14th Sep

Souq Safafeer likes the sound of heavy metal

13

Katie Holmes is newest Fashion Week design star

36

FR EE

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Anti-Islam film provokes deadly outrage

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NO: 15568- Friday, September 14, 2012

www.kuwaittimes.net

hundreds protest in front of US embassy See Page 9

KUWAIT: Protesters in Kuwait gathered yesterday in front of the US embassy in Bayan to protest a film insulting Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).

— Photos by Yasser Al-Zayyat

Local FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Local Spotlight

In my view

Size does matter in Kuwait

By Priyanka Saligram

priyankasaligram@kuwaittimes.net

I

t’s no big secret that Kuwait likes things larger than life.

Take a quick look around. You’ll see big phones, massive SUVs, gigantic shopping malls, and sometimes massive egos to go with enormous Botoxed lips. The ‘Bigger is Better’ policy is totally cool - just as long as it doesn’t go on to include people’s bodies as well.

A study published in Bloomberg Businessweek, uses data from the World Health Organization and reveals that Kuwait is the second-most obese nation in the world, behind the US. I guess that’s a no-brainer since the biggest chain of fastfood restaurants in the US have all made their home in Kuwait post the Gulf War. For a country that is obsessed with football, it’s surprising to see that there’s not a lot of movement taking place. No, we’re not talking about moving from one restaurant to the other but actual exercise that would melt the inches.

I know that the easiest excuse to not go to the gym is the classic “I don’t have time to work out” which is always beaten hands down by “Take a look at the weather! Do I look deranged enough to go for a jog in this heat/cold/sandstorm/humidity/dust?” Playing weatherman won’t help you burn calories but kick-starting a sport or some form of activity will, according to numerous studies.

It’s also well-known that all the fitness articles and 101 reasons why dieting and working out is good for you is usually read more by athletic people than the sedentary French Fries-loving populace. This is similar to how all the ‘SMOKING IS INJURIOUS TO HEALTH’ warnings are read only by the

non-smokers as opposed to the ones actually lighting up their tenth cigarette.

Kuwait is food haven with the unbelievable variety of cuisines it has to offer since the country is packed with so many different nationalities. Chinese, Mongolian, Bratislavan, Martian? You got it! It would take willpower of steel to be able to say no to this kind of spread or try portion control. And this is exactly why it is all the more important for us to get off our comfortable backsides and find something that makes us sweat - apart from inflation.

It can’t really be THAT hard to lose weight and get fit considering the number of private clubs here. If you tell me that private clubs are expensive, then just calculate the amount you are blowing on eating out on an annual basis. Now do you still feel the same? And as for the ‘No time’ excuse? Look at it this way: The time you spend restaurant-hopping, cribbing about weight gain, and ultimately shopping for plussized clothing is enough time to drop a couple of dress sizes - if you spent it on the treadmill after ab crunches.

This is the health of the next generation of Kuwaitis that we’re looking at. What’s the point of a country that has everything in excess, including waistlines? Who would want the sparkling youth of a nation to be a bunch of obese, lackadaisical characters who can’t take charge of their lives? Are these the people who will go on to become decision-makers next? What kind of values and discipline will their kids stand to inherit in the future?

The time to grab life by its throat is now. So, get up and get out. Hit the pool at the club, get a membership at the gym, download an app to count the calories you can burn walking or running or just get back to the sport that you love the most. A good incentive would be the thought of looking fit and fabulous at the New Year’s party coming up in three months’ time (provided you draw up a game plan before this month ends and stick to it like your life depends on it).

Ultimately you have nothing to lose. Except the lard.

Kuwait’s my business

S: The loyal and jealous personality

By John P Hayes

local@kuwaittimes.net

I

’ve been married to an S (Steady) personality for 42 years next week, so I’m very comfortable telling you about them. That doesn’t mean, however, that they don’t drive me nuts! I love my wife, but her Steady personality often grates on my nerves. I’m a Dominant personality - the type that likes people, and especially likes to challenge people! If you can’t take it, it’s not my fault!

Well, the S often can’t take it. They do not like conflict, and they’ll go out of their way to avoid risk. Imagine an S driving a car in Kuwait! That’s part of the reason I hired a driver. Let my wife try to tell him what to do!

The best qualities of an S include loyalty, patience and listening skills. If you’ve got a problem, talk to an S! As long as I’m not blaming her, my wife will tell me that I’m right.

Sometimes she’ll even say, “You’re the best!” Depending on the personality mix of the S, they can help you clarify your problem and figure out how to handle it.

The S/D personality, which is rare, may flat out tell you what to do. The S/I personality - not at all unusual - will give you options and try to convince you to come to a conclusion. The Steady/Compliant personality - also not unusual - will help you analyze the problem in tiny segments and come up with what is clearly the right (and only) answer - at least to them.

Of course, successful interaction with you depends on your personality. If you’re more D than anything else, the S will... well, I told you, drive you nuts! If you’re also an S, the two of you may talk for days and not come to a conclusion.

If your personality includes more I than anything else, you may spend your time explaining to the S why your point of view is the better point of view. If you’re a high C, you may not be able to come to any conclusion because there are too many variables to consider.

You can easily offend an S. If they think you don’t like them, or you make them feel insecure, you’ve lost them.

They’re also very jealous. Never, ever compare them, and if you do, be sure to say you like them best! (Believe me!)

You must tell them how much you appreciate them and depend on them. Whether you’re married to an S, or working with an S, there’s no greater friend!

Next week I’ll tell you about the Competent or Compliant personality.

This article is part of a series that discusses personality profiling. Previous articles are available at http://news.kuwaittimes.net. It will help if you have completed a free DISC profile, which you can find at: http://tinyurl.com/664mgw5.

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

The Mama and madam story!

By Muna Al-Fuzai

muna@kuwaittimes.net

M

ost domestic maids working in Kuwait address their mistress or sponsor as ‘madam’ or ‘mama.’ But this does not ensure that the maid will be treated as a daughter or even as a step daughter. She may curtsey before her mistress, but she should not expect to be accorded the same courtesy in return.

I feel sorry for these maids who are forced to work hard by the powerful elite and on the basis of the country’s legal framework, but are still not respected or treated well in return.

The maids often belong to different cultures, some of them are not even used to another woman addressing them with a raised voice regardless of good or bad times, and are even less familiar with the verbal abuse directed at them by their ‘mama’ or ‘madam.’

Some mistresses think that if they don’t beat there maids they are treating them kindly and that their employee should have no reason to complain and that they shouldn’t mind putting up with verbal abuse when their employer ill treats them in anger.

Those women fail to see that such behavior is also regarded as abuse and can be as harmful as the abuse, which is of a physical kind.

I also blame the recruitment agencies who place these maids in these households and don’t prepare them in advance by teaching them how to handle situations like this.

Most maids normally come from a poor background, which fails to educate them on how to deal with their new environment.

It’s very normal that when a person moves to a new country, he or she needs some time to adjust themselves to the people around them, especially those who find employment and have to get used to their bosses. The boss and his wife might not treat this newcomer well, even though he or she has been employed based on their requirements.

Not all sponsors or employers are mean though, some do treat their employees with consideration, while others can be problematic and so can their children. I am of the view that such relationships between the employer and the employee are existent all over the world, but at least in the west or developed countries there are certain laws that govern the process of hiring someone’s services and which also do not give you the license to enslave someone.

Therefore, there is an urgent need for spreading awareness about this issue, especially through the media, about how our domestic servants need to be treated, but I think we are still a long way from attaining the ideal circumstances which will allow fair and kind treatment of our maids.

Local FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Conspiracy Theories

Blame it on the expat

From the editor’s desk

Benefitting from animosity

By Badrya Darwish

By Abd Al-Rahman Al-Alyan Editor-in-Chief

badrya_d@kuwaittimes.net

T

he volume of traffic on Kuwait’s roads is back to normal as it is nearly mid-September and children are slated to return to school, be it private or government-run institutions. Also, holiday travelers, who had gone abroad to avoid the scorching weather are now flying back.

Naturally, traffic has peaked at the levels we are used to seeing in Kuwait during the last couple of years. Bumper-tobumper slow moving traffic is now common, especially near schools, and around the time schools and offices open and close, which is in the morning, at midday and in the evening.

Traffic is generally heavy all day and night, but it is at its worst around 7:30 am and 2:30 pm. This is but natural as every country suffers from traffic congestion. It is especially a problem in big cities like London, Cairo, New York and New Delhi, etc, which are notorious for the dense traffic plying on their roads.

Kuwait is also one of those countries, but that is not my reason for writing this story. I want to share information about a local TV station, which recently invited a Kuwaiti woman as a guest to discuss the traffic congestion being experienced by our country. What was shocking was that the TV station allowed her to make several ruthless and irresponsible statements. For instance, she was quick to blame the expatriate population for all the traffic problems in Kuwait.

She also posed some harsh and unjustified questions such as, “Why are expats driving on our streets? Why do we have to suffer for their sake? Why can’t they take the bus?” etc. The worst example that she used to illustrate this problem was, “The other day I needed the services of a plumber and to my amazement, he came by car. Why should a plumber possess a car? Why are we spending money on the bus transporta-

myopinion@kuwaittimes.net tion system if expatriates are going to block our roads?”

I would like to ask the lady in question if she expects the plumber to transport his heavy work equipment on the bus when he comes to fix the drain in her kitchen. And which bus network is she talking about? Is it in any way equal to the transportation system in countries such as France, New York, Canada or even close to the one existing in neighboring Dubai? Do you see our bus network capable of competing with these countries’ system or even reaching every corner of Kuwait?

I would like to invite the lady to personally come and stand on the street and wait in line for a bus. Let’s see if she is able to find a sheltered bus stop as good as the ones that have been constructed in Dubai which shelter travelers from sandstorms and the heat. It is easy to sit in a luxurious car or on a big comfortable sofa and issue statements about what others should do, and then hold a grudge against expatriates, when you should be blaming the Traffic Department for its inefficiency. If the economy is bad, we blame the expatriates. If traffic is bad, we blame the expats. If we have shortage of water and electricity, guess who we place the blame on? Expatriates. Finally, we also blame them for the government’s political stagnation and an inefficient parliament.

Next, we will blame the expats for the miserable state of our national health and education system, which by the way, we have done in the past. The only thing for which we haven’t blamed them is the country’s weather. Perhaps if they leave, we will have clear blue skies and the temperature in summers won’t exceed 25 degrees Celsius.

Have a nice weekend!

Just kiddin’, seriously

The ‘Innocence of Muslims’ trap

By Sahar Moussa

sahar@kuwaittimes.net

H

e is only known as Sam Bacile. He might be Israeli, Jewish or Coptic Christian, nobody knows. American or Southern California or Egyptian, again, nobody knows. But what I know for sure is his deliberate attempt to shoot a video that intends to cause complete chaos and confusion in the Muslim community all across the world.

The unnecessary video that ridicules Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) was uploaded on YouTube under the name ‘Innocence of Muslims’ in a direct insult, not only to Islam but to every religion that people believe in.

What annoyed me the most is people’s aggressive and violent reaction towards that ridiculous and unethical video which resulted in the death of Christopher Stevens, the American ambassador in Libya and three others who were killed on Wednesday. I do understand people’s anger and loyalty towards their religion but I really wish that people wouldn’t have been naive enough to get dragged in to what I call ‘the trap’.

Sadly, the act of killing innocent people only went on to further stereotype the West’s image of Islam as a ‘violent religion’. The timing was also unfortunate and looked like a bait as it coincided with the 9/11 anniversary.

According to AP, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula and Sam Bacile, the two guys who were responsible for producing and directing the movie mislead the actors and dubbed their voices. They used about 15 key players from the Middle East: Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, and a couple of Coptic Christians from Egypt. This only goes on to prove that the whole movie was perfectly planned against Islam and the people behind it knew exactly what they were doing.

The Christians around the world have condemned the movie and expressed their disapproval against it. This mindless movie did have one positive outcome though: It shed light on the growing understanding and deepening ties between Christians and Muslims.

I wish Muslims all over the world will not fall into such a treacherously well-woven trap again, and act as our religion has taught us to act. Islam teaches us to love, respect and help each other in the time of crises. It teaches us not to kill innocent people and stand by each other when the whole world is against us. Peaceful protests are okay to send the right message across but Islam doesn’t support this kind of a barbaric act. It would have also made more sense if someone had shot an artistic video on Islam and posted it on YouTube instead of this; at least it would have won this media war. We could have made a video that showed what Islam is truly about in an artistic and objective way and posted it on YouTube and won this uncalled for war.

And at the end of the day, innocence of Muslims is something that cannot be definitely defined by anyone.

T

he events against the US embassy that took place in Libya were barbaric, inhumane and disgusting.

The pictures of the murdered US ambassador being dragged by a crowd of people was sad and out of respect for the United States and the people of America, Kuwait Times refrained from publishing them.

There is no excuse for killing an innocent person in such a cowardly manner. If this was a reaction to the film that depicts Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) then what does the ambassador or the American people have to do with that? After all, a handful of idiots do not represent the opinion of an entire nation. If this was a planned attack on America by a group who thought of the US as an enemy, then the ambassador is only a representative or a messenger and since when have people started killing the messenger in a war?

However, this is neither this nor that. I believe this is a planned attack and I wouldn’t be surprised if the route of the film against Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) is connected to the route of the attack on the US embassy in Libya and the timing has been meticulously planned instead of it being just a coincidence or a reaction.

It’s strange how all of a sudden there are some groups in the Arab Islamic world and the Western Christian world who are trying to create hatred between the two sides. Why now and why all of a sudden do we have so much of negative propaganda like the burning of the Quran, the burning of the cross or blasphemous cartoons and drawings that mock prophets?

I can’t help but believe that these groups are serving the agenda of a third party that benefits from the creation of animosity between the two sides. This third party is moving these groups at the right time to create hatred and more problems, which could build up in the future.

This style of dirty planning since the days of the Prophet (PBUH) belonged to a certain sect of people who I feel are the only ones benefitting from the current situation now. This is just my opinion and I leave the rest for you to decide.

KUWAIT: A color-intense skyline at sunset in Kuwait yesterday. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat

Local FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

The store, which is situated away from the crowded area of Mubarakiya, is still replete with noisy smashing, pounding or burning sounds that can be overheard in the street nearby

By Ben Garcia

W

hen you hear the word ‘metal’, it’s easy to associate it immediately with a popular genre of music. In Souq Safafeer, the store that deals with iron and steel products, it’s indeed a form of music to the ears - especially when the business is making good money from it.

High disposable incomes, growing purchasing power and frequent travel have sparked growth in businesses that were set up in the pre-oil era. Despite increasing competition for iron and steel products, the Souq Safafeer store, whose history can be traced back to the early 1950s is still thriving in Kuwait.

According to frequent customers at Souq Safafeer, which was once a popular shopping destination for fishermen and pearl

divers, the post-oil era has not dampened the store’s business.

Earlier, Kuwaitis relied heavily on trading pearls and other marine products for survival. Their main produce was traded with neighboring countries such as India and Iran, whose consumers were growing rapidly. But when commercialization, owing to the predominance of the oil industry began, the oncethriving production of iron and steel products declined. Many shops in Souq Sharq shut down and numerous businesses related to pearl-diving sank.

A small complex of old buildings opposite the AlTijaria tower in Sharq located in downtown Kuwait city still stands. Tiny as it may be, the businesses it houses are still alive and prospering as usual. The place, once famous for pearl diving and a fishermen’s haunt, has transformed into a place where different types of iron products are still sold today, such as storage boxes or tin trunks, a variety of traditional cooking ranges, barbeque stands and exhaust funnels.

Nowadays, the place is visited either by people who are finally moving out of the country or people who wish to buy cheaper or affordably priced cargo baskets or boxes, a shop assistant said. The store is also frequented by various cargo companies and marketing personnel from the smallest to the biggest shopping or departmental stores in Kuwait, who negotiate a price for orders placed by their respective businesses. The store, which is situated away from the crowded area of Mubarakiya, is still replete with noisy smashing, pounding or burning sounds that can be overheard in the street nearby.

The Souq Safafeer store is pictured in Kuwait.

— Photos by Ben Garcia

Local FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

“This place is a market for selling and displaying iron and steel products. But this place is also a factory for these products we sell. We produce our own items, although we order some raw materials from abroad,” Abdul Hakim, the Pakistani owner of the store told Friday Times. He added that the original owner of the store entrusted the management and operations of the shop to him eight years ago.

“Business is good. Trunks or tin boxes are our best selling item out of all the iron and steel products we have here. Cargo companies place orders for 10 to

20 pieces each week, so you can imagine our income, plus some individual customers directly visit us and buy these boxes. Business is quite good really,” he added.

In addition to the variety of kitchen wares and other iron and steel products, Hakim also accepts personalized orders from Kuwaiti families, who want to decorate their gardens with swings and see-saws for their children. Souq Safafeer caters to individuals as well as shops, which place bulk orders for anything related to iron and steel products.

Local FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

W

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

— Photos by Badrya Darwish

Local FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

By Nawara Fattahova

F

ahad Al-Adwani claims to be the youngest ‘Tweep’ or twitter user in Kuwait with the highest number of followers at over 170,420. He is only 12 years old and has accumulated more than 58,000 tweets since he launched his Twitter account.

He follows 83 Twitter accounts, which he says belong to his friends.

Youngest Kuwaiti ‘tweep’ gains cult following The 12-year-old stated that for him bed-time was tweet-time. “I send about 100 tweets a day, and mostly in the evening before I go to bed. I write about different issues pertaining to mostly jokes and politics. I even tweet about religious issues, comment on art and entertainment such as local soap operas.

Sometimes my new followers for each day amount to as many as 800. I have also noticed that my followers increase during the weekend,” Al-Adwani said, while talking about how he got interested in Twitter.

Al-Adwani’s followers are from different countries and belong to different age groups. “Most of my followers are from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. I also have some followers from the United States and other countries,” he said, elaborating that the nature of his tweets might be the reason behind the diversity of his followers. “My tweets are not limited to local issues, which allows people from neighboring countries to understand my point of view,” he stated.

The seventh grader, who studies at a private Arabic school tweets both in Arabic and English. Until last year, he was studying at the American Creativity Academy (ACA). “My English language skills have helped me in my reading, research and surfing the Internet, from where I get most of my information,” Al-Adwani pointed out.

Fahad Al-Adwani

His Twitter account has also become attractive for advertisers. “I have received an offer from a company to buy my account for KD 4,500, but I refused to sell it.

With this large a following, I can see good prospects for earning advertising revenue, as all my 170,000 followers will read my tweets, which should enable the advertiser to reach all these people,” explained AlAdwani.

What initially started as a hobby has turned into a money-making venture. “Tweeting is my hobby. But my tweet’s success is not my priority,” he said, adding that he had earlier received an offer to launch an advertising campaign on his Twitter account from a young Kuwaiti, who had just opened a new restaurant. Al-Adwani accepted the offer for KD 1,000.

However, Twitter’s fame, Al-Adwani predicts, could be short-lived. “I call Twitter a trend or something new, which is attractive in the beginning and becomes popular, just like any other program or game. I believe with time, new programs and tools will be introduced and Twitter will become passe and some people might even forget it,” he said, giving a personal example to illustrate his meaning. “After less than a year and a half, I also got bored, and some days I only tweet thrice and sometimes I send out more than a 100 tweets,” he said.

What is surprising is that none of his family members or relatives follow him on Twitter. “In fact, my family does not encourage my hobby, especially after they realized the extent of my popularity, as they think it will adversely affect my studies,” he said. This, he says, is one of the reasons why he has decided to stop being active on Twitter when his new academic school year began, a decision on which he reneged on only after a few hours.

Al-Adwani also thinks that Twitter users in Europe or the United States are not serious or very useful.

“Many times, for instance, I check Twitter timelines emanating from USA and I only see users sending requests to others to follow them or re-tweeting other people’s tweets, which is all false. People in these countries are not frequent or innovative users as we are in this region,” he said.

Besides tweeting, Al-Adwani also loves playing football and has already been to the Barcelona Academy and travelled with them to a football camp in France and later in Dubai.

Fahad Al-Adwani’s Twitter account is @Brdcasts.

Local FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Postal employee’s holiday causes stamp shortage Service paralyzed for a month

By Nawara Fattahova

D

Raju Palatty, an Indian florist offers his contribution to a Roma who lives on begging in Rome. Raju said he lost his former job as a Bed and Breakfast inn caretaker in the wake of recession but is not planning to leave Italy in the hope of an economic re-emergence.

When in Rome, some expats do unlike Romans

By Sunil Cherian

T

hey like to call themselves assistants. Maids, servants, domestic workers and caretakers of the elderly are not in the vocabulary of their job designation. But assistants in Rome and in other parts of Italy, many of them are expats from Kerala, consider their job dignified. “Unlike in the Gulf”, an assistant told me when I met him in a hospital in Rome this summer.

He was at the hospital as an attender to an elderly Italian. The hospital takes care of the man, the assistant said. “My job is to give updates to the son”. The son, like many Italians, is vacationing in the north. “But I did not receive last month’s salary”, the assistant said.

Below the beautiful maple trees on the brick pavements, past the footpath restaurants and public fountains, you may come across assistants running errands.

Time is money here. The economy has not assisted them from their shattered dreams. Like the leaves on the pavements, their plans are trampled on by the troubles of the time. There are some assistants whose wives are in Kuwait working as nurses. But after embracing a financial culture different from that of Kuwait, those nurses do not regret leaving a good salaried job in Kuwait. They hope the economy will resurrect soon, like the phoenix.

Unlike the assistants who have the ‘capacita’ to do two-shift (day and night) jobs, the expats who serve at the petrol stations find the economy drenching them.

The indoor assistant job is comfortable compared with the long duration standing job of a petrol station helper. The assistants can do the kitchen shopping for two weeks in a day (frozen food instead of fresh) and cut on energy spending while saving on discounts at the stores.

The petrol station servers who make sure the drivers do not need to bother about coming out of their car in an otherwise automated system, live on the tips the car owners offer. When the gas price goes up, the tip always comes down. As you stroll on the modern looking ancient city of Rome, like a traditionally garmented mannequin, you will also meet another group in the expat force. They are the driver-cum-tour operators who run between the catacombs and the Colosseum.

They live on tourists like you and me. It is not surprising that in summer, people who are on the streets of Rome are not Romans but tourists. Rome is a gigantic home for any tourist.

uring the past one month, Kuwait’s post office has run out of stamps that need to be affixed on larger parcels, and people looking to send packages abroad are met with the same response offered by postal officials: “We don’t have stamps.”

A Friday Times investigation indicates that the stamp shortage has been caused by the absence of an employee, who is responsible for the distribution of stamps across post offices in Kuwait. According to an official at the Ministry of Communication, which is responsible for the smooth functioning of all post offices in Kuwait, the person who is in charge of supplying stamps to the post offices was on holiday. “He has only arrived today. So most probably, the problem of stamp shortage should be resolved within the next week,” an official, who heads the Department of Public Relations at the Ministry of Communication stated, but chose to remain anonymous as he is not authorized to speak on the matter.

Lisa, a European expat, has been shuttling back and forth between post offices for the past one month. She was turned away thrice and was even referred to other post office branches on a few occasions. “I have lost count of the number of trips I made to post offices in Mishref, Salmiya and Hawalli,” she stated. “The only response I kept receiving was that stamps were still unavailable and that my two parcels were yet to be dispatched,” she added.

Another expatriate who regularly posts packages to Europe shared the same experience. “It has been terrible trying to find a way to use the post office. No wonder it has the reputation of being so inefficient. It just does not work at all. How did they manage to run out of stamps used for sending parcels?”

An employee at Kaifan Post office, which is the biggest post office in Kuwait, explained that any parcels or express mail was not being sent because stamps were unavailable.

The employee also pointed out that the Ministry of Communication is responsible for this lapse. “We’ve been facing this shortage since Ramadan, and I still don’t have a clue as to how long this is expected to continue. It seems that the problem will take some time to be sorted out,” the employee told the Friday Times.

The same employee referred this reporter to a private company that competes with Kuwait’s state-run post office. Providing the number of the company, the employee vouched for their reliability and services. “Customers can also use the services of popular courier companies, but those are much more expensive,” she added.

However, an employee of the private company asserted that their prices are affordable. “The price depends on the country that the parcel is bound for. For instance, sending a package weighing one kilogram to Germany will cost costs KD 8, while posting the same package to Egypt will be cost KD 7, and will cost KD 6 for Dubai. It takes around four working days for the parcel to be delivered to Europe,” the employee of the company, which is located in the Rai area, noted. The employee denied having any connection with the post office.

Only a few large post offices in Kuwait provide the facilities for sending parcels. These include the postal centers in Kaifan, Salmiya, Hawally, as well as the main post office in

KUWAIT: Kaifan post office is pictured.

Kuwait City, an employee working at the Shamiya post office pointed out.

However, the Dasman post office does not ship parcels but does sell stamps. “We sell stamps of all values. Since we don’t send parcels, I can guide customers to find the stamps that they need based on the weight of the parcel and also direct them to the post offices which ship parcels.

They come to us, buy the stamps they need and then go back to the relevant post office and post their parcel from that center,” he said.

The Salmiya post office is however, offering limited services these days. It does allow customers to ship packages from its facility, but does not have the required stamps for sale. The only employee available at the post office told this reporter that stamps will hopefully be available by next week. “But we are not very sure.”

40% kids obese in Kuwait KUWAIT: Dr Ali Al-Muhanna, the head of the Department of Physiotherapy at the Adan Hospital, said that according to a latest survey based on children aged between 7 and 11 years, 40 out of 100 children have been found to be

obese. He added that around 13 percent of these children are underweight and suffer from malnutrition.

The survey, which was conducted on 400 children, has also revealed that 35 percent of children have a curved

upper back, and 27 percent showed signs of a bent spinal column, owing to a wrong posture during the performance of their daily activities and also as they carry their school bag the wrong way. — Al-Rai

Local FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Rafael Roncaglioglo

Two emerging regions with common ambition

KUWAIT: Protesters gathered for a sit-in in front of the US embassy in Bayan yesterday evening. — Photos by Yasser Al-Zayyat

Hundreds protest in front of US embassy in Kuwait Kuwaiti clergymen ask MPs to leave

By Rafael Roncaglioglo

By Abdellatif Al-Sharaa

LIMA: On October 1 and 2, 2012, my country will have the honor of welcoming to Lima the Heads of State and government of the Arab and South American countries, along with numerous business leaders from both regions, for the III ASPA Summit. During a time of economic uncertainty in other parts of the world, these regions bring together an enormous potential yet greatly unexplored - for economic exchange and cooperation.

For sure, each region faces its own daring challenges. South America, where the combination of a stable and expansionary macroeconomic environment and natural resources has created an attractive setting for the international investors looking for emerging market opportunities, but still confronts the need to transform its high growth rates of recent years into sustainable development and social inclusion. The Arab region traverses a historic period of social and political transformation, along with an evolution and diversification of its economic structures.

Globalization has brought our societies closer.

Popular culture, sport and music are reinvigorating today the pluri-centennial common heritage of our past. Our young generations are more eager than ever to learn each other’s languages and traditions and to build friendships through travel and social media.

In this context, the ASPA Summit is an opportunity for the Arab and South American countries to show to the world a common ambition: to look beyond the current domestic challenges and to work together to shape the new global world, building a relationship of strong dialogue, trade, investment, cooperation and culture between our people. It is indeed time for Arabs and South Americans to bring closer their vibrant cultures and emerging economies.

KUWAIT: Hundreds of Kuwaiti citizens answered the call for a sit-in in front of the American embassy in Bayan yesterday in protest against a US-made movie that insults Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). The crowd chanted slogans against the heinous act and rejected the whole content of the movie. The security authorities placed barricades around the embassy to keep the crowd from reaching the embassy gates.

