11th Nov

CR IP TI ON BS SU

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

Egypt Muslim Sisters rise with conservative vision

Husband arrested in US killing of Iraqi woman

Gunfight at Sri Lanka’s biggest prison kills 27

Ulsan thump Al Ahli to be crowned kings of Asia

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ALL FIRED UP!

40 PAGES

NO: 15624

150 FILS

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www.kuwaittimes.net

THUL HIJJAH 26, 1433 AH

Fireworks light up skies in dazzling display, set new record

Max 34º Min 18º High Tide 09:08 & 21:16 Low Tide 03:03 & 14:36

Amir warns against sedition, urges unity, democracy

KUWAIT: Fireworks light up the skies to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the constitution on the Arabian Gulf Road yesterday. (Inset) HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah addresses the nation on this occasion. — Photos by Yasser Al-Zayyat / KUNA (See Page 3)

Royals accused of criticizing govt released KUWAIT: Kuwait has released two members of the Al-Sabah ruling family after holding them for two days allegedly over tweets deemed critical of the government, they said on Twitter yesterday. Sheikh Abdullah Salem Al-Sabah was released late on Friday, while Sheikh Nawaf Malek Al-Sabah was freed yesterday afternoon. “I asked them (police) to refer me to the public prosecution to defend myself from the horrifying accusations, but they insisted that I sign a pledge and they released me,” late Friday, Sheikh Abdullah said on Twitter.

Sheikh Nawaf’s lawyer Khaled Al-Suwaifan said yesterday that his client was released but provided no details. Sheikh Abdullah said he was questioned by the secret service police on accusations of insulting HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah and instigating against the regime. He is the grandson of the Amir’s half-brother, the late Sheikh Abdullah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah.

Continued on Page 13

KUWAIT: Kuwait yesterday marked the golden jubilee of its constitution with a spectacular KD 4.16-million ($15-million) fireworks display which earned the state a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. “I am happy to verify that with 77,282 fireworks, a new Guinness world record has been set tonight” in Kuwait City, a representative of Guinness World Records announced on Kuwait television at the end of the display. Tens of thousands of Kuwaitis and expatriates filled

Schools off!

KUWAIT: On the instructions of HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad AlSabah, the Information Ministry announced late yesterday that all schools and universities will be closed today on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the promulgation of the constitution.

the seaside Arabian Gulf Road where the one-hour fireworks and laser display was staged to mark the 50th anniversary of the constitution. On Nov 11, 1962, the late Amir Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem AlSabah promulgated the constitution for Kuwait to become the first Arab state in the Gulf to issue a constitution and have a parliament.

Ahead of the celebration, HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah reiterated in a televised speech the government’s

unwavering commitment to democracy and called for national unity as the state goes through a bitter political crisis. The celebration came as the government and opposition are locked in one of the worst showdowns in Kuwait’s history, amid accusations by the opposition that the government has staged a coup against the constitution. The opposition is marking the constitution anniversary with a huge rally in Irada Square today.

Continued on Page 13

CIA chief Petraeus quits over affair Resignation shocks Washington WASHINGTON: Washington was in shock yesterday after the sudden resignation of CIA chief and ex-US commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, David Petraeus, handing another major challenge to President Barack Obama just three days after his re-election. Petraeus said he resigned over an extramarital affair, bringing an ignominious end to a highly praised military and government career. It also came shortly before the US spy chief had been due to testify in Congress on the agency’s alleged failure to protect a US consulate in Libya from a deadly attack.

“After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair,” the CIA director said in a message to staff, released to the media Friday. Obama, in a written statement, acknowledged Petraeus’ departure, praising his “intellectual rigor, dedication, and patriotism”. But at the same time, he expressed confidence that the Central Intelligence Agency “will continue to thrive and carry out its essential mission” without the famed general.

Continued on Page 13

(Left) In this June 29, 2012 file photo, Gen David Petraeus testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Right) In this Jan 15, 2012 photo, Paula Broadwell, author of Petraeus’ biography “All In”, poses for photos in Charlotte, North Carolina. — AP

in the

news

UAE frees hundreds of debtors from jail DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates has released from prison around 290 people convicted of bouncing cheques, the state news agency said yesterday, the latest step by one of the world’s richest countries to help its citizens deal with their debts. Signing cheques without sufficient funds to back them is a criminal offence under UAE law. The state news agency said authorities have given certificates to those released from jail protecting them from future criminal prosecution over their cases. However, an official said creditors could still try to recover debts through civil courts. The latest amnesty does not extend to all debtors. A number of foreigners, most of them real estate developers and businessmen who worked in Dubai during its economic boom several years ago, remain in prison after being convicted and sentenced over bounced cheques.

Bahrain deploys elite forces against unrest

SAMAHIJ, Bahrain: A Bahraini Shiite protestor ducks as a tear gas canister fired by riot policemen flies overhead during clashes following the funeral of 16-yearold Ali Abbas Radhi in this village yesterday. — AFP

MANAMA: Bahrain’s main opposition group said the kingdom’s paramilitary National Guard is deploying to back up police as authorities try to quell rising political violence.

Wider use of the Guard could signal a tougher strategy by Bahrain’s Sunni embattled monarchy as riot police struggle to contain the Shiite majority’s 21-month uprising. Hadi AlMusawi, a spokesman for Al Wefaq, says Guard troops were seen yesterday setting up in Sitra, a center of the revolt. Previously, Guard forces - separate from the regular military - have been used mainly at key sites in the capital Manama. Heavy clashes erupted yesterday after the funeral of a teenager killed in a traffic incident during a clampdown on marchers the day before. Ali Radhi was killed as he headed to Diraz village, west of Manama, to attend prayers led by Shiite spiritual leader Sheikh Issa Qassim, in response to a call by Al-Wefaq, the main Shiite opposition formation said on its Twitter page.

4 killed in Iran train derailment TEHRAN: Four people were killed and 26 injured late on Friday when a train derailed in central Iran, the official IRNA news agency reported. The service from the southeastern city of Zahedan to the capital had 324 passengers on board, the news agency quoted the head of Iran’s Red Crescent rescue corps, Mahmoud Mozafar, as saying. “A passenger train was derailed near the city of Yazd on Friday night.

Unfortunately a passenger and three train crew were killed,” Mozafar said. State TV quoted provincial Governor Mohammad Reza Falahzadeh as saying yesterday those killed included two train operators and two passengers. Falahzadeh said the injured have been rushed to hospitals in Yazd. Derailments are rare in Iran but in 2004 a freight train carrying fuel and fertiliser derailed and exploded near the northeastern city of Neishabour, killing 289 people.

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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

LOCAL

‘Run for Good’ to raise funds for Pumps 4 Kids campaign Stage set for half marathon

By Nawara Fattahova KUWAIT: Practicing sports and raising money for charity at the same time is a great idea, and people can do so by participating in the Kuwait Charity Run half marathon ‘Run for Good’ that will be held on Novr 17, 2012. The participation fees paid by the runners will go to raise funds for Pumps 4 Kids Campaign.

Kuwait Charity Run (KCR) is a non-profit group founded by four avid female runners, Jana Al-Naqeeb, Ghada Khalaf, Nadia Akil, and Marie Moline, to support local charities and increase community awareness in Kuwait. “Our Goal is to encourage community members, companies and athletes to raise funds and awareness for charitable causes and to increase overall participation in outdoor sports activities,” Jana Al-Naqeeb, Co-Founder of KCR, said.

“We started running in 2008 and participated at the Dead Sea Marathon. It was then that we thought of making the idea work in our country, and founded the KCR. We do this on the side as a matter of passion, even as we all have our work, families and so on. This is our second year to organize this half marathon. We have chosen the half distance to make it easier for people to participate. Then there is also the 10 km marathon that anyone can participate in,” she added.

Last year this event was held on March 19, 2011, but this year they postponed it to November. “Our first half marathon raised fund for Bayt Abdullah Children’s House, the first charity for which we raised money. It

was the perfect timing to offer them money as they were wrapping up preparations for launching their remaining needs. Last year’s half marathon was very successful, as our target was 600 participants while more than 800 actually participated. In all, we raised KD 57,000. The participating fee is a donation for charity, plus we raise money from companies. The sponsor pays the cost of the event only,” stressed Al-Naqeeb.

“For instance, last year MacDonald’s gave wheel chairs, while another company donated Microwave ovens. So, the donations could be in kind or cash. Last year, we organized one km run for kids a day before the race, making the day enjoyable, but unfortunately, this year, we don’t have the time for that. This year’s donations will go to buy insulin pumps for kids with diabetes (Pumps4Kids campaign). We are working under the umbrella of Dasman Institute and the Red Crescent. We will also raise some money for helping k’sPath for animals,” she explained.

The participation fee is KD 15 for both the half marathon and the 10 km race which is a donation for charity. “The event will be held at the same place as last year, starting from the Marina Crescent till the Green Island and back for the 10 km marathon, while the half marathon will continue till the Amiri Hospital and back.

I would like to thank the Marina World who gave us the venue for free for charity. At the Marina Crescent, there will be the Expo village, containing all booths, with food water, and the stage,” she stated.

First two winners from both genders will be given

Nadia, Jana, Abdullah, Ghada and Marie prizes and gifts. “Also random or group runners will win gifts through a raffle for registration like last year.

Family members can wait for the runners at the end line. They can also wear costumes to have fun and encourage group runs. Both runs will start at 8 am sharp, and it will be better to reach before the start to soak it in all. We will be lining them up 21 km first, then 10 km, then mothers or fathers with kids,” noted AlNaqeeb.

“There will be six water stations while medical assistance will be at hand with the help of volunteers from the academy medical student body at Kuwait University. The medical assistants will provide first aid and so on. There will be energy drinks, bananas and other stuff available as we want to encourage families and friends to come and enjoy the outdoor activity,” she said. Registration can be done online on the website. People can fill up a form and pay by k-net, or they

can register personally at the Nike stores in all of 360 Mall, Discovery Mall, Bedea Store, Souq Sharq and the airport. For international runners, we have appointed travel agency National Aviation Services (NAS) to handle international registration who can book hotel and transportation for them. Registration will be closing by Thursday, November 15 at 4:00 pm online, and on Wednesday 11 am at the stores.

On Friday, the participants should come to the Marian to collect the race kit which is a free bag. Inside the bag, runners will find the race program, runners’ checklist, and their bib number attached to it with a disposable timing chip that will measure each participant’s time as they cross the finish line. Their results will be printed as soon as they finish the race as per professional standards. Also in the bag, they will find wrist bands to be worn all the time. Every registered runner will get a medal, free meal from diet center and other privileges.

Run

Start

Warm up

Jana and the police

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

LOCAL

KUWAIT: Fireworks light up the skies to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the constitution on the Arabian Gulf Road yesterday. — AP

Kuwait marks golden jubilee of constitution’s ratification Colourful celebration on Gulf Road

By Nawara Fattahova

— Photos by Foud Al-shaikh and Joseph Shagra.

KUWAIT: Kuwait celebrated the 50th anniversary of the ratification of Kuwait’s Constitution with His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah leading a massive and colourful seaside celebrations that won a place in the Guinness World Records for over KD 4,063,000 million worth of fireworks used.

The celebration was held yesterday from 2:30 pm to 10 pm at the seaside, which was open to the pedestrians only from the Kuwait Towers to the Green Island, thus making it a 4.5 km long celebratory stretch. Vehicles were not allowed to enter this area, and the organizing committee had made transportation arrangements from multiple points. The organizing committee expected an audience between 800,000 and one million.

The celebration included various activities to entertain the whole family. During the daytime, there were airplane shows and sea shows apart from parachute, acrobatic, and kite shows. Furthermore, a photo exhibition was held at the special tunnel set at the Green Island for this purpose. In addition, short speeches about the constitution, freedom, and pride were made by different personalities.

The evening part was the most important, as it featured the huge fireworks show that was registered

in the Guinness Book. “These mega fireworks took off from different locations within the celebration area from both the sea and the land, enabling everyone to watch them from wherever they happened to be,” Khadeeja from the organizing committee of the celebration told the Kuwait Times.

“HH the Amir had noticed the positive reaction of the people and their happiness with the fireworks show that was presented on the National Day and Liberation Day celebrations. So HH decided to organize an even bigger show for the public so that they can enjoy it despite all the recent problems that we witnessed recently,” Khadeeja added.

People waived Kuwaiti flags of different sizes as they enjoyed the pleasant weather which helped in making this celebration successful.

Huge number of expatriates attended the event as well. The entire event was broadcast live on both the Kuwait TV channel 1 and KTV 2 in addition to other private channels. Also two radio stations were also broadcasting live.

The area was divided into different zones, and policemen along with emergency response teams were present in these zones. The organizers had set up a hotline manned by five staff members and working all through the day to provide any information to the public.

Top priority to development, rights, reform KUWAIT: Muna Al-Fuzai, Kuwait Times columnist and social activist, issued a press statement yesterday on her decision to run in the Parlaimentary elections scheduled to be held early next month.

The statement said: “ I have decided to run in the Parliamentary elections because I believe at this stage in the life of Kuwait, we have to consider the need to implement the laws and this should be our goal to confront corruption and pursue the

path of development. “I am very much keen to work on human development by bringing reforms in our education system, and our formal media messages. At the same time, I really want to pursue economic development. It has been 20 years since we last witnessed a development project.

“We have been stuck in a vicious cycle of one after the other crises caused by some former MPs and conservative groups for years. I think right now we have a historic opportunity to bring in

new ideas and thoughts and infuse a new blood into the political scene by availing a right given to us by the constitution and the law.

“I am also a human rights activist and I believe that becoming an MP will provide me with the right platform to call for a serious reform in this regard. I believe this chapter has caused some damage to the Kuwaiti government and to us as citizens. I need real reforms and that is why I have decided to run.”

Muna Al-Fuzai

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

LOCAL kuwait digest

kuwait digest

False pretention exposed

‘Traitors’ tear society apart

By Abdullatif Al-Duaij

By Abdul-Aziz Al-Fadhli

o you know that the government never violated a constitutional article since the Liberation - not even a single one? Let me paraphrase. The government did not enforce the constitution as it was supposed to, and did not follow the principles of democracy as it should have. This is an undeniable fact, just as this one that the government never violated an article of the constitution. On the other hand, the current opposition excelled in tearing to shreds the constitution and stomping on the principles of democracy in the parliament. Not only that, in recent years it even started attacking the legal principles by distorting regulations and questioning court orders.

The government never violated a constitutional article, whereas the new opposition continue to mess with public freedoms and personal rights in violation of article 30 of the constitution (personal liberty is guaranteed) such as by intervening in personal gatherings and celebrations and banning events as being ‘unreligious’. They were behind the forced gender-based segregation of college students not only in Kuwait University, but also in private institutes despite the fact that article 40 of the constitution they so vehemently claim to be protecting states that ‘parents are responsible for raising their children’.

Only in totalitarian and dictatorial states do the governments control the young and raise them idolizing and bowing before icons. They separated between Muslims and non-Muslims in a clear violation of article 29 of the constitution, and would have gone on to even separate Sunni and Shiite Muslims if it wasn’t for the Constitutional Court verdict that annulled the disastrous 2012 parliament. And when the government protected the most important democratic principle, freedom of expression, by rejecting a draft law under which those offending religious figures were to be sentenced to death, the opposition which had proposed it in the first place accused them of ‘violating the constitution’.

The government never violated the constitution since the Liberation, while others not only have done that, but also broke the laws and went as far as violating principles of governance. They spread accusations without proof, and judged their competitors without evidence. They applauded verdicts when they were in line with their wishes, and questioned the judiciary when rulings went against their desires. — Al-Qabas

raitor’ is a word used by some people these days to describe those who have opinions different from theirs on national issues, not knowing the seriousness of this term.

The use of words like treason to describe the action of citizens who went out to in participate in protest marches against the decree that alters the voting mechanism has not only reached unacceptable levels, but has also started elicit counter effects.

Motivated by sectarian and individual interests, these words which imply disrespect towards those who have different opinions, tear the society apart and send out a signal that one party is patriotic while others are traitors.

We are sick of hearing the same allegations, repeated ad nauseam, that the protest gatherings are being supported by Gulf states or that these are being organized as part of a Muslim Brotherhood plot to take over power or even being part of a large international plot which spawned the Arab Spring revolutions.

I wonder whether those who claim to be patriotic and accuse others of treason have seen anyone raise any other but Kuwait’s flag during the demonstrations. Have they heard someone chant statements that imply loyalty to foreign parties?

Did anyone call for the ruling system to be overthrown? If not, then on what basis do they accuse the demonstrators of treason?

I cannot find any other way to describe those who accuse the opposition of treason except to say that they themselves are traitors who are actually working on behalf of others, or simply people who only repeat like a parrot what their masters tell them to say.

They realize that the opposition stands between them and their illegally gotten profits. I never doubted for a moment that the people who went out in marches were motivated by their loyalty to their country and concern about its interests and future. The proof lies in their commitment to keep their gatherings peaceful as evident from the pictures and footage taken there, including a picture showing a demonstrator volunteering to help an officer who suffered an eye injury due to use of teargas.

Many countries wish they had young people with such love and loyalty to their country as Kuwait has. Just watch what happens during demonstrations in other countries to realize how pure the hearts of Kuwait’s youth are.

Every time Kuwaiti young men and women stage a march, they are met with teargas, smoke bombs, batons and arrests by special task forces. I believe that the security option is never a solution to the problem or the crisis, and it is important to look for a way by which the agitation can be resolved with minimal loss.

Gatherings might continue, and could feature other forms of protests if marches prove unsuccessful as long as they remain within the framework of peaceful protests. — Al-Rai

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In my view

The single vote

By Riyadh Al-Adasani n electoral system in which a voter is entitled to a single vote is workable in countries that have political parties such as the United Kingdom and Australia, in which a candidate represents a party. In Kuwait, this system is considered an obstacle to democracy as it allows candidates to be elected by minority votes, and leads to scattering of votes which results in candidates winning by a very little number of votes, something that can encourage vote buying.

When the constitution endorses more freedoms, how can the voter’s right be reduced from being entitled to four votes to only one? Not to mention that voters were free to vote for one and up to four candidates. While the change in the voting mechanism was made via an emergency decree as per article 71 of the constitution, there are many interpretations of how the urgency behind this decree can be assessed. The constitution leaves it open for anyone to approach the Constitutional Court to settle differences by interpreting a constitutional article.

However, I am not here to express reservation about the single vote system per se, as I would have taken the same position and joined the boycott of the elections even if voters were made to vote for ten candi-

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dates. The law which divides Kuwait into five constituencies and entitles citizens to a maximum of four votes each was passed by the parliament in 2006 after the draft law was presented by the Cabinet. The law was further supported by the Constitutional Court this year, which is why our demand has always been to change the law inside the parliament. We would have even considered the single vote system, but only if the upcoming elections were to be carried out as per the existing fourvotes system which was passed by the parliament and should only be changed by the parliament.

There are many negative aspects of the single vote system, such as increasing sectarianism and tribalism by allowing voters to cast their votes exclusively in favour of a representative of their respective tribe, family or sectarian group. It also does not provide a solution to end vote buying and illegal primary elections which were used in the 25 constituencies and two votes system. Reducing the number of votes usually produces a weak, pro-government parliament, which is exactly what the government wants. They seek to control the parliament’s decisions and turn it into something similar to the (appointed) National Council of the eighties. —Al-Qabas

kuwait digest

Opposition takes a wrong step

By Hamad Al- Sarie ppositionists are annoyed with the ordinance which reduced the number of votes that each voter is entitled to from four to one. They claim that the decree should not have been issued now because it was not necessary, and in any case there is no need for it now. But I believe that the real reason is that many of them are in danger of losing their seats because their success depended on exchanging votes under a four votes per voter system.

We pointed in a previous article to a number of ordinances that were issued, including those effecting an amendment in the constitution and changing the votes. Most of the council later agreed and approved those decrees except the ones having to do with elections and voting for women, which were rejected and approved later on.

The choice before the opposition was to approach the constitutional court and contest the decree. His Highness the Amir has already said that he agrees and will accept any decision that came from the constitutional court. But let it be known to anyone who wants to go to the constitutional court to contest the decree that he has to be a candidate and not one who is advocating a boycott, so that the court accepts his challenge.

Holding rallies in the street and claiming that such rallies were peaceful is misleading. Once people are called to the street, no one can predict their behavior, and organizers cannot control the mob’s reaction even if they do everything to keep it peaceful. What happened in Sabah Al Nasser area in the form of violence and assaults against security men was just a small skirmish, compared to what could have happened. If government does not end these rallies, there is no guarantee that someone with an ulterior motive could sneak in armed and fire at the policemen to elicit a reaction from the other side. I was anguished to see a man trying to run over some police personnel and a photographer, and then running away. I thank God that the police were not armed, or they would have killed him, and things would have then spiraled into something far worse.

The withdrawal by the opposition to make its point against the ordinance may not be in their interest. By doing so, they would be leaving the field open to those who may then approve and amend laws that might not be in the interest of the opposition. Therefore, it will be better for even the opposition to stand in the election even if it manages to secure fewer number of seats, at least it will be able to oppose such laws or stop those that it may not consider as being in the interest of the country. Abusing its opponents and resorting to indecent language is a new phenomenon which we have seen recently. All of us are Kuwaiti citizens and if we differ in our opinions, it does not mean that we demean the other party. — Al-Anbaa

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In my view

How will entire chaos end

By Ahmad M Al-Fahad speak everyday with supporters of the demonstration which is being organized by some unknown ghost, since no one is explicitly taking responsibility. I have spoken with supporters of the youth political ‘movement’, from the very young to one of the oldest participants, Abdallah Al-Naibari - may Allah make him live longer. I have also spoken to elements from the Muslim Brotherhood, although I also hear that Kuwait does not have a Muslim Brotherhood, as is proclaimed by Mubarak Al-Duwailah. I have also spoken with the Kuwaiti people at large.

During my interactions, whenever arguments became too impassioned on the subject of the conspiracy to topple the regime or the violations committed by the majority or the corruption of the National Assembly, I invariably heard one answer, and that answer was that the Muslim Brotherhood does not represent me. That answer was that the majority and Musallam Al-Barrak do not represent me.

I also heard many say that “we all just went to have some fun.”

Personally, I had little choice but to believe whoever I was having a discussion with. Every person I spoke to, added a couple of thousands to the number of people who were part of the demonstration, or were at the earlier Iradah Square gatherings. At this rate, it seemed to me that by the time the next demonstration happens, they will make it reach half a million, at least.

But I say, what is the use of quoting even such a large number when those participating in the demonstration do not agree over any issue, or differ even about who represents them? If the goal behind the demonstration is not to topple the regime, and not to paint the ruler’s image as one of a tyrant for the benefit of the foreign media, as those directing the ‘change academy’ have instructed, then what and how will the message be delivered, and how will the entire chaos end?

If the demonstration is to protect the constitution and the nation’s dignity, and if this gathering is not supposed to violate the law, as some law professors and former MPs have claimed, then why did Ahmad Al-Saadoun not participate? Is he sick as usual, or is his status far above such demonstrations? Or is this part of a plan to keep the symbol away from what is going on, so that he is not arrested? — Al-Watan

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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

LOCAL

Liberals ‘save history’ by boycotting NA elections Protest ‘a national duty’ KUWAIT: Nomination for the upcoming elections ended Friday without any participation from the liberals, a decision they believe was made in honor of the history of national movements in Kuwait. “This move is the newest episode in the national movement’s history of defending constitutional and public gains,” Secretary General of the National Democratic Alliance Khalid AlKhalid said in a statement on Friday that applauded “national figures who boycotted the elections.”

“Violation of constitutional principles must be faced with tools of peaceful protest that the constitution allows,” he said, referring to the protest as “a national

duty”. Al-Khalid also noted that the government put pressure on liberal groups to talk them out of their decision.

“Their attempts ran into a solid wall of positions taken out of principle,” he said, adding that “boycotting the elections is a clear message that the government needs to realize soon in order to stop the ongoing democratic losses as a result of decisions that go against principles of the civil and constitutional state.” Liberal activists including former MPs held talks during the final days of the nomination period in order to make a decision on whether to run in parliament or not, amid calls

for taking part in order to avoid election of a house dominated majorly by pro-government MPs. Former MPs Abdullah Al-Roumi, Marzouq Al-Ghanim, Mohammad Al-Abduljader and Adel Al-Saraawi were present in a meeting hosted on Thursday night by former MP Saleh Al-Fadhalah. They were addressed by citizen Khalid Al-Mushary who called them to “protect” their history by boycotting the elections or otherwise risk “erasing it”. He also compared between liberals’ current decision and their predecessors’ resignations from the parliament in 1967 in protest against alleged forgery in the elections that happened that year.

Malaysian sets Kuwait record, walks non-stop for 12 hours

By Sajeev K Peter KUWAIT: Malaysian athlete Manikam set an astounding record in Kuwait’s sports history by walking non-stop for 12 hours at Kaifan Stadium, Kuwait on Friday. Malaysian Ambassador Dato’ Adnan Haji Othman flagged off the race walking in the wee hours of Friday in the presence of cheering crowds and sports enthusiasts.

The Olympian, who started the walk at 3 am, completed it at 3 pm creating a new record for Kuwait. The Malaysian ambassador took a few rounds with Manikam raising the spirit of the athlete and the cheering onlookers. Several school children including children from Pakistan English School, Salmiya, also joined Manikam in walking by taking several rounds.

Infosys founder and Chairman Narayana Moorthy, Indian Central School Principal Shanta Mariam James, UAE Exchange Country Head Pancily Varkey, Oriental Insurance Manager Anil Parashar and Kuwait-India Exchange Company country head Chinmayananda were among the dignitaries who came to witness the racing event at the stadium. The event was organized by Valaikuda Vanambadi Poets Association, Kuwait.

A skilled and qualified athletic trainer, Manikam has a long experience in race walking. He began his career in 1969 at Kuala Pilah, Malaysia at the age of 18. Till now, he has participated in more than 1,000 walking and race events including Melbourne Olympics and Beijing Olympics. Manikam also has won nearly 700 racing events that include international athlete competitions in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Indonesia, Brunei, Thailand, Japan, Singapore, India and the Philippines.

Manikam, while talking to the Kuwait Times, said he has been in this career for more than 40 years. He hoped that his attempt in Kuwait would help generate a better awareness among people in this country about race-walking. During his stay in Kuwait, Manikam also gave training to some Indian Central School students in marathon.

Electricity consumption hinders development projects

KUWAIT: The Kuwait Banks Club held an Open Day for banking sector employees and their families at the Fountain Park in cooperation with the Touristic Enterprises Company, featuring various activities and competitions. Top KBC officials attended the event including board member and treasurer Mohammad AlSayegh as well as board member and head of the social committee Reem Al-Wuqaiyan.

KUWAIT: Troubles in supplying power to the state projects is slowing down the process of operationalizing several projects including expatriate workers’ cities, a local newspaper reported yesterday quoting a government source.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the insider told AlJarida that the Ministry of Public Works has already finished establishing two laborers’ cities in Sabhan and Shaddadiya, but these were still to come into operation because of lack of a power connection.

“The average daily production of electricity reaches a maximum of 12.8 thousand megawatts while the average daily production takes up nearly 12 thousand megawatts,” the source said. “Under these circumstances, the Ministry of Electricity and Water has informed the MPW that several development projects cannot be connected with power as of now.”

Meanwhile, the source predicted that a crisis faces the MEW in meeting the demand for power next summer when consumption levels are expected to peak during the hottest months which coincide with Ramadan, a period that usually keeps people from rescheduling their summer vacation plans.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

LOCAL

Two young women killed in vicious road accident Addict busted with 800 drug pills KUWAIT: Two young women were crushed to death on Friday night when a speeding bus jumped a red traffic signal and crashed into their car, leaving it mangled beyond recognition and stopping only after knocking down a light post. The victims, both aged 19, were declared dead on the scene of the accident that occurred at the KaifanShamiya-Shuwaikh juncture. Five Asian men who were on board the bus were also injured and taken to the Amiri Hospital for treatment. The bodies were taken to the forensic department while the Asian bus driver was arrested and detained pending investigations.

Meanwhile, a 24-year-old Kuwaiti woman died in an accident which was caused by a driver suspected to be under the influence of liquor, who later fled, leaving his vehicle behind. The incident was reported on the King Fahad Motorway where the victim lost balance over her vehicle which then overturned. The woman was pronounced dead on

the scene while police later searched a car that had stopped behind hers and found nine liquor bottles inside.

Eyewitnesses told officers that the suspect stopped his car after causing the accident and then ran away on foot. The body was taken to the forensic department and a case was filed for investigations. In the meantime, two people died while nine others including a female citizen were seriously injured in a collision reported on Friday at the Salmi Road.

In another accident, a middle school student was seriously injured when she was hit by the school bus outside her school in Al-Oyoun. The incident took place after school on Thursday.

The victim suffered severe injuries that required medical attention at the intensive care unit. The Asian bus driver was arrested and taken to the Taima police station where a case was filed for investigations.

Drug addict An Iranian man was arrested

for possessing drugs on his arrival at the Shuwaikh Port recently.

Customs officers recovered 800 banned tablets from the boat on which the man arrived from his home country. The man was initially put through interrogation for suspicion of drug trafficking given the large amount of pills he possessed. He claimed, however, that the drugs were for his personal use, explaining that he has to take two to three pills everyday. Police soon realized that he could be telling the truth when he entered a state of frenzy after they refused to give him a pill he asked for. Investigations revealed that the man works as a driver for a Kuwaiti family and police will now be investigating whether they were aware of his addiction or not.

Officer injured A traffic police officer was injured in a car chase when he tried to prevent an underage driver from escaping. The incident took place on Friday in Hawally where the Kuwaiti driver

was ordered to step outside his vehicle by an officer at a checkpoint after seeing his ID. Instead, the suspect drove away which prompted the officer to follow him until the two stopped at a traffic light. The officer then stepped outside the patrol vehicle and attempted to forcibly open the door of the suspect’s car but he failed and kept holding on to the vehicle when the signal turned green. The officer sustained several bruises and wounds when he was dragged briefly along the asphalt road before the suspect fled. A case was filed at the Nugra police station for investigations.

Drunken husband A man was arrested in an inebriated condition inside his Rumathiya house recently after his wife called the police. The Kuwaiti woman decided to call the cops after her husband returned home at dawn heavily drunk. The man was taken to the area’s police station where he was locked pending legal procedures.

Al-Dawli expands services, products KUWAIT: Kuwait International Bank (Al Dawli) launches AlBaraka Investment Deposit as par t of its strategic plan to expand its services and products, as well as to fulfill customer expectations. Al-Baraka shall serve as a deposit as well as an investment product with oppor tunities to get higher returns.

The new product is sharia’a compliant and has flexible

tenors starting from one month to one year plus and the option of auto renewal at maturity. The minimum amount of deposit is KD1000 and it could be maintained in any major foreign currency.

Al-Baraka Investment Deposit customers at Al Dawli will enjoy various benefits including vehicle Murabaha, goods Murabaha or construction materials Murabaha and shall be eligible

Mabrouk Catering sponsors Horeca Kuwait KUWAIT: Mabrouk Catering Company will be taking part as a diamond sponsor of the Horeca Kuwait, an exhibition on hotel, hospitality and catering equipment hosted in Kuwait from Jan 28 to 30, 2013. The event is organized by the Leaders Group for Counseling and Development in cooperation with Lebanon’s Hospitality Services Company, and will take place at the Raya Ballroom in Court Marriott Hotel. “The decision to sponsor the event was inspired by the significant place that the Horeca Kuwait exhibition has carved out for itself, attracting an elite group of catering and hospitality companies,” CEO Mahmoud Mughniya said in an announcement released yesterday.

The increasing importance of the upcoming event comes in the light of the “continuous growth of the hospitality sector in Kuwait and the region,” Mughniya said, adding that the number of hotels in Kuwait is soon going to exceed 60, “45 percent of which are four and five star properties.”

Mabrouk Company will be showcasing a verity of their products at the exhibition, which include products made from stainless steel and other materials that meet the AISI and ASME quality standards.

to get a Visa Platinum or Gold or Classic credit card.

Commenting on the launch of this investment deposit product,General Manager for Retail Banking Department at Al-Dawli, Entisar Al Suwaidi said: “due to signs of new changes in market dynamics, we decided to launch Al-Baraka Investment Deposit where our customers will be able to enjoy higher returns and many other benefits”.

Entisar Al-Suwaidi said “AlBarak a Investment Deposit allows an investment of up to 90% of the deposited amount. It is a reliable product offered with flexible periods of maturity starting from one month to one year and continuous. and, that Kuwait International Bank will continue to come up with innovative Islamic financial products to satisfy the needs of different segments in the society”.

Zain mobile initiative to help diabetics care for themselves KUWAIT: Zain, the leading telecommunications company in Kuwait, announced its exclusive offer of a diabetes tracking device that works on Apple devices as part of the organization’s Corporate Social Responsibility program aiming to encourage customers with diabetes to monitor their glucose levels with the convenience of technology. In a press release announcing the initiative, Waleed Alkhashti, Corporate Communications and Relations Department Manager at Zain Kuwait said, “This social outreach program presents us with a great opportunity to focus on our relationship with our customers, as well as those who require special health care. With Zain’s first mobile health initiative we want to encourage customers with diabetes to monitor their glucose levels efficiently.”

The diabetes device which is manufactured by Kuwait Life Sciences Company (KLSC ) is bundled with a Starter Kit that contains replacement strips, needles and a convenient pouch so that customers can keep

track of their sugar levels anywhere and at anytime. Customers can download the app called “2in1 Smart” for free and then connect the device to any of their Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch), in order to keep track of their glucose levels for up to 60 days . The diabetes device is a quick, reliable and convenient way of monitoring one’s health.

Alkhashti said, “Zain’s mobile health initiative is part of our organization’s Corporate Social Responsibility program. Such an initiative conveys the message that for us the well-being of our customers is important.”

Not only does Zain focus on health initiatives alone, but also, stands out on a philanthropic level in society. Zain has donated $50,000 to the Kuwait’s Patients Helping Fund Society as a contribution towards providing medical treatment to cancer patients.

Zain is committed to continue carrying out its mission in engaging the community, building bridges of communication and contributing to society through its various social initiatives.

KUWAIT: Cuban Ambassador Manuel Pardinas Ajeno hosted a reception at his residence in Rawda over the weekend. It was attended by members from local press and media outlets. — Photos by Yasser Al-Zayyat

Measures to cope with Rawdatain accident KUWAIT: Officials of Kuwait Oil Company briefed the Governor of Ahmadi, Sheikh Dr Ibrahim Al-Duaij Al-Sabah, early on Saturday, about technical measures that have been taken to tackle repercussions of the recent accident at Rawdatain oil field.

Sheikh Dr Ibrahim Al-Duaij was informed about the efforts to contain effects of the accident by KOC Chairman Sami Al-Rushaid, and Khaled Al-Sumaiti, Deputy Managing Director for KOC’s Exploration and Production Development

Directorate, at his bureau in the governorate. The senior KOC officials presented lengthy explanation about conditions at the oil field, assuring the Governor about safety of the precautions to tackle the blazing well. They also informed him about the steps that were taken with the relevant technical authorities to “contain the problem.” Senior officials have recently examined the burning oil well, namely efforts for putting out the blaze. The fire has recently erupted as a result of gas leakage. —KUNA

Campaign to keep Kuwait clean

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: In continuation of the national campaign to keep Kuwait clean, capital governorate carried out a large campaign in the governorate to remove the remains of the trees from ten areas including Qurtuba, Yarmouk, Surra, Al Khaldiya, Al Oadaliya, Abdullah Al Salem Al Faiha, Al Shamiya and Kaifan in the first phase. The campaign will continue in other areas as

per the work plan laid down by officials in the municipality.

The campaign took off in the presence capital governorate municipality director Faleh Al Shimmary, who said that the aim was to discourage negative practices including random dumping of remains in the residential areas, leaving neglected cars in the streets or offering cars for sale in the public square. The campaign as emphasized by cleaning supervisor Fahad

Al Azemi has resulted in lifting 73 truckloads of remains which mostly came from cutting of trees. All these remains were dumped in public squares at random despite repeated warnings by the municipality. He said that the campaign will continue in all capital governorate areas.

Nine cars were also towed away during the campaign. These were sent to the detention garage at Amghara and will not be released until fines were paid as per the law.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

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

Husband of slain Iraqi-American woman arrested Threatening note had been found at scene SAN DIEGO: The husband of an Iraqi-American woman who was beaten to death near San Diego in March in a killing initially probed as a possible antiMuslim hate crime has been arrested for her murder, police said. Shaima Alawadi, a 32-year-old mother of five, was found bludgeoned to death in her home in the San Diego suburb of El Cajon, home to a large Arab-American population, and died of her injuries several days later.

A threatening note found at the scene suggested Alawadi might have been targeted because of her ethnicity. In a sign of how closely the case was being watched, the US State Department expressed condolences for her death, and Iraqi government officials attended her funeral in Iraq. A friend of the family, Sura Alzaidy, told the San Diego Union Tribune newspaper at the time that the note found near Alawadi read: “Go back to your own country.

You’re a terrorist.” While police at the time said they were considering hate as a motive, they warned against definitively drawing such a conclusion.

Court papers filed in the case later painted a portrait of a family in turmoil.

“There was not somebody running around doing hate crimes. This was a domestic violence incident,” El Cajon Police Chief Jim Redman told a news conference to announce the arrest. San Diego County jail records show that Alawadi’s husband, 48-yearold Kassim Alhimidi, was arrested by police on Thursday for first-degree murder, and was being held without bail. According to a search warrant affidavit filed in April, a relative of Alawadi told detectives that she had “been planning on divorcing her husband and moving to the state of Texas.”

Divorce papers were found in her car.

‘FAMILY TRAGEDY’ Further complicating the troubled emerging portrait of the family were indications the couple’s 17-year-old daughter had felt pressure to marry her cousin against her will. It was the daughter, home at the time of the attack, who discovered her mother

unconscious and bleeding on the floor of the family home after Alawadi was struck at least six times by a heavy object, suffering at least four skull fractures.

The daughter told police at the time that she heard her mother squeal, followed by the sound of breaking glass, which she took to be her mother dropping a plate. Ten minutes later, she said she discovered her mother on the floor, and called 911.

Alawadi and her husband arrived in the United States in 1993. She was buried in the holy Shiite city of Najaf, 100 miles south of Iraq’s capital, Baghdad. “We have faith in our judicial system, and we pray for justice for Shaima Alawadi,” Hanif Mohebi, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations San Diego chapter, told reporters. “This is a family tragedy.” El Cajon is in the heart of east San Diego County, which is home to the second largest Iraqi community in the United States, behind Detroit. More than half of El Cajon’s 100,000 residents are of Middle Eastern descent. — Reuters

LAKESIDE: In this file photo, Kassim Alhimidi (right) speaks alongside his son, Mohammed Alhimidi, during a memorial for his wife, Shaima Alawadi at a mosque in Lakeside, Calif. — AP

17 Turkish soldiers die in copter crash Army kills 42 Kurdish militants

RAS AL-AIN ANF: Syrian nationals cross the border between the Syrian town of Ras Al-Ain anf and Turkey’s Sanliurfa province town of Ceylanpinar yesterday. — AFP

Syrian opposition bloc elects Christian leader DOHA: Syria’s main opposition group in exile elected a left-wing veteran dissident born into a Christian family as its new president on Friday, a choice that could help counter Western concerns about possible Islamist influence over the group. George Sabra, a Communistturned-social-democrat and former high school teacher who once wrote for the Arabic version of Sesame Street, said his election as head of the Syrian National Council is proof that Syrians are not beholden to sectarianism.

“This day is a victory of the Syrian people to prove all over the world the reality of the Syrians ... as young people shouted in the streets, ‘Syrian people are one, one, one,’” he said moments after his victory was announced at a conference in Doha, Qatar. Sabra’s election came on the eve of a crucial decision for the SNC. The Istanbul-based group, widely seen as out of touch with activists fighting the regime of President Bashar Assad, must decide Saturday whether to join a broader opposition leadership, an idea promoted by Western and Arab backers of those trying to oust President Bashar Assad.

Under the plan, the new group would form a transitional government in rebelheld areas of Syria and presumably serve as a conduit for foreign aid to the opposition. The rebels’ Western backers have declined to send weapons to the rebels, for fear they will fall into the wrong hands. Syria’s opposition says it needs weapons to break the military stalemate in Syria and defeat Assad. Asked Friday what he wants from the international community, Sabra said: “Weapons, weapons, weapons.”

Meanwhile, SNC members have expressed reservations about the new leadership group, fearing that the SNC’s influence would be diluted. The SNC, still the largest political opposition group, would get only about one third of some 60 seats in the new group to make room for activists inside Syria. The SNC was to give its answer on Friday, but asked for more time after its own leadership elections dragged on and divisions arose among the members over whether to join the internationally backed initiative.

The SNC had promised its Qatari hosts and the author of the new plan, Syrian dissident Riad Seif, to decide quickly whether to accept the idea in principle.

However, Sabra suggested Friday that negotiations over an acceptable formula could continue beyond the weekend.

“The problem is, there is no answer by yes or no,” said Sabra, a 65-year-old father of three. “This is politics,” he added with a laugh. The gray-haired, jovial Sabra said earlier this week that he and Seif are longtime friends, and even shared a jail cell at one point.

Sabra, a veteran dissident and leftist activist, said he was jailed for eight years starting in 1987 and for two brief stretches in the summer and fall of 2011, under Assad and his father and predecessor Hafez. He said he was a leading member of Syria’s Communist party, but in 2005 his group became social democrat. Sabra left Syria several months after the uprising against Bashar Assad erupted in March 2011 and moved to Paris. Sabra said he is a former geography teacher and writer for children’s television, including for the Arabic version of Sesame Street produced in Kuwait.

The SNC’s new vice president chosen Friday was Mohammed Farouk Taifur, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a region-wide Islamist movement that has risen to power in several countries in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings.

Sabra’s won the top spot against difficult odds. On Thursday, he failed to win a place in the 41-member general secretariat, the body that chooses the president. On Friday, Sabra was appointed to the secretariat retroactively after a member resigned to make room for him.

Sabra was president by 28 out of 41 votes, replacing Abdelbaset Sieda, a representative of Syria’s Kurdish community.— AP

DOHA: Syrian veteran dissident George Sabra, a Christian former communist, who was elected as president of the Syrian National Council (SNC) arrives at Syrian National Council (SNC) meeting prior to the elections of the executive committee in Doha. The umbrella group elected 11 members to sit on its executive committee. — AFP

ANKARA: A Turkish military helicopter carrying soldiers on a mission against Kurdish rebels crashed because of bad weather yesterday, killing all 17 troops onboard, officials said.

Thirteen soldiers and four military crewmembers were killed in the crash in a mountainous part of Pervari district in Siirt province, in southeastern Turkey, where the rebel Kurdistan Worker’s Party is fighting for selfrule. President Abdullah Gul said the soldiers were on their way “to help their friends” in an operation against the rebels who have escalated attacks in recent months, adding the incident would not deter Turkey from its determination to fight the rebels.

The provincial governor, Ahmet Aydin, blamed the crash on heavy fog and ruled out an attack by the rebel group. “The weather during the transportation (of troops) was bad. There was extreme rain. The helicopter crashed into rocks because of the fog,” Aydin said in televised statements. “The incident was the result of a crash and any kind of an attack is out of the question.”

The Kurdish rebels have been fighting since the 1980s and they seek more rights for Kurds, including autonomy in the mostly Kurdish southeast of the country. Turkey and its Western allies categorize the rebels, known by the acronym PKK, as a terrorist group. Several days ago, Turkish media reported that Turkish soldiers were airlifted into northern Iraq for a brief operation against suspected rebels, who have bases there. There were no reports of casualties on that mission. Turkey periodically carries out artillery and air strikes on PKK positions in northern Iraq, but reports of cross-border incursions by troops are rare.

Meanwhile, Turkish air force jets and attack helicopters pounded Kurdish militants along the border with Iraq and Iran for three days, killing

42 militants, the local governor’s office said on Friday. The operation, which began on Wednesday, was launched after word was received that a group of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants had been identified in Turkey’s southeastern province of Hakkari, bordering Iraq and Iran, the Hakkari governor’s office said. One Turkish soldier was killed, the statement said, while searches turned up quantities of ammunition, food supplies and medication. It said the operation was continuing.

The summer saw an upsurge in PKK attacks in

southeast Turkey, notably in the Hakkari region.

Ankara has linked the rise in violence to the chaos in neighboring Syria and has accused Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad of resuming support for the PKK and arming the militants.

More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict between Turkey and the PKK, which launched its insurgency in 1984 with the aim of carving out a separate state in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey. The PKK is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union. — Agencies

ANKARA: People carry a giant Turkish flag as they gather at the mausoleum of Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk during a ceremony marking the 74th anniversary of his death in Ankara yesterday. —AFP

Baghdad cancels Russia arms deal BAGHDAD: Baghdad cancelled a $4.2 billion (3.3 billion euro) weapons package with Russia yesterday citing graft concerns, torpedoing a deal that would have made Moscow Iraq’s biggest arms supplier after the US. Cancellation of the deal, which had been announced when Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki led a delegation to Russia last month, is a setback for Moscow’s attempts to firm up its slipping foothold in the Middle East and also throws into doubt efforts by Iraq to equip its armed forces.

“The deal was cancelled,” Maliki’s spokesman Ali Mussawi said. “When Maliki returned from his trip to Russia, he had some suspicions of corruption, so he decided to review the whole deal... There is an investigation going on, on this.” Mussawi declined to say who specifically was being investigated, or if Iraq would begin new negotiations with Moscow. He also did not say exactly when the final decision was made to stop the deal.

The Russian embassy in Baghdad was not available for comment. Had the deal been finalized and implemented, it would have made Russia Baghdad’s second-biggest arms supplier, after the United States. Russian media said the deliveries covered 30 Mi-28 attack helicopters and 42 Pantsir-S1 surface-to-air missile systems. Discussions were also said to be underway for Iraq’s eventual acquisition of a large batch of MiG-29 fighters and helicopters, along with heavy weaponry.

The statement announcing the deals said they were secretly discussed as early as April and revisited again in July and August during visits to Russia by Iraqi delegations that included acting Defense Minister Saadun Al-Dulaimi.

The war ripping apart Syria threatens to unseat Moscow’s sole unwavering Arab ally, Bashar Al-Assad, and has made it all the more crucial for Russia to forge other regional alliances. Russia also lost an estimated $4 billion in outstanding contracts in the NATO-led Libya offensive that toppled Muammar Gaddafi, a one-time friend of the Kremlin, and Moscow has been seeking to find a way to compensate for the loss ever since.

Iraq, meanwhile, has sought to re-equip an army that, while regarded as a capable counter-insurgency force, lacks the ability to defend the country’s borders, airspace or maritime territory, according to officials. The deal with Russia was seen by diplomats in Baghdad as a way for Iraq to avoid becoming too dependent on American military equipment, and to hold more bargaining power in weapons negotiations with Washington, which remains Baghdad’s biggest arms supplier by far.—AFP

Teacher-turned-smuggler keeps Syria rebellion alive SYRIAN-TURKISH BORDER: Abu Abdo is a school teacher turned gun-runner and smuggler extraordinaire, a can-do middleman helping to keep the Syrian rebellion alive through an illicit lifeline across the Turkish border. When brigades fighting to overthrow President Bashar Al-Assad want Internet access, walkie-talkies, telephones, fatigues, bullet-proof vests, weapons or ammunition, Abu Abdo is the man they call.

He may not be the one scrambling through the olive groves of no-man’s land, laden with contraband and dodging Turkish soldiers, but he knows the Turks who are selling and the Syrians who are buying. And there’s no shortage of customers. He says he has bought communications equipment for the leadership of the Free Syrian Army, the largest umbrella group of armed factions fighting to bring down Assad.

He also deals in weapons and ammunition for brigade commanders across the northwestern provinces of Aleppo and Idlib, and even dabbles in wood burners for neighbors anxious to save on winter heating bills.

“It depends on people and demand. When they ask me for something I try to get it.

Sometimes that’s everyday and sometimes it’s once a week,” he told AFP in an interview on the Syrian-Turkish border. “Most of my work is connecting people. If someone needs something in one place, I put them in touch with the person who can do that,” he said. Mobile Syrian government checkpoints, air strikes and shelling, make rebel supply lines within Syria dangerous and unpredictable.

International sanctions also mean many supplies are simply unavailable, so that even basic food and relief items come from outside. So Turkey is the linchpin of the entire operation. “If Turkey wants to guard the border properly, the rebels will lose in 10 days because it’s the main source of everything,” Abu Abdo says. “Everything we need for the camps like phones, blankets, mats, food is coming through Turkey and because of the sanctions on Syria, no one can transfer any money to a Syrian bank so we’re using the

help of Turks to get money into Syria.”

“And transporting goods from Turkey is easy because you avoid (Syrian) military and regime checkpoints” that would be a problem if the goods were coming from elsewhere in Syria. “For example, if you get tents for refugees and we’re stopped at a checkpoint we’ll be accused of starting a training camp.” The smuggling itself happens early in the morning, when Turkish guards are not there or are changing watch.

The Turkish smugglers take $5 (3.95 euros) commission on each item. Abu Abdo says he makes no profit, but is instead motivated by the dream of turning Syria into a “democratic country with rights for everyone.” He deeply opposes any potential break-up of the country, calling secession or federation “a waste of the blood and sacrifice”. But it’s a risky job and he’s had some close calls. Like the time he was waiting for five satellite Internet devices, his most expensive haul, at a hefty $1,100 each. Turkish “soldiers caught us. I was standing there waiting to receive them. I spoke to the officer myself, and he said either you leave now or I’ll arrest you because you’re smuggling stuff. So we lost the devices,” he smiled. Then there was the time he was ferrying a wounded man back from Turkey to the town of Taftanaz, when they nearly drove straight into a government checkpoint. “We turned around just in time, waved and said ‘hi’ out of the window, gesturing that we had made a mistake. They must have assumed we were pro-regime, because they didn’t stop us,” he says.

Although he has heard of Turkish weapons bought with Qatari and Saudi cash being smuggled across the border, he says he hasn’t seen any. Instead, he says weapons are smuggled mostly within Syria. Rebels are so poorly armed that they buy and sell between units depending on local requirements. And in comparatively peaceful areas, such as Alawite communities in Hama province, Kalashnikovs, RPGs and small machineguns are cheaper and freely available. But it’s the guns from Iraq, he says, which are the cheapest and best quality. — AFP

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

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

Petraeus, star on battlefield, felled at CIA by affair WASHINGTON: David Petraeus was a star on the battlefield, commanding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but was undone by “poor judgment” in engaging in an extramarital affair that led to his downfall as CIA director. Just two days after his 60th birthday, Petraeus stepped down from the spy agency where he had held the top office since Sept 6, 2011. “After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours. This afternoon, the President graciously accepted my resignation,” Petraeus told the shadow warriors he commanded at CIA. It was a stunning downfall for a revered military man who was seen as one of the top American leaders of his generation and was once considered a potential contender for the White House.

Petraeus was credited with pulling Iraq from the brink of allout civil war and for battlefield successes in Afghanistan after overseeing a surge of 30,000 troops ordered by President Barack Obama in late 2009. He became known for counter-insurgency strategies that were seen as gaining ground against the

Taliban in Afghanistan. “I don’t think he was professionally overrated. His were genuine accomplishments,” said James Carafano, a war historian with the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.

At the time of his nomination to the CIA post, some Washington insiders had said the White House wanted to find a prominent position for Petraeus to ensure he would not be recruited by Republicans as a challenger to the 2012 ObamaBiden ticket. When he was nominated to lead the CIA there were some concerns in intelligence circles that the high-profile four-star Army general might not be able to lead from the shadows as appropriate for a spy chief.

But once he took over the head office at the US spy agency, Petraeus kept a decidedly low public profile.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, expressed regret about the resignation of “one of America’s best and brightest” and said it was an “enormous loss” for the country. “At CIA, Director Petraeus gave the agency leadership, stature, prestige and credibility both at home and abroad.

On a personal level, I found his command of intelligence issues second to none,” she said.

After accepting his resignation about a year-and-a-half after nominating Petraeus to the CIA post, Obama said: “By any measure, he was one of the outstanding General officers of his generation, helping our military adapt to new challenges, and leading our men and women in uniform through a remarkable period of service in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he helped our nation put those wars on a path to a responsible end.” Earlier this week, in a Newsweek article entitled “General David Petraeus’s Rules for Living,” he listed 12 lessons for leadership. Number 5 was: “We all will make mistakes. The key is to recognize them and admit them, to learn from them, and to take off the rear view mirrors - drive on and avoid making them again.”

In 2010 Petraeus stepped into the breach as the new commander of US forces in Afghanistan to replace General Stanley McChrystal who was fired by Obama in a scandal over an article in which McChrystal and his aides made mocking comments about the president and some of his top advisers. In 2009 Petraeus was diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer and underwent radiation treatment. The mediafriendly general joked at that time at a Washington event that

reporters were only gathered “to see if the guy is still alive.”

Petraeus, born in Cornwall, New York, lives in Virginia with his wife Holly. They have two grown children, a son who was an Army Ranger who ser ved in Afghanistan, and a daughter.

Petraeus’s wife, Holly, is an activist and volunteer who champions military families, and she continued that work after her husband retired from the military and moved to the CIA. She currently is assistant director of the office of servicemember affairs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where she tries to keep unscrupulous lenders from taking advantage of military personnel. The bureau was championed by Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren, who was elected to the Senate from Massachusetts this week.

