen
by Bloomberg. Chicago Mercantile
Exchange Inc said in a note it has
increased special price fluctuation limits
of about $1.48 — would be the biggest
ever, surpassing daily slides seen during
the 2008 financial crisis and on Black
Wednesday in 1992.
That’s when the UK was forced out
of Europe’s exchange-rate mechanism,
prompting a run that saw the pound fall
30 per cent in about five months and
making Soros’s reputation.
The 85-year-old billionaire money
manager said this week sterling may
slump more than 20 per cent if Britain
votes to quit the EU.
Julius Baer, the second most-accurate
currency forecaster in Bloomberg’s latest
rankings, is even more pessimistic,
predicting a drop of about 30 per cent
after a decision to leave.
Goldman Sachs warned clients last
week that the pound may fall about 11
per cent in trade-weighted terms if an
exit vote created similar turmoil to the
The yen, a refuge in times of turmoil,
appreciated to 103.55 per dollar last
week, its strongest in almost two years,
and traders are braced for more strength.
The premium for one-month options to
buy the yen versus the greenback, over
the cost of contracts to sell, climbed to
the most since 2010.
Yields have tumbled in the US, the
world’s biggest bond market, which had
its own episode of unusual turbulence
in 2014. On October 15 that year, in a
span of 12 minutes, benchmark 10year yields slid 0.16 percentage point
then rebounded, prompting the first
government review of the market since
1998.
Last week, benchmark 10-year
Treasury yields touched 1.52 per
cent, the lowest since 2012. Investors
can prepare for volatility by running
stress tests on portfolios and adjusting
positions incrementally as information
emerges after the referendum, said
Sinead Colton, San Francisco-based
head of investment strategy at Mellon
Capital. — Bloomberg
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc collapse.
These declines compares with the
55 per cent slide sterling suffered from
the end of 1980 through February 1985,
shortly before the world’s richest nations
signed the Plaza Accord, designed to
weaken the dollar and haul the US
economy out of a recession.
As Britons head to the voting booths,
traders are protecting themselves against
violent price swings in the aftermath of
the result.
Implied one-week volatility for
pound-dollar surged to an all-time high
of 49.7 per cent on June 17 and rose as
high as 48.8 per cent on Thursday, when
overnight volatility also hit a record.
The premium on one-week options
to sell sterling versus the dollar, over
contracts to sell, jumped to a record 15.5
percentage points on Thursday, data
compiled by Bloomberg show.
That compares with a 5 percentagepoint peak before the 2014 referendum
on Scottish independence.
Kei Katayama, a Tokyo-based money
manager at Daiwa SB Investments Ltd,
which oversees about $50 billion, said
his fund increased its sterling positions
to “neutral,” from “underweight.” He
gave his reasoning as the killing of pro“Remain” lawmaker Jo Cox, and market
speculation that it made a vote for the
status quo more likely.
“If Brexit happens, the British pound
will fall,” said Katayama, predicting a 5
per cent to 10 per cent drop the day after
a vote to leave.
“It will be massive.” — Bloomberg
he euro will strengthen this year no matter which way
the UK votes in Thursday’s referendum on its European
Union membership, according to one of the most
accurate forecasters of the currency.
A record current-account surplus and rising inflationadjusted bond yields will limit any declines in the shared
currency to $1.10, said Daisuke Karakama, chief market economist at
Mizuho Bank Ltd in Tokyo.
The same drivers will
then send the euro toward
$1.15 by year-end as long
as US interest rates stay on
hold, he said.
Mizuho has been among
the top two most accurate
forecasters of the euro
in each of the past three
quarters.
“Forecasts for the euro to
collapse on negative news have been around since 2009 but have never
been proven right because they are emotional,” Karakama said in an
interview on Tuesday.
“Markets are running out of reasons to sell the euro with all countries,
even Greece, having current-account surpluses now. There is no imminent
risk of collapse or crisis.”
The euro rose 0.3 per cent to $1.1334 as of 8:46 am in London on
Thursday, having strengthened 4.3 per cent this year.
The currency has climbed almost 8 per cent from an eight-month low
of $1.0524 set in December.
The euro area’s current-account surplus increased to a record 36.2
billion euros ($41 billion) in April, from a deficit of 1.46 billion euros at
the end of 2010, according to data from the European Central Bank.
German 10-year bond yields adjusted for inflation have climbed to
minus 0.78 per cent from a record low of negative 0.925 per cent in May.
Italy’s have risen to 0.56 per cent from an all-time low of 0.21 per cent
in December.
Karakama, who worked for the European Commission in 20072008, said the euro would already have strengthened on its improving
fundamentals had the ECB not introduced unprecedented monetary
stimulus.
Purchasing power parity suggests the currency is now about 17 per
cent undervalued, according to data from the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development.
“The upward pressure exerted by fundamentals have over the past
two years been contained by the ECB’s monetary policy, but that power
is waning,” he said.
The euro dropped more than 20 per cent after ECB President Mario
Draghi introduced negative interest rates in June 2014 to a 12-year low the
following March.
