March 18, 2012

SUNDAY, MARCH 18, 2012

@alwatandaily

Issue No. 1377

16 PAGES

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150 Fils with IHT

Customs strike, salaries top issues on Cabinet’s agenda • Syndicates, trade unions give government two-week period to resolve pay rise issues • Customs employee strikes continue to inflate prices

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

KUWAIT: Rising prices of foodstuffs, in particular, due to the strike being staged by customs officers as well as the issue of pay raise will be among the top issues to be discussed by the Cabinet during its ordinary session today.

An official source confirmed to Al Watan that instructions have been issued to make “generous” pay increments in order to maintain stability in the country and that strikes should end.

The Minister of Commerce and Industry Anas Al-Saleh will submit a report about the consequences of the strikes being staged by customs officers, including a shortage of foodstuffs and the role of the ministry in facing this shortage by opening the strategic stock, considering the fact that the issue at stake is food security. The report will also highlight the ministry’s firm action against any exploitation that may increase prices and hurt citizens.

With regard to the strike of Kuwait Airways workers, the Director of Operations at the Directorate General of Civil Aviation Isam Al-Zamel told Al Watan that the Kuwait Airways Corporation will increase the number of Civil Aviation staff to help passengers change their tickets or change to other airlines. He explained that the flights to be affected are those of Kuwait Airways only, while other airlines continue to land and

take off as normal. The Ministry of Interior staff has joined the chorus of strikers setting tomorrow Monday as the date for a two-hour strike. They threatened to take further escalatory measures should their demands be ignored.

Meanwhile, workers at the Ministry of Health announced that they will stage a sit-in on Tuesday to reject the recent increments announced by the Civil Service Commission.

In another development, a representative of the Kuwait Fishers Union Salem Al-Failakawi warned of dramatic increase of fish prices over the coming days. He expected the price of Zubaidi fish to increase up to 20 Kuwaiti dinars per kilo. He told Al Watan that the price increase is attributed to a decision by the Kuwait Municipality to offer fish imported from certain countries.

Al-Failakawi urged the officials to reconsider the decision because the demand is far higher than the supply.

In addition, Al Watan has learnt that certain fruit and vegetable dealers are considering legal action against the government due to the losses they have incurred since the customs officers began their strike on Tuesday. They estimated their losses to be around 10 million Kuwaiti dinars.

This coincides with an agreement among heads of representatives of syndicates and trade unions that the government would be given a two-week deadline to annul the pay increase announced by the Civil Service Commission and to address workers’ demands. They warned that all options will remain on the table if the govern-

ment fails to meet the demands.

Attention will be turned today to the Cabinet’s session during which the ministers are due to make a decision regarding pay increase for civil servants and retirees. The Cabinet is also expected to address the strikes being staged by certain government agencies by considering special allowances.

An official source confirmed to Al Watan that instructions have been issued to make “generous” pay increments, taking into account the conditions of citizens and the demands being made by lawmakers. According to the source, the move is designed to end strikes in order to maintain stability in the country. It has been gathered that the Head of the Civil Service Commission AbdulAziz Al-Zabn will attend the Cabinet meeting today (Sunday) to make a detailed presentation about the envisioned mechanism for pay increase and how it was calculated.

The source further noted that the Cabinet will do its utmost to endorse the increments, particularly since the issue cannot be further delayed.

Additionally, the Cabinet will try to convince MPs with the decisions it will take so that the issue cannot be reopened at the Parliament and to prevent the lawmakers from enacting legislation to increase wages.

Moreover, the Cabinet will dedicate much of its session to the discussion of the strikes by the Kuwait Airways and Customs workers and will seek immediate solutions to this issue.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

Saudi ‘sends military equipment to Syria rebels’ Blasts kill dozens in Syrian capital

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian army soldiers investigate burnt and destroyed cars at the bomb scene near the aviation intelligence department, which was attacked by one of two explosions, in Damascus, Syria, on Saturday, March 17, 2012. (AP)

Fewer kids dying from leukemia: Study

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A car is barely visible as it travels along a street in Kuwait city in this photo showing the effects of yesterday’s dust storm, March 17, 2012. (Al-Watan)

CAPITALS: Saudi Arabia is delivering military equipment to Syrian rebels in an effort to stop bloodshed by President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime, a top Arab diplomat said on Saturday.

“Saudi military equipment is on its way to Jordan to arm the Free Syrian Army,” the diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“This is a Saudi initiative to stop the massacres in Syria,” he added saying further “details will follow at a later time.”

Meanwhile, twin car bombs struck intelligence and security buildings in the Syrian capital on Saturday, killing at least 27 people and wounding nearly 100, according to state media.

State TV, citing the health minister, said the death toll could rise. Gruesome images of the scene were aired, with mangled and charred corpses, bloodstained streets and twisted steel.

“All our windows and doors are blown out,” said Majed Seibiyah, 29, who lives More on 4 in the area.

Afghan massacre suspect in military jail in US

Russian opposition stages new protests, over 20 held

MOSCOW: Russian police detained more than 20 people near the Kremlin on Saturday as the opposition staged two new anti-government protests following Vladimir Putin’s presidential election win.

About 300 people attended the main demonstration at Pushkin Square in central Moscow where they listened to prominent opposition leaders condemning Putin’s allegedly fraud-ridden election victory. A police spokesman said two people had been detained at the rally.

“There are not that many people here today but there are millions of us against Putin,” 54 year-old businessman Vladimir Uralov told Reuters.

“There was a majority against Putin in Moscow in the election. I think a lot of people are afraid now.”

A wave of anti-Putin protests began over allegations of fraud in a parliamentary election won by his ruling United Russia party on Dec. 4. But the protests have ebbed since Putin won a new, six-year presidential term on March 4 with almost 64 percent of the vote.

The crowd at Pushkin Square chanted “Russia without Putin,” demanding the release of inmates they regarded as political prisoners. But protestors carried no banners for fear of arrest.

Some wore white ribbons, the symbol of their protest movement. -Reuters

In Sweden, cash is king no more

STOCKHOLM: Sweden was the first European country to introduce bank notes in 1661. Now it’s come farther than most on the path toward getting rid of them. “I can’t see why we should be printing bank notes at all anymore,” says Bjoern Ulvaeus, former member of 1970’s pop group ABBA, and a vocal proponent for a world without cash.

The contours of such a society are starting to take shape in this high-tech nation, frustrating those who prefer coins and bills over digital money.

In most Swedish cities, public buses don’t accept cash; tickets are prepaid or purchased with a cell phone text message. A small but growing number of businesses only take cards, and some bank offices - which make money on electronic transactions - have stopped handling cash altogether. “There are towns where it isn’t at all possible anymore to enter a bank and use cash,” complains Curt Persson, chairman of Sweden’s National Pensioners’ Organization.

He says that’s a problem for elderly people in rural areas who don’t have credit cards or don’t know how to use them to withdraw cash. The decline of cash is noticeable even in houses of worship, like the Carl Gustaf Church in Karlshamn, southern Sweden, where Vicar Johan Tyrberg recently installed a card reader to make it easier for worshippers to make offerings. “People came up to me several times and said they didn’t have cash but would still like to donate money,” Tyrberg says. Bills and coins represent only three percent of Sweden’s economy, compared to an average of nine percent in the eurozone and seven percent in the US, according to the Bank for International Settlements, an More 10 umbrella organization for the world’s central banks.

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Gadhafi intelligence chief arrested in Mauritania

TRIPOLI: Libya is seeking the extradition of Muammar Gadhafi’s intelligence chief Abdullah Al-Senoussi from Mauritania after he was arrested at Nouakchott airport, government spokesman Nasser Al-Manee said on Saturday. “Today the prosecutor general has sent an extradition request to the Mauritanian government through Interpol, who delivered this request to the Mauritanian government,” he told a news conference.

“The Libyan foreign ministry is in touch with Mauritania about the procedure. The Libyan government is ready to receive Abdullah Al-Senoussi ... and give him a fair trial in Libya.” Mauritania said Saturday it arrested former Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah Al-Senoussi, who was one of the most prominent figures from the ousted regime of Muammar Gadhafi and is wanted by the International Criminal Court. Al-Senoussi helped direct efforts to quash the rebellion against Gadhafi’s rule last year, and the ICC has indicted him along with Gadhafi’s son Seif Al-Islam, on charges of crimes against humanity. Mauritania’s state information agency said in a statement that Al-Senoussi was arrested at the airport in the capital Nouakchott upon arrival from the Moroccan More on 4 city of Casablanca.

Pope of Egypt’s Coptic Christian Church dies CAIRO: Pope Shenouda III, the patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church who led Egypt’s Christian minority for 40 years during a time of increasing tensions with Muslims, has died. He was 88. The state news agency MENA said Shenouda died Saturday after battling liver and lung problems for several years. A Coptic Church TV station ran a picture of the pope, with a running feed reading, “The Coptic Church prays to God that he rest in peace between the arms of saints.”

The patriarch, known in Arabic as Baba Shenouda, headed one of the most

ancient churches in the world, which traced it founding to St. Mark, who is said to have brought Christianity to Egypt in the 1st Century during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero.

For Egypt’s estimated 10 million Coptic Christians, he was a religious thinker and a charismatic leader, known for his sense of humor - his smiling portrait was hung in many Coptic homes and shops.

Above all, many Copts saw him as the guardian of their minority living amid a majority Muslim population in this country of more than 80 million people. -AP

WikiLeaks’ Assange to run for Australian Senate

Buddhist monks walk in lines through Thais gathered for a mass alms offering ceremony in Bangkok, Thailand, Saturday, March 17, 2012. The ceremony was held to honor the 2,600th anniversary of the enlightenment of Lord Buddha. (AP)

LONDON: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is planning to run for election to the Australian Senate, the organization announced on Twitter.

Assange, an Australian citizen, is on bail awaiting a British court decision on his appeal against extradition to Sweden on sexual assault allegations.

He strongly denies the claims, saying they are politically motivated and linked to the activities of WikiLeaks, which has

published thousands of confidential documents on the Internet.

WikiLeaks said it appeared that the 40-year-old’s current legal situation did not rule him out of running for Australia’s upper house.

“We have discovered that it is possible for Julian Assange to run for the Australian Senate while detained,” WikiLeaks said on Twitter on Saturday. “Julian has More on 5 decided to run.”

Parade goers shout as they watch St Patrick’s Day festivities in Dublin, Ireland on March 17, 2012. More than 100 parades are being held across Ireland to mark St Patrick’s Day, with up to 650,000 spectators expected to attend the parade in Dublin. (AFP)

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ALWATAN DAILY

kuwait

SUNDAY, march 18, 2012

Customs strike, salaries top issues on Cabinet’s agenda continued from page 1

In this regard, the Cabinet will listen to two reports to be given by the Chairman of Kuwait Airways and the Director General of Customs Department.

On Saturday, the Council of Ministers witnessed a meeting involving the Head of the Civil Service Commission Abdul-Aziz Al-Zabn, the Director General of Customs Department Ibrahim Al-Ghanem and the President of the Customs Syndicate Ahmad Al-Enzi. Sources have revealed that the discussion centered on the need for the strike to end and to convince strikers about the threat their action poses on the State, while the government promises to address their plight.

Informed sources have asserted that any decision to be made by Minister Al-Shamali will be deemed unacceptable and that it is the Cabinet’s decision is what will resolve the problem.

The sources noted that an agreement is still under discussion, which includes that indemnity be reduced to a year salary rather than two years. The Syndicate also insisted that safety and security workers should be included in a special allowance.

In the same vein, MP Waleed Al-Tabtabaie has called on His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah to reconsider the Civil Service Commission’s decision, while MP Jamaan Al-Harbash revealed that

the demands of strikers will be on the Parliamentary Majority’s agenda during a meeting to be held at MP Osama Al-Menawer’s diwaniya.

MP Falah Al-Sawagh noted that the Development and Reform Bloc will propose a special session for the National Assembly to set out urgent solutions to the issue of strikes and the demands being made by various government agencies for wage increase.

MP Saleh Ashour blamed the government for the state of paralysis in certain government institutions, and accused it of failure to fulfill its promises.

For his part, MP Mohammad Al-Kandari noted that the citizens have been shocked by

the increases announced by the commission, while describing the announced pay raise as unfair for civil servants and retirees.

In the meantime, His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak heads the Cabinet meeting today that will discuss the interpellation filed against the premier by MP Saleh Ashour, the governmental mechanism in dealing with investigations committees that were approved by the National Assembly last week, increase in food prices, the policy that will be adopted by the Civil Service Commission regarding the increases in salaries of governmental employees, and the refrain of voting for the draft law submitted by the government concerning the second annual devel-

opment plan.

A governmental source stated that the government has realized that MP Ashour will not resort to filing a no-cooperation request, which prompted the source to expect that the responses of the premier will be ready on Thursday.

The source revealed that the premier is willing to face the interpellation publicly, in order to show the government’s credibility in handling all interpellations transparently. The source went on to say that the government will also cooperate with the investigations committees formed by the National Assembly regarding multi-million deposits and overseas transactions.

Salary increment is in Fruits, vegetables hands of majority lawmakers dealers may sue government Hamed Al-Sayed, Nayef Kareem and Fahad Al-Loban Staff Writers

KUWAIT: Staging strikes by some labor unions and preparations by others to stage more strikes is expected to interrupt certain aspects of life in different pivotal sectors. The strikes might lead to big losses and other negative effects as well.

Meanwhile, informed sources told Al-Watan that some fruit and vegetable dealers plan to sue the government due to the losses that they suffered from following the strike of customs employ-

ees. The losses are estimated to be KD 10 million and some dealers expressed regret to the government’s ignorance to their rights, including the insurance companies who will not pay anything to the dealers if losses fall. The insurance companies compensate dealers only under certain circumstances such as natural disasters, fire and some other incidents but not strikes.

The dealers plan to sue the government since it is the responsible authority for the losses that they suffered from, adding that employees of the customs department are not responsible the problems

and they call for their rights given that the government has already approved requests of some civil servants at different state sectors. They also wondered how the government can’t encounter such crises as it is expected to be ready to face strikes or any other situations that threaten the stability of society.

Regarding the recent price hike, the sources said that the dealers increase prices when the local market suffers from shortage in order to make up the losses, as dealers have various financial commitments like paying the salary of workers, lease fees and transport fees.

Al-Azmi calls on government to monitor commodities’ price increase Abdullah Al-Hajri Staff Writer

Photo of a number of MPs voting during Thursday’s Parliament session, March 15, 2012. (Al Watan) Mohammad Al-Salman Ahmad Al-Shemmari Staff Writer

KUWAIT: The Cabinet is expected today to look into the decision made by the Civil Service Bureau regarding the salary increment for existing staff as well as retirees. Sources have related to Al Watan that the Civil Service Bureau has come up with two recommendations based on a study it carried out earlier. The study covered the exact costs and the rate of the increment.

The Cabinet is expected to endorse either of the recommendations deemed fit and appropriate in line with the living of standard and cost of living.

Meanwhile, a numbers of lawmakers are preparing themselves to put the Cabinet’s endorsement of either recommendation into perspective. Sources revealed that the National Assembly has no inclination towards interfering with the government and its policy or the Civil Service Bureau for that matter. The MPs have acknowledged that the Civil Service Bureau is the authority when it comes to coming up with salary increment and salary review, something which the government had already pointed out in clear terms. But the MPs have expressed their concern that the proposed increment may not meet people’s expectations.

However, sources maintained that the government has promised some MPs that when it comes to endorsing any new packages it would consider the highest rate proposed because the government is urging to finalize it once and for all.

Sources have also related that the majority of MP had a meeting last Thursday, where MPs form different blocs all keen to discuss the issue of salary increment for state employees and retirees as well as the labor strikes. The MPs agreed at the end of the meeting, that coordinating committee will be set up for the purpose

of following up ensuring that the demands are met. The committee will have a meeting today to discuss the increment and to discuss ways of having all blocs “on the same page” in terms of future regulations and draft bills expected to pass to the parliament for endorsement and vote.

On his part, MP Mohammad Al-Khalifa said that the government is not serious about the issue of salary increment for existing staff and retirees. “It is quite clear that it is not interested in the issue judging from the fact that it has repeatedly shunned demands to improve the standard of living of the Kuwaiti citizen.

From past experience, I would not say that I am optimistic bearing in mind that the issue was taken up by the government after some lobbying on the part of the MPs,” he added.

The MP stressed that the increase should not be less than 80% from the basic salary pointing out that those who received no packaging have suffered greatly because of the high cost of living. Similarly, MP Mohammad Al-Hatlani said that the Justice Bloc is looking into drafting a bill which makes it obligatory on the government to approve such increment. The MP further stressed that the entire issue should not be left to the Civil Service Bureau “who is in the habit of looking down at the Kuwaiti employees”.

Speaking to Al Watan, MP Al-Hatlani said that the government is unable to deal with the issue just as it failed to curb the greedy traders with their high prices harming and damaging the average Kuwaiti. He cited the long list of Zakat House as a point of fact that more and more people are suffering from price hikes.

As for the strikes carried out by various employees in Kuwait University and Public Authority for Applied Educational and Training, the MP said that this was an inevitable outcome after the Civil Service Bureau had refused to approve new employment grading for them.

Labor force authority, human rights council to be established soon Hamed Al-Sayyed Staff Writer

KUWAIT: The representative of the International Labor Organization in Kuwait Thabet Al-Haroun said in a statement on Saturday that Kuwait will establish a public authority for labor force soon. He added that he has met recently with Minister of Social Affairs and Labor Ahmad Al-Rujaib, who encouraged establishing such authority. He added that if this authority is approved, it will be a step in the right direction given that it will be tasked to handle all issues related to non-Kuwaiti and citizens working at the private sector. He explained that this authority will plug any loopholes and will cancel the sponsorship mechanism.

He revealed that there is full cooperation between the organization and the ministry where citizens working at the ministry will start receiving training of Kuwaitis in April.

In another development, Al-Haroun said that he was pleased that the Ministry of Interior and Kuwait Investment Authority have cooperated with each other to declare the establishment of a company that is concerned with domestic labor, in addition to the cooperation between the government and the National Assembly in approving the domestic labor law that takes into consideration the international domestic

labor agreement issued in 2011. He noted that if such draft laws are approved, Kuwait will take a major step in sidelining residency dealers and in overcoming the violation of human rights. He revealed that Kuwait plans to setup a human rights council, which is a culmination of the decisions and draft laws that Kuwait plans to approve; especially that GCC countries have established human rights councils. He applauded the Kuwaiti authorities for cooperating with the organization and remarked that sometimes there are obstacles, such as the recent political unrest in Kuwait that played a role in delaying the issuance of several legislations. He added that this leads to negative remarks about Kuwait made by the organization.

Concerning the Bedoun (Stateless Arabs) issue, he highlighted the importance of solving it and praised Kuwait for nationalizing those who are entitled to receive the Kuwaiti citizenship, in addition to recruiting Bedoun at the private sector. He revealed that all civil society organizations have been calling for the rights of the Bedouns.

Regarding complaints received by the organization in Kuwait, he explained that most of them are solved in conjunction with the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor. He went on to say that there are no ‘black lists’ at the organization, and if any violations occur, they are criticized by the committees.

KUWAIT: The Member of Parliament (MP) Menawer Al-Azmi warned Civil Service Commission (CSC) against procrastination when it comes to the issue of salary raises, which were kept in drawers for months. He indicated that the recent salary increases endorsed by CSC were disappointing for civil servants as well as MPs. The lawmaker told Al-Watan that

the CSC plans to raise salaries by 25 percent, but such step was fully rejected as the Kuwaiti civil servants deserve much better raises than the suggested ones, particularly as citizens suffer from to the cost of living.

Furthermore, the MP asked the government and Ministry of Commerce and Industry to enforce the law that combats prices increases as there have been continuous attempts by greedy dealers to raise prices of commodities and succeed-

ed in so due to the weak surveillance of the relevant authorities. He added that the government has to impose stricter procedures for monitoring prices’ increase in the country.

Al-Azmi also called on the government to show more interest in the variant affairs of the retired employees who sacrificed a significant time in their lives in the service of the country. He then urged the government to adopt effective pension raise for retired employees.

MP Al-Khalifa: Salary increase must not be less than 80 percent Ahmed Al-Shemmari Staff Writer

KUWAIT: Members of Parliament (MP) Mohammed Al-Khalifa underlined the importance of solving the concern of the employees’ salaries in the private and public sectors who were not included in the allowances. He said that the government is still creating obstacles regarding that matter and asserted that the MPs have asked the government repetitively to handle that issue and increase the salaries of employees and retirees. However, he stated that the government ignored all the requests and did not prioritize that issue, in addition to referring the issue to the Civil Service Commission and ministerial committees. He stressed that the government has proved that it takes the matter lightly, which prompted unions to organize strikes.

Moreover, he mentioned that the National Assembly must take action concerning that issue, and to propose a draft law that stipulates increasing the salaries of employees in the public and private sectors who did not receive any allowances.

He went on to say that such demands are deserved, since the government has not

Members of Parliament Mohammed Al-Khalifa (center) during Thursday’s Parliament session, March 15, 2012. (Al Watan)

compared the salaries to inflation rates and the increase in living expenses. He revealed that the government was forced to approve the allowances, after the National Assembly applied pressure on it, which makes the MPs skeptical regarding the government’s decision to grant the

employees and retirees a suitable salary increase. He stressed that the increase in salaries must not be less than 80 percent, since Kuwait has abundant financial surpluses, and remarked that neighboring countries have approved 100 percent increases.

Poet Al-Babtain launches World Poetry Day celebrations in Italy

VERONA: In a huge ceremony in the Italian city of Verona, prominent Kuwaiti and Arab poet Abdulaziz Saud AlBabtain has launched the celebrations of the World Poetry Day. “Poetry is the most effective art that could bridge gaps between humans of all walks of life and best to convey the message of peace to the whole world,” Al-Babtain, the president of honor of the World Poetry Academy, said in his opening speech of the international celebrations of poetry in the city, chosen by UNESCO as the city of poets and poetry.

The huge gala was attended by a large number of world poets, Italian officials and foreign diplomats in Italy.

The prestigious Arab Gulf poet, who also chairs the Kuwait-based Babtain Prize for Creative Poetry Foundation (BPCPF), described poetry as the best tool for promoting peace and love.

“Poetry is able to break all the barriers set by selfish in-

terests to unity all humans regards of their language, color, race, faith and culture.” Al-Babtain also hailed the city of Verona and the World Poetry Academy for their support to poets and poetry. He greeted the eminent Saudi poet Abdul Aziz Khojeh on being awarded the golden prize of poetry from the World Poetry Academy for this year.

The international event is due to be marked with various activities, such as poetry recitation, displays of books and movie shows. World Poetry Day is celebrated every year on March 21, and was declared by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in 1999. The purpose of the day is to promote the reading, writing, publishing and teaching of poetry throughout the world and, as the UNESCO session declaring the day says, to “give fresh recognition and impetus to national, regional and international poetry movements”. -KUNA

ALWATAN DAILY

KUWAIT

sunDAY, march 18, 2012

Consultation Houses Committee says development plan has many faults Mervat Abduldayem Staff Writer

KUWAIT: The Kuwait Engineering and Consultation Association strongly criticized the government’s approach regarding the development plan, extolling the lawmakers’ refusal to this plan given that Minister of Public Works and the Minister of Development Fadhl Safar submitted a report that will never lead to any advantages in this field.

Head of the Association Bader Al-Salman affirmed that the statements of the minister during Thursday’s session were inaccurate, wherein the minister said that the private sector contributes effectively in executing the plan but the association had proof that such statements are groundless. Al-Salman emphasized that the minister hasn’t been enabling the private sector to contribute in carrying out the developmental projects since he was appointed as minister, particularly when he ordered Municipality Apparatus to allow the engineers of ministry of public works to conduct the designing and surveillance works although such step violates certain laws.

He added that the minister still supports the policy put by the undersecretary of ministry which allows some international engineering offices to execute projects without having a local engineering office as sponsor.

