18 Feb 2012

IPT IO N SC R SU B

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Libya marks revolution day as leader issues warning

RABIA ALAWAL 26, 1433 AH

Pakistan suicide attack kills 25

No: 15363

Chisora slaps Klitschko at weigh-in

150 Fils

7Syria bleeds 14 as Assad 48 troops hammer Homs ‘World is with you’; UN backs Arab League plan

Max 24º Min 14º

in the

news

German president resigns BERLIN: Angela Merkel’s hand-picked choice for the ceremonial post of president resigned yesterday in a scandal over political favors, dealing a blow to the German chancellor in the midst of the euro zone crisis. In a curt fiveminute statement at the Bellevue presidential palace, Christian Wulff said he had lost the trust of the German people, making it impossible to continue in a role that is meant to serve as a moral compass for the nation. “For this reason it is no longer possible for me to exercise the office of president at home and abroad as required,” Wulff said, standing next to his wife Bettina. Merkel postponed a trip to Rome where she was to hold talks with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti and made a brief statement after Wulff spoke, saying she regretted his departure.

Bahrain police, protesters clash MANAMA: Bahraini police and anti-government protesters clashed in a number of Shiite districts of the Gulf Arab state on Thursday night and the interior ministry said two policemen had been seriously injured in a petrol bomb attack. Riot police have maintained a heavier presence than usual in areas populated by majority Shiites this week to prevent mass protests on the anniversary of the Feb. 14 pro-democracy uprising last year. In the district of Sar police fired volleys of stun grenades and tear gas to break up groups of teenagers who threw stones and petrol bombs. It was not clear who started the clash.

Some residents shouted anti-government slogans and the Muslim call ‘Allahu akbar’-God is great-from inside their homes or on rooftops.

Villagers set ‘witch’ ablaze KATHMANDU: A mob burned alive a 40-year-old woman yesterday after accusing her of casting black magic spells in a remote village in southern Nepal, police said. Dengani Mahato died after she was severely beaten, doused in kerosene and set alight for allegedly practicing witchcraft, Gopal Bhandari, a superintendent of police in Chitwan district said. “Nine people started to beat her after a local shaman pointed the finger at her over the death of a boy a year ago,” the officer said. “They accused her of having hands in the death of the boy, who had drowned in a river.” Bhandari said the shaman and the nine locals suspected of taking part in the crime had been arrested on suspicion of murder. “They poured kerosene and threw straw over her and then set fire to her. No one came to her rescue. By the time we heard about it, she had already died,” he said.

CAIRO: People hold up a poster showing Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad during a protest in front of the Syrian embassy in Cairo yesterday. The poster reads: “ That’s why this neck was created long”. — AP AMMAN: Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s forces, disregarding UN condemnation of their violent suppression of a nationwide revolt, renewed a bombardment of the opposition stronghold of Homs and attacks on rebels in Deraa yesterday.

Demonstrations against Assad were reported by activists in several cities across Syria, including the capital Damascus and the commercial hub Aleppo, after Friday Muslim prayers despite the threat of violence from security forces.

China’s vice foreign minister, Zhai Jun, arrived in Damascus in a show of support for Assad after the UN General Assembly passed a resolution telling the increasingly isolated president to halt the crackdown and surrender power. China, along with Russia, had voted against the motion and says Syria must be allowed to resolve its problems without being dictated terms by foreign powers. Its stance on Syria will “withstand the test of history”, Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said in Beijing.

Even as Zhai landed in Damascus, government forces pummeled opposition-held areas of the strategic western city of Homs,

now under fire for two weeks. An intense bombardment hit the mainly Sunni Muslim area of Baba Amro after Alawite-led troops, backed by armor, advanced from neighboring Inshaat, opposition activists there said.

“They are mostly firing rockets that directly fall onto buildings and mortar rounds now and then. Only Karama street now separates Baba Amro from the army at Inshaat,” activist Aba Iyad said by satellite phone from Baba Amro.

In Idlib, capital of the rugged northwestern province on the border with Turkey, two residents said that tanks ringed the city at dawn. Residents anticipated an assault. “At every entrance of Idlib several tanks deployed along with pick-up trucks used for troop transport,” said one resident, who gave his name as Fouad. In Deraa, a city on the Jordanian border where the revolt erupted nearly a year ago, explosions and machinegun fire echoed through districts under attack by troops, residents said. The military has also opened a new offensive in Hama, a city with a bloody history of resistance to Assad’s late father. The Assad clan are Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, in the majority Sunni country.

Meanwhile, the 193-nation UN General Assembly ratcheted up the pressure on Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad on Thursday by overwhelmingly approving a resolution that endorses an Arab League plan calling for him to step aside. “Today the UN General Assembly sent a clear message to the people of Syria-the world is with you,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said in a statement. “An overwhelming majority of UN member states have backed the plan put forward by the Arab League to end the suffering of Syrians,” she said. “Bashar Al-Assad has never been more isolated.”

The resolution, similar to one Russia and China vetoed in the Security Council on Feb. 4, received 137 votes in favor, 12 against and 17 abstentions, although three countries said their votes failed to register on the electronic board. Russia and China were among those opposing the resolution, which was drafted by Saudi Arabia and submitted by Egypt on behalf of Arab states.

Unlike in the Security Council, there are no vetoes in the General Assembly, but its decisions lack the legal force of council resolutions. — Agencies

LOCAL SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

News

in brief

Al-Hajraf ends midterm dilemma KUWAIT: The Minister of Education and Higher Education, Dr. Nayef Al-Hajraf, succeeded in solving the crises of the second period of exam results with decisive and technical decisions. This was just to students without affecting the education system. The wrong grades were cancelled and the old system has been re-implemented. There will also be a committee to adjust the grades of students in the first and second period in order to restore the correct status. This is a major step, which shows the ability of Minister Al-Hajraf and his competence and success in his first and major challenge.

He speaks of other steps that will restore the right direction for education. The decisions were taken after several hours of meetings with Ministry of Education under secretaries and directors of educational areas. -Al-Anb New low-cost homes KUWAIT: Informed sources at the Public Housing Authority said that the authority received 12 offers from companies expressing their willingness to build a low cost housing project in the area near Salmy Road. These will replace the popular residences in Jahra and Sulaibiya areas. They said the project includes 9,696 government homes, each with an area of 150 meters square at a total cost of KD 520 million.

Sources said the project site is 15 kilometers from Jahra.

Envelopes will be opened in four months to name the company that will take over the project.

Panels reopen investigations KUWAIT: Informed sources said that investigation committees and topics on their agendas will not be changed. They said the topics that were not approved by previous committees and were not included in the agendas will not be considered until after being adopted by political factions or by MPs on an individual basis. The sources said the public funds committee will continue considering basic topics that were on the agenda, such as investigations of the planes deal that was not completed, because opposition MPs withdrew from committees of the dissolved National Assembly. -Al-Shahed Bosnia supports Kuwait SARAJEVO: Bosnia Herzegovina is poised to support Kuwait’s bid for a seat on the UN Security Council as a temporary member for the years 2018 and 2019, said Bosnian Foreign Minister Zlatko Lagumdzija as he met here yesterday Kuwait’s Ambassador Muhammad Khalaf. Extolling KuwaitiBosnian relations and the efforts both countries have exerted in recent years toward cementing them, the Bosnian minister said that his country would support the Kuwaiti bid not only because of the warm ties the two countries enjoy but more importantly because Kuwait has earned, through its legacy of diplomatic prowess, the seat in the Council. He praised the Kuwaiti leadership for their wise handling of foreign affairs over the years, including fostering highly commendable ties with his country. The Kuwaiti ambassador thanked the Bosnian government for their support of Kuwait’s intention to have a temporary seat on the UN Security Council, underscoring meanwhile the firm bonds existing between the people of both countries, and the progress they have expeditiously made in disparate fields be that in politics or the economy or social issues.

Kuwaiti poet launches interactive works on App Store KUWAIT: Kuwait poet Humoud Al-Shaiji is the first Arab to launch an interactive booklet of his works on the iPhone and iPad. His booklet, Ishq, which means passion in Arabic, offers App Store consumers the ability to interact directly with verses, by voicing their opinions on the works.

The application is also enhanced with musical greats by some of the world’s most renowned composers.

Speaking from Belgrade, Serbia, where he currently resides, the poet said the milestone comes after much hard work he along with a Kuwaiti company specialized in programming saw out. Classical Arabic poetry in this day and age has been faced with the problem of not being approved by written publishers as a result of the declining public demand, he said.

The poet also highlighted censorship as another problem poetry is currently facing in the Arab world. — KUNA

Moves to scrap interest of Kuwaiti bank loans Al-Sagr ‘lost respect for Al-Sultan’ KUWAIT: MP Mohammad Al-Sagr is willing to work openly with Parliament Speaker Ahmad Al-Saadoun as well as Islamist and other majority groups in the National Assembly, the liberal lawmaker said in a statement following the inaugural session on Wednesday. Insisting on Al-Saadoun’s competency as Speaker, Al-Sagr did not hide his disappointment during a press conference on Thursday on the process in which elections for the coveted post were conducted. He blamed Khalid Al-Sultan for “offense to democracy and to an honorable man such as Ahmad Al-Saadoun” when he ordered voting be carried out on paper instead of electronically.

“I lost respect for Al-Sultan”, Al-Sagr firmly indicated. “I reiterate my utmost respect for the Islamic Salafist Assembly, which is one of the most honorable political groups in Kuwait. It is unfortunate that it is led by someone like Khalid Al-Sultan”.

Al-Sultan headed the session on Wednesday as the oldest lawmaker before Al-Saadoun, and won the Speakership by a landslide vote against Al-Sagr. He replied by insisting that he used his “constitutional right” to choose the voting criteria, adding that paper voting is a better option to “maintain confidentiality and preciseness [of voting and results respectively]”.

Meanwhile, Islamist MP Dr. Waleed Al-Tabtabaei hinted on Thursday that plans are in place to revive a draft law to scrapping the interest on local bank loans for Kuwaiti citizens. Al-Tabtabaei’s announcement comes a day after AlSultan talked about the issue during the inaugural session.

The Opposition previously attempted to pass the law in Parliament but their efforts fell short due to the majority support which the Cabinet had at the time.

Al-Tabtabaei said a new draft law not only aims to resolve problems of indebt-

ed citizens, but will also include “radical solutions to prevent the problem from taking place again in the future”.

The Popular Action Bloc (PAB) reportedly plans to meet today to outline priorities for its members to focus on.

According to sources with knowledge of the bloc’s thinking, they plan to submit a request to form a parliamentary investigations committee to probe the multimillion dinar deposits and foreign transfers scandals.

The bloc also plans to give the new Cabinet six months to work before assessing its performance, the sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity said.

MP Musallam Al-Barrak, the PAB spokesman, said they are mulling the option of pressing charges against former Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser AlMohammad Al-Sabah “so that he is trialed at the minister’s court for squandering public funds”.—Al-Qabas, Al-Rai

Draft law to ban construction of churches KUWAIT: An Islamist lawmaker announced recently that he plans to submit a draft law to ban the construction of churches or any non-Islamic worship places in Kuwait. He claims to have a religious edict to support his cause. MP Osama Al-Munawer posted on his Twitter account that he plans to submit a draft law to remove all churches in Kuwait. He later clarified, in a statement to Al-Anbaa, that his proposal will only ban licensing for construction of future churches in the

country, but insisted that any existing worship places will remain intact.

Al-Munawer indicated that his efforts are based on an earlier edict, a ruling issued by the department of fatwa at the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs which bans the construction in Kuwait of worship places for religions other than Islam.

Another Islamist MP Mohammad Hayef, commented on the news that recently a new church has been licensed to be built in Jleeb Al-

Shuyoukh. He insisted that this subject “will not pass unnoticed”.

“Kuwait already has an excessive number of churches compared to the country’s Christian minority”, Hayef said on Thursday, adding that the state should look into this issue before issuing license to build more churches.

Hayef called the decision to license a new church in Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh as “an error that the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs must bear the consequences of”. —Al-Anbaa, Al-Rai

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LOCAL SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

5,000 stateless residents to be naturalized this year Central Agency not enthusiastic

By A. Saleh

Wataniya Telecom sponsors ‘Hope of Sunrise’ KUWAIT: Driven by its commitment to take part in various social activities, and as an encouragement to all segments of the society and especially those with special needs, Wataniya Telecom has recently sponsored the “Hope of Sunrise” for people with disabilities. The event took place on Feb 12 and 13 at the Missoni Hotel and was organized by the Commercial Real Estate Company and the Missoni Hotel. The event was held under the patronage and attendance of the President of the Voluntary Work Center Sheikha Amthal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.

The main goal behind Wataniya sponsorship of the event is to provide the motivation and support to people with disabilities and to ensure their involvement in the society without any obstacles.

The event was attended by parents and families and included activities specially created for the disabled.

Commenting on this sponsorship, Abdolaziz Al-Balool PR Director at Wataniya Telecom stated the fact that “Wataniya is proud to take part in all types of activities organized for the disabled in Kuwait as they are integral to our community and its development. Wataniya is always aiming to involve them in different educational, sports, artistic and cultural events to motivate them and make them feel equal to every member of the society.”

Al-Balool also added: “Hope of Sunrise is an initiative that affirms the right of people with special needs to enjoy life and be part of the overall community like any other segments of the society.

Wataniya does not spare an effort to invest in its CSR programs designed especially to give the support needed to all members of the community.

KUWAIT: The Central Agency for Illegal Residents is not enthusiastic about a proposal to naturalize 5,000 stateless residents within the next year, as proposed by Kuwaiti lawmakers recently.

“Such a proposal does not fall in line with the agency’s efforts to resolve the problem of stateless residents, which focus on identifying individuals who meet conditions of naturalization while leaving the opportunity open for those who do not meet naturalization conditions to legalize their status”, said sources with knowledge of the agency’s thinking.

The sources said the agency is capable of announcing 500 candidates for naturalization within a year. A law passed by Parliament could put the agency under pressure, especially when dealing with stateless residents it can prove do not meet conditions for naturalization.

Al-Maliki’s visit Kuwait reportedly invited Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri Al-Maliki, to visit the country within the next two weeks, or ahead of the Arab Summit scheduled to take place in Baghdad in late March, according to sources with knowledge of the issue.

Al-Maliki’s visit was postponed from early this week as a result of parliamentary elections and the formation of a new Cabinet in Kuwait. The sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity indicate that the Kuwaiti Government “left it open for Al-Maliki” to choose whichever time is suitable for the visit, with the belief that it is likely to take place either by the end of February or during the first week of March.

Baseless accusations An Iraqi political group accused Kuwait to be planning, along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to hold an Arab pseudo-summit in Riyadh in order to foil the Arab Summit planned to take place in Baghdad next month.

Abbas Al-Mohammadawi, Secretary General of the Ardent Children of Iraq Coalition, made the accusations based on earlier reports which hinted that leaders of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Jordan plan to meet in Riyadh before the Arab Summit in Baghdad. Al-Mohammadawi mentioned Kuwait’s involvement in an alleged plot to foil the

Arab League’s summit, despite the fact that there was no mention of Kuwait in the suggestion.

“It is sad that some countries continue to practice dangerous activities behind the scenes, in order to isolate Iraq from its Arab perimeter”, Al-Mohammadawi said.

Surprise visit Minister of Health, Dr. Ali Al-Obaidi, carried out an unscheduled visit to Adan Hospital on Thursday as part of early efforts to check on the process of work in the country’s public medical facilities. According to sources familiar with the visit, Al-Obaidi made orders as he carried out the tour for punitive measures to be taken against staff members who were absent during work hours. AlObaidi asserted in an earlier statement that among his top priorities will be to improve health services in Kuwait “to be on par with international standards”.

Electricity privatization The Minister of Electricity and Water (MEW) and State Minister of Municipality Affairs, Abdul-Aziz Al-Ibrahim, reportedly asked MEW officials to finalize preparations on a project to establish a shareholding company to build a power plant in Khairan. AlIbrahim reportedly insists that the project is bid on by private companies this year as part of the ministry’s efforts to privatize the energy sector.

Minister defies pressure Newly appointed Minister of Housing Affairs, Shuwaib AlMuwaizri, is reportedly under pressure from his election base in Jahra. They demand that he reopen an investigation into a case in which Said Sandouh, Deputy Director of the Savings and Credit Bank (SCB) was reportedly snubbed from promotion to the General Manager post in favor of Salah Al-Madhaf.

The decision made last year by the Cabinet to appoint AlMadhaf, who is the Secretary General of the National Democratic Alliance, at the helm of the SCB was met with criticism from those who were hoping that longtime Deputy Director Sandouh would eventually be promoted to the coveted post. Al-Madhaf was appointed General Manager despite no prior experience at the SCB. Sources close to Al-Muwaizri indicate that the minister is not yielding under pressure due to “the lack of logical reasons to relieve Al-Madhaf of his duties”.

New ministers stress on cooperation KUWAIT: The new Cabinet will adopt a reformist approach led

by His Highness the PM Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah, who acts from an ideology that advocates reform, said Minister of Housing and State Minister of Parliament Affairs, Shuwaib AlMuwaizri. He said the Prime Minister still needs support from ministers and MPs to push forward the developmental projects that Kuwait desperately needs.

“We have a golden opportunity to realize achievements and tackle problems in order to meet citizens’ ambitions for a better Kuwait”, Al-Muwaizri said in statements to Al-Jarida. He reiterated the need for “the Cabinet and Parliament to put tensions behind them and turn a new page of cooperation to achieve development”.

Al-Muwaizri, the only elected member in the newly formed Cabinet, asserted that he plans to seek solutions to the housing problems which mainly pertain to the shortage in accommodation provided by the government to citizens.

The Minister of Justice and State Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, Jamaal Shehab, hoped in the meantime that MPs will overcome tensions created during the voting process for the post of Parliament Speaker, “and work together with ministers for the stability of Kuwait”.

The Minister of Social Affairs and Labor, Ahmad Al-Rujaib, recognized the imbalance in the demographic structure of the state as a top priority in the subjects he will focus on. He said “a vision for a comprehensive project to address the imbalance” is in place. Minister of Health, Dr. Ali Al-Obaidi, admitted in the meantime that “huge challenges” ahead require “all efforts of staff members in public facilities and ministry departments”. The new minister will focus on improving the quality of services in the state’s medical facilities “and make them on par with international standards”, Dr. Al-Obaidi said, while talking about his priorities in a recent statement. —Al-Jarida, -Annahar

KUWAIT: The National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters hosted a classical music concert at the Abdul-Aziz Husain Cultural Theater recently, featuring young pianists Abdulaziz Al-Abwah, Faisal Al-Buhairi, and 10-year-old Luluah AlShamlan who won 40 competitions around the world.

MP denies ‘woman spy’ charge KUWAIT: Shiite lawmaker Adnan Al-Abdulsamad announced on Thursday that an Iraqi woman investigated recently on espionage charges came to Kuwait at his personal invitation.

He categorically denied spying claims, which an Islamist MP accused her of committing.

Al-Tabtabaei indicated in a press statement that State Security Service officials launched investigations into an Iraqi woman, who was brought to Kuwait by an MP. She was arrested after spying with a camera at a military facility.

“The woman arrived in Kuwait on a visitor’s visa I personally issued for her”, Al-Abdulsamad said, insisting that she is “a virtuous woman of a respected family who is far from committing any of the actions Al-Tabtabaei accused her of”.

Al-Abdulsamad confirmed that the woman in question was briefly detained by the State Security Service. She was released after officers found no evidence of foul play or indications of threat to national security after examining the pictures she took with her camera.

Al-Abdulsamad said he contacted Al-Tabtabaei shortly after he made his statement and “heavily criticized him” for spreading accusations before confirming the news. AlTabtabaei had gone as far as warning the Ministry of Interior against “undermining [the seriousness of] the Iraqi spy’s case”, while fellow lawmaker, Abdullah AlTuraiji, demanded an investigation to reveal circumstances of the case. —Al-Rai

LOCAL SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Red Bull troops take polar plunge in Kuwait CAMP ARIFJAN: This year is the 15th anniversary of the Minnesota Polar Bear Plunge. The plunge is held by the Minnesota Law Enforcement to benefit Special Olympics. Participants must raise a minimum of $75 and take a plunge into one of designated spots on one of Minnesota’s frozen lakes. In the last seven years, the plunge has increased from five to 16 plunge sites all over the state - including Camp Arifjan in Kuwait.

About 125 service members, mostly from the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division “Red Bulls” deployed to the area came to participate on the breezy and cold morning of Feb 4 to hold a remote version of the event.

The event had many similar features a polar bear plunger would experience in Minnesota. Like a Polar Bear Plunge “Dash ‘n’ Splash,” the service members were required to run 5,000 meters prior to their plunge into an icy pool. “One of the coldest days we have had in Kuwait, and here are tons of Minnesota Red Bulls lined up to run and then jump into a tank of ice water,” said Sergeant First Class Erin Reski of White Bear Lake. “It’s nice to be able to continue traditions when we are so far from home.”

Red Bull members found themselves bracing almost freezing 35-degree temperatures and strong winds the morning of the event - something many thought they would never find during their stay in Kuwait. “If we were to do it over again, I would try to add a warming tent a little closer to the plunge site,” said First Lieutenant Ryan Doliber of Elk River. “It was cold enough to see your breath, but as far as I’m concerned it was a success, we raised awareness for a great cause and had fun as a group in an unusual way.” After the plungers dried off the ice cold water, all the participants received a Polar Bear Plunge long sleeve shirt to remember their chilly Saturday morning in Kuwait. The common experience of cannonballing into a pool of water was a bit of a bonding experience for all.

“The event was fantastic; I think it was a tremendous morale builder for the brigade,” said Maj Michael Pazdernik of Alexandria. “Since we are from Minnesota and not home this winter, there was an extra connection for all of us in ‘braving’ the cold.”

Instead of a freezing ice-covered lake, the unit used a blivet, or a rubberized bladder used to transport water, and filled it with around 3,000 gallons of water.

To simulate the take-your-breath away temperatures, approximately 500 bags or 3,000 pounds of ice were brought to fill the pool.

All of this was to simulate the water temperatures participants would feel during the plunges back in Minnesota. “I have participated in three previous Polar Bear Plunges at the Maple Grove location in 2008, 2009 and 2011,” said Doliber. “The cold water, cold air temperature, and plunging with close friends made the event feel like I was doing it at home.”

Not all of the participants are veterans at the jump into an icy abyss, but enjoyed the new experience.

“I have not previously participated in a Polar Plunge, but I chose to participate in this event because I thought it would be fun, funny and because of the connection between the event here and events back in Minnesota,” said Pazdernik.

After the desert sun rose into the morning and the Polar Bear Plunge closed after its last jumper, the months of coordination and work paid off for all of those involved. “After seeing and hearing those that joined us today, I would do it again even if it were 10 times more difficult to set it up,” said Master Sergeant Ryan Newcomer of Anoka. “The people really enjoyed this and I am proud that we were able to raise awareness for the Special Olympics as well as a little bit in donations while managing to create a memory that will last a lifetime.”

Kuwait’s $7billion metro project gets green light 69 stations on three lines KUWAIT: Kuwait is pushing ahead with its new metro rail system, with the company in charge of building the first phase of the project announcing that it will begin procurement “shortly”. Construction of the 160-km Kuwait Metropolitan Rapid Transit System Project (KMRT), which will have 69 stations on three lines, is worth an estimated $7billion.

According to a statement provided by the Partnerships Technical Bureau (PTB), a government committee recently signed off the feasibility study into the metro.

That study, which was conducted

by Ernst & Young, Ashurst and Atkins,

covered the railway’s procurement stage, including infrastructure, control systems, rolling stock, depot and operations.

As a result, PTB said it would “shortly” be issuing an expression of interest for the procurement of the Integrated Rolling Stock and Systems PPP Company.

That firm will provide rolling stock and systems for all five phases of the metro. PTB is currently focusing on the first phase of the project, which will include around 50km of rail, with 28 new stations, 30 percent of which will be underground.

No timeline has been given for the

start of construction on the project, or the eventual finish. However, last year, a local businessman said that work could start in 2013.

The GCC states are individually planning cross-country railway systems that will eventually link to create an entire infrastructure across the six states.

The first train on the UAE’s Shah Habshan-Ruwais railway will start running in around 2013, while Qatar is pushing ahead with plans to build a metro system in Doha.

Saudi Arabia is also upgrading and extending its already-substantial rail network. — Agencies

KUWAIT: The Kuwaiti and British officials holding talks over the weekend.

UK ready to mobilize all expertise, potential for Kuwait development KUWAIT: The British government is ready to mobilize all required expertise and potential in different sectors to turn Kuwait’s ambitious development plan into a reality, said the Lord Mayor of the City of London Corporation David Wootton.

Addressing Kuwaiti officials and businesspeople at Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) headquarters, Wootton said his visit to

Kuwait is meant to take UK-Kuwaiti partnership to a new level.

He underlined that the British government seeks to contribute to Kuwait development plans through the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model particularly in the infrastructure sector. UK companies have executed a huge number of projects through the PPP model, Wootton said.

There over 50 UK companies oper-

ative in Kuwait and willing to expand their partnership with their Kuwaiti counterparts, he said, noting that these companies have carried out a number of the mega projects in Kuwait.

Wootton expressed readiness to offer all financial and legislative expertise and consultations to Kuwait.

The UK official said that his country wants to take value of annual trade exchange between the two nations up to $4 billion. For his part, KCCI Chief Khalid Al-Sagar welcomed the UK guest and his accompanying delegation. Al-Sagar hailed the distinguished Kuwaiti-UK ties in all fields, adding that UK comes tenth at the list of exporters to Kuwait.

The City of London is one of the world’s leading international finance centers. The City of London provides local government and policing services for the financial and commercial heart of Britain, the ‘Square Mile’.

It is committed to supporting and promoting ‘The City’ as the world leader in international finance and business services through the policies it pursues and the high standard of services it provides. — KUNA

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LOCAL SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Drunk Iraqi driver in Salmiya police custody Woman insults officers

KUWAIT: A police patrol in Salmiya arrested a suspicious driver who was accompanied by a woman. The driver and his companion were found drunk.

At the police station, the woman started shouting insults at the officers. She was released after some people intervened.

Her Iraqi friend remained in jail on other charges.

Love beat A man, who failed to attract a woman’s attention, chased her in Salmiya while she was with her friends and started beating her. A passerby stopped and saved her, but the suspect hit his car and caused it extensive damage, before escaping.

Love struck A man was arrested after harassing a girl driving on Love Street. The woman told police that the man kept driving next to her and was flashing his mobile phone, so she avoided him. She changed her route, not knowing that he was still chasing her. He then swerved towards her car and hit it before escaping. Police are looking for him.

KUWAIT: Ahmadi governorate municipality officials recently inspected the Fahaheel co-operative society, in addition to grocery stores, restaurants, pastries and juice makers, fish and meat shops. At least 39 citations were issued to business owners and six written undertakings were obtained to destroy inedible foodstuff weighing 117 kg. — Photos by Hanan Al-Saadoun

Syria charity collections illegal KUWAIT: Charity being collected for Syria is illegal because no organization has obtained a license, a senior Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor (MSAL) official said recently.

“No charitable organization or any other party submitted a request to license their activity of collecting donations for victims of the ongoing situation in Syria”, said Nasser Al-Ammar of the MSAL charitable organizations and foundations department.

He urged people not to cooperate with any party asking for donations unless they show proof that their activity is licensed.

“While we stand by the Syrian people during the tough conditions they are currently going through, the MSAL asserts that aid activities must be carried out as per the laws that regulate charity collection in Kuwait”, Al-Ammar said.

He explained that this process is not aimed at placing obstacles in front of the process of collecting donations for the people of Syria, but rather to ensure that these donations “reach their rightful destinations”.

Al-Ammar said that a committee formed to oversee charitable work in Kuwait recently detected illegal activities carried out by organizations asking people to donate for Syria through phone or online.

Al-Ammar assured that all these methods - such as using social networking websites to announce charity collecting campaigns - are considered in violation of the laws that regulate charity work in Kuwait. —Al-Qabas

Reckless love A security source said that a reckless driver, who was showing off along with few others, lost control of his pick-up truck and hit one of his cousins. Other

friends took the victim to hospital. They told police he was hit by a car and its driver escaped, but investigations revealed that the culprit was a cousin of the victim.

Love your Bag! An Egyptian woman told police that an unknown person surprised her by snatching her purse as he passed by.

She said she tried to resist his attempt, but he pushed her to the floor and ran away. She said the purse contained KD50 in addition to identification cards and a mobile phone.

Iraqi killing time Col Abdelrahman Al-Sharrah, Commander of Shuwaikh Industrial area, sent an Iraqi girl to the State Security Department for questioning after being caught while taking pictures of the military cooperative society and its adjacent military building in Jeewan area. The Iraqi girl was with a Kuwaiti, who went inside the co-op to buy some items. The Iraqi girl began taking pictures of the front side of the co-op, the flags flying as well as a surveillance camera. She was approached by soldiers, who arrested her before referring her to Shuwaikh police station. The woman, who is visiting Kuwait on a visa obtained by an MP, told police she was just killing time, and is not a spy.

Love drug A man who went to the police station in Mubarak Al-Kabeer to file a complaint against his estranged wife was arrested on a drugs charge and sent to concerned authorities.

Drug addict held Jahra police arrested a citizen in possession of drugs on the Sixth Ring Road after he caught their attention with suspicious driving. Officers found out the man was convicted to serve a two-year jail sentence on drugs charges. Heroin was found in a search of his car. The suspect was sent to concerned authorities.

Overdose A man confessed to police that he gave his friend excessive amounts of drugs, leading to his death. The man told officers he did not mean to kill him.

He did not know his friend had intestinal flu, and thought he needed extra doses of heroin. He kept giving him the drug until he died of an overdose.

No love A security source said a Gulf expatriate told police that his wife left the house and did not return. He said that she did not respond to his calls and added, that he did not find her at his relatives houses. Police authorities are investigating.—Al-Watan, Al-Rai

Kuwaiti held for demonstrating in Bahrain KUWAIT: Bahraini authorities arrested a Kuwaiti teenager accused of taking part in demonstrations carried out by the opposition at the island-kingdom recently, says a report quoting diplomatic sources familiar with the subject.

Speaking anonymously because they are not authorized to talk to the media about the subject, the sources told AlQabas that the 17-year-old came to Bahrain a few days ago with his family “before he was lured to take part in the protests”. He remains in custody of Bahraini authorities pending investigations on charges that include taking part in illegal activities, the sources confirmed.

Kuwaiti authorities are reportedly coordinating with their Bahraini coun-

terparts in order to stay updated regarding the case and work for the citizen’s release, the sources added.

In Kuwait, the Public Prosecution released a continuance columnist Mohammad Al-Mulaifi’s detention until Sunday for further investigations. The writer faces state security charges after making offensive remarks to Shiite religious figures in an article published recently. He faces prison sentence if found guilty of sectarian instigation charges.

Also on Thursday, the Public Prosecution extended detention of ten Syrian citizens for 21 days, pending investigations in charges they face in the case pertaining with storming their country’s embassy in Kuwait.

In other news, eleven new appeals were made on election results Thursday, increasing the total number of appeals filed at the constitutional court to 20.

The final day for submitting appeals is tomorrow.

Among the people challenging the election results are former MP and First Constituency candidate Dr Maasouma Al-Mubarak, who challenges the win of MP Abdullah Al-Turaiji and argues that there are errors found in the votes sorting process which would put her on tenth place by 200 votes ahead of AlTuraiji. MP Ali Al-Rashid also challenged the result he obtained in the Second Constituency, arguing that actual results put him in a higher spot than the one he finished with. — Al-Qabas

Kuwaiti envoy discusses promoting energy ties with Indonesia KUALA LUMPUR: Kuwaiti Ambassador to Indonesia Nasser Al-Enizi discussed means of promoting bilateral ties on the energy field with Indonesian Minister of Energy and Mineral Recourses Jero Wacik.

Al-Enizi said that the meeting aimed at creating open communication lines between the two country’s officials to serve mutual interests.

The Kuwaiti envoy also hoped to the newly-appointed Indonesian minister that bilateral ties would flourish ever further in all domains, epically the oil and power ones. He also stressed the importance of speeding up discussions between Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) and the Indonesian gas and oil company (PERTAMINA) to finish setting up a refinery plant in the Indonesian region of

West Java. Al-Enizi also emphasized the necessity of having an office for the Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration (KUFPEC) in Indonesia for smoother cooperation. On his part, the Indonesian minister lauded exceptional relations and expressed wishes of further collaborations in the oil sector since his country needs assistance in setting up more oil refineries. —KUNA

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

‘Vatileaks’ casts cloud over new cardinal ceremony

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Strong fundraising month helps Obama momentum

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Pakistan suicide attack kills 25

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TRIPOLI: Children flash the sign for victory whilst celebrating the establishment of a memorial statue in the Friday Market neighbourhood in Tripoli yesterday on the first anniversary of the revolt that toppled Muammar Gaddafi. —AFP

Libya marks revolution day Leader issues warning BENGHAZI: Libyans celebrated yesterday the first anniversary of the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi with fireworks and slogans, even as their new leader vowed to prevent further instability.

Thousands gathered in Tahrir (Liberation) Square in Benghazi, the city which first rose against Gaddafi and his 42-year regime, after traditional Muslim prayers, waving Libya’s new flag and proclaiming the revolution’s “birthday.”

Libya’s rulers have not organized official celebrations at a national level as a mark of respect for the thousands of people killed in the conflict that saw Gaddafi captured and slain on October 20. But spontaneous commemorations began nationwide, as former rebels, who toppled Gaddafi last year with NATO backing, set up fresh checkpoints in Tripoli, Benghazi, the western port city of Misrata and other towns. In Tahrir Square, mothers held pictures of their sons killed in the fighting, while singers and poets performed for the growing crowds.

“This is the first birthday of Libya. It is a day of freedom, a day to remember. The days ahead will

be better now that Gaddafi is gone,” said Malek L Sahad, a Libyan-American rap singer who returned to his native country last year. Former army colonel Idris Rashid, 50, said the difference between the new Libya and the old was “like the difference between the sky and the earth.” “We were living before, but never knew the meaning of life. Today we can feel the breeze of freedom,” he told AFP. School teacher Ala Zaid, who won fame in Benghazi during the early months of the uprising by ferrying casualties to hospital in his car, paraded the vehicle decked out in ribbons and balloons in the red, green and black colours of the new Libya.