Holly Petraeus is the daughter of four-star General William Knowlton, who was superintendent of the US Military Academy at West Point when Petraeus was a cadet. She briefed the press at the Pentagon on her efforts recently and was introduced by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who called her “a true friend of the Department of Defense and a dedicated member of our military family.” Petraeus has four Defense Distinguished Service

ARLINGTON: In this file photo, former Commander of International Security Assistance Force and US ForcesAfghanistan Gen Davis Petraeus, standing with his wife Holly, participates in an armed forces farewell tribute and retirement ceremony at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Va.— AP Medal awards, three Distinguished Ser vice Medal awards, the Bronze Star Medal for valor, and the State Department

Distinguished Service Award. He has a doctorate in international relations from Princeton University.— Reuters

Pentagon releases Benghazi timeline, defends response Panetta alerted about an hour into the attack

CUERNAVACA: Mexican military personnel check a vehicle in which two United States government employees were shot on the highway leading to the city of Cuernavaca, near Tres Marias, Mexico. — AP

14 Mexico officers charged over attack on CIA agents MEXICO CITY: Mexico charged 14 federal police officers on Friday with the attempted murder of two CIA operatives after the US agents’ vehicle was sprayed with bullets in a brazen daylight attack that security officials suspect was ordered by a drug cartel. The ambush was initially blamed on a case of mistaken identity, but Mexican security sources said the fact that police officers used AK47 assault rifles and were not wearing uniforms suggested a gangorchestrated hit. The August incident, in which the CIA operatives tried to escape the hail of semi-automatic gunfire in a dramatic car chase, was a major embarrassment for the government of outgoing President Felipe Calderon, who has staked his reputation on taming the cartels.

The CIA officers’ diplomatic vehicle was peppered with 152 bullet holes. Their injuries were not life-threatening and they were quickly moved out of the country.

The attorney general’s office said it charged the 14 federal police officers with attempted murder. “We’re not discounting any theory, including that they could be involved with organized crime,” an official said on condition of anonymity. The 14 police officers come from the southern Mexico City district of Tlalpan and were already in police custody, the statement said.

Drug cartels often take advantage of low pay for Mexican police to infiltrate their ranks and put officers on the payroll.

“The reputation of our police was already at rock bottom, and this doesn’t help one bit,” said Maximiliano Moyano, a criminal lawyer who works on police corruption

cases. The incident was the worst attack against US officials in Mexico since druggang assailants killed a US immigration agent and wounded his colleague in a highway attack in early 2011. The August attack took place near the town of Tres Marias on a road south of Mexico City, and came as increased cooperation between US and Mexican forces seemed to be yielding results in Calderon’s six-year offensive against the bloody cartels.

Since 2009, government troops have caught or killed more than 20 major drug lords. But that has led to cartel infighting and fragmentation, and recent drug war victories have been offset by humiliating cases of corruption and bungled operations. A June shootout between federal police and corrupt fellow officers at Mexico City’s airport killed three officers. That was followed by last month’s killing of Zetas cartel leader Heriberto Lazcano, a significant victory for Calderon that was undermined by the late-night theft of Lazcano’s body from a funeral home, fueling rumors the kingpin was still alive. About 60,000 people have died in drug violence during Calderon’s term, and the bloodshed hurt his party’s candidate in the presidential election in July. President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto, who takes office on Dec 1, says his priority will be to reduce violence and focus first on tackling crimes like extortion and kidnapping. But Pena Nieto, who is leading the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, back into power after a 12year hiatus, has rejected negotiating with the gangs, mindful of the PRI’s past reputation for cutting deals.—Reuters

WASHINGTON: Pentagon leaders knew of the Sept 11 attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi an hour after it began, but were unable to mobilize reinforcements based in Europe in time to prevent the death of the US ambassador, according to a timeline released on Friday. Senior defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, rejected criticism accusing the Pentagon of failing to move quickly to send reinforcements to relieve the consulate or using armed aerial drones to fire on the attackers. “ The Department of Defense acted quickly after learning of the incidents unfolding in Benghazi,” said one official, adding that Marines, Special Forces and other military assets had either been employed or put in motion during the attack. “Unfortunately, no alternative or additional aircraft options were available within a timeline to be effective,” the official added.

The Obama administration’s response to the attack became a highly charged political issue in the last weeks of the presidential campaign. The CIA, which had a base near the con-

sulate, and the State Depar tment have released timelines on the incident.

According to the Pentagon’s timeline, the military’s Africa Command, based in Europe, ordered an unmanned, unarmed surveillance drone diverted to the city in eastern Libya just 17 minutes after the attack on the consulate began about 9:42 pm local time, the first military action in response to the incident. I t took the drone more than an hour to arrive at the scene.

Defense Secretar y Leon Panetta’s office was notified of the attack 50 minutes after it began, and Panetta learned of it shortly thereafter as he and the military’s top general headed to a previously scheduled meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House.

Obama, Panetta and Army General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, discussed potential responses to the unfolding events in Benghazi during their meeting, which began 78 minutes after the start of the Libya attack, according to the timeline. Panetta and Dempsey then returned to the Pentagon and began a two-hour series of

meetings with General Carter Ham, head of Africa Command, and other senior military leaders from 6 pm to 8 pm to organize responses to the attack. But as they arrived at the Pentagon, the surviving personnel from the consulate in Benghazi were being evacuated by a CIA team that arrived from a nearby base, about two hours after the start of the attack. Ambassador Christopher Stevens was missing. Stevens’ body was found at a local hospital. He apparently died of asphyxiation in the smoke-filled diplomatic compound after it was set ablaze by the attackers. Stevens and three other US personnel died in the attack on the consulate and a nearby CIA annex. “When initial reports came in, we knew the ambassador could not be reached,” a senior defense official told reporters. “We were looking at the possibility of a potential hostage-rescue scenario, for instance. So we didn’t know if this was going to be an hours-long event or a days-long even or longer.”

During the meetings, the group formulated a response to the attack and gave verbal orders to prepare to deploy two teams of Marine anti-terrorism

troops, used for providing security, and two special forces units, one based in Europe and the other in the United States.

One Marine Corps Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team, or FAST team, was designated for the US Embassy in Tripoli and the other for the consulate in Benghazi. The Special Forces units were ordered to prepare to go to a staging base in Europe.

As the Pentagon meetings got under way, a six-man security team from the embassy in Tripoli, which included two Defense Department personnel, left for Benghazi, landing at the airport at 1:30 am Libya time. A CIA timeline released last week said that team was held up at the airport trying to organize transportation and locate the missing US ambassador. The team from Tripoli got to the CIA base in Benghazi, at about 5:15 am Libya time, arriving at the star t of a mor tar attack by militants that killed two US security officers. An hour after that, a Libyan military unit arrived at the CIA base and helped evacuate all US personnel and the bodies of Stevens and the other slain Americans.— Reuters

LA bank robbery chase ends in televised death LANCASTER: A bank robbery suspect was cornered on a northern Los Angeles County cul-de-sac and shot to death Friday on live television after he apparently fired at sheriff’s deputies from his car, authorities said.

The man died at the scene at around 10:15 am after televised news reports showed a single bullet trail plowing through the glass from inside a sport utility vehicle, followed by a fusillade of shots that punctured the windshield and blew out the back window.

The man’s identity was not immediately released. Deputies began chasing the SUV after a gunman robbed a Bank of America

branch at about 9:15 am in Santa Clarita, about 35 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, sheriff’s Capt Mike Parker said. The chase went north about 45 miles on a mountain highway into the Antelope Valley area of the Mojave Desert and along the way a spike strip flattened one of the suspect’s front tires. The suspect exited the highway in the high desert city of Lancaster and was forced to stop when he turned down a dead-end street.

Sheriff’s patrol cars boxed in the vehicle after it tried to turn around, and deputies ordered the man out at gunpoint. The man,

wearing a camouflage jacket, got out, stood by the driver’s door and appeared to toss money into the street, but he refused repeated orders to show his hands, Parker said. The man then got back into the car and closed the door. Gunfire exploded a minute or two later. Parker said it appeared that the man fired at deputies, who then shot him. “They didn’t fire until the suspect came at them,” he said. The shooting was captured by TV news helicopters overhead and aired live on local television. No deputies were hit. The shooting was under investigation.—AP

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

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

Russia weighs Brezhnev legacy 30 years after death MOSCOW: Russia yesterday quietly marked 30 years since the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, an enigmatic figure whose era of “stagnation” witnessed repressions and a massive nuclear arms drive. The burly and chain-smoking World War II veteran served from 1964 until his death in 1982 at a time when Moscow and Washington were churning out weapons of mass destruction and carving up the globe for spheres of influence.

It also saw the two superpowers boycott each other’s Olympic Gamesthe first in Moscow in 1980 and then in Los Angeles four years later-and the Kremlin order tanks into Afghanistan for an ill-advised decade-long war. But Russian media preferred to recall the stamp the native Ukrainian left on

domestic life and his ability to introduce a remarkable sense of stability that nevertheless cost people their freedom to most forms of opposition thought. They also poked fun at his propensity to lavish himself with medals and ruling long past the point at which he was fit enough to make clear-headed decisions about either foreign or domestic affairs.

“The general secretary was going senile and the entire system was rotting to its core-stricken by nepotism, bribes and general cynicism,” Channel One television commented in a news report about the anniversary. The country’s most-watched channel also planned to air a four-part television drama about Brezhnev and then wrap up its day-long coverage with a special political talk show about his life

and times. It set an almost forgiving tone to its coverage of Brezhnev by describing a man who tried his best but was a victim of his times and associates.

“People did not laugh (at Brezhnev),” Channel One said. “They pitied an old and ailing man, one who was neither bloodthirsty nor vindictive-and therefore different from his predecessors.” The popular Argumenty i Fakty weekly recalled that Brezhnev was in fact first pronounced clinically dead in 1976. The incident had remained a state secret but historians believe that he had suffered a stroke.

“Yet the state of his health was never a secret to the people-they saw him on TV all the time,” Argumenty i Fakty remarked. Brezhnev’s 18 years in power were known among Russians as

“zastoi” (stagnation) in the sense of frozen time with no social or economic change.

Writer and journalist Vadim Dubnov described Brezhnev’s nearly two decades as “socialism light”. “He was our everything and he was everywhere,” the author wrote in a commentary for the state RIA Novosti news agency. “He was a part of our ballet, our hockey and our figure skating. He was a part of our vodka which went up in price by only half in his 18 years. That is the stability we got.”

Dubnov argued that Brezhnev developed a cult of personality “based on a parody of himself” which became the fabric of Russian satire and political jokes-always told at home and preferably around the kitchen table.

The ITAR-TASS news agency even

remarked in a headline that “many are recalling the ‘stagnation’ era with nostalgia.” “Many who were young during the ‘stagnation’ sincerely miss the years when everyone had social protection and confidence in the next day,” Russia’s second state news agency said. But even the Rossiya national channel conceded that Brezhnev’s times will also be known for “the invasion of Czechoslovakia (in 1968), stricter control of the press, the exile of (dissident Andrei) Sakharov and the banishment of (author Alexander) Solzhenitsyn, and the invasion of Afghanistan.” The Soviet system survived for nine more years after Brezhnev before being formally declared finished by the late Boris Yeltsin, independent Russia’s first president.—AFP

Scandal-hit BBC rocked by fresh sex abuse row British public broadcaster apologized

VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict XVI greets newly named Interpol president Mireille Balestrazzi at the end of a special audience with participants of the Interpol General Assembly in the Paul VI hall at the Vatican. Police chiefs and senior law enforcement officers from around the world gathered in Rome for the 81st Interpol General Assembly. — AP

Vatican police under scrutiny in leaks trials VATICAN CITY: The Vatican gendarmerie has been an intriguing protagonist in the cloakand-dagger “Vatileaks” case, set to wrap up yesterday with a verdict in the trial of a Holy See computer technician. The head of the 150member police corps in the world’s smallest state, Domenico Giani, a former Italian secret agent and a divisive figure who has pushed for more powers for the force, is due to testify yesterday. Joining him will be his deputy, Gianluca Gauzzi Broccoletti, as well as William Kloter, deputy commander of the Swiss Guards, the papacy’s traditional defense force which has had sometimes tense ties with the gendarmes.

Claudio Sciarpelletti is being tried for aiding and abetting in a series of leaks of confidential documents orchestrated by Pope Benedict XVI’s former butler Paolo Gabriele who was convicted in a separate trial last month.

Sciarpelletti’s trial revolves around a suspicious envelope with an official Vatican stamp which was found in his desk after police launched an inquiry into a scandal that has been hugely embarrassing for the Holy See’s law enforcement agency. The envelope contained documents with a series of allegations of shady dealings by the Vatican gendarmerie, which were included in a book by investigative journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi who published Gabriele’s leaks. Among the claims made in the book was that two gendarmes held stakes in private security companies in Italy in a possible conflict of interests. The book also contains a mysterious story about a Vatican gendarmerie car found shot up near a restaurant where some gendarmes were eating in 2010. The leaks scandal-dubbed “Vatileaks” in the Italian presshas shed light on tensions between the gendarmerie, which was established in its current form only in 1970, and the Swiss Guards, which date back to the 16th century. Gendarmes have taken over powers from the Swiss Guards

in recent years and in 2002 became the official law enforcement agency in the Vatican. It has also equipped itself with modern uniforms and increasingly sophisticated technology.

Gabriele was fascinated by conspiracy theories on Italian historical events and intelligence matters according to his interrogations. The gendarmes who searched his apartment said they found documents on the murder of Vatican-linked banker Roberto Calvi in 1982 and the disappearance of the teenage daughter of a Vatican employee in 1983.

They also said Gabriele had instructions on spying techniques like how to film people and record conversations surreptitiously. One of the gendarmes, Giuseppe Pesce, testified at Gabriele’s trial that the butler had shown a “morbid” interest in the gendarmerie. A report in I.Media, a news agency specializing in Vatican affairs, said the butler’s questions may have been more than just idle curiosity. “Paolo Gabriele started out collecting information on the Vatican gendarmerie,” a well-informed source is quoted as saying in the report.

Gabriele told the source that the gendarmerie had amassed “too much power”.

I.Media said Gabriele was particularly shocked by the treatment of gendarmerie chaplain Giulio Viviani, who was sent away from the Vatican in 2010 after defending some of the gendarmes against their commander, Giani. The report said Gabriele may also have wrongly interpreted casual conversations with his superior, the pope’s secretary Georg Gaenswein, about the gendarmerie as a go-ahead to carry out an investigation into the corps. Tensions were exacerbated in the first days after his arrest on May 23, when the butler said that he was held in a cramped cell at the gendarmerie headquarters in the Vatican in which the light was left on day and night.—AFP

LONDON: The BBC was reeling yesterday as it suspended all investigations by its flagship current affairs program Newsnight after a politician was wrongly named on the Internet as a pedophile. The British public broadcaster apologized “unreservedly” late Friday for having aired a Newsnight investigation alleging that a senior Conservative Party figure repeatedly abused a teenage resident of a children’s home in the 1970s.

Although the BBC did not identify the politician in last week’s report, former Conservative treasurer Alistair McAlpine was widely named on social networking sites as the alleged perpetrator. He publicly denied the claims on Friday-and hours later his accuser Steve Messham, a former resident of the Bryn Estyn children’s home in Wales, said McAlpine was not his abuser and had been a victim of mistaken identity. “Mr Messham has tonight made a statement that makes clear he wrongly identified his abuser and has apologized,” the BBC said in a statement. “We also apologize unreservedly for having broadcast this report.”

It added that BBC DirectorGeneral George Entwistle had ordered Newsnight to air a full apology on Friday and to enact “an immediate pause in all Newsnight investigations to assess editorial robustness and supervision”. Closing Friday’s edition of Newsnight, anchor Eddie Mair summed up the grim mood with the sign-off: “Newsnight will be back on Monday. Probably.”

The BBC has faced a barrage of criticism in recent weeks over allegations that the late presenter Jimmy Savile, one of its biggest stars, sexually abused as many as 300 children over a 40-year period. Newsnight itself has come under fire after it emerged that its editor shelved an investigation by the program into the Savile allegations in December.

The BBC has launched three

LONDON: In this file picture, Director-General of the BBC, George Entwistle (center), speaks to the media after attending a Commons culture committee in central London. The BBC was reeling yesterday as it suspended all investigations by its flagship current affairs program Newsnight after a politician was wrongly named on the Internet as a pedophile. — AFP inquiries into the scandal-one into how Savile was able to get away with the abuse, a second into why Newsnight dropped its investigation, and a third into wider allegations of sexual harassment. The broadcaster said on Friday that it was suspending all co-productions with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, with whom it worked on the Bryn Estyn investigation, and ordered an urgent report into what happened. McAlpine’s lawyers say they are pursuing legal action against “all media who have defamed Lord McAlpine’s reputation and published defamatory statements”.

The politician, who blasted the claims as “wholly false and seriously defamatory”, said he was forced to publicly deny them after he was named directly on the Internet and “by innuendo” in the written and broadcast media.

spot theft attempts, Nathans said.

The documents the pair have acknowledged stealing included copies of speeches delivered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during his three inaugurations, a land grant signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1861 and a document signed by President George Washington. Government prosecutors valued the group of documents at between $400,000 and $1 million, though some are irreplaceable.

Prosecutors have said that it is likely that Landau began stealing items as early as 2003.

Savedoff acknowledged conspiring with Landau beginning in 2010, and prosecutors have previously said they referred to each other as “weasel 1” and “weasel 2.”

Savedoff’s lawyer said Friday that Landau approached his client at the gym and befriended him during a difficult period in Savedoff’s life. “I’m really, really sorry,” Savedoff said before he was sentenced. “I should have never been involved with any of this, and I truly apologize.” Judge Catherine C Blake, who also sentenced Landau, called the pair’s crimes “a very serious offense.” “What we are talking about is the theft of unique, irreplaceable parts of our country’s history,” she said, adding that researchers would likely find access to historical collections more restrictive as a result of the pair’s thefts.—AP

police in the early 1990s, who told me the man in the photograph was Lord McAlpine. “I want to offer my sincere and humble apologies to him and his family.”

The British press described the BBC’s current situation as “chaos”.

“The latest error could not be much more serious for the BBC’s journalistic reputation,” wrote one commentator for The Guardian newspaper. Prime Minister David Cameron warned Thursday against a “witch-hunt” after he was ambushed with a list of rumored pedophiles on live television. On the ITV daytime television show “This Morning”, presenter Philip Schofield handed Cameron a list of names compiled from Internet gossip.

Schofield later apologized after it emerged that viewers may have been able to see some of the names for a split second due to a “misjudged camera angle.”— AFP

‘Bolotnaya-17’ protester jailed

Rare document thief sentenced BALTIMORE: A man who helped a presidential memorabilia collector steal rare and valuable documents from historical archives and libraries nationwide was sentenced Friday to a year and a day in prison. Jason Savedoff acknowledged in a plea deal earlier this year that he helped his mentor, Barry Landau, research and steal documents. Savedoff, now 25, and Landau, 64, would visit the collections and secretly put documents in hidden pockets of their jackets and overcoats. Their thefts were exposed last year after they were caught stealing from the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore. Landau pleaded guilty and was sentenced in June to seven years in prison.

On Friday, Savedoff’s lawyer Larry Nathans urged the judge to give his client probation, not prison time. Nathans said Savedoff was suffering from an untreated bipolar disorder when he met Landau and was young and impressionable - “the perfect pawn,” the attorney said, used by Landau, whom he called “a real con man.” After his arrest, Savedoff also helped investigators recover more stolen items that were missed during an initial search of Landau’s apartment in Manhattan, Nathans said. During a second search, Savedoff guided investigators to additional items. He has also described the pair’s methods to investigators and has talked with institutions about how to

He said he had never been to any children’s home, let alone the Bryn Estyn facility in Wrexham, north Wales. “I have never stayed in a hotel in or near Wrexham, I did not own a Rolls Royce, have never had a ‘Gold card’ or ‘Harrods card’ and never wear aftershave, all of which have been alleged,” McAlpine said in a statement. “I did not sexually abuse Messham or any other residents of the children’s home in Wrexham.”

Messham has offered his “sincere and humble” apologies to McAlpine, who served under former premier Margaret Thatcher, and suggested that it was the police who wrongly identified the politician as his alleged abuser. In a statement published by the BBC, Messham said: “After seeing a picture in the past hour of the individual concerned, this (is) not the person I identified by photograph presented to me by the

MOSCOW: Maxim Luzyanin, 36, attends his trial on charges that he attacked riot police during a massive rally against Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Zamoskvoretsky district court, Moscow on Friday, Nov 9, 2012. —AP

MOSCOW: A Russian court has convic ted the first of 17 Russians detained during a protest against Vladimir Putin, sentencing the only member of the group to plead guilty to four and a half years’ jail. The protesters have gained notoriety as the “Bolotnaya 17”, after the square where they protested on the eve of Putin’s inauguration in May, and have been held up by opposition leaders as a symbol of resistance to a Kremlin crackdown on dissent.

Fitness club manager Maxim Luzyanin was accused of taking part in “mass disorder” and of beating up police officers and trying to strangle one. “I genuinely regret what I did, and if I had another chance I would not have done it,” Luzyanin said from behind metal bars at the cour t.

Activists say the violence was exaggerated by the police and prosecution and fear Luzyanin’s guilty plea could now be used as a precedent to prove there was mass disorder and make for heavier sentences for the rest of the accused. Luz yanin’s lawyer Sergei Shushpanov denied that. “We have no case law. When passing a sentence, a judge cannot cite any other verdict in any other case,” he said.

Opposition ac tivists say the Bolotnaya case might achieve the notoriety of the Pussy Riot trial, in

which three members of the punk band were sentenced to two years in jail after per forming an anti-Putin song in Moscow’s main cathedral in February. Putin, 60, a former KGB spy who has ruled Russia since 2000 either as president or prime minister, has rushed a series of laws through parliament, such as increasing fines for protesters who step out of line, since his return to the Kremlin. Opposition leaders said the laws and the Pussy Riot case were all part of a campaign to stifle dissent, but Putin said he “tried not to think” about what his opponents called a crackdown and did what he thought necessary.

The May 6 rally across the Moscow River from the Kremlin, where Putin was inaugurated the following day, cost 29 million roubles ($917,700), according to prosecutors. Most of that was damage to asphalt, which the demonstrators hacked from the ground to throw at police, they said.

Alexei Navalny, a prominent opposition activist who helped lead thousands of Russians in the streets in the past year, said the case against Luzyanin had been concocted. “Virtual charges and virtual complainants. It’s absolute fiction,” he said at the court.

“The police are pushed 10 times harder at any concert than at the May 6 demonstration.” — Reuters

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

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

Bank heist in India reawakens gun crime worries NEW DELHI: It was a classic bank heist in many ways. Armed men using a stolen car and motorbikes held up a van carrying cash in central New Delhi, shot a guard, and made off with the money.

While familiar in many countries and a set-piece of Hollywood films, it set alarm bells ringing in India where gun crime and armed robbery is still low by the standards of other developing countries in Latin America or Africa. The daylight robbery in September and several mass shootings in the capital have made frontpage news in recent weeks and led to renewed scrutiny of warnings from campaigners that a gun culture is gradually taking root.

In the bank heist, ten people aged between 31 and 50 have since been arrested over the security guard’s death and the theft of 52.5 million rupees ($960,000), much of which has been recovered. “These men wanted to break the class barrier and rise in life,” Joint Police Commissioner Vivek Gogia said.

“The robbery was planned with help of an ex-employee who knew when large sums would be transported.” In another recent incident, a 23-year-old shot dead his ex-girlfriend, her landlady and then drove to a city suburb to kill her father and sister before turning the gun on himself. A few days later, two friends went on a shooting rampage which left three women and two young girls dead.

Figures for gun seizures in New Delhi show a rising trend in recent years. In 2009, police found 573 illegal weapons, in 2010 there were 634 and in 2011 the

number reached 770. In the first nine months of this year, officers have already recovered 594.

Some of them end up at the Forensic Science Laboratory in north Delhi, where a team of scientists investigates where they were made and tries to ascertain when they were fired. Deputy Director KC Varshney says a workload of shotguns, home-made pistols and sophisticated weapons is heavier than ever. “The number of firearms we are receiving is increasing every year,” he said. “Earlier we were receiving two to three firearms a day and now we are receiving four or five.”

The vast majority of guns in India are still crude weapons called “kattas” or “tamanchas” that are produced from scrap metal, mostly in the eastern states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. They sell for as little as 1,500 rupees. But several police officers said they were increasingly worried about upskilling in these often rudimentar y factories where more sophisticated pistols and even automatic weapons are now being manufactured.

“Pistols before were simpler and fired only one bullet but the weapons we are recovering now are very sophisticated and four or five rounds can be fired one after the other. That is the change,” said S B K Singh, joint commissioner of New Delhi Police Crime Branch.

Arun Bhagat, who formerly headed the New Delhi police department, believes modern and more deadly firearms belonging to Maoist insurgents called Naxals or Islamic militant groups

are also finding their way to criminals.

“Homemade weapons are easily available but of late sophisticated guns from the Naxals and militants are coming into the society,” he said of the assault weapons which experts say are smuggled mainly from Pakistan and Nepal.

The total number of weapons is difficult to pin down, but the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey estimates India is home to 40 million civilian-owned firearms of an estimated 650 million worldwide. Only 6.3 million of them are legal. According to GunPolicy.org, a firearm prevention campaign forum, India holds the world’s second largest civilian arsenal after the United States where the level stands at 270 million.

Stringent licencing rules prohibit anyone below 21 and with a conviction for violence from possessing guns. Permit-seekers also face police screenings. But the easy access to homemade weapons means many do not bother with permits.

India, for now, remains far safer than other developing countries with comparable income inequalities and senior police say gun crime is rising in only some areas and for certain crimes, such as robbery. Nationally, gun violence accounted for nine percent of the 241,986 crimes committed in 2010, according to official records. Data from 2009 shows 7.6 percent of all murders were committed with firearms in India, compared to 54.6 percent in Mexico and 76.7 percent in Jamaica, the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime says.

But Binalakshmi Nepram, a gun-con-

NEW DELHI: An Indian pedestrian walks past the entrance to a gun shop in New Delhi. — AFP trol activist from the insurgency-wracked state of Manipur, believes changes are underway driven by India’s economic development which has made possessing guns a status symbols for some people. “In a rising India... people feel that they (ought to) own a car but now they should (also) have a gun as a status symbol. They’re trying to ape the United States of America.”) Nepram, who has addressed the UN General Assembly on gun violence, co-founded India’s first civil society organization to fight against the proliferation of weapons, called the Control Arms Foundation of India.

The 2008 attack by 10 Pakistan-based gunmen in Mumbai which killed 166 people hammered home the carnage that can be wreaked by firearms. Others worry an increasing number of young Indians, more materialistic and less bound by caste restrictions than their parents, might be increasingly seeing firearms as a route to quick riches. In the Delhi bank heist, one of the arrested suspects was a 31-year-old son of a junior bank clerk whose dreams of wealth led him to plot the crime with the suspected mastermind during a stint in prison, police say.— AFP

Gunfight at Sri Lanka’s biggest prison kills 27 Inmates raid prison armory; Army regains control

MINGORA: School girls pray for Pakistan’s child activist Malala Yousafzai as they mark ‘Malala Day’ in Mingora in Pakistan’s northwestern Swat Valley yesterday. —AFP

Fears blight ‘Malala Day’ in Malala’s hometown MINGORA: Pakistan marked “Malala Day” yesterday on a global day of support for the teenager shot by the Taleban for promoting girls’ education, but in her home town security fears meant schoolmates could not honor her in public. Taleban hitmen shot Malala Yousafzai on her school bus a month ago in Mingora in Pakistan’s northwestern Swat Valley, in a cold-blooded murder attempt for the “crime” of campaigning for girls’ rights to go to school.

Miraculously the 15-year-old survived and her courage has won the hearts of millions around the world, prompting the UN to declare yesterday a “global day of action” for her. People around the world are expected to hold vigils and demonstrations honoring Malala and calling for the 32 million girls worldwide who are denied education to be allowed to go to school.

Demonstrations backing Malala were held in Islamabad, Karachi, the eastern city of Lahore and Muzaffarabad in Pakistanadministered Kashmir and Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf saluted Malala’s courage. But in Mingora, the threat of further Taleban reprisals casts a fearful shadow, with students at Malala’s Khushal Public School forced to honor her in private. “We held a special prayer for Malala today in our school assembly and also lit candles,” school principal Mariam Khalid

said. “We did not organize any open event because our school and its students still face a security threat.”

Though their bid to kill Malala failed, the Taleban have said they will attack any woman who stands against them. Fears are so great that Khalid said even speaking to the media could put students’ lives in danger. Two of Malala’s friends were wounded in the attempt on her life and one, 16-yearold Kainaat Riaz, said she was still haunted by memories of the attack. “I am still terrified. I still get tears in my eyes whenever I think of that incident. I saw Malala in the pool of blood in front of me with my eyes,” she said.

Malala rose to prominence with a blog for the BBC charting life in Swat under the Taleban, whose bloody two-year reign of terror supposedly came to an end with an army operation in 2009. Despite the dangers, some children in Mingora were determined to speak out and pledged to follow Malala’s brave example. “Malala is a good friend of mine. She is brave and has honor and whoever attacked her did a terrible thing,” Asma Khan, 12, a student in Saroosh Academy, close to Malala’s school said.

“After the attack on her and her injuries, we have now more courage to study and now we will fulfil her mission to spread education everywhere.”—AFP

US President faces hard choices in Afghanistan KABUL: As he celebrated re-election, US President Barack Obama spoke of his desire to “shape a peace” in his second term, but he faces huge challenges in Afghanistan, where he must end his country’s longest war. From the very early days of his presidency in 2009 Obama has learned the hard way that plans laid in Washington often crumble in the hard realities of the land known as the “Graveyard of Empires”. He came to power in the middle of an economic crisis with the intention of bringing American troops home from Afghanistan but ended up sending a “surge” of 33,000 extra soldiers to try to quell the Taleban.

Now these reinforcements have come home and the 100,000-strong NATO force, nearly 70,000 of whom are American, are preparing to follow suit by the end of 2014.

But the land they will leave behind is not peaceful-the insurgency led by the Taleban is not beaten and a growing number of analysts believe the 350,000 Afghan security forces supposed to take over after 2014 are not capable of preventing a return to civil war. As the 2014 deadline approaches, Obama faces difficult questions over

whether to negotiate with the Taleban to try to secure peace and how many US troops to leave in Afghanistan after that date to help the Afghan forces.

For Maleeha Lodhi, former Pakistani ambassador to Washington, the next two years will be crucial. “It is what will happen between now and 2014 which will determine the course of post-2014 Afghanistan and post-war region,” she said at a conference in Islamabad this week. The best outcome, she said, would be a negotiated settlement following peace talks between the US and the Taleban, but she warned this was a distant prospect. “For now there is no peace strategy, there is no framework, there is no road map to get to this destination. Everybody agrees they want to get there but nobody has charted a clear way forward,” she said.

Preliminary contacts between the Taleban and the West began in Qatar but the process is now dead in the water, terminated in March by the insurgents after they failed to nail a deal with Washington on the release of five of their comrades imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay. — AFP

COLOMBO: At least 27 people were killed and a senior police officer seriously wounded in a gunfight in Sri Lanka’s biggest prison that began when police came under fire from inmates, officials and police said yesterday.

The army brought the violence under control before dawn and freed staff held hostage at the Welikada prison in the capital Colombo, jail officials and military said. Twenty seven people have been confirmed dead, prisons minister Chandrasiri Gajadeera told parliament.

The violence erupted when officers from the Special Task Force (STF), Sri Lanka’s elite police commandoes, were searching the jail for drugs and illegal mobile phones. “When they were coming out, prisoners started to attack them with stones. The STF used teargas and the prisoners fired at the STF,” Police Spokesman Prishantha Jayakody said.

Witnesses said they saw police shooting towards the jail, where armed prisoners were on the roof during the clash.

Prisons Commissioner P W Kodippili told Reuters that the prisoners had obtained the weapons - some of them machineguns - by breaking into the prison armory. “The search operations are continuing to clear the place and recover the weapons and also to find the escapees,” he said, Army Spokesman Brigadier Ruwan

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan security personnel examine a three-wheel taxi allegedly used by prison inmates as they tried to escape from Welikada maximum prison during a riot in Colombo yesterday. — AFP Wanigasooriya said a large number of weapons were found along with six bodies during the search operation. The commanding officer of the elite police force that had come under attack was in intensive care, the head of Colombo National hospital said.

“We’ve got 59 injured and 51 are still taking treatments and 16 are dead bodies,” an official at the

hospital said.

The jail has about 4,500 inmates, including members of the former defeated Tamil rebels from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) movement that fought a protracted war of independence, ending in 2009, but officials said it was unclear how many, if any, of them had been involved in the uprising.

“We don’t know who is involved in this, I don’t think any LTTE suspects are involved but I don’t know,” Commissioner Kodippili said. Kodippili also said the officials are taking the count of inmates to find out how many escaped. “We don’t know exactly how many have escaped now we are taking the count,” Kodippili said.— Reuters

Volunteer medics on frontline of South Thailand insurgency BANNANG SATA: They are rubber tappers by trade but every week are summoned to the scene of beheadings, bombs and shootings as volunteer medics dealing with the fallout from Thailand’s southern insurgency. Violence strikes with grim regularity in the lush, forested hills of Bannang Sata, a militant stronghold-or “red zone”-in Yala province, where locals are caught between the warring militants and security forces.

“It’s hard to collect a body when they have been burnt, beheaded or hit by a bomb blast,” said father-of-three Madanee Duereh. “But it’s our duty to help the people... to help them bury their dead the right way,” he said, referring to Islamic rites decreeing that the full body must be buried-a challenge when corpses have been torn apart by bombs. Like many Hilal Ahmad Foundation volunteers he makes a living in the rubber plantations that dot the Muslim-majority Thai south, draining and collecting the milkywhite sap from the trees.

Drawn from the remote communities they serve, the volunteers provide a safety net of sorts in an area stalked by fear as the eight-year insurgency grinds on. The Islamic charity, started seven years ago with a handful of volunteers now runs teams across all the restive provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat. It also has its own “1669” hotline, which villagers dial in the event of an attack. “They are our first call,” said 60-year-old Daliya Doloh, lifting his wrappedcloth “sarung” to show where a bullet smashed through his knee when unknown gunmen

opened fire on a teashop in his hamlet last year.

Volunteers recalled a hellish scene of bulletriddled bodies and blood-splattered walls when they responded to the attack that killed fourincluding a child-and wounded several others.

Regular ambulance teams from the provincial capital of Yala are reluctant to travel into the remote hills, especially at night or dawn when the militants target security forces with ambushes and roadside bombs. So villagers and local police turn to the foundation. “They take care of everything. Without them we are on our own,” said Doloh, explaining that the rescue team dressed his bullet wounds and whisked him to the provincial hospital for surgery.More than 5,300 people-the vast majority of them civilians according to analysts Deep South Watch-have died in an eight-year conflict in Thailand’s border region, with little sign of it ending. The near-daily attacks are blamed on a web of militant groups seeking greater autonomy for the southernmost provinces, although the groups have few stated aims. Attacks by militants-known locally as “the movement”-have surged since the summer, with a litany of shootings and increasingly spectacular bomb attacks indicating peace with the Thai state remains a long way off. Most Muslims in the deep south are fiercely proud of their culture, Malayu language and religion, which distinguishes them from the rest of predominantly Buddhist Thailand.

‘GOD WILL PROTECT US’ Motivated by faith and a profound sense of

civic duty, the volunteers give 24 hours a week to the charity, praying, sipping sweet tea and swapping banter at their base until their walkie-talkies crackle to life with news of an emergency. “The job is quite dangerous but we don’t mind... we work with our hear t. We believe God will protec t us,” said Abdul Rahman Kalong, a senior member of a 65strong team.

The volunteers say they are non-partisan, treating casualties from all sides of the conflict, although the minority Buddhist population runs parallel services. The rescuers operate with the tacit permission of the militants but are still at risk, particularly as insurgents commonly bait security forces into ambushes with a shooting or small bomb, only to detonate a larger device.

The teams say they have been fortunate to avoid serious injuries so far, with volunteers forced to hide in ditches as gunbattles rage around them. Abdul Rahman said the team, trained in first-aid, would benefit from more skills and equipment as well as 4x4 vehicles to negotiate remote roads when they are delu g e d by m o n s o o n r a i n s. “ Pro p h e t Mohammed said if you want society to be good you have to start on your own... that’s w h a t we a re d o i n g. H o p e f u l l y wo r k i n g together with the communities will help us towards peace.” It is a seemingly distant aspiration. Several hours after AFP visited the area a Muslim trader was shot, beheaded and his body torched inside a pickup truck.—AFP

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

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

Grumbling ‘volunteers’ roped into Beijing crackdown BEIJING: The Chinese Communist Party’s paranoia is on full display for its congress in Beijing in a security squeeze extending from police swarming Tiananmen Square to elderly sentinels watching street corners. The capital has 1.4 million “public order volunteers”-retirees, street cleaners, firemen and low-paid private security guardson the lookout for anything that could upset the sensitive gathering, even in the quietest residential neighborhoods.

But despite their patriotic armbands, many grumble about being roped in as foot soldiers for China’s massive police state. “Volunteer? They made me volunteer,” said Zhang Weilin, 25, a security guard at a central Beijing shopping mall who wore a camouflage jacket bearing a “US Army Airborne” patch and that was a size or two too large. “My security company gave us the uniforms and made all of us (other security guards) volunteer during the congress,” he said.

Increasingly worried about rising social unrest and acutely aware of public unhappiness over a lack of democracy, Chinese authorities have dramatically escalated the state security apparatus under President Hu Jintao. At the

end of the congress next week, Hu is widely expected to hand leadership of the party to Vice President Xi Jinping after ten years in power. Under Hu, security budgets have exploded - $111 billion was allocated in 2011 for “stability maintenance”, exceeding China’s stated defense budget.

Authorities frequently buttress security by tasking ordinary citizens with maintaining order in their patch and reporting potential threats to the Communist regime, particularly during important events like the congress. “If we see anything out of the ordinary, like a petitioner trying to protest, we report immediately to the neighborhood committee, who calls the police,” said retired teacher Huo Huihua, watching a Beijing street corner.

Under an age-old system from imperial times, Chinese across the country are officially granted the right to petition to Beijing authorities against local injustices.

However, petitioners and rights groups claim complainants are routinely jailed, beaten, or otherwise persecuted into silence. Rights groups say petitioners are being detained and ejected from the city during the congress. “It doesn’t matter if the petition-

er has a legitimate beef or not. That will be up to the police to decide,” said Huo, adding a sad grimace that acknowledged routine police brutality.

Zhang Yaodong, a petitioner from Henan province, was beaten to death by unknown thugs on Tuesday ahead of the congress, a rights group has said. Beijing police refused comment to AFP. Such incidents are common in China and often trigger violent demonstrations.

Although AFP reporters have witnessed numerous petitioners being dragged by police since the congress began, none of the nearly 20 “public order volunteers” interviewed by AFP said they had seen anything that merited a report to police. The security clampdown in Beijing has many of its practical-minded residents involved in the effort wondering why none of the huge security spending has trickled down to them. “If any ‘stability maintenance money’ is handed out, it will surely go to the neighborhood committee, we will never see any of it,” said a retired worker named Chen.

Instead, rewards for “volunteers” included uniforms, jackets, soap powder and cooking oil in exchange for the hours spent on street corners in

BEIJING: A security volunteer (right) keeps watch near the Great Hall of the People which is the site of the Party Congress in Beijing yesterday. — AFP the chilly November air. Dissident Bao pressed by the army said before the Tong said the huge domestic security congress opened. “In a republic, the build-up of recent years indicates the people should be the masters.

Communist Party has lost its ruling ‘Stability maintenance’ takes the peolegitimacy. ple as the enemy. This is an insult and “No country in the world makes its a disgrace,” he said. Chen Huili, a own people the biggest enemy,” Bao, house cleaner who says she was preswho was the highest official jailed fol- sured into acting as a neighborhood lowing the 1989 Tiananmen Square sentinel, has her own reasons for democracy protests that were sup- grumbling. “I didn’t volunteer. — AFP

Myanmar investigators seek clues after train blaze kill 25 2 petrol tankers loaded onto a train overturn

BEIJING: Journalists work at the media center setup for the 18th Communist Party Congress in Beijing yesterday. — AP

Young Chinese reporter puts officials on the spot BEIJING: Chinese officials accustomed to the tame questions of a compliant state press were caught out by a plucky 11year-old reporter during the country’s sensitive Communist Party congress. Sun Luyuan, a Beijing sixth-grade student, on Friday shook up one of the tightly-controlled party meetings on the congress’s sidelines with a question that put officials on the spot over China’s miserable food-safety record.

Noting that a steady stream of scandals and health scares involving tainted or unsafe food products had particularly affected students, leaving many sickened in various incidents, Sun asked why China can’t clean up its act. “I love snacks, but I don’t dare to eat snacks now because we see so many reports these days of problems with food products,” Sun asked high-level officials during a congress delegate meeting, according to state-run China News Service.

During the meeting at Beijing’s cavernous Great Hall of the People, Sun, who works for the Chinese Teenager News, continued by asking “why are these kinds of food products available for purchase?” “As many primary and middle school students eat our lunches at school, what can you do to put us at ease over food safety?” she asked.

The Communist Party is presenting a tightly-scripted image of national unity for the week-long congress that opened on Thursday. Held every five years, the congress will end next Wednesday with the unveiling of a new top leadership line-up widely expected to be headed by Vice President Xi Jinping, who will lead for the next ten years. Ma Kai, a top official in China’s cabinet who presided over Friday’s meeting, passed the question to Education Minister Yuan Guiren, the China News Service said.

Yuan offered a stock official response pledging the government was addressing the situation and putting proper safety measures in place, a line repeated for years even as the scandals have persisted. Increasingly anxious Chinese consumers are regularly hit with food scares ranging from cancer-causing toxins found in cooking oil to food items that are expired or contain dangerous chemicals and additives. In 2008, China was rocked by one of its biggest-ever food safety scandals when the industrial chemical melamine was found to have been illegally added to dairy products to give the appearance of higher protein content. At least six babies died and another 300,000 became ill after drinking the tainted products . — AFP

Canada and Philippines ink defense procurement deal MANILA: Canada and the Philippines signed a deal yesterday to help Manila buy military equipment to defend its territory, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Filipino President Benigno Aquino said. The Philippine defense department and state-run Canadian Commercial Corp signed the agreement as Harper met Aquino at Malacanang Palace in Manila, the two leaders announced at a joint news conference. The deal was inked amid a territorial dispute between the Philippines and China over islands and waters in the South China Sea. “This memorandum of understanding will enable the Philippines to acquire the equipment and expertise it needs to fulfill the country’s defense and security agenda,” Harper said. Under the deal, Filipino purchases of equipment and expertise from Canada’s $12.6 billion (US$12.6 billion) defense industry are guaranteed by the Ottawa government, according to a Canadian government statement. “This will help us in our efforts to build our defense and security capabilities,” Aquino said, declining to elaborate. “I cannot go into specifics lest they be observed by less friendly individuals,” he added. Faced with communist and Islamist insurgencies and an

increasingly assertive China, Aquino noted that the military had just two transport aircraft, no fighter jets and just 132 mainly World War II-era ships. “The fundamental issue is that we have a lot of outmoded equipment,” he said. The Canadian Commercial Corp serves as a go-between between Canadian suppliers and foreign governments to transact defense and security contracts. The Philippines has been in the market for patrol vessels to protect its waters, including areas that overlap with territory claimed by China.

Manila’s military treaty ally the United States is set this year to deliver a second refurbished Hamilton-class cutter, previously used by the US Coast Guard, to the Philippine Navy. Last month the Philippine Coast Guard announced it would buy five patrol boats from France for about 90 million euros ($116 million), partly to guard disputed areas in the South China Sea. The Philippines and China began a stand-off in April over the Scarborough Shoal, a group of islets in the Sea which the Philippines says are well within its 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone. China claims the shoal as well as nearly all of the South China Sea, even waters close to the coasts of neighboring countries. — AFP

YANGON: Investigators searched for clues yesterday to the cause of a train derailment and an ensuing blaze that killed 25 people and injured nearly 100 more in northern Myanmar. Two petrol tankers loaded onto the train overturned in Friday’s accident and local villagers collecting the fuel were burned to death as flames tore across the crash site. While the death toll did not rise overnight, police said 93 injured people were undergoing treatment, most of them in local hospitals in the town of Kantbalu in the Sagaing Region bordering India. “I don’t think the death toll will rise. The people who died perished on the spot when they were burnt,” a police officer in Kantbalu said by telephone, requesting anonymity.

The officer added that the cause of the accident was still unknown. Photographs posted on a government website Friday showed the charred remains of victims and debris scattered around the site, while the scorched and mangled train lay wrecked with its wheels off the track.

Residents in the remote area rely on trains as the roads are poor, but Myanmar’s rail system is in desperate need of renewal after years of underinvestment. Long isolated under almost half a century of junta rule, Myanmar has embarked upon a rapid series of political and economic reforms under President Thein Sein, who is now wooing foreign investors to boost the ailing economy.

MORAL LEADERSHIP President Thein Sein and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi must show “moral leadership” if Myanmar is to stem communal violence between Muslims and Buddhists, the International Crisis Group said yesterday. Unrest has left at least 180 people dead since June and displaced 110,000 mostly Rohingya Muslims, in western Rakhine State prompting international calls for the president and Nobel laureate Suu Kyi to defend the minority group. “The flare-up in Rakhine State represents a deeply disturbing backward step,” from Myanmar’s reforms after decades of junta

rule, the Brussels-based rights group said in a report on the crisis due to be released on Monday.

“This is a time when political leaders

tion” of Rakhine and Rohingya.

The unrest pivots on the Rohingya’s lack of legal status in Myanmar, where they are seen by the government and many Burmese

CHAT-GYI: A wreckage of a burnt down train is seen off a railway track near Chat-gyi train station in Chat-gyi, Myanmar’s Sagaing state. — AP must rise to the challenge of shaping public opinion rather than just following it. A failure to do so will be to the detriment of the country,” it added. Urging the government to curb nationalist rhetoric from the ethnic Rakhine, who are Buddhists, the report warned of the threat of rising “identity politics” in Myanmar as reforms give new found freedoms to interest groups.

The volatile Rakhine situation needs “decisive moral leadership... by both President Thein Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi to prevent it spreading and contribute towards long-term solutions”, the study said. Scores were killed and thousands of homes were torched in renewed violence last month and the ICG urged the government to ensure camps for the displaced do not become a precursor to the “segrega-

as illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh. With around 800,000 stateless Rohingya in Rakhine, the reformist government is under international pressure to give them a legal status, with warnings that the conflict threatens its democratic transition.

In rare comments touching on the incendiary topic, Suu Kyi last week urged the government to be open in any discussions about the citizenship status of the minority.

But she has been widely criticized for failing to make her own position on the Rohingya clear, aware that many in Myanmar want the Muslim group to be sent to another country. Suu Kyi’s reticence has the potential to undermine her position as a democracy figurehead and could also damage her National League for Democracy (NLD) party, the ICG said. — Agencies

China congress highlights contrast with Taiwanese TAIPEI: While ties between China and Taiwan may be closer than at any time since they split in a civil war, the staid, formal Communist Party congress being held in Beijing highlights how far apart the two sides are politically. “Taiwan’s democracy has learned from the United States,” said Wang Yingying, who moved from eastern China to Taiwan in 2005 with her Taiwanese spouse. “We in China cannot vote for our national leaders. Mainland politics are backward, Taiwan’s democracy is much better.”

With a population 50 times bigger and an economy 15 times greater, China overshadows Taiwan in almost every respect. But one area where Taiwan is envied by many in China is its freewheeling political system. Split since Mao Zedong’s Communist forces drove Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist government from the mainland, China and Taiwan used to engage in a propaganda and ideological war against each other. Since Taiwan jettisoned one-party rule in the

1980s and moved toward democracy, the competition for hearts and minds continues but is more low-key.

“There is now no excuse for the Chinese government to tell its people that Chinese culture is somehow at odds with democracy,” said Emile Sheng, who served as culture minister during Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou’s just-completed first term. “Taiwan’s experience proves this wrong.” Stepped-up trade and travel between China and Taiwan as well as a revival in longstanding cultural and social ties are all carrying Taiwan’s success with democracy to mainlanders.

Wang, the mainlander bride, is one of 300,000 Chinese spouses living in Taiwan. More than 2 million Chinese tourists travel to Taiwan every year, often holing up in their hotels to watch Taiwan’s many politically relentless all-news television stations.

China’s ruling Communists continue to hail their model as superior, noting its state-directed economy has lifted hun-

dreds of millions out of poverty in recent decades and government policies have warded off the recession and weak growth that have wracked the West during the past four years. In his opening speech to the congress Thursday, President Hu Jintao said China would never adopt a Western-style political system.

“There is a contest of ideology between China and Taiwan,” said political scientist George Tsai of Taipei’s Chinese Culture University. “It is dictatorship versus democracy. Many people are wondering if Taiwan’s model of democracy is appropriate for China’s future.” Sheng, the former culture minister, said a high watermark for Taiwan’s influence came earlier this year when millions of politically literate mainlanders closely followed Taiwan’s hard-fought presidential election between Ma and challenger Tsai Ing-wen.

He said the thousands of favorable comments that appeared on Chinese blogs which mainlanders use to skirt government restrictions on officially sanctioned media - left lit-

tle doubt that some in China had been won over by the vibrancy of the Taiwanese system. “They were really taken with the openness of the electoral process, the way the candidates conducted themselves, the graciousness of Tsai’s concession speech after she lost,” he said.

Despite Sheng’s optimism, even some Chinese impressed

by Taiwan’s democratic transition believe it is naive to assume that a robust democratic system can take root on the mainland anytime soon.

Decades of repressive policies mean there is no ready opposition party, and many Chinese fear the chaos that might result from a collapse of the Communist Party. Then there’s the leadership’s resistance to losing power. “They realize what kind of purge they could expect if democracy ever came,” mainlander Eric Zhang wrote in a recent post on Sina Corp’s popular Weibo service, a Chinese version of Twitter. “They would no doubt fight democracy as if their lives depended on it.” — AP

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

NEWS ALL FIRED UP! Continued from Page 1 welfare of the society and the shura of ruling along with safeguarding the unity and stability of the homeland”.

“Dear sons and daughters of the homeland: Words of enlightenment had been uttered by the late Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, the former Amir of the country, on this day 50 years ago about the reasons of the issuance of the constitution. The Constitution was issued with inspiration from those who were honored by the Almighty in his Holy Book that ruling is based on consultation, in consolidation of traits of the natives of Kuwait throughout the generations, as close brothers bound by unity of vision, common destiny within framework of true faith and belief in our Holy Islam, our basic principles and genuine values depicting the spirit of the united family.

“Today, while I congratulate our dear homeland and you all on this everlasting occasion, I recall with you provisions of the constitution that came as embodiment of the natives’ principles and values, the basis of the security of the homeland, and the real guarantee for stability of the political system of Kuwait, under the shade of which freedoms and democracy are being practiced as a means for construction and accomplishment for the sake of supporting the society and boosting its might and uniting its ranks.

“In this regard, we ought to express gratitude to everremembered personalities, credited for establishing the regulated parliamentary system, laying its foundations with guidance by the predecessors who paved the path for this objective, issuing a comprehensive constitution that was worded with great efforts, sweat and enlightened thinking; it will remain an everlasting source of pride for all of us.

“We have lived for five decades with parliamentary activities, with favorable and unfavorable outcomes, and for sake of picking the fruits of our parliamentary march; we have to safeguard our experience with objective assessment and constructive self-criticism. It’s not wrong that defects may exist, but it’s wrong to neglect such flaws and be complacent as to tackle them.

“Yes, we understand disagreements on the means of resolving our issues. We accept criticism and advices for promoting our institutions. We not only welcome but call for accountability and questioning any official regarding any shortcoming or flaw or misuse of public funds and breaches of law. We should all cooperate for serving the interest of our country. This is our joint and national preoccupation. With rationalization, we can tackle our problems.

“Securing our democratic march warrants a balanced approach for tackling matters. This should be based on well-calculated predictions, sound judgment and abstention from irrational acts. We have seen what other nations and peoples have gone through, they have been blinded by fanaticism and ignorance, thus their unity has been jeopardized with seditions and they have become victims of annihilation and havoc. I will not repeat what I have warned of before. We will never forget that Kuwait is precious and no one can sense value of the bounty unless he loses it,” Sheikh Sabah said.

HH the Amir cited a Quranic verse urging mankind to consider the countless riches bestowed by the heavens, and a saying by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) urging the faithful to abstain from greed. “States that enjoy shades of freedoms, constitution, laws, institutions and elected councils enjoy free media, possess constitutional means for auditing and supervision and rule by patriotic spirit. We need to reconsider the meaning of the great parliamentary oath, as a lot of misconceptions and distorted charters have been used by some to impose them as de facto realities.

“Preoccupations and concerns of the public must reach the institutions, instead of dragging the institutions to the street.

While we affirm confidence in the intentions of all citizens and

CIA chief Petraeus quits over affair their right for expressing their views, we are not alone on the arena, for there are interests and objectives among enemies of this homeland. We tend not to believe that our children may allow themselves to be tools and fuel for (seditions) without being aware. It is rather necessary from a rational and sound perspective to try identify the party that may benefit from exposing the country to chaos and troubles. We wonder where this chaos may lead. Let’s fear God for the sake of our homeland and families.

“Dear brothers, the great and most crucial challenge is democracy that bolsters and not undermines security, boosts accomplishments rather than jeopardize them. The freedoms we aspire are to boost stability and not threaten them. Unify the ranks and enrich dialogue. There shall be no security and stability as alternative to freedoms and democracy; they are a single entity that constitutes a basic guarantee for the security and stability of the society. We in this respect should take lessons from the states ruled by dictatorships.

“Our most important achievement is this historic event, our democratic experience, represented by the woman attaining her political franchise for elections and nomination, which is complementary of her vital role in making and bolstering the Kuwaiti society. At a time we boast of our democratic achievement, we affirm our pride of our judiciary renowned for integrity and trust. It is the secured garrison and strong fence that ensures that justice is served, thus we must all abide by its rulings and respect its independence and no one should try to interfere in its tasks any way.

