17 Feb 2012

On a fast-track to victory

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Bahrain one year on SEE PAGE 12

MANAMA: A riot policeman fires tear gas toward antigovernment demonstrators yesterday, in Musalla, Bahrain, on the edge of the capital of Manama. — AP

Local FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Just kiddin’, seriously

Me or your BBM?

Local Spotlight

The voice of expats

By Muna Al-Fuzai

By Sahar Moussa

muna@kuwaittimes.net

sahar@kuwaittimes.net

“I

t drives me crazy every time my partner receives a Black Berry message (BBM) and answers it,” said Katy a 29 years old woman.

In any new relationship there are simple rules that are so obvious, but sometimes we simply ignore them. In my opinion BBM and WhatsApp are a two edged sword that can kill softly with its sweetness and bitterness. As much as you feel contented when you receive a message from your loved ones - you will also feel the contempt when your partner starts receiving messages and texting back while you are together. A lot of women consider it really disrespectful and rude.

So here is the deal for men and women - answering every BBM is rude, annoying and frustrating, especially if you are in a new relationship. In the ‘rendezvous dictionary’, the first dates are made to know more about each others’ likes and dislikes, personalities and qualities. They are not made to see the expressions and reactions of your partner while answering every BBM message or WhatsApp messages that come up.

The biggest problem which is facing both men and women now - with this new electronic communication device is trust. It’s like the electronic device verses the trust. Because any time you

get distracted by the BBM, your partner feels as if he/she is being cut off from you, which really create a big gap between the couple, especially if it happens on a regular basis. This causes discomfort and suspicion - and we all know that when skepticism knocks on the door of any relationship, it kills it. “If he wants to stick to the BBM, he doesn’t need to hang out with me and waste my time,” one of my friends said.

I wouldn’t agree less with her.

Men are like ‘big children’ that want attention all the time. Trying to ignore them or giving them a bit of their medicine by answering all the BBM and WhatsApp makes them angry. On the other hand, women are jealous and protective - ignoring them makes them angry too. “I want my partner to give me full attention because I’m the real person in front of him - not the stupid machine,” one of my friend said. I think people nowadays should add a new skill on their CVs like “I’m a communication multitasking expert.”

Translation: I can annoy four people at the same time by not giving anyone complete attention.

Here is a typical BBM and WhatsApp drama: - Imagine this scenario - you and your partner are going out for a dinner, he sends you a BBM that he is downstairs waiting for you,

you got so excited, and you rushed down to his car. As he drove off, he started texting and receiving messages. You got frustrated thus having a wield wish. “I wish a policeman will to catch him for ignoring me and not paying attention on the road”. Even when you finally arrived at the restaurant- instead of going through the menu, he chose to read his BBM. Once again you get this weird wish - ‘that the waiter accidently drops the glass of water on him and his BB just to get his attention’. So what would you do in this situation?

If I’m in your place I would ask for a glass of water, stand up, and throw the glass in his face and his BB of course. Then I will ask for a taxi, call the police and give them his plate car number, his descriptions and the place of the restaurant telling them that he stole my BB. Then later on, I will send him a BBM -telling him that ‘it is over’.

Everyone needs attention - so if you are in a serious relationship and want to keep it, - try to be considerate, polite and respectful as much as you can. More so, try to ignore your BBM when you are with your partner and texts only when necessary or if it’s on a matter of life or death (I can only excuse doctors in this case).

Satire Wire

It’s trendy to be political

E

very time I write an article about the situations that expatriates face in Kuwait , I receive extreme responses! In the first type, expats who shower me with emails to express gratitude for openly discussing their issues and pain. They feel that they cannot speak about their condition as no one listens to them or would be interested in revealing the truth. Moreover, the fear of punishment or being deported looms large over them, forcing them into silence, driving them to suicide as an escape route!

The reaction I receive from some Kuwaitis is that of denial. They are indifferent to the fact an expatriate faces difficulties or are being abused. To them, all Kuwaitis never even harm a fly! The truth is, they fail to see that Kuwaitis are just like many people from around the world : some are good while others are bad! According to international rankings, Kuwait certainly has a disappointing record. I think we as Kuwaitis are expected to be better than others in the manner in which we treat our maids, laborers and other employees who travel hundreds of miles to come here, work and make a living. As Kuwaitis, we cannot stop raving about our piety as Muslims. Then, how come we find it difficult to be kind to people regardless of their rank, position , color or origine? Just because they work for us, some for large firms and others for smaller ones, doesn’t mean that they are less human.

Now , most Kuwaiti work for the government. Does this mean that the government is entitled to abuse them because wages are paid to them at the end of the month?

Of course not ! That is because , presumably, the government respects the rights of workers. I believe the same logic applies to us as well - we have no right to abuse those who work for us!

I feel proud that expats have chosen me as their ‘voice!’ Yes, I so feel ashamed when I follow a suicide or rape case and learn that a Kuwaiti is involved in committing crimes that trash our reputation as a nation! I also do not see much of an effort being made by several NGO’s in guiding many fellow Muslims!

I think it is our shared responsibility for everyone to be treated equally. Severe punishments should be meted out against abusers. I also don’t wish to see any one get abused and shut their mouths due to fear of a possible backlash. There are bad people around, but there are also some who care about expats!

By Sawsan Kazak

sawsank@kuwaittimes.net

R

ecently, young people have been finding it very trendy to be up-to-date with the political happenings of other countries. People have been flooding Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites with information, articles, videos and their personal opinions about political situations around the world.

Maybe the new-found interest in politics has stemmed from the recent Arab Spring, as it has shown that change can take place in a short period of time.

Maybe it’s from the fact that accessibility to information is much easier these days through the internet. Maybe it’s just the new hot thing to be aware of these days.

But like any trend, it comes quick and without thought (remember the 80s?). I have noticed a rise in posts involving dictator eradication, uprising support and democracy everywhere. People ‘support’ any cause

that is at the moment the hot topic. By support, I don’t actually mean make posters and go to the streets, I mean support with catchy slogans on their profiles or swapping of videos on websites.

But supporting a cause from the comfort of your living room as you sip tea is not really support. It is easy to support an idealistic cause, but not much research is happening whether the cause is good for the people or about the aftermath if passed. Showing solidarity with others is a good thing, but just doing it to look political and ‘with-it’ is not. As much as I would love to say that all the uprisings have been successful, at this moment I simply can’t. I just wish that instead of blindly ‘supporting’ a romantic idea, there is more research done on the people behind the idea and the consequences of its application.

KUWAIT: Kuwait at night. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat

Local FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Conspiracy Theories

The hypocrisy of society

By Badrya Darwish

badrya_d@kuwaittimes.net

W

e always talk about equality between men and women. The topic is everywhere. It is a global issue and does not concern solely the Arab World. Of course, women have achieved many of the rights they have been demanding. They have been sitting in ministerial seats and have headed big corporations. They have been serving on boards and sitting in decision-making chairs in banks and even in the cockpit in planes.

Now I am talking specifically about the Arab world. Yes, it is true. Women in the Arab world could take many jobs.

There is equality between both genders in many ways - education opportunities, freedom of movement and employment. Women are working in every field - be it as movie

stars, media presenters, receptionists, managers etc. Women in most of the Arab World could be seen doing different kinds of jobs. On the surface you can feel there is true equality.

Deep in heart, however, I don’t think that’s true. I will tell you why. I still think our society differentiates between the behavior of men and women. I noticed that throughout my experience in life and from the people around me - be it from friends or acquaintances, there is a big psychological gap dug by society against the real genuine equality.

Why men have the right to fall in love and go out with women and society does not frown upon that. When it comes to the marriage decision many of these men are not marrying the girls they flirt with or date. Many marry the old way - an arranged marriage by the family. By the way, I am not against that. My argument is that many of these men do not opt to marry the girl they go out with or even love.

Men are forgiven for whatever they do before marriage. If a woman has even one boyfriend she falls in love with thinking she might marry him and he ditches her how difficult does it become for someone else to accept her. Society

Off the record

Love, an end in itself?

By Sajeev K Peter

sajeev@kuwaittimes.net

M

y friend Francis told me he could not keep the date with his girlfriend on this Valentine’s Day due to a sudden bout of diarrhea. It may be a classical case of ‘Man proposes, God disposes’, though I tried to console him saying that his lapse will not make much difference in their platonic affair as long as he does not keep his love locked down. I also gave him a piece of my mind on the subject. I told him love goes beyond the limits of a day or 24 hours as it is perennial. And this bout of diarrhea may prove to be a blessing in disguise, a test by fire for the couple whose true love could come out unscathed as he recovers from the current ailment.

Now, do not brand me as an antiValentine’s Day campaigner. I am not one of those guys who opposes the idea of earmarking a day exclusively for diehard lovers. I am also not against corporations making a fortune out of love. I am not against those jewelers, chocolate firms or boutique designers making money out of windfall sales of candies, garments, flowers, gold and diamond jewelries on Valentine’s Day. The West has taught us many new modern lifestyle paradigms such as celebrating Mother’s Day and Father’s Day along with birthdays. Come Mothers’ Day or Fathers’ Day, you will find many Americans rushing to see their parents

either in old age homes or sanatoriums.

They present them with flowers and gifts to mark the day. They will kiss their father or mother on both their cheeks and say, ‘Happy Mothers’ Day mom’ or ‘Happy Fathers’ Day dad’ and spend some time with them before they return to their busy humdrum life.

Interestingly these hapless people, affectionately called ‘dudes’, started receiving online deliveries of gifts and greeting cards along with ‘excuse notes’ from their children! Remember, time is the coin of your life! In this globalised world, it’s hard to fault anyone for the situation in these fast-evolving lifestyles where love has become a merchandise, be it for your mother, father, wife, lover, children or your neighbor.

Today, love is no more about forming a bond of emotional bliss with the illusion of a worthless existence without the other nor it is about unanimous compassion and faith. It is a preference of convenience to virtue. It is time to forget what the celebrated writer Gabriel Garcia Marques says in his ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’, ‘Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the alpha and omega. An end in itself.”

immediately runs her down. Even if she finds a man who is liberal and open-minded and does not mind her past, his family might not agree to such a union.

Her reputation is destroyed. Is that fair? You are talking to me about equality between men and women.

Even if the woman is a divorcee, her chances of remarrying are very slim. It is not like a man. He can pick and choose any woman his heart desires and the problem is that society accepts this. But the reverse scenario is often inconceivable.

Equality is not only in job, careers and driving. It is also in feelings, in behaviors and in all strata. You cannot be picky about equality and customize or tailor it. I think this is an issue where the west is not bothered with. I am talking in general. But here in the Arab world it is a totally different debate.

Women who take the liberty, fall in love and date end up in misery as social outcasts. Their reputation is tarnished.

Where is the equality in that? Islam does not differentiate between men and women, but society still does.

Local FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

‘When you feel tired, speed up, don’t slow down’

On a fast-track to

By Ben Garcia

T

raining to be a triathlete requires more hard work when the sport is not nationally recognized by your country. Wadha Albader, a Kuwaiti triathlete, has made a name for herself in the world of male-dominated sports. She is one of many Kuwaiti athletes who will be competing in the biggest triathlon competition to be held in Abu Dhabi on March 3.

A triathlon is a multi-sport event involving the completion of three continuous and sequential endurance events in various distances for the swimming, cycling, and running. Triathletes compete for fastest overall course completion time, including timed ‘transitions’ between the individual swim, bike and run components.

Triathlon is a relatively new sporting event in Kuwait, slowly gaining momentum. In fact, competitions have been organized in Kuwait in the past, all sponsored by private organizations.

When Wadha tried to join previous competitions, she realized that being overweight thwarted her sporting dreams. She suffered a lot, endured and persevered. “I achieved an athletic figure only recently. I used to be fat. Now that I have it, I don’t want to let go. I’ll die if I let go of this. So I am taking care. I love the feeling of being sporty, so I train every single day,” she beamed.

Sprint was the first sporting event she took part in. She finished last, covering only about a quarter of the ground. She tried the Olympic distance triathlon and tasted defeat again.

However, joining the Abu-Dhabi triathlon last year gave her the much needed career break.

She bagged the first place. “I don’t really expect anything but I came first in my age group. I was placed thirteenth overall among all female contenders. I believe I have something to show,” Wadha said. Last month in Amman, Jordan, Wadha won third over-all in triathlon competition. Wadha admits to loving sports more than her social life. “It keeps my spirit alive. I basically don’t have a social life now. I wake up early in the morning at four, begin training, go to work, get back home, train again, eat and sleep. The same schedule is repeated every day. In fact, I am addicted to it now,” she admitted.

Challenges While training, Wadha faced challenges. The most debilitating, she says, was gender bias.

“People in Kuwait are not open to the idea of women taking up sports like swimming, biking and running. I rejected the idea. I faced the fact

that I cannot find facilities-simply because I am female. Example for swimming; there are Olympic size swimming pools in every single district in Kuwait but they are reserved for male counterparts or are left unused,” she lamented.

But the set back did not dishearten her. “I’ve been going back and forth to Khairan Resort, three times a week to swim in the lagoon, salt water. I don’t have a complaint since the actual pool size [of venue in Abu Dhabi] will be the same. The challenge I faced was having to rush to Khairan, chase the sunset after work because it’s quite far away from home, [45 minutes drive],” she said.

While running in the garden/park or in the streets of Kuwait, people gawk at her as if she’s from outer space. “In other countries, it is normal to run. Here they stare at you as if you are a different creature from outer space,” she joked.

“Now I run in Adailiya. I used the Mishref Park’s track and along the seaside of Salmiya and Shuwaikh. Just two weeks ago, I also found a suitable swimming pool. I train with my bike in Al-Sadique but it has become more congested. I use my indoor stationary bike instead,” she said.

In a week, Wadha swims between three to four times, does three long running sessions and about four biking sessions. “I only have a day’s rest a week, doing absolutely nothing but recovering. The morning session is lighter . I do some warm up exercises, pull-ups, press-up and some strength training,” she explained.

The competition will be held in two weeks’ time and Wadha is more than ready. “I am ready.

In fact, I am now slowing down because I need some energy for the big day. I don’t want to be fatigued or too tired, days before the competition,” she said. Wadha enjoyed training alone, but training with coach is much healthier, “The good thing with the trainer is that you cannot complain, he will always motivate you. When alone, if you wish to stop no one will push you to do more. Even when I am tired, he will force me to continue. He will run along with me, asking me to keep up with the pace. In fact, he tells me that when I feel tired I should speed up.”

When asked what the toughest of the three sporting events was, she replied. “Running is; at that time, you’ll be extremely tired as you have already used energy to swim and bike. The triathlon competition starts with swimming followed by biking and running. My strength lies in biking,” she said.

Techniques Triathlon is not only a test of physical

victory

endurance and skills, but also of mental capacity. She feels that the body is capable of doing amazing things. If one is not prepared mentally, you’ll fail. “You don’t know what your body is capable of doing when you don’t put yourself to do it. While training, it is very important to suffer, and then experience success when you overcome it. So for me mental attitude is very important in this sport,” she advised. Wadha experimented with many sporting activities before settling down with triathlon. In fact, she tried basketball, volleyball and even tennis, but was not satisfied. “At that time, I wasn’t fit as I am now. I cannot imagine a life without triathlon. I am now scared to let it go, that is why, we need the help from the government to give it the priority it deserves. The problem is we cannot be professional and compete in that level if there is no national team of our own like setting up a Kuwait Triathlon Federation,” she admitted.

Wadha spoke to a few people with the Kuwait Olympic Committee but she was told that a Federation cannot be established unless there are 50 triathletes. “So, I think it’s a roadblock to my dream because there are barely 20 to 25 triathletes here. The only way to get professional is to invest in decent quality coaches.

There is a lot of potential in this field. Sadly, there is not much information available. There are many people that can ‘shine,’ but need to be given opportunity. We need the support of the country. The Kuwait Olympic Committee has

been giving me empty promises and it makes me sad,” Wadha said. Recognition is one big step in the right direction, according to Wadha.

“We have money. It takes only a few people to form a federation. We have to bring in decent swimming, biking and running coaches. I would really want to be part of Asian Games and Olympics, but again, it cannot be achieved unless my country supports it.”

Wadha’s family thinks she is overdoing the sport. “I have a brother studying in the US who thinks I am doing great. But some think I am crazy,” Wadha said. She missed the time she spent studying in the UK, learning to be independent. She learned to cook and do household chores alone. “I learnt to stand on my own. So even in Kuwait, I cook my own food even if there is a housemaid. I prepare food throughout the week. Perhaps the biggest lesson I learned is that you’ll know to achieve a balance in life. I interacted with so many people from different cultures and personalities,” she reminisced.

What is she bringing back to Kuwait after the triathlon meet in Abu Dhabi? “I hope people here change their attitude toward the sport. It is normal for a woman to do this. I hope I can come back to say that I am not crazy just because I am doing this.”

Kuwaiti triathlete Wadha Albader

Kuwait National Day

Local FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Free things to do with your free time

By Sawsan Kazak

I

t’s nearing the end of the month and this is the time people’s funds start running low. Kuwait can sometimes be an expensive place to live in. Restaurants and shopping are the two national passtime, but can be hard to do if you are broke. Don’t let your empty bank account cause you to have an empty social life.

The following activities are absolutely free and entertaining.

Cinemagic Ever feel like seeing a foreign film in an alfresco setting?

Well Cinemagic offers you just that. Located in old Salmiya, Cinemagic screens foreign films on the roof top every Thursday and Saturday night. The entrance is free but you have to bring your own snacks from home.

Protests With the Arab Spring in the area, it has now become common place for people to take to the streets for every occasion. The next time you see a group of people gathered together screaming slogans and holding colorful banners, just join in. It doesn’t matter what the cause is, it just matters that it is an exciting activity that is free. It’s a great way to feel like a part of a community and maybe help a worthy cause.

What do you do with your free time in Kuwait? sawsank@kuwaittimes.net

AWARE The AWARE Center (Advocate for Westerners-Arab Relations) is an organization that offers free activities, as their name mentions, to improve relations between westerners and Arabs. Their activities are not only informative and fun, most are free. This center organizes lectures with interesting topics like soap making, intercultural marriage and polygamy. While there, you can enjoy a stimulating talk and some free snacks.

Window shopping Kuwait has no shortage of shopping malls. They come in all sizes, styles and locations. If you are broke, it can seem like absolute torture to go shopping. The trick here is to turn your shopping into window shopping. Simply change your mentality from having to buy the items you see, to simply to make an inventory of the items you wish to buy with your next paycheck. Walking from store to store without buying anything can allow you to compare the items you ‘need’ to have, and place them in order of necessity.

Having a list of priorities will allow you to make a more educated choice on your next pay day, and maybe avoid finding yourself in the same situation.

Walks and talks What better time to pay more attention to your health and your friends than when you are broke. The next time you find yourself penniless, grab a friend and head to your nearest walkway. Located all over Kuwait and on the beach, Kuwait’s walkways offer great opportunity for exercising and socializing. Tell your friend that it’s time to do some catching up, and meet you with a pair of running shoes and juicy gossip. This way you can spend a night getting fit and informed for free.

Scientific Center Behind the Scientific Center in Salmiya, there is an abundance of free culture to be soaked in. Located on Gulf Road, the Scientific Center has a handful of docked wooden ships that were used for pearl diving back in the day.

Each ship has an explanation of its origin, and the time when it was used. With its many fountains and artifacts, the walk around the Scientific Center is informative and beautiful; great photo-op.

Exhibition Mishref International Fair Grounds hosts exhibitions from around the world. All year long, different exhibitions are featured in the large rooms ranging from books to arts and even gifts. You might not have any money to buy any of the things being exhibited, but you can walk around for free and get inspired.

Weddings If you are feeling a little festive, why not crash a wedding you haven’t been invited to? Kuwaiti halls and hotels host weddings all week long, and with all the commotion and celebrations no one will notice an extra person or two.

Get into your best clothes and head down to your nearest wedding hall to enjoy some good music and free food.

Make sure you dress for the occasion and blend in.

Don’t let your empty bank account cause you to have an empty social life

Local FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Arab world

shows the way

Middle East displays highest levels of trust in family managing wealth

By Lisa Conrad

A

recent report by Barclays revealed that Middle Eastern high net-worth individuals showed the highest levels of trust in their children to manage and protect their wealth.

According to the report, entitled ‘The Transfer of Trust: Wealth and Succession in a Changing World,’ a staggering 78 percent of Middle East respondents said that they trust the upcoming generation to protect their inheritance. It further revealed that developed countries display higher levels of uncertainty in terms of trusting their children to protect their wealth. Following the Middle East, Africa was the second in terms of regions displaying the most trust toward their children, with 77 percent. Latin America came in at 75 percent, followed by the Asia Pacific with 69 percent, Europe with 62 percent, North America with 61 percent and, finally, Australia with 59 percent.

Rory Gilbert, Managing Director and Head of Middle East and North Africa for International Private Banking at Barclays Wealth, said, “Regionally, 90 percent of Middle East respondents place a high priority on setting up a trust fund for their children to secure their future.”

Aisha, a 54-year-old Kuwaiti mother, is part of the majority, “All of our wealth will go directly to our children and their children. It’s important to make sure they’re comfortable in the future and that their standard of living remains the same.” She further added, “The money we have made and saved, was always for our children and family, so who better to leave it to than the ones

motivating us all along?”

The report found that 70 percent of global respondents believe that assets should be divided equally among children. Aisha, however, insists that it is not common practice to divide them equally, “We will leave more to our sons, because they are heads of the family and are still responsible for their sisters and her children. In the event that a son-inlaw dies, and we are no longer around, our daughters will be completely financially dependent on her brothers.” She added, “It is not a matter of believing that girls deserve less, it’s a matter of understanding that men in the family shoulder more financial responsibility and must be prepared at any time to support their relatives.” This inequality may be perceived as a possible source of conflict, especially since the report noted that, “40 percent of the global wealthy have had direct experience of family wealth leading to disputes.” However, disputes over wealth appear to be less common in the Middle East. The report added that just 11 percent of Qatari respondents said that they have experienced family tensions as a result of wealth.

While family tensions may be less common in the region, including businesses in inheritance packages, very common in the Middle East, can be extremely detrimental to success of the business.

“Inherited businesses can often be poorly managed by their new owners, who are often extremely stubborn and myopic because they know that the business is in their hands,” said economist, Hajjaj Bukhadour. This may be due to the differences between earned and inherited wealth, which, the report noted, includes financial happiness.

It revealed that the source of wealth is a key determinant of financial happiness, and that earned wealth is considerably more likely to result in happiness than inherited wealth.

Tarek, a 41-year-old Lebanese expatriate who works in the oil sector said, “There is no way I will set my kids up for life with a large inheritance. It will spoil them and make them lazy, and once you have it all, what’s left?” Tarek agreed that there is much less satisfaction in inherited money than there is in earned money, “I worked incredibly hard to get to where I am, and I enjoy my money more because I genuinely appreciate it. I enjoy it with my family, of course. I want my kids to learn about the value of hard work, the same way I did. Feeling that you’ve achieved success is so satisfying, and I want them to thirst for that.”

Local FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Evolution of Kuwait’s politics

By Jamie Etheridge Kuwait’s newly elected Parliament opened this past Wednesday, not-quite welcoming the newly appointed Cabinet. Few people I’ve talked with seem optimistic about the coming year. Indeed, it seems both sides are already gearing up for a clash. Ministers may have been chosen specifically to avoid controversy but overall, the new Cabinet failed to win over opposition MPs. “The government lineup is disappointing because it contains ministers who cause crises and some have racist sentiments,” opposition MP Mubarak Al-Waalan said in a statement reported by the press. “I expect collisions to take place soon and that the lifespan of this government will be short,” he said.

Despite the Amir calling on the Parliament to make national unity a priority, the reality is that a fresh Parliament and a fresh government do not equal a fresh start.

The reason is simply this: The underlying problems and disputes remain. The opposition groups want a greater say in government formation, more control over fundamental state policies and spending, and more influence in daily decision making.

Ideally, the opposition blocs want to run the country, to have political parties and to turn Kuwait into a kingdom along the lines of Great Britain, where the ruling party chooses the prime minister and he or she leads the state.

The opposition also wants to be able to directly control and shape government tenders, especially in the lucrative energy industry.

Recently, newly elected parliament chairman and senior opposition figure Ahmed AlSaadoun weighed in on tenders for the Al-Zour power plant. He warned that the process of choosing bidders was a “huge scandal that must be stopped by the Cabinet immediately for breaching legal procedures,” Al-Saadoun was reported saying by Al-Qabas.

The comments are illustrative. Parliamentary intervention has stalled or killed several high profile infrastructure projects, including a multibillion dollar deal to create a joint company with US-based Dow Chemicals, the development of northern oil fields, known as Project Kuwait as well as Al-Zour power plant project.

Controlling the mechanisms of state are critical to the ability to influence fundamental - and often multibillion dollar - decisions about such things as infrastructure projects, fiscal policy, commercial and business regulations, govern-

ment budgetary spending and focus. In other words, Kuwait is functioning very much like a democracy where all the various sectors of society not only have a stake in the decisions of state, but also have a voice and a vehicle to influence those decisions.

Democracy is often raucous, competitive, mudslinging and divisive. And that is what’s taking place in Kuwait. Kuwait’s political tug of war has been going on for years - long before Mohammed Bouazizi set himself alight. It is predicated on the bid by some to redistribute the country’s power and wealth and by others to prevent such a redistribution.

As the society has grown and diversified, more actors are stepping onto the political stage and are vociferously demanding a role.

The political turmoil here is not the ‘Arab Spring’ come to Kuwait - though all sides have certainly added the tumultuous regional events of 2011 to their calculations. It is the result of a complex system of government combined with a growing local population divided along a multitude of economic and social lines.

It’s not revolution, but evolution. And this year will prove a challenging phase in the country’s development.

Minister vows to rectify demographic imbalance Visa trafficking cited main cause KUWAIT: Minister of Social Affairs and Labor Ahmed Al-Rujaib has said that correcting Kuwait’s demographic imbalance is his main priority. He plans to study the present situation and find proper solutions. Al-Rujaib cited visa trafficking as one of the main causes. “We’ll work hard to end laborers issue that threaten our national security and create more burdens on the state,” he said.

MPs Waleed Al-Tabtabae, Adel Al-Damkhi, have suggested that a subcommittee be formed to take up follow up action on the case of Kuwaiti Gitmo detainees Fayez Al-Kanadari and Fauzi Al-Oudah. The subcommittee is responsible for highlighting the issue, organize related activities and contact the American side.

arrested by police and handed over to Shuwaikh police station,” he stressed.

Speaker election Lawmaker Mohammed Al-Sager condemned the manner in which MP Khaled Al-Sultan conducted the speaker’s election process. He stressed that the process was an insult to democracy. “Al-Sultan lost respect. What a miserable way to sell oneself at the interest of others,” he added before congratulating Al-Saadoun’s victory.

“After hearing Al-Sager’s statement, I am 100 percent sure that I made the right decision by resorting to manual voting,” stressed Al-Sultan in response. Lawmaker Mohammed Al-Juwaihel filed parliamentary inquiries to the interior minister requesting a list of the names and nationalities of visitors who arrived in Kuwait ten days before the recent parliamentary elections. They allegedly voted and left within ten days after the elections. AlJuwaihel also inquired about the number of bedoons and Iraqis who had registered their names in the 1957 and 1965 Census.

Exam results Lawmaker Jamaan Al-Harbash announced that the parliamentary educational committee will discuss midterm high school exam results with the new Education Minister, Dr Bader Al-Hajraf next Sunday. “it breaks our heart to know that he students demonstrated outside the National Assembly. We promise to continue studying the issue with the minster to end their suffering,’ said Al-Harbash.

Tabtabae inquires about Iraqi spy Lawmaker Waleed Al-Tabtabae criticized the interior ministry and was amazed at how no case was filed when an Iraqi woman, allegedly related to a current MP was arrested in connection with espionage. “The woman was brought to Kuwait by a lawmaker a week ago, and was

Shamali warns MPs MPs belonging to some trines from the fourth constituency reportedly asked Finance Minister Mustafa AlShamali during inaugural parliamentary session to sack the current manager of the Investment Authority. Bader Al-Saad, warned him of extending the tenure of some other managers and asked that others be appointed.

Sources added that Al-Shamali strongly defended AlSaad. “He is competent enough and that is important in the investment authority. Don’t interfere in my work,” warned Al-Shamali.

KUWAIT: The Commanders Preparation Center of the National Security College yesterday concluded a training course on senior leaders behavior it organized for top officials of the Amiri Diwan, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Defense, the National Guard, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor, the Ministry of Awqaf and the Ministry of Public Works.

Othainah hands over MEW to Al-Ibrahim

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: Minister of Telecommunications, Salem AlOthainah, stressed the importance of electricity and water projects to other ministries projects.

Speaking at a special ceremony held to hand over the portfolio of the Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) to his successor, Abdul Aziz Al-Ibrahim, Al-Othainah said that MEW projects are highly significant for all other development plans.

“Unless MEW projects lead all other development ones, they will all turn into useless, lifeless structures’, he underlined. Speaking of the way he runs MEW duties, Al-Othainah said all the decisions he makes are objective and focused on the best public interests.

“I highly depend on specialized people without interfering in the details of their jobs. I only follow up their performance”, he added, noting that two more issues still need to be followed up by Al-Ibrahim; smart power consumption meters and MEW restructuring.

Local FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17 , 2012

Yusuffali scoops top prize at Indian CEO Awards

DUBAI: Yusuffali Ali MA, Managing Director of EMKE Group receiving ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ from Karam Awad, ITP group executive managing director at a function held on Monday night at Dubaiís Armani Hotel.

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MKE Group Managing Director Yusuffali MA won the coveted Lifetime Achievement Award at the inaugural Indian CEO Awards, held on Monday, February 13 at Dubai’s Armani Hotel. The retail king was one of 16 leaders honored in the first-ever event to recognize the achievements of Indian business leaders.

Yusuffali MA was praised by the judges for “having delivered over several decades an incredible company, incredible growth and an incredible performance”. EMKE Group owns the popular Lulu brand of Hypermarkets, Supermarkets and Department stores and shopping malls in the region.

The highly popular and pioneer Lulu retail chain in the Middle-East, caters to over 468,000 customers

everyday and is ranked overall 6th in the MiddleEast and Africa (MENA) and is number one among the Middle-East retailers, according to ‘The Grocer Middle-East’, a UK based retail magazine.

The Lulu retail group is all set to open its 100th store in the region by March and plans to open its flagship Lulu shopping mall in Kochi, India, by thirdquarter of 2012. With an annual turnover of $4.1 billion and a multi-ethnic employee profile of more than 27,000 people from over 29 countries, Lulu sets high standards for its infrastructure with HACCP certification in most of their outlets, and a stringent policy on the quality of products, delivery and customer service.

The first Indian CEO Awards night also witnessed other big winners, including Standard Chartered

boss V Shankar, who won Banking CEO of the Year, Apparel Group boss Nilesh Ved (Fastest Growing Company), Sarah Belhasa (Female CEO of the Year), Dr BR Shetty (Healthcare CEO of the Year) and Nikai Group founder Paras Shahdadpuri for International Achievement.

The awards were staged by CEO Middle East magazine, a sister publication to Arabian Business, and also featured a surprise Trade Relations award for India’s Consular General Sajay Verma. Karam Awad, ITP executive managing director, said: “The contribution of Indian business leaders to the growth of the GCC economies is unmatched, and tonight’s awards are about rewarding the right people, who between them have done so much to develop the region in a number of fields.”

Scuffle in Parliament during opening session KUWAIT: The new Parliament experienced its first scuffle during the inaugural session as soon as the voting results for the speakership post were announced, declaring Ahmad Al-Saadoun as winner. Sources added that some of the pro-Sager ( Saadoun’s opponent) expressed dissatisfaction with voting results and blamed MP Musallam Al-Barrak. One of Al-Barrak’s secretaries charged at the man, and the National Assembly security personnel interfered to stop the scuffle.

Bootlegger arrested A 39-year- old Pakistani was arrested with the possession of 12 illicit liquor bottles. Case papers indicate that police cast its suspicion on the culprit’s old car and stopped it for violating rules. However, the man appeared confused while police issued a ticket to him, asking that his car be searched. A case was filed.

Citizen’s death probed Adan police are currently investigating the case of a citizen who was found dead at his friend’s home, said security sources. During interrogation, his friend stated that he died while they were both abusing drugs. Police source said that they had received a call from the friend reporting that the victim fainted. Upon arriving on the scene, he was already pronounced dead. Preliminary reports suggest that the man was killed. Further investigations are in progress.

Missing ‘daughter’ found A citizen filed a missing person complaint stating that his 20-year-old daughter had left home. The woman has previously run away from home, said security sources. Upon finding her, police said that she willingly left her family home on the grounds that her parents took her monthly salary.

Egyptian assaulted over rent dispute

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: An Egyptian reported to police that two roommates and their cousins assaulted him over rent-related disputes. Case papers indicate that his roommate had promised to pay his share of rent for two previous months, but failed to do so. He added that when he demanded that the debt be paid, the roommate assaulted him with cousins. A case was filed and further investigations are in progress.

Unfounded suspicion An army officer reported that his neighbor had been using his apartment to run illegal activities. The officer said that such activities cannot be tolerated.

However, on responding to a complaint and upon investigating it, detectives found out that the neighbor was a GCC national and that his wife was wheelchair-bound. The visiting men were his relatives and cousins.

KUWAIT: A training course was organized in collaboration with the Interior Ministry and UN’s Migration Organization recently. It focused on fighting organized crime, held between February 12 to 16. Interior minister Sheikh Ahmed Al-Humoud Al-Sabah was the event’s patron. The National Security College, Maj. General Mohammed Al-Daihani presided over the event.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

UK’s Cameron: Scotland must snub independence

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Santorum to give speech in Romney’s home state

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Iranian, Afghan leaders visit Pakistan for summit

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BINNISH: Armed Free Syrian Army rebels stand inside a house in the north Syrian city of Binnish on Wednesday. Syrian armour moved on the main hubs of an 11-month uprising yesterday with at least 22 killed in clashes, monitors said, a day after President Bashar al-Assad set a vote for a new constitution.—AFP

22 killed as troops move on protest hubs Voters to boycott a referendum DAMASCUS: Syrian armor moved on the main hubs of an 11-month uprising yesterday, with at least 22 killed in clashes, monitors said, a day after President Bashar Al-Assad set a vote for a new constitution. Opposition groups rejected the newly proposed constitution and urged voters to boycott a referendum set for this month, and to step up their bid to oust Assad.

As troops pummelled the central city of Homs for a 13th straight day, 18 people were killed in central Hama province and four others died in the southern city of Daraa, monitors reported. Mohammed, a resident of Daraa reached by telephone from Beirut, said regime forces were attacking the province “village by village”. “It’s very methodical,” he said. “The (rebel) Free Syrian Army is trying to push them back but it is not equipped and is forced to retreat.

“Regime troops are taking revenge on residents.” Assad, whose government has vowed to crush dissent, on Wednesday decreed a vote for February 26 on a new charter that could end nearly 50 years of single-party rule.

The United States dismissed the move as

“laughable,” but Russia, a major weapons supplier to Damascus, welcomed it. The Local Coordination Committees (LCC), a main opposition activist group, rejected the new charter and called for a vote boycott, as well as stepped up efforts to topple Assad.

“The draft constitution is no more than a political tool or a policy paper written by the barbaric regime,” it said in an emailed statement. “We see no alternative but to topple the regime along with its symbols, representatives and foundational ideology. “The LCC calls upon our people to reject and boycott the alleged referendum to confirm the lack of public support for this criminal regime.” The National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, another opposition group, said it also planned to boycott the vote given the ongoing violence. “It is impossible for us to take part in this referendum before a stop to the violence and killings,” the head of the group, Hassan Abdel Azim, told AFP. “The problem is the continued shelling, destruction and assaults on the provinces of Daraa, Hama, Homs and Idlib,” he said. The Syrian National Council, the most representa-

tive opposition group, is also likely to reject the constitution, given one of its guiding principles is “to overthrow the regime using all legal means.” Regardless, the proposed charter rules out most of the opposition as it bans religious parties and dual nationals, preventing the SNC, which includes the Muslim Brotherhood, and most of its leadership from running for office.

The proposed charter drops Article 8, which gave the Baath Party a monopoly on power. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said security forces killed at least 14 people, most of them army defectors, in shelling of a town in the central province of Hama. Four regular soldiers died in other clashes in the region.

“At least 10 mutinous soldiers were killed, among them officers, in shelling of the town of Kfar Nabuda, in Hama province. Four civilians were also killed in the shelling of the town,” said the Britain-based monitor.

Elsewhere, a civilian and three soldiers were killed in the southern city of Daraa, after troops deployed heavily and clashed with army defectors. Regime forces were also

shelling Homs, which has been under a relentless assault that has killed nearly 400 people since February 4, according to international rights watchdogs.

Meanwhile China, which along with Russia has faced a barrage of criticism for blocking a second UN Security Council resolution on Syria, said it was sending an envoy to the country to push for peace. Ahead of yesterday’s General Assembly vote on what would be a non-binding resolution for Syria, France said the UN should try to set up “humanitarian corridors” to aid people caught up in the violence. French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said he would seek to convince his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov to change his stance when the two meet in Vienna yesterday. Diplomats said Russia has asked for a number of changes to the draft General Assembly resolution. One Russian amendment was to a paragraph referring to an Arab League plan calling for Assad to hand over power to his deputy. Another would link the return of troops to their barracks to an “end of attacks by armed groups against state institutions.” —AFP

International FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

8 Palestinian children, teacher killed in crash JERUSALEM: A truck lost control in slick, rainy weather and barreled into a Palestinian school bus yesterday, killing at least seven children and a teacher and drawing hundreds of people to a West Bank hospital in an outpouring of grief, police said. The bus left the city of Ramallah on a school excursion but returned due to heavy rains and stormy weather, according to Palestinian police

spokesman Yousif Osrael. On the way back, a truck careened into the school bus, causing it to flip and catch fire, Osrael said. The children killed were aged four to six.

The accident was in the central West Bank, in an area Palestinians claim as their future state but where Israel has full control. Both Israeli and Palestinian rescuers arrived at the scene, and evacuated at least 30

injured passengers to hospitals in Ramallah and Jerusalem, according to Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.

The truck driver was an Arab Israeli and all eight victims were Palestinian, Rosenfeld said. Israeli and Palestinian police are investigating the accident.

But Rosenfeld said there is no suspicion of foul play and its likely that the wintry weather and slick roads caused

the collision. After the accident, Palestinians rushed to the Ramallah Medical Compound hospital to check on their children and donate blood.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared three days of mourning and ordered flags flown at halfstaff. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered his condolences and pledged to give any aid necessary to the Palestinian Authority.—AP

Iran has ‘new initiatives’ for talks with powers Jalili asks EU for new talks as soon as possible

CAIRO: An Egyptian protester holds a chain as he shouts slogans against ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak outside the police academy in Cairo where his trial is drawing to an end yesterday. The verdict in the trial of Mubarak will be announced on February 22, presiding judge Ahmed Refaat said. —AFP

Senior Qaeda leader in Yemen killed

SANAA: A senior Al-Qaeda leader in Yemen was killed in a family feud yesterday and an ensuing gunbattle between his followers and opponents left 16 other militants dead, a security official and tribal elders said. Tariq Al-Dahab was slain at his home in the southern village of Al-Masameh by his half brother, Hizam, and other family members, according to the official and the elders.

Hizam and his supporters then fled the scene, taking refuge in another house. Al-Dahab’s followers pursued them and a battle ensued, leaving 16 dead, including Hizam. It was not immediately clear what had triggered the feud. During the past year of Yemen’s turmoil, Al-Qaeda-linked militants have seized control of several cities and towns in the south, including large swaths of Abyan province, and the provincial capital of Zinjibar.

Government operations have failed to oust them.

Al-Dahab became prominent in the Yemeni branch of AlQaeda after his sister married Anwar al-Awlaki, the US-born radical militant cleric who was killed by a US drone strike last fall. Last month, he led the militants who stormed and occupied the town of Radda, 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of the capital Sanaa.

The militants pulled out after authorities released 15 of alDahab’s men from jail.

The tribal leaders said the Al-Dahab family dispute was over inheritance after the death of a wealthy elder who was married to four wives and had at least 20 sons. The tribal leaders and the Yemeni security official all spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals. Meanwhile, an Al-Qaeda-linked fighter was killed in clashes yesterday with the army in Zinjibar that also left eight soldiers wounded, two of them critically, the security official said.

The clashes come less than a week before the Feb. 21 presidential elections, which are expected to approve a new national leader to replace President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Security has collapsed across Yemen during the year-old popular uprising seeking to push Saleh from power that was inspired by other Arab Spring revolts. Saleh is currently in the US being treated for injuries sustained in a bomb blast last year. Under a US-backed plan, his deputy, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, is to be rubber stamped as the country’s new leader in elections on Feb. 21.—AP

VIENNA: Iran, facing severe sanctions to bar it from exporting oil, has told world powers it wants to resume long-stalled talks quickly with “new initiatives” in hand, and France said Tehran may now be open to addressing concerns about its nuclear quest. Tehran made the offer in a letter to the EU’s foreign policy chief obtained by Reuters yesterday, a day after it trumpeted several advances in nuclear know-how and sent oil prices upward with suggestions of economic retaliation in what may have been moves to boost its leverage before any fresh negotiations.

Iran’s president vowed no retreat from its atomic path on Wednesday only for state television to announce the proposal to re-launch talks after a year’s hiatus - mixed signals making it difficult to divine what Tehran’s ultimate intentions were. Iranian chief negotiator Saeed Jalili’s letter said he would have “new initiatives” but did not spell them out.

He made one separate reference to “Iran’s nuclear issue”, without spelling out whether Tehran was prepared to negotiate on it.

But French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said that while the letter was “ambiguous” it seemed to signal “the start of opening up from Iran” with respect to discussing its nuclear activity.