“When the uprising erupted, I saw people being shot at by the Gaddafi forces,” Zaid recalled. “I couldn’t hold myself back; I plunged into the revolution. Whomever I could help I just put in my car, the dead and the wounded, and took them to hospital. “All those efforts have borne fruit. Libya is free. Gaddafi has gone.” Libyan ruler Mustafa Abdel Jalil was expected to attend a function in Benghazi later yesterday to mark the anniversary of the revolution, along with interim Prime Minister Abdel

Rahim al-Kib and other dignitaries.

Thuwar, or revolutionaries, were deployed across the city to ensure the celebrations went peacefully, and Abdel Jalil warned on Thursday that Libya’s revolutionary spirit and stability would not be compromised. “We opened our arms to all Libyans, whether they supported the revolution or not. But this tolerance does not mean we are incapable of dealing with the stability of our country,” he said in a television address.

“We will be tough towards people who threaten our stability.” Tripoli resident Naima Misrati said traffic police and former rebels were distributing leaflets, warning people against thinking of carrying out attacks, which said: “We cannot bring back the buried man (Gaddafi) but we can send you to him.” The pro-Gaddafi Libyan Popular National Movement posted a statement on several websites saying the situation in Libya “is becoming worse every day.” “There’s very little interest from the international media in the many horrors that have taken place. We are reorganizing ourselves outside Libya in an inclusive political movement that

would encompass all Libyans who understand the terrible reality of Libya,” it said.

One year after the uprising, Libya is battling challenges ranging from how to tame the rowdy militias that fought Gaddafi to establishing a new rule of law. Thousands of people were killed or wounded in the conflict, the country’s vital oil production ground to a halt, and homes, businesses, factories, schools and hospitals were devastated.

But the most immediate headache is how to control the tens of thousands of ex-rebels who have now turned into powerful militias, whose jealously guarded commitment to their honor and power occasionally erupts into deadly clashes.

Global human rights organizations Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Doctors Without Borders have accused militias of torturing their prisoners, most of whom are former proGaddafi fighters. Prime Minister Kib has acknowledged that integrating these militias into security services is a “complex” issue. But his government on Thursday said that about 5,000 of them had already been integrated.— AFP

INTERNATIONAL SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

US lacks a champion in the new Egypt WASHINGTON: The US is losing old friends and can’t win new ones in the new Egypt. Trying to secure a way home for seven American democracy experts trapped in the country, the Obama administration is facing a wrathful campaign of retribution from Hosni Mubarak’s old allies of the dictatorship, which the US long supported but then turned away from last year. It is getting no help from the most legitimate force now in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, and a sympathetic ear but little concrete support from an unpopular military leadership that has long benefited from US largesse.

One year after the revolution that chased Mubarak from power, no one wants to be seen as too close to the United States. After watching the US deliver billions of dollars in aid to prop up Mubarak over three decades of authoritarian rule, the political parties that have risen from the ashes of his dictatorship see no value in doing Washington’s bidding. The calculation

holds even when it comes to defending US groups that long championed democracy for Egyptians, or even when more than $1.5 billion may be at stake.

The dispute began in December when security forces raided the offices of nonprofit groups that receive foreign funding, seizing documents and computers. Among those affected were the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute, Freedom House and the International Center for Journalists. Several Americans, including Sam LaHood, son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, have sought refuge in the US Embassy while their status remains unclear.

The allegations against the groups include trying to foment unrest in Egypt.

“Trial with the possibility of prison time for our staff appears the most likely outcome at present,” Lorne Craner, the IRI president, told the US House Foreign Affairs Committee. To resolve the crisis, President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta have personally engaged top officials in Egypt’s military-led government to end the investigations of democracy workers and allow US citizens on a no-travel list to leave Egypt.

“I’ve been assured by all of them that they’re going to do everything they can to resolve this, and I believe them,” Lahood said yesterday on “This Morning” on CBS. Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey visited Cairo last week in another unsuccessful bid for a solution, and the logjam has led to increasing threats to withhold the United States’ annual aid to Egypt. US Sen. John McCain will lead a congressional delegation on yet another such effort in the coming days.

But administration officials are hesitant to push the issue too far. Despite Mubarak’s ouster, the US is eager to salvage an alliance with Egypt that has been a foundation of stability in the Middle East since the late 1970s, ensuring peace between the Arab world’s

most populous country and Israel.

Ending US assistance programs only a year after Egyptians braved the repression in Cairo’s Tahrir Square would hardly be a vote of confidence in Arab democracy. “I am always reluctant to come to the stark conclusion about cutting aid,” Dempsey told a congressional panel Thursday. “Cutting off aid and therefore cutting ourselves off from them means that the next generation won’t have that benefit, and I don’t know where that takes us, to tell you the truth.” Still, US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland insisted that a failure to resolve the situation with the Americans “may have an impact on all kinds of other aspects of our relationship with Egypt, including our ability to support them economically.” For the military assistance to go through, she noted, Clinton must certify to Congress sometime in spring that Egypt is promoting freedom of speech and religion and the rule of law. “She has not made those decisions yet,” Nuland said.—AP

Thousands rally in Gaza, West Bank for hunger striker Jihad group vows to escalate violence if Adnan dies

SANAA: Yemeni women show their ink-stained thumbs as their hands read “February 21, a new Yemen” to show their support for next week’s presidential election during a rally in Sanaa yesterday.—AFP

Yemen troops capture 10 militants after attack SANAA: Yemeni government forces detained 10 Al-Qaedalinked fighters yesterday, a security source said, after an attack in a town that underscored the security challenges of next week’s presidential election. Separately, oil pipeline workers returned to work after a 10-day strike which had shut down oil exports, Yemeni officials and Norwegian energy firm DNO said. On Wednesday, Islamist militants shot dead a military officer and an election official in the town of Baydah, about 130 km (80 miles) southeast of the capital Sanaa.

The militants opened fire on a car carrying Khaled Waqaa, the leader of a brigade of the elite Republican Guard, killing him as well as the head of Baydah’s election committee, Hussein Al-Babli, his son and two soldiers. Ten people were wounded. Yemenis vote on Feb. 21 to pick a leader to replace President Ali Abdullah Saleh, now in the United States for medical treatment, amid concern that violence - and the fact there is only one candidate, his former deputy Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi - could depress the turnout.

Pipeline workers, who are employees of state-owned oil firm PetroMasila, returned to work yesterday, ending their strike, a government official told Reuters. A union official said: “The purpose of the action was to bring the workers’ grievances to the attention of the government. The strike has now ended.” Norway’s DNO said it was about to restart production at several Yemeni oilfields after workers returned to the job.

The company on Tuesday ceased production of some 4,500 barrels of oil per day due to the strike. — Reuters

GAZA: Several thousand Palestinians rallied in Gaza and the West Bank yesterday in support of jailed Islamic Jihad leader Khader Adnan, who is on the 62nd day of a hunger strike to protest against his detention by Israel. “We are all Khader Adnan,” chanted crowds gathered in the Gaza Strip, with activists from the main political parties joining forces in a rare display of Palestinian unity. Adnan, 33, has been refusing to eat since mid-December following his arrest in the occupied West Bank. He is being held under socalled “administrative detention”, which means Israel can detain him indefinitely without trial or charge.

The Islamic Jihad group, which advocates the destruction of the state of Israel, has said it will escalate violence if Adnan dies, following reports that his health was deteriorating. “We will pursue our Jihad and resistance.

We will sail in the sea of blood and martyrdom until we land on the shore of pride and dignity,” top Islamic Jihad leader Nafez Azzam said during a Friday sermon at Gaza’s oldest al-Omari mosque. The Physicians for Human Rights group in Israel (PHR), which has been monitoring Adnan’s condition in an Israeli hospital, said yesterday he was “in immediate danger of death”, adding that he had suffered “significant muscular atrophy”.

The Israeli army has said in a statement that Adnan was arrested “for activities that threaten regional security”. It has not given further details.

Adnan owns a bakery and a fruit and vegetable shop in his West Bank village, Arabeh. He has served as a spokesman for the Islamic Jihad, which describes him as a local leader.

At least 5,000 people took to the streets of Gaza, waving a mix of black Jihad flags, the green flags of Islamist

GAZA CITY: Gazans protest after the Friday noon prayer in support of Khader Adnan, an Islamic Jihad militant held in an Israeli prison without trial and who is on hunger strike since December 18 yesterday in Gaza City.—AFP group Hamas and the yellow flags of the secular Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Witnesses said hundreds had also demonstrated in the northern West Bank city of Jenin. Palestinian officials said many other prisoners in Israeli jails had started hunger strikes to support Adnan, including Hassan Salama, a senior armed commander of Hamas who is serving life terms for masterminding suicide bombings against Israelis.

Palestinian prisoners have regularly staged hunger strikes in the past to try to gain better conditions or to denounce the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories. However, such protests usually end quickly and officials said no-one had persisted for as long as Adnan, who is married with two children and whose wife is expecting a third infant. The Islamic Jihad’s Azzam

accused Arab states and Western powers of ignoring Adnan’s protest.

“Shame on the nations of hundreds of millions (of Muslims) for the fact that Khader Adnan is still in prison,” he said in his Friday sermon.

Hamas, which governs Gaza, said it was pushing the Arab League and Egypt to p r e s s f o r t h e r e l e a s e o f Adnan. “The Palestinian people, with all its components and its factions, will never abandon the hero prisoners, especially those who lead this hunger strike battle,” said Hamas’s top authority in the Mediterranean territory, Ismail Haniyeh. The PHR rights group said Adnan could die even if he broke his fast. “There is a risk to his health even if he starts eating now because his system has got used to not having any food at all,” a spokesman said.— Reuters

INTERNATIONAL SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Latvia votes: Is Russian our language, too?

RIGA: Like a detective at a crime scene, chief language inspector Antons Kursitis scans the lobby of a hotel in downtown Riga. He spots a brochure that lists hotel services in Russian only, a flagrant violation of Latvia’s language laws. “You can have information in Russian, English, Chinese, even use hieroglyphics doesn’t matter - as long as it’s also there in Latvian,” explains Kursitis, who lets off the management with a reprimand.

Protecting the Latvian language that is, safeguarding its supremacy

over Russian - has been a priority here since the Soviet occupation ended two decades ago. Those efforts face their biggest test yet today, in a referendum on whether to make Russian the country’s second official language. Even though the initiative is all but certain to fail, the vote has symbolic meaning for Russian-speakers, who make up one-third of this Baltic republic of 2.1 million people.

“I think that over the past 20 years Russian residents of Latvia have been humiliated by authorities, by endless attempts either to assimilate or make

them second-class citizens,” says Vladimir Linderman, co-chairman of Mother Tongue, the movement spearheading the referendum. “So this is our answer.” Hundreds of thousands of Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians moved to Latvia and the neighboring Baltic republics during the population transfers of the Soviet regime. Since Russian was the lingua franca at the time, there was little use in learning Latvian, which belongs to a different branch of the Indo-European family of languages. But the tables turned after independence, when the new Latvian

‘Vatileaks’ casts cloud over new cardinal ceremony 22 new cardinals to be named VATICAN CITY: A scandal over leaked Vatican documents and reports of political infighting, financial mismanagement and administrative chaos in its frescoed halls have cast a cloud over this weekend’s ceremony to create 22 new cardinals. With Pope Benedict XVI slowing down as he nears his 85th birthday, Saturday’s ceremony has taken on the aura of a pre-conclave summit. Reports abound in the Italian media of cardinals and their supporters jockeying for prominence ahead of a future papal election, and of a Vatican bureaucracy in disarray as Benedict focuses his waning strength on other matters.

All that has weighed today’s consistory, where the 22 new princes of the church will get their red hats, or birette, and be formally welcomed into the elite men’s club that will elect Benedict’s successor. That ceremony will bring up to 125 the number of cardinals worldwide eligible to vote for the next pope.

Yesterday, cardinals new and old joined Benedict for a pre-consistory day of reflection on spreading the faith in an increasingly secularized world. The meeting was headlined by Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York.

Apologizing for his rusty Italian, Dolan peppered his remarks with his trademark good humor. He told the cardinals that evangelizing in today’s world required its missionaries to live and spread the faith with love, joy - and “sorry to bring it up, but blood.” He noted how cardinals wear scarlet cassocks to symbolize their willingness to shed blood as martyrs for the faith and make a pledge during the consistory to die as martyrs, if necessary.

“Holy Father, can you omit the ‘shedding of your blood’ when you present me with the biretta?” Dolan asked the pope. “Of course not! We are but ‘scarlet audio-visual aids’ for all of our brothers and sisters also called to be ready to suffer and die for Jesus.” While the subject matter was deadly serious, Dolan’s delivery lightened the mood of the otherwise somber Vatican. The Vatican spokesman, Rev. Federico Lombardi, took pains to tell journalists how appreciative the cardinals were of Dolan’s “lively” remarks.

The Vatican spokesman has been doing serious damage control of late

amid reports and leaked documents alleging corruption in the running of the Vatican city state and money laundering at the Vatican bank. The scandal began last month with the publication of letters from the former No. 2 Vatican administrator, who begged the pope not to be transferred after he exposed

the similarities to the Wikileaks documents scandal that hit the U.S. government, has come as the Vatican has tried to clean up its finances and be more transparent in its financial dealings to comply with international norms.

The Vatican hopes to get on the socalled “white list” of countries that share

VATICAN CITY: A Swiss guard salutes as Cardinal designate Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan leaves the Synod hall after a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican yesterday. The Pontiff is scheduled to name 22 new Cardinals in a Consistory today at the Vatican. —AP millions of euros in cost overruns in the information to crack down on tax evaVatican administration. He was then sion, aiming to forever erase its reputaremoved and named the Vatican’s U.S. tion as a secrecy-obsessed offshore tax ambassador in Washington. haven. The latest reports certainly Subsequent news reports focused on haven’t helped its bid. In an editorial this four priests under investigation for week, Lombardi said the leaks “tend to allegedly using Vatican bank accounts create confusion and bewilderment, to launder cash. The pope’s top banker, and to throw a bad light on the Vatican, meanwhile, remains under investiga- the governance of the church, and more tion for allegedly breaking Italy’s anti- broadly on the church herself.” money laundering law by trying to “We must, then, remain calm and transfer cash from two Vatican bank keep our nerve, make use of reason accounts without identifying the sender something which not all media outlets or the recipient. He has denied wrong- tend to do,” he said. The Vatican newsdoing. paper L’Osservatore Romano took up More recent leaks have included a the charge as well, saying in a front page Vatican document warning of a plot to editorial this week that Benedict was kill the pope this year - a scenario that fighting unnamed “wolves.” The pope has since been discredited - and of an himself made a vague reference to the internal debate over the scope and rumors during a meeting with seminaripower of the Vatican’s new financial ans Wednesday when he said a lot was watchdog. The scandal, dubbed being said about the church in these “Vatileaks” after Lombardi himself noted days. — AP

authorities introduced Latvian language skills as a prerequisite for citizenship. Many Russian-speakers resisted, and some 300,000 remain without citizenship, which means they cannot vote in elections, hold public office, or work in government institutions.

The Russian-speakers get little sympathy from the majority of ethnic Latvians, who still view Russian as the language of a brutal dictatorship that led to the forcible deportation of some 60,000 Latvians to places throughout the former USSR, including Siberian gulags. — AP

Britain, France sign nuclear power deals at summit PARIS: French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron put recent disputes behind them yesterday to unveil a nuclear power deal and renew their own sometimes shaky political alliance. The pair took a strong position on the Syrian regime’s violence at their summit in Paris, and Cameron took the opportunity of a joint news conference to wish his “friend” Sarkozy well in France’s upcoming presidential election.

Celebrating a multi-million pound (euro) nuclear power deal and ever closer defense ties, the Paris summit was a far cry from recent encounters between the pair at European summits in Brussels, where they have clashed bitterly. “When you look across the foreign policy and defense policy issues we discussed today, I don’t think that there has been closer French-British cooperation than at any time since the Second World War,” Cameron said.

Cameron and Sarkozy first bonded over the Libyan intervention last year, where British and French jets spearheaded what later became a NATO-led air campaign that eventually led to the overthrow of Moamer Kadhafi’s regime. They have since worked towards closer defense and military industrial ties and have jointly pushed for tougher UN action against Syria’s Bashar Al-Assad, who is engaged in a bloody crackdown on a pro-democracy revolt.

Both men expressed support for an upcoming conference of an international coalition dubbed the Friends of Syria, which meets next week in Tunis, but called on the Syrian opposition to organise itself better as well. “We cannot accept that a dictator massacres his own people, but the revolution will not be brought from outside, it will rise from inside Syria, as it has done elsewhere,” Sarkozy told the pair’s joint news conference.

Both men said the conditions are not ripe in Syria for another Western military intervention like the one that tipped the balance in Libya, but said that they would bring maximum diplomatic pressure to bear. “In Libya we had a UN Security Council that authorised force, we had an Arab League that wanted action to be taken, we had a clear opposition in Libya that was working on behalf of the whole of the country,” Cameron said.

“With Syria we don’t have all those circumstances in place but that doesn’t mean we should stand back and just say there is nothing that can be done. We need to ... put the maximum pressure on Assad to stop the butchering.” Cameron also gave his backing to Sarkozy’s re-election campaign, which promises to be an uphill struggle against opposition Socialist challenger Francois Hollande, who has a clear opinion poll lead with 10 weeks to go.

“We’ll be following your fortunes in the weeks to come on the campaign trail and, as I said, I wish you luck,” Cameron told Sarkozy, calling the summit “a chance to wish my friend well in the battle he has ahead.” The pair also hailed the civil nuclear deal, in a joint appearance that was noticeably more friendly than other recent encounters. Cameron said the British engineering firm Rolls-Royce will secure a £400 million (481 million euro, $632 million) share in the work to build Britain’s first French-pioneered EPR reactor at Hinkley Point in southern England. — AFP

INTERNATIONAL SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Uganda strips Gaddafi-era ambassador of role KAMPALA: Ugandan officials have stripped Libya’s ambassador of his title and evicted him from the embassy, saying he was an obstacle to new relations with post-Muammar Gaddafi Libya, the foreign minister said yesterday. The Libyan diplomat had to be evicted in order to accommodate the arrival in Uganda of a new representative, said Uganda’s foreign affairs minister Okello Oryem. But the former ambassador can remain in the country, Oryem said.

“He’s no longer the Libyan ambassador in Uganda. He can no longer continue to enjoy the status of an ambassador,” Oryem told The

Associated Press. He denied accusations that the diplomat had been harassed and said that he was given police protection. Relations between Uganda and Libya prospered during the long reign of Gadhafi, whose oil money flowed into Uganda through the telecommunications and travel sectors. He was also popular among Uganda’s Muslims, to whom he donated an elegant mosque that remains one of the tallest structures in Kampala, the capital.

Gaddafi’s death last October put Ugandan diplomats in an uncomfortable situation: What to do with an envoy who did not want to go home and was eager to continue occupy-

ing his former office. The diplomat also kept the official residence, Oryem said, leaving no place for the new envoy when he arrived in Kampala weeks ago. The evicted envoy has expressed concerns that he could be arrested once he returned home, and Ugandan officials say the government may negotiate his transfer to a third country.

Oryem said the diplomat had been stripped of his security and was now a private man.

“I don’t know if he’s willing to go home, but he’s welcome to stay in Uganda for as long as he wishes,” Oryem said of the former ambassador. “We cannot press him to go to

Two rappers arrested at Senegal opposition protest Govt refuses to authorize gathering DAKAR: Police opened fire with tear gas on protesters who had gone ahead with a sleep-in Thursday at a downtown square, even though the government had banned the demonstration being held one week before the country’s presidential election. It’s the second day that protesters have continued their demonstrations despite the government’s refusal to authorize the gathering. Senegalese police are allowed to use force to break up crowds at unauthorized protests, as they did on Wednesday to stop marchers who got within 500 yards (meters) of the presidential palace.

The country’s opposition is calling for the departure of 85-year-old President Abdoulaye Wade, who is insisting on running for a third term in the Feb. 26 election despite growing resistance from the population as well as criticism from the international community. Interior Minister Ousmane Ngom defended the government’s decision to ban the protests even though the campaign season is in full swing, and the ruling party is holding regular rallies. He told reporters Thursday that Senegal has a long democratic tradition, and pointed out that 3050 demonstrations had been authorized last year, while only 245 - less than 5 percent - were banned due to a threat to public order. He described the recent opposition demonstrations as “a crime spree by vagrants” and said that they cannot be equated with campaign events since most are not being organized by the candidates themselves. The sleep-in on Thursday is being organized by a group of rappers known as Y’en a Marre, French for “We’ve had enough,” which is allied with the opposition but is not fielding a candidate in the election. Riot police began pelting the group with tear gas, after protesters tried to light tires on fire. Security forces moved in and arrested Simon and Kilifeu, two of the founders of the Y’en a Marre, who were led away to a police truck.

Ngom also said that the police had recovered one pistol, explosives and several molotov cocktails at recent demonstrations - which he said showed that protesters had the intention of using violence. Four people

strations yesterday and today despite the ban.

“Citizens need to come to say ‘No’ to the violation of our constitution, and to demand the unconditional rejection of President Wade’s candidacy,” said Tine.

DAKAR: Kilifeu (C), one of the leaders of Senegal’s rapper-led youth movement “Fed Up”, on Thursday in Dakar as he attempted to stage a protest against Senegalese President’s third term bid. —AFP have been killed in anti-Wade demonstrations over the past two weeks since the country’s highest court ruled that Wade could run for a third term, even though the constitution was revised in 2001 to impose a two-term maximum.

The violence has been mild by comparison to recent elections in Ivory Coast, Guinea and Nigeria where hundreds were killed.

But the unrest is rattling Senegal, a nation of 12 million on Africa’s western coast, which is considered the most stable democracy in the region.

Alioune Tine, the coordinator of M23, which represents a dozen opposition candidates running against Wade in next week’s election, announced that they too would go ahead with demon-

“I want to remind the police that it is here to defend the republic. They need to refuse to be used by the regime.”

Unlike many countries in Africa, Senegal has never experienced a coup or a military takeover.

The country is deeply proud of its democratic tradition, which dates to the mid-1800s when the former French colony was given the right to elect a deputy to the French parliament. Most of its neighbors in West Africa only began their democratic experiment in the 1960s after independence from France, an experiment that was frequently hijacked by the military.

Guinea, for example, which shares a border with Senegal, held its first democratic election in 2010. —AP

Libya.” The decision to evict the diplomat was reached after Ugandan and Libyan officials attending a recent African Union summit in Ethiopia decided to formalize relations that had gone cold after Gaddafi’s death. The envoy’s refusal to leave had complicated Uganda’s plans to reopen its mission in Libya, with Ugandan diplomats normally accredited to Tripoli still holding out in neighboring Tunisia.

Libya has at least $300 million in Ugandan assets that have since been unfrozen. The Ugandan government is in the process of handing over the properties, which include one of the oldest banks in Uganda. —AP

I Coast president named head of West Africa bloc ABUJA: Ivory Coast’s President Alassane Ouattara was named the new head of West Africa’s regional bloc, outgoing chief Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria announced yesterday before the close of the body’s summit. “For the chairman of the authority we have also unanimously agreed that the President of Cote d’Ivoire, Alassane Ouattara,” would take over, Jonathan said at a meeting of the Economic Community of West African States in Abuja.

Ouattara’s election for the rotating position in the 15-nation bloc marks the return to the regional stage of Ivory Coast, recently shaken by deadly violence sparked by a disputed election. One year ago, Ouattara was largely confined to an Abidjan hotel by his political foe, ex-president Laurent Gbagbo, who had refused to accept defeat after a November 2010 vote. Gbagbo’s refusal to quit triggered conflict which left around 3,000 people dead before Ouattara took power.

Gbagbo is now awaiting trial by the International Criminal Court, accused of crimes against humanity.

Ouattara had been the favorite to take the key job, which carries a one year mandate, from regional powerhouse Nigeria.

“Countries of the region feel they have invested a lot for Ivory Coast and see it as the culmination of their efforts,” said a West African diplomat before the announcement. — AFP

Sudan police raid university dorm, arrest hundreds CAIRO: Sudanese police raided student dormitories at Khartoum’s main university yesterday, beating and arresting hundreds of students in the latest crackdown on youth protesters, activists said. The youth activist group Change Now said the National Intelligence Security Services stormed the dormitories before dawn at the University of Khartoum and detained more than 350 students.

Students at the university began protesting in late December to demand compensation for people displaced from their homes by construction of a dam near the city of Dammir, 175 miles (280 kilometers) northeast of the capital. They also have been calling for the right to form a student union and for an end to police violence. Change Now said in a statement that the students arrested yesterday “were brutally beaten and their properties destroyed in a haphazard manner.”

“Terrorization and intimidation of the students in the dorms further complicates their reasons for protesting from the onset,” the group said. Opposition lawmaker Mariam alSadeq al-Mahadi, a member of the Umma Party, called the raid “an attack on freedom of expression.” — AP

INTERNATIONAL SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Teen pleads not guilty in Ohio Craigslist killings AKRON: An Ohio teen who came under the influence of a convicted criminal turned self-styled street chaplain pleaded not guilty yesterday to helping his mentor kill one man and try to kill another in a deadly Craigslist robbery scheme. Brogan Rafferty, his ankles and wrists cuffed and dressed in a white T-shirt and orange jail pants, made a brief appearance yesterday in Summit County Common Pleas Court. His plea came after he was transferred to the adult system from juvenile court because of the seriousness of the charges against him.

Authorities say applicants who fell for the scheme answered a Craigslist ad for a job at a nonexistent cattle ranch in Noble County, 90 miles south of Akron in rural southeastern Ohio, were robbed, then killed. The teen was questioned by the FBI and arrested in mid-November several days after Scott Davis, of South Carolina, said was shot in the arm and escaped after he answered the ad.

The body of Norfolk, Va., resident David Pauley,

51, was found on the Noble County property, owned by a coal company and often leased to hunters. Authorities say Pauley was killed Oct 23.

Timothy Kern, 47, of Massillon, was found Nov. 29 in a shallow grave near an Akron-area shopping mall.

He had been shot in the head.

The complaint against the teen says he participated in the crimes with Richard Beasley, a 52 year-old Akron resident said to have acted as his mentor. Beasley was a Texas parolee who returned to Ohio in 2004 after serving time on a burglary conviction. He was awaiting trial on prostitution and drug charges when authorities took him into custody, and police have said a halfway house he ran in Akron was a front for prostitution. Beasley has pleaded not guilty to the slayings and could face the death penalty if convicted. As a juvenile, Rafferty cannot. Rafferty’s attorney, John Alexander, said after the arraignment that his client is holding up well.

“He’s doing as well as you can, obviously, with serious charges like this,” he said. “You’re going to have a whole wide range of emotions, so he’s holding up as best as he can.” Alexander said he would ask to have Rafferty held in juvenile detention, instead of adult jail, for the duration of the case.

Rafferty was a student at Stow-Munroe Falls High School in suburban Akron when he was arrested in the fall.

The victims had answered Craigslist ads for work on a nonexistent cattle farm in rural Noble County in southeast Ohio. The scheme targeted older, single, out-of-work men with backgrounds that made it unlikely their disappearances would be noted right away. In a four-page handwritten letter to the Akron Beacon Journal, Beasley has said he has been miscast as a con man when he really helped feed, house and counsel scores of needy families, alcoholics, drug addicts, the mentally ill and crime suspects for years.— AP

Strong fundraising month helps Obama momentum Obama’s approval ratings on the rise

CALIFORNIA: Pro-Tibetan demonstrators shout slogans against Chinese-ruled Tibet while marching with flags in front of a downtown hotel in Los Angeles following the arrival of Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping on Thursday in California. —AFP

China’s heir apparent wraps up US visit in LA LOS ANGELES: Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping’s pivotal four-day visit to the United States brings him and US Vice President Joe Biden yesterday to Los Angeles, where the vast trade imbalance between the two countries is at its starkest.

The tour by China’s soon-to-be leader comes at a politically challenging time in US -China relations, with the White House sending stern messages on currency and trade policies and Republican presidential candidates claiming that President Barack Obama isn’t doing enough to keep America competitive with the Chinese economy.

The Asian power sells four times as many goods to the US as the United States sends in return to China, and much of that trade pours through the giant Port of Los Angeles, the busiest port in the US Xi met with California Gov. Jerry Brown on Thursday and toured a shipping terminal at the port.

Nearly 60 percent of the imports moving through the Port of Los Angeles come from China, including $120 billion worth of computers, TVs, sneakers and other goods last year. The US shipped $13.5 billion in exports to China through the port last year.

Yesterday, Biden and Xi start with a China trade forum in Los Angeles, followed by a luncheon, a school visit to meet children learning Mandarin, then a governor’s forum at Disney Hall. In a carefully scripted event, Xi took a short walking tour through the China Shipping terminal with Brown and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. —AP

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama raised $29.1 million for his campaign and the Democratic Party in January, a strong month that added to his momentum as Republican rivals were distracted by their fight for the chance to challenge him in November. Obama’s approval ratings have been on the rise as the poor economy - by far the most important issue in this presidential race and his biggest weakness for rivals - continues to show signs of a recovery. He also scored a rare victory this week over congressional Republicans on taxes.

The Obama campaign announced the fundraising number in a Twitter message yesterday morning. The month’s haul raises Obama’s total combined fundraising for this election cycle to about $250 million. Raising money is even more important in this election after a Supreme Court ruling opened the door to big-money donations to groups that support campaigns. The so-called super political action committees are supposed to be independent of the campaigns, but critics have pointed out the possibility for abuse.

Obama often criticized the super PACs on those grounds but abruptly changed his mind and embraced them this month after their influence became clear in the Republican race. The groups already have spent millions on attack ads and are poised to spend more in the general election. The Obama campaign did not immediately provide a breakdown of the January fundraising but said 98 percent of the donations were $250 or less. The nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute, which analyzes contributions, found that small donors, those whose aggregate contributions amounted to less than $200, accounted for 48 percent of Obama’s campaign income in 2011.

The institute found that small donors accounted for only 9 percent of 2011 fundraising for Mitt Romney, who is battling for front-runner status in the Republican presidential primary and is the party’s top fundraiser. Presidential candidates must submit January

SAN FRANCISCO: US President Barack Obama speaks during a Democratic campaign fundraiser at the Nob Hill Masonic Center in San Francisco, California.—AFP fundraising reports to the Federal Election Commission yesterday. The Obama campaign’s full report was expected later in the day. Obama was concluding a three-day swing of California and Washington that included eight fundraisers, where he was expected to raise more than $8 million.

Obama repeatedly tells his audiences that this election will be more difficult.

“And that’s not going to be easy because, first of all, I’m older and I’m grayer,” he told about 70 high-dollar contributors in San Francisco on Thursday night. “And part of it is we’ve gone through three tough years and so people want to hope, but they’ve been worn down by a lot of hardship,” he said - a reference to the economy. The Republican candidates, especially Romney, have had to focus less on the president and more on each other as the party’s nominating contest stretches out longer than expected.

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, faces an aggressive Rick Santorum, who has surged to a virtual tie in the polls after surprise wins in three states last

week. The former Pennsylvania senator on Thursday attacked Romney in the city of his birth in Michigan, challenging his values, consistency and even his economic policies. Santorum positions himself as the leading conservative in the race, while Romney has struggled to win over the party’s conservative base and has been attacked for his shifting positions on sensitive issues like abortion and health care. Romney not only grew up in Michigan, he is the son of a former governor. The state hosts a presidential primary Feb. 28, marking the end of a lull in state-by-state contests that will be followed by a 10-state Super Tuesday vote in early March. Though Santorum and Romney are close in the polls, Romney is considered the Republican front-runner nationwide, with far more delegates from state-by-state voting that are necessary to claim the party’s nomination. The multimillionaire also has far more money and campaign organization than Santorum. Romney picked up the support of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, who on Thursday called him “the man for the job.” —AP

INTERNATIONAL SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Cuban dissident testifies by phone to US Congress WASHINGTON: One of Cuba’s leading dissidents, Oscar Elias Biscet, testified by telephone from Cuba on Thursday to the US Congress and said the international community did not seem to understand that human rights violations continued there.

“The Cuba in which I live is a society full of fear,” Biscet said, speaking from the US interests section in Havana to a joint meeting of two House of Representatives subcommittees.

“The human rights violations need to be expressed further to the international community, because they seem to be not getting the point, or understanding that this is really happening,” he said, speaking through an interpreter. The connection was lost and restored several times as Biscet’s voice was broadcast via speaker

Chavez: Venezuela free to sell its oil anywhere CARACAS: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Thursday that his government is free to sell its oil to any country it wishes, although he didn’t directly answer a question about whether he is shipping fuel to Syria. Chavez was asked about news reports that Venezuela is selling diesel fuel to Syria, which was condemned Thursday by the UN General Assembly for its bloody crackdown on government opponents. Chavez is an ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

“Have we accepted that anyone impose conditions on us for selling oil to the United States, or anyone else in this world? We’re free,” the Venezuelan leader said. Chavez did not, however, say whether Venezuela has shipped fuel to Syria, which is under sanctions imposed by the US and other countries.

“Have we asked the United States what it does with the fuel that we take to the United States?” Chavez added.

“The greater part of the streets of Washington are paved with Venezuelan asphalt.”

Chavez, who commented while standing with actor Sean Penn at the presidential palace, noted Venezuela sells large amounts of oil to the United States, which remains its largest customer despite years of strained relations. Chavez has accused the United States and its allies of provoking violence in Syria in order to try to oust Assad. The Venezuelan leader has said it seems to be a similar pattern to events in Libya that led to the overthrow and killing of Muammar Gaddafi.

Last year, the US government imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA, saying it had delivered to Iran at least two cargos of refined oil products worth about $50 million.

Those sanctions have had little impact.

The sanctions bar the Venezuelan oil company from any US government contracts and from export licenses for sensitive technology, but don’t prevent it from selling oil to the United States. —AP

phone to a Capitol Hill hearing room.

Biscet, 50, a medical doctor, was released last March as one of the last of 52 political prisoners President Raul Castro promised to release in an accord with Cuba’s Catholic Church.

He had been first arrested in the 1990s for organizing meetings, and was jailed several times. After his fourth arrest in 2003, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison as part of a crackdown on opponents known as Cuba’s “Black Spring” that strained the Communist-led island’s international relations. Biscet said that he had been beaten and tortured in prison; as a result, he said, his face was disfigured and his foot broken. “Violations of human dignity” are systematically committed against all people who are incarcerated in Cuba,

he said. Among abuses he had “suffered or observed” were tortures in which naked prisoners had their hands handcuffed to their feet for 12 to 24 hours, or were handcuffed with their hands over their heads and suspended with their feet barely touching the floor for similarly long periods. He also described abysmal prison conditions with no clean drinking water, no ventilation, and no toilets for prisoners. For Biscet’s opposition to Cuba’s government, President George W. Bush awarded him in absentia the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007. Cuban authorities view dissidents as mercenaries working for their archenemy, the United States. The United States has maintained an economic embargo on Cuba for 50 years in order to pressure the Communist government on

the island, which lies 90 miles (145 km) south of Florida.