“Dear my brothers and beloved compatriots: Caring for our youth is neither an uttered and repeated slogan or phrases in speeches, nor a school, club or an institution built here or there. Our youth are the basic resource of the present and hope of the future. Caring starts from the family and extends to the school and the whole society. There is a great responsibility on our shoulders to plant in them loyalty and sacrifice for the country and prioritizing its interests. We have a responsibility to promote the values of tolerance, love and cooperation among our youth and counter carelessness and chaos, and also promote abidance by law, responsible freedoms, enhance the spirit of work, production and creativity. If we fail to raise our youth well, the price will be dear. All of us will be blamed if we left them prey to the hands of mischief and destruction.

They are barren soil and empty pots that could be filled with the poisons of illusion and mischief if we failed to fill it with right thoughts and incentives for reform, creativeness and hard work.

“We have to be aware of the size of the growing dangers in the whole region and that shrapnel of these dangers are falling around us. We have to better monitor the events taking place around us with far thinking and a thorough study to be able to avoid its evils and its negative impacts.

“Dear my sons and daughters: Marking this noble anniversary coincides with the start of the procedures of the election of the 14th parliamentary session. As I emphasize that importance of ballot casting which is a national duty, I want to urge all dear compatriots to better choose their representatives to be able to shoulder this responsibility and achieve aspirations and hopes and the prominence of our dear country.

“We are a stage abundant with challenges in which leniency and the absence of strong and firm will is unacceptable. It also obliges better employment of our time and great potential and shun anything that wastes our time and potential to reach a new aspired positive era which restores confidence in our constitutional institutions, embodies team and collective work, respects different opinions based on the law. An era whose goal comprehensive development is to achieve justice and equality which takes into consideration the legislations’ goals, feasibility and workability and at the same time enhances our national security and reform economy and upgrade public services. — Agencies

Continued from Page 1 The president, fresh off his electoral triumph, reportedly had no inkling that the CIA chief was about to resign until Thursday morning. When he met with Petraeus later that day, Obama refused to accept the resignation straight away, saying he would think about it overnight, the New York Times said. But in the end, Obama concluded he could not push Petraeus to stay on, according to the Times.

Michael Morell, Petraeus’s deputy at the country’s lead spy agency, will serve as acting director, but there were indications he might be only a temporary choice.

Speculation on a possible successor focused on John Brennan, the White House counter-terrorism adviser and CIA veteran who has played an instrumental role in Obama’s drone war against Al-Qaeda militants. Neither Petraeus nor the CIA explained exactly why he felt he had to step down over the affair, and whether his liaison presented a purely personal problem or raised security issues in his sensitive work as spy chief.

The affair came to light as the FBI was investigating whether a computer used by Petraeus had been compromised, the New York Times and other US media reported, citing government officials. NBC News and other media reported the Federal Bureau of Investigation was investigating Paula Broadwell, co-author of a favorable biography of Petraeus, “All In: The Education of David Petraeus,” for possible improper access to classified information.

Unnamed officials told the New York Times that Petraeus’ lover was Broadwell, a former Army major who spent long periods interviewing Petraeus for her book. She offered no public comment on the revelations. For the director of the CIA, being engaged in an extramarital affair is considered a serious breach of security and a counterintelligence threat. If a foreign government had learned of the affair, the reasoning goes, Petraeus or Broadwell could have been blackmailed or otherwise compromised. Failure to resign also could create the perception for the rank and file that such behavior is acceptable. Experts noted that if Petraeus, a four-star general who retired to take the CIA job, had committed adultery while still in the army, he could have been court-martialed.

The resignation comes amid criticism in some quarters of Petraeus over his response to the deadly attack in September on the US consulate in Benghazi, which killed the US ambassador to Libya and three other Americans.

Intelligence officials have defended Petraeus and his officers over the incident, saying the CIA moved swiftly to rescue the Americans under attack at the Benghazi compound. The most celebrated military officer of his generation, Petraeus, 60, took over at the CIA a little over a year ago. He was credited by some with rescuing a failing US war effort in Iraq in 2007, after then president George W. Bush ordered a surge of troops into the country.

Obama later turned to him to lead a similar surge of American forces in Afghanistan in 2010, leaving a top post as commander of all US forces in the Middle East to do so. But Obama chose not to promote Petraeus to the US military’s top job as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as White House officials remained wary of the media-savvy general who had pushed for more troops and more time in the Afghanistan war.

His military background, however, sometimes clashed with the intelligence agency’s culture and there was some friction with the congressional committees that oversee the spy services. After accepting the CIA chief’s resignation, Obama hailed his “extraordinary service”. At the CIA, he had worked to shift the spy agency to a more “balanced” approach to intelligence gathering, after an intense focus on terror threats after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks, said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank. “He had already begun to position the agency to live in the post-9/11 world,” he told AFP. Senator John McCain, a loyal supporter who championed the general’s surge strategy in Iraq, heaped praised on Petraeus. “General David Petraeus will stand in the ranks of America’s greatest military heroes,” he said.

Petraeus has long been suspected of harboring political ambitions but he has repeatedly fended off questions about a possible White House run. Intensely competitive and known for his sharp intellect, he graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point in 1974, where he met his wife, Holly, the daughter of West Point’s superintendent. The couple has two children.

Holly Petraeus is known for her work helping military families. She joined the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to set up an office dedicated to helping service members with financial issues. Though Obama made no direct mention of Petraeus’ reason for resigning, he offered his thoughts and prayers to the general and his wife, saying that Holly Petraeus had “done so much to help military families through her own work. I wish them the very best at this difficult time.”

Petraeus, who became CIA director in Sept 2011, was known as a shrewd thinker and hard-charging competitor. His management style was recently lauded in a Newsweek article by Broadwell. The article listed Petraeus’ “rules for living.” No. 5 was: “We all make mistakes. The key is to recognize them, to learn from them, and to take off the rear view mirrors - drive on and avoid making them again.” Petraeus told his CIA employees that he treasured his work with them “and I will always regret the circumstances that brought that work with you to an end.” Other CIA directors have resigned under unflattering circumstances. CIA Director Jim Woolsey left over the discovery of a KGB mole, and director John Deutch left after the revelation that he had kept classified information on his home computer. — Agencies

Royals accused of criticizing govt released Continued from Page 1 The two young royals have written tweets sympathetic to the opposition, which has been organising protests against an amendment to the electoral law seen as a ploy to produce a pro-government parliament

in a snap Dec 1 general election. More than 150 protesters and 24 police have been injured in demonstrations since October 21 and the opposition plans another rally today. Young royal Sheikh Meshaal Al-Malek Al-Sabah was detained for a few days in July for expressing political views deemed offensive. — AFP

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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

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Washington Watch

Arab Americans’ rights at risk

By Dr James J Zogby testified before the US Commission on Civil Rights last week on the relations between law enforcement agencies and the Arab American and Muslim American communities. This provided an opportunity to lay out the problems that exist and an agenda that would allow us to move forward. In a democratic society based on constitutionally guaranteed rights, the role of law enforcement ought to be to help secure these rights for all citizens. This, for decades, has not been the case for Arab Americans. We have experienced problems as far back as the 1970’s. From released government files we have learned of the extent of harassment of Arab Americans and Arab student activists during this period - from Operation Boulder in the Nixon era, and the broad surveillance program against Palestinian student organizations in the 70’s and 80’s, to the extensive intelligence files on Arab American activists maintained by the FBI, sometimes in collaboration with outside groups, that were then used to harass members of my community. At the same time that law enforcement agencies were violating our rights, too little was being done to protect us when we needed it. Many of our community leaders, myself included, received repeated death threats from the early 1970’s onward. My office in Washington, DC, was firebombed in 1980. And the offices of the American Arab AntiDiscrimination Committee were targeted in the mid-1980’s. One of these attacks murdered my friend Alex Odeh in October of 1985.

During this entire time, there was not a single indictment or arrest.

During the Clinton Administration, my community’s access to the White House improved, as did official responsiveness to our concerns. For example, in the 1990s, we experienced problems with wide-spread airport profiling and the use of “secret evidence”. In response, the Department of Justice convened a series of meetings with our leadership that helped us resolve many of these issues.

Then came the horrific terrorist attacks of Sept 11. They were a dual tragedy for Arab Americans. We are Americans and it was our country that was attacked. At the same time, because some assumed our collective guilt, Arab Americans and Muslims and others perceived to be Arab and Muslim became victims of hundreds of hate crimes.

But something important happened, making it clear that despite the enormity of the crime that had been committed, a new dynamic was at work. Many Americans rallied to our defense.

President Bush spoke out against hate crimes, as did the Senate and the House of Representatives which both passed resolutions condemning bias against Arab Americans and Muslims. Federal and local law enforcement investigated and prosecuted hate crimes, and ordinary citizens defended and protected us, refusing to allow bigots to define America. As before, my family and I received death threats. But for the first time, the perpetrators were arrested by the FBI, prosecuted by the DOJ, and convicted and sentenced for their crimes. The Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, at our request, restarted the inter-agency problem-solving meetings we had begun during the Clinton years. But all was not well during the Bush years. At the same time that these positive developments were occurring, an entirely different message was being sent by then Attorney General John Ashcroft. In addition to mass deportations and the shameful “special registration” program, Ashcroft issued new profiling guidelines that created a loophole allowing ethnic, religious, and racial profiling, leading to wide-spread singling out of Arabs and Muslims by a number of law enforcement agencies. It is important to note that these profiling initiatives made no contribution to making our country more secure. FBI and other officials with whom I have spoken have questioned the effectiveness of profiling, telling me that it wasted time and resources, produced little useful information, and damaged outreach efforts, alienating communities whose cooperation law enforcement needs.

With the election of Barack Obama, we had hopes that we would see an end to these abusive practices. But policies that we had believed would change have not. We had hoped to see an end to the more controversial provisions of the Patriot Act. This did not happen. The Justice Department profiling guidelines remain in place and continue to be used by a number of agencies to the detriment of my community. Arab American citizens who have family in Canada or who conduct business in Canada are routinely profiled, experiencing disgraceful and humiliating treatment at the hands of Customs and Border Patrol. And we are also deeply disturbed by press accounts of the NYPD/CIA surveillance program. As the details of this program have come to light, we have been horrified by the use of coerced informants, wide-spread “ethnic mapping”, and spying and reporting on innocent people going about their daily routines. Additionally, we have been troubled by reports that the FBI has used their community outreach programs to “collect and illegally store intelligence information on Americans’ political and religious beliefs” - a clear violation of trust. And finally, we are deeply disappointed by the FBI’s failure to take decisive action in dealing with the scandal over their use of bigoted anti-Arab and anti-Muslim training materials. We have asked for greater transparency and full disclosure in explaining how these materials were developed, how many agents have been trained with them, and we have asked the FBI to apologize. For the FBI to not understand the damage they have done, the hurt they have created, and the trust they have broken, is incomprehensible.

NOTE: Dr James J Zogby is the President of the Arab American Institute.

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

Hu indicates no major reform imminent

By Patrick Lescot hina’s outgoing leader has acknowledged the ills that plague the Communist Party but insisted it can cure itself, indicating no radical surgery to either the economy or politics by his successor. In likely his final political testament given Thursday at China’s ongoing Communist Party Congress, outgoing President Hu Jintao delivered a stark warning to his successor Vice President Xi Jinping on the rampant corruption infecting the ruling party. “If we fail to handle this issue well, it could prove fatal to the party and even cause the collapse of the party and the fall of the state,” Hu told more than 2,200 delegates inside Beijing’s cavernous Great Hall of the People.

But his report to the party at its most important political event in five years put forward little in the way of a road map for reform, which analysts said indicated a dangerous paralysis in the Chinese communist system that could have dire consequences. “The party has become increasingly corrupt, the extent of corruption, graft and money grabbing has totally stained the image of the party,” Sun

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Wenguang, a retired academic from east China’s Shandong University, told AFP. “If there is no power that can confront the rotting away of the party, then it will lead to a social crisis, an economic crisis or even an international crisis.”

Hu is viewed by reformers as having missed a prime oppor tunity to push through reform of the political and economic systems during his ten years in power, a time when China enjoyed the advantage of high economic growth rates that could have eased such a transition.

Whether due to Hu’s own cautious style, or the restrictions of a system that relies on consensus rather than bold leadership, critics say this failure has left China facing problems of rising social unrest and worsening graft blamed on an unresponsive political system. Hu is also considered to have failed to rejuvenate a growth model that leaves China over-reliant on exports and investment, leading to unsustainable expansion that has spawned a rich-poor gap, environmental degradation, and other ills.

That leaves his successor Xi Jinping to deal with the aftermath. When the congress ends next Wednesday, Xi will inherit

the reins of the world’s largest political party, whose 82 million members control all sectors of society, including the economy.

The lead-up to the congress has been accompanied by intense speculation over whether Xi intends - or is able to - act aggressively to contain ills such as the endemic corruption that Hu warned could lead to the “collapse” of the party. Xi, whose resume includes heading Fujian and Zhejiang - key eastern manufacturing provinces at the forefront of China’s economic reform effort - is believed to be favoured by former Chinese president Jiang Zemin.

Jiang, now a towering figure in the party, is considered a proponent of reform.

While Hu’s address warned of the dangers of corruption and the need for a “new economic growth model” he offered little in the way of a prescription beyond calls for faith in “Marxism, Leninism, and Mao Zedong thought” and other party boilerplates. Hu’s restating of party dogma, insisting that the nation must unite behind the Communists in order to move forward and that China would “never copy a Western political system”, were also interpreted by analysts as signs that as far as the party is

concerned it is business is usual, and real change remains distant.

“Conservative forces within the Party are still very powerful,” Qian Gang of the China Media Project at the University of Hong Kong said in an analysis of Hu’s speech.

“According to the line marked out by the political report to the 18th National Congress, there is very little prospect that substantive moves will be made on political reform.” Such contradictions between the party’s grave pronouncements and its actions point to an apparent inability to clean its own house, say analysts, especially on corruption.

With regular reports of officials abusing their power and flagrant acts of graft already a permanent fixture of Chinese politics, western media reports have recently detailed huge fortunes gathered by top leaders, including Xi. The shocking scandal surrounding Bo Xilai, an ousted senior leader once viewed as a rising star, also sullied preparations for the five-yearly congress. Bo’s wife was convicted in August of murdering a British businessman while he was been tossed from the party - and is awaiting trial - amid allegations of graft and abuse of power. — AFP

Obama faces Latam revolt over drugs, trade

By Brian Winter S President Barack Obama will face an unprecedented revolt b y Latin American countries against the USled drug war during his second term and he also may struggle to pass new trade deals as the region once known as “America’s backyard” flexes its muscles like never before. Washington’s ability to influence events in Latin America has arguably never been lower. The new reality is as much a product of the United States’ economic struggles as a wave of democracy and greater prosperity that has swept much of the region of 580 million people in the past decade or so.

It’s not that the United States is reviled now - far from it. Although a few vocally anti-US leaders like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez tend to grab the media spotlight, Obama has warm or cordial relations with Brazil, Mexico and other big countries in the region. Most Latin American leaders were rooting, either privately or publicly, for his re-election on Tuesday. That said, even close allies are increasingly emboldened to act without worrying about what “Tio Sam” will say or do. Nowhere is that more evident than on anti-narcotics policy.

In 2012 as never before, many governments challenged the four-decade-old policies under which Washington has encouraged, and often bankrolled, efforts to disrupt the cultivation and smuggling of cocaine, marijuana and other drugs in the region. The reasons for the unrest: Frustration with what many perceive as the pointless bloodshed caused by the “war on drugs,” plus a feeling the United States has not done enough to reduce its own demand for narcotics - if, that is, it’s even possible to curb demand.

Those are hardly new complaints but they used to be aired in private. In April, several presidents voiced doubts about anti-drug policies at a regional summit that Obama attended. At the UN General Assembly in September, the leaders of Mexico, Colombia and Guatemala - historically three of the most reliable US partners on drug interdiction - called on world governments to explore new alternatives to the problem.

Obama and other US officials have energetically lobbied against legalization of drugs or letting up in the fight against

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powerful smuggling gangs. Yet some leaders and well-connected observers across Latin America expect substantial shifts in the next few years. “The taboo is broken,” said Moises Naim, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “2012 will go down as the year when Latin American governments became assertive and began making changes of their own accord.”

It remains unclear what exactly the changes will look like or how many countries will embrace them. Some leaders, such as Guatemalan President Otto Perez, have openly proposed legalizing or “decriminalizing” certain drugs. Others have pushed for less dramatic changes such as legalizing only marijuana or, like Mexico’s Felipe Calderon, have spoken in vague terms of a “less prohibitionist” approach.

Uruguay has gone furthest, proposing a bill this year that would legalize marijuana and have the state distribute it. That move was regarded as too extreme by many in the region, although this week’s decision by voters in Washington and Colorado states to legalize marijuana for recreational use showed that, even in the United States, the status quo is changing fast.

“Nobody knows where this is going yet,” said Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a former Brazilian president and part of an influential group of statesmen who have met behind the scenes with current leaders to advance the debate. “I’d describe this as a phase of timid, controlled experimentation,” Cardoso told Reuters. “It’s going forward, and it seems there will be changes ...

Nobody seems very concerned with how the United States will react.”

Cardoso, 81, remembers an era of power ful US ambassadors and so-called “banana republics” - when Washington often played a hand in installing leaders across Latin America and deposing those who incurred its wrath. That period basically ended with the conclusion of the Cold War. Still, as recently as a decade ago, the United States still enjoyed more leverage than it does now - thanks to trade, foreign aid, and loans from groups like the International Monetary Fund in which Washington plays a major role.

The United States’ economic slump has contributed to the changing dynamic. But so has a wave of broad-based economic

growth in Latin America that has lifted some 50 million people into the middle class since 2003, allowed countries such as Brazil to pay off debts to the IMF, and made the region broadly less subject to foreign pressure. Although there are exceptions, Latin America as a whole has also become more democratic. That makes it more complicated for Washington to shape events than it was during the 20th century, when one US secretary of state famously described a Caribbean dictator as “a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch”.

“Laugh if you want, but there’s no one son of a bitch for us to go talk to anymore in these countries,” said Shannon O’Neil, a Latin America expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. “There are still some people in Washington who don’t fully understand that these democracies are just as complicated as ours is ... and that ends up hurting us sometimes.” She said the more robust democracies help explain the recent pushback against drug policy.

“What you’re seeing is a popular outcry against the violence, and these governments are responding to it.”

US envoys are now respectful of countries’ sovereignty but still circle the region and warn about the dangers a change may pose. Obama said just before the April summit that legalizing drugs would not do away with violent cartels and “could be just as corrupting, if not more corrupting than the status quo.” Some countries such as Peru have heeded such warnings and are intensifying their drug crackdown. Alvaro Uribe, who was a stalwart US ally as president of Colombia from 2002 to 2010 and meets regularly with some of the leaders feeding the debate, said it may result in fewer changes than some think. “A lot of it is lip service,” Uribe told Reuters. “In private, few speak of substantial changes.”

Uribe, Cardoso and others agree that Mexico’s incoming President Enrique Pena Nieto will be a key piece to the puzzle because of his country’s size and proximity to the United States, as well as Mexico’s status as the prime battleground for drug violence. Some 60,000 people have died in Mexican drug violence in the past six years.

Pena Nieto is likely to discuss drug policy when he meets Obama before taking office in December. Aides have said Pena Nieto opposes legalization, although Chihuahua state governor Cesar Duarte - an ally of the

incoming leader - told Reuters that Mexico should legalize the export of marijuana and consider other changes following the votes

by Washington and Colorado.

On the other big issue the United States cares most about in Latin America - trade the road ahead also looks bumpy. Naim said Obama administration officials have told him they want to make a major push for free trade throughout the hemisphere during a second term. “They’ll try to start with the big countries,” Naim said.

“Whoever wants in can join.” The push may find receptive ears in countries such as Mexico and Peru on Latin America’s Pacific coast, which tend to be more open to trade, in part because of their relative proximity to Asia. Several of those countries already enjoy trade deals with the United States, but stand to gain from a broader agreement.

However, new trade talks have faced huge barriers in recent years because of strains on the global economy and Latin American countries are likely to be even more insistent on negotiating thorny issues like U.S. agricultural subsidies than they were in the past.

That’s in part because they have other options. China’s trade with Latin America soared from near nothing in the past decade and now accounts for about 11 percent of trade in the region. The U.S. share has fallen from 53 percent to 39 percent.

O’Neil said the most likely outcome may be a “divide down the hemisphere” in which Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and a few other countries stay out of any new trade deal.

Together, they account for about 60 percent of Latin America’s economic output.

The more fertile ground for cooperation may lie in less glamorous, but still important issues like energy policy, education and intellectual property rights. Even there, though, it’s clear the relationship is ever more one of equals.

“Latin America, especially Brazil and Mexico, represent a huge opportunity for the United States - if they can take advantage of it,” said Andres Rozental, a former Mexican deputy foreign minister. “But the era of unilateralism and the almost monolithic influence of the Americans in the world is just not what it was.”

(Additional reporting by Pablo Garibian and Dave Graham in Mexico City; Editing by Kieran Murray and Bill Trott) —Reuters

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

sp orts India announces IPL style league in 2013

Brisbane Test washed out BRISBANE: Rain washed out the second day of the first test between Australia and South Africa at the Gabba yesterday.

A torrential downpour some 45 minutes before the scheduled start was followed by drizzle which persisted throughout the day.

It was the first time a whole day’s play had been lost to rain at the ground since 1983, when Australia’s Test against Pakistan was similarly disrupted.

South Africa were set to resume on 255 for two in their first innings with Hashim Amla (90) and Jacques Kallis (84) closing on centuries.

The tourists have been reduced to 10 batsmen after JP Duminy was ruled out for the series after rupturing his Achilles tendon in training on Friday.

Duminy was also expected to play a key role with his off-spin after specialist spinner Imran Tahir was dropped from the side to make way for a fourth pace bowler.

The team confirmed that Duminy would be replaced in the touring party but exactly who would join the squad would not be announced before the end of the match.

South Africa’s number one test ranking is on the line in the series, which continues after Brisbane with tests in Adelaide and Perth. —Reuters

MUMBAI: India will launch a franchise-based badminton tournament next year on the lines of cricket’s cash-rich Indian Premier League (IPL) with top shuttlers from across the world, the organisers said yesterday.

The Indian Badminton League (IBL) will have six city-based teams vying for $1 million purse in the June 24-July 11 event, which the organisers claimed would be the richest prize-money tournament in the world of badminton. “We accept that cricket’s IPL is a great success and we are hopeful that the IBL will have the same kind of path-breaking effect on badminton,” said Akhilesh Das Gupta, the president of the governing body of the sport in the country.

Since Saina Nehwal won a bronze in this year’s London Olympics, badminton has seen a surge in popularity in the cricket-crazy country and the shuttler believes that the hefty money on offer will further boost the appeal of the sport. “Post 2012 Olympics, badminton has reached a peak in India. I think the game has become big in the country, that’s why the IBL is happening,” the 22-year old told reporters.

“I’m confident the IBL will make the game even more popular amongst the masses and fulfill the high expectations it has raised.”

Malaysia and Indonesia have already confirmed the participation of their top players while China’s have been approached, organisers said. The promoters of the league feel that the lure of the fat appearance fee in the tournament will be too hard to resist for the top-ranked players, who will be auctioned among the six franchises in March. —Reuters

Gayle ready for Test challenge DHAKA: Opener Chris Gayle yesterday said he looked forward to the challenges of five-day cricket against Bangladesh after playing a key role in West Indies’s World Twenty20 victory last month.

The 33-year-old left-hander was one of the stars of West Indies’ triumph in Sri Lanka but believed challenges were bigger in the first of two Tests which starts in Dhaka on Tuesday. “I am happy to be a part of the World Twenty20, it feels good.

It’s a milestone,” said Gayle of West Indies’s first world title since winning back-to-back World Cup wins in 1975 and 1979.

“But we have to play well in the longer format of the game, that has been our major challenge. I have made the necessary adjustments from limited overs cricket to Tests and it will be a challenge.”

The Test series will be only Gayle’s second after a two-year self exile following a fall out with the West Indies cricket board over multiple issues.

He plundered 150 and 64 in the two wins over New Zealand earlier this year and is looking to give his team a promising start again. “Well, obviously we have to get off to a good start and start the series well. It’s a long series ahead of us, so hopefully we can get a good start. We didn’t get a game before the Test so it’s more important,” said Gayle. —AFP

Maria secures World Cup win

ITALY: Tonga’s Viliame ‘Iongi’ (right) is tackled by Italy’s Kristopher Burton, during the international rugby union match between Italy and Tonga at the Rigamonti stadium. —AP

Italy edge Tonga ROME: Italy kicked-off their three test November series with a tough 28-23 win over Tonga in Brescia yesterday.

First-half tries to front-rowers Lorenzo Cittadini and Leonardo Ghiraldini, as well as a penalty try awarded just after the hour, were enough to see the Azzurri to their third straight win.

They still have significant work to do, however, to move up to the level of their Six Nations rivals - let alone New Zealand and Australia, who they meet over the next two weeks.

Italy got off to a fast start, crossing the line with only six minutes gone thanks to man-of-the-match Cittadini, but Tonga were more than a match for their hosts and pulled into the lead through prop Alisona Taumalolo just after the half hour.

Ghiraldini grabbed the lead back for

the hosts on the stroke of halftime, handing them an 18-16 advantage heading into the second half.

Italy thought they had the match sewn up when they were awarded a penalty try, converted by Kris Burton, just after the hour which extended their lead to 12 points.

However Jacques Brunel’s side, who still haven’t shaken off their habit of making unforced errors, went to sleep and allowed Fetu’u Vainikolo to pounce onto a smart diagonal kick on 67 minutes to shave the deficit to only five points.

Italy managed to hold on to their lead however, and record a welcome co nfidence boost ah ead of th e tougher challenges to come against the world champion All Blacks, and Australia. —Reuters

LEVI: Germany ’s Maria HoeflRiesch overcame injury to secure her 24th World Cup victory in the Levi slalom yesterday.

The Olympic slalom champion had been warned by German team doctors not to compete at the Finnish resort because of a hip problem, but she ignored the advice to triumph in a combined time of one minute, 55.58 seconds. “The injury improved in the last few days and I hardly felt anything,” Hoefl-Riesch told reporters.

“It’s a bit surprising because I didn’t do so well on the flat section and I really had to push it in the finish wall. I’m glad I managed to push my limits.”

Yesterday’s result would have brought back joyous memories for the 27-year-old from Garmisch, as she won her first slalom in Levi eight years ago and also triumphed on the same course in 2010.

She eclipsed first-leg pace setter and local favourite Tanja Poutiainen by 0.55 seconds.

American Mikaela Shiffrin, 17, was third, 0.74 adrift.

“It’s a piste I like a lot and I think I’ve been on the podium each time I raced here except in 2006,” Hoefl-Riesch said.

She had considered retiring during the summer break but decided against it so she can compete at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Poutiainen said meeting the challenge of up-and-coming skiers such as Shiffrin had

LEVI: Germany’s Maria Hoefl-Riesch competes during the first run of an alpine ski, women’s World Cup Slalom. —AP become a motivation.

“It’s a real challenge to fight against girls who are 15 years younger than you are,” the Finn said. “They have the rage while we have the experience, and it’s good for skiing to see young talent like this.” Pre-race favourite Marlies Schild of Austria missed her chance to equal the record number of 34 slalom wins held by Swiss Vreni Schneider when she

straddled a gate in the morning run.

“I don’t know what happened, I suddenly had a blank and I was out,” the world champion said.

But Hoefl-Riesch warned that Schild would be the one to beat in Aspen later this month: “The Aspen course is very technical and it will suit Schild ideally. It will be an exciting challenge.”

American World Cup holder

Lindsey Vonn shunned the Levi weekend to save energy for races at home in Aspen later this month.

Winner of the opening giant slalom in Soelden two weeks ago, Slovenia’s Tina Maze finished fourth to increase her lead in the overall World Cup standings to 150 points. She leads HoeflRiesch by 26 points while Vonn has yet to score. —Reuters

England demolish Fiji TWICKENHAM: England recovered from a slow start to score seven tries in a 54-12 demolition of Fiji yesterday, issuing a statement of intent ahead of upcoming tests against the southern hemisphere powers. Charlie Sharples and Manu Tuilagi each scored a brace of tries at Twickenham, Ugo Monye and Tom Johnson also went over while England was awarded a penalty try in a one-sided final hour. Toby Flood kicked 17 points, missing only one of seven shots at goal.

Second-half tries by Nikola Matawalu and Seko Kalou were just reward for the efforts of Fiji, which was overrun after making a ferocious start in front of 82,000 fans.

After losing a three-match summer test series 2-0 in South Africa, the confidence of an inexperienced England side will be boosted before successive matches against Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. They will provide much tougher tests for Stuart Lancaster’s side, which could need two victories over the next three weekends to preserve its No. 4 spot in world rankings. That would ensure them a crucial top seeding for the pool draw for the 2015 World Cup on Dec. 3.

Despite the scoreline, this was a good workout for England, which had to wait until the 16th minute to have possession in Fiji’s half.

The home defense stood firm - even while scrumhalf Danny Care was in the sin-bin for a spear tackle - and when England finally found its attacking rhythm, it was one-way traffic.

“We were pretty slow out of the blocks but we eventually worked our way into the game,” England captain Chris Robshaw said. “When we went through the phases, we scored tries.”

After Flood’s first penalty, in the 19th, Tuilagi and the superb Alex Goode combined to supply Sharples, who cut in from his right wing and

burrowed past four tacklers to stretch over for his first international try. Fiji was now completely on the back foot, with its set piece malfunctioning.

England’s second try came when its powerful scrum forced the visiting pack to retreat and eventually collapse near the line. Kiwi referee Glen Jackson, in charge of his first test, had no option but to award a penalty try.

And when Monye - playing his first test in 32 months - scurried over down the left flank after a quick tap from Goode, Fiji traipsed back into the dressing rooms 25-0 down and facing a heavy beating, a fifth in a row against the English. Both of those late first-half tries came while Fiji captain Deacon Manu was in the sin-bin for persistent team offending.

Lancaster had selected one of the most inexperienced England XVs in the professional era - with just 215 caps among them - but the young team’s composure mirrors that of its coach.

They kept doing the basics well and after Flood booted his third penalty to get the scoreboard ticking over again in the 43rd, Johnson plunged over in the corner five minutes later as Fiji’s wide defense grasped at thin air.

Matawalu gave the South Sea islanders something to cheer by pouncing on turnover ball, hacking forward and beating Goode and Tuilagi to the finish. But normal service resumed in the 58th when Sharples took Flood’s floated miss-pass and checked inside for his second try.

Flood converted before being replaced by Owen Farrell, one of many substitutions that affected the flow of the game.

England, now living in Fiji’s 22, botched a number of openings before Tuilagi bulldozed over for his second try. Though Fiji had the last laugh through Kalou.—AP

VALENCIA: MotoGP Repsol Honda Team rider Dani Pedrosa from Spain rides his motorbike during the qualifying practice session for today’s Motorcycle Grand Prix. —AP

Pedrosa wins pole at Valencia VALENCIA: Dani Pedrosa of Spain won pole position at the Valencia Grand Prix yesterday, setting a track record for qualifying with a fastest lap of 1 minute, 30.844 seconds.

Pedrosa steered his Honda around the 4kilometer (2.48-mile) Comunitat Valenciana circuit with a last flying lap to claim his 24th career pole in MotoGP. “We are happy with the pole and the record,” Pedrosa said. “Maybe it will rain tomorrow, so I will try to do my best and have a good race.”

Recently crowned world MotoGP champion Jorge Lorenzo will start today’s race from sec-

ond place, with retiring two-time world champion Casey Stoner right behind in third.

Valentino Rossi, who is set to leave Ducati for Yamaha next season, finished with the 11th best time.

After raining through practice on Friday, the sky cleared on the Mediterranean coast in time for qualifying. “It was tough to find our rhythm because we hadn’t had time to test the bike in dry conditions,” said Lorenzo, who wrapped up his second title two weeks ago at the Australian GP. “The race tomorrow is long so maybe we have a chance at victory.”

Stoner, who will try to add to his 38 career

MotoGP wins today, was unhappy with his result. “It was quite bad,” Stoner said. “We had hoped to do a little better than we did. The bike has more potential than it showed today.”

Pol Espargaro took pole position in the Moto2 category. Fellow Spaniard and world champion Marc Marquez was second, followed by Thomas Luthi of Switzerland.

I n Moto3, Jonas Folger of Germany grabbed pole position at the end of the session. Miguel Oliveira of Portugal will start second in front of Spain’s Luis Salom in third and world champion Sandro Cor tese in fourth. —AP

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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

SPORTS

Lakers pound Warriors ATLANTA: Kobe Bryant scored 27 points, Pau Gasol added 14 points and 16 rebounds, and the Los Angeles Lakers responded to coach Mike Brown’s firing earlier Friday with a 10177 victory over the Golden State Warriors.

The Lakers had just a few hours to absorb Brown’s dismissal after just 18 months on the job. Following a bumpy first half under interim coach Bernie Bickerstaff, they pulled away in the third quarter with a 25-9 run led by Bryant, who also had nine rebounds and seven assists.

Stephen Curry scored 18 points for the Warriors, who have lost five straight to the Lakers overall.

The comfortable victory doubled the Lakers’ victory total for the season and capped one of the most tumultuous days in recent history for a franchise that’s never short on drama. General manager Mitch Kupchak and owner Jim Buss abruptly dismissed Brown, informing the players during their morning shootaround. Bickerstaff ran the Lakers as the interim coach, but the veteran NBA bench boss isn’t likely to be a candidate for the full-time job. The crowd quickly made its choice known: A chant of “We want Phil!” rose out of the stands while Bryant shot a free throw in the third quarter.

ers as the Hawks rallied from a ninepoint deficit in the fourth quarter. But Josh Smith, on an awful night, missed two free throws with just over a minute remaining, and James finished off Atlanta after the teams traded turnovers.

Everyone in the building knew James would shoot, but it didn’t matter.

He muscled away from DeShawn Stevenson, swished a 15-footer and hopped along the sideline in front of the Atlanta crowd. The Heat won without Dwyane Wade, who didn’t play because of a cold.

Chris Bosh led Miami with 24 points.

James just missed a triple-double, adding 11 rebounds and nine assists.

Teague paced the Hawks with 20 points and 11 assists.

KNICKS 104, MAVERICKS 94 In New York, Carmelo Anthony scored 31 points and the Knicks improved their best start in nearly two decades to 4-0.

Reserve JR Smith added 22 points for the Knicks, the only unbeaten team in the NBA. They hadn’t been perfect after four games since the 1993-94 team started 7-0 en route to the NBA Finals.

The Knicks averaged 104.7 points and allowed just 85.3 per game while routing Miami and sweeping a home-

23 points, 11 rebounds and five blocks in his first game back after a concussion, and the Hornets handed the Bobcats their third straight loss.

Ryan Anderson hit five 3-pointers and finished with 25 points for New Orleans, which has won three of its first five games despite being without injured star guard Eric Gordon.

Ben Gordon scored 34 points for Charlotte. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Davis’ former Kentucky teammate and the second overall draft pick, had 12 points and six rebounds.

Davis came alive after getting tangled up with Charlotte big man Byron Mullens late in the second quarter, an altercation that sent teammates running to separate them and sent official Bill Kennedy somersaulting backward into the front row, where he landed in the lap of Dennis Lauscha, president of the Hornets and NFL’s Saints. (Both clubs are owned by Tom Benson, who was sitting next to Lauscha and narrowly avoided Kennedy.)

Davis scored 18 following the feud on an array of driving layups, putbacks and even a smooth baseline jumper from about 10 feet.

Suns 107, Cavaliers 105 In Phoenix, Shannon Brown scored 12 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter

LOS ANGELES: Lakers center Jordan Hill (center) goes after a rebound as Golden State Warriors forward Andris Biedrins of Latvia and forward Richard Jefferson (right) defend during the second half of their NBA basketball game. —AP

points for the Wolves, who at 4-1 are three games over .500 for the first time since they were 20-17 in 2006-07.

76ers 106, Celtics 100 In Boston, Evan Turner scored 25 points, Jrue Holiday added 21 and Philadelphia held off several fourthquarter rallies.

The Celtics cut the lead to four twice in the final period, 83-79 and 102-98, but couldn’t get any closer and fell to 23 with their only victories coming over winless Washington. The 76ers won their second game in three nights to improve to 3-2.

Turner had 11 rebounds and Holiday had 14 assists. Dorell Wright and Thaddeus Young scored 15 points apiece.

Paul Pierce scored 24 for Boston, and Kevin Garnett finished with 19.

Rajon Rondo had 14 points and assisted on 20 of the Celtics’ 37 baskets.

Nets 107, Magic 68 In Orlando, Andray Blatche had 15 points, Brook Lopez added 14 points and 10 rebounds and Brooklyn never trailed while snapping a 10-game losing streak to Orlando that dated to 2009.

E’Twaun Moore led the Magic with 18 points, and Arron Afflalo finished with 12. The Nets dominated inside, with Lopez and Blatche pushing around Orlando’s young front line. They also got a lift from their bench, with Brooklyn’s reserves outscoring their counterparts 55-18 for the game.

Orlando lost its third straight game after starting 2-0. It also tied a franchiselow with four made free throws, compared to 16 for Brooklyn. The teams play each other again Sunday in Brooklyn.

Spurs 97, Kings 86 In Sacramento, Tim Duncan had 23 points, 12 rebounds and four blocks to power San Antonio to the road win. The Spurs played without Stephen Jackson, who was out with the flu, and Duncan and several other players were a bit under the weather. But they led for much of the game in defeating the Kings for the ninth straight time in Sacramento.

Reserve Patty Mills gave the Spurs a huge lift, making 8-of-9 shots and scoring 18 points. Kawhi Leonard had 11 points. Marcus Thornton and Jason Thompson scored 17 apiece for the Kings, who had won two straight.

DeMarcus Cousins, the team’s leading scorer and rebounder, was in foul trouble much of the game and finished with 14 points and nine rebounds in 23 minutes.

Thunder 105, Pistons 94 In Oklahoma, Serge Ibaka scored a career-high 25 points, Kevin Durant chipped in a season-high 25 points and 13 rebounds, and Oklahoma City broke in its new alternate jerseys by beating winless Detroit. The Thunder scored nine straight points soon after Durant checked back into the game midway through the fourth quarter, stretching their lead to 93-77 after the three-time NBA scoring champion hit two free throws with 5:47 to play.

Detroit never got closer than nine after that, falling to 0-6 on the season — one loss shy of matching the worst starts in franchise history in 1962 and 1980. First-round draft pick Andre Drummond led the Pistons with 22 points.

SACRAMENTO: Kings guard Isaiah Thomas (left) collides with San Antonio Spurs guard Patty Mills, of Australia, during the fourth quarter of an NBA basketball game. —AP Phil Jackson, the 11-time NBA champion coach who won five rings in two previous stints running the Lakers, is near the top of Kupchak’s list again, the GM acknowledged.

Heat 95, Hawks 89 LeBron James scored 21 points, including the clinching jumper with 13.6 seconds remaining, and the Heat picked up their fourth straight win.

Jeff Teague hit consecutive 3-point-

and-home series from Philadelphia to start the season, but didn’t seize control of this one for good until nearly the midpoint of the fourth quarter.

O.J. Mayo scored 23 points for the Mavericks, who had their three-game winning streak snapped and lost to the Knicks for just the fourth time in the last 22 meetings.

Hornets 107, Bobcats 99 In New Orleans, Anthony Davis had

NBA results/standings Milwaukee 101, Washington 91; Brooklyn 107, Orlando 68; Philadelphia 106, Boston 100; NY Knicks 104, Dallas 94; Miami 95, Atlanta 89; Memphis 93, Houston 85; New Orleans 107, Charlotte 99; Oklahoma City 105, Detroit 94; Minnesota 96, Indiana 94; Phoenix 107, Cleveland 105; San Antonio 97, Sacramento 86; Denver 104, Utah 84; LA Lakers 101, Golden State 77.

Eastern Conference Atlantic Division W L PCT NY Knicks 4 0 1.000 Philadelphia 3 2 .600 Brooklyn 2 2 .500 Boston 2 3 .400 Toronto 1 4 .200

GB 1.5 2 2.5 3.5

Western Conference Northwest Division Minnesota 4 1 .800 Oklahoma City 4 2 .667 0.5 Denver 3 3 .500 1.5 Portland 2 3 .400 2 Utah 2 4 .333 2.5

Central Division Milwaukee 3 1 .750 Chicago 3 2 .600 0.5 Cleveland 2 4 .333 2 Indiana 2 4 .333 2 Detroit 0 6 0 4

Pacific Division LA Clippers 4 2 .667 Golden State 3 3 .500 Phoenix 3 3 .500 Sacramento 2 4 .333 LA Lakers 2 4 .333

Southeast Division Miami 5 1 .833 Atlanta 2 2 .500 2 Orlando 2 3 .400 2.5 Charlotte 1 3 .250 3 Washington 0 4 0 4

Southwest Division San Antonio 5 1 .833 Memphis 4 1 .800 0.5 Dallas 4 2 .667 1 New Orleans 3 2 .600 1.5 Houston 2 3 .400 2.5

1 1 2 2

and helped key a late 14-4 run as Phoenix rallied from a 26-point deficit to get the win.

PJ Tucker hit a 20-foot jumper from the left corner to give the Suns a 103102 lead with 1:32 to go. After the teams traded misses, Marcin Gortat blocked Daniel Gibson’s shot and Goran Dragic found Brown streaking down the right side for a fast-break dunk and a 105-102 lead with 37.4 seconds remaining.

Dragic made one of two free throws but Gibson connected on a 3-pointer with 13.1 seconds to play to get the Cavaliers within one. Sebastian Telfair dribbled the clock down to 5.1 seconds and made one of two free throws to make it 107-105.

Kyrie Irving had a chance to win it for Cleveland as time expired but his 3pointer from the top of the key bounced off the back of the rim. Dragic scored 26 points.

Timberwolves 96, Pacers 94 In Minneapolis, Chase Budinger converted a layup on a feed from Andrei Kirilenko with 0.8 seconds to go, lifting Minnesota to the victory.

Budinger scored 18 points while subbing for the injured Brandon Roy. Alexey Shved had 11 points and seven assists and Nikola Pekovic added 13 points and eight rebounds for the Timberwolves.

Roy left the game at halftime with a sore right knee. The former three-time All-Star is attempting a comeback after chronic knee issues forced him to retire from Portland before last season.

George Hill had 29 points, seven assists and five rebounds and David West had 19 points and 13 boards for the Pacers. Derrick Williams scored 15

Grizzlies 93, Rockets 85 In Memphis, Rudy Gay had 21 points and a key basket with 1:03 left that helped Memphis defeat Houston for its fourth straight victory. Zach Randolph had 15 points and 14 rebounds for the Grizzlies.

Houston was within 87-85 in the final 2 minutes, but Memphis scored the last five points of the game, including Gay’s rebound bucket, to win its 13th consecutive regular-season game at home. Mike Conley had 14 points for Memphis, including a 3-pointer down the stretch, and Jerryd Bayless added 12. The Grizzlies are 4-1 for the first time since the 2000-01 season, when they played in Vancouver. Chandler Parsons led the Rockets with 19 points, including 15 in the second half. James Harden had 18 points, but shot only 4 of 18 from the field and 1 of 6 outside the arc.

Jeremy Lin had 15 points.

Bucks 101, Wizards 91 In Washington, Monta Ellis scored 22 points, and the Bucks quickly erased an early deficit before pulling away with a 13-0 run bridging the third and fourth quarters.

Milwaukee’s Brandon Jennings and Washington’s Bradley Beal were ejected in the final minute. Washington fell to 04 despite 22 points from Beal, the No. 3 overall pick in June’s NBA draft, and a combined 26 from veterans Trevor Ariza (15) and Emeka Okafor (11), matching their output from the team’s first three games.

With the outcome no longer in doubt, Beal was called for a flagrant foul when he knocked Ellis to the court on a breakaway. As Beal leaned over to offer Ellis a hand to help him up, Jennings ran up and shoved Beal down. The Bucks improved to 3-1. They were coming off their first loss, against Memphis on Wednesday. —AP

Brian Scott

Scott wins trucks race at Phoenix AVONDALE: Brian Scott got the caution he wanted, racing off to his first NASCAR trucks win in three years. James Buescher got a bad break he didn’t need, sending the series championship into what could be a wild finish next weekend.

Scott used a late pass on a restart with two laps left after Buescher hit the wall, winning win a wreck-filled race at Phoenix International Raceway Friday night that tightened up the season championship.

“Had it not been for the caution at the end, I don’t think we could have done it,” Scott said.

Buescher could have done without it. He came into the race with a 15-point lead and appeared to be in position to pad it after Ty Dillon suffered damage from a wreck with about 40 laps left.

All Buescher had to do was hold on. His truck wouldn’t let him. Working his way back from a pit mishap with about 100 laps left — he slid into the wall in his stall — Buescher was running seventh when his right front tire went down, sending his No. 31 truck into the wall. His crew tried to repair the damage enough to get him back on the track, but couldn’t do it.

Buescher finished 17th, leaving him 11 points ahead of Timothy Peters, who avoided the wrecks to finish fourth, and 12 ahead of Dillon.

Joey Coulter, who finished third, is 29 points back.

Buescher heads into next weekend’s season finale at Homestead needing to finish seventh or better without leading a lap, eighth with one lap led or ninth while leading the most laps.

Scott can’t win the season championship, but he may have taken a big step toward landing a ride next season. Driving the No. 18 Toyota that Kyle Busch won with at the last trucks race at PIR in February 2011, Scott was hoping for a caution late in the race to give him a shot at passing Kyle Larson.

He got it with three laps left, when Buescher slammed into the wall. Scott beat Larson on the restart and held on over the final lap for his second career trucks victory — first since 2009 at Dover. He is the 15th different winner this season, a trucks series record. Scott’s timing was pretty good, too; his Nationwide deal with Joe

Gibbs Racing ends next week.

“I’m on the market. I’m looking for something,” Scott said. “I don’t know whether it’s going to be Nationwide, truck. I feel like I can still be competitive. The last two years have been rough.”

PIR was repaved and reconfigured after Busch’s 2011 win, and the trucks ran fast in qualifying, with Nelson Piquet Jr. earning the pole with a track-record 134.439 mph.

About 40 laps into the race, the track started to get slick and trucks started careening off the walls and each other, crashing six times in 40 laps — four on consecutive restarts.

Parker Kligerman had his championship hopes all but dashed in one of wrecks, getting loose out of a corner and slamming into two other trucks. Third in the points heading into the race, he finished 27th and is 37 points behind Buescher.

“To get loose and get into the wall, that’s not very good driving,” Kligerman said. “But we were just really loose all night.”

Dillon got caught up later. He started 21st, but moved up quickly, grabbing the lead after a string of crashes midway through the race.

Dillon’s day took a bad turn when he was involved in a wreck with about 40 laps to go after German Quiroga hit Brendan Gaughan from behind.

Gaughan was infuriated by the wreck, immediately climbing out of his car and reaching into Quiroga’s window as he screamed at the Mexican driver, pulling his helmet back at one point before storming off. “The kid overdrove the corner — I watched the replay, he overdrove the corner — and he screwed up,” said Gaughan, who finished 23rd. “It’s pretty self-explanatory.”

Dillon didn’t suffer as much damage as the other drivers and managed to stay on the track, restarting 18th. He couldn’t make up much ground, but grabbed a few spots at the end of the race to give himself a shot next weekend.

Peters did the same thing, taking a gamble by taking four tires when everyone stayed out during a caution with 90 laps left and avoiding all the wrecks.—AP

Trouble brewing for NHL as lockout drags on TORONTO: Canadians may be depressed about the ongoing National Hockey League (NHL) lockout that has darkened arenas across the hockey mad nation but they are not crying in their beer about it, at least not Molson Coors.

As the labor war between billionaire owners and millionaire players drags on trouble appears to be brewing for the NHL with fans, sponsors, television networks and those who earn a living on the fringes of the sport angered over the prospects of losing a second season in eight years.

An Angus Reid poll released on Friday found that more Canadians blame owners for the lockout now in its 55th day and 31 percent of hockey fans polled have switched to watching the National Football League (NFL).

The tedious negotiation dance has become all too familiar for weary North American sports fans, who have been dragged a through Conga line of labor disputes by the NFL, NFL officials and the National Basketball Association in the past 15 months. Now they must watch NHL owners and players wrestle over a $3.3 billion pie.

Some of that frustration surfaced like the froth on a foamy beer on Wednesday, when Molson Coors chief executive Peter Swinburn, who signed a reported seven-year $375 million sponsorship deal with the NHL, suggested the brewing giant could seek compensation for a dramatic slump in sales in Canada.

In the first month of the fourth quarter, Molson Coors sales to retailers fell 5.1 percent in Canada, hurt by industry weakness and the NHL lockout.

“NHL is a major property for us,” said Molson vice-president Dave Dunnewald.

“Hockey generates a lot of beer occasions in Canada, whether it’s in bars, in home, or in the venues.

“And it’s a really important part of how we activate behind our power brands, Coors Light and Canadian. “So we’re obviously working to replace the hockey programming but hockey would be the premier property and on top, we lose the direct volume in the hockey venues that are ours.”

Most sponsorship deals come with “make good” clauses shielding companies from

calamities such as lockouts and Molson is certain to receive some relief in the form of additional marketing and advertising opportunities if the labor strife drags on but compensation is unlikely.

According to business and marketing experts, Swinburn’s threat should be viewed as more of a warning shot across the NHL’s bow.

“It’s jawboning or whatever you want to call it,” Bill Sutton, professor at University of Central Florida’s DeVos sports business program and former vice-president of marketing at NBA, told Reuters. “You can check with any lawyer, I can’t imagine they have any claim for the loss of any beer sales but what he is saying is, ‘Hey guys, I’m going to have to put my money somewhere else or take it out of the market, if you’re not back skating pretty soon, you are not going to see that money this year’.” NHL sponsors have not been shy about expressing their concerns when it comes to the operation of the league. Last year commissioner Gary Bettman faced the threat of a sponsors’ revolt over concern of escalating violence in the game following a devastating hit by Boston Bruins Zdeno Chara on Montreal Canadiens Max Pacioretty that left Air Canada threatening to pull its sponsorship. “They (sponsors) have some influence,” Neal Pilson, head of Pilson Communications and former president of CBS Sports told Reuters. “They have a lot of stake.

“This is the fourth quarter and it would be a big quarter for whatever sponsor because this is the platform for your activation into the holiday season. “You set up all these campaigns to activate in the holiday season and all of sudden the platform you we’re going to use isn’t there.”

As the fans and some sponsors grumble the league’s broadcasting partners have been mostly silent, stoically counting the hours of lost programming and advertising revenues.

A year ago the NHL was crowing about a new $2 billion rights with NBC that was to roll out a lineup of games this season highlighted by the money-spinning New Year’s Day Winter Classic, that has already been wiped from the schedule by the labor dispute. —Reuters

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

S P ORT S

Del Potro stuns Federer

SINGAPORE: Padraig Harrington of Ireland tees off on the ninth hole during the second round of the Singapore Open golf tournament. — AP

Bjorn holds one-stroke lead at Singapore Open SINGAPORE: Denmark’s Thomas Bjorn had to wait more than 36 hours to tee off in the second round of the rain-soaked Singapore Open yesterday. The delay may have done him good.

Bjorn shot a 67 to move into the lead and held on to a one-stroke advantage over England’s Chris Wood in the third round before play was halted due to darkness.

Tropical downpours caused havoc with the schedule this week, forcing organizers to finish the second round early Saturday and then hurriedly start the third round hours later.

Officials are still planning to play 72 holes unless storms cause more delays today.

Bjorn was sitting at 9 under after completing three holes in the third round. South Africa’s George Coetzee was in third place at 7 under, one stroke ahead of Italy’s Francesco Molinari and Thailand’s Chapchai Nirat. Rory McIlroy was at 4 under overall, five strokes behind the leader.

The Northern Irishman started to make a run at the start of the third round with a birdie and an eagle on the par-5 4th hole, but he hit into the water off his tee shot on the sixth and took a double bogey. He was in a tie for 13th after completing nine holes. “I’ll need to go out and try to make a few birdies in the morning and get myself within a couple shots of the lead, or a few shots of the lead, going into the fourth round - if it ever happens,” McIlroy said. “ The more golf we play, the better chance I have of winning.”

Four-time major winner Phil Mickelson barely made the cut after the second round, holing a birdie on the 18th to salvage a 70.

Stormy weather has caused lengthy delays for the second straight year. A year ago, rain forced organizers to shorten the tournament to 54 holes and a playoff to decide the winner still had to be held Monday morning.

Bjorn made six birdies to shoot a 66 in the first round Thursday, then didn’t get on the course at all Friday because of the rain. The long wait didn’t throw off his rhythm as he put together four more birdies, sinking a 20foot putt on the par-3 14th for the last, in a bogey-free round.

The 41-year-old Dane captured three tournaments on the European Tour and finished fourth at the British Open last season, but he’s yet to hoist a trophy so far this year. “This course can very quickly bite you, especially if

you don’t drive the ball well. The numbers can run up on this golf course, so you got to stay with what you’re doing,” Bjorn said. “I’ve got two good rounds in the bank, but there’s ways to go.” Wood and Coetzee were in striking distance of their maiden wins on the European Tour. The two have had 17 top-10 finishes each, but are yet to win a title.

The 24-year-old Wood birdied four of his last five holes to finish his second round with a 65 in the morning and then added another birdie when he started the third round as the sun was setting.

“It’s been a long week, but obviously when you’re in contention that’s where you want to be, so however long it is, I don’t mind,” he said.

McIlroy still has a chance to clinch the European Tour money title this week. A thirdplace finish would all but assure he’ll finish the year atop the list, no matter how he fares at the Dubai World Championship.

He is trying to emulate Luke Donald’s 2011 feat of winning both the PGA Tour and European money titles in the same season.

He’s already clinched the PGA title with more than $8 million in winnings.

His girlfriend, tennis star Caroline Wozniacki, has been waiting out the rain delays with him in Singapore and will travel with him next week to Hong Kong.