A Feb 20-21 visit to Iran by top UN nuclear watchdog officials would help determine whether Tehran was serious about tackling international concerns, Juppe told reporters during a visit to Vienna. The UN team, led by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s chief inspector, will again try to extract Iranian explanations, after three years of stonewalling, for an IAEA investigation driven by intelligence reports that suggest Tehran has researched sophisticated ways to build atomic bombs.

Jalili’s letter was a reply to one from Ashton in October in which she said the big powers could meet with Iran within weeks if it was ready to “engage seriously in meaningful discussions” tackling concerns about its nuclear program.

Jalili said he welcomed an earlier statement by Ashton on respecting Iran’s right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

“(A) constructive and positive attitude towards the Islamic Republic of Iran’s new initiatives in this round of talks could open positive perspective for our negotiation,” Jalili said in the brief English-language letter. “Therefore...I propose to resume our talks in order to take fundamental steps for sustainable cooperation in the earliest possibility in a mutually agreed venue and time.”

Jalili urged a focus “on a spectrum of various issues” to lay groundwork for “constructive, forward-looking cooperation”.

His message resembled Iran’s agenda in previous abortive talks, floating undefined ideas for security and trade cooperation while avoiding discussion of steps sought by world powers to guarantee that its nuclear program is peaceful in nature and transparent for IAEA inspectors and investigators. Western officials said the powers were consulting on a response to Jalili’s letter, with a British Foreign Office spokesman saying they were checking closely to see whether Iran “is ready to engage meaningfully”. — Reuters

Over 120 hurt in Bahrain clashes, dialogue sought MANAMA: More than 120 protesters have been wounded in clashes with police in Bahrain this week, activists said in a crackdown to stop demonstrations breaking out of to stage protests one year after an uprising.

The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern about the clashes, while a senior opposition figure said the government had put out feelers on talks to resolve the crisis in the Gulf Arab state. Police conducted operations into the night in the flashpoint town of Sitra, seizing 15 teenagers in a raid on one building after a police vehicle was damaged by a petrol bomb earlier, residents said.

The streets were deserted with residents staying indoors as dozens of jeeps sped through the streets in apparent search operations. A policeman inside one vehicle fired a tear gas canister over some buildings before hurtling round a corner.

Opposition activists reported similar operations in numerous other areas of the island including Budaiya as well as Musalla

and Sanabis which are on the edge of the capital. Riot police also used armored personnel carriers that have not been seen on Bahrain’s streets since martial law last year.

“The heightened security presence at this time aims to spread security and reassure all citizens and residents... Expressing opinion must be within the space allowed by the law,” Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al-Khalifa said in comments on the ministry’s website.

It gave no information on the number of arrests this week. A UN statement said Ban Ki-moon expected Bahrain “to act in accordance with international human rights obligations”.

“The Secretary-General is concerned about reports of clashes in Bahrain between security forces and demonstrators over the past few days,” the statement said. A medic who works with researchers of an international organization and asked not to be identified said the numbers of wounded in clashes this week was the highest in months.

“There were over 100 cases on Tuesday

and 37 of them are bad, with head injuries and fractures,” he said. “On Monday we had 20 people (wounded) in villages around the country.”

The medic said some casualties had been hit by birdshot, controversial ammunition that Bahraini police deny using.

Most of the wounded were treated in village homes or private health clinics because protesters from the Shiite majority fear they will be arrested if they go to hospitals run by the government, which is appointed by the Sunni monarchy. The protests began as a spontaneous movement embracing both Shiites and Sunnis, cutting across religious and class divides with demands for broad political, social and economic reform. But they descended into sectarian violence as backroom talks on democratic reforms went nowhere, and hardliners in government and the opposition seized the initiative. Government forces backed by Saudi troops crushed the month-long revolt last year. By June, when a state of emergency was lifted, 35 people had been killed. — Reuters

International FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Russia probes independent TV on rally footage MOSCOW: Russian prosecutors have launched a probe into an independent television channel’s coverage of mass protest rallies after a tip-off from a ruling party lawmaker, the channel said yesterday.

Prosecutors wrote to the Dozhd (Rain) channel, known for its airing of opposition views, ordering it to submit documents on how it financed live broadcasts of mass opposition rallies in December, the channel’s chief said. The channel aired in-depth coverage of the protests against fraudtainted parliamentary polls and Vladimir Putin’s candidacy in March 4 presidential elections, as well as interviewing opposition voices like protest leader Alexei Navalny. General director Natalia Sindeyeva posted a scan of the prosecu-

tors’ letter on Twitter. It said “a check is being carried out on the orders of Moscow city prosecutors, following a request from State Duma deputy Robert Shlegel,” who represents the ruling United Russia party in the lower house. It added the probe was to investigate “the question of the financing of the television channel’s video broadcast of mass rallies” on December 10 and 24, and ordered it to submit contracts, permits and tax documents. Shlegel told AFP that he had requested a check into the financing of the rallies as a whole and wanted to know whether the television station’s coverage was financed from abroad or by the event’s organisers. “There were a lot of insinuations and rumours on the Internet that the rallies could be financed from

abroad. I wanted to find out what means were used to finance the rallies,” he said by telephone. “Dozhd actively took part in the rallies. Did it get financing from the organizers? If it was Dozhd’s money, then there are no questions.” Shlegel said he sent his request to the prosecutors a month ago.

Sindeyeva told the Interfax news agency that “this is private business, our private investments.” She invited Shlegel via Twitter to come to discuss his queries on an evening news broadcast, but he told AFP that he had commented to the station by phone and would not attend. Shlegel, 27, was Russia’s youngest lawmaker at just 22 when he was elected to the lower house in 2007 after working for proKremlin youth movement Nashi. Putin’s

campaign manager, film director Stanislav Govorukhin, backed the probe, writing on Twitter that: “It’s high time to check on what means Dozhd broadcasts.”

The probe comes amid concerns of growing pressure on Russia’s few bastions of free-speaking media in the run-up to the presidential elections. The editor of leading liberal radio station Moscow Echo revealed Tuesday that its major shareholder, the media subsidiary of gas giant Gazprom, had ordered a board reshuffle to replace two independent directors. The owners insisted the move would not affect the station’s sharply anti-Kremlin coverage, but editor Alexei Venediktov said he believed it was an attempt to “correct editorial policy.”—AFP

UK’s Cameron: Scotland must snub independence British PM scheduled to hold first meetings on issue

ANNECY: A man displays a T-shirt reading “Casse-toi pauvre con” (Get lost you, stupid bastard) as French President Nicolas Sarkozy visits Annecy for his first day as candidate for the 2012 presidential election yesterday in Annecy, French Alps. —AFP

Campaign hits streets as Sarkozy enters race ANNECY: The French presidential election race hit the streets yesterday as Nicolas Sarkozy shook off protocol and headed out to stake his claim to an improbable re-election. “It’s great being president, but you’re never as free as you are when you’re a candidate,” he told well-wishers as he toured shops and businesses in the Alpine town of Annecy, the day after officially declaring his candidacy.

Sarkozy and Francois Hollande, the right-wing president’s Socialist rival and the frontrunner in the opinion polls, have been sparring for months, but Wednesday’s official declaration marked the start of the campaign proper. The French leader’s campaign website, emblazoned with the slogan “A strong France”, went online yesterday as he took to the campaign trail with a public meeting and visit to a cheese-making plant in the French Alps.

Sarkozy had said he felt it was his duty to stand and see France through its worst crisis since World War II, but it was all smiles as he visited carefully selected supporters in a rightwing constituency. His security detail as a candidate was less imposing than a presidential party, and he seemed to enjoy tasting cheeses and sausages while greeting supporters: “This campaign has started well. I’ll put on three kilos!”

Nearly 11 million viewers had seen his declaration on France’s main evening news broadcast, shortly after Hollande staged a televised rally for 10,000 cheering supporters in his northern hometown of Rouen. Polls consistently show the pair as clear frontrunners and, with less than 10 weeks to go until the first round of voting on April 22, the election is shaping up to be a classic two-horse race between right and left.

Far-right champion Marine Le Pen, who inherited the antiimmigrant National Front from her father Jean-Marie Le Pen last year, may have an outside chance of knocking out Sarkozy to snatch a slot in the second-round run-off. But she is still a little way behind him in polls and is struggling to raise the 500 signatures she needs from mayors and regional councillors to make her candidacy official, with a month to go to the filing deadline.—AFP

LONDON: British Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday he would fight “head, heart and soul” to prevent the breakup of the United Kingdom as he headed to Scotland for talks to set the ground rules for an independence referendum. Cameron was scheduled to hold his first meeting on the issue with Scottish leader Alex Salmond, whose separatist party has long campaigned for Scotland to leave its neighbors behind for the first time in more than 300 years.

Salmond is seeking to hold an independence referendum in September 2014, hoping that a separation from London would be completed with a May 2016 election for the Scottish Parliament. However, with opinion polls showing that only about a third of Scots favor splitting the nation, Cameron and other opponents are pressing for the vote to be held earlier.

Salmond said negotiations on the details are making progress. “We are moving toward areas of agreement,” he told the BBC. “We’re now agreed there shall be a referendum on Scottish independence, and what we’re now doing is seeking to get agreement on what some of the ground rules for that referendum are.” Scotland and England united in 1707 to form Great Britain, but Scotland gained significant autonomy after voting in 1997 to set up the Edinburgh-based Scottish Parliament, which has power over education, health and justice and can make minor alterations to income tax.

London retains primacy on all matters relating to Britain as a whole - including defense, energy and foreign relations.

Cameron’s government and Salmond are already at odds over the date of the referendum, what will be on the ballot paper and whether 16- and 17-year-olds should be entitled to vote. According to excerpts released in advance, Cameron planned to use a speech in Scotland to warn that independence could damage Britain’s status in Europe, within NATO and put at risk the U.K.’s permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.

“The fight is now under way for something really precious: the future of our United Kingdom. I am 100 percent clear that I will fight with everything I have to keep our United Kingdom together,” Cameron planned to say, according to the excerpts. “To me, this is not some issue of policy or strategy or calculation - it matters head, heart and soul. Our shared home is under threat and everyone who cares about it needs to speak out,” the text said.

Salmond insists that independence would bring greater prosperity, allowing Scotland to better exploit its energy resources. “We have 25 percent of Europe’s tidal power potential, 25 percent of its offshore wind potential and 10 percent of its wave power potential - not bad for a nation with less than 1 percent of Europe’s population,” Salmond said Wednesday in a speech to the London School of Economics. Cameron insisted Scotland would be safer and richer if it remained a part of the U.K., along with England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Both Wales and Northern Ireland also have devolved administrations with limited powers.

“We’re stronger, because together we count for more in the

EDINBURGH: Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond (C) waits for the arrival of British Prime Minister David Cameron for a meeting at St Andrew’s House in Edinburgh yesterday. —AFP world, with a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, real clout in NATO and Europe and unique influence with allies all over the world,” Cameron planned to say.

“In an increasingly dangerous world we have the fourthlargest defense budget on the planet, superb armed forces and anti-terrorist and security capabilities that stretch across the globe and are feared by our enemies and admired by our friends,” the excerpts read. Cameron insists Scotland’s 5 million people would be more prosperous as part of “the seventh-richest economy on the planet and one of the world’s biggest trading powers.”—AP

International FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Outspoken critic of Malawi’s prez jailed BLANTYRE: An outspoken opponent of Malawi’s president who once served as his attorney general says the administration sent thugs to petrol bomb his law office - and the government critic ended up in jail. Ralph Kasambara was arrested Monday, accused of kidnapping and torturing three men he told reporters confessed to his bodyguards that they had been sent after him by the government.

Information Minister Patricia Kaliati denies Kasambara’s accusations, and Kasambara denies the kidnapping and torture charges. Concern that President Bingu wa Mutharika is intolerant of criticism and violating human rights has led to protests and strained relations between Malawi, among the world’s poorest countries, and its foreign donors. At least 19 people were killed by police when anti-government demonstrations last year degenerated into looting.

In the Kasambara case, court clerks who have been striking for higher pay for weeks suspended their strike to allow a bail hearing because lawyers have supported the clerks. On Tuesday, a magistrate ordered Kasambara released. Prison authorities balked at first, saying the order came too late in the day Tuesday. Kasambara was released Wednesday and greeted by hundreds of his supporters, colleagues and journalists outside a Blantyre jail. Hours later, police arrested him again at his home, saying his bail procedure was flawed.

Supporters again gathered at the jail, and police wielded batons to disperse them. Kasambara’s arrest came days after weekly newspapers quoted him criticizing Mutharika. “Malawians have options. They should ask the president to resign or they should impeach him. He wants to be a dictator,” Kasambara was quoted as telling The Weekend Nation. Mutharika, a former World Bank official, was once heralded by economic analysts and was overwhelmingly re-elected in 2009 by voters who embraced his anti-corruption, antipoverty pledges.

But the country’s economy has struggled in the last year, and questions about Mutharika’s commitment to democracy and human rights became an issue. Mutharika expelled a British diplomat who had described his as “becoming ever more autocratic and intolerant of criticism.” Former ruler Britain subsequently indefinitely suspended aid to Malawi, which later withdrew its expulsion order.

The European Union, Germany, Norway and the US have also halted or suspended assistance to Malawi, raising governance questions.—AP

4 accused of eating endangered tortoises HARARE: An animal protection group says four Chinese nationals have been arrested on cruelty charges after they cut up and ate rare tortoises. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said the men admitted killing 40 of the Bell’s hinged species, which are listed as endangered. Another 13 live tortoises and tortoise meat were found in a house raided by investigators in rural southern Zimbabwe, the group said yesterday. Villagers reported selling tortoises to the Chinese citizens to eat and said the reptiles were dropped into boiling water to dislodge their shells before being butchered. The four were found to have illegally entered Zimbabwe and were now in jail awaiting deportation, the group said.—AP

Gunmen free 118 from Nigeria prison 1 guard dies during attack LAGOS: Attackers stormed a federal prison in Nigeria with heavy gunfire and explosives, killing one guard and freeing 118 inmates in a new assault demonstrating the continued instability in the nation, an official said yesterday. The attack on the prison happened at KotonKarifi, a town in Kogi state just south of Nigeria’s central capital Abuja. The gunmen attacked just after 7 pm Wednesday, fighting through the prison gate and killing one guard in the process, said Nigeria Prisons Service spokesman Kayode Odeyemi.

Those inside the prison escaped in the fighting, with 118 inmates known to be missing yesterday afternoon, Odeyemi said. However, local prison official Hadijha Aminu said guards still hadn’t completed a head count and didn’t know how many prisoners actually were inside the prison at the time of the attack.

The government said an investigation into the attack had begun. “One

does not really know why” the gunmen attacked, Odeyemi said. “It might be that some of the armed robbers are trying to free the armed robbers there awaiting trial.” The prison held armed robbers and kidnappers, Odeyemi said.

He said he did not know if the prison held any members of a radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram, which has been plaguing the country with violence over the last year.

Boko Haram launched a similar massive prison break in Bauchi state in September 2010 that freed about 700 inmates there. The style of the attack Wednesday, which apparently used explosives and heavy gunfire, matched that previous assault by the sect.

Members of the sect have been blamed for killing at least 286 people this year alone, according to an Associated Press count. The sect’s violence comes as part of a campaign which its leader, Abubakar Shekau, says is aimed at avenging Muslim deaths, freeing impris-

oned members and pushing for strict Shariah law across multiethnic Nigeria, a nation of more than 160 million people.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the prison attack, nor did authorities say they had any suspects immediately in mind. If Boko Haram carried out Wednesday night’s attack, it would be the farthest strike south the group has made. Nigeria is largely split between a Christian south and a Muslim north. Much of Boko Haram’s previous attacks have taken place largely in the north.

Nigeria’s prisons remain overcrowded and understaffed, with the majority of those imprisoned awaiting trials for years that likely will never come. A 2007 study by Amnesty International called the system “appalling,” with children remaining locked up with their parents and guards routinely bribed by inmates.

Despite pledges by the government to reform the system, it remains largely the same today.—AP

MOGADISHU: A Somali fleeing the town of Elasha Biyaha transports his household belongings on a donkey cart on the road to the capital Mogadishu, Somalia yesterday.—AP

Somali families flee to capital, fearing fighting MOGADISHU: Thousands of Somalis yesterday fled an insurgent-held town for the capital, fearing a military attack

by African Union troops allied with the weak UN-backed Somali government.

Hundreds of cars and trucks packed with mattresses and other household items created traffic jams in the capital of Mogadishu a day after Somali and African Union troops extended their reach and launched an offensive on Elasha Biyaha. The rebel-held settlement, southwest of Mogadishu, is inhabited by Somalis who fled Mogadishu violence in 2007.

“The situation is very scary because (AU) troops are going to attack the area,” said Mohamed Abdullahi, standing next to a truck packed with his possessions.

“We must not wait until the battle gets

started, everyone is leaving.” This week’s advance by Somali troops supported by the AU force follows a declaration by the Somali insurgent group al-Shabab that they had formally joined Al-Qaeda.

The latest influx of refugees into Mogadishu will put further strain on the Somali government, which this month evicted thousands of Somalis from government-owned buildings in the capital.

Many had lived there for years, and will be competing with the new arrivals for space.

“The problem is you don’t know where to stay and live. We don’t have a house in Mogadishu,” said Salado Abdi, a mother of six who was seeking shelter for her young children. “We ask the government to consider our situation.”

Some of the families traveling into

Mogadishu expressed worry about relatives they were forced to leave behind because they could not pay to rehouse them. Rent in Mogadishu shot up after Al-Shabab militants left their bases in Mogadishu in August and thousands of displaced people returned to the capital.

“You can’t bring everyone here because you cannot get homes for them,” said Ibrahim Muse, a 47-year-old father who was sharing a two-room corrugated iron shack with his seven children. “This home is not even enough for my family.”

Somalia’s Islamist al-Shabab militia is fighting a war on three fronts. Kenyan and Ethiopian troops allied to the Somali government have both crossed their respective borders and Somali troops fighting alongside African Union soldiers have retaken control of the capital.—AP

International FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Neighbors report possible abuse of Wisconsin girl MILWAUKEE: Neighbors of a severely malnourished Wisconsin teenager say they rarely saw the girl leave home, and when she did emerge she would scavenge through the trash and eat the discarded scraps. At least two neighbors called social services to report potential abuse at the house, but it wasn’t until the 15-year-old was found walking barefoot in pajamas out in the cold last week that details of what she allegedly endured were revealed.

Authorities say she was forced to stay in an unfinished basement for years and eat her own feces. Her father and stepmother have been arrested on suspicion of child abuse and neglect, and a hearing is set for yesterday. Mark Stuntebeck, who lives next door to the family in Madison, said he called child protective services within the last two years after he saw the girl taking out the garbage and scavenging through it to find food. He doesn’t know if anyone

ever followed up with the girl’s family. “She seemed to be hiding and munching on crumbs or remnants of something,” said Stuntebeck, 44. State Department of Health Services spokesman Sara Buschman said Wednesday she couldn’t immediately comment but planned to have more information yesterday.

The 40-year-old father and 42-year-old stepmother, whom The Associated Press is not naming to protect the girl’s identity, were each being held on $20,000 bail after their arrests last week. Their hearing yesterday is expected to include a review of their bail and a discussion about the status of the potential charges, Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne said.

Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain said Wednesday that the teen was getting medical treatment and remained in protective custody. The girl, who only weighed 70 pounds, told authorities she

had been forced to stay in the unfinished basement of her father and stepmother’s home since 2006 and that an alarm would sound if she went upstairs. She said she ate what she could find in the garbage and sometimes she was made to eat her own feces and drink her urine, according to a police affidavit.

She said if she was caught eating without permission, the couple would make her throw out the food or vomit it back up.

The allegations came to light after Mike Vega saw the girl walking in thin pajamas, barefoot and crying on a cold Feb. 6 afternoon. She was bleeding from a gash on her nose and other small scrapes and was so scrawny he mistook her for an 8-yearold.

He called police. “It was the most shocking thing I have ever seen,” Vega, 31, said Wednesday, recalling the day he found her. “A little girl looking like that. I’ve never

seen anybody look like that, to be honest.”

A doctor quoted in police reports said what the girl went through before Vega found her amounted to “torture.”

Vega, who lives about a mile from the girl and her family, said he was driving on a busy street not far from home when he spotted her. As he slowly passed her, he looked through his rearview mirror and saw her bare feet, which were purple from the cold. He backed up, and she told him she needed help. Once she was inside Vega’s car, she was scared at first, but Vega said she became more comfortable after he showed her photos of his three young sons and a Mary Poppins video on his cellphone. According to police records, the girl told authorities she had been let out of the basement that day to “clean some papers” for her stepmother and that the woman became angry because she wasn’t working fast enough.— AP

Santorum to give speech in Romney’s home state

LOS ANGELES: President Barack Obama arrives at Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, Wednesday. —AP

Exxon compensation has been settled: Venezuela CARACAS: Venezuela’s state-run oil company announced Wednesday that an arbitration dispute with Exxon Mobil Corp. has been settled because the US oil giant has received a payment topping $250 million. Exxon Mobil sought arbitration after the government of President Hugo Chavez nationalized an oil project in the South American nation’s oil-rich Orinoco region in 2007.

The Irving, Texas-based oil company and representatives of Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, failed to reach an agreement on compensation for Exxon’s assets, prompting Exxon to bring the case to the International Chamber of Commerce. The chamber awarded Exxon more than $907 million in compensation for its nationalized assets.

But PDVSA said Wednesday the dispute had been settled following a payment of $250,897,799. Representatives of Exxon did not respond to telephone calls seeking comment late Wednesday. Venezuela’s oil minister, Rafael Ramirez, said the government doesn’t intend to make additional payments to Exxon beyond about $255 million.

Exxon had brought the case to a World Bank-affiliated arbitration body, the Washington-based International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, or ICSID. Chavez announced last month that Venezuela was withdrawing from the ICSID. PDVSA has said it intended to pay about $255 million after subtracting debts, as well as funds in its US accounts that Exxon Mobil had managed to freeze through lawsuits.— AP

DETROIT: A surging Rick Santorum is stepping into Mitt Romney’s old backyard to talk about the economy - a direct challenge to the Republican front-runner on the topic Romney considers his own.

The former Pennsylvania senator, who polls show has risen into a virtual tie with Romney, is set yesterday to address the Detroit Economic Club, in the heart of the state where Romney grew up and saw his father become governor.

Despite the inherent local advantages for Romney, Santorum vowed earlier in the week to “plant our flag” in Michigan, which hosts a presidential primary Feb. 28 as the Republicans jostle for the chance to challenge President Barack Obama in November. Santorum startled Romney with wins in three states last week, forcing Romney to veer his focus from Obama back to his latest Republican rival. A New York Times/CBS News poll released Tuesday showed Santorum with 30 percent support among Republican voters, three points ahead of Romney but within the survey’s margin of error. Similar polling by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Gallup organization showed Santorum shooting up 14 points from a month ago.

“I think the stakes for Santorum are enormous, especially with the background and depth Romney has here,” said Jeff Timmer, a former executive director of the Michigan Republican party who isn’t affiliated with either campaign. “If Santorum has any hope of winning here in two weeks, he’s going to have to begin showing how he’s going to connect with Michigan voters.”

Romney still is considered the Republican front-runner nationwide, with far more delegates from state-bystate voting that are necessary to claim the party’s nomination. The multimillionaire and former Massachusetts governor also has far more money and campaign organization than Santorum.

Romney also picked up the support of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, who yesterday called him “the man for the job.”

PENNSYLVANIA: Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum tours an oil well site in Tioga, N.D., Wednesday. —AP “Given his accomplishments, background, character, experience, ideas and intellect, Mitt Romney has what it takes to build a foundation for America’s success in this global economy,” Snyder wrote in an op-ed column published yesterday by The Detroit News.

A Republican official told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Snyder will speak in support of Romney at an event yesterday. The Republican official was not authorized to speak publicly about the announcement and requested anonymity. But Romney still struggles to win over the party’s conservative base, which hesitates at his past positions on sensitive issues like abortion and health care. That hesitation vies with the feeling that he may be the strongest candidate to put up against Obama. Polling also shows that Romney trails Santorum among working-class whites, a key population in Michigan.

Romney is scheduled to speak to a suburban Detroit chamber of commerce at roughly the same time as Santorum’s economic address, which offers a deviation from the social issues the conservative Santorum usually emphasizes.

Santorum, whose grandfather was a coal miner, is expected to draw on his bluecollar roots as he appeals to Republican voters in this working-class city. The appearance comes hours after his campaign released tax returns showing his average income exceeded $990,000 over three recent tax years. Santorum’s wealth doesn’t come close to the fortune amassed by Romney’s high-finance prowess or fellow candidate Newt Gingrich’s smaller but still-lucrative blend of foundation and consulting work. But his newfound affluence reflects his close ties to Washington’s business and lobbying circles during his 12 years in the Senate and his smooth transition into their world after he left office. Santorum sought to downplay Michigan expectations while talking to reporters earlier in the week, but he hopes to score a victory that could be a huge embarrassment for Romney. “We think we can do well in Michigan. We think it works for us from the standpoint of the kind of state that I’m used to running in,” Santorum said earlier in the week. “Michigan and Pennsylvania have a lot of similarities.”— AP

International FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Ecuador court upholds pro-Correa libel verdict QUITO: Ecuador’s highest court upheld early yesterday a criminal libel verdict favoring President Rafael Correa, sentencing three newspaper executives and a columnist to three years in prison each and ordering them to pay a total of $42 million in damages. The defendants, joined by international press freedom and human rights groups, had called the case a cynical attempt

by Correa to bankrupt the country’s leading opposition newspaper, El Universo, and part of a concerted campaign to stifle free speech and silence critics.

After a 13 1/2-hour hearing on Wednesday, the three-judge panel of the National Court of Justice deliberated nearly two hours before ratifying the verdict, which is not subject to appeal.

Correa was present both for the ruling and during Wednesday’s entire hearing. The defendants had called the case a farce and accused Correa of subverting the legal system, including allowing his attorney to write the original ruling.

Groups including Human Rights Watch have decried criminal defamation laws such as Ecuador’s, which they say give politicians such as Correa immense power to crush dissent. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement that the ruling “represents a serious setback for democracy in Ecuador.”Before final deliberations began, Judge Wilson Merino asked both sides if they had reached a resolution.

The defendants’ attorney, Monica Vargas, said the Guayaquilbased newspaper “has always been open” to a solution. But Correa said “in the face of such dirty tricks at this point in time an apology cannot be accepted.” Correa said he had no choice but to file suit to defend himself against false accusations in a column

by Palacio that El Universo published a year ago. It repeatedly referred to Correa as “the Dictator” and said he “ordered discretionary fire - without prior notification - against a hospital full of civilians and innocent people” during a Sept. 30, 2010, police revolt over government plans to cut police benefits that claimed at least five lives.

Three of the four defendants left Ecuador before the verdict, saying they feared for their safety. Only El Universo’s director, Carlos Perez, was apparently still in the country.

In a statement, he called the verdict “particularly alarming because it exposed raw corruption in Ecuador’s judicial system, which was manipulated by Correa and his cronies to wage a fullscale attack on our newspaper and the sacred right of free speech.”

“People should be under no illusions about what the impact of this case will be: It already has had a chilling effect on what Ecuadoreans can say and report.” His brothers Nicolas and Cesar, the paper’s new media manager and deputy director, were in Miami along with Emilio Palacio, the columnist and former opinion page editor of the newspaper. Correa said the verdict would “change history.”—AP

QUITO: Supporters of Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa burn copies of El Universo newspaper outside the National Court of Justice in Quito yesterday.—AFP

COMAYAGUA: Paramedics carry nylon bags for corpses at the National Prison in Comayagua, 90 kms north of Tegucigalpa, on Wednesday. The death toll from the horrific prison fire in Honduras has risen above 350, Security Minister Pompeyo Bonilla said. The Comayagua prison, held almost 900 detainees — double its capacity. —AFP

Report: Most Honduras fire inmates awaited trial Officials confirmed 358 dead

COMAYAGUA: The prisoners whose scorched bodies were carried out piece by piece yesterday morning from a charred Honduran prison had been locked inside an overcrowded penitentiary where most inmates had never been charged, let alone convicted, according to an internal Honduran government report obtained by The Associated Press. More than half of the 856 inmates of the Comayagua farm prison north of the Central American country’s capital were either awaiting trial or being held as suspected gang members, according to a report sent by the Honduran government this month to the United Nations.

A fire started by an inmate tore through the prison Tuesday night, burning and suffocating screaming men in their locked cells as rescuers desperately searched for keys. Officials confirmed 358 dead, making it the world’s deadliest prison fire in a century. Survivors told horrific tales of climbing walls to break the sheet metal roofing and escape, only to see prisoners in other cell blocks being burned alive. Inmates were found stuck to the roofing, their bodies fused to the metal. From the time firefighters received a call at 10:59 p.m. local time, the rescue was marred by human error and conditions that made the prison ripe for catastrophe. According to the report, obtained exclusively by the AP, on any given day there were about 800 inmates in a facility built for 500. There were only 51 guards by day and just 12 at night - the case at the time of the fire.

The prison has no medical or mental health care and the budget allows less than $1 per day per prisoner for food. Prisoners only needed to bear a simple tattoo to be incarcerated under the strict Honduran anti-gang laws, the report said. The UN

condemns the practice as a violation of international law. National prison system director Danilo Orellana declined to comment on the supervision or the crowded conditions in Comayagua, a prison farm where inmates grew corn and beans. He referred an AP reporter to the commander of the prison police, who said comment would have to come from his public affairs office, which did not respond to an AP request late Wednesday.

President Porfirio Lobo on Wednesday suspended Orellana and other top prison officials. Inside the prison, charred walls and debris showed the path of the fire, which burned through six barracks that had been crammed with 70 to 105 inmates each in four-level bunk beds. Bodies were found piled up in the bathrooms, where inmates apparently fled to the showers, hoping the water would save them from blistering flames. Prisoners perished clutching each other in bathtubs and curled up in laundry sinks.

“It was something horrible,” said survivor Eladio Chica, 40, as he was led away by police Wednesday night, handcuffed, to testify before a local court about what he saw. “I only saw flames, and when we got out, men were being burned, up against the bars, they were stuck to them.” The deadly inferno never had to happen. The frantic inmate who started the fire gave warning, phoning the state governor and screaming he was going to burn the place down.

After the man, who wasn’t identified, lit a mattress on fire a few minutes later, crews said they rushed to the prison, arriving two minutes after a call for help because the firehouse was nearby. But the handful of guards held them out for a catastrophic 30

minutes, saying they thought the screams inside were a prison break and a riot. When rescuers finally were allowed in, they said they couldn’t find keys or guards to unlock the barracks.

Fifteen minutes away, the U.S. military’s Southern Command operates Joint Task Force Bravo, where major search and rescue teams and fire squads are on standby.

They were never dispatched. Capt. Candace Allen, a spokeswoman for Joint Task Force Bravo, said they can only send what they’re asked for, so throughout the night they sent surgical masks, flashlights and Glowsticks. No one asked for firefighters.

Yesterday morning, officials continued their investigation at the prison, where murals of Catholic saints, Jesus Christ and psalms stand out in an otherwise miserable place.

Two palm trees flank the front entrance where a sign reads: “Let there be justice, even if the world perishes.” “Conditions at Comayagua? I’d have to say among the worst in Honduras,” said Ron W. Nikkel, president of Prison Fellowship International who visited the facility in 2005. “It was very congested, there’s not enough food, it’s dangerous and dirty.”

The US State Department has criticized the Honduran government for harsh prison conditions, citing severe overcrowding, malnutrition, and lack of adequate sanitation. “The ready access of prisoners to weapons and other contraband, impunity for inmate attacks against nonviolent prisoners, inmate escapes, and threats by inmates and their associates outside prisons against prison officials and their families contributed to an unstable and dangerous penitentiary system environment,” says the most recent State Department report on human rights in Honduras. —AP

International FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Concubine charge for ex-Philippine envoy MANILA: An ex-Philippine ambassador has been arrested for allegedly keeping a concubine, a court said yesterday, shining a spotlight on a little-used law against adultery in the Catholic nation. Francisco Ortigas, who is also a member of one of the country’s richest families, was charged on Wednesday with “concubinage” for allegedly conducting the affair with his wife’s best friend in a family-owned Manila apartment.

“The painful truth, is that I married an abuser, a scrooge, an incorrigible philanderer, and worse, a pervert,” Ortigas’s wife of 43 years, Susana, said in an affidavit to police that led to the charge. Ortigas posted bail of 10,000 pesos ($233) shortly after police arrested him at a stock exchange building in Manila, Ronald Santiago, an officer at the court that will try the case, told AFP. If found guilty, Ortigas, 67, faces between six months and four years in jail, while the alleged concubine would be barred from contacting him. The crime of “concubinage” in the Philippines is defined by law as a husband having sex with a mistress in his family’s home, or living in another home with a woman who is not his wife. It is one of many conservative laws that reflects the Philippines’ deep Catholic roots, stemming from three centuries of Spanish colonial rule that ended in the late 1800s.

The Philippines is the only country in the world, except for the Vatican City, where divorce is outlawed, while abortion is also a crime. However while 80 percent of Filipinos are Catholic, only one in three are married in a church, contraception is widely used and people are rarely prosecuted for concubinage. While Ortigas wields economic power and political influence-he was ambassador to Mexico from 2008 to 2010 — his estranged wife also comes from a powerful family-the Madrigal clan.

While the concubinage charge refers only to that alleged affair, Susana Ortigas, 63, also accused her husband in the affidavit of years of infidelity, including habitual sex with a maid and a company employee.

Ortigas, who is a shareholder in the family-owned Ortigas group of companies that owns vast tracts of land in Manila, requested privacy after he was arrested. “This is a purely private matter which refined and civilised individuals avoid elucidating on,” he said in a statement released by his lawyer. — AFP

New Maldives president says willing to call early election Manik invites former president’s party into cabinet DUBAI: The Maldives’ new leader said a presidential election could be held before the scheduled date of October 2013 provided conditions were right for a free and peaceful poll, after his predecessor quit last week amid a dramatic police mutiny. Mohamed Waheed Hussain Manik, previously vice president, took over after the Feb 7 resignation of Mohamed Nasheed, the Maldives’ first democratically elected president.

Nasheed says he was ousted in a coup by mutinying police and military officers, who forced him to step down.

He has demanded Waheed hand power to the speaker of parliament and call a new presidential election in two months. A senior U.S. diplomat on Saturday said most of the people he talked with on the Indian Ocean islands said it was not possible to have free and fair elections within two months. Waheed suggested that polls could be brought forward, but did not specify a date.

“At the moment, the election is scheduled for late 2013, more than a year and a half from now. If we agree to bring it forward we will have a discussion with all political parties, but the conditions have to be right to ensure there will be free and fair elections,” Waheed told Reuters on the phone from Male, the capital of the 1,200-island nation. “We need to make sure that there is continuation of peace. It is really important to bring back confidence and create rule of law.”

A Commonwealth ministerial team, led by Surujrattan Rambachan, the foreign minister of Trinidad and Tobago, was due to arrive in the Maldives capital, Male, today to investigate the circumstances surrounding Nasheed’s resignation, the 54-nation Commonwealth announced.

Nasheed’s supporters have refused to recognise Waheed as the country’s new leader and join his call for a national unity government.

Waheed said he was hoping to include members from Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) in the new government. “I am still reaching out to all parties to be a part of the united government. We already have eight political parties on board,” Waheed said late on Wednesday. “I am still keeping some of the cabinet positions open, hoping also that some from Nasheed’s party members will join us.”

Most of the cabinet already selected by Waheed are veterans of the government of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who ruled the Maldives for 30 years until Nasheed beat him in a 2008 election. Among them are several representatives of conservative Islamist parties, which savaged Nasheed’s religious credentials. Although a warrant was issued for Nasheed’s arrest last week on unspecified charges, Waheed said his predecessor would remain untouched and unharmed. The foreign ministry this week said Nasheed enjoys the immunity privileges of all former presidents.

“We will ensure that he has complete protection from his bodyguards provided by the government. His safety will be assured,” Waheed said. “There are some charges against the former president. But I have urged that this is not the time for this kind of stuff. We need to build confidence and return to a normal situation.” Tourism, the main engine of the archipelago’s economy, appeared to be largely untouched by the upheaval, as most visitors bypass the gritty capital of Male and head straight to holiday huts perched on stilts above pristine turquoise waters. [ID: nL4E8DC03K] “The capital Male has been quiet for many days now. I urge all visitors to continue to come and enjoy the Maldives,” Waheed said. “There are no problems at the airport or with ground transportation, they can go to their resorts very peacefully.” — Reuters

Birthday becomes memorial for North Korea’s late leader PYONGYANG: Smiling and saluting, new leader Kim Jong Un reviewed a parade of thousands of soldiers yesterday who vowed to protect him with their lives as North Korea commemorated the 70th birthday of his late father, Kim Jong Il. Kim Jong Un, wearing a dark Mao-style suit and a solemn expression, bowed deeply before a large portrait of his smiling father in Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang, the capital.

Hundreds of senior officials, military leaders and citizens followed to pay their respects.

Outside the palace, a huge crowd of North Korean soldiers lined up in neat rows on a sunny but frigid day, listening to speeches praising the Kim family. Later, the new leader and other officials watched as goose-stepping soldiers marched by, followed by military jeeps and trucks carrying artillery guns and rocket launchers. Fireworks exploded, military music boomed and people waved artificial pink and red flowers.

Kim Jong Il ruled with an iron fist for 17 years, a period that included a famine in the 1990s that killed hundreds of thousands of people and protracted tensions over the nation’s drive to build nuclear weapons. Food shortages persist in North Korea and relations with South Korea are at their lowest point in years. But since Kim’s death two months ago, expressions of mourning and adoration have been common in Pyongyang. After the funeral, Kim Jong Un was named supreme commander of the country’s 1.2 million-member military. State media and officials have praised Kim Jong Il as a strong but benevolent leader, while calling Kim Jong Un the unquestioned choice to succeed him in this socialist nation of 24 million.

“We will faithfully uphold the ‘military-first’ leadership of our respected supreme commander and comrade with our guns,” military General Staff chief Ri Yong Ho said in a speech. “Let’s dedicate our lives to protect Kim Jong Un!” troops in the plaza roared. At Kim Il Sung Square, the main plaza in the capital, North Koreans bowed and laid

flowers, including red “kimjongilia” begonias, at a portrait of Kim Jong Il hanging on the Grand People’s Study House. Among them was Paek Won Chol, who described himself as a “soldier and disciple” of Kim Jong Il. “I will devote my all for the building of a powerful and prosperous nation” under Kim Jong Un, Paek said. Yesterday’s memorial could serve as closure to North Korea’s mourning ahead of important nuclear talks next week with the United States, said John Delury, an assistant professor at Yonsei University’s Graduate School of International Studies in South Korea. Kim Jong Il’s death halted discussions between Pyongyang and Washington on much-needed food aid in exchange for nuclear disarmament. North Korea has tested two atomic devices since 2006. A U.S.

envoy will hold talks with North Korea on its nuclear program in Beijing next week, the first such negotiations since Kim’s death.

“There were a lot of balls in the air when Kim Jong Il died, so things froze,” Delury said. “The timing of this public ceremony ... allows North Korea to make a last major public expression of grief as part of moving on and getting back to a lot of orders of business.” In a burst of propaganda, composers have crafted new odes to Kim Jong Il, while sculptors have chiseled slogans honoring him into the sides of mountains. His birthday was renamed “Day of the Shining Star,” and this week he was accorded a new title: Generalissimo.

The North’s leadership has sought to portray Kim as a defender of the nation, which has remained in a technical state of war with the

PYONGYANG: North Koreans walk towards a stand to lay flowers beneath a large portrait of the country’s late leader Kim Jong Il to commemorate his death and what would have been his 70th birthday yesterday in Pyongyang, North Korea. —AP

United States since the 1950s, when the Korean War left the Korean peninsula divided into north and south. During his rule, Kim focused on building nuclear weapons, calling them necessary protection against the U.S. military presence in South Korea even as they drew sanctions.

Kim Yong Nam, North Korea’s nominal head of state, praised Kim Jong Il on Tuesday for “turning our country into an invincible one that can never be defeated and has a nuclear deterrent.” Portraits of Kim show him smiling beatifically, and a stamp issued following his death captures him sharing a laugh with Kim Jong Un. Those images are replicated across Pyongyang in huge portraits hanging at the People’s Palace of Culture, a flower exhibition featuring his kimjongilia begonias and at a book fair at the Grand People’s Study House.

It’s an image that contrasts with Kim Jong Il in his later years, as he reportedly recovered from a stroke and battled chronic illness. He often appeared in public wearing a heavy parka and dark sunglasses. Last month, top leaders of the Workers’ Party announced that Kim’s body would lie in state at Kumsusan, where his father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung, already lies in state.

Officials said later yesterday that the building had been renamed Kumsusan Palace of the Sun. Kim Jong Il has often been referred to as the “Sun of the 21st Century” in state propaganda, which calls Kim Il Sung’s birthday the “Day of the Sun.” While North Korea’s leadership has venerated Kim Jong Il, it has also emphasized his son’s links to his revered grandfather, whom Kim Jong Un resembles in looks and style.

Shedding the quiet demeanor he displayed when his father was alive, Kim Jong Un wasted no time in asserting himself as the new leader, making energetic visits to military units seen as important to his father’s “military first” policy. At Kumsusan palace yesterday, he strolled slowly onto a reviewing stand beneath another large portrait of his father.—AP

International FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Millions of flood victims still at risk in Pakistan ISLAMABAD: A feeble international response to Pakistan’s second major flooding crisis in two years has left millions of people at serious risk of malnutrition and disease, aid groups warned yesterday. The Pakistan Humanitarian Forum (PHF), a network of the 41 largest international charities in the country, called on the international community and Pakistan to take urgent steps with the next monsoon season months away.