Cuban dissidents have said there are still at least 60 people behind bars for political reasons, including some convicted of boat and plane hijackings and spying. Asked whether he feared re-arrest because of his testimony to the US Congress, Biscet said: “Everything is possible.” He said he intended to continue non-violent efforts for change under the Castro government. “We cannot wait for someone to die to create change. We will create change on our own.”

He said he hoped that Pope Benedict would lobby for more freedoms, including freedom of speech, when the Pope visits Cuba at the end of March. “We hope that his coming will bring great change to our country,” Biscet said. — Reuters

Survivor rage grows in deadly Honduran prison fire Explanation of mattress fire absurd: Relatives TEGUCIGALPA: As workers cleaned up the rubble of the century’s deadliest prison fire, a collective rage built among relatives who gathered at the morgue and said the official explanation of a mattress fire was absurd. Details of the investigation remained thin, and mystery swirled around the possible cause, from a crazed inmate who set fire to his bedding to rumors that gas cans were found inside and that guards deliberately set the blaze, whose death toll rose to 356 when a 31year-old prisoner died in a hospital early yesterday.

Family members said guards fired on prisoners to keep them from fleeing the flames, though guards and firefighters said they were shots in the air to summon help and to respond to what they thought was a prison break. The attorney general’s office said it was investigating all angles. “It’s impossible to believe that prisoners set the fire themselves when they too were going to die,” said Felix Armando Cardona, 56, whose son, Luis Armando Cardona, 28, died in the blaze that broke out in Comayagua prison late Tuesday night.

In Geneva, the UN ‘s human rights office said yesterday that an independent probe is needed and that Honduras must prevent a recurrence since it was the third fatal prison fire in a Honduran prison in a decade. From the time firefighters received a call at 10:59 p.m., what should have been a rescue became a catastrophe. Only six guards were on duty, four in towers overlooking the prison and two overseeing 852 people crowded into a facility built for half that number.

Some 57 percent had yet to be convicted, either awaiting trial or being held as suspected gang members, according to a government report.

Survivors said they watched helplessly as the guard who had the keys fled without unlocking their cells.”He threw the keys on the floor in panic,” said Hector Daniel Martinez, who was being held as a homicide suspect. Martinez said an inmate who was not locked in because he also worked as a nurse picked up the keys and, braving the scorching heat, went from one cell block to another, opening doors. “He went into the flames and started breaking the locks,” said Jose Enrique Guevara, who was five years into an 11year sentence for auto theft. “He saved us, I tell you.”

About 100 relatives of the presumed dead gathered in tight knots outside a barricade manned by police and soldiers at the Tegucigalpa morgue, their faces etched in pain as

TEGUCIGALPA: An unidentified relative of Marvin Javier Castro, 28, places a cross on his coffin during a wake at his home in Tegucigalpa, Honduras Thursday .—AP they waited for a public address system to call the name of the latest identified victim. Family of the few victims identified by late Thursday were escorted to a cinderblock building where Red Cross workers in white suits unloaded black plastic body bags arriving from the prison farm about 55 miles (90 kilometers) away.

Most wore surgical masks to ward off the heavy scent of decaying bodies. Loads of cheap brown wooden caskets pulled up aboard pickup trucks, apparently donated. Prosecutors’ spokesman Melvin Duarte said 25 forensic examiners were working around the clock, starting with the few bodies that weren’t too charred to have finger prints. Prisoners who survived unscathed or suffered only minor injuries remained inside the prison. Those with more serious injuries were taken to hospitals and were trickling back Thursday. Some were being treated inside by the nurse credited with saving many lives.

Miguel Angel Lopez, a guard on duty inside the prison, said he called the fire brigade as soon as he saw the blaze, but it took firefighters 30 minutes to get inside. Fire officials told The Associated Press they were blocked from entering the prison for half an hour by guards who thought they had a riot or breakout on their hands. Relatives are suspicious because

Honduras has been the site of two other major prison fires, in 2003 and 2004, that killed a total of 176 inmates. Government officials were convicted of wrongdoing in the 2003 blaze, which investigators blamed on the guards. Prison officials and the governor of Comayagua province originally said the fire was started by an inmate who screamed he was going to burn the place down in a cell phone call to the governor, Paola Castro. On Thursday Castro said the call was actually a message from someone reporting the fire and that she accidentally erased it. Officials then said prisoners told investigators that the fire started with a fight inside a prison barracks over a mattress. One prisoner threatened to burn the mattress if the other didn’t hand it over, said Elver Madrid, director of intelligence for Honduran national police. Madrid said his office currently considered that to be the most credible scenario. “They’re assassins,” said Pedro Mejia, a weather-beaten, straw-hatted farmer whose son, Carlos David Mejia, died in Comayagua.

His son had been there for six months while awaiting trial for the attempted robbery of a welding machine. The US State Department has criticized the Honduran government for harsh prison conditions, citing severe overcrowding, malnutrition, and lack of adequate sanitation. —AP

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Japan was unprepared for nuke crisis: Ex-PM TOKYO: Japan was woefully unprepared for last year’s nuclear disaster, the country’s former prime minister said yesterday, and suggested that the crippled Fukushima plant should not have been built so close to the ocean on a tsunami-prone coast. In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Naoto Kan acknowledged flaws in authorities’ handling of the crisis, triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, including poor communication and coordination between nuclear regulators, utility officials and the government Kan headed at the time.

But he said the disaster - the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986 - laid bare a host of an even bigger man-made vulnerabilities in Japan’s nuclear industry and regulation, from inadequate safety guidelines to crisis management, all of which he said need to be overhauled. “Before 3/11, we were totally unprepared,” he said. “Not only the hardware, but our system and the organization were not prepared.

That’s the biggest problem.”

Kan said the disaster made clear to him that Japan needs to dramatically reduce its dependence on nuclear power, which supplied 30 percent of its electricity before the crisis, and has turned him into a believer of renewable energy. He also acknowledged that information disclosure was sometimes slow and at times wrong, particularly in the days immediately after the crisis erupted. He blamed a lack of reliable data at the time and said the government never hid any information from the public.

Kan said the very location of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant was problematic. It was built close to the shore and about 33 feet (10 meters) above a coastline that has experienced numerous tsunamis over the centuries, including three within the last 120 years, all of them smaller than the one on March 11. That height was a level regulators and the utility operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., thought was safe.

But the tsunami that hit on March 11 was at least 46 feet (14 meters) tall, and it knocked out the plant’s power as well as emergency generators, located in the basement areas of the reactor buildings, disabling their cooling systems and sending three active reactors into meltdowns. “If they had thought about it, they wouldn’t have intentionally built it at a place so low,” said Kan. “The plant was built on the assumption that there was no need to anticipate a major tsunami, and that’s the very beginning of the problem.”

“We should have taken more adequate safety steps, and we failed to do so,” he added. “It was a big mistake and I must admit that (the accident) was due to human error.” The accident displaced about 100,000 people who lived near the plant and has raised fears of contamination in everything from fruit and vegetables to fish and water. In December, the government declared the plant was stable, although it estimates that it will take about 40 years to completely decommission the plant.

Early on in the crisis, Kan said he did consider the possibility of a worst-case scenario in which all six of the reactors plus spent fuel pools melted down out of control. That probably would have resulted in radioactive fallout over a wide area, requiring evacuation of millions of people, including possibly the population of Tokyo.

Kan said he never instructed officials to produce a blueprint plan for evacuating the 30 million people from the greater Tokyo area, although an internal report submitted March 25 by the head of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission - and obtained by the AP warned of that possibility if the disaster deteriorated. Fearing panic, the report was kept a secret. “My mission was to stop that from happening and think how to do it,” Kan said. “We were lucky to have taken the crisis under control before things turned worse.”

He said the crisis was most dire around the time of a third hydrogen explosion at the Fukushima plant in mid-March . — AP

Philippines for first time to try to close illegal mines MANILA: The Philippines for the first time plans to close down dozens of illegal small-scale gold and copper mines, often the cause of deadly accidents, an official said yesterday, but it remains to be seen how strictly the new regulations will be enforced. The new policy will be spelt out in an “executive order” by President Benigno Aquino, said Leo Jasareno, director of the state agency, Mines and Geosciences Bureau.

Aquino, who has vowed to crack down on perennial corruption which blights the country, will sign the order after consulting with the mining industry. A National Anti-Illegal Mining Task Force will be created and given police powers to oversee small mines.

“There are between 200 and 300 small-scale mining operations in the country, and about 80 percent of them are considered illegal,” Jasareno said at a media forum.

Most mining accidents in the Southeast Asian country, which has mineral reserves estimated at $1 trillion, have been caused by rampant and unregulated small-scale mining. There has been no attempt so far to close the mines because they enjoy the support of local governments.

Jasareno did not say how the executive order would be enforced at the local level. The new policy “will lay out measures and directives that will address all issues the industry is facing, including the conflict between national and local laws”, he said.

The Chamber of Mines of the Philippines which represents large-scale miners on Tuesday criticised a government plan to impose new taxes on mining and review incentives provided under their contracts. It said the government’s inconsistent mining policy would scare off investors.

Jasareno declined to comment on the issue. But Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima told reporters on Wednesday the government wants a bigger share of mining revenue and the removal of incentives for mining investors.

“The order will provide clarity to our rules and that will help improve the business environment,” Jasareno said, adding the order would pave the way for the lifting of a oneyear-old moratorium on the issuance of new mining permits.

He said the new mining policy should also help resolve the issue involving the $5.9-billion Tampakan project in South Cotabato, believed to be Southeast Asia’s biggest undeveloped copper-gold reserves. The project led by global miner Xstrata Plc is under threat from a local ban on open-pit mining and the government’s refusal to grant it an environment clearance needed for mine construction. “We want to make it clear that Tampakan remains a priority project for us,” Jasareno said.—Reuters

ASHGABAT: Turkmenistan’s President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov (C) is inaugurated for a second term in the capital Ashgabat, yesterday.—AFP

Turkmen authoritarian leader sworn in Authoritarian prez referred to as the ‘protector’ ASHGABAT: Turkmenistan’s authoritarian president was sworn in yesterday for a second term during a lavish ceremony filled with adulation for the man increasingly referred to as the “protector” of this tightly controlled, resource-rich nation.

Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov won the recent presidential election with 97 percent of the vote. The opposition candidates were mere tokens - several of them praised the incumbent during the race.

What Berdymukhamedov does with Turkmenistan during this second, five-year term is the subject of avid interest from the West, Russia and China because of the Central Asian state’s natural gas reserves, estimated to be the world’s fourth-largest.

Berdymukhamedov first came to power after the 2006 death of Saparmurat Niyazov. Although he has diluted much of the cult of personality established around Niyazov, his promises of political reform in the ex-Soviet state have been largely unmet.

Still, at a government meeting this week, Berdymukhamedov reaffirmed

vows that he would install a multiparty democracy and develop a civil society.

State media meanwhile have taken to referring to the president as Arkadag Turkmen for “protector” - a moniker reminiscent of Niyazov’s title of Turkmenbashi, or “Father of the Turkmen.”

Some 3,000 people in the capital, Ashgabat, attended Berdymukhamedov’s inauguration. As the head of the election commission again announced the final election results at the start of the ceremony, people in the hall interrupted him twice, rising to their feet chanting: “Hail the Hero, Hail Arkadag.” Berdymukhamedov performed the swearing-in against the backdrop of a gigantic carpet inscribed with one of his own slogans: “The government is for the people.” After the inauguration, Berdymukhamedov gave a brief speech in which he promised to carry out reforms aimed at improving well-being in the country. The ceremony ended with a concert of songs, many of which were dedicated to Berdymukhamedov and referred to him repeatedly as “Arkadag.”

During the performance of a traditional Turkmen song, a giant television screen onstage showed pre-recorded footage of Berdymukhamedov playing a keyboard standing up and singing along.

Turkmenistan is set to hold parliamentary elections next year. The toothless rubber stamp legislature is occupied solely by the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan, which is the only legally registered party in the country.

Berdymukhamedov has suggested a new party might be created to represent agrarian interests. That party, too, would almost certainly be tightly controlled by the state. While it is hard to gauge the president’s genuine level of popularity in country where no independent media is allowed to operate and dissent is brutally stamped, discontent is greatly tempered by generous state subsidies enabled by the country’s vast energy revenues.

Household gas, water and electricity are all provided free. Families also receive monthly rations of salt.—AP

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Pakistan suicide attack kills 25 Bomb explodes during Friday prayers

ISLAMABAD: Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai (L) and Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari (C) look as Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (R) speaks during a joint press conference at the Presidential Palace in Islamabad yesterday.—AFP

Afghanistan, Pakistan hold ‘hard’ talks on Afghan peace ISLAMABAD: After two days of high-level talks, Afghanistan appears to have failed to gain more Pakistani support for its bid to advance its reconciliation process with Taleban insurgent. Pakistan is seen as critical to efforts to reach a settlement to Afghanistan’s conflict, now in its 11th year, and is believed to have influence over Afghan insurgent groups.”The talks were hard. But sometimes you need to have hard talks,” Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar told reporters after the meetings between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani leaders in Islamabad.

Before Karzai arrived in Pakistan, Afghan officials said he would press Pakistan to provide access to senior Afghan Taleban leaders belonging to the so-called Quetta Shura, named after the Pakistani city where it is said to be based.

They would be the decision-makers in any peace negotiations. Pakistan has consistently denied giving sanctuary to insurgents and denies the existence of any Quetta Shura, or leadership council.

“We are willing to look at anything. But if you have unrealistic, almost ridiculous expectations, then you don’t have sort of common ground to begin with,” Khar said. “Deliver Mullah Omar? If that is the expectation, then there’s no reality check then. Then they’re not only unrealistic, but preposterous,” she added, referring to the Taleban leader. But Afghans have long been suspicious that Pakistan uses militant groups like the Afghan Taleban as proxies in Afghanistan to counter the growing influence of rival India.

Ties between Pakistan and Afghanistan were strained for months after the assassination in September of Afghan peace envoy and former president Burhanuddin Rabbani.

Afghan officials blamed Pakistan’s intelligence agency, allegations angrily denied by Islamabad. Khar said after a recent trip to Kabul that a lot of the ill will between the neighbours had faded. Pakistan, she said, would encourage Afghan militant groups to pursue peace if asked by Kabul.

Karzai seemed cautiously optimistic on relations between Kabul and Islamabad.

“I’m glad to convey to you, brother, that the engagements that we have had recently-unfortunately with incidences in between-have been fruitful,” he told a news conference after the talks. “What we need now is to formulate a policy that is actionable and implementable.” An Afghan official said Karzai took a firm stand in the Islamabad talks, presenting Kabul’s concerns “clearly”. The Afghan Taleban announced last month it would open a political office in Qatar, suggesting the group may be willing to engage in negotiations that could give it government positions or official control over much of its historical southern heartland.

While Afghanistan supports any talks that the Taleban may have with American officials in Qatar, it also wants countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to play a role so that the process is comprehensive, analysts say. The United States also sees Pakistan as a key player in the Afghan reconciliation process. But strained ties mean Pakistani cooperation may not come easily.—Reuters

PESHAWAR: A suicide motorbike bomber attacked a market in a largely Shiite Muslim area of northwest Pakistan yesterday, killing at least 25 people in the deadliest attack for a month. The bomb exploded near a mosque as the main Friday prayers took place in Parachinar, a flashpoint for sectarian violence between majority Sunni and minority Shiite Muslims in Pakistan’s tribal badlands on the Afghan border.

Parachinar is the main town in Kurram district, part of the semiautonomous tribal belt where US drone strikes target Taleban and Al-Qaedalinked militants in what Washington considers the world’s largest international terror hub. It was the deadliest attack in Pakistan since a remote-controlled bomb blast killed at least 35 people in the Khyber tribal district on January 10.

“At least 25 people have been killed in the suicide bombing,” Kurram administrator Shahab Ali Shah told AFP. “About 54 people were wounded in the bombing and 38 were still in hospital, some in critical condition,” he said. The casualties occurred after “a suicide bomber on a motorcycle blew himself up in a crowded market,” top regional administrator Sahibzada Mohammad Anees told AFP, also confirming the latest death toll.

A splinter group that broke away from Pakistan’s umbrella Taleban faction claimed responsibility for the attack. “We sent the suicide bomber following attacks on Sunni Muslims by the Shiite tribes in the area,” Fazal Saeed told AFP by telephone, claiming to be the leader of the so-called Tehreek-eTaleban Islami. “We caught a man yesterday who was planting a bomb at a

petrol station owned by a Sunni. We did it in response,” he added.

Since the late 1980s more than 4,000 people have been killed in outbreaks of sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite militant groups in Pakistan.

Residents said the bombing destroyed at least eight shops in the city’s crowded bazaar. Telephone links broke down after the attack and news of the elevated death toll was slow to arrive via radio, Anees said. Officials had earlier said eight people died in the blast, which struck as locals visited a special Friday market. “A curfew has been imposed in the area after some people tried to hold a demonstration. Security forces have sealed the area,” Anees said. According to an AFP tally, Islamist bombers and gunmen have killed more than 4,800 people across Pakistan since July 2007.— AFP

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan opposition lawmaker Palitha Thewarapperuma is seen throwing a tear gas canister back towards police during a demonstration against higher fuel prices in Colombo, Sri Lanka yesterday.—AP

Lankan police fire tear gas at fuel protesters COLOMBO: Police in Sri Lanka fired tear gas and water cannons yesterday to disperse thousands of demonstrators in the capital protesting higher fuel prices. A wave of protests has swept across Sri Lanka since the government increased fuel prices a week ago because of rising world oil prices. A liter of gasoline rose 10 cents to $1.25 (about $5 per gallon) and diesel went up 26 cents.

The rise in fuel prices also led the government to increase bus fares and electricity charges. Yesterday, opposition lawmakers and protesters gathered opposite the main train station in Colombo, blocking the traffic on the main road. Opposition leader Ranil

Wickremesinghe said the government’s policies have led to the increasing oil prices. “People have been compelled to pay for the government’s corruption and waste, which are everywhere,” he told the protesters.

While the government has increased prices of fuel, electricity charges, bus fares, Wickremesinghe said, “It has not shown any mercy to the people. No relief to the public. “I urge the government to increase the salaries of the people and strengthen democracy,” he said. After Wickremesinghe’s speech, protesters started marching on the main road in Colombo, apparently toward the building complex that houses the treasury

and president’s office. On the way, they were stopped by riot police officers who had erected a temporary roadblock. As the number of protesters toppled the police blockade and tried to move forward, police started firing tear gas and water cannons. The government said prices had to be raised since world oil prices have increased. Government spokesman Anura Priyadarshana Yapa said the government has arranged fuel subsidies for bus owners, fishermen and taxi owners. On Wednesday, police fired on fishermen protesting fuel prices in Chilaw, a coastal town about 40 miles (70 kilometers) north of the capital, killing one person and wounding three.— AP

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US consumer prices rise as gas, clothing costs up

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Iran to pay rupee for India imports in ‘two weeks’

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Frankfurt airport workers walk out for second day

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Indonesia flies high at Singapore Airshow

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ATHENS: A stray dog barks at riot police during a high school students’ anti-austerity protest in Athens yesterday. Tensions between Athens and other European capitals hit new highs this week as euro-zone ministers delayed to next Monday a decision on a bailout agreement and demanded more commitments from Greece. — AP

Inter-bank system to cut off Iran banks SWIFT awaits EU notice on new sanctions BRUSSELS: SWIFT, the global interbank transfer network, said yesterday it was ready to exclude Iranian banks from its system once the EU has enacted new sanctions to that effect against Tehran.

“SWIFT stands ready to act and discontinue its services to sanctioned Iranian financial institutions as soon as it has clarity on EU legislation currently being drafted,” the Belgium-based organization said in a statement. The United States and European Union have been tightening sanctions against Iran to force it to abandon its nuclear program, which they suspect has military aims. Tehran insists the program is for peaceful uses. Washington has urged Brussels to block Iranian banks’ access to SWIFT, a cooperative of more than 9,000 financial institutions that serves as the main

conduit for inter-bank transactions around the world. The EU is drafting new sanctions that would directly affect the ability of EUbased financial communication service providers such as SWIFT to do business with blacklisted Iranian banks, the organization said. “This decision follows extensive consultation with our board and with relevant regulatory authorities,” it said. “The decision also reflects the extraordinary and highly exceptional circumstances of significant multi-lateral international support for the intensification of sanctions against Iran.”

The US Senate’s banking committee has endorsed similar legislation.

“The responsibility of SWIFT with regard to international financial sanctions has always been to assist our member banks in meeting their responsibilities to comply with

national and international regulation,” the statement said. “SWIFT is and has always been in full compliance with applicable sanctions regulations and has received confirmation of this from the competent regulatory authorities.”

SWIFT said it has informed its overseersworldwide central banks including the US Federal Reserve, Bank of Japan and European Central Bank.

Evicting Iran from SWIFT would further cripple the country’s financial flows but could shock the global financial system at a time of rising risks to economic growth, mainly due to the euro-zone debt crisis.

The escalating tensions between the West and oil-rich Iran, including an EU ban on Iranian oil imports, have helped push oil prices higher. The US Treasury’s sanctions

chief David Cohen raised the SWIFT issue in talks in Brussels earlier this month, a US official said Thursday. — AFP

Burgan Bank Group reports KD 50.6m net profits for 2011 KUWAIT: Burgan Bank Group announced its financial results for the year ended December 31, 2011. The group posted KD 50.6 million net profit.

Earnings per share stood at 35.3 fils. The Board of Directors recommended a payout of 10 fils as a cash dividend and 5% as bonus shares subject to the approval of the annual general assembly meeting.

business SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

US consumer prices rise as gas, clothing costs up Economists say inflation peaking

WOLFSBURG: A worker wraps a protective liner around a Volkswagen Tiguan at quality control portion of the production line in the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg, Germany.

Volkswagen AG says it sold 1.3 percent more vehicles globally in January but saw sales slip in Europe. VW’s marketing chief Christian Klingler said yesterday. —AP

Gold rises on Greece bailout hopes SINGAPORE: Gold prices rose yesterday as optimism that Greece may soon secure an urgently needed bailout buoyed financial markets and helped bullion recover from a one-week low hit in the previous session. Gold has moved in the range between $1,700 and $1,760 since the beginning of the month, closely tracking the progress and setbacks in Greece’s struggle to obtain a 130-billion euro bailout from its international lenders.

Hopes that Greece has finally done enough to secure a second bailout after Athens set out extra budget savings demanded by its international lenders helped riskier assets rally in the last trading day of the week. Technical signals may have turned upbeat for gold, said Nick Trevethan, senior commodity strategist at ANZ in Singapore.

“We’re at the point where we have tried the downside three or four times in the past two weeks and failed. The frustration with failure to breach the $1,700-$1,710 level might put the focus back on resistance,” he said. Lofty oil prices on concerns about supply disruption from Iran are also expected to underpin sentiment in gold, he added.

Spot gold rose 0.2 percent to $1,731.90 an ounce by 0250 GMT, on course for a 0.7-percent weekly rise after two consecutive weeks of losses. Gold touched a low of $1,705.09 in the previous session, lowest since Feb. 10.

US gold gained 0.3 percent to $1,733.60. The data from the World Gold Council, showing that global gold demand in 2011 hit a 14-year high on investment, China buying and central bank purchases, also supported gold.

Encouraging US labor, manufacturing and housing data also helped boost sentiment in the financial markets. Gold, traditionally a safe-haven asset, has been tracking riskier assets in the past few months as the turmoil caused by the euro-zone debt crisis forces investors to sell off their gold positions to cover losses elsewhere.

Though hopes were raised on Greece’s bailout deal, the euro zone is hardly out of the woods and its debt crisis can continue to disrupt the global financial markets.

“The recent sideway pattern makes it difficult to attract buyers,” said a Shanghai-based trader, “I still don’t see any direction while $1,750 may remain a key resistance level.”

Spot silver edged up 0.2 percent to $33.52, off a threeweek low of $32.64 hit in the previous session. The metal remained the top performer of the complex with a 21 percent year-to-day climb.

Spot platinum gained 0.6 percent to $1,628.99, headed for a weekly decline of 1.5 percent, after six straight weeks of gains. Spot palladium rose 0.3 percent to $693.72, but on course for its biggest one-week drop in six weeks. — Reuters

WASHINGTON: Consumer prices rose in January for only the second time in four months. The price of food, gas, rent and clothing all increased. The Labor Department said yesterday that the consumer price index increased 0.2 percent last month, after a flat reading in December. Both November and October were revised slightly higher to show an increase of 0.1 percent and no change, respectively.

Excluding volatile food and energy, so-called “core” prices ticked up 0.2 percent. Medical care and tobacco prices also increased. Car prices were unchanged, and airfares fell.

Core inflation over the past 12 months moved up to 2.3 percent - its highest point in more than three years. While many economists say inflation is likely peaking, the rise in core prices could limit the Federal Reserve’s ability to take steps to boost the economy. The Fed last month said it plans to hold its benchmark interest rate at a record low near zero until late 2014. If inflation were to rise rapidly, the Fed would come under pressure to increase rates.

A small amount of inflation can be good for the economy. It encourages businesses and consumers to spend and invest money sooner rather than later, before inflation erodes its value.

And modest inflation, combined with recent increases in income, gives consumers more buying power and should add to economic growth. A sharp jump in gas and food prices early last year left Americans with less money to spend on other items, dragging on the economy.

Retailers are still reluctant to charge more, even as the economy grows at a moderate pace.

Many relied on heavy discounting to boost holiday sales last year. Oil and gas prices have increased again after dropping late last year, though that has been offset somewhat by falling natural gas costs. The average price for a gallon of gas rose to $3.52 on Thursday, up 14 cents from the previous month.

Falling energy and food costs kept wholesale prices in check last month, the Labor Department said Thursday. The producer price index rose 0.1 percent in January, after dropping the same amount the previous month.

Wholesale gas costs rose, but that was more than offset by steep drops in natural gas, home heating oil and electricity prices.

Core wholesale prices jumped 0.4 percent because of higher pharmaceutical, pickup truck and tobacco costs. Those rises were likely temporary, many economists said.

The Fed is forecasting that consumer price inflation will

remain in check this year. It expects that the inflation gauge it follows will increase by about 1.6 percent in 2012. That’s below the Fed’s target for inflation of 2 percent. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke announced that target, the first ever for the central bank, last month. — AP

Greek bailout optimism boosts European shares

Oil steady around $120 on rising Iran worries

LONDON: European shares rose to their highest in more than six months yesterday, on optimism that euro-zone officials would sign off a rescue package for Greece, helping the country to avoid a messy default.

Greek officials say they have done everything asked of them for euro zone finance ministers to agree the 130 billion euro ($170 billion) rescue package on Monday-a month before Athens needs the money to make 14.5 billion euros of debt repayments due on March 20.

Euro zone banks, many of which have significant exposure to peripheral euro-zone countries and have taken a hit on their balance sheets from the long-running debt crisis, rose 1.8 percent.

The banking index has gained more than 15 percent this year, with strategists saying there is optimism that the crisis is being contained. The sector has been boosted by the European Central Bank providing cheap funding. “Every dip in the sector has been perceived as a buying opportunity,” said Ian King, head of international equities at Legal & General, which has 356 billion pounds ($653 billion) under management. “Given the extent to which funding is being made available, a European bank would have to try very hard to go bust.

And if you use the banking sector as a microcosm of what’s going on, the outlook is reasonably good for equities.” King added that even if Greece were to suffer a chaotic default eventually, the impact would not be “as severe as it might have been previously”. — Reuters

LONDON: Oil steadied near $120 a barrel yesterday, supported by tension between Iran and the West and hopes for a longawaited Greek bailout deal. “As long as there are serious concerns about supply shortfalls and while optimism continues on the financial markets, the oil price is likely to continue to rise, especially since even investors with a short-term view will no doubt want to jump on the bandwagon now that the $120 mark has been exceeded,” said Carsten Fritsch, analyst at Commerzbank. Oil has turned in a star performance this week: US crude is heading for its biggest weekly gain since late December and Brent is targeting its fourth consecutive weekly rise.

North Sea Brent slipped 15 cents to $119.96 by 1324 GMT, having climbed to an eight-month high of more than $120. US crude rose 47 cents to $102.78. Iran’s top oil customers in Europe are making substantial cuts in imports ahead of European Union sanctions, reducing flows to the continent in March by more than a third, industry sources said.

This has increased demand for replacement barrels from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Russia, leading to higher prices, although there is no shortage of actual supply. Growing optimism that Greece has finally done enough to secure a second bailout after it set out extra budget savings also boosted sentiment. Eurozone finance ministers are due to meet on Monday, and expectations that they will sign off a bailout deal for Greece increased after a proposal was dropped to withhold part of the agreement until after Greek elections expected in April. — Reuters

BERLIN, Vermont: Gas prices are posted on a sign at an Irving Oil gas station in Berlin. Consumer prices rose a modest 0.2 percent in January, pushed up by higher gas, clothing costs. —AP

business SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Peugeot-Toyota Czech plant to cut output PRAGUE: TPCA, a Czech-based joint venture of French car maker PSA Peugeot Citroen and Japan’s Toyota, will cut production from May because of falling demand for its cars, the company said.

“We have to react flexibly and adjust production to demand for small cars in European markets,” company president Satoshi Tachihara said in a statement.

TPCA “will cut the working week

to four days during which production will be ensured by two teams instead of the current three,” said the company which has 3,500 staff based in Kolin, about 60 kilometers (38 miles) east of Prague. “TPCA expects to produce 221,000 cars this year,” down from more than 270,000 in 2011, it added. The company makes the small Peugeot 107, Citroen C1 and Toyota Aygo models.

PSA Peugeot Citroen-Europe’s

second largest automaker after Germany’s Volkswagen-said Wednesday it would boost its costcutting plans after its 2011 net profit tumbled by nearly half.

Along with Volkswagen’s indigenous Czech unit Skoda Auto and South Korea’s Hyundai, TPCA is one of three large Czech automakers whose combined output last year was up 11.44 percent to a recordhigh 1,194,981. The economy of the

Czech Republic, a central European nation of 10.5 million people, is heavily dependent on the car industry, which accounted for 21 percent of total industrial output and 22 percent of all exports in 2010.

Fuelled by exports from the three car makers and local car parts producers, the Czech economy grew 1.7 percent in 2011, following 2.7-percent growth in 2010, official data showed on Wednesday. — AFP

Iran to pay rupee for India imports in ‘two weeks’ Delhi puts mechanism to maintain trade

SOFIA: An employee of Chinese manufacturer Great Wall Motors getting in a Great Wall Voleex C10 car at a showroom in Sofia. With a brand new Bulgarian plant set to start churning out cars by end-February, China’s Great Wall Motor hopes to establish a foothold to expand sales across Europe, says its local partner Litex Motors. — AFP

Anglo American 2011 profits slip LONDON: Global miner Anglo American said yesterday its 2011 net profits slipped six percent, partly because of exceptional charges, but the group gave an upbeat outlook despite ongoing economic uncertainty.

Earnings after tax fell to $6.17 billion (4.69 billion euros) last year from $6.54 billion in 2010, Anglo said in a results statement. Revenues climbed 11 percent to $36.55 billion.

Total underlying operating profits meanwhile rose 14 percent to $11.1 billion, boosted by its iron ore, coal and diamond business. That was in line with analysts’ expectations of $11.2 billion, according to the company.

“Despite short term uncertainty persisting in the global economy, particularly in Europe, the longer term outlook for Anglo American’s diversified mix of commodities remains strong,” chief executive Cynthia Carroll said in the statement. “Sustained growth in the emerging economies should underpin robust demand for commodities, albeit with a degree of short-term volatility, while the signs of economic recovery and stimulus in the US should provide a further fillip.”

Carroll noted that the group’s successful delivery of three major mining projects last year was a “great achievement” and would boost its production of copper, iron ore and nickel as they continue to increase output in 2012.

Last year, Anglo commissioned its Brazilian Barro Alto nickel project in March, its Chilean Los Bronces copper expansion project in November and its South African Kolomela iron ore project in December.

The company is meanwhile embroiled in a legal battle over the terms of an option that allows Chilean stateowned copper producer Codelco to buy a stake in a copper mining venture held by Anglo American. Carroll said that the firm’s recent decision to take control of De Beers was part of its strategy to pursue “the most compelling, long term opportunities and to deliver value from our high quality asset base”. Anglo American announced last November that it would buy 40 percent of De Beers from South Africa’s Oppenheimer family for $5.1 billion, tightening its grip on the world’s biggest diamond firm. — AFP

NEW DELHI: Indian exporters will be able to receive payments in the restricted rupee currency for sales to Iran within two weeks, the chief of India’s top exporters’ body said yesterday, as New Delhi puts a mechanism in place to maintain trade despite US sanctions.

About $3 billion in Iranian import arrears have accumulated since December 2010, M Rafeeque Ahmed said, when a previous payment conduit was closed under pressure from Washington, which is using sanctions to try to stop Tehran’s suspected nuclear program.

“The government has told us the mechanism for payment in rupee (to Indian exporters) will be in place in two weeks’ time,” Ahmed, president of the Federation of Indian Export Organizations, told Reuters in an interview. “Between December 2010 and January 2012 we have sent goods worth about $3 billion and almost all of it is stuck.”

Ahmed is taking part in government negotiations to find a solution

to the payment problems that have hit trade between the two countries after US sanctions on dollar deals.

His organization is a quasi-government body set up by the trade ministry. Indian oil importers have been paying for around $11 billion a year of crude since the middle of 2011 through Turkey’s Halkbank, but this route would have been expensive for Iranian importers given sharp falls in the rial.

India was Tehran’s second-biggest crude customer last year after China and Iranian oil accounts for about 12 percent of its needs. Most of the Iranian arrears are for imports of iron and steel ($623 million), chemicals ($453 million) and cereals ($419 million), machinery ($143 million) and pharmaceuticals ($87 million), Ahmed said. Indian rice suppliers have also reported defaults by Iranian buyers and have said they are owed at least $144 million.

With payments for oil through Halkbank now looking vulnerable to fresh sanctions, India and Iran have

agreed to settle 45 percent of this trade in rupees and boost exports to narrow their trade gap. Oil buyers are waiting for tax issues to be cleared up before they use the mechanism.

