March 2, 2012 by Al Watan Daily

FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 2012

@alwatandaily

Issue No. 1361

20 PAGES

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150 Fils with IHT

Parliament presses to arm Syrian rebel forces • Lawmakers demand severing ties with Damascus • Main Syrian opposition group forms military bureau

KUWAIT: Parliament adopted on Thursday a non-binding resolution calling on the government to support and arm the Syrian opposition (Free Syria Army) and called on severing diplomatic ties with Damascus. The vote came following an emergency session to debate developments in Syria, where thousands of people have been killed in a bloody crackdown by the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad on pro-democracy protests. The resolution called on Kuwait to “support the Free Syrian Army with weapons.” The government did not object to the recommendations and said it will study them before taking a final decision. Parliament also urged the government to join international efforts to refer the Syrian president to the International Criminal Court as a war criminal. On Wednesday, MPs passed a resolution calling on the government to recognize the opposition Syrian National Council as the legitimate representative

of the Syrian people. The Free Syrian Army is composed mainly of Syrian soldiers who have defected and volunteer civilians.

Meanwhile, Syria’s main opposition group has formed a “military bureau” to organize and unify the armed resistance to the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad.

Lawmakers during a vote in Parliament in Kuwait City on March 1, 2012. Kuwait’s parliament adopted a non-binding resolution calling on the government to arm the Syrian opposition and to sever diplomatic ties with Damascus. (Al-Watan)

At least 12 killed in deadly US Midwest storms

Debris from several houses rest on top of another house after a tornado struck in Harrisburg, Illinois, Feb. 29, 2012. Powerful storms ripped through the Midwest, obliterating homes, churches and businesses across ﬁve states, authorities said. (Reuters)

Western sanctions tighten squeeze on Iran oil exports

More on 5

The Syrian National Council (SNC) has called for weapons for rebels in the past, but Thursday’s move was the first time the country’s main opposition group is seeking to organize the fighters. The UN’s top human rights body has condemned Syria for its “widespread and systematic violations” against civilians in the crackdown on opposition groups. Members of the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday voted 37 in favor and three against a resolution proposed by Turkey. Three members of the 47nation body abstained and four didn’t vote. The resolution calls on Syria to immediately stop all attacks on civilians and grant unhindered access to aid groups. Russia, China and Cuba objected to the resolution. The Geneva-based council’s vote carries no legal weight but diplomats consider it a strong moral signal that may encourage a similar resolution in the powerful UN Security Council. More on 2 & 4

Municipality to impose up to KD 300 fine for violating waterfront regulations

KUWAIT: The Director General of the Kuwait Municipal Council Engineer Ahmad Al-Subaih on Thursday announced an up to 300 Kuwaiti dinars fine for waterfront attendees that violate regulations and laws by barbequing in places other than those designated for that purpose in addition to imposing similar fines to street vendors. In a statement to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), Al-Subaih affirmed that there will be a zero tolerance of laws and regulations on violators noting that emergency teams will be in charge of monitoring irregularities and anyone misusing these facilities. Additionally, Al-Subaih pointed out that the municipal authorities have conducted comprehensive awareness campaigns during which the officials explained the best means of preserving public utilities. He noted that there are specific places for barbequing to prevent any damage to plants that cost the State millions of dinars. For his part, the head of the Ahmadi Municipal Branch Engineer Yousef Mullah Ali urged citizens to abide with the regulations and municipal laws and regulations, to not litter and alert patrons to not barbecue destroying the public landscape in order to avoid legal consequences, while asserting that the public utilities have been put in place for the common good. -KUNA

View of one of Kuwait’s road during a dust storm passing over the country on Thursday, March 1, 2012. Despite low visibility Kuwait International Airport ﬂights were not affected and were operating as scheduled. Kuwait Ports Authority suspended navigation brieﬂy at Shuwaikh Port as visibility dropped to below one mile due to the sandstorm. Three vessels were denied access to the port and two container ships were prevented from leaving due to these conditions. Today’s weather is expected to be sunny and mostly clear. (Al-Watan)

Yemen troops protest demanding army chiefs’ ouster

Bombing wounds at least 15 policemen in Turkey

Brand-name deals to mix with Facebook friend posts

NEW YORK: Messages from brands may soon be mixed in with your Facebook status updates and baby photos from friends and family. Facebook unveiled new advertising opportunities to help the world’s biggest brands spread their message on the world’s largest online social network. Facebook executives outlined a long-term vision to move from advertisements to stories. Brands you’ve endorsed by hitting the “like” button will now be able to push deals and other updates right into the news feeds that show your friends’ updates, photos and links. These posts could also show up if one of your friends

has interacted with a brand. The changes come ahead of Facebook’s initial public offering of stock, expected this spring. The IPO could value the company at as much as $100 billion. That means Facebook has to prove it can bring in real advertising revenue. This could now change as Facebook moves to integrate brands’ messages into its 845 million users’ pages. Rather than bombarding people with flashy ads, Facebook is urging companies to integrate themselves into what people are already doing on the site - talking to their friends and family, commenting on photos or posting news links. -AP

Monkees frontman Davy Jones dead at 66 Vatican archive treasures in first public display

Maldivian protestors take part in a rally in Male on March 1, 2012. Opposition MPs in the Maldives have prevented the new president, who is accused of seizing power in a coup, from opening parliament as violent protests erupted outside the building. Opposition lawmakers grabbed the Speaker’s chair amid angry scufﬂes, according to local reports, and stopped President Mohamed Waheed from addressing the assembly in the capital Male. Police said 14 ofﬁcers were wounded, four of them seriously, in clashes with opposition demonstrators around the parliament. At least 34 people were also arrested. (AFP)

ROME: Members of the English parliament wrote to Pope Clement VII in 1530 urging him to annul Henry VIII’s marriage to his first wife so the king could marry Anne Boleyn, according to Vatican documents on display to the public for the first time. In the large parchment letter, hung with over 80 pendant seals attached with red silk ribbon, they alluded to the “extreme remedies” they could pursue if their request were refused. The letter, which preceded Henry’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon and his rejection of the pope’s authority, is one of 100 documents that have been released from the Vatican Secret Archives for display in Rome’s Capitoline museums, the first time they have been allowed outside the Vatican City. A 60 meter parchment scroll documenting proceedings of the trial of the Knights Templar medieval Christian military order, accused of heresy and sexual misconduct, is partially rolled out in one room of the museums, alongside More on 16 secret manuscripts, letters and codices.

Police forensic ofﬁcers inspect the scene of a bombing near police vehicles in Istanbul March 1, 2012. (Reuters)

ANKARA: A remote-controlled bomb mounted on a motorcycle exploded in Turkey’s largest city Thursday, wounding 15 police officers and one civilian, the prime minister said. The blast occurred in an area of Istanbul close to the office of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, where one policeman had been killed in a bomb attack last year. Thursday’s attack wrecked a police bus and nearby vehicles. “We will never bow to such attacks,”

Erdogan told a televised news conference. “We will continue our struggle against terrorism and the culprits will be captured as soon as possible.” Gov. Huseyin Avni Mutlu of Istanbul said none of the injured are in serious condition. He said the bomb was made of plastic explosives and mounted on a motorcycle. There was no claim of responsibility, but Kurdish rebels and Islamic militants are active in Istanbul. More on 5

London fashion students hail green as the new black

LONDON: Could “green” be the new black? Perhaps only if you can imagine wearing stilettos made from pistachio nuts and coffee beans and clothes from orange peel, fungi and mould. While the fashion pack are hitting the catwalks at Paris Fashion Week, students at London’s Kingston University have taken up the challenge of trying to lower the industry’s carbon footprint by using biodegradable materials to produce luxury clothes, shoes and accessories for home and car interiors. The fashion industry has a high environmental footprint. The manufacture of synthetic fibers like polyester alone produces nearly five times as much carbon dioxide per kilogram as some organic cotton and more than twice as much as hemp, according to a Stockholm Environment Institute study. According to waste industry reports, more than

one million tons of textiles are thrown away every year, with most going to landfill and only 25 percent recycled. InCrops, an initiative based at the University of East Anglia, sponsored the Kingston fashion project, asking students to create designs that show renewable raw materials derived from crops can be used to create low or zero carbon fashion. Apart from stilettos made from pistachio shells and coffee beans, designs include a wood-chip corset by British designer Stefanie Nieuwenhuyse, which was unveiled at London Fashion Week last September and modeled by singer Pixie Lott in Vogue. Designers have made progress in recent years in bringing organic cotton and recycled materials to the high street, but whether orange peel dresses will be worn in the future remains to be seen. -Reuters

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Lawmakers seek to turn Syrian regime over to ICC for war crime FM reviews Kuwait’s pursuit of events in Syria

KUWAIT: The Parliament’s Thursday session, which has been set aside mainly to discuss the situation in Syria saw an escalation among certain lawmakers and ended with a range of recommendations. The numbers of recommendations regarding the crisis in Syria include Kuwait’s support of calls to turn the Syrian regime to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and cutting off political and commercial ties with it. These recommendations came at the tailend of a lawmakers’ discussion of the crisis in Syria. Among the recommendations was one about sending Kuwaiti medical teams to help displaced Syrians, currently taking refuge in border areas, and whisking to Kuwait medical cases requiring extra care. Another recommendation was to have the National Assembly contact other Arab and international parliaments to induce them to pressure their governments to do something about stopping the bloodshed in Syria. Another recommendation urged the government of Kuwait to allow Syrian residents in Kuwait to bring their families in Syria over to join them. Moreover, Bitter arguments were triggered by a statement made by MP Shaya Al-Shaya who addressed MP Abdulhameed Dashti saying, “You are the one who brought together all the mercenaries in your diwaniya and put portraits of Bashar (Al-Assad). You are submissive. You said something yesterday and are saying something different today. I think you have used Tuqya (hypocrisy) with us.” MP Adnan Abdulsamad retorted, accusing Al-Shaya of being ignorant of the religious term he used. His comment sparked angry reactions from MPs Jamaan Al-Harbash, Waleed

Lawmakers are seen discussing among themselves on the sidelines of the parliamentary session held on Thursday, March 1, 2012. (Al Watan)

Al-Tabtabaie, Mubarak Al-Waalan and Osama Al-Munawer. The Speaker of Parliament Ahmad Al-Saadoun described the exchanges as unacceptable and that the statements will be scrapped off the minutes of the session. During the discussions, MP Mohammad Hayef stated that the Syrian revolution has unveiled masks and slogan mongers, while Al-

Tabtabaie maintained that all the revolutions were meant to remove regimes except for the Syrian revolution. According to him, the latter is the “gateway for the liberation of Palestine and breaking the Shiite crescent.” For his part, Dashti argued that the issue of Syria should have been deliberated by the Foreign Affairs Committee in a closed door session, noting that only two countries have

Public Works signs KD 3 million maintenance contract for highways

FILE- Photo of the construction site of Jahra Road, one of the ministry’s projects, in progress. (Al Watan)

Signs agreement to enhance projects department services KUWAIT: The Minister of Public Works, Minister of Planning and Development Dr. Fadhil Safar signed a maintenance contract meant for highways at the total cost of three million Kuwaiti dinars. The contract includes minor construction work and maintenance of highways and bridges of all kinds including crossovers, according to work orders and requirements of maintenance determined by the engineering maintenance

Kuwait main supporter to Hashemite Kingdom: Jordanian writer

AMMAN: Kuwait’s celebrations of the 51st anniversary of Independence Day and 21st of Liberation Day are a chance to reflect on the distinguished Jordanian-Kuwaiti relations, veteran Jordanian writer Sultan Al-Hatab wrote in his column in a Jordanian newspaper Thursday. “Due to its deep roots, these ties managed to overcome all challenges,” he added. Al-Hatab pointed out that these ties have recently grown to unprecedented levels under the wise leaderships of Jordanian King Abdullah II and His Highness the Amir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah. “Figures show that Kuwait was always eager to maintain relations with Jordan at the highest levels and the same applies to Jordan,” he underlined. He unveiled that Kuwait has moved recently to help Jordan meet oil needs and address budget deficit. Al-Hatab hailed Kuwait as one of the main backers of Jordanian people and government, citing a testimony of King Abdullah II in his recently published book in which he said “Kuwaitis and particularly His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah are the biggest supporters to Jordan and main investors in its economy.” -KUNA

sector. The contract includes infrastructure work such as building drainage system, planning work, traffic signs and metal and concrete bridges. Furthermore, the Minister also signed on Thursday an agreement to carry out the Ministry of Public Works’ management services valued at KD 8.2 million. The agreement includes collection of information, studying procedures and methods currently in place, development of a comprehensive and an elaborate system for the projects management for each sector, as well as training of 180 personnel from different sectors on the use of updated systems. -KUNA

‘Awqaf keen to cement national unity through dialogue, acceptance of others’

so far recognized the Syrian National Council, namely Tunisia and Libya. Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid A-Sabah, in a statement made Thursday before the lawmakers at the National Assembly, said that Kuwait has endeavored indefatigably to contain the crisis in Syria from the very start, striving ultimately to cease violence and turmoil in that country

Power maintenance at cost of KD 3 million: Ministry Khaled Al-Otaibi Staff Writer

KUWAIT: The Ministry of Electricity and Water is about to sign four contracts at the total cost of three million and 100 thousand Kuwaiti dinars related to maintenance, improving infrastructure of the power network across the country which is part of the annual maintenance the ministry habitually carries out. The contracts also include electric wires for smaller works in Ahmadi, Mubark Al-Kabeer and Hawalli governorates at the cost of KD 328.5 thousand to provide electric wires for new homes in those areas. There will also be ground cables with medium pressure to expand the capacity of power distributor network at the cost of one million and 587 thousand dinars. The ministry is also keen to carry out maintenance and operation as well as testing works in the Al-Zour Water Distribution Complex at the cost of KD 898 thousand as well as alarm system for fire in the Western Doha Plant for Electric Power and Water and Desalination at the cost of KD 632 thousand.

though a process predicated on dialogue and political resolution. “In doing so, Kuwait has shown its adherence to its regional and international obligations, always seeking peaceful resolutions to momentous problems, threatening world peace,” said Sheikh Sabah, who is also deputy prime minister and state minister for Cabinet affairs. He was responding in his statement to calls by some lawmakers demanding discussion of the crisis in Syria. Among points he mentioned demonstrating Kuwait’s keenness to address the situation in Syria was Kuwait’s attendance of a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) meeting for foreign ministers along with the Russian foreign minister on March 7, dealing with the Syrian issue, but in particular to promulgate GCC’s dismay at the Russian veto in the UN security council. The meeting will drive home the point that the GCC states stand behind the Arab initiative within the framework of the Arab League for peace in Syria, said Sheikh Sabah. The GCC, in that meeting, will impress upon Russia to take a more balanced and realistic viewpoint, responsive to the aspirations of the Syrian people, and conducive to stopping the bloodshed in that country, he said. Moreover, he emphasized that in keeping with Arab League resolutions, Kuwait has launched national campaigns to collect funds and donations for displaced Syrian refugees, currently finding refuge in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. He added that Kuwait would also contribute to the plight of the refugees through donations to international organizations that champion the cause of these refugees in Arab and Islamic countries. The minister went into a detailed account of Kuwait’s reactions to the situation in Syria, from the very start of the crisis there - about a year ago --and up until the present time, in a bid to satisfy the lawmakers of Kuwait’s continuous support of the Syrian people. -KUNA

Three satellite channels referred to Public Prosecution for committing violations KUWAIT: The Ministry of Information announced on Thursday that it referred three satellite channels to the Public Prosecution last week for committing several violations. In a statement, the ministry said that it is keen to apply the laws and regulations regulating printings and press and audio and visual media on all violators. The statement added that the ministry launched two inspection campaigns during which it confiscated two cameras owned by a satellite channel that was not licensed for outdoor filming. The ministry called on media means to play their role in boosting the spirit of tolerance and abandoning calls for discrimination and not to broadcast any programs which incite violence, extremism or immoral practices. It also urges them to commit to neutrality and objectivity and rules and to focus on the real problems faced by the country and citizens. -KUNA

Only 39 percent of students attended classes yesterday Hamed Al-Sayed and Abdulaziz Al-Fadhli Staff Writers

KUWAIT: The Minister of Education and the Minister of Higher Education Dr. Nayef Al-Hajraf conducted a sudden visit to Salah Al-Deen High School yesterday and met the administration of the school. The minister watched a part of the morning queue before students head to the first class where he discovered that the rate of attendance was only 39 percent and the majority of students were absent. On his part, the headmaster of the school Mahmoud Faraj said that the minister affirmed that schools should

eradicate the absence phenomenon, adding that the minister wants students to arrive schools before teachers and such step can`t be executed unless parents of students cooperate well with the administration of schools. Students at the different schools and the other educational institutions extended their spring holiday for more than a month as the majority of students didn’t attend their schools after the national holidays. The spring holiday started on Jan. 29 and was supposed to last till Feb. 13; however, students all over Kuwait marked great absence. Students did not pay attention to the warning send by ministry officials who urged them to abide to school atten-

dance policy. The ministry in the mean time asked the administration of the different schools to prepare a list including the names of students who did not attend classes during that period. Meanwhile, the Director of Jahra Educational Zone Abdullah Al-Harbi affirmed that ministry has to reconsider a previous suggestion wherein the former Minister of Education Modhi Al-Homoud had formed a committee to study the possibility of determining the spring holiday from the first week of February until the end of the month, but this suggestion was rejected strongly by Kuwait University and the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training.

Nafel Al-Humaidan Staff Writer

KUWAIT: Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs Undersecretary Adel Al-Falah asserted that Kuwaitis have always been keen to maintain national unity, which was evident during the Iraqi invasion. He went on to say that the ministry is keen to cement national unity through holding dialogues and accepting others, which are the two pillars of national unity. He revealed that the ministry cares for 900 mosques that host around half a million Muslims weekly. In addition, he mentioned that the ministry will collaborate with the Ministry of Interior to install cameras around the mosques to protect them from vandalism and offensive graffiti. He stressed that the ministry is keen to allow imams to play a role in protecting national unity through their direct interaction with the public. Moreover, he stated that the imams’ forum that will be held on March 5th-7th aims to reinforce moderation and brotherhood in the society. The forum includes lectures about national unity and the role of imams in underlining national unity, in addition to the role of the media. Furthermore, the forum will hold several workshops that tackle the role of Friday prayers speeches in cementing the national unity.

FILE- Photo of Minister of Education and the Minister of Higher Education Dr. Nayef Al-Hajraf (center) during a meeting at the ministry, Feb. 22, 2012. (Al Watan)

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PAAAFR bans importing poultry from Sri Lanka, Australia Eggs soon in market with unchanged prices: Official Hamed Al-Sayyed Tareq Orabi Staff Writer and Agencies

KUWAIT: The Public Authority for Agriculture Affairs and Fish Resources (PAAAFR) said in a statement on Thursday that it was banning the import of all kinds of birds, eggs and chicks from the Republic of Sri Lanka for reported Bird Flu cases. Similarly, the authority confirmed that it was also

banning the import of birds, eggs and chicks from Australia, according to reports from the World Organization for Animal Health stating the appearance of cases of Bird Flu as well. The statement added that the authority decided to lift the ban on import of falcons, ornamental birds, eggs and chicks from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, according to the reports by the organization stating that the poultry is disease-free. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry announced that lack of eggs in co-op societies, which resulted in price increases has now been finalized. An emergency meeting was held for that purpose earlier Wednesday morning by the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Commerce Abdulaziz Al-Khaledi with nine representatives of egg producing companies. The meeting

Four vehicles caught with stolen diesel to be smuggled Abdullah Al-Najjar Staff Writer

KUWAIT: The Technical Test Department, a member of the Traffic Department, stated the existence of a diesel mafia here in Kuwait following the arrest of four vehicles, three of the half lorry type and one van. The vehicles were all covered to hide their contents. The vehicles are equipped with sucking machines as well as internal and external storages to store the stolen diesel. They are covered with fake stickers as distracters from the eyes of the police. The issue of stealing diesel has cost the country a billion Kuwaiti dinars so far. The police were alerted to vehicles subsidized by the government were collected and stored at a particular location in preparation to be smuggled in to Iran, Iraq and some Asian countries. Ministry of Interior Assistant undersecretary for Traffic Affairs Brigadier Mustafa Al-Zuaabi made immediate instructions to have the vehicles under surveillance. A careful plan was set up by Deputy Manager for

Technical Affairs in the Traffic Department Colonel Muhjem Al-Jallal. The plan was designed not to monitor the vehicles while on road, but to monitor the warehouses in Amghara where the vehicles are kept. Police monitoring the vehicles noticed that there were some vehicles that stood out because they lacked the basic requirements in terms of technical specifications. The assigned team for the task entered the warehouses pretending that they were only visiting the site to check the technical specifications of the vehicles. The team noticed the additions made to the four vehicles and after checking their contents, they found out large amounts of diesel were hidden in those extra tanks. Three of the drivers realized the situation and instantly ran off. The fourth, a Syrian national, was arrested. The team contacted the Department and asked for details and more information about the vehicles and their owners. The Syrian suspect affirmed that the stolen diesel is distanced to Iran, Iraq and other Asian countries. The department expressed its surprise that the Petroleum Company never complained about the diesel thefts.

Ambassador Tueller receives 2012 leaders for democracy fellow, alumni KUWAIT: US Ambassador to Kuwait Matthew Tueller met with Leaders for Democracy (LDF) alumni and the recently selected participant for the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI)-funded LDF on Tuesday, Feb.28. This was stated in a press release issued Thursday. The statement noted that MEPI exchange programs enhance cultural understanding, international collaboration, democratic institution building, knowledge sharing, and economic development between US and Middle East/North Africa-based students, entrepreneurs, lawmakers, and civil society leaders. The MEPI Leaders for Democracy Fellowship (LDF) Program is a three-month program in the United States for 20-25 young civic leaders from the Middle East and North Africa. The program begins with six weeks of academic coursework, where fellows focus on the concepts of leadership, democracy, communication, and conflict resolution among others. Fellows complete relevant seminars and workshops that address theoreti-

cal debates as well as active, practical skills-building sessions. After completing the academic portion of the program, participants engage in a six-week professional assignment with a political, non-governmental, or public policy organization of professional interest in Washington, DC. Through this program component, participants gain a practical understanding of the interactions between government and civil society, while also gaining valuable knowledge, skills, and professional contacts to benefit their professional pursuits in their home countries. MEPI selected one outstanding Kuwaiti candidate for the 2012 LDF program. Ambassador Tueller congratulated the candidate for being selected for this prestigious program and encouraged all of the alumni to continue to be role models for their peers and work for the betterment of their society. He emphasized the crucial role youth play in the development of civil society.

Ongoing efforts seek opening Jaber Al-Ahmad International Stadium end of 2012 KUWAIT: The Commission on Population and Urban Development emanating from the Supreme Council for Planning and Development asserted on Thursday its full preparedness to assist those involved in the project of Jaber Al-Ahmad International Stadium to overcome all obstacles hampering the opening of the stadium. A statement issued by the Supreme Council for Planning said that the Commission on Population and Urban Development under the chairmanship of Saleh Al-Fadhalah hosted representatives of the Public Authority for Youth and Sports in the presence of the Minister of Public Works and Minister

of Development and Planning, Dr. Fadhel Safar last Wednesday to discuss the project. The statement added that latest developments on the project and difficulties facing its implementation were discussed in the meeting, noting that representatives of the Commission confirmed that they would work to overcome all obstacles so as to have the stadium open by the end of this year. The stadium, located in Al-Ardhiyah area, was completed in 2009 and has a capacity of 68,000 seated spectators and is constructed in 4 levels, with 54 corporate boxes and 6,000 car parking. -KUNA

was also attended by the Director of the Co-op Societies Union Bader Al-Radaan. Representatives promised that they will provide the local market with the needed amount of eggs. The Undersecretary Abdulaziz Al-Khaledi had stated that the issue in the country should be resolved and that for that purpose he invited representatives of major egg producing companies to attend an emergency meeting. Al-Khaledi said that during the meeting several matters were discussed including the reasons behind the lack of eggs in the market and ways of resolving the issue. On their part, representatives explained to the Undersecretary that some co-op societies fail to pay them on time. To which the Undersecretary urged the representatives that such financial arrangement should not be a main cause for withholding the distribution of eggs in local market,

pointing out that after all only five co-op societies had failed to pay the bill on time and that the remainder of the co-op societies should not be penalized. The Undersecretary further stressed that the prices of eggs should not change and should remain the same prior to the crisis and that teams from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry will monitor the availability of eggs and prices in the market to ensure no irregularities are taking place. Representatives promised that eggs would be readily available in the market within two days with the prices unchanged. On his part, the Chairman of the Co-op Societies Union Dr. Hussein Al-Duwaihes expressed his appreciation to the producing companies for their quick response and full cooperation with the Ministry’s demand. He also praised the ministry’s demand to resolve the issue.

Coast Guard to begin live ammunition drills near islands next week

KUWAIT: The General Administration of Kuwait Coast Guards announced on Thursday that live ammunition exercises will be carried out in regional waters near Qarouh and Umm Al-Maradim Islands, on Monday and Wednesday of next week.

In a press statement, the administration cautioned seagoers from approaching the designated areas from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm. It noted that Coast Guard patrols will prevent anyone from coming near these areas to secure their safety. -KUNA

Japanese ministers thank Kuwait for quake support, welcomes Amir’s visit TOKYO: Three Japanese Cabinet ministers renewed gratitude to the support and solidarity shown by His Highness the Amir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah and the people of Kuwait towards quake-hit Japan during the past year and welcomed the upcoming visit of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah. The remarks came as the Kuwaiti Embassy in Tokyo held a reception Tuesday evening on the occasion of Kuwait’s 51st National Day, the 21st anniversary of Liberation Day and the sixth anniversary of H.H. the Amir’s assumption of power, which brought together about 900 guests, including high-ranking officials, parliamentary figures, businessmen, academics and diplomats as well as representatives of the Japan-Kuwait Society. In his speech, Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yukio Edano expressed gratefulness for generous support to Japan after a massive earthquake and tsunami last March, especially the five million barrels of crude oil donation to support its post-quake reconstruction. “Last October, I attended a ceremony to mark the arrival of the first shipment of Kuwaiti oil aid, which was a very memorable event. I once again extend sincere thanks to the Amir, the Kuwaiti government and people for their sense of solidarity and generosity. We will never forget your warm encouragements and sympathy,” Edano said. Kuwait’s contribution of five million barrels of crude oil was decided in April upon directives of the Amir in the wake of a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami on March 11 that left nearly 20,000 people dead or missing in the northeastern region. The donation, equivalent to some 500 million US dollars, was the largest contribution by any countries to Japan in the wake of the March disasters. While showing satisfaction with the development in bilateral relations between the two nations ever since they first forged diplomatic ties 51 years ago, Edano said the Amir’s visit to Japan on March 20 will further promote KuwaitJapan friendship. “We sincerely welcome his visit,” the minister affirmed, “Kuwait has been providing us with stable crude oil supply for decades. In addition to energy cooperation, I hope the two countries will enhance partnership in such projects as transportation, water and infrastructure.” For his part, Reconstruction

Envoy of the Kuwaiti Embassy in Tokyo are seen during a reception held on Tuesday evening on the occasion of Kuwait’s 51st National Day, the 21st anniversary. (KUNA)

Minister Tatsuo Hirano said, “The people in the disaster-stricken areas deeply appreciate heartfelt support and friendship provided by the Kuwaiti people,” reaffirming Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda Cabinet’s determination towards its earliest recovery. “Japan will certainly bounce back from this disaster,” stressed Hirano, who was born in one of the hardest-hit areas. According to Hirano, money to the value of the free oil was provided to the quake victims through the Japan Red Cross. Hirano also expressed gratitude to Kuwaiti Ambassador to Japan Abdulrahman Al-Otaibi for visiting the quakehit region in April to offer foods, living necessities, school supplies and soccer balls, saying it gave the people great relief, encouragement and hope. The Kuwaiti Embassy also held a charity bazaar in May to raise funds for the disaster-affected areas, which saw a great success. Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Minister Hirofumi Hirano made similar remarks, noting that the aid from Kuwait has promoted a feeling of amity between the two peoples and boosted bilateral relations. In order to show their great hope and strong will to build a bright future for the country, a Wadaiko (Japanese drum) team of children, a chorus group and traditional dance performers were invited from the disaster-hit areas, receiving a big round of applause from the guests.

Meanwhile, Ambassador Al-Otaibi said in his speech that the upcoming state visit to Japan by the Amir will mark the highlight of the bilateral relations between Kuwait and Japan. “This historical visit is upon the generous invitation by His Majesty the Emperor to commemorate the friendly relations that bind Kuwait and Japan, and as an appreciation for the support which the government and the people of the State of Kuwait have offered to Japan soon after the Great East Japan Earthquake,” he said. “The earthquake has left deep sorrow in the hearts of the Japanese as well as in the hearts of every Kuwaiti, but everyone was totally confident that the Japanese people are strong enough to rise again from this calamity,” Al-Otaibi said. Last year marked the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relations between Kuwait and Japan, but many of the events were canceled due to the tragedy. The reception was also attended by Embassy’s Deputy Head of Mission Mohammad Al-Mutairi, First Secretary Saad Al-Mehaini and Third Secretary Abdulaziz Al-Dalah. The embassy also held an exhibition displaying Kuwaiti heritage and culture and distributed the latest issue of JapanKuwait Society’s newsletter s to guests. -KUNA

Court orders Al-Juwaihel to pay KD 20,000 compensation to Al-Barrak Ibtisam Said Staff Writer

FILE - Picture obtained online shows Jaber Al-Ahmad International Stadium during construction works. The stadium is expected to open by end 2012.

KUWAIT: The Civil Court ruled that the Member of Parliament (MP) Mohammed AlJuwaihel should pay MP MusallamAl-Barrak 20,000 Kuwaiti dinars in compensation over Al-Juwaihel’s remarks against Al-Barrak in a televised interview with Al-Sour Channel. Previously, the Court of Appeal ruled that Al-Juwaihel should pay 200 Kuwaiti dinars only and to abide to good conduct for two years. Prior to that, the First Instant Court ordered the imprisonment of MP AlJuwaihel for one year. MP Al-Barrak had sued Al-Juwaihel over slandering remarks. Al-Juwaihel, who waved his constitutional rights, denied charges, asking Al-Barrak to accept criticism.

Member of Parliament MP Mohammed Al-Juwaihel (left) during Thursday’s Parliament session, March 1, 2012.