“With funds drying up, millions will find it extremely hard to make it through the next few months. Donors and the government of Pakistan must step up their response immediately,” said Oxfam’s country director Neva Khan. At least 2.5 million people are still without food, water, shelter, sanitation and healthcare, putting them at serious risk of malnutrition, disease and deepening poverty, said the coalition of international charities.

“The floods have exposed and deepened a food crisis in Sindh that has resulted in malnutrition rates far worse than those in sub-Saharan Africa,” said David Wright, country director for Save the Children. Around

US missiles kill 13 in Pakistan MIRANSHAH: Two US drone strikes struck Islamist militants in Pakistan’s tribal badlands yesterday, killing at least 13 fighters in North Waziristan near the Afghan border, officials said.

The aircraft fired missiles hours apart on separate targets in what is considered the premier bastion of Taliban and AlQaeda in Pakistan as the government in Islamabad welcomed the Afghan and Iranian leaders for a summit.

Five militants were killed in the first attack that destroyed a compound in Spalga town near Miranshah and at least eight died in the second attack on a vehicle near the town of Mir Ali, about 25 kilometres (16 miles) to the east. “The death toll may rise,” a Pakistani security official warned AFP after the second strike targeted militants travelling in a double cabin pick-up.

“At least eight militant have been killed in the second strike,” he said, describing them all as “foreigners”. Another security official in Miranshah, the capital of North Waziristan, put the death toll at 12, saying they were all Uzbek Islamist fighters. “The vehicle caught fire and the dead bodies are badly mutilated,” he added. The United States says Pakistan’s tribal belt provides sanctuary to Taliban fighting in Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda groups plotting attacks on the West, and Pakistani Taliban who routinely bomb Pakistan and other foreign fighters.Those killed in the first attack were loyalists of Badar Mansoor and the Haqqani network, loyal to the Afghan Taliban whose leaders are understood to be based in North Waziristan, one of the Pakistani officials said. Last Thursday, officials said Mansoor, described as the “de facto leader of AlQaeda in Pakistan” was killed in a drone strike in North Waziristan.

Mansoor was considered one of America’s main targets in the country, wanted for bomb attacks on the minority Ahmadi sect that killed nearly 100 people in May 2010 and the chief link between Al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban.

The United States has blamed the Haqqani network for some of the most spectacular attacks carried out in Kabul, including last September’s siege of the US embassy.

According to an AFP tally, 45 US missile strikes were reported in Pakistan’s tribal belt in 2009, the year Obama took office, 101 in 2010 and 64 in 2011. The program has dramatically increased as the Obama administration looks to withdraw all foreign combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

US diplomatic cables leaked by WikiLeaks in late 2010 showed that Pakistan’s civilian and military leaders privately supported US drone attacks, despite public condemnation in a country where the US alliance is hugely unpopular. The New America Foundation think-tank in Washington says drone strikes in Pakistan have killed between 1,715 and 2,680 people in the past eight years. Pakistan is reviewing its entire alliance with the United States and has kept its Afghan border closed to NATO supply convoys since the November strike.—AFP

43 percent of affected people are severely short of food and malnutrition levels were already well above the emergency threshold in the southern provinces of Sindh and Baluchistan before the floods struck.

Last September, the United Nations launched an appeal for $357 million, but it has been less than 50 percent funded, the groups said. “Six months on, the crisis seems to have been forgotten by the international community,” said Naseer Memon, chief executive of the Strengthening Participatory Organisation.

Najma Warag, a mother of three and the wife of a tailor, told reporters in Islamabad that she had found nothing when she returned to her village in southern Badin district in Sindh which was still inundated and the crops destroyed. “If you want to see what a miserable life is, come and see us. Our children are sick, we have no home, no clothes, no money and eat only one meal in a day,” Warag said.

Five foreign aid and development workers have gone missing or been kidnapped in Pakistan since August, causing international charities to become

more careful. “I think we are very concerned. There seems to be a much greater targeting of humanitarian workers in the country than was before,” said David Wright, country director of Save the Children.”There are more expat humanitarian workers being held captive in Pakistan than any single country in the world,” he said.

“So even that we have experience of working in insecure areas we have to strengthen our systems... We are used to deal with situations like this in other countries. We will have to take more care, that is for sure,” Wright said. Oxfam’s Khan said “security of our staff is our number one priority at all times. We don’t take unnecessary risks.” Tens of thousands of people are still displaced in flood-affected areas, while others have returned home to little or nothing.

The floods have devastated agriculture and hundreds of thousands of farmers are struggling to recover. A quarter of farmers missed the planting season late last year because their land was flooded or they did not receive help in time. — AFP

Iranian, Afghan leaders visit Pakistan for summit Pakistan seen as key to peace process ISLAMABAD: The presidents of Afghanistan and Iran convened in Pakistan yesterday for a three-way summit that is expected to focus on specific steps Islamabad can take to facilitate peace talks with the Afghan Taleban. Pakistan is seen as key to the peace process because of its historical ties with the Taleban and their feared ally, the Haqqani network. The leaders of both groups are believed to be based in Pakistan and in close touch with Pakistani intelligence officials.

One of the people Afghan President Hamid Karzai was scheduled to meet during his trip is Maulana Samiul Haq, known as the spiritual father of the Taleban because he runs an Islamic seminary in northwest Pakistan that has taught many of the group’s leaders. Haq has also supported the insurgency in Afghanistan. Haq urged the leaders of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran to work together to push US -led forces out of Afghanistan.

“This is a time when the Taleban are defeating Western forces in Afghanistan,” Haq told The Associated Press. “A forceful

stance by Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran will bring peace and stability in this region by pushing out the foreign forces.” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is also likely to focus in the meetings on a proposed pipeline that would deliver natural gas from his country to Pakistan. The US has opposed the initiative because of tensions with Iran over its nuclear program, and has pushed for an alternative pipeline that would transport gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan.

But Pakistan is facing acute gas shortages and has pledged to go forward with the Iran pipeline, despite US threats of sanctions. The summit comes at a time when momentum for peace talks with the Taleban seems to be growing. The US and Afghan governments have begun secret three-way discussions with the Taleban , The Wall Street Journal quoted Karzai as saying yesterday. Karzai believes most Taleban are “definitely” interested in a peace settlement, the paper said.

The Taleban are setting up an office in the tiny Gulf state of Qatar in the first step

ISLAMABAD: A man walks past pictures of, from left, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari, displayed outside the Parliament in Islamabad, Pakistan yesterday.—AP

toward formal negotiations. Also, the Obama administration is considering releasing five top Taleban leaders from the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay as a starting point for talks. But the success of the process could hinge on whether Pakistan chooses to cooperate and feels its interests are being addressed. Iran will also be a factor since it is wary of the Taleban , a radical Sunni Muslim group opposed to the Shiites who make up a majority of Iran’s population.

Pakistan helped the Taleban seize power in Afghanistan in the 1990s, and many members of the group, reportedly including chief Mullah Omar, streamed across the border into Pakistan after US -led forces invaded in 2001. Pakistan has also had a close relationship with the founder of the Haqqani network, Jalaluddin Haqqani, that dates back to the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The Haqqani network is the most feared militant group fighting in Afghanistan.

Many analysts believe Pakistan has continued to support the Taleban and the Haqqani network because they are seen as key allies in Afghanistan after NATO forces withdraw, specifically to counter the influence of Pakistan’s neighbor and archenemy, India. The outcome of any peace process in Afghanistan would likely have to address this concern. Pakistan has denied accusations that militant leaders are based in the country and that it has maintained ties with them - a stance that could become tricky to maintain as the peace process progresses.

Pakistan has pledged to do whatever Afghanistan asks to help facilitate the peace process. But the main thing that Karzai has sought is for Islamabad to facilitate access to the same militant leaders who Pakistan denies are using its territory. There are also likely limits to what Pakistan can achieve since there is reportedly significant distrust of Islamabad among the Taleban . Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said recently that Karzai’s visit would focus on figuring out exactly what role Islamabad would play in the negotiations. —AP

Business FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

China ready to outshine India as top gold buyer

Ex-Olympus president arrested

PAGE 22

PAGE 21

MENLO PARK: In this photo, a job seeker looks for work at JobTrain employment center. The number of people seeking unemployment benefits fell to the lowest point in almost four years last week, the latest signal that the job market is steadily improving. — AP

Greece rescue at crossroads Contagion fears back on Greek bailout uncertainty

BRUSSELS: A massive rescue package for Greece faced a substantial rewrite yesterday, after officials revealed that Athens could not meet its debt targets and divisions grew over the country’s eurozone future. As the eurozone tightens the screws to monitor every detail of a debt rescue package after losing patience over unkept promises from Athens, some governments want watertight commitments from Greece’s entire political spectrum that austerity and reforms will be carried through even after April elections. “We are not in a dictatorial monetary union,” said Luxembourg Finance Minister Luc Frieden, noting that “a state is free to choose to leave.”

However, he underlined: “If a member state says, ‘we prefer not to take money from other states and return to a national currency without making structural reforms,’ then that state has chosen to exclude itself.” Athens faces a bigger funding shortfall than thought, officials confirming that the long-disputed second bailout package of 230 billion euros would not be enough to bring Greek debt down to an agreed target of 120 percent of output. With the clock running

down, the euro edged down against the dollar yesterday, for a fifth straight day, and stocks again slid.

“The level of indebtedness has been calculated at 129 percent” of output, said one official, indicating a 5.5-billion-euro gap if the overall sums are to remain on track. The 129 percent figure must fall to “within a couple of percentage points” of the original target before his government would sign off the overall bailout, said another official.

“I am not available to lend money to a country without such a debt sustainability analysis,” Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager warned. The upshot is that the Eurogroup of finance ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday now plans to issue an initial green light that for the launch of an offer to private investors to agree a complicated write-down.

This is aimed at chopping 100 billion from Greece’s 350-billion total debts and so avoiding a messy default on March 20, when 14.5 billion must be repaid to bondholders.

The idea is to maintain Greece on the equivalent of a drip-feed while more radical changes

are enacted, centred on strict day-to-day surveillance of Athens income and expenditure. That means a decision only in principle to proceed with work on fresh government loans worth 130 billion euros, 30 billion of which are needed to stabilise Greek banks brought to their knees by the bond swap.

The focus now falls on how to secure fresh assurances from minor political leaders in Greece. Germany and the Netherlands, each of which has to get any fresh aid to Greece past sceptical national parliaments, have lost faith in the Greek political system. “We need more signatures from more Greek leaders, not just the two,” said one official after the Eurogroup received pledges from the main Conservative and Socialist groupings in the current caretaker coalition. “We don’t know if either can get a majority in the elections, so what if others hold the balance of power?” he asked. “Ideally after the elections, you want to deal with rulers that you know will give their support to the package,” Dutch finance minister de Jager was quoted in an interview with Dutch financial daily Het Financieele Dagblad. “Therefore it has been sug-

gested to wait until after the elections, where you can agree to commitments with the new government,” he said. A rival bloc-Italy, France, Spain, Portugal and Belgium-fears giving too much influence to extreme voices at a time when Greece is on edge, as seen in violent protests on Sunday. In the same vein, eurozone Treasury officials will meet on Sunday to finalise the workings of an “escrow,” or blocked account, before Triple-A states gather in advance of Monday’s Eurogroup, officials said.

According to one official, this would see repayments to eurozone governmental creditors prioritised, while offering “incentives” to Greece state to raise revenues. The stark choices emerged as tempers frayed in the months-long tug-of-war after German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned: “We can help but we are not going to pour money into a bottomless pit.” Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos claimed “several” adversaries “no longer want us” in the currency area. President Carolos Papoulias, a resistance fighter during the German World War II occupation, took personal exception. —AFP

Business FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

In Oman, Iran traders feel sanctions pinch MUSCAT: Iranian traders in Oman, struggling to secure financing because of Western economic sanctions against Tehran, are raising loans from sympathetic Omani businessmen in order to ship foodstuffs to Iran, the traders say. “Local banks don’t give us letters of credit anymore to export food to Iran, but we are grateful for the private loans from our Omani friends,” Hassan Ghafour, an Iranian businessman based in the north Oman city of Sohar, told Reuters this week.

Meer Sajjad, an Iranian trader in the capital Muscat, said he was also being forced to turn to fellow businessmen because he could not obtain financing from banks.

“Without bank credit, it is very difficult to send anything to Iran. We don’t have the cash to do it, nor do our Iranian counterparts. The sanctions make it difficult for them to send money in advance.”

The difficulties of Iranian businessmen in Oman underline how the sanctions, imposed over Tehran’s

controversial nuclear programme, are disrupting much of Iran’s foreign trade, even in countries which have maintained good relations with Iran. Oman, 50 km (30 miles) across the Strait of Hormuz from Iran, has close diplomatic ties with its huge neighbour. Last year it helped to arrange the release of two US citizens convicted in Iran of spying. While Oman says it obeys United Nations sanctions against Iran, it has not adopted much stricter US-proposed measures such as a ban on bank financing of trade.

An Omani central bank official told Reuters that there was no official instruction from the government to prevent local banks from issuing letters of credit (LCs) to Iranian traders. The vast bulk of trade between the two countries remains legal. But officials of two Omani commercial banks, who did not want to be identified because of the political sensitivity of the issue, said some banks had halted trade financing because they were

concerned about the ability of Iranian importers to pay under sanctions. “We are not extending the LCs because we are not sure if the Iranians will be able to pay us back under the present circumstances,” said an official of one bank. Ghafour said he and other Iranian traders in Oman were mostly shipping rice to Iran, as well as other foodstuffs such as cooking oil, sugar and flour. According to the Indian embassy in Muscat, about 400,000 tonnes of basmati rice are exported each year from India to Oman.

Roughly 70,000-90,000 tonnes of that amount is consumed within Oman and about 300,000 tonnes reexported to Iran by Iranian traders, according to Oman’s Ministry of Commerce. Despite their proximity, total trade between the two countries is not large because the main export of both of them is oil and gas. Oman’s exports to Iran totalled $521 million in 2009, only about 2 percent of its total exports, according to United Nations data. — Reuters

Qantas to slash jobs Qantas first-half profit drops 83%

SESANA: In this photo a lone jogger runs past apartment blocks in the Toledo Provence near Madrid. — AP

Empty buildings haunt Spain amid realty crash SESENA: Towering apartment blocks, complete with swimming pools and playgrounds, loom over empty streets, weed-filled lots and gaping excavation pits.

The lone bank in this mega-development nicknamed “Manhattan” closed two years ago and most storefronts are bricked up. Apartments galore are for sale here and prices are plunging. More than 13,000 apartments were supposed to go up to create a mini-city for 30,000 people just 45 minutes outside of Madrid. But only 5,100 were built, many are uninhabited and regular Spaniards who bought them as investments are now competing to offload them for huge losses.

Spain’s real estate crash and economic implosion have turned what was supposed to become a vibrant suburban paradise for young Spanish couples and their children into one of the most visible monuments of the country’s boom gone bust. Such modern-day ghost towns have become a familiar part of the Spanish landscape, abandoned shells left to slowly decay.

The number of foreclosure proceedings skyrocketed during the economic crisis. Nearly 530,000 were granted by courts from 2008 through September of 2011, most to banks taking homes, housing developments and vast tracts of land for residential and commercial real estate projects that may never become reality.

The banks were ordered this month by the recently elected center-right government to set aside billions of additional euros to cover these toxic real estate assets valued at $232 billion just as Spain teeters on the edge of what could be a lengthy recession. Experts say the government’s new provisions for real estate holdings will almost certainly prompt the banks to sell holdings at firesale prices, forcing property values down much more than the 22 percent that they have dropped since the financial crisis hit Europe in 2008. In Sesena and other ghost developments around Spain, some banks are already trying to unload finished apartments at discounts of up to 50 percent of their original prices. But that’s hurting untold numbers of Spaniards who invested savings and took out big loans to buy property they thought they’d be able to sell for more money or rent.

Satellite cities that never ended up with populations aren’t Spain’s only problem. Around Madrid and across the country, there are vast subdivisions carved out of farmland complete with paved roads and streetlights but only weeds where houses were supposed to be built. Half-built apartment buildings stand idle in suburbs rich and poor.

With unemployment at a eurozone high of 23 percent, there are simply fewer buyers - and young Spaniards are increasingly trying to find work abroad. In December alone, sales were down 25.3 percent compared to the same month in 2010, the government reported Friday. “This is the problem: Who is going to buy these homes?” said Jose Luis Alvarez Arce, head of the economics department at the University of Navara.—AP

SYDNEY: Embattled carrier Qantas said yesterday it will slash at least 500 jobs, cut costs and close two international routes after posting an 83 percent slump in first-half net profits. The Australian airline’s result in the six months to December came in at Aus$42 million ($US44.8 million), compared to Aus$241 million in the previous corresponding period, due to high fuel costs and a fleet grounding in October. Chief executive Alan Joyce pulled all Qantas planes out of the skies for 48 hours as part of a row with staff over plans to shift the focus of its ailing international arm to Asia.

It cost the carrier dearly, but Joyce said it was the only option. “The damaging industrial action we faced last year is over, and industrial action on that scale is unlikely for the foreseeable future,” he said. The dispute was ultimately terminated by an order of the country’s industrial relations umpire but it cost Qantas Aus$194 million in lost revenues and forward bookings.

Jet fuel costs in the first half were also up by Aus$444 million. In a bid to recoup the losses, Joyce said the airline’s projected capital expenditure for full-year 2012 would be cut by Aus$200 million to Aus$2.3 billion and by a further Aus$500 million in 2012/13.The market responded favourably, with Qantas shares up nearly five percent at Aus$1.63 in afternoon trade. Savings will come from the deferral of new Boeing 787-800s due to manufacturer delays and a reduction in planned domestic growth.

This will see jobs cut, with Qantas also looking to consolidate its engineering and catering services. “We anticipate there will be 500 positions affected by the immediate

changes that we have announced today,” Joyce said, but made clear no jobs would be going offshore, a key gripe of unions. However, he foreshadowed further job losses following the catering and heavy maintenance reviews. “We can’t at this stage pre-empt the reviews that are going to take place but, as I said... we expect there to be further jobs affected,” said Joyce. “It would be premature for me to actually say what we believe the total number will be.”

Joyce said the airline hoped to minimise sackings and would focus instead on voluntary redundancies, using annual and long service leave and seconding staff to other airlines. The Australian Services Union said the cuts were “sacrificing livelihoods and the long-term efficiency of the airline for short-term cost cutting” while the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union called them a “real blow”.

The government acknowleged that Qantas faced challenges competing with airlines overseas that have a lower cost base, but warned vital skills could be lost forever if maintenance jobs went. “You can cut too much and then lose skills that are never coming back,” Employment Minister Bill Shorten said. “And there will be a time when we need skilled engineers.” The airline will also axe unprofitable services from Singapore-Mumbai and Auckland-Los Angeles in May with Joyce saying the airline must “confront the new global realities” and adapt. “The results I have announced today show the resilience of the Qantas Group and our readiness for the future,” he said. “Overall our business is strong, we are exerting financial discipline, and we are well placed to handle this complex economic and competitive environment.” — AFP

SYDNEY: Qantas CEO and managing director, Alan Joyce, announces a massive 83 percent slump in first half net profits during a press conference yesterday. — AFP

Business FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

UK competition agency threatens bank probe LONDON: Britain’s big banks could face a full-blown monopoly investigation if they drag their heels on opening up to competition, a national regulator warned yesterday. Banks must act to make it easier for customers to understand various charges and to switch to other banks if they choose, said John Fingleton, head of the Office of Fair Trading. If the situation doesn’t improve, Fingleton said, his agency could refer the banking industry for an investigation by the Competition Commission. That agency has the power to force a break up of private companies, as it has done in ordering BAA Ltd. to sell Gatwick, Stansted and Edinburgh airports.

“A step change is needed in the banking sector,” Singleton said in a speech to a seminar organized by market intelligence company MLex and Lloyds Banking Group.

“Going forward we need to see evidence which demonstrates that the market dynamics of entry and switching are sufficient to drive stronger customer-focused competition. Without this the obvious question is whether the concentrated market structure of UK banking is the problem. “And one way to consider this question is a reference to the Competition Commission.” Fingleton suggested that a possible referral could come after his agency’s review of the personal current account market which is to begin later this year. The British Bankers Association said research shows that “the vast majority of customers are satisfied with the service their bank provides and there is no reason for them to switch accounts. “Similarly, there is no evidence that customers want to move away from the current ‘fee free if

in credit’ model to one where every customer pays for every transaction, as is the case in virtually every other country,” said BBA spokesman Brian Capon.

Shares fell in the banking sector as Moody’s Investors Service announced that three British giants - Barclays, HSBC and part-nationalized Royal Band of Scotland remained under review for a possible downgrades of their credit ratings. HSBC and RBS were both down more than 1 percent by early afternoon. Banks already face a major restructuring, as the government announced in December it would legislate to require banks to isolate their unglamorous retail operations from their more volatile investment banking activity.

Treasury chief George Osborne says that legislation is aimed as solving the problem of banks being “too big to fail.”

Fingleton pointed to the part-nationalized Lloyds Banking Group as an example of how the fallout from the credit crisis had led to less competition. Lloyds’ takeover of Halifax/Bank of Scotland, rescuing it from collapse, had eliminated HBOS as a major competitor in the personal current account market, he said.

“The Lloyds-HBOS merger increased concentration in an already highly concentrated and non-dynamic market, he said.

Beyond making it easier for customers to switch banks, Fingleton said banks should make it easier for customers to understand the true costs of their accounts. A study by his agency “found that consumers paid little attention to unarranged overdraft charges and forgone interest” which make up the vast bulk of banks’ revenues, Fingleton said. — AP

China set to outshine India as top gold buyer Rising incomes propel higher demand

FRANKFURT AM MAIN: Travelers wait in front of a display at a terminal of the airport yesterday. — AFP

Frankfurt airport braces for strike FRANKFURT: Frankfurt airport, Europe’s third busiest hub, braced for travel chaos yesterday, with as many as half of all flights cancelled due to a strike by airport tarmac workers over pay. Fraport, the company which owns and operates Germany’s largest airport, is aiming to keep “50 percent of operations up and running” yesterday and Friday despite a walkout by so-called “apron control” staff, who direct aircraft in and out of their parking positions, a spokesman told AFP. It was primarily up the airlines themselves to decide which flights would take off or land, said spokesman Mike Schweitzer, advising passengers to contact the airlines directly.

Fraport had trained other staff to take over the duties and tasks of the striking workers. “And former colleagues who used to work in this area have also said they would jump in,” Schweitzer said. “We will ensure that flight safety is guaranteed.” The GdF union of air traffic workers has estimated that around 400 flights or 30-40 percent of the total daily flights-will be affected yesterday.

German carrier Lufthansa, which has its main hub in Frankfurt, said it would cancel as many as 100 flights taking off or landing here, also equivalent to around a third of its daily total. According to the union, some 200 personnel, including workers in the actual air traffic control centre, as well as those working on the airport tarmac, will stop work yesterday. And because the walkout was not having a big enough effect, a further warning strike would be held again from 0700-2100 GMT today, GdF announced. The union called for warning strikes after Fraport turned down mediation proposals in their wage dispute. The union argues that apron controllers’ pay does not take into account the additional complexity resulting from the opening late last year of a fourth runway in Frankfurt. Fraport has denounced the action as “irresponsible” and “incomprehensible”, but pledged to limit disruption as much as possible. — AFP

HONG KONG: China is poised to overtake India to become the world’s biggest gold market this year as rising incomes fuel demand for the precious metal and a weak rupee diminishes Indian purchases, an industry group said yesterday. The amount of gold bought in China rose 20 percent in 2011 over the year before to 770 metric tons, the World Gold Council said in its annual report. That put China behind only firstplace India, where 933 metric tons were bought. Worldwide, the amount of gold purchased rose 0.4 percent to 4,0671 metric tons worth $205.5 billion. The council said it’s “likely that China will emerge” as the world’s largest gold market for the first time in 2012.

Rising incomes in China, which is the world’s No. 2 economy, have resulted in a surge in demand for gold jewelry and other luxury goods. China became the world’s largest market for gold jewelry in the second half of 2011 as demand rose in every quarter, the report said.

Gold bars, coins and other gold-backed products are also popular because of a lack of other investment options in China. The long-term rise in the price of gold has also made it a popular hedge against inflation - gold hit a record nominal high of $1,891.90 an ounce in August, though prices have fallen since then. Gold futures for April delivery ended trading in New York on Wednesday at $1,728.10 an ounce.

Central banks, many in developing economies, also boosted gold sales as

HONG KONG: Gold necklaces and products are displayed for sale in a booth from the U.S. at the International Jewelry Fair yesterday.— AP they sought to diversify their growing piles of foreign currency reserves. They bought 439.7 metric tons of gold last year, up from 77 metric tons the year before and the highest amount since 1964, the report said.

The poor performance of China’s stock and property markets - the other two main choices for Chinese with money to invest - is boosting the popularity of gold as an investment, said Albert Cheng, a managing director at the London-based World Gold Council. The Shanghai Composite Index is down 20 percent over the past year while house prices are starting to fall after authorities

put in place curbs to cool an overheated market.

Strong Chinese demand for gold also helped sales leap 33.5 percent last year in Hong Kong, a popular destination for wealthy mainland shoppers because of lower taxes in the semiautonomous Chinese territory. Demand for gold jewelry in India, meanwhile, fell in the second half of 2011 because of the weakening rupee, which made gold more expensive. Indians also grappled with high inflation last year that ate away their purchasing power, so they bought smaller amounts of gold, Cheng said. — AP

BAE posts rising net profit

LONDON: British arms manufacturer BAE Systems said yesterday that net profits rose by almost 18 percent in 2011, despite falling revenues as military budgets were cut in Britain and in the United States.

Earnings after tax hit £1.24 billion (1.49 billion euros, $1.95 billion) last year, boosted by one-off items such as research-and-development tax credit, the company said in a results statement.

However, earnings before interest, taxa-

tion, amortisation and impairment of intangible assets, slid 7.1 percent to £2.03 billion.

Sales sank 14 percent to £19.154 billion as cash-strapped governments axed spending on defence and security equipment and services, while the company’s order book shrank to £36.2 billion. “BAE Systems is operating in a difficult business environment as defence spending reduces in its largest markets, the US and UK,” the

group said. “These market pressures have been apparent for some time. BAE Systems has moved quickly to take strategic actions it believes necessary to sustain and position the business for the future.”

BAE also indicated that it has not abandoned hope that India could reconsider its recent decision to negotiate exclusively for 126 French Rafale fighter jets with Dassault Aviation, over the British-backed Eurofighter Typhoon. — AFP

Business FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Olympus shares slide Ex-Olympus president arrested

MALAYSIA: Customers buy fruits at a wet market in Klang, outside Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia’s central bank said Wednesday economic growth slowed sharply to 5.1 percent last year and warns prospects for 2012 are clouded

by Europe’s ongoing debt crisis. — AP

Nestle sales beat hopes but tough year expected GENEVA: Nestle SA, the world’s biggest food and drinks maker, managed to brush aside the impact of a soaring domestic currency to post a solid increase in profits in 2011 as sales rose strongly, particularly in developing countries. However, the maker of Nescafe, Perrier, Jenny Craig and Haagen Dazs accompanied its full-year statement yesterday with a warning that tough times lie ahead. The company based in Vevey, Switzerland reported that its 2011 net profit rose 8 percent to 9.5 billion Swiss francs ($10.35 billion) if the disposal of eye care company Alcon is stripped out of the comparison. The sale last year had boosted Nestle’s 2010 profit to 34.2 billion Swiss francs ($35.8 billion).

Nestle’s 7.5 percent sales growth in its continuing sales during the year was better than expected. Analysts had predicted growth of about 7 percent as it grappled with volatile markets, rising commodity prices and the strength of the Swiss franc.

Shares in Nestle were up 1 percent to 55 francs at the start of Zurich trading yesterday. Overall sales for 2011, however, fell to 83.6 billion francs ($91.11 billion) from almost 110 billion francs the year before. The decline, largely due to changes in currency rates and the impact of asset disposals, was slightly less than expected as the Swiss National Bank intervened in the markets to try and stem the rise of the franc, helping sales in the last few months of the year.

The company said expects organic sales growth over the coming year would likely come in lower but still at its target of 5-6 percent. “It was a challenging year, and we do not expect 2012 to be any easier,” said Chief Executive Paul Bulcke. “We’re really living in a new reality,” Bulcke said of the world’s financial crises and political upheaval in the past year. He called them “tectonic shifts” in which wealth was moving to developing nations and where governments were faltering in solving big problems, such as Europe’s debt crisis.

“That lowers consumer confidence,” he said. Nestle said it was nevertheless continuing to grow in all regions of the world, with 5 percent growth in Europe and 6.4 percent in the Americas where pet care products and frozen pizza was selling well. Sales rose 13.1 percent in Asia, Oceania and Africa. Some of the best growth was seen in India, Pakistan, North Africa, Central West Africa and Egypt.

With 280,000 employees worldwide and factories or operations in almost every country in the world, Nestle is a major buyer of food commodities such as wheat, sugar, milk and coffee and its results are a good indicator of consumer demand and the health of the global economy as a whole. James Singh, the chief financial officer, said “the battle for 2011” was how to contend with the strong franc and keep costs down. He said the company pulled every “lever” it could to contain costs.

Singh would not comment on the company’s interest in buying Pfizer’s $10 billion Wyeth infant nutrition business to further bolster its growth in China, where sales are now almost 5 billion francs annually. Jean-Philippe Bertschy, an analyst at Bank Vontobel in Zurich, said the planned dividend of 1.95 francs per share and underlying profit were in line with expectations. The double-digit growth in emerging markets helped it deliver a “phenomenal” final quarter in 2011, he said, but its strict control of operating expenses and high prices also helped it outpace competitors. “Nestle had great results from a very good quarter, beating the competition again,” he said. “The outlook is relatively positive, given the difficult environment.” —AP

TOKYO: Four months after one of Japan’s biggest corporate scandals, police and prosecutors yesterday arrested seven men, including the former president of Olympus Corp and exbankers, over their role in a $1.7 billion accounting fraud at the medical equipment and camera maker. Tokyo prosecutors arrested ex-President Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, former Executive Vice President Hisashi Mori and former auditor Hideo Yamada on suspicion of violating the Financial Instruments and Exchange Law, officials said. Also arrested were former bankers Akio Nakagawa and Nobumasa Yokoo and two others suspected of helping hide huge investment losses through complex M&A deals.

The three former executives had been identified by an investigative panel, commissioned by Olympus, as the main culprits in the fraud, seeking to delay the reckoning from risky investments made in the late-1980’s bubble economy. The scandal was exposed in October by then-CEO Michael Woodford, who was sacked by the Olympus board after querying dubious M&A deals later found to have been used to conceal the losses. Woodford campaigned to win his job back, but gave up that bid last month, blaming cosy ties between management and big Japanese shareholders and citing the strain on his family.

“After going to hell and back, this is a day to remember,” Woodford said in an email yesterday. The Briton, who was a rare foreign CEO in Japan, plans to write a book about his experiences uncovering the scandal. The arrests come as investors focus on who will run the once-proud company when its management steps down at an April 20 shareholders meeting, and whether Olympus will seek a capital tie-up to fix its balance sheet.

Olympus is banking on that April

meeting marking a turning point in the scandal, with at least six of its 11-member board, including current President Shuichi Takayama, set to resign. His successor is likely to be one of three board members the panel said were not responsible for the cover-up-Masataka Suzuki, Kazuhiro Watanabe and Shinichi Nishigaki-said a source familiar with the matter, who did not want to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.

Tokyo: In this photo, former Olympus Corp. Chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa speaks at a press conference. — AP “The arrests of former executives won’t impact possible tie-ups with Terumo, Sony, Fujifilm and others,” said a sell-side equity manager at a Japanese firm, who did not want to be named as he is not authorised to talk to the media.

“Olympus continues to be very attractive to other companies because of its endoscope business.”

Last year, the investigative panel found Kikukawa, Mori and Yamada had played leading roles in a 13-year scheme

to hide the losses, and they are among 19 executives Olympus is suing over the scandal. The panel said it found no evidence of involvement by organised crime, despite speculation that “yakuza” gangsters were somehow involved in the cover-up scheme. An Olympus spokesman said the company would cooperate fully with the investigative authorities. It is also under investigation by law enforcement agencies in Japan, Britain and the United States.

Kikukawa’s condominium house was among 20 sites raided in December by prosecutors. Kikukawa, who took over as president in 2001, was reportedly aware of the details of the cover-up.

Nakagawa, who began his banking career at Nomura Securities, was a founding member of the Axes group, which was awarded a huge $687 million advisory fee for Olympus’ acquisition in 2008 of UK medical equipment firm Gyrus that was at the heart of the scandal.

Yokoo, another ex-Nomura banker, ran a consulting firm, Global Company, which was hired by Olympus in 2000 to scout for new businesses and steered investment into three small money-losing Japanese firms. Olympus in December filed five years’ worth of corrected financial statements plus overdue first-half results, revealing a $1.1 billion dent in its balance sheet, triggering talk it would need to merge or forge a business tie-up to raise capital.

On Monday, it forecast a $410 million full-year loss due largely to its ailing camera operations, but its core endoscope business appeared unscathed by the scandal, and its president said the firm might not need outside capital.

Olympus shares closed down 2.4 percent at 1,273 yen yesterday in an overall market that slipped 0.3 percent. Shares in Olympus, currently worth around $4.5 billion, have halved in value since the scandal unfolded. — Reuters

Oldest Swiss private bank is newest target

ST. GALLEN: On the morning of Jan. 27, employees at the St. Gallen headquarters of Wegelin, Switzerland’s oldest private bank, were told to expect an important announcement from Konrad Hummler, Wegelin’s leading partner. Other Wegelin branches across Switzerland, also alerted, tuned in to the company-wide address system. Speaking in Swiss-German, Hummler announced the bank had sold most of its assets to another Swiss bank. According to a person familiar with the matter, Hummler called it a last-ditch effort to preserve employees’ jobs amid withdrawals of assets by investors who were increasingly worried about a growing problem: a U.S. federal investigation into Wegelin’s sale of tax-evasion services to wealthy Americans. The dark-suited bankers and conservatively dressed office clerks, said the person, were in shock and tears.

The news for Wegelin, its headquarters nestled in the town of St. Gallen next to the Appenzell Alps near the GermanAustrian borders, would only get worse. Six days later the U.S. Justice Department, acting on plans it had been making for weeks, indicted the 270-year-old bank on charges of enabling wealthy Americans to evade taxes on at least $1.2 billion from 2002 through last year. U.S. criminal laws apply to foreign banks that do business in the United States, even if the banks,

like Wegelin, have no U.S. branches. The charges made Wegelin the first overseas bank in history to be indicted by U.S. authorities and marked a milestone in a burgeoning American crackdown on Swiss bank secrecy and efforts to force banks to turn over client names. The sale and the subsequent indictment effectively brought an end to the storied bank.

The Wegelin indictment also turned a spotlight on Hummler, an outspoken defender of the Alpine tradition of bank secrecy and an admirer of the Portuguese philosopher Fernando Pessoa’s concept of the banker as an anarchist. In an interview three years ago with Suddeutsche Zeitung, Germany’s largest newspaper, Hummler called the concept “a charming mind game.” In a 2009 column in Neue Zurcher Zeitung, a Swiss newspaper on whose board Hummler sits, he wrote that he was “influenced by ‘68” - a reference to his time in Paris during the street riots of 1968 - and that he had “found a philosophical father” in Friedrich Hayek, the economistphilosopher who defended free markets and capitalism.

Last week, representatives of Wegelin failed to show up in a US court in New York to respond to the indictment. The bank said in a statement and legal papers that it had not been served with a criminal summons - a legal paper that often follows an indictment. —Reuters

Business FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

India’s Kingfisher unveils new losses High jet fuel prices cause concern MUMBAI: India’s debt-laden Kingfisher Airlines reported yesterday an almost doubling of net losses in the last quarter of 2011, plunging it further into a financial crisis that threatens its survival. The company posted a net loss of 4.44 billion rupees ($88 million) in the three months to December, compared with 2.54 billion rupees a year earlier. Sales fell about 25 percent to 13.42 billion rupees from 17.90 billion rupees, while interest charges on its huge debt pile rose to 3.5 billion rupees from 3.4 billion a year earlier.

The company had been due to release figures for its fiscal third-quarter on Tuesday, but it was unable to because of “hardware problems” with its accounting system, it said. The Bangalore-based carrier has seen its passenger market share slump in recent months to 12.1 percent. It is battling a cash-flow crisis that it says has been caused by soaring fuel costs and high local sales taxes as well as a domestic price war. Kingfisher, owned by brewing magnate Vijay Mallya, has never posted a net profit

since it started operating in 2005. “The company has incurred substantial losses and its net-worth has been eroded,” Mallya said in a company statement issued yesterday. The airline called the quarter “challenging” due to the steep depreciation of the rupee coupled with high crude oil prices. Its aircraft fuel costs rose 37 percent year-on-year, to 7.39 billion rupees in the quarter. The carrier’s shares closed up 0.75 percent at 26.95, retracing from an intraday high of 28 rupees after earnings came in, signaling that investors had feared sharper losses.

Concerns over Kingfisher’s financial viability heightened after it axed the low-cost Kingfisher Red service to concentrate on its full-fare business in September.

Kingfisher has been one of India’s worst-hit airlines in an industry-once a symbol of India’s economic progresswhich is now plagued by high jet fuel prices, fierce competition, price wars and inadequate airport infrastructure. Just one of India’s main carriers is thought to make money, the privately owned budget airline IndiGo.

Indian airlines, the growth of which has been one of the most visible signs of the country’s economic expansion, are struggling to cope with soaring fuel prices, intense competition and heavy debt. A quarter of Kingfisher is owned by local banks and some have refused to lend more cash to the firm unless fresh capital is raised. Mallya in November said unnamed investors had shown an interest in putting money into the airline, but a deal is yet to be finalized.

“Nothing will start improving for Kingfisher until they manage to raise fresh capital,” said Sharan Lillaney, analyst at Mumbai-based Angel Broking. A government panel last month approved a plan to allow airlines to directly import jet fuel, which could ease fuel costs for local carriers. The aviation ministry is also considering plans to allow foreign airlines to buy up to 49 percent in local carriers. Foreign airlines are currently banned from owning stakes in Indian carriers although non-airline investors from abroad can hold as much as 49 percent. — AFP

More Chinese cities seize iPads

NEW YORK: In this file photo, Pringles chips are seen in a posed photo at a grocery store. — AP

With Pringles, Kellogg looks to expand overseas NEW YORK: Kellogg is hoping Pringles will satisfy its craving for a salty snack. The food giant is best known for its lineup of sweet breakfast items, including Frosted Flakes and Eggo frozen waffles.

But on Wednesday, it became the world’s second-biggest savory snack maker behind PepsiCo Inc.’s Frito-Lay with a $2.7 billion deal to buy the potato snack brand from Procter & Gamble. The addition of Pringles bolsters Kellogg Co.’s cupboard of salty snacks such as Cheez-It and Keebler’s Club crackers. It also positions the company to expand at a time when the appetite for onthe-go foods is growing worldwide, particularly in emerging markets like China and India.

“When you have people moving to the cities and becoming urbanized, they’re less likely to eat foods they grow themselves,” said Tom Graves, an analyst for Standard & Poor’s who follows Kellogg. “There’s a bigger opportunity to sell packaged foods.”

Kellogg, which gets most of its revenue from North America, is looking for Pringles to help it expand into a global snacking company. Pringles, known for its iconic tube packaging, is sold in more than 150 countries and gets two-thirds of its $1.5 billion in annual revenue from overseas.

It’s difficult to quantify growth in the global snacking market.

But it’s clear snacking is gaining popularity in the United States as more people adopt the school of thought that it’s better to eat five or six small meals a day, rather than the conventional wisdom of eating three large ones. “That’s creating a lot of hungry people,” said Phil Lempert, editor of Supermarket Guru, which tracks the packaged food industry.

Between 2008 and 2018, the number of “snacking occasions” throughout the day in the U.S. is set to increase by 19 percent, according to market researcher The NPD Group. And in the past year, sales of snack foods rose 3.3 percent to $16.6 billion, according to Nielsen. That’s on top of a 1.8 percent growth the previous year.

Pringles, which coined the popular slogan in the U.S. “Once you pop, you can’t stop,” has also benefited from the snack rush.

Shipments of the brand increased 5 percent in the latest quarter, according to Procter & Gamble. —AP

BEIJING: Authorities have seized iPads from retailers in more Chinese cities in an escalating dispute between Apple Inc. and a struggling local company over the trademark for the popular tablet computer, news reports said yesterday. The Chinese company, Shenzhen Proview Technology, said this week it will ask customs officials to stop imports and exports of iPads, a move that might disrupt global sales because the tablets are manufactured in China. iPads were seized in the central city of Zhengzhou and the eastern port of Qingdao, a website run by newspaper China Business News said. Seizures were reported earlier in the cities of Shijiazhuang and Xuzhou. Proview said it has asked regulators in more than 40 cities to investigate possible trademark violations. Chinese media say Proview is deeply in debt and observers have suggested the company needs a large settlement to repay creditors.

“We’ve appealed to Apple through its agents to have a settlement, but so far we haven’t received any response from them,” said a Proview lawyer, Xie Xianghui.

He declined to say how much Proview wants. An employee of the press office of Zhengzhou’s Administration of Industry and Commerce confirmed some iPads were seized there. “One of our local offices seized iPads from a shop and sealed them off based on the Chinese Trademark Law,

SHANGHAI: In this file photo, a man stands near an advertisement for an Apple iPad. — AFP although we did not carry out a city-wide seizure,” said the employee, who would give only his surname, Jiang. A spokesman for Qingdao’s Administration of Industry and Commerce said he knew of no order to seize iPads but said the agency was monitoring the legal process.

“We’re investigating iPad sales in the city and will move quickly once there is a final legal judgment,” said the spokesman, who would give only his surname, He. A spokesman for Weihai’s commerce agency said he knew of no citywide seizures but

said local offices might be investigating sales or collecting evidence. He refused to give his name. Shenzhen Proview Technology is a subsidiary of LCD screen maker Proview International Holdings Ltd., headquartered in Hong Kong. Proview registered the iPad trademark in China in 2001.

