April 5, 2012

THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 2012

@alwatandaily

Issue No. 1395

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www.alwatandaily.com

150 Fils with IHT

Clashes continue after Syria claims troop pullout

BEIRUT: Syrian troops clashed with army defectors and shelled rebellious districts in the central city of Homs Wednesday, killing at least 11 civilians a day after the government claimed it had begun a troop withdrawal ahead of the deadline to implement an international truce plan. Activists said the latest deaths included a man and his son who died in gunfire during fighting in the Qusour district of Homs. They said the renewed violence proved President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime was not serious about implementing the cease-fire brokered by former UN chief Kofi Annan.

Russia, a key ally of Al-Assad, warned other nations not to arm the Syrian opposition, saying it would only escalate hostilities. Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two Sunni-ruled nations, have backed the

idea of arming the rebels fighting government forces, but the West remains opposed. Western nations however did create a multimillion dollar fund for the opposition at a meeting in Istanbul.

“Even if they arm the Syrian opposition to the teeth, it won’t be able to defeat the Syrian army,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. “The carnage will go on for many years.”

Al-Assad agreed earlier this week to an April 10 deadline to implement the plan put forward by international envoy Kofi Annan. It requires regime forces to withdraw from towns and cities and observe a cease-fire. Rebel fighters are to immediately follow by ceasing violence.

Opposition activists charged Tuesday that the regime was racing to crush opponents ahead of the

Majority bloc to discuss Hayef, Al-Tabtabaie interpellations

Staff Writers

KUWAIT: A source within the Justice Bloc on Wednesday revealed that the bloc has discussed MP Mohammad Hayef’s interpellation against the Minister of Awqaf Jamal Shehab, noting that the motion will be filed on Sunday. He added that the planned interpellation revolves around one issue, which is the oversight of Husainiyas. Meanwhile, the Coordinative Committee of the Parliamentary Majority bloc is due to convene today (Thursday) to discuss the interpellations to be filed by MPs Mohammad Hayef and Waleed Al-Tabtabaie. MP Al-Tabtabaie announced that he will question the Minister of Interior Sheikh Ahmad Al-Humoud Al-Sabah over the issue of freedoms.

The spokesperson for the committee Dr. Jamaan Al-Harbash stated that both Hayef and Al-Tabtabaie have offered to propose their interpellation motions to the Parliamentary Majority in accordance with the agreement reached by the majority (which is mainly comprised of opposition lawmakers). However, Al-Harbash made no mention of the interpellation that MP Musallam Al-Barrak intends to file against the Minister of Finance Mustafa Al-Shamali.

In addition, the lawmaker made it clear that the MPs reserve the right to proceed with their plans to interpolate ministers, stressing that this right cannot More on 2 be confiscated.

No electricity or water crisis this summer: Minister

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People sit among the portraits of people who were executed, died or disappeared in jails during military rule after Turkey’s 1980 coup as they demonstrate outside a courthouse in Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, April 4, 2012.

Thousands of protesters and family members of victims gathered outside the court as an Ankara court began hearing the case against two surviving coup leaders, retired army chief Kenan Evren, 94, and former Air Force commander Tahsin Sahinkaya, 87. The two surviving coup leaders, both in poor health, have been hospitalized and did not attend.(AP)

Pakistan rebuffs US bounty for militant leader

RAWALPINDI: Pakistan says the US must provide “concrete evidence” if it wants Islamabad to act against a militant leader Washington has placed a $10 million bounty on.

Pakistani Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit says that any evidence against Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, would have to withstand judicial scrutiny. He said Wednesday that this legal route would be preferable to the public discussion sparked by the US bounty announced a day earlier for information leading to Saeed’s arrest and conviction.

Saeed taunted the US during a defiant news conference close to Pakistan’s military headquarters Wednesday.

Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the 61year-old founder of the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, has been accused of orchestrating the 2008 attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai that killed 166 people, including six American citizens.

He operates openly in Pakistan, giving public speeches and appearing on television talk shows.

“I am here, I am visible. America should give that reward money to me,” he told reporters Wednesday, mocking Washington for placing a bounty on a man whose whereabouts are no mystery.

“I will be in Lahore tomorrow.

America can contact me whenever it wants to.” Analysts have said Pakistan is unlikely to arrest Saeed, founder of the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, because of his alleged links with the country’s intelligence agency and the political danger of doing Washington’s bidding in a country where anti-American sentiment is rampant.

Saeed has used his high-profile status in recent months to lead a protest movement against US drone strikes and the resumption of NATO supplies for troops in Afghanistan sent through Pakistan. -AP

cease-fire deadline by carrying out intense raids, arrests and shelling. A Syrian government official said Tuesday evening that troops had already started pulling out of some calm cities, a week ahead of the April 10 deadline.

“Forces began withdrawing to outside calm cities and are returning to their bases, while intense areas, they are pulling out to the outskirts,” the government official told The Associated Press in Damascus without saying when the withdrawal began. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

In Homs, a bastion of dissent against Al-Assad’s regime, opposition figure Mohammed Saleh said a series of loud blasts rattled windows in his home, and heavy machine gun fire was heard across parts

of the old city.

He said it was not clear what caused the blasts.

In recent days, armed defectors known as the Free Syrian Army have taken control of the national hospital in the Jouret Al-Shayah district and two other government buildings.

“There is no sign of any withdrawal or calm in Homs,” Saleh said. “The situation is just as bad as it has been for the past few months.”

Amateur videos posted online by activists showed thick flames and black smoke billowing from above what appeared to be a residential building in the Qusour district of Homs. Another video showed a huge fire and explosion behind the minaret of the Dar Al-Salam mosque in the Qarabees district.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a man and his son were among seven civilians killed in fighting in Qusour neighborhood. Three others were killed in shelling of the town of Talbiseh in Homs province and one in Deir Baalba.

A 50-year-old former political detainee identified as Ahmad Al-Othman and his 40-year-old brother Adnan, a lawyer, were killed overnight when troops fired on their car from a machine gun mounted on a tank in Idlib province, according to activists in the northern area and the Britishbased Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Their deaths along with an elderly men in Idlib brought the civilian deaths Wednesday to 13, according to CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 the Observatory.

Egypt presidential candidate ‘will push for sharia’ CAIRO: The Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate for Egypt’s presidency, Khairat el-Shater, has pledged to press for the implementation of sharia (Islamic law) if elected, a Muslim think tank said on Wednesday. Shater, whose candidacy for the May election sent political shock waves throughout the post-uprising country, said implementing the sharia was “his first and final goal,” said the Legal Authority for Rights and Reform after meeting with him on Tuesday. Shater, who stepped down as the Brotherhood’s deputy leader to run, said “he would work to form a group of scholars to support parliament in achieving that goal,” according to a statement on the group’s website.

When asked by AFP, a senior official with Shater’s campaign did not deny the statement, but clarified that Shater shared his electoral program with the Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party. The FJP calls for an “Islamic, constitutional and democratic” state, but not a “theocracy,” which it defines as rule by religious men. The Muslim Brotherhood advocates an Islamist state achieved through peaceful means. The official said Shater, who has refused interview requests, would prioritize “democratic institution building and an economic renaissance” if elected. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he added that Shater “is committed to the constitution and Article 2, which all Egyptians agree on.” The constitution was suspended by the military after an uprising overthrew president Hosni Mubarak last year. Article 2 stipulates that the principles of Islamic law are the main source of legislation. But there is no universal interpretation of sharia. Many Coptic Christians, who comprise about 10 percent of Egypt’s 80-million-strong population, worry about the growing power of Islamists in the country, but Shater’s campaign official said he would guarantee them their rights. -AFP

Frankfurt airport night flight ban confirmed

BERLIN: The administrative court in Leipzig upheld a provisional ban, originally imposed by another court last October, on all take-offs and landings between 11 pm and 5 am following complaints by local residents. A total of 17 flights are affected by the ban, but the court also ordered the regional authorities of the state of Hesse, where Frankfurt is situated, to re-examine a further 133 take-offs and landings between 10-11 pm and 5 - 6 am with regard to noise. Night flights are only permitted in cases where airlines and the airport authorities can prove there is a special need.

Lufthansa Cargo, the freight division of Germany’s leading airline, has estimated that a night flight ban will cost it euro 40 million in earnings each year. Lufthansa shares were showing a loss of 4.41 percent at euro 10.08 on the Frankfurt stock exchange just after midday, in a generally lower market. Shares in the airport operator Fraport were down 2.15 percent at euro 46.97. The ruling “threatens to clip the wings of Frankfurt, of Hesse and of Germany as an export and logistics nation,” raged Lufthansa chief executive Christoph Franz.

“It deals a heavy blow to Germany as a place to do business and there is no doubt that of Europe’s biggest hubs will fall back in international competition,” Franz said. Klaus-Peter Siegloch, head of the BDL air industry federation, complained that, following a series of other measures recently including an air traffic tax, the night flight ban was “a further step that will impede the competitiveness of German airlines and airports versus their international rivals.” There were no such bans in Amsterdam, Paris, London or Dubai, Siegloch said. “It’s becoming ever more difficult for German airlines and airports to be economically successful.” The tourist industry association DRV suggested that not only freight companies, but tourists and airtravelers, too, would be hit by the night flight ban. -AFP

Wounded US soldiers lie on the ground at the scene of a suicide attack in Maimanah, the capital of Faryab province north of Kabul, Afghanistan on Wednesday, April 4, 2012. (AP) More on 4

Mali Islamist advance alarms world leaders France warns that Al-Qaeda using crisis to expand

BAMAKO: World leaders scrambled to stop Mali’s descent into chaos Wednesday, two weeks after a coup in Bamako touched off a sequence which saw Tuareg rebels backed by radical Islamists conquer half the country.

The United Nations Security Council was to make a statement on the crisis amid warnings Al-Qaeda-linked militants were on the verge of creating an Islamic state on a territory larger than France. France also warned on Wednesday the seizure of northern Mali by a Tuareg-led rebellion was playing into the hands of local Al-Qaeda units, urging neighbors including Algeria to do more to tackle the threat.

For long one of the most stable democracies in West Africa, Mali has plunged into turmoil since a widely condemned March 22 coup that emboldened Tuareg rebels in their quest for a northern homeland.

They have been joined by Islamists bent on imposing Islamic sharia law across the whole of the moderate Muslim state, the latest security worry for a region battling organized crime and home-grown militant groups such as Nigeria’s Boko Haram.

“We fear that in this confused situation AlQaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) will take advantage of the situation to expand its perimeter of activity and strengthen the terrorist threat,” French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said. AQIM is a mostly autonomous wing which sprung from the Algerian Salafist movement in 2007.

The group, believed to number a few hundred members, has taken advantage of weak governance and poverty to mount sporadic attacks on local armies and kidnap Westerners, earning milMore on 5 lions of dollars in ransoms.

Iran proposes Baghdad as nuclear talks venue

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Bloody grass ‘from Gandhi assassination’ to be sold

LONDON: Samples of soil and blades of bloody grass purportedly from the spot where Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated in 1948 will go on sale in Britain later this month and are expected to fetch 10-15,000 pounds ($16-24,000). Mullock’s auctioneer in western England said it was confident the artifacts were genuine, because they came with a letter of provenance from original owner P.P. Nambiar who collected them after the revered “Father of the Nation” was shot by a Hindu radical. The samples also matched the account Nambiar gave of the events of 1948 in which he described finding a drop of Gandhi’s blood on the grass which he collected.

“I cut the grass and also took two pinches of soil from the brink of the pothole which I wrapped in a piece of Hindi newspaper found nearby,” he wrote.

Richard Westwood-Brookes, the auction house’s historical documents expert, said it was often difficult to prove whether such artifacts were genuine, and his attribution of paintings to Adolf Hitler has been questioned More on 16 by art experts in the past.

El-Ahly soccer club fans chant anti-military rulers slogans during a protest in central Cairo April 4, 2012. The protesters called for the speeding of the investigation over the violence in early February in which at least 74 people died in a stadium in the city of Port Said. (Reuters)

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ALWATAN DAILY

kuwait

THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 2012

Majority bloc to discuss Hayef, Al-Tabtabaie interpellations Mohammed Al-Salman & Mohammed Al-Khaldi Staff Writers

KUWAIT: A source within the Justice Bloc on Wednesday revealed that the bloc has discussed MP Mohammad Hayef’s interpellation against the Minister of Awqaf Jamal Shehab, noting that the motion will be filed on Sunday. He added that the planned interpellation revolves around one issue, which is the oversight of Husainiyas.

Meanwhile, the Coordinative Committee of the Parliamentary Majority bloc is due to convene today (Thursday) to discuss the interpellations to be filed by MPs Mohammad Hayef and Waleed Al-Tabtabaie. MP Al-Tabtabaie announced that he will question the Minister of Interior Sheikh Ahmad Al-Humoud Al-Sabah over the issue of freedoms.

The spokesperson for the committee Dr. Jamaan AlHarbash stated that both Hayef and Al-Tabtabaie have offered to propose their interpellation motions to the Parliamentary Majority in accordance with the agreement reached by the majority (which is mainly comprised of opposition lawmakers). However, Al-Harbash made no mention of the interpellation that MP Musallam Al-Barrak intends to file against the Minister of Finance Mustafa Al-Shamali.

In addition, the lawmaker made it clear that the MPs reserve the right to proceed with their plans to interpolate ministers, stressing that this right cannot be confiscated. He dismissed the notion that the Majority Bloc can falter and added that the lawmakers representing the bloc will press ahead with their reform and legislative agenda despite attempts by some to have investigation committees suspended.

In another development, Mohammad Al-Dallal, the rapporteur for the investigation committee charged with probing the alleged illicit financial transfers, announced that the former Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammad Al-Sabah and Ambassadors Khaled Al-Duwaisan, Dirar Al-Razouqi and Abdullah Murad informed the panel that they could not show up. The officials were supposed to appear before the committee to give their testimony. The rapporteur, however, commended the Prime Minister’s Undersecretary for Public Affairs Khaled Al-Bannay for providing what he described as important information. He added that the latter addressed all the questions posed to him.

In a similar development, the parliamentary committee which is investigating alleged multimillion kickbacks met with the Governor of the Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) Mohammad Al-Hashel to discuss the role of the bank in the transactions that are made by official authorities.

The rapporteur disclosed that the committee inquired whether there official institutions were linked to the deposits allegedly made to MPs and ministers from April 2009 until November 2011.

In other news, MP Nabeel Al-Fadhl called on his fellow MP Waleed Al-Tabtabaie to resign from all parliamentary committees accusing him of being morally ineligible to assume constitutional obligations. Al-Tabtabaie failed to honor his oath by appointing his wife in his office and described Al-Tabtabaie’s move as a perfect example of misappropriating public funds.

On the other hand, Al-Fadhl urged the Minister of Information Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah Al-Sabah to refer Dr. Abdullah Al-Nafeesi to State Security for slandering His Highness the Amir and insulting the Constitution.

Constitutional amendments should generate freedom: MP Ashour

His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah during a meeting with the King of Spain Juan Carlos on Wednesday, April 4, 2012. (KUNA)

Evidence against man accused of insulting Prophet added to case file

Youssef Al-Youssef Staff Writer

KUWAIT: Concerning the case about the man who insulted Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), lawyer Duwaim Al-Muwaiziri showed the Public Prosecution an old tweet made by the suspect, where he blasphemed Allah, and mocked the rulers of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

Meanwhile, the suspect denied making such a tweet, and said that it is fake.

It is worth noting that Public Pros-

ecutor Ahmad Al-Omar listened to the statements made by the suspect, and confronted him with the evidences gathered against him. After the interrogations, the prosecutor ordered to renew his detention for further interrogation.

However, Al-Muwaiziri submitted evidences and documents that show that the statements made by the suspect are not true, and that he did insult the Prophet.

The prosecutor decided to add the new evidence to the case’s file, in order to interrogate the accused about it later.

He explained that the tweets made by

the suspect can lead to damaging the relationship between Kuwait and its neighboring countries, since the suspect is accused of blasphemy and of ridiculing the rulers of the GCC countries. He went on to say that the Islamic world erupted in rage after the Danish caricature artist made fun of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), and boycotted Denmark. He highlighted the fact that the crime committed by the suspect in Kuwait is considered to be a major crime that insults Kuwait and its people.

He called for capital punishment for the suspect.

Symposium participants: Region facing Iranian threat

Yousef Yaqoub

KUWAIT: Participants at a symposium entitled, “Iran’s influence in GCC,” were unanimous in their assertion that the region is facing a threat from Iran, which can only be confronted through national unity.

Member of Parliament (MP) Mohammed Hayef said that Iran is engaged in various plots in order to cause unrest with the aim of destabilizing regional security, while cautioning against a “Russian sponsored charity mission which is due to visit Kuwait to collect donations in favor of the Syrian regime.”

For his part, MP Obaid Al-Wasmi argued that the growing Iranian influence is attributed to the ‘weaknesses of the FILE- Photo of Member of Parliament Saleh Ashour (center) during recent Parliament session held March 29, 2012. (Al Watan) Yousef Al-Tarmi Staff Writer

KUWAIT: The Kuwaiti Media Club in the American University of Kuwait held a symposium under the title “Amending Article 2 in the Constitution”. Participants included Member of Parliament (MP) Saleh Ashour, former MP Saleh Al-Mullah, spokesman for the Salafist group Fahad Al-Haylam and Assistant General Sectary of the National Alliance Anwar Jumaa.

MP Saleh Ashour began by saying that the Kuwaiti Constitution is 50 years of age. However, never had amendments been introduced to it even though there are unambiguous clauses which allow the introduction of such amendments to promote flexibility, freedom and underscore democracy but not to promote antireligious principles.

“Article 35 in the Constitution states categorically that absolute freedom is granted to all faiths and this is fully clear to all stated without any ambiguity. There are indeed constitutional texts which can be amended such as the number of ministers and or grant them more authorizations in terms of the right of voting when choosing the president of the National Assembly,” he explained, adding that he strongly believes that the dissolution of parliament should come from within and this should be based on the performance of the parliament.

The MP criticized the comments made by some of the MPs who called on restricting the presence of churches and husseinyats. He said that by doing so, the right of practicing one’s faith and democracy would be dramatically compromised, which at the end of the day is guarded by the country’s most authoritative source and that is the Kuwaiti Constitution.

He warned that such drastic measure would most

certainly have the reputation of Islam as a tolerant religion marred and labeled as radical. As for the Constitutional articles, the MP stressed that no such amendments can be done without the input of the people and constitutional experts as well as the opinions of political blocks. He went on to add that once this is done then the motion needs to have the approval of the majority of the MPs to have it fully endorsed.

The MP concluded that he fully supports any amendment to the Constitution as long as such amendments would generate more freedom otherwise any attempt to counteract such principle would be seen as violations and unconstitutional in the eyes of the law.

On his part, former MP Saleh Al-Mullah said that the demand to amend Article 2 in the Constitution has been a continuous demand for the past four decades. He however maintained that while there is a good number of people who support the amendment, in reality they are ignorant about the nature of the amendment. He classified the supporters of the amendment into three categories: those who fully understand and appreciate the amendment; those who are just supporting it for the sake of publicity; and those who have no idea what is going on but are merely going with the flow.

The former MP cited one particular example where the people behind the so-called Negative Phenomenon Committee would visit the minister’s office and ask him to endorse one particular rule or regulation to which the minister agrees to without question even though such act is a direct and blatant violation of the law and the Constitution.

He finally said that there is a powerful bloc which tends to exclude those who don’t agree with them and who are clearly against the idea of pluralism in the society and in the parliament.

MP Al-Juwaihel probes great contributions’ citizenship Staff Writer

KUWAIT: Member of Parliament (MP) Mohammed Al-Juwaihel asked the Minister of Interior Sheikh Ahmad Al-Humoud to provide him with a list of names of those who were granted Kuwaiti citizenship for great contributions since 1990, and also asked for a specific definition of the term ‘great contributions’ that is used by the ministry vaguely to grant people the Kuwaiti citizenship.

Moreover, Al-Juwaihel asked the Minister of Education Nayef Al-Hajraf about the ministry’s program,

since the Constitution stipulates that each ministry must submit its program to the National Assembly once it is formed, in order for the National Assembly to make any remarks concerning this program. He went on to say that the program of any ministry is considered to be the bedrock for any form of cooperation between the ministry and the National Assembly. He added that Al-Hajraf has been appointed as minister since Feb. 14, 2012, which allowed him to attend several Cabinet and National Assembly meetings. Al-Juwaihel also asked about the criteria followed by the minister in preparing the program that the ministry will follow.

region’s countries. He affirmed that Iran’s ambitions are deep-seated and are not based on a religious ideology, while calling for a Gulf nuclear project to counter Iran’s nuclear program.

In his comments, Dr. Abdullah Al-Nafeesi revealed that ill-meaning Iranian officials pay visits to Kuwait, and claimed that Iran occupies more Arab land that Israel does, whereas MP Waleed Al-Tabtabaie noted that it is the US that has contributed toward Iran’s growing influence from China to Egypt after eliminating regimes that were troubling for Iran, such as Taliban.

Moreover, Dr. Nami Al-Nami went as far as saying that Iran’s threat is just around the corner as it seeks to achieve its empirical dreams.

Foreign Ministry must meet Guantanamo detainees’ defense team: MP Al-Yahya Staff Writer

KUWAIT: In a press release made available to Al Watan, the parliamentary Human Rights Defense Committee has held its meeting Wednesday with the defense team of Kuwaiti detainees in Guantanamo.

The parliamentary committee met with Adel Abdulhadi the lawyer assigned to defend the Kuwaiti detainees as well as the American defense team to explore ways of defending the detainees.

The committee received comprehensive feedback about the status of the detainees. One thing which was stressed during the meeting is that the defense team has the full support of the Kuwaiti government and foreign ministry.

MP and member of the parliamentary Human Rights Defense Committee Faisal Al-Yahya said that to this day the

Foreign Ministry hasn’t met with the defense team who is now in the country at their own expense.

“I believe that the Foreign Ministry is obliged to meet with the defense team and take down all the important feedback they can get to be able to tackle and deal with the case.

It would be most fitting that the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry meets with the team by Thursday as they are leaving the day after,” he remarked.

MP Al-Yahya also said that the team was invited to attend the Parliament session hoping that the case of the Kuwaiti detainees would receive the needed attention, adding that at the end of the day the issue is directly related to human rights matters.

MP Al-Yahya demanded that the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry provides him with all the reports and documents pertinent

to the issue and the amount of money spent by the government so far for the release of the Kuwaiti detainees.

As for the detention without charges for one day, the MP said that such measure is acceptable if pending investigation but should not be extended unjustifiably. He expressed his belief that such measure is needed and may be extended if the crime has political tinge into it and therefore there is fear that the accused might escape.

“The Legislative Committee has completed its report over the issue of reducing detention pending investigation for one day. One must distinguish between the definition of in custody pending investigation and in custody pending the case. What is related to the case is unlimited. The issue here is that the detention gets extended in unreasonable terms,” he explained.

MP Al-Fadhl asks Minister of Information to refer Al-Nafisi to State Security for slandering Amir, Constitution Staff Writer

KUWAIT: Member of Parliament (MP) Nabeel Al-Fadhl asked Minister of Information and State Security to hold Abdullah Al-Nafisi responsible for what he had said about His Highness Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad, since the statements he made are considered to be slander against His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah and the Kuwaiti Constitution.

He mentioned that Al-Nafisi had said in a forum that Iran has strong influence in Kuwait, and that it was behind ap-

pointing Al-Mohammad as Prime Minister, since Iran prefers to deal with him. He called for referring Al-Nafisi to State Security. He stressed that he will not allow people like Al-Nafisi to violate the Constitution, and explained that if Al-Nafisi has issues to solve with Al-Mohammad, he must not involve the Constitution.

In addition, Al-Fadhl asked fellow MP Waleed Al-Tabtabaei to withdraw from all parliamentary committees, if it is true that he had appointed his wife as a secretary in his office.

He stressed that appointing family members and relatives is considered to be one of the forms of corruption in Kuwait.

ALWATAN DAILY

KUWAIT

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Financial policies aim to plug loopholes in Kuwait: Forum Mervat Abdul Dayem Staff Writer

KUWAIT: A number of specialists asserted that financial policies aim to plug loopholes in the economy, and called for changing Kuwait’s conventional budget to a performance budget, in order to be able to reform structural fluctuations and the growing financial pressure on the state’s general budget.

It is worth noting that the Arab Institution for Planning held a forum to discuss the role of the Ministry of Finance in approving correct financial policies, and its role in accounting, in addition to other issues.

Financial Planning Department Manager at the ministry Saleh Al-Saraawi stated that reconsidering the expenses of the state budget is a pivotal matter that will lead to finding structural loopholes in the budget; thus finding

solutions. He added that the state budget that is prepared by the ministry includes the budgets of 29 ministries and government authorities, in addition to other sub-authorities. He said that all of the previous depend on the government’s support and do not have a commercial nature in their structure. He went on to say that fluctuations in the budget can be found in revenues and expenses, such as depending solely on oil revenues, which is evident by the fact that 92 percent are oil revenues while eight percent are non-oil revenues in 2012-2013 budget. He revealed that increasing non-oil revenues to reach 17 percent is one of the objectives of the development plan, but in order to achieve it, several steps must be taken. However, none of those steps has been taken yet.

Furthermore, he explained that there are some challenges that face the diversification of sources of income and the increase of non-oil

revenues, such as Law 9/1995 that prohibits the government from increasing the fees that citizens pay, the tax law regarding corporations that has not yet been listed in the National Assembly’s agenda, and other legal obstacles that require legislations to overcome them. He stressed that the high level of current expenses and the drop in capital investment expenses cause the structural fluctuation in budget.

He went on to say that the rate of expenses reached 81.2 percent in the latest budget, while it reached 18.8 percent in investment expenses. He revealed that 43 percent of the current expenses are allocated to salaries.

Meanwhile, Secretary of Kuwait International Bank board and Manager of Economy Research Department Sadeq Abul said that the financial policy that is followed in Kuwait is no longer correct, and asserted that the budget fluctuations surfaced after the rate of salaries

Information Ministry to hold two specialized training courses April 8-22

KUWAIT: The Information Ministry’s Undersecretary Sheikh Salman Sabah Al-Salem AlHamoud Al-Sabah will patronize two training courses for ministry employees, due between April 8-22.

The courses will be held in collaboration with the International Center for Neuro Linguistic Programming, a member of the American Board.

Sheikh Salman told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that the ministry and by the directives of Information Minister, Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah, is working to develop

the level of young workers in various departments, such as television and radio.

He added that the ministry also organizes special training courses for other government institutions and ministries.

He said that most of the training courses are of an international standard, delivered by competent and renowned figures from around the world, including a number of private Arab satellite channels. He pointed out that gaining new skills is important for enriching the media with diverse information. -KUNA

28 percent of cancer related deaths due to Gastro-Intestinal cancer

and wages increased by 200 percent during the past 10 years, not to mention the increase in public expenditure by 300 percent.

Economy professor at Kuwait University Abbas Al-Mejren announced that he pinpointed 21 financial loopholes concerning the state budget, and remarked that financial reformation is impossible without the reformation of the economy.

He pointed out that the revenues in Kuwait cannot be divided into oil and non-oil revenues, since the revenues depend on oil. He went on to say that expansions in non-oil service sectors will never be effective without the oil sector.

He mentioned that the current budget registered investment expenditure that reached 815 million Kuwaiti dinars, which is 9.8 percent of total actual expenditure during the first nine months of the current fiscal year. However, he stated that investment expenditure in Kuwait

during the past 15 years has never exceeded 16 percent, which is the lowest level among all Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and other developing countries.

Economy expert Ahmed Al-Kowar explained that the role of financial policies in the economy is to rectify any structural loopholes in the local economy of any country. He added that the state’s public budget faces challenges that include fluctuations in the structure of revenues and expenditure, unsustainable financial surpluses, and lack of investment revenues. He noted that the increase in sovereign funds investments must exceed the increase in GDP. He highlighted the importance of assessing investment revenues that are measured by adding the expected value from invested assets. He also called for increasing the government’s income sources through direct taxes on companies, and cementing the state’s general investment role.

Kuwaiti charity helps 32,000 displaced Syrians pinned down in Lebanon BEIRUT: “Relief aid from Kuwaiti charities to displaced Syrians in Lebanon are seminal to alleviating their plight while fighting rages on in their country,” said representative of a major Kuwaiti charity in Lebanon, in statements to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) on Wednesday.

The Kuwaiti charity is currently distributing food and relief items to nearly 32,000 displaced Syrians, including 250,000 daily meals, in the northern regions of Lebanon, in places like Tripoli

and Halaby, said Basem Derbas, representative of the charity house known as Islamic Heritage Society (IHS), a Kuwaiti charity affiliated with the wellknown Islamic Heritage Revival Society in Kuwait.

Derbas noted that IHS administers medical treatment to no less that 10 displaced Syrians every day in speciallyprepared makeshift medical units, with a lab available for medical tests.

While he heaped praise on the works of Kuwaiti charities and the Kuwaiti

government helping out the displaced Syrians, he made note of the fact that other Arab countries or charities were lacking in providing relief aid.

The most pressing need the displaced had at this time was for adequate housing which he said would cost about 250 US dollars per housing unit, an amount apparently unmanageable for Lebanese authorities to provide.

He urged Arab countries to help in defraying the housing cost for the 32,000 displaced people. -KUNA

‘Services submitted to Bedouns such as free educational, health service’ KUWAIT: The Secretary General of the Central Apparatus for Illegal Residents (Bedouns) Affairs Sheikh Khalid Mubarak Abdullah Al-Sabah disclosed that the apparatus has completed successfully executing the 11 items of the decision no. 409/2011 which stipulates submitting certain services to Bedouns.

He unveiled that the number of sons of Bedouns who en-

joy free education services are estimated to be 12,635 during 2011 through the education charitable fund that finances tuition fees for Bedoun students, adding that Bedouns also enjoy free health services. He asked all Bedouns who cannot benefit from the educational and health service to visit the apparatus.

-KUNA

Minister Al-Ibrahim: No electricity or water crisis this summer

Photo of an expert, during the exhibition, explaining the new technologies to Doctors and attendees on Wednesday, April 4, 2012. (Al Watan)

Staff Writer & Agency

KUWAIT: The Minister of Electricity and Water and the Minister of State for Municipality Affairs Abdulaziz Al-Ibrahim affirmed that the country will not counter any electricity or water crisis in the summer as the production of electricity is greater than consumption, indicating that power is cut sometimes from certain areas due to certain faults.

He disclosed that the ministry has signed contracts for establishing more power stations in Sabah Al-Ahmad city worth 100 million Kuwaiti dinars and that this project will be accomplished within the first quarter (Q1) of 2014 in addition to other stations in Fenaitees and Qurain area.

On the other hand, Al-Ibrahim ad-

Nancy Oteifa Staff Writer

KUWAIT: Under the patronage of the Minister of Health Ali Al Obaidi, the 3rd Kuwait International Conference on Gastro-Intestinal Cancer was inaugurated at Salwa Al-Sabah Hall on Wednesday. The conference aims at developing the new technology in the field of Gastro-Intestinal cancer and to share experiences between the Doctors in Kuwait and professionals from all over the world including Canada, Europe, Netherlands, Egypt and the US. During the conference, Chairman of the Conference and the Chairman of the Surgical Oncology Department at Kuwait Cancer Control Center (KCCC) Medhat Oteifa addressed the audiences saying, “Gastro-Intestinal (GI) cancers remain the most common and most lethal malignancies in the developed and developing countries, where 28 percent of cancer related deaths are caused by GI cancers. According to the World Health organization in their latest statistics in 2006-2007, 10.8 percent of patients are suffering from cancer where 3.3 percent of these patients have GI cancer.

He added, “There have been ongoing advances in understanding the etiology and pathogenesis of such group of cancers, a far better understanding of the molecular events with subsequent developments of better prognostic and predictive markers and their impact on improved outcome. Some of these GI cancers should be totally preventable, while others if detected at an early stage will have a high cure rate and a favorable prognosis.”

He went on saying that the main aim of this conference is to provide the audiences with an updated comprehensive, in-depth review of the common and uncommon malignancies affecting different components of GI tract.

He noted that therapeutic options of surgical, medical and radiation oncology as well as advances in molecular pathology and targeted therapy relevant to GI cancers are presented. Multimodality management approach with collaboration between leading experts in different subspecialties is of utmost importance, thus offering these patients novel diagnostic staging stateof-the art therapy and the best chance for cure.

On behalf of the Minister of Health, Assistant Undersecretary of Human Medicine Affairs at the Ministry of Health Yousif Al-Deweri said, “Cancer is considered a very strong disease worldwide where it affects all ages and both genders. Cancer is a significant issue world-

Photo of Chairman of the Conference and the Chairman of the Surgical Oncology Department at KCCC Medhat Oteifa giving a speech during the conference held on Wednesday, April 4, 2012. (Al Watan)

wide including in Kuwait. Therefore, we are working hard to find solutions for this disease through the latest researches and technology.”

He noted that the Ministry of Health is keen on hosting such conferences in Kuwait; where it brings all specialists in one place where they can share and exchange experiences and latest researches and technology in this field.

From his side, Director at KCCC Ahmed Al-Awadi commented, “Since more than 30 years, KCCC has been offering cancer care for all cancer patients in Kuwait,” noting that the Ministry of Health is egger to improve the level of service in the hospital either by updating the machines or applying new concepts.

In terms of new technology, General Manager at UTM Company Mona Refat is exhibiting a new machine in the operations for oncology doctors. Refat told Al Watan Daily, in an exclusive interview, that this system is a unique one and is currently the latest navigation system for liver surgery. She added, “This system will enable the sergeant to do the operation using the navigation. Previously the navigation available in the market was for bone surgery like Nero surgery or ENT, but now we have a navigation system that can help in soft issue surgery with MRI or CT of the patient and during the operation, the doctor will be integrated with the picture through the camera to know exactly where he is. This system is a great achievement in the medical field.”

mitted that there are rotten foodstuffs in the local market which are leaked by some corrupt dealers but the municipality exerts hard efforts to protect the local market and penalize dealers who commit such violations.

The Municipality has prepared a draft law which includes a 100,000 Kuwaiti dinar penalty in addition to a three-year sentence for expired food importers in the country.

The proposal, which falls under the Municipality’s new regulations, will be presented at the National Assembly for adoption, the Municipality’s Director General Ahmad Al-Subeeh told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA).

Other efforts aimed at tackling the growing epidemic in the country, include a proposed food commission, which will carry out the combined role of watch-

dog on behalf of all government bodies, he added.

Currently, the Municipality cooperates with the Customs Authority, the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Commerce to ensure the safety of food imports and their suitability for human consumption.

Imported foods are appropriately stored under the highest conditions at local ports and are thoroughly examined at fully-equipped labs, noted AlSubeeh.