Such offices execute 70 percent of the proj-

Minister of Public Works and Minister of State for Development Affairs Dr. Fahdil Safar during Thursday’s Parliament session, March 15, 2012. (Al Watan)

ects of the development plan and sometimes lead to wasting public fund and interrupt executing the development projects as well.

Al-Salman concluded his testament saying that the ongoing attempts of the minister for

marginalizing Consultation Houses Committee at Ministry of Development is a clear evidence of the minister’s policy which aims at restricting the role of private sector in terms of executing the developmental project of the country.

Kuwait is key opinion-maker, shareholder in World Bank: Andersen

KUWAIT: Since joining the World Bank (WB) in 1962, Kuwait has been an important opinionmaker and significant shareholder, said Vice President of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) at the Bank Inger Andersen.

In an exclusive interview with Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), Andersen said that the main purpose of her visit is “to listen” and get a better understanding of the progressing relationship between Kuwait and WB. She indicated that her visit included meetings with Minister of Finance Mustafa Al-Shamali, Minister of Commerce and Industry Anas Al-Saleh, Minister of Public Works and Minister of State for Development Affairs Dr. Fahdil Safar, as well as representatives of youth and women institutions.

“We have signed with Kuwait a three-year country-programming strategy agreement in 2009,

Photo of Vice President of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) at the Bank Inger Andersen.

(KUNA)

involving three over-arching priorities,” she said.

She explained that these priorities include the public sector management, (procurement law, anticorruption law, governance, speeding public cycle), economic diversification through developing private sector (privatization law, oil privatization law) and human development and sustainable development (only ongoing activity is in the field of education.)

Andersen was touring the Gulf region in the past week and Kuwait was her second stop, coming from Oman.

She commended Kuwait “extraordinary” work in WBs Global Gas Flaring Reduction (GGFR) partnership, which Kuwait has just joined on March fourth of this year.

Kuwait, represented in the partnership by Kuwait Oil Company Ltd. (KOC), a subsidiary of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, managed to reduce flaring from 17 down to 1.75 percent of its gas production during 2005-06 and 2010-11 respectively.

Kuwait is the third country in the Middle East to join the GGFR initiative, following Iraq and Qatar.

As for the MENA region after the (Arab Spring) she said that “We listen, we are a very diverse institution. We realize that when countries come for us, they know that we are not going to say tell them what they want to hear. In WB, we are not in the business of collecting fees.” In regards to her expectations for MENA, Andersen said “I believe in the Arab people. It’s historic what happened here, unprecedented and infectious. The spirit of the Arab people is strong and inspiring for the whole world.”

“The Arab Spring is ‘unique’ different than the ones witnessed by East Europe or South America,” she said, adding “I’m optimistic.” The central objective of the WBs Strategic Cooperation Program (SCP) in the States of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is to serve as an independent and objective adviser on development policies and programs. The SCP assists GCC governments through knowledge sharing,

capacity building and technical assistance.

The SCP began over 30 ago with advisory services to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It later expanded to cover the remaining GCC countries, namely, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). High per capita income makes these countries ineligible for receiving loans from the World Bank. However, their development needs often require inputs from an objective advisor, and the WB is uniquely positioned to provide expert advice on strategic development issues.

The Banks over-arching objective in the MENA region is to strengthen the momentum for policy reform and institution-building that lead to poverty reduction by building a climate for investment, jobs and sustainable growth and empower the poor to become assets in the development process.

Andersen, a Danish national, is responsible for the Banks strategy and operations throughout the MENA region. Prior to her appointment, she served as Vice President of Sustainable Development, where she led the departments work with developing countries to provide key infrastructure, enhance food security, promote environmental sustainability, develop social accountability, provide support for climate change mitigation and resilience, and support countries in disaster-risk management. She has also played a key role in supporting internal reforms and strengthening the Banks sectorial leadership.

On the subject of WB states’ budget support for countries, the official said that the bank was providing such assistance to Jordan, 250 million US dollars, Tunisia, $500 million, as well as Egypt one billion dollars.

She affirmed that such support by WB would be provided to other world states if necessary.

Since inception in 1944, the Washington DCbased WB has expanded from a single institution to a closely associated group of five development institutions. -KUNA

Charity campaign begins with $5 million Amiri donations to aid Syrian people KUWAIT: With a generous donation of five million US dollars from His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, and the International Islamic Charitable Organization (IICO) launched a benefit campaign through various media outlets to help the stranded people from the violent uprisings in Syria.

Director General of IICO Sulaiman Shamseldin told Kuwait Agency News (KUNA), on Saturday, that the campaign

has called the public to give aid to the misfortunate Syrian people who are facing a dire humanitarian crisis that left more than 10,000 dead, 60,000 imprisoned, 100,000 displaced and 60,000 missing. He said that since January, IICO has visited Syrian families stranded in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. It has given them financial, educational and health aid.

Shamseldin lauded Kuwaiti media

outlets especially, Al Watan TV, Al-Rai TV and Kuwait TV for playing a major role in covering the activities of this campaign and spreading them to the public.

He said, IICO always strives to help those in need, also recalling that in 2010 and 2011 the organization rushed to give help to the victims of floods in Pakistan and those who suffered starvation in Somalia. -KUNA

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Amir’s visit to Manila ‘milestone in Philippines-Kuwait bilateral relations history’ KUWAIT: The visit of His Highness the Amir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah to the Philippines is “a milestone in the history of Philippines-Kuwait bilateral relations,” said the Ambassador of the Republic of the Philippines to Kuwait Shulan O. Primavera on Wednesday.

Speaking to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) on the occasion of the visit, which is scheduled for March 23-24, the ambassador said the trip is expected to further strengthen the brotherly ties between the Philippines and Kuwait and promote cooperation between the two countries in the political, economic, social, and labor fields. The Philippines and Kuwait enjoy bilateral relation, which at present, is at its all time high with the first-ever visit of a Kuwaiti head of state to the Philippines, he said.

The last high-level visit between the two governments was that of Vice President Jejomar C. Binay, who represented President Benigno S. Aquino III, during the 50th Anniversary of Kuwait’s Independence, 20th Anniversary of its Liberation from Iraq, and the 5th Anniversary of His Highness Sheikh Sabah AlAhmad Al-Sabah’s ascension to the throne, the ambassador recalled.

Kuwait has been very responsive in providing assistance to the Philippines in times of national disasters, he said. “Just recently, The Kuwait Red Crescent Society (KRCS) granted financial aid to the thousands of Filipino families that were displaced

by Typhoon “Sendong” that struck the Southern part of the Philippines in December 2011, he added. The KRCS committed no less than a million US dollars of aid to the typhoon struck victims,” noted the ambassador.

The Philippine government, under the Aquino Administration, has the objective of intensifying economic diplomacy and is currently seeking potential foreign investors

in development projects in the Philippines, he said. Several Kuwaiti investments in the Philippines show the developing economic relations of the Philippines and Kuwait. Among these are the two billion dollars Kuwait and Gulf Link Company (KGL) investment in Clark, its acquisition of the Negros Navigation and interest in investing in metro rail transit system, and Intishar’s 500 hectare banana plantation in Davao, said the diplomat.

In 2009, the Philippines opened the Philippine Trade and Investment Center in Kuwait City to boost economic cooperation, in Kuwait. It operated for one year and was able to facilitate several business matching conferences between Philippine and Kuwaiti businessmen. In the same year, the Joint Trade Committee (JTC) Meeting was held in Manila where both sides had the opportunity to discuss pending issues related to trade and investment. It was the 1st JTC Meeting held after the signing of the Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement in 1997.

On bilateral labor relations, Kuwait is host to more than 140,000 Filipino expatriates.

The Filipinos rank the fourth largest expatriate community in Kuwait after the Indians, Egyptians, and the Bengalis.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Labor and Manpower Development between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the Government of the State of Kuwait was signed on Sept.

14, 1997 in Kuwait City. It was ratified on Oct. 27, 1997 and entered into force on 21 May 1998.

“The Philippines commends Kuwait’s efforts to improve the protection and promotion of its expatriate labor and domestic workers,” the ambassador stressed, noting that in 2009, Kuwait passed a labor law which is designed to promote the welfare of workers in the private sector in Kuwait. -KUNA

Camels are seen getting ready ahead of the race held to commemorate the Gulf region’s tradition. The event is held till March 24 and Kuwait managed so far to snatch first 10 places from 132 other camel racers. (Al Watan)

Kuwait participates in workshop aims at setting up environment academy KUWAIT: Kuwait Environment Protection Society (KEPS) recently participated in a workshop in Amman that aims at setting up an academy specialized in dealing with environmental issues facing the Arab region.

This academy will be opened in May of 2013 near Aljun Nature Reserve; a reserve organized and managed by The Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature.

Biologist and representative of KEPS Nawf Al-Hashash told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), on Saturday, that she presented environmental issues and technical difficulties that can be seen in Kuwait. Other participants put forward similar concerns encountered in

their countries. Discussion of these issues will lead to setting up a curriculum which will then be revised by some governmental and civil community environment organizations. The curriculum will then be approved to be taught in the academy, she pointed out.

The teaching staff will include Arab environmental experts; no academic degree is required to enroll in the academy since it relies on fieldwork as the basis of its teaching, Al-Hashash clarified.

Once it is opened, environmental societies and institutes will be asked to send in their staff as a move to raise their level of technical and vocational adequacy.

-KUNA

Four MPs call for allowing retired employees to purchase cars by installments

International Islamic Charitable Organization are seen helping transport humanitarian aid to stranded Syrians, on March 17, 2012. (KUNA)

KUWAIT:The Members Parliament (MPs) Jamaan Al-Harbash, Hamad Al-Mattar, Falah Al-Sawwagh and Mubarak Al-Walaan submitted a suggestion that aims at enabling retired employees to purchase cars and other merchandise using the option of installments, wherein the very retired employees will have the right to sponsor themselves according to the suggestion. This was stated in a press release issued Saturday.

The lawmakers said along with the suggestion that a large number of retired employees are highly suffering from restrictions which prevent them from sponsoring themselves in order to purchase some items despite the fact that the Constitution stipulates

that all Kuwaiti citizens should have equal rights.

Therefore, retired employees must be allowed to purchase cars for themselves or their sons on installments from the different banks and commercial institutions, unlike the current situation where regulations force them to be sponsored by someone else in order to complete such transactions.

Such step restricts the lives of a significant number of the retired employees who had spent a long time in the service of the country. As a result, the MPs asked Ministry of Commerce and Industry besides to Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Kuwait to enable all retired employees to sponsor themselves.

4

ALWATAN DAILY

regional

Thuggery at Al Wadi

By Hossam Fathi

KUWAIT: The Al Wadi Al-Jadeed residents have not experienced significant crimes until the latest incident took place amid a growing sense of lawlessness and chaos.

The story is well-known and therefore I need not go into it in much detail. To put it in a nutshell, the Governor Major General Tareq Al-Mahdi was on a conducted tour around a number of projects on Monday, March 12, when the Consultative Council Member Hamdi Hassan informed him that a gang has been engaged in stealing train bars east of Sana’a village. The Governor accordingly reported the matter to the Security Chief. About 8 police vehicles led by the Governor’s car set off to confront the thieves who began shooting. The Governor took his bodyguard’s gun and made four gunshots toward the gang.

As a result, the gang took to their heels.

The incident has instilled a sense of fear in the locals, as the gang came back attacking restive residents with firearms and other weapons, hence killing a girl and injuring another. The gang was engaged in an indiscriminate shooting and setting fire to homes and shops.

The whole Egypt is now awaiting what the Governor, and along with him the Military Council, will do to restore people’s dignity. hossam@alwatan.com.kw Twitter:@hossamfathy66

Libya seeking Gadhafi intelligence chief extradition

TRIPOLI: Libya is seeking the extradition of Muammar Gadhafi’s intelligence chief Abdullah AlSenoussi from Mauritania after he was arrested at Nouakchott airport, government spokesman Nasser Al-Manee said on Saturday.

“Today the prosecutor general has sent an extradition request to the Mauritanian government through Interpol, who delivered this request to the Mauritanian government,” he told a news conference.

“The Libyan foreign ministry is in touch with Mauritania about the procedure. The Libyan government is ready to receive Abdullah Al-Senoussi ... and give him a fair trial in Libya.”

Mauritania said Saturday it arrested former Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah Al-Senoussi, who was one of the most prominent figures from the ousted regime of Muammar Gadhafi and is wanted by the International Criminal Court.

Al-Senoussi helped direct efforts to quash the rebellion against Gadhafi’s rule last year, and the ICC has indicted him along with Gadhafi’s son Seif AlIslam, on charges of crimes against humanity.

Mauritania’s state information agency said in a statement that Al-Senoussi was arrested at the airport in the capital Nouakchott upon arrival from the Moroccan city of Casablanca. It said he was carrying a fake Malian passport.

As Gadhafi’s regime crumbled in the second half of 2011, many of the dictator’s inner circle reportedly fled from advancing rebels toward the Sahara, where the regime had long cultivated ties with desert groups both in Libya and in neighboring countries.

Gadhafi’s son Seif Al-Islam was arrested in November by fighters in Libya’s remote southern desert.

Some Libyan officials reported at the time that Al-Senoussi had also been captured and was being held in the southern city of Sabha. But some later cast doubt on that assertion, and his whereabouts have not been known - a reflection of the confusion in post-Gadhafi Libya, where “revolutionary militias” hold local control in many towns and cities with little accountability to the Tripoli government.

In October, a Western diplomatic official in Mali’s capital, Bamako, told the Associated Press that AlSenoussi was in Mali and that the French government was taking the lead in hunting him down. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to the press.

Judges at the Netherlands-based ICC issued an arrest warrant for Al-Senoussi last June on two counts of crimes against humanity - murder and persecution - for allegedly masterminding attacks on civilians in the early days of the uprising that eventually toppled Gadhafi from power. -Agencies

SUNDAY, march 18, 2012

Blasts kill dozens in Syrian capital BEIRUT: Twin car bombs struck intelligence and security buildings in the Syrian capital on Saturday, killing at least 27 people and wounding nearly 100, according to state media.

State TV, citing the health minister, said the death toll could rise. Gruesome images of the scene were aired, with mangled and charred corpses, bloodstained streets and twisted steel.

“All our windows and doors are blown out,” said Majed Seibiyah, 29, who lives in the area. “I was sleeping when I heard a sound like an earthquake. I didn’t grasp what was happening until I hear screaming in the street.”

The blasts were the latest in a string of mysterious, large-scale attacks targeting the Syrian regime’s military and security installations. The previous blasts, all suicide bombings, killed dozens of people since December, even as the regime wages a bloody crackdown against the year-old uprising against President Bashar Al-Assad.

The government has blamed the explosions on the “terrorists” that it claims are behind the revolt. The opposition has denied any role, saying they believe forces loyal to the government are behind the bombings to tarnish the uprising.

But top US intelligence officials also have pointed to Al-Qaeda in Iraq as the likely culprit behind the previous bombings, raising the possibility its fighters are infiltrating across the border to take advantage of the turmoil.

Al-Qaeda’s leader called for Al-Assad’s ouster in February.

A suspected Al-Qaeda presence creates new obstacles for the US, its Western allies

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian firefighters extinguish a fire in a damaged building near the aviation intelligence department, which was attacked by one of two explosions in Damascus on Saturday, March 17, 2012. (AP)

and Arab states trying to figure out a way to help push Assad from power, and may also rally Syrian religious minorities, fearful of Sunni radicalism, to get behind the regime.

Bassma Kodmani, a member of the opposition Syrian National Council, said she doubted armed groups trying to bring Assad down by force, such as the rebel Free Syrian

MPs to make up half of Egypt constitution assembly CAIRO: Egypt’s parliament agreed on Saturday that half the members of a 100person assembly charged with drawing up a new constitution would be chosen from within parliament and the rest from other parts of society.

In a tally broadcast live on television, 427 out 590 deputies in a joint session of the upper and lower houses of parliament voted for a 50-50 division in the constituent assembly that will chart out the future of Egyptian democracy.

The constitution will define the balance of power between the army-backed executive and parliament following the toppling of autocratic President Hosni Mubarak in a popular uprising in February 2011. The assembly will decide the extent of presidential powers, which parliament wants to curb, and the sensitive issue of the role of Islamic law in Egyptian laws and society.

The will also outline the future politi-

cal role of the military, which has been in power since the fall of Mubarak. Under an interim constitution, parliament is responsible for picking the 100-strong assembly that will write the new constitution, replacing the one that helped keep Mubarak in power for three decades and was a cornerstone of his rule.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), which controls most seats in the joint session, said at the beginning of Saturday’s session it wanted half of the assembly’s members to include legal and constitutional experts and unions members.

It had previously said it wanted 60 members from outside parliament. The upper and lower houses of parliament will vote later on Saturday on criteria for selecting the 100-member body. The two houses will meet again on March 24 to choose the 50 members who will come from inside parliament. -Reuters

Jets bomb Al-Shabaab base in southern Somalia MOGADISHU: Jets bombed a base run by the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab rebels north of Somalia’s Kismayu port on Saturday but it was not clear if there were any casualties, residents and officials said. The jets hit the militants’ base near the village of Daytubako, 135 km (84 miles) north of Kismayu, the nerve-centre of their operations in the Horn of Africa country. Residents in Jilib, a town 15 km from the scene, said they could see the jets and hear the deafening thunder of bombs.

“First we saw two jets flying towards Daytubako, and after minutes we heard the thunder of the bombs. The jets bombed, flew past, returned to the same spot and dropped several other bombs,” said Kasim Olow, a resident of Jilib town, Mohamud Farah, the spokesman for Somali government troops in Lower Juba, southern Somalia, told Reuters the jets were likely to be Kenyan, but the east African country’s military spokesman could not immediately confirm the attack.

Kenya sent troops into anarchic Somalia in October after raids and kidnappings it blamed on Al-Shabaab, but the advance has slowed and regional insecurity is no better. Somali rebels killed seven people in an attack inside Kenya last week.

Al-Shabaab confirmed the bombardment.

“The jets bombed Daytubako village, but they killed animals and injured four civilians. No Al-Shabaab casualties,” Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, the spokesman for Al-Shabaab’s military operation told Reuters. “One jet targeted a well from where civilians were watering their animals, it dropped several bombs on this well.” A spokesman for the Westernbacked government said there were no civilian casualties and the Al-Shabaab base was damaged.

“The Kenyan jets bombed an Al-Shabaab base at Daytubako today. Several bombs successfully hit on (the base). I am sure more rebels are dead but we have no their exact number of casualties,” said Mohamud Farah, spokesman for the Somali government troops in Lower Juba, southern Somalia. “Pastoralists were fetching water from a well near the Al-Shabaab base. there were no civilian casualties.”

Kenyan forces pushed into Somalia after raids that threatened the tourism industry in East Africa’s biggest economy and wider regional destabilization.

Neighboring Ethiopia has also sent troops into Somalia to back its shaky government, which holds the capital Mogadishu with the help of an African Union peacekeeping force. -Reuters

Iraq to pay $408 million Gulf War debt to Egyptians BAGHDAD: Iraq said on Saturday it had agreed to pay 408 million US dollars to hundreds of thousands of Egyptian workers who fled Iraq because of Saddam Hussein’s 1990-91 invasion of Kuwait.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari signed a memorandum of understanding during a visit to Egypt this week, his office said, under which Baghdad agreed to make the payments to resolve the cases known as “yellow remittances”.

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptian workers are still owed back pay after fleeing Iraq following Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait.

Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait led to the 1991 Gulf War, when US-led forces drove Iraqi troops from Kuwait but left Saddam in power for another 12 years.

U.S. troops returned to topple Saddam in

a second invasion in 2003 and stayed until last December.

Iraq has made an effort to resolve Gulf War-era disputes with other Arab states ahead of a March 27-29 summit of Arab leaders, the first time the Arab League has gathered in the Iraqi capital since the 1991 Gulf War. Earlier this week Iraq reached a $500 million deal with Kuwait to resolve a dispute over aircraft and plane parts that Saddam’s forces took during the invasion.

That dispute had made it difficult for Iraqi Airways to fly to Western cities without risking the confiscation of its planes.

Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki’s government is heralding the Arab League summit as the debut of post-Saddam Iraq at the centre of regional politics, following the withdrawal of US troops. -Reuters

Yemen hunts abductors of Swiss woman SANAA: Yemeni security forces were on Saturday hunting for suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen who abducted a Swiss woman this week with no immediate leads in sight, a security official said. “We are pursuing our search but so far we have not been able to locate where the Swiss woman is being held or know anything about her fate,” a security official in southern Shabwa province told AFP. He said that three suspects were detained overnight as part of the investigation. On Friday a local official said suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen seized the woman in the Red Sea port of Hodeida and then moved her to restive Shabwa province further to the east.

The Swiss foreign ministry confirmed the abduction and said it had been informed the woman had been kidnapped

Army, have the capacity to carry out such attacks on security institutions in the capital.

“I don’t think any of the opposition forces or the free Syrian army has the capacity to do such an operation to target these buildings because they are fortresses,” she said by telephone. “They are very well guarded. There is no way anyone can penetrate them without

having strong support and complicity from inside the security apparatus.”

According to SANA, preliminary information indicated two blasts were caused by car bombs that hit the aviation intelligence department and the criminal security department at 7:30 a.m. local time. Shooting broke out soon after the blast and sent residents and others who had gathered in the area fleeing, an Associated Press reporter at the scene said.

A Syrian official also said there were reports of a third blast Saturday targeting a military bus at the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, but there were no details. He asked that his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

The Syrian government denies there is a popular will behind the uprising, saying foreign extremists and gangs are trying to destroy the country. But his opponents deny that and say an increasingly active rebel force has been driven to take up arms because the government used tanks, snipers and machine guns to crush peaceful protests.

The UN estimates that more that 8,000 people have been killed since the uprising against Al-Assad began last March.

The last major suicide bombing in Syria happened on Feb. 10, when twin blasts struck security compounds in the government stronghold of Aleppo in northern Syria, killing 28 people.

Damascus, another Al-Assad stronghold, has seen three suicide previous bombings since December. In recent weeks, Syrian forces have waged a series of heavy offensives against the main strongholds of the opposition - Homs in central Syria, Idlib in the north and Daraa in the south. -AP

late Wednesday and were trying to seek her release.

The Yemeni interior ministry, quoting a Swiss colleague of the woman, said she had been teaching at a foreign language institute in Hodeida and was seized at home by “men in military uniform” who moved her to Shabwa. The colleague identified her as 34-year-old Sylvia Abrahat, according to the transliteration from Arabic of a name posted by the ministry on its website.

According to the report, the kidnapped woman telephoned her colleague to say her abductors are demanding “the release of prisoners held in Hodeida” in return for her freedom.

The local official who announced the abduction on Friday said at the time that the kidnappers were “demanding the re-

lease of two Al-Qaeda militants detained in Hodeida.”Later a security official said “the kidnapping bears the hallmark of AlQaeda”.

According to him, only a well-organized group such as Al-Qaeda could have undertaken such an operation, which involved moving the Swiss woman across three provinces. Shabwa is a stronghold of loyalists of the jihadists’ local affiliate Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, whose militants fight under the banner of Partisans of Sharia (Islamic law). A tribal source said the woman was being held in a mountainous area of Shabwa adjoining Bayda province.

“Contacts are under way in an attempt to secure the woman’s release,” he told AFP, without detailing the nature of the contacts. -AFP

This handout picture released on March 17, 2012 by the African Union-United Nations Information Support Team shows a Somali National Army (SNA) soldier taking up a defensive position during a demonstration exercise for Somalia’s president. (AFP)

Hopes riding on talks to defuse tense Iran situation CAPITALS: Hopes are riding high that mooted talks between Iran and world powers will de-escalate a dangerous showdown over Tehran’s controversial nuclear program.While Iran and the so-called P5+1 comprising the five UN Security Council permanent members plus Germany, are expected to soon agree a date and place for reviving their long-stalled talks, the specter of military confrontation looms large. Israel has kept up warnings of air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities to prevent the Islamic republic obtaining a nuclear weapons capability. A majority of Israel’s 14member security cabinet now supports Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak in wanting to launch a pre-emptive attack on Iran in a bid to end its nuclear program, the Israeli newspaper Maariv reported on Thursday, citing political sources it did not identify. “Israel is very close to the point when a very tough decision should be made - the bomb or the bombing,” former military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin told reporters last week. The United States, meanwhile, is positioning three of its aircraft carriers near Iran, according to the US navy on its official website.

