June 6, 2012

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 2012

@alwatandaily

Issue No. 1457

12 PAGES

www.alwatandaily.com

150 Fils with IHT

Crowds in Tahrir protest over Mubarak verdicts

CAIRO: Crowds of Egyptians flocked to Cairo’s iconic Tahrir Square on Tuesday for a mass demonstration to protest against verdicts handed down in ex-president Hosni Mubarak’s murder trial.

Marchers prepared to leave from several mosques around the capital led by the runners-up in last month’s presidential election first round - Hamdeen Sabbahi, Abdel Moneim Abul Fotouh and Khaled Ali - to join thousands already in the square. In Tahrir, demonstrators chanted against the ruling military council and vowed to keep their revolution alive.

“Revolutionaries, free, we will continue our journey,” they chanted.

Mubarak, 84, and his interior minister Habib Al-Adly were sentenced to life in prison on Saturday, but six security chiefs were acquitted of the killings of demonstrators during last year’s uprising that left some 850 people dead and ousted the veteran president.

The ruling sparked nationwide outrage, with thousands taking to the streets to vent their rage that no one had been found directly guilty of killing the protesters.

An Egyptian security official said ousted Mubarak’s health has deteriorated in the three days since the court sentenced him to life imprisonment. The official at Cairo’s Torah prison said that Mubarak collapsed several times Tuesday, and that

he was placed on mechanical ventilation after having difficulty breathing. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to the press.

Mubarak - the only autocrat toppled in the Arab Spring to be put in the dock - could have been sent to the gallows as demanded by the prosecution but was instead given a life term, angering many.

He was also cleared of graft charges.

Along with the acquitted police chiefs, Mubarak’s sons Alaa and Gamal had corruption charges against them dropped on a technicality, but they will remain in custody pending trial on other graft charges.

“We reject the trial. It’s a big farce,” said Hisham Khalifa, 30, in Tahrir Square.

He said demonstrators also wanted the dismissal of the prosecutor general “who has ignored many corruption cases.”

Demonstrators also want the implementation of a law that would see senior Mubarak-era figures barred from standing for public office. The legislation could have serious implications for Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak’s last prime minister, who is due to face the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Mursi in a presidential election runoff next week.

Tuesday’s protest was called by youth groups which were a driving force behind the uprising against Mubarak’s regime last year, including the Coalition of Revolution Youth and the Maspero Youth Union.

It also received the backing of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The runners-up in the first round of the presidential election, leftist politician Sabbahi and moderate Islamist Abul Fotouh, were to lead separate marches to Tahrir Square. They came third and fourth respectively in the May 23-24 first round.

“We believe that our revolution is not over. The military must leave power and hand it to civilians,” said Mahmud Bahira, a protester from the Revolution Youth movement.

Another protester Mohammed Shabik said: “The judgement in the Mubarak case is not tough enough, there are even people who have been acquitted.” Egypt’s prosecutor has said that the verdicts will be appealed, but a judicial source said that the process would take several weeks.

Mubarak’s defense team has also said it will challenge the verdict and told AFP it was confident of winning on appeal. The verdicts come just two weeks before the presidential election runoff which is becoming highly polarized with many activists facing a difficult choice.

For activists, choosing Shafiq, a Mubarak-era figure, would symbolize a return to the old regime and an end to the revolution, but voting for Mursi would mean handing Egypt to a movement they say has monopolized power since the uprising. -Agencies

Egyptians protesters chant slogans and wave national flags during a demonstration in Cairo’s landmark Tahrir Square on June 5, 2012 to protest against verdicts handed down in ex-president Hosni Mubarak’s murder trial. (AFP)

Majority compromises on Al-Saifi grilling

Staff Writers

KUWAIT: Even though the parliamentary session was prematurely adjourned on Tuesday, the MPs discussed a wide range of issues, including a request to lift the immunity of a number of lawmakers, the discussion of a letter addressed by the Parliamentary Education Committee as well as the fate of Kuwait Airways’ budget.

Following the session, MP Saleh Ashour announced that the MPs were involved in a tactic which ultimately led to the adjournment of the session due to MP Al-Saifi AlSaifi’s interpellation against the Minister of Social Affairs and Labor Ahmad Al-Rujaib. Describing the political situation as unstable following the resignation of the finance minister and rumors of the justice’s minister resignation, Ashour proposed the dissolution of Parliament and the transformation of electoral constituencies.

In this context, a parliamentary source within the

majority revealed that a decision by a number of MPs to walk out of the session was pre-planned with the aim of shuffling cards, particularly since Al-Rujaib informed the majority of his desire to have the discussion of the interpellation deferred for two weeks. The source intimated that the said request was greeted with mixed reactions within the majority, adding that the government is likely to coordinate with the majority to refer the motion to the Constitutional Court or the Parliamentary Legislative Committee to determine its constitutionality.

In reaction, MP Al-Saifi starkly rejected the idea, calling on MPs to rebuff the request. “Tomorrow the motion will be included in Parliament’s agenda and I advise against referring it to the Constitutional Court or the Parliamentary Legislative Committee,” the lawmaker was cited as saying.

Additionally, MP Faisal Al-Mislem affirmed that Minister Al-Rujaib informed him that he will ask for the de-

Pentagon chief in India amid US focus on Asia

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Libya starts first trial of Gadhafi official

TRIPOLI: The first trial of a senior Muammar Gadhafi-era official accused of crimes relating to last year’s war opened on Tuesday, in what will be seen as a test of the Libyan government’s ability to try high profile loyalists and family members of the ousted leader.

Under heavy security, Buzeid Dorda, a former intelligence chief arrested last September in Tripoli, appeared in the dock in the first such civilian hearing since last year’s uprising.

Judge Al-Ajaily Al-Maaloul read six charges against him - conspiring to kill civilians, providing weapons for the purpose of killing civilians, conspiring to provoke civil war, denying people their right to protest, unlawful detention and abuse of authority.

“I deny all these points. I will supply the evidence when I testify in court,” Dorda said.

The judge adjourned the trial until June 26, as demanded by defense lawyer Dhao Al-Mansouri Awon, who said he and his client needed more time to study the case files.

Wearing a blue prison inmate uniform, Dorda walked into the court using two canes. Officials said he had injured his legs about two months ago when he tried to escape and fell from a second floor window. He was treated in hospital, they said.

Libya’s new rulers are keen to try Gadhafi’s family members and loyalists at home, but human rights activists worry that a weak central government and a lack of rule of law could rob them of the right to a fair trial. Libya wants to try Gadhafi’s son Seif Al-Islam, who was captured in November and is also wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. -Reuters

ferral of the interpellation for two weeks, insisting that the two interpellations against the minister are backed up with supporting documents. Following the adjournment of the proceedings, members of the majority met at Deputy Speaker Khaled Al-Sultan’s office to discuss the Dow issue and the proper mechanism for dealing with it.

Sources have reported that an agreement was reached to form a committee to be chaired by the National Assembly Speaker Ahmad Al-Saadoun and include MPs Abdurrahman Al-Anjeri, Hamad Al-Matar, Jamaan Al-Harbash and Obeid Al-Wasmi. The proposed committee will be tasked with outlining the mechanism through which the investigation panel will operate.

Meanwhile, MP Abdulhameed Dashti stated he can confirm the resignation of the Justice and the Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs Jamal Al-Shehab, while expressing dismay over the minister’s move.The MP praised Al-Shahab as moderate.

Vehicle surcharges imposed on expats may reach KD 500

Osama Al-Qatari

Staff Writer

KUWAIT: Within a framework strategy to resolve the issue of traffic congestion in the country, the Ministry of Interior is studying a plan to increase fees related to the issuance of and renewal of driving license.

The suggested fees stand at the staggering amount of 500 Kuwaiti dinars for non Kuwaitis instead of the current KD 10, and KD 50 for the one dinar renewal fees. There is exception here for drivers working as home chauffeurs.

The imposed fees on issuance of and renewal of vehicles own by non-Kuwaitis would change from the current KD 10 to KD 300. The renewal fee will jump from the existing KD 10 to KD 100 for the first car. Another KD 100 surcharges for another owned vehicle.

The Ministry of Interior is also studying plans to impose charges on some of the highway roads and certain inner city

roads to reduce the number of vehicles.

In response to MP Dr. Ali Al-Omair’s query as to how the Ministry of Interior is planning to resolve the issue of traffic congestion from which the country has been suffering for so long, the ministry said that it is planning to include in its strategic plans privatizing vehicle technical test departments, such as the car park meters in order to improve existing traffic signal systems as well as traffic control with the view of using smart systems for transport and traffic.

The ministry further pointed out that part of the strategic plans is to set up land transportation authority, and implement a third structural planning of the State of Kuwait including the time table for the completion of new roads and cities.

The ministry is also in the process of coming up with new amendments to some of the existing laws to deal with over speeding, running red light traffic signal, joy riding and other similar violations.

Syria lists 17 Western envoys as unwelcome

3

‘Vampire’ skeletons unearthed in Bulgaria

SOFIA: Archaeologists in Bulgaria have unearthed two skeletons from the Middle Ages pierced through the chest with iron rods to keep them from turning into vampires, the head of the history museum said Tuesday.

According to pagan beliefs, people who were considered bad during their lifetimes might turn into vampires after death unless stabbed in the chest with an iron or wooden rod before being buried.

“These two skeletons stabbed with rods illustrate a practice which was common in some Bulgarian villages up until the first decade of the 20th century,” national history museum chief Bozhidar Dimitrov said after the recent find in the Black Sea town of Sozopol.

People believed the rod would also pin the dead into their graves to prevent them from leaving at midnight and terrorizing the living, the historian explained.

The practice was common, Dimitrov added, saying some 100 similar burials had already been found in Bulgaria.

Archaeologist Petar Balabanov, who in 2004 unearthed six nailed-down skeletons at a site near the eastern town of Debelt, said the pagan rite was also practiced in neighboring Serbia and other Balkan countries.

Vampire legends are widespread across the Balkans. The most famous is that of Romanian count Vlad the Impaler, known as Dracula, who staked his war enemies and drank their blood. -AFP

More on 2

Pilot embarks on first solar-powered intercontinental flight

Scavengers search for recyclable items from a garbage dump on the outskirts of Lahore on June 5, 2012, on World Environment Day. World Environment Day is celebrated every year on June 5 with the objective to raise global awareness among the common people for global environmental concerns. (AFP)

PARIS: A Swiss adventurer soared above sun-splashed Spanish valleys toward Morocco on Tuesday on the world’s first intercontinental flight in a solarpowered plane.

Bertrand Piccard, a 54-year-old psychiatrist and balloonist, took off into the night skies above Madrid in the Solar Impulse plane, a giant as big as an Airbus A340 but as light as an average family car.

After a graceful, nearly silent takeoff at 5:22 am (0322 GMT), he guided the experimental plane southward from Madrid-Barajas airport and within five hours was halfway between the Spanish capital and the southern coast.

An onboard camera relayed pictures of the valleys stretched out below the aircraft, which has 12,000 solar cells in the wings turning four electrical motors.

“For one hour I had the full moon on my right and I had the sunrise on my left and that was absolutely gorgeous. I had all the colors of the rainbow in the sky and also on the ground,” Piccard told AFP in an interview from the cockpit shortly after setting out.

More on 8

The Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team fly in formation over Buckingham Palace as the royal family stand on the balcony to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth in central London June 5, 2012. (Reuters)

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ALWATAN DAILY

kuwait

WEDNesday, JUNE 6, 2012

Vehicle surcharges imposed on expats may reach KD 500 Osama Al-Qatari Staff Writer

KUWAIT: Within a framework strategy to resolve the issue of traffic congestion in the country, the Ministry of Interior is studying a plan to increase fees related to the issuance of and renewal of driving license. The suggested fees stand at the staggering amount of 500 Kuwaiti dinars for non Kuwaitis instead of the current KD 10, and KD 50 for the one dinar renewal fees. There is exception here for drivers working for home chauffeurs.

The imposed fees on issuance of and renewal of vehicles owned by non-Kuwaitis would change from the current KD 10 to KD 300. The renewal fee will jump from the existing KD 10 to KD 100 for the first car. Another KD 100 surcharges for another owned vehicle.

The Ministry of Interior is also studying

plans to impose charges on some of the highway roads and certain inner city roads to reduce the number of vehicles.

In response to MP Dr. Ali Al-Omair’s query as to how the Ministry of Interior is planning to resolve the issue of traffic congestion from which the country has been suffering for so long, the ministry said that it is planning to include in its strategic plans privatizing vehicle technical test departments, such as the car park meters in order to improve existing traffic signal systems as well as traffic control with the view of using smart systems for transport and traffic.

The ministry further pointed out that part of the strategic plans is to set up land transportation authority, and implement a third structural planning of the State of Kuwait including the time table for the completion of new roads and cities.

The ministry is also in the process of coming up with new amendments to some of the existing laws to deal with over speeding, running red light traffic signal, joy riding and other similar violations.

It is also studying the possibility of increasing insurance fees imposed on new drivers and those who are frequently involved in car accidents. The ministry is also looking into the implementation of a time table related to the timing of schools, universities, colleges and the rest of employees. The ministry is thinking of assigning different times to each to regulate the rush hour.

As for the engineering part, the ministry said that it is busy with introducing further improvements to existing roads as well as regulating the bus transport sector in addition to the metro project and the increase of speed cameras across the country.

Kuwait tops expat voting in last two days: Egypt

As on the educational side of the ministry’s strategic plans, the ministry said that it would push for the traffic syllabus to be taught at schools with the view to be a mandatory subject at high school level.

The ministry attributes to the current traffic congestion to the small and narrow size of roads within the inner city along with the lack of previous proper and appropriate structural plans. It also pointed out that the cities on the outskirt plans as scheduled before had never taken place in line with a pre- determined time table.

It further stressed that the current shopping malls and complexes were built with little regard to traffic considerations and criteria.

Another factor according to the ministry of interior is the number of vehicles using roads has never been regulated when the number of vehicles is increasingly on the rise with a recent

estimate that there are two vehicles per person.

Furthermore, the lack of proper driving skills and etiquette as well as lack of sufficient public transport and at the same time the increasing number of drivers when existing roads across the country are not designed for such rapid and uncontrollable increase.

According to the ministry of interior statistics, the number of vehicles is on the increase by 9 percent while the population is only 2.5 percent and the addition of new roads is only 2.1 percent.

As for the number of driving licenses issued to non-Kuwaitis since the year 2000, according to recent statistics has reached well over 810 thousand with only 581 thousand valid. There are also more than 160 thousand vehicles on roads which are over 10 years old. As for the number of vehicles owned by non-Kuwaitis, it exceeds 487 thousand in total.

Traffic strategy must be imposed to alleviate congestion KUWAIT: It is vital to implement the strategy approved by the Cabinet to alleviate the traffic congestion in the country and save lives, Minister of Public Works and Minister of State for Planning and Development Fadhil Safar said Tuesday.

Speaking to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) the minister said the strategy included a call for all state bodies to honor their part in solving the problem, which is affecting every body’s daily life and wellbeing.

He added he is hopeful Parliament would approve a government-proposed draft law that includes founding a public authority for transport and motorways, which would integrate all efforts aiming to address the traffic problem.

Factors contributing to the traffic jams

are mainly the great number of cars on the road, lack of enthusiasm to use public transport, and a population that is greatly condensed within a limited area that is only eight percent of Kuwaiti territory.

The Ministry of Public Works, he said, has a three-phase plan to address this issue. There was partial success of the first phase so far, he remarked, through widening and adding lanes, creating new exits and u-turns, and laying out lanes for emergency services and ambulances.

The second phase includes developments on ring roads, re-designing crossroads, removing and re-locating traffic signals, and expanding U-turns under bridges, among other changes, and the minister noted tenders for many of these projects had already been floated and

some are actually being executed.

As for the third phase, which is the most critical to alleviating the traffic congestion, he said it involves promoting public transport, the metro project, building new urban areas to alleviate population concentration, and speeding along urban development in general.

The ministry had devised a national all-inclusive strategy to address the traffic and transport dossier over the years 2010-2020 in cooperation with the Interior Ministry and other state bodies. The aim is to create a sustainable transport system and high traffic safety and efficiency standards to reduce the economic cost of traffic problems, and the strategy was approved by the cabinet in October 2010. -KUNA

Legislative Committee finalizes anti-corruption draft law Staff Writer Egyptians in Kuwait are registering prior to casting their ballots at the consulate on Tuesday, June 5, 2012. (Al Watan)

CAIRO: Nearly 50,000 Egyptian expatriates voted in the last two days, with Kuwait recording the most voters, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said on its website.

Ministry spokesperson Amr Roshdy said in a statement published on the ministry’s website that the Egyptian Embassy in Kuwait received some 17,000 votes, followed by the Egyptian Embassy in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, with about 10,000. The Egyptian Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia recorded about 5,000 votes.

The Tuesday statement showed that some 5,000 Egyptians voted in Doha, Qatar and 3,000 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The Egyptian Consulate in Milano, Italy topped

participation among European countries with 1,500 voters.

The Presidential Elections Commission website said the total number of Egyptians abroad registered to vote in the runoff is about 587,000. Out of those voters, 262,000 live in Saudi Arabia and 119,000 in Kuwait.

The voting period for Egyptians abroad is set to end on 9 June. The domestic vote is scheduled for 16 and 17 June.

Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsy led the first round of the presidential election with 24.4 percent of the vote, followed by former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq with 23.3 percent. -Agencies

Chinese media delegation due in Kuwait on basis of twining GUANGZHOU, China: A planned visit by a delegation of Chinese media personnel to Kuwait due on June 18-22 will fall within framework of the recently-signed twinning accord between Guanhzhou and Kuwait City, said the Kuwaiti Consul General in the Chinese city of Guangzhou Abdulwahab Al-Sager.

The Consult General told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) on Tuesday that the Chinese delegation, including the head of the News Center in Guangzhou, representatives of the state-run press and media in the province, would pay the visit to Kuwait in response to an invitation by the Ministry of Information.

The delegation, during the planned visit, will examine the Kuwaiti information experience, he said, adding that it would result in strengthening further the friendly relationship bounding the Chinese and Kuwaiti peoples and contribute in boosting mutual economic and business cooperation between the two sides.

Last April, Guangzhou and Kuwait City signed a twinning agreement, during a visit by Kuwait Captial Sheikh Ali Al-Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, to the Asian nation. Elaborating, the diplomat told KUNA that relentless efforts were being exerted for bounding the Chinese city of Zhanjiang with Al-Ahmadi.

The Chinese city of Zhanjiang is currently witnessing construction of a joint oil refinery and a petrochemical complex.

State-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC)

Kuwaiti Consul General in the Chinese city of Guangzhou Abdulwahab Al-Sager. (KUNA)

and China Petrochemical Corp., known as Sinopec, have recently agreed on execution of the USD nine billion joint ventures to build a refinery and the petrochemical complex.

The project with Asia’s top refiner Sinopec, potentially to be the largest Sino-foreign joint venture in China, involves a 300,000 barrel-per-day refinery, a one million-ton-a-year ethylene plant and retail network in the southern Guangdong Province.

A Kuwaiti delegation of leading eminent media figures visited Guangzhou, in 2010, in response to an official invitation. -KUNA

Parliament lifts immunity of MP Al-Fadhl

KUWAIT: The National Assembly turned down on Tuesday request to lift parliamentary immunity of MPs Dr. Obaid Al-Wasmi and Musallam Al-Barrak, however, it stripped it off lawmaker Nabeel Al-Fadhl.

The Assembly, during its regular session, reacted to applications, presented by the Public Prosecution.

The prosecution’s case against Al-Wasmi was related to a State Security case, Al-Fadhl for media offenses and Al-Barrak for a libel.

The Parliamentarians started the session with

discussions of a number of letters and reports, including one presented by the Minister of State for Housing Affairs and Minister of State for Parliament Affairs, requesting rapid examination and adoption of the final accounts of the assembly and those of Kuwait Airways for 2004-2005 and 2010-2011. The parliament also approved a letter presented by the head of the committee of educational affairs requesting approval for investigating suspected alteration of the final report of the special panel tasked with the case of diploma graduates. -KUNA

KUWAIT: The Parliament’s Legislative Committee finalized a draft law that aims to enhance transparency and fight corruption. The committee will refer the draft law to the Parliament to be included in its agenda for Wednesday’s or Thursday’s session. Speaking to reporters, the Committee’s Rapporteur MP Mohammad Al-Dallal said that the committee prepared an anti-corruption draft law that is composed of 71 articles. The draft stipulates the establishment of an authority for enhancing transparency and fighting corruption. He added that the draft law includes articles on financial disclosure, conflict of interests, protecting informants and penalties for those who violate the

anti-corruption law.