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regional

friDAY, march 2, 2012

Syrian opposition forms military council BEIRUT: Syria’s main opposition group formed a military council Thursday to organize and unify all armed resistance to President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime as the conflict veered ever closer to civil war. The Paris-based leadership of the Syrian National Council said its plan was coordinated with the most potent armed opposition force - the Free Syrian Army - made up mainly of army defectors. “The revolution started peacefully and kept up its peaceful nature for months, but the reality today is different and the SNC must shoulder its responsibilities in the face of this new reality,” SNC president Burhan Ghalioun told reporters in Paris, saying any weapons flowing into the country should go through the council. Still he tried to play down the risks of all-out warfare. “We want to control the use of weapons so that there won’t be a civil war,” he said. “Our aim is to help avoid civil war.” The SNC has called for arming rebels in the past, but this was the first time it sought to organize the fighters under one umbrella. The plan coincides with a ferocious government offensive on the opposition stronghold of Homs in central Syria that has been going on for nearly a month. International pressure on the regime has been growing more intense by the day. The UN’s top human rights body voted Thursday to condemn Syria for its “widespread and systematic violations” against civilians, and the UK and Switzerland closed their embassies in Damascus over worsening security. The US closed its embassy in February. But the US has not advocated arming the rebels, in part out of fear it would create an even more bloody and prolonged conflict because of Syria’s complex web of allegiances in the region that extend to Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Syrian activists said government forces have cut off communications to Bab Amr, jamming satellite phone signals as they mass for an apparent ground assault. The neighborhood has been under siege for about four weeks and hundreds have died in shelling. Authorities had previously blocked land and mobile

A boy stands in front of a shop destroyed in Syrian Army shelling in the center of Idlib, north of Syria, Feb. 27, 2012. (AP)

phone lines, but activists were able to communicate with the outside world with satellite phones. The activist Revolutionary Council of Homs said it could no longer reach anyone inside Baba Amr. All satellite signals were jammed, it said. Rami Abdul-Rahman, head of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said there was “fierce fight-

Student kills American teacher in northern Iraq ARBIL: An Iraqi student shot dead his American teacher and then shot himself in northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region on Thursday, the provincial governor said. “There was an argument between the student and his American teacher ... and as a result of that argument the student shot dead his teacher using a pistol he had, and then shot himself,” said Sulaimaniya Province Governor Zan Mohammad Salih. He said the student had survived the shooting and was now in hospital. Salih gave the American teacher’s name as Jeremiah Small and identified the student as Beyar Al-Talabani. “We cannot say there is a political or religious dimension to the incident and the investigation is still going on. It is an ordinary criminal incident,” the governor said. Jeremiah Small’s blog page on the photo sharing website Flickr describes him as a teacher, hailing from western Washington

State, and based in Sulaimaniya. The northern Kurdish region was spared the extreme violence that has plagued the rest of Iraq, and is the only part of Iraq that draws large numbers of Westerners living and working without special security measures. US forces withdrew from Iraq in December, nearly nine years after the invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, which was followed by a fierce insurgency and sectarian conflict. Washington maintains a consulate in Arbil, the capital of the Kurdish zone. A US embassy spokesman said: “We have heard reports regarding the shooting of a teacher in Sulaimaniya and are working through our consulate in Arbil and Iraqi authorities to ascertain the details of the incident. “At this time we are waiting for identification to be complete and for the family to be notified.” -Reuters

Israel legalizes unsanctioned settler enclave

SHVUT RACHEL, West Bank: Israel has legalized one of the oldest and largest of the unsanctioned settler enclaves dotting the West Bank, a step denounced by the Palestinians and Israeli activists as a show of bad faith ahead of talks next week between the Israeli leader and President Barack Obama. The dispute over settlements has confounded Washington’s attempts to revive Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, mostly on hold since 2008. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to stop construction and the Palestinians say they won’t negotiate while Israel unilaterally determines the borders of their state through settlement-building. Now, the question of outposts Israel has not formally sanctioned is coming to a head: The government is under Supreme Court orders to evacuate residents from Migron, a relatively large such enclave, by the end of March. Aware that doing so could badly unsettle the ruling rightist coalition, officials have attempted to avoid a confrontation by persuading residents, so far unsuccessfully, to move to a nearby sanctioned settlement. The stalled talks and dispute over settlements is bound to come up when Netanyahu meets Obama on Monday. Shvut Rachel, home to 95 Israeli families, was established 21 years ago on a hilltop in the heart of the West Bank - an area Israel would likely have to withdraw from to make way for a Palestinian state. The settlers grabbed the land without government permission. Now that approval seems at hand. A planning committee last week retroactively legalized 115 apartments already built or under construction in Shvut Rachel, according to government officials and the community’s acting mayor, Yaakov Moshe Levi. The move apparently resulted from pressure by peace activists to stop construction there. In its decision, the panel also approved in principle nearly 500 more apartments; though a construction start would require further permits and could be years away, government officials said. Hagit Ofran of Israel’s Peace Now group says this amounts to establishing a new settlement, contrary to pledges by successive governments over the past two decades not to do so. Israel’s Defense Ministry rejected that characterization, saying Shvut Rachel is a neighborhood of the nearby governmentsanctioned settlement of Shilo. Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian spokesman, said setting up a Palestinian state alongside Israel is becoming “practically impossible” because of such construction. He denounced the Shvut Rachel decision as an escalation of Israel’s practices. The Palestinians want to set up their state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war. However, half a million Israelis already live on war-seized land, in more than 130 government-sanctioned settlements and some 100 unauthorized outposts set up by settlers who are open about their desire to impede any partition. There is little discussion of Jewish settlers remaining in a Palestinian state and Israel has a history of using the location of settlements to stake claims on West Bank land in the context of negotiations. Spokesman Mark Regev insists the current Israeli government “has shown more restraint on the issue of settlements than any previous government,” referring to a 10-month construction slowdown in 2010. He reiterated that the fate of settlements must be determined in negotiations and that Israel is willing to resume talks immediately. But a visit to the West Bank’s heartland suggests that an Israeli withdrawal would be increasingly difficult. Settlers control many hilltops, their communities flourishing with government support, including for unauthorized outposts. -AP

ing” at the entrances to Baba Amr and troops have been unable to enter so far. Ghalioun said regime forces are facing strong resistance from the rebels in Baba Amr. “Our position is very strong. We control the terrain there,” he said. “The situation in Baba Amr is that the FSA ... has relocated in some areas to other areas. In some points,

they still maintain a stronghold and the regime is unable to take over. Their strategy is to take one neighborhood one street at a time, but the resistance there is still strong.” The opposition’s main problem over the past year has been its inability to coalesce behind a single leader or ideology beyond toppling the regime. Western powers trying to help the anti-government forces oust Al-Assad have repeatedly stressed the importance of the fragmented opposition pulling together. The SNC announcement seemed to respond to those calls. “The Military Bureau will track the armed opposition groups, organize and unify their ranks under one central command, defining their defense missions while placing them under the political supervision of the SNC, and coordinating their activities in accordance with the overall strategy of the revolution,” the SNC said in a statement. Members of the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday voted 37 in favor and three against a resolution proposed by Turkey that calls on Syria to immediately stop all attacks on civilians and grant unhindered access to aid groups. Three members of the 47-nation body abstained and four didn’t vote. Russia, China and Cuba objected to the resolution. The Geneva-based council’s vote carries no legal weight but diplomats consider it a strong moral signal that may encourage a similar resolution in the powerful UN Security Council. The UN estimated that more than 7,500 people have been killed since the anti-Assad struggle started in March 2011, when protesters inspired by successful Arab Spring uprisings against dictators in Tunisia and Egypt took to the streets in Syria. As Al-Assad’s forces used deadly force to stop the unrest, protests spread and some Syrians took up arms against the regime. Activists put the total death toll at more than 8,000, most of them civilians. There was no immediate reaction from the rulers in the oil-rich Gulf state. Some lawmakers also have proposed severing diplomatic ties with Al-Assad’s regime, but the issue has not come up for full debate. -AP

Yemen troops protest demanding army chiefs’ ouster CAPITALS: Hundreds of Yemeni soldiers staged protests at several military institutions across the country on Thursday demanding the departure of their chiefs, whom they accuse of corruption. The demonstrations come just days after Ali Abdullah Saleh formally handed power to his deputy Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi following a year of protest. Around 500 soldiers and officers from the First Brigade of Marine Infantry, based on the Yemeni island of Socotra in the Gulf of Aden, protested outside Hadi’s residence in the capital Sanaa, an AFP correspondent reported. The soldiers were calling for the ouster of Brigadier General Hussein Khairan whom they accuse of corruption. Several soldiers told AFP that the remaining officers were also staging a sit-in at their base in Socotra. Meanwhile, air force soldiers held a massive rally that began outside Hadi’s residence and headed towards the air base near Sanaa International Airport, calling for the ouster of air force commander General Mohammed Saleh Al-Ahmar. Military sources said that protests against AlAhmar, a half brother of Saleh, were also being held at other air bases - Al-Anad in the south and in Taez, Yemen’s second city. Anti-corruption strikes have spread across several military and government departments in the impoverished Arab country, where the economy is on the brink of collapse after last year’s popular uprising and months of violence.

Anti-government protesters demonstrate in Sanaa March 1, 2012. (Reuters)

Saleh finally stepped down on Monday after 33 years in power, based on a Gulf-brokered power transfer deal he signed in November. But during his time in office, he carefully chose members of his regime, appointing relatives to head the country’s military and security apparatus. In addition to his half brother, Saleh’s

South Sudan accuses Khartoum of air strikes

JUBA: Sudanese fighter jets have bombed oil and water wells deep inside South Sudan and its ground troops have crossed into contested oil-rich border regions, South Sudan officials said Thursday. But Khartoum swiftly denied the claims. Border tensions have mounted since South Sudan split from Sudan in July after decades of war to become the world’s newest nation, with each side accusing the other of backing proxy rebel forces against it. “They have flown into our territory 74 kilometers (46 miles) and are violating South Sudanese airspace,” South Sudan Information Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin said of the air strikes Wednesday. Sudanese ground troops had also moved 17 kilometres inside South Sudan’s oil-rich Unity state, army spokesman Philip Aguer said. Khartoum and Juba dispute areas along the undemarcated border. South Sudan has accused the north of carrying out several recent bombing raids in frontier regions, but the claims have been denied by the Sudanese army. “Two MiG (fighter jets) bombed Panakuat in Pariang county,” Aguer told AFP on Thursday, adding two bombs struck an oil well and a drinking water well. “Khartoum... have been bombing South Sudan since last year, but this is the first time MiGs have come,” Aguer said, adding that previous attacks had been far less accurate bombs rolled out the back of Antonov aircraft. Sudanese army spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad dismissed the latest accusations by the South. “This information is completely incorrect - they have to show the evidence about the bombing or our troops going 17 kilometers inside the border,” Saad told AFP in Khartoum. The region borders Sudan’s Southern Kordofan state where rebels - once part of the ex-guerrilla turned official South Sudanese army - are battling the Khartoum government forces. “They say that we are supporting wars in their territory and it’s simply not true,” Benjamin said. “The government is in a position to protect its citizens and territory, but it will not be dragged back to a senseless war.” South Sudan took three quarters of Sudan’s oil reserves, but all pipeline and export facilities are controlled by the north. The South halted oil production in January - stopping the flow of the resource that accounts for 98 percent of government revenue - after Juba accused Khartoum of stealing $815 million worth of crude oil. Last month the two sides signed a nonaggression pact agreeing to “respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” and to “refrain from launching any attack, including bombardment.” Juba accused Khartoum of breaking the accord by bombing border regions just days later. Last month UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned that tensions between the two nations could escalate if the oil crisis is not resolved. -AFP

son commands the elite Republican Guard troops while his nephew Yehya commands the central security services and Tariq, another nephew, controls the presidential guard. The power transfer deal stipulates that during the two-year interim period, Hadi will oversee the restructuring of the army. -AFP

Egypt says US NGO workers cleared to leave CAIRO: Egypt’s airport authorities have been told that a travel ban on US pro-democracy activists has been lifted, airport sources said on Thursday, opening the way to defuse a row that US officials linked to 1.3 billion US dollars of annual military aid. A judge had said on Wednesday that Egypt was scrapping the ban, which barred the departure of US citizens and others working for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that Cairo says received foreign funds illegally. Judge Abdel Moez Ibrahim told state media on Thursday that, after an appeal by those charged, the case was switched from a criminal court to one handling misdemeanors where the maximum penalty was a fine, not jail. With that, those involved could post bail of 2 million Egyptian pounds ($330,000) each and the travel ban would be lifted. Officials had earlier said the ban had been lifted only from the Americans involved. The latest comments suggest the travel ban could also be lifted from Egyptians, Serbs, Norwegians and Germans involved in the case once they post bail. “Instructions have arrived to lift the travel ban on the accused Americans in the case of foreign financing to allow them to leave should they turn up to travel,” one airport source said. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had said on Wednesday she expected a swift resolution to the row, which included slapping a travel ban on the son of the US transportation secretary who works for an NGO in Egypt. Sixteen of the 43 people charged are Americans. Seven of the Americans are in Egypt and some of those have sought refuge in the US embassy, which had no

comment on the case. Ibrahim, head of the Cairo Appeals Court who appoints judges to the case, told Reuters on Wednesday that a decision had been taken to lift the travel ban. Sources at Cairo international airport had said late on Wednesday that a US military plane had arrived from Cyprus to take the Americans out. It was not clear when any of the Americans would leave or if they would take commercial flights. Two of the groups involved, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI), are loosely affiliated with the major US political parties and one of the accused, IRI Egypt Director Sam LaHood, is the son of US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “Once the US and other foreign NGO employees have left the country, and the media spotlight moves on, the threat remains over the Egyptian employees (of NGOs involved) as does a large question mark over the way that NGOs and civil society are seen in Egypt,” said one Western diplomat. He said the case may have been used, at least in part, to divert attention from a faltering economy. Alongside charges that NGOs received foreign funds without Egypt’s approval, the workers are also alleged to have carried out political activities unrelated to their work and accused of failing to obtain necessary operating licenses. A judicial source said charges would not be dropped. The first session of the court that was initially hearing the case took place on Sunday. It had been adjourned until April 26, but a new date will now be set since the case has been transferred to another court, the judge said. -Reuters

ALWATAN DAILY

WORLD

fridAY, march 2, 2012

At least 12 people killed in deadly US Midwest storms

NEWS IN BRIEF Three people arrested in UK insider dealing probe LONDON: Three people have been arrested and are being held in custody in Britain in relation to an insider-dealing investigation, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) regulator said on Thursday. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Financial Services Authority, with the assistance of Cheshire and Lancashire Constabularies, has this morning executed three search warrants at premises in Northwich and Rossendale,â&#x20AC;? the FSA said in a statement. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Three individuals, two men aged 43 and 42 and a woman aged 35, have been arrested and are currently in custody to be questioned in connection with an investigation in to insider dealing,â&#x20AC;? it added. The FSA did not name the individuals. It added that the arrests were not linked to any other ongoing insider dealing investigation. -Reuters

Two NATO soldiers â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;killed by Afghan soldier, civilianâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

Vehicles and other possessions are scattered after a tornado ripped through a neighborhood in the early morning hours of Feb. 29, in Harrisburg, Illinois. (AFP)

HARRISBURG: A line of severe storms moving across the Midwest left death and destruction in its wake early today. The storms moved through Kansas and Missouri overnight, destroying one trailer park and leaving at least one dead in Buffalo, Mo. The hardest hit area is Harrisburg, Ill., where authorities say at least six people have been killed after what is presumed to be a tornado raked the town before dawn. The NationalWeather Service says the storm system will very quickly make its way east, and more tornadoes are expected. The NWS says these are the areas to watch through the evening: Northern Alabama, Northern Georgia, Southern and Eastern Kentucky, Northern Mississippi, Western North Carolina, Much of Tennessee. The Associated Press is reporting that at least three people were killed in eastern Tennessee after storms packing high winds tore roofs from buildings and flattened trees. Two of the deaths were in Cumberland County, about 60 miles west of Knoxville, and the third in DeKalb County. The fatalities were confirmed by an emergency management official in Cumberland County and a National Weather Service spokeswoman. The Weather Channel reports that â&#x20AC;&#x153;as many as 10 tornadoes touched down in Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana Wednesday morning.â&#x20AC;? And as for the twister that tore through Harrisburg, Ill., thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s this stunning estimate:

St. Josephâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Catholic Church is left in ruins after a severe storm hit in the early morning hours on Feb. 29, in in Ridgway, Ill. (AP)

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The tornado that hit Harrisburg, IL early this morning has now been rated EF-4, with 170 mph winds.â&#x20AC;? The Associated Press now says at least nine people were killed by the storms. According to Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, who was just on CNN, there were three fatalities in his state. According to the AP and authorities now holding a press conference, six people died in Harrisburg, Ill. More than 100 people are said to have been injured. Jennifer Fuller, of NPR member station WSIU, was in front of the Harrisburg Medical Center when she talked to our Newscast unit a short while ago. She said that when she canvassed the city, she saw â&#x20AC;&#x153;entire neighborhoods destroyed.â&#x20AC;? Jennifer said she saw some trees split in half next to piles of rubble that used to be homes. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s devastating for these people,â&#x20AC;? she reported. She said because the severe storms - it is not yet confirmed if they spun tornadoes - moved through Harrisburg in the early morning, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s possible some people were asleep. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ironic,â&#x20AC;? she said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;that just this week the Illinois Emergency Management Agency was telling people to be ready for storm season in March and to have those weather radios handy.â&#x20AC;? WSILTV of Southern Illinois reports that the Saline County Sheriffâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Office said that about 100 people have been injured and at least 250 homes have been damaged or destroyed in Harrisburg.

Bombing wounds 15 policemen in Turkey

The Harrisburg Daily Register says it was an early morning tornado that moved through the area. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are now entering early spring, so severe weather season is upon us and it has started with a bang,â&#x20AC;? John Gagan, a senior meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Springfield, Mo., tells our Newscast unit. Gagan is referring to a line of storms that moved east from Pittsburg, Kan., to north of Springfield, Mo., and caused â&#x20AC;&#x153;widespread damage.â&#x20AC;? The AP reports that at least one person was killed and 13 others were injured when a possible tornado moved through a trailer park in Buffalo, Mo. Gagan said there was also quite a bit of damage in the main commercial strip of Branson, where they had reports of damaged buildings. The Branson Tri-Lakes News reports that there are multiple injuries throughout the city and â&#x20AC;&#x153;people are trapped.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;We wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know the extent of the damage until daylight,â&#x20AC;? Gagan said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Elsewhere, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback declared a state of emergency late Tuesday after an apparent tornado struck Harveyville. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The declaration covered Wabaunsee County, southwest of Topeka. A news release from the governorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office said one person was critically injured and â&#x20AC;&#x153;a number of homesâ&#x20AC;? and a church were damaged, and trees and power lines were down.â&#x20AC;? Gagan says the storms will continue moving east toward the Ohio River Valley and he could â&#x20AC;&#x153;not rule out a few tornadoes.â&#x20AC;? -AP

ANKARA: A remote-controlled bomb mounted on a motorcycle exploded in Turkeyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest city Thursday, wounding 15 police officers and one civilian, the prime minister said. The blast occurred in an area of Istanbul close to the office of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoganâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Justice and Development Party, where one policeman had been killed in a bomb attack last year. Thursdayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attack wrecked a police bus and nearby vehicles. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We will never bow to such attacks,â&#x20AC;? Erdogan told a televised news conference. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We will continue our struggle against terrorism and the culprits will be captured as soon as possible.â&#x20AC;? Gov. Huseyin Avni Mutlu of Istanbul said none of the injured are in serious condition. He said the bomb was made of plastic explosives and mounted on a motorcycle.. There was no claim of responsibility, but Kurdish rebels and Islamic militants are active in Istanbul. The intended target of the attack appeared to be a police vehicle carrying 21 officers that was just passing the site where the blast occurred, said Police Chief Huseyin Capkin. The bus came to a halt some 50 yards (meters) away, said one witness said. Forensic teams quickly covered it in blue nylon sheets as experts searched a cordoned-off area for fragments of the bomb. NTV television, without citing sources, said the bomb was similar to another device that had exploded on a bicycle near a bus stop in Istanbul last year, wounding eight people, including a police officer. The government at the time said the attack resembled a Kurdish rebel operation. In 2007, bombs mounted on bicycles exploded in the mostly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey and in the western coastal city of Izmir. Authorities blamed Kurdish rebels for those attacks, which killed one person and wounded about 20. Thursdayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s blast occurred amid escalating calls by Turkish Kurds for autonomy and other rights and a police crackdown on suspected affiliates of the Kurdish rebel group PKK. The rebel group also had said that Turkey would face more violence, if it did not halt its military drive against the autonomy-seeking rebels. The guerrillas took up arms in 1984, and tens of thousands of people have died in the conflict. Much of the violence centers on the predominantly Kurdish southeast of the country, with rebels resupplying and sheltering in bases across the border in northern Iraq. -AP

Myanmar leader urges Kachin peace, rules out independence YANGON: Myanmar PresidentThein Sein urged on Thursday government troops and ethnic Kachin rebels to end hostilities and take part in talks, but he ruled out independence for any of the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ethnic minority groups. In a wide-ranging address to parliament 11 months after taking office, Thein Sein promised to continue reforms and urged foreign investors to support his country to prevent it from falling back â&#x20AC;&#x153;while democratization is in its infancyâ&#x20AC;?. In his first public explanation of the nine-month conflict in Kachin State, which has displaced tens of thousands of people along the border with China, the former junta general said he had ordered troops not to attack the rebels. -Reuters

Passengers leave disabled ship in Seychelles port VICTORIA: Hot and tired passengers disembarking from a disabled cruise ship Thursday in the Seychelles said they had prepared to abandon ship when fire broke out in the engine room three days ago, leaving the vessel adrift in waters prowled by pirates. Life boats were even lowered, passengers said. Austrian Thomas Foaller said some passengers began to panic. Couples

that were separated were calling out to each other, he said. Among them were American couple Gordon and Eleanor Bradwell of Athens, Georgia. They were separated when Eleanor went to the coupleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s room to get a life vest. A crew member had handed the 72-year-old Gordon his own. But the fire that broke out Monday was brought under control and the more than 1,000

Britain calls on EU to lodge â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;concernsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; over Argentina

Forensic police cover a damaged police vehicle after a bomb went off near the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ruling party offices in Turkeyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest city, Istanbul, Mar. 1. (AP)

KABUL: Two NATO soldiers were shot dead on Thursday by two Afghans, including a man believed to be a soldier, NATO said, an attack that is likely to raise further questions about the future of the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s security forces. The killings in south Afghanistan came after two senior US officers were gunned down in the heart of Afghanistanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Interior Ministry on Saturday by what Afghan security officials say was a police intelligence official. That attack raised questions about NATOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s strategy of replacing large combat units with advisers as the alliance tries to wind down the war. -Reuters

LONDON: Britain has called on its EU partners to follow its lead in lodging concerns about what it said was Argentinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attempt to throw up trade barriers amid tensions over the Falkland Islands. The call came after London summoned Argentinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s charge dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;affaires to the Foreign Office over the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s threat to boycott British products. On Monday, Argentinian authorities refused permission for two British cruise ships to dock at Ushuaia on the southern tip of Argentina after they had visited the Falklands. The charge dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;affaires, Osvaldo Narciso Marsico, was told â&#x20AC;&#x153;that such actions against legitimate commercial activity were a matter of concern, not just for the UK, but for the EU as a wholeâ&#x20AC;?, a Foreign Office spokeswoman said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We expect the EU to lodge similar concerns with Argentine authorities,â&#x20AC;? she added. Earlier, the Foreign Office described Britainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s trading relationship with Argentina as â&#x20AC;&#x153;importantâ&#x20AC;? and said any attempt to damage it was â&#x20AC;&#x153;deeply disappointingâ&#x20AC;?. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The economic relationship between the UK and Argentina is an important one, which contributes to prosperity and growth for both our citizens,â&#x20AC;? a spokesman said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;So it is firmly not in Argentinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s economic interest to put up these barriers to trade.â&#x20AC;? Argentinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Industry Minister Debora Giorgi was reported on Tuesday to have telephoned senior officials of Argentinian and multinational importing companies to urge them to find alternatives to British products. Last year, Argentina exported goods worth 779 million US dollars (583 million euros) to Britain, including soybeans, soy oil, corn and peanuts, and imported goods worth $664 million including chemicals, pharmaceuticals and cars. Tensions have been building between the two countries ahead of the 30th anniversary in April of the start of the war over the Falklands. The windswept islands in the South Atlantic are controlled by London but claimed by Buenos Aires, which launched an invasion in 1982 that led to then premier Margaret Thatcher sending a naval taskforce to re-take control. Prime Minister David Cameronâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s spokesman earlier accused Argentina of seeking confrontation. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is clearly very sad that Argentina continues with their policy of confrontation instead of cooperation. We think that is counterproductive and also a complete misreading of Britainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s resolve on this issue,â&#x20AC;? he said. The Foreign Office said it was happy to discuss â&#x20AC;&#x153;a range of regional issuesâ&#x20AC;? with Argentina but insisted: â&#x20AC;&#x153;We will not negotiate the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands unless the people of those islands wish it.â&#x20AC;? -AFP

people wound up staying aboard the Costa Allegra, which suddenly had no engine power, no air conditioning and no running water for showers or toilets. Eleanor Bradwell said that the initial response to the alarm seemed to be disorganized but overall she and her husband felt the shipping line had handled the emergency well. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It could have been worse than it

was,â&#x20AC;? said Gordon Bradwell. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It could have been disastrous ... weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re here, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re alive.â&#x20AC;? The couple ate cold sandwiches for three days and moved their bedding onto the deck to escape the stifling heat after the fire left the Costa Allegra without power. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The toilets were running over, there was no electricity. It was very hot,â&#x20AC;? said Eleanor Bradwell. -AP

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ALWATAN DAILY

OPINION

friDAY, march 2, 2012

Attacking me because I defend public funds Nawaf Suliman Al-Fuzei

uwait is witnessing the greatest campaign of abuse and insults against myself through the internet, in which political movements, which support the government, used all their tools. First of all, I say that only God knows what is in our hearts. God knows that I do not seek to achieve electoral gains but I only seek his satisfaction. Those who abused and insulted me have unintentionally done well to me as God will reward me in the Day of Resurrection when the government will be unable to help its supporters. Second, I will ask some reasonable questions to those who abused and criticized me for any matter. Some claimed that I intend to file a “weak” complaint so that the case can be shelved. I wonder what the word “weak” means. How could you know that the complaint will be weak? I’d like to affirm that the complaint will be supported by all docu-

Some claim that filing the complaint at this time will impede the work of the parliamentary investigatory committee. ments related to the issue of money transfers, which MP Musallam Al-Barrak and others had earlier submitted. During the press conference, I said that I’m ready to receive any documents which can support the complaint. I also appealed to people interested in the issue to file complaints, including the lawmakers who adopted the case. I hope that the abusers can consider these points. I had a clear stance toward all cases related to public funds. I’ve filed a complaint about the calcined petroleum coke, the 2007 power generators and the fourth oil refinery. Are you surprised because I filed a complaint about misusing public funds at this time? I’d like to discuss another issue which is the formation

of investigatory committees. I cannot prevent anybody from requesting the formation of an investigatory committee to probe into the issue. I cannot prevent anybody because I have no authority. I’m not an MP or a member of government. Some claim that filing the complaint at this time will impede the work of the parliamentary investigatory committee. The investigatory committee is a parliamentary committee but the complaint was filed to the judicial authority. It is clear that both authorities are independent. Some claim that the complaint will be shelved just like other complaints which had earlier been submitted to the judicial committee. I did not file the earlier complaints but they have been filed by others. Claiming that all earlier

complaints have been shelved means that some question the judicial authority which forms the judicial committees. But I’d like to ask “Has any of the parliamentary committees condemned any member of the parliament since the time of prominent MPs such as Al-Khateeb, Al-Menayyis and Al-Rubeai till this moment?” Has anybody condemned by the committees which were formed to investigate the issues of Halliburton, calcined petroleum coke, or 2007 power generators? Have any of the concerned ministers or the prime minister been referred to the public prosecution? I had filed a complaint about the calcined petroleum coke and Halliburton but they both were shelved. But nobody objected. Why are you dissatisfied now? Will this committee succeed while all committees over the last forty years failed? (You can refer to the study conducted by late Dr. Khaldoun Al-Naqib on the work of parliamentary investigatory committees, which was published by Al Qabas newspaper)

Political immaturity Nabeel Al-Fadel

t the beginning, the parliamentary majority’s intention was to deal with the minority in a in a barbaric manner through stepping out of the sessions, or any other procedures, when the Speaker of Parliament allows any MP from the minority to speak. But this barbaric approach has been replaced by a worse one, which is that the majority bloc will not step out of the session when an MP from the minority speaks, but they let him speak for ten seconds and then the “clowns” of the majority interrupt him and make fun of his speech. The majority aims to make the MPs, who differ with them, lose their prestige, and to deprive them from their right to express their views and opinions, because they have to respond to the silly talk. The solution seems to be easy, which is not to get involved in arguments with the clowns of majority. But the problem is that the proper solutions, such as avoiding political immaturity practiced against the minority, waste time, which is valuable. Every MP has only five minutes to express his opinion, but the MP spends four minutes responding to majority MPs who deliberately interrupt him.The presidency of the session conspires with the majority and rejects to give more time to the MP who couldn’t express his opinion because of other MPs. This tactic succeeded Wednesday to prevent me from expressing my opinion about the bias and lack of neutrality of the MP who demanded the formation of an investigatory committee to probe the

issue of multimillion bank deposits and money transfers as he demanded to be one of its members, which will make the committee biased. I’m for the formation of the mentioned committee, as long as this doesn’t contradict with the law. The government’s decision to refer the issue to the State’s Audit Bureau (SAB) was a good move, which indicates that the government sees that there is something wrong and must be addressed by specialists who can investigate the issue and provide it with a report, which will be referred to the parliament. Such a report will make the work of the intended investigatory committee easier. But the aim is not to get the facts from the SAB experts. The aim is to give the right to investigate the issue to those who lack neutrality in order to use this right to distort the image of the ones they do not particularly favor. This cannot be accepted by any honorable person, who seeks the truth, without an intention to direct accusations by some people who have no experience to conduct investigations but who have bad intentions and despise others. During the coming period, Kuwait will face an unprecedented experience which is the dictatorship of one party, which is much worse than the dictatorship of an individual. But the dictatorship of one party will not last long in Kuwait because that party lacks coherent unity because of individual members seeking personal interests, and because Kuwait has been enjoying freedom of expression for more than fifty years. Therefore, this dictatorial party will not last long.

We need effective legislations and achievements to remove all doubts Dr. Esam Abdulatif Al-Fulaij

he parliament returned to the political life following the recent parliamentary election and the former parliaments were suffering from weak representation and which needed to be dissolved. After eradicating some chronic inflations and diseases the parliament entered the recovery stage which is as dangerous as the stage of disease itself because the diseases and inflations might return back again. In such case the patients have to abide to the instructions of the doctor and having medicine regularly. We also have to be aware of the side effects of medicine in which we should not become angry about, releasing irresponsible statements or submitting interpellation motions without coordination with other MPs!! We have to avoid such steps because they might add to complicating our health problem and it might also contribute in causing us new diseases such as schizophrenia which will turn an MP into a new bribed MP!! It is very clear that certain personalities plot against the current parliament and therefore it is not expected to live long since many personalities expected that the parliament will be dissolved soon. I am sure that some patriotic MPs will exert all possible efforts to help the current parliament to survive for four years and I am sure that MPs have the chance now to enhance the concept of national unity. However, what we want from the current parliament are clear legislations

and achievements which will contribute in foiling the suspected plans of certain persons who might attempt to stir sedition by arousing suspicions about the expected parliamentary achievements. To achieve that, we have to forget the past and not avenge. We also have to be careful of all statements that we release as our statements should be constructive as well. Some personalities attempt to disrupt all important efforts of MPs and cause them to plunge into disputes and differences but we feel optimistic about the strong ability of several MPs who are not impacted by such suspected attempts. May God help every single parliament member for serving Kuwait because Kuwait deserves our sincerity in order to protect it against all internal and foreign dangers. The footballer Bader Al-Mutawa still suffers from the inefficiency of accommodating our national professionals and manpower wherein the footballer travelled with our National Team to represent Kuwait in some matches but he was sacked from his job as a civil servant recently because he has already spent over his work leave. By the way, I don`t know where he works but I hope officials would reconsider the decision to call a dismissal and to help him in getting back to his work. We have been suffering from this problem since the seventies of the last century and we hope the Minister of Social Affairs and Labor with the Civil Service Commission could deal with footballers who travel for a match like any other civil servant who travels to conduct an official mission.