The currency has traded in a range of about $1.05 to $1.15 since then,
and that has narrowed even more this year as the Brexit referendum
approached. — Bloomberg
at et cs
athletics
Klitschko calls for Fury’s suspension from the ring
Britain’s world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury should be banned from boxing for his “Hitler like” comments,
former champion Wladimir Klitschko has said, as the two prepare to face off in a re-match in Manchester next
month. Fury, 27, who beat Klitschko to take the WBA, WBO and IBF belts in November last year, caused controversy
when he made homophobic, sexist and anti-Semitic comments in a video posted online last month.
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17
RIO GAMES: Russian track and field athletes are banned from the Games in August unless they can prove they have not been tainted
Isinbayeva insists Olympic hopes not dead
CHEBOKSARY, Russia: Pole vault
legend Yelena Isinbayeva defiantly
claimed all hope of competing at the
Rio Olympics is not lost after posting
a world leading mark in the Russian
Championships on Tuesday.
Russian track and field athletes are
banned from the Games in August
unless they can prove they have not been
tainted by the disgraced Russian system.
Isinbayeva has threatened to sue
world athletics governing body the
IAAF over the Olympic ban — imposed
due to state sponsored doping and
mass corruption — and she stressed on
Tuesday that she hasn’t thrown in the
towel.
“Today I have to admit that deep
down there is hope. It hasn’t died
completely,” said the 34-year-old
twice Olympic and three-time world
champion, who cleared 4.90-metres in
Cheboksary.
“We still have to fight to compete at
the Olympics in Rio. We have to file our
case in court now.
“If I win my case at CAS (Court of
Arbitration for Sport), that will mean I
am allowed to compete.”
Isinbayeva also praised International
Olympic Committee (IOC) president
Thomas Bach after he said earlier on
Tuesday that any Russian athletes at
the Games would compete under their
own flag, contradicting claims made
by the IAAF at the weekend when they
confirmed the Russian ban, which was
first imposed in November, would
remain in place.
“The most pleasant thing for me
personally today is that all athletes who
win their cases will compete under the
Russian flag. That’s a victory,” added
Yelena Isinbayeva warms up
before an attempt. — Reuters
Isinbayeva.
“I was desperate yesterday, but I’m
very optimistic today.
“The president of the International
Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach,
turned out to be, if not humane, but
sober-minded.
“Now it means that the end of my
career, I hope, will be in Rio.”
Olive branch —
The IAAF offered an olive branch to
Russian athletes provided they can meet
certain strict criteria in terms of the fight
against doping.
World champion 110m hurdler
Sergey Shubenkov, who won his event
at the Russian Championships in
Cheboksary, said he hopes to be able to
compete in Rio.
“I feel fantastic, we are competing,
jumping hurdles, hurrah! It’s super!” he
exclaimed.
“I wanted to say a lot of things about
this (the IAAF situation) but all this
is not important anymore. Of course
it’s good that this leaves us a chance.
There are lots of conditions from what I
understand but I hope that I will comply
with them.”
One athlete who is likely to comply
is Florida-based long jumper Darya
Klishina.
She won her national championship
with a leap of 6.84m and then said she
was delighted to hear that Russians, if
they qualify, could at least compete for
their country and not be forced to fly a
neutral flag.
“I read the news this morning,”
Klishina — reporters on Tuesday.
“I was not only happy for myself but
for the other athletes who will be able to
compete at the Olympics in spite of this
situation.”
Klishina said she was still unclear
on which procedures she needed to
complete to apply for a chance to
compete in Rio, but said her coach and
agent would look into it.
But the head of Russia’s athletics
federation, Dmitry Shlyakhtin, said on
Monday that being based abroad should
count in Klishina’s favour.
The 25-year-old, a two-time
European indoor champion, said
that her preparation for Rio had been
hindered by the IAAF suspension.
Since then, Russian athletes have been
barred from taking part in international
track and field meets alongside the
world’s best.
“When you don’t feel this competition,
it’s very difficult,” she said. “We can say
that they are letting us compete without
preparation for the Olympic Games.”
Klishina said she was flying to the
United States later this week to resume
her pre-Olympic preparation at the
prestigious IMG Academy, which is
known for producing elite golfers and
tennis players. — AFP
Fears of violence ahead Cleveland celebrates Cavs with huge parade
of latest Paris protest
PARIS: Paris riot police swarmed the
French capital’s historic Bastille area on
Thursday as protesters gathered for the
latest march in a marathon campaign
against labour reforms that has seen
recurring violence.
As President Francois Hollande
vowed his Socialist government would
“go all the way” to enact the reforms,
armoured vehicles choked the avenues
leading to the Place de la Bastille where
the march was set to kick off at 2:00 pm
(1200 GMT).
The march was given the go-ahead
after bitter negotiations in which the
government first tried to ban it on
security grounds, before backing down
and agreeing to allow a short, tightly
contained route.
The threat of a ban — which would
have been the first in 54 years — only
deepened the rancour between the
government and unions who accuse
Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel
Valls of flouting democratic values.
Eric Coquerel of France’s Left Party
said on Thursday that in a “normal
democracy, Manuel Valls would resign”
following the prime minister’s vocal
support for a ban. Valls warned that
fresh violence would not be tolerated
after the last protest on June 14 saw
bloody clashes just four days after
the start of the Euro 2016 football
tournament hosted by France.
Two police officers were hospitalised,
while another 26 were injured.
More than 2,000 police have been
deployed for the march, and around
100 people will be barred from taking
part, police chief Michel Cadot said on
Wednesday.
