1st May 2012

CR IP TI ON BS SU

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

Could domestic flak shoot down Bibi over Iran?

Al-Qaeda offers to trade UK hostage for cleric

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150 FILS

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www.kuwaittimes.net

JAMADI ALTHANI 10, 1433 AH

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Obama falls short of expectations abroad

Man City beat Man United to go top of Premier League

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Illegal deposits political bribery scandal: Barrak Waalan questions China oil deal • Deputy Central Bank gov named

Max 41º Min 28º High Tide 07:31 & 18:43 Low Tide 00:15 & 12:51

By B Izzak

Kuwait, Iraq ink major accords BAGHDAD: Iraqi and Kuwaiti officials, following marathon talks, signed yesterday minutes of the meeting of the higher Iraqi-Kuwaiti commission and two accords, one stipulating formation of a cooperation committee and the other regulating navigation through Abdullah waterway. The two agreements were signed by Kuwait’s Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Hamad Al-Sabah and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari. Talks between the two sides, held within framework of the supreme joint commission and subcommittees, lasted for 12 hours.

Zebari said at a news conference with his Kuwaiti counterpart that meetings of the second session of the common committee were crowned with record success and progress on various genuine and major issues concerning the two sides. All such subjects were extensively pondered. He added that the signed minutes stipulated issues linked with international obligations in addition to various other topics that require cooperation at the political, economic and commercial levels.

Continued on Page 13

BAGHDAD: Kuwait’s Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Hamad Al-Sabah and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari sign two agreements yesterday. — KUNA

KUWAIT: Head of the parliamentary panel probing the illegal deposits scandal MP Musallam Al-Barrak said yesterday the committee has collected increasing evidence that the deposits are nothing but political bribery and vowed that the committee will continue to expose all facts. The committee was formed last month by the new opposition-dominated National Assembly to investigate allegations that around KD 100 million were deposited in a short period of time into the bank accounts of 12 former MPs and one current MP. The public prosecution has opened an investigation into the case on the suspicion that it is a money laundering issue although opposition MPs have repeatedly claimed that the money was paid by the previous government to win the MPs’ votes on crucial issues in the Assembly. Barrak said the panel, which has questioned a large number of ministers and former and current officials, has summoned representatives of a number of local banks for a meeting tomorrow to investigate the banks’ role in the issue.

The committee has summoned general managers of the banks, heads of the money laundering units and heads of internal monitoring in a bid to inquire about certain information, the lawmaker said. Barrak warned Continued on Page 13

Bahrain to retry hunger striker

DAMASCUS: Anti-Syrian regime mourners carry the body of activist Nour Al-Zahraa, 23, who was shot by Syrian security forces on Sunday, during his funeral procession in the Kfar Suseh area yesterday. — AP

New blasts mar Syrian ceasefire DAMASCUS: Twin blasts targeting security buildings killed more than 20 people in the northwest Syrian city of Idlib yesterday, a monitoring group said. The violence, a day after the arrival of the chief of a United Nations monitoring mission, was sure to put further strain on a UNbacked ceasefire that went into effect on April 12 but has failed to take hold fully. Most of those killed in Idlib were members of the security forces, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. “The blasts targeted two security headquarters, one housing air force intelligence and the other military intelligence,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. State news agency SANA said “terrorists” were behind the attacks by “suicide bombers”. Syrian television put the death toll at nine, among them civilians, and said around 100 people were wounded in the two blasts in residential areas. It broadcast footage of bloodstains on the ground, and groups of

angry people denouncing the violence and expressing support for President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime. “Is this the freedom they want?” shouted one man, standing near a woman who was carrying a child with blood running down his forehead. One building appeared in ruins and cars nearby were flattened by the explosion.

Hours later a third blast rocked the city’s university neighbourhood, and the Britain-based Observatory said: “There are reports of wounded.” SANA said UN observers had gone to visit the scene of the morning explosions. A powerful blast, probably a car bomb, was also reported in the suburb of Qudsiya near the capital Damascus, causing an unknown number of casualties, the Observatory added. The explosion targeted a military vehicle, said Abdel Rahman. “Initial reports indicate there are casualties,” he added. “But we cannot yet confirm the number of victims.”

Continued on Page 13

Kuwait tanker repels pirates KUWAIT: The crew of a Kuwaiti crude oil tanker has foiled a bid by pirates to capture the vessel near the Strait of Hormuz and none of them was hurt, an oil spokesman said yesterday.

The crew of the Rigga tanker of the state-owned Kuwait Oil Tanker Co activated “advanced safety and security systems” to beat the pirates who attempted to take over the vessel, Sheikh Talal Al-Sabah said.

The tanker then sailed to its destination, said Sheikh Talal, cited by the official KUNA news agency. He did not provide any further details.

Separately, the Municipal Council approved the creation of a free zone in south Kuwait, but asked for detailed plans in line with criteria and conditions set out for free zones. The council also gave approved a suggestion allocating an area for housing waste landfill. They also recommended the formation of a factfinding committee to look into a site for dumping used tyres in Rehaiya and cancelling an earlier municipal decree on bids for selling used tyres. A proposal for developing small mosques along speedways was also approved. —Agencies

DUBAI: Bahrain’s highest appeals court yesterday ordered the retrial of opposition activist Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, who has been on hunger strike since Feb 8, and other dissidents, lawyers said. “The court accepted the appeal (against the verdict of a special tribunal) and ordered a trial in the court of appeal,” a civil tribunal, Mohamed Al-Jishy told AFP after a brief hearing. “We were hoping the verdict would be annulled but the decision will give us an opportunity to defend our clients,” Jishy said, adding that no date has yet been set for the new trial. Jail terms were handed down for Khawaja and 20 other mostly Shiite activists in the Shiite-majority Gulf kingdom after they were convicted in June of plotting to overthrow its Sunni rulers.

Seven of them, including Khawaja, were jailed for life, while 14 others were sentenced to between two and 15 years in prison. Of the 21 defendants, seven were convicted in absentia and remain at large. “I think he will not stop this (hunger) strike as this verdict brought no big change” to his situation, said another lawyer, Mohammed Al-Tajer.

A statement carried by state news agency BNA confirmed that the defendants will be tried again in a civil court and that the new trial could see their sentences reduced.

The defendants will remain in prison until the next hearing.

Meanwhile, Khawaja’s daughter, Maryam, lashed out at Bahraini judicial system, saying the appeals court was a “farce”. “There is no real judicial process involved at all; all we have are kangaroo courts,” she said, more than 80 days since her father started his hunger strike. “They call this an appeals court, but it’s a farce. All they’re doing is trying to relieve international pressure.”

Continued on Page 13

BARBAR, Bahrain: A Bahraini woman looks at an image of jailed hunger striker Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja painted on a map of Bahrain on a wall west of the capital Manama. — AP

200 dead and missing after India ferry sinks GUWAHATI, India: An overcrowded river ferry broke in two and sank in northeast India during a severe storm yesterday, leaving at least 68 people dead and more than 130 missing, police said. Some 150 people were either rescued or swam to safety after the double-decker ferry, whose passengers included women and children, sank in the fast-flowing Brahmaputra river in Assam state.

Rescuers, including army units, rushed to the scene in a desperate bid to find survivors but their efforts were hampered by high winds, torrential rains and darkness.

Rahul Karmakar, who witnessed the sinking, told AFP: “I could see people being swept away as the river current was very strong.” He added that “chances of survival seem to be remote” in the river,

swollen by heavy rains. The death toll from the ferry sinking could be one of the worst of recent years in South Asia, where such disasters are common due to lax safety standards and overloading. Local fishermen who live with their families in tiny hamlets stretching along the Brahmaputra river battled to find survivors as night fell.

Strong winds had uprooted trees, blocking roads leading to the disaster site and preventing some rescue teams from reaching the area, said officials in Assam’s main commercial city Guwahati. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called the sinking a “tragedy” and said he had pledged all possible assistance to the state government in the search.

Continued on Page 13

Gulf struggles to agree on missile shield ABU DHABI: Distrust among Sunni Gulf Arab states has scuppered the installation of a joint missile shield which Washington has long urged as the best means of defence against any strike by Iran. The oil-exporting states have spent billions on US-built anti-missile platforms but have fallen short of building a unified umbrella and an early warning system, despite their expressed intention to do so. Analysts say that although they belong to the same political and military alliance, the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members remain uneasy about sharing data. Nor can they decide on the location of a central command and are struggling to find ways to work together in case of an emergency.

“The question is not only about trust among Gulf states but also trust in the Americans,” said Mustafa Continued on Page 13

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

local Cabinet holds weekly meeting KUWAIT: The Kuwaiti cabinet held yesterday its routine weekly meeting at Al-Seif Palace under His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah.

Emerging from the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Minister of State for Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Sabah Khalid Al-Sabah said the cabinet was apprised of a recent letter to HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah from Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapaksa on bilateral relations between Kuwait and Sri Lanka. The cabinet then listened to a briefing from HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah on the outcomes of a recent visit to Kuwait by Tunisian President Moncef Al-Marzouki.

The minister Sheikh Sabah kept the cabinet posted on the outcomes of the recent extraordinary meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo on the current situation in Syria, the UAE’s islands, Sudan.

