April 15, 2012

SUNDAY, APRIL 15, 2012

@alwatandaily

Issue No. 1405

16 PAGES

www.alwatandaily.com

150 Fils with IHT

Early retirement to cost KD 4 billion

Lifting of Parliament-storming MPs’ immunity likely to be approved Mohammed Al-Salman, Mohammed Al-Khaldi, Osama Al-Qatari and Ahmed Al-Shemmari Staff Writers

KUWAIT: The government has informed the Parliament’s Finance and Economic Committee that the cost of amending Social Securities Law to allow early retirement will cost as much as 4 billion Kuwaiti dinars, which is considered to be too high for the Social Securities to bear; hence it will constitute a burden for the State Treasury. The early retirement package is meant for men who have served the government for 20 years and women who have been in active civil service for 15 years.

MP Adnan Al-Mutawa, a member of the committee, revealed that the committee is still examining parliamentary proposals to this effect and that it is seeking a compromise that can achieve the desired goal without undermining the financial status of the Public Authority for Social Securities.

He added that the Authority is expected to submit more information during a scheduled meeting today (Sunday). A rep-

Diplomats say Iran nuke talks show progress

ISTANBUL: Nuclear negotiators for Iran and six world powers were making encouraging progress in bridging differences that have doomed previous meetings meant to reduce fears over Tehran’s atomic program, diplomats close to the talks said.

But, in a reality check reflecting the gulf dividing the United States and Iran, a powerful Iranian official said his country had rejected an overture from Washington for a one-on-one meeting between the two delegations at the talks. He spoke after the morning plenary session broke and plans were being formed for bilateral encounters between Iran and its six interlocutors. “No bilateral talks with the US will be formed,” Alaeddin Boroujeddi, head of Iran’s powerful parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy told The Associated Press. “It is not Iran’s policy to have bilateral talks with the US Iran will talk to them on the multilateral level.”

Iran and the United States have not had diplomatic ties for 33 years, since militant Iranian students took American diplomats hostage in Tehran and relations have faced additional tensions since.

As the meeting broke for lunch, the diplomats cautioned against premature optimism about the outcome.

Still, they said the unfolding dialogue between the two sides suggested they would find enough common ground for a second round in several weeks’ time. More on 4

resentative of the Authority and the Finance Minister Mustafa Al-Shamali are due to attend the meeting.

Reportedly, the committee will compare these proposals with the status quo in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States, as well as deliberate over the merits and demerits of early retirement.

In another development, the Legal and Legislative Committee Rapporteur MP Mohammad Al-Dallal affirmed that the committee is likely to approve a request to lift the immunity of MPs accused of being implicated in the storming of Parliament.

Al-Dallal added that he personally backs the idea of removing the immunity of MPs involved in the case.

Reacting to a request by the Ministry of Interior to lift the immunity of MP Dr. Faisal Al-Mislem, MP Al-Dallal questioned the rationale behind such a request, affirming that it constitutes an unacceptable and dangerous precedent. He argued that the request should have been made by the Public Prosecution rather than the Ministry of Interior.

UN approves first observers for Syria

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

Food inspection campaigns continue

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Mali talks with mediator begin OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso: West African mediator Blaise Compaore began talks on Saturday with Malian politicians and the military junta that briefly seized power last month to resolve the country’s crisis. Compaore, president of Burkina Faso, said the talks in Ouagadougou were aimed at finalizing an accord reached last week for a return to civilian rule and finding ways to end a rebellion that has left the north of the country in the hands of Tuareg separatist and Islamist groups. Meanwhile the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which named Compaore its mediator, said it had asked regional leaders to approve a troop deployment to end the rebellion.

Compaore said the intention of Saturday’s talks was to agree on a roadmap to “ensure the proper functioning of republican institutions, restore territorial integrity and hold free and transparent elections in a peaceful and secure environment.” Compaore called on Malians to back the transitional government which is being formed “to strengthen the rule of law, respect republican values and maintain the integrity of the country.”

More than 80 people were taking part in the closed-door talks with Compaore in a conference hall in the Burkina Faso capital, including senior officials of the junta, parliamentary and regional leaders and religious heads. -AFP

China’s Ambassador to the UN Li Baodong votes during a Security Council meeting at the United Nations in New York April 14, 2012. The UN Security Council on Saturday unanimously authorized the deployment of up to 30 unarmed observers to Syria to monitor the country’s fragile ceasefire. (Reuters)

UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council voted unanimously on Saturday to deploy the first wave of UN military observers to monitor a fragile cease-fire between the Syrian government and opposition fighters. The vote marked the first time UN diplomats on the council all agreed on a resolution since the conflict began more than a year ago.

It calls on both sides to immediately “cease all armed violence in all its forms.” It also calls on the Syrian government to implement the six-point peace plan put forward by international envoy Kofi Annan, including the pull-back of troops and heavy weapons from cities and town. The resolution calls for the deployment of an advance team of up to

Madagascar passes amnesty law, excludes ousted leader ANTANANARIVO: Madagascar has passed an amnesty law that blocks ousted leader Marc Ravalomanana from returning to the island country, an official said on Saturday.

The law was passed without changes by overwhelming majorities in both the interim parliament and transitional government, but excludes human rights violations -- including murder -- from the amnesty.

“We are satisfied because we’ve been waiting for this law for ten years. It will advance the transition process,” said Lanto Rakotomavo, vice president of the High Transitional Council.

A roadmap to new elections brokered by regional bloc the Southern African Development Community was signed by the island’s main political factions in November.

It allows the return of exiled leaders, including Ravalomanana, who was ousted in March 2009 by current strongman Andry Rajoelina in an army-backed coup after weeks of protests.

The amnesty law has been seen as a key step toward allowing his return ahead of new polls, but the inclusion of “murder” implicitly excludes Ravalomanana from amnesty.

He had been sentenced in absentia in August 2010

to life in prison and hard labor for the deaths of some 30 opposition protesters killed by his presidential guard in February 2009.

Ravalomanana’s movement abstained from voting and left the chambers during the polls.

“We don’t agree with the personal interpretation of “human rights violations” because it does not conform to international convention. Isolated killings should not be included in the term “human rights violations”,” said Mamy Rakotoarivelo, who heads the former leader’s movement.

But Rakotomavo, who also leads Rajoelina’s party, disagreed.

“We just followed the indications of the Southern African Development Community, which in its recommendations includes murder under “human rights violations”,” she told AFP. Ravalomanana’s plane was blocked from landing on the island in January when he attempted to return from South Africa after three years’ exile.

An upcoming law on the status of former presidents should clarify his position.

UN experts will in May pronounce on the feasibility of elections planned for Nov. 30, which now seem increasingly unlikely. -AFP

See also 4

Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt get engaged after 7 years

Eat less meat to prevent climate disaster, study warns

Supporters of French Front de Gauche (FG) leftist candidate for the 2012 French presidential election, listen to his speech during a campaign meeting on April 14, 2012 at the Plages du Prado in Marseille, southern France. (AFP)

30 unarmed military observers to initiate contacts with both sides and begin to report on whether there has been “a full cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties.”

The council said it intends to immediately establish a larger UN supervision mission after consultations between Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Syrian government.

Deployment of a larger force will be “subject to a sustained cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties.”

Annan’s spokesman, Ahmad Fawzi, has said that Annan - who is an envoy on behalf of the UN and the Arab League envisions a mission with about 250 observers. -AP

LONDON: Meat eaters in developed countries will have to eat a lot less meat, cutting consumption by 50%, to avoid the worst consequences of future climate change, new research warns, reports The Guardian.

The fertilizers used in farming are responsible for a significant share of the warming that causes climate change.

A study published in Environmental Research Letters warns that drastic changes in food production and at the dinner table are needed by 2050 in order to prevent catastrophic global warming.

It’s arguably the most difficult challenge in dealing with climate change: how to reduce emissions from food production while still producing enough to feed a global population projected to reach 9 billion by the middle of this century.

The findings, by Eric Davidson, director of the Woods Hole Research Centre in Massachusetts, say the developed world will have to cut fertilizer use by 50% and persuade consumers in the developed world to stop eating so much meat.

Davidson concedes it’s a hard sell. Meat is a regular part of the diet in the developed world. In developing economies, such as China and India, meat consumption has risen along with prosperity.

“I think there are huge challenges in convincing people in the west to reduce portion sizes or the frequency of eating meat. That is part of our culture right now,” he said.

Researchers have been paying closer attention in the past few years to the impact of agriculture on climate change, and the parallel problem of growing enough food for an expanding population. Some scientists are at work growing artificial meat which would avoid the fertilizers and manure responsible for More on 11 climate change.

An image taken with a mobile phone shows a Yemeni army vehicle firing a rocket during fighting between army forces and militant supporters of the Al-Qaeda in the south Yemen town of Loder, in Abiyan province, on April 14, 2012. At least 222 people including 183 militants have been killed in five days of clashes around the strategic town of Loder which Al-Qaeda is trying to seize, a security official said. (AFP)

13

New North Korean leader emphasizes ‘military first’

PYONGYANG: Hours after a failed rocket launch criticized abroad as a covert test of missile technology, North Korea’s new leader underlined the country’s “military first” policy with a budget that allocates a sizable chunk of funding to defense spending.

North Korea’s legislature also formalized Kim Jong Un’s leadership of the country and promoted a host of younger military officials to the powerful National Defense Commission, state-run media reported Saturday, in a strong indication that the “military first” rule of the late Kim Jong Il will continue under his young son.

Still, Premier Choe Yong Rim told legislators the nation’s top priority is to build up the economy and improve the people’s standard of living, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency. North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly convened Friday for a special one-day session to ratify appointments and promotions, discuss this year’s budget and to make constitutional amendments to formalize Kim Jong Un’s leadership of the country.

Hours earlier, in a precursor to the gathering, North Korea defied the US and others by firing a long-range rocket that space officials said was mounted with an observational satellite despite warnings against pushing ahead with the More on 5 provocative launch.

Apple works on Mac malware fix but takes heat SAN FRANCISCO: The cybersecurity community raked Apple Inc over the coals on Wednesday, saying the company had dragged its heels on eradicating malware that experts say may have infected up to 600,000 Macintosh computers and can be used to ferret out sensitive user information.

The consumer electronics company said it was working on finding and ridding “Flashback” malware that exploits a flaw in Oracle Corp’s Java software. Apple has issued patches and is now developing software to detect and eliminate Flashback, it said on its website. The company declined to elaborate.

But Apple is catching heat for not having quickly addressed the issue, even after Oracle distributed its own patch in February.

Several security blogs accused Apple of having not been forthcoming in the past about security issues, but gave the company credit for stepping forward now.

“Someone in Apple has broken ranks following the recent revelations of a Jolly Big OS X botnet,” Paul Ducklin at security specialist Sophos wrote. “Apple has -- apparently for the very first time -- talked about a security problem before it had all its threat response ducks in a row.”

More on 12

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ALWATAN DAILY

kuwait

sunDAY, april 15, 2012

Government discusses recommendations Ali-Harbi returns home for terminated employees after eight years in Iraqi jails Mutairan Al-Shaman Staff Writer

KUWAIT: The issue of Kuwaiti employees who have been terminated will be discussed extensively during the weekly meeting of the Cabinet. Minister of Finance Mustafa Al-Shamali had submitted a request to pay allowances for those who were terminated from their jobs since June 30, 2011, in order to allow them and their families to live well until the issue is solved fundamentally.

Sources revealed that the government might extend the request to August 2011, in order to cover as many unemployed citizens as possible.

Other recommendations include exchanging non-Kuwaitis working at companies owned by Kuwait Investment Authority with Kuwaitis who have been terminated, prioritizing senior Kuwaiti employees who have been terminated in the projects of the development plan, the suspension of any legal action against the unemployed who are indebted, and refer-

ring those who have been working for over 20 years to retirement.

Regarding allowances, the Cabinet will discuss the allowances of employees working at Fatwa and Legislations, and the increases and allowances for those working at the customs and Kuwait Airways.

Meanwhile, Minister of Communications Salem Al-Othaina submitted the final report of the economy and legal ministerial committees concerning the privatization of Kuwait Airways draft law.

Organ trafficking is against law, ethics, religion: Expert Nancy Oteifa Staff Writer

KUWAIT: Organ trafficking seems to have become a common phenomenon in Kuwait and many other countries for at least the past decade. For this reason Al Watan Daily conducted an exclusive interview with Consultant Surgeon and Head of Kuwait Organ Procurement from Hamed AlEssa Organ transplant Center Mostafa AlMousawy. The surgeon spoke about organ transplantation and the different types of organ donation in the following excerpt.

How many types of organ donation is there?

Al-Mousawy: Yes, there are three types of donors. The first one is the living related donor; this is when someone brings some of his relatives or parents to donate. The second type is the unrelated donor and the third one is the deceased donor, which is when the donor is dead.

Does organ trafficking exist in Kuwait?

Al-Mousawy: Yes, people do take money for donation and we have been trying to fight this phenomenon because not only is it against international law, but also against Kuwaiti law of 1996 which stipulates that selling and buying of organs is prohibited.

And if the doctor is aware that the donor is charging money or if the patient is paying money, then the doctor should not proceed with the surgery.

Also on the international level, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) guidelines prohibits organ trafficking.There is also the Declaration of Istanbul.

In which cases occur organ trafficking?

Al-Mousawy: Organ trafficking could be found in both related and unrelated donors, but it’s mostly common between unrelated donors because for the lack of emotions between the patients and the donors.

But this changed now because the Ministry of Health in Kuwait had responded to the international course to cap down on commercialism. One of our demands was to have an independent committee for the living unrelated donors.

When was this committee formed?

Al-Mousawy: The committee was set last year.

How successful is this committee?

Al-Mousawy: The number of living unrelated donors accepted by the committee had decreased. Last year, for the first time in 10 years we had the largest number of living related donors and the smallest number of living unrelated donors. This shows that if we cut down or prevent unrelated donors, more and more people will bring their related donors.

How can we stop organ trafficking?

Al-Mousawy: Nobody knows beforehand if there will be money exchange or not, these things are usually done after the surgery under the tables. So it’s difficult to track organ trafficking.

What is the procedure that the donor has to do prior to donating?

Al-Mousawy: If someone comes to donate a kidney we first must make sure that he is not organ trafficking. If the donor is

Family members are seen waiting for Al-Harbi at Kuwait International Airport on Thursday, April 12, 2012. (Al Watan)

related he doesn’t have to pass through a committee, but if he is not related then he must be seen by the social worker who will take down the details of the donor, such as his salary information and if he is a resident or not.

The committee must be very cautious in choosing the donor and most of the time the unrelated donors are rejected.

If the donor is approved by the committee, then he has to go through several checkups to make sure that he is physically well and that he is fit to donate. The donor must not be diabetic or suffering from high blood pressure. And we also make sure that his renal function is normal. If the donor is deceased, we still must take permission from his parents or relatives to use his organs How many donations took place in 2011?

Al-Mousawy: In 2011, the total number of transplants was 69 kidneys, 28 were living related donors and 25 were living unrelated donors and 16 from the deceased donors.

Ali Al-Harbi is seen welcomed and carried on the shoulders of his family and friends upon his arrival to Kuwait on Thursday, April 12, 2012. (Al Watan)

Can people live with one kidney?

Mubarak Al-Shimmery

Al-Mousawy: People can live with one kidney and people can lose up to 80 percent of their kidney and still live normally.

Is organ donation done in any other hospitals in Kuwait?

Al-Mousawy: The donations is done only in this center What kind of transplantation do you do here in the center?

Al-Mousawy: In Kuwait we only make kidney and pancreas transplantation.

Staff Writer

KUWAIT: It was a great scene at Kuwaiti International Airport on Thursday evening where a crowd of people awaited eagerly for the Kuwaiti citizen Ali Al-Harbi, who spent eight years in the Iraqi jails.

When Al-Harbi arrived to the airport hall, waiters yelled “God the Greatest, God the Greatest”. AlHarbi was very emotional and cried tears of happiness. He expressed his gratitude and thanks through Al-Watan Newspaper to His Highness the Amir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad, His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad, His High-

ness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak, the minister of Foreign Affairs and the Kuwaiti Ambassador to Iraq Ali Al-Moumen as well as the Charge d’Affaires and all media means. He said that many things were changed here in Kuwait during the period that he spent in the Iraqi jails.

Meanwhile, his family members thanked His Highness the Amir of Kuwait, His Highness the Crown Prince and His Highness the Prime Minister for taking great interest in their son’s case.

The members also appreciated the effective role of the Kuwaiti ambassador to Iraq and the crew of embassy for exerting hard efforts to release him from the Iraqi jails.

KOC approves 7th Ring Road project Diplomats stress Kuwait’s participation in global events Abdullah Al-Shemmari Staff Writer

KUWAIT: A housing source informed Al Watan that Kuwait Oil Company has officially released the piece of land allocated for the 7th Ring Road project. The source added that the project will consist of 6,000 plots and that each plot will occupy 400 square meters.

The Public Authority for Housing Welfare began preparing the technical plans for the infrastructure of the 7th Ring

Road project.

Regarding those who had submitted housing requests, the source mentioned that the only requests that will be addressed are those made after the year 2000, since there are numerous requests that have been postponed which were filed before then.

The source expected that the coming few days will witness extensive meetings that will include representatives from housing, municipality, and KOC, in order to finalize some technical procedures regarding other projects.

Early retirement to cost KD 4 billion

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

The lawmaker mentioned that the committee had requested the presence of the Minister of Interior Sheikh Ahmad Al-Humoud Al-Sabah in the planned meeting today to listen to the reasons for requesting the immunity of Al-Mislem to be lifted.

He added that the committee members have been uncomfortable with the request.

Al Watan has learnt that the MPs accused of being involved in the storming of Parliament will attend said meeting. Reportedly, they will contend that their action is considered to be a triumph for the Constitution and a restoration for the dignity of citizens, as well as ask the committee to lift their immunity to face the charges leveled against them.

A source close to the committee disclosed that the Chairman of the Legislative Committee MP Waleed Al-Tabtabaie will not take part in the immunity-lifting vote, being one of the suspects involved in storming the National Assembly building.

Separately, MP Mohammad Al-Juwaihel advised two undersecretaries against attending a meeting to be held by Parliament’s Public Funds Protection Committee accusing the committee of being biased. According to the lawmaker, the testimony to be given by the two officials will not be considered due to the ill-intentions of certain members of the committee.With regard to the meeting involving Imams and the Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs Jamal Al-Shehab concerning the monitoring of mosques, certain Shiite lawmakers have hinted at unspecific constitutional measures against the minister if he yields to pressures being mounted on him.

MP Saleh Ashour asserted that he will make the convenient political decision after the minister responds to the questions he had addressed to him concerning his ministry’s slackness in building mosques for Shiites over the past fifty years.

Speaking to Al Watan, Ashour said, “I addressed ten parliamentary queries to the minister about the number of mosques built by the ministry for Shiites,” adding that there remains a set of unanswered questions about the ministry’s activities.

The lawmaker assertively declared that the Ministry of Awqaf is constitutionally and legally bound to build mosques for Shiites and should treat all citizens evenly and equally regardless of their affiliations and schools of thought.

In the same vein, MP Adnan Al-Mutawa accused the ministry of failure to bring all mosques under control, which implies that violations will continue.

Speaking to Al Watan, the MP stated that some sermons delivered by imams were insulting to certain sects, stressing that the minister should keep an eye on the mosques built by the government with public funds.

MADRID: A number of Kuwaiti diplomats said here on Saturday that participation of the State of Kuwait in various international events and cultural activities contribute to promoting its international attendance at the global level.

The diplomats said in remarks to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) on the sidelines of their participation in the international Christmas philanthropy market in Madrid today that Kuwait’s participation has been prompted by the Kuwaiti Ambassador to Spain Adel Hamad Al-Ayyar and his eagerness to deepen its presence worldwide in the Spanish society and promote its relations with other countries.

Second Secretary at Kuwaiti Embassy in Madrid and member of the Arab women diplomats in Spain Jawaher Al-Sabah expressed keenness of the State of Kuwait to participate in such markets in order to show Kuwait’s aspects of humanity and civilization, saying that the market is a good opportunity to strengthen the bonds of friendship between Kuwait with other

countries.

She said that Christmas is a rich environment for cultural exchange and a good opportunity to exchange expertise with other nations and peoples, noting that Kuwait has been keen to take part in such social gatherings so as to build bridges of communication and achieve greater human convergence with the Spanish society.

For her part, wife of the second secretary at the Embassy of Kuwait Mashael Al-Kandari said the revenue of the charity market, in which some 50 countries take part, will be directed to four charitable organizations and associations in Spain.

She expected that the Kuwaiti pavilion would attract a large number of visitors, thanks to the great efforts exerted by the Kuwaiti ambassador here Adel Al-Ayyar.

For her part, wife of Diplomatic Attache Kholoud Al-Moawwad said that the main objective of the Kuwaiti participation is to deepen the Kuwaiti presence in international fora, praising

Malta, Kuwait keen to develop bilateral ties

Kuwait’s Ambassador to Malta Faisal Sulaiman Al-Musaleem with the Governor of the Central Bank of Malta Joseph Bonche on Saturday, April 14, 2012. (KUNA)

VALLETTA: Kuwait’s Ambassador to Malta Faisal Sulaiman Al-Musaleem discussed here on Saturday with the Governor of the Central Bank of Malta Joseph Bonche the role of Kuwaiti investments in his country and distinguished bilateral relations.

Al-Musaleem told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that he discussed with

the governor means of bolstering economic ties between Kuwait and Malta.

He stressed the importance of exchange of visits between both countries’ officials for the sake of boosting reciprocal cooperation. He noted in this context that Bonche also praised the excellent role played by Kuwait’s development fund in his country. -KUNA

the huge turnout of visitors to the Kuwaiti pavilion.

Meanwhile, Spanish Princess Elena Maria Isabel de Bourbon praised on Saturday the “excellent” participation of the State of Kuwait in the international charitable Christmas market which was held in Madrid on Saturday.

The princess, the eldest daughter of the King Juan Carlos of Spain, also extolled the pavilion of the State of Kuwait, which offered a range of diverse traditional products.

This came during her visit to Kuwait’s pavilion in the market. The market is organized by international association of diplomats in Spain.

The Princess also exchanged cordial talks with Kuwaiti Ambassador in Spain Al-Ayyar, who reviewed the dimensions of Kuwaiti participation in this annual event and expressed his wishes for a speedy recovery to the King of Spain, who underwent surgery on Saturday.

The State of Kuwait participates in these activities annually. -KUNA

Manchester, Leeds Universities provide 9 seats for Kuwaiti students

LONDON: Head of Kuwait’s cultural office Dr. Mohammed Al-Hajiri said that there will be four available seats for Kuwaiti students interested in studying at the Medicine College in Manchester University, another four seats at the Dentistry College in the same university and an extra one at the College of Dentistry in Leeds University.

Al-Hajiri told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), on Saturday, that providing extra seats at the beginning of every academic semester is considered one of the challenges that face the cultural attach{ office in the UK. He clarified that the British educational system only allocates 5 percent to accept foreign students for every university. He further said that there are nearly 18 medicine colleges in the UK which is small number against the huge numbers of foreign students wanting to study medicine in the UK. Al-Hajiri noted that Kuwait’s Ministry of Higher Education has updated its list of the accredited UK universities in accordance to a “clear and specific” study that meets both the requirements of universities and students applying for them.

He also said that the cultural attach has passed to the Ministry of Higher Education a suggestion from the Kuwaiti Students Union to find advanced university programs for excellent Kuwaiti students to further enhance their academic aptitudes; a move similar to that taken to encourage Kuwaiti students in the United States. -KUNA

ALWATAN DAILY

KUWAIT

SUNdAY, april 15, 2012

Public Works Ministry completes 70 percent of new police college KUWAIT: The Ministry of Public Works announced, on Saturday, that 70 percent of the new police college building project has been completed, adding that it will be finished in August with a total cost of 45.5 million Kuwaiti Dinars.

Head of the project, Saeed Yousef Amir, told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that the new police college is located in G-1 area. It is spread over 304,284 square meters and designed to encompass more than 12,00 officers and 165 trainers.

The blueprint of the new building reflects old fashioned and Islamic architectural designs, Amir added. He further pointed out that local climate and cultural aspects were taken in consideration when designed the building.

The project consists of training halls, Olympic swimming pool, mosque, soccer field, running track, security towers, outdoors firing range and services building.

Amir added that dormitories, teaching and administration sections were within the 70 percent which were completed of the project. The new building also consists of outdoors areas that hold ceremony platforms for VIP figures and guests.

Furthermore, the new college parking lot can hold more than 2000 cars, inside and outside the college gates.

The new police college building is a reflection of local environment and traditions but with a twist of the 21st century’s latest technologies architecture, Amir pointed out. -KUNA

Photo of the new police college building project. (KUNA)

MANAMA: Kuwaiti leadership always strives to encourage the youth to innovate and create in order to hugely contribute to the rise of their community, Kuwaiti Ambassador to Bahrain Sheikh Azzam Al-Sabah said.