The USS Enterprise a week ago left its home port to join the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Carl Vinson

that are already in the region. The Lincoln in January sailed through the strategic Strait of Hormuz into the Gulf, testing Iranian threats against the Vinson in that body of water. The US navy is also doubling the number of minesweeping ships and helicopters based in the Gulf, according to testimony by its chief, Admiral Jonathan Greenert, to US senators.US President Barack Obama has warned that Iran’s leaders have to understand that “the window for solving this issue diplomatically is shrinking.”

Iran maintains its nuclear programme is purely peaceful even though this year it blocked UN inspectors from visiting a specific area of a military base suspected to have hosted nuclear warhead research.

Tehran on Wednesday made a formal request to schedule the time and place for “constructive, serious” talks with the P5+1, which it agreed to on February 14 after an initial offer made back in October by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

The last round of negotiations with the P5+1 collapsed in Istanbul in January 2011.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, though, has told the West to drop the “illusion” that its economic sanctions against his country will force a change of heart over nuclear policy. -AFP

ALWATAN DAILY

WORLD

sundAY, march 18, 2012

Afghan massacre suspect in military jail in US US Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales served three combat toure in Iraq and was on his first deployment in Kabul

WASHINGTON: A US soldier who allegedly shot and killed 16 civilians in Afghanistan was held at a US military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Saturday as new details emerged about the veteran’s past.

The soldier, identified Friday as US Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, had served three combat tours in Iraq, and was on his first deployment to Afghanistan.

US media identified Bales, 38, as the alleged shooter, and a US official speaking on condition of anonymity told AFP the reports were “correct.”

Bales allegedly left his base in the southern province of Kandahar before sunrise Sunday, entered an Afghan village and opened fire, killing men, women and children. The incident has plunged US-Afghan relations into the deepest crisis since the 2001 US-led invasion.

The US military has not officially released the soldier’s name, nor charged him with a crime yet.

Bales was brought to Fort Leavenworth on a flight from Kuwait late Friday, army officials said.

Several websites containing pictures and stories about Bales, including a 2009 Department of Defense page, were taken down by the time his identity was revealed Friday, but some versions of the web pages could still be accessed.

According to a cached online article, dat-

US names Afghan massacre suspect as US Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, who had served three combat tours in Iraq, and was on his first deployment to Afghanistan. (AFP)

ed February 2009, from the official US army homepage, Bales participated in one of the bloodiest clashes of the Iraq war - a January 2007 battle against a messianic Shiite sect in southern Iraq known as the Soldiers of Heaven.

In the 15-hour engagement, according to the US army article, 250 fighters were killed, all enemy - and Bales said he was proud his unit “discriminated between the bad guys and the noncombatants and then afterward we ended

up helping the people that three or four hours before were trying to kill us.

“I think that’s the real difference between being an American as opposed to being a bad guy, someone who puts his family in harm’s way like that,” Bales said.

Separately, in a photograph appearing on cached webpage of the High Desert Warrior, an online military publication, dated March 4, Bales appears in camouflage fatigues and wearing body armor during a training exercise at

LONDON: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is planning to run for election to the Australian Senate, the organization announced on Twitter.

Assange, an Australian citizen, is on bail awaiting a British court decision on his appeal against extradition to Sweden on sexual assault allegations.

He strongly denies the claims, saying they are politically motivated and linked to the activities of WikiLeaks, which has published thousands of confidential documents on the Internet.

WikiLeaks said it appeared that the 40year-old’s current legal situation did not rule him out of running for Australia’s upper house.

“We have discovered that it is possible for Julian Assange to run for the Australian Senate while detained,” WikiLeaks said on Twitter on Saturday.

“Julian has decided to run.”

WikiLeaks said it will also field a candidate to run directly against Prime Minister Julia Gillard in her lower house electorate of

Lalor, in Victoria, in the elections, which are due in 2013. “...the state Julian will run for will be announced at the appropriate time,” WikiLeaks said.

The Australian government has previously blasted WikiLeaks, with Gillard describing its release of US diplomatic cables as “grossly irresponsible”.

Gillard’s government ordered Australian police to investigate whether WikiLeaks had broken Australian law, but they reported back in 2010 it had not broken any under their jurisdiction in releasing the cables.

Assange, a former computer hacker, is fighting being sent to Stockholm because he fears it would open the way for his extradition to the US to face charges of spying linked to the leaking of classified military documents

by US soldier Bradley Manning.

Manning has been formally charged for allegedly turning over a trove of classified US documents to WikiLeaks in one of the most serious intelligence breaches in US history.

-AFP

NEWS IN BRIEF

an army training center in California’s Mojave desert.

Outraged locals wanted Bales to stand trial in Afghanistan, but the US military quickly flew him out.

Bale’s attorney Browne said that his client had been angered by a serious injury that a comrade sustained the day before the massacre, but held no animosity toward Muslims.

Bales, the father of young children, was also upset because after his extensive Iraq duty he did not believe he would be deployed to Afghanistan, according to US news reports.

The suspect appears to have been drinking the night of a shooting, a violation of US combat rules.

“Investigators have reason to believe that alcohol may have been a factor in this tragic incident,” a US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Bales may have “just snapped” due to a combination of stress, alcohol and domestic issues, another unnamed official told the New York Times on Thursday.

Media reports said Bales was angry about being passed over for a military promotion, and as a civilian had brushes with the law and spent time in anger management. He pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge in 2002 and was cited for a misdemeanor hit-and-run incident in 2008, for which he paid a $250 fine and received a deferred 12-month sentence.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Friday again lashed out at Washington over the massacre, one day after he said international forces should leave villages in his country, potentially jeopardizing NATO operations two years before combat troops are due to leave Afghanistan.

US President Barack Obama agreed to resolve Karzai’s concerns over night raids in a phone call Friday, and the two agreed to discuss complaints about NATO troops in villages. -AFP

WikiLeaks’ Assange to run for Australian Senate

5

Pakistan president boasts gains in terror war ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s president is claiming successes in his country’s fight against Islamist militancy. Asif Ali Zardari made the claim during his annual address to a joint session of parliament on Saturday. It was the fifth time Zardari has given the address as president, something he claimed was an achievement in itself given the country’s turbulent political history. Opposition lawmakers shouted insults through much of his address, accusing the government of “looting.” -Reuters

Philippines tightens watch on African arrivals MANILA: Philippine airport immigration officials have tightened monitoring of arrivals from Africa after a spate of arrests of drug mules from the continent, according to a spokeswoman. The increased vigilance at all airports was imposed after two Ghanaians were caught on March 13, bringing to eight the number of Africans stopped at Philippine airports in three weeks while trying to smuggle in illegal drugs. Bureau of Immigration spokeswoman Maria Antonette Mangrobang on Saturday told AFP: “This is not discrimination. They will not be treated poorly.We are just asking our immigration people to be a bit more vigilant.” -AFP

Swedish rescuers find wreckage of crashed plane STOCKHOLM: Rescuers have found the wreckage of a Norwegian military plane that crashed with five people on board during an exercise in northern Sweden, officials said Saturday. Parts of the C-130 cargo aircraft were found scattered over a glacier on mount Kebnekaise, Sweden’s highest mountain, rescue spokesman Mathias Hansson told The Associated Press.

Four men and one woman - all Norwegians - were on board the plane heading from Evenes, on Norway’s Arctic coast, to the Swedish city of Kiruna when it disappeared from radar screens just before 3 p.m. (1400 GMT) Thursday over the mountain range. Hansson said the crew had not been found, but “there is nothing that indicates” they had survived the crash. -AP

Bin Laden wanted to kill Obama to create chaos

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange talks during a press conference in central London. (AFP)

WASHINGTON: The slain Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden pushed his organization to develop plans to kill US President Barack Obama, according to media reports citing documents recovered from his hideout in Pakistan. He did so in the belief that the United States would tumble into chaos if an “unprepared” Vice President Joe Biden became commander in chief, several US media outlets including the Washington Post said in article Friday.

The Al-Qaeda chief’s analysis of presidential succession scenarios appear in a collection of classified records that the Obama administration is planning to release to the public in the coming months, the Post said. -AFP

Pakistan parliament set to take up US-Pakistan ties East Timor votes in test for young nation Islamabad mulls new rules for US military

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s parliament is set to finally reveal new terms of engagement with the United States next week, almost five months after a crossborder skirmish with NATO forces that left 24 Pakistani soldiers dead and ties at their lowest in years.

The new terms will likely include the re-opening of supply lines to US-led NATO troops in Afghanistan, closed since Nov. 26, but with many new qualifications and restrictions, a prominent opposition lawmaker told Reuters on Saturday.

“Broadly, all the parties agree on this,” said Ayaz Amir, an opposition member of the National Assembly who sits on its foreign affairs and defense committees. “I don’t think anyone is in favor of permanently blocking off NATO routes. There will be riders, qualifications, and the military will have a heavy input in this.”

Pakistan has been directly ruled by its military for more than half of its 64year history and indirectly for much of the rest. It largely controls foreign and security policies, and has taken the lead in relations with the United States.

“All of this, the break in relations, the army viewpoint is coloring Pakistan’s response,” said Amir, a member of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) faction headed by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Relations with the United States reached a crisis point after the November incident in which NATO aircraft killed 24 Pakistani troops. Pakistan shut down NATO supply routes into Afghanistan and demanded an apology.

The United States expressed regret for the loss of life and accepted the bulk of the blame, but has not apologized.

Amir spoke to Reuters just before Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari was scheduled to address the opening of a joint session of parliament, the fifth time he has done so.

Pakistan’s parliament is set to finally reveal new terms of engagement with the United States that will likely include the re-opening of supply lines to US-led NATO troops in Afghanistan. (Reuters)

That is more than any previous civilian president of the unstable, nucleararmed South Asian nation.

Zardari could be the first civilian president to serve a full five-year term, having so far weathered numerous political crises and showdowns with both the military and the Supreme Court.

Still, if he addresses US-Pakistan ties at all, he is likely to issue only already widely-accepted recommendations to parliament, given that the national security committee has been working on the new terms for months with heavy input from the military.

The recommendations are almost certain to be accepted by the parliament when they are finally issued later this week.

“Regardless of the opposition these recommendations face when they are presented before parliament, the government has a majority and will not face difficulties affirming them,” Amir said.

“I think it should be done within a week, that’s my expectation.”

But Zardari is hugely unpopular in Pakistan, accused of corruption and mismanagement, and opposition politicians have pledged a rowdy welcome to Zardari, a Pakistani daily newspaper reported.

A symbolic walkout near the end of the speech is expected.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani government is debating a new policy to re-draw its military rules of engagement with the US that could threaten to further strain diplomatic relations between the two countries.

The moves are in response to NATO airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers late last year at a military post near the Afghan border.

There were nationwide protests against the incident after which Pakistan government stopped the NATO supply route and forced the US to vacate an air base inside Pakistan, despite a US apology over the issue.

The US wants NATO supply routes reopened as soon as possible to facilitate a withdrawal from neighboring Afghanistan. -Reuters

DILI: East Timor voted Saturday in the country’s second presidential election as a free nation, seen as a key test for a young democracy taking charge of its own security as UN forces prepare to leave.

Polling began in the morning and ended at 3 pm (0600 GMT) with no unrest reported in a contest that pits the Nobel Prize-winning incumbent Jose RamosHorta against 11 other hopefuls.

Voting was remarkably organized for a poor and chronically unstable country still traumatized by Indonesia’s brutal 24-year occupation, which ended with a vote for independence in 1999. “Everything was orderly and well, smooth and without irregularities or an atmosphere of intimidation,” Jamie Gonclaves, a poll station worker, told AFP. Polling was also markedly peaceful, standing in stark contrast to the deadly pre-election violence that erupted in 2006, which left the country on the brink of civil war. “There has not been a single incidence of violence, so that’s great for the country,” Ramos-Horta said after voting in the capital Dili, with coffee-brown ink on his index finger indicating he had exercised his democratic right. A large turnout was reported nationwide, with some stations having to dip into reserve ballots, election officials said. At a school house in the village of Balibar, in the cool hills overlooking the capital Dili, voters trickled in about an hour after polls opened at 7 am (2200 GMT Friday), some carrying babies or toddlers and many barefoot.

The vote marks the country’s second presidential election as a free nation and is the first in a series of key events in a pivotal period for the country.

In May, East Timor will celebrate 10 years of independence, which came after three years of UN administration. Then, in June, voters will choose a new government in a general election.

At the end of the year the nation of 1.1 million people bids goodbye to UN forces stationed in the country since 1999. Among East Timor’s many problems is its heavy reliance on energy reserves, which account for around 90 percent of state revenues.

The International Monetary Fund calls it the “most oil-dependent economy in the world”.

“It is an obligation for every citizen to vote because this is a democracy and we have the right to choose our own leaders,” said Sidonia Perreira, a government clerk who walked to the school house with his wife and two small children.

Constitutionally, the presidency is largely a ceremonial role, but its profile has been boosted by RamosHorta, who shared the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to resolve the independence conflict.

The popular 62-year-old, who survived a 2008 as-

East Timor’s President Jose Ramos-Horta waves after casting his vote during the country’s presidential election in Dili March 17. (Reuters)

sassination attempt, is the second post-independence president after Xanana Gusmao -- a former anti-Indonesia rebel leader who is now prime minister. The race for the presidency is largely a three-way contest between Ramos-Horta, the Fretilin party’s Francisco “Lu Olo” Guterres and former armed forces chief Taur Matan Ruak, a guerrilla leader during the occupation.

Candidates must garner more than 50 percent of the vote for an outright win, otherwise a run-off will be held in coming weeks.

“There will be no second round. I am confident I will win today,” Ruak told reporters shortly after voting at a Dili school crowded with voters, journalists, international observers and a stray dog nursing puppies.

Ramos-Horta won in a second-round of voting against Guterres in 2007, buoyed by the support of Gusmao’s Congress for the Reconstruction of East Timor (CNRT) party. But this time the party is backing Ruak. Ramos-Horta has been increasingly critical of Gusmao’s government, but he said he was not displeased with the prime minister’s decision to back his rival. “I’m very happy he’s supporting one of my favorite candidates. If someone supports (Ruak) I’m happy because I admire (Ruak),” he told reporters after voting. Formal results from Saturday’s vote are not expected until early next week.

International observers and representatives from Australia, the European Union and Portuguese-speaking nations were monitoring the polls. -AFP

6

ALWATAN DAILY

OPINION

sunDAY, march 18, 2012

Unethical MPs acquitted, absolved of all charges Waleed Jassem Al-Jassem Staff Writer

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he majority of the Members of the Parliament or to put it more precisely the leaders of the majority of MPs in the National assembly are fully aware of the controversial incident of the breaking-in and entering the Parliament that had a peculiar advantage. They believe that the breaking and entering the parliament, which some believe was a pre-planned design, has made a valuable contribution and to a large extent were effective in capitalizing on the public opinion and the subsequent decision to resolve the National Assembly putting the crisis between the executive authority and the legislative authority subject to the public scrutiny and vote. The outcome of which is national elections where the public chose to select tougher and stricter MPs precisely as the leaders of the majority had hoped for. A new era and a new beginning has ushered in; a new government with a new prime minister, away from the defeatist approach of the predecessor.

In order to give their blessings to the people who took part in the breaking-in and entering the parliament, it has become clear to the leaders of the majority of MPs to “legalize” the action of the crowd and show them full support and the endorsement of a decision was taken to alter the

It is no longer possible to differentiate and distinguish between one MP and another. nature of the police report. It hasn’t stopped there but even the action itself received unprecedented praise leading ultimately to surround the crowd who carried out the breaking and entry with hallow of sainthood.

It was not much of surprise therefore that the Parliament would be inclined towards granting the crowd the needed acquittal from all charges and even absolve them from all sins they have committed.

It is not fair nor is it just to see MPs who took part in such a wrongful act enjoy utter freedom, exploiting the fruits of their work, and on top of that even getting involved in legislative matters that some have made the suggestions of introducing more regulatory proposals for our judges to carry out and execute.

It is also not fair to know that the MPs who were involved in the controversial act are enjoying their parliamentary career while their own followers and those who

supported and assisted in the act are now facing charges which may lead them to prison for many years to come and thus losing their career, not to mention their loved ones.

Unless the leaders of the majority of the MPs rectify their policies and ideologies, many people would assume that the language of violence and irrationality are prevalent and perhaps should be dominant since the MPs themselves are involved in such immoral activities.

It is not difficult to arrive at the inevitable conclusion that if the culture of violence and disorder are indoctrinated and instilled in the minds of the public and in particular the younger generation, it is only the language of violence those MPs will reap through. Today, the National Assembly had been invaded unlawfully.

Tomorrow, some else’s house would be also broken into because if the country’s national, political and constitutional

Ihsan, the novelist the revolutionary, the misunderstood writer Khalil Ali Haydar Staff Writer

I

n September 1984, the Egyptian writer Lami Al-Mutai wrote that he was once visiting the People’s Republic of China following an official invitation by the Chinese Ministry of Culture. He recalled how he had visited several Chinese cultural institutions including the country’s national library. It was there when he met the director of the library and out of curiosity as he was going through several books, he asked him instinctively about books written by Egyptian writers and translated to Chinese.

Al-Mutai expressed his utter surprise when the director promptly answered him by saying Ihsan Abdulquddos. He tried to distract the director and test him to know if he would prefer other creative writers through mentioning them by names but the Chinese curator was persistently repeating the name of the late Egyptian novelist Abdulquddos.

Abdulquddos was born in 1919 and died in January 1990. His mother was the famous journalist Rose Al-Yousef. Abdulquddos studied law and later became editor in chief of Rose AlYousef magazine between 1945 and 1964. Then he became director of the renowned Al-Ahram newspaper for one year after which he retired and completely dedicated the remaining years of his life to writing novels and daily columns to the newspaper.

Ihsan Abdulquddos’ family was of a strange combination. His grandfather was a religious person and even to the extreme. His son however, the father of Ihsan Abdulquddos, was more of a flamboyant type of personality, pursuing the life of celebrities and stars. He adored movies, theater and art in general. The grandfather Sheikh Radwan felt disappointed that his son Mohammad was preoccupied with matters he very much disliked. He decided to send him to upper Egypt where the environment was more conservative hoping that he would settle and pursue a better life.

To his surprise, Mohammad resisted all that and went back to Cairo to continue with his past adventures.

Ihsan Abdulquddos had a son he named Mohammad, after his father. Abdulquddos once said that his son reminds him of his own grandfather because of his religious inclinations. Indeed, Mohammad chose to get married to the daughter of one of the country’s most religious authority and Islamic writer Mohammad AlGhazali. Unlike his father too, Mohammad the son became a prominent member in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. His father Ihsan Abdulquddos never joined any group religious, political or otherwise.

In fact, Ihsan Abdulquddos was more of the democracy advocate type. He strongly believed in the state of democratic establishment as the authority which should regulate people’s life.

He once expressed his anger over the physical attack of Dr. Abdulrazzaq Al-Sanhouri who was

bu qutada & bu nabil

It was there when he met the director of the library and out of curiosity as he was going through several books, he asked him instinctively about books written by Egyptian writers and translated to Chinese. beaten in his own office in the People’s Parliament.

Ihsan Abdulquddos expressed his anger and at the same time his defiance by visiting Al- Sanhouri and then by writing three consecutive articles under the intriguing title “Secret Societies ruling Egypt”.

This defiant act did cost Ihsan Abdulquddos his freedom as he was taken to prison, solitary no less, to spend three months in jail in 1954.

The day he was released after serving his full term in prison, Ihsan on July 31 went home reflecting on the past three months he spent in confinement. As he stepped in to his apartment, his phone rang; he immediately rushed to it feeling that it was part of his freedom now to answer the phone freely. He picked up the phone but to his shock and horror, it was the Egyptian President Jamal Abdulnasser on the other end.

“Hey, are you behaving yourself now or not yet, Ihsan? Anyway, visit me and let us have breakfast together. Don’t be late. I am waiting for you,” said Abdulnasser.

Ihsan Abdulquddos has become known as the writer who feared nothing and in many ways daring and forthcoming if he detected wrong doing. Take for example, the issue of “out of order arms” back in 1949 when he thought that he should highlight the issue in his daily columns without the least consideration for the country’s security apparatus and censorship. Several pages in the Rose Al-Yousef magazine he had dedicated for the issue to further underscore the issue.

It was a major disappointment for him to find out about the investigation which was carried out to look into the reasons and circumstances behind the acquisition of malfunctioned weapons. The case was officially closed in 1951. The case was never raised since.

On his part, Dr. Tharwat Okasha who was an intelligent officer in the Egyptian Military Navy totally refuted in his memoires the reports reading the malfunction of weapons attributing at the same the issue of the 1948 defeat in the War of Palestine to other reasons.

In the Encyclopedia of Arab Novelists, written and edited by Dr. Samar Rohi Al-Faisal, 29 fictional works by Ihsan Abdulquddos are listed.

The first novel written by him was I am Free written in 1954, followed by Where am I? and then I don’t Sleep and many more ending of course with his last great work The Bullet is still in my Pocket in 1973.

Many critiqued Ihsan for the type of novels he had written on grounds that his literary works are typically of sexual nature and erotic.

Few have had a wider scope and looked at the actual message he was trying to convey. The novelist was trying to present his own political beliefs and ideologies in a fashion that is characteristically interwoven and intertwined with sexual themes. This is why a commentator once remarked that if ever a temple of love was set up in Egypt, there would be no doubt that its priest would be Ihsan Abdulquddos.

But other commentators on the other end of the spectrum have always entertained different views. Not all people share the artistic finesse which Ihsan Abdulquddos has displayed in most of his novels. Take for example, the comments and questions made by Mahmoud Amin AlAlem. Al-Alem studied the works of Ihsan Abdulquddos and the only comment he cared to come up with was: “It is remarkable and strange at the same time that all the heroes and heroines of the novelist Ihsan Abdulquddos are either people who happen to be on the verge of destruction and sexual perverseness or mental illness and selfdestruction. Why is it that the issue of prostitution has been the dominant theme in all of Ihsan Abdulquddos’ works and novels? One may wonder here is Egypt then really and truly a place for such sexual perversity and demeanor. Perhaps, unbeknown to us there is another Egypt which we don’t know. We know of the Egypt wherein there are millions of good and faithful laborers, farmers, students and employees. But to suggest that Egypt and the Egyptian character is of that nature is beyond me,” he noted.

May be Ihsan Abdulquddos was very much involved into presenting such a theme throughout his works. But the fact of the matter is that his work is not written for the sake of this particular theme as much as presenting the political situation of the time. This should not undermine the excellent work of the man, the belle-letter, the revolutionary, the novelist. He has proven to be one of the best novelists and his works have been translated into several languages including Chinese. Surely, one element which for some reason or another may have not appealed to or received the blessing of some people should not undermine the works of Ihsan Abdulquddos.

Ask the Chinese why they are persistently translating his work?

institution is violated, then surely the dwellings of civilians or MPs would face similar fate.

It is no longer possible to differentiate and distinguish between one MP and another. In the past, MPs gathered under one roof and hold similar titles as Members of Parliament, and who were used to entertaining ideas, beliefs and ideologies which distinguish every one of them from others. They are all today collectively following one particular ideology.

Even though they are from all walks of life as some are Bedouins, others are urbanites and some others are tribal and then others are liberal but remarkably they seem to all fit in one melting pot that shape up their beliefs and convictions.

You would think that since the issues and topics the Parliament discusses vary in many ways, the response and reaction would be different and diverse as a result. On the contrary, no matter what the attitude and response are, they are remarkably and uniformly in unison.

