April 01,2012

SUNDAY, APRIL 1, 2012

@alwatandaily

Issue No. 1391

16 PAGES

www.alwatandaily.com

150 Fils with IHT

Syria says revolt over, army to pull out gradually

BEIRUT: Syria says the year-long revolt to topple President Bashar Al-Assad is now over, but it will keep its forces in cities to “maintain security” until it is safe to withdraw in keeping with a UN-backed peace deal.

The agreement proposed by United NationsArab League special envoy Kofi Annan says the Syrian authorities must be first to withdraw troops and stop violence immediately.

The army kept up an offensive against opposition strongholds on Saturday, pummeling the Khalidiya district of Homs city.

“Mortars are falling every minute and the sounds of explosions are shaking the neighborhood,” an activist report said. A child was killed by rocket fire in the Al-Bayyada area and a man was killed in crossfire in clashes near a checkpoint.

Rebels battled army forces near a base in Jaramaneh in Damascus province. Five bodies bearing signs of torture were found near Maarat Al-Noaman, the report said. A soldier was killed when rebels ambushed a troop carrier in Deraa province.

Despite the violence, Damascus says it has the upper hand.

“The battle to topple the state is over,” Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Al-Makdissi told Syria TV late on Friday. “Our goal now is to ensure stability and create a perspective for reform and development in Syria while preventing others from sabotaging the path of reform.”

His assertion follows army victories over rebel strongholds in the cities of Hama, Homs and Idlib, and Assad’s acceptance this week of Annan’s plan that does not demand he step down.

Calls by Gulf Arab states to arm the rebels have fizzled. The political opposition remains divided, and prospects of Western-led military intervention are close to zero.

Assad has endorsed Annan’s six-point peace plan, which has the UN Security Council’s unanimous backing, but Western leaders say the 46year-old Syrian leader has broken similar promises before and must be judged by actions not words. Assad’s opponents have not yet formally accepted the plan.

‘Friends of Syria’

They were due to meet the foreign ministers of allied Western powers, including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on Sunday at a “Friends

of Syria” conference in Turkey, which provides a safe haven for Syrian rebels.

Al-Makdissi said Annan, who had talks with Al-Assad in Damascus on March 10, had acknowledged the government’s right to respond to armed violence during the ceasefire phase of the peace plan.

He said Syria’s conditions for agreeing to Annan’s plan included recognition of its sovereignty and right to security. “When security can be maintained for civilians, the army will leave,” he said. “This is a Syrian matter.”

However, Annan’s plan says Syria must stop putting troops into cities forthwith and begin taking them out.

“The Syrian government should immediately cease troop movement towards, and end the use of heavy weapons in, population centers, and begin pullback of military concentrations in and around population centers,” it states.

“As these actions are being taken on the ground, the Syrian government should work with the envoy to bring about a sustained cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties with an effective United Nations supervision mechaCONTINUED ON PAGE 4 nism,” it says.

Prosecution prepares to lift Parliament stormers’ immunity

Mohammed Al-Salman, Mohammed Al-Khaldi, Osama Al-Qatari and Ahmed Al-Shemmari Staff Writers

KUWAIT: The Public Prosecution is getting ready to lift the immunity of ten MPs who were involved in the storming of Parliament for interrogation.

The concerned lawmakers face charges of assaulting security personnel and inciting disobedience, among others.

Sources have told Al Watan that at least 68 citizens are accused of being involved in the attack on Parliament, including 9 current MPs and two former lawmakers.

In other news, the parliamentary majority

is facing serious difficulties in reaching a consensus about a number of planned interpellations. The bloc has been keen on coordination in order to avert a looming friction among the members, particularly since this developments came as the National Assembly Speaker Ahmad Al-Saadoun has flown to the Ugandan capital of Kampala to attend the International Parliament Congress.

Meanwhile, the government has been busy seeking to undo the interpellation that MP Hussein Al-Qallaf filed against the information minister, while it awaits possible motions to question the Minister of Finance Mustafa AlShamali, the Minister of Awqaf Jamal Shehab and the Interior Minister Sheikh Ahmad AlHumoud Al-Sabah.

An official source informed Al Watan that at a time when the government opts for facing interpellations, it believes that the cost of political questioning is far less than endorsing bills that can involve huge costs for the State coffers as we as the budget.

The source noted that filing multiple interpellations has become so common that it lost its clout.

“As such, the government welcomes all interpellations and will face them all without fear,” the source was quoted as saying. In the meantime, the Cabinet is due to discuss today (Sunday) the interpellation filed against the Information Minister Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah by MP Hussein CONTINUED ON PAGE 3 Al-Qallaf.

Residency, services card to whomever adjusts status

Abdullah Al-Najjar Staff Writer

Danish police escort a bus with right-wing protestors as they leave their demonstration in Aarhus, March 31, 2012. A long-planned gathering of far right-wing movements from across Europe met in Denmark on Saturday to try to form a pan-European anti-Islamist alliance, a project that will test the cohesion of a fringe trying to build support from fears about immigration and militant Islamists. (Reuters)

Malians back coup as rebels gain ground

South Korea to work with US to reduce Iran oil imports

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SEOUL: South Korean officials said Saturday that they will continue working with the US to reduce oil imports from Iran after President Barack Obama green-lighted potential sanctions against countries that continue to buy Iranian oil. South Korea is one of several major importers of Iranian oil that have not received exemptions from the US sanctions.

Obama announced Friday that he is plowing ahead with the potential sanctions, which could affect US allies in Asia and Europe, as part of a deepening campaign to starve Iran of money for its disputed nuclear program.

The sanctions aim to further isolate Iran’s central bank, which processes nearly all of the Iran’s oil purchases, from the global economy. Obama’s move clears the way for the US to penalize foreign financial institutions that do oil business with Iran by barring them from having a US-based affiliate or doing business here. Obama’s goal is to tighten the pressure on Iran, not allies, and already the administration exempted 10 European Union countries and Japan from the threat of sanctions because they cut their oil purchases from Iran. Other nations have about three months to significantly reduce such imports before sanctions would kick in. Foreign Ministry officials in South Korea said Saturday that they expect to reach an agreement with Washington by late June on reducing oil imports from Iran. The officials declined to be named because discussions were still under way. South Korea has already restricted financial dealings with more than 200 groups and individuals with suspected links to Iran’s nuclear program. Seoul relies on Iran for up to 10 percent of its oil.

Energy-starved India, which relies on Iranian oil for 12 percent for its power needs, has said that while it would accept UN sanctions against Iran, it does not heed unilateral sanctions such as those imposed by the US and EU. -AP

KUWAIT: The Central Apparatus for Illegal Residents announced that an office concerned with those willing to adjust their statuses is currently operating, and that this office will grant them four benefits, such as residency, subsidy rations, free of charge residency for five years for those above 21 years old, and the payment of residency fees in conjunction with Zakat House.

Al Watan received information that a list which includes 6080 people who have Kuwaiti mothers who are eligible for Kuwaiti citizenship will be announced this week, while another list will include the names of military personnel who took part in the 1967 and 1973 wars, and those who will be nationalized for outstanding performance.

Sources noted that revising the files of this group of military personnel dropped the number of those who are eligible from 1174 to 350, after a number of them revealed their true identities, while others left Kuwait. Sources stressed that those who were assisting Iraqi forces during the invasion will not be included in the list. It is worth noting that 58 bedouns (stateless Arabs) adjusted their statuses on the first day, including 30 Saudi See also 3 Arabians and 28 Iraqi citizens.

Childbirth takes longer now than 50 years ago

NEW YORK: Many tasks can be tackled more quickly now than 50 years ago, but delivering a baby is not one of them, a new US government study finds. Compared with the 1960s, US women have in recent years spent two to three hours longer in labor, according to researchers at the US National Institutes of Health. The extra time is spent in the first stage of labor – the longest part of the labor process, before the “pushing” stage.

New moms, themselves, are different now than 50 years ago; on average, they’re older and weigh more, and their newborns are bigger too. “But even when we take these changing demographics into account, labor is still longer,” lead researcher Dr. Katherine Laughon, of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, said in an interview.

“We weren’t able to fully address the potential reasons with this study,” Laughon said. One partial explanation may be epidural pain relief, which is far more common now than 50 years ago. Epidurals are known to slow labor down by about 40 to 90 minutes, Laughon said. And many women may gladly trade the extra time in labor for the pain relief. From there, the explanations get more speculative.

Laughon noted that many more women now have labor inductions or planned cesarean sections versus decades ago. So women who actually go into spontaneous labor these days may differ somehow from their counterparts of 50 years ago.

But whatever the underlying reasons, Laughon said the findings suggest that doctors may need to rethink the definition of “normal” labor – a concept that’s based on what was the norm for women a half-century ago.

For example, doctors have traditionally considered labor to be abnormal if there’s no change in the cervix after two hours in the “active” part of the first stage of labor. At that point, they may intervene by either giving the medication oxytocin, which More on 11 stimulates contractions, or doing a C-section.

Clinton promises US will back Gulf security

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton listens to Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud AlFaisal as they attend a US-Gulf Cooperation Council forum at the Gulf Cooperation Council Secretariat in Riyadh on March 31, 2012. (AFP)

RIYADH: The United States will work with Gulf Arab nations to strengthen their shared defenses against threats including Iran, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Saturday. Speculation about Tehran’s nuclear ambitions is a source of anxiety among Sunni-led Gulf Arab states, for whom Shiite Iran has long been a regional rival.

“The commitment of the United States to the people and the nations of the Gulf is rock-solid and unwavering. Our strong bilateral relationships are a rock of stability in the region,” Clinton said in prepared remarks delivered in the inaugural meeting of a new US-Gulf security forum.

“Now we look forward to expanding our multilateral cooperation as well,” she said at the opening of the meeting with foreign ministers

from the Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes six Gulf countries.

Clinton said Saturday’s discussions with Gulf foreign ministers would include the political change that has swept the Middle East in the past year and the violence in Syria, in addition to Iran’s disputed nuclear program “and curbing its interference in the affairs of its neighbors”.

Gulf Arab states have accused Iran of backing an uprising in Bahrain, and of fomenting unrest among the Shiite Muslim minority in mostly Sunni Saudi Arabia.

Fresh talks between Iran and world powers are expected to get underway in mid-April as Tehran faces increasing economic and political pressure More on 4 over its nuclear activities.

Municipality carries out unannounced inspection campaigns

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Agility Q4 net profit rises 114% to KD 3.5 million

Compiled by Al Watan Daily

KUWAIT: Agility, the logistics firm facing US fraud charges, posted a 114-percent rise in fourthquarter net profit compared with the same period in 2010, the firm said in a statement on Saturday.

The company also reported earnings per share (EPS) of 3.45 Kuwaiti fils.

Net profit in the three months to Dec. 31 came in at 3.5 million Kuwaiti dinars (12.60 million US dollars) compared with a loss of 23.7 million dinars in the fourth quarter (Q4) 2010.

Fourth-quarter revenues were five percent lower at KD 368.6 million due to the loss of government contracting business, Agility said. On a like-for-like basis excluding government and discontinued business, Agility group revenue grew from KD 332 million to KD 345 million, an improvement of four percent despite a slowing economy. The company remains focused on growing

profit through continued financial discipline and transformation of its operating platform with the adaptation of new technology that will increase efficiency. “Profits grew by eight percent in 2011 even though revenues fell as Agility discontinued defense and government business.We are a different company today than we were a year ago, and we consider 2011 a new financial baseline against which we will measure future performance,” said Tarek Sultan, Agility’s Chairman and Managing Director. The statement added that revenue for Agility Global Integrated Logistics (GIL) for the full year 2011 was KD 1.19 billion, a decrease of 1.4 percent from financial year (FY) 2010.

Excluding government and discontinued business, GIL’ revenues grew by 3.2 percent from the same period in 2010, despite softened trade volumes that prevailed in the last two quarters of More on 9 the year.

Filipinos hold candles to mark the sixth global Earth Hour in Makati, the financial district of Manila on March 31, 2012. Millions of people were expected to switch off their lights for Earth Hour on March 31, in a global effort to raise awareness about climate change. Since it began in Sydney in 2007, Earth Hour has grown to become what environmental group WWF says is the world’s largest demonstration of support for action on carbon pollution. (AFP)

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ALWATAN DAILY

kuwait

sunDAY, april 1, 2012

Domestic workers’ agents warn against shortage, high fees unless more MoUs signed Noha Fareed

Staff Writer & Agencies

KUWAIT: Owners of a number of domestic workers’ agencies in Kuwait held a press conference Thursday night to discuss the recent progress regarding the exportation of domestic workers from Philippines and the ban threat that was made, unless a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was to be signed.

In more detail, the President of the Federation of domestic labor in the Philippines - Kuwait branch, Thelma Uanang announced September 2011, to officials the decision of the Ministry of Labor of the Philippines regarding the exportation of domestic workers.The law stipulates providing protection for domestic labor in addition to a special law regulating their work. Uanang also said that an agreement or memorandum of understanding between the two countries needs to be signed in order for the Philippines to continue exporting.

Uanang explained the intention of the Philippine government officials to stop sending workers if the agencies do not abide by the decision of the Ministry of Labor.

Therefore, a representative during the press conference announced that a group of domestic workers’ agents visited Abdul Aziz Al-Ali’s office to send a message to His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah to thank him for his efforts in overcoming a major obstacle that was facing the agents through signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the Philippines during his recent visit there. The agents held a press conference to thank all those involved in the aforementioned efforts; especially the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Undersecretary, and appealed to the officials of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Interior to sign a similar memorandum of understanding with Indonesia. It is worth noting that Indonesia had decided in 2009 not to send its citizens to work in Kuwait as domestic laborers, which severely impacted the supply and significantly increased the fees and wages which were 40 Kuwaiti dinars to KD 65; especially that Indonesia used to have a market share of 50 percent of domestic laborers in Kuwait. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs Undersecretary had instructed his employees to prepare the memorandum, but the memorandum has not been prepared yet. The agents hoped that this memorandum would be

Group photo of representatives of owners of a number of domestic workers agencies in Kuwait during a press conference held Thursday, March 29, 2012. (Al Watan)

signed before the holy month of Ramadan, in order to meet the demands of the local market.

Al-Ali mentioned that Kuwait’s ambassador in Indonesia Nasser Al-Enezi has exerted sterling efforts to reach a compromise and prepare the Memorandum of Understanding; in addition to the effort exerted by Manager of the Consulate Affairs Department Talal Al-Falah and Councilor Faisal Al-Ateeqi who overcame any legal problems regarding the protection of the domestic laborers and the regular payment of their wages. Al-Ali hoped that the memorandum will be signed as soon as possible, since the current fees for bringing a domestic laborer reached KD 1000.

Moreover, the agents stated that finding a solution to solve the problem with Indonesia is crucial before May, because there will be meetings of the International Labor Organization and the Human Rights Organization, where Kuwait’s name should be lifted off the list of countries that violate the rights of people working. This would be the case after signing this memorandum that stipulates the protection of domestic laborers and their rights.In addition, the agents showed a circular issued by Sri Lanka’s Embassy in Kuwait, demanding that the agents increase the monthly wages of domestic laborers from Sri Lanka to reach KD 75 for new laborers and KD 85 for those who have been working in Kuwait for the past

Al-Diqbasi asks government to endorse flexible unemployment policy Staff Writer

KUWAIT: Lawmaker Ali Al-Diqbasi wondered how some government institutions disapproved appointing some Kuwaiti citizens who have already attended relevant training courses and were nominated to those institutions by Civil Service Commission (CSC).

The MP sent a message that included some notices to His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Sabah concerning the appointment of citizens at the government sectors,

which he said should occur according the needs of the institutions for civil servants.

The names of the candidates are sent by CSC to the different institutions.

Al-Diqbasi warned the relevant authorities against a possible increase of unemployment, which would affect the social, security and political aspects of life.

The lawmaker affirmed that the current government policy shows that it is not interested in unemployment, which reflects a negative impact over the youths, citing an example of which 30

Kuwaiti youths were qualified for holding veterinary positions at the Public Authority for Agricultural Affairs and Fish Resources, but were disapproved by the authority.

He also questioned why the government did not endorse effective procedures for supporting such citizens, particularly as the ministry includes a large number of expatriate workers.

He added that he will direct more questions to the premier about this case if the government doesn’t endorse effective solutions soon.

Municipality carries out unannounced inspection campaigns Mervat Abduldayem Staff Writer and Agencies

KUWAIT: Kuwait Municipality is undertaking surprise inspection campaigns on all of the

branches and warehouses of cooperative societies and supermarkets, Director of Kuwait Municipality Ahmad Al-Sabeeh said on Saturday.

Al-Sabeeh told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), he said that the 24-hour inspection

Food inspector examines food products during unannounced inspection campaing on Saturday, March 31, 2012. (KUNA)

campaigns, on foodstuff, aim at preventing any violations to the municipality laws to ensure health and safety of consumers.

Food inspector at Mubarak Al-Kabeer municipality governorate Mohammad Al-Azmi said that an inspection campaign was carried out on all of the governorate cooperative societies branches, restaurants, salons and barbershops.

It resulted in the destruction of more than 378 Kilogram of meat and 240 ice cream pints; in addition to the writing of 10 violation tickets to barbershops and restaurants.

AL-Azmi stressed the importance to abiding to municipality laws to ensure food security and safety in the country.

Meanwhile, Emergency Team 135, the subsidiary of Ministry of Commerce and Industry, raided a seafood restaurant in Farwaniya area where the restaurant offers frozen products to customers under the claim that the seafood is fresh. The team discovered rotten fish as well.

The very restaurant committed another fraud case for not indicating the source of some of the offered food, although regulations of ministry stipulate mentioning the country where product is imported.

In a phone call with the Assistant Undersecretary for Commercial Sector Affairs Abdullah Al-Ali, he affirmed that the ministry exerts all possible efforts to control the local market and protecting it from any fraud attempts.

Mexican health minister to visit Kuwait next week MEXICO CITY: Mexican Minister of Health Armando Awad is due to pay a visit to Kuwait, early next week, as part of the two countries’ effort to strengthen bilateral relations, said the Kuwaiti ambassador to Mexico Samih Hayat.

Hayat said, in remarks to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), that Awad would hold talks with his Kuwaiti counterpart, Ali Al-Obeidi,

and senior efforts for activating the KuwaitiMexican memorandum of understanding (MoU) for cooperation in the health sector, signed in February, in the Mexican capital.

The MoU basically stipulates arranging reciprocal visits by Kuwaiti and Mexican officials, doctors and specialists to the two countries for examining latest innovations in the field and exchanging expertise.

Hayat expressed satisfaction at noticeable improvement of the Kuwaiti-Mexican relations, reflected in recent visits by a large number of Kuwaiti and Mexican officials and businessmen to the countries.

Credit for the substantial enhancement of these ties goes to the senior political leaderships of Kuwait and Mexico, he affirmed.

-KUNA

two years. The agents were asked to comply to this circular effective April 1, 2012.

Furthermore, the agents explained that many Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Arab countries have overcome the problem of domestic laborers by signing a memorandum of understanding with Indonesia, such as Saudi Arabia, Oman, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Qatar, Lebanon, and Jordan. In related news, Sri Lanka is set to sign a memorandum of understanding with Kuwait to protect the rights of migrant workers in the country, reported Arabian Business on Saturday. According to Arabian Business, the agreement would cover the estimated 260,000 Sri Lankans employed in the Gulf state which has been criticized in the past for its treatment of foreign workers, the Indo-Asian News Service reported. According to Sri Lanka’s Bureau of Foreign Employment, there were 14,704 complaints in 2010 alone for breach of employment contracts, non-payment of wages, physical and sexual harassment.

A quarter of its total foreign workforce of eight million works in the Middle East. The majority of them are women and unskilled workers, working as housemaids in oil rich nations. “There are 260,000 Sri Lankans employed in Kuwait, of which 75 percent are female workers,” Sri Lanka’s cabinet spokesman Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena was quoted as saying.The MoU is similar to those already signed with the governments of UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Jordan on the employment of migrant workers, he said.

In January, agreements were signed in Kuwait and Bahrain in a bid to give Nepalese overseas workers better protection.Kuwait has 40,000 Nepalese workers, with more than half of them female domestic workers, while the majority of men work in the construction industry.Nepal’s largest employer is the Gulf states, where families depend on making money overseas, but the rapid expansion of migrant labor has taken place without formal protection of workers’ rights.

In 2010, the US State Department urged Gulf countries to scrap their sponsorship system for migrant workers that leaves laborers and domestic workers exposed to human trafficking and forced labor. In a 373-page report, the department said that employers in the Gulf states exploit the widely used ‘kafala’ (sponsor) system to abuse workers and named Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as the region’s worst offenders.

Law students take part in international moot court competition WASHINGTON: A Kuwait students’ delegation that consists of five students and their Professor Dr. Mohammed AlMoqatie from Kuwait International Law School is representing Kuwait in the 53rd Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition being held in the US capital. The competition is the world’s largest moot court competition with over 2000 law students participating from over 500 law schools in more than 80 countries.

The competition is a simulation of a fictional dispute between countries before the International Court of Justice, the judicial organ of the United Nations. One team is allowed to participate from every eligible school, where the students are required to present oral and written arguments on a hypothetical international dispute before a simulated International Court of Justice.

In an exclusive interview to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), Dr. Al-Moqatie said that the competition is a real chance for the students train their skills to take over international cases in international courts as each student has a chance to appear before the International Court of Justice as a moot court.

He added that the students have never been exposed to such an international experience in their study field, where they have a chance to argue their case which is considered a “very complicated case.” This year’s case addresses the legality of the destruction of a cultural site, the international standing of a state immediately following a coup d’etat and international responsibility for the use of force by a State while taking part in a regional operation to bring about democracy. He noted that the students also had a chance to be trained for one day in George Washington.

He affirmed that “we are very proud

to take part in this competition” especially that Kuwait International Law School is a new school but they are feeling they are up to this challenge.

He said they have been holding several sessions a week and many official hearings.

“This has been a chance for the students to face real judges; a chance they would not get on a national level,” he remarked.

He added that it is also a chance for the students to build their skills in addressing people and acquire the techniques of oral arguments and eye contact, which is considered of great importance.

The case argument this year was between the Republic of Aprophe and the Federal Republic of Rantania, where the teams had to submit to the International Court of Justice the difference between the states concerning the Mai-Tocao Temple.

One of the students, Ghazi Al-Khudhari told KUNA that the knowledge they gained from their professors and this competition added a lot to their experience and education. He shed light on the hard work they had to go through to make it to the competition, saying that sometimes they had to work up to 12-14 hours a day to be able to achieve more and represent Kuwait on the highest levels.

Meanwhile, the participating students all agreed that through part taking in this competition, they were able to gain more skills, improve their communication abilities with foreign people, gain a huge experience in the fields of international law; in addition, to madinf new friends and acquaintance that might help them in their future. The delegation also took the opportunity and visited the Kuwait Embassy in Washington DC and meet up with the Deputy Chief of Mission Jasem Al-Bdeiwi and the Embassy staff. -KUNA

Kuwait students’ delegation from the International Law School is seen at the 53rd Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition being held in the US capital, Washington. (KUNA)

Lebanese finance minister praises Kuwaiti support BEIRUT: Lebanese Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Safadi praised the level of material and moral support, Kuwait is offering his country, amid the current global economic climate.

Al-Safadi was referring to a grant worth 47 million US dollars recently provided by the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, for the funding of sanitation projects in the southern Leba-

nese towns and cities of Marjeyoun, Khiam and Shaqra. Kuwait has significantly supported the Lebanese economy through its assistance and funding of projects, he said. The KFAED has provided Lebanon with grants worth a total $405 million and loans worth $568 million, most of which are aimed at rebuilding damaged infrastructure brought about after the war with Israel. -KUNA

ALWATAN DAILY

KUWAIT

SUNDAY, APRIL 1, 2012

Illegal residents’ bureau to open in Mubarak Al-Kabeer: Official KUWAIT: A new bureau for adjusting the status of illegal residents would be opened in Mubarak Al-Kabeer governorate, said an official here Saturday.

Head of the status adjusting department at the central apparatus for handling the situation of illegal residents, Mohammad AlWuhaib, told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)

that the bureau would provide services to those who submit their official documents of origins, adding that such action would enable illegal residents to issue a residential visa in accordance with Article 24 of the law.

He added that this means that individuals would be able to sponsor themselves for a period of five years if they were

above 21 years of age.

Those under 21, said the official, would be offered a residential visa in accordance with article 22 of the law.

The central apparatus would be providing services card, sufficient for a period of five years, for those willing to adjust their current illegal status. -KUNA

Foreign minister arrives for GCC-US forum RIYADH: Kuwait’s Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Hamad Al-Sabah arrived to Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh on Saturday to take part in the first ministerial meeting of the GCC-US Strategic Cooperation Forum that was held later that day.

Attending the meeting, along with Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid, is US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) Secretary General Abul-Latif Al-Zayani. The forum reportedly addresses a whole range of bilateral and regional issues including security cooperation and efforts to resolve the Syrian crisis.

Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid, and his accompanying delegation, were received upon arrival at the airport by Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Prince Abdul Aziz Bin Abdullah Bin AbdulAziz, Dr. Al-Zayani and the Kuwaiti Charge D’affaires in the Kingdom, Dhiab Al-Rashidi.

The day-long forum is to be held at headquarters of the GCC Secretariat-General.

The US is a strategic ally of the GCC states, who founded the bloc in the early 80s, in shadow of a regional war between Iran and Iraq.

The Cabinet will discuss the first issue in the motion pertaining to the “flagrant” violation of Articles 7, 29 and 37 of the Constitution. The second topic of the interpellation deals with an accusation that the Ministry of Information has been slack in terms of enforcing the law on private media houses.

Informed sources have reported toAlWatan that the minister is likely to use the same tactic as His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah in that he will step up to the podium and respond in a public session on the scheduled date of April 10.

In this contest, it has been gathered that MP Al-Qallaf has prepared tapes and media clips which highlight the media houses that violated audio-visual law. The MP argues that none of

Kuwait’s Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Hamad Al-Sabah (third left) with other GCC ministers and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (center) during a GCC-US Strategic Cooperation Forum held on Saturday, March 31, 2012. (KUNA)

The GCC, comprising Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman, was founded to enhance cooperation and coordi-

nation among the regional states in various domains, including the security, military and political fields. -KUNA

the violators have been referred to the state prosecutors, and that the ministry officials are involved in double standards.

The sources also stated that Al-Qallaf only wants to cast light on the fact that “the government has become a tool in the hands of the majority that has been urging the enforcement of the law,” Moreover, certain MPs in the majority and in the Popular Action Bloc are proceeding with their preparations to grill the finance minister.

A source within the majority said that there has been a consensus with regard to the interpellation of Minister Al-Shamali.

MP Abdurrahman Al-Anjeri is known to have finalized a draft interpellation against the minister containing a number of issues including contracts for investment portfolios which have been agreed upon by the Kuwait Invest-

ment Authority (KIA) and local companies as well as the Public Authority for Social Securities. The motion also deals with the establishment of public shareholding companies meant for the construction of power grids as well as allegations that the law has not been applied regarding a mechanism for the setting up of shareholding companies.

In a related development, MP Musallam Al-Barrak has continued his tirade against the finance minister, accusing the minister of failure to penalize the squandering of public funds.

For his part, MP Jamaan Al-Harbash called on the parliamentary majority to remain committed to coordination before any interpellation is filed, stressing that race for interpellations without due coordination will weaken the bloc.

THIS WEEK IN KUWAIT’S HISTORY April 1:

1879: Mail services are launched in Kuwait, after Sheikh Mubarak Al-Sabah asked the British government to establish a post office in the country.

1934: Electric power is secured for the Kuwaiti people for the first time. The Kuwaiti electricity company sells power at high prices.

1961: Kuwaiti banknotes are circulated for the first time.

1961: The Kuwaiti dinar is pegged to the pound.

1969: Kuwait Central Bank is inaugurated.

1996: The cabinet approves the execution of the second phase of the “security belt” plan, designed to beef up security in the northern regions.

April 2:

1981: The State of Kuwait signs the 1969 Brussels International Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage.

2002: The National Assembly agrees on amendment of the social security law and the increase of pensions.