Iran’s central bank has already deposited with India’s UCO bank about $1 billion which had been used in the Asian Clearing Union (ACU), the longstanding mechanism that ended in 2010.

This will be used to kick off rupee payments to India’s exporters-allowing Tehran a way to use the restricted currency it would otherwise find hard to spend.

India abides by United Nations sanctions on Iran, but has refused to go along with new financial measures imposed by the United States and European Union which aim to punish Iran for its nuclear ambitions.

India has pushed back the visit of a delegation to Iran to Mar. 10 to 14 from this month to explore boosting exports, said Ahmed, who will be part of that team. — Reuters

UK retail sales in surprise 1% gain LONDON: Retail sales in Britain rose nearly 1 percent in January, official figures showed yesterday, confounding market expectations of a decrease and easing fears that the country would fall back into recession.

The Office for National Statistics said yesterday that both the volume and value of sales increased by a monthly 0.9 percent in January on a seasonally adjusted basis. The consensus in the markets was that retail sales would drop 0.3 percent as consumers struggle in a flat-lining economy.

“These figures are a bolt from the blue and are at odds with the much softer survey data,” said Nida Ali, economic adviser to the Ernst & Young ITEM Club. She and other analysts suggested that sales may have been stimulated by price cutting, a retail strategy which isn’t sustainable over the long haul.

On the brighter side, Ali said the data reduces the chances the GDP will decline in the current quarter, following a drop of 0.2 percent in the last three months of 2011.

If the economy contracts again then Britain would officially be in recession - defined as two straight quarters of negative growth.

A more detailed look at the figures shows that household goods store sales rose by 4 percent while fuel sales were up 8.5 percent. — AP

SHANGHAI: An investor smiles in front of the stock price monitor at a private securities company yesterday in Shanghai. World stocks rose yesterday as optimism grew that Greece’s debt crisis would soon be resolved and upbeat US economic data added to evidence of a recovery in the world’s No. 1 economy. — AP

BUSINESS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Japan cabinet okays sales tax hike plan Move to rein in public debt SAN DIEGO: Cans of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup, posed in San Diego. Campbell Soup Co said yesterday its second-quarter net income fell 14 percent as it faced higher commodity costs and it worked to improve its core soup business. — AP

Hedge funds faulted for not being short-term enough LONDON: Used to criticism for caring only about shortterm profit, hedge funds are now being faulted for a failure to think short-term enough after losing out badly in last year’s volatile markets.

A series of bad bets by hedge funds which were not able to keep up with markets roiled by the euro zone debt crisis pushed the industry as a whole down 5.2 percent last year, according to Hedge Fund Research. The second year of losses in four for an industry used to chasing rapid gains from takeovers and restructurings looked especially bad because the benchmark S&P 500 stock index was flat.

Double-digit gains were the norm in the 1990s for firms that demand high fees for their vaunted acumen. “Many hedge funds are too focused on the medium term and not enough on price action,” said hedge fund manager Philippe Gougenheim, the former head of hedge funds at Swiss fund firm Unigestion, who is now launching his own firm. “For instance, some commodities funds that did not do well last year were too focused on the fundamentals, even when the short-term macro environment was not very good.”

Among those that fared the worst were long-short equity funds, which buy shares they expect to rise and sell short those expected to do worse. They lost 8.3 percent last year. Market neutral funds were down 2.1 percent.

Commodity funds tumbled 17.3 percent.

“If you make a good fundamental call but the timing is wrong then it could potentially be a bad investment,” said Sal Naro, founder of Coherence Capital Partners. “Asset managers are not paid for making sound credit calls at the wrong time.”Peter Rigg, global head of the alternative investments group at HSBC Alternative Investments, said that “with the benefit of hindsight” some funds had not focused enough on short-term issues.

The criticism reflects in part the maturity of the $2 trillion industry, which in its early days was characterized by small, start-up funds but which is now dominated by huge, multi-billion dollar funds. These can be less nimble and can take longer to exit their positions, meaning their bets are often longer-term.

It also shows how some funds have changed their habits and shed their maverick image to accommodate the pension funds and other institutional investors who now dominate the industry.

Funds were caught out last year putting on the socalled pairs trade, in which they match a bet on a rising stock with a bet on a falling stock, often in the same sector. Such bets rely on low correlations between stocks and only require a manager’s view on the differing worth of the stocks to be borne out over a period of time, whichever direction the market moves in. But correlations between stocks rose sharply last year as they were all caught in the maelstrom and markets flipped between fears over Europe’s debts and optimism the problems could be contained. Investors bought and sold almost indiscriminately and pairs traders suffered.

“Fundamentals were no longer relevant in driving performance in (some) underlying asset classes,” said Aureliano Gentilini, managing partner at research firm Mathema, saying the same principle applied to commodities as to stocks. —Reuters

TOKYO: Japan’s cabinet yesterday approved a plan to double sales taxes as part of the government’s move to rein in public debt as the rapidly ageing nation faces rising social welfare costs.

If agreed by parliament, the package of reforms will see consumption tax rise to 8.0 percent in April 2014 and to 10 percent in October 2015 from the current 5.0 percent.

Finance Minister Jun Azumi told reporters that the government planned to submit related bills to parliament in March.

But the legislation is expected to face a rocky road as opposition parties, as well as some lawmakers in the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, are against it.

The opposition bloc controls the upper house of parliament.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has warned the future of the world’s thirdlargest economy depends on reversing the rising public debt, arguing Japan has “no time to spare” in reducing its fiscal burden. In an online message after the decision yesterday, Noda noted Japan’s social security costs would increase by one trillion yen ($12.6 billion) every year as the population gets older. “If you pile up one trillion yen in 10,000-yen bills, it reaches the height of 10,000 metres, which is taller than Mount Everest,” he said. Arguing Japan can no longer depend on borrowing, he sought understanding from the working, young generation.

TOKYO: A passer-by talks on a cell phone in front of the electronic stock board of a securities firm in Tokyo yesterday. Asian stocks rose strongly yesterday after encouraging US housing and employment reports sent Wall Street to its highest level this year and added to growing optimism of a recovery in the world’s No 1 economy. Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index jumped 1.9 percent to 9,412.27. — AP “Some of you may think you are an ‘unlucky’ generation who needs to support many elderly people. But those who built the current affluent society are the senior generation, your parents’ generation.” “I want you to take over the baton of mutual support firmly,” he said.

With the burgeoning pension and social security costs, only around 40 per-

cent of what the government spends is currently made up from taxes.

The rest is financed from borrowing, leaving debt at more than double the country’s gross domestic product, an eyewatering ratio that dwarfs troubled Greece and will only grow unless more tax revenue is raised or spending is cut, analysts warn. —AFP

Citigroup whistleblower: I have no regrets NEW YORK: It wasn’t Sherry Hunt’s original intent to go public on the shoddy quality control at a mortgage unit at Citigroup Inc, her employer since 2004. But by March 2011, as it become apparent to her that the problems were getting worse and not being addressed, the Missouri quality assurance manager decided enough was enough.

“I set up an appointment with human resources and ethics and told them everything,” Hunt recalled in a telephone interview. “They did some cursory investigation. The sad part is,

they never ever told me, ‘Sherry, you were right,’ or ‘Sherry, you’re looking at this wrong.’ There were no assurances.”

Instead, Hunt, who got her start in the mortgage industry in 1975 at age 18, filed a whistleblower lawsuit against Citigroup, the third-largest US bank by assets.

The United States joined the civil fraud case, which raised claims under the False Claims Act, a federal law designed to recover money taken from the government by fraud, and discourage further wrongdoing. Whistleblowers can receive up to 25 percent of settlement amounts in such cases.

On Wednesday, Citigroup agreed to pay $158.3 million to settle. Hunt said her share will be $31 million, before taxes and attorney fees. Her lawyer declined to disclose those fees.

In settling, Citigroup accepted responsibility for conduct alleged in the complaint, dating back to 2004. The government accused CitiMortgage of misleading it into insuring thousands of risky home loans that it knew or should have known did not qualify for insurance from the Federal Housing Agency, costing taxpayers nearly $200 million in claims.

CitiMortgage had certified for FHA insurance nearly 30,000 home loans valued at more than $4.8 billion since 2004, but more than 30 percent-or 9,636 loans-had gone into default, the Justice Department said. The default rate topped 47 percent for such loans made in 2006 and 2007, it added.

The government also said CitiMortgage failed to report many underwriting flaws and other problems as required to the FHA, part of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. This even extended to mortgages where borrowers were so stressed that they could not make their first payment.

In the settlement, Citigroup accepted responsibility for improperly certifying many loans for insurance, and failing to comply with disclosure rules. A bank spokesman, Mark Rodgers, said the New York-based bank had improved its procedures, and plans to continue participation in the FHA program. Citigroup declined to comment on allegations in the complaint or by Hunt.

The complaint contended that senior bank personnel applied “brute force” to quality control managers to effectively sweep “defects” under the rug.

Hunt said such defects, mostly the fault of borrowers, included mismatched signatures on loan documents, whiteout on income documentation, and mistakes on employment statuses. She said there were also errors on whether borrowers planned to live in homes they were buying as required for FHA loans. —Reuters

BUSINESS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Frankfurt airport workers walk out for second day 172 flights grounded after strike over pay FRANKFURT: Air travellers in Germany faced a second day of delays, cancellations and disruption yesterday due to a walkout by around 200 workers at Frankfurt airport, Europe’s third-busiest, in a dispute over pay.

After already grounding 172 flights during an initial seven-hour stoppage on Thursday, the so-called “apron control” staff walked off the job again at 8:00 am (0700 GMT) yesterday, said a spokesman for Fraport, the company which owns and operates Germany’s largest airport.

The walkout is scheduled to last until 10:00 pm (2100 GMT), but Fraport has drawn up contingency staffing and hopes to be able to ensure that “more than 50 percent” of take-offs and landings go ahead, the spokesman said.

Fraport said that airlines had so far cancelled more than 280 from a total 1,300 planned flights yesterday.

German airline Lufthansa, which has its main base in Frankfurt, has said it will cancel 250 flights on Friday, following 100 the day before. It and other airlines are keen to maintain long-haul flights as passengers travelling within Germany can be booked more easily on to trains and national rail operator Deutsche Bahn has laid on more trains and staff to cope with the additional traffic volume.

According to Lufthansa’s website, it was primarily domestic flights that are being cancelled, as well as a number of services to some European destinations, and only one outgoing and one incoming flight from New York.

The wage dispute concerns some 200 so called “apron control” staff who direct aircraft in and out of their parking positions, both in the control tower and on the tarmac. The GdF 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. According to documents made available by Fraport, the union is demanding pay rises of 25-50 percent, depending on a worker’s grade, as well as increased bonuses and

reduced working hours. The company has dismissed the demands as excessive and could set a precedent for other airport employees.

GdF said no industrial action was planned for the weekend. Following

their pay demands. The strike will lead to delays and cancellations for passengers beyond Frankfurt, as the entire European flight network will be affected,” Siegloch said. A board member of the powerful BDI industry federation,

FRANKFURT: A passenger rests in a terminal while about 200 workers of the apron control went on a warning strike for higher wages at the international airport in Frankfurt yesterday. —AP “two tempestuous days”, the union wanted to give management “pause for thought,” chief negotiator Dirk Vogelsang told AFP. “The ball is in Fraport’s court. They must take a step towards us, Vogelsang said.

Fraport, for its part, called on the union to “return to the negotiating table and show a willingness to compromise.”

Already on Thursday, the strike action drew condemnation industry federation BDL and BDI. “That just 200 out of 20,000 people who work at Frankfurt airport want to paralyse the entire operation is unacceptable,” said BDL chief Klaus-Peter Siegloch.

“This tiny group is taking tens of thousands of passengers hostage for

Dieter Schweer, said the strike would damage the whole economy. “It is irresponsible and totally out of proportion,” he said. “It is not acceptable that small groups in key functions paralyse critical infrastructures to push through their own individual interests.”

Frankfurt airport is Europe’s thirdbusiest after London-Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle, with about 1,300 flight movements per day, more than half of them by Lufthansa. GdF repeatedly threatened strike action last year in a long-running wage dispute for regular air traffic controllers.

A strike was finally averted when the union and Germany’s air safety authority DFS both sides finally reached a deal in court in October. — AFP

Ireland considering sale of gas utility DUBLIN: The Irish government is considering selling part of gas utility Bord Gais to meet a priviatization target set by the country’s EU-IMF creditors, the energy minister told the Irish Times yesterday. The government has agreed to sell 2 billion euros ($2.6 billion) worth of assets, but has indicated it may exceed that after the government won approval to allow it use some of the proceeds to invest in the economy as well as pay down debt.

“Do we ... need to keep the non-network side of Bord Gais?

I don’t think we do,” Energy Minister Pat Rabbitte told the newspaper. “If there is the prospect that, should we proceed with the sale of the energy side of Bord Gais, it would attract in a big player, then that would be compatible with our objectives.”

A government-commissioned report last year recommended that all of Bord Gais’s operations, excluding its transmission and interconnector assets, be privatized as a single entity.

Bord Gais Chief Executive John Mullins last year valued the company at over 2.5 billion euros ($3.26 billion). The govern-

ment has already said it plans to sell a minority stake in the Electricity Supply Board (ESB), but Rabbitte told the Irish Times that the government was under no obligation to go ahead with that sale.

A government-commissioned report recommended last year that the state sell parts of Bord Gais, ESB and its 25 percent stake in airline Aer Lingus as well as offloading smaller assets like peat utility Bord na Mona, forestry company Coillte and Irish horse racing’s National Stud.

The government has said it is considering selling its Aer Lingus stake, but ministers have made clear the bulk of privatization proceeds would likely come from the energy sector, Bord Gais and ESB. Rabbitte this week said he has been presented with a due diligence report on the potential sale of the stake in ESB and a separate, less forensic report covering each of the other states assets.

Neither report has been considered by government, he told the Irish Times. — Reuters

Singapore aims to stem rise in foreign workers, help poor SINGAPORE: Singapore yesterday said it will spend billions of dollars more in areas such as healthcare and public transport but companies hoping to tap opportunities in some areas will have to do so with fewer foreign workers. “Our increasing dependence on foreign workers is not sustainable,” Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tharman said in his budget speech for the fiscal year beginning April 1.

“A continued rapid infusion of foreign workers will also inevitably affect the Singaporean character of our society.” “We must therefore take further measures to reduce the inflow of foreign workers, and help our businesses adapt to the permanent reality of a tight labor market,” Tharman said. Measures to stem the rise in the number of foreigners in the city-state include lowering the maximum ratio of lower-skilled non-locals in the workforce to 60 percent for manufacturing companies, down from 65 percent currently.

For services firms, the cap that limits the numberknown as “dependency ratio ceiling”-will be lowered to 45 percent from 50 percent. Singapore, a major Asian hub for banks and multinationals, is facing pressure from citizens to tighten immigration and cap the number of foreigners, who now make up one-third of the island’s population of 5.2 million. Yesterday’s annual budget speech was the first since Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party saw its share of votes fall to the lowest since independence in May 2011 parliamentary elections. The PAP’s result reflected about rising income inequality and overcrowding of buses and trains due to the surge in the number of foreigners coming to Singapore.

Last year, Singapore-based companies employed an extra 79,800 foreigners-mainly from countries such as China, India and the Philippines-more than double the 36,600 increase in local employment, according to Singapore’s Manpower Ministry. To offset the higher costs that businesses will incur, the government will increase grants and tax benefits for companies that invest in training and equipment to boost productivity, Tharman said.

Some observers expressed concern about moves to make it harder for companies to hire people from abroad.

“The proposed reductions in the dependency ratio ceiling do not appear to be addressing an already dangerously tight labor market,” said David Sandison, tax partner at PwC Services LLP in Singapore.

“It remains to be seen whether the measures introduced to encourage employment of older workers will counter-balance this proposed move to restrict the employment of foreign workers,” he added.

Singapore’s economy shrank 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter from the preceding three months on an annualized and seasonally adjusted basis, and the government has forecast GDP growth of 1-3 percent this year, down from 4.9 percent in 2011. Unemployment remains low, however, at 2 percent, helped by the huge expansion in labor-intensive service industries such as tourism as well as government measures aimed at tightening the flow of low-skilled workers from the region. — AFP

NEW YORK: Traders Mario Innella (left) and Anthony Riccio work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Stock markets advanced yesterday on hopes that Greece would soon get its crucial second bailout and following another batch of upbeat US economic news. —AP

BUSINESS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Virgin Atlantic lands bmi complaint with regulator LONDON: Virgin Atlantic has made a formal complaint to the European Commission about IAG’s purchase of Lufthansa’s British unit bmi, saying competition on some European routes would diminish and that fares would increase. Late last year, British Airways (BA) owner IAG agreed to buy bmi for 172.5 million pounds ($271 million), seeing off rival bidder Virgin in the race to grab loss-making bmi’s coveted runway slots at London’s Heathrow airport.

In its submission Virgin Atlantic said that if the deal was approved,

three key domestic routesAberdeen, Edinburgh and Manchester-to and from Heathrow would become a BA monopoly.

It added competition would be eradicated to some popular European destinations and that BA would have the opportunity and the means to increase fares and reduce flights on these routes.

“When BA was left the only operator on the Glasgow to Heathrow route in 2011, fares paid by Scottish travellers rocketed by 34 percent in six months,” Virgin Atlantic president

Richard Branson said in a statement.

“This deal will see BA holding more than half of take-off and landing slots at the UK’s only major international hub-an airport that has had much needed growth plans forcibly frozen.”

The all-cash deal, which requires regulatory approval, would give IAG about 53 percent of take-off and landing slots at Heathrow, — Europe’s busiest airport-which is operating at capacity after plans to build a third runway were scrapped.

IAG currently holds 43.1 percent

of the slots at Heathrow. “Our planned purchase of bmi is being reviewed by the regulatory authorities and we’re confident they will approve the deal,” IAG said in a statement.

“Bmi is a massively loss making airline. Selling it to IAG offers the best solution for British consumers and UK plc, securing more jobs than if the airline was broken up and sold-off for its Heathrow slots.” IAG added that it was committed to keeping services from Belfast to Heathrow and increasing flights to Scotland. — Reuters

Indonesia flies high at Singapore Airshow Jakarta’s clout in aviation industry grows SINGAPORE: Indonesian buyers dominated this year’s Singapore Airshow, underscoring the vast Southeast Asian archipelago’s growing importance in the world aviation industry.

An expanding middle class, strong economic growth, political stability and the need to link the resource-rich islands are fuelling a travel boom that could spawn even more local airlines, industry executives and analysts say.

Budget carrier Lion Air grabbed the limelight at the beginning of the trade fair on Tuesday when it formally sealed a $22.4 billion deal for 230 aircraft with US aircraft maker Boeing.

Lion Air ordered 201 Boeing 737 MAX and 29 next-generation 737900ERs, with purchase rights for an additional 150 planes for its domestic and regional operations.

Dinesh Keskar, vice president of Asia Pacific and India for sales at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, described the deal as “the largest order in the history of aviation that I can know of”.

With some 240 million people, Indonesia has the world’s fourth largest population and is the most farflung archipelago with over 17,000 islands scattered across 33 provinces and three time zones between Singapore and Australia. Indonesia’s economy grew 6.5 percent last year, the fastest pace in 15 years, with growth projected at between 6.3 and 6.7 percent this year.

Foreign investors ploughed $20 billion into the economy in 2011, up from $17 billion on year.

“Indonesia alone is able to sustain the robustness of the (Southeast Asian) market because the middle class is growing, it has a growing population and the country is also gaining confidence on the economic and political fronts,” said aviation analyst Shukor Yusof of Standard & Poor’s Equity Research.

“The country is creating the market forces that allow more and more people to fly. Geographically it’s perfect for the industry.” Airlines are targeting

Indonesia’s eastern part such as Makassar, Sulawesi and Manado, all areas with a promising tourism sector, said Shukor, who expects smaller family-owned airlines to join the competition.

“And don’t forget that these are all the areas where you have all the mines and all the resource-based industries,” he added. “People have got the money to travel.”

The market is so massive that there is still room for growth even with the current number of airlines plying the country, according to an executive at Indonesian flag carrier Garuda, which is facing stiff competition from private firms.

“There is enough to be shared by everybody. Even if new airlines come in, we can all still make profit,” said the source, who asked not to be named. At the Singapore Airshow, which is held every other year and closes this weekend, Garuda also signed a deal to buy six Bombardier CRJ1000 jets with an option for 18

more. The six firm orders are worth $297 million, Canada-based Bombardier said, adding that if Garuda exercises the 18 options, this will raise the deal to about $1.32 billion. And just two days after firming up its Boeing order, Lion Air announced it was buying 27 smaller aircraft from European manufacturer ATR. The new ATR 72-600 turboprop planes, worth $610 million, will be integrated into Lion Air unit Wings Air, with full delivery scheduled for the end of 2015.

“The ATR aircraft are perfectly adapted to the Indonesian short-haul market and allows Wings Air to connect communities, even those located in remote areas,” said Rusdi Kirana, chairman of Wings Air and president of Lion Air. Even on the military side, Indonesia was also a star at the show.

The country signed a $325 million contract with Airbus Military for nine C-295 transport planes to be used by the air force for defense, logistical and humanitarian purposes. — AFP

DENPASER, Bali: Passengers board a plane while a nearby Lion Air aircraft sits parked on the tarmac of Bali airport. Indonesian buyers have dominated the 2012 Singapore Airshow, which runs from 14-19 February. —AFP

LOS ANGELES: A shopper leaves a Nordtrom department store in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles. Upscale department store operator Nordstrom Inc said on Thursday that its affluent shoppers continued to spend in the fourth quarter and its profit rose 1.7 percent from a year earlier. —AP

Airlines cite high fuel costs as fares go up DALLAS: If you’re buying an airline ticket soon, get ready to pay a few bucks more. According to fare trackers, JetBlue Airways and Southwest Airlines are leading a round of price increases that will boost the base fare on many medium-length and long flights by $10 per round trip. United, Delta, American and US Airways said Thursday that they had matched the increases. J P Morgan analyst Jamie Baker, who tracks fares, said United and US Airways expanded the price increases to routes that Southwest doesn’t fly and included Denver, where Southwest had not raised prices. Rick Seaney, CEO of FareCompare.com, said at midday Thursday that all the largest US airlines had raised fares. Baker and Seaney said JetBlue took price increases that other airlines limited to a few markets such as Florida and expanded them nationwide last week.

Southwest jumped in on Wednesday, they said.

JetBlue spokeswoman Alison Croyle said the airline raised prices by $5 each way on some Florida and West Coast routes last week and expanded the increase to other routes Sunday. Southwest spokeswoman Ashley Dillon said her airline raised prices to match JetBlue and “cover operating costs including the high price of jet fuel.”

Jet fuel accounts for about one-third of an airline’s costs - about the same as labor - and the bill has been rising along with crude oil prices. This week, the spot price for Gulf Coast jet fuel was 12.1 percent higher than a year ago and up 8.5 percent so far in 2012, according to the US Energy Information Administration. That could mean more fare hikes ahead. “It is pretty clear airlines will continue to try to recoup fuel increases regularly this year, with passengers telling carriers exactly when the price of middle seats has stepped over the line,” said Seaney.

Airlines raised base fares about a dozen times in 2011.

But at the same time, they sacrificed revenue by simultaneously running sales to fill seats during slower travel periods or in specific markets. — AP

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Hundreds honor ‘Soul Train’ creator Don Cornelius PAGE 25

A fan of US pop diva, Whitney Houston, signs a giant mural with a portrait of her idol displayed at a mall in Manila yesterday as part of the mall’s tribute to the pop legend who died on February 11, aged 48 in a Beverly Hills hotel. — AFP

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Katy Perry

donates to charity

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Oprah Winfrey invited to Whitney Houston’s funeral T

he media mogul will join a limited guest list including Kevin Costner - the late singer’s co-star in ‘The Bodyguard’ - Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin at the private funeral at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey, today, according to TMZ.com. A camera will be allowed inside the ceremony at the church - which holds a maximum of 300 people, and was where she began her singing career - and it will be broadcast live on the Internet, allowing the ‘I Will Always Love You’ singer’s fans to grieve alongside her family.

Following the service Whitney’s body will be laid to rest at the Fairview Cemetery in Westfield in New Jersey, next to her late father John Huston. However, Whitney’s exhusband Bobby Brown - and the father of her daughter Bobbi Kristina, who entered hospital soon after her mother’s passing - is thought to have been stopped from attending by her mother Cissy because they blame him for the notorious issues with drugs she had throughout her life.

he 27-year-old singer will give the profits from download sales of her current track ‘Part of Me’ to the MusiCares organisation, which provides financial, medical and personal assistance to musicians in need. She tweeted: “My proceeds of #PARTOFME from ITUNES & others will go to one of my favorite charities for the arts, MUSICARES; (sic)” The move comes after Katy also offered a signed guitar for auction in aid the GRAMMY Charities, MuisCares and the Grammy Foundation.

Bidding on the instrument currently stands at $1,500.

Other lots on offer at the auction, which can be found at ebay.com/GRAMMY include VIP lounge tickets to the Coachella and Stagecoach music festivals; guitars autographed by Jeff Beck, Coldplay,Tom Petty, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Slash, and signed memorabilia from Adele, Jay-Z, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Dolly Parton and Usher.

The highest bid currently stands at $6,700 for a Ukelele signed by Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder and a copy of his solo album ‘Ukelele Songs’. The lots have varying closing dates, but the final bids auctions close on February 23.

George Clooney has trouble sleeping

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he ‘Ides of March’ actor - who is currently dating ex-wrestler Stacy Keibler - has confessed he has a “very tough time” nodding off, and often feels alone when attending public events. He said: “Turning off the television causes me to think, and once I start that vision roaring, I have a very tough time getting to sleep.

I’m able to numb out. Without question, I wake every night five times.’ “Anyone would be lying if they said they didn’t get lonely at times. The loneliest you will get is in the most public of arenas: You will go to a place and end up in the smallest compartment possible, because it’s a distraction to everybody, and you end up not getting to enjoy it like everyone else.” However, the 50-year-old star - who has previously dated

a host of beauties, including Italian actress Elisabetta Canalis and British presenter Lisa Snowdon - explained he has felt “infinitely more alone” in bad relationships in the past. He added in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter: “I have been infinitely more alone in a bad relationship; there’s nothing more isolating. I have been in places in my life where that has existed.”

Meanwhile, George admitted he has previously been through the “painful” experience of trying to get a former flame back. He explained: “[I’ve been] left for someone; all those things. And it was sometimes a surprise, and sometimes you saw it coming. The most painful was when I kept trying to get one woman back. But we all make dumb mistakes.”

Gwyneth Paltrow ‘obsessed’ with interior designing

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he ‘Country Strong’ actress - who lives in London with husband Chris Martin and children Apple, seven and Moses, five - recently took a trip to the Maison and Objet design show in Paris to look out for “beautiful things” for her home. Writing in her Goop newsletter, Gwyneth said: “A few weeks ago, I took a quick trip to Paris for the biannual Maison and Objet trade show that specializes in home goods and furniture. “I’m slightly obsessed with interior design and I’m always on the lookout for beautiful things that inspire me and are great for Goop.(sic)” However, once there, the Oscar-winning star admitted she was overawed by its size. She added: “Imagine each hall as being about the size of several football fields. Now imagine walking through eight of those!”

Gwyneth has become well known for giving out lifestyle advice, and last year unveiled her first cookbook, ‘My Father’s Daughter’, which was inspired by the food her dad Bruce had taught her to cook when she was younger.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Lady Gaga dresses as a vampire for Valentine’s Day

Simon Cowell beats stress by inhaling pure oxygen

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he 52-year-old music mogul caries a can of the gas and believes taking regular breaths helps him look younger and stay relaxed. A source told The Sun newspaper: “Simon knows he’s not getting any younger and is trying every trick to tackle it. “He says it helps him relax and keep the stress at bay.” The ‘X Factor’ chief recently discussed his use of health-boosting vitamin injections and even administered the treatment to an unnamed famous female friend. He said: “These vitamins, you can feel them going through your entire body and I mean your entire body. “I did say to this girl, you are going to have a slightly unusual experience here.” Earlier this year, it was revealed Simon had sought therapy to help him quit smoking after 44 years. A source said: “Simon made it his New Year resolution. He’s been smoking since a very young age and feels the time is now right to try and stop. “He has no major health issues at the moment but, as always, he is under a lot of pressure with his work schedule. “Simon’s mother and some of his closest friends have been nagging him for some time about trying to stop smoking. His grandfather Robert was a heavy smoker who died of lung cancer. His father suffered a heart attack. It’s made Simon think long and hard about his own health now.”

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he ‘Bad Romance’ star put fangs in her mouth and covered herself in fake blood as a kinky surprise for ‘The Vampire Diaries’ actor to mark the first time they have spent the romantic day together. Explaining her costume, a source told The Sun newspaper: “She ordered it online about three weeks

before the big day. They had a very laidback evening at Taylor’s house eating spaghetti.” Gaga also gave him a newly edited version of her music video ‘You And I’ - which he starred in, and is how he first met her - which had added footage of them both in it. Gaga and Taylor are both fans of off-the-wall dates, and have

Chris Brown seen at Rihanna’s birthday party

Jason Bateman welcomes second daughter

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he ‘Horrible Bosses’ star welcomed his second daughter with spouse Amanda Anka on February 10, and they have called her Maple Sylvie, a representative confirmed to People.com.

The pair - who married in July 2001 - already have five-year-old Francesca Nora. Jason previously revealed his wife helped him turn his life around after he became a wild partygoer. He said: “Meeting my wife Amanda was the best thing that could ever

previously romanced each other at a shooting range in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. A source said: “Gaga loves anything extreme. “Taylor and his pals like having her around as she’s a laugh.

Gaga has also been seen looking for properties in Pennsylvania, sparking rumours they are to move in together.

have happened to me. She wasn’t going to let me mess my life anymore, so I started behaving like a decent human being. “Then I got very, very lucky when ‘Arrested Development’ came along. That series saved my career - it gave me back my credibility I used to have when I was much younger and before people gave up on me as a party guy in Hollywood. It was just enough to make me ambitious again.” — Bangshowbiz

he ‘Run It’ singer - who was convicted of assaulting his then-girlfriend in 2009 - reportedly delighted his former flame by turning up to the bash she hosted at her Beverly Hills home last Monday. Guest Katia C tweeted: “If Cupid was here he would be very happy everyone @Rihanna bday party was coupled up.

“All I can say, CB was invited and she was acting like the happiest girl on her birthday and probably got what she asked for.” Rihanna - who turns 24 on February 20 - spoiled guests including Kelly Rowland and Bruno Mars with a Caribbean banquet, Cuban cigars, which cost £35 each, and 200 cupcakes and she and newly-single best friend Katy Perry particularly enjoyed

the festivities. A source told the Daily Mirror newspaper: “Rihanna and Katy had everyone going crazy. By the end of the night they started a cake fight and were dancing together while Bruno and Chris looked on openmouthed, cheering. “Ri made sure Chris was having a good time but then he kept a low profile, spending most of the night in a corner with a few pals.” However, Katy and Rihanna’s outfits fell victim to their partying. The source added: “At one point Katy danced so much she broke her heels and had to leave the party barefoot. “Rihanna also had her own wardrobe casualty when her corset came undone but she didn’t let that stop the fun.”

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

NYC okays meal for champion dog A poster advertising Chinese opera stands inside the foyer of the Sunbeam theatre, a location famous for showing Cantonese Opera and which is about to be permanently closed in Hong Kong. — AFP

Curtain falls on landmark Hong Kong opera house H Malachy, a Pekingese, winner of the best in show title at the136th Annual Westminster Kennel Club dog, is fed a chicken and rice meal at Sardi’s by restaurant owner Max Klimavicius. — AP he winning dog at New York City’s Westminster Dog Show will have his day - or his steak - after all. The city Health Department says it will grant a one-day waiver of its rule against pets in restaurants.

This year’s winner, Malachy the Pekingese, enjoyed the traditional victory meal at Sardi’s in the theater district on Wednesday. He had his favorite chicken and rice instead of steak. Malachy was served in a private room away from other diners. But the New York Post reported Thursday that the Health Department would force future winners to make do with a doggie bag instead. Health Department spokesman John Kelly says that it won’t. Kelly said Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley will grant a one-day waiver to Sardi’s for next year’s champion. — AP

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Rio Carnival:

ong Kong’s last dedicated Cantonese opera theatre is holding its final performances before it closes this week, in what art lovers see as another nail in the coffin of a 300-year-old tradition. The Sunbeam Theatre has been synonymous with the operatic heritage of China’s southern Cantonese-speaking minority since it opened in 1972. The 1,000-seat venue has earned landmark status on Hong Kong’s art scene, standing in stoic defiance of the former British colony’s transformation into a flashy, ultra-modern hub of finance and banking.

But after years of fending off Hong Kong’s all-powerful property developers, it will see the curtain come down for the last time on Sunday when the Sunbeam stages its final, sell-out performance.

Opera star and playwright Yuen Siu-fai, 66, says the Sunbeam’s fate typifies the loss of Hong Kong’s cultural heritage to the pursuit of profit. “This is a huge blow for Cantonese opera,” he says. “We are losing a cultural landmark, we are losing our main theatre. Where do we go? This is another great example of how we don’t preserve our historical buildings.”

Other all-purpose venues around Hong Kong will continue to stage traditional opera performances, but none has dedicated itself exclusively to the art as the Sunbeam has done over four decades.

Businessman Francis Law bought the 80,000-square-foot (7,432square-metre) theatre in 2003 through his real estate and investment firm Toyo Mall, with reported plans to replace it with a shopping mall.

The Sunbeam escaped the bulldozers initially, but it has been fighting soaring rental prices ever since and was nearly shut down twice.

When its last lease expired in 2009 — the year Cantonese or Yueju opera was recognised as part of the “intangible cultural heritage of humanity” by UN cultural agency UNESCO-the landlords reportedly more than doubled the rent. The government stepped in to help

achieve more favourable terms for the opera house, but the landlords still demanded almost HK$700,000 ($90,256) a month, or more than twice the previous rate, according to local media. Toyo Mall spokeswoman Rosanna Liu says Law had yet to decide what to do with the site, dismissing media reports that it will become a shopping centre.

She says Sunbeam’s managers had cancelled the lease “even though we were not planning to raise their rent”. The theatre’s management turned down requests for an interview, saying only that the closure was a “pure commercial decision”. ‘An example of how we don’t preserve our historical buildings’ Lawmaker Jennifer Chow, the local district councilor who had launched a campaign to save the theatre, says Sunbeam has been losing money. “They decided to discontinue the tenancy,” she says.