Al-Dallal said that the committee was keen on forming the said draft law to be compatible with the international anticorruption agreement. He noted that the committee discussed 36 proposals submitted by lawmakers and a proposal by the government. He added that the draft law will be referred to the Parliament, hoping that it would be included in the agenda of this week’s session. Al-Dallal said that the committee took into account the remarks expressed by civil society institutions, including the Transparency Society, Kuwaiti Lawyers Society, Protecting Public Funds Society and Parliamentarians Against Corruption (Kuwait branch) while discussing the draft law.

Al-Dallal added that the draft law is

expected to address several issues such as conflict of interests, adding that last year witnessed several issues related to conflict of interests, but the Kuwaiti legislator failed to penalize any official or MPs. He added that the draft law will prevent officials and senior officials from being involved in conflict of interests or corruption. He noted that the financial disclosure will prevent officials from abusing or misusing public funds as they will submit financial disclosure statements on their properties when they hold a government post in order to discover any illegal violations after they leave office.

Regarding protecting informants, AlDallal stressed the need to protect informants as many hesitate to report corruption cases in fear of getting harmed.

FM arrives in Jeddah to attend ministerial meeting JEDDAH: Kuwait’s Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Sabah AlKhalid Al-Hamad Al-Sabah arrived here on Tuesday, to participate in the 123rd GCC regular ministerial session.

Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled was received, upon arrival, by Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Prince Abdulaziz Bin Abdullah, GCC Secretary General Abdullatif AlZayani, Consul General of the State of Kuwait in Jeddah Saleh Ali Al-Saqoubi and Kuwait’s charge D’affaires in Riyadh Thiyab Al-Rishidi. The GCC Foreign Ministers will discuss the Council’s transformation into a union, cooperation with Yemen and the strategic collaboration forum between the United States and the GCC body. They will also tackle a human rights draft charter along other GCC-related projects and issues.

Sheikh Sabah is heading a high-ranking delegation that groups Director of the Deputy Premier’s office Ambassador Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah, Director of the GCC Affairs’ Department Ambassador Humoud Youssef Al-Roudhan, as well as other senior foreign ministry officials. -KUNA

Kuwait’s Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Hamad Al-Sabah prior to his departure on Tuesday to Jeddah to take part in the 123rd GCC regular ministerial session. (KUNA)

Al-Juwaihel launches attack against Al-Turaiji Staff Writer

KUWAIT: Member of Parliament (MP) Mohammad Al-Juwaihel intends to launch a harsh attack against his colleague MP Dr. Abdullah Al-Turaiji by raising issues and violations Al-Juwaihel says Al-Turaiji was involved in when he was a senior official at the Ministry of Interior.

Al Watan was informed that Al-Juwaihel will provide the members of the legislative and executive authorities with copies of the court rulings issued against Al-Turaiji as well as the memos issued against him by the Public Prosecution concerning these court rulings.

Al-Juwaihel distributed documents on the case no. 1032 of Public Funds that reveal the waste of 392,000 dinars as a result of manipulating traffic citations through canceling or by collecting them.

The memo issued by the Public Prosecution said that the Traffic Violations Department, which was headed by the said MP registered 25,361 traffic citations under the names of other people than those who committed them in order to enable the violators to renew their licenses without paying the fine.

The memo added that a violation was registered under the name of the ‘tea boy’ at the department Ayoub Ali Amjad

Miyah who doesn’t even have a driving license.

The first degree court’s ruling sentenced Al-Turaiji to two years and four months in jail in addition to dismissing him from office or by paying a fine of 500 dinars.

Al-Juwaihil also distributed documents about case no. 6109, which concern a number of officers, including Al-Tuuraiji when he was Director of Hawally Investigation Department. The documents reveal that the department was involved in torturing a defendant to force him to confess, as indicated by a report submitted to the Public Prosecution.

ALWATAN DAILY

WORLD Ask Muafi

By Hossam Fathi

Egyptians always feel homesickness no matter where they live. They are always concerned with issues taking place in Egypt and providing solutions to problems that may occur at home.

Every now and then, I receive emails from readers proposing solutions to problems faced by our homeland. The following message reflects feelings of love and belonging of its writer to Egypt, especially as the Holy Month of Ramadan is approaching.

Dear reputable journalist Hossam Fathi, If you like my idea, please publish it in your column which is read by thousands of Egyptians living in Kuwait.

Religion plays a major role in helping man deal with daily developments and crises. There is no doubt that social relations would definitely be better if they were based on religion. Following the Jan. 25 revolution, I believe that religion can play an important role to overcome challenges faced by the Egyptian economy. I believe that a fatwa should be issued by Muslim and Christian scholars and a clergy that allows Muslims to pay Zakat and to allow Christians to pay a tithe to support the national economy. But this should be under the supervision and coordination of religious authorities, the armed forces and the Ministry of Finance in order to assure people that the money they pay will be spent properly.

Sincerely, Dr. Mohammad Mahmoud Al-Tahani An Adviser at Cabinet Kuwaiti Research and Studies Center Thanks to the reputable adviser for his valuable message. I appeal to religious authorities in Egypt to consider this proposal. hossam@alwatan.com.kw Twitter:@hossamfathy66

At least 16 killed in Yemen Sunni-Shiite clashes

WEDNESdAY, June 6, 2012

Syria lists 17 Western envoys as unwelcome BEIRUT/GENEVA: Syria branded 17 diplomats, most of them American and European, as “persona non grata” (unwelcome) in response to a mass expulsion of Syrian envoys by Western capitals last week.

But the foreign ministry said the government was still open to re-establishing ties with the diplomats, almost all of whom had already been recalled by their governments.

“The Syrian Arab Republic still believes in the importance of dialogue based on principles of equality and mutual respect,” a ministry statement it said. “We hope the countries that initiated these steps will adopt those principles, which would allow relations to return to normal again.”

Syria has agreed to allow the United Nations and international agencies to expand humanitarian operations in the country, where at least 1 million people need assistance after 15 months of conflict, a senior UN aid official said on Tuesday.

The UN is to open four field offices - in Deraa, Deir El-Zor, Homs and Idlib - and Syrian officials have pledged to accelerate the granting of visas for aid workers and customs clearance for relief goods, he said.

“This agreement was secured in Damascus with the government there, in writing,” John Ging, who chaired the closed-door Syrian Humanitarian Forum, told reporters in Geneva.

“Freedom of movement, unimpeded access for humanitarian action within Syria, is what it’s all about now. The good faith of the (Syrian) government will be tested on this issue today, tomorrow and every day.” The UN hosted the Syrian Humanitarian Forum, the third in a series, in Geneva to try to expand access to hungry, sick or wounded civilians in the country reeling from an uprising against President Bashar Al-Assad.

UN aid agencies have been largely shut out of Syria but have tried for months to launch a large-scale aid operation. The plan, drawn up after an assessment mission carried out with Syrian officials in March, had stalled since.

Under the agreement, procedures are to be streamlined for granting visas to aid workers from nine UN agencies and seven international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Ging said.

But he was cautious and declined to give figures for the number of aid workers to be deployed or a timetable, saying details were still

Anti-government protesters hold signs as part of a funeral procession for Yaser Raqieh, whom protesters say was killed by forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad, near Hama June 5, 2012. (Reuter)

being discussed with Syrian officials.

Meanwhile, Syrian government forces backed by helicopters clashed on Tuesday with rebels in several towns in the coastal province of Latakia, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Rebels said at least eight of the fighters were killed. “The clashes started seven hours ago. These are the heaviest clashes so far in the area since the beginning of the revolution (in March 2011),” Rami Abdelrahman, the head of the British-based Observatory, told Reuters.

He said at least five tanks and armored per-

sonnel carriers were destroyed. Rebels have taken over police stations in the city of Haffeh in the countryside of Latakia, he added. He said “a lot of ambulances” were seen arriving in the city of Latakia carrying government forces casualties. “Haffeh is totally surrounded right now,” said an activist in the city. He said the clashes were in the villages of Bekas, Babna, Jankeel.

Latakia has been relatively calm in the uprising against the rule of President Bashar Al-Assad, who is from minority Alawite sect. Anti-government demonstrations have been in the Sunni

Iran urges powers to accept nuclear rights in talks A vehicle belonging to Al-Qaeda-linked militants and destroyed during clashes with the army, is seen at the front line in the southern province of Abyan June 4, 2012. (Reuters)

SANAA: At least 16 gunmen have been killed in three days of fighting between Shiite Huthi rebels in north Yemen and Sunni Salafist extremists, according to claims by both sides on Tuesday.

“Four of our men were killed and six others wounded in confrontations on Saturday with Salafist gunmen in Al-Qobaaf,” east of the Huthi stronghold of Saada, said Huthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam. Sorur Al-Wadii, a spokesman for the Salafists said 12 Sunni militants were killed in three days of fighting, but claimed that his comrades killed 18 Huthi fighters. He blamed the Huthis for the clashes, saying the killings on “both sides were result of attacks by the Huthis who are trying to expand (their control) in the province of Hajja, Marib and Jawf.”

Abdulsalam accused the Sunni gunmen of receiving support from neighboring Saudi Arabia, a bastion of Salafism which is a puritanical approach to Islam.

“We are in total control of the situation,” he said, insisting that hostilities were started by a Salafist group “paid by Saudi Arabia.”

Dozens of people have been killed in sectarian clashes since last year between the rebels and Salafists trying to tighten their grip on the north, where government control has slackened since a political crisis in Sanaa. Yemen’s mountainous north is a stronghold of the Huthis, who from 2004 fought six wars with central government forces before signing a truce in February 2010. The rebellion claimed thousands of lives. Also Tuesday, The US government aid agency warned that a humanitarian crisis in Yemen was being “overlooked” despite escalating to levels seen in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel. “It’s often overlooked.... If you look at the global crises right now, Yemen doesn’t get on that list and it really needs to be,” Nancy Lindborg, a USAID assistant administrator, told AFP in Rome after a visit to the country.

Five million people need urgent aid and five million more are facing food insecurity out of a population of 25 million people, Lindborg said, adding that the crisis had been “exacerbated” by conflict and a political transition. The depletion of water resources is a particularly acute problem, she said.

“This is something the government must absolutely find the political will to organize. Otherwise they will be going off a cliff soon,” she added.

Lindborg was taking part in a joint visit with the Organization of Islamic Conference, the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab League. She said the US would be providing an additional $6.5 million (5.2 million euros) in humanitarian aid to Yemen, bringing its total forecast aid budget for this year to $118 million from $115 million last year.

Deadly anti-regime protests swept Yemen last year, finally forcing president Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down in February after 33 years in power. The political crisis has left the country’s economy in tatters and aggravated the dire security situation, with Al-Qaeda militants launching a wave of attacks in the mostly lawless south since Saleh’s departure. -AFP

3

DUBAI: An adviser to Iran’s supreme leader has urged world powers to formally recognize its nuclear rights to bring about a “favorable result” at talks on its atomic program later this month, state media reported on Tuesday.

Deflecting Iranian pressure in talks last month, Western countries declined to accord any such recognition, saying Tehran had no automatic right to enrich uranium because of its previous violations of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Iran says that under its NPT membership, it can develop a full nuclear fuel cycle for peaceful purposes including the enrichment of uranium, a process that yields fuel for power stations or bombs, depending on the level of refinement.

“I hope the P5+1 group recognizes Iran’s inalienable nuclear right within the framework of the NPT and refrains from sitting on the sidelines,” IRNA quoted Ali Akbar Velayati, an aide to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as saying.

“By accepting Iran’s right to use

peaceful nuclear energy, the forthcoming talks in Moscow should reach a favorable result.”

Khamenei - who has total command over Iran’s nuclear policy - has publicly forbidden the development of nuclear weapons. Iran says it is enriching uranium only for civilian energy.

Western nations suspect that the Islamic Republic’s higher-grade uranium enrichment is part of a clandestine program to develop the material and components needed for a capacity to produce nuclear arms.

Despite Velayati’s firm line, diplomats say Iranian negotiators were forthcoming at the talks in Baghdad - in contrast to previous failed negotiations - and believe Khamenei has given them a freer hand to explore a deal.

Another round of talks has been scheduled for June 18-19 in Moscow. Last week US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicated the meeting would be crucial because of Washington’s need to see

“concrete actions”.

Iran has at times appeared flexible on halting higher-grade enrichment if its requirements for fuel are met.

But in recent weeks Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded the powers get tougher with Iran and insists it halts all enrichment. He has also reserved Israel’s right to take military action against Iran if negotiations fail.

Velayati played down the possibility of Israeli military strikes: “They neither have the power nor the courage to do such a thing.”

Iran is refining uranium to 20 percent of fissile purity - well above the level required to run nuclear power plants - for what it says will be fuel for a medical research reactor. But Western officials are worried because the 20 percent level hurdles major technical barriers to reaching the 90 percent - or bomb-grade - threshold and they believe Iran is stockpiling more material than it needs for nuclear medicine. -Reuters

Palestinians stage demos on Six Day War anniversary RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: Palestinians on Tuesday staged small demonstrations to mark the 45th anniversary of the Six Day War in which Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Near the West Bank city of Ramallah, around 200 people protested by the Ofer

military prison, with clashes breaking out as demonstrators threw stones at troops who fired tear gas. Several people were injured lightly and treated at the scene, medical sources told AFP. In Hebron, around 200 protesters took part in a rally, including foreign ac-

An Israeli soldier scuffles with a Palestinian protester during a demonstration against the Israeli occupation and to mark “Naksa Day”, the 45th anniversary of the 1967 Six Day War, at the entrance of the old city near the settlement of Beit Romano in the West Bank town of Hebron on June 5, 2012. (AFP)

tivists. An AFP photographer said clashes also broke out there, with Israeli troops arresting at least two people.

In Gaza City, between 200 and 300 people marched from the Square of the Unknown Soldier to the United Nations’ Gaza headquarters in a rally organized by the ruling Hamas movement.

Protesters held up maps depicting pre-1948 Palestine, including what is now Israel, and waved green Hamas flags. The small and largely peaceful marches were in stark contrast to last year’s anniversary, when protesters attempted to storm across the border from Syria into the occupied Golan Heights.

Troops opened fire on the demonstrators, with Syria claiming 23 people were killed and 350 wounded by Israeli soldiers. Israel said it counted 10 deaths, but that none of the demonstrators were killed by Israeli fire.

Three weeks earlier, thousands of protesters in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza had tried to force their way across the borders in a mass show of mourning over the 1948 creation of the Jewish state, known as the “Nakba” or “catastrophe.”

At that time, hundreds forced their way onto the Israeli-controlled Golan, where troops opened fire killing four, while a similar yet unsuccessful attempt along the Lebanon border left seven dead, according to UN figures. -AFP

neighborhoods of Latakia, a majority Sunni area with a large Alawite population.

Bassel Salow, a spokesman of a brigade of the rebel group the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in the area, said at least eight fighters were killed during the clashes which were continuing in Haffeh. “They have shelled at least 60 villages using helicopters, we have 15 civilians wounded and we cannot rescue any of the them,” he said by telephone. Syria imposes restrictions on foreign journalists making it difficult to verify events. -Reuters

Sudan journalists hold sit-in against restrictions

KHARTOUM: Sudanese journalists and Communist Party members held a sit-in on Tuesday to protest against repeated restrictions against their newspaper, part of what press freedom advocates describe as an intensifying clampdown on critical voices.

The protest came as another newspaper separately said it had been blocked from circulating. Staff of the Communist Party’s thrice-weekly Al Midan gathered outside the Sudanese press council saying state security agents had prevented distribution of their paper 13 times over the past month.

“We delivered a message to the press council calling on them to protect the rights of our newspaper,” said Al Midan’s female chief editor, Madiha Abdullah.

The protesters displayed banners objecting to the actions of the security service and also to the banning of journalists.

Press freedom advocates say journalists have been banned from writing and some newspapers have been told to suspend publication under a government crackdown that has also seen Al Midan and other newspapers prevented from distributing after going to press.

The crackdown has worsened over the past year as tensions with South Sudan have escalated, advocates say.

The independent daily Al Jarida on Tuesday became the latest to be stopped from circulating, managing editor Idris Al Douma said. After the newspaper was printed on Monday night, a state security officer arrived to say it could not be delivered to customers but the ban was lifted Tuesday afternoon when it was too late, the editor said. He added he did not know what prompted the censorship.

Confiscating newspapers after printing is a common tactic of Sudan’s security service. On Monday, agents blocked distribution of the country’s largest-circulation newspaper, the hard-line anti-South Sudan daily Al Intibaha, the newspaper’s chairman said. -AFP

Iraq Kurds indefinitely postpone provincial elections

ARBIL, Iraq: Election authorities in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region on Tuesday indefinitely postponed provincial polls scheduled for September because of laws that restrict minority voting rights.

The delay further extends the period between Iraq’s nationwide provincial council elections in January 2009, and similar polls being conducted in the three-province Kurdish region.

Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) said Kurdish regional laws only allowed Christian voters to vote for candidates from their religious community, thereby restricting their human rights and falling short of international election standards.

“They (the Kurdish government) postponed the elections indefinitely and, after reaching an agreement over the law of provincial councils, they will announce a new date,” IHEC chief Faraj Al-Haidari said at a news conference in the regional capital Arbil.

“There was a section of the law of provincial councils that stated Christians should only vote for Christian candidates, and this is against international standards and human rights because every human being has the right to vote in favor of any candidate.”

Elections in the three provinces that comprise Iraqi Kurdistan were due to have been held on September 27, after last taking place in 2005. In 2009, elections were held in 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces, with only the three Kurdish provinces and the disputed northern province of Kirkuk, claimed by both Kurdish authorities and the central government, not taking part. -AFP

4

ALWATAN DAILY

OPINION / VIEWS

wednesDAY, JUNE 6, 2012

Austerity and debt realism

There is a two-way feedback between debt and growth, but normal recessions last only a year and cannot explain a two-decade period of malaise.

Kenneth Rogoff Project Syndicate

M

any, if not all, of the world’s most pressing macroeconomic problems relate to the massive overhang of all forms of debt. In Europe, a toxic combination of public, bank, and external debt in the periphery threatens to unhinge the eurozone.Across the Atlantic, a standoff between the Democrats, the Tea Party, and old-school Republicans has produced extraordinary uncertainty about how the United States will close its 8 percent-of-GDP government deficit over the long term. Japan, meanwhile is running a 10 percent-of-GDP budget deficit, even as growing cohorts of new retirees turn from buying Japanese bonds to selling them.

Aside from wringing their hands, what should governments be doing? One extreme is the simplistic Keynesian remedy that assumes that government deficits don’t matter when the economy is in deep recession; indeed, the bigger the better. At the opposite extreme are the debt-ceiling absolutists who want governments to start balancing their budgets tomorrow (if not yesterday). Both are dangerously facile.

The debt-ceiling absolutists grossly underestimate the massive adjustment costs of a self-imposed “sudden stop” in debt finance.

Such costs are precisely why impecunious countries such as Greece face massive social and economic displacement when financial markets lose confidence and capital flows suddenly dry up.

Of course, there is an appealing logic to saying that governments should have to balance their budgets just like the rest of us; unfortunately, it is not so simple. Governments typically have myriad ongoing expenditure commitments related to basic services such as national defense, infrastructure projects, education, and healthcare, not to mention to retirees. No government can just walk away from these responsibilities overnight.

When US President Ronald Reagan took office on Jan. 20, 1981, he retroactively rescinded all civil-service job offers extended by the government during the two and a half months between his election and the inauguration. The signal that he intended to slow down government spending was a powerful one, but the immediate effect on the budget was negligible. Of course, a government can also close a budget gap by raising taxes, but any sudden shift can significantly magnify the distortions that taxes cause.

If the debt-ceiling absolutists are naïve, so, too, are simplistic Keynesians. They see lingering post-financial-crisis unemployment as a compelling justification for much more aggressive fiscal expansion, even in countries already running massive deficits, such as the

US and the United Kingdom. People who disagree with them are said to favor “austerity” at a time when hyper-low interest rates mean that governments can borrow for almost nothing.