Dwarfs cannot hurt Saudi Arabia Mufarej Barjas Al-Dosari

obody is surprised by the stances of the Arabian Knight King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz, the king of Saudi Arabia, who used to defend Arabism and Islam in addition to submitting all possible services for the holy places in Saudi Arabia and in supporting people who face oppression. Nobody is surprised because all of us know well that he is man who believes in God and worships Allah as the sole God. He is sure that God guides people to everything in life including victory. We really thank His Majesty King Abdullah for such stands and we pray for God to help him to present further services to the holy lands and the Muslim peoples. We really thank him for supporting the Syrian people who are killed every day by the brutal ba’ath regime. Following this introduction, I`d like to move to another point for closing the mouths of dwarfs who used to contest and doubt the Arab Nation and the stances of the Gulf rulers, especially of Saudi Arabia. We just want the dwarfs to become certain they will never be able influence the reputation of important

Following this introduction, I`d like to move to another point for closing the mouths of dwarfs who used to contest and doubt the Arab Nation and the stances of the Gulf rulers, especially of Saudi Arabia.

figures. The dwarfs can do nothing to the great mountains especially the great figures that we are speaking about who work according to the instructions of God and Prophet Mohammad (Peace be upon Him). They also work according to the lofty Arab values and traditions. However, we have to be aware against the Persian schemes behind the role that some submissive people play inside the Gulf States as the submissive people try to apply the failing Persian schemes. I believe that the Gulf States know well the submissive people and the role that they are expected to execute due to the Iranian instructions. Therefore, the dwarfs were about to go mad as they could do nothing except to talk inappropriately about the important

Gulf figures. The dwarfs hope to undermine the security of Saudi Arabia or even to destroy this country but they will never ever reach to the extent of affecting Saudi Arabia as the dwarfs will remain dwarfs forever. Anyway, doing favors for dwarfs will never make them loyal to the persons who helped them or did them a favor because they are malicious and malice made them blind and they can`t see the reality. The dwarfs attempt to harm Saudi Arabia and they ignore the great favor of Saudi Arabia and its help during the Iraqi invasion. Such favors can`t be denied by the submissive persons who want to execute a foreign agenda inside their countries!!

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ALWATAN DAILY

views Free Trade Ad Nauseam Jagdish Bhagwati Project Syndicate

o much has been written, by so many, against the muddled ideas that have now overwhelmed good sense on trade policy in the United States government that one wonders whether there is anything left to say. Yet it is worth recalling what Pierre-Joseph Proudhon reportedly told the Russian intellectual Alexander Herzen: “And do you imagine that once a thing has been said, it is enough? It has to be dinned into people, it has to be repeated over and over again.” What we need now is a primer on the major misconceptions in the hope that, unlike Gresham’s Law, which says that bad money drives out good money, good economics will drive out bad economics. Four, in particular need to be corrected. The first misconception is that exports create jobs, while imports do not - a fallacy that the great trade economist Harry Johnson traced to mercantilism, and which the US has resurrected. In fact, in a world where parts and components come from everywhere, interference with imports imperils competitiveness. The success of parceldelivery companies, for example, depends on imports,

friDAY, march 2, 2012

Proponents of a ‘manufacturing first’ policy argue that ‘clusters’ of businesses are more productive than individual businesses are. which must be brought from the borders inland, as well as on exports. Second, the credo “Trade, not aid” has given way to the mistaken belief that trade matters less than foreign assistance. The labor constituency, ever fearful of import competition, has undermined trade policy. It has also shifted aid policy in directions that assign priority to areas where the returns to US efforts are relatively minuscule. Thus, the US State Department has ceased being an advocate of multilateral trade liberalization, despite decades of massive gains from the removal of trade barriers. Instead, its aid arm, the US Agency for International Development, has now retreated into low-yield programs conceived as randomized experiments. That technique impresses Bill Gates, and the new USAID administrator, Rajiv Shah, has experience with it. But, even if all such programs succeeded, their benefits would not add up to a fraction of the documented gains that have accrued from trade and other macro-level policies in which the US has lost interest.

Third, many believe that manufactures deserve preferential support. This is practically the mantra of US President Barack Obama’s administration, and it has cost him the support not only of much of the economics profession, but also of Christina Romer, who chaired his Council of Economic Advisers. In a recent newspaper commentary, she refuted virtually all of the arguments advanced by manufacturing lobbyists for special treatment. Add to the critiques that of Nobel laureate Robert Solow, a staunch supporter of Obama’s Democratic Party. He agrees that there are activities that yield higher social returns than private returns. The problem, he notes, is that neither he nor anyone else can possibly know which ones they are, whereas the lobbyists claim that they know this precisely. Proponents of a “manufacturing first” policy argue that “clusters” of businesses are more productive than individual businesses are. But big clustering effects are hard to find. The economists Glenn Ellison and Edward Glaeser

Merkel’s next crisis Steven Brill

German Chancellor Angela Merkel gives a speech at the Bundestag, lower house of parliament, on Feb. 27, 2012. (AFP)

Joschka Fischer Project Syndicate

ith Europe bogged down by the financial crisis and its national governments failing or being voted out of office across the continent, Germany has looked like an island of prosperity and stability. Chancellor Angela Merkel has appeared to be the embodiment of the new strength of old Europe’s problem child, a country admired by some and hated by others. But that was last month. Since then, the country’s president, Christian Wulff, who was elected with Merkel’s support, has been forced to resign, owing to mistakes he made as Minister President of Lower Saxony. Befittingly, his fall came at the high point of German carnival: while Catholics in Germany’s West and South celebrated, East German Protestants in Berlin consolidated their hold on power. Germany will have a Protestant pastor as its head of state, in addition to being governed by a Protestant pastor’s daughter. This is hardly an issue for ordinary Germans, because religion plays almost no role in German public life (so long as the religion in queston is not Islam). But it is a huge issue for the main governing party in Germany, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and even more so for its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU). Both parties are successors to the Catholic German Center Party, which fought against Protestant predominance in Prussia and Bismarck’s Reich. With the backing of Catholic majorities in western and southern Germany, the CDU and the CSU have been the traditional governing parties in the post-war German Federal Republic since the days of Konrad Adenauer. Loud grumbling over the protestant ascendancy can be expected within both parties. The real danger of the current presidential crisis and its solution for Merkel lies elsewhere, namely in the political calculations that made Joachim Gauck, the new German president, a candidate in the first place. As a rule, German presidential elections are highly charged events, because they can be an early indicator of emerging new political majorities. Moreover, the chancellor is not directly elected, and can be removed only by a constructive motion of no confidence, meaning that a parliamentary majority selects a new chancellor. This makes all majorities against a governing chancellor highly dramatic, because they reflect his or her declining power. This is particularly true if such a majority is assembled against the chancellor on a central personnel issue, as the selection of the president certainly is. That is what happened in Gauck’s election. Until last weekend, Merkel seemed to be standing on rock-solid political ground. She is highly respected internationally, at the height of her popularity at home, and has no rivals to fend off within her own party. True, popular support for her coalition partners, the Free Democrats (FDP), has plummeted to two percent; but the CDU/CSU are still clearly leading the Social Democrats (SPD, the largest opposition party), and the left is fragmented into four parties, two of which are not government material.

As a rule, German presidential elections are highly charged events, because they can be an early indicator of emerging new political majorities. So, even if Merkel’s coalition should fail at, or even before, the next federal election, it was always assumed that no one could seriously challenge her chancellorship, and certainly not within a renewed “grand coalition” with the SPD. There simply seemed to be no majority against Merkel. This gross miscalculation overlooked the growing angst of her ailing coalition partners, the FDP, about their chances of survival. In the short time since the decision to elevate Gauck to the presidency, the granite beneath Merkel’s feet has become political quicksand. What happened? Quite simply, the FDP ditched her and changed sides on a critical issue, aligning itself with the main opposition parties in supporting Gauck. Suddenly, the prospect of a new majority beckoned, and Merkel was faced with the choice of giving in or ending the coalition. She grit her teeth and gave in. But the rupture within her coalition can no longer be papered over. Gauck’s candidacy was forced through by an SPD/Green/ FDP majority, which emerged from intersecting political interests. But this only makes the matter more dangerous for Merkel, because such episodes are what the beginning of the end for German chancellors usually look like. The trust between the governing parties is gone. State elections this spring will show whether the FDP maneuver lifts the party above the 5% electoral threshold needed to remain in parliament, or whether fear of certain death led them to political suicide. If the FDP survives and a centerright coalition cannot gain a majority (which is likely), the party will seek an alliance with the SPD and the Greens, costing Merkel the chancellorship in 2013. This means that the CDU/CSU will no longer show any consideration for the FDP. If Merkel wants to protect her chancellorship, her only option after the 2013 general election is a grand coalition with the SPD, and, to emerge on top in such an arrangement, she needs every vote within the center-right camp that she can get. For Merkel, the situation will be very serious from now on. She may have kept Europe’s crisis from Germany’s door, but that does not mean that Germany will not soon enter a crisis of its own. * Joschka Fischer, Germany’s foreign minister and vice chancellor from 1998 to 2005, was a leader in the German Green Party for almost 20 years.

have found that clustering is only marginally greater than if businesses are allocated randomly. Besides, it is hard not to accept that, in the economist Frances Cairncross’s famous words, we are increasingly seeing the “death of distance.” Finally, the financial sector has come to be viewed as the bane of morality. In a world of financial fraud and insider trading, it is easy enough to believe this, and to accept that the financial sector must be taxed. But morality cuts across sectors. There are plenty of honest people in all walks of life, and crooks as well. The quasi-Marxist view that our morality stems from our economic position overlooks the moralizing role of family, religion, culture, and art. Given these misconceptions, protectionism has reemerged as a formidable foe. In 1999, when the ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization erupted into bomb threats and mayhem, I asked then-Director-General Mike Moore whether we ought not to be prepared to die for the great cause of free trade. I should have said: we ought at least to be prepared to live for it. Between old and new muddle, and the certain prospect that the demolition of each bad idea merely allows others to take root and grow in its place, the task of the free trader is never finished. * Jagdish Bhagwati, Professor of Economics and Law at Columbia University and Senior Fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, is the author of In Defense of Globalization.

Super PAC cash, immigration rules, and Businessweek’s revival

Reuters

ith super PACS having altered the dynamics of federal campaigns, it’s time for a look at how they’ve changed the fortunes of political consultants, pollsters and others who feed off of campaign money. With the cash flow this Republican primary season shifting from political organizations run by the candidate to independent - or at least ostensibly independent - entities, giving them much more money than the campaigns themselves, has the talent followed the dollars? Wouldn’t pollsters or admakers rather work for an organization with $100 million to spend than one with 10 million US dollars? And how do the people who run these super PACs get paid? How do the IRS rules governing the finances of non-profit entities apply to super PACs? Can someone like Karl Rove take a cut of the tens of millions he’s raised and dispensed for America’s Crossroads the way private equity funds take management fees? Who decides how much Rove or other super PAC executives or staffers make? Articles like the one in Sunday’s New York Timeshave pointed out the overlaps among staffers. So who ferrets out conflicts if, for example, someone running a super PAC steers business to his or her ad agency or consulting or polling firm? I doubt that I’m the only one who doesn’t know the basics of America’s immigration laws and rules, despite the fact they have become a staple of current political debate. For example, whenever I hear Rick Santorum talk about how his father, Aldo, was an immigrant from Italy who came to the United States in 1930, I wonder if he came in legally and, if so, under what rules. I assume Aldo Santorum couldn’t simply pick up and come here today from Italy, right? (I wondered the same thing about Rudy Giuliani when he ran for president in 2008.) My curiosity was piqued by a recent editorial in the Washington Post that took President Obama and all of his would-be Republican opponents to task for saying that illegal immigrants should “get to the back of the line” in applying for citizenship. In fact, the Post pointed out, when it comes to most illegal immigrants, there is no line - and no possibility of applying for citizenship. As the Postexplained, “a large majority of the 11 million illegal immigrants are unskilled or lowskilled Mexicans [who] have no relatives over age 18 who are either U.S. citizens or permanent residents in possession of green cards,” and that would make them ineligible for visas, let alone citizenship status. So what exactly are the rules? Which countries and what kinds of people get preference, and who gets no chance at all of “getting on the line” to pursue the American dream? How come? And what were the rules when the parents or grandparents of the politicians who rail the most about closing our borders came here? A recent editorial in the “Bloomberg View” section of Bloomberg Businessweek described the Neanderthal state of the American textbook market: high prices, little innovation and market domination by a few big companies. All this adds up to an industry in which prices have doubled the pace of inflation since 1986 and kids still lug brickloads of print books in their backpacks. The opinion piece keys off of the recently announced entry of Apple’s iPad into the market. But as it glumly concludes, Apple’s announcement that it is working with the incumbent publishers on a pricing model that is not likely to save anyone any money means that “Apple seems less intent on disrupting the textbook cartel than on joining it.” That’s because Apple seems set on partnering with the incumbents to publish their digital products only through the Apple store and have them be readable only on Apple’s expensive iPads. The essay then offers up the idea that digital texts should instead be published only on open platforms so they can be read on all devices. The federal government, it suggests, could force this by threatening to cut off crucial education aid to states that don’t require those open platforms. Beyond the obvious political obstacles with that kind of heavy-handed regulation, Bloomberg missed a bigger story. Forty-six states and the District of Columbia have now agreed to begin implementing what’s called “Common Core” curriculum standards - partly because of being pushed to do so by President Obama’s Race to the Top education grant program. In a country with 13,000 turf-conscious local school districts, this common-sense approach to setting strong national standards to meet the challenge of global competition is revolutionary. It also promises a potential revolution in the textbook industry, both print and digital. A textbook that becomes a favorite of education officials charged with implementing the Common Core standards could achieve unheard-of scale and sales volumes. The same is true for high-tech teaching products,

In a country with 13,000 turf-conscious local school districts, this common-sense approach to setting strong national standards to meet the challenge of global competition is revolutionary.

which is why venture capitalists are starting to warm to an industry they once shunned because sales had to be made one by one to states or even school districts in a highly politicized process. The emergence of digital publishing combined with the adoption of the Common Core is going to upend a big, important industry. The right story would take us inside the jockeying among traditional publishers and startup entrepreneurs to get in on the potential Common Core gold rush. Which bureaucrats are making the Common Core decisions about which learning products to adopt? What kind of lobbying and political pressure has been unleashed at what levels to influence these choices? Apple stories have glitzy appeal, but what’s going on behind closed doors to determine how and what our kids will learn when the revolutionary Common Core is implemented is the real story. Although I wasn’t keen on that Bloomberg View essay in the Feb. 6 issue of Businessweek, I was stunned in reading this issue, as I have been repeatedly in reading other recent issues, at how terrific the magazine has become under its new Bloomberg owners and editor Josh Tyrangiel. I second Jack Shafer’s December appraisal: It has become, for my money, the best business magazine published today and one of the two or three best magazines, period. If anything, its fault is that, because it’s a weekly, there’s so much good stuff in each issue that it leaves the reader feeling guilty he didn’t get to it all (though there are smart bottom-line summaries at the end of each piece to help deal with that). The cover story of that February sixth issue was an exquisite blow-by-blow account of how hard it is to merge two giant airlines (Continental and United) because there are thousands of surprisingly complicated decisions to be made - such as whose coffee and uniforms to keep or figuring out how to cut over to common reservations and flight-information systems while still operating 24/7 around the world. Reporter Drake Bennett made the important but mundane come to life in a way that reminded me of the quote attributed to McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc celebrating “the kind of mind that can see beauty in a hamburger bun.” Inside the same issue there were at least a dozen other stories I wanted to read, from the “wild battle to overpay for the bankrupt Los Angeles Dodgers” to “So Long, Wal-Mart Greeter.” This kind of transformation doesn’t just happen. Someone needs to do as thorough and as page-turning a piece on the magazine’s resurgence as Businessweek itself would do. There is a lot more to remaking a magazine than investing in talent. It takes attitude, discipline and a constant visualization of the reader - a relentless focus on whom you’re writing for and what you’re trying to deliver. How did Tyrangiel put all that together in an age when print is supposed to be dying? And is his reborn product making money? Are advertisers ponying up? Are circulation revenues on the rise? How is the magazine keeping itself from being victimized by the Web - or is it? How does its progress compare with a parallel effort to beef up Bloomberg’s long-suffering cable-TV network? What’s the difference? And how does all of this fit into the larger strategy of the Bloomberg company? * Steven Brill, the author of Class Warfare: Inside the Fight To Fix America’s Schools, has written for magazines including New York, The New Yorker, Time, Harpers, and The New York Times Magazine. He founded and ran Court TV, The American Lawyer Magazine, ten regional legal newspapers, and Brill’s Content Magazine. He also teaches journalism atYale, where he founded the Yale Journalism Initiative.

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Destination

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

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

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

VISITORS RESIDENTS

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

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

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

Police stations Tel.:

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

Ambulance

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

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

Private Hospitals

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

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

Adan General Hospital Al-Sabah Chest Hospital Al-Sabah Maternity Hospital Amiri General Hospital As’ad Al-Hamad Dermatology Center Farwaniya General Hospital Ibn Sina Hospital Jahra General Hospital Mubarak Al-Kabeer General Hospital Subhan Renal Hospital Sulaibikhat Orthopedic Hospital

25624000 22802555 1828282 1883883 25726666 22533177

Private Health Centers/ Clinics

Boushahri Clinic British Medical Center Care Clinic International Clinic

Public Hospitals

cons u l a tes

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

centr a l 4 7 2 2 0 0 0

94904040

hospital charges

medical services

Call, sms, Email us

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

23940600 24815000 24848067 22450080

1885544 23713100 22610666 25745111

Public Health Centers/ Clinics:

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

24832067 24883000 24840300 24575300 25312700 24840027 24874240

22447602 22545188 24726033 22611645 25750777 25524821 25723500 25610660 24848913 25336482

DOCTORS & DENTISTS

I N PR I VAT E PR AC T ICE

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

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

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

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

2565 0064 2533 3501

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

2572 8004 2532 9924

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

Cosmetic Surgeon Dr. Adel Quttainah

2562 5030 / 60

Ministries

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Noodles Salmiya Tel: 25712233

Bukhara Sheraton Hotel Tel: 22422055

The Peacock Radisson Blu Hotel Tel: 25673000

Tourist Restaurant Kuwait City Tel: 22411702

Noodle Factory Avenues Tel: 24954751

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

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

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

Tel: 22997000

L I S T I N G S

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

Kuwait City Tel: 22400737

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

Sakura Crowne Plaza Hotel Tel: 24742000

AlRoshinah Restaurant Safir Hotel & Residences -Fintas Tel: 25455555

Shogun The Palms Hotel Tel: 27070022

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

Manousha Salmiya Tel: 25722607 / 8

Al-Noukhaza Crowne Plaza Hotel Tel: 24742000

Fakhr Al-Din Restaurant Kuwait City Tel: 22423180

Villa Fairouz Shaab Tel: 22652030

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

Garden New Park Hotel Tel: 25634200

Yeldes Palace Kuwait City Tel: 22455212

Kabab-Ji Tel: 1861616

Zahrat Tunis Hawalli Tel: 22662444/333

Mais Al-Ghanim Kuwait City Tel: 22402590

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

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

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

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

Shabistan Crowne Plaza Hotel Tel: 24742000

The Gaucho Grill The Palms Hotel Tel: 25667370 -

• Seafood Al-Ahmadi Crowne Plaza Hotel Tel: 24742000

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

Al-Boom Radisson Blu Hotel Tel: 25756000

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

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

Flavors Restaurant Safir Hotel & Residences -Fintas Tel: 25455555

• Italian Ciro’s Pomodoro Kuwait City Tel: 22424004

Saj Express Kuwait City Tel: 22497822

Te l : 1 8 3 9 0 9 0

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

HOTELS

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

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

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

22452740 22997000 23281897 22415001

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

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

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

22528766 22465489 22443136 22532100 25742410 25713872 22928080

TWO STAR International Hotel Kuwait Residence Hotel

25741788 22467560

Western sanctions tighten squeeze on Iran oil exports

BUSINESS

fridAY, march 2, 2012

m ar ket watc h KUWAIT 0.11% 6134

DUBAI

QATAR

1.6% 1702

0.1% 8742

OMAN

ABU DHABI

0.1% 5842

0.5% 2624

WASHINGTON: Western trade sanctions against Iran are strangling its oil exports even before they go into effect, a US advisory body has found, amid warnings that any shortages will only push up crude prices and strain a weak global economy. With crude prices trading around 10-month highs and limited spare production capacity worldwide, the United States may offer Iran’s biggest customers waivers from the oil sanctions, which take effect June 28.

OIL MARKETS BAHRAIN 0.1% 1148

EGYPT

SAUDI

0.4% 5370

0.8% 7272

US Crude $107.19 $0.12 London Brent $123.42 $0.41 Kuwait Crude $120.00 $0.03 Information Courtesy: KAMCO

CURRENCIES US Dollar

British Pound

Saudi Riyal

Qatari Riyal

Indian Rupee

Euro

Japanese Yen

UAE Dirham

Bahraini Dinar

Philippine Peso

Buy 0.2774 Sell 0.2779 Buy 0.3694 Sell 0.3702

Kuwaiti oil prices down to $120 per barrel Oil above $123 on economy hopes, Iran concern

CAPITALS: The price of Kuwaiti crude continued dropping to 120 US dollars per barrel Wednesday, the state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) said Thursday. Oil prices are in a state of fluctuation due to many factors, namely the geopolitical situation in the Middle East and Iran’s cutting off it oil supplies to Europe. Meanwhile, oil rose above $123 a barrel on Thursday as upbeat economic data from China and the United States bolstered the demand outlook and concern persisted about supply disruption from Iran. A Chinese government survey showed factories’ output grew more than expected in February. New US claims for jobless benefits edged down last week, following on from a report on Wednesday showing the US economy grew faster than initially thought in the fourth quarter. Brent crude rose one dollar to $123.66 a barrel by 1411 GMT, rebounding from an earlier decline to as low as $122.49 and a dip to $120.50 on Wednesday. US oil was up 66 US cents to $107.73. “The sell-off yesterday may have marked the bottom,” said Christopher Bellew, a broker at Jefferies Bache in London. “The existing supply-side disruptions and risk of them getting worse are supporting prices - Iran, the continuing conflict in Syria.” Brent posted a monthly gain of 10.5 percent in February and reached $125.55, its highest intraday price since May 2, on Friday, supported by growing tension between the West and Iran about its nuclear program and concern about cuts in its oil supply. Prices fell earlier this week as technical indicators such as the relative strength index for Brent suggested the rally was overdone, and some participants still see signs that the oil market rally is fragile. Supplies from Iran, the second-largest producer of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) after Saudi Arabia, remain the key risk for the global market. A US government report said on Wednesday Western sanctions on Iran were already disrupting its oil exports, and further restrictions could tighten global oil markets. US and European insurance companies are declining to insure deliveries of Iranian oil even before the full Western sanctions go into effect, according to the report

Buy 0.003418 Sell 0.003426

Buy 0.074 Sell 0.0741

Buy 0.07546 Sell 0.0756

Buy 0.07634 Sell 0.07618 Buy 0.7351 Sell 0.73653

Buy 0.005642 Sell 0.005631 Buy 0.006496 Sell 0.006475

Prices in Kuwaiti fils As of March 1, 2012 Courtesy: KAMCO

Hyundai Mipo receives $250 million orders from Kuwait

Bourse makes shy gain of 6.7 points at closing A maitre chocolatier of Swiss chocolatier Lindt & Spruengli poses behind a pot of chocolate before the company’s annual news conference in Kilchberg near Zurich March 1, 2012. The maker of Lindor chocolate balls and gold foil-wrapped Easter bunnies said net profit rose 1.9 percent in 2011 to 246.5 million Swiss francs. The company, which is based in Kilchberg on Zurich lake, missed expectations for its organic sales growth in 2011 as demand for its products slowed considerably in debt crisis-shaken Southern Europe. (Reuters)

by the Energy Information Administration on Wednesday. The risk of future disruption to supplies from Iran has pushed signs that actual oil supplies are ample, and output from the OPEC is rising, onto the back burner. US crude oil stockpiles rose 4.16 million barrels last week, the EIA reported on Wednesday, a bigger increase than analysts expected which pressured US crude. OPEC basket up

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) daily basket price went up by to $1.

ent royalties paid between the two countries - five percent for dividends when payable between a parent company and its subsidiary, and 10 percent for both interest and royalties. Moreover, the two countries concluded a bilateral agreement in November 2010 on the promotion and mutual protection of investments, which contributes to opening up prospects for the flow of investments between Kuwait and Japan. Meanwhile, reflecting the keenness of the private sectors in Kuwait and Japan to expand economic cooperation through joint ventures, businessmen from both countries established the Japanese-Kuwaiti Businessmen’s Committee in 1995 and meet once a year alternately in Japan and Kuwait. In their latest meeting in Tokyo that brought together some 120 government officials and businessmen from the two countries, the participants pledged more active economic ties and welcomed Japan’s active engagement in various projects under the Kuwait’s development plan, in which the government will spend $102 billion in order to transform the country into an international economic hub. Japan is also considered one of the main markets for Kuwaiti oil, with Japan-bound shipments accounting for roughly 20 percent of Kuwait’s total crude exports of 1.3-1.5 million barrels per day at any given time. State-run Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) established Tokyo Office in 1968 as its first regional market office in order to strengthen KPC’s position in Asian markets. H.H. the Amir will make a four-day visit to Japan from March 20 to meet Emperor Akihito, who will host a state banquet in honor of His Highness. the Amir, and meet Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. Previously, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made the first visit by a Japanese leader to Kuwait in 2007, which was followed by the visit to Japan in July 2008 of former Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser AlMohammad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah. -KUNA

US dollar exchange rate rises to KD 0.277 KUWAIT: Exchange rate of the US dollar against the Kuwaiti dinar rose to 0.277 Kuwaiti dinars, while the euro slipped to KD 0.370, said the daily bulletin of the Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) on Thursday.

Buy 0.4421 Sell 0.443

CAPITALS: Hyundai Mipo Dockyard said it had received an order worth 250 million US dollars to build four chemical tankers for Kuwait even as the world’s shipbuilding industry suffers from a downturn. Under the contract signed Tuesday in Kuwait, Hyundai Mipo - a subsidiary of Hyundai Heavy Industries - will deliver the four tankers to the state-run Kuwait Oil Tanker Company by August 2014. Hyundai Mipo said it had now received orders for a total of eight vessels worth more than $400 million in total this year. It aims to secure orders worth $3.2 billion this year, up 80 percent from 2011. -AFP

Kuwait, Japan make great headway in economic cooperation TOKYO: Bilateral ties between Kuwait and Japan have made significant headway over decades through frequent high-level exchanges at various levels and cooperation in all fields, particularly economic domain. Kuwait and Japan established diplomatic relations in 1961, but commercial contacts began in 1958, when Kuwait granted oil and gas concessions in the offshore Divided Zone to the Arabian Oil Company. Today, Japan is Kuwait’s third-biggest trading partner, with two-way trade between the two countries reaching 14.2 billion US dollars in 2011, nearly doubled from the $7.5 billion worth for 2001. Last year, Kuwait’s exports to Japan totaled $12.9 billion, and imports $1.3 billion, according to Japanese government data. The two countries have witnessed increased multilayered economic relations and investments as a result of the historical visit to Tokyo by His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah in his former capacity as prime minister in July 2004. The 2004 summit meeting led to establishing a joint committee between the two governments in July 2008 to further activate cooperation in all fields, particularly the economic and commercial aspects. The Japan-Kuwait Joint Committee helps the two governments discuss ways of enhanced cooperation in such areas as trade, investment and technology transfer, in addition to energy sectors including oil and gas, both upstream and downstream. At their first Joint Committee in June 2010, the two sides agreed to scale up cooperation in the fields of renewable energy, energy conservation, atomic energy, water business and medical tourism.Kuwait and Japan also signed a double-taxation avoidance agreement in February 2010 aimed at facilitating economic activities and investment in each other’s country, and Kuwait became Japan’s first signatory among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. The treaty reduces the limit of withholding tax rates imposed on dividend income, interest and pat-

See page 10

The exchange rate of the Sterling pound was up to KD 0.441. The Japanese yen remained at KD 0.003 since the beginning of the year, meanwhile the Swiss franc went down to KD 0.306. -KUNA

47 to reach $122.26 on Wednesday, compared to $120.79 the previous day, said the organization’s bulletin on Thursday. OPEC’s annual average price last year stood at $107.46. The new OPEC Reference Basket of Crudes (ORB) is made up of Kuwait Export (Kuwait), Saharan Blend (Algeria), Girassol (Angola), Oriente (Ecuador), Iran Heavy (Islamic Republic of Iran), Basra Light (Iraq), Es Sider (Libya), Bonny Light (Nigeria), Qatar Marine (Qatar), Arab Light (Saudi Arabia), Murban (UAE) and Merey (Venezuela). -Agencies

KUWAIT: The Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) price index ended trade in green on Thursday, with the price index gaining 6.7 points, to reach 6,133.6 points, while the weighted index read 410.59, an up of 1.17 points. The trading session saw 7,415 transactions worth nearly 52 million Kuwaiti dinars with over 666 million changing hands. Five of the sector indices were in green while only three were in red, with the investment sector as the top gainer with 32.4 points, while the banking sector was the biggest loser dropping 59.7 points. The mutual funds and insurance sectors remained unchanged. The Fujairah Cement Industries Company was the top gainer of the day, while the top loser was Sokouk Holding Company. Trading began at Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) on Thursday with the main indices in the green zone. By 9:30 am, the price index came to 6,129.6 points, an increase of 2.7 points, while the weighted index came to 410.62 points, also up by 1.2 points. Trades came to 1,836 transactions by the time of the reading, with value reaching KD 14 million and 173 million shares changing hands. -KUNA

GFH announces profit of $0.38 million for 2011 MANAMA: Gulf Finance House (GFH or the bank) announced in a press release on Thursday its financial results for the year ending Dec. 31, 2011, during which the bank returned to profitability despite a challenging year underscored by shortfalls in market liquidity and rising political tension throughout the region. The Bank’s return to profitability in 2011 was the result of strong shareholder support, investor loyalty and a dedicated management team committed to seeing through the significant restructuring and recapitalization plan that was set in motion in 2010, and which has seen the Bank return to a net profit of 381 thousand US dollars in 2011 as compared to a net loss of $349 million in 2010. Operating profit before provisions were nine million dollars in 2011 as compared to a loss of $93 million in 2010, signaling a restart in GFH income. Additionally, the Bank saw a 37 percent reduction in operating costs during 2011. During the fourth quarter of 2011 GFH had a net loss of four million dollars as compared to a net loss of $187 million in 2010, primarily because of eight million dollars of impairment provisions. The Bank has focused its efforts since 2009 on cleaning up its balance sheet by clearing most of its outstanding debts. GFH was among the first investment banks in Bahrain and the region to take this move, which was seen as being very controversial in the beginning with negative effects on the Bank’s financial standing in the short term. As part of its restructuring plan, GFH also reduced its liabilities by 33 percent in 2011. Additionally, GFH continued to pursue its recapitalization plan, targeting GCC sovereign funds and investors. These efforts have born fruitful results to date. Moreover, GFH managed to build significant forward momentum on its major projects during 2011. The first of these projects was the signing with the Wadhwa Group in Mumbai, India for the development of the Mumbai Economic Development Zone project to the next phase. On another front, the Tunis Financial Harbour (TFH) project has began the prequalification process for prospective contractors following the announcement made by the Government of Tunisia in support of the project’s external infrastructure work. This forward movement on these projects confirms GFH’s commitment to moving existing infrastructure projects forward towards completion and achieving successful investors’ exits. GFH also followed through on its commitment to focus on its strong track record in developing financial institutions, undertaking a deal through its subsidiary G Capital (formely known as Injazat Capital) in partnership with the Turkish Gürmen Group, the company has successfully tendered to acquire Adabank, representing a foothold in the growing Turkish banking sector and platform for further cooperation between

Esam Janahi, Executive Chairman of GFH.

the GCC and Turkey. Esam Janahi, Executive Chairman of GFH commented on the 2011 Results saying, “Global, regional and national economies were all subjected to significant stress factors during 2011, which impacted several sectors significantly, not least of which was the financial sector. We met these challenges with a solid strategy, which was put in place in 2010 to correct GFH’s trajectory, and which we felt was capable of dealing with the additional stressors we saw last year. Our strategy was put in place to realize long term benefits for our shareholders, our investors and our employees. While this meant that we had to take some difficult decisions in the short term, and indeed experience a string of negative results, we have now returned to profitability as an institution, which was the target we were aiming for.