The protest was held amidst news about the evacuation of diplomats from American embassies across the Middle East following the death of the American envoy to Libya Christopher Stevens who was killed after a mob angered by the movie mocking Islam stormed the Consulate in Benghazi.

Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry sent special forces to the area to stop protesters from reaching the American embassy as the number of protesters increased.

Several clergymen including Nabil AlAwadhi, Hajaj Al-Ajmi and MP Falah AlSawagh addressed the crowd condemn-

Rafael Roncaglioglo is the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Peru.

KUWAIT: Security sources revealed that officer Rakad Al-Mutairi, who is accused of killing his colleague, non-commissioned officer Saud AlHussaini at the Alqadisiya police station on Tuesday, confessed to his crime by admitting that, “personal differences” forced him to kill him.

Sources added that the public prosecutor has charged the suspect with premeditated homicide, as he buried the victim at the Jahra cemetery after committing the murder. The victim was rushed to the Amiri Hospital in a critical condition, late on Tuesday night. Doctors tried to save his life but his condition deteriorated fast and he succumbed to his injuries by dawn on Wednesday. The suspect reportedly got angry after getting into a verbal exchange with the victim, following which the accused went to the police station’s armoury to get a weapon. He then waited for the victim, and shot him when he entered a corridor. The accused then escaped from the scene. Officials expressed their disappointment at the horrific incident which took place inside a police station - which is supposed to grant refuge to the oppressed - not where officials take the law into their own hands.

ing the movie.

Verbal exchanges also took place between protesters and some MPs who attended the sit-in. The clerics rejected the comments made by MPs and requested them to leave. Scholar Nabil Al-Awadhi tweeted that those who gathered in front of the embassy were well-organized and disciplined and that they wanted simply to deliver a message to the US embassy. In the meantime, there were few who attempted to mute the microphone and prevent the crowd from hearing. Attempts to sabotage the event failed. “I believe that what some scholars and MPs said is enough and should leave to foil the attempts of those who have other goals,” Al-Awadhi said on his Twitter account.

MP Mohammad Hayef asked the crowd to restrain themselves and not clash with security men. In attendance were MPs Falah Al-Sawagh, Khalid AlTahous, Khalid Shikhair, Usama Al-Shahin, Musallam Al-Barrak, Bader Al-Dahoom, Nayef Mirdas, Faisal Al-Yahya, Ali AlDiqbasi and several members from the majority bloc. Their words remained unheard by the crowd who refused to lis-

Police officer admits to murdering colleague Kuwaiti robbed of KD 10,000 by ‘friend’

Asian robbed of pick-up truck An Asian expatriate told Shuwaikh police that he was robbed by two unidentified people while he was leaving a spare-parts store. He alleged that both of them sped away with his pick-up truck while he was exiting the store. The police are currently investigating the case.

KUWAIT: Minister of Health Ali Al-Obaidi is pictured inaugurating a new Intensive Care Unit at the Contagious Diseases Hospital. — KUNA

ten to their speeches.

Among the MPs who left the gathering were Al-Sawagh, Shukhair, Diqbasi, Dahoom and Tahoos. MP Ali Al-Diqbasi said on his Twitter account: “I left the gathering that condemned the insult of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). I hope that the Muslim legal authorities will follow the matter and take the culprits to court and not be satisfied with condemnations and sit-ins. He posted: “The insult of our Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) is not only an aggression on Islam but also on entire humanity.”

MP Falah Al-Sawagh said “We came today because what took place made us sad. There is not a Muslim who accepts that and we only want to deliver a peaceful message.”

Al-Sawagh said “America, enough ridicule of Muslims and the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and we ask the Arab people to move and stop this action.

Meanwhile, MP Mohammad Hayef said “When the issue comes to the insult of our Messenger, we put friendship with the United States of America under our shoes”.

Kuwaiti robbed by Arab ‘friend’ A Kuwaiti citizen reported to the police that a migrant stole KD 10,000 from his account by forging bank documents and transferring the money to his own account . The Kuwaiti man realized what was happening after

he noticed his bank balance dropping steadily. When he spoke to the concerned authorities, he was told that KD 10,000 had been transferred from his account to another account. The citizen said that he then realized that his friend had taken the money, who later admitted to stealing as he needed the money to deal with an adverse situation back home.

The friend also reportedly promised to pay back the stolen money, but nine months have elapsed since then and he has failed to stick to his promise, the Kuwait man said. The case has been referred to Hawally detectives.

Cash cards stolen An electronic company official told Nugra police that thieves allegedly entered his store through an air-conditioning vent and stole cash cards worth KD 160 and KD 1,580. Authorities are investigating the allegation.

Robbers with sweet tooth An Iranian grocer told the Hawally police that unidentified people broke into his store and stole goods worth KD 230. He said he found the door to his store broken and discovered that mobile phone recharging cards worth KD 100, KD 90 in cash and candy worth KD 40 were missing.

The police are looking into the case.

Missing ‘mandoub’ A company official specializing in the sale of honey told the Sabah Alnasser police that his ‘mandoub,’ who was supposed to deliver KD 1,300 worth of honey on September 4 to the Sabah Alnasser cooperative hasn’t done so and in fact, has gone missing. Even his mobile phone is switched off, the man alleged. The police are investigating the case. — Al-Qabas, Al-Anbaa

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Falklands population ‘stagnant and aging’

15

California man confirms role in anti-Islam movie

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Mexico Navy captures top drug boss ‘El Coss’

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Ayman Al-Zawahiri speaks from an undisclosed location in an Al-Qaeda’s as-Sahab video released September 10, 2012 and titled ‘The Lion of Knowledge and Jihad: Martyrdom of Al-Sheikh Abu Yahya Al-Libi’. (Inset) This still image shows Al-Qaeda American spokesman Adam Gadahn in a video, speaking from an undisclosed location. — AFP

Qaeda posts video of 9/11 hijackers Zawahiri blasts new Islamists Arab governments

News

in brief

Saudi beheads citizen RIYADH: Saudi Arabia beheaded one of its nationals yesterday after he was convicted of murder, the interior ministry said. Mohammed AlShahrani was found guilty of shooting dead another Saudi, Yehya Al-Zahrani, in a dispute, a ministry statement carried by the official SPA news agency said. The beheading in the southwestern Asir region brings to 58 the number of people executed in Saudi Arabia so far this year, according to an AFP tally based on official reports.

Amnesty International says 79 people were put to death in the Gulf kingdom last year.

Senegal’s parliament votes to scrap Senate DAKAR: The National Assembly of Senegal’s parliament has passed laws to scrap the Senate, or upper house, and the post of vice-president, the APS news agency reported yesterday. Both are widely considered too expensive for the poor West African country’s budget. President Macky Sall last month announced emergency legislation to scrap the Senate and turn over its annual budg-

et of almost eight billion CFA francs (12 million euros, $16 million) to dealing with the impact of deadly floods. At least 13 people have been killed in several weeks of flooding and thousands left homeless. The post of vice-president, created in June 2009 by former president Abdoulaye Wade but never filled, was allocated an annual budget of more than two billion CFA francs (three million euros).

China lift plunge kills 19 BEIJING: At least 19 people were killed when a lift at a construction site in central China crashed to the ground yesterday after plunging 30 floors, local authorities said. The incident happened in Wuhan city, Hubei province, at a housing compound currently under construction, a city spokeswoman said. “The accident occurred at the construction site, the elevator was being used for construction purposes,” said the spokeswoman, who declined to be named, confirming that 19 people died. Most of the people in the lift were construction workers, the Xinhua news agency said, adding that everyone in the elevator was killed.

DUBAI: Al-Qaeda yesterday posted an online video of two plane hijackers of the September 11, 2001 suicide attacks, which they said were part of a war to drive US forces out of the Arabian Peninsula. Salim Al-Hazmi and Khalid AlMihdar, two of the 19 extremists who hijacked the four airliners, appeared reading their wills, in a video produced

by As-Sahab media arm of Al-Qaeda and provided by the US-based SITE Monitoring Services.

Mihdar, dressed in a military jacket and a white turban, with a machinegun to his left, said he was reading his will on 21 Safar 1422, on the Islamic calendar, which was April 26, 2001. Mihdar is believed to have landed in the United States in January 2000. “Arab leaders... have gone far in betraying their nation and have permitted Christian Americans into the land of the two holy sites” of Makkah and Medina, he said. The operation was “part of jihad (holy war) campaign against the United States and its supporters,” said Hazmi in a separate message. “It is to restore dignity for Muslims and to drive you out of the Arabian Peninsula,” said Hazmi, who

appeared with a patchy beard, wearing a brown thawb garment and a black turban. “The Aqsa mosque (in Jerusalem) is being desecrated... and the Arabian Peninsula is full of US and British troops that fight Allah,” he said in a clear reference to foreign troops based at the time in Saudi Arabia. Nearly 3,000 people were killed when Al-Qaeda hijackers slammed two airliners into New York’s World Trade Centre.

Another plane hit the Pentagon, while the fourth slammed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers fought the hijackers. The two assailants appeared in a video titled “The Emerging Sun of Victory Over the Victorious Ummah and the Vanquished Crusades,” which comprises mainly of another audio message by Al-Qaeda’s leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri slamming Muslim countries for not being able to defeat Israel. “These governments cannot liberate Palestine. In fact, they are helping in keeping occupation in Palestine,” he said, condemning the new Arab governments run by Islamists for “declaring that they will keep (peace) agreements” with Israel.— AFP

International FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

US tackles militancy in Arab Spring countries A re-think of Middle East policy WASHINGTON: The Obama administration must stay the course in Arab Spring countries and help them thwart rising militancy, experts said yesterday, even as the deaths of four diplomats grimly highlighted the dangers lurking in the young democracies. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both vowed to stand by Libya as it emerges from four decades of dictatorship under Moamer Kadhafi, despite the brutal militant attack on the US mission in Benghazi.

“The attack will not break the bonds between the United States and Libya,” Obama pledged after Ambassador Chris Stevens and three co-workers were killed in the violence unleashed in a raid late Tuesday.

But within hours came calls for a re-think of Middle East policy, and pleas for a greater US role in helping the Syrian opposition, as it did in Libya, appeared likely to go unheeded for some time. “This kind of event underlines the... extent to which there are militant groups in most of these Arab Spring countries which are going to be looking for ways to exploit the new political Wild East situation,” John Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma said.

“And that’s going make presidents think two or three times before they jump on board the liberty bandwagon.” With Obama fighting to be elected to a second White House term on November 6, risky decisions likely to be unpopular with the war-weary American public look headed for the backburner. But experts insisted on a longer-term view, stressing that new societies were still being built in those countries that have thrown off the shackles of decades-long dictatorships. “The Arab Spring is still in motion. It is not over. The Arab Spring

has delivered positive results and negative results,” said Ed Husain, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

It was “the first time in almost 70 years that we have seen mass protests across the Arab world that more or less want to have better ties with the rest of the world but also dignity in Arab societies, and that can only be a positive thing.” The United States should stay engaged and work with allies to try to stabilize countries such as Yemen, where the new leadership is battling the deadliest branch of Al-Qaeda with US help, agreed Middle East expert Brian Katulis on a conference call by the National Security Network. “Some may say that this situation in Libya would lead to further hesitations or disengagement from the Syria issue, and I don’t think that’s what will happen. I don’t think it’s the right path,” he added.

American leadership in the region is “essential,” said Katulis, adding that “it’s not just talking about our leadership, it’s actually standing by the diplomats and others who are risking their lives day in and day out to do this work.” The first blush of the Arab Spring has long faded and countries are getting down to the hard work of building a democracy from scratch. “I think that the growth of democracy in the Middle East is going to produce a lot more of this, and in some ways we’ve got to tighten our seatbelts, because democracy is going to bring forward the anti-Americanism that is widespread in the Middle East,” said Landis.

In Syria, rebel opposition groups having been fighting since March 2011 to oust President Bashar Al-Assad in a civil war that human rights observers say has cost

some 26,000 lives. Despite increasing concerns about atrocities on human rights and infiltration by militants possibly linked to Al-Qaeda, Washington has stood firm in its refusal to arm the Syrian opposition. “Obama is very loathe to get more deeply involved in Syria because he doesn’t want to be on the same side as AlQaeda,” Landis said.

Washington director for Human Rights Watch Tom Malinowski said the attack in Benghazi should not be allowed to derail US efforts in Libya, insisting the country “has been making a good deal of progress for the last several months.” He highlighted the recent successful elections during the call with the National Security Network, but warned that “the Achilles heel of this revolution in Libya has always been the continuing power of armed militia groups.” “The vast, vast majority of Libyans are disgusted and ashamed about what has happened.

They are not responsible for what happened,” Malinowski said.

However, he warned it was the responsibility of Libyan leaders to confront the armed militant groups to prevent such attacks happening again. “It’s absolutely necessary to save their revolution and their ability to have a relationship with the United States,” Malinowski added. Veteran Republican Senator John McCain put it bluntly, telling Fox News that if the US withdraws its support, the region could become a breeding ground for Al-Qaeda. If the Benghazi attack provokes the United States to end “our support for these people, to leave them on their own without our assistance and guidance, then the bad guys win, then the Islamists and terrorists win,” he said. —AFP

Tallest ever dog revealed in Guinness Book of Records

LONDON: A Great Dane who towers 2.2 meters on his hind legs is named the tallest dog ever recorded in the latest Guinness Book of World Records launched yesterday. The giant canine from Michigan in the United States eats an entire 14-kilogram (30-pound) bag of food every day and weighs in at 70.3 kilograms, the 57th edition of the global records book says.

Measuring 1.12 meters (44 inches) from paw to withers-the point between the shoulder blades at which the official height of a four-legged mammal is judged-he is officially the tallest dog ever recorded, the volume claims.

‘Guinness World Records 2013’ says the humongous hound breaks the record of Giant George, another Great Dane who is one inch shorter. “The most common thing people ask is: ‘Is that a dog or a horse?’” says the three-year-old’s owner Denise. “We had to get a van to be able to transport him, oh, and if he steps on your foot he leaves bruises!”

The book-the latest edition of the world’s best-selling copyrighted seriesalso names Oklahoma Sam, a four-yearold American Mammoth Jackstock, as the tallest living donkey on the planet.

Measuring 1.55 meters (5 feet 1 inch) from hoof to withers, she dwarfs the average common donkey (80 centimeters, 2 feet 8 inches) and the average for her own larger breed (1.22 meters, 4 feet). The four-year-old record-breaker lives in Watsonville, California, where she shares her one acre of land with a macaw, duck, goose and four cats.

The new book, which claims to reveal “the latest and greatest records in the

MICHIGAN: A handout picture released by Guinness World Records yesterday shows 3-year-old Great Dane called Zeus from Otsego, Michigan in the US which is featured in the new Guinness World Records 2013 book as the tallest dog ever. — AFP Wouter van den Bosch, creator of universe”, recognizes the world’s shortest woman as 18-year-old Joyti Amge the Guinness World Records heaviest from the central Indian city of Nagpur. rideable bicycle at 750 kilograms (1650 The book bestows the title of the pounds) said: “Once I got this tyre, I world’s oldest gymnast to 86-year-old started thinking about what I could Johanna Quaas, born on November 20, make with it. “I was already planning 1925 and a regular competitor in the on making something I could move amateur Landes-Seniorenspiele compe- myself, so I went and saw some pictition in Saxony, Germany. “I do think I tures of the old Penny Farthing, and could be seen as a role model,” Quaas well, the idea was born.” The Guinness said. “Especially for older people, like Book of World Records, first published myself, it’s important that they start easy in 1955, has sold more than 120 million and they build up the foundation and copies to date in 22 languages and in over 100 countries. — AFP they build up the physique.”

Gaza tunnels damaged but not crippled in crackdown RAFAH: Egypt’s closure of scores of cross-border smuggling tunnels has affected the flow of goods into Gaza but has not dealt the knockout blow widely expected by traders and officials. Following an attack which killed 16 Egyptian border police in the Sinai on August 5, Cairo moved swiftly to block off or destroy many of the tunnels on suspicion that some of the assailants had used them to sneak in from the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

The move sparked panic in Gaza with many fearing it would cut off a vital lifeline which brings in food, clothes, building materials and fuel into the impoverished Palestinian territory subjected to an Israeli blockade since 2006. Last week, the Egyptian military said its troops had destroyed 31 of the 225 main tunnels running under the border, although security sources in Cairo had earlier told AFP they had blocked or destroyed at least 120 of them.

But initial fears that the closure would have a devastating impact on the territory have so far proven unfounded, with economy minister Alaa Al-Rafati saying it had only “partially affected the economy.” “So far, we haven’t had any shortages,” he told AFP, saying Gaza’s dependency on the tunnels was far less than it was in the past when both the Rafah border and the Israeli-run Kerem Shalom crossing were closed.

“When the crossings were closed, we depended fully on tunnels, but now we have a 50-percent dependency on them, particularly for building materials because the Israeli side still bars them from entering Gaza,” he said.

Cairo’s crackdown on the smuggling network has affected the tunnels trade in different ways, with Abu Anas who owns a fuel tunnel telling AFP his business was only temporarily affected by the closure. “We were affected but not severely,” he said. “Fuel wasn’t affected much because it is smuggled through underground hoses but other tunnels, which are used for building materials or travelers, were affected.” But the involvement of Egyptian security forces meant that fewer than half of his employees were able to work, he said. “Less than 50 percent of the workers are working now because of this harassment,” he said.

For Abu Mohammad, who runs a tunnel specializing in building materials such as gravel, steel and cement, the impact of the Egyptian clampdown has been much tougher.

“Of course we have been affected. —AFP

International FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Muslim protesters Anti-Islam film provokes deadly outrage

SANAA: Yemeni protesters climb the gate of the US Embassy during a protest about a film ridiculing Islam’s Prophet Muhammad (PUBH) yesterday. — AP SANAA: Demonstrators attacked the US embassies in Yemen and Egypt yesterday in protest at a film they consider blasphemous to Islam and American warships headed to Libya after the death of the US ambassador there in related violence earlier in the week. Hundreds of Yemeni demonstrators broke through the main gate of the heavily fortified compound in eastern Sanaa, shouting “We sacrifice ourselves for you, Messenger of God”.

Earlier they smashed windows of security offices outside the embassy and burned cars.

“We can see a fire inside the compound and security forces are firing in the air. The demonstrators are fleeing and then charging back,” one witness told Reuters. A security source said at least 15 people were wounded, some by bullets.

An embassy spokesman said its personnel were reported to be safe.

In Egypt, protesters hurled stones at a police cordon around the US embassy in central Cairo after climbing into the embassy and tearing down the American flag. The state news agency said 13 people were injured in violence which erupted on Wednesday night after protests on Tuesday. A day earlier, Islamist gunmen staged a military-style assault on the US consulate and a safe house refuge in Benghazi, eastern Libya.

The US ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died in the assault, carried out with guns, mortars and grenades. Eight Libyans were injured.

US President Barack Obama vowed to “bring to justice” the Islamist gunmen responsible and the US military moved two navy destroyers towards the Libyan coast, in what a US official said was a move to give the administration flexibility for any future action against Libyan targets. The military also dispatched a Marine

Corps anti-terrorist security team to boost security in Libya, whose leader Muammar Gaddafi was ousted in a US-backed uprising last year.

The attack, which US officials said may have been planned in advance, came on the 11th anniversary of Al-Qaeda’s attacks on the United States on Sept 11, 2001.

DHAKA: Activists of an Islamic party burn the US flag during a protest against a film mocking Islam yesterday. — AFP

CONTROVERSIAL FILM The attackers were part of a mob blaming America for a film they said insulted the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). Clips of the “Innocence of Muslims,” had been circulating on the Internet for weeks before the protests erupted. They show an amateurish production portraying the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) as a womanizer, a homosexual and a child abuser. For many Muslims, any depiction of the Prophet (PBUH) is blasphemous and caricatures or other characterizations have in the past provoked protests all over the Muslim world.

An actress in the California production said the video as it appeared bore no resemblance to the original filming. She had not been aware it was about the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).

Among the assailants, Libyans identified units of a heavily armed local Islamist group, Ansar AlSharia, which sympathizes with Al-Qaeda and derides Libya’s US-backed bid for democracy. US officials said some reporting from the region suggested members of Al-Qaeda’s north-Africa based affiliate may have been involved.

PROSTESTS IN YEMEN, N AFRICA Yemen, a key US ally, is home to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), viewed by Washington as the most dangerous branch of the militant network established by Osama bin Laden. Obama said he had ordered an increase in security at US diplomatic posts around the globe.

International FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

storm US embassies

TEHRAN: Iranian protesters chant slogans during a demonstration against a film ridiculing Islam’s Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) , in front of Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which represents US interests in Iran yesterday. (Right) Egyptian protesters throw stones at a riot police armored vehicle that was hit by a fire bomb during clashes outside the US embassy in Cairo yesterday. — AP Protests also erupted this week outside US missions in Tunisia, Sudan and Morocco. The attacks could alter US attitudes towards the wave of revolutions across the Arab world that toppled secularist authoritarian leaders in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia and brought Islamists to power.

The violence also could have an impact on the closely contested US presidential race ahead of the Nov 6 election. Republican Mitt Romney, Obama’s challenger, criticized the president’s response to the crisis. He said the timing of a statement from the US embassy in Cairo denouncing “efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims” made Obama look weak as protesters were attacking US missions.

Romney said it was “disgraceful” to be seen to be apologizing for American values of free speech. Obama’s campaign accused Romney of trying to score political points at a time of national tragedy. Obama said Romney had a tendency “to shoot first and aim later.” Western countries denounced the Benghazi killings and Russia expressed deep concern, saying the episode underscored the need for global cooperation to fight “the evil of terrorism”. The attack raised questions about the future US diplomatic presence in Libya, relations between Washington and Tripoli, and the unstable security situation after Gaddafi’s overthrow.

BANGLADESH MUSLIMS About 1,000 Bangladeshi Islamists tried to march on the US embassy in Dhaka yesterday but security forces stopped them reaching the mission, police and witnesses said. Anti-US protests have erupted in several countries this week. Members of the Khelafat Andolon group demonstrated in the capital and threatened to step up their protests after they were blocked from approaching the US embassy. There were no reports of violence. “We will stage bigger protests over the issue and may also besiege the US embassy,” said Moulana Hemayetuddin, a senior leader of the group.

The protesters wearing white caps threw their fists in the air as they chanted anti-US slogans. They burned a US flag and demanded an immediate apology from the United States.

Police said security around the embassy had been tightened ahead of Friday, the day for weekly Muslim prayers when big crowds can gather. Embassy officials were not available for comment. For Muslims, any depiction of the Prophet (PBUH) is blasphemous and caricatures or other characterizations have in the past provoked protests across the Muslim world.

SAFE HOUSE

Iraqi militia threatens US interests over film Protests erupt in Baghdad and Basra BAGHDAD: An Iraqi militia that carried out some of the most prominent attacks on foreigners during the Iraq war yesterday threatened US interests in the country over a film that has triggered protests in Libya, Egypt and Yemen. “The offence caused to the messenger will put all American interests in danger and we will not forgive them for that,” said Qais AlKhazali, leader of the Asaib Al-Haq militia. The US ambassador to Libya and three other staff were killed overnight on Tuesday in an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi over the film.

Protests against the film erupted in Baghdad yesterday and in the city of Basra, 420 km southeast of the capital. Hundreds of followers of anti-US Shiite cleric Moqtada AlSadr took to the streets calling on the Iraqi government to close the US embassy. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki denounced the film as “insulting” and “racist” but called on Muslims not to react with violence. “The natural response is to refrain from resorting to violence and demonstrate the principles of Islam

and its civilized values,” he said in a statement yesterday.

CALLS TO FIRE US AMBASSADOR In Baghdad, hundreds of protesters gathered in Sadr’s stronghold of Sadr City, holding up posters of Sadr, burning US flags and chanting, “Death to America”.

“How long will we stay in this coma where there is no real sanction?” Sheikh Riyadh AlWaeli, a Sadr aid, told protesters. “This demonstration is not enough unless there is a real sanction.” The crowd in Basra also numbered in the hundreds and both Sunni and Shiite clerics participated in the demonstration, which was organized by Sadr’s office. “We have to fire the US ambassador because these things are carried out under US supervision and are aimed at offending Islam and Muslims,” protester Yaarab Al-Mohammad (PBUH)awi said. A smaller protest also took place in the city of Najaf, 160 km south of Baghdad. — Reuters

KUT: Iraqi supporters of Shiite cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr’s movement, burn the Israeli and the US flags during a protest denouncing a film deemed offensive to Islam yesterday. — AFP

Stevens, a 52-year-old California-born diplomat who spent a career operating in perilous places, became the first American ambassador killed in an attack since Adolph Dubs, the US envoy to Afghanistan, died in a 1979 kidnapping attempt.

A Libyan doctor pronounced him dead of smoke inhalation. US information technology specialist Sean Smith and two other Americans who have not yet been identified also were killed when a squad of US troops sent by helicopter from Tripoli to rescue the diplomats from the safe house came under mortar attack.

“It was supposed to be a secret place and we were surprised the armed groups knew about it,” Captain Fathi Al-Obeidi, commander of a Libyan special operations unit ordered to meet the Americans, said of the safe house.

Witnesses said the crowd at the consulate included tribesmen, militia and other gunmen. Libyan leader Mohammed Magarief apologized to the United States over the attack. Many Muslim states focused their condemnation on the film and will be concerned about preventing a repeat of the fallout seen after publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).

This touched off riots in the Middle East, Africa and Asia in 2006 in which at least 50 people died.

Afghanistan’s leader has put off a foreign trip for fear of violence at home over an antiIslam film, officials said yesterday, as anxious governments across Asia stepped up security outside US embassies. Karzai called the making of the movie a “devilish act” but said he was certain those involved in its production were a very small minority.

The US embassy in Kabul appealed to Afghan leaders for help in “maintaining calm” and Afghanistan shut down the YouTube site so Afghans would not be able to see the film.

General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, took the unusual step of telephoning a radical Florida Christian pastor, Terry Jones, and asking him to withdraw his support for the film. Earlier provocative acts by Jones, like publicly burning a Quran, had sparked Muslim unrest. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the attack was the work of a “small and savage group.” — Agencies

International FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

73-year-old woman ‘mugged and raped’ NEW YORK: Before the attack, there was a question: “Do you remember me?” A 73-year-old birdwatcher who said she was raped in Central Park Wednesday told investigators that’s what the man who assaulted her asked, before he threw her to the ground. The woman, who regularly visits the park, said she thinks the assailant was the same man she photographed masturbating about nine days ago in another, more isolated spot known as The Ramble, police said.

She said he demanded she delete the image before they went their separate ways, and tried to grab her camera but didn’t succeed. Police said that initial encounter wasn’t reported. On Wednesday, she told police she was attacked at about 11 am in a wooded area near the park’s tranquil Strawberry Fields that serves as a memorial to John Lennon, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said at a news conference. After sexually assaulting her, the man made off with her backpack that contained a camera, police said. He tried also to steal her watch but was unsuccessful.

Eric Ozawa, a college professor and birdwatcher, found the woman and called 911. He told reporters he noticed a pair of legs sticking out along the path but thought it was somebody sleeping. As he got closer, he realized it was a woman lying face down. Her face was badly swollen, she had a black eye and was covered in mulch, he said. Still, she appeared “self-possessed and lucid,” he said. The woman told Ozawa she had been mugged and raped, he said. He immediately called the police. “It’s shocking that it could happen in the park in broad daylight,” he said. “That someone could rape somebody in her 70s.”