2005: Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Cabinet and Parliament Affairs Mohammed Dhaifallah Sharar lays the corner stone for cultural village project, part of a bigger project to develop the capital city and preserve its traditional cultural features.

April 3:

1977: Decree law 82 for the year 77 is issued addressing family custody, allowing one or more children to be taken into childcare in the Ministry of Social Affairs and then given to a Muslim family to raise.

1991: UN Security Council issues resolution 687 requesting Iraq to comply with UN resolutions regarding the invasion of Kuwait, and to respect joint boarders with Kuwait according to an agreement signed between the two countries in Baghdad, October 4, 1963.

2002: Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah inaugurates the Second West Asian Games at the Kuwait Sports Club. The games last 10 days and feature competition among over 1,000 athletes from 11 Arab countries and Iran.

April 4:

1979: The Amir, Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, issues a decree regulating employment policies of the Civil Service Commission. The decree gives employment priority to Kuwaiti citizens then to Arab nationals in government posts.

Educational systems encourage voluntary work: Expert KUWAIT: Educational systems play a vital role in stimulating voluntary work through school curricula and activities, an educational expert pointed out on Saturday. Dr. Latifa AlKandari, an educational expert at the United Nations Development Programs in Kuwait, told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that voluntary work which stems from an educational perspective contributes greatly in solving many of the community’s social and environmental issues.

It teaches younger generations skills that could be applied in time of crisis and day-to-day activities, she added.

Therefore, teachers have a very crucial duty, since they are the epitome of social communication, to encourage their students to engage in any cooperative or voluntary work in the country’s various non-profit and voluntary organizations.

She said that inducing this sense of volunteerism in students should be according to each individuals’ financial, psychological and social standards’ capabilities. Financial and moral supports are the perfect incentive to joining the various venues of voluntary work, the education expert explained. She highlighted the concept of the “bookmobile.” A concept established in the United States of America in 1905 where a large vehicle designed for use as a library. Mobile libraries are often used to provide library services to city suburbs that have no library buildings or to those who have difficulty accessing libraries.

Applying the bookmobile concept in Kuwait, especially in malls when the parents are away or busy shopping, would enrich the younger generations’ wealth of knowledge and love of reading, she clarified. -KUNA

Kuwait-Bahrain military cooperation fruitful: Ambassador

Prosecution prepares to lift Parliament stormers’ immunity CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

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2001: Kuwait establishes diplomatic relations with North Korea at the ambassadorial level.

2005: Group of 10 MPs request vote of confidence after a 12-hour parliamentary interpellation for Health Minister Mohammed Al-Jarallah, which is followed by the minister’s resignation. The resignation is approved April 11, 2006.

2005: Amiri decree 72/2005 is issued canceling decree 53/2002 on formation of the apparatus for implementing mega-projects in the divided zone and Kuwaiti islands under the Ministry of Public Works.

2006: Women practice their political rights for the first time in Kuwait, when Jenan Bushihri and Khalda Al-Khudhur compete against six male candidates for a single Municipal Council seat for the 5th constituency.

2007: His Highness the Amir issues law 5/2007 regulating activities of Kuwait Olympics Committee and local sports federations and clubs. He also issues law 6/2007 on providing needs of sports clubs, whereby the state will provide necessary facilities, equipment and infrastructure within five years. Moreover, law 7/2007 is issues on providing sports clubs with 500,000 Kuwaiti dinars as a form of financial support.

April 5:

1951: The Amir, Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, issues an Order for implementing endowment related Islamic Sharia (law).

1953: Iraq’s King Faisal II visits Kuwait for the first time, accompanied by Prince Abdulilah and Minister of Defense Nouri Al-Saeed, in response to an invitation from Amir Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah.

1972: Law number 15/1972 is issued establishing Kuwait Municipality.

1988: A group of terrorists hijacks Kuwait Airway’s Al-Jabriya plane, en route from Bangkok to Kuwait. The hijackers land at Mashhad Airport in Iran, then in Larnaka Airport in Cyprus, and finally in Houari Boumedienne in Algeria. Two Kuwaitis are martyred in the hostage-taking that lasted 16 days.

1994: Kuwait establishes diplomatic relations with the Republic of Lithuania.

April 6:

1954: The Amir Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah donates KD 100,000 for flood victims in Baghdad.

1976: Decree law 16/1976 is issued regarding the establishment of the Arab Union for the producers of fertilizers in Kuwait.

1980: Decree law 21/1980 is issued to es-

tablish the Regional Center to strengthen Gulf media.

1987: Kuwait establishes diplomatic relations at ambassadorial level with Cape Verde.

1997: The Amir, Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, decorates visiting Malaysian Prime Minister Mahatir Mohammed, with the “Mubarak Al-Kabeer” medal, one of Kuwait’s highest-ranking decorations for his efforts in developing and strengthening KuwaitiMalaysian relations.

1999: The Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) is granted a certificate of appreciation from the American Federal Food and Drug Agency for its great efforts in developing the analysis of pesticides in food and for placing a high-standard program for evaluating food effected by pesticides.

2005: Decree law 77/2005 is issued to repeal governorate council law, enacted in 1992.

April 7:

1954: Postal Office opens in Al-Mubarakiya Street.

1960: Amiri Decree is issued on status of the Civil Service Commission and the body’s duties, including proposal of laws on employment and pay.

1964: Kuwait government establishes exchanged diplomatic representation with Spain.

1996: Kuwait’s in vitro fertilization, at the Maternity Hospital, announces birth of a quadruplet by a 35 year old Kuwaiti patient, first ever in Kuwait.

2006: Kuwait officially ratifies international resolution on ban of transport of hazardous waste to the region from industrialized nations.

The state is the 62nd to join signatories.

April 8:

1964: Belgium inaugurates its embassy in Kuwait and its ambassador presents his credentials to the Amir Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah.

1964: Kuwait Medical Society, established in October 1963, is officially declared as an authority charged with upgrading the profession and shouldering the responsibility of securing good medical care in the country.

1968: The first edition of the Kuwaiti daily newspaper Al-Seyassah is published. Ahmad Al-Jarallah, still in office, is the independent paper’s first editor-in-chief.

2001: The Cabinet endorses a draft decree forming the higher committee for development and economic reforms, led by First Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.

ANAMA: Close cooperation between military authorities and establishments of Kuwait and Bahrain contributes in enriching expertise of personnel in the two countries at various levels, affirmed the Kuwaiti Ambassador to Bahrain. Sheikh Azzam Al-Sabah, in remarks to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) during a ceremony honoring the Assistant Commander of Bahrain Royal Police Academy Lieutenant General Sheikh Hamad Bin Mohammad Al-Khalifa, said that Sheikh Hamad has exerted tangible efforts for facilitating enlisting and residency of Kuwaiti students in the academy.

Lieutenant General Sheikh Hamad had organized a celebration for the Kuwaiti students to mark the National Day of Kuwait at the academy, he said, affirming the assistant commander’s keenness on aiding the Kuwaiti cadets.Lieutenant General Sheikh Hamad affirmed keenness on aiding the Kuwaiti students and expressed gratitude to Sheikh Azzam. -KUNA

Sheikh Azzam Al-Sabah (left) during a ceremony where he honored Assistant Commander of Bahrain Royal Police Academy Lieutenant General Sheikh Hamad Bin Mohammad Al-Khalifa (right) on Saturday, March 31, 2012. (KUNA)

Embassy keen on supporting NUKS-Egypt: Diplomat CAIRO: Kuwait embassy’s Charge D’affair Dr. Awad Al-Enizi affirmed on Saturday that the embassy was keen on supporting any activity organized by the National Union of Kuwait Students (NUKS)- Egypt branch.

He told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) after the conclusion of a Football tournament in Cairo that activities like sports help students connect

with each other and socialize, providing them with an atmosphere in which they could go back to their studies refreshed and rejuvenated.

The Football tournament saw the participation of Kuwait and GCC students as part of NUKS strategy to develop relations between Kuwaiti and students of other nationalities.

-KUNA

Kuwait Airways finalizes air cargo tracking system KUWAIT: The last phase of an air cargo tracking system was finalized on Saturday to provide clients with optimal efficiency, Kuwait Airways announced. Ezz Al-Deen Al-Hasawi, Head of the team in charge of this new system, told the press that air cargo tracking system was activated on January 2012. The Kuwait Airways online system allows its clients, individuals or agencies, to track their shipments without the need to use any paperwork, Al-Hasawi explained.

International short messages (SMS) can be sent, through the system, to all international customs authorities, he said, adding that clients will soon be using smartphones to log on

to the web-based system.The air cargo tracking system provides clients with all information needed about their shipments such as booking, pricing, documentation, administrative reports and statistics.

He further clarified that some adjustment were made to the system to conform to the local and international markets as well as the airlines’ policies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states.

The latest technology system is used by more than 80 international companies which reflect the country’s national carrier’s concern to keep up with the latest development in air transport. -KUNA

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ALWATAN DAILY

regional

sunDAY, april 1, 2012

Syria says revolt over, army to pull out gradually

Broken economy

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

The UN peacekeeping department will send a team to Damascus soon to begin planning for a possible ceasefire observer mission, Western diplomats said on Thursday, adding that it was unclear the 200 to 250 monitors envisaged would ever be deployed. “We are very far from a peace to keep,” one said.

Western diplomats say the key to the implementation of Annan’s ceasefire - the main thrust of the deal - lies in the sequencing of the army pullback and ending rebel armed attacks.

They say the opposition won’t feel safe negotiating before the army halts its offensive, but also note it would be impractical to expect a complete government pullout before the rebels are obliged to respond.

In 2011, an Arab League observer mission sent to oversee the promised withdrawal of the Syrian army from opposition flashpoints collapsed partly over the issue of when and how troops could be withdrawn.

By Hossam Fathi Staff Writer

KUWAIT: Honestly, we are in dire need of using reason and wisdom to avoid losing hearts and minds.

We need to confess that Egypt is in a hard, harsh and critical situation on various fronts. The country is facing security, social, political and economic challenges. The latter challenge will be the focal point in this article.

Our economy has been destroyed by the Mubarak regime. Egypt’s resources have been drained at the hands of the stalwarts of the former regime. There had been businessmen who plundered public funds and fled the country. Non-Egyptian investors took part in pillaging the funds of Egypt to accumulate wealth, as they took advantage of the corrupt political and economic systems.

On the other hand, there are decent Egyptian businesspeople that are God-fearing and seek genuine profits. Additionally, there were Arab and foreign investors who have been forced to do business with the corrupt regime and meet the demands of the corrupt elements of the regime in order not to have their firms shut down or their projects jeopardized or avoid the prospect of thousands of Egyptians being laid off.

We do encourage the latter to keep their investments in Egypt and to expand further in order to create new opportunities or else an inevitable crisis will strike.

Hezbollah says revolt failed

hossam@alwatan.com.kw Twitter:@hossamfathy66

NEWS IN BRIEF 8,000 Libyans enlist to protect borders, oil TRIPOLI: The Libyan ministry of defense on Saturday enlisted more than 8,000 former rebels who will be trained in the protection of borders and strategic sites including the nation’s vital oil installations. “The 8,000 who joined are from all over Libya,” said the deputy defence minister, Sadiq AlObeidi, at the signing of an agreement to bring former rebels under his ministry’s authority and provide them with specialized training. The agreement stipulates the training of 8,055 former fighters who will be deployed to protect the North African Nation’s vast borders and strategic sites. “Many of them are residents from regions near the oil fields and many of them have already been protecting oil installations in the past few months,” Obeidi said, adding that training would take six weeks. -AFP

Iraq anti-Qaeda fighter killed with wife, son BAGHDAD: Unknown gunmen shot dead a member of the Sahwa anti-Qaeda militia forces along with his wife and son on Saturday north of Baghdad in Iraq’s Diyala province, a security official said. “Unknown gunmen broke into the house of Atia Khalil, a member of the Sahwa (Awakening) forces in Al-Sadat area, and opened fire on him,” killing him, said the official in the Diyala Operations Command. “The gunmen, who were carrying silenced weapons, also killed his wife, and his son,” the official said. The Sahwa are made up of Sunni tribesmen who joined forces with the US military against Al-Qaeda from late 2006, helping turn the tide of the insurgency. -AFP

5 Egyptian Copts crushed to death at Pope’s tomb CAIRO: Five Egyptian Copts, including two teenage girls, were crushed to death at the tomb of their spiritual leader Pope Shenuda III who died last week, security officials told AFP. A 13-year-old girl was among those who were killed at the St Bishoy monastery in Wadi Natrun, northwest of Cairo, where Shenuda was laid to rest. Monastery officials had allowed visitors to visit Shenuda’s tomb, prompting a rush to the desert monastery. Five people were killed, including 13year-old Myrna Gamal and a 16-year-old girl, Sandra Emad, the official said. Their bodies were taken to nearby hospitals.

-AFP

Amnesty urges Jordan to free political activists CAPITALS: Amnesty International on Saturday urged Jordan to free six political activists charged with insulting King Abdullah II, saying that at least three of them were beaten during interrogation. The human rights watchdog “is calling for the immediate and unconditional release of six pro-reform activists held for ‘insulting’ the king,” it said in a statement. “Amnesty International believes them to be prisoners of conscience held solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression and that they are being punished for their pro-reform views and peaceful activities.”

The six men were arrested and charged by military prosecutors in mid-March after a demonstration in the southern city of Tafileh.

Opposition Islamists have demanded the authorities free the activists, and demonstrations have been held in Tafileh and Amman to protest their detention. If convicted, the six suspects face three years in prison each.

“According to information received by Amnesty International, at least three of them were beaten by security forces during initial interrogations,” the London-based organization said. “Restrictions on the right to criticize the authorities or state institutions persist in Jordan and journalists, activists and others continue to face arrest and prosecution,” it added. The military State Security Court this month released an 18-year-old political activist from jail after the king pardoned him for burning a picture of the monarch. Jordanians have been protesting since January last year demanding sweeping political and economic reforms and an end to corruption. -AFP

More than 9,000 people have been killed by Al-Assad’s forces during the revolt, according to the United Nations, while Damascus says it has lost about 3,000 security force members.

“The armed opposition is incapable of toppling the regime,” said Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Al-Assad’s Lebanese ally Hezbollah. Foreign intervention was a “closed subject”, he said.

“Betting on military efforts to topple the regime is a losing gamble and the burden is too great: more bloodshed and loss of life and property, to no avail,” he said on Friday.

Western and Arab foreign ministers backing Syrians trying to topple Al-Assad head for Istanbul on Saturday for what diplomats predict will be a challenging “Friends of Syria” conference.

They will seek clear endorsement of the Annan plan from the Syrian National Council (SNC), although their own governments are skeptical that Assad will genuinely try to implement it.

In Libya a year ago, the West and the Arabs quickly granted recognition to a revolutionary national council as the sole legitimate government of Libya. They are not close to doing the same for the splintered SNC in Syria, diplomats say.

There is also little chance they will agree to arm rebels.

The Istanbul conference is instead expected to declare strong support for Annan’s peace proposals, which do not include an opposition and Arab League demand that Assad go now. It is expected to demand that he order a ceasefire without delay.

If he does not withdraw his forces, the opposition can hardly be expected to begin a dialogue with him, diplomatic sources said. If he does, one question will be how effectively they can persuade disparate armed rebel groups to stop shooting.

The Istanbul conference may press for immediate steps “to accept and implement a daily two-hour humanitarian pause”,

Demonstrators gather during a protest against Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad in Qamishli March 30, 2012. Picture taken March 30, 2012. (Reuters)

as Annan’s plan stipulates, until all fighting ceases.

If Al-Assad fails to keep his word, Annan would have to decide whether to call time and tell the United Nations he has failed to make peace through a “Syrian-led process”.

The issue would then return to the UN Security Council, with increased pressure on Al-Assad’s allies Russia and China, which have endorsed Annan’s mission, to get tough with Damascus.

Russia, however, has warned in advance that it is not up to the “self-styled friends of Syria” to pronounce on Sunday on whether Assad is keeping his part of the Annan deal or not.

Clinton promises US will back Gulf security RIYADH: The United States will work with Gulf Arab nations to strengthen their shared defenses against threats including Iran, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Saturday. Speculation about Tehran’s nuclear ambitions is a source of anxiety among Sunni-led Gulf Arab states, for whom Shiite Iran has long been a regional rival.

“The commitment of the United States to the people and the nations of the Gulf is rock-solid and unwavering.

Our strong bilateral relationships are a rock of stability in the region,” Clinton said in prepared remarks delivered in the inaugural meeting of a new US-Gulf security forum.

“Now we look forward to expanding our multilateral cooperation as well,” she said at the opening of the meeting with foreign ministers from the Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes six Gulf countries.

Clinton said Saturday’s discussions with Gulf foreign ministers would include the political change that has swept the Middle East in the past year and the violence in Syria, in addition to Iran’s disputed nuclear program “and curbing its interference in the affairs of its neighbors”.

Gulf Arab states have accused Iran of backing an uprising in Bahrain, and of fomenting unrest among the Shiite Muslim minority in mostly Sunni Saudi Arabia.

Fresh talks between Iran and world powers are expected to get underway in mid-April as Tehran faces increasing economic and political pressure over its nuclear activities.

Western diplomats and analysts say that getting Iran to stop the higher-level uranium enrichment it started two years ago and has since sharply increased will be a priority in next month’s talks - the latest bid to avert the threat of Israeli air strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. On Friday, US President Barack Obama vowed to forge ahead with tough sanctions on Iran, saying there was enough oil in the world market to allow countries to cut Iranian imports.

Iran says it has a sovereign right to peaceful nuclear technology and has repeatedly rejected UN resolutions calling for a suspension of all uranium enrichment.

Tehran denies it is pursuing a nuclear weapon or has meddled in affairs of its neighbors. US officials have said the United States is hoping to enhance its cooperation across the Gulf region on fighting piracy and violent extremism. It also hopes to help Gulf nations enhance their missile defense capabilities, including US arms sales.

Oil supplies have also been a focus of Clinton’s visit to the Gulf kingdom, which is the world’s top oil exporter.

The United States and other consumer countries fear Saudi Arabia may cut oil output if they release emergency reserves, neutralizing their effort to cool world energy markets. A US official said that Clinton discussed Saudi Arabia’s ‘essential’ role in maintaining strong global oil supplies during a meeting with Saudi King Abdullah on Friday. -Reuters

Diplomats say “Friends of Syria” powers construe the carefully-worded terms of Annan’s six-point plan as intending that Al-Assad will eventually cede power in a political transition. but the language is nuanced to get a step-by-step process going.

“I think inevitably we will see frustration this weekend. We are all frustrated,” said one Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It is frustrating that after more than a year, the violence continues in Syria and has been particularly brutal over the last two or three months and at the moment does not seem to be stopping.” -Reuters

UAE closes Dubai office of US pro-democracy group

WASHINGTON: The United Arab Emirates has closed the Dubai office of the National Democratic Institute, a US-funded prodemocracy group that was the subject of a crackdown in Egypt, the US State Department said on Friday.

“We understand that the UAE government has closed the NDI office in Dubai,” said State Department spokesman Noel Clay, offering no further details but defending the group’s work.

“NDI is a respected organization that has been working across the region and beyond to promote civil society, development and democratic values. The State Department is a firm supporter of NDI’s activities,” he said. The UAE, one of the world’s top five oil exporters, has escaped the upheaval that has shaken the Arab world, but the case of five activists convicted late last year of insulting the country’s rulers suggests it is not immune to calls for reform. UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahayan in December pardoned the activists a day after they were sentenced to prison terms of two to three years.

That case had been seen as a gauge of how the Gulf Arab state, which allows no political parties, responds to hints of dissent after the uprisings that have toppled four Arab heads of state, including former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. A US official said the United States had been in contact with UAE authorities about the closure of the NDI office and argued in favor of allowing such groups to operate.

“We made clear that allowing NGOs to operate openly and freely is important to support political and economic development,” said the official, who asked not to be named. The UAE embassy did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. -Reuters

Tribal clashes in Libya’s Sabha kill 16 SABHA: At least 16 people were killed on Saturday in new clashes between the Toubou people and Arab tribesmen in the southern Libyan desert oasis of Sabha, local and medical sources told AFP. A doctor at Sabha hospital, treating Arab casualties, said eight people were killed and another 50 wounded in fighting between the early morning and noon.

A Toubou tribal source said eight of their people were also killed.

“We haven’t slept since yesterday. The Toubou have been attacking Sabha since three in the morning, and they very nearly took the city. All the residents have taken

up arms to defend it,” Dr Abdelrahman Al-Arish told AFP. Adem Al-Tebbawi, a local Toubou official, spoke of eight dead and “several wounded” on his side.

Local sources said Toubou fighters who had been pushed back several kilometers (miles) south of Sabha launched a counter-attack very early on Saturday in a bid to re-enter the city.

Other tribes accuse the Toubou of including foreign fighters among their ranks, notably from neighboring Chad, a charge the Toubou deny. “The Arab tribes are stopping African immigrants working in the town and presenting them to

the press as Toubou fighters come from abroad,” Al-Tebbawi countered.

“We have respected a truce and we want reconciliation, but the other tribes - especially the Awled Suleiman - have not stopped attacking us for several days.

We have been deprived of both water and power,” he said. The latest fighting erupted on Monday after Arab tribesmen accused the Toubou of killing one of their people. The first three days of clashes cost more than 70 lives, Libyan government spokesman Nasser Al-Manaa said on Wednesday. At least another 24 people have been killed since then. -AFP

Clashes between Yemeni army, militants kill 30

SANAA: Al-Qaeda-linked militants staged a surprise attack on a Yemeni army base in the south Saturday, setting off clashes that left 30 dead on both sides before air strikes forced the militants to retreat, military officials said. The attack reflects how Al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen has exploited the political and security turmoil following the country’s yearlong uprising, managing to take control of large swaths of land in the south and staging increasingly bold attacks on the military. The militants have overran cities and towns as the government focused its efforts on protecting the regime in the capital during protests against former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Saleh’s replacement, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, has made fighting Al-Qaeda one of his top priorities, but many Yemenis accuse the ousted president, whose loyalists are still influential in the military and in government bodies, of undercutting security operations and the new president’s authority. In Saturday’s clashes, army officials said the militants attacked the base in Al-Mallah town in southern Lahj

province. The town is close to Abyan province, an Al-Qaeda stronghold.

The army fought back and by the time fighter jets were called in and forced the militants to retreat, 17 soldiers and 13 militants were dead. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. Al-Mallah is adjacent to Abyan province, an Al-Qaeda stronghold.

The latest clashes come as Washington appears to be increasingly involved in fighting Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemeni branch is known and which is believed to have plotted two failed attacks on American soil. On Friday, unmanned US drones targeted Al-Qaeda positions inside Shabwa province, another militant hideout, killing four militants, Yemeni officials said. There was no immediate comment from US officials, but Washington has carried out deadly airstrikes in Yemen in the past. Last year, a US drone strike killed US-born militant cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki and a second American, Samir Khan, an Al-Qaeda propagandist. -AP

An Israeli soldier grabs a Palestinian boy by the neck during a demonstration against the occupation of village land and the building of the Israeli settlement of Karmei Tzour near the village of Beit Omar, north of the West Bank town of Hebron, on March 31, 2012.

Israeli gunfire killed a 20-year-old man and wounded another 51 people as thousands rallied across the West Bank and Gaza to mark Land Day on March 30, medical sources said. (AFP)

ALWATAN DAILY

WORLD

sundAY, april 1, 2012

‘Black gold’ raises the stakes over Falklands LISBON: Three decades after the Falkands war, the promise of oil reserves around the islands is inflaming tensions between Britain and Argentina while also boosting the islanders’ economic hopes.

Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges compared the brief war over the British-held South Atlantic archipelago in 1982 to two bald men fighting over a comb, but the discovery of “black gold” 16 years later raised the economic stakes.

“In the past the issue was the fish, and a sort of arrangement was reached in the 1990s for joint exploitation of the fishing resources,” said Victor Bulmer-Thomas of the Chatham House foreign policy think tank.

“But now the issue is oil, which is a very political commodity,” he told AFP. It was 14 years ago that exploratory drilling, led by Anglo-Dutch energy giant Shell, revealed hydrocarbons in the waters off the Falklands.

At the time a barrel of crude sold for less than $10 US dollars- today it would fetch $125 - and the firms abandoned their exploration on the grounds it was not profitable enough.

The rocketing price of oil since then has enticed five companies back to the islands, hoping to cash in on what might be one of the world’s last new sources of fossil fuels.

To Argentina’s dismay, drilling resumed in 2010 with British firms Rockhopper and Desire Petroleum taking the lead.

Three other small companies followed suit, but until now only Rockhopper - named after one of the Falklands’ resident penguin breeds

Argentine war veterans shout slogans against Britain in Buenos Aires in February. Three decades after the Falkands war, the promise of oil reserves around the islands is inflaming tensions between Britain and Argentina while also boosting the islanders’ economic hopes. (AFP)

- has confirmed significant reserves, in the Sea Lion field to the north of the islands.

Rockhopper plans to start developing the field this year, and expects to pump the first of its estimated 450 million barrels in 2016, according to analysts Edison Investment Research (EIR).

“Sea Lion is already approaching the size

of the single largest field discovered in the UK North Sea this century, namely the Buzzard field,” EIR said in a report in March.

Meanwhile companies operating in the Southern Basin, where drilling has begun this year for the first time, hope to confirm reserves of eight billion barrels in the deepwater area at the islands’ tip.

Cruise ship carrying 1,000 adrift off Philippines MANILA: A luxury cruise ship carrying 600 mostly American and European tourists was adrift in Philippine waters on Saturday after an engine room fire that injured five crew, the coast guard said.

The blaze late Friday had been contained but it left the Azamara Quest drifting in the Sulu Sea, the cruise ship said, dealing a further blow to an industry that was already reeling from two incidents in as many months.

The Philippine Navy has rushed out three patrol craft and a fourth smaller vessel to provide assistance and they are en route, navy spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Omar Tonsay told reporters.

As a precaution, the captain had initially asked all passengers to prepare to evacuate the ship, but that was no longer necessary, the United States-based Azamara Club Cruises said on its website.

The crew later restored power to one of the ship’s engines, allowing the vessel to resume air conditioning, running water, plumbing and refrigeration, as engineers battled to restore propulsion to the stricken liner.

Refurbished in 2007, the up-market vessel was carrying 590 mostly American and European passengers and 411 crew members, Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Algier Ricafrente told AFP. The 180-metre (592-foot) vessel boasts

Luxury ship Azamara Quest docks at Pier 15 of the South Harbor upon arriving in Manila March 28, in this handout released to Reuters on March 31. (Reuters).

spas, gyms, swimming pools, a casino and eight restaurants, as well as an acupuncture service.

It is stranded about 200 miles (320 kms) off the coast of Balikpapan, on the Indonesian section of Borneo, the operator said.

In January, the Italian cruise liner Costa

Bombs kill eight, wound at least 70 in Thai Muslim south

Thai bomb squad members inspect the wreckage of a car at the scene of a car bomb blast in Thailand’s southern restive province of Yala on March 31. (AFP)

YALA: Eight people died and at least 70 were injured in a series of bomb explosions on Saturday in Thailand’s Muslim south, the latest in a wave of violence blamed on separatists in a region bordering Malaysia, police and officials said.

Three bombs went off in the business area of the city of Yala around lunchtime, they said, adding the devices may have been placed in a car and a motorcycle.

The governor of Yala province told Thai television that many of the injured were hit by the third bomb, hidden in a car, as they gathered at the scene.

In a separate incident, there was an explosion at a hotel in Hat Yai district in Song Kha province but no deaths have been reported so far, Channel 3 television reported.

Later, a small bomb exploded in a food shop in Pattani province, police said.

More than 5,000 people have been killed since a shadowy, decades-old separatist rebellion resurfaced in January 2004 in Muslimdominated Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat provinces.

The region, which was part of an independent Malay Muslim sultanate until annexed by Thailand in 1909, has been plagued by almost daily bombings and shootings ever since and the military has made little progress in quelling the unrest. -Reuters

Concordia ran aground off Tuscany, killing 32 people after it keeled over.