BUSINESS IN REGION

ALWATAN DAILY friDAY, march 2, 2012

Western sanctions tighten squeeze on Iran oil exports WASHINGTON: Western trade sanctions against Iran are strangling its oil exports even before they go into effect, a US advisory body has found, amid warnings that any shortages will only push up crude prices and strain a weak global economy. With crude prices trading around 10-month highs and limited spare production capacity worldwide, the United States may offer Iran’s biggest customers waivers from the oil sanctions, which take effect June 28. Iran is the world’s fifth largest oil exporter and the second-biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) after Saudi Arabia. It’s biggest customers, including China, Japan and India have become tangled up in US-led sanctions aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but which have also revived fears of a global recession. High crude prices present a major challenge for politicians seeking re-election, including for US President Barack Obama, who may face a backlash from voters paying a US gasoline price that is climbing towards record levels of four US dollars a gallon. Obama, however, can grant waivers if doing so would be deemed in the nation’s interest. “With oil inventories and spare OPEC production capacity running low, consumers don’t have much buffer against additional disruptions in supply,” said Trevor Houser, a partner at Rhodium Group and a former State Department adviser. “That means the needle the administration has to thread to pressure Iran without raising oil prices has gotten even smaller.” The Energy Information Administration (EIA), an independent arm of the US Department of Energy, said on Wednesday that Western insurers were declining to cover the trade risk on some Iranian oil shipments. On June 28, Washington will slap sanctions on foreign banks facilitating Iran’s oil trade, making doing business with Tehran all the more difficult. On Wednesday, news emerged that the US government recently forced Dubai-based Noor Islamic Bank to stop channeling Iranian oil money, cutting off another of Iran’s

ingly tight, largely due to the looming embargo and string of production outages in Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, and the North Sea. The report said global spare crude production capacity was “quite modest” by historical standards, and estimated a global supply gap of 1.6 million barrels per day if Iranian oil was completely taken out of the picture. Iran has threatened to retaliate against the sanctions by closing the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway which carries nearly 20 percent of the global oil trade. Fears of Israel strike

Malta-flagged Iranian crude oil supertanker “Delvar” is seen anchored off Singapore March 1, 2012. Western trade sanctions against Iran are strangling its oil exports even before they go into effect, a U.S. advisory body has found, amid warnings that any shortages will only push up crude prices and strain a weak global economy. (Reuters)

links to the international banking system. The world’s biggest electronic bank clearing system, SWIFT, is also preparing to block Iran’s central bank from using its network to transfer funds. In a sign of Iran’s difficulties, traders said Tehran was trying to sell about 200,000 tons of crude oil from a supertanker floating off Singapore. They also said a vessel heading towards China was carrying more oil than the usual term-contract supplies. Asian nations buy almost half of Iran’s oil exports, but

the US sanctions have forced them to either reduce the amount they buy or look for alternative suppliers. Iran is India’s second-biggest oil supplier after Saudi Arabia, and New Delhi revealed on Wednesday it had sought up to 80,000 barrels per day (bpd) extra oil from Iraq in 2012-2013, days after placing a similar request with top exporter Saudi Arabia. The EIA report, which looked at global oil output and prices over the last two months since Obama signed the sanctions into law, said oil supplies have become increas-

Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes but the West’s mistrust runs deep. Western diplomats say the UN nuclear watchdog was concerned over “activities” that might be taking place at Iran’s Parchin military facility. It was unclear what kind of activities the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) suspected. Diplomats said the agency was monitoring the site via satellite images. With Israel hinting it could launch a pre-emptive strike on an Iranian nuclear facility, a pro-Iranian militant group, Hezbollah, warned such an attack would set the Middle East ablaze and possibly drag the United States into the conflict. “America knows that if there is a war on Iran, this means that the whole region will be set alight, with no limit to the fires,” Hezbollah deputy Sheikh Naim Qassem told Reuters. The United States and Israel have not ruled out a military strike on Iran to halt its nuclear program. Rising petrol prices are a hot issue ahead of the US presidential elections in November. Republicans are trying to tap voter anger to criticize Obama and his Democratic party’s energy policy. Fortunately for oil consumers, Saudi Arabia, home to the world’s biggest spare oil cushion, has also boosted production in the last two months. The kingdom produced an average of 9.7 million bpd over the last two months, the EIA said, about 100,000 bpd less than figures in a Reuters survey on Wednesday. The EIA figure is up about 600,000 bpd from the same period last year. -Reuters

Oil price reporting may need regulating, says IOSCO Dubai to decide on energy investments by end-2012 LONDON: Oil price reporting by industry media could be regulated in an attempt to prevent market manipulation and increase transparency for the world’s biggest traded commodity, global securities regulator group International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) said on Thursday. Price assessments for over-the-counter (OTC) oil trade and derivatives produced by industry journalists are used to settle billions of dollars worth of deals and to help settle trade on benchmark futures exchanges. The International Organization of Securities Commissions said there was a risk that reported prices could be manipulated by submission to the agencies from the market of selective or false prices. Under pressure to curb speculation blamed for huge swings in oil markets, the Group of 20 (G20) top economies last year asked IOSCO to look at the role of price reporting agencies (PRAs). The lead agencies are Platts, owned by McGrawHill, and privately-held Argus Media. IOSCO recommended a range of ideas for physical oil market PRAs, including a possible independent regulator. “The range of potential approaches to PRA oversight may realistically lie between recommending a form of self regulation to recommending a direct governmental regulatory system,” IOSCO said in a consultation report.

Safeguards

Officials at European regulators have said they expect the G20 to adopt some of the options offered by IOSCO when the G20 meets in June in Mexico, and new regulations could be in place within two years. The IOSCO report said sometimes assessments of oil prices were based on a very small number of trades. “The number of transactions in certain benchmark assessments can often be less than five and not infrequently there are no prices submitted,” the report said. Oil price reporting agencies now have no external body to ensure oversight of reporting standards, proper levels of transparency or other safeguards, it said. Journalists at reporting agencies assess prices by calling up as many traders as possible and contacting them via instant messaging to ask where they see the market, trying to avoid pitfalls such as reflecting only one side of the market. That process has evolved over time and Platts and Argus publish their methodologies detailing how they assess prices. In some markets, such as the North Sea market which sets the price of global oil benchmark dated Brent, much of the day’s deals are done in a 30-minute period known as the “window,” aimed at increasing transparency. Even so, many other deals are not captured by the win-

dow process. Argus Media chairman and chief executive Adrian Binks said in a statement Argus had already contributed to a G20 mandated study of independent price reporting organizations: “We are happy to continue to provide information and work with regulators and the industry to help ensure better understanding of how the physical markets are assessed.” Platts, in a statement, said it shared IOSCO’s interest in transparent and efficient markets. “The oil price reporting process which we have employed for nearly 20 years is a highly structured, transparent process which reports bids, offers and transactions by company of origins,” the statement said. IOSCO has asked for responses to its consultative report from oil companies, banks, PRAs and other participants in the oil market by March 30. Platts said it expected to submit comments to IOSCO. IOSCO members regulate more than 95 percent of the world’s securities markets in more than 100 countries, including the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Britain’s Financial Services Authority and Japan’s Financial Services Agency. Thomson Reuters competes with Platts and Argus in providing news and information to the oil markets. -Reuters

DUBAI: Dubai is likely to decide on its multibillion dollar energy investment strategy, including possible investments abroad, by the end of 2012, a senior official at the Gulf emirate’s supreme energy council said on Thursday. Dubai, one of seven members of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) federation, lacks the large hydrocarbon resources of nearby Abu Dhabi, and has to import gas to satisfy growing energy consumption. The desert emirate of two million people hopes by the end of this year to come up with an integrated strategy to secure new supplies and reduce demand over the next two decades - and work out how to pay the multi-billion dollar bill. “We are now looking into a financial mechanisms for how we are going to structure it to deploy that strategy in the coming years for major projects both on the supply side but also on the demand side,” Nejib Zaafrani, Secretary General of Dubai’s Supreme Council of Energy, told Reuters in a joint interview with the head of the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority. (DEWA) Many countries dependent on imported fuels have invested in producing countries to secure their energy needs. Dubai’s 82 billion US dollar trade and property-based economy mostly imports gas for its power plants from nearby Qatar but wants to diversify. The government expects the economy to expand by 4.5 percent this year after estimated growth of more than 3 percent in 2011, as Dubai re-

Gold rebounds after price slump as buyers return LONDON: Gold rebounded on Thursday as physical bullion investors were tempted back to the market by the previous session’s five percent price plunge, its biggest one-day drop since before the collapse of Lehman Brothers in October 2008. Spot gold was up 1.3 percent at 1,716.94 US dollars an ounce at 1058 GMT, while US gold futures for April delivery were up $7.20 an ounce at $1,718.50. Spot prices fell more than five percent on Wednesday after Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke gave no hints that a third round of quantitative easing, which had been a key support of gold prices, was imminent in the world’s largest economy. Activity in COMEX gold futures spiked to 342,000 lots that day, more than double both the previous session’s volume and the one-month rolling average. “We had a sense that the gold market was increasingly pricing in QE3, and obviously Bernanke has put a dampener on that,” said Standard Bank analyst Walter de Wet. In key Asian physical gold markets overnight, jewelers, traders and investors rushed to take advantage of the nearly $100 drop in prices. “It’s been a long time since we (saw) such decent buying,” said one Hong Kongbased dealer. “We’ve seen physical flows coming off steadily since the beginning of February,” said de Wet. “The physical demand is just not there when gold is at $1,750-$1,800, and you really need that on top of the financial demand to push gold much higher.” He added, “Already we’ve seen some decent buying below $1,700 early this morning. That is coming through, but it will probably fall away as we reach the $1,750 level.” Investment in gold-backed exchange-traded products, which issue securities backed with physical bullion, also rose on Wednesday, with holdings of the largest, New York’s SPDR Gold Trust, up just over nine tons, the biggest one-day rise since January. A lack of demand for physical bullion in recent weeks meant gold had little additional support once selling got underway on Comex, after Bernanke’s remarks. “We think a large part of why gold conceded so much came down to three other factors - $1,800 was proving to be too much of a hurdle and a certain staleness had entered the market; positioning had increased very swiftly in recent weeks; and physical demand has been non-exis-

FILE - A worker in a jewelry shop carries a bundle of bank notes behind the counter in Bangkok on Aug. 9, 2011. Gold rebounded on Thursday, March 1, 2012 as physical bullion investors were tempted back to the market by the previous session’s five percent price plunge, its biggest one-day drop since before the collapse of Lehman Brothers in October 2008. (AFP)

tent,” said UBS in a note. “What the physical community do from here is hugely important,” it added. Markets recover

A recovery in other markets, many of them with heavy losses on Wednesday, also helped gold move higher. The euro edged up 0.1 percent against the dollar after earlier hitting a one-week low. European shares reversed earlier losses to move higher, with investors cheered by this week’s European Central Bank (ECB) cash injection on the banking sector and peripheral countries such as Italy. German government bonds hovered near record highs after the news. Among other precious metals, silver was up 0.4 percent at $34.73 an ounce. It also fell more than six percent

on Wednesday in gold’s wake. The gold/silver ratio, the number of silver ounces needed to buy an ounce of gold, jumped back up to 49.4 from a five-month low of 48.4 earlier on Wednesday. “Silver did manage to hold its short-term uptrend support, off the Dec. 29 low, currently around 34.37, on a closing basis,” said ScotiaMocatta in a note. “What was notable in the silver technicals was the strong rejection at 37.31, which is the 61.8 percent Fibonacci retracement level of the August to December downtrend,” it added. “Key support is at 33.00, which has held on a closing basis since Jan. 25.” Spot platinum was up one percent at $1,692.50 an ounce, while palladium was up 0.2 percent at $699.97 an ounce. -Reuters

covers from its 2009-2010 debt problems. Dubai’s energy and water consumption is currently growing at five and six percent a year, respectively, above DEWA’s forecast of four percent on average for this year, DEWA’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Saeed Mohammed Al-Tayer told a news conference. He said Dubai’s energy investment strategy would likely be ready by the end of the year. The emirate plans to diversify is energy sources away from almost total reliance on gas to include nuclear, coal and renewables by 2030. Malaysian assets

Zaafrani said that the Dubai government could be interested in some of the three billion dollars worth of power assets put on sale by Malaysia’s tycoon Ananda Krishnan - which stretch from Malaysia to Egypt and include the UAE. “It’s under study, but this is being considered as one of the options,” he said Krishnan, Malaysia’s second-richest man, recently put his entire power portfolio of about a dozen power plants up for sale. The power assets sale has so far attracted 12 bids, with Saudi Water & Electricity Co submitting the top bid of 10.85 billion Malaysian ringgit ($3.60 billion). “A huge potential in the business investment in the energy sector is coming up in Dubai and that is from local, regional and global. And that’s because we have a got a very well structured long term strategy,” Zaafrani said. -Reuters

Moody’s changes Aldar’s outlook to positive

CAPITALS: Moody’s Investors Service changed the outlook to positive from negative for the Corporate Family (CFR) and Probability of Default Rating (PDR) of Aldar Properties PJSC and affirmed the ‘B2’ CFR and PDR as well as ‘B3’ ratings for Aldar’s 1.25 billion US dollar bond (due in 2014 and issued by Atlantic Finance Limited) as well as its 3.75 billion UAE dirham Sukuk (due in 2013 and issued by Sukuk Funding (No. 2) Limited). This was part of a statement released by the ratings agency. “The asset transaction agreements with the government of Abu Dhabi announced in December 2011 eliminate significant market and execution risk and will allow Aldar to reduce its debt load to an estimated 4.5 billion dirhams by 2015. The total consideration under the agreements amounts to 16.8 billion dirhams, including the cancellation of government debt, and is spread over four years,” said Martin Kohlhase, Vice President - Senior Analyst at Moody’s and lead analyst for Aldar. Kohlhase further explained that “the positive outlook reflects the upward pressure on the ratings if Aldar continues to build a solid track record on the recurring revenue front while also maintaining the solid liquidity now in place to address mediumterm maturities.” Although Aldar’s cash inflows over the coming two years will be materially bolstered by funds from the government of Abu Dhabi and are hence considered of high quality, Moody’s is also monitoring Aldar’s track record in building over the medium term a recurring income stream from its investment properties. Owing to the difficult market environment of the Abu Dhabi real estate market, Moody’s has taken a more cautious stance on how quickly recurring net cash flows are likely to develop. Nevertheless, in light of the high likelihood of reducing its debt load to 4.5 billion dirhams, we do expect that Aldar will over time (i) generate at least a minimum of 500 million dirhams in recurring cash flows per annum; (ii) sell its property units and land to non-government third parties in 2012 and 2013; (iii) put in place longer-term financing arrangements for its estimated remaining gross debt of 4.5 billion dirhams maturing between 2014 and 2021, which is expected to occur over the course of the coming 18 months. All these measures when executed could result in higher ratings. As Moody’s does not expect the mix of secured debt relative to unsecured debt to change materially, the B3 ratings for the unsecured debt instruments (2013 Sukuk and 2014 bonds) were affirmed and the one-notch differential to the CFR/PDR maintained. This reflects the preferential position of secured lenders in the debt structure. -Agencies

ALWATAN DAILY

MARKETS

CFO optimism plummets to 2-year low in Q4 of 2011

Kuwait registers massive 76% increase in sales in 2011 for Hyundai

The Hyundai Elantra. Hyundai’s retail partner in Kuwait, the Northern Gulf Trading Company, registered a 76 percent growth in sales for 2011

CAPITALS: Hyundai Motor Company, the world’s fastest growing automotive manufacturer, has announced best ever sales figures for the Middle East region in 2011. The company showed a nine percent increase in total sales in comparison to 2010, selling a record 283,953 vehicles. This was stated in a press release on Thursday. Hyundai’s retail partner in Kuwait, the Northern Gulf Trading Company, registered a 76 percent growth in sales, the second biggest increase within the GCC and Levant region. The sporty, sleek Accent was the preferred buy with 1,286 units sold, followed by the Tucson SUV with over 1,224 units sold. The Elantra and Sonata were also popular in the GCC country. Qatar reported the biggest increase by a single country with sales up by 93 percent, while the United Arab Emirates showed a 29 percent increase. There was also important growth in Saudi Arabia, the company’s single biggest market, which experienced an 18 percent rise in sales with over 106,699 units sold. Bahrain and Yemen also registered increases, while Syria, Jordan and Oman remain Hyundai’s biggest volume markets after Saudi Arabia. When it came to the buyer’s choice of model, Hyundai’s record-breaking 2011 sales were led by the

Elantra. With the stylish, hi-tech new generation Elantra now on sale in the region, total sales of this compact class car across the GCC and Levant reached 72,980 units. Second biggest seller was the ever-popular Accent, with total sales of 60,322 units. The Centennial and Genesis represent Hyundai’s line-up of luxury models, embodying the company’s new Modern Premium approach. Combined sales of these two models in 2011 were up a massive 90 percent, clearly demonstrating growing consumer interest in the company’s high-end cars. Particularly key to the company’s performance in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, Hyundai’s SUV line-up, the Tucson, Santa Fe and Veracruz, also performed well, with sales up four percent. Tom Lee, Head of Hyundai Middle East’s Regional Headquarters, said: “Across the GCC and Levant countries, customers have shown their confidence in our new range of ‘Modern Premium’ cars in growing numbers. While our SUV line-up continues to perform strongly across the region, new models such as the Elantra, Sonata, Veloster and Accent, together with our flagship luxury cars, the Centennial and Genesis, are introducing the Hyundai brand into increasing numbers of homes.”

Company

High

Low

National Bank Gulf Bank Commercial Bank Ahli Bank Ahli United Bank International Bank Burgan Bank Kw Finance House Boubyan Bank

1,200

1,180 475 640 890 250 450 820 550

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

108 260 66 172 335 18.0 64 114 118 36.0 136 59 33 43.0 64 39.0 82

480 640 900 255 455 830 560

Global Index - Banking

Taiba Kuwaiti Holding

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

28.5 66.0 180 31.5 68 68 54 130

108 260 64 168 335 16.5 61 110 116 34.0 132 56 30 41.5 64 38.0 78 174.0 106.0 26.5 60.0 178 30.0 63 67 50 128

182.0 110.0

Global Index - Investment

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

Global Index - Insurance

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

236 130 425 -

234 126 420 1,420 325 880 420

325 890 420

ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ

56 108 146 228 47.5 99 900 71 17.5 57.0 82 60 58 71 22.5 45.5 34.0 30.0 24.0 32 -

1,420

ŷ Ÿ ŷ Ÿ ŷ ŷ Ÿ ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ Ÿ ź Ÿ Ÿ ŷ Ÿ ŷ ź ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ ŷ ź ź ŷ Ÿ ŷ ŷ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ ŷ Ÿ ŷ ŷ Ÿ Ÿ

58 110 150 234 51.0 100 920 73 18.5 60.0 87 66 64 75 24.0 48.0 34.0 32.5 26.0 32 -

Global Index - Real Estate

Nationl Ind. Group Pipes Ind. & Oil Kuwait Cement Refrigeration Ind. Gulf Cables & Elec. Heavy eng. & Ship. Marine Services Portland Cement Shuaiba Industrial Metal Collecting Kuwait Foundry

Ÿ ź ŷ ź ź ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ

ź ź Ÿ ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ ź ŷ ź Ÿ Ÿ ź Ÿ Ÿ ź Ÿ ŷ ŷ Ÿ Ÿ ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ Ÿ ź Ÿ ŷ Ÿ ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ Ÿ ŷ Ÿ Ÿ ŷ ŷ Ÿ ŷ Ÿ ŷ ŷ ŷ

1180 480 710 640 900 255 455 820 560 318.53

108 260 65 172 335 17.0 63 25.0 130 23.5 230 112 118 50 52 35.0 134 59 32.5 71 42.0 48.5 64 26.0 244 51 38.5 51 39.0 82 182.0 110.0 23.0 26.5 62.0 29.0 178 255 114 31.50 68 68 53 53 64 42.50 130 83.23

300 610 455 148 220 122 40.50 44.28 57 108 150 210 37.5 234 118 81 48.0 120 99 910 73 17.5 60.0 87 61 64 80 34.0 75 23.0 87 17.5 40.0 57 75 118 47.5 34.0 31.5 27.0 25.5 134 134 220 64 310 54.46

236 128 420 138 1,420 325 172 890 190 112 420

1160 485 710 650 920 255 455 820 560 317.79 108 255 65 168 335 17.0 62 25.0 130 23.5 230 112 116 50 52 34.0 136 58 30 71 41.5 48.5 66 26.0 244 51 38.5 51 39.0 77 172.0 104.0 23.0 29.0 65.0 29.0 176.0 255 114 29.00 63 66 53 52 64 42.50 128 82.54 300 610 455 148 220 122 40.50 44.28 58 110 146 210 37.5 234 118 81 50.0 120 100 900 71 18.5 58.0 82 65 59 80 34.0 71 22.5 87 17.5 40.0 57 75 118 45.5 36.5 31.0 27.0 24.0 134 134 220 64 310 53.88 236 126 415 138 1,420 320 172 880 190 112 420

Previous Close Change 180.96 0.60 6.70 6,126.90 Trading Activity Chng Volume Tran. Value(KD)

DTD 0.33% 0.11%

Last Bid

Last Ask

MTD YTD 0.33% 1.25% 5.49% 0.11% Div. Annual Close Low P/E Yield High

415,000 520,000 210,000 55,000 1,620,000 390,000 1,675,000 840,000 5,725,000

22 16 9 5 17 10 68 30 177

491,850 248,600 134,400 49,350 405,600 175,850 1,376,150 470,350 3,352,150

1,180 480 700 640 890 250 450 820 550

1,200 485 750 650 900 255 455 830 560

3.4% 0.0% 2.1% 3.1% 1.6% 0.0% 0.0% 2.4% 0.0% 2.0%

1,180 510 790 680 920 260 475 900 590 326.42

1,100 475 710 640 790 236 450 820 560 317.17

15.53 32.92 81.72 17.34 31.43 24.25 12.13 23.36 106.53 18.77

20,000 10,000 13,520,000 2,940,000 430,000 31,440,000 1 3,080,000 3,760,000 1,100,000 1.0 5,120,000 -2 9,560,000 1 7,760,000 3 8,240,000 1 2,080,000 240,000 2,160,000 19,680,000 5 7,120,000 10.0 6.0 18,340,000 8,560,000 2.53.023,440,000 2.0 300,000 2.5 1,040,000 240,000 5 2,800,000 2 2,480,000 1 2 6,260,000 0.68 181,520,000

1 1 121 58 16 182 49 83 23 56 93 120 76 21 1 25 129 158 261 75 374 9 12 3 33 50 132

108 255 63 170 330 16.5 62 23.5 110 118 34.5 132 58 33 41.0 65.0 38.0 82 182.0 108.0 22.5 61.0 176 32 65 68 53 51 128.0

110 260 64 172 335 17.0 63 25.0 238 112 120 35.0 134 59 43.0 71.0 242 56 39.0 110.0 24.5 26.5 62.0 180 69 55 53 130.0

0.0% 8.5% 0.0% 0.0% 6.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 8.5% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 3.4% 5 1% 5.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 9.4% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 2.4%

110 265 67 174 340 18.5 65 25.0 130 36.0 230 122 118 50 52 35.0 136 62 33 71 42.0 48.5 70.0 26.0 244 54 39 51 41.0 82 212.0 130.0 25.0 33.5 96.0 29.0 178 255 114 32 68 68 60 53 64 42.5 134.0 83.23

104 255 40 158 295 11.5 50 25.0 130 21.0 230 102 102 50 52 24.0 106 47 21 71 28.5 48.5 64.0 26.0 244 51 36 51 26.0 61 99.0 19.5 19.0 16.0 38.0 29.0 154 255 114 26 58 50 53 47 64 42.5 112.0 74.96

41.33 12.09

2,162

2,160 2,600 875,240 500,480 144,050 535,200 192,480 416,240 128,480 182,320 1,288,400 450,640 261,960 87,520 2,560 82,840 1,593,480 1,274,600 1,983,600 229,240 1,443,280 53,560 32,560 16,040 189,440 129,720 813,560 12,912,250

285 430 112 32.5

300 580 470 146 43.0

6.7% 4.1% 5.5% 6.8% 2.7% 0.0% 0.0% 4.7%

325 610 520 148 220 134 40.5 44.80

280 550 450 102 220 102 40.5 42.22

15.67 14.06 9.29 23.37 296.83

7,200,000 780,000 10,960,000 340,000 2.010,920,000 -1 800,000 10 850,000 2 800,000 1.018,000,000 12,680,000 2.0 5 11,720,000 -4 4,920,000 5 6,480,000 3,920,000 4 8,560,000 0.5 2 69,200,000 2.5880,000 0.5 2,800,000 38,640,000 1.5 160,000 0.58 210,610,000

63 10 201 10 91 17 54 19 140 120 93 105 96 62 84 436 11 31 211 1 -

57 108 148 206 228 114 80 47.5 99 910 71 17.5 59.0 87 61 64 79 34.0 74 22.5 87 38.5 75 116 47.0 31.5 25.5 25.5 32 60 -

58 110 150 210 37.5 234 48.0 130 100 920 73 18.0 60.0 62 36.0 75 23.5 40.0 58 80 120 47.5 34.0 32.0 27.5 26.0 33 63 -

0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 9.5% 0.0% 4.3% 0.0% 6.2% 0.0% 5.8% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 5.7% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 3.7% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 1.0%

59 118 150 210 37.5 236 130 82 52.0 120 104 910 80 20.0 60.0 87 75 64 90 38.0 75 23.0 91 17.5 40.5 59 80 144 47.5 39.5 32.0 28.5 25.5 134 33 220 70 480 54.46

47 97 108 200 37.5 224 114 77 27.0 108 94 840 62 11.0 35.0 77 56 52 80 33.0 59 13.5 87 17.5 31.0 57 64 116 27.5 22.0 25.0 25.5 15.0 134 32 220 49 270 49.06

44.17 13.86 26.87 18.72

1,855

410,560 84,280 1,618,040 77,680 532,760 79,280 776,100 57,840 323,840 741,080 1,003,760 308,200 403,200 290,520 198,840 3,244,880 29,920 88,480 967,400 5,040 11,241,700

94 42 3 3 4 22 2

1,133,760 163,400 16,900 35,500 13,000 168,000 12,600

234 128 415 136 1,400 325 164 890 180 110 400

236 130 430 1,420 330 180 900 200 116 420

0.0% 0.0% 2.4% 3.6% 4.6% 3.1% 2.9% 11.2% 5.3% 0.0% 4.8%

260 134 470 158 1,480 345 222 920 200 116 495

214 120 415 138 1,380 315 172 660 180 102 420

20 -5 -10 -20 0.74 5 4 -

Ex-D -1 -2 4 -

2 5 5 10 -

Q1 and a net 82 percent in Q3 2009.

Financing the corporate sector Less attractive funding sources

Bank borrowings, equity and external debt sources of funding have each declined in attractiveness between Q4 and Q1 among CFOs in the Middle East, the Deloitte survey finds. Bank borrowings were viewed as attractive by a net 45 percent (Q1 68 percent) followed by equity with a net 11 percent (Q1, 38 percent) and corporate debt 29 percent (Q1, 61percent). Regarding cost and availability of credit, 20 percent of CFOs view new credit as costly, down from a net 58 percent in Q1. While cost may have improved, new credit availability has become more difficult to secure according to 48 percent of CFOS compared to 23 percent in Q1. Looking further out, a net 57 percent of CFOs believed that the availability of debt capital will increase over the next three years. This maybe an unreasonable expectation given that an approximate 12-15 trillion US dollars in corporate debt globally is due for maturity over the next three to five years. Furthermore, a net 56 percent of CFOs believe their companies weighted average cost of capital will increase over the next three years. In an uncertain market environment it is a reasonable expectation that a number of risk premiums have the potential to increase during that time period. As for their role within their respective organization, CFOs are still finding themselves spending more time in the operator and steward roles than they feel they should. One of the constraints CFOs may have in fulfilling their responsibilities as strategists and catalysts is the perceived lack of support provided from the Board and CEOs in these roles. Fifty-two percent of CFOs viewed lack of authority and support as a constraint to fulfilling their role as strategists, while 55 percent felt the same in their role as catalysts.

Declining expectations for M&A activity

In addition, the Deloitte Q4 2011 Middle Eastern CFO Survey finds that expectations regarding the levels of M&A activity reached a two year survey low. A net 40 percent of CFOs reported an expected increase in M&A over the coming 12 months down from a net 63 percent in

4,820,000 1,280,000 40,000 25,000 40,000 190,000 30,000

05 / 01 / 2012

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

For more Information please contact "Global" at (+965) 180 42 42 or www.globalinv.net Last Close 181.56 6,133.60 Last Prev. Close Close

to continuing sovereign debt troubles in the Euro zone, the social upheaval in the Middle East, dwindling global demand, and global concerns over economic uncertainty, CFO optimism remained at low levels almost worldwide during the fourth quarter of 2011. Moreover, this weakening sentiment dampened CFO expectations in many countries. The situation is particularly pronounced in Europe. In the UK, in fact, CFOs have no doubt that the biggest threat to their businesses in 2012 comes from a potential breakup of the European Union. Almost 40 percent of UK CFOs see a high probability that one or more member states will leave the single currency in the course of 2012. In Belgium, 76 percent of CFOs report that the Euro crisis is impacting their companies negatively, and in Switzerland, the pessimistic outlook is compounded by the perception that the Swiss Franc is overvalued and by fear of a drop in demand, and 53 percent of them expect a recession in 2012, while their financial outlook for their own companies has decreased for the third consecutive quarter. In North America, and while the focus appeared to turn back toward growth in Q4, CFOs remain worried that the debt crisis might not be contained and that a spillover might threaten consumer and capital markets throughout the world. CFOs in this continent also say they need talent with stronger analytical skills, political acumen, and macro-economic knowledge to deal in this environment. Here is a summary of main findings of the Middle East region’s CFO views and expectations in the Deloitte survey:

Date of Closing Prices:

Date of Closing Prices: 01 / 03 / 2012 For more information please contact “Global” at (+965) 180 42 42 or www.globalinv.net Ÿ

CAPITALS: Global CFO optimism is wavering, according to a recent study by Deloitte entitled ‘Q4 2011 Global CFO Signals Report’. Conducted on a semiannual basis for the past two years in the Middle Eastern region, the Deloitte CFO survey is the only report for major corporate users of capital that gauges attitudes towards the general economic outlook, financing, valuations and risk. This was mentioned in a press release on Thursday. The decline in CFO optimism is tied to the continued social upheaval and conflict which the Middle East has witnessed since 2011, coupled with uncertainty and risk aversion in business dealings. The Deloitte survey also shows that decline in CFO positive sentiment is further reflected in expectations for operating cash flow to be generated in the coming 12 months, where only 47 percent of CFOs surveyed in the Middle East expect operating cash flows to increase, down from 82 percent in the previous year. “While CFO optimism in the Middle East has declined, the economic fundamentals of the region remain strong, relative to other parts of the world. It is the prospect of unexpected events or ‘Black Swans’ which weigh heavily on the minds of CFOs at the moment,” commented James Babb, CFO program leader at Deloitte in the Middle East. “CFOs in the region would do well to assess the events of the past year and to focus more time in their roles as strategists and catalysts for their organizations in this time of uncertainty,” he added. A net 68 percent of CFOs in the Middle East reported an above average level of financial and economic uncertainty facing their business. Findings also show that 46 percent of them do not believe now is a good time to be taking greater risk onto their balance sheets which is up from a net five percent in Q1 2011. Globally the picture is not too positive either according to surveyed CFOs in many countries. By many accounts, 2012 may turn out to be a difficult year. Thanks

Trading Prices of Kuwait Stock Exchange Date of Closig Prices: 1/03/2012

Trading Prices of Kuwait Exchange Trading Prices of Kuwait StockStock Exchange

Global General Index KSE Price Index

friDAY, march 2, 2012

89.98 13.55 1.81 0.00

0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 30.41 0.00 116.80 0.00 0.00 0.00

0.00 9.33 22 77 22.77 11.92 43.00

0.00 5.27 12.54

12.84

16.93 5.23 16.98 40.46 22.96 0.00 16.24 31.19

6.81 25.08 12.18 5.12 48.01

23.07 18.82 0.00 0.00 17.83 71.79 17.16 6.49 7.78 157.27 118.86 11.52 24.93 24.44

ACICO

206

Global General Index 98 United Industries 610 Boubyan Petroch. KSE Price Index

Gulf Glass HilalCompany Cement 216 High Al Kout Ind. Project 1,140 National K-PAK Bank 275 Gulf BankMaterial 495 Building Commercial 770 Nat. Ind.Co.Bank Ahli Bank 640 73 Equipment Holding Ahli United Bank 850 Mena Holding International Bank 248 Consumer Industries 460 Burgan Bank Kuwait Gypsum 890 Kw Finance House 216 Qurain Bank Boubyan 590 Salbookh Trading 49 Global Index - Banking 178 IKARUS Kw Investment 76 Boubyan Int'L Ind.