He said marchers would be screened
and searched “to prevent them from
bringing in projectiles or items for
disguising themselves.”
Last week masked protesters
smashed up storefronts and attacked
a children’s hospital, shattering some
of its windows, while others hurled
projectiles at police, who made dozens
of arrests.
STUN GRENADES
The Solidaires union on Thursday
denounced a decision to equip the
police with stun grenades, issuing
a statement saying the devices have
injured hundreds.
Unions are protesting a series of
labour market reforms that Valls had
to force through parliament in May
to avoid a vote, even after the bill was
significantly watered down.
However after more than three
months of protests and strikes over the
legislation, neither side is willing to
budge.
Hardline unions have vowed to keep
up the pressure until their demands to
further revise the bill are met. — AFP
A man brandishes a smoke bomb by members of the French General
Confederation of Labour (CGT) worker’s union as they all take part in a march on
June 23, 2016, in Le Havre to protest against a series of controversial labour
reforms. — AFP
CLEVELAND: Downtown Cleveland
was a sea of wine and gold on Wednesday
as jubilant fans gave a hero’s welcome
to NBA superstar LeBron James and
his Cavaliers teammates, who brought
home the city’s first major sports title in
more than 50 years.
Confetti in the team’s colours rained
down as the parade snaked through
the city, with the NBA championship
trophy in a black pickup truck, and team
members travelling in separate vehicles.
The Cavaliers, led by series MVP
James, pulled off the greatest comeback
in NBA Finals history to dethrone the
Golden State Warriors, winning Game
7 on Sunday 93-89 to complete an
improbable rally from a 3-1 deficit to
take the title.
The win brought Cleveland its first
major sports champion since the Browns
took the National Football League title
in 1964, ending the longest such title
drought for any American city.
“The victory feels unreal,” said parade
goer Jerame Provitt, who had attended
the final game in Oakland, California.
Many fans wore team jerseys — 23
for James or 2 for Kyrie Irving were the
most popular — and waved team flags,
some of them dancing with joy.
Officials expected hundreds of
thousands to take part in the celebration.
Revellers lined up on the streets for
the best spots from the early morning
hours. Some even climbed light poles
and bus shelters for a better view.
James — who turned in a
performance for the ages in the Finals,
sealing his place in the pantheon of
the sport’s greats — stood atop the
convertible in which he was travelling,
extending his arms to the crowd.
“King” James also documented the
festivities with his smartphone, while
Irving hopped off his pickup truck, highfiving fans and gesturing to the crowd.
James turned in a performance for the
ages in the Finals, sealing his place in the
pantheon of the sport’s greats.
He averaged NBA Finals highs of 29.7
points, 11.3 rebounds and 8.9 assists and
led the way with more than two steals
and blocked shots a game as well — not
to mention his pinpoint passing and
defensive swagger.
DAY OFF IN CLEVELAND?
Much of Cleveland — home to
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and
Cleveland Cavaliers Lebron James celebrates with the crowd during a parade to celebrate winning the 2016 NBA
Championship in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, US. — Reuters
soon to host the Republican National
Convention in July — was engulfed
in celebration, with reports of local
employers giving workers the day off.
Two
theatres
rescheduled
performances due to the large crowds,
and a local courthouse even planned to
reschedule some hearings, should the
parties involved be unable to attend.
Cleveland’s public transit system,
which had offered free parking to parade
goers, announced early in the day that
lots were at capacity. The Cleveland
airport’s lots were similarly congested,
and hotels were fully booked.
There was almost no visible green
lawn at the city’s open field known as
The Mall, where a crowd had gathered
for the post-parade rally.
‘THE WHOLE CITY NEEDED THIS’
Despite being represented in three
major sports — baseball, basketball and
football — a Cleveland franchise has not
come home with a season-ending trophy
since the Browns in 1964. When James
returned to the Cavaliers, he pledged to
bring home a trophy — and made good
on his promise.
— AFP
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F R I DAY l J U N E 2 4 l 2 0 1 6
Ireland coach O’Neill hails ‘special night’
Republic of Ireland manager Martin O’Neill said the 1-0 win over Italy that took his team through to the last
16 of the European Championship was one of the best nights of his long career. “I’ve had some great nights
but this was very special tonight,” a beaming O’Neill said after Robbie Brady’s late goal in Lille took Ireland
through to a dream tie against host nation France as one of the best sides.
Chile down Colombia to reach final
COPA AMERICA: The defending champions scored twice in the first 11 minutes to take a grip on the contest
CHICAGO: Chile stormed into the
Copa America final here Wednesday,
beating Colombia 2-0 in a weatherdisrupted semifinal that took more than
four hours to complete.
The defending champions advanced
to a repeat of last year’s final against
Argentina on Sunday after a whirlwind
start left Colombia chasing the game.
Chile, who had destroyed Mexico 7-0
in the quarterfinals on Saturday, picked
up where they left off, scoring twice in
the opening 11 minutes to take a grip on
the contest. Bayer Leverkusen midfielder
Charles Aranguiz opened the scoring in
the seventh minute before Jose Pedro
Fuenzalida made it 2-0 after 11 minutes.
But the explosive start to the contest
was overshadowed by the intervention
of Mother Nature at half-time, as a
powerful electrical thunderstorm rolled
into downtown Chicago and halted play.
