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NO: 15535- Friday, August 10, 2012

Legal limbo looms See Page 9

KUWAIT: Information Minister Sheikh Mohammad Al-Abdullah AlSabah holds a press conference yesterday. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat

Local FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Kuwait’s my business

Just kiddin’, seriously

Arab soaps on slippery ground during Ramadan

Quick, get into McDonald’s business!

By Sahar Moussa

By John P Hayes

sahar@kuwaittimes.net

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rugs, alcohol and sex are topics discussed on soaps during Ramadan. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not against discussing these issues on the big screen, or in music and soaps because they are a part of us as a community but shouldn’t broadcast networks keep the holy month in mind? Regardless, people can choose what to watch on television, but the vast choices are not helping the viewers a lot.

Broadcast networks are taking complete advantage of Ramadan, and plum advertising for these kind of soaps. They know that the percentage of viewers is higher during Ramadan than any other months, because family and friends gather during iftar. For them, it’s purely business. I believe that Ramadan is a time to connect with yourself on every level; it’s not about forbidding yourself from food and water and was never about food actually. It was about trying to purify your soul.

So I don’t think it’s a bad idea if the broadcast networks try to be more decent in their choices when it comes to soap operas, and include more social, religious, spiritual and comic content in them. There are some soaps that are really ‘clean’ and appropriate to watch and discuss social matters in the community such as Kuwaiti dramas “Kinnat Al-Sham w Kanayen Al-Shamia”, “Saher Al-Layl”, “Khadimat Al-Kawm” and the Egyptian drama, “Khawaga Abdulqader” to name a few.

I have no problem with other soaps; actually I think that the level of drama and production is really good and highlights very important social issues but my problem is that they are a little inappropriate during Ramadan.

And last but not the least, here’s a message to the broadcast networks: you have 11 months to broadcast whatever you want. Can you at least spare Ramadan and try not to benefit at the expense of religion because let’s admit, you are in a powerful place. So use this clout to help build morals instead of tearing them down.

local@kuwaittimes.net

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act: With some 33,000 units worldwide, McDonald’s sells more than 75 hamburgers per second, every minute of every hour of every day of the year. The company has sold more than 100 billion hamburgers to date! But don’t rush to get into the hamburger business, because that’s not McDonald’s business.

Fact: McDonald’s sells more than one billion cups of coffee a year, but no, the company isn’t in the coffee business, either.

Fact: McDonald’s is reportedly the second largest landholder in the world (its restaurants sit on land usually owned by McDonald’s), and much of McDonald’s revenue comes from rent paid by its franchisees, who operate most of the company’s restaurants. But don’t rush to buy land, either, because McDonald’s isn’t in the real estate business.

Fact: McDonald’s serves more than 58 million customers daily worldwide!

Bingo! That’s McDonald’s business. Those customers buy every-

thing McDonald’s sells! And they’re extremely loyal to McDonald’s. In coffee alone, a 2011 study shows that McDonald’s customers are more loyal than both Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts customers. All of this proves that McDonald’s is really in the business of capturing and keeping customers. It’s the only business to be in.

It doesn’t seem to matter what McDonald’s sells, although the company has introduced product flops, including the Hulaburger and McPizza. Once McDonald’s does what it does best - capture customers - those customers continue returning to McDonald’s to buy more of what McDonald’s sells. And nothing else will do. For example, while more than half the customers of Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts admit they buy coffee from competitors, two-thirds of McDonald’s customers buy their coffee only from McDonald’s!

The world’s most valued franchise company understands that without loyal customers, it makes no sense to sell hamburgers, coffee,

KUWAIT: Dates and lanterns have been Ramadan traditions for ages. — Photos by Joseph Shagra and Yasser Al-Zayyat

or land. Equally important, McDonald’s understands the difference between a buyer and a customer. A buyer buys once, but a customer returns repeatedly. And since it costs six to ten times more to capture a buyer than it does to keep a customer coming back again and again, McDonald’s cultivates the business of capturing and keeping customers.

Unfortunately, too many business owners think they’re in the business of selling products, so they focus on the products instead of the customers. Perhaps that explains why customer service stinks! So while you were reading this column, McDonald’s served 605,132 customers! If you own a business, or plan to start one, do yourself a favor: Get in the business of McDonald’s now!

NOTE: Dr John P Hayes is a marketing professor at Gulf University for Science & Technology. Contact him at questions@hayesworldwide.com or via Twitter @drjohnhayes.

Local FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Conspiracy Theories

Kaffeeklatsch

Hyper at the hypermarket

Athletes on a safari in London

By Shakir Reshamwala

By Badrya Darwish shakir@kuwaittimes.net

K

uwait may not see shopping frenzies like Black Friday in the US or the Boxing Day sales in Britain, but it has the potential. Never one to let a good deal pass, I headed to a popular hypermarket a few days back to grab a ‘Back to School’ deal that was marked down by more than 90 percent. Stocks were very limited, so I dragged myself out of bed to be there on time. I reached the store two minutes after it opened to find the display pallets empty and a staff member removing the placard that announced the discount.

Hordes of hopeful shoppers were still rushing in, and finding their efforts were in vain, were venting spleen on the staff. Those who had more than one of the discounted items were being badgered by those who had none, while some parents were fretting because they had only managed to lay their hands on one piece and were afraid mayhem would ensue at home between their kids. Desperate housewives and frantic salarymen getting late to work were fruitlessly scouring the aisles for a wayward piece.

The scenes reminded me of an incident a few years back when an electronic store announced incredible offers on its opening night, with products on sale for as low as KD 1.

Huge crowds gathered outside the store, yours truly included, and the tension was palpable as the opening time neared. But the store, unnerved by the hysteric scenes outside, didn’t open its doors, and riot police had to be brought in to control the enraged masses.

There’s no denying everyone loves a bargain, even if it involves extensive legwork and tubfuls of elbow grease.

Seasoned shoppers pore over supermarket flyers with a microscope, religiously collect coupons and are serial hoarders. Frequent flyers are known to hop onto flights unnecessarily just to earn air miles. Runs on mispriced products and services are all too common online, and many small businesses have gone bust trying to honour that dropped zero.

But things can get ugly if products on offer are limited in quantity. It is then that fangs are bared and swords unsheathed as veterans are sifted from the greenhorns. Back at the hypermarket - being a savvy shopper myself - I managed to find a piece to which I held on firmly, avoiding the beseeching eyes of the empty-handed as I made my way to the cash counters. I arrived home triumphantly with the spoils, no less a superhero to my son than the one emblazoned on the product. Hooray! Papa had won the day!

KUWAIT: Iranian cousins Reza (right) and Mirza wait for customers inside their shop in Souq Mubarakiya during the holy month of Ramadan. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat

badrya_d@kuwaittimes.net

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o show my editors that I am not always in a pessimistic mood - this is neither pessimistic nor optimistic but a hilarious news item. Well, in a way it’s hilarious. I laughed my head off when I heard the news about the seven Cameroonian athletes who ran away from the Olympic village in London over the weekend.

An interesting combination of athletes have decided that they want to change their motherland to the UK. Five boxers, a swimmer and a female football player from Cameroon have gone missing from the Olympic village. All they needed to complete the team, I think, would be a runner to lead them out of the village. Honestly, did they think they were going on a safari and ran wild in London and left the rest to face the drama and to chase medals.

On a serious note, it seems this is not the first time that athletes have run away, especially from Africa, thinking that they would be better off in the other countries where they decide to disappear. I am impressed by the way they disappeared. It seemed they must have been planning it for some time, probably ever since they were chosen to join the London Olympic team. They must have accomplices in the UK or they are depending on the flexible asylum rules in England.

Many defections are happening now in the world. Only yesterday the PM of Syria defected to Jordan and then Qatar. Earlier a pilot defected to Jordan. That reminded me of the communist era disappearances of travelers. In the past they were repressed and were not able to travel freely.

So any chance they would get to reach another country and claim asylum was seized upon. At least for these Olympians, escape was a piece of cake. They arrived on planes with their luggage, documents, pocket money, etc.

Think about the desperate people who run away from Africa by the thousands and take the risk to sail to the shores of Italy, Spain, and Japan in old boats which oftentimes sink. Think about the Mexicans who walk all the way to cross the border “looking for greener pastures” in the United States, some of them falling while sleeping on top of the trains going from Mexico to the United States.

Nobody is ever truly satisfied with what they have in their country. They think seeking asylum in another country is the panacea. They do not know that in their new homeland they could be facing worse problems than what they face in their home countries.

Good luck Cameroonian athletes! You have done well for your country! You must be the pride of your nation.

Local Spotlight

By Muna Al-Fuzai

muna@kuwaittimes.net

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he fact that you are not a Muslim doesn’t mean you don’t show respect to those who are. At the end of the day, this is a Muslim country and as long you have agreed to settle here you are expected to respect the country’s religion and practices. One of the most foreign concepts to non-Muslims settling here is the fasting that takes place during the holy month of Ramadan. It can

A unique perspective be difficult at times for non-Muslims to understand the challenges faced by Muslims observing this tradition.

Non-fasting people must realize that in a hot place like Kuwait, refraining from food or drink for an entire month poses a serious challenge. We must also change our schedules, going to bed very late every night. Hungry, thirsty, and sleep-deprived, fasting Muslims require more patience and respect than usual. It is a sensitive time for Muslims during Ramadan, and we ask non-fasting people to please treat those observing with understanding and respect.

Normal activities sometimes cease, as many Muslims dedicate themselves to more pious pursuits during Ramadan. It is therefore quite offensive to Muslims when we encounter impatience or a lack of understanding from foreigners during this holy month. I would encourage non-fasting people in this country to try some of the rituals surrounding Ramadan, namely the fasting. You may be surprised not only by the difficulty, but the satisfaction you receive by being able to stick with it. You will also gain a unique perspective into the lives of your Muslim neighbors.

Local FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Autism: Social stigma that affects quality of life

A life-changing diagnosis

By Velina Nacheva

A

bdullah, a cheerful and social toddler, used to sit under the shelf where his mom kept the bowl with chocolates and cry for a dessert if no one from the family satisfied his cravings for sweets. The almost 3-year-old Kuwaiti Abdullah will no longer be able to taste chocolates because he was just diagnosed with autism - a fate shared by one in 50 children diagnosed each day throughout the world. For Um Abdullah, the moment her son was diagnosed with autism earlier last month brings

back tears. “When I heard the diagnosis I started crying,” she said, recalling the day her dreams for Abdullah took a slightly different route. “The doctor has confirmed my fears and my thoughts. Something inside me had said that Abdullah could be autistic, but as a mother you would not want to believe this. It was shocking and devastating for me,” Um Abdullah said, clutching a pack of tissues and wiping the tears from her eyes a fortnight after the diagnosis. Fighting off tears, she explained her personal bid to raise awareness about the importance of early diagnosis: “We put so many expectations on our children. We want them to be perfect. My image of how my son is and would be is distorted now and I didn’t see it coming.

You expect to hear that someone else’s child has this problem and not your own child.”

Spotting the signs What were the signs of the fastest growing developmental disability in the world? After returning from a short trip abroad, Um Abdullah and other family members noticed a drastic change in Abdullah’s behavior.

Gradually he lost his language skills and experienced a setback in non-verbal communication. He would laugh about anything, even when nobody was around him. He would laugh until he could no longer breathe. His sleeping and eating habits also changed. He started to sleep all day and stay awake all night. “At first we thought he had remembered a funny story. He used to be more vocal and he used to have better eye contact. It all gradually faded,” says Um Abdullah, who is a mother of three. Her first instinct was that her child was upset with her travel and felt abandoned and this was his natural reaction, but then she felt the need to take him to the doctor.

“He was a lovable boy, laughing and talking. He used to call his sisters and the housekeeper by name. He used to tell us if something he touched was hot or cold,” Um Abdullah says. Every time Abdullah wanted to go out he would grab the car keys and head to the door. All these signs of communication gradually faded. I noticed that in a short period he was not the same. A month ago he was more vocal. He used to come downstairs to the diwaniya to interact with people. Now he is always upset and crying,” said Um Abdullah.

When she asked for medical help a pediatrician referred her to a specialist. “She was asking the exact questions I wanted to ask her. How he had lost speech, his laughter and crying fits, his change in eating and sleeping habits, everything. In a playroom where children’s specific needs and abilities are tested, Abdullah’s diagnosis crystallized. During the session the pediatrician, who was a specialist in autism, uttered: “I am sorry, your child has autism.”

Food habits change After assuring her that this life-long condition is treatable, the pediatrician prescribed a special food plan for Abdullah - no sweets, salty foods, chocolates, soda or milk. The hardest part for Abdullah, Um Abdullah says, has been his chocolate cravings. His new diet regime required the whole household to cut down on certain ingredients. “Abdullah has a sweet tooth and he likes sugar. That is why it was difficult for him, and he was resistant to the new diet in the beginning,” she said, and explained that after he realized that there was no other option, he started eating what she prepared for him.

Abdullah’s diagnosis has changed not only his mother’s dreams for his future, but the family’s lifestyle and diet. “We are coming up with special recipes for him. His grandma is coming up with new dishes and my father stopped giving him sweets. If his sisters want to eat jelly or yogurt they eat in the kitchen and not in front of him. Everyone is very supportive,” she said. Um Abdullah feels that early detection can help Abdullah grow as a normal child who can eventually provide for himself. She has registered him to join a nursery for children who do not have special needs. He will start to go to the nursery in September, carrying his own lunch box.

After the initial week of denial, excessive eating and shopping, Um Abdullah said, “I realized I was being irrational and told myself that I have to deal with this like an adult.”

NO: 15535

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RAMADAN 22, 1433 AH

Who was the companion who advised the messenger of Allah (PBUH) to dig the tunnel?

Salman Al-Faresi Othman Ben Affan Hamza Ben Abdulmuttalab

The biggest challenge “I haven’t been very open till now. I am worried about social stigmas,” she said, elaborating that her family knows, but her in-laws were not told about the diagnosis. “I just told them that he is sensitive to certain foods,” Um Abdullah said.

A doctor who has a 15-year-old autistic boy advised her not to worry about social stigmas and to go to the organization under the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour and register him as an autistic individual.

According to the doctor, Abdullah will be granted a lifetime salary and will be assisted in going through school and finding a job. For her, helping him to deal with toilet-training and social interaction, as well as the need to learn how to take care of his own needs in the future, will be a primary task for Um Abdullah. “I want him to be self-dependent. I want him to live normally because his sisters may not be able to care for him in the future,” she said. To avoid the social stigmas for now, she and her husband agreed to say that Abdullah’s dietary habits changed because of his intolerance to certain foods that affect his mood and his ability to speak. “Eventually we will tell his grandmother. She has to know,” Um Abdullah said. At this moment, her greatest fear is that some people are not very aware of autism and might see it as a mental disability. She said, “I don’t want people to feel sorry for me or him. I want them to treat him as an individual.”

Local FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

hat’s more fun than clicking a beautiful picture? Sharing it with others! This summer, let other people see the way you see Kuwait - through your lens. Friday Times will feature snapshots of Kuwait through Instagram feeds.

If you want to share your Instagram photos, email us at instagram@kuwaittimes.net

W

Local FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Improving transparency in the banking sector KUWAIT: New corporate governance rules announced by the Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) in June should continue to strengthen the banking sector and address issues that have been attributed to a weak corporate governance framework.

Despite a “mixed environment” in 2011, the banking sector’s financial soundness indicators remain strong, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded as part of its 2012 Article IV staff report for Kuwait.

Positive factors included a substantial improvement in liquidity, a decline in non-performing loan (NPL) ratios, and robust capital adequacy and leverage ratios.

The fall in the NPL ratio was attributed to an increase in writeoffs associated with loans to Kuwait’s investment companies (ICs), but some vulnerabilities remained on the asset side of the balance sheet, the IMF said.

Notably, a decline in the domestic stock market, a lack of improvement in the real estate sector and continued financial difficulties faced by the ICs have forced banks to set aside higher provisions. Indeed, bank profitability remained flat in 2011, largely as a result of this buildup in provisions.

Some of the challenges experienced by Kuwait’s ICs - and there-

fore the larger financial sector have been attributed to the country’s weak corporate governance framework, particularly when it comes to factors such as the efficacy of boards of directors, the strength of auditing and financial reporting standards, and the protection of minority shareholders’ rights. While some of these issues have already been addressed by the executive bylaws published in 2011 by the Capital Markets Authority, the country’s stock market regulator, the CBK has more recently taken the extra step of issuing a new set of corporate governance regulations just for banks.

The new rules will bring bank governance regulations in line with international best practices and replace rules issued in 2004.

According to a statement by Mohammed Al-Hashel, the governor of the CBK, published by the state news agency KUNA, the newly released regulations incorporate findings from a variety of international sources, including a 2010 paper from the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the Financial Stability Board’s principles on allowances and a 2010 World Bank report on governance criteria for Kuwait’s banks that was commissioned by the CBK.

The new regulations centre on the role of the board of directors, stressing that the board must define strategic goals, improve governance standards, take an active part in management, protect sharehold-

2012 banks will be required to present the CBK with quarterly reports on policies, measures and adjustments that are being taken to comply with the new criteria.

The revised corporate gover-

The Central Bank has more taken the extra step of issuing a new set of corporate governance regulations just for banks er interests, focus on risk management and improve systems for internal and external auditing.

Independence of the board is emphasised to ensure that decisions are made objectively and without compromising the interests of minority shareholders. The new rules also stress that profitability is not the sole raison d’Ítre of bank management, but that interests of depositors and monetary stability must also be taken into consideration.

According to Al-Hashel, the CBK conducted two surveys of local banks to give them a chance to review the new rules, with the feedback indicating that the proposed regulations were workable. The new guidelines will be effective as of June 1, 2013, but as of September

nance framework was revealed just one month after the CBK announced it was changing the rules that govern loan limits in an attempt to boost lending and the overall economy, according to a report from KUNA. Under the new rules, banks will be able to expand their loans against funding that includes deposits and bonds, replacing a regulation that capped the loan-to-deposit ratio at 85 percent. More specifically, banks will be able to lend up to 90 percent of funds maturing within one year, with this limit going up to 100 percent for liabilities whose maturity exceeds one year.

The new policy is “aimed at expanding the lending capability of banks in a manner that enhances the role required of them in financ-

ing economic development projects,” Al-Hashel told KUNA. However, some market observers remain sceptical as to whether the new rules will have the desired effect. “The changes are unlikely to spur lending growth, as banks are already fairly liquid,” Naveed Ahmed, a banking analyst at Kuwait-based Global Investment House, told Bloomberg. “This would have been effective if lending caps were the impediment in loans disbursement, which is certainly not the case in Kuwait,” he added.

Indeed, as the IMF pointed out in its Article IV staff report, liquidity conditions in Kuwait are “favourable”, thanks to a rise in retail deposits and “still-moderate” lending growth in 2011.

But should the government hasten the implementation of its $108bn National Development Plan, the four-year economic programme approved in 2010, Kuwait’s banks may be now better positioned to boost their lending, thanks to the more lenient loan-to-deposit regulations. However, at the same time, the new corporate governance rules should help ensure that any increase in lending is not carried out in a way that harms either shareholders or the country’s monetary stability. — Oxford Business Group

Kuwaiti traders follows the market’s movement at the stock exchange in Kuwait City in this Feb 19, 2012 file photo. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat

Local FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Accolades pour in for poetess Sheikha Suad KUWAIT: Further praise has been heaped upon the prominent Kuwaiti poetess Sheikha Suad Al-Sabah, with a leading arts figure hoping her recent earning of the Manhae award will lead to more international attention of her literary accomplishments and possible consideration for the Nobel Prize. Chairman of the Kuwaiti Formative Arts Society Abdul Rasoul Salman affirmed in an interview with KUNA that Sheikha Suad was granted the Manhae Award in appreciation for her literary and poetic works over the last 50 years.

“Sheikha Suad has a long record of humanitarian, literary and cultural contributions, such as her sponsorship of contests in formative arts, poetry and novels, in addition to her personal interest in literary and artistic education for the youth and children,” he added. The Manhae award, founded in 1979 as the top honor for literary works in South Korea, was recently granted to Sheikha Suad by the Asian Journalists Association. Manhae was a South Korean poet and writer who devoted his life for the promotion of ideal thoughts, reforms and wisdom.

Salman said he was proud of Sheikha Suad for earning the award, noting that this record achievement would inspire the new generation of Arab literary writers and

artists to become recognized on an inter- with Sheikha Suad in this regard, he national level. He hopes this honoring recalled that she had hurriedly agreed to paves the way for Sheikha Suad to receive allocate a special award for formative more international awards, such as the artists, however, she insisted the award Nobel Prize. Next Sunday, The Asian involve artists from other Gulf countries.

Journalists Association is due to hold a cer- This contest, named the Gulf Creativity emony in the South Korean town of Inje, Award, celebrated its third year in 2012, with participation from honoring the renowned more than 80 artists from Kuwaiti poetess with the the Gulf. He also menManhae Award in literationed that Sheikha Suad ture for 2012. The winwould develop a new ning announcement menaward for children in the tioned that Dr Suad Al GCC countries.

Sabah “helped in fostering Sheikha Suad has the female position in the issued 15 divans. The first Arab World, as well as one was “Min Omri (From remaining devoted to My Life), published in poetry since 1961, with 1963. The last one was more than 15 volumes of titled, “Letters from the poetry published. She also Beautiful Time,” printed stresses on the imporby Suad Al-Sabah tance of having scientific Publishing House in 2006. assistance in her studies, The eminent poetess and and gave the Arab youth Sheikha Suad Al-Sabah writer had delved into the chance to promote their literary works. Asked about Sheikha patriotic issues, with the release of her Suad’s support for formative arts, Salman book, “Allow me to Love my Country”, said the poet is very much involved in this issued in 1990, in addition to her historic type of art, manifested through her literary publications such as “Falcon of the Gulf...

Abdullah Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah”, published works.

Elaborating on his personal experience in 1995.

Nepal bars young women from working in Gulf KATHMANDU: Nepal has banned women under 30 from travelling to Gulf countries to work following reports of widespread sexual abuse and exploitation, local media said yesterday. Thousands of women - mostly aged under 25 - leave the impoverished Himalayan nation every year to take up menial jobs in cleaning or construction, with many heading to Gulf Arab states.

“Young female workers are reported to have been sexually and psychologically exploited in Gulf countries,” Information Minister Raj Kishor Yadav was quoted as saying in the Himalayan Times English-language daily newspaper. “So the cabinet decided to set the age bar for women migrant workers in the Gulf. Women above 30 years of age are at low risk of such exploitation.”

Nepalese women have been allowed to go to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar since 2010, when authorities lifted a 12-year ban imposed after the suicide of a Nepalese domestic worker who had been abused in Kuwait. Most Nepalese migrant workers are in India but the government and local charities estimate that between 20,000 and 70,000 are in wealthy Gulf countries, lured by the promise of better wages to help support their families back home.

Maiti Nepal, which works to prevent the trafficking of Nepalese women abroad, welcomed the announcement, saying many underage girls travelled to the Gulf for work and abuse was common.”We have met several housemaids who were not only raped by their masters but also forced to have sex with the masters’ relatives.

They are confined to the house and live in a situation akin to slavery,” director Bishwa Khadka said.

There was an outcry in Sri Lanka in Sept 2010 when a maid returned from Saudi Arabia alleging that her employers had forced 24 nails and needles into her body. Fifteen Nepalese women committed suicide in Lebanon in 2010 while two to three domestic helpers a week seek refuge in Nepalese embassies in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait following abuse from their employers, according to the Times. The labour ministry was not immediately available for comment. — AFP

Sheikha Suad is the author of a long chain of articles and research, addressing issues concerning Muslim and Gulf women. This impressive body of work has produced a variety of articles such as an article themed around “Women Workers in the Gulf”, a research paper about Kuwaiti female workers and another about the role of women in the development of Arab and Islamic countries.

Her poetic works have been translated into English, French, Spanish, Italian and German. The crux of her writings have focused on basic freedoms of the human race, as well as eliminating barriers of discrimination between the two genders.

Moreover, she is credited for being among the ardent female strugglers who succeeded in attaining political identity for Kuwaiti women. In appreciation of her robust stance in support of Arab human rights, she was granted membership number-one by the Arab Human Rights Organization. In 1995, she was chosen as representative of the United Nations at the International Woman Conference in Beijing. She was one of five figures that were chosen as honorary guests - including the first ladies of the United States and France. Sheikha Suad heads Abdullah Mubarak Al-Sabah Charity, founded in 1992. — KUNA

Government to refer electoral law to court No Assembly dissolution, no fresh elections

By B Izzak and Nawara Fattahova KUWAIT: The government yesterday decided to refer the electoral law to the constitutional court to rule if the legislation is in line with the country’s constitution, effectively placing itself on the edge of a serious confrontation with the opposition which has warned against the move.

Information Minister Sheikh Mohammad Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah said that the decision was taken after all constitutional experts polled by the government said that the electoral law, amended in 2006, is in breach of the constitution.

Sheikh Mohammad said the Cabinet asked the Legal and Fatwa Department, the state legal body, to prepare the necessary application for the referral, adding that it will be filed before the end of next week. The minister said that the government wants to “immunize” the electoral law against any future challenges in the constitutional court, saying that the constitutional experts pointed out that the court will likely accept any challenge against the law if it was not “immunized”.

Sheikh Mohammad said that following a thorough revision of the issue, the government opted for the move rather than dissolving the 2009 Assembly and holding fresh elections because there is a legitimate fear that the court could scrap the election process. The government has decided to specifically refer the part on the distribution of the electoral districts from the electoral law, the minister said.

The action comes after the unprecedented constitutional court ruling in June in which it nullified the February legislative

KUWAIT: Information Minister Sheikh Mohammad Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah holds a press conference yesterday. —Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat polls, scrapped the 2012 Assembly and reinstated the 2009 house after it was dissolved in December. The 2009 Assembly failed to meet on two occasions last week due to a lack of quorum as both opposition and pro-government MPs boycotted the two sessions. Speaker Jassem Al-Khorafi said he will refer the issue to HH the Amir next week.

The information minister said that he does not see the 2009 Assembly meeting again, but explained that the government will take no action regarding dissolving the Assembly or calling for fresh polls before the constitutional court issues its verdict.

He gave no timeframe for the process which could take months, keeping the country in a limbo without an effective national assembly. The electoral law, which

divides the state into five electoral districts, was passed by parliament in 2006 following popular rallies demanding to reform the election process. Parliamentary elections were held on the basis of the law in 2008 and 2009, in addition to Feb 2012 which the constitutional court nullified in June on the grounds of procedural flaws.

The opposition has repeatedly warned that any action by the government to refer the electoral law to the constitutional court will be met with street protests by its supporters. Leading opposition figures have insisted that the move amounts to a coup against the constitution and the democratic system in the country. Youth activists have said that they will start the protests by camping at the “Square of Will” opposite the National Assembly building.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

HK police body cameras spark fears

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Yoga guru leads mass rally over Indian corruption

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Sikh temple shooter died of self-inflicted gunshot

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TEHRAN: Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi (centre) and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari (left) as Iran hosted a 29-nation conferenceon Syria with the aim of stopping bloodshed there and forging a role for Tehran as peace-broker for its beleaguered Arab ally, yesterday. — AFP

Assad fall would be ‘catastrophic’: Iran Ahmadinejad says purpose to supplant military clashes LONDON: Iran said an abrupt end to the rule of President Bashar Al-Assad would have catastrophic consequences for his country, as Tehran pushed ahead with a diplomatic meeting of allies it says is the best way of resolving the intensifying conflict in Syria. Nations with “a correct and realistic position” would attend a meeting yesterday in Tehran to discuss the conflict, a senior Iranian diplomat said this week, indicating that no nation that backs the opposition and calls for Assad to leave power would be present.

Russia - which along with Iran has strongly supported Assad since the crisis erupted 17 months ago - has said it will attend the meeting at ambassadorial level but it was unclear which other key players would be present. Iranian media has reported that China would also be present, along with at least 15 others, including Iraq, Algeria, Tajikistan, Venezuela, Pakistan, India and several members of the Arab League.

In an opinion piece published by the Washington Post on Wednesday, Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi warned that the fall of Assad would lead to further unrest. “Syrian society is a beautiful mosaic of ethnicities, faiths and

cultures, and it will be smashed to pieces should President Bashar al-Assad abruptly fall,” it read.

While Salehi said Iran sought a solution that was in “everyone’s interest”, Western diplomats have dismissed the conference as an attempt to divert attention away from bloody events on the ground and to preserve the rule of Assad.

“The Islamic Republic’s support for Assad’s regime is hardly compatible with a genuine attempt at conciliation between the parties,” said one Western diplomat based in Tehran. It showed Iran was “running out of ideas”, he added. Another Western diplomat said Tehran was trying to broaden the support base of the Syrian leader.