He also elaborated on the findings of the meetings of the Kuwaiti-Iraqi joint committee, which convened in Baghdad on Sunday.

In this context, he hailed the positive

atmosphere in which the joint meeting was held, reflecting mutual desire to develop and reinforce bilateral relations.

Sheikh Sabah also briefed the ministers on the details of agreements and deal clinched between Kuwait and Iraq on the sidelines of the joint talks.

Afterwards, the cabinet approved a draft law revising Law 5/2007 regarding the Kuwaiti Olympic Committee and sports federations and clubs in an effort to enable Kuwaiti sports teams to partake in all international sports events.

It is also intended to ensure impartiality as for disputes that could ensue among sports bodies, and to fulfill the requirements of international sports regulations.

The ministers then gave the thumbs up to a parliamentary recommendation urging amendments to Law 15/1979 concerning civil service. It mainly aims to set out rules for renewal of terms in office regarding leading state posts.

They also consented to a draft decree authorizing an administration college.

Finally, the ministers looked into reports on the latest Arab and international political situations. —KUNA

Iraq affirms sincere intentions to enhance ties with Kuwait BAGHDAD: Iraq re-affirmed yesterday its sincere intention to open a new chapter in ties with Kuwait and tackling controversial issues to pave way for “excellent relations”. Vice President Khudair AlKhezaee, speaking during a meeting with a visiting Kuwaiti delegation of media personnel, said Baghdad was serious in its bids to close all the “pending files” for such an approach would ultimately serve interests of the two brotherly countries.

“Iraq is serious in the efforts to fold the files of the bitter past; you tasted such bitterness in Kuwait for seven months and we tasted it for 30 years, thus we both drank cups of trauma and deprivation,” the vice president said, alluding to the 1990-1991 occupation of Kuwait by troops of the executed dictator Saddam Hussein and his repressive rule of his nation that had lasted for 30 years.

Stupidity of a politician or arrogance of a tyrant should not constitute a hurdle in face of boosting these relations, he indicated, noting that the Iraqis and Kuwaitis had long been bound with strong bonds, such as family affiliations.

The Iraqi people should not be blamed for the atrocities and aggression carried out by that regime, he said, noting that Iraqi people harbor sentiments of compassion and love for the Kuwaitis.

Many of the Iraqi soldiers who took part in the invasion of Kuwait were

coerced to take part in the aggression, he said, noting that many of them performed prayers at home after ending their mission in Kuwait, aware of a religious fatwa (edict) that prayers in usurped lands are not accepted by the heavens. “The Iraqi leadership at the time should be solely held responsible for the great sins. What had happened was grave crime of historic magnitude, for it cost heavy losses in blood and souls,” he added. The vice president praised role of HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad AlJaber Al-Sabah for burying the hatchet, noting his participation in the recent Arab summit in Baghdad had served that purpose. He also hailed him for his sincere intentions to improve the ties, as well his warm hospitality and good treatment of the expatriates, namely the Iraqis, in Kuwait - many of whom consider him “the father of all”.

He urged the Kuwaiti journalists and writers to play a role in narrowing the gulf between the two neighboring countries. “We do not need in this respect is diplomatic protocols, what we actually need clearing the hearts,” he said. The vice president urged the Kuwaiti government facilitate visits by relatives and revive the old and good times, when related families living in the two countries used to visit each other on a weekly basis.—KUNA

Expats to receive smart identification cards KU WAI T: The Direc tor of Civil I n fo r m a t i o n Au t h o r i t y, M u s a e e d A l Asousi said that the Authority has begun issuing smar t identification cards to expats working in government organizations. The new ones will be made available whenever expired cards are to be renewed. He told reporters that this step

is part of plans to change the old card to new smart cards.

After implementing this in the government sector, the cards of employees in the private sector will be changed.

The required documents are a copy of the passport, personal photographs and blood group. — Al-Anbaa

KUWAIT: The Jordanian ambassador to Kuwait, Mohammed Al-Kayed, recently received Jordanians working in Kuwait media field and discussed means of boosting bilateral relations between Kuwait and Jordan.

Iraq lures Kuwaiti, foreign investors Entrepreneurs offered stakes in ventures BAGHDAD: Iraq affirmed yesterday keenness on boosting economic and trade cooperation with neighboring Kuwait and its bids to remove hurdles facing Kuwaiti entrepreneurs seeking to launch businesses in the country. Iraq and Kuwait, in case they succeeded in unifying efforts in the economic and commercial sectors, could turn into a major economic power in the north of the Gulf, said Dr Sami AlAraji, the head of the National Investment Authority, during a meeting with a visiting delegation of eminent Kuwaiti journalists and media figures.

Affirming that Iraq advocated establishment of “excellent ties” with Kuwait, he noted visit of HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah to Iraq, last March, re -affirming that it was widely applauded among the Iraqis. Prime Minister Nouri AlMaliki is seeking to elevate the bilateral relations to a level higher than that existed prior to 1990, he said, noting that he had guided the authority to seek to establish cooperation at the development and economic levels with Kuwait. AlAraji also noted his recent visit to Kuwait and talks with counterparts on prospected joint business opportunities.

Lots of achievements can be made if potentials of Kuwait and Iraq are soundly invested, he said noting Iraq’s prior need for upgrading the infrastructure and boosting

development. Moreover, he reaffirmed Iraq’s keenness on establishing economic partnership with Kuwait and opening doors for the entrepreneurs to invest in Iraq, in both the private and public sectors.

Al-Araji indicated at various investment opportunities in Iraq, particularly in the sectors of oil, gas, industries, agriculture, housing, health,

Nasriyah, Kirkuk, Al-Amara and Karbala, said the head of the investment authority, noting that the total output of oil from these refineries amount to 740,000 barrels per day. He added that interested investors could take part in such ventures on basis of partnership or the BOT system.

Several foreign companies are

education, transport, power and tourism.

Shedding further light on the domestic investment front, he noted that Iraq was examining a series of bills intended to lure investments, and other draft laws for protecting the national product, regulating custom fees, trade, competition, monopolization and protection of the consumer. The Ministry of Oil has declared investment opportunities in the refineries of Al-

currently operating in Iraq seeking stakes in mega projects, such as construction of services stations at the ports and the sector of oil derivatives. Elaborating, Al-Araji forecast that the production of oil in Iraq would soar to 10-12 million per day in 2017, indicating that the plan for increasing the output would warrant affiliate projects for expansion of industries such as oil derivatives and chemicals. He indicated at various planned legisla-

tions intended to boost privatization and partnership with the private sector, also hinting at potentials for investment in other domains, such as textiles, fertilizers, glass, food, medicines and cement.

Iraq’s need for construction materials, till 2019, are estimated at 40 million tons of cement and seven million tons of iron. On housing, he noted the need to build two million units at a projected cost of $150 billion. As to power, the country’s requirement for electricity would hike from 13,000 MW to 20,000 MW in 2015. Several deals had already been signed to increase the power output. On transport and railways, Al-Araji noted that $15 billion would be invested in this sector in the short term.

As to the airports, there are three main airports in Baghdad, Mosul and Basra, in addition to several other small ones, and the authorities are seeking to transform them into international airports.

Baghdad is also seeking to build a special airport for religious tourism to serve up to 15-20 million tourists per year.

The head of the investment authority touched on other major plans and ventures concerning the seaports, hospitals, religious tourism, agriculture, noting that billions of dollars should be spent for renovating these fields. He also indicated at efforts to relieve the foreign investor of legal and bureaucratic constraints. — KUNA

Family funds dialysis center KUWAIT: Minister of Health Dr Ali Al-Obedi yesterday laid the cornerstone for Abdul Rahman Al-Mejel Dialysis Center in the capital, launched with donations from Al-Mejel family. Speaking on the occasion, the minister said the construction of the center depicted ideal values and beliefs of the Kuwaiti society, “for we have grown in this giving homeland on goodness and mercy and faithfulness and we are proud that generation after another adopts such ideal values”.

He praised the eminent Kuwaiti family for granting donations for construction of

the dialysis center which “embodied these values and honorable principles”.

The minister affirmed the need for construction of such centers to help patients with kidney illnesses, noting that the ministry was keen on upgrading the health services that match international standards.

Moreover, the ministry has worked out educational programs to fight diseases that lead to such complications - namely diabetes and cardiac diseases -through guidance on healthy ways of living and nutrition.— KUNA

BAGHDAD: Kuwaiti and Iraqi officials holding talks in Baghdad yesterday.

Woman dies in Hawally building fire

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: A fire broke out at a ten-storey floor building in Hawally, spreading to three apartments, said security sources.

Firemen from Hawally, Salmiya and backup squads rushed to the scene. Firemen discovered that the fire originated in a 100 square meter apartment in the fifth floor, from which a 54-year-old female citizen leaped to death in an attempt to escape extreme heat and smoke. Firemen worked

in three teams to evacuate the building and ventilate it. Some tenants were evacuated to the roof, others were evacuated from the building while a third party was asked to stay back in the apartment after verifying that they were safe. Five tenants were treated for smoke inhalation.

School bus accident Three school children were injured when a school bus carrying 20 students met with an accident along Airport road.