Apple bought rights to the name from a Taiwan company affiliated with Proview but the mainland company says it still owns the name in China. A Chinese court rejected Apple’s claim to the name in China last year. Apple has appealed. —AP

Foreign investment in China falls BEIJING: Foreign direct investment in China fell in January for the third straight month, figures showed Thursday, and a commerce official warned of a tough year ahead due to the European debt crisis. Investment by overseas companies fell 0.3 percent year-on-year to $10.0 billion last month, the commerce ministry said, compared with $12.2 billion in December. “The foreign investment situation this year is relatively grim,” commerce ministry spokesman Shen Danyang told reporters.

He said uncertainties over global economic growth, particularly Europe’s fiscal woes, had dragged on foreign investment in China. Inward investment from Europe fell 42.49 percent from a year earlier to $452 million in January, figures showed. But US investment rose 29.05 percent to $342 million as Walt Disney Co. brought in funds for a theme park currently being built in the commercial hub of Shanghai, Shen said.

He gave no figures, but investment in the Disney park has

been estimated at $3.7 billion. Foreign investment from countries in the Asia-Pacific region-which accounted for the bulk of total investment-rose slightly, edging up 0.77 percent to $8.59 billion. China’s own overseas direct investment in non-financial sectors, meanwhile, reached $4.38 billion in January-up 59.9 percent from a year earlier, Shen said.

He pointed out that growth in foreign direct investment was weak all over the world, but added China’s rising costs and labour strife would have a negative impact on overseas investment in the Asian powerhouse. China has been hit by a series of strikes at foreign and domestic firms since November last year, as workers protest over low salaries, wage cuts and poor conditions amid cutbacks due to the global economic slowdown. A survey published Wednesday also showed that US companies in China said they were growing less optimistic about their operations, as rising costs and violations of intellectual property rights hurt their businesses. —AFP

Business FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Top bargainers eye payroll tax cut deal Bill to assure tax cut for 160m workers

CAMBY: In this photo, a workman welds a stainless steel tank at JV Northwest. — AP

Manufacturers providing outsize boost to economy WASHINGTON: American factories are humming - and driving the economy forward. Manufacturers have been hiring more consistently than other employers, for jobs with better-thanaverage pay. They just had their best month of growth in five years. And more factory output has raised demand in some other industries, such as shipping, leading to further hiring. “The manufacturing sector is on a tear,” said Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics.

It’s an optimistic theme that serves President Barack Obama’s political needs. On Wednesday, Obama traveled to Milwaukee to salute a company that brought jobs back to the United States.

The president has promoted the nation’s manufacturing base as an engine of growth and as evidence of a recovering economy.

No one thinks manufacturing will return to its 1950s peak. After all, the factory sector now makes up barely one-tenth of the economy. But since the recession ended more than 21/2 years ago, factories have been contributing disproportionately to the recovery in hiring and the overall economy. A big reason, economists say, is that individuals and businesses are making major purchases they delayed during the Great Recession and its aftermath. Consumers are buying more cars and appliances.

Companies are investing in industrial machinery and computers.

The release of that pent-up demand gives manufacturing a kick that isn’t visible in some other corners of the economy.

Manufacturing was hit particularly hard by the recession.

Consumers postponed purchases of cars, refrigerators and flatscreen TVs, even as they continued to visit doctors, get haircuts and pay utility bills. “Manufacturing has punched above its weight, but that’s because it was punched in the stomach in the recession,” Michael Montgomery, a senior economist at IHS Global Insight, said. Factory output got off to a robust start this year, and it ended last year with the fastest growth in five years, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday. Those were the best backto-back monthly performances since summer 2009, when the recession ended, according to Jonathan Basile, an economist at Credit Suisse. Manufacturing is delivering an outsize benefit to the economy in key ways: JOBS About 9 percent of the nation’s jobs are in manufacturing.

But last year, factories added 13 percent of new jobs. And in January, about one-fifth of the 243,000 net jobs the economy created were in manufacturing. Factory growth has also helped to increase hiring in other industries such as shipping, warehousing, department store sales and auto sales. Railroad operators such as Union Pacific have stepped up hiring as their shipments of cars, machinery and other equipment have climbed.

The hiring has boosted struggling Midwestern states such as Ohio and Michigan, which will likely be battleground states in the presidential election. George Mokrzan, an economist at Columbus, Ohio-based Huntington Bank, said those two states have added a greater percentage of jobs since the recession ended than the nation as a whole. —AP

WASHINGTON: Relieved congressional bargainers say they’ve reached agreement on compromise legislation extending payroll tax cuts and benefits for the long-term unemployed through 2012, edging a white-hot political battle a major step closer to finally being resolved. Rep. David Camp, R-Mich., and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the two top negotiators, strode from a conference room minutes after midnight Thursday to say that only technical issues and the drafting of legislative language remained. The bill would assure a continued tax cut for 160 million workers and jobless benefits for several million others, delivering top election-year priorities for President Barack Obama. “It’s a very good deal for the country,” said Baucus, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee.

There were disconcerting hints that last-minute problems might still crop up.

Neither Baucus nor Camp would predict whether Congress would approve the legislation by Friday, the original goal.

And aides did not distribute summaries of the bill to reporters, which is usually routine when major accords are reached.

Even so, Baucus and Camp - and a handful of other lawmakers who helped craft the package - expressed confidence that their work on the roughly $150 billion measure was virtually complete. “We’re moving forward,” said Camp, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee.

The temporary payroll tax cut and extra unemployment coverage initially ran into GOP resistance, some of which lingers.

But Republicans have largely concluded that it would be politically damaging to oppose the package, particularly in this presidential and congressional election year. That contrasted with December, when House Republicans refused to back a bipartisan Senate bill providing a twomonth extension of the tax cuts and jobless benefits while bargainers completed a yearlong deal - only to retreat under barrages of criticism from Republicans and conservatives around the country.

Underscoring that they had learned the consequences of seeming to block a mid-

NEW YORK: In this photo, trader Jeffrey Vazquez (left) works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. — AP dle-class tax cut, House Republicans removed the major hurdle to the legislation earlier this week when they agreed that the payroll tax cut - comprising about two-thirds of the measure’s cost - would not have to be paid for with spending cuts.

The bargainers spent Wednesday trying to extinguish last-minute brushfires as some members of Congress sought changes in a tentative agreement that aides had described Tuesday. Chief among the late disputes was a proposal to save around $15 billion - about half the $30 billion cost of the bill’s extended jobless benefits - by requiring federal workers to contribute an additional 1.5 percent

of their pay to their pensions. Democrats, including Sen. Ben Cardin and others from Maryland, home to many government employees, resisted that plan, holding up a final handshake among congressional bargainers. The provision was ultimately changed to target the boost only at newly hired federal workers, requiring them to contribute 2.3 percent of their salaries toward defined benefit pensions.

There was little controversy over the main thrust of the bill. A 2-percentagepoint cut in the 6.2 percent Social Security payroll tax, which is deducted from workers’ paychecks, would run through 2012.

For a family earning $50,000 a year, the cut saves them $1,000 annually. —AP

MSN adds feature to take Internet’s pulse SAN FRANCISCO: Microsoft is hooking up MSN.com with a hipper sidekick to broaden its appeal and stay on top of the Internet’s hottest topics. The trend-tracking service, called “msnNOW,” tunes into the buzz by sifting through millions of Internet searches and links circulating among the hordes on Facebook and Twitter. The chatter is then distilled into the equivalent of a digital water cooler - a place where people can go to keep in touch without taking up a lot of their time. After months of development, the new feature debuted yesterday at http://now.msn.com. The service is primarily aimed at university-age teenagers and young adults who are increasingly relying on smartphones and other mobile devices to remain plugged into what everyone is talking about from one hour to the next. It’s an “informationsnacking” addiction that msnNOW is looking to feed with a smorgasbord of morsels served up a team of about 20 edi-

tors who will write 100 word summaries of the stories driving online conversations, said Bob Visse, MSN’s general manager. Although it’s tailor made for people on the go, msnNOW isn’t offering an app for smartphones or computer tablets. It can be reached on all mobile Web browsers. The service also includes tools to make it easy to share on Facebook, Twitter and email.

Taking the Internet’s pulse isn’t new. The main page on Yahoo Inc.’s website has highlighted the top trends for years and Internet search leader Google Inc. calls out the top queries each day. Twitter regularly updates its rankings of the most-tweeted topics. But MSN believes its new service will prove to be even more effective because it is drawing upon Microsoft Corp.’s expertise in data management and relying on human editors to ensure the real-time site is more compelling than a list of words and links. —AP

Business FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

China on the horns of a dilemma C

How to sustain economic miracle

hina’s government, which has overseen enviable economic growth for the past three decades by pushing huge volumes of exports, is searching for ways to get its own people to buy more things in hopes that will help sustain its economic miracle.

Whether it can pull off this slow but seismic shift is an open question, however, one that carries important implications not only for China but for the United States as well.

Multinational companies have long looked at China’s burgeoning middle class — the size of which now exceeds the entire US population — as the dream consumer market. Some are doing quite well. General Motors sold more than 2.35 million vehicles in China last year, exceeding its sales in the United States by more than 130,000.

When Apple introduced its iPhone 4S here last month, hundreds camped outside its stores in Shanghai and other cities and a mini-riot broke out in Beijing when the company said it was too dangerous to open its store there due to the crowds.

“We welcome China’s continued economic growth, because a prosperous China is good for the US economy,” Richard Buangan, a spokesman for the US Embassy in Beijing, said last month while announcing a huge increase in Chinese visa applications to the United States.

“It creates American jobs, and it fuels worldwide economic growth.”

The stakes are also high for China. “This is hugely important,” said Shaun Rein, the managing director of China Market Research Group in Shanghai. “If it gets this wrong, the economy is going to stall. It’s a paradigm shift that everyone here recognizes needs to be done. If Europe’s economy collapses and exports (from China) get hit real hard, what’s going to happen to all the unemployed workers in China? The government wants to minimize the social instability risk that could happen.”

Trying to persuade Chinese to spend more to keep the economic dynamo going is an internal issue that faces deeply engrained cultural obstacles.

For one, the Chinese people are notorious savers. Lacking the social safety net that’s taken for granted in the West, they save for their children’s education, for medical expenses, for retirement and to buy homes. It’s an ingrained part of the culture that won’t be easy to change, despite the occasional headlines over shopping mania.

“You have to spend what you need to, but I don’t like to spend too much,” said Lin Juwen, who moved to Shanghai in November from the southern metropolis of Guangzhou. When she was asked whether she’d spend more or save if given a raise from her current 3,200-yuan-amonth salary (slightly more than $500), Lin shrugged and said, “I would save it.”

What can the government do to impel consumers to spend in a nation of savers? “The government should transfer more money to households to make sure they have enough to spend,” said Zhou Hao, an economist at ANZ Bank in Shanghai. “Make it more fair and transparent.

We need a system to make sure people have more long-term funding. We need to improve the public welfare system and the public housing system. The government is trying to do these things but is very far from achieving success.”

Rein, whose book “The End of Cheap China,” comes out in March, says the government needs to improve access to health care, continue to hike the minimum wage — which it did in 22 of

China’s provinces last year — and lower import tariffs so that products aren’t so expensive.

“China is no longer a cheap place to do business,” he said. “You cannot rely on the export sector at all. China has to see a shift anyway to

sumers is borne out by some of the recent numbers. Retail sales, along with incomes, have been rising at a fast clip for years. According to China’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, consumer spending rose 17.1 percent last year.

The Chinese people are notorious savers.

Lacking the social safety net that’s taken for granted in the West, they save for their children’s education, for medical expenses, for retirement and to buy homes. It’s an ingrained part of the culture that won’t be easy to change, despite the occasional headlines over shopping mania.

panies’ growth but also to the rising incomes of the companies’ leaders.

At the national level, the central government pledged last week to hike the minimum wage an average of 13 percent annually during the next five years. The goal is to have those at the bottom earning 40 percent of the local average salary by 2015. China’s minimum wage varies by city and province, ranging from 870 yuan a month (about $140) in Chongqing to 1,500 ($240) in Shenzhen. In Shanghai, it’s 1,280 yuan (about $203) a month, but it’s scheduled to rise April 1.

Despite the savings culture, the government is counting on those who earn more to spend more, people such as Zhu Xiao Gang. Zhu, 30, who was questioned while he shopped Sunday in a major Shanghai electronics store, said he saved part of his 4,500-yuan-a-month salary (about $715) from working for a telecom company, but probably would spend whatever he got in his next raise.

SHANGHAI: Shoppers look at the selection at the Gap store on Nanjing East Raod in Shanghai. — MCT service and higher-end manufacturing,” jobs with higher salaries. “Right now, manufacturing is killing the country. Pollution is high. They need a healthier economy and environment.”

Andrew Rothman, a China macroeconomic strategist with CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets in Shanghai, said the economy was in the midst of change and argued that it’s already largely consumer-driven.

“Forget about the fact that household consumption accounts for a small share of China’s GDP,” he wrote last month in his economic forecast for this year. “Driven by more than a decade of double-digit income growth and low household debt, China will this year continue to be the world’s best consumption story, for everything from instant noodles to luxury cars.”

He forecasts that the government this year “will continue to ramp up spending on education, health care, social (low-income) housing and the environment.”

Rothman’s contention about Chinese con-

And while China’s trade surged anew, up 22.5 percent from 2010 to $3.64 trillion, its trade surplus narrowed to $155 billion, down 14.5 percent, as imports accelerated faster than exports.

China still enjoyed a gargantuan $272.3 billion trade surplus with the United States, however.

China already is the second-largest purchaser of luxury products in the world, with its expanding class of millionaires. Now national and regional governments are trying to find ways to bolster the standard of living for middle- and lower-income Chinese, as well, in part to free up income to spend on consumer items.

Shanghai, mainland China’s biggest and wealthiest metropolis, has taken several steps in recent weeks aimed at bolstering the spending power of its 23 million people. They include making more people eligible for subsidized housing, raising the minimum wage, increasing public pensions by 15 percent on average for 3.1 million people and tying the wages of workers for state-owned companies not just to the com-

“I want to buy some more expensive products,” he said. “So I will probably save more just to buy the things I want later.”

In addition to pay raises, a big key to improving Chinese people’s incomes is simply the continuing migration to the cities for jobs. It began by design, with China’s initial moves into capitalism in the early 1980s, when millions began flocking to Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Dongguan as factories ramped up production of toys, sewing machines and clothing to sell to the world. The migration continues as the government encourages employment in the cities, where the pay is much higher. In its current fiveyear plan, the government is offering tax breaks and other financial support to urban enterprises, especially small- and medium-size ones, to spur more jobs and drive up incomes. China passed a milestone last month when it was announced that urban dwellers outnumber their country cousins for the first time, by 51 percent to 49 percent. — MCT

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FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

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www.kuwaittimes.net

US actress and model Ashley Hinshaw poses during a photocall for the film "Cherry" presented at the International Film Festival Berlinale yesterday in Berlin. The 62nd Berlinale, the first major European film festival of the year, kicked off on February 9, 2012, with 23 productions screening in the main showcase. Eighteen pictures will vie for the Golden Bear top prize at the event running to February 19. — AFP

Te c h n o l o g y FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Golfing with worms

Exploding sheep, thieving moles part of new computer game

PC players will have a choice this month between their old favorites and a host of new heroes as they decide whether to embark on an action adventure, a strategy game or a round of golf involving exploding sheep. Lovers of tactical missions can look forward to Renegade X: Black Dawn or Jagged Alliance: Back in Action, while serious adventurers can focus on the Lost Chronicles of Zerzura, set during the Inquisition. Or, if you like your games sporty with a little silliness, wait for the return of the world’s strangest worms in Worms Crazy Golf.

In Deponia, from Daedelic Entertainment, players are taken to unknown planets in a faraway galaxy. Done in comic style, it focuses on Rufus, who lives in a garbage dump. Always ill-tempered, he dreams of a better life in a city above the clouds. His life is thrown upside down when he meets Goal, who comes from that city and mistakenly lands in the dump. Deponia’s developers have promised a game with unexpected twists and turns, during which players have to solve multiple puzzles. The game’s numerous unique characters are all hand-drawn. Recommended for players aged 6 and up, it sells for about 29 euros (38 dollars).

Also with a fair share of humor, Worms Crazy Golf from Rondomedia sees the crazy worms returning. However, this time, the worms aren’t attacking each other: they’re playing golf. Players have to pick the right swing and can influence the arc of the ball with implements like parachutes.

Exploding sheep and thieving moles add some challenges to the three different courses, each with 18 holes. A multi-

player mode allows several players to attempt the same hole one after another. Worms Crazy Gold costs 15 euros and is recommended for players starting at age 6.

Renegade X: Black Dawn has an unlikely development cycle behind it. Developed by fans as a successor to the shooting game C&C: Renegade, from Totem Arts, it was then released as a modification of Unreal Tournament 3 and is now available as a free download. Many of the familiar elements of the Command & Conquer series can still be recognized, with the battle for Tiberium still central. This time, the player doesn’t lead his troops from a bird’s eye perspective, but steps into the skin of the elite commando Havoc, experiencing Havoc’s perspective as he runs or pilots vehicles through the battlefield.

The fans who developed the game were trying to merge shooter and tactical elements. For now, Renegade X: Black Dawn is only available as a single-player game, though a multi-player version is expected later in the year. It’s available at www.renegade-x.com. Unlike Renegade X, the adventure The Lost Chronicles of Zerzura from dtp Entertainment isn’t set upon a futuristic battlefield, but in 16th century Barcelona.

The puzzle game focuses on two brothers, Ramon and Feodor, and the mysterious oasis city of Zerzura in the Nile Valley. Across 50 scenes, the players meet more than 50 characters during the course of the game, solving puzzles the whole way. The hand-drawn backgrounds help enhance the mood. Adventure fans know the game’s developers from their previous release, Black Mirror III.

Zerzura is recommended for players aged 16 and up. It’s out now and costs about 34 euros.

Distant banana republics, tough mercenaries and tactical shoot-outs - that’s the stuff of Jagged Alliance: Back in Action. From bitComposer Games, the game will hit shelves with its mix of tactics, strategy and action on February 9. Unlike its predecessors, the game is no longer round-based, but runs in real-time. If people want to stop and catch their breath, there’s also a Plan&Go mode that lets players stop the fighting and plan the moves of individual players into the future, laying out complex tactical manoeuvres. Jagged Alliance will appear in standard and special editions and should cost about 42 euros. No age recommendation has been set. — dpa

Relationships FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Testing times for parents Private tutors help preschoolers cram for kindergarten

Jordin Offei, 3, is tutored by Lemi Erinkitola (not seen in picture) in Erinkitola’s Chicago, Illinois home.— MCT

T

o test into some of Chicago’s top schools, incoming kindergarteners must be able to do more than just count to 10 or rattle off the alphabet. They could be asked to identify trapezoids, figure out how many cookies they’d have if Mom put two more on their plate, demonstrate advanced literacy skills, and, for gifted programs, be able to infer relationships, recognize patterns and predict what comes next. You can probably predict what comes next yourself: With 3,337 applications filed for about 500 seats in Chicago Public Schools’ classical and gifted elementary schools’ kindergarten programs this fall, parents are helping their preschoolers cram for the tests.

“It’s just yet another example that the country has gone test crazy,” said Robert Schaeffer, public education director for FairTest, a national non-profit that advocates for other methods of assessing young children. “This sort of insanity testing produces test coaching for little kids and gaming of the system by parents and others to figure out what’s on the test and get their kid a leg up. We’re not letting kids be kids, and we’re making them into little Einsteins.”

But with low-performing neighborhood schools an unattractive option and the cost of some private schools out of reach, many parents see the public schools’ selective enrollment programs as the best public education option in the city. And with kindergarten being an entry year for most of those programs, many parents are hiring private tutors, researching tests used in other large urban school systems, finding age-appropriate questions online, and doing whatever else it takes to get their kids on the right track early.

Top scoring “I was blissfully naive about how this all worked when my older daughter tested for first grade,” said Shannan Bunting.

Even though with no special preparation her daughter made it into Decatur Classical Elementary, a top-scoring school, “we realized we couldn’t do that for our second child and just hope to be lucky,” she said. This year she hired a former Montessori teacher to tutor her preschooler on everything from learning continents to sounding out words.

Such a move would not be unusual in New York, where parents have for years hired tutors and paid upward of $1,000 for “kindercramming” bootcamps for 3- and 4-year-olds, but

Lemi Erinkitola (center) tutors Khamari Brown, 4 (left) at Mother’s Helpers Home Day Care in Chicago. — MCT

in Chicago it’s a new phenomenon. Although a test prep company called SelectivePrep offers courses for 6th graders and up for admissions to top-scoring middle and high school programs, nothing similar exists for kindergarten.

And getting a child in a school for that first year can guarantee a spot in subsequent years, which is increasingly difficult to secure. This year, Chicago has 13,058 applications on file for approximately 1,150 seats in classical and gifted elementary schools. Some of the best schools have found themselves rejecting students who score as high as the 98th percentile on entrance exams. Chicago schools officials don’t encourage prepping children for the tests because it skews the results, says Abigayil Joseph, head of the city’s Office of Academic Enhancement.

Right exposure “We want children to come to the table with their natural ability without having been prepared,” she said. “That’s how we find the best match. We don’t want them to come in and do well because they’ve been prepped but then be in an environment that’s two grades above their level.” But that doesn’t stop parents from trying to do what they consider best for their kids. Some even wonder why Chicago doesn’t follow New York’s example and tell parents which test they use.

“Why is it that there’s so much secrecy about it?” asked Gail Wilson, who hired a tutor to work with her two daughters to prepare for gifted testing. “They tell you (that) you can’t prepare, but you can.” Author Karen Quinn, who parlayed her extensive research and her person experience into a popular book, “Testing for Kindergarten,” agrees with those parents.

“So much of it is exposure to concepts,” said Quinn, who sells a $300 Candyland-themed test-prep game she developed. “If they’re practicing the kinds of questions that are on these kinds of tests, they will be more prepped than a child that goes in cold.” Quinn said her game can help spark the critical thinking parts of the brain and gets children familiar with answering test questions like those used for gifted programs. She also offers daily questions and tips to people who pay $5 a month to access her website, www.testingmom.com.

More than 1,000 Chicago-area parents have joined. Tutor Lemi Erinkitola started a tutoring company for kids as young as 3, preparing children, mostly on the South Side, for CPS’

admissions tests. She said when she went through the process with her own three children, she found few resources.

“I’m just one mother who wanted to do something because there was nothing out there,” Erinkitola said. “I looked outside of Illinois and looked at other gifted programs. They were more transparent in terms of what they wanted kids to be prepared for, and I deduced that Illinois can’t be that different.”

Shaping up On a recent Saturday, Erinkitola played with 3-year-old Jordin Offei, building a small tower with blue, white and red blocks and then asking the toddler to make exactly the same pattern with another set of blocks. She was teaching visual sequencing, the ability to reason and solve problems, using pictures, diagrams and geometric shapes.

She then asked the toddler to pick out whether a peach or a green pepper would fit into a group of plastic fruits. She was teaching the child how to classify objects or determine the relationship between things. Offei, who has not started preschool, still has two years before she takes the admissions test, but already her mother has noticed growth.

“She can spell both her first name and last name, she can tell the difference between different shapes,” said Jennifer Wright, 27, of Auburn, Ill. “She can pick up a book and she’ll tell you what’s happening on the page, sometimes she can even recognize the word.” As for Bunting, her preschooler took the test in November, rather than wait closer to the end of the testing period, on Feb 27. CPS officials had said it didn’t matter whether 4-year-olds tested in the fall or now because their ages on test day are taken into consideration. But Bunting’s younger daughter came out of the testing room just after 10 minutes and declared, “So, I don’t think I got any of those right.” “I’m worried,” said Bunting. “(CPS officials) had said there was no advantage to waiting, but she might have had a slightly more serious approach to the test. But there’s nothing I can do about it now. The ship has sailed.” — MCT

Food FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Everyday cooking

•

• 2 large bananas 2 handfuls red, seedless grapes 1 cup ice 1/4 cup milk

• •

P

lace the bananas and grapes into a blender and mix until it is a “smooth” liquid. Add the ice and blend until crushed. Add milk, mix until smooth and pour into a hurricane glass. Serve.

•

• •

• • • • •

There are more than 60 species and 8000 varieties of grapes all over the world. Some common varieties of grapes are blue, black, green, red, golden, blue-black, white and purple.

The main two types of grapes are European and American. They come in seedless and seeded varieties.

American grapes are available in September and October, while European grapes are available round the year.

The Thompson Seedless is the best selling grape in the USA. Golden raisins are prepared from these types of grapes.

The production of grapes is more than 72 million tons all over the world. There are approximately 25 million acres of grapes throughout the world.

It takes about 2 1/2 pounds of grapes to produce a bottle of wine.

Grapes consist of about 80% of water, which make them a low-calorie snack or dessert.

Raisins or dried grapes consist of about 15% of water.

Grapes contain flavonoids that give vibrant purple color to grapes, red wine and grape juice.

One grape cluster has on an average 75 grapes.

One grape vine can grow up to 50 feet long and can have about 40 clusters of grapes.

Eating too many grapes can give a laxative effect.

Fresh grapes can be stored in the refrigerator for about 2-3 days, when kept in a plastic bag or a covered container.

Health benefits of grapes With a great nutritional value, grapes are known for offering a number of health benefits. Grapes can be used to cure various health problems such

as asthma, heart diseases, constipation, indigestion, migraine, kidney diseases, Alzheimer’s disease and fatigue. Grapes increase the levels of nitric acid in the blood and prevent the development of blood clots. It minimizes the risk of heart attacks. Grapes play an important role in curing dyspepsia. Grape juice replenishes iron content of the body and prevents fatigue. According to the latest study, purplecolored Concord grape juice is effective in preventing the breast cancer. Grapes also can prevent muscular degeneration and cataract, associated with aging. Grapes consist of a compound namely pterostilbene, which can reduce the levels of cholesterol. Grapes also have anticancer properties and antibacterial activity.

— www.buzzle.com

Food FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

1/4 cup all-purpose flour 4 chicken breast cutlets, trimmed (about 1 pound) 1 teaspoon kosher salt 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper 5 teaspoons canola oil, divided 1 cup thinly sliced shallots 2 cups halved seedless green or red grapes 1 cup white wine 1 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

1/2 cup butter , softened 1/4 cup sugar 3 egg yolks 1 teaspoon finely grated fresh lemon rind 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

C

P

lace flour in a shallow dish. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Dredge the chicken in the flour (reserve excess flour). Heat 3 teaspoons oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook the chicken until golden on the first side, 2 to 4 minutes.

Reduce heat to medium, turn the chicken and cook until the other side is golden, 2 to 4 minutes more. Transfer to a plate.

Add the remaining 2 teaspoons oil to the pan and heat over medium heat. Add shallots and cook, stirring, until just starting to brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Add grapes and cook, stirring occasionally, until just starting to brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Sprinkle with 5 teaspoons of the reserved flour; stir to coat. Add wine and broth; bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally and scraping up any browned bits, until the sauce is reduced and thickened, about 8 minutes. Stir in parsley.

Return the chicken to the pan, turning to coat with sauce, and cook until heated through, about 2 minutes. Serve with the sauce.

3 egg whites 1/2 cup sugar 1 1/4 cups sifted flour , sift before measuring 1 1?3; cups green seedless grapes , about 1 lb

ream together the butter and the 1/4 cup sugar. Beat in egg yolks, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in lemon rind and vanilla. 2In another bowl, beat egg whites until they hold soft peaks. Add the 1/2 cup sugar, 2 tablespoonfuls at a time and continue to beat until they hold stiff peaks. 3Stir one fourth of the whites into the yolk mixture and fold in the remaining whites. Sift the sifted flour over the mixture, folding it in gently.

4Transfer the batter to a buttered 8 inch round cake pan. Sprinkle the grapes over the top of the batter. 5Bake at 350 F for 35-40 minutes or until it is lightly browned and pulls away from the sides of the pan. Let the cake cool in the pan on a rack until barely warm.

6 cup prepared fruit 1 box powdered fruit pectin 7 1/2 cup sugar

F

irst, prepare the fruit. Slip skins from about 4 pounds ripe Concord or loose-skinned grapes.

Set aside. Add 1 cup water to pulp. Bring to a boil; cover and simmer 5 minutes. Press through a sieve to remove the seeds. Chop or grind skins; add to pulp. Measure 6 cups into a very large saucepan.

Then make the jam. Add powdered pectin to fruit in saucepan and mix well. Bring to a hard boil over high heat, stirring constantly. At once stir in sugar.

Bring to a full rolling boil and boil hard 1 minutes, stirring constantly.

Remove from heat and skim off foam with metal spoon. Then alternately stir and skim for 5 minutes to cool slightly and to prevent floating fruit. Ladle quickly into glasses. Cover jam at once with 1/8 inch hot paraffin. Makes 6 1/2 pounds of jam, or enough for 13 medium glasses.

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper 1 pound red seedless grapes, halved (about 3 cups) 5 ounces mixed salad greens (about 7 cups) 6 ounces crumbled feta cheese

I

n a large bowl, whisk together oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Add grapes, greens and feta and toss well.

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

www.the99.org

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

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

C h i l d re n FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

figure it

alfa-search

Look at the clues below and fill all the numbers you can into the grid. Then start again and use your answers to help solve the other clues.

Across 2. 121 doubled 4. Minutes in an hour 5. Eight times eleven 7. Number of weeks in a year 8. 1234 re-arranged 10. A dozen 12. Nine times nine

13. Half of 5308 15. 17 down plus sixteen 16. A third of 204 17. 15 down minus 2 down 18. Half of 1388 Down 1. Hours in a day 2. 19 down minus15 across 3. 8524 re-arranged

4. A third of 186 6. Half of 164 7. 18 across minus 172 9. 4 across times three 11. 793 doubled 14. Six times eleven 15. 17 across plus 2 down 17. Three times eighteen 19. Half of 9 down

Can you find the hidden words? Each word ends with the letter C. The words may be horizontal or vertical.

AQUATIC, ATOMIC, ATTIC, BASIC, CLASSIC, CLINIC, COMIC, COSMIC, CRITIC, DISC, EPIC, FABRIC, GARLIC, HEROIC, LOGIC,

LYRIC, MAGIC, MEDIC, MIMIC, MUSIC, MYSTIC, PANIC, PICNIC, RELIC, SONIC, TONIC, TOPIC, TOXIC, TRAGIC, ZINC.

mystery word Can you enter the words correctly into the grid? The letters in the shaded boxes will spell out the name of the mystery word.

5 letters CHINA GHANA INDIA KENYA SPAIN

sudoku

6 letters FRANCE GREECE RUSSIA SWEDEN 7 letters AUSTRIA DENMARK GERMANY NIGERIA 8 letters PAKISTAN PORTUGAL 9 letters SINGAPORE

solution

C h i l d re n FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Snow White And The 7 Dwarfs

O

nce upon a time, there lived a King and a Queen. They had everything except for a child. One fine winter day the Queen sat near the window sewing her husband’s shirt when suddenly she pricked her finger. A drop of blood fell on the snow. “Oh, I wish, I had a daughter with skin as white as snow, hair as black as ebony wood, and lips as red as a rose”, she said. In autumn the Queen’s wish came true as she was blessed with a beautiful daughter. Sadly the Queen died soon after.

The little princess was named Snow White. After few years the king remarried. The new Queen was beautiful but arrogant. She liked to use magic and had a magic mirror. She would ask: “Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” “You Ooh Queen,” hearing this, the Queen would smile with pride.

One day the queen spoke to the mirror as usual but the answer was different this time. “You Queen, are fair, but Snow White is the fairest of them all”. The Queen stamped her foot.

She plotted to kill Snow White and stormed right out of the room. One morning the Queen called the huntsman and ordered him to take Snow White into the forest to kill her and bring back her heart to prove that she was dead.

The huntsman was horrified. He loved the little princess and did not want to kill her. He took her deeper into the forest and spoke to her, “Beware of your stepmother, she wants to kill you”. But I can’t kill you. So run away into the forest.” The huntsman left poor Snow White alone and then killed a small deer and took its heart back to the queen. The Queen was very happy seeing the heart of the dear.

Meanwhile, Snow White ran as far as she could until she came to a cottage hidden deep in the forest. She knocked the door but there was no answer. She then pushed the door and

went inside; the house was very very small. She wondered who could live in such a tiny house. She looked around— everything was so small. She was surprised to find that there was seven of everything: seven dirty cups, seven plates, seven knives, seven forks, seven messy beds and seven chairs.

Quickly, she dusted the house and then had some bread and cheese by now she was very tired, so she went off to sleep.

At night, the masters of the house returned from work, they couldn’t believe their eyes. Their home was clean and spotless, “who could have done this?” they asked. They looked around. Dinner was cooking in the oven and the table was laid. Then they crept into the bedroom. There they saw the beautiful princess. Snow White woke up to find seven dwarfs standing by the bed. “Don’t be scared,” they told her, “How did you find this place? They asked her. Snow White told her story. The dwarfs were horrified. “You must stay here with us,” They said Snow White was very happy and the dwarfs were delighted to look after her. Snow white and the seven dwarfs started living a good life she soon forgot all about the wicked Queen.

On the other hand the Queen was living peacefully and happily but one day she thought to ask the magic mirror again that who is the fairest of all. The magic mirror replied.

“Snow white, who dwells with the seven little men, is as fair as you”. When she heard this, the Queen went pale, for she knew that the huntsman had tricked her. But this time she didn’t want to take any chance. She tried her magic spell and became an old beggar-woman. She went into the forest. And as the seven dwarfs went out for work, she knocked at the door. Snow White opened and saw an old beggar-woman standing on the door step. She was holding a basket full of apples. “Try my apples, they are magic wishing apples: one

bite and your dreams will come true.

Snow White thought about the handsome Prince of her dreams and took the apple. She took one bite and felled down. The old beggar woman turned back into the wicked Queen, “Nothing but a kiss from your true love can save you now,” laughed the Queen. “Good bye!” When the seven dwarfs returned they saw a shadowy figure near the cottage.

They chased her through the forest, towards the mountains.

That figure was of the Queen.

The Queen ran on but she slipped on a ledge and fell down the side of the mountain into a deep hole between the rocks.

She was never seen again. The dwarfs came back to the cottage. They tried everything to wake Snow White but it was of no use. They would have buried her but then she looked as if she was alive. So they made a coffin of crystal glass and laid her in the coffin. For a long time Snow White lay in the coffin looking as if she was asleep she was still as white as snow, her hair as black as ebony wood and lips as red as a rose.

One day a handsome prince came riding from a nearby kingdom. He saw then beautiful snow white and fell in love with her. “How beautiful she is!” He said kneeling down to kiss her. It was the kiss of true love- the one thing in the world that could break the spell! Snow white woke up and looked around. She was surprised to see the handsome prince besides her. She realised that this was the prince of her dreams. The prince without waiting much asked Snow White “Will you marry me?” She smiled and said ‘Yes’.

Snow White took the prince to the seven dwarfs and told them everything. The dwarfs were very happy for her. Soon Snow White married the prince and they lived happily forever. (www.shemrock.com)

Books FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

By James Purdon

N

ick Harkaway is a hyphen-novelist. A tragical-comical-historical-pastoral novelist, if you like; or - more precisely in the case of this second book - a fantasy-gangster-espionage-romance novelist. The Gone-Away World, Harkaway’s well-received debut, was a slightly overfilled post-apocalyptic pick-and-mix of genres. Just as blithe in its disregard of verisimilitude and generic constraint, Angelmaker flits between old-fashioned villains in London’s East End and covert action in 1940s south Asia, arranging its whistlestop plot around the modern-day discovery of a weapon of mass destruction in the unlikely form of a skepful of clockwork bees. It’s an ambitious, crowded, restless caper, cleverly told and utterly immune to precis.

The novel’s rather dishevelled hero is Joshua

Joseph Spork, son and reluctant heir of the late Mathew Spork, formerly the dandified king of the London underworld. In search of a quieter life, Joe has left his father’s gangster circles behind to take up his grandfather’s trade, crafting and repairing clocks and automata in a dilapidated warehouse on the Thames. Now, though, Joe has run into the usual dissatisfactions of a single Londoner in his mid-30s, and - through a mixture of genetic predisposition and sheer bad luck - has unwittingly entangled himself in the

quest for an apian superweapon.

Also chasing the secret of the clockwork doomsday machine are the “Ruskinites”, a sort of monastic pre-Raphaelite secret service now in the pay of the evil “Opium Khan” - an all-round pantomime villain known as Shem-Shem Tsien.

And on it goes, beyond summarisation, making Don Quixote look sedentary. The octogenarian lady spy and the secret military prison, the serial killer and the guild of undertakers, the bumptious civil servants and the chairman of the Royal and Ancient..... A stingier novelist could find material here for a decade’s output, but Harkaway is anything but stingy. The miracle is that it all hangs together so well.

Once or twice the wider sweep of the narrative snags on local oddities: among Harkaway’s many enthusiasms is an attachment to the recherche , or just the slightly odd. So he will pause, rather breathlessly, to run through the bluffer’s guide to Cartesian scepticism or the thermodynamics of free will. The word “actinic” which seems to have something important to do with electromagnetic radiation - appears about twice too often, even for a novel as long as this one.

This is, no doubt, a hyperactive bit of storytelling, but despite all the hybridity and genrebending, Angelmaker doesn’t feel gimmicky. On the contrary, it feels agreeably old-fashioned.

There is some well-managed Dickensian plotting, for one thing, including a tense scene in which the discovery of a body is presaged by a mess of misrecognised remains, and which owes a good deal to the discovery of the combusted Mr Krook in Bleak House. (On the other hand, there’s also a throwaway reference to poor old “Miss Haversham”, who seems destined to be abandoned by proof-readers as well as by her fiance.)

What’s more, for all the clockwork and locomotion, the thermodynamics and the Babbage technobabble, Harkaway can’t be said to have hitched his bandwagon to the runaway engine of steampunk. In fact, with its lovingly handmade “Ruskinite” technology, there’s something in Angelmaker that sets it apart from steampunk’s usual fetishisation of industrial Victoriana.

From its frantic oscillation between plausibility and fantasy emerges an odd, unique composite that deserves its own moniker. Arts-and-crafts picaresque, perhaps.

And yet none of this quite does justice to the book. For over and above the clockwork bees, the automaton monks, the mad scientist, the Fu Manchu supervillain and the black-market army, Angelmaker turns out to be a very timely novel about belatedness. Joe, as he himself muses early on, “is the man who arrives too late. Too late for clockwork in its prime, too late to know his grandmother. Too late to be admitted to the secret places, too late to be a gentleman crook...”

And it must be said that this interest in belatedness raises questions which are, for the admiring reviewer at least, a bit awkward. It’s no secret that Harkaway is the son of the novelist John Le Carre. (Indeed, when The Gone-Away World was published, he wrote a very sane and self-deprecating newspaper piece about the difficulties of entering the family business.) Equally, there’s no doubt that he is a very different kind of novelist.

His magpie approach to genre and the unkempt exuberance of the prose build up into something so distinctive that it seems rather tactless to raise the family connection at all.

But here is Angelmaker: a novel about complicated heredities; about the relationship between a famous father and a cerebral, conflicted son; about the mythic past of the heroic rogue and the tedious present of the white-collar crook; about trying to tell a new story in a way that hasn’t been exhausted and worked over by previous generations.

That’s not to say that Harkaway’s novel should be read with one eye on the family tree.

Far from it. But it might help to direct attention to what may be the most interesting thing about Angelmaker, namely how, in the midst of all this boisterous errancy, Harkaway finds a way both to acknowledge the particular circumstances of his own writing, and to reflect on a wider contemporary sense of generational unease. “Story of my life,” Joe thinks towards the end of the book: “Don’t make a fuss. You don’t want to be noticed. Pay on time, work to order, play by the rules. Don’t misbehave. Do as you’re told, and you’ll be all right.

“Except I did, and I’m not.”

Skilled, dependable, law-abiding: despite his background in gangland royalty, Joe is in one sense a 21st-century everyman, indebted to a previous generation, disenfranchised by a conspiratorial state. In the end, for all its old-new, serio-comic hyphenation, Angelmaker turns out to be a solid work of modern fantasy fiction, coupling credit-crunch anxiety with an understandable nostalgia for the mythical days of “good, wholesome, old-fashioned British crime”.

—Guardian

Nick Harkaway’s second novel is a riotous fantasy involving automaton monks, East End villains and a plot to end the world. The real miracle is that it hangs together so brilliantly

Books FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

By John Gray

“W

e’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality judiciously, as you will - we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” Reported in October 2004, this statement from a senior adviser to George W Bush often attributed to Karl Rove, Bush’s deputy chief of staff until his resignation in 2007 - forms the epigraph to Noam Chomsky’s latest collection of articles. Though the context is not explained, the statement was made in the summer of 2002 in an interview with the Pulitzer prize-winning author Ron Suskind, in which the Bush aide mocked the writer and others like him for belonging in “what we call the reality-based community”, a group composed of people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality”.

The date of the statement is of some importance. By the summer of 2002 military action to secure regime change in Iraq had been under active consideration for some time. Those in the administration who were pushing for war did so for a variety of reasons - neoconservatives because they believed regime change would trigger a “democratic revolution” in which an American model of government would be embraced throughout the Middle East, others, such as vicepresident Cheney, being apparently more interested in the country’s rich oil reserves. Whatever their goals, the forces that engineered the war had no doubt that Iraq could be reshaped in pretty much any way they wanted.

Other branches of government had deep reservations. The state department, much of the uniformed military in the Pentagon, sections of the CIA and even - if some reports are to be believed George Bush Snr appear to have been opposed to

the invasion, or at least highly sceptical about its prospects of success. But these voices from the reality-based community were ignored. Less than a year after the aide’s delusional rant, the US was embroiled in its most disastrous military intervention for a generation and one of the most gruesomely pointless wars of modern times.