Along with Russia and China, Iran has strongly supported Assad, whose forces have launched crushing operations against anti-government protesters and armed opposition groups since the crisis erupted 17 months ago. The Islamic Republic has resisted an agreement on Syria that requires Assad to quit as part of any political transition. There is no sign that Tehran is ready to adopt a new approach, despite setbacks for Assad including the defection this week of his

prime minister. But analysts say the recent signs of cracks in the Syrian leadership have taken Iran by surprise. “Iran is trying to show strength and regional presence, but if they were going to make a big play why not do it at the Non-Aligned Movement summit (taking place in Tehran in late August)?” said Scott Lucas of the EA Worldview news website that specialises in covering Iran.

“They seem to be so jittery about Syria, they couldn’t afford to wait,” he added.

Accusations Iran’s Shi’ite rulers have accused Western and Arab nations specifically Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia - of fomenting terrorism in Syria by arming opposition groups. In turn, Syria’s mostly Sunni Muslim rebels accuse Tehran of sending military personnel to Syria and of providing light arms, as well as tactical and communications expertise to Syrian government forces. The crisis has soured Iran’s relations with neighbouring Turkey which has hosted opposition meetings, extended assistance to Syrian refugees and demanded Assad leave office.

“Iran wants to co-ordinate efforts among

countries that don’t accept the Western and Saudi approach to Syria,” said Mohammad Marandi of Tehran University. “It’s a counterforce to the so-called Friends of Syria gathering.”

Iranian involvement in the crisis has been complicated by the seizure by rebels of 48 Iranians in Syria on Saturday on suspicion of being military personnel. Tehran has said they were pilgrims, but acknowledged that some of the men were retired soldiers or Revolutionary Guards.

Iranian officials have engaged in intensive diplomatic efforts in the region this week. On Tuesday, while Foreign Minister Salehi was in Ankara trying to maintain relations, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili was in Damascus to reassure Assad of Tehran’s support.

“They’re in chaos in terms of the bureaucracy.

There have been lots of statements but no-one’s co-ordinating it,” said EA Worldview’s Scott Lucas. The meeting comes just days before a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation set to focus on Syria. In recent days Iran has warned the Muslim world of the threat posed to it by the United States. —Reuters

International FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Fights rage in rebel bastions of Aleppo BEIRUT: Clashes between government troops and rebels raged yesterday in opposition bastions of besieged Aleppo as President Bashar Assad’s key state backer Iran hosted a gathering of countries for talks on how to end the conflict. Tehran billed the conference as an attempt to start an alternative political process, separate from Western-led initiatives, to encourage all sides to negotiate. Speaking at the opening of the conference in Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said his country rejects any foreign and military intervention in Syria and accused rebels of using civilians as “human shields.”

Syrian rebels last week intercepted a bus carrying 48 Iranians in a Damascus suburb and seized them. Rebels claimed the men are military person-

nel, including some members of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard, who were on a “reconnaissance mission” to help Assad’s crackdown. Iran, however, says the 48 were pilgrims visiting a Shiite shrine in Damascus. Salehi said Wednesday that some of the pilgrims are retired members of the army and Revolutionary Guard.

The overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim rebels have also seized 11 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims who have been held in northern Syria since May. Assad, meanwhile, appointed a new prime minister to replace the one who defected to neighboring Jordan this week. Staterun news agency SANA said he appointed Health Minister Wael Nader al-Halqi, a Sunni member of the ruling Baath party from the southern city of Daraa, the birthplace of the 17-month-

old uprising. Al-Halqi replaces Riad Hijab, whose defection was a humiliating blow to the regime. Like nearly all prominent defectors so far, Hijab is a member of Syria’s majority Sunnis - the Muslim sect which forms the bedrock of the uprising.

Still, power remains closely held within Assad’s inner circle and the most significant leadership is dominated by members of the president’s minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. The regime has been trying to drive rebels out of Aleppo for two weeks. But the blistering attacks on rebel positions from the ground and the air appear to be only slowly chipping away at the opposition’s grip on its strongholds. The state news agency claimed Wednesday that Assad’s force had regained control of

the Salaheddine neighborhood, the main rebel area in Aleppo. But activists said rebels were still putting up a fight there yesterday. “It’s difficult to know exactly what’s going on because of the scale of the bombing, but the rebels are still fighting,” Aleppo-based activist Mohammad Saeed told The Associated Press by Skype.

He said troops were using warplanes and tanks to shell the towns of Hreitan and Tel Rifat, some 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Aleppo, from where most of the rebels converged on the city. “They are trying to cut the main lines from Tel Rifat to Aleppo,” he said. Syrian fighter jets launched airstrikes Wednesday on Tel Rifat, hitting a home and a high school and killing six people from one family, residents said. — AP

Renewed clashes hit Egypt’s Sinai Egyptian police fight militants HEFEI: This video image taken from CCTV shows Gu Kailai (second left) the wife of disgraced politician Bo Xilai, standing trial in the Intermediate People’s Court yesterday. — AP

China politician’s wife doesn’t deny killing Brit HEFEI: The wife of disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai lured a British businessman to a hotel in the southwestern mega-city of Chongqing, where she got him drunk and poisoned him, testimony revealed yesterday in one of China’s highest-profile murder trials. The secretive trial of Gu Kailai and a household aide, who are accused of murdering Bo family associate Neil Heywood, ended in less than a day at the Intermediate People’s Court in the eastern Chinese city of Hefei. The defendants did not contest the murder charges; a guilty verdict is all but assured and could carry a death sentence.

The tightly orchestrated court proceeding marks a step toward resolving the messiest scandal the Communist leadership has faced in two decades. Bo was one of China’s most powerful and charismatic politicians until he was ousted in the spring as the scandal surrounding Heywood’s death unfolded. Observers say the party’s main objective is to keep the focus tightly on the murder case and not on larger allegations of corruption that could further taint the regime. International media were barred from the courtroom, so details of the case against Gu were provided afterward by Tang Yigan, the court’s deputy director.

He said prosecutors told the court that Gu sent her aide, Zhang Xiaojun, to meet and accompany Heywood from Beijing to Chongqing, where Bo was the Communist Party boss. Gu and Heywood were business associates but had had a dispute over economic interests, according to Tang, whose account matched details from the indictment reported in official media several weeks ago. Gu thought Heywood was a threat to her son, 24-year-old Bo Guagua, and decided to have him killed, said Tang, who did not specify what sort of threat Heywood posed. — AP

CAIRO: Police and gunmen clashed yesterday in the Sinai town of El-Arish, Egyptian TV said after the authorities vowed to crush a surge in Islamist militancy, although state news agency MENA denied the report. The state-owned Nile News television said there were clashes outside a police station in the north Sinai town a day after reported air strikes killed 20 militants in a neighbouring village.

However MENA said later that a “security official denied reports that the... police station in El-Arish came under fire,” in an account backed by witnesses who said they did not see or hear any clashes.

MENA said that a man driving a unlicensed car had fired several shots in the air on the street housing the police station, without aiming at it. The conflicting reports came a day after security forces launched a campaign to uproot the militants following an attack by gunmen on a guard post near the border with Israel that killed 16 troops.

“Elements from the armed forces and interior ministry supported by the air force began a plan to restore security by pursuing and targeting armed terrorist elements in Sinai, and it has accomplished this task with complete success,” it said. Wednesday’s reported air strikes in Tumah village-the first in the peninsula for decades-came as security forces massed near Rafah on the Gaza border for what they called a decisive confrontation with the militants.

A senior military official in Sinai said “20 terrorists were killed” in Apache helicopter raids and when soldiers from the 2nd Infantry Division stormed Tumah. He said the militants were trying to escape when the helicopter targeted their vehicles. Other security officials in the north of the peninsula reported air strikes near the town of Sheikh Zuwayid, close to the village. The fallout from Sunday’s attack, the deadliest for Egyptian troops in decades, spread to Cairo where President Mohamed Morsi sacked his intelligence chief and two generals.

Morsi’s opponents have used the deadly Sinai incident to attack the Islamist president, whose Muslim Brotherhood has good relations with the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip. Security officials say Sunday’s attack against a border guard outpost that killed the 16 soldiers took place under cover of mortar fire from Gaza. The militants themselves are believed to be mostly Bedouin, with support from hardliners in Gaza who view even the Islamist Hamas, which condemned the attack, as too moderate.

At a military funeral in Cairo for the soldiers on Tuesday,

Morsi’s opponents tried to assault his Islamist Prime Minister Hisham Qandil and chanted anti-Muslim Brotherhood slogans. Officials close to the president, who did not attend the funeral, said he was outraged by the military and security’s failure to secure the protest, which in part prompted Morsi’s decision to fire the generals. “The prime minister was subjected to an insult. It was unacceptable,” said one official. Before being sacked on Wednesday, intelligence chief Murad Muwafi, himself a former governor of North Sinai, issued a rare public statement saying his agency had forewarned of the weekend attack. But he also said the intelligence did not specify where the attack would take place, and he had passed it on to the “relevant authorities,” adding that his powerful agency’s role was only to collect information. — AFP

RAMALLAH: Palestinian youths light candles and place them on Egyptian and Palestinian flags on August 8, 2012 in memory of the 16 Egyptian soldiers who were killed in a militant ambush. — AFP

International FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

No negotiation with M23 rebels: DR Congo KAMPALA: The Democratic Republic of Congo has said it will not negotiate with rebels who mutinied from the army to battle government forces in the country’s war-torn eastern region. “We don’t want them to survive as a movement, as an ideology, we don’t want to see their actions continue,” Raymond Tshibanda, the DR Congo’s foreign minister, told reporters late Wednesday. “This is what we are after and put that way there is no question about it, there is nothing to discuss, to negotiate,” he added.

The rebels, known as M23, are drawn from an earlier rebel movement, the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), and were integrated into the army in 2009 after a peace deal that M23 claims Kinshasa failed to respect. Regional leaders, including DR Congo President Joseph Kabila, met for a two-day summit in Kampala this week to discuss setting up a neutral force to fight rebels in the east, but failed to make any concrete breakthrough.

The leaders agreed to meet again in a month after tasking defence ministers from the region to come up with more details of a potential force. However, while Uganda and Rwanda are pushing for a force to be drawn from regional armies, Tshibanda said that Kinshasa would instead prefer to see the mandate of the UN mission in DR Congo (MONUSCO) strengthened.

Tshibanda repeated charges that Rwanda is backing the M23 rebels, who mutinied in April demanding better pay and full implementation of the 2009 deal.

“We say Rwanda is providing assistance and support to M23,” Tshibanda said. Kigali has denied the allegations, and in turn accuses its neighbour of plotting attacks with Rwandan Hutu rebels based in the same region.

A UN report published in June said there was ample evidence that Kigali was actively involved in the M23 rebellion, led by a renegade Congolese gen-

eral who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. “When we talk about a neutral force clearly it cannot involve Congolese troops because it is international, and it cannot involve Rwandan troops as Rwanda is a part of the problem,” Tshibanda said.

Tshibanda said that DR Congo could turn to other options-potentially including inviting a force from the southern African regional bloc SADC to help put down the rebellion-if talks over a neutral force drag on. “The door is not closed to other solutions,” Thsibanda said.

African Union officials said three weeks ago that the neutral force needed to be up and running in the space of “weeks” rather than months, a prospect that now looks unlikely. Fighting between M23 and the government army died down in the run-up to the Kampala conference after Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni reached out to the rebels and regional leaders, Tshibanda said. — AFP

Kurd militants attack military bus in Turkey One soldier killed, at least 11 people wounded

GHANA: A mourner cries out after viewing the body of late Ghanaian President, Johns Evans Atta Mills yesterday. — AP

RAK ruler condemns UAE leadership ‘offenders’ DUBAI: The ruler of Ras Al-Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday renewed his allegiance to the Gulf federation’s leadership and criticised those who have “offended” it. “A group of sons of this nation have gathered in an organisation that aims to destroy and offend this nation and its leaders,” Sheikh Saud bin Saqr AlQassimi said in a statement carried by official news agency WAM. “On this day we affirm our pledge to the President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahayan... We are with him whichever path he may choose. He is the father and the leader,” said Sheikh Saud. “We condemn any attempt to offend this nation.” On July 15, the UAE announced it had dismantled a group it said was plotting against state security and challenging the constitution of the Gulf state but did not identify their affiliation or give the number of arrests.

Amnesty later said 35 activists were arrested in July, raising the number of those held since March to 50. “We have the right today to blame this group and not accept their offences to their country and leadership,” said Saud.

“Our doors are open for everyone, why address the nation via foreign” countries?” Among those detained is a member of the ruling family of Ras al-Khaimah.

Sheikh Sultan Al-Qassimi, a first cousin of the ruler and head of the local branch of the Islamist group Al-Islah, was arrested in April by “armed men in civilian clothing,” his son Sheikh Abdullah told AFP. But an informed tribal source said Sheikh Sultan had been placed under “house arrest” following a “family” dispute within the Al-Qassimi clan. He insisted there was no involvement by the security services.

The UAE, a federation of seven emirates led by oil-rich Abu Dhabi, has not seen the kind of pro-reform protests that have swept other Arab countries, including Gulf neighbours Bahrain and Oman, since last year. But the Abu Dhabi government has increased its clampdown on voices of dissent and calls for democratic reforms. — AFP

ISTANBUL: Suspected Kurdish militants ambushed a Turkish military bus in western Turkey yesterday in an attack which police said killed one soldier and wounded at least 11 people, adding to a recent upsurge in separatist violence. If confirmed as a Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) attack, the ambush in the Aegean province of Izmir would represent a widening of the conflict with the PKK beyond its regular field of operation in the mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey.

The violence is a headache for Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan as he seeks to limit the impact on Turkey of the conflict in Syria, where the PKK is exerting growing authority in some areas and receiving arms from Syrian forces, according to Ankara. “This is unfortunately another example of the steps taken in widening terrorism,” Erdogan told reporters in his first comments on the attack.

PKK rebels detonated explosives on the road before firing on the bus at 8 am (0500 GMT) near Foca, a small resort town on the Aegean coast where there is a naval base, Dogan news agency said. The soldiers in the bus returned fire, it said. Police declined to comment on who could be

behind the assault and there was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Attacks on military vehicles are common in southeast Turkey, but are rare in the rest of the country.

Television images showed the bus with its windows blown out and glass strewn across the road, and investigators in white overalls searching the scene. Wounded soldiers were taken to a nearby hospital, a police spokeswoman said. It was unclear if the 11 wounded people included any civilians. The attack occurred at a time of intensified clashes between the army and the PKK, whose 28-year-old armed struggle has cost more than 40,000 lives, most of them Kurds.

Assad arming PKK? The rebels have fought for autonomy in the southeast since 1984.

Turkey, the United States and the European Union list the PKK as a terrorist organisation. Clashes are focused east of the Syrian border.

Turkish officials believe Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad is arming PKK rebels, following a sharp deterioration of ties between the two countries since the start of the Syrian uprising 17 months ago. Erdogan has

become one of Assad’s most vocal critics.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu repeated the allegations about Assad arming the PKK while travelling to Myanmar overnight, according to Turkish media. “Assad gave them weapons support. Yes - this is not a fantasy. It is true. We have taken necessary measures against this threat,” Davutoglu was quoted as saying. Turkish armed forces have clashed with PKK fighters around the remote, mountainous district of Semdinli, close to the borders with Iraq and Iran, since late July after the militants set up checkpoints in the area.

Erdogan said 115 PKK militants had been killed in the fighting there so far. Journalists and other non-residents have been barred entry to the area.

Murat Karayilan, the acting PKK leader, said last week the group was changing tactics with its battle in Semdinli, according to Firat News, a website close to the militants. Instead of their traditional hit-and-run ambushes on Turkish security forces, PKK fighters will remain positioned in Semdinli in an attempt to form a stronghold there, he said. — Reuters

Street protest hits cradle of Tunisian revolt TUNIS: Tunisian police fired teargas and rubber bullets yesterday to disperse protesters demanding jobs in Sidi Bouzid, the cradle of the revolution that ousted Tunisia’s autocratic leader last year and triggered the Arab Spring uprisings. Doctors at Sidi Bouzid’s hospital said six people were injured during the protest, which drew hundreds of young Tunisians demanding jobs, more investment in their region and the dismissal of the city’s governor. The protest reflected how far Tunisia has to go to fulfil the promise of its revolution, which began with

the death of jobless university graduate Mohamed Bouazizi who set himself on fire in despair after police confiscated his unlicensed fruit and vegetable cart.

His protest against lack of opportunity sparked demonstrations across the country, forced President Zine AlAbidine Ben Ali to flee and lit the fuse of the Arab Spring. “Where are Sidi Bouzid’s rights, Where are the martyrs’ rights?” the protesters chanted, showing impatience with the new government, led by Ennahda Islamist Movement and two secular parties, for

failing to quickly tackle poverty and unemployment. Police started firing teargas and rubber bullets after the protesters sought to make their way to the governor’s offices, Attia Athmouni, a trade union activist said. Street anger has been on the rise in several parts of the country among Tunisians eager to see the dividends of democratic change, particularly in terms of job creation and wealth redistribution.

Rising prices and interruptions of water supplies in several provinces at the height of summer have added to the tension. — Reuters

International FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Virus found in ME can spy on transactions BOSTON: A new cyber surveillance virus has been found in the Middle East that can spy on financial transactions, email and social networking activity, according to a leading computer security firm, Kaspersky Lab. Dubbed Gauss, the virus may also be capable of attacking critical infrastructure and was built in the same laboratories as Stuxnet, the computer worm widely believed to have been used by the United States and Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear program, Kaspersky Lab said yesterday.

The Moscow-based firm said it found Gauss had infected personal computers in Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

It declined to speculate on who was behind

the virus but said it was related to Stuxnet and two other cyber espionage tools, Flame and Duqu. “After looking at Stuxnet, Duqu and Flame, we can say with a high degree of certainty that Gauss comes from the same ‘factory’ or ‘factories,’” Kaspersky Lab said in a posting on its website. “All these attack toolkits represent the high end of nation-statesponsored cyber-espionage and cyber war operations.”

Kaspersky Lab’s findings are likely to fuel a growing international debate over the development and use of cyber weapons. Those discussions were stirred up by the discovery of Flame in May by Kaspersky and others.

Washington has declined comment on

whether it was behind Stuxnet. According to Kaspersky Lab, Gauss can steal Internet browser passwords and other data, send information about system configurations, steal credentials for accessing banking systems in the Middle East, and hijack login information for social networking sites, email and instant messaging accounts.

Modules in the Gauss virus have internal names tha t Kaspersky Lab researchers believe were chosen to pay homage to famous mathematicians and philosophers, including Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss, Kurt Godel and Joseph-Louis Lagrange. Kaspersky Lab said it called the virus Gauss because that is the name of the most important module, which

implements its data-stealing capabilities.

One of the firm’s top researchers said Gauss also contains a module known as “Godel” that may include a Stuxnet-like weapon for attacking industrial control systems. Stuxnet, discovered in 2010, attacked via USB drives and was designed to attack computers that controlled the centrifuges at a uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran.

Roel Schouwenberg, a senior researcher with Kaspersky, said the Godel code may include a similar “warhead.” Godel copies a compressed, encrypted program onto USB drives.

That program will only decompress and activate when it comes in contact with a targeted system. — Reuters

International FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Nagasaki marks bomb with anti-nuclear calls TOKYO: The mayor of Nagasaki called yesterday for a Japan free of nuclear fears as the city marked the 67th anniversary of its World War II atomic bombing by the United States. “Even during wartime there are certain unacceptable actions,” Tomihisa Taue told a commemoration ceremony held to remember the 74,000 people who died either instantly or in the months and years after the bombing. Taue pledged

support for people whose lives have been upended by meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station after it was swamped by the tsunami of March 2011.

He also called on the central government to “set new energy policy goals to build a society free from the fear of radioactivity”. The annual ceremony was held near the spot where the US military dropped its plutonium bomb, nicknamed “Fat Man”, on

Thai court postpones ‘Red Shirt’ terror trial BANGKOK: The trial of Thai “Red Shirt” leaders accused of terrorism in connection with deadly unrest in 2010 which spilt the kingdom was postponed yesterday while hundreds of their supporters gathered outside the court.

Twenty-four Red Shirt figures, including five serving lawmakers, were ordered to return for trial in November because under Thai law they enjoy immunity from prosecution while parliament is in session, Bangkok Criminal Court heard.

“The court has agreed to postpone the hearing until the parliament session ends on 28 November,” an unnamed judge said, adding the trial will have to be suspended when parliament resumes in February 2013.

Two months of anti-government protests in Bangkok in April and May 2010 by the Red Shirts triggered a series of clashes between demonstrators and troops that left more than 90 people dead-mostly civilians-and nearly 1,900 injured.

Most top Red Shirts surrendered to police after the army launched a crackdown on the movement’s fortified encampment in the heart of Bangkok. No government official or military personnel has been charged over the deaths.

Police said around 1,000 Red Shirts, who are loyal to billionaire former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, gathered outside the court yesterday, in a noisy demonstration of support for their leaders. — AFP

August 9, 1945, just days ahead of Japan’s surrender.

First-time attendees included Clifton Truman Daniel, 55, grandson of US president Harry Truman, who authorised the bombing of Nagasaki and of Hiroshima three days earlier with a four-tonne uranium bomb nicknamed “Little Boy”, which claimed 140,000 lives. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, speaking at the ceremony, called for the abolition of

nuclear weapons and pledged continued efforts to prevent the memories of the bombings from fading as survivors age.

The ceremonies to mark the anniversaries of the two atomic attacks have had greater resonance this year for many in Japan where a debate over energy policy is raging amid growing public scepticism over once-trusted nuclear power. — AFP

Japan PM survives no-confidence vote TOKYO: Japan’s prime minister survived a no-confidence motion yesterday after reaching an 11th hour deal with a major opposition party over his much-cherished sales tax bill.

Yoshihiko Noda brushed off the attack by a phalanx of minor parties, including former rebels from his own disintegrating bloc, which comes ahead of an expected vote today on his plan to double consumption tax. The main opposition Liberal Democratic Party had, in recent days, begun to renege on its promise to back the legislation, which independent commentators say is a good first step on the long road to overhauling Japan’s huge debt pile, worth twice its GDP. But after exacting a somewhat vague promise from the premier that he would hold a general election “in the near future”, the LDP-who are expected to be the main beneficiaries of his sliding popularity-indicated they would not support the move. The

motion of no-confidence was defeated by a majority of around three-to-one.

Broadcaster NHK reported that many LDP lawmakers stayed away from the session.

Analysts say the politically unpopular tax hike and the deals Noda has had to strike to give it a fighting parliamentary chance are likely to further shorten the life of his relatively young administration. But in a country that has seen six new premiers in as many years, getting something tangible on the statute book is a major achievement likely to cement his place in history, they said.

With rebellions coming thick and fast from his own fractious party and no majority in the upper house, Noda had to offer his conservative opponents an electoral carrot for the bill, which will also overhaul Japan’s precariously balanced social security system.

But members of the governing Democratic Party of Japan are keen to avoid polls before absolutely necessary

because of the risk of them being unseated, said Tetsuro Kato, professor of politics at Hitotsubashi University.

“A movement to oust Noda from the premier’s post may begin and his re-election in the party presidential vote in September is now doubtful,” he said. “Sure, the tax hike is an important issue in the context of the global environment where Europe is suffering from a sovereign debt crisis, and so Noda would earn his name in history.

“But with a political crisis just postponed after the agreement with the opposition, Noda’s government is destined to be as short-lived as his predecessors’ were,” Kato said.

The bill to increase consumption tax from five to 10 percent by 2015 passed the powerful lower house in June with support from the LDP and their junior opposition partner New Komeito, despite a DPJ rebellion. It is now expected to go to a vote in the upper house today. — AFP

Philippine floods a man-made disaster MANILA: Deadly floods that have swamped nearly all of the Philippine capital are less a natural disaster and more the result of poor planning, lax enforcement and political self-interest, experts say. Damaged watersheds, massive squatter colonies living in danger zones and the neglect of drainage systems are some of the factors that have made the chaotic city of 15 million people much more vulnerable to enormous floods.

Urban planner Nathaniel Einseidel said the Philippines had enough technical know-how and could find the necessary financing to solve the problem, but there was no vision or political will.

“It’s a lack of appreciation for the benefits of long-term plans. It’s a vicious cycle when the planning, the policies and enforcement are not very well synchronised,” said Einseidel, who was Manila’s planning chief from 1979-89. “I haven’t heard of a local government, a town or city that has a comprehensive drainage masterplan.” Eighty percent of Manila was this week cov-

ered in waters that in some parts were nearly two metres (six feet and six inches) deep, after more than a normal August’s worth of rain was dumped on the city in 48 hours.

Twenty people have died and two million others have been affected, according to the government.

The deluge was similar to one in 2009, a disaster which claimed more than 460 lives and prompted pledges from government leaders to make the city more resistant to floods. A government report released then called for 2.7 million people in shantytowns to be moved from “danger zones” alongside riverbanks, lakes and sewers.

Squatters, attracted by economic opportunities in the city, often build shanties on river banks, storm drains and canals, dumping garbage and impeding the flow of waterways.

The plan would have affected one in five Manila residents and taken 10 years and 130 billion pesos (3.11 billion dollars) to implement. But squatter communities in dangerzones have in fact grown since

2009.“With the increasing number of people occupying danger zones, it is inevitable there are a lot people who are endangered when these things happen,” Einseidel said.He blamed the phenomenon on poor enforcement of regulations banning

building along creeks and floodways, with local politicians often wanting to keep squatters in their communities to secure their votes at election time. Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Manila, vital forested areas have been destroyed to make

MANILA: A man bites a plastic bag where he stores his personal items to keep it dry as he swims along deep floodwaters yesterday. — AFP

way for housing developments catering to growing middle and upper classes, according to architect Paulo Alcazaren.

Alcazeren, who is also an urban planner, said the patchwork political structure of Manila had made things even harder.

The capital is actually made up of 16 cities and towns, each with its own government, and they often carry out infrastructure programmes-such as man-made and natural drainage protection-without coordination. “Individual cities can never solve the problem. They can only mitigate. If you want to govern properly, you must re-draw or overlay existing political boundaries,” he said.

Solutions to the flooding will require massive efforts such as replanting in natural drainage basins, building low-cost housing for the squatters and clearing man-made drainage systems, the experts said.

“It will cost billions of pesos but we lose billions anyway every time it floods,” Alcazeren said. — AFP

International FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Australia hits out at ‘racist’ Facebook page SYDNEY: Australian Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has hit out at Facebook over its failure to immediately take down a page that stereotyped Aboriginal people as hopeless petrol-sniffing drunks. While the content could not be viewed yesterday, Conroy said Facebook should have shut down the site as soon as it was brought to its attention and urged more cooperation from the social network. “I think it’s absolutely inappropriate,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation late Wednesday of the page “Controversial Humor Aboriginal Memes”.

“We don’t live by American laws here in Australia, we live by Australian laws and this is an Australian who is using the fact that Facebook is based in the US to get away from Australian laws.” An online petition against the page on change.org had by yesterday attracted nearly 17,000 supporters and the Australian Media and Communications Authority said it was investigating.

Conroy said he was in touch with Facebook more broadly about inappropriate content.

“We’ve had a lot of debate and discussion with Facebook. They’ve now finally employed an employee here in Australia. We’re in conversations with that employee,” he said. “Our views have been strongly made to Facebook in the US but at the end of the day it’s a US company operating under US law.” Facebook could not be reached yesterday but in a one-line statement to The Australian newspaper it reportedly said: “We don’t have anything to share on this but if that changes, we’ll let you know.” Asked if Australia had any power to take down a site down generated in Australia, Conroy said they had tried before and got nowhere. “In the past there’s been a whole range of pages, not just on Facebook but on other sites where people have made complaints,” he said. — AFP

North Korea famine is not imminent, says UN Recent floods leave 212,000 homeless BEIJING: Impoverished North Korea is a long way from famine levels that killed hundreds of thousands in the 1990s but it won’t be until late next month that a full assessment of food levels after recent floods is possible, a UN official said yesterday. North Korea’s state media says the death toll from flooding between late June and the end of July has reached at least 169, with some 400 people missing and 212,200 homeless. The floods have washed away 65,280 hectares of farmland, with more than 1,400 educational, healthcare and factory buildings also collapsed or damaged, North Korea says.

“Fortunately we are really quite far away from the situation in the mid1990s,” said Claudia von Roehl, the UN World Food Programme’s (WFP) representative in North Korea. “But we should always be aware there is a very chronic and severe problem in the nutrition of the population and in particular the very monotonous diet which basically is composed of maize and rice, carbohydrates, and lacking

very significantly in proteins and fats,” she told reporters in Beijing.