This remark was made late Friday when Sheikh Azzam received the Kuwaiti delegation participating in the Second Asian Scientific Forum held in Bahrain.

Head of the Kuwaiti delegation Tariq Shihab expressed his appreciation to the Kuwaiti envoy’s interest to meet with members of the delegation. He also praised Bahrain’s Ministry of Human Rights and Social Development for organizing this event.

The Second Asian Scientific Forum, hosted in Bahrain for the first time, was opened under the patronage of Supreme Council for Youth and Sport Chairman Sheikh Nasser bin Hamad Al-Khalifa.

The event aims at promoting scientific research and encouraging youth’s scientific, social and sport activities. -KUNA

Group Photo of Kuwaiti delegation participating in the Second Asian Scientific Forum held in Bahrain on Friday, April 13, 2012.

(KUNA)

Food inspection campaigns continues

KUWAIT: Director of Kuwait Municipality Ahmad Al-Sabeeh affirmed on Saturday continuation of surprise inspection campaigns on all warehouses, cooperative societies, supermarkets, coffee shops as well as butcher shops.

Al-Sabeeh told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that the municipal authorities will not be lenient toward transgression of the law or regulations of the municipality, adding that the intensified inspection campaigns are aimed at taking punitive action against various abuses and violations related to food products that cause adverse effects and serious harm to health and safety of consumers.

The inspection campaigns are held during morning and afternoon shifts, thus reflecting the municipal inspection teams’ readiness around the clock in order to combat the offenders.

These campaigns aim to check production and expiration dates of the product, as well as its ingredients, he said.

Al-Sabeeh lauded the inspection campaign launched by the Municipality of Al-Jahra Governorate in cooperation with the Public Relations’ department at the municipality and security support from the directorate of security at Al-Jahra, on the Fish Market as well as a number of other markets and food shops in Al-Jahra industrial zone.

The inspection campaign, among its latest works, recorded 12 violations and issued six warnings over unedible products.

-KUNA

This week in Kuwait’s History

1976: Kuwait’s National football Team wins the Fourth Gulf Soccer Championship in Qatar.

1978: Kuwait Radio begins broadcasting programs in Persian language.

1993: Kuwait University presents former US President George H.W. Bush with an honorary PhD in appreciation of his stance during the Iraqi occupation of the State of Kuwait.

1997: The Public Authority for Agriculture Affairs and Fish Resources implements a law that bans fishing for Zubaidi (pomfret).

2000: The Ministry of Health inaugurates the National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) Pediatric Hospital within the Al-Sabah medical complex.

2001: Kuwait allows citizens from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to enter and exit the country using personal ID cards at all land, sea and air ports.

2002: The Amir, Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, inaugurates the Ministry of Information’s three-day campaign to support the people of Palestine with one million Kuwaiti dinars.

2003: Kuwait Society for Child Care in Hospitals is declared.

April 16:

1961: First edition of “Al-Rai Al-Aam” newspaper hits the stands.

1962: Kuwait joins the United Nations (UN) Commission on Narcotic Drugs.

1972: The Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah issues Decree 24/1972 approving an agreement for pan-Arab transport of hearing and optical tools, publications and technical, cultural, educational and scientific equipment.

1985: Members of Parliament (MPs) present an interpellation against Minister of Justice and Legal and Administrative Affairs Sheikh Salman Al-Duaij Al-Sabah on financial irregularities.

2000: The Amir, Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, grants Lebanese President Emile Lahud the Mubarak AlKabeer Medal in appreciation for the Lebanese people and government’s support of Kuwaiti causes.

2000: Lebanese President Emile Lahud grants the Amir, Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, the Lebanese Order of Merit of the extraordinary grade for the stances of the Kuwaiti government and people regarding Lebanon.

2002: Kuwait shooting team wins second and third place in the World Cup Championship in Sydney, Australia.

2006: Official statistics issued by the Public Authority for Civil Information show the Kuwaiti population at one million people.

April 17:

Sheikha Amthal in Cairo for environmental preservation award CAIRO: Head of Voluntary Work Center in Kuwait Sheikha Amthal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah arrived here on Saturday to receive the prestigious award allocated by the Arab-European Organization for Environment for the best Arab women leaders in the field of environment.

Upon arrival in Cairo, Sheikha Amthal, speaking to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), expressed pride of the State of Kuwait for obtaining such an award from one of the specialized organizations in the environment affairs.

She added that winning such a prestigious award “reflects the role of Arab women in general and Kuwaiti women in particular in the community, especially in the field of preservation of the environment,” saying there is lack of interest in the Arab region of the role of women in the environmental field.

Sheikha Amthal expressed hope that the celebration, which will take place here tomorrow, would contribute to the achievement of environmental needs in the Arab region.

The celebration will take place at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo.

She stressed the need for a more powerful global legislation to reduce the environmental violations. -KUNA

Kuwaiti leadership encourages youth to innovate: Ambassador

April 15:

3

1964: The first execution in Kuwait’s history was carried out against an Omani convicted of killing his brother.

1966: Kuwait Handball Association was founded and joined the Kuwaiti Olympic Committee in 1970 where it became a member of the International Handball Association.

1977: Kuwaiti Ministerial Council decided to distribute average income residences where Public Authority for Housing constructed 226 houses in the Khayttan area.

1992: A Kuwaiti-Iraqi border demarcation committee completed the drawing of the final map of joint borders between the two countries.

1994: The Ministerial Council approved a draft decree on establishing the higher committee for economic reform.

2000: The late Amir, His Highness Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad AlJaber Al-Sabah accompanied by the Lebanese President Emile Lahoud inaugurated the Kuwaiti Scientific Center.

2000: The first International Kuwaiti Anti-Smoking Conference was held under the patronage of H.H the Crown Prince Sheikh Saad Al-Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah.

2001: Kuwait and the US renewed their 10-year old joint defense agreement.

1971: Article 35 of the Press and Publications Law is amended to read, “a newspaper cannot be delayed in its printing and a license cannot be revoked without a final ruling from the criminal court, and if the newspaper is to be banned from printing, it cannot be for a period longer than one year.”

1994: Minister of Communications and Minister of Electricity and Water Jassem Al-Oun officially inaugurates the Kuwait International Airport duty free.

1998: The Council of Ministers approves establishment of a social sciences faculty at Kuwait University.

2003: Kuwait Stock Exchange Index (KSE) rises by 41.8 points reaching a record of 3,187 since its foundation in 1983.

April 18:

1924: The first Kuwaiti literature club is established.

1942: Kuwait and Saudi Arabia sign the first trade agreement during reign of Sheikh Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.

1977: A decree is issued on law 86, 1977 to approve the agreement of establishing the International Fund for Agricultural Development which was signed by Kuwait in New York on March 4, 1977.

1983: An institution for settling forwarded deals on stocks is established as a public shareholding company, an offshoot of the ministry of finance.

1988: A Scud missile slams into oil compound in Wafra in Kuwait which is managed by the US “GT” company, but no casualties are reported.

1991: Amir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah issues a decree to form the 15th cabinet in the history of Kuwait which includes 20 ministers and is chaired by Crown Prince Sheikh Saad Al-Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah.

1991: The first edition of the daily “Al-Fajr Al-Jadeed” is issued to be the second newspaper issued following the war to liberate Kuwait. The editor-in-chief is Yousef Al-Olayan and Dr.Yaseen Al-Yaseen. The paper publishes for a year and eight months, till the minister of information decides to close it on December 31, 1992.

2000: Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) joins the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA) during its meetings in Moscow.

2003: “Al-Shuwaikh” seafront project is inaugurated.

2003: One of Kuwait’s prominent figures, Essa Abdullah Bahman, 72, passes away. He was a member in the parliament for three legislative terms in 1967, 1971, 1975 for the first constituency, “Al-Sharg”, and was also elected as a member in the municipal council in 1964.

2005: Energy Minister and Acting Health Minister Sheikh Ahmad Fahad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah lays cornerstone of the first specialized center for the care of children with incurable diseases in the Middle East named, “Beit Abdullah.”

1968: Construction of Al-Shuaiba refinery is completed and operation begins. The largest hydrogen-run oil refinery in the world for exporting products begins production of 95,000 barrels per day.

1972: The Amir, Sheikh Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, issues a law approving Kuwait’s membership in an agreement pertaining to payment of dues to trademarks and the movement of capital among the member states of the Arab League.

1983: The Amir, Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, issues a law on the combat of drug trafficking.

2000: National Assembly approves the national labor law with 51 MPs in favor, with nine abstentions.

2001: Abdulrazzaq Khalid Al-Zaid Al-Khalid passes away at the age of 71. He was one of the few Kuwaiti figures who took part in politics and private business. Al-Khalid was the first editor-in-chief of Al-Talee’a newspaper in 1962 and was elected as an MP in the first National Assembly in 1963.

2004: Fatat (girls) Club wins first place in overall team achievement at the Second GCC Table Tennis Tournament held in Bahrain, as well as second place in the doubles game and third place in the singles game.

2005: National Assembly unanimously approves draft law to amend several provisions of the housing care law and the private sector’s contribution in the construction of state property lands for housing care purposes.

April 19:

1961: A meeting is held at Seif Palace between the Amir Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah and the British resident politician in the gulf William Loss and the British representative in Kuwait John Richmond, where negotiations to abolish the 1899 agreement with Britain, takes place.

1964: The Kuwait Graduates Society is declared. Its aim is to serve all its members and consolidate relations among them.

1966: Law 29 of 1966 regarding the organization of higher education was issued, which specializes in everything related to higher education.

1969: An Amiri decree approving Kuwait’s membership to the Hague Convention of 1954, regarding the protection of artifacts during armed conflict, is passed.

1970: The first Yugoslav Ambassador to Kuwait presents his credentials to His Highness Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah.

April 20:

April 21:

1976: The Amir, Sheikh Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, issues law 18/1976 concerning organizing trade with sales prices.

1976: The Amir, Sheikh Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, issues law 19/1976 concerning abuse of phones and communication means, with a penalty of six months in jail or KD 100 fine or both in case of such violation.

1979: Gymnast Jawad Askar retires after a 15-year career.

Photo of Municipality inspectors checking food expiration om Saturday, April 14, 2012. (KUNA)

4

ALWATAN DAILY

regional

Attempted assassinations

By Hossam Fathi Staff Writer

KUWAIT: After Omar Sulaiman talked about opening the black box, several news agencies, such as Al-Ahram Newspaper, wrote articles about attempts to assassinate Sulaiman that occurred in the past.

Al-Ahram said that high level security sources revealed that a car that has four gunmen intercepted Sulaiman’s convoy and opened fire. However, Sulaiman’s guards managed to exchange fire with the gunmen and killed all of them, while one guard was killed in the assassination attempt. The gunmen did not carry any identification documents. Al-Ahram added that the futile assassination attempt took 10 minutes only, because a unit from the Republican Guard heard the gunshots and intervened.

MP and journalist Mostafa Bakri wrote an article about the same assassination attempt, and added that Mubarak had ordered an investigation to reach those who masterminded the assassination attempt. However, investigations revealed sensitive information about a certain person, which led to the suspension of the investigations. Bakri claimed that those who will benefit from the assassination of Sulaiman are those who do not want him to become vice president. Sulaiman was interviewed by Bakri, and revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood had threatened to assassinate him in the past. hossam@alwatan.com.kw Twitter:@hossamfathy66

NEWS IN BRIEF Airlines cancel activists’ flights to Israel JERUSALEM: A coordinator of a mass fly-in of pro-Palestinian activists into Israel’s main airport say airlines have canceled flights for at least 100 people. Amira Musallam said Saturday that activists notified her via email that Lufthansa, EasyJet and Air France canceled the flight reservations of some suspected activists. Musallam says she still expects hundreds to arrive, beginning Saturday evening and continuing through Sunday. The “Welcome to Palestine” project seeks to raise attention to how Israel controls access into Palestinian areas. Unless travelers give false information about their intention to visit such places, they risk being detained and questioned, sometimes for hours. -AP

Roadside bomb kills 2 policemen in Iraq BAGHDAD: Iraqi officials say a roadside bomb targeting a security patrol has killed two policeman in the western province of Anbar. An Iraqi policeman says the blast Saturday morning also wounded a policeman and destroyed a police vehicle in the Sunni-dominated town of Khaldiyah, 90 kilometers (55 miles) west of Baghdad. A medic at nearby Al-Ramadi general hospital confirmed the casualties. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information. Insurgents often launch attacks against security forces in an attempt to undermine Iraq’s Shiite-led government. -AP

Nearly 40% of Egyptians undecided ahead of vote CAPITALS: Nearly 40 percent of Egyptian voters are undecided less than six weeks before the first presidential election since the ouster of veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak, a poll published on Saturday found. A full 38 percent of respondents said they had yet to make up their minds which of the 23 candidates to vote for in the May 23-24 first round, the poll published by the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Yom found. The poll was carried out on April 10 by the Egyptian Institute for Public Opinion Research (Bassira) among a sample of 2,034 people aged 18 and over. Respondents were asked: “Who would you vote for if the election were held tomorrow?” -AFP

sunDAY, april 15, 2012

Syrian troops, rebels step up attacks, killing 9 BEIRUT: Syrian troops and rebel gunmen carried out attacks across Syria on Saturday, killing at least nine people in a surge of violence that threatened a UN-brokered cease-fire. The bloodshed came as the UN Security Council considered whether to send the first wave of military observers to monitor the fragile truce between the two sides.

The heaviest fighting was reported in the central city of Homs where regime forces shelled rebel-held neighborhoods, while rebel fighters fired rocket-propelled grenades at an area of regime loyalists. In Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, regime forces opened fire on mourners at a funeral, while rebel gunmen ambushed a car carrying soldiers in the southern province of Deraa.

The two sides have traded allegations of scattered violations since the truce formally took effect Thursday. However, Saturday’s reports of the use of heavier weapons suggested the ceasefire was coming under increasing jeopardy.

The cease-fire is at the center of a broadly backed peace plan by special envoy Kofi Annan. It is aimed at ending the 13-monthold conflict that has killed over 9,000 people and launching talks on the country’s political future.

Security Council votes

UN Security Council members prepared for a vote on Saturday after meeting behind closed doors for several hours the day before to discuss rival drafts by the US and its European allies and by Russia, Syria’s most important council ally.

Both called for the deployment of an advance team of up to 30 unarmed military observers to initiate contacts with both sides and begin to report on implementation of “a full cessation of armed violence in all its forms by all parties.”

Homs is one of the cities hit hardest by the regime crackdown on mass protests that erupted in March 2011 and sought President Bashar Al-Assad’s ouster. Sporadic shelling by regime forces began late Friday and continued Saturday, said the Britainbased Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group.

The Observatory said one civilian was killed, the first to die in a shelling attack since the cease-fire.

“I can see black smoke billowing from a building that was hit in Jouret El-Shayah,” local activist Tarek Badrakhan, based in the neighborhood of Khaldiyeh, told The Associated Press via Skype. Badrakhan said the body of the man remained in the street for several hours, with people unable to approach it due to the shelling and sniper fire. A video posted online by an activist said to be taken in Homs showed shells landing in a heavily damaged street. The Observatory said regime forces also fired mortar shells at neighborhoods in Homs throughout the day.

Syria’s state-run news agency SANA, meanwhile, said rebel fighters fired rocket-propelled grenades at the Homs neighborhood of Zahra, a stronghold of regime supporters. The agency said rebels fired two grenades, waited for people to gather and then fired a third, killing one person and wounding 12.

The regime restricts access of foreign observers, including journalists, making it difficult to verify reports of violence independently.

A handout picture released by the Syrian opposition’s Shaam News Network shows Syrians gathering during a protest against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in Dael close to the Syrian-Jordanian border on April 13, 2012. (AFP) Gunfire and raids

In the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest, four people were killed when security forces opened fire on a funeral procession, the Observatory said.

Also, troops conducted a wave of arrests in the Damascus suburb of Dumair, opening fire on a car that then exploded, killing one man and wounding two others, the Observatory said.

In the southern province of Deraa, rebel gunmen ambushed a car carrying soldiers, killing two, the group reported.

In other attacks blamed on rebels, SANA said gunmen kidnapped army Col. Mohammed Eid Saturday in a suburb of the central city of Hama while on his way to work.

It also reported that gunmen stormed the house of local politician Mohammed Ismail al-Ahmad in the northern town of Tin, shot and wounded him, then took him to an unknown location, SANA said. The agency said Ahmad had been planning to run for parliament.

Activists have reported a total of 17 people killed by regime forces since Thursday, while five people were killed in appar-

ent rebel attacks. Those numbers are still much smaller than the norm before the truce.

Gulf states to meet over UAE-Iran island row DUBAI: Gulf Arab states plan to meet next week to discuss a dispute between the United Arab Emirates and Iran which broke out after the Iranian president visited a Gulf island claimed by both countries, a source familiar with the matter said on Saturday.

Wednesday’s meeting of foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council will be held in the Saudi capital Riyadh, the source told Reuters.

“This will be an extraordinary meeting which was called for by the UAE following Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit,” the source added.

The UAE has recalled its ambassador to Tehran for consultations after what it called a “flagrant violation” of its sovereignty, the state news agency WAM reported.

Iranian state media said Ahmadinejad

Bombs hit disputed Sudanese town, official says RUBKONA, South Sudan: Sudanese planes bombarded a disputed oil town near South Sudan’s border on Saturday, a southern military official said, and a doctor said bombs aimed at strategic sites in South Sudan’s Unity State killed five people.

Col. Philip Aguer said Saturday that villages near the disputed oil town of Heglig fell under heavy aerial bombardment and that he expected ground fighting to resume “anytime” soon.

Troops from South Sudan on Wednesday captured the oil-rich border town that is claimed by Sudan.

Aguer said southern forces did not plan to give up the town, which lies along the ill-defined border between the two Sudans.

“As we speak now, the SPLA is still in full control of Heglig,” Aguer said, using the acronym for the southern army.

“There are many villages that are being bombed,” Aguer said.

“The Sudanese Armed Forces are conducting indiscriminate air bombardment by Antonov jetfighters, indiscriminate bombing of Heglig, bombing of oil installments. They are bombing SPLA positions by long-range artillery,” Aguer said.

Aguer could not say how many soldiers had been killed on either side. He said at least 19 South Sudanese soldiers and 240 Sudanese troops had been killed since the recent resumption of hostilities.

Heglig has been the focal point of more than two weeks of clashes between the two nations. Both sides claim the area, but Sudan operates Heglig’s oil facilities, which account for nearly half of the country’s daily production. The town is 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of the disputed region of Abyei, whose fate was left unresolved when South Sudan split last year from Sudan.

The UN Security Council demanded the withdrawal of South Sudan’s military forces from Heglig and an end to aerial bombing by Sudan of South Sudan. It also urged Sudanese Presidents Omar AlBashir and Salva Kiir to hold a summit to resolve their conflicts.

In Unity State, Bentiu Hospital medical director Peter Gatkuoth said bombs killed four civilians and a soldier Saturday. Jets released six bombs. They targeted a bridge that links Bentiu to a road into Sudan. Fighting erupted in between Sudan and South Sudan May of last year, just months before South Sudan formally declared independence from Sudan. The region was to hold a referendum in January to decide whether it stays with Sudan or joins a newly independent South. But the vote was postponed indefinitely amid disagreements over who would be eligible to vote.

The fighting has displaced more than 100,000 people, most of whom are still waiting to return. The continued clashes have dimmed hopes for a resolution between the two countries on a host of issues left over from their July split, including oil-sharing, citizenship issues and the demarcation of the border. -AP

visited Abu Musa island, some 60 km (40 miles) off the UAE, on Wednesday as part of a tour of Iran’s Gulf coast.

Both countries claim Abu Musa and two other small islands, located near key shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf. The islands have been held by Iran since 1971, shortly before the seven Gulf emirates gained full independence from Britain and formed the UAE. Ahmadinejad’s visit “is a flagrant violation of the United Arab Emirates’ sovereignty over its territory and a transgression of efforts to find a peaceful settlement to end Iranian occupation of the three UAE islands,” UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahayan was quoted as saying by WAM on Wednesday.

Abdullatif Al-Zayani, head of the GCC - a regional bloc grouping the six

Gulf Arab states - condemned the visit as “provocative” and a violation of UAE sovereignty.

The UAE also cancelled a friendly match with Iran’s national soccer team, due to be held on Tuesday in the Gulf Arab state. Iran rejected the protests and said Ahmadinejad’s visit was an “internal Iranian matter”.

Tehran said it was determined to improve bilateral ties and was ready for a dialogue with the UAE to resolve “possible misunderstandings”.

The UAE has urged Tehran to agree to take the dispute to the International Court of Justice in The Hague or to hold direct negotiations.

Iran says its sovereignty over the islands is not negotiable but has called for talks with the UAE to clear up “misunderstandings”. -Reuters

12 killed in militant attack in south Yemen SANAA: Al-Qaeda fighters attacked a security checkpoint in a southern Yemeni city on Saturday and killed four troops while losing eight of their own, a security official said. Militants in pickup trucks assaulted the security post in the outskirts of the port city of Aden, the official said.

Another three Al-Qaeda fighters and one security force member were wounded.

In a separate incident, militants kidnapped a senior intelligence officer and two soldiers in the town of Radda south of the capital Sanaa, another official said.

Officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized

to speak to the press.

Al-Qaeda, which has had a presence in Yemen for years, expanded its influence during last year’s political upheaval when millions of Yemenis rallied across the country demanding the ouster of their longtime ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh. The militant group seized control of several towns in the south during that time.

Saleh stepped down in February and the new president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has pledged to restructure the Yemeni army and purge it of loyalists to the former ruler in order to be able to combat the terror network.

Al-Qaeda has staged several successful assaults on ill-prepared and demoralized troops, but also appears to have suffered some significant defeats.

On Friday, the Yemeni Defense Ministry said that the death toll among Al-Qaeda militants in clashes in Abyan province had reached nearly 200. Armed civilians helped the military in the weeklong battle in several towns in Abyan including Lawder and Moudia.

Al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, is one of the movement’s most dangerous offshoots. -AP

Somali children queue for food ration at a feeding center in the southern Mogadishu district of Howlwadag on April 14, 2012. Though many countries around the world deployed aid to Somalia after severe drought in last year, many drought affected Somalis still need extra food supply. (AFP)

Weapons shipment

In Germany, the Der Spiegel weekly said the German government was looking into a report that weapons bound for the Syrian regime had been loaded on a German-owned ship. Der Spiegel said the Atlantic Cruiser was halted in the Mediterranean after its owners were warned it was suspected to be carrying Iranian military equipment to Tartus, Syria.

Der Spiegel quoted shipping agent Torsten Lueddeke of Hamburg-based C.E.G. Bulk Chartering as saying: “We stopped the ship after we received information on the weapons cargo.”

He said the ship was chartered to Ukraine-based White Whale Shipping, and that the Ukrainian company said the ship was carrying pumps and similar equipment. Neither C.E.G. nor the ship’s owner were immediately reachable. The German Economy Ministry said it looks into all suspected embargo breaches but didn’t yet have details of the case. -AP

Diplomats say Iran nuke talks show progress

ISTANBUL: Nuclear negotiators for Iran and six world powers were making encouraging progress in bridging differences that have doomed previous meetings meant to reduce fears over Tehran’s atomic program, diplomats close to the talks said.

But, in a reality check reflecting the Gulf dividing the United States and Iran, a powerful Iranian official said his country had rejected an overture from Washington for a one-on-one meeting between the two delegations at the talks. He spoke after the morning plenary session broke and plans were being formed for bilateral encounters between Iran and its six interlocutors.

“No bilateral talks with the US will be formed,” Alaeddin Boroujeddi, head of Iran’s powerful parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy told The Associated Press.

“It is not Iran’s policy to have bilateral talks with the US - Iran will talk to them on the multilateral level.”

Iran and the United States have not had diplomatic ties for 33 years, since militant Iranian students took American diplomats hostage in Tehran and relations have faced additional tensions since.

As the meeting broke for lunch, the diplomats cautioned against premature optimism about the outcome. Still, they said the unfolding dialogue between the two sides suggested they would find enough common ground for a second round in several weeks’ time.

One of the diplomats, who demanded anonymity because he was sharing information from a closed session, said the Iranians appeared to be moving toward that goal, engaging in discussion about the peaceful use of nuclear energy and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

He said the Iranian team had mentioned supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s “fatwa,” or prohibition, of nuclear weapons for Iran, in the course of the plenary discussions.

After lunch the meeting would go into bilateral sessions, he said - a setup that will be closely watched to see if the Americans meet directly with the Iranians.

Such encounters are rare and would indicate a further thaw in tensions at the talks.

“I would say there was a very constructive atmosphere compared to last time ... generally a positive vibe,” he said.

“The principle seems to be there for future negotiations.”