Tens of thousands of spectators
were ordered to take shelter inside the
stadium, leaving the ground empty as
torrential rain pounded the stands.
For a while it looked as if play would
be abandoned, with the teams forced
to return to the venue on Thursday to
complete the remaining 45 minutes.
However a break in the weather
allowed teams of ground staff to set
about clearing excess water from the
field, and after a delay of two hours and
25 minutes, the second half resumed at
10:25 pm local time (0325 GMT).
When play got under way both sides
produced one of the most entertaining
halves of the tournament, Colombia
attacking relentlessly in an effort to get
back into the match and Chile chasing a
third goal to kill the game off.
PENALTY APPEAL
Colombia had appeals for a penalty
waved away early in the second half
when Daniel Torres tumbled over the
outstretched leg of Gonzalo Jara in the
penalty area.
With Real Madrid star James
Rodriguez doing his best to take control
Chile’s Mauricio Isla tries to control the ball over Colombia’s Daniel Torres during the Copa America Centenario semifinal in Chicago, Illinois, United States. — AFP
of the match, Colombia looked lively in
attack but were unable to find the final
ball to unlock Chile’s defence.
The Colombians’ job became even
more daunting in the 57th minute when
Aston Villa midfielder Carlos Sanchez
was sent off, collecting a second yellow
for a clumsy challenge on Aranguiz.
Chile almost took an unassailable
lead soon afterwards when only a superb
diving save by Arsenal goalkeeper David
Ospina thwarted Erick Pulgar’s close-
range header.
The closing stages of the game
descended into a niggly encounter, with
referee Chicas Aguilar of El Salvador
eventually issuing eight yellow cards and
one red. Colombia continued to chase
the game relentlessly, but came up short,
paying the price for a lackadaisical start
which saw Chile seize control with two
goals in the first 11 minutes.
Fuenzalida was the architect of the
opener, racing clear of the Colombian
defence down the right flank before
crossing to Alexis Sanchez.
The Arsenal star was beaten to the
ball by Colombia’s Juan Cuadrado, but
the Juventus player could only succeed
in heading back to the feet of Aranguiz
who tapped in from close range.
Four minutes later, Chile doubled
their lead.
A long goal kick from Chile
goalkeeper Claudio Bravo found
Sanchez, who turned Santiago Arias
inside out on the edge of the penalty
area before unleashing a fierce low shot
which struck the bottom of the post.
The ball rolled into the path of
Fuenzalida who had the simplest of
finishes to make it 2-0 after only 11
minutes.
Sunday’s final will be the second
time Argentina and Chile have met in
the tournament. Argentina beat the
Chileans 2-1 in their opening Group D
earlier this month.
— AFP
Leicester strike
early blow as
Vardy signs
new contract
LONDON: Leicester City struck an
early blow ahead of the new Premier
League season when leading striker
Jamie Vardy signed a four-year
contract extension with the champions
on Thursday.
England international Vardy,
whose 24 goals propelled Claudio
Ranieri’s side to a fairytale title, had
been strongly linked with a move to
Arsenal.
“Leicester City have today agreed
with the representatives of Jamie Vardy
to extend the England international’s
contract with the Premier League
champions for a further four years,”
the club said in a statement.
“Both parties hope that this
announcement will end recent
speculation
regarding
Jamie’s
future and confirm his long term
commitment to Leicester City Football
Club.”
There were fears that Vardy’s
departure could have sparked an
exodus of Leicester’s key players such
as PFA Player of the Season Riyad
Mahrez and N’Golo Kante. Instead,
the 29-year-old has signalled his intent
to consolidate Leicester’s new-found
status and lead them in their first
Champions League campaign.
Former Leicester and England
striker Gary Lineker applauded
Vardy’s decision to turn down a move.
“A show of loyalty from @vardy7
and a show of ambition from @LCFC
is to be applauded. Jamie to #remain”
BBC presenter Lineker said on his
Twitter account.
Media reports say Vardy’s salary
will rise to 100,000 pounds per week.
The champions have already started
strengthening with defender Luis
Hernandez joining on a free transfer
from La Liga side Sporting Gijon on a
four-year contract this week.
— Reuters
England not too big for Ireland can compete with France: Brady
Iceland, says joint coach
PARIS: Iceland do not fear facing
England at Euro 2016 joint coach Heimir
Hallgrimsson said on Wednesday after
his indefatigable players beat Austria
2-1 to book a place in the last 16.
The Icelanders finished on five
points in Group F behind Hungary on
goal difference to set up an encounter
with Roy Hodgson’s team in Nice on
Monday.
“I’m not afraid of the England
match,” Hallgrimsson told a news
conference after midfielder Arnor
Traustason had scored with the last kick
of the game to beat Austria.
“Icelanders know everything about
English football. We have to have
our best game but we know that even
though Iceland can have the best
performance we’ve ever had, we can still
lose against nations like England.”
Iceland were trounced 6-1 by
England in 2004 in the nations’
only previous meeting, although
the islanders have improved beyond
recognition since then.
Man of the match Kari Arnason,
who set up Jon Bodvarsson for their
18th minute opener with a flicked
header, also welcomed the opportunity
to play against Wayne Rooney’s men.