North Korea suffered famine in the 1990s that killed an estimated million people and has continued to endure chronic food shortages, which many experts say reflect systemic failings in the reclusive country’s heavily centralised economic system, which has sapped farmers’ productivity. Since then, North Korea’s agricultural sector has become increasingly vulnerable to floods and drought as a result of widespread deforestation.

Von Roehl said the United Nations will conduct a full-scale food assessment for the malnourished North next month. “It is too early to assess the exact damage which has been inflicted by the torrential rains on agricultural production,” von Roehl said. “We will do this in an assessment at the end of September where we will have a full assessment of the main harvest.”

The floods follow a period of drought and are certain to lift food prices, which are already rising sharply.

The WFP is now helping feed 100,000

people in the worst-hit counties and, while it remains worried about disease outbreaks, they are yet to see any evidence, von Roehl said. UN agencies say access to North Korea has improved during the most recent flooding, indicating the country wants to ease its traditional isolation at least temporarily. Still, it remains one of the world’s most reclusive states, even after young leader Kim Jong-un inherited dynastic power from his father Kim Jong-il, who died in December. Von Roehl said she was not in a position to comment on whether Kim plans reforming the economy. “We have also heard about these recent developments; we have read about them.

But I will be in a much better position to give you some concrete and verified information later this year,” she said, referring to their September food assessment.

“Part of the mission will be having very detailed meetings with the Ministry of Agriculture and then I think we will be in better position to tell you something verified.” — Reuters

HK police body cameras spark fears HK tests babies over HONG KONG: In a first for Asia, Hong Kong police said yesterday they will trial the use of video cameras attached to their uniforms to film exchanges with the public, despite concerns from human rights groups. The southern Chinese city’s police force said officers would start to wear the small cameras by the end of the year. Similar devices have been deployed by police in the United Kingdom and United States, while police in the Australian state of Victoria are proceeding with a trial this month.

“We will try out the body camera scheme by end of this year,” a Hong Kong police spokeswoman told AFP. She played down criticism from human rights activists that the use of body cameras was a step toward the creation of a police state in the former British colony, which reverted to mainland rule in 1997.

“We are not targeting anyone at any public rallies but of course it could be a useful device for the police to deal with those who disturb public law and order at these rallies,” she said.

The devices would be used by trained and clearly identified police officers, in order to enhance evidence gathering and public security, officials said. But Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor director Law Yuk-kai said filming random interactions with the public could breach Hong Kongers’ “constitutional right to privacy” and threaten the city’s cherished freedoms. He said there were no laws regulating the use of such cameras, fuelling fears that they would help security forces keep an eye on political activists opposed to mainland rule.

“It will create a climate of fear and turn the city into a police state with Big Brother watching us all the time,” Law told AFP. Pro-democracy activist Richard

Tsoi said the threat of being filmed at protests would deter people from participating. “People are afraid of being filmed... They don’t know how the

face arrest elsewhere in China, and is the scene of regular political rallies and prodemocracy protests. Hundreds of thousands of people marched when Chinese

HONG KONG: Policemen patrol a street yesterday. — AFP footage will be used and how it will be preserved,” the vice-chair of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China said.

The police want to buy about 7,000 of the British-made cameras, according to the South China Morning Post. The footage will not be kept for more than 30 days unless it is needed as evidence in court, the daily said. Hong Kong is a semi-autonomous territory with a miniconstitution that guarantees civil liberties including free speech, a free press and the right to protest.

As such, the city of seven million people plays host to dissidents who could

President Hu Jintao visited Hong Kong on July 1 to mark the 15th anniversary of the handover, amid widespread fears that Beijing wants to roll back the territory’s freedoms.

In Australia, Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Ken Lay said that in “difficult or dangerous situations” body cameras helped prove cases. But he acknowledged that he had concerns about their use. “I’m not that enamoured with the idea of police walking down the street and talking to their local members of the community wearing a camera. I don’t think that’s helpful to anyone,” he told reporters last month. — AFP

Japan milk formula HONG KONG: Hong Kong said yesterday it will test babies who have consumed Japanese-made infant formulas found to have insufficient levels of iodine, after the products were ordered off the city’s shelves. Officials found the Wakodo and Morinaga brands lacked enough iodine, and warned they could have “adverse health effects” on babies’ thyroid glands and brains. “We urge parents to take their babies to the 10 government-designated health centres for blood tests,” a spokesman at the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department told AFP, adding that around 2,000 babies could be affected.

The government ordered the two products to be removed from shop shelves, following the findings of a random test on 14 milk brands. The banned products, which are for babies aged up to nine months, were found to contain less than onethird of the World Health Organization’s recommended levels of iodine, an essential nutrient for infant development. “This may affect the functioning of the thyroid gland,” the Centre for Food Safety said in a statement.

“If the thyroid gland’s normal functions are significantly affected, there may be potential impact on the brain development of infants.” The government said it would continue to test other brands. Japanese-made baby formula accounts for about three percent of the total milk brands distributed in Hong Kong. Their popularity slumped after the nuclear disaster in Japan last year sparked fears of radiation poisoning.

The producers of Wakodo and Morinaga formula said the products were not intended for sale in Hong Kong, which had different requirements for iodine content than Japan. “We presume that local importers... are marketing it there,” Morinaga spokeswoman Natsumi Takahashi told AFP in Japan. “When we export our products, we make them compatible with the standards of countries in which they are sold.”

The Japanese government does not allow manufacturers to add iodine to powdered milk products, which may however contain some iodine from other ingredients, she said. Kenta Mitsuhashi, a spokesman for Asahi Group Holdings which includes Wakodo, said the company had “no idea” how its milk formula ended up in Hong Kong. “Wakodo does not export this product to Hong Kong at present,” he said, adding that the “domestically marketed product is safe and can be used without any worry”. — AFP

International FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Taleban to debate Pak cricket star’s protest DERA ISMAIL KHAN: Taleban leaders will hold a meeting to decide whether a Pakistani cricket starturned-politician will be allowed to hold a planned march to their tribal stronghold to protest US drone strikes, the militant group’s spokesman said yesterday. Ahsanullah Ahsan said the Pakistani Taleban consider Imran Khan to be an “infidel” since he has described himself as a liberal - a term they associate with a lack of religious belief. But the spokesman denied a threat reported earlier by The Associated Press that the group would kill Khan if he holds the demonstration he has planned for September.

The Pakistani Taleban leadership council “will decide what to do a week before his arrival and will announce it,” Ahsan told the AP by email. “It’s sure and clear that we don’t have any sympathy with Imran Khan, neither do we need his sympathy, as he himself claims to be a liberal, and we see liberals as infidels.” The AP reported Wednesday that the Taleban would target Khan with suicide bombers if he held his march, following an interview with Ahsan in a remote area of their militant stronghold of South Waziristan. Khan has described himself as a liberal in various TV interviews, but he has also made clear that he is a practicing Muslim - a distinction the Taleban seemed to ignore.

The 59-year-old Khan is perhaps the most famous person in Pakistan because he led the country’s cricket team to victory in the 1992 World Cup. He was once known for his playboy lifestyle and marriage to British Imran Khan socialite Jemima Khan, but they divorced several years ago, and he has since become much more conservative and religious.

Khan founded the Pakistan Movement for Justice party about 15 years ago, but has only gained political momentum over the last year, riding a wave of opposition to drone strikes, the government’s alliance with the US and political corruption. His detractors have criticized him for not being tough enough on the Pakistani Taleban, and have even nicknamed him “Taleban Khan” because of his views and his cozy ties with conservative Islamists who could help him attract right-wing voters in national elections likely to be held later this year or early next year.

As part of his political campaign, Khan has said he is planning to lead thousands of people in a march to Waziristan in September to demonstrate against US drone strikes. “A man of faith doesn’t fear death & a march for peace against drones that have destroyed millions of lives in FATA (Pakistan’s tribal region) ... is worth dying for,” Khan Tweeted yesterday.

Covert CIA drone strikes are very unpopular in Pakistan because many citizens believe they mostly kill civilians - an allegation denied by the US. The Taleban regularly lash out at the attacks, which have killed many of their fighters and their former leader Baitullah Mehsud. —AP

Yoga guru leads mass rally over Indian corruption 20,000 people pledge support for Ramdev’s campaign NEW DELHI: Indians shouted patriotic slogans and listened to a rousing speech from a charismatic yoga guru who began fasting yesterday to pressure the government to bring back billions of ill-gotten gains - so-called black money - citizens have stashed in foreign banks. Supporters of Baba Ramdev jammed traffic across New Delhi as they walked to the sprawling Ramlila fairgrounds and buses from nearby states converged on the capital. About 20,000 people pledged their support for Ramdev’s campaign to wipe out tax evasion and endemic corruption in India.

Squatting on the ground and fanning themselves with bits of cardboard in the sweltering monsoon heat, supporters cheered as Ramdev spoke. “I am not against any political party. My protest is only to end black money and to bring back to this country what rightfully belongs to the people of India,” he announced from a 20-foot high platform constructed at the end of a vast tent.

Though poor acoustics made it difficult to hear Ramdev, his supporters were unfazed, saying they already knew what he stood for.

“He is our hope for the future. He will save this country from the politicians,” said Amulya Kumar, a farm laborer from Bihar, who was holding a small bundle of clothes and food. Along with his teenage nephew, Kumar had traveled two days by train from Bihar’s poverty-stricken Munger district for the rally. Millions of Indians tune in every day to watch Ramdev perform yoga exercises on his popular TV show. In the past few years he has transformed his popularity as a yoga guru to highlight his campaign against corruption.

Ramdev said he would not eat for three days and outlined his demands: a robust ombudsman law to keep checks on government, a strong and independent Central Bureau of Investigation and efforts to act against tax evasion and illegal money sent to banks abroad. The government

said yesterday said a committee was working on a draft of the ombudsman bill, which would be placed before Parliament next month. India’s finance ministry is in the process of tightening laws to curb the generation of black money and its illegal transfer abroad.

The protest comes less than a week after the latest hunger strike by anti-graft crusader Anna Hazare failed to attract the huge crowds that had turned out for his past protests. Hazare and his supporters said they would give up agitating and join politics instead.

Middle-class Indians fed up with corruption had flocked to Hazare’s initial protests last year, which Ramdev also supported. But the government dragged its feet on his demand for an ombudsman, and apathy among wealthier Indians sapped the cause. Ramdev’s support, however, comes from the far more politically active rural poor, angry that they have not benefited as promised from the country’s economic rise.

However, Ramdev, whose real name is

Ramkishan Yadav, has himself come under cloud after amassing a fortune in donations that run into millions of dollars. He has not explained the sources of his wealth or disclosed whether he pays taxes.

Last month, Ramdev’s assistant was arrested on charges of cheating and forgery to obtain a passport. Ramdev denies all allegations of financial wrongdoing.

Security was tight at the protest. Police squads patrolled the periphery of the grounds and paramilitary soldiers scrutinized visitors as they were scanned by metal detectors to enter the grounds.

Thousands of young volunteers in white Tshirts with Ramdev’s image printed on it helped manage the swelling crowds, shepherding people into roped enclosures erected to prevent stampedes. They distributed bottles of water to the thousands of elderly supporters, while ambulances and firefighters kept watch. An army of volunteers prepared vats of spicy potato curry and deep-fried bread in a vast makeshift kitchen set up to provide free lunch to the protesters. —AP

NEW DELHI: India yoga guru Baba Ramdev waves to his supporters as he speaks during a mass anti-corruption protest yesterday. — AP

Indian lawmakers voice anger at US shooting NEW DELHI: Indian lawmakers voiced anger yesterday over the killings of six people by a gunman in a Sikh temple in the mid-western US state of Wisconsin.

The killings are blamed on Wade Michael Page, a singer in a neo-Nazi punk band, who opened fire on the worshippers with a handgun. Harsimrat Kaur Badal, an MP from the opposition Akali Dal Sikh party, said attacks on Sikhs living abroad began after the September 2001 attacks in the United States by members of the Al-Qaeda terror network.

“The last 10 years have seen thousands of Sikhs being murdered, assaulted, abused physically and verbally because of their attire and their resemblance to a terrorist with which they have no links,” she told parliament.

“How much longer will it take for innocent and peace-loving Sikhs to give up their lives or live in terror before the Indian government wakes up to take some corrective steps to stop these senseless killings?” she said.

“It is time for the government to stand up,” the fiery Sikh politician added. Male Sikhs are easily identified by their turbans and the beard they sport in line with their religious belief.

However, ruling Congress party member Partap Singh Bajwa said those killed at the Sikh shrine in Oak Creek in Wisconsin during services on Sunday were not victims of mistaken identity.

“The gunman was an educated man and the attack on the gurdwara (temple) was intentional and not a case of mistaken identity,” the MP said. Sushma

Swaraj of the main opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party called for a “full statement” on ongoing investigations in the United States and action taken by the Indian government in the wake of the attack.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday called Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to offer his condolences over the temple shooting.

Suspect Page killed himself with a gunshot to the head after being shot in the stomach by a police officer. US investigators are yet to establish a motive for the killings, but they are looking into Page’s links with white supremacist hate groups. Indian MPs joined ranks in parliament to offer condolences to families of the victims who included several Indian nationals—AFP

International FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Charges filed in California hospital baby abduction LOS ANGELES: A woman who allegedly tried to steal a newborn baby from a California hospital after faking a pregnancy will face charges of kidnapping and five felony counts of firstdegree burglary, prosecutors said Wednesday. An arraignment for Grisel Ramirez, 48, of Garden Grove, was pushed back to Aug. 31 and she will be held on $1 million bail, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.

If convicted, she faces up to 19 years and eight months in state prison. Ramirez posed as a visitor to enter Garden Grove Medical Center, where she attempted to abduct a baby Monday, Darden Grove police Lt. Jeff Nightengale said Tuesday. Her estranged husband had no idea she wasn’t pregnant. “She perpetuated this myth for several months, and they don’t live together and don’t see each other, so the husband totally believed it,” Nightengale said.

When the due date passed, Ramirez’s husband pressed her to meet the child and asked whether he needed to sign the birth certificate, police said. “We interviewed him last night and he for sure thought he was the father of a baby girl,” Nightengale said. “He was upset and devastated that it wasn’t true.” Ramirez, a waitress, may have approached other pregnant women and asked about their due dates and their baby’s gender at another Southern California hospital last month, police said.

One woman grew suspicious of the questions and told staff at Western Medical Center-Anaheim. There was no surveillance video available at the hospital, so police conducted a photo lineup for the people who witnessed the woman’s strange activity July 26. They identified Ramirez as the inquisitive lurker, police said.

Garden Grove Medical Center Director Sofia Abrina said Tuesday that Ramirez presented herself as a visitor who wanted to see a patient when she entered the hospital Monday. Abrina said a sensor attached to a bracelet around the baby’s ankle set off alarms, and the staff began searching and counting patients until Ramirez was apprehended.

Ramirez is accused of entering the room of the baby’s mother and posing as a nurse who told the woman to shower before a doctor came to examine her. — AP

Face-chewing victim speaks out MIAMI: A homeless man whose face was mostly chewed off in a bizarre assault alongside a busy South Florida highway told police that his attacker “just ripped me to ribbons.” In a recorded interview with investigators, Ronald Poppo said the man who approached him initially seemed friendly. Then the man, Rudy Eugene, seemed to become angry about something that had happened on Miami Beach, where thousands were partying through the Memorial Day weekend.

“For a while he was acting nice. Then he got flustered. He probably remembered something that happened on the beach and was not happy about it,” Poppo told investigators in the interview that was taped July 19 and first reported Wednesday by Miami news station WFOR-TV. Poppo said Eugene then “turned berserk” and attacked with his bare hands, screaming that both men would die.

“He just ripped me to ribbons. He chewed up my face. He plucked out my eyes. Basically, that’s all there is to say about it,” Poppo said. Poppo, 65, remains in a long-term care facility after losing an eye, his eyebrows, his nose and parts of his forehead and right cheek in the May 26 attack. His other eye was severely damaged. Doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center said last month that Poppo was in good spirits, talking and walking around, but would need several more surgeries before he could explore the options for reconstructing his face.

Eugene, 31, was shot and killed by a Miami police officer during the attack on the Macarthur Causeway just off downtown Miami. Lab tests found only marijuana in Eugene’s system, but no other drugs or alcohol. Poppo said Eugene had said something about not being able “to score,” adding that Eugene “must have been souped up on something.” In the police interview, Poppo sometimes seems confused about some details of the attack. He described Eugene wearing a green shirt and getting out of a car, but surveillance video recorded from security cameras on The Miami Herald building showed a naked Eugene walking up to Poppo as cars and bicyclists zipped by. —AP

Sikh temple shooter died of self-inflicted gunshot Shooter’s ties to white supremacist groups scrutinized CHICAGO: The man who opened fire in a Sikh temple in the United States, killing six people, apparently died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head rather than from police fire, the FBI said Wednesday.

Wade Michael Page, a singer with a neoNazi punk band, was initially said to have been killed by a police officer who stopped Sunday’s rampage in a suburban place of worship by shooting the assailant in the stomach. But FBI Special Agent Teresa Carlson, the head of the agency’s Milwaukee office and leader of the investigation, said: “Subsequent to that wound, it appears that Page died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.”

Carlson told reporters that FBI investigators have not yet established a motive for the shootings in Oak Creek, Wisconsin and have not found any evidence that anyone else other then Page was involved in the crime. She also confirmed that Wade’s former girlfriend, Misty Cook, was arrested on Sunday at her home on a weapons charge but said this was unconnected to the broader domestic terrorism investigation into the temple shooting.

President Barack Obama meanwhile phoned Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to offer condolences over the shooting at the Sikh temple. White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama paid tribute in the call to the contributions of the Sikh community in the United States and that the two leaders spoke of their shared commitment to tolerance and religious freedom. “The president expressed his condolences to the prime minister because, as you know, several of the victims of the shooting in Wisconsin were

Indian nationals,” Carney said in Washington.

“I think we can all acknowledge that we have got to put an end to this kind of senseless violence,” Obama said later at a campaign stop in Colorado. “As one American family, we are going to have to come together and look at all the approaches we can take to try to bring an end to it.” Obama did not mention any specific policy approaches to stem gun violence, despite some recent calls by advocates for more stringent gun laws in the wake of two mass shootings-in Colorado and Wisconsin-in less than a month.

Obama favors applying existing legislation to prevent those not allowed to carry firearms from acquiring them, and measures that are consistent with the constitutional right for Americans to bear arms. In South Milwaukee, police and FBI agents were interviewing Cook after the temple attack and noticed that she had a weapon despite being banned from owning a firearm because of a previous felony conviction, Carlson said. Investigators have interviewed more than 100 people, including Page’s family, associates, employers and neighbors, and were pursuing more than 100 new leads, Carlson said.— AFP

NEW YORK: Supporters gather during a candlelight vigil in Union Square for victims of the Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting on August 8, 2012. — AFP

US school changes pregnancy policy NEW ORLEANS: A Louisiana charter school is changing a policy that kicked pregnant students out of class and required them to be home-schooled, the school’s board chairman said Wednesday.

No one at Delhi Charter School in rural northeast Louisiana realized there was anything wrong with the policy until the American Civil Liberties Union’s state chapter threatened to sue, said chairman Albert Christman. The policy has gotten “everybody up in a roar,” he said. The school required students who were suspected of being pregnant to take a pregnancy test. If they refused, or tested positive, they had to be home-schooled. The ACLU said the policy violated Title IX of the 1972 federal education law, which requires equal opportunities for both sexes. Too many schools do not realize pregnant students should receive equal treatment, the National Women’s Law Center said in a June report.

“Despite enormous advances for women and girls in education since 1972, schools across the country continue to bar pregnant and parenting students from activities, kick them out of school, pressure them to attend alternative programs, and

penalize them for pregnancy-related absences,” the law center said in the report.

Fatima Goss Graves, vice president for education and employment at the nonprofit group, said the center gets several calls a month from high school and college students who are pregnant or have children, and are having trouble with their schools. Many of those problems are corrected just by telling students their rights and explaining how to negotiate with administrators, she said.

Goss Graves said she had never seen a school policy “that said you must take a pregnancy test in order to attend school.

Or one that pushes, so overtly, students out.” In New Mexico, a boarding school run by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs was sued in March by the ACLU of New Mexico, alleging that administrators expelled a pregnant 15-year-old. After she was allowed back in class, school officials made her tell the entire school she was pregnant, the civil rights group said.

School officials disputed those allegations, saying the student’s mother asked for home-schooling and they did not make the student admit she was pregnant,

according to court documents. Christman, the Delhi school board chairman, said “just a handful” of students were affected by the policy, which dates to 2006. All of them “came back to school and finished their school,” he said.

Delhi Charter, where classes begin next Wednesday, has about 600 students in kindergarten through 12th grade. It’s one of the best-performing schools in rural Richland Parish. The ACLU acted on a complaint from a member of the community who doesn’t want to talk to reporters, said Marjorie Esman, executive director of the state chapter. She would not give any details about the person’s identity. Goss Graves said she was disappointed administrators hadn’t known about the education law. “This is the type of thing that educational institutions should know,” she said.

“To me it suggests that there needs to be a serious public education campaign, serious efforts to educate schools about their obligations.” Louisiana Department of Education spokesman Barry Landry said he did not know the state’s policies for pregnant students or whether they apply to private and religious schools getting tuition vouchers. —AP

International FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Obama in new push for women’s votes Prez launches stinging attack on Reps

MAHAHUAL: A damaged pier is seen in Mahahual, Quintana Roo State, Mexico, after the passage of hurricane Ernesto, on August 8, 2012. — AFP

Ernesto moves across Mexico CANCUN: Tropical storm Ernesto pummeled the Yucatan Peninsula Wednesday, downing trees and power lines as forecasters predicted it could pick up strength across Mexico’s oil-rich Bay of Campeche. The storm, which made landfall as a category one hurricane before being downgraded to a tropical storm, dumped heavy rain on the region, prompting fears of flash floods and mudslides. The airport of Chetumal, a city of 151,000, reported minor damage. In Majahual, a small town with a growing tourism industry in Mexico’s Quintana Roo state where Ernesto made landfall Tuesday, businesses suffered some damage.

Power outages were reported in the walled city of Campeche, a world heritage site on the west coast of the Yucatan Peninsula facing the Gulf of Mexico, and authorities warned its 300,000 residents to be prepared to batten down. The Bay of Campeche is the center of Mexico’s vital offshore oil fields. “Pemex said that it was canceling some training exercises at oil rigs, but otherwise all operations in the region were normal,” energy analyst Addison Armstrong of Tradition Energy said.

At 0300 GMT, the storm had moved out over the bay, and reports from an air force reserve reconnaissance aircraft indicated that the storm was once again gaining strength, the Miami-based US National Hurricane Center said. The storm, located about 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of Mexico’s Ciudad del Carmen, was packing maximum sustained winds of 100 kilometers per hour, and was heading west at a speed of 11 kilometers per hour.

The storm-which was the second hurricane of the Atlantic season-was again expected to weaken as it struck Mexico’s Gulf coast, but a hurricane warning remained in effect for certain areas near the port of Veracruz. The Yucatan Peninsula is home to bustling holiday destinations such as the resort city of Cancun and the island of Cozumel. Mexico’s tourism ministry said vacation hotspots and airports were operating normally.

The storm, which began drenching Caribbean countries last week, also dumped heavy rains on areas of Belize, Guatemala and Honduras. Areas of Mexico’s Tabasco, Veracruz and Puebla states could see up to 12 inches of rain. “These rainfall amounts may produce life threatening flash floods and mudslides over higher terrain,” the NHC added. Ernesto is the fifth named storm in the Atlantic Ocean since the hurricane season began on June 1.

Chris, which strengthened to hurricane force on June 21, stayed far off land, and fizzled out without causing any damage. In the Pacific, Gilma strengthened into a hurricane late Wednesday-a category one storm on the fivepoint Saffir-Simpson scale. At 0300 GMT, it was located about 1,170 kilometers (725 miles) southwest of the southern tip of Baja California, and was not expected to pose a threat to land. —AFP

DENVER: US President Barack Obama aggravated a culture war battle over contraception as he wooed women voters Wednesday, warning that Mitt Romney’s Republicans would turn back the clock to the 1950s. Obama cranked up his re-election bid in the swing state of Coloradowhere a poll showed his White House foe Romney up by five points-vowing to protect women’s health rights enshrined in his historic health care law. “When it comes to a woman’s right to make her own health care choices, they want to take us back to the policies more suited to the 1950s than the 21st Century,” Obama said, in a stinging attack on Republicans.

Obama argued that Romney’s vow to repeal the law would tear away hard-won care for women, including in some cases free birth control, breast cancer screenings and other preventive care insurance firms must now cover. “The decisions that affect a woman’s health, they are not up to politicians, they are not up to insurance companies, they are up to you,” he told a raucous rally in Denver, against a backdrop of female supporters. “You deserve a president who will fight to keep it that way. That’s the president I have been. That is the president I will be if I get a second term.”

Obama appeared arm in arm with law graduate Sandra Fluke, who was caught in a political maelstrom and branded a “slut” by conservative talk show firebrand Rush Limbaugh this year after saying students should get free contraception. “If Mr Romney can’t stand up to extreme voices in his own party, then we know he will never stand up for us, and he won’t defend the rights that generations of women have fought for,” Fluke said. “We must remember that even though it is 2012, we are still having the debates that we thought were won before I was even born.”

The president also spoke movingly

about the women in his life, including his mother, who died from cancer aged 52 and never got to meet her granddaughters Malia and Sasha or see her son become president. “I often think about what might have happened if a doctor had caught her cancer sooner, or if she had been able to spend less time focusing on how she was going to pay her bills and more time on getting well,” Obama said.

He also noted the two and three year anniversaries of his nominees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan taking their seats on the Supreme Court-and warned the next president would likely get to make more appointments. Romney countered Obama’s attack by unveiling his “Women for Mitt” coalition, which will be led by his wife, Ann, and by arguing that female voters had suffered terribly in the slow economic recovery for which he blames Obama. Ann Romney said her hus-

band “knows how to turn around this economy so that it will better serve the interests of women and families across America.” Romney will also showcase prominent women at this month’s Republican convention, including former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice.

Obama’s gambit on Wednesday reflected his strategy of trying to wrest the election debate away from an exclusive focus on the economy-which Romney sees as his best chance for victory on November 6.

The president made his pitch in Colorado, a crucial Rocky Mountain swing state, on a day when a new poll by Quinnipiac University found him trailing Romney by 45 to 50 percent in the battleground state, which he won in 2008.

Women, who represent about 53 percent of the US electorate, backed Obama 56-43 percent over John McCain in the 2008 election.— AFP

GRAND JUNCTION, Colorado: President Barack Obama speaks to supporters at a campaign stop in Grand Junction.— AP

Mexican youth study in US to fight violence WASHINGTON: With her senior year of high school starting in a week, Melissa Parra, of Chihuahua, Mexico, was focused on a problem that most of her American peers would never face: drug cartels. “It just gets closer,” Parra, 17, said of cartel violence in her hometown in northern Mexico. Just two days ago, her mother called to tell her about a boy in her community who had been killed.

“He had good grades. He was a good guy,” Parra said. “He was working to help the family.” Parra does not expect to stop the violence, but she sees an opportunity to change the environment that makes her classmates vulnerable to cartel recruiters. That was one of the goals of the project she designed this summer. Parra worked alongside 76 other students from across Mexico who

came to the US to develop community service projects in hopes of fighting the drugs, violence, and truancy that plague their country.

Parra spoke Wednesday at a ceremony on American University’s campus where groups of students presented plans targeting domestic violence, selfesteem problems, childhood development, bullying and risky behavior - all problems that they felt underscore the country’s larger issues. Sonora Horta, of Pachuca, Mexico, said her group was working to address what she called “the root of all problems.”

