10th May 2012

CR IP TI ON BS SU

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

Tymoshenko halts hunger strike after hospital move

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to cut detention periods

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9 Assembly 20 OKs amendments Dashti sues Waalan over Syrian passport claims

Max 40º Min 29º High Tide 03:25 & 14:04 Low Tide 08:08 & 21:09

By B Izzak

Russian jet vanishes in Indonesia 50 people onboard JAKARTA: A Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 with about 50 people on board went missing in a mountainous area south of the Indonesian capital Jakarta during a demonstration flight yesterday, officials said. The plane disappeared from radar screens 50 minutes into what was meant to be a brief flight and rescue teams were headed in vehicles and on foot towards Salak mountain where the plane went missing. “We suspect the plane crashed, but we’re not yet certain,” rescue chief Marsdya Daryatmo told reporters several hours after the disappearance. “We tried to send two helicopters to search for the plane... but because of bad weather and strong winds they had to return. We will send them out again tomorrow,” he said.

There were scenes of grief at the airport, with relatives of some passengers sitting on luggage carousels weeping uncontrollably as they waited on tenterhooks for more information about the missing plane. Yanny Mariana’s eyes welled up with tears as she told reporters that one of her four friends on the flight had called her in a panic. He had earlier told her the plane would fly above the city of Bandung and be back in Jakarta in under an hour. “But at around 3:00 pm (0800 GMT) he called me in a panic and I was worried because I knew it shouldn’t take that long to fly to Bandung and back,” she said.

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JAKARTA: A Sukhoi Superjet 100 takes off from Halim Perdanakusuma airport yesterday on its second demonstration flight of the day. The Russianmade jet plane with 50 people onboard went missing during this flight.

(Inset) An Indonesian woman is comforted by a relative as she waits for the latest news on the missing airplane. — AP

KUWAIT: The National Assembly yesterday passed key amendments to existing laws that would considerably reduce periods that the judicial authorities can detain suspects, and also agreed to launch probes in several issues. The new amendments, passed overwhelmingly in the second and final round, cuts to just two days from the current four the period that a suspect can be detained at any police station. It also cuts the period suspects can be detained by the public prosecution to 10 days down from the current 21 days.

According to the amendments, the public prosecutor can detain a suspect for a maximum of 10 days. The suspect must then be sent to a judge who will decide whether to extend the detention or not. The judge has the right to extend the detention for 10 days three times provided that the detention period does not exceed 40 days, down from several months now. The amendments also require that the suspects must be allowed to hire lawyers who must attend the investigations even if the public prosecutor decides to make them classified.

The new changes will be effective only after the government accepts them and HH the Amir signs them and are published in the official gazette Kuwait Al-Youm.

The amendments were a key part of the promises candidates made during the election campaign ahead of the Feb 2 snap polls with the aim to reduce the powers of judicial authorities in detaining suspects. The promises were triggered after many opposition activists and writers were repeatedly detained for long durations on charges that were found to be false. Many of them were later found not guilty and cleared.

Continued on Page 13

Bomber in US Qaeda plot a double agent Saudi intel hailed

SHARJAH: An Arabian stallion is paraded during the Sharjah International Arabian Horse Festival at the Sharjah Equestrian Centre in this March 10, 2012 photo, where purebred Arabian horses were shown for their beauty and talent. — AFP

In UAE, horses are big business and passion DUBAI: When an economic crisis in Uruguay strained the finances of Pio Olascoaga Amaya’s family farm, he found salvation halfway across the world: the horse racing industr y of Dubai. Olascoaga took one of his horses from Uruguay to tr y his luck in an endurance race in Spain. Af ter the horse finished third, he was able to sell it to a trainer work ing for Sheik h Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum,

Dubai’s ruler and an avid sponsor, owner and rider of horses. That led to Olascoaga opening business ties with Dubai and 10 years later, at the age of 31, he helps run a family business selling Uruguayan-reared horses with Arabian blood to the United Arab Emirates. He acts as an agent for other farms in Uruguay as well as his own farm, which has 600 horses.

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WASHINGTON: The man ordered by Al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen to blow up a US-bound airliner was a double agent who infiltrated the group and volunteered for the suicide attack, with Saudi intelligence likely playing a key role, US media reported.

American officials leaked out details of the extraordinary intelligence coup two days after the White House announced a plot by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) had been successfully thwarted.

The double agent managed to spend weeks with AQAP before handing over information that allowed the United States to launch a drone strike on Sunday that killed Fahd Al-Quso, a senior figure who was wanted for the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, the New York Times and other media reported, citing unnamed US officials. A senior US official told the Times that a bomb for the would-be attack was sewn into “custom fit” underwear that would have been difficult to detect even in a careful patdown at an airport.

Unlike the device used in the failed Dec 2009 plot

by AQAP to blow up an airliner en route to Detroit, this explosive could have been detonated in two ways, in case one failed, the unnamed official was quoted as saying. The main charge was a high-grade military explosive that “undoubtedly would have brought down an aircraft,” the official said. ABC News had reported earlier that the latest plot by AQAP was thwarted by a spy who infiltrated the group and took the explosive to Saudi Arabia.

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DARAA, Syria: Wounded Syrian soldiers react following a roadside bomb attack which targeted their convoy as they escorted UN peace observers in this restive southern city yesterday. — AFP

Blast hits UN observer convoy in south Syria DARAA, Syria: A roadside blast hit troops escorting UN observers in Syria’s south yesterday, a day after envoy Kofi Annan warned that his peace plan could be the last chance to avoid civil war. The bomb, apparently planted underground, wounded six Syrian soldiers escorting the convoy as it entered the city of Daraa, cradle of a 14-month uprising against President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime. Maj Gen Robert Mood, the head

of the UN mission, was in the four-vehicle convoy but escaped unharmed along with 11 other observers and his spokesman, Neeraj Singh, said an AFP photographer travelling with them. The Norwegian general said the attack was “a graphic example of violence that the Syrian people” were suffering on a daily basis. “It is imperative that violence in all its forms must stop,” Mood was quoted as Continued on Page 13

in the

news

Bourse to launch new trading system, index KUWAIT: Kuwait Stock Exchange is to launch next week a new trading system and a new index for the most capitalised firms, KSE director general Faleh AlRaqaba said yesterday. The new X-stream system, installed by Nasdaq OMX, involved the supply of new technology and will help improve transparency, market data and surveillance, Raqaba said. The system will be launched on Sunday along with a new index for the largest 15 firms in terms of market value and the value of circulated liquidity. The Kuwait-15 Index will start from 1,000 points, he said. Eight of Kuwait’s nine commercial banks are among the 15 companies comprising the new index which is estimated to be worth twothirds of the market capitalisation of $105 billion. The new index will be reviewed every six months. The 220 firms listed on KSE will also be reorganised into 15 new sectors and the bourse will accordingly launch a new website.

Zawahiri urges Muslims to avenge Quran burning DUBAI: Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri has urged Muslims to avenge the burning of copies of the Holy Quran on a US base in Afghanistan earlier this year, dismissing apologies for the incident as a “ridiculous farce”.

Zawahiri, who took up the reins of Al-Qaeda after the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan just over a year ago, said Muslims should kill those responsible for desecrating their holy book and Afghan lands. “Once again, the crusaders burned the Holy Quran, in Kabul,” said Zawahiri in the short audio message posted on Islamist Internet forums. “After each of their numerous crimes they pretend to be sorry and claim they will investigate what happened. That is the ridiculous farce Obama and his defence minister repeated this time as well. Kill those aggressors who occupied your country, stole your wealth, violated your honour and attacked WARWICK: Pistol parts hidden in a stuffed animal your Quran and your prophet, peace be upon him,” and found by TSA officials at TF Green Airport are seen May 7, 2012. — AP Zawahiri added.

US police investigating gun in toys at airport WARWICK, Rhode Island: A man whose child unknowingly had gun parts and ammunition hidden inside stuffed animals in his carr y-on bag was detained this week at Rhode Island’s T F Green Airport for three hours before being released. Authorities said federal transpor tation agents found the items Monday when the man and his 4-year-old went through security. The man said he didn’t know the items were there. Airport Police Chief Leo Messier said the case “appears to be the result of a domestic dispute”. The Transportation Security Administration said the man and his son were headed to Detroit when an officer noticed the disassembled gun components “artfully concealed” inside three stuffed animals. One animal contained a .40-caliber gun, while another had a magazine loaded with two .40-caliber rounds and a firing pin. A third animal contained another part of a gun known as a slide.

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THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

LOCAL

KUWAIT: His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, ministers, sheikhs and other dignitaries at the Informatics Awards presentation ceremony. — Photos by Joseph Shagra / KUNA

Arabic fastest growing language online Amir patronizes Informatics Awards ceremony KUWAIT: A ceremony to honor the winners of Sheikh Salem Al-Ali Al-Sabah’s 11th Informatics Award was held yesterday under the patronage of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.

His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah attended the ceremony, held at the Marina Hotel, on behalf of the Amir.

The Crown Prince was received at the venue by Board of Trustees’ Chairperson Sheikha Aydah Salem Al-Ali Al-Sabah and members of the board.

National Assembly Speaker Ahmad AlSaadoun, former house speaker Jassem AlKhorafi and Deputy Chief of National Security Apparatus Sheikh Meshaal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah were among the senior officials attending.

The ceremony was also attended by His Highness Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad AlAhmad Al-Sabah, His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah, Deputy Minister of Amiri Diwan Affairs Sheikh Ali Jarrah Al-Sabah, and top state officials. Addressing the gathering, Sheikha Aydah stressed “information identity” as “the” field of competition and excellence among aspiring nations today, noting this is the guiding notion for all prize activities aiming at furthering sustainable social development. Realizing that this is a most suitable vessel for inevitable human interaction and interdependence, the prize shifted from local to international scope for candidates and initiatives. It is also befitting and an honor that the prize is managed by a host of volunteerexperienced specialized figures, which stresses and brings together the priorities of social partnership and seeing to future aspirations.

“The panel and those in the field of informatics are most grateful for the great care

His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah receiving a memento from Board of Trustees’ Chairperson Sheikha Aydah Salem Al-Ali Al-Sabah.

and support and encouragement by His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber AlSabah, and National Guard Chief and patron of the prize His Highness Sheikh Salem Al-Ali Al-Sabah,” she remarked.

Sheikha Aydah also addressed the winners of this year’s honors, and said their accomplishments merit great pride and wished them the best and expressed eagerness to see them accomplish even more for the great interest of humanity. ICANN President and CEO Rod Beckstrom for his part said it was very fitting that Kuwait host such event, a country in the forefront of allowing internet access and use for its citizens in the Arabic speaking parts of the world. The ceremony, he

stressed, is in essence recognition of the creativity in the field of information technology.

The prize is another initiative to Kuwait’s credit in this field, he stressed, and ICANN is most proud of its selection for recognition by the judging panel. The internet is the greatest means of communication of our times, and is the biggest reserve of humanity’s history ...

And in a very short period of time, the internet changed from a mere luxury to an essential tool in everyday activities around the world ... Already affecting every person on the planet through its use in relation to management of power, transport, and other vital services, the internet would in no time be used directly by all across the world.

He noted new technologies spring up every day, with new devices and new con-

ICANN President and CEO Rod Beckstrom receiving a memento from His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.

cepts, and the world struggles to keep up.

However, he added, there is only two percent Arabic content on the internet at present. This is despite the fact that over five percent of the world’s population and over 3.8 percent of internet users worldwide speak the language.

Still, he pointed out Arabic is the fastest growing language online, surpassing the growth of both English and German.

There is also an ongoing effort by 2,500 volunteers across the Middle East working on an Arabic internet glossary. Domain names in Arabic, he said, would bring even greater potential for growth and contribution, and would introduce revolutionary change in how internet is used in the Arab World and beyond, the expert said. Addressing the event Beckstrom said recognition of the internet as

a power and tool for economic growth, innovation, and advancement was most prudent, and ICANN pledges to support all efforts to keep it as such.

Member of the Award’s Higher organizing committee Saleh Abdullatif Al-Asousi meanwhile highlighted some award statistics. He pointed out that an overall 976 internet-related initiatives had been considered for the prize, from Kuwait and other Arab countries, 162 from Kuwait alone.

He also added that 1,946 websites were registered for the different categories of the award. There were 85 volunteers who organized this event by working in various committees and teams, he added. The ceremony concluded with the presentation of the awards. — KUNA

Some of the awardees pose for a photo with His Highness the Crown Prince Undersecretary of Information Ministry Sheikh Salman Sabah Al-Salem Al-Humoud Al-Sabah receiving a memento from Board of Trustees’ Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.

Chairperson Sheikha Aydah Salem Al-Ali Al-Sabah.

Sheikha Amthal, Chairperson Kuwait centre for voluntary works receiving Group picture of the media with Undersecretary of Information a memento from Board of Trustees’ Chairperson Sheikha Aydah Salem Al- Ministry Sheikh Salman Sabah Al-Salem Al-Humoud Al-Sabah.

Ali Al-Sabah.

Bill proposed to prevent ‘female judges’ KUWAIT: Five lawmakers proposed amendments to the current law that governs judiciar y work in Kuwait, which if implemented, will disqualify female citizens from being appointed as judges or prosecutors.

The draft law presented by MPs Khalid Al-Sultan, Ammar Al-Ajmi, Abdullatif Al-Omair, Nayef Al-Merdas, and Dr Mohammad Al-K andari, includes an amendment to Article 19 of Law Number 23/1990. This is to change item (A) which states that a member must be ‘a Kuwaiti Muslim,’ and add the term ‘male’ to the state-

ment. An explanatory memorandum attached with the amendment proposal adds that “the aforementioned item in its current state might exclude women from assuming judicial posts; a much debated move from a religious standpoint.”

“In a bid to prevent any misjudgment that calls for nominating female citizens to judicial posts, this draft law clearly seeks to add a condition according to which only a Muslim male citizen qualifies to be appointed as a judge or prosecutor”, the memorandum reads.

No fines for expired visas KUWAIT: Expatriates who couldn’t renew their expiring residencies due to computer malfunctions at labour departments last Sunday will be spared from paying fines, a local daily reported yesterday. Speaking to a local daily on the condition of anonymity, the security insider said that Director of the Hawally Migration Department, Brig Gen Talal Ma’arafi released an order to exempt people whose transactions were stopped by system failure from paying fines when they renew their residencies.

“A transaction in that case will bear a special stamp by which it will be authorized without its holder being required to pay cumulative fines”, the source explained.

A failure in the Ministry of Interior’s information technology systems that lasted for several hours starting from 11 am Sunday almost completely stopped the process work at all migration and traffic departments around Kuwait, as well as land border checkpoints, seaports and the Kuwait International Airport.

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

LOCAL

Kuwait to be affected by instability in Europe ‘Priorities are going to change’

By Sawsan Kazak KUWAIT: In France, Nicolas Sarkozy was recently defeated by Socialist Francois Hollande who promised to change the way the country was dealing with the economic crisis; pledging more spending and less ‘belt-tightening.’ In Greece, political leaders are unable to form coalition government following inconclusive election results, which would force them into more elections and possibly a Eurozone exit.

These are but two examples of the political changes and economic instability facing Europe right now. But with an ever globalizing world, will these shifts in politics and economy eventually affect the Middle East or Kuwait? A question that economist Hajjaj Bukhadour thinks is an important one that is rarely asked or taken into consideration. “This topic is very important and is never addressed. Politicians or Parliament never talk about this issue, not even the banks consider the changes in Europe,” says Bukhadour.”

They focus all our attention on the performance of oil. But the change in oil prices or economic crises in Europe, from where we import many of the products and services to Kuwait for the oil industry, will affect us and preventative measures can be taken,” explained the economist.

Bukhadour believes that any changes in politics or the west in general, will affect the Middle East. He explains that in Europe, the priorities are going to change but the strategy stays the same. “Whether it is Europe or

America, these countries have a plan for the future. For instance, they know what the plan is for 20 years in advance, their long -term plan is the same. Aspects like national security or the stability of their economy are clear, so much so that any party coming to rule will not have a different view or they will not change them,” said the economist about political strategies in Europe.

He explained that Europe and America know what the challenges and goals are, the only change is how they approach or to reach these goals. “This is different from democrat to republican, from the labor party to the conservative party. It is the approach taken that will affect the priorities. Countries will now ask themselves, ‘do I support this country more than this country in the Middle East? Should I invest here before locally?,” said Bukhadour.

Bukhadour explains that Kuwait is perceived as a country rich with oil and it is one of the countries that will last until the end in oil production along with Saudi Arabia and Iraq. This will affect the way struggling countries in Europe will deal with us. “With the change of priorities and approach, Kuwait should understand this and take this into consideration. How to chose their investments, how to build up their cooperation with the socialist party, for instance.

Socialism has a different criteria to achieve stability and economy. The application is different but the objective remains the same. Now Kuwait should understand the theory of socialism and capitalism or any political party ruling in Europe, they should lay down the strat-

egy of their investments according to this,” he explains.

Bukhadour believes that Kuwait needs to know where to invest, how to invest, how much to invest and in what sector to invest in, when it comes to Europe and its new governments. “In France for instance, socialism will focus on more small and medium sized companies, they will create jobs, and reduce interest rates, probably. They will also focus on local spending, which will inevitably mean that they will reduce their currency. There will be a lot of changes,” the economist explained.

“In order to not be affected, and to be able to take advantage, we need to take preventive measures. Otherwise, we will be stuck and lost in all the changes in Europe,” said Bukhadour.

In 2007, the Kuwaiti dinar was depegged from the US dollar and repegged to a basket of currencies in which the euro played a big role. This, Bukhadour believes, will affect our currency policy. “the central bank should take the fact that the euro will depreciate and should adjust to stabilize the KD more. The dollar will go up and the price of oil will come down and we need to adjust according to that. We have to also understand what America’s reaction will be to all this. The United States might cash out more dollars in the market because the euro will get weaker.

The euro will be lowered so they can spend more in the local market, and to attract more foreign investment; all factors that should be calculated and taken into consideration when Kuwait is going to do business.

KUWAIT: Hawalli governorate fire chief Col Fahad Al-Sager yesterday received a delegation from the Austrian embassy in Kuwait. The visitors were lectured on firemen’s job nature, first aid and safety devices at home such as fire extinguishers and smoke detectors. —Photos by Hanan Al-Saadoun

‘Reel’ good news for movie fans

By Nawara Fattahova KUWAIT: Movie fans can enjoy watching films from different countries and languages free - of- charge ever y Thursday night at Abdulrazaq AlBaseer Hall at the headquarters of the National Council for Culture Arts and Letters. This activity has been organized by the Kuwait Cinema Club (KCC) for a few years but most people still don’t know about it.

Tonight, two short Kuwait movies will be screened: ‘Station No. 1’ and ‘AlSalhiya’. Kuwaiti direc tor Sadiq Behbehani directed both the films. Al-

Salhiya will be broadcast at the Cannes Film Festival on May 16, 2012 in the Short Films category. “ These shows are a par t of the activities held by KCC’s Diwaniya for a few years now. Every week we show a different movie from a different language. For instance, we have American, Korean, European, and Arabic classics apart from others. Most movies are with subtitles, but not all Arabic movies have them. We always announce this information in advance,” Emad Al-Noweiri, Director of the KCC told the Kuwait Times.

The hall has 110 seats, so the early

bird, gets the seat. The show starts at 7:30 pm and is free. “ We send our members text messages informing them about the program. We also announce in some social media and the press as well so people know our program,” he added.

KCC will be holding a competition within a week on films. “This is the first national competition of its kind.

We are holding this competition in cooperation with a new foundation called the National Union Society, which aims to strengthen the patriotism of the Kuwait youth,” Al-Noweiri further said.

KFSD team visits Ibn Sina Hospital

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: A team from Kuwait Fire Services Directorate (KFSD) visited Ibn Sina Hospital along with its specialized centers. The team was headed by Lt Col Khaleel Al-Amir, Public Relations and Information Director, to check on the condition of patients and the statistics of those injured during fires.

Dr. Hisham Abu Rizq, Head of Babtain Burn Center, said awareness

and knowledge of fire prevention has helped to reduce the number of those injured. Several patients were visited, and it was discovered that negligence by and ignorance of some citizens and expatriates led to them not taking precautions.

Maj Gen Jassem Al-Mansouri, KFSD Director General, gave an awareness lecture on fire hazards and how to prevent fires in the College of Engineering at Kuwait University.

Many professors and students attend-

ed the lecture, and then asked a few questions.

Al-Mansouri said it is often that fires and their hazards are the result of man’s ignorant use of electrical extension cords. Al-Mansouri said the firefighter carries out hazardous and hard missions to protect citizens and expatriates every day.

Lt Col Khaleel Al-Amir showed a film on the dangers of daily accidents and the injuries that fireman face while protecting lives.

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

LOCAL Local Spotlight

In my VIEW

Visa trading in Kuwait

The day Burgan fields stop pumping oil!

By Fouad Al-Obaid

By Muna Al-Fuzai

fouad@kuwaittimes.net Twitter: @Fouadalobaid

muna@kuwaittimes.net

H

C

onventional wisdom has it that all finite resources come with an expiry date. It needs to be on the horizon one day. This notion is particularly disturbing when it comes to a resource we have grown fond of, and has allowed modern development. Oil, ever since mid-last century, has given rise to an economic and construction boom seldom seen in history. Kuwait, just like many of its sister Gulf states, has enormously benefited from the discovery, extraction, production and export of what many have dubbed ‘black gold.’ Relentlessly, day in and out, on a 24-hour basis, oil has not stopped flowing for the past 60 years - during the Iraq invasion period, billions of barrels of potential oil exports were burnt off.

The lifestyle, in terms of modern comfort, is being maintained in this part of the world due to oil income, which leads me to question how would we have developed should oil not have been discovered beneath our desert? In conceptualizing such a scenario, I could not have envisioned a country at all, amid a 20th and now 21st century revolution, without even the most basic commodity - water - available in semi-abundance. Here, temperatures rose to above 50 degree Celsius, there were no real cultivable lands, no historical significance to a technologically advanced globalized world, modern Afghanistan would compare better.

The only reason Kuwait, Dubai, and Doha to name a few cities in our region have developed and left to history their old mud-houses is due to this precious commodity which is soon nearing an end.

Depending on different analysis this day could be nearer for some, and perhaps a bit later for others.

But the ultimate question that we ought to be considering is that when it does - and it will, what will we do? How will we derive clean water? With what will we produce electricity and in what quantities? How will we commute? What industries will we create to diversify the economy? Will we master knowledge and become a global center of knowledge?

One thing is clear, when it is announced that Burgan oilfield has pumped its last barrel, it will be a day of reckoning like no other. Perhaps, we could be faced with an apocalypse of amplitude not seen in history. If we fail to properly plan ‘beyond petroleum’ economy, we will wake up one day to a city that will shortly start to crumble amid chaos that is seldom seen. Unfortunately, the way things are, when considering the quality of the debate surrounding this important issue that remains largely ignored, I fear for the future.

I hope that we will start waking up to the reality that oil will not last forever, and that it is our collective duty to start planning for a post-oil economy and start massively investing in renewable energy sources and alternative economic activities in order to sustain our current lifestyle and maintain our global relevance.

Satire Wire

Worst place to put a bomb

kuwait digest

Playing with fire

By Abdullatif Al-Duaij

M

P Abdullah Al-Turaiji made a reckless action when he made inquiries about the citizenship of citizen Mahmoud Haidar and his family members. This is considered an unwarranted violation of people’s privacies that can lead to harming not only Haidar and his family, but can also backfire to Al-Turaiji and everyone who support his approach.

Opening the file of citizen Mahmoud Haidar’s citizenship can eventually lead to opening the naturalization file in Kuwait in general, because it’s illogical in a democratic society to carry out such an action on certain individuals only. If Al-Turaiji seeks to go ahead with Haidar’s case, he shouldn’t only stop there, but is required to address all naturalization files since the sixties to ensure that all processes went intact.

People who received the Kuwaiti citizenship during the sixties, such as Mohammad Haidar, likely amass to more than half of the Kuwaiti population today. So, what exactly MP Al-Turaiji seeks to achieve from his recent inquisitions? What are those who support his reckless action look to accomplish?

Al-Turaiji and everyone who support him don’t realize that after targeting citizen Mahmoud Haidar, they will eventually be targeted over the same issue - or at least someone of their relatives will. There are many people who obtained the Kuwaiti citizenship in the sixties without documents or proper procedures to ensure that they are qualified for naturalization. Opening the entire citizenship file means revealing thousands of cases in which people were wrongfully or unjustifiably naturalized. Is that the goal that Al-Turaiji and his supporters are seeking?

The majority of Kuwaitis naturalized in the sixties have probably passed away, so opening their files means dealing with their children and grandchildren.

These are Kuwaiti citizens born and raised in Kuwait, and have nothing to do with the choices made by their fathers or grandfathers. They are therefore original Kuwaiti citizens, not naturalized exactly like many bedoons (stateless residents) who are being punished today because their

grandfathers destroyed their original passports decades ago.

The naturalization issue will unfortunately always be used as a fuel for those who wish to start fires whenever they feel cornered. In order to avoid that, all Kuwaitis must realize that they are original, and remove all segregations created between citizens depending on the time period or circumstances of their naturalization. Therefore, a legisla-

Al-Turaiji and everyone who support him don’t realize that after targeting citizen Mahmoud Haidar, they will eventually be targeted over the same issue - or at least someone of their relatives will. There are many people who obtained the Kuwaiti citizenship in the sixties without documents or proper procedures to ensure that they are qualified for naturalization. Opening the entire citizenship file means revealing thousands of cases in which people were wrongfully or unjustifiably naturalized. Is that the goal that Al-Turaiji and his supporters are seeking? tion is required to ban reopening the citizenship file of any Kuwaiti after three (or at least five) years of their naturalization unless for legal reasons and with a supreme court order. — Al-Qabas

kuwait digest

By Sawsan Kazak

Living without human values

By Mohammad Hayat

sawsank@kuwaittimes.net

A

few days back, US authorities announced that they, along with Saudi intelligence services, foiled another plot to blow up a US-bound airplane. Apparently, the man who was supposed to carry out the bombing was a double agent and reported the plot to authorities, instead of going through with it. The man is now known as the underwear bomber because the bomb he was going to use was actually a girdle-like device worn near the groin.

Now with all the technological advancements the modern-day terrorists seem to boast of, why would they choose this location for the bomb? Really, the underwear is the only place that seemed appropriate to them to place an explosive? The material used in this attempt was the same that was used in the original ‘underwear bomber’ case which, if you remember, failed to detonate a few years ago. So knowing that there was a chance that these ‘undies’ could malfunction, the terrorists still chose that as the desired location for a bomb. What if the underwear only blew up partially? The bomber would survive and be in a whole lot of pain.

Who wants to be remembered as an ‘underwear bomber?’ When you start with the word underwear, you expect the word model to ensue, something pleasing and appealing. But underwear bomber sounds like an insult that guys tell each other in the locker room. It conjures up images of someone that has torn, old and dirty boxers on. Wouldn’t a person giving up his life for his cause want a better title than underwear bomber? Wouldn’t it be better to be known as the shirt bomber, or pants bomber, or in some weird cross-dressing plot, the skirt bomber?

Your underwear is the only part of your wardrobe you keep a secret from the outside world, why would you want that to be the one thing people talk about in the papers and remember you for? The bombing of aircrafts is a serious matter, underwear is not.

F

reedom, justice, and equality are human values that people fight struggle to obtain.

All holy books as well as manmade laws strive to protect them.

The Constitution aims to safeguard these values as basic principles.

These were carefully adopted into laws and legislations in developed countries. They are followed by word and in practice. While they are protected by laws in developing societies, they are only followed in paper. It is common to see politicians in these societies ignore these values when they become decision makers, despite vowing to protect them during their political careers.

We supported lawmakers when they were beaten up by police after a demonstration at the diwaniya of MP Dr Jamaan AlHarbash in late 2010, and continued to support their efforts to protect freedom and human dignity.

Kuwaitis supported grilling motions filed by the opposition against former prime minister HH Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad AlSabah, and participated in demonstrations against curbing freedom of opinion and expression.

Where are they now? Where are those we supported while trying to protect human values, now that

We supported lawmakers when they were beaten up by police after a demonstration at the diwaniya of MP Dr Jamaan Al-Harbash in late 2010, and continued to support their efforts to protect freedom and human dignity.

Kuwaitis supported grilling motions filed by the opposition against former prime minister HH Sheikh Nasser AlMohammad AlSabah, and participated in demonstrations against curbing freedom of opinion and expression.

they have taken the back seat in Parliament? Where are the ‘protectors of human dignity’ from violation of human dignity that takes place in Taima? Why are they not reacting police brutality against freedom of expression? Why are they not using their constitutional tools to stop the policy of intimidation and arrest against people expressing their opinions peacefully in Taima?

When MPs choose to stop supporting human values, you cannot expect them to lead our way to development and advancement.

Freedom, justice and equality are not mere vote-bank agendas, but are principles based on which entire nations can rise.

Some might misinterpret my article as being a call for stateless residents to violate the law and continue demonstrating publically. I am only calling for naturalizing the deserving, and mete out human treatment. I also support freedom of peaceful demonstration, and believe that freedom is a human right, as long as it cannot create violence. It is hard to live without a nationality and civil rights, but it is a disgrace to be living without human values. A man can live decades without medication, employment and accommodation, but cannot survive a day without freedom. — Al-Rai

ow many workers actually know a lot about their sponsors? I mean, how many are wellversed with all the information related to what they do for a living and how they can be reached during emergencies? It is common to find Asians, Arabs and a few unlucky Westerners who are uninformed about their sponsors’ whereabouts! They only care about renewing their residence permits.

They carry on with their activities in Kuwait and find their own ways of living, without even bothering to learn who can imprison them for any reason. This situation could have arisen because they are not viewed as individuals, but as powerless followers who cannot process any work done without the sponsor. They cannot even start their own business without one.

Kuwait is wonderland in that sense. Some people find it hard to get a job easily or want to stay in the country for a longer period with families by supporting themselves doing odd jobs.

For that, they need legal residence permit. A civil ID is needed or they can be easily caught by police. They begin hunting down for any Kuwaiti who accepts quick cash and is ready to present himself as the sponsor. This citizen is not concerned with how they lead their lives or earn a living. The Kuwaiti sponsor will simply lend his name on the official papers. In case trouble erupts, workers will seek sponsor’s assistance to be freed from prison.

This summarizes the situation faced by an expat in Kuwait. He or she is under the mercy of the sponsor.

Although some new regulations have been passed in recent years to limit the power enjoyed by sponsors over workers, the sponsorship system is still strong and available for sale here.

Who is your sponsor? A simple question that has a tough answer. There are many Asians and Arabs who buy visas. Just like anything that is sold in the black market, its prices can fluctuate. In terms of law, a foreign person should have a sponsor to represent him or her in front of the country’s authorities. Sadly, that should not be aspect that concerns them most!

How is a visa bought? I know this is weird but when someone plans to immigrate, they must be in possession of a work contract. Otherwise, they are considered to be illegal residents or immigrants. No matter what qualifications they possess, they are asked to leave.

Kuwait is wonderland in that sense. Some people find it hard to get a job easily or want to stay in the country for a longer period with families by supporting themselves doing odd jobs. For that, they need legal residence permit. A civil ID is needed or they can be easily caught by police. They begin hunting down for any Kuwaiti who accepts quick cash and is ready to present himself as the sponsor. This citizen is not concerned with how they lead their lives or earn a living. The Kuwaiti sponsor will simply lend his name on the official papers. In case trouble erupts, workers will seek sponsor’s assistance to be freed from prison.

How much does it cost? Those who ask for KD 400 are not very greedy! Some are asking for KD 700 and more. They could even be crooks. There is no guarantee that whoever takes money will get the residence permit stamped. Payment is to be made in advance, KD 250 is to be paid first, followed by the rest of the amount.

These activities do not fall under the purvey of the law. This is because the law cannot question if someone lied or not until the worker under sponsorship commits a crime. I think it is unethical to blackmail an expat simply because they ‘ bought’ the residence permit. They will have to work the whole year to collect enough money to pay back the ‘cost involved.’

I have seen cases like this for almost ten years or more, especially among Asians who want to stay in Kuwait and find their own ways of living, legal or not.

So, their goal is to find a ‘buyer.’ Just like the way any market functions, this ‘merchandise’ finds its way into the hands of many. There are agencies that have a mandoub (company representative) to take follow up action.

I believe that we need to enforce the law. So, whenever such cases are caught, a hefty fine should be levied on the sponsor. Most of these expatriates who resort to such methods are may be uneducated or criminals. Incarceration could possibly teach them a lesson. I think corruption is very high. Those men and women who betray the country, are callous about the safety of expatriates too.

Laws were made to regulate people’s lives and it is important to update laws that are work related. Yes, only stringent laws can ensure every one’s welfare.

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

local

Online labor transactions for companies KUWAIT: The Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor (MSAL) has begun a pilot test for a project that will enable major companies to complete labor related transactions online, a senior ministry official said.

“The system will allow companies with at least 5,000 employees to renew residence permits and issue work permits after making the necessary payments online, a step carried out for the first time in the ministry’s history,” said MSAL Undersecretary Mohammad Al-Kandari.

The project is currently being used by a selected number of companies as its first test run. It will be adopted by all major companies in Kuwait if proven to be successful. “The project will be officially inaugurated by minister Ahmad Al-Rujaib by the end of this month. This will be followed by all labor departments around Kuwait,” Al-Kandari added..

On another issue, Al-Jarida daily reported quoting MSAL insiders yesterday that minister Al-Rujaib will sign a workers’ trade agreement today with Sri Lanka.

It will also organize the process of recruiting Sri Lankan domestic workers to Kuwait.

In other news, 30 workers belonging to Arab and Asian nationalities filed a complaint at the Farwaniya Labor Affairs Department against their company.

They said that it released them from contracts and threatened to prosecute them with fabricated charges for demanding dues.

KUWAIT: An Asian man was arrested with the possession of drugs. During police interrogation, he confessed to trading in them. Case papers state that Brig Saleh Al-Ghannam, Acting Director of General Department for Drug Control was tipped off on the suspectís activities. An undercover agent posing as a customer struck a deal with the suspect on purchasing KD 250 worth marijuana. — Photo by Hanan Al-Saadoun

KUWAIT: Kyungsik Kim, Ambassador of Republic of Korea in Kuwait, Ali Al-Yoha, Secretary—General of the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, and special guests pose for a picture during the opening ceremony of Korea Week at the Korean Embassy.

Korea week kicks off with focus on strengthening bilateral ties Top priority to cultural relations

By Sawsan Kazak KUWAIT: The Korean embassy began Tuesday night, a week of activities at the embassy to introduce authentic Korean culture to Kuwait. “Recently, I have realized that there has been an increasing interest in Korea among Kuwaiti people,” said Kyungsik Kim, the ambassador of the Republic of Korea in Kuwait, adding” I think cultural exchange is very important to strengthen bilateral relationships.”

The Korean ambassador believes ‘Korea Week’ will help showcase the many different aspects of Korean culture, and at the same time, help with building joint ties. “My goal is to strengthen our bilateral ties even further. Presently, our relationship is very good, and getting better.

Kuwait is one of Korea’s most important economic partners,” said the ambassador.

“Korea is the second largest oil importing country from Kuwait, and Kuwait is Korea’s fifth overseas construction market,” explains the Korean ambassador about the existing economic ties between the two countries.

Ali Al-Yoha, secretary general of the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, provided the opening speech in which he thanked to Korean embassy, community and Kuwaiti volunteers that

made the week-long event possible. AlYoha emphasized that the focus of Korea Week was to encourage real communication and exchange, saying “we wish to promote a meaningful exchange between

status”, Al-Fadhallah said. He added that residents in this case can obtain an article 24 residency that gives them privileges such as health care and access to subsidized food items.

According to Al-Fadhallah, the residents who already legalized their status include 582 Saudis, 365 Syrians and 104 Iraqis.

Al-Fadhallah also provided an explanation to a categorization system through which the Central Agency handles the ‘bedoon’ community to determine those eligible for naturalization.

“In 2010 when the agency started its studies, 67,000 stateless residents were identified and divided into three categories. The first category was for residents with security restrictions preventing their nationalization, which falls under the specialty of the State Security Service and the Army Intelligence,” AlFadhallah said.

“The second category pertains to people holding documents from the 1965 census and they are eligible for citizenship, while the third includes residents with documents indicating that they arrived in Kuwait after 1966 and thus are not

Korean and Kuwaiti culture throughout the week. I have been pleased to see that more and more Kuwaitis want to know about Korea and at the same time, more and more Koreans have been eager to know about Kuwait and Arabs.”

eligible for naturalization,” he further explained.

As per this system, stateless residents in the first category will be given red identifications and will be required to address their restrictions in order to obtain residency.

Meanwhile, green IDs will be given to bedoon in the second category, while yellow IDs will be given to third category bedoons “until they produce passports of their original countries,” Al-Fadhallah explained.

Ahmad Al-Mulaifi, former Minister of Education, claimed later that day at a seminar organized at Kuwait University, that the Kuwaiti Government is aware of the original nationalities of 70 percent of the current population of bedoons, and demanded that the Government “cuts all services provided to them until they produce their original passports.” The Kuwait Society for Basic Principles of Human Rights (KSBPHR) released a statement calling for the “immediate naturalization of around 30,000 bedoons regarded as eligible in state records”, as well as the release of stateless residents arrested during illegal demonstrations.

RIYADH: The Kuwaiti doctors pose for a group photograph with Theyab Al-Rashidi.

Embassy honors Kuwaiti specialists RIYADH: The Kuwaiti Charge d’Affaires at the embassy in Riyadh Theyab Al-Rashidi honored yesterday Kuwaiti doctors who have obtained the Saudi Medical Board Certification.

“Those doctors have obtained the highest academic certifications in various fields of medicine,” the Kuwaiti envoy said at the end of a dinner held, at the embassy, to honor those doctors. He went on saying that Kuwait

“ We are trying to promote and introduce Korean culture to the local people.

We chose the best samples of our culture.

This week will help us share our culture with the people in Kuwait,” explained

KUWAIT: A presentation during the opening ceremony of Korea Week at the embassy in Mishref. —- Photos by Joseph Shagra

1,086 ‘bedoons’ find their passports in three months KUWAIT: Procedures are currently underway to naturalize a group of stateless residents eligible to obtain Kuwaiti citizenship, including 921 soldiers in the Kuwaiti Army, as well as oil sector employees who worked here before 1960, and the children of Kuwaiti women who are either widows of or are divorced from stateless residents. Saleh AlFadhallah, head of the Central Agency for Illegal Residents, said naturalization is bound by “regulations and conditions, not attitudes and emotions”.

His statements came during a press conference held this week to announce the inauguration of the agency ’s office at Mubarak AlKabeer Migration Department. AlFadhallah said 44 stateless residents rectified their illegal status during the last three months by producing passports revealing their original nationalities.

He said 1,042 stateless residents did the same at the Migration General Department within the same period. “(The Central Agency and Migration Department) work together to provide all facilities for stateless residents to legalize their

KUWAIT: Korean volunteers write names of guests in Korean calligraphy.

needs such qualified doctors to improve the quality of health services in the country.

He praised the high level of cooperation of the various Saudi hospitals and medical centers in training the Kuwaiti physicians. The Kuwaiti MDs, Tariq Al-Otaibi, Dulaim Al-Hajri, Basil Al-Shamiri, Nader Al-Asousi and Faisal Al-Shallal, expressed their anticipation to worker harder to sever their country. — KUNA

Eunjeong Kim, Councilor at the embassy of the Republic of Korea in Kuwait. “I think on this occasion, we have attracted many people and now this is a good opportunity to promote things like business and trade and tourism,” she explained.

The Councilor has observed that tourism in Korea has become quite popular and the country is trying to make it simpler for the would-be tourist. “We are trying to get direct flights into the country, but it is not there now. We encourage people to take the shortest way to our country and that stops by Dubai first. The country is not that close but it is worth the trip because our culture is amazing,” says the Korean Councilor, adding “ For Kuwaiti people going to visit, they will find there are a lot of commonalities between both cultures such as the friendliness of the people also the way people communicate with each other.”

The opening ceremony as well as the week-long event features people from the Korean community in Kuwait and some Kuwaiti volunteers displaying their talents and passion for the culture. Booths all over the Korean embassy showcasing Korean culture such as calligraphy, painting, games and fashion. The opening day featured the food festival, with different restaurants displaying authentic recipes and products available in Kuwait.

Upcoming events include a Korean product market and charity bazaar, K-pop contest, and a classical music concert performed by Korean students living in Kuwait.

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

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Sheikha Al-Bahar tops list of most powerful Arab business women DUBAI: The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of National Bank of Kuwait (NBK), Sheikha Al-Bahar was placed as the top 100 business women in the Arab world, according to Forbes Middle East Magazine May issue.

According to the magazine, the ranking focuses on the role of Arab business women over a wide range of public listed companies and sectors.

Under her leadership, Al-Bahar was able to make the bank flourish amassing an impressive $one billion profits and $ 2.3 billion in revenues.

Following in a close second is Lubna Suleiman Olayan, a Saudi national who built a formidable reputation in banking and who now serves as a board member of the Saudi Hollandi Bank.

The third spot was given to Dina Shoman, the executive vice president of branding and board member of Arab Bank.

Compiling the research into a single database under strict criteria which includes the annual financial perform-

ance for the company in 2011, shares held by individuals in the company, and the market value of the company as of the 1st April, 2012. Beginning with a total of 219 women, the list was successfully reduced from 219 to 100 women.

“Our list not only helped identify the most powerful leading women in the region, but helped us identify the key sectors in which these women have enjoyed success,” the magazine said.

Included amongst the top sectors are banking with 29 women, manufacturing with 18, investments 16, services 14 and insurance with eight.

The list was also broken down by geographical region with Egypt taking the center stage with 20 prestigious women in key leadership roles.

This was followed by Kuwait with 17, Jordan with 13, and followed closely by UAE, Bahrain, Oman, and Palestine, with eight women each respectively.

Syria continued the list with seven, Saudi Arabia with five, and both Qatar and Lebanon with three each. —KUNA

A group picture of last year’s students.

NBK launches 2012 Summer Internship Program KUWAIT: In light of the tremendous success of the Summer Internship Programs over the past few years, National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) is launching the first in a series of the 2012 Summer Internship Program on June 10. The two-week courses are specially designed for high school and college students between 15 and 20 years old.

NBK Public Relations Officer, Talal Adel Al-Turki said “NBK views the Summer Internship Program as an extension of its educative initiatives

as part of it social responsibility.”

“This annual program demonstrates the NBK’s long-standing social involvement as well as its national commitment towards providing the young generations with the appropriate opportunities to experience how the actual professional banking issues and transactions are handled and processed”, Al-Turki added.

The Summer Internship Program consists of five-hour daily sessions and features a mixture of theoreti-

cal and practical training dedicated to providing the interns with invaluable knowledge on a variety of subjects such as; the teamwork, creative thinking, means of self expression and modern banking, in addition to helping them to have greater exposure to daily banking work procedures.

Online registration for the Summer Internship Program is open until May 31 through nbk.com and NBK’s official page on Facebook and Twitter.

Talal Adel Al-Turki

Fugitive held in South Surra for swindling thousands of dinars Ungrateful son arrested

Kuwait-China relations progressing in all spheres BEIJING: Kuwaiti Ambassador to China Saleh Al-Thuwaikh stressed ties between the two nations are progressing in all spheres as “true partners in development upon launch of a new era of joint action and cooperation.”

The ambassador was speaking Tuesday night on the sidelines of a banquet by the embassy honoring visiting Arab League Secretary General Nabil AlAraby.

The diplomat said there was a genuine desire on both sides to further cooperation and coordination and launch joint projects, both in China and beyond.

The ambassador pointed out the importance of the China-Arab Cooperation Forum which is the means

to build a strategic cooperation between the Arab World and China, the world’s second largest economy after the US. Forum efforts push forward political, trade, and cultural exchange and interaction, he stressed.

“The two sides are therefore eager for the fith round of the forum, due in Tunis late May,” Al-Thuwaikh said.

The Arab League Secretary General, Nabil Al-Araby, for his part said this is an important forum that puts mutual goals into initiatives and measures on the ground. This is facilitated, he said, through the organized channels for dialogue and cooperation and clearly-motivated strategies adopted and proclaimed by the forum. —KUNA

KUWAIT: A fugitive wanted in connection with multiple criminal cases was arrested recently after he reportedly swindled thousands of dinars from a man. Hawally investigators launched a probe in search for the suspect after a citizen reported that he disappeared after collecting KD 20,000 that was paid to him. Police also found out that the man is wanted in six similar cases that were reported previously. He was eventually located in south Surra and arrested at his place of residence. The man, who denied most of the accusations, remains in custody pending legal procedures.

Suicide attempt An Asian man’s corpse was found at the parking lot of the Higher Institute of Musical Arts. The man reportedly committed suicide according to investigations. Police reached the location on Tuesday after receiving a report about a dead body found hanging by a rope tied to a car shade. The body was removed and taken to the Forensic Department after criminal investigators found no evidence of foul play.

Ungrateful son arrested A Doha resident was arrested for physically assaulting his mother and evicting her from the family home. Security officers reached the scene after a Kuwaiti woman reported the incident. The man threatened his sister with

dire consequences if she let their mother inside. Officers found the mother sitting on a roadside pavement. Her son refused to let her in when officers knocked the door, but her daughter came out and told officers that the man beat their mother too. Police arrested the man and whisked him away to Al-Sulaibikhat police station. He expressed remorse and explained that he lost temper while discussing a family issue. He remains in custody pending legal action.

Drunk driver A pedestrian was hospitalized in a critical condition after being run over by an inebriated driver. He was arrested later. Police and paramedics rushed to the street in Sulaibiya where the accident was reported. The Pakistani man was admitted to Al-Jahra Hospital after sustaining a skull fracture. The driver, a Kuwaiti man in his twenties, was arrested. It was determined that he drove under the influence of alcohol.

Man resists arrest A male motorist was arrested after he tried to prevent police from detaining his female companion for failing to produce her civil identification card, as the two were taken in custody to face legal action. The incident took place in Maidan Hawally recently after patrol officers seized a luxury car and booked the Kuwaiti driver at the helm for a violation. The

vehicle’s color mismatched with the color mentioned in the registration details. When his female companion, recognized in the news report as an actress, failed to produce her identification card, police asked her to step into the police vehicle. At that point, the man attempted to prevent officers from taking the woman in custody. However, he was restrained and was taken to the area’s police station.

Rapist at large Investigations are currently ongoing to identify a suspect accused of raping a woman who was found lying unconscious in Salhiya.

Police and paramedics rushed to a location behind the church where the Filipina victim was found. She was hospitalized and investigations revealed that she was kidnapped and sexually assaulted.

Teacher attacked A teacher pressed charges against a man who verbally and physically assaulted her for allegedly insulting his daughter. The incident reportedly took place at Al-Riqqa High School for Girls. The 48-year-old Kuwaiti man became involved in an argument with the Egyptian teacher that soon turned violent. After he left, the teacher headed to Abu Halifa police station after obtaining a medical report from AlAdan Hospital. The man is being summoned for investigations. — Al-Rai, Al-Watan

Arab Media Forum carries weight in region DUBAI: The Arab Media Forum carries weight in the region since it has introduced the digital revolution to the various Arab media outlets, Kuwait’s former minister of information Dr. Saad bin Tiflah said yesterday. Tiflah, who is participating as a keynote speaker in the forum, said importance of this event lies in

ongoing assembly of many media figures from all backgrounds and nationalities. “No one can isolate the role played by the media in the ‘Arab Spring’ that contoured the political faÁade in the Arab region,” the former minister said. “Hence this forum which acknowledges this media influence,” he said. Saad

bin Tiflah chaired yesterday’s session which is named “Free Media, Free Struggle.”

The two-day forum, currently held in Dubai, has attracted over 2,000 international journalists, media professionals and academics, representing a 43 percent increase compared to last year’s

gathering. The forum kicked off on Tuesday under patronage of VicePresident and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai Shaikh Mohammad bin Rashid AlMaktoum. Later yesterday, Sheikh Al-Maktoum attended an awardgiving ceremony for elite journalists. — KUNA

BEIJING: Ambassador Saleh Al-Thuwaikh pictured with visiting Arab League Secretary General Nabil Al-Araby and his accompanying delegation.

Kuwait funding alleviates Palestinian suffering AMMAN: Kuwaiti Ambassador to Jordan Dr. Hamad Al-Duaij handed Zakat Alquds Committee yesterday a donation of $350,000 offered by Islamic Heritage Restoration Society (IHRS), and another valued at $35,000 from International Islamic Charitable Organization (IICO).

Al-Duaj said that this donation is part of the support Kuwait offers to Palestine at the official and popular levels. This backing contributes in reducing suffering of Palestinians, and helps in maintaining Arab and Islamic identity of Jerusalem.

Continuous funding of Kuwait to Jerusalem (Quds) Zakat Committee strengthens resistance of the Arab residents of the city, who are suffering from Israel’s occupation and its violent practices, aimed at Judaizing the Holy City and expelling its Arab inhabitants.

Financial support was offered from Kuwaiti Zakat House to complete

building a mosque in Jerash governorate in Jordan, the ambassador said.

IICO also offers financial and material aid for needy families in Jordan.

The diplomat stressed on Kuwait’s keenness on supporting charity and humanitarian work at local and international levels. Director of projects and orphan’s affairs department in Jerusalem (Quds) Zakat Committee Ashraf Salhab said Jerusalem “is enjoying special care from Kuwait under wise leadership of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.”

He hailed role of the Kuwaiti diplomatic mission in Jordan in facilitating work of Kuwaiti humanitarian committees in delivering aid to Palestinian people. Quds Zakat Committee is a charitable independent organization that works to aid orphans and poor people, holds iftar meals and organizes Quran recitation courses. —KUNA

Kuwaiti divers remove 80-ton sunken ship KUWAIT: Kuwaiti divers successfully lifted a sunken ship off Doha Port after 10 days of continuous work. “The ship was stranded between rocks on the sea floor, requiring the removal process to be divided into phases,” said Waleed Al-Fadhel, Kuwait Dive Team leader in a press

statement yesterday. The 90-feet-long Iranian ship weighing 80 tons, required 40 tons of air bags and 30 hollow barrels to be floated to the water surface, before being towed over a twokilometre long distance toward the shore. “This is one of the largest operations the team has

undertaken since its inception in 1986,” AlFadhel said. The team, which is part of the Environmental Voluntary Foundation, received assistance from the Kuwait Ports Association.

Doha Port officials helped make the operation a success.

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

17 dead in Philippine department store fire

Nine jailed in racially sensitive sex ring case Page 9

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PARIS: Outgoing French leader Nicolas Sarkozy (C) welcomes European Council President Herman Van Rompuy prior to a meeting at the Elysee Palace yesterday in Paris. — AFP

Sarkozy holds ‘emotional’ last meet ‘Five weeks from now is the road to hope’ PARIS: Outgoing French leader Nicolas Sarkozy’s cabinet met for its last session yesterday as president-elect Francois Hollande held talks with top Socialists to gear up for next month’s parliamentary vote.

Hollande also held consultations on forming a government and preparing for his first foreign visit, to Berlin, where he is expected to get a frosty reception over his plans to renegotiate the European fiscal austerity pact.

The cabinet meeting was “emotional”, participants said, with ministers giving Sarkozy a standing ovation after he told them he wished Hollande “good luck” following his election win on Sunday. “Nicolas Sarkozy’s main commitment in 2007, to put France on the move, has been met,” Prime Minister Francois Fillon said after the session.

“We did this with a number of reforms that no one else managed, and we did it during a

climate of crisis.” Government spokeswoman Valerie Pecresse said Fillon would tender the cabinet’s resignation today and that it would take effect when Hollande is inaugurated on May 15.

Hollande meanwhile met with senior party officials at his campaign headquarters, where talks focused on securing the Socialists a majority in the two-round parliamentary vote on June 10 and 17. “We are closing one period and opening another, that of the parliamentary elections,” party leader Martine Aubry told journalists. “It is important not to slacken our efforts.”

Winning in June will be crucial for the Socialists as the president requires a parliamentary majority to maintain a governmentotherwise the prime minister is in charge of the cabinet. Sarkozy’s ministers were also starting to focus on the vote, with the trade

and tourism minister, Frederic Lefebvre, saying the centre-right UMP was confident of claiming a majority in parliament.

“Five weeks from now is the moment of reconquest, five weeks from now is the road to hope,” he told BFMTV after the cabinet meeting. Hollande’s transition chief Pierre Moscovici said the handover was going smoothly and praised Sarkozy for helping things along.

Sarkozy “ran a tough campaign, but he has chosen to make a dignified exit,” Moscovici told Europe 1 radio. “The handover is taking place under easy conditions.” Sarkozy indicated on Sunday that he was retiring from frontline politics. His communications advisor Franck Louvrier said Sarkozy was preparing to return to his former life as a lawyer at the Paris firm he still partly owns, after taking a break with his wife Carla Bruni and their baby

daughter. Hollande is facing a packed international agenda after his inauguration and pressure was already building on the Socialist to stand by France’s austerity commitments.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has made clear she will not renegotiate the fiscal pact setting tough budgetary rules for European Union states, which she spearheaded along with Sarkozy.

In a letter to Hollande on Tuesday, she said she welcomed talks with the Socialist but that Europe was counting on France and Germany to take the “necessary decisions” to resolve the bloc’s debt crisis. A German member of the European Central Bank’s board also warned France to honour its fiscal commitments.

“I expect France to implement the fiscal pact unchanged,” Joerg Asmussen told the German daily Handelsblatt in an interview published yesterday. European Commission

Radical cleric Qatada loses Europe appeal LONDON: A radical preacher accused of giving spiritual inspiration to one of the 9/11 hijackers lost a legal bid in the European courts yesterday to challenge Britain’s long-running attempts to deport him to Jordan to stand trial on terrorism charges. Abu Qatada, once described by a Spanish judge as “Osama bin Laden’s right-hand

man in Europe”, had asked the European Court of Human Rights to refer his case to a panel of its most senior judges. The court said it turned down his request, paving the way for Britain to send him back to Jordan after a decade of legal wrangling over his fate. It gave no reasons for its refusal.

Abu Qatada

Qatada’s lawyers had argued that he risked being tortured in Jordan or being convicted using evidence extracted from others using torture. Britain reached an agreement with Jordan in 2005 to try to ensure Qatada is not mistreated if he is returned to Jordan. “I am pleased by the European court’s decision,” said British Home Secretary (interior minister) Theresa May. “ The Qatada case will now go through the British courts. “I am confident the assurances we have from Jordan mean we can put Qatada on a plane and get him out of Britain.” However, in an embarrassment for the British government, the judges confirmed that Qatada had lodged his appeal request in time, contradicting May’s original claims that he had been too late.

His case has been a headache for successive British governments, accused by critics of not doing enough to deport Qatada. Twice convicted in his absence in Jordan of involvement in terrorism plots, the preacher is still a national security risk, Britain says, and should be deported before London hosts the Olympic Games in July and August. Qatada, whose real name is Omar Othman, has been in and out of jail since he was first detained without charge under British anti-terrorism laws in 2002. Britain says videotapes of his sermons were found in a German apartment used by three of the people who carried out Al-Qaeda’s Sept 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.— Reuters

chief Jose Manuel Barroso also said Wednesday that there would be no renegotiation of the pact.

Hollande promised cheering supporters Sunday that he would reopen talks to ensure the EU fiscal pact focused on growth rather than simply imposing deficit-cutting austerity rules. An aide to Hollande said that EU president Herman Van Rompuy would meet the Socialist on Wednesday in Paris, and have talks Thursday with the Eurogroup chief, Luxembourg premier Jean-Claude Juncker.

Van Rompuy is to host an informal dinner of the bloc’s leaders on May 23 ahead of an EU summit on June 28 and 29 that is expected to focus on growth. Observers say there will be room for compromise as Hollande may accept additional measures to foster growth while retaining the austerity pact’s original wording. —AFP

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

I N T E R N AT I O N A L

Syrians’ plight touches Turkey’s ‘Little Afghanistan’ OVAKENT: When Abdul Maraf Yildiz looks at the thousands of Syrian refugees flooding across the border into southern Turkey, he sees himself, 30 years ago. Yildiz was only two in 1982 when his family fled the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and found sanctuary in Hatay, the Turkish province that has become a magnet for Syrians escaping President Bashar Al-Assad’s repression.

“You know that feeling when you watch a film for the second time? This time the Syrians are the actors and we are watching the film. We have experienced the same things,” Yildiz said in the village of Ovakent, just a few km from Hatay’s airport. “We lived in refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran. Then we came to Turkey and found peace. They will face far less problems than us because they are in Turkey,” he said.

Three years after Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan, the Turkish government flew some 170 Afghan families from refugee camps in Pakistan to Turkey, a fraction of the millions of Afghans who fled the occupation. As most of these families were ethnic Uzbek and Turkmen, the move was seen as a humanitarian gesture by Turkey to help its Turkic

brothers in a time of need. The families were settled in Ovakent, then nothing more than a poor, tiny settlement. Friends and relatives gravitated there later.

The Afghans were granted Turkish citizenship and three decades later, Ovakent has grown into a large village of several thousand people.

Sitting outside his grocery shop, 52-year-old Abdulkerim Turkmen recounts how he arrived in Ovakent from the northern Afghan province of Kunduz in the mid-1990s, this time fleeing the Taliban militia as it extended its grip across the country. “It took us 15 days to cross overland from northern Afghanistan. We travelled through Iran and then into Turkey and had to enter both countries illegally,” Turkmen said as he flicked prayer beads in his hand. “Now we are Turkish citizens. The Turkish government really helped us,” he said. It is now the Syrians’ turn. Some 23,000 Syrian refugees are living in camps in Turkey. More than 2,800 people fled in just one day last month after a surge in attacks by Assad’s forces in the Idlib region just across the border.Tens of thousands more have fled to Jordan and Lebanon and the United Nations estimates around 200,000 Syrians are displaced within their own coun-

try. Thousands of refugees also go unregistered, choosing to stay with friends or relatives. Most of the refugees have no intention of staying in Turkey, and Ankara hopes Assad will be persuaded to step aside to allow a political transition which would allow them to go home. Turkey refers to the Syrians as “guests”, free to come and go as they choose. “We feel their pain. We have experienced what they are going through,” said Turkmen. “The Syrians are lucky they have a good neighbor in Turkey.”