Another diplomat described the just-completed session as a “useful morning’s work,” saying the Iranians appeared to be looking for a “serious process” at the talks. He too demanded anonymity because his information was privileged.

A senior diplomat involved in the talks said that influential Western nations now are increasingly agreed that Iran should be allowed to keep some enrichment activity “under the right circumstances” - sometime in the future, if all fears about possible Iranian plans to make nuclear weapons are put to rest. He demanded anonymity because his information was confidential. -AP

ALWATAN DAILY

WORLD

sundAY, april 15, 2012

Americas summit to open marred by small blasts Washington would not legalize or decriminalize drugs

BOGOTA: US President Barack Obama was to open summit talks with fellow leaders of the Americas in this Colombian resort city Saturday hours after four small blasts occurred here and in the Colombian capital. Two of the crude devices went off in Cartagena just hours after the US leader arrived for the hemispheric talks set to focus on the vicious drug wars stalking the region as well as on Cuba.

Two other small bombs exploded near the US Embassy in Bogota, in an area which is also home to important government buildings.

“Nobody was killed, nobody was injured, and there was no damage,” a police official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The Bogota incident occurred at around 7:30 pm local time (0030 GMT Saturday), prompting police units to swarm into the area.

But the explosions were followed by two similar ones in Cartagena, host of the two-day Summit of the Americas.

“They occurred near a bus terminal and near a supermarket,” General Rodolfo Palomino of the Colombian police told reporters.

“There were no injuries and no damage.”

It was not immediately clear who carried out the bombings, but Bogota and other major cities have been the site of urban guerrilla attacks for decades.

The incidents did not affect preparations for the summit nor the dinner between Obama and his host Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos late Friday.

Two issues - the pros and cons of drug legalization and Cuba’s continued exclusion from the summit - were expected to dominate the summit agenda, highlighting the growing disconnect between Washington and an increasingly assertive and independent Latin American bloc led by powerhouse Brazil.

Members of the Technical Investigation Corps (CTI) of the Colombian Attorney investigate the area where unknown assailants activated an explosive device near the US Embassy in Bogota, Colombia on April 13. (AFP)

Before leaving Washington, Obama made it clear in an interview with an association of leading Latin American newspapers, that he rejects the idea of decriminalizing drugs.

Washington would not “legalize or decriminalize drugs because doing so would have serious negative consequences in all our countries in terms of public health and safety,” he said.

On Cuba, he insisted that Havana authorities “have shown no interest in changing their relationship with the United States, nor any willingness to respect the democratic and human rights of the Cuban people.”

Cuba has never taken part in a Summit of the Americas. And in early March, Colombian

President Juan Manuel Santos traveled to the Cuban capital to explain that a lack of consensus had prevented Cuba from being invited this time.

Havana’s exclusion however prompted Ecuador’s Rafael Correa to stay away while Bolivian President Evo Morales said on arrival Friday that he was convinced the summit would be “the last without Cuba.”

There was also uncertainty about the attendance of Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, who is being treated for cancer.

In an embarrassing incident, some Secret Service agents sent to help protect US President Barack Obama at the Cartagena summit

NEWS IN BRIEF

were sent home amid accusations of a sex scandal, officials and reports said Friday.

“There have been allegations of misconduct made against Secret Service personnel in Cartagena, Colombia prior to the president’s trip,” Secret Service special agent in charge Edwin Donovan said in a statement.

He did not specify the allegations, saying the agents had been replaced and stressing it would not endanger Obama’s security.

But at least one of the agents had been involved with prostitutes in the Colombian resort city, The Washington Post said, quoting an official with the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association.

The summit was also to tackle regional integration, reducing poverty and inequality, immigration, combating transnational crime and increased access to technology.

But uppermost in their minds will be whether to rethink the fight against drugs, which are creating havoc across the region.

Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina told AFP that he would put forward a proposal to open a high-level dialogue to seek new strategies to combat drug trafficking, including decriminalization and regulation of the drug market.

He added that he would discuss the issue with other central American leaders on the sidelines of the summit Saturday.

But Obama said in his interview that Washington would not “legalize or decriminalize drugs because doing so would have serious negative consequences in all our countries in terms of public health and safety.”

Late Thursday, Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman said he was hopeful of securing from the summit a “new manifestation of solidarity” with Buenos Aires in its dispute with London over the Falkland islands.

Argentina and Britain this month marked 30 years since they went to war over the disputed South Atlantic islands. -AFP

Standoff near Philippines over, Chinese boats keep catch

A view of Chinese surveillance ships in a standoff with a Philippine warship on the Scarborough Shoal after eight Chinese fishing boats were caught poaching in the disputed territory. (AP)

MANILA: Chinese fishing boats left a disputed area of the South China Sea with their catches on Saturday, ending a six-day standoff but dealing a blow to Philippine efforts to assert sovereignty over the area and protect marine resources.

The Philippines had wanted the Chinese fishermen to hand over their hauls of giant clams, corals and live sharks harvested near the disputed Scarborough Shoal, in return for safe passage out of the area.

China sent surveillance ships to protect its fishermen while the Philippines dispatched its biggest warship.

Negotiations dragged on and all eight boats left without giving anything up.

“The Chinese fishing vessels had left the lagoon, a development which we had been working towards except for our not being able to confiscate their ille-

gal harvest ... which was regrettable,” Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Del Rosario said in a statement.

China has disputes with several countries in the region including the Philippines over areas of the South China Sea, which is believed to be rich in oil and gas and is crossed by important shipping lanes.

There is concern among some neighbors about what they see as China’s growing assertiveness in staking its claims over the sea and various islands, reefs and shoals. The Philippines and China traded diplomatic protests over the latest confrontation with the Philippines complaining of intrusion and illegal fishing and China saying its fishermen were harassed.

A Philippine military commander said a Philippine coastguard vessel and one Chinese ship remained in the area. -Reuters

New North Korean leader emphasizes ‘military first’ PYONGYANG: Hours after a failed rocket launch criticized abroad as a covert test of missile technology, North Korea’s new leader underlined the country’s “military first” policy with a budget that allocates a sizable chunk of funding to defense spending.

North Korea’s legislature also formalized Kim Jong Un’s leadership of the country and promoted a host of younger military officials to the powerful National Defense Commission, state-run media reported Saturday, in a strong indication that the “military first” rule of the late Kim Jong Il will continue under his young son.

Still, Premier Choe Yong Rim told legislators the nation’s top priority is to build up the economy and improve the people’s standard of living, according to the staterun Korean Central News Agency.

North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly convened Friday for a special oneday session to ratify appointments and promotions, discuss this year’s budget and to make constitutional amendments to formalize Kim Jong Un’s leadership of the country. Hours earlier, in a precursor to the gathering, North Korea defied the US and others by firing a long-range rocket that space officials said was mounted with an observational satellite despite warnings against pushing ahead with the provocative launch.

In a rare admission, North Korea announced on state TV that the bid was a failure, with the satellite failing to reach orbit.

International condemnation was swift,

including the suspension of US food aid, and there are concerns that the North’s next move could be even more provocative: a nuclear test.

The UN Security Council denounced the launch as a violation of resolutions that prohibit North Korea from developing its nuclear and missile programs. The council imposed sanctions on North Korea after its

first nuclear test in 2006 and stepped up sanctions after its second in 2009.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the launch “deplorable” and urged North Korea “not to undertake any further provocative actions that will heighten tension in the region,” UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said.

President Barack Obama said North

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (center) inspects the North Korean Air Force unit 1017. Media reports on April 13 state that the failure of the North Korean rocket launch on April 13 could possibly cause problems for Pyongyang, as they are holding high-profile political events before the formal celebrations to mark Kim Il-sung’s birthday on April 13. (EPA)

Korea’s failed rocket launch shows the country is wasting money on rockets that “don’t work” while its people go hungry.

He said the US will work with other nations to “further isolate” North Korea.

North Korea spent an estimated $850 million to build the rocket and a new west coast launch pad, South Korea’s Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik said at a parliamentary hearing Friday. The World Food Program says at least 6 million North Koreans - a quarter of the population - need outside food aid to supplement diminishing statesupplied rations.

North Korea had trumpeted the launch of its Kwangmyongsong, or Bright Shining Star, satellite as a civilian scientific achievement and a gift for late North Korea founder Kim Il Sung - Kim Jong Un’s grandfather - in the run-up to celebrations marking his 100th birthday Sunday.

Space official Ryu Kum Chol told reporters earlier in the week that the satellite was designed to send back data about weather conditions and conduct landscape surveys to help pinpoint natural resources.

However, experts say the Unha-3 carrier is the same type of prohibited rocket that would be used to strike the US and other targets with a long-range missile.

On Saturday, South Korea’s Navy deployed about 10 warships to scour the Yellow Sea in search of rocket debris, a Defense Ministry official said. He refused to provide further details and asked not to be named because the sensitive mission was still under way. -AP

Indonesia finds missing asylum seeker boat

JAKARTA: Indonesian authorities said they had found a boat reported missing en route to Australia and that the dozens of asylum seekers it was carrying were believed to have fled. Authorities had been searching for the boat since the mostly Afghan asylum seekers on board made a distress call to Australia on Wednesday, saying they were in rough seas and their boat was sinking.

Refugee advocates who said 60 asylum seekers were on board alerted Australian authorities, who passed on the information to Indonesian officials. Indonesian authorities said they had located the missing vessel late on Friday on Lombok island, which lies just east of the popular resort island of Bali,

although residents said they spotted the asylum seekers on Wednesday. “People in Lombok informed us that they saw the boat arrive on the shore on Wednesday, and that people came ashore and ran off,” Nanang Sigit, a search and rescue official in West Nusa Tenggara province told AFP. “We were not alerted immediately, so we only found the boat Friday night.We’re now working with police and are conducting a search on the island.” Ian Rintoul of Brisbane-based Refugee Action Network told AFP he believed the vessel was still out at sea as late as Friday, when he last spoke to the asylum seekers via mobile phone.

“If they found a boat on the island Wednesday, then it’s

not the right boat,” he said. “When I spoke to them last, I could hear the wind and water in the background. They said the boat had taken a lot of water.” Indonesian officials said they were calling off the search for the vessel, apparently satisfied they had found the right boat.

“Residents told us they saw more than 50 people of Afghan appearance get off the boat and run, so we decided to stop searching the sea,” Sigit said.

An AFP correspondent saw the boat on Bumbangku beach in southern Lombok, saying the 10-metre (yard) long wooden vessel had a fine crack about seven meters long along its floor, and that water had seeped through. -AFP

5

Gunmen kill seven Shiites in southwest Pakistan ISLAMABAD: Gunmen on Saturday shot dead seven Shiite Muslims in two separate incidents of sectarian violence in Pakistan’s troubled southwestern city of Quetta, police said. The drive-by shootings took place in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province bordering with Iran and Afghanistan. “Two gunmen riding a motorbike opened fire on a taxi cab killing five Shiite Muslims and wounding another person,” local police official Ameer Muhammad Dasti told AFP. -AFP

Afghan peace council gets new chairman KABUL: The son of a former Afghan peace council chairman killed by a suicide bomber has been elected to succeed his father as head of the group tasked with finding a political resolution to the decade-long war. A statement from the Afghan president’s office said that the 70plus members of the Afghan High Peace Council on Saturday elected Salahuddin Rabbani to lead the group. Rabbani is the son of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani who was killed Sept. 20, 2011, in his home in Kabul by a suicide bomber posing as a peace emissary from the Taliban. -AP

Pakistan avalanche rescuers excavate new site ISLAMABAD: Pakistani troops began excavating a new site in their search for 138 people buried by an avalanche at a highaltitude army camp despite a fresh slide in the area, the military said on Saturday.

A week ago a huge wall of snow crashed into the remote Siachen Glacier base high in the mountains in disputed Kashmir early in the morning, smothering an area of one square kilometer (a third of a square mile). A fresh slide at the same site created difficulties for troops conducting search operations in low temperatures, intermittent snowfall and blizzards, the military said in a statement, without specifying the date of the new slide. -AP

Afghan woman MP sets sights on presidency KABUL: Condemned to die shortly after birth for being a girl, outspoken Afghan member of parliament Fawzia Koofi lived to become a champion of women’s rights and is now eyeing the presidency in 2014.

The 36-year-old expects harsh opposition, threats of violence and pressure against her family as her campaign gets underway to replace Hamid Karzai, who must step down that year after serving the constitutional limit of two consecutive terms. “I am sure my campaign will be the noisiest.

I will have lots of troubles against me,” the politician from the country’s remote northeastern Badakhshan province told Reuters in an interview this week. -AP

Afghan, NATO forces attack insurgents in east

KABUL: Afghan forces with air support from NATO combed through the country’s mountainous northeast in their third day Saturday of a major offensive against militants in a province that serves as an insurgent supply route from Pakistan.

Mohammad Zareen, a spokesman for Nuristan province, said nearly 30 insurgents have been killed and at least 30 have been wounded in the operation that began Thursday night in Kamdesh district, a hotbed of the insurgency.

The offensive comes at the beginning of Afghanistan’s spring fighting season. The government and the US-led coalition are expected to step up their operations as temperatures warm across the nation.

“Kamdesh is an important and strategic place for insurgents in eastern Afghanistan,” Zareen said. “It’s the main way for insurgents to supply insurgents across eastern Afghanistan. Unfortunately, we have control of some parts of Kamdesh, but not all.”

Afghan officials say that one policeman and a woman have been killed in the fighting, with another four Afghan soldiers and another woman wounded.

A unit of an unknown number of Afghan commandos and about 400 Afghan policemen are conducting the operation, and another 200 police are soon to join them. -AP

6

ALWATAN DAILY

OPINION

sundAY, april 15, 2012

Arabic becomes an alien language as it was alien before Khalil Ali Haydar

I

f any country wishes to include the English Language learning as part of its syllabus, there would readily be available a variety and a diversity of materials to pick and choose either for speaking, listening, writing or reading skills. Even if grammar only or perhaps comprehension skills are sought after then the educators would find a complete list of sources to develop the materials they need.

Unfortunately, we can not say the same thing about the Arabic Language. Arabic is one of the most vibrant and important languages in the world. And yet, the language remains a nightmare for many students all over the Arab world. It is remarkable that the standard and authoritative Arabic references and materials remain outdated, bad prints and certainly full or misprints and typos.

Many countries in the world have been interested in the Arabic language and especially Islamic countries. Some Muslim countries have made it compulsory on pupils at an early stage of their schooling to include Arabic Language for religious reasons because they believe their languages; Farsi, Turkish or Urdu have taken and borrowed a lot from the Arabic Language throughout the years.

It is hardly surprising therefore to see Turkey for example trying to improve the Arabic curriculum in a tailor made fashion which suits their own education requirements and demands. The Arabic Language is now officially part of the Turkish curriculum with a proper and solid syllabus.We should not be surprised therefore if soon we read that the Turkish educational authorities advertising for training courses for future Arabic teachers. Arabs will end

True charity is done anonymously

The Turkish educators were also keen to have Turkish language centers in different capitals in the Arab world such as Beirut and Cairo and some of the Balkan states.

up travelling to Istanbul or Ankara to improve their own language.

It was in 2011 when the Ministry of Education in Turkey made its historic decision and that means one year ago only. The decision states the Arabic Language would be taught in elementary and secondary schools either as an optional or compulsory subject. Other languages were also introduced such as Spanish, Italian, and Chinese. The idea of course is that Turkey would be opened up for all important countries and therefore the language medium would be equally important.

The Turkish educators were clear to make the learning process a two way system. Aside from learning Arabic as a language, students may also learn how to translate from Turkish to Arabic and vice versa.

The Turkish educators were also keen to have Turkish language centers in different capitals in the Arab world such as Beirut and Cairo and some of the Balkan states.

They were even keen to renovate some of the old Ottoman relics in Lebanon.

Lecturer in Arabic Language in Al-Ghazi University in Turkey and the person in charge of introducing and preparing a new Arabic syllabus as well as coordinating the ambi-

tious plans for Arabic to Turkish translation and vice versa, which has already been up and running for the past years, Dr. Mohammad Haqqi said in an interview by the Al-Arabi Magazine produced and published here in Kuwait.

Lebanese journalist Susan Al-Abtah conducted the interview during which Dr. Haqqi who said that the common approach in the Arab world for teaching the Arabic language is to teach grammar and translation. He added that in his opinion that such an approach is primitive and extremely conventional and therefore they were discarded by him when developing the curriculum. He explained that a more communicative approach has been adopted as it is a modern way of teaching languages pursued by European educational institutions. Such an approach has been adopted by the Turkish educators and then applied carefully.

Dr. Haqqi said further that the British Council has been using such approaches for many years and that it has been proved to be successful. Similarly, the German Institute Goethe also follows a similar approach.

He was asked by Al-Aftah if such an approach may be taught to Arabs as well, to which Dr. Haqqi said it would be ideal because Arab people need to learn the Standard Arabic, or the Classical, as if it is a second language.

Today in Turkey, there are 493 schools only for religious education where imams and preachers may learn the appropriate way of speaking and delivering Arabic in their sermons. There are about 5000 words in the Turkish language derived from the Arabic language. The number of students who enrolled to become imams and preachers is estimated to reach a quarter of a million so far.

Asked about the amount of works and literal productions translated from Arabic into English, Dr. Haqqi said that unfortunately that not many works are translated into Turkish even though the Turkish people have high respect to the Arabic language. He said that there are some novels written by some Egyptian novelists which were translated into Turkish but the level of translation was so bad that they were translated again but this time from the English translation.

Dr. Haqqi said that the new project TIDA is greatly appreciated, which is the new translation system adopted for the purpose of translating Arabic into Turkish and vice versa.

He believes that the translation work would be more productive and professional. He pointed out that so far more than 100 books related to Turkish literature had been translated thus far and that more is expected soon.

This is important news by all imaginations and now many of us wonder if such ambitious plans would be adopted by us and try to translate works of significance and importance in terms of religion and literature or whether it is a case of being happy with the Turkish cuisine and if that should be enough.

BU QUTADA & BU NABIL

Bu Qutada...Get up...

Get up...A thief sneaked into the house

In our history books and traditions, there are many tales and stories which explain exactly the true nature of charity and good deeds.

Local media should be supported by cadres

It’s OK. This is the one who came here yesterday to steal. He has just been released from prison...

Remand law has been amended

The media is the medium in which people get to know the latest information and news.

Fatima Hussein

Dr. Essam Abdulatif Al-Fulaij

K

W

e are in the habit of expressing our pride and joy when it comes doing charity work or good deeds. But we also get in the habit of bragging about it too as if such benevolent deeds are the sole works of us not the Almighty God who graciously and generously grant us all these blessings to enjoy.

In our history books and traditions, there are many tales and stories which explain exactly the true nature of charity and good deeds. Perhaps the most interesting story which indeed has attracted my attention is the story of a certain ascetic who went by the name of Ahmad bin Maskeen.

Bin Maskeen was one of the tab’ieen, Muslims who met with the Companions of the Prophet Muhammad Be Peace Upon Him which means the second generation of the true followers of the Prophet PBUH. The story goes like this: Once upon a time there was a fisherman called Abu Nasr Al-Sayyad who lived a life of abject poverty. He was married with one son.

One day, he was walking down in one of the alleys thinking about his misfortunes and the miserable life he was leading. He had no provisions to feed his wife and son. Suddenly Sheikh Ahmad Bin Maskeen saw the man and realized what he was going through.

Bin Maskeen asked the man to follow him to the sea. The poor fisherman was asked to pray and ask God for better sustainment. The man did exactly that and then threw his fishing net. To his surprise, he caught a big fish. The poor man hurried quickly to the market. He sold the fish and bought some food for his family and some for the stranger who gave him a good advice. But Bin Maskeen refused to take any of this saying that if he had thought to get something out of this, the fisherman would most probably never have caught the fish.

The fisherman went back home to his disgruntled family hoping to bring the smile back to them.

But then he heard some people calling his name. He stopped and then a man asked if he was Abu Nasr AlSayyad. He replied affirmative and then the fisherman had the shock of his life when the man told him that he had borrowed some money from his father and that he now intends to give it back to him as he needed some time to collect the handsome 30,000 Dirhams.

Al-Sayyad said that he became extremely rich and that the life of poverty was all past and gone. The now rich merchant forgot about his past and tried to live the life of the rich. He had reached a state of self-denial and never became Godly as he was supposed to. He stopped becoming charitable as his fortune grew.

But one day, he had a dream and it was the words of Ahmad Bin Maskeen who told that if he had any intention to share the booty with him, he would never have caught the fish. The fisherman realized his mistake and decided to live a charitable and Godly life with the words of Maskeen ringing in his ears.

Bu Qutada...Your car has been stolen...Someone is starting it...

Look..This guy wants to kidnap me.

Mohmmed Thallab

It’s OK. This is the one who stole Qutada’s bicycle...He has just been released from prison..The law has just been amended.

Wonderful...We have relaxed remand law so as to release criminals and get rid of you.

mthallab@alwatan.com.kw

uwait is considered to be one of the very few countries which enjoy a good degree of freedom of expression both in saying and action, written and verbal, audio and visual, individuals and masses, a freedom that is only controlled and restricted by morals and social ethics.

There is no doubt that the local and national newspapers, printed and electronic, have been playing a positive role in this regard making them like welfare centers because they link and interconnect all state departments on the one hand and the legislative authorities on the other.

The media is the medium in which people get to know the latest information and news. It contributes to the cultural, social, political and economic learning process of us individuals and in many ways function on behalf of the people to fend off danger and curtail serious risks and therefore end up paying a fine in lawsuits or otherwise simply because they dared to publish something for the benefit and convenience of the readers.

I therefore believe that the government should look into the National Media Center because of the significant role it plays. The center functions as a rich source of information within the scope of culture, social matters and politics as well as the issue of national unity and the policy of reinforcement in the country.

We need to redefine the so called welfare centers. In my opinion they are not welfare in the truest sense of the word. They are more likely to be compared with proper state institutions such as the Chamber of Commerce for example.

The government needs to look into the role and function of such media centers after careful study and scrutiny. All policies including the localization of labor followed and pursued by the government in various sectors and departments, should also be applied to this particular aspect.

It needs to boost this particular element because the role of the media in any society cannot be minimized or underestimated.

It has been obvious for many to see that the national and government media outlets are getting closer to the private sector for more cooperation and coordination and this is naturally wonderful news because this will always boil down to the interest of the country and its people alike.

Such cooperation would certainly ensure that the best level of media and the best outcome are guaranteed. Therefore, in my opinion the government needs to think seriously about introducing a proper employment grading for the people working in the media sector so that they do their work in the best form possible.

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ALWATAN DAILY

views

sunDAY, april 15, 2012

The problem of priorities

Policymakers and philanthropists need access to regularly updated information on how to use limited funds effectively.

Bjørn Lomborg

Project Syndicate

T

his decade has seen remarkable progress against humanity’s greatest challenges.

Consider the declaration of victory over polio in India, which seemed impossible ten years ago. January marked one year since the country’s last reported case. Or look at the strides made against malaria: over the past decade, the number of cases has been reduced by 17 percent, and the number of deaths has dropped by 26 percent.

Despite global population growth and economic crisis, absolute poverty – the proportion of people living on less than 1.25 US dollars a day – is falling in every region of the world. In fact, the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme poverty in half has been achieved five years ahead of time.

Just a few years ago, the use of male circumcision as a tool in the fight against HIV/ AIDS was largely unknown.

Today, UNAIDS and the World Health Organization recommend it as a means to combat HIV/AIDS, and more than ten African countries are implementing strategies to increase its availability. Similarly, the concept of using geo-engineering to respond to climate change has moved from science fiction to an area of serious research.

This decade has also witnessed a 60 percent increase in global development aid. Bill Gates’s Giving Pledge challenge has graduated from concept to campaign, with at least 125 billion US dollars promised to good causes.

But, while the last decade has given much reason for cheer, there are areas in which we cannot claim such success. Climate change has emerged as one of the most talked-about problems, yet global negotiations have fallen apart, and we are barely any closer to cutting carbon emissions than we were ten years ago.

Similarly, violent conflicts continue to take a toll that is far too high. And, while the world met the Millennium Development Goal for providing clean drinking water five years early, the provision of sanitation has fallen behind: an astonishing one-third of the world’s population, 2.5 billion people, lack access to basic sanitation, and more than one billion people defecate in the open.

Other problems have emerged and grown over the decade. If current patterns continue, tobacco use may account for some 10 million

Hundreds of doctors and health care workers protest in La Paz, April 10, 2012. (Reuters) deaths per year by 2030, with most occurring in low- and middle-income countries: we might see roughly one billion tobacco-related deaths in this century, compared to 100 million in the twentieth century. Cardiovascular diseases account for 13 million deaths in low- and middle-income countries each year, more than a quarter of the entire death toll, and risk factors are growing.

The state of challenges facing humanity changes rapidly. So does our knowledge of how best to respond. Policymakers and philanthropists need access to regularly updated information on how to use limited funds effectively.