Five ambulances were immediately dispatched to the scene.

several injuries in a fight that took place in Kabd.

Man falls from height A 30-year-old Bangladeshi sustained multiple bone fractures after falling from a height in Farwaniya. The man was rushed to Farwaniya hospital for treatment.

Traffic accidents Three Egyptians were injured, an unidentified individual fractured his spine and sustained various injuries all over, and another died instantly in a traffic accident that took place along Seventh Ring Road.

Five citizens suffered multiple wounds and injuries after two vehicles collided

Street fight A 32-year-old Ethiopian suffered

KUWAIT: The Hawally building in which fire broke out yesterday.

into each other along King Fahad highway. The five were admitted to Adan hospital.

A 40-year-old Egyptian sustained multiple bruises after being knocked down by a vehicle in Hawally, said security sources. He noted that the man was rushed to Mubarak Hospital for treatment. Three Egyptians suffered multiple injuries after their vehicle flipped over along Salmi highway. They were admitted to Jahra hospital.

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

local

Nurses allege gross violations by sub-contracting company Complaints fall on deaf ears

By Ben Garcia

Maritime traffic comes to a halt KUWAIT: Kuwait Ports Authority announced yesterday the suspension of maritime traffic in ports because of the low level of visibility to less than a nautical mile due to a wave of dust hitting the country. Shuwaikh Port Marine Operations Director Suleiman Al-Yahya said that traffic was put on hold after visibility fell dramatically.

The decision was taken to avoid any possible accidents and came to meet safety measures. Entry of three ships had been delayed and they are waiting at the waiting docks, while there are no ships departing the port, he said Assistant Head of the Marine Operations Department in Shuaiba port Captain Tawfiq Al-Shahab said that there was a ship ready to depart the port, however it was delayed, while no ships are in the waiting docks. All ships remained inside the port before the dust wave hit the country, he added.

Meanwhile, air traffic was functioning normally at Kuwait International Airport (KIA), despite poor weather conditions, said the General Administration of Civil Aviation Department yesterday. This is due to a dust storm passing over the country. Essam Al-Zamel, Director of Operations’ Department at KIA, said that the ongoing flight schedule on the runway, current visibility at the airport has been recorded at 900 meters. —KUNA

KUWAIT: Heavy rains hit Kuwait yesterday after a day of sandstorms which led to the suspension of maritime traffic in ports.

—Photos by Islam Al-Sharaa

conference to focus on Arab markets’ productivity

By Hanan Al-Saadoun

KUWAIT: The Minister of Electricity and Water (MEW) and Minister of State for Municipal Affairs Abdul Aziz Al-Ibrahim welcomed municipality ministers, governors and mayors to take part in the First International Conference for Municipal Management and Sustainable Development in Arab Cities. It will be organized by Kuwait Municipality in collaboration with the UNHabitat between May 7 to 9 under the patronage of HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah.

Speaking during a press conference, Al-Ibrahim stressed that this is the first of a kind conference to discuss various issues like unemployment, social justice, transparency, comprehensiveness, affordable accommodation, food and energy prices, and new challenges posed by urbanism.

Al-Ibrahim also highlighted the importance of Arab coordination and real cooperation in terms of urban development issues, turning Arab markets into more productive ones despite all environmental or climate challenges faced.

Citizens may receive subsidized meat during Ramadan KUWAIT: The government is considering adding red meat to its list of subsidized food provided to citizens during Ramadan, a local newspaper reported yesterday.

“A joint committee was formed to outline the government’s efforts to ensure a steady supply of red meat, discussing a proposal that calls for distributing two kilograms of meat to every citizen.

This can be obtained using a ration card during the month of Ramadan,” read an Al-Rai report.

The report refers to a committee that includes members from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the Kuwait Flour Mills and Bakery Company, the Public Authority for Agricultural Affairs and Fish Resources(PAAAFR).

According to sources, the committee is working on a short-term plan to secure enough supply of red meat to meet increasing demand, as well as a long-term plan pertinent with outlining the state’s strategy.

Meat prices featured notable increase in recent years during Ramadan in which demand for commodities used to prepare several traditional Ramadan-related dishes increases.

The committee members reportedly put forward the idea of distributing subsidized meat to citizens during the holy month, keeping in mind the need to open the market for more suppliers to create competition. —Al-Rai

KUWAIT: A group of nurses employed at Mubarak Al-Kabeer Hospital and clinics that fall under the jurisdiction of Hawally health zone lodged a complaint at their embassy recently accusing their subcontracting company of breaching several contracts signed between them. The Kuwait Times obtained a copy of the complaint which cites failure to renew visas, delayed salary payments, ill-treatment and harassment that is widespread and unchecked. “There are many violations committed by our company and it has been going on unchecked till now,” said Roby V.C. “In 2009, more than 300 nurses were recruited by our company from India. We were told that we would be paid KD 300.

We agreed to the amount, unaware of the salary structure here. We found out that nurses working in the ministry receive about KD 700 to 800 monthly.

However, we only received KD 300,” he said. However, the nurses did not complain about the amount signed between them, but lamented that their job function is not any different from that performed by other nurses employed with the ministry. “We are not complaining about the salary monthly, but other violations of the company. Most of the time, our salaries are paid during the middle of the month. We are not paid on time,” he said. Roby noted that the company’s unfair policies included non-payment of

overtime and holiday payments. “We are not paid overtime even if we worked for 15 hours. If we work during official holidays, instead of paying us double, they paid us half of the salary per day,” Roby pointed out.

He visited Kuwait Times, accompanied by another ten other nurses from same company. “During the first five months, [of their employment] we were asked to sign a paper. It stated there [in the paper] that we have to pay the company KD 500. It was not mentioned in the contract and it was never mentioned to us in India. We were obliged to sign that document because we are already here. We have spent thousands of rupees to come here and work. So for the first five months, we were obliged to pay the company KD 500.”

Residency permit was another dilemma Roby and many of his colleagues faced. Many were issued temporary visas [visa 14] only after their residencies expired. “There are many of us experiencing difficulties because we are not permitted to use some of the services provided here. For example, there are pregnant women in our company who cannot avail of maternity checkup at the ministry because their visa expired or they are on visa number 14. Some of us were caught by police for possessing expired civil ID cards and were jailed at the police station for days before receiving any assistance. Many of us are afraid,” he said. The nurses also complained

about the company’s complete disregard for Kuwaiti labor law. It continues to retain possession of employees’ passports. “Our passports are kept by our employer and it is not showed to us. Plus, the professional certificates are also kept in their drawers and we cannot access them unless we are released from employment. They are asking for KD 2,000 in order to be released from employment. So if we need our certificates for registration and other professional purposes, we cannot receive it easily unless we are released,” Roby added.

When nurses ask for an annual leave, they are permitted to take it only after giving a written undertaking stating that

they have obtained vacation claims.

“Even to renew civil ID cards , we are told to pay KD 66. So, we need assistance from our embassy. However, our complaints landed on our embassy’s deaf ear,” Roby told the Kuwait Times.

When contacted, a company representative denies allegations of wrongdoing. “You can check our record anytime and I assure you that we are not doing anything wrong. Residency permits are being renewed, and if there are some problems it must be the result of their own actions like traffic violations. I am personally inviting you to visit our company as we cannot show you proof over the phone,” he told the Kuwait Times.

Water consumption exceeds production KUWAIT: Water consumption levels have exceeded production rates this weekend, adding more to skepticism to officials’ assurances of a summer that will be free from water shortages.

According to sources familiar statistics, 365,588 million imperial gallons were consumed on Saturday, during which 360.344 million imperial gallons were produced. The ministry resorts to the state’s strategic reserve to meet demand.

The reserve stood at 2,154.875 million

imperial gallons by the end of Saturday, sources added.

The insiders who spoke to Al-Qabas on condition of anonymity attributed the surge in consumption to rising temperatures, an indication that consumption levels are bound to increase gradually as temperatures continue to rise. Senior MEW officials assured in recent months that the ministry has plans to maintain production levels that exceed consumption rates throughout summer. —Al-Qabas

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

LOCAL kuwait digest

In my view

Our double standards

If you cannot beat them, join them!

By Thaar Al-Rashidi

By Salwa Nugali

A

preacher published a statement on his website saying “an Afghani teacher was giving a lecture at a police headquarters talking about forgiving when suddenly an American soldier stood up and shot the lecturer, killing him on the spot saying “this is how we practice forgiving in the American way.” The minute the preacher put his news on his website, several of his followers responded and expressed their anger at America.

The preacher did not stop, but he recommended several books that attack America and named America with all bad names in the world. He gave a list of massacres and crimes carried out by America in the whole world, and through modern political history.

After one hour, the news agency corrected the news which the preacher wrote on his page, saying that the Afghani teacher was the one who opened fire and shot two American soldiers who were listening to the lecture.

When the preacher received the correction of the news, he did not apologize for what he wrote about the incorrect news but he wrote “the Afghani teacher must have killed the American soldiers for some reason.”

The preacher talked very bad about America when he thought the teacher was the victim, and retrieved from histor y its worst crimes and described America and the Americans with all evil names.

But when he found that the Afghani teacher the killer, he tried to find an excuse for him.