To most of the Turks in Hatay, the Ovakent village is simply known as “Little Afghanistan”, and it is easy to see why. Bearded old men dressed in traditional baggy Afghan clothes with long turbans wrapped around their heads sit on benches in the village square chatting in Uzbek or Turkmen, while a teenager fans coals on an Afghan-style barbecue nearby. Shops around the village sell green tea, sacks of Indian rice and fisherman-style waistcoats worn by nearly every man in Afghanistan. Through half-opened gates, women in brightly colored outfits stir big pots of rice in open courtyards.

Yildiz runs a Turkish-Uzbek association in Ovakent aimed at breaking down some of the preju-

dices surrounding their village. “We organize Afghan cultural days and serve Afghan food for example. We hold Newroz (New Year) celebrations and invite people so they see that we are just normal people,” said Yildiz, a small Afghan flag sitting on the desk in front of him. “There are prejudices, yes, but we are trying to break these down slowly but surely,” he said. Like many who were optimistic after the Taliban were overthrown, Yildiz went back to Afghanistan in 2003 and got married, but returned five years later.

At the peak, Afghan refugees numbered more than eight million around the world, most of them in camps in Pakistan and Iran. Almost six million have since returned but renewed violence still deters many. Abdul Jalil, 72, came to Ovakent 12 years ago and continues his metalwork trade in a little shop front, banging out stove pipes and weighing scales to sell to other villagers. Old trinkets lie around his shop that would not look out of place on a street in Kabul. Sitting at his workshop table Jalil sips on a small glass of green tea and offers fresh almonds from a bag next to him. With violence in Afghanistan showing no sign of abating, chances are that he will never return.— Reuters

US drone attacks cause political strain in Yemen Insurgency, drone strikes hamper transition

CAIRO: In this Tuesday, March 13, 2012 file photo, Egyptian activist Samira Ibrahim, center, attends an anti Military Supreme Council protest in Tahrir square, Cairo, Egypt. Women protesters and rights groups have accused Egyptian military and prison authorities of sexual assault and abuse on female detainees in the latest crackdown on demonstrations. — AP

Presidential vote splits Egypt’s strict Islamists ALEXANDRIA: At Al-Taqwa mosque in Egypt’s second biggest city, a preacher defends his ultra-orthodox Salafi group’s decision to endorse Abdel Moneim Abol Fotouh, an Islamist who casts himself as a moderate, in this month’s presidential election. “Don’t consider his media statements only. He has various writings that confirm his comprehensive understanding of Islam and his desire to achieve it,” Yasser Burhamy, a founder of the Salafi movement in Egypt, tells his Alexandria audience, his message recorded and posted on the group’s website.

The poll, expected to go to a run-off in June, is a landmark in a turbulent transition to democracy that could see Egypt elect an Islamist to replace deposed President Hosni Mubarak, who repressed proponents of political Islam throughout his 30-year rule and battled armed Muslim militants in the 1990s. The endorsement by Burhamy’s influential Salafi Call and its political party, Al-Nour, has pushed Abol Fotouh towards the front of the pack and undercut Mohamed Mursi, the candidate of the rival Muslim Brotherhood. But it has divided Salafis, who number as many as 3 million devotees plus other sympathizers among Egypt’s 82 million people. Their votes could help swing the May 23-24 election.

Abol Fotouh’s stiffest competition in the race, according to sketchy opinion polls, will be Amr Moussa, a former head of the Arab League and one-time foreign minister to Mubarak. But Abol Fotouh’s chances may hinge on whether Salafis unite behind him or split. Some Salafis say they will defy their leadership and vote for Mursi or other Islamist candidates. “The youth don’t have a unified vote. Some say they will follow the sheikhs’ decision and others will think and decide by themselves,” said Motaz Azmy, 27, in Alexandria, a Salafi stronghold where the movement emerged in the 1970s.

Some Salafis doubt Abol Fotouh’s commitment to implementing Islamic sharia law, a central tenet for followers of the strict school, and believe his courting of liberals in his television and press appearances shows he is too ready to compromise. Many Salafis, though not their parties, had backed Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, a sheikh who

vowed to enforce sharia, promised social justice and blamed the West for many of Egypt’s ills. But he was disqualified in April when his late mother was found to have had US citizenship, violating a rule that both parents of a president hold only Egyptian nationality. Abu Ismail’s supporters have protested repeatedly in the streets.

The Salafi Al-Nour party, with the second biggest bloc in parliament, is backing Abol Fotouh, saying he combines broad popular appeal with commitment to Islamist values, even though it acknowledged some ideological differences. It said it would not back the Brotherhood’s Mursi as it did not want one group “monopolizing power”, reflecting a long rivalry among Islamists which dates back to the 1970s.

Burhamy said another Islamist candidate, Selim al-Awa, might have been a popular choice for Salafis, but argued that he lacked Abol Fotouh’s ability to draw a range of voters. Such a calculation shows an unusually pragmatic streak in the Salafi camp, which for years steered clear of politics and often criticised the Brotherhood, founded 84 years ago, for compromising on principles in pursuit of political influence.

The Brotherhood bore the brunt of Mubarak’s repressive policies. “They have entered the political game and are presenting compromises in their speech,” said Adel Soliman, head of Cairo’s International Centre for Future and Strategic Studies.

The Salafis’ showing in the parliamentary poll shocked many Egyptians and proved they had a formidable voting machine linked to preachers in 4,000 mosques they are thought to control. Egypt has about 108,000 mosques and other Muslim places of worship. “Political decisions are weighed on the scale of what is beneficial and what is harmful,” Abdel Moneim el-Shahat, a spokesman for the Salafi Call, wrote on the group’s website. He voiced “reservations” about Abol Fotouh’s approach, but said: “Nevertheless, we agree that applying (sharia) should start with what’s possible.” Not all Salafis agree, and Nour party chairman Emad Abdel Ghaffour, said it was hard to convince them, given that the fledgling party had not fielded a candidate of its own. —Reuters

GAZA CITY: Palestinian children take part in a rally in Gaza City ahead of the anniversary of the Nakba yesterday. Palestinians mark on May 15 the “Nakba”, or “Catastrophe”, which commemorates the expulsion and fleeing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from British-mandate Palestine as a result of the 1948 war that led to the creation of the Jewish state. — AFP

SANAA: As Yemen struggles to shake off exPresident Ali Abdullah Saleh’s legacy, the United States has intensified drone strikes on Al-Qaedalinked militants, although some Yemeni officials fear this may only fuel instability. This week alone, US officials said they had seized a bomb that was to have been used by Yemen-based militants to attack an airliner, two Al-Qaeda men were killed in an apparently related drone strike, and Islamist fighters killed at least 32 Yemeni soldiers when they assaulted an army post in the south.

Saleh’s former deputy, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who replaced him as president under an internationally-backed, but still shaky, political transition deal, faces a tough dilemma. He must meet the challenge from emboldened Islamist militants who have exploited more than a year of mayhem to seize and hold towns for the first time, and cannot afford to alienate the United States, one of Yemen’s main allies, as it combats what it views as Al-Qaeda’s potentially deadliest wing. Yet US drone attacks, which have often killed civilians in the past, are resented by Yemenis, even the many who abhor Al-Qaeda.

Suspicions that feuding generals and politicians, from Saleh down, are not averse to using the militants to advance their own ends also complicate efforts to combat them. The violence has spiraled since Hadi took power in February vowing to fight Al-Qaeda’s foothold in Yemen, a desperately poor, water-stressed country mired in multiple conflicts exacerbated by decades of corruption and misrule. “The real war against AlQaeda has yet to begin and it will not succeed until we eradicate the militants from every town,” Hadi said on Saturday. “Terrorist groups should surrender their weapons and relinquish ideology that counters Islamic virtue.”

The Al-Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Sharia group said Monday’s storming of an army position was their retort to Hadi’s remarks. A US official familiar with counter-terrorism activities in Yemen said drone strikes and other operations had increased after the turmoil of Saleh’s final months in office - when internal strife distracted Yemeni security forces and cooperation with a once-valued ally disintegrated. “We pulled back on targeting for a while but (US operations) have got some new momentum now,” the official said, adding that it had also become easier to get personnel and equipment into Yemen for the covert struggle against Al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda has long bedevilled Yemen and its neighbor Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, but last year’s anti-Saleh uprising emboldened militants to rout demoralized, illequipped army units and grab whole swathes of southern provinces. Washington’s alarm has grown in recent weeks as militants killed more than 200 Yemeni soldiers and captured dozens more in a series of spectacular attacks in Shabwa and Abyan provinces, where it now controls the cities of Zinjibar, Jaar, Shaqra and Azzan and has turned them into “Islamic emirates”.

GOVERNMENT MISGIVINGS But some Yemeni officials fret that more US missile strikes will backfire, increasing hostility to a central government that risks being seen as a tool of Washington. A senior Defense Ministry

ADEN: A Yemeni man crosses a street blocked for traffic in the Red Sea port of Aden on May 6, 2012. Yemen’s once bustling southern capital at first glance appears relatively safe and orderly but a closer look reveals a city threatened by guns, thugs, and a growing Jihadist presence with Al-Qaeda linked militants in control of large swaths of territory in the country’s lawless southern and eastern provinces. — AFP official, who asked not to be named, said the government feared what he called a “free-for-all” drone program like the one in Pakistan and had insisted on “tough limitations” to ensure that joint US-Yemeni efforts remain firmly in the hands of the Yemeni authorities. “The Yemeni armed forces remain the sole determinant of all military operations within its borders. We have the final word on all proposed air strikes, regardless of US intelligence. No strikes will take place without our prior consent,” he said.

Yemenis still recall a 2009 US cruise missile attack that killed dozens of people, including 14 women and 21 children. Last year, with the antiSaleh revolt in full swing, a drone strike killed Anwar Al-Awlaki, a US-born Yemeni cleric and English-language Al-Qaeda propagandist said to have inspired several attacks on targets in the United States. Hadi, who discussed the fight against Al-Qaeda with FBI chief Robert Mueller in Sanaa last month, has offered repeated assurances to Washington about military cooperation.

But US strikes and the fractured Yemeni military have failed to quell a burgeoning Islamist insurgency in the south that is sapping Yemen’s efforts to build a new political order.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which includes Saudi militants who fled to Yemen after the kingdom crushed a violent home-grown 2003-2006 campaign, is riding high. Its Ansar Al-Sharia ally has gone on the offensive in the south in the last two months, storming military bases, plundering ammunition depots, carving out new strongholds and sending teams to launch attacks elsewhere. On May 1 two Yemenis were killed and a Frenchman was wounded when suspected Al-Qaeda gunmen ambushed a vehicle carrying employees of France’s TOTAL in an eastern province. Militants blew up TOTAL’s gas pipeline the week before, in the third attack on oil and gas facilities in the past month.

RANSOM DEMAND Militants are also kidnapping foreigners for ransom. A Swiss woman, one of two foreign aid workers seized near Hodeidah, hundreds of miles from Al-Qaeda’s southern lairs, is now held in Shabwa province in the south by Al-Qaeda militants demanding $60 million for her release, Western diplomats say. “For the first time AlQaeda controls territory,” said one diplomat. “As the United States sees it, unless they are kept on the run, it will only be a matter of time before AlQaeda launches another attack on the West.”

Yet global jihad is not the main public concern of Ansar Al-Sharia, which has set up de facto administrations in captured towns, providing security and basic services to a region that has long bristled at official neglect and discrimination. Recent videos published by the group on YouTube show its members in Jaar, renamed “the emirate of Waqar”, handing out sacks of grain, rigging up electricity lines and dealing out justice in a makeshift sharia Islamic court. “When did you last have electricity?” one fighter asks an old man sat on a rock as his compatriots assemble a pylon behind him. “We’ve never had electricity,” replies the man in disdain.

Ansar Al-Sharia has let the Red Cross implement water projects and provide health care to the internally displaced. But the militants sometimes meet local resistance, as in the town of Lawdar, where residents using arms abandoned by a fleeing army brigade held off a three-day assault this month. “ They (Ansar Al-Sharia) arrived after the dawn prayer, they thought it would be easy to take the town, that we would surrender like they did in Zinjibar,” said Saeed AlDhailie, who heads a local committee set up last year during the protests. “We fought them off with Duskas (Soviet-era heavy machineguns) and rifles. Thousands of youth participated, tribesmen from the surrounding area joined us,” Dhailie said. — Reuters

Breakaway Somali regions boost education to deter militancy HARGEISA: Spared the violence that has ravaged southern Somalia for two decades, the breakaway Somaliland and Puntland regions are investing in education to lure youngsters away from extremism and piracy. The self-proclaimed Republic of Somaliland hopes to prove it can build a stable, independent state as the international community has not recognized its autonomy since it split away from Somalia in 1991.

Semi-autonomous Puntland to the east-created in 1998 and now boasting its own political institutions and administration-is striving to keep its youth from joining Islamist extremist or pirate groups. “Several generations have been lost, first under the (Somalia ex-president Mohamed Siad) Barre regime and then during the civil war,” Puntland’s president, Abdirahman Mohamud Farole, recently told an EU delegation. The European Union, Somalia’s biggest donor, contributes 85 million euros ($112 million) a year to the education sector in the whole of Somalia, including the two breakaway regions. “We’re against radical Islamism,” Farole said.

Somalia’s Al Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgents,

under military pressure in the centre and south of the country, are reportedly trying to establish bases in Puntland, where the area’s first pirate gangs emerged in 1998. Zamzam Abdi Adan, Somaliland’s education minister, estimated that only 50 to 55 percent of children in the region attend school. “A nation can only be strong when it has human resources,” Adan, a former teacher and Somaliland’s only woman minister said.

“We’re trying to build solid human resources.”

“We try to convince parents to send their children to school,” said Adan, who in 2011 made primary education free and started to integrate teacherspreviously paid by school fees-into the civil service. In 2012, the state will allocate 10 percent of its budget to education. Neighboring Puntland, for its part, plans to allocate 3.5 per cent of its budget to education this year, and 7 per cent in 2013.

“Education is the only way of counterbalancing extremism in Somalia. It’s important to... provide a future” for young people,” said Puntland’s Education Minister Abdi Farah Said Juxa. “Without education there is no hope,” he said, adding that the other options young people face are piracy

and other criminal activities.

EU education support “helps prevent a situation where young people with no qualifications get involved in extremist activities,” said Isabel Faria de Almeida, who heads the EU’s Education and Economic Development unit for Somalia. The program also aims to get more girls into school, particularly into secondary school, where there are fewer girls despite an increase in overall enrollment. Despite all their efforts and support from the EU, which pays some teachers’ salaries on top of other support, the two regions are facing a huge challenge.

“Classes are full to overflowing and there aren’t enough tables,” explained Nassir Jam Bulale, the headmaster of the Fadumo Bihi School in Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland, where four children squash onto a bench intended for two.

For colleague Ali Ahmed Balayah, one of the problems is low pay for state school teachers who earn around $100 dollars (75 euros) a month.

Once they get some experience, many of them flock to private schools, where they can earn up to three times more.—AFP

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

I N T E R N AT I O N A L

Queen’s speech sets out UK government fightback LONDON: Queen Elizabeth II gave her “Queen’s Speech” to Britain’s parliament yesterday, setting out government policy for the coming year as the ruling coalition sought to fight back after a dismal month. The year’s new laws would focus on “economic growth, justice and constitutional reform”, the queen said, while “the first priority will be to reduce the deficit and restore economic stability”. The two-year-old government’s pursuit of deep spending cuts to reduce the deficit was one of the reasons for the drubbing that the Conservatives and their Lib Dem coalition partners received in local elections last week.

The government will also reform parliament’s non-elected House of Lords and force banks to separate their retail and investment divisions, the queen said, as it seeks to win back voters’ approval. Amid the traditional pageantry, the monarch announced from a throne in the House of Lords that the upper chamber itself would be reformed to become a senate with 80 percent elected members, from the current largely appointed body.

“A bill will be brought forward to reform composition of the House of Lords,” the queen said-but without specifying a timeframe, in an apparent

concession to assuage critics of the plan. The coalition has backed Lords reform under pressure from junior partners the Liberal Democrats, despite opposition from some majority Conservative lawmakers who have labelled it a distraction from pressing economic problems.

The queen said legislation on the agreed European Union bailout fund deal would be put to a parliamentary vote. The introduction of the new European Stability Mechanism will remove Britain’s liability for future bailouts for countries in the eurozone, of which Britain is not a member.

British finance minister George Osborne has also resisted calls for Britain to contribute to EU bailouts through the International Monetary Fund. Both coalition partners took heavy losses in the local elections, with the opposition Labor party taking control of 32 councils and winning more than 800 seats from the ruling parties.

Punishment at the polls followed news of Britain’s return to recession, a budget criticized over tax cuts for the rich, and questions over leaders’ closeness to Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers amid an inquiry into phone hacking.

Wednesday’s speech pledged pro-

business moves including slashing red tape, reforming competition law and limiting state inspections. State and private pensions will be overhauled in a move likely to spark clashes with unions. But after the financial crash, banks will be forced to ringfence separate retail and investment functions to protect ordinary people from a future crisis, while the “framework” for executive pay will be reformed.

A National Crime Agency-said to be modeled on the US’ FBI-will be created to fight organized crime and boost border security. And in a move heavily criticized by civil liberties groups, a draft law will seek to give intelligence agencies extra powers to monitor emails and web use. Adoption is to be streamlined, making race less of a key factor, and maternity and paternity leave made “more flexible so that both parents may share parenting responsibilities and balance work and family commitments”. Absent from the speech were previously flagged plans to enshrine in law a commitment to giving 0.7% of national income as overseas aid, and the introduction of full gay marriage-a government policy that has also been fiercely opposed by some Conservatives.

The speech is drawn up by the gov-

LONDON: Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II (L) sits next to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (R), on the throne in the Chamber of the House of Lords as she reads the Queen’s Speech during the State Opening of Parliament in the Palace of Westminster in London yesterday. — AFP ernment and approved by the cabinet, with traditions dating back over 400 despite being read out by the years, before donning ceremonial monarch, and is followed by four to robes and processing to the House of five days of debate. It was skipped in Lords. An official called the “Black Rod” 2011 as fixed-term parliaments were summoned lawmakers to the chamber, introduced. The 86-year-old queen was where lawmakers and lords heard the escorted by Household Cavalry from speech-the queen’s 69th-read out from her palace to parliament in keeping a handwritten script on vellum. — AFP

Nine jailed in racially sensitive sex ring case South Asians ‘treated White victims as worthless’

KHARKIV: A supporter of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko holds a poster of her in front of a state-run hospital in Kharkiv, Ukraine, yesterday. Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine’s imprisoned former prime minister, was moved yesterday from jail to this hospital for treatment of a severe back condition under the supervision of a German doctor. — AP

Jailed Tymoshenko moved to hospital KIEV: Ukraine’s jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, whose plight in prison has soured relations between the country’s leadership and the West, was moved to a local hospital yesterday in a high-security police convoy. Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich has faced growing criticism over the conviction of Tymoshenko - and the authorities’ refusal to let her travel abroad for treatment for chronic back pain. Her transfer from prison in the eastern city of Kharkiv to a nearby hospital for treatment under the supervision of German doctors was worked out last week in a compromise.

But yesterday’s early morning transfer seemed unlikely to relieve pressure on Yanukovich who has been thrown on the back-foot by sharp Western criticism of his treatment of his rival.

Tymoshenko, 51, a former prime minister, was jailed last October for seven years for alleged abuse of power while in office, a charge she denied. She says she is the victim of a vendetta by Yanukovich who narrowly beat her for the presidency in Februar y 2010. The European Union and the United States have condemned her trial and sentencing as politically motivated and called for her to be released. Outcry in the West intensified after Tymoshenko said she had been beaten in jail and went on hunger strike on April 20 in protest against alleged ill-treatment. Authorities have denied she was mistreated.

Her daughter, Yevgenia, said on

Tuesday her mother had agreed to end her hunger strike under the supervision of a German doctor in a local hospital.

Reuters eyewitnesses in Kharkiv said Tymoshenko was brought to a side entrance of the hospital by ambulance yesterday morning in a heavily guarded convoy that included several police cars.

Two lines of white-coated hospital staff shielded her as she was carried into the hospital on a stretcher, preventing journalists and onlookers catching a glimpse of her. A few supporters nearby shouted out “Freedom for Yulia!” The state prison service, in a statement, confirmed she had been moved to hospital “for the course of rehabilitation recommended by the international medical commission”. Tymoshenko appeared placid and untroubled at World War Two Victory Day celebrations yesterday, despite the growing political pressure. Addressing war veterans in Kiev, he spoke of the need to defend world peace by shunning “populism of all types”, but remained silent about Tymoshenko. In an embarrassing setback on Tuesday, he called off an informal summit meeting in Yalta of Central and Eastern European leaders after several of them said they were staying away because of the Tymoshenko affair. He quickly drew fire for this from other opposition figures.

Arseny Yatsenyuk, leader of the Front of Change party, said cancellation of the Yalta meeting amounted to a “shameful failure” for Ukraine. —Reuters

Putin promises a strong Russia on world stage MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin, speaking in Moscow’s Red Square with military generals at his side, said he would promote Russia’s might on the world stage in a patriotic speech yesterday glorifying the Soviet victory over Germany in World War Two. Two days after being sworn in for a sixyear term that has drawn protests against his return to the Kremlin, Putin used the address to troops and war veterans at the annual military parade on Red Square to reinforce appeals for national unity.

Putin faces a battle to reassert himself after the biggest protests since he rose to power in 2000 and the detention of hundreds of protesters this week to keep a lid on dissent. “Russia consistently follows a policy of strengthening global security and we have a great moral right to stand up determinedly for our positions because our country suffered the blow of Nazism,” Putin said on a podium flanked by military chiefs bristling with medals under the

Kremlin’s red walls.

He did not refer to any enemy other than evoking the victor y over Nazi Germany in 1945 at a great human cost, including millions of Soviet victims, at a parade in which goose-stepping troops, tanks and trucks carrying missiles filed past him.

“Barbarians were plotting to destroy whole nations,” he said. “The inevitable happened - responsibility and common resolve prevailed over evil. Putin, 59, has often used tough statements on foreign policy to rally people and resorted to antiAmerican rhetoric in the run-up to the March 4 presidential election. The tactic was also used by Soviet leaders, and featured prominently on national holidays such as Victory in Europe day.

During the election campaign, Putin accused US Secretar y of State Hillar y Clinton of stirring the protests against his 12-year rule by encouraging “mercenary” Kremlin foes. —Reuters

LONDON: Nine men in northwest England were sentenced to jail yesterday for luring girls as young as 13 into sex using alcohol and drugs - a case that has stirred racial tensions and sparked claims that UK authorities are failing to protect children in state care. Judge Gerald Clifton said the men, all of Pakistani or Afghan origin ranging from age 22 to 59, had treated their victims as “worthless,” and sentenced them for crimes including trafficking and rape. The 59-year-old ringleader of the group received 19 years in jail, while others received between four and 12 years.

Because all the defendants were South Asian and all the victims were white, the case has been seized upon by far-right groups, who protested outside the trial in Liverpool. More measured voices have pointed out that most sex crimes in Britain are committed by white men. But some say there is a specific problem in northern English communities, where a toxic combination of alienated men and vulnerable, unsupervised girls has allowed exploitation to flourish. “All of you treated (the victims) as though they were worthless and beyond any respect,” the judge told the nine men. “One of the factors leading to that was the fact that they were not part of your community or religion.”

Martin Narey, former chief executive of the children’s charity Barnardo’s, said men of Pakistani descent were “overwhelmingly represented in prosecutions” for sexual exploitation offenses in some northern English towns such as Rochdale, 170 miles from London.

“That is not to condemn a whole community. Most Asians would absolutely abhor what we have seen in the last few days in the Rochdale trial, and I don’t think this is about white girls,” he told the BBC. “It’s sadly because vulnerable girls on the street at night are generally white rather than more strictly parented Asian girls, but there is a real problem here.” Twenty-six men were arrested in the investigation, which identified 47 potential victims. Eleven men were charged and nine convicted of charges including rape, assault, sex trafficking and

LONDON: Undated handout composite image issued Tuesday, by Greater Manchester Police showing eight of the nine men who have been convicted for luring girls as young as 13-years old into sexual encounters using alcohol and drugs, top row left to right, Abdul Rauf, Hamid Safi, Mohammed Sajid and Abdul Aziz, and with Bottom row left to right, Abdul Qayyum, Adil Khan, Mohammed Amin and Kabeer Hassan. The nine men aged between 22 and 59 are convicted of charges including rape, assault, sex trafficking and conspiracy and were sentenced yesterday at court in Liverpool, England. — AP conspiracy. The men abused the girls in taxis, kebab shops and apartments. The five victims who shared their stories with jurors described being raped, assaulted and traded for sex. Sometimes they were passed from man to man and sometimes they were too drunk to stop the abuse. The men used various defenses, including claiming the girls were prostitutes. Several said they did not know the age of consent in Britain, which is 16.

British police and the Crown Prosecution Service have apologized for delays in investigating the case. One of the victims first spoke out in 2008, but prosecutors failed to press charges amid concerns that a jury might have questioned the girl’s credibility. The Independent Police Complaints Commission is investigating why that decision was made. The case has also drawn calls for greater protection to be given to vulnerable children. Several of the

victims were estranged from their families or in state care. Education regulator Ofsted, which inspects children’s homes, said in the past five years there have been 631 “actual or suspected” cases of children in homes being sold for sex, though the number of individuals involved is smaller. England has almost 5,000 children in state care.

Ofsted said it was the duty of police and local authorities to step in when such abuse was reported.

Detective Inspector Michael Sanderson, of the police sexual offenses unit, said the sentences handed out yesterday sent “a strong message that (police) will hunt down and prosecute anyone believed to be involved in the sexual exploitation of children.” The trial at Liverpool Crown Court was a tense affair marred by allegations of intimidation. Far-right groups such as the English Defense League and the British National Party led

protests shortly after the trial began Feb 6, and two nonwhite defense lawyers quit the case, saying they had been threatened.

A lawyer for one of the defendants said he would challenge the guilty verdict after British National Party leader Nick Griffin tweeted news about the jury’s deliberations before they had returned their verdicts - leading some to suspect a courtroom leak. But Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of moderate Muslim think-tank the Ramadhan Foundation, said the trial had exposed a real problem that should not be ignored out of fear it would galvanize racists. “Race is a contributing factor and police have to confront it,” he said. “We obviously have a problem with some Pakistani men, criminals, who engage in this behavior believing that white girls are worthless and they can use and abuse them in this way.”— AP

Survivor recalls Breivik’s ‘cries of joy’ OSLO: Anders Behring Breivik shouted with joy as he fired off round after round at youngsters on Utoeya, a survivor of his massacre of 69 people on the Norwegian island last July told an Oslo court yesterday. Speaking in a clear and decisive voice, Tonje Brenna told the Oslo district court how she heard the killer’s ecstatic shouts as bodies rained around her hiding place in the crevasse of a cliff. “I am absolutely sure that I heard cries of joy,” testified the 24-year-old head of the ruling Labour Party’s youth wing, AUF, who was the first of the Utoeya survivors to take the stand.

“If I had to spell it out, it would be WOO-HOO. Obviously cries for joy,” she said. Seated at a table just a few meters from her, Breivik, who has shown virtually no emotion since his trial began on April 16, sat shaking his head in disapproval as Brenna recounted the events of July 22. The 33year-old right-wing extremist has insisted that he never laughed or smiled during the massacre, when dressed as a policeman he gunned down 69 mostly teenage participants at an AUF summer camp on the island. “Why would I have laughed when I was there? That is not true. It was horrible. I did not smile,” he told the court on April

20. Breivik has been charged with committing terrorist acts when he first bombed a government building in Oslo on July 22, killing eight people, before heading out to Utoeya.

He has confessed to killing the 77 people who died that day but has refused to plead guilty, insisting the attacks were “cruel but necessary” to stop the Labor Party’s “multicultural experiment” and the “Muslim invasion” of Norway and Europe.

“People were calling home to say farewell to their loved-ones,” Brenna recalled. The young blonde described the despair that gripped her on July 22, telling the court that the killer at one point had been so close she could smell gunpowder from his weapons and that she thought she would never get off the island alive. “I thought it was only a question of time. It was impossible to avoid being hit, the shots were coming so rapidly,” she said. “On every side, people were falling. We could hear people falling into the water and on to the rocks,” she said. “There were calls for help. Mobile phones were ringing continuously.” Shivering with cold on the rocky shore, survivors tried to raise their morale by whispering to each other: “Tomorrow we will be home and warm and will

be watching the Saturday night movie with our parents eating popcorn,” Brenna told the court.

Having been targeted by a killer dressed as a police officer, the youngsters had been so terrified they refused to come out of their hiding place when real police passed near them in a boat, she recalled. Breivik smiled cryptically several times during yesterday’s testimony. Although he is certain to be found guilty, his 10-week trial should determine the question of his sanity. A first psychiatric evaluation last year concluded the confessed killer was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, but a second opinion found him of sound mind, and it will ultimately be up to the judges to determine the question of his sanity when they hand down their verdict in July. If the court finds him sane, Breivik will face Norway’s maximum 21-year prison sentence, but that term can be extended for as long as he is considered a threat to society. If he is found criminally insane however, he will be sent to a closed psychiatric care unit for treatment. That is a fate Breivik, who is intent upon showing that his anti-Islam ideology is not the ravings of a lunatic, has described as “worse than death”.— AFP

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

I N T E R N AT I O N A L

US court strikes blow to Illinois eavesdropping law CHICAGO: In a blow to Illinois’ sweeping eavesdropping law, a federal appeals court on Tuesday blocked its enforcement in cases where someone is recording a police officer at work. It was a victory for activists who had feared that using smartphones or video cameras to record police responding to demonstrations during this month’s NATO summit in Chicago could land protesters and bloggers behind bars for years. It’s also the most serious legal challenge to the measure - one of the strictest in the nation - and adds momentum to efforts by some state lawmakers to overhaul the legislation, whose constitutionality has been questioned.

The law, enacted in 1961, makes it a felony for someone to produce an audio recording of a conversation

unless all parties agree. It sets a maximum punishment of 15 years in prison if a law enforcement officer is recorded. In a separate decision late last month, the city of Chicago’s chief legal officer said police did not intend to enforce the law during the May 2021 summit, but Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez had not given similar assurances. Tuesday’s temporary injunction put summit protesters in the clear.

“The Illinois eavesdropping statute restricts far more speech than necessary to protect legitimate privacy interests,” the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit said in its opinion.

“As applied to the facts alleged here, it likely violates the First Amendment’s free speech and free-press guarantees.” The ruling stemmed from a 2010

lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liber ties Union seeking to block Alvarez from prosecuting ACLU staff for recording police officers performing their duties in public places, one of the group’s long-standing monitoring missions.

“To make the rights of free expression ... effective, individuals and organizations must be able to freely gather and record information about the conduct of government and their agents - especially the police,” Harvey Grossman of the ACLU of Illinois said Tuesday in reaction to the ruling. He noted that with new technology, it is easier than ever to record and disseminate images and audio recordings.

“Empowering individuals and organizations in this fashion will ensure additional transparency and oversight

of police across the state,” Grossman said. Alvarez ’s office said it was preparing a statement, but had no immediate response to the ruling. The cour t described her position as “extreme.”

“She contends that openly recording what police officers say while performing their duties in traditional public fora - streets, sidewalks, plazas, and parks - is wholly unprotected by the First Amendment. This is an extraordinary argument,” the ruling read. Protest organizers praised the court action.

“We have had this just ridiculously long fight with the city around the right to protest here,” said Joe Isobaker, of the Coalition Against NATO/G-8 War & Poverty Agenda.

“And this just serves to confirm the

correctness of our stance, which is that we have the right to speak out against war and greed and the other evils of our society.”

In the state capital, a Senate bill that would rewrite the law to formally include an exception for people recording police officers at work in public places is awaiting a vote in the House. An earlier bill failed in a House vote, but the measure has been revised to reflect some of the concerns of law enforcement officials.

One of its sponsors, Rep Elaine Nek ritz, said the right to record police was vital to guard against abuses. “I think citizens have First Amendment rights to protect themselves against an overreaching government and this is one way they can do that,” she said. — AP

US North Carolina bans gay marriage Veteran senator ousted

GUNTOWN: FBI agents get ready to resume their search for a man accused of abducting a Tennessee mother and her three daughters on Tuesday in Guntown, Mississippi. Authorities on Tuesday said they were searching for Adam Mayes 35, and two young girls, Alexandra Bain, 12, and Kyliyah Bain, 8. Teresa Mayes, 30, was charged with especially aggravated kidnapping and Mary Mayes, 65, was charged with conspiracy to commit kidnapping Tuesday. —AP

FBI, police hunt suspected killer GUNTOWN: Heavily armed FBI agents and authorities from Mississippi and Tennessee were searching woods and back roads for what they said was a dangerous man suspected of killing a Tennessee woman and her teenage daughter and fleeing with her two younger girls. Authorities released a surveillance video that showed Adam Mayes, 35, at a convenience store in Union County, Miss., about three days after the alleged kidnapping. In the video, Mayes appeared calm when he approached the counter and had a fresh haircut.

Meanwhile, a community mourned the slain mother and daughter and the loss of the girls. Authorities canvassed roads Tuesday and searched tree lines near the home where Mayes lived in Union County, Miss. Authorities have been tight-lipped about the details of the search, hoping to avoid releasing information that puts the girls’ lives in jeopardy. The FBI said Tuesday that authorities were hopeful the two young girls - Alexandria Bain, 12, and Kyliyah Bain, 8 - were still alive, but declined to say why. Investigators believed the two youngest daughters were still with Mayes, FBI spokesman Joel Siskovic said.

Authorities have said Mayes was a family friend who was staying with the Bains on April 27, the day the mother and children disappeared. Before he fled, he admitted to authorities that he was the last person to see Jo Ann Bain and her daughters before the disappearance, according to an affidavit filed with the court. The bodies of Jo Ann Bain, 31, and Adrienne Bain, 14, were found last week behind the mobile home in northern Mississippi where Mayes lived. The affidavit provides the first clue that the victims may have been killed soon after they were abducted. It said his wife and mother saw him digging a hole in the

yard on April 27 or soon after.

On Tuesday, those women were charged in connection with the abduction. Teresa Mayes, 30, was charged with especially aggravated kidnapping and Mary Mayes, 65, was charged with conspiracy to commit kidnapping. An attorney for Teresa Mayes, whose bond was set at $500,000, declined to comment Tuesday afternoon. Calls to the attorney assigned to Mary Mayes were not immediately returned. Her bond was set at $300,000. An affidavit filed in court does not hint at a possible motive for their involvement. Teresa Mayes told investigators she drove Jo Ann Bain and her daughters from Hardeman County, where they lived, to Union County, Miss., where Adam and Teresa Mayes lived with his parents, according to the affidavit.

Hundreds of adults, teens and children came from throughout west and central Tennessee and north Mississippi for a prayer vigil Tuesday evening at Bolivar Dixie Youth Park, where the two oldest Bain girls played softball.

Mourners sang songs and bowed their heads in prayer as they held red, yellow, orange and purple balloons during the ceremony.

Some wept during the vigil and sniffles punctuated the quiet night during a moment of silence for Jo Ann Bain and her three daughters. Many of the mourners said the kidnappings have shaken their small-town, tight-knit communities, from Corinth, Miss., to Whiteville, Tenn. Stephanie Bodiford, of Middleton, Tenn, said her son was in the same class at Central High School in Bolivar as Adrienne Bain, who along with her mother was found dead in a home where suspect Adam Mayes lived in Guntown, Miss. Bodiford said her children have been distraught in the days since the disappearance of Bain and her daughters. — AP

MONTERREY: In this photo taken Monday, May 7, 2012, Maria Jimenez, center front, nicknamed “La Tosca,” or “the rough one” is presented to the media alnong with members of her gang, in Monterrey, Mexico. On Monday, authorities in the northern border state of Nuevo Leon announced they had captured Jimenez, the female leader of a local cell of the Zetas drug cartel, who is suspected of ordering or participating in at least 20 murders in or around the northern city of Monterrey. — AP

WASHINGTON: America’s small-government, low-tax tea party movement showed its muscle among Republican voters, denying another Senate term to Richard Lugar, one of the most prominent figures in US foreign policy for decades. In North Carolina, voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed an initiative that strengthens the state’s ban on gay marriage, a measure that had the strong support of worldrenowned evangelist and resident Rev Billy Graham.

And Mitt Romney, who has had trouble finding favor in the increasingly conservative Republican base, swept presidential primaries in Indiana, North Carolina and West Virginia with no major challengers remaining. The conservative zeal in Tuesday’s voting underlined the divisions gripping the United States six months before Americans make a choice between Romney and President Barack Obama, who are in a close race as the economy’s slow recovery weighs on Obama’s bid for a second term.

The partisan atmosphere will play out as voters also cast ballots for all 438 members of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and 33 of 50 senators.

Democrats currently hold a narrow majority in the upper chamber. “We are experiencing deep political divisions in our society right now,” Lugar said shortly after losing his chance at a seventh term to Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, who had attacked the senator’s greatest strengths - his bipartisanship and middle-of-the-road wisdom on foreign policy.

“These divisions have stalemated progress in critical areas.”

Lugar, the 80-year-old ranking Republican on the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee was responsible, along with former Democratic Sen Sam Nunn, for the 1991 passage of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (CRT) that provided money to secure and dismantle weapons of mass destruction in states of the former Soviet Union. Lugar’s loss coincides with a general disinterest in foreign policy issues this presidential election year. It removes from the Senate, which is responsible for ratifying international treaties, an influential advocate for a bipartisan foreign policy. In a statement, Obama praised former Senate colleague Lugar as someone “who was often willing to

reach across the aisle and get things done.”

Within minutes of Lugar’s loss, Democrats were already painting Mourdock as too extreme for the state.

The loss highlights the degree to which deal-makers are becoming a rarity on a Capitol Hill. Lugar follows Sen. Olympia Snowe, a moderate Republican known for bipartisanship, in leaving the Senate at year’s end. Tea party candidates swept Republicans back into the House

protection orders for unmarried couples. In Wisconsin, Democrats overwhelmingly picked Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett to challenge Republican Gov. Scott Walker in a rare recall election. The June 5 recall is one of the most closely watched elections in the US outside of the presidential race. Walker has embodied the Republican rise to power in 2010 and hopes to avoid becoming just the third state governor to be recalled in US history. The highly charged

INDIANPOLIS: Sen. Richard Lugar reacts after giving a speech Tuesday, in Indianapolis.

Lugar lost his Republican Senate primary on Tuesday to state Treasurer Richard Mourdock. — AP majority in 2010, but the movement’s staying contests overshadowed Romney’s continued power has been questioned as utter gridlock progress toward the Republican presidential grips Congress while tea party members refuse nomination. Even Romney, the former to compromise on Democratic-backed legisla- Massachusetts governor, was essentially ignortion. Elsewhere, voters in North Carolina ing the primaries. He spent the day campaignbacked an amendment to their state constitu- ing in his home state of Michigan, where he tion to define marriage as between one man castigated Obama as an “old school liberal” and one woman, effectively outlawing gay whose policies would take the country backward. The Obama campaign recently began unions.

North Carolina law already bans gay mar- using the slogan “Forward.” Romney moved riage, but the amendment on the state ballot closer to the 1,144 delegates he needs to clinch effectively slammed that door. The amendment the nomination at the party’s national convenalso goes beyond state law by voiding other tion in August. With 28 delegates from West types of domestic unions from carrying legal Virginia still undecided, he had 919 delegates, status, which opponents warn could disrupt 225 shy of the total needed. — AP

Honduras journalist kidnapped TEGUCIGALPA: A journalist with a top Honduran radio station was kidnapped yesterday on his way to work, police and co-workers said, days after another reporter was killed and dumped on the side of a road. “This morning when he was driving from his house to carry out his duties, our comrade Angel Alfredo Villatoro was kidnapped,” HRN radio said in a broadcast.

Police spokesman Hector Ivan Mejia confirmed the abduction at around dawn in eastern Tegucigalpa, but said the kidnappers had not been in communication to demand a ransom. Tegucigalpa police chief Ramon Martinez said, based on what witnesses said, “young gang members” appeared to have carried out the kidnapping. A colleague at HRN radio station pleaded with his abductors not to harm Villatoro. “We’re asking his kidnappers to protect his life,” said radio journalist Romulo Matamoros. “His family are stricken, and very worried over his sudden disappearance.”

The incident came two days after the lifeless body of journalist and gay rights activist, Erick Alex Martinez Avila, 32, was found on the side of a road near Tegucigalpa, showing signs of having been strangled to death. In the almost three years since a coup overthrew the government of leftist president Manuel Zelaya, 19 journalists have been killed in Honduras and all of the cases remain unsolved. Journalist groups and news organizations expressed alarm at the wave of kidnappings and executions targeting their profession. “We’re enormously worried that there are next to no investigations in the murders of our colleagues,” said Juan Ramon Mairena, president of the Honduran College of Journalists, a professional association.

Authorities “have told us that there are four cases under investigation, but there is no one under arrest and no prosecutions underway,” Mairena said. “They tell us that the murders were not related to their professional duties, but they offer no proof of that,” said Mairena. Human rights groups also condemned the authorities for failing to close a single case. “ The results of the investigations of these crimes is a blank page. —AFP

Amid US student loan tussles, more seek ‘forgiveness’ WASHINGTON: Elbot Carman, a 25-yearold aspiring graphic designer, made so little money after earning his master’s degree last year that the US government now says he can hold off making payments on his school loans. Carman owes $140,000 in a mix of government and private student loans. Last year he earned $12,000. “That was so low that they are not requiring me to make a payment this year,” said Carman, who works a paid and an unpaid internship and recently moved back in with his mother in Lawrenceville, Georgia to cut costs.

Carman signed up for a government program that helps indebted students by limiting what they owe each month and, for some, forgiving their remaining balance after 10 or 25 years.

He is not alone. As US lawmakers consider how to keep interest rates on certain student loans from escalating, a growing number of students have sought help through a bipartisan 2009 initiative. In less then three years, more than 675,000 borrowers have signed up, according to the US Department of Education. Educators and policymakers also are looking for new solutions to a mountain of student debt that has reached the $1 trillion mark. With a Nov. 6 presidential election looming, both President Barack Obama and his presumed Republican challenger Mitt Romney have targeted student loans as a growing problem for American families and the struggling US economy.

The average undergraduate leaves school today owing nearly $29,000 and graduate students owe about $44,000, according to an analysis by Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of the popular edu-

cation financing websites FinAid.org and Fastweb.com. Interest rates on subsidized federal Stafford student loans, one of the main loans available to students, are set to double on July 1 unless Congress steps in to prevent it. On Tuesday, Senate Republicans blocked a White House-backed bill that would end a tax break for the wealthy to fund an extension of the lower rates, paving the way for possible compromise.

But that debate is aimed directly at middle class voters more likely to cast a ballot this fall. The repayment programs are a wider effort to help cash-strapped students. Congress created the IncomeBased Repayment Plan in 2007 to take some of the sting out of mounting student bills. The Bush administration program, which finally began in 2009, limits struggling students’ payments to 15 percent of their income and absolves debt after 25 years.

Students who become teachers, police officers and other public servants could see their loans forgiven after 10 years. In 2010, Obama signed into law a new plan to expand the forgiveness program starting in 2014. Qualifying students with federal loans could see their payments capped at 10 percent of their income, down from 15 percent, and forgiven after 15 years. Last year, the administration tried to speed up that effort through Education Department regulations. The “Pay as You Earn” proposal could widen the forgiveness programs by the end of 2012 - if US education officials can pass the rule by Nov 1. About 1.6 million borrowers could benefit over 10 years when that happens, according to department policy experts. — Reuters

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

I N T E R N AT I O N A L

Japan to take control of Fukushima operator TEPCO TOKYO: Japan’s government will take a controlling stake in the operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant under a plan ministers approved yesterday, effectively nationalising one of the world’s largest utilities.

Tokyo will inject one trillion yen ($12 billion) as part of a 10-year restructuring aimed at preventing the vast regional power monopoly from going bankrupt. Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), which is facing a huge cleanup bill for the disaster at Fukushima, along with colossal compensation claims from those affected, will come under “temporary state control”, the document said. Announcing the government’s approval, Industry Minister

Yukio Edano said TEPCO must rid itself of a secretive and complacent corporate culture, and regain public confidence. “The plan outlines the foundation for reform toward building a new TEPCO,” he told a press conference.

“Under the new management, I urge that the firm builds a fresh culture, listening to voices of those who have been harmed (by the nuclear crisis), to customers, to society and starts actively releasing information,” he said.

TEPCO submitted its turnaround plan to the government earlier this month through the state -backed Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund, and ministers meeting yesterday gave it the green light. The fund-which

is directly answerable to the government-will take more than 50 percent of voting rights in exchange for one trillion yen, with an option to take more than two-thirds control, according to the proposal.

“By taking shares (worth one trillion yen), the fund shall take more than half of the voting rights... in order to ensure achievement of three goals of ‘compensation, decommissioning, and stable (electricity) supply’,” it said. The plan called the move “temporary public control”, also spelling out an option for the fund to increase its stake to beyond two-thirds.

With decommissioning of the four crippled reactors and the clean up of

the surrounding area expected to take decades, alongside ballooning compensation claims, TEPCO is staring at an enormous bill.

As the sole provider of electricity to Tokyo and a vast surrounding region in eastern Japan, the company is also responsible for maintaining a stable power supply to its millions of customers. With public distrust in nuclear energy running high, Japan’s entire pool of atomic reactors are offline, leaving TEPCO and fellow utilities with no choice but to fire up expensive and fuel-guzzling thermal plants.

The turnaround plan will also see customers directly hit, with a projected 10 percent rise in domestic bills.

TEPCO will trim more than 3.3 trillion yen in costs in a decade, and hopes to restart a nuclear plant in Niigata prefecture. Under the restructuring most of the current TEPCO management will leave the firm, with lawyer Kazuhiko Shimokobe, who heads a state-backed bailout fund, slated to become the next chairman.

TEPCO also has nominated its managing director Naomi Hirose, in charge of compensation issues related to the nuclear disaster, to replace incumbent president Toshio Nishizawa. The government’s approval has also prompted TEPCO’s creditor banks to extend one trillion yen in fresh loans, media reports said. — AFP

Thai’s death stokes calls for royal insult law change ‘Uncle SMS’ did not know how to send an SMS

BUTUAN CITY: Body bags containing victims’ bodies are laid on a pavement after a fire gutted a department store in Butuan City, Agusan del norte province, in southern island of Mindanao yesterday. Seventeen shop staff sleeping in a Philippines’ department store were killed when a fire swept through the building before dawn yesterday, local authorities said. — AFP

17 dead in Philippine department store fire MANILA: An inferno at a three-storey clothing store in the southern Philippines early yesterday killed 17 employees, all women who were sleeping on the top floor, police said. Three women managed to dash out of a burning room and groped their way down three floors in darkness but found that the main steel door in the building in downtown Butuan city was locked, police investigator Jonathan Basil said.

Bystanders used a hydraulic car jack to pry open the gate and pulled the three screaming women out from the burning lobby, Basil said. “ The women kept on pounding the hot steel gate while yelling for help,” Basil told The Associated Press by telephone, adding that the employee who kept the door key perished in the room upstairs.

Mylene Tulo, one of three who escaped, said she woke up as the fire spread rapidly in the third-floor room where they slept.

She managed to dash out with two colleagues. All three sustained minor burns on their arms.

“We wanted to rouse others from sleep, but the fire was already too strong,” a stunned Tulo said. Investigators were trying to determine what sparked the fire, which broke out at 3:55 a.m. and raged for five hours, city police chief Pedro Obaldo said. Many stores in the Philippines allow their employees to sleep over, especially those from faraway homes. Relatives and friends failed to identify any of the 17 badly burned bodies at a funeral home and were asked to bring dental records or anything that could help authorities establish the identities of the dead.

The building in Agusan del Norte province in the southern Mindanao region was a theater before being turned into a commercial center with several stores, including the Novo Jeans and Shirts, where the victims died.

A lack of firefighting equipment and personnel coupled with safety violations has resulted in major fire disasters in the Philippines, especially in shantytowns.

Butuan is a city of more than 300,000 about 790 kilometers (500 miles) southeast of Manila.

Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic Church and a media watchdog called for justice

yesterday after an anchorman of a Catholicrun radio station was killed by motorcycleriding gunmen in the southern Philippines.

Colleagues said they were puzzled by Tuesday’s killing of Radio DXHM broadcaster Nestor Sapidan Libaton along a remote section of a highway in Mati city. Unlike many other journalists who came under attack after exposing corruption or drug trade, he wasn’t handling sensitive topics or calling attention to officials.

“He was not even a hard-hitting commentator,” said newswriter and fellow anchor Leonila Duallo. Police said they were investigating. Duallo said their three radio shows dealt with routine regional and local government affairs. The programs were government-sponsored. Duallo and Libaton co-anchored with another colleague, Eldon Cruz, who was driving the motorcycle on which Libaton was riding.

Libaton and Cruz were heading back to Mati after covering an agricultural fair in another town when they heard gunfire from three men on another motorcycle behind them. Cruz maneuvered to evade the gunmen but for unknown reasons Libaton got off and was shot six times, Duallo told The Associated Press by phone.

He died on the spot and Cruz was unharmed, Duallo said. Archbishop Jose Palma, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, called on authorities to pursue justice. “We are saddened because we know how important communication is,” he told church-run Radio Veritas in Manila.

The US-based Committee to Protect Journalists also urged authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice. The watchdog says Libaton is the second media worker killed in as many weeks. It is not clear that the case involving Michael Jayson Calanasan, a reporter for a local newspaper who was killed April 24 in Laguna province south of Manila, was work related. He also worked for the local city hall. The Philippines has one of the world’s highest rates of unsolved media killings. At least 151 reporters have been killed since 1986, including 32 in 2009 in the single worst media killing anywhere in the world when suspected political clan members ambushed a rival’s convoy.—Agencies

McCain hopes Suu Kyi can visit US WASHINGTON: Senior Senator John McCain said Tuesday he looked forward to someday welcoming Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi to the US Congress after the Nobel laureate and opposition leader was issued a passport.

Her National League for Democracy said earlier Tuesday that Suu Kyi, who spent much of the last two decades locked up in her Yangon home by Myanmar’s former junta, was issued a passport as she prepares to travel abroad for the first time in 24 years.

“I’m very glad that she’s got it. We look forward to greeting her here in Congress,” McCain, the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee and one of the primary shapers of US policy on Myanmar, told reporters.

He did not provide an expected date for a Suu Kyi trip to Washington, but US lawmakers have invited her in order to receive the Congressional Gold medal, the

highest US civilian award, which the House of Representatives bestowed on her in 2008. “We look forward to the presentation,” said McCain, who visited Myanmar in January and met with Suu Kyi as well as government leaders.

“We’re very proud of her and we hope that this progress will continue in Burma,” he said, referring to Myanmar by its former name. McCain stopped short of describing Myanmar’s reforms as the dawning of a new day in the Southeast Asian nation, but said it was “possible,” adding that he supported a suspension of existing US sanctions on Myanmar instead of a full abolition, as some of his Senate colleagues have suggested.

US authorities last month ruled out an immediate end to its main sanctions on Myanmar, saying it wanted to preserve leverage to push the regime on ending ethnic violence and other key issues.—AFP

BANGKOK: Protesters demanding the reform of Thailand’s lese majeste law held a religious ceremony yesterday beside the body of a man who died in prison a few months after being given 20 years for allegedly sending text messages offensive to the queen.

The case last November of Amphon Tangnoppaku, 61, whom the media nicknamed “Uncle SMS”, fuelled a debate about the harsh sentences imposed in Thailand for insulting the monarchy. The law on the monarchy, referred to as Article 112 in Thailand’s criminal code, remains a highly sensitive issue in a country where King Bhumibol Adulyadej is seen by many as semidivine.

Critics of lese-majeste say it is being used as a political weapon to stifle opponents, pointing to a huge jump in cases since the 2006 coup that toppled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was accused of republican leanings, which he denied.

David Streckfuss, a scholar who monitors lese-majeste law, said 397 cases were submitted to the criminal court between 2006 and 2009 compared with an average of four or five a year in the preceding 15 years. Amphon, who was not a political activist and told the court during his trial he did not even know how to send an SMS, died in jail on Tuesday. He had been battling cancer and supporters said he should have been allowed out to get proper treatment.

“No one wants what happened to Uncle to happen, but it did, and it clearly demonstrates the problem with Article 112. If Uncle was granted bail, he would’ve been able to

BANGKOK: People and activists stand near the coffin of Amphon Tangnoppaku outside the Criminal Court in Bangkok yesterday. A Thai grandfather who passed away just months into a 20-year prison sentence for defaming the monarchy is believed to have died from liver cancer, preliminary autopsy results showed yesterday. — AFP receive treatment in time,” said Suda Rangupan, a linguistics professor who leads a campaign to amend the lese-majeste law.

“We have gathered 10,000 signatures from supporters for the amendment of Article 112. We expect to be able to present this list to parliament by the end of May,” she said. Amphon’s wife, Rosmalin Tangnoppaku, and more than 200 supporters of the pro-Thaksin “red shirt” movement who have taken

up his case performed a religious ceremony beside his closed coffin in front of the Criminal Court in central Bangkok yesterday.

“I want Uncle’s death to be a case study for the building of justice in Thai society and for better medical treatment for prisoners,” Rosalin said. Thaksin’s sister, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, said she has no plans to change the lese-majeste law. Suda called on supporters to meet again in front of

the Criminal Court today morning.

Amphon’s body would then be taken in procession to parliament and government offices before being cremated at a temple 25 km (15 miles) south of Bangkok.

“We will take Uncle to the vari o u s i m p o r t a n t l a n d m a r k s, including parliament and Government House, to show that Uncle was an innocent man, a victim oppressed by the justice system,” Suda said. — Reuters

UN expert ‘very concerned’ about Phnom Penh evictees PHNOM PENH: A UN human rights envoy yesterday expressed serious concerns about the plight of more than 100 families living in squalor in the Cambodian capital after a violent forced eviction at the hands of the police.

“The condition in which you have been forced to live doesn’t seem to be adequate for the 21st century,” Surya Subedi, special rapporteur for human rights in Cambodia, said after meeting the displaced residents in Phnom Penh.

Some 117 families are living in unsanitary conditions under the staircases of nearby buildings after their homes in the Borei Keila district were bulldozed in January and they refused to move to an out-of-town location.

“I am concerned, very concerned, about your situation,” the UN expert told the evicted residents, some of whom wept openly as they pleaded for his help. “It doesn’t seem to be only a human rights matter but also a humanitarian matter,” said Subedi, on his seventh trip to the kingdom, adding that he would raise the matter with government officials.

The Cambodian government has faced mounting criticism in recent years over forced evictions around the country that have sparked protests and displaced tens of thousands of mostly poor people.

The Borei Keila eviction was one of the most violent to date with residents lobbing bricks and Molotov cocktails at police who fired back with tear gas and rubber bullets, resulting in a number of injuries and arrests.

Land disputes are a major problem in Cambodia, where land ownership was abolished during the 1975-1979 rule of the communist Khmer Rouge and many legal documents were lost during that time.

The April 26 murder of a high-profile environmental activist, who dedicated his life to protecting Cambodia’s rapidly disappearing forests, has added to the controversy over land conflicts.

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday announced that the country was temporarily suspending the granting of land to companies for private development, known as economic land concessions (ELCs), a move that was welcomed by the European Union. “ The EU hopes the review of the ELCs will include efforts to ensure the protection of the most vulnerable groups,” the EU delegation in Phnom Penh said in a statement released yesterday.— AFP

YANGON: In this April 26, 2012 photo, Myanmar San Myint, mother of former student activist Aye Aung, holds a picture of her son playing a guitar, in Yangon, Myanmar. — AP

Myanmar reforms leave political prisoners behind YANGON: In a remote prison in northwest Myanmar, Aye Aung wakes up each day as he has for nearly 14 years - alone in a dark cell on a wooden plank, a prisoner of conscience all but forgotten by the world. For hours, the former student activist meditates and reads the books his father brings from afar every other month. But mostly, he lives in the mind-numbing boredom of captivity. Now 36, he has never seen a cell phone, never surfed the Internet, never married or had children.

Although Myanmar’s military-backed government has released hundreds of wellknown dissidents over the past year as part of a startling series of reforms that have earned it lavish praise and an easing of sanctions, rights advocates say hundreds more remain wrongfully locked away - their cases in danger of being forgotten amid rising hope for a more open, democratic nation. “If this government is really changing, why have they not freed my son?” asked his mother, San Myint, as tears slid down her cheeks during an interview in Yangon. “He’s done nothing wrong,” the visibly shaken 66-year-old told The Associated Press at her home, where one wall is adorned with a prominent picture of a youthful Aye Aung smiling broadly as he plays guitar beside a friend. “It’s cruel and

unfair. We just want him to come home.”

Aye Aung’s troubles began in late 1998, when he was arrested and sentenced months later to a 59-year prison term for his role in a pro-democracy student movement. He had distributed pamphlets and participated in a rare public protest, both of which were deemed by authorities a threat to state security.

His sentence has since been halved, but he still must serve about 15 more years.

Until then, he remains incarcerated in the Kalay prison of Myanmar’s distant northwest, a three-day bus ride from his family’s Yangon home. His parents say he suffers from stomach problems and sporadic bouts of malaria, and medical treatment in the prison is poor. Myanmar, meanwhile, is moving on. Global investors are lining up to do business. Tourists are arriving in droves. Foreign dignitaries jet in every few days to discuss a brighter future. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Western nations during a visit this month to ease sanctions further and boost aid.

Win Mra, who heads a governmentappointed National Human Rights Commission appointed last year, said he has made some attempt to get remaining prisoners on the agenda, but acknowledged it’s not a government priority.—AP

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

i n t e r n at i o n a l

Father secures bail for Afghan journalist KABUL: An Afghan reporter detained for allegedly making false accusations against officials has been released on bail after his father appealed for his freedom on health grounds, officials said yesterday.

Amnesty International began a campaign last week for the release of Nasto Naderi, who was detained by the attorney general’s office. Prosecutors said he had made false accusations against government officials in his TV show.

Abdul Rahman Koshan, the head of the criminal investigation in the attorney general’s office, told AFP that Nasto had been released on bail on Tuesday. He said Naderi’s father, Partaw Naderi, sought the release of his son, who had health problems, through an appeal to the Afghan parliament.