Investigators interviewed Ozawa on Wednesday, while other officers and detectives swarmed the scene in search of the suspect. Police blocked off much of the area near West 72nd Street and Central Park West as they hunted for a suspect described as a man in his 40s. Authorities later released surveillance images of the suspect who was wearing black pants, a black T-shirt and white sneakers. He was carrying a backpack that resembled the one stolen from the woman, and also wearing a second backpack.

Emily Loubaton, 29, of Brooklyn was in the park on a scavenger hunt that her company had organized. “I think this is pretty disgusting, and so shocking it would happen on such a beautiful day in such a beautiful park,” she said. Asked if she felt less safe in Central Park, she said: “I’d like to believe that New York City has turned the corner for the better. I mean, this isn’t the 70s. But it definitely makes you pause before you walk in.” Strawberry Fields is one of Central Park’s busiest spots. It was named after one of the Beatles’ best-known songs, “Strawberry Fields Forever.” It was officially dedicated in 1985, five years after Mark David Chapman fired five shots outside the Dakota apartment house on Dec. 8, 1980, killing Lennon.— AP

S Africa throws nuke meeting into disarray World powers agreed wording of a rebuke to Iran VIENNA: South Africa proposed a lastminute change to a UN nuclear agency resolution rebuking Iran yesterday, throwing the meeting into confusion, diplomats said. Six world powers put forward the draft text on Wednesday, aiming to add diplomatic pressure on Tehran, a day after Israel ramped up threats to attack the Islamic Republic which it believes is seeking nuclear weapons capability. Intended to signal big power unity and criticize Iran for defying UN calls to curb its nuclear work, the full 35-nation governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had been expected to vote on and approve the text yesterday.

But South Africa, like Iran a member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) of mainly developing nations, proposed a change to the board resolution agreed by the United States, Russia, France, China, Britain and Germany. As a result the board meeting that started at 10 am was adjourned until 3 pm for talks on

how to proceed. “There is procedural chaos,” one Western envoy said.

Western diplomats said the South African amendment, though adding only five words to a two-page document, risked weakening somewhat the message to Iran that it must open up to IAEA investigations into suspected atom bomb research.

South African diplomats were not immediately available for comment but their proposed change was circulated among member states. The proposed text says “it is essential for Iran to immediately implement” a framework deal with the IAEA to clarify concern over possible military dimensions to its nuclear program. South Africa’s amendment would add: “once it (the framework deal) has been concluded,” a formulation which Western diplomats said could dilute some of the pressure on Tehran. “The Americans object,” a second Western diplomat said. The IAEA has tried in a series of high-profile meet-

ings with Iran that began in January to agree a “Structured Approach” on how to conduct its investigation. IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said this week that no concrete results had been achieved, calling the lack of progress “frustrating”.

The resolution can be approved by the board even without South Africa’s support, but the powers are keen to ensure near unanimous backing. If South Africa objects or abstains, other NAM states may do the same, they say.

Iran says it wants to produce electricity and not bombs. Refined uranium can be used to fuel nuclear power plants. If enriched to a high degree, it can provide the explosive core for a nuclear warhead. Israel, believed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear-armed state, sees the risk of Iran developing an atom bomb as a threat to its existence and has stepped up hints of military action. Washington says there is still time for diplomacy and sanctions to make Tehran change course.— Reuters

Falklands population ‘stagnant and aging’ STANLEY: A census in the Falkland Islands has produced some results that fundamentally challenge what many outsiders think about the people who live in the remote, wind-swept archipelago that Britain and Argentina fought over 30 years ago. For one

STANLEY: Daisy Rowlands crosses a street in Stanley, Falkland Islands. — AP

thing, most residents of this self-governing British Overseas Territory don’t consider themselves British. Fifty-nine percent say their national identity is “Falkland Islander,” compared to 29 percent who feel “British.” That has implications for Argentina, which refuses to deal directly with the Falkland Islands’ local government, and accuses Britain of running what Argentines call the Islas Malvinas as an illegal colony. The survey also puts the average annual income at $32,213, much higher than Argentina’s $9,620 as of last year, or that of the Falklands’ other Latin American neighbors. The income figure underlines how much things have changed since before the 1982 war. Back then, wool prices had bottomed out internationally and invading Argentine soldiers were told they would be welcomed by impoverished and oppressed tenant farmers. Instead, they encountered a stubbornly defiant population that helped British troops retake the islands.

Sheltered by continued military support, Falklanders have seen their livelihoods greatly improve since the war, with revenue flowing in from fisheries, tourism and offshore oil development.—AP

Cheating scandal dents Harvard University

CAMBRIDGE: The ivy crawling up the red brick columns of Harvard’s Murr Center has begun to wither and brown as fall approaches, and with it the start of this year’s sports seasons. Inside the athletic department headquarters, coaches prepared for upcoming games and students lifted in the weight room. Workmen repaired the Harvard Stadium concrete to get it ready for the school’s 139th football opener against San Diego, and players headed into the Dillon Field House to change for practice.

Some of them might not make it to Saturday’s kickoff. The Harvard College Administrative Board is investigating whether as many as 125 students may have shared answers or plagiarized on an openbook, take-home final exam for a single class, reportedly “Introduction to Congress.”

Although the school, citing federal privacy laws, would not identify the class or individual students involved, reports say the senior co-captains of the basketball team and several football and baseball players are among those implicated. “It really is a University

matter and the athletic department is just one component of the University,” Harvard sports information director Kurt Svoboda said on Wednesday. “I cannot speculate on how this recent news might affect any University program or department.” Football coach Tim Murphy also declined to comment on specifics, and basketball coach Tommy Amaker was unavailable for comment. No one has been removed from the football or basketball rosters posted on the athletic department website, and the football coaching staff signed off on a depth chart for Saturday’s game, Svoboda said. “All of our 24 projected starters are in good academic standing,” Murphy, who missed Wednesday’s football media luncheon for what Svoboda said was a previously scheduled, all-coach admissions meeting, said in a brief telephone interview with The Associated Press. “They are healthy and will be ready to play on Saturday.” Long considered one of the best academic institutions in the world, Harvard has been improving in athletics as well, winning the Ivy League title

in football last year and reaching the NCAA basketball tournament for the first time in 46 years. But the unprecedented cheating scandal and the reported link to some of the school’s top athletes raises the question of whether success in sports has required academic compromise at the institution that, on the list released Wednesday, placed first in the annual US News & World Report college rankings for the fifth consecutive year.

Harvard President Drew Faust was not immediately available for comment Wednesday. But she said last week that the yet-unproven allegations, “represent totally unacceptable behavior that betrays the trust upon which intellectual inquiry at Harvard depends.” Faust also alluded to the scandal in last week’s convocation for the incoming freshman, quoting a letter sent to them by undergraduate dean Jay Harris that said, “Without integrity, there can be no genuine achievement.” “That is what each of us owes to Harvard,” she told the students when she welcomed the Class of 2016 to campus. “But, far more importantly, it is what each of us

owes to ourselves.” In confirming the investigation, Harvard officials stressed that the school has not yet determined whether any students cheated on the exam, which allowed them to use books, notes and the internet but also said, according to a copy of the test obtained by The Harvard Crimson, “Students may not discuss the exam with others.” Even so, the school newspaper reported on Wednesday, an assistant professor noted similarities among the exams turned in by students, including a typo - an extraneous space in the number “22, 500” that was present in two exams. Harris said that the Administrative Board could exonerate students or hand out punishments ranging from admonishment to requiring them to take a year off. But the delay in resolving the cases is especially troublesome for athletes trying to navigate NCAA and Ivy League eligibility rules while waiting to learn their punishment - or whether they will be punished at all by the secretive Harvard disciplinary panel known and feared by students as the “Ad Board.”—AP

International FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

California man confirms role in anti-Islam movie Syrians, Iraqis, Turks, Pakistanis, Iranians, Egyptians featured in film LOS ANGELES: The anti-Muslim film implicated in mob protests against US diplomatic missions in the Mideast received logistical help from a man once convicted of financial crimes and featured actors who complained that their inflammatory dialogue was dubbed in after filming. The self-proclaimed director of “Innocence of Muslims” initially claimed a Jewish and Israeli background. But others involved in the film said his statements were contrived as evidence mounted that the film’s key player was a southern Californian Coptic Christian with a checkered past.

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55 said in an interview outside Los Angeles Wednesday that he managed logistics for the company that produced “Innocence of Muslims,” which mocked Muslims and the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). The movie has been blamed for inflaming mobs that attacked US missions in Egypt and Libya this week as well as US Embassy in Yemen yesterday. Nakoula denied he had directed the film, though he said he knew the self-described filmmaker, Sam Bacile. But the cellphone number that the AP contacted Tuesday to reach the filmmaker who identified himself as Bacile traced to the same address near Los Angeles where Nakoula was located.

Nakoula said he is a Coptic Christian and supported the concerns of Christian Copts about their treatment

by Muslims. The film was implicated in protests that resulted in the burning of the US consulate Tuesday in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi. Libyan officials said Wednesday that Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other embassy employees were killed during the mob violence, but US officials now say they are investigating whether the assault was a planned terrorist strike linked to Tuesday’s 11-year anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Nakoula denied he had posed as Sam Bacile.

Federal court papers filed in a 2010 criminal prosecution against him said Nakoula had used numerous aliases in the past. Among the fake names, the documents said, were Nicola Bacily and Erwin Salameh.

During a conversation outside his home, Nakoula offered his driver’s license to show his identity but kept his thumb over his middle name, Basseley.

Records checks by the AP subsequently found that middle name as well as other connections to the Bacile persona. The AP located Bacile after obtaining his cell phone number from Morris Sadek, a conservative Coptic Christian in the US who had promoted the anti-Muslim film in recent days on his website.

Egypt’s Christian Coptic populace has long decried what they describe as a history of discrimination and occasional violence from the country’s Arab majority.

Pastor Terry Jones of Gainesville, Fla, who sparked outrage in the Arab world when he burned Qurans on the ninth anniversary of 9/11, said he spoke with the movie’s director on the phone Wednesday and prayed for him. Jones said he has not met the filmmaker in person, but added that the man contacted him a few weeks ago about promoting the movie.

Jones and others who have dealt with the filmmaker said Wednesday that Bacile was hiding his real identity. “I have not met him. Sam Bacile, that is not his real name,” Jones said. “I just talked to him on the phone. He is definitely in hiding and does not reveal his identity. He was quite honestly fairly shook up concerning the events and what is happening. A lot of people are not supporting him. He was generally a little shook up concerning this situation.”

The Youtube account, “Sam Bacile,” which was

used to publish excerpts of the provocative movie in July, was used to post comments online as recently as Tuesday, including this defense of the film written in Arabic: “It is a 100 percent American movie, you cows.” Nakoula, who talked guardedly about his role, pleaded no contest in 2010 to federal bank fraud charges in California and was ordered to pay more than $790,000 in restitution. He was also sentenced to 21 months in federal prison and ordered not to use computers or the Internet for five years without approval from his probation officer.

Assistant US Attorney Jennifer Leigh Williams said Nakoula set up fraudulent bank accounts using stolen identities and Social Security numbers; then, checks from those accounts would be deposited into other bogus accounts from which Nakoula would withdraw money at ATM machines. It was “basically a check-kiting scheme,” the prosecutor told the AP. “You try to get the money out of the bank before the bank real-

TEHRAN: An Iranian protestor holds a picture of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during a demonstration against a film ridiculing Islam’s Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), in front of the Swiss Embassy in Tehran yesterday. — AP izes they are drawn from a fraudulent account. There basically is no money.”

American actors and actresses who appeared in “Innocence of Muslims” issued a joint statement Wednesday saying they were misled about the project and alleged that some of their dialogue was crudely dubbed during post-production. In the English-language version of the trailer, direct references to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) appear to be the result of post-production changes to the movie.

Either actors aren’t seen when the name “Muhammad” is spoken in the overdubbed sound, or they appear to be mouthing something else as the name of the Prophet is spoken.

“The entire cast and crew are extremely upset and

feel taken advantage of by the producer,” said the statement, obtained by the Los Angeles Times. “We are 100 percent not behind this film and were grossly misled about its intent and purpose. We are shocked by the drastic rewrites of the script and lies that were told to all involved. We are deeply saddened by the tragedies that have occurred.” One of the actresses, Cindy Lee Garcia, told the Gawker.com website that the film was originally titled “Desert Warriors” and said the script did not contain offensive references to Islam. She said the director, who identified himself as Bacile, told her then that he was Egyptian.

The person who identified himself as Bacile and described himself as the film’s writer and director told the AP on Tuesday that he had gone into hiding. But doubts rose about the man’s identity amid a flurry of false claims about his background and role in the purported film. Bacile told the AP he was an Israeli-born, 56-year-old, Jewish writer and director. But a Christian activist involved in the film project, Steve Klein, told the AP on Wednesday that Bacile was a pseudonym and that he was Christian.

Klein had told the AP on Tuesday that the filmmaker was an Israeli Jew who was concerned for family members who live in Egypt. Officials in Israel said there was no record of Bacile as an Israeli citizen.

When the AP initially left a message for Bacile, Klein contacted the AP from another number to confirm the interview request was legitimate; then Bacile called back from his own cell phone. Klein said he didn’t know the real name of the man he called “Sam,” who came to him for advice on First Amendment issues.

About 15 key players from the Middle East - people from Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan and Iran, and a couple of Coptic Christians from Egypt - worked on the film, Klein said. “Most of them won’t tell me their real names because they’re terrified,” Klein said. “He was really scared and now he’s so nervous. He’s turned off his phone.” The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, said Klein is a former Marine and longtime religious-right activist who has helped train paramilitary militias at a California church. It described Klein as founder of Courageous Christians United, which conducts protests outside abortion clinics, Mormon temples and mosques. It quoted Klein as saying he believes that California is riddled with Muslim Brotherhood sleeper cells “who are awaiting the trigger date and will begin randomly killing as many of us as they can.”

In his brief interview with the AP, Bacile called Islam a cancer and said he intended the film to be a provocative political statement condemning the religion. But several key facts Bacile provided proved false or questionable. Bacile told the AP he was 56 but identified himself on his YouTube profile as 74. Bacile said he is a real estate developer, but Bacile does not appear in searches of California state licenses, including the Department of Real Estate. Hollywood and California film industry groups and permit agencies said they had no records of the project under the name “Innocence of Muslims,” but a Los Angeles film permit agency later found a record of a movie filmed in Los Angeles last year under the working title “Desert Warriors.” A man who answered a phone listed for the Vine Theater, a faded Hollywood movie house, confirmed that the film had run for a least a day, and possibly longer, several months ago, arranged by a customer known as “Sam.” — AP

International FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

How Dutch populist Wilders got it all wrong THE HAGUE: Dutch populist Geert Wilders seems for once to have misjudged voters after his resounding defeat in the Netherlands election but his political career is far from over, analysts said yesterday. The firebrand anti-Islam leader with the peroxide-bouffant, for years the best known politician outside the country, changed his target to the EU, hoping to capitalize on widespread unease at paying off southern European debt. He brought down the previous government by pulling out of budget talks aimed at bringing the deficit within the euro-zone’s 3 percent limit, saying he would not bow to “the diktats of Brussels”. But in doing so, he precipitated his own defeat, with his PVV (Party of Freedom) winning just 15 seats in Wednesday’s vote, a sharp drop on his 2010 tally of 24 MPs. “I think that a large slice of his voters

hadn’t forgiven him for bringing down the government and forcing early elections,” political communications professor Claes de Vreese of the Amsterdam University said. “If you break it you pay for it!” De Vreese said. Wilders “was held responsible for the fact that the Netherlands was left without a proper government for six months in the middle of a financial crisis.”

Andre Krouwel, political analyst at Amsterdam Free University, said that Wilders had simply not realized that even the Dutch tolerance of intolerance has its limits. “Geert Wilders’ anti-European rhetoric was firmly punished, that went too far for Dutch voters,” Krouwel said.

Alfred Pijpers, a specialist on Netherlands-Europe relations, said that Wilders had been a collateral victim of the clash between two prime ministerial hopefuls on the centre left and right.

Liberal leader and eventual winner Mark Rutte and Labor leader Diederik Samsom, who came a close second, are now expected to form a coalition government and will rejoice at not having to rely on Wilders’ support. “Everyone got it wrong in terms of forecasting the result,” Pijpers said. “The core dynamic of this election was a fight between prime ministers.”

In the space of a month, Samsom’s centre-left PvdA party came almost from nowhere to stand a realistic chance of seeing the former Greenpeace activist as the next prime minister. “People realized on the two sides of the political spectrum that ‘I will vote for Rutte in order to keep Samsom out of office and also other way, they voted for Samsom in order to remove Rutte,” said Pijpers. As the scale of his defeat became apparent on Wednesday night, a visibly shaken Wilders wiped a

solitary tear from his eye as he told his supporters that “In Brussels they are having a party... That’s a pity.” “Tomorrow we will lick our wounds,” he said. “This is not the end of the struggle.”

Ironically Wilders, 49, started his political career with the winners of Wednesday’s vote, the VVD party, which he quit after 14 years in 2004, partly over its support at the time for Turkey’s EU membership bid. Pijpers notes that Wilders is “an extremely capable politician” and “it’s not true that the populists are completely defeated.” “Voting behavior in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe is so volatile and there are so many swing voters it’s very possible that if the coalition collapses, swing voters will return and populist politicians, including Wilders, will regain ground and win the election,” he said.— AFP

Prince William and Catherine honor war dead in Singapore SINGAPORE: Britain’s Prince William and his wife Catherine paid tribute to British and Commonwealth war dead yesterday as they wound up a three-day visit to Singapore on a sombre note. The royal couple, on the first leg of an Asia-Pacific tour celebrating Queen Elizabeth II’s 60-year reign, laid a wreath at a cemetery dedicated to soldiers who died defending Malaya against the Japanese during World War II. The ceremony took place in front of a remembrance wall on which the names of more than 24,000 war dead are engraved.

The couple bowed their heads during a one-minute silence as a uniformed soldier played the “Last Post” on a bugle. William, wearing a dark suit and red-and-blue striped tie, and Catherine, clad in a light green dress, shook hands with some in the crowd of about 500 people who gathered at the Kranji War Memorial in northern Singapore. They then walked slowly among the white tombstones set in the well-kept lawns of the memorial as two bagpipers played.

Catherine sheltered herself from the hot tropical sun with a parasol as they walked, and many in the crowd of mostly British expatriates also carried umbrellas under the sweltering heat. A group of schoolchildren carried a banner with the words: “Kate is great, Will you’re brill” printed on a row of Union Jacks. “We spoke about the serene setting that is Kranji War cemetery,” Commander Paul Tebbet, the British assistant defense adviser to Singapore said after he shook hands with the royals. The memorial is dedicated to soldiers from Britain, Australia, Canada, Sri Lanka, India, the Netherlands and New Zealand who died defending Singapore and Malaya against the Japanese during World War II. — AFP

Myanmar mulls satellite launch TOKYO: Myanmar is looking at launching a small Earth-observation satellite with Japanese aid, a company official said yesterday, as the country comes in from the cold after decades of isolation.

Japan’s Marubeni Aerospace Corp has been conducting a feasibility study for the Myanmar government this year on the satellite launch, a company official said. He added that Myanmar’s Minister for Transport Nyan Tun Aung met with a regional representative of Marubeni Corp., the aerospace firm’s parent, on Wednesday as they prepared to hold a workshop on the plan in the second week of October.

“We are in the process of assessing if the launch will be valuable for Myanmar. We have yet to draw up a report,” the official said. “It may take a long time before a decision is made.” He added that the satellite launch was one of a number of possible projects that might be funded through official Japanese loans. If the launch goes ahead, the satellite will be used by the meteorology and hydrology department of Myanmar’s transport ministry, according to the country’s official media. In April, Japan announced it would forgive about $3.7 billion of Myanmar’s debt and resume suspended aid as Japanese firms continue a push into the country. —AFP

SCHEVENINGEN: Dutch Prime Minister and Liberal party VVD-leader Mark Rutte shakes hands with members of his party at the Carlton Beach Hotel in Scheveningen as the final results of the general elections are being published. — AFP

Dutch PM wins election Liberals and Labor seen as coalition partners AMSTERDAM: Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s Liberals won a closely contested election, but he faced the prospect of having to form a government with his archrivals from the Labor party yesterday. In what was by the standards of the last decade a very clear result, voters handed pro-European parties a sweeping victory, shunning the radical fringes and dispelling concerns eurosceptics could gain sway in a country viewed as a core member of the euro zone family.

With more than 98 percent of votes counted, Rutte’s centre-right Liberals won 41 seats in the 150-member lower house, giving them a two-seat lead over the centre-left Labor Party on 39 seats. “We fought this election house by house, street by street, city by city, and I’m proud.

Tomorrow I will take the first steps leading to the formation of a cabinet,” Rutte said overnight after Labor leader Diederik Samsom conceded defeat.

While the Liberals and Labor have played down talk of forming a coalition, the two parties would together command a governing majority in parliament. That would be a rare outcome in a country where three- or four-member coalitions are not unusual and coalition talks often take several months. That could offer the prospect of badly-needed political stabili-

ty at a time of sluggish growth and when many say potentially unpopular legislation is needed to reform the housing market and healthcare. But it could also make for difficult coalition negotiations between two almost equal partners. While both parties are broadly pro-European, they have very different ideas on social and fiscal policy. “(These two) parties have become so big that neither can form a majority cabinet with other parties,” said sociologist Paul Schnabel in a column for business daily Het Financieele Dagblad. “That also makes it difficult because they are condemned to each other. A forced marriage, which usually has little blessing.” Rutte’s government was known throughout Europe for its hardline stance on fiscal discipline, demanding austerity from indebted countries on the euro zone’s fringes and insisting the Netherlands meet its own European Union deficit targets.

He will, however, probably lose his close ally, outspoken Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager, whose Christian Democrat party - which has the Dutch post-war political landscape - crashed to its worst result ever, coming fifth. Samsom, who promised “a more social Netherlands”, wants a slower pace of cuts in order to allow for more fiscal stimulus at a time

when the Dutch economy is growing at far slower pace than neighboring Germany.

He has also said he would give Greece more time to put its house in order and, unlike Rutte, has not ruled out a third bailout there. Labor has also promised gradually to scrap an expensive tax credit for homeowners, something that would be disproportionately painful for supporters of the pro-business Liberals. But despite their differences, the election was an unambiguous victory for the centrist parties.

The hard-left Socialists, who oppose austerity and euro zone bailouts, finished a distant third, tying with Geert Wilders’ populist Freedom Party.

His far-right anti-immigration party campaigned to leave the euro and the European Union. He lost nearly half his seats. The unexpectedly clear result removed another potential obstacle to efforts to stabilize Europe’s single currency after Germany’s constitutional court gave the green light for the euro-zone’s permanent bailout fund to go ahead. But the Netherlands is likely to remain an awkward, tough-talking member of the single currency area, strongly resisting transfers to euro-zone debtors, even if the two main parties end up forming a coalition.—Reuters

International FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Georgia opposition leader rains insults on Saakashvili

TBILISI: Georgia’s billionaire opposition leader called President Mikheil Saakashvili a “professional liar” and a “son of a dog”, threatening million-strong protests if parliamentary polls are rigged. In a bitter personal attack on his rival before the crucial vote on October 1, tycoon-turned-politician Bidzina Ivanishvili accused Saakashvili of turning Western-backed Georgia into an authoritarian state like its enemy Russia. “In fact it is an authoritarian system. Is it any better than in Russia or Belarus?” he said in an interview with AFP at his huge glass-and-steel mansion complex on a hilltop overlooking Tbilisi.

The country’s richest man said he was confident that his Georgian Dream coalition would defeat Saakashvili’s ruling party in the battle for power that has polarized the small former Soviet republic. But he warned that he was prepared to launch mass protests if there were “grave violations” at the polls. “We can make one million people take to the streets,” he said. He tried however to ease concerns about the potential for post-election clashes in the small Caucasus state with a

population of 4.5 million and a recent history of political turmoil and civil war. “We will act within the legal framework, peacefully, and will not allow confrontation,” he promised.

The ruling party has accused Ivanishvili of serving the interests of Russia, which crushed Georgia’s army during a brief war in 2008. The tycoon blames Saakashvili for provoking the conflict, which ended with Moscow recognising two Georgian breakaway provinces as independent states and permanently stationing thousands of troops there. Tbilisi still has no diplomatic ties with Moscow but Ivanishvili has promised to improve relations, saying it could help Georgia’s fragile economy and speed up the return of the lost territories.

The tycoon refused to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin, who once reportedly vowed to hang Saakashvili “by the balls”. “I do not want to criticize him because I do not want to imitate Saakashvili and start criticizing a big country. We will have to talk to (Russia) and to normalize our relationship, and I

do not want to hamper this,” he explained. “How can we criticize Putin when we have Saakashvili?” he added.

Ivanishvili made his estimated $6.4 billion fortune through banking and other investments in Russia, but was known until recently as a reclusive philanthropist who made massive donations to the arts, cultural heritage and social welfare projects but shunned publicity. After announcing his challenge to the government last year, Ivanishvili was abruptly stripped of his Georgian passport for breaking citizenship rules and fined millions of dollars for violating electoral laws.

The 56-year-old currently holds a French passport, which he says he was eligible for because his Georgian wife and children are also French citizens. His modernist mansion, designed by Japanese architect Shin Takamatsu, is decorated with pictures and sculptures by contemporary artists like Damien Hirst, Roy Liechtenstein and Anish Kapoor. He also keeps a menagerie of exotic animals like zebras, kangaroos and penguins at one of his other villas in Georgia. Ivanishvili says

he supported Saakashvili after the 2003 ‘Rose Revolution’ that swept the Georgian leader to power, but broke with him after a violent crackdown on anti-government protesters in 2007. “I was very angry then.

I was calling him every minute and swearing at him,” he said.

To defuse the crisis after the crackdown which shocked his Western allies, Saakashvili resigned and then successfully ran for re-election. “He is a son of a dog because he told me the lie that he was resigning because of my advice-in fact, the Americans pressurized him,” Ivanishvili said.

He also mocks Saakashvili’s large-scale reconstruction program which has seen futuristic new buildings spring up across the country. “He constructs with our money, tastelessly, and calls himself a builder.

He is a professional liar,” Ivanishvili said.

But although he insists he will become prime minister after the October vote, Ivanishvili says has no long-term political ambitions and will quit after two years, leaving the government in the hands of his allies.— AFP

Mexico Navy captures top drug boss ‘El Coss’

MEXICO CITY: The Mexican Navy said it had captured one of Mexico’s most wanted drug bosses, the head of the Gulf Cartel, in what would mark a major victory in President Felipe Calderon’s crackdown on organized crime. The Navy said it would give more details about the arrest of the man it believed to be Jorge Costilla, alias “El Coss,” when it parades him in front of the media.

A government security official said Costilla, 41, was detained in Tampico in northeastern Mexico, where the cartel is active, without putting up a fight. The US State Department has a reward of up to $5 million for his capture.

No other details were immediately available. The arrest of the suspected capo comes barely a week after the Mexican Navy captured senior Gulf Cartel member Mario Cardenas, alias “Fatso,” also in the state of Tamaulipas where Costilla was caught. The Gulf Cartel has been weakened by a violent turf war with the Zetas, a gang formed by army deserters which acted as enforcers for the cartel before breaking with their employers in 2010. It could also have political implications because top officials in the cartel’s stronghold of Tamaulipas have been accused of taking money from local drug gangs.