There is no excuse for killing, whether the victim is American or Afghani, and also there is no reason for double standards which the preacher promoted when he wrote that the killing of the Afghani teacher is an evil thing and the killing of the American has a point of view. The lack of fixed principles for giving judgments in the same case means that there is something wrong in our thinking. Even general defects in dealing with the same case. It is as if he was saying, if the victim is Muslim it is not allowed but if the victim is an American then we take sides with the one who killed him, and forgot the soul which was lost without a real reason.

It was possible to take the side of this “criminal” when we knew all the details of the case, but the news came in correctly as the preacher put it on his page and then came back to correct it, neither him nor anyone has the right to comment or say it is right to kill or not kill.

The preacher, whom I respect, is one of the preachers whom I mostly listen to and I know that he is logical. But this strongly made me understand an important matter. The Americans are not the only ones who have double standards, but we as Muslims also have this double standard. Why not, while this preacher gave two different judgments for the same case in less than an hour?! — Al-Anbaa

kuwait digest

Garner more accomplishments!

I

kuwait digest

Majority bloc’s idea of freedoms

By Dr Hassan Abbas

L

awmakers from the majority bloc have long been calling for instituting constitutional reforms, despite the fact that their actions make the most intellectually challenged person in the country feel jealous.

I hope that MPs Falah Al-Sawagh, Adel AlDamkhi, Waleed Al-Tabtabaei, Faisal Al-Mislem, Mohammad Hayef and others would be k ind enough to explain to the public what kind of ‘freedom’ they wish to improve in the country through their proposed constitutional amendments. I do not know how the term ‘freedoms’ can even be associated with the things they say and do.

For example, the majority bloc calls for freedoms, yet slam different opinions and political approaches that contradict with their own. Al-Mislem is perhaps mostly known for infamously describing media outlets that broadcast opposing viewpoints as ‘corrupt media.’ How can we connect between calls for reform and freedoms, and images of the Parliament being raided, election camps burned down and TV station headquarters vandalized?

How come the majority to talks about freedom when Khalid Al-Sultan describes the election of some of his fellow lawmakers as an error, despite the fact that they were elected by people?

Imagine the type of freedom promoted by someone as Hayef who once insisted that Kuwait is not a

civil state, but an Islamic country, before proposing a draft law to criminalize ‘immoral behavior.’ Of course, morality in this law is set as per Hayef’s personal standards.

We can only imagine what kind of freedom would be promoted by constitutional reforms that call for making Sharia law the sole source of legislation, or require that all future laws fall in line with Sharia to be passed. If these so-called ‘reforms’ are made, they will likely result in further restrictions being placed on Shiite mosques for example, while media outlets should broadcast subjects matching Islamist MPs’ point of view only. Eventually, these ‘reforms’ will lead the entire society being forced to adopt a single point of view. So much so for freedom.

The majority bloc’s idea of constitutional reform means, for example, enforcing death penalty for someone that Islamist MPs believe have offended the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). It also means placing restrictions on building churches, and accusing TV channels of “damaging national unity” if they broadcast material that contradict with the bloc’s point of view.

I don’t understand how calls for more freedoms are made by people who simultaneously call for more restrictions, and less opportunities for different opinions to be expressed. —- Al-Rai

f one browses through articles in newspapers or fiction books, one will find that there are always proverbs on which writers anchor their points of view to support their arguments.

Here I stop to ask: Do these proverbs have eternal truths? Why is it that one uses an old proverb to argue something which is current? The changes that have come with time and the new era require the development that describes matters now - not in the past. When these proverbs apply to our times, it is an indication that we have not changed.

We have not learned from the past which is disturbing to some extent.

The proverb, which is the title of my article, is true to many cultures, not just the Western culture.

Now, is this what one wants to be? Do we join the “cannot beat them” because we cannot “beat them”?

Some will. These might claim it is a survival game. Others might refuse and take high risk and very likely will suffer.

History taught us that those who refused to “join them” had enlightening ideas which changed our lives. It is because of these people who stood for themselves that our lives changed and we advanced in science and technology and in the field of arts. Their sufferings and their work made them eternal. We are reaping the benefits they left behind for us.

Have we learned from this? The answer is: NO. We still live in the past mentally where our ethics are standing on the edge. Cognitively speaking, people resist change. As a result, very few will stand for their beliefs, ideas and most importantly ethics. “Them”, in the proverb, refers to a crowd that resist any change which is the only fixed fact in life.

Sometimes “them” goes to extremes for resisting due to benefits and gains. Today capitalism has taken its toll on our humanity.

In our culture, we have witnessed many who stood for their ideas, beliefs and ethics. We have read their stories and celebrated them momentarily. The tragedy of this is we did not try to change our infrastructures in our institutions. Everything is still the same. We did not even try to protect or listen to those who think outside the box. We even ignored success stories as if they do not concern us. It is time to re-evaluate our infrastructure to suit this century. To learn from our history - not to follow it - as well as our mistakes and make serious corrective acts. After all, the regulations are what we have written down. They were not dropped from the sky. We wrote these regulations, we can always change them to accommodate and reflect our new emerging knowledge about ourselves.

In a nutshell, this proverb, to suit this time, should be changed to “if you cannot beat them, leave them.” Go and join the crowd that best suits you and makes you comfortable in life and most pertinent which will advance your knowledge. This is if we are to hold on to our ethics and sustain our humanity.

kuwait digest

Qualities of a popular PM

By Najla Abdul Aziz Khalifa

T

he scandalous practices of the parliament house are no longer a secret. The National Assembly can no longer be described as the country’s main legislative body after committing heinous crimes. The Parliament has become a mess and accords a warm welcome to whoever wishes to insult the law. Some of the lawmakers who are supposed to maintain its sacredness are the same ones who insinuated non-parliamentarians to come up with such disdainful, disgraceful actions. So, it is no wonder that such lawmakers use inappropriate language.

Their only achievements are in the form of speech being turned into disbelief, blame, insults and bad names. They use language one would be ashamed to utter.

The funny thing is that it is the same people who forget to be decent that try to impose their rules on women.

Their only achievements are in the form of speech being turned into disbelief, blame, insults and bad names. They use language one would be ashamed to utter. The funny thing is that it is the same people who forget to be decent that try to impose their rules on women. They should have set a good example for us to follow. On the contrary, they are forcing us to take things up. However, they are exposed now and everybody knows about their deceit and how they have their own targets to reach beyond religion.

This is very apparent - with a lot of religious based legislations they pass to terrify the entire community and restrict freedoms. However, people, on the other hand, realize that lawmakers appear to be living on a separate planet. They have easily proved everything with all the failed laws, crippled development, frantic interpellation motions and endless disputes, completely stalling various initiatives and national projects.

Many young people have created their own paths to success and prosperity by starting their own businesses and small projects. These have really revived national economy in a way that leads everybody to believe that real democracy is best practiced outside the Parliament where lawmakers are too busy calling each other bad names. It lies deep within our hearts. How foolish are lawmakers for believing that they are really making achievements! — Al-Watan

By Faisal Al-Zamal

kuwait digest

Sulaiman’s journey to Parliament

By Dr Mohammad Al-Muqatea

S

ulaiman is a citizen who works in the private sector after graduating from college. He has average social relations and a mediocre job performance that is barely limited to completing daily tasks. Much like his interest in what’s going on in the local scene, Sulaiman has little interest in seeking a promotion. Collecting his pay cheque at the end of the month is his highest concern.

Sulaiman woke up one Wednesday morning and read a newspaper report which states that his former high school classmates, Nasser and Yaqoub became a lawmaker and minister respectively. “How is that possible?” Sulaiman lamented, given the fact that both Nasser and Yaqoub are less qualified both professionally and academically.

This incident ignited Sulaiman’s political ambition.

He waited for the opportunity to run for office and registered his name. He decided to stop by several diwaniyas to meet with potential voters and fellow candidates. The same day, he visited a diwaniya in which a candidate was talking about forsaking his job in the medical field to “serve the country from the parliament building,” and answered questions on topics ranging from economic, security and political fields. When the candidate finished the visit, Sulaiman followed him and asked him how he was able to answer all kinds of questions. “Whoever said that all my answers were true?” the candidate said, before getting into his car and driving away.

Sulaiman headed to another

diwaniya afterwards and listened to a candidate, giving promises of guaranteed job opportunities, pay raises and homes within three years. Sulaiman followed the candidate when he made his way out of the diwaniya, and asked about how he plans to fulfill all his promises. “Making promises is the art of politics,” the candidate said, before driving away and leaving behind a speechless Sulaiman.

Sulaiman’s third dewaniya visit led him to another candidate who was accompanied by a man who was his “representative to help finalize all kind of transactions at state depar tments.”

Sulaiman decided not to ask the candidate any questions, and headed directly out of the diwaniya. Soon enough, he received a phone call. Excerpts of the conversations are as follows: Caller: Mr Sulaiman?

Sulaiman: Yes Caller: We are calling after learning that you are an honorable man who is very eager to serve his country. We would like to fund your election campaign.

Sulaiman: But you don’t know who I am. Besides, what’s the reason behind your sudden generous offer?

Caller: We are hoping that you can be flexible enough to help us get appointed in some business projects once you are elected.