Staff working at these assessment facilities receive the highest level of training at the hands of the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training, with 46 assessors expected to arrive this year, and many more to be added to the team in the future.

Four percent of Kuwait’s GDP for aiding needy nations: lawmaker

KAMPALA: Kuwait has allocated four percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), since the 70s, to aid nations in need for financial and humanitarian assistance, said a leading Kuwaiti legislator, affirming the Gulf state sympathy with peoples with scarce resources.

Ammar Al-Ajmi, the undersecretary of the Kuwaiti parliamentary caucus, taking part in the 126th Inter Parliamentary Union, shed light extensively on injustice as to distribution of wealth and resources across the world, noting that only one billion people of the Earth 6.8 billion population enjoy good standards of living and sixth of the world nation suffer from starvation, poverty and diseases.

Addressing the second permanent commission for sustainable development, financing and commerce, AlAjmi indicated that poor people live in 70 countries, and 45 percent of them live in limited-income communities.

Moreover, there are poor people in wealthy nations, “thus there must be serious thinking as to re-distribution of the wealth globally.”

Aware of the plight of nations of limited resources, Kuwait has been earmarking, since 1974, four percent of its GDP for aiding these peoples, in the form of aid and loans, thus helping more than 90 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the member of the Kuwaiti National

Assembly (Parliament), pointed out.

At the domestic level, the Kuwaiti authorities have been supporting the people of the country at various levels and through various programs.

In this context, Al-Ajmi singled out the decree

by His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah of granting 1,000 Kuwaiti dinars to each Kuwaiti citizen, last February, and supplying each Kuwaiti family with food supplies for 14 months with the intention of aiding the citizens cope with the economic crisis.

Al-Ajmi tackled other aspects of the global conditions, from social, political and humanitarian aspects, saying “the powerful should no longer control the weak,” noting that a new world order was emerging with rising powers such as China, India, Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa.

He called for joint global efforts to help marginalized nations suffering from illiteracy, poverty and fanaticism.

The National Assembly of Kuwait affirms necessity of preserving particular and domestic features of each nation, namely the right to determine the forms of social and economic policies, without abstention from integration into the world order and international organizations, he stated. -KUNA

4

ALWATAN DAILY

regional

Vipers, get back in your pits

By Hossam Fathi Staff Writer

KUWAIT: Will Egyptians vote for the candidate that was chosen by the former ousted President Mohammad Hosni Mubarak?! I’m referring to Major General Omar Sulaiman. Is the man waiting for further hot disputes amongst the supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood Movement and the Salafi Movement on the one hand, and the liberal and the youths of revolution on the other hand?

The 76-year-old, who held the positions of deputy president and the chief of intelligence, and was dubbed by the West as “the Egyptian Fox”, might have snagged great support if he had not held the position of deputy president as well as held strong loyalty for the former president.

The question is “can the man garner enough popular support to hold the presidential position” especially when the country is still suffering from chaos!!

The theory is as follows: the current chaos and problems occurring between the political movements, which cannot seem to agree on supporting a certain candidate till now, might cause people to despair, who might then they start looking to one of the ‘old knights’ to restore security and force the snakes back into their pits. The Major General might be lucky to be labeled with the title of the knight who will save Egypt, even though he was nominated by the former president Mubarak.

We hope the Islamic movements will eventually agree on supporting a particular candidate to avoid all disputes which risk scattering votes, as that opportunity will prove too ripe for the followers of the former president to resist exploiting. hossam@alwatan.com.kw Twitter:@hossamfathy66

NEWS IN BRIEF Iraq’s fugitive vice president leaves Qatar DOHA: State media in Qatar say that Iraq’s fugitive vice president has left the Gulf country after a four-day official visit. The Qatar News Agency says Tariq Al-Hashemi, who is the top Sunni official in Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government, left the country on Wednesday. The report does not say where Al-Hashemi is headed or if he plans to return to Iraq.

Iraq has issued a warrant for Al-Hashemi’s arrest on terror charges and called on Qatar to extradite the suspect to stand trial in Baghdad. Qatar refused the request. -AP

Gulf NGOs warn Bahrain over jailed activist’s health CAPITALS: Civil society groups in Gulf states on Wednesday warned Bahraini authorities over the life of a jailed activist who has been on a hunger strike for almost two months and demanded his release. “The Bahraini government and the ruling family will be held responsible for any harm resulting from the ongoing (hunger) strike of rights activist Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja,” said a statement by the Gulf Forum for Civil Societies signed by its secretary general Anwar Al-Rasheed.

Khawaja, who was condemned with other opposition activists to life in jail over an alleged plot to topple the Bahraini monarchy during a month-long protest a year ago, began his hunger strike on the night of Feb. 8-9. -AFP

Saudi beheads national guilty of murder RIYADH: Saudi Arabia beheaded on Wednesday a man found guilty of shooting dead a fellow Saudi, the interior ministry said. Ayed Al-Saadi was found guilty of shooting dead Ahmed Khabrani with a machinegun in a dispute, it said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency. His execution in Riyadh brought the total number of beheadings in the ultra-conservative kingdom so far this year to 17, according to an AFP tally based on official reports. Human rights group Amnesty International said Saudi Arabia executed 79 people in 2011. -AFP

Car bomb kills 5 north of Baghdad: Officials BAGHDAD: A car bomb targeting a local police chief missed him Wednesday but killed five people and wounded 15 in a Sunni town north of Baghdad, said Iraqi officials. A police official says the morning blast missed the convoy of police Col. Qandil Khalil, the head of Duluiyah police, as it was driving near a local market. Duluiyah, a former Al-Qaeda stronghold, is 75 kilometers (45 miles) north of Baghdad.

A hospital official confirmed the death toll, adding that all casualties were civilians. All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release information. -AP

Egyptian army jails officer who joined protests

CAIRO: A military officer who joined popular protests against Egypt’s former president Hosni Mubarak and military rule last year has been sentenced by a military court to six years in prison, an army judicial source told Reuters on Wednesday.

Major Ahmed Ali Shouman, the first army officer to have joined the uprising that started in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in January last year, was charged with abandoning his unit and weapons and joining protests in military uniform.

“Ahmed Shouman was sentenced to six years in jail, charged with refusing to obey military rules and voicing political views in media outlets,” the army source said.

“This was a violation of martial law that bans military personnel from communicating with the media.”

The sentence will be formally announced at a court hearing on April 11, but Shouman can appeal, the army source said.

Shouman was initially pardoned by the head of the ruling military council, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, for joining the protests against Mubarak. But he returned to the square in November to protest against military rule.

Shouman was a vocal critic of the army’s ruling generals, calling on them to relinquish power to civilians.

The military council, which took over from Mubarak in February last year, has said it will hand over to civilians by July 1. A presidential vote will be held in May and June. -Reuters

thursDAY, april 5, 2012

Suicide blast in Somalia kills at least 10 MOGADISHU: A suicide bomber detonated her explosives Wednesday at a ceremony at the national theater, killing at least 10 people, including two of the country’s top sports officials.

The explosion at the newly reopened theater happened as Somali Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali was standing at the podium to deliver a speech. The prime minister was unharmed, said Abdirahman Omar Osman, the government spokesman. The attack came as Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, was starting to resume a normal life after two decades of chaos and violence.

Fighters belonging to an Islamist group, AlShabaab, were pushed out of the capital in August by African Union and government troops.

The national theater reopened for the first time in 20 years on March 19 with a concert featuring musicians playing guitars and drums.

Wednesday’s ceremony was held to mark the first anniversary of the start of a national TV station.

The blast cut chairs in half, filled the room with smoke and splattered blood across the walls.

The president of Somalia’s Olympic committee and the president of its soccer federation were killed, according to Shafici Mohyadin, the federation’s secretary.

“It was a cowardly act and that will not

Somalis stretcher away a man wounded in a blast at the Somali National Theater in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Wednesday, April 4, 2012. (AP)

deter the government from performing its national duties,” Osman said. “The prime minis-

ter will energize the government to eliminate the terrorists out of the country.”

Iran proposes Baghdad as nuclear talks venue BAGHDAD: Iran has approached Baghdad to host forthcoming talks with six world powers over its disputed nuclear program, Iraq said on Wednesday, apparently departing from plans for an Istanbul meeting following Iranian frictions with Turkey.

Iranian media quoted Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi as saying the talks could take place in Baghdad or China. He gave no further details.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the April 13-14 negotiations would take place in Istanbul, the first such meeting since January 2011 when the sides did not even manage to agree on an agenda.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari told Reuters an Iranian delegation

proposed Baghdad for the talks during a visit to Iraq on Tuesday.

“The proposal came from them. We received a delegation from Iran ... Today we are inviting G5 plus one ambassadors to hand over a letter about the proposal,” Zebari said.

A Western diplomat in Baghdad confirmed envoys had been called to Iraq’s foreign ministry for a meeting on Wednesday. There was no immediate reaction from the six powers - the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany - to the proposal to hold talks in Iraq.

Iraq’s Shiite-led government is closely aligned with Iran in a region where Sunni Arab Gulf powers are jockeying for influence with Shiite power Tehran.

A senior Iranian figure recently spoke out against Turkey hosting the talks as once warm Iranian-Turkish relations have cooled in the past year over Turkey’s hostility to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, Iran’s close Arab ally.

Turkey has demanded Assad halt a year-long crackdown on opponents in Syria and step down. Last month, Turkey also announced it would reduce the amount of oil it buys from Iran by 10 percent, ceding to US pressure over Iran sanctions. The United States and its allies suspect Tehran is covertly working on nuclear weapons and have imposed tough sanctions on Iran, including measures against its financial and energy sectors. Tehran says its nuclear activities are peaceful. -Reuters

Fuel arrives in Gaza under new deal GAZA: Fuel began arriving in Gaza on Wednesday under a new deal between the territory’s Hamas government and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, an official said. “Tanks of fuel holding 45,000 liters each entered through the Kerem Shalom crossing this morning,” Raed Futuh, the coordinator on the Palestinian side of the crossing, told AFP. “We’re expecting about 430,000 liters of industrial fuel for the electricity plant today,” he added.

Gaza has been in the grip of a severe power crisis for months now, with its sole electricity plant unable to function because of an interruption in the supply of fuel to the territory. Under the terms of a deal announced on Tuesday, the Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank will supply Gaza with fuel purchased from Israel for so long as the Hamas-controlled Gaza electricity authority pays for it.

Announcing the deal on Tuesday, Hamas spokesman Taher Al-Nunu said it would involve the delivery of around 500,000 liters of fuel daily to Gaza.

“The price of the delivery will be covered by the Gaza electricity company’s revenue,” he said.

A spokesman for the PA government confirmed the deal, calling it a “temporary measure” that would be implemented “so long as the electricity company in Gaza continues to pay the petrol company the necessary funds.” The deal is intended to compliment an earlier accord between Hamas and Egypt to work to

An oil tanker drives into Rafah from the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and the southern Gaza Strip on April 4, 2012 as fuel began arriving in the impoverished strip following a new deal between the territory’s Hamas government and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. (AFP)

resolve Gaza’s long-standing electricity problems. That agreement, announced

by Hamas on Feb. 23, called for three stages, the first of which would see Egyptian companies pumping fuel directly to Gaza under the terms of contracts signed with the firms.

The second part of the agreement called for the Islamic Development Bank

to fund a project to upgrade and increase the capacity of Gaza’s sole power plant by 40 megawatts.

The third phase of the deal would connect Gaza’s electricity grid to Egypt’s and would convert the Palestinian territory’s power plant, which currently supplies around a third of the Strip’s electricity, from diesel to gas. -AFP

Clashes continue after Syria claims troop pullout

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

In the Damascus suburb of Douma, activist Mohammed Saeed said troops carried out more raids and arrests on Wednesday. He said tanks and checkpoints remained in place and reported overnight clashes in the suburb of Kisweh and Moaddamiyeh. “It is impossible for the regime to withdraw from towns and cities because if it did, we would be in Damascus on the next day,” Saeed said.

The opposition has blasted Annan’s plan as too little, too late and are particularly angry that it does not call for Assad to leave power - the central demand of the uprising. They suspect Assad will manipulate the plan and use it to stall for time while his forces continue to crack down.

The Syrian government has not commented publicly on the April 10 truce deadline. It has accepted other peace plans in recent months only to ignore them on the ground. An Arab League effort that included sending in monitors to promote a cease-fire collapsed in violence in November.

Syria’s uprising started in March 2011 with peaceful protests calling for political reforms, inspired by other Arab Spring revolts around the region. Assad’s forces used deadly force to try to crush the spreading dissent, and many in the

opposition took up arms to defend themselves. The UN says more than 9,000 people have been killed since the revolt began. Relentless government shelling of rebellious areas and frequent clashes with rebels have taken a high toll on Syria’s civilians, and the International Committee of the Red Cross is pressing Syria to give aid workers access to embattled areas. ICRC president Jakob Kellenberger and his team toured the southern province of Daraa, birthplace of the Syrian uprising. ICRC spokesman in Syria Saleh Dabbakeh said two trucks loaded with humanitarian aids and around 1000 baskets of staples including rice, sugar, beans and canned food were accompanying the mission.

The United States said Tuesday that the UN Security Council must respond urgently and seriously if Syria fails to keep its pledge to halt offensive military operations by Annan’s deadline next week.

US Ambassador Susan Rice told reporters that Syrian forces have been continuing offensive operations and the United States “is concerned and quite skeptical that the government of Syria will suddenly adhere to its commitments.”

“What we have seen since April 1 is not encouraging,” Rice said.-AP

Ali Muse, the head of Mogadishu’s ambulance service, said at least 10 people were killed and dozens wounded. He said the wounded included the country’s national planning minister.

“The blast happened as musicians were singing and spectators were clapping for them,” said Salah Jimale, who was in attendance at the theater but received only light scratches.

“Huge smoke made the whole scene go dark.

People screamed and soldiers suddenly started opening fire at the gate. Some wounded people escaped and ran away.”

Shoes and blood-splattered mobile phones lay on the floor. A man wounded in the head and chest tried to sit up but suddenly collapsed and died as a reporter looked on.

The International Olympic Committee issued a statement saying it was “shocked to hear of the terrorist attack that took the lives of the President of the Somali Olympic Committee Aden Yabarow Wiish and Somali Football Federation chief Said Mohamed Nur today in Mogadishu.”

“Both men were engaged in improving the lives of Somalian people through sport and we strongly condemn such an act of barbarism.

Our thoughts are with the Somalian sporting community who lost two great leaders and with the families of the victims,” the IOC said.

-AP

Israel PM seeks to legalize three settler outposts

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will seek to legalize three settler outposts established illegally in the West Bank, he told his government on Wednesday.

“It is my intention to bring to the government in the near future a recommendation from the defense minister, and the necessary permissions, for regulating the status of the communities of Bruchin, Sansana and Rechelim,” he said.

Netanyahu said he would also seek a way to avoid the demolition of a fourth outpost, Ulpana.

“I have asked the attorney general to find a solution to the Ulpana neighborhood in order to prevent it from being demolished,” he said.

This comes as Israeli security forces evicted dozens of Jewish settlers on Wednesday from a building that they illegally took over in a combustible West Bank city, police said.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said security forces met no resistance during the operation. The eviction took Israelis by surprise, because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had blocked an eviction order requiring the settlers to leave the house just a day earlier.

The order had threatened to touch off a violent confrontation between security forces and the militant settler community in Hebron.

Hebron settlers and their supporters have violently resisted similar eviction orders, retaliating with attacks against Palestinians.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu will meet next week with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, Israeli and Palestinian officials said on Wednesday.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu will meet with Palestinian Prime Minister Fayyad next week,” the Israeli premier’s spokesman Ofir Gendelman said in a statement posted on his official Twitter feed.

Palestinian officials confirmed the meeting and said Fayyad would hand Netanyahu a letter from Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas about the stalled peace process. -Agencies

Rockets fired in clash between rival Libya militias

ZUWARA: Fighters near the western Libyan town of Zuwara were firing rockets and large-calibre weapons on Wednesday, Reuters reporters at the scene said, in the fourth day of a conflict between rival militias.

The fighting has exposed how volatile Libya remains, six months after a revolt last year ended Muammar Gaddafi’s rule, and how the new leadership is struggling to impose its authority on the country.

Local people told a Reuters team which entered Zuwara, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of the capital, that the fighting was less intense than a day earlier. The Libyan government said on Tuesday 14 people had been killed and hundreds wounded.

But in the distance, the sound of Russian-made Grad rockets could be heard occasionally, as well as reports from rifles and anti-aircraft guns which the fighters have adapted to fire at targets on the ground.

Officials in the capital,Tripoli, said they were sending a force to restore order in Zuwara. Local people said some of that force had arrived, but the only visible sign of a government security presence was an air force plane flying over the town.

“It’s quietened down but we don’t know what will happen,” said Younis Elfounes, a surgeon at Zuwara hospital. “It (the fighting) was all day yesterday, from 8 in the morning until late at night,” he said.

He said over the past few days his hospital had treated 125 people injured in the fighting, and recorded eight deaths. Other casualties were treated elsewhere.

“As a doctor, and from what I can see from the patients coming in, it’s been intense,” Elfounes said of the fighting.

The fighting was between militias from Zuwara and rival fighters from the settlements of Al-Jumail and Regdalin, a short distance to the south.

“Today is relatively calm but there is no ceasefire,” said Ismail Iftiss, a Zuwara field commander whose unit was close to the frontline southwest of the town. Sporadic shooting could be heard as he spoke. -Reuters

ALWATAN DAILY

WORLD

thursdAY, april 5, 2012

First batch of 200 US Marines arrive in Australia training hub DARWIN: The first batch of 2,500 US Marines to be deployed in Australia began work Wednesday as Washington bolsters its presence in the strategically vital Asia-Pacific, to the irritation of China.

Some 200 Marines touched down in tropical Darwin overnight as part of an enhanced defense cooperation outlined during a visit by US President Barack Obama in November that rankled Beijing.

The troops are in the Northern Territory on a six-month rotational basis and will be based at Robertson Barracks on the outskirts of the city, building to some 2,500 by 2016-17.

In a joint statement, Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Defense Minister Stephen Smith and Northern Territory Chief Minister Paul Henderson welcomed what they said was the latest chapter in a more than 60-year alliance with the US. “It represents an evolution of existing exercises and activities that the United States already conducts with the Australian Defence Force in Australia,” they said.

“The intent in the coming years is to establish a rotational presence of up to a 2,500 personnel Marine Air Ground Task Force, rotating into Northern Australia in the northern dry season.

“There are no (permanent) US military bases in Australia, and this will not change,” they added.

The US military currently has only a limited deployment in long-standing ally Australia, including the Pine Gap Joint Defense Facility spy station near Alice Springs.

The latest move represents a significant

Handout photo taken and released by the Australian Department of Defense on April 4, shows the first contingent of 200 US Marines to be deployed in Australia marching during the official welcoming ceremony at Robertson Barracks near Darwin as Washington bolsters its military presence in the strategically vital region. (AFP)

geo-strategic shift by Washington and it has irked Beijing, whose rapid rise is reorienting Asia’s balance. China has said the Marines deployment is proof of a “Cold War mentality”.

Wang Jisi, the influential dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University, writes in a candid new study that a mistrust-

ful China is convinced that the United States is bent on holding back its rise.

But the deployment has reassured some Asian countries who see it as a statement that the United States intends to stand up for its allies and interests in the region.

And while it appears to be sending a signal to China and its expanding military, the White

PARIS/BAMAKO: France warned on Wednesday the seizure of northern Mali by a Tuareg-led rebellion was playing into the hands of local Al-Qaeda units, urging neighbors including Algeria to do more to tackle the threat.

For long one of the most stable democracies in West Africa, Mali has plunged into turmoil since a widely condemned March 22 coup that emboldened Tuareg rebels in their quest for a northern homeland.

They have been joined by Islamists bent on imposing Islamic sharia law across the whole of the moderate Muslim state, the latest security worry for a region battling organized crime and home-grown militant groups such as Nigeria’s Boko Haram.

“We fear that in this confused situation Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) will take advantage of the situation to expand its perimeter of activity and strengthen the terrorist threat,” French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said.

AQIM is a mostly autonomous wing which sprung from the Algerian Salafist movement in 2007. The group, believed to number a few hundred members, has taken advantage of weak governance and poverty to mount sporadic attacks on local armies and kidnap Westerners, earning millions of dollars in ransoms.

The rebellion is likely to complicate efforts to secure the release of six French hostages held by the group.

While the stated aim of the coup leaders was to give the army more clout to tackle the two-month-old revolt, their power grab triggered a rebel sweep through a northern zone the size of France - in many cases hard on the heels of fleeing army forces.

Malian military junta leader captain Amadou Sanogo speaks on April 3, at Kati military camp near Bamako. (AFP)

The Tuareg-led rebel group MNLA says it now controls the three main towns in the desert zone - Kidal, Gao and the ancient trading post of Timbuktu - and has stressed it has no intention of pushing further north.

But there is growing disquiet about the role

of the local Ansar Dine Islamist group, which, rather than seeking to carve out a northern homeland, wants to impose Islamic law across all of Mali.

“Our fear is based on AQIM’s endemic presence in the region and the links we know

Suicide bomber kills 12 in Afghan north FARYAB: A suicide bomber attacked foreign military forces in northern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing 12 people, officials said, as NATO’s fatalities for the year passed the 100 mark.

“A suicide bomber targeted a group of foreign friends” near a park in Maymana, the capital of Faryab province, provincial governor Abdul Haq Shafaq told AFP. “They were military. There are casualties, dead and wounded.”

Faryab, which borders Turkmenistan, is far from centers of the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan’s south and east, although the Islamist militia are present in some areas of the province and it suffers sporadic attacks.

NATO’s US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said two service members died after an explosion in northern Afghanistan, but refused to confirm whether it was the same incident.

There were conflicting reports about the exact death toll and the identity of the victims after the suicide bomber blew himself up on a motorcycle.

Lal Mohammad Ahmadzai, police spokesman for northern Afghanistan, described the blast as “powerful” and said six civilians and four policemen were killed, with 20 people wounded including four police. “A suicide bomber with a suicide vest full of explosives and on a explosive-laden motorcycle targeted some foreign forces near a UN compound in Maymana,” he said.

Most foreign troops in Faryab are Norwegian and Lieutenant Colonel John Espen Lien, a spokesman for Norway’s armed forces, told AFP there were “at

Afghan policemen and NATO troops inspect the site of a suicide attack in Faryab province April 4, where at least twelve people were killed, including two NATO soldiers, local media reported. (Reuters)

least 12 killed, but this number is not definitive”.

No Norwegian ISAF personnel were nearby at the time, he added.

Earlier, provincial police chief Abdul Khaliq Aqasai told AFP that US troops had told him four of their personnel had also died.

A doctor at the town’s hospital said the bodies of five civilians had been brought in, and 26 people were wounded.

The “foreign friends” group had visited the police headquarters in Faryab be-

fore going to the park to carry out filmed interviews with local residents, the governor said.

The Taliban could not immediately be reached for comment.

Norway contributes a little over 400 soldiers to ISAF’s 130,000 troops, who are helping Hamid Karzai’s government fight a decade-long Taliban insurgency.

NATO is scheduled to hand responsibility for security across the country over to Afghan authorities and withdraw most combat troops by the end of 2014. -AFP

NEWS IN BRIEF South Korea set to elect first defector lawmaker

House has also made clear it wants to extend its capability to deploy for disaster relief missions in Southeast Asia.

US Ambassador to Australia Jeffrey Bleich said Washington wanted to make sure the region remained peaceful and stable.

“The way we accomplish that is by ensuring that trade routes are open and that we are prepared for any issue that could come up,” he told reporters.

“The opportunity to train in Darwin is ideal for having the ability to do that. You have access to the Pacific Ocean, to the Indian Ocean, to the East Timor Sea and the trade routes all around.”

Defense Minister Smith also sought to reassure regional nations, suggesting that Australia’s closest neighbor Indonesia and even China, Canberra’s most important trading partner, could be included in future joint exercises.

“Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, he came out saying he thought it was a good thing,” Smith told ABC radio of the US deployment.

“And he also said that he saw the prospect of not just Australia, the United States and potentially Indonesia engaging in exercises but also the wider region including China,” he said, welcoming such a development.

As part of the major expansion of military ties, Australia last week said it may allow the United States to use its territory to operate long-range spy drones.

Washington could also reportedly station US aircraft carriers and nuclear-powered attack submarines in the western Australian city of Perth. -AFP

Al-Qaeda using Mali crisis to expand, warns France

5

between AQIM and Ansar Dine,” Valero said.

Paris expects the UN Security Council to issue a statement on Mali later on Wednesday to show its support of the 15-state West African bloc ECOWAS’s efforts to find a solution to the crisis.

Valero said it was vital Mali’s neighbors worked together to prevent the rise of radical Islamists in the region.

“We’ve been saying for months that regional countries must cooperate with a stronger response to fight AQIM,” he said.

“We want everybody to be part of it be it Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso ... and we want naturally that Algeria plays all its role in this situation and in face of the terrorist threat.”

France, the former colonial ruler, is Mali’s fourth-largest donor of aid - a vital source of income in one of the world’s poorest countries and it also trains and equips government forces.

Since the rebellion, it has suspended its cooperation, but has maintained aid to the population and advised its 5,000 citizens living in the West African state to leave.

The United States said on Tuesday Mali’s territorial integrity was at stake and called again on the junta to step down. In a security update, it said it was now authorizing the departure of non-emergency US Embassy personnel and families. A junior officer in the central Malian town of Mopti - outside the northern territory which the rebels have claimed as their homeland - feared the rebels could mount an offensive on the town, 400 km (250 miles) northeast of the capital Bamako. “We’ve had indications that the town has already been infiltrated by a number of rebel units,” said the officer, who requested anonymity. -Reuters

SEOUL: Less than a year after becoming the first North Korean defector to take a senior government post in South Korea, Cho Myung-Chul is set to win office as the country’s first defector lawmaker.

Cho, who is standing for the ruling conservative New Frontier Party (NFP) in the April 11 parliamentary poll, says his victory would send a message both to his former homeland and to fellow refugees struggling to adapt in the South. “If I win, it will not only give hope but also practical help to the defectors going through difficult times ... and most significantly, it will have great influence on the elite in the North,” he told AFP in a phone interview. -AFP

Violent storm leaves four dead in Japan TOKYO: A huge storm killed at least four people in Japan, police said Wednesday, as violent wind and rain battered the nation and disrupted transport for a second day. The storm has moved east and is now covering all of the north of Japan’s main island of Honshu and much of the northernmost island of Hokkaido, buffeting the region with strong winds caused by what meteorologists say is a severe low-pressure system. On Sado island, on Honshu’s northwest, gusts of up to 156 kilometers (97 miles) per hour were recorded. -AFP

Seven rescued from cargo ship as storms lash Britain LONDON: Rescuers have winched seven crew members from a cargo ship that ran aground on the coast of north Wales, as snow and heavy winds lashed many parts of Britain. The Antigua-registered ship Carrier hit rocks near Colwyn Bay in gale-force winds on Tuesday. Two Royal Air Force rescue helicopters managed to lift the seven Polish crew members to safety. The Maritime and Coast Guard agency says the 82-meter (270-foot) vessel is in one piece, and experts are working Wednesday to refloat it. -AP

Four dead, several missing in Nairobi landslide NAIROBI: Massive boulders crashed onto houses Wednesday in a Nairobi slum, killing at least four people and trapping many underground after a night of heavy rains, police and the Kenyan Red Cross said. Police chief Mathew Iteere and Red Cross spokeswoman Nelly Muluka both said in late morning that four bodies had been removed from the rubble in Mathare slums.

Families at the scene told AFP several people were still missing. The Red Cross said more than 40 houses were destroyed in the sprawling slums in the north of the capital when huge boulders came crashing onto them early Wednesday morning, the Kenya Red Cross said. -AFP

Pakistan van bomb kills six passengers ISLAMABAD: A bomb ripped through a passenger van in Pakistan’s restive tribal belt on Wednesday, killing at least six people and wounding nine others, officials said. The van was carrying 15 men from Khurrakai village to Jamrud, the main town in Khyber district when it was hit while passing through a ravine. “The passengers were going to town for shopping. So far we can confirm the death of six people while nine others are injured,” Shakeel Khan Umarzai, a senior administration official, told AFP. -AFP

ASEAN to ‘intensify efforts’ on China sea disputes PHNOM PENH: Southeast Asian leaders on Wednesday pledged to step up efforts to resolve overlapping maritime disputes with China, at the end of a two-day summit which also focused on Myanmar and North Korea.

Leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) “reaffirmed the importance” of a 10-year-old declaration on the conduct of the parties (DOC) pledging to promote peace and understanding in the disputed area.

“We stressed the need to intensify efforts to ensure the effective and full implementation of the DOC based on the guidelines for the implementation of the DOC,” the leaders said in a statement at the end of the two-day summit.

The same language was used in a statement issued at the end of an ASEAN summit in Indonesia last year, reflecting the paralysis within the bloc over conflicts with China, analysts said.

“This is a weak statement but it’s understandable in the sense that ASEAN has been unable to find a common position regarding the South China Sea,” Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a former Thai diplomat and expert at the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, told AFP. China and several ASEAN countries have rival claims to uninhabited islands in the sea, which is believed to be rich in hydrocarbons and straddles strategic shipping lanes vital to global trade.

The United States claims a “national interest” in keeping the waterway open and has recently stepped up military cooperation with the Philippines, one of the claimants, as part of its foreign policy “pivot” to Asia. China has competing territorial claims in the sea with ASEAN members Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

US naval commanders have repeatedly said they are concerned about minor incidents, such as recent clashes over fishing rights and energy ex-

ploration near the islands, blowing up into major regional conflicts. Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Cambodia on the eve of the summit in what many analysts took to be a form of pressure on Phnom Penh to use its chairmanship to slow down the South China Sea negotiations.

Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said there was a “big disagreement” on Tuesday over whether to invite China to help draft a code of conduct, designed to prevent small incidents in the sea from escalating. Cambodia, which holds the ASEAN chair in 2012, is eager to bring China into the drafting process but the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam say the bloc should draft a code among themselves before presenting it to Beijing.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen used his closing press conference to angrily reject reports of a rift over how to proceed in the negotiations. He also denied he had tried to pull the issue off the agenda of the bloc’s summit.

“Maybe some people think that during the ASEAN summit there is a difference of view between ASEAN and China. That is the wrong thinking,” he said, adding that all parties were committed to peacefully resolving the disputes.

“What I hate the most is that they talk about Cambodia (being) under the pressure of China.

Cambodia is the chairman of ASEAN and Cambodia has the right to set the agenda,” he said through a translator. ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- a grouping of nearly 600 million people from disparate economic and political systems. The leaders called for “self-restraint” over a planned rocket launch by nuclear-armed North Korea later this month.

Pyongyang sparked alarm in the region when it announced last month it would launch a rocket to place a satellite in orbit. -AFP

6

ALWATAN DAILY

OPINION

THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 2012

Prime Minister Al-Maliki once bitten twice ... pompous Fuad Al-Hashem

I

have received a letter from the Right Honorable the Patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Apostolic Head of Jerusalem and Near East Mar Marcus Cathedral in Kuwait Bigol Anba Bishui which goes as follows: “Dear Mr. Al-Hashem, We would like to express our gratitude and appreciation for your noble and kind sentiments which you have expressed regarding the departure of our Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria Shenouda III. You have always shown great sympathy and admiration and this has tremendous impact on us, on our feelings and on our hearts. Your genuine condolences are very much appreciated as we have felt each and every word of sympathy.

Because of you, we feel warmly received in this country.

Because of you we feel we are among our family and loved ones. Because of you we believe that we are living in our country.

We pray that the Lord would send his blessing to you.

Patriarch Bigol Anba Bishui The Patriarch sent me another letter but this time inviting me to attend Holy Easter scheduled Saturday April 14 at nine o’clock in Hawalli.

I can only thank Patriarch Bigol Anba Bishui for his kind message and remarks. I would also like to thank him for inviting me over for the Holy Easter. I hope some of those MPs would really get wound up when they read those lines.

Moving away from home and specifically to Qatar and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, it has been reported that both Doha and Riyadh would provide the needed salaries and

The state and tribe

After a while, I am pretty sure no soldier or officer would remain in the regular Syrian army headed by the dim-witted Bashar Al-Assad with the exception of course of some local police officers.

expenses of Syrian soldiers and officers who defected from the regular Syrian army. The money will be sent through Turkish banks and under the care of the Syrian National Council SNC. Each soldier and officer who has defected from the Syrian army will receive five times his old salary as given by the dim-witted Bashar Al-Assad and his regime.

After a while, I am pretty sure no soldier or officer would remain in the regular Syrian army headed by the dim-witted Bashar Al-Assad with the exception of course of some local police officers.

I can’t stop thinking about Nouri Al-Maliki’s comments.

They are hilarious by all definitions. They just made me laugh every time I think about them. Take for example his latest public comments: “We totally reject any changes to the regime of Bashar Al-Assad by military force.”

I cannot stop laughing every time I hear this statement or any other by the Iraqi prime minister for that matter. It is obvious that the Iraqi prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki is not aware of the fact that he himself came to power and this prestigious position on the United States tanks. Perhaps we should remind him that when the former president of Iraq

Saddam Hussein was ousted from power, Nouri Al-Maliki was invited by the US to become prime minister of Iraq.

Maybe we should remind him of more details; of when he was selling prayer beads in a small shop by the area called Sayyida Zaynab in Damascus. I am not really sure; perhaps the Iraqi prime minister is missing his old profession in Sayyida Zaynab. It is also possible he has become extremely connected with the Syrian Liras so much so that he is now receiving some of it to declare his full support when more than 70 countries worldwide have recognized the new Syrian National Council!!

The Iraqi prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki is one good example of once bitten twice ... pompous.

An American friend of mine who happens to be a journalist in the New York Times, telephoned me Tuesday evening and said that the Americans are busy trying to launch a space ship to Mars and the Arabs are busy making up their minds and issuing fatwas to decide whether it is permissible for husbands to suck the breasts of their wives or not.

I was very candid with my American colleague. I told her that her information is now a bit old and outdated and that

we have passed this stage by miles. I also told her that we no longer discuss such trivial matters and that we are now busy with something more important than that. Our problem and the matter we are totally preoccupied with is to demolish churches or not; to monitor husseinyats or not; and whether we will do this on planet Mars or not immediately!!!

It is a matter of pride and joy when you recognize someone so creative and so productive like the Kuwaiti poetess Suad Al-Sabah who received an award from the Korean Journalist Society. The poetess has long been missed for her fine art and poetry. I believe she would be an excellent member of parliament. Our only hope is that she would agree to join the political scene and become an MP. We certainly hope you would consider such a career move.