A month later a fire struck the Costa Concordia’s sister ship Costa Allegra in the Indian Ocean. The vessel, which was carrying more than 1,000 people, had to be towed to shore by a French fishing boat.

NEWS IN BRIEF

This buried treasure dwarfs the proven oil reserves of Britain.

With just three billion barrels remaining in oil fields in the North Sea, Britain has a strong financial motivation to cling on to the Falklands, a tiny territory 8,000 miles (12,900 kilometers) from its own shores.

EIR say that if an estimated total of 8.3 billion barrels lie offshore, oil could generate some $180 billion (£113 billion, 135 billion euros) for the Falklands’ local government in royalties and tax revenues by the time the last drop is pumped.

An angry Argentina vowed in March to take legal action against the five companies hunting for oil off the Falklands.

But Bulmer-Thomas said the firms, which are all based in Britain or the Falklands’ capital Stanley, would not be seriously rattled by these threats.

“The Argentinian threat can only apply to oil companies operating in Argentina,” he said.

He added: “There is a real possibility of oil exports in commercial quantities, and once that oil is produced and sold, it will be extremely difficult for Argentina to pursue its claims to sovereignty.”

According to Bulmer-Thomas, as the islands’ oil industry developed, their 3,000 overwhelmingly pro-British inhabitants would grow increasingly hostile to control by Buenos Aires.

“That’s why Argentina is trying as far as possible to stop the oil from being commercially exploited,” he said. -AFP

The Malta-flagged Azamara, described on its website as a 30,277-tonne vessel, left Hong Kong on Monday for a 17-night dream voyage.

It left Manila, its first stop, on Wednesday, and had been on its way to Borneo.

It was supposed to take in islands of the Indonesian archipelago, including the popular holiday spot Bali, before terminating in Singapore.

“Engineers onboard Azamara Quest continue to work on restoring propulsion to the ship,” the operator said, without saying how long that would take.

Both the operator and the Philippine Coast Guard said the blaze in the engine room had caused smoke-related injuries to five crew members, who were treated on board. No passengers were hurt.

The nationalities of the injured crew members was not disclosed, although the Philippine transportation department said it was aware about 120 of the crew are Filipinos.

The Florida-based Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd, the world’s second-largest cruise company, operates Azamara Club Cruises and said it had dispatched a salvage vessel to tow the ship, should onboard engineers fail to get it up and running again, coast guard ensign June Greanata told AFP. “It’s still dead on the water near the Tubbataha Reefs,” Greanata added. -Reuters

Malians back coup as rebels gain ground KAMPALA: Malians in the country’s north, where a Tuareg rebellion buoyed by last week’s coup is raging, have rallied in support of the new military leaders.

Mali’s army said on Saturday that it had withdrawn its troops from the northern towns of Ansogo and Bourem to reinforce its positions in Gao, hours after thousands marched there to voice approval of the coup leaders and the offensive against Tuareg rebels.

Protesters, some holding banners that read “Peace first, elections later”, took to the streets in what appeared to be a direct rejection of international calls for the military leaders to step down.

“Contrary to what the international opinion thinks, we support these forces because they can bring back security here, and afterwards democracy,” said Nouhou Toure, speaking for Ganda Izo, a local armed group.

The protest came as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) rejected an appeal for aid from Captain Amadou Sanogo, the coup leader, saying that the bloc would be willing to help only if constitutional normality was restored.

“ECOWAS is quite willing to assist the country to protect its territorial integrity, but we cannot do so when the power in place in Bamako is not legitimate ... There is zero tolerance to power obtained or maintained by unconstitutional means,” Kadre Desire Ouedraogo, the ECOWAS commission chief, told Al Jazeera on Friday.

He also said that Sanogo should immediately step down and allow ECOWAS to organize a political transition.

“It is not for him [Sanogo] to [organize elections],” he said.

“We want him to return to constitutional normality and then

5

we can discuss a transition period and then organize the election according to the provisions of the Malian constitution.”

Ouedraogo added, however, that he was confident talks would take place with coup leaders before the 72-hour ECOWAS deadline expired.

“We have indications that they want to continue dialogue and I think that this weekend they will be in touch to see how they are going to comply to the ECOWAS demands. But if by the deadline of Monday they have not done so, we have instruction to apply the sanctions,” he said.

ECOWAS suspended Mali on Tuesday and has warned that its regional troops are on standby to intervene.

On Thursday, the bloc threatened a “diplomatic and financial embargo” unless constitutional order was restored within 72 hours - a move which could cripple the landlocked nation.

Earlier, Sanogo had asked for external help to halt advancing Tuareg fighters in the north, who have seized a series of northern towns from overwhelmed soldiers.

The soldiers cited government failure to arm them sufficiently to fight the rebels as the major reason for toppling the democratically elected government of President Amadou Toumani Toure.

“The rebels continue to attack our country and terrorize our people,” Sanogo told journalists on Friday at the military barracks outside the capital Bamako, which have become the coup leaders’ headquarters.

“The situation is now critical, our army needs support from Mali’s friends to save the civilian population and protect Mali’s territorial integrity.” The withdrawal from Ansogo and Bourem came after Tuareg fighters and their allies entered and seized control of the town of Kidal, 1,000km from the capital. -AFP

Security forces ride in a vehicle as groups of Malian supporters and opponents of the military coup d’etat clash in the streets of capital Bamako March 29. (Reuters)

Myanmar prepares to vote with Suu Kyi poised for win NAYPYIDAW: Myanmar was making final preparations Saturday for polls seen as a test of the military-dominated regime’s reforms, in which opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is standing for the first time.

Many polling stations in the 45 constituencies spread across the country were already set up for the Sunday vote, which the Nobel laureate is contesting despite criticizing it as not “genuinely free and fair”. Suu Kyi, who called off her gruelling schedule of huge rallies across the country earlier this week after falling ill while campaigning in southern Myanmar, is set to make her way later Saturday to her rural constituency of Kawhmu, about two hours drive from Yangon. -AFP

Italian man arrested in Indonesia over drugs JAKARTA: An Italian man faces prison after he was arrested for marijuana possession on the resort island of Bali, an official said Saturday. Daniele Pieretto, 33, was arrested on Friday afternoon after arriving at the international airport on a Malaysia Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur. “We arrested Daniele Pieretto for possession of 1.4 kilograms of marijuana,” Ngurah Rai airport customs and excise head I Made Wijaya said. -AFP

Bangladesh teachers arrested over ‘blasphemous’ drama DHAKA: Police in Bangladesh said Saturday they had arrested two school teachers on suspicion of staging a drama containing blasphemous remarks about the Prophet Mohammed. The school’s Muslim headmaster and a female Hindu teacher were detained on Friday as thousands protested the play following weekly prayers at Kaliganj, 250 kilometers (155 miles) southwest of the capital Dhaka, police chief Farid Uddin said. “The drama contained blasphemous remarks about the Prophet, which angered Muslim villagers,” the local police official told AFP. -AFP

US soldier’s lawyer slams Afghan killings ‘blackout’ WASHINGTON: The lawyer representing a US soldier accused of killing 17 Afghan villagers condemned what he called an “information blackout” that prevents him from preparing his defense case. Attorney John Henry Browne on Friday said his team had been blocked from interviewing witnesses and injured civilians in southern Afghanistan following the alleged massacre earlier this month. “We were expecting a lot more cooperation. The prosecutors in this case promised us a lot of cooperation which we’re just not getting,” he told reporters in Seattle. -AFP

North Korea criticizes US aid suspension, warns on deal PYONGYANG: North Korea on Saturday criticized the US suspension of food aid over its planned rocket launch as an “overreaction”, warning it would render last month’s deal on a nuclear freeze null and void. “The US overreaction to the DPRK (North Korea’s) plan... has gone beyond the limit,” a foreign ministry spokesman said, according to the North’s official news agency KCNA. He said that Washington had previously insisted that it made no link between humanitarian and political issues. But it had responded to the “planned satellite launch with the announcement to stop following through on its commitment to food aid,” the spokesman continued. -AFP

Hu wants Cambodia help on China Sea dispute, pledges aid

PHNOM PENH: Chinese President Hu Jintao asked close economically Cambodia on Saturday not to push talks on the vexed issue of the South China Sea “too fast” as he pledged to double bilateral trade to 5 billion US dollars and announced fresh aid to the impoverished country.

Cambodia holds the rotating chair of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) this year, giving it influence over the agenda and talks over resolving growing tensions in the disputed maritime area.

Hun Sen told Hu that while other ASEAN countries would likely raise the issue at the body’s two-day summit in Phnom Penh starting on Tuesday, Cambodia shared China’s belief that the issue should not be “internationalized,” according to Sri Thamrong.

Phnom Penh has already said the issue is off the official agenda for the meeting. The Philippines and Vietnam have accused China of flexing its military muscles over the region believed to be rich in energy reserves and which has seen a rise in naval brinkmanship among the three nations in recent years. -Reuters

6

ALWATAN DAILY

OPINION

sunDAY, april 1, 2012

No time for idleness, the government must be weary of hawkish MPs Rashed Al-Radaan

F

or me, the members of Parliament have been using the parliamentary interpellation as a “free time” thing.

The more the government is making mistakes, the more number of MPs who would jump at the chance and demonstrate their muscles before the public.

Let us not forget that one day during the previous parliament there was a memorable time for the MPs when they decided to hold four parliamentary interpellations in one day. But remarkably the issue is now different. It seems that the ministers are now enjoying themselves when it comes to parliamentary interpellations. The table has indeed turned upside down.

There are of course reasons behind this sudden shift in policy. First of all we need to remind ourselves that in the past, MPs had had a great number of influence and support. They constituted a majority on their own. So the issue of grilling this minister or that minister or even the prime minister was not a mission impossible by any standards. But today, the idea of majority MPs is no longer in existence as it was before.

The second reason is that in the past it was amply clear that the lines of questioning as raised by some MPs against ministers were truly meek and unworthy. It was easily refuted and many ministers managed to counter argue and put an end to the grilling. It was clear that there was no hope that the MPs may proceed to reach the stage where he can argue that this minister should face a no-cooperation motion.

His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah is a man of politics and a true statesman. He is a finely experienced and able politician, recalling that the day he was appointed as prime minister some MPs declare

The government needs to be careful, calculate every step it takes and to proceed with the country’s development plans to achieve growth and prosperity. they are planning to grill him; he was not disturbed and confidently went to the podium with remarkable poise.

His Highness the Prime Minister was not disturbed by it and never asked to have the grill behind closed doors. It was public for all to see. The incident will not be remembered for the short period of time it took the prime minister to face the grilling but the fact that such fear, anxiety and concern which past and former prime ministers had to go through is now officially broken by the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak. He had shown others that it is ok to face the MPs and defend your case without fear.

Many observers fear however that if His Highness the Prime Minister had shown confidence and determination to face the interpellation that would be the trend throughout if there are more interpellations to face. They might argue that while it is true that the Prime Minister had no problem to manage and run the show refuting each issue raised in the grill by the MP Saleh Ashour, the fact remains that the hawkish MPs remain idle and in the back seat only observing the course of events waiting for the right and ripe time when the attack would be more fruitful and productive. They are basically and simply waiting for the easy kill.

The government may enjoy its victory and triumph over the last grill and the fact that its prime minister managed to

When the going gets tough, the tough get going Khaled Sultan Al-Sultan

L

et it be known for all that our love, admiration and adoration to the Prophet of Islam Muhammad Peace Be Upon Him will never be altered. They may criticize, defame, slander belittle the Prophet of Islam Muhammad Bin Abdullah, but the man would remain in our hearts because he is simply more important than us, than our own parents, than our own children and the entire people around us.

Although we don’t appreciate the fact that some in the west have attempted and tried very hard to degrade the Prophet of Islam as much as they can and in all possible means they could muster. The end of the day, they have no idea who the Prophet of Islam is and how he is perceived by millions of Muslim all over the world.

But when the disparaging statements and remarks come from one of those people who can only be described as hypocrites had the audacity and boldly described Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam Peace Be Upon Him, with unspeakable names and attributes then we are indeed facing a dilemma of a different sort.

The Holy Quran has long described those types of people who seek to disparage the Household of the Prophet for one reason or another pointing out that when they do this they think they are different and that they are right when in reality they only descend to misguidance and ignorance.

Here, both the people in charge as well as the public need to interfere to put end to this because the damage is done already and they need to stop the recurrence of such abominable crimes once and for all.

In Islamic terminology, the act of cursing and disparaging the Prophet of Islam is neither pardonable nor is it tolerable and Muslims realize this very well.

History provides us with numerable examples where some Muslims had become apostate and unbelievers for various reasons. The very idea of disparaging the Prophet is only a trigger to something of very grand scale the least of which is local conflict.

We feel immensely disturbed and unhappy when someone is not brought up as a Muslim especially those in the west but the in the end of the day they are not Muslims and therefore when they disparage the Prophet and his Household, they are expressing their opinion unaware of the calamity of their attack.

But when someone who claims to be a Muslim, and who has lived most of his life in the midst of us, holding the same nationality and enjoys a similar upbringing and culture, then it is unfathomable.

One recalls similar anecdote when the infamous Yasser Al-Habeeb who constantly and persistently in his lectures attacked the wife of our Prophet Muhammad Peace Be Upon Him. Al-Habeeb, it

successfully defend their position and case against MP Ashour’s attack. The fear here is that this type of victory might be a short one and then a barrage of bombardments by the hawkish MP would begin.

The government needs not to sit idly for a long time because the MPs have made it clear and often repeated that they need to see development plans and growth taking precedence in the country and on the ground for each to see. Failure to achieve such aims and objectives, which incidentally have been the only motto talked about for the past decade, the celebration of the government may be truly short lived.

So far, the types of questionings made in the parliament like that of MP Saleh Ashour against His Highness the Prime Minister on one hand and that of MP Hussein Al-Qallaf against the Minister of Information are not of the critical level.

The ministers including His Highness the Prime Minister know for well that the two MPs represent “minority MPs” and thus represent no danger, or to say at least no immediate danger for the time being.

The so-called “minority MPs” and their interpellation constitute no threat and therefore it is seen as a time for the government to show its muscles but the government needs to also understand that such a “fun show” would not last

for long if they chose to neglect the country’s priorities and urgent matters.

The government needs to be careful, calculate every step it takes and to proceed with the country’s development plans to achieve growth and prosperity.

Moving to a different issue and this time related to the level of sectarianism across the Middle East including the Gulf States such as the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the State of Kuwait and the kingdom of Bahrain, as well as Syria and Egypt.

The idea of sectarianism is utterly alien to many Kuwaitis where all have lived together for centuries. In Kuwait, Sunnis and Shiite lived together while having left each of their own differences at bay in order not to interfere or impact their national unity.

But today we hear different tones concerning this matter. People seek to foment all forms of sectarianism as they seek to destroy the country and its national unity.

If there are people who for some reason or another decided to disparage the Prophet Muhammad Peace Be Upon Him and his Household then this is their business. They must face the consequences of their act. But the last thing we need to do here is to generalize and accuse every one of the same charges.

I was informed by some that the man who opted to degrade and disparage the Prophet of Islam Muhammad Bin Abdullah is a Shiite. The rational thing to do is to charge the man with such crime because he is individually responsible for his action. We can’t generalize and accuse the rest of the same crime. Just as I was informed that the accused of the heinous crime is a Shiite, I was also informed the police officer who arrested him is also a Shiite. This should alert us to the fact that generalization is not right, nor fair or accurate.

Soon, they will get their comeuppance!

bu qutada & bu nabil

seems, takes pleasure in doing so which promoted the current Prime Minister His Highness Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak AlSabah to interfere and put an end to this.

Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak immediately ordered that Yasser Al-Habeeb would be instantly and formally denationalized and was sent to jail.

This time the subject of the attack is not the wife of the Prophet our lady Aisha but her husband, our Prophet Muhammad, and therefore even stricter measures must be taken against the apostate.

There is no use making public statements or condemn and criticize acts of this nature. This is not an issue of someone exercising his rights of speech or expressing his opinion. People may and can express their opinion in this country freely but certainly there are maxims and boundaries which we all know we cannot cross even if we wanted to.

It is important that we underscore the fact that there are some who have penetrated our society and pretended that they are one of us but in reality they are sick minded people with a dubious mentality.

We believe in freedom and the right to express ourselves freely. But we also believe that such rights should not be abused and certainly not at the expense of important figures in our lives such as the prophet of Islam Muhammad and his Household. It is time that clear and stringent measures are taken against those who think they can get away with it. Failure to introduce and apply such measures will mean that there will be no end to such controversies and blasphemies.

Moving into a different issue and this time it is related to His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah. The man has managed successfully to stand up against the parliamentary interpellation made by the MP Saleh Ashour.

But in my opinion the greater success is the fact that the way he managed to handle it. He calmly took his place in the podium to face the questions and brilliantly managed to refute each interpellation one by one without resorting to patronizing the parliament or its members. The message his Highness the Prime Minister is trying to convey is that there should be mutual respect and that if one MP is not particularly glad over a specific issue, the government will be more than happy to clarify the issue in a professionally and brotherly atmosphere. The bottom line is that you have the right to use the constitutional tools, and I have the right to defend myself in a good and healthy ambience. But once this is finished, let us get on and pay attention to the country and its interests. We raise our hats to His Highness the Prime Minister and at the same time we say to those who are seeking to foment crisis and cause trouble; let us commit to the work we are assigned to do and stay away from personal issues.

Mmmmmm good yoghurt

It looks like a very nice restaurant ..... let’s have lunch there

O h , it is d s fo o d eli c io u m s e ...... it se st a r e iv f li k e a nt a r u a t re s

Restaurant

It is a great lunch ..... let’s see their kitchen

Oh my God, how dirty is this restaurant!!!

A good idea..... let’s thank the chef too

Oh, I feel a bad stomachache .... Take me to the hospital

Mohmmed Thallab

mthallab@alwatan.com.kw

Law is above all Mubarak Sunaideh

W

e had been used to demonstrating the significance of national unity as well as cooperation between the different factions of society but in the mean time we should discuss some sensitive issues even if some people believe that the very issues will lead to dangerous controversy or stirring sedition.

We have to discuss these issues especially if hiding them contributes in affecting the sovereignty of the state. I want to speak about the authority of the state and its control over all the public

premises. Until the present, I don’t know why Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs does not have any control over the Shiite mosques in Kuwait despite that the ministry oversees the 1,300 Sunni mosques in Kuwait.

However, the ministry has an entire sector called “Mosque Sector” observes mosques in addition to appointing Imams and callers for prayers at the various mosques.

It also follows up maintenance of mosques and developing them. The Friday preaching is always recorded and the sector listens to the recorded tapes and brings any imams or preachers who vio-

late laws to accountability.

The Shiite mosques, imams and preachers are distant from such surveillance as if the Shiite mosques were a part of another state, not Kuwait! Therefore, the Ministry of Awqaf should have a special department to follow up the Shiite mosques.

I am not calling for restricting Shiite mosques or even interrupting the process of building more but I call for applying laws over all people and premises including Shiite mosques, charitable organizations, Wathaqer Center and non-profit organizations.

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views

sunDAY, APRIL 1, 2012

Egypt’s broken economy Mohsin Khan Project Syndicate

E

gyptians’ political aspirations have dominated the country’s public life since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak last year. Unfortunately, as those aspirations are addressed, the economy has entered a steep decline, jeopardizing one of the revolution’s main goals, namely improvement in Egyptians’ living standards and welfare.

Indeed, the populist rhetoric of Egyptian politicians threatens to undo the economic reforms undertaken by the Mubarak regime. In 2004, a major reform program was launched under former Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif. It was aimed at removing bureaucratic constraints to growth by restructuring the financial sector, streamlining business regulations, liberalizing foreign trade, and reducing the government’s role in the economy.

The 2004 reforms, with their elimination of restrictions on access to foreign exchange and reduction of import tariffs, gradually improved the business and investment climate. Coupled with favorable international conditions, Egypt’s annual GDP growth rate rose to 7.2 percent in 2008, from 4.1 percent in 2004, and remained at five percent in 2009-2010, despite the global recession. The new measures also helped to attract large capital inflows and foreign direct investment, underpinning a dramatic rise in foreign-currency reserves, from 14.8 billion US dollars in 2004 to more than 36 billion US dollars by the end of 2010.

In 2011, the situation worsened on virtually all fronts. Annual growth fell to about 0.5 percent, and inflation remained in double digits.

The unemployment rate reached 12.4 percent in the fourth quarter, up from 8.9 percent in the same period of 2010. The current-account balance deteriorated rapidly, owing to the loss of more than four billion US dollars in tourism revenues and a sharp fall in remittances

by Egyptian workers abroad. The fiscal deficit widened to 10% of GDP, causing government debt (including external debt), which had been falling steadily, to rise to 76 percent of GDP. The most striking development, however, was the loss of international reserves in the year following the Tahrir Square revolution.

The International Monetary Fund estimates that foreign-currency reserves fell by half, to 18 billion US dollars, by December 2011, ow-

Sky-high protectionism?

Jean Pisani-Ferry Project Syndicate

A

new controversy has emerged between the European Union and several of its main trade partners since the EU decided to include in its CO2 emission-control scheme all flights to and from its territory, including transcontinental flights. Airlines will need to acquire emission permits for their flights’ CO2 emissions. China and the United States are outraged. Chinese airlines have delayed orders to purchase European aircraft. The CEOs of aircraft manufacturer Airbus and major European airlines have urged European leaders to step in. There is talk of a new trade war.

This is an important quarrel, because it is the first real clash in the debate on climate and trade. Not only are the motivations and arguments new, but suspicions about hidden agendas matter as much as substance.

It may seem strange, but the EU sees itself as a soldier of the common good.

Why is a group of countries whose share in worldwide CO2 emissions is only 12 percent - and set to decline fast - aspiring to global leadership on the issue, despite US inaction and emerging-market countries’ reluctance to commit to binding emissionreduction targets?

In part, the EU’s stance reflects the preferences of European public opinion.

In part, it arises from internal politics: to press ahead with its agenda enables the EU to strengthen its hand vis-à-vis the member states. In part, there is the hope that by moving fast, Europe will acquire a

FILE- The American Electric Power Company’s cooling tower at their coalburning Mountaineer plant is shown in this file photo taken Oct. 27, 2009

FILE- An Egyptian driver shouts to a worker as vehicles line up at a gas station in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, March 23, 2012. (AP)

Egypt’s transition from populist economic policies to anti-American populism exemplifies the impact that political uncertainty can have on economic developments. ing partly to the worsening current-account balance, but, more importantly, to withdrawal from Egypt by foreign and domestic investors alike.

In the face of large and growing external imbalances, the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) chose to defend the Egyptian pound during last year’s political and economic turmoil. The CBE

comparative advantage in low-carbon technologies.

From a European standpoint, the reaction from trade partners is difficult to accept. After all, the measure is non-discriminatory: all airlines are treated in the same way. In its absence, the choice would have been between putting European airlines at a disadvantage and exempting a sector whose share in the EU’s total CO2 emissions has grown from 1.8 percent in 1990 to 3.5 percent in 2007. Anyone who acknowledges that global warming is a real threat must take the EU’s arguments seriously.

The EU’s trade partners make several valid arguments. One is that receipts from the sale of emission permits should not accrue to the EU for flights that take place largely outside of its borders, though this would be a relatively simple matter for negotiators to settle.

Another argument is that the EU scheme will create distortions that favor of incumbents (who will be given permits for free) and non-direct flights (because only the leg to or from the EU will be taxed).

This, too, is correct, but the distortion would be eliminated, should partner countries adopt the same scheme.

Finally, opponents of the EU’s scheme contend that developing countries’ contribution to emission reductions should be less significant than that of advanced countries, since they contributed much less to the stock of existing greenhouse gases. But this issue could easily be resolved through negotiations over the allocation of permits.

In fact, the EU explicitly supports a global agreement, negotiated in a multilateral framework, as the best solution.

The really important argument against Europe’s decision is the one about hidden agendas. The EU’s trade partners do not want to give ground, because they suspect that in the coming years, climate change will

allowed the exchange rate, which is formally defined as a “managed float,” to depreciate by only three percent. Keeping the currency relatively stable was considered a higher priority than preventing the loss of foreign reserves.

Today, Egypt not only remains vulnerable to unstable domestic politics; owing to the depletion of its international reserves - at a rate

serve as a pretext for protectionist policies.

Indeed, climate change is in many ways the perfect crutch that opponents of open trade have long sought, and there is a real risk that it will be used in a mischievous way.

So caution is fully justified. But the problems arising from the incoherence of national climate policies are real. They emerge as soon as domestic emissions are taxed in some part of the world (or, equivalently, as soon as quotas are imposed), because domestic producers then claim that they are at a disadvantage in international trade.

Moreover, rejecting Europe’s arguments out of hand, owing to a suspected protectionist agenda, is not without risk. If the controversy comes to be perceived by the European public as a conflict between free trade and the environment, free trade is likely to lose. Europe’s partners should not assume that trade automatically takes precedence over climate concerns. Instead, they should focus public attention on valid arguments. For example, it is much easier for advanced countries to reduce emissions without any effort, simply by outsourcing the production of emission-intensive goods to emerging and developing countries. In this way, they can meet strict targets without reducing the carbon content of their consumption.

The trade vs. climate debate is fundamental for the global economy. Europe’s air-transport tax provides an opportunity to launch it in a concrete and rational way.

It is an opportunity that should not be missed.

Jean Pisani-Ferry is Director of Bruegel, an international economics think tank, Professor of Economics at Université Paris-Dauphine, and a member of the French Prime Minister’s Council of Economic Analysis.

of roughly two billion US dollars a month since last October - the country now also faces the threat of a currency crisis. Moreover, this almost certainly underestimates the extent of the losses, because it does not exclude inflows of 3.5 billion US dollars since November of last year from auctions of US-dollar-denominated treasury bills.

7

In addition, the Egyptian military gave a one billion dollar loan to the government, and another one billion was received through grants from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, bringing the loss of reserves since December 2010 closer to 22 billion. The other source of international reserves, tourism, brought in only eight billion US dollars, down sharply from 12 billion in 2010. Egypt continues to import almost double what it exports, resulting in a trade deficit of over 10 billion US dollars by the end of 2011.

As a result, Egypt’s financing must continue to grow: the country now needs to borrow about 14-15 billion US dollars to plug its estimated financing gap of 24 billion US dollars.

Much depends on when, or whether, external aid materializes, which is contingent on approval of Egypt’s renegotiated 3.2 billion US dollars IMF loan. If finalized, the IMF program could trigger further aid packages by the World Bank and other international donors.

If the aid arrives, Egypt could begin to address some of its financing problems, but it is still in need of a long-term strategy to spur sustainable growth. Egypt’s economy is facing continued risks, owing to capital flight, rising inflation, unemployment, and populist policies.

Even with the availability of external finance, Egyptian leaders must look for ways to engage the private sector in reviving the country’s economy.

Unfortunately, the latest political incident involving the democracy-promoting activities of American NGOs has cooled bilateral relations and threatens the 1.3 billion US dollars in military assistance that Egypt receives annually from the United States. This may have an impact on other donors, as well as the international financial institutions, particularly the IMF and the World Bank.

Egypt’s transition from populist economic policies to anti-American populism exemplifies the impact that political uncertainty can have on economic developments. The upcoming presidential election in May and the formation of a democratically elected government, one hopes, will calm the political turmoil and lead to economic stabilization and revival. Otherwise, Egyptians’ hard-won political gains may well be lost.

Mohsin Khan is Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC.

The stranglehold of payments networks Felix Salmon Reuters

I

’m mostly offline today, since I’m attending a payments conference at the Kansas City Fed. And tomorrow I’m attending an econobloggers’ conference at the Kauffman Foundation: how jealous are you? There’s a lot to digest here, but one thing already seems clear: if you look at the main players in the payments industry, whether they’re incumbents or new innovators who aspire to disrupting the status quo, everybody seems almost unthinkingly resigned to working on and within the present architecture, where consumers pay with their credit or debit cards, and merchants require some kind of way of accepting those payments.