Having high self-esteem and clear goals, said Horta, 17, makes young people less likely to get involved with violence, gangs and drug addiction. The international non-profit group World

Learning organized the students’ fiveweek-long trip, which took them to Washington, Vermont and other parts of the US World Learning Senior Program Officer Cari Graves said giving the students the opportunity to meet with government and NGO officials taught them about leadership and setting realistic goals for tackling the problems that emerge in their country. “Mexico being the United States’ neighbor and drugs, gangs and violence being a common issue for both countries, it’s just a really hot topic right now that we want to address,” Graves said. Alejandro Rangel, a tall, well-dressed 17-year-old who friends joke will be the next Mexican president, said his group had trouble getting community leaders to take their plans to combat bullying seriously. — AFP

Business FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Gulf bourses close higher, Kuwait slips to 7-mth low

Taiwan, China sign investment pact

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SAN JOSE: In this July 25, 2012 file photo, job seekers visit a Primerica booth at a job fair in San Jose, California. The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell by 6,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 361,000, a level consistent with modest gains in hiring.— AP

US weekly jobless claims decline Trade data supports modest economic growth WASHINGTON: The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits fell last week while the trade deficit in June was the smallest in 1-1/2 years, hopeful signs for the struggling economy. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits slipped 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 361,000, the Labor Department said yesterday, suggesting a modest improvement in the jobs market.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims rising to 370,000 last week. The fourweek moving average of new claims, a better measure of labor market trends, rose 2,250 to 368,250. A second report from the Commerce Department showed the shortfall on the trade balance narrowed 10.7 percent to $42.9 billion, the smallest since December 2010, as low oil prices curbed imports.

That was way below economists’ expectations for a $47.5 billion deficit. The petroleum

import bill fell as the average price per barrel of crude oil dropped by the most since January 2009. Paul Dales, senior economist at Capital Economics in Toronto, said the jobless claims data suggested labor market conditions were “fairly stable.”

“The pick-up in jobs growth in July may therefore be sustained in August,” he said.

Nonfarm payrolls increased 163,000 in July, the most in five months, after three months of gains below 100,000. But the unemployment rate rose by a tenth of a percentage point to 8.3 percent. Last week’s report was the first in several weeks not affected by auto plant shutdowns, which caused wide swings in claims in July, making it difficult to get a clean read of the jobs market. Worries of deep government spending cuts and higher taxes scheduled to kick in at the turn of the year and Europe’s ongoing debt crisis were making companies

cautious about hiring new workers, economists say. “The good news is the narrowing of the trade deficit due to oil, which is indicating the economy has stabilized at a low level.

Sluggish growth ahead, but no signs of recession,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York.

The trade data, which showed exports increased 0.9 percent to a record $185.0 billion, suggested an upward revision to second-quarter growth.

Overall imports of goods and services declined 1.5 percent to $227.9 billion. Trade subtracted almost a third of a percentage point from gross domestic product in the second quarter. The economy grew at a 1.5 percent annual rate, slowing from the first quarter’s 2.0 percent pace.

While exports showed strength in June, anecdotal evidence suggests a slowdown

because of weak global demand. The Institute for Supply Management’s export index declined in July for a third straight month.

There also are concerns the worst drought since 1956, which has ravaged half of the country, could hit agricultural exports.

US exports to the 27-nation European Union, in the grip of a continuing debt crisis that has slowed growth on the continent, increased 1.7 percent in June to $23.3 billion.

The EU collectively was the United States’ second largest export market last year, and exports in the first half of 2012 were 2.9 percent above the same period in 2011.

US exports to China, which is also growing more slowly than in recent years, fell 4.3 percent in June. China has been one of the fastest growing markets for US goods, and exports to that country were up 6.7 percent for the first six months of 2012. — Reuters

Business FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Stimulus hopes lift European shares near 5-month high China data keeps alive talk of fresh CB stimulus

FRANKFURT: In this Dec. 4, 2011 file picture a person passes the logo of German Commerzbank in Frankfurt, Germany. Commerzbank says yesterday, second-quarter net profit bounced back to euro 300 million ($370.08 million) from only euro 53 million a year ago when the bank took deep losses on Greek bonds. —AP

Gulf bourses close higher, Kuwait slips to 7-mth low DUBAI: Most Gulf bourses closed higher yesterday amid earnings optimism, but Kuwait’s market slipped to a fresh seven-month low as political turmoil and weak banking sector earnings weighed on investor sentiment. In the United Arab Emirates, struggling developer Aldar Properties said second-quarter net profit increased three-fold, buoyed by delivery of 1,058 high-end residential beach units. Share in Aldar, now near-majority owned by government fund Mubadala after being thrown two financial lifelines by the state, gained 1.6 percent to its highest close since March 28.

Abu Dhabi’s measure rose 0.8 percent, up for a third straight session to a near-four-month high. In Dubai, real estate-linked stocks helped lift the index . It climbed 1.1 percent, extending year-to-date gains to 16.2 percent. Drake and Scull (DSI) jumped 2.2 percent, rallying to a mid-April high ahead of its earnings. An average of three analysts expect the contractor to post a profit of 46.7 million dirhams for the three months to June 30.

Contractor Arabtec halted Wednesday’s 4-percent slide and trades flat. Investors sold the stock in the previous session after the firm reported a quarterly loss on increased costs. “People are switching from Arabtec and other builders to DSI, based on a consensus recommendation,” said Talal Touqan, head of equity research at Al-Ramz Securities.

“Research houses were recommending selling Arabtec and buying DSI for a while and this has been confirmed by the results of Arabtec. The share price (of DSI) was way undervalued when traded around 0.74 dirhams in early June.”

Emaar Properties advanced 2.1 percent, extending gains to 33 percent so far this year. There is sustained demand for the stock after second-quarter earnings more than doubled.

In Qatar, the index hit a 10-week high, rising 0.2 percent.

“Volumes have improved and we’re seeing an even mix of institutional and retail investors,” said Ahmed Shehada, head of trading at QNB Financial Services. “Qatar’s bluechips have reported solid quarterly earnings and while the market shrugged off the reportings, the value has always been embedded but a catalyst was missing.”

The market was predominantly retail investors in recent weeks, with short-term retail traders targeting mid to small-cap stocks. But upbeat sentiment in regional peers has brought interest back to Doha’s stock market, with comparatively-attractive valuations acting as a draw, he added.

Qatar National Bank gained 1.4 percent, Qatar Electricity and Water rose 1.6 percent and Barwa Real Estate added 1.1 percent.

In Kuwait, the bourse slipped to a fresh seven-month low with the index ending 0.2 percent lower at 5,699 points. Trading volumes were thin on the bourse with investors risk averse and sticking to the sidelines The index is almost at the critical technical level of 5,694 points, the seven-and-a-half year low hit of Jan. 9.

Members of parliament again boycotted a session of the country’s assembly on Tuesday, foiling an attempt to swear in a new cabinet and further highlighting the political travails hampering the state.

Despite posting a 5.4-percent drop in second-quarter net profit on Wednesday, Commercial Bank of Kuwait gained 5.5 percent. Egypt’s index slipped for a second successive day, down 0.7 percent.

Developer Talaat Moustafa, which on Wednesday posted an 11-percent drop in H1 net income, slid 0.2 percent, following a 2.3-percent fall on the previous day. — Reuters

LONDON: European shares were on track for a five-month high yesterday and the euro was steady as softer Chinese economic data kept alive talk that central banks will ride to the rescue again, five years after the financial crisis began.

The FTSE Eurofirst 300 index of top European shares was up 0.25 percent at 1,098.82 points, and near levels last seen in March after the European Central Bank had pumped over a trillion euros of cash into the banking system.

“If you’re anticipating more quantitative easing and a reasonable possibility of modest earnings growth, equities aren’t particularly expensive and so they can grind higher,” said Richard Batty, global investment strategist at Standard Life Investments. “But we shouldn’t get carried away,” he added.

Europe’s stock markets began their latest rally two weeks ago when ECB President Mario Draghi said the central bank was “ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro”, raising hopes of bold steps to help lower the borrowing costs of Spain and Italy.

Evidence that the euro zone’s problems have slowed economic activity in the United States and Asia has added to expectations that other major central banks will soon announce their own plans to ease policies. China kept those hopes alive yesterday when it reported annual consumer price inflation at a 30-month low of 1.8 percent in July and factory output growth slowing to 9.2 percent in that month, the weakest rate in just over three years.

“Expectations of more coordinated central bank stimulus is one trigger for the summer rally continuing, but markets are also focusing on expectations of growth for next year, and it is hoping for an improvement,” said Achim Matzke, European stock indexes analyst at Commerzbank.

On Aug 9, 2007 the ECB injected an unprecedented amount of funds into a stalled financial system after French bank BNP Paribas announced losses on US subprime mortgages meant it had to halt redemptions at three of its funds. Other leading central banks also acted on a day widely regarded as marking the start of the financial crisis. Since the main central

banks have cut interest rates to record lows and pumped huge sums into the financial system through unconventional policies, tying to keep the global economy ticking over as households, companies and governments cut back on their levels of debt.

The slowdown which followed has exposed the scale of overspending by euro zone governments and a massive amount of bad loans held by the region’s banks - a problem that has still to be resolved. Last week the ECB outlined a plan aimed at directly helping two of the worst hit nations - Spain and Italy - which are battling with high borrowing costs while their economies wallow in deep recessions.

Uncertainty over the timing and the details of this aid was keeping a lid on any of the euphoria from equities spreading to the single currency or the region’s debt markets yesterday. The euro was barely changed at around $1.2360, though it did touch a one-month high of $1.2444 set on

Monday. Many investors are worried that the ECB’s condition for action - that troubled countries ask for help from the euro zone’s rescue funds - has raised the risk that the crisis in Spain and Italy may have to get worse before a move can come.

The bloc’s new permanent bailout, the European Stability Mechanism, also still needs approval by the German Constitutional Court, which doesn’t rule until Sept. 12. “We’re in a waiting game.

This crisis has got to worsen enough for Spain to be forced to enter a bailout programme such that the ECB’s willingness to buy its bonds is tested,” Rabobank rate strategist Lyn Graham-Taylor said.

Reflecting the high hopes that ECB help will come, Spanish and Italian 10year bond yields were lower at 6.86 percent and 5.84 percent, respectively.

Benchmark 10-year German yields rose 2.5 basis points on the day at 1.45 percent, up from a record low of 1.126 percent on July 2. — Reuters

BERLIN: Workers hold the 31 kilograms (68 pound) giant gold coin “Big Phil” as model Elena Seib prepares to present the coin in Berlin, Germany, yesterday. A precious metal trader displays the Austrian coin which has a nominal value of euro 100,000 ($123,000) but euro 1.3 million ($1.6 million) value of gold. — AP

Brazil tycoon to invest $6bn in Malaysia KUALA LUMPUR: A Brazilian conglomerate controlled by the country’s richest man has pledged to invest $6 billion in unspecified projects in Malaysia, the government of the Southeast Asian nation said yesterday.

EBX group chairman Eike Batista made the pledge during a visit with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak earlier in the day, the premier’s office said in a statement. “We are impressed with the potential that Malaysia has to offer and wish to announce our commitment of $6 billion into Malaysia for high-impact strategic FDI investment to be implemented swiftly,” Batista was quoted as saying.

EBX has interests in oil and gas, logistics and other fields. Batista was ranked earlier this year by Forbes magazine as

the world’s seventh-richest man with a net worth of $30 billion. Batista will work with Malaysian authorities “to expeditiously identify and implement” projects in the country, the statement said, without elaborating.

An aide to Najib also said he had no further details on the investments. The statement added that Najib also spoke to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff by phone late Wednesday and the two leaders pledged to increased economic and investment ties.

Rousseff invited Malaysia to work with EBX in the energy and natural resources sector in Brazil, offering it exploration and production operating rights, the statement said.

Malaysian national oil company Petronas will send a team to Brazil in

September, it added, giving no further details. Najib has solicited foreign investment as part of a plan to vault the country into developed-nation status by 2020.

Foreign direct investment in Malaysia rose 16 percent in 2011 to 364 billion ringgit ($117 billion), the government has said. Critics of Najib’s policies have pointed out that some previous investment plans announced amid fanfare eventually crumbled as foreign investors balked at Malaysian policies requiring preferential treatment for governmentlinked companies. A report by Refsa, a think-tank headed by government critics, yesterday criticised the government’s approach in the developed-nation push as overly top-down planning, and “a delusion... that the government can drive the economy”. — AFP

Business FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Saudi cuts oil output to 9.8m bpd in July DUBAI: Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia pumped 9.8 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in July, cutting output by 300,000 bpd from June, an industry source said yesterday. The OPEC heavyweight supplied 9.7 million bpd to the market in July, while 100,000 bpd of the output was sent to storage, the source added.

Internal demand for Saudi crude rises sharply in the hot summer months from June to August. Export

volumes were not available. Saudi oil production climbed to 10.1 million bpd in April, its highest for more than 30 years at a time when supplies from Iran have been falling due to a European Union oil embargo that took effect on July 1.

After a brief fall in May, Saudi production bounced back to 10.1 million bpd in June. OPEC ministers at a meeting in mid-June said they would adhere to a collective production lim-

it of 30 million bpd, implying a 1.6 million bpd cut from actual supply of 31.5 million, and Saudi Arabia was expected to make a sizeable contribution to that cut.

The 12-member OPEC groupís collective output fell further from its highest in four years in July, according to a Reuters survey, as Iranís supplies fell to the lowest in more than two decades due to Western sanctions.

Crude prices fell below $90 a barrel in June, as Saudi Arabia kept its output at multi-decade highs and also due to gloomy economic outlook. But Brent has bounced above $110 a barrel since then.

Yesterday it traded just below $112 a barrel on hopes that China will roll out more stimulus measures to boost its slowing economy and fuel demand within the world’s secondlargest oil consumer. — Reuters

China’s inflation falls, more room for stimulus Factory output growth at 3-year low TAIPEI: Chen Yunlin left chairman of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, shakes hands with Chiang Pin-kung, chairman of Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation, after exchanging documents signed an investment protection pact at a Taipei hotel, Taiwan, yesterday. — AP

Taiwan, China sign investment pact TAIPEI: China and Taiwan signed a landmark investment pact yesterday as hundreds of protesters voiced their anger over the island’s ever closer economic ties with its giant former foe. China’s chief negotiator Chen Yunlin and his Taiwanese counterpart Chiang Pin-kung put their names to the long-awaited deal, which will provide a legal umbrella for Taiwan companies in China.

“The agreement will have a beneficial impact on all businesses and will improve the investment environment,” Chiang said earlier in the day. “It will help boost the competitiveness for both sides amidst growing globalisation and regional cooperation.”

The agreement includes safeguards against sudden expropriation of property and also gives individual investors some protection in the case of legal trouble with authorities.

Chen and Chiang also signed a cooperation pact to speed up customs procedures in the hope of boosting two-way trade. The two deals follow the sweeping 2010 Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) that eased tariff restrictions and gave trade a major push.

But those opposed closer ties with China fear the pacts will strengthen Beijing’s hold over the island, and protesters have been tailing Chen since his arrival on Wednesday.

Police estimated close to 700 protesters had gathered in the streets of Taipei, including several hundred members of the Falungong spiritual movement, which has been banned in China for more than 12 years.

About 1,300 police officers were posted around the meeting venue, a landmark hotel on a hill overlooking Taipei. Barbed wire was rolled out, and police prevented a small truck covered in anti-China banners from approaching the building.

“I oppose the deals because China is trying to control Taiwan’s economy so it can rule Taiwan,” said protester Chen Che, demonstrating with about 50 others at a museum several hundred metres (yards) from the hotel.

“The deals have political purposes and they are steps towards unification. I’m worried about Taiwan’s future if the government sells out to China like this. Without democracy we have nothing.” — AFP

BEIJING: China’s factory output growth slowed unexpectedly in July to its weakest in more than three years, underlining stiff global headwinds that may prompt policymakers to take more action to keep growth on track to meet a 7.5 percent annual target. Retail sales and fixed asset investment also missed market forecasts in official data released yesterday, increasing expectations that Beijing will act to support an economy that has seen growth sliding for six straight quarters.

Annual consumer inflation, meanwhile, fell to a 30-month low last month, suggesting that the central bank has ample scope to ease policy further after cutting interest rates in June and July.

“We think the weakness will be more stubborn than people had expected,” said Li Wei, China economist at Standard Chartered Bank in Shanghai. “My view is that political rhetoric is losing its effectiveness in boosting confidence and you need actual actions to boost growth.”

Expectations of more stimulus measures in response to the data boosted riskier assets, with Asian shares rising to a three-month high and the commodity-sensitive Australian dollar testing a 4-1/2month peak.

Apart from lowering interest rates, Beijing has also cut the amount of cash that banks must hold as reserves (RRR) to free up an estimated 1.2 trillion yuan ($191 billion) for lending in a series of moves since November 2011.

President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have promised to step up policy “fine tuning” in the second half of the year to support the economy.

The central bank is widely expected to continue its gradual policy easing in the coming months to support growth, despite its recent warning that inflation may pick up after August.

The benchmark Reuters poll last month showed analysts expected the central bank to deliver its next interest rate cut in the third quarter and two more cuts in banks’ reserve require-

ment ratio by the end of the year.

“Policy measures the government has taken so far are not enough to stabilise growth and policy support should be stepped up,” said Wang Jun, economist at China Centre for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE), a government think-tank in Beijing. “On monetary policy, the central bank should cut banks’ reserve requirement ratio (RRR) as quickly as possible.”

China’s economy is struggling to escape from the effects of the euro zone debt crisis and a sluggish U.S. recovery that are keeping global growth at a low ebb, the main factor that pushed China’s new export orders in July into their steepest fall in eight months.

Weak property investment is hurting economic growth despite a modest pick-up in sales and prices, while falling factory-gate prices cut into corporate earnings and limit capital spending.The central government has been fast-tracking some infrastructure projects, but its efforts have sparked fears of overcapacity.

Growth-obsessed local authorities have been rolling out some investment projects in recent weeks, but their ability to fund them remains in

doubt given more than 10 trillion yuan in local debt - a legacy of the massive stimulus unleashed in 2008/09.

Policy stimulus could give only a limited boost to the economy in the absence of a global recovery, analysts say.“Economic growth in the third quarter is likely to remain sluggish.

Growth may show some improvement from September,” said Zhang Hanya, a researcher with the National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s top planning agency.

China’s industrial output growth slowed to 9.2 percent year-on-year in July, its weakest since May 2009, down from 9.5 percent in June and below the 9.8 percent forecast in a Reuters poll.

Annual growth in fixed-asset investment, in the likes of real estate, roads and bridges, came in at 20.4 percent in January-to-July, unchanged from the January-to-June period and just below the 20.5 percent forecast.

Growth of retail sales, the biggest driver of the economy’s expansion in the first quarter, eased to 13.1 percent, short of the forecast of 13.7 percent. — Reuters

BEIJING: A vendor sells fruit at a market in Beijing yesterday. Chinese inflation hit a two-and-a-half-year low in July, official data showed, giving the government further policy leeway to boost weakening growth. — AFP

Business FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

India car sales rise by 6.7%, weakest in 3 months NEW DELHI: India’s car sales grew by 6.7 percent in July, their weakest pace in three months, an automobile body reported yesterday as it called for lower interest rates to help spur the flagging sector.

Domestic car sales in July climbed by 6.7 percent to 143,496 units, from 134,473 units in the same month last year, according to figures released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).

The growth rate would have been much weaker but last year’s low base helped to improve the figure. Half of the country’s 18 carmakers reported a fall in sales in July, despite hefty price discounts to boost business. “These July numbers are not very strong. Sentiment continues to be very weak, but we’re hoping interest rates will come down and improve buying sentiment,” said SIAM senior director Sugato Sen.

Car loan interest costs are running at 12 to 14 percent. SIAM has projected auto sales will rise by nine to 11 percent this year — far higher than last year when growth slowed to 2.2 percent as the sector was hit by aggressive rate hikes to curb inflation and industrial problems. But during April to July this year, domestic car sales climbed 5.6 percent to 634,298 vehicles-well below the projected annual rate.

Commercial vehicle sales, considered an important barometer of overall economic health, grew by only 1.2 percent in July from a year earlier, to 65,008 units.

While western carmakers might envy the sector’s growth, SIAM said it was disappointing for India, where annual expansion of more than 20 percent has been the industry norm in better times.

India’s once-booming economy grew by just 5.3 percent between January and

March-its slowest annual quarterly expansion in nearly a decade. Unlike other central banks which have been cutting rates to spur growth, the Reserve Bank of India has been holding back, saying it wants inflation to come down from stubbornly high levels of over seven percent before it acts. Meanwhile, India’s top vehicle maker Tata Motors said yesterday quarterly net profit rose 12.2 percent helped by strong sales of British brands Jaguar and Land Rover, but missed forecasts. The auto giant reported consolidated net profit of 22.44 billion rupees ($408 million) for the three months to June, up from 20 billion rupees a year earlier.

The company, part of the salt-to-steel Tata conglomerate, undershot analysts’ expectations of profit of around 27 billion rupees. Revenues for the first financial quarter climbed 30 percent to 431.7 bil-

lion rupees, the company said.

Tata Motors, which also makes utility vehicles and the low-cost Nano car, said it suffered a foreign-exchange loss of 4.41 billion rupees in the quarter, around eight times more than the size of its currency loss of 570 million rupees a year earlier.

Net revenue for the Jaguar and Land Rover brands rose 34.6 percent to 3.63 billion pounds ($5.68 billion) and net profit jumped to 236 million pounds ($369 million). Tata Motors bought Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motor in 2008 for $2.3 billion as part of plans to expand its reach beyond Asia. The deal vaulted Tata Motors from a commercial vehicle and small-car maker into a global player with luxury brands in its range of offerings.

Jaguar and Land Rover sold 83,452 units in the last quarter, a jump of 34.4 percent from a year earlier. — AFP

Indian industrial output in shock contraction More pressure on CB to re-start rate cutting

SEOUL: Kim Choong-soo, governor of the Bank of Korea, announces the benchmark call rate during a press conference at the bank’s headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, yesterday. —AP

South Korea keeps key interest rate unchanged SEOUL: South Korea’s central bank kept its key interest rate unchanged yesterday despite a downbeat assessment of the global economy, but analysts said another cut could be on the cards before the end of the year.

The Bank of Korea’s (BOK) monetary policy committee, in a unanimous decision, kept the benchmark seven-day repo rate steady at 3.0 percent for August. In July the bank announced a surprise cut of 25 basis points, the first reduction in more than three years, as Europe’s protracted debt crisis and China’s slowdown weighed on the export-dominated economy.

Exports dropped 8.8 percent in July from a year earlier. The economy grew just 0.4 percent quarter-on-quarter in April-June compared with 0.9 percent in January-March. The bank forecast a very moderate recovery globally and said the trend of domestic economic growth had slowed “owing to lacklustre exports and domestic demand”.

Inflation eased in July year-on-year to 1.5 percent, its lowest rate in more than 12 years, and the bank forecast it would stay low for the time being. But in a statement it cited potential risk factors, such as rising international grain prices and increases in local utility fees. Analysts said a back-to-back rate cut could have fuelled bleak international assessments of the prospects for Asia’s fourth-largest economy. The bank “can now wait and see the impact of monetary easing steps (expected) to be taken by the US and Europe before deciding on taking a second rate cut”, Kong Dong-Rak, of Taurus Investment and Securities, told Yonhap news agency. The central bank’s latest forecast is for the economy to grow 3.0 percent this year but its governor Kim Choong-Soo has said that may be too optimistic Many analysts said a rate cut was likely in coming months after yesterday’s decision to stand pat. —AFP

NEW DELHI: India’s industrial output shrank by a shock 1.8 percent in June, data showed yesterday, highlighting the challenge for new finance minister P Chidambaram to reverse the nation’s sharp growth slowdown.

Manufacturing output, which accounts for three-quarters of the Index of Industrial Production, was chiefly to blame, falling 3.2 percent from a year earlier in June, according to government figures. The industrial output fall defied market forecasts of growth of close to one percent and came as the country faces the spectre of its third drought in a decade that would further reduce growth.

“This was another shocking industrial production release from India... and will inevitably heap more pressure on the central bank to re-start its rate cutting,” said Credit Suisse economist Robert Prior-Wandesforde. India’s once-booming economy grew just 5.3 percent between January and Marchits slowest annual quarterly expansion in nearly a decade.

The next quarterly growth figures are due at the end of the month but “the omens are not particularly encouraging,” said PriorWandesforde. The June shrinkage in output by factories, mines and utilities was the third contraction in four months and followed a revised 2.5 percent production rise in May. Capital goods output, a vital investment signal, slid 27.9 percent in June the largest contraction on record according to Credit Suisse.

Manufacturing in Asia’s third-largest economy has been undermined by high interest rates to combat stubbornly high inflation of over seven percent, and Europe’s debt crisis which has hit exports.

Unlike other central banks which have been cutting rates to spur growth, the Reserve Bank of India

NEW DELHI: A technician works at a niacinamide plant which manufactures vitamin B3 at the recently launched Jubilant Life Sciences Ltd, at Vilayat Industrial Estate near Bharuch, Ahmedabad. India’s industrial production contracted by a shock 1.8 percent from a year earlier in June. — AFP (RBI) has been holding back on reducing borrowing costs, saying it wants inflation to ease first. “The situation calls for urgent policy measures both by the RBI as well as the government to salvage industry from further decline,” said Chandrajit Banerjee, director general of the Confederation of Indian Industry business group.

Indian shares slipped slightly on the release of the data, then steadied on investor hopes that it might spur future rate cuts. Chidambaram, named finance minister last week, has pledged to restart India’s “growth engine” and has already indicated he wants lower rates, saying “sometimes it is necessary to take carefully calibrated risks”.

But analysts have been sceptical about how much he can achieve with the left-leaning Congress government under pressure after a string of graft scandals and parliamentary gridlock over its attempts to liberalise the

inward-looking economy.

Economists have already been taking a knife to their growth projections for the fiscal year to March 2013 with Goldman Sachs economist Tushar Poddar expecting 5.7 percent in contrast to the central bank’s forecast of 6.5 percent.

Glenn Levine, senior economist at Moody’s Analytics, said yesterday he believed growth would be closer to 5.5 percent. Citibank has said if a nationwide drought is declared-which would be the country’s third in a decade-expansion could be as low as 4.9 percent Farming’s contribution to gross domestic product has fallen from 50 percent in the 1950s to some 15 percent but remains key by supporting 700 million rural Indians and fuelling demand for everything from TVs to motorcycles and gold. Already around a dozen of India’s 29 states have declared themselves “droughtaffected”. — AFP

THEY ARE THE 99!

99 Mystical Noor Stones carry all that is left of the wisdom and knowledge of the lost civilization of Baghdad. But the Noor Stones lie scattered across the globe - now little more than a legend. One man has made it his life’s mission to seek out what was lost. His name is Dr. Ramzi Razem and he has searched fruitlessly for the Noor Stones all his life. Now, his luck is about to change - the first of the stones have been rediscovered and with them a special type of human who can unlock the gem’s mystical power. Ramzi brings these gem - bearers together to form a new force for good in the world. A force known as ... the 99!

THE STORY SO FAR : The Story So Far: Hadya brings Wakila and Raheema to her school, where the teacher hands out red and blue shirts to the class and tells them that the red-shirted students are now better than the blue-shirted ones. When Raheema tries to break up the exercise, the redshirted students turn on her…

The 99 ® and all related characters ® and © 2012, Teshkeel Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

www.the99.org

Opinion FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Doubts arise about replacing Annan Russia and West blame each for failure of peace efforts

By Louis Charbonneau

A

s Syria spirals deeper into a full-scale civil war, Western delegations at the United Nations are increasingly skeptical about the value of appointing a replacement for Kofi Annan as the UN-Arab League mediator in the conflict, UN envoys say. When he announced his departure, Annan, a former UN secretary-general and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said he was not able to carry out his job with the UN Security Council’s veto powers hopelessly deadlocked. Russia, an ally of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, is backing Damascus, while the United States, Britain and France are calling for Assad’s ouster.

That deadlock persists and complicates the question of whether UN political mediation is needed at the moment. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was in discussions with Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby on a possible successor to ensure that the diplomatic track is kept open. Several UN officials said an announcement could come as early as today. Russia, which expressed regret that Annan chose to step down, is also determined to have someone replace Annan to keep a UN-led diplomatic track open. Other council members such as China, South Africa and Pakistan agree with Moscow.

But the Americans, council diplomats say, see little point in replacing Annan. They had grown increasingly frustrated with the veteran diplomat’s refusal to step aside after it became clear that Russian President Vladimir Putin would continue to veto any attempt to impose UN sanctions on Damascus to force it to end the onslaught against an increasingly militarized opposition. The Obama administration is instead moving, albeit cautiously, to increase its backing for antiAssad rebels. “The Americans gave up on the Security Council route back in October after Russia’s first veto and have unenthusiastically supported the European push in New York since then,” one council envoy said on condition of anonymity. “They also feel Annan took too long to concede failure.”

Asked if Washington was working on coming up with possible replacements for Annan, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Washington was “working with our partners, both at the United Nations and more broadly, including the ‘Friends of Syria,’ on a concerted effort to pressure the Assad regime.” He added

they were working with the opposition to help it unify and providing it with “non-lethal aid.”