“My son, Nasto has been in jail for several weeks.

He suffers rheumatism and I’m worried,” his father said in his appeal. Koshan said the journalist was “still

under investigation” and that his office was preparing to put him on trial.

Naderi hosts a programme called “Salaam to my homeland” which is “known for revealing cases of corruption, criminality and other controversial issues, often implicating high-profile Afghan government figures,” Amnesty said.

But critics have questioned his journalistic standards, saying some of his allegations against government officials are made without proper sourcing or evidence. Press freedom is safeguarded in Afghanistan’s constitution-drawn up after a US-led invasion brought down the Taleban regime in 2001 — but reporters face challenges, including intimidation and imprisonment for reporting on corrupt officials.

Meanwhile, five Afghan policemen and four bodyguards assigned to protect an education chief have been killed in two ambushes blamed on Taleban insur-

gents in Afghanistan, officials said yesterday. The police were killed late Tuesday when a bomb detonated by remote control exploded under their patrol vehicle in the western province of Farah, regional police spokesman Abdul Rauf Ahmadi told AFP. He blamed the attack on “enemies of Afghanistan”, a phrase used by Afghan officials to refer to the Taliban, which is still fighting a bitter insurgency more than a decade after being toppled from power by the 2001 US-led invasion.

In eastern Afghanistan, close to the border with Pakistan, a provincial education director was severely wounded in a Taleban roadside bomb and gun attack that left four of his guards dead, officials said.

Atta Mohammad Qaneh was travelling to his headquarters in Paktika’s provincial capital of Sharana after inspecting schools in Urgun district, a dangerous border area, education ministry spokesman Amanullah

Eman said. “He was wounded in the attack and four of his guards were killed,” the official said. Another four people working for the provincial education department were wounded in the ambush, the spokesman added. Mukhlis Afghan, a spokesman for the provincial government, confirmed the attack and the casualties, blaming Taliban-linked insurgents.

The Islamist militia is fighting to evict foreign troops and bring down the Western-backed government in Kabul. The Taleban banned girls from going to school while in power from 1996 to 2001, and have targeted schools and teachers as part of their insurgency. Afghan authorities said the rebels this week torched a school in Nangarhar province, also in the east. Dozens more schools were recently closed in the central province of Ghazni over Taleban threats. They reopened last week after tribal elders interceded, Eman said. — AFP

Politician’s disappearance fuels more Bangladesh crisis Opposition blames government

KATHMANDU: A landless woman cries beside her belongings after her house was flattened by bulldozers alongside the Bagmati river in Kathmandu yesterday.

Hundreds of squatters were forcefully evicted by the authorities from their homes on the banks of the Bagmati river in Kathmandu to build a United Nations park. — AFP

Slum flattened in Kathmandu, about 1,500 people evicted KATHMANDU: Residents of a slum in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu told yesterday how the homes they had lived in for up to 20 years were bulldozed to make way for a riverside park. About 1,500 people were forced out of their houses by riot police on Tuesday in the first phase of a governmentordered slum clearance scheme along the banks of Bagmati river.

“I cried my heart out when I saw bulldozers demolishing our home,” 34-year-old Manju Adhikari, a mother of daughters aged 15 and 17, told AFP. “ When my younger girl came back from school, she asked me where were we going to live. I didn’t have the answer. We have nowhere to go.”

Angry residents threw stones at police carrying shields and batons as mechanical diggers razed their brick-built homes. Many slum-dwellers fled, carrying clothes, blankets and furniture. “A friend had informed us in middle of the night that five bulldozers were ready to remove our homes. We couldn’t sleep. We were able to salvage our belongings but others couldn’t even do that,” Adhikari said.

“Some of our neighbours pelted stones

and police started to arrest them. Those who were unable to collect their belongings came later but their TV sets and gas cylinders were already broken.”

The evictions followed a decision by the government to force a total of about 10,000 residents, who it says are illegal squatters, from their properties along the river after years of wrangling. Authorities have pledged to find alternative housing to those it classifies as “genuine landless people” and to provide 15,000 rupees ($176) in compensation to each family.

“We have evicted 1,452 squatters from the Thapathali area. They protested against the move and pelted stones at the police.

We arrested 31 on Tuesday,” Kathmandu police spokesman Dhiraj Pratap Singh told AFP. Refugees from Nepal’s poverty-stricken countryside first began settling in large numbers along river banks in Kathmandu in the early 1990s, attracted by the prospect of jobs and to escape a bloody civil war which ravaged rural areas. Human Rights Watch has written to the Nepal government warning that forced evictions could violate international law. — AFP

Kidnappings threaten Pakistan aid work ISLAMABAD: The grisly murder of a Red Cross worker and a video showing an American hostage pleading for his life highlight a perilous security situation in Pakistan that aid groups say is endangering their work.

Humanitarian organisations are reviewing operations in Pakistan after the killing of Khalil Dale, whose decapitated body was found on April 29, four months after he was abducted in Quetta, the capital of the southwestern province of Baluchistan.

The savage murder of the 60-year-old British convert to Islam sent shockwaves through the aid community, particularly as his employer, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), has a reputation for neutrality that allows it to work safely even in the most hostile situations.

Aid groups spend millions of dollars on helping millions of Pakistanis, yet attacks on their staff are increasing, according to the Pakistan Humanitarian Forum (PHF), which represents nearly 50 international organisations.

Since 2009, at least 19 aid workers have been murdered and more than 20 abducted across Pakistan by militants and criminals, the PHF said. “This trend of increased targeting of humanitarian aid organisations and personnel will further impede the ability of humanitarian agencies to provide lifesaving and life-enhancing support to the most vulnerable population,” the PHF warned. According to the PHF, at the end of 2011 there were more than 200 foreigners and 10,000 locals working in Pakistan for international aid organisations under its aegis. The ICRC is not part of the PHF. On Sunday a video emerged of kidnapped US development worker Warren Weinstein urging President Barack Obama to save his life by agreeing to his abductors’ demands. The 70-year-old was snatched after gunmen tricked their way into his Lahore home in August last year, and Pakistani officials believe he is being held

by Al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists in

Pakistan’s lawless northwest.

The kidnapping of Weinstein in Lahore, and an Italian and a German in Multanboth cities previously regarded as relatively safe-has further rattled NGO nerves. “A few people have pulled out of coming for monitoring visits-we’ve had auditors coming from Europe and at the last minute they’ve decided not to come,” an official with one major Western aid group told AFP. “We’ve really tightened up our security.

For Islamabad our security guy says the risk is still low, but kidnappings are increasing, and from places like Multan-we never would have expected that.”

Many in the aid community have been deeply critical of the CIA’s decision to run a fake vaccination programme in a bid to identify Osama bin Laden before he was killed last May, saying the link with espionage has endangered aid workers.

Pakistan arrested the doctor recruited by the CIA to run the programme. Bin Laden’s killing in Pakistan ignited a wave of restrictions on foreigners across the country, limiting their movements and restricting visas. A staff member with another international NGO said that while most aid workers accepted that a certain level of danger is part of the job, the ICRC’s reputation made the Dale case all the more shocking. “The ICRC is considered to be globally one of the most non-partisan, objective organisations. It does its utmost to tread the centre ground, so that is a concern to individuals like me,” the staff member said.

Senior ICRC officials from Geneva travelled to Pakistan after Dale’s murder to meet authorities and review the organisation’s presence in the country.

A few days before Dale’s abduction, the ICRC had already said it was planning to scale back its presence in Pakistan. An internal source said this was to do with tensions with the authorities and problems getting visas for foreign staff, but the process could be sped up following the murder. —AFP

DHAKA: The night watchman was dozing in a wooden chair just after midnight on a deserted Bangladeshi street when he was startled by a scream. A group of men were pulling two people from a car and forcing them into a black microbus; “The two guys were shouting, ‘Save us,’” before the car pulled away, Lutfar Rahman said.

The abductions of an opposition politician and his driver last month have sparked Bangladesh’s biggest crisis in years, raised hostilities between the most prominent leaders of its fragile democracy and highlighted dozens of seemingly political disappearances.

The opposition has blamed the government, launched nationwide strikes and fought with police in street clashes that have killed five people and injured scores. Homemade bombs have exploded on the streets of Dhaka, including one inside a compound housing government ministries. The government has charged 44 top opposition leaders in connection with the violence. Yesterday, the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party vowed to resume demonstrations across the country along with 17 allied parties. No one has claimed responsibility for Elias Ali’s abduction, and no ransom has been demanded, the usual practice of criminal gangs in Bangladesh. Security forces told the High Court this week they had no role in Ali’s disappearance, and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina accused the opposition of hiding Ali to create an excuse to cause mayhem.

Hasina, however, later pledged to do everything possible to find Ali, when his wife and children met her seeking her intervention. “The conflict is pushing Bangladesh toward a dangerous situation,” said Adilur Rahman, secretary of Odhikar, a rights group. Hasina and her archrival Khaleda Zia have alternated in power since a prodemocracy movement ousted the last military regime in 1990. Zia leads Ali’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party. The abductions of Ali and his driver as they returned home from meeting supporters at a hotel April 17 also has highlighted an increasing number of disappearances that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have blamed on security forces. At least 22 people have disappeared this year, according to a local human-rights group, Ain o-Salish Kendra.

Odhikar reports that more than 50 people have disappeared since 2010. Many of the disappeared were politicians.

During her visit to Bangladesh last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton raised Ali’s disappearance and the killing of labor leader Aminul Islam with the government, reflecting international concern over the issue.

Islam, who recently led a campaign for higher wages for the country’s 3 million garment workers, was found dead along a highway April 5. His family blames the killing on law enforcement agencies. Even before Ali’s disappearance, tensions were high between Hasina and Zia over the conduct of the general election due in 2014.

Hasina has scrapped a constitutional provision requiring the government to step down before polls and transfer power to a neutral caretaker administration to oversee the voting within 90

DHAKA: Bangladeshi opposition activists shout slogans carrying a portrait of Elias Ali, an opposition politician who is suspected to have been abducted by security forces in Dhaka, Bangladesh, yesterday. The abductions of Ali and his driver last month have sparked Bangladesh’s biggest crisis in years, raised hostilities between the most prominent leaders of its fragile democracy and highlighted dozens of seemingly political disappearances. — AP days. The government says it acted to comply with a court ruling that the caretaker provision was undemocratic, but it means Hasina will be overseeing the next balloting.

Zia has refused to take part in any election overseen by Hasina, fearing fraud. The government says it is open to discuss alternatives, but the opposition says they will sit across the table only if the previous sytem will be restored. The government rejects that.

A similar dispute in 2006 prompted the powerful military to declare a state of emergency that remained until the 2008 election. Both Hasina and Zia were put behind bars during the emergency rule. Many businessmen also were jailed pending tax evasion and fraud trials, and some fled to avoid arrest. But the cases were withdrawn or not heard when the political government took office. “We don’t want to return to any emergency rule,” said A.K. Azad, president of the

Federation of Bangladesh Commerce and Industry. “What we want is our leaders to work together so there is no more strikes and clashes.”

Ali, 50, has lived dangerously since becoming a student at Dhaka University, considered a breeding ground of Bangladesh’s politicians.

He was recruited into a student political group by the country’s last military dictator Hussein Muhammad Ershad, according to friends. He then joined a group allied with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, sparking feuding and occasional gunfights among rival factions of Zia’s party.

He was briefly arrested, later elected to Parliament and then swept out in 2008 by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party. The opposition, which suspended its street protests in a gesture of goodwill during Clinton’s visit, has vowed to resume strikes if Ali is not found. His family wonders if he is even alive. —AP

News

in brief

Five held over kidnapping

RANCHI: Security personnel stand near the wreckage of a helicopter after it crash landed at the Birsa Munda airport in Ranchi, India, yesterday. Chief Minister of Jharkhand state Arjun Munda, his wife Meera Munda and three others are being treated for injuries they sustained during the crash, according to news reports. — AP

Four Maoists killed in India NEW DELHI: Indian security personnel killed as many as four armed rebels known as “Maoists” in the north-eastern state of Assam yesterday, reported the Press Trust of India (PTI). One policeman was also critically injured in the encounter between the two sides, added the report. The gunbattle took place in a remote village in the state’s Tinsukia district.

Acting on a tip-off about the presence of a group of Maoists in the village, state police launched an operation in the area, and in the ensuing encounter four Maoists were killed and a police constable was seriously injured.

Following the encounter, search operations were on in the area and huge quanti-

ties of arms and ammunition, including three AK-47 rifles, was recovered from the area, the report quoted police sources as saying. The policeman injured was admitted in the Assam College Hospital.

The armed rebels, better known as “Maoists”, have been active for more than two decades in several Indian states, including Assam, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Demanding better care and facilities of local tribes in these states, these Maoists often target security personnel, policemen, police stations or other government installations in order to make their presence felt. — KUNA

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian police said yesterday they had arrested five people over the kidnapping of a 12year-old Dutch boy who was returned to his family last week. Nayati Moodliar was abducted while walking to the Mont Kiara International School located in an upmarket suburb near the capital Kuala Lumpur on April 27. He was found last Thursday by his family at a highway rest stop north of the capital where the kidnappers left him. Police said a ransom was paid. Bakri Zinin, head of the federal crime investigation department, told AFP that police investigating the case had arrested four men and a woman in Kuala Lumpur and northern Malaysia since Monday. The five were in custody and under investigation for kidnapping, he said.

Police are still looking for two other Malaysians, one of who is believed to have fled to Europe. Bakri said police would alert Interpol about the man. Police have also recovered some of the ransom paid by the Moodliar family for the boy’s release, though Bakri declined to reveal any figures. Local media reported the ransom was 300,000 ringgit ($100,000).

Inmates escape prison JAKARTA: Indonesian police were yesterday searching for dozens of prisoners who escaped when a guard opened a gate to put out the rubbish, a spokesman said. Thirty-six convicts jailed for offences including rape and murder were on the run after the breakout in Meulaboh in Aceh province, said provincial police spokesman Gustav Leo. “They escaped on Tuesday, when a warden opened a gate for a worker who wanted to throw away garbage,” Leo said. He said that 42 prisoners had fled in all, but police and military personnel had re-captured six on Tuesday at a rubber plantation near the prison.

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

NEWS

Russian soldiers shout ‘Hurrah’ at the Red Square in Moscow yesterday during the Victory Day parade to mark the 67 years since victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. — AFP

Russian jet vanishes in Indonesia Continued from Page 1 Reports of the exact number on board varied slightly, with local rescue officials saying it was carrying 46 people and Trimarga Rekatama, the company responsible for inviting the passengers, saying 50 were on board. Herry Bakti, head of the aviation division of Indonesia’s transport ministry, said Superjet was on the second of two demonstration flights, and those on board were invited guests. The Superjet made its first commercial flight last year and if a major accident is confirmed it would be the first disaster to involve the aircraft.

The Superjet 100 is a new passenger aircraft built by legendary Russian planemaker Sukhoi in an attempt to lift the country’s civil aviation industry from a post-Soviet crisis. The plane took off at 2:00 pm from east Jakarta’s Halim Perdanakusuma airport, which is used for some commercial and military flights. “At 2:50 pm it dropped from 10,000 feet (3,048 m) to 6,000 feet,” the rescue agency said in a text message to AFP. Salak mountain, where the plane disappeared, is more than 7,200 feet

(2,200 m) high.

Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency reported 36 non-Russians on board and eight Russians, four of them crew and the others Sukhoi company representatives. It named the captain as Alexander Yablontsev, 57, a veteran pilot. A list of 36 passenger names posted at Halim airport showed most of them were Indonesian airline and aviation officials, plus five journalists and a representative of French aircraft engine maker SNECMA with a Vietnamese name. The French embassy in Jakarta confirmed there was one Frenchman aboard.

The Superjet is crucial to Russia’s hopes of becoming a major player in the modern aviation market and improving its image in the industry, which has been scarred by frequent crashes of ageing Soviet-era jets. The project is a joint venture between Sukhoi and Italy’s Alenia Aeronautica, part of aerospace and defence giant Finmeccanica. A mid-range airliner, the Superjet 100 is designed to carry up to 98 passengers and is a direct rival of similar aircraft produced by Brazil’s Embraer and Canada’s Bombardier.

So far it is being flown by two air-

lines, Russia’s Aeroflot and Armenia’s Armavia, but orders have been confirmed with more, including Indonesia’s Kartika Airlines and Sky Aviation, staterun news agency Antara reported. The demonstration flight in Indonesia was part of an Asian roadshow that started on May 3 to promote the aircraft. It earlier took in Kazakhstan and Pakistan, and was due to go on to Laos and Vietnam.

A source at the Russian Ministry of Industry and Commerce told the Interfax news agency: “Preparations before the flight were carried out in full, and technically the plane was in perfect condition.”

But the Superjet has experienced some trouble while being flown by Aeroflot, which has been under heavy pressure from the government to add more Russian planes to its fleet.

Aeroflot’s first Superjet spent several weeks grounded upon delivery because of an air conditioning problem, and in March, a plane had to cut short a scheduled flight after it encountered problems with its undercarriage. The sprawling Indonesian archipelago relies heavily on air transport but has a poor aviation safety record. — AFP

Bomber in US Qaeda plot a double agent Continued from Page 1 The CIA and other government agencies declined to comment on the reports when contacted by AFP. FBI experts on Tuesday were analyzing the seized explosive that officials said was an updated version of the “underwear bomb” used in a failed attack on Christmas Day 2009.

Although officials touted the disrupted plot as a success, they acknowledged AQAP remained determined to strike and its master bombmaker, Ibrahim Hassan Taleh Al-Asiri, was apparently hard at work seeking to circumvent airport security. Saudi intelligence likely had the lead role in disrupting the conspiracy, possibly providing the double agent, former US officials said.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the double agent was “an informant” overseen by Saudi Arabia’s intelligence service, which devotes great efforts to monitoring Al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen. The leak on the double agent was upsetting to the chairman of the US House Homeland Security Committee, lawmaker Peter King of New York. “It’s really, to me, unfortunate that this has gotten out, because this could really interfere with operations overseas,” King told CNN late Tuesday. “My understanding is a major investigation is going to be launched because of this.”

Former intelligence officials noted that Saudi Arabia was credited with uncovering an AQAP plot in 2010 to blow up cargo planes headed to the United States and that the Saudis are known to keep a close eye on AlQaeda’s branch in Yemen. “The Saudis have the best insight to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Presumably the Saudis working with the US disrupted this plot perhaps inside Yemen, seized the device, turned that over to the US,” Fran Townsend, a former counterterrorism official under ex-president George W Bush, told CNN. Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer, agreed. “My guess is we probably had someone on the inside, my guess is someone working for the Saudis, who tipped us off that the bomb was somewhere and the bomber was somewhere and they were able to wrap the two of them up,” Riedel told AFP. “From previous AQAP experiences, it’s usually the Saudis who give us the critical intelligence,” said Riedel, a fellow at the Brookings Institution.

US officials are concerned about AQAP’s expansion in Yemen, as the affiliate has exploited recent turmoil despite the threat of strikes from American drones overhead. The fresh plot to blow up a passenger plane

bore a “striking similarity ” to the Christmas Day attempt of 2009, said Riedel, who worked on the government’s case against the Nigerian man blamed for the botched attack. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab admitted to the conspiracy and was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences in February.

Both cases likely involved the same bomb master, Asiri, and the same approach in which the attacker was allowed to decide the timing and precise location of his suicide strike, he said.

Deploying agents against an AlQaeda target that has learnt to shun electronic communications allowed Saudi security services to disrupt the third would-be attack in 30 months, a regional security official also told Reuters yesterday. Asked about reports the world’s top oil exporter and Washington’s chief Gulf ally had run the operation, the official replied: “It’s absolutely true”.

US officials faulted Saudi Arabia for a slow response to the Al-Qaeda threat after the Sept 11 2001 attacks on the United States; but much changed after bombers hit targets in Riyadh in 2003, prompting a joint campaign that drove Al-Qaeda from the kingdom. Intelligence cooperation between the United States, Saudi Arabia and Yemen is now “very effective” said Robert Jordan, who was US ambassador to Riyadh from 2001 to 2003. “By May 2003 they realised AlQaeda were as much a threat against the regime and royal family as they were to the westerners. They began truly infiltrating the cells,” he said.

Saudi recruits are present at all levels in AQAP, now seen as the most dangerous wing of the militant group.

That has helped Riyadh to penetrate a regional movement that migrated to Yemen after it was driven from the kingdom in 2006 and has sworn to bring down the kingdom’s Al Saud ruling family. Saudi security is able to put pressure on AQAP through their family members still inside Saudi Arabia and has previously deployed former militants who defected to the government when under arrest. It also uses ties between Saudi royals and some of the Yemeni tribes that have sheltered AQAP, ties that have been strengthened over decades by lavish displays of patronage. “Senior princes are close to different tribes and can get cooperation with them,” said Jordan.

Although the security official did not specify which Saudi security branch handled the agent, who passed investigators a state-of-the-art bomb last month, independent experts say it was probably the

Interior Ministry’s counter terrorism unit. “The ministry considers Yemen the first line of defence in its confrontation with Al-Qaeda and it has moved its counter-terrorism operations heavily into Yemen, setting up its own offices there,” said Mustafa Alani, a Gulf security analyst with good connections to regional governments.

The counter terrorism unit has arrested a number of people inside Saudi Arabia in recent days, emphasising the cross-border nature of the militant threat it is battling. “In the past few days (we) have arrested a few people who wanted to execute an operation,” said Lt-Col Sultan Mohammed, a section head at the unit. He told a group of visiting reporters that he had no information on whether those detained in Saudi Arabia were linked to the alleged bomb plot against US targets.

That Yemen’s militants are watched by the kingdom’s Interior Ministry instead of its foreign espionage service, the General Intelligence Presidency (GIP), shows how far Riyadh views al Qaeda in the Arabian Pensinsula as its biggest domestic menace. “Internal has an external head,” the GIP chief Prince Muqrin, the youngest surviving son of the kingdom’s founder Ibn Saud, explained to US diplomats in 2009, according to a Riyadh embassy cable released by WikiLeaks. Prince Muqrin went on to tell how he had made numerous trips to Yemen with Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, son of the current crown prince and head of the Interior Ministry’s counter terrorism unit. “ These sorts of operations are probably going on on a daily basis and we never read a word about them nor should we read about them,” said Nick Pratt, Professor of Strategy and International Politics at the George C Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Germany. “It takes a lot of information to get into the system to turn into actionable intelligence, and in this case it would have taken coordination between at least two and possibly four intelligence services,” he added. Prince Mohammed, who h a s e a r n e d p r a i s e f ro m fo re i g n d i p l o m a t s fo r h i s d e p a r t m e n t ’s campaign against militants, was himself the target of a 2009 assassination plot when a would-be AlQaeda defector arrived at a meeting wearing a concealed bomb.

That device was also likely built by Ye m e n - b a s e d A s i r i , o n e o f t h e most influential Saudis in the movement. — Agencies

Blast hits UN observer convoy in south...

Continued from Page 1 saying by Singh, who added: “We remain focused on our task.” The opposition Syrian National Council accused the regime of being behind the blast, the latest breach of a month-old ceasefire agreement brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Annan. “We believe the regime is using these tactics to try to push the obser vers out amid popular demands to increase their numbers,” SNC executive committee member Samir Nashar told AFP. “(Anti-regime) demonstrators want the observers, because they provide a safety guarantee. In their presence, people can express themselves through peaceful protests,” said Nashar. “We are used to the regime’s tactics of claims that there is terrorism and fundamentalism in Syria, which is not the

case.” France strongly condemned the bombing. “ We hold the Damascus regime responsible for the observers’ security,” said foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero.

In other violence, 11 people were killed across Syria, including civilians and members of the security forces, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Security forces also carried out arrest raids outside Damascus and in Deir Ezzor province, the watchdog added. In neighbouring Lebanon, cross-border gunfire from Syrian forces killed an elderly woman and wounded her daughter on Tuesday, an official said, a month after a Lebanese TV cameraman was killed in a similar shooting.

M eanwhile, the Obser vator y accused the authorities of forcing into exile “thousands of young men” from the Mediterranean coastal city

of Banias, among the first to rise up against the regime. “The intelligence forces target the young men, threatening to arrest them and their wives on charges of supporting the uprising,” it added, saying nearly 5,000 had fled “for fear of being arrested, tortured and killed”.

On Tuesday, Annan told the UN Security Council the priority in Syria was “to stop the killing,” and expressed concern that torture, mass arrests and other human rights violations were intensifying. Regime forces “continue to press against the population,” despite the promised truce that took effect on April 12, but attacks are more discreet because of the presence of the UN observers, diplomats quoted him as saying. Annan plans to visit Damascus for a second time in the coming weeks, his spokesman said, though this depended on events on the ground. — — AFP

In UAE, horses are big business and passion Continued from Page 1 “If I sell a horse in Uruguay for let’s say $20,000 on average, here you can sell at a minimum $40,000,” he said. The margin makes it worth paying the $10,000 cost of transporting a horse by plane from Uruguay to Dubai, more than 17 hours away. “Here in the UAE is the Formula One of horses. They need horses all the time, and from all around the world,” Olascoaga said after making a presentation to Saudi owners at an Arabian horse fair in Dubai.

As the oil-rich Gulf economies boom, the hobbies of its wealthy local populations tend to become big business - and nowhere is that more true than for horses, a traditional passion of the region’s bedouin tribes. Dubai, with its large tourist sector and web of international transport links, has emerged as the focus of the horse business in the region. The business took a hit in 2009-2010, when Dubai was forced to begin restructuring billions of dollars of corporate debt, but has since bounced back with the local economy; the Dubai World Cup race, launched in 1996, attracted 65,000 spectators this year. “This is something very important for Dubai, for tourism,” said Saeed H Al-Tayer, chairman of Meydan Group, which operates the opulent racecourse where the World Cup is held.

He said the racecourse had a capacity of 85,000 but this could in future be expanded to 120,000 if needed.

The UAE is famous for endurance races across the desert by “drinkers of the wind”, as locals sometimes refer to Arabian horses. About 50 races of 80-240 km are held in the cooler months between October and March; riders use scarves to shield their faces from the dust of dozens of vehicles which accompany the race to supply water. Some 2,000 active endurance horses and 87 racing stables are listed by the Emirates Equestrian Federation; that compares to 800 such horses in France, where long-distance riding is also popular and which has a human population about eight times the size, data from the Federation Equestre Internationale shows.

Dubai is also a world power in flat racing; its annual World Cup in March is the world’s richest race with a $10 million purse. The average flat race in the UAE during 2010 offered $130,000 of prize money, the highest level in the world, according to the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities. Even show jumping, historically more of a focus in Western countries, has been growing in the UAE. One recent show jumping competition offered 260,000 dirhams ($70,800) of prize money, while show jumping horses bought for as little as $5,000 in Eastern Europe can fetch prices of $80,000 in the UAE if they perform well.

Traditionally, Dubai’s wealthy have cherry-picked the world’s top horses at sales abroad. Sheikh Mohammed, who is also the UAE’s prime minister, was the biggest purchaser in an auction of two-year-old thoroughbreds last month at Europe’s largest auctioneer, Tattersalls of Britain. He bought a colt sired by 2004 European Champion Shamardal for $844,000, the

third highest price ever seen at the sale. The colt had been sold for roughly a tenth of that price as a foal. “We are used in the Emirates to picking the best horses in the world,” Dubai’s deputy ruler Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid al-Maktoum, who owns some 1,000 horses around the globe, has told the Dubai Racing television channel.

But the industry is also supporting the development of home-grown businesses within the UAE. Several studs in the UAE breed pure Arabian horses, not only for races but also for horse beauty contests, which are popular across the Gulf Arab region. “It is a very good business,” said Khalid Ghanem AlOmairi, general manager of the Ajman Stud, which belongs to the crown prince of Ajman, another of the UAE’s seven emirates. “Every year we have about 35 mares for breeding. But out of these 30-35 you may get only three or four good ones,” said Omairi, whose stud has around 80 horses, some kept in the United States and Germany.

Dubai’s Godolphin stable, which flies some of its 400 horses to Britain in April to race and escape the Gulf’s summer heat, has made $14.8 million in prize money so far this year.

That brings the total to $232 million since 1992. Olascoaga, the Uruguayan agent, says he plans to open a stable of his own in the UAE with a local partner next year, to keep 20 endurance horses. Csaba Marton, stable manager at Lootah Equestrian Club, said local families in the UAE thought nothing of paying 10,000-12,000 dirhams ($2,720-$3,264) every other month for riding lessons taken by four family members.

An investment in a riding school might take 10 years to be repaid in his native Hungary, Marton added, but five years in the UAE. In some ways, the economics of the horse business in the Gulf are difficult. In contrast to Europe, the desert terrain means the roughly 7,000 horses in the UAE have little chance to graze, pushing up owner costs. Hay is imported from as far away as Canada along with feed, tack and other products. The UAE’s hot climate means hooves grow faster, so a farrier has to change horseshoes every five weeks, one or two weeks earlier than in Europe, said farrier Alexandre Chuette.

Grooms are paid as little as $330 per month in the UAE since they may be hired easily from nearby low-wage countries such as India and Pakistan. But monthly stable, feed and grooming costs typically range from $650 to $1,090 or more, compared to around $450-$970 in Britain, people in the industry said. Total annual costs of keeping a competition horse can top $30,000, estimates Martina Boor, managing partner at Horseworld tack shop. Cost considerations are unlikely to sway the behaviour of the affluent citizens of the UAE, however. “I think that in the future, horse racing in Dubai and in the United Arab Emirates will increase,” Dubai crown prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al-Maktoum told Reuters after handing out trophies at a recent endurance race.

“We have a lot of owners who are trying to buy horses now, and we can see even more locals trying to train.” -— Reuters

Assembly OKs amendments to cut...

Continued from Page 1 In other affairs, the Assembly agreed to assign its educational committee to investigate reasons for delaying the building of a new university at Shadadiya. The Assembly also agreed to ask the Audit Bureau to investigate reports of millions of dinars of losses by the Public Institution of Social Security with the help of two international companies and to complete the report within three months which can be extended if needed. It also asked its financial and economic affairs panel to investigate allegations of irregularities in appointments in the oil sector.

During the debate on the investigations, MPs and Housing Minister Shuaib Al-Muwaizri exchanged harsh words after liberal MP Mohammad Al-Sager objected to the investigations, which in his opinion “consider civil servants as thieves”. Sager blasted the government for

accepting the investigation panels which angered Muwaizri. Shiite MP Hussein Al-Qallaf interfered in the debate, saying that the minister has no right to prevent MPs from talking. Another Shiite MP Adnan Al-Mutawa walked out of the session because he was not given permission to talk and was followed by three other Shiite MPs. In another development, Shiite MP Abdulhameed AlDashti yesterday filed a lawsuit against opposition MP Mubarak Al-Waalan over the latter’s claims that Dashti had obtained a Syrian diplomatic passport. Dashti said that although Waalan did not mention him by name, the document he showed to the media clearly had his name on the document, which he said is fake. Waalan, meanwhile, sent a series of questions to the ministers of interior and foreign affairs over the issue, demanding to know if the document was genuine or not.

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THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

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Issues

Libya govt starts to get tough on road to democracy

By Dominique Soguel

he tendency to resort to the arms which ousted Muammar Gaddafi poses a roadblock to democracy in the new Libya, analysts warn, while recognising the government’s growing capacity to defuse crises. Libyan authorities resorted to force on Tuesday for the first time to repel dozens of armed men who had laid siege to Prime Minister Abdel Rahim Al-Kib’s offices to demand stipends and medical treatment for the war wounded. “It is not just rogue elements but a pernicious logic that prevails across the country,” Middle East specialist Karim Bitar told AFP, warning that Libya risks becoming swept by instability spreading across the Sahel region. “The situation is very worrying,” he said in reference to the latest attack on the government that left one dead and four people wounded.

Libya’s new rulers face almost daily protests from armed ex-fighters who want financial and other benefits in recognition of their role in toppling the regime of slain leader Gaddafi in 2011. The government has counted on dialogue with demonstrators, only to be cowed into signing checks by former rebels flaunting their firepower or blocking access to oil companies and institutions. “The government will not be able to hold on for long if it keeps yielding to blackmail and buying the allegiance of militias with hard cash,” Bitar said.

In televised remarks late Tuesday, Kib adopted a tough tone, vowing that his government would “not negotiate under the threat of arms” and warning of the use of force if necessary. Tripoli High Security Committee head Khaled Besher said 14 assailants were arrested following the worst attack in Tripoli against Libya’s new rulers. How the government deals with militias, made up of former rebels who fought against Gaddafi’s regime, could make or break Libya’s transition to democracy, analysts say.

“People are not going to let go of their arms unless they feel that they are part of the political process,” said an Arab pro-democracy activist in Tripoli, while warning that hurried elections could pave the way for more violence.

Strengthening state institutions, tackling rogue militias and dealing fairly with former supporters of Gaddafi’s regime are steps the interim authorities must take to bring about normalisation, he said.

“With all the problems, the Libyan leadership has succeeded to a large extent in defusing the tensions,” said the activist, asking not to be named.

Peter Cole of the International Crisis Group praises the government’s handling of the latest crisis, noting the security forces used to intervene had been handpicked by the interior ministry. But the bigger challenge remains in the national army and the defence ministry, which bloc-registered entire brigades without effectively bringing them under their command. “By itself, the government and army doesn’t have the capacity to secure the country for elections,” said Cole, adding that individual disputes are likely to erupt during a vote. But the High Election Commission does have the ability to reach out to local authorities to manage security ... And there is no indication that, on the whole, militia groups have a desire to derail elections,” he said.

Jason Pack, a researcher at Cambridge University and president of Libya-Analysis.com, sees it as “unlikely that the national army and security forces can be rapidly established to secure” a vote. Libyans are due to elect a constituent assembly next month in what marks the first national vote after four decades of dictatorship. The slogan “freedom does not mean anarchy” has become a mantra on the lips of interim government officials struggling to deal with periodic communal conflicts and violent outbursts by former rebels demanding benefits.

Lamia Abusedra, a founder of the Benghazibased Forum For a Democratic Libya, said her group is working to spread a culture of dialogue and remains optimistic. “We lived under dictatorship for 42 years but everyone agrees that they want democracy,” she said, downplaying the insecurity as the result of a lack of experience in dialogue as well as the abundance of arms. —AFP

T

All articles appearing on these pages are the personal opinion of the writers. Kuwait Times takes no responsibility for views expressed therein. Kuwait Times invites readers to voice their opinions. Please send submissions via email to: opinion@kuwaittimes.net or via snail mail to PO Box 1301 Safat, Kuwait.

The editor reserves the right to edit any submission as necessary.

Fearful nights in Damascus as unrest gets closer

By Mariam Karouny hen darkness falls, streets in Damascus empty as people brace for explosions and crackles of gunfire - once distant threats which now bring fear and sleepless nights to the heart of the Syrian capital. For months the unrest that erupted across Syria last year, when opponents of President Bashar al-Assad demonstrated for greater rights, was held at bay from the government stronghold of Damascus, even as street protests turned to armed struggle. Now Damascenes feel the unrest is encroaching on their homes and the sense of unease is tangible.

Frequent explosions shake the city, ranging from a bombing which killed at least nine people in the Midan district 10 days ago to nightly blasts, many of which remain unexplained. Activists blame some of the detonations on Assad’s security forces, saying they are deliberately heightening the sense of insecurity as part of efforts to portray a popular uprising as a violent campaign by foreign-backed militants. They say soldiers and police have carried out waves of arrests in Damascus during attempts to suppress months of peaceful protests, fired on marchers and shelled the eastern suburbs of the capital for weeks to dislodge rebel fighters.

In the city itself, blast walls now surround several government buildings and some streets are blocked on Fridays, when protesters pour out of mosques here and across the country to demand an end to more than four decades of Assad family rule. “Securitywise maybe we are still okay here in Damascus, but for how long? We feel it is getting closer and closer,” said Mervat, a 33year-old woman whose husband is a clothes

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merchant in central Damascus. “All this shooting at night terrifies the children. Three days ago the clashes were in my street,” she said.

Residents also speak of assassinations of military officers, teachers and others seen as closely linked to the authorities. In neighbourhoods extending from central Damascus to the eastern suburbs and towns that lie a few miles outside the capital, residents say gunfire keeps them awake most nights. “It is getting close. My house is very close to the town of Jobar. I feel that one night I will wake up to find the gunmen at my door,” said a 46-year-old shopkeeper in Damascus, adding it was not clear who was behind the shooting. “I don’t care who is to blame, right now this does not matter. Our lives have been ruined. We want an end to this. We want to live in peace,” he said, declining to give his name.

Assad’s opponents say the security forces are responsible for most of the violence, including some of the blasts. “All these explosions that we hear at night are percussion bombs. The regime wants people to be scared. It rules through fear,” said Omar, an anti-government activist in Damascus. A taxi driver described how he was stuck for hours one night by fighting between gunmen and government troops as he took a passenger from Damascus to the nearby town of Harasta. “I called my wife and my mother and asked for their forgiveness because I was certain that those were my last moments,” he said. “When I finally managed to leave the road, I parked on the side, splashed water on my face and thought: ‘What the hell was that? Am I still in Syria’?”

Other residents say car thefts are on the rise in a city where crime levels were negligible a year ago, saying they believed both

government supporters and rebels were stealing civilian vehicles to use in attacks on each other. A Damascus taxi driver said armed men stopped his brother and took his car. Days later they called and told him to pick it up in the town of Douma, outside Damascus, where masked gunmen returned it to him. “They gave it back, but they didn’t say what it was used for,” he said.

Alongside the worsening security worries, an economic crisis sparked by months of unrest and Western sanctions has taken an ever deeper toll on daily life in the capital.

“For the past few months my husband’s work has gone down horribly,” Mervat said in her home in a middle-class district, whispering so that her two children, aged seven and nine, did not overhear her anxieties.

“We’ve been using our savings for the past two months. I want to leave the country until things are better, but my husband says this is his home and he will not leave.”

Ahmad, a computer engineer who works abroad and was visiting his family in Midan district, said people were exhausted by the unrest. “They really want this to be over. We are drained, our country is drained and our economy is drained.”

Syria stopped publishing economic statistics a year ago, making it hard to assess the impact of the turmoil. But oil exports to Europe have been cut off, costing Syria $3 billion by its own estimates, tourist revenue has collapsed and trade, business and manufacturing have all suffered. “The economy has hit the bottom and society is fractured,” said opposition activist Louay Hussein.

“Unemployment is very high now. I think it has reached 80 percent. There is no work, no business. Nothing is working... Some people do not have money any more to buy the basics and are living on support from oth-

ers.” Prices have more than doubled, with staple goods such as sugar, rice and meat all rising sharply. Some people said they were stocking up with at least a month’s supplies.

“If the security situation gets worse I might be stuck with my family in the house, unable to leave for at least two weeks, so I always keep enough canned food,” said 35-year-old Jamil.

In the traditional Hamidiyeh market, traders spoke of slow business. Fresh pictures of Assad were pinned on the walls and the doors of some shops. “There are only a few tourists coming to the country, some are Iranians and Pakistanis. They are not enough to revive the market,” said one shopkeeper who declined to give his name. In the old city of Damascus, shops, bakeries, restaurants and cafes were open as usual this week. Some were full and others were almost empty.

At one cafe three women were discussing the forthcoming presidential election in Egypt, where President Hosni Mubarak was toppled last year by street protests. “Poor Egyptians. The future of their country has entered the unknown. Those Islamists are going to turn their lives to hell,” said one carefully made-up woman in a sleeveless shirt. “They are coming our way too,” said her friend, pointing to the increasingly Islamist tone of an opposition movement which erupted in March last year with calls for greater freedoms. “Wait until they rule us.” The owner of a famous restaurant in the centre of Damascus said business had fallen by 70 percent since the unrest started. “Things are very difficult now. Look around, today is a Friday and usually the restaurant is fully booked with families for lunch and dinner.” There was only one table occupied. —Reuters

New govt could strengthen Bibi over Iran

By Delphine Mattieussent srael’s new unity government may strengthen the position of Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of a possible attack on Iran, analysts say, despite the fact the move was motivated by internal political issues. The prime minister shocked the political establishment early on Tuesday with the unexpected announcement that his right-wing Likud party had agreed a deal with Shaul Mofaz, leader of the opposition Kadima faction, to form a government of national unity, scotching plans for an early election. The deal puts Netanyahu at the head of one of Israel’s largest-ever ruling coalitions, with an overwhelming 94 votes in the 120-seat parliament.

This dramatic turn of events emerged largely as a result of the growing political difficulties Netanyahu faces within the ruling Likud. Faced with a revolt by the hardline fringe, Netanyahu opted for a political realignment rather than face off with the settler lobby, which has become increasingly disenchanted with his zigzags over settlement issues.

“This move spells trouble for the Jewish communities in Judaea and Samaria (West Bank)

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and further moves us away from the traditional values of the Likud upon which we were elected,” complained Likud’s parliamentary deputy speaker Danny Danon, one of the hardliners. Several hours before the news of the deal broke, Israel’s Supreme Court had ordered the government to stop prevaricating over its commitment

to demolish the Ulpana settler outpost, and raze five structures there

by July 1. The order sent shockwaves through the settler community and placed Netanyahu in a bind: should he comply with the ruling and incur the wrath of Likud hardliners, or should he seek once again seek a way of avoiding the demolition.

“Both Bibi (Netanyahu) and Mofaz are in a difficult position, and the new government is a good solution for both of them,” said Mark Heller, a political analyst at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies. “Bibi has a lot of trouble not so much with his coalition but within his own party.

He needs to contain the hard right-wing of the Likud, especially on the settlement issue,” he told AFP. Mofaz was also struggling. He took over as head of Kadima, the largest faction in parliament, just six weeks ago and found himself at the helm of a party in freefall.

Repeated polls predicted it would be trounced in any election, seeing its 28 mandates reduced to around 10. “Mofaz would rather enter the gov-

ernment with Kadima’s 28 seats now than wait for the next elections and become a junior partner in a coalition with only 10 or 11 seats,” he said.

Israelis yesterday appeared to be divided over Netanyahu’s decision to join up with Kadima, with a survey by the Maariv newspaper showing that 30.7 percent were in favour, 29.9 percent were against and 31 percent had no opinion. Another poll in Israel HaYom newspaper found 39.6 percent backed the move and 31.9 percent opposed it, with 28.4 percent unsure, and a survey

by Channel 10 television found 44 percent in favour, 37 percent opposed and 19 percent expressing no opinion. Haaretz newspaper published its own survey in which it found only 23 percent believed the deal was motivated by the national interest, compared with 63 percent who said the deal was driven by personal and political reasons.

But analysts said they saw the possibility of a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities as a factor playing into Netanyahu’s decision to cobble together what will be Israel’s seventh national unity government. Shmuel Sandler, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University, said Israel’s options vis-a-vis Iran’s contested nuclear program had definitely played a role in Netanyahu’s

thinking. “Netanyahu is very nervous about Iran. The Iranian issue does play a role in the formation of this new government, even if it’s not the only reason for the decision,” he told AFP. “An Israeli attack will be easier with such a big unity government, but I don’t think that the decision has been taken yet. It will depend on the efficiency of the sanctions and the result of the American elections.”

Netanyahu has made the fight to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons his top priority and has openly questioned the effectiveness of the tough regime of international sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic.

For Haaretz commentator Ari Shavit, Netanyahu’s move to bring Mofaz into his government has one clear aim. “Its real goal is Iran,” he wrote. “It creates a firm political foundation on which to conduct the strategic sparring with (Iranian supreme leader) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The national unity government provides domestic and international legitimacy to the anticipated confrontation.

Instead of pre-Iran elections, we get pre-Iran unity, which does the same thing. Instead of a two-month window of opportunity: Sept-Oct 2012, we get a four-month one: July-October 2012.” —AFP

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

sp orts Williamson eyes sixth Games

Cardiff fans see red

McCaw returns for Crusaders

LONDON: Archer Alison Williamson will compete in her sixth consecutive Olympics after being included in the British team yesterday for this year’s London Games. The 40-year-old, a bronze medallist in Athens eight years ago, has appeared at every Olympics since making her debut in Barcelona in 1992 and will become one of only three Britons to have appeared in six successive summer Games.

Javelin thrower Tessa Sanderson (1976-1996) and fencer Bill Hoskyns (1956-1976) were the other two. Britain will have the maximum of three archers in both the men’s and women’s competitions which will take place at Lord’s, the home of English cricket.

“I have enjoyed the experience at every Games and it means as much today as it did when I qualified for the Barcelona Games 20 years ago,” Williamson said. “This is the ultimate event that every athlete aspires to, and to be there six times is just amazing.”

Around 82 British athletes have been confirmed for the host nation’s team with more than 500 expected to compete at the first London Games since 1948. —Reuters

LONDON: Supporters of Welsh club Cardiff City are up in arms at proposals by their Malaysian owners to break with 100 years of tradition and change their kit from blue to red and replace their Bluebird badge with a dragon.

Their Malaysian backers want to invest heavily in ‘The Bluebirds’, build a new training ground and increase their stadium capacity, but, according to the Cardiff City Supporters Trust, it comes on condition they implement the changes. “We were told in no uncertain terms that this was a fait accompli,” trust chairman Tim Hartley told BBC Wales. “This investment is going to come into the club. We were shown a design of the logo, Cardiff City will be playing in red, they will be wearing a dragon on their chests.”Vice-chair Tracey Marsh said: “I feel like they’ve got us over a barrel and we are not going to take this lying down.” Cardiff, who play in the second tier of English football, have played in blue for more than 100 years but red is considered a lucky colour in parts of Asia, while the dragon appears on the Welsh national flag and is hugely symbolic in Asia.

The fates have not been kind to Cardiff this season after they were beaten by Liverpool on penalties in the final of the League Cup at Wembley in February and lost to West Ham United in the semi-finals of the Championship (second division) playoffs. —Reuters

WELLINGTON: All Blacks captain Richie McCaw will feature in a starting lineup for the first time since last year’s Rugby World Cup final when he leads the Canterbury Crusaders against the Melbourne Rebels in the Super 15 on Saturday.

McCaw has played off the bench in the Crusaders’ last two games after recovering from the foot injury that affected him in the second half of New Zealand’s winning World Cup campaign.

He will also take over the captaincy from his All Blacks teammate Kieran Read, who has led the Crusaders in their 10 matches so far this season.

Canterbury is seventh in the Super 15 standings with seven wins and three losses.

Meanwhile, All Blacks coach Steve Hansen has acclaimed Dan Carter as the best flyhalf in world rugby but says the star pivot may have to spend some time at inside center during June test matches against Ireland. — AP

Giants edge Dodgers 2-1

MLB results/standings Texas 10, Baltimore 3; NY Yankees 5, Tampa Bay 3; Chicago White Sox 5, Cleveland 3 (10 innings); NY Mets 7, Philadelphia 4; Pittsburgh 5, Washington 4; Atlanta 3, Chicago Cubs 1; Houston 3, Miami 2; Kansas City 6, Boston 4; Minnesota 5, LA Angels 0; Milwaukee 8, Cincinnati 3; St. Louis 6, Arizona 1; San Diego 3, Colorado 1; Oakland 7, Toronto 3; San Francisco 2, LA Dodgers 1; Detroit 6, Seattle 4.

American League Eastern Division W L PCT Tampa Bay 19 11 .633 Baltimore 19 11 .633 NY Yankees 16 13 .552 Toronto 16 14 .533 Boston 12 17 .414 Central Division Cleveland 17 12 .586 Detroit 15 14 .517 C’ White Sox 14 17 .452 Kansas City 10 19 .345 Minnesota 8 21 .276 Western Division Texas 20 10 .667 Oakland 16 14 .533 Seattle 14 18 .438 LA Angels 13 18 .419

GB 2.5 3 6.5 2 4 7 9 4 7 7.5

National League Eastern Division Washington 18 11 .621 Atlanta 19 12 .613 NY Mets 17 13 .567 Miami 15 15 .500 Philadelphia 14 17 .452 Central Division St. Louis 19 11 .633 15 14 .517 Cincinnati Houston 14 16 .467 Pittsburgh 13 16 .448 Milwaukee 13 17 .433 Chicago Cubs 12 18 .400 Western Division LA Dodgers 19 11 .633 .500 San Francisco 15 15 Arizona 14 17 .452 Colorado 12 17 .414 San Diego 11 20 .355

1.5 3.5 5 3.5 5 5.5 6 7 4 5.5 6.5 8.5

Rangers pound Orioles BALTIMORE: Texas slugger Josh Hamilton became the 16th player to hit four home runs in a game, launching a quartet of tworun drives in a history-making performance that carried the Rangers to a 10-3 win over the Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday.

Hamilton homered off Jake Arrieta (2-3) in the first and third innings, added another off Zach Phillips in the seventh and topped it off with a one-for-the-books shot against Darren O’Day in the eighth.

He also doubled in the fifth inning. His 18 total bases is a new single-game American League record, and his eight RBIs are a career high. The previous player to hit four home runs in a game was Carlos Delgado in 2003 for Toronto against Tampa Bay. Texas starter Neftali Feliz (2-1) gave up one run and had a career-high eight strikeouts in six innings of work.

Yankees 5, Rays 3 In New York, David Robertson struck out Carlos Pena with the bases loaded to end a rocky ninth inning and give New York its first victory over Tampa Bay in eight attempts. Robertson only just held on in his first save chance since veteran closer Mariano Rivera suffered a season-ending knee injury. Raul Ibanez homered twice, Curtis Granderson also connected and the Yankees handed Rays pitcher James Shields (5-1) his first loss in seven starts this season.

New York starter Ivan Nova (4-1) pitched seven sharp innings, the last three in a steady rain. He gave up six hits and struck out eight.

Athletics 7, Blue Jays 3 In Oakland, newcomer Brandon Inge hit a game-ending grand slam to cap a five-run ninth inning rally that powered Oakland over Toronto. The Blue Jays had taken the lead in the top of the ninth off Grant Balfour (1-1). But in the bottom half of the inning, Michael Taylor hit a leadoff double off Francisco Cordero (1-2) and went to third on Jemile Weeks’ sacrifice. Cliff Pennington followed with an RBI single to tie the game.

After two intentional walks, Inge ended it with a drive into the left-field seats.

White Sox 5, Indians 3 In Cleveland, Alex Rios tripled home the

go-ahead run in the 10th inning to lead Chicago over Cleveland. Cleveland closer Chris Perez (0-1) yielded a leadoff single to Paul Konerko. After a foul out, Rios lined a drive over the head of the second baseman which rolled all the way to the wall.

Rios then scored on a fielder’s choice, beating the throw home after a ground ball hit by Alexei Ramirez. White Sox reliever Hector Santiago (1-1) pitched the ninth for his first career win.

Tigers 6, Mariners 4 In Seattle, Justin Verlander won his 12th straight decision on the road as Detroit raced to an early lead and held on against Seattle. Verlander (3-1) wasn’t his sharpest, giving up three runs, but he retired nine of his final 10 batters, struck out six and went at least six innings for the 49th straight start. Prince Fielder hit a homer as the Tigers established a 5-0 lead.

Mariners starter Kevin Millwood (0-4) struggled early but made it through five innings, allowing five runs with five walks.

Royals 6, Red Sox 4 In Kansas City, Billy Butler hit a mammoth three-run homer in the eighth inning to lead Kansas City past Boston. Chris Getz and Humberto Quintero also drove in runs for the Royals, who overcame another lousy performance by their starting pitcher to pick up a confidence-boosting win.

Boston’s Daniel Bard (2-4) walked two batters to start the eighth before giving way to reliever Matt Albers, whose third pitch to Butler landed beyond the left-field wall.

Kelvin Herrera and Jose Mijares (2-1) had kept Kansas City in the game after Danny Duffy lasted just 4 1-3 innings. Jonathan Broxton worked the ninth for his sixth save.

Twins 5, Angels 0 In Minneapolis, Scott Diamond pitched a career-best seven scoreless innings in his season debut, steering Minnesota to victory over Los Angeles. Diamond (1-0) struck out six, the most in any of his eight major league starts. He’s the first Twins starter to pitch this year without allowing a run.

Diamond got 12 groundball outs and walked only one. — AP

BALTIMORE: Texas Rangers’ Josh Hamilton (right) meets teammate Elvis Andrus at home plate after driving in Andrus on a home run in the seventh inning of a baseball game. —AP

LOS ANGELES: The San Francisco Giants beat Los Angeles 2-1 on Tuesday, ending a run of 12 successive home victories by Dodgers starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw.

Kershaw hadn’t lost at home since April 16, 2011. The Giants snapped an 0-6 skid against the left-hander. Kershaw (2-1) had his careerbest 10-game overall winning streak end despite giving up only two runs in eight innings, striking out seven and walking just one.

Giants starter Ryan Vogelsong (1-2) pitched into the eighth inning for the first time this season, allowing one run in 7-1/3 innings. San Francisco closer Santiago Casilla retired the last batter for his sixth save in seven attempts.

Cardinals 6, D’backs 1 In Phoenix, Carlos Beltran homered in his first two at-bats, including a grand slam, for six RBIs, as St. Louis handed Arizona its fourth loss in a row.

Beltran hit a two-run homer off Ian Kennedy (3-2) in the first, then cleared the bases with a shot into the swimming pool area in right-center in the second; his 10th career grand slam. Cardinals starter Jake Westbrook (4-2) pitched seven scoreless innings.

Pirates 5, Nationals 4 In Pittsburgh, Rod Barajas hit a two-run homer with two outs in the ninth inning to lift Pittsburgh over Washington. The veteran catcher, mired in a season-long hitting slump, drilled a shot down the left field line that sailed a few rows into the seats for his first home run and RBIs of the year.

The Nationals had gone ahead in the top of the ninth thanks to Adam LaRoche’s two-run homer. However Alex Presley singled with one out in the bottom of the ninth off Henry Rodriguez (1-2) and moved to third on a pair of wild pitches before Barajas’ shot. Tony Watson (2-0) earned the victory.

Mets 7, Phillies 4 In Philadelphia, Lucas Duda had a tiebreaking, two-out RBI single in the seventh as New

Finland and Latvia put on five-star shows at worlds STOCKHOLM: Finland hit the goal trail in a 5-2 win over Switzerland at the ice hockey world championships in Helsinki on Tuesday to reclaim top spot in Group H. After two shaky 1-0 victories in their opening two games against Belarus and Slovakia, the Finnish attack finally started firing on all cylinders against the Swiss.

Jarkko Immonen and Valtteri Filppula each scored twice for the Finns, with Leo Komarov also getting on the scoresheet.

Belarus came from a goal down to beat Kazakhstan 3-2 after a three-goal salvo in the second period also in Helsinki. Latvia hammered Italy 5-0 in Group S with all the goals coming in just over 40 minutes in Stockholm.

Latvia scored their third goal after Italy conceded three penalties late in the second period and netted two more in the first 2-1/2 minutes of the third period. Russia struggled to overcome a spirited Germany in a tight encounter in the late game.

When forward Nikolay Zhederov broke the deadlock with just nine seconds to go in the first period many expected the Germans to wilt.

But the expected goal avalanche never came as Germany goalkeeper Dimitri Kotschnew - who also holds a Russian passport - kept them at bay until midway through the third period.

The Germans even outshot Russia by 30-26 during the hotly-contested encounter, with both sides spending 10 minutes in the sin bin for a variety of offences.

Russia doubled their lead when Germany’s Justin Krueger was off the ice for slashing, Alexei Tereshenko turning in a pass from Sergei Shirokov to wrap up the win with 10 minutes lef t. The United States, Canada and Sweden all enjoyed a rest day. —Reuters

York took advantage of a Philadelphia defensive blunder. Duda and David Wright had two hits and two RBIs each to help the Mets win their fourth straight.

The Mets took the lead in the seventh with

LOS ANGELES: Dodgers starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw throws to the plate during the second inning of a National League baseball game against the San Francisco Giants. —AP four two-out runs, including Duda’s single off left-hander Antonio Bastardo (1-2) that drove in Wright with the go-ahead run. New York reliever Manny Acosta (1-2) didn’t allow a hit in two-thirds of an inning in the sixth.

Braves 3, Cubs 1 In Chicago, Dan Uggla hit a tiebreaking two-run single in the eighth inning to lift Atlanta over Chicago. Michael Bourn reached on a leadoff single and Kerry Wood (0-2) issued two walks before Uggla drove a pitch back up the middle for his third hit of the game. Atlanta reliever Kris Medlen (1-0) pitched a perfect seventh to take the win.

Astros 3, Marlins 2 In Houston, Brian Bogusevic hit an eighthinning RBI double to lift Houston to a victory that ended Miami’s season-best seven-game winning streak.

The game was tied at 2-2 when Travis Buck singled with two outs before Bogusevic’s hit off Ryan Webb (1-1) just cleared the left fielder and brought Buck home.

The Astros had tied the game when two errors on one play by Omar Infante allowed two runs to score in the sixth inning.

Houston’s Wilton Lopez (3-0) allowed one hit in the eighth for the win and Brett Myers pitched a scoreless ninth for the save.

Brewers 3, Reds 2 In Milwaukee, Aramis Ramirez hit a threerun triple, helping Milwaukee shake off its recent offensive struggles and beat Cincinnati.

Brewers starter Yovani Gallardo (2-3) gave up two runs in six innings and tied a season high with eight strikeouts. He also hit an RBI single in the fifth, snapping an eight-game scoreless streak by the Reds’ bullpen. Scott Rolen’s double in the eighth was the 506th of his career, tying Babe Ruth for 48th on the alltime list. Reds starter Homer Bailey (1-3) gave up six runs in 3 2-3 innings.

Padres 3, Rockies 1 In San Diego, Will Venable tripled and scored in the first, then doubled in the goahead run in the fifth inning to lead San Diego over Colorado.

Padres starter Jeff Suppan (2-0), settled down after the first inning, when he allowed two hits and two walks but gave up only one run. The 37-year-old has won both of his starts since being recalled from the minors to replace the injured Cory Luebke.

Suppan contributed to the go-ahead run when he sacrificed Jason Bartlett, who drew a leadoff walk in the fifth. Venable then followed with a double to give the Padres a 2-1 lead against Alex White (0-1), who was making his season debut. The Rockies lost their fifth straight. —AP

Devils down Flyers for 4-1 series win PHILADELPHIA: The New Jersey Devils are back in the NHL Eastern Conference finals for the first time in nine years after beating the Philadelphia Flyers 3-1 on Tuesday to clinch a 41 series victory.