But who is being naïve? It is quite right to argue that governments should aim only to balance their budgets over the business cycle, running surpluses during booms and deficits when economic activity is weak. But it is wrong to think that massive accumulation of debt is a free lunch. In a series of academic papers with Carmen Reinhart - including, most recently, joint work with Vincent Reinhart (“Debt Overhangs: Past and Present”) - we find that very high debt levels of 90 percent of GDP are a long-term secular drag on economic growth that often lasts for two decades or more.

The cumulative costs can be stunning. The average high-debt episodes since 1800 last 23 years and are associated with a growth rate more than one percentage point below the rate typical for periods of lower debt levels.

That is, after a quarter-century of high debt, income can be 25 percent lower than it would have been at normal growth rates. Of course, there is a two-way feedback between debt and growth, but normal recessions last only a year and cannot explain a two-decade period of malaise.

The drag on growth is more likely to come from the eventual need for the government to raise taxes, as well as from lower investment spending. So, yes, government spending provides a short-term boost, but there is a tradeoff with long-run secular decline. It is sobering to note that almost half of high-debt episodes since 1800 are associated with low or normal real (inflation-adjusted) interest rates. Japan’s slow growth and low interest rates over the past two decades are emblematic.

Moreover, carrying a huge debt burden runs the risk that global interest rates will rise in the future, even absent a Greek-style meltdown. This is particularly the case today, when, after sustained massive “quantitative easing” by major central banks, many governments have exceptionally short maturity structures for their debt. Thus, they run the risk that a spike in interest rates would feed back relatively quickly into higher borrowing costs.

With many of today’s advanced economies near or approaching the 90 percent-ofGDP level that loosely marks high-debt periods, expanding today’s already large deficits is a risky proposition, not the cost-free strategy that simplistic Keynesians advocate. I will focus in the coming months on the related problems of high private debt and external debts, and I will also return to the theme of why this is a time when elevated inflation is not so naïve. Above all, voters and politicians must beware of seductively simple approaches to today’s debt problems.

Voicing concerns over the fate of education Shamlan Yousef Al-Eisa

I

n what seemed like an eternity, members of the government have finally taken an unanimous decision and rejected all those notorious and irrational draft laws that a majority of members of the National Assembly were desperately trying to approve, such as executing anyone who insults Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), construction of the Jaber Al-Ahmad University, and several other minor legislations that were taken hastily and then subsequently approved by them recently.

Judging by the way events are progressing these days, there can be no doubt in one’s mind that members of the government, spearheaded

by His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah, plan to initiate some serious changes in the way the country is being governed, in desperate attempts to restore the government’s authority and credibility which has been on a steep decline for far too long. It is also deplorable that some members of parliament have been pushing to approve some draft laws that are simply not in the best interests of the country and its citizens.

Now they have gone a step further and are adamant over the establishment of Jaber AlAhmad University without going through the appropriate procedures that are required for the establishment of any new universities. The establishment of any new universities is the sole prerogative of the executive authority and hence; members of that authority should be firm in their resolve not to permit the members of the legislative authority to impede on their powers.

In a recent development, MP Jamaan AlHarbash stated, in no uncertain terms, that several influential figures are exerting tremendous efforts to reject the establishment of the Jaber Al-Ahmad University and nearly managed to achieve their goal. I would however, like to take this opportunity to inform Al-Harbash that several prominent professors and others who are

Ali Farzat

It is common knowledge that Kuwait has been suffering huge losses over a considerable period of time simply because members of the government live in constant fear of incurring the wrath of MPs. concerned about the status of educations, including myself, have raised our objections over the approval of a draft law to construct the Jaber Al-Ahmad University at a cost of a staggering 1 billion Kuwaiti dinars.

The main reason why I am concerned about the future of education in Kuwait lies in the fact that there are serious attempts being exerted by some MPs (who are affiliated to political Islam MPs as well as other MPs who represent tribes) to enforce the priorities of their respective parties without going through the proper procedures involved in establishing new universities. I personally feel that if those MPs are really interested in establishing new universities, then they should first ensure that all those shortcomings that are witnessed at Kuwait University must be rectified before even thinking of constructing more universities in the country.

How can they even think of establishing more universities without first going through all the official and academic channels? Then there is also this other underlying fact that we are all aware of and that is; the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to establish a separate academy, to enable all its members who studied at universities that have not been accredited to join it. This is surely a step in the right direction simply because it will help all those students who are refused admissions at Kuwaiti University because its current capacity is bursting at the seams.

We must all get together and thank His Highness the Premier for taking this bold and coura-

geous step in facing a majority of the MPs head on, because they are now crossing their limits by approving projects while sitting in the plush confines of their diwaniyas, instead of discussing them with other MPs and the government at the place where such issues must be officially discussed namely; the National Assembly. We also thank members of the government for taking a firm decision and declaring that it will go full steam ahead in executing the Northern AlZour Station Project, despite receiving several threats from MPs against going ahead with the project.

It is common knowledge that Kuwait has been suffering huge losses over a considerable period of time simply because members of the government live in constant fear of incurring the wrath of MPs as was witnessed at a time when the country incurred losses to the tune of 17 billion Kuwaiti dinars after it chose to withdraw from the northern oil wells project, in addition to losing KD2.16 billion for scrapping the Dow Chemical project, not to mention scrapping the fourth refinery project too.

Kuwait has also lost millions through delaying the privatization of Kuwait Airways every step of the way. Several important projects have either been cancelled or have been postponed because of the persistent interference of MPs who know absolutely nothing about the country’s economy nor do they know anything about managing the country’s day to day activities.

When will we ever agree to learn valuable lessons from past mistakes?

POLITICAL THEATER

* Kenneth Rogoff is Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Harvard University, and was formerly chief economist at the IMF.

Democracy versus the eurozone Financial markets have reacted as strongly as they have because investors recognize that the “sovereign” in sovereign debt is an electorate that can simply decide not to pay.

Daniel Gros Project Syndicate

T

he European Union is a voluntary quasi-federation of sovereign and democratic states in which elections matter and each country seeks to determine its own destiny, regardless of the wishes of its partners. But it should now be apparent to everyone that the eurozone was designed with a very different institutional arrangement in mind. Indeed, that design gap has turned out to be a major source of the monetary union’s current crisis.

Last October, Greece’s then-prime minister, George Papandreou, proposed a popular referendum on the second rescue package that had just been agreed at the EU’s summit in Brussels. He was quickly told off by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and Greeks never voted on it. But, less than a year later, the referendum is de facto taking place anyway. In a union of democracies, it is impossible to force sovereign countries to adhere to rules if their citizens do not accept them anymore.

This has profound implications: all of those grandiose plans to create a political union to support the euro with a com-

mon fiscal policy cannot work as long as EU member countries remain both democratic and sovereign. Governments may sign treaties and make solemn commitments to subordinate their fiscal policy to EU rules (or to be more precise, to the wishes of Germany and the European Central Bank).

But, in the end, the “people” remain the real sovereign, and they can choose to ignore their governments’ promises and reject any adjustment program from “Brussels.”

In contrast to the United States, the EU cannot send its marshals to enforce its pacts or collect debt.Any country can leave the EU, and thus the eurozone, when the perceived burden of its obligations becomes too onerous. Until now, it had been assumed that the cost of exit would be so high that it would never be considered. That is no longer true, at least for Greece. But, more broadly, EU commitments have now become relative, which implies that jointly guaranteed Eurobonds cannot be the silver bullet that some hope.

As long as member states remain fully sovereign, no one can fully reassure investors that in the event of a eurozone

breakup, some states will not simply refuse to pay, or at least refuse to pay for the others. It is not surprising that bonds issued by the European Financial Stability Facility (the eurozone’s rescue fund) are trading at a substantial premium over German debt. All variants of Eurobonds come with supposedly strong conditionality.

Countries that want to use them must follow strict fiscal rules. But who guarantees that these rules will actually be followed? Francois Hollande’s victory over Sarkozy in France’s presidential election shows that an apparent consensus on the need for austerity can crumble quickly. What recourse do creditor countries have if the debtor countries become the majority and decide to increase spending? The recently agreed measures to strengthen economic-policy coordination in the eurozone (the so-called “six-pack”) imply in principle that the European Commission should be the arbiter in such matters, and that its adjustment programs can formally be overturned only by a two-thirds majority of the member states. But it is unlikely that the Commission

will ever be able to impose its view on a large country.

Spain’s experience is instructive in this respect. After the recent elections there, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s new government announced that it did not feel bound by the adjustment program agreed to by the previous administration.

Rajoy was roundly rebuked for the form of his announcement, but its substance was proven right: Spain’s adjustment program is now being made more lenient. The reality is that the larger member states are more equal than the others.

Of course, this is not fair, but the EU’s inability to impose its view on democratic countries might actually sometimes be for the best, given that even the Commission is fallible.

The broader message from the Greek and French elections is that the attempt to impose a benevolent creditors’ dictatorship is now being met by a debtors’ revolt. Financial markets have reacted as strongly as they have because investors recognize that the “sovereign” in sovereign debt is an electorate that can simply decide not to pay.

This is already the case in Greece, but the fate of the euro will be decided in the larger, systemically important countries like Italy and Spain. Only determined action by their governments, supported by their citizens, will show that they merit unreserved support from the rest of the eurozone. At this point, nothing less can save the common currency. * Daniel Gros is Director of the Center for European Policy Studies.

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ALWATAN DAILY

WORLD

wednesdAY, June 6, 2012

Putin in China to cement key alliance BEIJING: Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in China on Tuesday for a three-day visit aimed at bolstering a crucial alliance that has seen the giant neighbors block further action against Syria.

Both energy and foreign policy cooperation are high on the agenda, with Putin also participating in a regional summit Wednesday and Thursday where he will separately meet the presidents of Iran and Afghanistan.

Putin’s China trip, his first to Asia since starting an historic third term last month, comes after failed attempts by EU leaders to sway him on Syria - a Soviet-era ally Moscow still supplies with arms.

Beijing and Moscow have walked in lockstep on Syria to growing anger from Arab and Western nations, with EU President Herman Van Rompuy telling Putin in Russia on Monday that world powers needed to “find common messages on which we agree”.

Known for confronting the West repeatedly during his 2000-2008 presidency, Putin pointedly skirted the issue of Syria during Monday’s briefing with EU leaders, noting only that “our positions do not coincide on every issue”.

Putin has been keen to play up the importance of Russia’s at-times uneasy ties with China, which have grown stronger in the past year as both used their veto power on the UN Security Council to block action against Damascus.

Although the two nations had periodic border conflicts and viewed each other with suspicion in Soviet times, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared this weekend that Russia had an exemplary partnership with China on foreign policy.

“All in all, we consider the cooperation

Chinese President Hu Jintao (right) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) attend an official welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, June 5. (EPA)

on foreign policy on all levels between Russia and China a successful model of coordination between partners,” Lavrov said in comments posted on the Russian foreign ministry’s website.

Beijing’s state-run China Daily newspaper also played up the relationship between the two countries in an editorial on Tuesday, saying it was in “good shape” and “bodes well for the future”.

“At a time when East Asia and North Africa

have undergone profound changes, Beijing and Moscow have been standing firmly together to safeguard the tenets of the UN charter and the norms of international relations,” it said.

Putin, who is flying to China just weeks after cancelling a visit to the United States, was due to hold extensive talks with President Hu Jintao later Tuesday.

He will also be welcomed with a formal reception at Beijing’s colossal Great Hall of the People in the evening.

Pentagon chief in India amid US focus on Asia NEW DELHI: US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has arrived in India for talks focusing on Washington’s strategic shift towards Asia, as the United States eyes New Delhi as a potentially pivotal partner.

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta arrived in India on Tuesday for talks focusing on Washington’s strategic shift towards Asia, as the United States eyes New Delhi as a potentially pivotal partner.

Security ties with India have steadily improved in recent years but US officials have yet to realize the goal of a game-changing alliance that could check China’s role and empower the two countries’ economies, analysts say.

During his two-day visit, Panetta is expected to discuss expanding defense ties, the NATO war effort in Afghanistan and China’s increasing economic and military power in the region, US officials said.

Panetta is due to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon on Tuesday afternoon, before giving a policy speech on Wednesday, officials said.

In President Barack Obama’s new strategy blueprint unveiled in January, India is the only country mentioned by name as a vital partner.

US officials say the two countries share democratic traditions and similar concerns about China’s stance as well as the threat posed

by Islamic extremists in South Asia.

“Strategically, we see India as a partner with a lot of common interests,” a senior de-

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta (right) shakes hands with US Ambassador to India Nancy Powell (C) upon his arrival in New Delhi on June 5. (AFP)

fense official said on condition of anonymity.

But both countries have been disappointed about a lack of progress on defense trade and other fronts.

Although US arms sales to New Delhi have dramatically expanded over the past decade, India in 2011 rejected bids by US contractors

for a $12 billion fighter jet contract. France’s Dassault is now in exclusive talks for the deal.

India, for its part, has expressed irritation over US export restrictions that prevent it from gaining access to some high-tech US weaponry.

On the war in Afghanistan, India worries that the departure of most US and NATO forces

Clinton in Georgia to bolster US ally’s defenses BATUMI: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is meeting with Georgia’s president in a day of events designed to bolster the American ally’s defensive capacity.

Clinton on Tuesday participated in a strategic dialogue with Georgian officials in the Black Sea resort of Batumi.

Central to the talks are the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

They declared independence after Russia routed Georgia in a five-day war in 2008.

Russian forces protect them.

Clinton reiterated US opposition to Russia’s “occupation” of the provinces.

Clinton then inaugurated a coast guard vessel refurbished with US financial assistance.

She holds meetings later with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili (sahkahsh-VIH’-leh). -Reuters

Georgian Prime Minister Nika Gilauri (right) shakes hands with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton before meetings in Batumi June 5. (Reuters)

Japan PM urged to be cautious about nuclear restarts TOKYO: Nearly a third of Japan’s ruling party lawmakers are petitioning Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to be cautious about restarting nuclear reactors given safety concerns after last year’s earthquake and tsunami, an organizer said on Tuesday.

Noda, keen to restart two reactors in western Japan before electricity demand peaks this summer, could decide as early as this week to reconnect them to the grid - despite the risk of a backlash that would weaken his already sagging voter ratings.

“It is clear from surveys that the majority of the people think that we can survive this summer by conserving energy and transferring electricity among regions,” said the petition, to be presented to Noda’s government later in the day.

“We urge you to consider the fact that there is insufficient agreement within the party and among the people and the feelings of the 160,000 victims of the disaster, and be all

the more cautious about a decision to restart the reactors.”

Nuclear power supplied nearly 30 percent of Japan’s electricity needs before last year’s earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima plant in northeast Japan. But all of the country’s 50 reactors have since been taken offline for checks. Noda on Monday stressed that restarting the idled reactors was vital not just to survive summer power shortages but also to avoid hurting the economy with higher electricity rates, a view commonly voiced by Japan’s struggling manufacturers.

But Satoshi Arai, an ex-national strategy minister sponsoring the petition, said Noda had failed to meet conditions for resuming operations at the two Kansai Electric Power Co reactors at its Ohi plant in Fukui, western Japan.

The government has been struggling to win support from local authorities for the restarts, but on Monday the governor of Fukui said the ball was in Noda’s court. -Reuters

5

NEWS IN BRIEF With China preparing for a stage-managed leadership change, Putin will on Wednesday meet Vice Premier Li Keqiang, who is set to be the next premier, and Xi Jinping, who is tipped as the next president.

Kremlin’s foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said last week the two countries planned to sign 17 diplomatic and business agreements that should help support booming trade, which reached 80 billion US dollars (64 billion euros) last year.

The Russian delegation includes six cabinet members, the heads of Russia’s energy giants Gazprom, Rosneft and Transneft, and “all the major names of Russian business”, Ushakov said.

While energy is high on the agenda, a longawaited gas deal that could see Russia supply 70 billion cubic meters of gas a year directly to its neighbor will not be signed due to pricing disagreements, Gazprom said on Monday.

Among reported deals to be inked during the visit is a joint project to develop a new longhaul aircraft by Russia’s Ilyushin and China’s Comac.

Putin is a frequent guest of Chinese leaders, last visiting Beijing in October in his then capacity as prime minister. It was his only foreign trip after he announced in September his plan to run for president.

A month after his trip, he was awarded a Chinese version of the Nobel prize for “keeping world peace”.

The Russian president arrives in Beijing from Tashkent, where he met his Uzbek counterpart Islam Karimov for talks focused on security issues linked with NATO’s planned withdrawal from neighboring Afghanistan. -AFP

by the end of 2014 could empower Islamic extremists.

Last week, India called for greater coordination with the United States on Afghanistan.

Although India favors improving military relations with the United States, New Delhi has opted to place limits on the arrangement, giving it room to maneuver, analysts said.

“India is unwilling to tightly align with US objectives, and it is presently mired in political sclerosis and an economic slowdown,” said Patrick Cronin, senior adviser for the Center for a New American Security, a Washington-based think-tank. The US-India security relationship has generated increased cooperation between the two countries’ navies, as well as more intelligence sharing.

“Naval cooperation (with the United States) is one of the chief tangible benefits, and the number of bilateral and trilateral exercises with India remain at a record high,” Cronin told AFP. The India trip, part of a nine-day tour of Asia, follows stops in Vietnam and Singapore in which Panetta signaled US plans to bolster its naval presence in the face of a more assertive China.

In Vietnam, Panetta became the first Pentagon chief to set foot in Cam Ranh Bay, a major port and airfield for US forces during the Vietnam War. Standing on the deck of a US naval supply ship undergoing repairs at Cam Ranh, Panetta described the deep-water harbor as a strategically valuable port that could support the US military’s focus on the Pacific. -AFP

Cambodia ‘to deport’ notorious Russian pedophile

PHNOM PENH: A Russian pedophile controversially pardoned in Cambodia’s largest-known child sex scandal will be deported after he was arrested at the home of a teenage girl, police said on Tuesday.

Alexander Trofimov, who built a 300 million US dollars tourist resort in the country, was arrested at the house of an underaged girl outside of the capital Phnom Penh, police spokesman Kirt Chantharith told AFP, adding authorities will try to deport him shortly.

“Police arrested him yesterday (Monday)... while he was hiding with a local family,” Chantharith said, adding that the Russian “loved the family’s daughter, who is 11 or 12 years old”.

“According to policy, we will have to expel him very soon,” he added.

Trofimov was arrested in 2007 facing 17 complaints of sexually abusing minors, the youngest just six years old, and was jailed for 17 years - reduced on appeal to eight years.

But the businessman was controversially freed early in December last year after receiving a royal pardon from King Norodom Sihamoni, dismaying child protection campaigners who demanded his deportation to Russia.

Keo Vanthan, head of Cambodia’s Interpol office, said the Russian is also on the organization’s most-wanted list for sex offences in his home country and will be deported.

Welcoming Monday’s arrest Seila Samleang, director of the anti-pedophile group Action Pour Les Enfants (APLE), said Trofimov’s detention can end “his long history” of abuse in Cambodia.

“We recommend that the Cambodian government honor the extradition request from Russia, and assist Russia in whatever ways possible to prosecute Alexander Trofimov,” she added.

Trofimov is chairman of Koh Pos Investment Company, which in 2006 received permission to build a $300 million resort on Koh Pos, known also as Snake Island, off Sihanoukville in southern Cambodia.

Dozens of foreigners have been jailed for child sex crimes or deported to face trial in their home countries since Cambodia launched an anti-pedophilia push in 2003 in a bid to shake off its reputation as a haven for child sex offenders. -AFP

Deaths confirmed after Nigeria crash, toll now 157 LAGOS: Nigerian rescuers have confirmed the first deaths on the ground caused by a devastating plane crash in the country’s largest city, raising the toll to 157, an official said on Tuesday. The death toll rose after rescuers confirmed the deaths of at least four people from a residential building in the Lagos neighborhood where the Dan Air MD83 crashed on Sunday afternoon, in addition to the 153 crew and passengers, the official said. “A couple died while their children survived, then a woman and her daughter,” the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to provide figures -AFP

Bangladesh arrest warrant over ‘blasphemous’ book DHAKA: A Bangladeshi court has issued an arrest warrant for the writer of a 2003 novel that allegedly contains insulting remarks against the Prophet Mohammed(PBUH), a lawyer said Tuesday. The court in Dhaka issued the order in response to a petition from a Muslim activist accusing author Salam Azad of hurting religious sentiment in his banned book “Bhanga Math” (“Broken Temple”). “We told the court that the book contained slanderous remarks against the Prophet Mohammed(PBUH) and Islam. The judge accepted the petition and issued a warrant of arrest,” the petitioner’s lawyer Ekhlas Uddin told AFP. -AFP

Philippines welcomes pullout of Chinese ships MANILA: Malacañang welcomed the reported pullout of two Chinese ships from Panatag shoal, accompanied by a pullout of a vessel of the Philippines’ Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR).

Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said this is a “positive development” in an effort to defuse tensions in the area.

He said consultations are ongoing regarding the remaining vessels. “It’s an easing of tensions and we appreciate the gesture of both parties to deescalate tension in Panatag shoal and there will be further consultations on the remaining vessels,” Lacierda said. -AFP

Top Al-Qaeda strategist may have been killed in Pakistan PESHAWAR: Abu Yahya Al-Libi, one of Al-Qaeda’s top strategists and seen as the most prominent figure in the network after leader Ayman Al-Zawahri, may have been killed in a drone strike in Pakistan, Pakistani intelligence officials said on Tuesday. If his death is confirmed it would be the biggest blow to Al-Qaeda since US special forces killed Osama bin Laden in a secret raid in Pakistan in May 2011. US sources said Libi, a Libyan cleric with a degree in chemistry who has survived previous attacks by drone aircraft, was a target of a strike early on Monday in northwest Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region, home to some of the world’s most notorious militant groups. -Reuters

‘Canadian Psycho’ murder suspect arrested in Berlin BERLIN: Police in Berlin arrested a porn actor suspected of dismembering a Chinese student and filming the grisly killing, ending a global manhunt for the man dubbed the “Canadian psycho.” Luka Rocco Magnotta, 29, offered little resistance when he was picked up in an Internet cafe in Neukoelln, a working-class district of the German capital, saying simply, “You got me,” said a police spokesman. Canadian authorities said they were working on documents needed to secure Magnotta’s extradition from Germany, after a days-long global manhunt that started in Montreal and shifted to Paris before finally ending in Berlin. -AFP

NATO signs Afghan exit route deals BRUSSELS: NATO has signed a deal with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to remove equipment through their territories as it winds down its operations in Afghanistan, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said. “We reached agreement on reverse transit from Afghanistan with three Central Asian partners: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan,” Rasmussen said at a news conference on Monday. “These agreements will give us a range of new options and the robust and flexible transport network we need,” he said, without offering more detail on the accords. Transit routes for the withdrawal are proving a major problem for the USled ISAF operation in Afghanistan, with massive amounts of materiel dispatched in the decade-long war to be pulled out by the end-2014 deadline from a country ringed by high mountain passes. The Brussels-headquartered alliance is also discussing with Russia the possibility of using Vostochny airport near Ulyanovsk, 900km east of Moscow, as a transit centre for non-lethal equipment from Afghanistan. Washington, meanwhile, continues to press Pakistan to reopen routes blocked six months ago in retaliation for the deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers killed by mistake by US strikes on a border post. “I still hope that a solution can be found in the very near future,” Rasmussen said. -AFP

BUSINESS

m ar ket watc h KUWAIT

DUBAI

0.6% 6130

0.89% 1450

QATAR 0.13% 8322

OMAN

ABU DHABI

0.8% 5765

0.45% 2433

wednesDAY, JUNE 6, 2012

OIL MARKETS

BAHRAIN

EGYPT

SAUDI

0.25% 1131

2.33% 4502

0.17% 6759

US Crude $83.54 $0.44 London Brent $98.73 $0.21 Kuwait Crude $93.73 $2.63 Information Courtesy: KAMCO

CURRENCIES US Dollar

British Pound

Saudi Riyal

Qatari Riyal

Indian Rupee

Buy 0.2803 Sell 0.2808

Buy 0.4308 Sell 0.4317

Buy 0.0747 Sell 0.0749

Buy 0.07715 Sell 0.07699

Buy 0.005047 Sell 0.005037

Euro

Japanese Yen

UAE Dirham

Bahraini Dinar

Philippine Peso

Buy 0.3487 Sell 0.3494

Buy 0.003573 Sell 0.00358

Buy 0.07632 Sell 0.07646

Buy 0.7435 Sell 0.74496

Buy 0.006467 Sell 0.006446

Kuwaiti crude down $2.63 to $93.73 per barrel Brent falls towards $98 on demand worries

CAPITALS: The price of Kuwaiti crude oil went down 2.63 US dollars to trade for $93.73 per barrel (pb) Monday compared to last Friday’s $96.36 pb, said Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) on Tuesday.

The decrease in global oil price was due weak employment rates in the US, the retreat of production in the Chinese industry, in addition to the euro debt crisis.

In more news, oil prices slid towards $98 a barrel on Tuesday as demand expectations were hit by another round of poor data from the euro zone and comments by the International Energy Agency (IEA) that oil prices were still a threat to the global economy.

Despite oil prices having slid to a 16 month low on Monday, the IEA said global oil demand growth in 2012 may fall short of its forecast 800,000 barrels per day.

“Oil demand growth could be markedly weaker than our base case assumption,” said the IEA’s executive director Maria van der Hoeven told reporters at a news conference on Tuesday.

Van der Hoeven said oil still trading near $100 a barrel was contributing to the risk of a further economic slowdown.

Brent crude for July delivery was down 68 cents at $98.17 a barrel at 1012 GMT, after briefly slipping below $98 a barrel earlier in the session. On Monday, Brent touched a 16-month low of $95.63 before recovering and closing higher.

US crude was down 20 US cents at $83.78 a barrel.

Also striking a bearish note for investors, Royal Dutch Shell Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Peter Voser said oil prices were likely to keep falling well into the second half of the year due to a slowing global economy and easing geopolitical uncertainty.

“Global demand is softening, we have got recessionary elements in Europe, a small slowdown in Asia Pacific,” Royal Dutch Shell CEO Peter Voser told Reuters on the sidelines of an industry conference on Tuesday.

“At the same time, some of the geopolitical elements of price volatility over the past few months have kind of receded, and therefore we see a softening of prices which I expect to go well into the second half of this year.”

Euro zone

Fanning concerns about global oil demand growth, euro zone retail sales fell more than expected in April,

A man walks past a board showing graphs of Japan’s stock price indexes outside a brokerage in Tokyo June 5, 2012. Asian shares, the euro and commodities rebounded on Tuesday, with stocks holding a touch above 2012 lows, as investors looked to European policymakers and the wider G7 to take decisive action to address the worsening euro zone crisis. (Reuters)

sliding by the biggest margin so far this year, the EU’s statistics office Eurostat said on Tuesday.

And in another indication the euro zone is stumbling, Tuesday’s purchasing managers indexes (PMIs) showed the bloc’s vast private economy shrank in May at the fastest pace in nearly three years, with company order books collapsing.

Oil prices erased early gains after Spain’s treasury minister said credit markets were shut to the euro zone’s fourth biggest economy in a dramatic radio interview on Tuesday. The risk premium investors demand to hold Spanish 10-year debt rather than German equivalents hit a euro-era high last week.

Realty business grows nearly 50% in 2012 Q1 KUWAIT: Kuwait’s real-estate sector witnessed noticeable activity in first quarter of 2012, with value of traded plots reaching approximately 899 million Kuwaiti dinars with a 49 percent hike compared to same period of 2011, according to a report released by Kuwait International Bank (KIB).

Number of deals reached 2,657, higher from 1,571 transactions of the past year first quarter. The 69 percent hike was primarily boosted by the housing sector, firstly, and the investment sector, secondly. Their value, respectively, rose KD 146 million and KD 144 million. Proportion of growth in the sector of buildings reached 605 percent and warehouses 114 percent.

Highest sales were recorded in January, amounting to approximately KD 358.9 million, for 1,022 deals, followed by March, some KD 270.6 million. As to number of deals, February came first, KD 269.9 million, for 871 deals.

The report revealed hike of speculations, coupled with scarcity of offered plots of land along with hike of demand, particularly for houses. Moreover, there was higher demand for feasible projects, namely ventures for renovation of entertainment facilities and complexes, such as Sabah Al-Ahmad city.

It called for re-examination of the law

KSE main indices green upon closing Tuesday’s session KUWAIT: Three main indices of the national bourse were green upon closing Tuesday’s session.

Price index increased 36.34 points rising to the level of 6,130.2 points, weighted index down 1.76 points gaining to 403.15 and the KSX index put on 3.89 points reaching 968.95 points.

Number of trades amounted to 4,765, value of traded stocks 20,738,827.186 Kuwaiti dinars and volume of exchanged shares 265,544,645.

Trading began Tuesday at Kuwait Stock Exchange on a board that was mixed and leaning to red till 9:30:37, when the price index came to 6,081.88 points on a loss of 11.98 points, the weighted index dropped as well to read 400.57 points on a down of 0.82 points, and the lately introduced KSX 15 index came to 962.22 points, losing 2.84 points.

Trades came to 755 transactions, worth KD 3,588,677.327, with 42,997,994 shares changing hands till time of this reading.

Corresponding reading of the sector indices also revealed a highly mixed scene at the time. -KUNA

number 8 (2008) on regulations concerning empty plots of lands. Despite issuance of this law, prices of housing plots continued to rise amid limited number of available plots and soaring demand.

Trading that reached KD 899 million was close to the level of liquidity, recorded in the first quarter of 2008 -- KD 957 million.

Thus, in light of these factors, it is high time to adopt resolutions for spurring the private sector to take part in land reclamation and construction of residential units.

Moreover, the report advises for activation of role of banks, namely funding for planned residential units, and this in turn will warrant revision of the realty laws.

Positive conditions in the property sector coincided with limited growth in Kuwait Stock Exchange in the first quarter of 2012, where the main index reached 6,165 points, with a six percent rise. Banking credits for the sector dropped to KD 6.75 billion.

Most trades in the housing sector centered in Sabah Al-Ahmad city, at KD 89.6 million, followed by Abu Ftaira, some KD 59 million, Funaitees, KD 19.9 million, Khairan, KD 4.1 million and Salam KD 24.2 million.

These figures reflect interest of mediumincome investors in new districts where prices are generally affordable. -KUNA

Finance chiefs were due to hold emergency talks on the blocs worsening debt crisis in a conference call on Tuesday.

Worries about a chaotic break up of the euro zone and shrinking economic activity has taken the spotlight off Iran. Iranian oil will be subject to a US and EU embargo from July 1 over Iran’s disputed nuclear program, which just three months ago helped push Brent to above $128. The United Nations nuclear watchdog and Iran will hold a new round of talks on Friday to try to reach an agreement to resume a long-stalled probe into Tehran’s atomic activities, the head of the IAEA said on Monday. -Agencies

Prices in Kuwaiti fils as of June 5, 2012 Courtesy: KAMCO

Global to get bond repayment delay approval

DUBAI: Kuwait’s Global Investment House is expected to receive approval on Thursday to delay the repayment of bonds worth 95 million Kuwaiti dinars (338.6 million US dollars) to November from June, two sources familiar with the matter said.

“Bondholders have verbally agreed to the extension.

The Thursday meeting will make it official,” one banker, who asked not to be named, said.

Global, which counts the governments of Kuwait and Dubai as major shareholders, said it would meet holders of bonds worth 50 million dinars and 45 million dinars on June 7 in “continuation of its debt restructuring discussions and negotiations,” according to a May 28 filing to the London stock exchange.

If agreed, it would be the second time holders of the KD 45 million paper have agreed an extension, having initially pushed out repayment to June from April.

This deferral comes as the Kuwaiti investment firm undergoes its second debt restructuring in three years.

Global said in May that it would ask bank creditors to further extend a deadline for repaying debt to November from June as part of a restructuring proposal it plans to submit soon, without specifying the total value of the debt being restructured.

In September last year, it asked bank creditors to delay principal repayments on debt due in December as part of a move to renegotiate a $1.7 billion restructuring agreement signed in 2009.

The company made a loss of KD 11 million in the first three months of 2012, versus a 22 million dinars loss for the same period last year.

Like other Kuwaiti investment houses, the global financial crisis in 2008 hit Global’s portfolio hard.

Sources said in January that Global had laid off 17 percent of its staff, or 60 employees out of 350, across the Gulf region as part of cost-cutting measures.

Shares in Global have not traded on the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) since December after the bourse suspended the stock for having accumulated losses which exceeded 75 percent of its capital. -Reuters

CashBack at 5% of client’s purchases made using Boubyan credit cards KUWAIT: Boubyan Bank (the Fastest Growing Islamic Bank in Kuwait) announced the launch of the new Campaign for its customers of premium credit cardholders who will receive a CashBack of five percent of the value of their purchases, which will be credited back to their cards, whether the payment made using the credit card is made inside or outside Kuwait.

In a press conference held on this occasion, Abdullah Al-Najran Al-Tuwaijri, GM- Consumer Banking Group, said that the offer that will start as of 21 of this month and will be available till 20 October 2012 comes as a reward to the

Bank’s customers for using its credit cards and in appreciation to their loyalty to the Bank, its products and services.

“We had extensive thoughts about the best way to reward our customers and extend a token of our appreciation to them as they deserve really the best and it is our role to be always up to their expectations and to prove to them that Boubyan Bank is indeed the right choice,” he added.

Al-Tuwaijri indicated that the launch of the Campaign coincides with the beginning of the Summer season in which many people love to

travel abroad and thus use credit cards in many transactions like air booking, hotel and resort reservation, car rental as well as their various shopping tours around the world.

Explaining the promotion’s details, Al-Tuwaijri said, “It is quite a simple matter: the more shopping you make using the Bank’s various credit cards (Gold, Platinum & Infinite) whether inside or outside Kuwait during the mentioned period, the more CashBack you will automatically receive at five percent of the value of purchases, which will be credited back to your card account.”

Japan readies bill for sovereign cover of Iran oil imports TOKYO: Japan is preparing to submit a bill to parliament as early as this week to enable its government to provide cover for tankers bringing in Iranian crude once a European Union (EU) ban on insurance takes effect on July 1, Japanese officials said on Tuesday.

Like South Korea, Japan has been lobbying the EU to continue to be exempted from the ban on insurance and reinsurance of Iran’s oil exports, which is part of a raft of Western sanc-

tions aimed at shrinking Tehran’s oil revenues to force it halt its controversial nuclear program.

But Japan’s transport ministry is now preparing a bill covering a sovereign insurance scheme to get round the European Union sanctions, and which cabinet ministers are expected to approve as early as this week, the officials said.= The scheme would enable the Japanese government to directly make the insurance payments necessary in case of a critical incident, said one of-

UAE business activity at 11-month high in May DUBAI: Growth in business activity in the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) non-oil private sector edged up to an 11-month high in May, a purchasing managers’ survey showed on Tuesday.

The HSBC UAE Purchasing Managers’ Index, which measures the performance of the manufacturing and services sectors, increased to 53.8 points last month from 53.5 in April. The adjusted index remains above the 50-point mark which separates growth from contraction, the survey of 400 private sector firms showed.

“It’s a good reading and, given the weakness PMIs are showing elsewhere in the world, the pick up in the new orders and employment scores is particularly encouraging,” said Simon Williams, chief economist for the Middle East and North Africa at HSBC. “The UAE’s reliance on external demand and foreign funding, though, and the limited fiscal stimulus that’s in place, mean it will be hard for the economy to continue to build momentum, particularly as we move into the hot summer months.”

UAE firms saw output growth ease to 54.8 points in May from a 10-month high of 55.4 in

April. But new orders advanced to an 11-month high of 59.1 points.

Employment across the UAE’s non-oil private sector rose for a fifth month in a row, and at the sharpest pace since last July, the survey showed.

Rises in both salaries and purchasing costs led to a sharp increase in overall input price inflation to 57.0 points in May from 55.8 in the previous month.

Consumer price inflation in the UAE, one of the world’s top five oil exporters, is forecast to climb to two percent this year from 0.9 percent in both 2011 and 2010, a Reuters poll of analysts showed in March.

Minister of Economy Sultan bin Saeed AlMansouri on Monday cut his forecast for the country’s gross domestic product growth this year, predicting expansion of around three percent instead of the “almost four percent” which he expected in March. Last year, the economy grew 4.2 percent.

Detailed PMI data is only available under license from Markit and customers need to apply to Markit for a license. -Reuters

ficial, who declined to be identified as he is not authorized to talk to the media. Japan wants to maintain crude imports from Iran in line with demands from the country’s buyers of Iranian crude. A cabinet reshuffle this week in favor of the major opposition parties has increased chances of early approval of any bill in a divided parliament. “Despite preparing the bill, we are continuing to lobby the European Union,” said another government official. -Reuters

Dubai JAFZA to raise $1.85 billion for redemption

DUBAI: Dubai’s Jebel Ali Free Zone (JAFZA) plans to raise 1.85 billion US dollars towards the redemption of its two-billion dollar Islamic bond this year by issuing another Sukuk and obtaining an Islamic financing facility, a source familiar with the plan said on Tuesday. The source, who declined to be named ahead of any official announcement, said JAFZA aimed to raise $650 million from the new Sukuk and $1.2 billion from the Islamic facility.

The Islamic facility is expected to be a borrowing arrangement from banks, banking sources had said earlier.The rest of this year’s Sukuk redemption would be paid for with JAFZA’s internal cash resources. The state-owned company’s 7.5-billion-UAE dirham ($2.04 billion) Sukuk comes due in November, and bond holders voted last month to let JAFZA repay the debt early.

The JAFZA Sukuk is one of the major corporate debt maturities in Dubai this year, and a smooth redemption would increase confidence that the emirate is bringing its debt problems under control. Moody’s Investors Service said in a report on Monday that the plan to raise new financing and repay the Sukuk “would remove the existing refinancing risk that currently constrains JAFZA’s ratings and thereby provide the company with a sustainable capital structure and a materially improved debt maturity profile”.

Lead managers said last week that JAFZA had picked seven banks to arrange its new Sukuk issue. -Reuters

ALWATAN DAILY

BUSINESS

7

wednesday, june 6, 2012

UAE’s Etihad buys stake in Virgin Australia Tuesday 05 June, 2012 Index Price index Weighted Index KSX 15 High

Low

Volume

MARIN

136

126

34681

IKARUS

0

0

0

IPG

0

0

0

NAPESCO

DUBAI: Abu Dhabi’s rapidly-growing Etihad Airways has bought a four percent stake in Virgin Australia, its fourth overseas deal since December as the airline tries to compete with Gulf rivals.

The airline, founded eight-years ago, has already bought stakes in three other carriers in a push to chase the big Gulf state-backed airlines like Dubai’s Emirates and Qatar Airways.

Etihad said it had acquired the 3.96 percent Virgin Australia stake for 35.6 million US dollars via market purchases over the past few weeks.

“At a point in time, we would like to take it (stake) to a minimum of 10 percent, if we get the necessary approvals,” James Hogan, Etihad’s chief executive told Reuters.

“This is a long game. There’s no race here. We have a 10-year commercial relationship with Virgin Australia. This is just step by step building.”

The Virgin stake shows Etihad’s willingness to make acquisitions to compete with its larger Gulf rivals, which are increasingly challenging European, Asian and Australian carriers on long-haul routes. Hogan explained that the growth strategy is designed to make it the Gulf’s top carrier.

He said the airline would take delivery of 100 aircraft over the next eight years but still would not be the biggest airline in the Gulf. “We believe that by investing and partnering it enables us to extend our network,” he said.

In December, the unlisted airline raised a stake in Air Berlin to nearly 30 percent from just under three percent, for about 73 million euros.

Last month, it bought a 3 percent stake in Irish airline Aer Lingus as a precursor to a commercial tie-up that could help the carrier gain more European routes.

It has also bought a 40 percent stake in Air Seychelles.

Virgin Australia’s shares rose 2.4 percent on the Australian bourse on Tuesday following the announcement.

Virgin Australia confirmed that Etihad Airways had bought a 3.96 percent stake and said Etihad is one of Virgin Australia’s strategic alliance partners.