After announcing he would step down on Aug 31, Annan said, “The increasing militarization on the ground and the clear lack of unity in the Security Council have fundamentally changed the circumstances for the effective exercise of my role.”

“While the Security Council is trapped in stalemate, so too is Syria,” Annan wrote in an editorial in the Financial Times. Russia, with the aid of China, vetoed three resolutions criticizing and threatening sanctions against Damascus for its 17-month attempt to use military force and heavy arms to crush an increasingly militant opposition. One senior Western envoy said over 20,000 people have been killed by Assad’s forces. Despite European public statements of support for Ban’s determination to replace Annan, some European diplomats privately voiced skepticism about

appointing someone to a job that appears headed for failure. “Who’s going to take that job?” one council diplomat said. “If Annan couldn’t succeed, who else could? It’s a lost cause at the moment, though that could change in the future. Assad could fall any day and no one would be surprised.”

Spain’s Solana, Moratinos in the Running UN officials say that Annan’s replacement must be someone of similar stature. Among the names circulating at the United Nations as possible replacements for Annan, envoys told Reuters, are two Spaniards - former Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos and former EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. Envoys spoke of possible Malaysian and Nordic candidates as well. Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari’s name has also come up, though one diplomat told Reuters that the Finn, who was the other candidate when Ban selected Annan at the beginning of this year, was not among the main candidates.

Richard Gowan of New York University made clear that the UN had a role to play in improving the plight of civilians. “I doubt that any UN envoy can really prevent the current conflict getting worse, although the UN has an absolute obligation to keep up efforts to get humanitarian aid into the country alongside the Red Cross and Red Crescent,” he said.

France said the Security Council would hold a meeting on the humanitarian situation in Syria on Aug 30.

Later this month, the Security Council is expected to allow the renewed 30-day mandate of the UN monitoring mission in Syria to expire. US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice made clear last month that Washington saw no point in keeping the unarmed monitoring force, which severely curtailed its activities in June due to the escalating violence, in Syria. Rice said the council had hit a “substantive dead end” on Syria and that Washington was looking outside the world body for ways to tackle the crisis.

Washington has since made clear that it will step up support to the rebels, though Western officials have made clear there is lit-

tle appetite among NATO members to intervene in the messy Syria conflict as it did in Libya last year. French Ambassador Gerard Araud, president of the council this month, said last week that the 15-nation body was “irreconcilably deadlocked” on Syria. This has infuriated Russia, which has made clear it wants UN monitors to remain in Syria. Ban, who is determined to keep a UN foothold in Syria, is expected to recommend a new type of UN presence next week, officials at the world body say.

Russia and the Western powers accuse each other of sabotaging Annan’s attempts to secure an end to the fighting in Syria with a ceasefire in April that never took hold and a six-point peace plan that the government and rebels accepted but failed to implement.

Russia accused the United States and Europeans of rejecting “reasonable” proposals, suggesting they were being hell-bent on Libyan-style “regime change.” US and European officials said Moscow’s repeated vetoes of attempts on the council to put pressure on Assad had torpedoed Annan’s diplomacy.

Moscow, like Syria, accuses the Western powers, Saudi Arabia and Qatar of supporting and arming the rebels, while the United States and their European allies routinely criticize Russia for continuing to supply weapons to Assad’s government. According to David Bosco, a professor of international relations at American University in Washington, there really is no UN-led diplomatic process in Syria and Annan’s decision to step down simply made that clear. “The UN made it look as if there was a peace process and now that veneer is gone,” Bosco said. “When the (Assad) regime falls, there could be a return to the UN The council could agree a peacekeeping or stabilization force.”

For the time being, the United States and its ally will bypass the UN Security Council and focus their efforts on gathering allies to aid Syria’s fractious rebel groups. It is not the first time Washington bypassed the council. The United States did so in 1999 in Kosovo, when Russia used its veto power to block authorization for military intervention against Serbian forces and militias in the predominantly Albanian province of Serbia. NATO launched a bombing campaign that eventually led to the withdrawal of Serbian forces. It did so again in 2003, when France, Russia and other council members made clear they could not support an explicit authorization of military force against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Washington led an invasion that then UN chief Annan eventually described as “illegal”. — Reuters

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FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Years

www.kuwaittimes.net

Jordana Brewster attends the 11th Annual InStyle Summer Soiree at The London Hotel on Wednesday, Aug 8, 2012 in West Hollywood, Calif. — AP

FOOD FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Feasting after fasting, the healthy way

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amadan is a time when we find ourselves cooking up age-old recipes passed down to us by our grandmothers and as we all know, a sumptuous feast always calls for a celebration in Kuwait. However, in the midst of our celebratory feasting after fasting, we often find ourselves overindulging in these delicious food items and going slightly overboard with the eating. This Ramadan, Sarah Dimashkieh, expert dietitian at Diet Care journeys with us through the healthier route for six different traditional Kuwaiti dishes that we all love, showing us that our favorite Ramadan dishes can be relished healthily.

Samboosa Samboosas are a steady favorite to break our fast with and it’s not only delicious but also easy to make. “However,

Diet Care takes you through the healthier route towards your favorite Ramadan Kuwaiti meals, at no cost to the taste! samboosas can also be high in fat content, and having too many at a time can actually cause you to feel bloated and lethargic,” Dimashkieh explains.Firstly, instead of using regular dough which is higher in fat content, use philo dough which has lesser fat content. You can easily find it in your local co-op. Dimashkieh also recommends using reducedsalt, low-fat white cheese instead of the regular kind. “Low

fat cheese with reduced-salt is a great calcium source and is actually perfect for those who suffer from hypertension,” she explains further. Also, baking the samboosa instead of frying it also means that lesser oil is used, so too much damage isn’t caused to the heart and the arteries.

Meat Machous & Harees The aroma of the rich spices of the Meat Machous and Harees is a definite delight to the senses and the taste is mouthwatering but unfortunately both dishes are high in calorie content. Dimashkieh identifies a key ingredient that is instrumental in these two dishes taking a detour towards the healthier route. “Go beef! Using beef instead of lamb instantly reduces the fat content dramatically. Also, if you have cardiovascular problems, lamb is a definite no-no, whereas beef

FOOD FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

QUICK GUIDE TO COOKING HEALTHY DURING RAMADAN Samboosa Use philo dough with low-fat low salt cheese Meat Machous/Harees Use beef, and rely on the natural fats of the meat to cook the dish without adding more sources of oils and fats Avoid using lamb and ghee Margoog Make your own fresh tomato paste and use beef instead of lamb Don’t use canned tomato paste, and don’t use lamb as well Muhallabiya Use skimmed milk and artificial sweeteners Don’t use regular milk and sugar Umm Ali Use toast bread, along with 2 percent fat (light) whipping cream Avoid puff pastry and croissants , as well as thick cream

can be enjoyed occasionally,” Dimashkieh reveals. Also, don’t glaze the surface with ghee. Boil the meat instead of frying it. That way, you are not adding to the fat but instead using the fat that is already present in the meat to tenderize it. For the stock, go for a home-made delicious meat stock instead of opting for a ready-made meat stock that is full of fat and high in sodium.

“This is how simple it is - boil your meat, and you can replace the meat with a full chicken with cinnamon, spices and onion, remove the white layer of fat that is on top, and use the boiling water as the stock,” Dimashkieh explains.

canned tomato paste full of sodium and additives, make your own paste out of fresh tomatoes. “Canned tomato pastes are full of sodium and preservatives. Often, we are misled by the “fresh tomato” branding on the package. Your only assurance of fresh tomato paste is if you make it yourself. Fresh tomatoes are great because they are full of antioxidants she reveals. Secondly, similar to the Machbous and Harees, instead of using lamb or mutton, use beef and don’t fry it in ghee but boil it instead.

Margoog

There’s always room for dessert and a Ramadan feast is not complete without the Muhallabiya. There’s more good news for your sweet tooth. The Muhallabiya could be one of the healthiest desserts - ever. One cup of Muhallabiya is full of calcium, Vitamin D, Vitamin A and phosphorous. “Leverage on the goodness of the muhallabiya and make it your sweet alternative during Ramadan.

Replace the regular milk with skimmed milk and sugar with artificial sweeteners.

Margoog is a staple during Ramadan as well as during winter. Dimashkieh gives us the insight scoop on two simple steps that will help in making this dish a healthier option overall. Firstly, instead of using

Muhallabiya

Skimmed milk has more calcium and less fat, while artificial sweeteners have zero calories,” Dimashkieh explains.

Umm Ali Saving the best for the last is the delicious Umm Ali. Dimashkieh reveals that although most people here would rather use frozen puff pastry or croissants to make this dish, a healthier and more creative approach would be to try it out with toast bread. “As for substituting the sweetened condensed milk, make your own version using low fat milk mixed with artificial sweeteners. Also for the thick cream, use a light whipping cream with 2 percent fat that you can easily find at your local co-op. Finally, avoid cooking your nuts, have them raw instead. Raw nuts are not only delicious but healthier too and the Umm Ali tastes absolutely delightful with raw nuts,” Dimashkieh concludes.

Beauty FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Pump it up

All you need to know about collagen fillers

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ollagen injections may help erase frown lines, “crow’s feet” and nasolabial folds or smile lines. Collagen injections have been around for a while, but have decreased in popularity with the introduction of soft tissue fillers such as Restylane, which can last longer. In 2007, there were 174,290 collagen injections performed in the United States, down about 70 percent from 2000, according to statistics compiled by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons

needle into the skin depressions.

Several injections may be needed, depending on the length and

ment. Antiseptic is also applied.

Your doctor will then decide on the correct amount of collagen to

What are collagen injections?

Collagen is the main protein found in connective tissue. It supports the skin, bone, cartilage and blood vessels. Collagen composes up to 80 percent of the skin. Its role is to maintain the skin’s integrity, but collagen breaks down with advancing age. The breakdown of collagen during the aging process can lead to wrinkles, lines and folds. Collagen injections replenish the skin’s natural collagen.

Several types of collagen fillers are on the market. For example, collagen fillers containing human collagen include CosmoDerm and Cosmoplast. Cow (bovine) collagen fillers include Zyderm and Zyplast.

ArteFill is a hybrid gel filler consisting of millions of synthetic microspheres (polymethylmethacrylate or PMMA) suspended in purified bovine (cow) collagen.

Complications and risks of collagen injections Complications from collagen fillers are typically minimal. Some possible complications include uneven texture of the skin, an allergic reaction, infection, abscess and scarring.

Alternative and additional treatments While collagen is a good option, it is always a good idea to investigate alternative treatments. Other minimally invasive procedures include Botox, which may be complementary to collagen, or Restylane, which may be a better substitute for collagen. For more

Ideal candidates for collagen Injections Optimal candidates for collagen injections are typically between the ages of 35 and 60 with frown lines, “crow’s feet” and nasolabial folds or smile lines. People who should not receive collagen injections include those who are pregnant or nursing, people with allergies to cow products or lidocaine, or those with certain medical conditions such as autoimmune diseases.

The collagen injection procedure Zyderm and Zyplast do require a skin test prior to the first treatment because of the risk of allergic reaction in some people.

Collagen injections are typically performed in the doctor’s office.

They are most often performed without anesthesia, although the collagen filler itself contains lidocaine, which is a local anesthetic.

Collagen is injected with a tiny

mal discomfort from the collagen injection. There may be some swelling and bruising, which typically subsides within 48 hours. The treated area may look red for the first 24 hours, and this may last up to a week.

You can go home shortly after the procedure. The results are immediate and become fully evident within one week. In some cases, the treated area may appear to be overfilled initially. However, this will dissipate soon after to produce a more natural-looking appearance. Results may be unpredictable, lasting from two to three months.

You can resume normal activities immediately; however, it is advisable to stay out of the sun.

Tell your doctor about any unmanageable pain or symptoms that are progressive or abnormal.

depth of the wrinkle. The procedure takes less than an hour.

The points of injection are “scored” by the doctor with a pencil. Your doctor may select numerous injection points for each location slated for treat-

be used. The collagen filler is injected into the marked points beneath the skin.

Recovery after collagen injections You may experience some mini-

severe conditions, surgical procedures may be more appropriate, such as a facelift, forehead lift (brow lift) and blepharoplasty (eyelid surgery). Your doctor may recommend additional treatments for you to consider in conjunction with

collagen, such as a chemical peel, laser skin resurfacing, or microdermabrasion.

Consult a qualified doctor Dermatologists and plastic surgeons may have extensive knowledge of and experience with collagen injections. However, some may not have expertise with selecting accurate injection points and proper dosage; or have familiarity with both human-based and bovinebased collagen fillers. Finding a doctor with specific experience in these areas is important for achieving optimal results for your condition.

Here are some tips to consider when consulting a doctor: Review the doctor’s credentials, education, training, type of certification held and number of times that he or she has performed the treatment.

Request information about the type of filler recommended, bovine-based or human-based collagen. If the doctor is using a bovine-based collagen filler, he or she will perform an allergy test that requires four weeks of review in order to ensure that you won’t have an allergic reaction. If the test rules out allergies, the bovinebased collagen filler can be used.

Human-based collagen filler does not require an allergy test.

View before-and-after photos of patients with similar conditions who received collagen fillers and alternative procedures such as Restylane.

Inquire about complication risks and possible side effects.

Ask the doctor to estimate the number of treatments required to achieve and maintain the results you are looking for.

Request a list of pre-op and post-op instructions. Following these instructions can reduce the risk of complications.

Inquire about how long the procedure will last The Cost of Collagen Injections The cost for collagen fillers can range from $300 to $400 per syringe. Some people require more than one syringe. The total procedure costs may be up to $700.

Purely cosmetic procedures are not covered by insurance. If the cost is higher than you can pay at once, ask your surgeon about monthly payments. www.yourplasticsurgeryguide.com

Books FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Help yourself to these self-help

books

Self-Help: The act of helping or improving yourself without relying on anyone else. Luckily for us, there is a large selection of self-help literature written by truly remarkable authors. These authors share personal experiences from their own successful careers or interview others who have unlocked secrets of happiness and achievement.

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams - Deepak Chopra (1994) Having sold over 3 million copies worldwide, you can safely assume that Deepak Chopra, an Indian medical doctor, speaker and writer, pretty much has the topic of self-help nailed.

Pitched as a book to be cherished for a lifetime, Chopra offers proven ideas on how to achieve spiritual awakening and practical activities that will help you get there faster. Although primarily based on Buddhist ideas, this book offers even the most sceptical of individuals an enchanting read with exciting prospects for success in areas including potential, karma and giving.

The Happiness Project Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun Gretchen Rubin (2010) Gretchen Rubin’s #1 New York Times Best Seller about happiness may not be pitched as a self-help book, but anyone who follows the guidance in this little gem is bound to feel somewhat improved. In her consistently fresh and compelling narrative, Rubin relates the story of her 12-month journey to happiness. While offering guidance on everything from relationships to parenthood and spirituality to passions, without ever coming across as someone in the tight grip of a personal crisis, Rubin delivers one of the most astute and relevant works on the theme of happiness. Read it or risk being miserable for the rest of your life.

The Secret Rhonda Byrnes (2006) Rhonda Byrnes was in the depth of despair when she discovered Wallace Wattle’s ‘The Science of Getting Rich.’ Convinced she had stumbled upon a little known secret to success in all areas of life, Byrne set out to prove her theory. Translated into 44 languages and selling over 21 million copies, it’s safe to say she proved it. Through collaboration with the likes of Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Soul), Mike Dooley (TUTs Adventurers Club) and Bob Proctor (Personal Development Coach), Byrne introduces a powerful process you can use to change any aspect of your life.

The Four Hour Work Week Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich - Timothy Ferriss (2008, Expanded 2011) Another self-improvement offering that reached #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list, Timothy Ferris shows you how to eliminate non-essential work and outsource the remaining in this gripping read. Anyone who has ever wanted to escape the rat race needs to read this book. Readers can’t help but be inspired by his detailed blue-print for successful online businesses. If you’re stuck for ideas as to what to do with all the free time you’re going to have, you needn’t worry since Ferriss covers all that too. The Four Hour Work Week asks that all important, but often overlooked, question: what do you actually want from life?

The Road Less Traveled M. Scott Peck (1978) This one has been around for an age, but the musings of psychologist M. Scott Peck have stood the test of time. First launched in the times of I’m OK, You’re OK, Peck took a stand and dared to suggest that life may actually be difficult at times. By sharing intimate case studies of anonymous therapy clients, and offering an insightful look into his own life stories, Peck gives us the courage to deal with our own problems. Considered a spiritual refuge, this book stands out as one of the most honest and revealing approaches to human fulfilment. www.pickthebrain.com

Te c h n o l o g y FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Is faster always better?

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here’s almost no machine these days that runs without a central processing unit (CPU), whether it’s your washing machine or your laptop. But how to pick the best one? Delve into the world of processors and you’ll find a dizzying mix of marketing names that reveal next to nothing about the unit’s quality. In many cases, a difference of just one digit or letter can spell the difference between a dynamo and a dud. It’s also just as easy to buy a lot more power than could ever be needed.

The two main providers of CPUs are Intel and AMD. Both offer a series of high-end devices. But computer users should focus more on which configuration best suits their needs. “There are serious differences in performance,” says Christof Windeck of c’t, a German computer magazine. There’s no way to compare the relatively low-key dualcore processor of an ultrabook with a quadcore processor.

“But if you use your notebook like a business tool, then it doesn’t really matter which processor you have,” notes Windeck. And there really is no subjective difference to be noticed in the performance of most contemporary processors. An SSD hard drive can often speed up a system more than a new CPU and it only costs 200 euros (245 dollars).

AMD’s newest processors - it’s a series with an integrated graphics processor (GPU) - is called Trinity. The new CPU runs faster than its predecessor generation Llano with Bulldozer architecture - says the company.

However, at 32 nanometres, its structure remains unchanged. Mobile Trinity processors hit markets in mid May. Desktop CPUs will follow soon. Trinity models A6, A8 or A10 comes with 4000 numbers, while Llano chips are numbered in the 3000s. There will also be especially energy-conserving Trinity processors for Ultrathins, AMD’s answer to Intel’s Ultrabooks.

In terms of pure computing power, AMD’s processors lie far behind Intel’s, says Windeck. But still, AMD devices provide more than enough power for most applications.

And AMD’s GPUs pack a lot more power than Intel’s graphics processors. Along with its A series, AMD also has, from its FX lines, Bulldozer processors without graphics processors. These will soon come with Piledriver architecture (codename: Vishera). The graphics-free X series with older K10 architecture, on 45nanometre chips, will be marketed as Sempron, Phenom and Athlon.

AMD also has the less powerful C and E series processors, these with integrated graphics. They serve as competition to Intel’s Atom chips. Windeck is unimpressed

by these, noting that they really only fit the bill for netbooks or tablet computers.

Intel has been marketing the third generation of its Core i line of processors with integrated GPU. The first character in these models is always a 3. According to Intel, it got the chip structure for Ivy Bridge processors down to 22 nanometres from 32. However, second generation versions of this chip, which have model names starting with a 2, won’t completely disappear from the market. That’s because Ivy Bridge is only initially going to be available as i5 and i7 CPUs for high-end devices.

More affordable i3, Pentium and Celeron CPUs will remain for sale in older Sandy Bridge architectures.

And Sandy Bridge isn’t ready to go out to pasture in terms of computing power, says Windeck. “At similar speeds, the changes are only minor,” he says. But speed upgrades are more significant with mobile Ivy Bridge CPUs than with the somewhat larger desktop chips.

Chip manufacturers aren’t just shrinking the chips to fit more transistors onto smaller spaces. Smaller chips mean more can be produced from the same raw materials. But that presents its own problems. “The smaller the structure, the more difficult it becomes to disperse heat,” notes Heinrich Theodor Vierhaus from the Brandenburg University of Technology in Cottbus, Germany. Heat and higher speeds can be detrimental to a chip’s lifespan.

“If you don’t absolutely need the performance, you should opt for larger structures,” says the computer scientist. “The more cores working at a slower speed, the longer the lifespan.” Moreover, even if the integrated GPUs pack some punch, most of today’s blockbuster games still require an additional graphics card. “It’s always a question of the entire package,” says Windeck.

People shouldn’t just focus on the CPU, but think about their ideal computer, test out applications and be aware of size, weight, the display and keyboard, battery life and volume when considering laptops. — dpa

‘If you use your notebook like a business tool, then it doesn’t really matter which processor you have’

Lifestyle FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Elementary school girl Yuka Takahashi adds the last piece of about 5,000 Lego blocks to complete a reproduction of Jonannes Vermeer’s masterpiece ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’ in Tokyo yesterday. A total of 380 children participated in a nine-day workshop to create the Lego art at the newly opened Legoland Discovery Center to mark the 380th anniversary of the Dutch painter’s birth and the exhibition of the original painting from the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis at Tokyo Art Museum. — AP

Tongan wreck may be pirate treasure ship

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ivers in Tonga have discovered a shipwreck believed to be a pirate vessel that folklore says sank in the 19th century with a hold full of treasure, officials in the Pacific nation said yesterday. The Portau-Prince, a British privateer, was attacked by local warriors in 1806 after arriving in Tonga and most of its crew was massacred on the orders of King Finau Ulukalala II, Tonga’s tourism ministry said. It said the Tongans salvaged iron and cannons from the ship, before the king ordered it to be scuttled with its treasure still on board.

The vessel was thought to be lost until a local diver recently found a wreck off the island of Foa that has features similar to the historic privateer, tourism ministry spokeswoman Sandra Fifita said. If the wreck proved to be the Port-au-Prince, the treasure was likely to still be aboard, she added. “It is believed that a considerable amount of copper, silver and gold is resting with the wreck, along with a number of silver candlesticks, incense pans, crucifixes and chalices,” she said in a statement.

Fifita said the wreck had copper cladding on its hull, which Britainís National Maritime Museum in Greenwich said meant it dated from 1780 to 1850, when such cladding was used to protect against shipworm and marine weeds. The statement said local divers were mapping the wreck for further study.Fifita could not be reached for comment on the state of the remains or whether any treasure had already been found.

The Port-au-Prince was originally built in France but was captured by the British and set sail from London in 1805 as a privateer, a ship with permission to attack and plunder the vessels and possessions of Britain’s rivals Spain and France. —AFP

Wisconsin teen wins national texting championship - again A

17-year-old boy from Wisconsinon Wednesday won an annual national texting competition for the second time, taking home $50,000 as he pledged to be back next year. “I killed it,” Austin Wierschke said, holding a check for his prize money in New York’s Times Square where the contest, sponsored by LG Mobile, took place. Wierschke, the contest’s 2011 champion, beat out 10 others, aged 16 to 24, who had been winnowed down from over 100,000 competitors during preliminary rounds conducted since May.

The contenders texted a line from “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” while wearing black out goggles, transcribed a phrase written backward, and completed other challenges meant to test their texting accuracy, speed and dexterity.

Wierschke, a high school student from the small town of Rhinelander in northeastern Wisconsin, won by texting a 149-character message with capitalization, punctuation and various symbols, in 39 seconds.

He is the only two-time winner of the 5-year-old texting competition, the nation’s largest. “I’ll see you next year...

bring it on,” said Wierschke. Wierschke said he practiced by texting friends, typing uprandom phrases and words, and having his mom read off phrases that he would text with his eyes closed.

Kent Augustine, 16, from New York, lost to Wierschke by a few seconds in the last round.

This year’s group of competitors, flown from Montana, Texas and California among other states, is a sign of the continued popularity of texting, the contenders all agreed. “I like texting because you think more about what you say,” Wierschke said. — Reuters

Animal lovers pony up $100,000 for Madonna tickets

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wo longtime supporters of a Pennsylvania animal shelter have successfully bid $100,000 for four tickets to a Madonna concert in Philadelphia later this month. Main Line Animal Rescue, in a statement yesterday, said the bid from Nick Adams and Dee Silvers at its annual fund-raising auction “is believed to be the highest paid for concert tickets.” The proceeds will go towards rehabilitating breeding dogs rescued from puppy farms in Pennsylvania. The non-profit is well-known for campaigning

against puppy farm abuse.

“To me Madonna has always symbolized freedom and strength,” Silvers said. “But when I think of puppy mill dogs, I think of confinement and dogs weak from over-breeding and lack of veterinary care.”

Madonna kicks off the North American leg of her world tour in Philadelphia on August 28. She is currently in Russia where she has stirred controversy with her support for gay rights and the all-girl punk band Pussy Riot. — AFP

Lifestyle FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Former East German director Maetzig dies at 101

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erman director Kurt Maetzig, who was banned by the Nazis from making films but went on toco-found Communist East Germany’s state-owned film production company, died on Wednesday, a former colleague told Reuters. He was 101. Born in Berlin, Maetzig became known for his drama “Marriage in the Shadows”, the story of a couple who fled Nazi Germany in the 1940s, which was shown in 1947 and became one of the most successful films in the post-war years totaling over 12 million viewers.

Maetzig himself had been banned by the Nazis from making films because his mother was Jewish. “He was a key figure in film history,” said Dorett Molitor from the Potsdam Film Museum, noting Maetzig’s family had informed her of his death.

“This is a great loss,” said Molitor. “We organized events and exhibitions at the Film Museum together in the past years.” Ambivalent towards the Communist regime, Maetzig directed several propaganda films for East Germany’s government which were produced by the state-owned company Defa. His film “The Rabbit is Me”, however, was banned in 1965 since it was seen as disloyal to the Communist party. Its premiere took place 25 years later at the Berlin film festival; one year after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. Maetzig also became president of the German Film Academy in Potsdam-Babelsberg in 1954, where he taught Stage Direction for ten years. The director, who lived in the small village of Wildkuhl, in the former East German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, had been married four times and had three children. — Reuters

Comedian Kevin Hart to host MTV Video Music Awards

K

evin Hart isn’t just the host of next month’s MTV Video Music Awards, he’s also part of Hollywood’s hottest new couple. The comedian stars alongside Kim Kardashian and Kanye West in a video posted Wednesday on MTV’s website. Hart tells the pair he’s hosting the VMA show and that paparazzi are trying to get a look at “the new ‘it’ couple,” adding, “I’m talking about Kev-Ye-Kim.” The video shows a casually clad Kardashian and West, who is up for two Video Music Awards, lounging on the end of a bed. The MTV Video Music Awards will be presented Sept 6 at Staples Center in Los Angeles. —AP

Actor David Duchovny poses on arrival for the film premiere of ‘Goatsí in Los Angeles on August 8, 2012 in California. The theatrical release date for the film is today. — AFP

Back on road, Iceland’s Sigur Ros finds new joy in music S

igur Ros, the Icelandic band that Radiohead once famously hailed as an inspiration, have been making albums for a decade and a half, but bassist and founding member Georg Holm still finds a lot of myths surround the quartet. Back on the road after the May release of their sixth album, “Valtari,” Holm spoke with Reuters, dispelling some of the rumors and explaining why the band took a break from touring after 2008.

Q: Why such a long break from touring, four years?

A: “Originally we decided after the last tour that we would have a year off. But it ended up being slightly longer than that (laughs).

But then there was a lot of writing about an indefinite hiatus-that was something journalists said-but that wasn’t something that came out of our mouths ... We were actually working ... There was definitely a lot of vacation time built up! I took it all at once. It gives you a different perspective on what you are doing.”

Q: What was that different perspective?

A: “What a great job we have. I learned to enjoy this again, it was becoming a bit of a burden. All this touring, it was a road to tiredness.”

Q: The last album went straight into the Top 10, yet sales and popularity never seemed that important to the band.

A: “I always find it an honor that a record is well perceived. But it is very funny, these charts, because when “Takk” came out (in 2005), it ended up in 12th place on the Billboard charts, and we sold like 75,000 copies in one week. And this got straight into No 6 or something, much higher, but we only sold 40,000. It just means that you can really see how record sales are disappearing.”

Q: But is popularity important?

A: “Well it’s not a like a personal popularity thing. We are not hoping we will get chased by paparazzi. It’s always nice to play bigger venues with more people. I always enjoy playing on stage to 15,000 people or some-

thing ... It’s good to know that people appreciate your music.”

Q: Your music affects many different types of people and many have a very emotional response. Why do you think that is?

A: “I guess we always try to be sincere with our music. It always has to come from the heart.

It can’t be fake and people connect with that. And we have got some pretty amazing letters from people saying how this particular song or record completely changed their lives. That’s always fantastic, it is such a boost that you can actually have an effect on people’s life through just moving air.

That’s what music is, just moving air.”

Q: And what about the often-referenced admission that the band has its own language?

A: “That’s another journalist thing. I don’t know how that got blown out of proportion.