206 97 600 216 Low 1,120 275 490 770 640 69 800 248 455 880 214 580 48 174 76

ź źŷ źŷ ŷ Ÿ

ŷ ź ŷ ŷ ŷ ź Ÿ Ÿ ŷ ŷ ŷ ź ŷ ź ŷ ŷ Ÿ ź ź ŷ Ÿ 265 260 źŸ Commercial Facilit. Global Index Industrial 41 40 ź Int'L Financial Adv. NationalInvest. Cinema 174 National 170 - źŷ KwProjects Hotels 300 - Ÿŷ Kw 300 415 ŷŷ 430 12.5 Agility Ahlia Holding 13.5 Coast Invest. 53 52 62 57 źŸ Market Complexes -860 -840 ŷŸ Int'L Investor ZAIN Securities House - ŷŸ 77.0 72.0 Safat Energy Ind. & Fin. Inv.Group Educational - ŷŷ -Securities Group - - ŷŷ Indep. Petroleum Int'L Finance 128 National Cleaning 128 ŷŸ 110 MARKAZ 108 134 Sultan Center 128 ŷŷ KMIFIC - ŷŸ 89 Arabi Group 88 Int'L Inv. Group City Group - ŷŷ Aref Inv. Group - ŷ 2,020 2,020 ź Wataniya Tele. Investment Dar - ŷ 108 Kw Gulf Link 106 ŷ Al AMAN Inv. ŷ Kw Cable ALOLA Inv.Vision 110 108 - ŷŷ Automated ALMAL Inv. System 50 49 - źŷ NAPESCO -Gulf Inv. House - - ŷŷ 265 KCPC Leasing 265 - ŷŷ A'ayan K.S.HInv. 32.5 - 31.0 - ŷŷ Bayan - ŷŷ Eyas GLOBAL Inv. Hits Telecom - 85 - 80 ŷź Osoul Inv. 23.5 Al Safwa Holding -22.0 ŷŸ GULFINVEST KFIC Human Soft - ŷŷ KAMCO - ŷŷ Privatization Holding 75 77 Int'l Leasing & Inv. -- - ŷŷ Nafaaes Holding - - ŷŷ Nat. Int'l Holding -National Slaughter - ŷŷ Housing Finance 110 106 Aref energy MADAR - ŷŸ 640 640 Safwan 26.5 Al Deera Holding 26.5 69.0 64.0 ŷź Gulf Petroleum Al Safat Inv. - ŷŸ 25.0 28.0 Gulf Franchising 122.0 Al Salam Credit & Group Collection - 114.0 - Ÿŷ 39.0 ź 41.0 Ekttitab Holding National Ranges 19.5 18.5 ŷ Al Qurain Holding ŷ Burgan Well Drilling - ŷ 16.5 Sokouk Holding 16.5 ŷ 480 38.5 IFA H&R 465 ź Al-Madina Finance 40.0 ź 1,520 1,520 Combinted Group ź NOOR ŷ Jeeran Holding Tamdeen Inv. 160 158 - źŷ Palms KW BH Agro Int'l Exch. -- - ŷŷ 75.0 SafatKuwaiti TEC Holding 72.0 Taiba - ŷŸ 86 85 Mushrif Trading Kuwait Syrian - ŷź U it d P j t United Projects -Strategia - - ŷŷ ALAFCO 300 305 53 53 ŷŷ Kuwait China Inv. Al-Muwasat -- - ŷŷ Manafae Inv. Gulf NorthHolding Africa - ŷŸ Mashaer 224 214 Amwal - ŷŷ 270 Oula Fuel 265 Al MasarComm. Future - ŷŷ 124 Al-Imtiaz 132 Hayat Comm. 76 źŷ 77 Global Index - Investment Mubarrad Transport 63 60 źŸ KuwaitInsurance Resorts -- - ŷŷ Kuwait Advanced Technolgy - - ŷŷ Gulf Insurance -Yiaco Medical -- - ŷŷ Ahlia Insurance Al Jazeera Airways 465 źŷ 475 112 108 Warba Insurance Al Soor Fuel 238 238 ź Kuwait Re-Ins. First Takaful -- - ŷŷ Future Kid Ins. Wethaq -228 -220 ŷŸ K G L Insurance - źŷ Al Nawadi Global Index - Insurance Alrai Media 132 136 48 źŷ Kuwait R.E. 48 Zima Holding 100 - Ÿŷ United R.E. 100 -

Global R.E. Index - Services 118 National 126 200 Salhia R.E. Trans. 204 LiveStock 190 190 -110 Pearl -114 DanaR.E. Al-Safat 224 224 Tamdeen R.E. 130 United Poultry 130 Ajial R.E. 1,500 1,500 Kw FoodStuff Massaleh R.E. United Food Arab R.E. 30.0 30.0 Kout Food Union R.E. Global Index Food 98 96 ERESCO 860 840 Mabani Sharjah Cement 84 80 75 74 INJAZZAT RE Gulf Cement 99 104 Inv. UmHolding QuwainGrp Cement 12.0 64 11.5 62 -108 -120 Int'L Resorts Fujaira Cement 78 77 Commercial R.E 124 Ras AlKheimah 124 70 65 Sanam R.E. ARIG 54 53 Aa'yan R.E United Gulf Bank Aqar 325 Egypt Kw Holding 335 Kuwait R.E Holding Bahrain Kw Ins. 59 AL Mazaya 60 Gulf House 71.0 14.0 67.0 Al DarFin. National R.E 14.0 Inovest Int'L Holding 48 45 Themar -186 Grand R.E Projects -190 Ahli United Bank -20.5 Tijara & R.E Invest Ithmaar Bank 22.0 Al Tameer Global Index - Non-Kuwaiti Arkan Al-Kuwait R.E 70 70 Markaz Real Estate Safat Global Al Argan Int'L Funds Investment 28.5 28.0 Abyaar Al-Bareeq Holding 23.5 23.5 Munshaat AFAQ 25.5 First Dubai 26.0 Al-Shamel KBT 27.0 27.0 Al-Safat Real Estate 16.5 30.0 15.5 30.0 Manazel Ajwan Real Estate REAM -Specialities Group 280 280 Mena Real Estate Masaken Inter. Al Moudon Intl. R.E -Dulaqan R.EEstate Markaz Real 57 56 Eid Food Kuwait Remal R.E 295 285 Maidan Index Clinic - Real Estate Global Flex

Nationl Ind. Group 232 Dar Al-Thuraya Real E 242 Pipes Ind. & Oil 128 126 Kw Medical Services Kuwait Cement 455 450 Amar For Fin. & Leas. -Refrigeration Ind. 1,420 1,420 Total Parallel Market Gulf Cables & Elec. Heavy eng. & Ship. Total Services Market Marine 720 Portland 720 Global Cement Special Indices Shuaiba Industrial Global Index - Kuwaiti Co.'s 104 Metal Collecting 110 Global Index - 10 Large- Cap. Kuwait Foundry

Global Index - Islamic

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

ŷ ŷ ź ŷ ŷ ŷ ŷ ź ŷ

Last Close Close DTD MTD YTD -Previous 6 20,000 1 Change4,120 212 206 4.9% 224 196 23.76 204 210 -0.40% -1.55% 177.24 -0.7054,360 -1.55% 560,000 9 97 176.5397 98 97 0.0% 102 94 35.25 628,150 600 1,030,000 31 -27.30 - 5,754.20 6005,726.90 5.8% 600 550 85.56 600 -1.50% -0.47% 610 -1.50% 1,400 1,400 1,400 2.9% 1,400 1,220 21.05 Last Prev. Trading Activity Div. Annual Close Last Last 1 4,320 206 10 20,000 216 216 4.6% 196 216 206 11.21 Close Close Volume Tran. Value(KD) Bid Ask Yield High Low P/E Chng 350 Ex-D 350 5.7% 350 350 7.76 355 3,796,050 1120 1120 69 4 3,377,500 1,140 1,120 14.74 300 -25 100,000 27,500 1,120 275 310 3.6% 7.3% 300 1,100 275 13.23 20 495 495 830,000 407,950 490 495 510 490 33.95 228 Ex-D 228 0.0% 218 238 0.0% 228 226 27.57 770 770 10,000 1 7,700 - 770 780 790 770 88.62 295 295 2.7% 280 320 1.9% 320 260 18.93 640 -20 2 213 6,400 660 10,000 64069 66070 3.1% 66070 64051 17.34 880,000 63,240 68 70 0.0% 33.55 800 50 850 350,000 23 282,700 840 850 1.6% 850 790 29.68 33 33 0.0% 33 33 0.00 16 248 248 700,000 173,600 246 248 0.0% 255 248 23.59 102 102 102 93 0.0% 460 465 -5 500,000 10 229,750 460 465 0.0% 475 460 12.26 128 128 128 128 17.06 9.4% 890 -10 880 1,280,000 66 1,127,050 880 2.3% 900 880 25.07 870 214 1,000,000 214,320 214 216 0.0% 222 210 112.24 8.63 214 0.0% 590 590 607,850 - 1,035,000 3333 590 580 590 590 13 2 1,040,000 50,080 49 47 50 41 48 49 0.0% 319.37 319.54 8,092,500 6,639,050 2.0% 319.54 318.41 18.61 0.17240 77,920 176 440,000 14 174 -2 174 180 162 10.22 178 0.0% 106 106 -1 -1 10275 10677 0.0% 10688 10670 40.56 75 3,040 40,000 76 0.0% 260 265 -5 250,000 14 65,750 260 265 8.5% 265 260 12.09 2,670,210 168.23 169.61 163.04 10.68 11,555,000 290 168.46 0.23 2.7% 40 1,020 170 280 300 420 12.5 52 58 25.0 860 130 75.0 31.0 110 230 310 102 128 108 132 50 89 44.0 530 52 2,020 74 108 28.5 63 108 238 49 375 23 265 71 260 31.0 260 48.5 80 68 23.0 20.5 270 26.0 244 76 94 92 51 154 36 108 51 640 26.5 66.0 75 28.0 120.0 120 39.5 19.0 19.0 255 16.5 465 38.5 1,520 29.0 76 158 86 255 74.0 114 85 26.00 325 68 305 53 130 60 46.5 224 64 270 42.50 265 128 76 75.90 62

51.0 325 640 560 375 485 475 110 238 220 114 104 40.50 224 80 43.43

136 48 110 100 769.88 124 200 190 37.5 114 224 130 120 1,500 82 390 30.0 500 108 364.14 97 860 84 75 102 11.5 63 38.0 120 78 124 65 132 54 230 90 325 38.0 455 59 67.0 14.0 91 45 17.5 190 31.0 22.0 59 46.61 70 122 48.5 124 28.0 144 23.5 106 25.5 250 27.0 30.0 15.5 40 134 280 134 57 220 345 57 106 295 1,860 49.73 36.0

232 89.0 128 65 450 65 150 1,420 335 212 720 180 Ÿ 104 Ÿ 460 ź

41 1,020 172 280 295 420 12.5 53 57 25.0 850 130 74.0 31.0 110 230 310 102 126 112 132 50 84 44.0 530 52 2,040 74 108 28.5 63 108 238 49.5 375 23 265 71 260 31.0 260 48.5 85 68 22.5 20.5 26.0 270 244 76 94 92 51 154 36 108 51 600 26.5 69.0 75 26.0 112.0 120 41.5 19.0 19.0 255 16.5 490 39.0 1,540 29.0 76 160 86 255 73.0 114 86 26.00 325 68 305 53 130 60 46.5 218 64 270 42.50 265 130 76 76.02 59

51.0 325 640 560 375 485 475 118 242 220 114 104 40.50 222 80 43.63

136 49 110 99 767.68 120 204 194 37.5 112 234 126 120 1,500 82 390 30.5 500 108 364.06 98 850 85 73 100 12.0 64 38.0 110 77 124 70 132 55 230 90 330 38.0 455 63 72.0 14.5 91 47 17.5 188 31.022.0 59 46.51 74 122 48.5 124 28.5 144 24.5 106 26.0 250 27.0 29.0 16.5 40 134 280 134 57 220 345 58 106 290 1,860 49.75 36.0

1,680,000 13 1,040,000 20 110,000 5 10,960,000 189 7,040,000 46 1,280,000 22 -1 1 13,680,000 174 - 10 1,065,000 56 48,440,000 358 1.0 - - -- - -30 980,000 2.0 - 680,000 18 168 5,760,000 -5 -5 360,000 1 2,500 -20 33 1,380,000 14 - 500,000 -1 320,000 4 - - - 150,000 - -7 1,840,000 22 - - - 12,720,000 145 - -5 1 40,960,000 297 - - - 6,480,000 94 - - - - - - - 11 280,000 -1 40 5,000 264 - 3.0240,000 3,480,000 6,240,000 2.0 68 8.0 - 11,180,000 - 212 2.024 1,920,000 103 17,600,000 5 480,000 60,000 25 6 0.510,640,000 93 37,500 - -25 -7 2.0- 80,000 4 - - 1.0 3,360,000 54 1.01,360,000 28 - - - 400,000 - 200,000 212 - - - -6 79 3,600,000 - -6 60,000 - - - --2 1,240,000 38 5 200,000 0.12-3 40,720,000 4,600,000 55889 -1 -2 5 -

---

- -8 Ex-D-4 - -2 0.19- -

-1 1 2.20 4 -4-4 -2 10.04 0.50.08 -1 10-1 22 0.5-1 - 10 1 -5 -1 Ex-D -4 -5 0.5- -2 2 0.10 -4 0.51.00.5Ex-D 1.0 1.0-1 5 0.02- -

Ex-D

- - - 150,000 120,000 20,000 - 1,000,000 120,000 -

- - - 68 -1 - 34 6 -

960,000 121 80,000 9 920,000 2,154 186,350,000 105 3,100,000 12 520,000 4 140,000 8,400,000 149 3 100,000 20,000 1 7,500 1 1 80,000 8,567,500 155 320,000 8 1,935,000 57 6,800,000 110 253 120,000 2,340,000 1522 2,000,000 2,840,000 640,000 21 3 240,000 320,000 7 17 1,000,000 4 200,000 120,000 7 11 440,000 39,440,000 288 1 80,000 1,360,000 17 2,300,000 41 5,600,000 56 61,760,000 622 320,000 2 - - - - 12 2,720,000 80,000 1 240,000 3 35,040,000 4 80,000 1 1,200,000 8 - 50,000 -3 - 240,000 6 47 2,110,000 53,085,000 - 332 -

242 -10 13,220,000 - 154 89.0 128 140,000 6 65 470 -20 50,000 2 65 150 - - - 130,000 1,460 -40 2,500 14 335 7,415 212 - 666,087,500720 Close 230,000 19 Prev. Close 180 190.52 189.88 106 -2 80,000 3 186.46 460 187.14 -

562.26

562.38

67,160 40 960 177,720 168 33,000 295 4,642,050 90,920 415 12.5 67,280 828,520 5157 - 850 905,100 3,612,520 74.0 - - - 125,440 126 73,920 106 756,240 128 -89 31,960 5,050 2,020 149,000 106 27.0 54,920 108 15,840 49 370 - 21 39,750 260 244 58,760 31.0 - - 240 1,046,480 64.0 929,600 -22.5 - -75 489,360 - -92 - 144 30,280 108 3,200 560 6,360 26.0 231,000 64.0 168,480 28.0 1,305,280 - 118.0 77,080 335,680 18.5 18.0 7,920 16.0 28,050 419,440 38.5 57,000 1,520 72 12,680 156 - -81 248,680 73.0 116,280 -85 310 - 63 120,500 300 10,600 52 - - 794,040 222 16,050 265 - - 250 157,920 15,240 124.075 2,702,550 281,560 61 - - - 70,450 13,200 4,760 - 224,040 13,200 -

128,880 3,840 92,000 16,435,240 383,920 104,680 26,600 942,440 22,400 2,600 11,250 2,400 982,890 31,160 1,656,950 560,720 8,960 238,360 23,960 177,960 72,560 18,520 39,680 67,400 10,720 39,350 26,160 2,692,880 1,120 63,600 430,600 121,000 4,436,710 22,400 - - 76,880 1,880 6,160 946,080 2,400 19,240 - 14,000 - 13,520 610,850 4,151,200 -

48.0 300 510 370 460 465 108 236 - - 224 76 134 48 99 -

122 200 188 - 112 126 110 1,480 510 112 95 86083 7183 11.5 100 35.563 77 120 122 53 325 13.5 90 - 45 30.0 186.0 70 116 28.0 23.5 106 25.0 24.5 27.5 15.5 - 265 29 218 55 290 -

33.5

3,111,120 -17,800 122 22,550 455 - 150 16,400 1,420 3,550 310 52,031,150 165,600 Change 710 178 0.64 8,480 104 0.68 435

-0.12

0.0%

1,100 3.9% 172 0.0% 0.0% 300 - 6.7% 420 0.0% 9.5% 13.0 5258 0.0% 0.0% - 860 0.0% 23.3% 0.0% 0.0% 75.0 33.5 - 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 330 9.7% 0.0% 0.0% 128 110 0.0% 132 9.3% - - 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 560 0.0% 0.0% 2,040 2.5% 0.0% 0.0% 108 29.5 0.0% 0.0% 110 - 0.0% 10.5% 50 0.0% 5.3% 380 0.0% 24 1.9% 265 0.0% 6.0% 32.5 - 0.0% 3.8% - 0.0% 0.0% - 80 0.0% 0.0% -23.0 0.0% 0.0% - 0.0% 23876 0.0% 0.0% -97 0.0% 0.0% 54 - 0.0% 5.2% 0.0% 0.0% 110 0.0% 630 3.4% 0.0% 27.0 65.0 0.0% 0.0% 28.5 0.0% 120.0 - 0.0% 0.0% 39.0 0.0% 19.5 0.0% 20.0 0.0% 270 0.0% 16.5 0.0% 465 0.0% 0.0% 39.0 1,540 4.6% 0.0% % 0.0% 16081 3.8% 9.3% 27091 5.1% 74.0 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 2786 0.0% 9 2% 335 0.0% 9.2% 73 3.3% 305 0.0% 53 5.4% 61 - 0.0% 47 224 10.8% 0.0% 69 275 0.0% 0.0% - 280 0.0% 9.4% 128.076 0.0% 13.2% 62 2.4% 0.0% 53.0 6.2% 0.0% 325 0.0% 610 - 4.5% 385 5.2% 2.7% 500 470 9.1% 0.0% 114 0.0% 242 2.7% 110 0.0% 106 0.0% 43.0 226 0.0% 2.2% 6.3% 84 4.7% 0.0% 136 49 0.0% 120 0.0% 0.0% 100 11.7% 126 0.0% 202 0.0% 190 10.0% 37.5 4.4% 114 0.0% 224 - 4.5% 0.0% 0.0% 130 1,500 4.3% 6.1% 85 1.3% 400 0.0% 31.5 4.0% 540 6.5% 118 3.8% 0.0% 98 87085 0.0% 6.0% 7685 0.0% 9.8% 12.0 102 0.0% 0.0% 37.064 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 79 8.1% 0.0% 65 124 5.7% 0.0% 54 140 0.0% 0.0% 91 234 9.2% 0.0% 40.5 330 0.0% 7.7% 60 0.0% 14.5 0.0% 0.0% 9467 5.5% - 47 0.0% 5.3% 33.5 0.0% 190.0 0.0% 57 0.0% 3.9% 74 0.0% - 0.0% 126 0.0% 28.5 - 0.0% 0.0% 25.0 0.0% 0.0% 25.5 0.0% 255 3.2% 28.0 0.0% 0.0% 31.0 0.0% 16.0 0.0% 38 3.7% 130 2.5% 280 0.0% 32 62 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 57 - 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 295 - 1.1% 0.0%

48.5

232 93.0 130 465 -70 1,440 340 216 720 DTD 190 0.34% 108 0.36% -

-0.02%

0.0%

0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 2.2% 7.7% 3.3% 0.8% 4.6% 3.0% 4.67% 2.4% 13.9% 5.6% 0.0% 4.3%

42 40 990 1,100 174 170 280 280 305 295 420 340 13.5 12.5 5458 5241 25.0 25.0 900 840 130 130 75.0 45.0 36.0 31.0 110 110 230 230 295 345 102 102 134 110 116 108 108 132 5097 5084 44.0 44.0 530 530 52 52 1,920 2,040 74 74 95 110 28.5 28.5 11268 10863 230 238 51 49 340 395 23 22 260 305 71 71 260 260 31.5 31.0 260 260 48.5 48.5 132 68.0 68.054 23.5 14.0 20.5 20.5 26.0 26.0 280 270 24476 24461 94 9490 104 51 51 154 154 36 3691 110 51 51 520 640 26.5 27.5 30.0 74.0 75 75 28.0 16.0 99.0 120.0 140 120 19.5 41.5 19.5 12.0 19.0 19.0 255 198 17.0 16.5 490 425 39.0 38.0 1,580 1,500 29.0 29.0 89 15674 162 25586 25591 74.0 57.0 114 114 104 2680 28 335 270 68 68 280 315 53 55 130 130 60 60 47 47 172 224 64 64 265 305 42.5 42.5 300 265 132.081 128.070 76.32 62 75.90 51

44.0 51.0 325 325 640 640 560 560 345 390 520 485 410 480 118 110 270 238 220 220 134 114 104 114 40.5 40.5 246 218 44.80 92 43.43 80

116 156 49 48 110 110 100 99 769.88 744.62 120 128 200 208 182 222 37.5 37.590 114 234 224 130 126 130 120 1,500 1,420 82 82 390 340 30.5 30.0 570 500 108 108 364.14 345.74 100 96 86095 84044 76 7355 108 12.566 11.543 38.0 38.0 120 46 78 77 126 118 75 65 132 132 54 55 232 188 90 90 330 250 38.0 38.0 455 455 63 59 74.0 40.5 14.5 14.0 91 91 17.5 17.5 31.0 31.0 59 59 47.16 40.74 78 70 1,220 1,220 48.5 48.5 144 124 29.0 28.0 24.5 23.5 26.0 25.5 28.5 27.0 16.5 15.5 134 134 32 32 220 220 57 60 295 270 49.8649.73-

232 260 130 128 470 450 158 150 1,460 1,420 340 335 212 222 710 740 MTD 180 0.34% 180 104 116 0.36% 460 460

-0.02%

17.46 88.93 12.13 13.98 1.33 0.00 13.17

23.89 0.00 17.23 0.00 22.00 0.00 53.09 0.00 13.08 0.00 0.00 0.00

11.89 7.13 9.22 0.00 11.97 9.19 295.37 32.31 0.00 13.80

12.48

0.00 116.80 9.60 0.00 0.00 15.90

6.08

0.00

0.00 71.64 101.44 16.62 0.00 3.14 8.28 7.35 22.77 11.92

9.59

60 55 60.55 43.00

5.09 7.80 7.40 22.89 0.00 16.17

5.19 10.01

3.57 16.97 25.05 12.90 12.06 9.91 8.47 17.37 16.62 296.83 11.59 5.91

5.75 12.60

12.14 37.20 12.83 12.26 22.21 17.83 16.20

5.72 11.88 25.40 9.28 15.28 11.55 39.65 5.29

21.70

0.00 14.56

9.92

26.32

35.93 7.39 8.10 44.61 4.15 10.17

19.44 69.15

10.69

11.37 0.00 5.38 27.28

20.67 9.93 23.07

9.61

18.82 63.06 0.00 11.03 0.00 16.27

14.44

70.58 18.38

10.34 6.49 8.02 14.60 193.84 96.15 YTD 10.91 0.51% 23.15 -1.55% 26.77

0.05%

STOCKS WITH NBK CAPITAL

ALWATAN DAILY friday, march 2, 2012

April 21, 2009 March 01, 2012

2% 6%

1% 6% Oman

Dubai Abu Dhabi

Oman Bahrain Qatar Bahrain

-2% -4%

-2%

-6%

GCC Best Performers

Saudi

Dubai

95 1-Dec-11 85

1-Jan-12

1-Feb-12

MENA Best Performers

-2%

1-Mar-12

-6% -2

S&P Pan 3-Feb-09 Arab Large/ 18-Feb-09 Mid Composite S&P 20-Mar-09 GCC Large/ Mid Composite 19-Jan-09 5-Mar-09 4-Apr-09 19-Apr-0

1 Period's Liquidity 1 Ratio (PLR x)*

-1

MENA Indices Highlights Country (Index)

Index Level

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

Index 7,226 Level

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

2,624 5,250

Ku Kuwait (KSE Weighted Index)

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

QaUAUAE Qatar (DSM Index) (ADSM Index) OmOman UAE(MSM (DFMIndex) Index)

411

Ba Bahrain (BSE Index)

Le Lebanon (Beirut SE Index)

Jo Jordan (Amman General Index)

Pa Palestine (Al-Quds Index)

M Morocco (Casa All Shares Index)*

Tu Tunisia (Tunis SE Index)

Le Lebanon (Beirut SE Index)* *Market Closed

Pa Palestine (Al-Quds Index) * Market Closed

1.2%

0.5% -4.0%

5,368

5,478

1,681

11,395

463

1,197

2,825 483

10,621

4,776

1,094

3,282

-0.1% 3.9%

5.1%

0.1%

7,489 2,137

110 122

124,444 69,783

1 196

17,192 65,352

0.2%

1,730 787

-6.8%

8.5%

1.7%

3,587

2,903

4,224

2,551

513

328

465

14,635 4,780

4,059

23.6%

739

407

13.6%

1,164

-3.3%

2,119

9,406

3,418

1,043

2,837

12.89

13.57

63,640

7.67

33,782

9,688

1.68

1.58

1.29

3.64

1.56

6.36

0.87

12.71

2.15

9.44

59,990

1.18

18.36

3.95

14.80

8,507

1.43

8.07

2,525

1.69

6.47

2,079

0.86

8.67

6,576

2.50

13.85

1.92

SAUDI ARABIA *Market Closed

OMR 0.720

GCC Worst Performers

MENA Worst Performers

QAR 61.50

IFA IFA Hotels & Resorts

120

0.50 SARAED 22.95

225 Saudi Industrial Inv. Grp.

% of stocks trading above 1yr avg. price

101 Riyad Bank

115

SAR 24.70

-6.4%

29,717,383

18,804,597

BREBarwa Real Estate Co. (QA)

343,553,085 16,722,082

119,955,261 13,428,583

115 Alinma (KSA) DFM Dubai Bank Financial Market (UAE)

97,126,838

NBKNational Bank of Kuwait (KUW)

110

1,425,045,446

Market Cap. (SAR '000)

111

88,742,222

#N/A

1-Jan-12

1-Feb-12

S&P GCC Large/Mid Composite

1-Mar-12

#N/A

% Chg. #N/A

#N/A

Worst Performers Turnover (SAR) 1120.SSE Al Rajhi Bank #N/A #N/A #N/A #N/A #N/A #N/A

1 Al Rajhi Bank

100

64,280,166

#N/A

Highest Turnover

105

-6.8%

Turnover (USD)

201 Industries Corp. (KSA) AGSaudi AgilityBasic (KUW)

Turnover (SAR '000)

-3.9% -8.9%

31,034,103

ARTArabtec Holding (UAE)

7,226 / 5,323

Tadawul Index 52 week High / Low

-6.0%

Turnover (USD)

MENA Highest Turnover

#N/A

% Chg.

-3.6% -8.6%

EMAEmaar Properties (UAE)

Advance/Decline Ratio

2.4%

8.0%

3.50 SARAED 48.00

SAR 13.70

GCC Highest Turnover

92%

2.7% 8.6%

1.00 -13.1% -4.8% KWDAED 0.265

7,226 (0.0%)

Tadawul Index (% Chg.)

118

4.7% 8.8%

KWD 0.465% Chg. -5.1% Close

EMAEmaar Properties (UAE) Best Performers

Summary

6.1% 9.8%

8.0%

DH Doha Bank

KFI Kuwait Finance House (KUW)

Rebased Performance

95 1-Dec-11

QAR 21.60

0.88 201 ART Arabtec Holding 1.74 Saudi Basic Industries Corp.

16.55

10,339

KWD 0.150 QAR 6.35

1.89 FAC TAM Tamweel Facilities Co. 1.37 Commercial 1.62 DAN Dana Gas 0.88 238 Rabigh Petrochem.

9.50

26,598

62,747

0.80 1.52

1.10 1.77

9.01 8.85

18,727

9.87 9.99

10.49

KWD 0.172

1.97

11.61 7.29

62,629

NINNational Investments Company

BKMBankMuscat

PB1.43

10.88 6.87

AED 21.10 OMR 0.703

QGTQatar Gas Transport Co.

PE 13.94 8.97 10.24

15,024

1,572

5,044

1,425

112

Trailing

18,324 37,413

KWD5.60 0.087 SAR

FGB First Gulf Bank & Contracting GEC Galfar Engineering NR National Real Estate Co. KCB Al Khaliji Commercial Bank

Trailing

35,628 98,547

9 305

1,921

10,785

1,033

189 718

1,129 4,230

12,816

-7.2%

5,628

2,246

0.4%

0.9%

5,419 1,433

12,109

2.4%

6,416 5,860

1,433 12,627

1.2%

1,301 316

101,430

8,892 5,148

2.5%

2.2%

0.1%

186

-0.4% 12.8%

0.7%

Mkt.379,982 Cap. USD million 69,356 264,263

-1.6%

0.4%

Turnover USD million 49 2,183

48.2%

0.0%

396

Mkt. Cap. USD million

2,293 4,130

0.4% -18.8%

0.3%

0.0%

467

525,323 Wk Low

Turnover USD million

2,775 10,090

2.6% 6.6%

-0.1% 0.6%

52 Wk 7,226 High

52 Wk Low

9.2% 9.3%

0.1% 1.9%

546

Tu TunisiaClosed (Tunis SE Index)* * Market

0.3%

5,842 1,745

1,960

Eg Egypt (Hermes Egypt Index (HFI))*

12.6% YTD

25.8% -0.2%

Jo Jordan (Amman General Index)

M Morocco (Casa All Shares Index)

% Chg.-

-1.6% 1.8%

8,742 2,695

1,148 5,590

OmOman (MSM Index)

YTD

1,702 406

BaQa Bahrain Qatar (BSE (DSMIndex) Index)

Eg Egypt (EGX 30 Index)

% Chg.