To his credit, Chomsky opposed the war from the very beginning. His attitude to other critics of the war is more problematic. He has nothing but scorn for those in the American political mainstream who criticised the war on the grounds that it would likely be too risky or costly, or was simply unnecessary. Dismissing Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, Chomsky writes: “The criticism of the Iraq war is on grounds of cost and failure; what are called ‘pragmatic reasons’, a stance that is considered hard-headed, serious, moderate - in the case of Western crimes”. For Chomsky, it seems there can be no place for error or mixed motives in American policies. The war was not a mistake that might have been avoided if its opponents had been better organised and more effective. Invading Iraq was just one more example of American imperialism, an expression of a regime that is quintessentially criminal and evil.

Reading these articles, published between April 2007 and October 2011, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that, for Chomsky, America is virtually the sole obstacle to peace in the world. Crimes committed by other powers are mentioned occasionally, but only in passing. Nowhere does he acknowledge the fact that many regions have intractable conflicts of their own, which will persist whatever the US does.

For Chomsky, conflict in the Middle East is exclusively the work of America and Israel. There is no struggle for hegemony between Saudi Arabia and Iran, or if any such struggle does exist it can be easily resolved so long as the US is ready to alter its policies. Again, unending war in Afghanistan does not reflect that unfortunate country’s internal divisions and its long history as a focal point of geopolitical rivalry, which now includes a stalemate between India and Pakistan in Kashmir. War in Afghanistan could be ended very simply, if only the US withdrew its forces and brokered a grand diplomatic bargain.

Looking further ahead, there is the prospect of antagonism between China and India. But since there is no major conflict that America has not caused, or at any rate seriously aggravated, there is none that America cannot end. It does not occur to Chomsky that the US may not have the ability to perform these miracles. The fact that America has not brought peace throughout the world only confirms its position as a uniquely powerful force for evil.

Chomsky cites Godfrey Hodgson’s book The Myth of American Exceptionalism, where the former Washington correspondent concludes that the US is “just one great, but imperfect, country among others”. But Chomsky shows no sign of having digested this wise judgment. “It is an article of faith, almost a part of the national creed,” he writes, “that the United States is righteously unlike other great powers, past and present.” So it is, but in this as in other ways, America is no different from other countries. In their short-lived imperial heyday, Britain, France, Spain and Portugal viewed themselves in much the same way. All great powers see themselves as exceptional until history proves otherwise.

The picture Chomsky presents of the US is, in effect, a negative version of exceptionalism. For him as much as for the neocons, America is the centre of the world. Chomsky views global politics

through the same Manichean lens: you are either for America or against it. The fact that much of humankind has aspirations that have nothing to do with America is not even considered. AntiAmericanism is fading along with American power, but Chomsky hasn’t noticed. Bemusement at the rancorous divisions of American politics and schadenfreude at the humbling of America’s muchtouted model of capitalism are the most common reactions to the US today. Among increasing numbers of people the main response seems to be a lack of interest. The world has moved on from the time when the US could be described as the “last remaining hyper-power”. Though it still has an awesome military capability, America’s capacity to impose its will in any enduring fashion has been diminished irreversibly. A condition of perpetual warfare has left the US more or less bankrupt, a state of affairs that can be sustained only as long as China chooses to fund the federal debt. Stagnant for a generation, the standard of living of the majority is falling and the country’s infrastructure rotting away. Increasingly the US resembles Latin America some decades ago. The predominant response has been denial, with the Republican party degenerating into a squabbling apocalyptic cult and Obama’s principal weakness seeming to be his palpable sanity. The best that can be hoped for is that voters do not opt for a kind of elective psychosis.—Guardian

In demonising America, Chomsky has fallen into the same trap as the neocons

Beauty FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

How to get rid of dark circles under your eyes naturally Under-eye circles create the illusion of being tired with both men and women, and it’s widely believed that discoloration under or around the eye causes people to appear older than just wrinkles or grey hair alone.

F

ortunately, there are a variety of ways to treat discolored eye areas to minimize the effects of dark circles, which we’ll cover below.

But first, let’s discuss what causes dark circles under your eyes and then we will check 2 home remedies for dark circles.

What causes dark circles Before deciding on a method for treating your dark circles, it’s best to uncover the reasons why your skin is discolored around the eyes. Darkened skin under or around your eyes can occur for a number of reasons including illness, lack of sleep, allergies, and also your genetics.

Dark circles are similar to varicose veins in that both dark circles and varicose veins are said to be hereditary traits. The discoloration occurs when your blood flows through the large veins close to the surface of the skin. If your skin is transparent, the discoloration is more noticeable and your circles are darker.

Allergies If you begin touching your eyes more frequently due to less sleep, you could be causing dark circles around your eyes just by rubbing them.

Irritated eyes or nasal congestion will often be caused by a lack of sleep, allergies from pets or pollen, and dust.

All of these things are concerns when dealing with dark under-eye areas, but can be remedied easily.

To clear up dark circles caused by allergies, you’ll need to treat your aller-

gies by consulting a doctor, as well as eliminating the allergens from your home.

Allergies that are seasonal such as hay fever are sometimes treatable with over-the-counter medications.

Food or chemical allergies Food allergies are also known for causing dark circles around eyes; however, not everyone is aware they have these allergies. To find out if you have a food or chemical sensitivity, talk to a dermatologist or family physician so you can get some proper testing and diagnosis. In some cases, a simple multi-vitamin can be the solution for your dark under-eye circles. Also note that gluten sensitivity can lead to discoloration around the eyes, but this problem is easily fixed by eliminating gluten from your diet.

Dehydration Dehydration is caused when the amount of water that’s leaving the body is greater than the water being taken in. The effects of being dehydrated appear as dark circles around the eyes, thirst, dark colored urine, and a loss of appetite. The best and easiest solution is to drink more water on a daily basis. Drinking water is great for avoiding dark discoloration around the eyes, and maintaining good overall health. But if you drink too much water, you can retain a lot of it, and when your body retains water, you

may become bloated or swollen as a result.

A simple way to drink enough water, without drinking too much, is to have a glass with each meal, or beforehand.

Aging As we get older, our skin becomes less elastic, and the collagen production slows down. Your skin will be less supple and thinner, which causes the skin around your eyes to appear discolored. With this being the case, try using a dark circle eye cream every day to replenish your skin by providing it with the moisture that it’s lost over the years.

Sleep You’ve heard this before probably a thousand times or more, but here it is again: sleep is a must for healthy skin!

It’s also well known that the skin is the body’s largest organ, and it comes with self-healing properties. This ability enables skin to replenish the areas that are lacking in fluids crucial for healthylooking skin. Moving back to sleep deprivation, the lack of sleep is sometimes due to stress, insomnia, and/or depression. You might be noticing more dark circles around your eyes after late nights out, or early morning errands, so be sure to get no less than 6 hours of sleep each night - although 8 hours is ideal.

Diet Your body will reflect what you are

eating and drinking, so it’s important to eat healthy foods. The first thing that comes to mind when people mention a healthy diet is fruit and vegetables, but you’ll need more than that to nix those under-eye bags. As previously mentioned, drinking water regularly will ensure healthy skin, and eating healthy proteins like fish, eggs, and poultry will also aid in the disappearance of dark circles. Consuming a lot of alcoholic/caffeinated drinks, smoking cigarettes, and not getting enough exercise are also reasons why dark circles appear. For a bonus feel-good trick, take salt out of your diet because it can cause bloating, fatigue, dehydration, and can make your face swell.

Sun Exposure Spending too much time in the sun without protection can lead to discoloration around or under your eyes. The reason why sun exposure causes discoloration is due to the increase in melanin production in the skin. So always use sunblock and moisturizers with SPF no lower than 15 on your face.

If you’re worried about having a face much lighter than your body’s skin tone, use a sunless tanning lotion for the face to even-out your skin tones.

Hereditary Dark circles under your eyes are also caused by simple genetics. You may have family members with the same issues because dark circles are said to be hereditary. This doesn’t mean you can’t do anything to correct the discoloration; it may, however, be a little difficult to rid

yourself of the problem. Your best option would be to use concealer under your eyes to combat the dark areas.

Home Remedies for Dark Circles Try these natural remedies for under-eye discoloration. lCucumbers Cucumbers are great for reducing tired and puffy eyes, and this treatment can be done daily. Slice the cucumbers up, and lay one slice on each eye, then lay down for 10 or 15 minutes with your eyes closed. Keep the rest of the cucumber in the fridge so you can continue to use it until it’s gone. lTeabags Tannin, which is found in teabags, will lower the swelling and discoloration around the eyes. First you’ll need to place two teabags in the fridge overnight to chill them; in the morning, get them damp, and then lie down with the slices on your eyes. Keep your eyes closed and body still for 10 or 15 minutes each day - you’ll see results immediately. If you don’t have teabags, use an ice cube wrapped in a cloth.

Never put ice directly onto the skin around your eye because it can cause blood vessels to burst, which causes more dark circles and discoloration.

Dark circles are a common problem, but as you see there are ways to get rid of dark circles under your eyes naturally. (www.beauty-tips.net)

Beauty FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

How to getbeautiful nails

H

ands fail to fabricate protective coats, because there is not enough suet glands. Additionally lipids are washed out by frequent plunging palms in hard water (hot water and detergents). That is why it is obliged to bet for housework protective gloves, latex or rubber (if you are sensitized on latex). The hardest time for palms is winter. Frosty air additionally extracts water from them, alike warmed air acts in air-conditioned accommodation. During summer, UV rays are imminent, but it is possible to prevent their destroying acting, by applying reams with filters. Distribute portion of cosmetics on palms after each washing them with delicate, glycerine soap.

Day hand cream Cream for hands always should be in coverage of hand, on night case, in drawer of desk in work, in vanity case. It coats palms filter precluding from drying, and implements deficiency of lipids. Cosmetics assigned for summer can be lighted. On winter it should be more thick, more nutritious, have more oiling components: like glycerine, vaseline, sunflower oil, paraffin, ceramids or silicon. It is good, if it also has substances delaying aging of skin, preventing appearing dark spots on skin like vitamins E, A and C. Including keratin creams will also intensify nails.

Regenerate skin on hands and nails Regenerate blasted, pulled off and cracked skin. At home you can treat in heated up oil form olives palms bath, or from other vegetable oil like for e.g. from almonds, grape stones. It is proper to oil hands with thick coat of cream for night and put on warming cotton gloves. Cosmetics acts more intensively in higher temperature. Occasionally you can substitute ordinary cream for hands with facial moisturizing mask - it will even more forcefully regenerate your palm skin. Specialistic procedures form of skin improving and removing tiring of hands is executed in cosmetic cabinets.

It requires a lot of patience to weak nails for form. Any cosmetic confection and supplements of diets (vitamin, minerals) help with limited range and shows first effects after several weeks of application. However, it is proper to reach for it in order to intensify a bit nail plate. If nails divides or has unpretty form, it will suffice beautician assistance. If problem is more serious, you need to take advice of physician. You can see on your nails alarm signals, which your organism sends. Pale nails can mean deficiency of iron, blue - disturbance of heart work, yellow - liver. Concave can suggest propensity for rheumatism or diabetes, but with ditches feed wire problems. However the most disturbing ones are those white spots, that appear as a result of deficiency of creatine or excess of urea or as a result of some kind of injury.

Without injury manicure On matrix of nail, alive part “producing� nail plate you can notice any damages. Such injuries happen a lot, often it emerges during practice of manicure. Any manipulations at white part of nail plate, at its base are dangerous. It is a place where alive nail proceeds to dead creature. In order to make this taking care of your nail safe, you need to learn how to make so called biological manicure. At first you need to water your nails with delicate liquid for bath (melted soap withers skin). Dry your hands oil skin around nail plate with softening liquid. After a while push them away with special wooden sticks. Don’t erase skin with pincers, because they are the biggest threat for matrix of nail. Next thing you should do is to transmit either square or almond form for your nails, using paper file covered with mineral dust (metal ones are hitching edges of nails too much). Once a month you can polish your nail plates, more often ones can make some serious damages to your nail plates, like making them too thin and too soft. Later on you can apply nutrient or enamel. For fragile nails it is better to choose those with best hardening means - nylon, titan, acrylic, lycra. Remember, that washer with acetone can also weaken your nails. It is better for you to choose confection without acetone with oily substances and vitamins.

Beautiful nails Fragile, weak nails protect with coat of nutrient with calcium, iron or vitamins. Although only few substances penetrates by dead plate, it is possible to have hope, that at least part of it will be built in to nail, hardening him gradually. Fast moisturizing SOS is a warm bath prepared from oil sauce and from lemon juice (proportion 3:1). Also helpful is to include for diet calcium - mineral and vitamins confections, biotone especially. (www.beauty-tips.net)

hands and

Health FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Everything you need to know about your heart rate What is heart rate?

Very simply, your heart rate is the number of times your heart beats per minute. You can measure your heart rate by feeling your pulse - the rhythmic expansion and contraction (or throbbing) of an artery as blood is forced through it by the regular contractions of the heart. It is a measure of how hard your heart is working. Your pulse can be felt at the wrist, neck, groin or top of the foot - areas where the artery is close to the skin. Most commonly, people measure their pulse in their wrist. This is called the radial pulse.

How to measure your pulse Taking your pulse is easy. It requires no special equipment, however, a watch with a second hand or digital second counter is very helpful.

• Turn the palm side of your hand facing up.

• Place your index and middle fingers of your opposite hand on your wrist, approximately 1 inch below the base of your hand.

• Press your fingers down in the grove between your middle tendons and your outside bone. You should feel a throbbing your pulse.

• Count the number of beats for 10 seconds, then multiply this number by 6. This will give you your heat rate for a minute.

Example: If you count 12 beats in the span of 10 seconds, multiply 12 X 6 = 72.

This means your Heart Rate or pulse, is 72 (or 72 beats per minute).

Another popular way to measure pulse rate is by measuring it at the neck (carotid pulse). This is especially convenient during exercise. The formula is the same as above, however, when taking the pulse at the neck, place your fingertips gently on one side of your neck, below your jawbone and halfway between your main neck muscles and windpipe. Taking your pulse upon rising in the morning, or after sitting without activity for about 10 minutes, is known as your Resting Heart Rate.

What is a normal heart rate?

A Resting Heart Rate anywhere in the range of 60 - 90 is considered in the normal range. Your Heart Rate will fluctuate a lot depending on such factors as your activity level and stress level. If however, your pulse is consistently above 90, you should consult with your physician. This condition is called tachycardia (increased heart rate).

Many athletes have pulse rates in the 40 - 60 range, depending on how fit they are. In general, a lower pulse rate is good.

Sometimes however, one’s heart rate can be too low. This is known as bradycardia and can be dangerous, especially when blood pressure gets too low as well. Symptoms include weakness, loss of energy and fainting. If this situation applies, medical attention should be sought immediately.

If the pattern of beats or throbs you count is irregular (i. e. a beat is missed) take your pulse for a full minute. If you experience irregularities in your pulse on a consistent basis, you should consult with your personal physician. Many factors influence heart rate. These include emotions, temperatures, your position or posture (sitting, standing, laying down), and your body size (if you are overweight for your size, your heart will have to work harder to supply energy to your body).

Reducing your heart rate A decrease in resting heart rate is one of the benefits of increased fitness due to exercise. Before starting into any exercise regimen, however, be sure to consult with your personal physician. Your heart is a muscle and will respond just like any skeletal muscle in that it will become stronger through conditioning. If your heart muscles are stronger, then your heart rate will decrease. In other words, your heart will be putting out less effort to pump the same amount of blood.

Target heart rate

When undertaking an exercise program it is important to have a goal and a target range that you are trying to accomplish in each workout. To be of benefit, you want the workout to be neither too hard nor too easy. There is a simple formula to predict your maximum heart rate that is used in the fitness industry: • Take 220 and subtract your age.

• This will give you a predicted maximum heart rate.

• For example, if you are 42 years old, subtract 42 from 220 (220 - 42 = 178). This means that your maximum physiological limit as to how fast your heart should beat is 178 beats per minute.

Most exercise programs suggest that when someone is just getting started that their heart rate during exercise should not exceed 60 - 70% of their maximum heart rate. Therefore, given the example above, 60% of 178 = 107 beats per minute. As you progress in your exercise, the percentage of your maximum heart rate to be set as a goal can be gradually increased.

Calculating a target heart rate zone is often desirable. To do so: • Start with your maximum heart rate as shown above.

• Multiply your maximum heart rate by 0.8 to determine the upper limit of your target heart rate zone (divide this product by 6 to get the rate for a ten-second count).

• Multiply your maximum heart rate by 0.6 to determine the lower limit of your target heart rate zone (divide this product by 6 to get the rate for a ten-second count).

Example: • For a person 42 years old: * 220 - 42 = 178 Maximum Heart Rate * 178 X 0.8 = 142 Upper Limit of Target Heart Zone (142/6 = 24,10 sec. count) • 178 X 0.6 = 107 Lower Limit of Target Heart Zone (107/6 = 18,

10 sec. count) Note: Your maximum heart rate is the most your heart should reach after a strenuous workout.

Your heart rate should be measured during warm-up, halfway into your workout, at the end of your workout and at the end of your cool-down period. If during exercise you exceed your upper limit, decrease the intensity of your workout. Conversely, at the end of your workout if your heart rate is much lower than your target, you need to work harder next time.

Recovery heart rate One way to determine if you are reaping the benefits from exercise is to calculate your Recovery Heart Rate, a measure of how quickly you return to your resting heart rate after a workout.

To calculate your recovery heart rate: Take your pulse ten seconds immediately after you have finished exercising. Write down the number.

One minute later, take your pulse again and write it down.

Subtract the number for the second pulse check from the number for the first pulse check. This number is your Recovery Heart Rate. The greater the number, the better shape you are in!

A final word on exercise programs Exercise programs help to increase the strength of the heart.

Declines will be seen in resting heart rate, and hopefully, blood pressure, and stress levels as well. Overall body changes will also be experienced including weight loss and increase of lean body mass. Remember, however, that it is important to check with your doctor and seek out a qualified exercise physiologist before your get started. An exercise stress test may be advised to help ensure the training parameters that are best for you. (www.nemahealth.org )

Health FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Top 10 iron-rich foods I

ron is an essential mineral used to transport oxygen to all parts of the body. A slight deficiency in iron causes anemia (fatigue/weakness), and a chronic deficiency can lead to organ failure. Conversely, too much iron leads to production of harmful free radicals, and interferes with metabolism, causing damage to organs like the heart and liver. The body is able to regulate uptake of iron, so overdose is rare and usually only occurs when people take supplements. Iron from natural food sources, like the ones listed below, are considered safe and healthy. While iron is better absorbed from heme (meat) sources, non-heme (plant) iron is better regulated causing less damage to the body. The current recommended daily allowance for iron is 18 milligrams (mg). Below is a list of high iron foods.

1: Dried Herbs Long used for medicinal purposes, herbs are packed with nutrients and iron is no exception.Dried Thyme contains the most with 124mg per 100g serving, or 687% of the RDA. That is 3.7mg (21% RDA) of iron per tablespoon of dried Thyme. It is followed by dried Parsley (11% RDA per Tblsp), dried Spearmint (10% RDA per Tblsp), Black Pepper, dried Marjoram, Cumin Seed, dried Dill, dried Oregano, Bay Leaf, dried Coriander, dried Basil, ground Tumeric, ground Savory, Anise Seed, Fenugreek Seed, dried Terragon, dried Chervil, and dried Rosemary (5% RDA per Tblsp).

2: Cocoa Powder and Chocolate Chocolate is showing more and more health benefits and dark chocolate is coming into vogue. In the case of iron it is pure cocoa powder without any cocoa fat, milk, or sugar that provides the most iron with 36mg in a 100g serving, or 200% of the RDA. That is 1.8mg of iron per tablespoon of cocao powder, or 10% of the RDA. Unsweetened baking chocolate provides 17.4mg per 100g (97% RDA), or 23mg (128% RDA) per grated cup. Most sweetened milk chocolates will provide around 2.4mg per 100g (13% RDA), or 1mg (6% RDA) of iron in an average 1.5 ounce bar.

3: Liver Liver is a vitamin rich food, and it is packed with iron. In the early 1900s liver was prescribed as a cure for anemia, and as a supplement for pregnant ladies. Duck liver (Foie Gras) provides the most iron with 30.5mg (170% RDA) per 100g serving, or 13.4mg (75% RDA) per liver. It is followed by pork liver which contains 17.9mg (100% RDA) or 15.2mg (85% RDA) in a 3 oz serving, chicken liver (72% RDA per 100g), turkey liver (67% RDA), lamb liver (57% RDA), and beef liver (36% RDA).

4: Clams, Oysters, and Mussels Shellfish can be eaten raw, baked, steamed, fried, or made into chowder.

Clams provide the most iron with 28mg (155% RDA) per 100g serving, or about 27mg (150% RDA) in 10 small clams.

Oysters provide 12mg (67% RDA) per 100g serving, or 5mg (28% RDA) in 6 medium

East Asia pumpkin and squash seeds contain about 15mg (83% RDA) of iron per 100g serving, 20.7mg (115% RDA) per cup, and 4.2mg (23% RDA) in a 1 ounce serving of about 142 seeds. If you can’t find these in your local supermarket you will surely find them in Middle Eastern or East Asian specialty stores. Alternatively, you can also save any pumpkin and squash seeds you have and dry them yourself. The dried seeds contain more iron than roasted, so try to find dried if possible.

6: Sesame Butter (Tahini) and Seeds Sesame butter, also called Tahini, is a common ingredient in the Mediterranean dish Hummus. Toasted Sesame seeds provide 14.8mg (82% RDA) of iron per 100g serving, or 4.1mg (23% RDA) per ounce.

Sesame Butter provides 8.95mg of iron (50% RDA) per 100 gram serving, or 1.3mg (7% RDA) per Tblsp.

1.9mg (11% RDA) per Tblsp.

8: Sun Dried Tomatoes Sun Dried Tomatoes are delicious in a sandwich or as an ingredient in pasta sauce. 100 grams (about 2 cups) will provide 9.1mg or 51% of the RDA. One cup will provide 4.9mg (27% RDA), and one piece will provide 0.2mg (1% RDA) of iron.

9: Sunflower Seeds Sunflower seeds are the number one source of vitamin E, and a good source of thiamin, and magnesium. Sunflower seeds provide 5.3mg (29% RDA) of iron per 100 gram serving, or 7.4mg (41% RDA) per cup.

10: Dried Apricots Most common as a snack, dried apricots can also be chopped and served in a salad.

A good source of Vitamin A and potassium, apricots provide 6.3mg (35%RDA) of iron per 100g serving (about 20 dried apricots), or 7.5mg (42% RDA) of iron per cup. (www.healthaliciousness.com)

sized oysters. Mussels provide 6.72mg (37% RDA) per 100g, or 5.7mg (32% RDA) in a 3oz serving.

5: Roasted Pumpkin and Squash Seeds A popular food in the Middle East and

7: Caviar (Fish Eggs) Caviar is most often eaten as hors d’oeuvres, garnishes, or spreads, and is more affordable than people think. 100 grams of caviar will provide 11.9mg (66% RDA) of iron, 3.3mg (19% RDA) per ounce,and

Arts FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

T

Designs of the Year 2012 — review

he Comte de Lautreamont, the FrenchUruguayan poet who became a hero to the surrealists, once wrote of the beauty of the “chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella”. It is hard to forget this line when touring the Design Museum’s Designs of the Year show.

Here, too, disparate artefacts are brought together with apparent randomness, leaving you to scrutinise what meaning, if any, lies behind the collection.

Somehow, in a process that describes itself as “the Oscars of the design world”, a panel of “high-profile judges” will have to choose an ultimate winner from this array. All awards have a degree of arbitrariness, which is part of their attraction and their provocation, but the Designs of the Year more than most. Still, it makes for a diverting if wandering exhibition.

Certain themes do emerge. There is an undercurrent of affection for tradition, for things made well, and of real stuff, such as the Oak Inside range of furniture based on 400year-old Dutch designs, and the remaking for women of the traditional men’s coat, the Crombie. There is an edgy stand-off between things digital and things physical, with apps and websites celebrated alongside works that defiantly reassert the value of printing or drawing by hand. As is now usual in this annual show, some of the more impressive pieces of design are not only the official entries but the iPads on which they are exhibited.

Above all there is a desire for “design with a conscience”, a wish to do more than create a slightly more stylish light fitting than the next person or help sell a few more frocks. Design covers everything from the ultra-frivolous to the deadly serious and the current mood favours the latter. It is a safe bet that the Gareth Pugh fashion film will not win, and the tone is set by the promotional graphics for a Dutch conference called What Design Can Do! These graphics are a few steps from applied reality, being only pieces of paper about a discussion about the ways that design might be useful, but they set out an aspiration.

More directly helpful might be such things as the Solar Sinter, a mobile device for making objects out of sand and solar power in deserts; a bicycle storage facility; the ambulance; and Autolib, the public hire scheme in

Paris that enables people to pick up electric cars in the same way the city’s Velib — imitated by London’s Boris bikes ñ does with bicycles. There is also Vivienne Westwood’s Ethical Fashion Africa collection of bags, made of recycled materials, which “provides long-term work to women in marginalised communities” in Nairobi.

the Dreamliner is likely to make more difference to more people than almost anything else on show.

Its quietness could also change the planning of airports in cities; maybe Heathrow could be expanded after all, rather than relocated at colossal financial and environmental expense to the Kent marshes. Then again, the

much in love with the 60s building and there is not much rapport in his designs between the old and the new. The former aspires to soar and fly, albeit in a somewhat pterodactyllike way, whereas Pawson’s architecture grows solidly from the ground. One is playful and surprising, the other too normal. He is proposing to clad walls with oak, which does

awards include another plane, called the Taurus Electro G4. Although this only has four seats, it is electrically powered and uses astonishingly little power; it’s a more radical contribution to aviation than the Dreamliner, but its overall effect is less clear.

Meanwhile, as well as the awards the Design Museum is pursuing the larger project of creating a new £80m home, with three times as much space, inside the former Commonwealth Institute building in Kensington High Street, west London, a grade II-listed building. This is another case of sewing machines and umbrellas, the items in question being the eccentric 1960s modernism of the original building, a pavilion with a somewhat wonky paraboloid roof, and Pawson’s minimalism. One favours odd angles and curves and eclectic materials; the other right angles and straight lines. To add to the Lautreamont mix, the museum is surrounded by three chunky residential towers

by Rem Koolhaas’s practice OMA. At the time of Pawson’s appointment I expressed concern that the Design Museum was not looking hard enough beyond a circle long known to its director, Deyan Sudjic, and its founder, Terence Conran, in its choice either of the architect for its new building or of the subjects for the exhibitions. Pawson is a good architect but the reasons for choosing him for this project did not seem compelling.

Pawson’s recently revealed designs don’t allay that concern (nor, for that matter, does the exhibition on Terence Conran that is running alongside Designs of the Year). They are, as you would expect, thoughtful, with a big stairwell that widens as you ascend to a top deck that is open to the billowing vault of the 1960s structure. The disposition of uses is sane and reasonable, even if the upward journey seems to involve some long traipses around the stairwell’s galleries.

But Pawson does not seem to be very

not seem in keeping with the modernist spirit of the place. In the various private houses that he has designed Pawson typically uses his restrained architecture to frame gorgeous views of the Alentejo, or Yorkshire, or Okinawa, or — in his retail design ñ the no less gorgeous models, products and clientele of Calvin Klein. Here he is framing an upward view of the old ceiling and does not seem as excited to be doing so.

There could be creative tension in the differences between Pawson and the older work but I can’t see it yet. Rather, the original Commonwealth Institute seems to be reduced to the point where the purpose of keeping it at all becomes questionable. The OMA flats had already entailed the removal of administrative buildings that supported the pavilion with the funny roof, and the Design Museum says it is essential to rip out the pavilion’s interior too ñ a dynamic but apparently inefficient affair of decks and flying staircases. Pawson’s design further encroaches and suffocates its spirit a little more.

In Lautreamont’s incongruous image there might be found hidden affinities and tensions between the objects — an umbrella might be seen as a thing resembling bones and skin, which therefore could be found on an operating table and which might be sewn up following dissection. The proposed assemblage in Kensington does not yet have these kinds of poetic resonances.

It could yet do so. Pawson’s palette is austere but none the less capable of deadpan surprises that would liven the place up ñ perhaps an unexpected cantilever or moment of structural daring.

He could allow the playfulness of the older building to enter his style without staining its purity. I hope so; I would greatly like my doubts to be proved wrong. —Guardian

The Design Museum’s annual awards show is absorbing, but doubts persist about plans for its new London HQ This admirable exhibit is only slightly spoiled by the inevitable snap of Dame Vivienne grinning in front of a crowd of Africans: wouldn’t it be nice if, just once, celebrities who aim to support the disadvantaged would modestly put the people they are helping in the centre and themselves at the side?

A question that hovers over much of the exhibition is whether all the inventions on show will really, truly do all the things they hope to do and on a significant scale. Many are untested, and awaiting the investment necessary to have an effect. Projects such as Autolib, which are up and running, therefore stand out.

There is also a case for making the Boeing Dreamliner the winner. Boeing says it is the fastest-selling airliner in history, with more than 800 on order, and thanks to its use of lightweight composite materials it uses 20% less fuel than comparable planes. Boeing also says that noise at take-off is reduced by about 60%; there are more modest benefits, too, such as larger windows and nicer interiors.

It goes against the spirit of these awards to recognise a giant corporation rather than plucky little groups, but given that flying is a huge and highly energy-consuming business,

Arts FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Lucian Freud Portraits — reviewed

By Laura Cumming

L

ucian Freud Portraits is the final act of a prodigious career. Freud was still working on the show until his death at the age of 88 last summer. A whole floor of the National Portrait Gallery has been cleared away for the labors of a lifetime and the experience is grave, mysterious, compelling and inexhaustibly strong right up to the last portrait, where the brushstrokes simply cease mid-sentence.

What was Freud’s true subject all these years? The book of his art seems to be open in this monumental show, beginning with those early portraits that appear almost Flemish in their cold acuity. Here is Freud’s first wife, Kitty, with her wistful fallen rose hanging opposite his self-portrait, hawk-eyed behind the barrier of an outsize thorn.

Here is his second wife, Caroline, limpidly beautiful in 1952: are there any more shining eyes in art? But within two years he

has become an anxious shadow, in the devastating Hotel Bedroom, ousted to the window’s edge by the vast bed in which she lies, eyes now swollen. He looks at us, she looks away: an impasse of guilt and irreversible pain.

Recognizable faces emerge: Freud’s dark-eyed daughters Esther and Bella, his assistant David Dawson, the artist Celia Paul, garments laden with paint (his and hers, in witty reprise).

A pictorial narrative develops through poses ñ the newborn’s fists balled above its head, the grandmother dying in the same position ñ and through the entrances and exits upon the studio stage.

Big Sue arrives from the benefits office, her proud mountain of flesh a source of awe and fascination. The huge Irishman ñ surely one of Freud’s greatest subjects — his face a magnificent scrum of ruck, thrust and knuckle, wills himself into temporary composure in a too-tiny chair. The performance artist Leigh Bowery cocks a leg, monumental and defiant, lending a terrific grandeur to his own forked nakedness as he does to the painting. What is the source of the portrait’s power: sitter or artist? The question irresistibly presents itself from work to work.

Freud the modern master looks at home in the marble grandeur of the National Portrait Gallery; his ostensible genre is supposedly portraiture after all. But with the 60s, and surely with the example of Stanley Spencer’s nudes, on public display at last ñ think of those portraits of Patricia Preece where the brush carries an obsessive charge as it inches his way across her bared body — Freud expands, or defies, the conventions of portraiture.

The naked ape, un-idealized and depicted with extreme concentration on physical essence and fact is generally held to be Freud’s main contribution to 20th-century painting.

Bowery wears his nakedness like a trait, flaunting his tower of flesh, but performance was of course his metier. The enduring question ñ the crux — is what is made of the nakedness of other people.

If you couldn’t tell a Freud by the freight of creamy paint,

you might recognize it from the pose: naked bodies spreadeagled on a bed, sprawled on rags, huddled on a chair, twisted, splayed, genitals slumped or parted at the picture’s apex, heads leaning or lolling, eyes down or averted beneath Freud’s own gaze as he stands over them.

It is sometimes said that the poses were found by the sitters themselves — force of circumstance when offered nothing but a chair, or just the bare floor itself. But Kitty Epstein spoke of being “arranged”, and whatever his sitters did at first is superseded by everything the painter does later.

This show is like the group portrait of a species: lifelong observations of the human animal. The paintings look quite particular close up, which Freud’s dramatic brushwork demands. Here a toenail gleams blue with paint that exactly mimics the enamelled carapace of nail polish. There a scar indents a fleshy cheek with a silvery line. The hair on Dawson’s chest is soft as a rabbit’s scut compared to the rougher fur of the whippet that dozes in his lap.

But in broad terms these life paintings offer a generality: that whatever we are is contained in a bag of skin, that our external being is all flesh. And that flesh is generalized in Freud’s naked paintings. Some bodies are more obviously boneless, others more bruised, but there is a consistency of substance and the palette (as far as I can see) rarely changes: the same livid green and yellow, dust blue and chromium white, the raw red of chafed inner thighs, the sheeny pearl of stretchmarks.

Of course the surfaces differ through time, worked and reworked, cumulatively corrected and revised until even the slenderest and most agile of sitters — including Freud himself — may appear massive, roughed up, the head carrying a huge burden of paint, the ankles thickening with ballast, brought down to earth. But the way Freud puts a body together — flesh strained over joint, muscle pulling this way, then that, colour fused with brushstroke — means one perceives the paint before the person every time. It is a reversal of the usual convention, the brief illusion that the portrait is a person first, however fleetingly, before reverting to a picture. That denial feels most emphatic when the subject is naked.

Looking at these paintings more completely, at full stretch, new aspects strike: rare mirth and pathos, odd spells of boredom, unexpected quickenings of interest, above all a strangeness of vision and scale. That is there in the way Freud paints children as dolls and society hostesses as gigantic made-up masks, less like women than transvestites. It is in the muckle head he gives his newborn baby, bruised as a heavyweight fighter.

It is not to be supposed that Freud did not see this ñ his superb draughtsmanship is the cynosure of precision throughout. It feels in fact as if all these anomalies are evidence of absorbed and protracted staring.

The baby, as the curators subtly note, hung for decades at Chatsworth before anyone discovered the baby was Freud’s; indeed, how could anyone tell? What he felt, what was going on: so much remains undisclosed. Sue lies rucked on the floor,

while a woman knits impassively behind her. One man stands on a bed while the head of another protrudes tortoise-like below: sadistic or fortuitously comic?

Eagle-eyed, wary, blurred in the mirror, piercingly selfmocking: the man in the self-portraits always gives as good as he gets. Did Freud ever paint anyone more brilliantly than he painted himself? It seems from this show that there are more rivals than one thought.

The — clothed — portraits of Jacob Rothschild, Sally Clarke and Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza are superb, especially the latter. There he sits, a shrewd Croesus slumming it among the famous studio rags, struggling to hold a dignified pose, fingers flexed like the clawed feet of the mock throne: a restless magnate entirely out of place and ready to start for the exit.

That final gallery is full of surprises. The Bramham children, both clutching a duck, a real pathos in the little girl with her thick spectacles bewildered by Freud’s scrutiny. His own portrait at 80, such an accretion of nubbed and pelleted impasto you could pick it up by the nose; like late Titian or Cezanne, Freud is still experimenting.

Above all, you feel his curiosity flare before Louisa (unusual-

ly — significantly — named) who is herself palpably resistant.

She holds her own, never quite submitting to the process and the whole painting rises to her level of self-possession, from the matt gleam on the old leather chair to the daylight kissing her tense young face. Louisa was more than a body: there was force of personality to be observed and transformed into something new: the substantial life of painted matter.

Comics

C R O S S W O R D

5 9 1

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

To Yester

Word Sleuth Solution

Yesterday’s Solution

ACROSS

1. In ancient Greek mythology any of 9 daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne.

5. Any organic compound containing the group -CONH2.

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

13. A town in north central Oklahoma.

14. Sole genus of the family Naiadaceae.

15. The syllable naming the sixth (submediant) note of a major or minor scale in solmization.

16. Water chestnut whose spiny fruit has two rather than 4 prongs.

17. Harsh or corrosive in tone.

19. Tall feather palm of northern Brazil with hard-shelled nuts yielding valuable oil and a kind of vegetable ivory.

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

21. Essential oil or perfume obtained from flowers.

22. A white linen liturgical vestment with sleeves.

26. The blood group whose red cells carry both the A and B antigens.

27. Unpleasantly harsh or grating in sound.

31. A logarithmic unit of sound intensity.

36. A quantity of no importance.

38. A condition (mostly in boys) characterized by behavioral and learning disorders.

40. The month following March and preceding May. 41. The sixth month of the civil year.

42. A soft silvery metallic element of the alkali earth group.

43. A port city in southwestern Iran.

46. A woman hired to suckle a child of someone else.

48. A light touch or stroke.

49. English economist noted for his studies of international trade and finance (born in 1907).

53. Yellow-fever mosquitos.

57. American prizefighter who won the world heavyweight championship three times (born in 1942).

58. Of a pale purple color.

62. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake Chad.

63. An interest followed with exaggerated zeal.

64. An isogram connecting points having equal barometric pressure at a given time.

66. A member of the genus Canis (probably descended from the common wolf) that has been domesticated by man since prehistoric times.

67. Used of a single unit or thing.

68. Naked freshwater or marine or parasitic protozoa that form temporary pseudopods for feeding and locomotion.

69. (Irish) Mother of the ancient Irish gods.

DOWN 1. Australian operatic soprano (1861-1931).

2. A member of the Uniat Church.

3. In the Arabian Nights a hero who tells of the fantastic adventures he had in his voyages.

4. The younger brother of Edwy who became king of Northumbria when it renounced Edwy.

5. Squash bugs.

6. A cooler darker spot appearing periodically on the surface of the sun.

7. Being one more than two.

8. Panel forming the lower part of an interior wall when it is finished differently from the rest.

9. A radioactive transuranic element produced by bombarding plutonium with neutrons.

10. (botany) Of or relating to the axil.

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

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

18. The capital and largest city of Yemen.

23. A small pellet fired from an air rifle or BB gun.

24. Electrical conduction through a gas in an applied electric field.

25. A white metallic element that burns with a brilliant light.

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

29. Type genus of the Pipidae.

30. An account describing incidents or events.

32. Having undesirable or negative qualities.

33. The capacitance of a capacitor that has an equal and opposite charge of 1 coulomb on each plate and a voltage difference of 1 volt between the plates.

34. A small cake leavened with yeast.

35. (Babylonian) God of storms and wind.

37. An official prosecutor for a judicial district.

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

44. The cry made by sheep.

45. In bed.

47. Type genus of the Meliaceae.

50. A feeling of strong eagerness (usually in favor of a person or cause).

51. An officer who acts as military assistant to a more senior officer.

52. A very young child (birth to 1 year) who has not yet begun to walk or talk.

54. An informal term for a father.

55. Very dark black.

56. An narrative telling the adventures of a hero or a family.

59. A belief (or system of beliefs) accepted as authoritative by some group or school.

60. A toilet in England.

Yesterday’s Solution

Lifestyle FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

C

Many tourists who go on a ski break do not ski at all. — AFP photos

R

ising with the lark to put in eight hours on the slopes before collapsing in a sweaty heap, ski holidays could often be synonymous with a hard grind-but not anymore. These days a ski break does not have to involve much actual skiing at all. Spas, good food and wine, nature treks and a raft of leisure activities rival for tourists’ attention, say French ski industry experts.

“The state of mind of holiday-makers has changed in 30 years. Nowadays it’s not so much about effort as about enjoyment,” says Laurent Reynaud, general delegate of France’s national ski lift operator. “People used to come here for sport. Now they come for pleasure.” Seven million people-two million of them foreign touristsconverge on France’s dense network of ski villages and purpose-built resorts from December to April each year, the largest number after the United States.

But the average time they spend whizzing up and down the mountain has dropped from six hours a day two decades ago, to just four hours now, Reynaud says. This has changed the rules of the game for ski resorts, which in France had been firmly turned towards intensive sport ever since skiing exploded as a mainstream leisure activity in the 1960s and 1970s. “Tourists just don’t want skiing to be synonymous with a hard slog anymore,” says Isabelle Pochat-Cottilloux, head of the tourism office in Grand-Bornand, a family-friendly resort in the Alps that bills itself as “festive and rejuvenating.”

“People in a same family will be looking for different things,” she says. While dad might want to hit the slopes all day, mum may head to the spa and coffee room, their teenage daughter will go ice skating and her brother will check out a movie before an afternoon’s snowboarding. To respond to shifting demand, Grand-Bornand has built an arts centre, an ice rink with DJ and booming dance music for teens-and an ice climbing wall, since branching out from skiing also means catering to extreme sport lovers.

Plus, two shiny new spas have just opened in

the resort. “There is a real demand. Hotels and apartment blocks with spas and a pool are finding it easier to fill their rooms, even though they cost more,” says Pochat-Cottilloux. In Vallorcine, near the European mountaineering capital Chamonix, the five-star hotel Residence et Spa boasts a Japanese bath, a hammam and saunaand a client base who for the most part do not ski at all. “People come here to recharge their batteries, and for the calm and authentic atmosphere,” says the hotel’s head of public relations Clotilde Hezez.

French ski resorts have also moved their restaurant offer upmarket over the past decade, breaking away from staple mountain fare like raclette and tartiflette-hearty dishes built around melted cheese, potatoes and cured meats. Courchevel, for instance, a resort popular with Russian billionaires, counts seven Michelinstarred eateries-as well as a wine restaurant manned by Enrico Bernardo, one of a handful of winners of the world’s top sommelier award.