If in the event however that some dare to deviate even slightly from the path that has already been drawn from them, then a policy of extreme anti-social characteristics would follow. The ambitious MP would be suddenly ostracized, abandoned and outcast. It has become a classic case of either you are with us or against us.

We will not increase your salaries

We will continue our strike

No s a l a r y to ra ises

We a s t r r e fo i ke r s

We will make sure you learn a lesson

Strikes will go on

o Ye s t s k i st r e

No t ra ise o s

Wait to see our next act o st s Ye r i ke st

Do your best

ary sal No a i s e r

Your disputes are frustrating us by causing prices to increase No to price hikes

mthallab@alwatan.com.kw

Mohmmed Thallab

No way to abandon the revolution, victory is arriving Waleed Rashed Al-Tarrad

T

oo much blood is shed in Syria, a big number of families were forced to leave their houses and areas, a huge number of youths and children were killed and the barbaric Syrian regimes still pursues its brutal practices and it did not learn any lessons for the other revolutions in the region. An entire year has passed after the first spark of the Syrian revolution and we hope the Syrian people would achieve victory very soon and purify the whole country

from the scum of Ba`ath regime.

The disastrous results of the regime`s oppression and suppression was killing innocent youths and raping girls and we feel very sorry about the initiatives of some countries as their initiatives were almost futile. How long will the terror scenario and the genocides that the regime commits in cooperation with Iran and Hezbollah in Syria last. The genocides are also supported by Russia and China while the Arab states could do nothing for their brothers who are getting killed every day in Syria.

If the Syrian regime succeeds to suppress the revolution, God forbid, then it will turn Daraa city into a mass grave, Homs will be an orphanage and the regime will turnHama city as an example to terrify the people forever.

We are very optimistic to witness victory very soon in Syria and the history will memorize all those who supported the Syrian people.

On the other hand, our late brother Abdulatif Al-Hajri highly interested in the affairs of Muslims everywhere and he enjoyed a very fine international mentality which he in-

vested for serving our Islamic religion. He was generous, humble and had many ambitions for the service of Religion.

I was very sorry for missing him but we thank God as our brother had made very fine sons like him who are also interested in charitable work. However, the sad decease of our brother Abdulatif was followed by another sorrowful event of the other sad decease of our brother and preacher Saleh Al-Shezawi- last Friday- who exerted important efforts for the service of Religion as well. May Almighty God embrace our brother with His mercy, Amen.

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views

sunDAY, march 18, 2012

The Global Innovation Revolution Laura Tyson Project Syndicate

A

s countries around the world struggle to lay the foundations for stronger sustainable growth in the future, they would do well to focus on policies that encourage innovation. Empirical studies across time and countries confirm that innovation is the primary source of technological change and productivity growth. And investments in research and development, as well as in the scientific and engineering workforce on which they depend, are critical drivers of innovation and national competitiveness.

A new study by the National Science Board, the governing body of the National Science Foundation in the United States, examines trends in such investments for both individual countries and regions. These trends indicate that the global landscape for innovation changed significantly during the last decade.

That landscape is likely to change further as several Asian economies, particularly China and South Korea, increase their investments in R&D and scientific and engineering education to secure their place as significant hubs of innovation. At the same time, crushing debt burdens may compel the US, Europe, and Japan to reduce their investments in these areas.

The US remains the global leader in R&D investment, spending an estimated 400 billion US dollars in 2009 - a total boosted by President Barack Obama’s stimulus package, and higher than China, Japan, and Germany combined. But, in terms of R&D spending as a share of GDP, the US ranked only eighth in 2009 (at 2.9 percent of GDP). The US share

remained above the OECD average, but this was mainly the result of national differences in the amount of R&D defense spending.

Indeed, defense accounted for 52 percent of US R&D in 2009, and for more than 50 percent during the last 25 years.

The defense share of R&D in the European Union and Japan has been and remains markedly lower - less than 10 percent in the EU and less than five percent in Japan in 2009 (no comparable data are available for China and South Korea).

Over the next decade, sizeable cuts in defense spending as part of overall deficit reduction could mean a significant reduction in R&D investment in the US. Between 1999 and 2009, global R&D spending grew at an average annual rate of seven percent, accelerating to eight percent during the last five years, despite the global recession. During the entire period, R&D spending grew significantly faster than global output, reflecting both increasing government support and a rising share of technology-intensive industries in global production and trade.

But these aggregate figures obscure differences among countries and regions. Over the decade, the US share of global R&D fell from 38 percent to 31 percent, the EU share fell from 27 percent to 23 percent, and Asia’s share rose from 24 percent to 32 percent. Within Asia, R&D spending in China grew at an astounding 20 percent annual pace - twice the country’s GDP growth rate - and by 2009 China had surpassed Japan to become the world’s secondlargest investor in R&D. Spending on R&D also grew rapidly - about 10 percent annually - in South Korea. By contrast, R&D spending grew by four percent in Japan, five percent in the US, and roughly six percent in Europe.

Throughout the world, the business sector remains both the predominant performer and the predominant funder of R&D investment. In 2009, business accounted for 75 percent of R&D funding in Japan, 73 percent in South Korea, 72 percent in China, 67 percent in Germany, and 60 percent in the US, whose companies are the largest R&D investors in terms of absolute purchasing power, spending more than

Why banks will continue to rip off clients Felix Salmon Reuters

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rank Partnoy makes a great point: the word “client” has been overused by investment banks so much that by this point it “has become Orwellian doublespeak”. But the problem is much deeper than one of semantics.

When all counterparties are considered clients, then that creates a corporate culture where all clients are considered little more than counterparties. And that, in turn, can be evil and poisonous.

Partnoy says that “the firm’s salespeople know who is a client and who is a mere a counterparty”, and to a certain degree he’s right. A sovereign wealth fund dealing with the equity derivatives desk is a counterparty; a private individual whose money is being managed by Goldman Sachs Asset Management is a genuine client. If you’re paying Goldman fees, you’re quite unlikely to be called a “muppet”, and no one in the firm is going to try to “rip your eyes out”.

But that doesn’t mean that Goldman will always be acting in your own best interest, rather than its own. Stockbrokers, famously, receive substantial fees from their clients, but don’t have a legal fiduciary duty to those clients, and do have a demonstrated tendency to steer their clients into the investments which end up paying them the highest commissions.

And even companies paying for M&A advice are sometimes victims of Goldman’s conflicts.

In other words, no one can complacently assume that they’re a favored client of Goldman Sachs and that therefore Goldman will be ripping off others on their behalf, rather than ripping off its own client. Not even people writing large checks to Goldman every quarter.

I’ve been talking to bankers in the days since Greg Smith’s op-ed came out, and there’s a pretty much unanimous feeling that bankers’ loyalty to clients, at least at Goldman and other big investment banks, has been declining across all aspects of the business, for many years.

Greg Smith was in equity derivatives - an area where it’s incredibly easy for salespeople to hide fees if they’re inclined to do so. In fact, it’s so much easier for a bank to build its fee into the pricing of complex bespoke products than it is to charge that fee directly, all banks do exactly that. It’s like buying “commission-free” currency when you go on holiday: you know full well that the bureau de change is still making money; it’s just making that money by giving you a bad price for your dollars, rather than by charging you a high commission.

But in a business devoted to making ever-increasing sums of money, it’s very easy for those hidden fees to get bigger and bigger over time. I talked to one former equity derivatives executive a couple of days ago, who said with surprising vehemence that in his day, the big clients were God: you built in fees, yes, but you never ripped them off or tried to steer them into something which was not in their best interest. Now of course what he was saying was self-serving, but I think it had an element of truth to it, too.

There’s been a lot of talk in the past couple of days about how Smith was not much of a star at Goldman: he was the sole person trading US equity derivatives in London, which is always going to be a

7

As countries around the world struggle to lay the foundations for stronger sustainable growth in the future, they would do well to focus on policies that encourage innovation. twice as much as Japanese businesses. But business investment as a share of GDP has changed very little in the US over the last decade, while it has risen rapidly in many other countries, including China, Singapore, South Korea, and Israel.

Global multinational companies are the largest businesssector R&D investors in the US and other countries. For example, multinational companies, whether headquartered in the US or elsewhere, accounted for about 84 percent of private (non-bank) R&D investment in the US in 2009, about the same as a decade earlier. And US multinationals still locate about 84 percent of their R&D activities in the US, often in innovation clusters around research universities. But this share has declined during the last decade, as US multinationals have shifted some of their R&D from the US and Europe to Asia in response to rapidly growing markets, ample scientific and engineering talent, and generous subsidies.

Global competition for multinational companies’ R&D activity, and for the local benefits that it brings, is likely to intensify in the future, with many countries already offering sizeable tax credits and extended tax holidays. The Asian economies have been particularly aggressive in the use of such incentives. And, recognizing that the availability of a workforce with the necessary skills is a key determinant of where businesses locate their R&D activities, many countries are increasing their investments in tertiary education

and training in science, engineering, and technology.

Engineering accounts for only four percent of all bachelor’s degrees in the US, compared to 19 percent in Asia - which now accounts for half of all engineering degrees being awarded - and 33 percent in China.

Many countries are also changing their immigration laws to make it easier to attract highly skilled workers, especially scientists and engineers, who are increasingly mobile.

Meanwhile, immigration policies in the US and Europe are making it more difficult to attract and retain such workers, compelling companies to shift R&D abroad to find the talent that they need.

As a result of these changes, the global landscape for innovation has been transformed over the last decade. Ours is now a world in which many emerging-market countries have made advancement in science and technology a top priority, and in which multinational companies’ R&D investments have become much more mobile. As the US and other developed countries embark on austerity plans to contain their debt, they must heed these changes in the innovation landscape and boost their investments in R&D - and in science and engineering education - even as they make painful cuts elsewhere.

Laura Tyson, a former chair of the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers, is a professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

Gone with the wind

In other words, no one can complacently assume that they’re a favored client of Goldman Sachs and that therefore Goldman will be ripping off others on their behalf, rather than ripping off its own client.

marginal job at best, and he hadn’t risen very far up the greasy pole given how long he worked at the firm. Certainly it’s a bit of a stretch to call him an “executive” at Goldman, as that term is generally understood: he didn’t even have any employees. But at the same time, his relatively lowly position in the company is entirely consistent with a tale of a smart but ethical professional who didn’t make as much money for the firm as his peers did, just because he didn’t rip off his clients to the degree that they did.

All of which is to say that it’s worth taking Floyd Norris’s concerns seriously about the latest spate of deregulation in the securities markets.

I think that there’s a lot to like in the JOBS act, especially the idea that we should stop forcing companies to go public just because they have 500 shareholders, including employees. Companies should be encouraged to give out equity to their employees, without worrying that if they do so, they’re on some kind of IPO train which can’t be derailed. At the same time, however, there’s a lot of deregulation in the JOBS act which seems aimed primarily at giving banks a greater opportunity to make money, largely at the expense of investors in the primary markets. Mary Schapiro has some strong and important points: the primary markets are rife with information asymmetries, and someone needs to protect the interests of investors, rather than allowing banks to rip them off with legislated impunity. All big banks are public companies.

Public companies are always under a lot of pressure, from their own shareholders, to grow. But as a country, we have a public interest in seeing those banks shrink. The tension is clear. And if regulators try to get banks to shrink, the banks in turn are going to make even greater efforts to extract the highest profits possible from the businesses they retain. Which is another way of saying that they’re going to rip off their clients even more. So let’s be assiduous when it comes to regulation, because neither banks nor their boards are going to lift a finger to protect client interests. Not when they’re trying to maintain and maximize their own profitability.

FILE - A picture shows a biomass silo and a wind turbine that contribute energy to a hybrid power plant near the town of Schenkenberg north of Berlin, Feb. 29, 2012. (Reuters)

Felix Salmon is the finance blogger at Reuters. The views expressed are his own.

Bjørn Lomborg is the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and Cool It, head of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, and adjunct professor at Copenhagen Business School.

Bjørn Lomborg Project Syndicate

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fforts to stem global warming have nurtured a strong urge worldwide to deploy renewable energy. As a result, the use of wind turbines has increased tenfold over the past decade, with wind power often touted as the most cost-effective green opportunity. According to Connie Hedegaard, the European Union’s commissioner for climate action, “People should believe that wind power is very, very cheap.”

In fact, this is a highly problematic claim.

While wind energy is cheaper than other, more ineffective renewables, such as solar, tidal, and ethanol, it is nowhere near competitive. If it were, we wouldn’t have to keep spending significant sums to subsidize it. In the United Kingdom, for example, wind remains significantly more costly than other energy sources. Using the UK Electricity Generation Costs 2010 update and measuring in cost per produced kilowatt-hour, wind is still 20-200 percent more expensive than the cheapest fossil-fuel options. And even this is a significant underestimate. As the UK and other developed countries have rushed to build more wind turbines, they have naturally started with the windiest places, leaving poorer sites for later. At the same time, people increasingly protest against the wind farms in their backyards. Local opposition has tripled over the past three years, and local approval rates for new wind farms have sunk to an all-time low.

Most people believe that a few wind turbines can be attractive, but it is an entirely different matter when turbines are scattered across the countryside, or when massive, industrial wind farms extend for miles. Complaints have also increased about enormous new wind turbines’ low-frequency noise.

Given souring public sentiment, most of the future increase in wind turbines is expected to take place offshore, where there is less opposition, but where costs are much higher.

With its “20-20-20” policy, the EU has promised that, by 2020, it will cut its carbon emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels, and increase its reliance on renewables by 20 percent. For the UK, this requires a dramatic increase in wind power, especially offshore.

This will be surprisingly costly. The UK Carbon Trust estimates that the cost of expanding wind turbines to 40 gigawatts, in order to provide 31 percent of electricity by 2020, could run as high as 75 British billion British

Given souring public sentiment, most of the future increase in wind turbines is expected to take place offshore, where there is less opposition, but where costs are much higher. pounds. And the benefits, in terms of tackling global warming, would be measly: a reduction of just 86 megatons of CO2 per year for two decades. In terms of averted rise in temperature, this would be completely insignificant.

Using a standard climate model, by 2100, the UK’s huge outlay will have postponed global warming by just over ten days.

Moreover, this estimate is undoubtedly too optimistic. Wind frequently does not blow when we need it. For example, as the BBC reported, the cold weather on December 21, 2010, was typical of a prolonged cold front, with high-pressure areas and little wind.

Whereas wind power, on average, supplies five percent of the UK’s electricity, its share fell to just 0.04 percent that day. With demand understandably peaking, other sources, such as coal and gas, had to fill the gap.

Making up for a five percent shortfall in supply is manageable, but the situation will change dramatically as the UK increases its reliance on wind power to reach the 31 percent target by 2020. Wind power becomes much more expensive when we factor in the large supplies of power that must be created for backup whenever the wind dies down.

The cheapest backup power by far is provided by open-cycle gas plants, which imply more CO2 emissions. Thus, wind power will ultimately be both costlier and reduce emissions less than officially estimated. This is also why simple calculations based on costs per kWh are often grossly misleading, helping to make wind and other intermittent renewables appear to be cheaper than they are.

This has been shown in recent reports by KPMG/Mercados and Civitas, an independent think tank. A new report by University of Edinburgh professor Gordon Hughes for the Global Warming Policy Foundation estimates that 36 GW of new wind power would cost 120 billion British pounds for just 23 megatons of CO2 reduction per year. In other words, tem-

perature rises would be postponed by a mere 66 hours by the end of the century.

Contrary to what many think, the cost of both onshore and offshore wind power has not been coming down. On the contrary, it has been going up over the past decade. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change acknowledged this in its most recent renewable-energy report. Likewise, the UK Energy Research Center laments that wind-power costs have “risen significantly since the mid-2000’s.”

Like the EU, the UK has become enamored with the idea of reducing CO2 through wind technology. But most academic models show that the cheapest way to reduce CO2 by 20 percent in 2020 would be to switch from coal to cleaner natural gas.

The average of the major energy models indicates that, downscaled for the UK, achieving the 20 percent target would imply a total cost of roughly 95 billion British pounds over the coming decade, and 18 billion British pounds every year after that. Of course, these figures include reductions in areas other than electricity, as well as higher energy prices’ total cost to the economy.

Nonetheless, the lesson is clear: if the goal is not just to cut CO2 emissions, but also to use renewables to do it, the models show that the cost balloons to 188 billion British pounds for this decade and 36 billion British pounds every year after 2020. In effect, insisting on wind power means using energy that is far from competitive, does not help to avert climate change, and costs an extra 92 billion British pounds for the UK alone.

For any country, this seems like a very poor choice.

8

ALWATAN DAILY

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

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

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

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

Noodles Salmiya Tel: 25712233

Bukhara Sheraton Hotel Tel: 22422055

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Tourist Restaurant Kuwait City Tel: 22411702

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

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

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The Gaucho Grill The Palms Hotel Tel: 25667370 -

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• Italian Ciro’s Pomodoro Kuwait City Tel: 22424004

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Te l : 1 8 3 9 0 9 0

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BUSINESS

sundAY, march 18, 2012

Kuwaiti oil price slips to $121.91 per barrel Low liquidity in Kuwaiti real-estate market in February, reports Al-Shall

KUWAIT: Price of Kuwaiti crude fell 93 US cents to 121.91 US dollars per barrel (pb) on Friday, in comparison to $122.84 pb on Thursday, Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) said on Saturday.

The price of the national crude continued falling for the second day in a row, following limited fluctuation last week, while prices on the international markets remained unstable but with a general bullish trend as a result of various factors such as the Iranian issue, speculators’ activities and exploitation of prevailing psychological trends. Experts and eminent figures, who took part in the International Energy Forum, held in Kuwait, last week, ruled out further deterioration of geopolitical conditions in the short term, viewing the $100 pb as the reasonable price for oil.

In other news, liquidity in the Kuwaiti real-estate market last February was lower than the previous month with value of shares for contracts and proxy agreements reaching 270 million Kuwaiti dinars, a decrease of 21 percent from January 2012, said a report by Al-Shall Economic Consultants.

According to the report, liquidity for private housing retreated by 15.5 percent with contracted and proxy agreements sales reaching KD 157.6 million in comparison to January’s 54 percent total sales, around KD 186.4 million. Investments activities’ sales also decreased by 25.1 percent, around KD 99.1 million, as opposed to KD 132.3

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

The price index ended last week with an increase amounted to 0.38 percent, while the weighted index raised by 1.45 percent compared to the closings of the week before. Furthermore, last week’s average daily turnover decreased by 25.58 percent, compared to the preceding week, reaching 41.33 million Kuwaiti dinars, whereas trading volume average was 479.32 million shares, recording decrease of 24.52 percent.

See page 10

The 13th International Energy Forum: Dialogue is the best means Kamel Al-Harami Independent energy analyst Exclusive to Al Watan Daily

A exhibitor arranges dresses on display at the Guangdong-Hong Kong Lifestyle Expo in Jakarta on March 17, 2012. The value of trade between Indonesia and China was recorded at around $60 billion in 2011, and is expected to reach $80 billion in 2015, said Chinese consul Lie Chuen during the opening event. (AFP)

million in January, said the report, noting that the impact of such numbers on liquidity in the real-estate market decreased by 36.7 percent in contrast to 38.3 percent last January. Commercial activities

sales’ had also decreased by 49.5 percent, from KD 20.5 million in January to KD 10.4 million, which led to less impact also within the real-estate market. -KUNA

Significant progress made on IPO of the new KSE company KUWAIT: The Incorporating Committee for Kuwait Stock Exchange Company (KSE) at the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) announced in a press release on Saturday that significant progress has been made towards the creation of the new KSE company that will lead to its privatization and initial public offering (IPO).

The management of the KSE continues to provide information to the advisers mandated by the Capital Markets Authority to prepare the KSE for an IPO. The advisers are currently working on their due diligence and analysis and valuation of the KSE assets and these results will be discussed with

KSE rises 0.38% at week’s end, trading volume drops 24.52%

the CMA and the KSE management in due course.

The process of allocating assets to the new company is a detailed process which has to cover technical, financial and legal due diligence. The CMA and the Advisers are working to ensure this is done in the most appropriate manner possible in line with Law 7/2010. Once this first phase is concluded, the legal establishment process that includes the submission to the relevant authorities for the creation of the New KSE will need to be completed.

With respect to timing of the transaction, the CMA, the Incorporating Committee and their Advisers recognize the need to fast-track the process.

However, the CMA is also determined to ensure the new KSE Company is prepared to the highest standards ahead of its IPO and sale to Kuwaiti Nationals and this remains their highest priority.

Commenting on the issue, Abdullah Al-Gabandi, Chairman of Incorporating Committee said, “The CMA’s current focus is to ensure the company is prepared and packaged to the best standards.

We want to ensure the New KSE entity is placed on a solid footing for the long term is a sustainable and profitable business and provides an exciting and attractive investment opportunity for Kuwaiti nationals who will subscribe in the IPO”.

KUWAIT: The 13th International Energy Forum (IEF) was held in Kuwait last week under the sponsorship of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah AlAhmed Al-Sabah. It was the first meeting held in Kuwait since its inception in Paris in 1991. It was a great opportunity for oil consuming countries to feel, share and obtain opinions of all oil producers in terms of the current oil situation and specifically future trends of oil prices. Everybody at the meeting was asking the same basic question: “Where is the oil price heading towards?” A simple question, but very hard for anybody to answer.

Some of the oil consuming countries’ representatives were taking the opportunity to seek for more additional volumes of crude oil or petroleum to build some more additional capacity to avoid any last minute shortage of oils.

Others were looking for fresh supplies replacing the Iranian oils.

So Kuwait was the meeting place to exchange views and opinions and have a much closer feel on the current events in the region with all kinds of threats that will directly have a great impact on global oil supply. The Iranian oil minister present along with other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other oil producers did give the IEF its biggest audience in search of some comfort and stability.

One fact that no one was able to answer and left the consumers in more doubt was that of the comfortable level of oil availability - simply how much the world needs in actual excess surplus of crude oil availability, so that any small shortage of oil will not have an impact on oil prices - as in what should be the surplus capacity volume.

Market analysts believe that any volume of oil above five million barrels should be sufficient to end any speculation and is the comfort zone against any oil disruptions in any part of the world. Today we have about 2-2.5 million barrels of spare capacity and it is not being tested, so this level is not comforting anyone. As result this is the cause of unstablilty and the random changes in oil prices.

Kuwait’s theme was for more dialogue and better understanding, paving the way for more cooperation between oil producing countries and international companies. In order to reach and build a sustainable, comfortable level of spare oil capacity, producing countries must invest more and more in oil. Additional oil production needs two important things: the technical assistance of oil companies and higher oil prices to justify both. Again and as a result, oil consumers must be prepared for higher oil prices.

We as an oil producing country, “firmly believe in justifiable and reasonable oil prices to all.” This was the concluding message from our Amir to the International Energy Forum.

The message was passed and both parties accepted each other positions.

The challenge however, is to translate the dialogue into workable actions plans.

Kuwait for sure has done its work. The results will be known in the coming years hopefully.

The author of this article can be reached at naftikuwaiti@yahoo.com Disclaimer: Please note that the views and opinions presented in the column are the company’s own and do not necessarily represent those of Al Watan Daily and its staff.

Gulf Bank reports Iraq rules out closing Hormuz KD 30.6 million net profit in 2011 Strait, raises oil production Kurds say Exxon still working in Northern Iraq

Gulf Bank’s Board of Directors

Board recommends distribution of 5% bonus shares KUWAIT: Gulf Bank announced in a press release on Saturday a net profit of 30.6 million Kuwaiti dinars in 2011, compared to KD 19.1 million in 2010. Earnings per share amounted to 12 Kuwaiti fils. The Board of Directors has recommended to the General Assembly a five percent bonus shares to be distributed to the shareholders.

As of the end of December 2011, the Bank’s total assets reached KD 4,785.9 million, deposits KD 4,107.3 million, whilst total shareholders’ equity measured up to KD 430.3 million.