52 Wk High

% Chg.

AED 3.85% Chg. 10.0% Close

ALTThe Commercial 3 428 Kingdom Hldg. Co.Real Estate Co.

Period's Liquidity Ratio (PLR x)*

MENA Indices Highlights

4 UABUnited Arab Bank

Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi

-1%

Kuwait

Abu Dhabi

100

Kuwait

Palestine Palestine

Return DailyDaily Return (%)(%)

105

Dubai Dubai

105

100

Qatar

111

Saudi Qatar

111

110

Qatar Oman

110

Oman Kuwait

113

111

Kuwait Jordan

113

DailyIndex Index Performance Snapshot Daily Performance Snapshot

Jordan Egypt

115115

Bull/Bear Indicator Bull/Bear Indicator

Bahrain Bahrain

Rebased RebasedPerformance Performance

#N/A

79.00 -

% Chg.

#N/A

Saudi SE

Quotes Company Name 1 Al Rajhi Bank

1 Alinma Bank 2 Almarai Co.

1 Arab National Bank 1 Bank AlBilad

1 Bank Al Jazira

1 Banque Saudi Fransi

4 Dar Al Arkan Real Estate Dev. Co. 4 Emaar the Economic City 7 Etihad Etisalat Co.

4 Jabal Omar Development Co. 4 Jarir Marketing Co.

4 Kingdom Holding Co.

2 National Industrialization Co.

2 Rabigh Refining & Petrochemical Co. 1 Riyad Bank

1 Samba Financial Grp.

2 Saudi Arabian Fertilizer Co.

1 Saudi Arabian Mining Co.

2 Saudi Basic Industries Corp.

3 Saudi Cement Co.

5 Saudi Electricity Co.

1 Saudi Hollandi Bank

22 Saudi Industrial Investment Grp.

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

2 Yanbu National Petrochemicals Co. 7 Zain - Saudi Arabia

Close 79.00

% Chg.

Daily -

High -

Low

Turnover (SAR '000)

Volume ('000) -

12.30

31.90

105.75 26.70

24.40

45.80

9.45

9.15

62.75

16.45

141.00 11.05

42.90

24.70

26.00 52.25

182.75

27.20

-3.9%

45.10

26.36

-4.9%

26.50

21.10

192.75

112.50

14.75

32.30

22.35

18.85

16.70 38.20

33.50

99.00

46.20

49.90

56.50 8.05

56.75

29.80

31.40

6.95

33.50

99.00

nmf

1.3%

5.4%

3.8%

85.25

-9.8%

19.95

12.1%

33.00

-2.8%

-12.8% 0.0%

0.0%

-0.6%

-4.0%

13.0% 16.7%

15.1%

13.5%

43,925,000

42.8

12.5 nmf

1.7

16.5

9.3

23,913,681

9.8

2.2

nmf

11.1

18.0%

304,500,000

12.8%

58,748,973

47,025,000

28,767,500

10.9 nmf

10.4

1.6

2.7 1.3 1.7

5.6

1.7

2.2

13,617,000

16.4

4.1

10,683,225

10.5

1.4

8,195,000

11.6

1.5

25,050,000

nmf

10,372,500

26.4

19.6

1.7

10,367,500

9.1%

76,400,000

10.0

1.6

70.7%

13,860,000

15.5

5.2 3.4

9.9%

40.2%

27.6%

16,750,000

34,650,000

14.7

1.1

-6.2%

14.0

12.0

-32.1%

-19.3%

25.8%

11,441,250

15.6

5.25

0.0%

45.0%

41.2%

11,270,000

nmf

13.4%

1.1

8,460,000

44.10

-6.3%

1.6

2.4

45,687,500

34.4%

1.6

8.6

18.9% 49.5%

1.2

0.6

12.4

12.1%

3.6

9.1

39,000,000

27.4%

16.7%

38.50

18.2%

13.5%

-3.7%

9,882,000

21,637,200

21.4%

-23.4%

7,320,000

22.0%

62.7%

8.4%

15.55

27,115,000

40,949,999

0.0%

1.4%

18,450,000

55.6%

83.5%

5.5%

21.3%

53.25

73.4%

23.6%

-15.3%

58.00

29.6%

0.0%

16.15

21.65

45.3%

22.9%

-4.4%

14.55

13.4%

-1.0%

12.40

8.05

15,288,630

35.4%

-5.2%

33.90

0.0%

149.00

46.50 83.25

nmf

-7.9%

8,032,500

42.40

16.55

39.30

56.2%

28.6%

11.6%

23.20

1.7

-1.9%

19.15

11.4

6.2%

25.70

33,123,215

-17.1%

32.30

24.60

19.3%

8.8%

18.30

2.3

24.9%

47.80

27.20

24.5

-3.1%

89.00

8,010,000

19.5%

81.33

11.40

48.7%

0.0%

146.67

34.5%

14.4%

11.10

3.6

26.2%

43.00

16.45

21.3

-5.7%

62.75

24,322,500

63.2%

6.05

24.0%

33.7%

16.1

6.8%

44.0%

-1.6%

9.70

Trailing

118,500,000

0.0%

-1.8%

Market Cap. (SAR '000)

10.5%

16.0%

0.0%

5.65

14.95

13.7%

12 mths

-9.3%

9.60

16.55

YTD

31.6%

89.00

23.05

83.75

26.31

% Change

0.0%

-8.4%

8.85

0.0%

35.60

24.40

65.75

on high

50.00

14.10

35.18

Low

12.30

105.75

79.00

31.10

101.50

52-Week

High

29.6%

28,068,750

8.8

1.2

1.6

2.2

2.0

2.7

2.6

STOCKS WITH NBK CAPITAL

ALWATAN DAILY friday, march 2, 2012

KUWAIT Rebased Performance

Summary

Best Performers 6,134 (0.1%)

KSE General Index (% Chg.)

115

411 (0.3%)

KSE Weighted Index (% Chg.)

54%

% of stocks trading above 1yr avg. price

KSE General Index 52 week High / Low

467 / 396 NBK.KSE

KSE Weighted Index 52 week High / Low

51,736

Turnover (KWD '000)

National Real Estate Co.

100

95 1-Dec-11

1-Jan-12

1-Feb-12

2.7%

0.260

2.0%

2.4%

1.180

1.7%

Worst Performers Turnover (KWD) 4,642,050

A Agility

1-Mar-12

S&P GCC Large/Mid Composite

6.1%

0.150

0.172

National Bank of Kuwait

Highest Turnover 100

% Chg.

28,157,074

Market Cap. (KWD '000)

105

NRE.KSE

0.087

1.50 NINV.KSE National Investments Company 6,523 / 5,694 FACIL.KSE Commercial Facilities Co.

Advance/Decline Ratio

111

110

ALTIJARIA The Commercial Real Estate Co.

N National Real Estate Co.

1,618,040

N National Industries Grp. Holding

1,133,760

K Kuwait Finance House

1,376,150

A The Commercial Real Estate Co.

1,003,760

IFAHR.KSEIFA Hotels & Resorts ABK.KSE

CGC.KSE

0.465

Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait

-5.1%

0.640

Combined Grp Contracting Co.

-1.5%

1.520

IKARUS.KSIkarus Petroleum Industries Co. GBK.KSE

% Chg.

-1.3%

0.174

Gulf Bank

-1.1%

0.480

-1.0%

KSE Weighted Index

Quotes Company Name

A Agility

0.420

T Al Themar Intl. Holding Co.

0.087

A AREF Energy Holding Co.

0.108

A Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait

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

B Boubyan Petrochemical Co.

0.0%

0.640

-1.5%

0.305

0.0%

0.560

0.0%

0.600

B Burgan Bank

0.0%

0.455

A Burgan Co. for Well Drilling

0.255

C Commercial Bank of Kuwait

0.710

C Combined Grp Contracting Co. F Commercial Facilities Co. G Global Investment House

0.300

121

0.560

0.550

470

0.450

176 57

0.110

0.106

0.610

0.600

0.455 -

0.480

-1.0%

0.480

0.475

249

0.465

-5.1%

0.480

0.465

0.112

0.0%

0.114

0.110

416

0.0%

-1.1%

0.0%

0.244

0.420

1.2%

K Kuwait Finance House

0.820

0.0%

K Kuwait International Bank

0.255

0.0%

K Kuwait Projects Co. (Holding)

0.335

0.0%

1.500

0.0%

0.890

1.1%

1.420 0.178

0.475

1.420

0.174

0.465

0.425

0.420

0.690

0.610

0.104

0.079

-3.4%

-7.2%

-16.3%

979,012

2.7%

669,486

1,030

0.620

0.420

390

0.550

7.1%

17.6%

-39.3%

20.3%

-45.7%

-10.1%

-23.7%

-17.3%

1.300

-21.9%

0.960

0.710

-26.0%

0.055

0.019

-10.9%

0.395

520

0.580

1.700

440

0.180

-3.2%

0.410

0.198

1.945

0.480

0.255 0.450 1.380

0.500

0.285 0.132

-34.2%

-5.9%

-7.0%

-2.1%

-16.5% -3.3%

0.315

0.236

-22.5%

0.0%

0.630

0.415

-33.3%

267,815

0.335

430

0.425

0.295

-21.2%

9.8%

-8.7%

426,431

11.3

0.880

168

190

144

1.580

0.660

-43.7%

25.4%

0.0%

5.8%

-6.3%

5.4%

10,960

0.168

0.056

-10.7%

0.214

0.0%

0.216

0.214

214

1,000

0.226

5,760

0.146

0.093

11,720

0.087

0.062

2.060

0.172

0.168

0.270

0.265

0.134

0.128

756

0.087

6.1%

0.087

0.082

1,004

2.020

0.228

2.020 0.860

0.840

340 -

905

0.260

0.325

0.033

0.355

2,940

0.0%

0.060

500

0.132

0.234

0.158

-45.0% -16.9%

-47.1%

7.1%

15.4

2.2

-9.2%

-12.6%

305,644

nmf

0.8

17.2%

36.4%

nmf

0.6

5.4%

0.0%

0.216

-13.3%

1.7%

-1.7%

0.840

102,112

-47.1%

-11.0%

0.0%

21,780

-22.4%

1.0%

1.420

-5.6%

nmf

0.8

107,672

20.8

0.8

-9.6%

76,405

13.0%

31.8%

159,629

-1.9%

4.1%

20.2%

1,018,146

-36.8%

1.3

2.1

0.0%

-4.4%

35.6

24.5

235,400

0.0%

0.1

89,019

23.0%

10.0%

0.0%

2.3

150,709

-9.6%

-39.4%

0.8

4,670,116

-49.2%

-12.5%

1.580

1.3

-3.1%

0.0%

0.200

0.0%

13.7

3.5

0.240

2.1

1.3

25.8

-10.0%

12.6

505,620

-25.0% -5.3%

80,905

1.9

1.2

51.7%

0.265 0.166

603,003

-42.4%

0.360

0.270

1,065

1.4%

0.8

19.4

0.335

0.890

1,618

1.2%

4.3

0.8

nmf

22.4

0.146

0.860

9.2

nmf

264,518

0.150

Z Zain Kuwait

104,500

-12.1%

2.7%

-1.0%

0.9

64,246

-33.2%

4.4

13.5

89,923

-22.5%

1.7

130,500

0.0%

-7.4%

0.150

2.020

-56.1%

295.8%

3.1

8.2

-27.1%

1.320

N National Real Estate Co.

N Wataniya

nmf

0.236

1.620

-17.2%

211,055

298,102

0.350

0.192

0.130

-8.8%

1,620

0.285

S The Securities House

2.8

nmf

406

4,820

A The Commercial Real Estate Co.

39.3

64,309

0.250

1.500

1.7

1,203,697

0.255

1.500

4.0

1.1%

36.6

1,134

0.0%

nmf

2,205,013

0.234

903,136

1.5

18.4

-19.5%

0.236

T Tamdeen Real Estate Co.

1.0

4.2

13.2

-8.9%

0.0%

S Sultan Center Food Products Co.

26.2

-25.5%

0.236

53,454

0.820

N National Industries Grp. Holding

0.210

1.2

1.100

1.000

S Salhia Real Estate Co.

11.8

1,675

1.260

0.0%

291,060

1,376

415

0.270

-8.7%

1.1

nmf

0.820

0.830

492

A Qurain Petrochemicals Industries Co.

4.4%

nmf

146,879

4.3%

19.2%

9.8%

-1.0%

81,000

0.9

2.4%

-60.7%

0.112

1.0

12.8

-9.0%

0.096

0.480

nmf

139,559

0.0%

0.285

1.180

O Oula Fuel Marketing Co.

0.0%

3,760 150

-20.4%

-17.2%

1.200

2.4%

-3.8%

-31.6%

1.7%

0.172

-4.2%

0.0%

1.180

N National Investments Company

1.6

-5.1%

3.8%

0.5

6.0

88,088

-5.1%

1.9%

1.9

-9.7%

-23.9%

nmf

18.3

0.560

0.085

0.555

-17.9%

922,355

0.620

0.142

0.910

0.295

-3.0%

840

850

N National Industries Co.

439,671

237,830

776

-4.4%

21.7%

-12.9%

0.900

0.033

-3.0%

Trailing

Market Cap. (KWD '000)

-3.2%

0.920

N National Bank of Kuwait

12.0%

12 mths

-19.7%

1.1%

M Mena Holding

YTD

0.280

0.910

M Mabanee Co.

% Change

0.380

280

0.248

on high

400

Low

0.435

628

High

210

0.260

10,960

0.260

0.475

P Kuwait Portland Cement Co.

0.305

2.0%

JAJazeera Airways

F Kuwait Food Co.

134

0.260

0.174

K Kuwait Cement Co.

0.640

52-Week

Volume ('000)

4,642

1.520

IK Ikarus Petroleum Industries Co.

K KIPCO Asset Management Co.

0.415

Turnover (KWD '000)

1.520

1.420

IF International Finance Co.

0.430

Low

-1.3%

C Gulf Cable and Electrical Industries Co.

IF IFA Hotels & Resorts

0.0%

High

1.520

0.049

G Gulf Bank

Daily

% Chg.

13.0 nmf

87,310

17.6

88,400

nmf

3,704,480

1.1

0.9

18.6

0.6

7.0

2.8

1.3

13.0

1.8

UAE Rebased Performance

Summary

Best Performers 1,702 (-1.6%)

DFM Index (% Chg.)

130 125

125

2,624 (0.5%)

ADSM Index (% Chg.)

Advance/Decline Ratio

DFM Index 52 week High / Low

107

105

Highest Turnover

100

A Arabtec Holding

90 1-Dec-11

F First Gulf Bank

S&P GCC Large/Mid Composite

1-Feb-12

1-Mar-12

Abu Dhabi SE

0.4%

1.93

Turnover (AED) 113,997,571 TAMWEEL Tamweel 109,160,863 DANA.ADS Dana Gas 49,327,214 ARTC.DFM Arabtec Holding

D Dubai Financial Market 1-Jan-12

2.2%

0.48

0.0%

Worst Performers

E Emaar Properties

4.7%

414,961,561

Market Cap. (AED '000)

111

110

10.0%

11.65

878,050

Turnover (AED '000)

% Chg.

21.10

2,775 / 2,293 ARMX.DFM Aramex

ADSM Index 52 week High / Low

115

3.85

77% FGB.ADSM First Gulf Bank 0.21 NBAD.ADS National Bank of Abu Dhabi 1,730 / 1,301 UPP.DFM Union Properties

% of stocks trading above 1yr avg. price

120

UAB.ADSM United Arab Bank

41,800,456 39,992,705

A ALDAR Properties

1.00

% Chg.

0.50

3.50

TAQA.ADS Abu Dhabi National Energy Co.

1.25

EMAAR.DF Emaar Properties

3.07

-4.8%

-3.9% -3.6%

-3.1% -2.9%

Dubai FM

Quotes Company Name

Daily

% Chg.

A Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank

3.23

T Abu Dhabi National Energy Co.

1.25

-3.1%

A Air Arabia

0.74

-2.0%

1.02

A Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank

A Abu Dhabi National Hotels A ALDAR Properties A Amlak Finance

A Arabtec Holding A Aramex

A Arkan Building Materials Co. C Commercial Bank of Dubai D Dana Gas

D Deyaar Development Co. D du

3.49

2.05

1.18

-0.3%

-0.9% -

-2.5%

3.50

-3.6%

1.11

-2.6%

1.93

3.40

0.50

0.43

3.10

0.0% -

-3.9%

-1.6%

-1.0%

High

Low

3,665

1.29

1.23

157

125

0.76

0.73

7,664

10,344

3.50 -

3.47 -

3.65

3.30

109,161

1.17

1.04

971

1.93 -

0.52

0.45

3.22

1.85 -

0.50

-1.4%

2.23

2.18

E Emirates NBD

3.30

-2.4%

3.40

3.20

F First Gulf Bank

21.10

M Mashreq

91.45

G Gulf Cement Co. N National Bank of Abu Dhabi N National Bank of Fujairah

N National Bank of Umm Al Qaiwain S Sharjah Islamic Bank

S Sorouh Real Estate Co. T Tamweel

1.30

4.7%

0.0% -

11.65

2.2%

1.81

4.10

9.50

5,928

-6.8%

-24.1%

2,050,000

12.4

0.3

28.3%

-11.9%

4,820,452

7.5

0.7

-11.7%

26.1%

0.0%

-7.9%

0.0%

3,448,691 1,530,000

12.8 nmf

30,923

3.63

0.93

-3.6%

120.1%

226.5%

5,232,500

37.9

872

1.77

0.71

-37.3%

9.9%

-1.8%

1,942,500

nmf

0.34

-29.6%

1,294

1.96

1.59

3.45

2.90

43,319

0.45

0.20

18,003

9,820

46,692 2,704

0.71

3.30

1.46

2.31

2.80

0.68

1.88

-1.5%

7.2%

-1.4%

17.2%

-2.5%

103.8%

-6.1%

-28.8% -5.2%

11.1%

7.3%

23.8% 12.9%

18.4%

2,825,713

9.7%

6,600,378

78.6%

2,507,652

5.1%

14,171,429

-19.4%

-15.4%

5.3%

3,301,001

8,320,000

8,315,548

13.4

0.7

1.1

1.9

1.5

1.2

8.0

1.0

nmf

0.6

7.9

9.0

nmf

5.8

0.4

2.5

1.1

0.9

11.40

8.64

-17.3%

3.3%

-13.1%

74,554,900

12.8

1.9

1.30

1.56

83.1%

6.6%

1,067,426

nmf

344

-4.8%

1.08

0.97

32,448

0.45

28,470

1.17 3.13 3.85

273

1,981 -

305 -

1.00

3.85

1.3

1.1

1,655

897

10.0%

5.0

0.8

15,604

3.85

-29.8%

7.8

9.35

3,550

U United Arab Bank

0.76

7,781,250

8,252,824

0.6

11.50

0.49

1.68

-13.2%

14.1%

6.0

10.4

11.70

3.19

-30.5%

0.57

18,073,780

18,700,102

0.95

0.4%

2.03

4.2%

47.5%

15.4%

-0.3%

2.95

0.84

10.4%

Trailing

Market Cap. (AED '000)

19.5%

1.02

0.48

-23.3%

16.2%

12 mths

-12.0%

1.28

1.14

-1.7%

YTD

2.41

-2.0% -1.6%

33,811

1.63

2.92

-2.1%

% Change

3.49

0.98 1.21

3.55

2.15

on high

36,987

201

3.30

Low

113,998

41,800

1.30

1,136

High

3.04

20.55

3.15

* Closing Prices, Turnover and Market Cap. in USD

49,327

21.95

U Union National Bank U Union Properties

9,090

30,934

2.19

-0.5%

3.10

D Dubai Islamic Bank

9.43

2,455

18,686

1.02

3.16

0.42

1.10

E Etisalat

39,993

-2.8%

-2.9%

703

1.09

1.25

1.04

3.07

52-Week

Volume ('000)

3.21

3.27

D Dubai Financial Market

E Emaar Properties

Turnover (AED '000)

26,183 1,384 1

351

21,661 31,864 439

60,486 0

4.63

2.65

-28.7%

12.2%

21.10

13.95

102.00

74.70

4.70

2.91

-12.8%

-9.9%

0.80

-2.0%

16.7%

11.90 2.39

1.00

0.67

9.29 1.63

0.0%

36.6%

-10.3%

-9.9%

-16.7% -2.1%

-24.3%

1.54

0.67

-21.4%

3.90

2.82

-19.2%

3.28

-27.4%

1.05

0.48

5.30

0.53

0.24

-4.8%

0.4%

9.3%

34.0% 22.4%

18,340,657

31,650,000 -

6.4%

25.4%

33,436,004

0.0%

-16.8%

2,896,000

42.4%

16.3%

65.8% 9.0%

87.6% 5.8%

-5.7%

8.9%

7.2

8.5

18.8

9.0

0.9

2,376,990

9.5 9.5

1,000,000

9.8

69.8%

1,629,559

nmf

-31.9%

7,861,219 3,836,145

0.8

1.3

16.1

1.0%

5.0%

1.2

9.0

4,510,000

3,176,250

0.5

5.2

11.6

2.2 0.5 0.5

0.4

0.7

1.9

STOCKS WITH NBK CAPITAL

ALWATAN DAILY friday, march 2, 2012

QATAR Rebased Performance

Summary

Best Performers 8,742 (-0.1%)

DSM Index (% Chg.)

115

DSM 52 week High / Low

56% QTEL.DSM Qatar Telecom 2.50 QIBK.DSM Qatar Islamic Bank 8,892 / 7,489 QNNS.DSMQatar Navigation

Market Cap. (QAR '000)

453,064,898

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

111

110

401,590

Turnover (QAR '000)

164.90

% Chg.

1.0%

78.10

0.8%

74.00

KCBK.DSMAl Khalij Commercial Bank

0.4%

17.05

IQCD.DSM Industries Qatar

0.3%

141.40

0.3%

105

Highest Turnover

Worst Performers

101

100

Turnover (QAR) 68,461,897 DHBK.DSMDoha Bank 26,877,418 MARK.DSMMasraf Al Rayan

B Barwa Real Estate Co. IQIndustries Qatar

19,620,055

D Doha Bank 95 1-Dec-11

1-Jan-12

1-Feb-12

S&P GCC Large/Mid Composite

19,102,413

MMasraf Al Rayan

1-Mar-12

17,740,939

Q Qatar National Bank

61.50

-6.0%

26.50

QNBK.DSMQatar National Bank

-0.8%

133.90

CBQK.DSMThe Commercial Bank of Qatar #N/A

% Chg.

-0.2%

76.90

#N/A

-0.1%

#N/A

Doha SM

Quotes Company Name

A Aamal Co.

15.56

Daily

% Chg.

0.1%

K Al Khalij Commercial Bank

17.05

C The Commercial Bank of Qatar

76.90

-0.1%

E Ezdan Real Estate Co.

19.00

0.0%

B Barwa Real Estate Co.

30.55

D Doha Bank

61.50

IQIndustries Qatar

141.40

Q Qatar Electricity & Water Co.

147.00

M Masraf Al Rayan

Q Qatar Gas Transport Co.

Q Qatar International Islamic Bank

0.2%

-6.0%

Low

15.60

17.05 30.85 77.50

30.30

68,462

59.50

19,620

61.70

141.40

140.00

26,877

0.1%

147.00

146.50

1,684

0.0%

55.50

55.00

10,683

-0.8%

17.39

0.1%

78.10

0.8%

26.60

17.39

9,842

17.18

78.20

9,899

76.50

Q Qatar National Bank

133.90

-0.2%

134.20

133.80

17,741

Q Qatar Telecom

164.90

1.0%

165.00

162.00

7,290

Q Qatar Navigation

74.00

V Vodafone Qatar

7.34

0.4%

0.3%

74.30 7.35

73.10

3,332

7.27

817

85.50

67.00

11,887,758

-5.7%

-4.8%

16.42

-11.2%

-0.7%

75.60

-8.4%

-7.4%

69.90

-21.5%

7.24

-9.6%

132

141.73

107.81

164.90

118.33

8.12

6.6%

-13.0%

19.74

43.90

112

7,702,200

-14.4%

56.20

94.30

2.0%

-8.2%

-4.8%

-4.2%

-1.6%

-5.5%

0.0%

-4.1%

6.3%

Market Cap. (QAR '000)

-12.0%

-23.9%

193

85.30

-0.7%

12 mths

18.60

118.00

19.58

-2.1%

12.6%

153.50

28.10

YTD

-8.5%

45.60

24.97

% Change

-10.1%

-14.9%

64.50

117.00

128

-13.0%

27.40

148.50

570

-35.4%

16.40

191

724

on high

15.40

35.90

323 2

Low

19.60

109

19,102

26.10

24.09

2,242

18.50

High

589

8,405

76.70

19.00

10,010

16.91

52-Week

Volume ('000)

193

15.52

0.3%

26.50

55.30

Q Qatar Islamic Bank

0.3%

High

Turnover (QAR '000)

6,138,000

Trailing

14.3

-17.9%

50,397,437

nmf

21.6%

19,875,000

12,711,915

10.0%

77,770,000

5.3%

21.0%

14,700,000

2.4%

3.6%

8,370,692

-0.2%

9,631,347

1.1

7.6

10.1

25.9%

1.4

12.6

19,028,626

1.0

1.3

10.2

1.8

9.8

3.0

11.3

4.9

14.1

2.3

12.2

7.9

13.5

1.6

12.8

1.7

-1.8%

18,454,499

-3.3%

-21.4%

8,474,865

15.7

0.8

-2.8%

-3.8%

6,205,236

nmf

0.9

-3.1%

17.1%

22.3%

93,693,772

31.9%

29,022,400

12.5

2.2

12.0

1.4

OMAN Rebased Performance

Summary

Best Performers 5,842 (0.1%)

MSM Index (% Chg.)

115

42% RCCI.MSM Raysut Cement Co.

% of stocks trading above 1yr avg. price

110

0.67

Advance/Decline Ratio

111

0.87

BKDB.MSMBank Dhofar

Turnover (OMR '000)

7,054,853

Market Cap (OMR '000)

% Chg.

1.5%

0.54

6,416 / 5,419 NBOB.MSMNational Bank of Oman 3,653 #N/A #N/A

MSM 52 week High / Low

107

0.4%

0.32

0.0%

#N/A

OTEL.MSMOman Telecommunications Co.

#N/A

1.40

-0.4%

105

Highest Turnover 100

Worst Performers Turnover (OMR) 261,156 RNSS.MSMRenaissance Services 123,206 BKMB.MSMBank Muscat

B Bank Muscat

O Oman Telecommunications Co.

111,550

R Renaissance Services

95 1-Dec-11

1-Jan-12

1-Feb-12

1-Mar-12

S&P GCC Large/Mid Composite

81,150

B Bank Dhofar

68,365

O Oman Cement Co.

0.63

-1.1%

0.73

OTEL.MSMOman Telecommunications Co.

1.40

NBOB.MSMNational Bank of Oman

0.32

#N/A

% Chg.

#N/A

-0.5% -0.4%

#N/A

0.0%

Muscat SM

Quotes Company Name

B Bank Dhofar

0.541

N National Bank of Oman

0.320

O Oman Telecommunications Co. R Renaissance Services

B Bank Muscat

0.734

O Oman Cement Co.

% Chg.

0.4%

-0.5%

High

Turnover (OMR '000)

Low

0.541

0.739

0.302

1.407

1.041

1.401

-0.4%

1.405

1.400

123

0.627

-1.1%

0.622

112

0.870

1.5%

0.875

-20.4%

0.658

0.608 1.190

178

on high

0.509

0.781

135

0.867

0.630

0.680

356

0.501

Low

0.332

0.319

0.509

High

149

261

0.730

52-Week

150

0.320

0.0%

Volume ('000)

0.0%

0.505

R Raysut Cement Co.

Daily

1.197

-6.0%

-3.6%

% Change YTD

-1.1%

-4.2%

0.0%

12 mths

-18.9%

0.0%

2.2

9.7

1.3

16.6%

1,050,750

9.4

2.1

-40.8%

176,873

0.711

-26.9%

14.5%

-23.6%

15.0%

12.9

1.2

-11.7%

-47.6%

10.1

16.9%

0.458

1,136,511

Trailing

345,920

-16.9%

7.0%

495,144

-0.3%

0.416

-0.4%

Market Cap. (OMR '000)

167,091 174,000

13.1

1.1

11.6

1.7

13.1

1.0

BAHRAIN Rebased Performance

Summary

Best Performers 1,148 (-0.1%)

BSE Index (% Chg.)

115

32% BATELCO.BBahrain Telecommunications Co. NBB.BSE National Bank of Bahrain

% of stocks trading above 1 yr avg. price

Advance/Decline Ratio

111

110

1,433 / 1,129

BSE 52 week High / Low

269

Turnover (BHD '000)

6,481,455

Market Cap. (BHD '000)

#N/A

0.39

% Chg.

0.0%

0.57

-0.9%

#N/A

105

Highest Turnover 100

Worst Performers Turnover (BHD) 57,000 NBB.BSE National Bank of Bahrain 16,852 BATELCO.BBahrain Telecommunications Co.

N National Bank of Bahrain

B Bahrain Telecommunications Co.

A Ahli United Bank

95 1-Dec-11

1-Jan-12

1-Feb-12

1-Mar-12

S&P GCC Large/Mid Composite

#N/A

AUB.BSE #N/A

Ahli United Bank #N/A

0.57

% Chg.

0.39

0.68 #N/A

#N/A

-0.9%

0.0%

#N/A #N/A

Bahrain SE

Quotes Company Name

A Ahli United Bank*

0.680

A Arab Banking Corp.*

0.420

B Albaraka Banking Grp.* B Bahrain Islamic Bank

B Bahrain Telecommunications Co. B BBK

IN Investcorp Bank* IT Ithmaar Bank*

N National Bank of Bahrain U United Gulf Bank

* Closing Prices, Turnover and Market Cap. in USD

1.060 0.082

% Chg.

Daily -

0.390

0.0%

797

0.412 0.090

0.570

0.304

-0.9% -

High -

Low -

0.390

0.570 -

Turnover (BHD '000)

0.570

Volume ('000) -

1.280

0.570 43

100 -

High

0.770

52-Week

0.118

0.492

0.450

1,139

Low

0.630 1.000 0.420 0.082 0.380 0.390 797

0.115

0.065

0.424

0.270

0.700

0.560

on high

-11.7%

% Change YTD

2.3%

12 mths

-5.6%

3,389,350

-26.3%

1,306,200

-17.4%

561,600

-17.2%

-2.8%

-16.7%

-30.5%

-8.9%

-28.1%

-8.4%

-0.5%

-21.7%

38.5%

-28.3%

1.3%

-26.3% -20.7%

-30.0%

-18.6%

0.0%

-0.5% 0.0%

-0.9%

Market Cap. (BHD '000) 921,723

Trailing

10.9 7.8 6.4

77,053

nmf

-8.4%

350,759

11.0

-21.7%

240,999

nmf

-25.9%

253,707

-37.0%

-12.3%

637,560 487,555

7.0

1.3

0.8 0.4

0.8

1.1

1.5

4.5

0.6

10.7

1.8

nmf

0.4

1.2

LIFE

Appreciate your body image while pregnant

Some women have a difficult time accepting their changing, growing bodies while they are pregnant. The womenshealth.gov website suggests how to help women better appreciate their bodies during pregnancy: •Understand that your body is changing to help you care for your growing baby. •Talk to friends, family and loved ones about what you’re feeling. •Enjoy some light exercise or take a prenatal yoga class. This should help you feel better emotionally and physically. •Learn selfmassage techniques. •Seek help from a mental health professional if you have serious problems accepting your changing body.

friDAY, march 2, 2012

Super-human brain technology sparks ethics debate LONDON: A British ethics group has launched a debate on the ethical dilemmas posed by new technologies that tap into the brain and could bring super-human strength, highly enhanced concentration or thought-controlled weaponry. With the prospect of future conflicts between armies controlling weapons with their minds, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics launched a consultation on Thursday to consider the risks of blurring the lines between humans and machines. “Intervening in the brain has always raised both hopes and fears in equal measure. Hopes of curing terrible diseases, and fears about the consequences of trying to enhance human capability beyond what is normally possible,” said Thomas Baldwin, a professor of philosophy at Britain’s York University who is leading the study. “These challenge us to think carefully about fundamental questions to do with the brain: What makes us human? What makes us an individual? And how and why do we think and behave in the way we do?.” The Council, an independent body which looks at ethical issues raised by new developments in biology and medicine, wants to focus on three main areas of neurotechnologies that change the brain: brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), neurostimulation techniques such as deep brain stimulation (DBS) or transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and neural stem cell therapy. These technologies are already at various stages of development for use in the treatment of medical conditions including Parkinson’s disease, depression and stroke, and experts think they could bring significant benefits, especially for patients with severe brain disease or damage.