“I have always supported England
in the big international tournaments
when we haven’t been playing,” said the
33-year-old former Plymouth Argyle
and Rotherham United midfielder.
“It’s a dream come true. We will go
into this game with full force to get a
result. We believe in our ability.”
Tournament debutants Iceland are
unbeaten, having drawn 1-1 against
Portugal and Hungary in their first two
group matches, and their players stayed
on the pitch long after the final whistle
to soak up the adulation of their ecstatic
fans.
“The supporters were fantastic
tonight,” added Hallgrimsson, who
is in joint charge of the national team
alongside former Sweden coach Lars
Lagerback.
“If we can show these values on the
pitch I think every Icelander is happy
with the team, no matter the result. The
only thing you can do is give your best.”
— Reuters
Iceland’s coaches Lars Lagerbaeck, Heimir Hallgrimsson and Freyr Alexandersson
during training. — Reuters
LILLE, France: Irish hero Robbie Brady
insisted that the Republic of Ireland have
nothing to fear in a Euro 2016 knockout
tie against hosts France after his goal
secured a famous win over Italy.
Having to win Wednesday’s match to
progress from Group E, Ireland looked
to be heading out as they went into the
final five minutes at Lille’s Stade PierreMauroy with the game still goalless.
But then Brady appeared, running
onto a Wes Hoolahan cross to score and
secure a 1-0 victory that took Martin
O’Neill’s men through as one of the best
third-placed sides.
The win set Ireland up for a rematch
with the French, seven years on from the
infamous Thierry Henry handball that
knocked the Irish out in a World Cup
qualifying play-off.
And Brady said the triumph,
that followed a 1-0 win over world
champions Germany in qualifying,
should now stand Ireland in good stead.
“We have managed to beat some of
the best teams in the world. We know
(France) are a top-class team and they
have got some unbelievable players but
if we can stick together and click we can
hurt anybody,” said the Norwich City
player, who would have merited his man
of the match award even without his
goal.
“I don’t think we have anything to
fear and I think we can go as far as we
allow ourselves in this tournament.”
For Ireland it was a first win in a
competitive match against Italy since
the 1994 World Cup and Brady’s heroics
mean he — at the age of just 24 — has
secured himself legendary status among
Irish fans.
“I can’t really explain the feeling. You
hear people who have scored these types
of goals saying that it is like an out of
body experience and I was lucky enough
to experience it tonight,” acknowledged
the Dubliner.
Ireland’s win in front of a sea of
green in the Lille stands came after they
were held to a 1-1 draw by Sweden in
their opening game and then suffered
Ireland’s midfielder Robert Brady celebrates after the Euro 2016 Group E match against Italy at the Pierre-Mauroy Stadium in
Villeneuve-d’Ascq, near Lille. Ireland won the match 0-1. — AFP
a comprehensive 3-0 defeat to Belgium.
It also justified manager O’Neill’s
decision to make four changes to his
starting line-up, including completely
changing his central defence, where
Shane Duffy of Blackburn Rovers
held his nerve brilliantly in his first
competitive international.
“You would’ve thought that Duffy
was playing in his 35th international. He
was terrific and so was the whole team,”
said O’Neill.
“There wasn’t a player out there
in an Irish shirt who didn’t perform
heroically.”
‘MOVE ON’ FROM 2009
O’Neill, who has enjoyed some great
successes both as a player and a manager,
labelled the victory as one of the finest
of his career and joked that a last-16 tie
I don’t think we have
anything to fear and I
think we can go as far as
we allow ourselves in this
tournament. I can’t really
explain the feeling. You
hear people who have
scored these types of goals
and I was lucky enough to
experience tonight
with the French would be “easy”.
“I really don’t want to think that
this is the end for us. We need another
performance like that to stand any
chance and we have to find the energy
again from somewhere,” said O’Neill,
whose side will have had three days
fewer than the French to prepare for
Sunday’s match in Lyon.
“This is tournament football. Players
have come in and played their third
game in nine days, but it’s the same for
a lot of other sides.”
Drawing France revives the memory
of what happened when the countries
met in that World Cup qualifying playoff in November 2009, when Henry’s
handball set up William Gallas for the
goal that eliminated Ireland and caused
an international outcry.
— AFP
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F R I DAY l J U N E 2 4 l 2 0 1 6
‘England’s best yet to come’
WOAKES VIEW: The all-rounder put up an impressive display in the tied opening match
NOTTINGHAM, United Kingdom:
England all-rounder Chris Woakes
believes he has more to offer on the
international stage after an impressive
display in a tied one-day series opener
against Sri Lanka.
Woakes’s unbeaten 95 under the
Trent Bridge floodlights on Tuesday
was, remarkably, his maiden fifty in
116 limited overs appearances for both
Warwickshire and England.
It was also the highest score by a
number eight batsman in one-day
international history.
Liam Plunkett may have secured the
tie in dramatic style with six off the last
ball, but without Woakes’s runs England,
who finished on 286 for eight, would
have been well beaten.
The 27-year-old Woakes was named
man-of-the-match after also taking two
for 56 with his increasingly lively seam
bowling.
It has long been asserted that
it is tough for a bowler to become
significantly quicker once he is
established as a professional.
But the past few years have seen
Woakes become appreciably faster —
and, as a result, more threatening to
international batsmen.