Exhibit A, in this regard, is “The Credit Card Is The New App Platform”, a piece by Reid Hoffman and his colleagues at Greylock Partners, talking in a very smart way about all the value that can be added to credit cards as we move to a world of mobile apps and payments. The idea, basically, is that right now you have a dumb piece of plastic where all the real value is in that Visa or Mastercard logo; in the future, there’s a lot of opportunity in terms of making that piece of plastic much smarter.

Most of the most exciting innovation in payments, including companies like LevelUp, not to mention the iTunes store, is built on credit or debit card accounts: the first thing you do, when you download one of those apps, is type in your card number, and when you pay, the payment is ultimately made on your card - which means that it necessarily involves making substantial payments to those payments networks. iTunes, the conference was told this morning, has some 150 million card numbers on file, which is one reason why it’s so attractive to people looking to sell content or apps or music. Similarly, one of the great attractions of the Amazon Marketplace, for both buyers and sellers, is that Amazon already has the buyer’s card information on file. Other innovators, like Square and Stripe, are also innovating around credit and debit cards, specifically by making it much easier for the payee to accept those payments.

Visa and Mastercard, of course (and American Express, too) are very happy with this. They can work on innovations themselves, or they can outsource innovation to the likes of Reid Hoffman; either way, they get paid, because they’re the default payments architecture. But what we’re missing here is any kind of threat to their dominance.

And that’s a great shame, because these dominant companies have an enormous amount of pricing power. The interchange fees that they charge merchants only ever go up; it took an unbelievably hardfought act of Congress to bring those fees down just for bank debit cards. (Which is one reason why the number of prepaid debit cards is rising fast: they’re exempt from Durbin rules, and can charge very high interchange fees.)

The keynote speech at the payments conference today came from Joseph Farrell, the director of the bureau of economics at the Federal Trade Commission. He talked at great length about the importance of lowering the transaction cost of payments, and the way that would benefit both consumers and society; he also suggested that this was a key aspect of what the conference was about.

He’s right about the first: transaction costs are too high, and should come down, and there would be large positive externalities were that to happen. He’s wrong about the second, however: there’s actually

precious little discussion at the conference about how transaction costs might come down. There’s much more talk about the way in which they go up far too easily: Visa and Mastercard have enormous pricing power, and can raise their prices as much as 30 percent without noticeably losing any customers at all.

Merchants feel forced to accept such cards, no matter what the cost, while the costs to consumers, in the form of higher prices, are extremely well hidden.Visa and Mastercard essentially levy a non-negligible tax on a huge percentage of retail payments, and do so in a largely invisible manner; they then rebate some of that tax revenue back to consumers, bribing those consumers to force the merchants to pay the tax.

At one point last year, I got very excited about a new payments service called clearXchange, which promised the ability for people to pay each other without going through the Visa or Mastercard networks. And because it is backed by giant banks Wells Fargo, Chase, and Bank of America - it has the potential to be really huge.

The problem is, it doesn’t actually work: it hasn’t taken off, for technical reasons I don’t pretend to understand. All I know is that when I meet executives from those three banks and bring up clearXchange, they tend to change the subject very quickly. It’s certainly not something which they seem to think is going to revolutionize anything, any time soon.

There is some innovation around payments which doesn’t involve Visa and Mastercard in some way. One peer-to-peer payments app I was shown today, which isn’t publicly available yet, is built on the EFT network, the one you use when you withdraw money from an ATM. And another delegate told me that fully 26% of revenue at Starbucks comes from its mobile app, which can be (and often is) funded directly from your bank account, without having to go through Visa or Mastercard.

But that kind of thing is laborious and expensive for startups: one of PayPal’s big competitive advantages, for instance, was the fact that it found a way to link PayPal accounts to individual members’ accounts at thousands of banks around the country. That’s nontrivial, and it’s much easier to deal with just two or three payments networks.

So color me pessimistic, here, at least in the US. There really is a huge public interest in bringing down transaction costs, and moving the locus of paymentsrelated innovation away from the Visa and Mastercard networks, and towards cheaper and more direct bank-account connections. But I see no indication that’s going to happen. In that sense, I have the same view now that I had in 2010, when I said that there wasn’t much prospect of real competition in payments. It would be great were that to happen. But I’m not holding my breath.

As a consequence, the government really has to get involved here, lest the payments networks simply continue to raise their interchange fees and extract ever-higher rents from everybody else. But the obvious entity to do that is the Federal Reserve, and, at least judging by this morning’s remarks from Kansas City Fed president Esther George, that’s not going to happen any time soon. No one really wants new regulation. Which is surely music to the ears of Visa and Mastercard.

One other intriguing idea I was given at the end of the conference: what about using the check-clearing architecture as a payments mechanism? With Check 21, in theory everything could be electronic, you don’t actually need paper checks. (Although some lawyers apparently say you do.) The problem, I think, would be ensuring funds were available. But if you can do that, it could work very well - and much more cheaply than the Visa and Mastercard systems.

Felix Salmon is the finance blogger at Reuters.

The views expressed are his own.

8

ALWATAN DAILY

SERVICES

HOTLINE SERVCES

sundAY, april 1, 2012

EMERGENCY - Police - Fire - Ambulance 112 - TRAFFIC HOTLINE 1 88 41 41 CIVIL ID 1 88 99 88 - AIRPORT 1888 180 - KAC BOOKING 17 1

Prayer Times Fajer

WE FIX IT

04 : 18

Shorook

05 : 38

Dohor

11 : 52

Aser

03 : 23

Maghreb

06 : 06

Ishaa

07 : 24

KD KD KD KD KD KD KD

95 90 55 55 55 40 40

Jabriya (Surra) Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh Old Jahra New Jahra & Abdaly Hawally Ras Al-Salmiya Al-Riqa Salmiya Shuwaikh Sabah Al-Salem (Messila) Sulaibiya Sulaibikhat

2531 0000 2431 0000 2477 0000 2457 0000 2261 0000 2571 0000 2394 0000 2561 0000 2481 0000 2551 0000 2467 0000 2487 0000

South Sabahiya Fintas Zoor Ahmadi Ardiya Fahaheel Farwaniya Kuwait City Mishref Manqaf Nuzha Umm Al Haiman & Wafra Shuaiba

2361 0000 2390 0000 2395 0000 2398 0000 2488 0000 2391 0000 2471 0000 2240 0000 2538 0000 2371 0000 2251 0000 2328 0000 2326 0000

metropolitan

Bus No. 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 29 31 32 34 36 38 39 40 41 51 59 * 101 102 103 105 139 501 502 506 507 602

a re a b u s ro u tes

Origin

Orthopaedic Orthopaedic Kheitan * Messila Salmiyah * Kheitan * Salmiyah Orrthopaedic Al-Jleeb Al-Jleeb * Al-Jleeb Kheitan Salmiyah Jahra Gate Sulaibiya Al Jleeb Kheitan Jabriya Salmiyah Al-Jleeb Messilah Kheitan Fahaheel Kheitan Al Jleeb * Al-Jleeb * Fahaheel Fahaheel Jahra Fahaheel Jahra Gate Airport Fahaheel Al-Jleeb Al-Jleeb Fahaheel

Destination

Sharq Sharq Mirgab Mirgab Mirgab Jahra Gate Sharq Mirgab Sharq Mirgab Sharq Mirgab Mirgab Jabriya Sharq Mirgab Sharq Sharq Sharq Salmiyah Jahra Gate Sharq Sharq UN Circle Mirgab Mirgab Mirgab Mirgab Mirgab Al-Jleeb Fahaheel Mirgab Mirgab Jahra Gate Sharq Fahaheel

Via

Shuwaikh 4th Ring Rd Airport Rd Ras Salmiyah 4th Ring Rd 4th Ring Rd Hawalli Shuwaikh Kheitan Farwaniyah 3rd Ring Rd King Faisal Rd Hawalli Hawalli Andalus Shuwaikh Shamiyah Nuzha Farwaniyah Farwaniyah Bayan Shuwaikh Shuwaikh Al Rai 6th Ring Rd Al Hasawi Sabah Salem 3rd Ring Rd Jahra Rd Shuwaikh UN Circle Jahra Rd Fahaheel Rd Hawalli Shuwaikh Ahmadi

KD 70 KD 140 KD 40 KD 40 KD 40 KD 40 KD 40

VISITORS RESIDENTS

H.S.C. Barium Enema Barium Meal O.C.G. Ultrasound Ultrasound desfruct M.R.I.

KD 40 KD 50 KD 45 KD 45 KD 15 KD 130 KD 245

KD 40 KD 35 KD 30 KD 30 KD 10 KD 65 KD 180

eMbassies &

Ministry of

C omm u nic a tions Telephone for Test & Complaints

warsha@warsha.com

f or e x p a tri a tes

VISITORS RESIDENTS

C.T. Scan Angiogram I.V.P MCUG Asc Urothrogram Sinogram Sialogram

Tel.: Afghanistan 2532 9461 Algeria 2251 9220 Argentina 2537 9211 Austria 2255 2532 Australia 2232 2422 Azerbaijan 2535 5247 Bahrain 2531 8530 Bangladesh 2531 6042 / 3 Belgium 25722014 Bhutan 2251 6640 / 50 Bosnia 2539 2637 Brazil 2532 8610 Bulgaria 2531 4458 Canada 2256 3025 China 2533 3340 Cuba 2254 9361 Cyprus 2243 3075 Czech 2252 9018 Denmark 2534 1005 Egypt 2251 9956 Ethiopia 2533 4291 Eritrea 2531 7426 Finland 2531 2890 France 2257 1061 Germany 2252 0827 Greece 2481 7101 Georgia 2535 2909 Hungary 2532 3901 India 2253 0600 Indonesia 2483 9927 Iran 2256 0694 Italy 2535 6011 Japan 2530 9400 Kenya 25353314 / 25353362 Lebanon 2256 2103

Libya 2257 5183 Malaysia 2255 0394/5/6 Morocco 2531 2980 / 1 Netherlands 2531 2650 Niger 2565 2943 Nigeria 2562 0278 North Korea 2532 9462 Oman 2256 1956 Pakistan 2532 7651 Philippines 2534 9099 Poland 2531 1571 Qatar 2251 3606 Republic of Botswana 2538 3619 Romania 2484 5079 Russia 2256 0427 Saudi Arabia 2240 0250 Senegal 2257 3477 Slovak Republic 2535 3895 Somalia 2539 4795 South Africa 2561 7988 South Korea 2533 9601 Spain 2532 5829 / 7 Sri Lanka 2533 9140 Switzerland 2534 0172 / 5 Syria 2539 6560 Thailand 2531 7530 Tunisia 2252 6261 Turkey 2253 1785 UAE 2535 5764 UK 2259 4320 Ukraine 2531 8507 USA 2259 1001 Venezuela 2532 4367 Vietnam 2531 1450 Yugoslavia 2532 7548 Zimbabwe 2562 1517

2257 5182 2255 0384 2531 7423 2532 6334 2564 0478 2562 0296 2535 1097 2256 1963 2532 8013 2532 9319 2531 1576 2251 3604 2539 3529 2484 8929 2252 4969 2242 0654 2254 2044 2535 3894 2539 4829 2561 7917 2531 2459 2532 5826 2533 9154 2534 0176 2539 6509 2531 7532 2252 8995 2256 0653 2259 4339 2538 0282 2532 4368 2535 1592 2532 7568 2562 1491

Police stations Tel.:

Abu Halifa 2371 7656 Ahmadi 2398 0304 Ardiya 2488 1273 Bayan 2538 7762 Dahar 2383 0500 Dahiya 2256 0855 Dasma 2253 1917 Fahaheel 2391 2959 Faiha 2255 2693 Farwaniya 2471 1977 Ferdous 2489 0583 Fintas 2390 4388 Hawalli 2264 1116 Jabriya 2531 5855 Jahra Ind. Area 2457 5565 / 2458 7392 Jahra North 2455 2295 Jleeb Al Shouyoukh 2431 1234 Keifan 2483 2839 Kheitan 2472 2590 Mina Abdullah 2326 1144 Nugra 2261 6662 Omariya 2474 2160

Ambulance

Central Adan Amiri Hospital Da’iya Fahaheel Farwaniya Farwaniya Jahra Mubarak Al Kabir Sabah Salmiya Shuaiba

23940600 / 23941455 22422366 22510854 23919098 24883000 24725149 24570583 25311437 24815000 25739011 23261927

Private Hospitals

Al-Rashid Hospital Dar Al-Shifa Hospital Hadi Clinic London Hospital Mowasat Hospital Salam Hospital

Qadsiya 2257 4386 Qurain 2542 3772 Rabiah 2474 2160 Rawda 2256 0058 Riqqa 2394 1958 Rumaithiya 2562 4123 Sabah Al-Salem 2551 7229 Sabahiya 2361 5619 Salhiya (Kuwait City) 2242 7157 Salmi 2457 6576 Salmiya 2572 6950 Salwa 2562 6950 Shamiya 2484 5953 Sharq 2244 2466 Shuaiba Ind. Area 2326 1789 Shuwaikh 2481 3726 / 2484 4842 Sulaibekhat 2487 6555 Sulaibiya 2467 0672 Sulaibiya Ind. Area 2467 2728 Surra 2531 2220 Tayma’a 2457 1700 Wafra 2381 0412 Waha 2455 7902 Zour 2395 0160

Adan General Hospital Al-Sabah Chest Hospital Al-Sabah Maternity Hospital Amiri General Hospital As’ad Al-Hamad Dermatology Center

Farwaniya General Hospital Ibn Sina Hospital Jahra General Hospital Mubarak Al-Kabeer General Hospital Subhan Renal Hospital Sulaibikhat Orthopedic Hospital

25624000 22802555 1828282 1883883 25726666 22533177

Private Health Centers/ Clinics

Boushahri Clinic British Medical Center Care Clinic International Clinic

Public Hospitals

cons u l a tes

Fax 2532 6274 2251 9497 2537 9212 2256 3052 2232 2430 2535 5246 2533 0882 2531 6041 2574 8389 2251 6550 2539 2106 2532 8613 2532 1453 2256 4167 2533 3341 2254 9360 2240 2971 2252 9021 2534 1007 2256 3877 2533 1179 2531 7429 2532 4198 2257 1058 2252 0763 2481 7103 2535 4707 2532 3904 2257 1192 2481 9250 2252 9868 2535 6030 2530 9401 25353316 2257 2182

centr a l 4 7 2 2 0 0 0

94904040

hospital charges

medical services

Call, sms, Email us

O n- s i t e I T s e r v i c e s

23940600 24815000 24848067 22450080

1885544 23713100 22610666 25745111

Public Health Centers/ Clinics:

Dasman Clinic Faiha Polyclinic Farwaniya Polyclinic Hawalli Polyclinic Inaya Germen Medical Center Sabah Al-Salem Clinic Salmiya Polyclinic Shamiya Clinic Shuwaikh Clinic Yarmouk Clinic

24832067 24883000 24840300 24575300 25312700 24840027 24874240

22447602 22545188 24726033 22611645 25750777 25524821 25723500 25610660 24848913 25336482

DOCTORS & DENTISTS

I N PR I VAT E PR AC T ICE

Andrology, Male Infertility and Impotence Specialist Abdullatif A. Al Salim 2533 4438

Dermatologist & Venereologists Fahad I. Al Othman 2266 5166 Taibah M. Almonayes 2573 7477 Dr. Mohamed Bo Hamra 2266 5166

Dentists & Oral Surgeons Ahmed Al Balool 2262 2211 Badri K. Al Rayes 2574 2557 Duha Al Shaqan 2264 4614 Ebraheem Behbehani 2573 0000 Farida Al Herz 2257 3883 Maria Blanaru 2573 0000 Najat Essa-Bahman 2262 4595 Najeeb Kassim 2573 9277 Salwa A. Abdulsalam 2573 0000 Kuwait Medical Center 2575 9044 / 5 Endocrinologists Latifa Al Dowaisan Kamal Abdulaziz Al Shome

Gastroenterologist Mohamed A. Al Shimali 2532 2030 - 2263 9955 Urologist Fawzi Taher Abul Ali Yousef Mehdi

2565 0064 2533 3501

General Practitioner Dina Al Rifai 2533 3501 - 2533 3502 Obstetricians & Gynecologists Samira Al Awadi 2573 8055 Ma’asouma Maksheed 2573 1275 Mohamed Gamal 2534 9077 Mai Al Snan 2532 1171

2572 8004 2532 9924

Ear, Nose & Throat Surgeons Hossam Eldin Abdulfattah 2574 5056 Abdulmohsen Mousa Jafar 2565 5535

Cosmetic Surgeon Dr. Adel Quttainah

2562 5030 / 60

Ministries

Awqaf & Islamic Affairs Commerce & Industry Communications Defense Education Health Higher Education Electricity & Water Finance

2248 0000 2248 0000 2481 9033 2484 8300 2481 7702 2487 7422 2240 1300 2537 1000 2248 0000

Foreign Affairs Housing Information Justice, Legal & Administrative Affairs Energy Planning Social Affairs & Labour Public Works

2242 5141 2530 1000 2241 5301 2248 0000 2241 5201 2242 8200 2248 0000 2538 5520

RESTAURANT • Café Library Lounge Al-Manshar Rotana Hotel Tel: 23931000 Hang.Out Lounge Galleria 2000 Tel: 25755588 Song Bird Café Hilton Kuwait Resort Tel: 23725500 Chit Chat Café Restaurant Safir Hotel & Residences -Fintas Tel: 25455555 Lounge Café Safir Hotel & Residences -Fintas Tel: 25455555 The English Tea Room Sheraton Hotel Tel: 1835555 Waterlemon Al-Raya Tel: 22244797 Marina Mall Tel: 22997666 Le Pain Quotidien Palms Beach Hotel Tel: 25633684 Marina Crescent Tel: 22244942 Avenues Tel: 24954632 • Casual Dining Applebee’s Bneid Al-Gar Tel: 22407536 Fintas Tel: 23714559 Burgerhub Gulf road Tel: 22464818 Chili’s Bneid Al-Gar Tel: 22452200 Chili’s Al-Bida’a Tel: 22253120/1 Hard Rock Café Salmiya Tel: 25710004 Ruby Tuesdays Bneid Al-Gar Tel: 22444454 T.G.I. Fridays Bneid Al-Gar Tel: 22544300

• Chinese China Hut Tel: 25656226 China Express Jabriya Tel: 25342399 Salwa Tel: 25653230 China House Salmiya Tel: 25713339 / 60 China Lake Al-Blajat St. Tel: 25713072 / 3 China Town Salmiya Tel: 25652541 Greens Al-Wafra Complex Tel: 22516031

Tel: 1815050 • French Le Notre Gulf Road Tel: 25758888 • Indian Dawat Restaurant Bneid Al Gar Tel: 22411728 Abu Halifa Tel: 23724251 Al Alamia Mall, Jahra Tel: 24554642 Taal Restaurant Salmiya Beda’ Tel: 22253142 Winner’s Salmiya Tel: 25739954 Abu Halifa Tel: 23711374 / 5 Riggae Tel: 24895501 / 2 Jahra Tel: 24560088/8800

Gulf Royal Tel: 23925390-Fintas 22622556-Hawalli 25710448-Salmiya 22244795-Marina

Asha’s Tel: 22244502/3/9 Marina Crescent Tel: 24954700

Noodles Salmiya Tel: 25712233

Bukhara Sheraton Hotel Tel: 22422055

The Peacock Radisson Blu Hotel Tel: 25673000

Tourist Restaurant Kuwait City Tel: 22411702

Noodle Factory Avenues Tel: 24954751

Mugal Mahal Farwaniya Tel: 24726126/7 Fintas Tel: 23915588 Salmiya Tel: 25722223/4 Sharq Tel: 22425132

• Continental Casper & Gambini’s Kuwait City Tel: 22430054 La Marina Sharq Mall Tel: 22426672 • Fast Food Burger King Tel: 22444466 Domino’s Pizza Tel: 1800800 Hardees Tel: 1888333 KFC Tel: 1888666 Little Caesar’s Tel: 1888855 Pizza Hut

Tikka Tel: 1822833 • International Al-Bustan Radisson Blu Hotel Tel: 25673000 Al-Hamra Sheraton Hotel Tel: 22422055 Al-Marsa Restaurant Le Meridien Tel: 22510999 Atrium Restaurant Courtyard Marriott Hotel

Tel: 22997000

L I S T I N G S

Beit 7 Kuwait City Tel: 22450871 Café Rio Al-Fanar Tel: 25732226 Dunes Ritz Hotel Tel: 22499911 Failaka Al-Manshar Rotana Hotel Tel: 23931000 La Brasserie JW Marriott Tel: 22455550 Ritz Shamiya Tel: 24820184 Shuwaikh Tel: 24844350 Square International Tel: 22437681 Test n’ Taste Villa Moda Tel: 24827010 Teatro Hilton Kuwait Resort Tel: 23725500

Kuwait City Tel: 22400737

Nino Gulf Road Tel: 22541900 Pizza Express Abdullah Al-Salem Tel: 22560273 Al-Bida’a Tel: 22253166 Airport Tel: 24342681 Tel: 23725500 Ricardo Sheraton Hotel Tel: 22422055 • Japanese Edo Shaab Tel: 22659590 Kei JW Marriott Hotel Tel: 22422650 Korea & Japan Restaurant New Park Hotel Tel: 25634200

Sakura Crowne Plaza Hotel Tel: 24742000

AlRoshinah Restaurant Safir Hotel & Residences -Fintas Tel: 25455555

Shogun The Palms Hotel Tel: 27070022

Il Forno Restaurant Courtyard Marriot Hotel Tel: 22997000 Johnny Carino’s Salmiya Tel: 22667050 La Piazza Kuwait City Tel: 24246639 Lorenzo

Manousha Salmiya Tel: 25722607 / 8

Al-Noukhaza Crowne Plaza Hotel Tel: 24742000

Fakhr Al-Din Restaurant Kuwait City Tel: 22423180

Villa Fairouz Shaab Tel: 22652030

Shrimpy Gulf Road Tel: 22563118 Totally Fish Marina Crescent Tel: 22244960/1

Garden New Park Hotel Tel: 25634200

Yeldes Palace Kuwait City Tel: 22455212

Kabab-Ji Tel: 1861616

Zahrat Tunis Hawalli Tel: 22662444/333

Mais Al-Ghanim Kuwait City Tel: 22402590

• Persian Kabab Al-Hijja Bnaid Al-Gar Tel: 22517512

Palm Palace Salmiya Tel: 25756331 Saj Express Kuwait City Tel: 22497822 Sarai Al-Bida’a Tel: 22253180/1 Shisha &

Sushi Club Al-Blajat St. Tel: 25712144 Wasabi Al-Bida’a Tel: 22253112 Kuwait City Tel: 22494000 • Lebanese Al-Berdawny Palace Tel: 25661117 Ayam Zaman Holiday Inn Tel: 18477777 Burg Al-Hamam Gulf Road Tel: 22529095

• Steak House Relais De L’Entrecote Al-Fanar Complex Tel: 25729600 Terrace Grill JW Marriott Hotel Tel: 22455550

Shabistan Crowne Plaza Hotel Tel: 24742000

The Gaucho Grill The Palms Hotel Tel: 25667370 -

• Seafood Al-Ahmadi Crowne Plaza Hotel Tel: 24742000

• Tex-Mex Chi Chi’s Salmiya Tel: 25625811

Al-Boom Radisson Blu Hotel Tel: 25756000

Tumbleweed Southern Grill Al-Bida’a Tel: 22253154/5

Maki Al-Blajat St. Tel: 25733561 Marina Waves Tel: 22244560

Flavors Restaurant Safir Hotel & Residences -Fintas Tel: 25455555

• Italian Ciro’s Pomodoro Kuwait City Tel: 22424004

Saj Express Kuwait City Tel: 22497822

Te l : 1 8 3 9 0 9 0

Salmiya - Jabriya - Keifan www.healthstop.com.kw

HOTELS

FIVE STAR Al-Manshar Rotana Hotel Crowne Plaza Kuwait Hilton Kuwait Resort JW Marriot Kuwait City Hotel Kempinski Julai’a Hotel & Resort The Regency Hotel & Resort Le Meridien Le Meridien Tower Marina Hotel Kuwait Movenpick Albid’a Movenpick Palms Beach Hotel & Spa Radisson Blu Hotels & Resorts Refad Palace Safir International Hotel Kuwait Sheraton Kuwait Hotel & Towers Safir Hotel & Residences Kuwait

23931000 24772000 23725500 22455550 1 844 444 25766666 22510999 22831831 22244970 22253100 24610033 22824060 25673000 23908630 22530000 22422055 25455555

FOUR STAR Carlton Tower Hotel The Courtyard by Marriott Kuwait El Joan Resort Four Points by Sheraton Kuwait

22452740 22997000 23281897 22415001

Ghani Palace Hotel Holiday Inn Khalifa Resort Kuwait Continental Hotel New Park Hotel Al Bastaki Hotel Al Dana Hotel Heritage Village Palace Hotel Shiik Flamingo Hotel & Resort Swiss-Belhotel Plaza Kuwait

25710301 1 847 777 23280144 22527300 25634200 22555081 23902760 22520600 1 821 111 25725050 22436686

THREE STAR Imperial Hotel Oasis Hotel Safari House Hotel Second Home Hotel Spring Continental Hotel Ibis Hotel Salmiya Ibis Hotel Sharq

22528766 22465489 22443136 22532100 25742410 25713872 22928080

TWO STAR International Hotel Kuwait Residence Hotel

25741788 22467560

BUSINESS

suNdAY, april 1, 2012

Dubai’s Drydocks says most lenders agree on $2.2 billion debt deal DUBAI: Dubai’s ship building unit Drydocks World has secured the necessary level of support from its syndicated lenders to implement the restructuring of its 2.2 billion US dollar debt, the company said in a statement on Saturday.

The Dubai World unit said a “significant majority” of the Group’s lenders had formally confirmed their support for the restructuring. However, a small minority is yet to confirm support, it added.

The company did not specify what percentage of lenders needed to agree for it to go ahead with the restructuring proposal. -Reuters

Agility Q4 net profit rises 114% to KD 3.5 million Compiled by Al Watan Daily

KUWAIT: Agility, the logistics firm facing US fraud charges, posted a 114-percent rise in fourth-quarter net profit compared with the same period in 2010, the firm said in a statement on Saturday. The company also reported earnings per share (EPS) of 3.45 Kuwaiti fils.

Net profit in the three months to Dec. 31 came in at 3.5 million Kuwaiti dinars (12.60 million US dollars) compared with a loss of 23.7 million dinars in the fourth quarter (Q4) 2010.

Fourth-quarter revenues were five percent lower at KD 368.6 million due to the loss of government contracting business, Agility said.

On a like-for-like basis excluding government and discontinued business, Agility group revenue grew from KD 332 million to KD 345 million, an improvement of four percent despite a slowing economy.

The company remains focused on growing profit through continued financial discipline and transformation of its operating platform with the adaptation of new technology that will increase efficiency.

For the full year ended Dec. 31, net profit was up eight percent at KD 27 million.

The Board of Directors met and proposed a dividend distribution of 30 percent (30 fils per share) for the year ending 2011.

“Profits grew by eight percent in 2011 even though revenues fell as Agility discontinued defense and government business.We are a different company today than we were a year ago, and we consider 2011 a new financial baseline against which we will measure future performance,” said Tarek Sultan, Agility’s Chairman and Managing Director.

The statement added that revenue for Agility Global Integrated Logistics (GIL) for the full year 2011 was KD 1.19 billion, a decrease of 1.4 percent from financial year (FY) 2010. Excluding government and discontinued business, GIL’ revenues grew by 3.2 percent from the same period in 2010, despite softened trade volumes that pre-

Kamel Al-Harami

Independent energy analyst Exclusive to Al Watan Daily

Laborers carry coal at a stockyard of an underground coal mine in the Mahanadi coal fields at Dera, near Talcher town in the eastern Indian state of Orissa. India sits on the world’s fifth-largest coal reserves, and produces the most after China and the United States. (Reuters)

vailed in the last two quarters of the year.

Agility’s Infrastructure companies contributed KD 111.3 million to FY 2011 revenue. Infrastructure revenue grew KD 18 percent from FY 2010, excluding government-related business.