“All these politicians who were getting money from the Gulf Cartel ought to be very worried now because this information is going to come to light in Mexico or the United States,” said Alberto Islas, a security expert at consultancy Risk Evaluation, after hearing the reports of Costilla’s capture. Costilla features prominently on a wanted list of 37 kingpins the Mexican government published in 2009. Well over 20 on that list have now been captured or killed. Still, the Mexican Navy has erred before in its claims, saying in June it had captured a son of Mexico’s most wanted man Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, only to later admit that it had not. Islas said he expected Costilla to be extradited to the United States, and that his testimony could prove damaging to officials in Tamaulipas and neighboring Veracruz State, which has also been dogged by allegations of corruption. Tomas Yarrington, a governor of Tamaulipas between 1999 and 2005, is fugitive and wanted in Mexico for aiding drug gangs. Yarrington governed Tamaulipas for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which will retake the presidency in December after its candidate Enrique Pena Nieto won a July 1 election. The PRI suspended Yarrington from the party in May. Islas said damaging revelations about graft would raise pressure on Pena Nieto to take steps to clean up the image of the centrist PRI, which governed Mexico between 1929 and 2000.

That rule was tainted by frequent allegations of corruption. The FBI said Costilla is believed to have taken over the daily operations of the cartel after his former boss Osiel Cardenas was arrested and jailed in Mexico in 2003. It said a federal arrest warrant was issued for Costilla in Texas in 2002, and that he was charged with drug offenses, threatening to assault and murder federal agents, and money laundering.—Reuters

BLESBOK: Striking workers at the Blesbok Stadium of the Anglo Platinum mine near Rustenburg, South Africa, wait for a report back before deciding on what action to take against mine management. — AP

S Africa miners pressure ANC with new strike call Movement turning into grass-roots rebellion BLESBOK: The leader of a major protest

by South African platinum miners called yesterday for a national strike in the sector, deepening an industrial crisis that is evolving into the biggest threat to the ruling ANC since it came to power in 1994. “On Sunday, we are starting with a general strike here in Rustenburg,” demonstration leader Mametlwe Sebei told several thousand workers at a soccer stadium in the heart of the platinum belt near Rustenburg, 100 km northwest of Johannesburg.

The action was designed to “bring the mining companies to their knees”, he said, to mild applause from the crowd, which was armed with sticks and machetes. Despite the weapons, the strikers insisted their push for a sharp hike in wages was peaceful - even after

the Aug. 16 police shooting of 34 protesters at Lonmin’s nearby Marikana platinum mine. “There should be no blood,” one placard read.

The wave of labour unrest rocking Africa’s biggest economy kicked off with a violent strike at rival Impala Platinum in January and has since spiraled beyond the control of the government and unions into a grass-roots rebellion by blacks who have seen little improvement in their lives since apartheid ended 18 years ago. Most men at the soccer stadium said they worked for top producer Anglo American Platinum, commonly known as Amplats, which had to suspend operations its four Rustenburg mines on Wednesday after they were blockaded by chanting marchers.

They also insisted they would not return to work until top management including Cynthia Carroll, chief executive of Amplats parent company Anglo American - came to listen to their gripes and introduced a basic pay hike to 12,500 rand ($1,500) a month, more than double their current salary.

Shares in Anglo American Platinum, fell as much 1.8 percent in early trade on top of a 4 percent decline the previous day. Platinum held steady near the 5-month high it hit following Wednesday’s Amplats shut-downs.

The rand fell more than one percent against the dollar on Thursday - compounding a dramatic 3 percent slide on Wednesday - as investors started to fret about the impact on wider economic growth.—Reuters

Business FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

UAE, Qatar markets up, Kuwait benchmark falls

Apple needs more than iPhone 5 PAGE 20

PAGE 21

DUBAI: A giant billboard of Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, UAE Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, is seen in front of Sheikh Zayed Highway Towers in Dubai. Three international banks that backed out of $10 billion debt restructuring talks with an investment company controlled by Dubai’s ruler said yesterday they are now pursuing legal action against the firm, dashing hopes of a consensual deal. — AP

RBS, others sue Dubai Group over $10bn debt Unprecedented action to secure debt repayment from Dubai DUBAI: Royal Bank of Scotland and two other banks have begun legal proceedings against an investment vehicle owned by Dubai’s ruler, an unprecedented move to secure repayment after two years of unsuccessful debt talks. RBS, along with German lender Commerzbank and South Africa’s Standard Bank, had threatened legal action after walking away from negotiations over Dubai Group’s $10 billion debt pile, sources said in July.

The banks began legal proceedings in a London court last Thursday, breaking with the precedent in previous restructuring cases involving Dubai statelinked entities because of the opaque and untested insolvency system in the United Arab Emirates.

Given the complexities of the case, in particular the lack of precedent, the London filing threatens to extend debt talks well into the future, having dragged on since Dubai Group missed interest payments on two facilities in late 2010. “Arbitration could be two years and we don’t want to see the destruction of shareholder value just because these banks have thrown their toys in the corner,” said a source with knowledge of the matter.

In a statement, RBS said it was forced to take action after several concessions offered to the group failed to secure a solution. “We do, however, want to make clear that our preference was always to conclude an agreement without formal legal proceedings and we therefore remain open to such an out-

come if an acceptable commercial resolution is forthcoming,” the statement said.

Such sentiment adds fuel to the belief that the legal action is more likely a negotiating tactic on behalf of the three banks - all of whom are unsecured creditors - to secure a better deal from Dubai Group. “They are unsecured and have nothing so they are doing it out of desperation or because they expect the Dubai government will bail out the group,” said one UAE-based banker.

The government walked away from debt talks in January, dashing any hope creditors had of state support. Dubai Group, a unit of Dubai Holding the investment arm of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, was hard hit by the global financial crisis in 2008 due to excessive use of leverage in its investments and a sharp decline in the value of its portfolio companies.

Like a number of other state-linked entities in the emirate, it embarked on talks with creditors to restructure debt and extend maturities. Law firm SNR Denton is representing the banks, two sources familiar with the matter said. Clifford Chance is representing Dubai Group.

The filing comes at a time when others on the restructuring are considering a proposal, put to the group before the summer, which would see all lenders extend their obligations to allow for Dubai Group’s asset values to recover before they are sold.

Debt extensions range from 3.5-years for secured creditors up to 12 years for unsecured creditors. The sheer length of time is the main concern for the three banks because of the cost it would impose on unsecured lenders to extend cash for so long.

“Over 35 banks are working towards an

agreement and a global term sheet is now being considered by bank credit committees, a number of which have indicated their support,” Dubai Group said in a separate statement. “We believe that we can reach a consensual agreement with our creditors.” —Reuters

Stake sale in Lafarge venture eyed DUBAI: Dubai Group is in talks to sell its 45 percent stake in a joint venture firm with cement maker Lafarge, two sources familiar with the matter said, as the state investment vehicle sells assets to repay its $10 billion debt pile.

Lafarge Emirates Cement, set up in 2005, is restructuring and needs additional capital to help support the business, something Dubai Group is unable to provide due to its debts.

While sources declined to put a value on the stake sale, one said it would essentially represent the amount required to be injected into the company by the stakeholdermeaning Dubai Group might not receive a significant amount for the asset.

“The costs are more than the equity and

they don’t reflect the current price of cement. They need to put more equity in and while Lafarge should do, Dubai Group definitely doesn’t have the money,” said a separate source, a UAE-based banker.

The potential sale has generated interest from regional cement makers which are trying to cash in on a gradual recovery in the United Arab Emirates’ construction sector.

“The sale has attracted several regional players. Lafarge sees the UAE market as a long-term bet and are keen to retain their stake, but Dubai Group has their own issues to deal with,” the second source said.

The sources declined to be identified as the matter has not been made public. Dubai Group was not immediately available for comment. —Reuters

Business FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

UAE, Qatar markets up, Kuwait benchmark falls MIDEAST STOCK MARKETS DUBAI: UAE and Qatar markets closed higher for the week, but buying momentum slowed yesterday as cautious investors waited to see if the US Federal Reserve would launch another round of money printing to support the world’s largest economy. Kuwait’s measure ended 0.7 percent lower, down for a fourth time this week. The market corrected following a recent rally. The index rose 4.6 percent between Aug 12 and Sept 6 after slumping to an eight-year low on political and financial woes.

Abu Dhabi’s Etisalat helped lift the UAE capital’s index to a six-month high after the telecom operator sold a stake in Indonesia’s PT XL Axiata. Shares in Etisalat gained 1.1 percent to their highest close since June 25. The Gulf’s No 2 operator said it raised about $510 million from the sale of a 9.1 percent stake in Axiata. It has retained a 4.2 percent holding.

Abu Dhabi’s measure rose 0.3 percent to its highest close since March 15, up 1.8 percent for the week. “We have seen enough positive signals globally and locally, that even if there is no QE3 (quantitative easing), the news in the past days justifies such a rally,” said Sebastien Henin, portfolio manager at

The National Investor.

The US Federal Reserve appears set to launch a third round of quantitative easing yesterday.

Back in Abu Dhabi, banks stocks also gained. First Gulf Bank and National Bank of Abu Dhabi rose 0.2 and 0.3 percent respectively. FGB is up 28.4 percent 2012, outperforming the main index, which is up 8.6 percent. “In markets like the UAE, the worst is behind us and the future is bright,” said Sebastien Henin, portfolio manager at The National Investor.

“For the medium and long term, there are names you could buy right now like FGB and NBAD. When non-performing loans reach a peak, it will be a major catalyst for the market and people will be looking at banks in a different way.” The central bank this week said finalizing debt restructuring deals with various entities would likely raise UAE banks’ non-performing loans to a peak around an average of 8 to 9 percent, up from 7.2 percent at 2011-end.Dubai’s index rose 0.2 percent. It has traded within a 30-point range for the last three weeks as investors chased short-term gains due to a lack of catalysts to attract longer-term buyers.In Qatar, the meas-

ure fell 0.09 percent, retreating after Wednesday’s 1.1 percent rise, its largest in 12 months after Germany’s approval of euro-zone’s new bailout fund lifted investor risk appetite. The bourse was up 1.1 percent for the week.

Egypt’s index fell 1.1 percent a day after reaching its highest level since the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak, as investors offloaded holdings to cash in on a 12-week rally.

“Sellers appeared in the market yesterday and this is just a continuation,” said Teymour el-Derini at brokerage Naeem. Bourse trading has picked up since a new president took office in June and formed a technocratic government that has appealed to foreign donors to support the struggling economy.

Buying by mostly retail investors, optimistic the government can avert a balance of payments crisis, has made Egypt’s equity market among the world’s top performers in 2012.

Traders said some of the foreign investors who were avoiding Egypt for fear of a sharp currency devaluation were taking a renewed interest. “We might lose another 100 points but it would just be a breather,” added Derini. — Reuters

Islamic scholars propose new sharia board model DUBAI: A group of Islamic scholars is proposing a fresh solution to charges that banks’ sharia boards are open to conflicts of interest: create partnerships between the boards and Muslim depositors, to insulate the boards from pressure exerted by bank managements. Sharia boards, composed of experts in Islamic financial law, supervise Islamic banks’ activities and products to make sure they conform to religious principles, such as bans on interest and pure monetary speculation.

Traditionally, banks appoint prestigious scholars to their sharia boards and pay them handsome fees and retainers. This has left the system vulnerable to charges of conflict of interest: the scholars are being paid by the institutions which they are supposed to be supervising impartially.

A group of scholars in South Africa, led by Durban-based Ebrahim Desai, a senior figure in the city’s Muslim community, proposes that Muslim depositors in each bank fund a sharia compliance body that would be created separately from the bank. The body would then hire a sharia board to supervise the bank. In this way, the scholars on the board would not be appointed by or report to the bank’s management, and would not have a direct financial relationship with the bank.

“We seek a neutral and balanced position,” Desai said by telephone, adding that freed of subjection to bank managements, sharia boards would be able to play more strategic and powerful roles in governance. “This would be in line with the larger interest of the Muslim community in upholding sharia law by maintaining the ultra-independence of the sharia supervisory board.” Emraan Vawda, a colleague of Desai, argued that by their nature, banks were ill-suited to policing their own Islamic activities. “Commercial concerns in the overwhelming majority of Islamic banks far outweigh genuine commitment to Islamic values and precepts,” he said.

The proposal is likely to meet with considerable skepticism in the Islamic finance industry. Desai said many institutions had approached him to discuss his proposal but he declined to name them, saying the talks needed to be kept confidential. — Reuters

RUSTENURG: Thousands of miners of South Africa’s strikehit platinum belt gather for a rally yesterday in Rustenurg, a day after bringing the world’s top producer of the precious metal to a standstill. — AFP

ATHENS: Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras (front left) chats with the French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici during their meeting in Athens yesterday.

Athens is seeking more time to fix public finances, arguing that austerity measures will be counterproductive if forced too swiftly on the country’s weakened economy. —AP

Greek unions call general strike for Sept 26 ATHENS: Greece’s largest labor unions have called a general strike for Sept 26 in response to a new government austerity package that is expected to worsen hardship in the recessionhit country.

The date of the 24-hour strike was decided yesterday, a General Confederation of Greek Labor spokeswoman said, adding that the strike would be joined by a civil servants’ union. Rescue creditors are demanding that Greece’s conservative-led government slashes a further ?11.5 billion ($14.8 billion) in budget costs over the next two years - resulting in a new round of wage and pension cuts - if the country is to continue getting vital bailout loans. The austerity measures already imposed as part of this bailout deal have held back growth, pushing the country into a three-year recession.

Government figures released yesterday reveal unemployment in Greece has risen further to 23.6 percent in the second quarter of 2012 - up from 16.3 percent the previous year.

Athens is seeking more time to fix public finances, arguing that austerity measures will be counterproductive if forced too swiftly on the country’s weakened economy. Prime Minister Antonis Samaras took up the issue yesterday with visiting French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici.

About 200 disabled people gathered outside the Finance Ministry yesterday to protest proposed benefit cuts. “What we are saying is obvious: Blind and disabled people are not to blame for this crisis,” Paraskevas Lambrou, a blind man from the central Greek city of Volos, told the AP at the demonstration. “It is humiliating to be driven into poverty this way,” he said. — AP

Weekly US jobless aid applications jump WASHINGTON: The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits jumped to the highest level in two months, although the figures were skewed in part by Hurricane Isaac. Applications increased by 15,000 to a seasonally adjusted 382,000, the Labor Department said Thursday.

That’s up from 367,000 the previous week. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, increased for the fourth straight week to 375,000.

Isaac made landfall as Category 1 hurricane on Aug. 28 in southeastern Louisiana and was later downgraded to a tropical storm.

It disrupted work in nine states and boosted applications by roughly 9,000, Labor officials said. Applications for

unemployment benefits reflect the pace of layoffs. When applications fall consistently below 375,000, it usually indicates that hiring is strong enough to lower the unemployment rate.

The figures come after a disappointing jobs report last week.

Employers added only 96,000 jobs in August, below July’s gain of 141,000 and far below the average 226,000 a month added in the January-March quarter.

The unemployment rate dropped to 8.1 percent from 8.3 percent, but only because the number of people working or looking for work fell.

Many economists have noted that while layoffs are falling, overall hiring isn’t picking up at the same pace. A

separate monthly report from the Labor Department this week showed that layoffs were at the lowest level in July in the 11 years the government has tracked the data.

The economy isn’t growing fast enough to support much more hiring.

It grew at a tepid 1.7 percent annual rate in the AprilJune quarter, down from 2 percent in the January-March quarter and 4.1 percent in the final three months of last year.

Growth isn’t likely to get much better for the rest of this year. Economists expect it to grow at a roughly 2 percent pace. That’s typically too weak to create enough jobs to lower the unemployment rate. — AP

Business FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Apple needs more than iPhone 5 LTE platform may help carriers to boost profits TOKYO: Asian mobile carriers look set to cash in on the iPhone 5 and its superfast speeds, but the model is not the gamechanger that Apple needs if it to remain top of the heap, analysts said yesterday.

The phone’s use of Long-Term Evolution (LTE) wireless technology will allow carriers to increase their charges and boost profits as existing users download more content and smartphone non-converts are tempted to take the plunge.

But despite some new software, relatively minor tweaks to the hardware and an operating system that is starting to show its age risk leaving tech titan Apple trailing competitors such as South Korea’s Samsung, and Google.

“The new iPhone will be Apple’s most successful smartphone to date,” said research firm Ovum from Melbourne.

“However, without a redesign of the iOS user experience and underlying software platform in the next two years, Apple will find itself in a position similar to Nokia and RIM... with outdated smartphone platforms.” Kim Hue-jae at Daishin Securities said the main interest in the new iPhone had focused on its adoption of the fourthgeneration LTE network. “The iPhone shows a significant enhancement only with the fact that it runs on LTE. It will help LTE operators to boost their subscribers,” Kim said. But in Japan, where Apple has

28.7 percent of the large and growing smartphone market, the iPhone is tied to the second and third largest carriers, KDDI and Softbank, neither of which yet runs a compatible 4G LTE network, according to Dow Jones Newswires.

Both companies say they intend to roll out an Apple-friendly LTE network some-

time in the autumn, but neither has specified a date. The iPhone 5 hits stores in Japan on September 21, the same day it goes on sale in the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia.

Industry leader NTT DoCoMo, which has a stranglehold on about half of the

TOKYO: A notice (center) providing information on ordering the iPhone 5 is displayed at a Tokyo electrics shop yesterday. Asian mobile carriers look set to cash in on the iPhone 5 and its superfast speeds, but the model is not the game-changer that Apple needs if it is to remain top of the heap, analysts said yesterday. — AFP

Japanese mobile phone market, does offer a compatible network, but does not sell Apple products. It is heavily pushing the phones running Google’s Android operating system, such as Samsung’s Galaxy S III, which has become the smartphone market leader in a number of countries in Asia and the West. Apple and Samsung have been involved in patent row around the world and last month the US giant won more than $1 billion in a high-profile court case against its bitter rival.

This week the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was shifting some orders for memory chips for the iPhone from Samsung Electronics to other regional manufacturers but banking giant HSBC said Samsung was unlikely to be badly hurt. “We believe the iPhone 5 launch will have limited impact to Samsung component businesses and is potentially positive to earnings,” it said, adding that Apple’s supply chain “diversifications” had been expected. Smartphones accounted for only 22.5 percent of the Japanese mobile phone market as of March, with the ratio expected to rise in coming years, according to MM Research Institute.

“Just from the promotion point of view, it’s easier to sell new products with new functions than existing products,” said Daiwa Securities analyst Koki Shiraishi said. —AFP

BAE, EADS eye merger to create aerospace giant SEOUL: Kim Choong-soo, governor of the Bank of Korea, answers a reporter’s question during a press conference on the benchmark interest rate at the bank’s headquarters in Seoul yesterday. —AP

S Korea keeps rates unchanged at 3.0% SEOUL: South Korea’s central bank kept its key interest rate unchanged at 3.0 percent yesterday, defying expectations that it would take advantage of low inflation to announce an economy-boosting cut. The Bank of Korea froze its key rate for the second month in a row, having trimmed the rate in July by 25 basis points, in its first policy easing since early 2009.

The July cut coincided with government efforts to reverse a slowdown in the South Korean economy which has struggled with an export slump caused by a weak US economy and the prolonged euro-zone debt crisis. Market analysts had been expecting a further 25 basis point reduction yesterday on the back of government data showing inflation at a 12year low of 1.2 percent in August and unemployment holding steady at 3.1 percent. “I think it’s a very disappointing decision,” said Frances Cheung, a senior strategist at Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong.

“Given the weak domestic demand and low inflation, I can see no hurdle to stop them cutting interest rates,” Cheung told AFP. South Korean exports fell for the second consecutive month in August, down 6.2 percent from a year earlier to $42.97 billion. —AFP

LONDON/PARIS: In the biggest shake-up in Europe’s aerospace and defense sector in more than a decade, Britain’s BAE Systems and Airbus-owner EADS said they are in advanced talks to create an industry giant that would overtake rival Boeing in sales and contend with defense cutbacks in Europe and the United States.

The proposed deal, the biggest since a 2000 pan-European merger created EADS under joint French and German control, could kick-start a wave of consolidation in the sector, as companies vie for shrinking defense budgets.

Linda Hudson, chief executive of the US arm of BAE Systems, said the deal made sense given the downturn in US and European defense spending, but would also insulate the combined company against the inevitable cycles of the aerospace sector. “It’s a win-win proposition for both companies in this environment,” Hudson told Reuters after a speech at Johns Hopkins University in Washington on Wednesday evening. Boeing CEO Jim McNerney said the Chicago-based aerospace leader was not threatened by such a merger, which he predicted would mark the start of global consolidation in the industry. “I don’t see this as something that is going to threaten us fundamentally,” McNerney told Reuters after a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

Executives at Lockheed Martin Corp declined comment. An EADS-BAE merger would create an entity with more balancedcommercial and military operations, a model that Boeing has followed for some time, McNerney added. While the complex deal faces obstacles, US government officials were not likely to block it, according to multiple sources close to the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly.

These sources said the companies have already held direct discussions with US officials, though no formal proposal has been put forward yet.

Anti-trust concerns in the US would be minimal, given the modest amount of US military revenue generated by EADS and BAE’s trusted role on some of the most sensitive US military and intelligence programs. “I can’t see anything that’s going to be problematic,” said Darren Bush, a veteran of the

A combination shows EADS CEO Tom Enders (left) and Richard Olver (right), Chairman of BAE systems. — AFP Justice Department who teaches law at the University of Houston Law Center. “All the US-based companies will grouse but from an anti-trust perspective I’m not sure what they can do about it. The deal would give BAE shareholders 40 percent and EADS investors 60 percent of a combined group with a dual stock listing. It likely would lower costs, and the group’s products would range from Airbus commercial jets and military transport planes to the BAE-made Eurofighter Typhoon jets and its Astute class nuclear-powered submarines. : Germany is in “constructive talks” with European planemaker EADS, a government source said yesterday, after the firm revealed merger plans with British arms manufacturer BAE Systems. “The federal government is in constructive talks with the company.

We also envisage close consultation with the French government,” the source said on condition of anonymity. A spokesman for the economy ministry said: “The federal government has been informed of the merger negotiations. We have been asked to support this merger. The federal government is currently examining all relevant questions.” — Agencies

Business FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Euro-zone contract, G20 economies slow: OECD China picks up, Japan, Korea drop PARIS: Economic growth in the top G20 countries slowed to 0.6 percent in the second quarter of 2012 from 0.7 percent in the first quarter, with slow and weak growth set to continue, the OECD said yesterday.

The Chinese economy picked up but output in the euro-zone, Japan and South Korea slowed sharply. Britain and Italy also showed shrinking output data.

Some emerging economies showed relatively resilient growth, the data showed. The easing for the G20 (Group of 20) area marks the third quarter running of slowing growth but “masks diverging patterns,” with a moderate slowing in the United States and contraction in the euro-zone, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said.

Growth in China picked up to 1.8 percent from 1.6 percent and in Brazil to 0.4 percent from 0.1 percent, in Indonesia to 1.6 percent from 1.4 percent and in South Africa to 0.8 percent from 0.7 percent. Turkey achieved a turnaround

from contraction of 0.1 percent to growth of 1.8 percent.

In Japan growth fell to 0.2 percent from 1.3 percent and in South Korea top 0.3 percent from 0.9 percent output. In Australia, output also slowed sharply to 0.6 percent from 1.4 percent. The slowdown was less marked in the United States where activity growth eased to 0.4 percent from 0.5 percent, in Germany to 0.3 percent from 0.5 percent and in India 0.8 percent from 1.1 percent.

Output in France was flat at zero in both quarters. In Britain output contracted for the third quarter running, to minus 0.5 percent from minus 0.3 percent, and in Italy for the fourth quarter, which showed minus 0.8-percent growth in the last two quarters.

For the whole of the 27-nation European Union, output contracted by 0.1 percent from a zero reading in the first quarter and for the 17 euro-zone countries it shrank by 0.2 percent from growth of 0.4 percent. According to the

OECD’s composite index of leading indicators slowing and weak growth is set to persist in the coming quarters in most leading economies.

The euro-zone looks set to achieve weak growth, led by France and Germany. Italy is set for a further slowdown, however. Data also points to a further slowdown in China, India and Russia. But Britain and Brazil look set for a pickup in growth, while Japan and United States should still see above trend growth if slowing from previous quarters, said the OECD. In a separate report, the OECD warned Southeast Asian nations would also likely be buffeted by the slowdown in the euro-zone and China. “Continued euro area uncertainty will remain a major downside risk for the ASEAN economies,” the OECD said.

“In addition, ‘indirect channels’ of euro area uncertainty through China-via weakening China’s exports to Europewill have a non-negligible impact on Southeast Asia,” it added. — AFP

Oil prices above $116 ahead of Fed decision

FRANKFURT: Brokers at the German Stock Exchange in Frankfurt, western Germany watch their screens yesterday, the same day a government source said that Germany is in “constructive talks” with European planemaker EADS. The firm has revealed merger plans with British arms manufacturer BAE Systems. — AFP

UK’s Next and John Lewis caution growth may stall LONDON: Next and John Lewis , two of Britain’s best performing retailers, warned of a slowdown in an already troubled sector, dampening hopes that consumers might help return the economy to growth.

Next, Britain’s second biggest clothing retailer behind M&S, said yesterday sales in August and September were disappointing, while department stores and food group John Lewis said consumer demand “remained fragile” and it did not expect its heady rate of growth to continue.

Both Next and privately-owned John Lewis reported strong first-half profits, having been two of the best performers in a troubled retail sector, so their concern is bad news for a UK economy that tipped back into recession in the first quarter and is heavily reliant on consumers to return it to growth. Last week a retail survey said underlying sales fell in August as the London Olympics failed to provide the hoped for boost to demand, but hopes of improving economic prospects had been raised on Wednesday by data showing more Britons were in work. The trading updates yesterday hit shares across the sector with Next down 6.6 percent and other clothing retailers Marks and Spencer and Debenhams down 1.25 percent and 2.3 percent respectively. The gloomier news followed comments by Kingfisher, owner of DIY firm B&Q, and J Sainsbury, Britain’s third largest grocer, which said on Wednesday there were signs of a post Olympics feel good factor in the UK. — Reuters

LONDON: Oil futures rose above $116 a barrel yesterday as investors awaited a US Federal Reserve announcement, expected to include more stimulus action to bolster the economy of the world’s biggest oil buyer. Brent’s frontmonth October contract, which expires at the end of yesterday’s session, rose 49 cents to $116.45 a barrel at 1155 GMT, after a 56-cent gain the previous session.

US crude edged up 24 cents to $97.25 a barrel.

The Fed appeared set to launch a third round of monetary stimulus, known as quantitative easing, yesterday. It was also expected to signal a weak US economy may warrant ultra-low interest rates for at least another three years. “It will be a wait and see day until (Fed chairman) Bernanke speaks.

There is at least a 50 percent chance that we will see a third quantitative easing,” said Filip Petersson, commodity strategist at SEB in Sweden.

“I think we will see a QE 3 but not a strategic release because it would violate the point of them. But I can see the political temptation to do it.” The Fed is expected to release its policy announcement at 1630 GMT yesterday, at the end of a two-day meeting.

Chairman Ben Bernanke will hold a news conference about two hours later.

Markets, including oil, had settled down “after yesterday’s ECB euphoria”, and were now waiting for the US data, said Rob Montefusco, oil broker at Sucden Financial in London.

Germany’s Constitutional Court gave a green light on Wednesday for the country to ratify the euro zone’s new bailout fund and budget pact, helping to boost global stocks and the euro currency.

“Crude is reacting more to economic data than supply concerns,” said Thorbj¯rn Bak Jensen, oil market analyst at Global Risk Management in Denmark, adding “Confidence in the EU is back and therefore in oil.”

Some did not expect a significant reaction to any Fed easing, saying the potential had already been built into the crude price.