Luxury aside, for Pochat-Cottilloux the search for an invigorating mountain experience is a motivation for many. “These days people come to the mountains to get back in touch with nature,” agrees Laure Di Giuliomaria of the tourism office in Serre-Chevalier, another Alpine resort. “They’d rather ski three hours a day, and spend the rest of the time snowshoeing or sledging.” In the same vein, in the resort of Vallorcine, for the past four years, Pascal Berguerand has offered ski joering, a Scandinavian kind of horse-drawn skiing, whose name means “ski driving”. “No need to be a good skier, you just have to let yourself glide,” says Berguerand, adding that it attracts a mix of horse lovers and new sensation-seekers, who are in for a treat since his galloping horses hit about 50 kilometers (30 miles) per hour. — AFP

A couple learn ‘ski joering’, a Scandinavian kind of horse-drawn skiing, at the Vallorcine resort in southeastern France.

anoe and swim races across an extinct volcanic crater, palm tree sledding down a hill, late-night dance and song marathons-on Easter Island, choosing a queen is a tough slog. One of the world’s remotest islands is in the throes of Tapati, an all-out 15day contest between rival teams to crown a new monarch, held under the silent gaze of the island’s rows of giant monolithic stone heads. In a battle that reaches its peak this week, the Polynesian island’s 6,700 people must choose between Lily, 20, and Celine, 15.

And, although it’s a lot of fun, the annual fight for the crown is no laughing matter. “This is a war, and it has already begun,” Celine told AFP at the start of the contest which is driven not just by the rivals’ qualities but also their family connections in a society where nearly everyone is related.

The new queen will reign for a year, and although she has no political power, she will be expected to represent Easter Island in other cultural events in Polynesia or Chile, of which the island is a territory. Preparations for the events take almost a year, during which hundreds of plumed costumes, grass weaves and sea conches are assembled. Teams of competitors must be plied with food and drink as they dance, sing, swim, row and even surf for their royal favourite, with a panel of judges keeping a running point tally to finally declare a winner.

Easter Island-dubbed the “navel of the world”-lies in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, more than five hours’ flight from Tahiti in the west, and Chile’s capital Santiago in the east.

Rapa Nui, as its inhabitants call it, has retained its Polynesian identity and in particular its relationship with the Marquesas archipelago.

Rapa Nui and Spanish are its official languages. Relations with the Chilean government went through a tense stretch last year amid protests for ancestral rights to the land, greater political autonomy and protection of the island’s sparse natural resources.

The island’s remoteness has not discouraged tourists from traveling there, most of them eager to see its 887 famous stone statues, or moai, the main draw of the UNESCO World Heritage Site. Santiago has agreed to limit the numbers of people not born on the island, who now account for nearly 30 percent of the population, a presence that strained Easter Island’s society and ecosystem. The Hanga Roa airport now receives 65,000 travelers a year, about as many as the island can absorb, says Luz Zasso Haoa, mayor of the island’s capital. Many of them come for Tapati, a highlight on the cultural calendar. Word has spread about the colourful cultural event. A dance company from the Marquesas, Kaipeka, whose virile war dances are known throughout the South Pacific, is taking part this year for the first time. Candidates for queen must direct traditional dances with as many as 300 performers on stage. They must also speak the Rapa Nui language, sing, dance, swim and master other arts handed down by their ancestors. Other more modern disciplines, such as the accordion or the tango, also figure in the competition, which usually ends at 2:00 am each night.

During the festival’s traditional triathlon, athletes row canoes made of reeds, run around the spectacular water-filled crater of the Rano Raraku volcano, and then swim across it.

Others race horses-a major mode of transport on the island raising huge dust clouds on the largely barren surface.—AFP

Lifestyle FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

G O S S I P

Houston legacy to continue in final film, song F

or Bishop T.D. Jakes, watching Whitney Houston sing a classic gospel hymn two months ago made him sure the long-struggling singer was poised for a comeback. Instead, her soulful rendition of “His Eye is on the Sparrow” will be the last chance for audiences to see Houston perform new music. Her performance was filmed for a scene in the upcoming movie “Sparkle,” in which Houston stars as the mother of a family of girls who form a singing group and struggle with fame and addiction.

Houston’s death on Saturday in the bathroom of her room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel thwarted any chance for the singer to rebound from years of damage to her voice and reputation caused by drug abuse and erratic behavior. The footage of Houston singing is nowhere near as voluminous as the rehearsal videos left behind by Michael Jackson that were crafted into the film “This Is It.” Yet “Sparkle” represents a similar opportunity for audiences - the chance to see a once-gifted but since-tarnished artist perform one last time. “Above and beyond the film itself, I think all of us have a sense that we have been entrusted with this gift from Whitney to the world,” Jakes said.

Jackson’s film, released four months after his death, earned more than $250 million worldwide; the success of “Sparkle,” scheduled for release on Aug 17, remains to be seen. But Jakes predicted audiences would be moved by Houston’s singing of the “Sparrow” gospel classic and another song recorded for the film. “She delivered it with such conviction that it was a very touching moment in the filming of the movie,” recalled Jakes, a Texas minister who helped produce the film. “She just left such a deep impression on everybody.”

Houston’s performance, filmed in Detroit, brought tears to the eyes of those on the “Sparkle” set, Jakes said.

The film’s executive producer, Howard Rosenman, said the film will show audiences a “Whitney that people have never seen, Whitney that people have never

In a March 28, 1998 file photo Whitney Houston and her husband Bobby Brown arrive for the Versace Fall 1998 fashion show in New York. — AP

Obama stays in hotel where Whitney died

P

resident Barack Obama stayed Wednesday at the Beverly Hills, California, hotel where singer Whitney Houston died, journalists accompanying the president on a West Coast trip said. Obama arrived late Wednesday afternoon at the Beverly Hilton, a luxury hotel located in the western Los Angeles area. He was scheduled to participate in two evening fundraising events in the affluent neighborhood. The funeral tomorrow for pop superstar Whitney Houston will be broadcast live from the New Jersey Baptist church where she grew up singing in a gospel choir, the funeral home owner said Wednesday. ìHer publicist has chosen one person who will be allowed into the sanctuary and who will be streaming (video) to you all,î Carolyn Whigham, whose Newark funeral home is handling preparations for Houstonís service, told AFP. Whigham said that jumbo screens would be set up outside the New Hope Baptist Church, allowing fans of the singer, who died Saturday at the age of 48, to watch the ceremony. Houston was found unconscious in her bathtub on Saturday afternoon at the Beverly Hilton hotel as preparations were under way for the Grammy Awards, the highlight of the music industry calendar. Medics were unable to revive her. —AP

heard.” By the time of her death, Houston was far removed from her defining film role in 1992’s “The Bodyguard,” which not only became a blockbuster, but also broke down cultural barriers and produced an award-winning soundtrack anchored by the singer’s vocals. Posthumous releases are nothing new to modern audiences, who watched Heath Ledger’s Oscar-winning turn as the Joker in “The Dark Knight” in the summer of 2008, months after his accidental overdose death.

A day after Houston’s death, Amy Winehouse’s parents accepted a Grammy Award for her duet with Tony Bennett, “Body and Soul,” which appeared on the crooner’s best-selling album “Duets II.” The cache of rehearsal footage for his comeback concerts that Jackson left behind when he died in June 2009 helped his estate dig out of debt and showed the world the first images of Jackson performing that it had seen in years. Concert promoter AEG Live released 30-seconds of footage a week after the singer’s death and the hundreds of hours of video were crafted into “This Is It,” which not only demonstrated the King of Pop’s showmanship, but also aided prosecutors who secured an involuntary manslaughter conviction against the singer’s personal physician.

Clips from the film were played for jurors during last year’s trial of Dr Conrad Murray, and even a defense attorney had to admit after watching unreleased footage that it didn’t show the singer was impaired as Murray’s team had hoped it would. Sony Pictures Entertainment, which will distribute “Sparkle,” declined to comment for this story or say whether it planned to release any footage of Houston’s singing before the film’s release.

The movie is a remake of a 1976 film written by Joel Schumaker and Rosenman, who said it became a cult favorite in the African-American community because of its complex characters during an era when so-called “blaxploitation” films focused on caricatures. —AP

Finnish monster rock group Minaj said Grammy Lordi’s drummer dies at 38 performance

T

onmi Lillman, the drummer with Finnish monster rock ensemble Lordi, which won the Eurovision song contest six years ago, has died at the age of 38, the group said Wednesday. “Our dear friend and band mate, ‘Otus’ Tonmi Lillman, has sadly passed away,” a brief statement on the group’s

A file photo shows Tonmi Lillman, the drummer with Finnish monster rock ensemble Lordi, which won the Eurovision song contest six years ago, who died at the age of 38, the group said on February 15, 2012. — AFP

website said, but gave no details on the cause of his death.

Lillman, whose Finnish nickname “Otus” means “beast” or “creature,” joined Lordi in 2010, four years after the heavy metal band put Finland on Europe’s musical map by sweeping the Eurovision with their stage pyrotechnics, gruesome monster costumes and catchy anthem “Hard Rock Hallelujah”. Lordi won the 2006 competition with 292 points, a record at the time, giving Finland its first Eurovision win and confirming their popularity across the region in a competition that normally sees states voting for their closest geographical neighbors.

Lillman, who officially changed his name from “Tommi” to “Tonmi” in 2004, grew up in Kouvola, in southeastern Finland, and later moved to Helsinki. He reportedly received his first drum kit at the age of nine and began performing when he was 14. An accomplished musician who had mastered the keyboards and guitar in addition to drums and bass guitar, Lillman also performed with other Finnish musical outfits such as Ajattara, To/Die/For, Sinergy and Vanguard. Apart from his career with Lordi, Lillman backed numerous other groups and artists as a studio musician, was a talented graphic artist, and taught drumming and digital recording at the Kouvola Musical Conservatory. —AFP

part of her movie

S

ome were confused, others offended

by Nicki Minaj’s over-the-top performance at the Grammy Awards on Sunday, but the singer-rapper doesn’t understand what all the hubbub is about. “I don’t know what is the big issue?” she asked. The 29-year-old said her five-minute live rendition of her songs “Roman’s Revenge” and “Roman Holiday,” which included dancing priests, an exorcism and levitation, was just a part of a movie she’s writing.

“You know how people write plays and movies? That’s what I did. I wrote that and I gave the world a tiny little preview of what was to come. And so I have to perform it on the set in which it would be in the movie, right?” she said. Minaj made the comments Wednesday night at an event for Viva Glam MAC cosmetics, for which she is an ambassador with fellow singer Ricky Martin. Proceeds from the sale of the special edition MAC products benefit HIV/AIDS programs worldwide. Minaj, who is known for her outrageous style, walked the Grammy red carpet in an oversized red robe with a man dressed as a pope at her side. She said her performance, which featured a film clip, was partly inspired by the 1973 movie “The Exorcist.” Her sophomore album, “Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded,” will be released on April 3 and features Minaj rapping as her male alter ego, Roman.

It’s the follow-up to her platinum debut, “Pink Friday,” which was nominated for three Grammys, though she walked away with zero trophies. — AP

Lifestyle

Review

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

‘Bullhead’ marks a fierce debut In this undated image released by Disney, actresses Amy Poehler, left, and Carol Burnett pose with poster art from their upcoming film, ‘The Secret World of Arrietty.’ —AP

“B

ullhead,” the Academy Award-nominated foreign language film from Belgium, is a dark, haunting and wholly original exploration of what it means to be a man. Writer-director Michael R. Roskam’s auspicious feature film debut initially looks like a crime thriller, full of shady figures making secret nighttime deals, with a tension and a seamy, muted color palette reminiscent of David Fincher. But eventually it reveals itself to be a character drama about the way the past shapes us and our inability to escape it, no matter how convincingly we believe we’ve transformed ourselves.

Matthias Schoenaerts gives a fierce and frightening turn as Jacky, a steroid-addicted cattle rancher who works out an arrangement with some meat-trading Flemish mobsters, only to try and back out when an investigating federal agent is gunned down. This sequence of events forces him to revisit a horrific incident from his childhood 20 years ago, as well as the people who were crucial to that pivotal moment.

Schoenaerts turns Jacky into a hulking beast given to volatile fits of rage; the performance calls to mind Tom Hardy’s startling, muscular work in his own breakthrough film, 2009’s “Bronson.” The sight of Jacky curled in the fetal position in his sparse bathroom or shadow boxing in silhouette in front of a window after he’s just injected himself with hormones gets a little repetitive, but it’s always dramatically shot.

These moments also serve as a window to Jacky’s true self. His jittery attempts to reconnect with his boyhood crush, a vibrant woman named Lucia (Jeanne Dandoy), who now runs a perfume store in the French-speaking part of the country, are heartbreaking because he’s so clearly uncomfortable in his own skin. He makes you feel the loneliness beneath his sad eyes and massive frame, his awkwardness and a desperate need to be loved. Lucia is also a key figure in the event that damaged him as a boy. The other is Diederik (a creepy Jeroen Perceval), who was his best friend back then but now works for the mob - although as “Bullhead” reveals, alliances are fluid things and no one is to be trusted in a world where everyone is looking out for himself.

This is also true of a couple of bumbling, Frenchspeaking mechanics, who ostensibly are introduced to provide comic relief but feel a bit out of place. But “Bullhead” does keep you guessing by lulling you in with a quiet suspense, which makes the punctuations of violence - some of which are quite brutal - seem like even more of a shock. Jacky warns us in voiceover off the top that we’re all screwed (although he uses a more explicit word that we can’t repeat here). That doesn’t make the film twists and turns, or its powerful conclusion, any easier to predict - or forget. “Bullhead,” a Drafthouse Films release, is rated R for some strong violence, language and sexual content. In Dutch and French with subtitles. Running time: 126 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.

French judge charges Congolese singer Olomide with rape A

French judge has charged Congolese music star Koffi Olomide with three counts of rape and illegal confinement after complaints from three of his former backup dancers, his lawyer said Wednesday. “Koffi Olomide went Monday afternoon of his own free will to answer a summons by an investigating judge in (the Parisian suburb of) Nanterre, where he was charged,” Olomide’s lawyer Manuel Aeschlimann told AFP. The singer has since returned to the Democratic Republic of Congo, he said, without waiting for a French ruling on whether he should be held without bail.

Aeschlimann said a former dancer had filed a complaint in 2006 and that two years later two more dancers followed suit. One of the plaintiffs was a minor at the time of the alleged sexual assaults. He said the case against Olomide was “empty and hollow. There is no material evidence and the statements of the three women who accuse him of rape contain numerous contradictions.” Aeschlimann alleged that the women filed the complaints in the hopes of obtaining temporary French residency permits. —AFP

Picture taken on April 30, 2005 in Dakar during of Congolese singer Koffi Olomide performing at the Iba Mar Diop stadium. — AFP

Documentary explores ending Black History Month

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fter hearing actor Morgan Freeman call Black History Month “ridiculous” on a television news show a few years ago, New York filmmaker Shukree Hassan Tilghman set out to challenge the February tradition. His resulting documentary, “More Than a Month,” premiered last night on public broadcasting’s “Independent Lens” film series. It also is being screened and discussed in more than 75 cities around the country this month, Tilghman said.

In the film, Tilghman questions whether the month-long designation exiles African-American history to “the shortest and what seems like the coldest month of the year,” and whether it means “that black people don’t matter outside February.” Wearing signboards that read “End Black History

Month” and “Black history is American history,” he stood on New York street corners gathering signatures on a petition to do away with the celebration that was started as Negro History Week in 1926 by scholar Carter G. Woodson and became Black History Month in 1976.

By presidential proclamation, February now is called African-American History Month. This year’s theme is the achievements of African-American women. “We exist 24-7, 365, and in a leap year, 366. So should our history,” one petition-signer told Tilghman in the film. Tilghman, 32, is African-American and a graduate of New York University and Columbia University film schools who has worked as an editor on cable television shows. —Reuters

Lifestyle FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

On

Day 7

on NY Fashion Week, a new look for layers

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ayers are nothing new, but New York Fashion Week is showing them in a different way. The list of trends for next fall is piling on as the catwalk previews of new designer collections near their homestretch: There’s fur, leather and lace, cozy knits, military looks. The good news about the new styles is that you can wear them all at once. The interest in layered separates bodes well for menswear-

MICHAEL KORS Michael Kors always starts his shows with a couple and this time they were in his-and-her red check outfits. He wore a tartan plaid coat and checkered trousers, she had on a blanket coat with fringe in the large-square pattern known as buffalo check, plus a cashmere tweed sweater and cashmere short shorts.

Their wardrobe, which also included a sexy, luxe glove-leather trenchcoat for her, and suede utility pants for him, was all about “sporty American glamour,” Kors explained. “I thought about the ‘30s and those glamorous Hollywood couples - the Clark Gables and Carole Lombards,” he said in an interview back-

Models presents an outfit during the Michael Kors show at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week in New York. — AFP

J. MENDEL

bouncy dress and jacket. The prints were intricate, inspired by tarot cards and gems.

inspired styles, said Brandon Holley, editor-inchief of Lucky magazine. “Men dress more in separates, and I think women are enjoying being out of the day dress. That’s when style really comes in for me, when you pick the skirt that will go with the shirt, and the sweater and the bag, and a scarf.”

Holley added, “It’s not just layers, it’s interesting layers.” The look also extends the life of any one piece through changes in weather.

That summer top gets a sweater in the fall, Holley said, and the turtlenecks and knits are so light, you can wear them when it’s warmer outside. And, she said, it seems like it’s going to be leather weather year-round. At Wednesday’s Michael Kors show at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week tents at Lincoln Center, models were styled with fur vests over leather trenches and a slip dress underneath, or a Mongolian-fur vest with a chunky alpaca pullover. “Mix up the texture,” Kors said backstage before the show.

“Mohair, tweed, plaid, faux and real fur, satin and lace. “ But if a shopper had to choose just one thing, he’d go with a coat. “The coats and outerwear this season are outrageous.”

stage.

The Kors woman might wear a black wool sleeveless peacoat over a black beaded lace dress, or a camel-colored plaid mohair coat with a mohair sweater and plaid cropped pants. Also shown were a black capelet jacket (a short cape) and pencil skirt, made of soft double-face cashgora (a mix of cashmere and angora), and a black-and-ivory mohair dress with a feather skirt. Men’s clothes were simpler, heavy on vercoats and slim, slightly short pants.

NANETTE LEPORE Ever the Midwestern woman, Nanette Lepore sent a colorful but practical collection down the runway. The Ohio native used deep, saturated reds, purples, blues and greens - no black - in her separates, prints and footwear.

The line was modest too, no plunging necklines or slits to the thigh. “The sort of overt sexiness of the last couple of years is gone and it’s back to a more sort of modest or demure silhouette,” Lepore said backstage. “Which I think is a great way for a woman to feel sexy because I don’t think it’s always about skin.” Lepore put pockets in her dresses and some models wore flats and loafers, not something often seen on the runway. The shoes were shiny jewel-toned blue, gold and pink. She used gold lame for a

J. MENDEL Gilles Mendel’s new collection moved seamlessly between the expertly crafted fur he is famous for and the goddess red-carpet gowns that are exposing his brand J. Mendel to a larger audience. An ivory chiffon-embroidered gown with tulle insets and a fully pleated bottom seemed ready for the Oscars.

Mendel favored a light, feminine touch that fashion insiders haven’t seen all that much in the first seven days of seasonal previews for fall. There was a long, graceful shape to the white cashmere coat with a white fox collar worn with a pleated chiffon blouse and wideleg pants, and he put a fresh spin on the leather look that’s been all over, using textured alligator, often paired with fur. Those in attendance included Kelly Osbourne and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.

MARCHESA The audience was mesmerized by the Marchesa collection, partly because they wondered how the models could move in the elaborate creations shown by designers Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig. The first outfit was a cream-colored, hand-embroidered coat with mermaid-hem pleated tulle gown. From there, they moved into even more elaborate designs, including a champagne-colored gown with feathers that seems to float between the layers of tulle and another strapless feathered dress that looked as if it floated in with the clouds.

The finale featured red embroidery on an otherwise sheer bodice with a high neck and a hand-draped taffeta ballskirt. — AP

Lifestyle

NanetteLepore

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Jeremy Scott puts Bart Simpson out front at NY fashion week

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J. MENDEL

art Simpson made his runway debut at Jeremy Scott’s colorful fall-winter show on Wednesday, the penultimate day of New York fashion week, just in time for this weekend’s 500th episode of “The Simpsons.” The Bartman appeared first on a slouchy men’s sweater, then on a women’s crop top with miniskirt, in an energetic celebration of pop culture set to pulsating Japanese cover versions of Madonna and Michael Jackson hits. Scott-who Karl Lagerfeld once called the only designer worthy of being his successor at Chanel-himself took his bow from the applauding crowd in a cheeky Bart sweater and kilt.

His other club-ready looks included skin-tight candy-striped dresses, knits emblazoned with emoticons, metallic pink overalls and a whimsical chiffon gown with a unicorn cut-out tacked onto the front. Big blonde bob wigs and deeppurple lipstick built upon the cartoon theme. So too did the outsized Hindu wedding jewelry that Scott put on several of his models, male and female. The 500th episode of “The Simpsons”-in which television’s best-loved dysfunctional family gets run out of Springfield and meets WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange-airs Sunday in the United States on the Fox network. — AFP Cartoonist Matt Groening, creator of ‘The Simpsons,’ poses with his characters Bart (L) and Homer Simpson as he is honored with the 2,459th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame February 14, 2012 in Hollywood, California. —AFP

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Lifestyle

Years

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

A

This photograph taken on February 7, 2012 shows visitors taking pictures of the orchids at the entrance of National Orchid Garden in Singapore. — AFP photos

C

uddly pandas are China’s ambassadors of soft power and other countries use money or culture to enhance bilateral ties, but Singapore prefers to say it with flowers-orchids, to be exact. The tropical city-state cultivates special orchid varieties and names them after a motley mix of foreign leaders and celebrities as part of its diplomatic repertoire. What is striking in the VIP and Celebrity Orchids sections of the National Orchid Garden-part of the 63-hectare (156 acre) Singapore Botanic Gardens-are the famous names rather than the variety of blossoms.

There’s the pastel-white Dendrobium Memoria Princess Diana named after the tragic British royal and the star-shaped Paravanda Nelson Mandela in honour of the South African freedom icon. More recently, the bright pink Ascocenda Yingluck Shinawatra was presented to the Thai prime minister. “All heads of state and heads of government making state/official visits to Singapore are provided with the opportunity to have an unique orchid named after them,” a foreign ministry spokesman told AFP. “The practice of naming orchids after visiting VVIPs (Very Very Important Persons) has been in place for a few decades,” he added. Orchid-naming took root in 1957 during British colonial rule when an orchid variety was named after Anne Black, the wife of London’s high commissioner to Singapore at the time. The practice has escalated in tandem with Singapore’s rising status within Asia, said Botanic Gardens director Nigel Taylor.

This photo shows an orchid, Vanda Usha named after the wife of India’s president Kocheril Raman Narayan in the year 2000 to commemorate their visit at the National Orchid Garden.

“Every country wants to offer visiting dignitaries something and nowadays there seem to be many more state visits to Singapore than perhaps there were in former times,” the former curator of England’s famed Kew Gardens said.

“It may be a reflection of Singapore’s economy, it’s certainly a reflection of Singapore’s gateway position in Southeast Asia, and so I guess the traffic of dignitaries has just increased.” The National Orchid Garden currently has 181 orchids named after foreign heads of state and government as well as their spouses. Taylor said that no other country has a regular program of naming orchids or plants after visiting heads of state or their wives. To ensure that there are enough samples of new orchid varieties ready to be christened, the garden has to cross-breed thousands of flowers each year, Taylor told AFP. The majority of the samples-which take at least three years to grow from seed to flower-are rejected as they do not meet aesthetic criteria, or are simply not different enough from other orchids.

“You need a lot of the seedlings to develop because you don’t know which one is going to be the one that’s going to be the next winning plant,” Taylor stated. “Generally speaking there are only going to be one or two candidates at any given moment that we can draw on.” In the crossbreeding process, botanists manually extract the pollen from a male orchid and insert them into a female of a different variety. The seed that is formed is then harvested and placed within a specially formulated gel and periodically shaken by machines. It is left to germinate in a laboratory which looks like something left over from the set of the 1993 dinosaur movie Jurassic Park.

VIPs are consulted if they have any aesthetic preferences for the orchid that is to be named after them, but not all requests can be met due to the unpredictable blooming periods of various breeds. Generally a benign affair, the orchid-naming ceremony came into the spotlight in 2009 when Thein Sein, who was prime minister of Myanmar’s military junta, had an orchid named after him during a visit to Singapore. Three human rights activists staged a protest outside the Myanmar embassy to denounce the ceremony, saying Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s opposition leader, was more deserving of the honor.—AFP

passion for fashion is not the first image that springs to mind when most people think of Afghan men, usually pictured in war reports wearing beards, turbans and carrying AK47s as accessories. But male beauty salons in downtown Kabul now hum with activity as young men update their hair and beards in the latest Western styles-indulgences that would have got them beaten or jailed just 10 years ago. Then, religious police from the “vice and virtue” department of the Taliban regime patrolled the streets in pick-up trucks seizing or whipping men and women whose appearance was considered a sin against Islam.

But since the Taliban fell from power in the 2001 US-led invasion, men in Kabul in particular have seized on a new freedom to be stylish or trendy. “Kabul boys have grown very passionate about their looks in recent years,” says a smiling 25-year-old Ali Reza as he sprays blonde highlights on the hair of The Saloon’s smartly dressed first customer of the day. Reza was among hundreds of thousands of Afghans who fled to neighboring countries when the Taliban took over in 1996. He learned hairdressing in India and returned to Kabul when the Taliban were toppled.

“Some media portray Afghan men as angry people with long beards and shoulder-length hair,” he says.

“I decided to become a stylist to show that is not always the case, and Afghan men are beautiful, have a passion for modern fashion and are very stylish.” An interest in popular Hollywood and Bollywood styles is not new to Afghanistan-once a highlight of overland travel for young Westerners-it has simply been suppressed by more than three decades of war. An invasion by the Soviet Union in 1979 led to a 10-year occupation followed by civil war-and then came the Taliban with their brutal campaign against anything that did not fit with their idea of religious purity.

Now, while women may show high-heeled boots and jeans beneath their coats and dress stylishly in private, in public they remain well-covered-with some still wearing the all-enveloping burqa.

But on the streets of Kabul-and to a lesser extent in other cities-it is the men who are strutting their stuff, parading their skinny or ripped jeans and spiky haircuts. “Young men come here, bringing the photos of popular European, American and Indian movie or sport stars and ask us to style their hair or beard accordingly,” says Sayed Mehdi, 22, a stylist at Skin Deep fashion salon.

“We also provide fashion magazines to help them choose a hair or beard style that they favour,” he says. Mujtaba, 27, who is wearing a black T-shirt and blue jeans with rips, says he was beaten by Taliban police when he had a modestly styled haircut.

“Then they forced me to wear a black turban even when I was still a kid,” says Mujtaba, who like many Afghans uses just one name. He has come to The Saloon looking for the latest style in men’s beards. “I want my beard in Wali style,” he says, referring to a famous expat Afghan pop star who wears a thin chin-strap style beard. “We don’t want to be less than Europeans and Americans when it comes to fashion.” While the southern and eastern parts of the country remain gripped by a Taliban-led insurgency, the Afghan capital and major cities in the north or west enjoy relative security-and a boom in the fashion business.—AFP

In this photo taken on January 28, 2012, an Afghan barber styles a young man’s hair at his salon in Kabul.

— AFP photos

Stars

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Aries (March 21-April 19) Your goals and objectives are very clear and you proceed, not only with self-confidence, but with a clear understanding of the material resources and detailed hard work necessary to achieve them. If others are involved in your goals, you could accept a leadership role; otherwise, you may prefer to work alone. This day is excellent for taking the lead in a new or difficult project, for your originality is unusually heightened. Energy is high and your creative ideas are coming in quickly, ready to be applied to the work at hand. If you give your best effort now, considerable success will follow. Your close friends and loved ones are most pleasing and you take every opportunity to be with your friends. Lady luck is smiling on you today!

Taurus (April 20-May 20) You are realistic about your abilities and expectations for success. This is an excellent time to get many things accomplished. The practical use of your time and energy will most certainly pay off in the work world today. Others may want to follow your lead when it comes to solving problems. This is a very lucky day for making plans or decisions and finding your way through just about any problem you may discover. You feel successful and able to handle difficult situations. Good advice from a guide or older person may be forthcoming. A business trip is in the works— you need to speak up! The way in which you express yourself will be very important. For the next few evenings, engaging in any type of social activity is favorable.

Gemini (May 21-June 20) There are many business matters that will keep you busy today. There may be an air of seriousness to all your dealings with partners. You are filled with great optimism for success in many areas of your life. Any need for negotiation or persuasion has found its day. Your mind is clear and alert and anyone should be able to grasp your point of view. It is also a good day for planning, writing or expanding your intellectual horizons.

Consider signing up for a class. Start that book. Getting out into the countryside should be fun too. If the weather is not compatible for out-of-door activity, make some other plans. This may be a period of time when you are in definite need of feeling secure through the material or sentimental objects that you possess.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) You may realize a successful culmination of an ambitious project today. There is also a possibility that someone will pay you back for an old debt. Competitiveness is the key word for today. You may have an urge to push for changes in the workplace—perhaps new equipment or new advertisement ideas. It is time to plot your course. Life should seem richer, more satisfying and more fun now because you feel a special bond with your friends and loved ones. Go out on a date with your special someone or invite your friends over for the evening. You will make them all feel good. You may be sought after for your advice and counsel regarding very personal and emotional issues. You are able to cut through the red tape and get at what is beneath and behind.

Leo (July 23-August 22) You are very serene today with some tendency to daydream.

If channeled properly, your creative energy can be very beneficial in your particular work field. Your ability to solve problems has moved you to the top of your class. Nothing seems to ruffle your feathers today. You are moving into a new cycle that will offer you an exciting fresh start. You benefit through communication with co-workers. Later today you will find yourself helping a co-worker stay focused on their job. You will wisely pull from your insights and past experiences to offer sound advice. Corroborate with friends while making social plans. Give others a choice of what they would like to do. Have a good time! There are social opportunities this evening.

Virgo (August 23-September 22) You may be bored with the daily grind and itch to find a way out of the rut today. Also, independence seems more attractive than discipline just now. It is a time for original thinking, or perhaps for seeking new or more daring associations. Think through the events of today as there are many possibilities available for you to move or make a change in your lifestyle. Things are happening and your career or path depends upon your own ambition and drive, which are strong now. You are able to use good common sense—you can feel the trends and make the right decisions.

This is a time to get ahead by taking action. Parental instincts may come to the forefront this evening. You may make every effort to appease any discord in the home.

Libra (September 23-October 22) Any professional undertaking today will have good results.

You are apt to spend a considerable amount of time and effort to improve finances, principally through some sort of part time job or even a second job. This is a time when the desire for material success is considerable. There could be some pushing and shoving now between various facets of your life that normally should be in balance. This could be your home and professional life or your logical mind and emotions, or your conscious and subconscious mind. If these are in line, however, you will be successful in whatever you have to accomplish. It is possible to meet a new love interest today, probably be because opposites attract. Mental stimulation from others is connection for you this evening.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) This is a fine time to try out some new ideas or engage in some new business dealings or investments. Compromise should be exercised whenever possible. You should love being around people today, especially those to whom you are emotionally attached and better yet, older friends with whom you can reminisce. If ever there was a day to work with groups, this is it! Your acute sensitivity to other people’s moods could enable you to fine-tune those moods as you would a violin. You could obtain anything you wish to obtain, or sell anything you wish to sell to people. You are a good salesperson and might find a sideline sales job a possibility if you need extra funds. Do not overextend yourself but if you make a promise to a friend, keep it!

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) You are proud to do business with the business people you see each day . . . there is earnestness on all sides to have positive outcomes and fairness for all. There is an air of seriousness to all your dealings with partners. Ambitious schemes and the pursuit of success and status take on a high priority. Job interviews or proposals for advancement can be positive and possible. Also, you are concerned more about the future of business and romantic associates now than at any other time. As such, you may spend a great deal of time, effort and worry balancing commitments. You have an increased need to experience some fun time through exercise or in relaxed interaction with friends and loved ones. Enjoy a little balance and moderation.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19) Getting the facts and making sure that people get your message straight can make all the difference in the world—any shortcomings in these areas can cause problems. You are able to use good common sense—you can feel trends and make all the right moves. This is a time when job and family can take up most of your time. This time marks the end of a number of years of apprenticeship and begins a fine tuning with regard to your talents. If you are looking for success—it is within your grasp.

You may find yourself being put to good use by your friends this afternoon— it could be that circumstances force you to be more conservative. All of this should go rather smoothly. Romance is possible this evening.

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) Realize that this is a busy time at work for you and allow yourself more time for each project, problem customer or instructions to others; patience. Learn to say no when the work load becomes unreasonable. In fact, make it a point to look ahead. Your emotions should be sailing on relatively calm seas today, giving you an unhurried chance to sit down and focus. If there is any problem on the horizon, you have a breather, at least for today. Your understanding of the needs of others is in perfect balance with your own knowledge. People are your best friends today. You have an interest in the motivations and desires of friends and family. Your ability to perceive others’ feelings brings you unexpected rewards.

Pisces (February 19-March 20) Fears and self-doubts about your abilities are senseless.

People around you may not be offering you any encouragement but you know what to do and you know you do not need an encouraging word to move forward; you will succeed. Proceed cautiously and remember your winning ways and you will convince others. Your comprehension of issues is broadened now and your inner peace makes you tolerant of dissenting views. Your judgment is good. There are career gains to be enjoyed. Your next project will be met with powerful energies that are positive. Keep focused because the decisions and events of today will have lasting effects.

Enjoy the rewarding experiences with loved ones this evening. You will definitely feel the power of love today.

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

W h a t ’s O n FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Arabian horse festival

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irst International Arabian Horse Festival Kuwait 2012 at Bait Al-Arab Kuwait State Stud will be held under the auspices of the Amir of Kuwait HH Sheikh Sabah Al-Jaber Al-Ahmad AlJaber Al-Sabah. Record nomination of over 400 entries for this festival Bait Al-Arab Kuwait State Stud has been authorized by the Hunting & Equestrian Club to organize the 1st International Arabian Horse Festival in Kuwait in the month of February which is traditionally filled with exciting activities and festivals, including Kuwait National Day and Liberation Day. The event will include the 1st international Championship Show on 15 - 16 February

2012 (ECAHO B-Show) which is open to purebred Arabian horses which are registered in a WAHO recognized studbook. Because more than 60 percent of all Arabian horses which are registered in the Kuwait Arabian horse studbook are of so called Straight Egyptian bloodlines, the 1st International Egyptian Event on 17 18 February 2012 (recognized by the Pyramid Society USA) will be organized. The program includes 2 days of stud visits to well known private studs on 19 - 20 February 2012. For more information please contact the show office via email: contact@baitalarabkw.com or phone: 24713532.

lease join Al-Kout and the British Playhouse Nursery for their first grand treasure hunt! Teams of 3 members each, ages 8 to 14, boys and girls, will face challenges to find the grand prize! This will be on February 18 at Al-Kout Mall, Fahaheel between 2 pm — 6 pm. To register or for more info: q8bphunt@gmail.com.

Book release

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rathibha Kuwait is organizing a function for the release of the short story collection “Afaina Pookkunnu.” This book is compiled of ten stories by selected Malayalam writers from Kuwait. A tribute to Dr. Sukumar Azheekkod will also be part of the function. Today 10:30 am at Royal Mughalai Restaurant, Fahaheel.

PAWS’ puppy of the month

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AWS, the Protecting Animal Welfare Organization, would like to introduce Chucky, our puppy of the month. Chucky is about 8 weeks old, a male poodle terrier mix, a small sized dog. Chucky was dumped like garbage in front of a vet clinic, and was found screaming by the clinic staff, they informed PAWS for rescue. The little shaking puppy was brought to the shelter and needed four days to recover from his trauma in the private staff rooms. He needed the physical contact to somebody whom he could trust.

Fortunately and not surprisingly, Chucky became within a week the most popular puppy for our volunteers because of his stunning character and his amazing personality. He loves the attention, loves to be carried around, loves to hunt the puppies which are triple his size, insists on getting his cuddles and will not stop asking for attention till he suddenly falls asleep. Chucky needs a home in a loving family, kids would be great play companions, but he also needs training and education. He is an adorable little monkey with a lot of temperament and deserves dog owners who are aware of their commitment. If you are interested to visit Chucky please inform info@paws-kuwait.org or visit our website www.pawskuwait.org and fill in an application form. Every dog or cat which is rehomed makes space for another helpless, abandoned, abused animal. Every adoption fee helps PAWS to treat and feed all the beloved rescued animals in our shelter.

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Treasure hunt

National Day Carnival

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ace Painting, Traditional Corner, Jumping Castle, Rides Shows, Jewellery Making, Animal Rides, and more suprises! All this and more is happening tomorrow between 11 am to 3:30 pm at Kidzee Playground & Nursery, Faiha - Block 8 - Al-Muzaini St. Hs No. 21. Mothers and fathers, cousins and nephews, boys and girls, everyone is welcome to join us in celebrating Kuwait and our traditions in our National Day Carnival!

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Loyac movie nights

oyac movie nights are held in Loyac’s headquarters in Sharq in the Qibliya School on Ali Al-Salem street right across from Mubarak Tower which the yellow Boubyan Bank Tower. The movie nights run every Saturday on the set dates at 7 pm.

Family Meet

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uwait Mar Thoma Parish is celebrating “Family Meet 12” on Saturday, February 25, 2012 from 8 am onwards at the Indian Central School, Abbassiya , unleashing fun and frolic, reminiscing the passage of five decades of spiritual existence in the wilderness of Arabian deserts in Kuwait. Variety of entertainment programs, homemade food stalls, indoor plant and flower show, choral by Men’s Voice, music concerts are some of the highlights of this year’s Parish festival. Several committees are being working for the success of the festival.

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Concours D’Elegance 2012 Auto Show

he Concours D’Elegance 2012 Auto Show is here! Concours d’Elegance is an automobile competition that judges the designs and styles of elegant, sumptuous classic cars. It started in Paris in the 1920s, the period just after “Belle Epoque.”

At that time, Paris, a city full of art and hedonism, became the world’s cultural capital. In the up-scale social Parisian circles, people became infatuated with the extravagance of automobiles, the forefront of all the latest technologies. Owners of these new machines would gather at beautiful venues, such as a castle by a lake or a garden with immaculate lawns to show off their gorgeous vehicles. This competition was a product of the unique time in the automobile industry when luxurious cars were either made to order or the production was very limited in number.

After Concours d’Elegance won the hearts of people in France, it went over the Alps and reached Italy, which also had a passion for the arts.

French Concours d’Elegance was all about integrated elegant style. On the other hand, the focus of the Italian Concorso (Concours) was purely the beauty of bespoke cars and cars with a very limited production. These contests provided many carrozzerias (automobile coach builders) that existed at the time in Italy with a great opportunity to show off their craftsmanship.

Concours d’Elegance was very popular all over Europe and the United States until 1960s. Many competitions ceased to exist when bespoke automobiles were no longer popular for many reasons. However, in the 1980s, Concours d’Elegance was brought back by popular demand. Today these events have become the most exclusive and prestigious classic car events worldwide. Kuwait Concours d’Elegance is in the Italian style as are many revived Concours d’Elegance held since 1980s. The focal point of the show is hand-made classic cars, featuring automobiles from the early stage of the automotive industry through to bespoke cars of the mid-1970s. This will be from February 15 18 at Marina Crescent, Arabian Gulf, Kuwait.

K

Youth India will celebrate its 2nd anniversary next Friday, February 24 at Pravasi Auditorium, Abbassiya. Visiting Indian author KEN Kunjahammad will be the chief guest. Concert, skits and other cultural items are also planned for the evening program.

Shelter Open Day

’S PATH holds Shelter Open Day tomorrow between 10 am - 2 pm, at Wafra Shelter. Get to know our adorable animals! Walk dogs! Groom cats! Feed donkeys! Activities: Shelter Tour; Kid’s session: How waste harms wildlife; Kid’s Art: Craft from waste Raffle draw. Please leave your pets at home. Contact www.kspath.org/map; 67001622.

W h a t ’s O n FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Announcements Art painting exhibition PART- (progressive art realization troop) is conducting a Symposium, A study of Contemporary art and Painting Exhibition. On Friday 17th February 2012, at “Pravasi”auditorium Abbassiya From 6pm onwards. Contact: Mob:99510814-90961048-99252190-66776364-94414470 Email: partofkuwait@gmail.com

F

FEEL recognizes prominent NRIs

EEL (Foundation for Enhancing Expatriate Life) NRI Jewel Award was established to honor those NRIs who have provided significant community and public service to the Indian Diaspora in the Middle East. By honoring those who have worked selflessly for NRI causes and India, we are providing exposure of such role models to the next generation, the press release issued

by FEEL said. The awardees included Padmashree Dr. B.R. Shetty, Managing Director of NMC Group, United Arab Emirates, Padmashree Dr. Azad Moopen, Managing Director of DM Foundation, Padmashree Dr. C.K. Menon, Chairman and Managing Director of Behzad Group of Companies, Sunny Mathews, Managing Director of Sefeena General Trading and Contracting Co., Kuwait.

The NRI Conference 2012 held in Kuwait on February 9th and 10th recognized four prominent Indian nationals in the Middle East in recognition of their leadership efforts aimed at enhancing life situation of Non Resident Indians and for their time and resources contributed to uplift the poor and downtrodden in the community. M.M. Hassan, former Non Resident Affairs Minister of Kerala was awarded with NRI Sahakari Award. Hasan in his role as a Minister and as a social leader was one of the key personnel in establishing a separate department and ministry for dealing with NRI affairs. He was also the Chairman of the first ever NRI Conference held in Kuwait A special recognition award was presented to Nandakumaran P., the Managing Director of State Bank of Travancore for his support and participation in the NRI Conference.