“Our Infrastructure group of companies continues to provide us with the ability to address profitable niches in

KSE ends week in red with 1.26% retreat

KSE weekly activity, March 29, 2012 KUWAIT: Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) ended last week in the red zone. The price index ended last week with a decrease amounted to 1.26 percent, while the weighted index retreated by 0.71 percent compared to the closings of the week before. Furthermore, last week’s average daily turnover decreased by 24.42 percent, compared to the preceding week, reaching 34.45 million Kuwaiti dinars, whereas trading volume average was 335.56 million shares, recording decrease 29.41 percent. General state of caution was the main feature of KSE. Traders had concerns about the announcement of the listed companies annual results, as many of them didn’t announce its results yet, which may cause their shares to be suspended.

Moreover, more companies announced its financial results during last week, the number of declared companies reached 71 percent so far. The total number of declared companies reached 146 out of 205 listed companies, realizing approximately KD 1.58 billion, with a decline of 19.95 percent compared to same companies’ results for 2010. By the end of the week, the price index closed at 6,165.0 points, down by 1.26 percent from the week before closing, whereas the weighted index registered a 0.71 percent weekly loss after closing at 420.21 points.

2011 results

By mid of last trading day of the week, 146 companies announced their results for the year 2011 with a total net profits amounting to KD 1.58 billion, 19.95 percent lower than the same companies’ results for the year 2010, which amounted to KD 1.97 billion.

The Services sector came first in terms of total net profits for the year, with a total of KD 744.05 million, followed by the Banks sector with a total of KD 565.49 million, then the Non-Kuwaiti Companies sector in the third place with KD 91.23 million.

And as per 2011 announced results, the Services sector came in first in terms of average earnings per share (EPS) for its listed companies, which amounted to 167.07 Kuwaiti fils. The Food sector was second with an average EPS of 101.72 fils, followed by the Industry sector in the third place with 45.96 fils, whereas the market’s overall average EPS is 69.20 fils. On the other hand, and according to the announced results and last Thursday’s closing prices, KSE average price to equity (P/E) ratio is currently at 15.37.

Sectors’ Indices

Six of KSE’s sectors ended last week in the red zone, while the other two recorded increases. The Investment sector headed the losers list as its index declined by 3.58 percent to end the week’s activity at 3,943.4 points. The Non Kuwaiti Companies sector was second on the losers’ list, which index declined by 3.07 percent, closing at 5,992.4 points, followed by the Real Estate sector, as its

Oil prices are high? Don’t we all wish it were lower?

index closed at 2,200.4 points at a loss of 2.72 percent.

The Insurance sector was the least declining as its index closed at 2,700.3 points with a 0.27 percent decrease.

On the other hand, last week’s highest gainer was the Food sector, achieving 0.66 percent growth rate as its index closed at 4,324.5 points. Whereas, in the second place, the Services sector’s index closed at 14,023.8 points recording 0.21 percent increase.

Sectors’ Activity

The Investment sector dominated total trade volume during last week with 512.91 million shares changing hands, representing 30.57 percent of the total market trading volume. The Services sector was second in terms trading volume as the sector’s traded shares were 28.81 percent of last week’s total trading volume, with a total of 483.33 million shares.

On the other hand, the Services sector’s stocks where the highest traded in terms of value; with a turnover of KD 52.50 million or 30.48 percent of last week’s total market trading value. The Investment sector took the second place as the sector’s last week turnover of KD 36.45 million represented 21.16 percent of the total market trading value.

Market Capitalization

KSE total market capitalization declined by 0.67 percent during last week to reach KD 29.04 billion, as six of KSE’s sectors recorded a decrease in their respective market capitalization, whereas the other two recorded increases. The Investment sector headed the decliners list as its total market capitalization reached KD 2.13 billion, decreasing by 3.26 percent. The Industry sector was the second in terms of recorded decline with 1.83 percent decrease after the total value of its listed companies reached KD 2.19 billion. The third place was for the Non Kuwaiti Companies sector, which total market capitalization reached KD 1.77 billion by the end of the week, recording a decline of 1.26 percent.

The Services sector was the least declining with 0.23 percent recorded decrease after its market capitalization amounted to KD 7.21 billion.

On the other hand, the Food sector headed the growing sectors as its total market capitalization reached KD 698.64 million, increasing by 0.40 percent. The Real Estate sector was the second in terms of recorded growth with 0.33 percent increase after the total value of its listed companies reached KD 1.94 billion.

Disclaimer: This report has been prepared and issued by the Studies & Research Department @ Bayan Investment Company on the basis of publicly available information, internal data, and other sources considered reliable. While great care has been taken to ensure that the facts stated are accurate, neither Bayan Investment Company nor any of its employees shall be in any way responsible for the contents. This report is not an offer to buy or sell any of the securities referred in the report.

the marketplace,” Sultan said. “In 2011 we successfully closed two deals.We merged Agility Qatar operations with Gulf Warehousing Company (GWC) and realized gain of KD 8 million. We also formed a Joint Venture with France Telecom and converted our debt into Equity in Korek. Today we have an indirect stake of 24 percent in Korek and $100 million debt yielding 12 percent per annum”.

Kuwaiti oil price drops to $119 per barrel

KUWAIT: Price of Kuwaiti crude oil dropped 1.17 US dollars to $119.85 per barrel on Friday, compared to $121.02 pb on Thursday, Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) said on Saturday.

That price of the Kuwaiti crude, $119.85 pb, was the lowest posted this month. It dropped for the third consecutive day after fluctuating on a limited scale, during the past week.

Meanwhile, prices of oil on the international markets remained unstable, but generally bullish, buoyed by several unconventional factors, namely geopolitical issues, the Iranian file, activity of speculators and their tendency to exploit psychological jitters. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), said price of its 12-crude basket dropped to $121.57 pb, on Thursday, in contrast to $122.25 pb on Wednesday.

While the prices of the Kuwaiti and OPEC crudes turned bearish, that of the Brent went up, on Friday, where price of contracts for May’s delivery reached $122.88 pb.

As to the Nymex oil, price of US light crude contracts, for the May delivery, rose to $103.02 pb.

The upward trend of the oil prices, internationally, has been fuelled with some fears over possible disruption of supplies from the Middle East. Iran has recently threatened to block the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which bulk of the oil production from the region passes through to the world markets. -KUNA

KUWAIT: All of a sudden we are all complaining about high oil prices, from the biggest oil producer to the biggest consumers. Still however oil prices are stubbornly hanging at 125 US dollars a barrel. So what is the solution? The debate continues to become bigger and everybody is trying to help. Last Thursday the Saudi oil minister expressed his opinion on high oil prices on the front page of the Financial Times. This needs to be done to curb and bring oil prices to $100 and below. He assured the global community that Saudi Arabia can produce 12.5 million barrels per day without any problems. He also assured oil consumers that the Kingdom has built enough storage capacity, filled with oil, all over the world that can immediately disperse any threat of oil disruptions and shortages. He went on further to state that Saudi Arabia can meet any customer requests and it has not turned down any request for additional oil. He finally clearly said that Saudi is trying everything possible to bring oil prices down. Still however oil prices remain at its level without any downward changes.

Oil prices are high despite Saudi having enough production capacity in addition to spare capacity in the range of 2.5 million barrels. Prices will come down when the world and the consumers are assured that it has more than five million barrels of spare volume. The current excess capacity is located in one country and is not spread all over. This is also a concern since it is possible that some operational or natural disaster could hold production down. Only oil consumers can force the oil price to come down, simply by reducing their demand on oil. It will then automatically come down.

So far it looks like the oil demand is still strong despite the weak economical outlook.

There is no doubt that we all share the Saudi concern oil prices are high and should be at some level even below $100 a barrel. But since there is consensus on $100, we will not have any choice but to agree.

For some time and even during the Libyan crisis, oil producing countries were assuring Europe and the world that there was no need to be concerned about the oil supply situation. However nobody can help the situation now or in the past as long as the threat of war is hanging over our heads

by Iran and Israel. Oil price will remain high and there is no assurance that anyone can help except surpluses of oils availability. Releasing some volume of strategic reserves will help bring oil prices down, as they did during the Libyan war. Still prices bounced back after a short period.

Until the US, Europe and Japan must again relinquish their stocks and have to buy again from the open market and oil price went up again.

Yes, we all agree that oil prices are going high and that there is no single reason to stay at such a high level. But the consumers are not convinced that it is high and therefore the demand in Asia is high and everyone is buying more to meet the shortage in the loss of Iranian oil. It is real strange that everybody is trying to curb high oil prices and still nothing can be done. The only way do it is to remove the Iranian threats and to provide the global consumers with a cushion of spare crude oil capacity in more than one location.

Oil prices will come down during the coming lull months, but demand will pick up again by September of this year. Or it may not come up depending on the global situations.

The Saudi oil minister did get sympathy and support for his last statement concerning assurances on additional oil supply. Oil markets will behave and act as per the situation and in accordance to their own judgments. We certainly appreciate the Saudi comments.

We in Kuwait, welcome any lowering in oil prices despite the fact that our budget which will be effective from today calls for Kuwaiti oil prices to be at $110 a barrel. Without which we will definitely have a deficit in our budget.We may like it in order to avoid wasting any more cash on increases in salaries and wages. It could be dream come true.

The author of this article can be reached at naftikuwaiti@yahoo.com.

Disclaimer: Please note that the views and opinions presented in the column are the company’s own and do not necessarily represent those of Al Watan Daily and its staff.

BLME completes Murabaha financing agreement with property lender LONDON: Bank of London and The Middle East (BLME), the largest Islamic bank in Europe whose main shareholders are Boubyan Bank and the Public Institution for Social Security, has announced a revolving Murabaha financing agreement with Masthaven Property Finance Limited (Masthaven), a subsidiary of Masthaven Group Limited. This was stated in a press release on Saturday.

The financing is for a term of three years and has been secured for the purpose of funding Masthaven’s bridge and short term property finance business.

Massoud Janekeh, Head of Islamic Capital Markets at BLME said, “Due to the nature of bridging loans and short term property finance Masthaven required a flexible facility with rolling repayments. BLME was able to provide this flexibility. We have also found that many businesses in UK, and particularly in the property sector, are increasingly looking for partners that can offer a stable funding platform.

“To my knowledge this is the first time that a facility like this has been provided by an Islamic Bank. This goes to show that

BLME continues to lead the way in developing innovative, competitive and personalised solutions for our partners.”

Andrew Bloom, Managing Director at Masthaven, commented, “Throughout the process the team at BLME were extremely professional and supportive, helping Masthaven to find a competitive and flexible financing structure suitable to our business. This was the first time Masthaven have used Islamic banking as a means of financing and I’m very pleased with the outcome, and the partnership we have developed with BLME.”

Standard & Poor’s affirms NBK’s ratings, outlook stable KUWAIT: Standard & Poor’s, the international credit rating agency, affirmed the long-term credit ratings of National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) at ‘A+’. All the bank’s ratings carry a stable outlook. This was stated in a press release on Saturday.

NBK ratings reflect its strong business position, asset quality, capital and earnings, as well as its adequate risk position, funding and liquidity.

NBK has consistently been awarded the highest credit ratings of all banks in the region by the major international rating agencies: Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings. In their latest reports, the three rating agencies affirmed NBK’s credit ratings with a stable outlook.

In 2012, NBK moved up 14 positions to rank 33 among the 50 safest banks in the world. NBK is the only Arab bank to be listed among the world’s 50 safest banks five times in a row. NBK continues to enjoy the widest banking presence in Kuwait with 67 branches, which together with its growing international presence totals 176 branches worldwide. NBK’s international presence spans many of the world’s leading financial centers including London, Paris, Geneva, New York and Singapore, as well as China (Shanghai). Meanwhile, regional coverage extends to Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

10

ALWATAN DAILY

BUSINESS

sunDAY, april 1, 2012

Turkish Airlines conducts 21 flights per week to meet summer demand

Adam Jailan, Regional Director of Turkish Airlines Bureau in Kuwait

Oxford Business Group launches latest country report: Kuwait 2012 Major projects in pipeline as national development plan gains pace

KUWAIT: Kuwait’s drive to diversify its economy through a combination of government investment and increased private sector participation is given wide-ranging coverage in a new report just published by Oxford Business Group (OBG). This was stated in a press release this week.

The Report: Kuwait 2012 looks in detail at the massive projects earmarked for the country, which include major initiatives in transport and housing, as the government continues to implement the first in a series of five-year national development plans (NDP 2010-2014).

The publication contains a contribution from His Highness the Amir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, together with a detailed, sector-by-sector guide for investors. It provides a wide range of interviews with leading political, economic and business representatives including the Minister of Finance Mustafa AlShamali, the Vice-Chairman of the Kuwait Projects Company (KIPCO) Faisal Hamad Al-Ayyar and the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) Farouk Al-Zanki.

International personalities, such as the Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi di Sant’Agata, the Minister of Trade and Industry for Singapore Lim Hng Kiang, the Secretary-General of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Abdalla Salem El Badri and the Managing Director and Head of EMEA Sovereign Ratings at Standard & Poor’s Moritz Kraemer also offer their views on Kuwait’s economic development.

With infrastructure at the forefront of the country’s development plans, OBG’s new report examines the key role earmarked for the construction sector in pushing forward Kuwait’s long list of projects. It provides in-depth analysis of the government’s plans to set up private partnerships for projects across the sectors, in particular the opportunities that are to become available in real estate, education and health.

OBG’s 2012 report also explores Kuwait’s efforts to tap investors by highlighting the country’s attractions which include favorable tax regimes and access to regional markets. It offers coverage of the country’s plans for growth in key areas of industry, such as upstream and downstream petrochemicals, refinery expansion and the development of domestic natural gas reserves. There are also details of the state’s plans to step up its focus on alternative energy sources against the backdrop of a dominant hydrocarbons sector.

As Kuwait looks to further boost economic productivity and increase liquidity for local investment firms, OBG’s latest report puts the country’s new Financial Stability Law in the spotlight. It considers the role the legislation could play in driving credit growth and encouraging gross lending for the country’s banking sector, helping to strengthen its reputation as a regional financial hub.

The Report: Kuwait 2012 has been produced in partnership with the Kuwait Foreign Investment Bureau (KFIB). Contributions have also been made by KIPCO Asset Management Company (KAMCO) who collaborated on the Capital Markets chapter, the accounting and auditing, tax and consultancy services company BDO for Tax analysis and Al Ruwayeh & Partners (ASAR) law firm as the Group’s legal partner.

Regional Editor Oliver Cornock highlighted Kuwait’s progress in transforming itself into a major international commercial and financial centre through significant investment on the back of surging oil revenues.

“Kuwait is poised to take advantage of expected global economic recovery having channelled funds into a long list of projects, many of which are earmarked for the nonoil sector,” he said. “Refinery expansion will also allow the country to increase its oil output.”

OBG’s Regional Director for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Michelle Solomon, agreed that Kuwait’s National Development Plan would produce a wealth of opportunities for investors and pave the way for further economic diversification. She also thanked the Group’s partners for the key contribution they had made to The Report: Kuwait 2012.

“Oxford Business Group has long recognized the importance of pooling resources with local experts who have an in-depth knowledge of a country’s economic activity,” she said. “Our partners in Kuwait have helped our team to produce a report which accurately captures and analyses the significant changes on the horizon for the country. I am confident that its contents will prove highly valuable to business leaders worldwide when they come to make their investment decisions.”

The Report: Kuwait 2012 marks the culmination of more than six months of field research by a team of analysts from OBG, assessing trends and developments across the economy, including macroeconomics, infrastructure, banking and other sectoral developments. The report is available in print or online.

A handout photo of a Turkish Airlines aircraft in flight

Handout photos of touristic areas in Turkey Salem Abdulghafour Staff Writer

KUWAIT: The Regional Director of Turkish Airlines Bureau in Kuwait, Adam Jailan stated that the number of weekly flights that the company conducts between Kuwait and Turkey is going to increase to 21 flights from June, totaling three flights a day. Jailan affirmed that the company approved such a rapid increase on account of the great turn out of visitors travelling to Turkey for the summer, adding that the number of flights could possibly increase to 24 over the season where people travel to spend their vacations abroad.

He informed Al-Watan that Turkish Airlines

has conducted an effective updating process for its fleet, especially the planes that fly from Kuwait to Istanbul. The fleet has been provided with a number of modern planes with quality amenities to meet the requirements of passengers.

Furthermore, Turkish Airlines has plans to cover further destinations particularly in Malaysia and Morocco, indicating that the company has achieved great growth in the last year. The number of passengers carried by the airline has increased by 14 percent and the company, at present, can carry passengers to more than 200 destinations over five continents through a distinguished fleet of 177 aircrafts.

Jailan disclosed that Turkish Airlines has car-

KAMCO Research

KAMCO Research

29-Mar-12

31-Mar-2012

GCC Week No.13 GCC Equity EquityMarkets MarketsReport Reportforfor Week No. 13 GCC Equity Markets Weekly Performance Benchmark

ź KSE - Price Index ź KSE - Weighted Index ź KSE - KAMCO TRW Index Ÿ Saudi Stock Exchange (TADAWUL) ź Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange ź Dubai Financial Market Ÿ Qatar Exchange Ÿ Bahrain Bourse ź Muscat Securities Market Total GCC Equity Markets

Closing

6,165.0 420.2

2,652.6

7,782.8

2,553.0

1,648.9

8,790.7

1,152.5 5,690.1

Weekly

Benchmark

Return (%) YTD-12 Return

(1.26%)

(0.71%)

(0.51%) 3.22%

(0.60%)

(0.69%) 1.59%

0.37% (4.49%)

6.0%

21.3%

3,305,055

19,569,977

6.3%

327,798

132,297

21.8%

1,026,627

347,365

0.1%

53,998

468,386

0.8% (0.1%)

7,138 62,097

2,736 59,445

Ÿ 5- Samba Financial Group Ÿ 6- Saudi Arabia Fertilizers Co. Ÿ 7- Kingdom Holding Co. Ÿ 8- Al-Etihad Etisalat Co. Ÿ 9- Riyad Bank Ÿ 10- SABB

Ÿ 5- Abu Dhabi National Energy Ÿ 6- Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank ź 7- Union National Bank ź 8- National Bank of Ras Al-Khaimah ź 9- AL DAR Properties Co. ő 10- National Bank of Fujairah

807,094

(245) 2,185 (86) (671)

16,866

(0.48%) 1.75% (0.51%) (3.85%)

2.13%

P/B (X)

Yield (%)

0.540 0.430

0.0%

(1.1%)

(9.3%)

(1.1%) 0.9%

0.0% 0.0%

(10.0%)

(1.8%) 0.0%

4,702

3,724

2,265

1,211

1,099

1,005 984

958

944 664

107.50

82.50 40.40

15.80

56.00

190.50

12.45

64.75

25.70 36.50

8.89

8.69

9.73 3.10 1.33

3.42 3.14 5.00

1.22 4.10

3,220

3,454

15.5

1.9

3.3%

18,815

16,372

13.1

1.7

20.7%

13,005

10,570

28.2

1.6

1.7%

4,210

1,910

39.6

2.6

0.0%

108

232

3.0

1.4

2.3%

10,280

8,122

NM

1.9

0.0%

270

176

19.5

1.9

2.2%

1,735

1,465

30.4

3.2

1.6%

3,510 2,690

1,896 1,144

NM 13.1

3.9 1.4

0.0% 2.1%

Weekly Trading Indicators

Weekly

Return (%)

1.4%

7.1% 1.0%

(2.5%) 8.7%

2.8%

0.8%

4.4%

2.4% 6.4%

Weekly

Return (%)

(4.1%)

(3.0%) 5.5% 0.6% 0.8%

0.6%

(0.3%) (1.0%)

(6.9%) 0.0%

P/E (X)

24.35

P/B (X)

1.33

Market Cap.

(SAR Mln)

322,500

123,750

80,800

65,832

50,400

47,625

46,138

45,325

38,550 36,500

Volume

(000's shrs)

Value

(000's SAR)

2.7%

(AED Mln)

70,255

32,423

29,190 17,346

8,279

8,087

7,836 6,927

4,984 4,510

Trailing

P/E (X)

Trailing

P/B (X)

Dividend

Yield (%)

4,425,840

11.0

2.3

3.3%

17,354

1,399,540

16.8

3.8

3.6%

7,472

302,269

10.3

1.7

7.4%

79,754

1,292,090

29.6

1.3

4.4%

3,299

180,716

11.7

1.8

2.9%

1,485

279,481

11.6

5.8

6.3%

14,906

190,496

72.1

1.8

0.0%

6,132

388,752

8.9

2.5

3.1%

4,439 1,738

113,342 61,387

12.2 12.6

1.3 2.1

5.1% 1.4%

Volume

Value

P/E (X)

Trailing

P/B (X)

9.91

33.71

12.17

10.46 12.22 15.38

2.15

2.9%

1.08

4.6%

0.96

2.6%

1.83

3.5%

0.91 1.54

5.2% 4.5%

1.63

3.2%

(AED)

Ÿ 1- EMAAR Properties

Beta

1.44

1.58

1.47

0.87 1.21

0.80 0.72

1.03

1.50 1.34

Beta

1.23 1.06

0.83 0.76 0.68

1.08 0.82

0.99

0.75 0.73

Dividend

(000's shrs)

(000's AED)

Yield (%)

9,081

82,989

12.0

1.8

7.9%

2,018

17,566

8.7

1.2

2.7%

3,568

34,120

7.9

1.1

5.1%

4,780

14,728

5.7

0.8

6.5%

1,778

2,355

11.0

0.7

7.5%

6,093

20,722

7.0

0.9

7.1%

2,791

8,976

5.2

0.6

0.0%

2,409

12,044

5.8

1.5

5.0%

95,976 0

125,233 0

7.8 16.1

0.7 2.2

4.1% 2.4%

Beta

1.00

1.17 1.31 1.30 1.34

1.24

1.13

0.14

1.52 NA

ő 3- Mashreq Bank Ÿ 4- Emirates Integrated Telecom. ź 5- Dubai Financial Market ź 6- Dubai Islamic Bank ź 7- Commercial Bank of Dubai Ÿ 8- Arabtec Holding P.J.S.C. Ÿ 9- Air Arabia Co. ź 10- Dubai Investment

ROE YTD Price

1.0%

3.050

(1.6%)

91.45

0.0%

3.180

0.3%

1.150

(0.9%)

2.110

(4.1%)

2.850

(0.3%)

2.940

3.2%

0.716 0.881

0.6% (2.7%)

(AED Mln)

18,456

16,951

15,462

14,537

9,200

8,012 5,809

4,395

3,341 3,146

Top 10 Largest Qatari Companies by Market Cap Price

Chg. (%)

13.0%

9.8%

12.9%

(3.3%)

6.2%

(4.7%)

7.1%

(5.2%)

39.6%

14.9%

0.2%

0.0%

10.3%

5.7%

12.0%

10.0%

3.3% 11.3%

(8.5%) (2.8%)

(QAR)

Ÿ 1- Qatar National Bank Ÿ 2- Industries Qatar Ÿ 3- Ezdan Real Estate Co. ź 4- Qatar Telecom. (Q-Tel) Ÿ 5- Masraf Al Rayan Ÿ 6- Commercial Bank of Qatar ź 7- Qatar Islamic Bank Ÿ 8- Qatar Electricity & Water Co. Ÿ 9- Qatar Fuel Co. (Wokod) Ÿ 10- Doha Bank

135.10

Return (%)

0.1%

140.50

3.5%

19.90

0.6%

135.00

(19.2%)

27.55

1.3%

76.80

3.8%

Market Cap.

(QAR Mln)

94,533

77,275

52,785

30,888

20,663 19,004

76.90

(0.1%)

18,171

245.00 60.90

0.6% 2.0%

12,734 12,588

145.00

3.9%

14,500

Top 10 Largest Bahraini Companies by Market Cap Price

Chg. (%)

(BHD)

21.2%

11.7%

22.5%

18.7%

16.7%

19.5%

Ÿ 3- Bahrain Telecommunications Co.

4.3%

13.7%

ő 4- Arab Banking Corp. (Price in USD)

15.3%

20.2%

ő 5- National Bank of Bahrain

50.1%

8.2%

2.5%

40.7%

27.6%

23.3%

10.4% 16.8%

10.3% (10.3%)

ź 11 Ahli United Bank (Price in USD) ő 2- Aluminum Bahrain

Ÿ 6- Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait ź 7- Al Baraka Banking (Price in USD) ő 8- United Gulf Bank ő 9- Investcorp Bank (Price in USD) ő 10- Gulf Hotels Group

0 633 0.633

Return (%)

(5 5%) (5.5%) 0.0%

0.434

4.3%

0.420

0.0%

0.570

0.0%

0.420

1.9%

Market Cap.

(BHD Mln)

1 249 1,249 817 625 492 488 358

(2.6%) 3.2%

13.9%

26.0%

13.7%

11.5%

ź 4- Omani Qatari Telecom (NAWRAS)

6.0%

10.8%

ź 5- National Bank of Oman

13.5%

8.2%

ź 6- Oman International Bank

11.7%

8.7%

ź 7- Shell Oman Marketing

25.6%

0.0%

ź 8- Ahli Bank

9.1% 13.6%

32.6% (9.9%)

ź 2- Oman Telecom Co. ź 3- Bank Dhofar

ź 9- Raysut Cement ź 10- Oman Cement Co.

Yield (%)

76,941

232,175

10.3

0.6

4.2%

3,373

10,429

6.7

0.5

6.6%

0

0

18.8

1.3

2.2%

10,114

32,587

13.2

2.3

4.7%

91,730

105,535

NM

1.2

0.0%

21,487

47,081

7.9

0.9

5.9%

246

701

7.1

0.9

6.7%

40,094

119,354

16.9

1.5

1.7%

23,705 42,722

16,883 38,373

10.9 15.5

0.6 0.4

6.3% 5.7%

Trailing

P/E (X)

Trailing

P/B (X)

Dividend

(000's shrs)

(000's QAR)

543

73,398

12.6

2.2

2.7%

1,076

150,265

9.7

2.9

5.3%

140

2,820

NM

1.9

0.8%

Yield (%)

344

45,628

11.9

1.5

1.7%

5,859

161,903

14.7

2.4

1.8%

1,482

112,233

10.1

1.3

7.8%

602

46,440

13.3

1.6

5.9%

244

35,029

11.2

4.8

4.5%

130 292

31,965 17,644

11.0 10.1

2.6 1.8

3.3% 7.4%

Volume

Trailing

P/E (X)

Trailing

P/B (X)

Dividend

(000's shrs)

(000's BHD)

Yield (%)

957

242

10 7 10.7

13 1.3

4 5% 4.5%

131

76

3.9

1.0

11.7%

555

238

7.8

1.2

9.2%

0

0

6.4

0.4

0.0%

0

0

10.7

1.8

5.3%

32

13

11.2

1.5

6.0%

75

8.0

0.8

8.6%

796.95 0.720

0.0% 0.0%

240 119

0

0

457.5

1.2

0.0%

0 0

0 0

121.3 15.2

0.6 2.2

0.0% 4.2%

0.304

0.0%

254

0.615

1.293

Return (%)

(3.8%)

(9.3%)

0.440

(23.2%)

0.292

(5.8%)

0.599

0.277

2.250 0.201

0.931 0.538

(5.1%)

(1.8%)

(2.2%)

(19.6%)

(12.3%) (3.1%)

Market Cap.