“It’s been a long process with a couple
of technical things: firstly with my
front arm and also with my run up,” he
explained.
“It was quite laboured in my run up
but now I have more pace in it and more
energy at the crease.
Krajicek remembers
karate, streaker in
Wimbledon triumph
LONDON: As Richard Krajicek strolls
the grounds of the All England Club,
it doesn’t take long for the Dutchman’s
thoughts to drift back 20 years, to when
he upset Wimbledon’s established
order with a combination of karate and
streakers.
Two decades after becoming one
of Wimbledon’s most unexpected
champions with an astonishing run that
included a rout of defending champion
Pete Sampras and culminated in a final
victory over MaliVai Washington,
Krajicek is back at the historic venue as
a member of Stan Wawrinka’s coaching
team.
Krajicek has been retired for 13
years but the intervening period hasn’t
dulled his love affair with Wimbledon,
so it is fitting his new partnership with
Wawrinka was arranged just in time
for the latest edition of the grass-court
Grand Slam.
“My first Wimbledon was only
11 years after (Bjorn) Borg won his
last Wimbledon. That felt like an
unbelievably long time ago. So to guys
who just started now at Wimbledon I
must be ancient,” Krajicek said.
“Wow, I feel really old if I think
about that. But for me, it’s so vivid, the
memory. It doesn’t feel like that long
ago. It was incredible.”
England’s Chris Woakes during nets. — Reuters
“It feels like the norm now but it
hasn’t happened overnight — it took
two years, maybe two-and-a-half.”
A veteran of 44 ODIs, Woakes may
not have been playing at all on Tuesday
had fellow all-rounder Ben Stokes been
fit.
But with Friday’s second game in a
five-match series at his Edgbaston home
ground, Woakes is determined to prove
that his Trent Bridge display was no
flash in the pan.
“I feel like my best years are ahead of
me,” said Woakes.
“I feel more established as an England
cricketer.
BELIEF
If Woakes feels increasingly at ease in
international cricket, the same can also
19
be said of England in the ODI format.
Their miserable group-stage exit at
last year’s World Cup included a ninewicket thrashing by Sri Lanka.
But Woakes believes England, only
denied this year’s World Twenty20 title
in a last-over final thriller by the West
Indies, now have a far greater degree of
collective self-confidence in white-ball
cricket.
“We didn’t do it in 2015, and that was
our own fault,” said Woakes.
“We back ourselves more, believe in
ourselves.”
England were 82 for six on Tuesday
and all but beaten, however, Woakes
added: “We believe we can win a game
from any position...you always know a
partnership can give you a sniff.” — AFP
Krajicek’s knowledge of what it
takes to succeed at the All England
Club persuaded Wawrinka, a twotime Grand Slam champion who has
never gone beyond the Wimbledon
quarter-finals, to pick the brains of the
Dutchman.
And Krajicek — the only player to
beat the great Sampras at Wimbledon
between 1993 and 2000 — has a few
counter intuitive methods to suggest as
he recalls the secrets of his remarkable
1996 run.
“Two things I didn’t like about
grass-court tennis. One was moving
was difficult and I remedied that. My
physiotherapist said maybe you should
do some karate. You learn how to fall
and roll, because I was afraid to slip and
fall,” Krajicek said.
“And the other thing was I had no
rhythm. On grass every day I felt like
I was the worst player. Then I read
that (Andre) Agassi, when he won
Wimbledon, he hardly practised on
grass.
“I thought I’m going to do that. After
20, 30 minutes on hard courts, I felt like
I’m playing good again.
“There was a little park close to
Wimbledon with not great courts. But
that was good enough for me. It was
really important.”
— AFP
Richard Krajicek
Kumble appointed head coach of Indian cricket team
DHARAMSALA: After naming
former India skipper Anil Kumble as
the new head coach for the next one
year, Board of Control for Cricket
in India (BCCI) President Anurag
Thakur on Thursday said that the
board has complete faith in the
legendary leg-spinner.
“After discussions we have
taken a final call that for one year
Anil Kumble will be the head
coach,” Thakur told a packed press
conference on the sidelines of the
board’s first ever annual cricket
conclave here.
“Indian cricket team deserves the
best coach, BCCI has complete faith
in Kumble. It is not about an Indian
or a foreign coach, it is about best
coach for India,” he added.
Thakur also said that the support
staff will be announced at a later date
after further deliberations.
“Bowling and batting coaches will
be decided later,” the BJP MP from
Hamirpur said.
Kumble, the world’s third highest
wicket-taker with 619 Test scalps,
will succeed Zimbabwean Duncan
Fletcher, whose term ended in March
2015 after the 50-over World Cup in
Australia and New Zealand.
Following Fletcher’s tenure,
the BCCI appointed former India
captain Ravi Shastri as team director
until the ICC World T20 in April this
year after which the board advertised
for the head coach on its website.
The BCCI received 57 applications
for the post and trimmed it down to
21 before handing over the list to
the Cricket Advisory Committee
(CAC) comprising Sachin Tendulkar,
Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman,
who interviewed the shortlisted
candidates.
Current
Indian
selection
committee chairman Sandip Patil,
Kumble, Shastri, Lalchand Rajput,
Pravin Amre, Tom Moody, Stuart
Law and Andy Moles were among
the prominent names doing the
rounds for the top job.