Bryce Salvador, David Clarkson and Ilya Kovalchuk scored the goals and veteran goaltender Martin Brodeur was strong as the Devils continued their quest for their fourth Stanley Cup, a year after having missed the playoffs for the first time in 15 years.

The Devils await the winner of the New York Rangers-Washington Capitals series. The sixthseeded Devils became the first East team to win four straight games in these playoffs.

“It was just sticking with the game plan and doing what it takes to be successful,” coach Peter DeBoer said. “Marty made some saves when he needed to, and we held on.”

Philadelphia was eliminated in the conference semifinals for the second straight season.

The Flyers finished the season without suspended All-Star forward Claude Giroux because of his illegal check to the head on New Jersey center Dainius Zubrus in Game 4.

The Flyers underwent a facelift last summer that saw them trade team captain Mike Richards to the Los Angeles Kings and acquire goalie Ilya Bryzgalov from the Phoenix Coyotes.

The Kings and Coyotes will play in the West finals while the Flyers watch from home.

The Flyers again failed in the postseason to hold a quick lead after Max Talbot scored in the first. Philadelphia applied a rugged series of hits, with Anton Volchenkov, Marek Zidlicky and Zubrus all suffering punishing shots that knocked them down on the ice.

Bryzgalov had a disheartening end to an erratic first season in Philadelphia. He allowed two YouTube-worthy goals like only he can.

Salvador unleashed a shot from outside the circle that skipped along the ice as if he threw a rock across a pond and sailed high over Bryzgalov for the tying goal.

In a season loaded with head-scratching tallies allowed, Bryzgalov saved the weirdest for the finale. Clarkson’s shot on Bryzgalov was deflected off the goalie stick straight back at the forechecking forward. Bryzgalov only looked him behind in disbelief after Clarkson knocked it right into the net.

Kovalchuk fired a liner from the high slot after the Devils won the faceoff to make it 3-1 in the third to seal the win. From there, New Jersey’s depth took over and denied any hope of a home team rally.

“The fact that we have four lines and roll six defensemen really helps,” DeBoer said. “It’s a team game. We play that way, and guys really believe in what we’re doing. But that’s a good team we just beat over there, and we have a long way to go.” —AP

NEWARK: Philadelphia Flyers goalie Ilya Bryzgalov, of Russia, lays on his back after making a save as a group of players are pulled apart by officials during Game 4 of a second-round NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series against the New Jersey Devils. —AP

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

sp orts Preview

Room at the top for another winner LONDON: Formula One’s European season fires up in Spain this weekend with Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber leading a fistful of drivers jostling to become the fifth different winner in five races.

What was the most predictable of races, with Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya used in pre-season testing and holding no surprises for even the rookies on the starting grid, now looks far from clear-cut.

Four drivers have taken it in turn to win and lead the championship since the opener in Australia in March, with Webber’s double world champion team mate Sebastian Vettel the current man on top.

McLaren’s Jenson Button, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso - now looking forward to the buzz of a home race with what could be a much quicker car after recent developments - and Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg have also won. There have been eight different drivers from six teams on the podium so far.

Not since 1983, when Rosberg’s father Keke was racing and a year before Niki Lauda clinched his third title, has a campaign started with five different winners but history could well repeat itself on Sunday.

McLaren’s Hamilton, the 2008 champion who was on pole in the first two races of 2012, must surely stand on top of the podium again before long and the return to Europe could be the time.

“We had a great race there last year, I pushed Sebastian all the way to the finish. I think we have a comparatively stronger car this year, so I hope we can have another strong race,” said the Briton, second in Spain last year.

“I think it’s going to be one of the toughest tracks of the year for overtaking, but I’ll be hoping for a strong performance in qualifying in order to make it as straightforward as possible in the race.”

Red Bull’s Webber has started on pole for the past two years in Spain, and won in 2010 at a circuit where the top slot has translated into victory in 10 of the last 11 races, and knows he has the car to do it again.

“I like the Barcelona track, we do a lot of work there and it’s a track that’s been good to me in the past...so I’m looking for a strong weekend,” said the Australian.

Kimi Raikkonen, the 2007 champion with Ferrari now on a comeback with Lotus, was second last month at a troubled Bahrain race with French team mate Romain Grosjean third.

Both have to be considered. So too does seven-times champion Michael Schumacher, even if he has not been on the podium since he made his return in 2010 and has been critical of the Pirelli tyres, given that Mercedes team mate Rosberg won in China.

Schumacher has won more often than any other driver in Barcelona, six times in all. Barcelona has long been held up as a benchmark, an acid test where the championship moves up a gear, but in such a close field with the cars divided by mere fractions of a second even that may no longer be the case.

“Usually Barcelona is a pretty good indicator of car performance: if a car works well there it tends to work well in most places,” Red Bull boss Christian Horner told autosport.com after testing in Italy last week.

“Whether that still applies this year, who knows? I’m sure most teams are bringing upgrades of varying degree.

“It is the first European race so traditionally that’s where teams will introduce new components to their cars and we’re no different to that. It will be fascinating to see the evolution amongst the teams.”

McLaren are hoping to have a higher nose on their car after trying out the change at the Mugello test while Lotus were fastest in Mugello with Grosjean.

“We’ve been able to look after our tyres quite well during the races so far but the Barcelona track is very abrasive, especially for the front left tyre,” said Lotus team principal Eric Boullier.

“Maybe we’ll do a better job than our rivals in this area. The only question mark is our performance relative to the temperature.” — Reuters

Lamont Peterson

Amir Khan

Peterson’s dope test casts doubt on bout with Khan LOS ANGELES: The heavily anticipated rematch between Britain’s Amir Khan and Lamont Peterson, scheduled for May 19 in Las Vegas, has been cast in doubt after the American tested positive for a banned substance, organisers said on Tuesday.

Peterson, who beat Khan in controversial circumstances to win the WBA super-lightweight and IBF light-welterweight belts in December, failed a drug test administered by the Las Vegas-based Voluntary Anti-Doping Association in March.

Khan’s promoter, Richard Schaefer of Golden Boy Promotions in Los Angeles, said he was told by Nevada Athletic Commission executive Keith Kizer on Monday about the failed test. “He (Kizer) was informed that Lamont Peterson has tested positive for substances consistent with the administration of a steroid,” Schaefer said on a conference call on Tuesday.

“Both the ‘A’ and ‘B’ samples showed that the athlete’s specimens were consistent with the administration of an anabolic steroid such as testosterone.

“I discussed with Keith Kizer what is next and he informed me that Peterson’s attorneys will be submitting paperwork this

afternoon to the Nevada Athletic Commission explaining themselves and explaining why there was a substance there.”

After Team Peterson has presented its defence, the chairman of the commission will rule on whether or not there will be a fight in Las Vegas on May 19.

Peterson needs to win an appeal to the five-member commission, which is not scheduled to meet again until May 21, though Kizer said that date could be brought forward.

“If they (the commission) felt there was a need to, if there was some legitimate question of fact, they could meet (before) then,” Kizer told Reuters.

“My understanding from my brief conversation with his (Peterson’s) attorney was that when he was first told in April that he had tested positive for testosterone, he had no clue what it could be but that it had to be a mistake.

“Then the ‘B’ sample came back on May third positive as well and then at that time, I guess a light bulb went off that he had had some testosterone problems before the first Khan fight.”

Kizer said the Nevada Athletic Commission expected to

receive the paperwork from Team Peterson before close of business on Tuesday.

“I am eagerly awaiting it,” Kizer said. “Unless he has got some really enlightening defence here, he will not be licensed for May 19th.”

Meanwhile, Khan continues to prepare for the May 19 fight with his trainer Freddie Roach at the Wild Card Boxing Club in Los Angeles. “He is very disappointed but he is going to follow whatever the Nevada Athletic Commission is going to rule,” Schaefer said. Khan has been eagerly preparing for the rematch after losing his WBA and IBF belts in Lamont’s home city of Washington on a split decision having been docked two points by the referee for pushing.

Khan’s camp criticised the referee’s actions and were shocked by television replays showing a mystery man in a hat talking with a judge ringside, prompting the WBA to order a rematch. The ‘mystery man’ was identified as Mustafa Ameen, who is an IBF volunteer helping cash-strapped boxers. He denied interfering with the judges’ scorecards. — Reuters

Watson’s Masters triumph inspired Fowler to victory

PONTE VEDRA BEACH: Tiger Woods (right) of the United States walks with Arjun Atwal (left) of India during a practice round prior to the start of The Players Championship. — AFP

FLORIDA: American Rickie Fowler, fresh from his maiden PGA Tour win, has credited the Masters success of his friend and compatriot Bubba Watson with giving him the extra kick he needed to finally triumph.

Fowler, 23, clinched the Wells Fargo Championship on Sunday with a playoff victory over Rory McIlroy and D.A. Points less than a month after Watson’s memorable playoff win at Augusta.

“It was nice for me to be there on Sunday when he won the Masters and it kind of motivated me a little bit more to want to be in that situation,” said Fowler, who featured in a tongue-in-cheek ‘boy band’ pop video with Watson.

“I can definitely give some credit to Bubba for motivating me a bit and giving me a kind of kick in the butt to go out and get it done.”

Not surprisingly, Watson was one of the first people that Fowler called after his win at Quail Hollow but there have been other members of golf ’s young guard who Fowler has been keen to keep up with.

“I feel like is some of the guys, like Rory

and Keegan (Bradley), a lot of us keep playing well, it will just push all of us to be the best that we can be,” he said.

Since entering the tour as a 20 year old and being billed as the bright young hope of American golf, Fowler has been under pressure to prove his potential with a win.

But he says that has not taken away from the enjoyment of his early years on tour.

“No, it’s been fun. It’s obviously a process and it’s not easy to win on the tour.

There are a lot of great players out here, the best players in the world. But it was nice to get it last week at a very good tournament and against a very good field,” he said.

“But it has been one of the main goals that I’ve had since I turned pro - to win on the PGA Tour. I think the first one is definitely the hardest. You are either a PGA Tour winner or you aren’t.”

Fowler ’s new status will bring him extra attention and particularly so during the first two rounds of this week’s Players Championship where he has been paired with Tiger Woods and Hunter Mahan. — Reuters

Mickelson and Woods two sides of golfing coin PONTE VEDRA BEACH: Rarely has the contrast between golf as an enjoyable game and torturous frustration been as evident in two players as in the appearances of Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods at the Players Championship on Tuesday.

Mickelson, a four-time major winner fresh from his induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame, sat casually with reporters ahead of Thursday’s opening round and chatted about how much he loves the game. But Woods, who missed a cut for only the eighth time in a PGA Tour event last week, looked far from happy discussing the seemingly endless “process” of working on the fourth swing change of his professional career.

After a series of dry explanations and testy rebuttals, the former world number one was asked whether there was any joy in the toil of trying to rediscover his winning touch. Judging from his response, the notion was totally alien to him.

“A joy? No, I don’t enjoy missing cuts,” Woods said before shifting the focus back to his swing, reiterating an argument that this is simply a phase he went through even during the years when he assembled 14 majors.

“You’re not going to play well every week.

There are times when I have felt awful over a golf ball and I’ve still somehow won a golf tournament. It doesn’t mean I feel comfortable but just somehow figured out a way,” he said.

For Woods, the man who once made the game look ridiculously easy, discomfort is now the goal as he tries to perfect the lessons of swing coach Sean Foley.

“When I get into what Sean wants me to do with my old setup where I’m comfortable, then I can hit an array of shots, because obviously my grip has changed, my posture and how I move through the golf ball is completely different. So that’s where I get into the problems.

“Now, if I get completely uncomfortable and put myself in a position where it feels just awful, I hit it pure. So there’s where I’m devel-

oping in the swing.

“It was the same way at Bay Hill where I was just committed to just feeling awful over the ball, and I hit it great. But that’s the movement pattern. That’s what’s different.

“I’ve been through it with Butch (Harmon), I’ve been through it with Hank (Haney), and you get through stages like this, go through periods like this. We’ve all done it. It’s just I’m in it right now.”

It is hard to imagine Mickelson enduring a similar process and when asked what he loved about the game, it was not hard for the lefthander to find the sources of pleasure.

“It’s ever ything about the game,” said Mickelson. “Whether it’s just the challenge of making contact and hitting the ball or the challenge of being creative and hitting shots around the greens.”

Mickelson’s recollections of his early days playing the game were the kind that many could relate too. “I loved going out there on a rainy day practicing under the palm tree when nobody was around hitting balls out onto the par-three course where I grew up.

“I love going down to the club and just hanging out, hanging out and spending time with the guys before and after a round. I just love everything about the game.

“It’s been such a big part of my life, that I’m very appreciative that I get to do what I do. I’d like to see other people enjoy it the way I do.”

There are many who would love to see Woods enjoy it that way too and maybe, if the wins come back, he will be able to.

For now though, it is all about the struggle.

“It’s a process, and I’ve said this numerous times, is that you keep building. There are certain times when you make great strides forward, and there’s other times where you’re going to take a stride or two backwards. It’s a process.

“As we all know, golf is a work in progress, and you’ve just got to continue working, keep trying to get better.” — Reuters

VERONA: Lithuanian rider Ramunas Navardauskas of US team Garmin celebrates winning the race leader’s pink jersey on the podium of the 32,2 km time trial race, fourth stage of the Giro d’Italia. — AFP

Garmin win Giro’s fourth stage VERONA: American team Garmin won the fourth stage of the Giro d’Italia, a time trial held over 33.2 km around Verona, to take control of the race yesterday. Garmin’s Lithuanian rider Ramunas Navardauskas took possession of the pink jersey from American Taylor Phinney of BMC, who had led the race since winning the opening stage time trial in Herning, Denmark.

BMC, one of several teams to flirt with disaster along the course - Phinney at one point rode deep into a grass vergefinished 10th at 31sec behind Garmin.

The 21-year-old Phinney, who is not considered among the contenders for overall victory, is now fifth overall at 13secs behind Navardauskas. None of the bona fide contenders for the pink jersey suffered badly on the day.

Spaniard Joaquim Rodriguez, whose Katusha team finished second at just 5secs behind Garmin, snatched 17secs

from Czech rival Roman Kreuziger after Astana finished third at 22.

Rodriguez also took 21 seconds off Italy’s former two-time winner Ivan Basso, whose Liquigas team finished seventh at 26. Defending Giro champion Michele Scarponi of Italy meanwhile lost only eight seconds to Basso.

In the unofficial general classification Navardauskas leads three teammates, American Tyler Farrar and South African Robert Hunter, by 10secs with Canadian Ryder Hesjedal at 11.

Garmin’s best placed rider before the stage was Dane Alex Rasmussen. His chance of pulling on the race leader’s jersey effectively ended when he failed to keep pace with his teammates after the first 15 minutes.

Navardauskas, 24, joined Garmin in 2011 and was a part of the team that won the team time trial at the Tour de France in Essarts. — AFP

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

sp orts

Partying and pain on one day at 1972 Olympics

By Robert H Reid MUNICH: It began as a glorious late summer’s day - clear blue sky, shorts and shirtsleeve kind of weather. Sunlight twinkled off the acrylic glass at the Olympic stadium.

Tourists lounged beneath the umbrellas of outdoor cafes, chatting and sipping beer.

The scene in Munich’s Olympic Park on Sept.

5, 1972, was idyllic - except for a helicopter from the German border police circling over buildings of the nearby village where the athletes lived.

If you shaded your eyes, squinted against the blinding sunlight and knew where to look, you could just make out the images of armed uniformed German police standing on the buildings. Turn away and the horror of what was unfolding seemed to disappear.

Forty years later, the stark images of what became known as the Munich Massacre remain seared in my memory. Eight Palestinian gunmen from the Black September organization had broken into the Olympic Village. There they seized 11 Israeli athletes, coaches and officials in their apartments.

Two of the hostages were slain in the first moments. By the end of the day, the nine other Israeli hostages and all but three of the gunmen would be dead. The stain of that terrible day would remain for decades - on the city of Munich, on German officials and on the Olympic movement’s leadership,

which tried to downplay the tragedy.

My wife and I were there, among the tens of thousands of people who had come to Munich that day to take part in what the Germans had advertised as the “friendly Olympics.”

We’d heard about the hostage-taking on Armed Forces Radio before leaving our home in Augsburg, a city just northwest of Munich where I was stationed in the US Army. We decided to go anyway. We’d won discount tickets for a football match in a lottery for American soldiers and had planned to attend with two other couples.

There had been no announcement that events would be canceled. As a lieutenant I was earning less than $500 a month, and we didn’t want to waste the price of the ticket, even at discount rates.

Once we got there, the decision seemed a wise one. Despite the tension around the building where the hostages were being held, everywhere else things seemed pretty normal. At the Olympic Park, there were no security checkpoints, no looks of fear or apprehension among the crowd and no sense of alarm - except around the athletes’ quarters. And those were off limits to spectators anyway.

A few policemen ambled among the crowds. But there were no signs of the extra security that today, in the post-9/11 world, is standard and expected.

In an era before the Internet, before

smart phones and before 24-hour news cycles, there was little tension in the air. No one was huddling over a radio trying to follow events. The only sign of trouble, apart from that helicopter and armed police on the rooftop, was a bold-faced headline on a German tabloid that screamed: “Geiselnahme,” or “Hostage Taking.” But for people who didn’t know German, it was hard to find a clue that anything was wrong.

And that’s the way the president of the International Olympic Committee, Avery Brundage, wanted it.

The 84-year-old philanthropist and art collector resisted calls to suspend the games and hoped the German authorities could resolve the crisis quickly and without more bloodshed. As hours passed with no resolution, the party outside the Olympic Village rolled on.

Coming less than 30 years after World War II ended, the choice of Munich as a venue had been controversial from the outset.

More than most German cities, Munich had been closely associated with the rise of the Nazi Party. The first concentration camp, Dachau, was located on Munich’s outskirts, and the Israeli team had visited the site just before the opening ceremony.

It was the first time Germany had hosted the Summer Games since 1936 Olympics in Berlin, which were presided over by a confident and increasingly menacing Adolf Hitler.

Hoping for redemption, the Germans had

promoted a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Now, the image of Jewish athletes with their lives at risk threatened to destroy all that.

As the sun began to set, the crowd shuffled into the Olympic stadium to watch the football match: West Germany vs. Hungary.

Everything seemed on track as the 80,000seat venue began to fill. As we awaited the start of the match, an announcement echoed over the loudspeakers. With groans of complaint, people began getting up and leaving. “It’s canceled,” a German told me.

“But you can get a new ticket.”

With properly stamped rain checks in hand, we headed back to the car and on to a beer garden downtown for dinner. The scene was packed with Olympic partygoers hoisting enormous steins of beer. Hours later, we drove along the autobahn to Augsburg, making plans to attend the makeup game. We pulled into a rest stop to stretch our legs. In the distance, toward Fuerstenfeldbruck air base, we saw flashes of light. We assumed it was heat lightning.

But looking back, and judging from the hour - around 11 p.m. - the flashes must have been the battle in which the Israelis all died. The Germans persuaded the gunmen to fly with their hostages by helicopter to the air base, where they would board a plane to an Arab country. Instead, the Germans had laid an ambush. Five German snipers lay in wait around the tarmac.

In the darkness, the snipers failed to kill their targets. The gunmen fired back. One of them tossed a grenade into the helicopter where some of the hostages were bound and blindfolded. The other Israelis were raked with machine gun fire. Five of the Palestinians died in the gun battle; three were captured alive.

Brundage refused to cancel the rest of the games, and we returned for the makeup match. Hungary beat Germany 4-1 and went on to claim the silver medal. Jewish athletes from other countries were evacuated for their own security.

Sporting wise, there was much to remember about the 1972 Summer Games: American swimmer Mark Spitz’s record seven gold medals; the emergence of Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut on the world stage; Frank Shorter becoming the first American to win the Olympic marathon in 64 years; and a controversial 50-49 loss by the Americans to the Soviets in basketball.

Instead the 1972 Summer Games will always be remembered as “the Munich Massacre.”

Four decades later, security has become as integral a part of the games as the athletes, spectators and media. The British expect to spend more than $1.6 billion to protect this summer’s games, roughly what the Greeks spent in Athens in 2004 and the Chinese in Beijing in 2008. All the legacy of the Munich Massacre, a long-ago day that changed the Olympic Games forever.—AP

Flame lighting rehearsal goes off without a hitch Torch relay pioneered at Nazi Games The official 2012 Olympics torch LONDON: Mist clears to reveal white marble images from classical Greece culminating in Myron’s celebrated statue of an athlete poised to launch a discus in the prologue to Leni Riefenstahl’s remarkable documentary film “Olympia”.

The statue rotates and melts into an identical image of a contemporary discus thrower.

It is succeeded by further paeans to the sculptured Greek ideal of physical beauty with pictures of a shot putter, a javelin thrower and rhythmic gymnasts.

Finally, flame floods the screen followed by a bare-chested runner embarking on the first torch relay of the modern Olympics. Like the remainder of Riefenstahl’s lengthy masterwork, the relay footage is both haunting and disturbing.

The torch travels from Olympia in Greece through Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Austria and Czechoslovakia to Berlin and the 1936 Nazi Games. It is a journey the German army was destined to retrace.

A mighty roar and a sea of fascist salutes greets the final torchbearer Fritz Schilgen as he runs into the Berlin stadium to light the cauldron. Greece lead the 51 nations parading at the opening ceremony, under the gaze of German Chancellor Adolf Hitler.

The flame, the five rings, the Olympic oath, the hymn and the anthems were products of the fanatical nationalism poisoning Europe during the inter-war years.

At the suggestion of Berlin Games organiser Carl Diem the torch relay was added, with more than 3,000 runners bearing the torch over 3,187 kms.

The classical origins of the Olympic flame stem from the theft of fire from the Olympian god Zeus by Prometheus and gifted to mankind.

At Olympia, site of the ancient Games, a flame burned at the altar of Hestia, goddess and guardian of fire. It was introduced to the modern Games in Amsterdam in 1928 and burned again in Los Angeles four years later.

Boosted by enthusiastic radio coverage, the Berlin torch relay was a huge success and after World War Two it became firmly established as an essential and popular pre-Games ritual.

The first runner in the 1948 London

Games relay took off his military uniform before carrying the flame to commemorate the sacred peace truce observed in the ancient Games. A boat ferried the flame across the channel to England.

In 1968, the relay retraced the steps of Christopher Columbus to the new world and the Mexico Games and the torch, but not the flame, has twice been carried into space by astronauts. Camels bore the flame across the Australian desert before the 2000 Sydney Games.

The final torchbearer has increasingly been a celebrated athlete since nine-times Olympic distance running champion Paavo Nurmi delighted a packed Finnish crowd when he lit the cauldron at the Helsinki Games. A statue of Nurmi, who was denied the opportunity to set an unmatched record of track and field gold medals when he was declared a professional, stands outside the stadium.

At the 1996 Atlanta Games Muhammad Ali, who as Cassius Clay won the lightheavweight boxing title in the 1960 Rome Olympics, lit the flame through sheer strength of will although his hands were visibly shaking with the effects of Parkinson’s syndrome, the cruel legacy of his professional career.

Four years later, Australian aboriginal Cathy Freeman apparently walked on water to ignite the cauldron at the Sydney Games.

Unlike Nurmi and Ali, Freeman had yet to win an Olympic title, an omission she rectified in spectacular fashion in the 400 metres final.

The 2008 Beijing Olympic relay was given the theme “Journey of Harmony”. It proved anything but on its international travels.

In London, demonstrators protesting against Chinese policies in Tibet tried several times to put out the flame. Security officials extinguished the flame in Paris at least twice and carried it on a bus in the face of further violent protests. The U.S. leg in San Francisco was altered to avoid further trouble.

At the age of 90, Schilgen was a torchbearer again before the Atlanta Games. He died in Kronberg in 2005 aged 99, the same age as Diana Gould. Gould will be 100 when she carries the torch in her home suburb of Barnet in London in July. —Reuters

GREECE: The final rehearsal for the lighting of the flame that will burn at the London Olympics went off without a hitch under bright sunny skies in the birthplace and site of the Ancient Games.

Standing in front of the 2,600year- old Temple of Hera, an actress dressed as a high priestess used a concave mirror to focus the sun’s rays and light a torch.

That flame will ser ve as a backup in the unlikely event that clouds hide the sun at today’s official lighting ceremony. This has happened only once in recent memory for the Summer Olympics - in 2000, ahead of the late-season Sydney Games - but clouds have disrupted three of the previous four Winter Games ceremonies.

The rehearsal went on without almost any VIPs and in front of hundreds of visitors to the archaeological site, access to which will be restricted under tight security in Thursday’s official ceremony.

In a choreographed departure from previous ceremonies, a chorus of 13 young men struck

poses from Olympic sports and per formed their own ritual dance in tandem with the 17 priestesses.

The first two torchbearers are both born in the UK, the sons of Greek fathers and British mothers. Spyros Gianniotis, a 32-yearold Liverpool-born swimmer, who won a silver medal for Greece in the 5-kilometer open water event four years ago in Beijing and who will take part in his fourth Games, will hand over to Alex Loukos, a 19-year-old born and raised in the east London borough of Newham, where the Olympic Park is located.

After a 2,900-k ilometer (1,800-mile) journey through Greece using 490 torchbearers, the flame will be handed to London organizers in Athens’ Panathenian Stadium, where the first modern games were staged in 1896, on May 17. In contrast to the two previous Summer Games, where the Olympic flame relay went around the globe, it will leave the UK only once, to pass though Dublin on June 6.

The Olympic Games are from July 27 to Aug. 12.—AP

GREECA: A priestess, releases a bird symbol of peace, during the final dress rehearsal for the lighting of the Olympic flame held yesterday, in Ancient Olympia, Greece. The flame to be lit in today’s ceremony in the birthplace of the Ancient Olympics will travel to London, where the Summer Games will take place from July 27-Aug. 12.—AP

Chilean picks shorter swim to the podium ASUNCION: Chilean swimmer Kristel Kobrich is concentrating on just one race at the Olympic Games in London, to avoid a repeat of the psychological burnout that shattered her medal dreams in Beijing four years ago.

Kobrich, a veteran of two previous Games and one of Chile’s medal hopes in London, will take part in the 800 metres freestyle and give the 10km open water race a miss.

The 26-year-old was 20th in the 800 metres heats in Beijing, a psychological blow that badly affected her performance in open water five days later when she failed to stay the course.

“The psychological aspect is fundamental. In fact, at the time of competing it’s all down to psychology because you’ve done all the physical work,” her Argentine coach Daniel Garimaldi told Reuters.

“You have to prepare your body so it can respond to the demands of the mind,” he said in a joint interview on a visit to Kobrich’s home city of Santiago.

“We need her to be 100 percent physically so that she can respond to all the mental demands she makes of her body.”

Kobrich is in the final stages of preparation with a daily routine of six hours in the pool and three sessions a week with weights in the gym.

“We can improve the psychological part which is where we’re placing a lot of our bets, and in the physical part we’re polishing our competition rhythm, which is more about tactics,” Garimaldi said.

“I hope to have matured a bit,” said Kobrich, the 800 metres Pan-American champion and Chile’s flag bearer as a teenager at the 2004 Athens Games opening ceremony.

“In those (Beijing) Games we were also in the open water (race) and that was tough, a learning curve seeking immediate responses. At the time, it was sad and painful (but) we picked ourselves up quickly. “Today I’m in a position to choose knowing I’m in good shape and that nothing can distract me. I’m going for it.”

Briton Rebecca Adlington, the Olympic

champion, will be the favourite in home water in London. Kobrich started swimming when she was nine, obliged to get in the pool because her parents had noone to leave her with while her elder sisters went to swimming lessons.

For several years she practised athletics and swimming until at 13 her coach told her to choose one, and she now holds the South American 800 and 1,500 metres freestyle records.

“Her rivals aren’t in quite as good form as we thought. That doesn’t mean they’re not good (but) chances have improved a bit to fight for (a place on) the podium.

Those chances used to be a long way off,” Garimaldi said. “The possibilities of being among the top three or four have grown immensely.” Kobrich, who left her country

Kristel Kobrich

nine years ago to train in Argentina, shares her coach’s confidence and smiles timidly when she talks of her prospects in London. “Today, we’re sticking to the 800, it’s a super difficult race but we’re in the top 10. To be in the final would be historic for me and my country (Chile),” she said.

“You earn the respect of your rivals, who look at you differently and plan their races accordingly. “Some go, others come... there’s renewal but I’m still there.

I’m proud to have been among the top swimmers for a long time. Very few can do that.”

Kobrich and gymnast Tomas Gonzalez are Chilean fans’ big hopes to see their country’s flag raised at a medals ceremony in London.

Should they succeed, there will be celebrations all over Chile as there were when tennis players Nicolas Massu and Fernando Gonzalez won medals in Athens in 2004 and Gonzalez climbed the podium again in Beijing.

“We’re trying to break the mould with individual sports that are totally amateur, sports in which it’s difficult to make a breakthrough (in Chile),” Kobrich said.

“Only when you’re at the top do you get a guarantee of (financial) support for an annual project which you’ve been seeking for a long time.”—Reuters

Water polo Britons aim to make a splash

Fran Leighton in action in this file photo

LONDON: Britain’s water polo women are ready to bring the sport back to its birthplace following a journey of sacrifice, funding cuts and fortnightly trips to Hungary to play in a professional league.

“We’ve worked for such a long time. It’s all about what happens when we get in that water. We know what we want to do, we want to play well,” Fran Leighton, captain for the last eight years, told Reuters. Britain hosted Australia, Hungary and the United States in a test event at the Olympic venue which gave water polo exposure in Britain like it has never had before, and stirred up public excitement about it ahead of the Games proper.

Despite losing all four of their matches, the British team had much to be encouraged by with some rousing performances against the world’s best including a narrow 7-6 defeat to the United States.

For 30-year-old Leighton, the current wave of excitement is one she has been riding since 2005 when London was awarded the Games

but there have been tough choices along the way.

“As soon as when we won the bid, there were decisions about what do you want do with your life? Do you want to go and work or do you want to do your training?,” she said, speaking against the backdrop of 5,000 brand new seats peering over the brightly lit pool.

“Quite a lot of my friends have houses, proper jobs, kids, and I’m fine without any of that. I decided to make the decision back then that I wanted to try and get to the Olympics.”

Leighton works as a swimming teacher in Manchester, where the women’s squad is based, and says around half the team have jobs or are studying. Britain, unlike Greece, Hungary and Italy, does not have a professional women’s or men’s league.

In 2009 the sport received a blow when funding injected to prepare for the Olympics was slashed, but a year later it was buoyed when it received a slight raise.

Leighton shrugs off the impact of the cuts.

“When you come from a sport that’s never been funded before, it was brilliant when we got funded. When it was taken away, we were like we still want to do it, it doesn’t really change anything, it just means you have to make bigger decisions like do you have to pick up another job.”

The sport, played in a pool with footballstyle goals and often likened to a version of rugby because of its roughness, was developed in Britain in the nineteenth century but the men’s team has floundered since a four gold medal haul in the early part of the 20th century, while the women’s game only became an Olympic sport in 2000.

The British women’s qualification was a result of its host nation position, but Leighton is confident the team has done enough to ensure it will be more than competitive come July.

“The Olympic champions (the Netherlands) got knocked out last week and the world champions, Greece, aren’t coming to the

Olympics, that’s a big shock. With the women’s games it is one of these where you could come first or last,” Leighton said. “I think for us to come top six would be a massive success.” Their coach, Hungarian Szilveszter Fekete, agreed that the women’s game is fluid and said the British team had benefited from its participation in the Hungarian national league last year.

“Women’s water polo is very, very equal,” Fekete said, while warning that the United States and Australia, who won silver and bronze respectively at the Beijing Olympics, would be tough.

“Physically they are bigger, stronger, and they know everything,” he said. As she gazes out at the stadium seats crowding over Britain’s only water polo-specific venue, a giant sloping shoe box-like structure which is temporary, the talk of bigger, stronger opponents does not scare Leighton. “It’s just about ... enjoying the pool, getting used to it and getting used to, hopefully, having the British crowd behind us,” she said.—Reuters

18

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

S P ORT S

‘Ouch’ NBA boss changes tune on injuries NEW YORK: Turns out NBA Commissioner David Stern spoke too soon. Or not. Barely a week after ruling out any connection between the injuries suffered by players and the compressed regular-season schedule that was thrown together in the wake of the lockout - “Zero,” is how Stern put it in an April 30 radio interview - the commissioner has started walking that statement back.

Sort of.

“There is some part of it that may be related to that,” Stern said Tuesday during an appearance on the CBS Sports Network. “I think some part of it is luck and some part of it is lack of preparedness by our players before the season began. It’s a combination of things.”

The strange thing is that while seasonending knee injuries to the Bulls’ Derrick Rose and Knicks guards Iman Shumpert and Baron Davis in the first round of the playoffs gave rise to suspicions that the schedule was to blame - it began on Christmas and shoehorned 66 games into roughly four months - Stern said the total number of such injuries, five, was about the same as in previous years.

But with fewer breaks available for players to heal - teams played an average of two more games each month, from 14 to 16 the time lost because of all sorts of injuries was greater.

“The one thing I do know is that we’ve had more lost games because of injuries, because the compressed schedule takes away a day of rest for a minor injury. ... We’re going to look at the precise numbers at the end of the season and we’ll try to have a view of it because it’s spread out differently as well. Some teams don’t practice. Some teams do. I don’t know whether it relates,” the commissioner added.

“Some teams actually worked out with the players alone all summer and some didn’t. We’re going to try to see whether we can learn something from this compressed season in the way that teams approach it.”

That’s all well and good, but the teams still in the playoffs are being forced to deal with the implications on the fly. They know, for example, that while the number of games lost to injury is up, points and shooting percentages are down.

It has spawned an interesting game-

within-a-game where coaches and players try to convince themselves they aren’t feeling exhausted but that their opponents are.

“My hope, I don’t know if this is true or not, is that fatigue will come our way,” Denver coach George Karl said after his Nuggets beat the Lakers 102-99 and pulled within 32 in their series. “The running of the game, the tempo of the game, and the pace, the way we play. “They’re getting tired of hearing it, and you’re probably tired of hearing it,” he told reporters, “but our only chance to beat them is run them and play with tremendous energy and intensity.”

Kobe Bryant is probably feeling every bit of 33 after a grueling season playing through a handful of ailments. But the old man of the Lakers says no team can afford to feel sorry for itself at this juncture of the season. Asked whether he and his teammates would regret not closing out Denver on the first try and getting some additional rest, Bryant replied, “Doesn’t matter.

“I don’t care if you give us a year to rest. If we’re fortunate enough to move on to face Oklahoma City,” he continued, “that year isn’t going to make us any faster.”

Maybe not, but two of the teams the Lakers could run into, the Thunder and the Spurs, are both at home with their feet up after first-round sweeps over the defending champion Mavericks and the Jazz, respectively. And another likely Western contender, the crosstown rival Clippers, lead the Grizzlies 3-1 and could close out their series Wednesday night.

Rest could prove an even more precious commodity in the East, where only the Pacers, taking advantage of a seasonending back injury to Orlando star center Dwight Howard, won their fourth straight Tuesday night to close out the Magic.

Indiana trailed by two at the end of the third quarter, but outscored fast-fading Orlando 36-16 over the final 12 minutes.

“That’s a testament to the type of team we have,” Pacer David West said. “We’re deep, man. We’ve got guys, that when their number’s called, they’re prepared.”

The Bulls might have been able to say that at one point. But with Rose out and Joakim Noah questionable after an ankle injury, their win Tuesday night against the 76ers resembled a holding action more

than a comeback. They go to Philadelphia still trailing 3-2 and struggling to score, coach Tom Thibodeau’s brave words notwithstanding.

“Injuries are part of the game, so whether it’s a lockout season or not, you’ve still got to deal with them,” he said.

As if the Heat weren’t already favored, their relative good fortune in the injury department compared to their rivals has only widened the gap. The depleted Knicks will bow out soon enough, the Bulls likely will follow soon after, and the aging Celtics, who have struggled to keep the trio of Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett up and running all season, lost an opportunity for some much-needed rest by failing to close out the Hawks when they had the chance Tuesday night. But the Heat don’t dare celebrate their good fortune yet.

“Hopefully no one else goes down with these type of injuries,” Miami’s Dwyane Wade said. “It’s not anything that we want to see ... You don’t know if it was because of the condensed season. You don’t know what the case may be.” —AP

Pacers beat Magic to advance INDIANAPOLIS: Danny Granger scored 25 points to help the Indiana Pacers beat the Orlando Magic 105-87 on Tuesday and clinch their first-round NBA Eastern Conference playoff series 4-1.

It was Indiana’s first series win in the playoffs since 2005 and its first homecourt clincher since the first round of the 2000 playoffs. The Pacers will play Miami or New York in the second round.

Darren Collison scored 15 of his 19 points in the fourth quarter and George Hill added 15 points for the Pacers, who trailed by two at the end of the third quarter but outscored the Magic 36-16 in the final 12 minutes.

Jameer Nelson led Orlando with 27 points and made 5 of 8 3-pointers. Glen Davis, a thorn in Indiana’s side throughout the series, scored 15 but made just 6 of 17 shots. The Magic made just 5 of 16 shots in the fourth quarter.

Collison made a layup and hit a 3-pointer to give the Pacers a 78-73 lead with 9:33 to play.

After Nelson drained another 3, Collison came

rolling away as time ran out. A relieved Smith collapsed on the scorer’s table.

Atlanta’s Al Horford had 19 points in his first start since January while Smith overcame pain from a sore knee to tally 13 points and 16 rebounds. Jeff Teague had 16 points, while Joe Johnson and Marvin Williams had 15 apiece, giving Atlanta double-figure scoring from all five of its starters in a revamped lineup.

Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett led the Celtics with 16 points apiece. Rondo had 13 points and 12 assists, and the last of his five assists almost gave Boston a chance to end the series early and get some much-needed rest.

The Hawks kept their season going, getting a huge contribution from a player who wasn’t there for much of it. Horford went down in January with a torn pectoral muscle, missing the rest of the regular season and the first three games of the playoffs. But he made a surprise return off the bench in Game 4, one of the few bright spots in an embarrassing 101-79 loss.

Boston headed to Atlanta intent on wrap-

LOS ANGELES: Lakers shooting guard Kobe Bryant (right) puts up a shot as Denver Nuggets power forward Al Harrington defends during the first half in Game 5 of an NBA first-round playoff basketball game. —AP back with a layup, then Leandro Barbosa’s steal and layup pushed Indiana’s lead to 87-80 with 6:49 to play and forced an Orlando timeout. A few minutes later, Indiana’s Paul George stole an inbounds pass and found Granger under the hoop for a layup and a 91-80 lead. The Pacers dominated from there.

Hawks 87, Celtics 86 In Atlanta, the hosts edged Boston in a thrilling Game 5, avoiding elimination and cutting the series deficit to 3-2.

Al Horford scored 19 points in his first start since January, and the Atlanta Hawks held on for an 87-86 victory over the Boston Celtics in a thrilling Game 5 of the Eastern Conference playoffs Tuesday night.

The Celtics lead the series 3-2 heading back to Boston for Game 6 today. If the Hawks can steal one on the road, the deciding game would be Saturday in Atlanta.

Boston had a chance to clinch the series when Rajon Rondo stole Josh Smith’s inbounds pass with 10 seconds remaining and raced down the court, looking for the winner. But he got hemmed in along the sideline and Smith knocked away a desperation pass, the ball

ping things up, but Horford clearly wanted to play a little longer after missing so much time.

He led fast breaks and dived on the court for loose balls, not the least bit worried about reinjuring himself. In addition to leading the Hawks in scoring, he grabbed 11 rebounds, dished out three assists, came up with three steals and blocked three shots.

Bulls 77, 76ers 69 In Chicago, the hosts prevailed in a dour defensive contest, beating Philadelphia and slicing the series deficit to 3-2.

Luol Deng scored 24 points and Carlos Boozer added 19 points and 13 rebounds for the top-seeded Bulls, who finally won without point guard Derrick Rose, building a nine-point halftime lead and staying in control through the second half.

It’s been a brutal series for the Bulls, with Rose tearing the ACL in his left knee late in the opener and center Joakim Noah spraining his left ankle in Game 3. He sat out his second straight game, but Chicago refused to bow out quietly. Instead, the Bulls locked down the Sixers, holding them to a season-low 32.1 percent shooting.

Deng played more like an All-Star after averaging just eight points in the previous three games, hitting 4 of 5 3-point attempts - three in the fourth quarter. He also grabbed eight rebounds. Boozer tied a career-playoff high with six assists, and the Bulls came out on top just when their season appeared to be unraveling.

They still have no room for error. A loss in Game 6 today would make them the fifth No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 8 seed in the first round.

Jrue Holiday scored 16 points for Philadelphia but hit just 5 of 17 shots. Lou Williams scored 13 points and Andre Iguodala and Spencer Hawes both finished with 11 for the Sixers, who are chasing their first playoff series victory in nine years. The Bulls took a 5748 lead into the fourth quarter after another injury scare late in the third.

This time, Taj Gibson came up clutching his right ankle and hit the court after fouling Lavoy Allen underneath with just over 2 minutes left in the quarter. He came back early in the fourth to loud cheers, and the crowd was really roaring when Deng nailed a 3 to make it 67-52, giving the Bulls their biggest lead.

Nuggets 102, Lakers 99 In Los Angeles, Andre Miller scored 24 points, including two vital free throws with 12.8 seconds left, as Denver edged Los Angeles and reduced the series deficit to 3-2.

JaVale McGee had 21 points and 14 rebounds for the sixth-seeded Nuggets, who hung on after a hair-raising finish.

Denver had a 15-point lead midway through the fourth quarter against the lifeless Lakers, but Kobe Bryant engineered a stunning comeback.

Bryant - who finished with 43 points - scored 12 points in the final 4:47, hitting four 3-pointers that trimmed the Nuggets’ lead to 98-96 with 59 seconds left.

Bryant then missed a potential tying 5-footer and a 3-pointer, but Denver missed two free throws before Ramon Sessions hit a 3-pointer with 12.8 seconds left, trimming the Nuggets’ lead to one point.

Los Angeles had two more chances to tie after Miller’s free throws, but Bryant and Sessions missed 3-pointers near the buzzer.

Game 6 is tonight in Denver.

Arron Afflalo scored 19 points and Danilo Gallinari added 14 for the Nuggets, while rookie Kenneth Faried had 10 points and nine rebounds.

Andrew Bynum had 16 points and 11 rebounds for the Lakers, who lost a closeout playoff game at home for the first time since May 4, 2006, against Phoenix. Until Bryant’s big finish, Los Angeles mustered little passion for the occasion, playing the second half under steady boos from their fans.

Bynum inadvertently fired up the Nuggets on Monday when he proclaimed elimination games are “actually kind of easy” because an opponent will sometimes give up quickly when facing adversity. Denver coach George Karl planned to mention the quote to his team, and the Nuggets played like a team that isn’t going anywhere.

The Nuggets still must win two games to advance to the second round for just the second time in nine years, but they have already accomplished something rare by winning Game 5. Los Angeles had closed out a playoff series on the first try in 11 of its previous 12 opportunities, and the Lakers won 12 of their last 13 closeout games under departed coach Phil Jackson. —AP

Gayle blows away Mumbai MUMBAI: Chris Gayle smashed 82 not out to lead Royal Challengers Bangalore to a nine-wicket win over the Mumbai Indians yesterday and top the list of runscorers in the Indian Premier League this season.

Gayle now has 515 runs to overtake Virender Sehwag (468) after hitting six sixes and five fours in 59 balls. Bangalore restricted Mumbai to 141-6 at Wankhede Stadium and then scored 142-1 in 18 overs.

Gayle, who was dropped on 21 by West Indian compatriot Dwayne Smith off Harbhajan Singh, added 94 in an unbroken second-wicket stand with captain Virat Kohli (36 not out).

He struck three consecutive sixes off left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha and perfectly executed the pull shot off the pace bowlers.

“We knew we had to see off (Lasith) Malinga early on and then build the innings,” Gayle said. “We were expecting two overs upfront from him but he bowled three.”

Earlier, seamer Vinay Kumar and spinner Muttiah Muralitharan came up with timely wickets after Mumbai had been sent in to bat.

Opener James Franklin (1) and Rohit Sharma (0) fell cheaply to Kumar.

Franklin slashed at a delivery and was caught by Zaheer Khan at third man, while Sharma was trapped lbw three deliveries later as Mumbai was reduced to 2-2 in the second over.

Sachin Tendulkar hit three successive fours off Kumar in his innings of 24, and Dinesh Karthik scored 44 from 39 balls to steady the innings.

Muralitharan dismissed Karthik and

Dwayne Smith in consecutive balls, but unbeaten cameos from West Indian allrounder Kieron Pollard (21 off 13) and captain Harbhajan Singh (20 off 12) took Mumbai to a competitive score. Pollard scored 18 off the last over from Kumar, smashing two sixes to the square-leg boundary.

The win lifted Bangalore to fourth in the nine-team league with six wins, five losses and one no-result from 12 games.

Mumbai remains third with seven wins and five losses from 12 outings.

Scores: Bangalore 142-1 in 18 overs (Chris Gayle 82 not out, Virat Kohli 36 not out) def. Mumbai Indians 141-6 (Dinesh Karthik 44; Muttiah Muralitharan 224, Harshal Patel 2-24, Vinay Kumar 2Chris Gayle 34). —AP

MADRID: Rafael Nadal from Spain returns the ball during a Madrid Open tennis tournament match against Nikolay Davydenko from Russia yesterday. —AP

Nadal thumps Davydenko MADRID: World number two Rafa Nadal dispatched former number three Nikolay Davydenko 6-2 6-2 to reach the third round of the Madrid Open yesterday before adding his voice to widespread criticism of the new blue clay courts.

Nadal’s great rival Novak Djokovic slammed organisers of the Masters event and the ATP after his laboured secondround victory on Tuesday, saying the Manolo Santana show court at the futuristic Magic Box arena was too slippery and complaining that players’ concerns were being ignored. After seeing off Russian Davydenko, Nadal echoed the world number one’s gripes and called for the familiar red clay to be reinstated next year. Officials argue that the blue courts make it easier for TV viewers to follow the yellow balls.

“The court is not one that makes you feel comfortable,” Nadal, who won backto-back clay titles in Monte Carlo and Barcelona before heading to Madrid, said in an interview with Spanish TV. “You have to be realistic,” added the French Open champion, who will play compatriot and 15th seed Fernando Verdasco on Thursday for a place in Friday’s quarter-finals.

“The court is a difficult court, it’s very slippery and it makes supporting movements and getting back to defend very tough. “But the only thing we can do now is turn the page and we are not going to get the red courts back tomorrow so we have to adapt to the blue courts and the conditions as well as possible and hope for a change next year.”

American eighth seed John Isner

became the first significant casualty at the tournament when he was pipped 7-6 7-6 by fellow big-serving giant Marin Cilic. Unseeded Croat Cilic, who stands at 1.98 metres to Isner’s 2.06 metres, produced when it counted in the tiebreaks, winning the first 7-4 and the second 7-3 to set up a meeting with former U.S. Open champion Juan Martin Del Potro or Mikhail Youzhny.

Neither player managed to break the other’s serve as Cilic followed up his fiveset victory over Isner at last year ’s Australian Open, their only previous meeting, with another narrow success.

Isner refused to blame the reverse on the court, saying simply he had been beaten by a superior player on the day.

“I lost because I didn’t do what I should have done out there and he was better than me,” Isner told a news conference. “I always felt that this tournament even with the red clay was the most slippery I have ever played on,” added the 27-year-old.

“It’s tough for a big guy like me but my opponent was also a big guy and like I said he was just better and deserved to win and I did not deserve to win. “I just didn’t play particularly well today which has nothing to do with the courts.”

World number three Roger Federer, the 2009 champion, plays fast-rising Canadian Milos Raonic, who took a set off the Swiss maestro at the Indian Wells Masters in March, in their secondround match later yesterday. Djokovic will meet another Swiss, unseeded Stanislas Wawrinka, in the third round today. —Reuters

Kvitova stumbles in Madrid MADRID: Defending champion Petra Kvitova crashed out of the Madrid Open when she was upset by Czech compatriot Lucie Hradecka 6-4 6-3 in the second round yesterday.

The world number four and seeded third this year, Kvitova used her 2011 success at the premier clay event in the Spanish capital as a springboard for a first grand slam singles title at Wimbledon and went on to triumph at the season- ending W TA championships.

The graceful left hander has yet to win a title this year, however, after claiming six last season, and had her serve broken five times by Hradecka, ranked 105th in the world.

There were no such problems for Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland, who leap-frogged Kvitova to number three in the latest rankings, in her secondround match against Sara Errani.

R adwansk a snapped Errani’s 16match winning streak on clay, which netted her titles in Acapulco, Barcelona and Budapest, with a dominant performance, crushing the Italian 6-0 6-1 to set up a third-round meeting with another Italian, Roberta Vinci.

World number one and Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka, who lost to Kvitova in last year’s Madrid final, plays her second-round match against former number one Ana Ivanovic later yesterday. —Reuters

19

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

SPORTS

Ghana champions urged to match Chelsea spirit JOHANNESBURG: Berekum Chelsea of Ghana have been told to follow the example set by their English namesakes when they try to undo the damage of a poor CAF Champions League performance this weekend.

After banging in 10 goals in four matches en route to the second round of the elite African club competition, the West Africans were held 0-0 by Cameroonian visitors Cotonsport Garoua two weeks ago. It was a massive let-down for a team that had fired five goals past three-time continental champions Raja Casablanca of Morocco at the same ground in the previous round with leading scorer Emmanuel Clottey claiming a hattrick.

While Cotonsport talk confidently of clinching a place in the mini-league

phase with a guaranteed $400,000 prize money, Berekum coach Hans van der Pluijm has told his players to learn from the Barcelona-Chelsea epic last month.

Down to 10 men and trailing by two goals in a UEFA Champions League semi-final at the Camp Nou, the London club clawed back to draw 2-2 and clinch a place in the May 19 final against Bayern Munich. “This tie is far from over. Nothing is impossible in football-look what Chelsea achieved in Barcelona against all odds,” Netherlands-born Van der Pluijm told reporters.

“Obviously, the best chance of victory usually comes at home, but we have to concentrate on the second leg in Cameroon and make sure we progress to bring pride to Ghana.

“The result hinges on the commitment and determination of my players and they normally deliver when pushed. Football is unpredictable and nothing is impossbile,” added the 63year-old coach.

France-born Cotonsport coach Robert Boivin responded: “We achieved a first-leg draw thanks to tactical discipline and goalkeeper Fiedjou Loic made several great saves.

I am confident we will beat Chelsea in the second leg.”

After surviving a first round scare, Sunshine Stars of Nigeria are poised to be among the eight survivors from the qualifiers after holding Djoliba 1-1 in Mali with Izu Azuka putting the visitors ahead and Ibrahima Sidibe equalising. “Our target is to win the Champions League,” boasted Stars

skipper Godfrey Oboabona after his team squeezed into the last 16 with an away-goal triumph against Recreativo do Libolo having lost 4-1 in Angola.

Title holders Esperance of Tunisia and former champions Al Ahly and Zamalek of Egypt, TP Mazembe of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Etoile Sahel of Tunisia all look capable of progressing.

Esperance hold a 6-0 advantage ahead of the long journney south to face Dynamos in Zimbabwe and no club in the 48-year history of the competition has closed such a yawning gap.

African champions a record six times, Ahly must overcome a 1-0 loss away to Stade Malien and the trauma of being trapped in Bamako for four

days amid civil unrest before an Egyptian military aircraft rescued them.

Zamalek achieved the outstanding result of the first legs by winning 2-0 away to 2011 CAF Confederation Cup title holders Moghreb Fes of Morocco with the most capped footballer in the world Ahmed Hassan of Egypt among the scorers. Mazembe, whose challenge for a record third consecutive title came to an abrupt halt last year when they were kicked out for fielding an ineligible player, take a 2-0 advantage against Al Merreikh to Sudan.

Etoile are even better off with a 4-1 lead over second-leg hosts AFAD Djekanou of Ivory Coast despite missing two penalties and ASO Chlef of Algeria must fancy their chances having held Al Hilal 1-1 in Sudan.—AFP

Corinthians looks to stay alive Libertadores Cup

LONDON: A Blackburn supporter protests during his team’s 1-0 defeat to Wigan in their English Premier League soccer match.—AP

Confusion reigns at relegated Blackburn LONDON: The fallout surrounding Blackburn Rovers’ relegation from the Premier League continued yesterday with reports the club’s deputy chief executive had been sacked after criticising manager Steve Kean.

Kean, speaking at a news conference ahead of Blackburn’s final game of the season at Chelsea on Sunday, said he could not comment on reports that Paul Hunt had been fired, a day after a letter was revealed in which he told the club’s Indian owners Venky’s that Kean should be sacked.

“I am aware of the speculation but I can’t, at this moment, confirm it,” Kean said. “That is all I want to say on that matter. I just want to talk about the Chelsea game.”

Blackburn made no official comment on the reports, underlining the perception that the Indian chicken producers who own the club also run it from an unhealthy distance.

The letter from Hunt, written after Blackburn lost 2-1 at home to Bolton Wanderers in December and fell to the bottom of the table, warned the owners of growing financial problems and the threat of relegation.

He also questioned Kean’s suitability for the manager’s job. “He has lost the crowd and as a result of this evening’s game, he has lost the dressing room as well - the players no longer want to play for him,” Hunt wrote. “It is a shame and disappointing but we must act now to save the club.

“I have been your senior officer at the club for six months now and I feel that I

must now write to you to ask you to make some significant changes to save the club, perhaps from relegation but also perhaps from administration,” Hunt added.

“We are losing fans/customers at an alarming rate. I am very concerned that fans are voting with their feet and not attending, not purchasing and not engaging with the club.”

Kean has been unpopular with supporters since he was appointed in December 2010 following the sacking of Sam Allardyce with Blackburn lying 13th in the table.

After Blackburn were relegated following their 1-0 defeat by Wigan Athletic on Monday, Kean was ushered down the tunnel by stewards for his own protection. He said he had been in touch with the owners in India. “Their reaction was the same as ours, they were devastated,” Kean said. “We are very numb. We have taken a step backwards but we now have to prepare a squad and the process has already started. “I have spoken at great lengths with the owners and now we have to assemble a squad that is a very competitive squad.”

Kean has maintained his dignity throughout a disappointing season.

“Moving forward it is going to be an exciting time,” he said. “We have taken a massive backward step but we have to look forward and make sure we can get back at the first time of asking. The owners are not going anywhere, I’m not going anywhere.” When asked if Venky’s were the right owners for the club, he replied; “100 per cent.”—Reuters

3 Serie A clubs to answer in massive match-fixing ROME: Serie A clubs Atalanta, Novara and Siena were among the 22 Italian teams notified yesterday that they will have to answer to sports authorities in a massive match-fixing scandal.

The other clubs named by the Italian football federation (FIGC) were: AlbinoLeffe, Ancona, Ascoli, Avesa, Cremonese, Empoli, Frosinone, Grosseto, Livorno, Modena, Monza, Padova, Pescara, Piacenza, Ravenna, Reggina, Rimini, Sampdoria and Spezia.

The FIGC also said 61 people and 33 matches were under investigation, including 29 in Serie B, although none in Serie A - with the allegations for Atalanta, Novara and Siena stemming from when they played in Serie B in past seasons.

More than 30 people have been arrested in Italy in the past year in the probe started by judicial authorities in Cremona, including former Atalanta captain Cristiano Doni and former Lazio captain Giuseppe Signori.

Doni was among those named again yesterday, while Signori was not. Also named were former Piacenza player Carlo Gervasoni and former Cisco Roma

player Alessandro Zamperini, who were allegedly at the center of the match-fixing ring, plus former Inter Milan, Parma, Roma and Ternana defender Luigi Sartor.

Last summer, Doni was banned from football for 31/2 years by the federation, and Atalanta - which was promoted to Serie A for this season - was given a sixpoint penalty.

The FIGC inquiry will likely lead to a massive sports trial this summer - just like the one in 2006 that resulted in Juventus being relegated to Serie B and point-penalties for several other top clubs. Juventus was also stripped of the 2005 and 2006 titles.

Over the past year, prosecutors in Cremona have detailed an extensive match-fixing ring stretching as far as Singapore and South America that was allegedly in operation for more than 10 years. More clubs and people could be placed under inquiry once Stefano Palazzi, the FIGC prosecutor, works through documents relating to another wing of the probe based in Bari. Novara will be relegated to Serie B after this season.—AP

SAO PAULO: Corinthians take on Emelec in a Libertadores Cup last 16 second leg tie late yesterday with fans of the Brazilian team in a state of frenzy as their obsession with winning the one major trophy that has eluded the club approaches fever pitch.

Corinthians are well placed to reach the quarter-finals after securing a 0-0 draw in Ecuador last week but they must overcome the enormous expectations of their fans as well as their opponents.

Corinthians are the only one of Sao Paulo’s big four clubs yet to win South America’s premier club competition and the pursuit of the trophy is an obsession with supporters, players and backroom staff alike. “It is exciting - for those who like football and those things that only football can provide - to see the intensity with which Corinthians fans live and die in the Libertadores,” columnist Mauricio Oliveira wrote in sports newspaper Lance.

“The growing obsession... deserves to be studied by sociologists, psychologists and parapsychologists, mystics, sceptics and others,” he added. Corinthians fans, known as ‘The Faithful’, are some of the most passionate in Brazil.

Their team have already been world club champions, having won the inaugural Club World Cup in Brazil in 2000. European giants Manchester United and Real Madrid came to compete but it was Corinthians who beat fellow Brazilian side Vasco da Gama on penalties to claim the trophy.

However, that boast is largely a defensive mechanism against the taunts of their more successful rivals. Santos and Sao Paulo have each won the Libertadores three times and Palmeiras once.

Libertadores memories are bitter ones for Corinthians fans, who have never seen their team get past the

BUENOS AIRES: Argentina’s Velez Sarsfield Victor Zapata (left) fights for the ball with Colombia’s Atletico Nacional’s Aviles Hurtado during a Copa Libertadores soccer match.—AP semi-finals. The toughest exit came in 2000 at the hands of their most bitter rivals Palmeiras. The teams were deadlocked at 6-6 after two pulsating semi-final legs but Palmeiras qualified for the final on penalties when Corinthians idol Marcelinho Carioca missed the last and deciding spot kick.

The most memorable elimination came in 2006 when Corinthians went out at home in the quarter-finals against River Plate of Argentina.

With Argentines Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tevez in their ranks, Corinthians were favoured to overturn a 3-2 deficit from the first leg.