(OMR Mln)

1,105 970

484

390

324

268

225 192

186 178

Volume

Value

(000's shrs)

(000's OMR)

8,525

5,046

Trailing

P/E (X)

Trailing

P/B (X)

1.40

5.7%

0.61

0.05

0.98

1.61

1.15 0.27

1.31

1.01 1.23

Chg. (%)

17.9%

7.2%

3.7%

6.7%

(9.9%)

17.6%

10.0%

-0.1%

36.9%

11.1%

8.8%

13.0%

(1.7%)

8.8%

84.9%

5.8% 2.4%

22.2% 45.6%

Beta

0.85

1.07 0.53

0.64

0.85 1.14

1.03

0.79

0.71 1.04

ROE YTD Price

Chg. (%)

17.9%

(2.3%)

30.2%

5.6%

1.2%

(9.9%)

12.4%

74.2%

16.6%

(0.4%)

13.2%

(8.7%)

12.2%

(8.5%)

42.9%

3.2%

24.0% 17.5%

24.3% (5.1%)

Beta

2 11 2.11

NA

0.93

0.77 0.57

0.33

0.76

0.50

0.48 0.07

ROE YTD Price

Chg. (%)

12 2% 12.2%

(4 8%) (4.8%)

26.2%

(12.9%)

15.8%

10.7%

5.7%

0.0%

16.6%

(0.9%)

13.4%

1.4%

9.8%

(14.7%)

0.3%

1.3%

0.5% 14.6%

0.0% 6.7%

Risk & Return

Valuation Multiples

Weekly Trading Indicators

Weekly

ROE YTD Price

Risk & Return

Valuation Multiples

Value

Beta

Risk & Return

Valuation Multiples

Value

214

(OMR)

14.0%

(000's AED)

356

Price

ź 1- Bank Muscat

P/B (X)

Dividend

(000's shrs)

Volume

P/E (X)

Trailing

(13.9%)

Top 10 Largest Omani Companies by Market Cap

Chg. (%)

Trailing

0.930

Muscat Securities Market (MSM)

ROE YTD Price

Value

Weekly Trading Indicators

Weekly

0.575

Volume

Weekly Trading Indicators

Weekly

Bahrain Bourse

ROE YTD Price

14.8%

3.030

Return (%)

Market Cap.

Risk & Return

Valuation Multiples

Weekly Trading Indicators

Weekly

Qatar Exchange (QE)

Risk & Return

Valuation Multiples Trailing

16.27

Risk & Return

Valuation Multiples

41,059

Weekly Trading Indicators

Market Cap.

Price

Yield (%)

Risk & Return

Valuation Multiples P/E (X)

(AED)

Ÿ 4- Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank

16,709 16,745

4.20%

(000's KD)

Price

Ÿ 3- First Gulf Bank

127,239

3.49%

3,170

(000's shrs)

Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX)

ź 2- National Bank Of Abu Dhabi

50,639

13,763

(KD Mln)

Top 10 Largest Companies by Market Cap in Abu Dhabi

ź 1- Emirates Telecom. Co.

78,719

Return (%)

(SAR)

ź 4- Saudi Electricity Co.

21,211,557

407,934

(KWD)

Price

Ÿ 3- Saudi Telecom

6,460,515

Weekly Trading Indicators

Saudi Stock Exchange (TADAWUL)

Ÿ 2- Al-Rajhi Bank

(1.13%)

Dividend

Dubai Financial Market (DFM)

Top 10 Largest Companies by Market Cap in Dubai

ź 2- Emirates NBD

2.6%

Top 10 Largest Saudi Companies by Market Cap

Ÿ 1- Saudi Basic Industries Corp

(%)

(1,251)

Dividend

0.810

ź 9- Boubyan Bank ő 10- Burgan Bank

(USD Mln)

Trailing

0.650

ź 8- Ahli United Bank (Kuwait)

109,108

Trailing

0.790

ő 7- Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait

(USD Mln)

631,351

Value

2.180

ő 6- Commercial Bank of Kuwait

(000's USD)

Trailing Trailing

Volume

0.460

ź 4- Gulf Bank

(000's shrs)

1,677,803

Weekly Chg.

Market Cap.

0.780

Ÿ 5- National Mobile Telecom. Co.

Current

Weekly

0.870

ź 3- Kuwait Finance House

Value

Price

1.080

ź 2- ZAIN

Volume

Valuation Multiples

3.6%

Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE)

Top 10 Largest Kuwaiti Companies by Market Cap

ő 1- National Bank of Kuwait

Market Cap.

Weekly Trading Indicators

Index

ried 29 million passengers around the world in 2010 with a high growth rate of 16 percent when compared to the previous year - 2009. He further stated that passengers who travelled via the fleet in 2011 reached 33 million - a growth of 14 percent year-on-year. Regarding, the movement of the fleet between Kuwait and Turkey, Jailani said that the airline has thus far carried 106,440 passengers to and from Kuwait in 2011, accounting for a robust growth rate of 47 percent when compared to 2010.

Furthermore,Turkish Airlines has recently been awarded ‘The Best Airways in Europe’ by Skytrax and it is the only airline in the world to have never obtained a classification below four-stars.

Dividend

Yield (%)

9.4

1.3

3.5%

2,068

2,845

8.7

2.0

7.7%

2,330

1,161.1

34.6

2.1

1.3%

2,592

1,611

8.2

3.0

6.3%

2,033

627

9.5

1.2

5.8%

1,420

399

14.9

1.5

4.1%

14

32

17.9

7.5

5.2%

418

86

10.5

1.6

0.0%

866 333

869 179

12.5 13.9

1.8 1.2

5.4% 5.6%

Beta

0.25

0.88 0.66

1.31 1.02

ROE YTD Price

Chg. (%)

13.5%

(19.7%)

22.6%

(1.2%)

6.1%

(19.6%)

28.4%

(7.8%)

0.99

12.2%

(8.8%)

10.4%

(1.1%)

0.81

42.1%

(6.0%)

10.9%

(24.2%)

14.6% 8.6%

22.5% 24.5%

0.38

0.97 0.99

LIFE

Partners have a role in pregnancy

Partners play an important role in helping moms prepare for pregnancy, and in helping to ensure that the pregnancy goes smoothly.

The womenshealth.gov website offers these suggestions: * Partners should discuss when the time for pregnancy is right. * Partners should be screened for sexually transmitted infections before pregnancy to prevent transmission. * Quit smoking, manage stress and eat a healthy diet, to reduce the risk of fertility problems. * Partners should have a medical checkup to discuss personal health, medical history, family history and medication use. * Anyone who works with toxic chemicals should avoid exposing moms-to-be.

sunDAY, APRIL 1, 2012

FDA rejects call to ban BPA from food packaging WASHINGTON: The Food and Drug Administration has rejected a petition from environmentalists that would have banned the plastic-hardening chemical bisphenol-A from all food and drink packaging, including plastic bottles and canned food.

The agency said Friday that petitioners did not present compelling scientific evidence to justify new restrictions on the much-debated chemical, commonly known as BPA, though federal scientists continue to study the issue.

The Natural Resources Defense Council’s petition was the latest move by public safety advocates to prod regulators into taking action against the chemical, which is found in everything from CDs to canned food to dental sealants.

About 90 percent of Americans have traces of BPA in their bodies, mainly because it leaches out of food and beverage containers.

Some scientists believe exposure to BPA can harm the reproductive and nervous systems, particularly in babies and small children, potentially leading to cancer and other diseases. They point to results from dozens of BPA studies in rodents and other animals.

But FDA reiterated in its response that that those findings cannot be applied to humans. The agency said the studies cited by NRDC were often too small to be conclusive.

In other cases they involved researchers injecting BPA into animals, whereas humans ingest the chemical through their diet over longer periods of time. The agency also said that humans metabolize and eliminate BPA much more quickly than rats and other lab animals.

“While evidence from some studies have raised questions as to whether BPA may be associated with a variety of health effects, there remain serious questions about these studies, particularly as they relate to humans,” the agency said in its response.

The Natural Resources Defense Council petitioned the FDA in 2008 to ban BPA as a food additive, including all uses in food or beverage packaging. Petitions on various safety issues are routinely filed by advocacy groups, companies and even individuals. When the FDA failed to respond

FILE-Manna Food Center volunteers sort donated canned foods at the center Nov. 7, 2011 in Maryland. FDA has rejected a petition from environmentalists that would have banned the plastic-hardening chemical bisphenol-A from all food and drink packaging. (AFP)

within the required timeframe, the environmental group sued the agency. In December a federal judge ruled that the agency had to respond by the end of March.

“The FDA is out-of-step with scientific and medical research,” said Dr. Sarah Janssen, NRDC’s senior scientist for

Fireflies’ unique flashes help distinguish species WASHINGTON: Fireflies are a diverse lot. Some flash their lights Morse-code style, some glow more languorously, some synchronize with others around them, and some fly in a distinctive pattern while flashing, according to LiveScience.

The diversity of signals allows species living in the same habitat to distinguish among themselves while looking for mates, according to firefly expert Marc Branham, an associate professor at the University of Florida.

“That is the same in (frogs), every (frog) species has its own song, and that is why in a swamp or in a wet place you can hear lots of different species based on their mating calls,” Branham said.

A male firefly’s flashes also encode some information about him, so when a female on the ground below sees what she likes, she signals back.

Fireflies, bioluminescent organisms that are able to produce their own light using a chemical reaction, are members of the Lampyridae beetle family. As larvae, all fireflies light up, warning predators of the toxins they contain. “What is really cool is that [lighting up] has then been carried over to the adult stage and is used both as warning signal and also as mating signal,” Branham said.

But not all fireflies light up as adults. The more primitive species lose their glow when they grow, and signal to potential mates using pheromones instead.

Meanwhile, the more advanced firefly species have lost the elaborate, pheromone-sensing antennae of their ancestors and adopted specific bioluminescent signals and habits.

The big dipper firefly, Photinus pyralis, flies in a “J” pattern as it flashes. A species in south Florida, Photinus collustrans, flashes for only 28 or 29 minutes at dusk. Other fireflies stay out all night, lighting up the tree canopy. Fireflies in parts of southeastern Asia congregate en masse and synchronize their pulses of light.

Fireflies produce their own light by combining the energy storage molecule ATP, another molecule called luciferin and oxygen in the presence of an enzyme, luciferase. The insects turn their light off or on by controlling the flow of oxygen into their photic organ, where the reaction takes place. More advanced fireflies have a reflective layer in the back of their photic organ, somewhat akin to a piece of tinfoil, to help send the light out, Branham said.

Fireflies appear to be in decline over the past 15 years or so, Branham said. While no research exists documenting their decline, he said that each spring, he receives phone calls from people who say they don’t see the same swarms of fireflies they did as children, even in the same places.

“The problem is there haven’t been any counts of the population densities in the past, so we can’t quantitatively tell if this is true or not, or how much populations are down,” Branham said. “Pretty much everyone seems to agree their numbers are much fewer, and I think that is probably due to a couple of different things.”

Light pollution, which interferes with fireflies’ ability to find mates, herbicide and pesticide use, and drier conditions, could all be contributing factors to the population’s decline, he said.

US experts give nod to publish mutant bird flu studies FRANCE: A panel of US science and security experts on Friday said two papers on mutant bird flu should be published after all, reversing its earlier decision to withhold key details.

The announcement came after the latest research and revisions to the papers led by a Dutch and a US team of scientists were reviewed by the nongovernmental US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB).

The US experts had previously opposed publishing the research -- which showed how an engineered H5N1 flu virus could pass easily in the air between ferrets -- over fears it could end up in the wrong hands and unleash a deadly flu pandemic.

“The data described in the revised manuscripts do not appear to provide information that would immediately enable misuse of the research in ways that would endanger public health or national security,” said a statement from the NSABB. After meeting to review the latest details on March 29-30, the experts saw “new evidence has emerged that underscores the fact that understanding specific mutations may improve international surveillance and public health and safety.

“Global cooperation, critical for pandemic influenza preparedness efforts, is predicated upon the free sharing of information and was a fundamental principle in evaluating these manuscripts,” it added.

The NSABB faced criticism after it ruled unanimously in December that a pair of US-funded studies, one by a team from Wisconsin and the other led by Netherlands-based scientist Ron Fouchier, should not be printed without heavy edits of key details to prevent the work from being replicated.

A subsequent meeting of flu experts in Geneva

came to the opposite conclusion and urged the prestigious journals Science and Nature to print them as planned, but agreed caution was needed and backed a temporary halt to further research.

At the latest NSABB meeting, experts agreed unanimously that the Wisconsin team’s research should be published in full, as planned by the British journal Nature.

However the vote on Fouchier’s research, slated for publication in the US journal Science, was approved by a vote of 12-6, indicating some lingering doubts among members.

NSABB board member Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, said last month he was concerned about potential havoc by amateurs.

“I am not personally worried about somebody in a cave somewhere,” he said. “I worry about the garage scientist, about the do-your-own scientist, about the person who just wants to see if they can do it.”

Meanwhile, Fouchier has insisted that the mutant virus is not as lethal as the public has been led to believe, and urged its publication so that scientists can prepare remedies should such a variant arise in nature.

The new NSABB recommendations will be forwarded to the US government for “review and consideration,” the group said in its statement on Friday.

Bird flu is believed to kill more than half the people it infects, making it much more lethal than typical strains of the seasonal virus.

According to the World Health Organization, there have been 573 cases of H5N1 bird flu in humans in 15 countries since 2003, with 58.6 percent of those resulting in death. -AFP

public health. “This illustrates the need for a major overhaul of how the government protects us against dangerous chemicals.”

FDA officials stressed that their assessment of BPA is ongoing, and they expect to issue another update later this

year based on their most recent findings. The agency’s last official statement was that there is “some concern” about BPA’s effects on infants and young children.

The government is spending $30 million to conduct additional studies on the chemical’s impact on humans. Several federal studies published in the last two years suggest that even human embryos retain far less BPA than other animals.

Many companies have already responded to consumer demand by removing BPA from their products. In 2008, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Toys “R” Us said they began phasing out bottles, sippy cups and other children’s items containing BPA. By the end of 2009, the six leading makers of baby bottles in the US went BPA-free. Earlier this month Campbell’s Soup said it would begin removing BPA from its most popular soups, though it did not set a time frame.

But the vast majority of canned goods in the US are still sealed with resin that contains BPA to prevent contamination and spoiling. Canned food manufacturers have used the chemicals since the 1950s, and the practice is approved by the FDA. The chemical industry says BPA is the safest, most effective sealant.

Some manufacturers have begun switching to alternatives. Heinz reportedly uses BPA-free coatings for its Nurture baby formula cans, and ConAgra and General Mills say they have switched to alternative sealants for some canned tomatoes.

The federal government has been grappling with the safety of BPA for more than four years. The FDA revised its opinion on BPA in 2010 saying there is “some concern” about the chemical’s impact on the brain and reproductive system of infants, babies and young children. Previously the agency said the trace amounts of BPA that leach out of food containers are not dangerous.

While older children and adults quickly eliminate the chemical through their kidneys, newborns and infants can retain it for longer. Scientists pushing for a ban on the chemical argue that BPA mimics the effects of the hormone estrogen, interfering with growth. -AP

Childbirth takes longer now than 50 years ago NEWYORK: Many tasks can be tackled more quickly now than 50 years ago, but delivering a baby is not one of them, a new US government study finds.

Compared with the 1960s, US women have in recent years spent two to three hours longer in labor, according to researchers at the US National Institutes of Health.

The extra time is spent in the first stage of labor -- the longest part of the labor process, before the “pushing” stage.

New moms, themselves, are different now than 50 years ago; on average, they’re older and weigh more, and their newborns are bigger too.

“But even when we take these changing demographics into account, labor is still longer,” lead researcher Dr. Katherine Laughon, of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, said in an interview.

“We weren’t able to fully address the potential reasons with this study,” Laughon said.

One partial explanation may be epidural pain relief, which is far more common now than 50 years ago. Epidurals are known to slow labor down by about 40 to 90 minutes, Laughon said. And many women may gladly trade the extra time in labor for the pain relief.

From there, the explanations get more speculative.

Laughon noted that many more women now have labor inductions or planned cesarean sections versus decades ago. So women who actually go into spontaneous labor these days may differ somehow from their counterparts of 50 years ago.

But whatever the underlying reasons, Laughon said the findings suggest that doctors may need to rethink the definition of “normal” labor -- a concept that’s based on what was the norm for women a half-century ago.

For example, doctors have traditionally considered labor to be abnormal if there’s no change in the cervix after two hours in the “active” part of the first stage of labor.

At that point, they may intervene by either giving the medication oxytocin, which stimulates contractions, or doing a C-section.

But based on these new findings, doctors may be able to wait longer before taking those measures -- “as long as the mom and baby are healthy,” Laughon said.

The findings, reported online in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, are based on two government studies done decades apart.

One included about 39,500 US women who delivered a full-term “singleton” between 1959 and 1966. The other

tracked more than 98,000 women who had a full-term singleton between 2002 and 2008.

All of the women had a spontaneous labor -- that is, no labor induction.

Not surprisingly, contemporary women were far more likely to get an epidural -- 55 percent did, versus just four percent of their counterparts 50 years ago. And their doctors were much more likely to end up doing a cesarean to deliver the baby, or to use oxytocin.

Twelve percent of women in the recent study had a C-section, compared with three percent in the 1960s. Meanwhile, 31 percent were given oxytocin, versus 12 percent 50 years ago.

When it came to length of labor, first-time moms in recent years typically spent 2.6 hours longer in the first stage, compared with their counterparts in the 1960s.

The difference between generations was a bit smaller -- two hours -- when the researchers focused on women who’d given birth before.

Though the reasons for the longer labor times are not fully clear, Laughon said the bottom line is that there may be a new “normal.”

“I think we need to revisit the definitions of ‘abnormal’ labor, and the timing of the interventions that we use,” she said. -Reuters

This combination of pictures shows Malaysia’s iconic Patronas Twin Towers, photographed illuminated (left), before Earth Hour and unlit (right), during Earth Hour in Kuala Lumpur on March 31, 2012. Millions of people were expected to switch off their lights for Earth Hour on March 31, in a global effort to raise awareness about climate change. Since it began in Sydney in 2007, Earth Hour has grown to become what environmental group WWF says is the world’s largest demonstration of support for action on carbon pollution. (AFP)

12

ALWATAN DAILY

Technology

APP OF THE WEEK

Jumanah Al-Ghadban Staff Writer

App: Paper by FiftyThree Category: Productivity Price: Free Platform: iOS Works with: iPad Briefly: Ever felt the need to jot down some ideas or sketch out some drawings on your iPad but didn’t have the perfect app for it?

Well, Paper, is where it all begins. It’s an easy, beautiful and simple way to create and record ideas on the iPad. You can sketch, draw diagrams, illustrations, write notes, or simply do amazing drawings and share them on the web. There are no settings available to confuse things just simply select your tool, the color and draw away. It’s even built for the new iPad’s brilliant display which makes your creations even more stunning. Purchasing additional tools is available from the in-app store.

TECH TALK Apple offers refund to Australian buyers of new iPad: Apple Inc will email all buyers of its new iPad in Australia to offer them a refund, a lawyer for the company said onWednesday, after the nation’s consumer watchdog accused it of misleading advertising over one key aspect of the product. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has taken legal action to ensure Apple makes consumers aware its third-generation iPad cannot connect to a 4G mobile data network in Australia due to technical incompatibility. Apple agreed to post warnings that its new iPad “is not compatible with current Australian 4G LTE networks and WiMAX networks” over the next week. -Reuters Microsoft seizes servers in Zeus cyberfraud: Microsoft Corp claimed a victory in efforts to combat online banking fraud, saying it had confiscated several servers used to steal login names and passwords, disrupting some of the world’s most sophisticated cybercrime rings. The software maker said on Monday that its cybercrime investigation group also took legal and technical actions to fight notorious criminals who infect computers with a prevalent malicious software known as Zeus. By recruiting computers into networks called botnets, Zeus logs the online activity of infected machines, providing criminals with credentials to access financial accounts. -Reuters Google lets users monitor their online activity: Google on Wednesday began letting people get monthly reports summarizing what they have been up to at the Internet titan’s free online services. A freshly-added feature keeps people posted on patterns at Gmail, YouTube, online search and other Google venues visited while signed into their user accounts with the California-based company. -AFP Amazon releases Kindle Touch 3G in 175 countries: Amazon.com Inc. said Wednesday that it is releasing its Kindle Touch 3G e-reader in more countries and more languages worldwide. The gadget is available for pre-orders and will be shipped to customers starting on April 27. In addition to English, the device will be available in German, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, the company said. It costs $149 in the US; international prices are similar.

In all, Amazon said the device is now being sold in 175 countries. -AP Apple, Sony, 4 others sued by Graphics Properties: Apple Inc, Sony Corp and four other companies were sued by Graphics Properties Holdings Inc, formerly known as Silicon Graphics Inc, for allegedly infringing a patent through their sale of mobile phones and other electronic devices. The patent at issue relates to a computer graphics process that turns text and images into pixels to be displayed on screens. -Reuters

SUNDAY, APRIL 1, 2012

Apple assembly line gets pay raise, fewer hours NEW YORK: Chinese workers who often spend more than 60 hours per week assembling iPhones and iPads will have their overtime hours curbed and their pay increased after a labor auditor hired by Apple Inc. inspected their factories.

The Fair Labor Association says Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., the Taiwanese company also known as Foxconn that runs the factories in China, is committing to a reduction of weekly work time to 49 hours, the legal Chinese maximum.

That limit is routinely ignored in factories throughout China. Auret van Heerden, CEO of the Fair Labor Association, said Foxconn is the first Chinese company to commit to following the legal standard.

Apple’s and FLA’s own guidelines call for work weeks of 60 hours or less.

Foxconn’s moves are likely to have an impact across the global technology industry. The company employs 1.2 million workers in China to assemble products for Apple, Microsoft Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and other pillars of US technology.

Foxconn’s factories are the last step in the process of manufacturing iPhones and other Apple devices, most of which have hundreds of components. Research firm IHS iSuppli estimates that Apple pays $8 for the assembly of a 16-gigabyte iPhone 4S and $188 for its components. It sells the phone wholesale for about $600 to phone companies, which then subsidize it to be able to sell it for $200 with a two-year service contract.

Ricardo Ernst, a professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, said companies play a risky game when they raise their manufacturing costs because they can be undercut by competitors.

But iSuppli’s figures suggest that if Apple were to absorb a Foxconn wage increase that keeps salaries level while cutting average working hours

In this March 28, 2012 photo provided by Apple, Inc. , Apple CEO Tim Cook (center) visits the iPhone production line at the newly-built manufacturing facility Foxconn Zhengzhou Technology Park. (AP)

from 60 to 49 per week, it would pay less than $2 extra to have an iPhone made.

Other electronics companies, particularly PC makers such as Dell and HP, earn less profit on what they sell and could see a deeper impact.

Thomas Dinges, an analyst at iSuppli, said Apple’s competitors will probably have to accept the price increase too, since it’s framed as a moral issue.

The FLA auditors visited three Foxconn complexes in February and March: Guanlan and

Longhua near the coastal manufacturing hub of Shenzhen, and Chengdu in the inland province of Sichuan. They employ a total of 178,000 workers, with an average age of 23.

Average monthly salaries at the factories ranged from $360 to $455. Foxconn recently raised salaries by up to 25 percent in the second major salary hike in less than two years.

In a one-man Broadway play, actor Mike Daisey told of visiting China and talking to underage and injured Foxconn workers. Public ra-

dio program “This American Life” used Daisey’s monologue in a show about Foxconn on Jan. 6, but retracted it two weeks ago, saying that Daisey had fabricated key parts of it, including him meeting 13-year-old workers.

The FLA said it didn’t find instances of child or forced labor.

Apple CEO Tim Cook visited a Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou, China, on Wednesday.

Labor unions have criticized Apple’s use of the FLA, insisting that audits are a “top-down” approach. Foxconn’s workers would be better served, they believe, by being able to organize.

The FLA found few safety violations, noting that the company had already dealt with problems like blocked fire exits and defective protective gear. It’s also taken step to reduce the amount of aluminum dust in the air, after the metal created an explosion at a Foxconn factory in Chengdu last year, killing four workers.

Heerden said his auditors found Foxconn workers are the happiest with their jobs when they work 52 hours a week, well below the amount they often put in. Reducing their hours to 49 hours should help Foxconn retain workers in the long run, he said.

The FLA found that many workers at the Foxconn factories want to work even more overtime, so they can make more money. Foxconn told the FLA that it will raise hourly salaries to compensate workers for the reduced hours.

Heerden said that it’s common to find workers in developing countries looking for more overtime, rather than less.

Apple has started tracking the working hours of half a million workers in its supply chain, and said that 89 percent of them worked 60 hours or less in February, even though the company was ramping up production of the new iPad. Workers averaged 48 hours per week. -AP

BlackBerry maker to cede most consumer markets New Harley-Davidson GEARS

Softail is clean, old-school custom

FILE - Research in Motion CEO Thorsten Heins holds up a Blackberry smartphone during an interview with Thomson Reuters in New York, Jan. 27, 2012. (AP)

TORONTO: Struggling BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd. said Thursday that it will cede most consumer markets after failing to compete with flashier touch-screen phones such as Apple’s iPhone and models that run Google’s Android software.

Instead, RIM said it will return to its roots and focus on business customers, many of whom prefer BlackBerrys for their security. RIM has had limited success trying to enter consumer markets in recent years, and RIM CEO Thorsten Heins said a turnaround required “substantial change.”

“We plan to refocus on the enterprise business and capitalize on our leading position in this segment,” Heins said. “We believe that BlackBerry cannot succeed if we tried to be everybody’s darling and all things to all people.

Therefore, we plan to build on our strength.”

Also Thursday, RIM said former co-CEO Jim Balsillie has resigned from its board. David Yach, chief technology officer for software, and Jim Rowan, chief operating officer for global operations, also are leaving in a management shakeup.

The Canadian company has long dominated the corporate smartphone market, with its BlackBerrys known for their security and reliability as email devices. President Barack Obama even refused to part with his BlackBerry after he took office.

RIM has sought to expand its appeal to consumers, but it has had trouble because the

phones aren’t perceived to be as sexy as its chief competitors. RIM has been counting on improvements with its forthcoming BlackBerry 10 system, but that has faced multiple delays. BlackBerrys also lag iPhones or Android phones when it comes to running third-party applications. For that reason, BlackBerrys are even losing ground in the business world, as employees demand iPhones or Android devices over BlackBerrys.

Apple sold 37 million iPhones in the last three months of 2011 - more than what RIM shipped in the past three quarters combined.

RIM shipped 11.1 million BlackBerrys in the latest quarter, which ended March 3.

RIM also bombed in its efforts to produce a tablet computer to compete with Apple’s iPad. Among other things, the PlayBook received negative reviews because it launched without an email program and the popular messaging service BlackBerry Messenger. In December, the tablets that originally cost $500 were selling for $200, below the cost of making them.

RIM said it was exploring partnerships and other opportunities for its existing consumer business to focus on the corporate customers.

Asked about a possible sale of the company, Heins said “it is not the main direction we are pursuing right now.”

Heins, who took over the company in January, made the remarks during a conference call after RIM announced quarterly results that fell short of Wall Street expectations. -AP

Amazon CEO plans to raise sunken Apollo 11 engines LOS ANGELES: Long before Jeff Bezos became an Internet mogul, he was enthralled by the mysteries of space.

As a 5-year-old, Bezos, along with half a billion people around the world, watched in awe as American astronaut Neil Armstrong took the first step on the moon in 1969.

More than 40 years later, the billionaire founder of Amazon.com will attempt to haul from the dark depths of the Atlantic at least one of the mammoth rocket engines that helped boost the Apollo 11 astronauts into history.

Using high-tech sonar, an expedition spearheaded by Bezos has discovered what he claimed were discarded engines from the mission lurking 14,000 feet deep.

In an online announcement Wednesday, Bezos said he is drawing up plans to recover the sunken engines, part of the mighty Saturn V rocket that launched Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins on their moon mission.

It was not immediately clear when Bezos’ team spotted the Apollo engines.

Bezos offered few details about the discovery and did not say how he knew the engines were from Apollo 11. The cost of the recovery was not disclosed, but Bezos said it will be done with private funds.

Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener said Bezos was not available for comment.

Bezos acknowledged the engines were the property of NASA, but said he

hoped they will be displayed in museums.

NASA expressed excitement about the find. The space agency said it has not been formally contacted by Bezos and waited for more information.

No timetable has been set for the recovery.

When it happens, it’ll undoubtedly take longer to hoist the 19-foot engines off the sea floor than the 2 1/2 minutes it took for them to power off the launch pad.

The sea floor is littered with spent rockets and flight parts from missions dating back to the dawn of the Space Age and it’s unknown what survived decades later after crashing into the ocean.