Sulaiman: I’ll think about it and call you back later.

He hung up and went back home to think more about his first day of candidacy.

The next day, Sulaiman received a call from a friend who offered to help him tour a num-

ber of diwaniyas. Before they entered the first dewaniya, Sulaiman was advised by his friend to make an offer to sponsor a sports competition, since most of whom are young men.

He entered, and soon heard people whispering that they plan to vote for a university professorturned-candidate who promised to give high marks. Sulaiman went to another dewaniya with his friend. They ran into a candidate he had seen the previous day. The candidate, however, was making statements that were completely different from the day before. “You have to learn the truth about political work if you ever plan to realize your political ambitions,” the candidate said. He happened to be a former MP and minister.

Sulaiman returned home at the end of the day, and stayed awake until dawn. He went on to write the following letter: “I realize now why the Parliament is often compared to an old market where all kind of speeches are made. I now realize how the Parliament has turned into a place where empty promises and threats are made, and where projects with harmful results can be passed to please current public demands. Now I understand what parliamentary membership has become for most MPs, a means to achieve ambitions, or a tool to intimidate political foes. I no longer want to be associated with the Parliament because I refuse to embark on a political career that is similar to what MPs today have. Therefore, I announce that I’m withdrawing my nomination.” — Al-Qabas

W

hat is meant by a popular prime minister is it that he should not be from the AlSabah family?! Or he should be part of the current general scene, which depends on public spending to get acceptance from the public in the short run. Then, in the long run and when the treasury goes bankrupt, the public acceptance becomes dangerous anger.

What is really meant by popular prime minister when unripe visions have been thrown into the politician scene? Owners thought it was the solution to all of our problems and they forget that the whole style is wrong. Changing persons only is nothing but escaping forward. That does not mean that I oppose the choice of a prime minister from the Al-Sabah family, which in the first place is the decision of His Highness the Amir. But he cannot impose the required success under the continued “auction of accusation” style, which is a failure.

I read yesterday the opinion of a respectable MP about some violations and shortfalls which can change a complete government. This is the same style which changed tens of ministers without achieving reform, as if talking will provide relief without the need for reform itself. The reason is an elastic statement, which says “the minister is politically responsible for shortfalls in his ministry.” This is an optional sword used against this minister and that minister. Justice in using the sword is also elastic, even unfair. Therefore, we only loose the best people and the good one is being held accountable in a violent way.

Yes, the theory is to choose a “popular” Prime Minister who has abilities suitable for the period, like “a Prime Minister for four years, to fight corruption seriously.” The person chosen should be top in honesty. Then, “a Prime Minister who is good and excellent in economics and administration” should be a person chosen for this period who has successful economic applications. In case war breaks out, a Prime Minister is chosen suitable for the period.

The international example is Churchill, who was called when World War II started. The local example is the Late Sheikh Saad Al-Abdullah, who was the man of the period during the occupation due to his excellent abilities in the security field.

If vision for this post is accompanied by changing the corrupt style, then we will be able to have a Prime Minister who can fight corruption, all corruption, and get us out of being under moods and narrow reasons.

In short, we wish a deep discussion on this matter, which exceeds a daily paper that feeds a new issue every week on its pages. — Al-Anbaa

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

local

Premier calls for backing wide, responsible media Kuwait ‘a pioneer in supporting open media’

HH the Prime Minister at the KIPCO booth in the exhibition

KIPCO takes part in AMF exhibition KUWAIT: KIPCO - the Kuwait Projects Company - participated in a job fair held alongside the ‘Second Arab Media Forum for Youth’. The event was held under the auspices of HH the Amir Sheikh Sabah AlAhmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah who was represented by the Minister of Information Sheikh Mohammad Al-Abdullah AlMubarak Al-Sabah. As a gold sponsor of the event, KIPCO and some of its group companies - including Burgan Bank, GulfNet and Marina FM - introduced the young people attending the forum to the scope of employment opportunities available in the private sector.

KIPCO was also present at the exhibi-

tion held alongside the ‘Ninth Annual Arab Media Forum’, which was held under the auspices of HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah.

Eman Al-Awadhi, assistant manager, marketing and PR department, said: “KIPCO operates many businesses in the MENA region, and as part of our corporate social responsibility activities we are keen on supporting events that address the concerns of the Kuwaiti and Arab societies. We thank the organizers for giving us the opportunity to exchange ideas with the young people and media representatives that have come to take part in the two events.”

KUWAIT: HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah called yesterday for extending all forms of support for “wise and responsible” media. “Kuwait has been a pioneer in supporting open media through important media meetings,” Sheikh Jaber said in a statement on sidelines of the 9th Arab Media Forum. Sheikh Jaber praised role of the Arab media to boosting awareness and contribute to genuine decision-making. Arab Media Forum Secretary General Madhi AlKhamees, in a speech at the opening of the forum, said the Arab media was experiencing critical phase amidst the Arab Spring.

This phase, he added, made the Arab citizen more active and linked to media more than ever. The new media, said Al-Khamees, was forming political, social and cultural future of the Arab world.

He said media was the mirror of every society “and through which we can read reality and hope for a better media future”. AlKhamees said media was a “sensitive and dangerous” tool which could either result in advancement of retreat of societies.

Arab League Secretary General Nabil AlAraby said the Arab Media Forum has succeeded over the past years to be a tool of communication between journalists. Al-Araby, in a speech delivered on his behalf by his assistant for media Mohammad Al-Khamlishi,

said the Arab League was keen on developing the Arab media action.

Meanwhile, Tunisian minister of human

KUWAIT: His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah met at Al-Seif Palace yesterday Minister of Information Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah Al-Sabah and members of the Arab Media Forum, which kicked off here late Sunday. rights and government spokesman Sameer importance of media but they should be used Dilou said the Arab media perspective was in the appropriate context. still unclear. He thanked the forum for supThe forum organizers honored Arab jourporting the Tunisian revolution. nalists who won the Arab award for media Governor of Makkah and founder of the creativity: Sameer Atallah from Lebanon, Arab intellect foundation Prince Khaled Al- Kuwait’s ex-information minister Mohammad Faisal called for benefiting from modern com- Al-Sanousi, Princess Reem Al-Ali of Jordan, munication means. Prince Sultan bin Khaled Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, Tunisian human rights Al-Faisal, delivering a speech on behalf of minister Sameer Delou and Sheikh Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, hoped the Arab Media Mohammad Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah. — KUNA

Are subsidies causing inflation?

By Sawsan Kazak KUWAIT: The Minister of Commerce and Industry, Anas Al-Saleh recently announced a proposal to distribute free food to citizens until August 2014.

This would be an extension to the already ongoing food subsidies of basic food stuff such as sugar, rice, cooking oil, and milk power that was implemented by last year.

“I take all of the items that I am allowed to take, sugar, powdered milk, rice and so on,” says Umm Hani, a Kuwaiti mother of five. She says that she takes the food because it is free and it is there, saying “why not take it if it’s being offered to me.” The family usually does a good job at going through the items, but do find themselves with some surplus during some months. “When its nearing the end of the month and I still have some items untouched, I donate the rest of it to mosques or people that I know need it,” says the mother of five.

This mentality seems to be a common one, as many families take to subsidized foodstuff simply because it is there, and not because they need it.

Therefore, they end up having a surplus that gets donated. Stories of surplus, donations or even of items being sold in the black market are not rare.

Co-op societies “All of the food that is subsidized by the government is taken by the families that are entitled to it,” says Hakam Rida Maree, Commercial Manager of Khaldiya Co-op Society, adding “if a family is allotted five kilograms of rice or sugar, they take all five kilos home; they leave nothing behind.” Maree explains that the food is picked up at a store near the local co-op society which distributes some items and sells others at a very subsidized rate to locals. “The food is of high quality and the prices are amazing compared to the regular prices in the supermarket,” says Maree. The most popular items are rice and chicken, but there is also a high demand for all the items provided to Kuwaiti families. The commercial manager of Khaldiya sees no slowdown in this system and mentions that dates and meat might be added to the list of subsidized food next month.

Maree estimates that 80 percent of the food being taken are used by the families themselves, and the other percent being either donated or sold in the black market. Maree sees this as a great way to protect locals from high prices and inflation, but there is nothing for the expats. “In the 90’s, before the Iraq invasion, we used to all collect free and subsidized food from the government. Both locals and expats used to have this right and this was truly fair,” remembers Maree.

The subsidies protect locals from soaring prices of commodities, but could this proposal be doing more harm than good when it comes to the inflation situation in Kuwait?

Economist Hajjaj Bukhadour seems to believe so. He thinks that increasing the amount of subsidized foods or increasing salaries of locals is a temporary fix to a long-term problem.

The solution “Inflation is at eight percent, and I suspect that it is above that, actually.

Annually, it is going to be averaging, from now until 2014 at 10 percent, if not more. This is the inflation on the food worldwide,” said Bukhadour. He explains that this is due to the limitations on farming areas, weather condi-

tions and more demand as the world population is increasing. “Countries like India and China used to live on what they grew. They are now importing foods due to higher demand; this is significant as they represent a large

good for an economy. Also, the managers are not qualified or have a political agenda and have a tribal mentality.