“I do not think it (oil) will jump much, as it has already been rising in anticipation. We’ll have a go at $117 but something big must happen to get it above there,” said Michael Hewson, market analyst at CMC Markets in London. “Unless QE 3 is bigger than QE 2 then the effect will be limited.” — Reuters

TOKYO: Japan Airlines (JAL) president Yoshiharu Ueki (center), accompanied by a cabin attendants, displays the new seats of premium economy class (left) and business class (right) for its international flights at a press preview in Tokyo yesterday. JAL, which exited bankruptcy just last year, will be relisted on the Tokyo Stock Exchange next week, in the world’s second-biggest share sale this year. — AFP

Philippine CB keeps rates on hold, raises CPI forecasts MANILA: The Philippine central bank kept its key policy rate steady yesterday, citing potential upside risks to inflation and flagging weak global economic conditions that analysts said signaled the door for further easing remains open.

The benchmark interest rate was left unchanged at a record low of 3.75 percent, in line with expectations it will hold fire before it cuts rates at least one more time by the end of the year. Ten of 12 economists polled by Reuters last week had expected no change in rates, but one of the two dissenters later joined the majority after data on Tuesday showed exports performed better-than-expected in July.

The central bank said it raised its average inflation forecast to 3.4 percent from 3.1 percent for 2012 and to 4.1 percent from 3.2 percent for 2013 following recent increases in oil and non-oil commodity prices globally. But it reiterated slow global demand would temper international commodity prices, and sustained strength in the peso would dampen domestic inflation. Policymakers are betting on strong domestic demand to keep the country’s economy steaming ahead despite the weak outlook for exports, as global demand remained sluggish amid lingering fiscal problems in the United States and Europe.

“The Monetary Board’s decision was based on its assessment that the inflation environment remains benign, with the risks to the inflation outlook appearing to be broadly balanced,” said Amando Tetangco, governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

“The Monetary Board remains mindful of potential upside risks to the inflation outlook including pending electricity rate adjustments and expectations of higher foreign prices for some grains due to adverse weather conditions abroad.”

He added that underlying demand-side pressures remain firm, supported by ample domestic liquidity and brisk credit activity. Most economists believe the central bank will consider easing monetary policy further if capital inflows strengthen further on easier monetary policy in developed economies.

The US Federal Reserve appears set to launch another round of unconventional monetary stimulus later in the day.

“We expect part of the bank’s inflationary concerns to have stemmed from likelihood of stimulus measures in the advanced countries, which could stoke global commodity prices and reignite capital inflows into the region,” said Radhika Rao, economist at Forecast PTE in Singapore.

“We have pencilled in a 25 bps rate cut by end-year and the move we reckon will be driven yet again by the need to contain peso appreciation pressures and curtail speculative inflows, especially if QE3 is announced in the interim,” she said. The Southeast Asian economy’s resilience, thanks to strong domestic demand and higher state spending, has attracted foreign capital inflows that have helped make the peso one of emerging Asia’s best performers this year. As of yesterday, it had strengthened 5 percent against the dollar in 2012. But while a strong currency can help ease inflation, it also makes the country’s exports more expensive and reduces the buying power of remittances from overseas Filipinos that fuel domestic consumption, thus crimping economic growth. — Reuters

THEY ARE THE 99!

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

THE FASCINATING STORY OF THE 99 Baghdad lies in ruins, destroyed by the marauding armies of Hulagu Khan. The brave librarians of the great Dar Al-Hikma rush to save the glory of the ancient world’s accumulated wisdom, little knowing that centuries later their efforts will bear strange fruit. While the Noor Stones were created to save the library, their power has transcended that task and in our own time has provided extraordinary abilities to an international group of

www.the99.org

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

young people, the world’s newest superheroes known as… The 99.

Opinion FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

US poverty rate unchanged as record numbers persist WASHINGTON: The ranks of America’s poor remained stuck at a record level last year, while household income dropped and the number of people who don’t have health insurance declined. A Census Bureau report released Wednesday provided a mixed picture of the economic well-being of US households for 2011 as the nation enters the final phase of a presidential election campaign in which the economy is the No 1 issue. The overall poverty rate stood at 15 percent, statistically unchanged from the 15.1 percent rate in the previous year.

Experts had expected a rise in the poverty rate for the fourth straight year, but unemployment benefits and modest job gains helped stave that off, the bureau reported. For last year, the official poverty line was an annual income of $23,021 for a family of four. While unemployment eased slightly from 2010 to 2011, the gap between rich and poor increased. The median, or midpoint, household income was $50,054, 1.5 percent lower than 2010 and a second straight annual decline. In a blog post, the White House said the latest figures show that government policies can help the poor, middle class and uninsured, while more work remains to be done.

“While we have made progress digging our way out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, too many families are still struggling and Congress must act on the policies President Obama has put forward to strengthen the middle class and those trying to get into it,” the White House post said. At a fundraising event in Jacksonville, Fla, Obama’s GOP rival for the White House, Mitt Romney, said the president “is the candidate that’s pushed the middle class into poverty. We’re the party of those who want a brighter, prosperous future for themselves and for their kids.

We’re not the party of the rich. We’re the party of the people who want to get rich.”

By total numbers, roughly 46.2 million people remained below the poverty line last year, unchanged from 2010. That figure was the highest in the more than half a century that records have been kept. The 15 percent poverty rate was about the same as it was in 1993 and was the highest since 1983. Broken down by state, New Mexico had the highest share of poor people, at 22.2 percent, according to rough calculations by the Census Bureau. It was followed by Louisiana, the District of Columbia, South Carolina, Arkansas and Georgia. On the other end of the scale, New Hampshire had the lowest, at 7.6 percent.

Bruce D Meyer, an economist at the University of Chicago, said it was disappointing that poverty levels did not improve. He described it as a sign of lingering problems in the labor market, even with recent declines in the unemployment rate. “The drop in the unemployment rate has been due in significant part to workers leaving the labor force, because they are discouraged, back in school, taking care of family or other reasons,” he said.

Some economists were just relieved that the poverty level wasn’t higher in the struggling economy. “This is good news and a surprise,” said Sheldon Danziger, a

University of Michigan economist who closely tracks poverty. He pointed to a continuing boost from new unemployment benefits passed in 2009 that gave workers up to 99 weeks of payments after layoffs and didn’t run out for many people until late 2011. Also, job gains in the private sector helped offset cuts in state and local government workers.

“It would indicate the stimulus was even more effective than believed,” he said. The official poverty level is based on a government calculation that includes only income before tax deductions. It excludes capital gains or accumulated wealth, such as home

the official formula, the earned income tax credit would have lifted 5.7 million more people above the poverty threshold, while food stamps would have boosted 3.9 million people.

On the other hand, those at the top saw more growth in their incomes. Johnson said the top 1 percent of wage earners had a 6 percent increase in income in the last year, while earners in the bottom 80 percent of the income distribution mostly lost ground. The top 5 percent posted a 5.3 percent in income, indicating a widening in the gap between rich and poor. In the middle portion of the income distribution, mid-

Children’s Health Insurance Program increased for the fifth consecutive year, adding coverage to more than 3 million people.

Congress passed the health overhaul in 2010 to bring coverage to more people.

The law is a favorite target of Republicans, including Romney, who has pledged to push a repeal if he is elected. The main provisions of the health care law don’t take effect until 2014. Those with a low income include Claudia Pedroza, 39, of Lakewood, Colo., who moved her four children from Denver to outside the city five years ago in search of better schools and a bigger

COLORADO: Claudia Pedroza, 39, and her eight-year-old daughter Karla Osorio seen at the Jefferson Action Center in Lakewood, Colo. Pedroza moved to the Denver suburbs five years ago with her husband and four children in hopes of a more comfortable suburban life. But Pedroza’s family struggles to make ends meet. — AP ownership. As a result, the official poverty rate takes into account the effects of some stimulus programs passed in 2009, such as unemployment benefits, as well as jobs that were created or saved by government spending. It does not factor in non-cash government aid such as tax credits and food stamps.

David Johnson, the chief of the Census Bureau’s household economics division, attributed the better-than-expected poverty numbers to increases in full-time workers over the last year. He also estimated that expanded unemployment benefits helped keep 2.3 million people out of poverty, while Social Security lifted roughly 14.5 million seniors above the poverty line. Without the Social Security cash payments, the number of people ages 65 and older living in poverty would have increased fivefold. If non-cash government aid were counted in

dle-class Americans with earnings between $20,000 and $62,000 received less of the nation’s total income, taking in just 23.8 percent, a new low. In 1980, the share taken in by similar middle-income groups was 29 percent.

The share of Americans without health coverage fell from 16.3 percent to 15.7 percent, or 48.6 million people. It was the biggest decline in the number of uninsured since 1999, helped in part by increased coverage for young adults under the new health care law that allows them to be covered under their parents’ health insurance until age 26. The number of people covered by employment-based health plans also edged up from 169.4 million to 170.1 million, the first time in 10 years that the rate of private insurance coverage did not fall.

Meanwhile, government health insurance including Medicaid, Medicare and the

house. She struggled to find work busing tables at a restaurant for $4.64 an hour, bringing home just $500 a month after taxes. Her husband has a $9-an-hour construction job but has seen his hours cut to 30 hours a week because of the limp market.

Waiting for free food, shampoo and toiletries in a government-service agency this summer, Pedroza said it’s been a challenge to stay afloat. “I thought it was going to be easy, but it’s been very hard,” said Pedroza, speaking in Spanish translated by her youngest daughter, age 8. Pedroza’s daughter, Karla Osorio, picked up a pint of strawberries available at the government office and excitedly put them in their bag to take home. Pedroza and her daughter had a brief conversation. “Mom says to tell you we went to Walmart ... and couldn’t afford this stuff. Here, look, we have grapes and strawberries,” the girl said.— AP

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012 www.kuwaittimes.net

The Oscar de la Renta Spring 2013 childrenswear collection is modeled during Fashion Week, Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012, in New York. — AP

FOOD FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Pass the Dusseldorf

Move over Dijon, there’s another strong

mustard

in the house

W

alk the mustard aisle of any store, and “D” will stand for Dijon, a testament, perhaps, to the popularity of all those Grey Poupon commercials. But “D” also means Dusseldorf, an oftoverlooked style that has multiple culinary uses beyond garnishing a hot dog. “Dusseldorf has much better flavor than Dijon,” says chef Walter Staib of Philadelphia’s City Tavern restaurant. “But it doesn’t have the sex appeal of Dijon or the pedigree.” “I cook with mustard all the time. The Dusseldorf has more flavor,” adds Staib, host of the public television series “A Taste of History.” Yet even this German-born chef was forced to switch to Dijon when writing his “Black Forest Cuisine” cookbook. Dijon was more widely available, and his editors insisted on it.

“There’s a boldness,” he says of Dusseldorf. “It’s better for cooking, for salads.” Like Dijon, Dusseldorf has many culinary uses. Yet it is Dijon that gets much of the respect and supermarket shelf space these days.

But that may change, at least on a governmental level. Like Dijon in France, Dusseldorf is an actual place, a city on the Rhine River in western Germany. An application was recently filed with the European Commission to award an appellation-like protected geographical indication status to “Dusseldorfer mostert.” What that means, essentially, is a mustard labeled as Dusseldorf (or Dusseldorfer) has to be made there according to specific regulations, at least as far as sales in the European Union are concerned.

As defined in the application, Dusseldorf’s mustard “consists exclusively of ground brown and yellow mustard seeds, unfiltered spirit vinegar produced in Dusseldorf, the special lime and mineral rich water of Dusseldorf, salt, sugar and spices.” It has “a bright creamy consistency and a malt brown color” and contains “tiny pieces of husks (specks).” And the flavor?

“Hot, malty, spicy,” which the application credits to the triple grinding of the mustard husks.

Judging by what’s on the shelves over here, US mustard producers have differing ideas of what Dusseldorf mustard is. “It may be a smooth brown mustard or more grainy or spicier,” says Barry M Levenson, founder and curator of the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wis. “Your Dusseldorf and my Dusseldorf could be totally different.” No wonder Olds Products Co., the Pleasant Prairie, Wis., maker of Koops’ Dusseldorf mustard, tries to help consumers with the descriptions: “a smooth German style mustard” and “America’s Brat Mustard.”

While the mustard is great on brats and hot dogs and sausages, don’t feel limited. Marlena Spieler, a California-born cookbook author now living in Waterlooville, England, reaches for Dusseldorf mustard when she wants to give a “subtly different flavor” to a dish.

“It’s always strong and not sweet, just the way I like it,” she says. For Spieler, who thinks even the word “Dusseldorf” is cool, the mustard works with tuna, burgers, chicken salad and grilled cheeses of all types. Dusseldorf can be darker in color than its Dijon counterpart, but Staib, for one, doesn’t believe that’s much of a problem, especially in a sauce that can be lightened with sour cream or another ingredient.

“Close your eyes,” he says, “and you would think it was a very strong Dijon mustard.”

LEEKS WITH A DUSSELDORF VINAIGRETTE Prep: 10 minutes Cook: 10 minutes Servings: 4 Ingredients: 12 small to medium leeks, cleaned, trimmed (about 2 pounds) 1 tablespoon Dusseldorf mustard 5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 1 teaspoon salt Freshly ground pepper 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives 1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon or dill

FOOD FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

1 package (8 ounces) cooked beets, diced Directions: 1. Cut leeks into 3 to 4 pieces. Cook them in a steamer over simmering water until just tender, 7-10 minutes.

2. Combine the vinegar with the mustard in a small bowl.

Slowly whisk in the olive oil; season with salt and pepper to taste.

3. Arrange leeks on individual plates or on one serving platter. Drizzle with vinaigrette, sprinkle with chives and tarragon. Chill until ready to serve; sprinkle with beets (their color will run if added too early).

Nutrition information: Per serving: 254 calories, 17 g fat, 2 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 24 g carbohydrates, 3 g protein, 448 mg sodium, 3 g fiber.

THE FLAVORS OF DUSSELDORF Mustard comes in many varieties and flavors, and there can be, as a recent blind tasting proved, an equally wide range of tastes and colors even within a specific type of mustard.

Ditto for the wording on the labels, which can read “Dusseldorf,” “Dusseldorf style” or say nothing at all, even when the mustard is made in Dusseldorf. You may need to linger a bit in the condiments aisle and read labels to get some idea of what you’re buying.

Good Eating tasters sampled a variety of mustards in the Dusseldorf style. Four were made in the United States, the fifth in Germany.

The mustards are ranked in order, from most favored (1) to the least (5): Koops’ Dusseldorf: This very smooth, khaki-colored mustard had a nice vinegary bite and a spicy, almost meaty, mouth feel. Made by Olds Products Co. of Pleasant Prairie, Wis. $3.75 (12 ounces) Lakeside’s Hot German Dusseldorf mustard: Grainy, dark yellow in appearance, this mustard had a strong vinegar flavor. Distributed by Lakeside Foods of St Francis, Wis. $4.75 (8 ounces) White Castle Dusseldorf mustard: Made for the Columbus, Ohio-based fast-food chain’s Midwestern outlets and available there as a retail item, this mustard has a ruddy brownish color, perhaps from the turmeric and caramel color listed among the ingredients. Strong flavor and scent of cloves. $2.49 (10 ounces) Beaver Dusseldorf mustard: Made by Beaverton Foods of Beaverton, Ore., this mustard had a vegetal, herbal aroma and a pronounced celery flavor. Medium-coarse grind, bright yellow color. $3 (4 ounces) Alstertor Dusseldorf Style mustard: Made in Hamburg, Germany, this mustard is packaged in a distinctive glass container shaped like a beer stein. A vivid yellow, the mustard has a sharp vinegar aroma and flavor. $6.25 (8.45 ounces) MAKING MUSTARD Prepared mustards range widely in texture, color and flavor because mustard-makers have long sought to put their own unique spin on the product.

Producers choose the mustard seed - white, brown, black - and determine how finely the seeds will be ground or crushed. For some, the choice is governed by personal taste or commercial appeal. For others, the seed is determined as a matter of law.

To make the prepared mustards, the ground seeds are mixed with a liquid - water, vinegar, whatever - to form a paste. Distinctive flavors are developed by stirring in various other ingredients, which might include spices, herbs, pureed vegetables or even crystallized fruit.

What we choose in the mustard aisle can range from the very mild yellow American mustard squirted on countless charred hot dogs at backyard barbecues to the sinus-clearing blast of an English mustard freshly made from mustard powder and cold water.

Home cooks curious to make their own mustard can find a number of recipes in “The Mustard Book,” by Rosamond Man and Robin Weir.

BLACK FOREST BEEF ROULADES Prep: 1 hour Cook: 55 minutes Servings: 6 Note: Chef Walter Staib of Philadelphia’s City Tavern uses Dusseldorf mustard in this dish but called for Dijon mustard in his 2006 book, “Black Forest Cuisine,” because Dijon was more widely available. You may sub with a commercially prepared brown sauce or demi-glace instead of making your own.

Ingredients: 1 stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter 1 white onion, sliced 6 slices lean beef top round, 8 to 10 inches long, 3 to 4 inches wide and 1 inch thick 1 teaspoon salt Freshly ground pepper 2 to 3 tablespoons Dusseldorf mustard 1 large bunch fresh curly-leaf parsley, stemmed, chopped, plus whole sprigs for garnish 6 dill pickle spears 3 cups demi-glace or prepared brown sauce Directions: 1. Heat oven to 425 degrees. Heat 2 tablespoons butter in a medium skillet over high heat. Add the onion; cook until softened and translucent. Remove from the

heat to cool.

2. Line up the beef slices on a work surface, laying them flat; season with salt and pepper to taste. Spread 1 generous teaspoon mustard on each slice; sprinkle evenly with sauteed onion, parsley. Place a pickle spear on the edge of each strip. Roll the beef slices tightly; tie with kitchen twine or pierce with toothpicks to hold the rolls in place.

3. Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons butter in a medium ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. (The skillet should be just large enough to hold all the roulades snugly.) Season the roulades with salt and pepper to taste; arrange in the skillet. Brown well on all sides.

Add the vinegar to deglaze, stirring with a wooden spoon to loosen any browned bits on the bottom of the skillet; lower heat and simmer until the skillet is nearly dry.

4. Pour in the demi-glace or brown sauce; cover. Place in oven; roast until the meat is fully cooked but still tender, about 30 minutes. (Check the roulades after about 15 minutes and be careful not to overcook them or they will fall apart.)

5. To serve, remove the twine or toothpicks; arrange roulades on a platter or on individual plates. Garnish with parsley.

Nutrition information: Per serving: 585 calories, 33 g fat, 14 g saturated fat, 160 mg cholesterol, 16 g carbohydrates, 53 g protein, 1,260 mg sodium, 1 g fiber. — MCT ___

Beauty FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Conceal your imperfections Highlighting your beauty works only when the blemishes are covered

C

oncealer is the one staple in a woman’s beauty arsenal that can dramatically change your appearance. Used correctly, concealer can brighten a tired face, it can cover up blemishes and it can totally conceal under-eye circles. In fact, many beauty editors use concealer primarily and skip foundation completely.

Many people are afraid of concealers because they don’t know how to find the right shade or apply it properly. It can be daunting, but once you know the basics and try the application process below, you’ll find concealer may be your best beauty purchase to date.

Pick the right concealer There are so many types of concealers on the market, choosing one can be daunting. Keep in mind concealer is not a beauty product to scrimp on. A basic rule of thumb is to choose a concealer that’s yellow-based and a shade or two lighter than your skin tone. Don’t go too light or you could end up with the dreaded raccoon look. If your skin is darker in summer, you should choose a darker shade for summer months and a lighter one for other months. To test shades, try them out at department store beauty counters or Sephora. Just don’t get suckered into a full-makeover at the cosmetics counter.

Should you apply concealer before or after?

This depends on where you’re using the concealer. For under-eye circles, apply concealer first, then foundation.

For blemishes and pimple coverage, apply foundation first or the concealer will be rubbed away in the foundation application.

How to apply concealer Concealer looks most natural when you work in “sheer layers and build it up gradually,” according to the editors of Allure’s “Confessions of a Beauty Editor.”

To properly apply concealer, follow these directions: Apply several dots of concealer under the eyes close to the lashes.

Apply a dot to the inside corners of the eyes. You can use your finger or, for best results, try a small-headed brush with firm bristles.

Using the pad of your middle finger, tap in the concealer (always tap, never rub). Make sure to blend well. You can also use your index finger. There’s no real rule to it, but I find the middle finger tends to be more gentle.

Apply concealer on other uneven spots on the face-including the chin, and around the nose and mouth if need be-and tap in.

Apply another layer if you need more coverage.

Dust fine, loose powder over your face to set your concealer. According to makeup artist Scott Barnes in Allure

Magazine, loose powder applied with a fluffy brush is “the secret to good concealer.”

How to disguise dark under-eye circles It’s best not to use your basic concealer to try to disguise dark under-eye circles. Instead, choose an “under-eye concealer” specially formulated to cover up dark spots. These work by brightening the dark areas under the eyes and are not to be used to camouflage redness or blemishes.

How to cover up a pimple Use a stiff brush with a pointy, fine tip to dab on a concealer that matches your skin tone. It’s important to apply only to the red areas, not necessarily to the raised area. Let the concealer dry.

Apply a second layer. Set the concealer with a dusting of translucent powder. If you find you overdid the concealer, use a tissue to gently buff the concealer away. If that doesn’t work, moisten a Qtip with makeup remover and gently apply to the pimple. Then re-cover the pimple with concealer.

How to disguise pockmarks You can disguise a concave pockmark or scar by using an angled brush dipped in a concealer that’s a shade lighter than your skin tone. Fill in the center of the pockmark without going over the edges and then dust skin with translucent powder. If the scar is raised, use a concealer that matches your skin tone and pat the scar with the concealer, setting the concealer with powder.

Does concealer work on under-eye bags?

Concealer is actually not a good bet for downplaying under eye bags.

Instead, makeup artist Dick Page recommends pearl highlighter, which acts as an optical illusion, making you look more awake. Page dots the highlighter on the inner corner of eyes, under the lower lids and on the outer corner of the brow. www.beauty.about.com

Books FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

By Thich Nhat Hanh

“N

ext time you are caught in a traffic jam... sit back and smile... a smile of compassion and loving kindness.” While such sappy Zen advice from a Buddhist monk, a Vietnamese resident in France following his exile in 1966, could send Western seekers of enlightenment into overdrive, fortunately most of the suggestions offered in this slim guidebook are of more substance. In a series of vignettes and short passages, e.g., “Cooking Our Potatoes,” Nhat Hanh outlines techniques for living mindfullly, that is, in the present. Emphasizing that all things are interconnected on personal and political levels, he notes, for example, that the wealth of one society is based on the poverty of others. This book of illuminating reminders bids us to reorient the way we look at the world, turning away from a goal-driven, me-first modality toward a humanitarian perspective.

By Eckhart Tolle

T

hough not usually marketed to be about mindfulness, a reader suggested it as being about Mindfulness, and she is right. Lots of Amazon readers agree. This book is of course very popular, as is Eckhart Tolle, it’s author. A mix of mindfulness exercises and explanations about how everything mashes together, this book is popular for a very good reason.

Happiness: Essential Mindfulness Practices

By Thich Nhat Hanh

E

ncouraging readers to be intelligent and skillful in their practice, this new collection by Thich Nhat Hanh outlines the essential steps by which we can all obtain real and lasting happiness. Each day, we perform the tasks of everyday life without thought or awareness - walking, sitting, working, eating, driving, and much more. But Hanh points out that if we remain truly aware of our actions, no matter the task we’re performing, we can stay engaged in our lives and better our outlook through mindfulness. This key practice is the foundation for this accessible, easy-to-understand volume, and an invaluable tool for change for both seasoned Buddhist practitioners and lay readers interested in bettering their lives through full awareness.

The Mindfulness Solution: Everyday Practices for Everyday Problems

By Ronald D Siegel

Stillness Speaks

By Eckhart Tolle

E

xpanding on his mantra: Get out of your head and into the moment, Eckhart Tolle offers this new book on living in the now. Here Tolle emphasizes the art of “inner stillness”-the place where thoughts, ego and attachments fall always and we are left only with what the moment has to offer: “When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world.” Don’t expect this to be a quick skim or even a straight-through read. This book is meant to be digested in small chunks. One of those inspiring, lay-on-your-bedside table and read fragments before going to bed (or before meditating in this case) type of books that are also great travel companions.

M

indfulness offers a path to well-being and tools for coping with life’s inevitable hurdles. And though mindfulness may sound exotic, you can cultivate it-and reap its proven benefits-without special training or lots of spare time. Trusted therapist and mindfulness expert Dr Ronald Siegel shows exactly how in this inviting guide. You’ll get effective strategies to use while driving to work, walking the dog, or washing the dishes, plus tips on creating a formal practice routine in as little as 20 minutes a day. Flexible, step-bystep action plans will help you become more focused and efficient in daily life; cope with difficult feelings, such as anger and sadness; deepen your connection to your spouse or partner; feel more rested and less stressed; curb unhealthy habits; find relief from anxiety and depression; and resolve stress-related pain, insomnia, and other physical problems.

Wherever You Go, There You Are

By Jon Kabat-Zinn

B

y the pioneer of mindfulness meditation for the masses, Jon Kabat-Zinn, this meditative look at life and of course mindfulness will draw you in. As one reviewer rightly says: reading about mindfulness is easy, the practice is not. The funny thing is: even the reading itself works like a tonic somehow. This book is right up that alley.— www.squidoo.com

Technology FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Orcs and dragons fight for gaming space

T

ransformers: The Fall of Cybertron will help fulfill more than a few childhood fantasies as it lets gamers who used to play with Transformers figures guide them on a computer screen. Released by Activision, it’s based directly on the 2010 predecessor The Battle for Cybertron. Besides the titular heroes and the evil Decepticons, players can also choose to control Megabots, which are made up of up to five smaller robots. During gameplay, players take on the roles of multiple robots, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

A multi-player mode also gives players the chance to build their own robot out of various components, including camouflage and flight elements. But little has changed in the way fighting is conducted: Players see their character from a shoulder perspective, fighting with either weapons or their fists, or converting into a vehicle when necessary. The PC version will sell for

about 50 euros (63 dollars) and is recommended for players aged 12 and up.

Secret Files 3, from Koch Media, requires characters Nina and Max to chase down one of the world’s oldest mysteries, but the developer isn’t saying which one. There are changes Nina and Max even get married this time. It’s mostly played out in the present, though there are trips into ancient Egypt to clear up some of the background story. In the past, players take on the role of a master thief who steals an artefact that becomes important in the present. Players will control five characters during the course of the game, sometimes two at once. Controls are point and click, with some enhancements, including a function that quickly makes it clear which objects are important and can be combined.

Less experienced players can opt for easier modes. Players’ decisions affect the overall

gameplay and lead to one of four possible endings. The game should sell for about 37 euros and is recommended for players aged 12 and up.

One of the industry’s most beloved games will stage a revival with Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition. The reworked version of this 1998 classic from Overhaul Games promises three new characters and one new playing realm where players can send their troop of heroes for a lifeor-death arena battle. The controls have also been simplified and the resolution improved for modern monitors.

Along with a PC version, there will also be iPad, Mac and Android versions. A download version of the game is at www.baldursgate.com for 20 dollars. F1 2012 should get motorsport fans excited when it comes on September 21. All drivers and teams from the current year are represented, as are 25 courses. There are some new

additions, such as a Young Driver’s Test, where beginners can test their skills. Developers have also promised a dynamic weather system that will have consequences for the race. F1 2012 has no age limitations and will be released for the XBox 360, Playstation 3 and PC, with the PC version costing 50 euros. Mists of Pandaria from Blizzard Entertainment is the fourth expansion of the online role-playing game World of Warcraft. Due September 25, orcs and humans encounter the previously undiscovered Asian continent of Pandaria.