-AP

MILWAUKEE, USA: Pare down a Harley-Davidson Softail motorcycle to its essential elements and you have the Slim. From its narrow rear end to its trimmed front fender, there’s simply less of the Slim; fewer covers, a solo seat, smaller wheels and tires, and minimal chrome. Call it stripped. Call it old school. Call it lean and mean. What’s left is the elemental Softail profile and iconic Harley-Davidson style that recalls classic custom bobbers of the 1950s, according to a press release.

“It’s time to once again make the engine the design focal point of a motorcycle,” says Senior Designer Casey Ketterhagen, “so we put a Softail on a diet to get the proportions back in check. Scale down the rear with a narrow tire and chopped fender and the heart of the bike, the motor, becomes the focus. We left a gap between the nose of the seat and tank so the rider can see the top of the motor. I like to be able to look down and see what’s moving me.”

To keep the rear of the motorcycle simple and clean, the Slim has combination stop/turn/tail lights. The rear fender struts are left uncovered, exposing the forged steel and fasteners. A thin formed-leather strap covers the fuel tank seam.

The power train is finished with polished covers instead of chrome, and the black cylinders left unhighlighted. The FL front fender is trimmed to expose more of the tire.

“My personal street bike doesn’t even have a front fender,” says Ketterhagen, “but unfortunately we can’t go that far on a production model. The Slim is intended to be a direct interpretation of home-built customs of the 1940s and 50s, and we used a number of components that evoke that era, beginning with a Hollywood handlebar.”

The Hollywood bar, identified by its wide bend and cross brace, was originally an accessory for prewar Harley-Davidson models with a Springer(r) fork.The name may have been coined because owners of that era who used the cross-brace to mount lights and bags had “gone Hollywood” with excessive acessorisation. For the Slim, he chose a crossbraced bar finished in gloss black, with matching gloss Black Hand controls and louvered headlight nacelle. Other period styling cues include a glossy black “cat eye” tank console with a retro speedometer face, half-moon rider footboards, a oval air cleaner cover also finished in gloss black, and gloss black wheel rims and hubs. The solo seat shape is specific to the Slim, and the upholstery is finished in a tuck-and-roll pattern.

“The seat really gives you the feeling of sitting in the bike, rather than on it,” says Ketterhagen.

“The bars are nice and low, too, so when you’re riding you have an unobstructed view forward, which reinforces the idea that this is a very elemental motorcycle, a real back-to-basics ride.”

A counter-balanced Twin Cam 103B(tm) engine is rigid-mounted within the frame, creating a solid connection between rider and the machine. The Softail chassis mimics the clean lines of a vintage hard tail frame, but utilizes rear suspension control provided by coil-over shock absorbers mounted horizontally and out of sight within the frame rails.

With the combination of a 650mm seat height and rider foot boards, the Slim comfortably fits a wide range of riders and offers light side-stand lift-off.

A pull-back riser from Harley-Davidson Genuine Motor Accessories can be installed to move the handlebars back two inches without changing control cables and lines.

Pare down a Harley-Davidson Softail motorcycle to its essential elements and you have the Slim. The Softail chassis mimics the clean lines of a vintage hard tail frame, but utilizes rear suspension control provided by coil-over shock absorbers mounted horizontally and out of sight within the frame rails.

Google to open online tablet store SAN FRANCISCO: Google Inc is planning to open an online store to sell tablet PCs directly to consumers, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday. The online store would offer tablets made by Samsung Electronics Co and Asustek Computer Inc based on Google’s Android software, according to the report, which cited anonymous sources and which Reuters was not able to confirm. Google declined to comment.

Google briefly sold a specially-designed Android smartphone - the Nexus One - directly to consumers in 2010, but closed the store after four months saying it had not lived up to expectations.

Google now relies on retail and carrier partners to sell Android smartphones made by a variety

of handset makers and Android has become the world’s No.1 smartphone operating system, ahead of iPhone-maker Apple Inc. But Apple still dominates the market for touchscreen tablet computers with its two-year old iPad. Amazon.com’s $199 Kindle Fire tablet is based on open-source Android computer code, but the device features a customized interface that does not use many Google services.

Google may co-brand some of the tablets sold through the store and has considered subsidizing the cost of future tablets to make them more competitive with the Kindle Fire, according to the Journal report. It is unclear when Google plans to open the store. -Reuters

ALWATAN DAILY

entertainment Song Of The Day

Fahad AlSabah Staff Writer

Song: Orchid Artist: Alanis Morissette Album: Flavors of Entanglement Genre: Alternative In short: Produced completely by Guy Sigsworth, Alanis Morissette’s latest album put her back on the right track after straying away for too long. The 11-song set, and its accompanying five bonus tracks show Morissette in new eyes; she’s more vulnerable, more realistic, and definitely more mature.

“Orchid,” one of the bonus songs, is as delicate as an orchid plant, and as beautifully composed and arranged as a garden of orchids.

To listen to the song visit www.alwatandaily.com E-mail your feedback to falsabah@alwatandaily.com

sunDAY, april 1, 2012

Keith Olbermann ousted from Current TV talk show NEW YORK: Keith Olbermann is looking for a new job after less than a year as a talk show host at Current TV. The left-leaning cable network announced just hours before airtime on Friday that Olbermann’s show “Countdown” would be replaced with a new program called “Viewpoint” hosted by former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, beginning that night.

The sometimes volatile Olbermann came to Current in June as the centerpiece of its new prime-time initiative after a stormy eight-year stint at MSNBC - his second at that network- followed by his abrupt departure in January 2011.

Shortly after, Current announced his hiring - reportedly with a five-year, $50-million contract - as the start of an effort to transform the network’s prime-time slate into progressive talk. His official title was chief news officer, charged with providing editorial guidance for all of the network’s political news, commentary and current events programming.

In a statement, Current TV founders Al Gore and Joel Hyatt said the network was “founded on the values of respect, openness, collegiality, and loyalty to our viewers. Unfortunately these values are no longer reflected in our relationship with Keith Olbermann and we have ended it.”

They offered no details, but it is known that the temperamental Olbermann repeatedly clashed with his employers. During the primary season he declined to host certain hours of election coverage and has missed a number of regular broadcasts, as well as complaining about technical problems he said un-

FILE - In this May 3, 2011 file photo, Keith Olbermann poses at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif. (AP)

dermined his show.

In a statement posted online, Olbermann countered that “the claims against me implied in Current’s statement are untrue and will be proved so in the legal actions I will be filing against them presently.”

He said he had been attempting “for more than a year” to resolve his differences

with Gore and Hyatt internally, “while I’ve not been publicizing my complaints.” Instead of “investing in a quality news program,” he said, his bosses “thought it was more economical to try to get out of my contract.”

He called his decision to join Current “a sincere and well-intentioned gesture on my part, but in retrospect a foolish one.”

The Buzz

Long before he became a salsa sensation, Marc Anthony listened to the likes of Lionel Richie. Now he’ll honor the pop legend as part of the Academy of Country Music’s tribute to Richie next week. This week, Richie released a collection of his classics performed with top country acts, and is set to appear at Sunday’s ACM Awards. The next day, he’ll be feted at an all-star concert. Anthony is scheduled to perform Richie’s song “Endless Love” with Sara Evans during the CBS special, which will air April 13 at 9 pm EDT. In a statement released Friday, Anthony said Richie was “one of the soundtracks of my life growing up.” He also called Richie an icon and said he was honored to be a part of the tribute. -AP

Whitney Houston’s mom says she’s proud of her

Oh baby!

Great-grandchild for Queen Elizabeth II Buckingham Palace says Peter Phillips and his wife, Autumn, have had a baby girl - giving Queen Elizabeth II her second great-grandchild. Isla Elizabeth Phillips, born Thursday, weighed in at 7 pounds and 4 ounces. She will be 13th in line to the British throne, after her older sister Savannah.

The palace said Friday that the 85-year-old queen, her husband the Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Anne and Autumn’s family are delighted by the news. Peter Phillips is the son of Princess Anne. He married Montreal-born Autumn in May 2008. -AP

Beatles musical planned for 50th year of debut song A London musical will mark the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ debut single “Love Me Do”, released in Britain in October 1962, after full theatrical rights to much of the Fab Four’s back catalogue were granted to a West End production for the first time. “Let It Be” will run at the Prince of Wales Theatre from September 14 until January 19, 2013, and feature live performances of a string of hits including “Twist and Shout”, “Yesterday” and “Hey Jude”. Described by organizers as a “theatrical concert”, the show will combine live performances with video footage to tell the story of the Beatles’ journey to become the most successful pop group in history. The rights to the music were granted by Sony/ATV, the music publishing joint venture between Sony Corp and the estate of Michael Jackson. Among the producers behind the show are Jamie Hendry Productions, which staged “Legally Blonde the Musical” and “La Cage aux Folles”. -Reuters

Indian Bollywood actress Kareena Kapoor (center) and her father and actor Randhir Kapoor (left) attend the UTV STARS ‘Walk of the Stars’ promenade launch and the unveiling of a brass statue of legendary Bollywood actor Raj Kapoor (right), in Mumbai. (AFP)

WWE star John Cena takes a stand against bullying NEW YORK: Most people wouldn’t dare call chiseled WWE superstar John Cena any names, let alone “a bowl of Fruity Pebbles.”

But in the lead up to their WrestleMania 28 “Once in a Lifetime” match Sunday in Miami, that’s exactly what The Rock told Cena he looked like. Instead of getting upset, Cena said he turned the situation around by contacting the cereal maker, now he’s on “three million boxes of the stuff.”

While it was done in typical WWE trash-talk fashion, Cena says the pressure can get to you.

“I’m one of those guys that gets cheered, but also gets booed. Those who don’t like me, severely don’t like me,” Cena told the Associated Press on Friday. “Usually your first instinct is to lash out at these people. ... but I believe you always need to turn a negative into a positive.”

Heavily involved in the Be-A-Star anti-bullying campaign, Cena is not just a voice for the cause, he also says he was a victim.

According the former WWE Heavyweight champion, he was bullied as a kid because he loved rap and wore hip-hop clothing in a town where it wasn’t popular. He started lifting weights

to protect himself.

“By the time I was 15, I was a built kid, and the comments didn’t come so often, and the people making fun of me sort of fell by the wayside,” Cena said.While most of it was talk, Cena doesn’t see much of a difference when it comes to hurtful remarks.

“The introduction of social media pretty much gives everyone a voice, but unfortunately, people choose to use that voice in a negative way,” Cena said.

Cena wants young people to know that not everyone is going to like you for who you are: “The best way to get back at them is to put a smile on your face and do whatever you can to succeed.” While he’s in the business of physical confrontations and verbal assaults, he said insults still affect you. He also wants victims to know that, so Cena refuses to block anyone or edit his Twitter account.

“There’s a lot of negative stuff on there and some of it is personal,” he said. “When you’re a kid that feels that everything is coming down on you, you can look and see that this truly does happen to everybody.” -AP

Whitney Houston daughter lands role in Tyler Perry show Whitney Houston’s daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, is following her mother’s footsteps and going into show business. Brown, the 19-year-old daughter of Houston and her ex-husband Bobby Brown, has been cast in a recurring role on Tyler Perry’s TBS sitcom “For Better or Worse,” a spokesman for Perry told TheWrap. The nature of her character has not yet been revealed. The series will premiere its second season in July. Brown’s mother died on February 11 at the age of 48. Perry, who reportedly made his private jet available to Houston’s family to transport the singer’s body from Southern California to her hometown of Newark, N.J., delivered an impassioned speech at Houston’s funeral. “There was a grace that kept on carrying her,” Perry said. “Whitney Houston loved the lord, and in every conversation we had over the years it was evident that she loved the lord ... nothing separated her from the love of God.” -Reuters

The rupture between Olbermann and his bosses echoed Olbermann’s past employment history. At NBC there was ongoing friction between the brash host and his bosses, just as there had been at earlier jobs as far back as Olbermann’s star-making, often tumultuous turn as a “SportsCenter” anchor at ESPN in the 1990s.

Just weeks before his exit from MSNBC, Olbermann was nearly fired but instead was suspended for two days without pay for violating an NBC News policy by donating to three political campaigns.

In January 2011, Comcast Corp., the giant cable operator, acquired a controlling stake in Olbermann’s already huge employer, NBCUniversal.

The night of Jan. 21, Olbermann told his viewers he was leaving. He said, a bit cryptically, that “there were many occasions, particularly in the last two and a half years, where all that surrounded the show - but never the show itself - was just too much for me.”

After that, Current, the privately held network co-founded in 2005 by former Vice President Gore and Joel Hyatt, seemed the perfect fit: It is an independent media outlet.

“Nothing is more vital to my concept of a free media than news that is produced independent of corporate interference,” Olbermann said at the announcement of his coming to Current.

Current was then beginning its effort to redefine itself after ditching its original concept as the go-to site for viewer-generated short videos. -AP

Jerry Lee Lewis weds for 7th time in Mississippi

Marc Anthony will sing in honor of Lionel Richie

Cissy Houston says in her first interview since daughter Whitney’s death that she’s “very proud” of her and did the best she could raising her. Houston talked to My9 on Thursday night for an interview set to air Monday. The interview took place at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, N.J., where Whitney first wowed a congregation as a girl and where her funeral was held Feb. 18. Cissy Houston says her daughter “accomplished a whole lot in the short time that she had here” and “was a very wonderful person.” She says she doesn’t blame herself for what happened to her because she knows she did the best she could. -AP

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FILE-Joey Logano (left), driver of the #20 The Home Depot Toyota, speaks to professional wrestler John Cena in the garage area prior to the start of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on Feb. 26, 2012 in Daytona Beach, Florida. (AFP)

JACKSON, Miss.: Rock ‘n’ roll legend Jerry Lee Lewis has married for a seventh time in Mississippi, and the new bride is his cousin’s ex-wife.

Judith Ann Coghlan Lewis, 62, worked several years as Lewis’ caretaker at his home in Nesbit, Miss., just south of Memphis - a job she said she was sent to do by her then-husband and one of Lewis’ ex-wives, who were brother and sister.

She said she and the 76-year-old Lewis, also known as “The Killer,” never intended to fall in love. It just happened.

She said she married for love, not for money.

“To the people that think there’s never going to be someone out there for them to love, just wait until they’re in their 60s and 70s,” the new Mrs. Lewis told The Associated Press on Friday. “It’s better than ever.”

The Adams County circuit clerk’s office said the marriage license shows the couple was married March 9 in Natchez, Miss. Lewis is famous for top hits like “Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.” The bride was previously married to one of Lewis’ cousins, Rusty Brown. They

divorced in 2010.

Rusty’s older sister, Myra Gale Brown, married Lewis in 1957 when she was 13 and was his third wife. That marriage caused shockwaves for Lewis’ career.

Lewis’ sixth marriage ended in 2004 when he divorced Kerrie McCarver after 20 years together.

Judith Lewis said the wedding was small. The only guests were her sister and husband, and Lewis’ sister and husband.

Jerry Lee Lewis and his new wife both grew up with parents who were sharecroppers and moved often, she said. He’s from the small Louisiana town of Ferriday, which is just across the Mississippi River from Natchez; she’s from the rural Mississippi town of Benoit.

The new Mrs. Lewis, who previously worked as a model and flight attendant, said she and her husband plan to record a gospel album together.

In 2010, Lewis announced a book deal with It Books, an imprint of HarperCollins.

Alberto Rojas, director of publicity for It Books, said Friday that the book deal is still on and that the memoir will be released in 2013. -AP

FILE-Entertainer Jerry Lee Lewis waves after taking part in interviews before his appearance at “An Evening with Jerry Lee Lewis” at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, in this file picture taken Sept. 28, 2010. (Reuters)

NBC’s The Voice adds Facebook app for voting LOS ANGELES: NBC’s talent show “The Voice” is jumping on Facebook’s “timeline” app bandwagon to give fans another way to vote for their favorite contestants. The new application allows viewers to cast votes for “Voice” singers and connect with friends and others watching the show, NBC and Facebook said Friday. Voting on live performances begins Monday. The Facebook app for “The Voice” is intended to create “a fully social online voting experience,” said Vivi Zigler, president of NBC Universal Digital Entertainment.

“We have been working very closely with Facebook to really build a social voting app that takes advantage of every whiz-bang, bell and whistle that Facebook has built for timeline,” Zigler said. Besides serving as a ballot box and a bridge between viewers, the “Voice” app will lead users to new content, including performance videos and blogs, NBC said.

In January, when Facebook unveiled

about 60 new apps that let people share the smallest details of their lives on their profile, now known as their timeline, the company said it expected developers to create thousands more.

Originally dubbed “frictionless sharing” by Facebook, the apps allow a user’s activity to be automatically shared through Facebook - although people can limit who’s able to see this activity when they sign up for the apps.

Nearly 3,000 apps have been launched in two months for websites ranging from The Onion to Nike to foodie site Foodily, Facebook said. Making use of a timeline app for voting is innovative, said Justin Osofsky, director of platform partnerships at Facebook.

“The Voice,” which features Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton as coaches, has seen a sharp increase in viewership in its second season and is drawing the young adult viewers prized by advertisers. -AP

14

ALWATAN DAILY

AROUND TOWN / TIME OUT

SUNDAY, APRIL 1, 2012

If you have an event you wish to include, please email: aroundtown@alwatandaily.com

Feature o f

graffiti

the day

moderately confused

Dar Al Shifa Dental Center launches special promotion

KUWAIT: Dar Al Shifa Dental Center announced the launch of a special promotion for patients seeking dental care. Patients who book teeth cleaning appointments before April 26 will receive free of charge a teeth whitening home treatment kit valued at KD 80.

Dr Ala Jamal DDS, MDS, Orthodontist Consultant and Head of Dar Al Shifa Dental Center commented; “Oral health is very important. It is a crucial aspect of maintaining general health. Proper dental care can reduce the presence of bacteria, which reduces strain on

the immune system. Regular dental visits allow for early identification

of conditions and infections. This allows for early treatment of these issues before they develop into serious problems,” “Our new promotion reflect the hospital’s continued pursuit of providing premium healthcare services to its patients that further adds value to their overall experience,” added Dr. Jamal.

Dar Al Shifa Dental Center is located at Dar Al Shifa Clinics in Midan Hawally.

For more information, patients are required to contact the clinic on 25666999 or 67007246

Sudoku

Starbucks promises espresso perfection in every cup

KUWAIT: This spring, Starbucks will maintain its ongoing commitment to coffee excellence by bringing espresso perfection to all its stores across Kuwait. On March 14, Starbucks launched its five point promise in every single store ensuring partners and customers can make the most of the Espresso promise for perfection in each and every cup of coffee served.

As well as this global promise, Starbucks will launch its first true light roast coffee, Starbucks® Blonde Roast.

Master roasters and blenders have taken the world’s best Arabica beans and drawn out their subtle and soft flavors to create a lighter coffee that encompasses the familiar flavors Starbucks coffee is celebrated for,

Month a t

Elementary

Intermediate

Advanced

but with a mellower taste to ensure the tastes of each and every customer are met. Rana Shaheen, Regional Communications and CSR Manager, Starbucks Coffee MENA said: “The promise for espresso perfection is our way of reaffirming to our loyal customers that Starbucks is always looking for new ways to keep them satisfied. The espresso perfection will be a part of the culture in each and every store throughout Kuwait.

From the details leading to the perfect espresso shots and the use of the new revolutionary milk pitchers, to barista training and 100% Fair trade espresso, this declaration promises that customers’ drinks will be perfect each and every time, ensuring 100% satisfaction.”

General A n n o u n c e m e n t s

a glance ic narrative of life experiences on luminous and luxurious enamel weaves.

Diwaniya presentation April 3/ 7 p.m. / AWARE Center: The AWARE Center cordially invites you to its diwaniya presentation next Tuesday entitled, “Similarities and differences between Arabs and Westerners,” by Iman Martin. Westerners visiting Kuwait or the Middle East for the first time find many cultural differences in the society, at work and within the local customs. Culture shock, to some degree, will be experienced by all. In this Diwaniya, we would like to share the similarities and differences between Arabs and Westerners. For more information, call 25335260/80

K’S PATH invites applicants for the adoption of pets Sepp is a Domestic Long Haired (DLH) male cat. He will be 2-years-old April 2012. This friendly, laid-back boy loves a good cuddle and likes a high vantage point in a cat tree or ledge to look out from. He would do best in a home with children over 12 years of age.

To adopt, contact +965 67006122 or visit the website www.kspath.org

Golden era club Kuwaiti cuisine March 15-April 5/6 p.m. - 8 p.m./TIES Center: TIES Ladies Club invites you to our Kuwaiti cuisine classes which will start soon. Join us for a one month cooking program where you will learn to cook real Kuwaiti food. All ladies are invited to join our classes and let your family enjoy the mouth watering Kuwaiti cuisine. For more information/registration, contact 25231015/6.

Arabic course March 11-April 19/ TIES Center: TIES Center is glad to announce the start of Arabic courses. We offer classes for all levels, from beginners to advance and also introduced new classes called Kuwait dialect.

TIES Arabic classes are intended for all expatriates who wish to learn Arabic for whatever purpose- business, basic communication, as a second language or simply as a hobby. For more information/registration, contact 97228860/97793440.

Dar Al Funoon hosts artist Karim Ghidinelli April 2- 19/ 4 p.m. - 8 p.m. / Dar Al Funoon: Born in Italy in 1976, Karim spent his childhood in this city; he went to middle school and high school in African countries. His body of work consists of a central iconic image that of a finger imprint, within each thumb impression he has formulated a pseudo-calligraph-

April 13/ 5 p.m. -7 p.m. /Rumaithiya: Join the Golden Era club for a fascinating Earth Day activity. Come armed with old newspapers, a pair of scissors and a bottle of glue. You also get to join Dr. Leos on a fascinating journey through a jewel nestled in central Europe, ranking high in human development. Seniors (60+) don’t miss out on the adventure! Venue- House #34, next to Abu-Tammam Intermediate School for Boys, Sate Alhusari St., Block 2, Rumaithiya. For details call 97172788/ 66208183 or drop a line to goldenera60@yahoo.com

Mario is a gentle and affectionate 6-years-young Spitz male. This friendly boy does great with people and dogs of all ages.

New Toastmasters Club

South African Embassy closure

Second and fourth Tuesday/ 7 p.m. - 9 p.m. / Jabriya: A new Toastmasters Club is being formed and encouraging new members to join. Toastmasters International is a world leader in communication and leadership development. It is a non-profit international organization dedicated to improve member’s communication and leadership skills by attending and participating toastmasters meetings. For more information, please contact Khaled Al-Hashem at 65588824.

On the occasion of Easter Sunday, the South African Embassy will be closed from Sunday, April 8, 2012 to Monday, April 9, 2012. The Embassy will resume its normal working hours on Tuesday, April 10, 2012, from Sunday to Thursday. Please note that the working hours will be from 8h00 to 16h00 and the Consular Section operation hours will from 8h30 to 12h30.

Brainbang session

The Embassy of India will remain closed on April 5, 2012 on account of “Mahavir Jayanti”.

October 7-April/ 11:45 a.m. -1:45 p.m. /Salmiya: BRAINBANG, the creative arm of Friends of CRY Club (FOCC) invites all students aged 11 and above, to join us fortnightly on Fridays. The areas of development are: Creativity in learning, tools and techniques to empower your mind, profile based learning, activity, fun, games and worksheet based assignments, practical experiments, mind gymnastics and application of learning techniques to conventional study.

E-mail: brainbang@focckwt.org or call 25660835/25618471/97677820.

Dilbert

Embassy of India

Embassy of Korea The Embassy of the Republic of Korea wishes to inform that it has moved to Mishref, Block 7A, Diplomatic Area 2, Plot 6. Contact: 25378621/2/3/4/5. The embassy also wishes to inform that it will be opened to the public on the following office hours: Morning: 8 a.m. 12:30 p.m. Lunch break: 12:30 p.m. - 1 p.m. Afternoon: 1 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Nancy

Horoscopes Aries: March 21 - April 19

Idealized romantic feelings could pour out today when talking to your love interest, Aries. That’s fine, but you should exercise restraint. If it’s a new relationship, your partner could be scared off. If it’s a long-term involvement, your friend might feel at a disadvantage. Channel the feelings into a poem, song, or painting. If you must voice them directly to your friend, keep the terms general.

Taurus: April 20 - May 20

Money worries could cause you to resist attending a group event with some friends, Taurus. Are you afraid you’ll be tempted to spend more than you can afford now? You probably will, but that’s no reason to stay away. Leave your checkbook and credit cards at home.Take only a minimal amount of cash. If you see something you can’t live without, take the name and number of the vendor for later.

Gemini: May 21- June 21

Someone you know from work could suddenly seem to have romantic feelings for you, Gemini. At first this might make you a little uncomfortable, since you’ve never thought of this person in that way before. Don’t do anything rash.Think about it first. Maybe there’s potential, maybe not, but don’t jump at it or dismiss it out of hand.

Cancer: June 22 - July 22

Is your love interest out of town, Cancer? If so, you might spend much of the day feeling lonely and gloomy. Your friend misses you, too, so don’t think you’ll be alone for long. Try to fill the hours until your partner returns with activities that you love, such as reading or artistic pursuits. The time should then go quickly and you’ll be back together before you know it. Hang in there!

Leo: July 23 - August 22

A financial goal you’ve been hoping to reach very soon might seem right around the corner, Leo, but there still seem to be a thousand things you have to do before it’s actually realized. This could get you down temporarily, but don’t get stuck there. Make a list of whatever needs to be done and then tackle each task one at a time until the goal is reached. Get busy!

Virgo: August 23 - September 22

Expect a hectic pace today, Virgo. Some of your colleagues may have been procrastinating a little and now everything has to be done at once. Don’t get too frustrated, however. There are unspoken reasons for their behavior that they haven’t shared with you.

Just do the best you can and hope that others will as well.

Libra: September 23 - October 22

Have you been planning to travel, perhaps for business, Libra? You might receive word that your trip has to be postponed, which could be disappointing.

However, bear in mind that this is only a delay, not a denial. All signs are that you’ll make that trip, so don’t panic.

Think of it as more time in which to prepare. You’ll want to be thoroughly ready before you go. Enjoy your day.

Scorpio: October 23 - November 21

A proposed get-together with a love interest might have to be postponed until much later tonight or perhaps another evening, %. This could make you a little blue. Your insecurity might even get the better of you. Does your friend not want to meet? Don’t fall into this kind of thinking. Accept that there’s a reason and go with the flow. You’ll enjoy the date that much more for the delay.

Sagittarius: November 22 - December 21

Are you expecting a close friend or love partner to visit you at home, Sagittarius? Don’t panic if your friend doesn’t show up at the allotted time.

It doesn’t mean that no one is coming! There probably has been a traffic jam, last-minute phone call, long line at the supermarket, or some other mundane delay.

Capricorn: December 22 - January 19

An emotional phone call could come from a close friend or love partner, Capricorn. This person has a lot of worries, and is apt to lay them all on you if you let it happen. You won’t want to drop everything that you’d planned to work on today. Tell your friend that you should get together for dinner or coffee and you’ll talk about it, and then finish your tasks as quickly as possible.

Aquarius: January 20 - February 18

Financial worries could plague you today, Aquarius. This is unfortunate, because your concerns are probably misplaced. There may be a few adjustments to make, but nothing a little belt-tightening for a few days can’t fix. Find something inexpensive but fascinating to do like reading or watching a documentary. You’ll forget your troubles and learn something in the meantime.

Pisces: February 19 - March 20

Love matters could have you feeling uptight and somewhat fearful today, Pisces. Perhaps this involves a relationship that hasn’t really manifested yet, or maybe you and your beloved have had a dispute of some kind. Don’t worry too much. You should hear some reassuring words before too long.

ALWATAN DAILY

SPORTS

sunDAY, april 1, 2012

15

Basketball

Nowitzki stars as Mavericks edge Magic ORLANDO: Dirk Nowitzki banked in a 15foot jumper with 5.9 seconds left and scored a game-high 28 points to lead the Dallas Mavericks to a 100-98 victory over the Orlando Magic on Friday night.

Jameer Nelson scored 24 points to lead Orlando. Ryan Anderson added 21, and Dwight Howard finished with 19 points and 15 rebounds.

The Mavericks trailed by 15 points in the third quarter before rallying in the final period, aided by a plethora of turnovers by the Magic.