The choices are not made based on logic or with a business mentality but to benefit themselves; not based on

and prices. They need to implement strict regulations that allow flexibility while being given concrete guidelines. The municipalities need a unit of control that can police the quality and prices, and allow for open competition.”

“The sixth step is in the monetary policy, as

KUWAIT: A file photo shows one of the cooperatives in Kuwait. The image is used for illustrative purposes. —Photo

by Yasser Al-Zayyat portion of the world population,” says Bukhadour. The economist believes that it is important to know this in respect to Kuwait’s inflation situation.

“The problem with food supply worldwide is the key to create instability and chaos,” explains Bukhadour and he believes he knows the answer to alleviate some of the upcoming inflation in Kuwait with a few steps. “The answer is to invest in the food industry.

Those countries that invest in the food industry will have more stability in their countries. The best strategy of Kuwait is to invest in its food industry buy land in countries that have the ability for high production of food, seeing as Kuwait is limited in this area, and focus on this investment as a priority, before any other investment,” says Bukhadour. He believes that investing in food is more important than focusing on border security or supplying and paying salaries to the army. This is because economic stability of the countries is directly related to food security.

“As Kuwait does not produce its own food and does not invest in this process, they are importing the inflation. For Kuwait to control the inflation, there are steps that need to be taken,” Bukhadour says. He believes that the second step is to prevent delay in the supply of food to Kuwait. “There should be a laboratory at any border, there should be appropriate facilities such as chiller rooms and storage space in the border rather than only inside Kuwait. In this case, the food is not delayed, you avoid rotten foods that eventually become unsafe for human consumption, and you have quality control to reduce cost of logistic costs. The delays are also causing a part of the inflation as the food is not getting in the country,” says Bukhadour of the current situation at the border.

The third step is to have more storage facilities within Kuwait, this would encourage volume import, which is called volume economy. Bukhadour believes that the system of cooperative needs to be changed, saying “the system is a monopoly which is never

quality or profit.” Bukhadour says that the co-operative societies need to be run in more efficient ways, and people on the board of directors need to be qualified to run such a business. “The objectives should be to reduce the cost and increase competition and control quality; these three do not exist here,” says Bukhadour. Changing the co-operative system is the third step, according to him.

“Co-operative societies are supported by the government as they are given free land, electricity and so many other things are subsidized to them.

The private groceries in Kuwait have their own land, have no subsidies from the government but still make more profit, have less costs and offer better quality. If the private sector can make profit without subsidies, why can’t the co-operative societies do so with such subsidies,” explains Bukhadour.

Laws that protect The fourth step to reduce or control inflation lies in the laws of the country. “Late Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah issued an Amiri decree stating that bread should not exceed 50 fils and that a falafel sandwich should not be sold for more than 100 fils.

And this decree is still in existence, over 35 years later. You can just imagine how much inflation has occurred decades later, the 50 fils now costs at least half a KD or more. If you go to the market, they are still being sold for the same amount, this is a good thing because this is food to the people; both locals and expatriates can benefit from these prices. These are the sorts of laws we need. These restaurants are still making money because they are getting controlled foods supplied to them. More decrees of this sort is the fourth step in reducing inflation when it comes to food,” says Bukhadour.

“The fifth step to controlling the inflation lies with the Ministry of Commerce,” says Bukhadour, adding “they need to change their policy to allow for more competition, but at the same time exercise control on quality

Forum achieves its objectives.

Kuwait Minister of Information Sheikh Mohammad Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah underlined

the Central Bank needs a better monetary policy than what it has right now. They apply the rate of interest to control the inflation, this is also an issue for loans, so we better control the consumption attitudes in the community, moving from consumerism to productivity, imbibing earning values as well as a saving attitude. The Central Bank should implement policies, says Bukhadour of the current value system being held by a majority of people in the country. Finally, the subsidies.

“The final step would be subsidizing food to the people to avoid inflation. By implementing the first steps, subsidizing can be done in a more efficient way. Increasing salaries results in more inflation, as more cash in the market will inevitably fuel more inflation. The economist also believes that subsidies should benefit all who are living in Kuwait, local and expat, as he thinks the cost of living should be fair to all.

Bukhadour believes that subsidizing food is but a small part of controlling inflation and should be the last stage in the system. The solution lies in changing the logistic system, the co-op society system, the current value, and once inflation is in control, subsidizing food responsibly.

Al-Barrak testifies again in former PM’s investigation KUWAIT: MP Musallam Al-Barrak testified again in front of a permanent investigations committee at the Court of Ministers regarding a case in which former prime minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah is accused of transferring public funds to private accounts overseas.

According to sources close to the committee, Al-Barrak’s testimony late Sunday night came as per his personal request as he offered during the first hearing to provide new documents he says convict the former premier.

The same case is separately being investigated by a parliamentary committee formed specifically for this purpose, and headed by MP Dr Faisal Al-Mislem.

In other news, the Development and Reform Bloc reiterated Sunday earlier proposals to introduce constitutional amendments that would remove ministers from parliamentary membership, which the bloc announced in March 2011. This was announced by the bloc’s spokesman Al-Mislem simultaneously with MP Faisal Al-Yahya’s announcement of proposing constitutional amendments that seek ‘full parliamentary system’ with an elected prime minister and where the cabinet must be voted into office by MPs before ministers assume their duties.

The recent news hint that Al-Yahya’s proposals already secured the DRB’s support, yet a report published by Al-Qabas yesterday indicates that the bloc doesn’t agree with the proposal to increase members of the parliament from 50 to 75.

Meanwhile, MP Saleh Ashour called for including a provision in any proposed constitutional amendments to give the parliament the authority of voting for its own dissolution. “Many democracies around the world have parliaments that cannot be dissolved unless with a request proposed by the majority”, Ashour said, adding that this stipulation needs to be adopted in Kuwait’s parliament. Separately, Minister of Finance Mustafa AlShamali is reportedly “not intimidated” by his potential grilling motion which opposition lawmakers plan to file within two weeks. According to cabinet sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Al-Shamali prepares to back his arguments with “numbers and budget necessities which explain that his approach has been focused on meeting the greatest interest on Kuwait on the long term”.

Jordan king meets Kuwaiti MPs AMMAN: Jordanian King Abdullah II met here yesterday a visiting Kuwait parliamentary delegation on brotherly cooperative relations between Jordan and Kuwait. During the meeting, they discussed developments and political changes in the Arab world and prospects for increasing economic and investment cooperation between the two countries, as Kuwait ranks first among Arab countries investing in the Kingdom.

Kuwaiti parliamentary delegation head Mubarak Al-Saifi hailed the positive atmosphere in which the meeting was held, appreciating the Jordanian king’s interest in reinforcing bilateral relations. Kuwaiti MP Khalid Al-Muteiri said the talks focused on several key issues, primarily Kuwaiti students in Jordan.

He said they had also discussed Kuwaiti-Jordanian cooperative ties in the legislative and parliamentary domains. Other members of the delegation expressed their appreciation of the King’s interest in boosting cooperation between the two countries. They also hailed the strong ties between Jordan and Kuwait in various fields.

Kuwaiti investments in the Kingdom, which currently stand at $10 billion, are concentrated in the fields of medical tourism, ICT, health and education. — KUNA

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

local

Kuwaiti youth in police net for sexual assault Mother confronts jet skier

A group photo of the VIVA App Club members

VIVA launches App Club KUWAIT: VIVA, Kuwait’s newest and most advanced mobile telecommunications service provider, announced the launch of the VIVA App Club with Kuwait’s youngest application developer, 15-year-old Abdulrahman Al-Zanki. The VIVA App Club held its first training session on Saturday.

The VIVA App Club is the first club of its kind in Kuwait to cater for application developers. VIVA are committed to developing Kuwaiti talent in this exciting area and are especially proud to be the first Kuwaiti company to officially recognize Abdulrahman’s skills. His world-wide success with ‘Doodle Destroy’ has been an inspiration for young application designers everywhere and an example of what Kuwaiti youth can achieve, using initiative, commitment and creativity.

VIVA’s close relationship with Apple, as official distributors in Kuwait, along with Abdulrahman’s talent in developing applications, makes the VIVA App Club a perfect platform for the company to highlight the importance of youth development in Kuwait.

Abdulrahman is truly a wonderful example of the sort of talent Kuwait can produce and VIVA hopes that his success is the first of many individual Kuwaiti success stories in the future.

The company will use Abdulrahman’s skills over the course of three months, during which time it plans to host 60 app developers from the age 13 -18 years. The club will host workshops on a bi-weekly basis, and will include topics such as ‘basics of app development’ and ‘steps to create your own application’. The first session on 21 April welcomed 20 young developers, who got a first-hand

experience from Al-Zanki on how to build an app. In the second session they will be able to present their app ideas for valuation by AlZanki and the VIVA team.

Abdulrahman Al-Zanki is the developer behind the successful and exciting game ‘Doodle Destroy’, which he offers as a free download via Apple’s iTunes website as an iPhone and iPad application. The game was first published in April 2010 and surpassed a million downloads within its first year.

VIVA will continue to open new chapters on its commitment and dedication towards all sectors of Kuwaiti society, reaffirming its position as a socially dedicated and responsible institution.