Instead they went down 3-1 amid sensational scenes at Pacaembu stadium. Irate fans invaded the pitch, causing an

upheaval that prompted the police to intervene.

The most embarrassing defeat, though, came last year when a team featuring Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos were knocked out in the preliminary stage by Colombian club Tolima.

Roberto Carlos ended up leaving Corinthians after being threatened by angry fans. Despite the Libertadores setbacks, Corinthians players say they feel no extra pressure heading into this week’s match. Winning the Libertadores “is the dream of any Corintiano,” said striker Liedson, “but it isn’t despair or obsession.

“I knew all about the responsibility when I came here. But playing for Corinthians is always a big responsibility. We know what we have to do. We just need to be

focused.”

Such is the pressure, though, that everyone involved with the team has trouble maintaining that focus. The players, the manager and even the club president all went ballistic at the referee in last week’s first leg in Ecuador, even though he made no calls that affected the result.

Even hardcore fans agreed that reaction was over the top and pleaded with the team to keep their cool. “The weight of the shirt, a capacity crowd, never having won the trophy before, it plays with their heads,” said Nader Ghobar, a Corinthians fan who was buying a ticket for late yesterday’s match. “Everyone is anxious and excited. The pressure is really on and you can see it makes a difference.”—Reuters

Puyol rules himself out of Euro, not retiring BARCELONA: Spain defender Carles Puyol said yesterday impending knee surgery will rule him out of the Euro 2012 squad but he is not ready to end his international career.

The 34-year-old Barcelona captain, whose header against Germany famously took Spain into the final of a victorious 2010 World Cup campaign, said he expects to undergo the operation on Saturday.

Asked if he could still join the Euro squad, he told a news conference: “It would be very difficult. Those who are fittest have to go. It would be unfair to take a player who is not at 100 percent.”

Carles Puyol Puyol said he would have to wait to see how the operation goes: “But I think it is impossible.”

The long-haired defender is to undergo a knee arthroscopy, in which a tiny camera is inserted through small incisions and damaged tissue can

be repaired or removed. He faces a six-week recovery.

Spain captain and goalkeeper Iker Casillas said Puyol’s injury and likely absence from the squad was a “major setback” but he said Spain could still win Euro 2012.

“Puyol is a very important player, especially because of the charisma that he has with other players,” the Real player told reporters in Madrid.

Asked about Spain’s chances at the tournament in Poland and Ukraine, Casillas said he believed the squad could retain their Euro title.

“We have the ability to win it, I say this emphatically. Spain can win this championship again,” he said.

Puyol’s absence will be keenly felt in the Spain squad, already hit by doubts over his Barcelona team-mate, striker David Villa, who broke his leg December 15 in Barcelona’s Club World Cup semi-final win over Al Sadd.

Spain coach Vicente del Bosque has said he will release a provisional line-up on May 15 for the team going to Poland and Ukraine and a definitive list on May 27.

He said Friday that he would keep a spot open for the 30-year-old Villa until the last moment to see if he recovers in time, the Spaniard said Tuesday Villa’s lack of match time, even if fit, would pose a problem.

“He is giving his all and recovering quickly, but he still has not played,” Del Bosque said in comments broadcast on Cadena Ser radio.

“We are on tenterhooks. We are worried because, of course, it is difficult for us to take someone who has not played one game.”

Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola has said Villa’s recovery is going “very well” and that he hopes the striker, dubbed King David for his 51 goals in 82 internationals, will be able to join the Euro 2012 squad.

Spain, who are defending their European title, play their first game on June 10 against Italy. Puyol, who has 99 caps for Spain, does not seem ready to end his playing days with the national squad.

“My plan is to carry on for many more years.

But you have to take it season by season. We will

see how I am at the start of the next season. But I am convinced I will come back fine, perfectly fit,” he said. Puyol could not say whether the Euro 2008 campaign was his last in the competition.

“I don’t now if it was my last European Championship. But I want to retire on the field and not in the operating room,” he added. “On Saturday I will go into the operating theatre and on Sunday I will start working on my recovery.”

Asked about his ambition to earn a 100th cap for Spain, Puyol said: “For now the only thing I am thinking about is getting back to 100 percent, and then if there is a chance to play the 100th game, I would be delighted.” The knee surgery means Puyol will also miss the final of the domestic King’s Cup competition on May 25, when Barcelona face Athletic Bilbao in the Spanish capital’s Vicente Calderon stadium.—AFP

Player banned for throwing plastic bottle at referee GRANADA: Granada midfielder Dani Benitez has been banned for three months for throwing a plastic water bottle at a referee at the end of a Spanish league game.

The Spanish soccer federation imposed the suspension yesterday, keeping Benitez out of Granada’s final match at Rayo Vallecano with the club trying to avoid relegation. The rest of the ban will be served in the league next season.

Benitez threw the bottle at referee Clos Gomez as Granada’s players argued with the official following a 2-1 loss to Real Madrid.

Granada players Moises Hurtado and Guillherme Siqueira were both banned for four games and Alex Geijo was suspended for Sunday’s game. Granada is two points above the drop zone.—AP

Nadal thumps Davydenko

Peterson’s dope test casts doubt on bout with Khan

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THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

Ouch’ NBA boss changes tune on injuries

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BUCHAREST: Players and team members of Atletico Madrid celebrate with the trophy after winning the UEFA Europa League final football match against Athletic Club Bilbao. — AFP

Falcao, Europa League hitman again BUCHAREST: A double by Colombian striker Radamel Falcao inspired Atletico Madrid to a 3-0 win over fellow Spaniards Athletic Bilbao here yesterday and their second Europa League trophy in three seasons.

Falcao, who also became the first player to win successive Europa League/UEFA Cups with different sides having scored the winning goal for Porto last term, scored a brilliant first-half double to take his tally for this season’s competition to 12.

Brazilian attacking midfielder Diego, who missed the 2009 final for Werder Bremen against winners Shakhtar Donetsk because he was suspended, added a third late in the second-half to give Argentinian coach Diego Simeone a trophy just months after he

took over the hotseat.

Falcao opened the scoring on seven minutes with a spectacular goal taking the ball down the right and then into the box and as defender Fernando Amorebieta slipped he curled the ball round three defenders and the keeper from the edge of the box for his 11th goal in 15 Europa League games this season.

Bilbao’s far younger side - an average age of under 24 - took a while to settle but gradually started to make more of an impact.

Their leading striker Fernando Llorente - scorer of 29 goals this term - had missed with an early header when he was not helped by being shoved in the back but he should have done better in the 19th minute.

Found brilliantly in the box he only had Belgian youngster Thibault Courtois to beat but his usual sure touch let him down and his shot skimmed off his boot and wide.

Falcao, though, was unstoppable at the other end and his second stemmed from the hapless Amorebieta being dispossessed as he tried foolishly to dribble it away from the box.

Turkish playmaker Ardi Turan found the Colombian, who completely fooled centreback Javi Martinez sending him the wrong way as he went the other before curling the ball into the top far left corner to double Atletico’s lead.

The two sides were more evenly matched in the opening 15 minutes of the second-half with Diego

going close for Atletico but finding the side netting while Inigo Perez forced a good tip over the bar from 19-year-old Courtois.

Llorente, though, was not having the sort of night that will see him promoted over Fernando Torres in the Spanish Euro squad as once again found in a good position on the hour mark his first touch let him down and another chance went begging.

Athletic kept pressing but clear chances were rare, though Gomez Ibai had some Atletico fans hearts beating faster with his volley from outside the area which just cleared the bar with 20 minutes remaining.

Bilbao conjured up another chance in the 77th minute as the ball fell to Markel Susaseta, but his

goalbound shot was deflected for a corner.

Susaseta went even closer a minute later as the ball ping-ponged round the Atletico area and the ball fell to him unmarked five yards out from goal but with just Courtois to beat the ‘keeper - on loan from Chelsea - produced a great block with his legs.

Down the other end Falcao produced a fine piece of skill to turn a defender and fire in a shot from outside the box which beat the keeper but came back off the post.

Diego, though, sealed the win for Atletico with a fine solo goal with five minutes remaining, breaking through a weak tackle by the demoralised Amorebieta and firing home from the edge of the area. — AFP

Gold-chaser Farah escapes Olympic buzz

DOHA: US sprinter and world indoor champion Justin Gatlin during a visit to Al Shaqab to see Arabian horses yesterday in Doha. — AP

Gatlin at site of a ‘magical night’ DOHA: For Justin Gatlin, Doha will always be the place he made history - even if it is no longer in the record books. It was in the Gulf city where the American tied Asafa Powell’s thenworld record in the 100 meters by running 9.77 seconds in May, 2006. It was initially clocked at 9.76 before a timing error was discovered four days later.

The revised time, however, was erased after it emerged he had tested positive for excessive levels of testosterone two months later.

Now 30, Gatlin doesn’t want to dwell on the four-year ban that followed, instead preferring to remember a “magical night.”

The 2004 Olympic gold medalist will race against Powell and Nesta Carter at the season-opening Diamond League meet on Friday.

“It’s a very special place for me,” Gatlin said Wednesday. “The night that I broke the world record was a magical night.

“Running the first round and basically equaling my PR, and coming back and knowing the second round could be faster with a better effort. I could see history being made on the track before long. Hopefully coming into the race in a couple of days, I can do the same thing.”

Much has changed since he returned to the track in July 2010, with Usain Bolt having taken his 100 title among three Olympic gold medals and smashing the world record with a blistering 9.58 seconds.

Gatlin matured in his time out of the sport and has a son who is about to turn 2. At an age when most sprinters are contemplating retirement, he defied the odds to win the 60-meter race at the world indoor championships in March.

“I think I’ve become more of a man,” Gatlin said. “I’m wiser, older, and I think I take competition more seriously. “To be able to come back and show that I can win a championship, regardless of whether it’s outdoors or indoors, against some good competition and put another gold medal under my name was a good stepping point coming into the outdoor season. It wasn’t surreal. It was more a welcome home party. I felt good when I crossed that finishing line.”

Gatlin has his sights set on the London Olympics - and Bolt.

“Watching him perform great feats, it’s breathtaking,” Gatlin said. “But at the same time, he is a man and he still breathes the same air I breath. He still takes two steps to get to the line, like I take two steps to get to the line.”

Should he qualify, Gatlin said he won’t feel any shame about his past and is happy British sprinter Dwain Chambers has a chance of competing in his home Olympics.

Chambers served a two-year suspension after testing positive for a steroid in 2003. He was then banned for life from the games by the British Olympic Association. But sport’s top court recently overturned such bans, ruling they amount to a second sanction. —AP

OREGON: Family, friends, the London football club - Arsenal that Mo Farah adores are now thousands of miles and many time zones away, a self-imposed exile which suits Britain’s 5,000-meter world champion just fine. Swapping London for the US state of Oregon, Farah left his world behind so he can focus on his Olympic rendezvous this August.

“In America, here, you just train, you just eat, train, and just get on with training,” Farah says. “It worked out well, to be away from everything else, and I can just concentrate on my running and be away from all the media and everything else.”

For “everything else,” read “great expectations.” Farah goes to the London Olympics as one of Britain’s brightest stars. The Olympic host nation welcomed him when he was a skinny boy from Somalia with very little English. Now it is looking to him for at least one medal, ideally gold. There’ll likely be consternation and mourning if he doesn’t produce one. England expects.

It’s pressure Farah is doing his best to ignore. So determined is he to avoid energy-sapping distractions and not get swept up by the Olympic excitement building in Britain that he plans to do no more interviews before the games unless obliged. This 20-minute chat on a scratchy trans-Atlantic telephone line with The Associated Press was scheduled to be his last.

“It’s great to have the Olympics right on our doorstep and it’s just important that you take that advantage and I’m looking forward to it,” Farah said. “But at the same time, I’m not putting a lot of pressure on myself. I think there’s a lot of pressure from everything else but as long as you don’t put pressure on yourself, I believe there’s no pressure.”

“I just want to be able to concentrate on my running and that’s it. I don’t want to be able to miss training or miss my sleep in the afternoon or make time,” he said. “What got me here is my running and it’s important that I do 100 percent concentrate on my running, on rest and sleep.”

Farah’s father, Muktar, was born in London and had his son join him when he was age 8. Mo is short for Mohamed.

“Some people go, ‘Mo, Mo, what’s Mo ... Morris?’” he said. “For the TV people, it’s kind of easier to say Mo than Mohamed.”

After his win in the 5,000 and silver in the 10,000 last year at the worlds in Daegu, South Korea, Farah took his wife, Tania, and their daughter on their first visit to Somalia. The poverty they saw there jolted them to start the charitable Mo Farah Foundation to build wells and supply food.

NEW YORK: In this Sunday, March 20, 2011 file photo released by the New York Road Runners, Mo Farah of England, competes in the NYC Half-Marathon, in New York. — AP “We were like, ‘We’ve got to do something,’” he said. “Them kids haven’t got nothing to eat, haven’t got clean water or anything.”

Farah is Muslim. The London Olympics will coincide with Ramadan, the annual Muslim holy month of dawn-to-dusk fasting. Farah didn’t want to discuss whether he, too, will fast.

He would only say that it shouldn’t hurt his racing. “It shouldn’t do. As an athlete, I’ve done it in the past,” he said.

Britain has had Olympic success in middle-distance running. London Games organizer Sebastian Coe won the 1,500 gold at the 1980 Moscow and 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

But no British man or woman has been Olympic champion in the longer 5,000 and 10,000. — AP

Business

UK judge rules for bankers in Commerzbank dispute Page 25

Global manufacturers go local in cost-wary India

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

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Syria buys grain via Lebanon to beat sanctions

Greek drama pressures euro and commodities Page 24

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ISRAELI BORDER: Farmers hand pick potatoes in a field along the southern Lebanese-Israeli border yesterday. Potatoes are one of Lebanon’s most important crops, with more than 250,000 tons of the vegetable exported per year on average. — AFP

UAE’s effort to liberalize economy may disappoint Draft law would allow full foreign ownership in some areas ABU DHABI: Long-awaited legislation that is meant to liberalize the economy of the United Arab Emirates may bring only modest changes, because of strong opposition from some Emiratis who fear they could lose out to foreigners. In December, when the UAE’s cabinet approved a draft of a new companies law that would update legislation dating back to 1984, hopes grew that restrictions on foreign investment in one of the world’s top five oil exporters would be loosened.

But this optimism is now being tempered as details of the draft, which has not been widely circulated to the public, trickle out. Also, lawyers and investors fear the law’s passage may be delayed as it wends its way through the government, becoming subject to pressure from local interest groups; and when it is passed, it may be applied only in a conservative way. “Frankly there seems to be resistance from the local business community. The UAE nationals, the business community is fairly strong and well-entrenched, and consequently the government has to take their views into consideration,” said Sabah Mahmoud, lawyer and author of a book titled “The UAE Company Law and Practice”.

CONTROLS Citizens of the UAE are among the wealthiest on the planet - the country’s per capita income is over $65,000. But local citizens account for only a little more than a tenth of a population estimated at roughly 8 million; the overwhelming majority are expatriate workers. So controls over foreign workers and companies are strict: every foreigner needs a local individual or entity to sponsor him, while outside socalled “free zones”, foreign companies can only operate by partnering with a local entity, and they can only hold minority stakes in a venture.

The global financial crisis, which underlined the UAE’s exposure to a slide in oil prices, and last year’s Arab Spring uprisings appear to have pushed the country towards reform.

Loosening restrictions to attract more foreign investment could make the economy more diverse and resilient while creating jobs for locals. Unemployment among UAE citizens was estimated by the International Labor Organization at 14 percent in 2009 - a potential political problem if the govern-

ment ever runs short of money for lavish welfare spending and subsidies. There is also international pressure on the UAE to loosen up: at the end of a review of the country’s trade policy last month, the World Trade Organization urged the country to speed up passage of legislation liberalizing foreign investment. But lawyers say that while the cabinet’s draft law will improve areas such as corporate governance and the ease of setting up businesses, other hoped-for alterations appear to fall short of what is needed.

“On the 49 percent foreign ownership limit, the draft is no change on the existing law except that the cabinet will now be allowed to exempt certain companies in certain sectors on a case-by-case basis,” said lawyer Essam al-Tamimi, senior partner at Al Tamimi & Co, who has seen the draft.

These companies, provided they can prove that they would “add value” to the UAE economy, might be allowed up to 100 percent foreign ownership, he said. The Ministry of Economy has yet to specify which sectors will be included.

Certain firms in the oil industry are already exempt from foreign ownership curbs under the current law. “The proposed change to the law is small and a watered-down version of what the market has been expecting,” said Hardeep Plahe, partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Dubai.

Plahe said the draft nevertheless showed a positive “shift in thinking” within the government. He added that the cabinet had always had the discretion to decide whether to apply foreign ownership limits; the new legislation will give that a clearer legal basis, he said. But Tamimi, along with some other lawyers, thinks the new system will not be conducive to foreign investment. “I don’t think this is perfect; it could have been better. To have to go through that whole process of needing to get approval from the cabinet - this doesn’t appeal to foreign investors. They need something clear and simple,” he said.

Another question mark over the new legislation is its timing. Minister of Economy Sultan bin Saeed al-Mansouri said on Monday that he hoped the law would be promulgated this year, but given past delays-officials have been talking for at least a decade about revising the companies law - this does not seem certain.

OPPOSITION The demographic imbalance in the UAE, and the challenge that opening the economy could pose to existing businesses and the traditional business model of many Emirati families, convince some locals that liberalization is not a good idea. “In our situation, where you have such big difference in the ratio of the population, it’s not a good proposal to give our businesses into foreign hands,” a prominent Emirati businessman from Dubai told Reuters. “We have become a vibrant country.

We have so much to offer. Reaching this stage and then being deprived of reaping the fruits of this will hurt a lot of people emotionally,” said the businessman, declining to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue. He agreed that 100 percent foreign ownership in certain sectors would be a positive development for the UAE’s economy, creating jobs and opportunities for Emiratis. “But if it conflicts with my livelihood, with our traditional trade concept, then I cannot accept that.”

Abdulkhaleq Abdullah, an Emirati political scientist, said the new law was coming at an awkward time. “Maybe it would have been fine when they first tried it a few years ago, but with all the events of the past year in the Arab world, and this shift we are seeing towards catering to the needs of the locals, I don’t think the mood is right for this.” Western pressure on the UAE to open its economy may also not sit well with some Emiratis who remember how a political uproar in Washington over US national security in 2006 pressured Dubai-owned port operator DP World into selling off its US port assets.

SECTORS Under current legislation, the UAE is by no means incapable of attracting foreign investment. It received foreign direct investment worth $3.9 billion in 2010 and $4.0 billion in 2009, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. That was sharply down from $13.7 billion in 2008 because of the global financial crisis and Dubai’s own corporate debt problems. The UAE’s economy is already open enough for Dubai to serve as a top trading and banking hub for the Gulf; the Dubai International Financial Centre, a financial “free zone”, has in the past decade attracted banks from around the world. — Reuters

Toyota quarterly profit quadruples TOKYO: Toyota’s January-March profit more than quadrupled to 121 billion yen ($1.5 billion), and the automaker gave upbeat forecasts, marking a solid recovery from a sales plunge caused by a tsunami in Japan. Japan’s No 1 automaker forecast yesterday its profit soaring to 760 billion yen ($9.5 billion) for the fiscal year through March 2013, after plunging 30 percent to 283.6 billion yen ($3.5 billion) for the year ended last month.

The annual results were better than the company projection for a 200 billion yen ($2.5 billion) profit, as well as the FactSet estimate at 279 billion yen ($3.49 billion) - a sign of a turnaround from last year’s tsunami that hobbled Toyota production around the world. Toyota’s profit for January-March the previous year had been dismal at 25.4 billion yen because of the damage from an earthquake and tsunami that hit March 11, 2011.

The flooding in Thailand, which disrupted supplies, added to the decline. Toyota President Akio Toyoda acknowledged the hardships, but also pointed to the strong yen, which erodes the overseas earnings of Japanese exporters like Toyota.

“Our vision is to establish a strong business foundation that will ensure profitability under any kind of difficult business environment,” he said. “But thanks to the concerted

efforts of our employees, suppliers and dealers, we were able to recover production and sales faster than anticipated and achieved a

strong result.” Toyota, which makes the Prius hybrid, Camry sedan and Lexus luxury models, saw its vehicle sales grow in Japan,

HANOVER: Photo shows a Toyota automobile and light truck dealership Hanover, Mass. Toyota reported that its quarterly profit more than quadrupled to 121 billion yen ($1.5 billion). — AP

Europe and Africa, although not North America. However, it is regaining market share there. Toyota is expecting to sell 8.7 million vehicles this fiscal year, 1.3 million more vehicles than the nearly 7.4 million vehicles sold for the year ended March.

The rise in gas prices and concerns about global warming are major plus factors for Toyota and other Japanese automakers that excel at producing compact fuel-efficient models.

Toyota’s image suffered in North America over a series of massive recalls since 2009, and its US sales fell last year. But its sales and market share in the US have almost recovered. “It’s no secret that Toyota had a tough year last year due to the production fallout from the Japanese earthquake. In the last few months though, Toyota has made big strides to regain the US market share it lost to its competitors,” said Edmunds.com senior analyst Jessica Caldwell.

But she warned Toyota needs to keep coming up with new products to maintain its recovery momentum amid intense competition. Toyota faces an increasingly powerful Hyundai Motor Co., a resurgent General Motors Co and Volkswagen AG, which remains hard to beat in key growth markets such as China. —AP

News

in brief

Qatar eyes Islamic bond DUBAI: Qatar is planning to issue its first international Islamic bond, or sukuk, IFR Markets, a unit of Thomson Reuters reported yesterday. Qatar has sent a request for proposals to banks and is close to mandating arrangers, IFR said, citing sources it did not identify. The sukuk is expected some time in the second quarter, before the summer break, the sources said. The world’s biggest natural gas exporter last tapped global debt markets with a $5 billion conventional multi-tranche bond in November, capitalizing on investor appetite for safe havens amid market uncertainty.

Al Baraka profit up 7% DUBAI: Bahrain-based Islamic lender Al Baraka Banking Group posted a 7 percent increase in first-quarter net income, the bank said in a statement yesterday. The bank, which has operations in 15 countries including Turkey, Syria and Egypt, made a profit of $57.4 million for the first-quarter, compared with $53.5 million in the first three months of 2011. The increase in profit came despite continuing political and economic upheaval in a number of the markets in which the group operated, as well as the impact of debt issues in the euro zone, Sheikh Saleh Abdullah Kamel, chairman of Al Baraka, said. Total assets at the end of March stood at $17.5 billion, up 1.7 percent from the $17.2 billion figure at the end of 2011 and 7.4 percent higher than the $16.3 billion at the same point last year. Deposits at the bank were worth $15 billion at the end of Q1, up 2 percent from $14.7 billion at the end of last year and 7.9 percent higher than the $13.9 billion at March 31 2011. The bank is aiming to open 50 branches across its network in the next three years to take the total number to over 500, the statement added.

Cuts will cost lives SYDNEY: Australia’s plan to scale back foreign aid growth to help produce a budget surplus was criticized by charity groups yesterday, with World Vision saying it could cost up to 200,000 lives. Overseas aid was a big loser in the budget handed down Tuesday with the government highlighting Aus$2.9 billion (US$2.92 billion) in savings through the pushing back of development targets. The ruling Labor party now plans to increase the aid budget to 0.5 percent of gross national income, from the current 0.35 percent, by 2016-17, one year later than promised. “Funding for official development assistance will continue to grow each year. It will, however, grow at a slightly slower rate so that 0.5 percent of gross national income is reached in 2016-17,” Foreign Minister Bob Carr said. Aid groups said they were bitterly disappointed at the decision. “(By) breaking this bipartisan promise, by pushing this out (and) saving $2.9 billion, we estimate this is going to cost up to 200,000 lives,” World Vision Australia chief Tim Costello told ABC radio.

Pilots extend strike MUMBAI: Some 50 more pilots from India’s national carrier Air India joined a second day of industrial action yesterday, taking the total to 150 and forcing more international flights to be cancelled, officials said. The airline, which loses nearly $2 million a day, is facing mounting problems due to rising fuel prices, competition from low-cost rivals and a record of labor disputes. “About 150 pilots representing the Indian Pilots’ Guild have reported sick since Monday night,” K Swaminathan, a spokesman for Air India said. Air India, which has sacked 10 of the striking pilots, said that only four international flights, including two to New York, were cancelled yesterday due to other pilots being called onto duty.

Civil aviation minister Ajit Singh described the strike as illegal but said the government was open to talks once staff returned to work. “Discussion and disruption cannot take place at the same time. It is a totally unjustified not showing up for work,” Singh told the NDTV channel.

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

BUSINESS

Foreign investors eye Indonesia’s booming banks JAKARTA: Indonesia’s banking sector is becoming a magnet for foreign firms willing to accept an uncertain investment environment in return for booming growth and an untapped market of tens of millions. Major players are watching with interest the outcome of DBS Group of Singapore’s trail-blazing $7.3 billion deal struck on April 2 to acquire Bank Danamon Indonesia, the nation’s fifthlargest bank. Underlining the uncertainties, the central bank declined to approve the deal until it establishes new rules on foreign ownership, which currently allow local and foreign investors to own up to 99 percent of Indonesian banks.

Bank Indonesia also said investors would require separate licenses for different services, such as taking deposits, setting up ATMs and opening branches. A green light on the closely watched deal, which highlights the eagerness of major institutions to expand in Indonesia, would give foreign firms more confidence to invest in an economy that posted 6.5 percent growth last year. “Indonesian banks are attractive because they are growing much faster than foreign banks,” said Harry Su, head of research at Jakartabased brokerage Bahana securities.

“DBS’ current return on investment is around 10 percent, while Danamon’s is around 15 percent,” he said.

The growth gap between Indonesia’s banking sector and Western institutions struggling to emerge from the downturn and debt crisis is expected to widen in decades to come, according to a report

by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

Indonesia’s banks are growing at a phenomenal rate, much faster than in Europe and the United States, the report said. Indonesia’s domestic banking assets are tipped to grow to $5.1 trillion by 2050 from $187 billion in 2009 — a 27-fold increase. Over the same period, US assets are expected to expand just three-fold to $46.5 trillion. “Indonesia’s banking sector is currently the best performer in Southeast Asia, especially in profitability,” said Iwan Wisaksana, an analyst at Fitch Ratings Indonesia.

DBS’s bid for Danamon is in line with plans by Southeast Asia’s biggest bank to tap into emerging Asia, as it can no longer grow organically in Singapore where market penetration is already high, Su said. By contrast, only around half of Indonesians aged over 15 have bank accounts, authorities say, leaving an untapped market of around 60 million including many now joining the middle class and requiring financial services. “Look at penetration in AsiaIndonesia would be one of the lowest.

Even countries like India that have low penetration are above 50 percent,” Standard & Poor’s analytical manager for

emerging Asia, Geeta Chugh said.

International interest has been spurred by a number of factors including the lenient foreign ownership laws that were introduced to boost investment after the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.

The recent doldrums in the West have made buoyant regional economies like Indonesia’s even more attractive, and prompted investors to re-calculate the

JAKARTA: Two employees of Bank Danamon serve clients in Jakarta. Foreign investors are closely monitoring a multi-billion dollar deal which, if given approval, would pave the way for Indonesia to become one of the world’s most lucrative banking sectors. — AFP

Abu Dhabi fund Mubadala plans $5.5 billion spending Government to invite bids for power plant DUBAI: Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi government’s investment vehicle, expects to spend about 20.1 billion dirhams ($5.47 billion) this year as its seeks to expand a diverse line of businesses ranging from oil and gas to semiconductors.

“The group currently anticipates that its capital and investment expenditure for 2012 is likely to be substantially in line with the 20.1 billion dirhams annual average for the past three years,” it said in a update of its bond program.

The state-owned fund, which has stakes in General Electric and private equity firm Carlyle, expects a majority of that expenditure to relate to its semiconductor unit Advanced Technology Investment (ATIC); its joint venture with General Electric ; solar energy project Masdar and oil and gas projects. Its semiconductor unit ATIC had an accumulated deficit of 4.1 billion dirhams ($1.12 billion)as of the end of 2011 and made losses in the past two years, Mubadala said in the filing.

“No assurance is given that ATIC will be profitable in 2012 or in subsequent years,” Mubadala said in a section highlighting the risks associated with the business in its bond prospectus.

In a separate statement, Mubadala said ATIC was making further investments in boosting capacity and research in a bid to become a “profitable catalyst” for the emirate’s economic development. “Mubadala routinely discloses risk factors within a bond prospectus, in line with various regulatory requirements,” it said. Mubadala, which recently bought a $2 billion stake in Brazilian conglomerate EBX Group, said in April that it expects its investment outlay in 2012 to be slightly lower than last year’s $16.3 billion after saying its overall annual loss surged due to volatile global markets.

One of the few state-controlled vehicles to publish results, Mubadala also owns stakes in local companies including indebted developer Aldar Proper ties and cooling firm Tabreed

rewards against the risks posed by opaque legislation and widespread official corruption. Indonesian authorities say that investor confidence has also been boosted in recent months since ratings agencies Moody ’s and Fitch bumped Indonesia to investment grade after long years of junk status.

The DBS deal would be the largest bank acquisition in Indonesia’s history,

which it helped recapitalize last year.

BIDS FOR POWER PLANT In another development, Abu Dhabi will invite bids for a new independent water and power project (IWPP), its ninth facility, by September as the emirate boosts capacity to meet rising demand, two sources said yesterday. The emirate’s top decision making body, the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, last month approved Abu Dhabi Water & Electricity Authority’s (Adwea) plan to build a new IWPP at Mirfa, about 160 km along the coast from the United Arab Emirates’ capital city.

“Advisors for the project will be appointed first and the process of prequalifying companies will start in about three to four months,” a source at the state-owned utility said. Power generation capacity at Mirfa will be at least 1500 MW and the desalination plant will produce about 60 million gallons per day. Mirfa has an existing plant that produces about 250 MW of power and 34 mgpd of water. “The existing plants are likely to be removed because they are not reliable,” said a second source. Both sources declined to be named as the information is not yet public.

Currently, Abu Dhabi produces some 9000plus MW of power from its eight IWPPs, most of which is consumed within the emirate and about 22 percent exported to the northern emirates, according to latest Adwea statistics. Abu Dhabi’s peak electricity demand last year was 7683 MW, up 12 percent on the previous year.

Demand is forecast to grow at 11.3 percent annually in Abu Dhabi up to 2015. Abu Dhabi is also exploring other forms of energy including solar, wind and nuclear. The first nuclear power plant is scheduled to be operational in 2017.

Previously, firms including Japan’s Marubeni, International Power, GDF-Suez have built power plants in Abu Dhabi. — Agencies

but other foreign investors have also been making forays. Commonwealth Bank Australia announced last year it would almost double the number of branches in Indonesia from around 80 to 150 over the next few years. Londonbased HSBC, which began banking in Indonesia in the late 19th century, acquired an 89 percent stake in local Bank Ekonomi Raharja in 2009, making it then the third-biggest foreign bank by assets in Indonesia. Smaller institutions like Bank Ina Perdana, Bank Mestika Dharma and Bank Maspion are all reportedly being eyed by investors who are awaiting a resolution on the ownership regulations.

Opposition to the Danamon deal is an echo of a recent nationalist outburst over the mining industry, which prompted parliament to pass a law in February capping foreign ownership at 49 percent after 10 years of production. Suggestions that the ownership cap could also be tightened for banks have fuelled uncertainty over the sector’s regulatory environment, said PwC Indonesia’s technical adviser for banking Ashley Wood. A PwC survey of 100 executive bankers in Indonesia released last month showed that the regulatory environment was the top obstacle to growth in the banking sector. “The opportunities here are fantastic, but that comes with a cost,” Wood said. — AFP

Backlash keeps Malaysia rare earth plant on hold GEBENG: The expensive machinery lies silent, idling as Malaysia’s government weighs a delicate decision to allow shipments of raw material to arrive from Australia and finally start operations at the world’s largest rare earths plant outside China. At the industrial estate on the country’s east coast, 20 or so protesters gathered in the searing afternoon heat have begun a chant. “No to Lynas. Lynas go home!” The handful of demonstrators seems an unlikely obstacle to plans by Australia’s Lynas Corp to build its company-making 2.5 billion ringgit ($800 million) plant, seen as crucial to challenging China’s near monopoly on the production of rare earths, used in items ranging from smartphones to smart bombs.

But the expanding protest movement they represent, feeding off broader frustrations with Malaysia’s government as elections loom, has already delayed the project by eight months and cast a shadow over its future. The resistance - fed by social networks and Malaysia’s increasingly lively independent online media - also raises broader questions over the global expansion of an industry that has created huge environmental problems in China, which currently accounts for about 95 percent of global supply. “Western countries don’t want it. Why should we in Malaysia?,” said Norizan Mokhtar, who lives less than 10 km from the plant in the industrial area of Gebeng, close to fishing villages and Kuantan, a city of half a million people.

“My youngest is six, the effects might not be seen now but in the future. We eat fish everyday, what if there is radiation?”

She’s afraid controls on the plant will become slack after the first few years.

Lynas has been plagued by delays and controversy in Malaysia since it broke ground on the plant two years ago with the aim of easing China’s grip on the supply of rare earths and capitalizing on rising prices for the material. Its share price has halved since early last year as investors worry that it will lose out in the race to feed surging world demand.

Lynas has orders covering its first 10 years of production. Japan, the world’s biggest consumer of rare earths, is counting on Lynas to supply 8,500 tons a year by early 2013. “Our customers are waiting,” Mashal Ahmad, the managing director of the Lynas plant, told reporters during a tour of the plant for media last month. “We have nothing to hide,” he said, adding that “too much misinformation” had been spread about the company.

CAUGHT OFF-GUARD Prized for their magnetism, luminescence and strength, world consumption of rare earths is estimated to rise to around 185,000 tons a year by 2015, from 136,000 tons in 2010. China imposed export quotas in 2009 to fight pollution caused by illegal mining and processing, turning up the pressure to find alternative sources.

The Lynas plant is one of a handful under construction. It is 98 percent complete and would supply about 11,000 tons in its first year, eventually rising to 22,000 tons.

Elsewhere, Canada’s Great Western Minerals is teaming up with a Chinese group to build a rare earth processing plant in South Africa, while US firm Molycorp is set to churn out just under 20,000 metric tons of rare earth oxide this year at its site near California’s Death

Valley. The Malaysian protest movement gathered strength last year after allegations - denied by Lynas - that it was cutting corners on safety, fanning fears that radioactive run-off from waste material stored at the plant could seep into the local water system after being chemically treated.

An estimated 8,000 people rallied against Lynas in Kuantan in February and the issue has been seized on by the country’s opposition to show the government is out of touch with citizens’ concerns.

Malaysia’s government at first showed few signs of heeding the protesters’ concerns, but it appears to have been caught offguard this year by the strength of opposition to the plant as it prepares for a closely run election within months. Pahang, the state where the plant is being built, is a key stronghold for the long-ruling Barisan Nasional coalition that it can ill-afford to lose.

Responding to lobbying by citizens’ groups, the government set up a parliamentary select committee in March to look into the safety of the plant, after halting a conditional temporary operating license granted in February. A decision is expected after the committee presents its findings at the end of June. Prime Minister Najib Razak has vowed the government will not allow Lynas to operate the plant if there is any doubt over its safety. But he must also weigh the costs of sending a negative signal to foreign investors as he tries to reinvigorate the economy of the Southeast Asian country. “We will never compromise the safety of the people and the environment,” he said in a radio broadcast last month. — Reuters

EXCHANGE RATES Commercial Bank of Kuwait US Dollar/KD GB Pound/KD Euro Swiss francs Canadian Dollar Australian DLR Indian rupees Sri Lanka Rupee UAE dirhams Bahraini dinars Jordanian dinar Saudi riyals Omani riyals Philippine peso Egyptian pounds

.2730000 .4460000 .3590000 .2980000 .2770000 .2800000 .0040000 .0020000 .0753360 .7339770 .3830000 .0710000 .7195330 .0040000 .0430000

CUSTOMER TRANSFER RATES US Dollar/KD .2767500 GB Pound/KD .4469790 Euro .3605360 Swiss francs .3001790 Canadian dollars .2773880 Danish Kroner .0484800 Swedish Kroner .0405260 Australian dlr .2805830 Hong Kong dlr .0356560 Singapore dlr .2219330 Japanese yen .0034700 Indian Rs/KD .0000000 Sri Lanka rupee .0000000 Pakistan rupee .0000000 Bangladesh taka .0000000 UAE dirhams .0753780 Bahraini dinars .7343770 Jordanian dinar .0000000 Saudi Riyal/KD .0738200 Omani riyals .7191110 Philippine Peso .0000000

.2807500 .4560000 .3670000 .3080000 .2850000 .2900000 .0070000 .0035000 .0760930 .7413540 .4000000 .0760000 .7267640 .0072000 .0500000 .2703500 .4527930 .3652260 .3040840 .2809960 .0491110 .0410530 .2842330 .0361200 .2248200 .0035150 .0053040 .0021990 .0030950 .0034400 .0763580 .7439300 .3965350 .0747800 .7284660 .0066730

Kuwait Bahrain Intl Exchange Co. Currency

Rate per 1000 (Tran)

US Dollar Pak Rupees Indian Rupees Sri Lankan Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Peso UAE Dirhams Saudi Riyals Bahraini Dinars Egyptian Pounds Pound Sterling Indonesian Rupiah

278.900 3.068 5.230 2.180 3.409 6.620 76.040 74.530 741.500 46.220 455.600 3.090

Yemeni Riyal Euro Canadian Dollars Nepali rupee

1.550 367.600 284.000 3.350

UAE Dirhams Qatari Riyals Saudi Riyals Jordanian Dinar Egyptian Pound Sri Lankan Rupees Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Pesso Cyprus pound Japanese Yen Thai Bhat Syrian Pound Nepalese Rupees Malaysian Ringgit

Al Mulla Exchange Currency

Transfer Rate (Per 1000)

US Dollar Euro Pound Sterling Canadian Dollar Japanese Yen Indian Rupee Egyptian Pound Sri Lankan Rupee Bangladesh Taka Philippines Peso Pakistan Rupee Bahraini Dinar UAE Dirham Saudi Riyal

278.350 365.600 452.300 282.100 3.545 5.241 46.140 2.174 3.395 6.575 3.068 741.200 75.850 74.350

SELL DRAFT SELL CASH

Australian Dollar Canadian Dollar Swiss Franc Euro Sterling Pound Japanese Yen Bangladesh Taka Indian Rupee Sri Lankan Rupee Nepali Rupee Pakistani Rupee UAE Dirhams Bahraini Dinar Egyptian Pound Jordanian Dinar Omani Riyal Qatari Riyal Saudi Riyal

284.91 282.38 306.05 364.99 452.03 3.57 3.407 5.195 2.181 3.266 3.072 75.89 741.86 46.20 396.78 724.84 76.91 74.47

292.00 286.00 311.00 367.00 453.50 3.65 3.550 5.700 2.550 4.000 3.250 76.30 741.00 47.25 394.50 726.00 77.75 74.50

Dollarco Exchange Co. Ltd Rate for Transfer

US Dollar Canadian Dollar Sterling Pound Euro Swiss Frank Bahrain Dinar

Selling Rate

278.300 284.250 451.815 367.140 304.905 736.970

COUNTRY Australian dollar Bahraini dinar Bangladeshi taka Canadian dollar Cyprus pound Czek koruna Danish krone Deutsche Mark Egyptian pound Euro Cash Hongkong dollar Indian rupees Indonesia Iranian tuman Iraqi dinar Japanese yen Jordanian dinar Lebanese pound Malaysian ringgit Morocco dirham Nepalese Rupees New Zealand dollar Nigeria Norwegian krone Omani Riyal Pakistani rupees Philippine peso Qatari riyal Saudi riyal Singapore dollar South Africa Sri Lankan rupees Sterling pound Swedish krona Swiss franc Syrian pound

SELL CASH 284.700 741.860 3.660 281.900 547.900 45.500 49.700 167.800 47.800 365.900 36.650 5.500 0.032 0.159 0.229 3.600 395.320 0.188 93.280 45.100 4.290 222.600 1.807 49.000 724.580 3.150 6.840 77.170 74.480 224.670 38.240 2.658 454.000 41.600 304.800 4.300

9.380 198.263 76.060 279.300 1.340

9.200 75.960 278.900

GOLD 1,673.220

10 Tola Sterling Pound US Dollar

TRAVELLER’S CHEQUE 452.000 278.900

Al-Muzaini Exchange Co.

Bahrain Exchange Company

UAE Exchange Centre WLL COUNTRY

Thai bhat Tunisian dollar UAE dirham U.S. dollars Yemeni Riyal

75.745 76.390 74.175 391.745 46.013 2.168 5.235 3.089 3.403 6.598 682.655 4.465 9.105 5.860 3.405 92.090

SELL DRAFT 283.200 741.860 3.407 280.400

Japanese Yen Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Srilankan Rupees Nepali Rupees Singapore Dollar Hongkong Dollar Bangladesh Taka Philippine Peso Thai Baht Malaysian Ringgit

3.535 5.183 3.066 2.168 3.277 225.730 35.905 3.399 6.593 8.999 91.433 GCC COUNTRIES 74.310 76.567 723.790 740.140 75.879

224.700 46.132 364.400 36.500 5.220 0.031

Saudi Riyal Qatari Riyal Omani Riyal Bahraini Dinar UAE Dirham

395.280 0.188 93.280

ARAB COUNTRIES Egyptian Pound - Cash 47.700 Egyptian Pound - Transfer 45.995 Yemen Riyal/for 1000 1.300 Tunisian Dinar 181.47 Jordanian Dinar 393.520 Lebanese Lira/for 1000 1.869 Syrian Lier 4.861 Morocco Dirham 33.161

3.280 221.100 724.400 3.078 6.585 76.740 74.480 224.670 38.240 2.178 452.000 303.300 4.300

EUROPEAN & AMERICAN COUNTRIES US Dollar Transfer 278.550 Euro 367.41 Sterling Pound 452.920 Canadian dollar 282.71 Turkish lire 158.580 Swiss Franc 306.77 US Dollar Buying 277.350 20 Gram 10 Gram 5 Gram

GOLD 295.000 148.000 74.000

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

BUSINESS

Syria buys grain via Lebanon to beat sanctions HAMBURG: Syria is importing significant volumes of grain via Lebanon to work around western sanctions and secure vital supplies, European traders said. The trade is not illegal because food imports are not included in sanctions imposed by the European Union, the United States and other Western countries on President Bashar Al-Assad’s government over his crackdown on a revolt.

But the measures have blocked access to trade finance for Syria in the same way as similar penalties imposed on Iran over its nuclear program. Growing numbers of Syrians are struggling to obtain food, with prices of staples more than doubling after more than a year of conflict that has cost more than 10,000 lives. Some people in the capital Damascus, long spared the violence but now shaken by explosions overnight, say they are stocking up with at least a month’s supplies. “Syrian grain imports are being transacted in large volumes using offices in Lebanon to handle the paperwork and act as initial buyer,” one trader said.

“The deal is then re-booked in Lebanon, and ships

are then later diverted to Syrian ports.” Some trade sources said hundreds of thousands of tons were involved, while deals in smaller volumes are also being booked via dealers based in Dubai. “Food imports themselves are not stopped by the sanctions, but it is the impact of the banking sanctions which is disrupting imports,” a second trader said. Syrian imports booked in the past two months include wheat for food as well as barley and corn for animal feed. The Black Sea region, including Ukraine and Russia, has been the main grain source, dealers said.

CLOSE TIES Lebanon has close trade and business ties with neighboring Syria but is politically divided between allies of Damascus and his opponents, who pushed Assad to end nearly three decades of Syrian military presence in Lebanon seven years ago. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, whose government includes ministers from Hezbollah and pro-Syrian Christian parties, says he is seeking to prevent Syria’s crisis from spilling over into his country.

Mikati and the central bank have pledged to fully implement international sanctions related to Syria, but his foreign minister last year rejected an Arab League decision to impose sanctions on Damascus, saying Lebanon would not implement them. Some Lebanese trading firms seem ready to take the risk of being cut off from Western finance to do business with Syria, the second trader said. “For the Lebanese, Syria is their traditional market,” he added. “Major wheat supplies to Syria seem to be arriving under state-to-state deals.” Ukraine said in March it would supply Syria with 300,000 tons of food wheat under the terms of an inter-government agreement.

DEADLOCK Dealers said normal direct grain trade with Syria is no longer possible because of sanctions. “I had requests for 10,000 tons of barley and 10,000 tons of corn from Syrian buyers last week, but I cannot deal with Syria as my banks in Germany and Switzerland will not provide finance,” a trader said. “Regular grain trading with Syria has stopped. It is another Iran.”

The Iranian government was compelled to step in and purchase millions of tons of wheat in February and March after western sanctions disrupted normal grain imports. “Whether the Syrians have imported enough for their needs is another question which is difficult to answer, but a large volume has been booked via Lebanon,” another dealer said.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in March estimated that Syria would need to import about 4 million tons of grain in the July 2011/June 2012 season, up by 1 million tons on the previous year-ago period after a poor harvest in summer 2011. The United Nations bought Turkish sunflower oil for Syria, traders said on Monday. Syria’s own 2012 wheat and barley harvest is due to start in May, which will reduce the country’s import needs at least temporarily in the coming months, traders said. The FAO has warned that the outlook for Syria’s 2012 harvest is uncertain because of the impact of the unrest. Syria’s state grains agency issued an international tender on April 30 to buy 150,000 tons of animal feed barley. — Reuters

Gold hits 4-month low as crisis knocks euro China car sales help palladium

SHWERI CHAI: Photo shows a general view of the village of Shweri Chai on the island of Shweri Chai where villagers traditionally extract oil from underground deposits, in the Bay of Bengal, off the western city of Sittwe, capital of Rakhine State. For decades the islanders of Shweri Chai, a speck of land in the Bay of Bengal, have extracted oil using makeshift pulleys to draw the reddish liquid from the ground. — AFP

Crude slips on Greece jitters, strong supply LONDON: Brent crude oil slipped towards $112 yesterday, on track for its longest losing streak in nearly two years, as political turmoil in the debt-laden euro zone deepened worries about prospects for fuel demand. Rising oil stocks in the United States, and increased production from Saudi Arabia at a time of economic gloom have also helped push oil down from levels near $126 per barrel in April. “The weakness in oil was the result of higher Saudi production and concerns for the US economy and a slow-down in China,” said Christopher Bellew at Jefferies Bache.

Brent crude was down 46 cents to $112.27 a barrel by 0904 GMT, dropping for a sixth straight session, its longest losing streak since the middle of 2010. Brent settled at $112.73 on Tuesday, the lowest close since Feb 2. US crude was at $96.35, down 66 cents. The most recent leg of the fall has been caused by renewed uncertainty about the future of the euro zone. In Greece, a highly fractured parliament struggled to cobble together a coalition, with the Leftist candidate for prime minister opposing a bailout deal crucial to the economy.

This stoked fears about whether the euro zone would be able to pull itself out of a debt crisis, weighing on equities and commodities across the board. Leadership changes in France and Greece fanned worries that the political uncertainty could threaten austerity plans seen by some as key to tackling the euro zone debt crisis.

However while data from major global economies has been disappointing recently, Bellew highlighted data from Germany yes-

terday showing exports and imports both rose to record monthly levels in March. “It seems to me as if Brent will hold above $110 per barrel, and maybe rally to the $116 area if the speculators come back into the market.”

US CRUDE STOCKS UP Higher OPEC production and rising crude stockpiles globally also weighed on oil prices.

Investors are now eyeing US government data later in the day to confirm industry statistics that showed a larger-than-expected rise in crude inventories, already at their highest level since 1990. In the United States, the world’s largest oil consumer, domestic crude stocks jumped 7.8 million barrels in the week to May 4, according to industry group American Petroleum Institute. This is nearly four times the forecast in a Reuters poll of analysts.

“The total crude stocks already sit about 3 percent below all-time highs, so another build over 1.2 million barrels will likely be particularly bearish for prices,” ANZ analysts said in a note. Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi reiterated yesterday that there was a surplus of oil in the market, following his earlier comments that the world’s top exporter is pumping around 10 million barrels per day and is storing 80 million barrels to meet any sudden disruption in supplies. Higher production from Saudi Arabia has partly filled a supply gap caused by lower imports from sanctions-hit Iran. India has joined other Iranian crude buyers in Asia to cut back imports from the Islamic Republic. — Reuters

LONDON: Gold fell for a third day yesterday, touching a four-month low and all but wiping out its gains for the year as the escalation in the euro zone debt crisis prompted investors to favor dollars and German government bonds as safe-havens. Political disarray in Greece, a change in the French presidency and renewed concern about the resilience of the Spanish banking sector sent the euro to a 15-week low against the dollar and propelled German bond futures to record highs.

Spot gold was down 1.2 percent on the day at $1,585.01 an ounce at 0940 GMT, having lost more than 3 percent so far this week in its largest weekly slide since mid-March. “It’s not as though the escalation of the political risk in Europe is doing anything positive for gold prices at all and this is totally different to how we were between 2008 and 2010, when all the correlations were totally reversed and the weakening of the euro actually led to a strengthening in the gold price,” Natixis head of commodity research Nic Brown said.

“This very much suggests that we are not getting demand for gold from European investors. The dymanic is purely from the impact of the crisis on to the FX market and from that, directly on to the gold price,” he said. The gold price is on the verge of wiping out all the gains for 2012 and shows a rise of just 1.4 percent, compared with a year-to-date gain of as much as 14 percent in late February.

This compares with an 8.4 percent advance in the S&P 500 and gains of nearly 10 percent and nearly 6.5 percent in Chinese equities and crude oil respectively in 2012.

FEARS GROW IN EUROPE In Europe, radical leftist Alexis Tsipras was to meet the leaders of Greece’s mainstream parties yesterday to try to form a coalition government, after demanding they first agree to tear up the country’s EU/IMF bailout deal.

In Spain, Madrid will demand banks set aside another 35 billion euros ($45 billion) against loans to builders, financial sources said, as it battles to rebuild confidence in a sector where huge losses have raised fears the country may need an international bailout.

Nervousness over the worsening situation in Spain sent yields on the benchmark 10-year Obligacion beyond the 6.00 percent threshold that many see as unsustainable in terms of servicing the country’s debt burden, thereby further undermining the euro.

The drag of the single European currency on the gold price intensified yesterday. Gold’s

correlation to the euro, the frequency with which these two assets move in tandem, strengthened to reach a one-week high of +41 percent, meaning gold was more likely to mirror movements in the euro than trade in the opposite direction. Gold priced in euros fell by 1.1 percent on the day to a four-month low of 1,220.07 euros an ounce. “Gold seems to be pegged to the euro and this is not going to rally in a hurry either. So all in all, I expect the market to trend lower and would look for

BEIJING: A Chinese jewelry store worker shows off a pearl necklace from the Charlotte Pearl collection on display in Beijing yesterday that comes with a price tag of over one million yuan ($160,000). The global luxury market is forecast to grow by up to seven percent in 2012 despite the financial crisis, as China continues to drive consumption, with forecasts predicting an 18 to 22 percent boom. — AFP

a trading range for the next month of 15251650,” David Govett, head of precious metals at Marex-Spectron, said.

“Long term, events will catch up with other markets and the dollar will lose its temporary safe haven status and at that point, gold will start to shine again. But for now, it is in the doldrums and looks set to stay there for a while to come”. In other precious metals, palladium outperformed gold and silver following the release of data that showed robust

has risen 5.7 percent year-to-date after dropping 9.4 percent last year. Among equity investments, Lamotte prefers technology companies in the United States and emerging market company stocks in Asia, followed by Brazil and Russia. The bank’s European equity investments are confined to Germany and Switzerland, he said.

Within the private equity sector, the bank picks third-party funds for clients and also co-invests with other private equity players. “Our clients are mostly successful entrepreneurs. They have built businesses themselves and understand the private equity model,” Lamotte said.

He said that he preferred luxury-related investments, food and agriculture and the industrial sector for co-investments. The bank has invested along with L Capital, a private equity manager backed by luxury goods group, LVMH. “We have very good relations with LVMH’s chief executive, Bernard Arnault, and regularly co-invest alongside the firm. Their strategy is very simple, buy the brands of tomorrow,” he said.

Credit Agricole Suisse reported a 0.4 percent rise in net profit to 85.9 million Swiss francs ($92.94 million) in the first half of 2011, while assets under management contracted 6.5 percent to 45 billion Swiss francs, largely due to the strength of the Swiss franc, according to the bank.—Reuters

seven-day string of daily losses in August 2010, which in turn was the longest stretch of declines since September 2008, when the global financial crisis escalated. The price was last down 0.3 percent on the day at $613.20 an ounce. Silver touched its lowest level since the start of the year. Spot silver was down 1.4 percent on the day at $28.84 an ounce, set for a weekly decline of 4.3 percent, the largest in a month. Platinum was down 0.1 percent at $1,501.44 an ounce. — Reuters

US reaching out to farmers and low-income customers

Credit Agricole’s bank arm bullish on stocks DUBAI: Credit Agricole’s main private banking arm is betting aggressively on global equities and also prefers private equity investments to meet the demand of its entrepreneurial client base, its chief investment officer said in an interview.

Credit Agricole Suisse, headquartered in Geneva, has about 40 billion euros ($51.98 billion) in total assets and accounts for about half of the total private banking assets of the bank, which are all grouped under Credit Agricole Private Bank. “What we are seeing is that investors are very interested in private equity and also quite interested in global equity,” Frederic Lamotte said while on a visit to Dubai.

“There is not much interest in fixed income. Fixed income world now is about carry and there is no more capital gain.”

Equities account for about 48 percent of Credit Agricole Suisse’s overall portfolio, the executive said. Lamotte, who began his private banking career in Saudi Arabia, believes several reasons justify the high allocation to stocks. “Negative earnings revisions has come down or nearly stopped, valuation is reasonable and we still think there could be more liquidity coming in to the system this year,” he said.

“Our allocation is quite aggressive but is it too much? I don’t think so.”

MSCI’s all-country world equity index

year-on-year growth in car sales in China, the world’s largest auto market. Palladium is used primarily in catalytic converters to reduce climate-warming emissions, particularly in gasoline-powered vehicles, for which China is the largest consumer.

Car sales in China, the world’s largest auto market, grew 12.5 pct in April from a year earlier to 1.28 million units, quickening from a 4.5 percent rise in March. Spot palladium was on course for a seventh day of losses, matching a

RAWALPINDI: A donkey pulls a cart laden with goods to a fruit market in Rawalpindi. Pakistan has faced persistent economic concerns amid a shaky supply of electricity, a weak revenue base, high external debt and security concerns that have scared off some foreign investors. — AFP

RALEIGH: The federal government is spending $4 million to help hook up farmers and low-income customers.

Currently, fewer than a quarter of the nation’s roughly 7,100 farmers markets are set up to use the Electronic Benefit Transfer system, or food stamps. But Kathleen Merrigan, deputy secretary of agriculture, said she hopes these grants will bring another 4,000 of those outlets on line with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. “SNAP participation at farmers’ markets helps provide fresh fruit and vegetables to families and expands the customer base for local farmers - a win-win for agriculture and local communities,” she said in a statement.

The money is to equip these locations with wireless “point of sale” equipment to be used with the food program’s debit cards. Grants range from $5,404 for Delaware, which has 11 markets, to $426,945 for California, with 687. Kevin Concannon, the undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services, was touring sites around the country this week. On Tuesday, he stopped at the State Farmers Market in Raleigh, NC. “We’re on a mission to help Americans eat better,” Concannon said after sampling a vendor’s blueberries. “And what better place than to provide access, better access to folks for farmers markets.

And in particular for low-income people.”

North Carolina will receive $109,631.

The Raleigh market has already funded its own wireless system. Still, only four vendors there accept the EBT, though three more are setting up to do so, said Ronnie Best, the market’s manager.

“We’ve been doing it three months and ... we don’t even average fifteen sales a week on it right now,” said Helen Wise, owner of Wise Farms in nearby Mount Olive. Concannon acknowledged that many of these markets are off the beaten path and can be hard - and expensive for low-income people to access. But he said many are within easy reach of the estimate 46 million Americans who used food stamps.

“But in general, I’ve found that ... once you provide access to lowincome folks, they’ll come back,” he said. “They can price like the rest of us. ... It’s one more step in trying to promote healthier eating for the country.”

Merrigan said SNAP expenditures at farmers markets have risen by 400 percent since 2008. Bett y Tar t of Tar t Farms said she, too, sees few food stamp customers at her stand. But she said those who do come by are delighted she can accommodate them. “It makes me feel good,” she said as a large American flag waved overhead.

“Because, I have family that has been in that situation. I haven’t, but I’m not too far gone. I could be one day.”— AP

24

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

business

EasyJet nullifies fuel price hit, sees strong demand LONDON: EasyJet expects second-half revenue to rise, helped by a growing band of business travelers paying higher fares to help Europe’s second-largest low-cost carrier overcome higher fuel costs. EasyJet, which has increased the number of flights between top business destinations, said yesterday nearly half its summer seats had been sold. Chief executive Carolyn McCall said that would help boost revenues per seat by “the low to mid single-digit range”. The Luton, southern England-based airline posted a pretax loss of 112 million pounds ($181 million) for the six months to March, compared with its guidance for a loss of 110-120 million and a 153 million loss in the 2010/11 period.

Its first-half revenue rose 16 percent to 1.465 billion pounds, while the number of passengers carried grew 5.4 percent to 25.2 million, as it continued to grow its share of the shorthaul business travel market. EasyJet, and other groups in the travel industry, often make a loss in that part of their financial year which does not include the summer period. It said the first-half loss had been cut because it targeted business travelers, raised fares, had tight cost controls, and enjoyed low levels of disruption compared with previous years, and came despite an 87 million pound increase in fuel costs.

“The smaller loss comes against a backdrop of significantly higher fuel costs ... but the performance was led by the top line, with revenue per seat up 12 percent,” Espirito Santo analyst Gerald Khoo said. McCall said: “Average fares have gone up across the industry due to tighter capacity discipline and fuel costs, which were up 22 percent in the (first) half. The oil price is a key challenge and we expect it to stay high. “The average fare was around 12 percent higher across the network but we do not expect it to rise in the second half.” European airlines have struggled to overcome a toxic mix of high oil prices and sluggish demand in recent months, with low-cost airlines expected to pick up more business as struggling European consumers trade down.