The Copenhagen Consensus project, which I direct, provides a link between academic re-

The rise of lousy and lovely jobs Chrystia Freeland Reuters

M

ore bad news for the middle class: When the economy recovers, jobs in the middle won’t. That is the conclusion of an important new study that connects a long-term trend in the labor market with the business cycle of recession and rebound.

Nir Jaimovich, an economist at Duke University, and Henry E. Siu, an economist at the University of British Columbia, take as their starting point one of the most important continuing changes in Western developed societies. That shift is what economists, most notably David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have called the “polarization” of the job market. Maarten Goos and Alan Manning, extending the research to Britain, have more colorfully dubbed it the dual rise of “lousy and lovely” jobs.

Their point is that, thanks to technology, more and more “routine” tasks can be done by machines. The most familiar example is the increasing automation of manufacturing. But machines can now do “routine” white-collar jobs, too - things like the work that used to be performed by travel agents and much of the legal “discovery” that was done by relatively well-paid associates with expensive law degrees.

The jobs that are left are the “lovely” ones, at the top of the income distribution - whitecollar jobs that cannot be done by machines, like designing computer software or structuring complex financial transactions. A lot of “lousy” jobs are not affected by the technology revolution, either - non-routine, manual tasks like collecting the garbage or peeling and chopping onions in a restaurant kitchen.

An extensive body of economic research has shown that job polarization is happening

throughout the Western developed world. It accounts for many of the social and political strains we have experienced over the past three decades, particularly the increasing divide between the people at the top and at the bottom of the economic heap, and the disappearance of those in the middle who were once both the compass and the backbone of our societies.

What’s new about Jaimovich and Siu’s work is that they have found that job polarization isn’t a slow, evolutionary process. Instead, it happens in short, sharp bursts. The middleclass frog isn’t being gradually boiled; it is being periodically grilled at a very high heat.

Those spurts of change are economic downturns: Jaimovich and Siu have found that in the United States since the mid-1980s, 92 percent of job loss in middle-skill occupations has happened within 12 months of a recession.

“We think of recessions as temporary, but they lead to these permanent changes,” Siu told me. “The big puzzle about business cycles is: Why have we had these jobless recoveries over the past three recessions? These jobless recoveries are because you have these middle-skilled jobs that are being wiped off the table.”

Economists are often in the business of collecting empirical evidence of the trends many of us civilians have long experienced in our daily lives. That turned out to be the case when Siu shared his research findings with his family.

“I told my father-in-law, who used to be an executive in the oil industry,” Siu said. “He said: ‘That is exactly what happened. Every vice-president had a secretary, then they fired them during the recession. But after the recession we had to pair up, and two vice-presidents had to share one secretary.’”

Another example may have been hinted at in the March US jobs report. Those figures showed a decline of 34,000 jobs in the retail sector despite recent improvements in store sales. Some economists attributed that apparent mismatch to the power of technology, in

‘Bridges to nowhere’ in central banking Ryan McCarthy Reuters

T

raders and financial journalists have a favorite game: guessing when the Fed will step in and juice the markets.

“The Fed signals possibility of something!”

“Fed governor leaves door open for potential action at an unknown date!”

We all know this pattern; it still moves markets and sends CNBC anchors into a lather. But it’s worth taking a step back and taking in the latest comments from Mohamed El-Erian and George Soros about central banks. The real problem here isn’t Fed-obsessed traders making the market more volatile. Rather, they suggest, the world’s central banks could be doing more macroeconomic harm than good.

7

Both El-Erian and Soros are adamant that the European crisis is getting worse, despite the ECB’s huge interventions. Soros says: “the crisis has entered what may be a less volatile, but potentially more lethal phase.” The ECB’s LTRO operation, he writes, has helped the markets but “obscured underlying deterioration” that threatens to break up the EU. El-Erian, for his part, says “the problems in Europe are getting bigger.” But his most fascinating comments are focused on the US. His full speech, given at the Federal Reserve bank of St. Louis, is a must-read.

Cut through the wonkiness of El-Erian’s speech, and you have some of the harshest warnings about modern central banking in recent memory.

Among the potential consequences of central bank actions, according to El-Erian: damage to pension and money market funds; “artificial pricing, lower liquidity and a more cumbersome price discovery process”; contributions to higher commod-

search and concrete economic analysis that can be used by decision-makers in the real world.

Every four years, researchers and Nobel laureates work to identify the smartest responses to the biggest problems facing humanity.

In 2004, the Copenhagen Consensus highlighted the need to prioritize measures to control and treat HIV/AIDS. More money and attention was soon devoted to HIV prevention and treatment. In 2008, the Copenhagen Consensus focused the attention of policymakers and philanthropists on investments in micronutrient provision. Public acceptance of this idea led to an increase in efforts to reduce “hidden hunger” – that is, people suffering from not getting the nutrients that they need.

this case e-commerce.

“That is certainly in line with our findings,” Siu said. “Salespeople are one of the prime examples of routine jobs.”

The Jaimovich-Siu paper concludes that “jobless recoveries are evident in only the three most recent recessions, and they are due entirely to jobless recoveries in routine occupations. In this group, employment never recovers beyond its trough level, nor does it come anywhere close to its pre-recession peak.”

This is, Siu told me, “a stark finding.” David E. Altig, the research director at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, who has written a blog post about the paper, echoed that view.

“One of the things you certainly note is that this is the mother of all jobless recoveries,” he told me.

Siu urged me not to be too gloomy. “In the broad sweep of history, technology is good,” he reminded me. “We’ve been wrestling with this for 200 years. Remember the Luddites.”

That is an important point. All of us, even the hollowed-out middle class, would be much worse off if the Luddites had won the day and the Industrial Revolution, whose latest wave is the past three and a half decades of technological change, had never taken hold.

But it is also true that every seismic shift, including the current one, has winners and losers. And for the losers, adapting to today’s world of lousy and lovely jobs may be even harder than it was for the artisans of the Luddite era to thrive in the Machine Age. “What might be different today is two factors,” Siu told me. “The pace of technological change is so much faster, and we live in such a complex society, that it is harder than ever to switch to a new occupation.”

All of us are awaiting an economic recovery. We should be braced for one that offers scant comfort to the middle class.

Chrystia Freeland is the editor of Thomson Reuters Digital. The opinions expressed are her own.

ity prices; pressure on emerging economies to lower rates; a gusher of speculative cash destabilizing emerging economies; and, last but not least, exacerbated income inequality, as the stocks and bonds owned by the wealthy become more valuable.

The broader idea, says El-Erian, is that the world’s central banks have transformed the world’s priorities, so that traders with a short-term outlook are dominating investors who might be able to make distinctions more useful than simply “risk on” and “risk off”.

We trade too much and invest too little, and a lot of that is the fault of the Fed and the ECB. Their liquidity helped to put out the fires of 2008, but looking to central banks to fix the world’s economic problems, El-Erian says, is just asking for expensive “bridges to nowhere.”

Ryan McCarthy is a Deputy Editor of Reuters.com. The opinions expressed are his own.

This May, more than 30 Nobel laureates and researchers will work together once again to identify the smartest ways to respond to global challenges, based on the latest information about the toughest problems facing our world.Since 2008, the global economic crisis has made it even more necessary to ensure that development and aid spending is used wisely, where it can make the biggest difference. The Copenhagen Consensus project carries out the difficult task of comparing one set of initiatives with another by using fundamental economic tools and principles.

First, teams of world-renowned expert economists write research papers on the costs and benefits of a range of investments that ad-

dress specific challenges. Debate and discussion is encouraged by ensuring that three papers are written for each topic, so that a range of expert opinions is available.

This provides a framework with which we can see the full price tag, incorporating all of the costs, benefits, and spin-offs to society from using a limited amount of money in a particular way.

All of this research constitutes a valuable contribution to international development and aid policy. But the project goes a step further. A panel of the world’s top economists – including four Nobel laureates – test and debate the experts’ recommendations, and identify the most attractive possibilities. Alongside the research papers, the Nobel laureates’ prioritized list provides an important input for policymakers and philanthropists.

While the past decade has witnessed much progress and reason for hope, there are still many important problems to tackle: malnutrition, sanitation, education, civil conflicts, climate change, and natural disasters, to name some of the most prominent.

But are the most prominent problems necessarily those that we should address immediately? The research and the prioritized list make us consider the reasons for our current priorities, and challenge us to spend limited resources to do the most good first. And what are the best things to do first? We find out in May. Bjørn Lomborg is the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and Cool It, head of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, and adjunct professor at Copenhagen Business School.

Britain’s cultural kowtow Ma Jian Project Syndicate

Y

ou would think that the British, having practically invented appeasement, and paid a heavy price for it, would know better. But appeasement of China for commercial gain apparently is not considered morally repellent. How else could Liu Binjie, China’s censorin-chief and the point man for silencing the Nobel laureate writer and human-rights activist Liu Xiaobo, be invited to lead a delegation of 21 officially sanctioned writers and dozens of ministerial minions to London to celebrate Chinese literature at the London Book Fair?

Indeed, Liu is the British Council’s guest of honor for the event. The Council says that it invited officially approved Chinese writers because it wanted to create greater understanding of Chinese literature and promote cultural exchange between the two countries. But is it really true that the world can or should learn about China only by reading works that are sanctioned by the Chinese Communist Party? After all, didn’t Boris Pasternak, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Milan Kundera, and Václav Havel teach the world as much about the repressive societies in which they lived than anything turned out by the Soviet bloc’s official publishers?

The Council’s excuse is a smokescreen, and simultaneously kowtows to Chinese totalitarianism and insults those Chinese writers who have been imprisoned, banned, or forced into exile merely for writing what their conscience demands. In his “My Statement on Leaving China”, Yu Jie, a writer who left for the United States in order to escape persecution, explicitly declared that he was forced to flee his country in order to write freely. Before his exile, Yu had been thrown into a dark room and tortured, because Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010. Indeed, at the moment the award was handed over in Oslo, several policemen were pummeling Yu’s face, saying, “We are going to beat you to death to avenge the government’s humiliation.”

Today, China is producing literary exiles at a faster rate that the Soviet Union ever achieved.

No British governmental institution would have invited the chief Soviet censor as its guest of honor at an event celebrating Russian literature.

So, why the double standard?

We all know the answer: money. China has it, and Britain and other Western countries want it. They want Chinese consumers to buy their products. British Prime Minister David Cameron wants to change the fact that Britain exports more to tiny Ireland than it does to China. A little literary appeasement seems a small price to pay. Today, growing political terror is having a stifling effect on Chinese society. More than 100 writers have been thrown into prison for publishing political essays on the Internet, and their family members have been monitored, or, like Liu Xiaobo’s wife, have been placed under house arrest.

Last year, the writer Zhu Yufu published a poem online, a verse of which reads: “It’s time Chinese people!/ the square belongs to everyone/ the feet are yours/ it’s time to use your feet and take to the square to make a choice.” For this, he was detained for “inciting subversion of

Britain has not only produced great literature, but has an historic tradition of supporting free speech and providing refuge for persecuted writers. state power,” and in February was sentenced to seven years in jail.

In repressive societies, good literature is by definition subversive.With the simplest of words, Zhu was attempting to awaken a nation, and, for China’s dictators, nothing is more subversive or terrifying than the word “choice.”

China is shipping 10,000 titles to the London Book Fair. That “choice” may seem overwhelming, but it would be safe to bet that not one of these books probes impartially the taboos of Chinese politics and recent history. In China, thousands of “sensitive words,” including “self-immolating lamas,” “democracy,” “human rights,” “Tiananmen protest,” and even the title of my book Beijing Coma, cannot even be searched online. This ever-growing list of forbidden words and taboo subjects, drawn up by Liu Binjie and his army of censors, starves the nation’s soul and encages the minds of writers.

The British Council claims that it is showcasing “the amazing breadth and diversity of Chinese literature today.” But any genuinely diverse discussion would include not only the 21 stateapproved writers on the list, but other officially recognized writers on the more critical end of the spectrum, such as Yan Lianke, who was refused permission to attend this year’s London Book Fair three times.

A diverse discussion would also have to include writers who have been completely silenced in China, such as Wang Lixiong, Tan Hecheng, Mo Jiangang, and Yang Jisheng.

The works of these banned writers are packed with vivid detail about contemporary Chinese life. Their literary power derives from their authors’ courage to ask awkward questions and write with honesty. The British Council’s decision to ignore them, as well as exiled writers banned from entering China, such as myself, has turned what should be a cultural event into an unprincipled commercial-political transaction.

Britain has not only produced great literature, but has an historic tradition of supporting free speech and providing refuge for persecuted writers. Not Napoleon, not Tsar Nicholas I, not even Hitler when he was being appeased in the 1930’s, could force Britain to compromise on its commitment to intellectual freedom. Instead, the task of corrupting a centuries-old humanistic tradition has fallen to the Chinese Communist Party’s ignoble censor-in-chief and engineer of China’s literary exodus - and to the greed of some for Chinese gold.

Ma Jian’s most recent novel is Beijing Coma.

8

ALWATAN DAILY

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BUSINESS

suNdAY, april 15, 2012

KSE ends week with 0.65% gain, trading volume drops 2.23%

KUWAIT: Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) ended last week in the green zone.

The price index ended last week with an increase amounted to 0.65 percent, while the weighted index advanced by 0.71 percent compared to the closings of the week before. Furthermore, last week’s average daily turnover increased by 5.11 percent, compared to the preceding week, reaching 35.04 million Kuwaiti dinars, whereas trading volume average was 308.67 million shares, recording decrease of 2.23 percent.

Kuwaiti oil price up to $117.84 per barrel on weaker greenback KUWAIT: Price of Kuwaiti crude oil rose by 0.57 US dollars to $117.84 per barrel (pb) on Friday, compared to $117.27 pb on Thursday, Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) said on Saturday.

The increase in oil prices is attributed to the decline of the US dollar among other major currencies.

Furthermore, Saudi Arabia is determined to bring down high oil prices and is working with fellow Opec members to accomplish that, Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi said Friday.

“We are seeing a prolonged period of high oil prices,” Al-Naimi said in a statement during a visit to Seoul.

“We are not happy about it. The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is determined to see a lower price and is working towards that goal.”

In more news, the Middle East crude market stayed

weak on this week, with poor demand from Asian refiners weighing on prices. At least one cargo of Al-Shaheen crude for June lifting was sold by Maersk at around $1.00 to $1.50 a barrel, down from around $2.40 to $2.50 for May parcels, traders said.

Iraq raised the price of Basra light crude to US buyers for May by 10 US cents to $1.90 per barrel below the Argus (ASCI) benchmark but cut prices to Europe, the State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) said on Thursday.

SOMO said the price for Basra light crude for Asian buyers was raised to a premium of $1.35 to the average of Oman/Dubai quotes.

The May official selling price for Kirkuk crude for US refiners was raised to a premium of 35 cents to the ASCI benchmark, compared to a premium of five cents to the benchmark the previous month.

The price of Basra crude for European buyers was set at a discount of $6.10 to the North Sea spot benchmark BFOE versus $4.15 below the benchmark the previous month.

Last week Iran’s oil shipping operator National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) said it was expanding its oil tanker fleet with the first of 12 supertankers to be delivered from China in May, fortuitous timing for the member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as Western sanctions force Tehran to rely more on its ships to export oil.

Meanwhile, China’s implied oil demand rose 3.4 percent in March from a year earlier to 9.46 million barrels per day (bpd), the lowest in five months, Reuters calculations based on preliminary government data showed.

-Agencies

China gives currency more freedom with new reform BEIJING: China took a milestone step in turning the Chinese yuan into a global currency on Saturday by doubling the size of its trading band against the dollar, pushing through a crucial reform that further liberalizes its nascent financial markets.

The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) said it would allow the yuan to rise or fall one percent from a mid-point every day, effective Monday, compared with its previous 0.5 percent limit.

The timing of the move underlines Beijing’s belief that the yuan is near its equilibrium level, and that China’s economy, although cooling, is sturdy enough to handle important, long-promised, structural reforms, analysts said.

The move would help China deflect criticism of its controversial currency policy ahead of the annual spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington next week.

A slowing world economy that has pared investor expectations of a steadily rising yuan likely also gave Beijing the confidence to proceed, knowing that a larger band would not necessarily lead to a stronger currency.

“The central bank chose a good time window to enlarge the trading band. The market’s expectation for a stronger yuan is weakening,” said Dong Xian’an, chief economist at Peking First Advisory in Beijing.

“The move partially clears away doubts on whether China can manage a soft landing in its economy, and makes clear China’s reform road map.”

Investors have widely expected China to widen the yuan’s trading band this year, thanks to repeated hints from Beijing that the change would take China one step closer to its financial goal: a basically convertible yuan by 2015. Having a currency that trades with fewer restrictions also enhances Shanghai’s status as a financial center. China envisions turning the city into a global banking hub by 2020.

“From April 16, 2012, the trading band for the yuan against the dollar in the spot interbank currency market will be widened from 0.5 percent to one percent, “ the People’s Bank of China said in a short statement on its website. “At present, the development of China’s foreign exchange market is maturing, the market’s ability to independently price and manage risks is growing by the day,” the bank said.

Ultimately, the government wants the yuan to rival the dollar as a global reserve currency, and to this end it has gradually allowed the currency to trade more freely.

After a pilot program last year was judged successful, in March this year it gave permission for firms across China to pay for imports and exports in yuan, a way of helping to increase the use of the yuan in trade deals.

No sharp gains

The yuan, also known as the renminbi or “people’s money”, hit a record high of 6.2884 against the dollar on Feb 10, but is little changed against the US currency for the year, softening 0.14 percent since January.

Analysts say its listless showing is likely to persist through 2012, as expectations of future gains are dulled

FILE - A US $100 banknote is placed next to 100 Chinese yuan banknotes in this picture illustration taken in Beijing in this Oct. 16, 2010 file photo. China took a milestone step in turning the yuan into a global currency on April 14, 2012, by doubling the size of its trading band against the dollar, pushing through a crucial reform that further liberalizes its nascent financial markets. (Reuters)

by China’s easing economic growth, and speculation that the yuan is near equilibrium. As China this year heads into its biggest leadership changeover in a decade, it would be in Beijing’s interests to avoid dramatic fluctuations in the yuan that could hurt exporters, many of whom are battling rising costs and tepid demand as it is.

“The yuan is close to an equilibrium. We expect it could only gain 1.4 percent against the dollar this year, so the time is right to widen the band,” said Lan Shen, an economist at Standard Chartered Bank in Shanghai.

So muted is the yuan’s outlook that investors in the offshore non-deliverable forwards (NDF) market believe there is even room for the currency to fall.The benchmark one-year NDF is pricing for a 0.4 percent depreciation.

Any decline would be a stark contrast to the yuan’s steadfast rise in recent years. It jumped about 5 percent in 2011 on top of nearly four percent in 2010, giving investors the impression that China was comfortable with a rising currency.

It has gained about 30 percent in nominal terms against the dollar since the landmark move in the summer of 2005 to de-peg the yuan from the greenback.

A welcome move

The yuan’s value has always been a point of contention between China and its trading partners, notably the United States, which say China suppresses the currency to boost exports. China repeatedly rejects the accusa-

tion. Instead, Chinese leaders say the yuan is near its equilibrium level and that authorities aim to keep its value “basically stable”, more flexibility notwithstanding.

Beijing’s desire to have the yuan trade more freely was stressed by both Premier Wen Jiabao and Central Bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan in March when they said conditions were ripe for changes.

Their calls came even as China is set to confront its slowest economic growth in a decade this year, leading many to believe Beijing is ready to foresake heady growth for a restructured economy driven more by domestic than export demand.

Although not a primary intention, a more flexible yuan also works in China’s favor in turbulent times by giving it more room to guide the currency lower to aid exports. “The message of this move is that the renminbi appreciation story is over. Greater two way volatility will be the name of the game going forward,” said Qu Hongbin, an economist at Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC).

Data on Friday showed China’s economy suffered its weakest growth since the global financial crisis in the first quarter by expanding just 8.1 percent, below forecasts for 8.3 percent.

The last time China changed its currency policy was in June 2010, after a two-year period when it effectively re-pegged the yuan to the dollar to shield China from the 2008-09 global financial crisis. -Reuters

See Page 10

Two awkward questions Kamel Al-Harami Independent energy analyst Exclusive to Al Watan Daily

KUWAIT: There were two awkward questions submitted by our speaker of the house to our finance minster last month that had taken everyone by surprise and left everyone in Kuwait guessing what the real intentions behind the questions are and what the answers are leading to.

Some labeled it as an explosive one, others - the mother of all questions. Everybody however is of the opinion that there is a real purpose to the questions.

The two questions are related to the total income of oil.

The speaker is asking for the break-down of oil income from 2009 till the end of the current fiscal year. The other one is related to the same issue but deals with the stream of financial banking returns on the deposits of oil income starting from 1992.The period is different by about 18 years from the first question on the stream of oil income from 2009. The two questions are too tedious and extremely detailed and hence keeps everybody wondering. There are other detailed questions that were raised that will make the finance ministry go through a difficult time in gathering and meeting all the questionnaires’ criteria for answers. Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) is responsible for the sale of all hydrocarbons produced in the state of Kuwait including crude oil, refined products from the three refineries and gas.

KPC makes twice a month payments to the ministry of finance on the 15th and the 30th or 31st of every month.

All payments are made through US dollars as all of our oil income is received in the US currency. So from KPC’s point of view it’s all clear as long as they are making their payment on time and transferring the same to ministry of finance in their own held dollar account.

KPC makes oil income payments twice a month less Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) expenses which is paid by the government as cost of crude oil production. KPC also makes payments on all petroleum sold, made and produced by our three refineries. Again KPC deducts the cost of products used via our electricity and water and proceeds to pay the balance to the ministry of finance. The payment mechanism and procedures have been used since the inception of KPC in 1981. So what makes everyone in Kuwait wonder with regards to the intention of the two questions asked and what details raises eye brows.

The first concern is in relation to the period. Our speaker of the house requested the income stream of oil from 2009 and then asked on the finance interests from the period immediately after the invasion. What is the relation or is there any relation from 2009 and 1992?

The other concern is on the numbers of bank accounts that the ministry of finance has kept to deposit its oil income and the administration bodies responsible for running the accounts along with copies and various documentation.

The questions are crystal clear but the hidden part - not known to us - will take some time before we realize the real intentions behind the questions. Of course from the reply from the ministry of finance we will discover some major loopholes and slackness in our book keeping. Or even some missing oil cargo payments, as the number of daily oil transactions is many by KPC. The worst case scenario is missing monies or transfers to other accounts. Here in this MP’s room of speculations are unlimited answers and could open ‘Pandora’s box’. The minister of finance has two weeks to reply to the two questions, and by then we will know the direction of future questioners and whether any grilling to be followed. Will the reply take longer as it requires time to gather information or will it involve simply delaying tactics?

As we said these awkward questions are going to be followed by some harder questions and further questions to be followed. For sure the questions are not easy to be answered and why do we need to go 20 years back in order to know the total financial returns of the ministry of finance on monies deposited by KPC in 1992. No wonder everyone in Kuwait is guessing the reasons behind these simple, awkward questions and the answer to be in the pudding. At the end the two questions may lead to further investigation by higher authorities.

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.

Kuwait consumer spending sees strong pick up in 2011 on income boost Kuwait realty KUWAIT: The consumer sector saw a strong pick up in and thus provide a strong boost to household spending power. fourths of which worked in the government sector. market grows 26.9% 2011 driven by a large Amiri cash grant early in the year and Similar pay hikes have been approved this year by the governThe strongest employment growth among Kuwaiti civilians ait: consumer spending saw stronga series pick up in of pay hikes for nationals, according to the latest Gulf ment for Kuwaitis employed in the public and private sector. was in the government sector, which accounted for 81 percent in Q1,boost says report Cooperation Council (GCC) Brief prepared by the National As a result of the pay hikes, growth in total wages of Kuof net new jobs. Growth in the number of Kuwaitis working 2011 on strong to income | 14 April, 2011

Bank of Kuwait (NBK). The first three quarters saw a large rise KUWAIT: Domestic real-estate market in consumer spending and consumer confidence strengthened posted growth at 26.9 percent in first quarter as a result. Household debt also ended a year of slow growth of this year, compared to the same period of in 2010 to begin a solid recovery in the second quarter (Q2) mer spending receives a strong from a tocash grant and pay hikes public the past boost year, according the Incorporation 2011,for which has been sustained since. Employment growth employees of Al Shall Economic Consultants (AEC) Alamong Kuwaitis remained solid. Expatriate hiring in the priShall said in its weekly report, publicized on vate sector returned to positive growth for the first time since mer confidence has eased Saturday, somew hat start of the year but remains strong that from overallthe value of sales amountthe financial crisis. An Amiri cash grant provided to Kuwaiti ed to 907.4 million Kuwaiti dinars, higher by nationals in Q1 2011 appears to have had a strong and suscivilian employment grow th remained solid.