Ali Al-Rashaid Al-Bader, Gulf Bank’s Chairman, said, “This year’s results show the application of our customer-centric strategy of providing the best and fastest banking services, the improving conditions in the market where the Bank operates, the relative decline in the statutory and precautionary provisions, in addition to the efforts exerted by the Bank’s various business groups, including consumer banking, corporate, international and investment. The Treasury Group consolidated its market leadership in Foreign Exchange dealing and played a significant role in growing the Bank’s customer deposit base. Customer deposits grew by four percent to KD 4.1 billion whiles the loan book increased by more than seven percent.”

“Our focus on the needs of our customers, developing our customer base and delivering returns to our shareholders must continue as we address new opportunities to grow and deliver excellence in corporate and consumer banking services to the Kuwait market, while enhancing the Bank’s reserves and financial capability”, Al-Bader elaborated.

“The year 2011 witnessed the completion of the Bank’s strategic plan, which commenced in 2010, and aimed at building a fortress balance sheet, focusing on

our core competencies, fostering the Bank’s management and technical abilities, upgrading internal control systems in the area of risk management, and refining the Bank’s marketing plans. A new expansionary strategy was set for the forthcoming four years - up to 2015. “ Al-Bader continued.

During 2011, Gulf Bank launched its ‘We Promise’ program offering its customers the best and the fastest financial service in Kuwait. Gulf Bank is the first bank in Kuwait that makes explicit guarantees to deliver individual services with exceptional speed and efficiency.

Consequently, the Bank has received excellent customer feedback praising the Bank in meeting the promises made and maintaining outstanding customer service.

In December, Gulf Bank was the only bank in the region to get an upgrade on both its ratings and outlook from the rating agency, Standard & Poor’s (S&P).

Gulf Bank’s long-term credit rating was upgraded from ‘BBB-’ to ‘BBB’, and its outlook was raised from stable to positive. “The upgrade from S&P reflects the strength of our financial performance, the quality of our assets and the effectiveness of our business strategy,” Al-Bader said. Gulf Bank has conducted many social activities throughout the year in serving the community at large, all which fall under the Bank’s Corporate Social Responsibility strategy.

Gulf Bank was recognized for its excellence in 2011 and received many prestigious awards. These awards included ‘Best Bank in the retail sector’ award from the Arabian Business Magazine, ‘2012 Best Foreign Exchange Bank Provider’ in Kuwait by Global Finance Magazine, and ‘Thought Leadership Excellence’ Award at the MENA CIO’s Summit 2011 “Gulf Bank looks to the future with great confidence. We are serving our customers with excellence, we are contributing to Kuwait’s economic growth and prosperity and we strive to deliver an outstanding return on our shareholders’ investment,” concluded AlBader.

CAPITALS: Iraq ruled out a possible shut down of the Strait of Hormuz since it is an important access for navigation and global markets, the Iraqi Oil Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

The ministry further explained that closing off the strait, even for few hours, would not only be hurtful to oil producing countries but also to consuming countries; world economy would hence be affected as well.

Meanwhile, it announced that Iraq’s second floating port would come into service in the few upcoming months. It would raise the country’s oil production capacity to 3.5 million barrel per day (bpd).

Iraq’s first floating port already produces 900 million barrels of oil a day, the statement said. It went on saying that the country is intending to operate five additional floating ports to export oil according to a pre-set plan to raise the ceiling of oil production and oil reserves in the southern ports to six million barrel a day.

Iraq has signed contracts with international oil companies to drive up its oil production to more than 12 million barrel of oil a day, the ministry noted.

Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil has not suspended its work in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, an aide to the region’s president said on Saturday, after Baghdad said Exxon had frozen its Kurdish deal.

Iraq’s oil minister said on Friday that Exxon had written to Baghdad informing it that it had suspended work in the Kurdish region, under a deal which Baghdad considers illegal.

“We’ve never heard anything like this from Exxon Mobil. We have continuous meetings with Exxon Mobil’s senior executives and I think the company is continuing its work,” said Fuad Hussein, senior aide to Kurdish President Masoud Barzani.

Exxon is one of the oil majors that is participating in massive projects intended to make Iraq the world’s biggest source of new oil over the next few years, but the US firm’s decision to sign a deal with the Kurds has infuriated Baghdad.

Iraq has threatened to block Exxon

from bidding in future oil projects and even to reconsider its role in a supergiant field, West Qurna-2, where Exxon was part of a consortium that won a contract in 2009. Baghdad has offered international oil firms fee-for-service contracts, while the Kurdish region offers productionsharing deals which give the foreign firms a share of oil output - considered far more lucrative.

Because the legality of Kurdish deals is in dispute, only smaller firms had made agreements with the autonomous region until last November, when the Kurds announced that Exxon had signed a deal for six exploration blocks.

Iraq’s Oil Minister Abdul Kareem Luaibi said on Friday that Baghdad had received a letter from Exxon on March 5 “saying they are freezing the contract with the Kurds”.

Exxon declined to comment on Luaibi’s remarks on Friday.

Luaibi said Iraq had not yet reversed a decision to bar Exxon from bidding in the next round of oil deals, and Baghdad was waiting for Exxon to further clarify its position. -Agencies

UAE banks told to reduce debt burden of nationals

ABU DHABI: The United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) central bank has directed lenders in the Gulf state to help reduce the debt burden of UAE nationals, with some bankers saying banks may have to write off certain personal loans.

The central bank, after a review of personal loans, found that UAE nationals were paying high repayment installments, it said in a statement.

“To alleviate the financial burden on UAE nationals, the board instructed further study and more cooperation and coordination from concerned agencies in order to find solutions,” the statement said.

It did not specify how the burden should be reduced.

Shabbir Malik, Banking Analyst at EFG-Hermes, said, “This is in line with other measures taken by the government to help UAE nationals in terms of debt.”

In January, the UAE government said it would will settle two billion UAE dirhams ($544.5 million) of debt owed by nationals, including some who were detained for defaulting on loans.

“I don’t expect a massive negative impact, it won’t be large as the provisions standards for retail loans are quite stringent,” said Malik.

But bankers speaking on condition of anonymity said banks may have to write off some debt relating to personal loans.

“It must be about waiving or writing off some loans conditionally. We need to know more details,” said an Abu Dhabi-based banker involved in credit.

In the boom years, UAE banks extended huge personal loans to UAE nationals and expatriates, surpassing even limits set. But after the financial downturn and real estate crash in the UAE, many lost jobs, finding it difficult to repay loans.

Personal loans in the UAE, which has the largest Arab banking sector, surged by at least 35 percent during 2006-08 before they sharply slowed over the past three years following the 2008 global financial crisis and regional debt default problems, according to the central bank. -Reuters

BUSINESS IN REGION

10

ALWATAN DAILY sunDAY, march 18, 2012

KSE rises 0.38% at week’s end, trading volume drops 24.52% KSE weekly activity, March. 15, 2012

last week’s total trading volume, with a total of 635.45 million shares. On the other hand, the Services sector’s stocks where the highest traded in terms of value; with a turnover of KD 57.05 million or 27.60 percent of last week’s total market trading value. The Investment sector took the second place as the sector’s last week turnover of KD 47.25 million represented 22.86 percent of the total market trading value.

KUWAIT: Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) ended last week in the green zone. The price index ended last week with an increase amounted to 0.38 percent, while the weighted index raised by 1.45 percent compared to the closings of the week before. Furthermore, last week’s average daily turnover decreased by 25.58 percent, compared to the preceding week, reaching 41.33 million Kuwaiti dinars, whereas trading volume average was 479.32 million shares, recording decrease of 24.52 percent.

KSE managed to keep its positive performance by recording gains for both of its indices. The price index managed in the last two days to recover from the losses of the first three days in the week, as a result of the selling trend on low price stocks, and in response to its positive performance during the last week. On the other hand the leading stocks, especially on the Banks sector, played major role to support the weighted index.

Moreover, the stock market outperformed last week in spite of its current watch state, as the traders are waiting for the listed companies’ 2011 financial results; noting that the declared companies reached 44 percent so far, however most of the legal notice period (given three months) have already passed. The total number of declared companies reached 90 out of 205 listed companies, realizing approximately KD 1.61 billion, with a decline of 17.85 percent compared to same companies’ results for 2010.

By the end of the week, the price index closed at 6,200.4 points, up by 0.38 percent from the week before closing, whereas the weighted index registered a 1.45 percent weekly gain after closing at 419.86 points.

Market capitalization

KSE total market capitalization grew by 1.35 percent during last week to reach KD 29.21 billion, as six of KSE’s sectors recorded an increase in their respective market capitalization, whereas the other two recorded declines. The Real estate sector headed the growing sectors as its total market capitalization reached KD 1.93 billion, increasing by 3.86 percent. The Industry sector was the second in terms of recorded growth with 1.75 percent increase after the total value of its listed companies reached KD 2.25 billion.

The third place was for the Banks sector, which total market capitalization reached KD 12.81 billion by the end of the week, recording an increase of 1.51 percent. The Investment sector was the least growing with 0.85 percent recorded growth after its market capitalization amounted to KD 2.19 billion.

On the other hand, the Food sector headed the decliners list as its total market capitalization decreased by 1.23 percent to reach, by the end of the week, KD 696.60 million.

The Non Kuwaiti Companies sector was second on this list, which market value of its listed companies declined by 0.54 percent, reaching KD 1.83 billion. in the second place, the Industry sector’s index closed at 4,314.8 points recording 1.03 percent increase. The Insurance companies sector came in third as its index achieved 0.82 percent growth, ending the week at 2,708.4 points.

The Investment sector was the least growing as its index closed at 4,046.6 points with a 0.25 percent increase. On the other hand, the Food sector headed the losers list as its index declined by 1.68 percent to end the week’s activity at 4,277.4 points. The Non-Kuwaiti sector was second on the

Sectors’ indices

Six of KSE’s sectors ended last week in the green zone, while the other two recorded declines. Last week’s highest gainer was the Banks sector, achieving 1.45 percent growth rate as its index closed at 11,437.9 points. Whereas,

In Sweden, cash is king no more STOCKHOLM: Sweden was the first European country to introduce bank notes in 1661.

Now it’s come farther than most on the path toward getting rid of them.

“I can’t see why we should be printing bank notes at all anymore,” says Bjoern Ulvaeus, former member of 1970’s pop group ABBA, and a vocal proponent for a world without cash.

The contours of such a society are starting to take shape in this high-tech nation, frustrating those who prefer coins and bills over digital money.

In most Swedish cities, public buses don’t accept cash; tickets are prepaid or purchased with a cell phone text message. A small but growing number of businesses only take cards, and some bank offices - which make money on electronic transactions - have stopped handling cash altogether.

“There are towns where it isn’t at all possible anymore to enter a bank and use cash,” complains Curt Persson, chairman of Sweden’s National Pensioners’ Organization.

He says that’s a problem for elderly people in rural areas who don’t have credit cards or don’t know how to use them to withdraw cash. The decline of cash is noticeable even in houses of worship, like the Carl Gustaf Church in Karlshamn, southern Sweden, where Vicar Johan Tyrberg recently installed a card reader to make it easier for worshippers to make offerings.

“People came up to me several times and said they didn’t have cash but would still like to donate money,” Tyrberg says.

Bills and coins represent only three percent of Sweden’s economy, compared to an average of nine percent in the eurozone and seven percent in the US, according to the Bank for International Settlements, an umbrella organization for the world’s central banks.

Three percent is still too much if you ask Ulvaeus. A cashless society may seem like an odd cause for someone who made a fortune on “Money, Money, Money” and other ABBA hits, but for Ulvaeus it’s a matter of security.

Benchmark

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

Closing

6,200.4

Weekly

Return (%) YTD-12 Return

0.38%

419.9

1.45%

2,652.1

1.05%

7,568.0

2.62%

2,625.9

2.50%

1,683.4

8,659.9

1,152.1 5,951.0

Benchmark

4.53%

0.77%

(0.78%) 1.57%

6.6%

17.9%

3,431,892

20,029,472

9.3%

702,633

241,058

24.4%

1,869,067

636,776

(1.4%)

45,380

369,282

0.7% 4.5%

16,947 99,410

10,900 61,360

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

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

791,590

2.29%

1,173

2.34%

778

0.63%

(131) 224

(0.78%) 1.30%

13,744

1.77%

Yield (%)

9,053

10,058

15.5

1.9

3.3%

8,780

7,434

12.2

1.7

21.2%

8,200

7,060

29.8

1.8

2.1%

2,440

1,171

33.7

2.8

0.0%

1,138

2,511

3.3

1.4

2.2%

40

35

30.6

3.5

1.4%

2,195

1,209

NM

4.1

0.0%

5

3

18.5

1.9

2.3%

350 8,740

247 4,001

32.4 13.4

1.7 1.4

2.1% 2.2%

1.9%

0.0%

2.3% 0.0% 9.6%

0.0%

0.0%

(1.6%)

2.9% (8.5%)

4,702

3,639

2,366 1,216 1,149 980

979

953

916 664

105.50

77.75 40.00

15.50

187.00

51.50

12.20

63.25

26.90 45.70

Return (%)

3.7%

1.3% 0.3%

6.9%

0.1%

2.0%

10.4%

0.0%

3.9% (0.7%)

9.29

12.15

Weekly

Return (%)

0.2%

8.0%

Market Cap.

(SAR Mln)

316,500

116,625

80,000

64,582

46,750

46,350 45,212

44,275

40,350 33,051

Market Cap.

(AED Mln)

73,416

34,871

(0.6%)

29,610

1.32

4.8%

8,217

3.42 3.21 5.20 1.40 4.10

1.3%

(0.3%) 5.2% 0.0%

23.9% 0.0%

Volume

(000's shrs)

Value

(000's SAR)

17,626 8,087

8,011 6,003

5,719 4,510

Trailing

P/E (X)

Trailing

P/B (X)

Dividend

Yield (%)

35,333

3,711,093

10.6

2.4

3.3%

11,560

899,988

16.3

3.8

3.9%

5,319

213,955

11.0

1.7

7.5%

88,111

1,342,585

26.5

1.2

4.5%

1,084

203,374

12.1

6.7

6.4%

2,053

105,213

10.9

1.7

3.2%

39,846

477,561

66.5

1.8

0.0%

5,592

355,328

9.1

2.7

3.2%

3,238 663

85,504 30,588

12.9 11.2

1.4 1.7

4.8% 2.2%

1.37

Price

Yield (%)

4.6%

Volume

Value

Trailing

P/E (X)

Trailing

P/B (X)

16.05

14.79

72.57

13.03

11.16 12.38

16.59

2.15

3.0%

1.11

3.0%

0.98

2.1%

1.87

(AED)

Ÿ 1- EMAAR Properties

0.91 1.66

Beta

1.44

1.58

1.47 0.87 1.21

1.03

1.50

0.72

0.80 1.34

Beta

1.23 1.06

0.83 0.76

1.08

0.68 0.82

0.99

0.75 0.79

Dividend

(000's shrs)

(000's AED)

Yield (%)

6,994

64,926

10.3

1.9

3.8%

2,674

31,420

9.4

1.3

2.1%

4,592

46,160

8.3

1.2

2.8%

4,220

13,359

5.8

0.8

0.0%

12,097

15,854

5.9

1.2

7.6%

3,214

11,090

7.7

1.0

6.3%

1,848

5,893

5.2

0.6

2.8%

20

104

5.1

1.4

3.8%

189,676 0

256,752 0

NM 18.7

1.2 2.3

0.0% 1.5%

Beta

1.00

1.17

1.36

1.30

1.35

1.24

1.13 0.14

1.52 NA

Ÿ 4- Emirates Integrated Telecom. Ÿ 5- Dubai Financial Market Ÿ 6- Dubai Islamic Bank Ÿ 7- Commercial Bank of Dubai

3.3%

Ÿ 9- Air Arabia Co. Ÿ 10- Dubai Investment

4.8% 4.5%

1.65

ő 3- Mashreq Bank

3.5%

Ÿ 8- Arabtec Holding P.J.S.C.

3.100

Return (%)

8.0%

3.160

1.9%

91.45

0.0%

3.110

1.6%

1.180

4.4%

2.220

4.2%

Market Cap.

(AED Mln)

18,883

17,563 15,462

14,217

9,440 8,433

3.300

7.8%

6,406

0.715 0.890

0.8% 2.3%

3,337 3,262

2.930

9.7%

4,380

ROE YTD Price

Top 10 Largest Qatari Companies by Market Cap Price

Chg. (%)

13.4%

9.8%

14.9%

(5.6%)

6.2%

(2.2%)

8.4%

(4.9%)

43.6%

17.5%

12.6%

10.1%

3.5%

(5.1%)

10.8%

2.5%

5.2% 11.3%

(8.9%) (2.7%)

(QAR)

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

135.90

Return (%)

1.6%

(1.0%)

19.00

1.6%

164.00

0.2%

26.65

0.8%

77.40

0.8%

73.60

(1.2%)

135.50

(1.9%)

246.10 60.00

2.9% 1.2%

Market Cap.

(QAR Mln)

95,093

78,100

50,397

28,864

19,988

18,289

18,212 13,550

12,791 12,402

Bahrain Bourse

ROE YTD Price

Top 10 Largest Bahraini Companies by Market Cap Price

Chg. (%)

(BHD)

22.4%

9.6%

23.1%

11.9%

15.9%

18.3%

Ÿ 3- Bahrain Telecommunications Co.

4.7%

11.5%

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

55.6%

6.3%

15.7%

10.5%

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

ź 5- National Bank of Bahrain ő 6- Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait

2.8%

37.9%

ő 7- Al Baraka Banking (Price in USD)

29.0%

20.5%

ő 8- United Gulf Bank

10.6% 15.3%

15.5% 8.6%

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

0 680 0.680

Return (%)

1 5% 1.5%

0.590

(6.3%)

0.420

0.0%

1.5%

0.575

(1.7%)

0.412

0.0%

1.060

0.0%

0.304

0.0%

796.95 0.720

0.0% 0.0%

Market Cap.

(BHD Mln)

1 278 1,278 838

590 492

492

351 347 254

240 119

Muscat Securities Market (MSM)

ROE YTD Price

Top 10 Largest Omani Companies by Market Cap Price

Chg. (%)

(OMR)

18.5%

1.6%

14.2%

10.0%

ź 2- Oman Telecom Co.

13.8%

30.1%

Ÿ 3- Bank Dhofar

Ÿ 1- Bank Muscat

14.2%

14.7%

Ÿ 4- Omani Qatari Telecom (NAWRAS)

19.7%

10.0%

Ÿ 5- National Bank of Oman

12.4%

9.5%

12.0%

10.4%

26.8%

4.0%

NM 12.2%

57.6% (9.9%)

ź 6- Oman International Bank ő 7- Shell Oman Marketing ź 8- Ahli Bank Ÿ 9- Raysut Cement Ÿ 10- Oman Cement Co.

0.736

1.405

0.594

0.621

0.311

0.279

2.292

0.251

0.943 0.537

Return (%)

1.9%

(0.1%) 9.4%

0.2%

0.3%

(2.8%) 0.0%

(1.2%) 2.3% 3.5%

Market Cap.

(OMR Mln)

1,140

1,054 544

404

336

270

229

201

189 178

P/E (X)

Trailing

P/B (X)

Dividend

(000's AED)

183,885

563,748

14.0

0.6

4.1%

2,764

8,732

6.4

0.5

6.3%

0

0

16.9

1.3

2.2%

Yield (%)

10,863

33,768

9.1

2.5

0.0%

325,323

398,065

NM

1.3

0.0%

29,499

65,140

9.5

0.9

4.5%

15

49

7.7

1.0

6.1%

43,028

126,520

29.3

1.6

0.0%

37,710 108,002

27,262 100,051

12.6 8.5

0.6 0.4

11.2% 6.7%

Volume

Trailing

P/E (X)

Trailing

P/B (X)

Dividend

(000's shrs)

(000's QAR)

514

69,226

13.6

2.4

2.1%

1,596

229,955

10.0

3.2

3.9%

15

286

NM

1.8

0.0%

Yield (%)

217

35,963

11.8

1.4

2.5%

3,287

87,400

15.2

2.5

8.0%

246

18,943

11.9

1.7

5.9%

959

70,766

10.0

1.3

8.7%

237

32,503

9.9

3.9

4.4%

283 500

80,402 30,020

11.6 10.6

2.8 1.8

2.7% 7.6%

Volume

Trailing

P/E (X)

Trailing

P/B (X)

Dividend

(000's shrs)

(000's BHD)

2 813 2,813

716

11 1 11.1

14 1.4

3 6% 3.6%

1,051

624

3.7

1.1

9.1%

354

144

7.6

1.2

11.0%

0

0

6.9

0.4

0.0%

Yield (%)

10

6

10.9

1.9

4.7%

3,035

1,253

10.0

1.5

6.1%

17

7

7.7

0.8

4.3%

0

0

60.3

1.2

0.0%

0 0

0 0

4.5 15.9

0.6 2.3

0.0% 3.8%

Volume

Trailing

P/E (X)

Trailing

P/B (X)

1.40

4.3%

0.61

0.05

0.98

1.61

1.15

Chg. (%)

20.6%

7.8%

7.5%

7.4%

(9.9%)

27.2%

7.6%

0.1%

40.5%

0.27

9.4%

14.4%

13.2%

13.8%

1.01 1.23

5.4%

84.3%

5.1% 4.5%

22.0% 47.1%

1.31

Beta

0.85

1.07

0.53 0.64

0.85

1.03

1.14 0.79

0.71 1.04

ROE YTD Price

Chg. (%)

17.3%

(1.7%)

31.5%

6.8%

0.5%

(14.4%)

11.7%

16.5%

16.1%

(4.3%)

14.1%

(8.2%)

13.1%

(12.4%)

39.5%

(2.9%)

24.4% 17.1%

25.6% (6.4%)

Beta

2 11 2.11

NA

0.93

0.77 0.57

0.33

0.75 0.50

0.48 0.07

ROE YTD Price

Chg. (%)

12 2% 12.2%

2 3% 2.3%

28.8%

(10.6%)

16.0%

4.6%

5.3%

0.0%

17.2%

0.0%

15.3%

(0.5%)

10.0%

(2.8%)

1.9%

1.3%

13.2% 14.6%

0.0% 6.7%

Risk & Return

Valuation Multiples

Value

ROE YTD Price

Risk & Return

Valuation Multiples

Value

Beta

Risk & Return

Valuation Multiples

Value

Weekly Trading Indicators

Weekly

Trailing

(000's shrs)

Weekly Trading Indicators

Weekly

0.410

Value

Weekly Trading Indicators

Weekly

142.00

Volume

Risk & Return

Valuation Multiples

Weekly Trading Indicators

Weekly

Qatar Exchange (QE)

Risk & Return

Valuation Multiples

Weekly Trading Indicators

9.87 3.15

P/B (X)

Risk & Return

Valuation Multiples

Weekly Trading Indicators

Weekly

P/E (X)

23.59

Risk & Return

Valuation Multiples P/B (X)

(AED)

Ÿ 4- Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank

16,694 17,488

2.37%

1,721

P/E (X)

Price

ź 3- First Gulf Bank

51,248

124,983

9,131

(000's KD)

Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX)

Ÿ 2- National Bank Of Abu Dhabi

76,965

(000's shrs)

Top 10 Largest Companies by Market Cap in Abu Dhabi

Ÿ 1- Emirates Telecom. Co.

394,510

(KD Mln)

(SAR)

Ÿ 4- Saudi Electricity Co.

(%)

0.78%

Return (%)

Price

Ÿ 3- Saudi Telecom

22,106,431

Weekly Trading Indicators

Saudi Stock Exchange (TADAWUL)

Ÿ 2- Al-Rajhi Bank

848

Dividend

Dubai Financial Market (DFM)

Top 10 Largest Companies by Market Cap in Dubai

Ÿ 2- Emirates NBD

2.6%

Top 10 Largest Saudi Companies by Market Cap

Ÿ 1- Saudi Basic Industries Corp

(USD Mln)

(KWD)

0.720 0.430

Ÿ 9- Commercial Bank of Kuwait ź 10- Burgan Bank

109,702

Dividend

0.630

ź 8- Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait

(USD Mln)

757,583

Trailing

0.560

ő 7- Boubyan Bank

(000's USD)

Trailing Trailing

Trailing

0.870

ő 6- Ahli United Bank (Kuwait)

(000's shrs)

2,396,575

Weekly Chg.