Whatever the reason for the closure, opera lovers are in no doubt that property developers are to blame. “New York and London are known for their sky-high rentals too, but look at them, how many theatres do they have?” asks Yuen, who has played in some of the Sunbeam’s final shows and started his opera career at the age of seven. “The heritage and historical values of a property should not be killed by its commercial value.”

Tickets for the Sunbeam’s closing performances have been sold out for weeks, testifying to the enduring popularity of traditional opera in a city usually associated with Canto pop music and the kung fu movies of Bruce Lee. Sunbeam’s final show is the story of Justice Bao, a tale of an honest official’s struggle for justice and integrity.

Other than its southern dialect, Cantonese opera differs from mainland operatic traditions in its use of percussion instruments like gongs and cymbals. Actors wear elaborate costumes and make-up, and must be adept at elaborately choreographed martial arts as well as singing. —AFP

Bigger, brighter, more organized?

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A member of the Beija-Flor samba school works on a float in Samba City, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on February 16, 2012, during preparations for the Samba Schools parade. — AFP

he globe’s biggest Carnival bash opened yesterday, and it promises to be an even bigger blowout this year, with 20 percent more tourists expected than in 2011. Rio officials say they’re also better prepared to keep the chaos under some semblance of control, with more portable toilets, traffic guards and paramedics, as well as a new central command center monitoring it all. “We want revelers to be conscious that they can party but also care for the city’s public spaces,” the president of Rio’s tourism department, Antonio Figueira de Mello, said in a statement.

About 850,000 tourists are expected during the raucous, five-day free-for-all that kicks off when Rio’s mayor hands the key to the city to rotund King Momo, the mythical jester figure who reigns over Carnival. Merrymakers are expected to spend $640 million and generate 250,000 jobs, according to the city’s economic development department. But the world’s biggest party traditionally leaves a hangover to match: last year, the weeklong romp left about 850 tons of

trash strewn around town. Rio officials have dispatched 80 mobile medical emergency units, 1,000 traffic guards and 15,000 toilets around the city and officials are running a campaign against urinating in public. Rio residents are humming along with a catchy little samba running on TV, telling partiers, “If you want to pee, don’t do it here, don’t do it here.” The jingle rhymes in Portuguese.

Rio also launched a smartphone app, free for iPhones and Androids, that tells visitors in English, Spanish or Portuguese where to go for blocos, the roving samba bands that draw millions, pied-piper style, through the streets, as well as basic information on public transit, eateries and museums. The federal aviation authority expects 3 million people to shuttle in and out of airports during Carnival week, 13 percent more than last year. Airports taking in visitors will also have 30 percent more federal police, and workers with “May I help you?” vests will be circulating to take care of visitors’ last minute questions. —AP

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Hundreds honor ‘Soul Train’ creator Don Cornelius

Stevie Wonder performs during a private memorial service for “Soul Train” creator and host Don Cornelius in Los Angeles, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012. — AP

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hrough music, scripture and song, Don Cornelius was remembered Thursday as the man who elevated black culture and entertainment with his “Soul Train,” demolishing barriers of race and culture, and changing American history. Hundreds of family, friends, entertainers, sports figures and even some former “Soul Train” dancers gathered to honor Cornelius’ legacy and recall their recollections of the baritone-voiced host and entrepreneur. The nearly three-hour memorial service featured plenty of laughter and music, including a rousing performance of “Love’s In Need of Love” by Stevie Wonder.

Civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson delivered a eulogy that centered on how Cornelius’ creation created a platform for black music and culture that hadn’t been seen on television when “Soul Train” debuted in 1970. “Soul Train” was broadcast nationally from 1971 to 2006 and became one of television’s longest running syndicated shows. He gave up hosting duties in 1993.

“Don, we say thanks for being conductor of the ‘Soul Train’ and laying the tracks,” Jackson

said. “We thank you because we needed you so badly and you helped us so much.” Several speakers noted that Cornelius didn’t just give a platform to performers such as Wonder, Aretha Franklin and the Jackson 5, but he also gave opportunities to black cameramen and demonstrated that television programming aimed at black audiences was viable.

At several points during the service, photos of Cornelius on the show’s set were displayed for the gathering, which ended with clips of the popular host dancing and delivering his signature sign-off, “Love, Peace and Soul!!!” Smokey Robinson joked that Cornelius would often ask guests questions that veered away from their music, such as what they were driving and when they’d last eaten at a particular restaurant.

“I’m really happy to be here because Don was my brother and I am celebrating his life,” a smiling Robinson said. “I don’t what the rest of you are doing.” Remaining upbeat, Robinson told the crowd, “He started a platform for black people that before that time had not been seen.

It had been heard, but it had not been seen.”

Pastor Donnie McClurkin, who led the service,

Christina Cornelius, granddaughter of Don Cornelius, wipes her tears while reading a statement. — AP noted that his mother didn’t allow her children to listen to popular music. But when she went grocery shopping on Saturdays, he and his siblings caught up on all the latest dance moves and music by watching “Soul Train.”

Cornelius was born in September 1936 in Chicago, served as a Marine in Korea and worked various jobs before getting into broadcasting in the mid-1960s. He was inducted into the Broadcasting and Cable Hall of Fame in 1995 and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but his greatest legacy was the impact of his show, which not only brought black culture, but also black advertisers to nationwide audiences.

His show came long before there were any networks devoted to television programming for black audiences, or black actors in prominent roles on network shows - key cultural barriers that Cornelius helped break down.

Cornelius’ granddaughter Christina said that to the world, her grandfather was a visionary and trailblazer. “He was all those things. But to me he was just grandpa,” she said, breaking down. “My smooth voiced, loving grandpa.”

Several speakers, including Cornelius’ son Tony,

spoke of continuing Cornelius’ legacy. Earvin “Magic” Johnson recalled meeting Cornelius in the early 1980s after he started playing with the Los Angeles Lakers.

“Shoot, I come around the corner and I see that big ‘fro, I already knew who it was,” Johnson said as the crowd laughed, “but I was scared because I always wanted to meet him.”

On Thursday, Johnson said he was committed to helping keep the “Soul Train” going. “Tony, it’s our job to keep the legacy going,” Johnson said.

“The brand that your father has created will last a lifetime.”

Several speakers also offered condolences to the family of Whitney Houston, who appeared on Cornelius’ show and died unexpectedly Saturday at age 48. Wonder mused that Cornelius would be pleased to have Houston join him and other musicians in heaven. “I can only hope we continue to keep this man’s life and legacy alive,” Wonder said. Cornelius, 75, died Feb. 1 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and Jackson urged people not to judge him.

“We reveal our successes to the world but we conceal our pain,” he said.—AP

German film eyes big prize at Berlin festival G

(From left) British actress Holliday Grainger, US actress Christina Ricci and British actor Robert Pattinson pose for photographers at the photocall for the film “Bel Ami” at the Berlinale film festival in Berlin yesterday. — AFP

erman drama “Barbara” is the critics’ favourite to take away the Golden Bear for best picture at this year’s Berlin film festival, in what would be the first home win since 2004. The 10-day cinema showcase, which attracts thousands of journalists, critics and movie industry executives from around the world, ends today with an awards ceremony. Hundreds of movies have screened at theatres across the city, while blockbuster titles and shoe-string budget projects have been bought and sold at the film market.

Outside the main competition, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt walked the red carpet for her Bosnian war drama “In the Land of Blood and Honey”, while Meryl Streep was honoured with a lifetime achievement award on Valentine’s Day. But as the festival, also known as the Berlinale, winds to a close, who is set to win what becomes the main focus. Victory for Barbara, set in 1980 and dealing with the repressive world of communist East Germany, would clearly resonate at a ceremony held just a

stone’s throw from where the Berlin Wall once divided the country. Whether it would then go on to enjoy global recognition, in the same way last year’s Iranian winner “A Separation” has, is less certain. “I personally would be surprised if there is anything like A Separation to come out of the festival so far,” said Lee Marshall, film critic for Screen International. “It started off looking like a real dark horse of a selection-there were a lot of unknowns. But actually it’s turned out to be quite a strong selection in terms of film quality though not in terms of star power.”

An informal poll of critics in Berlin puts Barbara narrowly ahead of Italian entry “Caesar Must Die”, a docu-drama made in a high-security prison near Rome where inmates rehearse for and stage a production of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”. Critics praised veteran film makers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani for their black-and-white picture where the words of Shakespeare gain added significance coming from real-life inmates, some of whom are behind bars for life.—Reuters

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Box Office Preview

In this 1914 file photo, actor Charlie Chaplin is seen when he was a player in Fred Karno’s vaudeville troupe, at an unknown location. — AP

Charlie Chaplin’s real name a mystery

T

he real name and birthplace of legendary silent-film star Charlie Chaplin is shrouded in mystery, Britain’s domestic spy agency concluded after a probe into U.S. claims he was a communist sympathiser, documents released yesterday revealed. British MI5 agents were asked in 1952 to investigate Chaplin’s background by the FBI, which believed he was using an alias and that his real name was Israel Thornstein, over long-running U.S. suspicions about the actor’s left-wing leanings. Chaplin, one of Hollywood’s first and greatest stars famed for his “Little Tramp” character, believed he was born on April 16, 1889, in south London.

But, an exhaustive search by MI5 found no record of his birth anywhere, nor anything to suggest he was any kind of security risk, declassified files from the spy agency revealed. “It’s very unusual, particularly after investigation

by MI5, for the date and place of birth for such a wellknown celebrity as Charlie Chaplin to remain so mysterious,” said Professor Christopher Andrew, the official historian of MI5. The file shows no one called Charles or Israel was born on April 16, and further inquiries into suggestions Chaplin had been born in France near Fontainebleau also proved fruitless.

“We can find no evidence that Chaplin’s name is or ever has been Israel Thornstein, nor can we find any evidence of the existence of such a person,” MI5 said in a letter to the U.S. Embassy in London. “We have, however, been unable to discover any other name by which he has been known.” Andrew said new evidence which emerged last year suggested Chaplin was born in a caravan belonging to a woman known as “the Gypsy Queen” in central England and his mother was a member of what is now referred to as “the travelling community”.

The information was in a letter, found in a locked drawer, which had been sent to Chaplin a few years before his death in 1977 by a man called Jack Hill, who said the caravan’s owner was his aunt. “Though there’s no proof that Jack Hill’s information is correct, Chaplin obviously treated it seriously otherwise as his oldest surviving son has commented, Chaplin would not have preserved it so carefully,” Andrew said.

During his long career, Chaplin courted controversy with overtly political films such as “The Great Dictator” a parady of German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and “A King in New York”, a satire on the anti-communist Cold War fears gripping America. From the 1920s, U.S. authorities suspected him of being a communist supporter, a claim he always denied, and he was refused a re-entry permit when he left the United States in 1953 and went to live in Switzerland.

The MI5 file, which includes press cuttings, letters to and from the U.S. embassy and a telegram to Chaplin from a Soviet agent, shows the British agency also rejected the U.S. claims and concluded in 1958 he posed no risk. “It may be that Chaplin is a communist sympathiser but on the information before us he would appear to be no more than a ‘progressive’ or radical,” an MI5 officer wrote.

Among other declassified documents released on Friday were details of MI5 investigations into three Nobel prize-winning chemists, including Irene Curie and her husband, who were communist sympathisers. Another file also details the actions of Folkert Van Koutrik a Dutch double agent who worked for German intelligence during World War Two. — Reuters

In this film image released by Columbia Pictures, a scene is shown from ‘Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance’. — AP

‘Ghost Rider’ has the spirit

S

ony’s “Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance” in 3-D, starring Nicolas Cage as Marvel Comic character Johnny Blaze, is looking to kick President’s weekend into high gear with an expected four-day holiday debut around $30 million.

However, given the recent spate of over-performing films at the domestic box office, the film’s weekend total could go much higher. The first installment, released over President’s weekend in 2007, debuted with a whopping $52 million for the four-day period. Sony’s romantic drama “The Vow,” starring Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams, led last weekend’s Valentine’s box office chart with a $41.7 million bouquet and received additional love from audiences with $11.5 million on Valentine’s Day alone. And that was a Tuesday. So a four-day, second-weekend gross in the mid-$20 millions is not out of the question, with a domestic total of nearly $90 million likely by Monday night.

Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds in Universal’s “Safe House” also exceeded opening expectations last weekend

and should draw an upcoming four-day total in the low $20 million range. Twentieth Century Fox unleashes the action comedy “This Means War” as a sort of anti-Valentine for those ready to leave the mushy stuff behind and embrace a different kind of romance. Starring Chris Pine and Tom Hardy as two former CIA operatives who realize they are dating the same woman played by Reese Witherspoon, the McG-directed film should draw a four-day gross in the $15 million to $17 million range.

The top 5 will likely round out with either Warner Bros.

“Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” or Fox’s 3-D rerelease of “Star Wars: Episode One -The Phantom Menace.” Both have the potential to earn grosses in the low teens in their second weekend in theaters. But don’t be surprised if Disney’s debut of “The Secret World of Arrietty” sneaks in there, too. The Grated animated film is the American adaptation of the 2010 Japanese smash “The Borrower Arrietty,” which has earned more than $126 million worldwide. — AP

Cirque du Soleil plans for Oscar show A

erialists, acrobats and contortionists from Cirque du Soleil are among the guests at this year’s Academy Awards. The threeminute performance at the Oscars on Feb. 26 will be among the international troupe’s biggest yet, said Cirque du Soleil special events director Yasmine Khalil, featuring more than 50 artists. Most Cirque shows employ 75 to 80 artists over two hours, she said. Cirque du Soleil has a show now at the Kodak Theatre, where the Oscars will be presented, but the performance for the awards telecast is “unique for this one evening” and not taken from any of the troupe’s 22 productions playing around the world.

Performers from those shows, however, are heading to Hollywood. Khalil says artists from Japan and Russia are flying in to participate in the Academy Awards segment. “The theme is very much in line with paying tribute to the movie-theater experience,” Khalil said, adding it was different from “Iris,” Cirque’s show at the Kodak Theater, which is billed as “a journey into the world of cinema.”

Like “Iris,” the music for the troupe’s Oscar performance was composed by Danny Elfman. Cirque du Soleil troupes were reluctant to perform on television in years past “because we felt as though a lot of it got lost in translation,” Khalil said, but they appreciated the way their performance came across in the 74th Academy Awards. “That boosted our confidence knowing that we’re comfortable in front of the camera,” she said.

Khalil and the performers have been working on their routine since before Christmas.”To capture 50 people jumping around everywhere from the ceiling and from the ground and right and left and center, it’s a whole added challenge,” she said. That challenge extends to the viewers, too. “They should be very attentive,” she said.

“You don’t want to be blinking too much because you might miss something.” — AP

Mexican model and former winner of Nuestra Belleza Mexico, Jacqueline Bracamontes poses for photographers after hosting the Premio Lo Nuestro Music Awards in Miami, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012. — AP

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Moms on the runway Mixing fashion and motherhood

F

orget the usual vacant model stare. It was smiles and high fives with Iman as real moms of all shapes and sizes took over New York Fashion Week, working a runway Thursday with strollers and pregnant tummies, looking chic for everything from school drop-off to date night. They walked in the first-ever “Strut: The Fashionable Mom Show,” organized by two of their own at the city’s Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center near Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week’s tents. They were tall, short, hourglass and your basic size 8. Clothes came from top designers like Tory Burch and Michael Kors, maternity wear from Hatch and A Pea in the Pod. “I feel amazing,” said mom model Lauren Jimeson, who is 37 weeks pregnant and strutted in a cream cocktail dress with cut-outs on the sleeves. “It’s just a great message that you can be fashionable and still be a mom and still look great and feel great.” One of the organizers, Melissa Gerstein, said she and fellow mom blogger Denise Albert hatched the idea after they got a TV gig and had nothing to wear.

“We need stuff that’s transformable and affordable, that real moms like us can wear every single day to all of the things that we have to do, whether it’s the grocery store, school pickup, back to the meeting, back to school.” Looks included a pair of white skinny jeans matched with a purple, tie-dye T-shirt, or loose black slacks with a billowy mustard top. One of two moms who pushed empty strollers down the runway decorated with autumn leaves wore a khaki skirt above the knee with a sleeveless white tunic and an added pop of red in a belt.

Iman - yes, she’s a mom of two didn’t walk but looked resplendent in the front row in a purple lace top and short, pleated skirt by Prabal Gurung. “I’m with my people!

People think fashion and moms are at odds, which I don’t think they are,” the supermodel and mogul said backstage. “It’s just our lifestyle is different, yet we hold the purse strings at home and make all the decisions on purchases.” For so many moms, those purchases are focused on their kids, not themselves, when it comes to clothes.

And they live in the moment, which is why the show’s creators made sure all of the looks on the runway Model Iman poses before are available right now in stores The Moms fall 2012 fash- ranging from Bloomingdale’s to T.J. ion show. — AP Maxx, rather than six months from now in exclusive boutiques when high fashion’s next season rolls around.

There were blazers and jackets from Chris Benz to the Gap, bags Iman sells on HSN.com and dresses by Kors and Rachel Roy. Gerstein, in a charcoal skirt and tie blouse, and Albert, in a sparkly silver party top with black leggings, run Themoms.com and appear regularly on TV. They chose fellow mommy bloggers to walk the runway. Albert walked with her young son and the 8-year-old of another mom model served as DJ. When it comes to the fabulous fashion industry, Gerstein said moms are usually invisible. “I think moms are written off by the fashion world because of what’s presented on the runway a size zero, 6-foot-2 tall woman, and that is not the norm. We care about fashion, too.”

Mom model Kimberly Goodwin, nearly eight months pregnant, agreed. “Just because you’re a mom, you don’t lose your sense of style,” she said. “You don’t lose your love of fashion. I’m big right now. I want to feel good.” She walked in a pair of skinnies. “Who would have thought even five, 10 years ago that red skinny jeans would be something a mom eight months pregnant would be wearing down a runway,” Goodwin said. Iman, who has her own cosmetics and accessories company, was recruited for the event by an old friend and fellow mom, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, the fashion director at Lincoln Center and an IMG consultant.

Balancing work life and home life while still looking and feeling good “isn’t always easy,” Winston Wolkoff said. “It was important to make this different than what Fashion Week is usually about.” So what does Iman wear to the bank, the playground, a night out with hubby David Bowie? “I may start with a suit in the morning, then a legging,” she said. “The important thing is we need a wardrobe that can change from playground to office to a night out. We still care about fashion.” — AP

Ralph Lauren meets ‘Downton Abbey’ A

s runways go, the one at Ralph Lauren’s fall-winter show on Thursday, the final day of New York fashion week, was a true stunner. A well-worn but beautifully laid parquet floor, illuminated by chandeliers, ran the length of the Skylight Studio in the Soho district where Lauren sent out 57 outfits that brought the British period drama “Downton Abbey” to mind. Into this whimsical English country house by the Hudson River appeared Fair Isle sweaters in green or taupe cashmere, brown ocelet-print shearling coats and dark brown plaid jodhpurs.

Double-breasted tweed wrap coats were enlivened with scarlet or purple gloves-or with a peacock feather tucked insouciantly into the lapel. Silk top hats lent an air of foggy London town in the era of Sherlock Holmes when matched with tartan wool coats, black pumps or boots, and a debonair walking stick. For more formal occasions, Lauren stuck with the classic lines that have made him a go-to designer for women across the United States, with a range of strapless and halter-

neck evening dresses in black, fuchsia and gold lam.

It might be easy to dismiss Lauren’s vision as predictable, but the silverhaired 72-year-old son of an immigrant housepainter from Belarus had every reason to smile as he walked down that fine runway himself in a light grey suit and tie to acknowledge a standing ovation at the end of the show. Two days ago, the publicly listed company that bears his name, and which includes the mass market Polo brand, forecast a better-than-expected 20 percent leap in sales this year in light of a third-quarter profit of $169 million-proof positive of Lauren’s staying power in the aristocracy of fashion. — AFP

Models display outfits during the Ralph Lauren show at Skylight Studio during the Fall 2012 Mercedes Benz Fashion Week February 16, 2012 in New York.

— AFP photos

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

NY Fashion Week F

ashion’s tastemakers and trendsetters started packing up on the eighth and final day of New York Fashion Week Thursday as shows began in London, followed by Milan and Paris.

But as the runway previews of fall looks continue in Europe, some early trends have emerged. The most popular looks to grace the runways over the past eight days include leather, military- and menswear-inspired tailoring and an overall sultriness that finds its allure in the

A model gets her hair done backstage in preparation for the Calvin Klein Fall 2012 show during Fashion Week in New York. — AP photos

Fashion from the Fall 2012 collection of Calvin Klein is modeled.

The Bill Blass Fall 2012 collection is modeled during Fashion Week in New York.

mystery of the woman sheathed in high necklines and leather leggings instead of bare skin or overt sexiness. Some of the best looks at Ralph Lauren’s show on Thursday were borrowed from the boys in a collection plucked from a closet of a British aristocrat. The eveningwear silhouettes were simple, jazzed up with jeweled collars - often with a high neckline.

“There’s a real practicality to the season in New York. There’s a lot of clothing that women will want to buy and wear,” said Ariel Foxman, editor of InStyle magazine. “I’m not seeing big, strong trend messaging. It’s not ALL about colorblocking or ALL about military.” But one thing the stylish shopper will need is a new coat - could be a leather trench, an officer’s jacket or a tweed blazer - but outerwear was the big story after many cycles of daytime dresses. “It’s interesting that in this mild winter there is so much outerwear,” said Foxman. “This idea of what fall and winter should be doesn’t go away.”

Brandon Holley, editor in chief of Lucky magazine, liked that a single outfit could have the toughness of a military look combined with a prim lace collar.

Attention was also drawn to the face with turtlenecks, which plays into the coveredup sexiness. “It to me is an attitude or

finishes up

mindset,” said designer Prabal Gurung, whose show was a top draw here.

“There’s nothing sexier than confidence this fall.” Well, there is all the leather, which sometimes was tough looking but otherwise soft and buttery like the best pair of gloves. Holley said she sometimes spots the trends by what the front row is wearing by the end of the week. “I saw a lot of leather leggings. And then there were leather sleeves or leather pieces,” she said. “It’s about wearing a lot of leather but not wearing all leather.”

Calvin Klein Calvin Klein designs have long been known for their razor-sharp lines, but the label’s creative director Francisco Costa seems to have a knack for curves, too. His fall collection presented as one of the last major shows of New York Fashion Week ended things the way the season largely started, offering clothes for a woman who can seduce and charm with intelligence and strength, but without wearing anything too tight or revealing. Costa, in fact, purposely created a looser hourglass shape for this muse that gives room to move and breathe, sculpting stiff wool fabrics into outfits with rounded jewel necklines and a little extra fabric at the hips. For most women, this is going to work better in coats than dresses, but on the models, it was nice to see the chic, fuller shape shifts. “Mysterious, sexy and super urban” was how Costa described it just after the show. “The iconography for this is all super modern,” he said.

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” star Rooney Mara sat in the front row, and the clean, architectural and unadorned style that Costa has crafted as his Calvin Klein signature seems a perfect fit for her. She might be the one to pull off a leather look at the Academy Awards. The colors, as usual here, were dark and stark, with the only bright moments coming from a few flashes of red and a salmon-colored dress made of a glazed tweed and tulle. The mixing of fabrics that this crowd has gotten used to seeing over the past few days was done best on a dress that combined gray wool flannel and black shaved shearling. Another standout look was a black-leather, funnel-neck bodice and a winter-white moleskin skirt. Costa also sneaked in white leather panels in the folds of some black pleated skirts.

Bill Blass The late Bill Blass made his fashion house famous with chic sportswear worn by a very glamorous crowd, and Jeffrey Monteiro, who designs the collection now, continued that tradition of sport and glamour. On the runway, tuxedo pants had a drawstring waist and a blackmetallic gown had gold racing stripes down its long sleeves. Monteiro did an uptown version of the military trend, but his strong shouldered coats had jeweled buttons. The clothes had a nice balance of youthful spirit with classic silhouettes.

There was also a bit of fur, including a fox collar paired with a simple sheer black jumpsuit and black evening pants, but compared to other catwalks that have been covered in mink and even raccoon,

Emma Stone (left) and Rooney Mara attend the Calvin Klein show.

Monteiro had a light touch. He favored contrasting shiny satin to matte wool with pops of metallics, which made the collection still seem fresh after scores of runway shows. — AP

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Luxury, sartorial and otherwise, at N

The L’Wren Scott Fall 2012 collection is modeled during Fashion Week.

ew York Fashion Week has its A-list events and its B-list events. And then there was the L’Wren Scott runway show on Thursday. Do they have an A-plus category for luxury? Dramatic setting?

Check - the wood-paneled, chandeliered banquet hall of an Edwardian building in Chelsea that now houses the Desmond Tutu Center. Perks? Well, there was the wine, and the caviar, served with a baked potato and sour cream to guests sitting at long tables sustenance after a long Fashion Week.

And celebrities? Nah, not unless you count Mick Jagger - who happens to be the designer’s longtime boyfriend - and Ellen Barkin. As for the clothes, if you could get your mind off the rock icon in your midst, they were pretty luxurious, too, a mix of velvety or satiny gowns, bolero jackets and tea-length dresses, often with a vintage feel that matched the elegant surroundings.

There was a jacquard tweed cape lined in purple feathers, for example, paired with a purple velvet high waisted pencil skirt.

There was a long deep-red velvet dress with a bow at the front. Bows also appeared at the back of jackets, along the hem. One of the fancier looks was a gold “caviar beads” gown with a black satin floor-length cape, and shiny gold shoes. And what Scott calls her “headmistress gown,” in black satin.

Scott said later that she had boned up on history while designing this collection basically the early 1900s, its architecture and its colors. Some new colors she chose this time around: Moroccan date, pomegranate, and pansy (a bluish violet.) She also added “a new tea length for my lady,” as she calls her clients, in case they wanted something new. There was a higher-waisted Aline skirt, higher-waisted pants, and the classic pencil skirts for which she is known.

Cristina Ehrlich, a celebrity stylist who has dressed Penelope Cruz, Amy Adams and Julianna Margulies for the red carpet, was full of praise for the collection. “She takes the whole concept of lady-dressing and adds femininity, a sexiness and an edge,” said Ehrlich. “It’s elegant, and so superluxe.” The stylist especially admired the way Scott played with colors, as in a mix of mustard and red in one outfit. The stylist wore a tightly fitted Scott design in bright green.

Also in a body-fitting Scott number: Barkin, wearing a green pencil skirt and snug orange cardigan. — AP

L’Wren Scott

TECHNOLOGY SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

‘Curb the car dashboard technology’ WASHINGTON: Auto dashboards are becoming an arcade of text messages, GPS images, phone calls and web surfing, the government says, and it’s asking carmakers to curb those distractions when vehicles are moving.

Manufacturers have been loading up higher-end vehicles with an array of built-in gadgets in an effort to tempt car buyers who want to multi-task behind the wheel in today’s increasingly connected society. But the technological advances have raised concerns that drivers’ attention is being diverted too much from the road.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on Thursday proposed voluntary guidelines for manufacturers, including a recommendation that they design dashboards so that distracting devices are automatically disabled unless the vehicle is stopped and the transmission is in park.

“We recognize that vehicle manufacturers want to build vehicles that include the tools and conveniences expected by today’s American drivers,” said NHTSA Administrator David Strickland. “The guidelines we’re proposing would offer realworld guidance to automakers to help them develop electronic devices that provide features consumers want without disrupting a driver’s attention or sacrificing safety.”

Gloria Bergquist, vice president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, said carmakers will review the guidelines, which have a 60-day comment period. She noted that the industry has had its own voluntary guidelines since 2002. “Drivers are going to have conversations, listen to music and read maps while driving, and automakers are helping them do this more safely with integrated hands-free systems that help drivers focus on the road,” Bergquist said.

The guidelines, which are directed at passenger cars and sport utility vehicles, would exempt safety devices such electronic-warning systems that alert drivers to potential collisions or lane changes. GPS and other navigation devices that provide directions would also be permitted while driving, but the safety administration is asking that the systems be designed so that drivers can’t manually enter a destination unless the car is in park.

The alternative is for drivers to go back to studying maps while they drive, which is even less safe, Strickland said.

Bergquist, of the carmakers, cautioned about preventing addresses from being entered into GPS devices unless the vehicle is stopped.

“There are often passengers in the car who can enter addresses, so we need to consider that when looking at requiring these technologies to only be used in park,” she said. “And if the GPS is disabled when moving, consumers can always bring their own Garmin into the vehicle. It’s complicated.” Other dashboard technologies recommended for automatic disabling include text-messaging, Internet browsing, social media browsing, phone dialing and computer screen messages of 30 characters or more that are unrelated to driving. The guidelines would make exceptions for these devices if they are designed only for use by passengers and can’t be accessed or seen by the driver.

Manufacturers are also urged to take steps to make technologies safer that drivers are allowed to use while driving.

That includes reducing to two seconds or less the amount of time drivers must divert their eyes from the road to use a device. Devices should also be designed so that drivers don’t have to use more than one hand or glance through extraneous information. The guidelines are a good first step toward reducing driver distractions, said Barbara Harsha, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents state highway safety offices.

But “the safest thing is for drivers not to use these systems at all - both hands on the wheel and the mind focused solely on driving,” she said.

Anne Fleming, senior vice president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an industry supported safety research group, said it’s good that NHTSA and automakers are working together, but it “will be very hard to measure whether it’s reducing distraction and whether it’s reducing it enough.” One reason NHTSA decided to pursue voluntary guidelines instead of mandatory rules is that officials wanted to do something quickly, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told reporters in a conference call. The process for writing federal rules often takes years to complete. —AP

Robot seals heal hearts of Japan tsunami survivors KESENNUMA, Japan: High-tech fluffy seals that respond to human touch are the latest weapon in the battle against depression for survivors of Japan’s tsunami disaster. “Paro” is being offered to people made homeless by the disaster and is offering a much-needed bit of affection with his burbling noises and the appreciative flapping of fins when he comes into contact with people. “It’s so cute. It coos when I rub it,” said 10-year-old Kosei Oyama, “Because of the tsunami, we have fewer things to play with than before.”

Tsuyako Kumagai, a 47-year-old housewife, said her friends in temporary houses are happy with Paro as a substitute for the pets that were swept away by the gigantic waves. “Many of my neighbours don’t want to have new pets because they don’t want to remember,” Kumagai said. “For them, pets used to be their family.”

The seal robots have been made available to people living in temporary houses erected in a baseball stadium in the port town of Kesennuma, an area badly hit by the tsunami last March which killed 19,000 people on the coast.

For many, things now are a little better than they were, but a long way from perfect. “I lost what I had built in my life,” said Hiroshi Onodera, 51, whose nephew died and whose house was swept away.

Onodera is now living with his mother in a prefabricated house and feels isolated from his community.

“When we were in the emergency shelter, there were a lot of people staying together, but since we have moved to each of our temporary houses, we are separated and having a stressful time,” he said. “So, it’s great to have this kind of place, where we can be healed mentally,” Onodera said, referring to a community building where the robot creatures are available for short-term loan.

The seal, which is equipped with tactile and audio sensors, has already been used in hospitals and nursing homes as a therapeutic aid for older people suffering from

KESENNUMA: Children displaced by the March 11 tsunami play with a therapeutic robot baby seal called ‘Paro’ at temporary housing in Kesennuma, Miyagi prefecture recently. The seal robots have been made available to people living in temporary houses erected in a baseball stadium in the port town of Kesennuma, an area badly hit by the tsunami of last March that killed 19,000 people on the coast. — AFP photo depression or dementia. Organisers of the ing. According to the government, some scheme are also offering other fixes to dis- 325,000 people are still living in temporary aster victims, including workout robots housing, mainly in northern Japan, nearly and a prototype of a high-tech head mas- a year on from the devastating earthsager, and even have a reception desk quake-tsunami. Many lost their homes in the catastrophe, while others were forced staffed by an android.

“It’s important for residents to maintain from their villages by radiation that leaked communication,” said Kazuhiro Kojima, a from Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant researcher at Advanced Industrial Science when its reactors went into meltdown.

Researchers say technological solutions and Technology, a public research institucan help lessen the mental impact of the tion, which developed Paro.

A huge jump in the number of people disaster. “We hope robots will provide resisuffering depression and mental health dents here with an opportunity to rebuild difficulties was recorded in the wake of the their community,” Kojima said. “Mental 1995 Kobe earthquake, with the loss of support will become a very important homes identified as a key cause of suffer- issue here. I hope robots can help.” — AFP

Nevada approves regulations for self-driving cars CARSON CITY: Nevada is envisioning a day when taxicabs might shuttle fares without a driver, or people with medical conditions that make them ineligible for a license could get around with a virtual chauffeur.

The concept took a big step when Nevada became the first state to approve regulations that spell out requirements for companies to test driverless cars on state roads.

“Then they have to take us out and prove that they can do it,” Bruce Breslow, director of the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles, said of the autonomous vehicles. “They’re not ready to go to market yet.”

But Nevada intends to be ready when they are, and officials hope to stay ahead of other states such as Florida and Hawaii that are considering similar testing regulations, Breslow said.

Gov. Brian Sandoval took a test ride in a self-driving Toyota Prius in July. The

car being developed by Google Inc. uses radar, sensors and computers that allow the vehicle to drive itself, though human drivers can override the autopilot function. Companies that want to conduct testing in Nevada will need a bond of $1 million to $3 million, depending on the number of cars they plan to test. Firms also must lay out their specific intentions, such as testing a vehicle on urban roadways, or its ability to operate in the fog, rain or snow, and provide testing data to the state.

The cars must have two people in it at all times, with one able to take control. The new regulations approved last week also require companies to detail license requirements for people to operate them when they become available.

Cars must be equipped with a separate data collector - similar to the “black box” on an aircraft - that will “capture and store the autonomous technology sensor data for at least 30 seconds

before a collision.” The regulations go beyond testing procedures, anticipating the day when driverless cars become a reality on the highways.

If a vehicle is certified as capable of being driven in autonomous mode without a driver, a person can operate the vehicle “without being physically present,” one provision says.

Whether there’s a human driver or not, the regulations hold the operator responsible regardless of whether the person is physically present in the autonomous vehicle.