The airline is 26 percent owned by Richard Branson and 20 percent by Air New Zealand Qantas stake unlikely

Hogan ruled out any plans by the Gulf carrier to buy a stake in Virgin Australia’s rival carrier Qantas, which on Tuesday warned of its first annual net loss since its privatization in 1995.

“No, we are partners with Virgin Australia,” Hogan said when asked if he would be interested in the airline.

Etihad began flying to Australia in 2007 and along with Virgin Australia they operate 24 flights a week between Abu Dhabi and Australia.

Hogan said he expects a good second quarter for the Etihad.

“The first-quarter we were on track.

I’m forecasting the same for second quarter. If we have a good third quarter and see people travelling, then I’m positive we can achieve continuing profits,” he said.

Etihad’s first-quarter revenues rose 28 percent on the back of increased passenger numbers and the expansion of its global network. -Reuters

Qatar Tel gains control of Iraqi Asiacell for $1.5 billion DUBAI: Qatar Telecom (Qtel) has reached agreements to double its stake in Iraq’s No. 2 operator Asiacell to 60 percent for 1.47 billion US dollars as it seeks to exploit rising demand for broadband.

Qtel will initially raise its stake to 53.9 percent from 30 percent, with a further increase pending Iraqi government and regulatory approval, the company said in an emailed statement.

Qtel declined to identify the sellers of the stake, but in January sources told Reuters the operator was planning to buy private equity firm MerchantBridge’s 19 percent holding in Asiacell, a company that provided about a fifth of Qtel’s revenue in the first quarter.

“The Iraqi market is about to enter a period of rapid broadband and data growth,” Qtel Chairman Sheikh Abdullah Al-Thani said in the statement.

“This acquisition is in line with our long-term strategy...through which we seek to increase our ownership in companies with significant potential.”

Iraq’s mobile operators have yet

to launch 3G services, while fixed line broadband infrastructure is in its infancy.

Asiacell has a 38 percent share of Iraq’s mobile subscribers, according to rival Zain’s 2011 annual report. Zain’s Iraqi unit is the market leader with 53 percent of subscribers, while France Telecom affiliate Korek has 9 percent.

The three operators were awarded 15-year mobile licences in 2007. These licences required them to launch initial public offerings to sell 25 percent of their shares by the end of August 2011, but all three have yet to do so, saying the fledgling Iraqi bourse is ill-prepared.

“We continue to work hard on preparing for Asiacell’s landmark initial public offer (IPO) planned for later this year,” Sheikh Abdullah added.

Qtel will finance the acquisition from existing funds. In May, sources told Reuters the operator had asked banks for proposals about a one billion dollars commercial paper program.

Qtel owns majority stakes in Oman’s Nawras and Kuwait’s Wataniya. -Reuters

KUWAIT: The National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) believes Egypt would remain a strategic market for its activities and optimistic over the Egyptian economy’s potential and promise. NBK Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sheikha Al-Bahar told a seminar organized Monday night that amid the tough challenges facing Egypt at present, the bond certificate in US dollar is a wise tool to help citizens and investors support the first Arab economy. Recalling the effects of the political instability on the economy, she stressed there is a shared responsibility to support the Egyptian economy across the Arab world. Egyptian Ambassador Abdulkerim Suleiman for his part noted that the state of affairs in post-revolution Egypt means the country’s economy’s stability and strength relies on Egyptians themselves, whether at home or abroad, in view of exodus of foreign investment.

Purchasing the dollar bond certificate had contributed to increasing remittances by 100 million US dollars, the diplomat said, urging his countrymen in Kuwait to buy the bonds. Deputy governor of the Egyptian Central Bank Nidal Amre meanwhile said the bank’s not allowing speculation in dollar in the market during the revolution was a main factor behind the Egyptian pound’s keeping its limited margin against the dollar. In 1990, he said, Egypt had no hard currency reserves and was weighed down by USD 55 billion in debt. The foreign currency reserves reached seven billion dollars in 2004, he continued. He said that though this sum came down during the revolution, it went up again for the first time since the revolution during April, putting on $100 million after slumps of almost two billion dollars a month. The main hurdle for the economy to overcome at present, he stressed, is political instability. Investors had shied away from meetings with the central bank throughout the revolution and till the end of the recent elections. Only then did they seek meetings in an unprecedented influx. -KUNA

Closing

Last Closing

High

Low

6,130.20 403 15 403.15 968.95

6,093.86 401 39 401.39 965.06

6,130.20 403 19 403.19 969.24

6,066.44 398 59 398.59 955.98

Trades Value (KD)

Trades

Last

4 670 4,670

7

134

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

132

128

491,500

63,618

12

0 0

0

Change

Ÿ ŷ ŷ ŷ

132

Ÿ

63

Ÿ

106

102

306 908 306,908

31 879 31,879

7

130

124

1,365,434

175,877

42

0.0

SRE

265

260

20,000

5,250

2

PEARL

31

28

110,737

3,199

11

4.0

TAM

222

222

1

0

1

0.0

4.0

63

59

289,764

17,612

29

178

117,105 933,050

21,445 107,344

6 54

184 960.31

ź Ÿ

-4.0 18.51

112

108

337,100

36,805

32

110

ŷ

0.0

610

ŷ

320

ź

Trades

NRE

184

PIPE

Trades Value (KD)

URC

0.0

GPI Oil & Gas

Volume

265,571,665 20 743 072 20,743,072 4,774

Low

80 8.0

-10.0

Security

Volume Value (KWD) Number of Trades

High

ABAR

AREEC

162

156

73,836

11,644

4

MASSALEH ARABREC

102 35

102 34

500 645,000

51 22,043

1 20

Last

106

130

265 31

Change

Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ

222

ź

102 35

Ÿ Ÿ

156

Ÿ

0

0

0

0

0

ŷ

0.0

92

13,610

1,252

5

92

ŷ

0.0

MABANEE

970

950

226,500

216,880

24

INJAZZAT

65

61

201 000 201,000

12 380 12,380

8

65

Ÿ

INVESTORS

0

0

0

0

0

52 84

50 81

2,980,000 32,337

150,316 2,623

87 5

970

Ÿ

320

17,000

5,465

4

600

114 239 114,239

69 349 69,349

10

0

0

0

0

0

ALQURAIN Basic Materials

216

212

294,365 762,704

63,116 174,735

27 73

216 966.19

Ÿ ź

4.0 -2.01

IRC ALTIJARIA SANAM

61

60

145,000

8,762

10

61

Ÿ

KCEM

400

400

12,500

5,000

2

400

ŷ

0.0

AAYANRE

84

82

1,025,713

85,471

57

Ÿ

REFRI

0

0

0

0

0

0.0

84

AQAR

89

89

7,000

623

1

CABLE

ALAQARIA

0

0

0

0

0

0.0

MAZAYA

76

75

200,727

15,127

9

ADNC

0

0

0

0

0

10.0

THEMAR

0

0

0

0

0

GRAND

0

0

0

0

0

0.0

TIJARA

39

39

300,000

11,550

7

TAAMEER

44

44

250

11

3

ARKAN

93

93

37

3

1

25.0

ARGAN

170

170

10

2

1

ABYAAR

44

43

2,870,000

124,332

48

2.0

MUNSHAAT

33

31

8,473,682

266,464

194

FIRSTDUBAI

44

42

2,531,575

108,684

69

KBT

0

0

0

0

0

10.0

REAM

0

0

0

0

0

MENA

38

35

93,200

3,278

5

20.0

ALMUDON

0

0

0

0

0

MARAKEZ

47

45

472,331

21,335

23

REMAL Real Estate

365

355

7,504,596 31,146,350

2,728,371 4,087,618

135 810

1,200

1,180

80,363

94,829

17

SHIP

196

190

1,757,500

340,764

107

PCEM

870

860

84,074

73,094

24

PAPER

196

190

13,625

2,670

4

MRC

0

0

0

0

0

ACICO

242

238

40,600

9,663

4

GGMC

580

560

30,550

17,313

19

HCC

0

0

0

0

0

KPAK

300

300

5,000

1,500

2

KBMMC

0

0

0

0

0

NICBM

246

246

22,598

5,559

3

EQUIPMENT

0

0

0

0

0

NCCI

0

0

0

0

0

162

152

33,375

5,202

9

GYPSUM SALBOOKH

36

33

229,610

7,769

6

AGLTY

390

370

2,243,210

852,282

85

EDU

110

110

188

21

2

CLEANING CITYGROUP

122 450

116 450

310,800 3,162

36,848 1,423

27 1

KGL

108

104

226,500

24,009

0

0

0

0

HUMANSOFT

248

236

700

166

3

NAFAIS

KCPC

0

ŷ

192

ŷ

1,200 870

Ÿ Ÿ

196

Ÿ

238

ŷ

0

570 0

300 0

ŷ ź ŷ Ÿ ŷ

246

Ÿ

0

ŷ

0

ŷ

162

Ÿ

385

Ÿ

34

110

ź Ÿ

120 450

Ÿ ź

11

108

Ÿ

0

0

ŷ

100

100

350

35

1

SAFWAN

0

0

0

0

0

GFC

30

28

183,643

5,166

7

MAYADEEN

23

21

38,535,579

839,121

245

CGC

0

0

0

0

0

MTCC

87

87

332,000

28,884

12

UPAC

405

405

459,148

185,955

24

ALAFCO

290

285

70,680

20,444

6

MUBARRAD

0

0

0

0

0

LOGISTICS

280

275

615,300

172,135

21

0

0

0

0

0

SCEM

ŷ

248

Ÿ

0

ŷ

100

ź

28

ź

0

ŷ

23

87

Ÿ Ÿ

405

Ÿ

0

ŷ

0

ŷ

290 280 90

Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ

GCEM

91

88

103,500

9,268

9

QCEM

64

62

156,000

9,759

8

FCEM

86

86

49,997

4,300

2

RKWC Industrials

108

104

247,144 45,847,696

26,087 2,779,264

10 671

108 937.28

ź Ÿ

KSH

0

0

0

0

0

0

ŷ

NSH

0

0

0

0

0

PAPCO

104

104

10,000

1,040

1

CATTL

0

0

0

0

0

DANAH

86

81

434,850

36,542

29

POULT FOOD Consumer Goods MHC ATC

64

86

Ÿ ź

0

ŷ

0

ŷ

104 85 0

Ÿ Ÿ ŷ

0.0

40.0 10.0 0.0

-40.0 0.0

0.0

0.0

0.0

-0.5

10.0

2.0 -25.0 2.0

0.0

2.0

-10.0

8,078,541

322,013

139

3,809,469

450,777

129

-0.5

KPROJ

325

315

1,014,970

320,316

44

COAST

48

47

3,651,768

174,156

81

0.0

TII

0

0

0

0

0

1.5

1.0

SECH

0

0

0

0

0

25.0

IIC

0

0

0

0

0

SGC

0

0

0

0

0

0.0

IFC

97

95

475,156

45,561

18

MARKAZ

114

108

874,001

97,080

13

KMEFIC

62

53

1,050

56

3

5.0

5.0

0.0

1.0

0

0

OSOUL

63

63

40,000

2,520

2

0.0

KFIC

0

0

0

0

0

2.0 4.0

KAMCO

238

230

13,000

3,014

2

NIH

50

46

1,697

82

2

ISKAN MADAR

0 0

0 0

0 0

0 0

0 0

0.0

0

3 2

KCIC

65

64

77,634

5,009

7

MANAFAE

0

0

0

0

0

GNAHC

47

43

221,551

10,074

23

AMWAL

0

0

0

0

0

1,150 1 150

2

100

12

1

ZIMAH

0

0

0

0

0

UFIG

0

0

0

0

0

KOUTFOOD Consumer Services

0

0

0 2,272,937

0 258,032

0 121

0 938.76

ŷ ź

0 2.05 -2.05

700

690

2,653,001

1,843,529

106

700

Ÿ

10

2,080

2,040

112,142

231,360

28

70

2,866,244 5,631,387

203,682 2,278,571

82 216

72 870.01

Ÿ Ÿ

1 5.34

1,040

ŷ

0

405 760

400 750

228,500 22,214

91,418 16,671

12 5

405 760

ŷ ź

0

2 0

0

-20

0 -30

MASAR

0

0

0

0

0

ALIMTIAZ

0

0

0

0

0

MANAZEL

33

30

20,222,040 20 222 040

633 212 633,212

265

NIND

216

212

1,423,547

305,592

59

UIC

87

86

260,000

22,380

7

BIIHC

65

60

60,120

3,728

4

SHOP SENERGY

0 70

0 68

0 534,918

0 37,307

0 24

AGHC

2 0

EKHOLDING

290

290

15,000 15 000

4,350 4 350

4

290

ź

GFH

42

38

96,204,790

3,827,752

918

41

Ÿ

INOVEST Financial Services

51

48

2,330,784 163,066,587

112,989 8,570,318

72 2,339

51 908.05

Ÿ Ÿ

3.0 9.84

0

0 0

0 0

0 0

0 0.00

ŷ ŷ

0.0 0.00

530

ŷ

414,898

44

425

Ÿ

10

728,503

59

740

ŷ

0

BOUBYAN

610

600

257,214

154,409

24

ASC

530

490

20,600

10,903

15

0

SAFTEC

74

74

10

1

1

FUTURE

222

222

2,000

444

1

0 3

HAYATCOMM Technology

114

114

7,000 7 000 29,610

798 12,146

1 18

4.30

0

0

0

0

ŷ

0

KINS

0

0

GINS

0

0

0

0

0

AINS

385

380

170,000

65,175

23

WINS

0

0

0

0

0

KUWAITRE

0

0

0

0

0

FTI

0

0

0

0

0

0

385 0

0

ŷ ź ŷ ŷ

0

ŷ

0

ŷ

79

ź

0.0

ŷ

0.0

ŷ

0.0

0.0

AJWAN

0

0

0

0

0

495

490

6,250

3,089

4

0.0

MASAKEN

0

0

0

0

0

DALQAN

0

0

0

0

0

00 0.0

ALEID

89

89

10,770 10 770

959

3

MIDAN FLEX

0 0

0 0

0 0

0 0

0 0

-5.0

1 0

BKIKWT Insurance

0

0

0 170,015

0 65,176

0 24

0 1082.99

ŷ ź

0.0 -14.92

AINV

0

0

0

0

0

0

ŷ

0

SOKOUK KRE

0 53

0 51

0 1,546,366

0 80,211

0 30

ŷ Ÿ

0 0

2

1

0 53

0 0 0

0

0.0 2.0

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0 0

0

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0 198

15

ź

0 0

0

ź ź

222

0.0

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0 10,000

79

114 1172.32

1.5

0 0

0

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0 19

79

74

-5.0 0.0

0 0

WETHAQ

ź ŷ

0.0

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21

ARIG

55 0

Ÿ

AFAQ SAFRE

0.0

77

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BAREEQ ALSHAMEL

-5.0

0.0 0.0

3 0

985,511

Ÿ

ŷ ŷ

51 0

995,064

976.00

0 70

1.0

1.0

55 0

730

400

Ÿ

4.0

55 0

415

2,279,093

Ÿ

2 2.0 0

TAHSSILAT JEERANH

740

15,168,349

65

Ÿ

57

425

Banks

87

Ÿ

0.0

0.0

256,495

KFIN

0

33

216

ŷ

3,417,856

BURG

ŷ

ŷ

0

73

MAREF 0 Investment Instruments

ŷ Ÿ

0

0.5

0.0

77

0

0

ŷ

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0 5

0 43

0

0.0

ź

ŷ

0

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ŷ

ŷ Ÿ

0 220

46

Ÿ

0

0 265

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0

0 504,184

0

65

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0 9

0 12,157,971

ŷ

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31

Ÿ

29,674

0 57,729

0 40

ŷ

0.0

0 0.0 0

0

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233,000

0 222,033

0 43

ŷ

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0

0

UGB

0

6.0

126

0 260

AUB ITHMR

0.0 0.0

0

0

ŷ

-1.0

130

0 265

610

0.0

-8.0

ALSAFWA

ALMUTAHED KIB

ABK

Ÿ ŷ

59

11,500 11 500

GBK CBK

Ÿ

3,297

122

27

87 0

2,100

100

311,280

236

50,967

122

0.0

87 0

28

100

2.0

0.0

82

60

ALRAI

0.0

293,297 0

32

ALNAWADI

0.0 0.0

294,703

65

0

0.5

2.0

3,382,664 0

KSHC

0

0.0

1,265,501

STRATEGIA

0

4.0

-5.0

85 0

0

0

0.0

0.0

228

1

0

0.0

0.0

88 0

0

0

1.0

0.0

238

0

0

6.0

10.0

EKTTITAB QURAINHLD

56

0

1.0

ALSALAM

0

0

2.0

15.0

0.5

250

0

10.0 7.14

0.0

0

0

0.0

-1.5

Ÿ

222

0

-1.0

ŷ

0

FUTUREKID

0.0

0.0

0

222

SOOR

0.0

36

EXCH

-10

1.0

-2.5

0

TAIBA

2

1.0

-10.0

39

0

4,000

1.0

0

0

10,001

0.0

49,702

0

400

0.0

0

0

410

0.0

0.0

1,391,052

0

0

0.0

1.0

0

0

0

1.0

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35

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0

2.0

0

0

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2.0 1.0

36

ŷ

0

3.0

0.0

ALDEERA

ŷ

0

20.0

ALSAFAT

0

0

299,842

ź

0

0

1,020

ŷ ŷ

0

0

1,040

0 0

46

0

0

NBK

ź

0

5

HITSTELEC 72 Telecommunications

230

0

24

ź

ŷ

0

6,296

2,060

ŷ

0

14,183

NMTC

0

0

24,601

ŷ

63

ŷ

0

48,555

0

0

ŷ ŷ

0

255

ŷ

0 32

Ÿ

0

290

0

140

Ÿ

ALMADINA

260

Ÿ

33

NOOR

295

ŷ

ŷ

0

OULAFUEL

122

ź

0

MASHAER

100

0

Ÿ

0

0

ŷ

53

GLOBAL

0

ŷ

114

ŷ

0.0

0

0

ŷ

0

Ÿ

0

0

96

ŷ

0

ź

ŷ

0

KHOT

400

ŷ

0

39

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JAZEERA

0

Ÿ

0

ź

ŷ

ŷ

34

860

0

0

48

0

6

MUNTAZAHAT

Ÿ

16,756

1,838

ź

325

0

2,180

ŷ

Ÿ

443,527

820

295

Ÿ

41

0

860

260

120

36

KCIN

ŷ

Ÿ

0

20 16.46

ŷ

Ÿ

285

39

Ÿ Ÿ

0

102

Ÿ Ÿ

AAYAN

440 1184.36

0

365 953.64

ź

BAYANINV

0

0

46

ź

0.0

1 1

0

ŷ

0 113

0

0

0

35

0 223,034

48 48

0

ŷ

0 7,040,015

0

0

0

0 31

110 110

0

ŷ

0 32

0

0

ŷ

ALMAL GIH

440

0

0

-2.0 7.72

0

0

43

Ÿ

37

440

0

ź

44

649,716

0

IFAHR

31

4,715,326

ŷ

EYAS

ź

136

0

ŷ

170

140

0

ŷ

Ÿ

ALOLA

-5.0

0

0

93

Ÿ

0

0

104

44

ŷ

21

0

0

ŷ

0

0

0

81

39

ŷ

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0

ŷ

0

0

ź Ÿ

230,552

0

518,250

1,240 930.26

0

Ÿ

0

8 38

2,176,000

ŷ

76

31

0

0

0

ź

0

0

102

89

Ÿ Ÿ

33

88,900 126,482

0

52 84

ŷ

ALAMAN

0

108

0

AIG

1.0

71,000 515,850

CABLETV

2 31

39

YIACO Health Care

SULTAN

151 358,840

116

0

ŷ

1,500 1,294,492

41

1,240

0

100 270

122

0

ŷ

102 285

NINV

1,260

0

KINV FACIL IFA

0.0

2.0

6.0 1.0

0

325

0

1.0

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92

610

ALKOUT

8.0

10.0

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KFOUC

0.0

20 2.0

UREC

BPCC

ZAIN

NBK optimistic over Egyptian economic potential

36.34 1 76 1.76 3.89

Security

AREFENRGY

FILE - A handout photo of an Etihad Airways aircraft in flight. Abu Dhabi’s rapidlygrowing Etihad Airways has bought a four percent stake in Virgin Australia, its fourth overseas deal since December as the airline tries to compete with Gulf rivals.