Players can take control of one of the bearlike Pandarians and create a new monk-class hero. Additionally, there will be 18 new opponents and multiple new additions. Players’ virtual pets can also be used in battle this time. The title is recommended for players aged 12 and up, and can be downloaded or purchased as a DVD for about 35 euros. — dpa

Lifestyle FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Curie museum lifts veil on the glory days of physics A

This file handout photo taken on August 3, 2012 and released by Expo 2012 Yeosu shows South Korean singer Park Jae-Sang, better known by his stage name “Psy”, during an Asia song festival in the southern port city of Yeosu. —AFP

Unlikely Korean pop star conquers the US ‘Gangnam Style’

A

chubby thirty-something with wacky dance moves, Park Jae-Sang falls far short of the prettified, teenage ideal embodied by the stars of South Korea’s phenomenally successful K-pop industry. But Park, known as “Psy,” has succeeded where the industry-manufactured girl and boy bands have tried and failed, making a huge splash on the mainstream US music scene thanks to a viral video and a rare sense of irony. Since being posted on YouTube in July, Psy’s video for “Gangnam Style”-the title song of his sixth album-has racked up more than 150 million views and spawned a host of admiring parodies.

The accompanying worldwide publicity has earned him a US contract with Justin Bieber’s management agency, a guest appearance at last week’s MTV awards in Los Angeles and a spot on NBC’s flagship “Today” show. Earlier this week he was given the opportunity to school US pop diva Britney Spears on his increasingly famous signature dance moves on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show”. The breakout success of “Gangnam Style” has been viewed with a mixture of pride and surprise in Psy’s home country, with industry analysts scrabbling to identify the magic ingredient that made it such a phenomenal success abroad.

The Gangnam of the title is Seoul’s wealthiest residential and shopping district, lined with luxury boutiques, top-end bars and restaurants frequented by celebrities and well-heeled, designerclad socialites. The video pokes fun at the district’s lifestyle, with Psy breezing through a world of speed boats, yoga classes and exclusive clubs-all the while performing an eccentric horse-riding dance accompanied by beautiful models. Humour, especially satirical humour, is rare in the mainstream Korean music scene, and that coupled with the 34-year-old’s embrace of his anti-pop idol looks has helped set him apart.

According to Simon Stawski, the Canadian co-founder of the popular “Eat Your Kimchi” blog on K-pop and Korean culture, Psy is the “antithesis of K-pop” and its stable of preening, sexualized, fashion-conscious young stars. “K-pop bands are exceptionally controlled by their management. Psy doesn’t buy into that at all, and that’s partly why he’s such a breath of fresh air,” Stawski told AFP. “Above all, Psy doesn’t take himself seriously and uses irony and self-deprecation that are absent from K-pop,” he said. This, Stawski adds, is what has allowed Psy to jump the English language barrier and find a wider audience for a song which, apart from its title, is almost entirely in Korean. ‘Someone people would want to party with’ In South Korea, “Gangnam Style” has won Psy a new fan base by appealing to those for whom the sanitised image of K-pop bears little resemblance to their actual lives. “His somewhat ‘normal’ appearance makes him feel familiar, and the comic dancing and wacky fashion style give off a friendly image, branding Psy as someone people would want to party with,” the daily Munhwa Ilbo commented. Psy himself says he invites laughter, not ridicule. “My motto is to be funny, but not stupid,” he said in an interview with the Yonhap news agency. —AFP

museum scarcely bigger than a Paris flat sheds light on a momentous era for physics, a time of heroic individuals who made extraordinary discoveries but often at hideous risk. Within the walls of the former “Radium Institute” in the city’s Latin Quarter is the preserved laboratory of Marie Curie, central figure of the greatest dynasty in modern science.

The Polish-born genius, her husband Pierre, their daughter Irene and son-inlaw Frederic Joliot were colossuses of physics and chemistry, between them notching up five Nobel prizes in just over three decades.

Arriving as a student in Paris in 1891, Marie Curie experienced grinding poverty, xenophobia and hostility from the scientific establishment; at her death in 1934, she was a mega-star, mourned by the public and showered with honours. The Curies helped rip aside the veil hiding radioactivity, even coining the term for it. They discovered two new elements, polonium and radium, and made artificial radioactivity from stable elements such as boron and magnesium. They contributed hugely to health, setting up mobile Xray machines for hospitals on the World War I trenches. And they walloped cancer, pioneering the first studies into isotopes to kill tumorous cells.

Stepping into Marie Curie’s lab is to be timewarped to the era of horizonsweeping ideas and men and women with a restless, questing spirit. “When I first went into her office, into the sanctuary, it was almost like being in the presence of something sacred,” Claude

Huriet, president of the Institut Curie, which runs the museum and famous Curie cancer hospital, told AFP. In 1903, Marie Curie became the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize, sharing the physics award with her husband and a pioneer in radioactivity, Henri Becquerel.

Eight years later, she became the sole winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry. She remains the only individual to win a Nobel in multiple sciences. The two preserved rooms are part of the 150-square-metre (1,600square-feet) Musee Curie, opening after a two-year refurbishment paid by a $1million (787,000-euro) legacy by the Curies’ younger daughter, Eve, who died in 2007.

With reward, mortal risks The museum gives a glimpse of an age of derring-do and making-do that compares starkly with today, when the search for the Higgs Boson has cost at least $6 billion and mustered 5,000 physicists. Go back a century, and physicists often had to make their own instruments wonderful gadgets of brass and mahogany-just to be able to measure their own experiments.

Chemists employed an on-site glassblower to make test tubes. Pierre and Marie had a ramshackle building-”a cross between a stable and a potato shed,” sneered visiting German chemist Wilhelm Ostwald-where they carried out a now-legendary search for radium.

They hauled in a tonne of pitchblende, a radioactive slag, from a mine in Bohemia and separated it in the

Undated picture showing Marie Curie-Skolodowska with Pierre Curie, working in their laboratory in Paris. — AFP photos

This 1925 file photo shows Professor Marie Curie working in her laboratory at the University of Paris. shed, boiling up the material with toxic chemicals and stirring it in a cauldron with a heavy iron bar. After three years’ labour, they had isolated one-tenth of a gramme of radium chloride. The building had no safety measures, was poorly ventilated and even let in the rain. At night, unaware of the peril, they admired the fruit of their work as it lay on a pine table: tubes of radium fragments that exuded a pretty bluish “fairy-like glow,” in Marie’s words.

Even today, the notebooks in which they recorded their work from 18971900 are so radioactive that any scholar who wishes to consult them at France’s National Library has to sign a certificate that he or she is doing so at their own risk. It is no surprise that Pierre Curie, who was accidentally killed by a horsedrawn carriage in 1906, showed many symptoms of radiation sickness. But at that time nothing was known about ionising radiation, or particles that snap DNA bonds in cells, turning them cancerous.

“After (the) Chernobyl (disaster in 1986), people associated radioactivity with fear. But in those days, it was completely different, people thought that radioactivity was simply fantastic,” said museum director Renaud Huynh. In the 1920s, posh families would buy special taps with radium salt tablets to make their drinking water “curative”. Wealthy women would buy “Tho-Radia” beauty cream created by a “Dr Alfred Curie” (no relation to the Curies). And “sexually weak” men would be urged to insert “Vita Radium Suppositories” to restore potency. In the late 1920s, the love-fest for radioactivity faded as its dangers became clear. But awareness came tragically too late for Marie Curie. After years of exposure to radioactive elements and X-rays, she died of leukaemia in 1934 at the age of 66. Less than 22 years later, the same fate awaited Irene, aged just 58. — AFP

Lifestyle FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Booker T Jones speaks after receiving the Lifetime Achievement Instrumentalist Award.

Joy Williams and John Paul White of the Civil Wars speak after receiving the Duo/Group of the Year award.-AP photos

G

illian Welch and her partner Dave Rawlings, The Civil Wars and Alabama Shakes took home trophies, but Music City was the big winner at Wednesday night’s Americana Honors & Awards. Five of six winners at the Ryman Auditorium event are based in Nashville, further cementing the city’s growing reputation as a roots music destination. Welch won artist of the year and Rawlings broke Buddy Miller’s stranglehold on the instrumentalist of the year category. And The Civil Wars, fresh from learning that debut album “Barton Hollow” has gone gold, won duo/group of the year.

“There’s something about this town, something about this center of gravity that pulls in so many musicians and writers and artists,” John Paul White of The Civil Wars said backstage, while celebrating with duo partner Joy Williams.

“There’s something to that. I think sometimes this town gets a bit of a bad rap for the tourist trade. We’ve got more neon than people are accustomed to, but for us this is home. The things that we grew up loving came from here and those roots are still here. So there’s a common thread that runs throughout. It’s sort of like Mecca.”

The only non-Nashville act to win was the Shakes, which took home the new/emerging artist award. Though they’re from Athens, Ala., they have a Nashville connection of their own they recorded their breakthrough album “Boys and Girls” in town. Lead nominee and recent Nashville emigre Jason Isbell won song of the year for “Alabama Pines,” a melancholy salute to his former north Alabama home that he wrote while feeling homesick. “I want to thank the terrible hotels of north Florida for inspiring me to write this,” Isbell joked with the crowd before returning to play the song alongside his fiance, fiddler Amanda Shires.

Producers Tamara Saviano and Shawn Camp won album of the year for “This One’s For Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark.” The win came after Clark took the stage for a performance of “My Favorite Picture of You,” the night’s most powerful moment. “I wrote this for my wife Susannah, who died in June,” Clark told the crowd. “I wish she could be here to hear it. But I’ll play it for her anyway.” Bonnie Raitt, Booker T Jones (of Booker T & the MG’s fame) and Richard Thompson were honored with lifetime achievement awards Raitt as a performer, Jones as an instrumentalist and Thompson as a songwriter.

Bonnie Raitt shows off her Lifetime Achievement Performance Award.

“It means the world to me because I’m the daughter of a performer who played until he was 87 years old and he made every night like opening night,” Raitt said. Jones (“Green Onions”), Raitt (“Thing Called Love”) and Thompson (“Vincent”) offered highlight performances of classic songs. Raul Malo of The Mavericks blew the roof off the Ryman with his soaring vocals on “Come Unto Me” and most

B

ritish rockers Led Zeppelin will release a concert film based on their 2007 charity performance in London that hits cinemas on Oct 17, according to the Cineworld movie theatre chain. On its website, Cineworld features a poster of a large zeppelin airship flying over the Houses of Parliament in London to accompany the announcement. The band is rumoured to be preparing a statement to be issued later. The film, called “Celebration Day” and directed by Dick Carruthers, was taken from the long-awaited reunion of one of rock’s most successful acts.

performers returned at the end of the night to salute Levon Helm with a group performance of “The Weight.” — AP Jason Isbell accepts the award for Song of the Year for “Alabama Pines”.

The band broke up in 1980 after the death of their drummer John Bonham, but despite repeated calls from millions of fans to get back together to tour and record, reunions have been fleeting and, by their own admission, unsatisfactory. But in 2007, singer Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page and bass player John Paul Jones, along with Bonham’s son and drummer Jason, took the stage at London’s O2 Arena for a tribute gig to Atlantic Records’ founder Ahmet Ertegun.

Cineworld called it the most over-subscribed gig in history more than 20 million

people applied for 18,000 tickets. “It’s a unique opportunity to savour what is likely to be Led Zeppelin’s final performance,” the cinema chain said. The band played 16 songs on the night including some of their biggest hits “Whole Lotta Love”, “Kashmir” and “Stairway to Heaven”. — Reuters

Lifestyle FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

he Palestinian-Israeli conflict has taken a backseat in recent days to the Arab Spring, but at the Toronto International Film Festival an unusually high number of films shine fresh light on the decades-long conflict. Dramas like “The Attack” and “Out in the Dark” explore the human side of the strife, while documentaries such as “State 194” and “The Gatekeepers” offer insight into the politics behind the conflict through interviews with top political and security players.

Considered one of the world’s top festivals, Toronto helps kick off the Hollywood awards season, though films on the Middle East could prove too politically sensitive for mainstream audiences. In “The Attack,” Palestinian actor Ali Suliman plays Amin, a prominent Arab surgeon living a comfortable life in Tel Aviv. Amin’s cozy existence is shattered when he learns his wife is responsible for a suicide bombing that killed 17 people. As his Israeli friends and colleagues turn their backs, Amin tries to understand why his welleducated, liberal, Christian wife would have committed a crime like this.

Based on the book by Yasmina Khadra, “The Attack” plays on the human elements in acts of betrayal, while also offering insight into how precarious life can be for Arabs living in Israel. “Even if you live in that bubble, trying to pretend that the conflict is far

T

away - eventually the conflict seeps back in,” said the film’s director, Ziad Doueiri. “We can get along as much as we can, but when push comes to shove, you’re again an Arab and I’m an Israeli.”

Another drama putting a fresh spin on the Israel-Palestine divide is “Out in the Dark,” a love story by first-time director Michael Mayer that centers on a gay lawyer, Roy, who falls in love with a Palestinian graduate student, Nimr. The budding relationship is complicated when Nimr’s visa is suddenly revoked and he faces deportation from Tel Aviv.

The film offers a rare glimpse into the risky lives of gay Palestinians living on the fringe in Tel Aviv, while grim shots of the towering West Bank fence aim to bring home the message of a lack of freedom for Palestinians. Israel imposed a network of checkpoints and built a broad separation barrier across the West Bank after a Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000, preventing most West Bankers from entering Israel. Israel maintains it is needed to protect it from attack.

Over 1,000 Israelis and several thousand Palestinians died in the violence that petered out midway through the decade. “When the politics enter the personal, people get up and fight for it,” said Mayer of his approach to the film. “It feels more compelling to me when it’s told through a personal story.”

Secret police, political giants Dror Moreh’s documentary “The Gatekeepers” is a riveting inside account of Israel’s intelligence gathering through interviews with six former heads of Shin Bet, the Israeli intelligence agency.

Tracing the annals of the agency and how its security tactics have changed in past decades, former security chiefs recall with both bravado and regret incidents such as the “Bus 300 Affair” in which two Arab bus hijackers were executed in custody, which created a stir in Israel.

The documentary, which has attracted possible awards buzz for its unusual access to the security chiefs, also offers insight into assassinated leader Yitzhak Rabin and the dangers some see in Israel’s religious political right. “I don’t take politicians seriously any more,” one of the chiefs says in the film, suggesting it is political leaders more than violence that acts as a barrier to peace. In the end, most chiefs profess that peace talks, not military action, is the only way forward, and point to a bleak future. —Reuters

Egyptian director Khaled Yussef holds an honorary award he received at the 28th Alexandria Film Festival for Mediterranean Countries late on September 12, 2012 in the northern Egyptian port city of Alexandria. —AFP photos

Egyptian veteran actor Salah al-Saadani holds a lifetime achievement award.

Egyptian actor Hani Ramzi holds an honorary award.

Egyptian actor Khaled Saleh holds a honorary award.

Egyptian actress Poussie holds a lifetime achievement award.

Egyptian actor Khaled Abu Naga holds a honorary award.

Lifestyle FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Katie Holmes is newest Fashion Week design star K

atie Holmes greeted well-wishers in a black leather blazer and gold beaded heels as she became the latest celebrity to take a serious stab at fashion with her Holmes & Yang preview at New York Fashion Week on Wednesday. The celebrities who once lined the front rows of these seasonal previews in party dresses have increasingly made their way backstage into positions of power. Celebrity names are commonplace on mass-market brands: The Kardashian sisters, Venus Williams, Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Simpson, Avril Lavigne, Daisy Fuentes, Heidi Klum and reality stars Whitney Port and Lauren Conrad each have departmentstore brands.

But a handful have also become serious fashion forces.

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are among the most imitated - or sincerely flattered - US designers for their brand The Row, and this year were named top womenswear designers by the Council of Fashion Designers of America.

Victoria Beckham’s previews are among the week’s most hotly anticipated, and paparazzifree. Gwen Stefani, Nicole Richie and celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe have also pulled away from the pack.

“The lines that are successful are very authentic,” said Susan Kaufman, editor in chief of People StyleWatch. “The key is the celebrity being involved, being involved in the look and the concept, and to be

OSCAR DE LA RENTA proud to wear the clothes.” On that measure, Holmes seems ready to join the club.

Showing at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week seems a major commitment to the brand. “It was very clean but with a cool factor,” Kaufman said. “I can easily see her (Holmes) wearing it.”

HOLMES & YANG

Holmes might have just tipped off the paparazzi on how to find her: They should look for a woman a camel-colored suede capelet with red shorts, or, if it’s later in the day, maybe a strapless jumpsuit with beaded fringe running down the side. Holmes and her design partner and longtime stylist, Jeanne Yang, didn’t have a runway, just 14 models on pedestals. One wore a black leather lingerie-style camisole with an olive silk button-front maxi skirt, and another had on a black lace slouchy blazer with black lace short - an outfit right on trend with what tastemakers have been seeing this round of previews. Many of the outfits hit on the menswear silhouettes and luxury fabrics Holmes favors.

JENNY PACKHAM

British restraint? Not here. The Jenny Packham catwalk was a parade of one glitzy, glamorous look after another, and she wasn’t one to shy away from a single - or thousands of - beads, sequins and sparkles.

Packham wouldn’t be doing justice to 1960s Las Vegas without them, right? Londonbased Packham said in her notes that she took a long look at Lauren Bacall, Shirley MacLaine and Angie Dickinson, aka “The Rat Pack Mascots,” as inspiration. If these muses were to swing open the closet doors in spring 2013, they would find Packham’s checkerboard-beaded gown, a swinging trapeze-beaded mini and the ultimate hostess dress, an orange T-shirt gown with embellished long-sleeve cuffs.

Lifestyle

Holmes & Yang and Katie Holmes

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

MICHAEL KORS

Michael Kors’ sunny disposition found a home in Southern California for the upcoming spring fashion season. He turned out an optimistic, cheerful and modernist collection that he said was inspired by the architecture, attitude and mostly the weather he enjoys every time he makes a trip to the West Coast. “You could be sitting at the Beverly Hills Hotel, by the pool, and you could find this entire palette whether it’s the palm green, the turquoise of the pool, the yellow of the sky - of the sun,” he said in a backstage interview. “And I love all the architecture that we see whenever I go out to California. ...

You’re seeing a lot of that kind of geometry play into the collection here.” Stripes were strong, and he opened the show with a female model in a red-and-navy striped bodysuit with a zip-front navy skirt with a crisp white belt, while her male runway companion had on a green-andnavy striped pullover and striped pants. On later outfits Kors played with the proportion of the stripes, mixing thick and thin, and even horizontal and vertical. Kors said he purposely included bright colors and fun details on clothes that, while technically for spring, get shipped in February.

OSCAR DE LA RENTA

Latex and leather: That’s what keeps Oscar de la Renta modern while maintaining his position as the godfather of uptown style. On his runway Tuesday evening, de la Renta equally paid homage to the decorative and frothy styles that have been his hallmark for more than four decades as well as the new technologies that keep fashion ahead of the pop culture curve. One of the most remarkable looks was a two-piece dress made of ivory silk faille and with a feminine peplum around the hips that also featured a top layer of a latex flower appliques that could have been the icing on the most delicious cake.

Leather has been a staple of this round of previews for editors, stylists and retailers, but de la Renta took the risk with latex, which actually seemed even lighter and suppler than the buttery leathers the crowd has seen.

JENNY PACKHAM

MICHAEL KORS

MARC BY MARC JACOBS

Marc Jacobs threw a hipster picnic with a mashup of neon checks, plaids and stripes - large, small, wide, narrow - loaded into outfits as many as five at a time for his more moderately priced Marc by Marc Jacobs line. Other looks for men and women were less busy. There was an edgy chic to a roomy ladies’ button coat in off-white with embroidered silver dots, and another in solid bright pink with large pockets, vents and heather gray sleeves with matching pink trim at the cuffs. Another button coat was more fitted, in a fuchsia pattern of smaller dots against dark blue. But the line’s spring show shouted bold, fun prints in bright orange, pink, purple and red. — AP

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

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PETS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Sit, stay, smile

Photographer helps pound dogs get adopted J ill Andra Young has a soft spot in her heart for dogs and a photographic eye. Combine the two and you get photos of captivating, charismatic canines ready for adoption. The Plymouth, Mich,-based photographer loves dogs, but volunteering in an animal shelter upset her too much. But bring rescue and shelter dogs to her studio and she uses her talents to showcase a dog’s best side.

Dog rescuers say the professional-grade photographs Young creates - rather than those amateur dog pound shots help them place dogs that otherwise would be overlooked.

Young calls her effort the Sirius Project, named for the Dog Star, the brightest star in the night sky, and because of the double meaning - “I’m serious about dogs.”

A greyhound rescue group, Greyhounds of Eastern Michigan (GEM), can tell the difference when Young photographs their racetrack rescues. When they post her photos on Petfinder.com, there’s a noticeable uptick in how many people browse the pooch’s page, says Mark McCloskey, a GEM volunteer.

“She does a better job of capturing a playful side or more attractive side,” says McCloskey, a stay-at-home dad in Pinckney, Mich. “She’s got a better eye than we do. I think the more a dog gets viewed, the better its chances of getting adopted. “Those photographs are what they would call in the real estate world ‘curb appeal,’” said McCloskey.

Growing up in Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich, Young’s family had a collie, Jody. “I learned to walk hanging onto her,” Young says. She also had cats, all white and always named Kitty. “I don’t know how many Kittys there were, but there were several,” she says.

When she was 15 years old, her brother Jack gave her a rescue basenji - her preferred dog ever since. Young has been operating a studio since 1989, marketing it as pet-friendly. The pet side of her business grew as more families included their pets in photo shoots. Her studio’s growth coincided with the period in which independent pet stores and chain stores started to blossom.

Young photographed rescue dogs on and off, but was inspired to create photo workshops for volunteers through the Sirius Project when she saw a television feature about a photographer shooting rescue dachshunds in Dallas. She has photographed a variety of critters, like birds, gerbils, guinea pigs, iguanas, one alligator and a quartet of racing turtles.

“They were very difficult, because once you set them down, they run,” Young says. But she says she can outwait any restless, fidgety, cranky creature.

“Mostly, it’s just being patient and you go with what they can do. Everything is about the dog’s comfort. Even when we’re doing family photos, I put the people down with the dog, since dogs are closest to the floor. “I’m good at pets,” Young says. “I can speak dog.”

Among young’s attention-getting tools are stuffed animals, a pole with feathers, and a bird puppet. Squeaky toys are “sometimes a mistake” because “they all have squeaky toys at home and the first thing they want to do is run to you.” Balls don’t work because the animals will want to play. “And we rarely use the S word,” says Young, referring to the chase reaction elicited with “Squirrel.”

With one dog, she uttered the words “Mort Crim” to get the canine to perk up and pose. The family told her the mere mention of the retired WDIV-TV anchorman always caught the dog’s attention. A secret weapon is a harmonica. It’s highpitched and surprises the animals because it’s a sound they haven’t heard. She uses it to make ears stand perky. “We try to figure out what calms them down or whips them into a frenzy,” Young says.

Young’s own dog, a rescue basenji named Henri (pronounced Henry), often runs into the studio and assumes a photo-worthy pose atop a prop. Henri (named after the French photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue) responds to the English pronunciation of his name. “It’s very hard to use French when yelling” at him, Young says.

One day in the studio, Young uses all her tricks as she devotes a couple of hours to photographing rehabilitated racetrack greyhounds, aging pugs, and three other dogs that were on the verge of being put down at local pounds.

Henrietta and Clara, pugs given up by an ailing owner, will have a hard time being adopted, says Susan Tauber of West Bloomfield, Mich.

Tauber, a retiree who helps with Michigan Pug Rescue, says that Henrietta’s age (she’s 13) and a medical condition that

Henrietta the rescue pug waits patiently as she is situated for a photo shoot at Jill Andra Young Photography in Plymouth, Michigan. — MCT

Jill Andra Young gives a treat to an eager subject in her studio in Plymouth. — MCT makes the gray-haired pug prone to toilet accidents, will limit interest in adopting the duo together. Clara is more agile and younger at 9 years old.

On the stage at Young’s studio, a pillow is placed for the dogs’ comfort and pearls draped around their necks. “A little tulle and pearls always helps,” Young says. Young then emits sounds kind of like a whirring helicopter and whooshing air.

She barks. She ruff-ruffs. She arches a stuffed bird in front of

the dogs. She pumps a squeaky toy. Neither pug stays still.

Clara breaks for the door. Young brings out the harmonica.

The pugs seem peeved. She resorts to “whiffing” the dogs with a bag of liver treats passed under their noses. Now that she has the attention of their olfactory nerves, the dogs freeze and stare her down. Young gets her shots; the dogs get their treats. Tauber is pleased, but wishes Henrietta had shown her teeth because “she has such a beautiful smile.” — MCT

Stars

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Aries (March 21-April 19) This is a great day to get things done, whether you are alone or with others—especially, if you lead. State your agenda logically and even those who may disagree will respect you.

Strong-minded persons are attracted to you—and you to them. You may seriously need to communicate with authority figures, government officials or older, more experienced people. This afternoon you can relax and meditate with successful results. You feel optimistic and hospitable, able to help those less fortunate. Now is a favorable time for vacation, religious pilgrimages, artistic pursuits and cultural or educational improvement. You are able to make your money work for you these days. Improved resourcefulness and material values lead to better financial security.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) This is your lucky day! Schedule a conference; give a party; plan the future. Whatever you do, your ability to make things run smoothly should produce excellent results. Initially, you will need to be more frugal and resourceful in your finances and develop a more practical sense of values. Through hard work and prudent organization, you will gradually build up your savings. You desire greater freedom and excitement in your fantasies, inspirations and your visualization of the future. You tend to be more secretive, read more novels and attend the cinema or theater. Unconscious memories and intuitive knowledge are apt to be suddenly stimulated through meditation.

There is a good surprise in the romance department tonight.

Gemini (May 21-June 20) If you are feeling impulsive it is not a good time to sign contracts or to buy appliances or a car. Your self-image can be confused today as you struggle to overcome some awkwardness. A dogmatic attitude can cause disagreements with partners. Humility will get you what you want. Your interests tend to turn toward cultural, religious and also philosophical concerns. Involvement in travel, law and education can put you in contact with an interesting group of people.

You are apt to desire authority in some field of cultural interest or some set of principles. You may take an intellectual interest in foreign cultures, history and traditional customs. Publishing and all sorts of travel tend to be favorable just now.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) You have good mental discipline. You gather useful information today that will serve your personal goals and you have been more successful than you think with the art of expression. You show reason and sincerity in your communications. Initially, some of your imaginative thinking has begun to have structure and serious goal-oriented thinking. You may decide, to your benefit, on a more formal program of education. You may want to give particular attention to science, mathematics or philosophy. As the magnitude of your goals strike you, you may be prone to worry; stop—you have much to gain in staying positive. A dream date is waiting for you this evening . . . walk tall, listen carefully and enjoy to the utmost.

Leo (July 23-August 22) This can be a time of increased dealings with corporate business and insurance. Reevaluate your financial security plans, your will, taxes and insurance. You may desire to change your domestic conditions. You may redecorate or renovate your home—or move. Some family ties may be strained, but this will pass. An important woman to you may be a powerful influence in your life and will encourage you.

You have a deepened emotional sensitivity and insights. If you have been writing and have enough material to share with others . . . send in a manuscript outline to a publisher. You may have some pleasant surprises in return. After work today, give a retirement or vacation plan some serious study. Planning now is comfort and fun later.

Virgo (August 23-September 22) You may feel under some strain today, but this can be transmuted over to the idea that there are new challenges available to test your ability to solve problems; go with the flow.