The only exception to traffic laws is texting or talking on a hand-held cellphone. A law passed by legislators last year to ban texting while driving included a specific exemption for operators of self-driving cars on autopilot. But the vehicles won’t be a substitute for a designated driver after a night on the town, Breslow said. “There is no exemption for drinking and driving,” he said. — AP

TECHNOLOGY SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Google bypassed Apple privacy settings NEW YORK: Google and other online advertisers bypassed the privacy settings of an Apple web browser on iPhones and computers in order to survey millions of users, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.

The Journal said the companies used a special code that tricks Apple’s Safari software into letting them monitor the browsing habits of many users.

Safari-the most widely used browser on mobile devices and the default browser on iPhones and

Mac laptops-is designed to block such tracking by default, the Journal said.

The Journal said Google disabled the code after the newspaper contacted it and that Google removed a message on its website saying users could rely on Safari to prevent the search giant from tracking them. It quoted Google as saying the Journal “mischaracterizes what happened and why.” “We used known Safari functionality to provide features that signed-in Google users had

enabled. It’s important to stress that these advertising cookies do not collect personal information.”

The Journal quoted an Apple official as saying the company was “working to put a stop” to the circumvention of the privacy settings.

The code was first spotted by Stanford researcher Jonathan Mayer and independently confirmed by Ashkan Soltani, a technical adviser to the Journal. Google and Apple could not immediately be reached for comment. — AFP

Twitter unveils self-service advertising system SAN FRANCISCO: Buying ads on Twitter is about to get easier for small businesses as the online messaging service adds a key piece to its moneymaking model.

Twitter is unveiling a long-awaited automated system that will enable advertisers to manage their marketing campaigns and budgets without having to deal with sales representatives. Before Twitter opens the system to all comers later this year, the self-service approach announced Thursday will only be available to advertisers who accept or use American Express cards To get the ball rolling, American Express Co. will buy $100 in Twitter ads for each of the first 10,000 qualified businesses in the U.S. that sign up at http://ads.twitter.com/amex . The ads, which Twitter calls “promoted products,” will begin appearing within the flow of users’ messages in late March. Flipping the switch on selfservice advertising is the latest sign of Twitter’s ambition to build a powerful online marketing vehicle in the mold of Internet search leader Google Inc., by far the Web’s most profitable company, and online social network Facebook Inc., technology’s fastest-rising star.

It marks another stepping stone toward an eventual initial public offering of stock from Twitter, which has attracted more than 100 million users since its creation nearly six years ago.

MONTREAL: Suneet Singh Tuli is pictured in this July 30, 2011 handout photograph in Montreal, Canada. Tuli heads the Canadian company Datawind, which has produced the Akash, at $35, the world’s cheapest computer tablet. — AFP photo

The timetable for Twitter’s IPO remains a mystery, although CEO Dick Costolo said in an interview Thursday that the company’s decision won’t be influenced by how well Facebook fares in its stock market debut this spring.

“I don’t look at what other companies are doing,” he said. “We don’t think in terms of building this company for a particular IPO date.

We are trying to build this company for the long term.” The company, which is based in San Francisco, isn’t in desperate need of capital, having raised at least $700 million last year.

Twitter also probably needs a little more time to prove its financial chops. Last year, Twitter generated ad revenue of about $140 million, according to the research firm eMarketer Inc. That compared to $36.5 billion at Google and $3.2 billion at Facebook. This year, eMarketer expects Twitter to sell $260 million in advertising, helped in part by the new self-service platform.

The automated system will be similar to Google’s. Advertisers will be able to specify how much they are willing to spend, pick the cities or regions where they want their ads to appear and write their own commercial messages, which will be confined to Twitter’s 140-character limit per tweet. Twitter will only charge for ads that get a user response, such as when a viewer decides to follow the business, retweets the message or clicks on a link.

Selling ads through a self-service system will test Twitter’s ability to prevent bad actors from polluting the atmosphere with spam and scams.

It’s a problem that still plagues Google, which has gotten into trouble for showing ads for from unlicensed pharmacies and other shady operators. But Twitter’s self-service ad system seems less likely to encounter trouble in the early going because only small businesses that have already been vetted by American Express will be allowed to participate during first few months, said eMarketer analyst Debra Williamson.

Twitter is allowing self-service advertising after about three months of tests with a small group of hand-picked small businesses. Twitter has been easing into advertising to ensure the commercial messages don’t spoil the ambiance of service that has been likened to a town square teeming with wildly divergent observations and conversations. The response to the ads so far has been mostly positive, Costolo said, helping to convince him that the privately held company can open up its revenue spigot even more without facing a big backlash. “I have every expectation that we will be able to scale this very rapidly,” Costolo said Thursday. Twitter ads paid off for Glennz Tees, an online merchant in Austin, Texas, that has been testing the selfservice marketing system. The company’s December sales more than doubled from the previous year, said CEO Walter Stokes. —AP

BRUSSELS: Xavier Degon and Antonin Guy, two French engineers, pose in a Citroen C Zero electric car, during a stopover in Brussels yesterday. The two French engineers will this year attempt to achieve the first ever around-the-world trip in an electric car. — AFP photo

Chinese firm in iPad row threatens to sue Apple BEIJING: A debt-laden Chinese computer firm embroiled in a copyright row with Apple over the iPad name yesterday threatened to sue the technology giant in the United States for $2 billion.

Proview Technology (Shenzhen) says it owns the Chinese rights for the “iPad” trademark and its lawyers say they are seeking to prevent Apple from shipping the iconic tablet computers into and out of China-one of the US company’s biggest markets.

Apple last year took the firm to a Chinese court, claiming trademark infringement, but the court unexpectedly rejected the case over lack of evidence.

Proview, which makes computer monitors, has since filed lawsuits against Apple in China, also claiming trademark infringement, and is now threatening to take legal action in the United States claiming Apple had behaved unfairly.

“Right now we are selecting from three American law firms to sue Apple in the United States for $2 billion in compensation,” Li Su, chairman of Hejun Vanguard Group, which is working with creditors to restructure Proview, told a news conference in Beijing.

Proview chief executive Yang Rongshan said he wanted to protect his trademark rights and stop Apple selling the iPad in China-and denied he was trying to get compensation from Apple to bail out the cashstrapped company.

“We own it (the iPad trademark) in China.

If you were in my position... you would try to protect your rights,” Yang told reporters.

The Taiwanese affiliate of Proview Technology (Shenzhen) registered the trademark name “iPad” in several countries including China as early as 2000 — years before Apple began selling the product.

Both the companies are units of Hong Kong-listed Proview International Holdings, whose shares have been suspended from trading since August 2010.

The US giant subsequently bought the rights for the global trademark, but Proview Technology (Shenzhen) claims its Taiwan affiliate had no right to sell the Chinese rights.

A Hong Kong court last year sided with Apple saying the agreement was valid.

Ma Dongxiao, a lawyer for Proview, said the company would sue Apple in the United States on the grounds that Apple bought the rights through another company, which had promised not to make products in competition with Proview.

Apple said it was the rightful owner of the iPad trademark and accused Proview of not honoring the agreement in China.

While authorities in some cities have reportedly seized dozens of iPads, the iconic tablet computer-which was officially launched in mainland China in September 2010 — remains on sale across the nation’s five Apple stores and through some on-line shopping sites. — AFP

TV listings SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

00:50 01:45 02:40 03:35 04:30 05:25 06:20 06:45 07:10 08:00 08:25 09:15 10:10 11:05 12:00 12:25 12:55 13:50 14:45 15:40 16:35 17:30 18:25 19:20 20:15

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 10:05 10:20 12:20 13:05 13:40 14:30 15:15 15:45 16:30 18:10 19:00 19:30 20:00 20:50

Pit Bulls And Parolees Untamed & Uncut Into The Dragon’s Lair Ultimate Air Jaws Crime Scene Wild The Animals’ Guide To Survival Escape To Chimp Eden In Too Deep Wild Africa Rescue Monkey Life Michaela’s Animal Road Trip Crocodile Hunter Natural Born Hunters The Really Wild Show Gorilla School Project Puppy Corwin’s Quest Wildlife SOS Dogs vs. Cats Must Love Cats America’s Cutest...

Big Five Challenge World Wild Vet Amazing Animal Inventions!

Saba And The Rhino’s Secret

Last Of The Summer Wine Doctors Survivors Lead Balloon Ideal 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 After You’ve Gone The Weakest Link Doctor Who Doctor Who Confidential Eastenders The Weakest Link Last Of The Summer Wine Born and Bred Doctor Who After You’ve Gone The Weakest Link Holby City Doctor Who One Foot In The Grave The Old Guys Alan Carr - Tooth Fairy Little Britain

00:45 James Martin’s Brittany 02:00 Indian Food Made Easy 03:20 What To Eat Now - Autumn 03:50 10 Years Younger 04:40 Fantasy Homes By The Sea 05:25 Raymond Blanc’s Kitchen Secrets 06:25 Indian Food Made Easy 07:15 Bargain Hunt 09:30 Masterchef Australia 14:45 Bargain Hunt 17:00 Antiques Roadshow 21:20 Gok’s Fashion Fix 23:00 What Not To Wear

00:15 00:40 01:35 02:30 03:25 04:20 05:15 05:40 06:05 07:00 07:25 08:15 09:10 10:05

Awards 21:25 THS 22:25 E! News 23:25 Chelsea Lately 23:55 Keeping Up With The Kardashians

Destroyed In Seconds Rampage!

Dirty Jobs Overhaulin’ Ultimate Survival Mythbusters How Does It Work?

How It’s Made Dirty Jobs How Does It Work?

Really Big Things Huge Moves Extreme Engineering Mighty Ships

00:00 00:50 01:40 02:30 03:20 04:10 05:00 05:50 06:40 07:30 09:00 10:40 12:20 14:00 14:50 Ride 15:40 16:30 17:20 18:10 19:00 Ride 19:50 21:30 22:20 23:10 Ride

I MELT WITH YOU ON OSN CINEMA 10:55 11:50 12:45 14:35 15:30 16:25 17:20 18:15 19:10 20:05 21:00 21:55

Man, Woman, Wild Dual Survival Ultimate Survival Oil Strike!

Swamp Loggers Swords: Life On The Line Gold Rush Storm Chasers River Monsters Extreme Fishing Ultimate Survival Taking On Tyson

00:40 Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman 01:35 Weird or What?

02:25 The Tech Show 02:50 Tech Toys 360 03:40 Ecopolis 04:35 How Does That Work?

05:00 How Stuff’s Made 05:25 Kings of Construction 06:20 Junkyard Mega-Wars 07:10 Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman 08:00 Science of Star Wars 08:55 Head Rush 08:58 Sci-Fi Science 09:25 Weird Connections 09:55 Tech Toys 360 10:45 Ecopolis 11:35 How the Universe Works 15:45 Head Rush 15:48 Sci-Fi Science 16:15 Weird Connections 16:45 The Tech Show 17:10 Science of Star Wars 18:00 Meteorite Men 18:50 Building the Future

19:40 20:30 21:20 23:00 23:50

Smash Lab Scrapheap Challenge Sci-Fi Science Smash Lab Scrapheap Challenge

00:00 00:25 01:15 02:00 02:50 03:35 04:25 05:15 06:00 06:25 06:45 Cody 07:10 07:35 07:55 08:20 08:45 09:10 09:32 09:40 10:05 10:30 12:12 12:25 12:50 13:15 13:40 14:00 14:25 14:50 15:15 15:30 15:55 16:20

Kim Possible Fairly Odd Parents Stitch Replacements Emperor’s New School Stitch Replacements Fairly Odd Parents Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Jake & The Neverland Pirates The Suite Life Of Zack And So Random Fish Hooks Timon And Pumbaa Good Luck Charlie Shake It Up Phineas And Ferb Have A Laugh A.N.T. Farm Fish Hooks High School Musical 2 Fish Hooks Shake It Up Good Luck Charlie A.N.T. Farm Recess Timon And Pumbaa Wizards Of Waverly Place So Random Fish Hooks Hannah Montana Forever Shake It Up Good Luck Charlie

16:45 17:10 17:30 18:00 18:20 18:45 19:10 19:30 21:25 21:50 22:15 22:40 23:05 Cody 23:30 23:55

My Babysitter’s A Vampire Fish Hooks A.N.T. Farm Wizards Of Waverly Place Phineas And Ferb Recess So Random Camp Rock 2 My Babysitter’s A Vampire Good Luck Charlie Shake It Up Fish Hooks The Suite Life Of Zack And Hannah Montana Forever Sonny With A Chance

00:25 Kendra 00:55 Style Star 01:25 Cheating Death 03:15 25 Most Stylish 04:10 Sexiest 05:05 Extreme Hollywood 06:00 THS 07:50 Behind The Scenes 08:20 E! News 09:15 Bridalplasty 11:10 Fashion Police: 2008 Grammy Awards 12:05 E! News 13:05 Ice Loves Coco 14:05 Dirty Soap 15:00 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 16:55 Fashion Police: 2008 Grammy Awards 17:55 E! News 18:55 World’s Specials 19:55 Kourtney & Kim Take New York 20:25 Fashion Police: 2008 Grammy

BMX Megatour M1 Selection 2010 Breitling Airsports 2009 World Combat League BMX Megatour M1 Selection 2010 X Games 16 2010 Summer Dew Tour 2010 World Combat League Ride Guide Mountainbike 2008 Ticket To Ride 2009/2010 Best Of The Streets AMA Motocross 2011 Mantracker Pinks: Lose The Race, Lose Your Glutton For Punishment Dragrace High AMA Motocross 2011 Carpocalypse Pinks: Lose The Race, Lose Your AMA Motocross 2011 Mantracker Carpocalypse Pinks: Lose The Race, Lose Your

00:15 Bobby Chinn Cooks Asia 00:40 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 01:05 Reza, Spice Prince Of India 01:30 Good Eats 01:55 Reza, Spice Prince Of India 03:35 Aarti Party 04:25 Bobby Chinn Cooks Asia 05:15 Kid In A Candy Store 05:40 Good Eats 06:05 Luke Nguyen’s Vietnam 06:30 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 06:50 Food Network Challenge 07:35 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 08:00 Food Network Challenge 08:50 Reza, Spice Prince Of India 09:15 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 09:40 Good Eats 10:05 Healthy Appetite With Ellie Krieger 10:30 Paula’s Best Dishes 10:55 Luke Nguyen’s Vietnam 11:20 Bobby Chinn Cooks Asia 11:45 30 Minute Meals 12:10 Unwrapped 12:35 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 13:00 Good Eats 13:25 Guy’s Big Bite 13:50 Aarti Party 14:15 Bobby Chinn Cooks Asia 14:40 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 15:05 Healthy Appetite With Ellie Krieger 15:30 Unwrapped 15:55 Paula’s Best Dishes 16:20 Andy Bates Street Feasts 16:45 Chopped 17:35 Guy’s Big Bite 18:00 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 18:25 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 18:50 Aarti Party 19:15 Good Eats 19:40 Luke Nguyen’s Vietnam 20:05 Reza, Spice Prince Of India 20:30 Restaurant: Impossible 21:20 Sandwich King 22:10 Food Network Challenge 23:00 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 23:25 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 23:50 World Cafe Asia

00:00 Which Way To 01:00 Geo Sessions 01:30 Geo Sessions 02:00 The Ride: Alaska To Patagonia 02:30 Travel Madness 03:00 Lonely Planet: Roads Less Travelled 04:00 Pressure Cook 05:00 City Chase Rome 06:00 Which Way To

07:00 Geo Sessions 08:00 The Ride: Alaska To Patagonia 08:30 Travel Madness 09:00 Lonely Planet: Roads Less Travelled 10:00 Pressure Cook 11:00 City Chase Rome 12:00 Which Way To 13:00 Wild Rides 13:30 First Ascent 14:00 Danger Men 15:00 Word Travels 16:00 Travel Madness 16:30 Destination Extreme 17:00 Don’t Tell My Mother 18:00 Departures 19:00 Wild Rides 19:30 First Ascent 20:00 Danger Men 21:00 Word Travels 22:00 Travel Madness 22:30 Destination Extreme 23:00 Don’t Tell My Mother

00:00 01:00 01:55 02:50 03:45 04:40 05:35 India) 06:30 07:25 08:20 09:15 10:10 11:05 India) 12:00 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

Wild Amazon World’s Deadliest Animals Bite Me With Dr. Mike Leahy Journey Into Amazonia The Living Edens Amazonia’s Giant Jaws Wild India (aka Secrets of Wild Monster Fish Animal Extractors World’s Deadliest Snakes Killer Shots Lion Army Wild India (aka Secrets of Wild Alaskan Killer Shark Great Migrations Night Stalkers Africa’s Deadliest Bite Me With Dr. Mike Leahy Journey Into Amazonia The Living Edens Night Stalkers Africa’s Deadliest Bite Me With Dr. Mike Leahy Journey Into Amazonia The Living Edens

00:05 How Do I Look?

01:00 Jerseylicious 02:00 Homes With Style 02:25 Open House 02:55 Videofashion Daily 03:50 Videofashion News 04:20 How Do I Look?

05:15 Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?

06:10 Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?

07:05 Clean House 08:00 Big Boutique 08:30 Big Boutique 09:00 Videofashion Daily 10:00 Homes With Style 10:25 Homes With Style 10:55 Videofashion Daily 11:50 Videofashion News 12:20 Videofashion News 12:50 Jerseylicious 13:50 Jerseylicious 14:45 Jerseylicious 15:45 Jerseylicious 16:40 Jerseylicious 17:35 Jerseylicious 18:30 Jerseylicious 19:25 Jerseylicious 20:25 Jerseylicious 21:20 Designer Marathon 22:15 Fashion Police: The 2012 Grammy Awards 23:10 Big Rich Texas

00:00 02:00 04:00 06:00 08:00 10:00 12:00 14:00 16:00 18:00 20:00 22:00

Don’t Look Up-18 Sinners & Saints-18 The Devil’s Tomb-PG15 Planet Of The Apes-PG15 Rocky IV-PG15 The Lost Future-PG15 Ip Man-PG15 Rocky IV-PG15 Arctic Predator-PG15 Ip Man-PG15 Brotherhood-PG15 Blank Slate-PG15

TV listings SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

01:00 02:45 PG15 04:45 07:00 09:00 11:45 13:30 15:15 17:15 19:00 21:00 23:00

Lost Boys: The Thirst-18 Elle: A Modern Cinderella TaleHow Do You Know-PG15 Easy A-PG15 My Name Is Khan-PG15 The Nanny Express-PG15 Prom-PG15 Certified Copy-PG15 The Nanny Express-PG15 Letters To Juliet-PG15 Paranormal Activity 2-18 I Melt With You-PG15

03:00 The Simpsons 03:30 Happy Endings 04:00 Dharma And Greg 04:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 06:00 Malcolm In The Middle 08:30 The Simpsons 12:00 Malcolm In The Middle 12:30 Dharma And Greg 13:30 Just Shoot Me 14:00 Happy Endings 16:30 How I Met Your Mother 18:00 The Simpsons 18:30 2 Broke Girls 19:00 The Office 19:30 Breaking In 20:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 21:00 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 21:30 The Colbert Report 22:00 Saturday Night Live 23:30 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon

00:00 01:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 07:00 08:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 18:30 19:00 20:00 21:00 23:00

American Idol Drop Dead Diva Glee Off The Map Good Morning America Tower Prep The Bachelor The Ellen DeGeneres Show Downsize Me The View American Idol Glee Tower Prep Drop Dead Diva Live Good Morning America The Ellen DeGeneres Show Emmerdale Coronation Street Breakout Kings Criminal Minds C.S.I. Miami Off The Map

15:00 Star Trek: First Contact-PG 17:00 X-Men-PG15 19:00 Blood Out-18 21:00 Blank Slate-PG15 23:00The Haunting Of Molly Hartley-18

00:00 It’s A Wonderful Afterlife-PG15 02:00 It’s Complicated-PG15 04:30 The Prince And Me 4: The Elephant Adventure-PG15 06:30 Dr. Dolittle-PG 08:00 A Lot Like Love-PG15 10:00 Cats & Dogs-PG 12:00 Rat-PG 14:00 Molly-PG15 16:00 It’s A Wonderful Afterlife-PG15 18:00 Out Cold-PG15 20:00 You Again-PG15 22:00 Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story-PG15

01:00 03:00 05:00 07:00 09:00 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:00 19:00 21:00 PG15 23:15

Posse-PG15 The Dry Land-18 Up In The Air-PG15 Not Since You-PG15 Oceans - Into The Deep-PG Veronica Guerin-PG15 Private-PG15 Simon Birch-PG Bond Of Silence-PG15 The Public Eye-PG15 The Hunt For Red October-

07:00 09:00 11:00 13:00 15:00 17:00 19:00 21:00 23:00

Preacher’s Kid-PG Diary Of A Wimpy Kid-PG At Risk-PG15 Hurricane Season-PG15 The Bounty Hunter-PG15 Diary Of A Wimpy Kid-PG Clash Of The Titans-PG15 Sleeping Beauty-PG15 Repo Men-18

06:00 07:00 07:30 09:30 13:30 14:30 17:30 19:30 22:00

UFC Unleashed WWE This Week WWE SmackDown Live PGA European Tour WWE Vintage Collection UFC WWE SmackDown Live Super League UFC

00:00 02:00 04:15 06:00 08:00 09:45 12:00 14:00 16:00 18:00 20:00 22:15

Micropolis-FAM Tangled-FAM Young Fisherman-PG Micropolis-FAM Tom Tom & Nana-FAM Marmaduke-PG A Christmas Carol-PG Little Bee 2-PG15 Supertramps-PG15 Marmaduke-PG A Christmas Carol-PG Tom Tom & Nana-FAM

00:30 05:00 07:00 10:00 12:00 14:00 18:15 20:30 22:00 22:30 23:00

European PGA Tour Premier League Darts Snooker The Welsh Open World Cup Challenge Pro 12 Celtic League European PGA Tour Live Pro 12 Celtic League Volvo Ocean Race Futbol Mundial ODI Cricket Highlights Super League

01:00 01:30 03:30 07:00 08:45 10:15 13:30 14:30 16:00 21:30 22:00

ODI Cricket Highlights World Club Challenge Premier League Darts World Club Challenge Live Volvo Ocean Race Snooker The Welsh Open Trans World Sport Volvo Ocean Race Live Snooker The Welsh Open ODI Cricket Highlights Live Snooker The Welsh Open

The Fog Of War-PG15

01:00 The Clearing-18 03:00 Jane Eyre-PG15 05:00 Chasing Papi-PG

01:00 02:00 04:00 05:00

WWE Bottom Line WWE SmackDown WWE NXT UFC The Ultimate Fighter

00:30 ODI Cricket Highlights 01:00 Pro 12 Celtic League 03:00 Top 14 Highlights 03:30 Trans World Sport 04:30 World Club Challenge 06:30 ICC Cricket World 07:00 Pro 12 Celtic League 09:00 ODI Cricket Highlights 10:30 Top 14 Highlights 11:00 Scottish Premier League Highlights 11:30 Volvo Ocean Race 13:00 World Club Challenge 15:00 Pro 12 Celtic League 17:00 Live Top 14 19:00 ODI Cricket Highlights 19:30 ICC Cricket World 20:00 Futbol Mundial 20:30 Pro 12 Celtic League 22:30 Trans World Sport

00:00 Smallville 01:00 Survivor: One World 02:00 Supernatural 03:00 American Idol 04:00 Glee 05:00 Drop Dead Diva 06:00 Smallville 07:00 Warehouse 13 08:00 Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior 09:00 Drop Dead Diva 10:00 American Idol 11:00 Glee 12:00 Warehouse 13 13:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show 14:00 Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior 15:00 Smallville 16:00 Parks And Recreation 16:30 Coronation Street 17:00 The Ellen DeGeneres Show 18:00 Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior 19:00 Breakout Kings 20:00 Criminal Minds 21:00 C.S.I. Miami 22:00 Top Gear (UK) 23:00 Sons Of Anarchy

01:00 03:00 05:00 07:00 09:00 11:00 13:00

Julia’s Eyes-18 Kiss Of Death-18 Don’t Look Up-18 The Karate Kid II-PG Star Trek: First Contact-PG Altitude-PG15 Drunken Master-PG15

THE BOUNTY HUNTER ON OSN MOVIES HD

01:40 01:40 03:20 04:50 04:50 06:20 07:50 07:50 10:10 10:10 11:55 11:55 13:35 15:20 15:20 16:45 16:45 18:20 18:20 19:55 19:55 20:10 20:10 22:00 22:00

The Passage-18 The Passage Extremities Till The End Of The Night-Pg Till The End Of The Night Heart Of Midnight Avanti-Pg Avanti Flight From Ashiya-Pg Flight From Ashiya Romantic Comedy-Pg Romantic Comedy Tennessee Nights Road Rage-Pg Road Rage Delirious-Pg Delirious The Spree-Pg The Spree Mgm’s Big Screen-Fam Mgm’s Big Screen Ulee’s Gold-Pg Ulee’s Gold Salvador-18 Salvador

00:40 02:25 04:35 07:30 08:00 09:35 11:00 PG 12:55 15:00 16:55 19:05 21:10 23:00

Brewster Mccloud Cool Hand Luke Grand Prix-PG TCM Presents Under The...-U The Letter-FAM The Strip-PG Somebody Up There Likes Me-

00:00 01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 08:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

Deep Sea Detectives Ax Men Investigating History American Restoration Seeking Salvage Pawn Stars Deep Sea Detectives Ax Men Investigating History American Restoration Seeking Salvage Pawn Stars Deep Sea Detectives Ax Men Investigating History American Restoration Seeking Salvage Pawn Stars Deep Sea Detectives Ax Men The Crusades America: The Story Of The Us Monumental Challenge Modern Marvels

The Hill-PG Les Girls-PG The Champ-PG Humoresque-PG Summer Stock-FAM The Postman Always Rings

00:40 Samurai Jack 01:30 The Marvelous Misadventures Of Flapjack 02:20 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 08:25 Casper’s Scare School 08:55 Angelo Rules 09:30 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 09:55 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 10:20 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 10:40 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated

11:05 Gumball 11:30 Redakai: Conquer The Kairu 11:55 Adventure Time 12:20 Courage The Cowardly Dog 13:10 Ben 10 13:35 Ben 10 14:00 The Grim Adventures Of Billy & Mandy 14:50 The Amazing World Of Gumball 15:15 Generator Rex 15:40 Generator Rex 16:05 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 16:30 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 16:55 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 17:20 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 17:45 Adventure Time 18:35 The Amazing World Of Gumball 19:00 Regular Show 19:25 Regular Show 19:50 Generator Rex 20:15 Generator Rex 20:40 Courage The Cowardly Dog 21:30 Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes 21:55 Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes 22:20 Star Wars: The Clone Wars 22:40 Star Wars: The Clone Wars 23:00 Ben 10 23:25 Ben 10 23:50 Courage The Cowardly Dog

00:40 Dr G: Medical Examiner 01:30 The Haunted 02:15 A Haunting 03:05 I Was Murdered 03:50 I Escaped Death 04:40 Dr G: Medical Examiner 05:25 The Haunted 06:15 A Haunting 07:10 Life Or Death: Medical Mysteries 08:00 On The Run 08:50 Forensic Detectives 09:40 Murder Shift 10:25 Mystery ER 11:10 Real Emergency Calls 11:35 Who On Earth Did I Marry?

11:55 On The Case With Paula Zahn 12:40 Disappeared 13:25 Murder Shift 14:15 Mystery ER 15:00 Real Emergency Calls 15:25 Who On Earth Did I Marry?

15:50 On The Case With Paula Zahn 16:35 Disappeared 17:20 On The Run 18:10 Forensic Detectives 19:00 Murder Shift 19:45 Real Emergency Calls 20:10 Mystery ER 20:55 Who On Earth Did I Marry?

21:20 On The Case With Paula Zahn 22:10 Disappeared 23:00 The Haunted 23:50 Ghost Lab

00:00 Globe Trekker 01:00 Planet Food 02:00 Intrepid Journeys 03:00 Planet Sports 04:00 Tall Ship Explorers 05:00 Globe Trekker 06:00 Planet Food 07:00 Flavours Of Mexico 07:30 Life’s A Trip 08:00 Globe Trekker 09:00 Sophie Grigson In The Orient 09:30 Sophie Grigson In The Orient 10:00 Chef Abroad 10:30 Chef Abroad 11:00 Top Travel 11:30 Top Travel 12:00 The Ethical Hedonist 13:00 Globe Trekker 14:00 Indian Times 15:00 Wild Camping 16:00 Third Class Traveller 17:00 Globe Trekker 18:00 World’s Greatest Motorcycle Rides 19:00 Secrets Of Bangkok 20:00 Globe Trekker 21:00 Going South 21:30 Essential 22:00 Inside Luxury Travel-Varun Sharma 23:00 Globe Trekker

WHAT’S ON SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Happy birthday

Folk music festival ‘Kathirmanikal’

K

B

elated First Happy birthday to Johan Jolly who celebrated his birthday on February 16.

Greetings from parents and relatives.

erala Association Kuwait held a folk music festival called ‘Kathirmanikal’ at the United Indian School, Abbassiya last week in which hundreds of artists participated. The festival that was held in two categories - juniors and seniors, showcased the rich folkloric tradition and diversity of Kerala.

In the junior category, Salmiya Kids bagged the first prize, Aparna

Shine Team second prize and Salmiya Kids won the third prize.

In the senior category the first prize went for two teams, Friends of Kannur and Fahaheel Nadodikoottam while the second prize was bagged by Kazhcha. The third prize was bagged by Abyat Company Workers Recreation. A large numbers of people from different walks of life were present to watch the festival.

National Day Carnival

F

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!

NPIS celebrates Eid Milad-un-Nabi

N

PIS celebrated Eid Milad-un-Nabi with great religious fervor. Students from class 1 to IGCSE took part in the celebration. They recited Na’at, presented Tableau and rendered speeches to throw light on the life history of

Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) who was sent not only for one tribe or a nation as other prophets but for the whole mankind as blessing as the Holy Quran says, “I have sent thee the Prophet with the true light of guidance so that he may

proclaim over all the religions and only the pagans will detest it.” The Director of the school also attended the function and appreciated the efforts of the teachers and students in organizing such a wonderful celebration.

WHAT’S ON SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Announcements 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

Cultural Day - Amman style

W

ithout culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. - Albert Camus.

True to the letter and spirit of the French genius, Camus, ICSK Amman hosted one of the most colorful shows on February 9 at the ICSK Senior School Auditorium with the sole aim of edifying and entertaining the spectators. The three-hour show was a feast to the aesthetic sensibilities to the audience present. The auditorium was packed to its capacity and the crowd had spilled all across the courtyard outside. The chief guest was Preeti Satish Mehta, the wife of the Indian Ambassador to Kuwait and the guest list included the luminaries from the board of trustees Chairman Ashok Kalra, Secretary Rajan Daniel, Treasurer Dinesh Kamath, Jt Secretaries Vijay Karayil and Francis Machado, and the other revered Members of the Board.

The evening started with the invocation of the Almighty, followed by the National Anthems of Kuwait and India and then the lighting of the ceremonial lamp of knowledge by the dignitaries.

The Principal of ICSK Amman, Sridevi Pradeep extended a warm welcome to all the dignitaries and the invited guests. The Chief Guest in her address congratulated the prize winners and appreciated the whole hearted efforts of the students and the teachers in putting up a great show. The chairman Ashok Kalra expressed his gratitude to the Chief Guest for taking time out to be a part of the evening show and extolled the sincere attempts of the staff and the students of the Amman branch in staging a thoroughly entertaining show.

The cultural items included theme dances based on varied cultures from the Indian states of Kerala, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan to Japan and Spain etc. The soulful plea of conservation of the birds and a skit based on the theme of unity were also part of the agenda. All of them were received with a huge applause. “Kabuki Rhythm”, the Japanese theme dance and the Hand mime with the most relevant theme of unity won the hearts of the audience and were also adjudged the best two items of the evening. The winners of the various CCA from all the classes were awarded their mementoes and certificates by the dignitaries. The children were filled with pride and honor to be thus appreciated in public. The vote of thanks was proposed by Sherly Dennis, Vice Principal of Amman branch. The show came to a magnificent conclusion with “grand finale”, the Curtain Call during which the selected participants and the teachers were

invited to the stage and given a standing ovation. Principal Sridevi Pradeep unveiled a banner which declared “ICSK Amman, Setting the Trend...” and commended the hard work of each and every person involved in the successful conduct of the show. The Amman flag keeps flying high.

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 Kidiyoor-97204716/99596457,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 Balakrishna to visit Kuwait Prominent Telugu film Hero Nandamuri Balakrishna coming to Kuwait on 5th April 2012 for 2days short visit for the invitation of Pravasaandhra Telugu Desam, NBK seva samithi. Nadamuri Balakrishna is popularly known as "Balayya" and "NBK" by his fans and admirers. He is the son of the former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh and Telugu film legend Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao. He then starred in many critical and commercial films and established himself as one of the leading contemporary actors of Telugu Cinema.

In addition to films, Balakrishna is associated with several philanthropic and social organizations activities. He campaigned for the Telugu Desam Party in the 2009 Assembly elections, and he is the chairman of the trust board of The Basavatarakam Indo American Cancer Hospital & Research Institute. Balakrishna will be the Chief Guest in the “Musical Night” Program which will be organized by Pravasaandhra Telugu Desam, NBK seva samithi on 6th April evening. Social entrepreneur awardee Guttikonda Thakoor is convening and also participating in this program. For More details Contact Pravaasandra Telugu Desam Officials Mulakala Subbarayudu, Ph: 55770769, Venkat Koduri, Ph: 97200952, Malepati Suresh Babu, Ph: 99547190, Adusupalli Udaya Prakash, Ph 55524888, Pidikiti Sreenivas Chowdary Ph: 66488028, Email: nbksevasamithikwt@yahoo.com

HEALTH SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Vivus diet pill under FDA scanner WASHINGTON: Federal health officials say they still have safety concerns about an experimental diet pill from drugmaker Vivus Inc., as the company prepares to make a second attempt to convince experts of the drug’s safety next week.

Vivus, based in Mountain View, Calif., is one of three small drugmakers racing to bring the first new prescription weight loss drug to market in more than a decade. In the past two years the Food and Drug Administration has rejected pills from all three: Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc., Orexigen Therapeutics Inc. and Vivus. All three companies are in the process of resubmitting their products.

The FDA had rejected the diet pill

Qnexa in October 2010. Vivus has resubmitted the drug with additional follow-up information, hoping for a more favorable ruling. But in documents posted online Friday, the FDA reiterated concerns about two safety issues that plagued the pill the time first around: Potential heart problems and birth defects in women who become pregnant while taking the drug.