The awards were presented jointly by M.M. Hassan, Satish C. Mehta, the Ambassador of India to Kuwait in presence of a large number of community leaders and conference delegates.

President Abdul Fatah, KKMA’s CFO Mohammad Ali Matara, General Secretary A.P. Abdul Salam and convener Rajan Rawther decorated the Awardees with “ponnada”.

Kerala Association folk song competition

Kerala Association Kuwait organized a competition for folk songs at United Indian School, Abbassiya, last Friday. Ten teams took part in the competition that shed light on the culture and traditions of Kerala.

Kuwait Improv Fun lovers of Kuwait unite. A get together by people who love to surprise, be surprised and just be about at anything are welcome to Kuwait Improv, a gathering, reminiscent of the famous American TV program Whose Line is it Anyway, informally organized by American School of Kuwait teacher Brad Manker. No histrionic talent required, but a willingness to share. Please contact:mankerb@ask.edu Tulu speaking classes Here’s a great opportunity for parents who always wished their children could learn Tulu. Tulu Koota Kuwait, in its objective towards promoting Tulu language and culture, is pleased to announce the opening of Tutu Speaking Classes “Tulu Siri” at Indian Public School Salmiya @ 11:30 am. For more details kindly contact Ramesh Kidiyoor97204716/99596457,Shalini Vijay - 66502369,Tharendra P. Shettigar - 66757979,Jayalaxmi Karkal - 66958848, Sathyanarayana Salian - 66585077,Vanitha Dias-94996459.

And our Website: www.tulukootakuwait.org Email: info@tulukootakuwait.org Palpak 4th AGM Palakkad Pravasi Association of Kuwait (Palpak) is conducting its Fourth Annual General Body Meeting on February 24, Friday at Hiphop Auditorium, Fahaheel from 10 am. The main agenda include as following, annual report on the activities during the year of 2011, the audited accounts report for the year of 2011. All members of Palpak are kindly requested to treat this as an official Invitation and attend the said Annual Genera1 body meeting on time. For more details please contact President P.N.Kumar (99771830) and General Secretary Aravindha Shan (66535989).

Sadu weaving workshop This workshop is of four weeks duration, and it will be held twice a week. The morning group sessions are on Monday and Wednesday from 9am to 12pm. The evening group are on Sunday and Tuesday from 4:30pm to 7:30pm. A total of 8 sessions of three hours each. This workshop will be held from January 22nd to February 18th. For more Information kindly contact Sadu House at: info@alsadu.org.kw SaduWeaving@gmail.com 2243-2395 or 9959-7983 AWARE Desert Camp Every year the desert beckons us to go and enjoy its quietness and serenity. Join AWARE for an all-day outdoor experience including: Camel rides, ATV rides, Sports, Hot buffet lunch, Arabian cultural displays. Families and children welcome on Friday 17th Febuary. Departure from Aware 9.45 am, return departure 4.30 pm. Registration deadline is Feb. 15. For more info call Aware 25335260/80 or www.aware.com.kw or email : info@aware.com.kw KALA, Kuwait-Medical Camp The preparations are in progress for the KALA Free Medical Camp in association with Indian Doctors Forum, sheduled to be conducted on 17 February 2012 at Khaitan Cermel School, Kuwait. The camp is all set to start at 8.30 am and to comclude by 3 pm. KALA, Kuwait under the guidence of Indian Doctors Forum and under the auspices of Kuwait Medical Associtaion (KMA) is conducting this event for the benefit of people especially from labor camps. The consultation with the medical experts of IDF will be free and strictly through registration. Registration forms can be availed from any of the KALA, Kuwait units or from the website www.kalaonweb.com Filled application from should be handed over to the nearest KALA units or faxed/ e-mailed on or before February 10. For informations contact: 24317875 (KALA Office), 97124562 & 65806495 (Abbassya), 66180229 & 97234038 (Fahaheel), 99122984 (Salmiya), 66290980 (Farwaniya).

TV Listings FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

16:55 The Amazing World Of Gumball 17:10 Adventure Time 17:35 Regular Show 18:00 Cow & Chicken 18:25 Bakugan: Gundalian Invaders 18:50 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 19:15 Angelo Rules 19:30 Total Drama World Tour 19:55 Hero 108 20:25 Sym-Bionic Titan 20:50 Adventure Time 21:25 The Grim Adventures Of Billy & Mandy 21:50 Courage 22:25 The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack 22:50 Cow And Chicken 23:00 Ben 10 23:25 Ben 10 23:50 Courage The Cowardly Dog

00:20 Snake Crusader With Bruce George 00:50 Pit Bulls And Parolees 01:45 Untamed & Uncut 02:40 Maneaters 03:35 Beast Lands 04:30 Snake Crusader With Bruce George 04:55 Snake Crusader With Bruce George 05:25 The Animals’ Guide To Survival 06:20 Escape To Chimp Eden 06:45 In Too Deep 07:10 Clinically Wild: Alaska 07:35 Clinically Wild: Alaska 08:00 Gorilla School 08:25 Panda Adventures With Nigel Marven 09:15 The Really Wild Show 09:40 Project Puppy 10:10 Cats Of Claw Hill 10:35 Extraordinary Dogs 11:05 The Animals’ Guide To Survival 12:00 Michaela’s Animal Road Trip 12:55 SSPCA: On The Wildside 13:20 Wildlife SOS 13:50 Wild Africa Rescue 14:15 Wild Africa Rescue 14:45 Animal Cops Phoenix 15:40 The Animals’ Guide To Survival 16:30 Echo And The Elephants Of Amboseli 17:00 The Really Wild Show 17:30 Growing Up...

18:25 Dogs 101 19:20 Your Pet Wants This 20:15 Gorilla School 20:40 Wildlife SOS 21:10 Escape To Chimp Eden 21:35 In Too Deep 22:05 The Animals’ Guide To Survival 23:00 Ultimate Air Jaws 23:55 Crime Scene Wild

00:45 01:15 01:45 02:35 03:05 03:30 04:00 04:20 04:30 04:45 05:00 05:05 05:25 05:35 05:50 06:10 06:20 06:30 06:45 06:50 07:10 07:20 07:35 08:05 08:35 09:20 09:50 10:20 11:00 12:00 12:30 13:00 13:45 14:15 14:55 15:35 16:25 17:10 17:40 18:10 18:40 19:10 20:00 20:50 21:20 21:50 22:35 23:10 23:55

Eastenders Doctors The World’s Toughest Driving Tests Last Of The Summer Wine As Time Goes By Keeping Up Appearances Balamory Charlie and Lola The Large Family Bobinogs Poetry Pie Fimbles Little Robots Nina And The Neurons Balamory Charlie and Lola The Large Family Bobinogs Poetry Pie Fimbles Little Robots Nina And The Neurons Last Of The Summer Wine As Time Goes By The Weakest Link Eastenders Doctors Chimp Family Fortunes The World’s Toughest Driving Tests Keeping Up Appearances Last Of The Summer Wine The Weakest Link Eastenders Doctors Chimp Family Fortunes The World’s Toughest Driving Tests The Weakest Link Last Of The Summer Wine Doctors After You’ve Gone Keeping Up Appearances Doctor Who Survivors Lead Balloon Ideal Live At The Apollo Little Britain The Weakest Link Doctor Whoº

00:20 01:05 02:00 03:25 03:50 04:15 04:40 05:05 05:55 06:40

Bargain Hunt Antiques Roadshow What To Eat Now - Autumn James Martin’s Champagne James Martin’s Champagne James Martin’s Champagne James Martin’s Brittany 10 Years Younger Fantasy Homes By The Sea James Martin’s Champagne

00:15 00:40 01:35 02:30 03:25 04:20 05:15 05:40 06:05 07:00 07:50 08:45 Junior 09:40 10:05 10:30 10:55 11:25 12:20 13:15 14:10 15:05 16:00 16:55 17:50 18:45 19:10 19:40 20:05 20:35 21:00 21:30 Junior 22:25 23:20

PLANET OF THE APES ON OSN ACTION HD 07:05 07:30 07:55 08:20 09:10 09:35 10:25 11:10 12:00 12:50 13:40 14:25 15:15 16:00 16:45 17:30 18:20 19:10 19:40 20:10 21:35 22:20 23:10 23:55

James Martin’s Champagne Raymond Blanc’s Kitchen Secrets Indian Food Made Easy What Not To Wear Masterchef Australia Masterchef Australia Bargain Hunt Antiques Roadshow Come Dine With Me 10 Years Younger Celebrity Fantasy Homes Celebrity Fantasy Homes Fantasy Homes By The Sea House Swap Bargain Hunt Antiques Roadshow Antiques Roadshow Raymond Blanc’s Kitchen Secrets Raymond Blanc’s Kitchen Secrets Indian Food Made Easy Celebrity Fantasy Homes Celebrity Fantasy Homes Bargain Hunt Antiques Roadshow

00:00 00:20 00:45 01:10 01:35 02:00 02:25 02:50 03:15 03:40 04:00 04:25 04:50 05:15 05:40

Wacky Races Dastardly And Muttley New Yogi Bear Show Duck Dodgers The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop Tom & Jerry Kids A Pup Named Scooby-Doo The Jetsons Puppy In My Pocket Popeye Tom & Jerry Looney Tunes Scooby Doo Where Are You! Droopy: Master Detective Wacky Races

06:00 06:25 06:50 07:00 07:30 07:55 08:20 08:45 09:00 09:25 09:50 10:15 10:40 11:05 11:25 11:50 12:15 12:40 13:00 13:15 13:40 13:55 14:45 15:10 15:35 16:00 16:50 17:15 17:40 18:05 18:20 19:10 19:35 20:00 20:15 20:40 21:05 21:30 21:55 22:20 22:45 23:10 23:35

The Flintstones A Pup Named Scooby-Doo Popeye Classics The Garfield Show Bananas In Pyjamas Baby Looney Tunes Gerald McBoing Boing Jelly Jamm Pink Panther And Pals Pink Panther And Pals Puppy In My Pocket The Scooby Doo Show Scooby Doo Where Are You! The Flintstones Duck Dodgers Tom & Jerry Kids Pink Panther And Pals Wacky Races Jelly Jamm Baby Looney Tunes Bananas In Pyjamas The Garfield Show A Pup Named Scooby-Doo Scooby-Doo And Scrappy-Doo Looney Tunes Puppy In My Pocket Pink Panther And Pals Pink Panther And Pals Tom & Jerry Tom & Jerry The Garfield Show The Scooby Doo Show Scooby-Doo And Scrappy-Doo Jelly Jamm Baby Looney Tunes Gerald McBoing Boing Bananas In Pyjamas Pink Panther And Pals Tom & Jerry Looney Tunes Scooby Doo Where Are You! Droopy: Master Detective The Flintstones

00:40 Samurai Jack 01:05 Samurai Jack 01:30 The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack 02:20 Bakugan Battle Brawlers 02:45 Bakugan Battle Brawlers 03:10 Best Ed 04:00 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 04:25 Adventure Time 04:50 Generator Rex 05:15 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 05:40 Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy 05:55 I Am Weasel 06:55 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 07:20 Powerpuff Girls 07:45 Angelo Rules 08:00 Casper’s Scare School 08:30 Gumball 08:45 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 09:15 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 09:40 Batman: The Brave And The Bold 10:05 Angelo Rules 10:30 Chowder 10:55 Adventure Time 11:20 Eliot Kid 11:35 The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack 12:00 Ben 10 12:25 Sym-Bionic Titan 12:50 Courage The Cowardly Dog 13:15 I Am Weasel 13:40 Best Ed 14:05 Cow & Chicken 14:30 My Gym Partner’s A Monkey 14:50 Eliot Kid 15:15 Bakugan Battle Brawlers 15:40 Ben 10: Alien Force 16:05 Courage The Cowardly Dog 16:30 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated

Destroyed In Seconds Rampage!

Dirty Jobs Overhaulin’ Ultimate Survival Mythbusters How Does It Work?

How It’s Made Dirty Jobs Mythbusters How Do They Do It? Turbo Specials American Chopper: Senior vs How Does It Work?

Cake Boss Border Security Auction Hunters Dangerman Dangerman Dangerman Dangerman Dangerman Overhaulin’ Ultimate Survival Mythbusters Cash Cab Us Border Security Auction Hunters How It’s Made How Does It Work?

Cake Boss American Chopper: Senior vs How Do They Do It? Turbo Specials Wheeler Dealers

00:40 Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman 01:35 Weird or What?

02:25 The Tech Show 02:50 Wallace & Gromit’s World of Invention 03:15 Wallace & Gromit’s World of Invention 03:40 Science of the Movies 04:35 How Does That Work?

05:00 How Stuff’s Made 05:25 Kings of Construction 06:20 Prototype This 07:10 Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman 08:00 The Gadget Show 08:25 The Gadget Show 08:50 How Does That Work?

09:15 How Stuff’s Made 09:40 Wallace & Gromit’s World of Invention 10:05 Wallace & Gromit’s World of Invention 10:35 Science of the Movies 11:25 Kings of Construction 12:20 Prototype This 13:15 Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman 14:05 Weird or What?

14:55 How Does That Work?

15:20 How Stuff’s Made 15:50 The Gadget Show 16:15 The Gadget Show 16:40 The Tech Show 17:05 Prototype This 18:00 Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman 18:50 Kings of Construction 19:40 Tech Toys 360 20:05 Tech Toys 360 20:30 Ecopolis 21:20 Junkyard Mega-Wars 22:10 The Gadget Show 22:35 The Gadget Show 23:00 Tech Toys 360 23:25 Tech Toys 360 23:50 Ecopolis

00:00 00:25 00:50 01:15 01:35 02:00 02:25 02:50 03:15 03:35 04:00 04:25 04:50 05:15 05:35 06:00 06:20 06:45 07:05 07:30 07:55 08:10 08:35 09:00 09:15 09:25 09:40 09:47 POOH 09:50 10:15 10:40 10:45 11:10 11:35 12:00 12:25 12:45 13:10 13:30 13:55 14:20 14:30 14:55 15:20 15:45 16:10 16:40 17:05 17:30 19:10 19:30 19:35 20:00 20:25 20:50 21:15 21:35 22:00 22:25 22:50 23:15 23:35

KIM POSSIBLE Fairly Odd Parents Fairly Odd Parents STITCH STITCH REPLACEMENTS REPLACEMENTS EMPEROR’S NEW SCHOOL EMPEROR’S NEW SCHOOL STITCH STITCH REPLACEMENTS REPLACEMENTS Fairly Odd Parents Fairly Odd Parents HANNAH MONTANA FOREVER RECESS TIMON AND PUMBAA PHINEAS AND FERB Good Luck Charlie FISH HOOKS WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE MICKEY MOUSE CLUBHOUSE JAKE & THE NEVERLAND PIRATES JAKE & THE NEVERLAND PIRATES HANDY MANNY THE HIVE MINI ADVENTURES OF WINNIE THE

00:00 00:25 00:40 00:55 01:20 01:30 01:45 01:55 02:20 02:35 02:50 03:05 03:15 03:40 03:55 04:10 04:30 04:45 05:00 05:15 05:25 05:50 06:05 06:20 06:40 06:55 07:10 07:25 07:35 08:00 08:15 08:30 08:50 09:00 09:15 09:30 09:45 10:00 10:15 10:30

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Jake & The Neverland Pirates Special Agent Oso Little Einsteins Timmy Time Jungle Junction Handy Manny Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Special Agent Oso Special Agent Oso Jungle Junction Jungle Junction Little Einsteins Higglytown Heroes Higglytown Heroes Jo Jo’s Circus Special Agent Oso Special Agent Oso Jungle Junction Jungle Junction Little Einsteins Higglytown Heroes Higglytown Heroes Jo Jo’s Circus Special Agent Oso Special Agent Oso Jungle Junction Jungle Junction Little Einsteins Higglytown Heroes Higglytown Heroes Jo Jo’s Circus Jungle Junction Jungle Junction Higglytown Heroes Higglytown Heroes Handy Manny Special Agent Oso Jungle Junction Jungle Junction

RECESS SO RANDOM HAVE A LAUGH HANNAH MONTANA FOREVER SUITE LIFE ON DECK JAKE & BLAKE SONNY WITH A CHANCE WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE PHINEAS AND FERB SO RANDOM SUITE LIFE ON DECK WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE HAVE A LAUGH PHINEAS AND FERB PHINEAS AND FERB MY BABYSITTER’S A VAMPIRE FISH HOOKS FISH HOOKS FISH HOOKS FISH HOOKS HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL Good Luck Charlie HAVE A LAUGH WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE HANNAH MONTANA FOREVER PHINEAS AND FERB SHAKE IT UP FISH HOOKS RECESS SHAKE IT UP SHAKE IT UP WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE SONNY WITH A CHANCE

TV Listings FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

10:45 11:10 11:20 11:35 11:50 12:05 12:15 Pooh 12:18 Pooh 12:21 Pooh 12:25 Pooh 12:30 12:45 12:55 (Cema) 13:45 14:10 14:35 14:45 15:10 15:25 15:40 16:05 16:15 16:25 16:50 17:15 17:40 17:55 18:05 18:20 18:30 18:40 18:55 19:20 19:45 20:00 20:10 20:20 20:30 20:45 20:55 21:10 21:25 21:35 22:00 Pooh 22:05 22:25 22:40 22:50 23:05 23:20 23:30 Pooh 23:35 23:40 23:45

00:40 01:30 02:15 03:05 03:50 04:40 05:25 06:15 07:10 08:00 08:50 09:40 10:25 11:10 11:35 11:55 12:40 13:25 14:15 15:00 15:25 15:50 16:35 17:20 18:10 19:00 19:45 20:10 20:55 21:20 22:10 23:00 23:25 23:50

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse The Hive Handy Manny Jake & The Neverland Pirates Jake & The Neverland Pirates The Hive Mini Adventures Of Winnie The Mini Adventures Of Winnie The Mini Adventures Of Winnie The Mini Adventures Of Winnie The Mouk (Cema) The Hive Imagination Movers In Concert Little Einsteins Imagination Movers Special Agent Oso Lazytown Handy Manny Jungle Junction Imagination Movers The Hive Special Agent Oso Little Einsteins Lazytown Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Jake & The Neverland Pirates Jake & The Neverland Pirates Mouk (Cema) Handy Manny The Hive Jake & The Neverland Pirates Imagination Movers Lazytown Jungle Junction The Hive The Hive Special Agent Oso Jungle Junction Handy Manny Jake & The Neverland Pirates Jake & The Neverland Pirates The Hive Little Einsteins Mini Adventures Of Winnie The

08:20 E! News 09:15 Fashion Police: 2008 Grammy Awards 10:15 15 Remarkable Celebrity Body Bouncebacks 12:05 E! News 13:05 Bridalplasty 14:05 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 14:35 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 15:00 Style Star 15:30 THS 16:25 Behind The Scenes 16:55 Scouted 17:55 E! News 18:55 THS 19:55 Dirty Soap 20:55 Chelsea Lately 21:25 Fashion Police: 2008 Grammy Awards 22:25 E! News 23:25 Chelsea Lately 23:55 Keeping Up With The Kardashians

00:00 02:00 04:00 06:00 08:00 PG15 10:00 12:00 14:00 PG15 16:00 18:00 20:00 22:00

Jackass 3.5-R Jason X-18 Game Of Death-PG15 Largo Winch 2-PG15 Superman/ Batman: Apocalypse-

01:00 03:00 05:00 07:00 09:00 10:45 PG15

A Single Man-R My Dog Tulip-PG15 Freestyle (2010)-PG15 The 19th Wife-PG15 My Dog Tulip-PG15 Tomorrow, When The War Began-

The Next Karate Kid-PG Planet Of The Apes-PG15 Superman/ Batman: ApocalypseThe Lost Future-PG15 Planet Of The Apes-PG15 Sinners & Saints-18 The Devil’s Tomb-PG15

12:30 PG15 14:15 17:15 19:00 21:00 23:00

03:00 03:30 04:00 04:30 06:00 08:30 12:00 12:30 13:30 14:00 16:30 18:00 18:30 19:00 19:30 20:00 21:00 21:30 22:00 22:30 23:30

00:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 07:00 08:00 08:30 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 14:00

Elle: A Modern Cinderella TaleMy Name Is Khan-PG15 Easy A-PG15 How Do You Know-PG15 Sanctum-18 Winter’s Bone-18

15:00 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 23:00

Live Good Morning America The Ellen DeGeneres Show The Bachelor Glee American Idol Drop Dead Diva Off The Map

Friends Friends Dharma And Greg The Tonight Show With Jay Leno Malcolm In The Middle Friends Malcolm In The Middle Dharma And Greg Just Shoot Me Friends How I Met Your Mother The Simpsons Happy Endings The League Perfect Couples The Tonight Show With Jay Leno The Daily Show With Jon Stewart The Colbert Report Neighbors From Hell American Dad Late Night With Jimmy Fallon

00:00 01:00 02:00 03:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 08:00 09:00 10:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

Smallville Necessary Roughness Supernatural American Idol Psych Smallville The Cape Parenthood Psych American Idol The Cape The Ellen DeGeneres Show Parenthood Smallville Warehouse 13 The Ellen DeGeneres Show Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior Glee American Idol Drop Dead Diva Survivor: One World Supernatural

American Idol Necessary Roughness Psych Off The Map Good Morning America Tower Prep Emmerdale Look-A-Like The Ellen DeGeneres Show The Martha Stewart Show The View American Idol Tower Prep

01:00 The Alphabet Killer-18 03:00 Malibu Shark Attack-18 05:00 Storm Warning-18 07:00 No Time To Fear-PG15 09:00 Long Weekend-PG15 11:00 Odysseus: Voyage To The Underworld-PG15 13:00 The Karate Kid II-PG 15:00 Long Weekend-PG15 17:00 Altitude-PG15 19:00 Julia’s Eyes-18 21:00 Kiss Of Death-18

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 101 Dalmatians 101 Dalmatians Jake & The Neverland Pirates Jake & The Neverland Pirates The Hive Mini Adventures Of Winnie The A Poem Is...

Animated Stories Mouk (Cema)

Dr G: Medical Examiner The Haunted A Haunting Kidnap And Rescue Fugitive Strike Force Dr G: Medical Examiner The Haunted A Haunting Life Or Death: Medical Mysteries The Prosecutors Forensic Detectives Murder Shift Life Or Death: Medical Mysteries Real Emergency Calls Who On Earth Did I Marry?

True Crime With Aphrodite Jones Disappeared Murder Shift Life Or Death: Medical Mysteries Real Emergency Calls Who On Earth Did I Marry?

True Crime With Aphrodite Jones Disappeared The Prosecutors Forensic Detectives Murder Shift Real Emergency Calls Life Or Death: Medical Mysteries Who On Earth Did I Marry?

True Crime With Aphrodite Jones Disappeared I Was Murdered I Was Murdered I Escaped Death

00:55 Style Star 01:25 E!es 02:20 E!es 03:15 25 Most Stylish 04:10 Sexiest 05:05 Extreme Hollywood 06:00 15 Most Infamous Child Star Mugshots 07:50 Behind The Scenes

00:00 Kung Fu Dunk-PG15 02:00 My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend-PG15 04:00 Knucklehead-PG15 06:00 Captain Ron-PG15 08:00 Mr. Wrong-PG15 10:00 The Prince And Me 4: The Elephant Adventure-PG15 12:00 Dr. Dolittle-PG 14:00 A Lot Like Love-PG15 16:00 Kung Fu Dunk-PG15 18:00 It’s Complicated-PG15 20:30 Cop Out-PG15 22:30 The 41-Year-Old Virgin Who...-18

01:00 03:00 05:00 07:15 09:00 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:00 19:00 21:00 23:00

Into The Night-18 Nine-PG15 Antwone Fisher-PG15 Joueuse-PG15 The Sting II-PG15 Soapdish-PG Not Since You-PG15 Oceans - Into The Deep-PG Veronica Guerin-PG15 Up In The Air-PG15 The Dry Land-18 Adaptation-18

01:00 03:00 05:00 07:00 09:00 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:00 19:00 21:00 23:00

Brothers-18 Ice Age-FAM District 9-PG15 Salt-PG15 The Day After Tomorrow-PG15 Jane Eyre-PG15 Chasing Papi-PG Preacher’s Kid-PG The Day After Tomorrow-PG15 Scott Pilgrim vs. The World-18 Scream 4-PG15 Tyrannosaur-18

00:00 02:00 04:00 06:00 07:45 10:00 12:00 14:00 16:00 18:00 20:00 22:15

The Muppets Take Manhattan-PG Alex & Alexis-PG15 Casper Haunted Christmas-FAM Young Fisherman-PG The Muppets Take Manhattan-PG Tangled-FAM Shrek Forever After-FAM Casper Haunted Christmas-FAM Micropolis-FAM Tangled-FAM Shrek Forever After-FAM Young Fisherman-PG

00:00 01:45 04:00 06:15 08:00 09:45 12:00 PG15 14:15 16:00 18:00 20:00 22:00

Pelican Blood-18 Helen-PG15 South Solitary-PG15 13 Going On 30-PG15 The Silent Fall-PG15 South Solitary-PG15 Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps-

01:00 01:30 05:30 06:15 14:30 15:30 21:30 22:00

ODI Cricket Highlights Futbol Mundial ODI Cricket Highlights Live Cricket ODI Trans World Sport Futbol Mundial ODI Cricket Highlights Live Snooker The Welsh Open

Africa United-PG15 The Silent Fall-PG15 Charlie St. Cloud-PG15 Scream 4-PG15 Last Night-PG15

01:30 UFC 04:30 UFC All Access 05:00 UFC Unleashed 06:00 UFC Unleashed 07:00 WWE NXT 08:00 WWE Vintage Collection 09:00 Speedway 10:00 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup 11:00 Live PGA European Tour 15:00 WWE NXT 16:00 Speedway 17:00 UFC 20:00 WWE SmackDown 22:00 WWE This Week 22:30 Live Rugby League World Club Challenge

A SINGLE MAN ON OSN CINEMA

04:30 Asian Tour Golf Show 05:00 Golfing World 06:00 Trans World Sport

07:00 10:00 11:00 11:30 12:30 13:00 15:00 15:30 19:00 19:30 20:30 21:00 21:30 22:00 22:30

Snooker Trans World Sport ICC Cricket World Golfing World ICC Cricket World Scottish Premier League European Tour Weekly Premier League Darts ODI Cricket Highlights Trans World Sport Scottish Premier League Highlights Futbol Mundial European Tour Weekly Top 14 Highlights Live Pro 12 Celtic League

00:30 01:30 02:30 03:00 04:00 05:00 06:00 06:30 07:00 08:00 11:30 17:00 18:00 22:30 23:30

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Information

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

DIAL 161 FOR AIRPORT INFORMATION In case you are not travelling, your proper cancellation of bookings will help other passengers to use seats Airlines LMU JZR QTR PIA JZR JZR ETH THY UAE DHX QTR MSR FDB ETD RJA GFA MLR RBG KAC THY JZR JZR KAC BAW KAC FDB KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC UAE ABY QTR ETD FDB IRA GFA RKM JZR RBG MEA IYE MSR MSR KAC GFA KAC FDB UAL OMA QTR RJA KAC JZR KAC QTR JZR JZR JZR ETD UAE GFA SVA ABY

Flt 1109 185 138 205 267 539 620 772 853 370 148 612 67 305 642 211 1405 3563 544 770 555 529 416 157 206 53 352 302 332 676 284 344 855 125 132 301 55 619 213 310 165 3553 404 825 623 610 672 219 618 57 982 645 140 640 788 257 546 134 561 535 213 303 857 215 510 127

Arrival Flights on Friday 17/2/2012 Route ALEXANDRIA DUBAI DOHA LAHORE BEIRUT CAIRO ADDIS ABABA ISTANBUL DUBAI BAHRAIN DOHA CAIRO DUBAI ABU DHABI AMMAN BAHRAIN COLOMBO ALEXANDRIA CAIRO ISTANBUL ALEXANDRIA ASSIUT JAKARTA LONDON ISLAMABAD DUBAI COCHIN MUMBAI TRIVANDRUM DUBAI DHAKA CHENNAI DUBAI SHARJAH DOHA ABU DHABI DUBAI LAR BAHRAIN RAS ALKHAIMAH DUBAI ALEXANDRIA BEIRUT SANAA SOHAG CAIRO DUBAI BAHRAIN DOHA DUBAI WASHINGTON DC DULLES MUSCAT DOHA AMMAN JEDDAH BEIRUT ALEXANDRIA DOHA SOHAG CAIRO DEIREZZOR ABU DHABI DUBAI BAHRAIN RIYADH SHARJAH

Time 0:01 0:20 0:20 0:25 0:45 0:50 1:45 2:15 2:35 2:55 2:55 3:00 3:05 3:10 3:10 3:15 3:40 4:20 4:40 4:50 6:00 6:20 6:25 6:40 7:40 7:45 7:50 7:55 8:05 8:10 8:15 8:25 8:30 9:00 9:05 9:15 9:20 9:50 9:55 10:40 11:20 11:35 11:55 12:05 12:30 12:55 13:20 13:25 13:40 13:50 14:05 14:15 14:20 14:40 14:50 15:00 15:20 15:25 16:10 16:25 16:45 16:50 16:55 17:15 17:20 17:40

ALK JZR RBG FDB KAC KAC KAC JZR KAC KAC AIC KAC KAC KAC FDB JAI KAC SVA MSR MLR DHX GRF FCX MEA GFA QTR JZR UAE SAI JZR UAL PIA DLH

227 177 3557 63 502 542 744 787 674 166 975 102 774 562 61 572 786 506 618 1407 372 81 304 402 217 136 135 859 441 239 981 215 636

Airlines AXB UAL LMU BBC AIC DLH PIA ETH THY GRF FDB UAE DHX MSR ETD QTR MLR RBG QTR THY JZR GFA RJA FDB KAC BAW KAC JZR JZR KAC JZR UAE

Flt 390 981 1110 44 982 637 206 621 773 94 68 854 371 613 306 139 1405 3556 149 771 164 212 643 54 545 156 671 256 534 787 560 856

COLOMBO DUBAI ALEXANDRIA DUBAI BEIRUT CAIRO DAMMAM RIYADH DUBAI PARIS CHENNAI NEW YORK RIYADH AMMAN DUBAI MUMBAI JEDDAH JEDDAH ALEXANDRIA COLOMBO BAHRAIN BAGHDAD RIYADH BEIRUT BAHRAIN DOHA BAHRAIN DUBAI LAHORE AMMAN BAHRAIN KARACHI FRANKFURT Departure Flights on Friday 17/2/2012 Route KOZHIKODE WASHINGTON ALEXANDRIA DHAKA AHMEDABAD FRANKFURT LAHORE ADDIS ABABA ISTANBUL DUBAI DUBAI DUBAI BAHRAIN CAIRO ABU DHABI DOHA COLOMBO ALEXANDRIA DOHA ISTANBUL DUBAI BAHRAIN AMMAN DUBAI ALEXANDRIA LONDON DUBAI BEIRUT CAIRO JEDDAH SOHAG DUBAI

18:10 18:15 18:25 18:40 18:45 18:50 18:55 19:05 19:25 19:30 19:30 19:35 19:40 19:50 20:00 20:10 20:20 20:35 20:45 20:50 21:00 21:15 21:20 21:20 21:25 21:35 21:55 22:00 22:40 22:45 23:00 23:30 23:50

Time 0:05 0:45 0:45 1:00 1:05 1:20 1:25 2:45 3:15 3:30 3:45 3:50 3:55 4:00 4:00 4:40 4:40 5:00 5:40 5:50 6:55 7:00 7:10 8:25 8:30 8:40 9:00 9:00 9:15 9:25 9:30 9:40

ABY ETD KAC FDB QTR KAC KAC GFA IRA JZR RKM KAC RBG KAC MEA KAC IYE MSR JZR MSR GFA FDB KAC KAC KAC OMA UAL RJA JZR KAC KAC QTR JZR JZR QTR ETD JZR UAE GFA ABY SVA RBG JZR ALK FDB JZR KAC KAC FDB KAC KAC JAI MSR MLR SVA DHX MEA GFA KAC QTR KAC JZR KAC FCX UAE JZR SAI KAC

126 302 117 56 133 617 177 214 618 212 311 541 3558 103 405 501 825 624 176 611 220 58 561 673 785 646 982 641 786 743 773 141 552 238 135 304 538 858 216 128 511 3554 134 228 64 184 283 361 62 343 351 571 619 1407 507 373 403 218 381 137 301 554 205 102 860 502 442 411

SHARJAH ABU DHABI NEW YORK DUBAI DOHA DOHA FRANKFURT BAHRAIN LAR DEIREZZOR RAS ALKHAIMAH CAIRO ALEXANDRIA LONDON BEIRUT BEIRUT DOHA SOHAG DUBAI CAIRO BAHRAIN DUBAI AMMAN DUBAI JEDDAH MUSCAT BAHRAIN AMMAN RIYADH DAMMAM RIYADH DOHA ALEXANDRIA AMMAN DOHA ABU DHABI CAIRO DUBAI BAHRAIN SHARJAH RIYADH ALEXANDRIA BAHRAIN DUBAI DUBAI DUBAI DHAKA COLOMBO DUBAI CHENNAI KOCHI MUMBAI ALEXANDRIA COLOMBO JEDDAH BAHRAIN BEIRUT BAHRAIN DELHI DOHA MUMBAI ALEXANDRIA ISLAMABAD DUBAI DUBAI LUXOR LAHORE BANGKOK

Directorate General of Civil Aviation Home Page (www.kuwait-airport.com.kw)

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14-2-2012 ACCOMMODATION To let from March 1, 2012, 1 semi furnished big room with attached toilet from a 3 bed room spacious flat in B’neid Al-Ghar. Ideal for executives.

Rent KD 75/- for single occupancy and KD 95/- for double occupancy.

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Separate toilet, bedroom & balcony with coolpex & AC, new building. Contact: 97208351. (C 3866) 9-2-2012 Immediate sharing accommodation available for a decent Indian Christian bachelor or couple near Salmiya Garden. Contact: 66884273 / 25657832.

(C 3862) Sharing accommodation available in C-A/C flat in Abbasiya for two Christian bachelors or couple from 15 Feb. Contact: 65625804.

(C 3863) 8-2-2012

CHANGE OF NAME I, Medamalli Venkata Subbaiah, holder of Indian Passport No: F4933824, resident of S/o M. Subbaiah, Kuppavari Palli (Village), Seetharampuram (Post), Rajampet (Mandal), Kadapa District, Andra Pradesh, have changed my name to Medamalli Sreenivas.

I, Anis s/o Ali Mohammed, holding Indian Passport No.E1091168, R/o 147/10 Najampura, Bohrawadi, Udaipur (RAJ), have changed name to SHABBIR ALI MOHAMMED s/o Ali Mohammed in future be called and known by new name. (C 3873) I, Pappu Lal s/o Mohan Lal, holder of Indian Passport No. E5530889 hereby change my name to KAMALESH DEVRA. (C 3874) 16-2-2012 I, Vinod Kumar S/O Narinder Kumar holder of Indian Passport No. H4590145 hereby change my name to VINOD KUMAR GOGNA. (C 3871)

I, Sobhana Kumari, holder of Indian Passport No. F0925460 here by change my name Sara Saad Mubarak Salman. (C 3870) 13-2-2011

TUITION Business management teacher with doctoral degree for universities, institutions, corporate & all student levels.

Over 10 years experience. Call 66495951. (C 3817) Mathematics teacher, Intermediate and secondary Exams models, Easy method, Exams from past years with solutions. 97301901 English teacher (3) years experience, looking for a job and ready to start with all educational stages. 55963993 Mathematics teacher for Universities, Institutions, Foreign Schools, Administrative, American, English, Australian, Bahrain, Electric and Gulf Sciences, Algbra Prel, Mathematics, intermediate, gmat, sat college, math98, 110 pre calculus geometry.

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FOR SALE Chevrolet Optra 2009 is on immediate sale for KD 2,350/as expat leaving Kuwait.

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(C 3867) 11-2-2012

SITUATION VACANT A Kuwaiti woman is looking to hire a driver. No residency transfer required. Contact: 99215511. (C 3872) 16-2-2012

MATRIMONIAL Proposals invited for a Keralite C.S.I. boy (31, 5ft 7”) studied B.Com, presently well employed in own business seeks alliance from God fearing Keralite girl (C.S.I / Martomite) from India or residing in Kuwait. Contact: thjo53@yahoo.com with full details.

(C 3864) Orthodox parents in Kuwait invites proposals for their daughter (26 / 165 fair) B.Tech, B/B and currently working in Kuwait, from a well qualified/ employed Orthodox/ Marthoma boys. Contact: invitesproposal@yahoo.com (C 3865) 9-2-2012

MISCELLANEOUS Original guaranteed Palestinian virgin olive oil, large black and green olives for sale. Tel: 66517417 Whole Floor or small villa needed for rent in Shaab, Mansoriya, Nozha, Abdullah Al-Salem or Shamiya. Direct contact with owner. Tel: 9989018-99169016 A camp for rent in Kabed including five tents with all services. Complete privacy + game arcade. Tel: 97177714 Size 36 air pressure gun for sale in addition to a scope, safety lock. Shooting range 350 meters +bag+25 shots.

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Tel: 66989887

Sports FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Baddeley and Scott each aim for a Riviera repeat PACIFIC PALISADES: Australians have thrived at Riviera in recent years and two players from Down Under, Aaron Baddeley and Adam Scott, are aiming for repeat success at this week’s Northern Trust Open. In-form Baddeley defends the title he clinched last year by two shots while Scott, in his first appearance on the 2012 PGA Tour, seeks an official stamp of approval here after winning the rain-shortened 2005 edition. Seven years ago, Scott beat American Chad Campbell in a Monday playoff after the weather-hit tournament had been reduced to 36 holes, resulting in the Australian’s victory being declared unofficial.

“I remember spending so many hours in the locker room that week,” Scott told reporters at a rain-sodden Riviera Country Club on Wednesday. “It was such a frustrating week to only play 36

holes over four days. It doesn’t happen too often ... unfortunately we never got a (weather) break but I made the most of those 36 holes at least. “It’s nice to be back and start my year out here at Riviera where I have fond memories,” added Scott who was runner-up here in 2006. “I’ve certainly played well here, and it’s probably my favourite venue on the PGA Tour.”

The Australian world number eight is eager to launch his 2012 campaign after taking a three-month break which included having his tonsils removed in December. “It’s probably the longest break for me,” said Scott, an eight-times champion on the PGA Tour. “I needed it.

I’ve played a lot of golf around the world for the last 12 years and to be able to spend three months at home for a change was really, really nice.”

TONSILLITIS TROUBLE Scott decided to have his tonsils taken out after being hampered by tonsillitis at least four times a year for the last few seasons. “I got it in Boston during the Deutsche Bank tournament last year,” the Australian said. “I played that week somehow, but I felt terrible and I thought that was enough. “I figured if it happened during an event this year, it would be just another waste of an event and a month so I decided to take them out.” While Scott took time off, Baddeley has been busy on the 2012 PGA Tour, competing in four events that culminated in an impressive fourth-place finish at the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am on Sunday. Twelve months ago, he tied for sixth at Pebble Beach and then brought that form to Riviera where he

World No 1 comes full circle at Riviera LOS ANGELES: Luke Donald was on the practice range at Riviera before dawn Wednesday, so dark that only temporary floodlights allowed him to see where the ball was going. It was a snapshot of the perks that come with being No 1 in the world, and what got him there. The best player gets his choice of tee times for the pro-am, and the early spots go first. Along with being No 1 in the world, Donald sits atop both the PGA Tour and European Tour money lists, the first player ever to lead the two biggest tours.

As for the work ethic? Getting to the top wasn’t an accident. “I think the best part of being No 1 is knowing that my best golf is good enough to get me to that No 1 spot, just from a confidence and mental standpoint,” Donald said. “That’s gratifying to know that the hard work is paying off.” The hardest part might be the encore. Donald is coming off a year he won’t ever forget, and it all began at Riviera with a round he would like to erase from his memory. In his first event, he shot a 79 in the second round to miss the cut.

Toward the end of his season, he had won a career-best four times, including the most exciting finish this side of a major when he birdied six straight holes to start the back nine at Disney and closed with a 64 for a two-shot victory. It gave him the double money title, and was enough to make him a landslide winner of PGA Tour player of the year. Off the course was joy and grief. His father, Colin, died of heart failure just a few days before Donald’s wife gave birth to their second daughter. “Obviously, a decent amount of my work had already been done,” Donald said. “I’d had a great season up until that point. And in a way, those couple weeks were very tough. I think the birth of my second daughter helped shed a little bit of grace on the whole situation. It helped with the passing of my father. And I think I came out of it a stronger person with a little bit more perspective.”

His father rarely went to golf tournaments. He was proud of his son more as a person than just a golfer. The last two years had been a struggle, as his father went from double knee replacement to an addiction to pain killers, then bouts of depression. One moment stands out for Donald, and he wasn’t even there. He was at Wentworth, fighting a flawed swing to stay in the hunt long enough to get into a playoff with Lee Westwood, beat him on the first extra hole and replace him as No 1 in the world. Donald’s brother, Christian, was home that weekend with their father, watching it unfold on television. “He looked in Chris’ eye, and it was a proud moment,” Donald said. “He’s always been proud and supportive, more proud of the person I turned into.”

Donald opened his season in Abu Dhabi with a tie for 48th, the first time since August that he did not finish among the top 12. That’s still better than missing the cut, as he did at the Northern Trust Open a year ago. Riviera is where Donald comes full circle. He leads a field at the Northern Trust Open that features two-time winner Phil Mickelson, coming off his six-shot comeback to win last week at Pebble Beach; a pair of Aussies in Jason Day and Adam Scott, who are playing the PGA Tour for the first time this year; and Padraig Harrington, who started to show some long lost form at Pebble Beach.