As for the Egyptian news, the well known actress Sumaya Al-Khashab ended up marrying a religious man and member of the Islamic Al-Nour Party. I can’t describe how disappointed I am that you are paring with someone who wears loose trousers and who has a very long beard. Everything that was between us must be forgotten forever. I am so broken hearted because of you.

Finally, again with the Egyptian news, a leading figure in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and the man assigned to be in charge of the organization’s branch in Europe has announced his resignation from the organization. Kamal Al-Hilbawi justified his resignation by saying that the Muslim Brotherhood has become a dictatorial group adding at the same time “once they are in power they would run the country in a fashion far worse than that of the former regime of Hosni Mubarak.”

BU QUTADA & BU NABIL Priorities are the most important thing for the national assembly

Dr. Shamlan Yousef Al-Esa

D

r. Ahmad Oqla Al-Enzi has published an article by the Kuwaiti Newspaper about the tribe and state.

He discussed many items on what is going on in Kuwait such as the ongoing deterioration in Kuwait and the other Gulf countries through feeding tribalism. He also focused on the idea of how we can explain the sudden success of tribes which started dominating the political arena in the last stage. Tribal powers could also attract the attention of people to play the role of opposition.

The question is “can we consider tribal powers as an opposition or political movements that have clear financial resources and organizational structure?” such questions are great ones as most of the third world countries which gained independence in the last century attempt to move into civil states through ways other than of tribalism.

Moreover, such states marginalize tribes in order to make it melt in the national social fabric which transcends tribalism and personal interests.

A good idea Bu Qutada ..... we want citizens to be happy

Even the concept of tribalism should be turned into a concept of citizenship that boosts justice and equality in terms of rights and duties.

Even the concept of tribalism should be turned into a concept of citizenship that boosts justice and equality in terms of rights and duties. The citizens of those countries are usually subject to laws beside all other tribes and factions.

We wonder how the government did not exert the required efforts for building a new coherent society and we still feel that conflict between the state and tribe is not over till now. Al-Enzi added that the conflict between the two sides will never end but we don`t know which side will achieve victory. During the article, Al-Enzi disclosed that political powers in Kuwait and their supporters know well the circumstances that might occur due to the Arab Spring especially if the country has a convenient atmosphere for this kind of spring. Therefore, the government endorsed a counter tactic which aims at supporting the concept of tribalism.

We agree with Al-Enzi about the items especially the fact there are several challenges interrupting building the modern state including tribalism wherein some tribes believe that they have certain characteristics that can`t exist in the modern states. The members of tribes show great loyalty to the tribe a lot more than loyalty to the state itself. Some tribes don`t believe in the rule of constitution and law as long as the constitution and laws interrupt the aspirations of tribes. As a result, we can witness a clear contradiction amongst the tribal MPs- who represent the majority at the present time- as they call for applying laws on others but in the meantime they attempt to free themselves of laws like what happened in the case of storming the headquarters of National Assembly. The opposition MPs refused to obey laws but they call for applying laws on others. The very MPs try to release the person who burned the Iranian flag in the determination square although burning the flag violates the Kuwaiti law.

The parliamentary committee for legislative affairs had lifted the parliamentary immunity of the MP Mohammad Al-Juwaihel and the committee refused lifting immunity of the MP Musallam Al-Barrak.

However, the government’s attempts to enhance tribalism and ignore the concepts of the modern state will lead to undermining the bases of the modern Kuwaiti state. We seek no other option except the liberal democracy, which protects all by the authority of law in a civil modern state.

A parliament without priorities can’t be considered a good parliament Bravo Bu Qutada

One of the priorities is grilling the minister of Awqaf, minister of commerce, interior, social affairs, and the minister of ......

Down with MPs .......

Long live priorities Bu Qutada deserves our votes

These are not priorities.... they are only grills

Mohmmed Thallab

mthallab@alwatan.com.kw

What a great statement!

Khalid Sultan Al-Sultan

I

cannot believe the statement of the MP Ahmad Lari that was published by AlNahar Newspaper “the government can’t observe Husainiya!” such a statement indicates irresponsibility by a person who reached the legislative authority and who is expected to observe the performance of the government as well! The government is responsible for running the interests of the whole country and it also has the right to eradicate corruption or any other things that might influence the supreme interests of the state.

We can’t understand how the MP dared to release such a trivial statement

which restricts or suspends the authorities of the government, as the government has the authority to penalize any government or private institution while committing mistakes.

If the executive authority can`t observe the Husainiya or any other departments then the government should quit and we would then lead a life of wilderness where no laws can be applied. If the government can`t observe a Husainiya and the other institutions then the country will get involved in endless tribal and sectarian disputes.

We think that there isn’t anybody who believes that the government doesn’t have authority over the different public

premises as Lari does! Anyway, Lari and any other people who might have similar thoughts should understand well that the government is fully responsible for every single thing in the country including public premises and the private ones and we hope those who have counter opinions of that to express their thoughts, especially that such a matter will help us to assess their loyalty and belonging!!

There are many articles- of different Kuwaiti laws such as article 35 and 44- endorsed to organize freedom and maintain it properly like the freedom of thinking, opinion, press, education, labor unions, conferences and the freedom of persons in which those articles protect freedom but in

the meantime they organize freedom not to violate the public values, manners and laws of the country.

How did Lari ignore all those laws and attempt to persuade us that the government can neither observe nor penalize the Husainiya!!

Everybody should stop insulting the state or belittling the government, the insults of which only aim at defending certain personal goals. We are all Kuwaiti citizens and we all should abide to laws of the states and exert all possible efforts to maintain its interests. We hope all Kuwaiti people, the government and the national assembly to make Kuwait and the Kuwaiti interests as the first and last goal of our life.

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7

Healing the sick man of South Asia Shahid Javed Burki Project Syndicate

P

akistan is undergoing three transitions simultaneously. How they unfold matters not only for Pakistan, but also for much of the Muslim world, particularly as the Arab Spring forces change upon governments across the wider Middle East.

Most Muslim countries were governed for decades by autocrats who had either emerged directly from the armed forces, or had strong “khaki” support. That was the case in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and, of course, Pakistan.

The Arab Spring drained away whatever spurious legitimacy that style of governance ever had. But, in Pakistan, delegitimation of military rule had actually occurred three years earlier, and the pressure for change came from much the same source - a restive and mobilized new middle class.

Several decades ago, the American political scientist Samuel P. Huntington argued that economic prosperity in developing countries with weak governing institutions would not necessarily lead to political stability. On the contrary, economic growth in such contexts can be - and often is - politically destabilizing.

That proved to be the case in Turkey and Pakistan in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, and later in much of the Arab world. Indeed, the rising aspirations of Arab youth in Egypt and Tunisia, the wellspring of the Arab Spring, followed impressive economic growth that had failed to trickle down.

And such rising expectations have been visible in all large Muslim countries.

As Huntington suggested, when young people see their economies grow, they begin to demand participation in decisions that affect all aspects of their lives, not just their economic well-being. Military-dominated political systems precluded such participation, so, with economic growth, demilitarization of politics became a rallying cry in all large military-led Muslim states, from Indonesia to the Mediterranean coast. Even Iran, where the Revolutionary Guards control roughly one-third of the economy, was affected when the result of the presidential election in 2009 triggered large anti-government protests in Tehran and other major cities.

But demilitarization means more than transferring power and policymaking from the armed forces to elected parliaments. In their recent book Why Nations Fail, the economists Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson suggest that elections - even those that are free and fair - do not necessarily move societies from what they call “extractive” to “inclusive” systems. Indeed, extraction of a country’s wealth for use by the elite can occur even in democratic societies when those who dominate the political system face no constraints other than periodic elections.

This is where the effort to devise institutional mechanisms to check and balance elite behavior enters the picture. Indeed, the search for such mechanisms is precisely what is now underway in Pakistan.

In Pakistan, a discredited military was forced by public opinion to withdraw from power, creating political space for elected representatives. They assumed control, though not over the military, but did not govern wisely. While their personal wealth increased, living standards for everyone else either stagnated or, for lower-income groups, declined. So, as Pakistan negotiated its political transition, it experienced

FILE- Paramilitary soldiers patrol in the streets during unrest in Karachi March 27, 2012.

(Reuters)

In Pakistan, a discredited military was forced by public opinion to withdraw from power, creating political space for elected representatives. significant economic decline.

As a result, Pakistan’s judiciary, media, and many civilsociety organizations are now engaged in attempts not only to keep the soldiers in their barracks, but also to constrain the political establishment’s rapacious behavior.

Three cases before the country’s increasingly assertive Supreme Court promise to take Pakistan from the phase of demilitarization to a system in which meaningful checks can be exercised on those who wield power.

One case is an attempt to force Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani’s administration to reopen proceedings in a Swiss court that were examining charges of money-laun-

dering and misuse of public funds by President Asif Ali Zardari. The Swiss proceedings were stopped at the request of the Pakistani government when Zardari became president.

In the second case, the Supreme Court wants Pakistan’s military intelligence agencies to account for hundreds, if not thousands, of missing people who were detained as part of the agencies’ campaign to contain the rise of Islamic extremism, or to undermine separatist aspirations in restive Baluchistan.

The third case opened an old complaint lodged by a politician decades ago against the “troika” - composed of

The recession killed journalism - and saved it Paul Smalera Reuters

O

ver the last few years, thanks to the global economic crisis - encapsulating everything from the 2008 housing crash to today’s ongoing euro zone sovereign-debt debacle - much ink has been spilled about the reshaping of the world’s economy, especially about the domestic job market.

Actually, scratch part of that last sentence, because less ink has been spilled, at least according to the results of a recent report by LinkedIn. The media business has been in overdrive, especially during this 2012 election season, but it’s now pushing pixels, not paper.

According to the data studied by LinkedIn, the professional social network, the newspaper industry experienced a 28.4 percent shrink rate between 2007 and 2011. The death of newspapers is not exactly a new phenomenon, so I’ll spare you yet another detailed recap of the print and economic climate that led to this broadsheet apocalypse.

But contrast newspapers’ huge drop with the gain experienced in the second-fastest-growing industry, according to the same LinkedIn data: online publishing. New-media companies posted a staggering 24.3 percent gain, coming in only behind the “Internet” overall. Look at the chart below and compare the green online publishing dot with the red newspaper dot.

In other words, reports of the media’s death are premature, at best. But more important, it’s unfair for any old-media advocate to say that the revenue model for media (or any industry moving toward digital) is broken. Yes, the companies and publications that power media look quite different than they used to, but these news organizations are still reporting the news.

And that truism is at the crux of why newspapers are in a bad spot. They have been trapped in a terrible mindset that they are in the business of selling newspapers. The leap from paper to digital may be vast, but to newspaper publishers, it seemed like vaulting to a different business entirely, one they were loathe to get into. No matter what kind of lip service newspapers paid to the digital transformation, the most prominent pay-wall model out there, that of the New York Times, still protects print subscriptions with a tiered digital pricing strategy - one so annoying that it motivated its former digital design director to complain publicly about the entire signup process.

The lesson online media companies have taken from newspapers’ slow, public death is to move beyond the idea of selling the product. Online sites are selling their audience. It’s a simple twist of the equation, but one that changes everything about how a media company is run. A CEO who has realized that her audience - her customers - is the most important thing the company has will stop at nothing to give those customers what they want. Anything to make them feel as if they’re getting value from the company. And although she’ll monetize their aggregate value with advertisers and marketers, she’ll also protect them from underhanded sales pitches or confusing pricing strategies that infuriate the web-savvy.

All this means that the information an audience wants is now a company’s most important asset and the one that needs the most investment and care. In other words, the fear that the online media represent the death knell of serious reporting is 180 degrees from reality. Online media companies (including my own, though it falls into a different LinkedIn industry category) have been investing serious cash in upgrading the quality of their reporting and have made no secret of gunning for their print counterparts when it comes to journalism awards,

The leap from paper to digital may be vast, but to newspaper publishers, it seemed like vaulting to a different business entirely, one they were loathe to get into.

including the granddaddy of them all, the Pulitzer.

What has changed about journalism in the digital era is the near-instant feedback the best-of-breed companies have regarding whether their audience is actually paying attention.

All online media companies invest in real-time analytics; the best online media companies crunch the hell out of the numbers to understand their audience. Some print nostalgics treat the mere existence of this data as a mortal sin that eventually warps all journalists into page-view chasing producers of bikini slideshows.

But when reporters do groundbreaking journalism, they get email and comments from readers and interested parties.

When their work is very good it often becomes the basis for documentaries or books. Newspapers have benefited from this halo effect for years - they just haven’t quantified it. Leave it to an industry of sentence writers to be afraid of attaching numbers to their feedback.

These numbers provide the sharp picture that marketing and circulation departments have been after for years. But because they have often been lower than anticipated, especially before mass quantities of Americans came online, they scared publishers into girding their print products at the expense of the digital innovations. Meanwhile Yelp, Facebook, Google and, yes, LinkedIn had room to grow into multibillion-dollar forces of online media and advertising.

In a different world, the two dots at the top and bottom of the LinkedIn chart wouldn’t exist. Instead you’d see one dot in the middle, as newspapers shifted more resources and employees toward their digital efforts. But companies don’t often work that way - they get caught in the Valley of Death - the one Harvard business professor and Silicon Valley guru Clayton Christensen has written about in countless books and articles.

Instead of innovating for the next business cycle, these companies die crossing the Valley, wringing every last drop of cash out of the last cycle, leaving holes in the economy that startups try to fill. And there’s just no reason to think newspapers as they exist today can reverse course or buck that trend. * Paul Smalera is Deputy Opinion Editor of Reuters. The opinions expressed are his own.

the president, the prime minister, and the chief of army staff - that then governed Pakistan. The plaintiff alleged that large amounts of funds were channeled to the troika’s favored candidates to contest the 1990 general election, in which Nawaz Sharif’s party won a big victory over Benazir Bhutto’s Peoples’ Party.

Finally, Pakistan is undergoing a transition in which power is moving from the central administration to sub-national governments. The 18th amendment to the constitution, adopted in 2010, does precisely that, but implementation is being delayed by parties that prefer a highly centralized political structure.

If Pakistan’s transformation of its political system succeeds, it could serve as a model for other Muslim countries that are attempting to move from extractive to inclusive systems of governance. Turkey has already traveled some distance along this path. If Pakistan also advances, demilitarization of politics elsewhere in the Islamic world might not be far behind. * Shahid Javed Burki, former Finance Minister of Pakistan and Vice President of the World Bank, is currently Chairman of the Institute of Public Policy in Lahore.

Erdogan the peacemaker?

Sinan Ulgen Project Syndicate

T

urkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has taken on a daunting challenge. After participating in the nuclear-security summit in South Korea at the end of March, he went to Tehran to urge Iran’s leaders to make a deal during the next round of nuclear talks between Iran and the United Nations Security Council’s five permanent members (Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States) plus Germany. And Erdogan will host those talks in Istanbul in mid-April. Erdogan last traveled to Tehran in May 2010 to finalize an agreement that he had negotiated under which Iran was to send large quantities of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for nuclear fuel for Iran’s research reactor. The deal, mediated by Turkey and Brazil, was presented to the rest of the world as a groundbreaking confidencebuilding initiative.

But the US and its allies quickly rejected the agreement as an Iranian ploy designed to halt the growing momentum for additional sanctions.Turkey’s insistence on pressing ahead with the deal caused tension with the US and fueled criticism at home and abroad that Erdogan’s government was shifting away from its long-standing alliance with the West.

The memory of this short-lived crisis with the US is still fresh in Turkish government circles. So why, despite having burned his fingers two years ago, is Erdogan taking up the issue again? What did he hope to accomplish in Tehran?

Much has changed in the Middle East during the past two years, and not to Turkey’s advantage. As a result, Turkey is now seeking to contain a rapidly deteriorating regional security situation. Events in Syria are forcing Turkish authorities to accept the harsh reality of the Assad regime’s resilience - and now its hostility towards Turkey. Iraq, another of Turkey’s neighbors, faces the risk of a protracted sectarian power struggle following withdrawal of US troops.

Given this, Turkey’s main objective now is to prevent a military intervention against Iran. From Turkey’s perspective, an Israeli or American strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities would destabilize the region further, as Iran would undoubtedly retaliate by fueling sectarian tensions and undermining the prospects of a settlement in both Syria and Iraq.

Given this, Turkey wants to prolong, at all costs, the time available for diplomacy. But Erdogan’s specific objective was more modest this time than it was in 2010, because Turkey does not want to play the role of mediator and will not seek to negotiate the details of an agreement.

Instead, Erdogan emphasized to his Iranian counterparts the international community’s resolve to bring transparency to Iran’s nuclear program, and insisted on the importance of concrete progress in the next round of the nuclear talks. He warned that Iranian intransigence would doom the talks to failure, raising the prospects of yet another military confron-

The Iranian regime should, at the very least, commit itself to halt uranium enrichment at 20 percent, a figure short of the threshold needed to produce weapons. tation in the Middle East.

In particular, Erdogan stressed the need for Iran to offer a gesture of goodwill about its nuclear program. The Iranian regime should, at the very least, commit itself to halt uranium enrichment at 20 percent, a figure short of the threshold needed to produce weapons. Having had direct meetings with both Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Erdogan was in a unique position, as a prime minister of a NATO country, to convey these critical messages to a regime whose top-level decision-making processes remain as opaque as ever to the West.

Paradoxically, however, Erdogan’s task, while more modest than in 2010, is also more difficult, owing to the prospect of new sanctions on Iran, including a ban on oil exports, that are to enter into force in July. Advocates of sanctions argue that they are having a crippling effect on the Iranian economy. The value of the Iranian rial has fallen by 50 percent against the US dollar since the beginning of the year, and the country is suffering from a severe shortage of foreign exchange. So now is not the time to pull back.

Moreover, US President Barack Obama, facing an election in November, does not wish to be accused of being soft on Iran, making it difficult for the West to reciprocate potential Iranian overtures.

Yet Erdogan’s best ally in his risky gambit may be the US consumer. Faced with rising gasoline prices as a result of the ongoing crisis with Iran, Americans’ concerns about the cost of driving have contributed to Obama’s shaky popularity ratings. Thus, the Obama administration may find it more politically expedient to seek a deal with Iran. If Iran displays a real willingness to compromise, the West should hold off on the new sanctions.

It will soon become clear whether Erdogan’s visit succeeds. If Iran decides to engage the international community with concrete confidence-building measures at the next round of multilateral talks, Erdogan will take much of the credit for giving diplomacy a last chance - and quite possibly for averting a disastrous military confrontation in the Middle East. * Sinan Ulgen is Chairman of the Istanbul-based EDAM think tank and the author of the recent Carnegie Europe paper “Turkey and the Bomb.”

8

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

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

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

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Police stations Tel.:

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

Ambulance

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

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

Private Hospitals

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

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

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

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

25624000 22802555 1828282 1883883 25726666 22533177

Private Health Centers/ Clinics

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cons u l a tes

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

centr a l 4 7 2 2 0 0 0

94904040

hospital charges

medical services

Call, sms, Email us

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

23940600 24815000 24848067 22450080

1885544 23713100 22610666 25745111

Public Health Centers/ Clinics:

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

24832067 24883000 24840300 24575300 25312700 24840027 24874240

22447602 22545188 24726033 22611645 25750777 25524821 25723500 25610660 24848913 25336482

DOCTORS & DENTISTS

I N PR I VAT E PR AC T ICE

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

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

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

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

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

2572 8004 2532 9924

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

Cosmetic Surgeon Dr. Adel Quttainah

2562 5030 / 60

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

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

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

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

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

Noodles Salmiya Tel: 25712233

Bukhara Sheraton Hotel Tel: 22422055

The Peacock Radisson Blu Hotel Tel: 25673000

Tourist Restaurant Kuwait City Tel: 22411702

Noodle Factory Avenues Tel: 24954751

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

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

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

Tel: 22997000

L I S T I N G S

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

Kuwait City Tel: 22400737

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

Sakura Crowne Plaza Hotel Tel: 24742000

AlRoshinah Restaurant Safir Hotel & Residences -Fintas Tel: 25455555

Shogun The Palms Hotel Tel: 27070022

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

Manousha Salmiya Tel: 25722607 / 8

Al-Noukhaza Crowne Plaza Hotel Tel: 24742000

Fakhr Al-Din Restaurant Kuwait City Tel: 22423180

Villa Fairouz Shaab Tel: 22652030

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

Garden New Park Hotel Tel: 25634200

Yeldes Palace Kuwait City Tel: 22455212

Kabab-Ji Tel: 1861616

Zahrat Tunis Hawalli Tel: 22662444/333

Mais Al-Ghanim Kuwait City Tel: 22402590

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

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

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

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

Shabistan Crowne Plaza Hotel Tel: 24742000

The Gaucho Grill The Palms Hotel Tel: 25667370 -

• Seafood Al-Ahmadi Crowne Plaza Hotel Tel: 24742000

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

Al-Boom Radisson Blu Hotel Tel: 25756000

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

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

Flavors Restaurant Safir Hotel & Residences -Fintas Tel: 25455555

• Italian Ciro’s Pomodoro Kuwait City Tel: 22424004

Saj Express Kuwait City Tel: 22497822

Te l : 1 8 3 9 0 9 0

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

HOTELS

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

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

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

22452740 22997000 23281897 22415001

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

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

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

22528766 22465489 22443136 22532100 25742410 25713872 22928080

TWO STAR International Hotel Kuwait Residence Hotel

25741788 22467560

BUSINESS

thursdAY, APRIL 5, 2012

m ar ket watc h KUWAIT 0.3% 6159

All but one creditor join $2.2 billion Drydocks debt plan

DUBAI

QATAR

OMAN

ABU DHABI

0.6% 1703

0.0% 8850

0.2% 5806

0.0% 2564

DUBAI: Dubai World’s shipbuilding unit has gotten 98 percent of creditors signed up to its 2.2 billion US dollar restructuring plan with all but one agreeing to the terms, its chairman said. Drydocks World said this week it will use a special tribunal, set up in response to Dubai’s 2009 debt crisis, to force recalcitrant creditors to take up its debt plan after some, including hedge funds, resisted the deal.

See page 10

OIL MARKETS BAHRAIN

EGYPT

SAUDI

0.8% 1141

1.4% 4838

0.4% 7895

US Crude $102.07 $1.94 London Brent $123.35 $1.51 Kuwait Crude $121.58 $1.55 Information Courtesy: KAMCO

CURRENCIES US Dollar

British Pound

Saudi Riyal

Qatari Riyal

Indian Rupee

Euro

Japanese Yen

UAE Dirham

Bahraini Dinar

Philippine Peso

Buy 0.278 Sell 0.2785 Buy 0.3656 Sell 0.3663

Buy 0.4411 Sell 0.442

Buy 0.003376 Sell 0.003384

Buy 0.0741 Sell 0.0743

Buy 0.07574 Sell 0.07579

Buy 0.07651 Sell 0.07635 Buy 0.7379 Sell 0.73839

Buy 0.00545 Sell 0.005444

Buy 0.006509 Sell 0.006493

Kuwaiti crude price rises $1.55, settles at $121.58

Prices in Kuwaiti fils As of April 4, 2012 Courtesy: KAMCO

Credit sees significant gains in February, reports NBK Compiled by Al Watan Daily

CAPITALS: Price of Kuwaiti crude oil rose 1.55 US dollars in Tuesday’s trading reaching level of $121.58 per barrel compared to $120.03 pb on Monday.

Price of the Kuwaiti crude continued rising for the second consecutive day, despite fall of the prices of the crude on the world markets, amid anticipation about growth of the American crude reserves to a record level.

In more news, oil prices fell towards $124 a barrel on Wednesday on worries demand could be curtailed after the US central bank dampened prospects of more economic stimulus and after Spain had to pay more for its debt, highlighting the plight of the euro zone.

News Saudi Arabia would probably keep output high in the event of a stocks release by consumer countries also tempered prices, while eyes were on the latest release of weekly oil inventories data from the world’s top oil consumer, the United States.

Brent crude futures fell by 74 US cents to $124.12 a barrel by 1216 GMT, after earlier touching a low of $124.05.

US crude futures lost $1.16 cents to $102.85, after falling by more than one dollar in the previous session.

Minutes from the Federal Reserve policymakers’ meeting in March revealed reduced appetite for a third round of quantitative easing in view of timid improvements in the US economy.

Oil prices have been volatile this week in thin volumes, analysts said, with Brent rallying by two percent on Monday alone but falling by nearly one percent the next day.

Oil prices were also pressured after industry sources

A security worker walks in front of bank outlets along a street in Beijing, on April 4, 2012. China’s Premier Wen Jiabao has called for the break-up of a banking “monopoly” on lending that has squeezed private businesses as the global economy slows, state media reported. (AFP)

said Saudi Arabia was likely to maintain high oil production if consumer countries released strategic oil reserves, but would not seek to lure buyers for more oil by discounting its crude.

In other news, according to the latest economic brief prepared by National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) Kuwait’s total credit was up 242 million Kuwaiti dinars in February, its strongest monthly gain since September 2009. While

Qatar National Bank Q1 net profit up 17.4% DUBAI: Qatar National Bank (QNB), the Gulf Arab state’s largest lender by market value, reported a 17.4 percent rise in quarterly profits on Wednesday, in results that fell just shy of analyst estimates.

First quarter net profit rose to two billion Qatari riyals (549.3 million US dollars) in the three months to March 31, compared with 1.7 billion riyals in the prior year period, the bank said in a statement.

An average of five analysts saw a net profit of 2.1 billion riyals, according to a Reuters survey. QNB is the first major regional lender to report earnings and is closely watched for an indication of the sector’s performance.

Total operating income was up 24.4 percent on the year-ago period, which the bank attributed to strong growth across a range of revenue sources.

Loans and advances at the end of March were 201 billion riyals, growing 3.6 percent during the quarter and

up 43 percent on the end of the same month in 2011.

Deposits and unrestricted investment accounts rose to 38.5 billion riyals, up 21.1 percent on the same time last year, the statement said. QNB has been in negotiations to acquire Turkey’s Denizbank, the fast-growing Turkish arm of euro zone debt casualty Dexia, in a deal potentially worth up to six billion dollars.

The Qatari bank, whose chairman is also the country’s finance minister, was the only party left bidding for Denizbank, as crippled Dexia dismantles itself after a state bail-out at the height of the euro zone debt crisis last year.But Dexia is hoping that rival suitors for Denizbank will return after it failed to get a higher price from QNB for the Turkish unit, sources familiar with the matter said late last month. Dexia considered the Qatari offer too low, and is not willing to sell the healthy Turkish business - which gives access to a fast-growing market - in

Bahrain’s Batelco eyes 2012 acquisitions MUSCAT: Bahrain Telecommunications Company (Batelco), whose attempt to buy a stake in Zain Saudi failed last year, aims to make at least one acquisition in 2012 to offset falling domestic revenue, its chief executive told Reuters.The former monopoly has reported declining profits in six of the past seven quarters, caused by stiffening competition from rival domestic mobile operators.

There are also about 10 Internet providers to service Bahrain’s estimated 1.3 million people, in what many analysts describe as the most competitive Gulf market.“The key is to increase scale,” said Mohamed Isa Al-Khalifa, Batelco group chief executive, who took the helm in August last year. “We are coming from a very small market and can only do so much in our own market. We want to grow our international operations and compensate for any potential loss in revenue in our home market.”Khalifa said Batelco’s target was to make at least one acquisition in 2012. “We are working on some, but I can’t promise anything.” In February, Batelco agreed to sell its 43 percent stake in Indian affiliate S Tel for 175 million US dollars, a move which should free up some cash for a potential deal.

The company teamed up with Kingdom Holding for a 25-percent stake purchase in Zain Saudi last year but the deal failed due to disagreements with the indebted Saudi telco’s banks.

Subsidiaries

Batelco owns Jordanian telecoms operator Umniah. It also has 27 percent of Yemeni mobile operator Sabafon, minority stakes in internet providers in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and is also active in Egypt.

Yet Bahrain accounted for about 62 percent of group earnings last year, while domestic profit fell 21 percent in 2011 from a year earlier.

“We are focusing on the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region - we have built a cluster around Bahrain and would like to grow this cluster,” said Al-Khalifa.Batelco, with a market value of around $1.7 billion, has cash and bank balances of $286 million, according to its 2011 annual report, and the firm could leverage its balance sheet to one billion dollars or more for acquisitions, Al-Khalifa said. The stake sale to Batelco’s Indian partner is slated to be completed in the fourth quarter, and Khalifa brushed off analysts’ concerns this could be delayed. Shares in Saudi Arabia affiliate Etihad Atheeb resumed trade in late March, ending a 10-month suspension, after the fixed line operator launched a $310 million rights issue. A recent research note from Bahrain’s Securities & Investment Company (SICO) warned it may need further capital. “I think Atheeb can support itself going forward,” said Al-Khalifa. -Reuters

a fire-sale, sources said.

In February QNB issued a one billion dollar five-year bond which was five time oversubscribed and received orders from more than 270 investors globally, in the first global issue from a Qatari name this year. Proceeds from the bond are to be used for the general purposes of the bank, the lender said.

QNB is 50-percent owned by sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and has been expanding abroad, with operations in Syria, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Switzerland. Banks in Qatar are expected to benefit as the country is one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, set to spend more on infrastructure as it prepares to host the 2022 World Cup. Shares in QNB closed down on Wednesday 0.7 percent at 135.9 riyals before the results were announced.

They are down one percent year-to-date. -Reuters

International telcos eye Libya as elections near CAPITALS: International firms are keen to enter Libya’s telecommunications sector, one of the major business opportunities created by last year’s uprisings in the Arab world. But they will only find out how they can do so after the war-torn country’s first free elections in June.

Foreign investment in the sector is much needed after a fifth of Libya’s transmitter stations were destroyed in last year’s revolution ending Muammar Gaddafi’s 42-year dictatorship. The country of six million people remains in political turmoil; last week’s inter-tribal fighting left nearly 150 dead.

But Etisalat of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar Telecom (Qtel) and Saudi Telecom have all expressed potential interest in Libya.

Gaddafi isolated Libya’s economy from much foreign competition, reserving licenses and contracts for his own circle, which makes the market attractive to new entrants. There are only two mobile operators, Al Madar and Libyana, which are both state-owned. Libya’s huge energy reserves mean median incomes are much higher than for neighboring countries. And acquisition opportunities in telecommunications have dwindled globally in recent years, making Libya more alluring.

“At least three or four” foreign operators have expressed interest in entering Libya, Communications Minister Anwar El-Feitori told Reuters, “but we’ll leave it to the next government to decide on that.” Elections for a national assembly will be held in June to replace the interim government, which lacks a mandate to make major decisions about the economy. Feitori said Libya would open its telecommunications market to fresh competition “when we have the rules for the competition and when we have the right infrastructure for that as well”.He said about 20 percent of the sites operated by Al Madar and Libyana were damaged, with the most severe destruction in Zlitan, Misrata and Sirte, scenes of heavy fighting during the eight-month war. Each firm has about 1,000 base stations. The damage, which was estimated by the Gaddafi government to total hundreds of millions

of dollars, meant mobile networks in the east and west of the country were cut off from each other when the conflict ended. “We worked on getting the services back to normal and now we’re almost there. There is a big demand in telecom services,” Feitori said. Internet users have doubled since the revolution, he added; Facebook played a major role in mobilizing opposition to Gaddafi.

household credit continued to show steady growth, February saw some good activity in other sectors as well. The reported stated that money supply (M1) was up in February (KD 152 million).

The broader measure of money (M2) was up a stronger KD 286 million. Despite the large monthly gain in money supply, year-on-year growth in M1 and M2 slowed in February to 6.7 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively, due to a strong jump in money in the same period last year.

Money supply had expanded KD 1.6 billion in February 2011 following the payment of the Amiri grant.

The remarkable increase in credit came despite the KD 40 million decline in loans extended to non- bank financial institutions.

Almost all other sectors saw good gains in February.

Personal facilities (ex-securities) were up another KD 42 million. The sector’s monthly gains averaged KD 60 million in the last three months, stated the report.

February’s gains were led mostly by increases in ‘other business credit’ (services, telecom, transportation etc.) and personal facilities extended for the purchase of securities, each rising by KD 93 million.

Meanwhile, outstanding loans to real estate were up a good KD 41 million. The sector is up three percent yearon-year in what seems to reflect improved real estate activity in Kuwait.

Furthermore, resident deposits were up a strong KD 283 million mostly in local currency deposits. The increases were exclusively in sight and saving deposits. Average rates offered on private KD deposits remained unchanged across all maturities in February. Rates on maturities of one, three, six and 12 months averaged 0.81 percent, 1.04 percent, 1.30 percent, and 1.54 percent, respectively.

According to the brief, total bank assets were up a hefty KD 620 million in February. Apart from the increase in credit facilities, banks’ liquid and foreign assets increased noticeably in February.

KSE dips 20.6 points at closing

KUWAIT: Main indices of Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) dropped at closing of Wednesday’s session with the price index down 20.6 points, reaching 6,158.6 points.Weighted index dropped 2.68 points to the level of 413.35 points.

Number of trades reached 5,115, value of traded stocks 43.7 million Kuwaiti and volume of deals 374.1 million shares.

Trading began at Kuwait Stock Exchange, Wednesday, in red with the price index at 6,173.6 points down with 5.6 points, while the weighted index came to 415.7 points, down 0.33 points. Trades came to 1,065 transactions by the time with value of KD 8.8 million and involving 94.3 million shares. -KUNA

Commercial Bank of Kuwait names Saliba as CEO DUBAI: Commercial Bank of Kuwait appointed Nuhad Saliba as its chief executive officer (CEO), the lender said in a statement on Wednesday.

Saliba comes with more than 28 years of banking experience at various lenders including Citigroup and Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).The bank, Kuwait’s fourth-largest by market capitalization, reported a sharp drop in full-year net profit of 810,000 Kuwaiti dinars (2.92 million US dollars) in 2011, down from KD 40.5 million in the previous year. -Reuters

New entrants

In other African markets, fierce competition and multiple operators have left newer entrants struggling to compete. “Libya isn’t like that and so would be attractive to foreign operators, both in terms of buying into the existing players or from buying a third license,” said Peter Lange, an analyst at BuddeComm in Sydney.

“Libya is one of the wealthiest markets in Africa, similar to South Africa and Gabon in terms of GDP (gross domestic product) per capita, and there’s a lot of money to be made in providing broadband and internet services.”

Libya’s mobile phone penetration, the ratio of phones to the population, rocketed from under one percent in 2001 to 172 percent in 2010, according to official data. But many analysts doubt the figures, believing they may have been invented by officials in the former regime, though the uneven quality of service means a significant number of Libyans do carry two mobiles.