EasyJet has increased frequencies between top destinations in a bid to take a bigger share of the business travel market.

European carriers Air France-KLM and Lufthansa last week reported results battered by higher fuel costs. Since the start of the year, some airlines, including loss-making Spanair and Hungarian flag-carrier Malev have ceased operations, leaving gaps in the market that low-cost competitors have been quick to exploit. EasyJet, the largest airline at London’s Gatwick airport, said it had bought 77 percent of its required fuel for the second half. Its shares, which have risen almost a third in value this year, were up 0.6 percent at 512 pence by 1020 GMT, valuing the company at around 2.0 billion pounds.— Reuters

Greek drama pressures euro and commodities MSCI Asia ex-Japan slides 1.4%: Nikkei sheds 1.4% TOKYO: Shares, precious metals and oil fell and the euro remained pressured yesterday as Greece struggled to form a government after an election that saw incumbent parties punished, heightening the risk that a hard-won bailout deal could be scrapped. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan shed 1.4 percent to its lowest in more than three months, with energy, materials and growth sensitive industrials leading the declines.

Resources-heavy Australian shares plunged 1 percent to a three-week low as oil, precious metals and copper slid.

European shares will likely edge up after a mauling on Tuesday, with financial spreadbetters predicting that major European markets would open 0.6 percent higher. US stock futures were down 0.3 percent. “This Greece political uncertainty has the potential to derail the risk rally we have seen this year,” said Stan Shamu, strategist at IG Markets.

Radical leftist Alexis Tsipras meets the leaders of Greece’s mainstream parties yesterday to try to form a coalition government, an effort seen as doomed after he demanded that pledges made in exchange for a European Union/International Monetary Fund rescue package be torn up. Officials estimate Greece could run out of money as soon as next month if it does not stick to the aid package terms, which kept the country solvent and in the single currency bloc. A broad measure of Greek stocks dropped 3.6 percent to close at its lowest level in almost 20 years on Tuesday, while European shares sank to a four-month closing low. Japan’s Nikkei stock average slid 1.4 percent yesterday, weighed partly by the yen’s firmness against the dollar and the euro hitting exporters.

COMMODITIES HIT Investors shunned commodity-linked currencies, sending the Australian dollar down to a fresh fourmonth low of$1.0052. The euro fell 0.3 percent at $1.2969, not far from a three-month low of $1.2955 reached on Monday. “People are becoming too pessimistic about how they are going to resolve it and this sentiment will continue to be bearish for commodities,” said Jonathan Barratt, chief executive of BarrattBulletin, a Sydney-based commodity research firm. Gold, which is often seen as a safe haven, was pulled lower by the euro’s weakness given bullion’s close correlation with the single currency. Spot gold lost more than 1 percent to a four-month low of $1,586.74 an ounce, extending a 2percent slide from the previous session, dragging down spot silver below $29 an ounce for the first time in nearly four months. “‘Risk off’ sentiment is so prevailing that even gold is sold in tandem with other risk assets while the dollar is bought, and this risk aversion is also behind silver’s plunge,” said Yuichi Ikemizu, branch manager for Standard Bank in

Tokyo. Gold may see more downside after its 55-day moving average crossed below the 200-day moving average in mid-April - interpreted by technical analysts as signaling a downward trend - for the first time since February 2009. Oil eased, with Brent June crude down 0.4 percent at $112.29 a barrel, after falling to a low of $110.53 on Tuesday. US June crude eased 0.5 percent at $96.52 a barrel, still off Tuesday’s low of $95.52. Copper fell 0.5 percent to $8,056 a ton.

facing a funding crisis and countries like France which is not, and the markets are now saying both fiscal austerity and growth policies are necessary, not one or the other, to ride out the debt crisis,” said Naohiro Niimura, a partner at Tokyo-based research and consulting firm Market Risk Advisory Co. “Market sentiment will have to be bearish while Greece’s response to the EU agreement remains unclear. Equities and energy markets, which had gained markedly since the start of the year will likely

MILAN: A woman begs for money in Milan, Italy. — AP EUROPE EYES TWIN AIMS With Sunday’s elections in France and Greece handing victory to anti-austerity camps, concerns were mounting for a further delay in fiscal reforms seen as vital to refinancing highly indebted euro zone members. Europe appears to be moving towards amending strict fiscal goals in exchange for growth-oriented policies, because tough austerity steps risk choking already faltering growth and undermining the unified response to the debt crisis.

European Union countries must find ways to boost growth at the same time as putting public finances in order, and EU leaders will meet on May 23 to discuss how to achieve these twin aims, top EU officials said on Tuesday.

“You need to separate the issue of Greece which is

come under intensifying selling pressures as investors seek to wind down their long positions when risks rise of Greece departing from the euro and triggering a credit contraction,” he said. Safe haven assets continued to draw strong bids. US Treasuries firmed in Asia yesterday, with the benchmark 10-year note yielding 1.8297 percent, compared with 1.8454 percent in late US trade. US yields briefly dipped below 1.82 percent on Tuesday to their lowest since early February, while benchmark German yields fell to a record low of 1.533 percent on Tuesday. A broad market slide dampened sentiment in Asian credit markets, pushing the spread on the iTraxx Asia ex-Japan investment-grade index wider by 6 basis points.— Reuters

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THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

BUSINESS

Ireland feels the pain as Europe turns against austerity DUBLIN: As France’s presidentelect plans to overhaul the EU fiscal pact and Greek voters turn against austerity, some in bailedout Ireland are asking if it too has

to keep taking the financial pain.

Since receiving an 85-billion-euro ($111 billion) EU-IMF bailout in November 2010, Ireland has kept its side of the bargain, slashing

ATHENS: A man reads newspaper headlines in Athens yesterday.

The European Commission said that Greece would receive a 5.2-billion-euro tranche of bailout loans as anticipated despite rising uncertainty over the country’s political future. —AFP

away at its deficit with its people feeling the sharp end of the cuts.

But with the drive for Europe-wide austerit y now in question and France’s Socialist president-elect Francois Hollande vowing to puts more emphasis on a push for jobs and growth, some in Ireland want to renegotiate their terms.

The republic holds a referendum on the European Union’s fiscal pac t on M ay 31, which is designed to strengthen the euro currency through tighter oversight of public finances. A “No” vote could give Hollande the platfo r m fo r a s h owd ow n w i t h Germany on renegotiating the deal. “The imposition of austerity across Europe has proven economically toxic and socially corrosive,” said David Begg, general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (IC TU) umbrella body. “Austerity hasn’t worked and it won’t work and many people have now woken up to that fac t. Across Europe the tide is turning and we are beginning to

see the emergence of a new jobs and growth agenda.” Ireland was forced to seek the bailout from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union in 2010 when massive debt and deficit problems left it on the verge of financial collapse. According to The I r ish Times newspaper, Hollande’s rise to power has given Europe an opportunity for a fresh start politically and economically.

“H is elec tion sets a trend that could transform European politics,” the broadsheet said. “He voices, and will give focus to, the w i d e s p re a d c r i t i c i s m a ro u n d Europe that budgetary disciplines alone cannot deliver growth and jobs but must be joined by further measures.” The desire for growth to do some of the heavy lifting alongside cutbacks is clear. Irish Deput y Pr ime M inister Eamon Gilmore said he believed Hollande supported budgetary discipline.

But, he added, “what he wants to do, as the Irish government wants to do, is to have that cou-

pled with a growth strategy for Europe.” “Ireland does not want to be like Greece,” he said, adding that the government would try to achieve economic recover y through investment. Brigid Laffan, a politics professor at University College Dublin, said the weekend’s developments on the continent would be welcomed in Ireland.

“Anything that brings growth on the European agenda is a ver y good thing,” she said. “Ireland’s an expor ting state, so growth in Europe matters to us. The Irish government would say the trend is going in a way that suits us.

“There is a reframing going on of what the issues are-but I guarantee it will not be no austerity.

“Any electorate that thinks they don’t have to narrow their fiscal deficits over the next 10 years is fooling themselves. Prime Minister Enda Kenny has a comfor table majority in parliament and could have four years to implement his polic y before facing a general election. But for Brian Lucey, a pro-

fessor of finance and a European economic integration expert at Trinity College Dublin, whatever happens elsewhere, Kenny’s government is set in its tracks. “I don’t think it makes much of a difference,” he said. “This is a government which is cautious, conservative, consensus-forming and won’t do anything radical.

“They are committed to a policy of ‘keep going on as is’, and whether the referendum is passed or not, the path up to 2015 is still fairly clear.” The latest survey on April 29 put the “Yes” camp ahead on 47 percent and the “No” on 35 percent-but that left 18 percent undecided. If Ireland votes “No” this month however, it will only affect Ireland and its access to EU funds-it will not hold back other member states. “ The days when the Irish banking system posed a contagion threat to the eurozone have gone-and with it the ability of the Irish government to threaten to use that nuclear card,” Lucey said.—AFP

UK judge rules for bankers in Commerzbank bonus dispute Case may encourage other aggrieved bankers LONDON: More than 100 Londonbased bankers scored a legal victory yesterday against Commerzbank, Germany’s second-largest lender, for slashing their bonuses after huge losses at its former investment bank-

ing arm during the financial crisis.

Commerzbank, which has twice been bailed out by taxpayers, said it would seek leave to appeal after High Court Judge Robert Owen ruled it had breached its legal

FRANKFURT: The headquarters of the German Commerzbank is pictured in Frankfurt, central Germany. —AP

duties by failing to honor around 52 million euros ($66 million) of promised payouts.

The ruling flies in the face of government, public and investor scorn at the size of bonuses paid despite disappointing returns and billions spent by governments on rescuing banks since the 2008 crisis. It could also open the way for disappointed staff to sue other firms over payout disputes. “We are disappointed with the court’s decision and will seek leave to appeal,” a Commerzbank spokesman said in London. “It is the bank’s submission that there is every prospect that the Court of Appeal would come to a different view on this matter.”

Commerzbank had argued that its now integrated Dresdner Kleinwort subsidiary was both justified and obliged to slash 2008 bonuses as losses spiraled to 6.5 billion euros and threatened the survival of the business. It went to the Court of Appeal last year in an attempt to dismiss the case before it came to trial, but lost. After a legal battle that has lasted more than two-and-a-half years, lawyers for the 104 bankers urged Commerzbank to draw a line in the sand. “The bank acted in breach of contract and has now been ordered to comply with its contractual obligations to pay,” said Clive Zietman, a partner at UK firm Stewarts Law, which is representing the bulk of the claimants. “The bank’s actions were unwarranted and unfounded in law ... The bank should now do the honorable thing and bring this matter to a close.”

WORRYING PRECEDENT? One lawyer said the case may set a worrying precedent for oth-

er companies. “This decision is very bad news for employers,” said Stefan Martin, employment partner at UK law firm Allen & Overy. “Similar claims have failed in the past, but this decision will give fresh encouragement to employees whose employer has failed to deliver on employees’ bonus expectations, even where those expectations were created in the context of informal discussions.” Lawyers for the bankers said Commerzbank had already been running heavy losses when it was warned by the British regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), to try to avoid an exodus of staff which might destabilize it. Under former investment bank head Stefan Jentzsch, Dresdner Kleinwort set up a guaranteed minimum bonus pool of 400 million euros to hold on to staff, and repeatedly told them-sometimes informally-that this would be used to pay discretionary bonuses.

A subsequent decision by Commerzbank, which bought Dresdner Kleinwort in 2009, to slash payouts by 90 percent provoked the largest group action of its kind at the High Court. “It is a triumph where David has successfully taken on Goliath and won, at least in this round of the battle,” said Jo Keddie, partner at law firm Winckworth Sherwood.

“This case has wider relevance to the financial sector since banks and institutions facing liquidity problems or merger scenarios in 2012 may well be required to honor pre-agreed bonus terms and conditions,” she added.

Commerzbank earlier yesterday posted a 63 percent drop in quarterly profits. —Reuters

Commodities trading ‘robust’ Copper output rises; zinc, gold dip LONDON: Glencore said trading, which spans oil, grains and metals, was robust in the first quarter while mining projects it hopes will drive production growth were on schedule despite power outages, rain and equipment glitches. The world’s largest diversified commodities trader gave no update on its $35 billion takeover of miner Xstrata, which is in the final stages. But it did confirm plans for at least $500 million of synergies. Glencore said yesterday that its trading division, which accounted for more than a third of operating profit last year, saw improved fundamentals in the oil market, grains, oilseeds and healthy premia for its core metals in the first quarter.

The division was also recovering from its cotton market hit last year, when the trader saw heavy losses from the combination of a roller coaster market and fixed-price contracts. Its restructured operations there delivered “modest profitability” despite volatility, Glencore said. The company is due to hold its first annual sharehold-

er meeting since its stock market listing. The strong trading signals helped Glencore’s shares rise over 2 percent, outperforming a 0.3 percent gain in the broader mining sector, despite production results that were weaker than some analysts had expected in key segments like copper.

Gold, nickel and zinc dipped, while copper output was hit by a mill failure and power cuts in Congo and the temporary closure of a treatment plant in Zambia over what local authorities said were pollution violations. “Glencore has traded well across all segments of its business in 2012,” the trader said, without giving any figures.

Demand from China, the world’s largest consumer of commodities, continues to be healthy, Glencore said. “It remains our view that available global inventories are generally low, both on exchanges and within supply chains.”

CONGO HIT Copper production from its own sources rose to 84,500 tons from 76,100 tons a year earlier, but

that was dented by an increase of just 2 percent from its Katanga growth project in the Democratic Republic of Congo, hit by a mill failure and power outages, a major concern for producers in the central African country. Total copper production was 126,900 tons. “The headline is likely to be a weak first quarter at Katanga...50 percent below our run rate due to a mill failure,” Liberum analysts said in a morning note. “We had expected execution risk at Glencore’s Central African copper... this slow start to the year is likely to present downside risk to our 616,000 ton fullyear estimate.”

Glencore’s operations in Congo, one of its most promising but also most controversial jurisdictions, were under scrutiny yesterday after anticorruption group Global Witness called for greater clarity on its deals there. Copper production was also hit by a 7 percent drop in metal from its own sources coming out of its Mopani operation in Zambia, due to a temporary suspension of a treatment plant. —Reuters

BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel reacts during a press conference with Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa (not in picture) after talks at the Chancellery yesterday. —AFP

Greece faces exit; EU and Germany in big dilemma PARIS: Political limbo in Greece over demands for renegotiation of debt rescues puts the country close to the eurozone exit and also poses grave dilemmas for the EU and notably Germany, analysts say. Since the weekend election which broke the back of the two traditional Greek parties behind the decline into debt and acceptance of conditions for rescues, analysts on financial markets have cast out thoughts on the possible consequences.

At UniCredit, a senior economist Gillian Edgeworth expressed a view broadly in line with the thrust of comments by several analysts. She said that official lenders to Greece must be in “emergency mode” and “working hard towards a solution.” If Greece opted out of the eurozone, it would opt for a “large devaluation, spiraling inflation and a double-digit decline in gross domestic product.” It would also choose “capital controls which will limit any movement of funds offshore” and “bank closures to facilitate re-denomination” and “widespread private sector defaults.”

“Meanwhile there is no guarantee that a bank run in Greece, were it to materialize, would not spill over to elsewhere in EMU (the eurozone),” she said.

Analysts agreed that the renewal of debt tension would undermine prospects for growth in Europe. As political parties in Athens negotiate on the future of their country, and as the economically vital summer tourist season approaches, they also confront the European Union and International Monetary Fund with a central dilemma.

This is whether and how to compromise on rescue conditions, which new form of guarantees they could obtain in return, and the risk that any deal might undermine the credibility of other rescues and spark calls for renegotiations.

If Greece has to leave the 17-nation eurozone, the effects will make matters worse, probably far worse, for the Greeks, they broadly agree. For the eurozone and the European Union, the consequences could be severe in terms of renewed tensions in other weak eurozone countries and turmoil as markets adjust, but overall the currency zone could absorb the shock. However, if the

turmoil forced a big eurozone country to seek a rescue, there are doubts about how the EU and IMF bailout funds would cope.

Edgeworth said that with the exception of the ECB, neither the EU nor the IMF had sufficient firewalls in place to deal with any request from Spain for a rescue. The political effects of Greece leaving the eurozone, and the failure of attempts to keep it solvent, would be highly damaging for the political credibility of the EU, although analysts also say that such a crisis would increase cohesion among the remaining members. At Capital Economics in London, economist Ben May said that the risks of Greece leaving the eurozone by the end of the year had risen.

Another election and more uncertainty could leave the government without funds to pay immediate bills but default could be avoided if a new election gave the two traditional parties New Democracy and PASOK enough votes to pursue reforms and obtain the next slices of rescue money. Otherwise, eurozone policy makers might decide to force Greece out of the eurozone. But Capital Economics also warned that new tensions over Greece could hit the high quality of German debt bonds if investors moved out of the eurozone or because of the costs to Germany of preventing a disorderly break-up of the currency bloc.

Analysts at Commerzbank said: “The horror scenario of Greece leaving the single currency might fuel capital flight from other countries of the periphery which would force the European Central Bank to provide these countries with capital by printing money at an even greater speed.” A few observers have wondered if an acute eurozone crisis might lead stronger countries to weigh the advantages of break ing away.

However, the head of the rating agency Fitch, Paul Taylor, told the German Spiegel magazine: “If the deutschemark were reintroduced, it would appreciate considerably against other currencies.

Export industries, which are the motor of the German economy, would suffer.”

He concluded: “Germany isn’t going to tolerate that, even if one or more countries leave the eurozone.” —AFP

Bank of England faces tough decision on extra stimulus LONDON: Bank of England (BoE) policymakers meeting this week face a tough decision over whether to pump Britain’s recession-hit economy with more fresh cash or to sit tight owing to rising inflation, analysts said. The BoE begins a two-day meeting yesterday, during which its Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) must also vote on whether to keep the central bank’s main lending rate at an historic low of 0.5 percent. At the April meeting all nine policymakers including BoE Governor Mervyn King voted in favor of maintaining the interest rate, but one

member called for more stimulus as part of the bank’s Quantitative Easing program.

Under QE, the central bank creates new cash to purchase assets such as government and corporate bonds with the aim of boosting to lending and economic activity. “As we head towards Thursday’s MPC announcement, markets are beginning to realize that there is an intriguing debate to be had over the pros and cons of the committee agreeing to further asset purchases,” said Investec bank economist Philip Shaw.

“While we recognize that the outcome of the

meeting is one of the most uncertain for some time, our central expectation remains that the MPC will sanction more QE.” Shaw said he expected the Bank of England to provide the economy with £25 billion (31 billion euros, $40 billion) in new money. Since the BoE’s last meeting in April, data has shown that Britain has officially re-entered recession.

British gross domestic product fell by 0.2 percent in the first quarter of this year, after a 0.3-percent drop in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Recession is defined as two successive quarters

of contraction. Britain clawed its way out of a record-length recession in the third quarter of 2009 but has since been weighed down by government austerity measures and debt strains in the neighboring eurozone.

To help Britain exit its last recession which had been caused by the global financial crisis, the Bank of England slashed its main interest rate to the current record low in March 2009, when it also began to implement QE measures.

Since then, the Bank of England has pumped £325 billion into the economy, risking higher

inflation in the long run. With Britain’s 12month inflation rate rising unexpectedly in March, the BoE finds itself in a tricky position ahead of today’s vote on monetary policy. “We expect the MPC to hold off from more QE due to its current heightened inflation concerns and a belief that the economy is seeing underlying modest growth despite the reported firstquarter GDP contraction that put the economy officially back into recession,” said Howard Archer, an economist at IHS Global Insight research group. —AFP

26

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

business

Global manufacturers go local in cost-wary India Heavy equipment makers eye Indian mass market

The online Call of Duty NW3 Tournament a ‘true success’ KUWAIT: FAST Telecommunication Company, the leading Telecom Service provider in Kuwait specialized in offering turnkey Internet, local and international data communication solutions as well as online gaming solutions, has organized an online Call of Duty NW3 Tournament, a shooter video game that simulates the infantry and combined arms warfare of World War II. The tournament, which is taking place on Fridays and Saturdays and featuring 64 teams, is considered to have the highest participation and appreciation among the online gaming community in Kuwait. The tournament timing has been especially chosen in order not to interfere with the players’ studies and make it more convenient for them to play and participate on their free time.

So far, the competition has been running smoothly and players are particularly excited to have enjoyed the thrill of this online tournament which will be offering the highest prize ever set for an online gaming tournament, a record award of approximately 10,000 US dollars.

One of the players that we met actually expressed his excitement about joining this thrilling experience: “As a com-

petitor, I would definitely say that the Call of Duty tournament is a great success. The level of competition is getting higher with every round, and players are truly excited about winning the valuable prize of 10,000 US dollars. In one word, this tournament has it all: starting from the excellent organization, to the high level of competition, and ending up with the valuable prizes offered!”

This tournament comes as a step among many others that Fasttelco is trying to make in order to gain customer’s satisfaction. Indeed, Hamad Saleh Al Selmi, PR manager at FAST Telecommunication Company, stated: “Given the great success of last year’s tournaments, and the satisfaction of our players, we are confident that this year’s tournament will be both dynamic and competitive.

Moreover, we are now assured that it will be an overwhelming success and we are dedicated to continue to improve the services we offer every year.” At the end, Fasttelco would like to thank all participants for contributing in the success of this tournament, and takes the opportunity to invite all gaming fans to participate in the coming years tournaments as they will get more thrilling and intense.

MUMBAI: At the opening ceremony for Daimler AG’s $850 million India factory, Chairman Dieter Zetsche stepped down from the cab of a gleaming yellow 25-tonne truck with scaled-down horsepower, a strippedback gearbox and no sign of the iconic Mercedes-Benz three-pointed star on its grille.

Daimler has been assembling high-end trucks in India for years, but its recently launched cut-price BharatBenz line has joined a trend by global heavy equipment manufacturers to compete in India’s high-volume, high-growth - but cost-conscious - mass market.

The potential is huge. Truck sales alone grew 18 percent in the year to March 2012 to over 800,000 vehicles, and are expected to double to 1.6 million by 2017. This eclipses the United States, where just over 300,000 commercial trucks were sold in 2011. But it’s a market where being best isn’t good enough.

To target the low end of India’s engineering markets, which accounts for over 70 percent of sales, manufacturers need to offer the best value, and to do that they need to go local.

The BharatBenz 2523, a 25-tonne truck, will likely cost around 1.75 million rupees ($33,300) before tax. That’s less than half the price of a comparable Mercedes-Benz Axor 2529 that retails in Europe for 61,000 euros ($81,000).

“If customers can get gear manufactured by the global firms at lower or equal price points compared to the domestic manufacturers, then naturally there will be serious demand for international kit,” says Bharti Momaya, chief manager at distributor firm, Ajisons, which sells locally-made switchgear in Mumbai. Car makers have been localizing their products for years, sourcing materials and making cheap, India-tailored vehicles.

India-made cars from companies such as Ford or South Korea’s Hyundai which poured billions of dollars into India in the 1990s now command 75 percent of the market.

By comparison, foreign truckmakers have less than 10 percent of India’s domestic market, while overseas manufacturers of substations - a market targeted by local units of Germany’s Siemens AG and Swedish-Swiss rival ABB Ltd have just over 20 percent of the

local market. European manufacturers of heavy-duty equipment ranging from haulage trucks to power systems and machinery are now racing to offer stripped-down, locally sourced and built products.

“In India there is definitely a need for international players to go beyond a premium strategy and to find local ways to develop a typically Indian product that really suits the market,” says Nikolaus Lang, partner and managing director at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in Munich. “In the truck industry in emerging markets, the next decade will be the decade of localization ... that is the next challenge,” he says. It’s a strategy that has worked well in Brazil, where foreign manufacturers dominate the truck market. And with restrictive foreign ownership rules in China and Russia, India is a key market for growthhungry global manufacturers.

AFFORDABLE SOLUTIONS Global manufacturers producing in India can keep down costs by outsourcing some production to local vendors, by using local materials and labor, and by designing for local conditions, scaling back on size or added frills.

Daimler isn’t alone. Engineering conglomerate Siemens is ramping up production of its low-cost SMART range in India. ABB, one of the world’s biggest power and technology suppliers, has invested in local production plants and research and development centers.

They are taking on entrenched local manufacturers, such as Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland in trucks, and Larsen & Toubro and Crompton Greaves in power gear. Siemens, which operates through its listed subsidiary Siemens Ltd, says products from its locally tailored SMART brand are up to 40 percent cheaper than in Europe. It is selling power distribution gear which connects the grid to local circuitry that is “produced in Aurangabad on a low-cost base, for a country which needs low-cost solutions,” says Armin Bruck, managing director of Siemens Ltd. Siemens sold $130 million (100 million euros) of its SMART gear in India in 2010 and expects it to account for 1 billion euros worth of revenue by 2020.

It estimates India’s total market for its low-

cost line of equipment is about 21 billion euros, and now sells 30 products for industrial clients, ranging from baggage conveyor systems for small airports to X-ray machines.

“Customers in India ... demand products that are low on maintenance, are robust enough to withstand the tough environmental conditions and operate efficiently,” says Bruck.

Spanish wind turbine maker Gamesa expects to save about 18 percent on costs on its new G97 turbine, which will be 70 percent made in India by the end of the year and tailored to Indian conditions, says its country head, Ramesh Kymal. The company is already applying lessons from its local research to its international operations, and is investing about 2 billion rupees in its third factory in the country.

INVESTMENT PAY-OFF Global makers of heavy equipment in India are also looking beyond the domestic market, eyeing cost-efficient research and development centers, global sourcing and potential export hubs. Daimler, which employs 1,000 workers at its research operations in India, plans to source parts for its factories across the world from Indian suppliers. “There are second order pay-offs for multinationals if they think about localizing their business systems in India,” says Rajat Dhawan, director at McKinsey India and leader of the consultancy’s manufacturing practice in Asia. “They could leverage India as an export base,” he says.

Siemens’ India arm is its parent’s first choice for low-cost part sourcing, Bruck says.

Others are seeing the potential for local manufacturing operations. ABB said in April it would spend 2.5 billion rupees to expand its manufacturing base by setting up a new factory. Daimler’s $850 million bet on India, the company’s biggest greenfield investment outside of Europe, employs 1,400 people and is testimony to Zetsche’s belief in localization. “It is the only Daimler plant in the world that houses products which combine Indian engineering with German and Japanese DNA under a single roof,” he said at last month’s plant inauguration, as hundreds of workers cheered. — Reuters

LG to host ‘Five Star and Beyond’ seminar KUWAIT: LG Electronics yesterday announced a new initiative ‘Five Star and Beyond’, a seminar focusing on the UAE’s hospitality sector, which will take place on 14th May 2012 at The Ritz Carlton DIFC, Dubai. In line with LG’s corporate aim to reduce its environmental impact through product innovation, the event will focus on how hotels ‘go green’ using innovative LED display technology without compromising high standards and while still being able to reduce total cost of ownership (TCO). The ‘Five Star and Beyond’ seminar was conceived as a result of two key drivers; LG’s continued development of reliable and innovative hotel solutions technologies and the UAE’s flourishing hospitality industry.

According to recent figures from a worldwide economic impact report on the industry, produced for the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), travel and tourism growth in the UAE will rise to almost 15 per cent of the country’s GDP within 10 years and be worth Dh277.8 billion ($75.62bn) annually. “Business and leisure traveler numbers to the UAE are on the rise due to a combination of two factors,” said D Y Kim, President of LG Electronics Gulf FZE. “Airlines are expanding their route networks and as a result, tourism infrastructure has to expand.

As the number of hotels increases, this in turn attracts more tourists to the UAE due to its rising significance as a key global hospitality destination.

“With this increasing number of visitors, the number of travelers making green-conscious decisions on where they travel to and stay also increases and hospitality providers will continue to look at cost-effective ways to improves services and their green credentials without affecting the bottom line.

“Hospitality providers are looking towards companies like LG to help innovate solutions that reduce their impact on the environment, especially when considering products like display systems, lighting and airconditioning networks.”

LG’s half-day ‘Five Star and Beyond’ semi-

nar features a number of prominent guest speakers who will share their insights on a number of topics related to practical steps the hospitality industry can take to proactively reduce TCO and improve their ‘green credentials’. Commenting on LG’s hotel solutions Mr. Kim added: “LG is aggressively targeting the hotel solutions market by introducing highly capable, eco-friendly products with low total cost of ownership. “For example a primary benefit of LG’s LED display products is reduced TCO achieved through a combination of energy savings and innovative features. LG’s LED displays consume approximately 30 percent less

electricity than other LED displays and its Smart Energy Saving technology is an innovation we are very confident of.”

LG’s Hotel Solution product innovations include products like LG’s innovative range of Hospitality TVs and Hotel TV Solutions which, according to LG, have done remarkably well in the market and have proven to be very competitive in green standards and the industry’s performance expectations.

Kim added: “The range’s easy to use operation and uncompromising performance results in increasingly satisfied guests and more productive staff. “For the hotel owner or operator, TCO is further reduced by using an imbedded Media Player, Super Sign EliteW software and a USB port meaning unlike conventional LED displays, LG’s products do not require external devices and additional software to create edit and exhibit signage content.”

At the seminar, delegates will be able to review another example of LG’s Hotel Solution innovations, the Pro:Centric Hospitality TV which combines a stylish design and smart technology. “LG is the only provider within the industry to offer a dedicated Hospitality TV, with user-friendly operating features that: support an integrated set top box, have embedded platform middleware (Pro:Centric) and can be made compatible with all software solution providers, to deliver full interactive Hotel TV Entertainment and guest services,” said Kim. “This is ideal for the hospitality industry as its flexibility, performance features and sheer ease of operating the software means that virtually anyone - staff or guests - can use the system conveniently, perfect for a fast pace industr y with high guest turnover.”

Alghanim Engineering Group introduces its new products

KUWAIT: Al Muzaini Exchange Co - Kuwait’s pioneer in exchange and remittances has opened its doors to its newest branch in the Egaila Area. The branch is located at the Nokhitha Mall No 1. With this new opening their branch network races to 49 which is the largest network of branches in Kuwait. The company also plans to open an additional 5 branches within a short span of time.

KUWAIT: Alghanim Engineering Group is proud to introduce a series of products and services in Kuwait through its new exclusive partnerships with various international corporations. Recently, the Alghanim Engineering Group established an exclusive partnership with three corporations including Jacir (France), FTEnE (South Korea), and HC Barcol-Air (Netherlands). Through these partnerships, Alghanim Engineering Group can now offer the following services and products to its customers in Kuwait: Stainless Steel and Concrete Cooling Towers; Thermal Storage Systems; Variable Air Volume Units; Car Park Ventilation System.

In an effort to introduce and educate customers about its new products, the Alghanim Engineering Group organized an educational seminar entitled, ‘The Latest Sustainable Energy and Green System Solutions’ on Wednesday, 18 April 2012 at Marina Hotel. The seminar focused on the importance of sustainable energy, green system products, and the reduction of energy and water usage to benefit the environment.

Selim Kseib, Director - Commercial Divisions and Qais Khraisat, Sales Manager - Mechanical and A/C products, conducted a presentation for the audience to highlight their new innovative products and services that are now available in Kuwait. Approximately 200 customers attended the seminar and expressed their appreciation and interest in the new products. The customers include individuals from ministries, consulting agencies, contractors, and private companies.

The seminar is part of Alghanim Engineering Group’s continuing effort in providing its customers with the latest products and solutions to fulfill all of their requirements.

Al-Sayer launches Toyota showroom in Al Ahmadi KUWAIT: Following up on the well developed heavily invested strong progressive plan, a Toyota showroom has been completed in Al Ahmadi to serve the need of the customers living in both governorates Ahmadi and Mubarak Al Kabeer. The plan intended to provide best sales and after sales support with utmost convenience. It started with Al Ahmadi Service Center inauguration on Dec 9, 2010 and followed by Lexus Facility. Mohamed Naser Al Sayer & Sons is proud to announce the opening of its New Toyota Showroom in Al Ahmadi, Kuwait, to provide convenient services for our valued Toyota customers.

The ceremony was attended by both Naser Al Sayer, Chairman Al Sayer Group, and Mubarak Al-Sayer, CEO - MNSS in addition to Al Sayer’s managers and a number of guests of honor and the press. Toyota Al-Sayer takes great pride in excelling continuously by providing the highest levels of Customer Satisfaction thus matching the quality level of Toyota standards in motor engineering dominance.

To keep up with such a purpose and maintain an even broader and stronger presence in Kuwait, Toyota are increasing the number of our Showrooms to provide our Toyota Customers with an even higher level of services and outlets

than ever before. That is why the new Toyota Al Ahmadi Showroom will be the largest automotive showroom in that area providing new and certified Toyota cars.

This latest endeavor, which followed the opening of the new Lexus showroom in Ahmadi on the 2nd of January 2012, is part of the continuous commitment by Al Sayer of providing the most convenient locations for Service and Showroom facilities to all their customers. Mubarak Al Sayer CEO / MNSS, reiterated his faith in Kuwait and its economy, saying: “We are under the patronage of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber AlSabah, and his good government, we will spare no effort to invest in various different areas that will support Toyota customers at all levels, which in turn will enable us always to beat the expectations and the goodwill of our existing & customers to be for life “.

Mubarak added: “Ahmadi showroom first opened in 1981, over than 31 years ago, and is still the oldest showroom opened in Ahmadi governorate, and today we follow up on our well developed heavily invested expansion plan, which included the opening of the New Lexus showroom in January this year, and now the New Toyota showroom”.

27

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

TECHNOLOGY

How Internet detectives find out where you live Mobile apps track people’s whereabouts

MIAMI: File photo shows after being told a word, an orangutan points to that object on an iPad at Jungle Island. —AP photos

Orangutans at Miami zoo use iPads to communicate MIAMI: The 8-year-old twins love their iPad. They draw, play games and expand their vocabulary. Their family’s teenagers also like the hand-held computer tablets, too, but the clan’s elders show no interest. The orangutans at Miami’s Jungle Island apparently are just like people when it comes to technology. The park is one of several zoos experimenting with computers and apes, letting its six orangutans use an iPad to communicate and as part of a mental stimulus program.

Linda Jacobs, who oversees the program, hopes the devices will eventually help bridge the gap between humans and the endangered apes.

“Our young ones pick up on it. They understand it. It’s like, ‘Oh I get this,’” Jacobs said. “Our two older ones, they just are not interested. I think they just figure, ‘I’ve gotten along just fine in this world without this communication-skill here and the iPad, and I don’t need a computer.’” Jacobs said she began letting the orangutans use iPads last summer, based on the suggestion of someone who had used the devices with dolphins.

The software was originally designed for humans with autism and the screen displays pictures of various objects. A trainer then names one of the objects, and the ape presses the corresponding button.

The devices have been a great addition to the enrichment programs Jungle Island already does with the orangutans, Jacobs said. Keepers have long used sign language to communicate with them.

Using their hands, the orangutans can respond to simple questions, identify objects and express their wants or needs.

The apes can also identify body parts, helping the trainers care for them and even give them shots.

“We’re able to really monitor their health on a daily basis,” Jacobs said of the need for communication with the orangutans. “We can do daily checks. If somebody ’s not feeling well, we know it immediately.” While Jacobs and other trainers have developed strong relationships with the orangutans, the iPad and other touchscreen computers offer an opportunity for them to communicate with people not trained in their sign language. “It would just be such a wonderful bridge to have,” Jacobs said. “So that other people could really appreciate them.”

Orangutans are extremely intelligent but limited by their physical inability to talk, she said. “They are sort of trapped in those bodies,” Jacobs said. “They have the intelligence that they need to communicate, but they don’t have the right equipment, because they don’t have voice boxes or vocal cords. So this gives them a way to let us know what they know, what they are capable of, what they would like to have.” Other zoos and nature parks are doing similar work.

Richard Zimmerman, executive director of Orangutan Outreach, said he’s building an “Apps For Apes” program

with old, donated iPads at facilities throughout North America, though Jungle Island isn’t part of that group.

Orangutan Outreach started working with the Milwaukee County Zoo and then expanded to zoos in Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Toronto, Houston and elsewhere. They’re hoping to use a videoconferencing program to reconnect orangutans with friends and family members who have been transferred to other zoos, he said.

“We’re putting together what we’re calling primate playdates or red ape rendezvous, which is to say connecting the orangutans in different facilities,” Zimmerman said. “We’re looking at a larger picture.” When it comes to orangutans, the iPad itself has limitations. First, the relatively small screen causes orangutans to hit the wrong buttons sometimes. Also, the touchscreen won’t register if they try to use their fingernails.

Most importantly, the devices are just too fragile to actually hand over to the apes - the trainers must hold them.

“If I gave them the iPad, I could just basically hand them $600 and say, ‘Go have fun,’” Jacobs said. “So until we come up with a better screen or a better case, I’m going to hold onto the iPad.” If Jacobs gets her way, a more secure interface might not be far off. The long-term plan is to set up a larger, orangutan-proof screen in the holding area, along with another screen outside for guests. They would ask the orangutans questions and the apes could respond.

“It’s really just a matter of getting the technology and equipment here,” Jacobs said. “There’s not a doubt in my mind that they could do it and would be marvelous at it, and I think the public would absolutely love it.” It’s important to note that training the orangutans isn’t done to entertain Jungle Island workers or guests. Because the animals are so intelligent, Jacobs said their minds must be kept active to prevent them from getting bored or depressed. The challenge is making the enrichment activities enjoyable. “They need a lot of stimulation,” Jacobs said. “Training isn’t mandatory, but they love it.”

Scientist and conservationist Birute Mary Galdikas, founder of Orangutan Foundation International, said orangutans are among the most intelligent animals. Orangutans in the wild, where Galdikas has studied the apes for more than four decades, routinely use tools to scratch themselves, swat insects and create simple shelters. In captivity, Galdikas said orangutans have demonstrated remarkable creative -thinking skills, specifically in their ability to escape enclosures.

“Anything that Jungle Island can do to help their orangutans while away the day is to be commended,” Galdikas said.

“IPads seem to work for humans. It’s not surprising that orangutans, who share 97 percent of their genetic material with humans, like them, too.” —AP

BRUSSELS: An explosion of people checking into social networks is being exploited by mobile application makers and private detectives, who say they can use people’s online chatter and photos to track them and find out where they live. In March, Apple stopped downloads of a “stalker” mobile application that told men where women around them were “hanging out”, using only publicly available information from social networks. But other readily available apps can do the same and more, say online investigators who use them.

When a person uses a mobile phone to post a tweet on Twitter or upload a photo to the imagehosting website Flickr, sometimes so-called geolocation data can be found lurking underneath the tweet or photo. This can be used to track down their local haunts, including their home or where they study. “It is quite easy sometimes to work out which house a tweet is coming from,” said Neil Smith, a former police officer turned online researcher in Britain. Geolocation research is a fast evolving area as most applications are built on the back of freely available open-source software. One of Smith’s favorite applications was developed by 27-year-old Greek IT engineer Ioannis Kakavas, who aptly called his invention Creepy. The free app collates geolocation data attached to a person’s tweets and pictures to figure out where they might work, said Smith, who says he uses it to track down perpetrators of insurance fraud for corporate clients. Police officers in Vancouver, Canada and in Arizona and Colorado in the United States also say they have used Creepy in their investigations. An array of social networks like Twitter, Foursquare, Twitpic, Flickr, YFrog, Gowalla, and Lockerz can provide such geolocation data, Kakavas said.

Unwitting exposure Some of these websites allow users to disable geolocation, but

those like Foursquare and Gowalla depend on it. Twitter users can choose to enable it when they join and Facebook says it strips off the location data on photos. Smith, who says he has recently been hired by journalists who want to use geolocation data in their research, says his work is for “honorable, legal purposes”. For many

service which shows companies how vulnerable they might be to hacking. “These photos may contain the location of where the photo was taken.

Regulators in the United States and the European Union have come out in force for new ways to protect people’s privacy online, but geolocation data on social

stop websites from gathering their data to send them targeted ads. To meet these demands advertising firms, web publishers and privacy experts have been meeting under the banner of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to write an updated version of “Do Not Track”, a tool users can install on their browser to

TOKYO: Japan’s Internet giant Softbank president Masayoshi Son and US online transaction giant eBay CEO John Donahoe with eBay’s subsidiary PayPal president David Marcus show their smartphones with triangle shaped dongles of credit card reader as they announce to form a joint venture to start online transaction service through the mobile Internet “PayPal Here” yesterday. —AFP parents, mobile apps that use geolocation can also be a source of reassurance: FamilyTracker and Life360 are two apps which show parents where their children are on a map.

But Smith and other professional snoops admit that many people oblivious to geolocation data can find themselves unwittingly exposed. “Teenage girls are taking pictures of themselves unclothed and then sending them to their boyfriends,” said Chris Hadnagy, a security expert and owner of social-engineer.com, a

networks seems to be at anyone’s fingertips without breaking the law. “We have geolocation information that the users knowingly and deliberately make public,” said Kakavas, who says he developed Creepy to show people how easy it can be for prying eyes to scrutinise their private lives. But Smith cautioned: “If you don’t care about your own security then don’t be surprised by tools like Creepy which can harvest that information.” US and EU regulators agree that people using the Internet should have the choice to

stop online marketing companies from gathering their web browsing history. But geolocation is more difficult to deal with.

“Because where someone is located may affect how they are treated under law, we cannot bar all geolocation,” said Aleecia McDonald from the open source browser company Mozilla Firefox, a member of the W3C. “However, we are agreed that very precise geolocation ... which gets down to about a dozen households, is not in keeping with the spirit of Do Not Track.” —Reuters

Kaspersky Internet Security stands out in ‘real-world’ DUBAI: When it comes to protecting your computer, independent testing shows you get what you pay for.

A special study by AV-Test.org looked into the burgeoning market in free antivirus solutions - and confirmed that while these packages can do some things, their limitations are quickly exposed in the face of modern threats. Free anti-virus software has earned a significant share of the consumer security market.

According to independent research company O+K, free solutions accounted for 66% of anti-malware products used worldwide in October 2011. But at Kaspersky Lab we remain confident that the hard work of thousands of brilliant developers, experts and innovative leaders ensures that paid products are more effective than their free rivals. Comparative testing independently performed by AV-Test.org, once again, proves the point. In direct competition with four leading free antivirus packages, Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 was a comprehensive winner in “real-world” testing.

Commenting on the research, Oleg Ishanov, Deputy Director of Anti-Malware Research at Kaspersky Lab, said: “This testing confirms the theory that free antivirus software indeed shows some level of protection in fighting malware threats. But we don’t believe a security solution which misses five threats out of a hundred can ever be reliable. There are 70,000 new malware samples appearing every

day - in reality 5% of those represents a dangerously big number. In fact, just one serious threat could lead to a complete loss of your data and, quite possibly, money from your bank account. The key conclusion of AV-Test.org’s research is that there is only one way to effectively fight modern cybercrime - trust the best vendors of commercial security software, and their strong expert teams. Especially when the cost for a month of protection is less than many people would spend on a cup of coffee each day.” The testing was conducted by AV-Test.org in November and December 2011, and pitted Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 against four free antivirus solutions. The tests were conducted on a several identical PCs running Windows 7 with Service Pack 1 installed. All updates available at the time of testing were applied.

To recreate a typical PC environment, several popular and potentially vulnerable programs were installed.

The testing lab gathered 100 malicious web pages: half of them tried to infect the system using drive-by downloads; the other half carried direct links to malicious files. The research replicated the real-life user scenario as closely as possible. Each threat was alive at the moment of testing, and evaluated on a clean system. The security products had up-to-date databases and were allowed to access the Internet to receive additional support from cloud-based services where applicable. The products were also tested for

false positive detections against a database of slightly less than 200,000 fresh clean files. Whenever the testers tried to download and launch a malicious file, or visit an infected page, the malware was given some time to try to do its dirty work in the protected system - again, reflecting real life circumstances. After that, the test system was analyzed for signs of infection.

The results showed Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 had completely blocked 99 out of 100 malicious objects, and successfully blocked the malicious actions of the one malware attack which was launched. Kaspersky Lab’s product also returned a perfect result in the false positive test.

The free products could not match that performance. avast! Free Antivirus 6.0 blocked 95 threats but completely missed another five. Microsoft Security Essentials had the worst result, with 86 threats blocked and 14 missed. Avira Free Antivirus 2012 completely missed 13 threats and only partially blocked one other. AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 2012 completely missed four threats, and partially blocked five other malicious objects. Two of the four freebies also wrongly picked out clean programs as malicious: avast! Free Antivirus 6.0 made one false positive, and AVG Anti-Virus Free 2012 had eight. Detailed results of the comparison between Kaspersky Internet Security 2012 and four free antivirus solutions can be found here.

Yahoo! launches probe in CEO credentials flap

MIAMI: Linda Jacobs uses an iPad as she works with an orangutan.

SAN FRANCISCO: Yahoo! said it would create a special committee with the help of an outside lawyer to review the controversy over chief executive Scott Thompson’s misstated academic credentials.

Amid stepped up pressure from an activist hedge fund, the Yahoo! board announced that the committee would review Thompson’s academic background as well as how much was known by those who hired him. Yahoo! last week acknowledged an “inadvertent error” in the CEO’s online bio, which wrongly indicated that he had a degree in computer science.

The news of the special committee came a day after a hedge fund battling the management of Yahoo! called for the release of documents about the recruitment

of Thompson in a scathing filing with regulators. The filing by Third Point with Securities and Exchange Commission came after the hedge fund’s deadline passed on its demand for the ouster of Thompson for misrepresenting his educational background. Third Point, which owns 5.8 percent of the struggling tech giant, filed its slate of candidates for the Yahoo! board, ensuring a proxy battle, as it stepped up its attack on management. The special committee is chaired by Alfred Amoroso, an independent director of Yahoo!, and has retained as its independent counsel Terry Bird, a Los Angeles attorney specializing in litigation and internal investigations.

“The special committee and the entire board appreciate the

urgency of the situation and the special committee will therefore conduct the review in an independent, thorough and expeditious manner,” Yahoo! said in a release. “The board intends to make the appropriate disclosures to shareholders promptly upon completion of the review.” Yahoo! also announced that independent board member Patti Hart has decided not to seek re-election at the annual shareholders’ meeting, the date for which had yet to be set. “We thank Patti for her years of service and wish her all the best,” the Yahoo! board said in a released statement about Hart, who is chief executive of computer game equipment company International Game Technology.

Hart had also become a target

for Third Point, which said she had exaggerated her academic achievements. On Monday, Third Point escalated its attack on the firm, saying it “has not explained how its Search Committee could hire a CEO without doing a rudimentary check on the applicant’s credentials-a check that would have quickly revealed that Thompson did not have a computer science degree.” Third Point, led by activist investor Daniel Loeb, said that “Yahoo!’s failure of process is especially damning” and will force “a wasteful proxy contest at the 2012 annual meeting.” Third Point, which failed to win an accord for a slate of Yahoo! board members, said inaccuracies on the bios of Thompson and Hart should be cause for their removal. —AFP

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

H E A LT H & S C I E NC E

Koreans flee stress and the city for rural idylls MUNGYEONG, South Korea: A year ago, South Korean executive Chung Man-gyoo spent weekdays driving his Hyundai Grandeur sedan through the jammed streets of Seoul to his suburban office. At weekends he drove it to the golf course.

Now, the 53-year old fills the rear seat of the same black car with tools and fertilizer for his one-acre farm in the rural east of the country. His golf clubs lie unused except when his wife swings them to chase stray cats away from their house. “I don’t miss life in the city at all,” said Chung, who used to work for an electronics company that supplied components to Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. One of the growing number of South Koreans moving back to the countryside, Chung lives in Mungyeong, a small farming town in the eastern hills, where it takes an hour by car to get to the nearest train station. “My wife misses the pizza delivery sometimes,” joked Chung, as he sat on his porch in a short-sleeved shirt, sipping juice made from the berry bushes he now tends.

“I now wake up in the morning with pleasure. I also have more time to be with my wife and talk with her. Our relationship has never been closer.”

The Asian Development Bank estimates the urban population across Asia will rise by 1.1 billion people by 2030 to account for 55 percent of the region’s total population, up

from 40 percent in 2005. South Korea is a notable exception. Large numbers of people migrated to Korean cities in the 1970s and 1980s as the country industrialised and job opportunities grew quickly. Their children got access to education, and then stayed on in the cities. As South Korea made the leap from poverty to rich nation status in a generation, it turned into Asia’s most urbanised country, apart from city states like Singapore. More than half its 50 million people live in Seoul and its surrounds. The capital has eight times the population density of New York City and three times that of Tokyo.

But according to government statistics, 10,503 families left Korean cities in 2011 to take up farming, more than double the number in 2010. For many, the constant need to compete for jobs, promotion and space in the city was just not worth it.

“Every day, I woke up, went to work and then drank with friends and co-workers. I began asking myself ‘what am I doing’,” said Yoon Woo Jin, 32, who quit his real estate job a month ago and plans to move to the countryside with his wife.

Korea’s activist government, which, hand in hand with big business, drove the rapid industrialisation of the 1970s to create what is now the world’s 13th largest economy, wants to breathe life back into rural communities. “We plan to increase the

number of households moving back to 20,000 by providing support in the form of tax benefits and financial aid,” Agriculture Minister Suh Kyu-young said recently. The ministry says people want to move “to live a life worthy of human dignity” in a country where the average worker puts in 2,200 hours year, the highest in the developed world, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Yoon, the former real estate company employee, was one of 52 people aged between 26 and 60 who attended a recent government-backed class in Seoul run by a voluntary body called Refarm, where professors and those who have made a successful transition teach the next generation of hopefuls. The government has touted the success of some of those who have opted for country life, dubbing farming a “Blue Ocean” of potential and wealth, where incomes in excess of 100 million won ($88,600) a year can be made.

One such success story is Suh Jeongdeok, a former head researcher for Hanwha Chemical Corp, whose earnings place him in the top 1.42 percent of farm incomes, based on government data. But it was illhealth and a hyper-competitive school system, that sees even preschool children packed into cram schools in a bid to get a head start, that made Suh, the father of two teenage girls, opt out. Around 72 percent of

elementary, middle and high-school students have extra tutoring, according to Statistics Korea. Stress and the country’s “exam hell” have made suicide the leading cause of death for young people aged 1524, claiming 13 lives out of every 100,000, government data shows. “My wife used to push our children in elementary school,” said 49-year-old Suh, who has been farming cucumbers for the past three years. “Instead of forcing our children to reach our expectations, we decided to lower our bar.”

The downside of leaving the city? Farm incomes are generally markedly lower, averaging 32 million won a year, according to government data, against the average city income of 42 million won. Many farming families rely on government handouts to survive, with agricultural subsidies accounting for 45 percent of farmer’s incomes, according to the OECD, more than double paid to the cosseted farmers of the European Union. “Our students believe in ‘voluntary poverty’, meaning that one must sacrifice wealth in order to be closer to nature,” said Park Yong bum, the head of Refarm.

The last time Koreans moved back to the countryside in similar numbers to today was during the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, as thousands lost their jobs and looked to their hometowns for support.

However, they flocked back to the cities and

factories as soon as the crisis was over and industrial Korea started to boom again. This time it looks to be different. A report by the Korea Rural Economics Institute said only 7 percent of those who went to the countryside said they were unhappy with farm life, despite the lower incomes.

Kim Jeong Seop, a researcher at the institute, says many of the farms being taken up by the former city dwellers are small, and perhaps uneconomic, in a country where a typical rice farmer needs at least 6.6 hectares to pull in the kind of income levels seen in the city. Just 7.4 percent of those migrating to the countryside own three hectares or more, Kim said, adding that life will become more difficult as Korea liberalises its agricultural imports.

The country has already signed a series of free trade agreements with the United States and European Union and others are due to follow. “It’s going to be harder to make a living from farming, and our government is encouraging people to go farm. The government is sending contradictory signals,” he said. Chung, the berry farmer, used to earn around 90 million won every year in the city. His income as a farmer last year was about 20 million. But he said it was worth it. “If you want to make a lot of money, you should stay in the city,” he said. “You have to leave your greed behind.” — Reuters

S African rhinos at mercy of global smuggling network

PERU: This file picture shows experts measuring a dead dolphin lying on a beach on the northern coast of Peru, close to Chiclayo, some 750 km north of Lima, on March 27, 2012. — AFP

Alarm as Peru pelican and dolphin deaths rise LIMA: Peru’s northern beaches have been declared off-limits as scientists scramble to pin down what is causing the mysterious deaths of thousands of birds and dolphins.

Since March some 4,000 birds, mostly pelicans and boobies, have been found dead along a 200-km stretch of northern coastline reaching up to the border with Ecuador along with at least 900 dolphins.

The South American nation’s health ministry declared an alert at the weekend, urging the public to stay away from the beaches around Lima and on the northern coast until the cause of death is known.

For the time being, the state environment ministry has ruled out water contamination or damage from dragnet fishing, suggesting cautiously that wildlife may be falling victim to a virus. “Once we know what the scientific causes behind these deaths are, we will lift the alert,” said health ministry spokesman Bernardo Ausejo, adding the investigations could take another five to 10 days. A team of ornithologists have also been investigating the mysterious death of the birds which started after dead dolphins began to wash ashore in January in the northern departments of Piura and Lambayeque.

But biologist Guillermo Boigorrea, from the agriculture ministry in Lambayeque, said although nothing had been determined for sure, “it seems that the birds died of starvation. “Now we have to find out why the birds can’t fly or fish,” he said, adding scientists had also been analyzing the seawater. “It’s unbelievable that the Oceanic Institute has still not given a reason for the massive deaths of pelicans and dolphins,” said Carlos Bocanegra, a renowned biolo-

gist from the University of Trujillo. “I believe we are trying to protect certain interests,” he told Peruvian radio, in an allusion to the powerful fishing industry, which is one of the mainstays of the nation’s economy.

One non-government conservation organization, known as ORCA, has blamed the dolphin deaths on oil exploration activities in the area, which it claims produces noises which are having an acoustic impact on the mammals. The huge die-off “is a risk for human health in case of a possible mutation of the virus,” said German biologist Stefan Austermuehle, head of another environmental group Mundo Azul. Local health officials are also asking residents not to eat raw fish, to avoid swimming in the seas and to stay away from beaches where animals have been found dead. On Tuesday red flags were flying on some of the beaches warning of the danger.

Former health minister Uriel Garcia blamed excessive fishing for the pelican deaths, saying stocks of some species were running low such as anchovies, a favorite food of the seabirds. In an editorial with the daily El Comercio, he also maintained the birds were dying of starvation, not sickness.

And weather expert Abraham Levy hypothesized that the warming of the Pacific waters due to El Nino could be to blame.

“The warming of the waters alters the food chain, which is very complex and starts with the plankton and ends with the marine birds and the marine mammals on the other,” he told AFP. Meanwhile, deputy minister of fishing Patricia Majluf said she was resigning on Friday as the sector was “in disorder, full of irregularities and corruption”. —AFP

PRETORIA: Petty hunters, corrupt wildlife officials and Asian traffickers have all been snared in South Africa’s crackdown on rhino poaching as special prosecutors battle syndicates feeding the trade in horns. More than 160 people are currently before the courts, exposing the complex supply chain stretching from South African parks to Southeast Asian consumers, said Joanie Spies, a prosecutor with the Rhino Project. “Slowly but surely we’re moving upwards and getting higher people who did not pull the trigger,” Spies told AFP. The National Prosecuting Authority set up the team to help combat the dramatic surge in poaching that has seen more than 200 rhinos killed so far this year. The cases have exposed corruption within the systems meant to protect the animals. Private game owners, national park rangers and veterinarians have been arrested. Authorities have also caught pilots who flew helicopters to spot and dart the rhinos, and both small-time and professional hunters who shot them. “There is a great level of organisation involved,” Spies said.

Some rhinos are shot by small-time hunters hoping for a lucky break by capturing a horn that sells for more than its weight in gold in Asia, where it is used in traditional medicine. Not all of these hunters know what they’re doing. One man in April sawed off a horn from a fiberglass rhino serving as decor at a safari lodge. Other rhinos are killed by professionals who have helicopter support in tracking and darting the animals before hunters shoot and de-horn them. Whoever does the shooting, the horns can end up in the hands of the same Asian kingpins, Spies said.

Vietnamese and Thai nationals have been arrested for trying to smuggle horns abroad.

In one case, Thai national Chumlong Lemtongthai faces trial for colluding with a South African game farm owner to stage legal trophy hunts. He is accused of hiring Thai strippers and prostitutes as hunters who posed with the massive beasts’ carcasses to document the kills to obtain some of the handful of legitimate export licenses for mounted rhino horns. Authorities say he bought horns at around 65,000 rand ($8,400)

a kilogram and resold them for up to $55,000 a kilo.

Horns typically leave the country through Johannesburg’s international airport, or through the port of Beira in neighbouring Mozambique, where oversight is lax. The horns may transit in shipping containers or air travelers’ hand luggage in Asian cities like Hong Kong. Customs officials in Hong Kong say they have seized 52 horns over the past five years. Last November 33 horns were

TOUWS RIVER, South Africa: This file photo taken on Aug 22, 2011 shows Searl Derman, Aquila Game Reserve’s owner (left), trying to cover the eyes of a badly injured white rhino while veterinarian Doempies Trichardt injects the animal with sedative after poachers sawed off its horn in the reserve some 180 mm north of Cape Town. — AFP found in a single container marked as carrying “scrap plastic.” It had come from Cape Town.

The biggest market for the horns is currently Vietnam, watchdogs say.

“The resources that you would require to coordinate getting poached horns from South Africa to Vietnam means there is little doubt

California. The United Nations Environment Programme says around 13,000 pieces of plastic litter are found in every square kilometre of sea, but the problem is worst in the Nor th Pacific. The plastic particles are being vacuumed up by marine life and birds, and the mix is heavy with toxic chemicals. The study said the NPSG is providing a new habitat for ocean insects called “sea-sk aters” which prey on plankton and fish eggs and are in turn fed on by seabirds, turtles and fish. The insect, which spends its entire life at sea, needs a hard surface on which to lay its eggs - previously limited to relatively rare items like floating wood, pumice and sea shells. If microplastic density continued to grow, insect numbers would increase as well, the scientists warned, “potentially at the expense of prey such as zooplankton or fish eggs”. — AFP

the world-famous Kruger National Park, where much of the poaching happens. Spies said South Africa is stepping up its efforts by creating a combined task force of police, military, prosecutors and environmentalists. “You get better convictions, better sentences,” Spies said. — AFP

Bipolar symptoms begin in teen years

Pacific plastic soup grew 100-fold PARIS: The vast swirl of plastic waste floating in the North Pacific has grown 100-fold over the last 40 years, according to a research paper published yesterday. And scientists warned the killer soup of microplastic - particles smaller than five millimetres - threatened to alter the open ocean’s natural environment. In the period 1972 to 1987, no microplastic was found in the majority of samples taken for testing, said the paper in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

Today, scientists estimate the swirling mass of waste known as the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG) or the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, is roughly the size of Texas. “The abundance of small human-produced plastic particles in the NPSG has increased by 100 times over the last four decades,” said a statement on the findings of researchers from the University of

there are large, organised syndicates involved in that,” Naomi Doak of conservation group TRAFFIC told AFP in Vietnam. So far, prosecuting the top levels of such syndicates has been an elusive goal. Cracking a syndicate requires piercing through three or four layers of crime, Spies said. Cases that have gone to trial in South Africa have landed stiff penalties.