Someone who helped you in the recent past is again on the scene and could become your supporter. The money picture is better than you think! Apply your energies into constructive action by seeking responsible groups, or committees to combat problems. This evening is a time for making plans or enjoying a hobby. In communicating with others, you will most likely find greater clarity through using your intuition, rather than through rational thought. Now is a good time to focus on a spiritual or religious philosophy. Pay attention to your dreams—there is a greater awareness.

Libra (September 23-October 22) This is a good time to develop your negotiation skills with the ability to coordinate team efforts. Friends may be stimulating but can aggravate your career aspirations with unrealistic ideals. Calls at work can quickly become a habit. These calls could come from friends as much as from a group or organization that you enjoy—careful. An important person may leave your life for a short while but he or she will return before the year is over—wish him or her well. Avoid taking any unnecessary risks with your time at the workplace. Unexpected changes can disrupt the usual order and routine of your life. Positive results come from your ability to adjust. You set the example for many who enjoy your company. You apply your energies into positive activities.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) Unexpected changes can disrupt the usual order and routine of your life. You may want more creative expression in your work, but those in control tend to be unsympathetic. You may be determined to make more money and acquire more wealth the remainder of this year. Find a way to show your creative work. Improved resourcefulness and material values can lead to better financial security. Now is a good time to hunt for bargains, store useful goods, pay debts and invest in your future. Use your money wisely; you are apt to spend more on speculation, hobbies, entertainment and children. An invitation regarding a business social should not be ignored—there will be good opportunities to network. Gratitude buoys you to deal with the challenges.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) At work you will make progress in many projects. You tend to desire personal freedom and excitement in your work and family life. This may call for you to finally make the decision to be your own boss. Being in business for yourself, you will be able to set up your own routine and build your own client list.

Give yourself time; if you have not determined where, when, how, what, why and whether your product or art is something that people would want as much as they want food on the table, give it more thought. Start looking into the businesses of others that have your similar interest—you will find many answers. At times, you may be responsible for the care of a disabled or psychologically confused family member. You will receive the help you need.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19) You have good, practical ideas for professional advancement. You have opportunities to make steady progress in both career and domestic affairs. This time arouses your ideals and compassion for your fellow man and you probably enjoy spending time with some volunteer group. You may become involved in a study group that will have guest speakers to inform and educate and transport you to a place where you could make a positive difference in many people’s lives. There are false feelings of luck, but do not gamble your money away. You may develop an interest in spiritual studies and self-improvement. You feel optimistic, tolerant and secure. You may soon find travel to be rejuvenating, bringing renewal to your sense of optimism.

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) It’s time to become organized. Sort, file and clean up.

There are many useful things to do. If you are looking for employment, now is the time to begin a new job. Think of ways you can improve your work efficiency and conditions. Make a system or a method do more—faster. It is a good time to buy new clothes. You can also improve your health. Do not stir up unnecessary trouble with your co-workers or employees. Taking a more nurturing and supportive role toward others, especially children, can bring contentment that is more complete psychologically. You are apt to take more pride in your home and in your roots or heritage. Communications with family and parents are most positive. You tend to intellectualize family and household concerns.

Pisces (February 19-March 20) Any kind of work that requires precise thinking and concentration will be good for you today. You are not a broad-brush visionary; you find the parts far more fascinating than the whole. Do not let all this concentration isolate you from others, however, or make you feel lonely. You are in a serious mood and this day could be a bummer if you let it go that way; don’t! Take frequent breaks and fire up the office jokester. You may have opportunity for increased power and status. You can overcome negative, emotional conditioning and make effective use of your intuition and resourcefulness. Business methods improve. Confront issues and negotiate settlements based on terms in which all parties can agree. Tonight is just for what you want to do . . . relax.

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

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

Stars

C R O S S W O R D

7 9 6

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Yesterday始s Solution

ACROSS 1. A constellation in the polar region of the southern hemisphere near Octans.

5. Capital of Nigeria in the center of the country.

10. A state-chartered savings bank owned by its depositors and managed by a board of trustees.

13. A Loloish language.

14. Lap at the front of a coat.

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

16. The biblical name for ancient Syria.

17. The basic unit of money in Bangladesh.

19. A building where prostitutes are available.

21. Make larger.

23. An international organization of European countries formed after World War II to reduce trade barriers and increase cooperation among its members.

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

25. A large number or amount.

27. Written matter preceding the main text of a book.

31. A state in northwestern North America.

33. The branch of computer science that deal with writing computer programs that can solve problems creatively.

34. Hormone released by the hypothalamus that controls the release of thyroid-stimulating hormone from the anterior pituitary.

40. A complex red organic pigment containing iron and other atoms to which oxygen binds.

42. A conspicuous disparity or difference as between two figures.

43. Conforming to an ultimate standard of perfection or excellence.

44. A member of the Siouan people formerly living in the Missouri river valley in NE Nebraska.

46. A colorless and odorless inert gas.

47. Relating to or characteristic of a tribe.

53. A bluish-white lustrous metallic element.

54. Any of various small plant-sucking insects.

58. Aircraft landing in bad weather in which the pilot is talked down by ground control using precision approach radar.

59. Type genus of the Alcidae comprising solely the razorbill.

60. (folklore) A corpse that rises at night to drink the blood of the living.

61. (informal) Roused to anger.

62. Gather, as of as crops.

63. (botany) Relating to a plant of the family Araceae.

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

DOWN 1. According to the Old Testament he was a pagan king of Israel and husband of Jezebel (9th century BC).

2. (obstetrics) The number of live-born children a woman has delivered.

3. Not subjected to an aging process.

4. A crisp bread of fine white flour.

5. Of or being the lowest female voice.

6. The cry made by sheep.

7. Activity involved in maintaining something in good working order.

8. Close-fitting pants of heavy denim for casual wear (usually in the plural).

9. A silvery ductile metallic element found primarily in bauxite.

10. The 3 goddesses of fate or destiny.

11. A narcotic that is considered a hard drug.

12. Serving as or forming a base.

18. Any of numerous local fertility and nature deities worshipped by ancient Semitic peoples.

20. Made agreeably cold (especially by ice).

22. A statement that deviates from or perverts the truth.

26. Long green edible beaked pods of the okra plant.

28. A mature blood cell that contains hemoglobin to carry oxygen to the bodily tissues.

29. A member of the Siouan people formerly living in the Missouri river valley in NE Nebraska.

30. The granite-like rocks that form the outermost layer of the earth's crust.

32. Large elliptical brightly colored deep-sea fish of Atlantic and Pacific and Mediterranean.

35. A heavy ductile magnetic metallic element.

36. A member of the Siouan people formerly inhabiting the Black Hills of western South Dakota.

37. A federal agency established to coordinate programs aimed at reducing pollution and protecting the environment.

38. (Old Testament) In Judeo-Christian mythology.

39. Preaching the gospel of Christ in the manner of the early church.

40. A narcotic that is considered a hard drug.

41. Large high frilly cap with a full crown.

45. Informal terms for a mother.

48. Cause annoyance in.

49. A ruler of the Inca Empire (or a member of his family).

50. (Babylonian) God of storms and wind.

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

52. An informal term for a father.

55. (in golf) The standard number of strokes set for each hole on a golf course, or for the entire course.

56. Group insurance that entitles members to services of participating hospitals and clinics and physicians.

57. Being one more than two.

Yesterday始s Solution

Sports FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Phillies sweep Marlins

BALTIMORE: Orioles’ Chris Davis (center) carries Nate McLouth after Manny Machado (not pictured) scored a run on McLouth’s single in the ninth inning against the Tampa Bay Rays. —AP

Orioles edge Rays in AL BALTIMORE: Manny Machado led off the ninth inning with a single and scored the winning run on a single by Nate McLouth, and the Baltimore Orioles beat the Tampa Bay Rays 3-2 Wednesday night to retain a share of first place in the AL East.

The rookie also made a key defensive play in the top of the ninth for the Orioles, who moved 18 games over .500 (80-62) for the first time since the end of the 1997 season.

Baltimore started the day tied atop the division with the New York Yankees, who beat Boston 5-4. The Orioles will seek to complete a three-game sweep of Tampa Bay on Thursday. BJ Upton homered for the Rays, who fell three games behind the Orioles and Yankees. Tampa Bay stranded 11 and went 2 for 10 with runners in scoring position.

Machado led off the ninth with a single off Kyle Farnsworth (1-5), took second on a bunt and scored when McLouth hit a liner off the right-field wall. Jim Johnson (21) got the win.

Yankees 5, Red Sox 4 In Boston, Curtis Granderson hit two home runs, Robinson Cano also homered and New York defeated Boston to remain tied for first place in the AL East.

The Yankees finished the game without Derek Jeter, who left in the eighth after pulling up lame running out a double-play grounder to end the inning.

Manager Joe Girardi said Jeter wanted to stay in the game, but he told the shortstop to go put ice on his foot.

Girardi said it was a bone bruise, but Jeter said it was a sprained ankle that was no big deal.

David Phelps (4-4) gave up one run in 5 2-3 innings, striking out five. Rafael Soriano got four outs for his 37th save, but not before allowing a solo homer to Jarrod Saltalamacchia to lead off the ninth. Aaron Cook (3-10) allowed three runs in five-plus innings. Saltalamacchia had a double, a triple, a homer and a walk for Boston, which lost for the 12th time in 14 games.

Tigers 8, White Sox 6 In Chicago, Max Scherzer pitched six effective innings to earn his career-high 16th win, Prince Fielder hit a three-run homer and Detroit beat Chicago to move within a game of the first-place White Sox in the AL Central.

Scherzer (16-6) allowed a run and four hits, including the first of two homers by Kevin Youkilis. The right-hander struck out seven to increase his major league-leading total to 220 and improved to 10-1 over his last 14 starts.

The series finale Thursday night features a pair of aces, with Detroit’s Justin Verlander facing White Sox lefty Chris Sale. Fielder hit his 26th homer in the seventh against reliever Leyson Septimo, snapping an 0-for-18 slump and giving the Tigers a 6-1 lead. Youkilis belted a three-run shot off Joaquin Benoit in the eighth to get the White Sox within three. Jose Valverde earned his 30th save in 34 chances. Chicago starter Gavin Floyd (9-10), activated from the disabled list earlier in the day, pitched well for the first four innings but gave up three runs in the fifth.

Rangers 5, Indians 2 In Arlington, Josh Hamilton and Adrian Beltre homered before each left the game with injuries, and Texas beat the slumping Cleveland Indians. Hamilton was removed as a precaution in the eighth inning with a sore left knee. — AP

PHILADELPHIA: Jimmy Rollins hit a two-run homer and Cliff Lee pitched seven strong innings to lead the streaking Philadelphia Phillies to their seventh straight win, 3-1 over the Miami Marlins on Wednesday. The Phillies continued their late push for an NL wild-card spot with a three-game sweep of the Marlins. Up next for the Phillies, four games in Houston against the NL-worst Astros.

Philadelphia pulled within three games of St. Louis for the second wild card. The Phillies (72-71) are on a seasonbest win streak and have won 15 of 19 to move over .500 for the first time since June 3 (28-27). Rollins hit a two-run homer off Josh Johnson (8-12) in the seventh for a 3-1 lead.

Phillippe Aumont worked a scoreless eighth and Jonathan Papelbon completed the four-hitter with his 34th save. Lee (5-7) tossed four-hit ball and struck out six in seven innings to earn only his second home victory of the season.

Nationals 2, Mets 0 In New York, John Lannan pitched 5 2-3 shutout innings and Washington lowered its magic number for clinching a playoff berth to six with a win over punchless New York.

Ryan Zimmerman homered in the fourth off rookie Matt Harvey (3-5) and Ian Desmond connected off Jon Rauch in the eighth, helping the NL East leaders complete a threegame sweep. Lannan (3-0) allowed five hits, struck out two and walked one in the slot that opened when the Nationals cut short Stephen Strasburg’s season by imposing an innings limit to protect his surgically repaired right elbow.

Harvey allowed one run on five hits with 10 strikeouts in five innings.

Reds 2, Pirates 1 In Cincinnati, Homer Bailey pitched seven solid innings and Cincinnati came up with just enough offense to squeeze out a win over Pittsburgh for a three-game sweep.

The Reds (87-57) scored both of their runs on outs while widening their lead in the NL Central over second-place St. Louis to 11 1/2 games.

Bailey (11-9) allowed six hits and one run with two walks and four strikeouts to extend his career high in victories. JJ Hoover worked the ninth for his first career save.

Pittsburgh starter AJ Burnett (15-7) allowed five hits and two runs with two walks and eight strikeouts.

Pitching with a 2-1 lead, Dodgers starter Aaron Harang issued consecutive two-out walks in the sixth. Upton followed with a single to tie the game 2-all and end Harang’s night. Left-hander Randy Choate came on and allowed Parra’s go-ahead single to right. Cahill (11-11) scattered four hits, struck out seven and did not walk a batter. Harang (9-9) allowed four hits in 5 2-3 innings but walked four. He struck out two.

Brewers 8, Braves 2 In Milwaukee, Rickie Weeks blasted a three-run home run and Travis Ishikawa hit a bases-clearing double in an eight-run fifth inning for Milwaukee in a win over Atlanta.

The Brewers moved within three games of St. Louise for the second NL wild card. Despite the loss, the Braves continue to have a strong hold on the top wild card position.

Yovani Gallardo Gallardo (15-8) pitched seven strong innings and added a run-scoring double for Milwaukee. He gave up two runs on only four hits while walking three and striking out six. Atlanta starter Paul Maholm (12-10) gave up nine hits, eight runs - six earned - in 4 1-3 innings. He walked two batters and struck out a pair.

Cubs 5, Astros 1 In Houston, Alfonso Soriano finished a triple shy of the cycle and drove in two runs, and Travis Wood allowed one run in 7 2-3 innings to lead Chicago over Houston.

Wood (6-11) gave up four hits and struck out six for his second straight win. Wood has allowed only one run in his last two starts, spanning 13 2-3 innings.

Fernando Abad (0-4) gave up a run on four hits in 3 1-3 innings with two strikeouts and three walks. In his four starts this season, Abad has not lasted longer than 4 1-3 innings.

Houston reliever Mickey Storey left the game with a contusion to his right hand and the right side of his jaw after being hit in the side of face by a line drive in the eighth. —AP

Giants 8, Rockies 3 In Denver, Tim Lincecum pitched effectively for six innings, Brandon Crawford doubled twice and drove in two runs, and San Francisco beat Colorado.

Marco Scutaro added three hits, including a pair of runscoring singles, to help the NL West-leading Giants take two of three from the Rockies and improve to 21-7 on the road since the All-Star break, best in the NL. They are unbeaten in their last nine series on the road (8-0-1).

Lincecum (9-14) allowed three runs on six hits. He finished with eight strikeouts and four walks in his career-best fifth straight road win. Jeff Francis (5-5) gave up five runs on seven hits in three innings. He struck out five.

Padres 3, Cardinals 2 In San Diego, Clayton Richard pitched seven strong innings and rookie Yasmani Grandal singled home the goahead run to lift as San Diego handed St. Louis its 11th loss in 15 games. The Cardinals came in with a one-game lead over Los Angeles for the second NL wild card. Logan Forsythe hit a solo home run for the Padres, who completed a three-game sweep of St. Louis for the first time since August 1995.

Richard (13-12) outpitched Kyle Lohse and gave up only three hits, including a two-run homer by Matt Carpenter that tied the game at 2 in the sixth. The left-hander struck out five. Lohse (14-3) allowed three runs on five hits over six innings. He struck out eight.

D’backs 3, Dodgers 2 In Phoenix, Justin Upton and Gerardo Parra hit consecutive RBI singles to support Trevor Cahill’s seven strong innings as Arizona sent Los Angeles to its sixth loss in seven games. The Dodgers squandered a chance to pull even with St. Louis for the second NL wild card.

PHILADELPHIA: Phillies’ Jimmy Rollins (foreground) reacts past Miami Marlins catcher John Buck after hitting a two-run home run off Miami Marlins starting pitcher Josh Johnson in the seventh inning. —AP

Sports FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

League and union exchange proposals as lockout looms NEW YORK: The National Hockey League (NHL) and union representing its players exchanged proposals on Wednesday as negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement resumed with the threat of a lockout just days away. The meeting was the first in almost a week and with the current deal set to expire at midnight on Saturday and owners prepared to impose a lockout, the next few days are crucial if the 2012-13 NHL season is to open as scheduled on Oct. 11.

NHL Players’ Association (NHLPA) head Donald Fehr arrived at the league’s Manhattan headquarters with a proposal and the NHL ready with a counter offer it said would be off the table if players do not accept it before the current agreement expires.

“With every day we are experiencing, and will continue to experience, damage to the game and to the business of the game,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman told reporters. “What we would be prepared to do now to make a deal before there is extensive damage is not the same that we will be prepared to do in the event we get to the point where we have suffered the damage.” The NHL’s board of governors is set to hold meetings in New York late yesterday while the NHLPA will stage executive board and negotiating committee meetings, which are

expected to be attended by close to 300 players.

No further formal negotiations are scheduled but Bettman said he was prepared to sit down and negotiate further with players at anytime.

“If there is a real intent on the other side to make a deal then we will get into a room make a deal and address the issues in a meaningful way,” said Bettman.

“We looked at their proposal and it was clear there wasn’t very much movement at all.”

The main sticking point in the dispute, which threatens a fourth work stoppage in 20 years, lies with the two sides at odds over how to divide $3.3 billion in revenue.

The NHL had wanted to reduce the players’ share of hockey-related revenues to 46 percent from 57 percent despite enjoying record-breaking revenues last season along with an increase in television ratings. Following the meeting, Bettman told reporters that under their latest offer the players’ percentage of hockey related income would be trimmed by 7-9 percent, which the league says amounts to $250 million to $300 million more going to players from the previous proposal.

The players proposal is believed to be focused around taking a smaller share of projected revenues as the league grows but are reluctant to take another cut in

salaries as they did in 2004-05 when a dispute wiped out the entire 2004-05 season.

“It is too early to say whether or not this is going to represent any meaningful progress,” said Fehr. “The owners’ position in bargaining is ‘it worked so well last time we get to do it all over again. We now want another massive reduction in player salaries.’

“The commissioner has indicated that a lockout will begin if no agreement is reached and we take him at his word as we have the better part of year.”

The Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) also released a new set of guidelines on Wednesday for teams looking to sign NHL players in the event of a lockout.

Russian-based teams will be allowed to add three NHL players to their rosters but only one can be a foreigner. To be eligible, the player must have either previous KHL experience, played no fewer than 150 NHL games over the last three seasons, represented his country at one of the last two IIHF world championships, world junior championships, Olympics or is a Stanley Cup finalist or winner.

Players must sign contracts for the entire season but, if the lockout ends, will be free to return to their NHL clubs.—Reuters

Watkins, F1 doctor who tended to Senna, dies LONDON: Professor Sid Watkins, the Formula One doctor who tended to Ayrton Senna after his fatal crash at Imola in 1994 and who saved the lives of countless others through his work on safety, has died at the age of 84.

As word spread around Formula One of his death late on Wednesday, confirmed by a source close to the family, tributes poured in from drivers and all whose lives were touched by the wise-cracking neurosurgeon with a love of cigars and whisky.

Sid Watkins They included Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, who suffered a huge crash on the same San Marino Grand Prix weekend that claimed the lives of Senna and Austrian Roland Ratzenberger.

“It was Sid Watkins that saved my life in Imola 94. great guy to be with, always happy...tks for everything u have done for us drivers. RIP,” Barrichello said on Twitter to 1.7 million followers.

“RIP Prof. Sid Watkins. Sad news for us who stay behind,” said Senna’s nephew Bruno, who now races for the same Williams team that triple champion Ayrton was with when he crashed on a sunny afternoon in May 1, 1994.

Senna remains the last driver fatality in a Formula One race and much of the credit for the survival of others can be laid at the door of Watkins, known simply as ‘Prof’ by paddock regulars and ‘Sid’ by closer friends.

Northern Ireland’s Martin Donnelly, Finland’s double champion Mika Hakkinen, Austrian Gerhard Berger and F1 team founder Frank Williams all owed much to his quick response and care after life-threatening accidents.

Triple champions Jackie Stewart, another safety pioneer before Watkins came along, and Austria’s Niki Lauda counted him as a friend.

“Today the world of motor racing lost one of it’s true greats,” said McLaren chairman and former team principal Ron Dennis, whose cars took Senna to all of his titles, in a statement.

“No he wasn’t a driver. No he wasn’t an engineer. No, he wasn’t a designer. He was a doctor and it’s probably fair to say that he did more than anyone, over many years, to make Formula One as safe as it is today.

“Many drivers and ex-drivers owe their lives to his careful and expert work, which resulted in the massive advances in safety levels that today’s drivers possibly take for granted.”

Watkins was brought in to the sport by Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone in 1978, shortly before the death of Swedish great Ronnie Peterson at Monza in September of that year.

The Briton worked closely with former International Automobile Federation head Max Mosley to improve track and car safety, stepping down as medical officer only in 2004 but continuing to play a role at the governing body as first president of its foundation.

In his book ‘Life at the Limit: Triumph and Tragedy in Formula One” Watkins wrote of Senna’s final days and how distraught the Brazilian was at Ratzenberger’s death in qualifying.

Advising Senna not to race, he added: “In fact, why don’t you give it up altogether? What else do you need to do? You have been world champion three times, you are obviously the quickest driver. Give it up and let’s go fishing”.

Senna’s reply, the last words he spoke to Watkins, was simple: “Sid, there are certain things over which we have no control. I cannot quit, I have to go on.”— Reuters

Sergio Martinez

Martinez, Chavez trade barbs ahead of bout LAS VEGAS: Argentina’s Sergio Martinez is set to fight WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. this weekend in Las Vegas with one fighter promising punishment and the other warning his opponent to prepare for retirement.

“I trained a long time dancing,” Martinez said on Wednesday at the final pre-fight news conference. “That’s all I need to break his face a thousand times. ... I will punish him a lot, and then I will knock him out. He will suffer a lot.”

Not surprisingly, Chavez predicted a different outcome for his 37-year-old opponent when the two fighters meet Saturday at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. “I’m not only going to beat you, I’m going to retire you,” Chavez said to Martinez.

The 26-year-old Mexican noted that he has watched tapes of his Martinez, adding mockingly that, “I have seen when he was knocked out or knocked down and his eyes were white.

He looked pretty good.” The genesis for the bad blood between the two fighters can be found in the highly different paths they have taken to this point in their careers.

Chavez, (46-0-1, 32 KOs), the namesake son

of Mexico’s most famous and celebrated fighter, turned professional when he was 17 and made his Las Vegas debut in his fifth bout.

Martinez, (49-2-2, 28 KOs), did not even visit a boxing gym until he was 20 and spent the first 10 years of his career fighting mostly in Argentina and Spain. He found success after relocating to the United States in 2007, and three years later defeated Kelly Pavlik to win the WBC middleweight championship.

However, the WBC stripped him of that belt in 2011 when he elected to fight Ukraine’s Sergiy Dzinziruk instead of mandatory challenger Sebastian Zbik of Germany, and Chavez assumed the title with a decision win over Zbik.

Ever since, Martinez has been campaigning for a fight with Chavez, asserting that “the only reason he is world champion is because he is Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., the son of the legend and his mouth is so big - even bigger than his own brain and he’s talking too much.”

Chavez has responded to the taunts with insults of his own. “I am going to shut him up once and for all,” he told reporters last week.

“He is just a big clown.”— Reuters

Sports FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Clarke: Australia can win Twenty20 WCup SYDNEY: Australia can win the Twenty20 World Cup this month, test captain Michael Clarke said yesterday, even if they are ranked ninth in the world and will have to do it without him.

Clarke quit the shortest form of the game after the final match of the 2010-11 Ashes debacle and will spend the next two months preparing for a three-match series against top-ranked test side South Africa by playing for New South Wales.

In his absence, Australia slumped

below Ireland in the Twenty20 rankings after successive defeats to Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates, before rising back above their pool stage rivals with a 94run win in the third match on Monday.

“I think we can win the Twenty20 World Cup,” Clarke told reporters yesterday. “We’ve got the talent and we showed that in the last game against Pakistan in the UAE, and I think we’ve showed it in patches over the last couple of years.” Clarke said he had watched all

three Twenty20 matches on television after returning from the 2-1 win over Pakistan in a 50-over series and said although rankings did not tell the whole story, they did indicate there was plenty of work to do. “It’s different for the Australian team but I guess it shows we haven’t performed as well as we need to in that form of the game,” he added. “We need to turn that around and what better time than at the World Cup.” Australia, losing finalists at the last

Twenty20 World Cup in 2010, have been grouped with Ireland and West Indies in the opening stage of the fourth version of the tournament, which takes place in Sri Lanka from Sept. 18 to Oct. 7.

The 31-year-old said he remained in phone contact with coach Mickey Arthur, captain George Bailey and vice captain Shane Watson but had no regrets about having given up the format. “I’m really focused on trying to get my head back around test cricket,” he said.—Reuters

Buttler serves up England win against South Africa

John Isner

Isner shoulders US hopes in Spain NEW YORK: With Andy Roddick retired, Mardy Fish unavailable, and Spain apparently unbeatable at home on clay - the United States look distant second favorites when the two nations clash in the Davis Cup semi-final in Gijon starting today.

Then again, few fancied their chances of beating a Switzerland team that included Roger Federer in round one and France in the quarter-finals led by the big-serving John Isner.

Argentina will also start as favorites in their semi-final against the Czech Republic in Buenos Aires with Juan Martin del Potro and Juan Monaco shouldering their nation’s hopes of winning the title for the first time.

The Czechs, however, boast in-form Tomas Berdych in their ranks and will be looking to repeat their victory over Argentina in Buenos Aires during the 1980 campaign which culminated in them claiming the huge trophy for the only time.

US captain Jim Courier’s tenacity seems to have rubbed off on his side this year and while Spain are overwhelming favourites as they chase a fourth title in five years, there are still a few reasons for optimism for the Americans.

When nations lose their top players captain’s hope that one of the underlings steps up to the plate and in the case of Spain and the United States, their wishes have been granted.

Spain have had to make do without the injured Rafa Nadal this season but world number five David Ferrer and Nicolas Almagro underlined the Iberian nation’s depth as they cruised past Kazakhstan and Austria to reach the semi-finals.

Likewise, Isner has assumed the leaders’ role for Courier’s side in the absence of former stalwart Roddick. World number 10 Isner has a perfect 4-0 record in Davis Cup singles this season, taking the scalps of Federer on clay in Fribourg and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, also on the dirt, to close out the quarter-final in Monte Carlo.

“John’s fresh and focused. He’s beaten some substantial players this year,” Courier who played 14 ties for the U.S. and sealed the 1992 title against Switzerland, said on the United States Tennis Association website.

“He’s going to have to be fresh and focused to stand a chance against Ferrer and Almagro. Those guys, you saw what I saw at the French Open. Those guys were playing some serious claycourt tennis. “John’s been incredible in Davis Cup this year. He’s incredibly excited about Gijon.”

Ferrer will open the tie against Sam Querrey on Friday defending a 14-0 singles record in Davis Cup on claycourts so Isner will almost certainly be playing catch-up by the time he takes to the Parque Hermanos Castro court against Almagro.

Spain captain Alex Corretja said any team with Courier in charge would be dangerous. “It’s not going to be easy by any means. They have a captain like Courier with a great deal of experience,” he said. —Reuters

BIRMINGHAM: Jos Buttler’s quickfire 32 not out provided the platform for England to beat South Africa by 28 runs in the third and final Twenty20 international at Edgbaston on Wednesday.