“This is her offseason. This is sort of a chance to take a break, but getting up at 5 a.m. to watch me play golf isn’t exactly my idea of a holiday so hopefully after tomorrow or whenever we’re done we can get a couple of days off,” he said.

Mickelson needed some heroics just to make the cut. He got into trouble on the par-5 7th hole in the second round where he carded a double bogey to go to 4 over.

He got two strokes back with a couple of birdies on the back nine, then hit a delicate chip shot between two palm trees from the rough to get on the green on the 18th and sank a 6-footer for another birdie. “It’s a tough course for me to make birdies,” he said. “I hit the ball really well on the backside to give myself a lot of opportunities, but struggled getting the ball in the hole.” Troubled two-time major winner John Daly withdrew before play began Saturday, citing fatigue. Daly, who received a sponsor’s invitation to play in the event, was sitting at 11 over through 1 1/2 rounds. — AP

Beljan leads PGA event LAKE BUENA: PGA tour rookie Charlie Beljan was taken to hospital with heart palpitations after shooting a 64 to seize the second-round lead in the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals Classic in Lake Buena Vista in Florida on Friday.

Beljan, fighting for a place on the tour for 2013, suffered an elevated heart-rate and shortness of breath, prompting him to lay or sit down between shots on the way to a three-shot lead at 12-under 132. “A couple of times when he was putting, I thought he might just pass out,” his caddie Rick Adcox told reporters. “On 16, he put the ball down to putt, marked it and walked away. I thought maybe he was going to get sick there.”

It was unclear whether the 28-year-old American, who leads seven players tied on 135, would return to play the weekend.

Beljan complained of breathing difficulties before his round and called for a paramedic halfway through but battled on to claim top spot on the leaderboard.

Late last year, Beljan said he had suffered a bout of Valley fever, a fungal infection that can cause shortness of breath, rash and joint aches.

“I’ve got to give Charlie credit for what he did,” Adcox said. “I thought he was going to quit out there a few times. He sat down on the bag a few times. He laid down a few times.”

Beljan, who won the 2002 U.S. Junior Amateur title, was 139th on the money list entering the event, with only the top 125

assured of keeping their full cards for next year.

Beljan needs to finish somewhere inside the top 10 at Lake Buena Vista to secure his card, according to current projections.

Three shots back on nine-under were Americans Charles Howell III (67), Harris English (67) and Mark Anderson (67), along with Japan’s Ryuji Imada (66), Swede Henrik Stenson (67), South Korea’s Charlie Wi (71) and Australian Matt Jones (64).

Anderson, Imada and Jones all entered the week outside the top 125 and need to remain high on the leaderboard to have a chance at reclaiming a tour card.

“I finally made some putts. First time this year, it feels like,” said Jones, who matched Beljan’s 64. “It was a good time to do it. Better late than never, so hopefully we can keep going.” Several players at the fringe of the money list will have nervous weekends after missing the cut. Americans James Driscoll (120th) and Billy Mayfair (125th), along with Australia’s Rod Pampling (124th), have left their fates in the hands of others.

Two-time heart transplant recipient Erik Compton of the United States missed his last chance to automatically qualify by adding a 76 to his opening 71 to miss the cut which was set at one-under 143. Imada, a PGA Tour winner four years ago, said one good weekend could mean a lot. “It can turn your whole year around. I’m in position to do that, but still got a long ways to go.” — Reuters

LONDON: Argentina’s Juan Martin del Potro claimed a surprise 7-6 (7/3), 4-6, 6-3 victory over defending champion Roger Federer yesterday to book his place in the semi-finals of the ATP Tour Finals. Del Potro’s victory ended Federer’s 12match winning run at the season-ending event and guaranteed he will qualify from Group B along with the Swiss star.

Federer, who has won the Tour Finals title for the last two years, already knew he was through after winning his first two group matches at London’s O2 Arena.

The semi-final match-ups will not be decided until after the final group match between David Ferrer and Janko Tipsarevic later yesterday.

Victory for Ferrer would mean it is Federer who plays Andy Murray with del Potro playing Novak Djokovic, while a Tipsarevic win would reverse the fixtures.

“I’m so happy to beat Roger once again, I know he’s a favourite here but the crowd respected me also,” Del Potro said.

“I was a little lucky towards the end of the match. Always when you beat these kinds of players you need luck on your side but I played well. “I took the break-point chances in the last set, then I served really well in the last game. I was very nervous but I closed out the match.

“It’s going to be a tough match against Djokovic or Murray, but I’m so excited to get into the semis.” Federer had won 13 of his previous 16 meetings, but the Argentine has given him plenty of trouble at times.

As well as winning his only Grand Slam title with a win over Federer at the 2009 US Open, del

LONDON: Juan Martin Del Potro of Argentina plays a return to Roger Federer of Switzerland, during their ATP World Tour Finals singles tennis match. — AP Potro also handed the 31-year-old his only other eight successive points to break at the start of indoor defeat in the last two years in the final of the second set, and that was enough to level the match. his hometown tournament in Basle last month.

But del Potro’s big-hitting style blew Federer That pattern continued as a tight first set saw sixth-seeded del Potro save three break points to off course again in the deciding set. The 17-time keep Federer at bay. Then in the tie-break, Grand Slam champion was unable to survive the Federer suddenly lost his rhythm and del Potro barrage and del Potro broke for a 2-0 lead before holding his nerve to serve out a superb win in took advantage to snatch the first set.

Federer made a strong response, reeling off two hours. — AFP

Watt offers big challenge for Cutler and Bears NEW YORK: If form through the first half of the National Football League (NFL) season is a guide, today’s clash between the Houston Texans and the Chicago Bears could be a potential Super Bowl preview. The Texans lead the AFC with a 7-1 record and the Bears have an identical record, bettered in the NFC only by the unbeaten Atlanta Falcons (8-0).

Critics of the Bears point to their relatively easy schedule so far and the way they struggled against the toughest team they have had to face so far this season - the Green Bay Packers who beat them 23-10 in week two.

Certainly, the Bears face a much tougher second half to the season with the San Francisco 49ers, the Minnesota Vikings (twice), the Seattle Seahawks and the return with the Packers in their next six games. “You don’t win anything when you start 7-1 but it helps,” said head coach Lovie Smith this week. “We don’t have a lot of injuries and I feel like our arrow is pointing up....we are pleased where we are,” he

added. The Bears have the sixth-ranked overall defense in the NFL and that success has been complimented by the success of wide receiver Brandon Marshall.

The Bears traded for Marshall from the Miami Dolphins in the hope that he could rekindle the relationship he enjoyed with quarterback Jay Cutler at Denver and the gamble has paid off.

Marshall is ranked fourth in the league among wide receivers having put up 797 yards and scored seven touchdowns, three of them in last week’s 51-20 crushing of the Tennessee Titans.

“He’s doing a great job for this offense. He’s attracting a lot of attention and he’s still able to play at a high level, catch balls and make things happen on a Sunday,” said Cutler.

Cutler, though, will have to contend with Texans defensive end J.J. Watt, who leads the league in sacks (10.5) and also has 10 pass break-ups.

The Bears’ offensive line has not always given Cutler the best protection possible and they will need to be well aware of the threat Watt poses, especially given his current level of confidence.

“I see opportunities for sacks against every offensive line. I’ve watched the film, you see opportunities, you get excited,” said Watt.

Elsewhere, the Falcons look to defend their unbeaten record in New Orleans against a Saints team (3-5) that is showing signs of improvement after a 0-4 start.

Neither the Dallas Cowboys or the Philadelphia Eagles have lived up to expectations this season and defeat in their NFC East clash would leave the loser on 3-6 and facing an uphill battle to have any hope of making the post-season.

The New York Giants (6-3) look to bounce back from their loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers last week when they face another AFC North opponent the Cincinnati Bengals. — Reuters

Mendis stars in Sri Lanka win HAMBANTOTA: Jeevan Mendis grabbed three wickets as Sri Lanka clinched the one-day series against New Zealand with a comfortable sevenwicket win in the fourth match in Hambantota yesterday.

Sri Lanka achieved a rain-revised target of 131 off 32 overs with more than five overs to spare to take an unassailable 3-0 lead in the five-match series. The opening one-dayer was called off without a ball being bowled due to rain. It was Sri Lanka’s third successive win under the Duckworth-Lewis (D/L) method in the rain-hit series.

Opener Dinesh Chandimal (43), playing his first match of the series after replacing unfit opener Tillakaratne Dilshan, and Kumar Sangakkara (42 not out) added 87 for the second wicket to ensure their team’s victory.

Sangakkara hit one six and five fours in his 55ball knock. Leg-spinner Mendis (3-15) earlier bowled Kane Williamson and Nathan McCullum with googlies in his third over before trapping Andrew Ellis leg-before in his next over, his three wickets coming off just five balls. Man-of-thematch Mendis was superbly backed by fast bowler Nuwan Kulasekara, who finished with 217 off five overs.

Sri Lanka, who elected to field after winning the toss in overcast conditions, put in an impressive bowling per formance to restrict New Zealand. Brendon McCullum, who smashed leftarm spinner Rangana Herath over long-off for the first six of the match, top-scored for the tourists with 30 while Williamson and James Franklin each made 21.

Sri Lanka got an early wicket when Kulasekara had opener Rob Nicol (11) caught by Upul Tharanga at mid-on in his third over.

Opener Bradley-John Watling, who scored half-centuries in the last two matches, could make just 15 this time as he was run out while skipper Ross Taylor made six before being caught behind off seamer Thisara Perera.

New Zealand suffered another blow when hard-hitting McCullum fell attempting a big shot, caught by Chandimal at long-on off Herath after hitting one six and two fours in his 44-ball knock.

New Zealand made two changes from the side that played the last match as they brought in Ellis and debutant paceman Adam Milne in place of Kyle Mills and Jacob Oram. The fifth and final one-day international will be played at the same venue tomorrow. — AFP

HAMBANTOTA: Sri Lankan batsman Dinesh Chandimal is bowled out during the fourth oneday international cricket match against New Zealand. — AP

SCOREBOARD HAMBANTOTA, Sri Lanka: Complete scoreboard of the fourth one-day international between Sri Lanka and New Zealand in Hambantota yesterday:

LAKE BUENA VISTA: Charlie Beljan lines up his putt on the eighth green during the third round of the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals golf tournament. —AP

New Zealand: R. Nicol c Tharanga b Kulasekara 11 BJ Watling run out 15 B. McCullum c Chandimal b Herath 30 R. Taylor c Sangakkara b Perera 6 K. Williamson b Mendis 21 J. Franklin lbw b Kulasekara 21 N. McCullum b Mendis 0 A. Ellis lbw b Mendis 0 T. Southee not out 7 A. Milne not out 12 Extras (lb3, w5) 8 Total (for eight wickets; 32 overs) 131 Fall of wickets: 1-16 (Nicol), 2-45 (Watling), 3-62 (Taylor), 4-73 (B. McCullum), 5-105 (Williamson), 6-105 (N. McCullum), 7-107 (Ellis), 8-116

(Franklin).

Bowling: Malinga 6-1-38-0, Kulasekara 5-1-17-2 (w3), Mathews 6-0-19-0, Perera 5-0-16-1, Herath 6-0-23-1 (w1), Mendis 4-0-15-3 (w1).

Sri Lanka (target 131 in 32 overs): U. Tharanga c Nicol b Southee 27 D. Chandimal b Boult 43 K. Sangakkara not out 42 L. Thirimanne c Watling b Ellis 0 A. Mathews not out 2 Extras (lb6, nb2, w9) 17 Total (for three wickets; 26.2 overs) 131 Fall of wickets: 1-36 (Tharanga), 2-123 (Chandimal), 3-128 (Thirimanne).

Bowling: Boult 7-0-32-1 (nb2, w4), Southee 7-0-32-1 (w1), Milne 4.2-0-21-0 (w3), Ellis 6-0-23-1 (w1), N. McCullum 2-0-17-0.

Result: Sri Lanka win by seven wickets (D/L method)

18

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

sp orts

Swiss eye-opener for World Cup winner Gattuso SION: With his killer stare and impeccable track record, Gennaro Gattuso isn’t a man who’s easily overawed. But the former AC Milan midfielder is staggered by the number of coaches Sion has gone through. Now 34, the 2006 World Cup winner joined the Swiss club on a twoyear contract in the close season, opting for “quality of life” in the peaceful small town near Lake Geneva, as he plays out the twilight years of his stellar career.

His friend and former Italy teammate Alessandro Del Piero, whom Sion also approached, hesitated and instead preferred the warmer climes of Sydney, Australia.

“I’ve spoken to him about it. I told him that here you’ve got to smile because it’s not the life you led at Juventus (Del Piero’s former club).

There’s something else-the passion of the fans,” he said.

The arrival of such a decorated star in the humble Swiss league led to an explosion in the sale of replica team shirts-more than 10,000 instead of the usual 800 sold for a top player.

Sion’s Stade Tourbillon may not be filled with the ghosts of its legendary past like at Milan’s San Siro but its name-”the whirlwind”-takes on a whole new meaning because of its no-nonsense president and owner Christian Constantin.

He took on the might of European football’s governing body UEFA and its president, former France captain Michel Platini, to court in Switzerland last year in an ultimately unsuccessful challenge against exclusion from this year’s Europa Ligue.

The Swiss club had been found guilty of violating FIFA transfer regulations, also prompting a 36-point penal-

ty which would have led to relegation from the top flight had Neuchatel Xamax not been expelled after going bankrupt.

Since saving Sion itself from the verge of bankruptcy, Constantin has been through a staggering 27 coaches.

“I’ve only played under 10 coaches in my entire career but in four months at Sion I’ve had three,” said Gattuso. “It’s a bit strange.”

When out-of-contract Gatusso joined Sion after 13 years at Milan, Sebastien Fournier was in charge but left on September 4. The second, Michel Decastel, was shown the door at the end of October.

Pierre-Andre Schuermann is now in charge and the club is now in third place in the league. “There’s no getting away from the fact that when you change coach three times it disrupts the

players and the club,” said Gattuso. “But we can’t use it as an excuse. We’ve all got to assume our responsibilities.

“We’ve got a competitive team and we have to do more with the side we’ve got.” Gattuso said he holds Constantin in high regard, not just because he’s been made captain. “There are few clubs in the world where you’ve got a president who puts in his own money,” he added.

But Gattuso, who wants to go into coaching himself one day, said he can’t imagine cutting his teeth at Sion.

Constantin said that Gattuso, who played 73 times for the Azzurri, is discovering a different world at the club.

“AC Milan is a team which up until recently has practically limitless funds and one of the biggest budgets in European football,” he said.”With that you can buy the best players and there’s

less call for such radical measures.

“On the other hand when you’re a club with a budget that’s 15 times smaller for us it’s 20 million euros ($25.5 million) — you’ve got to work harder to succeed and secure a European cup place.”

The fact remains, though, that no manager has stayed at Sion for more than a year under Constantin’s watch.

“I’ve had a lot of managers here who’ve resigned when I’ve looked straight in their eyes,” he added. As for what he expects from a coach, Constantin looks to his Alpine surroundings.

“A coach increasingly has to be more of a sherpa who has to lead his group to the summit of a mountain.

If the sherpa lacks energy, he’s going to be replaced by another sherpa-but the gradient and the altitude are still the same,” he said. —AFP

Preview

Chelsea prepare for ‘bogey team’ Liverpool LONDON: Roberto Di Matteo admits Liverpool have become Chelsea’s “bogey team” ahead of the visit of Brendan Rodgers’ side to Stamford Bridge today.

The importance of maintaining the pressure on Premier League leaders Manchester United will inevitably provide a more powerful incentive to the Blues, but Di Matteo’s side are also anxious to end a run of four straight league defeats against the Anfield club.

Chelsea savored success by beating Liverpool in last season’s FA Cup final, but with the current title race threatening to be a tight, three-way battle between the Blues, United and Manchester City, league points are now the immediate priority.

Manager Di Matteo said: “They are our bogey team. They seem always to play exceptionally well against us and get results. It is always difficult and very difficult to beat them.

“It hasn’t happened too often in the last three years. We have to be aware of that and be very focused and try to play a very good game.

“First of all, they have very good players and they seem to have an exceptional game, one of their best of the season, whenever they play us.

“They always find to play us in a moment when we are not at our best.

Today, we are in good spirits, full of confidence and the team is playing well. Hopefully it will be a different story.”

Di Matteo’s desire to reverse the recent trend will be shared by Fernando Torres who has yet to score against his former club since his £50 million move in January 2011.

Torres’ per formances have improved this season and he scored in the midweek Champions League victory over Shakhtar Donetsk but the Spain international has yet to reproduce the form he showed at Anfield.

“Sometimes playing against your old team gives extra motivation, sometimes it inhibits you,” said Di Matteo. “It depends on his frame of mind playing against his old team.

“I am happy with his contribution. It

is not about him repaying my faith. It’s about him performing for the club. I hope every player feels they have the confidence of the manager.” Martin Skrtel, the Liverpool defender, shares Di Matteo’s view that Torres who has scored seven goals this season remains a potent force. Skrtel said: “Even if he isn’t scoring goals at the moment he is still one of the best strikers in the world and still dangerous.

“I haven’t seen Chelsea play too many times this season but from what I’ve heard his performances are better than last season.”

Torres is certain to start but John Terry’s inclusion on his return from a four-match domestic ban is far from guaranteed after Di Matteo’s decision to leave the Chelsea captain on the bench against Shakhtar. Liverpool manager Rodgers is more concerned with the threat offered by Juan Mata, Eden Hazard and Oscar who have provided Chelsea with a different attacking dimension this season.

Rodgers’ side have only managed two Premier League wins in their 10 matches so far this season and the Reds already trail today’s opponents by 13 points.

But the manager, who rested nine players for the 1-0 defeat to Anzhi in the Europa Leauge, maintains there is nothing to fear in the trip to London.

He said “Chelsea are very dynamic, they’re great technicians. They have three No 10s in their team really. “They have Oscar, (Eden) Hazard and (Juan) Mata and we know the danger that they possess between them.

“You can’t do everything to stop world-class players. They will always find space, find ways around what you do. So my focus will be on how we play.” “Stamford Bridge is always a difficult place to go and get a result but we will go there with confidence.

We’ve got some top players who can hurt anybody on a given day.”

Reds defender Glen Johnson is set to face his former club but Rodgers will make a late decision on goalkeeper Pepe Reina, who has been struggling with a groin injury. —AFP

Cagliari, Catania in drab draw ROME: Cagliari and Catania played out an uneventful 0-0 draw in Serie A yesterday amid more stadium controversy for the Sardinian side.

They thought they would be playing in front of a newly-completely open Is Arenas but an emergency meeting among local authorities led to the stadium’s main stand being closed.

The club, however, opened access to the stand for reporters, prompting fears that they might suffer further sanctions from the Serie A or the football federation (FIGC) having been handed a 3-0 defeat by the league for their postponed

match against Roma. On the pitch Cagliari nearly snatched the lead twice at the end of a scrappy first half, first when Marco Sau rounded Mariano Andujar in the Catania goal only for him save the resulting shot before seeing his header from the resulting corner somehow kept out by the keeper.

Sau again should have scored a minute into he second half when he produced an air shot after being presented with a chance in the six-yard box.

However, that was the last of any goalmouth action and both had to settle for a goalless draw. —Reuters

Marco Sau

ULSAN: South Korea’s Ulsan Hyundaiís Kwak Tae-hwi, (5), celebrates with the trophy after winning the AFC Champions League final soccer match against Saudi Arabia’s Al Al-Ahli. —AP

Ulsan Hyundai cruise to Champions League title ULSAN: South Koreans Ulsan Hyundai cruised to their first Asian Champions League title as they outclassed Al Ahli of Saudi Arabia 3-0 in the final yesterday to qualify for the FIFA Club World Cup. Captain Kwak Tae-hwi opened the scoring in the 13th minute with Brazilian forward Rafinha (68th) and midfielder Kim Seungyong (75th) adding second half goals as the Koreans dominated the final they hosted in Ulsan after a draw by organisers.

The 3-0 win was Ulsan’s ninth consecutive victory in Asia’s premier club tournament, which they went through unbeaten, as a South Korean team lifted the trophy for the third time in four years.

Ulsan collected the $1.5 million winners cheque and trophy from AFC acting president Zhang Jilong and will now represent Asia in the Club World Cup next month in Japan where they will take on Mexican side Monterrey in the quarter-finals. “I am so happy for the players,” Ulsan coach Kim Ho-gon told reporters.

“They wanted to play in the FIFA Club World Cup and it is the same for me. This is the happiest day in my coaching career.

“Ulsan have had to wait for a long time to come to the final so I told the players we must

win the game. The players created a lot of pressure in the first half and all of the players played their part.” The victory in the southeastern city never looked in doubt once Ulsan took the lead thanks to their big central defender Kwak Tae-hwi, who glanced a header from Kim Seung-yong’s free kick in to corner of the Al Ahli goal.

Ulsan strikers Rafinha and Kim Shin-wook caused the visitors numerous problems as the home side played in a surprisingly direct style in contrast to the more possession-conscious play that had helped them reach the final for the first time. But while the Koreans routinely pinned Al Ahli back in their own half with a pressing high defensive line, they struggled to test the Saudis goalkeeper Abdullah Mayyof.

The visitors’ best chance came in the 40th minute when Moataz Al-Musa expertly controlled a ball into the box but his strong right foot shot was well blocked before his team mate Victor saw his rebound cleared by a scrambling Ulsan defence.

Brazilian Victor had a couple of further half chances after the break before Kwak missed a great chance to double the advantage on the hour mark, but he wasted a free header after another pinpoint free kick from deep by Kim Seung-yong. Ulsan did grab a second seven

minutes later when another long ball into the box was headed across goal by the towering Kim Shin-wook and Rafinha was on hand to bundle the ball in from close range, celebrating with a ‘Gangnam style’ dance.

Al Ahli, playing their first match outside of the Middle East in this year’s tournament, looked beaten and their heads dropped as Kim Seung-yong added some shine to the victory with a third seven minutes later.

The dead-ball specialist neatly controlled a cross to the back post on his chest before rifling home a powerful right foot shot to the joy of the home crowd.

Kim Shin-wook twice came close to adding a fourth in the dying stages as Al Ahli lost their discipline playing in the cool temperatures in Korea.

“I was planning to make some changes in the second half but I was surprised when Ulsan scored and after that I thought our players lost their concentration and didn’t focus well on the match,” Al Ahli coach Karel Jarolim told reporters.

“Maybe we are expecting a lot from the players and it’s true they didn’t perform well, but it’s not because they didn’t want to but because Ulsan are a strong team and they played well.” —Reuters

Bayern floor Frankfurt BERLIN: Bayern Munich maintained their seven-point lead at the top of the Bundesliga yesterday with a 2-0 win at home to third-placed Eintracht Frankfurt.

After Munich’s 6-1 rout of Lille on Wednesday in the Champions League, Bayern laboured against a dogged Frankfurt defence with Eintracht having won six of their 11 league games this season on their return to Germany’s top flight.

“It was a hard-fought victory, it is not always easy to flip the switch from Champions League back to Bundesliga and we weren’t as determined as usual,” said Bayern boss Jupp Heynckes.

“When things don’t run smoothly, you have to play smart and intelligent football, which is what we did.” Bayern took the lead just before half-time when defensive midfielder Javi Martinez set up Franck Ribery to fire home from five metres out on 44 minutes. Munich doubled their lead when midfielder David Alaba con-

verted a 77th-minute penalty after a foul on midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger. Second-placed Schalke 04 stayed in touch with Bayern after coming from behind to beat Werder Bremen 2-1 in Gelsenkirchen. Bremen’s Aaron Hunt scored his third goal in two games on 16 minutes to put the visitors ahead at the Veltins Arena.

But Schalke midfielder Roman Neustaedter celebrated his first call-up to the Germany team on Friday with the equaliser on 59 minutes as he rose highest to a corner and header home. The 24year-old has been included by Germany coach Joachim Loew for Wednesday’s friendly with Holland in Amsterdam.

His Germany team-mate Julian Draxler then scored Schalke’s second after finishing off a superb counter-attack started by the Royal Blues’ goalkeeper Lars Unnerstall on 69 minutes.

Defending champions Borussia Dortmund moved up to fourth with a 3-1 win at bottom side

Augsburg. Having only been denied victory by a late goal at Real Madrid on Tuesday in the 2-2 Champions League draw, Dortmund returned to domestic business with a convincing display. After Germany midfielder

Marco Reus fired home a superb free-kick after eight minutes, Poland striker Robert Lewandowski showed his class with goals on 51 and 70 minutes before Sascha Moelder scored a late header for Augsburg. — AFP

GERMANY: Augsburg’s Sascha Moelders (left) Dortmund’s Mats Hummels and Sven Bender (right) challenge for the ball during the German First Division Bundesliga soccer match. —AP

19

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

SPORTS

Swansea hold Southampton

Soccer results/standings Arsenal 3, Fulham 3; Aston Villa 2, Manchester United 3; Everton 2, Sunderland 1; Reading 0, Norwich City 0; Southampton 1, Swansea City 1; Stoke City 1, Queens Park Rangers 0; Wigan Athletic 1, West Bromwich Albion 2.

English Football League results Championship Barnsley 0 Huddersfield 1; Blackburn 1 Birmingham 1; Blackpool 2 Bolton 2; Cardiff 2 Hull 1; Ipswich 2 Burnley 1; Leeds 1 Watford 6; Leicester 2 Nottingham Forest 2; Millwall 2 Derby 1; Peterborough 1 Crystal Palace 2; Wolves 3 Brighton 3.

Playing today Bristol City v Charlton Played Friday Middlesbrough 3 Sheffield Wednesday 1.

Division One Brentford 2 Carlisle 1; Bury 2 Portsmouth 0; Coventry 1 Scunthorpe 2; Crewe 3 Colchester 2; Doncaster 0 Bournemouth 1; Leyton Orient 2 Shrewsbury 1; Milton Keynes Dons 1 Sheffield Utd 0; Notts County 1 Crawley 1; Oldham 0 Tranmere 1; Stevenage 1 Preston 4; Walsall 0 Swindon 2; Yeovil 1 Hartlepool 0.

Division Two Accrington 2 Northampton 4; Aldershot 0 Bradford 2; Bristol Rovers 3 Chesterfield 2; Cheltenham 1 Burton 0; Dagenham and Redbridge 5 Rotherham 0; Exeter 2 Fleetwood Town 2; Morecambe 4 Barnet 1; Oxford 0 Torquay 0; Plymouth 2 Gillingham 2; Southend 0 Port Vale 0; Wycombe 1 Rochdale 2; York 0 AFC Wimbledon 3.

Scottish Premier League results Inverness CT 1 (Jones 19) Hearts 1 (Zaliukas 90-pen); Kilmarnock 3 (Heffernan 66, 82, Harkins 77) Ross County 0; Motherwell 1 (Higdon 45) Dundee 1 (Riley 28); St Mirren 1

(Thompson 88) Aberdeen 4 (Hayes 10, McGinn 45, Clark 86, Reynolds 87).

Playing today Celtic v St Johnstone, Hibernian v Dundee Utd. Scottish Football League results First Division Cowdenbeath 0 Dumbarton 1; Morton 0 Hamilton 1; Partick 5 Dunfermline 1; Raith 2 Falkirk 1.

Second Division East Fife 0 Alloa 1; Stenhousemuir 1 Ayr 1.

Third Division Annan Athletic 5 Stirling 2; Clyde 1 Montrose 2; Elgin City 3 Berwick 1; Rangers 2 Peterhead 0.

Spanish league results on Saturday: Rayo Vallecano 3 (Carrilho Baptistao 59, Tito 72, Piti 82-pen) Celta Vigo 2 (Aspas 12, 33); Espanyol 0 Osasuna 3 (?lvaro 22, Echaide 63, Onwu 77) Playing later Real Zaragoza v Deportivo La Coruna; Malaga v Real Sociedad Playing today Valladolid v Valencia; Athletic Bilbao v Sevilla; Real Mallorca v Barcelona; Atletico Madrid v Getafe; Levante v Real Madrid.

Played Friday Real Betis 1 (Ruben Castro 62) Grenade 2 (Torje 8, Mikel Rico 74) Italian League result Cagliari 0 Catania 0.

Playing today Palermo v Sampdoria; Torino v Bologna; Parma v Siena; Chievo v Udinese; Genoa v Napoli; Lazio v Roma; AC Milan v Fiorentina; Atalanta v Inter Milan.

English Premier League table after yesterday’s matches (played, won, drawn, lost, goals for, goals against, points): Man United 11 9 0 2 Chelsea 10 7 2 1 Manr City 10 6 4 0 Everton 11 5 5 1 W Bromwich 11 6 2 3 Tottenham 10 5 2 3 Arsenal 11 4 4 3 Fulham 11 4 4 3 West Ham 10 4 3 3 Newcastle 10 3 5 2 Swansea City 11 3 4 4 Stoke City 11 2 6 3 Liverpool 10 2 5 3 Wigan Athletic 11 3 2 6 Norwich City 11 2 5 4 Sunderland 10 1 6 3 Aston Villa 11 2 3 6 Reading 10 0 6 4 Southampton 11 1 2 8 QPR 11 0 4 7 English Football League tables Championship Crystal Palace 16 10 3 3 Middlesbrough 16 10 2 4 Cardiff 16 10 1 5 Hull 16 9 1 6 Leicester 16 8 3 5 Huddersfield 16 8 3 5 Blackburn 16 6 7 3 Brighton 16 6 6 4 Derby 16 6 5 5 Millwall 16 6 5 5 Nottingham 16 5 8 3 Watford 16 7 2 7 Burnley 16 7 2 7 Blackpool 16 6 4 6 Wolves 16 6 4 6 Bolton 16 5 5 6 Leeds 16 5 5 6 Birmingham 16 5 5 6 Charlton 15 4 5 6 Sheffield 16 4 3 9 Barnsley 16 4 3 9 Ipswich 16 3 4 9 Peterborough 16 4 0 12 Bristol City 15 3 2 10 Division One Tranmere 17 11 4 2 Sheffield Utd 17 8 8 1 Stevenage 17 9 5 3 Crawley Town 17 9 3 5 Notts County 17 8 5 4 Swindon 17 8 5 4 Keynes Dons 17 8 5 4 Brentford 17 7 7 3 Doncaster 16 8 3 5 Preston 17 7 5 5 Yeovil 17 8 1 8 Bournemouth 17 6 6 5 Crewe 17 6 5 6 Colchester 17 5 5 7 Carlisle 17 5 5 7 Leyton Orient 17 6 1 10 Walsall 17 5 4 8 Portsmouth 17 5 3 9 Oldham 16 4 5 7 Coventry 17 4 5 8 Scunthorpe 17 4 4 9 Bury 17 3 6 8 Shrewsbury 17 3 5 9 Hartlepool 17 1 5 11 Division Two Gillingham 17 11 4 2 Port Vale 17 9 5 3 Cheltenham 17 9 5 3 Bradford 17 8 4 5 Fleetwood 17 7 7 3 Rochdale 17 7 6 4 Burton Albion 17 7 5 5 Torquay 17 6 7 4 Rotherham 16 7 4 5 Exeter 17 7 3 7 Southend 17 6 5 6 Northampton 17 6 5 6 York 17 5 8 4 Redbridge 17 5 7 5 Morecambe 17 6 4 7 Accrington 16 6 3 7 Oxford Utd 17 6 2 9 Chesterfield 17 4 7 6 Plymouth 17 4 6 7 Bristol Rovers 16 4 5 7 AFC Wimbledon 17 5 2 10 Wycombe 16 3 4 9 Barnet 17 3 4 10 Aldershot 17 3 4 10 Scottish Premier League table Celtic 11 6 3 2 Hibernian 12 6 3 3 Aberdeen 13 5 6 2 Inverness 13 4 7 2 Kilmarnock 13 5 3 5 St Johnstone 12 5 3 4 Motherwell 13 4 5 4 Dundee Utd 11 4 4 3 Ross County 13 3 6 4

29 22 18 21 17 17 18 24 13 12 16 9 13 12 8 7 10 12 15 8

16 10 9 14 12 14 11 19 11 14 15 10 15 18 18 11 17 18 29 20

27 23 22 20 20 17 16 16 15 14 13 12 11 11 11 9 9 6 5 4

32 28 33 24 23 22 22 22 25 29 23 25 30 27 22 23 23 18 20 21 15 13 18 24

22 20 23 21 16 21 19 14 21 26 20 23 31 24 21 25 28 23 23 29 24 32 25 31

33 32 31 28 27 27 25 24 23 23 23 23 23 22 22 20 20 20 17 15 15 13 12 11

35 19 24 25 29 25 20 24 20 30 27 27 19 19 21 13 19 22 16 19 17 19 18 13

14 11 21 23 18 14 11 18 15 21 24 28 23 23 30 20 27 26 18 25 29 28 24 29

37 32 32 30 29 29 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 20 20 19 19 18 17 17 16 15 14 8

32 35 23 26 24 25 25 23 24 25 22 25 21 28 22 20 24 19 23 19 21 14 15 12

12 18 17 18 16 22 22 19 23 26 19 24 22 24 22 26 30 21 25 28 31 25 30 27

37 32 32 28 28 27 26 25 25 24 23 23 23 22 22 21 20 19 18 17 17 13 13 13

21 23 19 26 20 15 17 12 15

11 16 12 21 15 16 18 13 19

21 21 21 19 18 18 17 16 15

Hearts 13 3 5 5 St Mirren 13 3 3 7 Dundee 13 2 2 9 Scottish Football League tables First Division Partick 11 8 2 1 Dunfermline 11 7 2 2 Morton 11 5 4 2 Raith 11 5 4 2 Livingston 11 4 4 3 Cowdenbeath 11 3 3 5 Falkirk 11 2 5 4 Airdrie Utd 11 3 1 7 Hamilton 11 2 3 6 Dumbarton 11 1 2 8 Second Division Queen of South 10 8 2 0 Alloa 11 7 1 3 Forfar 10 5 1 4 Stenhousemuir 11 3 6 2 Arbroath 10 4 3 3 Ayr 11 4 2 5 Brechin 10 4 0 6 Albion 10 3 1 6 East Fife 11 2 2 7 Stranraer 10 2 2 6 Third Division Rangers 10 6 3 1 Elgin 11 5 4 2 Athletic 10 4 4 2 Queen’s Park 9 4 3 2 Montrose 11 4 3 4 Peterhead 10 4 2 4 Berwick 10 3 3 4 Clyde 10 3 1 6 East Stirling 9 3 0 6 Stirling 10 2 1 7 German League table Bayern Munich 11 10 0 1 Schalke 11 7 2 2 Eintracht 11 6 2 3 Dortmund 11 5 4 2 Leverkusen 10 5 3 2 Mainz 11 5 2 4 Hanover 10 4 2 4 Werder Bremen 11 4 2 5 Hamburg 11 4 2 5 Freiburg 11 3 4 4 VfB Stuttgart 10 3 4 3 Borussia 10 3 4 3 Hoffenheim 11 3 3 5 Duesseldorf 11 2 5 4 Nuremberg 11 3 2 6 VfL Wolfsburg 10 2 2 6 Greuther Fuerth 10 1 4 5 Augsburg 11 1 3 7

13 14 14 17 26 12 6 23 8

29 26 22 17 18 17 12 15 11 10

8 12 16 12 16 20 15 29 18 31

26 23 19 19 16 12 11 10 9 5

22 22 20 21 16 18 16 16 14 11

4 11 17 23 21 19 19 22 17 23

26 22 16 15 15 14 12 10 8 8

23 25 21 14 19 12 15 10 13 15

7 19 18 9 23 12 14 17 24 24

21 19 16 15 15 14 12 10 9 7

32 22 21 23 18 15 20 18 11 14 10 13 17 10 9 6 7 6

4 12 16 12 14 13 16 17 14 13 15 19 23 16 17 17 16 18

30 23 20 19 18 17 14 14 14 13 13 13 12 11 11 8 7 6

Matches on TV (Local Timings)

English Premier League Man City v Tottenham Abu Dhabi Sports HD 3 Abu Dhabi Sports HD 5 Newcastle v West Ham Abu Dhabi Sports HD 4 Chelsea v Liverpool Abu Dhabi Sports HD 3 Abu Dhabi Sports HD 5

16:30 18:00 19:00

SPANISH LEAGUE Malaga v Sociedad Aljazeera Sport +2 Aljazeera Sport 2 HD Valladolid v Valencia Aljazeera Sport +2 Bilbao v Sevilla Aljazeera Sport +2 Mallorca v Barcelona Aljazeera Sport +2 Aljazeera Sport 2 HD Atletico v Getafe Aljazeera Sport +5 Levante v Real Madrid Aljazeera Sport +2

Swansea 1

SOUTHAMPTON: Southampton remain stuck in the Premier League relegation zone after being pegged back by Swansea City in a 1-1 draw at St Mary’s Stadium yesterday.

Morgan Scheiderlin rewarded the hosts’ dominance by breaking the deadlock in the 64th minute but a defensive mix-up allowed former Saints winger Nathan Dyer to claim an equaliser for Michael Laudrup’s side.

The result was enough to take Southampton off the foot of the table at the expense of Queens Park Rangers, but the manner in which they threw away victory is unlikely to ease the pressure on manager Nigel Adkins.

Southampton had dropped to the foot of the table last weekend, but they enjoyed the best of the first half in yesterday’s encounter on the English south coast.

Captain Adam Lallana forced Swansea goalkeeper Gerhard Tremmel into a save with a low shot, while Gaston Ramirez saw an effort flash wide of the post.

Ramirez also teed up Jose Fonte with a cleverly disguised free-kick, but the Portuguese defender’s header back across goal was well cleared by Ben Davies.

LONDON: Swansea City’s Nathan Dyer (foreground) vies for the ball with Southampton’s Maya Yoshida on his way to scoring his side’s first goal, during their Premier League soccer match.—AP The visitors, typically, enjoyed the greater share of possession, but their only first-half opening saw Ki Sung-yeung’s shot draw a flying save from goalkeeper Paolo Gazzaniga.

Lallana curled over the bar shortly before half-time, while Swansea procured a sight of goal through Wayne Routledge after

56 minutes, only for the winger to fail to find the target from a central position.

Southampton remained in the ascendancy, however, and they took the lead in the 64th minute when Schneiderlin gathered Rickie Lambert’s pass on his chest before steering the ball past Tremmel with his head. A second

14:00 18:00 19:50 21:45 23:30

14:30 17:00 17:00 17:00 17:00 17:00 22:45

victory of the season beckoned for Adkins’ men, but the promoted side shot themselves in the foot with 17 minutes remaining.

Gazzanigga attempted to play a pass to Maya Yoshida but Dyer alertly intervened to intercept the ball before running in on goal and firing home the equaliser via the far post.—AFP

West Brom edge Wigan

LONDON: Norwich City goalkeeper John Ruddy (centre) punches the ball clear during their Premier League soccer match against Reading, at the Madjeski Stadium.—AP

Alarm at Reading as Canaries earn draw Reading 0

Norwich 0

READING: Dauntingly for the hosts, Norwich wore all black yesterday as they earned a 0-0 draw at Reading, who have now gone an alarming ten top-flight games without a single win to their name.

Lack of funds for coach Brian McDermott’s promoted Reading side means his line up was similar yesterday to the one that last won a home league game against Nottingham Forest in April.

For Norwich it was a third clean sheet in four games that have seen them claim eight points. In a tight first-half Norwich started brightly, but Reading were the first to open up a decent scoring chance when Garath McCleary’s long-range shot was tipped away by John Ruddy on the quarterhour. It was to be the only shot on target in

the first-half. The Canaries had to be well organised in defence as they were pegged back in their own half for much of the opening period, conceding a series of five corners, but snuffling out any danger Reading created.

Former Glasgow Rangers defender Steven Whittaker came closest for Norwich with a long range shot of his own, but the teams went in 0-0 at half-time - and so it was to remain.

Reading made changes on the hour as Pavel Pogrebnyak and Jimmy Kebe came on for McCleary and Noel Huntas in an early double substitution in midfield and attack.

Norwich captain Grant holt sent his header wide when he looked certain to score just moments after the Malian sub Kebe had hit the crossbar for Reading at the other end momnents earlier.

Jamaican Jobi McAnuff was set up well for another Reading effort by defender Nicky Storey but the Royals were too one dimensional to get on the score sheet.

It was however Reading’s first clean sheet of the season, although ten games without a win looks to be the more glaring statistic.—AFP

0:00

Italian League Palermo v Sampdoria Aljazeera Sport +1 Aljazeera Sport 1 HD Chievo v Udinese Aljazeera Sport 1 Torino FC v Bologna Aljazeera Sport +7 Lazio v AS Roma Aljazeera Sport +1 AC Milan v Fiorentina Aljazeera Sport +2 Aljazeera Sport 2 HD Genoa v Napoli Aljazeera Sport +8 Atalanta v Inter Aljazeera Sport +1 Aljazeera Sport 1 HD

Southampton 1

Aberdeen take share of Scottish lead GLASGOW: Aberdeen moved joint top of the Scottish Premier League with a 4-1 win away to St Mirren. The Dons joined front-runners Celtic and Hibernian, who face St Johnstone and Dundee United respectively today, at the top of the table on 21 points following their emphatic win. Johnny Hayes fired the visitors into a 10th minute lead before Niall McGinn kept up his goal-scoring exploits by adding a second on the stroke of halftime. The match had an explosive ending with three goals in three minutes. Chris Clark put the Dons three ahead in the 86th, Mark Reynolds added a fourth with a strike from outside the box a minute later before Steven Thompson scored an 88th minute consolation for St Mirren.

Paul Heffernan scored twice as Kilmarnock eased to victory over Ross County at Rugby Park.

The striker, making his first start of the season after injury, touched home a freekick on 66 minutes. Gary Harkins then thumped in a fantastic strike from 20 yards to beat County keeper Michael

Fraser. Heffernan completed the scoring with a first-time finish, steering home an astute pass from Cillian Sheridan in the 82nd minute. Dundee had their defence to thank as they secured a point in a 1-1 draw with Motherwell which moves them to within four points of St Mirren at the bottom of the table. The visitors broke the deadlock through Nicky Riley’s deft first-half finish against the run of play. Motherwell levelled on the stroke of half-time when Michael Higdon tapped home from close range after Rab Douglas palmed Henrik Ojamaa’s shot into the path of the striker.

In the early kick-off, troubled Hearts earned a point against Inverness Caledonian Thistle after Marius Zaliukas converted a last-minute penalty. The Tynecastle skipper stepped up to take the spot-kick on his 29th birthday following a trip on Callum Paterson by Owain Tudur Jones. The Welshman had fired Inverness in front in the 19th minute with a thunderous strike from 25 yards for his first goal for the club.—AFP

WIGAN: West Brom’s excellent start to the season continued yesWigan 1 terday as they recorded their first away win of the campaign with a 2-1 victory over inWest Brom 2 form Wigan in an entertaining Premier League clash. All the goals came in the firsthalf with James Morrison and an own goal by Gary Caldwell giving the visitors a two goal lead - taking their total to just five away goals all season - before Arouna Kone reduced the arrears.

Victory keeps West Brom in fifth spot. The hosts tested stand-in Welsh goalkeeper Boaz Myhill from the kick-off, clearly keen to see whether he was still suffering from the after effects of his previous match when he let in six against Serbia in a World Cup qualifier.

Maynor Figueroa and James McCarthy both went close to opening the score before Myhill - who was starting because Ben Foster has a groin injury - pulled off a great save from Ben Watson. However, it was the visitors, whose manager Steve Clarke had surprisingly left out Peter Odemwingie despite two goals in their win over Southampton last Monday, who opened the scoring.

Morrison - who was returning from a hamstring injury meeting a brilliant cross by Chris Brunt at the back post to put it into the net. The visitors doubled their lead when Scottish defender Caldwell turned the ball into his own net when trying to clear Billy Jones’s cross, but Wigan struck back immediately and scored a goal of their own. Kone was on hand to prod into the net after a brilliant cross by Chilean star Jean Beausejour to send them in at half-time just 2-1 down. However, it was their excellent Omani goalkeeper Ali Al Habsi who kept them in the match with a stunning save from Romelu Lukaku.—AFP

Fellaini, Jelavic keep Everton in fourth spot LIVERPOOL: Adam Johnson ended Sunderland’s eightEverton 2 hour and 55-minute goal drought but goals from Marouane Fellaini and Nikica Jelavic gave Sunderland 1 Everton a 2-1 win at Goodison Park yesterday. England winger Johnson, 25, prodded in just before the interval to score his first goal since joining the club from Manchester City in a £10 million ($15.9 million, 12.5 million euros) deal in August.

But just as Sunderland looked set to cling on for only a second win in 18 matches, Fellaini pulled Everton level with his sixth Premier League goal of the season with 15 minutes left.

Less than three minutes later, Jelavic added a second with his fifth of the campaign to make sure the Toffees extended their unbeaten run against the Black Cats to 16 matches.

There was a blow for Everton manager David Moyes, however, with Belgian winger Kevin Mirallas-who has become a key player since joining from Olympiakos in the summer-limping off with an apparent hamstring injury.

Everton’s impressive start to the campaign had looked to be in trouble after four consecutive draws but this victory keeps alive their hopes of an unlikely challenge for a Champions League place. The two sides provided an exciting opening and the hosts had an early penalty appeal turned down when Jelavic went down under John O’Shea’s challenge in the Sunderland area. But Martin O’Neill’s side went close to moving in front when Stephane Sessegnon slid a pass through and Steven Fletcher was denied by the legs of Everton goalkeeper Tim Howard.

Sunderland’s compact formation was proving difficult for Moyes’ men to break down, although Jelavic had an effort deflected over the bar. Mirallas opened up the Sunderland defence with a fine pass that allowed Steven Pienaar through on goal, but the South African’s powerful effort from a narrow angle was pushed wide by Simon Mignolet. On a rare occasion when the visitors found some space, a fine passing move involving Fletcher and Johnson ended with Jack Colback failing to trouble Howard with a weak shot.—AFP

Lakers pound Warriors

Pedrosa wins pole at Valencia

16

15

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

Chelsea prepare for ‘bogey team’ Liverpool

Page 18

LONDON: Aston Villa’s Stephen Ireland (left) is fouled by Manchester United’s Paul Scholes (right) during their Premier League soccer match at Villa Park in Birmingham.—AP

United go clear at the top Aston Villa 2

Man United 3 BIRMINGHAM: Manchester United striker Javier Hernandez sent his side four points clear at the top of the Premier League with two goals in a 3-2 comeback win at Aston Villa yesterday.

Austria international Andreas Weimann scored either side of half-time

to give Villa-who have not beaten United on home soil in the league for 17 years-a deserved two-goal lead.

But half-time substitute Hernandez inspired the United comeback as he scored twice and was only denied a hattrick after the visitors’ second goal went down as a Ron Vlaar own goal.

United manager Alex Ferguson made six changes to the team that beat Braga 31 in the Champions League during the week, when United booked their place in the last 16.

Rio Ferdinand, Rafael Da Silva, Paul Scholes, Michael Carrick, Ashley Young and Robin van Persie all returned to the

starting line-up, with the injured pair of Jonny Evans and Nani ruled out.

Villa coach Paul Lambert made one change to the side that won at Sunderland, as Enda Stevens came in at left-back for the injured Joe Bennett.

United started brightly and former Villa man Young went close when he cut in from the left flank in the fifth minute and curled a low shot around the post from distance. Villa seemed content to soak up the pressure and hit on the counterattack. Ashley Westwood’s lofted ball over the top found Christian Benteke in the 15th minute and his near-post effort was saved by United goalkeeper David de Gea.

Wayne Rooney had been shackled well by the Villa defence but he gave a reminder of his threat when he hit a shot from 30 yards that went straight at Villa keeper Brad Guzan.

However, it was Villa who took the lead on the stroke of half-time, when Belgium international Benteke showed great strength to shrug off United defender Chris Smalling on the hosts’ left flank.

Benteke’s low cross picked out the run of Weimann on the edge of the penalty area and the Villa forward smashed a superb shot past de Gea, who failed to react in time, and into the roof of the net.

Villa made a brilliant start to the sec-

ond half and Weimann scored his second five minutes after the break when he finished off a sweeping move.

Midfielder Stephen Ireland spread the ball out to Gabriel Agbonlahor on the left wing and he delivered a pinpoint cross into the six-yard area for the unmarked Weimann to tap past de Gea. United hit back moments later, though, when Paul Scholes lifted a ball over the top of the Villa defence for Hernandez, who had replaced Young at the interval.

The Mexico international broke clear of the Villa defence and kept his cool to strike a low shot past the dive

Adam piles pressure on QPR boss Hughes

Fulham frustrate Arsenal Arsenal 3

Fulham 3 LONDON: Mikel Arteta’s failure to convert an added-time penalty summed up Arsenal’s frustrations as Arsene Wenger’s side squandered a two-goal lead in a 3-3 draw with Fulham at the Emirates Stadium yesterday. Olivier Giroud and Lukas Podolski had put the home side 2-0 up inside 23 minutes, but Fulham recovered with two goals from Dimitar Berbatov, either side of a Alex Kacaniklic header, and it took a second Giroud effort to rescue a point for Wenger’s team. Victory was denied the Gunners when Mark Schwarzer saved from Arteta in the final act of a dramatic game, but defeat would have been harsh on a spirited Fulham side.

It would have also deflected attention from another unconvincing display by Wenger’s team, who let a two-goal lead slip for the second time in four days after the mid-week draw at Schalke in the Champions League.

The defensive weaknesses that have crept into Arsenal’s play were once again plain to see, while Fulham confirmed the progress they have made under Martin Jol, with Berbatov again outstanding. Wenger, though, can at least draw comfort from his side’s comeback, two goals from Giroud, who has now scored four in four games, and another threatening display from Theo Walcott. Walcott has found himself on the

fringes of Wenger’s plans while his contract situation remains unresolved, but he strengthened his case for the deal he wants by playing a role in both his side’s opening goals on his first league start since August.

Fulham had started brightly and were arguably the dominant side before Walcott delivered a right-wing corner into the path of Giroud, who headed past away goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer in the 11th minute.

Then, when Podolski doubled Arsenal’s lead 12 minutes later, it seemed the home side were on course to claim a comfortable victory.

Once again Walcott was involved, this time laying a neat flick into the path of Arteta, who picked out Podolski for the Germany international to stab the ball home from six yards.

The scoreline was harsh on Fulham, but they hit back through Berbatov, who was granted acres of space inside the Arsenal area to head home from Bryan Ruiz’s corner.

Arsenal’s attacking threat receded, while their defence continued to look shaky, and it was no surprise when Fulham levelled five minutes before half-time, with Berbatov again at the heart of the move. The striker’s run down the right flank was picked out by Fulham rightback Sascha Riether and Berbatov clipped a precise cross towards substitute Kacaniklic, who headed past Vito Mannone. Giroud headed over immediately before the break but there was no doubt the momentum had swung Fulham’s way. The visitors were rewarded for their efforts mid-way through the second period when Arteta was dispossessed by Bryan Ruiz on the edge of his own box and fouled the Fulham forward as he tried to recover his mistake.—AFP

of Guzan in the Villa goal.

United equalised in the 63rd minute when Rafael’s cross found Hernandez at the back post and his volley from a tight angle struck the chest of Dutch centreback Vlaar and deflected into the net.

Van Persie then rattled the crossbar twice in the space of a minute when he got his head on a Valencia corner and curled a shot goalwards from 25 yards out. And the Netherlands international then had a hand in United’s winner when his 87th-minute free-kick was met by the diving Hernandez, who headed past Guzan to seal a brilliant second-half comeback.—AFP

LONDON: Arsenal’s Per Mertesacker (left) vies for the ball with Fulham’s Dimitar Berbatov, during their English Premier League soccer match at the Emirates stadium.—AP

STOKE-ON-TRENT: Charlie Adam piled the pressure on beleaguered QPR manager Mark Hughes as the Stoke midfielder’s first goal for his club clinched a 1-0 win at the Britannia Stadium yesterday.

Adam, who joined from Liverpool in pre-season, bagged the winner early in the second half to give Stoke just their second league victory of the campaign and lift Tony Pulis’s side away from the relegation zone.

While Stoke finally have reason for celebration, QPR’s miserable season shows no signs of improving after they slumped back to the bottom of the table following their seventh defeat in 11 league matches. The west London outfit are still waiting for their first league win this season and former Manchester City boss Hughes faces a fight to convince the club’s Malaysian owner Tony Fernandes to keep faith with him.

Neither side could find any rhythm in a scrappy first half and QPR’s Alejandro Faurlin and Stoke’s Peter Crouch both completely missed the target when opportunities fell their way.

Stoke striker Jon Walters

Stoke 1

QPR 0 headed wide from a Geoff Cameron cross and Crouch then saw his deflected effort flash just wide. QPR should have taken the lead when David Hoilett squared to Adel Taarabt, but the former Tottenham midfielder chipped wide with the goal at his mercy.

Pulis’s team took advantage of that let-off in the 52nd minute when Robert Huth’s free-kick was flicked on by Walters, and with QPR’s defenders failing to react, Scotland international Adam pounced on the loose ball to fire home.

Stoke goalkeeper Asmir Begovic tipped over a deflected shot from Taarabt as QPR pushed forward in search of an equaliser.

But it was former Real Madrid midfielder Esteban Granero who had QPR’s best chance in the closing stages when his fierce shot was pushed away by Begovic.—AFP

Business

US plans $6.7bn cargo aircraft deal with Saudi Page 22 Wall St ends higher, investors still weary

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

Page 23 China’s export growth up in sign of recovery

Afghanistan beckons India’s business leaders to invest Page 24

Page 25

MANILA: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper(2nd L) attends a business forum at a hotel in Manila yesterday. Harper is in Manila for a three-day official visit. — AFP

CBK posts KD 69.4m Q3 profit KUWAIT: Commercial Bank of Kuwait announced an operating profit before provisions for the third quater of 2012 of KD 69.42 million (3Q2011: KD 78.866 million). This was allocated as specific and judgemental provisions against the loan and investment portfolios resulting in a net loss attributable to shareholders of the parent bank for the nine months to 30th September 2012 of KD (12.176) million (3Q2011: KD 8.289 million).