Kumble’s first assignment with the
team will be the four-match Test tour
to the West Indies next month.
FRIDAY | JUNE 24, 2016 | RAMADHAN 18, 1437 AH
sport
ISINBAYEVA INSISTS OLYMPIC HOPES NOT DEAD P17
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editor@omanobserver.om
CHILE DOWN COLOMBIA TO REACH COPA AMERICA FINAL P18
WOAKES SAYS BEST ENGLAND YEARS ARE STILL AHEAD P19
Goals prove
Ronaldo’s back,
says coach
Ronaldo rescues Portugal;
Iceland into last 16
CR7 STRIKES: The Real Madrid star struck a brace to power the Portuguese
LYON: Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice
to become the first player to score in four
European Championships and rescue
Portugal in a thrilling 3-3 draw that took
them into the last 16 on Wednesday.
Euro debutants Iceland also set up a
last-16 clash with England on Monday
as substitute Ingvi Traustason’s last-gasp
winner secured a 2-1 win over Austria.
Portugal and Iceland join hosts
France, Wales, Germany, Croatia, Italy,
Switzerland, England, Poland, Spain,
Slovakia, Northern Ireland and Hungary
in the last 16.
The final two spots will be split
between Belgium, the Republic of
Ireland, Sweden and Turkey.
Ronaldo was making a record
17th appearance in the European
Championship and twice rescued his
side from an embarrassing early exit
in Lyon as surprise package Hungary
ensured their place at the top of Group F.
The Real Madrid star had earlier
looked to be feeling the pressure when
he threw a reporter’s microphone into a
lake when approached on a pre-match
team walk.
However,
after
disappointing
performances against Iceland and
Austria, Ronaldo came good just in time
to set up a meeting with Croatia in Lens
on Saturday.
Zoltan Gera smashed Hungary into
an early lead before Ronaldo slipped in a
pass to Nani to equalise before half-time.
Hungary captain Balazs Dzsudzsak
twice threatened to cause a massive
upset by sending Ronaldo crashing out
early in the second period.
Dzsudzsak’s deflected free-kick put
Hungary 2-1 up, but Ronaldo responded
with a sumptuous backheel for his
historic goal.
Just five minutes later another
deflected Dzsudzsak effort restored
Hungary’s lead.
Yet Ronaldo was not to be denied as
a towering header moved him to within
one goal of equalling disgraced former
UEFA president Michel Platini’s record
mark of nine goals in Euros finals.
Portugal seemed set for a meeting
with old foes England, bringing back
memories of penalty shootout wins for
Ronaldo’s men in Euro 2004 and World
Cup 2006.
However, Traustason’s strike at the
death ensured Iceland their first ever win
in a major finals and second place in the
group and a date with England in Nice.
Jon Dadi Bodvarsson swept Iceland
into an 18th-minute lead at the Stade de
France, with Austria paying dearly for
Aleksandar Dragovic’s missed first-half
penalty.
Substitute
Alessandro
Schoepf
levelled for Austria on the hour,
but Traustason’s 94th-minute strike
condemned Marcel Koller’s side, highlyfancied to shine before the tournament,
to a premature exit.
Zlatan’s farewell?
With four points enough to ensure
at least one of the four best third-placed
finishes, Ireland need to beat Italy to
seal their last-16
place in Lille
in a match
kicking off at
1900 GMT.
“It’s a fairly lengthy
evening. We know at the end
of it we have to be in front and it’s
a case of being very, very strong to begin
with,” said Ireland boss Martin O’Neill.
Sweden captain Zlatan Ibrahimovic
can match Ronaldo’s achievement of
scoring in four Euros with a goal in what
could be his farewell to international
football against Belgium in Nice.
Ibrahimovic, 34, announced on
Tuesday he will retire from international
duty at the end of the Euros.
Sweden must beat Belgium to make
the last 16, whilst a point is enough for
the Belgians.
“The last game with Sweden in the
Euro will be my last game with Sweden.
So I hope it won’t be tomorrow,” said
Ibrahimovic.
Should Ireland and Sweden fail to
win, Turkey will progress as the fourth
best third-placed team. — AFP
Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo and
head coach Fernando Santos.
— Reuters
Portugal’s forward Cristiano Ronaldo
celebrates after scoring a goal
during the Euro 2016 Group F match
against Hungary at the Parc
Olympique Lyonnais Stadium in
Decines-Charpieu, near Lyon, on
Wednesday. — AFP
No stopping Ronaldo: Hungary coach
LYON: Hungary coach Bernd Storck insisted there is no
controlling Cristiano Ronaldo as the record-breaking
Portugal captain netted twice in Wednesday’s 2-2 draw as
both sides advanced at Euro 2016.
The Real Madrid ace became the first player to score at
four European championship finals and his 17th match in a
Euro tournament was also a record.
“We didn’t give them many chances, but whenever
Ronaldo has the ball, he can score,” said Hungary’s German
boss Storck.
“We all know he’s a world class player, you can’t control
him.”
The result left Hungary top of Group F, while Portugal
squeezed through as one of the best third-place finishers, but
now face a tough match against Croatia in Lens.
After disappointing displays against Iceland and Austria,
Hungary’s coach German
Bernd Storck. — AFP
there was no stopping Ronaldo, who was crowned man-ofthe-match in Lyon.