26.9 percent, in contrast to KD 714.8 million, tained impact on consumer spending in 2011. Point-of-sale in the same period of 2011.

(POS) old credit demand grow th made a noticeable recovery in 2011 follow ingtransactions a slow on both credit and debit cards in 3Q11 Total sales reached approximately KD were 29 percent higher than a year before. The Amiri grant of 843.7 million while contract sales amounted 1,000 Kuwaiti dinars to every Kuwaiti national paid in Februto KD 63.6 million. ary 2011 provided around KD 1.1 billion in additional spendPrivate housing occupied some 55.6 pering power to households, or more than three percent of 2010 est GCC Brief: cent of the total dealings, compared to 55.3 domestic mer sector saw a strong pick up in 2011 driven by a large Amiri cashgross grant early product (GDP). Also, in an effort to counter rispercent in the first quarter of 2011. Investing food prices, the government hiked food subsidies, further and a series of pay hikes ment for nationals.

The first three a large spending rise in power. activity share dropped to 36.4quarters percent, saw boosting pending and consumer confidence a result.

Household debt also compared tostrengthened 39.3 percent. as Al-Shall report that commercial activity’s in stake stoodw hich has been Public sector pay hikes ar of slow grow th in 2010noted to begin a solid recovery 2Q11, at 6.5 percent, higher from 5.1 percent, with Pay raises for Kuwaitis and some expatriates working in nce. Employment grow thshare among Kuwwarehouses aitis remained solid. the also helped drive up spending in 2011. The of the standing at Expatriate 1.5 thehiring publicinsector tor returned to positive grow th for the first time since the financial crisis percent. Value of sales of private housing, government approved a number of pay hikes for public secinvestment, commercial activities and the tor employees including teachers, oil sector employees, and warehouses rose 27.6 percent, and respecengineers. Military personnel also received pay increases in rowth maintains boost from Amiri grant 63 and 59 percent – also tively 17.4 percent, 2011. Increases are mostly a response to a higher cost of livto the in figures recorded in the the lastand two years which had put pressure on real wages. ash grant provided to Kuwcompared aiti nationals 1Q11 appears to first have hading a in strong quarter the year before.

-KUNA Approved public sector pay hikes in 2011 should lift aggregate mpact on consumer spending in of 2011.

Point -of-sale (POS) transactions on both household income by an estimated KD 700 million annually

ebit cards in 3Q11 w ere 29% higher than a year before.

Chart 1: Point-of-Sale Transactions

40

waiti civilian employees is estimated to have accelerated in 2011 to its most rapid since 2009. Year-on-year growth in aggregate income is estimated at 7.1 percent at the end of 2011 compared to 5.6 percent in 2010. This rise in aggregate wage income captures growth in both salaries and employment.

Consumer confidence improves

Consumer confidence has improved as a result, with published indices showing strong gains during the first half of 2011. The Ara’a consumer confidence index rose to 133 early in 2011 after reaching a low of 99 in November 2010. Bayt. com’s index climbed to 593 from 529 in 2010. Indices have since eased following the initial jump early in 2011 but remain generally above levels registered in 2010.

Household demand for credit resumed in 2011

Household debt also picked up during the first half of 2011 and remained strong through Q4 2011. This came on the heels of weak growth in 2010 and Q1 2011. Growth in total outstanding consumer and installment loans at banks accelerated to 8.4 percent by the end of 2011.

Kuwaiti employment growth remained solid

Civilian employment among Kuwaiti nationals eased in the most recent 12 months but remained solid. The net increase in civilian employment stood at 11,200 during 2011.

Employment grew 4.2 percent year-on-year in 2011, compared to five percent a year earlier. The Kuwaiti nationals’ civilian workforce totaled 279,000 at the end of 2011, three-

in the government sector in 2011 stood at 4.8 percent. Meanwhile, the private sector’s absorption of Kuwaiti labor force entrants has slowed following a three-year surge that started in 2007 and which saw employment of nationals more than double. During 2011, the number of Kuwaitis working in the private sector rose by 800, compared to 3,100 the year before.

Before that, the sector was seeing net new jobs for Kuwaitis at a rate of over 8,000 per annum. Meanwhile, expatriate employment in the private sector made a healthy recovery in 2011 ending two years of decline. Private sector employment of non-Kuwaitis (excluding household workers) rose by an annualized four percent in 2011, indicating recovering private sector hiring. Growth in the total expatriate workforce was slower at 2.6 percent, pulled down by negative growth in the number of household workers. Expatriate employment in the public sector also saw an improvement. Non-Kuwaitis working in the government sector grew by an annualized 4.6 percent during 2011; growth a year ago stood at 3.6 percent. Meanwhile, employment among domestic workers continued to shrink with year-on-year growth of negative 0.5 percent at mid-year.

Consumer sector expected to maintain recovery

The recovery in consumer spending is expected to remain in place in 2012 though growth is expected to ease from the current pace. Spending should continue to receive support from relatively healthy confidence levels and a private sector recovery. The new pay hikes for Kuwaiti employees are also likely to provide an additional boost to consumers’ spending power.

10

ALWATAN DAILY

BUSINESS

sunDAY, april 15, 2012

KSE ends week with 0.65% gain, trading volume drops 2.23% the losers’ list, which index declined by 1.61 percent, closing at 5,755.1 points, followed by the Investment sector, as its index closed at 3,964.5 points at a weekly loss of 0.74 percent.

Sectors’ activity

What are the economic and financial implications?

Economies stuck in the middle income trap are typically have one or more of the following characteristics: 1) low investment

Benchmark

Ÿ KSE - Price Index

Closing

6,188.9

ź Saudi Stock Exchange (TADAWUL) ź Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange ź Dubai Financial Market ź Qatar Exchange ź Bahrain Bourse Ÿ Muscat Securities Market Total GCC Equity Markets

2,621.3

7,573.3

2,523.1

1,678.7

8,785.2

1,136.3 5,981.1

Current

Return (%) YTD-12 Return

(000's shrs)

(000's USD)

(USD Mln)

1,543,350

642,252

0.65%

0.45%

(4.08%)

(1.40%)

(0.46%)

(0.45%)

(0.44%) 2.64%

18.0%

3,275,597

18,402,587

5.0%

339,837

126,222

24.0%

1,013,808

368,906

0.1%

65,636

361,267

(0.7%) 5.0%

7,103 166,191

2,460 85,992

6,411,523

19,989,685

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

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

(1.78%)

Yield (%)

4,615

3,125

0.760

(1.3%)

2,207

2.240

0.9%

1,129

1.2%

3.6%

4.9%

0.0%

0.0% 2.4%

1,132

1,014

1,006

1,005 923 657

6,543

6,918

15.3

1.8

3.4%

16,560

11,782

11.0

1.4

8.1%

9,335

6,916

27.5

1.6

1.8%

1,070

454

37.0

2.5

0.0%

458

1,006

3.1

1.4

2.2%

8,835

5,008

NM

4.2

0.0%

380

315

31.9

3.4

1.5%

0

0

NM

1.9

0.0%

25 6,510

15 2,686

18.3 13.0

1.8 1.4

2.3% 2.1%

102.75

79.25 40.10

14.25

Weekly Trading Indicators

Weekly

Return (%)

(5.7%) (1.6%) (1.0%)

(3.1%)

Market Cap.

(SAR Mln)

308,250

8.60

8.69

9.40 3.26 1.36

Weekly

Return (%)

(2.6%)

(3.0%)

(2.8%) 0.0% 2.3%

12,013

941,331

16.1

3.6

4.1%

4,947

197,950

10.3

1.7

5.0%

59,374

48,765

714,301

26.7

1.1

4.9%

2,068

112,321

11.5

1.8

3.0%

1,580

309,910

11.7

5.9

6.8%

6,868

455,388

9.1

2.5

4.9%

11,867

146,889

70.7

1.8

1.0%

3,307 1,108

82,946 39,850

11.9 12.6

1.2 2.1

5.2% 1.5%

80,200

48,125

45,212

37,500 36,300

Weekly Trading Indicators

Market Cap.

(AED Mln)

67,963

33,670

28,200

18,242

8,466

3.20

(8.3%)

7,567

5.00

0.0%

6,927

3.01 4.51 1.18

(1.6%) 0.0% 0.9%

Yield (%)

118,875

46,025

(1.6%) 0.0%

P/B (X)

Dividend

4.9%

(0.8%)

25.00 36.30

P/E (X)

Trailing

2.2

65.75

(3.2%)

(000's SAR)

Trailing

10.6

49,275

12.20

(000's shrs)

Value

3,073,499

(2.7%)

(3.8%)

Volume

7,512

4,961 4,820

Volume

Philippines

25000 20000 15000 Middle Income Range

10000 5000

Source: KCIC Research on DataStream, 2012.

2010

2008

2006

2004

2002

2000

1998

1996

1994

1988

1986

0

www.kcicͲasia.com/research

is applicable for all is that for any of these structural transformations to be successfully implemented, sound policy making and institutions need to be in place, and that the seeds of supply-side policies need to be sown early if these economies are to escape the looming middle income trap.

East and emerging Asia by providing financial and advisory services, and managing third party capital.

Important Disclaimer: The information contained in this report is prepared by the Research Department of the Kuwait China Investment Company (KCIC) and is believed to be reliable, but its accuracy and completeness are not warranted. Research recommendations do not constitute financial advice nor extend offers to participate in any specific investment on any particular terms. Investors should consider this material as only a single factor in making their decisions.

Prepared by Dana Al-Fakir - For more information please visit: www.kcic-asia.com or email: research@kcicasia.com. KCIC is an Asia-focused investment company. Licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of Kuwait, it facilitates capital flows between the Middle

1.29

Dubai Financial Market (DFM)

Price

Yield (%)

2.9%

Value

P/E (X)

Trailing

P/B (X)

9.73

33.85 12.16

10.31 12.72 15.80

2.08

3.4%

1.07

4.8%

0.97

2.6%

1.83

3.6%

0.90 1.59

5.2% 4.3%

1.85

2.9%

(AED)

ź 1- EMAAR Properties

Beta

1.44

ROE YTD Price

7.8%

12.9%

(11.6%)

1.48

6.2%

(7.1%)

7.1%

(11.4%)

1.21

39.6%

18.0%

3.3%

(1.7%)

12.0%

15.4%

0.2%

0.0%

10.3% 11.3%

(0.7%) (3.9%)

0.88

1.50

1.03

0.80

0.72 1.34

Beta

1.23 1.06

0.83 0.76 0.68

1.08

0.99

0.82

0.75 0.73

Dividend

(000's shrs)

(000's AED)

Yield (%)

8,121

70,588

11.6

1.7

8.1%

1,286

11,190

9.1

1.3

2.6%

1,505

14,351

7.6

1.1

5.3%

8,293

26,979

6.0

0.8

6.1%

7,901

10,702

11.3

0.7

7.4%

2,961

10,139

6.6

0.9

7.6%

1,126

3,403

5.0

0.6

5.0%

1,860

9,300

5.8

1.5

5.0%

0 81,274

0 96,547

17.7 7.5

2.4 0.7

2.2% 4.2%

Beta

1.00

1.17

1.31

1.30 1.34

1.24

1.13 0.14

NA 1.52

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

2.870

0.3%

91.45

0.0%

3.170

1.9%

1.190

(1.7%)

2.030

(1.5%)

2.750

(3.8%)

3.450

0.3%

0.730 0.890

2.2% (2.0%)

19,614

15,951 15,462

14,491

9,520

7,708

Volume

Value

Price

(QAR)

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

134.30

Return (%)

(0.9%)

141.60

(0.6%)

19.80

(0.9%)

127.70

(1.8%)

27.35

(0.7%)

75.90

(0.8%)

77.60

0.6%

144.50

(0.9%)

242.00 59.60

(0.9%) (1.3%)

79,826

258,021

10.9

0.6

4.0%

5,655

16,127

6.3

0.5

7.0%

0

0

18.8

1.3

2.2%

20,159

62,189

13.2

2.3

4.7%

94,457

113,177

NM

1.3

0.0%

Chg. (%)

21.2%

6.8%

22.5%

14.0%

16.7%

18.6%

4.3%

2.5%

15.3%

17.5%

(BHD)

ź 11 Ahli United Bank (Price in USD) ź 2- Aluminum Bahrain Ÿ 3- Bahrain Telecommunications Co. ő 4- Arab Banking Corp. (Price in USD) ź 5- National Bank of Bahrain

50.1%

9.4%

27.6%

25.2%

ź 7- Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait

2.5%

37.9%

ő 8- United Gulf Bank

10.4% 16.8%

7.3% (10.8%)

ő 6- Al Baraka Banking (Price in USD)

ő 9- Investcorp Bank (Price in USD) ő 10- Gulf Hotels Group

0 600 0.600

Return (%)

(0 8%) (0.8%)

0.565

(0.9%)

0.456

3.6%

0.420

0.0%

33,471

7.6

0.8

6.2%

72

201

6.8

0.9

6.9%

72,491

247,166

19.8

1.7

1.4%

3,407 3,178

147,329 26,723

107,240 23,723

11.1 15.7

0.7 0.4

6.2% 5.6%

5,158

Market Cap.

(QAR Mln)

Volume

66,443

12.5

2.2

2.7%

449

63,217

9.8

3.0

5.3%

52,519

41

819

152.0

1.9

0.8%

237

30,528

11.2

1.4

1.8%

20,513

2,610

71,060

14.6

2.4

4.0%

203

15,338

10.0

1.3

7.9%

347

26,740

13.4

1.6

5.8%

131

19,196

11.1

4.8

4.5%

102 142

24,678 8,500

10.9 9.9

2.6 1.7

3.3% 7.6%

77,880

29,218 18,781

18,336

14,450

12,578 12,319

Market Cap.

(BHD Mln)

1 184 1,184 802

657 492

Volume

(5.8%)

ź 2- Oman Telecom Co.

7.1%

13.9%

21.7%

13.7%

17.3%

ź 4- Omani Qatari Telecom (NAWRAS)

6.0%

13.3%

Ÿ 5- National Bank of Oman

13.5%

1.3%

Ÿ 6- Oman International Bank

11.7%

4.2%

Ÿ 7- Shell Oman Marketing

25.6%

20.0%

Ÿ 8- Ahli Bank

13.6% 9.1%

(0.9%) 81.8%

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

Ÿ 3- Bank Dhofar

Trailing

P/E (X)

Trailing

P/B (X)

Dividend

(000's shrs)

(000's BHD)

Yield (%)

115

26

10 1 10.1

12 1.2

4 8% 4.8%

172

98

3.8

1.0

11.9%

519

236

8.2

1.3

8.8%

3

0

6.4

0.4

0.0%

24

10.3

1.7

5.5%

470

43 0

0

8.0

0.8

8.6%

0.400

(4.8%)

341

318

127

10.7

1.4

6.3%

13

3

457.5

1.2

0.0%

0 0

0 0

121.3 15.2

0.6 2.2

0.0% 4.2%

0.930

0.0%

0.304

0.0%

796.95 0.720

0.0% 0.0%

356 254

240 119

0.635

1.281

0.494

0.602

0.296

0.273

2.301

0.222

1.043 0.622

Return (%)

(0.6%)

(1.3%) 7.2%

(0.3%) 1.7%

1.9%

0.0% 8.3%

5.2% 8.9%

Market Cap.

(OMR Mln)

1,141 961

Volume

Value

(000's shrs)

(000's OMR)

4,789

3,021

Trailing

P/E (X)

9.7

Trailing

P/B (X)

1.3

Dividend

Yield (%)

3.4%

968

1,245

8.6

1.9

7.8%

543

702

341.9

38.9

2.4

1.2%

937

565

8.2

3.0

6.3%

328

1,810

532

9.6

1.2

5.8%

268

2,331

631

14.9

1.5

4.1%

50

115

18.3

7.7

5.1%

212

4,670

1,024

11.6

1.8

0.0%

773 2,049

782 1,232

14.0 16.1

2.0 1.4

4.8% 4.8%

392

230

209 206

1.40

5.7%

0.61

0.05

0.98

1.61

1.15

0.27

1.31

1.01 1.23

Chg. (%)

25.3%

7.2%

(2.4%)

6.7%

(9.9%)

17.6%

9.7%

-0.1%

41.7%

11.1%

4.6%

13.0%

(5.2%)

8.8%

117.0%

5.8% 2.4%

24.6% 47.1%

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%

(2.7%)

30.2%

5.3%

1.2%

(11.2%)

12.4%

18.2%

16.6%

(2.7%)

13.2%

(10.0%)

12.2%

(8.7%)

42.9%

4.5%

24.0% 17.5%

24.0% (7.2%)

Beta

2 11 2.11

NA

0.93

0.76

ROE YTD Price

Chg. (%)

12 2% 12.2%

(9 8%) (9.8%)

26.2%

(14.4%)

15.8%

16.3%

5.7%

0.0%

0.57

16.6%

(4.3%)

9.8%

(14.7%)

0.34

13.4%

(3.4%)

0.76

0.50

0.48 0.07

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

(3.5%)

(OMR)

14.0%

Yield (%)

0.550

Price

ź 1- Bank Muscat

P/B (X)

Dividend

494

93,974

P/E (X)

Trailing

(000's QAR)

Muscat Securities Market (MSM)

Chg. (%)

Trailing

Beta

Risk & Return

Valuation Multiples

Value

(000's shrs)

Top 10 Largest Omani Companies by Market Cap

ROE YTD Price

Yield (%)

16,582

Weekly Trading Indicators

Weekly

P/B (X)

Dividend

5,605

Top 10 Largest Bahraini Companies by Market Cap Price

P/E (X)

Trailing

(000's AED)

Weekly Trading Indicators

Weekly

Trailing

(000's shrs)

Bahrain Bourse

ROE YTD Price

14.8%

(0.9%)

(AED Mln)

Top 10 Largest Qatari Companies by Market Cap

Chg. (%)

13.0%

1.58

ő 3- Mashreq Bank

3.220

Return (%)

Market Cap.

Risk & Return

Valuation Multiples

Weekly Trading Indicators

Weekly

Qatar Exchange (QE)

Risk & Return

Valuation Multiples Trailing

15.75

Risk & Return

Valuation Multiples

29,338

54.75

192.50

24.04

P/B (X)

Risk & Return

P/B (X)

(AED)

ő 4- Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank

(14,334)

790,133

P/E (X)

Price

ź 3- First Gulf Bank

(0.44%) 1.97%

(000's KD)

Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX)

ź 2- National Bank Of Abu Dhabi

(73) 337

16,474 17,426

(000's shrs)

Top 10 Largest Companies by Market Cap in Abu Dhabi

ź 1- Emirates Telecom. Co.

(0.19%)

(KD Mln)

(SAR)

ź 4- Saudi Electricity Co.

(0.22%)

(248)

50,875

Return (%)

Price

ź 3- Saudi Telecom

(110)

127,170

Valuation Multiples

Saudi Stock Exchange (TADAWUL)

ź 2- Al-Rajhi Bank

(1.41%)

(KWD)

Top 10 Largest Saudi Companies by Market Cap

ź 1- Saudi Basic Industries Corp

(3.34%)

(1,108)

Dividend

0.610 0.425

ő 9- Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait Ÿ 10- Burgan Bank

(13,652)

77,435

Trailing

0.790

ő 8- Commercial Bank of Kuwait

394,953

Trailing

4.3%

P/E (X)

Dividend

1.4%

Weekly Trading Indicators

0.0%

Thailand

30000

Top 10 Largest Companies by Market Cap in Dubai

Ÿ 2- Emirates NBD

Value

0.850

Ÿ 7- Ahli United Bank (Kuwait)

0.49%

Volume

0.580

Ÿ 6- Boubyan Bank

520

(%)

Market Cap.

0.430

Ÿ 4- Gulf Bank Ÿ 5- National Mobile Telecom. Co.

(USD Mln)

Trailing Trailing

Weekly

0.730

ź 3- Kuwait Finance House

Weekly Chg.

Price

1.060

Ÿ 2- ZAIN

105,799

Valuation Multiples

1.7%

Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE)

Top 10 Largest Kuwaiti Companies by Market Cap

ő 1- National Bank of Kuwait

Market Cap.

Value

6.4%

Malaysia

12-Apr-2012

Volume

0.71%

South Korea

Japan

12-Apr-12

Benchmark

412.4

Ÿ KSE - Weighted Index Ÿ KSE - KAMCO TRW Index

Weekly

India

Singapore

KAMCO Research

Weekly Trading Indicators

Index

China

Brazil

KAMCO Research GCC Week No.15 GCC Equity EquityMarkets MarketsReport Reportforfor Week No. 15 GCC Equity Markets Weekly Performance

35000

Indonesia

1984

The middle income trap is a term that is gaining popularity and is becoming a rising risk among the Asian emerging market economies.

It describes the situation in which countries fail to realize early enough, the need to implement institutional changes to develop a new set of skills and capabilities, which will allow them to progress towards a higher income economy.

As the availability of rural workers dwindles and real wages rise, they become increasingly incapable of competing with the lower income economies still exploiting low-cost labor; and if they fail to compete with advanced economies with high skills and innovation, the economies essentially become trapped. To leap into the ranks of a developed economy, economies in the middle income phase need to realize soon enough that they can no longer rely on low cost labor and foreign technology to grow and they need to invent technologies of their own and move up the value-added production chain, via investments in innovation and human capital, and ultimately increase their total factor productivity (TFP) to compensate for the rise in real wages and secure a share of the international market. Countries such as Indonesia, India and China, whose growth rates have been high over the past decade are on the brink of the middle income trap.

40000

1982

Why is this graph important?

ratios, 2) slowing manufacturing growth, 3) limited industrial diversification or 4) poor labor market conditions. Thus, the obstacles that hinder a particular economy’s transition from middle to high income status can vary from one economy to another; so there is no one policy that will be applicable for all. Policies will need to be tailored to suit the needs of each economy. For instance, Indonesia is largely a resource based economy and hence needs to work towards producing more value added products, that will generate greater returns. There are already some signs of progress on that front: Indonesia has recently imposed a tax on commodity exports in the run up to the full export ban by 2014, in an attempt to get companies to get a head start at producing more value-added products. To join the ranks of the developed economies, India must overcome caveats in its infrastructure, via greater investment, boost its human capital via improved education and training to improve skills and tackle its rising inequality. China on the other hand, needs to focus more on the efficiency of its investments rather than its scale, which appears to be becoming more and more unsustainable in the long-run. It also needs to shift gears and move away from being heavily reliant on export-led growth and more dependent on domestic demand; by allowing small and mid-size firms to prosper via improvements in its financial system, China will enable individuals greater access to credit. What

1980

What does the indicator tell us?

According to the World Bank, a country is classed as being: low income if it has a gross domestic product (GDP) per capita value of less than 4,000 US dollars, middle income if it is within the range of $4,000 and $10,000 and high income if it enjoys a per capita income value greater than $10,000. A country’s transition from being a low to a middle income economy, is relatively easier and quicker when compared to the progression from a middle to a high income economy. An economy’s transition from a low income to a middle income status is driven by the abundance of low cost labor using foreign technology, encapsulating a large portion of the international market share because of their strong competitive edge. The transition is also driven by the large productivity gains from the reallocation of abundant rural labor from the agricultural sector to the manufacturing sector. However, as economies approach the middle income range, they tend to embark a stickier territory, at which stage, unless they undergo major structural transformations, are likely to stay there for decades to come and see their growth rates plateau and eventually stagnate.

Since 1970

USD 45000

1978

The risks that lie ahead

GDP per capita Constant 2000 USD

1976

Emerging Asian economies and the middle income trap

Market capitalization

1974

Five of KSE’s sectors ended last week in the green zone, while the other three recorded declines. Last week’s highest gainer was the Services sector, achieving 1.72 percent growth rate as its index closed at 14,250.2 points. Whereas, in the second place, the Real Estate sector’s in-

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.

KSE total market capitalization grew by 0.62 percent during last week to reach KD 28.21 billion, as three of KSE’s sectors recorded an increase in their respective market capitalization, four recorded declines, whereas the Insurance sector’s market capitalization remained the same from the week before. The Services

1972

Sectors’ indices

dex closed at 2,246.0 points recording 1.69 percent increase. The Banks sector came in third as its index achieved 1.38 percent growth, ending the week at 11,505.4 points. The Industry sector was the least growing as its index closed at 4,259.4 points with a 0.63 percent increase. On the other hand, the Food sector headed the losers list as its index declined by 1.81 percent to end the week’s activity at 4,223.8 points. The Non-Kuwaiti Companies sector was second on

1970

the weighted index registered a 0.65 percent weekly gain after closing at 412.43 points.

The Services sector dominated total trade volume during last week with 448.55 million shares changing hands, representing 29.06 percent of the total market trading volume. The Real Estate sector was second in terms trading volume as the sector’s traded shares were 24.56 percent of last week’s total trading volume, with a total of 379.11 million shares. On the other hand, the Services sector’s stocks where the highest traded in terms of value; with a turnover of KD 52.52 million or 29.98 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 39.25 million represented 22.40 percent of the total market trading value.