As at the end of the third quarter, total provisions held with the bank amounted to KD 187.382 million. This comes within the bank’s prudent policy of building a strong provision base and proactive recognition of problems.

Commenting on the bank’s financial results, Fowzi Al Ateeqi, Secretary to the Board, GM - Investment and the bank’s official spokesman said “With these measures, the bank would be well positioned to implement its strategy that aims at enhancing its profitability levels and supporting the same through sound loan and investment portfolios. Further progress is noted on the bank’s review of processes for efficiencies and preparation to benefit from any growth opportunities in the future and to ensure superior

Fowzi Al Ateeqi customer services”. Al Ateeqi went on to explain that the bank has set a balanced strategy aiming to add further improvements to its operating activities along with reducing non-performing loans within the bank’s short and long term business plans that will focus on studying available growth opportunities according to the current economic situation with a particular emphasis on core business activities that help the bank return back to high profitability levels.

The bank continues to demonstrate its cost leadership with operational effi-

ciency a competitive advantage for the bank which continues to maintain one of the lowest cost/income ratios among Kuwait banks with 23.92 % for 3Q2012.

Commercial Bank’s total assets at the end of September 2012 reached KD 3.6 billion (12/2011: KD 3.7 billion) with shareholders equity of KD 530.8 million (12/2011: KD 530.5 million).

The capital adequacy ratio at September 2012 is 18.79% (12/2011: 18.58%) which exceeds the minimum 12% required by the Central Bank of Kuwait. The bank continues to have a strong capital base with more than twice the international ratio required

by Basel II. Commercial Bank of Kuwait took the opportunity to thank the bank’s valued customers for their trust and confidence, the Executive Management team and staff for their hard work and loyalty and shareholders for their continued support and faith.

Commercial Bank of Kuwait provides its corporate and retail customers with wide spectrum of banking products and services through one of the largest full service branch networks in Kuwait.

Obama urges tax cut for middle class ‘A step that will lead to new jobs and faster growth’ WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama urged Congress yesterday to immediately extend a tax cut for middle-class Americans, arguing the move will give 98 percent of families and 97 percent of small businesses the certainty that will lead to faster economic growth.

“This is something we all agree on,” the president said in his weekly radio and Internet address. “Even as we negotiate a broader deficit reduction package, Congress should extend middleclass tax cuts right now.

“It’s a step that would give millions of families and 97 percent of small businesses the peace of mind that will lead to new jobs and faster growth.” On Friday, Obama invited top Republican and Democratic leaders to the White House next week for talks focused on averting the so-called “fiscal cliff.”

Such a cliff would represent a catastrophic blend of automatic tax hikes and harsh defense and domestic spending cuts that are due to kick into force on January 1, if no other decision is made and approved by Congress.

The showdown will be a crucial test of whether the newly reelected Obama can bend gridlocked Washington to his political will, with implications for his capacity to enact an ambitious second term agenda.

Obama campaigned on raising taxes on families earning $250,000 a year or more to pay for deficit reductions and to fund education spending and other plans to boost the economy and improve life for the nation’s middle class.

But congressional Republicans have opposed tax increases of any kind. In his address, the president he was not willing to compromise on this issue. “This was a central question in the election,”

he said. “And on Tuesday, we found out that the majority of Americans agree with my approach-that includes Democrats, Independents, and Republicans. Now we need a majority in Congress to listen.” The White House said that the president would veto any bill that called for an extension of the George W. Bush era tax cuts for the two percent of Americans earning more than $250,000 a year.

But Republican House Speaker John Boehner warned in his address the tax increase would destroy more than 700,000 American jobs. “Instead of raising tax rates on the American people and accepting the damage it will do to our economy, let’s start to actually solve the problem,” Boehner said. “Let’s focus on tax reform that closes special interest loopholes and lowers tax rates.”

Concerned that US growth might stall if the fiscal cliff becomes reality, financial markets at home and abroad are paying close attention to the political wrangling. US stocks cut gains on Friday after Obama spoke. Britain’s top shares fell on Friday, as worry over the US fiscal cliff overshadowed robust US consumer sentiment data. The FTSE 100 index closed down 0.1 percent.

Boehner called on Obama to play a more active role in addressing the issue. “This is an opportunity for the president to lead.

This is his moment to engage the Congress and work towards a solution that can pass both chambers,” Boehner told a news conference. Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell named taxes as the main bone of contention. “I was glad to hear the president’s focus on jobs and growth and his call for consensus. But there is no consensus on raising tax rates, which would undermine the jobs and growth we all believe are important to our economy,” he said. — Agencies

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

BUSINESS

Kuwait consumer price inflation slows down KUWAIT: Inflation in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) further slowed to 1.9% y/y in September, its lowest rate since late 2009. Major components of the index, such as housing, continued to place downward pressure on the general index. Core inflation, which excludes food and beverage prices from the index, also sank further to 1.4%, pointing to very subdued rates in most nonfood components. ● Food prices rose 3.8% y/y; well below recent inflation rates that have been mostly well above the 5% mark for the past 2 years. With food price inflation slowing, a major source of upward pressure has abated. However, the recent pick-up in global food prices suggests that inflationary pressures in this category could yet return. * Prices for housing services remained unchanged

for the 7th month straight, rising only 0.7% y/y. Steady prices in this component, which is made up almost wholly of rental fees, have been a consistent and major source of downward pressure on headline inflation. The component, which makes up about 27% of the general index, has risen by less than 2% since the start of 2011, whereas the general index has risen by more than double that during the same period. ● Although the consumer retail sector has been doing well in Kuwait, increased levels of borrowing and spending have not translated into higher inflation rates for the prices of household goods and services, which saw a mere 1.1% y/y increase in September.

On the contrary, the inflation rate in this segment has been mostly slowing down since the beginning of the year.

As a bulk of consumer goods are imported, foreign exchange rates can play a significant role in determining price changes in the sector. A strong dollar (against other foreign currencies) during the second half of last year and the first half of this year might have played a role in keeping import prices down. ● Inflation should remain modest both in the near future - averaging about 3% for 2012 - and possibly next year. Downward pressure from stagnant housing rents, as well as subdued rates in other price segments, have shown a greater impact on the general inflation rate than sources of upward pressure, such as high international commodity and food prices or increased spending in the consumer sector.

US plans $6.7bn cargo aircraft deal with Saudi Saudi shares close lower WASHINGTON: The United States plans a $6.7 billion sale of 20 heavy cargo aircraft and five refueling planes to Saudi Arabia, the Pentagon announced, in a deal to be approved by Congress.

The multibillion-dollar deal includes the cost of training, logistical support, parts and associated equipment for the aircraft, said a statement released by the Defense Department’s agency for foreign arms sales.

Notice of the deal was sent to Congress on Thursday, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency said, noting the proposed sale of 20 C-130J-30 Super Hercules planes and five KC-130J aircraft-an extendedrange tanker version of the C-130s-would sustain Saudi Arabia’s “aging fleet.”

Congress has 30 days to raise objections, otherwise the deal will be concluded. The

statement said the sale would “contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security of a friendly country that has been, and continues to be, an important force for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East.”

Riyadh has significantly increased its military spending in recent years and in 2010 signed a $60 billion arms deal with Washington, the kingdom’s biggest defense supplier.

And at the end of 2011, the two countries announced the signing of a $30 billion deal to provide Saudi Arabia with 84 new fighter jets, a move the United States said sent a “strong message” to the Gulf region.

Meanwhile, Saudi shares close lower, paring losses from the early trade yesterday. The

all-share closes 0.33 percent down at 6919.06 points. The petrochemical index drops 0.73 percent at 5874.42 points, dragged lower by heavyweight Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC) which slides 0.82 percent.

The banking index closes 0.45 percent at 15272.18 points. Crude oil futures advanced on Friday, boosted by a rise in US consumer sentiment to a five-year high and upbeat readings on the Chinese economy, while gasoline futures surged even more on speculation over delivery problems and tight supplies in storm-hit New York Harbor.

Speculation about possible delays in delivering gasoline against the expired November RBOB contract overshadowed broader economic issues, such as concerns over Europe’s debt woes and the “fiscal cliff ” facing the United States. — Agencies

Cuba to let workers run state restaurants HAVANA : Cuba’s government will begin renting state-owned restaurants to workers who want to run them independently, authorities announced Friday in the latest step of President Raul Castro’s economic overhaul.

Interior Commerce Vice Minister Ada Chavez Oviedo said a pilot program will begin Dec. 1 at restaurants with up to five employees, according to an article in the Communist Party newspaper Granma. “A new system of economic management with the renting of state-run locales for independent work in food services will take place gradually,” Chavez was quoted as saying. She said the program initially will be tried in three of Cuba’s 15 provinces - Artemisa, Villa Clara and

Ciego de Avila. The measure is similar to management models already under way at beauty salons and barber shops. The workers will assume responsibility for maintenance, repairs and utilities and must enroll in the country’s nascent tax system, Chavez said.

The independent restaurants will still have access to tobacco products at wholesale prices for resale to customers. State-run restaurants are often bland affairs that suffer from poor quality, listless service and pilferage by employees for their own consumption or for sale to the black market. The idea behind the new measure appears to be that turning workers into stakeholders can solve those problems. — AP

HAVANA: A Cubana pilot hugs a mannequin dressed as a stewardess after helping setup up the Cubana airlines’ booth for the 30th Havana International Trade Fair, in Havana, Cuba, Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2012. —AP

ATHENS: Municipal workers gather for an anti-austerity rally in central Athens, Friday. Greece is not expected to get its next batch of international rescue loans by Nov 16, when it has to roll over 5 billion euros in three-month treasury bills. —AP

Greek minister insists ‘no need to worry’ about aid ATHENS: Brussels has given a much needed boost to Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras as he seeks to reassure Greeks that a long-delayed installment of crucial international aid was well on its way.

Stournaras said Friday “there is no reason to worry” even as a four-billion-euro debt payment loomed and Germany warned that a deal on the aid could be weeks away. An EU official in Brussels backed Stournaras assuring that international creditors would not allow Greece to default on its debt and were ready to give Athens two extra years to put its house in order.

“There will be no default, not accidental, not premeditated,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Two days after Greek parliament passed a new round of austerity, Stournaras stressed that “Greece is doing what it has to do, and so is Europe, the tranche will be paid.”

Stournaras said Athens expected a

decision on the funds at a meeting of eurozone finance ministers on Monday, although media reports said the aid decision could be delayed to November 26.

Approval of the a new loan slice for Greece will top the agenda at that meeting in Brussels, which comes a day after Greek lawmakers are to vote on the 2013 budget.

German Central Bank chief Jens Weidmann said he opposed any moves to write off Greek debt, in an interview in Saturday’s Rheinische Post daily. “Of what benefit will be writing off Athens’ debt if the country finds itself in, 10 years, in the same position as we are today? Greece must reform from top to bottom,” the head of the Bundesbank added.

Greece is surviving at present on two huge bailout packages from the European Union, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank. Private creditors also agreed in March to erase more than 100 billion euros ($127 billion) in the Greek public debt they held. — AFP

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 Egyptian pounds

.2740000 .4480000 .3590000 .2970000 .2820000 .2920000 .0040000 .0020000 .0763250 .7436110 .3870000 .0720000 .7289780 .0430000

CUSTOMER TRANSFER RATES US Dollar/KD .2810000 GB Pound/KD .4504290 Euro .3614220 Swiss francs .2988410 Canadian dollars .2839240 Danish Kroner .0484410 Swedish Kroner .0421500 Australian dlr .2937570 Hong Kong dlr .0362560 Singapore dlr .2300070 Japanese yen .0035110 Indian Rs/KD .0000000 Sri Lanka rupee .0000000 Pakistan rupee .0000000 Bangladesh taka .0000000 UAE dirhams .0765350 Bahraini dinars .7456550 Jordanian dinar .0000000 Saudi Riyal/KD .0749530 Omani riyals .7301550 Philippine Peso .0000000

Al-Muzaini Exchange Co. ASIAN COUNTRIES

Japanese Yen Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Srilankan Rupees Nepali Rupees Singapore Dollar Hongkong Dollar Bangladesh Taka Philippine Peso Thai Baht Irani Riyal - transfer Irani Riyal - cash

3.558 5.188 2.943 2.158 3.261 232.950 36.488 3.451 6.877 9.229 0.271 273

.2850000 .4600000 .3690000 .3080000 .2920000 .3000000 .0067500 .0035000 .0770920 .7510840 .4060000 .0770000 .7363040 .0510000 .2831000 .4537950 .3641230 .3010740 .2860460 .0488030 .0424650 .2959530 .0365270 .2317260 .0035370 .0052550 .0021710 .0029510 .0035100 .0771070 .7512270 .4004240 .0755130 .7356110 .0069270

Saudi Riyal Qatari Riyal Omani Riyal Bahraini Dinar UAE Dirham

GCC COUNTRIES 75.444 77.735 734.830 751.430 77.036

ARAB COUNTRIES Egyptian Pound - Cash 48.100 Egyptian Pound - Transfer 46.171 Yemen Riyal/for 1000 1.320 Tunisian Dinar 178.700 Jordanian Dinar 398.070 Lebanese Lira/for 1000 1.898 Syrian Lier 3.868 Morocco Dirham 33.076 EUROPEAN & AMERICAN COUNTRIES US Dollar Transfer 282.800 Euro 362.270 Sterling Pound 452.480 Canadian dollar 286.380 Turkish lire 158.080 Swiss Franc 301.170 Australian dollar 296.520 US Dollar Buying 281.600 GOLD 332.000 167.000 86.500

20 Gram 10 Gram 5 Gram

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

SELL CASH

296.600 750.620 3.710 286.900 554.300 46.000 49.700 167.600 48.290 367.500 37.110 5.490 0.032 0.161 0.248 3.630 399.980 0.191 95.340 45.000 4.340 236.900 1.828

49.900 733.150 3.080 7.050 78.070 75.360 232.780 36.440 2.688 456.800 43.400 304.000 4.200 9.530 198.263 76.960 282.800 1.360

10 Tola

GOLD 1,830.180

Sterling Pound US Dollar

732.970 2.949 6.902 77.640 75.360 232.780 36.440 2.163 454.800 302.500 4.200 9.380 76.880 282.200

COUNTRY

TRAVELLER’S CHEQUE 454.000 282.200

SELL DRAFT

297.100 750.620 3.453 287.400

232.800 46.200 366.000 36.960 5.220 0.031

SELL DRAFT

Australian Dollar Canadian Dollar Swiss Franc Euro US Dollar 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

SELL CASH

298.17 286.88 302.72 362.58 282.20 454.05 3.64 3.465 5.176 2.160 3.254 2.948 76.90 751.40 46.16 402.04 734.45 77.93 75.46

297.000 285.000 306.000 370.000 282.350 458.000 3.690 3.600 5.550 2.320 3.750 3.150 77.350 749.600 48.200 399.000 740.000 77.850 75.750

Dollarco Exchange Co. Ltd 399.940 0.190 95.340 3.280 235.400

Rate for Transfer

US Dollar Canadian Dollar Sterling Pound Euro

Swiss Frank Bahrain Dinar 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

300.535 747.385 76.835 77.490 75.245 397.945 46.239 2.163 5.221 2.940 3.454 6.839 692.485 4.505 9.255 4.380 3.360 92.045

Kuwait Bahrain Intl Exchange Co.

UAE Exchange Centre WLL

Bahrain Exchange Company COUNTRY

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 Thai bhat Tunisian dollar UAE dirham U.S. dollars Yemeni Riyal

Selling Rate

282.300 284.645 453.370 363.115

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 Yemeni Riyal Euro Canadian Dollars Nepali rupee

282.300 2.947 5.225 2.175 3.470 6.880 76.880 75.440 750.500 46.245 458.000 2.990 1.550 367.800 289.700 3.345

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 *Rates are subject to change

282.050 364.000 453.950 285.800 3.550 5.175 46.170 2.163 3.462 6.840 2.936 751.300 76.800 75.300

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

BUSINESS

American Airlines moves closer to pilot contract NEW YORK: American Airlines and its pilots union have reached an agreement in principle over a new contract, which could ultimately pave the way for the airline to exit bankruptcy.

The union’s board must still sign off on the deal and present it to pilots for a ratification vote. That could happen as soon as three weeks from now.

AMR Corp., the parent of American Airlines, filed for Chapter 11 protection last November. It has reached labor agreements with all of its unions except for the pilots. The airline has about 7,500 active pilots. The pilots rejected a prior contract proposal this summer designed to save American

more than $300 million per year. It would have given the pilots pay raises and a 13.5 per cent stake in the company after it emerges from bankruptcy protection. But there were also concessions outsourcing some flying to other airlines that many pilots couldn’t stomach.

The contract was rejected by 61 percent of the Allied Pilots Association members. American’s management then won permission in September from the bankruptcy court to impose new pay, benefit and work rules. Almost immediately, delays started to pile up as some pilots called in sick or wrote up more maintenance problems. Only 59

percent of American’s flights arrived on time in September, according to flight-tracking service FlightStats.com. Delta, Southwest, United and US Airways all had on-time percentages above 80 percent. American also canceled 1,391 flights in September, more than any other airline.

The airline’s on-time performance improved in October as negotiations progressed and after the company threated to take the union to court for what it called an illegal job action. In a message to its members Friday, the union said its board of directors will now vote to on whether or not to pass on the agreement to the membership for rati-

fication. That is likely to happen since the board has already shown support for the latest proposal by voting 13-to-2 on a related matter.

The board’s next vote could happen within a week. The members then get two weeks to review the contract language before voting. The union said it will provide details shortly. American, based in Fort Worth, Texas, said it is pleased to have the agreement in principle and worked hard “to structure an agreement that addresses the priorities identified as most important to our pilots, while staying within the economic framework” it faces in its bankruptcy. — AP

Wall St ends higher, investors still weary Obama, Boehner hold ground in comments

MADRID: People hold banners that read: “Stop Evictions”, during a march against evictions, in Madrid, Friday. Officials say a woman fell to her death as bailiffs approached to evict her for non-payment of the mortgage from her fourth-floor apartment in a suburb of the northern Spanish city of Bilbao. — AP

Spain anti-bank protest decries evictee suicide MADRID: Hundreds of people demonstrated in Madrid after a woman facing eviction killed herself in northern Spain, with the protesters blaming predatory mortgage menders for the second such suicide in as many weeks.

Demonstrators also took to the streets in Barakaldo, the city in Basque Country where police said the 53-year-old woman had committed suicide “as the bailiffs were to evict her from her home.”

With cries of “Guilty! Guilty!” and “Shame! Shame!” the Madrid protesters denounced banks like state-rescued lender Bankia for continuing to evict homeowners struck by unemployment and the eurozone crisis.

The suicide came 15 days after 53-yearold Jose Luis Domingo hanged himself shortly before bailiffs came to his home in the southern city of Granada.

Ruined homeowners have been camping outside Caja Madrid-a major mortgage lender now part of the Bankia group-in the capital with mats and sleeping bags since October 22, demanding they be spared eviction and have their debts renegotiated.

A banner reading “credit scam” could be seen hanging next to the bank as the protesters held a minute’s silence for the dead

woman.

Last month, a group of top magistrates released a report denouncing the trend of forced evictions, which they said have risen by a fifth this year and totalled 350,000 between 2008 and 2011.

They complained of “extremely aggressive judicial procedures against debtors” who “find themselves defenceless in a crisis that they did not cause.”

Faced with this trend, the government has announced it will submit proposals on Monday to the opposition Socialist party in an effort to agree on urgent action to halt the evictions and protect the most vulnerable residents.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he hopes the talks will include discussion of a “temporary halt to the evictions which are hitting the most vulnerable families.”

He is also seeking ways to make the banks better apply their code of conduct, to renegotiate debts and allow people to remain in their homes.

“It’s a difficult subject and I hope we will soon be able to give good news to all the Spanish people,” Rajoy said. The eurozone’s fourth-largest economy, Spain has been mired in recession since last year, with a record-high unemployment rate of more

UK taxman probes HSBC accounts after data leak LONDON: HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, is at the centre of an investigation by British tax authorities into leaked data that a newspaper said showed it provided accounts in the tax haven of Jersey for alleged criminals.

The authorities confirmed they were looking into details of clients in the Channel island after being handed a list of names, addresses and account balances.

“We can confirm we have received the data and we are studying it. We receive information from a very wide range of sources which we use to ensure the tax rules are being respected,” HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) said in a statement.

HSBC said it was investigating the alleged loss of client data, first reported in the Daily Telegraph, “as a matter of urgency”. The Telegraph said some of the clients were convicted criminals or facing criminal allegations.

“We have not been notified of any investigation in relation to this matter by HMRC or any other authority but, should we receive notification, we will cooperate fully with the authorities,” the bank said on Friday.

HSBC said it was “fully committed to adoption of the highest global standards including the procedures for the acceptance of clients”. Like all banks, HSBC, which has been criticised by US regulators for lax anti-money-laundering controls in Mexico and elsewhere and last year saw thousands of its Swiss clients probed by the British taxman, is obliged to report to authorities any suspicions about the source of money deposited in its accounts.

The bank’s London-listed shares fell 0.33 percent to 600.9 pence on Friday, but outperformed the European banking index, which dropped 1.18 percent. After the financial crisis, the banking industry around the world is under intense scrutiny over its standards and past practices, which have included mis-selling of financial products and interest-rate rigging. And banks have become caught up in cash-

strapped governments’ efforts to crack down on tax evaders sheltering money in offshore accounts.

“It feels to me like the banking sector is being seen as a money-stuffed piÒata for everyone to have a whack at - be it regulators or governments or consumers,” said one of HSBC’s 10 biggest investors, who asked not to be named.

“I am very bothered, but is this an HSBC-specific issue? No, I do not think it is.

I think that general standards of compliance are being challenged everywhere,” the investor said.

Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver has not come under much pressure from investors since the damning US money-laundering report as he took the helm only at the start of 2011. But he acknowledged this week it would take the industry time to clean up the mess from past mistakes.

“There are a whole series of things that came from probably a decade in the 2000 to 2008-09 period that have surfaced now that the industry needs to sort out, remediate, and make sure do not happen again,” Gulliver said after setting aside more money on Monday for a potential US fine.

HSBC said earlier this week that the US probe into anti-money laundering failures could result in a fine well over $1.5 billion and also lead to criminal charges. The bank also is being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service on issues relating to USbased clients of a bank unit in India and by the IRS and the US Department of Justice on US tax reporting obligations of certain customers, HSBC said in a recent US regulatory filing. It also said it is cooperating in a probe by the US Securities and Exchange Commission over a Swiss private banking affiliate’s dealings with US resident clients.

Investors said the US anti-money laundering scandal was a far bigger blow for the bank than a tax investigation would be. “I do not think it’s enough to derail the management. Gulliver is regarded materially more highly than his predecessor,” a second top 10 investor in the bank said.—AP

NEW YORK: US stocks advanced on Friday but failed to make up for what turned out to be the worst week for markets since June, as investors turned their attention from the presidential election to the coming negotiations over the “fiscal cliff.”

The market gave up some early gains after President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, in separate public remarks, made it clear that partisan sparring would likely dominate the next several weeks.

The S&P 500 finished Friday’s session up 0.17 percent, but it fell 2.4 percent for the week - the worst since early June. “At this point, there’s no election, and there’s nothing else that can distract. The junk has filtered out and the politicians will be forced to make a decision on the fiscal cliff,” said Chris Hobart, CEO and founder of the Hobart Financial Group, an investment management and financial planning firm in Charlotte, N.C. The outlook was somewhat brightened earlier in the day when new economic data showed consumer sentiment was at its highest level in more than five years, according to the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan surveys, and wholesale inventories jumped in September, according to a Commerce Department report.

Shares of Walt Disney Co fell 6 percent to $47.06, dragging on the Dow industrials, after the company reported results late Thursday. The company said coming results will be under pressure due to declining home video sales and rising costs.

Groupon Inc’s shares sank 29.6 percent to $2.76 a day after the daily deal company’s results fell short of Wall Street’s expectations.

The Dow Jones industrial average edged up 4.07 points, or 0.03 percent, to 12,815.39 at the close. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 2.34 points, or 0.17 percent, to 1,379.85. The Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 9.29 points, or 0.32 percent, to close at 2,904.87.

For the week, the Dow fell 2.1 percent and the Nasdaq lost 2.6 percent. Tech stocks managed solid gains in Friday’s session. An S&P information technology sector index rose 0.6 percent.

Shares of Apple Inc rebounded from their slide into bear market territory earlier this week with a 1.7 percent gain on Friday to close at $547.06. But the stock of J.C. Penney slid 4.8 percent to $20.64 and ranked as the S&P 500’s biggest decliner after the retailer reported a sharper-than-expected decline in quarterly sales at stores open at least a year.

The market’s early gains on Friday came after

stronger-than-expected figures on U.S. consumer sentiment.

But investors’ enthusiasm cooled after hearing from the House speaker and the president about the fiscal cliff. Boehner, a Republican, reiterated his opposition to any tax hikes on the wealthy late this morning. Obama responded in the early afternoon by saying there was no way around tax increases, but that he would remain open to any new ideas that congressional leaders might have.

The fiscal cliff is a combination of government spending cuts and tax increases set to go into effect early next year unless Congress acts to change the law before then. It could take an estimated $600 billion out of the US economy and push it into recession.

“There was an anticipation that there may be more willingness to compromise, but just like Boehner did earlier in the day, both camps stuck to their lines in the sand, so to speak,” said Mohannad Aama, managing director of Beam Capital Management LLC in New York.

Investors are reacting to the prospect of higher tax rates by selling both losing and winning stocks for the year to decrease the tax impact from their positions.

The euro zone is not inspiring confidence, either. Greece’s finance minister said his country was running out of cash, growth in Germany is expected to weaken in the next two quarters, and France’s central bank said the country’s economy would slip into recession as 2012 ends.

Germany and France are the the euro zone’s two largest economies, and Greece has been scraping by, thanks to a 130-billion-euro bailout.

International Game Technology gained 5.2 percent to $13.50 after the slot machine company reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings.

Lions Gate Entertainment Corp jumped 14.3 percent to $16.68 after reporting earnings of $75.5 million, an above-expectation figure that was boosted by the studio’s blockbuster movie, “The Hunger Games.”

According to Thomson Reuters data through Friday, of the 449 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings, 63.3 percent have topped analysts’ expectations - slightly above the 62 percent average since 1994, but below the 67 percent beat rate over the past four quarters.

But revenue results remain disappointing, with only 38.2 percent of companies topping expectations - well below the 62 percent average since 2002, and the 55 percent beat rate over the past four quarters.

Volume was roughly 6.6 billion shares on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the year-to-date average daily closing volume of 6.52 billion.

Decliners outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by a ratio of about 8 to 7 on the New York Stock Exchange. On the Nasdaq, advancers had the slight edge, with 1,232 stocks gaining and 1,208 shares declining. — Reuters

NEW YORK: Gregg Maloney, left, and Ronnie Howard, center, both of Barclays, direct trading on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York. — AP

Lockheed Martin ousts CEO-to-be over relationship BETHESDA: Lockheed Martin Corp. has ousted its president and future CEO over a relationship with a subordinate. The defense company said Friday that its board of directors asked for and received the resignation of Christopher Kubasik from his role as vice chairman, president and chief operating officer. The 51year old had been scheduled to become CEO in January. Lockheed Martin says an ethics investigation confirmed that he had a close personal relationship with a subordinate employee. That violates the company’s code of ethics and business conduct.

The company’s board elected the executive vice president of its electronics systems business to take his role. Marillyn A. Hewson, 58, will serve as presi-

dent, chief operating officer and director immediately and take over as CEO in January. She joined the company in 1983.Hewson will also retain her current role in the electronics systems business area until the end of this year.

“I regret that my conduct in this matter did not meet the standards to which I have always held myself,” Kubasik said in a statement. Kubrick said the departure in no way reflects on the strength of Lockheed Martin and he remains confident in the future of the company, where he had worked for the past 13 years. Lockheed Martin said that the company’s operational or financial performance has not been affected by the matter.—AP

PLANO: In this Tuesday, June 19, 2012 file photo, shoppers walk in a J.C. Penney store in Plano, Texas. J.C. Penney Co. reported a bigger-than-expected loss in the third quarter on plummeting sales as customers continue to reject its move to get rid of blockbuster sales in favor of everyday low pricing, according to reports Friday. — AP

Toyota to invest $1.3b in Indonesia TOKYO: Japan’s Toyota group said yesterday it will invest about 13 trillion rupiah ($1.3 billion) over the next five years in expanding its vehicle production in Indonesia. Toyota Motor and its five affiliated firms are making the move “considering the remarkable growth of the (Indonesian) market in recent years”, a statement from the group said.

The investment will create 9,000 new jobs, raising the group’s total workforce in Indonesia to around 41,000, according to Japanese media.

Toyota Motor’s Indonesian unit, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indonesia (TMMIN), will buy 150 hectares (370 acres) of land near its two plants in Karawang outside Jakarta to build a new engine plant, the statement said.

TMMIN will increase annual production at one of the Karawang plants from 110,000 vehicles to 130,000 by September 2013 to reinforce supply of pickup trucks, minivans and sports utility vehicles. The five Toyota group firms are Daihatsu Motor, Toyota Auto Body, Aisin Seiki, Denso and Toyota Tsusho.

In the expansion project, Toyota Auto Body will begin vehicle production in December, the statement said.

Daihatsu Motor will also begin construction of its second test track and design centre outside Japan-at one of its Karawang plants-by the end of this year.

The six group firms have already invested about 27 trillion rupiah over four decades with Toyota Motor accounting for 9.5 trillion rupiah, the statement said.

Strong investment and domestic spending have seen Indonesia remain one of the best performers in Asia. —

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

business

US House vote on Russia trade bill expected this week WASHINGTON: The US House of Representatives is expected to vote this week on a longdelayed bill to ensure US companies receive all the market-opening benefits of Russia’s recent accession to the World Trade Organization, congressional aides said late yesterday.

The House Rules Committee has scheduled a meeting late Tuesday afternoon on the legislation to establish “permanent normal trade relations” (PNTR) with Russia, setting the stage for a full House vote on the bill by the end of the week, a House leadership aide said.

The Senate would also have to approve the White House-backed legislation for President Barack Obama to sign it into law.

Business groups say there is strong bipartisan support for the measure, but congressional leaders have delayed action all year in the face of concerns about Moscow’s support for Iran and Syria and about its commitment to democracy and human rights.

On Thursday, a coalition of more than 500 companies and business organizations urged members of Congress to approve the bill quick-

ly. “For nearly eighty days now, all of the other 155 members of the WTO have been able to fully access Russia’s market liberalizations, including new rules related to services, science-based animal and plant health, and intellectual property protection - but U.S. businesses cannot,” the groups said.

Russia joined the WTO in late August after 18 years of on-and-off negotiations. But in order for U.S. companies to receive all of the market-opening benefits, Congress has to repeal a Cold-War measure known as the

Jackson Vanik amendment.

The nearly 40-year-old provisions tied the most favorable U.S. tariff rates to the rights of Jews in the former Soviet Union to emigrate.

Russia has been in compliance with the measure for nearly 20 years but Jackson-Vanik remains on the books, at odds with WTO rules that members provide each other normal trade relations on an unconditional basis.

Congress is expected to approve new legislation to punish Russian human rights violators as part of the PNTR bill. — Reuters

Afghanistan beckons India’s business leaders to invest India probes Swiss ‘black money’ charges

QINGDAO: In this Nov. 10, 2011 file photo released by China’s Xinhua News Agency, a worker fixes a solar panel at a factory in Qingdao, east China’s Shandong Province. A federal trade panel found China responsible Wednesday for harming the US solar panel industry, clearing the final hurdle for US attempts to impose steep tariffs on Chinese solar companies. — AP

US solar panel duties could cost exporters BEIJING: The US decision to approve steep duties on Chinese-made solar panels could cost American exporters a growing market, Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming said yesterday, adding that he didn’t want to see a trade war.

The US International Trade Commission voted last week in favour of duties ranging from 23.75 percent to about 250 percent, ruling that a flood of cheap solar panels from China had hurt US-based manufacturers. Similar cases are under way in Germany.

China has already struck back by launching an investigation into imports of solar-grade polysilicon from both the United States and South Korea, and warned of action against European polysilicon.

“If you say I bought your equipment and raw materials but now that I am shipping my products you want to pop on a 249 percent tariff, fine then, buy why should I buy any more of your raw materials or equipment?” Chen told reporters on the sidelines of the 18th Communist Party Congress that will anoint the next genera-

tion of Chinese leaders.

“That’s why I say any unilateral trade action will also impact the instigator.

China is developing, urbanizing, China has a lot of construction under way and will need solar products, so the US is losing out on a big market in the future.”

The United States imported about $3.1 billion worth of solar cells and panels from China in 2011, up from $640 million two years earlier, although both figures contain some products not covered by the ITC investigation.

SolarWorld, the largest US solar-panel manufacturer, accused Chinese competitors such as Suntech Power Holdings and Trina Solar of selling solar cells and panels in the United States at unfairly low prices and receiving government subsidies.

SolarWorld’s German parent, SolarWorld AG, is pressing the European Union for similar curbs on Chinese solar products. Chen valued the solar panel manufacturing equipment bought from the United States at over 40 billion yuan ($6.41 billion), and from Germany at “billions of yuan”. — Reuters

MUMBAI: Afghanistan is “ripe and ready” for Indian investments in mining and other sectors, President Hamid Karzai told business leaders in Mumbai yesterday at the start of a trip to woo investors for his war-ravaged country.

“We’d like to welcome you with a red carpet, but you need to arrive at the red carpet,” he told delegates at an Indian industry event in the financial capital. “What I’d like to emphasise in particular is that Indian businesses need not be shy when thinking about Afghanistan. The Chinese businesses were there long before you came, five or six years before.”

India has invested billions of dollars in Afghanistan since the Taliban regime’s ouster in 2001 and has urged private firms to invest there, though many have misgivings about the security climate after 2014, when most foreign troops will leave. China is also looking to tap into Afghanistan’s mineral reserves.

A consortium led by state-firm Steel Authority of India last year won the rights to develop a huge iron ore deposit in central Afghanistan and a nearby 6 million tonne steel plant at a cost of around $11 billion.

China won a huge copper concession not far from Kabul, as well as oil blocks in the north. However, both Asian giants have been held back in Afghanistan by security concerns as well as poor infrastructure in the landlocked, mountainous country.

India also has to tread carefully in Afghanistan because of the suspicions of arch-rival Pakistan, which sees New Delhi’s expanding role in its neighbour as a move to encircle it. Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma told the meeting with Karzai that New Delhi would look at engaging with Kabul to develop infrastructure such as highways, power projects, Chahbahar port and energy security.

Meanwhile, India’s finance ministry said Saturday it is probing allegations by anti-graft activists that some of India’s top businessmen illegally stashed large sums of money abroad.

“Investigations in the matter (are) under progress including with foreign tax authorities to obtain more information with regard to the reported account holders,” the ministry said in a statement.

India Against Corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal and Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan alleged Friday that the government had received the names of 700 people with Geneva bank accounts from the French government in July 2011.

They alleged India’s Income Tax Department raided some smaller businessmen but the “big fish” evaded penalties after “buying peace” with then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, now India’s president.

The issue of so-called “black money”-funds not reported to the government for tax purposes or parked abroad to avoid tax-is one of the problems that has roiled Prime Minister

Manmohan Singh’s scandal-tainted administration.

India’s Supreme Court last year ordered a probe into undeclared money in foreign bank accounts, while accusing the government of “serious lapses” in handling the issue.

On Friday, Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd issued a statement saying it has dealings with global banks as part of its international business operations but denying it has “any illegitimate accounts anywhere in the world”.

India Against Corruption has accused the government of “misleading Parliament and shielding big names” and demanded that all the names on the list be raided by tax authorities. The ruling Congress party has rejected Kejriwal’s charges and said the government has already taken a number of steps against “black money”. — Agencies

MUMBAI: Afghan President Hamid Karzai (C) clasps the hands of Indian Minister of Commerce, Industry and Textiles, Anand Sharma (L) and Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) President Adi Godrej for a photo-op after a business meeting in Mumbai yesterday. President Karzai, is on a state visit to India from November 9-13, 2012. — AFP

India car sales rebound

8 of KSE’s sectors ended last week in green zone Bayan Investment Report KUWAIT: Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) ended last week in the green zone. The price index ended last week with a increase amounted to 2.06%, and the weighted advanced by 1.50% compared to the closings of the week before.

In addition KSX-15 index increased be 2.01%.

Furthermore, last week’s average daily turnover increased by 63.83%, compared to the preceding week, reaching KD 22.49 million, whereas trading volume average was 259.89 million shares, recording increase of 65.90%.

As far as the trading activity, Kuwait Stock Market started the week at slow pace, which accelerated thereafter due to the calm political environment. As a result, a random purchasing activity started to appear on a wide ray of large-cap and small-cap stocks, however, the gains decreased the day after due to the profit taking trend which came as an adverse reaction and caused the market gains to shrink significantly.

Moreover, the stock market was able to return to its positive performance the last two days of the week, where a selective purchasing activity was reactivated, and concentrated on small-cap stocks, which positively affected the market and enabled it to close in the green zone.

For the annual performance, the price index ended last week recording 0.72% annual loss compared to its closing in 2011, while the weighted index increased by 0.81%, and the KSX-15 recorded 0.59% decrease compared to its value at inception.

By the end of the week, the price index closed at 5,772.17 points, up by 2.06% from the week before closing, whereas the weighted index registered a 1.50% weekly gain after closing at 408.90 points. Moreover, the KSX15 index closed at 994.14 points, increasing with 2.01%.

Sectors’ Indices Eight of KSE’s sectors ended last week in the green zone, while the others recorded

losses. The Health Care sector headed the losers list as its index declined by 5.21% to end the week’s activity at 923.99 points. While the Consumer Goods was the least, when its index closed at 976.09, down by 0.43%.

On the Other hand, The Technology sector headed the gainers list, after its index closed at 880.20 points, to increase by 4.30%. The Real Estate sector was the second on the list, as its index closed at 948.26 points, rup by 4.23%.

The Financial Services came in the third place, after its index closed at 809.05 points, to increase by 2.96%. The Basic Materials sector was the least on the gainers’ list, which index advanced by 0.39%, closing at 981.38 points.

Sectors’ Activity The Financial Services sector dominated total trade volume during last week with 541.39 million shares changing hands, representing 41.66% of the total market trading volume. The Real Estate sector was second in terms of trading volume as the sector’s traded shares were 31.31% of last week’s total trading volume, with a total of 406.86 million shares. On the other hand, the Banks sector’s stocks were the highest traded in terms of value; with a turnover of KD 32.35 million or 28.36% of last week’s total market trading value. The Financial Services sector took the second place as the sector’s last week turnover of KD 30.16 million represented 26.82% of the total market trading value.

NEW DELHI: India’s car sales jumped by 23 percent in October-the fastest rate in nearly two years-industry data shows, driven by greater demand during the festival season and a slew of new model launches.

Some 172,459 cars were sold in October, up 23.1 percent from the same month a year earlier, according to a Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) report. “The rate we have seen in October is the best since January 2011 when we had 25 percent growth,” SIAM director general Vishnu Mathur said.

SIAM recently slashed its projected car sales growth for the financial year to March 2013 to between one and three percent from an earlier 10 to 12 percent forecast due to the economic slowdown, higher import tariffs and labour trouble at the country’s biggest passenger carmaker Maruti Suzuki.

Mathur said seasonal factors helped spur the October rise-the religious holidays are seen as an auspicious time to buy in India, along with a raft of new models rolling off assembly lines.

But he said the real test of the auto sector’s health-regarded as an important barometer of overall economic performance — will come once the festival season was over. India has been one of the world’s fastest-growing car markets in recent years.

But it has been suffering a slowdown in demand as some buyers defer purchases due to expensive loans, high fuel costs and a downturn in economic growth that is making consumers wary of making big-ticket purchases.

“The next months will be very important (to the auto outlook),” Mathur said, citing still high interest rates to counter stubbornly high inflation that has kept borrowing costs elevated as well as the overall economic weakness.

India’s market outlook is of vital importance to global automakers from GM to Toyota, which have been steering to India and China with their billion-plus populations to boost sales and counter sluggish demand in developed nations. — AFP

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

BUSINESS

Emerging economies to continue on a positive nominal growth GCC MONTHLY REPORT KUWAIT: Following the re-election of Barack Obama as the US President, there is a sense of relief that the global economy will not be subject to major policy shocks that a change in the leadership could have triggered. Nevertheless, the IMF expects world output to decelerate from 3.8% in 2011 to 3.3% in 2012 as Advanced economies decelerate from 1.6% to 1.3%.

The Euro-area is likely to contract by 0.4% for 2012, before witnessing a flat or anemic growth of 0.1% in 2013. This will be dependent on policy efforts exerted at the national and regional levels to retire public debt and embark on credible structural adjustments. Emerging economies are likely to continue on a positive nominal growth path as China is forecast to grow at 7.5%, India at 5.5% Russia at 3.6% and Brazil at 1.5%.

Forecast inflation rates for 2012 remain beneficial to growth in Advanced economies, at 1.8% for the G-7 on average and flat in Japan. The rate will be at 2.1% and 2.5% in the US and the Euro-area, slightly above the Fed and the ECB implicit target of 2.0%. In Emerging economies, inflation is expected to maintain an upward trajectory, as forecasts place it at 7.5% for India, at around 5.5% for Brazil and Russia, with the exception of China, where it remain conducive to growth at 2.8%.

In this environment of slowing recovery, deleveraging and deflationary pressures in Advanced economies, monetary policy remains highly accommodative through further quantitative easing. The Bank of Japan expanded its asset purchase program in October by JPY 11trn, for the second time in two months, following an additional JPY 10trn in September, while keeping its credit loan program at JPY 25trn.

In India, the Reserve Bank cut its Cash Reserve Ratio by 25bps to 4.25%, with the intent of raising domestic liquidity by about USD 3.2bn, while leaving interest rates unchanged to fight elevated inflation. Short term interest rates are expected to remain low till the year-end and conducive to short term borrowing with 3-months LIBOR on US, Euroarea and UK deposits ranging between 0.40%, 0.75% and 0.50%.

GCC Macro Higher government spending by most oil exporters has supported robust economic growth, which is expected to pick up speed from about 4% in 2011 to 6.5% in 2012. GIC forecasts that economic performance in the GCC will grow at a combined overall rate of 6.3% for 2012, and that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will grow at around 6.2%, with Qatar at 8.2%, alongside more moderate growth of 4.0% for the UAE, 5.2% for Oman and 3.5% for Bahrain.

With the exception of Bahrain, all other GCC economies will realize positive fiscal surpluses that range between 15% for Saudi Arabia and 25% for Kuwait. However, potential for possible spillovers from the EU crisis remain, mainly through lower oil prices that could extensively impact the growth prospect of the GCC economies. Recent increases in spending, largely through social measures and benefits are not sustainable, and the IMF has warned

that surpluses could turn to deficits within 5 years, if spending cuts are not imposed.

All GCC countries are also expected to post trade surpluses which should add to their accumulations of savings and foreign reserves. Trade in the GCC has been thriving thanks to exports of Oil and related exports and to the import of a large number of products, including most of the food that is consumed in the region. Among GCC economies, Dubai in particular, has become an integral link in the regional as well as global food chain, as the Emirate is the world’s third-largest re-exporter of food, with most of its trade flowing through to other countries in the region, as well as to Asia and Africa.

GCC Equity Markets GCC equity markets remained subdued in the build-up to the US elections and signs of a genuine solution among European policy makers to stifle the debt crisis. The MSCI World Index was down 0.76% for the month, with European markets in the green while US equities retreated. Emerging markets continued their slowdown as waning demand from China and the other BRIC nations hurt growth.

The MSCI EM Index was down -0.73% MTD as the constituent nations await sustained recovery from the Developed countries of the world.

Overall, GCC equities experienced differing results during the month of October as quarterly results came to the fore. The S&P GCC Composite shed -0.48% for the month on the back of persistent below par performance from the region’s powerhouse economy, Saudi Arabia. Dubai was the top performing market with neighboring Abu Dhabi a close second, as the UAE continued to benefit from its status as a regional safe haven and became the go-to spot for the Eid holidays.

Crude oil plunged on the back of uncertain global demand and the effects caused by hurricane Sandy. WTI crude shed -6.83% while Brent crude slid -2.58%. A weak set of Q3 earnings, coupled with forecasted subdued demand for oil has put the Saudi Tadawul index under increased scrutiny, and it closed down -0.71% for the month as the two heavyweight sectors, Banking and Petrochemicals, shed -1.32% and -2.80% respectively. No visible catalysts are seen to help the index rebound in Q4.

In the UAE, Dubai’s DFM Index and Abu Dhabi’s ADSM Index gained +2.59% and +2.57% respectively, making them the best performing markets in the region. Dubai’s positive performance was helped by many sectors, with Telecom up +5.11%, while Investment & Financial Services soared +8.47%.

The heavyweight Real Estate sector also gained a significant +2.40%. In Abu Dhabi, the Real Estate and Financial Services & Investments sectors propped up the index, as they both soared +9.52% and +5.56% respectively.

In Kuwait, the KWSE (Weighted) index fell 2.66%, after what has been a brief rally reacting to government support of the stock market. However, renewed political issues and a mass protest against the Emir have made the index retreat as Kuwait’s economic prospects looks as bleak as ever. Sectors

were mainly all in the red, most notably the Telecom and Financial Services sectors, which both fell -4.19% and -3.77% respectively. Kuwait’s KWSE (Price) Index was down -3.61%, making Kuwait the worst performing market in the region.

In Qatar, the QE Index was up marginally by +0.43%. This slight increase was due to the positive performance of the Industrials sector, which gained +6.17% for the month, offsetting the tepid performance of the Banking sector, which shed -1.47%.

Oman’s MSM Index had a solid performance, gaining +2.27% as all sectors were up across the board. The Services and Industrials sectors were up +3.37% and +2.00% respectively, while the heavyweight Banking sector was up marginally by +0.63%.

Bahrain’s BSE Index was down -2.71% for the month, as the important Banking sector slid 1.35%. Moreover, the Industries sector plunged 7.54% to bring the index down. Bahrain continues to struggle to find its feet after more than a year of political unrest.

GCC stock markets have been tepid as of late, as Q3 earnings were not very impressive for the heavyweight sectors in the region’s stalwart economy, Saudi Arabia. A slowdown in China has affected the Petrochemicals sector greatly while continued pessimism over the recovery in the US coupled with the European debt crisis has investors remaining cautious.

Moreover, the Banking sector in Saudi is also under pressure after subdued results for Q3 and lack of catalysts heading into the end of the year. A pessimistic view on oil prices have taken a toll on the region, as demand for the coming year seems to be fading with the global economic recovery continuing to stutter. In the UAE, the Real Estate sector has edged up nicely as Dubai returns to the days of pre-crisis levels, and the Emirate has emerged as a safe haven amidst the political turmoil in the region. After a brief rally, the Kuwaiti market has plunged again and riots and protests have put the nation in the limelight once more as the Emir struggles to please the local populous in a politically embroiled nation.

GCC Credit Markets Globally, we saw slight improvement in macroeconomic data. UK reported a GDP growth of 1% in the third quarter, which was strongest since the financial crisis and officially ended the double dip recession.

US economic growth rose in the third quarter to reach an annualized rate of 2%, higher than expected, fueled by rising consumer confidence, fledgling recovery in the housing market and an increase in government spending. However, as per the latest earning data of S&P companies, the earning cycle has turned weak in US. In Asia Pacific, the worst of declines may be moderating as economies across Asia reported better set of numbers.

GCC markets continued its upward march, managing to close at highs. Spreads tightened significantly during the month. The HSBC Nasdaq-Dubai GCC USD Sukuk/Bond TR Index (GCCB) rose m-o-m, to close at 156.03 from 153.73 and spreads tight-

ened by 32bps, yielding 3.35%. The HSBC NasdaqDubai USD Sukuk TR Index (SKBI) increased m-o-m from 143.68 to 145.02, while the HSBC NasdaqDubai GCC Conventional USD Bond TR Index (GCBI) traded in a range of 157-160. HSBC Nasdaq-Dubai GCC Conventional USD Bond TR Index (+1.32%) outperformed the JPM EM Bond Index (+0.47%). In the CDS Sovereign space, tightening of spreads was witnessed across the space except for Bahrain.

Dubai was the best performer with spreads tightening by 45bps (-15.8%) followed by Saudi 8bps (8.9%). Bahrain widened marginally 3bps (+1.2%).

Overall, the Primary market is still not witnessing huge supply as anticipated, which is helping the credit spreads to tighten. However, the month witnessed several issues primarily by Investment Grade banks out of Qatar and Abu Dhabi. All the issues were several times oversubscribed, signaling a good appetite for quality issuer. FGB was first to hit the market with a USD650mn 5Y bond at MS+210bps. This was followed by USD750mn 5Y Sukuk by QIB at MS+175bps. QIIB tap the market with its maiden Sukuk issuance of 5Y USD700mn priced at MS+190bps. Investors was last in the line with 5Y USD250mn bond issuance yielding in the low 8% area.

Short Term Outlook - The GCC market had a sharp run up during YTD’12 supported by strong fundamentals and technicals. Now the market is looking bit stretched with rich valuations. Despite the tight and tired market, the search for yield in a low yield environment and strong flow of funds into fixed income will aid the market. The primary market is also expected to provide support, given a lack of supply and strong demand resulting in spreads tightening. We recommend a very cautious approach with defensive positioning and advise against chasing the market. Overall, in ST, we expect the market to consolidate.

Mid Term-Long Term Outlook - GCC market is expected to perform well given the supportive macro-fundamentals and positive news flow from international space primarily return to growth trajectory and continued monetary expansionary policies by major economies. GCC credit still continues to trade cheap when compared to its rating class. It also benefits from a very supportive investor base, with Middle East investors having acquired around 50% of the total GCC issuance so far this year.

Overall, we recommend Investment Grade and defensive credit primarily out of Qatar, Saudi and Abu Dhabi over High Volatility, till the global uncertainty recedes. We also like Quasi Sovereign names especially in Abu Dhabi, given the attractive spread pick up over sovereign. Given the run up in the far end of the curve, global uncertainty and volatility in UST, we suggest underweighting duration. Spread curves for some of the Investment grade names are trading flat, providing an opportunity for long short strategies to take advantage of possible curve steepening. We also advise to selectively look at High Volatility space with strong franchise value, profitable business model and stable cash flow. We like Dubai names in the space. We remain neutral financials given the tight spreads, expected supply

China’s export growth up in sign of recovery ‘We are calling for a shift in growth model’

BANGKOK: Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra (R) talks with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak (L) at Government House in Bangkok yesterday. Lee is on three-day visit to Thailand. — AFP

Thailand-S Korea agree to double trade to $30bn BANGKOK: Thailand and South Korea agreed to more than double their annual trade to $30 billion over the next five years, the kingdom’s prime minister said yesterday. After a meeting with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, Thai leader Yingluck Shinawatra said the pair had vowed to strengthen economic bonds between their countries. Thailand will boost exports of rice, fruit and frozen chicken, Yingluck said, adding South Korea had expressed support for the multi-billion-dollar Dawei deep sea port project being led by a Thai company in Myanmar.

“This project (Dawei) will turn Thailand into Asia-Pacific hub for trade and logistics,” Yingluck said, without detailing South Korea’s offer of help. The Dawei development on

Myanmar’s southern Andaman coast is a key part of the impoverished country’s plans to transform its economy, giving neighbours such as Thailand an outlet to the Indian Ocean and markets to the West.

But the project-led by Thai industrial giant Ital-Thai-has faced resistance from local villagers and there have been signs of funding troubles. Both countries will ask their trade ministers to plan ways to raise bilateral trade from “the current $14 billion to $30 billion over the next five years”, the Thai prime minister said. On the first trip by a South Korean leader to Thailand for more than three decades, Lee also expressed his nation’s interest in investing in high speed train projects and water management schemes in the kingdom. — AFP

Soybean prices fall on crop forecast NEW YORK: Soybean prices ended lower after the US government increased its estimate of how big the crop would be. Soybeans for January delivery fell 44.5 cents to settle at $14.5125 a bushel. That’s a loss of 3 percent.

Corn and wheat futures also fell, but not as much.

The declines came after the Agriculture Department predicted that soybean production would increase. The USDA now expects national soybean production to hit 2.97 billion bushels, 4 percent higher than the October forecast. The crop yield is now expected to average 39.3

bushels an acre, up 1.5 bushels per acre.

Another reason for recent weakness in soybean prices has been slowing exports to China, said Sterling Smith, futures specialist at Citigroup in Chicago. “I think this correction will bring them back into the market a little bit,” Smith said. Soybean prices traded as high as $17.38 a bushel in mid-September.

December wheat fell 16 cents to end at $8.865 a bushel and December corn fell 2.5 cents to $7.3875 a bushel. In other commodities trading, energy prices were mostly higher, except for natural gas. —AP

BEIJING: China’s export growth sped up in October in fresh evidence of a broader rebound for the world’s second-largest economy, as a top official all but declared the country’s slowdown over. Exports rose 11.6 percent in October from a year earlier, the national customs bureau said yesterday, accelerating for a second straight month just as the Communist Party discusses how best to achieve sustainable economic growth. “The trend of slowdown has been effectively curbed,” Zhang Ping, head of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), told reporters. “From October economic data the trend for a rebound in the Chinese economy is all the more obvious.”

China’s economic growth has slowed for seven straight quarters and hit a more than threeyear low of 7.4 percent in the three months through September, but recent data has fuelled optimism that the worst is over.

Industrial production for October accelerated to growth of 9.6 percent on-year, the government said Friday. Retail sales, the main measure of consumer spending, also picked up to a 14.5 percent gain. Fixed-asset investment, a key gauge of infrastructure spending, showed improvement, while inflation dipped to a nearly three-year low of 1.7 percent.