Real mobile penetration is probably much lower, allowing room for growth, while Libya’s broadband and internet penetration lag the regional average and are below levels for the country’s poorer neighbors. In 2010, 14 percent of people in Libya were using the Internet, according to the International Telecommunications Union, compared with 49 percent in Morocco, 37 percent in Tunisia and 27 percent in Egypt.

Etisalat bid for a third Libya license in 2009 but the former regime never completed the auction, leaving the sector firmly under the control of the Gaddafi family and its associates. -Reuters

NBK named ‘Best Emerging Markets Bank 2012’ by Global Finance

KUWAIT: National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) has been named the ‘Best Emerging Markets Bank in the Middle East and Kuwait 2012’ by the prestigious international financial publication, Global Finance. This was stated in a press release on Wednesday.

In its exclusive annual survey of the best Emerging Markets banks, Global Finance chose the winners based on growth in assets, profitability, strategic relationships, customer service, competitive pricing, and innovative products in consultation with bankers, corporate financial executives and analysts around the globe. “We remain in an unusually challenging environment for banks and their customers,” says Joseph Giarraputo, publisher of Global Finance. “More than ever, customers are demanding superior competence from their banking partners. These are the banks best providing that competence.”

NBK was also recently named among the ‘World’s 50 Safest Banks’ for the fifth consecutive time, illustrating the success of the bank’s conservative strategy, prudent risk management dedication excellent customer service.

NBK enjoys the highest credit ratings among all the banks in the Middle East and North Africa region by international rating agencies Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, and Fitch Ratings.

10

ALWATAN DAILY

BUSINESS

thursDAY, april 5, 2012

Middle East gasoil premiums seen surging into summer CAPITALS: Gasoil premiums in the Gulf Middle East have climbed to one-year highs, with tight supplies and firm demand likely to keep upward pressure on prices in May and June after a brief dip in late April, traders said.

Saudi Aramco’s gasoil buying throughout March and cargoes it has already booked for April to plug a supply shortage caused by refinery maintenance, combined with demand from East African countries like Kenya and Tanzania, has pushed up premiums.

“Normally Aramco would increase purchases just ahead of summer but this year because of the turnaround they started in March,” one middle distillates trader said. “Their purchases kept the market pretty strong.”

Aramco brought at least 400,000 tons of gasoil in March into the Gulf, according to Gulfbased traders, and have already booked 600,000 tons more of the fuel for April as its 550,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Ras Tanura refinery shut several units in March for planned maintenance.

Traders say Aramco has been buying directly from refiners such as India’s Reliance, Bahrain’s Bapco and Kuwait Petroleum Company (KPC).

One trader said Aramco’s March purchases total led 800,000 tons.

“Producers are just trying to push up the premiums by offering or selling partial cargoes and are happy to maintain the premiums at $4.50 levels,” one trader said.

At least three 500 parts per million (ppm) sulphur diesel cargoes have been sold for loading in April via tenders by Middle East refiners, compared with just one in March.

Bahrain Petroleum Corporation (Bapco) sold 25,000 tons for loading April 10-17 at a premium of 4.50 US dollars a barrel to Middle East quotes. Swiss trader Augusta Energy has bought about 40,000 tons of a similar grade for a late April loading cargo from a Middle East trader at a premium of $4.20 a barrel to Middle East quotes, reflecting a slight downward shift in sentiment, one trader said. But traders see premiums starting to taper off from their highs as more spot supply becomes available.

Tanzania and Kenya have on average been importing about 300,000 tons of diesel a month so far this year on the back of strong economic growth.

“The market for March was tight, but this is over, I think the $4.50 levels are too high,” a Europe-based trader said.

Even though several think the current premiums for 500 ppm around $4.50 a barrel is too high, they don’t see them easing much ahead of the summer demand period.

“I think the prices will ease for a while once the maintenance is over but then it will rise back to the same levels,” another middle distillates trader based in the Gulf said.

Demand for gasoil usually increases in summer in the Middle East as it is used to generate electricity to meet surging air conditioning demand in searing heat.

Another source with a Gulf-based refiner said he expected premiums to climb above five dollars a barrel as supply is expected to be tight while demand remains constant from East Africa.

-Reuters

FILE - Oil field workers prepare a new site at sunset Monday, Jan. 2, 2012, in the desert oil fields of Sakhir, Bahrain, in the Arabian Gulf.

Gasoil premiums in the Gulf Middle East have climbed to one-year highs, with tight supplies and firm demand likely to keep upward pressure on prices in May and June after a brief dip in late April. (AP)

Gold falls 1%, hits near 3-month low

EU-GCC trade exchanges reach 129 billion euros in 2011

LONDON: Gold prices fell more than one percent to their lowest in nearly three months after minutes from the US Federal Reserve’s March meeting suggested a fresh round of monetary stimulus was unlikely as the US economy gradually improves.

Ultra-loose monetary policy, which keeps real interest rates and consequently the opportunity cost of holding gold low, helped push the metal to record highs in 2011. Expectations the Fed would instigate another round of quantitative easing sent prices above 1,790 US dollars an ounce in February. But minutes of the central bank’s latest policy meeting published on Tuesday showed only two of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee’s 10 voting members saw the case for additional monetary stimulus.

“The minutes by the Fed indicated that there would be no quantitative easing unless the economy takes a dip for the worse - gold immediately sold off on that and now the dollar is stronger too, so that’s weighing on gold,” said Standard Bank analyst Walter de Wet. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we push lower towards $1,600 that is what we think is a floor and we are unlikely to fall substantially below that,” he said, adding that strong buying out of Asia was limiting the metal’s losses.

Spot gold was down 1.2 percent at $1,625.30 an ounce at 1138 GMT, having earlier touched a low of $1,620.29, its weakest level since Jan. 10. US gold futures for April delivery were down $44.80 an ounce at $1,627.10. De Wet said gold was likely to push higher longer-term and would probably rise above $1,900 towards the end of the year.

“We don’t see real interest rates positive this year ... We still think globally that monetary supply will continue to grow maybe not to the same rate as it did but certainly it’s going to grow and these things are positive for gold. Gains in the

Kuwait exports touch 4.74 billion

BRUSSELS: The 27-member European Union imported goods worth 56.58 billion euros from the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and exported goods worth 72.24 billion euros to the GCC in the year 2011.

According to figures received by the Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) from the EU statistical office, Eurostat, Wednesday, Saudi Arabia topped the list of GCC exports to the EU with 28.09 billion euros.

It was followed by Qatar with 13.32 billion euros, United Arab Emirates (UAE) 8.78 billion, Kuwait 4.74 billion, Bahrain 853 million and Oman with 731 million.

The biggest GCC importer from the EU was UAE with 32.62 billion euros, followed

by Saudi Arabia with 26.39 billion, Qatar with 4.88 billion, Kuwait with 3.70 billion, Oman 3.03 billion and Bahrain with 1.61 billion. The leading EU importer from GCC was Italy with 10.55 billion euros, followed by Netherlands with 9.49 billion, UK with 9.39 billion, Spain with 8.04 billion, France with 7.17 billion and Belgium and Luxembourg together with 5.44 billion. The biggest EU exporter to the GCC was Germany with 17.61 billion euros, followed by UK with 10.43 billion, Italy with 10.29 billion, France with 9.23 billion, Netherlands with 5.42 billion and Luxembourg and Belgium together with 4.32 billion. The bulk of GCC exports to the EU was crude oil and imports from the EU included machinery, chemicals, vehicles, aircrafts plastics products, natural or colored pearls and perfumery. -KUNA

Warba Bank opens new branch in Khalifa Tower, fourth in Kuwait

dollar exerted pressure on gold as the Fed minutes helped push the US unit to a twoweek high against the euro on Wednesday.

A stronger dollar tends to weigh on gold, which is priced in the US currency.

World stocks and oil both fell after the Fed dimmed hopes for more asset-buying.

“The Fed has a high bar for additional easing and investors should not really expect that the news flow will be conducive to the Fed putting in additional easing by the end of April or even June,” Wells Fargo Advantage Funds strategist Brian Jacobsen said after the minutes were released.

A spate of better-than-expected economic data out of the US in recent weeks has curbed investor appetite for gold, which generally benefits from weak economic conditions due to its status as a safe haven and store of value during inflation.

“The U.S. economy seems to be somewhat on its own in terms of growth ‘rampup’ just as Europe nears recession, while China’s growth remains suspect despite this weekend’s stronger PMI number,” INTL FCStone analyst Edward Meir said in a note. “This means that the dollar will likely push higher from here, not necessarily a fertile backdrop for either metal (gold or silver),” he added. Investors will be looking at Automatic Data Processing’s (ADP) employment report for March due at 1215 GMT for clues about the health of the US labor market ahead of Friday’s payrolls numbers. The European Central Bank’s (ECB) governing council is also due to meet later in the session and is expected to hold interest rates at a record low of one percent. Low interest rates keep the opportunity cost of holding gold low.

Precious metals were weaker across the board, with spot silver down 2.4 percent at $31.85 an ounce, spot platinum down 1.3 percent at $1,613.99 an ounce, and spot palladium down 0.7 percent at $643.97 an ounce. -Reuters

KUWAIT: Warba Bank, the recent launched Kuwaiti Bank offering a fully Sharia compliant banking experience, announced in a press release this week, the opening of its fourth branch in Kuwait. The new branch in Khalifa Tower, Ahmad Al Jaber Street, Sharq, is the bank’s largest to date and is expected to officially open within the next 60 days. The new branch features stateof-the-art technology and innovative banking procedures. All Warba bank branches offer customers exceptional levels of service, innovation and choice in a fully Sharia compliant environment. The branch enables customers to conduct a full range of banking services and transactions without the need to transfer from one branch to another. Warba Bank will provide different segments of society with financial services that offer a high level of ease and flexibility. The Khalifa branch has separate reception areas for ladies and men to speed up the banking process and ensure the comfort of customers.

Commenting on the opening of the fourth branch, Adnan Salman Al Salem, Chief Retail

Banking Officer said: “Warba Bank provides the best banking experience for clients in a Sharia compliant environment and in accordance to the latest technical systems. In addition, the bank also offers financial facilities and services to projects which contribute towards the development of Kuwait’s economy.”

Al-Salem added, “The bank is ready to receive clients during official working hours and to provide quality banking services which include the opening of various accounts, such as current accounts, salary accounts, saving accounts, bank deposits in addition to credit cards of all types, as well as ATM cards, prepaid cards, and providing financial solutions comprising both consumer and home finance.”

The launch of the fourth branch is in line with Warba Bank’s strategy of expansion to reach out to clients after the successful launch of the bank’s three other branches located at Laila Gallery, Salem Al Mubarak Street; Salmiya, Rimal Complex, Hawally; and Awtad Tower, Qibla Kuwait City.

EQUATE sponsors 10 Kuwaiti university students to attend 3rd GPCA plastics summit KUWAIT: EQUATE Petrochemical Company announced in a press release on Wednesday, its sponsorship of 10 Kuwaiti university students who attended the Third Gulf Petrochemicals & Chemical Association (GPCA) Plastics Summit in Dubai during April 3-5, 2012, in Dubai.

Speaking on this occasion, EQUATE PE Business Director Muayad Al-Faresi said, “As professional and educational development is a cornerstone of EQUATE Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Program, this initiative is aimed at demonstrating EQUATE’s role in supporting overall sustainability through direct interaction between these students from Kuwait University’s College of Engineering & Petroleum and the petrochemical industry’s leaders.”

Al-Faresi noted, “The petrochemical indus-

try is the second main source of income for Gulf States, and such involvement by these future engineers is an investment relevant to creating added-value by exposing such human resources to the ever growing petrochemical industry which is expected to reach about 140 million tons of production during 2015.”

Throughout the years, EQUATE has launched several educational initiatives, such as two scholarships programs with the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) with the first being for Kuwaiti high school graduates and the second for EQUATE employees, as well as signing memorandums of understanding and establishing educational centers with a number of faculties at Kuwait University and the Public Authority for Applied Education & Training (PAAET).

GCC still enjoying robust demand from China Why is this graph important?

Yuan appreciation vs. GCC imports Since 2010

% of total Chinese imports 5.5

USD:CNY (inverted scale) 6.25

Yuan appreciation

5.0

6.50 4.5

4.0 6 75 6.75 3.5 Chinese imports from OPEC's GCC

USD:CNY (rhs)

Source: KCIC Research on Datastream, 2012.

Exporting Countries (OPEC) has increased.

What does the indicator tell us?

Forty percent of global oil comes from OPEC, which is made up of just 12 countries, a third of which are members of the GCC. But together, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait and Qatar make up about half of OPEC’s total supply - 20 percent of global oil supplies. The four GCC countries have been steadily increasing their exports to China: from $4.6 billion a year ago to $7.8 billion

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Last year, oil prices rose considerably in reaction to the Arab spring, reaching 126 US dollars per barrel in April at the peak of the Libyan crisis. Since then, prices have not returned to the moderate levels of 2010, when the average price for the year was around $80.

Instead, oil prices remained around $110 per barrel throughout 2011, only to rise a further 15 percent in 2012, past the $125 mark.

Higher oil prices usually benefit the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) through increased revenues, but when prices rise too fast, or stay elevated for too long, the expensive product becomes less attractive and oil importers tend to reduce their consumption of oil. In such cases, less demand for oil translates into declining global growth.

China, like many other countries, has already announced lower growth for 2012.

Being a strong importer of oil, demand for the commodity should in theory come down. However, as opposed to India’s currency, its domestic currency, the Chinese yuan, has already appreciated by about five percent since the beginning of last year.

As such, China’s purchasing power has strengthened in regards to buying US dollar_denominated assets, in this case crude oil, making it cheaper for China than for others to import it. Thus the increasing price of oil is well compensated by the strengthening purchasing power of the giant. As a result, and as the graph suggests, China’s amount of imports coming from the GCC members of the Organization of Petroleum

www.kcicͲasic.com/research

worth of oil in February. This corresponds to a 68.8 percent increase in how much China imported from the four GCC countries in just one year. This rise could be explained by the following reasons: (a) the increased value of oil (pushing the value of those imports), (b) a larger amount of crude oil barrels imported

by China, as a result of a stronger yuan, and (c) a stronger link between China and the GCC, as 40 percent of China’s total oil imports comes from the GCC today, in contrast to 34 percent last year.

As a share of its total imports, China imported 20 percent more from OPEC’s GCC countries in just one year: as the graph suggests, 5.3 percent of China’s total imports came from the four GCC countries in February, from 4.4 percent last year.

The yuan has similarly strengthened against the US dollar. Thus China gained by buying oil at a relatively better price than the rest of the world, and OPEC’S GCC members benefited by seeing their export revenues considerably rise.

This should be seen as a reassuring sign: as the US dollar is likely to weaken in the medium term due to strong US monetary policy stimulus, and as core_to_periphery trend is gradually returning to normality, China, along with other Asian tigers, whose currencies could well be appreciating, can preserve demand for GCC’s exports.

What are the economic and financial implications?

This year does not seem to hold too many risks for the GCC, despite significant uncertainties surrounding the European crisis, and many emerging economies anticipating lower growth ahead. If the global environment worsens, outflows away from emerging markets could depreciate emerging market currencies. However, the fact that the CNY is fully controlled by the Chinese government could act as an insurance policy to OPEC’s four GCC members - it is already at its most appreciated rate since 1993.

Oil prices will also benefit GCC econo-

mies. So far this year, prices have been highly influenced by developments in Iran. With sanctions to affect Iran’s balance of payments, we are already seeing major economies moving toward other oil markets, including both Saudi Arabia’s and Kuwait’s. This will surely increase demand for OPEC’s GCC countries’ oil. Also, speculative buying has been pushing oil prices to higher levels, increasing export receipts for the GCC. For 2012, GCC should continue to enjoy higher oil revenues, which could well compensate their lackluster domestic growth, and any major Eurozone shocks.

Prepared by Camille Accad _ 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 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.

ALWATAN DAILY

BUSINESS

All but one creditor join $2.2 billion Drydocks debt plan Abu Dhabi’s Al Jaber gets 90% support for debt standstill

DUBAI: Dubai World’s shipbuilding unit has gotten 98 percent of creditors signed up to its 2.2 billion US dollar restructuring plan with all but one agreeing to the terms, its chairman said. Drydocks World said this week it will use a special tribunal, set up in response to Dubai’s 2009 debt crisis, to force recalcitrant creditors to take up its debt plan after some, including hedge funds, resisted the deal.

“We have got approvals from 98 percent of the creditors. It now looks like only one creditor remains,” Khamis Juma Buamim told Reuters, declining to name the holdout. On Tuesday, the firm’s external advisor said US based hedge fund Monarch Alternative Capital, which won a $45.5 million legal claim against Drydocks in March for defaulting on a loan, is unlikely to accept the plan.

Monarch did not respond to queries seeking comment.

Drydocks has been in lengthy talks to restructure its loan facility and last month proposed repayment in five years.

The special tribunal process, created under Decree 57 issued by Dubai’s ruler, requires 100 percent consent from credi-

Car passes on a road in front of Dubai DryDocks in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Monday, April 2, 2012. Dubai Drydocks has gotten 98 percent of creditors signed up to its $2.2 billion restructuring plan with all but one agreeing to the terms, its chairman said on Wednesday, April 4, 2012. (AP)

tors for a plan to be adopted.

But there is an option which can force dissenters to accept the plan once creditors holding 75 percent of the debt agree to it - a level Drydocks had reached before it began legal proceedings.

Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi conglomerate Al Jaber Group is close to a standstill agreement on its one-billion plus US dollar debt restructuring of debt, with more

CAPITALS: Saudi Arabia’s market interest rates are climbing as the economy booms, but the rise is as much due to international pressures as strain on banks’ lending resources, and any hike of official rates probably remains distant.

The increase in interbank lending costs underlines how Saudi money markets are returning to normal since a sudden increase in government spending last year, announced in response to the Arab Spring uprisings in the region, flooded the banking system with money and pushed rates down

to record lows.

The three-month Saudi Arabian Interbank Offered Rate has risen to 0.88 percent, its highest level since May 2009, from last September’s low of 0.60 percent.

Longer-term interbank rates up to one year have increased by slightly smaller margins, while Treasury bill yields are up in sympathy.

The trend coincides with the country’s fastest economic growth in a decade, thanks to high oil prices and heavy government spending on infrastructure and social

than 90 percent of lenders agreeing to the move, two sources said on Wednesday. Al Jaber, a family-owned group with operations in construction, aviation and retail, set up a creditor committee last year to negotiate the restructuring. It has not given a figure for its debt pile, believed to be more than one billion dollars.

A standstill on repaying the debt is seen as a vital step in the negotiating process,

programs. Economy and Planning Minister Mohammed Al-Jasser said this week that gross domestic product was heading for six percent growth this year after 6.8 percent in 2011.

But other data suggests the economy is still far from the late stage of an economic cycle in which higher demand for funds puts heavy pressure on supply, pushing up market rates.

Commercial banks’ excess deposits at the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) stayed high at 88.5 billion Saudi

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Kw Investment Commercial Facilit.

Int'L Financial Adv. National Invest.

Kw Projects Ahlia Holding Coast Invest.

Int'L Investor Securities House Ind. & Fin. Inv. Securities Group Int'L Finance MARKAZ KMIFIC Aref Inv. Group Al AMAN Inv. ALOLA Inv. ALMAL Inv. Gulf Inv. House A'ayan Leasing Bayan Inv. GLOBAL Inv. Osoul Inv. KFIC KAMCO Nat. Int'l Holding Housing Finance MADAR Al Deera Holding Al Safat Inv. Al Salam Group Ekttitab Holding Al Qurain Holding Sokouk Holding Al-Madina Finance NOOR Tamdeen Inv. Int'll Exch KW BH Int Exch.

106 280 166 340 114 140 53 38.0 41.5 -

445 610 810 285 415 780 550

Global Index - Banking

Taiba Kuwaiti Holding

Kuwait Syrian Strategia Kuwait China Inv. Manafae Inv. Gulf North Africa Amwal Al Masar Al-Imtiaz

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76.0 188 30.5 68 53 128

106 280 162 335 112 138 51 36.0 39.0 255.0 106.0 71.0 178 30.0 67 52 126

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275.0 114.0

Global Index - Investment

Kuwait Insurance Gulf Insurance Ahlia Insurance Warba Insurance Kuwait Re-Ins. First Takaful Ins. Wethaq Insurance

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Global Index - Insurance

Kuwait R.E. United R.E. National R.E. Salhia R.E. Pearl R.E. Tamdeen R.E. Ajial R.E. Massaleh R.E. Arab R.E. Union R.E. ERESCO Mabani INJAZZAT RE Inv. Holding Grp Int'L Resorts Commercial R.E Sanam R.E. Aa'yan R.E Aqar Kuwait R.E Holding AL Mazaya Al Dar National R.E Themar Int'L Holding Grand R.E Projects Tijara & R.E Invest Al Tameer Arkan Al-Kuwait R.E Al Argan Int'L Abyaar Munshaat First Dubai KBT Manazel REAM Mena Real Estate Al Moudon Intl. R.E Markaz Real Estate Kuwait Remal R.E

59 116 134 248 248 40.0 99

1,060

74 62.0 93 59 70 85 20.0 41.5 61 42.5 36.5 22.5 56 355

Global Index - Real Estate

Nationl Ind. Group Pipes Ind. & Oil Kuwait Cement Refrigeration Ind. Gulf Cables & Elec.

Heavy eng. & Ship.

Marine Services Portland Cement Shuaiba Industrial Metal Collecting Kuwait Foundry

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59 116 134 244 32.5 248 118 91 39.0 110 98 1,040 71 12.5 62.0 93 59 69 74 36.0 84 19.0 87 17.5 38.0 61 80 174 42.0 28.5 35.0 17.5 22.5 134 134 220 56 355 57.60

234 118 445 126 1,320 305 140 890 216 112 360

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Previous Close Change 179.55 -1.14 -20.60 6,179.20 Trading Activity Chng Volume Tran. Value(KD) -20 -5 -20 25 -10 10 2.88-

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DTD -0.64% -0.33%

Last Bid

05 / 01 / 2012

For more Information please contact "Global" at (+965) 180 42 42 or www.globalinv.net

For more Information please contact "Global" at (+965) 180 42 42 or www.globalinv.net

Company

riyals (23.6 billion US dollars) in February, data released by SAMA at the weekend showed. That was down from 95.4 billion riyals in January but well above levels of around 50-60 billion that prevailed in most of the second half of 2011.

Meanwhile, the ratio of banks’ private sector loans to their deposits was 78.5 percent in February, barely changed from January and below levels around 80 percent seen in the second half of last year. That leaves plenty of room for banks to expand lending further if needed. -Reuters

Date of Closing Prices:

Date of Closing Prices: 04 / 04 / 2012 For more information please contact “Global” at (+965) 180 42 42 or www.globalinv.net Last Close 178.41 6,158.60 Last Prev.

Close Close

DUBAI: Gulf institutions plan to spur development of the Islamic finance industry by setting up a bank that would boost liquidity in Sharia-compliant markets. But the mandate of the bank is so wide that it may struggle to have an impact early on.

The Islamic Development Bank (IDB), a Jeddahbased multilateral institution, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Qatari government and Saudi Arabia’s Dallah Albaraka Group on Tuesday to launch an Islamic bank based in Doha.

The bank will aim to facilitate Islamic interbank trade, develop liquidity-management solutions and launch an Islamic securities market, IDB president Ahmad Mohamed Ali said in a statement.

It will address “the dearth of senior financiers” and “the absence of market liquidity between Islamic banks”, he said without giving a timeline for the bank’s launch. The bank would also become involved in infrastructure projects and standardizing Islamic financial products. The bank’s ambitions address some of the main weaknesses of the Islamic finance industry. Liquidity is a major issue.

Last month, for example, the Bahrain-based International Islamic Financial Market and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association launched a contract template for Islamic profit rate swaps, to help Islamic financial institutions better hedge risk.

But banks will find it hard to use the swaps without a liquid market; by becoming a major player in swaps, the new bank could accelerate growth of the market.

But the breadth of the bank’s mandate means it may struggle, initially at least, to focus effectively on a single area. Interbank trading, infrastructure financing, product design and standard-setting are different skills which the bank will need to build from scratch - possibly setting off a bidding war for some of the top Islamic finance talent in the Gulf. It is unclear if the bank’s resources will be sufficient for the tasks.

The three founders said the bank would have one billion US dollars of capital - not a massive amount for a bank - and that they had agreed to provide $500 million of that amount. They did not specify where the rest of the capital would be obtained.

There has been market talk in the past that institutions might be set up elsewhere to help develop the Islamic finance industry, for example in Bahrain.

One such plan which has come to fruition is the Malaysia-based International Islamic Liquidity Management Corporation, established in November to issue short-term instruments compliant with Islamic law.

Its mandate is narrower than that of the IDB’s proposed bank. -Reuters

Trading Prices of Kuwait Stock Exchange Date of Closig Prices: 4/04/2012

Trading Prices of Kuwait Exchange Trading Prices of Kuwait StockStock Exchange

ź

Huge mandate for planned new Islamic bank

allowing Al Jaber to propose new terms for the facilities under discussion without the threat of legal action being launched against it by creditors. It would also allow the company to start reopening lines of credit and pitch for new contracts.

“We are closer to a standstill; 90 percent of banks have agreed in principle,” said a banking source requesting anonymity. “It’s a complex situation - it has taken a while but there is progress.” An Al Jaber spokesman declined to comment.

Sources said in February that a standstill could be agreed by early March but that banks were against rolling over the debt at terms demanded by Al Jaber.

The conglomerate has embarked on a reshuffle of top management, including a new chief executive, as part of efforts to get it back on track.

Al Jaber is one of the most prominent private sector firms in Abu Dhabi, where the acknowledgment of financial difficulties has been minimal in contrast to neighboring Dubai, under the spotlight for its debt woes since late 2009. In addition, there are few precedents in restructuring debt at privately-held companies in the United Arab Emirates. Al Jaber’s banks’ committee is chaired by the National Bank of Abu Dhabi, and includes Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Union National Bank. -Agencies

Foreign, local pressures boost Saudi rates

Global General Index KSE Price Index

11

THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 2012

Last Ask

MTD YTD -2.61% -0.50% 5.92% -0.10% Div. Annual Close Low P/E Yield High

1,452,500 1,690,000 5,000 5,000 34,640,000 1,460,000 2,595,000 705,000 42,552,500

42 31 1 1 420 28 88 32 643

1,564,350 752,050 3,050 4,050 9,468,650 598,750 1,998,950 379,650 14,769,500

1,060 440 610 810 280 410 770 540

1,080 445 640 830 285 415 780 550

3.8% 0.0% 1.9% 3.3% 1.7% 0.0% 0.0% 2.6% 0.0% 2.0%

1,220 510 800 680 920 285 480 900 590 326.42

1,060 445 700 600 790 236 415 770 530 317.17

15.34 32.05 90.92 17.36 29.70 27.11 11.62 23.69 104.63 18.59

100,000 370,000 820,000 170,000 1,320,000 4,080,000 2,880,000 4,080,000 15,520,000 4,990,000 12,280,000 21,240,000 760,000 160,000 840,000 480,000 1,980,000 72,070,000

2 10 27 7 26 65 53 44 100 166 263 317 26 2 5 12 45

106 275 160 335 112 138 51 38.0 59.0 39.0 255.0 104.0 72.0 186 29 67 51 52 126.0

108 280 162 340 230 114 91 140 52 69.0 56 40.0 260.0 106.0 73.0 188 315 30 85 68 55 53 128.0

0.0% 7.9% 0.0% 0.0% 5.9% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 8.9% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 3.2% 4 5% 4.5% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 9.6% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 2.4%

112 285 67 182 345 18.5 69 25.0 130 36.0 230 122 120 102 52 35.5 140 65 35 71 44.0 48.5 70.0 26.0 244 62 39 51 47.5 104 270.0 130.0 25.0 33.5 96.0 29.0 190 290 114 32 89 73 60 59 64 42.5 140.0 85.99

104 255 40 158 295 11.5 50 25.0 130 21.0 230 99 102 50 52 24.0 106 47 21 71 28.5 48.5 64.0 26.0 242 51 36 51 26.0 61 99.0 19.5 19.0 16.0 38.0 29.0 154 255 114 26 58 50 51 47 64 42.5 112.0 74.96

40.56 13.02

1,170

10,600 103,600 133,480 57,700 148,280 567,040 149,280 152,320 632,200 1,319,600 1,358,440 1,571,760 140,360 4,840 56,320 25,400 252,200 6,683,420

300 530 520 148 43.0

6.7% 4.5% 5.0% 6.8% 2.7% 0.0% 0.0% 4.7%

325 610 540 148 220 134 40.5 44.91

280 550 450 102 220 102 40.5 42.22

15.67 12.90 10.21 23.37 296.83

84.75 13.75 1.39 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 30.41 0.00 119.09 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 9.86 25 89 25.89 11.92 50.59

0.00 5.19 13.92

300 560 500 148 220 122 40.50 44.17

Ex-D Ex-D Ex-D Ex-D -

-

-

-

255 480 495 29.0

59 114 124 246 32.5 244 118 91 38.0 110 99 1,060 74 12.5 62.0 92 59 68 74 36.0 88 19.5 87 17.5 40.5 57 80 174 42.5 28.5 37.0 17.5 21.5 134 134 220 52 355 57.68

3,080,000 2 440,000 10 4,060,000 -2 440,000 4.0 140,000 1.0 10,240,000 -1 320,000 -20 255,000 -3 200,000 22,520,000 1 1,480,000 200,000 1 2,120,000 120,000 -4 6,960,000 0.52.53,120,000 4 40,000 -1 31,040,000 2.01,840,000 13,600,000 1.0 Ex-D 2,080,000 4 370,000 0.08- 104,665,000

24 6 98 18 5 98 8 16 5 191 22 5 39 2 72 34 1 148 22 113 44 23 994

178,040 51,040 529,200 108,240 34,360 402,320 31,480 265,700 14,520 1,367,040 136,360 11,800 145,960 10,160 136,360 123,560 2,440 1,290,160 66,320 299,200 113,760 129,550 5,447,570

57 116 134 244 244 89 38.0 98 1,020 72 61.0 92 58 67 83 18.5 87 38.0 52 75 164 41.5 34.5 22.0 32 55 350

59 118 246 248 39.0 120 99 1,040 73 62.0 93 60 69 87 19.0 97 38.5 62 85 184 42.0 36.0 22.5 130 34 56 355

0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 8.2% 0.0% 4.0% 0.0% 5.5% 0.0% 6.4% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 5.7% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 3.7% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 1.0%

63 118 152 246 37.5 250 130 100 52.0 120 104 1,080 85 20.0 67.0 94 75 73 90 38.0 92 23.0 91 17.5 45.0 61 80 174 52.0 39.5 39.0 28.5 25.5 134 34 220 70 480 57.93

47 97 108 200 32.5 224 114 77 27.0 108 94 840 62 11.0 35.0 77 56 52 74 33.0 59 13.5 87 17.5 31.0 57 64 116 27.5 22.0 25.0 17.5 15.0 134 31 220 49 270 49.06

45.72 14.88 24.00 21.76

238 122 450 126 1,340 305 148 880 216 106 360

-4 -4 -5 -20 -8 10 6 Ex-D

1,360,000 540,000 10,000 12,500 100,000 470,000 40,000 -

24 18 1 2 5 38 2 -

319,640 64,440 4,450 16,500 14,200 416,900 4,400 -

232 116 445 126 1,300 300 140 880 108 315

234 118 455 136 1,320 310 144 890 216 114 330

0.0% 0.0% 2.2% 4.0% 4.9% 3.3% 3.6% 11.2% 4.6% 0.0% 5.6%

260 136 470 158 1,480 345 222 920 216 120 495

214 118 415 126 1,320 305 140 660 180 102 355

71.18

12.81

17.94 5.87 15.57 40.05 26.24 0.00 17.36 33.63

5.63 23.83 12.99 7.55 42.45

23.07 18.82 0.00 0.00 19.29

18.18 6.03 7.30 128.01 118.86 13.09 24.93 20.95

Last Close 212 212 ŷ źŸ 90 176.5389 6305,726.90 620 źŸ 1,100 1,100 Gulf Glass ŷ Last Prev.

216 216 HilalCompany Cement ŷ Close Close High 415 340 415 Al Kout Ind. Project Ÿ 1,140 1120 1120 National ŷ 275 275 K-PAK Bank ŷ 495 495 Gulf BankMaterial 495 ŷ 224 224 Building 770 770 Commercial 770 ŷ 300 290 300 Nat. Ind.Co.Bank Ÿ 640 660 Ahli Bank 640 ź 106 110 108 Equipment Holding ź 800 850 Ahli United Bank 850 Ÿ 33 33 Mena Holding ŷ 248 248 International Bank 248 ŷ 102 102 Consumer Industries ŷ 460 465 460 Burgan Bank ź 128 128 Kuwait Gypsum 890 880 890 Kw Finance House ź 216 216 216 Qurain Bank ŷ 590 590 Boubyan 590 ŷ 44 44 Salbookh Trading ŷ 319.37 319.54 ź Global Index - Banking 202 204 202 IKARUS ź 106 106 Kw Investment -ŷ 75 75 Boubyan Int'L Ind. ŷ 260 265 265 260 źź Commercial Facilit.

168.92 168.89 Global Index - Industrial 40 41 41 40 ź Int'L Financial Adv. 960 960 NationalInvest.

Cinema 170 172 174 National 170 - źŷ 280 280 KwProjects Hotels 300 295 300 - Ÿŷ Kw 300 410 405 12.5 12.5 410 12.5 405 ŷŸ Agility Ahlia Holding 13.5 52 53 52 52 Coast Invest.

53 52 - źŷ Market Complexes 25.0 25.0 -750 -740 ŷź Int'L Investor 740 750 ZAIN 130 130 Securities House - ŷŷ 76.0 76.0 77.0 75.0 Safat Energy 31.0 31.0 Ind. & Fin. Inv.Group 110 110 Educational - ŷŷ 230 230 -Securities Group - - ŷŷ 340 340 Indep. Petroleum 102 102 Int'L Finance ŷ 150 154 156 148 ź National Cleaning 108 112 110 MARKAZ 108 112 104 112 Sultan Center 106 ŷŸ 50 50 KMIFIC - ŷź 102 108 106 Arabi Group 102 44.0 44.0 Int'L Inv. Group 550 550 City Group - ŷŷ 52 52 Aref Inv. Group - ŷ 2,200 2,200 2,200 2,180 ŷ Wataniya Tele.