The 31-year-old superstar opened his Euro 2016 account
in style with a deft backheel flick on 50 minutes, then a bullet
header 12 minutes later to twice equalise at the Stade de Lyon.
It was his 128th appearance for Portugal, further extending
the record he set last Saturday by overtaking the legendary
Luis Figo.
But Hungary have been one of the surprise teams at this
tournament and now await one of Belgium, Sweden or the
Republic of Ireland in the last 16.
Hungary captain Balazs Dzsudzsak matched Ronaldo by
netting two second-half goals, while 37-year-old midfielder
Zoltan Gera gave them the lead.
“At 37 years of age, it was a world-class performance from
him,” gushed the Storck on Gera. — AFP
LYON: Portugal’s coach Fernando
Santos says Cristiano Ronaldo’s
two-goal display against Hungary
proves he has shaken off a poor
start to return to his best at Euro
2016.
Ronaldo scored a pair of brilliant
goals in Lyon on Wednesday to go
down in European Championship
history as the first player to score at
four finals.
Portugal came from behind
three times for a 3-3 draw which
allowed them to scrape into the
last 16 to face Croatia in Lens on
Saturday, although they will only
have two days’ rest.
Ronaldo, Portugal’s mostcapped player ever with 128
appearances, rescued his country
and wracked up another record by
making a 17th appearance at a Euro
finals, overtaking France’s Liliam
Thuram and Dutch goalkeeper
Edwin van der Sar.
“This is what Cristiano is all
about, because he’s a winner and
a scorer, he feeds on goals,” said
Santos. “This will have increased his
confidence levels. He’s a confident
player anyway, but this will have
boosted him for the next game
against Croatia.”
The 31-year-old opened
his account in style with a deft
backheel on 50 minutes, then
netted with a powerful header 12
minutes later as he twice equalised
at the Stade de Lyon.
Ronaldo had struggled as
Portugal drew their other Group
F games against minnows Iceland
and Austria, when he hit the post
with a second-half penalty on
Saturday.
UNWANTED OPPONENTS
Santos says Portugal must now
raise their game against a team he
had not wanted to play.
“Croatia are one of the sharks,
we had been trying to avoid them,”
admitted the Portugal boss.
“They placed first in a group
with Spain, which tells you all you
need to know about them.
“The most important thing is
that we are through to the knockout stage. — AFP
Traustason winner sets up Iceland-England clash
PARIS: Substitute Arnor Ingvi
Traustason’s last-gasp winner fired
Iceland past Austria 2-1 in their final
Group F match at Euro 2016 on
Wednesday to book a last-16 showdown
with England.
Jon Dadi Bodvarsson swept Iceland
into an 18th-minute lead at the Stade de
France, with Austria paying dearly for
Aleksandar Dragovic’s missed first-half
penalty.
Substitute Alessandro Schopf levelled
for Austria on the hour, but Traustason’s
94th-minute strike condemned Marcel
Koller’s side to a premature exit.
Iceland, the smallest nation to appear
at a major finals, will play England in the
last 16 in Nice after finishing second in
the group, behind Hungary but above
Portugal, following a thrilling 3-3 draw
in Lyon.
Dragovic returned to a three-man
Austrian defence after suspension, with
captain Christian Fuchs and Florian
Klein operating as wing-backs in what
was a must-win game for the world’s
10th-ranked side.
Iceland stuck with the same starting
XI from their first two matches and were
almost ahead inside two minutes at the
Stade de France.
Gylfi Sigurdsson’s intricate flick
found Johann Gudmundsson in plenty
of space and the Charlton Athletic
winger hammered a 30-yard drive that
crashed against the crossbar.
Marko Arnautovic nearly punished
Hannes Halldorsson after Iceland’s
Iceland’s midfielder Arnor Ingvi
Traustason celebrates scoring the
team’s second goal with team-mate
Birkir Bjarnason (top) during the
Group F match in Paris. — AFP
goalkeeper dallied on the ball, but the
Stoke City player lost his footing with
the goal gaping allowing Halldorsson to
scramble clear.
Iceland grabbed the crucial opening
goal on 18 minutes as Aron Gunnarsson’s
long throw was helped on into the path
of Bodvarsson who steered past Robert
Almer with Austria’s defence slow to
react.
Centre-back Kari Arnason sliced
narrowly over after a corner was only
partially cleared, but Austria began
to threaten with Arnautovic testing
Halldorsson before heading over from a
Julian Baumgartlinger cross.
And Marcel Koller’s side should
have levelled on 37 minutes when Ari
Skulason was penalised for tugging the
shirt of David Alaba inside the area.
Dragovic stepped up but the centreback fired the spot-kick against the
outside of the post as Iceland breathed a
huge sigh of relief.
Birkir Bjarnason thought he had
increased Iceland’s lead on 38 minutes,
only for his effort to be correctly ruled
out for offside.
Julian Baumgartlinger’s curling strike
from distance forced Halldorsson to
tip over, and Koller rolled the dice by
throwing on Marc Janko and Alessandro
Schopf for the second half.
It almost immediately paid off as
Alaba swept a low right-footed strike
towards the corner, but Arnason’s superb
goal-line clearance denied the Bayern
Munich star. — AFP