The customs bureau also said yesterday that October imports increased 2.4 percent, matching September’s gain. China’s trade surplus, a source of friction with the United States and other countries, widened to $32 billion, up from $27.7 billion in September.

The size was a surprise, surpassing the median forecast of $27 billion in a survey of economists by Dow Jones Newswires.

“Today’s trade data, together with improving domestic demand indicators released yesterday, continue to support our view that China’s growth momentum has picked up,” ANZ bank economists Liu Li-Gang and Zhou Hao wrote in a commentary.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch economists Lu Ting and Hu Weijun said the export data back up their view of economic growth strengthening to 7.8 percent in the fourth quarter and 8.3 percent in the first half of 2013.

“We believe China’s economic growth has truly bottomed out,” they said in a report.

China’s Communist Party has been meeting since Thursday to anoint new leaders for the

next 10 years at its 18th congress. President Hu Jintao is expected to be replaced as party leader

by Vice President Xi Jinping before the meeting adjourns Wednesday.

Hu, in a speech Thursday to the meeting, called for creating a new growth model with a robust private sector, while also insisting on the primacy of the party-led state sector.

He also warned that corruption threatens the existence of both party and state in the speech to the event, held every five years to boost the ruling party’s leadership credentials.

Modernising China’s economy and pulling hundreds of millions out of poverty in the more than three decades since the country embarked on reform policies is a key claim to legitimacy for the world’s largest political party.

China’s economy racked up average annual

growth rates of more than 10 percent in the decade through 2010, but officials now say they want an expansion that can be maintained.

“We are calling for a shift in the growth model... to focus on sustainable growth,” the NDRC’s Zhang said.

Independent economist Andy Xie, based in Shanghai, said the economy still faces headwinds given continued weakness in overseas economies and in China’s own domestic demand as shown by tepid import growth.

He also expressed a lack of confidence in the ability of party leaders to manage the economy.

“At least in the last five years, it’s become very clear it’s about how to divide the spoils among the powerful people,” he said of the congress. “I don’t see it’s changing. Without political reforms the economy is not coming back.” —

QINGDAO: This picture taken on November 7, 2012 shows trucks arriving to unload their containers at the port of Qingdao in northeast China’s Shandong province. China’s export growth accelerated in October, the government said yesterday, adding to evidence the world’s second-largest economy is bouncing back as the ruling Communist Party chooses new leaders. —

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BUSINESS

BRICS eye forex reserves pool of up to $240 billion WASHINGTON/BRASILIA: Leading emerging market countries are discussing pooling up to $240 billion in foreign exchange reserves to protect themselves from short-term liquidity pressures, according to documents outlining plans by the five BRICS nations.

BRICS countries China, Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa announced a working group in June to look into jointly pooling reserves and creating a new development bank to fund infrastructure projects in the developing world.

According to the documents, obtained by Reuters, the pool of central bank money would be available to BRICS facing balance of payments difficulties.

Some, however, are also pushing for a precautionary credit line, similar to the IMF’s that provides countries with insurance against outside economic shocks.

The move is part of growing frustration among the BRICS and other developing countries with the continued

dominance by the United States and European countries of global institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

BRICS officials meeting on the sidelines of a recent G20 summit of finance ministers from developed and developed nations sought to advance their plans ahead of a BRICS leaders’ summit in South Africa in March.

Planned currency swap arrangements would also give BRICS the ability to lend to each other to keep markets liquid.

Officials at the G20 BRICS meeting, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said China had emphasized that the size of the reserve pool needed to be sufficiently big to be taken seriously by markets.

Officials believe that the BRICS reserve pool should be similar in size to the Chiang Mai Initiative of southeast Asian countries, which was doubled to $240 billion in May to boost their protection against external shocks.

The Chiang Mai program, first agreed in 2000, has never been put to use because it would require the country to request a program from the IMF, which was blamed for insufficient bailouts during the Asian currency crisis of 1998.

Eswar Prasad, a Cornell University economics professor and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said the proposed plan for pooling resources posed a “strong and serious challenge to existing global monetary arrangements.”

“Irrespective of the logic and possible complications of these schemes to pool their funds, these proposals from the BRICS may have the salutary effect of prodding global monetary reforms along at a faster pace,” Prasad said.

Countries like China are keen to see its currency, the yuan, added to the IMF basket of currencies, currently including the pound, yen, euro and dollar, that make up the IMF unit of account, the Special Drawing Right.

While a number of the BRICS believe disbursements from the reserve pool should be made in US dollars, others preferred to use the SDR. “In terms of disbursement, the preference would be to use the US dollar or other reserve currencies, but the view was also expressed that part of the disbursements could be made available in BRICS national currencies,” according to the documents.

Discussions are also looking at what conditions should be attached to the reserve pool. One question is whether the scheme should be linked to an IMF program, which could be a bitter pill to swallow for any of the BRICS. Some BRICS are arguing for a partial link to the IMF, with an initial quick disbursement subject to rules of the pooling.

The BRICS are also considering creating a new development bank to support financing of long-term infrastructure projects for emerging and developing economies, to meet the pressing need

for roads, railways, ports and electricity.

The BRICS bank would be in competition with the World Bank and other multilateral development banks, which also provide loans for infrastructure projects.

However, countries like India are already facing limits on its borrowing from the World Bank.

The BRICS documents noted that existing multilateral development banks are under capitalized compared to the growing needs of emerging economies and developing countries. The new bank would initially issue non-concessionary project-linked finance to members, meaning that the financing would be at a higher cost. A small window of low-cost loans could be considered as the bank expanded, the documents said.

The World Bank and other institutions have long insisted that lending to poor countries should involve low-interest loans to avoid pushing up their debts to unsustainable levels. —Reuters

Beyond the ‘fiscal cliff,’ reasons for optimism Wall Street Week Ahead NEW YORK: Forget about the “fiscal cliff.” That might be hard, considering the drama of this week. The stock market had its worst two-day plunge in a year after voters returned President Barack Obama, a Republican House and a Democratic Senate to power.

Investors fear the approaching cliff - tax increases and government spending cuts that begin to take effect Jan 1 unless Obama and Congress can work out a compromise.

Economists say the hit to the economy next year could be $800 billion and be enough to push the United States back into another recession. And financial analysts are predicting more market turmoil as the deadline approaches.

But lawmakers almost certainly will work out a deal - perhaps messily, unsatisfyingly and with lots of theatrics, but a deal nonetheless. But what happens after that, and to the market in Obama’s second term?

Home prices are rising again in many parts of the country. Job growth is much faster than it was last spring. Consumer confidence is up.

So is retail spending. And so is the stock market, this week’s jitters notwithstanding.

Even some of those who think the economy and markets will run into trouble soon see better times on the other side of the cliff. David Kostin, Goldman Sachs’s US equity strategist, expects a budget battle in Washington to send the Standard & Poor’s 500 index down to 1,250 by the end of the year, about 10 percent lower than where it closed Friday.

Once the fight is finished, however, things should turn around quickly, he says. By the end of next year, the S&P 500 will reach 1,575, Goldman says, clearing its previous all-time high by 10 points.

There are factors that could still hobble the economy, of course. Median household income has dropped every year since 2007, after adjusting for inflation. The unemployment rate is still high. The Federal Reserve warned last month that job growth, like US economic growth, remains slow.Here are three things you should watch as you plot an investing strategy for the next four years.

The traditional thinking is that a Democratic president equals higher taxes for businesses. But financial analysts at UBS aren’t so sure. In a report before the election, they predicted that the corporate tax rate would drop under Obama or Romney.

And anyway, says Carol Pepper, CEO of the wealth management firm Pepper International in New York, companies aren’t going to stop growing just because they’re faced with higher taxes.

“That,” she says, “is cutting off your nose to spite your face.” Also, for more than three years, companies in the S&P 500 have improved earnings every quarter compared with the year before, according to market research company S&P Capital IQ. Often, their growth has defied expectations. At the beginning of October, analysts were predicting that third-quarter corporate profits would fall nearly 2 percent compared with a year ago.

With about 90 percent of the companies in the S&P 500 turning in results, they’re expected to be up more than 2 percent. And higher earnings generally send a company’s stock higher. That’s no guarantee, of course.

Revenue for the third quarter so far is up only about 0.6 percent, which means that companies’ profit growth is driven not by selling more goods and services but by cutting costs, which can mean laying off workers or trimming salaries.

And compared with a year ago, the earnings and revenue growth is downright anemic.

In the third quarter of 2011, earnings grew more than 17 percent over the previous year, according to S&P Capital IQ. Revenue was up more than 11 percent.

Still, if companies managed to grow profits during a slow economic recovery, they should have no trouble doing it if the economy really picks up.

You can’t consider the future of the world economy, and therefore the future of the US stock market, without considering China, the world’s second-largest economy behind the United States. You’ve probably heard that eco-

Credit Suisse to stand by investment bank GENEVA: Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse will stick with its investment bank and does not plan a major overhaul similar to the one recently announced by UBS, the bank’s chairman said in an interview published yesterday.

“It is true that there are some people who expect us to completely pull out of investment banking,” Credit Suisse chairman Urs Rohner told the Basler Zeitung daily.

However, he said, “these people do not realise that the capital market business is critical for the functioning of efficient global markets and important for a globally oriented economy like Switzerland’s.”

Switzerland’s second largest bank was therefore planning to remain “at the forefront” of the investment banking sector, he said.

His comments came after Credit Suisse’s larger competitor UBS announced on October 30 it would cut nearly 10,000 jobs as part of a massive restructuring of its ailing investment bank.

The overhaul involves shedding some high-risk activities and essentially withdrawing from the fixed income business that had burdened it with catastrophic losses during the 2008 “subprime” crisis.

While ruling out such radical measures for Credit Suisse, Rohner did acknowledge that some restructuring of the investment bank unit might be needed.

“It is possible that we will have to carry out further adaptations in terms of staff,” he said in the article, published a day after Credit Suisse announced it would cut 300 jobs in Switzerland as part of a plan to merge its retail and private banking units.

He acknowledged that the investment bank was still absorbing 60 percent of Credit Suisse’s own capital. “That is too much in the long term,” he said. —AFP

nomic growth in China has slowed. But China’s economy is still growing at an annual rate of 7.4 percent, more than triple the U.S. rate, and far better than the contraction in most of Europe.

China’s middle class is huge and expanding.

That makes it more expensive for U.S. companies to produce goods there because of higher living standards, but it also means more customers for American companies to sell things to.

Adrian Day, president of Adrian Day Asset Management in Annapolis, Md., says he’s optimistic on China, though it’s not without risks.

Young people moving en masse from the country to the city can fuel social tensions, and the country’s rules still prove baffling or impenetrable for many foreign investors.

“However pessimistic people are about China,” Day says, “China’s economy is still growing.”

One popular theory for why the economy is set to improve: Companies hoarded money during the financial crisis and now sit on record piles of cash. The Fed says nonfinancial companies hold about $1.7 trillion in cash and other liquid assets.

Companies have cut back spending on machinery, tools, software and other so-called capital goods, resulting in the slowest growth in “capital stock” in nearly 50 years, notes Michelle Meyer, the US economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

“The positive story is that once the fiscal cliff is resolved, even if it’s a messy process, some of the uncertainty hanging over businesses will be removed,” she says.

Pent-up demand from corporations could turn into spending in the spring and pick up through next year. Jeremy Zirin, chief equity strategist at UBS Wealth Management, says the cash heap is the “dry powder” that will fuel growth.

A major caveat: Market watchers have been talking about companies sitting on cash for a long time. The amount has been roughly the same nearly three years, and nothing so far has convinced companies to spend it liberally. —AP

Zimbabwe seeks to polish diamond sector’s tainted image HARARE: Accused of being opaque, corrupt and murderous, Zimbabwe’s diamond sector wants to polish its image.

Beneath Zimbabwe’s soil lies wealth that could help transform the country’s battered economy.

Zimbabwe is home to the Marange diamond fields-one of Africa’s largest in Africa-and has the potential to supply 25 percent of the world’s diamonds.

Yet very few investors have been willing to cross the Rubicon. That is because the sector has become synonymous with graft, torture and murder that has been linked to some of the highest powers in the land. Rights groups say 200 people were killed in 2008 at Marange when the Zimbabwean army and anti-riot police cleared small-scale miners.

Zimbabwe was consequently banned from the Kimberley Process, a watchdog for the diamond trade. The ban was only lifted when the government said it had pulled out security forces out of the area.

Natural resource extraction watchdogs accuse President Robert Mugabe’s party of funnelling profits to senior military officers and party leaders as hush money.

Finance Minister Tendai Biti, a member of the anti-Mugabe MDC party, has complained that of the $600 million in diamond revenues expected this year, only $46 million has materialised.

He admits a “parallel government” may be raking in much of the cash. But from next Monday, at the majestic Victoria Falls, the country will try to convince 300 foreign mining experts and industry leaders that change is at hand. Officials are not bashful about the aim of the conference.

It has been organised “to manage perception of the Zimbabwean diamond

industry and lure more investment to the diamond industry,” according to the ministry of mines. “We are now a diamondmining country so we want to share with experts who are ahead of us in order to improve our systems,” said Prince Mupazviriho, the permanent secretary at the ministry.

Among notable speakers are Kimberley Process chair Gillian Milovanovic, an American diplomat, and representatives from African Diamond Producers.

But observers wonder whether they are being sold the real deal or a cubic zirconia.

The real test will be the government’s support for a law that would force mining companies to account for their production and sales.

“There are too many loopholes in the way the diamond mining companies are reporting their production and revenue,” analyst Charles Mangongera told AFP. “We don’t even know how much they are producing as there is no independent mechanism to verify.”

“What we need is for the conference to push for legislation that compels the state and companies in the diamond sector to become accountable in a manner that will benefit the treasury and all citizens.”

But such legislation would run counter to the interests of Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party, according to Mangongera.

The legislation would particularly affect firms like Anjin, which is a joint Chinese venture with the Zimbabwean state.

“I doubt that ZANU-PF would support such legislation. The key characters in the diamond sector have linkages with ZANU-PF and obviously the party is benefitting from these linkages,” Mangongera said. —AFP

NEW YORK: In this photo of Sept. 10, 2012, the cargo ship Santa Fe passes the Statue of Liberty, center, and the New York skyline. The US trade deficit declined to the lowest level in almost two years as exports rose to a record high, a gain that is not expected to last given the global economic slowdown. The trade deficit narrowed to $41.5 billion in September, the Commerce Department said. That is 5.1 percent below the August deficit and the smallest imbalance since December 2010. —AP

Gulf Bank announces winners of Al Danah weekly draw KUWAIT: Gulf Bank held its forty-fourth Al Danah weekly draw on November 4th, 2012, announcing a total number of six Al Danah weekly prize draw winners, each awarded with prizes of KD 1,000.

The 44th Al Danah Weekly Winners are: Farouq Ahmed M Hussain, Hasan Husain Ali Mohd Aakash, Faisal Mohammed Saleh Al-Mutairi, Jehan Muhammad Huwaje, Laila Kamal Mansour Sulaiman Yousef Jasem Mohammed Al-Homadi Gulf Bank encourages everyone in Kuwait to open an Al Danah account and/or increase their deposits to maximize their chances of becoming a winner in the upcoming weekly (KD1000 each for

10 winners). Gulf Bank’s Al Danah allows customers to win cash prizes and encourages them to save money. Chances increase the more money is deposited and the longer it is kept in the account.

Al Danah also offers a number of unique services including the Al Danah Deposit Only ATM card which helps account holders deposit their money at their convenience; as well as the Al Danah calculator to help customers calculate their chances of becoming an Al Danah winner.

To be part of the Al Danah draws, customers can visit one of Gulf Bank’s 56 branches, transfer on line, or call the Customer Contact Center.

Etihad Cargo growth continued in October DUBAI: Etihad Cargo, a division of Etihad Airways, carried a record 32,500 tonnes of freight in October, a 15 per cent increase on the same month last year.

The figure is 2.2 per cent higher than September 2012, when the airline carried 31,800 tonnes.

Etihad Airways’ Chief Strategy and Planning Officer, Kevin Knight said: “The growth figures for October clearly demonstrate the continued strength of Etihad Cargo.

“The impressive tonnage was achieved despite the dampening effect of the holidays for the Eid Al Adha celebration, which was offset by a big rise in demand for freight services in the Asia Pacific region, the Subcontinent and the United Kingdom.

“Looking ahead, we expect to maintain strong freight performance over the final quarter of 2012.”

Last month, Etihad Cargo reported record figures for the third quarter of 2 0 1 2 . Th e a i r l i n e c a r r i e d 9 3 , 5 6 0 tonnes in the period, up 18 per cent on the corresponding period last year

(79,378 tonnes).

October was also the month which saw the highest volume of cargo ever into and out of the airline’s Abu Dhabi hub, with over 58,000 tonnes processed and two record days in the period.

Etihad Cargo flies to a total of 86 destinations internationally, operating a fleet of six freighters, consisting of one Airbus A300-600F, two Airbus A330-200F, one McDonnell Douglas MD-11F, one Boeing B777F and one Boeing B747-400F.

Prepaid fuel cards available at all Oula stations KUWAIT: Oula Fuel marketing introduced pre-paid fuel cards in most of its stations spread across Kuwaitis continuity to the series of its distinguished new services tailor made to cater to customers’ needs while meeting their expectations. Oula pre-paid cards validity ranges from six months to a year and were recently introduced in the stations in response to customers’ needs and demands.

Commenting on Oula initiative, Abdulmohsen Khaja VP Operations at Oula said” Oula spares no efforts in providing premium services specially designed to suit different target audiences. The company promises to always provide best services with a main objective to enhance customers’ experience.

Khaja added: “Fuel pre-paid cards are now available in most of our stations spread throughout Kuwait. Oula is keen to maintain its leading position in the market by constantly offering the latest and most innovative technologies.”

It is worth to mention that the company invests in developing new and intelligent solutions to improve customers’ experience at its station. Among those solutions are retractable hoses that allow fueling from both sides of the vehicles which would reduce congestions at the stations, installing new air and water towers, providing station sites on Google maps, and last but not least providing automated eco-friendly car wash system in several stations.

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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

TECHNOLOGY

Australia abandons mandatory Internet filter plan CANBERRA: The Australian government has abandoned its 5-year-old pledge to mandate a filter blocking child pornography and other objectionable Internet content.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said Friday that instead of a compulsory filter being imposed, Internet service providers have agreed to block 1,400 child abuse websites on INTERPOL’s “worst of” list.

Three of Australia’s largest telecommunications companies - Telstra, Optus and Primus - have been blocking the listed sites since 2010.

“We’ve actually reached agreement with the industry to block child pornography and we think that is a significant step forward,” Conroy told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Critics had said the proposed legislated filter would have put Australia in the same censorship league as China.

Even the US State Department expressed concerns about the proposed regulations, which would have been some of the most restrictive among the world’s democracies.

The new plan has a narrower focus on child abuse. The government’s pro-

posed compulsory nationwide filter would have also banned a regularly updated list of sites that also carried extreme violence as well as detailed instructions in crime, drug use or terrorist acts.

Opponents argued that the filter would slow Internet speeds, erroneously block harmless sites and restrict free speech.

Anti-censorship campaigner Geordie Guy welcomed the government reversal. He said the new agreement will have little impact on the availability of child abuse material

which isn’t traded on the open Web. “While this is a much better result than any of the previous proposals that the government came up with, it’s still really unlikely to do much good,” Guy told ABC. The Internet Industry Association of Australia chief executive Peter Lee said he was “pleased that the government has now moved on” from the filter and had narrowed its focus to illegal child abuse.

The Australian Electoral Lobby said the government’s agreement with ISPs fell short of its cyber safety pledge

made during the 2007 election campaign.

“The government’s decision not to legislate to the full extent of the commitment is a great disappointment,” the Lobby’s Managing Director Jim Wallace said.

But the opposition said the government realized it had no hope of getting the filter legislation through Parliament. The Greens party, a key government ally, joined the opposition in condemning the mandatory filter proposal as a serious restriction of free speech. — AP

Little progress in expansion of humanity into cosmos The imperative to explore

By Buzz Aldrin

CHICAGO: A shopper checks out the new Apple iPad mini at the Apple store on Michigan Ave in Chicago. The new iPad Mini is sure to please millions. But fans of the latest full-size iPad have reason to look down on this newcomer: compared to other Apple products, the screen just isn’t that good. —AP

Apple still perched high, but seems vulnerable NEW YORK: Apple, the world’s biggest and perhaps most admired company, seems to have lost some of its luster.

Despite the hugely successful launch of the iPhone 5 and iPad mini tablet, shares in the California tech giant have slid some 20 percent from all-time highs, and analysts are questioning whether Apple remains the leader in “innovation.”

A flubbed mobile maps program and a major shakeup in key management have also tarnished the image of the firm that had seemed nearly invincible just months earlier.

A more competitive landscape for mobile phones and tablets, including the surge in devices using the Google Android operating system, have also changed the outlook for Apple.

Last month, Apple parted ways with Scott Forstall, the executive in charge of mobile software, following embarrassments over its glitch-ridden maps program, as well as John Browett, who headed Apple’s real-world shops.

Some analysts say the company lacks the vision and commitment to excellence after the death last year of its admired chief Steve Jobs.

Apple stock hit a record high above $700 in September, but have since slumped more than 20 percent to $547.06 on Friday.

“Investors are confused and have lost faith in Apple management,” said Trip Chowdhry, analyst at Global Equities Research. “Apple today is not as customer centric as it used to be, and the rate of innovation is declining when the rate of innovation of competitors has dramatically risen.”Others argue that it is too soon to say Apple has peaked.

Charles Golvin at Forrester Research said that in a season filled with product launches from Amazon, Motorola, Nokia and others, Apple has been able “to exert a superior gravitational pull on its customers and partners than its competitors.” And Forrester’s Sarah Rotman Epps said Apple “is entering the 2012 holiday season with its strongest product lineup ever, with wider retail distribution than it has ever had.

“Apple is already leading every game it plays. But these products will maintain

Apple’s momentum,” she added.

Yet Apple has lost market share both in the tablet market, which it created with the iPad, and in smartphones.

Research firm IDC said Apple held a 50.4 percent of the tablet market in the third quarter from more than 65 percent in the second quarter, as rivals like Amazon and Google gained in the growing market. IDC’s Tom Mainelli said many consumers interested in buying a tablet “sat out the third quarter” waiting for the new iPad mini.

“We expect Apple to have a very good quarter. However, we believe the mini’s relatively high $329 starting price leaves plenty of room for Android vendors to build upon the success they achieved in the third quarter,” Mainelli said.

In smartphones, it was a similar story with Android grabbing 75 percent of the market and the Samsung Galaxy S3 getting the crown as the world’s top selling smartphone, based on surveys.

IDC said Apple’s smartphone market share slipped to 14.9 percent in the third quarter from 16.9 percent the prior period. Even though the figures came as Apple launched the iPhone 5 — which combined with the iPhone 4S, outsold the Samsung flagship-the news was sobering for the Cupertino, California firm. Many analysts remain bullish on Apple and say the recent stock slump is nothing to fret over.

“The selloff in Apple’s stock in recent weeks has spooked investors but this correction is similar to the three others experienced over the past 13 months, all of which proved to be attractive buying opportunities,” said Brian White at Topeka Capital Markets.

Gregori Volokhine of the investment firm Meeschaert said one problem for investors is that Apple, because of its huge success in recent years, has become the largest holding for nearly every investment fund in the US and elsewhere.

That means any move is likely to be amplified as investors follow the trend.

“Having too much of one stock means portfolio managers will sell on declines to reduce exposure,” Volokhine said. “It’s a vicious circle.” —AFP

Zynga buys startup in move to more intense games SAN FRANCISCO: Zynga announced yesterday its acquisition of the team at startup November Software as part of a move into “mid-core” games with more staying power than passing fad casual titles.

The new talent is working with Zynga engineers behind hit “Mafia Wars” on a Battlestone project intended to appeal to hardcore videogame lovers who don’t have the time they once did to play.

“When we talk about mid-core games, we’re really talking about making a deep game experience more accessible,” November Software’s Szymon Swistun said in a message posted at Zynga’s website.

“We know that players, like us, love a good action combat game, so we want to push the limits on social and mobile games, and at the same time create an

experience that fits around their schedule.” Zynga lost $52.725 million on revenue of $316.637 million in the quarter that ended on September 30 but was so confident in its future that it planned to repurchase $200 million worth of its shares.

The San Francisco-based social games pioneer also announced a partnership with real-money gaming (RMG) operator Bwin.party to run poker, roulette, blackjack and other virtual casino games in Britain.

The number of people playing Zynga games each month climbed to 311 million in a 37 percent increase from the same quarter a year earlier, Zynga reported. Zynga last month shed workers, shuttered studios and shelved older titles to improve its underlying financial position.

— AFP

WASHINGTON: Following our first “small step for man” with the Apollo 11 landing on the moon on July 20, 1969, there was an expectation that mankind was embarking on our ultimate journey-the expansion of humanity into the cosmos. Unfortunately, more than 43 years since that remarkable event, we have made little progress toward this larger goal, save for extended human presence in low Earth orbit. One might question the very premise of our undertaking such a journey in the first place.

As Neil and I first stood on the surface of the moon looking back at Earth-a bright blue marble suspended in the blackness of space-the experience moved us in ways that we could not have anticipated. We immediately realized just how precious our tiny planet truly was, knowing that everyone who had ever lived, all the knowledge that was ever discovered, everything we had ever known or loved, resided on that astonishingly beautiful, incredibly small planet we call our home.

Yet there was also a sense of connectedness. Earth is in space, and everything that formed our planet-the elements from distant stars that combined with other elements and found their way to this special crucible that produced life, our life-came from space. Given that, the very question of whether we should go into space seems moot. We are already in space. It surrounds us, provides the energy that ultimately feeds and sustains us,

while tantalizing us with its mysteries and fueling our hunger for understanding-understanding our origins, the uniqueness or abundance of life in the universe, and our human destiny.

There are, of course, many practical reasons for us to explore. They touch on our economic strength, our health and well-being, and the ability of our planet, with its finite and limited resources, to sustain us.

In my own generation, NASA’s Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs inspired countless young students to pursue degrees in science and engineering, creating a

technical workforce unmatched in our history. Many of these students eventually contributed to Apollo, and to other space-related endeavors, while others went on to careers in other fields. In the collective, they produced the technological breakthroughs that led to our successes in space, but they also produced technologies and capabilities that are a part of our daily lives-instantaneous global communication, weather forecasts and disaster prediction, systems that let us observe tyrants and monitor treaty compliance (which helps ensure peace), and electronic devices

WASHINGTON: the Apollo 11 landing on the moon on July 20, 1969.

Former leader of Intel wants to see more manufacturing jobs NEW YORK: In an article he wrote last year in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Andy Grove called himself “a onetime factory guy.” It was a reminder that the 74-year-old retired chairman of Intel knows from experience how costly and risky manufacturing can be. Given these challenges, Grove argues, the US government should do far more to nurture manufacturing, or else the country will face dire consequences.

For one thing, losing the ability to manufacture things domestically will make it harder for innovators to scale their ideas into products, he says.

Indeed, although photovoltaic technology was invented in the United States, many key innovations in solar power are happening in Asia now, largely because the necessary manufacturing prowess is there.

Second, he argues, only manufacturing can meaningfully reduce unemployment. That’s why Grove thinks the United States shouldn’t necessarily focus solely on “high-value” production of advanced technologies; it might also be wise to boost manufacturing of some lower-value goods.

In his BusinessWeek piece, he even called for taxes on goods made overseas, with the resulting revenue to be invested in American manufacturers.

Such protectionist measures are unpopular with economists. But Grove remains convinced, as he told technology journalist Robert D. Hof. MIT: What prompted your concern about the decline of US manufacturing jobs?

Andy Grove: The incredible magnitude of job loss in the US computer industry. In the 1970s, the US computer industry had 150,000 workers. This became two million at its peak but now is back to 150,000. Meanwhile, computers went from a $20 billion to a $200 billion industry.

To have that happen and for us to continue to repeat the mantra that innovation and technology will save us, in the face of evidence to the contrarythat was why I wrote about this.

MIT: Aren’t automation and other productivity improvements major reasons for this decline in factory jobs?

Andy Grove: No. Notwithstanding productivity, most of those jobs still exist-just not here. You can correlate what happened in the US completely to the rise of contract manufacturing [in which a company like Apple designs a product and hands off the production to another company]. One company accounts for 1.1 million computer manufacturing jobs-China’s Foxconn.

held in our hands that seem only slightly removed from “magic,” not to mention the analytical medical and health-care systems that extend our lives and contribute to our well-being. This remarkable growth in engineering, technology, and science created an economic base that still sustains us.

One of the most important questions we need to face in the near term is the question of sustainability. A world population of more than seven billion people is growing rapidly, consuming the limited resources of our planet at an unsustainable rate while we also create environmental distress that may adversely affect our future viability on Earth. We now have a clear choice-to compete for the diminishing resources remaining on Earth (a closed system) or to cooperate in the exploitation of the limitless resources and opportunities evident in space (an open and expansive system). To me the choice is an obvious one.

Given the periodicity of global events that have threatened life on Earth, and the inevitability of many new threats that we cannot predict, there is one obvious step we can undertake to enhance the survivability of our species, as our forefathers did so many years ago. That is to explore and settle new worlds, thereby establishing dissimilar redundancy and new populations that will doubtless evolve in very diverse ways, much as humanity did in the different continents on which it established a foothold and a new beginning here on Earth.

Singapore attracts talent with help of foreign universities SINGAPORE: More and more foreign universities are opening branches in Singapore as the Asian city-state pursues efforts to become a centre for higher education. There are nearly a dozen universities with foreign branches in Singapore, and an equal number with cooperation agreements, which allow students to obtain Singaporean and international qualification when they graduate.

Major US institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stanford and Duke universities are among those represented, as well as the business schools ESSEC and INSEAD. Singapore is not only looking to attract the best students from around Asia, it is also hoping to stop the stream of local students heading to universities in Britain, the US and Australia.

“With the rise of Asia, we are seeing a real war for Asia’s promising young people. There is a real shortage of leaders in middle management,” says Alvin Tan, executive director of the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB).

“Western companies are no longer able to serve their customers in Asia remotely, they need managers who know the market on the ground.”

The EDB is specifically targeting universities with expertise in industries considered key to Singapore. Newcastle University is one of those favoured because it trains engineers to work in the offshore industry.

TUM Asia commenced operations in Singapore in 2002 as an affiliate of the Munich’s Technical University (TUM) and offers Masters courses in micro-electronics, industrial chemistry, and transportation. “Our objective is to provide welltrained employees for the German industry in the region says TUM’s Asia director Markus Waechter.

Half of all graduates end up working for German companies. “We function as a sort of bridge. We take Asian students who are afraid of foreign Germany and encourage their greatest talents. Around 20 per cent become doctors, 90 per cent of them in Germany.” The TUM Masters

course in transport and mobility attracts students from all over the world with Germans sitting beside fellow students from places as varied as China, India, Colombia and Ghana.

Katharina Klaser did a business course in Germany’s Muenster University before continuing her education at TUM Asia.

“You have the German university culture here, but also get to know Asia,” says the 24-year-old, who could now imagine working in Asia.

Waechter said he believes that the foreign universities are also benefiting from having branches in Singapore.

“Unlike Germany, the students here have regular questions for their professor before lectures. Anyone who pays 20,000 euros ($25,600) has a different level of expectation than in Germany,” he explains.

“The challenge also makes the professors better.” From 2013, Yale University will operate the first joint college in its 300-year history in Singapore.

Construction has already begun on the campus expected to open in 2015, but in the meantime classes in the liberal arts curriculum at the Yale -National University of Singapore College will take place the existing NUS campus.

The cooperation has caused concern at Yale’s home campus in New Haven, and has been criticised by some for supporting an institution in a country where freedom of assembly and association is restricted.

Singapore’s Education Ministry said the Yale-NUS College will maintain the principles of academic freedom, with students and lecturers enjoying freedom to research, teach and express themselves in accordance with Singapore’s laws. Since gaining independence nearly 50 years ago, Singapore has been autocratically ruled by the party of the country’s founder Lee Kuan Yew. The party claims it must keep a tight rein on the society to maintain racial harmony. Three quarters of Singapore’s residents are of Chinese descent, 13 per cent of Malaysian origin and 9 per cent from India.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

H E A LT H & S C I E N C E

Predicting presidents, storms, life

By Seth Borenstein orget political pundits, gut instincts, and psychics. The mightier-than-ever silicon chip seems to reveal the future. In just two weeks this fall, computer models displayed an impressive prediction prowess. It started when the first computer model alerted meteorologists to the pre-Halloween disaster headed for the Northeast from a bunch of clouds in the Caribbean. Nearly a week later, that weather system became Hurricane Sandy and grew into a superstorm after taking a once-in-a-century sharp turn into New Jersey.

Then, statistician and blogger Nate Silver correctly forecast on his beat-up laptop how all 50 states would vote for president. He even predicted a tie in Florida and projected it eventually would tip to President Barack Obama, which is the equivalent of predicting a coin landing on its side. He did it by taking polling data, weighing it for past accuracy and running 40,000 computer simulations at a time. He then gave his forecast in terms of percentages, saying that Obama had a 91 percent chance of being re-elected.

In the case of Sandy, lives were at stake.

With the election, reputations were on the line and some pundits were dismissive of the computer modeling. Bets were made.

Challenges issued. The math majors came out on top thanks to better and more accessible data and rapidly increasing computer power.

“In this particular case, rationality scored a win,” said Princeton University neuroscientist Sam Wang, who since 2004 has been using mathematical formulas and polling data to predict elections for the Princeton Election Consortium. Wang predicted a “100 percent chance” of an Obama victory, but missed Florida, giving it to Republican Mitt Romney.

For the record, Wang notes that he beat Silver at accurate Senate race predictions.

Computers soon should be able to tell health officials where the next food poisoning outbreak will spread, a US government lab predicts. Tom Mitchell, head of the Machine Learning Department at Carnegie Mellon University, called computer model predictions based on historical evidence “one of more positive trends we’re going to see this century. ... We’re just beginning”. Take a look at baseball, where Silver got his start as a stats geek. The Oakland A’s, a team that famously uses computer statistics in selecting players, surprised everyone by getting into the playoffs despite one of the lowest payrolls in baseball.

Computer modeling tells the government what happens when a nuclear bomb explodes, helped Goodyear make a better tire and helped the makers of Pringles figure out how to keep the potato crisps from breaking in the can, said Bill Tang, program director for the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory simulation program. Every time you swipe a credit card, a computer is using predictive models based on past evidence to determine if it’s really you or if it is fraud, Mitchell added.

For about 40 years, climate scientists have used computer models to predict what global warming will look like with dead-on accuracy, said climate computer modeler Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria in British Columbia. For computer models to make predictions, three things are needed: computer power, mathematical formulas designed to mirror real world cause-and-effects and current conditions converted into numbers that can be used in formulas.

Experts input the data of current conditions into the formulas that say if X and Y happen, then it will produce Z. Then the computers run those what-if simulations over and over again, with slight variations changing the end results. These scenarios are run tens of thousands of times, giving a whole range of outcomes. The key is seeing what happens most often and why. It’s not a dead-on prediction, but breaks down the future into probabilities. “It’s essentially solving equations that are too extensive to solve with pencil and paper,” Weaver explained. It all comes down to collecting data, crunching it and spitting out probabilities. It’s evidence turned into numbers. It’s math.

Experts believe it’s the future. Silver said what he did with the election was nothing compared with what meteorologists did with Sandy, which was a matter of “real life-anddeath consequences”. The National Weather Service forecast an extremely rare due-west turn by the storm into southern New Jersey, he said. “It’s astounding. That’s a huge win for computer modeling.” Silver’s bold predictions that Obama would win upset some political pundits who predicted a Romney victory, based on what they perceived as momentum, the enthusiasm of crowds, gut instinct and partisanship.

But Silver was right, besting his 2008 record of getting 49 of 50 states right for president. “This is a victory for the stuff (computer modeling) in politics,” he said Thursday in a telephone interview. “It doesn’t mean we’re going to solve world peace with a computer.

It doesn’t mean we’re going to be able predict earthquakes ... but we can chip away at the margins.” One of the next fields Silver said he’d like to get into is education because he feels that all the data being generated “is not being used in the best way.” “I hope that people focus not on me personally, but what I’m trying to do,” Silver said.

What he and his colleagues are trying to do is take a chaotic world and make sense of it, turn events into equations to be solved.

More than anything statistics are tools for understanding, like a wrench for an auto mechanic, said Bill James, the godfather of modern baseball statistics and a colleague of Silver’s. James said in an email that contemplating what will happen in the future is something that “we all do every day, without really thinking about it. It is a necessary and relevant process. Thus, it is something that is

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H E A LT H & S C I E N C E

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

GOSH: Caring for children in Kuwait and around the world

Dar Al Shifa Hospital marks Child World Day KUWAIT: Dar Al Shifa Hospital recently celebrated Child World Day by reaching out to babies born on that day at the hospital and celebrating their birthdays. The event was attended by a number of the hospital’s staff as well as representatives from its pediatric and diet and nutrition departments, in which a special 15 percent discount was offered for children’s vaccination program available at Dar Al Shifa Hospital.

Dr Hameed Al-Enazi, Dar Al Shifa Hospital’s Consultant and Head of Pediatric and Neonatology Department said: “Understanding children’s health is crucial in order to nurture a healthy future generation. We continue to provide leading medical services as well as groundbreaking equipment with an overall objective of delivering sound healthcare solutions to children of all ages. We urge all parents to continue to proceed with regular checkups for their children.”

“The Pediatric and Neonatology Department at Dar Al Shifa Hospital is one of the most specialized departments which provide superior healthcare services to children. It includes a

wide range of medical units such as neonatal intensive care unit, pediatric emergency unit, along with facilities that aim at accommodating children’s general healthcare. The hospital’s pediatric department includes various clinics which are pediatric GIT, cardiac as well as rheumatology clinic. More recently, a solely dedicated vaccination clinic at the pediatric department was launched, where rotavirus and chickenpox vaccines are provided that are not available at the Ministry Of Health. added Dr. Al Enazi.

The event was also presided over by Dar Al Shifa Hospital’s Nutrition and Diet Department, where an overview presentation was conducted about managing healthy diets for children whose age range from 1-3, and the types of food children at an early age require as well as the best ways of feeding them. Nadeen Al Jawhary, Nutrition and Diet specialist at Dar Al Shifa Hospital said: “It is important to teach children the right methods of healthy nutrition throughout their early days in order to build a strong future generation.”

KUWAIT: Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), one of the world’s leading centres for treating sick children in London, is recognised as one of the few truly worldclass hospitals for children. As a global leader, GOSH has top clinical and research experts working every day to find new and better ways to treat children. In Kuwait, GOSH works closely with the Ministry of Health and provides clinical advice on patient management, education, training and service consultancy on haematology and oncology, with the aim of increasing capacity to treat paediatric haematology and oncology patients locally.

GOSH runs a ‘visiting consultant’ program whereby GOSH doctors medically review patients in Kuwait with local doctors, hold seminars and provide training.

GOSH also provides support to doctors on a daily basis from London via telephone, videoconference, email support and advice. GOSH holds training and education programmes for nurses working in Kuwait to improve their skills and knowledge in haematology and oncology treatment. Paediatric neurosurgery and bone marrow transplant services in Kuwait are regularly reviewed by GOSH staff.

Alongside these, GOSH provides ongoing haematology and oncology diagnostic support services from London, reviewing scans, slides and other diagnostic results from newly diagnosed children.

In Kuwait GOSH has established a successful working partnership with the clinical teams at Kuwait’s NBK hospital. GOSH has delivered 600 training and education sessions to 300 consultants and nurses at NBK hospital, which has enabled clinical staff to improve their skills and widen their knowledge in order to deliver better care and treatment for haematology/ oncology patients. Senior GOSH medical staff have provided practical support and training to nurses and doctors on NBK hospital wards, which has led to a better understanding of diagnostic procedures as well as improved care in a clinical setting.

GOSH also provides cutting-edge diagnostic capability to patients in Kuwait,

through the introduction of Minimal Residual Disease (MRD) testing for children with leukaemia at NBK hospital. While breakthroughs and medical expertise are essential to the treatment of patients, GOSH also places great emphasis on the support provided for the children in their care by nurturing an open and supportive atmosphere, ensuring that both parents and patients are well informed and closely involved throughout the treatment process. Children receive the highest standards of care and attention from the expert team of medical and support staff during their stay at GOSH and are always treated with respect, trust, concern and openness.

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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

WHAT’S ON

Media barbeque under the stars at The Regency Hotel

SEND US YOUR INSTAGRAM PICS hat’s more fun than clicking a beautiful picture? Sharing it with others! This summer, let other people see the way you see Kuwait - through your lens. Friday Times will feature snapshots of Kuwait through Instagram feeds. If you want to share your Instagram photos, email us at instagram@kuwaittimes.net

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Greetings

et against the hotel’s stunning backdrop The Regency Hotel was delighted to hold an exclusive media event celebrating the recent launch of The Regency’s unbeatable poolside barbeque every Wednesday.

With the advent of this season’s gorgeous weather The Regency’s elegant outdoor terraces, unbeatable views of the Arabian Gulf and soothing lounge music guaranteed a great evening for key members of Kuwait’s media.

On the grill was a wide array of Middle Eastern and international items, from Iranian kebabs and kofta to the irresistible Lebanese shawarma and spit roasts. The hotel’s expert Syrian Butcher Meydan had specially marinated and seasoned the meats; these were accompanied by seafood tempura and crisp salads. Off the grill, guests were thrilled to see delicious Latin, Asian and European favourites.

Vegetarian foodies enjoyed the hotel’s signature meat-free dishes and a wonderful assortment of homemade gourmet bread and rolls. Over a dozen kinds of delectable desserts were made

by Italian-born, Executive Pastry Chef, Raffaele Grasso, while Chef de Partie,

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Bassem Fadlou Karame, provided an array of his famous hand crafted Arabic sweets and desserts!

The hotel’s General Manager, Aurelio Giraudo and the Sales and Marketing team welcomed the guests warmly to the ‘new look’ poolside barbeque.

During the evening Executive Chef, Austen Reid affirmed: “Here at The Regency we strive to bring the highest quality and widest choices to our patrons; it is this quest for excellence and the unparalleled location that we hope make these evenings so special”.

stuffed turkey together with all the trimmings and an unbeatable selection of traditional American desserts.

Sweet lovers can further relish in the forthcoming Al-Liwan chocolate promotion in November which will showcase seductive chocolate platters created with

Giraudo commented “I am confident our esteemed media guests will marvel at the range and quality of imported Australian premium meats and seafood on offer each Wednesday, it’s a superb way to break the week”.

Another special once-a-year culinary event, Thanksgiving, will be held in November and celebrated throughout North America. As part of the Silk Road buffet on November 22, The Regency will be featuring an endless supply of roast

Valrhona chocolate - considered the world’s best chocolate!

appy birthday to you Ebere Nwabuogor. May God bless and guide you and crown all your efforts with success. Greetings from husband, sons, friends and well-wishers.

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s you spend days, weeks, months and many years sharing love, love and only love, we wish and we will pray each and every moment of our life, to fill your whole life with the same smile and love which you carried for 30 years of your life. Happy wedding anniversary to sweet mom and dad.

From Mohammad, Neal, Akash and family.

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‘Go Green’ with Safir Hotel & Residences-Fintas

Goan Culinary Club he Goan Culinary Club - Goa encourages you to log on to their website where you can find a video of Odette and Joe Mascarenhas sharing their thoughts on Goan cuisine. These videos were recorded at the launch of the Goan Culinary Club in Goa on March 3, 2012. Thanks to support from all at the Goan Culinary Club, we have made great progress in six months.

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KTAA invites all to the KTAA he Kuwait Textile Arts Association under the auspices of the Sadu House Invites everyone to the KTAA fall bazaar of handcrafted items, on Saturday November 17, from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm. The exhibition features quilts, bags, table linens, designer jewelry, shawls, greeting cards, crochet, hand embroidery, and lots more.

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Arabic courses WARE will begin Winter 1 Arabic language courses with new textbooks and curricula will begin on December 2, 2012 until January 24, 2013. AWARE Arabic language courses are designed with the expat in mind. The environment is relaxed & courses are designed for those wanting to learn Arabic for travel, cultural understanding, and conducting business or simply to become more involved in the community. For more information or registration, please log-on to our website.

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Youth Chorus song competition outh Chorus is organizing the Seventh Christian Group Song Competition on Friday, November 16, 2012 at 6:00 pm at the United Indian School Auditorium, Abbasiya. The team has to present one Christian song (Malayalam or Tamil) within seven minutes. The minimum number of members in the team should be 7 and the maximum 20, including the orchestra personnel. The first, second and third prize winners will be awarded with trophies and certificates.

In addition, the first and second prize winning teams will be given the prestigious rolling trophies - Youth Chorus ever rolling trophy for the first and Omana Jose Memorial ever rolling for the second, and Youth Chorus ever rolling trophy for the Third. All the other participating teams will be awarded with Youth Chorus memento.

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Write to us Send to What’s On upcoming events, birthdays or celebrations by email: local@kuwaittimes.net Fax: 24835619 / 20

afir Hotel and Residence-Fintas began its first environmental campaigns as a major step towards promoting environmental awareness under the title “Green Quarter”, which is planned to run until the last day of December.

This campaign aims to promote environmental awareness and circulate conservation methods about it by educating the associates how to get rid of waste and use it in a way does not compromise the environment. This initiative launched within the framework of social responsibility that is adopted by all the hotel associates.

The General Manager of the hotel Saif Eddin Khalid Mohammed pointed “that the environment and its preservation is one of the fundamental basics of the community and part of the objectives that the hotel management is always keen to highlight its importance, through guiding employee behavior towards intact environmental habits and raise the rate of environmental culture among all the associates.”

As a beginning of Safir Green Quarter, the hotel management leads group associates to join the “Beach Cleaning Day”, The volunteers cleared up the beach at the hotel through cleaning it from separating plastic waste in an integrated program to the associates who made strenuous efforts. It is worth mentioning that it

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planned to implement several events to protect the environment, including “Plant a Tree” Day, and a “Marathon” day which will be held for all hotel staff in order to identify disadvantages of car exhaust on the environment and society.

Landmark Group urges participation in walkathon andmark Group, the region’s leading retail and hospitality conglomerate, readies to host the third edition of its annual ‘Beat Diabetes’ walkathon in Kuwait.

Registrations are now open and can be done across all Centrepoint, Max, Home Centre and New Look outlets. The walkathon is scheduled to take place on Saturday, November 17, 2012 and will flag off from the Yacht Club and end at Green Island. It is held in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Dasman Diabetes Institute.

The Group will also conduct walkathons across other countries including UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and India, during November which is the International Diabetes Awareness Month. On Saturday, 17 November 2012, approximately 6,000 people are expected to take part in this cause to highlight the simple fact that diabetes can be managed and prevented by adopting a healthy lifestyle.

Open to all age groups, participation in the walkathon is free of charge and all walkers are given complimentary tshirts, caps and wristbands. Free blood glucose test will be conducted from November 1-3 across all Centrepoint stores in Kuwait and on the day of the walk. The Group will also be distributing awareness pamphlets to educate the public about the condition. Saibal Basu, Chief Operating Officer, Landmark Group Kuwait, said “We are pleased to host the walkathon for the third year in a row. The Beat Diabetes initiative aims to create awareness about the causes, effects and dangers of this condition in the countries the Landmark Group has a presence. Over the last three years we have received tremendous response from the Kuwait community and we are sure that this support will continue”.

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Patriotic songs competitions ndo-Kuwait Friendship Society, Kuwait is planning to conduct competitions in Indian and Kuwaiti Patriotic songs. This is the first time in Kuwait, an Indian Association is organizing contests in “Patriotic Songs” for both Indian and Kuwaiti School students. The first 3 places will be declared separately by Judges who are experts in Indian and Kuwaiti Patriotic songs. Several prizes and awards will be handed over for the winning schools.

Pradeep Rajkumar and A K S Abdul Nazar said that IKFS wants let our children learn what they mean as a “Patriotic” to their home country. 4 pages of spot Essay competition related to “Patriotism” also will be held in the same day as a spot registration. 1 girl and 1 boy student from each school can participate in the essay contest. Dr Mohamed Tareq, Chairman of the First Indian Model School in Kuwait “ Salmiya Indian Model School (SIMS) already confirmed as a Co-Sponsor of the Program.

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Conditions apply 1) The competitions are meant for all the Schools located in Kuwait and should be nominated by school authority 2) Each school can select group of 7 students for the ‘patriotic songs’ (Indian and Kuwaiti)” and nominate separately 3) Children of above 12 years till 17 years (VII classes to XII classes) are eligible for the contest.

But if School is permitted 4) Musical instruments or KARAOKE mixer should be accompanied by the participating students/Children and the school team should operate and select the mixers 5) Time frame: 7 minutes - Names will be called as “First come” in the Registration The event will be held at the auditorium of “Salmiya Indian Model School” on Saturday, 27th October 2012 from 9:30 am onwards. It will be a full day program with fun and full of entertainments. Food-stalls of different Kuwaiti and Indian tastes will installed.

Japan Anime Film Festival he Embassy of Japan in the State of Kuwait, in cooperation with Kuwait National Cinema Company is planning to hold “Japan ANIME Film Festival” on November 13 AND 14, 2012 at Cinescape Laila, Salmiya. In this festival, we would like to show total four “Anime” movies, two of which are very popular ones worldwide, and the others are chosen from newly released films in Japan.

Program of the festival as follows: 1-”MIYORI in the Sacred Forest” A modern fantasy movie with English subtitle (voice: Japanese) Time & date: From 5:00 pm - November 13 2-”LUPIN the 3RD - The Castle of Cagliostro” One of masterpieces of Japan’s action Anime with English voice Time & date: From 7:30 pm - November 13 3-”CRAYON SHIN-CHAN The Storm called: The Adult Empire Strikes Back” A decade long-running popular family comic Anime with English subtitle (voice: Japanese) Time & date: From 5:00 pm - November 14 4-”Children Who Chase Lost Voices” A hottest 2011 release, a modern fantasy movie with Arabic subtitle (voice: Japanese) Time & date: From 7:00 pm - November 14 The opening ceremony of this festival will be held at 5:00 pm on November 13 with a speech from Ambassador-Designate Toshihiro Tsujihara.

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31

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

WHAT’S ON

Embassy Information

Al-Bayan Bilingual School students express gratitude tudents at Al-Bayan Bilingual School, the best educational institution in the State of Kuwait, yesterday held their ninth annual luncheon honoring the school’s maintenance, security and cleaning crew. To express their gratitude for the crew’s continued efforts and contribution to the school’s positive and successful environment, students provided them with an event filled with laughter and excitement.

To prepare for this special day, students start organizing and fundraising from the beginning of the school year by collecting donations. Before reaching out to companies and individuals, students are expected to create an official letter and presentation. The luncheon, which is coordinated and organized by

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the High School Arabic Sociology class and their teacher Salah Al-Sharief, has provided an educational and constructive platform for the students.

Sociology Teacher, Salah Al-Sharief said “The aim of this program is to tie the curriculum being taught in class to real life initiatives that deepen a student’s sense of responsibility, respect, and obligation to those who need it.”

The luncheon takes the form of an added life lesson as students get to serve the staff their lunch, and take charge of the clean up afterwards.

Eleventh Grade Student, Hania AlKhamis said: “There are a lot of people in the world who can’t even provide for themselves let alone their family, and if you want to help make a difference, you

need to start at home and with the people that are there for you each day” Over the last nine years, the luncheon has grown from a simple lunch from student’s homes, to an annual event including in-kind gifts, games, prizes, in addition to contributions from several companies and benefactors.

High School Student, Mohammed Adel Hatahet said: “We want to show our appreciation, put a smile on their face, and make their year. They deserve more than what we are already giving them, but a little can go a long way.”

“We have had such tremendous support over the years. Benefactors who have noticed first hand the difference we make continue to show their loyalty to the school’s social responsibility pro-

gram by wishing to contribute again.

We deeply appreciate the generous contributions provided by the companies and individuals that supported the program this year” added Al-Shareif.

In addition to the annual lunch, National Honor Society students have also been collecting non-perishable items, while the Model United Nations Team worked on games and prizes for the staff. Founded in 1977, Bayan Bilingual School, is a not for profit English Arabic university preparatory institution dedicated to the development of students through academics and character education.

EMBASSY OF CANADA The Canadian Embassy in Kuwait does not have a visa or immigration department. All processing of visa and immigration matters including enquiries is conducted by the Canadian Embassy in Abu Dhabi, UAE Individuals who are interested in working, studying, visiting or immigrating to Canada should contact the Canadian Embassy in Abu Dhabi, website: www.UAE.gc.ca or www.goingtocanada.gc.ca, E-mail: abdbi-im-enquiry@international.gc.ca. The Embassy of Canada is located at Villa 24, Al-Mutawakei St, Block 4 in Da’aiyah. Please visit our website at www.Kuwait.gc.ca. The Embassy of Canada is open from 7:30 to 15:30 Sunday through Thursday. The reception is closed for lunch from 12:30 to 13:00. Consular services for Canadian citizens are provided from 09:00 until 12:00, Sunday through Wednesday.

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EMBASSY OF INDIA The Embassy of India will remain closed on the following days during the month of November 2012: Nov 13, 2012 - Tuesday - Deepawali Nov 25, 2012 - Sunday - Muharram

Indian Embassy passport and visa Passports and visa applications can be deposited at the two outsourced centers of M/S BLS Ltd at Sharq and Fahaheel. Details are available at www.bls-international.com and www.indembkwt.org.

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Consular Open House Consular Wing is providing daily service of Open House to Indian citizens on all workings days from 1000 hrs to 1100 hrs and from 1430 hrs to 1530 hrs by the Consular Officer in the Meeting Room of the Consular Hall at the Embassy. For any unaddressed issues, Second Secretary (Consular) can be contacted. Furthermore, the head of the Consular Wing is also available to redress grievances.