Change Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ

SPEC

0

21

ŷ Ÿ

0

ŷ

0

ŷ

495 0

89

ŷ ŷ ź

0 0

ŷ ŷ

0.0

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0

0

0

0

0

0

ŷ

0.0

KCLINIC

0

0

0

0

0

0

ŷ

0.0

AMAR Parallel Market

0

0

0 27,020

0 4,245

0 9

For more information, call 1 80 42 42, www.globalinv.net

0 956.65

ŷ ź

0.0 -0.64

LIFE

wednesDAY, JUNE 6 , 2012

Pilot embarks on first solar-powered intercontinental flight PARIS: A Swiss adventurer soared above sunsplashed Spanish valleys toward Morocco on Tuesday on the world’s first intercontinental flight in a solar-powered plane.

Bertrand Piccard, a 54-year-old psychiatrist and balloonist, took off into the night skies above Madrid in the Solar Impulse plane, a giant as big as an Airbus A340 but as light as an average family car.

After a graceful, nearly silent takeoff at 5:22 am (0322 GMT), he guided the experimental plane southward from Madrid-Barajas airport and within five hours was halfway between the Spanish capital and the southern coast.

An onboard camera relayed pictures of the valleys stretched out below the aircraft, which has 12,000 solar cells in the wings turning four electrical motors.

“For one hour I had the full moon on my right and I had the sunrise on my left and that was absolutely gorgeous. I had all the colors of the rainbow in the sky and also on the ground,” Piccard told AFP in an interview from the cockpit shortly after setting out.

“The question is not to use solar power for normal airplanes,” he added.

“The question is more to demonstrate that we can achieve incredible goals, almost impossible goals with new technologies, without fuel, just with solar energy, and raise awareness that if we can do it in the air of course everybody can do it on the ground.”

Piccard gradually piloted the plane toward 3,600 meters (11,800 feet) as he headed to Seville in southern Spain at about 40 kilometers (25 miles) per hour.

He was then to cross the Strait of Gibraltar at 8,500 meters (28,000 feet), enter Moroccan airspace over Tangiers and land at Rabat-Sale airport sometime after 11:00 pm (2200 GMT).

All that, without using a drop of fuel. Each of the motors on the carbon-fiber plane charges 400-kilogramme (880-pound) lithium polymer batteries during the day, allowing the aircraft to carry on flying after dark.

“I think the challenge is really the first intercontinental flight on solar power,” Piccard said.

“We will leave Europe to enter into Africa crossing the Strait of Gibraltar and also bringing a message of

FILE - A Swiss adventurer took off Tuesday into the night skies above Madrid and headed for Rabat on the world’s first intercontinental flight in a solar-powered plane. (AFP)

inspiration for the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy, which is preparing a huge and very ambitious solar energy program for Morocco.”

Organizers say the voyage has been timed to coincide with the launch of construction on the largest-ever solar thermal plant in Morocco’s southern Ouarzazate region.

Piccard, who made the world’s first non-stop roundthe-world balloon flight in 1999 together with Briton Brian Jones, took over the plane’s controls from project co-founder Andre Borschberg, a 59-year-old Swiss executive and pilot who flew a first leg from Payerne in

Switzerland, landing in Madrid on May 25.

The voyage, 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) overall, is also intended as a rehearsal for Solar Impulse’s roundthe-world flight planned for 2014. The aircraft made history in July 2010 as the first manned plane to fly around the clock on the sun’s energy.

It holds the record for the longest flight by a manned solar-powered airplane after staying aloft for 26 hours, 10 minutes and 19 seconds above Switzerland, also setting a record for altitude by flying at 9,235 meters (30,298 feet). -AFP

Tundra shrubs turn into trees as arctic warms NEW YORK: Tundra is by definition a cold, treeless landscape. But scientists have found that in a part of the Eurasian Arctic, willow and alder shrubs, once stunted by harsh weather, have been growing upward to the height of trees in recent decades.

The reason for the change: the warming Arctic climate, they say according to LiveScience.

Roughly 30 years ago, trees were nearly unknown there. Now, 10 percent to 15 percent of the land in the southern part of the northwestern Eurasian tundra, which stretches between Finland and western Siberia, is covered by new tree-size shrubs, which stand higher than 6.6 feet (2 meters), new research indicates.

“What we have found essentially is that the growth of these shrubs is really linked to temperatures,” said study researcher Marc Macias-Fauria of Oxford University’s Biodiversity Institute. “They are reacting to warming temperatures by growing more.”

The change first came to the attention of scien-

tists when nomadic reindeer herdsmen, the indigenous Nenets, said they were losing sight of their reindeer in the new trees, Macias-Fauria said. Until recently the shrubs common in this part of the Arctic stood at most about 3.3 feet (1 meter) high, too low to obscure a reindeer.

To better understand the climate dynamics associated with the increase in growth in the northwestern Eurasian tundra, he and colleagues studied information from the herdsmen’s observations, temperature data, growth rings in the wood of shrubs and satellite data, including observations of the amount of green covering the landscape during the growing season. They found the shrubs grew most in years with warm Julys.

To determine how much of the land is now covered by the treelike shrubs, they used high-resolution satellite images, verifying what they saw in these with trips out into the field. Shrubs are common in the southern parts of treeless tundra regions, giving way to more grasses, lichens and mosses farther north. Harsh Arctic weather

generally prevents the shrubs from growing up -”the bigger you are, the more exposed you are to the atmospheric conditions,” Macias-Fauria said.

This Eurasian piece of the Arctic is among the mildest Arctic regions, so it may offer a hint as to what is to come in other places, he and his colleagues point out.

Were the treelike shrubs to become widespread, this change could exacerbate global warming through what is known as the albedo effect, he said. When snow falls on the tundra’s shrubs, it creates a continuous white blanket that reflects the sun’s energy back out into space. Trees, however, rise above the snow, breaking up the white and darkening the land surface. As a result, less energy is reflected back into space and more is absorbed, resulting in warming. The loss of Arctic white sea ice over dark ocean has a similar effect.

Eventually, it is believed that warming will cause the forest to the south to creep north into what is now tundra.

However, that process is expected to take much longer.

New primate fossil points to ‘out of Asia’ theory

NEW YORK: The ancestors of monkeys, apes and humans may have originated in Asia and not Africa as often thought, new fossils suggest according to LiveScience.

The origin of anthropoids - the simians, or “higher primates,” which include monkeys, apes and humans - has been debated for decades among scientists. Although fossils unearthed in Egypt have long suggested that Africa was the cradle for anthropoids, other bones revealed in the last 15 years or so raised the possibility that Asia may be their birthplace.

Now, an international team of scientists has unearthed a new fossil in Southeast Asia that may prove that anthropoids originated in what is now the East, shedding light on a pivotal step in primate and human evolution.

The fossil is named Afrasia djijidae - Afrasia from how early anthropoids are now found intercontinentally in both Africa and Asia, djijidae in memory of a young girl from village of Mogaung in central Myanmar, the nation where the remains were found. The four known teeth of Afrasia were recovered after six years of sifting through tons of sediment, often working with oxcarts, since even cars with four-wheel drive cannot penetrate the area.

The teeth of 37-million-year-old Afrasia closely resemble those of another early anthropoid, the 38-million-year-old Afrotarsius libycus, recently discovered in the Sahara Desert of Libya.

The anthropoids in Libya were far more diverse at that early time in Africa than scientists had thought, which suggested they actually originated elsewhere. The close similarity between Afrasia and Afrotarsius now suggests that early anthropoids colonized Africa from Asia.

This migration from Asia ultimately helps set the stage for the later evolution of apes and humans in Africa. “Africa is the place of origin of man, and Asia is the place of origins of our far ancestors,” researcher Jean-Jacques Jaeger, a paleontologist at the University of Poitiers in France, told LiveScience.

The shape of the Asian Afrasia and the North African Afrotarsius fossils suggest these animals probably ate insects. The size of their teeth hints that in life these animals weighed around 3.5 ounces (100 grams), roughly the size of a modern tarsier.

It remains an open question how early anthropoids actually migrated from Asia to Africa. Back then, the two continents were separated by a more extensive version of the modern Mediterranean Sea, called the Tethys Sea. Early anthropoids may have either swum from island to island from Asia to Africa, or possibly have been carried on naturally occurring rafts of logs and other material washed out to sea by floods and storms.

Other animal groups apparently migrated from Asia to Africa at this time as well, such as rodents and extinct piglike animals known as anthracotheres, Jaeger said.

After early anthropoids made their way to Africa, those left behind apparently died out in Asia. “Around 34 million years ago, there was a dramatic glacial event that cooled the world climate and affected Asia more than Africa. During that crisis, we suppose that all primitive Asian anthropoids disappeared,” Jaeger said.

The anthropoids we see in Asia now, such as gibbons and orangutans, “immigrated from Africa some 20 million years ago,” Jaeger said.

The researchers suggest early anthropoids were once present in areas between Myanmar and Libya. However, such fossils have yet to be unearthed, in part due to safety concerns in some of those regions - for instance, Afghanistan.

Some genes seem to raise risk of obesity: Study Striking photo reveals dark side of sunshine CONNECTICUT: Some people’s genetic makeup puts them at a higher risk for obesity, a new study says according to HealthDay News.

The risk is especially high for those who grow rapidly during childhood. But having a genetic risk doesn’t sentence one to becoming obese, the researchers added.

“Genetic background is far from destiny,” said study author Daniel Belsky, a research associate in psychology and neuroscience at Duke University. “Lots of kids with high genetic risk didn’t become obese, and some kids with low genetic risk did become obese.”

The report was published in the June issue of the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

For the study, Belsky’s group collected data on more than 1,000 people born between April 1972 and March 1973 in Dunedin, New Zealand. These people took part in the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, which followed them for almost 40 years.

Over that period, the researchers looked at how 32 recently discovered genetic markers for obesity influenced the growth and development of these individuals.

They found children with more of these genetic risk factors were between

CONNECTICUT: The herb ginseng appeared to significantly reduce cancer-related fatigue compared to an inactive placebo, although it took several weeks for the herb’s effects to take effect in the patients, a new study reports according to HealthDay News.

In the study, the researchers gave either a placebo or 2,000-milligram capsules of ground ginseng root to 340 patients who were being treated for cancer or had completed cancer treat-

1.6 and 2.4 times more likely to be obese as adults, compared with children with a low genetic risk of obesity.

Moreover, children with a high genetic risk started to gain weight sooner after losing their “baby fat” than children at low risk, the researchers noted.

In addition, children at high risk for obesity who grew faster were more likely to be obese, while similar children who grew more slowly were less likely to become obese, Belsky’s team found.

“Our research suggests that, even for those who have the genetic predisposition to becoming obese, there are things you can do to mitigate that risk,” Belsky said.

“For kids who eat healthy and are active early in life, these genetic risks for obesity pose less risk across the life course.”

There are rare cases of genetically influenced obesity that are difficult to prevent or treat, Belsky said.

“However, although genetics have an important role to play, they are not destiny,” he added. “There are things we can do to reduce the risk we inherit.”

Jose Fernandez, associate professor of nutrition at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and author of an accompanying journal editorial, said “obesity is so complex that it will require more than just a genetic test of 32 markers for a person to blame genetics for his or her obesity

status, and we cannot forget about the influence of the environment.”

The genes evaluated in the study account for less than 2 percent of the variation in body-mass index, so having a genetic predisposition to obesity doesn’t mean an individual will be obese, Fernandez said. Body-mass index is a measure of body fat based on height and weight.

“When translating science to publichealth implications we must be extremely careful, and nobody should pursue a test of genes associated with obesity and use that information to classify a kid as hopelessly obese,” Fernandez said.

Another expert, Dr. David Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine, added that “this information can potentially be used to identify individuals at higher risk of developing obesity, and to intervene early in such cases with preventive efforts.” But the big picture is more concerning, Katz said: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently predicted that obesity rates in the United States could reach 42 percent by 2018.

“We also know that these same genetic mutations were around 100 years ago, when obesity was rare,” Katz noted.

Although genes play a role in obesity, modern society has created an environment that all but promotes it, he said.

NEW YORK: A new striking image of a 69-yearold truck driver shows just how much damage the sun can do according to LiveScience. This photograph, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, shows what dermatologists call dermatoheliosis - sun damage, a common sign of aging. What makes it striking is that this man, a retired truck driver, shows the damage on only one side of the face. “He was a truck driver for the majority of his life and never wore sunscreen,” said Northwestern University dermatologist Jennifer Gordon, who reported the man’s case. “We think the sun exposure just on this side of the face is what caused the damage.” Ultraviolet A (UVA) light from the sun can easily penetrate window glass and even light clothing, Gordon told LiveScience. UVA rays cause damage deep in the skin, affecting connective tissues such as collagen and elastin. “That’s where you get that aging effect: the wrinkles, the deposits of material in the skin,” Gordon said. The patient in the photograph came to Gordon and her colleagues after he got tired of his grandchildren asking him what was wrong with one side of his face. So far, the man has not exhibited any signs of skin cancer, Gordon said, though he’ll need to be monitored carefully in the future.

The best way to prevent skin cancer as well as early aging is sunscreen, Gordon said. The American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) recommends using sunscreens that provide a sun protection factor (SPF) of at least 30, and that offer broad-spectrum protection against both UVA and UVB rays. UVB rays are the primary cause of sunburn. While UVB rays are blocked by window glass, UVA rays are not; even on a cloudy day, up to 80 percent of the sun’s UV rays make it through the clouds. The AAD recommends wearing sunscreen

Ginseng capsules seem to ease cancer-related fatigue

ment. Fatigue is extremely common among cancer patients; most of those in the study suffered from breast cancer. The patients took capsules of pure American ginseng instead of some overthe-counter ginseng products that can include ethanol. Ethanol may be potentially dangerous to breast cancer patients, study researcher Debra Barton of the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center said in a news release from the clinic.

“After eight weeks, we saw a 20-point im-

provement in fatigue in cancer patients, measured on a 100-point, standardized fatigue scale,” Barton said. Those who took the ginseng capsules didn’t report much improvement at four weeks, but at eight weeks they reported they felt less “worn out,” “fatigued,” “sluggish” or “tired,” compared to those who took the placebo, the investigators found.

The study authors noted that ginseng didn’t seem to have any side effects. They didn’t specify

how much the ginseng treatments would cost.

A previous Mayo Clinic study found that about one-quarter of patients who’d had cancer and suffered from fatigue said they felt “moderately better” or “much better” after taking 1,000milligram or 2,000-milligram ginseng tablets. By comparison, only 10 percent of those who took the placebo reported those results.

Laura Murphy, a professor of physiology at Southern Illinois University Carbondale who’s

A 69-year-old former truck driver shows the effects of sun exposure on one side of his face in this undated handout image. (Agencies)

on exposed areas of the skin daily, even during winter.

“The biggest thing I’ve probably learned from this is that you’re never safe from the sun,” Gordon said.

familiar with the research, said it’s a helpful addition to existing knowledge. The cost of ginseng will be inexpensive compared to prescription drugs that could be used to treat fatigue, she said.

Why might ginseng help fatigue? It’s not clear, said Murphy, who has studied the herb. “Essentially, when healthy people ingest ginseng, there are no notable effects,” she said. “However, when an ill person takes ginseng, they tend to feel more normal.”

ALWATAN DAILY

CULTURE

WEDNesday, JUNE 6, 2012

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Ethiopia’s Konso cling to tradition, earning UN recognition FRANCE: The booming drums and lusty singing of Ethiopia’s Konso tribe, celebrating their hometown joining the UN’s list of World Heritage Sites, echoed down the road that winds through lush green hills.

When the revelers came into sight, there was an explosion of color -- women in bright orange skirts and men in striped neon yellow and red shorts, heads topped with decorative feathers and cowhide masks.

Under the blazing midday sun, Konso residents brandishing animal skin shields chanted as they streamed through the streets, followed by a full marching band.

Hundreds of Konso people turned out in their famed town, 600 kilometers southwest of Addis Ababa, for the recent formal inauguration of their inclusion in UNESCO’s heritage list.

UNESCO chose the stone-walled terraces and fortified settlements in the Konso highlands -- spread over 55 square kilometers -- as it represents among other things a living cultural tradition spanning centuries.

The Konsos are among the last remaining people to produce, use and discard stone tools on a regular basis.

Its new status makes Ethiopia the top African country for protected sites and promises to preserve an ancient culture under threat in a rapidly developing country.

“The potential risk is that this is an era of globalization... and Konso is not an exception,” said Yonas Desta, general director at the Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage, an arm of the Ethiopian Ministry of Culture.

“How this urbanization is harmonized with the essential values of Konso -- that’s the clear line that we need to carefully understand and manage,” he added, standing before one of Konso’s towering mountains.

Konso’s addition to UNESCO’s World Heritage Site list was decided in 2011 but only made official this year.

It recognizes Konso’s centuries-old cultural traditions, namely sophisticated terracing techniques, cuisine, music, dance and unique burial rites.

Ethiopia’s famed rock-hewn churches in Lalibela and the towering obelisks of Axum count among the country’s other heritage sites.

FILE-Villagers perform a traditional dance on April 28, 2012 in Konso, 600 kms southwest of Addis Ababa, celebrating their hometown joining the UN’s list of World Heritage sites -- Ethiopia’s ninth. (AFP)

The South Omo valley has also received recognition, and several rights groups have accused Addis Ababa of threatening cultural preservation with the construction of a controversial dam in the region.

Konso, a town of 300,000 people where herds of cattle clog the narrow roads, is the first in the country to be recognized for its “cultural landscape.”

Dinote Kusia Shankere, a cultural officer in Konso, said

the new title was “marvelous” because it will keep Konso traditions alive.

“Most of the young people are forgetting their culture... up to now nothing is written about Konso culture,” he said at the town’s museum that was built with French funding in 2010.

“I’m happy because this inauguration can change the young generation’s mind so they will be devoted to (preserve) the culture.” In addition to lively singing and dancing, Konso culture is best known for the death rites among clan chiefs who are buried with carved wood statues of fallen warriors called Waka.

The museum also has several steles, some 150 years old, carved human-like figures which have been illegally trafficked in the art world in recent years.

Sophisticated terracing also sets the community apart and has allowed agriculture to thrive in one of the most arid regions of Ethiopia chronically hit with food shortages.

“They have managed their existence in a harsh environment, and the social norms, the customs, have truly helped them,” Yonas said.

The World Heritage Site designation also promises to boost tourism in a country whose image has been tarnished by a deadly tourist attack in the Afar region of northeastern Ethiopia in January that killed five foreigners.

“We have started to develop tourism in Ethiopia in line with the potential we have and the planned development efforts,” Yonas said.

“We are observing an increasing number of tourists though that unfortunate accident is clearly not a merit to tourism,” he added.

Tourism brought in $254 million in the last six months and is part of the government’s overall strategy to boost growth by moving away from raw agricultural exports as the main revenue earner.

Visitors also boost local employment, Konso resident Kushabo Kalale said. “On the one side we are getting exposure to the world and on the other, for the local people, there is income,” he said.

“It’s a very special occasion for our culture to be recognized,” he gushed with a smile. -AFP

Crowds cheer queen on last day of jubilee Zakat House wins third place for The Kuwait Electronic Award KUWAIT: The monitor of systems development of the information center office in Zakat House Abdulrahman AlBashir, said that the House web site got the third place in the Kuwait electronic award to enrich the electronic content for 2012, organized by the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences, sponsored by his Highness the Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Chairman of the Foundation.

Al-Bashir confirmed that the Zakat House seeks through its web site to maintain the excellence and the lead, and provide the best electronic services to its

customers from donors, benefactors and beneficiaries of the contribution provided by the House, working diligently and continuously to develop the electronic services constantly.

For example, online donate service, which gives the donor the opportunity to assist beneficiaries for Zakat expenditures, calculate Zakat, which the client can choose the kind of Zakat and the amount of Zakat money that need to calculate, confirm the text messages system, the social service system, and the system of in-kind donations, etc.

Al-Bashir confirmed, that Zakat

House devoted to rise the work through confirming the developed automatic systems to make the workflow process easy, such as the general budget system of the house, e-mail system (the Out Look)-and its availability to all House staff, training system, job descriptions system, excellence system, automatic systems used for storage, and suggestions system.