Also playing is Sergio Garcia, a regular partner of Donald in the Ryder Cup. Garcia once talked about winning money titles on both sides of the Atlantic, and he was impressed - as was most everyone -

ABU DHABI: In this file photo, England’s Luke Donald reacts on the 18th hole during the first round of Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. — AP that Donald got it done. “Very remarkable,” Garcia said. “It’s never really been done by a guy that is a member of both tours, so it shows you how difficult it is to do it. For a guy like Luke to be able to do it, as well as No 1, it was great to see.” Donald finally is getting the respect for his feats, especially his world ranking.

Westwood got the same questions, mostly from an American audience - how can a guy be No 1 without ever winning a major? Those questions mainly were born out of comparisons to Tiger Woods, who had been No 1 for 10 years of his career, and who won majors with regularity. The world ranking is about accumulating points, and no one was more consistent than Donald. By the end of the year, there were no questions about who was No 1 in the world. —AP

sealed his third victory on the US circuit. “My game sort of feels like it’s in the same position as then,” Baddeley, 29, smiled. “I’m not really working on anything, just sort of maintaining and trying to hit golf shots. “I’m excited for where my game is at. It feels real good, so hopefully we can keep the same thing going as last year.” Baddeley ended a four-year title drought on the PGA Tour with his 2011 triumph at Riviera and he hopes to draw on some of those memories this week. “It’s definitely exciting to come back and sort of relive those moments ... the shots that you hit the previous year and the putts you made,” he said. “It’s going to be a fun week.” Baddeley last year, Scott in 2005 and Robert Allenby in 2001 have all been Australian champions at Riviera. — Reuters

Mickelson not losing appetite for winning PACIFIC PALISADES: Former world number two Phil Mickelson has already achieved far more on the golf course than most of his peers but the 41-year-old American says his work is far from done. The left-hander, a winner of four major titles who will be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in May, clinched his 40th PGA Tour victory on Sunday but remains hungry for more. “I want to try to win more tournaments and more major championships. I love competing. It’s been frustrating when I haven’t been in contention,” Mickelson told reporters at a rainsodden Riviera Country Club on Wednesday.

“It’s a lot more frustrating for me to finish 25th than it is to finish second at the British Open where I came so close and let it slip away.”

Mickelson tied for second in last year’s British Open at Royal St George’s, having charged into a share of the lead with a stunning start to the final round before slipping back. “I would much rather have that where I’m in the thick of it, have that excitement level,” said the Californian, who has yet to win a British Open. “That to me is what I really enjoy. “And so the motivation is I want to get those opportunities. I want to have more of those opportunities and see if I can finish them off.” Short game magician Mickelson, who fired a flawless eight-under-par 64 to win the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am by two shots on Sunday, did not expect any letdown in his play at this week’s Northern Trust Open.

‘FUN WEEK’ “I had such a fun week (at Pebble Beach) that I want to try and have that again,” said Mickelson, who was six strokes behind going into the final round at Pebble Beach and outscored his playing partner Tiger Woods by a remarkable 11 shots. “I don’t feel like there’s a letdown, there’s an excitement and a new energy to get back in that position. I know I was six back, but I felt like I was right in it starting the last day. “I’m playing well and if I play my game and focus hard, I should be able to get in contention and have that excitement again,” added the American, who triumphed here in 2008 and 2009. Mickelson will launch his bid for a fifth major title at the April 5-8 Masters where he will be seeking a fourth green jacket. —Reuters

Sports FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Pakistan can hit back, Bopara warns DUBAI: Return-to-form batsman Ravi Bopara on Wednesday warned England to avoid any complacency against a dangerous Pakistan team despite racing into a 2-0 lead in their one day international series. England won the first match by 130 runs on Monday and then doubled the lead with a hard earned 20-run win in the second on Wednesday-both in Abu Dhabi.

Bopara hit half centuries in both games and assisted his captain Alastair Cook-who hit successive centuries-to help England post challenging totals in both the games.

But Bopara warned Pakistan can still bounce back in the last two games here tomorrow and Tuesday. “Any series where you go 2-0 up is pretty good,” said the 26-yearold. “But we’re keeping our feet on the ground. We know from the Test series what Pakistan are capable of.

They are a very unpredictable side,” said Bopara.

Pakistan won the preceding three-Test series 3-0.

Bopara, part of the England team which lost 5-0 in India last year, said a win of this stature in sub-continent conditions would be great. “It’s going to be a massive thing for us to win out here. We haven’t had a good oneday record in the sub-continent so it’s a big thing for us to win. It will give us confidence to know we can do it in sub-continent conditions.” Bopara warned against thinking of a 4-0 win. “I wouldn’t want to think like that.

We’ve done that in the past. Individually we’ve got a bit giddy and things just go wrong. So we’re not going to look too far ahead. “We’ll just keep doing what we’ve been doing in the last couple of matches and worry about our skills and dealing with that Pakistan bowling line-up,” said Bopara.

Bopara, who has so far scored 1668 in 71 one-day internationals, said his good form was pleasing. “I feel good. I felt a lot better yesterday than I did in the first game,” said Bopara of his 58 on Monday when he added 131 with Cook for the third wicket. “I was just getting used to the bowlers and it was my second game since October. “It makes a massive difference once you’ve had that time at the crease. The good thing is Cook is in great form. Hopefully he can go into the third match and get some more runs,” said Bopara.

Bopara said he has tried to soak up the pressure.

“That’s been a massive thing for me. We have to soak up the pressure as it’s going to be tough in the first 15 or 20 minutes,” he said. “It has got easier as the innings has gone on. Once you’re in for about fiveovers, you get used to the pace of the wicket, the bowlers. It gets a lot easier.” Bopara, who played one Test against India last year, said he was not thinking far ahead in his career.

“I’m not analyzing where I am at the moment. I remember in the summer, against India, I had a good series but then I went out to India and didn’t have such a good series. Things can change so quickly. “I’m just keeping my feet on the ground. I’m just thinking about (Saeed) Ajmal and how I’m going to deal with him.” —AFP

SAN JOSE: Andy Roddick falls over as he injures his foot during match against Denis Kudla in the SAP Open tennis tournament in San Jose, Calif. — AP

Gritty Roddick rallies past Kudla in San Jose Defending champion Raonic advances SAN JOSE: Andy Roddick shook off some early rust before ensuring experience triumphed over youth at the San Jose Open with a hard fought 6-7 7-6 64 victory over 19-year-old American compatriot Denis Kudla on Wednesday.

Kudla, who reached the second round with a win over fellow teen Jack Sock a day earlier, is one of several young players showing off their potential at the event and he nearly scored a huge upset against the 29-year-old three-time champion. In a matchup of players heavily reliant on their serve, neither man was broken through the first two sets, which were both decided by tight tiebreakers.

Roddick, who blasted 14 aces, fell 2-0 behind in the third set but responded by winning five of the next six games to finally see off the spirited challenge of his youthful opponent. After receiving a

bye in the first round, the second seeded Roddick took to the court for the first time since a hamstring injury forced him to retire from the second round of last month’s Australian Open. Roddick rolled his ankle and needed a lengthy medical timeout late in the second set but showed plenty of determination as he saved 12 of 13 break points during a match that lasted two hours and 42 minutes.

“I stayed out there and did what I could, and I think he let it get away from him a little bit,” Roddick told reporters.

“Probably the best thing I did was exist out there.” Defending champion Milos Raonic had an easier passage to the quarter-finals, the big-serving Canadian staving off some stubborn late resistance from Tobias Kamke in a 6-2 7-6 victory over the German. The third seed sent down 18 aces and prevailed 9-7 in a

fluctuating second-set tiebreaker that took the contest past midnight. Earlier, American world number 85 Sam Querrey continued his prolonged slump with a 5-7 6-3 7-5 defeat to Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan.

Plagued by injuries since last season, the former world number 17 has not won a singles title since August 2010 and lost for the fourth time in five contests this year. In other matches, 19year-old American Ryan Harrison upset Belgian eighth seed Olivier Rochus 4-6 6-2 6-3, Matthew Ebden defeated Dudi Sela 6-7 6-2 7-6 and France’s Julien Benneteau edged Ryan Sweeting 7-6 76. World number 13 Gael Monfils was the tournament top seed but the Frenchman withdrew from the event with a knee injury on Wednesday and will also miss next week’s tour stop in Memphis. — Reuters

Cook’s recipe exposes Pakistan

ABU DHABI: Captain Alastair Cook’s simple recipe of playing hard has exposed cracks in the Pakistan team, leaving England with an invincible 2-0 lead after their 20-run win in the second day-night match. Pakistan, who blanked England 3-0 in the preceding Test series, looked disjointed in the first two matches and now need to win the remaining two tomorrowday and Tuesday, both in Dubai. Pakistan failed to chase a target of 261 in the first match and 251 in the seconddefeats which saw captain Misbah-ul Haq and coach Mohsin Khan avoid the mandatory post-match news conferences. Asked why the captain and coach did not attend, opener Mohammad Hafeez said: “When you do well and even when you don’t do well, you

have to face the media. It is not that nobody wants to face the media.”

England rode on a second successive hundred by Cook-the first England captain to hit back-to-back centuries in one-day cricket-to post a challenging 250-4 on Wednesday before Steven Finn (4-34) restricted Pakistan to 230 in 49 overs. Cook had scored his best one-day score of 137 while Finn had identical figures in England’s big 130-run win in the first match in Abu Dhabi on Monday. Hafeez gave credit to England. “The ball was seaming more and was spinning a bit more later. England bowled really well. It became a bit difficult batting second under lights,” said Hafeez, accepting Pakistan could not carry the Test

win momentum. “Definitely, we were thinking at coming harder in the one-dayers as well. Credit goes to the England team. They really played good cricket. And Cook played a solid knock in the last two ODIs. “We can still come back very hard because we believe in our team. We have too many match winners in our side and anybody can come in and win the game for Pakistan,” said Hafeez who scored only five and 26 in two defeats.

Cook said England were not going get complacent despite their wins. “You train like it’s still 0-0. Complacency has never been an issue with this England side, whether we win or lose games of cricket. “It will never be easy, but it’s a great situation to be in - 2-0 up with two to go,” said Cook, adding he had

transformed after being written off as oneday player. “When I’d played those first 20odd games, I knew if I wanted to play oneday cricket for England I’d have to improve.

I’ve changed the way I play one-day cricket,” said Cook, who was made one-day captain in May last year. Wednesday’s hundred was his third as captain following a 119 against Sri Lanka at Lord’s last year. Cook was full of praised for Finn. “He was our outstanding performer in India, and never really got the wickets he deserved,” said Cook of England’s 5-0 one-day defeat in India last year. “He’s got two ‘four-fors’-and that opening spell of five overs for six was quality, running in and bowling 90mph and landing it on a sixpence.” —AFP

Sports FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Saudi female athletes challenge Muslim norms

DUBAI: Behind concrete walls and with no men in sight, Saudi women wearing shorts and short-sleeve shirts meet three times a week to play football in an all-female club in Saudi Arabia’s port city of Jeddah.

Cheering them on is Jeddah King’s United coach and striker Reema Abdullah, who is also leading a campaign in the ultra conservative Muslim country to allow women to participate in sports and compete internationally.

Saudi Arabia has never sent a woman to compete in the Olympics. Human rights groups say the country is violating the International Olympic Committee charter’s pledge of equality. In a report Wednesday, Human Rights Watch called on the IOC to

compete for their country, they will raise the flag so high,” the 33-year-old Abdullah said. “Women can achieve a lot, because we are very talented and we are crazy about sports.” Since Abdullah put together Saudi Arabia’s first female football club in Jeddah in 2006, teams have popped up around the country, including in the capital, Riyadh, and in Dammam, the biggest city in the oil-rich eastern province.

In 2008, seven female teams played in the first ever national tournament as part a clandestine and segregated women’s league. Abdullah’s Jeddah King’s United finished first. Members of the team play not in a stadium but on what Abdullah describes as “a proper size football field

unwanted attention of the kingdom’s intrusive religious police, who enforce a rigid interpretation of Islamic Shariah law on the streets and public places like shopping malls and university campuses.

“Nobody is saying completely ‘no’ to us,” Abdullah said, adding that only a fraction of Saudia Arabia’s female population attending all-female private schools and universities - is generally tolerated to participate in sports. “As long as there are no men around and our clothes are properly Islamic, there should be no problem,” she said. But there is a problem and a senior sports official, who said rulers in the kingdom are not opposed to women’s participation in sports, described efforts to

JEDDAH: Members of the Jeddah Kings United all female team attend football exercises, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. — AP require that Saudi Arabia’s participation in the London Olympics be contingent upon the Arab country allowing all girls and women to play competitive sports.

Saudi Arabia’s male athletes have so far qualified in several track and field and equestrian events for the London Games.

There’s a chance male athletes will also qualify in archery and they are hoping for a wild card invitation in shooting. However, plans to send women to the Olympics remain wrapped in secrecy. “We will watch the London Olympics and we will cheer for our men competing there, hoping that some day we can root for our women as well,” Abdullah said in a telephone interview from Jeddah.

“When Saudi women get a chance to

with grass that is surrounded by a wall.”

The current roster includes 35 women, as young as 13 and up to 35. Outside the segregated premises, the players are wearing long trousers, long-sleeved shirts and specially designed headscarfs to cover their hair, Abdullah said. What they are doing is illegal, even though there are no written laws in Saudi Arabia that ban and restrict women from participating in sports. The stigma of female athletes is rooted in conservative traditions and religious views that hold giving freedom of movement to women would make them vulnerable to sins.

Saudi women bear the brunt of their nation’s deeply conservative values, often finding themselves the target of the

include more girls and women into sports as “a fight between old and new” attitudes.

“We are supporting women here to be in sports but that means fighting deeply entrenched traditions in Saudi Arabia,” the official said in a phone interview Wednesday. “We are trying to overcome them and we are seeking support from the IOC to have a woman in our delegation at the London Games.” The official spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The IOC has previously criticized the Saudis for failing to send women athletes to the Olympics. However, according to Human Rights Watch, the IOC hasn’t attached any conditions to the nation’s participation in the games. In Wednesday’s

report, the New York-based group said that Saudi government restrictions put sports beyond the reach of almost all women in the Gulf nation. There is no physical education for girls in public schools and no money allocated for women’s sports in the country’s institutions, including the youth ministry, the Saudi national Olympic committee and Saudi sports federations.

“It’s not that Saudi Arabia doesn’t have the money to do this or women who want to,” said Christoph Wilcke, a senior researcher in Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division who authored the 51-page report titled “Steps of the Devil.” “We have listened to Saudi promises for decades. This is not good enough.” The report’s name comes from the comments of some powerful Saudi clerics who oppose sport as “steps of the devil” that would lead women to unIslamic behavior and moral corruption.

Saudi Arabia’s Persian Gulf neighbor, Qatar, and Brunei have also never sent a women to the Olympics. Oil-rich Qatar, which like Saudi Arabia follows a strict version of Islam, has been feverishly working to escape the stigma that comes with failing to include women. Doha’s bid for the 2020 Olympics has added the pressure to include women on Qatar’s team in London.

The country’s sports officials emphasize huge efforts and considerable resources they’ve invested into changing mindsets that led to Qatari women competing in international tournaments for the past three years, including the 2010 Youth Olympics in Singapore.

Very slowly, some changes are also taking place in Saudi Arabia, said Lina Almaeena, a basketball player in Jeddah.

Her team, established in 2003, has 16 women. They rent a gym in one of the city’s private university for women to play three times a week. “Five, six years ago women in sports was a taboo,” Almaeena said in a phone interview. “Now we are on TV and in the newspapers all the time because the interest is high since there are so many health problems women and the society is facing.” The IOC charter states that sports are a right for everyone and bans discrimination in practicing sports on the basis of gender. “The IOC strives to ensure the Olympic Games and the Olympic Movement are universal and non-discriminatory, in line with the Olympic Charter and our values of respect, friendship and excellence,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said in a statement. “NOCs (national Olympic committees) are encouraged to uphold that spirit in their delegations. —AP

Spanish League Preview

Real out to break records, Barcelona monopoly MADRID: Real Madrid’s 10-point lead over Barcelona at the top of La Liga should be more than enough to secure a first title since 2008 and the focus has shifted to whether Jose Mourinho’s fearsome side can smash the records for points and goals. On current form - they have won 17 of 18 games since the end of September - they will easily outstrip the 99 points Barca accumulated in 2010 and are comfortably on course to beat the top mark of 107 goals set by John Toshack’s Real team in 1990.

Real’s consistency owes much to the form of La Liga top scorer Cristiano Ronaldo, who has 27 goals in 22 matches ahead of tomorrow’s game at home to struggling Racing Santander. The creativity of Mesut Ozil and Angel Di Maria, who have 24 league assists between them, and solidity of central defenders Sergio Ramos and Pepe have been key, while strikers Karim Benzema and Gonzalo Higuain have contributed regularly with vital goals. Mourinho appears, too, to have

imbued his players with greater self-belief, which has helped them to some impressive comeback wins both at home and on the road.

However, Barca’s struggles on their travels - they lost 3-2 at Osasuna last weekend and have taken just 17 of 33 available points - is the principle reason why the battle for the league title looks to be over with just over half the season played. “I am sure that the players and the coach will not concede a centimeter of their advantage,” Real director of football Miguel Pardeza said on Wednesday. “We are well positioned and the 10 points give us some room for error,” the former Real player added. “But now it’s about avoiding carelessness because Barca is still a great rival and in sport you can’t assume something is over until the goal has been completely achieved.”

SPANISH TRADITION For all their dominance over the rest of the teams in La

Liga, Real face the real prospect of winning the title without managing to beat their arch rivals. Barca, who host thirdplaced Valencia on Sunday, came from a goal down to secure a 3-1 success at Real’s Bernabeu stadium in December, knocked Real out of the King’s Cup over two legs in January and also beat them to win the season-opening Spanish Super Cup in August. However, Real may have already clinched the title by the time they play at the Nou Camp at the end of April and if the Barca players have to applaud their rivals on to the pitch, as is the tradition in Spain, Mourinho and his troops will probably not care as much about the result. A win for Valencia at the Nou Camp on Sunday, who are eight points ahead of their city rivals Levante in fourth, would trim the gap to Barca to five points. Levante are at home to Rayo Vallecano on Sunday, while fifth-placed Espanyol play at Getafe tomorrow and improving Atletico Madrid, in sixth, travel to Gijon to take on struggling Sporting on Sunday. — Reuters

Sports FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Spurs take circus to Stevenage in FA Cup MANCHESTER: Tottenham Hotspur will hope to ride the wave of Harry Redknapp euphoria as they seek to live up to their newfound status of FA Cup favorites when they travel to Stevenage this weekend. With Premier League leaders and holders Manchester City ousted in the third round by Manchester United, who were then knocked out by Liverpool in the next round, Redknapp’s men are strongly fancied to win a first FA Cup since 1991. Spurs make the short trip to the League One (third division) side whose reward for reaching the fifth round of the competition for the first time is a meeting with the big boys.

There is already one real circus in residence in Stevenage and on Sunday there will be a metaphorical one when Spurs fans, vocal in their pleas to Redknapp to stay with the club rather than fill the vacant England job, come to town. Redknapp, who was last week cleared of tax evasion by a court, is being persistently linked with the national team post and last weekend’s 5-0 thumping of Newcastle United in the Premier League did nothing to quieten the calls. Third in the league behind the two Manchester clubs, Spurs could be tempted to give some of their bigger names a rest before their north London derby against Arsenal the following weekend but that will not dampen excitement around Stevenage.

“There is a fantastic feeling. The feeling around club is so good,” Stevenage chief executive Bob Makin was quoted by local media as saying. There were queues around the block as home fans tried to get their hands on tickets for the visit of top-flight opposition and giant-killing dreams were indulged as supporters posed for photos with the FA Cup in the town 30 miles north of London. It is a familiar place for Spurs, whose reserve team used to play in Stevenage and who have plenty of fans living there, but there will be no room for sentiment as seven of the eight games feature Premier League sides against lower division opposition.

The only all top-flight game is Arsenal’s trip to Sunderland on Saturday, which comes a week after Arsene Wenger’s side came from behind to grab a 2-1 victory in the league against those very opponents at the Stadium of Light. Fellow Londoners Chelsea host Championship (second division) Birmingham City on Saturday, knowing defeat would heap further pressure on already under-fire manager Andre Villas-Boas. Having slipped out of the Premier League top four last weekend with a 2-0 defeat at Everton, Chelsea need to get back to winning ways and keep themselves in with a chance of one major domestic trophy with the league title out of grasp. Everton, on something of a high after league wins over Manchester City as well as Chelsea in recent weeks, are also in action on Saturday when they host Blackpool, who were relegated from the top flight at the end of last season.—Reuters

Santos stunned by last-gasp goal BUENOS AIRES: Holders Santos were upset in the opening match of their Libertadores Cup defence when they conceded a stoppage time goal in a 2-1 defeat to Bolivia’s The Strongest in La Paz on Wednesday. Substitute Rodrigo Ramallo scored with a diving header from a corner in the 91st minute as the Bolivian side came from behind to beat threetimes champions Santos in the Group One match at high altitude in the Hernando Siles stadium.

Midfielder Henrique put Santos ahead in the 10th minute when he scrambled the ball home at a free kick but Ernesto Cristaldo equalized just past the half-hour mark with a low shot inside goalkeeper Rafael’s right-hand post. Also on Wednesday, Corinthians had been staring at a surprise defeat at Venezuela’s Deportivo Tachira in Group Six but equalised when Ralf headed home a free kick in the fourth minute of added time.

Forward Sergio Herrera put Tachira ahead with his chest midway through the first half from a failed Corinthians clearance and as the three minutes of added time ebbed away Alex curled a free-kick into a packed box where Ralf rose to send a bullet header past Robert Rivas for the equalizer.

Another Brazilian side, Flamengo, were held 1-1 by Lanus in Buenos Aires in Group Two. The visitors went ahead in the first minute of first-half added time when left back Junior Cesar’s low centre evaded a pair of Lanus defenders and Leo Moura fired the ball into the roof of the net. Lanus equalized with 15 minutes left when Silvio Romero crossed from the right and striker Mariano Pavone turned the ball back inside for substitute Cesar Carranza to blast home.—Reuters

MILAN: AC Milan’s Swedish forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic (right) challenges for the ball with Arsenal’s Polish goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny during the UEFA Champions League round of 16 first leg match AC Milan vs Arsenal at San Siro stadium on February 15, 2012. — AFP

Milan horror show exposes Arsenal decline

LONDON: The Gazzetta dello Sport’s damning verdict on Arsenal’s 4-0 thrashing by AC Milan said it all. “Una delusione totale,” the Italian daily commented on Thursday, highlighting a sorry slide in fortunes for the English club that required little translation. A traumatic season marked by record defeats both in domestic and European competition has left Arsene Wenger facing the biggest challenge of his 15-year career in English football. All but eliminated from the Champions League and struggling to qualify for next season’s competition, Arsenal’s chances of holding onto their best players or of luring worldclass talent-appear to be fading by the week.

The failure to adequately replace the departed Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri was ruthlessly exposed in the San Siro on Wednesday, where Milan ran riot as Arsenal crashed to their heaviest ever European defeat. It was a loss that will edge Arsenal captain Robin van Persie, still yet to agree a new contract, ever closer to a summer exit from the Emirates. English commentators united on Thursday in lamenting Arsenal’s unrelenting march towards irrelevance in the upper echelons of English and European football, which has already seen the team beaten 8-2 by Manchester United this season.

“This humiliation felt like a watershed in Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal career, a watershed filled with tears,” wrote The Daily Telegraph’s Henry Winter. “This was a chronicle of a death foretold, a suicide

note for the season a long time in the writing. “Wenger’s failure to invest properly last summer finally caught up with his team on Wednesday night.” The sense that the San Siro carnage had been an accident waiting to happen had been brought into focus on the morning of the match, when Arsenal legend Dennis Bergkamp had bemoaned the problems bedevilling his former club.

In a wide-ranging interview in the Daily Telegraph, Bergkamp had pointed to the structural flaws in Arsenal’s current squad, complaining that Wenger’s side lacked the steel of previous incarnations. “Sometimes you need more of a winning mentality than a passing mentality,” Bergkamp said.

“I’m not sure Arsenal have enough of that in their players, when the attitude becomes more important than the ability to just pass the ball. “I don’t know if the English mentality is missing a little bit.”

Arsenal’s former captain Patrick Vieira meanwhile pointed the finger at the players for the current problems. “There was a lack of leadership,” Vieira wrote on Twitter.

“You cannot blame only Arsene, the players must take some responsibility as well.”

The problem for Arsenal is that restructuring the current squad is likely to prove difficult unless there is a substantial loosening of the purse strings. Wenger can justifiably take pride in the fact that Arsenal have hung onto their place among the elite of English football without the benefit of the sort of wild spending that has marked the rise of Manchester City and

Chelsea. But without the incentive of Champions League football next season, the Emirates is unlikely to be an attractive proposition for proven talent, particularly when clubs such as Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United are all willing to pay vastly higher wages.

To add insult to injury, Arsenal’s current problems are in stark contrast to the upwardly mobile progress of their bitter North London rivals Tottenham. As Arsenal wobble from one shaky performance to the next, Tottenham are winning plaudits as the most stylish side in English football, virtually assured of a place in the Champions League next season thanks to an irresistible attacking brand of football that once was the Gunners’ hallmark. A sign of the changing times came in comments from Lille’s highly-rated Belgian star Eden Hazard earlier this week, who indicated a preference for Spurs as he contemplates a summer move to England.

Meanwhile in the short-term, Wenger will be preoccupied with trying to ensure that Wednesday’s hammering doesn’t herald a complete unravelling of Arsenal’s season, with an FA Cup outing to Sunderland on Saturday. “The result is a disaster, although the season is not finished,” Wenger said on Wednesday. “There is a danger (the result could impact the Premier League). A big disappointment like that has consequences on your belief.

“We need to show something completely different tomorrow.”—AFP

Arsenal targeting FA Cup recovery LONDON: Arsenal’s implosion at AC Milan has left the FA Cup as the club’s only realistic route to a trophy after seven demoralizing years without silverware. And if the season is still to end in glory at Wembley, the Gunners don’t have much time to recover from their heaviest-ever European loss, a 4-0 rout at the San Siro in the Champions League on Wednesday.

Arsenal, which is clinging on to fourth in the Premier League, is at Sunderland tomorrow in the fifth round of the FA Cup, which Arsene Wenger’s side won in 2005.

“The season is not finished,” Wenger

said. “We have a big game tomorrow and it is a good opportunity to show we have character and mental strength, that we can respond after such a shocking defeat.

You could blame and blame, but we have to stick together and win the next game. A big disappointment like that has consequences on your belief. “We have a lot of work to regroup and not a lot of time to prepare for tomorrow’s game, when we need to show something completely different.”

Even Thierry Henry in his last game before returning to the New York Red Bulls

could not inspire Arsenal against Milan.

The Premier League side struggled to keep hold of the ball to play its fluid brand of attacking football. “It was a shocking result and a shocking performance. It was of those nights you never forget,” Wenger said. “There was not one moment in the 90 minutes we were really in the game, and it was always the same problem, balls over the top and we were well beaten.” Arsenal is 17 points behind leader Manchester City in the Premier League and only ahead of Chelsea for the last Champions League spot on goal difference.—AP

Sports FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Olympic Stadium legacy plan under fire LONDON: The Olympic Stadium in London has been labeled as “not fit for football” by one of the clubs bidding to become tenants there after the 2012 Games. Barry Hearn, chairman of third-tier Leyton Orient, has long wanted his club, whose current Brisbane Road ground is the closest to the Olympic Stadium in Stratford, east London, to play at the £468 million ($734 million) venue after the Games. He even launched a legal challenge when nearby West Ham were chosen as tenants ahead of north London Premier League highflyers Tottenham Hotspur. The decision in favor of West Ham was overturned last year and the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC) have re-opened bidding.

There are fears the stadium-which is due to host the 2017 World Athletics Championshipswill become an expensive “white elephant” without a footballing tenant, as it won’t be able to stage enough athletics events to cover its costs. Hearn, while still interested in a move, said if the running track remained in place the Olympic Stadium would be unsuitable for football. “We’re looking at it but, I have to say, after my tour of the stadium, I become more and more convinced that this stadium is not fit for football purposes,” Hearn told Sky Sports News.

Hearn added that a lack of foresight had left the OPLC without a post-Games tenant just months before the start of the Olympics.

“No one is actually taking responsibility for

admitting they’ve built a wrong stadium,” he said. “They didn’t listen to advice five years ago when everyone was saying what type of stadium can work. “Legacy is absolutely vital. This is taxpayers’ money we’re talking about - £600 million of taxpayers’ money. We can’t just sweep this under the counter. “We have to face these problems and be honest. Let’s use some common sense but most of all let’s be honest with where we’re going to go. “Otherwise it’s going to be an horrendous ‘white elephant’.

We’ve seen it around the world. Let’s not let it happen to London. “Four years ago the OPLC announced they were going to have their tenants lined up in a matter of months-that was four years ago and we’re no closer.” — AFP

NHL results/standings NHL results and standings on Wednesday.

Anaheim 2, Pittsburgh 1; Boston 4, Montreal 3 (SO); Ottawa 6, Florida 2; Toronto 4, Edmonton 3 (OT); Vancouver 3, Colorado 1. (SO denotes shootout victory, OT is overtime win)

NY Rangers Philadelphia Pittsburgh New Jersey NY Islanders Boston Ottawa Toronto Montreal Buffalo Florida Washington Winnipeg Tampa Bay Carolina

Detroit St. Louis Nashville Chicago Columbus Vancouver Calgary Colorado Minnesota Edmonton San Jose Los Angeles Phoenix Dallas Anaheim

Eastern Conference Atlantic Division W L OTL 37 13 5 31 18 7 32 20 5 32 20 4 24 24 8 Northeast Division 35 18 2 30 22 8 29 23 6 23 25 10 24 26 6 Southeast Division 27 18 11 28 23 5 26 26 6 24 26 6 21 25 11

GF 156 182 176 158 134

GA 110 169 150 156 160

PTS 79 69 69 68 56

188 179 176 155 137

126 183 174 158 162

72 68 64 56 54

143 156 140 155 147

158 160 164 189 175

65 61 58 54 53

136 113 150 174 186

80 75 72 65 40

140 152 162 146 169

78 62 60 58 50

130 124 146 160 165

68 65 63 59 57

Western Conference Central Division 39 17 2 185 34 15 7 140 33 18 6 161 29 21 7 176 17 34 6 133 Northwest Division 36 15 6 183 27 22 8 139 28 26 4 147 25 23 8 126 22 28 6 150 Pacific Division 31 17 6 158 27 19 11 124 27 21 9 149 28 25 3 146 24 24 9 148

Note: Overtime losses (OTL) are worth one point in the standings and are not included in the loss column (L).

EDMONTON: Toronto Maple Leafs’ Joffrey Lupul celebrates his goal on the Edmonton Oilers during the first period of an NHL hockey game in Edmonton, Alberta on Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012. — AP

Canucks extend Northwest lead Senators continue to boss Panthers VANCOUVER: The Vancouver Canucks extended their division lead to a massive 16 points on Wednesday with a 3-1 home victory over Northwest foes Colorado. Jannik Hansen scored with under seven minutes left in the third period to break a 1-1 tie, and Alexandre Burrows made sure of the win with an empty-netter in the final minutes. “It was nice to see it go in,” Hansen told reporters after his team improved to 13-0-2 in their last 15 meetings with Colorado. “It was nice that it was late in the game and we were able to hold on so it was two big points for us.” Vancouver (36-15-6) padded their Northwest lead to 16 points, the biggest division lead in the NHL, and trail Western Conference-leading Detroit by just two points.

Canucks netminder Roberto Luongo kept his team in control with 29 saves, allowing only a second-period goal to Colorado’s Erik Johnson.

David Booth converted a backhand shot 13 seconds into the game to get the Canucks off to a fast start. Colorado lost starting goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere late in the first when he left with a groin injury. Semyon Varlamov came on and made 20 saves. The Avalanche are three points out of the eighth and final playoff spot in the West but have a poor 2-13-1 record against division opponents.

“It’s costing us,” said defenseman Shane O’Brien, a former Canuck. “If we look back here and end up coming up a little bit short for the playoffs, obviously you look inside your division, you can’t have that bad of a record. “For whatever reason, we can’t find a way to get it done against this division.”

SENATORS 6, PANTHERS 2 In Sunrise, Florida, Craig Anderson made 42 saves and six Ottawa players scored as the Senators routed Florida to notch their ninth straight win against the Panthers. Jim O’Brien notched his first career goal, Milan Michalek moved into a tie for the team lead with his 25th of the season, and Kaspars Daugavins, Bobby Butler, Daniel Alfredsson, and Filip Kuba also scored for the Senators, who moved within a point of third place in the Eastern Conference. Ottawa has

beaten the Panthers five straight times in Florida and 17 of 20 on the road. Shawn Matthias and Sean Bergenheim scored for the Panthers.

BRUINS 4, CANADIENS 3, SO. In Montreal, yler Seguin’s shootout goal gave Boston a victory over Montreal, taking the win despite squandering a two-goal lead in the third period. Andrew Ference, Benoit Pouliot and Patrice Bergeron scored for Boston, which began a six game trip - its longest of the season - on a winning note. Max Pacioretty and Erik Cole scored in the third for Montreal. Mathieu Darche had tied it 1-1 with a short-handed goal early in the second.

DUCKS 2, PENGUINS 1 In Pittsburgh, Teemu Selanne scored midway through the third period as Anaheim snapped Pittsburgh’s six-game home winning streak. Corey Perry added his 28th goal for the Ducks, who won in Pittsburgh for the first time in 11 years. Evgeni Malkin, the NHL’s leading scorer, was held pointless for the second time this month, and his eight-game goal streak at home ended, too. Jordan Staal scored for Pittsburgh, but the Penguins’ high-flying offense was bottled up over the last two periods. Selanne’s 19th goal of the season was the 656th of his career, moving him into a tie with Brendan Shanahan for 12th place on the NHL list.

MAPLE LEAFS 4, OILERS 3, OT. In Edmonton, Tim Connolly’s overtime goal gave Toronto a win over Edmonton that snapped a four-game losing streak. After the Oilers came in on a 3-on-1 rush, the Maple Leafs turned around and went up ice with a similar break of their own. Joffrey Lupul found Connolly with a pass for the winning goal. Lupul, Matthew Lombardi and Jake Gardiner also scored for the Maple Leafs. Ben Eager, Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle had goals for the Oilers, whose four-game home winning streak ended. — Agencies

Sports FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

Martin lifts Rockets over Thunder Sharp Magic too good for Sixers HOUSTON: Houston’s Kevin Martin tied a season high with 32 points, including the winning free throws with 23.6 seconds left, giving the Rockets a 96-95 win over the NBA Western Conference-leading Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday. Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant missed three shots in the last 16 seconds and Houston finally grabbed the rebound on the last miss to secure the win. Goran Dragic missed a pair of free throws for Houston after that, but the Thunder didn’t have time to get down the court for another shot. Martin’s performance came a night after he went scoreless for the first time in six years. He didn’t score in the fourth quarter until his free throws for the win. Durant’s 33 points led the Thunder, whose lead in the West was sliced to 1-1/2 games ahead of San Antonio.

MAVERICKS 102, NUGGETS 84 In Dallas, Shawn Marion had 16 points and 10 rebounds as Dallas beat Denver to stretch its winning streak to a season-high five games.

Vince Carter had 15 points for Dallas, which was able to limit its starters to a maximum of 27 minutes each. Rudy Fernandez led the Nuggets with 14 points.

MAGIC 103, 76ERS 87 In Orlando, Ryan Anderson had seven 3pointers and 27 points to lead sharp-shooting Orlando to victory over Philadelphia. Dwight Howard added 17 points and 14 rebounds for Orlando, which won its third straight to move within half a game of the Sixers in the Eastern Conference standings. The Magic made 15 of 25 attempts from 3-point range, and had all five starters reach double figures for the second consecutive game. Louis Williams led Philadelphia with 21 points and seven assists.

HAWKS 101, SUNS 99 In Phoenix, Josh Smith matched his season high with 30 points and grabbed 17 rebounds to rally Atlanta past Phoenix. Smith, whose career best is 32, had 20 points and 12 rebounds in the second half. Steve Nash, back after a night off as the Suns played their third game in three days, had 22 points and 16 assists.

SPURS 113, RAPTORS 106 In Toronto, Tony Parker had 34 points and 14 assists as San Antonio extended its season-best winning streak to nine games with a victory over Toronto. Parker went 12 for 12 from the foul line for the Spurs, who have also won six successive road games. Danny Green scored 13 points and matched his career high with seven rebounds for San Antonio. DeMar DeRozan scored 29 points for the Raptors, who have lost three straight.

CAVALIERS 98, PACERS 87 In Cleveland, rookie Kyrie Irving scored 22 points in his return after missing three games because of a concussion, leading Cleveland past Indiana. The 19-year-old was only cleared to play in the morning by Cavaliers doctors. Semih Erden, starting because center Anderson Varejao is sidelined by a broken wrist, had a career-high 18 points. Darren Collison scored 18 points for the Pacers, who have lost five straight.

TRAIL BLAZERS 93, WARRIORS 91 In Oakland, Jamal Crawford hit a key late 3pointer and a two free throws to secure Portland’s win over Golden State. Gerald Wallace scored 24 points for the Trail Blazers, who had lost 11 of their previous 12 in Oakland.

David Lee matched his season high with 29 points anded 11 rebounds for the Warriors.

LOS ANGELES: Los Angeles Clippers guard Eric Bledsoe (right) puts up a shot as Washington Wizards forward Kevin Seraphin of France defends during the second half of their NBA basketball game on Wednesday, Feb 15, 2012. — AP KNICKS 100, KINGS 85 In New York, Jeremy Lin put aside his recordsetting scoring to hand out a career-best 13 assists as New York got back to .500 with its seventh straight victory, downing Sacramento. Lin added 10 points, focusing more on his role as a distributor while others torched the Kings for 51- percent shooting. Landry Fields had 15 points and 10 rebounds. The Knicks led almost throughout, evening their record for the first time in a month just as All-Star forward Carmelo Anthony prepares to return from a groin strain.

Tyreke Evans scored 19 points for the Kings.

CLIPPERS 102, WIZARDS 84 In Los Angeles, Blake Griffin had 23 points and 15 rebounds to power Los Angeles past Washington. Caron Butler added 21 points for the Clippers, who increased their lead in the Pacific Division to two games over the idle Lakers. The Clippers have beaten the Wizards seven consecutive times. John Wall and JaVale McGee led Washington with 18 points each.

PISTONS 98, CELTICS 88 In Boston, Ben Gordon hit three 3-pointers in the opening stages of the fourth quarter during a game-breaking spree that sent Detroit past Boston. Rodney Stuckey scored 25 points and Gordon finished with 22 points for the Pistons.

Rajon Rondo had a season-high 35 points for Boston one game after he recorded a triple-double. Kevin Garnett was a late withdrawal with a hip flexor complaint.

GRIZZLIES 105, NETS 100 In Newark, New Jersey, Rudy Gay scored 25 points as Memphis handed error-prone New Jersey its season-worst seventh straight loss.

Tony Allen matched his season high with 21 points for the Grizzlies. Deron Williams scored 20 of his 26 points in the first half for the Nets.

HORNETS 92, BUCKS 89 In Milwaukee, Marco Belinelli made a careerhigh six 3-pointers and scored a season-best 22 points to lead undermanned New Orleans past Milwaukee. Chris Kaman added 18 points and 10 rebounds for the Hornets, who won successive games for the first time since the opening two of the season. Ersan Ilyasova led the Bucks with a season-high 23 points.

TIMBERWOLVES 102, BOBCATS 90 In Minneapolis, Kevin Love had 30 points and 18 rebounds as Minnesota handed Charlotte its 16th loss in a row. Nikola Pekovic added 21 points and 11 rebounds in 43 minutes for the Timberwolves, who snapped a four-game skid of their own. Kemba Walker had 21 points and six rebounds for the hapless Bobcats. — AP

NBA results/standings NBA results and standings on Wednesday.

Orlando 103, Philadelphia 87; San Antonio 113, Toronto 106; Memphis 105, New Jersey 100; Cleveland 98, Indiana 87; NY Knicks 100, Sacramento 85; Detroit 98, Boston 88; Houston 96, Oklahoma City 95; New Orleans 92, Milwaukee 89; Minnesota 102, Charlotte 90; Dallas 102, Denver 84; Atlanta 101, Phoenix 99; Portland 93, Golden State 91; LA Clippers 102, Washington 84.

Eastern Conference Atlantic Division W L PCT Philadelphia 20 10 .667 Boston 15 13 .536 NY Knicks 15 15 .500 Toronto 9 22 .290 New Jersey 8 22 .267 Central Division Chicago 24 7 .774 Indiana 17 12 .586 Milwaukee 12 17 .414 Cleveland 11 16 .407 Detroit 9 22 .290 Southeast Division Miami 23 7 .767 Atlanta 19 11 .633 Orlando 19 11 .633 Washington 7 23 .233 Charlotte 3 26 .103

GB 4 5 11.5 12 6 11 11 15 4 4 16 19.5

Western Conference Northwest Division Oklahoma City 22 7 .759 Denver 17 13 .567 Portland 16 14 .533 Utah 14 14 .500 Minnesota 14 16 .467 Pacific Division LA Clippers 18 9 .667 LA Lakers 17 12 .586 Golden State 11 15 .423 Phoenix 12 18 .400 Sacramento 10 19 .345 Southwest Division San Antonio 21 9 .700 Dallas 19 11 .633 Houston 17 13 .567 Memphis 16 14 .533 New Orleans 6 23 .207

5.5 6.5 7.5 8.5 2 6.5 7.5 9 2 4 5 14.5

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012 OAKLAND: Golden State Warriors’ Nate Robinson (2) drives to the basket against Portland Trail Blazers Kurt Thomas (40) during the second half of an NBA basketball game in Oakland, Calif on Wednesday, Feb 15, 2012. — AP

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