There is no language, it’s just babble. I would say 95 percent of our music and lyrics are in Icelandic ... The brackets album was actually sung in just completely babble language. It was so impossible for us to write the lyrics for that record ... (lead singer) Jonsi, when he’s the writing the vocal line, he just sings something, just babble basically. We decided that record just had to be like that. But all of our other songs are in Icelandic and there are a couple in English.”

Q: What’s your relationship with Radiohead like now?

A: “When we meet up we chitchat. But it’s not like I have their phone number and call them up. But they are nice guys and I think we owe a lot to them. They gave us a big break when they asked us to do the support for them ... At that point, we would have had to do ten shows to get that many people.”

Q: Why did you do the “Valtari” music video experiment?

A: “We just thought we would do something this time, rather than making one or two

Sigur Ros music videos. We thought we would just take that budget and get 12 different people and say, ‘Here is a little bit of money, what can you do with it?’”

Q: People were surprised to see actor Shia LaBeouf in one?

A: “Well I was too. That was the director. The story is that (LaBeouf) saw a film that she did, called ‘Bombay Beach,’ and sent her an email and said, ‘Can we work together at some point?’ She just called him up and they had lunch and became friends. And she said, ‘Would you be willing to do this for free?’ and he was up for it.”

Q. Your new album is your sixth. How did the sound evolve?

A. “In retrospect, it took such a long time to create it. We started work on it in about 2005 ... It’s almost a loose end this record, it’s things that we had a long time and could not make them fit and finally we figured out how to finish it ... Our sound is evolving now quite drastically, but I guess we will have to see how that pans out.” — Reuters

Lifestyle FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Decrepit Lisbon district counts on fado music to revive T

oday the Mouraria, a maze of narrow alleys, cobblestone squares and decrepit buildings strung with washing at the heart of Lisbon, is known more for drugs and prostitution than as a tourist stop.

But the neighborhood, one of the capital’s oldest, is also where Portugal’s melancholy national song style, the fado, was born in the 19th century-a bit of history that locals want to tap in a district long neglected by city hall where even Lisbonites rarely venture. To do so, a grassroots group called Renovate the Mouraria has set up a program of free “singing” tours, accompanied by fado artists, to show off this working-class area now home to a jumble of Portuguese, Indians, Pakistanis, Africans and Chinese.

Fado singer, Concei o Ribeiro performs.

Fado singer, Concei o Ribeiro performs at “Largo da Severa” to groups of tourists and residents of the Mouraria neighborhood, in Lisbon. — AFP photos

Fado singers, Pedro Galveias and Concei o Ribeiro

Tourists and Mouraria neighborhood residents watch Fado singers perform.

Fado singer, Pedro Galveias accompanied by two guitar players performs.

“The goal of this initiative is to make the neighborhood more alive, to make people visit-both Portuguese and tourists,” said Ines Andrade, president of the group, first started in 2008. The two-century old genre has seen an explosion of new “fadistas”, as the singers and musicians are called, and styles in the last decade. Meaning fate or destiny, fado is said to embody the nostalgia that shaped the Portuguese experience, back to its famed 15th-17th century navigators who found new lands and trade routes that made the small European state a power with

colonies on three continents. It embodies the “saudade”, roughly translatable as longing or melancholy, for those who scattered across the empire or died at sea.

‘The cradle of fado’

The hour-long tours take place every Friday to Sunday until the end of September. Volunteers meet visitors at a small white chapel with a black iron cross called Nossa Senhora da Saude then guide them through the colorful “bairro”, or neighborhood, named for the Moors who settled

there more than nine centuries ago. “For centuries this neighborhood has been unjustly forgotten,” said one guide, 54-yearold Nuno Franco. “Fado was born here, from traditional African songs. It quickly became the song of sailors and the working class.

He points out a guitar-shaped stone monument erected to remind all “we are in the cradle of the fado”, and then heads to a small house on one of the narrow alleys where Severa, the first great fado singer, was born in the 1820s. In a nearby square that bears her name, the tourists are treated to a “fado a desgarrada”, a sort of fado battle in which two singers face off. The tour ends with a fado made famous by the late, legendary diva Amalia Rodrigues as the crowd joins in and residents lean out windows to watch: “Cheira bem, cheira a Lisboa”-”Smells nice, smells like Lisbon”.

“It’s a very original way to discover a neighbourhood,” said Italian tourist Pasquale Rubino. A woman who slipped into the tour midday through, meanwhile, said: “I’ve lived here for more than 50 years and I learned so many things!” Lisbon city hall has backed the program as part of efforts to promote fado after the UN cultural organization UNESCO last year recognized the genre as an “intangible cultural heritage”. “Our goal is for those who live here to rediscover their pride, to attract new people and to help the neighborhood’s economy,” said Lisbon’s socialist Mayor Antonio Costa, who last year moved his own offices to another neglected district right near Mouraria. “We think fado can contribute to that.” — AFP

Lifestyle FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Historic Batchelder tile prompts dreams of sweet future for LA building

While renovating a chocolate shop Charles Aslan, ripped out the arcade of sales stalls finding one of Arts and Crafts master tile-maker Ernest Batchelder’s earliest commissions featuring murals and tile work. — MCT

F

or years, people went looking for Los Angeles Historical-Cultural Monument No 137: a Dutch-themed hot chocolate shop that was one of Ernest Batchelder’s earliest commissions. They came to a worn-looking building on West 6th Street downtown expecting to see the Arts and Crafts master tile-maker’s murals of Dutch maidens in wooden clogs. What they found instead was a small, drab arcade, with stalls selling bargain vitamins, perfume, jewelry and hats. Tile was visible on the ceiling and walls, poorly lighted by fluorescent bulbs. But the stalls had plywood walls where the murals should have been, and there was no way to see what was behind them. Then a few months ago, a new proprietor, Charles Aslan, ripped out the arcade, uncovering a nearly completely intact Los Angeles treasure.

“It’s certainly one of the most beautiful and extravagant tile interiors in Los Angeles or anywhere,” said Ken Bernstein, manager of the city’s Office of Historic Resources. “It’s a remarkable example of the use of ceramic tile and a preeminent example of Batchelder’s work.”Here were tiled pillars and groined arches in hues of rich caramel, butterscotch, chocolate brown. Here were the murals-of sailing ships, windmills and canals, of Dutch women in bonnets, knitting and carrying jugs; of Dutch men in ballooning trousers, out with their oxen. Here were statues of a Dutch boy and girl blowing bubbles, the bubbles actually colored-glass lamps. And here was Aslan not just revealing the tile, but promising to revive the hot chocolate shop that first opened in 1914.The funny thing was that Aslan hadn’t come to the building for Batchelder. The exuberant businessman, born in Singapore, had only recently learned who Batchelder was. But soon this man who once sold over-the-top factory furniture from an open lot on La Cienega Boulevard was expressing his devotion to the Pasadena artisan who epitomized the handmade.”The whole building is going to be Batchelder,” Aslan said proudly of the 25,000-

square-foot, four-story structure he has leased for the next 13 years. Aslan, 53, actually has eclectic dreams for 217 W. 6th St-hot chocolate and sweets on the first floor, a restaurant on the second, some sort of Arts and Crafts studio on the third, possibly producing tile.

He sees downtown residents seated at a hotchocolate bar, being served fine hot cocoa by waitresses wearing sarongs. He sees the patrons settling in for hours to enjoy desserts, organic juices, free wireless service and live lounge music. He imagines fulfilling the ambitions of the shop’s original owners by creating a chain of chocolate shops, each celebrating a different place in the world. And he hopes to reopen a bricked-up passageway into the adjoining Spring Arcade Building and open a Dutch chocolate gift shop and a health food store there. The plan’s a little all over the place, perhaps, and he doesn’t yet have the cash to make it happen. But that’s Aslan. Raised in Singapore and Hong Kong, he came to Los Angeles at 13 and dropped out of school at 16. By then, he says, he was making serious money, working in the family’s swap-meet-centered electronics business.

They bought electronics cheap, rebuilt and resold them. They had all the major brands.

“We were the king of electronics,” he says.

“We sold car stereos, home stereos, 4-tracks, 8tracks, cassettes, CDs.”Later, he ran a downtown paper and printing business. Then in 1992 he took an overnight leap into furniture, helping an old friend sell the contents of a shipping container. Aslan rented a lot on La Cienega, between Pico Boulevard and the 10 Freeway, and lined up his wares, mostly decorative pieces from the Philippines.”I pull out a carousel horse, a guy in a Porsche pulls up, slams on the brakes.

He says, ‘How much?’ I go, ‘$7,000.’ He says, ‘When can you deliver it?’ So I call up the supplier and say, ‘Send me a whole container of carousel horses,’” recalls this merry-eyed, balding and mustachioed bear of a man, before launching into a belly laugh that lasts a whole

minute. More horses arrived, along with “controversial figurines”-of black beggars, waiters and jockeys. He called his new venture Going, Going, Gone and delights in recounting his sales pitches. Every item was one of a kind. Every item was marked down. Each price was about to go up.

Buy it now or forever lose your chance. Before long, he says, he was getting 40-foot containers from 10 countries. “I had figurines, I had European bronzes, I had silver malachite candelabras, I had antiques, rustic, iron, fountains, redwood, garden furniture-the list is endless,” he says, bursting into laughter again. “And I was the first; I was the first to do that.”

Soon, he had multiple stores, rented month to month. He’d “saturate an area,” he says, and then move on. It stopped working in 2007, but even when he talks about liquidating, he’s jolly.

He put big ads in the paper that read, “Stick a fork in me, I’m done” and “Rule No 1: Bring checkbook in hand. Rule No 2: Check Rule No. 1.”After that came the messy end of a marriage, a long fight in family court, a life at loose ends.

Aslan traveled. He found jobs where his could.

He was struggling to find work last year, as a family court judge had ordered, when fate led him to 6th Street.

Aslan likes a good tale. This is how this one goes: He and his sister were walking in PanPacific Park when they ran into their aunt, who managed some buildings their uncle owned downtown. The aunt said she had space available. Then Aslan got a call from a friend, looking to open an office for his online business: Helpstopforeclosurefraud.com. Aslan told his friend that if there was a job in it for him, he could broker a great deal on office space. They took a $500-a-month stall in the arcade last December-and soon expanded to seven stalls.

During this time, they looked up the building, trying to uncover its history. But just as Aslan got interested in Batchelder and what was behind those plywood walls, his friend skipped town, leaving him short more than $5,000 in rent. Then

his aunt had a stroke that left her partly paralyzed and unable to manage the building. He stepped in. Capitalizing on Batchelder seemed a way out of a fix and into a future, Aslan says. He convinced his relatives to give him some time rent-free, promising down the road to start paying serious money.

He now has a website, Countdown to Batchelder.com, and hands out Dutch Chocolate Shop business cards and photo postcards of one of the murals. He has hosted salons to talk tile history and open houses for the Downtown LA Art Walk. He has embraced a downtown that is fast changing, warmly welcoming all the curious.

William Fisher, 62, a street singer who calls himself Wild Bill, wandered in one day. Now he’s singing, with his puppet Sancho dangling from his guitar, at all of Aslan’s events. A young fashion designer who lives in a nearby loft peeked in and decided this was the perfect spot to get married. Now Aslan is hosting her wedding in October. “I’m open to downtown, whatever I can do to help,” he says. On a recent Art Walk evening, he stood by the sidewalk, calling out to passersby, “Welcome to the Dutch Chocolate Shop! The Batchelders! “Relax! Have a drink!” he boomed, ever the pitchman. No drinks were actually on offer. But people walked inside.

Old merges with new in the space on West 6th. Old LA, new LA Old Aslan, new Aslan. While he tries to find investors and get permits, Aslan have filled the space with a friend’s wares. Here is an oil painting of dogs playing poker, another of the Eiffel Tower. Here are shiny benches made of huge, twisted tree roots, bronze angel lamps, gilded French-style commodes, and reproduction papyrus scrolls. Most of it comes from Egypt, he says. All of it has yellow clearance tagsan astronomical price crossed out on top, a lower one below.

On a recent day, as a couple paused by the angel lamps, he couldn’t resist a little patter.

They’d be gone by tomorrow, prices only good today. —MCT

Lifestyle FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Gaga still finds ways to be ‘irresponsible’

Background actors wearing masks perform during the recording of a music video of Canadian musician and performance artist Peaches. — AP

This image released by Vogue shows Lady Gaga on the cover of the Sept 2012 issue of Vogue magazine.

The issue will be available on newsstands nationwide on Aug 21. — AP

L

ady Gaga is one of the most visible celebrities in the world, but she says not everything she does is documented. In the September issue of Vogue magazine, Gaga says she likes to “feel a little irresponsible and act like I’m nineteen.”

The 26-year-old singer credits her friends for helping her not get caught by paparazzi. The September issue of Vogue is its 120th anniversary issue and the magazine’s largest yet. It goes on sale Aug 21. — AP

Travis arrested naked, charged with DWI

Peaches films video in support of Pussy Riot

A

bout 400 people joined Canadian electro-pop performance artist Peaches in a Berlin park to show support for the members of a feminist band on trial in Russia for performing a “punk prayer” against President Vladimir Putin.

The three Pussy Riot band members are awaiting a verdict next week in their Moscow trial on charges of hooliganism motivated religious hatred for the February performance.

The trial has been seen as part of the widening government crackdown on dissent in Russia and has been widely criticized.

Peaches, who lives in Berlin, told the dapd news agency in a story yesterday that the crowd showed up in Berlin’s Mauerpark Wednesday after she spread the word over social media networks that she needed people for a video for her newly-penned song “Free Pussy Riot.”— AP

The Monkees to tour for 1st time since Davy Jones’ death The Monkees

C

ountry singer Randy Travis was charged with driving while intoxicated and threatening law officers after he crashed his Pontiac Trans Am and was found naked and combative at the scene, Texas officials said. The accident was reported Tuesday night, and Travis walked out of jail Wednesday morning wearing scrubs, no shoes and a University of Texas baseball cap. It was the second Texas arrest this year for Travis, who was cited in February for This photo provided public intoxication. A Pontiac Trans Am by the Grayson registered to the 53-year-old singer had County, Texas, veered off a roadway near Tioga, a town Sheriff’s Office shows about 60 miles north of Dallas where the Country singer Randy entertainer lives, and struck several barTravis who has been charged with driving ricades in a construction zone, said Tom while intoxicated.—AP Vinger, spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Vinger said Travis made threats against DPS troopers and was not wearing clothes at the time of his arrest. The singer refused sobriety tests so a blood specimen was taken, he said. “Travis had a strong odor of alcoholic beverage on his breath and several signs of intoxication,” according to a statement from the Grayson County Sheriff’s Office. “While Travis was being transported, Travis made threats to shoot and kill the troopers working the case.” —AP

T

ime to fire up the Davy Jones hologram? The surviving members of pop band the Monkees will tour together for the first time since the February death of singer Davy Jones, the band said this week. Guitarist Michael Nesmith slyly broke the news Tuesday night on his Facebook page, writing in detail about “the most amazing gazpacho” that he had made Tuesday night before letting slip, “And Micky and Peter and I are going to do twelve concerts in November here in the States.”

The tour kicks off Nov 8 at the California Center for the Arts in Escondido, Calif., and includes dates in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Chicago, Cleveland and New York. Tickets for the Escondido show go on presale Friday. The tour will offer “classic hits, deep cuts and fan favorites,” literature for the tour

notes. Though Jones - who died of a heart attack in February at the age of 66 - had toured occasionally with bandmates Peter Tork and Micky Dolenz over the years (including a 45th anniversary tour last year), Nesmith has generally steered clear of the reunions. This will mark the first time in 15 years that Tork, Dolenz and Nesmith have performed together, according to the tour announcement.

Jones will be honored “in the show’s multimedia content,” according to Rolling Stone. The group, which rose to fame on their eponymous TV series, which ran on NBC from 1966 to 1968, racked up a string of hits including “Daydream Believer,” “Last Train to Clarksville” and “I’m a Believer.” Dolenz will release a solo album, “Remember,” on Sept 25.—Reuters

FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Al-Madena Al-Shohada’a Al-Shuwaikh Al-Nuzha Sabhan Al-Helaly Al-Fayhaa Al-Farwaniya Al-Sulaibikhat Al-Fahaheel Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh Ahmadi Al-Mangaf Al-Shuaiba Al-Jahra Al-Salmiya

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03:46 11:54 15:29 18:33 19:58

Relationships FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Bonding over the last journey

In cemeteries, friendship grows among grieving parents

O

n a triangle of grass near the back corner of a cemetery, over the tiny graves of children, a small community of parents has formed around the grief and sorrow and shared experience of car accidents and stillbirths, cancer and lengthy hospital stays that, in each case, ended the same sad way. Amid a landscape of green lawns and gray monuments and markers, the children’s section at Queen of Heaven Cemetery is a burst of color that belies the sadness. At Halloween, grave sites are decorated with plastic jack O’ lanterns and witches. At Christmas, they are adorned with Santas, candy canes and wreaths. And at Valentine’s Day, small red hearts, roses and balloons dot a fresh snowfall.

Here, couples such as Jorge and Aurora Castaneda get to know Julio Munoz and his wife Rosa Ortiz, seeing each other after church, friendship forged around losses: The Castanedas’ daughter, Jayleen, died in October 2008, at the age of 5, after a series of illnesses, while Munoz and Ortiz’s first child, Kamila Estrella, a girl, was stillborn in January 2008, days before Ortiz was scheduled to give birth.

The two children are buried steps from one another near the point of that triangle of grass. A tall and white wooden cross with a silver star atop it stands over Kamila’s gravestone, while a black marble stone with a fine etching of her face rests over Jayleen’s grave.

“Sometimes our families avoid talking about what happened,” said Ortiz, a social worker.

“But with people who have been through the same thing, we can share. We can cry with them. Even if we don’t know them, everyone who comes here we know just how they’re feeling.”

Said 33-year-old Jorge Castaneda, who lives in Berwyn, Ill., with his wife: “The thing is, people here know our pain. They’ve had the same experience. They feel like family.

They know the hurt doesn’t go away easily.

And you can talk to them. Nobody tells you to get over it already.”

That friendship can be a welcome byproduct of deep sorrow - that some good can come from a family tragedy - is, in a way, comforting. “It’s natural for them to share their grief, their sadness, their dreams and hopes,” said Roman Szabelski, the executive director of the Catholic Cemeteries for the Archdiocese of Chicago. “They’ve experienced something very painful. So they’re in this experience together.”

This section of the cemetery is mostly for infants, though a small number of young children are buried here, too. They are in plots 1-foot-by-2-feet rather than the standard 3-feet-by-8-feet dimensions of adult plots, their tiny caskets sometimes carried to the cemetery in the front seat of a family car.

Because the plots are smaller, the density is greater. As a result, families get to know one another, often on Sundays when the area is teeming with parents and their children running around and playing.

Parents talk of seeing others come here with lawn chairs or grills in the spring and summer, spending several hours sitting and chatting. Munoz said he once saw a woman pull a sleeping bag out of her car, lay it down near her child’s grave and crawl inside as if to go to sleep.

Parents opt for the children’s section, Szabelski said, because they often are young, just starting out in life, and not ready to purchase a family plot _ the kind of financial

commitment many are not yet equipped to make. Others do not know how the next decades will play out or even whether they will remain in the Chicago area. Putting down those sorts of roots, for them, is premature.

“They have no idea what the future is going to hold for them,” said Szabelski. “So the children’s sections make a lot of sense.”

The sense of community comes, too, from the fact that the death of a child or a stillbirth is a rare thing today, said Thomas

sections or in spaces that do not easily accommodate graves for adults. They are not profit-making areas.

At Queen of Heaven, in west suburban Hillside, the first children’s area, Section 18W, was started in 1954, seven years after the cemetery opened. Many of the youths who died in the 1959 fire at Our Lady of the Angels school, which killed 92 students and three nuns, were buried in Section 18W. Queen of Heaven’s second section for children’s graves, Section P, opened in 1992,

Over time, she and her husband have gotten to know other families. In some instances, they have come to recognize parents who visit at the same time they do. They often stop and chat, but Osuna said she can also tell when parents are not ready for conversation.

In that case, she leaves them be. “A lot of people become friendly here. It’s funny it happens like that,” she said. “But some people, they want you to leave them alone.” On a wind-whipped day recently, Munoz and

At Queen of Heaven Cemetery, Rosa Ortiz, her husband Julio Munoz and their son Gabriel Munoz, 2, leave plastic flowers, windmills and other decorations on the grave of their daughter Kamilla Estrella, who was stillborn. She died in 2008. — MCT Lynch, the Michigan funeral director who is an acclaimed poet and essayist. A century ago, Lynch said, Americans were accustomed to burying children, so it was not unusual for them to buy a family plot and inter children there, or for families to know others who had experienced the same loss.

“It’s become such a statistical anomaly now that a young mother feels alone,” said Lynch, whose book, “The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade,” explored how we deal with death and its attendant rituals. “Where she’ll find other parents who have paid the same tuition she’s paid is at the cemetery. The idea of a community gathering up around shared loss makes sense.

They can speak their own language.”

Making the burial of a child rarer still are rising rates of cremation. In 1960, said Lynch, only 5 percent of people were cremated.

Today that figure is more than 40 percent.

Most Catholic cemeteries have sections for children, and some township cemeteries do as well, said Lynch. Often, these sections are along a cemetery’s back row, between other

said Szabelski. That is where Kamila is buried.

Munoz, 29, an audiovisual technician, said he and his wife never gave much thought to purchasing a family plot. When someone at the hospital where Ortiz was treated told them about the children’s area at Queen of Heaven, they knew they had found a perfect resting place. “This,” said Munoz, “is going to be her little spot.”

Damaris Osuna, whose 6-month-old son Jacob died in a car accident in April 2006, said she and her husband and three other boys often celebrate holidays at the cemetery. At Christmas they usually leave an artificial tree they decorate with ornaments, at Easter an Easter basket and on what would be Jacob’s birthday in October, they bring a cake and picnic basket and spend an entire afternoon. “It’s something nice for all the babies to have their own section, to have them all in one spot,” said Osuna, 29, who lives in Chicago with her husband Angel and their boys. “I’ve always been glad that we found out about it. It’s the perfect cemetery to have somebody buried at.”

Ortiz parked their car on the road alongside Kamila’s grave and brought out a pair of colorful plastic flowers and pushed the stems into the wet ground. They imagined what their daughter would be like now, just weeks after what would have been her fourth birthday, how she would get along with her 2 {year-old brother, Gabriel, and what sort of future she might have had. — MCT

Stars

FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Aries (March 21-April 19) There are plenty of employment opportunities today. If you do not have a job—go for interviews. If you have a job, ask what you can do to begin an employee upgrade. You can make a big move in your employment opportunities now. You can receive extra work benefits, or hire extra help if you need it. Many rewarding job offers can come your way, especially those related to publishing, teaching, travel, foreign trade, law, hospitals or churches. New appliances at home or machinery at work can make life easier and increase your output. It’s a good time to join a professional or union association. You can join a medical or health care plan, find a new doctor, lawyer or accountant, improve your diet and provide yourself with a better wardrobe.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) You have private goals to be realized now as your domestic life becomes more important to you. This will necessitate that you gain better control of your financial security and earning power during this time. Initially, you will need to be more resourceful in these finances. Through hard work and prudent organization, you will gradually build up your savings and wealth. During this period, you tend to desire greater freedom and excitement in your fantasies, inspirations and your visualization of the future. You tend to be more secretive, read more novels and attend the cinema or theater more at this time. You may enjoy learning new healing techniques that include some form of new wave therapy or learn how to gain more psychological insight.

Gemini (May 21-June 20) You can win a promotion or gain public recognition.

Your skills can receive attention from people in high positions and the general public. You have extra enthusiasm to work hard to improve your career and social status. Be responsible. Conversations, whether you are talking or you are listening, become most insightful.

Letters and phone calls may take much of your time this afternoon. You have needs and you sense the needs of others; fitting the two together makes life run well for you. Music is likely to play a more important role for you than usual; a period of learning, recording, creating is fun. It may be time to purchase better equipment upon which to play or listen to your music. Enjoy the evening; romance is the real highlight.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) You have been working on keeping a focus and have learned a few techniques that help you within your professional life. Take this one step further and consider taking a class to better your professional classification; you can achieve the edge that is needed now. If you decide you require no further education for your professional choice, you might decide to enroll in programs of education that will create a learning experience in science, mathematics or philosophy. As the magnitude of your goal strikes you, you may be prone to stress; however, look at these new excursions as positive experiences to fine-tune your skills. As you organize your thoughts into more focused writings, you will gradually emphasize ideas that will create a polish to your work.

Leo (July 23-August 22) You are determined and deliberate when it comes to mental work. You study well and can be the type of individual that people depend upon to call the results or give the last word.

You do not flaunt your wisdom but you have a good memory and can back up what you know with the reference to your reading material.

Listening to the news and reading one paper doesn’t fill your mind properly; you have to have a vast variety of information and you can assimilate it quickly. Knowledge is fun and you enjoy the attention that it brings to be a well-read individual. You might think about news reporting . . . if you haven’t already. You have private goals now as your domestic life becomes most important. A new family member will soon come into your life.

Virgo (August 23-September 22) Gathering and exchanging information is important today as you scurry around—perhaps getting ready for an important meeting, a test or an appointment. You are either teaching others or you are preparing to be taught. A lot of vigor goes into getting things organized. Today is also a time of refinement and tact, of an urge to influence, sell or please others. Excavating an area and discovering a part of the past takes great vision and knowledge of people and history.

You have that potential and if you are not already involved in some form of this subject, you may find it quite exciting to be in on a dig . . . even if you do this on an adventure vacation. This is a subject of conversation this evening as you enjoy your dinner with a co-worker friend.

Libra (September 23-October 22) This today the right time to make the changes necessary for a better life. This could mean that you make moves to get a new job, change your living space, stop smoking or go for that special job change. You appreciate your particular situation and enjoy support from those around you. Being on the go and keeping a finger to the winds of change make you feel in touch. Learning is an invigorating experience for you. You can really communicate and successfully express yourself. Sharp and penetrating insight into your own inner workings and what is hidden or going on behind the scenes, is also good for research and analysis. Improvements in all areas of your life are possible this day. This is a time of good fortune and positive changes.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) This is a great time to be with others and to work together. You may find that both your personal growth and your career may depend upon how you can handle some ethical question at this time. You will benefit from logical insights, getting to the heart of things. The supportive help of a woman or a girl can be an important factor that will affect business and increase your sense of security. You are a fine psychologist, researcher or detective and good at dealing with joint or others’ finances. There is a feeling of being at peace and stable on the emotional level now. Stability and permanence satisfies a deep emotional need. Music is likely to fill the air with pleasant minutes this evening. You may enjoy a concert or just being with friends.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) You may increase finances through unexpected boons.

Either way, you should not let finances completely dominate your concerns. There is a tendency for you to be extremely hard working and ambitious on the professional level just now. You may tend to ignore others in order to concentrate on your own work. Careful, some time today you may need to take on a team attitude, so do not alienate fellow workers too quickly. You are tuned in to the thoughts and feelings of friends and family this afternoon. You may be of tremendous help to an associate, stranger or friend of someone in the family because of your compassionate nature. You will find it easy to relax tonight—laughter and light conversation completes the evening.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19) Most days, you find it easy to solve problems. Your thinking and communication skills flow along smoothly and quickly. This could be one of the better days for speaking, teaching or presenting new ideas to others. You may receive news that will move you into action on some project. This time is also favorable for short trips and letter writing. Others acknowledge your intelligence and informed ideas. You can make steady progress toward career goals now. With honesty and integrity, you enjoy your responsibilities. Your superiors tend to give you their approval and trust. You can soon pay off old debts and obligations and organize more ambitious, creative plans for the future.

Sudden changes in routine are to your advantage.

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) You may often be sought after as just the right person for a particular job. This is a good day to get things done. You have good eye-hand coordination and an ability to establish what is needed to solve problems or complete projects. Any career that you seek in which you will be of service to others is a perfect choice; you want very much to be helpful to others. You may feel like exercising or getting out this afternoon. The transition from work to home may be used for some form of exercise. Any exercise activity will help eliminate the buildup of stress from the workday. There is a period of greater social involvement now—especially with neighbors and siblings tonight. Being in touch with other people gives you a sense of belonging.

Pisces (February 19-March 20) Your optimistic attitude and self-respect opens the door for growth and social expansion. Good luck helps you towards your business, financial and professional goals today. Influential people give you the support you need. This day is favorable for travel, learning, creative activities and romantic opportunities. Your vitality and sense of optimism are strong and you can take constructive action to expand your financial, professional or educational endeavors. This evening you will be expressing your creative side. You are coming into a creative and competitive phase now—one in which you want to be appreciated for what you do and who you are. Romance and such creative pursuits as hobbies are an outlet for much of your passion now.