Victory saw World Twenty20 champions England, who head to Sri Lanka on Thursday to defend the title they won in the Caribbean two years ago, square this threematch series at 1-1 with one no result. Most of Buttler’s runs, in a match reduced by rain to 11 overs per side, came in a costly ninth over worth 32 from left-arm quick Wayne Parnell. It was the second most expensive over in Twenty20 international history after Yuvraj Singh struck England captain Stuart Broad for 36 runs made up of six sixes in Durban during the inaugural 2007 World Twenty20. England made 118 for five-with man-of-the-match Buttler facing just 10 balls including three sixes and two fours.

South Africa, who were never up with the rate, finished on 90 for five. “It’s nice it came off, it was one of those days,” said Buttler, whose previous England best was 13. “International cricket hasn’t gone quite as I’d hoped so far, so it’s nice to contribute to a winning side,” explained the Somerset batsman, who celebrated his 22nd birthday last week. Broad added: “Jos’s was a gamechanging innings. We know how good he is, he’s shown on the county circuit that he does that, he’s done it on the international scene now. “It’s always nice when you’ve got a guy who can hit it into the top tier and that was highly impressive. Jos was promoted up the order and those ten balls changed that game. “We’ve got a squad that can do well in Sri Lanka but we don’t want to look too far ahead.”

South Africa captain AB de Villiers, involved in the Proteas preceding Test series win over England and the shared oneday campaign, admitted his team were second best on Wednesday.

“I thought we were completely outplayed today. We didn’t start well and I made a few tactical errors.” De Villiers added: “We made mistakes in the field but there are lots of positives for the World T20, we’ve played some good cricket all summer and we’re looking forward to Sri Lanka.”

England opener Craig Kieswetter made 50 off 32 balls with three sixes and three fours and together with Buttler he put on 48 in 14 balls. South Africa fast bowler Morne Morkel’s third ball of the match was a huge wide that sped past wicket-keeper de Villiers on its way to the boundary, with 16 runs in all coming off the first over.

But South Africa pulled things back in the second over when Parnell bowled recalled opener Michael Lumb middle stump. Luke Wright then holed out against off-spinner Johan Botha to leave England 43

BIRMINGHAM: South Africa’s batsman Faf du Plessis hits out and is caught by England fielder Eoin Morgan during the third Twenty-20 international cricket match.—AFP for two in the fifth over. Botha took an Bresnan for one.

And they lost Faf du Plessis for eight impressive two for 19 in three overs but Kieswetter got England going again by when, hitting across the line, he became launching fast bowling all-rounder Jacques debutant left-arm spinner Danny Briggs’s first Twenty20 international wicket after Kallis for six over long-on.

Buttler then struck Parnell for two getting a leading edge to mid-off.

Briggs, a star performer for English counsuperb straight sixes in as many balls. And when Parnell twice no-balled, Buttler clever- ty Twenty20 champions Hampshire, took ly flicked the resulting free-hits over short one for 16 in two overs. But Hashim Amla, a thorn in England’s side throughout this fine leg for two consecutive fours.

He then pulled him for six as 32 runs summer, was still there.

However, Amla fell for 36, off 27 balls came of the over. Kieswetter then pulled Morne Morkel for six to complete his fifty with six fours, when he slogged off-spinner only to be bowled next ball. South Africa Graeme Swann to Jonathan Bairstow in the suffered an early setback when the big-hit- deep and from then on there was no way ting Richard Levi was bowled by Tim back for South Africa.—AFP

SOCREOBAORD BIRMINGHAM, England: Final scoreboard in the third and final Twenty20 international between England and South Africa at Edgbaston on Wednesday: England C. Kieswetter b M Morkel 50 M. Lumb b Parnell 5 L. Wright c Amla b Botha 6 E. Morgan c Ontong b Peterson 5 J. Buttler not out 32 J. Bairstow b M Morkel 4 T. Bresnan not out 1 Extras (lb2, w11, nb2) 15 Total (5 wkts, 11 overs) 118 Fall of wickets: 1-20 (Lumb), 2-43 (Wright), 364 (Morgan), 4-112 (Kieswetter), 5-116 (Bairstow) Did not bat: S Broad, G Swann, J Dernbach, D Briggs Bowling: M Morkel 2-0-28-2 (2w); Parnell 2-037-1 (2w); A Morkel 1-0-5-0; Peterson 2-0-160 (2w); Botha 3-0-19-2; Kallis 1-0-11-0

South Africa R. Levi b Bresnan 1 H. Amla c Bairstow b Swann 36 F. du Plessis c Morgan b Briggs 8 AB de Villiers c Bairstow b Broad 2 A. Morkel not out 17 J. Ontong c Morgan b Bresnan 10 J. Kallis not out 8 Extras (b1, lb3, w4) 8 Total (5 wkts, 11 overs) 90 Fall of wickets: 1-9 (Levi), 2-34 (du Plessis), 351 (De Villiers), 4-53 (Amla), 5-69 (Ontong) Did not bat: J Botha, R Peterson, W Parnell, M Morkel Bowling: Briggs 2-0-16-1; Bresnan 2-0-14-2; Broad 2-0-18-0 (2w); Swann 3-0-24-2; Dernbach 2-0-14-0 (2w) Result: England won by 28 runs Man-of-the-match: Jos Buttler (ENG) Series: Three-match series level at 1-1

Sports FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

India’s 2022 World Cup goal: A pipe dream

NEW DELHI: Nobody said it to his face but when All India Football Federation (AIFF) president Praful Patel said last week India’s goal was to qualify for the 2022 World Cup finals in Qatar, his sunny optimism bordered on grim absurdity.

With FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke sitting next to him, the AIFF chief announced it minutes before signing a 10-year agreement with soccer’s governing body to develop the game in the world’s second most populous nation enamored otherwise with cricket.

“Indian football is poised for a big leap after a long period of hibernation,” stressed Patel, also the India government’s Heavy Industries minister.

“There’s going to be a long time before India truly comes up to the expectations of the football-loving community of the country but one thing I must say is that we are certainly on the right track.”

The timing of his remarks could not have been worse, coming on the same day India slumped to their lowest place, 169th, in the FIFA rankings.

The sport also remains popular only in certain geographic areas while the televi-

sion appetite is restricted to the English Premier League or Spain’s La Liga.

Patel, however, insisted the rankings were not the true reflection of India’s team, who beat a second-string Cameroon team to win a five-nation tournament earlier this month and he remained optimistic FIFA’s support would help develop the game. Valcke also sounded convinced of soccer’s potential in India. “You are 1.2 billion people and it’s impossible that 1.2 billion people are just playing cricket. There is definite space for football,” Valcke said.

Lack of infrastructure, a struggling national league, low television viewership and scant sponsorship mean it’s easier said than done, according to a local soccer author. “I think it was a populist statement,” said Jaydeep Basu, who has authored “Stories From Indian Football”, an anecdotal history of the game in the country. “India rank 32nd in Asia and the immediate goal should have been to be among the top 10 in the continent which would ensure a better draw in international tournaments.

“You have a struggling national

league and a pool of less than 90 Indian players to choose your national team from - so much for a country of 1.2 billion!

“In a vast country like ours, you need 50,000 ‘C’ licence coaches but you have only 2500. Only 12 of the 32 states have a proper local league.

“If you can solve all these problems and qualify for 2022 World Cup, you (have) got to be a genius,” Basu said. He added the country needed to strengthen the domestic competitions in all the states and improve training for children if it is to repeat the feats of the past.

India won Asian Games gold in 1951 and 1962 and finished runners-up in the 1964 Asian Cup in what is considered the golden era of Indian soccer.

The game is still popular in some areas and a Mohun Bagan v East Bengal derby in the eastern metropolitan city of Kolkata still draws up to 100,000 fans.

Nearly 120,000 fans gave a memorable farewell to Oliver Kahn in the German goalkeeper’s 2008 Bayern Munich swansong in Kolkata and Argentina great Diego Maradona brought the city to a standstill during his visit in the same year.

Valcke promised FIFA would do whatever it could to help the country, which is also bidding to host the 2017 under-17 World Cup, tap into that potential audience and player pool.

“We in FIFA believe that if there is one country in Asia we have to focus, it’s India,” said the FIFA official. “The best way to promote India would definitely be to organise the under-17 tournament... We will work with AIFF to make sure you have the structure to become a player at the highest level. “We are not coming to India because we think that in 10 years’ time our money will come from India. We are not looking for return on investment,” stressed Valcke, promising to consider AIFF’s request for 12 more artificial pitches in addition to the eight already allotted. Basu said AIFF must make the most of the FIFA investment. “We missed the bus in the 1970s and cannot afford to err again. FIFA has indeed gone out of its way to help India and AIFF needs to make the most of it.” Even then, he felt India would fall well short of the 2022 World Cup target. “AIFF is day-dreaming,” Basu added. — Reuters

Preview

Sevilla look to throw spanner in Real works

MADRID: Sevilla president Jose Maria Del Nido has been the most vocal critic of the stranglehold the big clubs exert over TV rights income and his side can also make a point on the pitch when they host Real Madrid tomorrow.

The lack of a collective bargaining system in La Liga means Real and Barcelona account for about half the TV pot of 600 million euros ($773.31 million).

That helps make them the world’s richest clubs by income, with annual earnings close to 500 million euros, and means they can afford to buy the best players and pay the highest wages.

Del Nido has called La Liga “a load of rubbish”, saying only the big two have a realistic chance of winning the title, and there is widespread support among other clubs for the introduction of a revenue sharing system like those used in rival European leagues. However, Real and Barca have shown little sign they are prepared to cede to such demands as they look to protect their status as dominant powers.

Real, who dropped five points in their opening three games this season, have put 15 goals past Sevilla in their last three league meetings including a pair of crushing 6-2 victories in the Andalucian capital.

Under coach Michel, a former Real player, Sevilla are undefeated this term but in recent years have looked a shadow of the side that won consecutive UEFA Cups in 2006 and 2007 and are not even in European competition this season.

Del Nido issued a rallying call to Sevilla fans this week, urging them to get behind the players for the Real clash at the Sanchez Pizjuan (2000 GMT) while Michel said yesterday it was a chance for the team to kick-

Andres Iniesta

start their campaign. “I would give my contract if that is what it takes to get a win against Real Madrid and that turned into the start of a positive run,” Michel told Sevilla’s TV channel.

Barca, who visit Sevilla at the end of the month, have won their opening three matches and are two points clear at the top on nine points, five ahead of Real.

New coach Tito Vilanova will be without Andres Iniesta for Barca’s trip to Getafe (1800) tomorrow after the Spain playmaker returned from international duty with a muscle strain.

Barca have slipped up several times in

recent years in their first game after an international break but Cesc Fabregas is confident it will not happen this time.

“You are away from home for 10 days and sometimes there are long journeys and then you have to get back into training again,” the Spain midfielder told Barca TV. “I think we are in good shape and we are returning after a win (1-0 against Georgia in Tbilisi) which is always positive mentally.”

Also on Saturday, Malaga host Levante and Valencia are at home to Celta Vigo while on Sunday Athletic Bilbao visit Espanyol and Atletico Madrid entertain Rayo Vallecano. — Reuters

Palmeiras lose to Vasco RIO DE JANEIRO: Pressure mounted on Palmeiras coach Luiz Felipe Scolari after his team lost 3-1 at Vasco da Gama on Wednesday, leaving them seven points adrift of safety in the Brazilian championship relegation zone.

The club’s football director Cesar Sampaio said a meeting would take place on Thursday to discuss the future of former Brazil, Portugal and Chelsea coach Scolari, who won the 2002 World Cup with his country.

“We’re all very sad and worried about the situation,” Sampaio told reporters after the game.

Scolari, usually known as Felipao (Big Phil) said he had not contemplated losing his job. “The idea of quitting has not crossed my mind,” he said. “We have to sit down, chew it over and see what we can do differently.”

Luan headed in Tiago’s cross to give Palmeiras the lead in 23rd minute, only for Carlos Tenorio to pull Vasco level with a close-range effort six minutes later.

The first-half ended with jeers from a sparse Vasco crowd who also protested against club president Roberto Dinamite.

Vasco, under interim coach Gaucho after Cristovao Borges was sacked earlier this week, went ahead six minutes after the break with a Nilson header. Former Olympique Lyon and Brazil midfielder Juninho Permanbucano added the third.

Palmeiras dropped to 19th in the 20-team table with 20 points from 24 games, seven behind 16thplace Flamengo. The bottom four go down. Neymar, who scored a hat-trick in Brazil’s 8-0 friendly win over China on Monday, scored an early goal as Santos beat Flamengo 2-0.—Reuters

Sports FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2012

Roma coach Zeman goes on the attack ITALY: Zdenek Zeman’s return to Serie A has quickly produced the expected sparks with the outspoken AS Roma coach going on the attack in more ways than one. On the field Roma have already delighted the neutrals with their positive football, playing with Zeman’s trademark 4-3-3 formation.

Roma, who host Bologna on Sunday (1300 GMT) in Serie A, gave the outstanding performance of the championship so far in winning 3-1 at Inter Milan last time out. They were helped by a masterclass from Francesco Totti, who thrived as his team pressed the opposition high up the pitch. Czech-born Zeman has also been on the offensive off the field and his typically provocative comments, about Juventus rival Antonio Conte last month and this week about Italian federation

president (FIGC) Giancarlo Abete, have gone down less well.

“Abete’s not my enemy, he’s the enemy of football,” Zeman said in an interview with Sette, a weekly magazine published by the Corriere della Sera newspaper. “There have been some improvements in football but I think that’s more because of the fear of being found out than doing the right thing,” he added, referring to Italy’s match-fixing scandals.

“We need some positive examples.” His comments were widely reproduced by Italian media. Last month, Zeman said that Conte, banned for 10 months for failing to report match-fixing when he was coach of Siena in Serie B, should not be allowed to train the team.

“A suspended player can train, but I don’t think a coach serving a lengthy ban

should be able to train his players,” he said. Those comments drew an angry response from Juventus and FIGC president Abete, who said Zeman should not get involved in matters which do not concern him.

Zeman, who coached both Lazio and Roma during the 1990s, has waged an often lonely battle for respect and fair play in Italian football and has upset plenty of his peers with some often angry criticism. The 65-year-old, who has lived in Italy for more than 40 years, is one of Italian football’s most widely travelled coaches although he last coached in Serie A with Lecce in 2004-05.

Since then he has been at the likes of Red Star Belgrade, Foggia and Pescara, leading the latter out of Serie B last season. Zeman’s replacement at Pescara,

Giovanni Stroppa, is widely being tipped

by Italian media to be the first coaching victim of the season if his side lose at home to Sampdoria (1300). His side have started with 3-0 defeats by Inter Milan and Torino.

Palermo have already started with successive 3-0 defeats, although volatile club president Maurizio Zamparini has promised that coach Giuseppe Sannino is not under threat ahead of Saturday’s home game with Cagliari (1600).

Titleholders Juventus, who went through last season unbeaten and have won their first two games this term, travel to Genoa on Sunday (1300). Two other teams have maximum points, Napoli, who host Parma (Sunday 1300), and Lazio, who visit Chievo (1030). AC Milan welcome Atalanta tomorrow. —Reuters

Robben doubtful for Mainz clash BERLIN: Bayern Munich winger Arjen Robben could miss tomorrow’s clash against Mainz with a minor groin injury as the Bavarians seek to maintain their early season advantage over champions Borussia Dortmund.

Robben returned from international duty with an injury suffered during the warm up of the Netherlands’ 2014 World Cup qualifier in Hungary earlier this week but medical checks in Munich on Wednesday revealed the problem was a minor one. While he is not expected to be out for long, Bayern said they could be without their influential winger tomorrow. The Bavarians lead the standings with maximum points from two games and after failing to win a single trophy last season, Bayern are eager to take control of the title race.

Coach Jupp Heynckes, however, may opt to leave Bundesliga record-signing Javi Martinez on the bench as he did in the previous game against Stuttgart.

“Obviously, from a footballing viewpoint he is a great asset for us but Javi still needs to work and fight his way into the team with performances,” Heynckes said of the 40 million euro ($51.55 million) signing. “Who plays depends on a lot of things. I would not want to decide this now.”

Leaving the Spaniard on the bench has so far not stalled Bayern’s charge to the top of the standings following their nine-goal spree in the opening league games.

“It was good to shoot out of the blocks like that,” Heynckes told the club website (www.fcbayern.de). “The team is hungry and it has helped physical preparations.” Dortmund breathed a collective sigh of relief on Wednesday when medical checks confirmed in-form forward Marco Reus had not been seriously injured in Germany’s 2-1 win over Austria a day earlier and would be fit to face Bayer Leverkusen. Reus, the back-to-back champions’ most expensive summer signing, is in fine form, having scored against Austria and also netting one goal in the league. Dortmund are on four points from two games, two behind Bayern. Fellow Champions League competitors Schalke, also on four points from two games, travel to promoted Greuther Fuerth.—Reuters

Arjen Robben

FRANCE : Paris Saint-Germain’s (PSG) L1 football club players attend a training session at the Camp des Loges, the PSG training center in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, west of Paris.—AFP

PSG hoping unstoppable Ibrahimovic shines again PARIS: Zlatan Ibrahimovic has not taken long to settle into life in Ligue 1 after joining Paris St Germain from AC Milan and the Sweden striker is fast becoming a nightmare for his opponents after just three appearances.

Ibrahimovic has already scored four goals for PSG with doubles against Lille and Lorient and Friday’s opponents Toulouse (1845 GMT) fear they will be the next victims when they visit the Parc des Princes. “When you face one of the three best players in the world, in spite of anything you have prepared, if on that day he is the genius he can be, there is nothing you can do,” Toulouse coach Alain Casanova was quoted as saying in Le Parisien on Wednesday.

“Unless you chain his feet and blind-

fold him, it’s hard to stop him.” PSG are hoping Ibrahimovic’s impressive form continues as they trail pacesetters and arch rivals Olympique Marseille, who have maximum points from four games, by six points.

Argentines Javier Pastore and Ezequiel Lavezzi have so far failed to make an impact this season with the latter having missed the last two games through suspension.

Champions Montpellier, who have only picked up four points, travel to Stade Reims on Friday (1845) with a full squad.

Lille, the 2011 champions, are seven points off the pace and also face a promoted side on Saturday when they travel to Troyes (1500), who have yet to win

in the top flight this season.

Marseille visit Nancy on Sunday (1900) looking to maintain their perfect record. “We are happy but let’s not make too big a deal of this because everything is fragile,” Marseille defender Rod Fanni told the club’s website (www.om.net). “One or two defeats and you are back to square one. Let’s stay cool and we’ll see.”

Striker Andre-Pierre Gignac, who struggled last season, has already scored three goals and OM look far more focused. “We are more solid, everyone is making more effort,” said Fanni. Second-placed Olympique Lyon, who are two points behind the leaders on 10, host Ajaccio earlier on Sunday (1500).—Reuters

Sports FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Pumas scent Wallabies upset in Genia’s absence SYDNEY: Argentina already had grounds for confidence heading into their Rugby Championship test against Australia on the Gold Coast this weekend and the absence of Wallabies scrumhalf Will Genia has given them some more.

The Pumas have been impressive in their draw with South Africa and the defeat to New Zealand in their last two games, while Australia were humbled twice by the All Blacks before last week’s scrappy 26-19 win over the Springboks.

Genia will be sidelined for six months after undergoing knee reconstruction on Wednesday and is the third Australia captain this season to be ruled out of the inaugural four-team southern hemisphere championship by injury.

The 24-year-old has played 29 of his country’s last 31 tests and last failed to suit up for an Australia international when the Wallabies met Ireland in

Brisbane in June 2010, a testament to his importance to the side over the last three seasons.

“I think he’s been a talisman for them,” Argentina prop Marcos Ayerza told reporters this week. “To lose a key player... and a captain... is a massive loss for Australia and hopefully we can use that to our advantage.”

Genia will be replaced at halfback by Nick Phipps for Saturday’s match at Skilled Park and as skipper by lock Nathan Sharpe, who will lead his country in what will be his 109th test and the first to be played in his home town.

The 34-year-old Sharpe, who will retire at the end of this season, is the only Australian player to have previously played the Pumas.

There was a time when Australia’s main concern when facing Argentina would have been how their often fragile

pack would fare, but a major worry in the Rugby Championship so far has been the failure of their backs to score a try.

Coach Robbie Deans has rejigged his backline by bringing straight-running Pat McCabe back into the centres and moving Berrick Barnes to fullback in place of Kurtley Beale, who has been dropped to the bench for the second time in three matches.

For a side already struggling to get on the front foot, and for creativity behind the scrum, there could hardly be a worse team to come up against than the Pumas. “The one thing they’re very good at is stopping their opponents from playing. They’re a very difficult side to play against,” Deans said this week. “No one’s been able to create any momentum against them. That’s obviously a big part of getting them into the game.”

In the Australian forwards, a ham-

Webb, Jiyai share British Open lead HOYLAKE: Seven-time major winner Karrie Webb of Australia was among five players sharing the clubhouse lead at 1-under-par 71 in the first round of the Women’s British Open yesterday.

Webb won the British at Turnberry in 2002. Another former champion, 2008 winner Jiyai Shin of South Korea, posted the first sub-par round at Royal Liverpool, followed minutes later by 16year-old England amateur Charley Hull, Japan’s Ai Miyazato and Welsh pro Lydia Hall.

Taiwan’s Yani Tseng, bidding for her third successive British Open, was a stroke behind on level par with less than a third of the field back in the clubhouse, along with 15-year-old New Zealand amateur Lydia Ko, Sweden’s Carin Koch, Japan’s Yuki Ichinose and Koreans Inbee Park and Chella Choi.

Paula Creamer and Natalie Gulbis were the leading Americans on 1-over 73, beside English amateur Alex Peters and Korean Amy Yang. Paula Creamer took one look at the wind and rain battering the Royal Liverpool links and liked what she saw.“This course sets up incredibly well for me,” Creamer said. “I hope it stays this windy and this hard. I like that. I truly like the challenge.”

Creamer experienced the challenge of longest playoff between two players in LPGA Tour history, losing to Jiyai Shin on the ninth extra hole Monday at the Kingsmill Championship.

With heavy wind and rain affecting Wednesday’s practice and more bad weather forecast for the next few days, the 36th staging of the tournament could become a war of attrition for the world’s best women golfers. The conditions were much different when the American played Hoylake for the first time on a private visit this summer.

“When I played, I was in shorts and short-sleeved shirt,” she said. “I actually played it twice. The first time there was no wind and the second day it was like today, when it died down a little bit. “Wind like this, conditions like this, a lot of it you can’t control.

But I think it was smart coming to have a look when we did. I know where to avoid and where not to go.”

Creamer is a global ambassador for tournament sponsor Ricoh, which announced an extension of its commitment to the event for another three years until 2016. Tseng, winner at Carnoustie last year and Royal Birkdale in 2010, was full of praise for the Royal Liverpool Golf Club. It has hosted 11 men’s British Opens and many top amateur and professional events in its history, but is staging the women’s championship for the first time.

“I just love the course, the British Open with its history and tradition,” said Tseng, who will be bidding for her sixth major championship since her first victory as a 19-year-old at the 2008 LPGA Championship. “I think you have to have so much imagination out there. You really need to work the ball. “I’ve struggled a little in the last couple of months, but it’s a good time to be back here and I think it’s my turn to start playing well again. I love playing with Ai and Paula. It’s a good draw and I’m very excited. It should be fun.” Miyazato, with eight top 10 finishes on the LPGA Tour this year, is looking forward to the challenge. “It’s really nice to be

HOYLAKE: Momoko Ueda of Japan plays her second shot to the 2nd hole during the first round of the Women’s British Open golf tournament at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club. — AFP here. I just love the atmosphere of this tournament,” Miyazato said. “My short game is pretty solid this year and that’s why I think I’ve been playing really well so far.”

The trio will start Thursday from the 10th tee. Three other former major winners - Sweden’s Anna Nordqvist and South Koreans Inbee Park and Jiyai Shin - start at the same time from the first tee.

The winners of this year’s first three majors - China’s Shanshan Feng and South Koreans Sun Young Yoo and Na Yeon Choi - are also in the field. Michelle Wie, Christie Kerr, Brittany Lincicome, Lexi Thompson, Morgan Pressel, Natalie Gulbis and Brittany Lang are among the 34-strong American contingent in the field of 144.

Fifteen-year-old New Zealand amateur sensation Lydia Ko, winner of the Canadian Open last month, tees off first from the 10th paired with Lexi Thompson and Japan’s Kaori Ohe. The South Korean-born Ko became the youngest winner in LPGA Tour history and only the fifth amateur champion. —AP

string injury to Sitaleki Timani means a debut for Kane Douglas alongside Sharpe in the second row against an Argentina pack unchanged from the 215 loss to the world champions.

Argentina coach Santiago Phelan has also changed his scrumhalf and fullback with Martin Landajo making way for Nicolas Vergallo at the back of the scrum while Lucas Gonzalez Amorosino comes in for Martin Rodriguez in the number 15 shirt. Ayerza has been dropped but the likes of number eight Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe, flanker Julio Faras Cabello and prop Rodrigo Roncero will ensure a tough evening for the home side, and particularly for Phipps. Argentina upset the Wallabies in their ever first test in Australia in Brisbane 29 years ago but have lost the subsequent eight matches between the sides. —Reuters

Preview

Owen begins Stoke career against champions Man City LONDON: Michael Owen used to terrify international defenders and made scoring look easy but the extent to which his career has gone off the boil will be brought into focus tomorrow when he lines up for modest Stoke City.

Just days after his former England colleagues struggled in a 1-1 draw against Ukraine, Owen, who scored 40 international goals while representing some of Europe’s most illustrious clubs, could make his Stoke debut against Manchester City.

In his pomp, Owen would have been just the man to find a breakthrough at Wembley, but injuries and a waning of his powers have kept him out of England consideration, and he has not represented his country since 2008.

City are aiming to extend their unbeaten start to their Premier League title defence, though next Tuesday’s Champions League match against Real Madrid at the Bernabeu could prove a distraction.

Owen will hope to forge a traditional little-and-large partnership with Peter Crouch, who scored a wonder goal against City in the corresponding fixture last season and linked up with Owen to good effect when they represented England.

Crouch this week backed Owen, who counts Liverpool, Real Madrid and Manchester United among his former clubs, to force his way back into the international reckoning.

“If he’s playing regularly for Stoke and scoring in the Premier League, I don’t see why he can’t force his way into the England set-up,” Crouch said.

City’s Manchester neighbours United face Wigan Athletic (1400), but summer signing Robin van Persie, whose hat-trick rescued his team against Southampton in their previous outing, is an injury doubt. With Wayne Rooney already ruled out, United might turn to Danny Welbeck to lead the line after Van Persie suffered a thigh injury and was substituted at halftime in the Netherlands’ 4-1 win over Hungary on Tuesday.

United could also be without playmaker Shinji Kagawa, who was forced out of Japan’s 1-0 win over Iraq on Tuesday with a back problem.

United’s attacking frailties, however, are less pronounced than Van Persie’s former club Arsenal, who only broke their Premier League scoring duck in their third game, and face Southampton at home on Saturday (1400).

Arsenal’s close-season replacement for Van Persie, Olivier Giroud, has so far failed to find the net. “I’ve been freezing up a little bit just when I’ve been about to pull the trigger and that’s exactly what happened in my first few matches for France,” Giroud told FIFA’s website (www.fifa.com).

The biggest blow for Arsenal could be the absence of midfielder Abou Diaby, who picked up a hip injury playing for France against Finland.

Diaby was imperious against Liverpool and rekindled memories of former terrace hero Patrick Vieira with his surging forward runs, but manager Arsene Wenger told French TV he has only a small chance of playing on Saturday. —Reuters

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 , 2012

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Webb, Jiyai share British Open lead Page 47 HOYLAKE: Michelle Wie of the US plays her second shot to the 2nd during the first round of the Women’s British Open golf tournament at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club.—AFP