He added that the Zakat House inaugurated the system of Zakat services to the iPhone recently. Applications for employment at Zakat House and apply for contribution requests system will be inaugurated soon.

ICS keeps fans swaying all evening Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and members of the Royal Family leave St Paul’s Cathedral in London, following a service of thanksgiving on June 5, 2012, during the Queen’s diamond jubilee. (AFP)

LONDON: Crowds cheering “God save the queen!” and pealing church bells greeted Queen Elizabeth II on Tuesday as she arrived for a service at St. Paul’s Cathedral on the last of four days of celebrations of her 60 years on the throne.

Poignantly, the queen was without Prince Philip, her husband of 64 years, who was hospitalized on Monday for treatment of a bladder infection.

During the service, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, praised the queen for bringing happiness to the nation. His thoughts were seconded by jubilant crowds that cheered royals major and minor as they made their way to the service of thanksgiving.

“We are marking six decades of living proof that public service is possible and that it is a place where happiness can be found,” Williams told the royals and dignitaries filling the vast landmark church designed by Christopher Wren in the 17th century.

“This year has already seen a variety of Jubilee creations and projects. But its most lasting memorial would be the rebirth of an energetic, generous spirit of dedication to the common good and the public service, the rebirth of a recognition that we live less than human lives if we think just of our own individual good,” Williams added.

The queen will close the Diamond Jubilee celebrations with a rare address to the nation.

The broadcast at 1700 GMT in Britain and throughout the Commonwealth follows the service, a lunch in a medieval hall and a carriage procession back to Buckingham Palace where the queen and her family could greet well-wishers from a balcony.

The two-minute address, recorded on Monday, will also be available on the Royal Channel on YouTube, the palace said. Other than the annual Christmas Day broadcasts, the 86-year-old monarch has rarely spoken directly to the nation.

Williams paid tribute to the queen for her service to the nation and Commonwealth. It was not a role she chose, but one thrust upon her when her uncle David, King Edward VIII, abdicated in 1936. The queen’s father became king and Elizabeth, the elder daughter, was destined to reign.

Within the constraints of a constitutional monarchy, the queen’s life has been one of ceremonial duty, world travel and the pleasures of great wealth. She has also been the mother of family that has produced turbulent marriages and traumatic divorces.

“Dedication to the service of a community certainly involves that biblical sense of an absolute purge of selfish goals, but it is also the opening of a door into

shared riches,” Williams said.

“I don’t think it’s at all fanciful to say that, in all her public engagements, our queen has shown a quality of joy in the happiness of others; she has responded with just the generosity St. Paul speaks of in showing honor to countless local communities and individuals of every background and class and race,” Williams said.

“She has made her public happy and all the signs are that she is herself happy, fulfilled and at home in these encounters.”

With most of Tuesday’s events indoors or under cover, there was less worry about the precarious weather, which has ranged from unseasonably cool to downright foul, as rain poured during Sunday’s grand procession of boats down the Thames.

Among the early arrivals at the cathedral were four women from Jedburgh, a Scottish town near the English border, who displayed a large Union Jack flag.

“We’ve been saving for three years to come here,” said Marion Kingswood, 69. “Apart from the royal wedding, there’s been nothing like it. Sixty years is such an achievement.”

Barry Dandy, 71, and his wife flew in from Sydney, Australia, to join in the celebrations.

“They showed a preview of the River Pageant on Australian television and my wife said, ‘I’d love to be there,’” Dandy said. “It’s been great to take part in the celebrations.”

The Very Rev. David Ison, the dean of St. Paul’s, said Philip would be remembered in the prayers.

“We were already going to say prayers for the Duke of Edinburgh and it will have an added poignancy as we hope he will make a swift recovery,” Ison said.

A few anti-monarchist demonstrators were outside the cathedral with slogans including “Republic Now!” or, in a shot at the cost of maintaining the monarchy, “9500 Nurses or 1 Queen?”

Royalists in the crowd responded noisily, chanting “God save the queen!”

Along the parade route, 70-year-old Margaret Barker said Philip’s absence would put a damper on the queen’s day.

“She’s got the rest of her family around her but when you think of all the planning there’s been for this and how long they’ve been together, it seems very sad that he can’t be with her today,” Barker said.

Tourist Cassandra Past, 20, from New York, said she expected the queen to keep her chin up despite worries about her 90-year-old husband. “She is the queen, and she sort of has to put on a good face for her country and her people,” Past said. -AP

KUWAIT: India’s king of melody, pop sensations and Pakistan king of comedy, hit Kuwait’s AIS for a jam-packed show on Friday crammed with hits and rocking covers for an international celebration of one of the most happening shows of 2012 “Zara Sa Jhoom Loon main” organized by the India Cultural Society. The event comprised artists’ collection of wonderful songs, and performances covering a wide variety of music and splendid comedy.

Speakers and performers include eminent legend theater and comedy king Umar Sharif along with illustrious Bollywood playback singer Abhijeet Bhattacharya.

Maybe you’ve heard their songs on the radio or caught their TV performances on the various channels but nothing quite captures the success of ICS event “Zara Sa Jhoom loon main”.

On Friday 18th night, thousands of fans from across the nation hit the AIS auditorium, filling the 1500-capacity arena for the latest stop on the Indo-Pak friendly sensation’s headlining event. They were there to experience a new wave of a friendly strike, and they weren’t disappointed.

Even before the show started, there was an excitement and energy in the air as our audience - young and old alike rushed into the venue wearing smiles, carrying affable social harmony welcomed by finest ICS executives overriding with enthusiasm hauling Indo-Pak friendly flags, in styles.

After an opening act must to mention having played 3 countries National Anthems for the first time ever to signify unity and acquaintance, there were stunning group dances by The Kuwait India

School. Lovely little Safa Khan moved on with her thrilling performance over the music.

President of ICS & Anchor of the evening A A Khan took over the stage inviting sponsors -Baljeet Sharma (Main sponsor -Kohinoor), Asad Khan (GM-KSCC), Aijaz Ahmed (MD-Sahara Acc), Ajay Goel (CEO-City Centre) Qayad Johar (GM- Z & M), A R Tariq (GM- KBE) and Managing partners of M3 Mimhaj Shikari, Murtaza Pachorawala & Amit Malhotra inaugurated the souvenir in presence of the guest of honor H.K.Mohan, First Sec. Embassy of India and H. E. Hasan Wazir, Counsellor Embassy of Pakistan.

After a few warm-up songs, by Tarannum Malik and medley by professional orchestra from Bollywood, Umar Sharif hit the stage as the crowd jumped to its feet welcoming with standing ovation.

The most valued King of Comedy won the hearts of audience through his magnificent performance. Umar Sharif involved the audience with his drolly and humorous laughter punches.

World renowned Theater and Comedy King Umar Sharif became one of the most well known stage performers in Pakistan after his extremely popular 1989 comedy stage plays Bakra Qistoon Pay and Buddha Ghar Pe Hai. His tickles and giggles continued for the entire show.

Opening with “ O Baadshah O Baadshah....,” dressed in the theme of red, Abhijeet hit the harmonies hard. The concert followed a continuing theme with friendly message match. Abhijeet has won the Filmfare Best Playback Singer Award for Yes Boss in 1997. He went on to record for the movies Baadshah, Dilwale Dul-

haniya Le Jayenge, Josh, Dhadkan, Chalte Chalte, Main Hoon Na and many others.

He released two albums, Main Deewana Hoon and Tapori No.1. Later he launched Aashiqui. Abhijeet received many awards including Filmfare Best Male Playback for “Main Koi Aisa Geet Gaaon” (Yes Boss), Screen Videocon award for “Chaand Taare” etc.

Abhijeet performed 170 minutes without any single pause with all hit numbers. He also sang a few old melodies of Kishore Kumar’s famous songs.

Abhijeet’s strength in capturing the audience is his on-stage manner filled with modesty, friendliness and a downto-earth quality. He presents himself as “one of yours” in a very humble way which makes him an exceptional performer, someone not only wonderful to hear, but charming to watch as well. He also sung few duets with Tarannum. In between songs He ceaselessly engaged with the audience, prodding them to sing with him, making every effort to make the evening truly memorable.

Veering from their chart-topping ICS, this event shimmers with another powerful gem in the crown. ICS also supported to VOOC for “Umar Sharif Exclusive Show” and “Umar Sharif Concert” to help Maa Hospital, a noble cause.

To end the night, ICS gave a shoutout to their impressive audience and closed with mementoes to the artist, performers and musicians. “One Thing” and, of course, their #1 hit “What Makes The Event Beautiful” is the perfect dazzling ICS team executing the evening of hearty pop wouldn’t be complete without an encore!

Some moments captured at “Zara Sa Jhoom Loon main”.

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ALWATAN DAILY

ENTERTAINMENT

Song Of The Day

WEDNesday, JUNE 6, 2012

Stars rock the palace for Britain’s jubilee concert

Fahad AlSabah Staff Writer

Song: Express Yourself Artist: Labrinth Album: Electronic Earth Genre: Electronic In short: Labrinth (Timothy McKenzie) took the electronic music scene by a storm with the Tinie Tempah-assided “Eathquake”, and it looks like he’s set to repeat the feat with the big jazz band-influenced “Express Yourself”, which is completely different than “Earthquake”, yet equally enthralling.

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

The Buzz Samuel L. Jackson to host Spike’s Video Game Awards Samuel L. Jackson seems determined to challenge Neil Patrick Harris for the title of That Guy Who Hosts Everything.

“Avengers” star Jackson, who will host the BET Awards on July 1, has also signed on to hold court over this year’s Video Game Awards for Spike TV. Jackson previously had a threeyear run hosting the VGAs, from 2005 to 2007. “I’m thrilled to once again preside over the biggest night of gaming,” Jackson said of the hosting gig. “And to all the gamers out there - you better circle the date right now and not make any plans that night - you don’t want to be that one guy among your friends who misses this show.” Mark Burnett, who executive-produced last year’s ceremony, will return this year to executive-produce again. This year’s Video Game Awards, dubbed “VGA Ten” for its 10th anniversary, will air live on Spike TV and Spike.com on December 7 at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m.

PT. -Reuters

ABC filling Glass House with 14 contestants The list of contestants for ABC’s “The Glass House” is out, although a legal challenge looms over the upcoming reality show. ABC said Monday that 14 people including a bail bondsman, a scientist and a bar mitzvah DJ will become housemates and compete for a $250,000 prize. Audience feedback will help shape the contestants’ daily life and who stays in the game. CBS, however, is seeking an injunction blocking the airing of “Glass House,” alleging it violates copyrights and trade secrets from its show “Big Brother.”

ABC has denied wrongdoing, saying the two shows have numerous differences. -AP

Spartacus to end revolutionary run next season Starz network says it is ending its highly successful “Spartacus” saga next season. In an unusual move announced Monday, Starz will conclude this action-adventure series while it’s still a big hit, and after logging only three seasons (or four, counting a “prequel” season). This season the series drew six million viewers, an enormous number for a paid subscription channel. Creator-executive producer Steven S. DeKnight promises a “stunningly epic” final season. That 10episode cycle, which will kick off next January, is currently filming in New Zealand. The series stars Liam McIntyre as the Thracian-slave-turned-revolutionary who’s out to topple the Roman Empire. McIntyre took over the role from Andy Whitfield, who starred the first season, then withdrew due to illness. -AP

Scream set for small screen adaptation on MTV The serial killer with a white mask inspired by Edvard Munch’s most famous painting (The Scream) will soon send shivers down the collective spine of MTV’s audience. According to Tvline.com, the American cable network is set to adapt Wes Craven’s Scream movie franchise for the small screen.

Known as “Ghostface” on the big screen, the masked killer who stalked Sidney Prescott from 1996 to 2011 will add to his body count on television. MTV is currently looking for a writer to take over from Kevin Williamson, who wrote the scripts for the first two movies and the fourth one. -AFP

Alec Baldwin helps NY school raise sports money Alec Baldwin wants to make sure students at a central New York school have the opportunity to get outside and play ball. Local media outlets report that the actor was in the Syracuse area this past weekend to help a local high school’s fundraising campaign to save its modified sports program.

The star of “30 Rock” attended an event held Sunday in the gym at West Genesee High School, where one of his nephews plays sports. Baldwin’s mother and two sisters live in the Syracuse area. -AP

Woody Allen picks Blanchett and Baldwin for next film Veteran film director Woody Allen on Monday announced an all-star cast for his next yet-to-be-titled project, led by Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett, comedian Louis C.K. and actor Alec Baldwin. Allen said the movie will be filmed this summer in New York and San Francisco - the first time the Oscar-winning director will use San Francisco as his backdrop since his directorial debut in 1969 with “Take The Money And Run.” The new project also sees Allen, 76, return to American soil after filming his last three projects in London, Paris and Rome, picking up a screenplay Oscar for “Midnight In Paris.” -Reuters

Buckingham Palace is illuminated by a fireworks display during the Diamond Jubilee Concert in London, on June 4, 2012. (AFP)

PARIS: Paul McCartney rounded off a fireworks-filled concert outside Buckingham Palace on Monday, where hundreds of thousands of people partied to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s diamond jubilee. The Beatles star closed the show in style with a blazing rendition of “Live And Let Die” and a mass sing-along of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” as revelers turned the heart of London into a sea of Union Jack flags.

Prince Charles then gave a touching tribute to his “mummy” and led the giant crowd in sending three cheers to the queen as she marks her 60th year on the throne.

The sovereign, 86, gave a beaming smile and waved to the crowds, who had partied and danced through a three-hour show that included Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Tom Jones, Kylie Minogue and Robbie Williams.

“We offer you our humble duty and with it three resounding cheers for Her Majesty the Queen. Hip hip, hooray!” Charles said.

The queen smiled as the crowd carried on shouting “hooray!” McCartney had guests in the royal box on their feet as he ended the night with “Magical Mystery Tour”, “All My Loving” and “Let It Be” before the fireworks finale. Joking, he said the queen had asked for people to leave the show in an orderly fashion, “or she will be forced to unleash the corgis”, her beloved dogs.

The queen took her place in the royal box for the second half of the concert, but was without her 90-year-old husband Prince Philip, who had been taken to hospital earlier in the day with a bladder infection.

Wearing a black cape with gold buttons -- and a discreet pair of yellow earplugs -Charles escorted her to her seat. The queen seemed touched as the crowd chanted Prince Philip’s name after sending him a big ‘get well’ cheer. Staged on the Queen Victoria Memorial, the show kicked off in warm evening sunshine with pyrotechnics and an energetic performance from ‘Take That’ singer Robbie Williams that got the crowds rocking.

After an opening salvo from a military band, resplendent in their scarlet tunics and bearskin hats, Williams jumped out to join them for a high-octane rendition of his song “Let Me Entertain You”.

The crowd were told the concert was being watched live by 250,000 people.

Senior royals were in the stands, including Prince William, his wife Catherine and brother Prince Harry. Prime Minister David Cameron and Anglican leader Rowan Williams were also in the royal box.

Grace Jones, 64, performed “Slave to the Rhythm” in a sultry plastic outfit and kept a hula hoop going throughout.

Cliff Richard, 71, performed a medley of his songs from throughout the queen’s reign,

British singer Sir Paul McCartney performs on stage during the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Concert at Buckingham Palace in London on June 4, 2012. (AFP)

Chinese pianist Lang Lang played and Tom Jones rounded off the first half with a Latinthemed version of “Delilah”.

After Williams returned to open the second half, the next performance was “Sing” -- specially written by concert organizer Gary Barlow and Andrew LloydWebber, and featuring artists from across the Commonwealth.

Harry, who played tambourine on the recorded version, stayed in the royal box for the rendition.

Following a crowd wave from the back of The Mall to the front, Welsh diva Shirley Bassey performed “Diamonds are Forever”, before Australian star Kylie Minogue took to the stage and then Elton John, who appeared in a sparkling pink jacket. Cult ska band Madness performed “Our House” from the roof of Buckingham Palace, with colorful projections on the palace front below.

Images from the queen’s reign dating back to her 1953 coronation were beamed onto the walls as the orchestra played U2’s “Beautiful Day”.

US star Stevie Wonder added new words to his song “Superstition”, getting the crowds dancing to the lyrics: “We’re celebrating, the diamond jubilee.”

Australian artist Rolf Harris, compering, told the crowd: “We’re here to celebrate a

Britain’s Prince Charles kisses the hand of his mother Queen Elizabeth during the Diamond Jubilee concert in front of Buckingham Palace in London June 4, 2012. (Reuters)

British singer-songwriter Elton John performs during the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Concert at Buckingham Palace in London on June 4, 2012. (AFP)

Will.i.am and Stevie Wonder perform at the Queen’s Jubilee Concert in front of Buckingham Palace, London, June 4, 2012. (AP)

Australian singer Kylie Minogue performs during the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Concert at Buckingham Palace in London, on June 4, 2012. (AFP)

generous and compassionate lady who has given 60 years of service to the people of Great Britain and the Commonwealth. “She’s been an inspiration to millions; she’s touched

hearts throughout the world -- a living testimony to the power of kindness, dedication, tolerance and loyalty. Your Majesty, we thank you for 60 wonderful years.” -AFP

Olsen twins get fashion’s big prize NEW YORK: Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen took home the biggest prize at the annual Council of Fashion Designers of America awards. The former child TV stars were selected Monday night as the country’s top womenswear designers for their collection called The Row. “I’d like to thank you - you,” Mary-Kate, wearing an all-black ensemble, said, turning to her purple-clad twin, as she accepted.

Jessica Chastain, who wore a sparkly white dress by Prabal Gurung, announced the 25-year-olds as winners at Lincoln Center in front of an audience that drew not only from the fashion world but also from Hollywood. “Mad Men’s” Jessica Pare gave Reed Krakoff his trophy as best designer of accessories, and “White Collar’s” Matt Bomer gave menswear designer Billy Reid his.

The previously announced style icon award went to Johnny Depp, but he was on the set of “The Lone Ranger” and didn’t attend. He sent an email - and filmmaker friend John Waters - in his place. Standing in front of a collage of Depp’s outfits over the years, Waters said, “This man can’t look ugly no matter how hard he tries.”

Waters also accepted the international award on behalf of Tokyobased Rei Kawakubo, who won honors as an international designer for her often creative, balloonlike silhouettes created for the label Comme des Garcons. Waters said he was a fan of her clothes - and she also was a personal friend. However, he joked, some people might describe her clothes as “disaster at the dry-cleaner,” rattling off the slew of warnings often found on washing labels.

Ceremony host Seth Meyers, who started the night in a suit by Band of Outsiders, took on many targets, from John Galliano to Marc Jacobs.

After making fun of Jacobs’ sheer lace “dress” worn over boxer shorts to last month’s fashion gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the industry’s other important red carpet event, Meyers proceeded to put on the get-up later in the show. Using what he called fashion terminology, Meyers described the outfit as “breezy.”

And, no matter, he joked, if all the designers and models in the auditorium didn’t like his act. “Fashion people like hating things more than they do liking things.”

In presenting Tommy Hilfiger with his lifetime achievement award, Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour said the designer could be pretty funny, especially in his imitations of famous people such as Karl Lagerfeld, Donna Karan and even Mick Jagger.

CFDA president Diane von Furstenberg gave a shoutout to all the designers who have been members of the organization, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. “I’m the mother of all American

designers. I can’t pick a favorite child.” The CFDA also presents a series of awards sponsored by Swarovski to up-and-coming talent: Joseph Altuzarra won in the women’s category, Phillip Lim in men’s and Tabitha Simmons in accessories. -AP

Designers Ashley Olsen and Mary Kate Olsen pose with award at the 2012 CFDA Fashion Awards at Alice Tully Hall on June 4, 2012 in New York City. (AFP)

Bollywood ‘insult’ song angers Hindu activists

PARIS: A Hindu nationalist group filed a court case on Monday seeking to ban the release of Bollywood film “Shanghai” over satirical lyrics that describe India as a land of diseases and cow dung.

Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena (BSKS), a conservative Hindu group based in New Delhi, said it had applied for the court order on the basis that the song was “anti-national” and a “clear insult” to the country. The movie, a political thriller scheduled for release on June 8, tackles the thorny issue of the poor being thrown off their land for urban development and compares modernization in India with China.

The song, called “Say victory to Bharat Mata (Mother India)”, includes the words “India is land of dengue, malaria... and cow dung”.