74 74 Investment Dar - ŷ 112 112 110 ŷ 114 Kw Gulf Link 28.5 28.5 Al AMAN Inv. ŷ 58 63 58 Kw Cable 58 ŷź 108 108 ALOLA Inv.Vision 110 108 300 300 Automated System ŷ 49 49.5 ALMAL Inv. 50 49 ź 370 370 NAPESCO 23 23 -Gulf Inv. House - - ŷŷ 285 290 285 285 KCPC Leasing 71 71 - ŷź A'ayan 255 255 K.S.HInv. 31.0 31.0 32.5 - 31.0 - ŷŷ Bayan 260 260 - ŷŷ Eyas 48.5 48.5 GLOBAL Inv. 106 112 Hits Telecom 68 68 -114 -104 ŷź Osoul Inv. 17.5 18.0 18.0 Al Safwa Holding 20.5 20.5 -17.5 ŷŸ GULFINVEST 26.0 270 270 26.0 KFIC Human Soft - ŷŷ 244 244 KAMCO - ŷź 80 79 Privatization Holding 78 79 94 94 Int'l Leasing & Inv. - ŷź 89 91 89 Nafaaes Holding 89 51 51 - - ŷŷ Nat. Int'l Holding -154 154 National Slaughter 36 36 - ŷź Housing Finance 108 106 108 106 Aref energy 51 51 MADAR -- - ŷŷ 600 600 Safwan 26.5 26.5 26.5 Al Deera Holding 26.5 ŷ 75.0 76.0 79.0 74.0 Ÿ Gulf Petroleum 75 75 Al Safat Inv. 22.5 22.5 - - ŷŷ -Gulf Franchising 122.0 120.0 112.0 Al Salam 120 120 Credit & Group Collection - 114.0 - Ÿŷ 39.5 41.5 39.0 ź 41.0 Ekttitab Holding 15.0 15.0 National Ranges ŷ 19.0 19.0 Al Qurain Holding ŷ 260 260 Burgan Well Drilling - ŷ 16.5 16.5 16.5 Sokouk Holding 16.5 ŷ 380 390 380 38.5 IFA H&R 380 ź 39.0 38.5 Al-Madina Finance 40.0 ź 1,600 1,600 1,600 1,600 Combinted Group ŷ 29.0 29.0 NOOR ŷ 80 80 Jeeran Holding ŷ 160 158 Tamdeen Inv. 160 158 ź 118 118 Palms 255 255 KW BH Agro Int'l Exch.

-- - ŷŷ 75.0 76.0 76.0 Safat TEC 75.0 ź 114 114 Taiba Kuwaiti Holding - ŷ 89 89 90 89 Mushrif Trading 26.00 26.00 Kuwait Syrian - ŷŷ 335 335 UPAC 68 68 -Strategia - - ŷŷ 305 315 ALAFCO 305 315 53 53 53 53 ŷŸ Kuwait China Inv. 160 160 60 60 Al-Muwasat -- - ŷŷ Manafae Inv. 46.5 46.5 Gulf NorthHolding Africa - ŷź 280 275 Mashaer 275 270 64 64 Amwal - ŷź 275 280 Oula Fuel 275 275 42.50 42.50 Al MasarComm.

-285 -285 ŷŷ 285 285 Future 128 130 124 Al-Imtiaz 132 90 90 Hayat Comm.

90 źŷ 91 76.02 62 63 Global Index - Investment Mubarrad Transport 64 62 źź 75.90 52.0 52.0 KuwaitInsurance Resorts -- - ŷŷ 325 325 Kuwait 750 750 Advanced Technolgy ŷ 560 560 - ŷ Gulf Insurance 360 360 Yiaco Medical 485 485 -- - ŷŷ Ahlia Insurance 460 460 Al Jazeera Airways 455 źŷ 460 118 110 112 108 Warba Insurance 246 246 Al Soor Fuel 220 220 --- ŷ Kuwait Re-Ins. 114 114 98 98 First Takaful -- - ŷŷ Future Kid Ins. 40.50 40.50 Wethaq -290 -285 ŷź 290 285 K G L Insurance 77 92 76 ź 77 Al Nawadi 43.63 43.43 Global Index - Insurance 120 118 Alrai Media 114 120 49 48 48 źŸ Kuwait R.E. 48 96 96 Zima Holding 100 99 100 - Ÿŷ United R.E. 100 -

ACICO

Global General Index 90 United Industries 630 Boubyan Petroch.

KSE Price Index

89 620 Low 415 1,120 490 770 300 640 106 800 248 455 880 214 580 202 --

Global R.E. Index - Services 118 National 126 200 Salhia R.E. Trans.

204 LiveStock 192 190 - 99 Pearl -100 DanaR.E. Al-Safat 224 224 Tamdeen R.E. United Poultry Ajial R.E. 1,440 1,420 Kw FoodStuff Massaleh R.E. United Food Arab R.E. 30.0 30.0 Kout Food Union R.E. Global Index - Food 98 96 ERESCO 860 840 Mabani Sharjah Cement 75 74 INJAZZAT RE Gulf Cement 95 95 Inv. UmHolding QuwainGrp Cement 12.0 69 11.5 69 Int'L Resorts Fujaira Cement 78 77 Commercial R.E Ras AlKheimah 70 65 Sanam R.E. ARIG 54 53 Aa'yan R.E United Gulf Bank 178 178 Aqar 300 Egypt Kw Holding 300 Kuwait R.E Holding Bahrain Kw Ins. 59 AL Mazaya 60 Gulf House 62.0 14.0 57.0 Al DarFin. National R.E 14.0 Inovest Int'L Holding 62 61 Themar -168 Grand R.E Projects -170 Ahli United Bank -25.0 Tijara & R.E Invest Ithmaar Bank 26.5 Al Tameer Global Index - Non-Kuwaiti Arkan Al-Kuwait R.E 70 70 Markaz Real Estate Safat Global Al Argan Int'L Funds Investment 28.5 28.0 Abyaar Al-Bareeq Holding 23.5 23.5 Munshaat AFAQ 25.5 First Dubai 26.0 Al-Shamel KBT 27.0 27.0 Al-Safat Real Estate 16.5 Manazel 15.5 33 Ajwan Real Estate 33 REAM Specialities Group 390 390 Mena Real Estate Masaken Al Moudon Inter.

Intl. R.E --Dulaqan R.EEstate Markaz Real 57 56 Eid Food Kuwait Remal R.E 295 285 Maidan Index Clinic - Real Estate Global Flex

-

-

-

Nationl Ind. Group 232 Dar Al-Thuraya Real E 242 Pipes Ind. & Oil 128 126 Kw Medical Services Kuwait Cement 455 450 Amar For Fin. & Leas.

-Refrigeration Ind. 1,420 1,420 Total Parallel Market Gulf Cables & Elec.

Heavy eng. & Ship.

Total Services Market Marine 720 Portland 720 Global Cement Special Indices Shuaiba Industrial Global Index - Kuwaiti Co.'s 104 Metal Collecting 110 Global Index - 10 Large- Cap. Kuwait Foundry

Global Index - Islamic

Ÿź źŸ ŷ ź ź ŷ ź ŷ ŷ ź ŷ ŷ źź Ÿŷ Ÿź źŷ ŷ ŷ Ÿ ŷ ź ŷ ź ź ŷ ŷ ŷ ź źŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ ź ŷ ź ź ŷ ŷ ŷ ź ŷ ź ŷ ź ŷ ŷ ź Ÿ ŷ ź ŷ ŷ ŷ źŷ Ÿŷ źŷ ź ŷ ŷ ŷ ź

ŷ ŷ ź ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ ź ŷ

728.14 124

200 190 37.5 99 224 130 120 1,420 82 340 30.0 580 108 348.25 97 860 86 75 95 11.5 69 38.0 89 78 122 65 112 54 178 90 300 38.0 455 59 61.0 14.0 91 62 17.5 170 31.0 25.5 59 42.36 70 122 48.5 124 28.0 144 23.5 106 25.5 250 27.0 22.0 15.5 33 134 390 134 51 220 345 57 106 295 2,260 49.73

40.5

232 93.0 128 65 450 60 150 1,420 335 212 720 180 ź 104 ź 460 Ÿ

732.65 120

204 188 37.5 100 234 130 120 1,440 82 340 30.5 580 108 352.13 98 850 86 73 96 12.0 69 38.0 89 77 122 70 112 55 188 90 300 38.0 455 63 61.0 14.5 91 62 17.5 170 31.026.5 59 42.66 74 122 48.5 124 28.5 144 24.5 106 26.0 250 27.0 22.0 16.5 32 134 400 134 51 220 345 58 106 290 2,260 49.75

40.5

Previous Close 177.24 1 520,000 10 5,754.20 530,000

75 - Ex-D 10 -20-4 50 -5 Ex-D -10 - 0.17-2 - -5 0.03-

Chng

DTD MTD YTD - Change 210 220 4.7% 224 196 24.45 -0.40% -1.55% -0.7046,440 -1.55% 9 89 90 0.0% 102 88 32.71 328,900 12 -27.30 620 5.6% 630 550 89.84 -1.50% -0.47% 630 -1.50% 3.6% 1,400 1,100 16.54 Trading Activity Div. Annual Close Last Last 4.6% 216 206 11.21 Volume Tran. Value(KD) Bid Ask Yield High Low P/E 4,150 1 10,000 360 4.8% 415 340 9.20 3,796,050 - 1,120 69 3,377,500 1,140 - 3.6% 1,120 14.74 300 1,100 275 13.23 7.3% 20 830,000 407,950 490 495 - 0.0% 510 490 33.95 0.0% 228 224 27.09 10,000 11 7,700 770 780 790 770 88.62 10,000 3,000 2.7% 260 325 19.25 295 310 1.9% 222 6,400 10,000 640 660 660 64051 17.34 83,160 780,000 106 3.1% 0.0% 104 110 50.80 350,000 23 282,700 840 850 1.6% 850 790 29.68 0.0% 33 33 0.00 16 700,000 173,600 246 248 0.0% 255 248 23.59 102 93 0.0% 500,000 10 229,750 460 465 0.0% 475 460 12.26 128 17.06 128 9.4% 1,280,000 66 1,127,050 880 2.3% 900 880 25.07 870 393,040 1,820,000 222 216 218 0.0% 210 112.24 8.71 0.0% 607,850 1,035,000 3332 590 580 590 590 51 41 0.0% 8,092,500 6,639,050 2.0% 319.54 318.41 18.61 240 16,160 80,000 3 214 162 11.86 202 204 0.0% - - - 10272 10675 0.0% 10688 10670 40.56 0.0% 250,000 14 65,750 260 265 8.5% 265 260 12.09 6,282,500 170 174.76 163.04 10.73 1,715,380 2.7%

1,680,000 1,040,000 110,000 1,610,000 5 7,040,000 1,280,000 -1 - -10 2,435,000 1,320,000 -- -- -1,980,000 4.0-8 680,000 4,360,000 --6 920,000 12,500 1,740,000 40,000 --5 500,000 -1 320,000 - - 10,000 --5 1,840,000 - - 40,180,000 - -6 1 3,680,000 - --1 1,440,000 --2 40,000 - - --2 60,000 - - - 1.0 240,000 28,840,000 - -8.0 - 11,180,000 2.01,920,000 480,000 20,000 10 0.510,640,000 67,500 2.0- 80,000 - 1.0720,000 -680,000 -- 10 940,000 200,000 - - --5 250,000 --5 40,000 - 10,000 --2 1,240,000 1,160,000 0.12920,000 -1 40,720,000 -1 -2 5 -

---

- -8 Ex-D - --5 Ex-D 0.19-

- - - 920,000 120,000 - - 770,000 480,000 120,000

13 20 5 4687 22 100 19 - - 57 18 118 40 4 49 14 1 4 - -1 22 - 483 32 - 28 -1 - -3 - 2 315 - 212 24 5 2 93 10 4 - 15 13 - 213 - 15 -2 -1 3825 55817

- - - 15 6 - - 32 611

60,000 13 -1 2 80,000 9 1 920,000 1,512 95,705,000 105 4.514 3,100,000 12 -4 2 520,000 16 380,000 --1 1,260,000 30 3 10.0100,000 Ex-D 5,000 2 -20 1 80,000 0.51,645,000 3.87-1 320,000 848 10 1,935,000 57 21 120,000 2-1 80,000 15 8 0.5- 2,000,000 960,000 - 3 1 240,000 17 1,000,000 -5 4 -1 200,000 -10 60,000 2 190,000 12 Ex-D 11 440,000 -4 40,440,000 436 1 80,000 0.5- 3,760,000 58 800,000 11 - -1 4,960,000 50 0.3151,250,000 578 -4 320,000 2 - - - - 12 0.52,720,000 1.080,000 1 0.5240,000 3 Ex-D 35,040,000 4 1,200,000 8 1.080,000 1 -1 50,000 - -10 -3 - - - -1 240,000 6 47 5 2,110,000 0.02- - 53,085,000 - 332 Ex-D

-

-

242 -10 13,220,000 - 154 93.0 128 140,000 6 65 470 -20 50,000 2 60 150 - - - 130,000 1,460 -40 2,500 14 335 5,115 212 - 374,170,000720 Close 230,000 19 Prev Close Prev.

180 188.14 189.33 106 -2 80,000 3 183.95 460 181.94 -

562.11

560.48

67,160 40 910 177,720 168 33,000 295 656,300 90,920 405 12.5 67,280 51 - 730 1,811,850 100,880 75.0 - - 315 301,080 148 73,920 106 475,840 110 94,320 102 27,300 2,180 195,680 112 27.0 2,320 54,920 108 285 15,840 49 345 - 21 2,850 285 58,760 31.0 - 4,390,520 104 64.0 65,360 -17.5 - -78 113,680 -96 3,560 - - 6,400 106 - 550 6,360 26.0 2,205,360 75.0 - 21.5 1,305,280 - 118.0 77,080 18.0 7,920 16.0 7,600 370 419,440 38.5 108,000 1,600 12,680 15676 114 - 54,160 74.0 61,000 -88 325 - 63 291,150 310 10,600 52 - - 68,550 270 11,000 275 2,850 157,920 104,880 124.090 2,702,550 57,480 61 - - - 422,600 13,200 - - 219,900 36,800 13,200

7,000 3,840 92,000 11,906,270 383,920 104,680 72,600 125,480 22,400 7,150 2,400 205,230 31,160 1,656,950 8,960 7,600 23,960 66,240 - 18,520 67,400 10,720 10,680 57,000 26,160 2,411,440 1,120 230,960 134,520 127,360 3,045,800 22,400 - - 76,880 1,880 6,160 946,080 19,240 2,600 19,500 - 13,520 610,850 4,151,200 -

300 510 360 460 455 108 242 - - 280

77 112 48 99 -

122 200 186 - 99 126 110 1,360 530 112 95 86082 7182 11.595 35.569 77 85 120 53 106 - 178 295 13.5 9060 - 61 30.0 168.0 70 116 28.0 23.5 25.0 24.5 15.5 32 390 29 218 55 290 -

-

-

3,111,120 -17,800 122 22,550 455 - 150 22,100 1,420 3,550 310 43,773,170 165,600 Change 710 178 -1.20 8,480 104 -2.00 435

1.64

40 0.0% 990 0.0% 4.2% 172 0.0% 300 - 6.7% 410 0.0% 9.8% 13.0 52 - 0.0% 0.0% - 740 0.0% 27.0% 0.0% 0.0% 76.0 33.5 - 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 340 8.8% 0.0% 0.0% 150 110 0.0% 112 9.3% 0.0% 0.0% 104 0.0% 550 0.0% 0.0% 2,200 2.3% 0.0% 0.0% 114 29.5 0.0% 0.0% 11058 0.0% 8.3% 320 50 0.0% 5.4% 24 - 0.0% 1.8% 290 0.0% 6.1% 32.5 - 0.0% 3.8% - 0.0% 0.0% - 106 0.0% 0.0% -18.0 0.0% 0.0% - 0.0% 23879 0.0% 0.0% - - 0.0% 0.0% 54 5.2% 184 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 108 0.0% 590 3.7% 0.0% 27.0 76.0 0.0% 0.0% 23.0 0.0% 120.0 130 0.0% 0.0% 39.0 0.0% 0.0% 20.0 0.0% 0.0% 270 16.5 0.0% 0.0% 390 0.0% 39.0 1,620 4.4% 0.0% % 0.0% 16084 3.8% 6.8% 118 5.1% 270 76.0 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 2789 0.0% 9 0% 330 0.0% 9.0% 73 3.2% 315 0.0% 53 170 0.0% 4.4% 61 47 275 10.8% 0.0% 69 280 0.0% 0.0% - 280 0.0% 8.8% 128.092 0.0% 11.1% 63 2.4% 0.0%

52.0 325 610 370 500 460 114 244 110 106 43.0 285 78 122 49 102 100

126 202 190 37.5 100 224 130 1,440 85 365 31.5 600 118 98 87086 7686 12.096 37.070 79 93 65 122 54 118 91 188 40.5 300 60 14.5 9461 - 62 33.5 170.0 57 74 126 28.5 25.0 25.5 28.0 22.0 16.0 34 130 395 32 -50 57 29599

43.0

232 93.0 130 70 465 - 1,440 340 216 720 DTD 190 -0.63% 108 -1.09% -

0.29%

0.0% 6.2% 0.0% 4.5% 2.8% 5.2% 0.0% 9.1% 0.0% 2.7% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 1.8% 6.5% 4.7%

0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 12.4% 0.0% 10.0% 0.0% 0.0% 5.1% 4.5% 0.0% 0.0% 4.6% 6.1% 1.5% 0.0% 3.4% 6.5% 4.0% 0.0% 0.0% 5.8% 0.0% 10.5% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 8.2% 0.0% 6.7% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 10.0% 0.0% 7.7% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 5.5% 0.0% 5.9% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 4.3% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 3.2% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 3.7% 1.8% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 1.1% 0.0%

0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 2.2% 8.3% 3.3% 0.7% 4.6% 3.0% 4.75% 2.4% 13.9% 5.6% 0.0% 4.3%

42 40 960 1,120 174 170 280 280 305 295 430 340 13.5 12.5 5465 5241 25.0 25.0 900 740 130 130 81.0 45.0 36.0 31.0 110 110 230 230 295 345 102 102 154 110 116 108 104 136 50 5084 110 44.0 44.0 530 550 52 52 1,920 2,280 74 74 95 126 28.5 28.5 11268 10858 230 350 51 49 340 395 23 22 260 305 71 71 260 255 31.5 31.0 260 260 48.5 48.5 132 68.0 68.054 23.5 14.0 20.5 20.5 26.0 26.0 280 270 24484 24461 94 9489 104 51 51 154 154 36 3691 120 51 51 520 710 26.5 27.5 30.0 76.0 75 75 28.5 16.0 99.0 120.0 140 120 19.5 41.5 19.5 12.0 19.0 19.0 275 198 17.0 16.5 490 380 39.0 38.0 1,620 1,500 29.0 29.0 89 15673 162 124 25586 255 78.0 57.0 114 114 104 2680 28 340 270 68 68 280 315 53 55 130 160 60 60 47 47 172 280 64 64 265 305 42.5 42.5 300 265 132.090 128.070 76.32 72 75.90 51

62.0 44.0 325 325 750 640 560 560 390 345 520 485 485 410 118 110 270 236 220 220 134 11498 114 40.5 40.5 295 218 44.80 92 43.43 77

114 156 49 48 110 100 9994 791.90 728.14 120 128 200 208 182 222 37.5 37.590 114 234 224 130 126 130 120 1,500 1,420 82 82 390 340 30.5 30.0 610 500 108 108 365.22 345.74 100 96 86095 84044 76 7355 108 12.573 11.543 38.0 38.0 122 46 78 77 126 118 75 65 132 102 54 55 232 178 90 90 330 250 38.0 38.0 455 455 63 59 40.5 74.0 14.5 14.0 91 91 17.5 17.5 31.0 31.0 59 59 47.16 40.74 78 70 1,220 1,220 48.5 48.5 144 124 29.0 28.0 24.5 23.5 26.0 25.5 28.5 27.0 16.5 15.5 134 134 32 32 220 220 57 60 295 270 49.8649.73-

-

232 260 130 128 470 450 158 150 1,460 1,420 340 335 212 222 710 740 MTD 180 -2.60% 180 104 116 -4.38% 460 460

0.45%

16.44 88.93 12.13 13.65 1.33 0.00 11.33

23.89 0.00 20.20 0.00 25.21 0.00 55.09 0.00 14.24 0.00 0.00 0.00

14.98 7.04 9.92 0.00 11.74 9.19 391.37 32.31 0.00 13.80

12.97

0.00 116.80 9.60 0.00 0.00 14.91

7.00

0.00

0.00 73.05 82.89 17.50 0.00 3.31 8.28 10.09 22.77 11.92

10.04

62 41 62.41 43.00

5.26 9.60 9.08 23.31 0.00 17.39

5.19 10.01

3.64 16.97 29.36 12.90 11.58 9.91 8.20 17.37 17.18 296.83

10.92 7.52

5.81 12.60

10.71 37.20 12.83 11.58 22.21 17.83 16.20

5.72 11.24 22.14 10.76 15.28 11.06 39.65 5.29

21.70

0.00 14.56

9.76

26.32

27.81 6.82 8.10 40.62 4.15 9.10

19.44 80.15

9.52

11.37 0.00 5.38 27.28

20.67 9.93 23.07

13.73

18.82 63.06 0.00 11.03 0.00 16.27

16.24

70.58 18.38

12.91 6.49 8.02 14.33 193.84 96.15 YTD 10.91 -0.74% 23.15 -4.29% 26.77

0.02%

STOCKS WITH NBK CAPITAL

12

ALWATAN DAILY thursday, april 5, 2012

April 21, 2009 April 04, 2012

2% 6%

1% 6% Oman

0%

Qatar

Dubai Dubai

105

95

-4%

Saudi

90

-2%

-6%

Kuwait

Bahrain

-1%

100

-1%

-2%

GCC Best Performers

Saudi

95 4-Jan-12 85

4-Feb-12

4-Mar-12

MENA Best Performers

-2%

4-Apr-12

-6% -2

S&P Pan3-Feb-09 Arab Large/18-Feb-09 Mid Composite GCC Large/ Mid Composite 19-Jan-09 5-Mar-09S&P20-Mar-09 4-Apr-09 19-Apr-0

1 Period's Liquidity 1 Ratio (PLR x)

-1

MENA Indices Highlights Country (Index)

Index Level

% Chg.

YTD

Sa Saudi Arabia (Tadawul All Share Index) Country (Index)

Index 7,895 Level

UASa UAE (ADX Index) Saudi Arabia (Tadawul All Share Index)

2,564 5,250

QaUAUAE Qatar (DSM Index) (ADSM Index)

8,850 2,695

0.0% 0.6%

BaQa Bahrain Qatar (BSE (DSMIndex) Index)

1,141 5,590

-0.8% 3.9%

Jo Jordan (Amman General Index)

2,003

Ku Kuwait (KSE Weighted Index)

UAE (DFM(KSE Index) Ku Kuwait Weighted Index)

OmOman UAE(MSM (DFMIndex) Index)

413

1,703 406

5,806 1,745

Eg Egypt (EGX 30 Index)

OmOman (MSM Index)

Ba Bahrain (BSE Index)

M Morocco (Casa All Shares Index)*

Eg Egypt (Hermes Egypt Index (HFI))*

Le Lebanon (Beirut SE Index)*

Jo Jordan (Amman General Index)

Pa Palestine (Al-Quds Index)

M Morocco (Casa All Shares Index)*

Tu Tunisia (Tunis SE Index)*

Le Lebanon (Beirut SE Index)* *Market Closed

Pa Palestine (Al-Quds Index) * Market Closed

4,838

5,478

1,681

10,719

463

1,201

2,825 486

10,621

4,923

1,094 546

Tu TunisiaClosed (Tunis SE Index)* * Market

3,282

%-0.4% Chg.

0.0% -4.0%

1.9%

0.4% -

2.2%

-0.2%

0.8%

-

-

0.9% -

Turnover 4,091 USD million

Mkt.408,922 Cap. USD million

157

PE

13.68

8,071 2,137

78 122

126,838 69,783

11.77 7.29

-0.2% -18.8%

1,419 12,627

1,129 4,230

0 196

17,113 65,352

9.21 8.85

1,754 787

6,406 5,860

33.6%

5,628

0.7%

12,109

0.5%

2,246

-6.8%

2,903

-3.6%

8.5%

17 305

3,587

64

4,224

2,551

513

328

465

14,635 4,912

4,091

23.6%

739

407

-7.2%

2,119

13.6%

3,418

-

1,164

-3.3%

3.5%

18,120 37,413

9,406

-

1,043

-

2,837

-

4

13.84

63,640

7.67

18,727

1

33,782

6

9,871

3

1.63

1.29

3.37

1.56

6.38

0.86

12.71

2,554

2.15

9.53

59,990

1.19

18.36

3.95

15.17

8,507

2

1.68

15.82

10,661

67

1.33

8.07

58,246

1.73

6.47

2,079

0.86

8.67

6,576

MENA Worst Performers

2.50

13.85

1.92

SAUDI ARABIA *Market Closed

125

KWD 0.380 SAR 22.95

225 Saudi Industrial Inv. Grp.

101 Riyad Bank

% of stocks trading above 1yr avg. price

117

SAR 24.70

-6.4%

115

113,133,078

109,353,380

703 Zain - Saudi Arabia (KSA)

343,553,085 102,915,591 119,955,261 82,990,897

115 430Alinma Dar AlBank Arkan(KSA) Real Estate Dev. Co. (KSA)

97,126,838

NBKNational Bank of Kuwait (KUW)

1,533,580,605

Market Cap. (SAR '000)

88,742,222

1211.SSE Saudi Arabian Mining Co.

70Zain - Saudi Arabia

S&P GCC Large/Mid Composite

385,964,342

23Saudi Kayan Petrochemical Co.

4-Apr-12

200.00

% Chg.

2.8%

96.50

2.7%

12.60

2.4%

37.50

1140.SSE Bank AlBilad

1.1%

29.30

Turnover (SAR) 2,053,055,700 2290.SSE Yanbu National Petrochemicals Co. 424,282,981 2350.SSE Saudi Kayan Petrochemical Co. 410,107,982 1080.SSE Arab National Bank

20Saudi Basic Industries Corp.

4-Mar-12

Close

1.0%

Worst Performers

1 Alinma Bank

4-Feb-12

64,280,166

3050.SSE Southern Province Cement Co.

Highest Turnover

105

-6.8%

Turnover (USD)

201 Industries Corp. (KSA) 235Saudi SaudiBasic Kayan Petrochemical Co. (KSA)

15,342,891

Turnover (SAR '000)

-2.6% -8.9%

547,437,725

201 Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (KSA)

7,931 / 5,916 4280.SSE Kingdom Holding Co.

Tadawul Index 52 week High / Low

-4.1%

Turnover (USD)

MENA Highest Turnover

0.38

% Chg.

-2.4% -8.6%

115 Alinma Bank (KSA)

93% 2020.SSE Saudi Arabian Fertilizer Co.

Advance/Decline Ratio

6.8%

8.0%

SAR 20.20 SAR 48.00

SAR 13.70

GCC Highest Turnover

7,895 (-0.4%)

Tadawul Index (% Chg.)

124

7.7% 8.6%

KWD 0.610 -13.1% -3.2% KWD 0.265

EMAEmaar Properties (UAE) Best Performers

Summary

7.7% 8.8%

USD 0.610% Chg. -3.6% Close

KFI Kuwait Finance House (KUW)

Rebased Performance

95 4-Jan-12

SAR 53.25

AUBAhli United Bank

8.1% 9.8%

8.0%

Close

229 Yanbu National Petrochemicals Co.

0.88 201 235Saudi SaudiBasic Kayan Petrochemical 1.74 Industries Corp. Co.

9.50

27,652

OMR 0.720

GCC Worst Performers

1.92 FAC ABK Al Ahli BankFacilities of Kuwait 1.37 Commercial Co. 1.58 IFA IFA Hotels & Resorts 0.88 238 Rabigh Petrochem.

9.59

15,024

5

1.06 1.77

10.65 6.87

56,744

13

1,572

5,044

1,414

2.4%

35,460 98,547

46

1,921

10,739

1.9%

160 718

5,419 1,433

12,203

1,033

2.1%

1,301 316

2.11

0.80 1.52

8,892 5,148

QAR 21.60

BKMBankMuscat

PB

10.93 9.99

0.9% 12.8%

AED 3.95

QGTQatar Gas Transport Co.

PB1.41

8.96 10.24

KWD 0.112 QAR 6.35

UABUnited Arab Bank

PE 13.99

67,727 264,263

QAR 18.00 OMR 0.703

SULSultan Center Food Products Co. KCB Al Khaliji Commercial Bank

Trailing

100,357

KWD5.60 0.134 SAR

AHC AamalEngineering Co. GEC Galfar & Contracting

Trailing

25 2,183

2.0% 6.6%

5.1%

396

Mkt. Cap. USD million

2,293 4,130

0.2% 1.9%

0.3%

525,916 Wk Low

Turnover USD million

2,775 10,090

25.9% -0.2%

-1.4%

467

52 Wk Low

6.7% 9.3%

0.6% 1.8%

-0.3%

52 Wk 7,931 High

23.0% YTD

-0.6%

-0.2%

52 Wk High

% Chg.

KWD 0.285% Chg. 9.6% Close

NRKingdom NationalHldg.

Real Co. Estate Co. 3 428

Period's Liquidity Ratio (PLR x)*

MENA Indices Highlights

Close

4 KIB Kuwait International Bank

Abu Dhabi

0%

Oman

Tunisia Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi Bahrain Qatar

0%

100

0%

Kuwait

Palestine Palestine

Return DailyDaily Return (%)(%)

110

Saudi Dubai Dubai

105

2%

Qatar Saudi

1%

Qatar Oman

111

114

4%

Morocco

115110

Lebanon Oman

113 117

Kuwait Kuwait

113

DailyIndex Index Performance Snapshot Daily Performance Snapshot

Egypt Jordan Jordan

120115

Bull/Bear Indicator Bull/Bear Indicator

Bahrain Bahrain

Rebased RebasedPerformance Performance

311,240,760

43Dar Al Arkan Real Estate Dev. Co.

5110.SSE Saudi Electricity Co. 7010.SSE Saudi Telecom Co.

Close

53.25

% Chg.

20.20

-4.1%

-2.4%

32.60

-2.4%

40.40

-1.5%

14.70

-1.7%

Saudi SE

Quotes Company Name 1 Al Rajhi Bank

Close 80.50

1 Alinma Bank

15.75

1 Arab National Bank

32.60

2 Almarai Co.

1 Bank AlBilad

1 Bank Al Jazira

71.75

29.30

29.60

% Chg.

-0.3%

Daily High

81.00

Low

80.25

Turnover (SAR '000) 102,459

0.6%

16.05

15.50

2,053,056

-2.4%

33.40

32.50

5,684

0.4%

1.0%

-0.7%

74.75

29.40

29.70

71.00

295,121

28.60

Volume ('000) 1,272

129,652

50.00

37.50

-1.8%

16.6%

-1.8%

35,509,822

14,368

13.60

6.20

-4.4%

76.9%

89.8%

11,050,000

12.80

311,241

66.00

64,928 10,334

776

12.20

108,681

8,432

26.40

86,056

2 National Industrialization Co.

2 Rabigh Refining & Petrochemical Co.

1 Riyad Bank

1 Samba Financial Grp.

2 Saudi Arabian Fertilizer Co.

1 Saudi Arabian Mining Co.

2 Saudi Basic Industries Corp.

3 Saudi Cement Co.

5 Saudi Electricity Co.

1 Saudi Hollandi Bank

22 Saudi Industrial Investment Grp.

2 Saudi International Petrochemical Co. 1 Saudi Investment Bank 2 Saudi Kayan Petrochemical Co. 7 Saudi Telecom Co. 2 Savola Group Co. 0 3 Southern Province Cement Co. 0 1 SABB 3 Yamama Saudi Cement Co.

2 Yanbu National Petrochemicals Co. 7 Zain - Saudi Arabia

154.25 12.60

50.25

26.40

-0.3%

155.50

153.00

-1.0%

51.25

50.25

108,989

25.40

10,585

193.75

112,725

2.4%

-0.8%

25.40

-0.8%

200.00

2.8%

56.50

37.50

109.00

0.4%

1.1%

53.25

10.25

5,463

106,847

24.85

46,729

20.05

2,476

-0.3%

50.50

88.00

14.60

20.35

36.30

134,697

14.95

-0.8%

96.50

36.60

-1.7%

25.10

35.30

25,188

108.75

0.0%

40.40

37.70

55.00

109.50

29.30

20.20

56.50

200.00

-0.7%

-0.8%

24.10

26.90

25.80

424,283

88.50

14.70

13.45

-0.8%

-2.4%

-1.5%

0.3%

89.25

29.30

25.20 24.40

20.50

20.65

40.70

35.50

29.10

1,137

24.05

54,797

20.05

385,964

35.10

18,879

36.00

5,461

40.30

27,950

2.7%

97.00

94.00

10,951

-1.0%

51.50

49.90

93,976

10.20

410,108

-1.1%

-4.1% -1.4%

36.80

55.25 10.40

53.25

1.8

241

22,902

2,970

4 Kingdom Holding Co.

12.2

11,868

29.30

57,560

4 Jarir Marketing Co.

2.6

50.3%

19.30

19.50

26.9

47.6%

187,169

-0.5%

8,790,000

0.3%

12.90

19.40

2.5

17.20

13.20

4 Jabal Omar Development Co.

14.5

23,625,000

29.20

-0.4%

67.75

16,502,500

58.3%

87,873

24,117 972

30.10

13.85

26.60

15.75 6.05

68.25

50.00

67

155.00

95.33

2,145

50.75

3,233 415

448

20.15

13.10

29.80

26.90

56.75

570

194.50

3,888

112.50

7,218

16.30

3,641 62

39

37.10

33.60

-6.9%

-2.9%

-3.7%

-0.5%

-3.8% -1.0%

74.6% 77.9%

34.4%

26.2%

26.8%

59.7%

10.8%

42.4% 23.5%

24.25

1.1%

48.2%

50.6%

87.75

-3.1%

-3.1%

13.6%

11.0%

13.2%

-5.2%

33.00

114

106.75

60.75

1,861

83.25

47.50

-39.3%

-27.9%

5.25

-10.9%

84.7%

35.50

46.30

56.00

11.50

23.70 34.20

41.60

-2.2%

16.1%

-0.6% -9.6%

-21.6% -4.9%

19.5%

18.0

10.2

28,010,781

11.5

2.5

38,100,000

12.1

50,850,000

nmf

nmf

11.8

1.8

2.9

1.3

1.8

1.2

5.7%

34,687,500

13,540,500

8,836,667

12.5

1.6

30,300,000

nmf

2.0

11,295,000

80,800,000

-10.8%

-19.9%

21.0%

3.9%

58.2% -6.5%

46.4%

4.1

1.6

3.3%

29.3%

16.3

2.0

11.5

11,192,500

8.6%

nmf

11,629,170

0.7%

23.0% 12.2%

9,255,000

27.6

7.6%

15.50

2.0

61,248,929

22.3%

21.30

2.5

4.6%

-1.4%

26.0%

nmf

1.5

2.4

17.75

-3.1%

9.1

0.9

11.2

24.45

15.55

nmf

1.9

327,000,000

14.9%

32.1%

12.8

1.7

1.9%

18.0%

-7.7%

32.8

1.5

6.1

0.0%

18.55

12.8

3.7

12.2

21.42

5.8%

18,030,360

nmf

50,000,000

29.30

-9.8%

41.30

39,951

0.4%

67.0%

12.85

46,375,000

23,126,400

9.0%

21.2%

13,932,000

6.2%

46.6%

-0.4%

2.8%

8,880,000

46,694,117

42.40

165.00

-5.6%

27,710,000

37.7%

-11.4%

690

1,626

61.8%

21.20

23.10

13.5%

41.5%

22.9%

21.00

150

54.2%

-9.7%

122

535

-5.5%

52.50

27.20

18,900

7.05

-1.7%

18.5%

98.00

1,871 2,262

11.10

-6.6%

16.4

PB

120,750,000

1,761

34.90

Trailing

PE

4.2%

51,228

13.00

-0.4%

68.4%

Market Cap. (SAR '000)

-24.1%

4 Emaar the Economic City

66.25

15.8%

12 mths

-27.5%

49.00

7 Etihad Etisalat Co.

-3.1%

YTD

-37.3%

49.70

13.10

9.05

-2.7%

% Change

71.50

-1.2%

-0.8%

16.25

67.25

on high

114.50

174

49.10

12.90

82.75

Low

4,056

1 Banque Saudi Fransi

4 Dar Al Arkan Real Estate Dev. Co.

52-Week

High

17,650,000 13,510,000

36,300,000

21.4 15.8

10.6 14.8 15.1

12.6

10,226,250

13.9

14,350,000

nmf

29,953,125

9.4

1.9 1.3

1.7 2.3 5.1

2.1

3.0

2.8

3.3

STOCKS WITH NBK CAPITAL

13

ALWATAN DAILY thursday, april 5, 2012

KUWAIT Rebased Performance

Summary

Best Performers 6,159 (-0.3%)

KSE General Index (% Chg.)