Jason Terry had 10 points in the quarter and 17 in the game. Delonte West and Shawn Marion each added 15.

Orlando had 16 turnovers, which led to 20 points for the Mavericks. The Magic lost to Dallas for the sixth straight time at home. The Mavericks improved to 2-19 this season when trailing entering the fourth quarter.

The Magic had two chances to tie or win the game possession, but Hedo Turkoglu missed a jumper from the wing and Anderson’s tip-in trickled off the back of the rim as time expired. Orlando led by just seven entering the final period before the Mavericks, sparked by a surging Terry, tied it at 89 with 5:58 to play in the game.

The Magic helped Dallas get back into the game committing six of their 16 turnovers in the period. Things got heated down the stretch as Nowitzki and Anderson went right at each other.

Anderson was called for a blocking foul guarding Nowitzki that drew the ire of Magic fans with 4 minutes left. But he gave Orlando a small cushion on the other end with an offensive rebound and put back to make it 95-91. Dallas wasn’t done, though.

A 3-pointer by West brought them to within 97-96 and after a foul by Anderson, West’s two free throws put Dallas on top by a point.

A missed jumper by Nowitzki put the ball

Dallas Mavericks’ Dirk Nowitzki (right) looks for an opening around Orlando Magic’s Ryan Anderson (33) during an NBA basketball game, March 30, 2012. (AP)

in Nelson’s hands, who was fouled going in for a layup on the other end. He only connected on one of his two ensuing free throws, though, giving the Mavericks their final shot with 25.1 remaining.

The Magic were the more active team offensively early in the first half, taking their biggest lead at 32-19 in the opening minutes of the sec-

ond quarter. A 12-0 Mavericks run that featured seven points by Nowitzki got it down to a point before the Magic found their footing again and took it back up to double-digits.

Orlando would up taking a nine-point edge into the locker room. Nowitzki led all scorers with 18 in the half. Anderson topped the Magic with 12 points. -AP

Cricket

Strauss flummoxed by England’s run of defeats GALLE: Captain Andrew Strauss was at a loss to explain what had gone wrong for his England team after they were beaten for the fourth test in a row on Thursday.

Sri Lanka’s 75-run victory in the first test in Galle means England could lose their place at the top of the world rankings if they suffer a 2-0 whitewash in the series.

“You need to be a rocket scientist to work out where things have gone wrong,” Strauss told re-

porters after his side were bowled out for 264 on the fourth day. “We haven’t put scores on the board and we are not going to win too many test matches if that’s the case. I thought we showed in the second innings, technically and game-plan wise, there’s a lot of skill in our dressing room against spin bowling. We just didn’t apply ourselves in the right manner in the first innings,” added Strauss, referring to their meagre total of 193.

England struggled to cope with spin when they

FILE - England captain Andrew Strauss after losing the 3rd Test match between Pakistan and England at The Dubai International Stadium, Feb. 6, 2012. (AFP)

lost 3-0 to Pakistan in their most recent series in the Gulf and the visitors were undone by the turning ball again in Galle as slow left-armer Rangana Herath picked up 12 wickets in the match.

“In the fourth innings you can understand the odd ball spitting and you’ll get the odd dismissal but the first innings was no excuse and that is what is most frustrating,” said Strauss who is himself desperately out of form with the bat. The skipper singled out second-innings centurion Jonathan Trott (112) for praise.

“Everyone has got different game plans,” said Strauss. “There’s always a balance between attack and defense in test cricket and Jonathan was a good example of that. He put the bad balls away and a lot of the time he was patient enough to wait for that bad ball. A lot of the guys have got great pedigree with the bat and they will get another opportunity to prove it in next week’s second test in Colombo.”

Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene was delighted with his team’s win.

“It’s a good challenge for us to go up against the world’s number one team,” said Jayawardene.

“We knew we would have to work really hard to get a result against them and the series will give us an idea where we are right now and where we need to improve.

This is a good start for us, we just need to try and maintain it. The English batting lineup is top class and they were going to come hard at us,” added Jayawardene. “They had a few partnerships and we had to wait patiently. Once we got the new ball we knew we would create more opportunities and that’s what we did. There were also a couple of really good catches to turn things around for us.” -Reuters

Tennis

Djokovic sets up Miami finals clash with Murray KEY BISCAYNE, Florida: Reigning champ Novak Djokovic beat a stubborn 21st-seeded Juan Monaco 6-0, 7-6 (7/5) to book a re-match of the 2009 Miami Masters final with Scotland’s Andy Murray. Murray, who got the better of Djokovic in the 2009 title match, reached the final on a walkover when world No. 2 Rafael Nadal pulled out of their semi-final with a sore left knee.

World No. 1 Djokovic on Friday breezed through his first set in just 27 minutes and appeared to be cruising to a victory when Monaco got hot in a marathon second set which lasted one

Novak Djokovic of Serbia celebrates his win over Juan Monaco of Argentina during the semifinal of the Sony Ericsson Open at the Crandon Park Tennis Center on March 30, 2012. (AFP)

hour, 36 minutes. It marked the second day in a row Djokovic struggled to finish off an opponent and needed a tiebreaker to clinch it.

In the quarter-finals against fifth seed David Ferrer, Djokovic easily won the first set 6-2 but then stumbled down the stretch before before winning 7-6 (7/1) in the second set.

Djokovic is in his fourth Miami final and chasing a third title here. He also won in 2007. In 2009, he fell 6-2, 7-5 to Murray.

“We all know his talent, his potential, and quality,” Djokovic said of Murray. “He’s danger-

ous on any surface. Obviously we played the finals in 2009. I lost in straight sets. He likes the conditions. He likes to play in the heat, as well, and has a good serve.” Djokovic, who reached his first final since winning the Australian Open in January, finished with two aces and four double faults against Monaco, stretching his perfect record over the Argentinian to 5-0.

Djokovic got off to a flying start, winning all six games in the opening set and clinching it with a cross-court forehand to the open court.

He won 71 percent of his second-serve points compared to just 13 percent for Monaco, who won just eight points the first set.

But Monaco turned his game around in the second, using superb baseline tactics and powerful groundstrokes.

Murray was surprised to be handed a berth in the final, especially since it was his second walkover victory of the tournament.

“To be honest, it hasn’t really happened to me that often where even one guy has done that,” said Murray, who had also reached the last 16 without hitting a shot when Canadian Milos Raonic pulled out of their third-round clash with a right ankle injury. “To get two in one week is strange,” Murray said.

Murray had rallied to beat Serbia’s Janko Tipsarevic 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the quarter-finals on Wednesday.

Chasing a second title of 2012, to go with the trophy he captured in Brisbane, Murray said he wasn’t sure if the extra rest afforded him by Nadal’s sore left knee would be good or bad for him come the final. “I don’t really know how I’m going to feel for the final, but I’ll definitely be fresh,” he said. -AFP

Wade and Bosh each score 30 as Heat beat Raptors

TORONTO: Dwyane Wade was determined to put in a strong performance for a stricken family member. Wade and Chris Bosh scored 30 points each and the Miami Heat beat Toronto 113-101 Friday night, their seventh straight win over the Raptors.

LeBron James had 26 points and nine assists and Mario Chalmers added 14 points as the Heat won for the second time in two nights after beating the Mavericks the previous evening in a rematch of last year’s finals.“We came out with a lot of energy and effort,” James said. “Toronto made a lot of shots, they kept getting closer but we just tried to continue to wear on them, worked on our habits and we were able to close the game out in the fourth.”

Wade scored 13 points in the final quarter while Bosh had 12 against his former team as the Heat pulled away.

DeMar DeRozan scored 28 points and Andrea Bargnani had 27 for Toronto. Amir Johnson had 12 points and 12 rebounds and Jose Calderon had 16 assists, one shy of his season high, but the Raptors lost for the sixth time in eight games.

Miami came in having lost six of eight away from home, but improved to 16-11 away from American Airlines Arena.

A 3-pointer by Toronto’s James Johnson tied the score at 89-all with 9 minutes to go, but the Heat answered with an 8-0 run, including five straight free throws by Norris Cole, Wade and Bosh and then a 3

by Wade, to take a 97-89 lead with 5:48 left. Calderon ended Toronto’s drought with a jumper but the Heat scored eight of the next 10 points, including back-to-back dunks by Bosh and Wade, to lead 105-93 with 3:39 remaining.

Miami raced to a 10-0 lead as the Raptors missed their first five field goal attempts, and the Heat were up 20-6 at 6:38 of the first. Toronto responded by outscoring Miami 21-10 the rest of the quarter, cutting it to 31-27 after one. The Raptors kept it up in the second, and Alan Anderson’s steal led to a fast-break layup for DeRozan, giving Toronto its first lead, 4139, with 6:23 left in the half.

James scored eight points as the Heat reclaimed the advantage, taking a 59-51 lead into the half. Bargnani scored 14 points in the third quarter and DeRozan added eight, overcoming a 10-point quarter from James, and the Heat needed a 3

by Cole with 12 seconds left to tie it at 83 heading to the fourth. -AP

Deng, Noah lead Bulls past Pistons 83-71

CHICAGO: Luol Deng understands it might not mean much if the Chicago Bulls are still banged up once the playoffs roll around. Even so, he has a good feeling as the postseason approaches. A run to the Eastern Conference finals whetted their appetite. Now, they’re looking for more, but there’s still work to be done before they can really get down to business. Games like this are just another step, another obstacle, and they keep finding ways to clear them.

Deng scored 20 points, Joakim Noah added 19 points and 12 rebounds, and Chicago beat the Detroit Pistons 83-71 on Friday night.

The Bulls scored the final eight points after the Pistons closed within four with just under 5 minutes left and came away with their 14th straight win against Detroit. In the process, they improved their leaguebest record to 42-11, even though star Derrick Rose and Richard Hamilton remained sidelined by injuries.

Deng came through again after scoring 22 in a lopsided win over Atlanta on Wednesday and Noah was his usual relentless self, helping Chicago win again despite all its bumps and bruises.

Rose missed his ninth straight game because of a right groin injury, but the Bulls improved to 14-5 without the defending league MVP. Hamilton has barely been able to get on

the court because of a variety of injuries after signing with Chicago.

Brandon Knight scored 16 points, and Tayshaun Prince had 14 after tying a season high with 29 in an 87-75 win over Cleveland on Wednesday.

Greg Monroe added 14 points and 10 rebounds, but the Pistons remained winless against the Bulls since beating them at the Palace of Auburn Hills in December 2008.

They were dominated 53-37 on the boards and got outscored 38-24 in the paint. They shot just under 37 percent for the game. They didn’t even attempt a free throw until Jason Maxiell made 1 of 2 midway through the third, and they were 6 of 7 for the game. All that helps explain why they managed just 10 points in two of the four quarters and failed to crack 80 for the fourth time in five games.

The Bulls appeared to be in good shape after an 8-0 run to start the fourth quarter made it 73-61, but the Pistons weren’t finished.

They cut it to 75-71 on Knight’s jumper with 4:50 left, but didn’t score again after that. Chicago’s C.J.Watson then hit two free throws, and Noah fed Boozer for a basket after rebounding a missed 3 by Kyle Korver, making it an eight-point game with just under four minutes left. A tip-in and dunk

by Noah over the final 1:15 rounded out the scoring and preserved the win for the Bulls. -AP

Football

FIFA announces reforms, risks Olympic conflict

ZURICH: FIFA’s long-awaited reforms quickly came under fire on Friday and soccer’s governing body also risked igniting a new conflict with clubs by forcing them to release players for the Olympic Games. FIFA president Sepp Blatter proudly announced that his executive had approved proposals to strengthen the ethics committee, which investigates wrongdoing within soccer’s corruption-plagued governing body.

Other reforms suggested by Mark Pieth, a Swiss professor called in to head FIFA’s newly-created independent governance panel, were put on hold for at least a year, sparking criticism from anticorruption watchdog Transparency International. There were a myriad of other announcements from the two-day executive committee meeting, including a warning for Indonesia over its breakaway league and a move to smooth South Sudan’s acceptance as a FIFA member.

FIFA also announced a $36 million profit for 2011 on revenues of $1.07 billion and said “cooling breaks” had been approved for matches in hot and humid conditions, considered to be over 31 Celsius. Blatter hailed “an historic day for FIFA’s reform process” after his unanimous approval for plans to split the ethics committee in investigative and judicial chambers, a move which still needs to be passed by FIFA’s Congress.

He said the newly reformed committee would also be responsible for vetting candidates within FIFA and would be able to instigate investigations of its own initiative. However, FIFA said it would tackle other issues “later in the roadmap.”

These included the composition of the executive committee, the extra representation given to British associations for historical reasons, the limit of mandates and

the controversial bidding processes for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, awarded to Russia and Qatar respectively.

Pieth’s report has suggested limiting the FIFA president and his executive committee members to two four-year mandates.

“We are disappointed.We had expected a more comprehensive introduction of new procedures,” said Sylvia Schenk, Transparency’s sports advisor for the Berlin-based watchdog. “Too much is still unclear and key issues, such as investigations into the past allegations of corruption, have not been properly addressed. It has already been nearly 10 months since FIFA promised to clean the house.”

Blatter also failed to address several points in Pieth’s report, which was published by FIFA shortly after the end of his media conference.

The report suggested financial controls over member associations and stricter control over the way money is distributed for FIFA’s development programs.

Elsewhere, FIFA approved a suggestion from the European Clubs Association (ECA) to cut the number of international matches to 18 over a two-year period, abolishing controversial February and August friendly dates in the process. This would begin in 2015.

FIFA also agreed to set up an insurance scheme, putting aside $100 million, to compensate clubs whose players were injured on international duty. Both measures need to be approved by Congress.

But any goodwill generated by those measures could be outweighed by the announcement, buried deep in a press released after Blatter had already spoken, that it will be “compulsory” for clubs to release players for the Olympic soccer tournament. -Reuters

SUNdAY, APRIL 1, 2012

SPORTS

Football

Chelsea shatter Villa’s emotional afternoon

Chelsea’s Fernando Torres scores a goal during the English Premier League soccer match between Chelsea and Aston Villa at Villa Park Stadium in Birmingham, March 31, 2012.

(AP)

Sports Editors Highlight LONDON: Aston Villa captain Stiliyan Petrov was given a minute’s applause by fans during the team’s Premier League match with Chelsea on Saturday having said soccer would have to “take a back seat” after being diagnosed with acute leukaemia.

The applause began in the 19th minute at Villa Park - to match Petrov’s shirt number while the 32-year-old Bulgarian international watched the match with his family from the directors’ box. He is due to start treatment for the illness on Monday. Petrov, capped 105 times for Bulgaria, issued a statement saying he would take inspiration from Bolton Wanderers’ midfielder Fabrice Muamba, who is recovering after suffering a cardiac arrest during a match two weeks ago. -Reuters

Wigan dream of great escape after Stoke win ENGLAND: Wigan’s hopes of escaping the drop for a second successive season received a huge boost on Saturday as they beat Stoke 2-0 in their Premier League clash.

Second-half goals by Paraguayan Antolin Alcaraz and Victor Moses gave the hosts their second successive win - only the second time they have achieved that under manager Roberto Martinez.

It wasn’t enough to lift them out of the bottom three as they stay second bottom but only on goal difference from the two sides immediately above them QPR and Blackburn Rovers.

Wigan, who have lost just one of their last eight league matches, made the brighter start with the visitors thankful that goalkeeper Asmir Begovic was on top form. First the Bosnian saved well from Franco di Santo and later in the firsthalf got down well to deny former Celtic striker Shaun Maloney.

However, he was nowhere to be seen when Moses found Chilean wing Jean Beausejour all alone at the far post but with the net beckoning the former Birmingham wing fired over.

The hosts kept up their attacking style in the second-half and counted them-

selves unfortunate not to be awarded a penalty when Dean Whitehead looked to have handled Gary Caldwell’s ball.

Referee Mark Clattenburg disagreed and only gave them a corner.

However, they put that behind them as they deservedly went ahead as Beausejour proved more effective as a creator as he set up fellow South American Alcaraz, who put the ball past Begovic. Beausejour was to miss another golden opportunity midway through the second-half but fortunately for him the impressive Moses wrapped up the points when he scored close to the final whistle. -AFP

QPR shocks Arsenal 2-1 in Premier League

LONDON: Aston Villa honored captain Stiliyan Petrov, who has been diagnosed with acute leukaemia, with an impressive fightback against Chelsea on Saturday, only for the Londoners to triumph 4-2.

Goals from Daniel Sturridge and Branislav Ivanovic looked set to earn a routine win for the Stamford Bridge club until goals from James Collins and Eric Lichaj in the space of three minutes pulled Aston Villa level once again.

Then Ivanovic touched in from close-range once again before Fernando Torres broke clear to score his first Premier League goal since September to earn Chelsea three points on an emotional afternoon at Villa Park. Villa manager Alex McLeish had vowed his team would attempt to win the game for their captain but Chelsea were always in control. Torres wasted an early chance but after eight minutes, the visitors made the breakthrough through Sturridge.

Salomon Kalou clipped a cross in from the left and after Nathan Baker went down under Torres’ challenge, Juan Mata pulled back for Torres once more and when his effort was blocked by Stephen Warnock, Sturridge tapped in from close range.

Villa’s first opening came when Andreas Weimann flicked a header in behind the Chelsea defence and Gabriel Agbonlahor raced clear of David Luiz to finish

only to be called back for offside.

John Obi Mikel threatened to add a second when his powerful effort deflected off Baker and James Collins before being gathered by Given.

Chelsea always carried the greater threat and should have moved clear thanks to more fine work from Mata.

The Spaniard cut in from the left and fed Kalou and via a pass from Torres, Mata was through before clipping a shot past Given that came back off the post before Baker blocked from Torres.

Luiz also sparked panic in his own area when he headed a whipped cross from Warnock narrowly wide of his own goal before Baker diverted a shot from the Bannan corner that followed just over the bar.

When Villa finally created a good opportunity from a lofted ball into the area, Peter Cech did well to block a low effort from Agbonlahor with his legs.

The hosts pulled one back when Collins headed in from the edge of the area from a long throw from Lichaj. Defender Lichaj then tore up in support to touch in at the far post from a cross from Marc Albrighton. But Ivanovic was in the right place once again to finish from close-range after Torres flicked on a Florent Malouda corner.

Torres then finished off a quick break to fire in his first Premier League goal since September. - AFP

City hopes under pressure despite late draw with Sunderland

LONDON: Adel Taarabt’s first goal of the season set Queens Park Rangers on course for a 2-1 victory over Arsenal at Loftus Road on Saturday to boost the west London club’s hopes of avoiding relegation. Taarabt broke his duck in the 23rd minute with a superb individual effort and while Theo Walcott levelled for the Gunners, Samba Diakite’s 66th minute effort secured three points for the home side.

Mark Hughes’s team remain in the bottom three on goal difference, but victory against an in-form Arsenal who remain third will strengthen their belief they can survive.

Arsenal came into the game on the back of a run of seven successive league wins but rarely looked likely to extend that run. Arsene Wenger’s side remain in third spot, but defeat means fourth placed Tottenham can close the three point gap between the two rivals if they win their game in hand.

The opening moments suggested this would be another long afternoon for QPR with Arsenal starting the game in the manner expected of a team on such an impressive run of form.

Robin van Persie quickly tested home keeper Paddy Kenny with a low free kick after Walcott had been fouled as Rangers struggled to find a way out of their own half. The hosts soon showed they had the stomach for the fight, regrouping and taking the game to the in-form visitors.

And it soon became clear Rangers had the capacity to unsettle the visitors with Clint Hill and Bobby Zamora both directing headers close to Wojciech Szczesny’s goal.

Hughes’ side were winning the midfield battle with Diakite, Barton and

Arsenal’s Laurent Koscielny (right) vies with Queens Park Rangers’ Scottish striker Jamie Mackie during their English Premier league football match, England on March 31, 2012. (AFP)

Shaun Derry eclipsing the efforts of Arsenal trio Alex Song, Mikel Arteta and Tomas Rosicky.

Arsene Wenger’s decision to field Aaron Ramsey in an unfamiliar left-sided role appeared misjudged with the Wales captain largely anonymous in the first half.

When Rangers finally took the lead, it was not simply the result of their greater determination, more a moment of genuine quality from Taarabt. The Morocco international received the ball with his back to goal and in one movement turned Arsenal defender Thomas Vermaelen outside the visitors’ area before advancing and plac-

ing a right foot finish beyond Szczesny.

Rangers fully deserved their lead and Arsenal appeared stunned. Arsenal, though, hit back and were level 15 minutes later as Walcott equalized after being set up by Van Persie. Rangers stood firm and when they did manage to press forward, they again exploited the vulnerability of the Gunners defence with Vermaelen again at fault in the build-up to the home side’s second. The centre back slipped at a crucial time, allowing James Mackie to break into the area and pull the ball back for Diakite who finished emphatically from 12 yards. -AFP

Bayern beats Nuremberg 1-0 to close Bundesliga gap Manchester City’s Mario Balotelli and Edin Dzeko wait for play to restart after Sunderland’s second goal during their English Premier League soccer match at The Etihad Stadium, March 31, 2012. (AP)

MANCHESTER, England: Manchester City staged a dramatic revival to draw 3-3 with Sunderland, but the late show couldn’t hide a clear case of title nerves at Eastlands on Saturday. Roberto Mancini’s side are now two points behind leaders Manchester United after just one win from their last four league matches and the champions can increase their advantage to five points with a victory at Blackburn on Monday.

After playing some superb football in the first half of the season, City have been hamstrung by some sloppy away displays of late, so they could ill-afford to drop points at home for the first time this season.

It could have been even worse as Sunderland led 3-1, thanks to two goals from Sebastian Larsson and a Nicklas Bendtner header, with only five minutes left.

But Mario Balotelli, who had scored a first half penalty equalizer, started the fightback in the 85th minute and moments later Aleksandar Kolarov lashed in the equaliser. The equalizer temporarily eased some of the tension around Eastlands but, as the rivalry with United at the top of the league intensifies, this was a desperately nervy performance from Mancini’s team.

The warning signs had been evident for City from early in the game, James McClean’s early volley being charged down by Micah Richards and Craig Gardner shooting into the side-netting from barely six yards.

Sunderland stunned City on the half-hour when they became the first team since December to score against them in the first half of a game.

Larsson got it, converting an expert right-foot finish as Vincent Kompany backed off and allowed the winger to choose his spot with a deadly right-footed shot.

That lead lasted just 12 minutes before referee Phil

Dowd handed City a disputed penalty kick after Edin Dzeko was tripped in the box by Gardner.

Balotelli calmly equalized from the penalty spot with a typically cool finish into the bottom right-hand corner. Yet Mancini was furious on the touchline when City were caught unprepared by a quickly-taken Larsson free-kick which sent Stephane Sessegnon away down the right in first half stoppage-time.

Sessegnon’s perfectly-weighted cross to the far post was met by Bendtner, outjumping Micah Richards, to head home emphatically.

It got worse for City after 54 minutes. Sessegnon played a superb pass which split City’s badly-organised defense and sent Bendtner racing clear.

The on-loan Arsenal forward waited long enough to draw in the remaining defenders before placing a pass to the far post where Larsson converted his second goal of the afternoon.

Mancini’s response was to bring on Carlos Tevez, in place of the increasingly ineffective David Silva, as City could sense their title aspirations disappearing.

Kolo Toure attempted, in vain, to start a recovery but headed well over from a James Milner corner.

Things were becoming desperate for City, their malaise illustrated when Balotelli and Kolarov openly argued with each other over who should take a freekick. Yaya Toure marched Balotelli away, leaving Kolarov to place his shot just wide of the mark.

Increasingly, City’s best hope appeared Tevez whose run and shot into the side-netting handed supporters a glimmer of hope after 68 minutes before he again forced Sunderland goalkeeper Simon Mignolet into action from 20 yards 10 minutes later. -AFP

BERLIN: Arjen Robben earned a labored 1-0 win for Bayern Munich over Nuremberg in the 184th Bavarian derby, moving his side within three points of Bundesliga leader Borussia Dortmund on Saturday.

Robben scored in the 69th minute, firing to the left of Raphael Schaefer after the goalkeeper saved Franck Ribery’s initial effort.

Bayern is three points behind Dortmund with six rounds to play. Bayern’s goal difference is seven better than Dortmund’s, putting the Bavarians’ league aspirations in their own hands ahead of the eagerly anticipated clash of the sides in Dortmund on April 11.

Bottom side Kaiserslautern looks doomed, 10 points from safety, after a 1-0 defeat at home to Hamburger SV, Cologne slipped into the relegation zone with a 2-1 defeat at Augsburg, Freiburg won 2-0 at Bayer Leverkusen, and Mainz won 3-0 at Werder Bremen.

Bayern will meet Dortmund in the German Cup final and has one foot in the Champions League semifinal after record-

ing a 2-0 win in Marseille in the first leg of their quarterfinal on Wednesday.

But its hectic schedule appears to be taking its toll as Bayern struggled to create chances against an obstinate Nuremberg side desperate for points after three losses in a row.

Robben had the best chance of the first half in the 34th minute, but the Dutchman was unable to direct his header on target.

It was the closest either side had come to scoring, with neither recording a single effort on target in the first half.

Bayern coach Jupp Heynckes sent on Bastian Schweinsteiger and Franck Ribery early in the second half, aware of the importance of capitalizing on Dortmund’s 4-4 draw with Stuttgart on Friday.

Mario Gomez was unlucky to have a goal ruled offside in the 66th, but the visitors found the breakthrough three minutes later when Toni Kroos capitalized on a Dominic Maroh mistake to send Ribery through. The Frenchman fired straight at the goalkeeper but Robben gave him no chance from the rebound.

Marcell Jansen’s 29th-minute effort was enough for Hamburg to ruin Krasimir Balakov’s home debut as Kaiserslautern coach.

Kaiserslautern’s chances of survival look slim after a club record 18 games without a win. Freiburg inflicted Leverkusen with its fourth defeat in a row, increasing the pressure on beleaguered coach Robin Dutt through goals from Julian Schuster and a fantastic strike from Marco Caligiuri.

In Bremen, Adam Szalai scored off the underside of the crossbar in the 19th, before Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting made it 2-0 after the break and then sealed the win in the 74th. Augsburg was the only team to win at home, Axel Bellinghausen laying the ball back for Koo Ja-Cheol to deservedly score in the 19th.

Lukas Podolski equalized in the 42nd, converting a penalty he earned under Daniel Baier’s clumsy challenge.

But Henrique Sereno brought Baier down at the other end a minute later and Nando Rafael converted the penalty for what proved to be the winner. -AP

Enrique denies Roma copying Barcelona

BARCELONA, Spain: Roma coach Luis Enrique denied on Saturday that he is trying to copy Barcelona with his side.

Enrique used to be a reserve team coach at Barca until taking over in the Italian capital last summer.

He has tried to encourage a passing and possession game with his players this season, prompting inevitable comparisons with the Catalan giants. But Enrique says it would be futile to try to copy Pep Guardiola’s team.

“I’m not trying to play like Guardiola or Barcelona. Repeating their style, with their players and their culture, would be impossible,” said the Spaniard. “The style of play that most leads you to victory is one that I think is an entertaining style and which the fans like. Our style of play is Roma’s style, which I brought here, but it’s not like Barcelona’s. Barca’s style has characteristics adapted to their players; ours is adapted to our players. It can be similar and correct and we don’t launch long balls. But we can’t play in a way in which a

player like (Lionel) Messi beats four or five players.”

Enrique has been trying this season to make the club competitive again. Roma had produced three second-placed finishes in four seasons from 2007-2010 but have since been struggling just to qualify for the Europa League.

This season they hold the last of those spots and lead Catania by two points, although perhaps more importantly, Inter Milan are three points behind.

On Sunday, Roma face second-bottom Novara in the lunch-time kick-off and Enrique admits to being concerned.

“I’m very worried about tomorrow,” he said. “I’m not happy about the time -- we’re not used to it. And on top of that, it’s not a match that’s already won. The players can’t afford to relax. I want to see the right mentality and intensity. Without that, Novara will be even more dangerous. We’ll need a lot of intensity and we’ll need to move the ball around a lot.” -AFP