Value

2.280

Ÿ 5- National Mobile Telecom. Co.

Current

Volume

0.485

ő 4- Gulf Bank

Value

Valuation Multiples

Market Cap.

0.880

Ÿ 3- Kuwait Finance House

Market Cap.

Weekly

0.850

ő 2- ZAIN

ers to transfer money between each other’s accounts in real-time with their cell phones.

Most experts don’t expect cash to disappear anytime soon, but that its proportion of the economy will continue to decline as such payment options become available. Before retiring as deputy governor of Sweden’s central bank, Lars Nyberg said last year that cash will survive “like the crocodile, even though it may be forced to see its habitat gradually cut back.”

But there are pockets of resistance. Hanna Celik, whose family owns a newspaper kiosk in a Stockholm shopping mall, says the digital economy is all about banks seeking bigger earnings.

Celik says he gets charged about five Swedish kronor ($0.80) for every credit card transaction, and a law passed by the Swedish Parliament prevents him from passing on that charge to consumers. “That stinks,” he says. “For them (the banks), this is a very good way to earn a lot of money, that’s what it’s all about. They make huge profits.” -AP

15-Mar-2012

Volume

8,561,904

Schneider, an expert on underground economies.

In Italy - where cash has been a common means of avoiding value-added tax and hiding profits from the taxman - Prime Minister Mario Monti in December put forward measures to limit cash transactions to payments under 1,000 euro (1,300 US dollars), down from 2,500 euro before.

The flip side is the risk of cybercrimes. According to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention the number of computerized fraud cases, including skimming, surged to nearly 20,000 in 2011 from 3,304 in 2000.

Internet startups in Sweden and elsewhere are now hard at work developing payment and banking services for smartphones.

Swedish company iZettel has developed a device for small traders, similar to Square in the US, that plugs into the back of an iPhone to make it work like a credit card terminal. Sweden’s biggest banks are expected to launch a joint service later this year that allows custom-

15-Mar-12

Price

1.080

Ÿ 1- National Bank of Kuwait

After his son was robbed for the third time he started advocating a faster transition to a fully digital economy, if only to make life harder for thieves.

“If there were no cash, what would they do?” says Ulvaeus, 66.

The Swedish Bankers’ Association says the shrinkage of the cash economy is already making an impact in crime statistics.

The number of bank robberies in Sweden plunged from 110 in 2008 to 16 in 2011 - the lowest level since it started keeping records 30 years ago. It says robberies of security transports are also down.

The prevalence of electronic transactions and the digital trail they generate - also helps explain why Sweden has less of a problem with graft than countries with a stronger cash culture, such as Italy or Greece, says economics professor Friedrich Schneider of the Johannes Kepler University in Austria.

“If people use more cards, they are less involved in shadow economy activities,” says

3.5%

Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE)

Top 10 Largest Kuwaiti Companies by Market Cap

Sectors’ activity

The Investment sector dominated total trade volume during last week with 657.73 million shares changing hands, representing 27.44 percent of the total market trading volume. The Real estate sector was second in terms trading volume as the sector’s traded shares were 26.51 percent of

KAMCO Research

Weekly Trading Indicators

Index

Disclaimer: This report has been prepared and issued by the Studies & Research Department @ Bayan Investment Company on the basis of publicly available information, internal data, and other sources considered reliable.

While great care has been taken to ensure that the facts stated are accurate, neither Bayan Investment Company nor any of its employees shall be in any way responsible for the contents. This report is not an offer to buy or sell any of the securities referred in the report.

KAMCO Research GCC Week No.11 GCC Equity EquityMarkets MarketsReport Reportforfor Week No. 11 GCC Equity Markets Weekly Performance

losers’ list, which index declined by 0.94 percent, closing at 6,112.2 points.

Dividend

(000's shrs)

(000's OMR)

Yield (%)

4,681

3,450

9.8

1.4

3.0%

1,087

1,528

9.5

2.3

7.1%

595

342.9

39.9

2.5

1.9%

1,069

668

8.5

3.0

6.1%

1,143

358

10.3

1.2

4.8%

985

278

16.1

1.6

5.1%

3

6

17.3

8.2

5.7%

432

110

11.8

1.7

0.0%

504 1,917

472 1,021

14.1 14.9

1.9 1.2

10.6% 6.9%

Beta

1.21

0.88 0.66

1.32

ROE YTD Price

Chg. (%)

13.9%

(3.9%)

23.7%

7.3%

6.2%

8.6%

1.02

30.6%

(4.5%)

11.9%

(2.8%)

0.38

10.2%

(0.4%)

47.6%

(4.2%)

0.97 0.99

10.0%

(5.3%)

13.5% 8.2%

24.1% 24.3%

0.99

0.81

LIFE

Make ‘Tummy Time’ fun

While infants should never sleep on their stomach, tummy time while an infant is awake and being watched is important for baby’s development, the American Academy of Pediatrics says. The academy mentions these suggestions to make “tummy time” fun for baby: With baby on his tummy, place a favorite toy just a little bit out of reach to encourage him to stretch for it.-Surround baby with a circle of toys to encourage strengthening muscles by reaching in different directions.Once baby is old enough, place baby belly-down on your chest so he will pick up his head to look at your face.-Encourage other young children to play with baby during tummy time, as long as you carefully supervise them together.

sunDAY, march 18, 2012

Fewer kids dying from leukemia: Study NEWYORK: Kids with one type of leukemia are living longer than they used to, most likely thanks to new drug combinations that mean fewer patients are relapsing after a first round of treatment.

In a study including more than 20,000 babies, kids and adolescents with the blood and bone marrow cancer, patients’ chances of surviving at least five years after their diagnosis increased from 84 percent in the early 1990s to over 90 percent a decade later.

“We knew that there was a positive trend (in survival), but there had been concerns that the rate of improvement was slowing down,” said Dr. Stephen Hunger from the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora, who worked on the study.

Instead, Hunger told Reuters Health in an email, his team was “happy to see” a consistent reduction in deaths from leukemia, in both older and younger kids and those with high-risk and lower-risk forms of the disease.

In people with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL -- the most common type of childhood cancer -- the bone marrow makes too many immature white blood cells instead of producing the cells necessary to fight infections.

Fifty years ago, the disease killed almost everyone it struck within a few years. But survival rates steadily rose over the next decades as doctors gained more tools to treat leukemia.

To see if that trend has been continuing, the researchers consulted patient information from Children’s Oncology Group studies, which include more than half of kids diagnosed in the United States with leukemia, between 1990 and 2005.

Out of about 21,600 kids and adolescents up to age 22, 83.7 percent who were diagnosed with leukemia between 1990 and 1994 were still alive five years later, and 80.1 percent survived at least 10 years post-diagnosis.

Among those who were diagnosed between 2000 and 2005, 90.4 percent survived at least five years, and 10-year

FILE-Leukemia patients, their hair lost due to treatment, make Christmas decorations in the Chisinau Oncology Institute in Chisinau, Moldova Monday Dec. 19, 2011. (AP)

survival rates seemed to be trending upward as well, the researchers reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Hunger and his colleagues found that both younger kids and adolescents were less likely to die of leukemia in

recent years, as were white, black and Hispanic kids and those with higher-risk and lower-risk forms of cancer.

The one exception was infants, who when they do get leukemia, tend to have very aggressive disease. Only about

half of infants survived five years after being diagnosed in both the early and later years of the study.

The researchers calculated that infants accounted for only about two percent of all leukemia cases during the study period, but for eight percent of deaths.

“This suggests that we need to develop better supportive care for infants and better therapy using newer targeted agents,” Hunger said.

While the chemotherapy drugs considered standard for leukemia treatment haven’t changed a lot in recent years, researchers said that advances in drug combinations and doses that better stave off disease relapses are likely behind improvements in survival.

The small drop-off in the number of kids who survive at least 10 years versus five years after a leukemia diagnosis is evidence of that.

He said the improved leukemia survival rates are consistent with data from the UK and the Netherlands, among other countries, and he credited international collaboration between doctors for the success of new treatment regimens.

That includes improvements in the antibiotics and other drugs used to treat infections related to chemotherapy, so young patients can now get more intensive treatment with fewer risks, Pui told Reuters Health.

But Pui, who wasn’t involved in the new study, also highlighted the difference between surviving five or 10 years after a diagnosis and being “cured.” For kids whose leukemia was treated with radiation, he said, there’s still a risk of other cancers a couple of decades down the line, which wouldn’t be captured in this study.

“There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done, but overall (the study) is good news,” he said.

Hunger agreed. “We are extremely gratified by these high survival rates, but the fact remains that 10 to 15 percent of children and adolescents diagnosed with ALL this year will die from this disease,” he said. -Reuters

Africa to generate more e-waste than Europe by 2017 PARIS: Better known as a dumping ground for used electronic goods from developed countries, Africa is set to outstrip Europe in the volumes of e-waste it generates within five years, experts said Thursday.

“One study suggests Africa will generate more e-waste than Europe by 2017,” Katharina Kummer Peiry, Executive Secretary of the Basel Convention on hazardous waste, told reporters.

“At the current rate ... by 2017 we’ll be faced with so much e-waste -- even more than in the EU,” said Miranda Amachree of Nigeria’s National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency.

The two major contributing factors are population growth and increased availability of mobile phones, computers and accessories, the experts said on the sidelines of the Pan-African Forum on E-Waste at the UN environment agency in Nairobi.

“There is population growth ... and there is the penetration rate -- there are increasing numbers of people with access to these devices,” Kummer Peiry said.

“You have to bear in mind that there are efforts undertaken at all levels to increase access -- it’s part of development,” she said, describing the growth of both the population and the penetration rate as “exponential.”

Shades of science fiction as 3D printers deliver complete objects BERLIN: Plastic? Metal? Cement? Take your pick - 3D printers can manufacture actual objects out of these materials. 3D printing has leapt from the pages of science fiction to actual production lines, with some even coming within the grasp of private customers, even if experts say the printers are likely to remain a specialty device for now. But the fact remains that these printers are now spitting out replacement car parts, architectural models or simple salt shakers. “You can even print out body parts from organic materials,” says Hartmut Schwandt, head of the 3D laboratory at Berlin’s Technical University. Such a feature can come in handy in the case of a broken shoulder. “If you’re missing a part of the bone, the patient goes into the CT scanner and the replacement part pops out of the printer.”

The technology was developed in the 1980s and continuously refined over the years. Printing methods depend upon the material. Thus, plastic is melted and then sprayed through a nozzle to create the desired object or laid down layer by layer upon a frame.

Schwandt’s printer is about as tall as a man and resembles an oven.

A cement printer looks more like a washing machine. Before printing starts a vat is filled with cement powder. With the assistance of a binding agent the object is then created layer by layer.

The initial product has to be inserted into a special machine to remove excess cement powder. The final product is then coated with a resin to keep it from breaking. There are two basic approaches. Rapid prototyping creates a model that does not exactly meet parameters.

“Today you’re just pushing something around the computer, but you need something that you can touch and that’s a lot easier with a 3D printer,” says Schwandt. This approach is favored for architectural models and car prototypes made out of cement or plastic.

The other approach, rapid manufacturing, focuses on preciseness. “These are production quality objects. These are mass-produced items or custom-made individual pieces,” says Schwandt.

But this kind of manufacturing is in its infancy. “This is the newest development. It’s impossible to see what’s still coming.”

Model cars, toys, pieces of art or dishes: entire runs of such products could one day be made with 3D printers, instead of by special manufacturing machines or tools. It sounds like science fiction and Schwandt admits that “it’s partially still a dream.”

Cost is one drawback. A professional 3D printer, like one used in the auto industry or by sporting shoe manufacturers, costs “well into six figures.”

“It’s only worth it if the printer is in use around the clock,” Schwandt says. Semi-professional versions cost between 40,000 and 100,000 Euros (54,000 and 135,000 dollars). They turn out good products, but the choice of materials is limited.

There are also entry models for private individuals with the right level of interest. US Company Desktop Factory produces one for about 3,600 Euros. “Our goal is to one day make 3D printing as common in offices, factories, schools and homes as laser printers are today,” according to the company’s website.

But experts like Schwandt remain skeptical. “That’s not foreseeable. I think it will remain an extreme niche product and stay that way for a while. But it is a fun toy.” And a really expensive one.

On top of the printer costs are the costs of materials for each print job. A container of cement for a 3D printer costs about 2,500 Euros. Per cubic centimeter, 3D printing costs cost about 3 or 4 Euros, says Schwandt. -dpa

Africa, which has traditionally been confronted by thousands of tons of electronic waste shipped from Europe for disposal, often under dangerous conditions, is increasingly dealing with the e-waste generated locally.

Kenya for example exonerated information and communication technology (ICT) equipment from import duties in 2008, in an attempt to boost access. Zambia followed suit last year.

“The use of electric and electronic devices ... is still low in Africa compared to other regions of the world but it is growing at a staggering pace,” said a report launched last month summarizing findings from the E-waste Africa

Program of the Basel Convention.

The convention, which regulates the transboundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal, was adopted in 1989 and took effect three years later.

In Africa “in the last decade, the penetration rate of personal computers has increased by a factor of 10, while the number of mobile phone subscribers has increased by a factor of 100,” the report said.

Africa, where most recycling is informal, “needs to move towards more formal recycling in order to ensure precious metals are properly extracted from say, mobile phones,” Kummer Peiry said.

Achim Steiner, the head of the UN environment agency UNEP, that is hosting the three-day forum, said a seeming problem can be turned into an opportunity if the right recycling measures are put in place.

“From one ton of cell phones, minus the batteries, you can extract 3.5 kilos of silver, 340 grams of gold, 140 grams of palladium and 130 kilos of copper,” he told reporters, adding that the cost of smelting recycled metals is “three or four times less energy intensive than smelting virgin ores.

But that sort of recycling will only happen if Africa is given access to the necessary technologies, Steiner warned. -AFP

Kuwait celebrates the golden age of Arab science

Some of the artifacts on display at the Amricani Culture Center on March 14, 2012. (Michael A. Kolarov) Michael A. Kolarov Staff Writer

KUWAIT: Wednesday night saw the opening of an exhibition dedicated to the Golden Age of the Arab Sciences, with numerous, priceless, pieces of Arab history from the eighth and fifteenth centuries. The event was held at the Amricani Culture Center, formerly the American Mission Hospital in Kuwait. The exhibition was sponsored by Total, the fifth-largest publicly traded oil and gas company in the world. Total has nearly ninety years of history in the Middle East, including fifteen years in Kuwait. Total promotes the arts, turtle conservation, and the protection of fragile eco-systems in Kuwait, with the backing of the Total Foundation, Total’s global endowment fund.

The pieces came from the Al-Sabah Collection, the private collection of Shiekh Nasser Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah and his wife, Sheikha Hussah Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, director general and co-founder of Dar AlAthar Al-Islamiyyah. These objects include scientific manuscripts, ancient instruments such as astrolabes and quadrants, and glass beakers used in early chemistry experiments, ceramics and glass artworks as well as architectural designs and surgical instruments.

The Golden Age of the Arab Sciences exhibition was created and curated by the Paris-based Institut du Monde Arabe, which follows the evolution of scientific inquiry during the ‘golden age’ of the Arab-Muslim civilization.

The exhibition attempts to show how the Islamic civilization that united a vast geographical region extending from the boarders of China to the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa built upon the scientific achievements of the societies it came into contact with.

Sections on astronomy, biology, and the relationship between science, culture and the arts guide the visitor through the exhibition, which displays applications of the sciences described, such as navigation and medicine, and

the philosophical writings and theories that evolved from them. An accompanying audio-visual sequence brings into focus the various cultural, religious and aesthetic characteristics that defined the region of the time.

Al Watan Daily sat down with Lionel Levha, General Manager for Total in Kuwait for an interview. Levha shared his thoughts on the event and some of the reasons why Total was getting involved. “For quite a long time now, Total has been involved in a lot of events promoting social responsibility in the countries where it operates.

The time is gone when an oil company could only be an oil producer, or lubricant distributer. We have to be involved in the local life of the country in which we are operating.”

Levha elaborates on the reasons why Total has chosen to support the exhibition of The Golden Age of Arab Sciences saying: “We have been supporting this exhibi-

tion from the beginning... but also we are very faithful with Kuwait, we have been here since 1997, we thought it was a good opportunity to have this exhibition making a stop for a few months in Kuwait.” Levha continued saying: “Sheika Hussah, is a fantastic woman, she has been working very hard for the promotion of the Arabic arts, and she has one of the most impressive and beautiful collections of Arabic heritage.” On why Total is getting behind the exhibition Levha said: “We thought it was a very good opportunity to mix what has been done in the Institut du Monde Arabe and what has been done in Kuwait to show that these two establishments who are behind all this can organize a very good exhibition.”

The exhibition runs from March 15, until June 16, from 10:00 am, to 7:00 pm, Monday to Thursday and Saturday. 2:00 pm to 7:00 pm on Fridays at the Americani Cultural Center. Entry is free.

12

ALWATAN DAILY

Technology

APP OF THE WEEK

Jumanah Al-Ghadban Staff Writer

App: Draw Something Category: Games Price: Free & $0.99 (Limited Time) Platform: iOS, Android Works with: iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and Android devices.

Briefly: The most popular social drawing and guessing game in the App Store is truly addictive. Guaranteed to cost you sleepless nights and endless hours of playing. In the simplest of terms all you have to do is create a game with a friend or a random stranger draw out the ‘word’ that is given to you and watch your friends guess the drawing. You will get a chance to have a turn and with that you find a creative and social way to interact with friends. Due to its insane popularity check out some of the talented players in Kuwait below on this page.

TECH TALK Twitter acquires mobile blogging startup Posterous: Twitter on Monday announced that it has bought mobile blogging startup Posterous and will put engineers behind the popular “lifestreaming” service to work on special projects. “This team has built an innovative product that makes sharing across theWeb and mobile devices simple - a goal we share,” San Franciscobased Twitter said in a blog post. -AFP Yahoo sues Facebook for infringing 10 patents: Yahoo Inc sued Facebook Inc over 10 patents that include methods and systems for advertising on the Web, opening the first major legal battle among big technology companies in social media.

-Reuters TED launches learning initiative at YouTube:The non-profit group behind thoughtprovoking TED conferences launched an education channel on YouTube in a bid to make learning irresistible. -AFP German court delays Apple’s slide-to-unlock lawsuit: A German court suspended a trial in which Apple alleged that Samsung Electronics copied the slide-to-unlock technology of its iPhone and iPad devices pending the outcome of a separate suit.The regional court in Mannheim, Germany, said on Friday it would wait for a decision in ongoing proceedings in a Munich court over the feature, which allows users to switch on a device by swiping over the touch-screen.

-Reuters No display shortage seen for new iPad: Supply concerns over Apple Inc’s new iPad are “overblown”, Jefferies said in a note, adding that the company is expected to produce 12-15 million tablets this quarter. The third generation iPad sports a crisper display, dubbed the Retina Display, and some industry commentators and technology blogs have said the company could face a supply crunch for these displays in the near term. -Reuters Goldman person leaked Apple, Intel secrets: A person at Goldman Sachs Group Inc, who has not been identified or charged in a broad US insider-trading probe, was caught on a wiretap leaking secrets about Intel Corp and Apple Inc, a lawyer for former Goldman board member Rajat Gupta said in court on Friday. Lawyer Gary, in a heated exchange with US prosecutor Reed Brodsky during a pre-trial hearing, said the Goldman person leaked confidential information about the two companies to Raj Rajaratnam, the Galleon Group hedge fund founder convicted of insider-trading charges. -Reuters

SUNDAY, march 18, 2012

Radio show on Apple’s Chinese workers is retracted LONDON: The US radio program “This American Life” has retracted an episode critical of working conditions at a Chinese factory that makes iPhones and iPads for Apple Inc, saying it had contained “numerous fabrications.”

The retracted episode, which aired on January 6, was based heavily on a one-man theatrical show by actor Mike Daisey: “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.” The play and its attendant publicity, including the radio segment, have played a big role in pressuring Apple to allow outside inspectors at its contract manufacturing facilities in China, which are mostly owned by Foxxcon Technology.

Daisey had also written an op-ed piece on the topic for The New York Times, and on Friday the Times removed a paragraph from that piece, stating that “questions have been raised” about its veracity. The Times itself also spotlighted working conditions at Foxconn factories in a recent series of stories.

Friday night’s edition of the “This American Life,” which is produced by Chicago radio station WBEZ and distributed by Public Radio International, was scheduled to detail errors in the earlier story.

An advance transcript of the show said: “We did factcheck the story before we put it on the radio. But in factchecking, our main concern was whether the things Mike says about Apple and about its supplier Foxconn, which makes this stuff, were true. That stuff is true. It’s been corroborated by independent investigations by other journalists, studies by advocacy groups, and much of it has been corroborated by Apple itself in its own audit reports.

“But what’s not true is what Mike said about his own trip to China.”

“This American Life” is one of the most popular and respected public affairs programs in the

FILE - In this undated image released by The Public Theater, Mike Daisey is shown in a scene from “The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,” in New York. (AP)

country, and news of the retraction was greeted with shock and chagrin in the media world. Many of the United States’ most respected journalism organizations have had to combat issues of fabrication, plagiarism and bias in recent years, which press critics say has undermined public trust in journalism.

The alleged fabrications on “This American Life” came to light after a correspondent for

another radio show, American Public Media’s “Marketplace,” contacted Daisey’s Chinese interpreter, Li Guiden, who disputed much of what the actor had been telling audiences since 2010 and what he said on the radio program, according to a statement from “This American Life.”

Daisey says he regrets that he allowed “This American Life” to air an excerpt from his monologue. Apple was contacted while the show was

PayPal takes on Square in mobile payments

SAN FRANCISCO: PayPal, the payments service owned by eBay Inc, jumped into the nascent mobile payments arena on Thursday with a new device that helps businesses accept credit and debit cards via mobile devices, taking on early-moving start-up Square Inc. “PayPal Here” – as the service is called – launches in the United States, Canada, Australia and Hong Kong on Thursday. Small business merchants in those countries can sign up and get a free, triangle-shaped card reader and mobile application to affix to mobile phones.

That gadget – sometimes referred to as a dongle – plugs right into the top of devices like Apple Inc iPhones and, soon, Google Inc Android smart phones, allowing merchants to take payments through these gadgets on the go.

Such an approach – pioneered by Jack Dorsey’s Square among others – differs from other mobile payment models, including the installing of “near-field communications” chips for smartphones, which can then be tapped on sensors to make payments.

Concerns about security and privacy however have hampered broader efforts to roll out mobile payments.

But PayPal said customer card information will be encrypted by the triangular card reader before transactions are sent to the PayPal app on the mobile device. This prevents customer data from being lost or stolen from merchants’ smartphones, it said.

Another obstacle has been the difficulty of payment processing, which in other models can involve linking accounts among carriers and major banks or credit card companies. PayPal’s merchants can sign up for a PayPal debit card, go to an ATM, and withdraw money accumulated from sales, said David Marcus, vice president of mobile at PayPal. PayPal charges a fee of 2.7 percent of the purchase price for all types of credit and debit cards – including those issued by American Express Co; transaction fees for processing AmEx cards are often higher on other services. That compares with the 2.75 percent charged by Square.

Physical world

Square, started in 2009 by Twitter founder Dorsey, leads this niche of the mobile payments market, according to Oglesby. The service is currently only offered in the United States. Square is known for its own squareshaped card reader that attaches to the top of iPhones

Senior Vice President of Asia Pacific for Paypal, Rupert Keeley, poses for a picture with Paypal’s triangleshaped smartphone payment dongle in Hong Kong on March 16, 2012. (AFP)

and other mobile devices. It has been a hit among small merchants, such as cab drivers. Intuit Inc, known for its accounting software, launched a mobile payment service for small businesses called GoPayment in May 2009 and unveiled a free version in early 2011 that came with a free card reading device.