“We want the court to impose a blanket ban on the song. How can we allow anyone to ridicule our own country like this?” said Tajinder Singh Bagga, the president of BSKS. The Delhi high court admitted the petition and will conduct a hearing on June 6.

The film’s director Dibakar Banerjee, who has a reputation for controversial films, was not immediately available for comment.

Bollywood plots traditionally celebrate family values and conservative lifestyles, with even the briefest screen kiss frowned upon, but recent output has addressed divisive social issues and included some daring sex scenes. -AFP

ALWATAN DAILY

SPORTS

wednESDAY, june 6, 2012

Basketball

Thunder rumble to brink of series win over Spurs SAN ANTONIO,Texas: The Oklahoma City Thunder are one win away from the NBA championship finals after stunning the San Antonio Spurs on their home court with a 108-103 victory on Monday.

Kevin Durant top scored for the Thunder with 27 points while Russell Westbrook provided a further 23, as the Thunder took a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference Finals series.

James Harden added 20 for Oklahoma City, who condemned the Spurs to a third straight defeat after having won the opening two games of the series, part of a 20game winning streak.

The youthful Thunder led at each break and by as many as 14 points during the second quarter before the Spurs clawed back.

Down by 13 late in the final quarter, San Antonio plundered 11 unanswered points to draw within two, only to see Westbrook snap the streak with a clutch basket in the final minute.

James Harden then sucked the life out the Spurs with a great three-pointer over the top of rookie Kawhi Leonard with just 28 seconds left.

“The ball was supposed to go to Kevin Durant but the shot clock was running down and I had to make a play,” Harden said.

“Leonard was playing very good defense on me but I thought I’d shoot it with confidence and it went in.”

Thunder coach Scott Brooks was full of praise for his team despite watching them almost throw away the victory.

“I thought that was a total team effort,” Brooks said. “We stuck together and we had couple of bad stretches but didn’t break, we battled through that. “Everybody did their job, we played about as hard as we could play.”

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich tried to

Oklahoma City Thunder point guard Russell Westbrook dunks on the San Antonio Spurs during the second half of Game 5 of the NBA Western Conference basketball finals in San Antonio, Texas, June 4, 2012. (Reuters)

spark his offence by starting regular sixth man Manu Ginobili for Danny Green but despite a game-high 34 points it wasn’t enough.

The home side had 21 turnovers throughout the game with Westbrook adding four steals and Durant three to their impressive points tallies.

“It’s not like we’re playing the sisters of the poor,” Popovich said of the Thunder.

“These guys are hungry, athletic, they are a very good side.

“Championship teams win on the road.

Oklahoma City just did that.”

The series continues in Oklahoma City with Game Six on Wednesday. -Reuters

11

Heat listing Bosh as ‘day-to-day’

MIAMI: Chris Bosh has been telling the Miami Heat that he’s ready to play. The Heat seem ready to listen. And Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals - which wouldn’t be lacking for drama with Boston and Miami tied at two games apiece - may have another significant layer of intrigue.

Bosh’s status was upgraded to ‘’day-to-day’’ by Heat coach Erik Spoelstra on Monday, the first deviation by the team after more than three weeks of simply saying his absence was indefinite because of a strained lower abdominal muscle. Spoelstra wouldn’t guarantee that Bosh plays in Game 5, but opened the door to there at least being a chance of the All-Star forward-center suiting up.

“He’ll get a vote,” Spoelstra said of how much Bosh’s input will matter in determining when he takes the floor. “Again, everything is heightened right now.

These are extreme circumstances. Everybody will be involved in the decision, if and when it happens. But you always have to take the player’s opinion with a grain of salt. They all say they’re ready. ... He said he was ready 10 days ago.”

The Celtics were ready for him then, too.

So if Tuesday is the Bosh comeback night, Boston will not be caught off-guard.

“We don’t have to do anything different,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. “We’ve prepared every game like Bosh is going to play. And eventually, he will.”

Bosh was watching from the bench for the two games in Boston, where the Celtics managed to tie the series by following largely the same formula building a big lead, then holding on at the end.

Of the 101 minutes of game time in Boston, the Heat led for exactly six minutes. The Celtics have led by at least 15 points in each of the last three games, never trailing by more than eight, though managed to win only two of those contests. And Game 4 nearly slipped away as well, Miami digging out of an 18point hole to take the lead late, before falling 93-91 in overtime as Dwyane Wade’s 3-pointer to win it fell just short at the final buzzer.

Boston’s Paul Pierce fouled out for the third time

in the last five games, after having that happen three times in the first 122 playoff games of his career. And Miami’s LeBron James picked up six fouls for the first time in his 107 playoff games, none of the six fouls being of the shooting variety and four of them coming with the Heat in possession of the ball.

Who fouled and when made for good theater, but all that ultimately mattered was the score, with Boston guard Rajon Rondo scoring the final three points of the game and the Celtics turning a best-of-seven series into a best-of-three.

“We’ve got to win a game in Miami, of course,” Pierce said after Game 4. “We have a chance of winning this series. It’s not going to be easy. You know, a good old classic bar fight. Going in to it you got to expect every game to be like this. Coming down to the wire, both teams trying to find an edge.”

This core of Celtics - Rondo, Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, who seems to be playing without the pain that left him hobbling a week ago - have found themselves in a 2-2 series eight times before.

Every time, they’ve won Game 5, though seven of those wins have come in Boston.

The exception was at Cleveland in 2010, a 12088 romp that went down James’ final home game as a member of the Cavaliers.

They’ll especially look forward to it if Bosh gets the all-clear sign on Tuesday. Bosh has had several on-court workouts in the past week, and Spoelstra said he was going to evaluate him again Monday.

Bosh was injured late in the first half of the opening game in the Indiana-Miami second round series on May 13. In the nine postseason games since, Miami has gone 5-4. If he can play, the Heat would welcome whatever Bosh can provide, even if that means working a key player back into the lineup to face Garnett and Boston’s frontcourt in the midst of a playoff series. Since Bosh arrived with James to play alongside Wade in Miami in July 2010, the Heat have won 72 percent (116-45) of their games with him in the lineup. Without Bosh, Miami has won only 52 percent of the time, going 12-11. -AP

tennis

Stosur outfoxes Cibulkova to reach French Open last four Miami Heat’s Chris Bosh (right) greets Dwyane Wade (3) after the Heat defeated the Boston Celtics 115111 in overtime of Game 2 in their NBA basketball Eastern Conference Finals playoff series, in Miami, Wednesday, May 30, 2012. (AP)

Cricket

Gayle back in Windies one-day squad

Samantha Stosur of Australia returns the ball to Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia during their quarter-final match at the French Open tennis tournament at the Roland Garros stadium in Paris June 5, 2012. (Reuters)

PARIS: Australian sixth seed Samantha Stosur reached the semi-finals of the French Open for the third time in four years when she outfoxed Czech 15th seed Dominika Cibulkova 6-4 6-1 on Tuesday.

The US Open champion, who will face either Italian Sara Errani or German Angelique Kerber for a place in Saturday’s final, advanced into the last four without dropping a set.

Stosur, who reached the semi-final in 2009 and the final in 2010 in the claycourt grand slam, prevailed on composure and tactical finesse, using her kick serve to stave off nine of 10 break points. She struggled at first with her opponent’s power but Cibulkova collapsed after losing the opening set, with Stosur winning six games in succession to wrap it up after 85 minutes. -Reuters

BIRMINGHAM: Former captain Chris Gayle has been recalled by the West Indies after more than a year out of the side for the one-day international series against England later this month.

The 32-year-old, a dynamic opening batsman, is back in the squad after a 14-month dispute with the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) for a three-match series starting on June 16.

Gayle, who has scored a West Indies record 19 hundreds in 228 ODIs, has not played international cricket since a defeat by Pakistan in the quarter-finals of the World Cup in March last year.

A month later, Gayle criticized the WICB and current coach Ottis Gibson after being left out of a squad for a one-day series against Pakistan.

However, several meetings between the WICB and Gayle, brokered by senior Caribbean politicians, have ended the stand-off. Clyde Butts, chairman of selectors, said in a statement: “Chris is a player of proven quality and we are looking forward to him adding this dimension to the side and his contributions as a senior member of the squad.”

Darren Sammy, leading the West Indies in their ongoing Test series against England, captains a side featuring several players who missed the Test campaign because it clashed with the lucrative Twenty20 Indian Premier League.

One of those, Dwayne Bravo, is the vice-captain and he is included in a squad featuring fellow allrounders Dwayne Smith, Kieron Pollard and Andre Russell. Spinner Sunil Narine, a late addition to the Test squad after starring in the IPL, has also been selected.

Test openers Adrian Barath, who have struggled in the first two Tests of a three-match series, were left out with opener Lendl Simmons included again following a finger injury that ruled him out of the home series against Australia in March.

Meanwhile, Test wicketkeeper Denesh Ramdin returns in place of Carlton Baugh, who played against Australia. West Indies are currently 2-0 down in their Test series in England.

The third and final Test is due to start at Edgbaston on Thursday. -AFP

track and field

Sprinter Gay to return in New York

FILE- Tyson Gay of the US wins the men’s 100 meters final ahead of Jamaica’s Usain Bolt at the IAAF Diamond League “DN Galan” at Stockholm Olympic Stadium in this Aug. 6, 2010. (Reuters)

RALEIGH, North Carolina: US sprinter Tyson Gay, the second fastest man ever over 100 meters, confirmed on Tuesday he will run his first race in nearly a year at this weekend’s Adidas Grand Prix in New York.

Gay will not race directly with Jamaican world champion Yohan Blake in the featured 100m event, but will compete in a preliminary race at the Diamond League meeting.

“I’m going to race a low key 100m at the Adidas Grand Prix in New York on Saturday,” the 29-year-old said on Facebook. “My first race in nearly a year. I want to see where I am before the US trials in Eugene, Oregon from June 21 to July 1.”

The double world champion over 100m and 200m in 2007, Gay has not competed since withdrawing from the 100m semifinal at the US world championships trials in Eugene last June. He later had surgery on the hip.

Gay has endured a frustrating few years, including a hamstring injury in a 200m heat at the 2008 Olympic trials. In 2009 he had a groin injury, followed by last year’s hip injury.

But he insists he wants to compete in the London Olympics.

“It’s my goal, I want an Olympic medal,” he said last March. -AFP

FILE- Royal Challengers Bangalore batsman Chris Gayle plays a shot during the IPL Twenty20 cricket match between Delhi Daredevils and Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium in New Delhi on May 17, 2012. (AFP)

SPORTS

Football

Spanish team head to Euro 2012

Spain’s national soccer team players pose prior to their friendly soccer match against China in Seville June 3, 2012.

(Reuters)

WARSAW: Champions Spain and under-pressure Italy were the main teams expected to arrive in Poland for the European championship on Tuesday, as the 16 finalists completed their final warmup matches.

Vicente Del Bosque’s side, aiming to become the first team to win back-to-back titles after their victory four years ago, were due to arrive in the Baltic port city of Gdansk on Tuesday evening.

The tournament favorites and world champions take on Italy in Gdansk on Sunday.

Italy, rocked by fresh match-fixing claims that even included a police search of the team hotel and the arrest of several players in the top flight Serie A, were scheduled to fly in on a charter flight from Pisa to the southern city of Krakow.

The Republic of Ireland arrived in Gdansk in the small hours of Tuesday direct from Budapest, where they took on Hungary in a friendly match on Monday night. Croatia, the final Group C side, arrived on Tuesday morning.

Portugal arrived late on Monday night in the western city of Poznan to prepare for their opening Group B match against title contenders Germany in the Ukrainian city of Lviv on Saturday.

German talisman Bastian Schweinsteiger successfully came through training on Monday after picking up a calf injury during his club Bayern Munich’s Champions League final defeat to Chelsea

last month. Ireland’s 0-0 draw with Hungary was Giovanni Trappatoni’s 14th game without a defeat and, with veteran goalkeeper Shay Given coming through the match unscathed after an injury scare, will boost the side in tough group.

Co-hosts Ukraine, though, were playing down concerns about their readiness after a friendly defeat to Austria.

Veteran star Andriy Shevchenko insisted: “Our preparations for the Euro are going according to the plan and the results of the friendly matches are not really important. Neither the 4-0 win over Estonia nor the defeat at Innsbruck count for anything.”

Instead, the 35-year-old former European player of the year, who bows out of international football after the tournament, said Ukraine’s opener against Sweden on June 11 will show whether they are physically and mentally ready for the tournament.

Ukraine also take on England and France in Group D. England were expected to arrive at their Krakow base on Wednesday, while France were due in Donetsk, Ukraine, after their friendly match against Estonia in Le Mans on Tuesday evening.

France coach Laurent Blanc has called for more consistency in his side’s play, after “Les Bleus” demonstrated some thrilling football in the

first-half of their 2-0 defeat of Serbia last Thursday before their level dipped.

“The match will serve to help the team and the players pick up speed but also to keep them fresh because we’ll need all our weapons for the opening game against England on June 11,” he said on Monday.

“We need to win this match and be more consistent in our play. Against Serbia, we were only consistent for 60 minutes. I hope we’ll do it for even longer and that we won’t have any physical problems.”

Yann M’Vila is a doubt with an ankle injury, with Marseille midfielder Alou Diarra poised to take his place both against Estonia and England.

England have been hit by a succession of injuries, forcing Frank Lampard, Gareth Barry and Gary Cahill to withdraw. They are also without Manchester United star Wayne Rooney for the first two group matches through suspension.

Rooney’s Old Trafford team-mate Rio Ferdinand, meanwhile, moved to play down claims from his agent that coach Roy Hodgson had shown a lack of respect for not picking the defender as Cahill’s replacement.

“Just so we don’t get twisted ere. I’ll be in a pub somewhere supporting England this summer! Love the lads!” tweeted the former England captain. - AFP

Rodgers says Liverpool revolution will take time

LONDON: New Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers has warned the club’s successstarved fans it could take some time before his purist principles reap rewards.

Rodgers is already hard at work laying the foundations for his Anfield revolution after the former Swansea City coach took charge of the Merseyside giants last week.

The 39-year-old’s Swansea team earned plaudits for their smooth passing style and hightempo pressing game and Rodgers plans to implement similar tactics with Liverpool.

Swansea flourished in Rodgers’ two seasons in charge, winning promotion from the Championship and comfortably surviving in the Premier League, but the Northern Irishman knows it will take time and investment in new players to recreate that kind of success on a grander scale at Anfield.

“For me it is going to take time for how I want to play and the philosophy I want to introduce,” Rodger said.

“The principles of your game are based on the players you have and there is no doubt I’ll have a look at that and see if there is anyone I need to bring in to improve that.

“We want to play winning football, effective football. But I know what we need to play that way and win that way.

“It is about results and the progress of the team but we will make our first steps and hopefully that will improve over the next few years.

“What we need to do is improve the team and the quality of the team and hopefully over the next couple of years we will be ready to challenge and ready to compete.”

In contrast to Swansea, Liverpool often looked a lethargic outfit under Kenny Dalglish and Rodgers will first ask his players to meet his work ethic before focusing on changing their playing style.

“I have conditions to work in. I create a framework and the players come in and adhere to it,” the Reds boss said.

“I hear people talking about working hard but for me it is an obligation -- it’s not a choice.

“We all work hard in our everyday lives as people and for players it is no different.

“It is quite simple. You come in and do a hard day’s work. You make sure in training and on match days you come in and you can take your top off and wring it out and it will be soaking wet.”

Although Liverpool won the League Cup this season to end a six-year trophy drought, it is success in the Premier League that remains the holy grail at a club who were last crowned English champions in 1990.

Rodgers knows Liverpool, who finished 37 points behind champions Manchester City this season, are some way from emulating the club’s golden era.

But the former Watford and Reading boss is keen to use Liverpool’s past triumphs as one of the driving forces in turning things around. -AFP

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 2012

Shevchenko: Don’t count out Ukraine at Euros KIEV: Ukraine’s veteran star Andriy Shevchenko dismissed concerns about his team’s readiness for the European football championship with just a week remaining before the co-hosts opening match.

The 35-year-old Ukrainian skipper said his team should not be judged too harshly for losing 3-2 to Austria in a recent friendly.

“Our preparations for the Euro are going according to the plan and the results of the friendly matches are not really important,” Shevchenko said. “Neither the 4-0 win over Estonia nor the defeat at Innsbruck count for anything.

“Austria are definitely a more classy squad than our previous rivals Estonia and of course it affected both the performance and the result.

“We played the match in Innsbruck on the back of a tough physical preparation, while the hosts prepared expressly for this match and looked much fresher.

“We suffered physically and had some problems with decision-making late in the match. “It became obvious at the very end after we leveled the score at 2-2.”

The 2004 European player of the year said only official matches at Euro 2012, which Ukraine co-host with Poland, will show whether his team was ready for the

tournament. “We were not preparing specially for the friendly matches,” he said.

“Those matches were necessary for our manager to garner information and to draw the conclusions to prepare the team for the tournament properly.

“I believe only the campaign-opening match with Sweden on June 11 will reflect in which physical and mental conditions our team come into the tournament.”

Shevchenko - who helped Ukraine reach the 2006 World Cup quarter-finals where they were beaten by eventual champions Italy - also confirmed his decision to quit international football after the championship, adding that his future club career remained uncertain.

“I will definitely conclude my international career after the European championship,” Shevchenko said.

“I didn’t yet finalize the decision about my club career. I have several offers but I still need to decide which one is the most interesting. Meanwhile, my contract with Dynamo Kiev has already expired.”

Ukraine will play their last warm-up match later Tuesday against Turkey in Germany. The co-hosts were drawn in Group D with two-time European champions and 1998 World Cup winners France, England and Sweden. -AFP

Austria’s Paul Scharner (right) and Ukraine’s Andriy Yarmolenko fight for the ball during their international friendly soccer match in Innsbruck June 1, 2012. (Reuters)

South Africa parts ways with coach Mosimane JOHANNESBURG: South Africa has parted ways with coachPitso Mosimane after the Bafana Bafana stretched their winless run to nine games by starting World Cup qualifying with a home draw against Ethiopia over the weekend.

The South African Football Association said on Tuesday it had parted with Mosimane “amicably” following an emergency meeting on Monday. Mosimane was

assistant to Brazilian Carlos Alberto Parreira when South Africa hosted the World Cup in 2010. After a promising start, he never recovered from the embarrassment of not knowing the rules in African Cup qualifying last year. He watched his team celebrate a 0-0 draw at home against Sierra Leone when it needed to win to qualify for the tournament in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. -AP

Pitso Mosimane, coach of South Africa, reacts during the 2014 FIFA World Cup Qualifier match between South Africa and Ethiopia, at Royal Bafokeng Stadium on June 03, 2012. (AFP)

Greeks look to gatecrash hosts party again

LEGIONOWO, Poland: Greece are confident they can repeat their effort of Euro 2004 and beat the hosts in their opening match when they take on co-hosts Poland in Friday’s Euro 2012 opener, said defender Giorgos Tzavellas.

The 24-year-old - who returned to German side Eintracht Frankfurt after French Ligue 2 outfit Monaco decided not to exercise their option to buy him outright after a loan spell - said he and his team-mates had nothing to fear from Poland, who are not as difficult an opponent by reputation than Portugal were in 2004.

“At this moment the only thing on our mind is the first match with Poland,” said Tzavellas.

“The significance is the support from the veteran players.

“I believe with such a good atmosphere in the team we will achieve a lot. We don’t have anything to fear against Poland.

“The Poles will have the stress of the first match as they will be the home team.

“I believe we can repeat our effort of 2004 when we spoiled the opener for the home team.

We respect every opponent in our group. We don’t fear anyone. They (Poland) will have the stress and we hope to be the ones to spoil their celebration.”

Tzavellas, who didn’t go so far as to say that like 2004 the Greeks would go on to win the title by beating the Portuguese in the final, said the team’s strengths were based round solid defense.

“Our strength is our defense, but the defense starts from the offence.

“All 11 of us play defense, from there we look on improving our attack.”

Tzavellas, who made his debut for Greece in 2010 after their first round exit at the World Cup, and his fellow defenders were boosted also by the news that Olympiakos defender Vasilis Torosidis trained with them having shrugged off an injury. -AFP

Greece national soccer team players arrive at Hotel Jachrance, Poland, Sunday, June 3, 2012. (AP)