Legal Advice Clinic Free legal advice is provided on matters pertaining to labour disputes, terms of contracts with employers, death/accident compensation, withholding of dues by employers, etc. by lawyers on our panel, to Indian nationals on all working days between 1500hrs to 1600hrs.

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EMBASSY OF CYPRUS In its capacity as EU Local Presidency in the State of Kuwait, the Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus, on behalf of the Member States of the EU and associated States participating in the Schengen cooperation, would like to announce that as from 2nd October 2012 all Schengen States’ Consulates in Kuwait will use the Visa Information System (VIS). The VIS is a central database for the exchange of data on short-stay (up to three months) visas between Schengen States. The main objectives of the VIS are to facilitate visa application procedures and checks at external border as well as to enhance security. The VIS will contain all the Schengen visa applications lodged by an applicant over five years and the decisions taken by any Schengen State’s consulate. This will allow applicants to establish more easily the lawful use of previous visas and their bona fide status. For the purpose of the VIS, applicants will be required to provide their biometric data (fingerprints and digital photos) when applying for a Schengen visa. It is a simple and discreet procedure that only takes a few minutes. Biometric data, along with the data provided in the Schengen visa application form, will be recorded in the VIS central database. Therefore, as from 2nd October 2012, first-time applicants will have to appear in person when lodging the application, in order to provide their fingerprints. For subsequent applications within 5 years the fingerprints can be copied from the previous application file in the VIS. The Cypriot Presidency would like to assure the people of Kuwait and all its permanent citizens that the Member States and associated States participating in the Schengen cooperation, have taken all necessary technical measures to facilitate the rapid examination and the efficient processing of visa applications and to ensure a quick and discreet procedure for the implementation of the new VIS.

Indian Embassy Announcements

Indian workers helpline/helpdesk Indian workers helpline is accessible by toll free telephone number 25674163 from all over Kuwait.

It provides information and advice to Indian workers as regards their grievances, immigration and other matters. The help desk at the Embassy (Open from 9am to 1pm and 2pm to 4:30PM, Sunday to Thursday) provides guidance to Indian nationals on routine immigration, employment, legal and other issues. It also provides workers assistance in filling up labour complaint forms. For any unaddressed issues, the concerned attachÈ in the Labour section and the head of the Labour Wing can be contacted.

EMBASSY OF AUSTRALIA The Australian Embassy Kuwait does not have a visa or immigration department.

All processing of visas and immigration matters in conducted by The Australian Consulate-General in Dubai. Email: info.ausdxb@vfshelpline.com (VFS) immigration.dubai@dfat.gov.au (Visa Office); Tel: +971 4 355 1958 (VFS) - +971 4 508 7200 (Visa Office); Fax: +971 4 355 0708 (Visa Office).

In Kuwait applications can be lodged at the Australian Visa Application Centre 4B 1st Floor, Al-Banwan Building Al-Qibla Area, Ali Al-Salem Street, opposite the Central Bank of Kuwait, Kuwait City, Kuwait. Working hours and days: 09:30 - 17:30; Sunday - Thursday. Or visit their website www.vfs-au-gcc-com for more information. Kuwait citizens can apply for tourist visas on-line at www.immi.gov.au/e visa/e676.htm.

Movenpick Hotel celebrates annual employees’ party ovenpick Hotel Kuwait Free Trade Zone , at a great festivity dinner, held its annual employees’ party on November 1, 2012 having a theme of ‘Sweet Halloween’ and where more than 120 employees gathered in the famous Taiba Tent to celebrate and enjoy this long awaited event filled with great fun, thrill and entertainment.

In his welcoming speech, Beat Peter General Manager of the hotel, stressed and appreciated the team spirit that prevails between the hotel’s management and employees. Peter reiterated Movenpick’s vision and

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commitment to looking after the employees’ interests and ensuring a naturally enjoyable working environment that encourages hard work and excellent

service towards guests.

The event included an interesting program prepared by the HR Department that featured different competitions, giveaways, ‘trick or treat’ for all the employees’ kids, best in ‘spooktaculous’ costume and an employee talent show.

Abdul Raheem Sange was named “Employee of the Year 2011” and will be given a free trip and accommodation at a Movenpick Hotel in Switzerland for one week. To conclude, everyone was invited to a lavish dinner buffet prepared by the Executive Chef Gyula Harangi exclusively for the occasion, accompanied by live music.

EMBASSY OF LEBANAN Due to exceptional circumstances Lebanon is going through currently, a mass celebration that was planned next Wednesday, Nov 14, 2012 at the Lebanese Embassy’s garden has been called off.

Ambassador of Lebanon to Kuwait Dr Bassam Al-Nu’mani welcomes well wishers on the occasion of Independence Day at his residence on Thursday, Nov 22, 2012 between 9:00 am and 1:00 pm.

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EMBASSY OF UKRAINE

The Embassy of Ukraine in the State of Kuwait would like to remind that the external polling station No 90046 was created in the Embassy’s premises at the following address: Hawalli, Jabriya, bl.10, str. 6, build. 5. The working hours of the polling station: Sunday from 13.00 to 17.00 pm; Monday from 13.00 to 17.00 pm; Tuesday from 13.00 to 17.00 pm; Wednesday from 13.00 to 17.00 pm; Thursday from 13.00 to 17.00 pm; Friday from 10.00 to 13.00 pm; Saturday from 10.00 to 13.00 pm On October 28, 2012 the working hours of the polling station from 8.00 am to 20.00 pm. Please be advised to refer to the Embassy to check your data in the Electoral Register as well as to pick up your personal invitation from the polling station if you did not receive this document by post.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

TV PROGRAMS

00:20 Baboons With Bill Bailey 00:50 I’m Alive 01:45 Animal Cops Phoenix 02:35 Africa’s Super Seven 03:25 Bad Dog 04:15 Baboons With Bill Bailey 04:40 Baboons With Bill Bailey 05:05 Wild France 05:55 Animal Cops Phoenix 06:45 Michaela’s Animal Road Trip 07:35 Wildlife SOS 08:00 Talk To The Animals 08:25 Dogs 101 09:15 Crocodile Hunter 10:10 Michaela’s Animal Road Trip 11:05 Dick ‘n’ Dom Go Wild 11:30 Breed All About It 12:00 Natural Born Hunters 12:25 The Really Wild Show 12:55 Wild France 13:50 Wildest Africa 14:45 Wildest Africa 15:40 Safari Vet School 16:05 Safari Vet School 16:35 Wild Animal Orphans 17:00 Wild Animal Orphans 17:30 Bad Dog 18:25 Dogs v Cats 19:20 World Wild Vet 20:15 Gator Boys 21:10 In Search Of The Giant Anaconda 22:05 Wild France 23:00 Into The Lion’s Den 23:55 The Magic Of The Big Blue 23:50 Animal Cops Houston 00:15 Bargain Hunt 01:00 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition 01:45 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition 02:30 Come Dine With Me 03:20 Antiques Roadshow 13:00 MasterChef Australia 14:30 Baby Borrowers USA 15:15 Baby Borrowers USA 16:00 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition 16:40 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition 17:20 Come Dine With Me 18:10 Come Dine With Me 19:00 Bargain Hunt 19:45 Bargain Hunt 20:30 Gok’s Clothes Roadshow 21:15 Gok’s Clothes Roadshow 22:00 Baking Made Easy 22:30 Baking Mad With Eric Lanlard 22:55 Baking Mad With Eric Lanlard 23:20 The Hairy Bakers 23:45 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition EditionEdition 00:15 01:10 02:05 03:00 03:55 04:20 04:50 05:15 05:40 06:05 07:00 07:50 08:45 09:40 10:05 10:30 10:55 11:25 12:20 13:15 14:10 14:35 15:05 15:30 16:25 17:20 18:15 19:10 19:40 20:05 20:35 21:00 21:30 22:25 23:20

Dynamo: Magician Impossible Mythbusters Mythbusters Mythbusters Border Security Dirty Money Auction Kings How Do They Do It? How It’s Made Extreme Fishing Street Customs Mythbusters Ultimate Survival Border Security Dirty Money How Do They Do It? How It’s Made Dynamo: Magician Impossible Mythbusters Mythbusters Border Security Dirty Money Auction Kings Ultimate Survival Street Customs Extreme Fishing Mythbusters How Do They Do It? How It’s Made Border Security Dirty Money Auction Kings American Guns Behind Bars Chris Ryan’s Elite Police

23:20 Surviving Disaster 00:15 Weird Or What?

01:05 The Colony 01:55 The Colony 02:45 The Colony 03:40 Smash Lab 04:35 Smash Lab 05:25 Smash Lab 06:15 Smash Lab 07:05 Smash Lab 08:00 Meteorite Men 08:50 Weird Or What?

09:40 Head Rush 09:43 Sci-Fi Science 10:10 Sci-Fi Science 10:40 Robocar 11:30 Bad Universe 12:20 Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman 13:10 Things That Move 13:35 Things That Move 14:00 Build It Bigger: Rebuilding Greensburg 14:50 Meteorite Men 15:45 Weird Or What?

16:35 Things That Move 17:00 Head Rush 17:03 Tech Toys 360 17:30 Tech Toys 360 18:00 Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman 18:50 Scrapheap Challenge 19:40 Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman 20:30 Punkin Chunkin 2010 21:20 How Tech Works 21:45 How Tech Works 22:10 Gadget Show - World Tour 22:35 Gadget Show - World Tour 23:00 Punkin Chunkin 2010 23:50 Things That Move 20:20 Bang Goes The Theory 00:20 00:50 01:15 01:40 01:55

Little Einsteins Special Agent Oso Lazytown Jungle Junction Jungle Junction

02:10 Handy Manny 02:20 Handy Manny 02:30 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 02:55 Winnie The Pooh: Tales Of Friendship 03:00 Lazytown 03:25 Special Agent Oso 03:50 Imagination Movers 04:20 Handy Manny 04:30 Handy Manny 04:40 Special Agent Oso 05:00 Timmy Time 05:10 Lazytown 05:35 Little Einsteins 06:00 Jungle Junction 06:15 Jungle Junction 06:30 Little Einsteins 06:50 Special Agent Oso 07:00 Special Agent Oso 07:15 Jungle Junction 07:30 Jungle Junction 07:45 Handy Manny 08:00 Special Agent Oso 08:15 Jungle Junction 08:30 Little Einsteins 08:55 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 09:20 Imagination Movers 09:45 Mouk 09:55 Lazytown 10:20 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 10:30 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 10:45 Doc McStuffins 10:55 Doc McStuffins 11:05 The Hive 11:20 New Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh 11:45 Art Attack 12:10 The Gruffalo 12:35 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 13:00 Winnie The Pooh: Tales Of Friendship 13:15 Mouk 13:30 Jungle Junction 13:45 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 14:00 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 14:15 Doc McStuffins 14:30 Doc McStuffins 14:40 Mouk 14:50 Art Attack 15:20 New Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh 15:40 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 16:05 The Hive 16:20 Mouk 16:35 Handy Manny 16:50 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 17:05 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 17:20 Doc McStuffins 17:35 Doc McStuffins 17:45 Art Attack 18:10 The Gruffalo 18:40 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 19:05 Mouk 19:20 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 19:35 New Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh 20:00 Animated Stories 20:05 Timmy Time 20:20 Winnie The Pooh: Tales Of Friendship 20:25 Doc McStuffins 20:40 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 20:55 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 21:10 The Hive 21:20 Timmy Time 21:30 Mouk 21:45 Handy Manny 22:00 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 22:25 The Hive 22:35 New Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh 23:00 Timmy Time 23:10 Animated Stories 23:15 A Poem Is...

23:20 Winnie The Pooh: Tales Of Friendship 23:30 Jungle Junction 23:45 Handy Manny 23:55 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

Pinks: Lose The Race, Lose Your Pinks: Lose The Race, Lose Your

23:00 Naked Science

00:15 00:40 01:05 Year 01:55 02:45 03:35 04:00 04:25 04:50 05:15 05:40 06:05 06:30 07:10 Basics 07:35 Basics 08:00

On Sight TNA: Greatest Matches M1 Selection 2010 Transworld Sessions Transworld Sessions Pinks: Lose The Race, Lose Your Pinks: Lose The Race, Lose Your

AMA Motocross 2011 AMA Motocross 2011 Winter Dew Tour 10/11 Winter Dew Tour 10/11 Winter Dew Tour 10/11 AMA Motocross 2011 AMA Motocross 2011 UK Skydiving Championships UK Skydiving Championships Winter Dew Tour 10/11 Winter Dew Tour 10/11 Winter Dew Tour 10/11 Fight Girls Fight Girls BMX Megatour Pinks: Lose The Race, Lose Your Pinks: Lose The Race, Lose Your Pinks: Lose The Race, Lose Your Pinks: Lose The Race, Lose Your Ed’s Up Ed’s Up Transworld Sessions Transworld Sessions Jump The Brazilian Gap The Ozzie Way

Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives Guy’s Big Bite World Class: Bartender Of The Iron Chef America Chopped Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives Heat Seekers Guy’s Big Bite Grill It! With Bobby Flay Unwrapped The Next Iron Chef Barefoot Contessa - Back To Barefoot Contessa - Back To Food Network Challenge

04:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 05:30 Seinfeld 06:00 Seinfeld 06:30 Friends 07:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 08:00 Samantha Who? 08:30 Raising Hope 09:00 Seinfeld 09:30 Seinfeld 10:00 Whitney 10:30 Parks And Recreation 11:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 12:00 Friends 12:30 Samantha Who? 13:00 Seinfeld 13:30 Seinfeld 14:00 Last Man Standing 14:30 Parks And Recreation 15:00 Whitney 15:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 16:00 The Colbert Report 16:30 Friends 17:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 18:00 Happy Endings 18:30 Hot In Cleveland 19:00 Whitney 19:30 Parks And Recreation 20:00 The Cleveland Show 20:30 Melissa & Joey 21:00 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 21:30 The Colbert Report 22:00 Angry Boys 22:30 Angry Boys 23:00 Louie 23:30 The Cleveland Show Fall on

00:15 Into The Drink 00:45 Lonely Planet: Roads Less Travelled 01:40 Roam 02:05 Travel Madness 02:35 The Best Job In The World 03:00 The Best Job In The World 03:30 Food Lover’s Guide To The Planet 03:55 Food Lover’s Guide To The Planet 04:25 Market Values 04:50 Market Values 05:20 My Sri Lanka With Peter Kuruvita 05:45 My Sri Lanka With Peter Kuruvita 06:15 David Rocco’s Dolce Vita 2 06:40 David Rocco’s Dolce Vita 2 07:10 Market Values 07:35 Market Values 08:05 Bondi Rescue 08:30 Bondi Rescue 09:00 Bondi Rescue 09:25 Bondi Rescue 09:55 Danger Beach 10:20 Into The Drink 10:50 Lonely Planet: Roads Less Travelled 11:45 Roam 12:10 Young Global Hotshots 12:40 The Best Job In The World 13:05 The Best Job In The World 13:35 Food Lover’s Guide To The Planet 14:00 Food Lover’s Guide To The Planet 14:30 Street Food Around The World 14:55 Market Values 15:25 Perilous Journeys 16:20 Bondi Rescue 16:45 Bondi Rescue 17:15 Bondi Rescue 17:40 Bondi Rescue 18:10 Danger Beach 18:35 Into The Drink 19:05 My Sri Lanka With Peter Kuruvita 19:30 My Sri Lanka With Peter Kuruvita 20:00 David Rocco’s Dolce Vita 2 20:30 David Rocco’s Dolce Vita 2 21:00 Market Values 21:30 Market Values 22:00 Bondi Rescue 22:25 Bondi Rescue 22:55 David Rocco’s Dolce Vita 1 23:20 David Rocco’s Dolce Vita 1 23:50 Kimchi Chronicles

ecial Agent Oso 23:50 Lazytown 00:30 01:25 02:20 03:15 03:40 04:10 Ride 04:35 Ride 05:05 Ride 05:30 Ride 06:00 06:55 08:00 08:55 09:50 10:45 11:40 12:35 2011 13:00 2011 13:30 14:25 15:20 16:15 17:10 18:05 19:00 Ride 19:25 Ride 19:55 Ride 20:20 Ride 20:50 21:15 21:45 22:10 22:40 23:35

08:50 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 09:15 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 09:40 Healthy Appetite With Ellie Krieger 10:05 Healthy Appetite With Ellie Krieger 10:30 Kelsey’s Essentials 10:55 Cooking For Real 11:20 Cooking For Real 11:45 Food Crafters 12:10 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 12:35 Heat Seekers 13:00 The Next Iron Chef 13:50 Guy’s Big Bite 14:15 Cooking For Real 14:40 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 15:05 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 15:30 Food Crafters 15:55 Charly’s Cake Angels 16:20 Unique Eats 16:45 Chopped 17:35 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 18:00 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 18:25 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 18:50 Heat Seekers 19:15 Guy’s Big Bite 19:40 Unique Eats 20:05 Unique Eats 20:30 Chopped 21:20 The Next Iron Chef 22:10 Food Network Challenge 23:00 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 23:25 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 23:50 Food(Ography)

00:00 Philly Undercover 01:00 Mother Croc 01:55 Monster Fish 02:50 When Crocs Ate Dinosaurs 03:45 Clouded Leopard 04:40 Caught In The Act 05:35 Unlikely Animal Friends 06:30 Dangerous Encounters With Brady Barr 07:25 Dangerous Encounters With Brady Barr 08:20 Cliffhangers 09:15 Python Hunters 10:10 Animal Intervention 11:05 Great Migrations 12:00 Wild Mississippi 13:00 Monster Fish 14:00 Planet Carnivore 15:00 Animal Intervention 16:00 Ultimate Predators GPU 17:00 Clouded Leopard 18:00 I, Predator 19:00 Wild Mississippi 20:00 Monster Fish 21:00 Planet Carnivore 22:00 Animal Intervention 23:00 Ultimate Predators GPU Zoo Confidential 23:00 Dangerous Encounters 00:00 Deadtime Stories 2-18 02:00 The Town-18 04:15 Carjacked-PG15 06:00 Transporter 2-PG15 08:00 Last Breath-PG15 10:00 Battle: Los Angeles-PG15 12:00 The Warrior’s Way-PG15 14:00 Last Breath-PG15 16:00 Dad Savage-PG15 18:00 The Warrior’s Way-PG15 20:00 Alien Resurrection-18 22:00 True Justice: Violence Of Action-PG15 The Rite-18hting-PG15 22:00 Homecoming-18 00:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 01:00 The Colbert Report 01:30 Saturday Night Live 02:30 Louie 03:00 Raising Hope 03:30 Last Man Standing 04:00 Samantha Who?

00:00 Parenthood 01:00 C.S.I. 02:00 Breakout Kings 03:00 Justified 04:00 Bones 05:00 C.S.I. Miami 06:00 Parenthood 07:00 Emmerdale 07:30 Coronation Street 08:00 C.S.I. New York 09:00 Breakout Kings 10:00 C.S.I. 11:00 Bones 12:00 Emmerdale 12:30 Coronation Street 13:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show 14:00 C.S.I. New York 15:00 Parenthood 16:00 Emmerdale 16:30 Coronation Street 17:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show 18:00 C.S.I. New York 19:00 Bones 20:00 The River 21:00 The Killing 22:00 True Blood 23:00 Downton Abbey Grimm23:00Grimm 01:00 Paintball-18 03:00 Carjacked-PG15 04:45 Windtalkers-PG15 07:00 Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Pt.1-PG15 09:30 Green Lantern: Emerald Knights-PG15 11:00 Windtalkers-PG15 13:15 True Justice: Dark VengeancePG15 15:00 Green Lantern: Emerald Knights-PG15 17:00 Stool Pigeon-PG15 19:00 Thick As Thieves-18 21:00 True Justice: Violence Of Action-PG15 23:00 Quarantine 2: Terminal-18

00:00 Neil Delamere-PG15 02:00 Dinner For Schmucks-PG15 04:00 Zookeeper-PG15 06:00 Cheaper By The Dozen 2-PG 08:00 Evan Almighty-PG15 10:00 The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy-PG 12:00 Fever Pitch-PG15 14:00 Little Fockers-PG15 16:00 The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy-PG 18:00 Nothing To Lose-PG15 20:00 The Joneses-PG15 22:00 Frenemy-18 22:00 Frenemy-18 00:00 02:00 04:00 07:00 PG15 08:45 10:45 12:15 PG15 13:45 15:15 16:45 18:30 21:00 22:45

Gigli-18 The Color Of Money-PG15 Nixon-18 Moonlight And ValentinoThe Color Of Money-PG15 Ice Dreams-PG15 Ike: Countdown To D-DayBound By A Secret-PG15 Ice Dreams-PG15 Skirt Day-PG15 The Great Gatsby-PG Frozen-PG15 Vanity Fair-PG15 Square Grouper-18

01:15 04:00 06:15 08:15 10:15 12:00 13:45 15:30 17:15 19:00 21:00 23:00

Munich-18 Broken Embraces-18 Top Gun-PG15 Oceans-PG15 Uncorked-PG15 Soldier Love Story-PG15 Yona Yona Penguin-PG Uncorked-PG15 Boy-PG15 Flight Of The Phoenix-PG15 Ripley’s Game-PG15 Winter’s Bone-18

01:00 Cher Ami-PG 02:45 The Borrowers-PG 04:30 Barbie In A Mermaid Tale 2FAM 06:00 Mars Needs Moms-PG 08:00 The Ugly Duckling In Tales Of Mystery-FAM 10:00 Robots-PG 11:45 Olentzero Christmas Tale-FAM 13:00 Emperor’s Secret-PG 14:30 The Borrowers-PG 16:00 Spooky Buddies-PG 18:00 Robots-PG 20:00 Adventures Of A Teenage Dragonslayer-PG 22:00 Spooky Buddies-PG

KUWAI

KNCC PROGRAM FROM THURSDAY TO WEDNESDAY (8/11/2012 TO 14/11/2012) SHARQIA-1 ALEX CROSS (DIG) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) ALEX CROSS (DIG) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) ALEX CROSS (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

1:30 PM 3:30 PM 5:45 PM 8:00 PM 10:30 PM 12:45 AM

SHARQIA-2 MISS MOMMY (DIG) LEGENDS OF VALHALLA: THOR WRECK-IT RALPH (DIG-3D) LEGENDS OF VALHALLA: THOR MISS MOMMY (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

12:30 PM 2:30 PM 4:15 PM 6:30 PM 8:15 PM 10:15 PM 12:15 AM

SHARQIA-3 FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) THE SWEENEY (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

2:00 PM 4:45 PM 7:30 PM 9:45 PM 12:30 AM

MUHALAB-1 ALEX CROSS (DIG) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) ALEX CROSS (DIG) THE SWEENEY (DIG) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) ALEX CROSS (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

1:00 PM 3:30 PM 5:45 PM 8:00 PM 10:15 PM 12:30 AM

MUHALAB-2 MISS MOMMY (DIG) DAMARUKAM (DIG)(TELUGU) FRI FLIGHT (DIG) THU+SAT+MON FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

2:00 PM 4:00 PM 4:00 PM 7:15 PM 10:00 PM 12:45 AM

MUHALAB-3 LEGENDS OF VALHALLA: THOR WRECK-IT RALPH (DIG-3D) LEGENDS OF VALHALLA: THOR HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA(DIG-3D) MISS MOMMY (DIG MISS MOMMY (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

12:15 PM 2:30 PM 4:45 PM 6:30 PM 8:45 PM 10:45 PM 12:45 AM

FANAR-1 THE SWEENEY (DIG) THE SWEENEY (DIG) THE SWEENEY (DIG) THE SWEENEY (DIG) THE SWEENEY (DIG) THE SWEENEY (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

1:00 PM 3:15 PM 5:30 PM 7:45 PM 10:00 PM 12:15 AM

FANAR-2 WRECK-IT RALPH (DIG-3D) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) WRECK-IT RALPH (DIG-3D) HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA(DIG-3D) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

12:45 PM 3:00 PM 5:15 PM 7:30 PM 9:30 PM 11:45 PM

FANAR-3 ALEX CROSS (DIG) NO TUE+WED TAKEN2 :2D NO TUE+WED ALEX CROSS (DIG) NO TUE+WED PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 (DIG) NO TUE+WED ALEX CROSS (DIG) NO TUE+WED ALEX CROSS (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED FANAR-4 LEGENDS OF VALHALLA: THOR MISS MOMMY (DIG) LEGENDS OF VALHALLA: THOR LEGENDS OF VALHALLA: THOR MISS MOMMY (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED FANAR-5 FLIGHT FLIGHT FLIGHT FLIGHT FLIGHT NO SUN+TUE+WED

1:45 PM 4:00 PM 6:15 PM 8:30 PM 10:45 PM 12:45 AM

12:30 PM 2:30 PM 4:30 PM 6:15 PM 8:00 PM 10:00 PM 12:15 AM

1:30 PM 4:15 PM 7:00 PM 9:45 PM 12:30 AM

MARINA-1 ALEX CROSS (DIG) ALEX CROSS (DIG) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) LED ZEPPELIN: CELEBRATION DAY HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) ALEX CROSS (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

1:30 PM 3:30 PM 5:30 PM 7:45 PM 10:15 PM 12:30 AM

MARINA-2 FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) THE SWEENEY (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

1:45 PM 4:30 PM 7:15 PM 9:30 PM 12:15 AM

MARINA-3 HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA(DIG-3D) LEGENDS OF VALHALLA: THOR WRECK-IT RALPH (DIG-3D) LEGENDS OF VALHALLA: THOR MISS MOMMY (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

1:00 PM 3:00 PM 4:45 PM 7:00 PM 8:45 PM 10:45 PM 12:45 AM

AVENUES-1 THE SWEENEY (DIG) 1:15 PM THE SWEENEY (DIG) 3:45 PM THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN - PART 1 (Re-Release) 6:15 PM THE SWEENEY (DIG) 8:45 PM THE SWEENEY (DIG) 11:15 PM AVENUES-2 ALEX CROSS (DIG) ALEX CROSS (DIG) ALEX CROSS (DIG) ALEX CROSS (DIG) ALEX CROSS (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED AVENUES-3 FLIGHT (DIG)

FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

4:15 PM 7:00 PM 9:45 PM 12:30 AM

AVENUES-4 HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

12:30 PM 2:45 PM 5:00 PM 7:15 PM 9:30 PM 11:45 PM

AVENUES-5 FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

1:30 PM 4:15 PM 7:00 PM 9:45 PM 12:30 AM

AVENUES-6 LEGENDS OF VALHALLA: THOR HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA(DIG-3D) LEGENDS OF VALHALLA: THOR HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA(DIG-3D) LEGENDS OF VALHALLA: THOR ALEX CROSS (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

1:00 PM 3:15 PM 5:30 PM 7:45 PM 10:00 PM 12:15 AM

AVENUES-7 TAKEN2 :2D NO TUE+WED TAKEN2 :2D NO TUE+WED PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 (DIG) NO TUE+WED TAKEN2 :2D NO TUE+WED TAKEN2 :2D NO TUE+WED PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED AVENUES-8 LOOPER (DIG) NO TUE+WED LED ZEPPELIN: CELEBRATION DAY NO TUE+WED LED ZEPPELIN: CELEBRATION DAY NO TUE+WED LED ZEPPELIN: CELEBRATION DAY NO TUE+WED LOOPER (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED AVENUES-9 WRECK-IT RALPH (DIG-3D) LEGENDS OF VALHALLA: THOR WRECK-IT RALPH (DIG-3D) WRECK-IT RALPH (DIG-3D) FLIGHT (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED AVENUES-10 HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) NO TUE+WED HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) NO TUE+WED HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) NO TUE+WED HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) NO TUE+WED HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) NO TUE+WED HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

1:15 PM

5:45 PM 8:00 PM 10:15 PM 12:30 AM

1:45 PM 4:00 PM 6:45 PM 9:15 PM 11:45 PM

2:00 PM 4:15 PM 6:30 PM 8:45 PM 11:00 PM

12:30 PM 2:45 PM 5:00 PM 7:15 PM 9:30 PM 11:45 PM

12:45 PM 3:00 PM 5:15 PM 7:30 PM 9:45 PM 12:05 AM

360 º- 1 FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

12:30 PM 3:15 PM 6:00 PM 8:45 PM 11:30 PM

360 º- 2 ALEX CROSS (DIG) ALEX CROSS (DIG) ALEX CROSS (DIG) ALEX CROSS (DIG) ALEX CROSS (DIG) ALEX CROSS (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

1:15 PM 3:30 PM 5:45 PM 8:00 PM 10:15 PM 12:30 AM

360 º- 4 LEGENDS OF VALHALLA: THOR LEGENDS OF VALHALLA: THOR LEGENDS OF VALHALLA: THOR LEGENDS OF VALHALLA: THOR TAKEN2 :2D TAKEN2 :2D NO SUN+TUE+WED

2:00 PM 4:15 PM 6:30 PM 8:45 PM 11:15 PM 1:30 PM 3:45 PM 6:00 PM 8:15 PM 10:30 PM 12:45 AM

360 º- 5 FLIGHT (DIG) 1:30 PM SAT FLIGHT (DIG) 4:15 PM NO THU THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE (Re- Release) 7:00 PM FLIGHT (DIG) 9:45 PM FLIGHT (DIG) 12:30 AM NO SUN+TUE+WED 360º- 6 WRECK-IT RALPH (DIG-3D) WRECK-IT RALPH (DIG-3D) WRECK-IT RALPH (DIG-3D) WRECK-IT RALPH (DIG-3D) WRECK-IT RALPH (DIG-3D) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

2:15 PM 4:30 PM 6:45 PM 9:00 PM 11:30 PM

360 º- 7 TAKEN2 :2D TAKEN2 :2D TAKEN2 :2D TAKEN2 :2D TAKEN2 :2D

1:30 PM

360 º- 8 HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) NO TUE+WED

4:00 PM 6:15 PM 8:30 PM 10:45 PM 1:00 AM

360 º- 9(VIP-1) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

1:45 PM 4:00 PM 6:15 PM 8:30 PM 10:45 PM 1:00 AM

360 º-10(VIP-2) FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

12:30 PM 3:15 PM 6:00 PM 8:45 PM 11:30 PM

360 º- 11 THE SWEENEY (DIG) THE SWEENEY (DIG) THE SWEENEY (DIG) THE SWEENEY (DIG) THE SWEENEY (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

2:15 PM 4:45 PM 7:15 PM 9:45 PM 12:15 AM

360 º- 12 MISS MOMMY (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

2:00 PM 4:15 PM 6:30 PM 8:45 PM 11:00 PM 1:15 AM

360 º- 13 THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN THE DARK KNIGHT RISES RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION NO SUN+TUE+WED

1:15 PM 4:00 PM 7:30 PM 9:45 PM 12:30 AM

3:30 PM

AVENUES-11 MISS MOMMY (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

360 º- 3 HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA(DIG-3D) HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA(DIG-3D) HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA(DIG-3D) HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA(DIG-3D) ALEX CROSS (DIG)

HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) NO TUE+WED HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) NO TUE+WED HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) NO TUE+WED HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) NO TUE+WED HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

1:00 PM 3:15 PM 5:30 PM 7:45 PM 10:00 PM 12:15 AM

2:30 PM 4:45 PM 7:00 PM 9:15 PM 11:30 PM 1:45 PM

360 º- 14 PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 (DIG) NO TUE+WED PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 (DIG) NO TUE+WED MISS MOMMY (DIG) NO TUE+WED PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 (DIG) NO TUE+WED MISS MOMMY (DIG) NO TUE+WED PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED 360 º- 15 LOOPER (DIG) NO TUE+WED LOOPER (DIG) NO TUE+WED LED ZEPPELIN: CELEBRATION NO TUE+WED LED ZEPPELIN: CELEBRATION DAY NO TUE+WED LED ZEPPELIN: CELEBRATION DAY NO TUE+WED LOOPER (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

12:45 PM 3:00 PM 5:15 PM 7:30 PM 9:45 PM 12:05 AM

12:30 PM 2:45 PM 5:15 PM 7:45 PM 0:15 PM 12:45 AM

AL-KOUT.1 MISS MOMMY (DIG) LEGENDS OF VALHALLA: THOR WRECK-IT RALPH (DIG-3D) LEGENDS OF VALHALLA: THOR MISS MOMMY (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

12:30 PM 2:30 PM 4:15 PM 6:30 PM 8:15 PM 10:15 PM 12:15 AM

AL-KOUT.2 FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

1:30 PM 4:15 PM 7:00 PM 9:45 PM 12:30 AM

AL-KOUT.3 THE SWEENEY (DIG) ALEX CROSS (DIG) THE SWEENEY (DIG) ALEX CROSS (DIG) THE SWEENEY (DIG) ALEX CROSS (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

1:30 PM 3:45 PM 6:00 PM 8:15 PM 10:30 PM 12:45 AM

AL-KOUT.4 HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) TAKEN2 :2D HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) TAKEN2 :2D NO SUN+TUE+WED

12:30 PM 2:45 PM 5:00 PM 7:15 PM 9:30 PM 12:05 AM

BAIRAQ-1 LEGENDS OF VALHALLA: THOR HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA(DIG-3D) LEGENDS OF VALHALLA: THOR WRECK-IT RALPH (DIG-3D) LEGENDS OF VALHALLA: THOR HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

12:30 PM 2:15 PM 4:15 PM 6:15 PM 8:30 PM 10:30 PM 12:45 AM

BAIRAQ-2 HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) HERE COMES THE BOOM (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) MISS MOMMY (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

2:30 PM 4:45 PM 6:45 PM 9:00 PM 11:00 PM 1:00 AM

BAIRAQ-3 FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) NO SUN+TUE+WED

1:30 PM 4:15 PM 7:00 PM 9:45 PM 12:30 AM

PLAZA MISS MOMMY (DIG) FLIGHT (DIG) NO TUE+WED MISS MOMMY (DIG) THE SWEENEY (DIG)

3:45 PM 5:45 PM 8:45 PM 10:45 PM

Classifieds SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

FOR SALE BMW 730 LI model 2008, full option, mileage 45000 km, BMW ser vice maintained, price KD 8300, price negotiable.

Contact: 97227427. (C 4206) 11-11-2012 Daihatsu Sirion 2012, 20 km, automatic, 5 door, KD 2100. Contact: 60976100.

(C 4202) 6-11-2012 Lancer 2009 outlander 2009. Ph: 99481300. Lancer Ex GLS 2011 model, silver color, km 21,000 only, original paint, under warranty, KD 3,900. Ph: 66052331.

(C 4197)

SITUATION VACANT Required Indian or Sri Lankan driver for a Kuwaiti family, light work and good salary. Contact: 99709076.

(C 4204)

Prayer timings

SITUATION WANTED Western educated “Project Manager” with 2 EngineeringDegrees (Civil/Elec.), 4-Master Degrees (Project Mgmt/ Engineering/ Education & Training/ MBA), plus 17-years experience in Middle East/ Australia, seeking Executive Position. Contact: 65695468 email: rav@engineer.com (C 4195) 11-11-2012

Fajr: Duhr: Asr: Maghrib: Isha:

04:47 11:32 14:34 16:56 18:14

DIAL 161 FOR AIRPORT INFORMATION

KAC

672

DUBAI

14:10

Airlines Flt

Route

Time

SVA

500

JEDDAH

14:30

Airlines Flt

Route

JAI

MUMBAI

0:30

QTR

140

DOHA

14:35

AIC

976 390

Arrival Flights on Sunday 11/11/2012 574

Depature Flights on Sunday 11/11/2012

KAC

561

AMMAN

14:30

Time

KAC

673

DUBAI

15:05

GOA

0:05

KNE

473

JEDDAH

15:10

MANGALORE

0:15

THY

772

ISTANBUL

0:35

SYR

341

DAMASCUS

14:40

AXB

SYR

342

DAMASCUS

15:40

JZR

267

BEIRUT

0:45

JZR

561

SOHAG

14:50

DHX

371

BAHRAIN

0:40

SVA

503

MADINAH

15:45

JZR

539

CAIRO

0:50

QTR

134

DOHA

15:30

BBC

44

CHITTAGONG

1:00

KAC

617

DOHA

15:45

QTR

148

DOHA

1:00

BBC

9033 DHAKA

15:50

UAL

981

WASHINGTON DC DULLES

1:10

JZR

786

RIYADH

15:50

ETH

620

ADDIS ABABA

1:45

UAE

857

DUBAI

16:40

DLH

637

FRANKFURT

1:20

QTR

141

DOHA

16:15

GFA

211

BAHRAIN

1:50

ETD

303

ABU DHABI

16:50

JAI

573

MUMBAI

1:30

BBC

9034 JEDDAH

16:50

UAE

853

DUBAI

2:35

RJA

640

AMMAN

16:55

ETH

621

ADDIS ABABA

2:45

JZR

238

AMMAN

17:15

ETD

305

ABU DHABI

2:45

GFA

215

BAHRAIN

17:15

THY

773

ISTANBUL

2:55

ETD

304

ABU DHABI

17:35

FDB

67

DUBAI

3:05

SVA

510

RIYADH

17:20

FDB

68

DUBAI

3:45

KAC

513

TEHRAN

17:40

MSR

612

CAIRO

3:10

QTR

144

DOHA

17:50

UAE

854

DUBAI

3:50

JZR

538

CAIRO

17:40

306

ABU DHABI

4:00

QTR

135

DOHA

17:45

UAE

858

DUBAI

17:50

RJA

641

AMMAN

17:55

GFA

216

BAHRAIN

18:15

JZR

184

DUBAI

18:30

SVA

511

RIYADH

18:35

ABY

128

SHARJAH

18:40

JZR

266

BEIRUT

18:45

QTR

145

DOHA

18:50

JZR

134

BAHRAIN

19:05

3:15

ABY

127

SHARJAH

17:55

ETD

3553 ALEXANDRIA

3:25

UAL

982

WASHINGTON DC DULLES

17:55

RBG

3554 ALEXANDRIA

4:05

QTR

138

DOHA

3:45

KAC

542

CAIRO

18:05

MSR

613

CAIRO

4:10

KAC

544

CAIRO

4:20

JZR

177

DUBAI

18:15

QTR

139

DOHA

4:50

CLX

792

LUXEMBOURG

4:55

KAC

786

JEDDAH

18:30

QTR

149

DOHA

6:05

164

DUBAI

6:55 7:00

RJA

642

RBG

AMMAN

DHX

170

BAHRAIN

5:15

FDB

63

DUBAI

18:45

JZR

THY

770

ISTANBUL

5:30

JZR

787

RIYADH

19:05

GFA

212

BAHRAIN

JZR

555

ALEXANDRIA

6:00

KAC

166

PARIS

19:10

RJA

643

AMMAN

7:05

THY

771

ISTANBUL

7:35

CLX

792

GIALAM

8:15

JZR

560

SOHAG

8:15

FDB

54

DUBAI

8:25

BAW

156

LONDON

8:45

KAC

171

FRANKFURT

9:10

BAW

157

LONDON

6:40

KAC

618

DOHA

19:20

KAC

412

MANILA

6:45

KAC

674

DUBAI

19:35

KAC

206

ISLAMABAD

7:40

KAC

102

NEW YORK

19:35

FDB

53

DUBAI

7:45

OMA

647

MUSCAT

19:55

KAC

382

DELHI

7:45

KAC

562

AMMAN

19:55

KAC

302

MUMBAI

7:55

FDB

61

DUBAI

20:00

KAC

332

TRIVANDRUM

8:15

JAI

572

MUMBAI

20:10

KAC

352

COCHIN

8:25

AXB

393

KOZHIKODE

20:15

UAE

855

DUBAI

8:40

MSR

606

LUXOR

20:25

GFA

223

BAHRAIN

8:45

ABY

129

SHARJAH

20:35

KAC

284

DHAKA

8:45

QTR

146

DOHA

20:45

ABY

121

SHARJAH

9:05

ALK

229

COLOMBO

20:55

QTR

132

DOHA

9:10

MEA

402

BEIRUT

21:20

FDB

55

DUBAI

9:15

QTR

136

DOHA

21:25

ETD

301

ABU DHABI

9:20

GFA

221

BAHRAIN

21:30

GFA

213

BAHRAIN

9:55

ETD

307

ABU DHABI

21:35

IRA

603

SHIRAZ

10:40

UAE

859

DUBAI

21:40

FDB

69

DUBAI

10:45

KAC

172

FRANKFURT

21:45

IRC

6666 AHWAZ

11:10

JZR

135

BAHRAIN

21:50

JZR

165

DUBAI

11:20

DHX

372

BAHRAIN

22:00

IRA

615

SHAHRE KORD

11:35

FDB

59

DUBAI

22:00

MEA

404

BEIRUT

11:55

KAC

514

TEHRAN

22:00

UAE

871

DUBAI

12:50

KLM

417

AMSTERDAM

22:05

KAC

742

DAMMAM

12:55

AFG

405

KABUL

22:15

MSR

610

CAIRO

13:05

AIC

981

CHENNAI

KAC

774

RIYADH

13:30

JZR

239

GFA

219

BAHRAIN

13:35

JZR

FDB

57

DUBAI

13:50

KNE

472

JEDDAH

14:10

GFA

224

BAHRAIN

UAL

982

BAHRAIN

19:10

FDB

64

DUBAI

19:25

KAC

283

DHAKA

20:30

FDB

62

DUBAI

20:40

OMA

648

MUSCAT

20:55

JAI

571

MUMBAI

21:10

9:55

AXB

394

KOZHIKODE

21:15

9:55

ABY

120

SHARJAH

21:15

619

ALEXANDRIA

21:25

9:30

KAC

671

DUBAI

9:35

ABY

122

SHARJAH

9:45

UAE KAC

856 741

DUBAI DAMMAM

KAC

117

NEW YORK

10:00

MSR

FDB

56

DUBAI

10:00

DHX

171

BAHRAIN

21:50

10:05

ALK

230

COLOMBO

21:55

10:05

MEA

403

BEIRUT

22:20

308

ABU DHABI

22:20

ETD KAC

302 773

ABU DHABI RIYADH

QTR

133

DOHA

10:10

ETD

GFA

214

BAHRAIN

10:40

QTR

137

DOHA

22:25

FDB

70

DUBAI

11:25

GFA

222

BAHRAIN

22:30

KAC

541

CAIRO

11:30

KAC

301

MUMBAI

22:35

IRA

602

SHIRAZ

11:40

FDB

60

DUBAI

22:40

IRC

6667 AHWAZ

12:10

UAE

860

DUBAI

22:50

KAC

103

LONDON

12:20

KAC

351

KOCHI

22:55

IRA

614

SHAHRE-KORD

12:35

KAC

205

ISLAMABAD

23:00

MEA

405

BEIRUT

12:55

DHX

373

BAHRAIN

23:00

KAC

785

JEDDAH

13:00

KLM

417

DAMMAM

23:05

22:30

JZR

176

DUBAI

13:50

QTR

147

DOHA

23:10

AMMAN

22:45

MSR

611

CAIRO

14:05

KAC

343

CHENNAI

23:15

185

DUBAI

23:05

UAE

872

DUBAI

14:15

JZR

502

LUXOR

23:35

UAL

981

BAHRAIN

23:25

GFA

220

BAHRAIN

14:20

KAC

411

BANGKOK

23:55

DLH

636

FRANKFURT

23:55

FDB

58

DUBAI

14:30

KAC

415

KUALA LUMPUR

23:55

Directorate General of Civil Aviation Home Page (www.kuwait-airport.com.kw)

34

s ta rs CROSSWORD 5

ACROSS 1. A guided missile fired from shipboard against an airborne target.

4. A room enclosed largely with glass and affording exposure to the sun.

12. Narrow wood or metal or plastic runners used for gliding over snow.

15. The quality of a color as determined by its dominant wavelength.

16. Roman martyr.

17. A boy or man.

18. A member of a widespread group of Amerindians living in northeastern South America.

20. Essential oil or perfume obtained from flowers.

21. Fermented alcoholic beverage similar to but heavier than beer.

22. Large bamboo having thick-walled culms.

23. The use of nuclear magnetic resonance of protons to produce proton density images.

24. Type genus of the Gavidae.

26. Being one more than ten.

27. French engineer who constructed the Eiffel Tower (1832-1923).

30. A river in north central Switzerland that runs northeast into the Rhine.

31. (of molten metal or glass) Formed by pouring or pressing into a mold n 1.

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

41. Any of various moth caterpillars that destroy cotton bolls.

43. The simplest ketone.

44. Small buffalo of the Celebes having small straight horns.

45. Willing to face danger.

46. (of mines and mining) Worked from the exposed surface.

47. In your mind.

49. A linear unit of length equal to 12 inches or a third of a yard.

50. The 7th letter of the Greek alphabet.

51. A genus of Bothidae.

54. A nonmetallic element belonging to the halogens.

56. A metrical unit with unstressed-stressed syllables.

58. A large number or amount.

60. The seed of the chickpea plant.

64. New Zealand timber tree resembling the cypress.

68. Australian shrubs and small trees with evergreen usually spiny leaves and dense clusters of showy flowers.

69. Naked freshwater or marine or parasitic protozoa that form temporary pseudopods for feeding and locomotion.

72. (Babylonian) God of storms and wind.

73. 100 avos equal 1 pataca.

74. A tricycle (usually propelled by pedalling).

76. A Tibetan or Mongolian priest of Lamaism.

77. The habitation of wild animals.

78. A region of northeastern France famous for its wines.

79. A unit of apothecary weight equal to an eighth of an ounce or to 60 grains.

DOWN 1. A painful emotion resulting from an awareness of inadequacy or guilt.

2. Of or pertaining to hearing or the ear.

3. English economist noted for his studies of international trade and finance (born in 1907).

4. Satisfy (thirst).

5. Consisting of or made of wood of the oak tree.

6. A radioactive transuranic element synthesized from californium.

7. An edilbe seaweed with a mild flavor.

8. A new trial in which issues already litigated and to which the court has already rendered a verdict or decision are reexamined by the same court.

9. The Palestinian uprising (beginning in 1987) against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

10. Fiddler crabs.

11. Become one.

12. Speaking a Slavic language.

13. Bushy plant of Old World salt marshes and sea beaches having prickly leaves.

14. The content of cognition.

19. In waves.

25. American novelist noted for children's books (1832-1888).

28. A radioactive element of the alkali-metal group discovered as a disintegration product of actinium.

29. Relating to or caused by a virus.

32. Regarded with deep or rapturous love (especially as if for a god).

33. 100 seniti equal 1 pa'anga.

34. A surgical instrument used to remove sections of bone from the skull.

36. A percussion instrument consisting of a pair of hollow pieces of wood or bone (usually held between the thumb and fingers) that are made to click together (as by Spanish dancers) in rhythm with the dance.

37. Isolated from others.

38. Headlight that provides strong beam for use in foggy weather.

39. An annual award for outstanding achievements in television.

40. Ctenophore having short tentacles.

42. An arrangement of points or particles or objects in a regular periodic pattern in 2 or 3 dimensions.

48. A member of an Indian people formerly living along the Gulf coast of Louisiana and Texas.

52. A very poisonous metallic element that has three allotropic forms.

53. Date used in reckoning dates before the supposed year Christ was born.

55. United States assassin of President John F. Kennedy (1939-1963).

57. Beads threaded on a string.

59. Jordan's port.

61. A person who possesses great material wealth.

62. A visual representation of an object or scene or person produced on a surface.

63. Type genus of the Amiidae.

65. The sixth month of the civil year.

66. God of love and erotic desire.

67. (Old Testament) In Judeo-Christian mythology.

70. The administration of a strong electric current that passes through the brain to induce convulsions and coma.

71. The Tibeto-Burman language spoken in the Dali region of Yunnan.

75. Angular distance above the horizon (especially of a celestial object).

Yesterday’s Solution

Word Search

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

Yesterday’s Solution

STAR TRACK Aries (March 21-April 19)

This is a good day to get things done, especially around your living area. You have good eye-hand coordination and seem determined to give a sustained effort to whatever task you choose. There may be some repair or yard work you will want to do before the winter begins. You may be close to work on a remodeling job this weekend. This afternoon is a good time to enjoy the out-of-doors and perhaps, exercise a bit. Perhaps you and the young people in your family, or your friends, will enjoy some form of horseback riding, fishing, target shooting, darts, etc. Your personal charisma is highlighted this evening and you and a loved one may enjoy relaxing in a local restaurant. If you are not expecting a child now, you could be in the near future.

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

Being more involved with neighbors or sibling(s) satisfies a deep emotional need. Communicating becomes an important part of your day.

You may decide to include another neighbor and have a big garage sale soon. A new cycle begins for you, signaling a greater than usual interest in relationships, social connections and the arts—on a more intellectual level than in the past, most likely. A family squabble helps to show off your problem-solving abilities. You are able to see both sides of an issue—the situation calls for understanding and compromise. Marriage and other close relationships give rise to great expectations now. This is a time to enjoy and appreciate your ties to others and to seek and promote harmony between people.

Gemini (May 21-June 20) This will be a time of introspection—you may find yourself eliminating some of the plans and projects yet uncompleted. You may take an interest in your own psyche, religion and spiritual ideas. This could be a good time to gain a focus through writing. List taking may eliminate false starts. Organizing your thoughts and plans is a good thing. This afternoon you may find yourself helping a young person. Whether this is with homework or just listening, you willingly express your compassion and enthusiasm to help. You are a solid supporter, always gravitating to the heart of things. This evening you have some personal chores or perhaps a hobby that keeps you quite busy. You will find plenty of time to relax and communicate with loved ones tonight.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

Secrets have a short half-life around you—you have them out in a wink of an eye. You are brilliant when it comes to insights into the mind, psychology and motivation. Your intensity is obvious and some may prefer to keep their distance rather than subject themselves to your observation.

Nothing is passed over without being turned inside and out. Someone may challenge your values or good tastes. You may find it difficult to be appreciative of others just now. This is not the time to shop or make serious decisions. Charisma, self-transformation, the development of personal power are the things that play a bigger role in your life. Remember, that tiny causes can lead to big effects. This is a time of deep personal changes.

Leo (July 23-August 22)

You may not feel that you are in top mental gear today.

Considering it is Saturday, a staying-in-bed-attitude could be an attitude you want to keep this morning. Today, however, is a great day to begin an exercise and health-watch program—invite a friend. Joining a spa would be a good gift for you to request. You may feel more like sharing some special time with a loved one this afternoon. You could be feeling reflective. Close relationships take on emotional depth. Feeling cared for and needed is comfortable. A game of golf or a movie, a play . . . anything you enjoy doing with your honey is a good thing for this evening. There are general good feelings with a sense of harmony that makes this a happy time—a time of coming together.

Virgo (August 23-September 22) You may have found yourself rebelling against the rules lately.

You may have to take the repercussions of this action quietly. The results for you now are good—you have initiated change and that is important. You are concerned with issues of freedom and independence—far beyond the average person. You may find a positive avenue for your energies this afternoon through some form of invention, electronics, etc. Taking the time to think through big decisions today is a positive move. You make your way through ideas and concepts. With a calm attitude, you can express your thoughts to others quite well. Your home environment, friends and surroundings receive your attention this evening. A young animal companion will make you laugh.

Libra (September 23-October 22) This may not be the best time to make important decisions that affect your living situation or life circumstances. Because others may challenge the direction you are taking, you may have to follow your heart—particularly if you are single. This is a much better time to relax and plan the holidays ahead. If you are going away for the upcoming holidays there will still be some arrangements to be made. People may seek you out for your advice regarding some very personal and emotional issues. You will be able to handle any difficulties with little stress. Short trips around town may bring your attention around to some recent changes. Being out with the public in a shopping or chore type of activity may have you feeling a part of this exciting time.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21)

This is a time that signals a greater than usual interest in relationships, social connections and the arts—on a more intellectual level than in the past, most likely. Seeing both sides of an issue and figuring out resolutions to opposing views take on more importance in your life. Do you know how to listen? You are learning! Talking too much, not listening and finishing other people’s sentences are the things you are learning to minimize in your life. You are also learning to enjoy a few of the listening type of techniques.

You may get insights into your living situation or support system at this time.

You may receive unexpected help or support from those around you for whatever you want to accomplish. Romance and life’s other pleasures take center stage.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) It is time to really get down to the business of cleaning up your act, taking care of loose ends and attending to any personal details you have neglected up to now. Health, food and physical condition comes under scrutiny and you work to give this much attention. Next time you are grocery shopping, pick out those fat-free foods that will help you feel better— careful, some of them are too full of sugar, which turns to fat. You can expect a little boost, some extra support or recognition from those around you, for whatever you choose to do today. This afternoon you may feel that you are in touch with others; the flow of conversation is easy and open. There is an opportunity to relax with your loved ones . . . perhaps a fun movie or dinner out this evening.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19) Sharing some fun activity with your friends may put you at your most imaginative today, at least when it comes to ideas and thoughts. You may decide to gather everyone’s opinion about something and write an article for a well-known magazine. You could do this . . . think about it. There is a lot of laughter to go around—why not share it!?! A city library could be having an annual sale and this may give you the opportunity to purchase some old edition for your own private book collection. This is a wonderful time to add to a collection or to sell part of one. Traveling a short distance with your loved ones to a craft or art show of some sort may fill your day with good memories. This is a day full of opportunities to enjoy relationships.

Aquarius (January 20- February 18)

Avoid trying to prove a point today—others hear what you have to say but may not immediately respond the way you might like. Clear communication will be important to you now but confirmation of the message may not always be available; trust in your communicative and socially sensitive abilities. You may find yourself concentrating on your own goals this afternoon.

Your timing should be perfect for whatever you would like to accomplish.

Teenagers may require that you get tough. You may need to help young people understand where responsibility ends and fun begins. A social affair this evening is a great success—a co-worker from the past may happen to be at the same party. Everything works in your favor tonight.