1992

KUWAIT: Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) ended last week in the green zone. The price index ended last week with an increase amounted to 0.65 percent, while the weighted index advanced by 0.71 percent compared to the closings of the week before. Furthermore, last week’s average daily turnover increased by 5.11 percent, compared to the preceding week, reaching 35.04 million Kuwaiti dinars, whereas trading volume average was 308.67 million shares, recording decrease of 2.23 percent. The market managed to come back to the green zone after two weeks of consecutive losses. The market was supported by the buying trend on some leading stocks, especially in Banking and Services sectors. The quick speculations, which concentrated on Real Estate and Investment sectors, participated with a positive effect.

Moreover, KSE performance marked with hesitation as a result of some profit taking operations, which pushed the market indices to close in the red zone in some session. In addition, last minute trading had a great impact on the positive closings during last week.

By the end of the week, the price index closed at 6,188.9 points, up by 0.71 percent from the week before closing, whereas

sector headed the growing sectors as its total market capitalization reached KD 6.69 billion, increasing by 2.03 percent. The Real Estate sector was the second in terms of recorded growth with 1.85 percent increase after the total value of its listed companies reached KD 1.96 billion. The third place was for the Banks sector, which total market capitalization reached KD 12.63 billion by the end of the week, recording an increase of 0.58 percent. On the other hand, the Food sector headed the decliners list as its total market capitalization decreased by 2.58 percent to reach, by the end of the week, KD 666.13 million. The Non-Kuwaiti Companies sector was second on this list, which market value of its listed companies declined by 0.90 percent, reaching KD 1.69 million. The Investment sector was the least declining with 0.65 percent recorded decrease after its market capitalization amounted to KD 2.11 billion.

1990

KSE weekly activity, April 12, 2011

Beta

2.62 0.88

0.66

1.28

1.02

0.99

0.38

0.81

0.97 0.99

ROE YTD Price

Chg. (%)

13.5%

(17.1%)

22.6%

(2.1%)

6.1%

(9.7%)

28.4%

(7.4%)

12.2%

(7.5%)

10.4%

(2.5%)

42.1%

(3.8%)

10.9%

(16.2%)

14.6% 8.6%

37.2% 44.0%

LIFE

When it’s wise to have wisdom teeth removed

Wisdom teeth may not have to be extracted, unless they begin to cause problems.

The American Dental Association says you should visit your dentist if your wisdom teeth are causing or contributing to: • Pain or discomfort.

• An infection.

• Development of a tumor or cyst.

• Damage to nearby teeth.

• Development of gum disease. * Tooth decay.

sunDAY, april 15, 2012

Eat less meat to prevent climate disaster, study warns LONDON: Meat eaters in developed countries will have to eat a lot less meat, cutting consumption by 50%, to avoid the worst consequences of future climate change, new research warns, reports The Guardian.

The fertilizers used in farming are responsible for a significant share of the warming that causes climate change.

A study published in Environmental Research Letters warns that drastic changes in food production and at the dinner table are needed by 2050 in order to prevent catastrophic global warming.

It’s arguably the most difficult challenge in dealing with climate change: how to reduce emissions from food production while still producing enough to feed a global population projected to reach 9 billion by the middle of this century.

The findings, by Eric Davidson, director of the Woods Hole Research Centre in Massachusetts, say the developed world will have to cut fertilizer use by 50% and persuade consumers in the developed world to stop eating so much meat.

Davidson concedes it’s a hard sell. Meat is a regular part of the diet in the developed world. In developing economies, such as China and India, meat consumption has risen along with prosperity.

“I think there are huge challenges in convincing people in the west to reduce portion sizes or the frequency of eating meat. That is part of our culture right now,” he said.

Researchers have been paying closer attention in the past few years to the impact of agriculture on climate change, and the parallel problem of growing enough food for an expanding population. Some scientists are at work

growing artificial meat which would avoid the fertilizers and manure responsible for climate change.

Nitrous oxide, released by fertilizers and animal manure, is the most potent of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change. The UN’s climate body has called for deep cuts to those emissions.

Growing feed crops, for cattle and pigs, produces more of those emissions than crops that go directly into the human food chain. Eating less meat would reduce demand for fertilizer as well as reduce the amount of manure produced.

Davidson also suggests changes in current farming practice - such as growing winter ground cover crops - would help absorb nitrogen and prevent its release into the atmosphere.

In reaching his conclusion, Davidson draws on figures from the Food and Agricultural Organization suggesting the world population will reach 8.9 billion by 2050, and that daily per capita calorie intake will also rise to 3130 calories.

Meat consumption is also projected to increase sharply to 89kg per person a year in rich countries and 37kg per person a year in the developing world.

Such a trajectory would put the world on course to more severe consequences of climate change.

Davidson is not suggesting people give up meat entirely.

“The solution isn’t that everyone needs to become a vegetarian or a vegan. Simply reducing portion sizes and frequency would go a long way,” he said. So would switching from beef and pork, which have a high carbon foot print, to chicken or fish.

FILE-Eating less meat will help environment, a new study says. (AFP)

Researchers map brain regions linked to intelligence CAPITALS: The physical architecture of intelligence in the brain has been mapped by scientists who used brain injury patients to conduct their research, reports HealthDay News.

The findings provide new insight about the specific brain structures involved in general intelligence and specific skills such as memory and the ability to understand words.

The study included 182 Vietnam War veterans who had highly localized brain damage caused by penetrating head wounds.

“It’s a significant challenge to find patients [for research] who have brain damage, and even further, it’s very hard to find patients who have focal brain damage,” study leader Aron Barbey, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Illinois,

said in a university news release.

Many people who’ve suffered brain damage from stroke or other causes have multiple impaired brain areas. This makes it difficult to identify the specific functions of individual brain structures.

Studying people with highly localized brain damage enables researchers “to draw inferences about how specific brain structures are necessary for performance,” Barbey said.

“By studying how damage to particular brain regions produces specific forms of cognitive [thinking] impairment, we can map the architecture of the mind, identifying brain structures that are critically important for specific intellectual abilities,” he explained.

The participants in this study underwent CT

Scientist beams up a real ‘Star Trek’ tricorder

A scientific measurement device developed by Dr. Peter Jansen, a PhD graduate based on the tricorders used by Captain Kirk, Spock, Dr. McCoy and other space adventurers on the classic TV series is pictured in this undated publicity photograph provided to Reuters April 13, 2012. (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES: Starships, warp speed, transporters, phasers. Think “Star Trek” technology is only the stuff of fiction? Think again.

Dr. Peter Jansen, a PhD graduate of the Cognitive Science Laboratory at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, has developed a scientific measurement device based on the tricorders used by Captain Kirk, Spock, Dr. McCoy and other space adventurers on the classic TV series that has spawned numerous spin-offs in more than 45 years.

“Star Trek inspired me to be a scientist” said Jansen, who has been formally working on his tricorder prototypes since 2007, but toying with the idea of making a functioning device since he was “a kid in high school.”

The 29-year-old Jansen’s school days spanned the late 1990s when “Star Trek: Voyager” was on the air. It featured his favorite tricorder, a model with screens on top and bottom.

The first tricorder appeared on the original show’s initial episode in 1966, when Capt. Kirk swaggered toward audiences with his phaser weapon holstered to his side but a tricorder in his hand.

The hand-held devices for data sensing, analysis and recording, have been a part of “Star Trek” ever since.

But if Jansen, a self-confessed “addicted maker” of things, is successful at developing, testing and bringing his instrument into the public, the tricorder

may not be just the stuff of “Star Trek” prop rooms. It may be used for real.

Jansen said his tricorder can take atmospheric measurements, or ambient temperature, pressure or humidity. It can take electromagnetic measurements to test magnetic fields, and it can make spatial measurements of distance, location, or motion.

Fascinating, as Spock might say. Jansen thinks of his tricorder as a “general tool” -- a kind of “Swiss Army Knife” -with practical uses in building inspection, for instance, where it might help taking temperature and humidity readings or be a distance sensor to measure rooms.

It resembles the device carried by countless “Away Team” members in “Star Trek - The Next Generation” - his favorite of the “Star Trek” shows, he notes.

No independent group has yet verified his claims for the device which, he said, is one reason for placing his designs on a public website as an “open source” that technology makers can utilize to test and tinker.

Jansen has posted schematics and designs of his first and second prototypes, the Mark 1 and Mark 2, for anyone to see and build. Jansen expects to have his latest version, the Mark 4, produced for “about $200.”

“Everything you need to build one is on line” at www.tricorderproject.org, said Jansen. He hopes others will follow his lead. -Reuters

scans and a number of tests of their intellectual abilities. The researchers found that “several brain regions, and the connections between them, were most important for general intelligence.”

The locations of these structures were mainly behind the forehead (within the left prefrontal cortex), behind the ear (left temporal cortex) and at the top rear of the head (left parietal cortex).

The investigators also found significant overlap between brain regions that handle executive functions, such as planning and self-control, and those vital to general intelligence.

The findings offer new evidence that intelligence does not rely on just one brain region or the brain as a whole, but rather specific brain areas that work together in coordination, Barbey said.

Turmeric extract may protect heart after surgery

NEW YORK: A new study from Thailand suggests that extracts from turmeric spice, known for their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, may help ward off heart attacks in people who’ve had recent bypass surgery. During bypass surgery the heart muscle can be damaged from prolonged lack of blood flow, increasing patients’ risk of heart attack.

The new findings suggest that curcumins -- the yellow pigment in turmeric -- may be able to ease those risks when added to traditional drug treatment. But that conclusion is based on a relatively small group of subjects and needs to be confirmed in larger studies before all bypass patients rush out to get the extracts, researchers said.

“It’s very, very encouraging,” said Bharat Aggarwal, who studies the use of curcumins in cancer therapy at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

Aggarwal, who wasn’t involved in the new study, said research has suggested inflammation plays an important role in the development of a range of diseases, including heart disease -- and curcumins could have an effect on those pathways. But this is the first rigorous, controlled study to support that idea.

Researchers led by Dr. Wanwarang Wongcharoen from Chiang Mai University studied 121 consecutive patients who had non-emergency bypass surgery at their hospital between 2009 and 2011.

Half of those patients were given one-gram curcumin capsules to take four times a day, starting three days before their surgery and continuing for five days afterward. The other half took the same number of drug-free placebo capsules.

Neither study participants nor their doctors knew which heart patients were getting which pills, and surgeons decided on their own what technique they would use for each bypass procedure.

The researchers found that during their post-bypass hospital stay, 13 percent of patients who’d been taking curcumins had a heart attack, compared to 30 percent in the placebo group. After accounting for any initial pre-surgery differences between the groups, Wongcharoen and his colleagues calculated that people on curcumins had a 65 percent lower chance of heart attack.

Those patients also had lower levels of markers of inflammation and oxidative stress, like C-reactive protein and malondialdehyde, in their blood, according to findings published in the American Journal of Cardiology.

One in five study participants quit taking their assigned capsules early, but there was no difference in the number of side effects, such as nausea and stomach pain, among those taking curcumins versus placebo-users. Researchers said it’s likely the antioxidant and antiinflammatory properties of curcumins that may have helped limit heart damage in bypass patients.

“Curcumin has for many years now been shown to reduce inflammation and to reduce oxygen toxicity or damage caused by free radicals in a number of experimental settings,” said Dr. Jawahar Mehta, a cardiologist at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, who didn’t work on the study.

The extracts, which are used in traditional Chinese and Indian medicine, can be bought over-the-counter for about a dollar per day for the dose used in the study.

Researchers can learn something from Eastern cultures that have been using curcumin in cooking “for ages,” according to Mehta.

“But that doesn’t mean that this is a substitute for medication,” he added, noting that drugs like aspirin, statins and beta blockers have been proven to help heart patients and that people in the current study were on those medications as well. One limitation and concern, Mehta added, is that the study was relatively small. And although curcumins are thought to be safe, there could be side effects at very large doses, he told Reuters Health. “Taken in moderation or used in cooking, (curcumins) are quite useful,” Mehta concluded, “but I wouldn’t go to a health food store and start taking four grams of curcumin a day, as was done in this study.” -Reuters

Corals reefs likely to survive climate change

WASHINGTON: Some species of coral will be winners and others losers as ocean temperatures rise, a new study suggests, reports LiveScience.

The research highlights the complexity of the changes that global warming is likely to have on ocean habitats. And which corals thrive and which struggle could determine what the coral reefs of the future look like.

“The good news is that, rather than experiencing wholesale destruction, many coral reefs will survive climate change by changing the mix of coral species as the ocean warms and becomes more acidic,” Terry Hughes, a researcher at James Cook University in Australia, said in a statement. “That’s important for people who rely on the rich and beautiful coral reefs of today for food, tourism and other livelihoods.”

Most studies of changing coral reefs have used the relatively crude measure of total coral cover to gauge the health of reefs. Hughes and his colleagues wanted to get more detail and to understand how the composition, not just the total size, of the coral changes in different conditions.

The researchers examined more than 35,000 coral colonies along Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. The sites studied were up to 1,081 miles apart.

“We chose the iconic Great Barrier Reef as our natural laboratory because water temperature varies by 8 to 9 degrees Celsius along its full length from summer to winter, and because there are wide local variations in pH [a measure of acidity],” Hughes said. “Its regional-scale natural gradients encompass the sorts of conditions that will apply several decades from now under business-asusual greenhouse gas emissions.”

The results revealed “surprisingly flexible” assemblies of corals along the reef and in different environments within the reef, the researchers reported Thursday in the journal Current Biology. For example, on the crests of the reef, nine of the 12 major scientific groupings found varied widely from region to region. Species colonizing reef crests likewise varied from reef slopes.

Earlier research has shown that corals’ survival could depend on the presence of warm-water genes. Some solitary coral can survive in extremely acidic submarine springs, but these coral look very different from the iconic reefbuilding types known today. The ultimate effects of climate change could mean that the reefs of the future look very different than the ones of today. For example, if branching corals were replaced by moundlike corals, fish would have fewer nooks and crannies for shelter, Hughes said. But the findings also indicate the reefs will ultimately survive climate change in some form - if something else doesn’t kill them off first.

“Coral reefs are also threatened by much more local impacts, especially by pollution and overfishing,” Hughes said. “We need to address all of the threats, including climate change, to give coral reefs a fighting chance for the future.”

NASA seeks new ideas for Mars missions

FRANCE: The US space agency said Friday it is seeking fresh ideas for robotic missions to explore Mars, after budget cuts nixed a planned partnership with the European space agency. “NASA is reformulating the Mars Exploration Program to be responsive to high-priority science goals and the president’s challenge of sending humans to Mars in the 2030s,” the agency said.

A Mars Program Planning Group has started to sift through potential options for future missions, which could involve sending an orbiter around the red planet or a robotic rover to land by 2018, two years later than planned as part of a now defunct European partnership.

NASA issued an open appeal to scientists worldwide to “submit ideas and abstracts online as part of NASA’s effort to seek out the best and the brightest ideas from researchers and engineers in planetary science.”

Those picked will be presented in June at a workshop in Houston, Texas by the Lunar and Planetary Institute, NASA said.

“The workshop will provide an open forum for presentation, discussion and consideration of concepts, options, capabilities and innovations to advance Mars exploration,” the NASA statement said.

“These ideas will inform a strategy for exploration within available resources, beginning as early as 2018 and stretching into the next decade and beyond.”

The United States had planned to partner with the European Space Agency on a project called ExoMars that would have sent an orbiter to Mars in 2016 and two rovers to land on the red planet in 2018.

According to the ExoMars deal made in 2009, NASA would have contributed $1.4 billion to the project and ESA would have chipped in $1.2 billion.

But those plans were axed in February when a proposed fiscal 2013 budget released by President Barack Obama called for a $226 million reduction, or a near 39 percent cut in the US space agency’s Mars exploration program from $587 million to $361 million. John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of the NASA Science Mission Directorate, said active European cooperation could still be expected on future Mars projects. “I think it is very realistic,” Grunsfeld said during a conference call with reporters.

“We are continuing to work with the Europeans. More than three quarters of our current missions have significant international partnerships,” he said, citing the International Space Station as an example. -AFP

12

ALWATAN DAILY

Technology

APP OF THE WEEK

Jumanah Al-Ghadban Staff Writer

App: Crest Category: Social Networking Price: $1.99 Platform: iOS Works with: iPad Briefly: Have you ever wished for a creative and fun way to read your tweets, search twitter, and basically see your followers dropping like rain drops? Well Crest does that an more it is a beautiful Twitter timeline visualizer designed to give you easy and quick access at your tweets and to check what’s going on.

It streams live so when someone tweets it drops in and appears on your screen no need to manually refresh. You can tweet, reply and search within the program. Some of the other featuers are: it stays on and can be a beautiful display, you can use it in landscape and portrait mode, view profiles, in app browser, and most importantly it’s Retina-display ready.

TECH TALK Apple denies US accusation of collusion on e-books: Apple Inc. says the accusation that it conspired with major book publishers to raise the price of e-books is untrue. Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr says that, contrary to allegations in lawsuits by the Justice Department and 15 states, Apple fostered innovation and competition by introducing its iBookstore in 2010. He says customers have benefited from e-books that are more interactive and engaging. The company says its entry into e-books has broken a monopolistic grip on the publishing industry by Internet retailer Amazon.com.

-AP Google Plus social network tweaked for ease of use: Google is tweaking its social network, Google Plus, to make it easier to use and to distinguish itself from rival Facebook. The most visible change is the addition of a navigation ribbon on the left. That’s where you’ll find the most used features, such as photos and your personal profile. Hover over an icon to get tasks, such as adding photos from your phone or from an online album. You can reorder the features in the ribbon and hide the ones you don’t use often. -AP Facebook lets users take more data home: Facebook on Thursday began letting members of the world’s leading online community take more of their pictures, posts, messages and other data home with them. Facebook expanded the types of information its approximately 845 million members could download from their personal account histories to include data such as friend requests and IP addresses of computers used to log-in.

-AFP RIM to launch updates of popular BlackBerry apps: Research In Motion said it will shortly release a slew of updates for its BlackBerry apps, making it easier for users to stay connected with their messenger community. Apps such as Facebook, Twitter, BBM Music and BlackBerry App World will now include BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) connectivity, the Canadian company said in a statement on Wednesday. -Reuters

SUNDAY, APRIL 15, 2012

Internet smartwatch Pebble receives net $2 million for start-up

TORONTO: A Canadian entrepreneur’s smartwatch, which works alongside a user’s smartphone, has won $2 million worth of orders through an Internet-based funding venture that offers cash-starved companies a way to both test their ideas and raise funds.

Eric Migicovsky initially sought $10,000 over a five-week period through Kickstarter (www. kickstarter.com), a website set up to encourage small-scale funding for innovative projects. In just three days, the project has brought in $2.1 million, amounting to orders for almost 17,000 watches at a starting price of $115 each. Bulk orders are cheaper.

Migicovsky, who has been working on smartwatches for three years, moved his company, Pebble Technology, from Research In Motion Inc’s hometown of Waterloo, Ontario, to Google’s hometown of Mountain View, California, in June.

He said Pebble Technology decided to go directly to customers after failing to raise interest among Silicon Valley investors.

“We tried to raise money, it was impossible.

No one really wants to fund hardware projects right now, except for the people that want to buy

them,” he said.

Pebble watches work with iPhones or with smartphones that use Google Inc’s Android operating system. They can display distance and speed for runners and cyclists, control a smartphone’s music, and show emails, messages and reminders.

Pebble plans further applications before it starts shipping the watches in September.

Under the Kickstarter model, a project’s developer must set a deadline for reaching its funding goal. If time runs out, no money changes hands. Kickstarter says this protects both parties as buyers don’t pay until developers have adequate funds to develop their project.

Migicovsky said Pebble would likely boost its team of six by several more engineers to develop features for the watches. He said interested investors have approached him since the orders starting flowing in, but he declined to provide further details.

His smartwatch will compete with one released this month by global electronic giant Sony Corp, a gadget that works with Android phones.

“We’ll let people vote with their wallet,” he said.

-Reuters

Barnes & Noble lights up e-reader screen

Apple works on Mac malware fix but takes heat

The Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight is photographed, Thursday, April 12, 2012 in New York. (AP)

NEW YORK: Barnes & Noble Inc. on Thursday said it’s tackling one of the shortcomings of black-and-white e-readers with a screen that lights up so it can be read in the dark. E-readers with blackand-white screens, made by Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Sony and others, are easily readable in bright light but don’t come with their own light sources and can’t be read in darkness. The ones with color screens, such as the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet, do have their own light sources but are barely legible in sunlight.

The new “Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight” has a standard black-andwhite screen, but an array of light-emitting diodes inside the frame spreads a glow over the page with the help of an invisible light-guiding layer.

The ability to read books in bed without disturbing a partner by turning on a bedside lamp has been a top request from customers, said Jamie Ianonne, the head of Barnes & Noble’s digital division.

The model will be in stores early next month and cost $139, The New Yorkbased chain said.

The cheapest Nook with a color screen costs $169. Barnes & Noble is keeping its

A product design image of the Pebble E-Paper watch for iPhone and Android phones. (Agencies)

non-lit black-and-white Nook in the lineup at $99.

Black-and-white e-readers can’t be lit the same way color screens are. Color screens are translucent and require a “backlight” shining through them to look clear and legible. Black-and-white screens, on the other hand, are more like paper. They aren’t translucent, so any lighting has to come from above.

Sony Corp., which pioneered the black-and-white e-reader, introduced a model with a built-in light in 2008, but the lighting was poor. The model’s screen was much brighter on the edges. The light-guiding layer also made the screen less clear in all types of light. The model was soon retired.

Barnes & Noble developed its own technology to deal with the problem, and has filed for patents to protect it. The lighting is even over most of the page, but noticeably brighter along the top of the page where the LEDs are housed. The light will sap some of the battery power.

With no lighting, the reader will last for two months of 30 minutes of reading per day. With the light in use, it will last a bit more than a month, Ianonne said. -AP

SAN FRANCISCO: The cybersecurity community raked Apple Inc over the coals on Wednesday, saying the company had dragged its heels on eradicating malware that experts say may have infected up to 600,000 Macintosh computers and can be used to ferret out sensitive user information.

The consumer electronics company said it was working on finding and ridding “Flashback” malware that exploits a flaw in Oracle Corp’s Java software.

Apple has issued patches and is now developing software to detect and eliminate Flashback, it said on its website. The company declined to elaborate.

But Apple is catching heat for not having quickly addressed the issue, even after Oracle distributed its own patch in February.

Several security blogs accused Apple of having not been forthcoming in the past about security issues, but gave the company credit for stepping forward now.

“Someone in Apple has broken ranks following the recent revelations of a Jolly Big OS X botnet,” Paul Ducklin at security specialist Sophos wrote.

“Apple has -- apparently for the very first time -- talked about a security problem before it had all its threat response ducks in a row.”

Trojans and other malware typically target Microsoft Windows, long the dominant PC operating system.

Flashback stands out in that it represents one of

the largest-scale invasions of Apple computers, which are gaining ground on Windows PCs. Antivirus specialists Symantec Corp said the malware surfaced last summer or early fall. It said the number of infected computers, which hackers link into botnets to access private information, had dropped to 270,000 as of this week.

Flashbacks

A “Trojan” is a software program that looks and acts like a regular program but opens backdoors into a user’s computer systems.

The Flashback software, also known as “Flashfake”, advertises itself for download on infected websites as a Java software add-on or applet, experts said.

According to Kaspersky Labs’ Igor Soumenkov, more than half of the over 600,000 initially infected computers, or bots, originated from the United States, and he estimated more than 98 percent could be Macs.

The software can be used to modify Internet pages, for example by adding a field asking users to type private information such as bank account data, said Michael Sutton, VP of Security Research at Zscaler ThreatLabZ. Apple has issued patches and is now developing software to detect and eliminate Flashback, it said on its website. -Reuters

Nokia launches first NFC Windows Phone HELSINKI: Nokia unveiled on Wednesday its Lumia 610 NFC model, first to take the emerging near-field communication technology that drives instant payment systems to Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform, and promised more models in the future.

“We’re bringing NFC right across our portfolio,” Ilari Nurmi, marketing chief at Nokia smartphone unit, said in a statement.

Sales of NFC-enabled cellphones are expected to more than triple to 100 million handsets this year as manufacturers and operators roll out new models, hoping to tap emerging market for mobile payments, research firm Berg Insight said last month.

NFC enables data to be exchanged wirelessly over distances of a few centimeters, meaning mobile phones

can be used to pay for goods, store electronic tickets, download music and swap photos and business cards.

Nokia said Orange will be the first operator to sell the Lumia 610 NFC - which has been certified for contactless payments both with MasterCard and Visa technologies starting early in the third quarter.