On Wednesday the FDA will ask experts at a public meeting to weigh in on those issues, specifically risks of cleft lip defects associated with one of the ingredients in Qnexa. The experts will also discuss increased blood pressure and higher heart rates reported for patients taking the drug. The panel of doctors will

take a final vote on whether the drug appears safe and effective.

The group’s recommendation is not binding, and the FDA is expected to make its final decision in April. With U.S. obesity rates nearing 35 percent among adults, doctors and public health officials say new weight-loss therapies are desperately needed. And even a modestly effective drug could have blockbuster potential.

But none of the three medicines before the FDA represents a breakthrough in research. Qnexa is a combination of two older drugs. The amphetamine phentermine, which is approved for short-term weight loss, and topiramate, an anticonvulsant drug sold by Johnson & Johnson

as Topamax. Phentermine helps suppress appetite, while topiramate is supposed to make patients feel more satiated.

Many analysts had picked Qnexa as the most promising contender of the new potential diet pills because of the high level of weight loss reported in company studies. On average, patients lost more than 10 percent of their total body mass.

But at Qnexa’s first FDA panel in 2010, experts assembled by the food and drug regulator voted 10-6 to not recommend the drug’s approval. Panelists said the drug was associated with a number of dangerous side effects, including suicidal thoughts, heart palpitations, memory lapses and birth defects. — AP

Bird flu is still a menace in Asia H5N1 virus kills 345 people worldwide since 2003

PRAGUE: Nora, a Rothschild giraffe, stares at the camera at Prague Zoo yesterday. — AP

1% of human genes switched off: Study LONDON: Scientists studying the human genome have found that each of us is carrying around 20 genes that have been completely inactivated, suggesting that not all switched-off genes are harmful to health. A team at Britain’s Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is developing a new catalogue of so-called “loss-of-function” (LoF) gene variants to help identify new disease-causing mutations, and say their work will help scientists better understand the normal function of human genes.

Working as part of larger study called the 1000 Genomes Project, the team developed a series of filters to identify common errors in the human genome, which maps the entire genetic code. “The key questions we focused on for this study were how many of these LoF variants were real and how large a role might they play in human disease,” said Daniel MacArthur of the Sanger Institute, who worked on the team.

The researchers looked at nearly 3,000 possible LoF variants in the genomes of 185 people from Europe, East Asia and West Africa. Their findings were published in the journal Science on Thursday. Loss of function variants are genetic changes that are predicted to severely disrupt the function of genes. Some are known to cause severe human diseases such as muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis.

Previous genome sequencing projects have suggested there are hundreds of these variants in the DNA of even perfectly healthy individuals, but researchers were not able to tell exactly how many. In this study, the filters revealed that 56 percent of the 3,000 possible LoFs analysed were unlikely to seriously affect gene function. — Reuters

HANOI: Thought bird flu was gone?

Recent human deaths in Asia and Egypt are a reminder that the H5N1 virus is still alive and dangerous, and Vietnam is grappling with a new strain that has outsmarted vaccines used to protect poultry flocks. Ten people have died in Cambodia, Indonesia, Egypt, China and Vietnam since December during the prime-time flu season when the virus typically flares in poultry. “We are worried, and we will be very cautious,” said To Long Thanh, director of Vietnam’s Center for Animal Health Diagnostics in Vietnam.

The H5N1 virus has killed 345 people worldwide since 2003, when it rampaged across large swaths of Asia decimating poultry stocks before later surfacing in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Europe. The number of poultry outbreaks has greatly diminished since then, but the virus remains entrenched in several countries and continues to surface sporadically, resulting in 20 to 30 human deaths globally in recent years.

Bird flu remains hard for people to catch, with most people sickened after being in close contact with infected poultry, but experts have long feared it could spark a pandemic if it mutates into a form that spreads easily among people. The fresh wave of cases comes amid a controversy involving scientists who created new lab-only versions of the virus that spread more easily among animals, hoping to better understand it.

After a loud uproar over whether publishing the research would put the recipe for a bioweapon into the hands of terrorists, the researchers have agreed to temporarily halt their work.

They are set to wrap up a two-day meeting on the issue Friday with international experts at the World Health Organization in Geneva.

Vietnam has long struggled to control the virus, but it has made progress going 21 months before reporting its two most recent deaths in the past month. It has also experienced a burst of poultry outbreaks in 11 provinces

HA GIANG: In this photo, an ethnic Hmong woman ties a chicken’s legs while selling live poultry at a Dong Van market in Vietnam.—AP nationwide over the same period.

Officials have issued fresh warnings for farmers to beef up surveillance, especially since they can no longer rely on the latest poultry vaccine in the north and central aress where it is weak or useless against a new strain that has emerged in the region.

“We have to increase biosecurity,” said Thanh, the animal diagnostics director. The new strain had earlier been identified in China and was also recently found in Bangladesh and Nepal, where it likely spread via wild birds, said Jan Slingenbergh, a senior animal health officer at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. Viruses are constantly mutating and require new vaccines to protect against infection - the same reason new human seasonal flu shots are developed each year. A new vaccine is in the works, and scientists have stressed that the new strain has not changed in any way that suggests the virus is becoming more dangerous.

The U.N. agriculture agency warned of a possible resurgence in bird flu outbreaks after the new strain was identi-

fied, potentially increasing risk to humans. However, Vietnam’s two recent deaths occurred in the southern Mekong Delta, where the vaccine remains effective. WHO stressed it is also normal to see a spike in cases and poultry outbreaks during this time of year.

“WHO has always said that as long as the virus is entrenched in poultry, which it is, there continues to be the risk of birdto-human transmission,” spokesman Gregory Hartl said in Geneva. “That risk means that you cannot predict exactly if the transmission will happen and if it will be regular, but there is the risk so that’s why it’s not surprising to see cases.” Vietnam buys most of its poultry vaccine from China, which has continued with its robust vaccination campaign of some 15 billion doses despite the emergence of the new strain.

Researchers there have developed a new version that works against the strain, but it’s unclear when it might be ready for distribution, said Keith Hamilton, an animal influenza expert at the Paris-based World Organization of Animal Health. — AP

HEALTH SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

CLASSIFIEDS 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.

Contact: 60914165. (C 3868) Sharing available for Christian family, C-A/C, room + bathroom, near Learners Academy, Abbassiya. Small family or two bachelors.

Contact: 66265733 / 24346514.

(C 3869) 12-2-2012

FOR SALE Chevrolet Optra 2009 is on immediate sale for KD 2,350/as expat leaving Kuwait.

Showroom maintained and in excellent condition. Contact: 99754454.

(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

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) 14-2-2012 I, Sobhana Kumari, holder of Indian Passport No. F0925460 here by change my name Sara Saad Mubarak Salman. (C 3870) 13-2-2011

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.

Price KD 70. Tel: 97790478 A 3700 watt, 2012 model ASTRA generator for sale.

Japanese parts assembled in China with pressure and gas meters. Price KD 85. Tel: 60066891 For rent in Hawalli a one bedroom (4x4m) and a 7x3.5 m reception+ terrace, fully equipped kitchen and bathroom. Tunis street, behind Al-Andalus pharmacy. Tel: 99683200 A 2008 white, 1600 CC Nissan Sunny. Price KD 1700. Tel: 99553221 A 2008 dark blue 6 cylinder Toyota Prado with Beige sued interior, low mileage, touch A/C, CD, cruise control, front and rear sensors for sale. Price KD 6650. Tel: 99275550 A 2009 white, 6 cylinder Toyota Prado with 40,000 mileage touch A/C, CD, cruise control, front and rear sensors for sale. Price KD 7850. Tel: 9747750855809093 A 2009 YUKUN Suburban GMC XL with low mileage and beige sued interior, electric seats, cruise control, super headlights, rear camera, remote recording and

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

rear sensors. Price 8550.

Tel: 99301914 For rent a two storey villa and a basement in Mangaf including 8 rooms, laundry room, yard, parking. Rent value KD 1000. Tel: 97996900 A storey and half for rent in Mangaf including two 3 bedroom apartments with 2 baths, reception, kitchen, driver room each. Tel: 66989887 For rent a ground floor in Qurain comprising of four rooms, large reception, 5 baths, maid room, courtyard, parking. Rent value KD 550. Tel: 66989887 A fully central air-conditioned two room annex in Mangaf with separate exit and shaded car parking for rent to expatriates. Tel: 67753557 For rent in Ashbelia: two apartments with 3 bedrooms, bath, kitchen and maid room each plus a yard in between. Tel: 90001594 A 2005 Mini Cooper for sale. Tel: 99224855 A 2006 Lumina for sale with genuine factory paint.

Price KD 2100. Tel: 69945429 A 2009 Touareg for sale.

Price 6350. Tel: 96670777 Senior English teacher for Pakistani, bilingual schools, T.M.A., Ielts, Toefl, IBT K.S.S., social studies and math.

Tel: 99577430 For sale: a 375 square meter house in Omariya, fully rented for KD 600.

Price KD 185,000. Tel: 66815590 Transportation service available. Payment in advanced conditioned for all areas. Tel: 66678633 The smallest and most up to date recording device (2012 model) for sale.

Finger size, voice activated, records up to 600 hrs, made in Japan. Free delivery. Tel: 99773818 Original guaranteed Palestinian virgin olive oil for sale. Tel: 55740271 Upholster and tailor needed with good experience.

Salary determined per experience. Tel: 97813458

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

No: 15363

Prel, Mathematics, intermediate, gmat, sat college, math98, 110 pre calculus geometry. 97619261 A Syrian Arabic language teacher. Masters in methods of teaching and follow up of 10th grade and 11th grade students. 97934291 Islamic education teacher for elementary and intermediate stages. Experienced in Kuwait curricula. Easy explanation, and summary of the subject, training for exams.

66292985 Syrian Arabic language teacher for elementary and intermediate stages.

Experienced in following learning difficulties, and those weak in reading and writing. 97264100 Female senior Mathematics teacher with more that 30

years experience in Kuwait, to teach secondary, intermediate and elementary stages.

Religious and applied, communications and navigation institutions, special courses and secretariat institution.

97926737 Computer teacher for secondary and intermediate.

Practical on laptop, power point projects, front page, visual basic data, universities and applied institutions.

50603063

information SATURDAY, FEBRUARY18, 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 JZR JZR QTR KLM JZR ETH THY PIA UAE OMA QTR DHX MSR FDB ETD GFA THY DHX FCX JZR KAC JZR BAW KAC KAC FDB KAC KAC KAC JZR KAC KAC KAC UAE ABY QTR ETD FDB GFA RKM JZR RBG IRM BAB MSR KAC GFA MSR JZR FDB MSR UAL GRF QTR KNE SVA RJA KAC KAC JZR LMU QTR KNE JZR IRC JZR ETD KAC UAE GFA CLX SVA ABY JZR

Arrival Flights on Saturday 18/2/2012 Flt Route 553 ALEXANDRIA 185 DUBAI 138 DOHA 447 AMSTERDAM 539 CAIRO 620 ADDIS ABABA 772 ISTANBUL 239 SIALKOT 853 DUBAI 641 MUSCAT 148 DOHA 370 BAHRAIN 612 CAIRO 67 DUBAI 305 ABU DHABI 211 BAHRAIN 770 ISTANBUL 170 BAHRAIN 201 DUBAI 503 LUXOR 416 JAKARTA 555 ALEXANDRIA 157 LONDON 412 MANILA 206 ISLAMABAD 53 DUBAI 352 COCHIN 382 DELHI 302 MUMBAI 531 ASSIUT 284 DHAKA 362 COLOMBO 344 CHENNAI 855 DUBAI 125 SHARJAH 132 DOHA 301 ABU DHABI 55 DUBAI 213 BAHRAIN 310 RAS ALKHAIMAH 165 DUBAI 3553 ALEXANDRIA 5066 MASHAD 436 BAHRAIN 610 CAIRO 672 DUBAI 219 BAHRAIN 621 ASSIUT 241 AMMAN 57 DUBAI 606 LUXOR 982 WASHINGTON DC DULLES 93 KANDAHAR 140 DOHA 745 JEDDAH 500 JEDDAH 640 AMMAN 562 AMMAN 786 JEDDAH 257 BEIRUT 611 ALEXANDRIA 134 DOHA 839 JEDDAH 535 CAIRO 6791 MASHAD 357 MASHAD 303 ABU DHABI 118 NEW YORK 857 DUBAI 215 BAHRAIN 792 LUXEMBOURG 510 RIYADH 127 SHARJAH 777 JEDDAH

Time 0:10 0:20 0:20 0:30 0:50 1:45 2:15 2:20 2:35 2:50 2:55 2:55 3:00 3:05 3:10 3:15 4:50 5:15 5:30 5:55 6:25 6:35 6:40 6:45 7:40 7:45 7:50 7:50 7:55 8:00 8:15 8:20 8:25 8:30 9:00 9:05 9:15 9:20 9:55 10:40 11:20 11:35 12:40 12:55 12:55 13:20 13:25 13:30 13:35 13:50 13:55 14:05 14:15 14:20 14:25 14:30 14:40 14:45 14:50 15:00 15:10 15:25 16:15 16:25 16:30 16:50 16:50 16:55 16:55 17:15 17:15 17:20 17:40 17:45

KAC ALK RBG FDB KAC KAC JZR JZR QTR KAC KAC IRA KAC KAC KAC KAC SYR JAI OMA AIC AXB MSR KAC DHX KNE KNE MEA GFA QTR UAE KLM KAC FDB JZR JZR UAL BBC DLH

550 227 3563 63 502 542 177 125 6130 178 618 607 674 104 774 790 341 572 647 975 393 618 788 372 789 843 402 217 136 859 445 614 61 135 239 981 43 636

SOHAG COLOMBO ALEXANDRIA DUBAI BEIRUT CAIRO DUBAI BAHRAIN DOHA GENEVA DOHA MASHAD DUBAI LONDON RIYADH MEDINAH DAMASCUS MUMBAI MUSCAT CHENNAI KOZHIKODE ALEXANDRIA JEDDAH BAHRAIN JEDDAH JEDDAH BEIRUT BAHRAIN DOHA DUBAI AMSTERDAM BAHRAIN DUBAI BAHRAIN AMMAN BAHRAIN DHAKA FRANKFURT

Airlines PIA UAL AIC JZR DLH KLM ETH THY PIA FDB UAE OMA DHX MSR ETD QTR QTR THY JZR GFA JZR FDB BAW JZR KAC JZR KAC KAC KAC UAE ABY ETD KAC FDB QTR

Departure Flights on Saturday 18/2/2012 Flt Route 216 KARACHI 981 WASHINGTON DC 976 GOA 530 ASSIUT 637 FRANKFURT 447 AMSTERDAM 621 ADDIS ABABA 773 ISTANBUL 240 SIALKOT 68 DUBAI 854 DUBAI 642 MUSCAT 371 BAHRAIN 613 CAIRO 306 ABU DHABI 139 DOHA 149 DOHA 771 ISTANBUL 164 DUBAI 212 BAHRAIN 240 AMMAN 54 DUBAI 156 LONDON 256 BEIRUT 671 DUBAI 534 CAIRO 561 AMMAN 785 JEDDAH 101 LONDON 856 DUBAI 126 SHARJAH 302 ABU DHABI 549 SOHAG 56 DUBAI 133 DOHA

18:00 18:10 18:25 18:40 18:45 18:50 18:50 19:00 19:00 19:10 19:15 19:20 19:25 19:35 19:40 19:55 20:00 20:10 20:15 20:25 20:40 20:45 20:55 21:00 21:05 21:15 21:20 21:25 21:35 21:40 22:05 22:05 22:15 22:30 22:45 23:00 23:45 23:50

Time 0:30 0:45 0:50 1:15 1:20 1:45 2:45 3:15 3:30 3:45 3:50 3:55 3:55 4:00 4:00 4:40 5:40 5:50 6:55 7:00 8:05 8:25 8:40 9:00 9:00 9:15 9:20 9:25 9:35 9:40 9:45 10:00 10:00 10:05 10:10

GFA JZR RKM KAC KAC RBG JZR KAC MSR IRM GFA JZR MSR FDB MSR KAC KNE UAL KAC RJA KAC JZR KAC LMU SVA KAC QTR KAC KNE JZR QTR IRC ETD JZR GRF UAE GFA ABY SVA CLX JZR BAB KAC RBG ALK FDB JZR JZR KAC IRA QTR SYR KAC DHX KAC JAI OMA MSR KNE KAC DHX KNE KAC MEA GFA KAC FCX QTR JZR KAC UAE KAC KLM FDB JZR KAC

214 356 311 165 541 3564 776 501 611 5065 220 176 622 58 607 673 746 982 789 641 617 124 787 612 505 773 141 153 840 238 135 6792 304 538 82 858 216 128 511 792 266 437 613 3554 228 64 134 184 283 616 6131 342 331 171 351 571 648 619 790 543 373 844 675 403 218 381 102 137 554 301 860 205 445 62 528 411

BAHRAIN MASHHAD RAS ALKHAIMAH ROME CAIRO ALEXANDRIA JEDDAH BEIRUT CAIRO MASHHAD BAHRAIN DUBAI ASSIUT DUBAI LUXOR DUBAI JEDDAH BAHRAIN MADINAH AMMAN DOHA BAHRAIN JEDDAH ALEXANDRIA JEDDAH RIYADH DOHA ISTANBUL JEDDAH AMMAN DOHA MASHHAD ABU DHABI CAIRO BAGHDAD DUBAI BAHRAIN SHARJAH RIYADH ONG KONG BEIRUT BAHRAIN BAHRAIN ALEXANDRIA DUBAI DUBAI BAHRAIN DUBAI DHAKA AHWAZ DOHA DAMASCUS TRIVANDRUM BAHRAIN KOCHI MUMBAI MUSCAT ALEXANDRIA JEDDAH CAIRO BAHRAIN JEDDAH DUBAI BEIRUT BAHRAIN DELHI BAHRAIN DOHA ALEXANDRIA MUMBAI DUBAI ISLAMABAD BAHRAIN DUBAI ASSIUT BANGKOK

Directorate General of Civil Aviation Home Page (www.kuwait-airport.com.kw)

10:40 10:50 11:40 11:45 12:00 12:15 12:15 13:00 13:55 14:15 14:20 14:25 14:30 14:35 14:55 15:05 15:10 15:20 15:30 15:35 15:50 15:50 15:55 15:55 16:00 16:25 16:30 16:35 17:05 17:15 17:25 17:30 17:35 17:40 18:00 18:10 18:15 18:25 18:35 18:45 18:45 18:55 19:00 19:05 19:10 19:20 19:40 19:55 20:15 20:20 20:30 21:00 21:00 21:00 21:05 21:10 21:15 21:45 21:50 21:55 22:00 22:05 22:10 22:20 22:25 22:30 22:30 22:35 22:45 22:45 22:50 23:00 23:05 23:10 23:35 23:55

C R O S S W O R D

5 9 2

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Word Sleuth Solution

Yesterday始s Solution

ACROSS 1. Any piece of work that is undertaken or attempted.

5. Tropical starchy tuberous root.

9. A strong current of air.

13. South American armadillo with three bands of bony plates.

14. A fraudulent business scheme.

15. A state in the western United States.

16. Cubes of meat marinated and cooked on a skewer usually with vegetables.

17. An inclination to withhold approval from some person or group.

19. Any of various strong liquors distilled from the fermented sap of toddy palms or from fermented molasses.

20. The syllable naming the fourth (subdominant) note of the diatonic scale in solmization.

22. Any of various spiny trees or shrubs of the genus Acacia.

23. An ugly evil-looking old woman.

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

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

28. A heavy brittle diamagnetic trivalent metallic element (resembles arsenic and antimony chemically).

30. An organization of independent states to promote international peace and security.

31. (Babylonian) God of storms and wind.

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

37. A radioactive element of the actinide series.

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

39. Port city in northwestern Belgium and industrial center.

41. Long-tailed brilliantly colored parrot of Central and South America.

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

46. German mystic and theosophist who founded modern theosophy.

47. An informal term for a father.

48. Thigh of a hog (usually smoked).

49. The sense organ for hearing and equilibrium.

50. A master's degree in fine arts.

52. Before noon.

54. (used of count nouns) Every one considered individually.

59. A person to whom money is paid.

62. An independent agency of the United States government responsible for collecting and coordinating intelligence and counterintelligence activities abroad in the national interest.

63. A city in northern India.

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

66. A nap in the early afternoon (especially in hot countries).

69. (informal) Of the highest quality.

70. (Judaism) Sacred chest where the ancient Hebrews kept the two tablets containing the Ten Commandments.

71. Make a marcel in a woman's hair.

72. The cry made by sheep.

DOWN 1. The basic unit of money in Bangladesh.

2. Someone who copies the words or behavior of another.

3. A region of Malaysia in northeastern Borneo.

4. An industrial city in southern Poland on the Vistula.

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

6. The district occupied entirely by the city of Washington.

7. An informal term for a father.

8. Type genus of the Amiidae.

9. A Russian prison camp for political prisoners.

10. A city in central New York.

11. British writer of short stories (1870-1916).

12. (Greek mythology) The Titaness who was mother of Helios and Selene and Eos in ancient mythology.

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

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

24. Relatively small gnawing animals having a single pair of constantly growing incisor teeth specialized for gnawing.

26. (Babylonian) A demigod or first man.

29. The United Nations agency concerned with civil aviation.

32. In bed.

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

34. Mild yellow Dutch cheese made in balls.

36. A dull persistent (usually moderately intense) pain.

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

42. Affect with wonder.

43. Germanic barbarian leader who ended the western Roman Empire in 476 and became the first barbarian ruler of Italy (434-493).

44. A rotating disk shaped to convert circular into linear motion.

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

53. A flat-bottomed volcanic crater that was formed by an explosion.

55. (computer science) A kind of computer architecture that has a large number of instructions hard coded into the cpu chip.

56. The emotion of hate.

57. Type genus of the family Arcidae.

58. (Greek mythology) Goddess of the earth and mother of Cronus and the Titans in ancient mythology.

60. Noisy talk.

61. Electronic warfare undertaken under direct control of an operational commander to locate sources of radiated electromagnetic energy for the purpose of immediate threat recognition.

64. Light informal conversation for social occasions.

67. A state in midwestern United States.

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

Yesterday始s Solution

SPORTS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Berdych, Del Potro join Federer in quarters ROTTERDAM: Tomas Berdych and Juan Martin del Potro joined resting top seed Roger Federer in the Rotterdam Open quarter-finals on Thursday. Second seed Berdych advanced with only minimal effort as opponent Marcos Baghdatis quit with a left foot injury after 19 minutes on court while trailing 3-0 in their second round match. But Del Potro, the number three seed making his debut here, had a battle on his hands before he finally got past Slovak Karol Beck 6-4, 75.

On Wednesday, Federer moved easily into the last eight at the Ahoy stadium when scheduled second round opponent Mikhail Youzhny withdrew a day before their contest with a left foot injury. Federer still had to go out and win his opening match against Frenchman Nicolas Mahut, which he did, 6-4, 6-4. Del Potro had to overcome a slight bloody nose which required a medical timeout early in the contest with Beck. Once that was sorted, it was back to work for the 2009 US Open champion, who advanced with nine aces - his last one earned two match points.

Del Potro needed almost two hours to move into a match against Serb seventh seed Victor Troicki who put out Jesse Huta Galung, the last local player left in the tournament. “He played so fast and hits with such a low bounce, I really had to keep up,” said Del Potro of Beck. “It was tough. “But I focused in the last game on trying to get an ace. I got one and I’m just glad that I’m through.” Frenchman Richard Gasquet, seeded fifth, continued his steady progress at his second tournament appearance, defeating Russian Alex Bogomolov 6-3, 6-2 while Italy’s Andreas Seppi dispatched German Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-4, 6-2.

The 16th-ranked Gasquet improved his record to seven wins this season to next face Russian Niklay Davydenko.

The Frenchman, with six career titles, went through to victory in just over an hour and a quarter with four aces and four breaks of the Bogomolov serve.

“I’m happy to win in two sets and get into the quarters,” said the winner, who lost in his first Rotterdam appearance in the 2009 first round. “I didn’t know how he plays, but I’m in good shape with my game and hoping to go further - why not win the next round?” His quarter-final with Davydenko is a repeat of the match he won this month in Montpellier, taking his record over the veteran Russian to four wins in five encounters.— AFP

Uzbeks hoodwinked as cunning trick backfires BERNE: Uzbekistan will start the fourth round of the Asian World Cup qualifying competition without five players after what appeared to be a cunning plan to use a “dead rubber” to wipe out yellow cards back-fired. The five players were all booked for time-wasting in the last 20 minutes of November’s World Cup qualifier against Tajikistan, who have lost all five games in third round Group C, have not scored and conceded 17 goals. Uzbekistan won 3-0.

Having already qualified for the next stage, the bookings meant the quintet had each accumulated two yellow cards in the competition to earn one-match bans they had hoped to serve in a meaningless final group game against North Korea.

However, FIFA confirmed on Friday that the players had been handed an extra one-match ban, meaning they will miss the opening match of the fourth stage of qualifying as well.

“Between the 70th minute (with Uzbekistan already winning 2-0) and the conclusion of the match, five Uzbekistan players - who had already received one yellow card in previous matches in round three of the AFC preliminary competition - were cautioned in separate incidents for deliberately delaying the restart of the match,” FIFA said in a statement.

“Shavkatjon Mulladjanov, Sanjar Tursunov, Islom Tuhtahujaev, Server Djeparov and Vagiz Galiulin have been sanctioned with a onematch suspension, to be served during Uzbekistan’s first match in Round 4 of the Asian preliminary competition for the 2014 World Cup, in addition to the automatic suspension incurred for two yellow cards. “Each player has also been fined 3,000 Swiss francs ($3,200).”

FIFA, which also fined the Uzbek federation 18,000 Swiss francs, said the decision was taken “having reviewed the official match reports and footage of the incidents, as well as taking into consideration all of the circumstances”. The fourth round of the competition consists of two groups of five teams, with the draw to be held in Kuala Lumpur in March.—Reuters

Heady day for Holmes ROTTERDAM: Marcos Baghdatis from Cyprus serves to Thomas Berdych from Czech Republic during their second round match at the ABN Amro tennis tournament. — AP

Unbeaten Cloud risks title; Ishida faces test CORPUS CHRISTI: Unbeaten Tavoris Cloud risks his International Boxing Federation lightheavyweight title and Japan’s Nobuhiro Ishida seeks a third first-round knockout in a row in today’s fight card. Cloud, 23-0 with 19 knockouts, defends his crown against Spanish southpaw Gabriel Campillo, 21-3 with one draw and eight knockouts, while Ishida will meet US southpaw Paul Williams in a light-middleweight showdown. Cloud, a 30-year-old American, won the title in 2009 by unanimous decision over Britain’s Clinton Woods and followed with 2010 triumphs over Jamaican-born Glen Johnson and Colombian Fulgencio

Zuniga the stopped compatriot Yusaf Mack in the eighth round last June.

“This will be my fourth title defense and I’m looking forward to getting it over quick,” Cloud said. “They always come to dethrone, kill and destroy but I am not the champ for no reason. When the final bell rings I’ll be victorious.”

Campillo, 34, comes off a draw with Germany’s Karo Murat last October. The Spaniard lost the WBA version of the light-heavyweight crown to Beibut Shumenov of Kazakstan in 2010. “I believe I will come out with the victory,” Campillo said. “Despite what Cloud says, it’s more difficult to become the champion than

retain the belt.”

Ishida, 24-6 with two drawn and nine knockouts, stopped James Kirkland in the first round last April and Mexican pro debutante Edson Espinosa in round one last November, but the Asian standout knows Williams is a bigger challenge. “He’s the toughest fighter of my boxing career but I am ready to win the fight,” Ishida said. “I thank him for giving me the chance but I’m going to win.” The 37-yearold from Osaka lost his interim World Boxing Association light-middleweight title to Mexico’s Rigoberto Alvarez in a split decision in 2010 in his rival’s homeland. —AFP

PACIFIC PALISADES: J B Holmes, competing in only his fourth PGA Tour event since having brain surgery, gave himself a major boost by charging into contention at the Northern Trust Open in Thursday. The big-hitting American birdied four of his first five holes, and three of his last four, to card a four-under-par 67 in the opening round at sunny but wind-buffeted Riviera Country Club. Having made just one cut in three starts on the 2012 PGA Tour, Holmes put himself in position to challenge for a third victory on the US circuit with his best score of the season.

“Overall it was a really good day for me,” the 29-year-old from Kentucky told reporters after mixing eight birdies with two bogeys and one double-bogey. “We got about four holes where the wind wasn’t blowing, so it was whipping most of the day on us. “Coming in (on his back nine) I made some bogeys, a couple of them were bad breaks and a couple of them I just hit a bad shot.

“But overall I hit the ball pretty good,” said Holmes, who ended the first round a stroke behind leader Phil Mickelson. “My mindset was really good all day, I made a bunch of birdies and putted pretty good.” — Reuters

SPORTS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 181, 2012

Tseng stages an impressive comeback PATTAYA: World number one Yani Tseng staged an impressive comeback on the second day of the $1.5 million Honda LPGA Thailand tournament yesterday before thunderstorms cut short play. After her disappointing one-over 73 on the opening day, the Taiwanese defending champion sparkled with a sevenunder 65 to get back in the running in joint seventh place with an eagle, seven birdies and two bogeys.

“In the first round I felt so sad about the way I had played and really disappointed. I was even crying.

But today I feel great,” she said.

Tseng could not fully explain why she played so much better in the second round which saw an improvement by eight strokes. “I think I was more focused and my putting was much better. “I had a good massage last night—that may have helped. I told my caddie that I felt I could go out and hit sevenunder, and that’s what I did.”

Australia’s Karrie Webb moved to the top of the leaderboard on 10under for the tournament with four holes to go when play was suspended for the day. The Australianís incomplete round at the Siam

Country Club’s Pattaya Old Course included a hole-in-one at the 12th. “I didn’t see it go in but I heard the crowd roar,” said a delighted Webb. ìIt was a very solid day but a little disappointing I couldn’t complete the round today. I hope I can carry on where I left off in the morning.”

Clubhouse leader when play was suspended was South Korea’s Jiyai Shin on eight-under after shooting a 66. Compatriot Amy Yang was also on eight-under but with four holes to play.

Sweden’s Caroline Hedwall was a further shot behind on 65, along

with Norway’s Suzann Pettersen and South Korea’s Choi Na-Yeon who still had four holes to play. Overnight leader Ai Miyazato from Japan was on six-under in joint seventh place, with five holes left.

Michelle Wie who shot a disappointing 75 in the first round had a much better day, moving up the leaderboard after hitting a fourunder 68 with five birdies and just one bogey. With just 70 players in the tournament there is no half-way cut, so there is still an opportunity for those lower down the field to work their way into contention. — AFP

Mickelson takes charge at Riviera Mahan, Holmes tied for second PACIFIC PALISADES: Red-hot Phil Mickelson, fresh from victory at the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am tomorrow, chipped in to birdie his last hole and grab a one-shot lead at the Northern Trust Open on Thursday. On a tricky day of strong, gusting winds at Riviera Country Club, the American left-hander delivered a superb fiveunder-par 66 to finish a stroke in front of compatriots JB Holmes and Hunter Mahan.

American Jonathan Byrd, who played in the stronger gusts of the morning, and Swede Carl Pettersson opened with 68s while British world number one Luke Donald launched his PGA Tour season with a 70. However, 30 players were still out on the course when play was suspended in fading light and they will complete the first round. Of those, 2006 winner Rory Sabbatini of South Africa was closest to the lead at two-under par with one hole remaining. Mickelson, champion here in 2008 and 2009, recorded six birdies and a lone bogey to replicate the scintillating form he unveiled in the final round at Pebble Beach where he closed with a flawless 64.

Having made his only mistake of the day at the par-three 16th, he was delighted to end his round with a 35-foot chip-in from just off the back of the green at the par-four 18th. “It wasn’t one I was really trying to make,” four-times major winner Mickelson told reporters. “It was quick, it was downhill and I had to play about four or five feet of break. “I was trying to get good speed and try to let it feed with the break. I got fortunate obviously that it went in.”

“I left one or two (shots) out on 16 and 17, and you hate to have such a good round and let a few slide late,” added Mickelson, who failed to birdie the par-five 17th. “To make that shot unexpectedly on 18 felt like I got one of those back.”

SIZZLING RUN US Ryder Cup player Mahan, who like Mickelson played in the afternoon, surged into contention with a sizzling run of four consecutive birdies from the par-four fifth, his 14th hole. “I hit it good all day, with just a couple loose swings. Other than that, it was very solid from tee to green,” Mahan said after recording eight birdies, two bogeys and one double-bogey. “I put myself in good position all day to make putts.

“The last seven holes the wind started to die down progressively, and by the end, it couldn’t be playing any nicer or any better, so I was excited to come make some birdies late.” Big-hitting Holmes had even more reason to celebrate his first-round charge as he is playing in only his fourth PGA Tour event since having brain surgery last year. The American returned to competition at last month’s Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego, having been sidelined since August after being diagnosed with Chiari malformation, structural defects in the part of the brain which controls balance.

“It feels great to get out here and put in a good round right off the bat,” the 29-year-old said on a day of winds gusting up to 35 mph through the Santa Monica Canyon. “I made a bunch of

CALIFORNIA: Phil Mickelson chips out of the rough on the second hole during the first round of the Northern Trust Open at the Riviera Country Club on February 16, 2012. — AFP birdies, a few mistakes, but overall it was a very good round for me, especially in these conditions. “It was really difficult. We got about four holes where the wind wasn’t blowing. It was whipping most of the day on us. “I’m probably not quite 100 percent, but I definitely feel a whole lot better with my swing and my game and everything right now than I did at San Diego for sure.” — Reuters

Harrison overcomes Ginepri SAN JOSE: American prospect Ryan Harrison saved two match points before storming through a third-set tiebreaker to reach the San Jose Open quarter-finals with a 6-3 2-6 7-6 victory over compatriot Robbie Ginepri on Thursday. The 19-year-old world number 94 saved the match points in the 12th game of the deciding set before racing through the subsequent tiebreak 7-0 against his vastly more experienced opponent. ìTo be able to keep it together in tight spots, especially being down two match points, Iím getting a lot better at staying under control,î Harrison told reporters. ìAt that point, if you lose the match, I just wanted to be able to look back on it and say I took the bull by the horns and lost on my terms.î Harrison struggled to hold serve in the opening game but soon found his rhythm to break Ginepri immediately as he dominated the first set. The 29-yearold Ginepri, who was ranked as high as world number 15 in 2005, rallied to take the second set 6-2 and both players held firm in the decider until the younger man pulled clear in the closing stages. Harrison will next face Bulgarian Dimitar Kutrovsky, a 7-5 6-3 winner over American lucky loser Blake Strode, who replaced top seed Gael Monfils in the draw after the Frenchman withdrew from the event due to a right knee injury on Wednesday.