Pisces (February 19-March 20) A touch of financial genius can result in phenomenally successful investments. Create a team for learning and investing and reporting gains and losses and track your investments on paper. Perhaps this could be a group where all of you can have fun and gain in financial security with good investments. You may be pleased at the results by the end of the first year—it has previously been successful. Think about forming friends with people that have a similar life dream. Charisma is highlighted now—you develop a deeper understanding of many of life’s mysteries and taboos. You have a clear vision into your own inner sense of values, how you appreciate and love. This is a good time to examine what is important and lasting.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2012

i n f o r m at i o n For labor-related inquiries and complaints: Call MSAL hotline 128 GOVERNORATE Sabah Hospital

24812000

Amiri Hospital

22450005

Maternity Hospital

24843100

Mubarak Al-Kabir Hospital

25312700

Chest Hospital

24849400

Farwaniya Hospital

24892010

Adan Hospital

23940620

Ibn Sina Hospital

24840300

Al-Razi Hospital

24846000

Physiotherapy Hospital

24874330/9

Kaizen center

25716707

Rawda

22517733

Adaliya

22517144

Khaldiya

24848075

Kaifan

24849807

Shamiya

24848913

Shuwaikh

24814507

Abdullah Salem

22549134

Nuzha

22526804

Industrial Shuwaikh

24814764

Qadsiya

22515088

Dasmah

22532265

Bneid Al-Gar

22531908

Shaab

22518752

Qibla

22459381

Ayoun Al-Qibla

PHARMACY

ADDRESS

PHONE

Ahmadi

Sama Safwan Abu Halaifa Danat Al-Sultan

Fahaeel Makka St Abu Halaifa-Coastal Rd Mahboula Block 1, Coastal Rd

23915883 23715414 23726558

Jahra

Modern Jahra Madina Munawara

Jahra-Block 3 Lot 1 Jahra-Block 92

24575518 24566622

Capital

Ahlam Khaldiya Coop

Fahad Al-Salem St Khaldiya Coop

22436184 24833967

Farwaniya

New Shifa Ferdous Coop Modern Safwan

Farwaniya Block 40 Ferdous Coop Old Kheitan Block 11

24734000 24881201 24726638

Tariq Hana Ikhlas Hawally & Rawdha Ghadeer Kindy Ibn Al-Nafis Mishrif Coop Salwa Coop

Salmiya-Hamad Mubarak St Salmiya-Amman St Hawally-Beirut St Hawally & Rawdha Coop Jabriya-Block 1A Jabriya-Block 3B Salmiya-Hamad Mubarak St Mishrif Coop Salwa Coop

25726265 25647075 22625999 22564549 25340559 25326554 25721264 25380581 25628241

Hawally

ST TAT TE OF K KUW WA AIT

Tel.: e 161

DIRECTORA ATE T GENE GENERAL OF CIVIL AVIA V AT TION PARTMENT A METEOROLOGICAL DEP DA AY: Y Saturday

Ext.: 2627 262 - 2630

10/11/2012

Issue Time

Sunny with light to moderate southerly to south easterly wind, with speed of 08 - 30 km/h and some scatscat tered clouds will appear

BY Y NIGHT:

Humid weather especially over coastal areas with light to moderate south easterly to southerly wind, with speed of 08 - 28 km/h and some scattered clouds will appear No Current Warnings arnin a

WA ARNING

32 °C

23 °C

22451082

KUW WAIT A AIRPOR RT

36 °C

18 °C

Mirqab

22456536

NUW WAISEEB A

33 °C

19 °C

Sharq

22465401

WAFRA A

38 °C

20 °C

Salmiya

25746401

SALMI

36 °C

18 °C

ABDAL LY

37 °C

20 °C

Jabriya

25316254

JAL ALIY YAH A

38 °C

20 °C

Maidan Hawally

25623444

FA AILAKA

33 °C

22 °C

Bayan

25388462

AHMADI POR RT

31 °C

26 °C

Mishref

25381200

UMM AL-MARADEM

30 °C

25 °C

W Hawally

22630786

WARBA A A - BUBY YAN A

29 °C

18 °C

Sabah

24810221

Jahra

24770319

ST TAT TION

SFC. CHART

10/11/2012 0000 UTC

4 DA AYS Y FORECAST Temperatures DA AY

DA AT TE

WEA ATHER T

Sunday

11/11

partly cloudy + light rain

New Jahra

24575755

West Jahra

24772608

Monday

12/11

South Jahra

24775066

Tuesday

13/11

North Jahra

24775992

Wednesday e

14/11

North Jleeb

24311795

Ardhiya

24884079

MAX.

MIN.

Wind Direction

Wind Speed

34 °C

18 °C

VRB-SE

08 - 28 km/h

partly cloudy + scattered thunderstorms

35 °C

17 °C

SE-NW

15 - 40 km/h

partly cloudy + scattered rain

29 °C

19 °C

NW-VRB

10 - 32 km/h

fair

28 °C

14 °C

NW-N

10 - 30 km/h

PRA RA AYER Y TIMES

RECORDED YESTERDA AY AT KUW WAIT A AIRPORT

Fajr

04:47

MAX. Temp.

37 °C

Sunrise

06:08

MIN. Temp.

17 °C 69 %

Firdous

24892674

Zuhr

11:32

MAX. RH

Omariya

24719048

Asr

14:35

MIN. RH

10 %

Sunset

16:56

MAX. Wind

S 21 km/h

Isha

18:15

TOT TA AL L RAIINF FA ALL L IN 24 HR.

23900322

All times are local time unless otherwise stated.

00 mm

10/11/12 03:24 UTC

V1.00

T1.06

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 25340300

Dr. Zahra Qabazard

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. Fozeya Ali Al-Qatan

22655539

Dr. Majeda Khalefa Aliytami

25343406

Dr. Shamah Al-Matar

22641071/2

Dr. Ahmad Al-Khooly

25739272

Dr. Anesah Al-Rasheed

22562226

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

Dr. Salem soso General Surgeons Dr. Amer Zawaz Al-Amer

22610044

Dr. Mohammad Yousef Basher

25327148

Internists, Chest & Heart Dr. Adnan Ebil Dr. Mousa Khadada Dr. Latefa Al-Duweisan

22666300 25728004

Dr. Nadem Al-Ghabra

25355515

Dr. Mobarak Aldoub

24726446

Dr Nasser Behbehani

25654300/3

info@soorcenter.com www.soorcenter.com

3729596/3729581

Neurologists

22639939

Dr. Abd Al-Naser Al-Othman

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

Kaizen center 25716707

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

Dr Anil Thomas

Soor Center Tel: 2290-1677 Fax: 2290 1688

22545171

Al-Shuwaikh

24810598

Al-Nuzha

22545171

Sabhan

24742838

Al-Helaly

22434853

Al-Faiha

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

INTERNATIONAL CALLS

07:00

BY Y DA AY:

KUW WAIT A CITY

Fintas

Al-Shuhada

Expected Weather e for the Next 24 Hours

MIN. REC.

24710044

22418714

Fax: 24348714 WWW.MET.GOV V.KW .

MAX. EXP P.

N Khaitan

Al-Madeena

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

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

Iran 0098 Iraq 00964 Ireland 00353 Italy 0039 Ivory Coast 00225 Jamaica 001876 Japan 0081 Jordan 00962 Kazakhstan 007 Kenya 00254 Kiribati 00686 Kuwait 00965 Kyrgyzstan 00996 Laos 00856 Latvia 00371 Lebanon 00961 Liberia 00231 Libya 00218 Lithuania 00370 Luxembourg 00352 Macau 00853 Macedonia 00389 Madagascar 00261 Majorca 0034 Malawi 00265 Malaysia 0060 Maldives 00960 Mali 00223 Malta 00356 Marshall Islands 00692 Martinique 00596 Mauritania 00222 Mauritius 00230 Mayotte 00269 Mexico 0052 Micronesia 00691 Moldova 00373 Monaco 00377 Mongolia 00976 Montserrat 001664 Morocco 00212 Mozambique 00258 Myanmar (Burma) 0095 Namibia 00264 Nepal 00977 Netherlands (Holland) 0031 Netherlands Antilles 00599 New Caledonia 00687 New Zealand 0064 Nicaragua 00505 Nigar 00227 Nigeria 00234 Niue 00683 Norfolk Island 00672 Northern Ireland (UK) 0044 North Korea 00850 Norway 0047 Oman 00968 Pakistan 0092 Palau 00680 Panama 00507 Papua New Guinea 00675 Paraguay 00595 Peru 0051 Philippines 0063 Poland 0048 Portugal 00351 Puerto Rico 001787 Qatar 00974 Romania 0040 Russian Federation 007 Rwanda 00250 Saint Helena 00290 Saint Kitts 001869 Saint Lucia 001758 Saint Pierre 00508 Saint Vincent 001784 Samoa US 00684 Samoa West 00685 San Marino 00378 Sao Tone 00239 Saudi Arabia 00966 Scotland (UK) 0044 Senegal 00221 Seychelles 00284 Sierra Leone 00232 Singapore 0065 Slovakia 00421 Slovenia 00386 Solomon Islands 00677

36

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

LIFESTYLE G o s s i p

One Direction

off to White House

he boy band - made up of Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik and Liam Payne - have been invited by President Barack Obama to perform at his home as a “thank you” to his two daughters, Malia, 14, and 11year-old Sasha, for the help they gave him on his successful election campaign. The girls are huge fans of the ‘One Thing’ hitmakers and Obama and his wife Michelle have been in touch with them to arrange a date. A source told the Daily Star newspaper: “It’s an open invitation for a date to be ¨arranged that fits in with everyone’s busy schedules. “It’s not every parent who can invite the hottest band in the world to their home. They will be the envy of girls across the world.” Michelle had originally invited them to the White House earlier this year, but the boys were unable to make it because of their hectic schedule. Obama was voted in as president for a second term on Tuesday after defeating Mitt Romney.

T

Avril Lavigne

planning a rock ‘n’ roll wedding

he 28-year-old singer - who was previously married to Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley - is engaged to Nickleback rocker Chad Kroeger and he revealed his fiancee is taking charge of all of the wedding plans. He told Men’s Health magazine: “We (grooms) get such an incredibly small chunk in terms of what we can actually participate in... I get control over nothing. I just show up. But I’m glad, because she has... traversed these territories before.

These are unchartered waters for me. So it’s nice to have her to guide me through this. “She’s got great ideas. I would have gone a little too traditional, I think, and she’s giving it a real rock ‘n’ roll edge. The groomsmen won’t be

T

wearing piano neckties but let’s just say she’s taking the bull by the horns and steering the ship towards what is going to be the most unique wedding that the planet has probably ever seen.” Chad,37, admitted he never expected to get married but meeting Avril changed his mind. He added: “There was a time in my life that I thought I would never get married. But this definitely took me by storm.

Honestly, it was more my idea than hers to get married. I’m just lucky she said yes.”

Naomi Watts set to play Princess Di

Sharon Osbourne

aomi Watts wants to do the late Princess Diana “justice” in the new film about her life. The blonde actress portrays the royal - who died in a Paris car crash in August 1997 in forthcoming movie ‘Diana’ and she says it was important she told her story in a truthful way.

She said: “It’s very difficult to play someone who had such a deep impact and left such a lasting memory on the public. Our memory of her is still very fresh and you have to be respectful of that. It’s also more complicated and sensitive when you take into account her two sons. But I want to do her justice and tell her story truthful-

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feels ‘blessed’ he 60-year-old TV host - who recently revealed she has undergone a double mastectomy after discovering she carries a gene that increasing her chances of getting breast cancer - knows she’s been very fortunate because she’s so happy with what she’s got and what she’s achieved. Sharon who has three children with rocker husband Ozzy as well as a baby granddaughter - said: “I can’t believe I got to 60, and so quickly. I keep thinking, ‘Where did the time go?’ “But mostly, I’ve just been thinking how really blessed I am. You have to see what’s going on in the world, and I’m in such a good place with where I am and everything I do; I have so much to be thankful for. I definitely got hit with the lucky stick somewhere along the line.” Although life hasn’t always been easy for the Osbourne family, Sharon says that has made them appreciate their lives even more. She added to Britain’s HELLO! magazine: “Yes, things are tough but they could be a whole lot worse. We’ve got each other, we’ve got a great family and life is good. I’m in a place where I can choose to do the things that I want and choose to be with who I want and not because I have to. It’s a freedom and you can’t buy freedom. It’s a great place to be and I don’t take it lightly - I appreciate it hugely.”

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Miley Cyrus

ly.” Although Naomi is expecting to get criticised for her portrayal of the much-loved princess, she says it was a role she couldn’t turn down.

She added to OK! magazine: “There’s a side that’s terrified that my portrayal might not please the public which still has such vivid memories of her. But it’s the kind of challenge I felt I couldn’t refuse. You know that people will complain that you don’t look enough like her, that you’re not tall enough, all those things.”

Keira Knightley can’t stop

showing off her engagement ring he ‘Anna Karenina’ actress - who is set to marry Klaxons keyboardist James Righton - was thrilled when ‘Good Morning America’ co-host Elizabeth Vargas congratulated her on her engagement and couldn’t resist waving it around for all to see. Speaking on the show, she said: “Thank you. I keep [waving my hand]. It’s the engagement shuffle.” While Keira, 27, loves being engaged, the couple have no plans to tie the knot just yet. She explained: “We’re both working too hard, so I’m just enjoying this bit.” Earlier this year James moved in to Keira’s London home, which she bought following her split from long-term boyfriend and ‘Homeland’ star Rupert Friend in December 2010. A source said in April 2012: “Keira suggested the idea and he moved his stuff in a couple of weeks ago.

They want to get a puppy. It’s all pretty serious.” The couple have also recently been house-hunting for a country home. Keira was spotted looking at estate agent details in a tea room close to where Johnny Depp bought a 13-bedroom mansion in 2011 to use as his UK base.

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already feels married

he 19-year-old actress and her ‘Hunger Games’ star boyfriend Liam Hemsworth got engaged earlier this year but Miley revealed she feels like the pair are wed. Miley - who is currently working on a new album - said: “I am married in my heart and my mind. I do everything that I would be if I had the paper, but I want to take the time to actually enjoy it.” “My most important thing right now is ...

I want people to hear what I want to say and get my record out, so when there is a time that I can take some time off, I’ll feel like I accomplished my stuff.

Then I can take a break and just enjoy being married for a little while.” Miley recently insisted the most important thing is that she and Liam, 22, are happy on the big day as they will be spending the rest of their lives together. She said: “That moment when he first gets to see me in my dress and everything all together. It has to be perfect. It has to be like a soundtrack in a movie. That’s the one-day that movie crap is real. That romance. That look is the time that you get that. I’ve been to probably 10, 20 weddings and I’ve seen that real look five or six times. It’s rare that people just stop to really look the person in the eye and know that this is your life together.”

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LeAnn Rimes has adopted a puppy he ‘Can’t Fight the Moonlight’ hitmaker agreed to care for the eight-month-old abandoned pooch after her friend Karla Hoffman saw him be abandoned in busy Los Angeles traffic. And the little dog is already a huge hit in the home LeAnn shares with husband Eddie Cibrian and his sons Mason, nine, and five-year-old Jake.

She wrote on her blog: “We ALL fell in love at first sight.

Even our doggies welcomed her instantly.” Mason has named the puppy Eveie, a moniker LeAnn explained had been “for his little sister so he says”. She added: “Mason says she came just in time for Thanksgiving. “She’s brought a ton of joy into our home in just the few hours she’s been with us. “Eveie has a new home and family and we have a new love!” LeAnn recently completed a 30-day stay in a rehab facility, where she was treated for stress and anxiety, and said after her release that she felt she had been given the chance to “star over”. She said: “I feel like I am starting over even though I’ve had all these years behind me. How many people get to [start] over again in this day and age?” —Bangshowbiz

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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

lifestyle

Deputy Chief of the National Guard Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah welcomes Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud of Saudi Arabia during a visit to Kuwait.

Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah is seen between Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah and Sheikh Ahmad Al-Jaber AlAhmad Al-Sabah as they take part in a traditional ‘Ardah’ dance.

Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah offers condolences to King Hamad Bin Essa Al-Khalifa of Bahrain.

Biography of Deputy Chief of National Guard released uthor Abdullah Buwair released his new publication, a biography of Deputy Chief of the National Guard Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah. The book sheds light on Sheikh Meshal’s life starting from his birth in 1938 as the seventh son of Kuwait’s late Amir Sheikh Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and his wife Mariyam Al-Huwailah. The book also gives

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details of his career starting as an officer in the Ministry of Interior until he reached his current position, and sheds further light on his achievements in the National Guard.

The book also talks about Sheikh Meshal’s close relationship with the Arabi Sports Club; of which he was a founding member as well as his family life, and finally includes a chapter as a photo album. This is

Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah with President of Algeria Abdul-Aziz Bouteflika, and Minister of the Amiri Dewan Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah is seen in the background.

the sixth publication for Abdullah Buwair, who wrote his first book discussing the history of grilling motions in Kuwait from 1963 to 2008. He released a biography on HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad AlSabah afterwards, discussing his life and career before and after assuming the head of state position. His third book was also centered around HH Sheikh Sabah Al-

Ahmad Al-Sabah, focusing on his contributions to Kuwait’s development as well as his addresses to the public.

Buwair also released autobiographies for Chief of the National Guard HH Sheikh Salem Al-Ali Al-Sabah and former prime minister HH Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah, discussing their careers and contributions.

Deputy Chief of the National Guard Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad AlJaber Al-Sabah receives a commemorative plaque from the Kuwait Shooting Club handed by Sheikh Salman Al-Hmoud Al-Sabah.

Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah welcomes Sultan Qabous bin Saied of the Sultanate of Oman as Jassem Al-Khorafi is seen in the background.

5 examples of cinematographer

Deakins’ best work

This film image released by Sony Pictures shows Daniel Craig (left) and Javier Bardem in a scene from the film “Skyfall.” — AP

By Christy Lemire oger Deakins is the rare person I was actually nervous to interview because I’m such a huge fan of his work. When I talked to the veteran cinematographer in early 2008, after he’d received Academy Award nominations for both “No Country for Old Men” and “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” I found him to be lovely and humble, with a dry and self-effacing British wit - which naturally made me admire him even more.

Now he’s shot the most gorgeous James Bond film yet: this week’s “Skyfall,” which marks his third collaboration with director Sam Mendes. But he’s probably best known as the Coen brothers’ usual director of photography, having shot 11 of their films. He’s a nine-time Oscar nominee but, in a travesty of justice, he’s never won.

Maybe “Skyfall” will change that. So we’re going to get a little nerdy this week and discuss five of the most excellent examples of Deakins’ work: “The Man Who Wasn’t There” (2001): One of my favorite films from Joel and Ethan Coen, and one that’s underappreciated compared to the better-known “Fargo” or “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”

Deakins photographed this darkly comic homage to film noir in lushly beautiful, striking black and white. He’s said this is his favorite film he’s made with the Coens; a longtime still photographer, Deakins lights for light and shade anyway rather than color. The scene in which a hotshot lawyer played by Tony Shalhoub explains Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle while walking back and forth beneath rigidly structured beams of light is just breathtaking.

“No Country for Old Men” (2007): This is the Coens’ masterpiece, and it allowed Deakins to bring the harshly beautiful, seemingly endless expanse of scrubbrushed West Texas vividly to life. Much of this tale of crime and carnage along the Rio Grande, which won the best-picture Oscar and three others, is marked by a parched, bleak openness. But it’s also filled with

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many memorable, intimate images: a silhouetted reflection on a turned-off television screen, the shadow of a pair of boots in the crack of a hotel doorway, or a set of headlights shining into a crime scene at night.

“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” (2007): Andrew Dominik’s film is set during the late 1800s in Missouri, as Jesse James (Brad Pitt) nears the end of his storied criminal career and is shot to death by a member of his gang.

Deakins bathes everything with a soft, warm sense of nostalgia and melancholy, which may seem like an unusual choice given the violent subject matter. But the result is disarming and inspired. A nighttime train robbery, for example, becomes an almost romantic ballet of light and shadow.

“Jarhead” (2005): I did not love this movie as a whole but Deakins created some powerfully dramatic visuals here. This was his first collaboration with Mendes (they’d also work together on 2008’s “Revolutionary Road”), based on the true story of Marines who fought in Operation Desert Storm, with Jake Gyllenhaal serving as our guide. As the film descends into its darkest period, Deakins’ depiction of a burning oil field is stunning - a bold swirl of orange and black, like some beautiful version of hell. And his shots of the desert, usually through an eye-level, hand-held camera, make the dry vastness and shimmering sun feel palpable.

“A Serious Man” (2009): Not exactly the Coens’ best-known movie (although it earned Oscar nominations for best picture and original screenplay) and not even the showiest example of what Deakins can do.

That would probably be “The Big Lebowski.” But the look of this film is so lovely and dreamlike, it draws you in. It’s inspired by the brothers’ youth in a predominantly Jewish suburb of Minneapolis in 1967, so it’s very specific in terms of costumes, music and production design. But Deakins’ often surreal cinematography adds to the off-kilter mood as we trudge along with the put-upon Michael

A surfer rides a camel on a beach in the south western Moroccan city of Taghazout yesterday. Tourism is one of the pillars of the Moroccan economy, especially crucial in 2012, after drought badly affected agricultural output, and with remittances from Moroccans working abroad also down. — AFP

Exhibit in Miami tells story of guayabera shirt ts roots are in 19th century Cuba, but the guayabera - a button-down shirt in cotton or linen with four pockets and embroidery or pleats down the front - has evolved into a fashionable and formal shirt worn from Mexico to Miami. “The Guayabera: A Shirt’s Story” at the HistoryMiami museum is the first exhibition to trace the story of the shirt’s evolution through Cuba, Mexico and the United States, where it is particularly popular in cities with large Latin American and Caribbean populations. The exhibition runs through Jan. 13.

Very little has been written about the origins of the guayabera, so researchers visited Cuba, Mexico and Miami to find out more about the shirt worn by everyone from guajiros (peasants) and abuelos (grandfathers) to politicians and celebrities. Research suggests that the guayabera originated in Cuba and was worn in the countryside, but the garment may have looked like the Spanish military uniform made out of a fabric called rayadillo (blue-and-white striped material) worn by soldiers during the Cuban War of Independence.

“The historical evidence that we uncovered suggests that in the late 1800s, a clothing item called the guayabera existed. What that looked like is another story,” said Michael Knoll, curator of the exhibition and HistoryMiami folklorist.

Pointing to a military garment on display and a document referring to the Spanish military uniform as “guayabera,” he added, “There are features of this shirt that are clearly reminiscent of what we understand the guayabera to look like today.”

Unlike the contemporary guayabera, the military garments featured four pockets along the hem. By the mid-20th century, it had evolved into its iconic version: white, long-sleeved, linen

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with two chest and two hem pockets. Knoll said the shirt “slowly died as a popular tradition in Cuba, to the point where today it’s associated with the government.” The shirts are available for tourists in Cuba, but guayaberas are rarely seen on the streets in Havana today, he added.

After the Cuban revolution in 1959, manufac-

In this photo, a guayabera said to have been worn by the Spanish military in 1897 in Cuba, is on display at an exhibition titled “The Guayabera: A Shirt’s Story” at the Museum of History Miami, in Miami. — AP

turers in Mexico took over production of the shirt and at some point, embroidery was introduced, adding the textile tradition among the Mayan culture to the shirts. Also called the “Mexican wedding shirt,” the guayabera became even more popular during the 1970s when thenPresident Luis Echevarria began to wear the shirts for government and business purposes “to connect to the population.” (Politicians sometimes don guayaberas when campaigning in Miami to connect with the Hispanic vote.)

Miami became the hub for innovation, carrying on the tradition of the shirt while reinventing it to include fashion-forward styles with prints and unique fabrics such as denim. On display at the exhibition are tunics for women, including a long black dress worn by salsa queen Celia Cruz, baby rompers and miniguayaberas for boys made by Old Navy (although a boy’s version of the shirt has existed since 1940s). There is even one for your dog. “It’s important to try to appeal to the contemporary taste including the youth,” Knoll said. “If it doesn’t evolve, it’s going to die.”

The shirt, worn untucked, has become a staple for beach weddings, with its linen fabric and light color keeping the wearer cool and a style that can pass for formal. The guayabera has different names in different countries, but the exact origin of its most common name is uncertain. The exhibition attempts to understand the folklore surrounding it, including how the garment’s name is a derivative of the Spanish word “guayaba” for the fruit “guava.” According to one story, a husband asked his wife to create a shirt with pockets to hold his belongings while working. Another, shown through a painting at the exhibition, explains how the pockets were used to hold guavas. —AP

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

lifestyle

‘A Royal Affair’ Review

Love, intrigue make for Danish delight t’s always good to be reminded that love, sex and political scandals existed well before our own time. And that when it comes to royals, England’s Prince Charles and Princess Diana weren’t the first to have a rotten marriage. “A Royal Affair,” a terrific Danish film (with English subtitles), recounts an episode involving blue bloods and political intrigue during the 18th century. It’s a corker of a story that is well known in Denmark - it is taught in school there - but likely will be unfamiliar to most American viewers.

In 1766, Princess Caroline Mathilda (Alicia Vikander), 15, a member of the British royal family, was shipped off to Denmark to marry King Christian VII (Mikkel Boe Folsgaard), who was unstable and likely seriously mentally ill. Not surprisingly, the marriage was an unhappy one.

Eventually, the young Queen fell in love with and began an affair with her husband’s physician, Johann Friedrich Struensee (Mads Mikkelsen), who shared her interest in the literature and ideas of the Enlightenment.

Together, the lovers managed to take over power from the pliable King and enacted numerous major social reforms intended to improve the lives of the common people. This didn’t go over well with high-ranking members of the royal court. Upon seeing both their power and purses reduced, they conspired against the Queen and her doctor beau.

That’s the basic outline of the story director and co-writer Nikolaj Arcel (“Truth About Men”) tells in this compelling costume drama. Rather than concentrate on the pomp and pageantry of court life, this is very much an intimate tale of love and intrigue with a close focus kept on the three principle players, the Queen, the King and the good doctor.

Above all, this is a love story. Caroline Mathilda and Dr Struensee are in love with each other and with the good they can do for Denmark if they can wield power. It proves a heady and dangerous combination. Mikkelsen, the sharp-featured Danish star familiar from “Casino Royale” and “Clash of the Titans,” makes for an attractive leading man as the physicianreformer, intent of purpose and sympathetic. The Swedish-born Vikander ably suggests the young Queen’s confusion and unhappiness, which makes her vulnerable to trying to grab what happiness she can, even if it means a covert affair.

And Folsgaard manages to make the capricious king almost into a figure of sympathy, someone who by an accident of birth finds himself in a job and a situation for which he is woefully ill equipped. Deign to see this Danish drama. It offers a fascinating history lesson and - the best part - there’s no quiz afterward. — Reuters

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Co-stars Rufus Sewell and Carla Gugino pose with writer and director Sebastian Gutierrez (right) at a special screening of “Hotel Noir” hosted by Gato Negro Films and The Cinema Society on Friday Nov 9, 2012 in New York. — AP

Rap-reality TV star sits in on Hawks broadcast

I added a new line to his expanding resume - broadcaster. The Grammy Award-winning rapper and reality television joined the Atlanta Hawks’ broadcast team Friday night for the first half of their 95-89 loss to the NBA champion Miami Heat. “This was a phenomenal opportunity,” said TI, proud that the Hawks built a 46-42 lead during his time on air for SportsSouth. “I really enjoyed myself. I look forward to the next time and doing an entire game.”

After several bouts with the law, including a stint in federal prison on weapons charges, the Atlanta native has become active in the community and frequently attends Hawks’ games. He sat at courtside between play-by-play man Bob Rathbun and analyst Duane Ferrell. “They did all the heavy lifting,” said the rapper, who was wearing several gold chains and an old-school Hawks cap. “I just chimed in here and there. I have a close relationship, both personally and professionally, with a lot of the guys out there.”

Asked if he had any desire to buy a piece of the Hawks, following the path set by hip-hop star and Brooklyn Nets part-owner Jay-Z, TI just smiled. “I would love to be a part of the organization in whatever way possible if I can make a significant contribution,” said the entertainer,

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whose actual name is Clifford Harris. “But there’s no pressure. Baby steps.”

TI gave a hint of new album, “Trouble Man,” which is scheduled for release on Dec 18. It includes collaborations with Andre 3000, Cee Lo Green and Pink. “I’m extremely proud of it,” he said. “I put a lot of work and energy into it. I think it will be the classic album the fans have been wanting me to make. ... I wanted to mix it up. I wanted to raise the bar on what’s considered stellar material.”

He also stars with his wife in “TI and Tiny: The Family Hustle,” a reality show on VH1. Camera crews from the show trailed him around Philips Arena. TI is hopeful about the Hawks, who overhauled their roster during under offseason in hopes of breaking a history of postseason failures.

“This is a new team, a young team,” he said. “They have a lot of heart, a lot of desire, a lot of talent that can take them deep in the playoffs.” As for his own athletic prowess, TI was frank about his abilities. There was none of the boastfulness one might hear on his songs. “I have no organized sports background,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of watching. I’m a professional spectator. I can observe like no one’s business.” — Reuters

Rapper TI sits at the broadcast table as he helps call the action in the first half of an NBA basketball game between Miami Heat and Atlanta Hawks in Atlanta, Friday, Nov 9, 2012. — AP

How Oscar entry ‘La Source’ launched a campaign he documentary “La Source” was originally conceived to be the tale of a single project, the efforts by a Princeton University janitor to bring clean water to a single village in rural Haiti. Now, the film’s exposure has spawned a soccer field, two schools and 20 more villages with sanitary water. The Oscar-nominated film, which follows Haiti-born Josue Lajeunesse as he fulfills his dream of bringing bacteria-free water to his native village, launched a regional project by the nonprofit Generosity Water to improve the lives of rural Haitians.

“We’re hoping that we can really continue to build on what this film was about,” producer Jordan Wagner told TheWrap’s Steve Pond at Thursday night showing of “La Source,” which is part of TheWrap’s annual Award Screening Series. Seated at Los Angeles’ Landmark Theatre alongside director Patrick Shen, producer Brandon Vedder and Lajeunesse, Wagner, the nonprofit’s director, said his organization has already carved out a spot in the film’s namesake village for a school and soccer field.

“We’re putting a plan together to use the

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French film director Valerie Donzelli poses during the photocall of ‘Main dans la Main’ yesterday during the Rome’s film festival at the auditorium ‘Parco della musica’. — AFP

Sony Animation preps sequel to hit ‘ Hotel Transylvania’ ony Pictures Animation will make a sequel to “Hotel Transylania,” one of the year’s surprise hits, a spokesman for the studio told TheWrap.

Tentatively titled “Hotel Transylvania 2,” the film is set for a 2015 release. There is no director attached at the moment. Genndy Tartakovsky, who directed the first one, will be helming Sony Pictures Animation’s “Popeye.” “Hotel Transylvania” opened to $42.5 million at the domestic box office and $50.6 worldwide, setting a new record for a September opening. It has grossed more than $250 million at the global box office so far.

Adam Sandler voiced the character of Dracula, who owns the titular five-star resort designed as a place for monsters to relax away from humans. Other monsters such as Murray the Mummy (Cee Lo Green), Frankenstein’s Monster (Kevin James) and Griffin the Invisible Man (David Spade) descend upon the hotel for the 118th birthday of Dracula’s daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez). — Reuters

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film at screenings to mobilize people,” Wagner said. “We figured out which plot of land we’d buy, we’re going to build a primary school and a secondary school.” Wagner met Lajeunesse after he was filmed in Shen’s “The Philosopher Kings,” a movie about the stories behind college custodians.

He began raising money after hearing the janitor’s lifelong desire to pipe clean water down from a mountain spring and into his village. Students and faculty at Princeton, where Lajeunesse worked after coming to the United States in 1990, held benefit concerts and donated money to help fund the project.

For Lajeunesse, the plan was decades in the works.

“I was seven or eight years old, but I had in my mind that I have to go to school in order to do something to take the people and the town out of the situation,” Lajeunesse told Landmark Theatre audience. “Day by day, day by day, I save, I save, I save but we didn’t know how we were going to start it.”

Then, in January 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, killing more than 250,000 people and destroying the impover-

ished nation’s infrastructure. “The first time we went was about a month after the earthquake,” Vedder said, adding that the humidity in the Caribbean country nearly destroyed the cinematographers’ cameras. “It was hard to be another camera sticking in these people’s faces, right in their lives.”

The troubles didn’t end there. After the pipeline was built and Lajeunesse and his brother installed the spigots, it was clear how the film would begin and finish, but the meat of the story was harder to pare down. “We knew where it would end, but the whole kind of middle part of the narrative was what was tricky,” Shen said. “We had to have discussions every night about the strategy for the next day.”

And, with $30,000 going toward the actual water project, the filmmakers quickly ran out of cash to support themselves during the months of editing. “The story was happening whether we decided to make this film or not,” Wagner said. “We were scrambling to make this happen. We have the money for the project and this is happening and now we don’t have money for the film.”

Still, the filmmakers raised enough to keep the film alive after its spring-to-fall shooting schedule in 2010, working through the footage for a year and creating a few different cuts of the film before finding its final shape.

The movie premiered at Washington’s Silverdocs festival - the same festival where Wagner first met Shen at a screening of “The Philosopher Kings,” beginning a relationship that led directly to “La Source.” The film was also a selection in the International Documentary Association’s annual DocuWeeks showcase, which qualified it for the Academy Awards via week-long engagements in Los Angeles and New York in August.

And though Lajeunesse hasn’t been back to Haiti since July 2010 - his janitorial and taxi jobs, plus four kids, make travel difficult - he said he gets phone calls from his family frequently, updating him on how the town is improving. “Everyone there is so happy,” he said, drawing applause from the audience.

“They have water and they don’t know what to say. All the town, they say, ‘tell everyone thank you for me.’” — Reuters

Taylor Swift to headline ‘New Year’s Rockin’ Eve’

ountry-pop star Taylor Swift will ring in the New Year in the United States as the headline act on TV special “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve,” which will feature a two-hour tribute to late host Dick Clark, organizers said on Friday. Swift, whose new album “Red” racked up more than 1 million copies in first week US sales, will perform live in New York’s Times Square on Dec 31, just before the ball drops to bring in 2013.

The New Year’s Eve music special for ABC television was hosted for four decades by legendary TV and music producer Clark before his death in April at age 82. This year the show will be helmed again by Clark’s recent co-host - “American Idol” host and radio DJ Ryan Seacrest - under the title “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest,” ABC and dick clark productions said.

The evening will kick off with a two-hour tribute to the host of TV dance show “American Bandstand” that will feature clips of Clark’s long career, and remembrances by musicians and industry celebrities. The 51/2 hour show will also feature other musical guests, yet to be announced, and report on New Year celebrations around the globe. — Reuters

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This file photo shows Justin Bieber and girlfriend Selena Gomez standing on stage during the 2011 MuchMusic Video Awards in Toronto. Bieber is no longer Gomez’s ‘Boyfriend,’ a source confirmed to the AP. The split happened last week and distance and their busy schedules were a contributing factor. Eighteen-year-old Bieber is currently touring to promote his album ‘Believe,’ while 20-year-old Gomez is filming a ‘Wizards of Waverly Place’ reunion for Disney Channel called ‘The Wizards Return: Alex versus Alex,’ that will air next year. E! News was the first to report the split. — AP

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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

LIFESTYLE F e a t u r e s

Paraguay action film thrills and challenges new action movie featuring a poor delivery boy whose life depends on the mysterious cargo in his wheelbarrow has Paraguayans excited and proud to see their gritty reality on the big screen for the first time. While audiences have been delighted by “7 Cajas,” the movie shot in a chaotic market in this South American capital has nevertheless jarred many with its focus on the darker angles it shows: a suffocating mix of official negligence, societal indifference, police corruption and organized crime that keeps most of the population mired in poverty.

“I loved the movie,” said 30-year old architect Antonella Cantero. “It is just that for some of us it becomes hard to watch, something that is so tough and so common at the same time, and we prefer to hide.” It’s an odd mix of emotions for people unaccustomed to seeing any cinematic depiction at all of their country. The nation’s movie industry is virtually nonexistent, and US films dominate the country’s fewer than 15 theaters, most of them in the capital of Asuncion.

“Fast and Furious on Wheelbarrows” is how one critic described “7 Cajas,” referring to the action series about heists and street races. It has wowed festival audiences, filled Paraguay’s theaters since August and will soon be distributed around the world. The film is drawing comparisons to India’s “Slumdog Millionaire” in how it gets audiences rooting for a poor slum kid, Victor, a wheelbarrow delivery boy summoned by a small-time crook to carry a mysterious load of boxes across the market for $100 - a huge fortune for a slum kid in a country where the extremely poor don’t make $2.50 a day.

“Listen up, little one. You must protect these seven boxes with your life.

Understand? And when the boxes show up again, I’ll give you the other half,” the crook says, tearing the $100 greenback

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in two. Things quickly get complicated along the slum’s dark corridors, where Victor runs for his life from criminals and police. The fast-paced film has cinematic touches straight from Hollywood, but also an authenticity that comes from being shot on location with a relatively inexpensive camera on a budget of just $650,000.

Except for the central characters,

Paraguayan directors Juan Carlos Maneglia and Tana Schembori told The Associated Press they aimed to make a fun film, not a social statement. “Maybe it was a very unconscious objective,” Maneglia conceded. “It really wasn’t my intention to depict our reality faithfully, but for it to be entertaining, and to have an interesting message.” Celso Franco, the 23-year-old first-time actor who stars

some things,” Franco said.

The evident poverty of the characters is a reality for most of Paraguay’s 6.5 million people. While booming soy prices have raised the country’s gross domestic product for three straight years, a tiny upper class has held onto nearly all the wealth. Democratic governments have failed to budge the 55 percent poverty rate since a 35-year dictatorship ended

In this photo, Celso Franco, who performs in the Spanish language film “7 Cajas”, or “7 boxes” poses for a portrait in Asuncion, Paraguay. —AP nearly everyone who appears in the film lives or works in Municipal Market No 4, a sprawling collection of tents, shacks and building corridors in downtown Asuncion. There, practically anything can be bought or sold, from legal products to smuggled fruit, stolen cellphones and fake DVDs. Even illegal drugs can be purchased clandestinely by buyers who know where to look for them. The characters speak jopara, a street language that mixes Paraguay’s two official languages, Spanish and the native Guarani.

as Victor, said he sees the film as a protest.

“We are so tired of some things; we want people to see our reality,” said Franco, who was raised by his grandmother in Paraguay’s countryside after his parents left for Spain to work and send money home to support him and his brothers. “This is a demonstration of how we are living in Paraguay and we know that it reaches people in power, and at least they’ll feel a little bit guilty, the ones in power now who can change

in a coup in 1989. Of the nation’s impoverished, 31 percent live in extreme poverty, according to UN statistics.

International distributor Shoreline Entertainment is expected to bring “7 Cajas” to audiences around the world next year, shaping first and lasting impressions about Paraguay. “I don’t understand why people come out laughing from the movie theaters like it was a comedy,” said Silvia Mongelos, 31, who works in an environmental foundation. “The movie is a social protest, from beginning to end, of our terrible reality.”

Maneglia, the director, emphatically denies trying to send that message. “It’s too big of a responsibility,” Maneglia said. “I don’t think it encompasses all we are.” Shoreline Vice President Sam Eigen agreed. “Before it focuses on any kind of social issues or relates to a particular situation in Paraguay, the feeling after watching the film is that its first priority is to be fun and entertaining,” Eigen said.

The filmmakers got funding from Paraguay’s government, cultural foundations and a private bank, but still came up short until they won a 100,000-euro ($128,000) “Films In Progress” award at the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain last year, allowing them to finish the low-budget project. The finished film won San Sebastian’s Youth Award this year, along with Best Dramatic Feature at Sydney’s Cockatoo Island Film Festival. Showings then sold out at the Toronto Film Festival in September, where Shoreline outbid other distributors for the international rights. “People couldn’t stop clapping, some had tears in their eyes,” Schembori said of the Toronto event.

“7 Cajas” isn’t among this year’s record 71 submissions for best Foreign Language Film. Without any experience in such matters, the producers and the government’s culture secretary missed the Academy Awards’ submission deadline. The film has sold a national record 300,000 tickets at about $5.50 apiece since “7 Cajas” premiered in August. Its producers now plan to travel the country showing the movie in churches and gathering halls, sometimes to people who have never seen films on a big screen before. They’re also organizing a free showing inside Municipal Market No 4, keeping a promise they made to the workers there. “They feel like this is their movie,” said Schembori. “It is their movie.” —AP

‘Twilight’ fans fill downtown LA ahead of premiere tacey Buckley of Bournemouth, England, decided last year that she had to be in Los Angeles for the premiere of the final “Twilight” film. She saved her money, rounded up some other local Twi-Hards she met online and booked a ticket for the US, where she’ll spend four nights camping out in front of the Nokia Theatre with some 1,500 other “Twilight” fans. “My brother says I need to see a shrink,” said the 29-year-old,

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who wore tiny Union Jack flags in her hair like antennae. “This is the last one, so I said, ‘Let’s do it in style.’”

Fans of the vampire-romance series registered online for a chance to spend the weekend at a temporary tent city that filled the street in front of Staples Center and sprawled across LA Live plaza Friday. They wore “Twilight” buttons and T-shirts, and decorated their tents with homemade posters and photo collages of stars

Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. Campers will be treated to three days of “Twilight” screenings and activities and will get to see the film’s stars arrive for the premiere of “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2” on Monday.

Buckley, who came with three British pals, had a sign on her tent that read: “5,430 miles flown; 90 hours camped; all because we’re Twi-Hard Brits.” Bri-Anne Glover and Stephanie

Joanne Lassiter, of Los Angeles, is seen in her tent at the Twilight fan camp ahead of the world premiere of “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2” on Friday, Nov 9, 2012 in Los Angeles.

A cutout of actor Robert Pattinson is displayed inside the Twilight fan camp. —AP Photos

Dodson, who work together at a coincollecting shop in Florida, also spent a year planning their “Twilight” camp out. Both of them moms, they left their kids with their husbands, closed their store for a week and headed to Southern California. “Everyone thinks we’re crazy,” Dodson said. “We’re never going to have this opportunity again,” Glover said. “This is truly the most exciting experience that I’ve had.”

Wendi Reynolds of Philadelphia was thrilled when she won the chance to participate in the “Twilight” fan camp. The 48-year-old bought a tent, got tips from other fans who’d camped out before and made the trip solo. “I’m doing something that I really, really love,” she said as she put together a scrapbook of pictures and memorabilia from past “Twilight” conventions. “This is the last premiere and I’ve always wanted to come, so I am soaking it up.”

Reynolds said she made fast friends with her tent neighbors and notes that “Twilight” fans aren’t “just a bunch of screaming teenagers.” She was drawn first to the books and then the films because of the love story they tell. “It’s two people in love and it’s just so awesome,” she said. “She just loves him for who he is. Even though he thinks he has a handicap or a flaw, but that’s what she loves about him.”

Life-sized cardboard cutouts of Pattinson and Stewart dotted the tent-filled landscape as various fan groups handed out freebies. Sharon Lottes of Arizona, who runs two “Twilight”-themed websites when she’s not working as a hospital secretary, passed out stickers and pens to fellow fans - just as she has at fan camps for previous “Twilight” premieres.

“You bring stuff. You meet people,” said the 29-year-old. “It’s the world’s biggest sleep-over, and at our age, who gets to do that?” Fans of the series bond easily, she said, and the fan camp is a great place to “let your freak flag fly.”“This is the one place where no matter how intense your fandom is, you bring it,” she said.

A bourgeoning economy also developed inside the tent city, with some fans selling posters, buttons and even a “sparkle spray” to lend a Cullenesque shimmer to the skin. Rain on Thursday and a chilly wind on Friday didn’t dampen campers’ spirits. They participated in a group exercise class Friday morning, then sucked down free Jamba Juice smoothies.

Screenings of the second and third films in the series, “New Moon” and “Eclipse,” were planned for Friday night. Yesterday’s activities included live performances of song from the new film’s soundtrack, and a screening of “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1.” Stars from the franchise are set to visit the fan camp today. “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2” opens in the US on Nov 16. —AP

This 1969 file photo shows Mick Jagger, lead singer of The Rolling Stones, singing during a free, five-hour concert before nearly 250,000 fans in Hyde Park in London, England. —AP

Mick Jagger’s love letters up for auction ove letters written by Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger to American singer Marsha Hunt, discussing poetry and his personal turmoil, will hit the auction block next month. Hunt, with whom Jagger had his first child, Karis, told Britain’s Guardian newspaper she was selling the letters, written in July and August 1969, because she had been unable to pay her bills. “I’m broke,” Hunt, who lives in France, told the newspaper. The Guardian said on Friday the 10 letters would be sold by Sotheby’s on Dec 12.

The auction house values the letters from between 70,000 and 100,000 pounds ($111,000-$160,000). Jagger wrote them to Hunt while filming the Tony Richardson movie “Ned Kelly” in Australia. They are described as showing a sensitive side of the then-young singer, who wrote about the

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poetry of Emily Dickinson, meeting author Christopher Isherwood and an unrealized multimedia project. Jagger’s relationship with Hunt, who is African-American, was kept under wraps until 1972.

“The sale is important,” Hunt told The Guardian. “Someone, I hope, will buy those letters as our generation is dying and with us will go the reality of who we were and what life was.” Hunt has said she was the inspiration for the Rolling Stones’ song “Brown Sugar,” which Jagger wrote while in Australia.

The rock star also cites in the letters the disintegration of his relationship with singer Marianne Faithful, whom he was also dating at the time, and the death of Rolling Stones’ guitarist Brian Jones. —Reuters

Will ‘The Simpsons’ finally win an Oscar? he Simpsons” may get another shot at an Oscar thanks to a short starring Maggie Simpson, the youngest member of the yellow family from Springfield. The Academy has narrowed its list for the Animated Short Award from 56 to 10, it announced on Friday, and that list includes “Maggie Simpson in ‘The Longest Daycare.’” The short, written by “Simpsons” lifers like James L Brooks and Matt Groening, aired before screenings of “Ice Age: Continental Drift.” The four-and-a-half-minute 3D short pits Maggie against her nemesis, Baby Gerald.

The Academy shut “The Simpsons Movie” out of the 2008 awards, prompting the legendary animated show to mock the Oscars before the 2011 awards. The nominations for the 85th Academy Awards will be announced Jan. 10, 2013 and the awards themselves will take place Feb 24 at the Dolby Theatre in

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Hollywood. Here are the nine other short-list nominees for best animated short: “Adam and Dog,” Minkyu Lee, director (Lodge Films) “Combustible,” Katsuhiro Otomo, director (Sunrise Inc.) “Dripped,” Leo Verrier, director (ChezEddy) “The Eagleman Stag,” Mikey Please, director, and Benedict Please, music scores and sound design (Royal College of Art) “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Raul Garcia, director, and Stephan Roelants, producer (Melusine Productions, R&R Communications Inc., Les Armateurs, The Big Farm) “Fresh Guacamole,” PES, director (PES) “Head Over Heels,” Timothy Reckart, director, and Fodhla Cronin O’Reilly, producer (National Film and Television School) “Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare”,” David Silverman, director (Gracie Films) “Paperman,” John Kahrs, director (Disney Animation Studios). —Reuters

Avril Lavigne planning a rock ‘n’ roll wedding

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2012

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Jewelry designer

Alexis Bittar in expansion mode ashion jewelry design is in the midst of a renaissance the likes of which we haven’t seen since the 1980s.

And Alexis Bittar blazed the trail. In the last two decades, the New York-based jewelry designer has gone from selling his signature colorful, hand-carved Lucite pieces on the streets of SoHo to bejeweling leading ladies in Hollywood and beyond, including Lady Gaga, First Lady Michelle Obama, Madonna, Cameron Diaz, Meryl Streep and Rihanna. At the same time, he’s managed to keep the core of his collection in an accessible $225-to$645 price range.

Bittar has also challenged the definition of fashion muse by eschewing prepubescent models in his ad campaigns in favor of women, such as eccentric octogenarian Iris Apfel, “Dynasty” diva Joan Collins and, most recently, “Ab Fab” stars Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley. And now, with a recent influx of cash from private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners, Bittar is ready to expand his vision globally and to introduce a new, higher-priced line of jewelry in sterling silver and gold that will debut next year.

He’s already one of the most prolific jewelry designers in the business, turning out hundreds of pieces each season that incorporate innovative materials such as molten metals, reconstituted coal and Lucite, which was big in the 1950s and is currently having another moment in fashion but which Bittar has built his brand on since the beginning.

For spring’s O’Keeffe collection of bold, Southwesternlooking Lucite cuff bracelets and collars, he took cues from the artist’s skulls and Native American textiles, then layered on Art Deco-ish crystals. Another spring group, Dark Garden, features Lucite beaded necklaces and carved floral brooches with crystal-encrusted thorns, movable blooms and pollen pods. The younger sister collection of the family, named Miss Havisham, includes “man-made druzy quartz” cocktail rings carved from crushed glass embedded in resin.

It’s no wonder that art museum shops caught onto his talents first, followed soon after by high-end boutiques and department stores, including Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale’s. “(Alexis) is responsible for elevating the status of costume jewelry and making it a category that is taken much more seriously in fashion,” says Brooke Jaffe, fashion accessories director of Bloomingdale’s. “He draws in a broad range of customers.”

He understands the need for one-of-a-kind fantasy pieces for photo shoots, as well as commercial pieces for women’s everyday lives. “Most designers get one or the other but not both,” she adds. Along the way, Bittar has created spikey Lucite masks, floor-length necklaces and oversized cross earrings, for the likes of Lady Gaga, Rihanna and Madonna. His work has been shown on the covers of countless magazines, including Vogue, V and W.

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He’s also collaborated on jewelry design with other brands, including Burberry, Michael Kors and Jeremy Scott. Bittar “has a design intelligence,” says stylist and costume designer Arianne Phillips, who has known him for eight years.

“No matter what he chose to do, whether it was design a car or clothes, he’d be capable of it.” Phillips relies on Bittar to create custom pieces for magazine spreads, music videos and films (he made several pieces for “W.E.”). The more classic pieces she wears herself, including crystal-studded Lucite bracelets and pyramid studs. “He created a niche that opened the door for so many other people,” she says, pointing to the new class of cool, young jewelry designers that has emerged in recent years, including Pamela Love, Eddie Borgo and Justin Giunta of Subversive.

Michelle Obama has worn several Lucite brooches by Bittar as well as statement pieces by other brands in his league, including Erickson Beamon and Tom Binns. She has undoubtedly helped put the spotlight on fashion jewelry (and taught women to take risks when wearing it). But Bittar says business has really been on the upswing for the last 12 years. “When I started in the early 1990s, jewelry was at a real low point,” Bittar, 43, said recently over coffee at his showroom in Soho, which is a wonderland of glass cases full of jewelry, a rustic wood table, antique mirror, bird cage and taxidermy ferret - and not far from where he used to work as a street vendor

when he was in his 20s. “It was the age of Jil Sander minimalism. People didn’t know how to wear jewelry, or they were brainwashed that it wasn’t cool. Now, that’s completely changed. What is selling are the most artistic pieces, the more interesting the better.”

Bittar has been nurturing a love of jewelry since he was a child growing up in Brooklyn. On his 13th birthday, his parents, who bought and sold antiques, gave him a tangled mess of jewelry as a gift. He started playing with it, and he was hooked. When he was in his late teens, he bought a box of vintage chandelier parts from the 1920s, all made of Depression-era glass with handmade brass and wire tassels. He started making and selling his own pieces from a table he set up on the corner of Prince and Greene streets.

What hit it big were colorful Lucite button earrings. “I was looking at a lot of Lalique and Bakelite,” Bittar explained. “I was obsessed with clear plastic sheets of acrylic and saw a way of manipulating them, carving them and hand-painting them.” Today, Lucite is 60 percent of his business. Everything is still handmade, only at his factory in Brooklyn, which employs some 250 artisans, instead of on his kitchen table.

“When jewelry first started trending in 1999, there was such a naivete in terms of what was tasteful,” Bittar said. “You could just put a big pendant with a string on it and people would buy it. But now, the sophistication and expectation is higher. People are increasingly wanting to be more individual, and part of that has been driven by the celebration of individual style on blogs.” Individual style is something that Bittar has a particular appreciation for, as seen in the subjects of his recent ad campaigns, Joan Collins and Joanna Lumley among them.

“When you look at the models in fashion magazines, it’s one young girl after another,” Bittar said. “I find it disturbing. That’s not who is buying (fashion). And I feel like there’s a message that if you are not young, you’re not beautiful. “I don’t want to get typecast for doing this,” he said. “But I’m like a kid in a candy store. And I think it’s a cool political message.”

Bittar opened his first namesake boutique in 2004.

Now he has seven, including three in New York and two in the Los Angeles area. He’s looking forward to two more by the end of 2012, now that he has a new business partner to help. And he’s not ruling out launching a few new product categories either. (Home furnishings, perhaps?)

But first up next year, he’ll debut a still-unnamed, higherpriced jewelry line. “I already design three collections, but I live and breathe jewelry, and I have forever.” Indeed, Bittar has amassed such a large personal collection of antique jewelry (which he lovingly discusses on his blog at AlexisBittar.com) that he’s started selling it in his boutiques. “I used to hoard it and keep it rolled up in an old quilt. But now I buy and sell it. On my birthday, on my day off, I go buy antique jewelry. There’s nothing I would

Archaeologists show different artefacts, part of 2,400-year old golden hoard found in an ancient Thracian tomb in northern Bulgarian village of Sveshtari, some 400 kilometer (250 miles) northeast of Sofia. — AP photos

Archaeologists discover Thracian golden jewelry rchaeologists say they have unearthed an almost 2,400year-old golden hoard in an ancient Thracian tomb in northern Bulgaria. The treasure was found on Thursday near the village of Sveshtari, 400 kilometers (250 miles) northeast of Sofia, team leader Diana Gergova said.

She said that among the artifacts, dating back to the end of the fourth or the beginning of the third century BC, were gold jewelry and applications for horse trappings, a tiara with reliefs of lions and fantasy animals, as well as four bracelets and a ring. The Thracians lived in what is now Bulgaria, and parts of modern Greece, Romania, Macedonia, and Turkey between 4,000 B.C. and the 7th century AD, when they were assimilated by the invading Slavs. — AP

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