GoPayment is about half the size of Square, Oglesby estimated. PayPal has a good chance of grabbing some of the millions of small merchants who still do not accept credit and debit cards, Oglesby added. “It’s a big market and it’s growing very rapidly,” he said. “Most providers think there are 17 to 20 million small businesses in the US that are not accepting cards.” -Reuters

being researched and denied its allegations, including that workers were poisoned on an iPhone assembly line by a chemical called n-hexane, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Apple has not commented publicly on the radio program and the retraction. The company has consistently rejected allegations that Foxconn workers were mistreated, but last month the company for the first time agreed to allow independent monitors to inspect the facilities.

Both “This American Life” and “Marketplace” are part of the complex public broadcasting system in the United States, and both are separate from National Public Radio, the news producer most commonly associated with public radio. While taxpayer funds support stations that broadcast the shows, the programs themselves are not directly subsidized by the government.

In a form of cooperation that would be unusual in commercial media, Rob Schmitz, the “Marketplace” reporter, and Glass of “This American Life” jointly confronted Daisey about the truth of radio segment.

Daisey acknowledged that he had not actually met or seen workers poisoned by n-hexane, according to an account of the conversation published by “Marketplace.” He then apologized to Glass. Daisey’s explanation of his actions echoes a debate that has rocked the book publishing world over non-fiction “memoirs” that contain made-up scenes. Some writers have defended departing from the hard facts to tell a more compelling story, but most non-fiction writers and editors reject the practice.

“A program like “This American Life” wants to get at the truth, to be sure,” said Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple. “But it has an equal loyalty to the facts.” On Twitter, the most common reaction from reporters and editors were “Wow” or “Whoa.” -Reuters

GEARS

2013 Hyundai Genesis Coupe, more punch and new look Compiled by Jameel W. Karaki Staff Writer

CAPITALS: It’s been four years since Hyundai introduced its Genesis coupe at the 2008 New York Auto Show, unabashedly presenting it as an alternative to not only obvious competitors like the Ford Mustang but also luxury coupes like the Infiniti G37. The Genesis coupe’s key feature was its rear-wheel-drive chassis, a relative rarity among affordable cars in general and virtually unheard of from a Korean manufacturer. In fact, the only other inexpensive, rear-wheel-drive car from an Asian manufacturer back in 2009, when the Genesis coupe actually went on sale, was the Mazda Miata roadster, if we take the slightly-out-of-reach Mazda RX-8 and Nissan 370Z out of the equation.

The all-aluminum 2.0-liter four-cylinder now utilizes a twin-scroll turbocharger and a 53-percent-larger intercooler to produce a formidable 274 hp and 275 lbft of torque, up 64 hp and 52 lb-ft over the outgoing engine. Aided by the new twin-scroll turbo and dual continuously variable valve timing, maximum torque arrives at 2000 rpm, and the car pulls

hard out of corners with minimal turbo lag. Engine NVH levels are improved from before. Hyundai engineers point to a new stainless-steel integrated exhaust manifold and the integrated turbo housing that weighs less and dissipates heat more efficiently while also improving efficiency and emissions. The waste gate is now electronically controlled for more accurate boost modulation and improved mid- and high-load fuel efficiency. Under hard throttle, the exhaust emits a mild midrange honk that climbs in pitch with acceleration. Outside of the car the tone is even more raucous, and should be music to the ears of any remaining members of the Fast and Furious club.

What the Genesis does have, though, is style in spades, lots of equipment (the revised cabin is much more pleasant than before and far more luxurious than that of the BRZ/FR-S); and, of course, lots of raw power. Subaru or Scion and Hyundai have approached the notion of affordable, rear-wheel-drive performance cars in completely different ways, and both are legitimate. Rather than debate their relative merits, we’ll celebrate the fact that all three of these cars will soon be available to the average American car enthusiast.

Hyundai is serious about meeting and exceeding expectations by introducing the Genesis Coupe. (Agencies)

‘Dr aw Something’ Fans from Kuwait

User: Auroora and a drawing of a “Sea Horse.”

User: Abdullahb and a drawing of “Lil Wayne.”

User: Fahadalibrahim and a drawing of a “burger.”

User: Aateeqi and a drawing of a “walrus.”

Share with us your drawings by sending them to alwatandailysocial@gmail.com.

User: Fhaid and a drawing of “Grammy.”

ALWATAN DAILY

entertainment Song Of The Day

Fahad AlSabah Staff Writer

Song: Lift Me Up Artist: Christina Aguilera Album: Bionic Genre: Pop In short: Christina Aguilera and Linda Perry made magic with “Beautiful” and with the second disc of 2006’s throwback album Back to Basics, but their latest collaboration on the sublime “Lift Me Up” shouldn’t go unnoticed; presenting similar themes more beautifully than before, “Lift Me Up” mixes elements of rock, pop, and soul, making it stand between being a power ballad and a soulful number.

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

sunDAY, march 18, 2012

Elton John announces his ‘most exciting record’ in years LONDON: Elton John has announced his 31st studio album, which he has called “the most exciting solo record I’ve done in a long, long time”. Mostly recorded with a two-piece band, The Diving Board will be released this autumn, reports The Guardian.

“Quickest record I’ve ever made,” John told Rolling Stone magazine. The singer didn’t expect to make a new album, he said, so soon after 2010’s The Union. When longtime collaborator Bernie Taupin sent him some new lyrics, John - who was on holiday - “didn’t even look at them”. “But I said: ‘I’ll go into the studio and if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t matter.’”

Instead of a wasted session, The Diving Board “just came flooding out”, John said.

Working with producer T Bone Burnett, with whom he and Leon Russell recorded The Union, John wrote six new songs in just

48 hours, and recorded the whole thing in less than four days. “It was T Bone’s idea to get back with piano, bass and drums,” John explained. “He said: ‘Let’s start with that.’”

They recruited drummer Jay Bellerose and bassist Raphael Saadiq, with guitarist Doyle Bramhall appearing on two tracks.

The album recalls some of John’s earliest work, according to Rolling Stone, such as his live album 11-17-70. “As I said with The Union,” John said, “I had to go back to go forward.”

In addition to the new album, John is working on a book of reminiscences from the Aids epidemic. Plans are also advancing for a proposed biopic, which could star Justin Timberlake. “We’re searching for a director,” John’s partner, David Furnish, recently told E! “There’s no race to make this.

We’re just going to take the time to make it right.”

Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network axes The Rosie Show

Mueller named director of Rome film festival Marco Mueller, the longest-running creative director of the Venice Film Festival, is moving to the Rome International Film Festival. The Rome festival’s president Paolo Ferrari announced the appointment Friday, saying Mueller was “esteemed in Italy and abroad.” Mueller, whose eight years at Venice were widely regarded as a success, was not confirmed to a third stint last year. He said in a statement he was looking forward to working at the Rome festival, “which wants to better meet the needs of those who make movies ... and those who see them.” The Rome Film Festival launched in 2006, resulting in a short-lived spat over cinematic pre-eminence. Venice, nonetheless, prevailed in terms of star power, world premieres and cinematic successes. -AP

Rare Marilyn Monroe photos hit auction block A collection of never-before-seen photos of Marilyn Monroe - and their accompanying copyrights - are going up for auction. Celebrity auctioneer Darren Julien says more than 100 images of Monroe will be sold the highest bidders later this month. The photos come from the estate of Allan “Whitey” Snyder, Monroe’s personal makeup artist for 15 years. One image shows Snyder applying makeup to a lingerie-wearing Monroe on the set of “Let’s Make Love” in 1960. Letters, telegrams and a money clip from Monroe to Snyder are also among the lots set to be sold during Julien’s Auctions’ Hollywood Legends sale on March 31 and April 1. The auction also includes memorabilia from Frank Sinatra, James Dean, Charlie Chaplin and Sammy Davis, Jr. -AP

Richards apologizes to fellow Rolling Stone Jagger Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards has apologized to Mick Jagger for derogatory comments he made about the lead singer in his 2010 memoir “Life”, which caused a rift within the band. In comments reported by Rolling Stone magazine, the two rock’n’roll veterans agreed it was time to move on. Fans will be relieved to see them burying the hatchet, as the row had threatened to undermine plans to celebrate the Rolling Stones’ 50th anniversary this year and to go on another world tour. “Looking back at any career you are bound to recall both the highs and the lows,” Jagger was quoted as saying. “In the 1980s for instance Keith and I were not communicating very well. “I got very involved with the business side of the Stones, mainly because I felt no one else was interested, but it’s plain now from the book that Keith felt excluded, which is a pity. Time I reckon to move on.” Richards added: “Mick’s right. He and I have had conversations over the last year of a kind we have not had for an extremely long time and that has been incredibly important to me. “As far as the book goes, it was my story and it was very raw, as I meant it to be, but I know that some parts of it and some of the publicity really offended Mick and I regret that.” -Reuters

FILE - Rappers Eminem, (left,) 50 Cent, (center,) and Dr. Dre pose for photographers after arriving at the Roseland Ballroom for a concert “The Shady National Convention,” in this Oct. 28, 2004 file photo taken in New York. (AP)

Meghan McCain talks fashion and politics in Playboy

LOS ANGELES: Meghan McCain, daughter of 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain, always has been outspoken and with her partying ways and sometimes daring clothes, she admits she would have been a crazy US first daughter.

In an interview with men’s magazine Playboy released on Friday, the 27-year-old McCain admits to being paranoid about her image when wearing low-cut dresses but says she likes to show cleavage.

She insists she is not lesbian, as some have speculated, but says she might have an easier time in life if she were. McCain reserves her most withering criticism for President Barack Obama and the current Republican primary race, but says talk of politics on a date is boring.

As a sometime darling of the paparazzi, McCain has been the most high-profile child of US Senator John McCain since the Arizona Republican’s failed bid for president.

Since then, she has become a political pundit on TV and shows no sign of shying from the spotlight -- or holding her tongue. She would have been inescapable if her father had won, in her estimation.

“You would have the craziest first daughter ever, who’d be making ridiculous headlines and hurting the administration every step of the way,” McCain told Playboy, in an interview that ranged from her love of shotguns to her admiration for

the late gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson.

In 2009, McCain and racy reality TV star Tila Tequila were often photographed hanging out together. Their friendship earned McCain plenty of attention, and she admits to some qualms about partying in public. “I do get paranoid, when I’m wearing low-cut dresses, that somebody’s going to take a picture and put it on the Internet and be like, ‘Meghan was showing off her breasts again,’” McCain told Playboy.

“But you know, showing a little cleavage can make a girl feel sexy too,” she said.

In response to a question asking her to clarify a comment about hanging out in bed with her girlfriends to cope with her father’s 2008 loss, McCain was direct. “I’m not a lesbian, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said.

“I’ve been hit on by women from time to time, and it might simplify my life if I were gay, but no,” she said.

McCain took aim at President Obama, arguing that “morale in the military and in the country at large would be higher” if her father had won the White House.

As for the current Republican primary race and its contenders, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, she asked rhetorically, “Where’s the electricity?” Still, McCain considers talk of politics on a date a turn-off. “I’m obsessed with this stuff, but it doesn’t put me in the mood,” she said. -Reuters

AUSTIN, Texas: The rumors were true: Eminem joined 50 Cent to recreate “Get Rich or Die Tryin’” Friday night at South By Southwest.

It was a throwback to the heyday of gangster rap at the music conference and festival as 50 Cent hit the stage at the Shady Records showcase in a camouflage bullet-proof vest and a Yankees cap as clouds of chronic floated through the air. With a seven-piece band and MC Tony Yayo at this side, he laid down the 16 game-changing tracks from “Get Rich,” performing the entire album live for the first time.

“It’s been a minute,” he told the crowd of about 2,000 at the Austin Music Hall and an audience watching via Fuse and YouTube. “It’s been 10 years. That album sold 13 million copies. Damn.”

The album came out in February 2003, with Eminem and Dr. Dre serving as executive producers and featured rappers.

While Dr. Dre didn’t show in Austin, Eminem - the focus of rumors all week

- joined 50 on “Patiently Waiting” and a short encore that almost didn’t come off because of lackluster crowd reaction, a commonplace occurrence at SXSW. “I guess it’s not what have I done, but what have I done for you lately, is that right?” a tweaked 50 Cent said when he returned to the stage. But perhaps showing he’s mellowed in the decade since he filled the air with the “pop pop pop” of songs like “In Da Club” and “Many Men (Wish Death),” he did the encore anyway.

Dre wasn’t the only prominent player missing from the session. Governor replaced the late Nate Dogg, who passed away a year ago this week, on “21 Questions.”

Fit and on his game, 50 seemed in high spirits throughout the show and marveled at how, against the odds, he did get rich and didn’t die tryin’.

“The money came so fast, I couldn’t (expletive) it up,” the 36-year-old said. “I was trying everything I could think of.”

-AP

No settlement or verdict in Nicolette Sheridan trial LOS ANGELES: Nicollette Sheridan’s wrongful termination trial against her former “Desperate Housewives” bosses ended Friday just as it began the day -completely up in the air.

Sheridan’s legal team and attorneys for ABC and “Housewives” creator Marc Cherry failed to reach a settlement late in the day, after meeting with Judge Helen Bendix about the possibility of resolving the case. Adam Levin, attorney for Cherry and ABC, emerged from Bendix’s chambers late Friday and announced that the attorneys were asked to meet and discuss a settlement by Judge Elizabeth Allen White, who is presiding over the case.

However, they were unable to reach an accord. “We will wait for the jury,” Levin said.

The settlement discussions occurred after the jury, split 8 to 4, told White that it was “hopelessly deadlocked.” White sent them home for the weekend, telling them that, if they couldn’t reach a verdict on Monday, a mistrial would be likely.

Sheridan is seeking $6 million, claiming that she was fired from “Desperate Housewives” in retaliation for complaining about Cherry striking her on set.

Cherry countered that he was merely attempting to give Sheridan stage direction, and that the decision to kill off her character, Edie Britt, was made months before the incident. Sheridan’s attorney, Mark Baute, told reporters outside the courthouse that, shockingly, he believes

FILE-Actress Nicolette Sheridan arrives to the charity polo match at The Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet club on Saturday, July 9, 2011 in Carpinteria Calif.

(AP)

the jury is leaning in his client’s favor.

“We believe the vote is 8-4 in our favor,” Baute posited. “We believe if the jury is patient and civilized with each other, the vote will swing our way.”

Baute did add that he believes that the jury foreman is “against us ... He’s trying to hang the case.”

The attorney added that he wouldn’t be surprised if there were further closing arguments. Asked if he would take the case up again in the case of mistrial, Baute replied, “One hundred percent.”

-Reuters

Budget 2012: Bollywood welcomes service tax exemption

Dark Shadows illuminated by trailer for latest Tim Burton-Johnny Depp outing The first glimpse of Tim Burton’s “Dark Shadows” has fluttered on to the web. Johnny Depp stars as Barnabas Collins, a dashing aristocrat who is turned into a vampire by Angelique (Eva Green), a witch who reacts to his rejection of her advances by whacking him on the head and burying him in a coffin, reports The Guardian. Decades later, Barnabas is unearthed and returns to his mansion to find it filled with his descendants, a cynical bunch of misfits clad in paisley, polo necks and huge sunglasses. “What is the year?” Barnabas asks a “future dweller”. “1972,” comes the terrified reply, before a hefty chunk of Curtis Mayfield’s Pusherman drops in to drive the stake home.

FILE-Elton John to release new album The Diving Board later this year. (AFP)

Eminem drops in on 50 Cent’s ‘Get Rich’ SXSW show

The Buzz

Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network is pulling the curtain on “The Rosie Show” after five months on the air.The show premiered in October to about 500,000 viewers but lost about half that audience within days of its debut. Recently, it changed the format from taping before a studio audience to a one-on-one interview setting with celebrities such as Kathy Griffin, Chelsea Handler and former Illinois first lady Patti Blagojevich. In a statement released by OWN, Winfrey thanked O’Donnell.

She called O’Donnell “an incredible partner” who worked to put on the best show “every single day.” O’Donnell also was quoted as saying she loved working with Winfrey and in Chicago and “wished” the show had better ratings. The final episode will air March 30. -AP

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Britain’s Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, presents a traditional sprig of shamrock to Conmeal, an Irish wolfhound and regimental mascot of the Irish Guards regiment, during a shamrock presentation ceremony for the Irish Guards on St Patrick’s Day in Aldershot on March 17, 2012. (AFP)

MUMBAI: Bollywood film-makers have welcomed the government’s decision to exempt the world’s largest film industry from service tax in Budget 2012/13, meeting a long-standing demand. This means there will be no more service tax levied on distribution or exhibition rights. Following are some reactions from Bollywood: KARAN JOHAR, film-maker: “It is very gratifying to hear. I was just expressing my disappointment just yesterday that the industry was being ignored, but the news that we are on the negative list is very very good. This will help rationalize taxes, and eliminate the double taxation that the industry was being burdened with.”

RAMESH SIPPY, producer: “We met the finance minister a couple of weeks ago, and appealed to him to eliminate service tax. It looks like that appeal has been heard. I don’t know the details, but I know that we will now have to pay only VAT and entertainment tax. The latter is a state subject and varies from state to state.”

BOBBY BEDI, producer: “The reduction of service across board will make a difference to the film industry and help rationalize tax.”

SANJEEV LAMBA, CEO, Reliance Entertainment: “With no service tax now on transfer of copyrights, and entertainment becoming a part of the negative list, this is a huge positive for the industry. There will, however, be a negative impact due to the general increase in service tax, excise and custom duties.”-Reuters

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ALWATAN DAILY

AROUND TOWN / TIME OUT

SUNDAY, MARCH 18, 2012

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

Feature o f

graffiti

the day

moderately confused

The Parliament Band performs at KGL annual dinner

Sudoku

Elementary

KUWAIT: The Parliament Band with special participation of Red Shadow band’s male vocalist “John” and base guitarist “Jay” performed at Kuwait Gulf Link (KGL) annual dinner for top executive and families held Thursday night at KGL Resort in Wafra Zour.

Lead vocalists Jen and Liza, lead guitarist and musical director Nomer, drummer and percussionist Edu with John and Jay treated the crowd to an evening of standard music and contemporary rhythms. The Parliament

Month a t

Intermediate

Advanced

Band, a show band that features mellow, jazz, standard and dance beats bring to its performances a different aura reliving back the classic theme of “Godfather” to a contemporary “Beyonce” all wrapped into sophisticated looks and vibrant music. The Parliament Band will also perform for the charity event of K’s Path, Kuwait’s shelter for abandoned animals. For the month of April, The Parliament Band will also grace embassy events and corporate dinners.

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

a glance ing individuals with a wide range of volunteer work. Making giving to others simple and a way of life as well as a way to develop ones skills and then help others. This group is only 2 years old but is already making an impact and expanding their network. They regularly serve notable charities and good causes such as Bayt Abdullah hospice and journey of hope. All are welcome to learn more about this group.

AUK hosts lecture March 21/ 6 p.m. / AUK: The Centre for Gulf Studies (CGS) at the American University of Kuwait is hosting a lecture entitled “’The People Are Missing’: Palestinians in Kuwait” by Dr. Mai Al Nakib, Assistant Professor of English at Kuwait University. During her lecture, Dr. Al-Nakib will look at the status of the Palestinian community in Kuwait prior to the first Gulf War, discussing the ethical consequences to Kuwait after their expulsion in 1991.

K’S PATH invites applicants for the adoption of pets Lana is a very affectionate and sweet female puppy of mixed breed. She was born in October 2011. Lana is a happy girl who loves to play and go for long walks. She will be a great addition to a family with children over 10 years of age.

New Toastmasters Club Kuwaiti cuisine March 15-April 5/6 p.m. - 8 p.m./TIES Center: TIES Ladies Club invites you to our Kuwaiti cuisine classes which will start soon. Join us for a one month cooking program where you will learn to cook real Kuwaiti food. All ladies are invited to join our classes and let your family enjoy the mouth watering Kuwaiti cuisine. For more information/registration, contact 25231015/6.

Arabic course March 11-April 19/ TIES Center: TIES Center is glad to announce the start of Arabic courses. We offer classes for all levels, from beginners to advance and also introduced new classes called Kuwait dialect. TIES Arabic classes are intended for all expatriates who wish to learn Arabic for whatever purposebusiness, basic communication, as a second language or simply as a hobby. For more information/registration, contact 97228860/97793440.

Diwaniya presentation March 20/ 7 p.m. /The AWARE Centre: The AWARE Center cordially invites you to its diwaniya presentation Tuesday entitled, “Spread the Passion: connecting volunteer opportunities to social responsibilities” by Fatemah AlMousawi. Spread the Passion is a group of volunteers with the aim of involv-

Fiona is a beautiful female SemiLong Haired cat born in May 2008.

She loves being cuddled and a good belly rub! She enjoys being held and likes to play. Fiona would be a lovely new family member in a household with children over 5 years of age. To adopt, call (+965) 6700 1622.

Second and fourth Tuesday/ 7 p.m. - 9 p.m. / Jabriya: A new Toastmasters Club is being formed and encouraging new members to join. Toastmasters International is a world leader in communication and leadership development. It is a non-profit international organization dedicated to improve member’s communication and leadership skills by attending and participating toastmasters meetings. For more information, please contact Khaled Al-Hashem at 65588824.

Waist Watchers Every Tuesday/ 6 p.m. – 7 p.m. / British Ladies Society: Meetings are based on the world’s most successful healthy eating plan. Weekly meetings include private weigh in, motivational talks, recipes to try, and cooking demonstrations.

Fee of KD 2.500 is required to cover for the cost of course material. For more info contact; Danielle desertdanny@hotmail.com.

Brainbang session October 7-April/ 11:45 a.m. -1:45 p.m. /Salmiya: BRAINBANG, the creative arm of Friends of CRY Club (FOCC) invites all students aged 11 and above, to join us fortnightly on Fridays. The areas of development are: Creativity in learning, tools and techniques to empower your mind, profile based learning, activity, fun, games and worksheet based assignments, practical experiments, mind gymnastics and application of learning techniques to conventional study.

E-mail: brainbang@focckwt.org or call 25660835/25618471/97677820.

Dilbert

The Philippine Embassy The Philippine Embassy in Kuwait announces that the Department or Foreign Affairs is advising all passport applicants to claim their passports within six (6) months from the date of application. Otherwise, unclaimed passports shall be cancelled and sent back to the Department for disposal. The Embassy will continue to entertain last minute claimants for such unclaimed passports within the next two months before finally canceling the passport in accordance with the directive of the Department.

Royal Thai Embassy The Royal Thai Embassy in Kuwait wishes to invite Kuwaiti companies that deal business with Thai companies or those agencies of Thai commercial companies to visit the Embassy’s Commercial Office to register their relevant information to be part of the embassy’s business and trade database. The Royal Thai Embassy is located in Jabriya, Block 6, Street 8, Villa No. 1, Telephone No. 25317530 -25317531, Ext: 14.

Nancy

Horoscopes Aries: March 21 - April 19

You may find that your heart is bouncing back and forth like a tennis ball today, Aries. One minute you could be drawn one way, while the next minute you’re drawn in a completely different direction. Instead of trying to fight this feeling, take advantage of it. Consciously or unconsciously, what you’re really doing is exploring. Try new things until you’re sure that you’ve found what you need.

Taurus: April 20 - May 20

Your energy level is high today, Taurus, but don’t let this turn into a head-in-the-clouds attitude.

Keep one foot firmly planted on the ground, because you may need to keep a level head in a work or personal situation. Keep in mind that the best way to deal with this is to use your positive energy to heal the difficult situation instead of letting this difficult situation get you down.

Gemini: May 21- June 21

You could think that your life is too boring for anyone else to care about, Gemini. Don’t fall into a well of self-pity and convince yourself that there simply isn’t enough excitement in your life and never will be. Believe that you have the power to cure any such downtrodden feeling that you might have at this time.