120

115

413 (-0.6%)

Advance/Decline Ratio

0.69 SULTAN.KSSultan Center Food Products Co. 6,523 / 5,694 NICBM.KSENational Industries Co.

48%

% of stocks trading above 1yr avg. price

117

KSE General Index 52 week High / Low

Turnover (KWD) 9,468,650

K Kuwait Finance House

1,998,950

N National Bank of Kuwait

1,564,350

1,811,850

ZA Zain Kuwait 4-Mar-12

4-Apr-12

S&P GCC Large/Mid Composite

% Chg.

9.6%

0.134

8.1%

0.300

3.5%

0.112

7.7%

0.315

3.3%

Worst Performers

K Kuwait International Bank

100

4-Feb-12

National Real Estate Co.

Highest Turnover

105

0.285

27,909,213

Market Cap. (KWD '000)

95 4-Jan-12

NRE.KSE

Kuwait International Bank

43,698

Turnover (KWD '000)

105

KIB.KSE

467 / 396 ALAFCO.KSAlafco Aviation Lease and Fin. Co.

KSE Weighted Index 52 week High / Low

110

Close

KSE Weighted Index (% Chg.)

752,050

G Gulf Bank

ABK.KSE

Close

Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait

0.610

IFAHR.KSEIFA Hotels & Resorts

-3.2%

0.380

MABANEE. Mabanee Co.

1.040

AREFENRGAREF Energy Holding Co.

0.106

NBK.KSE

% Chg.

National Bank of Kuwait

-2.6%

-1.9%

1.060

-1.9%

-1.9%

KSE Weighted Index

Quotes Company Name

Close

Daily

% Chg.

A Agility

0.410

T Al Themar Intl. Holding Co.

0.087

A AREF Energy Holding Co.

0.106

-1.9%

0.630

1.6%

A Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait

A Alafco Aviation Lease and Fin. Co. B Boubyan Bank B Burgan Bank

0.380

0.280

-17.1%

1.9%

0.550

0.530

380

705

0.620

0.530

-11.3%

0.0%

0.415

0.410

599

1,460

0.524

0.415

-20.8%

68

1.945

1.300

-17.7%

0.255

-29.1%

329

0.620

-

530

-

-

0.126

-

0.085

0.630

0.510

0.420

0.198

-16.3% -15.9%

-3.0%

-10.2%

641,161

1.3%

-10.2%

154,609

19.4

4.2

7.7%

-27.3%

150,294

10.6

0.9

-6.5%

1,171,724

38.3

2.7

-16.5%

172,475

nmf

12.5%

-38.1%

22.6%

-16.0%

0.0%

0.395

0.445

-1.1%

0.445

0.445

752

1,690

0.552

0.445

-19.4%

-8.4%

0.380

-2.6%

0.380

0.380

8

20

0.495

0.285

-23.2%

-20.0%

920

0.485

0.096

-59.1%

-2.9%

0.236

-16.6%

0.202

JAJazeera Airways

0.460

0.099

-

-1.5%

-1.0% -

0.0%

0.242

0.445

-

-1.1%

-

-

-

1.320

0.202 -

1.320

17

0.202

16

-

-

0.460

0.445

0.445

-

-

-

0.055

13

423

0.455

-

-

1.700

80

1.320

0.214

0.136

0.242

-

4

0.019

0.118

0.290

10

0.630

0.415

-10.9% -22.4% -5.6%

-5.2%

-29.4%

1.0

-8.2%

0.0%

370

0.700

1.9

nmf

961,529

104

0.940

0.5

18.3

-3.5%

0.0%

0.280

-

88,088

PB

-6.8%

0.280

-

-14.7%

923,076

15.9

245,628

0.0%

-

429,203

-11.3%

0.280

-

6.5%

PE

0.0%

108

-

Trailing

Market Cap. (KWD '000)

5.0%

-4.4%

1.600

IK Ikarus Petroleum Industries Co.

K Kuwait Cement Co.

0.630

60

0.079

12 mths

9.3%

1.600

1.320

K KIPCO Asset Management Co.

6

0.106

0.104

-7.2%

YTD

0.0%

C Gulf Cable and Electrical Industries Co.

IF International Finance Co.

0.108

-

0.581

% Change

1.600

0.049

IF IFA Hotels & Resorts

-

-

0.657

-5.7%

940

-

5

0.248

291

0.790

G Gulf Bank

3

0.435

on high

0.305

C Commercial Bank of Kuwait

0.610

Low

0.315

-

0.610

1,610

High

3.3%

-

0.415

G Global Investment House

656

0.405

52-Week

Volume ('000)

0.315

0.260

F Commercial Facilities Co.

Turnover (KWD '000)

-3.2%

A Burgan Co. for Well Drilling

C Combined Grp Contracting Co.

0.410

Low

0.610

0.550

B Boubyan Petrochemical Co.

1.2%

High

-10.2% 23.5%

-44.7%

-16.0%

0.0%

-7.0%

-17.5%

18.8%

46.4%

34.9

54,503

26.7

1.1

nmf

4.2

1.2

12.7

1.4

1.0

nmf

1.9

nmf

3.1

7.6

1.6

3.6

18.0

1.0

101,200

9.6

3.9

nmf

63,719

-23.4%

1.6

151,500 79,485

-16.6%

-3.3%

305,613

277,109

271.0%

-0.8%

nmf

64,309

-61.2%

1.1%

79,500

1,004,898

25.6%

6.2

283,757

0.7

nmf

0.8

20.6

2.0

K Kuwait Finance House

0.770

-1.3%

0.780

0.770

1,999

2,595

1.019

0.759

-24.4%

-7.6%

-21.5%

2,236,206

37.2

1.2

K Kuwait International Bank

0.285

9.6%

0.285

0.265

9,469

34,640

0.350

0.236

-18.6%

11.8%

-9.5%

295,638

27.3

1.4

K Kuwait Projects Co. (Holding)

0.340

0.0%

0.340

0.335

58

170

0.425

-9.3%

432,795

0.0%

21,780

F Kuwait Food Co.

1.420

P Kuwait Portland Cement Co. M Mabanee Co.

-1.4%

0.890

1.1%

1.040

-1.9%

1.060

-1.9%

N National Industries Grp. Holding

0.234

-1.7%

N National Real Estate Co.

0.134

8.1%

M Mena Holding

0.033

N National Bank of Kuwait N National Industries Co.

N National Investments Company O Oula Fuel Marketing Co.

A Qurain Petrochemicals Industries Co. S Salhia Real Estate Co.

S Sultan Center Food Products Co. T Tamdeen Real Estate Co.

A The Commercial Real Estate Co. S The Securities House N Wataniya

0.300 0.162

-

1.060

1,564

1,453

1.145

0.909

0.234

320

1,360

0.285

0.192

0.126

529

4,060

0.168

0.214

393

1,820

0.162

0.248

1.6%

0.0%

0.093 0.130

0.134

0.275 0.248

0.244

108

0.244

34

476

1.1%

0.093

0.091

136

2.180

27

-1.3%

-

2.200

0.750

-

-

0.740

1,812

-12.3%

-4.1%

-4.1%

-43.7%

25.4%

-38.8%

1.080

0.680

-3.7%

20.9%

52.9%

4.1%

0.5%

4,614,707

15.2

303,053

nmf

0.295 -

-20.0% 0.0%

-7.4%

0.260

-11.8%

0.158

-45.1%

11.5% 0.0%

7.1%

-9.1%

-17.9%

-10.0%

-10.0%

0.056

-20.2%

4.7%

36.7%

0.226

0.176

-4.4%

4,360

0.136

0.093

-17.6%

1,480

0.094

0.067

13

2.280

1.760

0.295

40

0.360

440

-

0.265

0.246

140

0.200

0.270

0.216

-

2,435

11.9

0.660

0.340

820

570,843

1.580

-

10

11

0.106

-

-

133

0.112

0.0%

255

3

7.7%

0.248

470

-

0.275

0.216

1.420

266

0.166

0.236

1.620

1.040 -

1.080

5

417

-1.2%

-0.8%

0.740

1.060

7

0.870

0.300

0.244 0.112

0.900

0.300

-1.8%

0.216

1.420

3.5%

0.275

2.200

Z Zain Kuwait

-

1.440

-

1.380

0.740

-5.8%

-23.6%

-8.3%

-0.8%

17.3%

-8.1%

7.8%

80,905

31.9

1.3

577,851

27.8

3.9

103,861

-42.1%

14.4

-

90,667

0.8

2.3

0.1

2.1

36.2

141,947

-8.3%

2.0

1.3

0.8

nmf

0.8

nmf

0.5

22.3

2.1

0.9%

21.3%

237,600

13.1

1.1

-6.7%

-9.7%

64,829

nmf

1.0

-1.1%

20.8%

24.0%

170,638

16.2

0.7

-3.5%

13.4%

25.0%

1,108,872

3.1

1.4

0.0%

-46.4%

1.7%

125,105

-4.6%

0.0%

92,534

0.0%

-17.8%

88,400

-45.6%

3,187,576

17.4

1.0

18.7

0.9

nmf

7.0

11.2

1.5

UAE Rebased Performance

Summary

Best Performers 1,703 (0.6%)

DFM Index (% Chg.)

130

2,564 (0.0%)

ADSM Index (% Chg.)

126

DFM Index 52 week High / Low

117

2,775 / 2,293 DU.DFM

ADSM Index 52 week High / Low

680,825

Turnover (AED '000)

106

Highest Turnover

100

D Dubai Financial Market

S&P GCC Large/Mid Composite

4-Mar-12 Abu Dhabi SE

14,008,723

A ALDAR Properties

4-Apr-12

3.5%

3.27

2.8%

3.24

0.9%

3.48

du

Turnover (AED) 221,767,169 TAQA.ADS Abu Dhabi National Energy Co. 188,034,240 DFM.DFM Dubai Financial Market 48,039,143 ARKAN.AD Arkan Building Materials Co.

E Emaar Properties

4-Feb-12

6.8%

3.57

1.2%

Worst Performers

A Arabtec Holding

90 4-Jan-12

% Chg.

407,713,820

Market Cap. (AED '000)

110

3.95

77% ARTC.DFM Arabtec Holding 0.58 EMAAR.DF Emaar Properties 1,754 / 1,301 ADIB.ADSM Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank

% of stocks trading above 1yr avg. price Advance/Decline Ratio

120

Close

UAB.ADSM United Arab Bank

10,414,045

E Etisalat

Close

1.31

% Chg.

1.21

SOROUH.A Sorouh Real Estate Co.

-1.6%

0.99

-1.0%

1.18

-0.8%

1.18

ALDAR.AD ALDAR Properties

-2.2%

-0.8%

Dubai FM

Quotes Company Name

Close

Daily

% Chg.

A Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank

3.26

T Abu Dhabi National Energy Co.

1.31

-2.2%

A Air Arabia

0.71

-0.4%

A Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank

A Abu Dhabi National Hotels A ALDAR Properties A Amlak Finance

A Arabtec Holding A Aramex

3.48

2.19

1.18 1.02 3.57

1.78

-0.6%

1.2% -

-0.8% -

High

Low

1,031

1.34

1.30

209

160

0.72

0.71

4,101

5,765

3.48 -

1.21 -

3.43 -

0.9%

D Dubai Islamic Bank

2.09

-0.5%

E Emirates NBD

2.88

-0.7%

9.70

-0.1%

E Emaar Properties E Etisalat

F First Gulf Bank

G Gulf Cement Co. M Mashreq

N National Bank of Abu Dhabi N National Bank of Fujairah

N National Bank of Umm Al Qaiwain S Sharjah Islamic Bank

3.27

8.84

1.15

91.45

71

1.77

0.71

-44.1%

-2.0%

-38.5%

-29.6%

11.1%

-23.1%

1.77

-

0.0%

1.78

-

0.94

-

-

0.43

3.20

2.07

2.90

2.85

8.89

-

-

2.10

-0.2%

9.75 -

-

8.75 -

-

-

1,717 -

2,770 2,819 5,815

48,039 3,788

3.15

188,034

8.80

10,414

9.67 -

-

8.69

3,662

2,957 -

5,388

-

-

-

-

-

-

1.20

1.16

7,294

U Union National Bank

3.15

0.6%

3.18

3.12

1,706

U United Arab Bank

3.95

6.8%

3.95

3.95

1

U Union Properties

* Closing Prices, Turnover and Market Cap. in USD

1.25 0.44

0.0% -

1.27 -

1.23 -

9,879 -

957 -

5,572

6,530

1,806

39,711 1,818

-

1.96

-

1.69

-13.5%

0.46

0.20

-4.2%

3.30

1.46

2.31

0.34

2.80

0.68

1.88

2.41

1,178

11.20

8.64

1.56

0.67

305

4.63

10.75

4.70

2.91

-

1.02

0.80

6,192 7,945 542 -

0

7.33

-26.3%

-10.3% -3.2%

-4.0%

-25.5%

0.67

-23.4%

3.90

2.82

-19.2%

5.30

3.28

-25.5%

1.49 0.50

0.53 0.24

104.7% 12.1%

0.0%

-0.6%

-2.0%

-12.7%

25.6%

19.0%

62.0% -9.9%

7.4%

nmf

1.1

2,606,098

nmf

0.7

14,811,429

13.5

9,680,000

7,935,843

9.0% 8.5%

nmf

7.9

0.4

2.4 1.3 0.9

19,918,350

11.1

0.6

-14.2%

69,890,278

12.0

1.8

944,261

nmf

-17.9%

22.4%

16,006,391

29,100,000 -

-13.2%

70.9%

6.5

2.2%

38.8%

-10.9%

1.4

2,519,208

2,848,000

107.3%

12.3

1.1

0.9

-18.7%

-16.1%

nmf

6.9

3,301,001

-1.7%

11.9%

0.6

1,732,500

33,747,404

-7.8%

0.3

1.8

18.8%

-0.9%

1.3

1.1

21.0

1,530,000

4.9%

-6.7%

8.7

0.8

5,337,150

80.9%

7.7%

7.1

PB

0.7

5,707,386

-6.9%

6.0

7.5

-2.0%

44.0%

-3.2%

1.63

1.54

1.4%

-21.1%

-9.8%

-

-1.1%

27.2%

6.98

74.70

2.39

-9.5%

0.0%

-6.3%

-37.8%

102.00 9.00

-1.8%

-17.1%

2.65

-

619

-9.2%

2.76

0.71

3.49

1,275

0.0%

3.24

58,349

-

-0.8%

T Tamweel

-

-

1.18

S Sorouh Real Estate Co.

2,190,000

-5.5%

162.5%

1.18

3.29

12.3

-19.5%

124.5%

1.23

2.8%

8.71 4.51

3.25

3,313,357

-0.5%

21.2%

-1.7%

0.49

-1.6%

12.5

1.24

0.50

3.24

-7.9%

8,154,750

8,229,176

3.63

0.0%

1.21

-25.5%

0.57

-13.2%

6.7%

61,607

-

0.50

D Dubai Financial Market

2.02

0.77

18,241,647

4,820,452

D Dana Gas

D du

2.94

9.2%

PE

25.4%

-21.3%

71

0.44

-

10.1%

Trailing

Market Cap. (AED '000)

28.3%

0.98

0.2%

-19.6%

17.3%

12 mths

-29.8%

1.00

0.44

1.14

-2.0%

YTD

0.76

221,767

-

1.63

2.92

-1.8%

% Change

1.68

3.52

-

3.55

2.55

on high

11,847

3.70

1.80

68

3.32

Low

14,009

-1.0%

D Deyaar Development Co.

-

316

High

1.17

0.99 2.80

237

3.5%

-0.6%

52-Week

Volume ('000)

3.25

3.29

A Arkan Building Materials Co. C Commercial Bank of Dubai

Turnover (AED '000)

15.1%

6.3

7.8

18.8 9.1

0.5

1.1

0.8

1.3

1.3

4,961,000

17.7

10.6%

2,279,970

9.1

0.5

26.3%

1,250,000

12.3

0.5

1,484,784

nmf

3,097,500

6.1%

7,861,219

-25.5%

3,935,785

50.0%

8.9

9.3

2.4

0.9 0.5

5.2

0.7

11.9

1.9

0.6

STOCKS WITH NBK CAPITAL

14

ALWATAN DAILY thursday, april 5, 2012

QATAR Rebased Performance

Summary

Best Performers 8,850 (0.0%)

DSM Index (% Chg.)

120

DSM 52 week High / Low

56% AHCS.DSMAamal Co. 1.00 QIBK.DSM Qatar Islamic Bank 8,892 / 8,071 QNNS.DSMQatar Navigation

Market Cap. (QAR '000)

461,866,279

% of stocks trading above 1yr avg. price

117

Advance/Decline Ratio

283,078

Turnover (QAR '000)

110

IQIndustries Qatar

Q Qatar National Bank 4-Mar-12

S&P GCC Large/Mid Composite

15,345,761

Q Qatar Gas Transport Co.

4-Apr-12

7.7%

77.90

1.2%

76.70

0.5%

27.70

VFQS.DSM Vodafone Qatar

0.4%

7.54

Turnover (QAR) 22,537,756 ERES.DSMEzdan Real Estate Co. 18,967,073 BRES.DSMBarwa Real Estate Co. 17,225,543 QNBK.DSMQatar National Bank

MMasraf Al Rayan

4-Feb-12

% Chg.

0.1%

Worst Performers

100

90 4-Jan-12

18.00

MARK.DSMMasraf Al Rayan

Highest Turnover

100

Close

12,855,936

B Barwa Real Estate Co.

Close

19.60

% Chg.

-1.5%

28.60

-0.7%

135.90

QTEL.DSM Qatar Telecom

-0.7%

131.30

DHBK.DSMDoha Bank

-0.5%

61.00

-0.3%

Doha SM

Quotes Company Name

Close

A Aamal Co.

18.00

K Al Khalij Commercial Bank

16.50

C The Commercial Bank of Qatar

77.30

E Ezdan Real Estate Co.

19.60

B Barwa Real Estate Co.

Daily

% Chg.

7.7%

0.0%

High

Turnover (QAR '000)

Low

18.25

16.56

16.60

5,837

28.45

12,856

60.80

5,951

28.60

-0.7%

61.00

-0.3%

IQIndustries Qatar

142.00

0.0%

142.40

141.20

18,967

Q Qatar Electricity & Water Co.

145.20

0.0%

145.40

145.20

1,101

0.0%

51.10

50.60

1,724

D Doha Bank

M Masraf Al Rayan

27.70

Q Qatar Gas Transport Co.

Q Qatar International Islamic Bank

0.0%

77.70

76.70

11,221

-1.5%

20.00

19.60

13

0.4%

17.81

0.0%

77.90

1.2%

51.10

Q Qatar Islamic Bank

28.90 61.40

27.80

17.88 77.90

27.50

22,538

17.72

15,346

77.00

6,644

Q Qatar National Bank

135.90

-0.7%

137.10

135.90

17,226

Q Qatar Telecom

131.30

-0.5%

132.20

131.00

3,201

Q Qatar Navigation

76.70

V Vodafone Qatar

7.54

0.5% 0.1%

76.90 7.56

330

1,375

16.42

76.00

3,822

7.51

1,722

52-Week

Volume ('000) 83

449

High

24.09

Low

on high

15.40

18.99

-25.3%

16.06

35.55

-13.1%

28.00

% Change YTD

13.2%

12 mths

Market Cap. (QAR '000)

1.5%

8,910,000

-19.3%

11,128,965

PE

18.1

-9.6%

-8.0%

2.1%

19,127,605

10.2

1.3

nmf

1.9

-4.5%

12.2

68.00

1

24.97

18.60

-21.5%

-11.7%

-15.8%

51,988,935

22.50

-1.4%

-0.5%

22.6%

20,775,000

14.8

16.59

-9.0%

1.7%

-3.5%

9,863,962

11.8

76.30

-8.7%

50.00

134

148.50

118.80

8

153.50

129.50

34

56.20

45.50

126

141.73

116.55

24

168.50

131.30

814

862 86 50

229

28.10

19.58

85.30 87.50 8.12

-9.0%

-4.4%

-5.4%

-4.8%

6.8% 4.0%

-9.1%

-5.4%

-4.1%

-1.7%

69.90

-12.3%

7.24

-7.1%

-22.1%

-7.6%

6.3%

12,608,566

3.7%

78,100,000

7.5%

14,520,000

10.8%

7,734,943

1.1

9.2

85.50

67.00

1.5

-13.1%

146 98

PB

-3.9%

-19.6%

5,940,000

Trailing

0.9

10.2

1.8

9.8

3.0

2.4

11.2

4.8

6.8

11.8

1.6

-3.8%

18,407,240

0.3%

-11.7%

8,784,083

12.5

0.8

-0.1%

-4.8%

6,374,316

nmf

1.0

-6.7%

16.6%

95,093,231

-6.0%

30,041,440

13.5

1.6

12.7

2.3

11.6

1.4

OMAN Rebased Performance

Summary

Best Performers 5,806 (0.2%)

MSM Index (% Chg.)

120

37% BKDB.MSMBank Dhofar

% of stocks trading above 1yr avg. price

117

5.00

Advance/Decline Ratio Turnover (OMR '000)

6,976,366

Market Cap (OMR '000)

90,634

R Renaissance Services 4-Mar-12

S&P GCC Large/Mid Composite

47,002

B Bank Dhofar

4-Apr-12

0.5%

0.56

0.4%

0.97

0.2%

1.30

Turnover (OMR) 309,225 RNSS.MSMRenaissance Services 221,272 NBOB.MSMNational Bank of Oman

O Oman Cement Co.

4-Feb-12

2.7%

0.2%

Worst Performers

B Bank Muscat

90 4-Jan-12

% Chg.

0.63

OTEL.MSMOman Telecommunications Co.

Highest Turnover

102

100

0.46

BKMB.MSMBank Muscat

6,406 / 5,419 OCOI.MSM Oman Cement Co. 6,372 RCCI.MSM Raysut Cement Co.

MSM 52 week High / Low

110

Close

24,794

N National Bank of Oman

Close

0.60

% Chg.

-1.0%

0.29

OTEL.MSMOman Telecommunications Co.

0.0%

1.30

RCCI.MSM Raysut Cement Co.

0.2%

0.97

OCOI.MSM Oman Cement Co.

0.2%

0.56

0.4%

Muscat SM

Quotes Company Name

Close

B Bank Dhofar

0.455

N National Bank of Oman

0.293

O Oman Telecommunications Co.

1.304

R Renaissance Services

0.596

B Bank Muscat

O Oman Cement Co.

R Raysut Cement Co.

Daily

% Chg.

2.7%

High

Turnover (OMR '000)

Low

0.458

47

0.446

0.625

0.5%

0.627

0.621

309

0.563

0.4%

0.569

0.561

221

0.973

18

0.973

0.0%

0.2% 0.2%

-1.0%

0.294

1.305 0.974

0.602

103

25

0.293

1.301

11

0.591

91

52-Week

Volume ('000)

High

0.549

495

0.679

393

0.608

85 9

19

152

Low

on high

0.423

-17.1%

0.572

0.324

0.292

1.041

1.094

0.458

1.099

0.0%

-6.2%

-7.4%

30.3%

-11.5%

28.0%

-8.5%

0.711

YTD

-8.0% -9.6%

0.416

1.425

% Change

-45.5%

-6.1%

-0.4%

9.4%

12 mths

Market Cap. (OMR '000)

-17.6%

500,553

-1.7%

1,122,996

-4.6%

324,651

-2.1%

17.5%

-40.9%

PE

12.5

2.2

9.6

1.3

1.2

8.8

2.0

14.6

194,600

13.0

168,128

PB

9.5

186,281

978,000

-10.7%

Trailing

1.3 1.9

nmf

1.0

BAHRAIN Rebased Performance

Summary

Best Performers 1,141 (-0.8%)

BSE Index (% Chg.)

120

26% BISB.BSE #N/A

% of stocks trading above 1 yr avg. price

117

Advance/Decline Ratio

1,419 / 1,129 AUB.BSE 50 #N/A

BSE 52 week High / Low Turnover (BHD '000)

110

6,449,778

Market Cap. (BHD '000)

Highest Turnover

101

100

Turnover (BHD) 4,611 AUB.BSE 2,379 #N/A

A Ahli United Bank

1,796

IT Ithmaar Bank 4-Feb-12

4-Mar-12

B Albaraka Banking Grp.

4-Apr-12

S&P GCC Large/Mid Composite

#

Bahrain SE

0.09

#N/A

Ahli United Bank

% Chg.

0.0%

#N/A

#N/A

#N/A

#N/A

0.61

#N/A #N/A

-3.6%

#N/A

#N/A

Worst Performers

B Bahrain Islamic Bank 90 4-Jan-12

#N/A

Close

Bahrain Islamic Bank

#N/A

#N/A

-

BISB.BSE

Close

Ahli United Bank

0.61

#N/A

#N/A

Bahrain Islamic Bank

0.09

BARKA.BS Albaraka Banking Grp. #N/A

% Chg.

0.93 -

#N/A

#N/A

-3.6%

#N/A

0.0%

#N/A

Quotes Company Name

Close

A Ahli United Bank*

0.610

A Arab Banking Corp.*

0.420

B Albaraka Banking Grp.* B Bahrain Islamic Bank

B Bahrain Telecommunications Co. B BBK

IN Investcorp Bank* IT Ithmaar Bank*

N National Bank of Bahrain U United Gulf Bank

* Closing Prices, Turnover and Market Cap. in USD

0.930

Daily

% Chg.

-3.6% -

0.090

0.0%

0.420

-

0.434 797

-

0.095

0.0%

0.304

-

0.570

-

High

0.610 -

Low

0.610 -

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

0.090

-

-

-

0.095

0.095

-

-

-

-

-

0.090 -

Turnover (BHD '000)

Volume ('000)

12 2

-

-

-

-

20

27

-

5

-

-

52-Week

High

0.680

0.599

1.089

0.857

0.116

0.082

0.570 0.492 0.436

50

Low

797

0.420 0.380 0.390 797

on high

-10.3%

-14.6% -26.3%

-22.4%

-11.8% -3.7%

0.0%

% Change YTD

1.2%

-26.3%

1,306,547

-7.7%

624,960

-30.0%

637,729

0.0%

-22.4%

10.7% 1.4%

0.0%

-9.5%

46.2%

0.424

0.270

-28.3%

1.3%

-9.5%

3,193,316

-14.6%

0.0%

0.065

0.560

-6.6%

-0.4%

0.105

0.630

12 mths

-0.9%

Market Cap. (BHD '000)

-6.7%

-17.4%

-13.0%

-24.0%

943,712

Trailing

PE

10.3 8.0 6.4

84,571

nmf

357,570

11.2

254,455

nmf

487,555

253,707

PB

1.3

0.8 0.4

0.8

7.8

1.2

4.5

0.6

10.7

1.8

nmf

1.5 0.4

1.2

LIFE

Ways to keep your memory sharp Though you can’t always ward off memory problems, studies have shown there are things you can do to help keep your mind sharp. The Cleveland Clinic offers these suggestions: •Go back to school. Continuing education has been shown to delay dementia. •Maintain a healthy diet. Eat foods that are rich in antioxidants and olive oil. •Train your memory. Formal memory training has been shown to improve learning and retention. •Play board games or play a musical instrument. •Manage your risk of cardiovascular disease, such as by taking steps to lower high blood pressure.

thursDAY, april 5, 2012

First truly ‘alien earth’ may be found by 2014: NASA scientist The first true “alien Earth” will likely be discovered in the next two years, a NASA scientist says according to SPACE. Astronomers have found more than 750 alien planets to date, and NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope has flagged 2,300 additional “candidates” awaiting confirmation by follow-up studies. This haul has not yet included an Earth-like exoplanet - one that’s the size of our planet and orbits at the right distance from its star to support liquid water and, possibly, life as we know it.

But that could change soon, according to Shawn Domagal-Goldman, a researcher at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. who specializes in exoplanet biology.

“I believe Kepler will find a ‘Goldilocks planet’ within the next two years,” DomagalGoldman said in a statement. “We’ll be able to point at a specific star in the night sky and say ‘There it is - a planet that could support life!’”

Some NASA officials appear to share Domagal-Goldman’s optimism, for the agency is already looking into ways to study alien Earths once they’re found.

It’s difficult to investigate such worlds directly, since faraway Earth-size planets are small and faint, their dim light almost completely drowned out by the bright glare of their parent stars. But researchers are confident that an indirect approach, called transit spectroscopy, can reveal a lot about Gol-

FILE - An artist’s illustration of the extrasolar planets discovered around the star Kepler 11 by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope. (AFP)

dilocks worlds.This technique scrutinizes starlight that bounces off the atmosphere of an alien Earth on its way to our cosmic neighborhood. Such starlight carries a sort of fingerprint of the atmosphere, which as-

Sweets and fast food linked to depression NEW YORK: Diet and mental state seem to be tightly entwined, with new research showing an increased risk of depression in junk-food eaters according to LiveScience.

Consumers of fast food and sweets, compared with those who eat little or none, were 51 percent more likely to develop depression, the new study showed. The researchers saw that as depression levels increased, so did the amount of junk food eaten.

Study researcher Almudena Sánchez-Villegas, of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Spain, said in a statement that “although more studies are necessary, the intake of this type of food should be controlled because of its implications on both health (obesity, cardiovascular diseases) and mental well-being.”

The researchers studied a group of almost 9,000 people for between two and six years as a part of a long-term, ongoing study. (People with extremely high or low daily caloric intake, or had obesity-related diseases, were excluded.)

At the beginning of the study, none had been diagnosed with depression, or ever taken antidepressants. By the end of the study almost 500 had been diagnosed with depression or put on antidepressants.

Participants were also asked to report how frequently they eat a given list of foods, with things like hamburgers, sausages and pizza considered fast food, and muffins, doughnuts and croissants

examples of baked goods.

“The more fast food you consume, the greater the risk of depression,” Sánchez-Villegas said. The correlation could also go the other way: The more depressed you are the more likely you are to consume large amounts of junk food.

Sánchez-Villegas and colleagues found similar results in a past study, showing that people who ate the most trans fats had a 48 percent higher risk of depression than those who didn’t eat trans fats.

Another study, by a differeant group of researchers, found a 42 percent increase in risk of depression with a fastfood diet.

That study was published in Jan 26, 2011 in the journal PLoS ONE. The researchers can’t say the depression causes the high levels of junk food eating or if the fatty diet and other factors lead to depression.

All they can say is the two usually come hand in hand.

People who eat high levels of junk food are also more likely to be single, less active and have other poor dietary habits, like eating fewer fruits and vegetables, and fewer healthy fats, like nuts, fish and olive oil.

Other characteristics of a depressed and junk-food ridden lifestyle: Being a smoker and working more than 45 hours per week, the researchers noted in their study published in the March 2012 issue of the journal Public Health Nutrition, and available online in August 2011.

Brazil wants Rio+20 meet to impose sustainable development

PARIS: Brazil wants the upcoming Rio summit on sustainable development to impose the concept as a development model for the world, one of the organizers said Tuesday. “We are at a time when crises are multiplying, political crisis, environmental crisis,” Ambassador Luiz Alberto Figueiredo told foreign correspondents here. “Rio+20 will provide an opportunity to review those crises triggered by the current development model.”

The Rio+20 summit scheduled for June 20-22, the fourth major summit on sustainable development since 1972, is to take up a broad range of issues on the health of the world, including growth, food security, access to water, lifestyles, energy, biodiversity and climate.

Figueiredo said the gathering “will be a success if it adopts clear (sustainable development) goals” for the next 20 years which can balance economic growth, poverty eradication and protection of the environment.

Asked about the lack of sanctions in case of non-compliance with the goals set, he replied: “When one sets development targets for the millennium, one does not think in terms of sanctions.”“Rio+20 will establish bridges between the various perceptions and positions on the green economy,” he noted. “Some countries fear that this green economy may be used as a trade barrier.”

The first official draft of the June conference released in January recognizes the limitations of gross domestic product as a measure of wellbeing.

It stresses the need “to further develop and strengthen indicators complementing GDP that integrate economic, social and environmental dimensions in a balanced manner.” One of its key proposals involves defining “sustainable development goals” that commit countries to meeting targets in the areas of food security, access to water, green jobs and even “sustainable production and consumption models.”

These goals would complement the poverty-reduction Millennium Development Goals set by 192 countries in 2000.