COUNTRY CODES Afghanistan 0093 Albania 00355 Algeria 00213 Andorra 00376 Angola 00244 Anguilla 001264 Antiga 001268 Argentina 0054 Armenia 00374 Australia 0061 Austria 0043 Bahamas 001242 Bahrain 00973 Bangladesh 00880 Barbados 001246 Belarus 00375 Belgium 0032 Belize 00501 Benin 00229 Bermuda 001441 Bhutan 00975 Bolivia 00591 Bosnia 00387 Botswana 00267 Brazil 0055 Brunei 00673 Bulgaria 00359 Burkina 00226 Burundi 00257 Cambodia 00855 Cameroon 00237 Canada 001 Cape Verde 00238 Cayman Islands 001345 Central African Republic 00236 Chad 00235 Chile 0056 China 0086 Colombia 0057 Comoros 00269 Congo 00242 Cook Islands 00682 Costa Rica 00506 Croatia 00385 Cuba 0053 Cyprus 00357 Cyprus (Northern) 0090392 Czech Republic 00420 Denmark 0045 Diego Garcia 00246 Djibouti 00253 Dominica 001767 Dominican Republic 001809 Ecuador 00593 Egypt 0020 El Salvador 00503 England (UK) 0044 Equatorial Guinea 00240 Eritrea 00291 Estonia 00372 Ethiopia 00251 Falkland Islands 00500 Faroe Islands 00298 Fiji 00679 Finland 00358 France 0033 French Guiana 00594 French Polynesia 00689 Gabon 00241 Gambia 00220 Georgia 00995 Germany 0049 Ghana 00233 Gibraltar 00350 Greece 0030 Greenland 00299 Grenada 001473 Guadeloupe 00590 Guam 001671 Guatemala 00502 Guinea 00224 Guyana 00592 Haiti 00509 Holland (Netherlands)0031 Honduras 00504 Hong Kong 00852 Hungary 0036 Ibiza (Spain) 0034 Iceland 00354 India 0091 Indian Ocean 00873 Indonesia 0062 Iran 0098 Iraq 00964 Ireland 00353 Italy 0039 Ivory Coast 00225 Jamaica 001876 Japan 0081 Jordan 00962 Kazakhstan 007 Kenya 00254 Kiribati 00686

Kuwait 00965 Kyrgyzstan 00996 Laos 00856 Latvia 00371 Lebanon 00961 Liberia 00231 Libya 00218 Lithuania 00370 Luxembourg 00352 Macau 00853 Macedonia 00389 Madagascar 00261 Majorca 0034 Malawi 00265 Malaysia 0060 Maldives 00960 Mali 00223 Malta 00356 Marshall Islands 00692 Martinique 00596 Mauritania 00222 Mauritius 00230 Mayotte 00269 Mexico 0052 Micronesia 00691 Moldova 00373 Monaco 00377 Mongolia 00976 Montserrat 001664 Morocco 00212 Mozambique 00258 Myanmar (Burma) 0095 Namibia 00264 Nepal 00977 Netherlands (Holland)0031 Netherlands Antilles 00599 New Caledonia 00687 New Zealand 0064 Nicaragua 00505 Nigar 00227 Nigeria 00234 Niue 00683 Norfolk Island 00672 Northern Ireland (UK)0044 North Korea 00850 Norway 0047 Oman 00968 Pakistan 0092 Palau 00680 Panama 00507 Papua New Guinea 00675 Paraguay 00595 Peru 0051 Philippines 0063 Poland 0048 Portugal 00351 Puerto Rico 001787 Qatar 00974 Romania 0040 Russian Federation 007 Rwanda 00250 Saint Helena 00290 Saint Kitts 001869 Saint Lucia 001758 Saint Pierre 00508 Saint Vincent 001784 Samoa US 00684 Samoa West 00685 San Marino 00378 Sao Tone 00239 Saudi Arabia 00966 Scotland (UK) 0044 Senegal 00221 Seychelles 00284 Sierra Leone 00232 Singapore 0065 Slovakia 00421 Slovenia 00386 Solomon Islands 00677 Somalia 00252 South Africa 0027 South Korea 0082 Spain 0034 Sri Lanka 0094 Sudan 00249 Suriname 00597 Swaziland 00268 Sweden 0046 Switzerland 0041 Syria 00963 Taiwan 00886 Tanzania 00255 Thailand 0066 Toga 00228 Tonga 00676 Tokelau 00690 Trinidad 001868 Tunisia 00216 Turkey 0090 Tuvalu 00688 Uganda 00256 Ukraine 00380 United Arab Emirates00976

Comics

To Yester

Word Sleuth Solution

Yesterday’s Solution

C R O S S W O R D

7 6 3

FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

ACROSS

1. A unit of pressure.

4. Large high frilly cap with a full crown.

10. South American wood sorrel cultivated for its edible tubers.

13. Slender bristlelike appendage found on the bracts of grasses.

14. Small space in a tissue or part such as the area between veins on a leaf or an insect's wing.

15. (informal) Roused to anger.

16. An audiotape recording of sound.

17. A man who serves as a sailor.

18. Title for a civil or military leader (especially in Turkey).

19. English theoretical physicist who applied relativity theory to quantum mechanics and predicted the existence of antimatter and the positron (1902-1984).

21. Diabetes caused by a relative or absolute deficiency of insulin and characterized by polyuria.

22. (of complexion) Blemished by imperfections of the skin.

24. A kind of heavy jacket (`windcheater' is a British term).

26. United States writer (born in Poland) who wrote in Yiddish (1880-1957).

28. A constellation in the southern hemisphere near Telescopium and Norma.

29. Grayish baboon of southern and eastern Africa.

33. An inhabitant of ancient Thebes.

37. The cry made by sheep.

38. Harsh or corrosive in tone.

40. The longer of the two telegraphic signals used in Morse code.

44. The capital and largest city of Yemen.

47. The principles of right and wrong that are accepted by an individual or a social group.

48. A particular geographical region of indefinite boundary (usually serving some special purpose or distinguished by its people or culture or geography).

50. According to the Old Testament he was a pagan king of Israel and husband of Jezebel (9th century BC).

54. Towards the side away from the wind.

58. An amino acid that is found in the central nervous system.

59. An honorary degree in science.

60. Any of several tropical and subtropical treelike herbs of the genus Musa having a terminal crown of large entire leaves and usually bearing hanging clusters of elongated fruits.

62. A serve that strikes the net before falling into the receiver's court.

63. An associate degree in applied science.

64. A port city in southwestern Iran.

65. A federal agency established to regulate the release of new foods and health-related products.

DOWN 1. A genus of Ploceidae.

2. A man who is the lover of a girl or young woman.

3. Formally making a person known to another or to the public.

4. Makeup that is used to darken and thicken the eye lashes.

5. A metal-bearing mineral valuable enough to be mined.

6. A small ball with a hole through the middle.

7. A punctuation mark (,) used to indicate the separation of elements within the grammatical structure of a sentence.

8. A flat wing-shaped process or winglike part of an organism.

9. Distinctive and stylish elegance.

10. A strategically located monarchy on the southern and eastern coasts of the Arabian Peninsula.

11. An enclosure made or wire or metal bars in which birds or animals are

kept.

12. (Babylonian) God of storms and wind.

20. An Arabic speaking person who lives in Arabia or North Africa.

23. A human female who does housework.

25. Valuable fiber plant of East Indies now widespread in cultivation.

27. Any of a number of fishes of the family Carangidae.

30. The closing section of a musical composition.

31. The food served and eaten at one time.

32. United States tennis player who was the first Black to win United States and English singles championships (1943-1993).

34. (astronomy) The angular distance of a celestial point measured westward along the celestial equator from the zenith crossing.

35. (Akkadian) God of wisdom.

36. A legally binding command or decision entered on the court record (as if issued by a court or judge).

39. A city in Lombardy on the Po River.

40. A punctuation mark (,) used to indicate the separation of elements within the grammatical structure of a sentence.

41. A plant hormone promoting elongation of stems and roots.

42. A silvery soft waxy metallic element of the alkali metal group.

43. A narcotic that is considered a hard drug.

45. Any of several tall tropical palms native to southeastern Asia having eggshaped nuts.

46. In such a manner as could not be otherwise.

49. Someone who works (or provides workers) during a strike.

51. Consisting of one of two equivalent parts in value or quantity.

52. In bed.

53. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake Chad.

55. A loose sleeveless outer garment made from aba cloth.

56. A boy or man.

57. A nucleic acid consisting of large molecules shaped like a double helix.

61. An associate degree in nursing.

Yesterday’s Solution

Sports FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Yankees tame Tigers DETROIT: New York’s Curtis Granderson snapped out of a short slump by hitting his 30th homer of the season and driving in four runs to help the Yankees beat Detroit 12-8 on Wednesday, ending the Tigers’ six-game winning streak.

Granderson batted sixth in the lineup for the first time since May because he had two straight 0-for-5 games and just four hits in his previous 25 at-bats. The change seemed to work as he had an RBI single in the first, a home run in the third and a double in the seventh. He matched his season high for RBIs. Down 7-0 at one point, the Tigers closed to 8-7 in the seventh, ending the game for New York starter CC Sabathia (12-3), who gave up eight hits and struck out seven over 6 23 innings. The AL East-leading Yankees then pulled away.

Detroit had won 10 straight at home, matching its best streak in 13 seasons at Comerica Park. Tigers starter Anibal Sanchez (1-2) gave up seven runs and hit two batters over three-plus innings.

Rangers 10, Red Sox 9 At Boston, Adrian Beltre had a tiebreaking sacrifice fly in the ninth inning as Texas recovered from blowing a late four-run lead and squeezed past Boston. Josh Hamilton homered among his three hits and had four RBIs for the Rangers, which couldn’t hold a 9-5 lead but still snuck home.

Texas’ Alexi Ogando (2-0) worked two perfect innings of relief for the win. Joe Nathan pitched the ninth for the save.

With the score tied 9-9, Elvis Andrus walked and moved to third on Hamilton’s single off Clayton Mortensen (1-1), and was brought home by Beltre’s sacrifice fly.

Athletics 9, Angels 8 At Oakland, California, Chris Carter hit a two-run homer to cap a five-run sixth inning which lifted Oakland over Los Angeles. A’s rookie Dan Straily gave up four homers in his second career start, and reliever Pat Neshek (1-0) took the win. Ryan Cook gave up two runs in the ninth before escaping with the save.

allowed one run, striking out seven. The Rays clinched their 16th consecutive home series win over Toronto by winning the first two games of the three-game set. The longest such streak in AL history is 19, held by the New York Yankees against the St Louis Browns from 1946-51. Fernando Rodney got the save despite giving up a one-out, solo homer in the ninth. Blue Jays starter Carlos Villanueva (6-2), who rejoined the team Tuesday after tending to a personal matter, gave up three runs in six innings.

Royals 2, White Sox 1 At Chicago, Jeremy Guthrie picked up his first victory since May, going eight innings as Kansas City edged Chicago. Guthrie (1-3) got his first win with the Royals since arriving in a late July trade from Colorado. He struck out five and walked none. Solo home runs by Mike Moustakas and Salvador Perez provided all the runs for Kansas City. Greg Holland gave up a run-scoring single in the bottom of the ninth but picked up the save. White Sox starter Jose Quintana (4-2) worked seven innings and gave up five hits.

Indians 6, Twins 2 At Cleveland, Justin Masterson pitched seven strong innings and Choo Shin-soo went 4-for-4 as Cleveland beat Minnesota to end an 11-game losing streak. The Indians avoided tying the 1931 franchise record for consecutive losses. Cleveland, which was outscored 95-36 in the streak, won for the first time since July 26. Masterson (8-10) allowed two runs and three hits in seven innings. His only mistake came when Alexi Casilla hit his first home run of the season a two-run shot in the fifth. Choo drove in two runs with a double in the first and a single in the second — AP

Orioles 9, Mariners 2 At Baltimore, Steve Johnson struck out nine over six innings in his first major league start, guiding Baltimore to a three-game sweep of Seattle. Johnson (1-0) gave up two runs after being called up from the minors to sub for Tommy Hunter, who was scratched because he threw in the bullpen Tuesday. His debut starter came exactly 23 years after his father, former Orioles pitcher Dave Johnson, made his first career start in Baltimore. Matt Wieters tied a career high with five RBIs for the Orioles, who have won five straight. The Orioles built a 7-0 lead by the fourth inning against former teammate Kevin Millwood (4-10) and cruised to the finish.

The Mariners have lost four straight.

Rays 3, Blue Jays 2 At St Petersburg, Alex Cobb pitched seven solid innings to steer Tampa Bay to a tight win over Toronto. Cobb (6-8)

DETROIT: New York Yankees’ Curtis Granderson rounds the bases after hitting a three-run home run against the Detroit Tigers in the third inning.— AP

MLB results/standings Cleveland 6, Minnesota 2; Texas 10, Boston 9; Milwaukee 3, Cincinnati 2; Oakland 9, LA Angels 8; San Diego 2, Chicago Cubs 0; Baltimore 9, Seattle 2; NY Yankees 12, Detroit 8; Atlanta 12, Philadelphia 6; Pittsburgh 7, Arizona 6; Tampa Bay 3, Toronto 2; Miami 13, NY Mets 0; Washington 4, Houston 3; Kansas City 2, Chicago White Sox 1; San Francisco 15, St. Louis 0; LA Dodgers 6, Colorado 4.

American League Eastern Division W L NY Yankees 64 46 60 51 Baltimore Tampa Bay 58 52 Boston 55 57 Toronto 53 57 Central Division Chicago White Sox 60 50 Detroit 60 51 Cleveland 51 60 Minnesota 49 62 Kansas City 47 63 Western Division Texas 65 45 Oakland 60 51 LA Angels 59 53 Seattle 51 62

PCT .582 .541 .527 .491 .482

GB 4.5 6 10 11

.545 .541 .459 .441 .427

0.5 9.5 11.5 13

.591 .541 .527 .451

5.5 7 15.5

Washington Atlanta NY Mets Miami Philadelphia Cincinnati Pittsburgh St. Louis Milwaukee Chicago Cubs Houston San Francisco LA Dodgers Arizona San Diego Colorado

National League Eastern Division 68 43 64 47 53 58 51 60 50 61 Central Division 66 45 63 47 60 51 51 59 43 66 36 76 Western Division 61 50 60 52 56 55 49 64 40 69

.613 .577 .477 .459 .450

4 15 17 18

.595 .573 .541 .464 .394 .321

2.5 6 14.5 22 30.5

.550 .536 .505 .434 .367

1.5 5 13 20

Giants, Pirates advance ST LOUIS: San Francisco’s Marco Scutaro hit a grand slam and drove in a career-high seven runs, as the Giants romped past St Louis 15-0 in the National League on Wednesday.

Scutaro had an RBI single in the third, a two-run double in the eighth and then hit his third career slam in the ninth. Ahead 2-0, the Giants broke it open with five runs in the sixth. They turned the game into a rout with four runs in the eighth and four more in the ninth.

San Francisco starter Ryan Vogelsong (10-5) pitched seven scoreless innings. He has gone at least six innings in all 21 of his starts, the longest such streak for a Giants pitcher since Bill Swift did it 24 straight times in 1993. St Louis’ Joe Kelly (2-5) took the loss.

enth. Chad Durbin (4-1) tossed a perfect sixth to earn the win.

Pirates 7, D’backs 6 In Pittsburgh, Neil Walker homered and drove in five runs as Pittsburgh beat Arizona despite giving up four errors. Walker hit a three-run homer in the first - his career-high 13th of the season - and added a two-run double in the fifth to give Pittsburgh the lead for good.

Pirates starter Kevin Correia (9-6) allowed three earned runs in six innings in his first start since the Pirates removed him from the rotation after they acquired Wandy Rodriguez. Correia has won seven straight decisions.

Pittsburgh has the majors’ best home record at 35-17. Arizona starter Ian Kennedy (10-9) was charged with six runs in four-plus innings. He had won his four previous starts.

Nationals 4, Astros 3 In Houston, Gio Gonzalez pitched nine innings and hit a home run - both career firsts - to lead Washington past Houston.

Nationals manager Davey Johnson was hoping Gonzalez (146) could go deep into this game after his bullpen had been taxed with games of 11 and 12 innings to start this series.

He got just what he wanted from Gonzalez, whose other complete game was an eight-inning outing with Oakland in 2010. Things got dicey in the ninth when he allowed three hits and a run and had the tying run on third before striking out Matt Downs to end the game.

Gonzalez put the NL East leaders ahead for good in the second with a two-run homer off Armando Galarraga (0-2).

Brewers 3, Reds 2 In Milwaukee, Ryan Braun snapped an 18-at bat slump with an RBI double in the eighth inning, lifting Milwaukee to a three-game sweep of Cincinnati.

Cincinnati’s Jonathan Broxton (1-1) started the eighth with the Reds leading 2-1. He retired the first two batters before an infield single

by Norichka Aoki. Aoki stole second and took third on a throwing error.

Carlos Gomez hit a soft liner that just got over the outstretched glove of the shortstop and Aoki scored to tie the game. Gomez stole second and Braun followed with a sharp liner to drive in Gomez. Brewers reliever John Axford (4-6) pitched the eighth for the win and Jim Henderson secured the save.

Dodgers 6, Rockies 4 In Los Angeles, Chad Billingsley gave up an inside-the-park home run on his fourth pitch of the game but steadied to win his fourth straight start, as Los Angeles beat Colorado.

Billingsley (8-9) was charged with seven hits in 6 1-3 innings and struck out five against a starting lineup that included five rookie position players. Matt Kemp hit a three-run homer for the Dodgers.

Carlos Torres (1-1) took the loss.

Braves 12, Phillies 6 In Philadelphia, Dan Uggla hit a tiebreaking three-run double in the seventh as Atlanta recovered from blowing a five-run lead and beat Philadelphia.

The Phillies scored five runs in the fifth to tie the game 6-6, but the wild card-leading Braves scored four runs after Antonio Bastardo (24) got the first two outs in the sev-

Marlins 13, Mets 0 In New York, Giancarlo Stanton hit two two-run homers as Miami handed New York its ninth straight home loss. Stanton went deep twice against an ineffective Chris Young (3-6) and finished with four hits in his second game back from knee surgery.

Miami’s Jose Reyes also connected against his former team. He extended his hitting streak to a career-high 26 games, the longest in the majors this season.

After going seven games without a home run, Miami hit four in one night at Citi Field to back Nathan Eovaldi (3-7).

Padres 2, Cubs 0 In San Diego, Clayton Richard pitched a shutout as San Diego swept Chicago. Richard (9-11) pitched out of trouble three times to hand Chicago its eighth straight loss. Richard struck out five, walked one and hit a batter as the Cubs had a runner reach third base three times. Chicago scored just four runs across the three-game series.

San Diego’s runs came on Will Venable’s RBI double in the second inning and Yonder Alonso’s run-scoring single in the eighth.

Cubs starter Jeff Samardzija (710) allowed four hits in seven innings. — AP

Sports FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

PGA Championship wide open for the taking KIAWAH ISLAND: Predicting the winner at all the majors in recent years has been a near-impossible task and this week’s PGA Championship on the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Golf Resort is no exception. Sixteen different players have claimed the last 16 major titles, 12 of them first-time winners, and that trend could continue as players such as British world number one Luke Donald and Lee Westwood aim for their first grand slam crowns.

“Right now the fields are very deep,” Englishman Donald told reporters while preparing for late yesterday’s opening round at a rain-softened Kiawah Island. “A lot of guys have opportunities to win.

“There isn’t that one guy really distancing himself from the rest. I guess

the longer the streak goes, the more encouragement it gives to those guys who haven’t yet won a major, like myself.

“But I’m not sure if it changes anything for me. I’m not sure if it gives me too much more encouragement. I continue to focus on what I can do and hopefully give myself a chance on Sunday.” The dominant era of 14times major winner Tiger Woods ended four years ago, his aura of invincibility swiftly disappearing as he battled injuries and tried to rebuild his golf swing and private life following the breakup of his marriage. Though Woods has produced good form in fits and starts this year, winning a seasonhigh three times on the PGA Tour, he has always judged the true success of

his golfing campaigns by the number of majors won. He was in contention going into the weekend at the last two majors before fading, finishing joint 21st at the US Open and tying for third at the British Open.

“I’m pleased at the way I was able to play at certain parts of it and at certain times, and obviously disappointed that I did not win,” said world number two Woods whose most recent major victory came at the 2008 US Open.

“I’ve played in three major championships this year, and I didn’t win any of them. Things have progressed, but still, not winning a major championship doesn’t feel very good.” While Woods seeks a 15th major crown on the wind-swept Ocean Course at

Azarenka looks to protect top ranking, Sharapova out MONTREAL: Victoria Azarenka will play her first match since the London Olympics yesterday at the Montreal Cup with only one threat to her status as the world’s top female player left in the draw. Both Maria Sharapova and Agnieszka Radwanska came to Canada with a chance at uprooting Belarusian Azarenka, who will play Austrian Tamira Paszek in her opening match, from her perch atop the world rankings. But the sudden withdrawal of the Russian world number two earlier on Wednesday leaves only Radwanska, who will play German Mona Barthel in an early match late yesterday, as a threat.

Sharapova, the Olympic silver medallist, withdrew from the Aug. 413 Montreal event citing a stomach virus that had been bothering her since the London Games.

For Radwanska to reach the top of the world rankings for the first time, she needs to win the $2 million tournament and hope Azarenka is eliminated before the quarter-finals.

Sharapova, replaced in the draw by Galina Voskoboeva, said she initially felt unwell a day before her 6-0 6-1 loss to Serena Williams in the gold medal decider last Saturday but that the illness had worsened since arriving in Canada. “I came to Montreal hoping

that I would recover but this morning I was still not very well, so I was not going to be able to practice which is, you know, not the best preparation in order to compete tomorrow,” she told reporters on Wednesday. “We want to

MONTREAL: Australia’s Samantha Stosur returns the ball to Simona Halep, from Romania, during the Rogers Cup women’s tennis tournament in Montreal. —AP have the best preparation we can for the US Open and this is a really big tournament for us. Personally, I was here in order to play the tournament. I was ready but my body is just not ready for it, so you kind of have to make the smart decisions for your body.” Petra Kvitova and Sam Stosur,

who was runner-up to Williams in this tournament last year, were both successful in their first matches at the event on Wednesday night. Stosur overcame a 1-5 deficit and then three set points to claim the first set over Simona Halep 7-5. Then, after drawing level at 4-all in the second set, she progressed when her Romanian rival forfeited with a leg problem. Kvitova had a greater scare when within a game of losing to Ksenia Pervak. The 2011 Wimbledon champion trailed by a set and 5-6 before finding her form to defeat Pervak 4-6 7-6 (7-0) 6-0.

Canadian teenager Eugenie Bouchard gave local fans their biggest thrill of the day when she upset Shahar Peer 3-6 6-2 7-5 to join compatriot Aleksandra Wozniak in the second round. The reigning junior Wimbledon champion, who trains in Montreal, started brilliantly when claiming the first nine points of the match before Peer steadied. But Bouchard, a powerful ball striker off both wings, continued to play aggressively and showed poise deep in the third set to set up a meeting with China’s Li Na. Ana Ivanovic, the 11th seed, begins proceedings on Thursday against Italian Roberta Vinci on centre court, with Wozniak to follow against former world No, 1 Jelena Jankovic. —Reuters

Al-Roudhan Tournament KUWAIT: Kuwaitiya Investment soccer team ousted Defense Ministry 2-0 during the twentieth day of the late Abdallah Mushari Al-Roudhan SoccerTournament while Martyr Fahad Al-Ahmad defeated Holiday Inn 3-1 and Mohsen Al-Shimmari Diwaniya blanked UAE’s Al-Nasser 2-0.

Meanwhile second round competition continues today with three matches. The first will have Sheikh Talal Al-Mohammad against Talabat.com, the second will see Kuwait international. Bank against Kuwaitiya Investment and the third between Qadisiya and Al-Omar Diwaniya.

Kiawah Island, Northern Irishman McIlroy will be seeking a second to add to his 2011 US Open title.

“I’m disappointed that I have not contended since,” said world number three McIlroy, referring to his eightshot victory at last year’s US Open.

“That’s been the disappointing thing.

I haven’t given myself even a chance.

“It would be great just to give myself a chance this week, get into contention and just feel that buzz again of getting into contention in a major and remembering how it feels.” McIlroy and company will have to contend with a mixed bag of weather at Kiawah Island where rain, thunderstorms, lightning and gusts up to 30 mph (48.28 kph) have been forecast for the year’s final major. — Reuters

Murray moves into last 16 TORONTO: Andy Murray battled some pain but showed no signs of an Olympic hangover as the gold medallist moved into the last 16 of the Toronto Masters, while a fatigued Juan Martin del Potro was one of five seeds ousted on Wednesday.

Murray, playing his first match since his triumph at the London Games on Sunday, called out a trainer late in a 6-1 6-3 win over Italian Flavio Cipolla, which he later attributed to a change of playing surfaces from grass to a hard court.

“I feel on the grass courts the muscles get tired but the joints not so much, but on the hard courts the knees, ankles and hips take quite a fair pounding,” Murray, whose match was his first on a hard court since early March, told reporters.

“And because I haven’t had enough days to adjust to the surface that’s probably why there were a few aches and pains.” The Briton, who appeared to hurt himself while chasing down a forehand, occasionally rubbed his left knee and had about five minutes of massage on his left quadriceps while leading the final set 3-2.

Still, the second seed, who is scheduled to face big-serving Canadian Milos Raonic in the third round, managed to chase down drop shots and held his serve throughout the 82-minute match.

Defending champion Novak Djokovic cruised to a 6-2 63 win over Australian Bernard Tomic in 71 minutes, setting up a third-round match with American Sam Querrey, who upset 13th seed Kei Nishikori of Japan 6-2 6-3.

Third seed Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga was the highest seeded player eliminated on Wednesday, falling 6-4 7-6 to compatriot Jeremy Chardy.

Del Potro, whose Olympic semi-final loss to Roger Federer five days ago was the longest men’s three-set match played in the professional era, admitted fatigue got the better of him during a 6-4 7-6 defeat to Czech Radek Stepanek. “It’s not easy to play after a big effort in the Olympics,” the sixth seeded Argentine told reporters. “Now I need time to recover my body if I want to stay healthy.”

Del Potro, who was playing his first match since beating Djokovic for the bronze medal at the Olympics on Sunday, also said he had no doubt he would be ready for the Aug 27-Sept 9 US Open, where he won his sole grand slam in 2009.

In other action, fourth seed Tomas Berdych rallied for a 6-7 6-4 6-4 win over Julien Benneteau in a match that lasted just over three hours, while ninth seed Gilles Simon fell 6-2 6-2 to Germany’s Tommy Haas. Fifth seed Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia was a 7-6 6-4 winner over Russia’s Mikhail Youzhny, Croatian 10th seed Marin Cilic breezed

by Greece’s Marcos Baghdatis 7-5 6-3 and German 15th seed Florian Mayer fell 6-3 6-4 to Spain’s Marcel Granollers. —Reuters

London 2012 Olympic Games

FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

May-Treanor and Walsh win third gold LONDON: United States pair Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh won their third successive Olympic gold medal in women’s beach volleyball by beating compatriots Jennifer Kessy and April Ross in straight sets on Wednesday.

May-Treanor and Walsh took gold in Athens in 2004 and again in Beijing in 2008. No other beach volleyball team, men or women, have retained an Olympic title, let alone won a third.

At the end of the match, which finished 21-16 21-16, the two women fell to their knees face-to-face in the sand and hugged.

Then they got up, bathed in tears, and ran off in different directions to embrace family and friends, including Walsh’s two young sons, and do high fives with Olympic volunteers.

After a while, May-Treanor returned to the sand and performed a few solo dance moves, which she later described

as “the shuffle”. “It’s insane,” said Walsh, her mascara smudged from tears. “It doesn’t feel like it’s real. I told Misty when we were getting our medals, ‘If I wake up tomorrow and we have to replay this match I’m going to be furious’, because it feels like we’re in a dream.

“It truly feels surreal. And it didn’t feel like that the first two times, for whatever reason. But this is just, it’s almost too good to be true.”

Walsh was in tears throughout the medal ceremony, closing her eyes, throwing her head back and exhaling as she struggled to control her emotions.

May-Treanor, who will now retire from competition, smiled and appeared relaxed on the podium.

Kessy and Ross, the 2009 world champions, were competing in their first Olympics. They have spent much of their careers in the shadow of Walsh and MayTreanor and the final was no exception.

“They are the best team of all time,” said Kessy. The bronze medal went to

Brazilian world champions Juliana Felisberta and Larissa Franca, who staged a dazzling comeback earlier to beat China’s Xue Chen and Zhang Xi 1121 21-19 15-12 after being within two points of losing.