Arctic’s old ice vanishing rapidly, NASA study finds

NEW YORK: The oldest and thickest Arctic ice seems to be vanishing faster than the younger, thinner ice at the edges of the Arctic Ocean’s floating ice cap, a new NASA study finds according to LiveScience. Typically the thicker, older ice survives through the summer melt season (hence, it’s called multi-year ice), while the younger ice that forms over the winter melts as quickly as it formed. That’s what makes this new finding worrisome; if the ice that usually sticks around is rapidly disappearing, the Arctic sea ice is more vulnerable to further disappearance during the summer, said study researcher Joey Comiso, senior scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. In the new study, Comiso and colleagues looked at multi-year ice that had made it through at least two summers. They wanted to see how it diminished with each passing winter over the past three decades. Results showed that the extent of multi-year ice, which includes areas of the Arctic Ocean where multi-year ice covers at least 15 percent of the water’s surface, is vanishing at a rate of minus 15.1 percent per decade. They found more disturbing results when looking at the “area” of the multi-year ice, which includes exclusively regions of the Arctic Ocean that are completely covered by multi-year ice. This sea-ice area is always smaller than sea-ice extent. They found that multi-year ice area is shrinking even faster than multi-year ice extent, by -17.2 percent per decade. “The average thickness of the Arctic sea ice cover is declining because it is rapidly losing its thick component, the multi-year ice. At the same time, the surface temperature in the Arctic is going up, which results in a shorter ice-forming season,” Comiso said in a NASA statement. “It would take a persistent cold spell for most multi-year sea ice and other ice types to grow thick enough in the winter to survive the summer melt season and reverse the trend.” Multi-year sea ice hit its record minimum extent in the winter of 2008, when the ice was reduced to about 55 percent of its average extent since the late 1970s, the time when satellite measurements of the ice cap began. The extent of multi-year sea ice then recovered slightly in the three following years, ultimately reaching an extent 34 percent larger than in 2008, the study found. But it dipped again in winter of 2012, to its second lowest extent ever, the researchers report in a recent issue of the Journal of Climate. The researchers used data collected by NASA’s Nimbus-7 satellite and the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Meteorological Satellite Program to create a time series of multi-year sea ice. The salt content distinguishes the two types of ice: While younger ice, formed from recently frozen ocean water, is saltier than the multi-year type, which loses its salts over time. The level of saltiness changes the ice’s electrical properties, causing the ice to different levels of radio waves in the microwave band of the electromagnetic spectrum. The microwave radiometers on the Nimbus-7 satellite pick up these differences.

But they also have huge potential outside the health context. In military applications, BCIs are being used to develop weapons or vehicles controlled remotely by brain signals, and there is big commercial scope in the gaming industry with the development of computer games controlled by people’s thoughts. Speaking at a briefing to launch the consultation, Baldwin said the estimated total global market for all neurotechnologies - including pharmaceuticals for the treatment of brain disorders - is around $150 billion. “Setting pharmaceuticals aside, the value of the market for the devices and technologies we are dealing with is something in the region of $8 billion, and growing fast,” he said. Kevin Warwick, a professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading and a supporter of more neurotechnology research, said some experimental brain technologies had great potential in medicine. “From the brain signals, a brain computer interface could translate a person’s desire to move ... and then use those signals to operate a wheelchair or other piece of technology,” he said. “For someone who has locked-in syndrome, for example, and cannot communicate, a BCI could be life-changing.” But he and Baldwin also stressed there are concerns about safety of some experimental techniques that involve implants in the brain, and about the ethics of using such technology in other medicine and other fields. “If brain-computer interfaces are used to control military aircraft or weapons from far away, who takes ultimate responsibility for the actions? Could this be blurring the line between man and machine?” Baldwin said. -Reuters

An undated image of the human brain taken through scanning technology.

Tools may have been first money VANCOUVER, British Columbia: Hand axes, small handheld stone tools used by ancient humans, could have served as the first commodity in the human world thanks to their durability and utility according to LiveScience. The axes may have been traded between human groups and would have served as a social cue to others, Mimi Lam, a researcher from the University of British Columbia, suggested in her talk at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting here on Feb. 18. “The Acheulean hand ax was standardized and shaped, became exchanged in social networks and took on a symbolic meaning,”

Lam said. “My suggestion was that hand axes were the first commodity: A marketable good or service that has value and is used as an item for exchange.” “Humans are unique in their use of tools,” Lam said. “We make stone tools and the stones are durable and become part of our external environment.” These tools, she added, could have been passed down in family groups or traded with other ancient hominids. As humans became more intelligent, their tools become more symmetrical. “They became standardized as a result of social norms and also utility. Eventually, over time, hand axes were made special to set them apart,” Lam said. “There was a trend to distinguish

Coffee drinking not linked to chronic illness LONDON: Coffee drinkers have no more risk of getting illnesses such as heart disease or cancer, and are less likely to develop type 2 diabetes, according to a German study involving more than 40,000 people over nearly a decade. The findings, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, came in the wake of many previous studies that produced conflicting results, with some tying coffee drinking to an increase in heart disease, cancer, stroke and more. “Our results suggest that coffee consumption is not harmful for healthy adults in respect of risk of major chronic disease,” said Anna Floegel, lead author of the study and an epidemiologist at the German Institute of Human Nutrition PotsdamRehbruecke. The researchers collected information at the beginning of the study on coffee drinking habits, diet, exercise and health from more than 42,000 German adults without any chronic conditions. For the next nine years, the team followed up on the participants every two or three years to see whether they developed any health problems, particularly cardiovascular disease, stroke, heart attack, diabetes and cancer. They found that coffee drinkers and nondrinkers were similarly likely to develop one of those illnesses. For instance, 871 out of 8,689 non-drinkers developed a chronic disease, com-

these common tools that had a standard shape.” Examples of hand axes from about 250,000 to 700,000 years ago contain some of these special properties, such as being made of pink rock or rock embedded with fossils. Ancient humans also made large axes that stood out from the crowd. These tools also had a tremendous importance in the development of human social and cognitive intelligence. “Organisms can modify their ecological niche with tool use... and they can learn from the impacts of the construction activities on their environment,” Lam said. “This has been really important in the evolution of humans.” Making tools takes a lot of brainpower,

pared to 1,124 out of 12,137 people who drank more than four cups of caffeinated coffee a day -- about 10 percent in both groups. On the other hand, the researchers found that coffee drinkers were less likely to develop type 2 diabetes, the form that does not need insulin and is linked with obesity, than those who didn’t drink coffee. Among those who drank four cups a day, 3.2 percent later reported that they had type 2 diabetes, compared to 3.6 percent of people who drank no coffee. After taking into account factors that could influence diabetes, such as weight and smoking, the researchers determined that frequent coffee drinkers were 23 percent less likely to develop diabetes, a result that squares with other studies. That doesn’t mean that coffee is responsible for preventing type 2 diabetes, but experiments in animals have hinted that certain chemicals found within coffee could positively affect metabolism. “We do not encourage people to start drinking coffee if they do not enjoy this, but the overall evidence on coffee and health suggests that there is no reason for persons without specific health conditions to reduce their coffee consumption in order to reduce their risk of chronic diseases,” said Rob van Damn, a professor at National University of Singapore, who was not involved in the study. -Reuters

Lam said. The ancient humans “had to have a mental template or an idea of the tools they wished to fashion,” Lam said. They were able to understand how different tool shapes had different purposes. “That process is the feedback process between what you are doing and the effect you are having on your environment.” Hand axes were so important to ancient humans that they developed as icons and symbols that are still used by society. These tools eventually transformed into being used as literal currency. The Chinese exchanged tools as money, which eventually turned into representations of tools, which were even featured on coins.

New Japanese robot can find lost things TOKYO: Forgot where you put your glasses? A Japanese robot can find them for you, and guide you to where they are. The red and white robot, named EMIEW2, is about the size of a sixyear-old child and glides everywhere on wheels at the bottom of its legs, its round, white face with two black eyes vaguely reminiscent of the iconic “Hello Kitty.” But the robot, the latest version of one that debuted in 2005 and developed by electronics firm Hitachi, is more than just another cute face. It has enough artificial intelligence to identify and locate objects it has been shown, as well as recognizing human faces. Shown a digital camera in a recent demonstration, the robot said, “That’s probably a DSLR camera.” When it sees an object, the robot uses two cameras mounted on its head to compare the color and shape with images stored in its database. “EMIEW collects images of various objects from the internet and saves them on an external database,” said developer Takashi Sumiyoshi. “Then, when you show it something, EMIEW figures out what it is by

comparing the color and shape. If you name an object, EMIEW searches for it and guides you to where it is located.” To do so, the robot communicates with a network of cameras mounted around the room. Asked to find a watch, the robot said, “The watch is on Mr. Tanaka’s desk. I’ll lead you to it.” It then glided toward the desk at a speed of 6 km (3.7 miles) an hour, about the pace at which a human can follow with brisk steps. The unit weighs 14 kg (31 lbs) and its legs fold up for easy carrying. The wheels feature “posture control” technology that helps it make smoother turns. “We developed this robot to mainly provide guidance services for people, so it has to be nimble in moving around without bumping into people, and light as well so it wouldn’t hurt anybody even if it accidentally hit them,” Sumiyoshi said. The robot’s developers have no plans to commercialize it but believe it will eventually become a standard feature of care homes for the elderly, hospitals, tourist attractions – and ultimately, the home. -Reuters

When blood-sucking mega-fleas stalked the Earth

Dark nebula SH2 136 usually seems spooky when viewed in subdued colors, but here appears vibrant in a photo taken by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. The star-formation region has spent its material creating new stars, which blow away clouds of residual material through the stellar winds of fast moving particles. Interesting silhouettes and reflection nebulae arise. (AFP)

PARIS: The giant dinosaurs that roamed the world some 150 million years ago shared the planet with equally daunting parasites: blood-gobbling fleas that were up two centimeters (almost an inch) long. So say Chinese and French paleontologists, who have pored over nine extraordinary fossils unearthed from Inner Mongolia and Liaoning province. The ancient fleas measured just over 20mmm (0.82 inches) long for females, and nearly 15mm (0.6 inches) in males, compared to a maximum of 5mm (0.2 inch) for today’s fleas. The dino-era fleas were wingless and, unlike their counterparts today, could not jump and had comparatively small mouths, says the study. But for all that, they were supremely adapted to their environmental niche. They had claws which enabled them to grip onto hairy or feathered reptilians, whose hide was then pierced with a long, serrated “siphon” to suck out a blood meal. The fleas were so successful that when the dinosaurs were wiped out some 65 million years ago -- an extinction linked to a collision with Earth by a space rock -- they smoothly moved onto mammals and birds, sizing down in the process. -AFP

ALWATAN DAILY

CULTURE

fRiDAY, MARCH 2, 2012

Saudi women push for the right to play sports JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia: The image of 24-year-old Nour Fitiany resting courtside as the pounding of basketballs and thumping of feet reverberated around her wouldn’t merit a second glance in most countries. But in Saudi Arabia, where girls are banned from sports in state schools, powerful clerics castigate women for exercising and female gyms must adhere to strict regulations, Fitiany’s ambition to play basketball - let alone represent her country in international tournaments - is a bold political statement. “I hope that when they see that there are girls who really want to play, and who do play regardless of the obstacles that lie in their path, they realize that they have to do something,” she said, dressed in a baby blue t-shirt and grey jogging pants, spinning a basketball on her index finger. Female participation in sports has long been a controversial issue in the conservative Islamic kingdom, which on Feb. 15 was lambasted by Human Rights Watch for never having sent a woman athlete to the Olympics. The stance of the official Supreme Council of Religious Scholars is represented by Sheikh Abdullah Al-Maneea, who said in 2009 that the excessive “movement and jumping” needed in football and basketball might cause girls to tear their hymens and lose their virginity. After King Abdullah moved last year to bring women into the country’s political process, however, there have been some signs authorities may allow sportswomen to compete internationally and make it easier for girls to exercise. The HRW report said the National Olympic committee had “indicated” it would not stop women athletes taking part in the Games if they were invited, and speculation has been rife that the government will send equestrian Dalma Malhas to compete in this year’s Olympics in London. The Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority told Reuters earlier this year there are plans to introduce afterhours physical education classes for both girls and boys. The kingdom’s official sporting body, the Saudi General Presidency of Youth Welfare, did not respond to Reuters questions on the issue. Just for males

Sports in the patriarchal society of Saudi Arabia have long been reserved as an activity for men. Even stadiums for

Jeddah united

In this undated photo provided by Reema Abdullah, members of the Jeddah Kings United all female team attend football exercise in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. (AP)

watching sports prohibit females to be present. Women are able to play in the privacy of their homes or in private schools but as soon as they step beyond that to play professionally or in organized teams in public competitions they are publicly slammed for going against their natural role. Newspaper articles that refer to such women as “shameless” when they play sports are a cause of great embarrassment for the women and their families. Some have even received text messages advising them to stay at home and tend to their household duties as mothers and wives. “If there is no support from the family we cannot get

Vatican archive treasures in first public display

The signature of Galileo Galilei is seen on a document displayed during the exhibition “Lux in Arcana, the Vatican secret Archives reveals itself” at the Capitoline Museums in Rome Feb. 29, 2012. (Reuters)

has included women in his Kingdom Equestrian Team, part of his company Kingdom Holding, which has allowed Saudi women to compete in international competitions since 2007. Liberal Saudis consider women who participate in sports to be pioneers and encourage the women to play regardless of the obstacles. “We have a very famous Arabic saying that goes, ‘a healthy brain needs a healthy body’ so from that I believe that people who are against women’s sports are actually against women,” Jeddah resident Hashim Larry, 27, told Reuters. “They come from the same group of ‘don’t allow women to work and drive’.”

codices. A register containing the excommunication of 16th century German reformer Martin Luther, and a report on the trial of Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, who was condemned by the Inquisition for asserting that the Earth revolved around the Sun, are also on show. Archivist Pier Paolo Piergentili said this was the first time in the archive’s 400 year history that it was opening up a selection of documents for public display. “The aim is to physically show the sources of history, and make available the documents that have created history in Europe, and not only Europe,” he said. Documents in the Vatican Secret Archives span the 8th to the 20th century and are stored on 85km of shelving in different sites within the sovereign state. Part of the collection is open for researchers upon request. Founded by Pope Paul V in 1612, the archives contain all deeds and documents pertaining to the government of the Church.

into these types of activities ... some people are extremist or extra conservative,” said Hadeer Sadagah, 17, who plays with Fitiany on their basketball team, Jeddah United. Jeddah United was set up in 2003 to promote women’s fitness; Malhas, who specializes in show jumping, trained privately and has competed in international tournaments since she was young. A group of Saudi women is also planning a hiking expedition to Everest base camp this summer as part of a charity fundraising exercise to promote a healthy lifestyle for breast cancer patients. Billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a nephew of the king who is known to be a supporter of women’s rights,

The lack of facilities for women is a significant barrier in a country where gender segregation is strictly enforced. While girls’ state schools are barred from teaching physical education and consequently have no sports facilities, some private schools and private universities are very well equipped. Jeddah United practices in one of the few courts available for women, surrounded by 5-meter concrete walls, which it rents for 7,000 to 10,000 riyals a month. Members get training and the opportunity to play three times a week for a monthly fee of 600 riyals. “We believe that (Jeddah United) is a pressure group to promote a healthy lifestyle on a local level and on an international level,” said the team’s founder, Lina Al-Maeena. “We play a role of sport diplomacy by building bridges and breaking stereotypes of Saudi women. I hope that we are paving the way.” Malhas, the equestrian who might yet be selected to represent the kingdom in London, trained in exclusively private facilities in Saudi Arabia. She has already competed in international tournaments, which she travelled to by herself, financed not by the state but by her own family. In the Singapore Youth Olympics in 2010 she stood on the podium to receive a bronze medal, although she was not officially delegated to represent the kingdom. “I think women playing sports should ignore the criticisms they get from society,” Fitiany said. “That is a kind of struggle, standing strong and not caring what people say.” -Reuters

Cannes Lions joins Bill & Melinda Gates foundation to launch communications challenge

LONDON: The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, which brings together the global advertising and communications industry, is partnering with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest philanthropic foundation, in an effort to generate communications ideas that could help change the world, according to a press release. ‘Grand Challenges Explorations: Aid is Working. Tell the World’ is a unique call for action that aims to inspire the world’s greatest brand communicators to come up with an idea that will help solve a global problem. Any individual, team, agency or company can submit a communications idea simply expressed on just two-pages, based on the challenge issued through the foundation’s Grand Challenges Explorations program. The brief calls for new and innovative ways of telling the real story behind global aid. “The global Cannes Lions community is made up of the world’s greatest communicators who are solving problems for clients all day every day,” says Philip Thomas, Cannes Lions CEO. “Imagine if our community could harness this creativity to solve a global problem with an outstanding idea expressed on just two pieces of A4 paper? Imagine if a great idea emerged, and if that idea was honed and improved by the best thinkers in the industry? And imagine if there was the money to actually make something happen, to create the idea.” Up to ten participants will be awarded $100,000 for the development of their idea - and the chance to be mentored by the Grand Prix Winners from Cannes Lions 2011, who have come together to form the ‘Cannes Chimera’, possibly the greatest collection of creative talent ever assembled. Successful projects will then have the chance to seek additional funding up to $1 million to bring their idea to fruition. Tom Scott, Director, Global Brand & Innovation at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said, “Aid is effective, but the story of aid isn’t breaking through. Now more than ever it’s critical that we look at new and innovative ways to change the debate. We are excited to partner with Cannes Lions to help ensure that the world’s greatest creative minds can put their energy against a really important challenge.”

How to take part

‘Grand Challenges Explorations: Aid is Working. Tell the World’ is open to everyone. The idea has to be submitted on two sides of A4 paper between now and May 15. In the summer, all the ideas will be judged anonymously, solely on their merit, stripping everything back to the purity and creativity of the idea itself. The jury will be made up of the Cannes Chimera, as well as members of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s review board and a small group of panel experts. Up to ten of the most brilliant ideas may be selected as finalists to each receive $100,000 to further develop the idea. In the autumn, Cannes Lions will fly the finalists and the Cannes Chimera to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation campus in Seattle, USA. There, the Cannes Chimera will draw upon their different skills and expertise to help hone the winning ideas and mentor their creators. The ideas can then be re-submitted to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with a chance of winning up to $1,000,000 to put them into practice. There, the originators will be invited back to the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity in 2013 to show the rest of the global advertising community what they produced and the difference it has made. The Cannes Chimera_Cannes Lions has created a group, The Cannes Chimera, made up of one senior creative from the award-winning agencies of each of the 2011 Cannes Lions Grand Prix winning pieces of work. The Chimera will advise the program, review the submissions, and mentor the finalists as they develop their projects. A new challenge will be set each year to harness the power of creativity for the greater global good. Each year, a new Cannes Chimera will be formed with the respective Grand Prix winners. Previous years members will remain part of the Cannes Chimera consultancy board, which will grow year on year. Please visit http://www.grandchallenges.org/can for more information about Grand Challenges Explorations: Aid is Working. Tell the World. For more information about the Cannes Chimera, please visit http://www.canneslions.com/ chimera.

PARIS FASHION WEEK

Models present creations by French designer Guillaume Henry for Carven during the Fall/Winter 2012-2013 ready-to-wear collection show, on March 1, 2012 in Paris. (AFP)

ALWATAN DAILY

entertainment Song Of The Day

Fahad AlSabah Staff Writer

Song: All I Have Artist: Amerie Album: All I Have Genre: R&B In short: Released 10 years ago, Amerie’s debut, All I Have, still yields gems for those who haven’t devour it completely over the course. The title track, “All I Have”, couldn’t have been more aptly titled, as the number sees Amerie in a different light than what most casual listeners are used to from her; the comfortable mid-tempo zone noted in the song is where her strength really lies, not on club-ready songs. To listen to the song visit www.alwatandaily.com E-mail your feedback to falsabah@alwatandaily.com

The Buzz Marilyn Monroe chosen for Cannes festival poster Organizers of the Cannes Film Festival have chosen to honor Marilyn Monroe by selecting a photo of the Hollywood sex goddess for the poster of this year’s event. The organizers said in a statement Tuesday that “50 years after her death, Marilyn remains one of the major figures of world cinema, an eternal and contemporary reference of grace, mystery and seduction.” The poster shows the American actress, eyelids lowered and lips pursed, blowing out a candle on a birthday cake. The 65th Cannes Film Festival runs from May 16 to 27. -AP

Cuba Gooding Jr. starring in Fox drama pilot, Guilty Another big-screen star heads to primetime. “Jerry Maguire” Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. is headlining the Fox drama pilot “Guilty.” Reps for Fox and the actor confirm to TheWrap that he’ll star in the drama, created by “Brothers & Sisters” producers Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim. “Guilty” revolves around Gooding’s character, an ethically ambiguous defense attorney who loses his legal license after being falsely accused of fraud. He then uses his skills to solve cases he’s not supposed to pursue, and spends the rest of his time trying to get revenge on those who’ve done him wrong. -Reuters

CW finds its Carrie Bradshaw in Anna Sophia Robb The CW has found its Carrie Bradshaw. Anna Sophia Robb, the star of last year’s big-screen offering “Soul Surfer,” has landed the lead role of a young Carrie Bradshaw in the CW pilot “The Carrie Diaries,” the network confirmed to Reuters. Based on the Candace Bushnell novel of the same name, “The Carrie Diaries” will pick up in the years before “Sex and the City,” with Robb playing a young Bradshaw who “comes of age in the 1980s, asking her first questions about love, sex, friendship and family while exploring the worlds of high school and Manhattan.” The pilot, which comes via Fake Empire in association with Warner Bros. Television, is written and executive-produced by “Sex and the City’ alum Amy B. Harris and will be directed by Miguel Arteta, who is also executive-producing the pilot. Josh Schwartz, Stephanie Savage, Len Goldstein and Bushnell will also serve as executive producers. -Reuters

Giancarlo Esposito joins NBC pilot Revolution “Breaking Bad” star Giancarlo Esposito is about to play another potentially two-faced character. Esposito has signed on to the J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk and Eric Kripke-produced NBC pilot “Revolution,” about a world where all forms of energy have ceased to exist. Esposito will play tough but genteel military man Capt. Neville, who may not be as he seems. Esposito can play devious characters up and down. His Gus Fring on “Breaking Bad” was a fast-food chicken mogul who secretly ran a meth empire. His dual personality -- spoiler alert -- eventually got half of his face blown off. -Reuters

Springsteen lends hand to search for Mass. student

FRIDAY, march 2, 2012

Monkees frontman Davy Jones dead at 66

PARIS: Davy Jones, lead singer of 1960s made-for-TV band ‘The Monkees’ whose hits included “I’m a Believer” and “Last Train to Clarksville,” died on Wednesday, the local coroner said. He was 66. The British-born star, whose TV antics with Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork drew fans but also unflattering comparisons with the Beatles, died of a heart attack in Florida, the TMZ celebrity website said. The singer died after being transported to Martin Hospital South in Martin County, southern Florida, near where Jones lived, said a spokesman for the hospital, Scott Samples. “Mr. Jones began to complain of not feeling well and having trouble breathing,” said the Martin County Sheriff’s Office in a statement, adding that emergency services took him to hospital where he was pronounced dead. “At this time there do not appear to be any suspicious circumstances surrounding the death. Family has been notified,” it added, noting: “The Office of the Medical Examiner will determine exact cause of death.” The four-piece band initially gained fame through their TV show about a band called The Monkees, created by legendary US music producer Don Kirshner. His good looks and British charm -- he was born in Manchester, England -- went down well with US audiences, along with the three American group members: guitarist Nesmith, bassist Tork and drummer-singer Dolenz. Their knockabout antics on the show -with the toe-tapping theme tune “Hey Hey, We’re the Monkees” -- drew criticism that they were a rip-off of the Beatles, who had taken America by storm a few years earlier. The TV show only aired for three years in the US in the 1960s, but it was re-run elsewhere over the years and is remembered by a generation of fans, if not by current younger au-

FILE - Davy Jones, lead singer of the sixties rock band The Monkees, performs at the Newcastle Arena in this Mar. 7, 1997 file photo. (Reuters)

FILE - This Nov.11, 2009 file photo shows musician Davy Jones attending the 43rd Annual Country Music Awards in Nashville, Tenn. (AP)

diences. Other hits included “Daydream Believer” and “Pleasant Valley Sunday.” The band released nine albums between 1966 and 1970, after which they disbanded -- but have reformed in various combinations over the years, according to the Billboard magazine. Fresh-faced Jones was also said to be the reason that David Bowie -- real name David Robert Jones -- changed his name in the mid1960s to avoid any confusion. The US band’s producer Kirshner, once described as “The Man with the Golden

sidewalk, where passing British and Australia tourists voiced surprise and sadness at the news, according to an AFP photographer. Rolling Stone magazine published a tribute to Jones entitled: “In Memory of the Cute One,” saying he “was the grooviest of the Monkees, which makes him one of the grooviest pop stars who ever existed. “He was the best dancer in the Monkees, the Cute One, the one with the coy English accent, the bowl-cut boy-child who shook those cherryred maracas and always got the girl.” “He was also the guy who stole David Bowie’s original name,” it added. -AFP

Ear” for his ability to detect and promote a hit record, died in January last year. As well as launching the TV band, Kirshner also nurtured stars including Neil Diamond, Bobby Darin, Neil Sedaka and song-writing husband and wife Carole King and Gerry Goffin. Jones was scheduled to perform with music contemporary David Cassidy, formerly of the Partridge Family, at the Magic City Casino in Miami on April 14th, CBS reported. Jones is survived by his wife Jessica and four daughters from previous marriages, TMZ said. In Hollywood, flowers were laid on his star on the storied Walk of Fame stretch of

Florence Welch eclipses Adele at NME music awards Following is a list of the winners of the main categories. NME is a major British music magazine. Best British Band: Kasabian Best International Band: Foo Fighters Best New Band: The Vaccines Best Solo Artist: Florence + the Machine Best Live Band: Arctic Monkeys Best Album: The Horrors/Skying Best Track: Florence + the Machine/ Shake It Out Best Video: Hurts/Sunday Best Festival: Glastonbury Best Music Film: Foo Fighters/Back and Forth Greatest Music Moment: Stone Roses re-unite.