Figueiredo rejected as “unfounded” charges by 39 civil society groups that Brasilia under President Dilma Rousseff had “backtracked” with respect to protection of the environment. “Brazil will arrive at the summit with outstanding results: It’s a country which has made progress, which has fostered social inclusion and which has reduced like never before its deforestation rates,” Figueiredo said.

tronomers can study to learn about the atmosphere’s composition.

“The reflected light of an exoplanet tells its story,” said Doug Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters.

One new mission under consideration, called Finesse, uses the transit spectroscopy method. Finesse, which is short for “Fast INfrared Exoplanet Spectroscopy Survey Explorer,” would measure the spectra of stars

and their planets in two situations - once when the planet is in view, and again when it’s hidden behind its star. The mission would be able to separate the planet’s dim light from the star’s blazing glare, revealing the composition of the planet’s atmosphere in the process, researchers said.

NASA is also considering an observatory named Tess (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite). Supported in part by Google, this mission is designed to find alien planets in our local galactic neighborhood. Tess would study hundreds of stars within 50 light-years of Earth, close enough to study in some detail.

“With better detectors and instruments designed to block the glare of the parent stars, these next-generation telescopes could not only find a Goldilocks planet, but also tell us what its atmosphere is made of, what sort of cloud cover graces its skies, and maybe even what the surface is like - whether oceans cover part of the globe, how much land there is, and so on,” Hudgins said.

Domagal-Goldman expects big finds, and big surprises.

“We’ve found so many unexpected things about planets that now I expect to be amazed,” he said. “When we can study a Goldilocks planet, I believe we’ll discover something revolutionary about how life interacts with a planetary environment. Nature is so much more diverse than we anticipated.”

Big astronomy demands prompt growth for European observatory

NEW YORK: The European Southern Observatory is expanding its headquarters in Germany to meet the growing demands of its current and future projects, including an audacious plan to build the largest telescope on Earth, observatory officials say according to LiveScience.

The new office and technical building at ESO’s existing headquarters in Garching, Germany will more than double the area currently occupied by the intergovernmental agency, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

The new ESO facilities will be used to house more staff, and to support technological innovations for projects such as the planned European Extremely Large Telescope, which is being billed as the world’s largest optical telescope.

“The construction of the new building is an

important milestone in ESO’s history as it will enable us to work even more efficiently towards achieving our vision of building and operating world-class ground-based observing facilities,” Tim de Zeeuw, ESO’s director general, said in a statement. “At the same time, having all our headquarters staff working in one place will provide a strong sense of identity.”

The additions will include a new office and technical building, plus a covered bridge to connect them to the original facilities on the campus.

The new designs will modern and innovatively styled, but will also maintain the curved look of the existing buildings, ESO officials said. The new facilities will be “green buildings,” and will make extensive use of natural light, they added.

The design of the new buildings is being han-

dled by German architecture firm Auer+Weber.

Construction began in January and work is expected to be complete near the end of 2013.

ESO operates several large telescopes located in Chile, including the New Technology Telescope at the La Silla Observatory, the Very Large Telescope on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert, and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), also in the Atacama Desert.

The 138-foot (42-meter) European Extremely Large Telescope will be built in the Cerro Amazones in Chile. Construction of the $1.43 billion telescope is scheduled to begin this year.

ESO is made up of 15 member states, and employs roughly 740 total staff members at its headquarters in Germany and at the organization’s observatories in Chile.

Earth usually has more than one moon, study suggests

WASHINGTON: Earth usually has more than one moon at any given time, according to the results of a new computer simulation according to SPACE. The huge, bright and iconic moon so beloved by poets and romantics is joined by a rotating cast of captured asteroids that often measure just a few feet across.

These mini-moons typically orbit Earth for less than a year before zipping back off into space, researchers said.

The scientists used a French supercomputer to simulate the movements of 10 million nearEarth asteroids as they passed by our planet.

They then tracked the trajectories of the 18,000 space rocks that Earth’s gravity captured in the simulation.

The team concluded that at least one asteroid with a diameter of 3 feet (1 meter) or more is orbiting our planet at any one time.

There may be many smaller objects circling Earth, too, but the study didn’t address them; it was tough enough to model the motions of the bigger space rocks.

“This was one of the largest and longest computations I’ve ever done,” study co-author Jeremie Vaubaillon of the Paris Observatory said in a statement.

“If you were to try to do this on your home computer, it would take about six years.”

Eventually, minimoons break free of Earth’s gravity and resume their paths around the sun.

This happens at about nine months for the typical minimoon, but some of them may orbit Earth for decades, researchers said.

Most asteroids snagged by Earth’s gravity don’t zoom around our planet in neat circles, ac-

FILE - Image of the near-Earth asteroid Itokawa. The boulder-free areas appear relatively smooth and are filled with small, uniformly sized particles. (Agencies)

cording to the simulation. Instead, they follow complicated, twisting paths, tugged this way and that by the gravitational pulls of Earth, the moon and the sun.

Observations have shown that Earth does indeed harbor minimoons. In 2006, for example, the University of Arizona’s Catalina Sky Survey discovered one about the size of a car.

Known as 2006 RH120, the asteroid orbited Earth for less than a year after its discovery.

A better understanding of the number and nature of Earth’s minimoons could have practical benefits, researchers said.

“Minimoons are scientifically extremely in-

teresting,” said co-author Robert Jedicke of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “A minimoon could someday be brought back to Earth, giving us a low-cost way to examine a sample of material that has not changed much since the beginning of our solar system over 4.6 billion years ago.”

Our “main” moon, which measures 2,159 miles (3,474 kilometers) across, has been orbiting Earth for more than 4 billion years.

Most scientists think it formed from the debris that was blasted into space when a Mars-size body slammed into Earth in the solar system’s early days.

Some veggies improve breast cancer survival: Study

PARIS: Chinese women who ate cabbage, broccoli and leafy greens saw improved survival rates after breast cancer than women who did not eat these cruciferous vegetables, said a US study presented on Tuesday.

The findings came from data on 4,886 Chinese breast cancer survivors age 20-75 who were diagnosed with stage one to stage four breast cancer from 2002 to 2006 and who were part of the Shanghai Breast Cancer Survival study.

Women who ate more cruciferous vegetables over the 36 months following their diagnosis saw their risk of dying from any cause decrease by 27 percent to 62 percent compared to women who

reporting eating little or none of these veggies.

The risk of dying of breast cancer decreased by 22 to 62 percent for the cruciferous veggie eaters, and their chance of experiencing a recurrence of breast cancer dropped by 21 to 35 percent.

Sarah Nechuta, a postdoctoral research fellow at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, said the findings suggest breast cancer survivors “may consider increasing intake of cruciferous vegetables, such as greens, cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli, as part of a healthy diet.”

Nechuta, who presented the study at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting in Chicago, pointed out that diets among

Chinese and Western women tend to vary.

“Commonly consumed cruciferous vegetables in China include turnips, Chinese cabbage/ bok choy and greens, while broccoli and brussel sprouts are the more commonly consumed cruciferous vegetables in the United States and other Western countries,” she said.

“Second, the amount of intake among Chinese women is much higher than that of US women.”

Nechuta said future research could focus on the role of the bioactive compounds in cruciferous vegetables -- namely isothiocyanates and indoles -- and how varying doses may have an effect on cancer. -AFP

16

ALWATAN DAILY

CULTURE

thursDAY, april 5, 2012

AUK hosts lecture on shopping malls and their possible downfall in the future Michael A. Kolarov Staff Writer

KUWAIT: The American University of Kuwait (AUK) hosted a lecture by Ian Buchanan on April 3, which critically examined the concept of the shopping mall and its points of attraction and significance to society. Buchanan also touched on the growing trend of e-commerce and questioned whether or not the mall as we know it would be economically viable in the future. Buchanan is the author of four philosophical books on the thinking of Gilles Deleuze and Michel de Certeau and combines them for the purposes of cultural analysis.

Buchanan began his presentation by discussing the origins of the modern shopping mall, crediting their creation to an Austrian architect named Victor Gruen in America in the 1950’s. This was the golden age of the car according to Buchanan and it is noteworthy that Gruen came up with the concept of a pedestrian shopping mall during this time because the thinks of that era strongly believed that the car had rendered pedestrian shopping obsolete.

Buchanan explained that at the time, it was widely believed that people simply wanted to park their cars outside a shop, walk a few meters to the store, pick up what they needed and get back into Ian Buchanan speaking at the American University of Kuwait on April 3, 2012. (Michael A. Kolarov) their cars and drive away. But Gruen was an advocate of prioritizing pedestrians over cars in the tries. Tourists can feel assured that they can find duction. In the United States more than 93 percent urban space at a time when the financial backers the same things they love in their own countries of what is sold in malls is made anywhere but the he was courting for the first mall project fervently will be in their destination country.

United States. He suggests that number could be believed that pedestrian shopping was dead.

Buchanan believes that the most radical thing much closer to 100 percent for Kuwait.

Buchanan goes on to outline how the mall has the mall has done to society is to separate the idea Buchanan touched on the idea that the interbecome an important social center in the urban of shopping and buying. “Going to the mall now is net has made it possible for someone to go to a society. He quotes Fredric Jameson, an American a social experience first, and a commercial experishop in a mall, try on a jacket, decide if he or she literary critic and Marxist political theorist who ence second.” he said. likes that jacket, note down the size, and go to the said that “the malls have spread across the planet The mall is a place to just walk around and internet and order it for half the price. This trend like a toxic moss across the whole planet.” Buchbe seen, a place to see other people, and examine towards the internet suggest that the way people anan felt that quote a perhaps a bit too nasty, but their behavior. An audience member explained shop will change, the new store front will be your that it is true that the malls have spread, and it was how she felt there was an issue of scrutiny in the Computer or your Smartphone, and the compabecause they were successful. malls, people looking at you critically and judgnies that manufacture the products will continue According to Buchanan the mall has three ing you, to which Buchanan responded that social to do well, but the companies that own the malls key features that make it so successful. The first is scrutiny was exactly what went on in malls, and will not. climate control; it separates you from the climate that complaining about it was like going through In conclusion, Buchanan contends that the urmaking it more comfortable for people. The second an x-ray machine and complaining that it can see ban space is under threat in ways which it hasn’t thing is the escalator, people want to visit the mall, through to your bones. yet begun to grasp. If most of the world’s shopping they want to shop, but they don’t want to walk up Buchanan then went onto explain that the mall is done on the internet how will the mall survive? and down all the stairs to get to the shops. Which is a part of our social structure whether we like it He suggests that the mall will have to change to behe believes is paradoxical because people want to or not, but that it was under threat from the Income a social nucleus, by having a mall surroundmove around, but they just don’t want to actually ternet. Buchanan says that in the United Kingdom ed by living space to draw in the crowds, but even have to move around themselves, so the developfor example, more than 30 percent of all buying is that wouldn’t be sustainable due to the growth of ment of the escalator gave malls the ability to exdone on the Internet, which is affecting the high e-commerce. Even traffic jams are contributing to tend vertically. street stores because it’s cheaper to buy from the the end of the mall because people lose the will to Finally the franchise model of the shop. Acinternet than at the stores. endure the jams to reach the mall and in the end cording to Buchanan the franchise has become a Globalization has a part to play in the possible decide to just order whatever they want from the sign of modernity in a country, as a country bedownfall of the mall, ironically, as according to Buinternet. Buchanan’s speculation is that mall will comes wealthier, the first thing they’d want to do is chanan it was the very thing that helped make the be replaced by things that came before the mall, to have all the same brands as the other rich counmalls successful, it was the globalization of prosuch as the arcade and the promenade.

Dior exhibit set to trace 60 years of film fashion

FILE - In this Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 file photo US actress Cameron Diaz arrives to the Dior SpringSummer 2012 Haute Couture fashion collection, in Paris. (AP)

PARIS: Christian Dior is set to take a high-heeled stroll through cinema history next month in a retrospective that traces the design house’s close links with the fashions - and fickleness- of the silver screen.

The exhibit, “Stars in Dior,” will feature a rare collection of some 50 Dior gowns, worn by actresses including Grace Kelly, Olivia de Havilland and Elizabeth Taylor, both on and off the screen over six decades.

“For Dior, cinema was so important - not many people know, but that’s where it all started. In the beginning, he first designed costumes for ballet and film,” exhibit curator Barbara Jeauffroy-Mairet said Tuesday.

The show, at the Christian Dior museum in the designer’s childhood home in Normandy, will also present an entire section dedicated uniquely to German-American actress Marlene Dietrich, a fashion icon and Dior client since 1947.

Known for her androgynous style, the collection will feature insightful documentary evidence about the star, such as telegrams, bills and receipts for men’s sweaters she ordered from the house. Dietrich, a close friend of the designer, once famously refused to star in an Alfred Hitchcock film unless he created the costumes, according to Jeauffroy-Mairet. “She declared, ‘No Dior, No Dietrich,’ and this exhibit really shows how headstrong she was.”

The curator also said some of the 10 Dietrich ensembles will highlight how unique and daring she was when it came to her wardrobe.

Spread over three floors, the multimedia exhibit will additionally connect the dots between film and fashion with movie clips and posters. There will be behind the scenes footage from a recent TV advertising campaign called “J’adore Dior,” featuring Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron alongside images of other Hollywood legends including Kelly and Marilyn Monroe. “Stars in Dior” opens May 12 at the Christian Dior Museum and runs through Sept. 23. A companion book is planned. -AP

Bloody grass ‘from Gandhi assassination’ to be sold

LONDON: Samples of soil and blades of bloody grass purportedly from the spot where Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated in 1948 will go on sale in Britain later this month and are expected to fetch 10-15,000 pounds ($16-24,000).

Mullock’s auctioneer in western England said it was confident the artifacts were genuine, because they came with a letter of provenance from original owner P.P. Nambiar who collected them after the revered “Father of the Nation” was shot by a Hindu radical.

The samples also matched the account Nambiar gave of the events of 1948 in which he described finding a drop of Gandhi’s blood on the grass which he collected.

“I cut the grass and also took two pinches of soil from the brink of the pothole which I wrapped in a piece of Hindi newspaper found nearby,” he wrote.

Richard Westwood-Brookes, the auction house’s historical documents expert, said it was often difficult to prove whether such artifacts were genuine, and his attribution of paintings to Adolf Hitler has been questioned by art experts in the past.

“In this situation I’ve got a letter from the guy who collected it -- P.P. Nambiar, and I’ve also got the pages from his book that he published in which he described collecting this soil,” Westwood-Brookes told Reuters.

“So in this situation I don’t think there can be any doubt.”

He was also confident that a pair of spectacles made in Gloucester, also in western England, and dating from around 1891 had once belonged to the Indian independence hero.

“I did question the vendor on that very carefully, because the optician who made the spectacles came from Gloucester and you immediately think ‘How can that be?’.”

The steel-rimmed glasses, also valued at 10-15,000 pounds, date from the time that Gandhi was in Britain studying law.

During his stay he joined the London Vegetarian Society, through which he made friends from Gloucester, according to the auctioneer’s catalogue notes.

Overall, the Gandhi collection that includes signed letters and a prayer book is expected to raise 80-100,000 pounds, although Westwood-Brookes said it was difficult to place a value on some of the more unusual lots.

“That’s my honest idea about estimates,” he said.

“The letters are much easier to value because there’s plenty of auction records which give a good pointer as to what an important Gandhi letter is worth.

But how on earth do you put an estimate on a piece of soil?”

The Gandhi collection will go under the hammer on April 17 as part of Mullock’s’ historical documents, autographs and ephemera auction. -Reuters

Britain’s beaming royal couple reproduced in wax

Harper Lee’s sister gives glimpses of reclusive author’s life

LONDON: Glimpses into the family life of the famously reclusive author of ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’, Harper Lee, have been given by her sister Alice, a practicing lawyer who recently turned 100, reports The Guardian.

Alice Finch Lee, known as Miss Alice, was speaking to documentary maker Mary McDonagh Murphy. Although her sister Nelle Harper Lee gave her last interview in 1964, Miss Alice was persuaded to talk to Murphy, telling the filmmaker that her sister “grew up quite the little tomboy”, and that she later became an author who “did not think that a writer needed to be recognized in person and it bothered her when she became too familiar.”

Murphy saw Miss Alice at her 100th birthday party, thrown in the Monroeville, Alabama, offices of her law firm Barnett, Bugg, Lee & Carter (but not attended by her sister Harper, who went instead to a family-only gathering two days later). Asked

by Murphy how she had lived so long, Miss Alice said: “I don’t do anything to bring on dying. I live day by day.” Her nephew Hank Conner told the documentary maker, whose film Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird was released to mark 50 years since the novel was published in 2010, that “Southerners are always attributing things - good and bad - to genes and breeding. Miss Alice comes from good stock.”

Conner also told Murphy about how his other aunt, Nelle Harper, would play the original cast album from Annie Get Your Gun, and how, later, “manuscripts” would arrive at the sisters’ childhood home on South Alabama Avenue addressed to Miss Alice from New York. At the time, Harper Lee was living in the city, working by day as an airline ticket reservationist, and writing by night. “Alice is a very good editor and a very good copy editor,” he said. News of the manuscripts, plural, will be greeted with interest by the author’s millions of fans: Lee has not published another novel since To Kill A Mockingbird took the world by storm in 1960, although she said in 1964 that she was working on a second novel “and it goes slowly, ever so slowly”. She dedicated her debut, a Pulitzer prize-winning story of racism in the American south, to her sister Alice and her father, “in consideration of Love & Affection”.

Miss Alice revealed to Murphy how she was asked by her father - the inspiration for Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird - if she would like to join his law firm after she passed her bar exam in 1943. “He wasn’t pushing or anything,” she said, “He was just being like he’d always been: ‘Do your own thing but do it well.’” She had two questions for him. “When you grow up in one town, you are always Mr Lee’s little girl. ‘Would I be an adult separate and apart from you?’ Daddy said, ‘I think you’ve been gone long enough for that not to happen.’” Then she asked: “’How is a small town going to react to a woman in a law office?’

There were not many around those days. And my father smiled and said, ‘You’ll never know until you try.’”

She has worked at Barnett, Bugg, Lee & Carter ever since.

She does the New York Times Sunday crossword every week, still reads voraciously, enjoying “splashy criminal proceedings”, and sends herself to sleep by naming presidents. “She recites the names of all the presidents of the United States,” wrote Murphy in a piece for the Daily Beast about her interview with the 100year-old lawyer. “If not asleep by the time she gets to Obama, she moves on to list all 53 governors or all 67 counties of Alabama. If still awake, she goes to work on all the vice presidents of the United States or all the first ladies - of Alabama.”

An employee (left) poses with waxwork models of Britain’s Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge (second right) and Prince William (right) during their unveiling at Madame Tussauds waxwork museum in central London on April 4, 2012. (AFP)

LONDON: Madame Tussauds unveiled waxwork figures of British royal couple Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge on Wednesday, and expected the couple, now international celebrities in their own right, to be among the main attractions.

The new figures were dressed in replicas of the outfits they wore when announcing their engagement in 2010.

Their engagement and wedding in April last year have triggered a resurgence in the popularity of the British monarchy, which is expected to build this summer when the country celebrates Queen Elizabeth’s 60 years on the throne.

The Duchess, then Kate Middleton, appeared at the engagement announcement in a blue Issa dress and a sapphire and diamond ring once worn by Diana, Princess of Wales, William’s late mother.

The ring has also been reproduced, although it was obscured by a handbag at Madame Tussauds, where dozens of photographers and camera crews showed up to capture the models.

Madame Tussauds in New York and Amsterdam were to reveal their own versions of the models on Wednesday wearing different outfits.

In New York, the duchess is dressed in a replica Alexander McQueen floorlength gown and Amsterdam will show her in a version of the lace Alice Temperley number she wore at the red carpet premiere of “War Horse”.

According to the waxwork attraction, its relationship with the British royal family goes back to William IV who was king when the first attraction opened in London in 1835.

Queen Elizabeth has sat six times for the studio team working on her models.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge did not personally attend a sitting for their beaming reproductions, but were “closely involved and kept informed at every stage of the process,” Madame Tussauds said.

Each figure cost around 150,000 pounds ($240,000) to create and took a team of sculptors and hair and color artists four months to complete. -Reuters

ALWATAN DAILY

entertainment Song Of The Day

Fahad AlSabah Staff Writer

Song: Tears Dry (Original Version) Artist: Amy Winehouse Album: Lioness: Hidden Treasures Genre: Soul In short: The original version of Amy Winehouse’s “Tears Dry On Their Own” was featured on her posthumous album, Lioness, and while many might prefer an original song instead of a different version of an already hit single, Winehouse’s soul lingers still on the original, rugged version of “Tears Dry.” To listen to the song visit www.alwatandaily.com E-mail your feedback to falsabah@alwatandaily.com

The Buzz Alec Baldwin goes Twitter-ballistic for fiancee When it comes to his 28-year-old fiancee, Alec Baldwin is very protective. He used Twitter to blast a New York newspaper for “crashing” yoga instructor Hilaria Thomas’ class. He tweeted Monday: “Shame on the no-talent trash from the Daily News for invading the privacy of 75 people in a yoga class to take a picture of someone.” Baldwin also posted the names of reporters at the class. He included a picture of one, and called her “nutty,” followed by a mild curse word. -AP

Burger King ad with Blige stirs criticism A Burger King commercial featuring Mary J. Blige singing about chicken has been pulled. But the fast-food chain is blaming music licensing issues for the decision - not criticism of the ad. The spot debuted this week. In it, Blige sings soulfully about chicken snack wraps. But as the video went viral, some in the black community criticized the ad as stereotypical. The black women-oriented website Madame Noire likened it to “buffoonery.” Burger King said Tuesday the commercial was pulled because of a licensing concern.

The company said it hopes to have the Blige “ads back on the air soon,” though a spokeswoman would not comment on whether they ads would be the same. -AP

Country star George Jones released from hospital Country music legend George Jones is out of the hospital after nearly a week of treatment for an upper respiratory infection. A statement from Jones’ publicist, Kirt Webster, says Jones “wants to thank all his friends and fans for their prayers and well wishes over the past few days.” The statement says Jones will be resting at home until his next concert on April 20 in Mahnomen, Minn. Webster has denied rumors that 80-year-old had been suffering from pneumonia. He was admitted to a Nashville-area hospital last Thursday and was treated with antibiotics. -AP

Neil Patrick Harris to host Tony Awards Neil Patrick Harris will return to host Broadway’s biggest night at the Tony Awards to be held in June, the CBS network said on Tuesday. The annual Tony Awards, which honors Broadway’s best musicals and plays, will be broadcast live on CBS from New York’s Beacon Theater on June 10. Harris, 38, the Emmy Award-winning star of TV comedy “How I Met Your Mother” and numerous roles in Broadway musicals and plays, is hosting the awards for the third time. In a statement he said he was thrilled to again be “shining a spotlight” on Broadway’s most acclaimed shows. -Reuters

thursDAY, april 5, 2012

Thailand bans film based on ‘Macbeth’, fearing disunity BANGKOK: Censors in Thailand have banned a film based on William Shakespeare’s tragedy ‘Macbeth’, saying it could cause divisions in the country where an uneasy truce persists after several years of sometimes bloody upheaval and political polarization.

A trailer for the film, directed by Ing Kanjanavanit, shows scenes from Thailand’s recent past, including a 1973 crackdown on student protesters and street clashes in 2010 between the military and anti-government demonstrators in which 91 died.

“The film ‘Shakespeare Must Die’ has content that causes divisiveness among the people of the nation,” the Film Censorship Board said in a statement late on Tuesday.

“The film is grouped under films that are not allowed to be distributed in the Kingdom.”

‘Macbeth’ is the story of a power-hungry general in ancient Scotland who kills the king for his throne, and commits more murders to hold onto it.

Themes of greed and power could touch a raw nerve among Thais who have been divided since the run-up to a 2006 coup that toppled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

He is adored by the rural masses, but detested by royalists and Bangkok’s elite.

Thaksin and some of his supporters have been accused of republican leanings, charges they deny.

Anything that involves monarchy is a

Director of “Shakespeare Must Die” Ing Kanjanavanit show DVD send to Thailand’s film censorship board in Bangkok on Wednesday April 4,2012. (AP)

highly sensitive issue in Thailand. Ailing 84year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej is regarded as semi-divine and criticism of the monar-

chy can be met with charges of lese-majeste, which carry up to 15 years in jail.

That does not appear to be the trouble

LONDON: Could Beatlemania see a revival through the offspring of the Fab Four?

James McCartney, son of Beatles singer Paul McCartney, said a new generation of The Beatles could be on the horizon, in an interview with the BBC published on its website on Monday.

The 34-year-old musician, who is following his famous father’s footsteps into the industry, said that forming a band with fellow Beatles children Sean Lennon (son of John Lennon), Dhani Harrison (son of George Harrison) and Zak and Jason Starkey (Ringo Starr’s sons) was not out of the question.

“I don’t think it’s something that Zak wants to do. Maybe Jason would want to do it. I’d be up for it. Sean seemed to be into it, Dhani seemed to be into it. I’d be happy to do it,” said McCartney.

Asked if the band realistically could happen, the singer added, “Yeah, hopefully, naturally. I

don’t know, you’d have to wait and see. The will of God, nature’s support, I guess. So yeah, maybe.”

The Beatles, who hailed from Liverpool, England, became one of the best-selling bands in the world in the 1960s, triggering a wave of Beatlemania for hits like “Love Me Do”, “Yellow Submarine” and “Let it Be.” They split in a bitter breakup in the early 1970s, and went on to solo careers.

The younger McCartney is currently launching his own music career after playing with his father on two of his albums, and said his rock lineage has helped him in his career, welcoming comparisons between himself and his father.

“I think it’s an honor. I don’t really think I am quite as good as The Beatles or my father but there are definitely influences,” said the singer. -Reuters

Jack Wagner is dismissed from Dancing NEW YORK: Last year was both a good one and, it turns out, a bad one for soap opera actor Jack Wagner as his Samba to “Lighting Up the Night” spelled the end of his competing on “Dancing With the Stars” on Tuesday.

Wagner, 52, was sent packing during the TV show’s “most-memorable year” themed week in which the dancers selected a particular year for inspiration. The actor, who was partnered with professional ballroom dancer Anna Trebunskaya, chose 2011 as his most memorable when he discovered he had a daughter.

Wagner looked surprised to be eliminated but said “I had a great time, and it was kind of great to test myself.” He could take solace in comments from judge Len Goodman, who said of Wagner’s performance on Monday night’s program: “For me, your best dance yet.”

The judges praised all the dancers this week,

and Goodman went so far as to say they all performed so well that “no one deserves to go home tonight.” The dancers’ scores were clustered together after Monday’s performance show with only five points separating the first-place dancers from the lowest scorers.

Five dancers, including Wagner, were tied at the bottom with 24. The other two dancers who faced elimination were singer Gladys Knight and musician Gavin DeGraw, who came in second-tolast for the second straight week.

Viewer votes combined with judges’ ratings decide which star is eliminated each week.

But host Tom Bergeron on Tuesday unveiled a new twist in the popular TV contest. In coming weeks, the bottom-two couples will have a dance-off with the judges deciding who goes home based on their last-chance dance. Ten stars remain in the competition. -Reuters

Letterman, Ferguson sign new deals with CBS

Democratic leaders in Tennessee are sending actress Ashley Judd as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in September. The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville reports that Judd is one of three delegates selected by party officials in Williamson County to serve in at-large positions at the convention. Judd has been outspoken on a variety of humanitarian and social justice issues and has supported local Democratic candidates in the past. The convention will be held in Charlotte, N.C., during the first week of September. -AP

FILE - Madonna signs the Facebook wall before her livestream interview with Jimmy Fallon at the Facebook offices on March 24, 2012 in New York City. (AFP)

LOS ANGELES: Madonna retained the title Queen of Pop by taking the throne of the Billboard 200 album chart for the eighth time on Tuesday, as her latest album “MDNA” beat Lionel Richie’s country themed “Tuskegee” to the top of the weekly sales list.

Madonna’s 12th studio album, dedicated to club-friendly dance tracks, sold 359,000 copies in its first week according to Nielsen SoundScan, despite lukewarm reviews from critics and minimal promotional appearances by the singer.

This is the fifth time in the 53-year-old singer’s career that her album has debuted at No. 1, following her 2008 CD “Hard Candy,” and she is the second woman to top the chart eight times behind Barbra Streisand, who holds the title with nine chart-topping albums.

“MDNA” also was No. 1 on iTunes charts in 40 countries and had the biggest single day pre-sales on iTunes by any art-

ist in history, Madonna’s label Interscope Records said in a statement.

Album sales were also boosted by Madonna’s upcoming world tour because customers buying tickets also were given the option to receive the album as part of their purchase.

Veteran soul singer Richie, 62, changed directions musically and embraced country music for his 10th studio album “Tuskegee,” collaborating with country stars such as Blake Shelton, Jason Aldean, Shania Twain and Willie Nelson on classic Richie tunes.

The album sold 199,000 copies in its first week and entered the Billboard chart at No. 2, boosted by its all-star lineup and an hour-long concert special on the Home Shopping Network channel two weeks ago, when 20,000 copies were sold. “Tuskegee” is Richie’s highest charting album since 1986, when “Dancing On The Ceiling” topped the chart. -Reuters

Olbermann says ‘screwed up’ with move to Current

“That ‘70s Show” actress Lisa Robin Kelly was arrested on Saturday on felony charges of corporal injury on a spouse and released on $50,000 bail. Kelly, 42, played Laurie, the sister of Topher Grace’s Eric and occasional love interest of Ashton Kutcher’s Kelso, on the Fox sitcom. Kelly was arrested by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department at 12:50 p.m. on Saturday, and by Saturday evening, she had been released on bail, the department said. -Reuters

Ashley Judd to be Democratic convention delegate

with the film, which was the last one to receive support from a Culture Ministry fund under the previous government of Abhisit Vejjajiva, an opponent of Thaksin.

“I was shocked. I didn’t expect this film to be banned,” director Ing told Reuters on Wednesday. “Yesterday the censor board asked me if I wanted to change the current political system.”

Thaksin’s sister Yingluck is now prime minister, but he remains in self-imposed exile, refusing to return if he has to serve jail time for a graft conviction he says was politically motivated.

In Thailand, viewers would be likely to associate Ing’s depiction of red-clad protesters with pro-Thaksin supporters known as the “red shirts”, who brought central Bangkok to a halt for nine weeks in 2010 before their movement was ended by the military.

Ing defended her use of the color.

“Red is the universal color for killer. In Thai soap operas the bad guys wear red, so why am I not allowed to use it?”

“Did Thaksin affect my life? Absolutely.

In this sense the film is a political one but we also wanted to bring Shakespeare to a Thai audience,” she said.

“We made a Shakespearean film because we are living through Shakespearean times.

People find the truth in fictional form threatening.” -Reuters

Madonna keeps pop crown, Beatles offspring could form next generation band MDNA tops Billboard chart

That ‘70s Show’s Lisa Robin Kelly arrested

CBS late night hosts David Letterman and Craig Fergsuson have signed new contracts to continue appearing on CBS through 2014. As part of this new deal, Ferguson’s “Late Late Show” will move to a larger stage at CBS Television City in Los Angeles, and CBS will co-produce the series with Worldwide Pants, Inc., which also produces Letterman’s “Late Show.”

Letterman, who recently surpassed mentor Johnny Carson as the longest-running late night host, debuted “The Late Show” on CBS on August 30, 1993. The former host of NBC’s “Late Night” recently celebrated his 30th year on the air. -Reuters

17

In this April 2, 2012 image released by ABC, actor Jack Wagner and his partner Anna Trebunskaya perform on the celebrity dance competition series “Dancing with the Stars,” in Los Angeles. (AP)

Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels get Dumb and Dumber 2 LOS ANGELES: Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels are doubling down on dumbing down at the movies. At least, according to Peter Farrelly they are.

“Dumb and Dumber” co-writer and co-director Farrelly confirmed that Carrey and Daniels have signed on to reprise their roles as laughinducing nitwits Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne in a sequel to the 1994 comedy. Farrelly made the reveal during Sunday’s junket for the Farrelly Brothers’ upcoming comedy “The Three Stooges,” according to ComingSoon.net.

“We’re getting set to shoot ‘Dumb and Dumber 2’ in September,” Farrelly said. “It’s the first

sequel we’ve ever done and we’ve got Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels back.” The 1994 film chronicled a cross-country trek by well-intentioned but profoundly stupid pals Lloyd and Harry.

The movie spawned a 2003 prequel of sorts, “Dumb and Dumbere r: When Harry Met Lloyd,” starring Derek Richardson and Eric Christian Olsen as Harry and Lloyd, respectively.

Farrelly was quick to disavow the 2003 version during the “Three Stooges” junket. He added that Daniels and Carrey were both eager to do the sequel, but the latter was hampered by schedule conflicts. -Reuters

LONDON: Keith Olbermann, the liberal news anchor fired late last week from Current TV after only one year, said on Tuesday he had “screwed up really big” - by taking the job at the small TV channel in the first place.

In his first public appearance since his split from Current, Olbermann told talk show host David Letterman that he considered quitting Current as early as July 2011. “I screwed up really big on this ... It’s my fault that it didn’t succeed in the sense that I didn’t think the whole thing through,” Olbermann told Letterman on Tuesday’s “Late Show”.

“I didn’t say, ‘You know, if you buy a $10 million chandelier, you should have a house to put it in. Just walking around with a $10 million chandelier isn’t going to do anybody a lot of good, and it’s not going to do any good to the chandelier.’ And then it turned out we didn’t have a lot to put the house on, to put the chandelier in, or a building permit, and I, I should have known that,” he said, acknowledging that he believed he was akin to the chandelier.

Current TV said on Friday it had fired Olbermann, accusing him of breaching his contract, trying to sabotage the channel and repeatedly failing to show up for work. Olbermann joined the tiny progressive public affairs network, founded seven years ago by former US vice president Al Gore and business partner Joel Hyatt, in February 2011 after abruptly quitting his top-rated “Countdown” program on MSNBC. He clashed with Current executives earlier this year over coverage of the 2012 US presidential election campaign.

But on Tuesday, Olbermann said trouble was brewing even earlier. “You could bail out and say ‘I’m getting out of this immediately,’ and trust me, I was thinking about that as early as like last July. We’d been on the air about 10 days and they fired the guy who knew what he was doing who I worked for and I went, ‘Uh-oh,’” he said. Olbermann said however that he decided to carry on for the sake of his audience and his staff. Olbermann said last week he would take legal action over his dismissal. His one-hour primetime “Countdown” show has already been replaced with a new show presented by former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. -Reuters

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ALWATAN DAILY

AROUND TOWN / TIME OUT

THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 2012

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

Feature o f

graffiti

the day

moderately confused

Sabah Al-Ahmad Center for Giftedness and Creativity awards 21 young Kuwaiti talents

KUWAIT: Kuwait’s Sabah AlAhmad Center for Giftedness and Creativity (SACGC) honored the 21 young and aspiring Kuwaiti musicians and artists who showcased their artwork at the threeday Mawaheb Talent Expo that was held at The Avenues Mall earlier last month.