VIVA is the newest, most advanced mobile telecommunications service provider in Kuwait. Launched in December 2008, VIVA makes things possible for our customers by transforming communication, information and entertainment experiences. The company has rapidly established an unrivalled position in the market through our customer and employee centric approach. VIVA’s quest is to be the mobile brand of choice for Kuwait by being transparent, engaging, energetic and fulfilling.

VIVA continues to take a considerable share of the market by offering an innovative range of best value products, services and content propositions; a state of the art, nationwide network and world-class service.

VIVA offers Internet speed up to 42.2Mbps due to the implementation of the most advanced third generation (3G and HSDPA) network in Kuwait resulting in superior coverage, performance and reliability.

KUWAIT: A young man remains in custody following his recent arrest in Bnaid Al-Gar with a woman who accused him of sexual assault. A woman approached officers patrolling the area seeking help from a man who allegedly tried to assault her. The man, a Jordanian, was taken into custody after the Kuwaiti woman filed a complaint stating that she was kidnapped.

During investigations, the woman explained that the suspect bundled her into his car while shopping near a Salmiya mall. He drove to a Bnaid Al-Gar apartment and tried to rape her.

She added that the suspect escorted her out of the apartment after his attempt failed, and the patrol vehicle happened to pass by. The man faces kidnap and attempted rape charges.

Fugitive arrested A fugitive was nabbed after patrol officers received unexpected assistance from a security personnel. Officers were referred to the Judailiyat Street after receiving information that the suspect, who was convicted in connection with operating an unlicensed boat, was traced there. Soon after being pulled over, the suspect attempted to escape almost hitting an officer in the process. Soon enough, officers forced him to halt after a chase. The suspect resisted the arrest, and even snatched a gun. He fired a shot before a pedestrian lunged at the suspect, enabling police to handcuff the suspect who lost his defenses. It was revealed that the man who provided the assistance is an off-duty

Ministry of Defense serviceman. He offered a hand to police after noticing that they were having trouble restraining the suspect.

Jet skier held A jet skier was arrested along with a female citizen who confronted him after he allegedly approached her children while they were swimming at a beach near Kuwait City. Police officers reached the scene where a fight between a man and a woman was reported. The Kuwaiti woman told officers that the young man, who is reportedly a member of the ruling family, rode the jet ski in an erratic manner. Meanwhile, the jet skier insisted that he maintained a safe distance between him and swimmers, including the woman’s children. The two were whisked away to the nearest police station.

Spoiled food at jail A cafeteria worker at the Central Jail was suspended and taken into custody over a case of spoiled food that was reported recently at the facility. A number of inmates showed jail security food items obtained from cafeteria which were either expired or rotten. The officers held the cafeteria’s Egyptian supervisor responsible and referred him to higher authorities.

Food poisoning A man was hospitalized recently after consuming poison he accidentally added to his food believing it to be salt. The Bangladeshi

man who works as a driver for a Kuwaiti family fell unconscious half an hour after having lunch.

He was rushed to Farwaniya Hospital where it was revealed that he suffered from a severe case of poisoning resulting from consuming food contaminated with rat poison. It was later revealed that the man kept rat poison in a can similar to a salt dispenser, which created the confusion.

Body found Investigations are currently ongoing to confirm the cause of death of a man who passed away owing to natural causes. Paramedics and police rushed to a location near Farwaniya police station where the dead body was found.

The victim, a 68-year-old Asian man, was pronounced dead at the scene. Preliminary investigations found no evidence of foul play. The body was removed for an autopsy to reveal the time and cause of death.

Shooting A search is ongoing for two male suspects who have been accused of opening fire at a citizen’s home in Waha. Police reached the scene after the homeowner reported that his house was targeted by an AK-47 rifle. Investigators recovered bullets from the scene including ones that severely damaged two cars parked outside the house. The homeowner provided information, believing that at least one of them could be involved in the case.

GCC youth conference backs Saudi initiative RIYADH: The GCC youth conference concluded its activities here late Sunday evening after adopting a number of recommendations for closer ties among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states.

The recommendations highlight the significance of the initiative of Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud for the GCC member states to move from the state of cooperation to the state of union.

The conference themed “GCC from cooperation to union,” urged putting the initiative into effect since the initiative reflects the

demands of the Gulf peoples and represents a crucial strategy for this historic phase.

The planned union should read to the inception of a collective defense mechanism strong enough to meet the challenges of this stage and enhance regional and international influence of the its member states, the conferees urged.

It should work towards boosting the efficacy of the national and regional entities concerned with the long-term political, economic, social and cultural cooperation.

The conferees recommended

that moving to the state of union should take place on a gradual way that could respond to the transient reactions and meet the aspirations of the peoples in the region for welfare and larger role on the international arena.

The union should translate the status of the Arabian Gulf states as the world’s major source of energy into action on the international economic and political arenas, they opined.

They also urged coordinating the economy-related national legislations, facilitating the movement of individuals and capital among

the countries of the region, ensuring easy access by the youths to job opportunities, and putting in full play the role of youths in socioeconomic development.

They called for launching a GCC center for guiding the job seekers to the suitable careers and taking advantage of role of the civil society institutions, including the youth and sports associations, in promoting the concept of Gulf citizenry.

Kuwait delegation to the conference was led by Director-General of the Public Authority for Youth and Sports (PAYS) Maj Gen Faisal Al-Jazzaf. — KUNA

KUWAIT: Sheikh Mubarak Al-Duaij Al-Ibrahim Al-Sabah with Jordanian Princess Rym Ali and members of the delegation.

KUNA chief discusses Arab media issues with Jordanian delegation KUWAIT: Chairman and Director General of Kuwait News Agency Sheikh Mubarak AlDuaij Al-Ibrahim Al-Sabah received yesterday a visiting delegation headed by the founder and chairperson of board of trustees of Jordan Information Institute

Princess Rym Ali. Speaking during the meeting, held at his bureau at KUNA headquarters, the chief of the national news agency affirmed necessity of boosting cooperation among Arab media foundations to pave way for aspired integration, noting that the needed potentials for adopting such an approach were available.

The delegation, visiting Kuwait for taking part in the Ninth Session of the Arab Media Forum, included the dean of the Jordanian Information Institute Dr Abeer Al-Najjar, the advisor at the institute, Nada Doumani, and the eminent media personality, Hani Al-Badri.

Affirming KUNA’s keenness on bolstering joint Arab action in the media realm, Sheikh Mubarak also underscored need for utilizing modern communication technology for promoting a new language, in harmony with mounting public awareness across the Arab world. The Kuwaiti news agency, for its part, sought to expand interaction with the people and transmit news and facts, objectively, Sheikh Mubarak added.

Talks between the two sides dealt with diverse Arab media affairs, necessity of creating new language for this vital sector and prospects of competing with the advanced media of the West. For her part, Princess Rym underlined necessity of communication among the Arab media outlets and authorities, praised the Kuwaiti media for promoting cultural awareness across the Arab world and supporting just causes of the nation, hailed KUNA for its order and professionalism of its staff, expressing hope to boost cooperation between the news agency and the Jordanian foundation. The visiting guests examined sections and departments of the news agency. The Jordanian institute is a non-governmental body that organizes courses for would-be journalists. —KUNA

Education a noble mission KUWAIT: A number of experts participating in the Arab Education Ministers’ Conference said here yesterday that education was a noble mission with a constructive role to building future generations.

The educational experts, in separate statements on sidelines of the first session of the conference, said teachers should acquire skills to improve teaching. Director General of the Arab Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ALESCO), Dr Mohammad bin Ashour, said Arab countries should take serious steps to reform education. He said reforming educational systems required lots of efforts and time, thus not quick results were expected, but it was rather a long-term process. Bin Ashour praised, meanwhile, the democratic and parliamentary experience in Kuwait.

Democracy and the parliament in Kuwait “is the freedom that many people lack,” he added.

Director of specialized schools department at UAE, Mohammad Essa Lakhmiri said the conference aimed at pin pointing tools for educational reforms in the Arab countries. The teacher is the major element in the educational process in addition to students, curricula and schools, he said. Teachers should acquire modern knowledge skills as the world was experiencing rapid knowledge and technological developments. For her part, director of teachers licenses at the evaluation authority at the higher education council in Qatar, Nour AlHuda Al-Rasheed said the conference was very rich in content. Teaching should not be regarded as a mere job, she said, but a professional contribution to society. — KUNA

Laming crowned TEC chess champion KUWAIT: Ferdinand Laming from the Philippines won the first ever TEC Chess tournament that concluded on Sunday at the Yacht Club in a ceremony attended by senior officials from the Touristic Enterprise Company(TEC) and the Kuwait

Mental Games Club. The tournament featured strong competition from more than 100 competitors representing 14 countries; including ten members of Kuwait juniors’ national team who received special certificates as well as a KD 50 cash prize at

the end of the tournament.

Laming received a $1,000 grand prize during the awards ceremony supervised by Mohammad bin Sabt, TEC Deputy Managing Direc tor. Badr Al-Hajri from Kuwait received the $500 second place prize, while Mohammad

Al-Yaghsha won the $250 third place prize.

In four th place came Mohammad Abdullah of Egypt who collected a $150 award, while his compatriot Hamadah Al-Wakeel won the $100 fifth place award.