Juliana and Larissa arrived in London as the favourites but their dreams of gold unravelled when they were upset in the semi-finals by Kessy and Ross on Tuesday.

The Brazilians were unable to play together at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 because Juliana was out with a knee injury. Larissa teamed up with Ana Paula and they came fifth.

Despite the disappointment of missing out on the final, Juliana said a bronze was good enough to mark her outstanding partnership with Larissa. The duo have won the professional beach volleyball world tour six times.

“I cannot describe the sensation. I’m so happy,” she said. “Yesterday when I went to bed I said to Larissa, ‘I’m really proud to play with you in the Olympic

Games, it doesn’t matter about the result but for the experience together it’s wonderful’.” Xue and Zhang, bronze medallists in Beijing, had been expected to do better than in the last Games but they lost to May-Treanor and Walsh in their semi-final. Like the Brazilians, the Americans said the unique bond between them was at the heart of their success. “The bond we have, the understanding we have for each other is so special,” said May-Treanor. “The first two medals, the friendship we had was there, but it was more volleyall, volleyball. This was so much more about the friendship, the togetherness, the journey. Volleyball was just a small part of it.”

It was a remarkable outcome for MayTreanor and Walsh, who spent more than two years away from the sport after their gold medal in Beijing.

Walsh had two baby boys less than a year apart, while May-Treanor was out with an Achilles injury picked up rehearsing for the TV programme “Dancing with the Stars” in 2008. —Reuters

Fierce Five facing uncertain future LONDON: (From left) Tate Smith, Dave Smith, Murray Stewart, and Jacob Clear of Australia celebrate winning the gold medal in the men’s kayak four 1,000-meter sprint. — AP

Australia wins unexpected gold WINDSOR: Australia’s resurgence at the London Olympics was given momentum in the most unlikely of fashions yesterday.

The country’s canoe sprint squad has hardly been a guaranteed source of gold medals at summer games down the years - Australia had only won two in the sport’s 76-year Olympic history.

That turned into three on the second day of finals at a sun-kissed Dorney Lake, however, when a group of four surf lifesavers - Tate Smith, Dave Smith, Murray Stewart and Jacob Clear - stunned the established kayaking powers with a wire-to-wire win in the men’s 1,000-meter K-4.

It was Australia’s first team gold in canoe sprint - and took its overall tally at the London Games to six after wins by cyclist Anna Meares, 100-meter hurdler Sally Pearson and sailors Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen over the past three days.

“We’ve struggled a little this Olympics,” Tate Smith said. “We’ve been close but it’s the Olympic Games and it’s so hard to win a medal. “So to get this gold means everything to us.”

The day’s other victories came from German and Hungarian boats, leaving both nations with three golds at the top of the regatta’s medals table.

A day after finishing second in Germany’s previously all-conquering K-4 500 boat, Franziska Weber and Tina Dietze bounced back to win the K-2 final over the same distance ahead of Hungary. The Germans’ other victory came through Peter Kretschmer and Kurt Kuschela in the 1,000-meter C-2.

Danuta Kozak won her second gold of the regatta for Hungary, following up the K-4 win with success in the 500-meter K-1. That denied Josefa Idem, a 47-year-old Italian competing in her record eighth summer games, a glorious farewell at her final Olympics. Idem finished fifth. There was no mistaking the biggest upset on a sweltering day in Windsor, though. —AP

LONDON: They stood together, arms locked, Olympic gold medals around their necks and - for just a moment - between their teeth. The cameras flashed.

The exhausted Fierce Five smiled and just like that, it was over.

The best women’s gymnastics team in the world - Gabby Douglas, Aly Raisman, Jordyn Wieber, Kyla Ross and McKayla Maroney - then walked in single file toward the exit and into a busy but uncertain future. Sure, they’ll be together again when they return to the US next week as part of the media blitz that comes when you storm to Olympic glory. And there will be the cross-country exhibition tour through the fall. After that, who knows?

While women’s team coordinator Martha Karolyi believes the group could “physically and gymnastically go on for another quadrennium,” reality might not let them. They left home a month ago hoping to become the first American team to reach the top of the podium in 16 years.

They’ll leave the games famous.

All teenagers, there’s a chance they could have a reunion in Rio de Janeiro in four years. That is, if life doesn’t get in the way. “Things are going to change for us,” said Maroney, who added a silver on vault.

None of them more than Douglas, who won the all-around title and has suddenly become an A-lister. She’s going to hit the late-night TV circuit over the next few weeks and as the new face of her sport will be in high demand for advertisers eager to have her flashy smile hawking their product. Finding a balance between the gym and newfound celebrity is going to be difficult. Throw in the burnout of a yearlong buildup to the games and a series of nagging injuries and the prospect of gunning for a second straight gold in Brazil sounds exhausting. “We just finished the Olympics

LONDON: In this Tuesday, July 31, 2012, file photo, US gymnasts, (from left) Jordyn Wieber, Gabrielle Douglas, McKayla Maroney, Alexandra Raisman, Kyla Ross raise their hands on the podium during the medal ceremony during the Artistic Gymnastic women’s team final at the 2012 Summer Olympics. — AP yesterday,” Wieber said. “It’s kind of hard to think about.”

Maroney is in. At least for now. The feisty 16-year-old - who came up with the moniker “Fierce Five” during a brainstorming session - believes her stunning loss in the vault finals will be enough fuel to keep her primed. Ross is ready to go too. The youngest member of the team at 15 is also the group’s only amateur. She’ll do a handful of tour stops then return to high school and focus on the world championships next year in Belgium. Three-time medalist Raisman - who became the first American to grab gold on the floor exercise - isn’t ruling out three Olympics.

Wieber’s plan is to nurse an achy right leg, do the tour and then see where she’s at. The games were a disappointment for the world champion, who failed to get out of all-around qualifying and finished sev-

enth in the floor exercise finals.

Though she’s contemplated college, she’s still got a year of high school remaining. And because she turned pro, she won’t be able to compete on the college level.

Besides, she can’t imagine working under anyone other than lifelong coach John Geddert. The same goes for Douglas, who Liang Chow molded from raw talent into champion in less than two years. Chow thinks Douglas is only halfway to her potential and thinks her lean frame lends itself to a lengthy career. That is, if she can find the time. “Gabby has captured people,” said USA Gymnastics president Steve Penny. “We are looking to do what we can to grow our sport a little bit with her help into hopefully a new and talented audience.” It’s a role the first African-American to win an Olympic all-around title is eager to embrace. —AP

London 2012 Olympic Games

FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

China dominates platform semis LONDON: Chen Ruolin and China are dominating Olympic diving again. Defending champion Chen showed how far she is above the rest of the field in the semifinals of the women’s 10-meter platform at the London Games yesterday as she attempts to restore China to the top of the podium after an unexpected loss.

Chen was one of only two divers to score more than 80 points with a single dive - but she did it four times - to finish with a total of 407.25 points. “It was so-so,” Chen said. “There were some dives that were not perfect, some entries that were not perfect.”

Meaghan Benfeito of Canada qualified second with 359.90 points and Brittany Broben of Australia was third, less than half a point behind with

359.55. Melissa Wu of Australia, who earned a silver in 10-meter synchro four years ago, qualified fourth, while Pandelela Rinong Pamg of Malaysia was fifth. Wu wasn’t ready to hand Chen victory.

“Gold is never sewn up,” she said. “I just want to do five good dives and that’s my goal for the final.” Pamg, who finished second to Chen in Wednesday’s preliminary round, competed with a swimsuit featuring an image of the Olympic torch, with the word “Dream” written below the flame.

The top 12 finishers advanced to the final late yesterday. China has won five of six diving golds so far in London, including the women’s 10meter synchronized title claimed by Chen and Wang Hao. The country’s attempt to sweep all eight golds was

spoiled when Ilya Zakharov of Russia won the men’s 3-meter springboard on Tuesday.

“It’s encouraging me more,” Chen said. “I’m taking my competition even more seriously.” Chen stood second after the first round, which was led by Yulia Koltunova of Russia, who executed a difficult armstand dive well.

However, Koltunova then fell back and qualified sixth.

The only other diver to break the 80-point barrier was Broben, who earned 81.60 points for her second dive, an inward 3 1/2 somersault tuck.

Chen’s most successful dive came in the last round, when she was awarded 84.80 for a back 2 1/2 somersault pike with 1 1/2 twists, which drew loud cheers from the morning crowd inside the Olympic Aquatics Centre.

Chen won both the individual and

synchro titles before her home fans at the 2008 Beijing Games as a 15-yearold. She then swept both events at last year’s world championships in Shanghai.

Still, it wasn’t a completely successful morning for the favorites. China’s other competitor, 16-year-old Hu Yadan, qualified just ninth. Hu took silver behind Chen at last year’s worlds.

Christin Steuer of Germany advanced in seventh. She was in London as a reserve athlete and only got into the competition when her teammate Nora Subshinski withdrew because of a neck injury.

Paola Espinosa Sanchez of Mexico, who took silver with Alejandra Orozco in 10-meter synchro last week and bronze in the individual event at last year’s worlds, just made it in 11th. —AP

US and Spain on course for final LONDON: Turkey’s Servet Tazegul (blue) fights against Ukraine’s Hryhorii Husarov during their men’s taekwondo quarter-final bout in the under 68 kg category as part of the London 2012 Olympic Games. —AFP

Bonilla ends Spain’s wait LONDON: Joel Gonzalez Bonilla was proud to earn Spain’s first taekwondo gold medal on Wednesday and said his victory in the Olympic flyweight (-58kg) category was the culmination of four years of blood, sweat and tears.

“I’ve been through so much hard work to reach this gold, I’ve had so much support but also so much pain, but in the end it all paid off,” he told reporters after beating Lee Dae-hoon of South Korea in the final. “We’ve never managed to get gold in taekwondo until now so I’m so glad and it’s so great to be the first one.

“It’s been a fantastic year for me, I won the 2011 world championships and now the Olympics. It’s the icing on the cake after four years of hard work.” Bonilla swept through the competition and was particularly impressive in the semi-finals where he demolished Oscar Munoz Oviedo 13-4. He faced his toughest opponent in the final but was quicker and more accurate with his kicks than the shaggy-haired Korean, jumping into a 5-2 lead in the first round. Lee came back strongly but the Spaniard seemed to easily anticipate his opponent’s attacks and made him pay in the second round, picking him off as he rushed in. Midway though the round Bonilla decked Lee with a straight kick to the Korean’s face, bringing the crowd to its feet and moving the Spaniard into a seven-point lead. Lee threw caution to the wind in the final round and put Bonilla under immense pressure but he never looked flustered and continued to pick the Korean off to win 17-8.

The silver medallist, who had dropped down to 58kg from the 63kg category to compete at the Olympics, which only features four weight classes, was disappointed to miss out on gold but had no regrets about the final. — Reuters

LONDON: Holders United States and Spain are one step away from a rematch of the 2008 goldmedal game after recording quarter-final victories in the Olympic men’s basketball yesterday.

The US, getting a lift from Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, eliminated a game and gritty Australia team 119-86 while Spain prevailed 6659 in a tough and testy encounter with France.

The Americans now meet Argentina in Friday’s semi-finals while Spain take on Russia. Argentina ousted arch-rivals Brazil 82-77 and Russia eased past Lithuania 83-74.

The high-powered US team spluttered against the fearless Australians before Bryant, who had been relatively quiet during these Games, came to life by putting on a fourth-quarter show.

He drilled four three-pointers in succession to chants of ‘Kobe, Kobe’ from the North Greenwich Arena crowd as the Americans raced away from their tiring opponents.

“Kobe’s usually been the best player every night we play (in the NBA) so it’s great to see him go off like that,” point guard Chris Paul told reporters after Los Angeles Lakers leader Bryant collected 20 points. “He could do that every night but our team is so deep he doesn’t need to.”

Spain broke open a fierce defensive battle in the final minute to win a bad-tempered contest that threatened to turn into a brawl.

Back-to-back fouls for unsportsmanlike behaviour were handed out to France’s Ronny Turiaf and Nicolas Batum for hard hits while players from both teams had to be restrained by officials.

“Nobody likes to lose in the quarter-final of the Olympics,” said Spain’s Marc Gasol who led the winners with 14 points.

“Everybody wants to fight for those medals. Sometimes it gets a little out of hand because emotions get involved. Nobody got hurt, that’s the most important thing.”

Argentina overcame a sluggish start and a late Brazilian rally to return to the semi-finals. It is the third successive appearance in the last four for the South Americans who won gold in 2004 and bronze in 2008. The Argentines jumped up and down with joy before singing along with their fans in celebration. “We hung in there in the end and got an awesome win,” said the experienced Manu Ginobili. “It’s very, very hard to make an Olympics semi-final and against Brazil for us it’s maybe even more special.”

Russia made the most of their strength under the basket to beat Lithuania as they kept up their challenge for a first basketball medal in 12 years.

Andrei Kirilenko played his usual brilliant all-round game

for Russia while burly centre Timofey Mozgov operated with great effect.

Kirilenko led Russia with 19 points and had a game-high 13 rebounds. Mozgov added 17 points. “It was a physical game, Lithuania are a physical team. They were strong. The whole game was tough,” said the 7-foot-1 (2.16-metre) Mozgov before adding that Kirilenko’s points haul was routine. “He played very well,” said Mozgov. “I can’t remember a game when he played badly.” —Reuters

LONDON: US forward Kevin Love (left) challenges Australian forward Joe Ingles during their London 2012 Olympic Games menís quarterfinal basketball match. —AFP

London 2012 Olympic Games

FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

British captain exits LONDON: Mongolian light-welterweight Munkh-Erdene Uranchimeg produced a ferocious display to down British captain Thomas Stalker in the best fight of the London Games, a big casualty on a tricky Wednesday for the top seeds.

Uranchimeg claimed a 23-22 victory against the 28-year-old Stalker over an action packed nine minutes between the top two fighters in the world rankings. The 30-year-old Mongolian, competing in his third Olympics, was energetic and clinical over the three rounds and perhaps should have won by a bigger margin, as he picked off Stalker with a number of clean rights in the third as the Briton tired.

The quarter-final victory brought a chorus of boos in the ExCel arena from the home crowd, who were quiet throughout the contest and were out cheered by a pocket of Mongolian fans.

“My soul is full of emotion. I have been in the Olympics three times now - Athens, Beijing and now London. It has been my long-standing dream to get a medal, which I have now achieved,” Uranchimeg told reporters after guaranteeing a bronze.

The narrow defeat was too much to take for Stalker, who threw his towel over his head and stormed out of the arena.

The British boxing captain appealed the decision to world governing body AIBA, who said they would review the bout. “Yeah (he’s inconsolable), he’s not even speaking at the moment,” Stalker’s corner Dave Alloway told reporters. “To be one bout away and lose by one point, to lose it by such a close decision is the bit he’s finding hard to believe. It’s one punch, one shot, one scoring blow,” he added. “He’s devastated because he obviously wanted to get himself a medal at his home-based Olympics but it wasn’t to be.”

Ukrainian light-welterweight Denys Berinchyk, sporting one of the oddest haircuts in the boxing tournament, was dancing a jig in the ring after the second seed beat Australian Jeffrey Horn to set up a clash with Uranchimeg. “It’s going to be harder to fight with the Mongolian (than Stalker), but we will see,” Berinchyk said before discussing the eye-catching mostly shaved style with a lengthy piece of hair left on top.

“The hairstyle is a traditional Ukrainian hairstyle called chub, and it was traditionally worn by Kazaki people from the south of Ukraine, who are known as good fighters.”

There was a rare Cuban failure on Wednesday as lightheavyweight Julio La Cruz Peraza followed Stalker out of the Games when the top seed in the division was beaten 18-15 by Brazilian Yamaguchi Falcao Florentino.

Peraza was the more aggressive throughout the fight but Falcao boxed cleverly on the counter and picked off the Cuban as he came in to deservedly take the bout.

It was a second medal of the Games for the Falcao family after Yamaguchi’s brother Esquiva was also guaranteed a bronze by reaching the semi-finals of the middleweights. “I can’t wait to see him and I will give him a hug and a kiss, and tell him that the Falcao brothers are victorious,” the beaming light-heavyweight told reporters after hugging and kissing members of the Brazilian media, as members of his team celebrated noisily nearby. In the light-flyweights, top seed and defending champion Zou Shiming of China came through a tough bout with Kazak Birzhan Zhakypov to reach the last four and secure a bronze.

Zou’s awkward style, throwing considered punches from different angles was enough to sway the judges into giving him a 13-10 win despite his attempts to hold on at the end as he took a number of blows in the final 30 seconds. The victory set up a semi-final clash with Ireland’s Paddy Barnes, who Zou thrashed in the last four en route to his gold in Beijing.

Barnes was unhappy with the scoring four years ago and his display in ousting lively Indian Devendro Laishram 23-18 suggested he should prove more of a match for Zou this time. “Bronze medals are for losers. I’m fighting a guy in the next fight who beat me 15-0 in Beijing, my plan for the next fight is just to go out and score a point,” Barnes told reporters. “I don’t care if he beats me 15-1, just so long as a I get that point, that’s my Olympic gold. I’ll go home a happy man.” — Reuters

Risztov wins swim marathon thriller LONDON: Hungary’s Eva Risztov won a gripping Olympic women’s swimming marathon by just 0.4 seconds at London’s Hyde Park yesterday.

The 26-year-old led for much of the 10km race in the Serpentine lake but she finished only marginally ahead of America’s Haley Anderson with a winning time of 1hr 57min 38.2sec.

Italy’s Martina Grimaldi took bronze and home favourite Keri-Anne Payne was fourth, with the top four separated by just four seconds.

Risztov, 26, competed in the pool at the 2000 and 2004 Olympics before retiring in 2005, only to return to the sport as a marathon specialist in 2009.

“I saw that Haley was coming, but I had enough energy in reserve to reach the finish,” said Risztov. “It is really hard to take in but in a few hours I will be much more happy because I’m really, really, really tired now.”

Risztov succeeded Russia’s Larisa Ilchenko, who won the inaugural women’s event in Beijing four years ago but was not competing in London.

Great Britain’s Payne, a silver medallist in Beijing, was bidding to win a first swimming gold medal of the Games for the host nation but finished off the podium. “I tried absolutely everything I could,” said a tearful Payne. “It didn’t quite go the way I was hoping for it to go, but I can’t be upset with it.

Whatever’s meant to be is meant to be, and I guess I was meant to be fourth today.” The race began beneath bright sunshine, with hats and sun block the order of the day as a huge crowd descended upon Hyde Park to cheer on Payne. Risztov led after completing the

first 1.7km lap in 19min 22.2sec, with Australia’s Melissa Gorman and Payne in close pursuit.

Gorman pulled ahead of Risztov at

Grimaldi, Anderson, Germany’s Angela Maurer and Payne-had broken clear, and they put 20 metres of water between themselves and the rest as the race

LONDON: Hungary’s Eva Risztov competes in the women’s 10km open water swimming marathon at the London 2012 Olympic Games. —AFP the start of the second lap, but it was Anderson who began the third lap in the lead, 1.6sec ahead of Payne and 1.9sec clear of Risztov.

At the halfway stage, with the sun beating down on the 24 swimmers as they churned through the dark, still water, Risztov and Grimaldi had moved in front of Anderson, with Payne slipping to fourth.

South Africa’s Jessica Roux and Brazilian Poliana Okimoto both had to withdraw due to fatigue but the pack swam on, with Risztov leading the field into the final circuit of the lake.

A group of five swimmers-Risztov,

entered the last 1,000 metres.

Risztov made a bold early kick for home and held off a determined lastgasp charge from Anderson to slap the board above the finishing line first.

“It took a lot of energy to catch her so there was less energy left at the end,” said Anderson, whose older sister, Alyssa, is also a member of the USA women’s swimming team.

“I didn’t want to jinx myself. Anything can happen, it’s open water. As soon as I had her in my sights, I wanted to stay with her and give it everything I had, and I did. I’m really happy with the result.” —AFP

Pakistan battles back to clinch seventh place LONDON: Pakistan twice fought back from a goal down to defeat South Korea 3-2 and claim seventh place in men’s field hockey at the Olympic Games yesterday.

The match eventually hinged on a tale of two short corners. From one of them Muhammad Imran scored with a powerfully flicked shot which hurtled into the top right corner to put Pakistan ahead for the first time with just 10 minutes to go.

From the other, two minutes later, Lee Seung-Il narrowly shot past the post, and it proved an omen, for despite all their subsequent pressure the Koreans could not find the equaliser.

They had looked the more likely winners at half-time, by which time they had taken a 2-1 lead, with both goals coming from the dangerous Hyun Hye-Sung.

The second happened after an almighty scramble and a delay of several minutes to inspect all seven camera angles before it was decided that there had been no fouls and that Hyun’s looped effort had in fact gone in.

The ball had pin-balled around the penalty area, almost going in several times, and eventually only got over the line by about four inches after striking a post.

Pakistan’s first goal came from a fine shot by Waqas Muhammad, and the second by Abdul Haseem Khan, at the third attempt.

New Zealand produced an overwhelming first-half performance in a 3-1 win over Argentina which gave them ninth place. Three goals within half an hour gave the Kiwis a psychological ascendancy they never really lost, even though

Argentina battled hard to make an impression and pulled one back in the second half.

New Zealand had come within one minute of beating Olympic champions Germany in a 10-goal thriller on Tuesday, and began as if they were going to score as prolifically again.

Within three minutes they were ahead, thanks to a Stephen Jenness goal, and they applied steady pressure which brought two penalty corners and increasing expectations. — AFP

LONDON: Pakistan’s Muhammad Rizwan Jr (left) and South Korea’s Yoon Sung-hoon vie for the ball in their hockey classification match at the 2012 Summer Olympics. —AP

London 2012 Olympic Games

FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012

Pistorius back after relay appeal LONDON: Nothing has ever come easy for Oscar Pistorius. And certainly not the first Olympic final for the double amputee runner.

A simple 4x400-meter relay heat turned into high drama when South Africa first crashed out of the race with Pistorius waiting for a baton that never arrived in the changeover zone. Almost two hours later, a jury of appeal surprisingly ruled to give Pistorius’s team Lane 9 - which otherwise would have been vacant - in Friday’s final because it could not be blamed for the collision with Kenya.

“Emotional roller coaster!” Pistorius sent in a Twitter post. “Really can’t wait!” South Africa won a silver medal at last year’s world championships and now has a chance at an Olympic medal.

First, the South African team never made it to the third section of the 4x400-meter relay in the opening heat after Mogawane crashed, leaving Pistorius no chance to run. When he realized the race was lost, Pistorius raised his hands to his head, and waved his arms down in frustration. “It’s not the place you want something like this to happen,” Pistorius said.

The judges later ruled that Kenya’s Vincent Kiilu had cut across Mogawane, causing the collision and leaving the South African with a dislocated shoulder.

At first, Pistorius could not believe they would be added to the final.

“Even a protest isn’t any consolation,” he said immediately after the heats. Then came the surprising ruling. “The Jury of Appeal met and agreed to advance the South African team to the final, even though they did not finish the race, considering that they had been severely damaged in the incident with Kenya,” the IAAF said in a statement. “South Africa will run as an additional team in lane 9.”

It is rare for a team to get reinstated if it doesn’t reach the finish line. This time a ruling went his way within hours. His entire track career he’s been trying to prove he’s good enough to compete with the best.

He even had to fight the international governing body for athletics, taking his case to sport’s highest court to be allowed to compete against able-bodied athletes on his carbon fiber blades. Some still argue they give him an unfair advantage, but he was cleared to compete in 2008 and has never looked back.

Now Pistorius still has the chance to leave the London Games with something more than the distinction of becoming the first amputee athlete to run in an Olympic track and field competition.

The loss, beyond South Africa’s control, was tough to deal with. “It’s frustrating. It’s so hard. You have so much support from back home,” Pistorius had said.

LONDON: South Africa’s Oscar Pistorius looks dejected as he leaves the track while competing in the men’s 4X400m relay heats at the athletics event during the London 2012 Olympic Games. —AFP “We’re all pretty battered,” Together with anchor runner Willem De Beer, he tried to walk over to his injured teammate but track officials held them back.

Pistorius was left to applaud Trinidad and Tobago, which won the heat, ahead of Britain. Beyond Kenya, Jamaica was another medal contender failing to reach the final after Germaine Gonzales slowed to a walk and sat on the track, holding his left hamstring.

Australia and Germany also failed to go through.

For Pistorius, the early exit in the race happened in the blink of an eye. He had been looking at the giant screen to follow the progress of the race and when he turned to get set in position to receive the baton, the collision had already happened.

“Things do happen in relays and just sorry it had to happen on a day like this,” he said. Now, he still gets a second chance. The Bahamas won the second heat ahead of the United States.

In the decathlon, two-time world champion Trey Hardee cut Ashton Eaton’s lead to 99 points after seven events, closing the gap with better performances in the hurdles and discus. —AP

Germany, Brazil in men’s final LONDON: Brazilian world champions Emanuel Rego and Alison Cerutti face Germans Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann in the Olympic men’s beach volleyball final yesterday as Emanuel bids to recapture gold eight years after his last triumph.

Emanuel, 39, is competing in his fifth Olympics.

He won gold in Athens in 2004 and bronze in Beijing in 2008 with his former team mate Ricardo Santos.

Alison, 27, is appearing in his first Games. He and Emanuel have been playing together for three years and have been increasingly dominant, winning the last world championship.

Brink, 30, and Reckermann, 33, also had long careers with different partners but they have enjoyed their greatest successes since they came together in 2009. That year, they won the world championship and the world tour.

If the Germans win the final, they will become

the first European team to take gold in Olympic beach volleyball. In the men’s event, only the United States and Brazil have won Olympic titles, while the same two countries plus Australia have won all the gold medals in the women’s event since the sport made its Olympic debut in Atlanta in 1996.

Emanuel and Alison started the London Games as favourites, but the Germans’ presence in the final was less foreseeable.

The field was thrown open when the defending champions, Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser of the United States, were upset in the round-of-16 by Italians Paolo Nicolai and Daniele Lupo in the biggest shock of the tournament.

The other American men’s pair, Sean Rosenthal and Jake Gibb, had also been considered strong contenders for a medal but they too were knocked out earlier than expected when they lost in the quarter-finals to Latvians Martins Plavins and Janis Smedins. —Reuters

LONDON: 5 of 23 medal events.

Nation G China 36 United States 34 Britain 22 South Korea 12 Russia 11 Germany 9 France 8 Hungary 8 Italy 7 Australia 6 Kazakhstan 6 Netherlands 5 Japan 4 Iran 4 North Korea 4 Belarus 3 Cuba 3 New Zealand 3 Ukraine 3 South Africa 3 Spain 2 Romania 2 Denmark 2 Jamaica 2 Brazil 2 Poland 2 Croatia 2 Switzerland 2 Ethiopia 2 Canada 1 Czech Republic 1 Sweden 1 Kenya 1 Slovenia 1 Georgia 1 Norway 1 Dominican Republic 1

S 22 23 13 7 19 15 9 4 6 12 0 4 13 3 0 3 3 2 1 1 6 5 4 2 1 1 1 1 0 4 3 3 2 1 1 1 1

B 19 25 13 6 23 10 11 3 5 9 2 6 14 1 1 4 1 5 6 1 1 2 3 2 7 6 1 0 2 9 3 3 2 2 1 1 0

Tot 77 82 48 25 53 34 28 15 18 27 8 15 31 8 5 10 7 10 10 5 9 9 9 6 10 9 4 3 4 14 7 7 5 4 3 3 2

Lithuania Algeria Grenada Venezuela Colombia Mexico Azerbaijan Egypt India Slovakia Armenia Belgium Mongolia Estonia Indonesia Serbia Thailand Tunisia Cyprus Finland Guatemala Malaysia Portugal Taiwan Greece Moldova Qatar Singapore Argentina Hong Kong Ireland Kuwait Morocco Puerto Rico Saudi Arabia Tajikistan Trinidad & Tobago Turkey Uzbekistan

1 1 1 1 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 3 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

1 0 0 0 2 2 2 0 3 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

2 1 1 1 5 5 4 2 4 4 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

LONDON: South Korea’s Han Song-Yi (left) spikes as US players Destinee Hooker (right) and Christa Harmotto attempt to block during the Women’s semifinal volleyball match. — AFP

FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2012 www.kuwaittimes.net

LONDON: Serbia’s Damir Fejzic fights Britain’s Martin Stampler (in red) during their quarterfinal round match in men’s 68-kg taekwondo competition at the 2012 Summer Olympics.— AP

Bonilla ends Spain’s wait Page 45