The awards ceremony was held at the theatre of the Kuwait Foundation Advancement of Science (KFAS).

In his opening remarks, SACGC’s General Manager Dr. Omar Al-Bannai, said, “Sabah AlAhmad Center for Giftedness and Creativity continually supports young Kuwaiti talents to succeed to their best ability.

The Mawaheb Talent Expo was our first platform in highlighting the unique work and capabilities of these 21 talents present today directly to the community, and it proved to be a great success as the event attracted an average of 120,000 attendees over a three-day period.”

“We are proud to honor our young talents and at the same time instill the notion that SACGC stands firm in its unwavering commitment in guiding, nurturing and rewarding

Month a t

talent,” he goes on to say.

Dr. Al-Bannai added: “Mawaheb witnessed the ascent of 21 outstanding individuals into the public eye.

At SACGC, we focus on building and promoting a culture of creativity within the community. This awards ceremony is our way to recognize and encourage our local talents in their road to success,” he said.

SACGC is an initiative by HH the Amir of Kuwait to sponsor and support gifted and creative individuals in the community of all ages, and to provide them with support

and mentoring platform that enables them to excel and become globally competitive in their respective fields.

The center defines gifted individuals as individuals who demonstrate outstanding levels of aptitude or competence in one or more domains.

Domains include any structured area of activity with its own symbol system (e.g., mathematics, music, language) and/or set of sensor motor skills (e.g., painting, arts).

The exhibition sets to display some of these talents to the community through “Mawaheb.”

Sudoku

Elementary

Intermediate

Advanced

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

a glance imprint, within each thumb impression he has formulated a pseudo-calligraphic narrative of life experiences on luminous and luxurious enamel weaves.

Golden era club April 13/ 5 p.m. -7 p.m. /Rumaithiya: Join the Golden Era club for a fascinating Earth Day activity. Come armed with old newspapers, a pair of scissors and a bottle of glue. You also get to join Dr. Leos on a fascinating journey through a jewel nestled in central Europe, ranking high in human development. Seniors (60+) don’t miss out on the adventure! Venue- House #34, next to Abu-Tammam Intermediate School for Boys, Sate Alhusari St., Block 2, Rumaithiya. For details call 97172788/ 66208183 or drop a line to goldenera60@yahoo.com

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

K’S PATH’s last Shelter Open Day Kuwaiti cuisine March 15-April 5/6 p.m. - 8 p.m./TIES Center: TIES Ladies Club invites you to our Kuwaiti cuisine classes which will start soon. Join us for a one month cooking program where you will learn to cook real Kuwaiti food. All ladies are invited to join our classes and let your family enjoy the mouth watering Kuwaiti cuisine. For more information/registration, contact 25231015/6.

Arabic course March 11-April 19/ TIES Center: TIES Center is glad to announce the start of Arabic courses. We offer classes for all levels, from beginners to advance and also introduced new classes called Kuwait dialect. TIES Arabic classes are intended for all expatriates who wish to learn Arabic for whatever purposebusiness, basic communication, as a second language or simply as a hobby. For more information/registration, contact 97228860/97793440.

Dar Al Funoon hosts artist Karim Ghidinelli April 2- 19/ 4 p.m. - 8 p.m. / Dar Al Funoon: Born in Italy in 1976, Karim spent his childhood in this city; he went to middle school and high school in African countries. His body of work consists of a central iconic image that of a finger

April 14/ 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. / Wafra: This is a great opportunity for visitors to interact and socialize with our dogs and cats for adoption, get acquainted with K’S PATH’s work in animal welfare and habitat protection through a shelter tour, and meet K’S PATH’s growing team of volunteers and staff. We will also hold an educational session for children on Kuwait’s desert and marine species followed by a crafts session to build a model desert and marine habitat

Mario is a gentle and affectionate 6-years-young Spitz male. This friendly boy does great with people and dogs of all ages.

New Toastmasters Club Second and fourth Tuesday/ 7 p.m. - 9 p.m. / Jabriya: A new Toastmasters Club is being formed and encouraging new members to join. Toastmasters International is a world leader in communication and leadership development. It is a non-profit international organization dedicated to improve member’s communication and leadership skills by attending and participating toastmasters meetings. For more information, please contact Khaled Al-Hashem at 65588824.

French Embassy closure The French Embassy in Kuwait will be closed on Sunday April 8, 2012 for Easter holidays.

Embassy of India The Embassy of India will remain closed on April 5, 2012 on account of “Mahavir Jayanti”.

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

The Philippine Embassy The Philippine Embassy in Kuwait announces that the Department or Foreign Affairs is advising all passport applicants to claim their passports within six (6) months from the date of application. Otherwise, unclaimed passports shall be cancelled and sent back to the Department for disposal.

The Embassy will continue to entertain last minute claimants for such unclaimed passports within the next two months before finally canceling the passport in accordance with the directive of the Department.

Nancy

Horoscopes Aries: March 21 - April 19

Although you generally like to keep both feet on the ground and proceed in a stable, organized manner, Aries, there’s a strong force encouraging you to spread your wings. Incorporate more fantasy into your day, and practice the art of dreaming. Liberate yourself from reality for a while and feel the weight lifted from your shoulders. Let your imagination run wild.

Taurus: April 20 - May 20

You might be pegged as the wise guy who’s unable to take anything seriously, Taurus. Regardless of the situation, you can turn it into a joke of some sort. Your humor likely lifts the spirits of everyone around you. Be careful of taking this too far, however. There could be some people who are uncomfortable with your constant jesting. Let them know that you do have a serious side, too.

Gemini: May 21- June 21

One whiff of a familiar scent is likely to send your imagination running wild. Perhaps you’re suddenly transported back to when you were dating someone you adored. Once your imagination starts running, it could be difficult to slow it down. Your fantasy world is likely to be the safest place to hide, so don’t worry about avoiding reality.

Cancer: June 22 - July 22

You could come into conflict with someone who has a very inclusive attitude, Cancer. Perhaps he or she encourages a humanistic approach that you find unrealistic and even a bit offputting. State exactly how you feel, but make sure you have the facts to back up your point and prepare for a counter argument. A great deal of fantasy is tossed around as truth, so it’s important that you not add to it.

Leo: July 23 - August 22

Take care of your friends by supporting their ideas, Leo. Be careful that you don’t automatically encourage a plan or viewpoint that you know is wrong or doomed to fail. Even though you might want to make them feel good by saying exactly what they want to hear, this isn’t really doing them any favors. People come up with some wild schemes.

Virgo: August 23 - September 22

You could be teetering between the real world and a fantasy realm, Virgo. The fantasy world is more than likely the one that wins out, but that doesn’t mean you should lose all touch with reality. If anyone can bridge these two worlds, it’s you. You’ll probably find yourself drawn to art, which can wonderfully bridge the two.

Libra: September 23 - October 22

Nurture your loved ones.Tonight feel free to escape into a fantasy world with the object of your desire.

Make plans to set your wildest fantasy into motion.

Let your imagination lead the way. You’ll never get where you want to go until you head in that direction. Have confidence that you can turn your dreams into reality. Don’t waste another day doing things that don’t contribute to your plans.

Scorpio: October 23 - November 21

Regardless of your situation, Scorpio, you’ll want to take the easy way out. There’s a laziness sweeping over you, and you could be trying to find a way to sneak out of some responsibilities. Even if this idea seems terrific now, it’s likely to get you into some trouble later. Be wary of cheating the system and then expecting the full benefits of hard work in return. You’ll earn exactly what you deserve.

Sagittarius: November 22 - December 21

You might be frustrated with romance because it seems to be causing more tension than relaxation, Sagittarius. No one said love was easy, but it doesn’t have to be miserable. The key is to not get too stressed out about the little things. Know and expect that some things aren’t going to match your expectations.

Capricorn: December 22 - January 19

Your imagination is your best friend, Capricorn.

You aren’t about to let anyone disturb your fantasy world. You have fit love and romance perfectly into this place, and everything is wonderful in your head.

Implementing this plan and making it work in the real world are two different things, so try not to get too tied to this idea. Definitely aim to manifest your vision, but don’t be unrealistic about it.

Aquarius: January 20 - February 18

Aggression in your world of romance is likely,Aquarius.Whether coming from you or your close partner, the tension is there and can’t be ignored. Keep in mind, however, that it’s possible that much of it stems from something that isn’t even true. Perhaps there was a misspoken word or misunderstanding of some sort that’s now causing confusion. Do your best to clear the air of any misconceptions.

Pisces: February 19 - March 20

You’re anxious to make a bold move toward the love of your life, Pisces. Love and romance are most certainly in your favor right now. It isn’t surprising that you feel brave. Be careful, however, about getting so carried away with your self-assurance that you distort the truth of the situation.

ALWATAN DAILY

SPORTS

thursDAY, april 5, 2012

19

Basketball

Heat extend home win streak to clinch playoff berth MIAMI: LeBron James arrived at work a little earlier than usual on Tuesday, warming up more than three hours before tip-off with hopes of finding his rhythm. With Dwyane Wade out, Miami needed some extra offense - and James delivered.

James scored 14 straight Miami points in the fourth quarter and finished with a season-high 41, helping the Heat clinch a playoff spot with a 99-93 win over the Philadelphia 76ers.

It was the 16th straight home win for Miami, which has won its last 11 regular-season games against the 76ers. The Heat also moved within 2 1/2 games of Chicago in the race for the Eastern Conference’s best record.

Mario Chalmers had 19 points, Chris Bosh scored 17 and Udonis Haslem grabbed 11 rebounds for Miami, which improved to 9-1 without Wade this season. Wade sat with a bruised left knee, leaving his status for Wednesday’s showdown with Oklahoma City in some doubt.

Evan Turner scored 26 points for Philadelphia, which fell 1 1/2 games behind Boston in the Atlantic Division. Lou Williams scored 18, Spencer Hawes added 12 and Andre Iguodala had 11 before leaving in the third quarter with a left eye contusion. It was just the fourth time in 24 games this season that the 76ers shot at least 45 percent and lost.

James scored 21 points after Iguodala departed with 4:42 left in the third quarter. Iguodala was holding the ball as Chalmers tried swiping it away, but only wound up connecting with the face of the 76ers’ guard. Iguodala went to the floor in pain, holding the area around his left eye, then eventually made his way to the Philadelphia bench and locker room with part of his face covered by a towel.

When Iguodala left, Miami led 68-64. Soon, the Heat had their biggest lead. James had six points in a quick 8-2 spurt that pushed Miami’s edge to 76-66 with 2:23 left in the third.

Lakers blow big lead, hold off Nets 91-87

Miami Heat forward LeBron James dunks the ball in the fourth quarter of his team’s win over the Philadelphia 76ers in their NBA basketball game in Miami, April 3, 2012. (Reuters)

Midway through the fourth, the 76ers said Iguodala had a left eye contusion and his return was questionable.Williams’ jumper with 2:27 left got Philadelphia within three, the closest margin since early in the third quarter.

Philadelphia led 54-51 at the break, then lost the lead for good while being outscored 25-

16 in the third quarter. It was Miami’s biggest third-quarter win since outscoring New York 2919 in that period on Feb. 23.

“To start the third, we were careless,” Collins said. “We turned the ball over. We didn’t have the crisp passing that we had during the first half.” -AP

LOS ANGELES: Kobe Bryant scored 24 points and rattled home a 3-pointer with 6.8 seconds left, and the Los Angeles Lakers blew every bit of a 17-point lead before holding on for a 91-87 victory over the New Jersey Nets on Tuesday night.

Pau Gasol had 22 points and 12 rebounds, and Ramon Sessions had 19 points and 11 assists as the Lakers put an ugly finish on their 11th victory in 15 games despite never trailing in their eighth consecutive win over the Nets.

Los Angeles led by 12 early in the fourth quarter, but Deron Williams led an 18-6 run for New Jersey, tying it on a 3-pointer with 1:29 left.

Bryant made a long jumper moments later, and the Lakers controlled the ball for 52 straight seconds during the final minute with an offensive rebound and an out-of-bounds deflection.

Bryant then made his third 3-pointer, beating the shot clock with a rattling shot, and Williams missed his own 3-point attempt.

Williams scored 20 points, Gerald Wallace had 19, and Kris Humphries added 18 points and 15 rebounds amid steady boos for the Nets, whose first

three-game winning streak of the season ended.

The Lakers played without All-Star center Andrew Bynum, who sprained his left ankle in Sunday’s win over Golden State.

Coach Mike Brown isn’t sure whether Bynum will play in Wednesday’s Staples Center showdown with the Clippers, but Bynum is hopeful he will suit up. The Lakers have won three straight and six of eight.

After largely dominating the first three quarters against undermanned New Jersey, the Lakers missed 13 of their first 16 shots in the fourth quarter, allowing the Nets to trim their deficit to 84-81 on Williams’ 3-pointer with 3:08 left. Wallace’s layup a minute later cut the Lakers’ lead to one point, and Williams tied it on a 3-pointer with 1:29 to play.

After Bryant’s fallaway 22-footer with 1:11 left, Wallace missed one of two free throws. Gasol grabbed an offensive rebound on Sessions’ 3-point miss with 32 seconds left, and video review with 10.8 seconds left reversed an outof-bounds call, giving the ball back to the Lakers. -AP

Tennis

Cricket

Williams sisters advance at Charleston tennis

England openers set up solid reply

Venus Williams react during her match against Iveta Benesova, of the Czech Republic, during the Family Circle Cup tennis tournament, Tuesday April 3, 2012. (AP)

CHARLESTON: Serena and Venus Williams made a successful transition to clay, easing through their opening matches with straight set victories at the WTA Tour’s Charleston tournament. Fifth seed Serena, the 2008 Charleston champion, hammered 11 aces in overpowering last year’s runner-up Elena Vesnina, 6-3, 6-4, in a second round match at the $740,000 clay court event. World No. 87 Venus, who returned to the tour last month in Miami after being out seven months due to illness, needed just 79 minutes to dispatch qualifier Iveta Benesova of the Czech Republic, 6-4, 6-3, in a first round match.

Seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus is fresh off an impressive comeback showing in Miami where she won her first four matches of her return. “Miami was definitely a whirlwind,” Venus said Tuesday. “A lot of times I ended up the victor at the end of these matches and I didn’t really know how it happened.”

The Williams sisters did not play in last month’s prestigious Indian Wells tournament because of a boycott that began in 2001 when fans booed them.

Venus received a wild card invitation into the draw of the Charleston event, which she won in 2004. She booked a clash with seventh-seeded Serbian Jelena Jankovic, who enjoyed a first-round bye.

Venus will be put to the test on Wednesday as Jankovic has won their last four matches on clay and holds a 6-5 lead in career contests. Jankovic routed Venus, 6-0, 6-1, in their most recent meeting two years ago in Rome on clay. “It’s a great surface for her, and she always gets comfortable on clay, so I know I have to play well,” Venus said. “We’ve had some things we’ve been dealing with, with injuries, so it’ll be an important match for both of us. I’ll definitely have to be patient and try to move forward the best I can.”

Venus finished out of the top 100 in the world last year for the first time in 15 years after a season plagued by injury and illness. Venus withdrew from the second round of the US Open, where she revealed she had been diagnosed with the auto-immune disorder Sjogren syndrome, and did not play again until making it to the quarter-finals at Miami.

Serena, who was given a bye through the first round, saved six of seven break points chances and won 73 percent of her first-serve points in the 85-minute match.Vesnina was runner-up to Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki here last year.

Serena advances to the third round where she will play either 17th seed Marina Erakovic of New Zealand or unseeded Anna Tatishvili. -AFP

Czech Republic to play Serbia in Davis Cup on clay

PRAGUE: The Czech Republic hopes an indoor clay court and home support will help it overcome a Serbia team missing Novak Djokovic and advance to the semifinals of the Davis Cup. Djokovic, who won his third Sony Ericsson Open title on Sunday, is opting to rest before he opens his clay court season at the Monte Carlo Masters from April 14.

The Czechs, who usually play at home on fast indoor hard courts, are counting on the slow clay court to be an advantage. The No. 7-ranked Tomas Berdych and 24th-ranked Radek Stepanek will lead the Czech team. The two will also play the doubles.

Janko Tipsarevic, who this week reached his highest ranking at No. 8, and 27th-ranked Viktor Troicki will play for Serbia, together with doubles specialist Nenad Zimonjic.

“Three tough matches are ahead of me,” Berdych said Wednesday. “I’m ready.”

Berdych has struggled recently, losing to Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 at the third round of the Sony Ericsson Open, but he hopes the home crowd at the O2 arena in Prague will give him a lift. “It helps a great deal,” he said. “They

help us to play better.” The Czech Republic hopes to capitalize on the good recent form of Stepanek, who teamed up with Leander Paes of India to beat Max Mirnyi of Belarus and Daniel Nestor of Canada 3-6, 6-1, 10-8 in the final of the Sony Ericsson Open on Saturday. Stepanek also won the doubles at the Australian Open with the same partner for his maiden Grand Slam title. “It’s a confidence boost to win,” Stepanek said.

Stepanek and Berdych, who are 9-1 in the Davis Cup doubles, have already announced that they plan to play doubles at the London Olympics.

In their last Davis Cup meeting, Serbia beat the Czechs 3-2 in 2010 and went on to win the country’s first Davis Cup title.The Czechs won their only Davis Cup title as Czechoslovakia in 1980.

“We have to fight off our opponent, the court surface and the Czech fans,” Tipsarevic said. “Balls sometimes jump strangely on that court, but I guess it will be equally bad for them. We have to be patient, not to rush because the surface is so slow.”

The winner of the best-of-five series will face Argentina or Croatia in September’s semis. -AP

COLOMBO: A century opening partnership between captain Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook provided much-needed relief for England on the second day of the second test against Sri Lanka on Wednesday.

England have reached 300 only once on their disastrous winter tour during which they have lost four tests in a row.

They will lose their world number ranking if they fail to square the two-test series against Sri Lanka. After dismissing Sri Lanka for 275 in their first innings, England were 154 for one at the close with Alastair Cook on 77.

Strauss and Cook put on 112 for the first wicket and were not separated until the 52nd over when the England skipper attempted to cut part-time off-spinner Tillakaratne Dilshan. He edged a catch to wicketkeeper Prasanna Jayawardene and was out for 61 from 126 deliveries with four boundaries.

The afternoon session made for tedious viewing with only 72 runs added in 32 overs but England were determined to post a useful first innings total on a slow pitch. Cook, missed at 20 by Lahiru Thirimanne at short-leg, was unbeaten on 77 scored off 227 balls with seven fours and Jonathan Trott who scored a century in the first test defeat in Galle Test was 15 not out.

Earlier, off-spinner Graeme Swann took three wickets for four runs in just over six overs to clean up the Sri Lankan tail shortly before lunch.

Swann finished with figures of four for 75 as Sri Lanka were bowled out for

England’s captain Andrew Strauss (right) plays a shot as Sri Lankan wicketkeeper Prasanna Jayawardene watches him during the second day of their second test cricket match in Colombo, April 4, 2012. (AP)

a below par score after winning the toss and electing to bat.

Sri Lanka, who resumed on 238 for six, added just 37 runs to their overnight total for the loss of their last four wickets against some tight bowling. Suraj Randiv (12) became Swann’s first victim of the day when he threw away his wicket attempting to take the fight to the spinner soon after he came on, but only succeeded in holing out to a leaping

Kevin Pietersen at long-on.

Swann then removed Angelo Mathews for 57 when the Sri Lankan vice-captain checked an on-drive which offered England skipper Strauss a routine catch at short mid-wicket.

Swann finished off the Sri Lankan innings by bowling Suranga Lakmal for a duck with a perfect off-break that beat the batsman’s defensive prod and zipped between his bat and pad. -Reuters

Golf

Time marches on while Tiger turns back the clock AUGUSTA: Tiger Woods has found the form that made him a 14-time major winner, but the 36-year-old legend also finds himself outdriven by younger, larger rivals and giving Masters advice to newcomers.

Woods tees off Thursday morning at Augusta National for the 76th Masters seeking a fifth green jacket, his first Major win since the 2008 US Open and one step closer to the record 18 major titles won by Jack Nicklaus.

After Woods won his first major title 15 years ago at Augusta, courses became longer and players became stronger to meet the challenge he posed.

Now on the comeback trail in a world he created, Woods comes into the Masters having snapped a 2 1/2-year US PGA win drought last month at Bay Hill in the aftermath of injuries and his infamous sex scandal.

While it has been a long time since Woods played so well, the winner of 72 career titles still paints himself in something of an underdog role compared to younger, stronger players.

“Consistently, with this type of control, it has been a few years,” Woods said. “As far as having the speed and the pop in my game, it has been a very long time. I think I have more shots than I did in 2000. I guess I’m not driving the ball as far, but I’m longer than I was in 2000. So it’s a different game. The guys are much taller, much bigger, much more athletic. The game has become bigger and stronger. Before, when I played back in 2000, the big carry was 280 (yards). That was a big carry over a corner.

Now that has been moved out to 315, 320. It’s just a different number now.”

Woods in 2000 was in the heart of his “Tiger Slam” run of four major titles in a row. Despite two major swing changes since, Woods finds his mastery of shotmaking similar to his glory days.

“As far as controlling my game, I feel like I’m hitting the ball

Tiger Woods during a practice round prior to the start of the 2012 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club, April 3, 2012. (AFP)

just as consistently day in and day out as I did then,” he said.

With a victory on Sunday, Woods could also match Nicklaus for second on the all-time US PGA win list with a 73rd overall crown, nine shy of Sam Snead’s all-time record.

“I would like the green jacket more,” Woods said. “I know the 73 would be a by-product of it, but I’m here for the green jacket.”

Woods is also at Augusta National to dispense advice, much the way he learned secrets of the course from Arnold Palmer and Nicklaus in bygone days, such as a practice round with Nicklaus in 1995 as an amateur. -AFP

THURSdAY, april 5, 2012

SPORTS

Sports Editors Highlight MUNICH, Germany: Bayern Munich’s Mario Gomez has extended his contract by three years to 2016 the day after his club booked a place in the Champions League semifinals, the forward said on Wednesday. The 26-year-old, who was Bundesliga top scorer last season and jointly leads this season’s charts with 23 goals, has been in fine form, also netting 11 times in the Champions League. Bayern, chasing a treble of domestic and European trophies, beat Olympique Marseille 2-0 in their Champions League quarter-final second leg on Tuesday to win 4-0 on aggregate. Gomez became the most expensive transfer in Bundesliga history when he joined Bayern in 2009 for what is still a record sum of 35 million Euros. After a quiet first season, Gomez has firmly established himself as the number one striker at Bayern. -Reuters

Football

Iniesta proves Barca are more than just Messi BARCELONA: Andres Iniesta underlined his importance to Barcelona with the goal that ended AC Milan’s resistance on Tuesday and ushered his side into a record-equaling fifth consecutive Champions League semifinal.

The Spanish international rarely appears on the scoresheet and was not as effective as usual against Milan, but he has an uncanny knack of grabbing crucial goals on big occasions.

Two penalties from Lionel Messi had put Barca 2-1 up at the Nou Camp before the break, with Milan only needing to score once more to go through on the away goals rule after last week’s 0-0 draw at the San Siro.

In the 53rd minute, Messi raced across the edge of the area and had his shot blocked by a defender. The ball broke free to Iniesta, who showed great composure to wait until the keeper had committed himself before dinking a shot over him to score.

It was only Iniesta’s seventh goal in all competitions this season, but the two-goal cushion allowed Barca to ease back and defend their lead from a position of strength with their trademark dominance of possession.

“I think Andres has more goals in him than the statistics show, but he does so much more than just score goals,” Barca coach Pep Guardiola said after the hold-

ers had completed the win. “He is a fantastic player.”

The 27-year-old Iniesta is one of the trio of outstanding midfielders at the heart of Guardiola’s team, alongside fellow youth-team graduates Xavi and Sergio Busquets.

More noted for his intricate dribbling, lightningquick feet and clever link up-play, the waif-like Iniesta has weighed in with some famous goals in his career.

He struck the dramatic late semi-final equaliser from outside the area at Stamford Bridge that guided Barca past Chelsea and into the 2009 Champions League final in Rome, where they went on to beat Manchester United.

In 2010, he grabbed the most important goal in the history of the Spanish national team when he struck the added-time winner against Netherlands in the World Cup final in South Africa. The World Cup winner has made Iniesta hugely popular across Spain, where he is regularly applauded by opposition fans, but the shy and retiring playmaker is more than happy to let others take the limelight at Barca.

Messi is on course for a fourth consecutive Champions League top scorer award with 14 goals in Europe so far, and he has racked up 58 in all competitions, but Iniesta may still be required to lend a helping hand again before the end of the campaign. -Reuters

Bilbao leads Spanish trio in Europa League

Athletic Bilbao’s forward Fernando Llorente (center) celebrates after scoring their first goal during the UEFA Europa round of 16 second leg football match against Manchester United, March 15, 2012.

(AFP)

FC Barcelona’s Andres Iniesta, (front) celebrates after scoring against AC Milan during their Champions League second leg, quarter-final soccer match, at Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona, April 3, 2012. (AP)

Referees chief hits out at Milan claims

SICILY: Italian referees chief Marcello Nicchi has hit back at AC Milan over the ‘phantom goal’ that was not awarded against Catania at the weekend.

Milan drew 1-1 in Sicily but felt they should have had an extra goal when Robinho’s shot appeared to be cleared off the line by Giovanne Marchese.

Television replays were hardly conclusive, with one angle suggesting the entire ball had crossed the line but all the others doing the exact opposite.

Milan chief executive Adriano Galliani had reacted angrily claiming that it was the second time his side had been robbed of a valid goal.

The previous occasion was against Juventus when Sulley Muntari’s shot was clawed back from about a metre behind the line by goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, only for the officials to miss it.

“There’s little to discuss about the Muntari one in Milan-Juve, we all saw it, I was at the stadium, it was a bad mis-

take and the first thing we (the Referees’ Commission) did was to study how that could happen,” said Nicchi.

“But it’s like when a goalkeeper misses a cross, or a striker misses a goal or a divet becomes decisive. The Catania incident, however, was different. Robinho’s was not a goal and no one can show that it was one. People are talking about something that doesn’t exist, the ball didn’t go in and I’m adamant that it wasn’t a goal.”

That wasn’t Galliani’s view and he even wrote to Italian Football Federation (Figc) president Giancarlo Abete asking for the Italian League to consider introducing goaline officials like there are in the Champions League.

“Milan have been the victims on two recent occasions of as many refereeing mistakes,” said Galliani in his letter.

“During Milan-Juventus and CataniaMilan two goals, which would have been decisive to the result (both games were

drawn), were not validated because the officials did not see that the entire ball had crossed the line. Even people who officiate at football matches inevitably make mistakes but some of those are truly difficult to accept, even considering all disposable reason and understanding.

Such as the two against Milan.”

Galliani coninued: “I understand that technological solutions could find obstacles and may not be accepted by the system. But I think there is good reason to adopt the goal line officials which UEFA does in the Champions League.”

It’s not just Milan who have been complaining this season, Juventus have spent much of the campaign moaning that they don’t get enough penalties.

But Inter Milan president Massimo Moratti has an interesting take on that, particularly after his side conceded three penalties in Sunday’s freak 5-4 win over Genoa. He says the more success teams get, the more they complain. -AFP

Olympiakos win title after appeal fails LONDON: Athletic Bilbao is best-placed of the three Spanish clubs aiming to reach the Europa League semifinals on Thursday and still the one that seems to be pressing hardest for victory.

While Atletico Madrid will defend a narrow 2-1 lead at Hannover and Valencia needs to overturn a 2-1 deficit when it hosts AZ Alkmaar, Bilbao has targeted another win over visiting Schalke despite already holding a 4-2 advantage from last week’s quarter-final firstleg matches.

Bilbao, which eliminated Manchester United in the previous round, has won plaudits across Europe for its attacking play and doesn’t look likely to change its game plan.

“We can’t go out and play stupidly,” winger Markel Susaeta said. “Even though we won 4-2, nothing but winning this game has crossed our minds.”

Susaeta, the only player in Spain’s topflight to play 50 games already this season, said Bilbao would be on guard against the attacking threat of Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, Jefferson Farfan and former Spain great Raul Gonzalez, who scored both Schalke’s goals last week.

The match marks Raul’s second playing appearance in Spain since leaving Real Madrid in 2010. Raul played at Valencia last season and has enjoyed facing Spanish competition with three goals in three matches.

“They’ve got great forwards like Farfan, Huntelaar and Raul and they will try to get at us,” Susaeta said.

“They’ve got to score three goals and that gives us a big advantage, but if they score early it could complicate the match for us.”

Athletic is without suspended midfielder Ander Iturraspe, with coach Marcelo Bielsa looking at moving Spain international Javi Martinez up from his central defense position to fill the role. Borja Ekiza is expected to replace Martinez in the back line.

Whether Fernando Llorente returns is uncertain after the Spain striker sat out Saturday’s 2-0 Spanish league loss at Barcelona.

The size of Bielsa’s squad hasn’t affected the Basque club’s European ambitions so far, although it has tailed off badly in the league.

Bilbao is already certain of playing in Europe next year anyway as it faces Barcelona in the Copa del Rey final and will get that Europa League spot if it doesn’t win the competition outright.

Atletico Madrid has won all of its Europa League games under coach Diego Simeone and now has to defend a narrow lead away from home.

Midfielder Tiago, defender Diego Godin and striker Adrian Lopez are all available after missing the first leg but the team will be without midfielders Arda Turan and Gabi Fernandez, and fullback Juanfran Torres, all through suspension.

Valencia is third in the standings behind big two Real Madrid and Barcelona, but is 24 points adrift of second-place Barca.

Emery can at least count on the return of two of his Spain internationals, striker Roberto Soldado and fullback Jordi Alba. Metalist Kharkiv hosts Sporting Lisbon in the other match, with the Ukrainian side seeking to overturn a 2-1 deficit. -AP

ATHENS: Olympiakos Piraeus were crowned Greek champions on Wednesday after Panathinaikos failed in an appeal to the soccer federation to overturn a punishment for crowd violence at last month’s abandoned Athens derby.

Panathinaikos have been docked three points and Olympiakos awarded a 3-0 win following the events at the March 18 match, meaning 10 points now separate the two clubs with three matches remaining, the Hellenic Football Federation (HFF) said.

“The HFF has accepted the punishment handed down by the Super League,” it declared in a statement.

Panathinaikos will also start the 2012/13 season with two points deducted as part of the toughest sanctions ever imposed by the Greek Super League. The strict penalties followed a new sports law passed by the government in February to clamp down on soccer violence.

Olympiakos led the standings by four points from Panathinaikos before Wednesday’s hearing rubber-stamped the punishment handed out to Panathinaikos on March 23rd and confirmed the Piraeus side had won their 39th league title.

Panathinaikos did manage to get part of their penalty reduced on appeal with the Athens club ordered to play three matches behind closed doors instead of four, while their fine was slightly reduced to 212,000 Euros ($282,800 US dollars)

De Jong tells Balotelli to stop acting the fool LONDON: Manchester City midfielder Nigel de Jong has warned controversial team-mate Mario Balotelli to stop acting like a “fool”. Balotelli has repeatedly earned headlines for his bizarre antics on and off the pitch since moving to Eastlands from Inter Milan and the City striker was at it again over the last week.

First the Italian irked City boss Roberto Mancini by using his time off to make an unscheduled appearance at the press conference to unveil new Inter boss Andrea Stramaccioni.

Then Balotelli, who also set fire to his bathroom by letting off fireworks earlier this season, was involved in a dressing room bust-up with Yaya Toure over the taking of a second-half free-kick in last Saturday’s 3-3 draw with Sunderland.

Balotelli’s latest antics have come at a bad time as City have surrendered top spot in the Premier League to Manchester United and are now five points behind their arch rivals. With the title slipping away, Dutch star De Jong has urged Balotelli to stop courting controversy and concentrate on helping the team get back on track. “Sometimes Mario is a fool and at other times he is a genius - there are two sides to him, “ he told The Sun. “Lots of people expect him to pull off crazy stunts and as a result he feels he must do something. People like that need to have upheaval in their lives in order to perform.

He is happy in his personal relationship.

That is important and it makes him more focused. But he knows that he has to become more serious-minded.” -AFP

Smoke billows from a fire in a grandstand as Panathinaikos supporters clash with Greek anti-riot police during a Greek Super League football game against Olympiakos in Athens, March 18, 2012. (AFP)

from 252,500.

The violence during the heated atmosphere at the Athens derby at the Olympic Stadium, the ground which hosted the 2004 Olympics, was some of the worst seen in recent seasons.

The start of the second half was delayed by 45 minutes as fans pelted police with Molotov cocktails, flares and missiles, and the game was subsequently abandoned altogether with nine minutes remaining with Olympiakos 1-0 ahead.

Twenty police officers were injured and more than 50 arrests were made while three fire engines were called in to extinguish flames as hundreds of fans set alight sections of the stands. Three of those arrested were charged with possession of explosives, police said. The club had already been in trouble with the Super League’s disciplinary committee this season for crowd violence and were forced to play one match behind closed doors earlier this month. -AP

Poland lacks foreign hooligan list for Euro 2012

FILE - Nigel de Jong (left)of Manchester City speaks with teammate Mario Balotelli during the Herbalife World Football Challenge 2011 at the Home Depot Center, July 24, 2011. (AFP)

WARSAW: Euro 2012 host Poland lacks a database of foreign hooligans banned from stadiums in their homelands, raising the risk of trouble at the looming tournament, monitors warned on Tuesday.

Poland’s National Audit Chamber (NIK) said the issue was a cause for concern just two months before the 16-nation European football championships, co-hosted with neighbouring Ukraine, kicks off in the capital Warsaw.

“There’s no functioning list in Poland of individuals hit by stadium bans abroad, because the police have been too slow in setting it up,” said NIK chief Jacek Jezierski. “To date, there haven’t been any agreements with foreign partners and there aren’t any legal norms for this,” he explained, as the NIK launched a report on security preparations. This could hamper police efforts to ensure security at Euro 2012, both inside the stadiums and out,” he warned. Much of Poland’s pre-Euro 2012 focus has been on home-grown hooligans, whose hardcore is officially estimated at up to 5,000 in this nation of 38 million.

But with hundreds of thousands of fans set to flood in to Poland and Ukraine in June, authorities are bracing for problems from travelling fringe elements.

National police spokesman Inspector Mariusz Sokolowski played down the NIK’s findings. He said Polish law enforcement authorities did not need a special register, given that they would be working directly with liaison officers from foreign police forces. -AFP