Three Mozambican poachers were handed 25-year sentences in January after they were detained with fresh horns, rifles and an axe in

BRUGGE, Belgium: A Boudewijn Seapark’s veterinarian takes an ultrasound on Roxanne, a pregnant dolphin, yesterday at the dolphinarium.— AFP

WASHINGTON: The number of teenagers who have experienced mania, a hallmark of bipolar disorder, is close to the number of adults estimated to have the mood disorder, suggesting that for many the condition begins during adolescence, according to a US study. “The traditional wisdom has been that mania begins in your 20s and 30s,” said Kathleen Ries Merikangas, the study’s lead author and chief of the genetic epidemiology branch at the National Institute of Mental Health. “I think the important thing is for people to recognize that mania does occur in adolescents.”

The most common definition of bipolar disorder includes alternate cycles of mania and depression, though one type of bipolar diagnosis involves mania alone. The study, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, included more than 10,000 teenagers who went through extensive interviews about their moods and behavior. The researchers found that 2.5 percent met the criteria for having had mania and depression, and 2.2 percent of teens had experienced it within the last 12 months. Also, within the year preceding the survey, 1.3 percent of the teens had mania alone and 5.7 percent had depression.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 2.6 percent of adults have had bipolar disorder in the last 12 months. “I think our data suggest that bipolar disorder is more common in adolescents than previous studies had

shown,” Merikangas told Reuters Health.

She said it could be because the questions used during the interviews were somewhat broader than what earlier surveys had asked, but all the teens considered to have a mood disorder in her study met the criteria for diagnosis in the DSM-IV, the standard diagnostic manual for psychiatry. “This (study) confirms the impression that onset in adolescents is part of the picture for this disorder for many, many patients,” said Robert Finding, director of the division of child and adolescent psychiatry at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, who was not involved with the study. The mood disorders also became more common as the teens got older, with 1.4 percent of 13 and 14-yearolds meeting the criteria for mania - but nearly twice as many 17 and 18 year olds had the disorder. About one out of every five teens with mania and depression had made a suicide attempt, and more than half had an anxiety or behavioral disorder as well. Experts said that the study results don’t necessarily suggest that the rates of bipolar symptoms in teens are rising but more likely that increasing numbers of teens who seek treatment for a psychiatric problem are being diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

“The take home message is that adolescence is when we really see bipolar disorder begin, so we should shift our focus of prevention and intervention earlier in the lifespan,” Merikangas said.—Reuters

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

H E A LT H

‘Medical acupuncture’ and ‘manual medicine’ at New Mowasat Hospital KUWAIT: The New Mowasat Hospital recently launched new services in the rheumatology and physical medicine department including “medical acupuncture” and “manual medicine” such as chiropracy and osteopathy.

To shed more light on this type of treatment, Dr Aziz Alfeeli, a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist holding “medical acupuncture” and “manual medicine” fellowships, and who recently joined the New

Dr Aziz Alfeeli Mowasat Hospital - explains the nature of such a new service.

What is the Definition of “medical acupuncture” and “manual medicine”?

“Medical acupuncture” is a type of medical treatment that works by pricking parts of the human body using small (Chinese) needles in order to treat pains or some chronic diseases.

Whereas “manual medicine” focuses on using

manual skills such as mobilization or manipulation to treat musculoskeletal system, such as in muscle or joint pain. It is divided into chiropracy (rectifying the spine) and osteopathy (rectifying body joints and muscles, in addition to the spine).

What do “medical acupuncture” and “manual medicine” treat?

“Medical acupuncture” deals with many diseases including, but not limited to, migraine headache, sciatica, arthritis, neck and back pains. Manual medicine deals with muscle and joints pain such as acute and chronic neck or back pain, muscle pain or sprain.

How does “Medical acupuncture” work?

There are several theories about the way acupuncture works. Here are some: • To stimulate the secretion of the painrelieving endorphins.

• To stimulate the secretion of neurotransmitters which deliver the nerve signals from and to the brain.

• Activate or deactivate the central nervous system including the autonomic nervous system.

• To stimulate the local blood circulation.

What are the Manual medicine techniques?

There are two types of Manual medicine techniques: • Basic type, which includes strain/ counterstrain, positional release, muscle energy technique by means of manipulation or mobilization to joints and soft tissues.

• Advanced type, which includes advance myofascial release (deep tissue message) and complicated manipulation or mobilization. To conclude, it is necessary to indicate that these treatments must be performed under the supervision of a specialist physician who is qualified in this area in order to achieve the desired medical results and avoid any possible side effects.

China to probe ‘dead baby’ pills claims SHANGHAI: China has pledged to investigate allegations that capsules containing the powdered flesh of dead babies are being produced on its soil and smuggled into South Korea. The gruesome practice came to light Sunday when Korea Customs said it had uncovered multiple attempts to illegally import, in total, more than 17,000 of the capsules in travellers’ luggage or by mail. The pills are said to be filled with the flesh of foetuses or dead infants, dried then ground into powder, to be taken as a disease cure or to boost sexual performance.

Beijing said a previous investigation into similar allegations had uncovered no evidence that such capsules were made in China, but pledged to reopen the investigation. “We have not yet found the relevant capsules in China,” foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said yesterday. “The health ministry will further investigate (this) in conjunction with relevant public security, industry and commerce and customs departments.”

Experts say the practice stems from a superstitious belief that eating the body parts of young infants will impart special physical strength or cure disease. But aside from the obvious ethical issues, there are worries the capsules could be contaminat-

ed with “super bacteria” and other diseasecausing organisms. China’s health ministry declined to comment yesterday when contacted by AFP, but spokesman Deng Haihua told the Shanghai Daily that reports of the capsules first surfaced in South Korean media in August last year.

A Korea Customs official told AFP on Tuesday that the country would closely monitor flights from “certain Chinese regions” and inspect the luggage of passengers more frequently than before.

Korea Customs said pills were sent from at least four Chinese cities at the request of customers in South Korea, but were intercepted in the mail or in customs searches at airports. They came from Jilin and Yanji cities - both in the northern province of Jilin which borders North Korea - as well as the northern municipality of Tianjin and eastern city of Qingdao, it said. Some were hidden in packages of legitimate drugs to disguise their contents.

Bringing in such pills breaches a regulation banning items that “violate social dignity and customs”, said Kim Soo-Yeon, an official in charge of customs clearance. The capsules sell for 40,000-50,000 won ($35$44) each at some herbal medicine shops, South Korean media says. — AFP

Jothen launches ‘Thalgo’ products KUWAIT: Al-Jothen Company, a subsidiary of MADI International Company, conducted a practical and theoretical training seminar at Marina Hotel over two days in the presence of French Thalgo trainer Cecile Monfrays, who arrived specially to launch the latest revolutionary product lines in the professional world of beauty.

Attended by beauty experts from beauty salons, clinics, institutes and spas, the seminar kicked off by a documentary about Al Jothen Company endorsing its position as a beauty pro

destination for all beauty admirers.

The trainer then went through a detailed explanation for the 3 antiageing programs of Thalgo, which are marine collagen program, marine hyaluronic program and marine silicium program that suits all kinds of skin, followed by a live hands on treatment for one of these programs where attendees were impressed by the quick and instant effect shown after the treatment.

Programs consist of creme, concentrate, eye creme and extract to treat all parts of the face and neck

where signs of ageing appear first.

Each program is developed according to different age groups as well as wrinkles status whereby signs of ageing starts to fade from the first use.

The French “Thalgo” laboratories are the leaders in marine scientific research which offers trustworthy, high effective and innovative care products with global experience in the selection of active and effective marine components which suits all skin types and do not cause any kind of allergies with great respect to nature.

Thalgo’s new body massage lines “POLYNESIA” was explored on the second day - this is a unique collection in the local market which provides the skin softness and liveliness with a fragranced smell. This collection is commonly used for massage and in spas, as it guarantees its users with absolute comfort and relaxation for their stretched muscles. And as usual, Al-Jothen outperforms its competitors and continues to deliver its valued customers with the latest products, solutions and technologies in the world of beauty.

Small step in high heels; a giant leap for prosthetics?

PARIS: Women in stilettos and ostriches have unwittingly contributed to scientific advancement by showing researchers how to design a prosthetic leg better adapted for walking, said a study published yesterday. The best prosthesis for above-knee amputees, and for humanoid robots, would work nothing like the human leg, scientists found, - but like that of an ostrich or the synthetic limbs used by South African amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius. “It now appears that making prosthetic feet - for walking at least - copying human feet too closely can be a mistake,” study author Jim Usherwood of the Royal Veterinary College in London told AFP. “If you want to make a good prosthetic foot but don’t care what it looks like, you should put the motor - in this case the ankle - as far up the leg as possible.” Higher up, the ankle “can provide the power without making the feet heavy and hard to swing backwards and forwards,” he added. Usherwood and his team found that the human way of walking - crashing on the heel, vaulting over the stationary leg and then pushing off with the toes, was the most economic given the shape of our foot - a design which in some ways “does not make sense”.

This walking method was “very unusual” outside the hominoidea family of apes and humans.

Other bipedal animals like ostriches have no ground-striking heels, but rather extensive tendons that act as springs. The human foot design evolved to accommodate our early survival needs to both walk and run quickly, and remained unchanged even after we lost the requirement for sprinting to catch prey or evade predators, according to the study published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. The scientists observed that women in heels had to

wiggle their bottoms to allow them to keep walking in the “crash, vault, push” pattern. “The normal human foot and heel-sole-toe stance ... has the advantage that it allows those muscles powering the shove (calf ) and absorbing the crash (shin) to be largely unloaded during the vault,” said a statement. “This is a benefit as muscles use energy when opposing force. But motors don’t - so prosthetics and robotics should not copy human feet.”

The study concluded that “less human-like feet would allow the benefits of more natural human walking, in which steps are taken relatively quickly allowing relatively short steps and high walking speeds”. Double amputee Pistorius, dubbed the Blade Runner, has been at the centre of controversy with critics claiming his carbon fibre prosthetic legs gave him an advantage over able-bodied athletes in mixed competitions. —AFP

VENICE: A file photo taken on Sept 4, 2010 shows the feet of Chinese actresses Rainie Yang (left) and Eleanne Kwong during the promotion of “Tung Ngann 3D” (“The Child’s Eye 3D”) at the 67th Venice Film Festival at Venice Lido. — AFP

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THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

W H AT ’ S O N Greetings

Many, many happy returns of the day to Anjali. May all your dreams come true, from Acha, Amma, Anu, Anto and friends.

Joan Gonzalvo explains his project

The audience is pictured during the lecture.

AUK hosts environmental forum

T Dear Vaibhav, we may not say it often but today is the perfect day to let you know what a precious gift you are to us! Happy birthday!

Wishing you success and happiness always!

Best wishes from Vibheesh Tikkodi, Anupama Vibheesh, and Abhinav Vibheesh.

he American University of Kuwait held an environmental forum at the AUK Salmiya campus on April 30. The forum started with an opening speech by the Dutch Ambassador, Ton Boon von Ochsee; followed by a lecture by the cetacean expert, Joan Gonzalvo, from the Tethys Research Institute in Greece. The event was cosponsored by the AUK Office of Student Life, and the Environmental Club(Al-Akhdar Club), in collaboration with the AUK Humanities Division, and Arabic Program.

The forum was followed by registration booth for the Ionian Dolphin Project (IDP) volunteer program.

During his opening speech, the Dutch Ambassador outlined the interlacing nature of economical, social, and ecological factors that are vital to consider when governmental policies are developed to protect the environment. He highlighted some issues that contribute to environmental degradation including overpopulation that contributes to the loss of biological diversity. At the

end of his lecture, the Dutch Ambassador was handed an honorary plaque by AUK president, Dr. Winfred Thomson.

In his lecture, Gonzalvo talked about the twenty-year project on Ionian Dolphins in Greece. According to Gonzalvo, IDP has been operating since 1991 to ensure the long-term viability of dolphin species living in the coastal waters of the eastern Ionian Sea. Gonzalvo highlighted some of the pressures humans are placing on dolphin habitats in Greece. These include over-fishing of the sardines that the dolphins feed on, and the noise and disturbance from increasing boat traffic in the area. In order to instigate a local life style that is pro-conservation, Gonzalvo outlined the local program that they have developed in order to sustain the local interest in the conservation of dolphin habitats. This includes dolphinrelated events, public presentations, and production of multimedia.

The Tethys Research Institute, which is hosting the IDP,

is an Italian non-profit organization specializing in cetacean research. Founded in 1986, the institute regularly participates in research contributing to conservation efforts. The institute collaborates with many volunteer organizations around the world to assist in their research.

Ghaidaa Mohamad, AUK Instructor of Arabic, is one of those volunteers who joined IDP through Earthwatch (a volunteer organization). As an environmental activist and volunteer, Mohamad initiated the idea of hosting the IDP lecture in Kuwait to raise environmental awareness.

The American University of Kuwait (AUK) is an independent, private, equal opportunity, and co-educational liberal arts institution of higher education. The educational, cultural and administrative structure, methods and standards of AUK are based on the American model of higher learning. The language of instruction is English.

Announcements Free Arabic course IPC is opening an Intensive Basic Arabic Course for ladies commencing from June 3 to July 8, 2012. The class will be from 5-7 pm for three days a week.

Registration is on! For information, call 22512257.

MES training program MES, a socio cultural organization in Kuwait organizing two-hour training session in association with AMAR Consulting Group a well know consulting company in Kuwait on Saturday May 12, 2012. This training is mainly focussed on how to excel in your career and how to be a successful leader who makes changes. An interactive two-hour session was held to help participants to learn how to position themselves on social and professional front and grow. The participants will be selected through prior registration based on first come first serve basis. Send your details to meskuwait@yahoo.com.

PAWS Open Day Brick ‘n’ Brack & Open Day will be held tomorrow.

Doors open at 10 am and Leila’s Russian Show is from 11 am to 4 pm. Join us for an activity filled open day for the whole family, yard sale, DJ shows, kids’ games, shelter tours, Bounty Castle, food booths and much more. To donate unwanted items, sponsor prizes, sponsor the event or to rent a table to sell products please contact us. For more information please visit info@paws-kuwait.org.

Korea Week Join us at the opening of the “Korea Week” from 7 pm to 9 pm in the Embassy of the Republic of Korea. Also to the other programs during May 8-11, 2012 at Mishref, Diplomatic Zone 2, Block 7B, Plot 164. Day of Buy Korea. Korean traditional wedding ceremony, kids hanbok fashion show, Korean product market & charity bazaar, cultural activities & traditional games May 10, 6 pm - 9 pm. Day of Enjoy Korea K-POP contest, Korean product market & vharity bazaar, cultural activities & traditional games. May 11, 7 pm. Day of Feel Korea. Classical music concert performed by Korean students living in Kuwait at Abdulaziz Theater, Mishref.

NAFO anniversary ‘Samagamam’ NAFO Kuwait (National Forum Kuwait) is all set to celebrate its 9th anniversary on Friday, May 11, 2012, at the American International School, Maidan-Hawally, at 6.30 pm. T K A Nair, the adviser to the Prime Minister of India will be the chief guest of the function. Indian Ambassador Satish C Mehta will be the guest of honor. A cultural extravaganza ‘Samagamam’, a nostalgic event of harmony and festivity will be staged on the occasion presenting a multi-dimensional visual experience to the audience.

Renowned Mohiniyattam exponent and recipient of many awards Vinita Nedungady, well-known Malayalam playback singer Rajalakshmi and violinist and promising playback singer Vivekanandan are among the celebrities who will perform during the cultural show.

Zara Sa Jhoom Loon Main ICS gears to a new cultural entertainment in “Zara Sa Jhoom Loon Main” with renowned playback singer from Bollywood Abhijeet & world fame theater cum comedy king Umar Sharif from Pakistan on 18th May Friday, at 7 pm sharp. The Chief Guest for the event will be Ambassador of India, Kuwait. Also guest of honor will be prominent personalities from Kuwait & respected embassies from different countries. So join @ Dr Kamil Al Rayes Auditorium, AIS opposite Police Station Maidan Hawally Kuwait.

Festival folkorico Festival Folkorico celebrating 20 years of OLEK organizing Lationamericana en Kuwait on May 11 at the Crown Plaza, Andaluz Ballroom at 8 pm. Featuring dances from Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, Spain, Mexico, Nicaragua and Venezuela. See you there!!! For details email olekuwait@hotmail.com Yoga with the Golden Era Club The Golden Era Club presents ‘The Eight Fold Path to Yoga’ on Fridays, 11th and 25th May; 5 to 7 pm. Yoga here! Yoga there! Yoga everywhere! Yet, few comprehend Yoga’s true nature! Join Yoga Guru - Aacharya Shashikala Pushkarna - on this unique journey to the true ‘union’ between the mind, body and spirit. All seniors (60+) are cordially invited. Venue- House #34, next to Abu-Tammam Intermediate School for Boys, Sate Alhusari St., Block 2, Rumaithiya.

Frontliners hold grand cultural event

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he Frontliners, Kuwait had the book release Part 16 followed by a grand cultural show on May 4, 2012. The programme witnessed prominent dignitaries. Satish C. Mehta, Ambassador of India to Kuwait, dignitaries from India like Dr. Gopalaswami - Former Chief Election Commissioner of India, V. Ponraj , Official Advisor of Dr. A. P. J. AbdulKalam and PadmashreeVivek.

Cine Stars Ishwarya, Maggie,Azzar and Rajkamal from Tamil Nadu also presented dance programmes. The local Troop, Sangamam displayed a splendid performance. The function began at 5:45 pm with lighting of ‘KutthuVilakku’ (Lamp) followed by the Cultural Show.

The dancers performed on the latest film folk songs. Frontliners with the motto ‘United to serve, United we serve’,

marched majestically into its youth reaching Sweet Sixteen. The President of Frontliners, Shantha Maria James in her address commended about the excellent activities of the Frontliners in India as well as in Kuwait and also announced the launch of the Frontliners website, The advisor of Frontliners Lakshmi Narayanan highlighted about the yeomen services of the Frontliners in the past years under the founder and coordinator Mr. Mohan Das. The contribution were to Cancer Patients, AIDS affected people, for education, towards calamities and many more. He also gave information about services rendered at the Indian Embassy in Kuwait helping the Indians in trouble.

The Frontliners Part 16 magazine was released by Dr. Gopalaswamy the theme

being “Hai Youth” Gopalaswamy in his speech congratulated the Frontliners and all the NRIs who were instrument in com-

ing together to contribute their valuable time for such a noble cause. He advised them to keep working sincerely and efficiently to keep the country’s flag flying

high. V. Ponraj passed on several messages from Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam to the exciting audience and assured the audience that India will become a self-reliant country by 2020. Vivek , the most awaited speaker by the audience opened up his talk by tickling the audience through his unique style and mimicry.

Right from children aged five to elders aged 60 shot a lot of questions in both social and professional context. Very meticulously, with complete patience and confidence, he answered each one of them. The atmosphere in the auditorium was full of excitement throughout the program. The audience frequently roared out with laughter and applauded for Vivek.

‘Kislap ng OFW Kuwait 2012’ resumes today

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he Filipino Association for Culture and Arts (FCAK) announces the resumption of the recently postponed event entitled ‘Kislap ng OFW Kuwait 2012’. The pre-Philippine Independence Day event ‘Coronation Night’ resumes today at Zumerida Hall, Al-Bida’a next to the Palms and Radisson Blu Hotel. All 14 candidates are advised to be at the venue from 12 pm. Spectators, sponsor, supporters and ticket holders [for the dinner buffet] are advised to proceed at the venue at 6pm. For more information please contact FCAK Chairman Primitivo ‘Buboy’ Aguilar Tel 66032010.

Indian overseas congress Arts competitions 2012 Indian Overseas Congress, Kuwait is conducting 6th Arts Competitions, 2012, on the 11th and 12 May 2012 at United Indian School. IOC once again welcome the growing buds of the Indian expatriate community in Kuwait from various disciplines to test their talents and competency in the field of arts.

The winners of this prestigious competition will be awarded with trophies and medals later in the IOC function. The competitions are for Elocution, Solo, Poetry Recitation, Classical Dance, Folk Dance, Group Dance (Cinematic), Indian Patriotic Song, Mono Act, Drawing/Painting and Poster Poetry writing.

Although the competitions are meant for children from various disciplines, Elocution, Solo and Indian Patriotic Song Competitions will be held for contestants above 18 years also.

The closing date of receiving entry forms is 4th May, 2012. The entry forms are available at the following places: Abbassiya Hidine Super Market, Sakina Book Stall; Salmiya - Uduppi Restaurant, Sakina Book Stall; Riggae - Al Dallah Super Market, Fahaheel -Royal Mobile Services and Sales. Filled forms can be sent to fax : 24331461 or Email : iockuwait@yahoo.com Or delivered to Sakina Book Stall, Abbassiya.

Iranian Contemporary Art Date: 23rd April to 10th May, 2012 These are images of conflations and juxtapositions. Sabzi’s paintings signify the crossroad of cultures and evoke one of the most pertinent signs of the multiculturalism that has been the hallmark of the arts in late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. His art represents that humanized perspective where in memory persists across cultural zones, even when and where it has no relevance. So many of his works speak of conditions where values and perspectives seep through the chinks of any culture’s shield of protection. They are about the kind of interconnectedness that can no longer be undone; they are about the end of purity and the end of searching for origins and essence.

Kuwait India inaugurates new premises

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amad Abdulla Al-Ateeqy, the Chairman of the company inaugurated the new location of the Safat branch of Kuwait India International Exchange Company on April 28, 2012. Present at the occasion were some of the esteemed customers of the company. The branch, which has been functioning, since inception for the last 33 years, has now been relocated to the ground floor at the same building, providing greater convenience to the customers.

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W H AT ’ S O N

Embassy Information EMBASSY OF BRAZIL The Embassy of Brazil requests all Brazilian citizens in Kuwait to proceed to the website www.brazil.org.kw (Contact Us Form / Fale Conosco) in order to register or update contact information. The Embassy encourages all citizens to do so, including the ones who have already registered in person at the Embassy.

The registration process helps the Brazilian Government to contact and assist Brazilians living abroad in case of any emergency.

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EMBASSY OF CANADA The Embassy of Canada is located at Villa 24, Al-Mutawakel St., Block 4 in Da’aiyah. Please visit our website at www.Kuwait.gc.ca. The Embassy of Canada is open from 07:30 to 15:30 Sunday through Thursday. The reception is closed from 12:30 to 01:00 pm for lunch break.

Consular Services for Canadian Citizens are provided from 09:00 until 12:00 on Sunday through Wednesday. The Canadian Embassy in Abu Dhabi provides visa and immigration services to residents of Kuwait. Individuals who are interested in visiting, working or immigrating to Canada are invited to visit the website of the Canadian Embassy to the UAE at www.uae.gc.ca.

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EMBASSY OF CYPRUS The Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus requests Cypriot citizens living in Kuwait to register with the Embassy has moved. This registration service is provided so that the Embassy can update its contact list and assist Cypriot citizens in cases of emergencies.

Registration information can be emailed to cyprusembassykwt@gmail.com or faxed to 22253227 or given by phone to 65906048 (Mrs Christine).

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EMBASSY OF KOREA The Embassy of the Republic of Korea wishes to inform that it has moved to Mishref. New Address: Embassy of the Republic of Korea Mishref, Block 7A, Diplomatic Area 2, Plot 6 The Embassy also wishes to inform that it will be opened to the public on the following office hours: Saturday to Thursday Morning: 8:00 am to 12:30 pm Lunch Break: 12:30 pm to 1:00 pm Afternoon: 1:00 pm to 3:30 pm ■■■■■■■

The International Women’s Group held its monthly meeting at the Radisson Blu last week. Many members of the organization gathered for the event.

—Photos by Joseph Shagra

EMBASSY OF MYANMAR Embassy of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar would like to inform the general public that the Embassy has moved its office to new location at Villa 35, Road 203, Block 2, Al-Salaam Area in South Surra. The Embassy wishes to advice Myanmar citizens and travellers to Myanmar to contact Myanmar Embassy at its new location. Tel. 25240736, 25240290, Fax: 25240749, email:myankuwait11@gmai1.com ■■■■■■■

EMBASSY OF NEPAL The Embassy of Nepal will be moving from its current location to a new place in Jabriya, Block 8, St. 13, House No. 514, effective from 15th April, 2012. Till the new telephone connections are installed, the Embassy may be contacted by email: info@nepembku.org ■■■■■■■

EMBASSY OF NIGERIA The Nigerian embassy has its new office in Mishref. Block 3, Street 7, House 4. For enquires please call 25379541. Fax25387719. Email- nigeriakuwait@yahoo.com or nigeriankuwait@yahoo.co.uk ■■■■■■■

Academic Awards Ceremony at Al-Bayan Bilingual School

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l-Bayan High School held its annual academic awards ceremony in the school’s theater. Staff, faculty members and parents filled the theater to honor students for their academic achievements in the classroom. Principal Jihad Sadeddin, gave the opening speech and thanked parents for attending and congratulated students for their successes. Members of the faculty awarded students who achieved; Honor Roll, High Honor Roll, High Honor Roll with Distinction, in addition to appreciation awards given to students who achieved the

highest grades in each subject and prizes to students who won the Science Fair and the NESA math competitions in addition to the parents teachers association awards which was established to encourage the study of science and economics amongst the high school students. Ceremony concluded with appreciation plaques given to departing staff who decided to move on in their career.

JW Marriott launches annual Lobster Festival

J

W Marriott Kuwait City hotel celebrated the launch of the Lobster Wonders Festival at Terrace Grill restaurant on May 6. George Aoun, General Manager of Kuwait Marriott Hotels hosted a number of VIPs along with the Canadian Ambassador, Douglas George, for a celebratory dinner in lieu of the occasion.

George Aoun noted, “The much awaited yearly lobster festival is back!

We are excited to once again offer the finest selection of fresh lobster prepared to suit everyone’s gourmet seafood tastes prepared by our team of internationally acclaimed chefs.

Guests can enjoy some truly worldclass lobster specialties in an atmosphere of enjoyable live entertainment and the signature Terrace Grill ambience.”

Joseph D’Costa, Executive Chef at

EMBASSY OF ROMANIA The Embassy of Romania to the State of Kuwait would like to inform that the Consular Section of the Embassy will be closed for construction works beginning with 18 April 2012, till 10 May 2012. During this period of time the Consular Section will not issue any type of visas for Romania and will not issue any Romanian passports or travel documents.

The Consular Section will only be able to assist with notary deeds. We would like to apologize for any inconvenience.

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

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EMBASSY OF UKRAINE We’d like to inform you that in response to the increasing number of our citizens who work in the state and the need for 24-hour operational telephone in case of emergency the Embassy of Ukraine in the State of Kuwait has opened “hotline telephone number” (+ 965) 972-79-206.

the JW Marriott, worked with the culinary team to prepare the much awaited dishes for this special promotion. A variety of main course dishes showcased the lobster in many delicious forms - including lobster and seafood ravioli, grilled garlic lobster, newburg style gratinated lobster and much more. The promotion is available every day for lunch from 12:30 pm to 3 pm and from 7 pm to 11 pm for dinner until July 15.

Marriott’s Executive Card program also offers generous discounts by serving as a dining privilege card at the JW Marriott and the Courtyard by Marriott - offering its members generous dining discounts and promotions on restaurants and cafes for a whole year.

Write to us Send to What’s On

George Aoun and spouse are pictured with Canadian Ambassador Douglas George, along with Basil Toutoungi, Joseph Istephan and his spouse.

upcoming events, birthdays or celebrations by email: local@kuwaittimes.net Fax: 24835619 / 20

Classifieds THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

DIAL 161 FOR AIRPORT INFORMATION

Airlines JZR QTR JZR JZR ETH GFA UAE ETD DHX FDB MSR QTR JZR THY KAC DHX FCX JZR KAC BAW KAC KAC FDB KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC UAE ABY IRA QTR IRA FDB ETD BAB GFA MEA JZR MSR KNE MSC JZR MSR KAC GFA FDB OMA KNE QTR SVA RJA KAC JZR KAC QTR KAC JZR JZR ETD UAE SVA GFA UAL JZR TAR JZR KAC ABY KNE KAC KAC JZR KAC BAB KAC FDB MSR MSC KAC KAC KAC JAI KAC KAC AXB FDB OMA MEA QTR GFA ALK JZR UAE ETD BBC ABY QTR JZR DHX AIC RBG GFA UAL JZR DLH THY KLM

Arrival Flights on Thursday 10/5/2012 Flt Route 185 DUBAI 148 DOHA 539 CAIRO 267 BEIRUT 620 ADDIS ABABA 211 BAHRAIN 853 DUBAI 305 ABU DHABI 370 BAHRAIN 67 DUBAI 612 CAIRO 138 DOHA 503 LUXOR 770 ISTANBUL 154 ISTANBUL 170 BAHRAIN 201 DUBAI 555 ALEXANDRIA 412 MANILA 157 LONDON 206 ISLAMABAD 382 DELHI 53 DUBAI 302 MUMBAI 332 TRIVANDRUM 352 COCHIN 284 DHAKA 362 COLOMBO 855 DUBAI 125 SHARJAH 605 ISFAHAN 132 DOHA 617 AHWAZ 55 DUBAI 301 ABU DHABI 436 BAHRAIN 213 BAHRAIN 404 BEIRUT 165 DUBAI 618 ALEXANDRIA 470 JEDDAH 9622 ASSIUT 201 DAMASCUS 610 CAIRO 672 DUBAI 219 BAHRAIN 57 DUBAI 645 MUSCAT 472 JEDDAH 140 DOHA 500 JEDDAH 640 AMMAN 788 JEDDAH 257 BEIRUT 546 ALEXANDRIA 134 DOHA 118 NEW YORK 535 CAIRO 357 MASHAD 303 ABU DHABI 857 DUBAI 510 RIYADH 215 BAHRAIN 982 WASHINGTON DC DULLES 177 DUBAI 328 TUNIS 777 JEDDAH 176 GENEVA 127 SHARJAH 474 JEDDAH 502 BEIRUT 542 CAIRO 125 BAHRAIN 786 JEDDAH 438 BAHRAIN 104 LONDON 63 DUBAI 624 SOHAG 9623 SOHAG 618 DOHA 674 DUBAI 614 BAHRAIN 572 MUMBAI 774 RIYADH 562 AMMAN 389 KOZHIKODE 61 DUBAI 647 MUSCAT 402 BEIRUT 146 DOHA 221 BAHRAIN 229 COLOMBO 135 BAHRAIN 859 DUBAI 307 ABU DHABI 43 DHAKA 129 SHARJAH 136 DOHA 513 SHARM EL SHEIKH 872 BAHRAIN 981 CHENNAI 3553 ALEXANDRIA 217 BAHRAIN 981 BAHRAIN 239 AMMAN 636 FRANKFURT 772 ISTANBUL 411 AMSTERDAM

Time 0:15 0:20 0:30 0:50 1:45 2:20 2:25 2:30 2:55 3:10 3:20 3:25 3:55 4:35 4:55 5:00 5:30 6:00 6:15 6:30 7:15 7:30 7:45 7:50 7:55 8:05 8:15 8:20 8:25 8:30 8:35 9:00 9:15 9:20 9:30 9:35 10:00 10:55 11:05 11:25 11:35 11:45 12:30 13:30 13:40 13:40 13:45 14:00 14:15 14:25 14:30 14:55 15:00 15:00 15:05 15:15 16:00 16:00 16:20 16:35 16:55 17:20 17:20 17:25 17:30 17:35 17:40 17:45 17:45 17:55 18:00 18:15 18:30 18:40 18:40 18:45 18:45 18:55 19:00 19:20 19:25 19:30 19:35 19:40 19:50 19:55 20:00 20:10 20:15 20:25 20:35 20:55 21:15 21:15 21:20 21:25 21:30 21:35 22:00 22:00 22:25 22:30 22:35 22:40 22:55 23:10 23:40 23:40

Airlines AIC UAL DLH THY ETH UAE FDB DHX ETD MSR QTR QTR JZR JZR GFA THY KAC BAW FDB JZR ABY JZR KAC KAC IRA UAE QTR KAC FDB ETD IRA BAB JZR GFA KAC KAC MEA KAC JZR MSR KNE MSC KAC JZR GFA FDB MSR KAC OMA KAC KNE JZR KAC RJA JZR SVA QTR KAC KAC ETD JZR JZR QTR UAE GFA JZR TAR ABY SVA UAL KNE JZR FDB KAC BAB MSR MSC JZR JAI FDB KAC KAC KAC OMA MEA GFA DHX ALK ABY ETD UAE FCX QTR KAC KAC JZR DHX BBC QTR AXB RBG GFA KAC KAC JZR

Departure Flights on Thursday 10/5/2012 Flt Route 976 GOA 981 WASHINGTON DC 637 FRANKFURT 773 ISTANBUL 621 ADDIS ABABA 854 DUBAI 68 DUBAI 371 BAHRAIN 306 ABU DHABI 613 CAIRO 139 DOHA 149 DOHA 164 DUBAI 200 DAMASCUS 212 BAHRAIN 771 ISTANBUL 545 ALEXANDRIA 156 LONDON 54 DUBAI 256 BEIRUT 126 SHARJAH 534 CAIRO 671 DUBAI 787 JEDDAH 606 MASHHAD 856 DUBAI 133 DOHA 101 LONDON 56 DUBAI 302 ABU DHABI 616 AHWAZ 437 BAHRAIN 356 MASHHAD 214 BAHRAIN 541 CAIRO 165 ROME 405 BEIRUT 501 BEIRUT 776 JEDDAH 623 SOHAG 471 JEDDAH 9622 SOHAG 785 JEDDAH 176 DUBAI 220 BAHRAIN 58 DUBAI 611 CAIRO 561 AMMAN 646 MUSCAT 673 DUBAI 473 JEDDAH 124 BAHRAIN 617 DOHA 641 AMMAN 512 SHARM EL SHEIKH 505 JEDDAH 135 DOHA 773 RIYADH 613 BAHRAIN 304 ABU DHABI 238 AMMAN 538 CAIRO 141 DOHA 858 DUBAI 216 BAHRAIN 134 BAHRAIN 328 TUNIS 128 SHARJAH 511 RIYADH 982 BAHRAIN 475 JEDDAH 266 BEIRUT 64 DUBAI 283 DHAKA 439 BAHRAIN 607 LUXOR 9624 ASSIUT 184 DUBAI 571 MUMBAI 62 DUBAI 331 TRIVANDRUM 343 CHENNAI 351 KOCHI 648 MUSCAT 403 BEIRUT 222 BAHRAIN 171 BAHRAIN 230 COLOMBO 120 SHARJAH 308 ABU DHABI 860 DUBAI 102 BAHRAIN 137 DOHA 301 MUMBAI 205 ISLAMABAD 554 ALEXANDRIA 373 BAHRAIN 44 DHAKA 147 DOHA 390 MANGALORE 3554 ALEXANDRIA 218 BAHRAIN 411 BANGKOK 415 KUALA LUMPUR 528 ASSIUT

Time 0:05 0:25 0:30 2:15 2:45 3:45 3:50 3:55 4:05 4:20 4:50 5:40 6:55 7:00 7:05 7:10 8:10 8:25 8:25 9:00 9:05 9:10 9:20 9:35 9:35 9:40 10:00 10:00 10:05 10:15 10:15 10:25 10:30 10:45 11:30 11:45 11:55 12:00 12:15 12:25 12:25 12:45 13:10 13:20 14:25 14:25 14:30 14:40 15:00 15:05 15:15 15:30 15:45 15:50 15:55 16:00 16:15 16:25 16:30 17:20 17:30 17:40 17:45 18:05 18:20 18:20 18:25 18:25 18:35 18:40 18:45 18:50 19:25 19:30 19:30 19:55 20:00 20:05 20:35 20:40 20:50 20:55 21:05 21:10 21:15 21:35 21:50 21:55 22:10 22:20 22:25 22:30 22:35 22:40 22:45 23:00 23:00 23:05 23:10 23:10 23:15 23:30 23:40 23:50 23:50

Directorate General of Civil Aviation Home Page (www.kuwait-airport.com.kw) Prayer timings

112 Ministry of Interior website: www.moi.gov.kw For labor-related inquiries and complaints: Call MSAL hotline 128

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03:31 11:44 15:20 18:31 19:56

THE PUBLIC AUTHORITY FOR CIVIL INFORMATION Automated enquiry about the Civil ID card is 1889988

ACCOMMODATION One bedroom available for Keralite couples or a working lady in Abbassiya near Maliackal Jewellery with a Christian family from June.

Contact 99494671. (C 3993) Sharing accommodation for a new couple available at Mangaf near petrol station, looking for Indian or Philippines.

Contact between 7 to 9 am and 4 to 6 pm. Tel: 23719415.

(C 3995) 8-6-2012 Wanted room-mate Indian only, near Garanada Cinema and KFH, Khaitan.

Contact: 66141908 after 5pm only. (C 3989) Sharing accommodation available in Salmiya, Block4, for male bachelors, prefer vegetarians.

Contact: 50181570. (C 3990) 7-5-2012

FOR SALE 2002 Camry, 4 cylinder for sale, excellent condition, Al Sayer maintained, 190,000 km, KD 1950. Contact: 55700857. (C 3996) 9-5-2012 2009 Mitsubishi Lancer, golden color, 81,000 km. KD 1,800. Mob: 66729295.

(C 3992) 2011 Daihatsu Grand Max bus, automatic transmission, sliding side doors, air condition, mileage 7,500 km. Price KD 2,400. Tel: 50699345. (C 3991) 8-5-2012 Laptop HP, Core2Duo, Ram 1GB, HD 120 GB, Wifi, Bluetooth, Display 15.4”. PC Siemens Core2Duo, Ram 2 GB, HD 160 GB, DVD Writer, Card reader, LCD 17” Multimedia, both excellent condition.

Contact: 99337034.

6-5-2012

CHANGE OF NAME I, Bhasha Venkatesh holder of Indian passport No. E5976797 hereby change

my name Chalapathy.

to

Bhasha

10-5-2012 I, Aniquinna Mariana Pereira has changed my name from Mariquinna Lucas R/O Cortalim, Goa, India, hereafter all dealings in my new name. (3997) 9-5-2012

MATRIMONIAL 32 year, Orthodox boy (5’9”) working as sales manager in a MNC logistic company invites proposals from God fearing and well educated girls.

Email: maibu007@gmail.com (C 3993) 10-5-2012 Marriage proposals invited from parents of RC Christian Nadar family, 30 years old boy, fair, 163 cm height, working in Dar Al Shifa hospital, engineering department. Email: benadict.xavier@gmail.com (C 3988) 7-5-2012

SITUATION WANTED Experienced Roman Catholic Christian Sri Lankan lady need to work in American, European, British family, living maid or nanny babysitting, cooking, house work. Contact: 55493669. (C 3994) 9-5-2012 Accountant, MBA Finance has 5 years experience looking for part-time job, can prepare all your business accounting reports and financial statements independently.

Call 55829223. (C 3980) 8-5-2012

Hospitals Sabah Hospital Amiri Hospital Maternity Hospital Mubarak Al-Kabir Hospital Chest Hospital Farwaniya Hospital Adan Hospital Ibn Sina Hospital Al-Razi Hospital Physiotherapy Hospital Rabiya Rawdha Adailiya Khaldiya Khaifan Shamiya Shuwaikh Abdullah Salim Al-Nuzha Industrial Shuwaikh Al-Qadisiya Dasmah Bneid Al-Ghar Al-Shaab Al-Kibla Ayoun Al-Kibla Mirqab Sharq Salmiya Jabriya Maidan Hawally Bayan Mishref W.Hawally Sabah Jahra New Jahra West Jahra South Jahra North Jahra North Jleeb Ardiya Firdous Al-Omariya N.Khaitan Fintas

24812000 22450005 24843100 25312700 24849400 24892010 23940620 24840300 24846000 24874330/9 24732263 22517733 22517144 24848075 24849807 24848913 24814507 22549134 22526804 24814764 22515088 22532265 22531908 22518752 22459381 22451082 22456536 22465401 25746401 25316254 25623444 25388462 25381200 22630786 24810221 24770319 24575755 24772608 24775066 24775992 24311795 24884079 24892674 24719048 24710044 3900322

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

FIRE BRIGADE

PRIVATE CLINICS Ophthalmologists Dr. Abidallah Al-Mansoor 25622444 Dr. Samy Al-Rabeea 25752222 Dr. Masoma Habeeb 25321171 Dr. Mubarak Al-Ajmy 25739999 Dr. Mohsen Abel 25757700 Dr Adnan Hasan Alwayl 25732223 Dr. Abdallah Al-Baghly 25732223 Ear, Nose & Throat (ENT) Dr. Ahmed Fouad Mouner 24555050 Ext 510 Dr. Abdallah Al-Ali 25644660 Dr. Abd Al-Hameed Al-Taweel 25646478 Dr. Sanad Al-Fathalah 25311996 Dr. Mohammad Al-Daaory 25731988 Dr. Ismail Al-Fodary 22620166 Dr. Mahmoud Al-Booz 25651426 General Practitioners Dr. Mohamme Y Majidi 24555050 Ext 123 Dr. Yousef Al-Omar 24719312 Dr. Tarek Al-Mikhazeem 23926920 Dr. Kathem Maarafi 25730465 Dr. Abdallah Ahmad Eyadah 25655528 Dr. Nabeel Al-Ayoobi 24577781 Dr. Dina Abidallah Al-Refae 25333501 Urologists Dr. Ali Naser Al-Serfy 22641534 Dr. Fawzi Taher Abul 22639955 Dr. Khaleel Abidallah Al-Awadi 22616660 Dr. Adel Al-Hunayan FRCS (C) 25313120 Dr. Leons Joseph 66703427 Psychologists /Psychotherapists

Paediatricians

Plastic Surgeons Dr. Mohammad Al-Khalaf

22547272

Dr. Khaled Hamadi

Dr. Abdal-Redha Lari

22617700

Dr. Abd Al-Aziz Al-Rashed

Dr. Abdel Quttainah

25625030/60

Family Doctor Dr Divya Damodar

23729596/23729581

Psychiatrists Dr. Esam Al-Ansari

22635047

Dr Eisa M. Al-Balhan

22613623/0

Gynaecologists & Obstetricians DrAdrian arbe

23729596/23729581

Dr. Verginia s.Marin

2572-6666 ext 8321

Endocrinologist

25665898

Dr. Zahra Qabazard

25340300 25710444

Dr. Sohail Qamar

22621099

Dr. Snaa Maaroof

25713514

Dr. Pradip Gujare

23713100

Dr. Zacharias Mathew

24334282

(1) Ear, Nose and Throat (2) Plastic Surgeon Dr. Abdul Mohsin Jafar, FRCS (Canada)

25655535

Dentists Dr Anil Thomas

3729596/3729581

Dr. Majeda Khalefa Aliytami

25343406

Dr. Shamah Al-Matar

22641071/2

Dr. Ahmad Al-Khooly

25739272

Dr. Anesah Al-Rasheed

22562226

Dr. Salem soso

22618787

Dr. Abidallah Al-Amer

22561444

Dr. Faysal Al-Fozan

22619557

Dr. Abdallateef Al-Katrash

22525888

Dr. Abidallah Al-Duweisan

25653755

Dr. Bader Al-Ansari

25620111

General Surgeons Dr. Amer Zawaz Al-Amer

22610044

Dr. Mohammad Yousef Basher

25327148

Internists, Chest & Heart Dr. Adnan Ebil

22639939

Dr. Mousa Khadada

22666300

Dr. Latefa Al-Duweisan

25728004

Dr. Nadem Al-Ghabra

25355515

Dr. Mobarak Aldoub

24726446

Dr Nasser Behbehani

25654300/3

Soor Center Tel: 2290-1677 Fax: 2290 1688

info@soorcenter.com www.soorcenter.com

Neurologists Dr. Sohal Najem Al-Shemeri

25633324

Dr. Jasem Mola Hassan

25345875

Gastrologists Dr. Sami Aman

22636464

Dr. Mohammad Al-Shamaly

25322030

Dr. Foad Abidallah Al-Ali

22633135

Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa, Ph.D. 2290-1677 Susannah-Joy Schuilenberg, M.A. 2290-1677

25339330

Dr. Ahmad Al-Ansari 25658888 Dr. Kamal Al-Shomr 25329924 Physiotherapists & VD Dr. Deyaa Shehab

25722291

Dr. Musaed Faraj Khamees

22666288

Rheumatologists: Dr. Adel Al-Awadi

22655539

Dr. Fozeya Ali Al-Qatan

Dr. Abd Al-Naser Al-Othman

25330060

Dr. Khaled Al-Jarallah

25722290

Internist, Chest & Heart DR.Mohammes Akkad

24555050 Ext 210

Dr. Mohammad Zubaid MB, ChB, FRCPC, PACC Assistant Professor Of Medicine Head, Division of Cardiology Mubarak Al-Kabeer Hospital Consultant Cardiologist Dr. Farida Al-Habib MD, PH.D, FACC Inaya German Medical Center Te: 2575077 Fax: 25723123

2611555-2622555

William Schuilenberg, RPC 2290-1677 Zaina Al Zabin, M.Sc. 2290-1677

Al-Madena

22418714

Al-Shohada’a

22545171

Al-Shuwaikh

24810598

Al-Nuzha

22545171

Sabhan

24742838

Al-Helaly

22434853

Al-Fayhaa

22545051

Al-Farwaniya

24711433

Al-Sulaibikhat

24316983

Al-Fahaheel

23927002

Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh

24316983

Ahmadi

23980088

Al-Mangaf

23711183

Al-Shuaiba

23262845

Al-Jahra

25610011

Al-Salmiya

25616368

POLICE STATION Al-Madena Police Station Al-Murqab Police Station Al-Daiya Police Station Al-Fayha’a Police Station Al-Qadissiya Police Station Al-Nugra Police Station Al-Salmiya Police Station Al-Dasma Police Station

22434064 22435865 22544200 22547133 22515277 22616662 25714406 22530801

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

TV PROGRAMS

00:45 Untamed & Uncut 01:40 I’m Alive 02:35 Wildest Arctic 03:30 Wildest India 04:25 Safari Vet School 04:50 Safari Vet School 05:20 Wildlife SOS 05:45 Escape To Chimp Eden 06:10 Cell Dogs 07:00 Echo And The Elephants Of Amboseli 07:25 Breed All About It 07:50 Breed All About It 08:15 The Really Wild Show 08:40 Extraordinary Dogs 09:10 Project Puppy 09:35 Project Puppy 10:05 Safari Vet School 10:30 Safari Vet School 11:00 Animal Precinct 11:55 Animal Cops South Africa 12:50 Last Chance Highway 13:45 Wild Africa Rescue 14:10 Wildlife SOS 14:40 Safari Vet School 15:05 Safari Vet School 15:30 Echo And The Elephants Of Amboseli 16:00 Dick ‘n’ Dom Go Wild 16:30 Baby Planet 17:25 Dogs/Cats/Pets 101 18:20 Dogs/Cats/Pets 101 19:15 Wildlife SOS 19:40 Escape To Chimp Eden 20:10 Great Ocean Adventures 21:05 Wildest Africa 22:00 Wild Britain With Ray Mears 22:25 Wild Britain With Ray Mears 22:55 The Snake Buster 23:20 The Snake Buster 23:50 K9 Cops

00:00 Newsday 00:30 Asia Business Report 00:45 Sport Today 01:00 Newsday 01:30 Asia Business Report 01:45 Sport Today 02:00 Newsday 02:30 Asia Business Report 02:45 Sport Today 03:00 Newsday 03:30 Hardtalk 04:00 BBC World News 04:30 World Business Report 04:45 BBC World News 05:00 BBC World News 05:30 World Business Report 05:45 BBC World News 06:00 BBC World News 06:30 World Business Report 06:45 Sport Today 07:00 BBC World News 07:30 World Business Report 07:45 Sport Today 08:00 BBC World News 08:30 Hardtalk 09:00 BBC World News 09:30 World Business Report 09:45 Sport Today 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 BBC World News 11:00 GMT With George Alagiah 11:30 GMT With George Alagiah 12:00 BBC World News 12:30 World Business Report 12:45 Sport Today 13:00 Impact With Mishal Husain 13:30 Impact With Mishal Husain 14:00 Impact With Mishal Husain 14:30 World Business Report 14:45 Sport Today 15:00 BBC World News 15:30 Hardtalk 16:00 The Hub With Nik Gowing 16:30 The Hub With Nik Gowing 17:00 The Hub With Nik Gowing 17:30 World Business Report 17:45 Sport Today 18:00 World News Today With Zeinab Badawi 18:30 World News Today With Zeinab Badawi 19:00 World News Today With Zeinab Badawi

19:30 19:45 20:00 20:30 21:00 21:30 21:45 22:00 22:30 22:45 23:00 23:30 23:45

World Business Report Sport Today BBC World News America Hardtalk BBC World News World Business Report Sport Today BBC World News America Asia Business Report Sport Today BBC World News Asia Business Report Sport Today

00:10 00:35 01:00 01:25 01:50 02:15 02:40 03:00 03:25 03:50 04:15 04:40 05:00 05:25 05:50 06:00 06:30 06:55 07:20 07:45 08:00 08:25 08:50 09:15 09:40 10:05 10:25 10:50 11:15 11:40 12:00 12:15 12:40 12:55 13:45 14:10 14:35 15:25 15:50 16:15 16:40 17:05 17:30 18:10 19:00 19:15 19:40 19:55 20:20 20:35 20:55 21:20 21:45 22:10 22:35 23:00 23:20 23:45

Duck Dodgers The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop Tom & Jerry Kids A Pup Named Scooby-Doo The Jetsons Puppy In My Pocket Popeye Tom & Jerry Looney Tunes Scooby Doo Where Are You! Droopy: Master Detective Wacky Races The Flintstones A Pup Named Scooby-Doo Popeye Classics Dexters Laboratory Bananas In Pyjamas Baby Looney Tunes Gerald McBoing Boing Ha Ha Hairies Pink Panther And Pals The Garfield Show Dastardly And Muttley A Pup Named Scooby-Doo Scooby Doo Where Are You! The Flintstones Duck Dodgers Tom & Jerry Kids Droopy: Master Detective Wacky Races Jelly Jamm Baby Looney Tunes Ha Ha Hairies The Garfield Show Scooby Doo Where Are You! Dastardly And Muttley Looney Tunes Puppy In My Pocket Pink Panther And Pals Pink Panther And Pals Tom & Jerry Moomins The Garfield Show Dexter’s Laboratory Jelly Jamm Baby Looney Tunes Ha Ha Hairies Gerald McBoing Boing Bananas In Pyjamas Pink Panther And Pals Tom & Jerry Looney Tunes Scooby Doo Where Are You! Droopy: Master Detective The Flintstones Wacky Races Dastardly And Muttley New Yogi Bear Show

00:30 Bakugan: New Vestroia 00:55 Bakugan: New Vestroia 01:20 Powerpuff Girls 02:10 Courage The Cowardly Dog 03:00 The Amazing World Of Gumball 03:25 Ben 10 03:50 Adventure Time 04:15 Powerpuff Girls 04:40 Generator Rex 05:05 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 05:30 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 05:55 Angelo Rules 06:00 Casper’s Scare School 06:25 Eliot Kid 06:50 The Amazing World Of Gumball 07:15 Adventure Time 07:40 Regular Show 08:05 Grim Adventures Of...

08:55 Courage The Cowardly Dog 09:45 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien

10:10 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 10:35 Powerpuff Girls 11:25 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 11:50 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 12:15 Ed, Edd n Eddy 13:05 Ben 10: Alien Force 13:30 Bakugan: Gundalian Invaders 13:55 Redakai: Conquer The Kairu 14:20 Camp Lazlo 14:45 Powerpuff Girls 15:35 Angelo Rules 16:25 Grim Adventures Of...

17:00 Total Drama: Revenge Of The Island 17:25 The Amazing World Of Gumball 17:40 Adventure Time 18:05 Regular Show 18:30 Ben 10 18:55 Bakugan: Mechtanium Surge 19:20 Hero 108 19:45 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 20:10 Courage The Cowardly Dog 21:00 Ben 10: Alien Force 21:25 The Powerpuff Girls 21:50 Cow And Chicken 22:00 Codename: Kids Next Door 22:50 Ben 10 23:15 Ben 10 23:40 Chowder

00:15 Manhunt: Search For A Killer 01:10 Destroyed In Seconds 01:35 Unchained Reaction 02:30 James May’s Man Lab 03:25 Inventions That Shook The World 04:20 Manhunt: Search For A Killer 05:15 How It’s Made 05:40 Factory Line 06:05 Coal 07:00 Twist The Throttle 07:50 Mythbusters 08:45 Ultimate Survival 09:40 Border Security 10:05 Auction Hunters 10:30 How It’s Made 10:55 Factory Line 11:25 Sons Of Guns 12:20 Battle Machine Bros 13:15 Extreme Explosions 14:10 Border Security 14:35 Auction Hunters 15:05 Coal 16:00 Twist The Throttle 16:55 Wheeler Dealers 17:20 Ultimate Survival 18:15 Mythbusters 19:10 How It’s Made 19:40 Factory Line 20:05 Border Security 20:35 Auction Hunters 21:00 Scrappers 21:30 Sons Of Guns 22:25 First Week In 23:20 Kidnap And Rescue

00:35 01:25 01:50 02:40 03:05 03:35 04:00 04:25 04:50 05:20 06:10 07:00 07:50 08:15 08:40 09:35 10:00 10:25 10:50 11:20 12:15 13:05 13:55 14:20 14:50 15:15

SANCTUM ON OSN ACTION HD

Moon Machines The Tech Show Weird Or What?

Cool Stuff & How It Works Cool Stuff & How It Works Weird Connections Weird Connections Stunt Junkies Stunt Junkies Mighty Ships Smash Lab Moon Machines Weird Connections Weird Connections Weird Or What?