Cancer: June 22 - July 22

In an effort to be the brightest and best star on the stage, Cancer, you might actually be driving away the most important members of your audience. Make sure that you aren’t putting on different masks with different people just so you can appease those you’re with. Others can see right through any disguise you try to put on.

Trying to deceive others is simply a sign of disrespect.

Leo: July 23 - August 22

Go ahead and make a list today, Leo. Powerful emotions are likely to lure you from your current path unless you have some sort of concrete plan to fall back on. Put idle hands to use by delegating tasks to the people around you. You’ll be amazed at the little blocks of time you have when you stay on task and keep yourself and everyone else around you in motion.

Virgo: August 23 - September 22

If you look carefully today, Virgo, you’re apt to notice aspects of people that you never noticed before. There could be a frenzy of activity that catches you in its net and takes you away. Look to other people for guidance as you go along. When you ask for help, you’ll get it.

Libra: September 23 - October 22

Be careful about becoming too stubborn today, Libra. This is one of those days in which you’re asked to build a structure in a very windy area. If you insist on using the most rigid materials, you’ll find that the structure you build ends up snapping in two. If, however, you construct your building with flexible materials, it will bend in the wind and last far longer.

Scorpio: October 23 - November 21

It’s a good thing you have a flexible attitude, Scorpio, especially today. Your adaptive powers could be put to the test as you find yourself surrounded by fickle emotions and stubborn attitudes. Don’t get too hung up on getting straight answers from people today, for they’re apt to be just as confused as you about certain issues.

Play it cool for now and ride the waves easily to shore.

Sagittarius: November 22 - December 21

You could be frustrated by others’ lack of commitment today, Sagittarius. You could try to make plans with people but they keep changing their minds about what they want to do. Perhaps they’re emotionally insecure and afraid to take the next step. Don’t let other people hold you back. Make plans and stick to them.

Capricorn: December 22 - January 19

You should be feeling emotionally strong today, Capricorn, although you could find that an idea runs through your head that asks you to slow down and take things once step at a time.The internal dialogue could drive you crazy if you aren’t careful. The most important thing to do now is simply follow your heart. Do what you love to do, and associate with the people you love and respect the most.

Aquarius: January 20 - February 18

Make the effort to get to a body of water today, Aquarius. Whether it’s the ocean, a river, or lake, the sense of expansion and comfort that you’ll find there will be extremely healing. Know that you are the greatest healer you have for yourself and that you have incredible power to share this gift with others, too. Augment this healing energy with a return to nature.

Pisces: February 19 - March 20

You may find it hard to connect with your emotions today, Pisces. It could be that it’s difficult to find a bit of quiet time when you can really sit down and listen to your inner voice. There are distractions all around that are pulling you in many different directions. Keep in mind that these forces aren’t necessarily acting in your best interests.

ALWATAN DAILY

SPORTS

sunDAY, march 18, 2012

15

Formula one

Hamilton grabs pole for Australian Grand Prix MELBOURNE: Dazzling Lewis Hamilton claimed pole position for the Australian Grand Prix Saturday ahead of his McLaren team-mate Jenson Button, with defending world champion Sebastian Vettel back in sixth.

Britain’s Hamilton, 27, the 2008 drivers’ king, clocked a fastest time of one minute and 24.922 seconds around Melbourne’s Albert Park track, beating Button by just one-tenth of a second.

In a thrilling finish to qualifying, Frenchman Romain Grosjean took third place for Lotus on his first appearance in Melbourne, pushing seven-time champion Michael Schumacher of Mercedes down to fourth.

That meant the Red Bull pairing of home hero Mark Webber and Germany’s Vettel qualified fifth and sixth for the 58-lap race.

But while Red Bull were disappointed, it was a neardisastrous day for Ferrari who failed to place a driver in the top 10 starting positions.

Two-time champion Fernando Alonso spun out at turn one in the second session and left his car beached in the gravel trap, while his team-mate Felipe Massa could not improve on 16th place.

It was also a bad session for returning 2007 champion Kimi Raikkonen, who failed to progress from the first part of qualifying in his Lotus and will start from 18th.

Schumacher’s Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg was seventh ahead of Pastor Maldonado of Williams, Nico Hulkenberg of Force India and Australian Daniel Ricciardo, who marked his Melbourne debut by placing 10th for Toro Rosso.

For Hamilton, his speed brought the 20th pole of his career on a day when he was supported by his close friend and former fiancee Nicole Scherzinger.

Hamilton said: “It’s a great start to the season for me and the team, but we know that it is only Saturday and tomorrow is the day that counts. I must say the team has done a great job. It has been a great effort by the team after a couple of tough years. It was a great lap for me and I tried to improve it by braking later at turn one the next time, but unfortunately it didn’t work and luckily for me my first lap was good enough.”

Button also paid warm tribute to the McLaren team.

“They have done a fantastic job over the winter and this is the proof of that,” he said.

“We have done a good job to get the best out of ourselves this weekend.”

Grosjean was delighted with third-place finish. “I al-

(Left to right) Third placed Romain Grosjean of Lotus, first placed Lewis Hamilton of McLaren and Jenson Button of McLaren celebrate in parc ferme after qualifying for the Australian Formula One Grand Prix at the Albert Park circuit, March 17, 2012. (AFP)

ways had this kind of a dream and today it is not a dream.

We are here. It is a great feeling and it is a wonderful feeling for the team.”

On a dry and cool evening as the sun fell over Albert Park, the opening qualifying mini-session delivered a predictable outcome with the elimination of the HRT and Marussia drivers.

Because HRT’s Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan both failed to qualify within 107 per cent of the pole time, they will not be allowed to take part in Sunday’s race.

The surprise came with the elimination of Raikkonen along with Russian Vitaly Petrov, who finished third in this event in 2011 for the then Renault team, now renamed Lotus.

The second session, Q2, saw Alonso fly off the track

Tennis

and then stamp furiously in a clearly fit of frustration and anger as he confronted the race marshals helping him from his car.

He was eliminated, in 12th place, along with 11thplaced Jean-Eric Vergne of Toro Rosso, Kamui Kobayashi of Sauber, Bruno Senna of Williams, Paul Di Resta of Force India, Massa and Mexico’s Sergio Perez in the second Sauber.

Hamilton, champion in 2008, has vowed to bounce back from a disappointing series last year when he was distracted by personal problems and finished fifth in the standings.

And Vettel is launching his bid to become only the third driver to win three Formula One championships in a row, after the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio and Michael Schumacher. -Reuters

No need for Red Bull panic, says Vettel

MELBOURNE: World champion Sebastian Vettel said it was too early for Red Bull to push the panic button despite failing to get a car on the front two rows of the grid for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on Saturday.

Having dominated Formula One, particularly in qualifying, for the last two seasons, Vettel and his Australian team mate Mark Webber find themselves in the unusual position of starting Sunday’s race on the third row.

“Maybe here it is a different situation but the race is still to come,” said the 24-year-old, who won from pole position at Albert Park last year. “It’s still early days. It would be wrong to start panicking and start reviewing every aspect of the car and every area. The way we have worked across the last couple of years was not bad. Nevertheless, today we learned we are not quick enough. That’s what we want to change.” Vettel conceded he had made a mistake at the start of his flying lap in the third qualifying session and had to settle for sixth fastest.

Red Bulls started from pole position in 18 of the 19 races last season - Vettel took a record 15 of them - and won 12 races - 11 for Vettel - as they won second successive drivers’ and constructors’ titles.

Webber, who has a best finish of fifth in 10 attempts at winning his home race, suffered a KERS boost mechanism failure in third qualifying and he finished fifth fastest but said there was no fundamental problem with the car.

“As is always the way in Formula One, when you are a little bit off, you are extremely exposed and we saw that today,” the 35-year-old said. “We have done that to the opposition many times over. In all sports you get what you deserve and we tried our best today but it wasn’t good enough.

But they haven’t handed out any trophies yet so we’ll see what happens tomorrow.”

Having played very much second fiddle to his team mate last year as he struggled with the new tires introduced into Formula One, Webber said it was a small pleasure to be in front of the German in qualifying. -Reuters

Basketball

Nadal, Federer to play in Sessions debuts, Lakers beat Wolves for 19th time BNP Paribas Open semis

Rafael Nadal of Spain serves to David Nalbandian of Argentina during their Men’s quarter-final match at the Indian Wells ATP tennis tournament in Indian Wells, California, March 16, 2012.

(Reuters)

INDIAN WELLS, California: Three-times champion Roger Federer and twice winner Rafa Nadal won their quarter-final matches at the Indian Wells ATP tournament on Friday to set up an enticing last four showdown.

Federer booked his place in the semi-finals with a ruthless 6-3 6-2 victory over big-serving Juan Martin Del Potro of Argentina before Nadal fought back to beat David Nalbandian, also of Argentina, 4-6 7-5 6-4.

Saturday’s other semifinal will pit Serbian world number one Novak Djokovic against 11th-seeded American John Isner, both players having advanced on Thursday.

Second seed Nadal was delighted to scrape through, saving two break points in a gripping 10th game of the third set before sealing victory with a forehand drop shot to end an absorbing baseline rally.

Nalbandian, on the run, sent his attempted backhand return well wide and Nadal punched the air in delight as the stadium court erupted after a riveting encounter lasting two hours, 39 minutes.

Nalbandian, whose last victory over Nadal came at the 2007 Masters Series event in Paris, broke the Spaniard in the 10th game of the match when he hit a searing forehand winner down the line to take the opening set.

It was the first set Nadal had dropped in the tournament, having breezed through his first three matches for the loss of just 14 games at the hardcourt venue.

The second set went with serve until Nalbandian was broken in the 11th game after netting an attempted backhand drop shot to trail 30-40 and then double-faulting. Nadal comfortably held serve to level the match.

The Spaniard seized control in the third set, breaking the Argentinean in the first and seventh games to lead 5-2.

Nadal was then broken while serving for the match in the eighth, squandered a match point in the ninth and finally sealed victory on his second opportunity after an absorbing 10th game.

Swiss world number three Federer broke ninth seed Del Potro once in the opening set and twice in the second to wrap up his win in just over an hour at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.

Federer, who powered down 13 aces in a one-sided match, completed his fifth successive straight-sets victory over the tall Argentine when his opponent netted a forehand service return.

Federer, who had battled flu and a temperature to beat his first three opponents at Indian Wells, has won 37 of his 39 matches since last year’s US Open. -Reuters

LOS ANGELES: Kobe Bryant scored 28 points, Ramon Sessions had seven points and five assists as a reserve in his Los Angeles debut, and the Lakers beat Minnesota 97-92 Friday night for their 19th consecutive victory over the Timberwolves.

Andrew Bynum had 15 points and 14 rebounds, and Pau Gasol added 17 points and 11 rebounds in the Lakers’ fifth straight win overall - and their first game since early 2007 without Derek Fisher in their starting lineup.

The five-time NBA champion point guard was traded to Houston on Thursday, and Sessions arrived from Cleveland to replace him along with promoted starter Steve Blake, who went scoreless with six assists in 29 minutes. Sessions made an immediate impression with three quick layups and several sharp passes.

Bryant still kept the Lakers on track, hitting five 3-pointers and scoring 17 points in the second half while revealing no obvious displeasure with the loss of Fisher, his teammate for 13 of their 16 NBA seasons.

Kevin Love had 27 points and 15 rebounds for the Timberwolves, who have lost four of five while dropping below .500 (22-23) in a skid that began with the Lakers’ 105-102 win in Minneapolis a week ago. Nikola Pekovic had 20 points and 12 rebounds while engaging in a lively clash under both baskets with Bynum, but Minnesota dropped to 1-2 on its seven-game road trip despite out-

rebounding the Lakers 55-47.

Los Angeles never trailed for just the second time all season, nursing a small lead throughout the fourth quarter and winning at home for the 19th time in 20 games since Christmas. The Lakers’ 19 straight wins over the Timberwolves comprise the longest active streak for one NBA team against one opponent.

The Lakers improved to 8-2 in a tough 17-day stretch since the All-Star break, increasing their Pacific Division lead over the Clippers to three games.

Sessions made an immediate impression on any Lakers fans who might not have liked the trades that resulted in Fisher’s departure on Thursday. General manager Mitch Kupchak shipped veterans Luke Walton and Jason Kapono to Cleveland for Sessions before sending Fisher to Houston for backup big man Jordan Hill.

After getting a warm ovation when he checked in, Sessions immediately darted into the lane and scored just 13 seconds into his Lakers tenure. Along with his three driving layups, Sessions’ athleticism was impressive to Staples Center fans who had grown used to watching Fisher getting beaten off the dribble by younger point guards.

Sessions finished the first half with six points, two assists and two rebounds in 10 minutes, and the Lakers led 50-41 after shutting down the Wolves except for Pekovic and Love, who scored five points in the final seconds to trim Los Angeles’ 14-point lead. -AP

Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant (24) gets by Minnesota Timberwolves guard Luke Ridnour (13) as he drives to the basket during an NBA basketball game, Friday, March, 16, 2012. (AP)

Cricket

Proteas come up big in key moments to seal win

South Africa’s Graeme Smith (left) and teammate Hashim Amla walk off after their 9 wicket win over New Zealand on the third day of their second international cricket test match, March 17, 2012. (AP)

HAMILTON, New Zealand: South Africa’s crushing nine-wicket victory over New Zealand to win the second test inside three days on Saturday was achieved by three 20-minute periods of superb pace bowling and their tail contributing a valuable 165 runs when they were in deep trouble.

Graeme Smith completed the victory when he drove part-time spinner Rob Nicol through the covers to take his side to 103 for one, two more runs than they needed, shortly before tea on the third day at Seddon Park in Hamilton.

Skipper Smith, who finished on 55 not out, and Hashim Amla (46) had needed less than 90 minutes to score the 101 runs that gave their side a 1-0 lead in the three-match series.

The victory, however, had been set up through the exploits of their fast bowlers Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander, when they captured five New Zealand wickets for no runs late on day one to trigger a collapse from a comfortable 133 for two to 133-7.

Philander and Steyn also provided the spark needed in New Zealand’s sec-

ond innings when they reduced Ross Taylor’s side to 7-3 just after tea on the second day, while the former ran trhough the lower middle order either side of lunch on Saturday.

Philander finished with combined figures of 10-114, his second 10-wicket haul in just his sixth test to be named man of the match.

Despite being comprehensively outplayed in the match, which lost more than two hours of play due to rain on the first day, New Zealand had an opportunity to impose themselves on the South Africans’ first inning after Mark Gillespie had ripped the heart out of their order.

Gillespie took 4-24 from seven overs as the Proteas collapsed to 88-6, before AB de Villiers (83) rallied the tail and the final four wickets added 165 runs that gave the visitors a valuable 68-run first innings lead.

Taylor said his side’s inability to finish off the South African tail had been crucial in the first innings and they needed to make the most of such opportunities as they headed to Wellington for the third and final test next week. -Reuters

SUNdAY, MARCH 18, 2012

SPORTS

Football

I never want to leave Barcelona, says Messi

FILE - Barcelona’s Lionel Messi celebrates a second goal against Manchester United during their Champions League final soccer match at Wembley stadium in London in this May 28, 2011.

(Reuters)

LONDON: Barcelona forward Lionel Messi wants to spend the rest of his career with the European champions, who he believes are one of the greatest club sides of all time.

“The truth is my idea has been to always stay in Barcelona and see out the rest of my career here,” he told Sky Sports in an interview to be broadcast on Saturday. “Like I always say, one doesn’t know what can happen in the future but if it were up to me to decide, I would stay at Barcelona for the rest of my career.”

The 24-year-old Messi added that he had never seen a team play better football than the present Barcelona side.

“I didn’t see the other great teams that people say have existed throughout history,” he was quoted as saying on the Sky Sports website (www.skysports.com).

“Mainly because of my age, I wasn’t old enough to have seen the great teams that we are compared with.

From what I have seen I think it (the current Barca side) is the best, but I can’t really compare (older great teams) as I don’t know enough about the others.”

Messi also praised coach Pep Guardiola for Barcelona’s success - they are bidding for a third Champions League title in four seasons - and for helping him score more goals.

“Since Guardiola’s arrival, he has made the team play this way. When he arrived he made me play higher up, closer to the goal in order for me to score more goals which, until his arrival, I hadn’t done on a regular basis.

“He made us prepare better in training and for games, making it seem that every game was a final. He prepares everything with his vision when the games are played and everything he does shows he is the best coach in the world.”

Messi scored a Champions League record haul of five goals in one match when Barcelona beat Bayer Leverkusen 7-1 earlier this month to reach the quarterfinals where they face AC Milan.

His performance prompted Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney to rate the Argentine as “the best ever” on his Twitter account and Messi said he was flattered by the praise. “It was incredible for Rooney to say those things about me. But not just Rooney, many other players in the profession put things in respect of the game where I scored five goals.

“I am very thankful and it makes me very happy that colleagues say words of support, especially when they come from players of Rooney’s class,” Messi added. -Reuters

Di Matteo says Chelsea have their passion back LONDON: Chelsea’s return to form since the sacking of Portuguese Andre Villas-Boas is down to the players rediscovering their passion for the game, interim manager Roberto Di Matteo said on Friday.

The Italian has overseen three consecutive wins since Villas-Boas was axed, culminating in the enthralling 5-4 aggregate victory over Napoli on Wednesday that earned the Londoners a Champions League quarter-final against Benfica.

The games are coming thick and fast for Chelsea with second tier Leicester City visiting Stamford Bridge on Sunday in the last eight of the FA Cup and then a trip to Manchester City on Wednesday in the Premier League.

There was little optimism a few weeks ago but Chelsea are now suddenly buoyant and Di Matteo is being tipped by former manager Ruud Gullit for the permanent position.

“I’ve been speaking to the players individually ... to try and get them feeling the responsibility and make them aware of our targets, to bring a little bit of team spirit back, the spirit of sacrifice and passion for the game,” Di Matteo told a news conference. “I am looking to the future and we just have to get results. That’s what we are focusing on.”

Skipper John Terry and fellow central defender David Luiz should shrug off knocks in time for Sunday as

Chelsea’s English defender John Terry celebrates scoring the second goal during their UEFA Champions League round of 16 second leg football match against Napoli at Stamford Bridge, March 14, 2012. (AFP)

Chelsea put all thoughts of Champions League glamour to one side. “I think they will both be available,” said former Italy midfielder Di Matteo who scored inside the first minute in Chelsea’s 1997 FA Cup final victory over Middlesbrough.

“There are a few knocks and bruises, it was very intense and physical (against Napoli), but we expect everybody to be ready. We have everybody fit and we will need everybody. It’s difficult to leave certain players out for some games but we have such an intense schedule that it’s great to be in this position,” added Di Matteo.

“We obviously have to take into consideration that we played extra-time on Wednesday and will try and put out the strongest team available to win the game. I don’t know yet what the team will be. I have to check tomorrow how people have recovered from the Napoli game,” said Di Matteo.

Six-times FA Cup winners Chelsea struggled past second tier Birmingham City in the previous round and Di Matteo is expecting Leicester to be equally tough.

“With Birmingham we had a replay and we have to be aware we have to perform again at a very high level to go through,” he said. “This club has a great history in the competition and I remember we played Leicester when I was playing.We needed a replay then and it was very difficult.” -Reuters

Sports Editors Highlight MADRID: Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho says injured forward Angel di Maria won’t return before April to help cover the final stretch of the season. Di Maria has played about 30 minutes in 2012 due to a right leg muscle injury and Mourinho says the 24-year-old should start training in one week as “we won’t risk him-there’s fear we could lose him again.” The Portuguese coach signaled Turkey midfielder Nuri Sahin remained part of his future plans despite the 10 million ($14 million) offseason signing’s failure to feature for the Spanish leader in 2012. Mourinho says: “He’ll be here next season, when we’ll expect much more.” Madrid leads Barcelona by 10 points and plays APOEL in the Champions League quarter-finals. -AP

We’ll be ready for World Cup, Brazil tells FIFA BRASILIA: Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff assured FIFA chief Sepp Blatter on Friday the country would be ready to host the 2014 World Cup, easing tensions over the slow pace of preparations for the finals.

“We are very happy with the outcome of this meeting. You see a smiling FIFA president,” Blatter told a news conference after holding talks with Rousseff in the capital Brasilia.

“The President ... said there is no doubt the government will implement all the guarantees that have been given to FIFA.” Earlier this month Jerome Valcke, general secretary of soccer’s ruling body, said Brazilian officials needed a “kick up the backside” to speed up preparations.

In a meeting on Thursday night with Sports Minister Aldo Rebelo, Blatter agreed to keep Valcke sidelined and said he was committed to personally leading FIFA’s dealings with Brazil, a government source who declined to be identified told Reuters. “Only time will tell if Valcke returns” to Brazil, the source said. Blatter’s visit came as Brazil faced growing criticism for the slow pace of preparations for the tournament.

Although most of the 12 stadiums are generally on schedule, transportation and

hotel infrastructure in most of the host cities remain woefully insufficient to accommodate the huge influx of visitors expected. The government is scrambling to upgrade airports, partnering in three cities with private airport operators who have pledged to invest heavily to build new terminals.

However, some of the airport overhauls will not be ready in time for the World Cup. FIFA is also worried about delays in Brazil’s Congress voting on a bill outlining regulations for the tournament and the curtain-raiser, the 2013 Confederations Cup. One of the bill’s key clauses would allow the sale of alcohol in football stadiums, something FIFA has been lobbying for on behalf of beer sponsors.

Alcohol has been banned in Brazilian stadiums since 2003 in an effort to discourage violence between rival fans.

The government, which has tense relations with Congress, appeared to withdraw support for the clause this week when its representative in the lower house said he would remove it from the bill.

A day later, though, the government backtracked and said the clause would stay in. Rousseff assured Blatter the bill would be passed in its entirety, possibly as

early as next week, the source added.

Blatter and Rousseff also agreed on Friday to meet more regularly to discuss the progress of preparations.

Brazilian soccer great Pele, the country’s World Cup ambassador, and former international striker Ronaldo were also at the meeting.

Ronaldo is a member of the local organizing committee for the tournament.

Pele offered to use his diplomatic skills to ensure relations between Brazil and FIFA do not sour again.

“I told President Dilma that from now on she shouldn’t call me minister, she could call me firefighter,” he told reporters.

“Fortunately I think that from here on we’re going to work together in harmony without crises. I’m sure we’re going to have the best World Cup ever in Brazil.”

Earlier this week, Ricardo Teixeira quit after 23 years as head of the Brazilian Football Confederation following a string of corruption allegations. Teixeira, who had rocky relations with Blatter, was also head of the local organising committee for the World Cup. His resignation added to the uncertainty surrounding Brazil’s efforts to get ready for the tournament. -Reuters

FA Cup honors even as Everton, Sunderland draw ENGLAND: Everton came from behind to earn a 1-1 draw with Sunderland in the two Premier League teams’ FA Cup quarter-final at Goodison Park.

A frenetic first half saw Sunderland take an early lead through fullback Phil Bardsley before Everton leveled with a header from Tim Cahill. Sunderland’s opener came after a cleverly worked free-kick on 12 minutes, Jack Colback squaring to Bardsley, who lashed home a thunderous low shot that gave Everton keeper Tim Howard no chance. Yet Everton, aiming to bounce back from their Merseyside derby mauling in midweek, drew level just over 10 minutes later with a goal that owed everything to the predatory instincts of Australian international Cahill. Leighton Baines swung in a

cross from the left and Nikica Jelavic’s header found Cahill, who reacted swiftly to steer in the equalizer.

An evenly balanced second half saw both sides struggle to create many clear-cut chances although Everton nearly snatched a winner in the dying minutes only to be denied by a superb double save from Simon Mignolet. The Belgian international goalkeeper dived at full stretch to claw away Johnny Heitinga’s well-directed header and then sprang to his feet to block Jelavic’s follow-up for a corner. The result means David Moyes’ Toffees must now travel to the Stadium of Light for a replay as they attempt to return to Wembley three years after their defeat in the final against Chelsea.

-AFP