In the final match of the day, Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan eased to a 6-2 6-2 victory over American Michael Russell to set up a quarter-final showdown against second seed and triple San Jose champion Andy Roddick. Fourth seed and 2009 champion Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic was the highestranked player to fall when he was upset 7-6 7-6 by Belgian Steve Darcis, who next plays Julien Benneteau of France, a 6-2 6-4 winner against Gilles Muller. In the other early match, sixth seeded South African Kevin Anderson dispatched Australian Matthew Ebden 6-1 6-2 and advanced to face defending champion Milos Raonic. — Reuters

SPORTS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Blackhawks snap 9-game skid NEW YORK: The Chicago Blackhawks snapped their nine-game losing skid in emphatic fashion on Thursday, scoring four goals in the opening period and beating the NHL Eastern Conference leading New York Rangers 4-2. Jonathan Toews kicked off the spree with a penalty shot just over a minute in, defenseman Nick Leddy doubled the lead 1:03 later, and Patrick Sharp and Marian Hossa added goals to make it 4-0 before 10 minutes had elapsed. Chicago, which had 22 shots, was 0-6-1 during the first seven games of a nine-game trip that ends Saturday at Columbus.

Marc Staal and Carl Hagelin scored for New York, which went 0 for 7 on the power play and missed a chance to jump over Detroit to the top of the NHL standings. The Rangers had won four straight to open a seven-point lead in the East over defending Stanley Cup champion Boston.

BLUES 5, ISLANDERS 1 In St Louis, Andy McDonald scored his first goal of the season to help St Louis comfortably beat New York. McDonald has played only six games after missing 51 with a concussion. TJ Oshie had goal and an assist while Kevin Shattenkirk, Jason Arnott and David Perron also scored for the Blues, who moved within three points of NHL-leading Detroit.

The Blues have points in a team-record 20 straight home games (17-0-3) and have 25 home wins, one more that the Red Wings for most in the league (25-3-4). Frans Nielsen scored the Islanders’ sole goal.

COYOTES 1, KINGS 0 In Los Angeles, Mike Smith posted his fourth shutout of the season after getting into first-period fight, helping Phoenix beat Los Angeles. Smith made 28 saves for his 15th career shutout, and Radim Vrbata scored on a power play in the second period for his 27th

goal of the season, equalling a career best.

Vrbata’s 25-foot wrist shot from the right circle was his ninth game-winner of the season, one fewer than league-leader Johan Franzen of Detroit. The 10-year veteran right wing has scored a league-best 19 goals on the road, three more than Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin.

The game featured three fights in the first period, including a rare brawl between the team captains, as the Kings’ Dustin Brown and Shane Doan slugged it out.

FLYERS 7, SABRES 2 In Philadelphia, Wayne Simmonds scored twice despite being hit in the face in the warmup, helping Philadelphia cruise past Buffalo. Simmonds joined the bench minutes into the first period, wearing a full face mask.

He has a career-high 20 goals this season. Max Talbot also scored twice and Claude Giroux had five assists. Erik Gustafsson scored his first career NHL goal as part of a four-goal second period for the Flyers that turned the game around after they conceded two goals in the first. Jakub Voracek and Scott Hartnell added goals in the third for the Flyers. Jason Pominville and Thomas Vanek scored for Buffalo.

LIGHTNING 6, SHARKS 5, OT In Tampa, Martin St Louis scored his second goal of the game in overtime, giving Tampa Bay victory over San Jose. Steven Stamkos had two goals and two assists in his 300th NHL game, to take his league-leading tally to 39 goals this season. Teddy Purcell and Steve Downie also scored for Tampa Bay. The Pacific Division-leading Sharks got goals from Logan Couture, Michal Handzus, MarcEdouard Vlasic, Colin White and Tommy Wingels.

STARS 3, FLAMES 2, OT In Dallas, Mike Ribeiro scored in overtime

to lift Dallas past Calgary. Ribeiro’s slap shot from just beyond the right circle sailed over the goalie’s shoulder. Steve Ott and Adam Burish also scored for the Stars. Jarome Iginla scored his team-high 23rd goal, and Mike Cammalleri added a goal for the Flames, whose lead over Dallas was cut to two points as both teams scramble for the top eight in the Western Conference.

JETS 4, WILD 3, SO In St Paul, Minnesota, Evander Kane had

two goals in regulation and the winner in the fourth round of a shootout in Winnipeg’s victory over Minnesota.

Kane has four goals in five games for the Jets since returning from injury and 21 for the season.

He upstaged Devin Setoguchi, who had his first two-goal game for the Wild. Mikko Koivu gave the Wild the lead early in the third period, but Alexander Burmistrov equalized on a rebound off an end-board ricochet for the Jets. — AP

NHL results/standings Chicago 4, NY Rangers 2; Philadelphia 7, Buffalo 2; Tampa Bay 6, San Jose 5 (OT); St. Louis 5, NY Islanders 1; Winnipeg 4, Minnesota 3 (SO); Dallas 3, Calgary 2 (OT); Phoenix 1, Los Angeles 0.

(OT = overtime, SO = shootout).

Eastern Conference Atlantic Division W L OTL GF GA PTS NY Rangers 37 14 5 158 114 79 Philadelphia 32 18 7 189 171 71 Pittsburgh 32 20 5 176 150 69 New Jersey 32 20 4 158 156 68 NY Islanders 24 25 8 135 165 56 Northeast Division Boston 35 18 2 188 126 72 Ottawa 30 22 8 179 183 68 Toronto 29 23 6 176 174 64 Montreal 23 25 10 155 158 56 Buffalo 24 27 6 139 169 54 Southeast Division Florida 27 18 11 143 158 65 Washington 28 23 5 156 160 61 Winnipeg 27 26 6 144 167 60 Tampa Bay 25 26 6 161 194 56 Carolina 21 25 11 147 175 53

Western Conference Central Division Detroit 39 17 2 185 136 80 St Louis 35 15 7 145 114 77 Nashville 33 18 6 161 150 72 Chicago 30 21 7 180 176 67 Columbus 17 34 6 133 186 40 Northwest Division Vancouver 36 15 6 183 140 78 Calgary 27 22 9 141 155 63 Colorado 28 26 4 147 162 60 Minnesota 25 23 9 129 150 59 Edmonton 22 28 6 150 169 50 Pacific Division San Jose 31 17 7 163 136 69 Phoenix 28 21 9 150 146 65 Los Angeles 27 20 11 124 125 65 Dallas 29 25 3 149 162 61 Anaheim 24 24 9 148 165 57 Note: Overtime losses (OTL) are worth one point in the standings and are not included in the loss column (L).

Vonn dominates as skiers struggle KRASNAYA POLYANA: Lindsey Vonn led the final World Cup downhill training session on the Sochi Olympic course by a huge margin Friday, while other skiers had trouble. Even though she stood up out of her tuck before crossing the line, Vonn still finished in 1 minute, 49.21 seconds on the Rosa Khutor slope, 1.27 seconds ahead of Tina Maze of Slovenia and 1.49 in front of Elisabeth Goergl of Austria. “Obviously I really like the race hill.

The track is perfect,” said Vonn, who can clinch discipline titles in both Saturday’s downhill and Sunday’s super-combined. “It’s a very unique track. It has everything - sidehills, traverses, flats, steeps, turns like super-G, big open turns.” Since Thursday’s training was canceled due to heavy snowfalls, this was the first time skiers got to test the course since the two main jumps were shaved down following Wednesday’s opening session.

Racers were getting about 25 meters of air off the tunnel jump, which is the largest on the course. However, it wasn’t the jumps giving other skiers trouble. Maze crashed into a TV cameraman in the finish area and was visibly shaken. After sitting on the snow for a while, she got up and headed into a medical tent holding the back of her head. Swiss racer Lara Gut caught one of her poles on the fresh snow during her run, jerking her arm up awkwardly. “I think I pulled a muscle,” Gut said.

“Tomorrow I’ll go up to the start and hopefully it will be better.” Kelly Vanderbeek of Canada fell and did not finish, and Daniela

Merighetti of Italy also lost control.

While work was done to push most of the fresh snow off the course, some remained, and warm temperatures - hovering near the freezing level - made for spring-like conditions. “The snow is really hard to ski on, it’s sticky and it’s taking the skis everywhere,” said Swedish standout Anja Paerson, explaining that many racers had trouble with a pitch on the upper section after an area called

Devil’s Spine. “That patch is really bumpy and dark.” In the downhill standings, Vonn holds a 230-point lead over Tina Weirather of Liechtenstein and is 255 points in front of Georgl with two downhills remaining after this weekend. So if Vonn maintains her lead, or even gives up some points, she will have locked up her fifth consecutive title in the sport’s signature discipline.

“It’s tough to be as fast as Lindsey - at the

ROSA KHUNTOR: United States’s Lindsey Vonn speeds down the course of a women’s World Cup downhill training session in Rosa Khuntor, near Sochi, Russia yesterday. — AP

moment it’s almost impossible,” said Weirather, the daughter of former champions Arti Weirather and Hanni Wenzel. “But I like the course, it’s really special. It’s either really steep or really flat but nothing in between. So the most important thing is to get a lot of speed out of the flats.” That’s why having fast skis will be key, and Vonn is confident in ski man Heinz Heammerle, who previously worked for Bode Miller. “He’s been a ski technician for 27 years, so if there’s anyone who knows how to make my skis fast he’s the guy,” Vonn said. “So I trust tomorrow that my skis are going to be fast and all I have to do is ski well.”

American teammate Julia Mancuso, however, wasn’t too enthusiastic about the course after placing 12th in the final training, 2.54 seconds behind Vonn. She noted that there are two uphill sections, which is unusual for downhill. “The first one is kind of cool because you go into a jump, then the bottom one with the sidehill traverse is kind of strange,” Mancuso said.

“I just think they set downhill a lot more conservative now. They’ve set big turns that don’t flow very well. “It’s nice to carry speed and take risk in downhill,” Mancuso added.

“That’s when I ski good, when I can see sections of the course where I know I can cut off the line or take risk and carry more speed.

When it’s just the same speed or big turns and a lot of speed control I have a harder time making up time on people.” — AP

SPORTS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Raging Bulls charge past Celtics with a late surge Clippers beat Trail Blazers 74-71 NBA results/standings NBA results and standings on Thursday.

Indiana 93, New Jersey 88; Chicago 89, Boston 80; LA Clippers 74, Portland 71.

Eastern Conference Atlantic Division W L PCT GB Philadelphia 20 10 .667 Boston 15 14 .517 4.5 NY Knicks 15 15 .500 5 Toronto 9 22 .290 11.5 New Jersey 8 23 .258 12.5

Chicago Indiana Milwaukee Cleveland Detroit

25 18 12 11 9

Central Division 7 12 17 16 22

.781 .600 .414 .407 .290

6 11.5 11.5 15.5

Miami Atlanta Orlando Washington Charlotte

23 19 19 7 3

Southeast Division 7 11 11 23 26

.767 .633 .633 .233 .103

4 4 16 19.5

Western Conference Northwest Division 7 .759 13 .567 15 .516 14 .500 16 .467

5.5 7 7.5 8.5

Oklahoma City Denver Portland Utah Minnesota

22 17 16 14 14

LA Clippers LA Lakers Golden State Phoenix Sacramento

19 17 11 12 10

Pacific Division 9 12 15 18 19

.679 .586 .423 .400 .345

2.5 7 8 9.5

San Antonio Dallas Houston Memphis New Orleans

21 19 17 16 6

Southwest Division 9 11 13 14 23

.700 .633 .567 .533 .207

2 4 5 14.5

Kaneria implicated in English spot-fix case LONDON: Pakistan international spinner Danish Kaneria was named in court yesterday as being involved in a spot-fixing scam that led to the trial of a former English county cricketer. Prosecutors in the case of former Essex bowler Mervyn Westfield, who has pleaded guilty to spot-fixing and faces sentencing yesterday, said the player had been lured into the fix after an approach by Kaneria. The Old Bailey heard that Kaneria told Westfield he would be paid to concede a certain number of runs in a particular over.

Prosecutor Nigel Peters QC said the deal emerged after another Essex player, Tony Palladino, showed Westfield “the most money he had ever seen”.

Kaneria was arrested in connection with the case in 2010 but later released without charge. Westfield admits receiving £6,000 ($9,200) to bowl so that 12 runs would be scored in the first over of a 40-over match between Durham and Essex in September 2009, although in fact only 10 were scored. This case took place against the backdrop of Pakistan players Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Aamer being jailed in Britain last year for their role in a separate spot-fixing scandal in a Test match against England.—AFP

CHICAGO: Chicago Bulls small forward Kyle Korver (left) goes after a loose ball against Boston Celtics point guard Rajon Rondo during the second half of an NBA basketball game. —AP CHICAGO: The Chicago Bulls defended strongly before going on to stun the Boston Celtics with a late offensive burst to pave an 89-80 victory at the United Center on Thursday. Chicago relinquished a 44-35 halftime lead and trailed briefly at the start of the fourth quarter before Taj Gibson sparked a 20-11 run to seal the win. The Celtics were dominant early, opening a 24-18 lead after the first quarter, but were repelled in the latter half of the second quarter. The Bulls closed the half with a 22-5 run, led offensively by Joakim Noah, who scored 10 of his 15 points during the Bulls rally. Defensively, recently signed reserve guard, Mike James shut down Rajon Rondo, who had scored eight points in the first quarter. “I was shocked when coach called my name,” James told reporters.

“He said it maybe four or five times. I had to make him say it one more time just to be sure. But it’s about being ready, about being prepared. When your number is called, you have to contribute however you possibly can.”

Luol Deng and Carlos Boozer led

the Bulls with 23 points apiece and both finished with double-doubles as Deng added 10 assists and Boozer pulled down 15 rebounds. Noah also had a double-double for the Bulls with 16 rebounds as Chicago enjoyed a 5237 advantage in that department. “It’s tough to win that way when you’re giving teams second and third and fourth opportunities,” said Celtics forward Paul Pierce, who had 14 points.

“It’s definitely demoralizing. You work so hard on defense, challenge the shot and then they get an extra opportunity. You know that about the Chicago Bulls. You know Joakim Noah. You know Carlos Boozer. Those guys are terrors on the boards.” Kevin Garnett led the Celtics with 18 points and 10 rebounds and Rondo finished with 17 points.

CLIPPERS 74, TRAIL BLAZERS 71 In Portland, Oregon, Blake Griffin had 21 points and 14 rebounds to help Los Angeles rally from an 18-point second-half deficit and beat Portland.

Chris Paul, scoreless through three

quarters, finished with 13 points as the Clippers outscored the Trail Blazers 2211 during the fourth quarter. The win was Los Angeles’ first in Portland for three seasons. Both teams were held to season lows for points. Nicolas Batum and Jamal Crawford each scored 19 points for Portland, which was playing its second straight game without AllStar forward LaMarcus Aldridge, who sprained an ankle Tuesday.

PACERS 93, NETS 88 In Indianapolis, Danny Granger played through a sprained left ankle to score 32 points and help struggling Indiana snap a season-worst five-game losing skid by beating struggling New Jersey. Granger had missed the Pacers previous seven quarters and the team sorely missed his presence. He made 10 of 20 shots, 8 of 9 from the freethrow line and grabbed five rebounds in a game the Pacers desperately needed to win. Deron Williams scored 29 points to lead New Jersey, not quite enough to snap a skid that hit eight straight.—Agencies

SPORTS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Sri Lanka crush Australia Sangakkara reaches 10,000 career ODI runs

SCOREBOARD Scoreboard after Sri Lanka beat Australia by eight wickets in the sixth match of the one-day international Tri-series, also featuring India, at the SydneyCricket Ground yesterday: Australia won the toss and elected to batFollowing a two-hour rain delay, Sri Lanka were set 152 for victory in a maximum of 41 overs.

Australia innings D. Warner c Maharoof b Malinga 13 M. Wade run out 15 R. Ponting c & b Maharoof 2 P. Forrest c Mathews b Maharoof 16 M. Hussey c Sangakkara b Mathews 13 D. Hussey c Thirimanne b Perera 58 D. Christian lbw Perera 6 C. McKay lbw Herath 3 B. Lee run out 0 M. Starc run out 17 X. Doherty not out 2 Extras (lb-2, w-11) 13 Total (all out, 40.5 overs) 158 Fall of wickets: 1-21 2-37 3-37 4-60 5-74 6-81 7-95 8-104 9-153 Bowling: Malinga 8.5-0-42-1 (w-2), Kulasekera 8-1-29-0, Maharoof 8-1-18-2, Mathews 4-0-26-1, Perera 7-1-29-2, Herath 5-1-12-1 (w-1) Sri Lanka innings M. Jayawardene not out 61 T. Dilshan c D. Hussey b McKay 45 K. Sangakkara c Doherty b Lee 30 D. Chandimal not out 6 Extras (lb-5, w-5) 10 Total (for two wickets, 24.1 overs) 152 Did not bat: L. Thirimanne, A. Mathews, T. Perera, M. Maharoof, N. Kulasekara, L. Malinga, R. Herath.

Fall of wickets: 1-74 2-133 Bowling: Lee 7-0-42-1 (w-2), Starc 4-0-32-0 (w-1), McKay 6-1-23-1 (w-1), Christian 5.1-0-32-0 (w-1), Doherty 2-0-18-0.

SCOREBOARD WELLINGTON: Scoreboard in the first Twenty20 international between New Zealand and South Africa at Westpac Stadium yesterday: South Africa R. Levi c Bracewell b Southee 13 H. Amla run out 19 C. Ingram st B.McCullum b N.McCullum 0 A.B. de Villiers c Guptil b Hira 8 J.P. Duminy c Mills b Southee 41 J. Ontong c & b Southee 32 J. Morkel not out 13 J. Botha not out 14 Extras (lb7) 7 Total (6 wickets; 20 overs) 147 Fall of wickets: 1-24 (Amla), 2-34 (Ingram), 3-38 (Levi), 4-52 (de Villiers), 5-102 (Ontong), 6-127 (Duminy) Bowling: N.McCullum 4-0-16-1, Mills 4-0-44-0, Southee 4-0-28-3, Hira 2-0-12-1, Bracewell 3-0-10-0, Williamson 2-0-27-0, Nicol 1-03-0 New Zealand R. Nicol c Amla b Theron 13 M. Guptill not out 78 B. McCullum b Duminy 16 K. Williamson run out 24 C. de Grandhomme c Levi b M.Morkel 2 J. Franklin not out 8 Extras (lb3, w2, nb2) 7 Total (4 wickets; 19.2 overs) 148 Fall of wickets: 1-49 (Nicol), 2-90 (B.McCullum), 3-127 (Williamson), 4-136 (de Grandhomme) Bowling: A.Morkel 3-0-20-0, Tsotsobe 3-0-28-0, M.Morkel 4-1-261, Botha 3.2-0-24-0, Theron 4-0-27-1, Duminy 2-0-20-1 Series: New Zealand lead the three-match series 1-0 Man of the match: Martin Guptill (NZL)

SYDNEY: Sri Lanka posted their biggestever one-day international win over Australia in Sydney yesterday with a crushing eight-wicket tri-series ODI victory with 101 balls to spare. Sri Lanka bounced back into finals contention with a bonus-point victory on the Duckworth-Lewis method after skittling out Australia for 158 off 40.5 overs and rattling up a revised winning target of 152 for two in just 24.1 overs. It was Sri Lanka’s largest ODI win over Australia in terms of balls remaining. The Sri Lankans, who were winless before yesterday’s game after being held to a tie in their previous match by leaders India, moved to within three points of the Indians after four games in the tournament. Skipper Mahela Jayawardene steered his side to victory with an unbeaten knock of 61 off 67 balls with opener Tillakaratne Dilshan hitting 45 off 41. “The intent was good, the aggression, the tempo... it was a good, clinical finish,” Jayawardene said. “The bonus point was brilliant, we just wanted a win, but now we’re definitely back in it. The bonus point was the icing on the cake.” Kumar Sangakkara reached 10,000 career ODI runs in his innings of 30 off 29 balls. Thisara Perera was judged man-of-the-match in a wide open vote having taken two for 29 and also effected two run outs in Australia’s innings.

It was Australia’s fifth-biggest loss in one-day cricket in terms of balls remaining.

It was also Australia’s second straight defeat in the tournament and they face India in Brisbane on Sunday, when they will again be led by Ricky Ponting in the continued absence of injured skipper Michael Clarke. “A really poor day with bat, ball and in the field,” Ponting said. “No doubt we’ll have a chat about it as a group, but the bottom line is we’re going to have to move on pretty quick. “Full credit to Sri Lanka, they bowled and fielded really well, and played their shots in the chase. “We thought we could use the seam of the ball and capitalize, but that wasn’t the case. Hopefully Sunday is better than tonight.”

Of the Australians, only Clint McKay (123 off six overs) enjoyed a good night with the ball while Brett Lee, on his return 16 days after fracturing his toe, finished with one for 42 off seven overs. Sri Lanka set up

SYDNEY: Sri Lanka’s wicketkeeper Kumar Sangakkara (left) celebrates the wicket of Australia’s Clint McKay (right) during their ODI cricket match at the SCG in Sydney yesterday. — AP their emphatic victory by dismissing Australia for 158 off 40.5 overs in the match, which was reduced to 41 overs-aside by afternoon rain. It was Australia’s lowest ODI total at the Sydney Cricket Ground since 1997 and fourth-lowest in all ODIs in Sydney. David Hussey rescued Australia from an even lower score after the home side had tottered at 88 for six before a two-hour rain delay. He hit a determined 58 off 64 balls for his third half-century of the tournament after being dropped on eight and 31.

David Warner went for 13 being

deceived by a slower ball from Lasith Malinga and hitting straight to Farveez Maharoof at mid-on. Ponting’s run of single-figure scores in the series continued when he was caught and bowled by Maharoof for two. Michael Hussey (13), brought in for Clarke, clouted a huge six off Angelo Mathews but was caught behind off the next ball and Peter Forrest followed shortly afterwards for 16 to leave Australia 74 for five. All-rounder Maharoof, brought in for spinner Sachithra Senanayake, claimed two for 18 off eight overs.— AFP

Guptill shines as NZ down South Africa WELLINGTON: New Zealand batsman Martin Guptill continued a dream run of form as the Black Caps posted a six wicket win over South Africa in the opening Twenty20 international in Wellington yesterday. Guptill’s undefeated 78 off 55 balls was his sixth successive international halfcentury, steering New Zealand to four for 148 with four balls to spare in reply to South Africa’s six for 147. The opener, who put Zimbabwe’s attack to the sword in the recent tour whitewash, looked comfortable against more challenging opposition in South Africa’s first trip to New Zealand in eight years.

He smashed four sixes in his innings, one booming effort off Lonwabo Tsotsobe’s bowling sailing onto the roof of Westpac Stadium before it bounced back down onto the pitch. Kane Williamson also made a valuable cameo with 24 off 22 balls,

while paceman Tim Southee took three for 28 to limit South Africa’s total. New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum’s decision to send South Africa into bat on a slow pitch after winning the toss paid dividends with early wickets, preventing the Proteas building momentum. JP Duminy top scored for South Africa with 41, while Justin Ontong, returning to the national team after a threeyear absence, hit four successive sixes in his 32 off 17 balls. Hashim Amla, who had looked threatening, was the first to go after trying to snatch a quick single off a misfield in the fourth over, only for Guptill to dive in from the field with ball in hand and knock over the stumps. Colin Ingram departed for a duck in the next over when he charged down the pitch to attack a Nathan McCullum off-break, leaving himself stranded when it slipped past him and into the hands of Brendon McCullum

behind the wicket. Southee then joined the attack, smashing Levi in the helmet with his second ball, then going on to claim the wicket with the last ball of the over when Levi misjudged a slower ball and sent it sailing to Doug Bracewell. AB de Villiers came to the crease with his side reeling at 38 for three but could only manage eight off 17 balls before being ruled out to a debatable catch and the carnage continued. De Villiers hit spinner Ronnie Hira to short cover, where Guptill swooped and claimed a low catch, the South African captain initially standing his ground until third umpire Chris Gaffaney ruled him out after inconclusive TV replays. New Zealand, their tails up, then restricted Ontong and Duminy to just six runs an over through the middle of the innings, forcing the batsmen onto the back foot with aggressive bowling and sharp fielding. —AFP

SPORTS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Bebeto joins Brazil WCup committee SAO PAULO: Bebeto, the fleet-footed former striker who helped Brazil win the 1994 World Cup, was appointed on Thursday to the local committee in charge of organizing the 2014 tournament in the South American country.

The appointment makes Bebeto the second big name in Brazilian soccer to join the so-called Local Organizing Committee, alongside former Barcelona, Inter Milan and Real Madrid striker Ronaldo, who led Brazil to their fifth World Cup title in 2002. “It was a pleasure, on my birthday, to get this invitation,” Bebeto told reporters on his 48th birthday in Rio de Janeiro. “It was like getting my first call up for the World Cup, for the Brazil team.

“I never had the joy of playing in a World Cup in my own country but now

I will, as a fan, as a representative ... so we have to do everything possible in order to have a great World Cup, one of the greatest World Cups in history.”

Bebeto, now a state legislator in Rio, joins the organizing committee as Brazil is struggling to get ready to host the world’s premier soccer tournament. Work on stadiums got off to a slow start, many projects are over budget, and airport infrastructure remains woefully insufficient to accommodate the 600,000 visitors expected for the soccer extravaganza.

While Bebeto celebrated his appointment, Ricardo Teixeira, head of the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) and the local World Cup organizing committee, continued to face an onslaught of corruption allegations.

Teixeira, who has headed the CBF for 22 years, has denied any wrongdoing.

Bebeto, who formed a deadly duo with Romario when Brazil won the 1994 World Cup in the United States, is perhaps best remembered for his “rocking the baby” goal celebration against the Netherlands in the quarterfinals.

However, his new position might put him at odds with his old striking partner. Romario, who is now a federal congressman, has been one of the most outspoken critics of Teixeira and his handling of preparations for the tournament. Pressure has mounted on Teixeira in recent days after Folha de S.Paulo newspaper reported that a company linked to him overcharged the organisers of a November 2008

friendly match between Brazil and Portugal. Another Brazilian newspaper, O Globo, said the latest accusations could force Teixeira to resign soon.

Bebeto said the 64-year-old soccer boss seemed “happy and content” on Thursday as he chatted about past World Cups with him and Ronaldo.

Asked whether Teixeira might finally step aside, Bebeto said: “I hope he continues, and continues to work (because) that is without doubt very important for Brazil.” Ronaldo, who ended his playing career last year, also defended Teixeira. “He’s the guy who brought the World Cup to Brazil and we owe a lot to him,” the three-times FIFA World Player of the Year told reporters in Rio. — Reuters

Uzbeks hoodwinked as cunning trick backfires BERNE: Uzbekistan will start the fourth round of the Asian World Cup qualifying competition without five players after what appeared to be a cunning plan to use a ‘dead rubber’ to wipe out yellow cards back-fired. The five players were all booked for time-wasting in the last 20 minutes of November’s World Cup qualifier against Tajikistan, who have lost all five games in third round Group C, have not scored and conceded 17 goals.

Uzbekistan won 3-0. Having already qualified for the next stage, the bookings meant the quintet had each accumulated two yellow cards in the competition to earn one-match bans they had hoped to serve in a meaningless final group game against North Korea.

However, FIFA confirmed on Friday that the players had been handed an extra one-match ban, meaning they will miss the opening match of the fourth stage of qualifying as well. “Between the 70th minute (with Uzbekistan already winning 2-0) and the conclusion of the match, five Uzbekistan players - who had already received one yellow card in previous matches in round three of the AFC preliminary competition - were cautioned in separate incidents for deliberately delaying the restart of the match,” FIFA said in a statement. — Reuters

Matches on TV (Local Timings)

David Beckham

Beckham backs Redknapp LOS ANGELES: Former England captain David Beckham has offered his support to Fabio Capello, the Italian who called time on Beckham’s international career, after his decision to stand down as England manager. In his first public comments on the issue, Beckham said he was disappointed Capello had quit the job so close to the European championships, but said he respected his decision and believed the manager should always be allowed to choose the captain.

“I’ve been working with Fabio for quite a few years. It’s sad, obviously that he stepped at a critical stage for England,” Beckham told reporters after training with the LA Galaxy on Thursday. “You know he’s done it for his own reasons. You know he’s a manager that I respect a lot, a per-

son I respect a lot. I wish him all the best.”

Capello’s turbulent reign as England manager ended last week when he resigned after meeting with the FA, who stripped John Terry of the captaincy for allegedly racially abusing Queens Park Rangers’ defender Anton Ferdinand.

Terry, who would have led England at this year’s European Championship, denies the charge and Capello later expressed his frustration that the decision had been made without his consultation.

When Beckham was asked whether the captaincy should be decided by the coach or the FA, he backed the manager.

“Coach’s call.

You know I think that’s always the case,” Beckham said. “Obviously a decision was taken ... to take the captaincy away

from John. Going forward, I’m sure the captain will be picked by whatever manager steps in.”

Beckham, who has not given up hope of being recalled to the England squad even after Capello said last year he was too old for international duty, also reiterated his preference for an Englishman to run the national team.

Beckham offered his support to Tottenham Hotspur manager Harry Redknapp, who has emerged as one of the frontrunners for the job. “Harry’s a great man, great manager. His man management is incredible,” Beckham said. “I know players, obviously, who have played up him. I’ve trained under him. He’s not just a great manager but he’s a great person as well.” — Reuters

Italian League Juventus v Catania Aljazeera Sport +1

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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2012

Sports

Sri Lanka crush Australia

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PORTO: Manchester City’s Yaya Toure (right) from Ivory Coast, challenges FC Porto’s Eliaquim Mangala, from France, during their Europa League round of 32 first soccer match at the Dragao Stadium, Porto on Thursday Feb 16, 2012. —AP

Manchester clubs take charge in Europa United, City notch away wins to sit in driving seat LONDON: Manchester United earned comfort in the unfamiliar surroundings of the Europa League with a 2-0 win at Ajax on Thursday while their English rivals Manchester City fought back against holders Porto to also take control of their round of 32 tie. Winger Ashley Young put three-times European champions United ahead just before the hour mark and Javier Hernandez extended the lead five minutes from time as they showed they meant business in a competition they would rather not be in.

Their domestic title rivals Manchester City made it harder for themselves in Portugal by conceding in the first half against the run of play before an Alvaro Pereira own goal and a late Sergio Aguero strike put them on course for the next round. Other teams to build a solid advantage ahead of next week’s second legs were Ukrainian side Metalist Kharkiv who won 4-0 at Salzburg and Atletico Madrid who take back to Spain a 3-1 win over Lazio after fighting back from a goal down.

The 2004 winners of the UEFA Cup - the Europa League’s predecessor - Valencia secured a 1-0 win at Stoke City to sit pretty halfway through the tie while Twente Enschede came away with the same scoreline from Steaua Bucharest on a cold night. Schalke 04 were glad to grab an equaliser 15 minutes from time to draw 1-1 at Viktoria Plzen, while Legia Warsaw’s tie with Sporting was also evenly balanced after a 22 draw in Poland and Udinese and PAOK Salonika played out a 0-0 draw. German side Hanover 96 needed an 80th-minute penalty by Jan Schlaudraff to complete a comeback at home to Club Bruges who had taken the lead early in the second half through Maxime Lestienne before Arthur Sobiech’s equaliser.

Wisla Krakow, who played more than an hour with 10 men after Michal Czekaj was sent off, left it even later to snatch a 1-1 draw at home to Standard Liege with Tsvetan Genkov netting in the 88th minute. In the day’s other games, AZ Alkmaar beat Anderlecht 1-0 courtesy of Adam Maher’s 35thminute goal, Lokomotiv Moscow came from behind to overcome Athletic Bilbao 2-1 and PSV Eindhoven held on to an early two-goal lead to win 2-1 at Trabzonspor. With the Europa League something of a consolation prize for teams who were eliminated from the elite Champions League at the group stage, the presence of heavyweights Manchester United and mega-rich Manchester City has injected it with a bit of glamour. Having won seven European Cups between them, United and Ajax could easily have been meeting in the Champions League rather than the Thursday sideshow.

United manager Alex Ferguson, whose club have never won this competition or its predecessor, named a strong team to back up his pre-match assertions they were taking it seriously but their first-half performance lacked a cutting edge.

The English champions picked up the pace after the break and made the breakthrough when Nani’s cross eventually found Young in space and the England winger took his time to pick his spot through the legs of keeper Kenneth Vermeer. Ajax had their chances but United keeper David de Gea kept the four-times European champions at bay with some excellent saves, including one at full stretch from Siem de Jong’s curling shot in the first half. United made absolutely sure they left the Netherlands in the driving seat when substitute Antonio Valencia broke to feed Hernandez, who exchanged passes with Wayne Rooney before slotting home on 85 minutes.— Reuters

Chisora slaps Klitschko MUNICH: Standing head-to-head for the customary “stare-down,” challenger Dereck Chisora slapped WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko during the weigh-in for their title fight today. Both camps had to be pulled apart Friday after the British fighter, his face partially concealed by a Union Jack handkerchief, hit Klitschko across the face with his open right hand and launched a series of insults. Klitschko did not retaliate. “I am going to hit back today,” the Ukrainian champion said. “He will get his beating.”

Chisora’s blow may have been the closest he gets to hurting the champion. About the only advantage Chisora might have is his age.

The WBC champion is 40, while Chisora is 28. But Klitschko has a massive advantage in height and reach and few give Chisora a chance of an upset. Klitschko weighed in at 110.5 kilograms, Chisora at 109.4 kilos. Chisora has bravely predicted he will knock out the Ukrainian in the eighth round and claims he can “smell fear” in Klitschko’s camp. Klitschko has brushed aside such boasts but says he takes the British challenger seriously.

“Chisora can hit, and I do too. So I don’t see it going 12 rounds,” Klitschko said earlier ahead of the fight in Munich’s Olympic Hall.

The Zimbabwe-born Chisora is one of those who say the heavyweight division has become boring because of the dominance of Vitali and his younger brother Wladimir, who holds the other significant belts. But they remain huge drawing cards in Germany, where their fights have become heavily choreographed events, with rock shows in the ring, laser lights and champagne flowing. The 12,500 capacity arena is sold out Saturday.— AP