Cool Stuff & How It Works Cool Stuff & How It Works The Gadget Show The Gadget Show Smash Lab Mighty Ships Moon Machines Weird Connections Weird Connections Stunt Junkies Stunt Junkies

15:40 The Tech Show 16:05 Smash Lab 17:00 The Gadget Show 17:25 The Gadget Show 17:50 Moon Machines 18:40 Wallace & Gromit’s World Of Invention 19:05 Wallace & Gromit’s World Of Invention 19:30 Sci-Trek 20:20 The Gadget Show 20:45 The Gadget Show 21:10 Smash Lab 22:00 Wallace & Gromit’s World Of Invention 22:25 Wallace & Gromit’s World Of Invention 22:50 Sci-Trek 23:40 Mighty Ships

00:10 00:35 01:00 01:25 01:50 02:15 02:40 03:05 03:30 03:55 04:20 04:45 05:10 05:35 06:00 06:15 06:40 07:05 07:30 07:55 08:20 08:45 09:10 09:25 09:35 09:45 10:00 10:25 10:50 11:15 11:26 11:40 12:05 12:30 12:55 13:20 13:45 14:10 14:35 15:00 15:25 15:50 16:15 16:40 17:00 17:30 17:55 18:20 18:45 19:10 19:35 20:00 20:25 20:50 21:15 21:40 22:05 22:30 22:55 23:20 23:45

Fairly Odd Parents Fairly Odd Parents Brandy & Mr Whiskers Brandy & Mr Whiskers Replacements Replacements Emperor’s New School Emperor’s New School Brandy & Mr Whiskers Brandy & Mr Whiskers Replacements Replacements Fairly Odd Parents Fairly Odd Parents Fish Hooks Recess So Random Wizards Of Waverly Place Good Luck Charlie Shake It Up Phineas And Ferb Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Jake & The Neverland Pirates Handy Manny The Hive Mouk Recess So Random Hannah Montana Fish Hooks Fish Hooks Jake & Blake Sonny With A Chance Wizards Of Waverly Place Phineas And Ferb Recess Jessie A.N.T. Farm Good Luck Charlie Suite Life On Deck Shake It Up Phineas And Ferb Jessie A.N.T. Farm Recess Wizards Of Waverly Place So Random Fish Hooks Shake It Up Good Luck Charlie Wizards Of Waverly Place Hannah Montana Phineas And Ferb Shake It Up Jonas So Random Good Luck Charlie Good Luck Charlie Wizards Of Waverly Place Wizards Of Waverly Place Kim Possible

00:25 Kendra 00:55 Style Star 01:25 THS 03:15 Behind The Scenes 03:40 Extreme Close-Up 04:10 Sexiest 05:05 Extreme Hollywood 06:00 THS 07:50 Behind The Scenes 08:20 E! News 09:15 Kendra 09:45 Kendra 10:15 THS 12:05 E! News 13:05 Khloe And Lamar 13:35 Khloe And Lamar 14:05 Keeping Up With Kardashians 14:35 Keeping Up With Kardashians 15:00 Style Star 15:30 E!es 16:25 Behind The Scenes 16:55 Ice Loves Coco 17:25 Ice Loves Coco 17:55 E! News 18:55 THS 19:55 Giuliana & Bill 20:55 Keeping Up With Kardashians 21:25 Fashion Police 22:25 E! News 23:25 Chelsea Lately 23:55 Keeping Up With Kardashians

The The

The

18:45 Fort Boyard - Ultimate Challenge 19:10 Kickin It 19:35 Kick Buttowski 20:00 Pair Of Kings 20:25 Zeke & Luther 20:50 Escape From Scorpion Island 21:20 Aaron Stone 21:45 The Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes 22:10 Phineas And Ferb 22:35 Kid vs Kat 23:00 Programmes Start At 6:00am KSA

00:30 01:20 02:05 02:55 03:45 04:30 05:20 06:10 07:00 07:50 08:40 09:30 09:55 10:20 11:10 12:00 12:25 12:50 13:40 14:30 14:55 15:20 16:10 17:00 17:50 18:40 19:05 19:55 20:20 21:10 22:00 22:50 23:40

The Haunted Psychic Witness LA: City Of Demons Cops And Coyotes Dr G: Medical Examiner The Haunted Psychic Witness Disappeared Forensic Detectives Undercover Mystery Diagnosis Real Emergency Calls Mall Cops – Mall Of America On The Case With Paula Zahn Disappeared Street Patrol Street Patrol Undercover Mystery Diagnosis Real Emergency Calls Mall Cops – Mall Of America On The Case With Paula Zahn Disappeared Forensic Detectives Undercover Real Emergency Calls Mystery Diagnosis Mall Cops – Mall Of America On The Case With Paula Zahn Disappeared Nightmare Next Door Nightmare Next Door Dr G: Medical Examiner

LETTERS TO JULIET ON OSN CINEMA 01:30 Stay Hungry 03:10 Salvador-18 05:10 The Little Death-PG 06:40 The Passage-18 08:20 How To Beat The High Cost Of Living-PG 10:05 Safari 3000-PG 11:35 Mgm’s Big Screen-FAM 11:50 Mission Of The Shark 13:25 Haunted Honeymoon-PG 14:50 High Noon-PG 16:20 The Group-PG 18:50 From Noon Till Three-PG 20:30 Pressure Point 22:00 Rikky And Pete-18 23:40 Jinxed!-18

00:00 Danger Men 01:00 By Any Means 02:00 Food Lover’s Guide To The Planet 02:30 Food Lover’s Guide To The Planet 03:00 Pressure Cook 03:30 Pressure Cook 04:00 Extreme Tourist Afghanistan 05:00 Bondi Rescue: Bali 05:30 Bondi Rescue: Bali 06:00 Danger Men 07:00 By Any Means 08:00 Food Lover’s Guide To The Planet 08:30 Food Lover’s Guide To The Planet 09:00 Pressure Cook 09:30 Pressure Cook 10:00 Extreme Tourist Afghanistan 11:00 Bondi Rescue: Bali 11:30 Bondi Rescue: Bali 12:00 Danger Men 13:00 By Any Means 14:00 Food Lover’s Guide To The Planet 14:30 Food Lover’s Guide To The Planet 15:00 Pressure Cook 15:30 Pressure Cook 16:00 Extreme Tourist Afghanistan 17:00 Bondi Rescue: Bali 17:30 Bondi Rescue: Bali 18:00 Danger Men 19:00 A World Apart 20:00 Danger Beach 20:30 Danger Beach 21:00 One Man & His Campervan 21:30 One Man & His Campervan 22:00 David Rocco’s Dolce Vita 1 22:30 David Rocco’s Dolce Vita 1 23:00 Ultimate Traveller

The

06:00 Kid vs Kat 06:21 American Dragon 06:45 Rekkit Rabbit 07:10 Scaredy Squirrel 07:35 Scaredy Squirrel 08:00 Scaredy Squirrel 08:25 Scaredy Squirrel 08:50 Kick Buttowski 09:15 Zeke & Luther 09:40 I’m In The Band 10:05 Phineas And Ferb 10:30 Kid vs Kat 10:55 The Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes 11:20 Aaron Stone 11:45 Rekkit Rabbit 12:10 American Dragon 12:35 Kick Buttowski 13:00 Phineas And Ferb 13:25 I’m In The Band 13:45 Kid vs Kat 14:10 Pair Of Kings 14:35 Zeke & Luther 15:00 Rekkit Rabbit 15:25 Pokemon: Black And White 15:50 Timon And Pumbaa 16:15 Rated A For Awesome 16:40 Iron Man Armored Adventures 17:05 Iron Man Armored Adventures 17:30 Mr. Young 17:55 Phineas And Ferb 18:20 Phineas And Ferb

00:00 01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 08:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

Megastructures Somewhere In China Taboo Mega Factories Britain’s Greatest Machines Animal Autopsy The Border Inside Megastructures Somewhere In China Taboo Megastructures Britain’s Greatest Machines Animal Autopsy The Border Inside Megastructures Somewhere In China Taboo Mega Factories Salvage Code Red Predator CSI Rescue Ink Inside

00:00 01:00 01:55 02:50 03:45 04:40 05:35 06:30 07:25 08:20 09:15 10:10

Wildlife Rescue Africa Lizard Kings Hooked Swamp Men World’s Deadliest Animals Swamp Men The Living Edens Hooked Swamp Men World’s Deadliest Animals Zambezi Big Cat Wars (aka Lion vs

Cheetah) 11:05 Sharks In The City 12:00 Cheetah: Against All Odds 13:00 Hooked 14:00 Swamp Men 15:00 World’s Deadliest Animals 16:00 Cheetah Blood Brothers 17:00 Shark Island 18:00 Lion Battle Zone 19:00 Hooked 20:00 Swamp Men 21:00 World’s Deadliest Animals 22:00 Zambezi 23:00 Big Cat Wars (aka Lion vs Cheetah)

00:00 Wildlife Rescue Africa 01:00 Lizard Kings 01:55 Hooked 02:50 Swamp Men 03:45 World’s Deadliest Animals 04:40 Swamp Men 05:35 The Living Edens 06:30 Hooked 07:25 Swamp Men 08:20 World’s Deadliest Animals 09:15 Zambezi 10:10 Big Cat Wars (aka Lion vs Cheetah) 11:05 Sharks In The City 12:00 Cheetah: Against All Odds 13:00 Hooked 14:00 Swamp Men 15:00 World’s Deadliest Animals 16:00 Cheetah Blood Brothers 17:00 Shark Island 18:00 Lion Battle Zone 19:00 Hooked 20:00 Swamp Men 21:00 World’s Deadliest Animals 22:00 Zambezi 23:00 Big Cat Wars (aka Lion vs Cheetah)

00:00 02:00 04:00 06:00 08:00 10:00 12:00 14:00 16:00 PG15 18:00 20:00 22:00

Chicago Overcoat-18 Let Me In-R Tortured-18 Four Brothers-18 Drunken Master-PG15 Restitution-PG15 Game Of Death-PG15 Drunken Master-PG15 Snake In The Eagle’s ShadowGame Of Death-PG15 The Grudge 3-18 Sanctum-18

01:00 Last Ride-18 03:00 Letters To Juliet-PG15 05:00 Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs.

Evil-PG 07:00 Unanswered Prayers-PG15 09:00 Letters To Juliet-PG15 11:00 Africa United-PG15 12:30 Elle: A Modern Cinderella Tale-PG15 14:15 Justice For Natalee HollowayPG15 16:00 My Name Is Khan-PG15 19:00 True Grit-PG15 21:00 The Adjustment Bureau-PG15 23:00 Camp Hope-PG15

00:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 01:00 The Colbert Report 01:30 It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia 02:00 Hung 02:30 American Dad 03:00 Perfect Couples 03:30 Wilfred 04:00 Friends 04:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 05:30 Seinfeld 06:00 Mr. Sunshine 06:30 Dharma And Greg 07:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 08:00 Friends 08:30 Perfect Couples 09:00 Seinfeld 10:30 Dharma And Greg 11:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 12:00 Mr. Sunshine

12:30 Friends 13:00 Seinfeld 13:30 Dharma And Greg 14:00 Wilfred 15:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 16:00 The Colbert Report 16:30 Mr. Sunshine 17:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 18:00 Perfect Couples 18:30 Wilfred 19:00 Cougar Town 19:30 How I Met Your Mother 20:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 21:00 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 21:30 The Colbert Report 22:00 The Big C

00:00 01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 07:00 08:00 08:30 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 22:00 23:00

Grimm The Glades Law & Order: Criminal Intent Once Upon A Time Strike Back Live Good Morning America The Invisible Man Emmerdale Coronation Street The Ellen DeGeneres Show The Martha Stewart Show The View The Glades Once Upon A Time Good Morning America The Invisible Man The Ellen DeGeneres Show Emmerdale Scandal American Idol Downton Abbey Strike Back

00:00 01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 07:30 08:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 12:30 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 16:30 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 22:00 23:00

Falling Skies Law & Order: Criminal Intent Grimm The Glades Once Upon A Time Friday Night Lights Falling Skies Emmerdale Coronation Street Surface Law & Order: Criminal Intent The Glades Once Upon A Time Emmerdale Hot In Cleveland The Ellen DeGeneres Show Surface Falling Skies Emmerdale Hot In Cleveland The Ellen DeGeneres Show Surface Scandal American Idol Downton Abbey Combat Hospital

01:00 03:00 05:00 07:00 09:00 11:00 13:00 18 15:00 17:00 19:00 21:00 23:00

Gridlock’d-18 Julia’s Eyes-18 Carrie-18 So Close-PG15 Age Of The Dragons-PG15 Fighting-PG15 True Justice: Dark VengeanceAge Of The Dragons-PG15 Ladder 49-PG15 Blood Out-18 Rollerball-18 D.E.B.S-18

00:00 The Lightkeepers-PG15 02:00 The Allnighter-PG15 04:00 The Adventures Of Rocky And Bullwinkle-FAM 06:00 The Lightkeepers-PG15 08:00 Kuffs-PG 10:00 Josie And The Pussycats-PG15 12:00 Finding Lenny-PG15 14:00 Flubber-PG 16:00 Josie And The Pussycats-PG15 18:00 Bob Roberts-PG15 20:00 She’s Out Of My League-18 22:00 Pretty Bird-18

01:00 Six Days Seven Nights-PG15 03:00 Another Year-PG15 05:15 A Family Thanksgiving-PG15 07:15 My Sassy Girl-PG15 09:00 Ways To Live Forever-PG15 11:00 Lies In Plain Sight-PG15 13:00 Everybody Wants To Be Italian-PG15 15:00 Freestyle (2010)-PG15 17:00 Ways To Live Forever-PG15 19:00 Chronicles Of Narnia: Voyage Of The Dawn Treader-PG 21:00 The Adjustment Bureau-PG15 23:00 A Nightmare On Elm Street-18

01:00 Super Rugby Highlights 02:00 Trans World Sport 03:00 Super Rugby 06:00 WWE Bottomline 07:00 Premier League Darts 10:30 Super Rugby Highlights 11:30 Trans World Sport 13:30 European PGA Tour Highlights 14:30 European Tour Weekly 15:00 NRL Premiership 17:00 Trans World Sport 18:00 Super Rugby 20:00 WWE NXT 21:00 UFC The Ultimate Fighter 22:00 Live Premier League Darts

00:30 01:00 04:30 05:00 05:30 06:00 07:00 10:00 12:00 12:30 13:00 14:00 14:30 16:30 18:30 19:30 20:30 21:00 21:30 23:30

European Tour Weekly Premier League Darts Futbol Mundial European Tour Weekly Top 14 Highlights Super Rugby Highlights Sevens World Series Adventure Sports Volvo Ocean Race Highlights Top 14 Highlights Trans World Sport European Tour Weekly Super League Scottish Premier League AFL Highlights Trans World Sport Total Rugby SPL Highlights Super Rugby Super Rugby Highlights

01:30 City Centre Races 02:00 City Centre Races 02:30 City Centre Races 03:00 Snooker World Championship 06:00 World Cup Of Pool 07:00 Golfing World 08:00 European PGA Tour Highlights 09:00 European Tour Weekly 09:30 Total Rugby 10:00 Trans World Sport 11:00 Snooker World Championship 14:00 Super Rugby Highlights 15:00 Futbol Mundial 15:30 European Tour Weekly 16:00 Sevens World Series 19:00 Total Rugby 19:30 Golfing World 20:30 European PGA Tour Highlights 21:30 Super League 23:30 Scottish Premier League

00:00 02:00 03:00 06:00 07:00 08:00 09:00 09:30 10:00 10:30 11:30 12:30 15:30 16:30 17:00 19:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

UFC WWE NXT PrizeFighter UFC Unleashed WWE NXT WWE Vintage This Week in WWE UAE National Race Day V8 Supercars Extra V8 Supercars Highlights V8 Supercars Highlights Live AFL Premiership WWE Experience Mobil 1 The Grid UFC The Ultimate Fighter WWE SmackDown WWE Bottom Line UFC The Ultimate Fighter UFC

35

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

stars CROSSWORD 671

STAR TRACK

CALVIN & HOBBES

Aries (March 21-April 19) This is one of your better days this month. The balance is shifting and you are less likely to ignore business situations. You have a strong determination to be helpful and to also seek answers. You also can negotiate a business deal successfully. You are much less assertive at this time. You are socially active, confident and successful with investors’ or other people’s money. Take nothing for granted as far as communication this afternoon. Check and recheck to make sure you were understood and that you understand. You feel great support from those around you. You are most persuasive with others and eloquent in speech and communication. Family, this evening, are full of pleasant surprises. There is a sense of support and harmony.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) You have a natural aptitude for describing the most sensitive areas of the human psyche, a practical psychologist of the first order. You can manage and work with touchy issues today that others will not attempt. You will find yourself mending fences between an irate customer and an employee today or between an employee and employer. You communicate with expert skill and it is stimulating just being with you. You may have trouble accepting responsibilities just now and may rather be enjoying yourself at the expense of any obligations. However, today you will see your obligations through to the end. You have a new incentive and some new ideas that will help to lighten your load. You will help make an older person’s life easier tonight.

POOCH CAFE ACROSS

1. A coarse obnoxious person.

5. A cavity in the mesoderm of an embryo that gives rise in humans to the pleural cavity and pericardial cavity and peritoneal cavity.

10. Any of various long-tailed rodents similar to but larger than a mouse.

13. A communist state in the Caribbean on the island of Cuba.

14. Soreness and warmth caused by friction.

15. A dark-skinned member of a race of people living in Australia when Europeans arrived.

16. Remote in manner.

18. Having fangs.

20. Fleshy spore-bearing inner mass of e.g. a puffball or stinkhorn.

22. The month following July and preceding September.

24. A silvery ductile metallic element found primarily in bauxite.

25. The United Nations agency concerned with atomic energy.

26. A rocking motion v 1.

30. Any of various primates with short tails or no tail at all.

35. A doctor's degree in education.

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

41. A French abbot.

43. (Greek mythology) One of the three Graces.

45. Cubes of meat marinated and cooked on a skewer usually with vegetables.

48. Scandinavian liquor usually flavored with caraway seeds.

52. (Babylonian) God of storms and wind.

55. Tropical American tree grown in southern United States having a whitish pink-tinged fruit.

56. Produced by a manufacturing process.

57. Female ruff v 1.

59. Noisy talk.

60. A primeval personification of air and breath.

61. Wild sheep of northern Africa.

62. A benevolent aspect of Devi.

DOWN 1. A narcotic that is considered a hard drug.

2. A pause during which things are calm or activities are diminished.

3. A slender double-reed instrument.

4. African tree having an exceedingly thick trunk and fruit that resembles a gourd and has an edible pulp called monkey bread.

5. Being ten more than one hundred ninety.

6. 30 to 300 gigahertz.

7. A white soft metallic element that tarnishes readily.

8. Viscera and trimmings of a butchered animal often considered inedible by humans.

9. The food served and eaten at one time.

10. A motley assortment of things.

11. A poplar that is widely cultivated in the United States.

12. A genus of delicate ferns belonging to the family Osmundaceae.

17. A piece of armor plate below the breastplate.

19. Submerged aquatic plant having narrow leaves and small flowers.

21. A shape that sags.

23. A brittle gray crystalline element that is a semiconducting metalloid (resembling silicon) used in transistors.

27. An organization of countries formed in 1961 to agree on a common policy for the sale of petroleum.

28. English monk and scholar (672-735).

29. A soft silvery metallic element of the alkali earth group.

31. Open-heart surgery in which the rib cage is opened and a section of a blood vessel is grafted from the aorta to the coronary artery to bypass the blocked section of the coronary artery and improve the blood supply to the heart.

32. Offering little or no hope.

33. A metric unit of volume or capacity equal to 10 liters.

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

36. The cry made by sheep.

37. Made smaller or less by melting or erosion or vaporization.

38. A white metallic element that burns with a brilliant light.

40. Quieten or silence (a sound) or make (an image) less visible.

42. An official language of the Republic of South Africa.

44. Overgrown with ivy.

46. Mild yellow Dutch cheese made in balls.

47. A Chadic language spoken in northern Nigeria.

49. Wind god.

50. (Islam) The man who leads prayers in a mosque.

51. The basic unit of money in Bangladesh.

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

54. The basic unit of money in Romania.

58. A state in the eastern United States.

Yesterday’s Solution

Gemini (May 21-June 20) Intense, passionate and very personal today, you rush past superficialities and right to the heart of most matters. You will see the results of your hard work, if not today—soon. Given to clear-headed thinking and practical insight, you take a cool appraisal with most opportunities. This permits you to make good choices and limits your risk taking to a minimum. You may find yourself analyzing some new projects today—take your time. Today you will be able to tackle tasks that require real discipline or organization. You will find yourself in a very practical mood—working with, instead of against, yourself. You may have some serious or contemplative moments today. Your confidence is high and your willingness to help others is evident.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) If you give your best effort at work now, great strides can be taken. This is a productive time to be with others and to work together. Romance is available in the workplace, but it would be a good idea to practice discretion. You may look for opportunities to have more power with some project. If you are patient, you will find the right opportunity to put in your request. Your intuition is sharp and this may lead you to new insights. Welcome the trials and opposition of a new financial venture—you are about to find out if your ideas work. You have the mental acuity today to perceive an unusual opportunity. While out with your friends later today, be slow to criticize. There is one who will grind on your nerves just now—relax.

NON SEQUITUR

Leo (July 23-August 22) You excel when it comes to the practical matters. Projects you have been working on for a long time can be completed today.

Events may line up in your favor and push you to new heights of understanding. A promotion or recognition for accomplishments could be forthcoming. You could find that you are appreciated or valued for your feelings as well as your ability to achieve tasks well and quickly. This is possibly a turning point in your career, requiring some careful thought and good judgment. Give yourself plenty of time to think about your life path. Do not sell yourself short. It would be good to pay attention to how you use your energies and find a balance. At home tonight is a good time to talk over any new professional plans with loved ones.

ZITS

Virgo (August 23-September 22) Career choices may indicate a loss of freedom on your part.

Some invisible tag of where you think you should be as opposed to where you enjoy expressing yourself is something to consider just now. Feeling forced to go along if you want to succeed is temporary. Take control back into your life and seek guidance to plan an action, allowing you to follow your dream. Check out junior colleges in your area and take their test to find where you excel. You may be very pleased with the results. If you stay where you are, you must use this time as a stepping stone to reaching your goals. Soon you will be able to make a move in a different direction, with your work. You will look back on this time and have much appreciation for your perseverance.

Libra (September 23-October 22)

MOTHER GOOSE AND GRIMM

You are concerned for others and have a warm way of always making sure no person is left out of important matters or discussions—any discord is short-lived. When and if you are challenged in a work situation, you have many clever ways of finding the right answer. View this time as having an opportunity to show what you have learned over the years. You can have just about anything you want when you communicate carefully and intelligently and know when to back away. You have a keen interest in what makes things tick and who or what pulls the strings. Remember, when dealing with people at work or home, you deal with creatures of emotion—not necessarily creatures of logic—laugh. Tonight you spend time thinking of ways to make your nest egg grow.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) You have a shrewd eye for a bargain and if you are a buyer for a department store or find yourself in a position to purchase a product, you will find the best buy now. Making money for business profit should be easy for you now. Cash flow should be markedly improved now and in the future. Careful, this can give a false sense of security. Sometimes you can become caught up in a buying frenzy and you may want to exercise control over the quantity of purchases. Take criticism and interruptions with the understanding that they help you learn and grow.

You may have a slow start when it comes to hard work these days but you will outlast anyone when it comes to seeing things through to the end. You can really enjoy a special social event tonight.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) You are glad to be back at work today—an ongoing project has your mind stimulated. You could have some interesting travel experiences today or meet some stranger from a foreign country. There is mystery surrounding a new acquaintance as well. If you have a special workplace, you will more than likely have an environment that is instrumental in helping you to have creative inspirations. This could involve having an aquarium or perhaps an array of creative tools. Creative endeavors can help you be quite productive at this time. You are in a good position to communicate concerning groups, co-workers and society in general.

This evening is a good time to get your own needs met as you can be most persuasive with a loved one.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19) If your attitude toward a good challenge is positive, you will do well today. You would be wise to look beyond the circumstances and see the whole picture of a situation. The phase that you are experiencing now emphasizes stability, substance, practicality and the concept of value—value in the material as well as psychospiritual sense. Positive things are happening in the workplace and your personal career path has the likelihood of improving. You are able to use good common sense in the problem-solving subjects that you encounter. Stopping in a natural store to get some fruits and vegetables this afternoon is a good thing. You may decide to purchase a new music CD. A love of music brings this day to a most pleasant conclusion.

To

Yesterday’s Solution Yester

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) You are at your most practical when it comes to dealing and working with others. When your expertise is called upon, you will know just what to do and can act without uncertainty. You may be called upon to solve problems. There may be many instances when you will have to supply a solution to a particular problem. Your influence is at a high point. Be prepared to move in different directions and to work hard. Luck visits you and increases your financial situation today. This evening a cycle of nostalgia begins, emphasizing a need for security and a sense of roots. Family, home, relatives and real estate play a big part in your life at this time. This could include several of your loved ones getting together for board games, etc.

Pisces (February 19-March 20)

Word Sleuth Solution

This is a good day to work and communicate with the opposite sex. Be careful of becoming jealous of other people’s accomplishments—you have your own talents. A need to be respected may become an emotionally charged issue. You have a knack for organizing things and people—a sense of ambition takes hold. You express a strong desire to achieve and excel and these are good work ethics that others admire. Your thoughts and energies are focused on your work today. Shopping may not wise at this time. You also may not find much support for your particular tastes. There is plenty of eagerness for play this afternoon and that could develop into a group physical activity, exercise or sports game: a great way to channel your energy.

36

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

lifestyle G O S S I P

Ex-Miss USA Rima Fakih to be sentenced

ima Fakih, the first Arab-American to be crowned Miss USA, is scheduled to be sentenced in a Michigan drunken driving case. The 26-year-old former beauty queen faces a maximum penalty of 93 days in jail at yesterdayí’s hearing in Highland Park, an enclave of Detroit. Her lawyer has predicted that she will be sentenced to probation. Fakih pleaded no contest last month to driving while visibly impaired. A no contest plea isnít an admission of guilt but is treated as such for sentencing. Fakih has said she wasn’t drinking on the night of her arrest in December, but two police breath tests put her blood alcohol content at more than twice the legal limit. The former Miss Michigan was crowned Miss USA in 2010.

R

Duel ‘Dancing’ elimination sees Fegan, Gilbert depart ancing with the Stars” said goodbye to both Disney actor Roshon Fegan and television actress Melissa Gilbert in the season’s first double elimination on Tuesday night. Neither departure was shocking as both previously showed signs of trouble. On Monday, Gilbert earned the lowest total score from the judges for the second straight week despite a foxtrot that was hailed as her “best dance ever” by judge Carrie Ann Inaba. And just last week, Fegan was up for elimination against Jaleel White, who was eventually sent home. Dancers are judged by a combination of judges’ scores and audience voting. After his elimination on Tuesday, Fegan’s professional partner Chelsie Hightower said he had been “a joy to work with.” For her part, Gilbert had struggled through more than just low scores this season.

Last month, she suffered a mild concussion and whiplash while performing a paso doble, and her relationship with dance partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy also saw its share of ups and downs.

In the end, Gilbert called Chmerkovskiy “an incredible teacher, an incredible friend.” “I can’t even describe what a learning and growing experience this has been,” said Gilbert, who celebrated her 48th birthday Tuesday night. She called the show “a real blessing and a joy.” Musical guest Chris Brown took the stage to perform his single “Turn up the Music” from his upcoming album “Fortune.” Four celebrities will compete in next week’s semi-finals - telenovela actor William Levy, NFL star Donald Driver, singer Katherine Jenkins and TV host Maria Menounos. “Dancing With the Stars” is among the top-rated TV shows in the U.S. pairing B-list celebrities, sports stars and singers with professional dancers performing sambas, waltzes and other dances across a ballroom floor.

“D

Aretha Franklin

going into Gospel Hall of Fame he queen of soul is taking her place in the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.

Aretha Franklin is one of six people who’ll be inducted into the Hall on Aug. 14 in Hendersonville, Tenn. She’ll be joined by bluegrass legend Ricky Skaggs, family group The Hoppers, contemporary Christian singer Dallas Holm, the late TV evangelist Rex Humbard and Christian rock band Love Song. Franklin’s gospel roots run deep, starting with her father who was a prominent Baptist minister. Her 1972 album, “Amazing Grace,” has sold over 2 million copies and is one of the best-selling gospel albums of all time. The Gospel Music Hall of Fame was established in 1971. More than 150 members have been inducted, including Dolly Parton and Elvis Presley.

T

Songwriters Bacharach, David win Gershwin Prize resident Barack Obama is honouring the brainpower behind the unforgettable tunes “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” “Close to You,” and others recorded by artists spanning Dionne Warwick, the Carpenters, Alicia Keys and the cast of “Glee.”

Late yesterday, Obama would present the songwriting duo of Burt Bacharach and Hal David with the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. In the

of ‘ Captain America’ wins new role

Hayley Atwell

P

1960s and beyond, their work produced some of the most popular music for movies, television and recording artists. Stars including Sheryl Crow, Diana Krall and Stevie Wonder will perform in their honor. The concert will be broadcast May 21 on PBS for the series “In Performance at the White House.”

Bacharach says the honour may top his Academy Awards. David is recovering from a stroke and won’t attend.

ayley Atwell of “Captain America: The First Avenger” will be starring in a new film with a somewhat familiar title. Intandem Films said Wednesday that Atwell has been cast in “10 Things I Hate About Life,” a romantic comedy to be written

H

Vanessa Paradis

does not believe in soulmates T

he French actress and singer has been in a relationship with Johnny Depp for 14 years, but has a problem with the terminology of “soulmate” because it feels like there is nothing else to strive for. She said: “I have a problem with the term soulmates, it scares me a lot. It’s such a strong statement - it’s like a marriage contract. “I believe in love and I want to believe that it lasts forever. But I’m like everyone else, you have to take things a day at a time and you can never know what comes next. All you can do is hope and love and live. “When

Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell

list mansion at $11.2m

he Hollywood couple originally listed the beachfront Malibu home for $14.8 million in 2010 after living in it for over 20 years, but failed to make a sale. The house includes four bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms, spread over 4,195 square feet. It was originally built in 1978 but given expensive redesign and upgrade by the couple in 2005. Features include a screening room, a bar, a gym, an office and a detached guest house. The master suite has floor-to-ceiling windows and a beachfront balcony. The home has been listed a number of times in recent years for either rental or sale and in a previous listing it was described by a real estate agent as “a rare and extraordinary offering that transcends time”. Describing the bedroom, the listing read: “A luxurious oceanfront master bedroom suite has awe-inspiring views, a fire-

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and directed by Gil Junger. Junger directed the hit 1999 movie “10 Things I Hate About You,” which starred Heath Ledger, Julia Stiles and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Intandem will produce “10 Things I Hate About Life” with Mad Chance Productions,

according to literary and talent agency APA. The 30-year-old, London-born Atwell was a 2010 Laurence Olivier Awards nominee for the play “A View From the Bridge.” Her other film credits include “The Duchess” and “Brideshead Revisited.”

you say, ‘This is my soulmate,’ it’s almost like saying, ‘ Well, OK, we’re done here.’ “ However, Vanessa - who has two children, Lily-Rose, 12 and Jack, 10, with the ‘Dark Shadows’ actor - does believe strongly in the idea of love because it is “universal”.

She told Stylist magazine: “It’s everything that drives us universally. What love makes us do, what love makes us feel, what we do for love and we do because of love - completely. “Love hurts and love burns. This is why it’s so powerful - it’s such a universal feeling.”

place to warm the soul, Onyx surfaces in the spa-inspired bath area, and a large walk-in closet.” Other features of the house include a designer kitchen, media room, a meditation room, and an exercise room with full bath. Although Goldie and Kurt have been together for almost 30 years, she has previously said they have only considered marrying once, but the three children they raise together told them not to do it.

Goldie explained: “I didn’t want to be married because I did that already, and it didn’t work, so why would I do it again? Kurt felt the same way. We were in love, and at that point in time a piece of paper, to us, didn’t mean anything. “We asked the kids after we’d been together about five years, ‘What do you think, should we get married?’ And they all went, ‘No! We love it!’ So we didn’t get married.” — Agencies

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

lifestyle F E A T U R E S

Indonesian Islamists threaten to stop Lady Gaga show

File photo shows, from left, judge Blake Shelton, host Carson Daly, judge Christina Aguilera, producer Mark Burnett, judge Cee Lo Green, and judge Adam Levine, from the ‘The Voice’, pose for photographers in Culver City, Calif. — AP

US pop star Lady†Gaga†is welcomed by Japanese fans upon her arrival at Narita international airport as part of her Asian tour on May 8, 2012. — AFP

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hardline Islamic group warned yesterday it would not let Lady Gaga set foot in Indonesia, challenging an army of fans awaiting a concert in the nation with the world’s largest Muslim population. The Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) vowed to mobilise 30,000 demonstrators to protest the US artist’s June 3 performance in Jakarta and to intercept her at the airport. “We will stop her from setting foot on our land. She had better not dare spread her satanic faith in this country,” FPI Jakarta chairman Salim Alatas told AFP. “Her style is vulgar, her indecent clothes will destroy our children’s sense of morality. She’s very dangerous,” he said. The US pop diva, famed for her outrageous outfits and provocative performances, has sparked opposition in other Asian countries with her “Born This Way Ball” global tour, which kicked off in Seoul last month amid protests. But the FPI, notorious for making threats and often failing to follow through, will face opposition from 40,000 fans planning to attend the sold-out show in Indonesia.

Little Monsters-as Lady Gaga fans are called-tweeted their determination to see the pop idol perform in Indonesia, 90 percent of whose 240,000 million inhabitants identify themselves as Muslim.

“Little Monsters Indonesia vs FPI. I’m ready to fight,” Bentaniokevin tweeted to the Lady GagaIndo Twitter account.

“What?!! The FPI want to cancel Lady Gaga’s concert? They don’t know art!!

She is the lady of art!! GAGA I’m waitin for you.. See u soon,” nataliahaman tweeted. One page on Facebook, which is wildly popular in Indonesia, was seeking dancers for a Lady Gaga flashmob, which sees people perform a choreographed dance in a public place.

The flashmob is “to show our appreciation to Lady Gaga for planning to visit and to tell others who don’t approve of her that there’s nothing wrong with being her fans,” said Anggiat Sihombing, an 18-year-old university student who set up the LadyGagaIndo account. “We like her because she is a famous musician who makes use of her popularity to do good deeds, like establishing a foundation to protect kids who have been bullied.”

The Lady Gaga Indonesia Facebook page has more than 42,000 “likes”.

Despite the opposition to her tour, the “Poker Face” singer has not toned down her performances-at the Seoul show on April 27 she rode onto the stage on horseback, wearing a black bodysuit and an enormous black metal headpiece.

There were small protests outside the show, with two foreign Christian protestors holding placards that read “Lady Gaga. Go home!”, while about 20 South Korean Christian activists prayed. In the Philippines, a youth organisation urged people to stay away from the star’s May 21 concert, saying it posed a threat to moral values in Asia’s largest Catholic nation.

Sara Watkins’ ‘Sun Midnight Sun’ burns brilliantly

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f Levon Helm’s passing put you in an Americana mood, but you’re not sure younger generations have as much to bring to roots-based music as their elders, proceed directly to the superb sophomore effort by Sara Watkins. Not that “Sun Midnight Sun” will only be a balm to suffering Band fans; it might be the finest album of the year so far in any genre.

Who knew the breakup of Nickel Creek would turn out to be such a boon? The separation of that young bluegrass-pop trio has led to an embarrassment of riches.

Until now, the Punch Brothers, led by Chris Thile, had a claim on the year’s best Americana record, but Thile’s former partner, singer/fiddler Watkins, has grabbed that particular brass ring with a highly accessible set in which nearly every number sounds like a well-worn and beloved standard.

Although virtually all the songs ring that bell of classic familiarity, only two are actual oldies. Watkins joins voices with friend Fiona Apple on a cover of the Everly Brothers’ “You’re the One I Love,” sped up to such a furious tempo that its harmonic terms of endearment sound more angry or accusatory than affectionate. Fiona fans couldn’t ask for a more terrific aperitif before her own upcoming album, even if the frantic duet does clock in at fewer than two minutes.

Jackson Browne joins in on the other resurrection here, “I’m a Memory,” which maintains the uncharacteristic gallop of Willie Nelson’s peppy original recording from the early ‘70s, but brings out a glorious pop hook that Willie never made so evident. It’s the giddiest song you’ll ever hear about missed opportunities and regrets� and your life really should be filled

with remorse if you don’t add this rendition to your permanent collection.

The other outside choice is the single penned by Semisonic-leader-turned-Adeletunesmith Dan Wilson, “If It Pleases You,” a seven-minute mid-tempo rock & roll ballad of emotional realization that might be subtitled “Codependent No More.” The Crazy Horse-style rhythm guitar gives the album its rawest undertones, while Watkins’ own violin wavers between sweetness and a kind of musical crankiness.

The rest of the equally worthy material was written by Watkins alone or in tandem with her co-producer, Blake Mills, a former member of the L.A. country-rock band Dawes. They smartly open the album with a fiddle-based, vaguely Appalachian instrumental, “The Foothills,” which establishes some continuity for Nickel Creek’s old bluegrass fans even as the distortion on the violin teases how Watkins is becoming more a part of the rock community than the bluegrass one.

Their composition “Be There” is as haunting a road ballad as has ever been written by an itinerant musician. “Don’t hang up the phone/Please be there when I get home,” she sings, the tone in her voice making it clear the estrangement has gone on too long for the odds to be good.

“Impossible,” despite its title, sounds just slightly more hopeful in the quest to “untether the ties and the sighs from a heart someone might win/If it isn’t impossible, why couldn’t you be him?”

Watkins hasn’t undergone too drastic a makeover for “Sun Midnight Sun,” although, at 30, she’s a little blonder and, sure, significantly hotter than the teenaged fiddler who first made an impression in Nickel Creek.

More than a mere image change, she’s developed a full-bodied singer/songwriter sensibility while working with a cast of supportive L.A. musicians from Apple to the Heartbreakers’ Benmont Tench, who frequently play with her and brother Sean Watkins at West Hollywood’s Largo club.

Her voice has grown warmer and more expressive, even if she’s also got a measure of cool reserve that neatly augments the music’s essential timelessness.

Although there’s nothing remotely showy about the musical chops or emotions on “Sun Midnight Sun,” Watkins isn’t afraid to pluck at the heartstrings by whatever means necessary, either, be it a handful of well-placed words or a rosin-powdered bow. — Reuters

Former backup singer wins

‘Voice’ honors

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former backup singer for the likes of Alicia Keys moved up to the center stage of US pop music Tuesday when he emerged the winner of season two of the popular, viewer-voted NBC reality talent show “The Voice.” Jermaine Paul, an R&B vocalist coached during the series by country star Blake Shelton, wiped back tears and hugged family members on stage before bringing the curtain down on

the show with a cover of R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly.” “I want to say thank you to everybody that voted for me,” said Paul, who collects a $100,000 prize and a recording contract. He entered the contest in hopes of moving beyond his reputation as a backing vocalists for Keys, Mary J. Blige and Joss Stone. Taking second place was California songstress Juliet Simms, the lone

Review

‘Girl in Progress’

never really grows up T

he strong, sexy presence of Eva Mendes and the girlish perkiness of Cierra Ramirez can only go so far to make the forced mother-daughter dramedy “Girl in Progress” tolerable. It’s a coming-of-age story that knows it’s a coming-of-age story - as in, our young heroine is well aware of the conventions of this kind of tale and goes out of her way to manufacture various rites of passage to expedite her transformation from innocence to womanhood.

Ramirez ’s character, the teenage Ansiedad, literally creates a flow chart in her bedroom and spells out her strategy with her only friend (the sweetly nerdy Raini Rodriguez) - whom she’ll soon cast aside, she declares, because it’s a necessary step in the process.

Breaking down and sending up a specific genre is fine if the script is strong enough to get away with such cutesy self-reference, as in “Juno” and “Easy A.” Director Patricia Riggen and screenwriter Hiram Martinez don’t go far enough, don’t dig deep enough with these characters. They play it too safe, which makes “Girl in Progress” feel like a slightly racier version of an ABC Family show and the flat, overly bright lighting further makes it feel like forgettable television. It certainly doesn’t help that the two main figures are cliches. Mendes’ Grace is the child in the equation, having given birth when she was just 17 and hopping from man to man and town to town ever since. Ansiedad which means anxiety in Spanish - is the

responsible one: Smart, studious and organized, she’s left to scrub the sink full of dishes while her mom’s out with her married gynecologist boyfriend (Mathew Modine, whose character doesn’t have a single perceptible redeeming quality).

Do you think it’s possible that, by the end, they’ll both have learned some lessons and assumed their rightful roles?

Riggen cuts awkwardly and sometimes too quickly between potentially poignant moments and scenes of wacky humor, which undermines her attempts at emotional honesty. Meanwhile, supporting characters who were intended to provide depth merely feel like types Modine’s cold, controlling wife or the kindhearted Mexican immigrant who works alongside Grace at a restaurant.

And in a painfully literal device, Ansiedad’s English teacher (Patricia Arquette) just happens to be explaining the steps in a coming-of-age story as Ansiedad embarks on them. It’s maddening: “Girl in Progress” knows that every teen movie has to have a blowout bash where impor tant events take place, and it can’t even get the tone of that right. This is being marketed as an ideal film for moms and daughters to see together on Mother’s Day weekend.

A long, awkward brunch sounds more fun - and more truthful. — AP

In this film image released by Pantelion Films, Eva Mendes, left, and Cierra Ramirez are shown in a scene from ‘Girl in Progress.’ — AP

female among the four finalists on the show, an American adaptation of a Dutch reality TV contest with contestants mentored by celebrity coaches and ratings that rivalled the more established “American Idol.” Javier Colon, the Latino winner of series one in 2011, went on to record an album that spent just a week on the Billboard 200 charts. Series three is due to air in a few months. — AFP

Travolta lawyer blasts second masseur sex lawsuit

This February 5, 2010 file photo shows US actor John Travolta arriving for the Goldene Kamera 2011 awards of the Axel Springer Verlag publishing house in Berlin, Germany. —AFP

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ohn Travolta’s lawyer on Tuesday dismissed a second lawsuit in two days alleging sexual battery by the Hollywood star on male masseurs, saying it was as “absurd and fictional” as the first. Both lawsuits have been filed by the same attorney, and both fail to identify the alleged victim-and Travolta’s lawyer said the second one was clearly drawn up after the star’s lawyers blasted a hole in the first case. On Monday, a masseur named only as “John Doe,” seeking $2 million in compensation, alleged assault and sexual battery by Travolta of a masseur during a massage session at a Beverly Hills hotel.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles, claimed that the “Saturday Night Fever” and “Pulp Fiction” star met the $200-an-hour masseur in his black Lexus SUV on January 16 this year. The actor took him to a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and had a normal one-hour massagebut then Travolta tried to engage in sexual activity, it said.

But the masseur told Travolta he did not have sex with clients. The 58-year-old actor called him a “loser,” but paid him double the hourly rate and left, the document claimed.

In response to that lawsuit, Travolta’s spokesman pointed out Monday that the actor was not even in Los Angeles, but was on the US East Coast at the time, and called the allegations “a complete fiction and fabrication.”

On Tuesday, Travolta’s lawyer Martin Singer weighed in after similar allegations were made in a second lawsuit, filed by the same lawyer based in Pasadena, just outside Los Angeles. The new lawsuit, filed in the name of “John Doe 1” and “John Doe 2,” and also seeking $2 million, claimed that Travolta tried to engaged in sexual activity with a male masseur on January 28 in a hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. “This second ‘anonymous’ claim is just as absurd and ridiculous as the first one,” Singer said, adding it was clear the lawyer involved had filed the new lawsuit after the date problem with the first action was pointed out.

“It is obvious that he checked media reports that my client was in Atlanta working on a movie,” he said.

“However, the claim by Doe #2 is just as fabricated as the claim by Doe #1.” Travolta’s spokesman said Monday that Travolta will sue the attorney involved and the plaintiff for malicious prosecution.

“Our client will be fully vindicated in court on both of these absurd and fictional claims,” said Singer. The lawyer involved, Okorie Okorocha, was not immediately available for comment.—AFP

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

lifestyle T r a v e l

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tand on the Beverly Hills Hotel’s red carpet, leading into its chandeliered lobby, and you can’t help but visualize a century’s worth of celebrities, royalty, politicians, musicians and actors who have stayed there, from Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor to Madonna, Reese Witherspoon and Katy Perry. The luxury hotel on Sunset Boulevard marks 100 years since it opened May 12, 1912, two years before the city of Beverly Hills itself was built around it. It remains one of the swankiest destinations in Southern California, home to Oscar and Grammy parties and star-filled lunches.

Its breezy, old Hollywood air comes from an incomparable list of superstar guests that has ranged over the decades from Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant and Clark Gable, to John Lennon and Jack Nicholson, to the androgynously elegant Marlene Dietrich, who convinced the hotel’s Polo Lounge restaurant to change its “no slacks for women” dress code in the 1940s.

In his new book “The Beverly Hills Hotel and Bungalows - The First 100 Years,” Robert S. Anderson, the hotel’s official historian and greatgrandson of its founder, tells the hotel’s story, from its beginnings amid acres of bean fields, to the present day, when celebs such as director Sofia Coppola think nothing of stopping by the coffee shop for a bite with friends.

Anderson’s great-grandmother Margaret Anderson - who managed a hotel on the site of what’s now the Hollywood & Highland Center, where the Academy Awards are held - built the Beverly Hills Hotel for $500,000 with architect Elmer Grey. “Elmer Grey designed the hotel in such a way so that every room got sunlight in one point of the day or another,” said Robert S. Anderson during lunch in late April in the Polo Lounge, beneath its green-and-white striped patio ceiling. “An acre of land was set aside for the guests to grow vegetables and flowers while staying here, so they would feel at home. That acre of land now is probably worth $25 million.”

Making its famous guests feel at home, and giving them privacy, have always been part of the hotel’s mission, beginning with silent film-era stars such as Chaplin and Buster Keaton, who shot movies at the hotel. The 1920s Hollywood power couple Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks met at the hotel, then renovated a palatial house above the property. Liz Taylor honeymooned in the hotel’s lavish bungalows with six of her husbands, including Richard Burton. Bungalow Five was one of their favorite hangouts.

Reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes not only lived in the bungalows on and off for 30 years, but starting in 1942, he parked his Cadillac in front of the hotel for so long that plants started growing out of it. He also had hotel staff leave late-night meals, including roast beef sandwiches, in a nearby tree. Monroe stayed in bungalows 20 and 21 in 1960 while reportedly having an affair with her “Let’s Make Love” costar Yves Montand.

Lennon and Yoko Ono stayed in bed for a week in another bungalow. “She was well-behaved, and he wasn’t,” said Anderson, laughing.

“Lennon would sing loud, Irish songs. One night Prince was up here singing to some girl in a suite upstairs, in the ‘80s. People yelled to him, ‘Knock it off!’”

The hotel remains a place where celebrities can let down their hair, attracting the East Coast elite as well as Hollywood locals. But paparazzi, beware. “Stars felt safe here, as they do today,” said Anderson. “For example, even getting through the front door. If you’re wielding a heavy-duty camera, they ask you what the hell you’re doing.”

Four stories high, surrounded by acres of gardens and flowers, the hotel evokes a lush Mediterranean fantasy island, decorated with banana leaves, palm fronds and fuchsia azaleas. In the 1940s, AfricanAmerican architect Paul Williams designed the hotel’s looping hand-

written script logo and redesigned the Polo Lounge, which had previously been called El Jardin. Williams also designed the more casual Fountain Coffee Room below the lobby, which still has a curved dark counter and green banana leaf wallpaper. The hotel was nicknamed the “Pink Palace” after being painted a salmon hue in 1948 to reflect light shades of the sunset.

Some things have changed, of course. Gone are stables for guests’ horses; the school, movie theater, billiard room and bowling alley that were once downstairs; and fox hunts that were staged in nearby barren hills. There have also been financial ups and downs. The Great Depression forced the hotel to close in 1933 and reopen 10 months later under the ownership of Bank of America before being sold again later, according to Anderson’s book. The Sultan of Brunei has owned the hotel, part of the worldwide Dorchester Collection, since 1987.

In 1992, the hotel closed for a $100 million restoration, reopening in 1995. Today it has more than 200 rooms and suites, including 23 private bungalows big enough to accommodate staffs and families. Five bungalows date to 1915, while new presidential bungalows unveiled last year include outdoor rain showers. Rooms, decorated with peachy marble bathroom floors and green granite countertops, now run upwards of $500 a night. Cocktails at the Polo Lounge, 15 cents in 1944, now start at $17. But spotting A-listers at the hotel remains a regular occurrence, whether in the Polo Lounge, the Cabana Cafe, Bar Nineteen12 overlooking the hotel’s citrus garden, or down a winding staircase to the enormous art deco Crystal Ballroom.

A celebration of the centennial is planned for June 15-17 to benefit the Motion Picture Television Fund, with a filmmaker panel, an evening party hosted by director Brett Ratner and a Polo Lounge brunch hosted

by Warren Beatty and DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Regular folks who want a taste of the anniversary can try drinks from “These Walls Are Talking” cocktail menus featuring drinks such as “100 Year Sidecar,”“The Rat Pack” and “The Norma Jean.”

In a new film timed to the anniversary celebration, directed by

File photo shows Robert S Anderson, author and Beverly Hills Hotel historian, posing for a portrait in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif.

—AP photos Chuck Workman, Michael Douglas mused about the hotel’s nostalgic appeal to both celebs and those without Hollywood ties. “I’ve been going to the Beverly Hills Hotel for over half of its life. You feel timeless,” said the actor. “There’s a thoughtfulness that makes you feel like you’re coming home. It could be 50 years ago, except of course for the cell phones. — AP

In this 1938 image released by Beverly Hills Collection, the pool at The Beverly Hills Hotel is seen upon completion.

In this image released by Beverly Hills Collection, actors Gregory Peck, left, and Lauren Bacall are seen while shooting the film “Designing Woman” at The Beverly Hills Hotel.

Marilyn Monroe is seen at The Beverly Hills Hotel.

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Nathan Myhrvold with Chris Young and Maxime Bilet-a sixvolume, 2,400-page series on the cutting-edge cooking techniques-the year’s best cookbook.

ing perfectionists. They are the hallmarks of these best-ofthe-best chefs,” Ungaro said.

Recent winners include Grant Achatz and Jose Andres, who are known for their molecular gastronomic techniques. Dan Barber, who won the top chef prize in 2009, said the role of chefs has grown beyond the kitchen. They have become active participants in the discussion about healthful eating by connecting it with wholesome, flavorful food. “Chefs could really shine a light on it(healthful eating)in the context of delight and pleasure,” Barber said.

“That’s a very inspiring message in the long term. This is only the beginning. We have a very delicious future.”

— Reuters

wiss-born Daniel Humm won the top US chef prize on Monday, with the group that hands out the most prestigious US culinary awards celebrating its 25th anniversary as interests in food and cooking scale fresh heights around the world.Humm is among the youngest winners of the James Beard Foundation’s outstanding US chef award. Critics on both sides of the Atlantic have regarded Humm as one of the brightest up-and-coming culinary talents.

His New York City restaurant Eleven Madison Park, where Humm became executive chef in 2006, won the foundation’s best restaurant award just a year ago. Since then, the eatery has racked up other top awards for its innovative menu and superb service. “Daniel Humm’s architect dad, who wanted him to follow in his footsteps, must be so proud and glad he decided to bring his creativity to a chef’s table rather than a drafting table,” said Susan Ungaro, president of the James Beard Foundation about the prize-winning chef.

“We couldn’t be happier that he is adding James Beard ‘Outstanding Chef’ Award to his mantle of prestigious awards.” Last month, the Michelin three-star restaurant was ranked the world’s 10th best in the S. Pellegrino and Acqua Panna World’s 50 Best Restaurants survey.

Humm defeated David Chang of New York’s Momofuku Ssam Bar, Gary Danko of Restaurant Gary Danko in San Francisco, Paul Kahan of Blackbird in Chicago, Donald Link of Herbsaint in New Orleans and Nancy Silverton of Pizzeria Mozza in Los Angeles. Boulevard in San Francisco, known for its high-end American cuisine, was crowned outstanding US restaurant, while Next in Chicago with its changing, experimental menu was awarded best new restaurant.

The “Rising Star” honor for chefs under 30 went to Christina Tosi of Momofuku Milk Bar in New York. Another female chef, Mindy Segal of Mindy’s HotChocolate in Chicago, nabbed the honor of the top US pastry chef. Last Friday, the foundation named “Modernist Cuisine” by

Twenty-five year anniversary The group, whose name is a tribute to American food writer James Beard, was founded in 1986 with the goal to recognize and preserve American food history and traditions. In addition to its awards, the foundation marked its 25-year anniversary with “Best of the Best,” which launched on Monday. The book’s author Kit Wohl profiled nearly all the chefs that won the foundation’s annual best chef award.

“They are all still very celebrated, well-known chefs and are still accomplishing great things,” said Ungaro. Many of the chefs are seen regularly on television. Several of them including Wolfgang Puck-the only one who has won the foundation’s best chef award twice-operate restaurants around the world. “They are all imaginative, forward-think-

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012

lifestyle T r a v e l

The Golden Gate Bridge is shown at Fort Point.

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he Golden Gate Bridge is turning 75 this year. And what a historic span it’s been. Big, bold and orange, the bridge is a beloved symbol of San Francisco and one of the most instantly recognizable landmarks in the world. But for all its photogenic qualities, the bridge is a uniquely accessible icon. You can drive across, walk across, bike across, sail beneath it, or even scream over it in a daring display of aerial acrobatics. (OK, to do that last thing, you’d have to be in the Navy’s Blue Angels elite flying squad during Fleet Week.)

Bicyclists are shown on the Golden Gate Bridge.

The public can also celebrate the bridge’s three-quarters of a century by taking part in many events scheduled from now through the fall, including art exhibits, film screenings, tours and talks. The biggest celebration takes place on the anniversary of its opening date, May 27.

In addition, organizers are inviting the public to share personal stories and photos of the bridge online at http://goldengatebridge75.org/celebrate/share-stories-photos.html .

“Everybody has a unique experience of the bridge,” says Mary Currie, public affairs director for the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District. Hers came as a 14-year-old on a family vacation from the East Coast. “I remember being completely mesmerized and just incredibly blown away and amazed at the size and magnitude of the bridge. I don’t what that grace and beauty is that draws you in, but it draws you in.”

Here are some details on activities, events and history related to the Golden Gate Bridge’s 75th birthday.

Experience it: Sure, it’s pretty, with elegant, brilliantly orange arms above the aqua shimmer of the San Francisco Bay. But this is no remote Mona Lisa of a landmark. Part of the appeal of the Golden Gate Bridge lies in how fully it can be experienced.

Mass transit: If you want to walk across, you may want to take mass transit, as there’s not much parking nearby. To get to the bridge from downtown, you can take either Golden Gate Transit or Muni buses. From the downtown/financial district take GGT Routes 10, 70, 80 or 101, travelling north. If you’re in Union Square, walk to the intersection of Fifth and Mission, find the bus stop in front of the Old Mint Building and take any GGT bus. For Muni, take Routes 20, 45, 22 or 28 from the downtown/financial district. More information on transit options can be found at http://goldengatebridge.org/visitors/directions.php .

On foot: Once at the bridge, pedestrians can access the East Sidewalk (the one facing San Francisco) from approximately sunrise to

sunset. This sidewalk is for bikes and pedestrians, which means a certain amount of cooperation is required. No pets except service animals, no roller skates or skateboards. The West Sidewalk, which is for bikes only, has been closed due to construction but reopens May 18.

By bike: A number of companies in San Francisco, including Blazing Saddles, http://www.blazingsaddles.com/san-francisco.aspx, offer bike rentals and/or organized tours. Visitors can ride across the bridge to the pleasant seaside town of Sausalito and then return by ferry.

Fun facts: The bridge is not named for its color, but for the Golden Gate Strait, which is the entrance by water to San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. The bridge was painted orange partly for aesthetic reasons and party to increase visibility in the fog.

When it opened, the Golden Gate Bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the world, a status it retained until the VerrazanoNarrows Bridge opened in New York City in 1964. Two billion-plus vehicles have made the trip between San Francisco and Marin County since 1937. The bridge has only been closed three times due to weather, but it is often partly shrouded in fog, and its fog horns can sound for hours a day during the area’s foggy summer season.

The bridge was unscathed by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which was centered 60 miles away, but it is being retrofitted to protect it from future quakes.

Pop culture: The Golden Gate Bridge has been in many movies. It served as a picturesque backdrop for Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak’s tensely romantic first meeting in “Vertigo” in 1958 and was nearly decimated by a falling Romulan drill-of-death in 2009’s “Star Trek.” It also made the cover of “Rolling Stone” magazine for a 1976 story about San Francisco-based rockers; Events: Numerous film screenings, tours, exhibits and other activities are being held around San Francisco this year to mark the bridge’s birthday. A calendar of events can be found at http://www.goldengatebridge75.org .

The biggest public celebration is scheduled for Sunday, May 27, with events at multiple venues along a four-mile stretch of waterfront from Fort Point at the south anchorage of the bridge to Pier 39 at Beach Street and The Embarcadero. Bridge sidewalks will be closed at approximately 6 pm and reopen after the fireworks cap off the evening at 9:30 pm. Fireworks will be viewable along the waterfront from Fort Point to Marina Green East.

Before the bridge: Learn about the history of the bridge before its construction through an exhibit of photos, maps, charts, drawings, paintings and computer graphics along with a natural, nautical and military soundscape, at Montgomery Street Barracks, Building 103, next to Main Post Green, 103 Montgomery Blvd., http://www.presidio.gov , May 23-Nov 18, Wednesdays-Sundays, 11 am-5 pm. Gallery 1 traces the history of the Golden Gate Straight and Gallery 11 explores two centuries of harbor defense and the building of the bridge.

File photo shows a group of women walking across the Golden Gate Bridge as its shadow falls onto San Francisco Bay in San Francisco. — AP photos Fisherman’s wharf: Several events are planned at Fisherman’s Wharf May 26-27. Music, historic images, vintage automobiles from 1937 and maritime history exhibits will be on display at the Hyde Street Pier. At Pier 45, join the crew of the Jeremiah O’Brien celebrating the bridge anniversary on their Seamen’s Memorial Cruise May 27 (boarding 9 am, departure 10 am, return 2 pm, adults $125, children 516, $75, family of two adults and two children $325, http://www.ssjeremiahobrien.org/events.php ).

Swing out: Get into the musical mood of the 1930s at Pier 39 with Fil Lorenz Orchestra swing band. Free swing dance lessons provided in the entrance plaza. There’ll also be dancing to more contemporary tunes; May 27, 2 pm to 9:30 pm, free, Beach Street and The Embarcadero, http://www.pier39.com .

Watch: Bring a blanket or a low lawn chair to the Presidio for an outdoor screening of “It Came from Beneath the Sea,” the 1955 sci-fi movie in which a giant, radioactive octopus takes out a chunk of the bridge after engaging in hand-to-tentacle combat with the military and assorted others. Food trucks and live music, May 26, 6-10 pm, Main Post Green, Presidio.

Tragic endings: One tragic aspect of Golden Gate history: Hundreds of people have leapt to their deaths from the bridge. The Bridge Rail Foundation, which is devoted to stopping the suicides, is staging an exhibit May 27 at the far west end of Crissy Field, near the Warming Hut on the Presidio, 11 am -5 pm, using more than 1,500 pairs of shoes to represent lives lost.

Debate on how to prevent suicides has been ongoing since the first death the year the bridge opened. Fencing has been proposed but never built. The bridge’s Board of Directors has approved putting a steel net below the bridge, but funding has yet to be arranged. — AP

A logo marking the 75h annivsary is painted on the restored Round House at the Golden Gate Bridge.

Maybe not tomorrow, but soon: Casablanca’s old core crumbles

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A picture taken on April 18, 2012 shows buildings, built in the 1930s, in the European district of Casablanca.

hen the French seized Casablanca in the early 1900s, they turned the historic Moroccan port into a classic of colonial architecture that would be immortalised in the 1942 namesake film. In the decades since the release of “Casablanca”, real-estate development and property speculation have reshaped the city into one bearing little resemblance to its movie depiction and preservationists are increasingly fretting about what will become of the crumbling French colonial facades, neo-Moorish details and Art Deco hotels. “We’ve got to act fast,” said Karim Rouissi, vice-president of Casamemoire, an association to protect the city’s old buildings. “There are buildings that are in a state of advanced disrepair.”

The old Lincoln Hotel is a case in point. Created in 1916 by the French architect Hubert Bride a few metres from the central market, the Arabesque Art Deco building was used by American spies during World War II. The hotel closed in 1989 and today is in ruins, with only its facade surviving though this too is breaking apart. Rouissi says much of Casablanca was built as an experiment in early 20th century urban planning and today there are about 4,000 buildings in need of help. Real-estate developers often look to buy historic properties, tear them down and build more modern apartment buildings through which they can charge higher rents and recoup expenses. Part of the problem, Rouissi said, is that tenants in existing apartment buildings pay

very low, fixed rents and landlords are only able to remove tenants if they pay a hefty relocation cost of about 50,000 euros ($66,000).

Developers have been known to have a cosy relationship with local officials and building demolitions are sometimes rubber-stamped. “Rebuilding is done at the expense of the city and its heritage,” said Rouissi, whose association is hoping Casablanca will be ranked as a UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage Site.

Though local authorities have been slow to act in the past and there is no national strategy to preserve architectural heritage, they are becoming more responsive to preservationist pleas, Rouissi said. Some of the city’s rapid redevelopment can be seen along the Boulevard Mohamed V, one of the city’s oldest roads.

Today, much of the street has become a construction site for a future tram line, though architecture buffs still flock to the area to look at old buildings. —AFP

File photo shows the Wilaya’s headquarters in Casablanca, designed by French architect Marius Boyer between 1928 and 1936.—AFP photos