“Nokia has been one of the front runners in pushing NFC technology on handsets for non-payment usage, but inclusion of Mastercard and Visa technologies suggest Orange will be looking to use the device also for its mobile payment service,” said Digantam Gurung, analyst at CCS Insight.

Earlier on Wednesday Nokia said it had found a software bug in its Lumia 900 smartphone, blunting its bid to turn around its fortunes in the United States. -Reuters

gears

Numero 9 from Citroen respects the environment

Compiled by Jameel W. Karaki Staff Writer

Citroen will be unveiling their new Numero 9 concept at the end of April at the 2012 Beijing Motor Show.

(Agencies)

CAPITALS: Citroen has announced the new Numero 9 concept, a new vehicle that will join the current DS line-up, including the DS3, DS4, and DS5. The Numero 9 previews the styling cues of the next three models in the line, a Csegment premium sedan, an SUV, and a D-segment executive saloon.

The new Numero 9 is a plug-in full-hybrid vehicle that combines a 225 HP 1.6 liter petrol engine powering the front wheels with a lithium-ion powered electric motor that is positioned on the rear axle and adds another 70 HP. In pure electric mode, the new Numero 9 has autonomy of 31 miles.

It can sprint from 0 to 60 mph in just 5.4 seconds and hit a top speed of 152 mph.

The Citroen Numero 9 is built on a three meter wheelbase and measures 4.9 meters in length and 1.94 meters in width.

The concept features a shooting brake design and continues the heritage and sophistication of the DS line. Illustrating this design is a new front-end identity with a grille in 3D relief, flowing into the full-LED headlights, which end in daytimerunning lights. The most impressive feature of the concept, however, is a new floating roof, underlined by a chrome trim with a discreet DS marking, and glazed side surfaces flowing into the rear window.

The Numero 9 is finished in black exterior paint with subtle hints of violet, baptized “Whisper.” The concept sits on an impressive set of 21” wheels.

The advanced drivetrain combines a conventional petrol or diesel engine (depending on the market) with an electric

motor on the rear axle that develops 70hp and torque of 200Nm. The electric motor is powered by lithium-ion batteries that can be recharged in just 31/2 hours from a normal domestic socket. The model on display at the Beijing Motor Show is fitted with a 1.6 THP petrol engine developing 225hp (165kW) and 275Nm of torque.

With its plug-in hybrid technology, Citroën Numéro 9 Concept respects the environment. It has a range of 50km (around 31miles) in all-electric ZEV (Zero Emission Vehicle) mode and, on roads demanding successive acceleration and deceleration, the hybrid drivetrain limits consumption by using both sources of energy. On the motorway, the combustion engine takes over to deliver real performance. When the driver requires speed and torque, a ‘boost’ function combines the power of the combustion engine and electric motor to enable high levels of performance (up to 295hp). Numéro 9 takes just 5.4 seconds to go from 0 to 62mph and 25.3 seconds to travel 1,000m from a standing start.

When grip is lacking, the car switches to four-wheel drive mode with the electric motor driving the rear wheels and the combustion engine powering the front wheels. In particularly difficult driving conditions, such as driving up a sloping, snow-covered road, the driver can manually select 4WD mode. The four-wheel drive system and hydraulic active suspension then deliver increased traction, making full use of the potential of Citroën Numéro 9 in complete safety.

Looking beyond on-road performance and environmental benefits, the full-hybrid plug-in technology offers a third advantage: the cabin can be prepared before the car is used.

For example, it can be pre-heated to ensure the comfort of all the occupants as soon as they climb onboard.

ALWATAN DAILY

entertainment Song Of The Day

Fahad AlSabah Staff Writer

Song: Field Below Artist: Regina Spektor Album: Begin To Hope Genre: Pop/Alternative In short: Regina Spektor is one of the first artists that come to mind when people refer to music as therapy; Spektor’s music catalogue is almost without a single bad song, and any song would serve well in most moods.

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

The Buzz Jesse Eisenberg to appear in Newsroom pilot Jesse Eisenberg and Aaron Sorkin are having a little bit of a reunion. Eisenberg, star of “The Social Network,” will appear in the pilot episode of Sorkin’s HBO series “The Newsroom.” Sorkin, of course, wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for the 2010 film about the gestational era of Facebook.

Alas, Eisenberg’s participation will be fairly minimal -- he has a small voiceover part, and only for the pilot episode, which airs June 24 at 10 p.m. “The Newsroom” stars Jeff Daniels, Emily Mortimer, Dev Patel, Olivia Munn and Sam Waterston, and revolves around a cable news anchor (played

by Daniels) and his new executive producer, newsroom staff and boss as they attempt to do honest reporting in an atmosphere of corporate-controlled media. -Reuters

Julian Assange show starts Tuesday, guest kept secret Wikileaks founder Julian Assange will launch his new TV talk show on Russia on April 17, but is keeping the guest list secret, the Kremlin-funded English language station said on Friday. Assange, who is under house arrest in England fighting extradition to Sweden for questioning on an alleged sexual assault, filmed “The World Tomorrow” show from Britain. Russia Today (RT) said in a news release that it would not release the guest list in advance, but said the first interview would prove controversial. “We do not want to kill the buzz and the intrigue by revealing the name of the first guest,” said RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan.

“But I have no doubt that this particular guest and this interview will lead to calls to shut us down from some especially hawkish personalities who have little respect for freedom of speech,” she added. Australian-born Assange said in a statement he would be talking to people “who normally simply would not be given a voice on TV at all. What is fair to say is that the majority of what they have said to me they could not say on a mainstream TV network.” -Reuters

Roger Ailes takes dig at Soledad O’Brien’s name Roger Ailes probably should probably hire a new joke writer.

The Fox News president made headlines Friday after taking an inexplicable -- and not particularly witty -- dig at CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien. The comment came during an appearance at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Thursday. Ailes was on campus as part of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication’s Roy H. Park Distinguished Lecture Series, but one particular comment from Ailes wasn’t particularly distinguished at all. During an after-lecture interview with student journalists Eliza Kern and Steve Norton, Ailes referred to O’Brien – who anchors the CNN morning news show “Starting Point” – as “that girl that’s named after a prison.” Presumably, Ailes was referring to the Soledad Correctional Training Facility in Monterey County, Calif. It’s not yet clear why Ailes would believe that O’Brien was named after the facility, or why he would think that students at the University of North Carolina would be particularly familiar with the California prison system. -Reuters

Flintstones reboot put on indefinite hold Sorry, Seth MacFarlane fans: when it comes to his planned “Flintstones” reboot, the operative phrase is now, “Yabba Dabba Don’t.” The revamp of the classic cartoon about a prehistoric working schlub and his family, which was to air on Fox, has been put on ice indefinitely, due to schedule concerns on MacFarlane’s part. Fox announced the series last May with a plan to premiere the new “Flintstones” in 2013. Though the news may disappoint, it’s hardly surprising that MacFarlane should find his plate too full. He already has three series - “Family Guy,” “American Dad” and “The Cleveland Show” - running on the network, for which he provides multiple voices. -Reuters

A&E renews Storage Wars and its franchises A lot of junk will be purchased and hauled across the country on A&E this summer, as the network has ordered new, 26-episode seasons of its hit reality shows “Storage Wars,” “Storage Wars: Texas” and “Shipping Wars.” All three shows will premiere their latest seasons this summer.”Storage Wars,” which debuted in 2010 and has become the cable network’s highest-rated series, follows the adventures of a group of auction hunters. The new season will be the show’s fourth. “America is at a crossroads where people are finding new ways to make money and earn a living,” said David McKillop, executive vice president of programming for A&E. “We’re holding a mirror up to this trend in our programming, and it’s proven to be incredibly relatable to our viewers, yet remain highly entertaining.” -Reuters

sunDAY, april 15, 2012

13

Finally! Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt get engaged NEW YORK: It’s official: Brangelina is engaged.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie haven’t set a wedding date yet, but their engagement “is a promise for the future,” Pitt’s manager, Cynthia Pett-Dante, said in an email Friday.

Pitt, 48, and Jolie, 36, have six children together. “Their kids are very happy,” PettDante also said.

Jeweler Robert Procop worked with Pitt to design the ring. A news release describes it as featuring a long diamond amid a “galaxy of smaller stones.” It took a year to design.

The A-list celebrities have been partners since they began a relationship in 2005 while working on the film “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.”

Already megawatt superstars in their own right, the romantic pairing of Pitt and Jolie instantly made them Hollywood’s most glamorous and photographed couple. The fact that Pitt was still married to Jennifer Anniston when he met Jolie only added to the tabloid fodder; Pitt and Aniston divorced in 2005 after five years of marriage.

As the couple dubbed “Brangelina” added to their family over the years through the adoption and birth of their children, the question always swirled as to when - or whether - the two would ever wed.

For some time, it seemed as if they might not. They often spoke about how they were comfortable without an official arrangement, and Pitt famously said he didn’t want to get married until all people - including gays - had the same right.

Jolie was briefly married to Billy Bob Thornton, but they divorced in 2003. She was also married to British actor Jonny Lee Miller before they divorced in 1999.

Wills and Kate were just the warm up for the true wedding of the century.

If you thought the media circus involving the world’s most glamorous couple was on overdrive before, just wait. Now that Brangelina are officially engaged, expect endless speculation about where and when they’ll wed, what they’ll wear, what their kids’ roles will be, and who might get to attend the celebration.

“This is really a state wedding,” said Stephen Galloway, executive editor of features at

A diamond ring is seen Angelina Jolie’s engagement finger as she and her son Pax view works from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Chinese collection on April 11, in this publicity handout photograph provided to Reuters April 13, 2012.

(Reuters)

FILE-Actress Angelina Jolie and cast member Brad Pitt arrive on the red carpet for the screening of the film “The Tree of Life”, by director Terrence Malick, in competition at the 64th Cannes Film Festival, in this May 16, 2011 file photo. (Reuters)

The Hollywood Reporter. “This is America’s equivalent to Prince William and Kate Middleton.”

He called the Brangelina wedding “the media event of the new century.”

But Bradley Jacobs, a senior editor at Us Weekly, sees things differently. He anticipates the wedding will be a private, even low-key affair.

“I don’t think you’re going to see a bunch of fanfare,” he said. “It’s certainly not going to be a Kim Kardashian-style wedding ... It’s going to be very subdued.”

Still, expect massive media coverage either way: “We will not rest until we know

when and where and how and who’s going to be there,” Jacobs said. Entire magazine issues could be devoted to each star’s wedding-day outfits and hairdos.

“Every single designer on the planet will be pursuing Angelina for the dress,” Galloway said. “It’s literally worth millions of dollars in business.” Jolie’s wedding dress is a careermaking outfit for the winning designer.

Even Pitt’s look leaves room for ample speculation: Long hair or short? Facial scruff or clean shaven? A classic tuxedo? And designed by whom?

Then there’s the guest list. Who will be the best man and maid of honor? Will Jolie’s

Woody’s To Rome with Love shows the sweet life ROME: Woody Allen brought “To Rome with Love” to the city that inspired his latest film, but some homegrown critics are grumbling that the American director’s new work is loaded with old-fashioned Italian stereotypes. At a news conference Friday in Rome following a screening for Italian journalists, Allen exuded a fuzzy, love-struck view of the country. “(Americans) have an enormously affectionate feeling about Italy,” he declared. “They think of Italy as a country that is enormously warm . ... It’s a very easygoing place to live, a place that enjoys life and that stands for everything positive about life.”

That sunny assessment of their country, which is now enduring tough economic austerity measures, including new taxes, job cuts and higher retirement ages, sparked objections from some Italian journalists. One contended the film was “superficial.”

Allen responded by saying his sole intention was making an entertaining movie set in Rome. “When I come to a place to make a movie, I give you my own impression of it, the things that strike me as dramatic or comic, that would be fun to see,” he said. “I have no great insights at all into Italian politics, Italian culture.”

The film, in the form of vignettes, is a light-hearted romp through a cobblestoned, seemingly always sunny city. Stars include Allen, Penelope Cruz, Alec Baldwin and Italian comic actor/director Roberto Benigni.

Only Italian journalists were invited to the screening because it was shown in its dubbed version. And as Allen put it, “I don’t like dubbing at all.”

Benigni, the exuberant “Life Is Beautiful;” Oscar winner, defended Allen’s view of Italy.

He recounted how at one point while filming, a Rome ambulance, siren whining, drove by. Seeing the filming, the ambulance slammed on its brakes, roared back in reverse, and the crew jumped out to take a couple of photos with Benigni before racing off to pick up an ailing patient. “Mr. Allen said, ‘Only in Italy, only in Italy.’ In fact, it could have been the title of the film,” Benigni observed, chuckling.

The movie marks Allen’s first time on the screen since his 2006 “Scoop.” Another paean to a European capital by Allen, “Midnight in Paris,” packed theaters and won him an Academy Award this year for original screenplay. “To Rome with Love” opens June 22 in the United States. -AP

Reports: Robin Gibb gravely ill in hospital LONDON: Former Bee Gee Robin Gibb is gravely ill with pneumonia in a London hospital, British media reported Saturday. The Sun newspaper reported that 62-year-old Gibb is in a coma, citing a family friend.

The newspaper and the Press Association news agency said family members including wife Dwina and brother Barry were at his bedside.

Gibb’s publicist, Doug Wright, declined to comment, but Gibb’s son has acknowledged that the 62year-old musician is seriously ill in a hospital.

Gibb was hospitalized last year for stomach and colon problems and had intestinal surgery last month.

Gibb has not specified the exact nature of his illness - widely reported to be cancer - but told the BBC he had a growth on his colon that was removed.

He said earlier this year that he was making a good recovery, but was forced to miss the London premiere of his classical “Titanic Requiem” this week because of illness. His son Robin-John Gibb said the family was “praying for him and hoping he has a speedy recovery.” The Bee Gees - British-born, Australia-raised brothers Robin, Barry and Maurice Gibb - had a string of disco-era hits including “How Deep is Your Love” and “Stayin’ Alive.”

Their soundtrack to the movie “Saturday Night Fever” was one of the best-selling albums of the 1970s.

The Bee Gees became members of the Rock and Roll

father, Jon Voight, attend? Will George Clooney be in the house? Jolie has said she doesn’t have many close friends.

“This is going to be a map of the inner state of their private life,” Galloway said.

“This is like Kremlinology. You’ll be able to read all sorts of things into this wedding.”

“There’s a certain mystery in these contradictory statements made in the weeks leading up to this (engagement news),” Galloway said. “People who’ve been together a long time get married when things are great or when you want to shore up things that are not so great.”

Regardless of the size of the celebration or where it takes place, the Jolie-Pitt wedding has major economic implications. Journalists from all over the world will swarm to the wedding location; the designers of each nuptial element will see their businesses boom; the rights to the photos and footage will be haggled over by publishers and broadcasters with deep pockets. -AP

Madonna: I’m happy Joyce Banda is Malawi’s leader

NEW YORK: Madonna says she’s happy that Malawi’s former vice president is now leading the country.

Joyce Banda became president on April 7 and is the country’s first female leader. Former President Bingu wa Mutharika died of a heart attack on April 5. Madonna adopted two Malawian children and started the charity Raising Malawi in 2006. It assists orphanages and other aid programs in the country.

The singer called Banda “amazing” and said she interviewed the 62-year-old for her 2008 documentary, “I Am Because We Are,” about Malawian orphans who lost family members to HIV/AIDS. “She was really into girls being educated in Africa, which is a good thing,” Madonna said in an interview Thursday night. “So I’m glad.” The pop star made the comments at Macy’s in New York for the launch of her fragrance, Truth or Dare. She said she’s “been trying to develop a fragrance for probably the last 15 years.”

“It’s never worked out with various companies and different people and trying different fragrances,” she said. “They never turned out the way I wanted them to smell.”

But Madonna says that was partially due to her expensive taste.

“It’s the mass-producing part that always gets tricky because, for some reason, the fragrances that I like tend to be really expensive,” the singer said. “One time I created a smell and I was told the amber ... was like a million dollars to ship from India or something.”

She said an attempt at making a synthetic version of the fragrance didn’t work because it didn’t smell as good as she had wanted it to. But, she says, “Finally, I got a smell I like that I can mass produce. Yay!” -AP

FILE-A picture taken on Dec. 14, 2006 shows British singer Robin Gibb performing during a general rehearsal for the Jose Carreras Gala taking place later the evening in Leipzig, eastern Germany. (AFP)

Hall of Fame and won seven Grammy Awards.

Maurice Gibb, Robin’s twin brother, died in 2003 at the age of 53 due to complications from a twisted intestine. The Bee Gees’ younger brother, Andy, who had a successful solo career, died in 1988 at age 30 of a heart ailment. -AP

Future of Judah Maccabee film uncertain

LOS ANGELES: The future of a film about ancient Jewish warrior Judah Maccabee may be close to flickering out. Warner Bros. spokesman Paul McGuire said Friday that the studio is “analyzing what to do with the project.”

The film about the biblical hero was to be a collaboration between producer Mel Gibson and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas. After the studio recently rejected Eszterhas’ script, the screenwriter accused Gibson of anti-Semitism in a letter published online. Gibson responded with his own letter denying the allegations.

In 2006, Gibson was arrested for drunken driving. A leaked arrest report revealed he used antiSemitic and sexist slurs.

The Eszterhas allegations and Gibson’s history prompted Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center to issue a statement Thursday calling for Warner Bros. and all other studios “to permanently shelve the Maccabee project as long as Mel Gibson is associated with the film.” The Maccabees’ unlikely victory over those who would repress Jewish religious freedoms is celebrated on Chanukah, the Jewish festival of light. -AP

Singer Madonna arrives at Macy’s Herald Square to launch her new fragrance “Truth or Dare By Madonna” on Thursday, April 12, 2012 in New York. (AP)

14

ALWATAN DAILY

AROUND TOWN / TIME OUT

SUNDAY, APRIL 15, 2012

If you have an event you wish to include, please email: aroundtown@alwatandaily.com

Feature o f

graffiti

the day

moderately confused

ExxonMobil reunites with KES to support annual student ‘Physics Challenge’

KUWAIT: As part of its ongoing commitment to support educational initiatives in Kuwait and generate student interest in math and science, ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Kuwait Limited sponsored the Kuwait English School (KES) ‘Physics Challenge’ for the third year in-a-row as the largest contributor and supporter.

This year’s ‘Physics Challenge’ gathered 100 KES students from grades 8, 9 and 10 that were divided into teams of five. Students were given a number of construction and mechanical materials and three hours to construct a boat with a sail that is able to transport a small cargo of weights.

The panel of judges included a KES teacher, an A level student, and three other professional experts across Kuwait. The judges tested and assessed the students’ boats based on their design, construction, and performance quality.

The winners of this year’s challenge were the “0” Kelvin team from year 10. Second place winners were the Ribbets and in third the Extendables.

ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Kuwait Limited President, Faycel Bensaid said, “ExxonMobil is in a continuous drive

Month a t

towards generating student interest in math and science through initiatives that encourage the bright young minds of tomorrow to develop analytical skills, learn about innovation and science and excel in the subject of their interest.”

ExxonMobil Kuwait is a cofounder of the largest nationwide annual science competition launched in 2008, the Kuwait Science Fair. ExxonMobil also supports several other educational programs in Kuwait.

With KES, ExxonMobil sponsored the ‘Physics Challenge’ for the third year in a row to help the school in its efforts to provide stu-

dents with science activities that will help them grow and excel.

Kuwait English School Head of Science, Pete Dryhurst said, “KES has stimulated hundreds of students with this competition in the last seven years. We are very proud of every one of our students who rose to the challenge this year, proving that with a little guidance and support, young students are capable of yielding outstanding results. We’d like to thank ExxonMobil for its contribution to this year’s challenge and for its continuous investment in our activities. We look forward to having them on board with us for next year’s challenge.”

Sudoku

Intermediate

Advanced

Elementary

General A n n o u n c e m e n t s

a glance are mundane encounters of beauty that sprouted from the ego and surrounding events, creating emotions which dissolved into aesthetic visual messages.

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 purposebusiness, basic communication, as a second language or simply as a hobby. For more information/registration, contact 97228860/97793440.

Marriage counseling session Diwaniya presentation April 17/ 7 p.m. / AWARE Center: The AWARE Center cordially invites interested expats to its diwaniya presentation entitled, “The Impact of Islamic civilization on the West,” by Bryn Barnard on Tuesday. Bryn Barnard will be discussing the impact of Islamic civilization on the West, the subject of his book ‘The Genius of Islam: How Muslims Made the Modern World’. This one hour illustrated PowerPoint talk will include aspects of Islamic philosophy, art, book arts, music, astronomy, medicine, engineering; a discussion of how Islamic civilization is presented in North American schools; and suggestions about why the deep historical connections between Islam and the West are not better known today.

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-calligraphic narrative of life experiences on luminous and luxurious enamel weaves.

Art exhibition April 15-26/ 10 a.m. - 9 p.m. / Gallery Tilal: Abdul Rasool Salman’s rhythms

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

May 2/ 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. / TIES Center: TIES Ladies Club invites all ladies to a lecture on Marriage Institution by Joanne Hands (Psychologist, Licensed Counselor, Marriage & family Therapist). The lecture will cover on a brief introduction to the stages of marriage institution, a successful approach to the day to day marriage life, tricks of nourishing and improving your marriage relationships and techniques of overcoming the marriage challenges.

Refreshments will be served. For more information please contact us on 97228860/2523015/6 or emailinfo@tiescenter.net.

Mario is a gentle and affectionate 6-years-young Spitz male. This friendly boy does great with people and dogs of all ages.

Bread baking course April 19- May 10/ 6 p.m.-8 p.m. /TIES Center: TIES Ladies Club invites all ladies the unique course of preparing the ancient traditional food “The Bread Baking”. Baking of different kinds of breads will be demonstrated including Old English Toast, Italian Bread Stick, Strawberry Sweet Heart and many more. For more information please contact us on 97228860/2523015/6 or emailinfo@tiescenter.net.

Brainbang session 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

Open House for Indian Citizens Ambassador of India would be holding an Open House for Indian citizens to address their problems\grievances on Wednesdays of the second and the fourth weeks of every month between 1500 hrs and 1600 hrs in the Embassy. In case Wednesday is an Embassy holiday, the meeting will be held on the next working day. To ensure timely action/follow-up by the Embassy, it is requested that, wherever possible, Indian citizens should exhaust the existing channels of interaction/grievance redressal and bring their problems/issues in writing with supporting documents.

Royal Thai Embassy The Royal Thai Embassy in Kuwait wishes to invite Kuwaiti companies that deal business with Thai companies or those agencies of Thai commercial companies to visit the Embassy’s Commercial Office to register their relevant information to be part of the embassy’s business and trade database. The Royal Thai Embassy is located in Jabriya, Block 6, Street 8, Villa No. 1, Telephone No. 25317530 -25317531, Ext: 14.

Nancy

Horoscopes Aries: March 21 - April 19

A lack of communication on the part of your mate or perhaps a business partner can cause you to feel uncertainty about the relationship. Don’t fall into this trap, Aries. Use your warmth and understanding to open up the communication between you.You’ll probably find that all is basically well. Your partner just needs some space. Take some space for yourself, too! A little solitude might do you some good.

Taurus: April 20 - May 20

The right moment to ask for a raise or apply for a promotion or new job could come your way today, but you’d better make use of it or the opportunity could pass you by. A chance for a romantic encounter or fun evening with friends could also come up. Whatever pleasant things arise today aren’t sure things, Taurus, so don’t let them escape. They could be significant milestones for you.

Gemini: May 21- June 21

Love and romance are definitely on the agenda for today, Gemini, and you should be feeling warm, passionate, and particularly sexy. You’re likely to be looking quite attractive, too, and romantic partners or potential partners could seem especially attractive to you. This is a wonderful day to shop for new clothes.

Cancer: June 22 - July 22

A friend or family member could be feeling rather grim, taciturn, and not open to communication. He or she could have you wondering if you’ve done something wrong, or they’re angry with you. If you use your warmth and generosity of spirit to induce this person to open up, Cancer, you’ll probably find that the issues have nothing to do with you. You might even help relieve them!

Leo: July 23 - August 22

A warm, loving phone call or letter could come your way today from a lover or close friend who’s presently out of town. You’ll wish with all your heart that he or she could be home! In the meantime, you’re likely to keep yourself quite busy, Leo. Creative projects, activities in your community, or both could keep you too busy to miss anyone too much. Tonight, spend some time alone.

Virgo: August 23 - September 22

Today you could discover a talent for investment, real estate, or other form of money management that you never thought you had,Virgo.The opportunity to make an investment or cash in on one could enable you to take strides toward making your money grow. This might be a good time to buy or sell any type of property.

Libra: September 23 - October 22

You might wake up today feeling a little grumpy and out of sorts, Libra. You could aspire to nothing more strenuous than spending the day without any distractions other than a good book. However, by the middle of the day a warm and loving letter or phone call is likely to snap you out of your reclusive mood. You could spend the evening strolling through your community, visiting shops or restaurants.