Florence Welch from British indie band Florence and the Machine poses on the red carpet arriving at the BRIT Awards 2012 in London on Feb. 21, 2012. (AFP)

LONDON: Florence Welch won two prizes at the NME music awards in London on Wednesday, eclipsing chart champion and Grammy and BRITs queen Adele. Welch, 25, won the best solo artist category and her band Florence + the Machine scooped best song with “Shake It Out” from their “Ceremonials” album which they performed on the night. The singer also teamed up with English band The Horrors at the O2 Academy Brixton to sing “Still Life” taken from the band’s “Skying”, which went on to win the best album honor. Kasabian opened the awards ceremony with a rendition of

“Switchblade Smiles” and “Days Are Forgotten” before picking up the best British band prize. The Foo Fighters landed best international band and best music film for their documentary “Back and Forth” while the new band category was won by The Vaccines. Manchester group The Stone Roses were honored despite not playing a note together since the mid-1990s. They were awarded “music moment of the year” for the much-hyped announcement of their reunion made last year. They plan a world tour kicking off in June. -Reuters

Lady Gaga at Harvard, launches youth foundation

CAMBRIDGE: Pop star Lady Gaga descended on Harvard University with some powerful friends Wednesday to launch her new foundation aimed at empowering young people. The singer was joined by Oprah Winfrey, spiritual leader Deepak Chopra, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to kick off the Born This Way Foundation that Gaga’s mother and inspiration will help steer. Gaga spoke to more than 1,100 students from several states, faculty and invited guests at Harvard, urging the young audience to “challenge meanness and cruelty.” “I believe that if you have revo-

lutionary potential, you must make the world a better place and use it,” she said. She reminded them that there is no law to make people be kind to one another and added: “I wish there was because, you know, I’d be chained naked to a fence somewhere trying to pass it.” Late Wednesday, Gaga’s representative said the singer has made a $1.2 million personal contribution to the foundation, named after her 2011 album and hit song. The song promotes self-empowerment and has become an anthem for gay pride. Winfrey said she supports the foundation because its message aligns with many of her core beliefs, including

Singer Bruce Springsteen has taken to Facebook and Twitter to help find a missing Boston College student. On both networks, Springsteen posted a missing person poster Wednesday of 21-year-old Franco Garcia of Newton. Garcia has been missing since he left a bar popular with Boston College students early on Feb. 22. Springsteen also tweeted a request for anyone with information about the case to call the Newton Police Department. Springsteen’s son attends Boston College. Garcia was studying chemistry at Boston College and played clarinet in the symphony band. Meanwhile, state police divers continued a search for Garcia at a Chestnut Hill reservoir, but turned up nothing. They also searched Garcia’s home for clues on where he might be. -AP

Actor Woods supports RI’s medical apology bill Actor James Woods is asking Rhode Island lawmakers to support legislation to allow doctors to apologize for bad treatment outcomes without the apology being used in a malpractice lawsuit. Woods’ brother, Michael, died of a heart attack at Kent Hospital in 2006. Woods sued the hospital, accusing emergency room staff of not doing enough to save his brother. He settled the lawsuit after a hospital executive apologized and agreed to start an institute in Michael Woods’ name. -AP

Lady Gaga arrives at Harvard University to launch her Born This Way Foundation in Cambridge, Massachusetts Feb. 29, 2012. (Reuters)

kindness, compassion, empowerment and acceptance. The famous talk-show host interviewed the singer on stage about the foundation. Gaga, who has said she was the victim of bullying as a teenager, said the idea for the foundation grew out of the dialogue created after “Born This Way” was released. She said she received an onslaught of letters and emails from people who said such things as, “I want there to be more tolerance in the universe. I want there to be more acceptance.” Gaga said her mother, Cynthia Germanotta, inspired her to start the foundation. Germanotta will serve as its president. “She is the sole reason that I am here today. She has always believed in me. She has always been my support, and she makes me want to inject that sense of family and support into the world,” Gaga said. The singer gave few specifics about how the foundation will operate. She said the foundation is working with a new media agency to create a social media environment that fosters the foundation’s goals. She said the “Born Brave Bus” will follow her tour bus around the country and will “welcome anyone from any walk of life” to “talk about love, acceptance, kindness” and other goals of the foundation. “I want this to be an organization where you all feel involved,” she said. Gaga, 25, known for her attentiongetting fashion, wore a sleek, black backless dress, platform shoes and a tall black hat. She repeatedly told the crowd that she does not have the answers for how to stop bullying and prevent violence. She urged students to go back to their communities and do “simple acts of kindness” to help foster acceptance, tolerance and individuality. -AP

Estelle: It’s hard to perform R&B music in the UK

NEW YORK: Estelle said she left the United Kingdom to pursue her career in America because performing R&B music back home was too tough. “It’s so (expletive) hard for British artists to be taken seriously as R&B artists,” she said. “It’s frustrating,” continued Estelle, who now lives in the United States. “I get a lot of (people saying), ‘Yo Estelle, I can’t sing R&B and be out here and make money. This is crazy.’ And I’m looking at them like, ‘I know. That’s why I’m not there doing it.’” Estelle’s sound is a mix of rap, R&B, reggae and pop. She says British R&B singers have trouble performing R&B “because No. 1, you’re not American.” But R&B music in Europe isn’t quite the same as in America. Europe’s R&B charts will feature pop acts like Jason Derulo and Flo Rida, whose songs don’t appear on the US R&B chart. “The kids in the (UK) hood still know what R&B music is. They still know what real (R&B) is,” she said. Estelle released her debut, “The 18th Day,” in Europe in 2004, but she made her real splash on the music scene in 2008 with the monster hit “American Boy,” which won her a Grammy Award. The song featured Kanye West and is from her US debut, “Shine,” released on John Legend’s label imprint, Home School Records. This week, the 32-year-old is releasing her new album, “All of Me.” It features collaborations with Chris Brown, Trey Songz, Rick Ross, Nas, Ne-Yo and Janelle Monae. Estelle says though some people wanted her to rush out new material following the success of “American Boy,” she decided to take time to write and record quality songs. “I always say there’s a difference between cooked food and McDonald’s,” she said. “Your mom’s homemade dinner - you enjoy this more than you enjoy the fast food that comes along and goes, and I strive to make homemade dinner every time I put out an album.” -AP

Romantic comedy to open Tribeca film festival NEW YORK: A new romantic comedy by the team behind “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” will open the Tribeca Film Festival that begins in April, festival organizers said on Wednesday. “The Five-Year Engagement” is directed by Nicholas Stoller and stars Jason Segel and Emily Blunt as an engaged couple who keep getting tripped up on the long walk down the aisle. Stoller and Segel wrote the screenplay for “The Five-Year Engagement,” teaming up again after Stoller directed and Segel starred-in and wrote the screenplay for relationship comedy “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” which became a box office hit in 2008 grossing $105 million worldwide. “The Five-Year Engagement” will premiere on April 18 at the opening night of Tribeca, one of the largest film festivals in the United States that runs until April 29. Produced by Judd Apatow, it will be released in US cinemas on April 27. The festival, which previously opened with the comedy “Baby Mama” in 2008, will announce its complete line up of films on March 6 and 8. -Reuters

ALWATAN DAILY

AROUND TOWN / TIME OUT

FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 2012

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

Feature o f

graffiti

the day

moderately confused

Kids Read reaches the Kuwaiti community

Kids Read, a reading initiative developed by the British Council and exclusively sponsored by HSBC Bank Middle East Limited, has successfully extended its reach into the Kuwaiti community, with the first of a series of special events. The initiative, which had a soft launch in November 2011 in Kuwait, gives primary school children a great start in learning to read by making reading as enjoyable and as accessible as possible. Kids Read involves a variety of school activities organized in parallel with community events specifically designed to encourage reading. The first event was held at Centre for Child Evaluation and Teaching (CCET) at Al Surra this month. The session included stories, activities and competitions which related to the theme of volunteerism, and was attended by over 60 children with their parents. Andrew Glass, Director British Council in Kuwait, said: “We were very pleased with the success of our first event in Kuwait and we will be planning further events in the future. We chose the theme of volunteerism because of the association with HSBC, which has kindly helped the program through funding, and by encouraging its

Month a t

Sudoku staff to become actively involved in the project as volunteers to support schools, children and families in exploring the exciting world of reading.” In total, 11 staff from HSBC branches across Kuwait joined the British Council staff to organize the community event, tell stories to children, and judge the competitions. Activities at CCET also included a parents’ workshop focused on how to encourage children to read and improve their Engli

sh, which was delivered by British Council. The competitions held during the event were a major highlight, and included prizes for the best picture drawn, mask worn and puppet designed. Simon Vaughan Johnson, CEO HSBC Kuwait said “HSBC Kuwait is committed to supporting community education programs in Kuwait, especially those designed for young children, so we are very proud to be associated with this particular initiative.”

Elementary

Intermediate

Advanced

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

a glance

Art exhibition March 5-15/ 7 p.m. / Dar Al Funoon: Mohammed Abou El Naga is a multidisciplinary visual artist, art professor, curator and developer. Throughout his colorful career, he created award winning art projects, fulfilled his responsibility towards his community and brought up new generation of young artists with his teaching, workshop and his multitude of practices.

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

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.

Waist Watchers

Diwaniya presentation March 6/ 7 p.m. / AWARE Center: You are invited to a diwaniya presentation entitled, “Business Survival Guide” by An Swinnen. In 2010, An decided to write “The Business Survival Guide (because it is a jungle out there)” which gives top tips on how to run your own business, business skills, management skills and social skills. The book was written in Kuwait and summarizes some of An’s experiences of doing business in Kuwait and the GCC countries. For more information, call 25335260 ext 0.

Salsa workshop March 2/ 8 p.m. - 9 p.m. / Better Books: Your chance to dance to salsa beats, shake your legs to basics, enjoy Latin music and burn up the dance floor. Welcome to a one-hour free salsa workshop. Call 99885102 or 55885102.

Turkish lessons for beginners March 4/ Turkish Embassy: The Embassy of the Republic of Turkey announces that “Turkish”, a new class of Turkish lessons for beginners will restart at the Embassy’s Tourism, culture and information office. For further details please contact 22277405.

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.

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.

Hip Hop at BAIA Every week/ Salmiya: BAIA offers weekly Hip Hop classes for students aged five and up. These “just for fun” classes are a great work-out. For more information visit www.thebaia.com or contact: info@thebaia.com. Telephone: 2562 3604 ext.154, 2562 0706 ext.154. Mobile: 6005 2087.

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

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.

EducationUSA Do you have questions regarding studying at a university in the US? AMIDEAST can help. Please visit our EducationUSA Advising Center in Sharq, and attend one of our weekly free group advising sessions, held every Monday, from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. For further information, visit: www.amideast.org, telephone us at 2247-0091, ext. 6819, or E-mail us at: kuwait@ amideast.org.

Nancy

Horoscopes Aries: March 21 - April 19

You can’t help but feel a bit frustrated today, Aries. There are places to go, people to see, and you can’t seem to get out of the house. Your responsibilities are at home now, and the situation won’t change for a while. You can, however, plan some mini-vacations without too much effort. Treat yourself one evening to fantastic take-out food and a sappy old movie. Taurus: April 20 - May 20

If you overindulged last night, you’re likely paying the price today. If your head is screaming and your blood feels like molasses, you know that too much of a good thing can make you feel rotten! Much as you feel driven to get out of bed and get on with your chores, there’s no point, Taurus. You’d be better off resting. You’ll be your old self by afternoon. Your work can wait until then. Gemini: May 21- June 21

Without a doubt, there’s a lot of work to be done around the house. With today’s planetary configuration, you feel especially vested in making your home look its best. But you don’t have to get everything done today. Rather than scrubbing floors and dusting furniture, why not invest in a few inexpensive items that will perk the place up?

Cancer: June 22 - July 22

You probably aren’t feeling your best today, Cancer. No doubt your illness is a result of recent overindulgence. You can’t blame anyone but yourself for your crashing headache and queasy stomach. Try not to take your bad mood out on the family. Just ask them to close the curtains and shut the door. You will emerge in the early afternoon feeling a bit wobbly but definitely on the mend. Leo: July 23 - August 22

There is such a thing as being too honest, Leo. You’ve experienced in the past how your determination to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth can cause hurt feelings. Today try to exercise a bit of tact and diplomacy. You will still be able to get your point across, with the added bonus that your audience will still be speaking to you once you’ve done so. Virgo: August 23 - September 22

You want nothing more than to be alone today. For that to happen, Virgo, you need to turn off your phone, shut off the computer, and hang a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door. Even then, your friends are likely to walk past the sign and ask what’s for dinner. It’s one of those days.

Libra: September 23 - October 22

Don’t be surprised if a lot of uninvited visitors show up today, Libra.You could host an impromptu social event as neighbors stop by to bring news of changes in the area. You have energy to spare right now, so you’re perfectly able to accommodate your guests. But don’t let yourself get overwhelmed. Simply offer whatever refreshments you happen to have on hand and let the party take its course. Scorpio: October 23 - November 21

You can expect to run a lot of errands today, Scorpio, even though you would probably prefer to stay at home. You have obligations to fulfill for friends and family, and you can’t bear to let them down. Try to get everything done as quickly as possible so that you’ll still have the afternoon free for yourself. Sagittarius: November 22 - December 21

You have energy to burn, Sagittarius, and you intend to use it. Ask friends to join you in the park. Or set up a round-robin tennis match for the afternoon. Enjoy your day outdoors, but take care not to push too hard. If you strain muscles today, it could be weeks before you’re fully healed.

Capricorn: December 22 - January 19

Today you could receive word of a promotion or exciting new challenge at work. Although this is something you’ve wanted for a long time, you may hesitate to accept immediately. Could it be because your self-confidence is rather low right now, Capricorn? Don’t let that stop you! This feeling is only temporary, while the opportunity could develop into something lasting. Don’t lose your chance! Aquarius: January 20 - February 18

Money and friendship rarely mix, Aquarius. Keep this in mind today if a friend hits you up for a loan. You’d be better off helping her strategize ways to earn more money. Much as you like to help the underdog, a temporary approach often does more harm than good. A quick loan won’t help your friend’s fundamental problem of compulsive spending. Pisces: February 19 - March 20

This is unlike you, Pisces, but today you’re a lean, mean cleaning machine. You get it in your head that this is the day for putting your house in order, and you set about single-handedly doing it. That’s way too much cleaning and organizing for one person to do.Why not enlist some help?

ALWATAN DAILY

SPORTS

FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 2012

Basketball

Knicks dig deep to Rose scores 29 as streaking roar past Cavs in second half Bulls stop Spurs 96-89

Jeremy Lin (17) of the New York Knicks drives against Alonzo Gee (33) of the Cleveland Cavaliers at Madison Square Garden, Feb. 29, 2012. (AFP)

NEW YORK: Jeremy Lin checked back in, triggering the wave of cheers that accompany his every move at Madison Square Garden. This time, they were for the guys leaving the game. Lin had 19 points and 13 assists and Carmelo Anthony scored 22, but the New York Knicks turned around this one with their reserves to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 120-103 on Wednesday night. Steve Novak had 17 points off the bench as the Knicks turned a 17-point deficit into an easy win, outscoring the Cavs 71-42 in the second half. They capped a 10-5 month, their first 10-win February since going 10-3 in 1996-97. The Knicks didn’t lead until Novak made consecutive 3-pointers to put them up 75-74 with 2:52 left in the third quarter, then dominated the fourth quarter to send the Cavs to their third straight loss. Their bench produced 50 points, outscoring the starters 38-33 in the final 24 minutes. Antawn Jamison had 23 points and 10 rebounds for the Cavaliers, beaten at home by Boston on Tuesday, giving them losses on consecutive nights to two of the teams within reach for a playoff spot. Irving seems headed toward the Rookie of the Year award and has led the Cavaliers into playoff contention, but he and most of the rest of the NBA have been obscured by the player he said has “been on ESPN every single day.” Irving seemed to have little interest in discussing Linsanity. He said he didn’t really speak to Lin when they both played in the Rising Stars Challenge on Fri-

day at the All-Star game and repeated the same basic answer when twice asked about his counterpart, saying Lin was a great story, great point guard, and was leading the Knicks to wins. Now it’s up to 10 in the last 13 games, and back to .500. With the recent additions of Baron Davis and JR Smith, and the return of rookies Iman Shumpert and Josh Harrellson from injuries, the Knicks believe their depth has become a strength. And it was the reserves who broke open the game to start the fourth quarter. The Knicks began the period with a 19-6 burst, turning a two-point lead into a 101-86 advantage as the starters watched. Novak made two 3-pointers, Davis made a layup and hooked up with Smith on a gorgeous alley-oop. Jared Jeffries had a bucket and Shumpert capped it with a layup with 5:50 remaining before the first team finally got to play again. Amare Stoudemire and Tyson Chandler came back with 5:23 left, and Lin and Anthony returned 21 seconds later for Davis and Smith. Cleveland appeared on its way to joining Toronto, Charlotte, Phoenix, Milwaukee, New Orleans and New Jersey as sub.-500 teams who have won at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks missed eight of their first nine shots as Cleveland raced to a 7-1 lead. Jamison’s 3-pointer with 6.5 seconds left made it 31-24 after one quarter. Lin bounced back from his 1-for-11 performance in a 102-88 loss at Miami in the last game before the break, going 6 of 12 with only one turnover. Irving, playing in front of family and friends from nearby New Jersey, shot 8 of 18. -AP

Formula one

Round three in Formula One testing at Barcelona BARCELONA, Spain: The countdown to the start of the 2012 Formula One season continues this week as teams enter the third and final pre-season testing session at the Circuit de Catalunya on Thursday. The four-day event, staged just north of Barcelona, runs until Sunday and will offer drivers one last opportunity to acclimate themselves to their new cars ahead of the season curtain raiser in Melbourne on March 18. The opening test in Jerez at the beginning of February and the subsequent session in Barcelona last week saw the title challenging duo of Red Bull and, in particular, Ferrari spend considerable time adjusting to their new

FILE - McLaren Formula One driver Jenson Button of Britain drives during a training session at Circuit de Catalunya racetrack, in Montmelo, near Barcelona, Feb. 23, 2012. (Reuters)

vehicles and rule changes Rivals McLaren, meanwhile, completed hundreds of laps unscathed as they came to grips with the MP4-27. Mercedes, led by Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg, showed they could mount a challenge for the podium, while Sauber sprung a surprise last week as Japan’s Kamui Kobayashi topped the timesheets at the conclusion of the second testing session. Venezuelan Pastor Maldonando finished with the second fastest time, an achievement not lost on the Williams team after they endured a dismal 2011 campaign, registering just five points in total. Nico Hulkenberg of Force India was third quickest during the second test, while the inexperienced pair of Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo have proved competitive in the Toro Rosso STR7 car and will aim to continue in similar fashion. Lotus withdrew from last week’s testing following a chassis problem, but are set to return for the third session, while Caterham will want to improve upon two disappointing performances to date. HRT will hope to make its first test appearance this week, having missed the opening two, but the news is less promising for Marussia, formerly known as Virgin. They won’t take any part at the final test after the new MR01 car failed a mandatory crash test, leaving rookie French driver Charles Pic with only two days of testing in last year’s car under his belt going into the Australian Grand Prix. -AFP

Lotus back on track with redesigned parts

LONDON: Kimi Raikkonen’s Lotus team will take part in Formula One’s final pre-season test in Barcelona from Thursday after resolving the chassis problems that sidelined them last week. The former Renault team, who had to pull out of last week’s test, said on Wednesday they were confident there would be no recurrence after redesigning and trying out new suspension parts at the factory in England. Technical director James Allison said on the team website (www.lotusf1team.com) that the problems reported by French driver Romain Grosjean had been caused by the mounting of the upper front wishbone rear arm. “It’s been an intense few days, but I have to

say that everybody has completed their tasks in tremendous fashion,” he added. “We designed the new parts, manufactured them, and fitted them to the chassis. We then completed the necessary tests satisfactorily and the chassis left for Spain.” Allison said the E20 car was now a kilo heavier than before as a result of the new parts but the extra weight would have “no significant impact on handling or performance” and there had been no need for further crash tests. The test running from Thursday to Sunday is the last one before the season starts in Australia on March 18. Raikkonen, the 2007 world champion for Ferrari, is making his comeback with Malaysian-backed Lotus after two seasons’ absence. -Reuters

SAN ANTONIO: Derrick Rose scored 29 points and the Chicago Bulls stayed on a roll by cooling off the streaking San Antonio Spurs 96-89 Wednesday night. Rose shook off a scary-looking collision with Tony Parker early that kept the reigning MVP on the floor clutching his right knee for several minutes. But he never left the game and the Bulls became just the second team to win in San Antonio this season. The Bulls have won 11 of 13 and nudged a halfgame past Miami for first place in the Eastern Conference. Tim Duncan had 18 points and 10 rebounds. He brought the Spurs back from an 11-point deficit in the third quarter after starting out rusty following the longest midseason break of his career. The 35-year-old wasn’t at All-Star weekend for the first time but relished the rest in the compressed, lockout-shortened schedule. Duncan scored 12 in the third while Parker - who was an All-Star- struggled to keep pace with Rose. Parker finished with 11 points on 5-of-16 shooting, had nine assists and stumbled through his lowest-scoring game in a month. Bulls trainers rushed to his side and kneeled over him for several minutes before Rose finally stood up and walked to the bench. He spent the ensuing timeout pacing the sideline, shaking out his knee, then immediately proved he was OK by darting toward the basket and finishing a tough layup on the very next possession. After scoring 32 points and sinking a crucial jumper with 19.4 seconds left to beat lowly New Orleans on Tuesday night, Rose delivered late again. He scored 13 in the second half and hit a 9-foot bank shot with 1:46 left that put Chicago up 87-82. Duncan quickly answered, but on the next possession Rose all but finished off the Spurs. This time it was a tough 18-footer over Duncan’s outstretched hand that put the Bulls up 89-84, and Luol Deng’s 3-pointer with 39.6 seconds left stretched the lead to six and sealed a winning start to Chicago’s three-game road swing. Danny Green added 11 points for the Spurs. C.J. Watson scored 12 off the bench for Chicago, and Deng finished with 10. -AP

Chicago Bulls’ Derrick Rose (right) drives around San Antonio Spurs’ Tony Parker, during the first half of an NBA basketball game on Wednesday, Feb. 29, 2012, in San Antonio. (AP)

Tennis

Isner sweeps past Sweeting at Delray tennis

FLORIDA: Top seed John Isner saved all five break points he faced en route to a 6-3, 6-4 win over Ryan Sweeting in the second round of the Delray Beach Tennis Championships. In a battle between two of the biggest men on the ATP Tour, the 26-year-old Isner bombed 10 aces and won 78 percent of the first-serve points to beat Sweeting in the first career meeting between the two Americans. The 206-centimetre tall Isner won for the second time in as many days as the world number 11 saved five set points in a 32-point second set tie breaker to eliminate Jesse Levine 6-4, 7-6 (17/15) on Tuesday. Isner, who is looking for his fourth career title and his first of 2012, made quick work of Sweeting. He recorded just one double fault in the 67 minute match to reach the quarter-finals for the first

time at this event. The 196cm tall Sweeting had six aces but struggled on his serve, saving just two of four break points. The 24-year-old Sweeting falls to 3-6 this season. In other second round matches Wednesday, Australian qualifier Marinko Matosevic defeated sixth seed Alex Bogomolov of Russia 4-6, 6-1, 6-3 and former Delray Beach winner Ernests Gulbis of Latvia beat Belgium’s Steve Darcis 6-7 (6/8), 6-1, 6-3. Gulbis won 89 per cent of his first-serve points and broke Darcis five times in the two hour, 10-minute match. This marks the first time Gulbis has been in a quarterfinal since he won the Los Angeles tournament in July by beating American Mardy Fish. Matosevic, who is ranked 173rd in the world, advanced to his first ATP Tour quarterfinal. -AFP

Wasteful Murray overcomes Berdych in Dubai heat

British tennis player Andy Murray returns to opponent Thomas Berdych of the Czech Republic during their quarter-final match at the ATP Tennis Championship in Dubai, Feb.29, 2012. (AFP)

DUBAI: World number four Andy Murray wasted six match points before overcoming Tomas Berdych 6-3 7-5 in the quarter-finals of the Dubai Tennis Championships on Thursday after struggling with what appeared to be a leg injury in searing desert sun. Seven of the world’s top 10 players had made the Dubai quarter-finals and Murray went into his last-eight match hoping to improve on a 3-1 losing record against the 26-year-old Czech. Britain’s Murray appeared to be cruising at one set up and 2-0 ahead in the second, but then double-faulted to gift Berdych a break back for 2-2. Murray’s movement was increasingly labored but his reply was immediate, breaking again, only for Berdych to do the same and level at 3-3. The Czech was ascendant and looked

as though he could square the match, but Murray dug in and broke once more, playing a forehand cross-court shot from wide of the tramlines that Berdych had no reply to for a 6-5 lead. Murray 24, wasted six match points on serve. The first three were with backhands that found the net and a fourth with an errant forehand drive. He eventually triumphed after Berdych played a long forehand. Murray’s solitary defeat of 2012 came in a five-set epic against Novak Djokovic in the semi-finals of the Australian Open and he will meet the Serb in the last-four in Dubai should the world number one overcome compatriot Janko Tipsarevic in their last-eight meeting later on Thursday. Murray started against Berdych strongly, holding serve to love in the opening game before playing a leaping

backhand that his opponent could only scuff into the net to give the Scot three break points in the next game. The 2010 Wimbledon finalist saved the first two with huge serves, but on the third he shanked a backhand long to give Murray the break and a 2-0 lead. The Scot had a scare in the next game, saving three break points before going 3-0 ahead. The rest of the set went with serve as both players hugged the baseline on a soporific centre court, the stands barely half full and temperatures topping 30 degrees Celsius. Berdych had one more chance to break back at 5-4 down, but the world number seven played a forehand long following a grinding rally and Murray took the first set with an angled forehand into the corner the stooping Czech could only slug into the net. -Reuters

Sports Editors Highlight

SPORTS

fridAY, march 2, 2012

MUNICH: Bayern Munich says Bastian Schweinsteiger has returned to light training as the midfielder makes his recovery from an ankle injury. The Bundesliga club says Schweinsteiger took part in a few light runs on Thursday, three weeks after tearing a right ankle ligament in a 2-0 cup win at Stuttgart. Schweinsteiger had already missed two months of the season with a broken collarbone. He had also been nursing left knee problems. Bayern says his training intensity will increase over the coming days. - AP

Football

Germany get reality check in time for Euro 2012 BERLIN: Germany’s 2-1 defeat to France in their friendly in Bremen may have come at just the right time, giving the team who are one of the Euro 2012 favourites a reality check following their perfect qualifying campaign. The Germans qualified top of their group with 10 wins from 10 games and also scored confidence-boosting victories over top teams including Brazil, Uruguay and Netherlands in friendlies last year as talk of their first title since 1996 grew louder. Wednesday’s defeat against France, who less than two years ago spectacularly flopped at the World Cup in South Africa, was a sobering experience for Joachim Loew’s team, highlighting the fact that it may not be plain sailing for them in Poland and Ukraine in June and July. “We should complain because we

could have conceded one or two more goals,” said Germany’s Thomas Mueller. “While we should not read too much into this result, we were not very disciplined in defense. We were too open at the back, we worked too little and left our defence without backup,” said the 2010 World Cup top scorer. Germany were missing injured captain Philipp Lahm at the back as well as central defender Per Mertesacker. In midfield, Bastian Schweinsteiger - nicknamed “the brain” by Loew - was also out injured, as were Mario Goetze and Lukas Podolski. It was not, however, the first time Germany had taken to the pitch without key players and throughout the game they were on the back foot against the speedy French, who played the sort of quick pass-

ing and attacking game that has made Loew’s team one of the most exciting to watch in the past two years. Loew said it was a deserved win for France but his team, who have two more friendlies against Switzerland and Israel, would bounce back in time for the Euros. “We are obviously a bit annoyed with the result but I am more annoyed about the way we lost,” the coach told reporters. “But we must keep in mind it was a long break since November, there were some changes, some injuries and you can lose your rhythm a bit. Once we are together for three or four weeks it will be much better.” Central defender Mats Hummels shared his coach’s view, saying: “If all the players are back then we have an outstanding team.” -Reuters

France’s Yann M’Vila (right) challenges Germany’s Mesut Oezil during their international friendly soccer match in Bremen, Feb. 29, 2012. (Reuters)

United see Messi savors special moment with Argentina survival at Spurs as key to season

Argentina’s forward Lionel Messi (right) celebrates after scoring his team’s second goal during the friendly football match between Switzerland and Argentina, Feb. 29, 2012. (AFP)

BERNE: Lionel Messi has long had to contend with the criticism that he saves his best for Barcelona but his first hat-trick for Argentina proved a perfect riposte against those who doubted his international credentials. “I had been waiting for a long time for this moment because on a lot of occasions things didn’t work out for me,” he told Argentine television after Wednesday’s 3-1 win over Switzerland. “Now, things have worked out, the team won and we did well. It’s special because it happened with the national team.” Failure to score at the 2010 World Cup or last year’s Copa America had baffled observers, with some questioning his commitment and others making him a scapegoat for the team’s failings, even under the eccentric leadership of Diego Maradona. Three times World Player of the Year, Messi has won all his major honors - five Spanish league titles, three Champions League and two Club World Cup titles - with Barcelona. At international level, he has been restricted to two age-level titles, the world under-20 championship in 2005 and the Olympic Games gold medal in 2008. “I’ve said on a lot of occasions that we can’t compare with Barcelona, they are two differ-

ent things, but it’s also the case the national team has great players capable of playing great games,” Messi said. “I’ve known the Kun (Sergio Aguero) for a long time and the same goes for Pipita (Gonzalo Higuain), it’s easy to strike up an understanding with them on the pitch and we have a good relationship off it, which is also important. There is still a big margin for improvement, we just have to continue like this.” Coach Alejandro Sabella, who was in charge for his tenth international after replacing Sergio Batista following the Copa America, had nothing but praise for Messi, saying it was a “blessing” for Argentina to have him in their side. Sabella said Argentina’s priority had to be to give Messi the ball where he was at his most dangerous, just inside the opposition half where he could run at their defence. “We have to try out players who can give us versatility and speed, such as Maxi Rodriguez, who is versatile and can play on both sides,” he said. “In the first half, we won the ball five times in the midfield and that’s where he makes the difference. The second goal was like that, we put pressure on the opposition near to where Messi was.” -Reuters

PSG still confident of Ligue 1 title

PARIS: Despite surrendering their Ligue 1 lead last weekend, Paris St Germain believe they can still win their first French soccer title since 1994. “We’re not always at our best but there is not much that could prevent us from becoming champions,” defender Christophe Jallet told a news conference on Wednesday. PSG, who have drawn their last three league matches, snatched a last-gasp, 4-4 draw at Olympique Lyon last Sunday after showing great character in a dramatic encounter at Gerland stadium. The Paris side, who entertain strugglers AC Ajaccio on Sunday (1600 GMT) lie second in the standings with 52 points from 25 games, one point adrift of Montpellier, who travel to Dijon on Saturday (1800). Montpellier will have the chance to extend their lead to four points, at least temporarily, as they play a day before their closest rivals, but they may have to deal with the absence of Younes Belhanda. The Morocco midfielder left his nation-

al team earlier this week ahead of a friendly game against Burkina Faso, citing muscular fatigue. Montpellier will also be without Ligue 1 top striker Olivier Giroud, who is suspended for the game. Champions Lille, seven points off the pace in third place, host second-frombottom AJ Auxerre on Saturday, hoping to keep alive their slim title chances. “I played them this season when I was at Stade Brest,” Lille striker Nolan Roux, who joined from the Brittany side during the January transfer window, said on the club’s website (www.losc.fr). “They like to sit back and wait and stab you on counter attacks. But we now need three points in every home game.” Olympique Marseille, in eighth place with a game in hand, will have no choice but to beat seventh-placed Toulouse on Saturday if they are to stand a chance of playing in the Champions League next season. They trail Lille, who occupy the Champions League playoff spot, by seven points. -Reuters

MANCHESTER, England: Manchester United can stamp out any lingering Tottenham Hotspur title ambitions with a victory in London this weekend that would set the Premier League trophy firmly on course to remain in northwest England. Alex Ferguson’s men head to White Hart Lane on Sunday to face a shell-shocked Spurs, who are still recovering from last weekend’s 5-2 thumping by arch-rivals Arsenal, a result that left them eight points adrift of secondplaced United. While Spurs manager Harry Redknapp has said finishing third would mark a successful season, striker Emmanuel Adebayor has refused to give up entirely on the title even though it is almost certainly a two-horse race between the Manchester clubs. United have not lost to Spurs since May 2001 and Ferguson said maintaining that record could be the key to their season. “It’s going to be a massive game,” the Scot told Inside United. “If we can survive that one, then we’ll have a big, big chance of winning the league.” The champions have 61 points from 26 games and trail leaders Manchester City by two points. Roberto Mancini’s side host second-from-bottom Bolton Wanderers on Saturday which gives them an excellent chance to go five points clear before United play. Ferguson has already been thinking about April’s trip to City, which could decide whether the Premier League trophy will be decorated with blue or red ribbons. “I would rather go there on level points,” he said. “But if we could go there within striking distance of being top of the league, I’d take it.” Spurs, who will be without midfielder Scott Parker after his red card against Arsenal, could accuse Ferguson of jumping the gun with Ad-

Ryan Giggs of Manchester United celebrates his last minute goal during the Barclays Premier League match between Norwich City and Manchester United at Carrow Road, Feb. 26, 2012. (AFP)

ebayor believing a win for his side on Sunday would keep them in the hunt. Defeat for Spurs would give Arsenal and Chelsea the chance to gain ground in the race for Champions League berths. The two top-four regulars have found

themselves facing the prospect of one of them not qualifying for the elite European club competition as Spurs have led the London charge this term. Both have 46 points, with Arsenal occupying fourth spot from Chelsea on goal difference. -Reuters

Resurgent Liverpool and Arsenal go head to head LONDON: A week after Liverpool and Arsenal raised hopes of a strong finish to the Premier League season with crucial wins, the pair go head to head at Anfield in a match critical to each team’s chances of making the top four. While Liverpool ended its six-year wait for a trophy with a shootout win in the League Cup final, Arsenal recovered a twogoal deficit to beat local rival Tottenham 5-2. Fans of both clubs have renewed hope of clinching qualification for the Champions League, but defeat for either on Saturday could see just as swift a turnaround in mood. “What the win does is makes you more confident and it gives you an incentive to go on and try and win and play in more finals,” Liverpool winger Stewart Downing said. “And we are still going for a Champions League place with fourth position. There is a lot to play for and hopefully we can carry on doing well.” Leader Manchester City, which hosts Bolton on Saturday, and second-place Manchester United are out of sight, but third-place Tottenham is just seven points ahead of Arsenal after last weekend’s north London derby. If Spurs lose to visiting United on Sunday, that gap could be as small as four points. Liverpool is back in seventh place but is only seven points behind Arsenal with a game in hand. Liverpool could be without captain Steven Gerrard after the midfielder limped off in the first half of England’s 3-2 friendly defeat against the Netherlands on Wednesday. Also Sunday, Sunderland is at local ri-

FILE - Arsenal’s Robin Van Persie (center) challenges Liverpool’s Dirk Kuyt during their English Premier League soccer match at Emirates Stadium in London, Aug. 20, 2011. (Reuters)

val Newcastle and Wolverhampton Wanderers goes to Fulham. Saturday’s other games are: Blackburn vs. Aston Villa, Queens Park Rangers vs. Everton, Stoke vs. Norwich, West

Bromwich Albion vs. Chelsea, and Wigan vs. Swansea. League Championship leader Southampton is at Leeds on Saturday, while West Ham is at Cardiff on Sunday. -Reuters