Scorpio: October 23 - November 21

Some pretty heavy soul searching could reveal that the time has come to make use of a talent you may have always had but never developed. This could involve nothing more than a little practice, or you could decide to get some formal training in the skill. This is a positive sign, Scorpio, but your determination could waver over the next few days. Don’t hesitate - stay with it!

Sagittarius: November 22 - December 21

You’re looking good and your social skills are at their peak, Sagittarius. Therefore, social events and group activities that you might attend today could well be the most satisfying and beneficial you’ve known in a long time. People you meet should be impressed with you, and you could make a lot of new friends.

Capricorn: December 22 - January 19

Today you could find yourself brainstorming a way to put your inventiveness and ingenuity to work so that you can advance your career by leaps and bounds and increase your income. You could also become involved in artistic projects of some kind. Don’t be surprised if great ideas come to you with little effort. You’re very intuitive today, Capricorn, so enjoy it.

Aquarius: January 20 - February 18

An intense study of philosophy, religion, or some other exalted school of thought could find you involved with a group that shares your interest in the subject. You could make a new friend today, or if you aren’t currently romantically involved, meet a potential romantic partner. This should be a very satisfying day on both mental and emotional levels.

Pisces: February 19 - March 20

Sex and romance should be at the top of your priority list today, Pisces. You should be feeling especially warm, loving, and passionate. Romantic novels and movies could be especially appealing, as could an intimate evening with a lover! Career and money matters look fairly strong and stable at this time.

ALWATAN DAILY

SPORTS

SUNDAY, april 15, 2012

Basketball

James, Bosh power Heat past Bobcats

15

Lakers hold off Nuggets, clinch playoff berth LOS ANGELES: Andrew Bynum had 30 points and eight rebounds, Matt Barnes added a season-high 24 points, and the Los Angeles Lakers clinched a playoff berth without Kobe Bryant or coach Mike Brown, holding off the Denver Nuggets 103-97 Friday night.

Pau Gasol had 14 points and 10 rebounds for the Pacific Division-leading Lakers (38-22), who have won three of four without Bryant. The NBA scoring leader is resting his bruised shin. Los Angeles also played without Brown, who left Staples Center shortly before tipoff for undisclosed personal reasons. Assistant coach John Kuester ran the team.

Barnes played an enormous game in a reserve role while matching his highestscoring performance in two seasons with the Lakers. He scored six consecutive points after Denver trimmed Los Angeles’ lead to one point, hitting a 3-pointer and adding a clutch jumper with 1:29 to play.

Andre Miller scored 20 points and

Al Harrington added 18 for the Nuggets, who had won five of seven. Arron Afflalo also had 18 for Denver, which is hanging on to a playoff spot.

Los Angeles led for all but the opening minutes, going up 87-75 with 9:25 left.

Denver trimmed the lead to one point with a 15-4 run capped by Harrington’s 3-pointer with 3:38 left, but Barnes hit a clutch 3-pointer and added a free throw and a jumper before throwing a phenomenal half-court alley-oop to Bynum in the final minute.

Despite committing 23 turnovers, the Lakers took three of four from Denver to win the season series after the Nuggets took it in each of the past two years. With six games left, Los Angeles is 1 1/2 games ahead of the Clippers for the division lead and the No. 3 playoff seed.

Kuester filled in when Brown left Staples Center after his regular media briefing about 75 minutes before game time. Bryant also moved up next to the

assistant coaches, yelling out advice and strategy. Bryant is no longer wearing a protective boot. The fifth-leading scorer in NBA history is walking without pain, but must run and jump without pain before he’ll return.

Bryant has built a career on playing through any amount of pain, but with the Lakers comfortably in the playoff picture, he apparently feels he can take a brief rest from the compacted regular season.

Brown wouldn’t speculate on how long Bryant will sit, saying they’ll re-evaluate his injury before Sunday’s game against the defending NBA champion Dallas Mavericks.

Bryant hadn’t missed a game all season before his current week off, and he has missed just 99 games in his 16 NBA seasons. He is closing in on his third scoring title with 28.1 points per game, slightly ahead of Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant, who won the last two scoring crowns. -AP

Tennis

Isner, Lopez advance to US clay-court semis Miami Heat’s LeBron James (top center) moves to dunk against the Charlotte Bobcats during the first half of their NBA basketball game in Miami, April 13, 2012. (Reuters)

MIAMI: The Miami Heat don’t get discouraged when they don’t have Dwyane Wade in the lineup. They know they can win without him. LeBron James had 19 points and nine rebounds to lead the short-handed Heat to a 105-82 victory over the Charlotte Bobcats on Friday night.

Bosh had 18 points and seven rebounds as the Heat completed a three-game season-series sweep of Charlotte. Miami led by 22 after three quarters and rested James, who also had five assists, the entire final period.

Miami bounced back after a disappointing 96-86 overtime loss at Chicago on Thursday night that likely ended the Heat’s hopes of getting the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs.

Derrick Brown had 21 points and nine rebounds to lead Charlotte, which lost its 15th straight. The Bobcats trailed 33-19 after the first quarter and got no closer than 15 points in the second half.

Miami was also without starting forward Udonis Haslem (stomach virus) and reserve forward Mike Miller (ankle).

The absences from forced Miami to have its third different starting lineup in three games. Swingman James Jones (six points on 2-for-7 shooting) started for Wade, and center Joel Anthony replaced Haslem, who got his first start a night earlier at Chicago in place of

Ronny Turiaf. However, the injuries didn’t ease Charlotte coach Paul Silas one bit.

The Bobcats were also short-handed, starting the game with just 10 players in uniform. Among the missing were forward Tyrus Thomas (right knee contusion), center DeSagana Diop (left Achilles), forward Corey Maggette (right Achilles), and forward Eduardo Najera (frontal bone fracture).

Then, forward D.J. White was hit in the head in the second quarter and the resulting headache meant he didn’t play in the second half.

The Bobcats, a league-worst 7-51, are in danger of not reaching double-digit victories in this lockoutshortened 66-game season. Charlotte needs three victories in the final eight games.

Miami made quick work of the Bobcats. The Heat took a 58-39 halftime lead by shooting 58.5 percent from the field and holding Charlotte to 38.5 percent.

Charlotte didn’t offer much resistance.

Brown had a good night, guard Gerald Henderson chipped in with 14 points, and rookie center Bismack Biyombo had 10 points, eight rebounds and rookie guard Kemba Walker added 11 points.

The Heat reserves, outscored 47-7 by their Chicago counterparts a night earlier, finished with 44 points and 17 rebounds against the Bobcats. Center Dexter Pittman had a career-best 16 points. -AP

Formula one

Rosberg celebrates first pole in China

HOUSTON: World number 10 John Isner beat defending champion Ryan Sweeting 7-6 (7/1), 7-6 (7/4) to reach the semifinals of the $442,500 ATP US Men’s Clay Court Championship.

Isner, the second seed, fired 11 aces and saved all six break points that he faced in the all-American quarter-final to improve to 19-6 for the season and keep alive his hopes for a first claycourt title.

Isner, a runner-up last month at Indian Wells, will next face Spanish third seed Feliciano Lopez, who led 6-4, 2-2 when Carlos Berlocq of Argentina retired injured. Lopez is chasing his third ATP title and his first on clay.

The other semi-final will see Argentine fourth seed Juan Monaco, who edged South Africa’s Kevin Anderson 7-6 (7/4), 7-5, take on US qualifier Michael Russell, who outlasted Ryan Harrison 6-1, 5-7, 6-3 in another all-American quarter-final.

Monaco, ranked 16th, won his fourth career ATP title, and first since 2007, in February at Vina del Mar and reached the semi-finals last month at Miami, losing to eventual winner, world number one Novak Djokovic.

Anderson, ranked 33rd, was denied a chance for his second title in as many months after taking his second career ATP crown last month at Delray Beach, Florida.

Russell, a 33-year-old hometown hero, reached his first career ATP semifinal by holding off 19-year-old Harrison. -AFP

John Isner hits a ball to Ryan Sweeting in the US men’s Clay Court tennis match at River Oaks Country Club, April 13, 2012. (AP)

Cricket

Misbah hails new Pakistan coach Whatmore

LAHORE: Pakistan cricket captain Misbah-ul Haq said Friday he was impressed with new coach Dav Whatmore’s professionalism as he seeks to lift the talented but unpredictable team.

Whatmore, who took over last month on a two-yearcontract, guided Pakistan to their second Asia Cup title in Bangladesh and is now training the squad for the tour of Sri Lanka in June-July.

“The experience with Whatmore is very good,” Misbah told media at Pakistan team’s fitness camp in Lahore. “He is dealing professionally and every player is being assessed and

the co-ordination is good.”

Pakistan plays two Twenty20, five one-day and three Tests in Sri Lanka before taking on Australia in a limited over series, also in Sri Lanka.

Misbah said Whatmore, who rose to fame after guiding Sri Lanka to the World Cup title in 1996 -- is taking care of technical matters.

“Like a good coach whose job is to take care of the practice, how to prepare the team and what are the strengths and weaknesses of the rival team, he is taking care of all such things so it’s nice to work with him,” said Misbah. -AFP

Australia look to spin twins in second Test

Nico Rosberg of Germany and Mercedes GP walks down the pit-lane after finishing first during qualifying for the Chinese Formula One Grand Prix, April 14, 2012.

(AFP)

SHANGHAI: Germany’s Nico Rosberg rocketed to the first pole position of his Formula One career at the Chinese Grand Prix on Saturday in what will be an all-Mercedes front row with team mate Michael Schumacher alongside him.

Schumacher, the seven times champion whose 91st and last win came in Shanghai with Ferrari in 2006, qualified in third place but will move up to second because McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton takes a five place grid penalty for an unscheduled gearbox change.

The pole was the first for Mercedes with their own works team since the late Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio at the 1955 Italian Grand Prix.

Mercedes left the sport that same year and, despite considerable success as McLaren’s engine partner, only returned under their own name in 2010 after they bought the 2009 Mercedes-powered champions Brawn GP team. “It’s a great feeling, fantastic,” beamed Rosberg, son of Finland’s 1982 world champion Keke, whose pole came at the 111th attempt. His only previous front row appearance was in Malaysia in 2010 But this time he was so confident of the pole that he was in the pitlane and out of the car while others were still trying in vain to beat him.

The German swept to the top slot by a massive margin, with a best lap of one minute 35.121 seconds compared to Hamilton’s 1:35.626.

Hamilton, the 2008 champion and last year’s winner in Shanghai, had been on pole in the two previous

races of the season with McLaren sweeping the front row in both Australia and Malaysia.

“Congratulations to Nico, it’s fantastic,” said Hamilton, genuinely pleased for a friend who was a team mate in the junior series in 2000.

“I am very proud of him. We grew up together, racing together and always dreamed of being in Formula One.” On a day when the focus returned to the track after a build-up dominated by talk of next week’s controversial fourth round in Bahrain, double world champion Sebastian Vettel produced another shock.

The Red Bull driver qualified only 11th, his worst performance in qualifying since he became champion and lowest grid position since Brazil in 2009, 42 races ago. Despite the setback, the 24-year-old managed to make light of the situation and said he had been happy with the car’s handling even if it was not quick enough.

“I don’t want to blame today’s result on any packaging. Mark was faster, full stop,” Vettel said, having chosen to use a different exhaust specification to Australian team mate Mark Webber, who will start sixth.

Sauber’s Japanese driver Kamui Kobayashi produced the best qualifying result of his career with third on the grid while Finland’s 2007 champion Kimi Raikkonen was fourth for Lotus.

McLaren’s Jenson Button lines up with Webber on the third row. Ferrari’s championship leader Fernando Alonso starts ninth. -Reuters

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad: Australia may employ two specialist spinners for the second Test against the West Indies, which starts on Sunday at the Queen’s Park Oval. Nathan Lyon, who played in the three-wicket victory in Barbados in the first Test, could be partnered by leftarm spinner Michael Beer as the Australians look to wrap up the three-match series. “Over the last two seasons it’s been relatively low-scoring but also very, very spin-friendly. The temptation to play two spinners could be there,” said Australia coach Mickey Arthur. “You never write that off until you have a look at the conditions. I guess we’ve just got to look at conditions, then decide how best we’re going to get 20 wickets.”

Lyon took just one wicket in the threewicket win over West Indies in Barbados, while Beer has only played one Test. That was against England in Sydney in January 2011, where his match figures were an embarrassing one for 112.

Meanwhile, Arthur praised Michael Clarke after the skipper declared the team’s first innings at 43 runs behind the West Indies before pushing for victory in the Bridgetown gloom on Wednesday. “I thought it was a great idea and I sort of just backed him on it,” said the coach.

“Michael needs to take all the plaudits for that because it was a brave decision that worked out for us. Tactically he is very good. He’s very positive, a very aggressive captain and that’s something I really enjoy and something I really like.”

The last time that Australia played at Queen’s Park Oval nine years ago, Ricky Ponting was man of the match. He scored 206, his highest Test score at the time, as

Australia scored a massive 4-576.

It was a high-scoring match that Australia went on to win by 118 runs. Of the current squad, Ponting is the only one to have played Test cricket at the ground.

Preparations were hindered on Friday when afternoon rain meant Australia had to cancel their training session, although the West Indies managed to complete theirs before the rain arrived.

The player that the West Indies would surely have loved to have selected is Sunil Narine.The Queen’s Park Oval is his home ground and the off-break variations that

allowed him to take 34 first-class wickets at an average of just 11.88 brought him to the attention of the selectors. Unfortunately for the hosts, he won a lucrative Indian Premier League contract and, like Marlon Samuels, is unavailable. Instead, they have called up off-spinner Shane Shillingford, who last played Test cricket in November 2010 before his bowling action was deemed illegal.

His 14 Test wickets have cost 56.78 runs apiece but in his only appearance in Port-of-Spain he took 4-27 against South Africa. -AFP

FILE - Nathan Lyon of Australia celebrates after taking the wicket of Kane Williamson of New Zealand during day one of the First Test match between Australia and New Zealand, Dec. 1, 2011. (AFP)

SUNdAY, april 15, 2012

SPORTS

Sports Editors Highlight MILAN: Uruguayan striker Diego Forlan wants to stay at Inter Milan and prove he belongs at San Siro despite a frustrating first season. “I want to stay at Inter. You haven’t seen the real Forlan yet,” the 32-year-old told Sky Sports. “I wouldn’t want to leave Inter like this. I like challenges and I wouldn’t want to leave when the team are not in a good position.”

Inter are currently six points off third place in Serie A, the final qualifying spot for the Champions League, after a disappointing campaign in which Forlan has struggled.

The player of the tournament at the 2010 World Cup, where Uruguay reached the semifinals, Forlan missed four months through injury and has often been jeered by the Inter fans when he has played. -AFP

Football

Carroll’s header sends Liverpool into FA Cup final WEMBLEY, England: Liverpool striker Andy Carroll headed the winner in the 87th minute to clinch a 2-1 comeback victory over Everton at Wembley on Saturday and secure a place in the FA Cup final.

For the first time since arriving 15 months ago for $56 million, the striker has scored in consecutive games.

But the Wembley winner was only Carroll’s 10th goal in 51 Liverpool appearances, dismal form that has been a key factor in his side Premier League struggles.

Carlos Tevez scored a hat trick in the Premier League as Manchester City thrashed Norwich 6-1 to keep the heat on Manchester United in the title race.

But with the leaders playing until Sunday, the spotlight Saturday was on the FA Cup and whether Liverpool would be affected by the sudden firing of director of soccer Damien Comolli two days before semifinal.

Comolli paid the price for a wretched league campaign despite presiding over the spending of more than $180 million on players in a little more than a year. The most expensive player was Carroll, who netted the league winner at Blackburn on Tuesday night.

But against Everton, the England international hesitated with the goal in his sight after just three

minutes, instead teeing up Jay Spearing, who swept the ball over. With both Liverpool goalkeepers Alexander Doni and Pepe Reina suspended, Brad Jones had to make his first start of the season. While the Australian was picking the ball out of his goal after 23 minutes, his dithering defenders was at fault.

Jamie Carragher and Daniel Agger both hesitated as the ball landed between them, and Carragher’s eventual attempted clearance rebounded off Tim Cahill. The ball fell at the feet of Nikica Jelavic, who shot under Jones.

Despite dominating the game, Steven Gerrard’s long-range strike was the closest Liverpool got to an equalizer but Carroll squandered a golden opening at the start of the second half.

An inviting cross from the right presented Carroll with a free header but he flicked it wide before pulling his shirt over his head in frustration.

Everton responded to its opener by also gifting Liverpool an equalizer. Sylvain Distin’s attempt to pass the ball back to goalkeeper Tim Howard was far too weak and Luis Suarez nipped in to seize the ball and score.

And in the 87th minute, Carroll rose above Marouane Fellaini to meet Craig Bellamy’s free kick and send the ball into the net with the back of his head.

While Liverpool is below Everton in eighth in the Premier League, the title race is still on between the Manchester rivals. -AP

Liverpool’s Luis Suarez (center) shoots and scores his goal against Everton during their English FA Cup semifinal soccer match at Wembley Stadium in London, April 14, 2012. (Reuters)

Man City thrash Norwich with Tevez hat-trick

Carlos Tevez (left) of Manchester City gets around goalkeeper John Ruddy of Norwich City to score his hat trick during their English Premier League soccer, April 14, 2012. (Reuters)

LONDON: Carlos Tevez fired a hat-trick and fellow Argentine Sergio Aguero scored twice as Manchester City thrashed Norwich City 6-1 to move within two points of Premier League leaders Manchester United on Saturday.Former skipper Tevez, who got his first start since September in midweek after making peace with City manager Roberto Mancini, produced a scintillating display to fuel his side’s title hopes and pile pressure on United.

City have 77 points with four games remaining, including a home clash with United who have 79 from one game fewer. Thanks to their commanding win at Norwich, City’s goal difference is now eight superior to their title rivals. United, who opened the door to City by losing at Wigan Athletic in midweek, face Aston Villa on Sunday.

The mercurial Tevez opened the scoring after 18 minutes with a wickedly dipping shot that beat flapping Norwich keeper John Ruddy and his clever back heel nine minutes later allowed Aguero to rifle home City’s second. Norwich threatened a revival when Andrew Surman shot through a crowd of players after 51 minutes but the visitors weathered a few anxious moments and then romped to victory.

Tevez nodded the third after 73 minutes when Yaya Toure’s shot bounced back off Ruddy, Aguero curled in his second two minutes later and Tevez completed his hat-trick by almost walking the ball into the net after a defensive mistake. Aguero almost matched his strike partner’s goal tally late on when he thumped a shot against the woodwork before Adam Johnson completed the rout in stoppage time. -AFP

At 100, Santos still a dominant force in Brazil SAO PAULO: Santos, the Brazilian club that ruled soccer with Pele in the 1960s, is celebrating its centennial anniversary and still a force in Latin American soccer.

Santos will turn 100 on Saturday with a rich history, including many major titles and remarkable victories that make the club one of the most successful in soccer.

Few teams can match the Brazilian club’s achievements both in Brazil and abroad.

While Barcelona is the team to beat in Europe, it is Santos which is attracting all the attention in the southern hemisphere. It’s seen as one of the few clubs still able to play the ‘’Jogo Bonito,” or “Beautiful Game,” which made Brazilian soccer famous around the world.

In 1998, Santos became the first team in the world to surpass the 10,000-goal mark, gaining recognition in the Guinness Book of World Records. More than 1,000

Soccer legend Pele holds a book during a ceremony in Santos to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Brazilian club Santos, April 9, 2012.

(Reuters)

of those goals were scored by Pele.

“I have to thank God for allowing me to play for Santos,” Pele said. “I had the pleasure to help Santos promote Brazilian football across the world and today it’s a team recognized everywhere. Santos is adored by everyone.”

Pele introduced Santos to the world with his stellar play in the 1960s, and now it’s “The Prince” Neymar, the future of Brazilian soccer, who is keeping the club in the spotlight.

Led by the 20-year-old sensation, Santos won last year’s Copa Libertadores, Latin America’s most important club competition.And this year the club is a top title contender again. It hadn’t won the traditional tournament since the Pele era.

“I’ve been seven years with the club and I only had wonderful moments, the first match, the first practice,” Neymar said. “It’s a great happiness and a great honor to represent this Santos team of so many outstanding players, including the King of Football.”

Many say the joyful Neymar, with his Mohawk hairdo, has the potential to add many successful chapters to Santos’ history. The club made an unprecedented effort to fend off offers from top Europeans clubs for Neymar, and is set to keep the nifty skills of the youngster until at least 2014, when he will be expected to lead Brazil to the World Cup title at home. But he is unlikely to come close to matching Pele’s achievements with Santos.

Of the 1,281 career goals scored by Pele, 1,091 of them came with Santos. He played for the club from 1956-1974, leading it to the Copa Libertadores championship in 1962 and ‘63, as well as the club world titles those years.

Santos marked its centenary anniversary by playing against 100 kids in a celebratory match at its Vila Belmiro stadium on Saturday. -AP

United look to strengthen grip on Premier League LONDON: Manchester United will be looking to strengthen their grip on the Premier League title when they welcome Aston Villa to Old Trafford on Sunday afternoon.

Five points clear at the top of the table with five games remaining, United’s 1-0 defeat to Wigan on Monday evening ensured that the title race remains open, and with the Manchester derby just weeks away veteran midfielder Ryan Giggs knows how important the next couple of matches are.

“It is important that we get six points from the next two games,” said Giggs.

“We are at Old Trafford, we are at home.

We will be looking to win both games and put the pressure on. We have had poor performances throughout the season and results but we have always bounced back.

We don’t have to get too down. The main thing is that we have recovered from it.

That is what we have to do again.”

Sunday visitors have slipped to 15th in the table and are just six points clear of the relegation zone, but manager Alex McLeish insists that he won’t relax until safety is assured.

“We have to keep them on their toes and keep them at a good level. There were seven academy guys out there against Stoke. They gave everything and have a fantastic attitude. They are trying to make their names at Aston Villa and show they can play at the club for as long as possible. We are obviously trying to get a position where we can look towards next season. We have the games to do it and the points to do it. There’s no shortage of effort. We’ve gained some ground and it followed on from a good point at Liverpool over the weekend but it is still a cup

Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney (left) shoots past Queens Park Rangers Nedum Onuoha during the English Premier League football match between United and QPR, April 8, 2012. (AFP)

final every week.”

United remain without Anders Lindegaard (ankle), Darren Fletcher (bowel), Nemanja Vidic (knee) and Michael Owen (thigh), while Anderson is unlikely to feature with a hamstring injury. Villa have doubts over Stephen Warnock (ankle), Marc Albrighton (thigh) and Ciaran Clark (knee), while Chris Herd (head), Darren Bent (ankle), Richard Dunne (collar bone) and Fabien Delph (ankle) remain out. Stilyan Petrov continues treatment following being diagnosed with acute leukaemia.

United have failed to win four league

games against Villa in the last four seasons, but the Villans have won just once in the last 26 league visits to Old Trafford.

The hosts have won six straight games at home, conceding just once and have the fifth highest points tally at this stage of any Premier League season. The visitors have picked up three points in just one of their last ten in the league and defeat would see them with their lowest ever points tally after 33 games of a season.

Phil Jones scored a first-half winner when Manchester United beat Aston Villa 1-0 in this season’s reverse league fixture at Villa Park on Dec. 3. -AP

Gyan future may lie away from Sunderland: O’Neill LONDON: Sunderland manager Martin O’Neill admits it is unlikely Ghana striker Asamoah Gyan will return to the club after his loan spell with United Emirates side Al-Ain. Gyan cost Sunderland a club record £13 million to sign from Rennes in 2010, but he endured a difficult time with the Premier League club and departed on a season-long loan to Al-Ain in September.

That agreement was made three months before O’Neill succeeded Steve Bruce at the Stadium of Light and there was initially talk that Gyan would return early to allow O’Neill to check out the star’s form and attitude.

But the 26-year-old’s lucrative deal with AlAin did not allow for that and, while any decision on Gyan’s future is yet to be finalised, O’Neill has suggested the striker may not want to return when his loan expires.

“The situation is, I believe it was a year-long loan for a start for which they had to pay us some money of the transfer fee which we paid in the first place, and that is still in existence,” O’Neill said on Friday.

“There was some talk between all parties in January that didn’t come to anything. I wasn’t party to those conversations, although I was kept informed of them, of course.

I think it will be the end of the season before I can assess anything. There has to be a willingness on behalf of all parties as well; you wouldn’t really want somebody who is really unwilling to come back to the football club, if that’s the case.

It’s unfair of me to say that because it might not be the case, but it seems to be the message that’s coming across.” -AFP

FILE - Ghana’s Asamoah Gyan runs with the ball during their African Nations Cup Group D soccer match against Mali in Franceville Stadium, Jan. 28, 2012. (Reuters)