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

Japan PM in US to turn page for alliance Page 10

‘White vans’ keep fear alive in post-war Sri Lanka Page 11

Could domestic flak shoot down Bibi?

Aide warns of last-resort war if Iran sanctions fail New Sudan air raids alleged as hungry flee KHARTOUM: A surging number of hungry refugees are fleeing fighting in Sudan where some are reduced to foraging in the wild, the UN said yesterday, amid new allegations of Sudanese air strikes.

In South Kordofan state, where insurgents deny being backed by South Sudan, a Sudanese air raid killed a mother and two children, the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) said.

Air raids also continued over the weekend against South Sudanese frontline positions, the South Sudanese army said, despite an African Union order last week that the two nations cease border hostilities within 48 hours. Sudan denied bombing in South Kordofan or South Sudan.

There has been “a notable increase in the number of new arrivals” who have crossed the border from South Kordofan into South Sudan’s Unity state, the United Nations humanitarian agency (OCHA) said in its weekly bulletin. The refugees are fleeing fighting between Sudanese troops and the SPLM-N, it said.

An average of 234 people crossed into the South ever y day in April, compared with 84 per day in February and March, the bulletin added. The most serious border clashes yet between Sudan and South Sudan raged in April around the Heglig oil region, which is part of South Kordofan state.

South Sudan occupied the Heglig area for 10 days and Sudan carried out air strikes over the border in Unity state. Elsewhere in South Kordofan, SPLM-N rebels besieged the town of Talodi into early April and, after a lull, fighting in the area intensified later in the month.

“Newly arrived refugees told UNHCR that food shortages, concerns that they may not be able to reach Yida with the rainy season approaching and intense fighting in their places of origin have prompted them to move to Yida,” said the OCHA bulletin, covering the week to April 22.

Some reported “that they were relying on wild food” because fighting prevented them from planting and there was limited food for sale, it said. Yida refugee camp is a key destination for people fleeing the fighting in South Kordofan, which began in June last year. A mother and her two children were killed on Friday when a Sudanese plane bombed a village around Umm Durain, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of the state capital Kadugli, said SPLM-N spokesman Arnu Ngutulu Lodi. —AFP

Fugitive VP, guards charged with killing six Iraqi judges BAGHDAD: Iraq’s fugitive Sunni Vice President Tareq AlHashemi and some of his bodyguards have been charged with killing six judges, ahead of a trial that is to open on Thursday, a judicial spokesman said. Hashemi, who is currently in Turkey, is not expected to attend.

“There are many crimes of which Hashemi and his bodyguards are accused and confessions were obtained on them, including the assassination of six judges, mostly from Baghdad,” Higher Judicial Council spokesman Abdelsattar Bayraqdar said in a statement.

Bayraqdar put the number of charges announced against Hashemi and his bodyguards so far at about 150, adding that the figure could increase, without providing a breakdown of the charges or giving details on how many Hashemi in particular faces. He said that around 13 of Hashemi ’s guards had been released for lack of evidence, leaving some 73 others. Bayraqdar said the trial against Hashemi and Tariq Al-Hashemi a number of his guards will begin on Thursday, and would tackle the “assassination of the general director in the national security ministry, an officer in the interior ministry and a lawyer.”

An arrest warrant was issued in December for the vice president on charges of running a death squad, amid a crisis between the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc to which he belongs and Shiite Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki.

Hashemi, who says the charges are politically-motivated, fled to the autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq, which declined to hand him over to the central government. It then allowed him to leave on a tour of the region that has taken him to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and now Turkey.

In another development, violence killed seven people in Iraq yesterday, including a mother and her three children who were stabbed to death in their home and an army major killed by a bomb, officials said. A mother, her 13-year-old boy, and girls aged five and seven were killed in the Baghdad neighborhood of Kamaliyah after the woman’s husband, who works at the ministry of health, left for his office, security and medical officials said. It was unclear why they were targeted, an interior ministry official said, adding that the killings in the predominantly Shiite neighborhood did not appear to have sectarian motives. — Agencies

METULLA: Workers in the Israeli border town of Metullaplace cement blocks along a wall that will run several kilometers along part of Israel’s border with Lebanon. Israeli public radio said the wall would be several meters high and is intended to protect the Israeli border town of Metulla from fire coming from the Lebanese side. — AFP JERUSALEM: He may be ready to brave Iranian air defenses, retaliatory missiles and Western diplomatic blowback in tackling Tehran’s nuclear program, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will find it hard to fly past flak from his own senior staff.

Remarks by recently retired security chiefs and the current military commander questioning the views of Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Iran have opened a rare rift in a Jewish state that usually puts up a united front against regional enemies.

Yuval Diskin, who as former Shin Bet domestic intelligence chief was effectively in charge of vetting government officials, on Friday deemed Netanyahu and Barak “messianic” and unfit for war. If the Netanyahu government was ever serious about carrying out a long-threatened, last-ditch and tactically thorny assault on Iran’s nuclear sites against the misgivings of many Israelis and foreign allies like the United States, t he criticism from Diskin and others may have tipped the scales against.

The right-wing premier describes a future Iranian bomb as a second Holocaust-in-themaking, to be stopped at all costs. But that case may be tougher to make in the face of derision from men he once trusted to fend off immediate threats like suicide bombers, guerrilla rockets and armed infiltrators.

“They genuinely disagree and are trying to signal the Israeli public, knowing that they retain credibility,” said Dennis Ross, a former Middle East adviser to US President Barack Obama, in reference to Diskin and Mossad ex-spymaster Meir Dagan, another detractor of Netanyahu and Barak. “They are raising the costs domestically to the Netanyahu government of acting.”

A second-term prime minister with solid approval ratings, Netanyahu is mindful of public opinion, especially with the prospect of a scheduled 2013 election being brought forward to within months. Arguments by Dagan and Diskin that an Iran war could spill out of control, with knock-on reprisals from Syria and Islamist militants in Lebanon and Gaza, resonate with Israelis who demanded commissions of inquiry over the costs of far more contained border conflicts in 1982 and 2006. “With this kind of a prospect, many Israelis, regardless of political stripe, are reminded of past adventures which proved to be misadventures,” said Amotz Asa-El, a fellow with the Shalom Hartman Institute, a liberal Jerusalem think-tank.

Israeli officials accused Dagan and Diskin of using Iran to settle scores with Netanyahu and Barak after being denied extended tenures, or to launch political careers of their own. But Israel’s current top general, Benny

Gantz, also clashed with government messaging last week by describing Iran as “very rational” and unlikely to develop an atom bomb. “We are witnessing a very deep fissure between the security establishment and the political level (which is) quite unprecedented,” said another US ex-official, who asked not to be named. He dubbed it a “revolt of the defenders”. Such American apprehension is dreaded by Israel, which looks to its guardian ally to spearhead an international sanctions drive designed to curb Iran’s disputed uranium enrichment.

Netanyahu aides say those negotiations can succeed only if the world thinks he is poised to attack, despite all the risks, and that this impression is dented by naysayers who can claim knowledge of Israel’s secret capabilities and debates. “If you are against Israel taking military action, the worst thing you can do is undermine the credibility of that option,” one senior official said, suggesting that eroding the diplomatic pressure on Tehran risked making war Israel’s only resort.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the issue, said Israel worried that remarks like Diskin’s could dilute international demands that the Iranians stop all uranium enrichment, a program that has bomb-making potential though Tehran insists it is for peaceful ener-

gy only. “We are already seeing signs of capitulation” to Iran in the talks due to resume in Baghdad on May 23, the official said.

Such disclosures suggest that Israel’s war footing may have been as much bluff as true intent. As Diskin put it, “barking dogs don’t bite”. Indeed, during his accrued six years in top office, Netanyahu has not embarked on major military offensives - leading some critics to describe him as gun-shy. Then again, Netanyahu would be loath to see Iran go nuclear on his watch, and has differed with military experts in the past. He warned against unilateral withdrawals from occupied Lebanese and Palestinian territories and appeared to have been vindicated when those evacuations hardened Islamist hostility to Israel.

Netanyahu’s ideological forbear, Prime Minister Menachem Begin, beat back skepticism from some of his advisers to order the 1981 bombing of the nuclear reactor in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The mission was a success, with world outcry later giving way to gratitude. David Ivry, who oversaw the raid as then-Israeli air force chief, said Netanyahu and Barak might see the required cabinet approval for a similar Iran strike as enough to test fate. “In the end, history is the judge,” Ivry said. — Reuters

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Moderate Egypt Islamist endorsed by radicals CAIRO: A moderate Islamist running for Egypt’s presidency was endorsed yesterday by both a radical Islamist group and a liberal cyber activist famed for his role in the uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak. Gamaa Islamiyya, involved in the assassination of president Anwar Sadat, and Internet activist Wael Ghonim threw their support behind Abdel Moneim Abol Fotouh, a former senior leader of the powerful Muslim Brotherhood.

“The general assembly (of Gamaa Islamiyya) voted in favour of supporting” Abol Fotouh, the spiritual head of the movement, Tarek al-Zomor, told

AFP. The first round of voting is set for May 23-24, with a run-off likely the following month.

Zomor said Gamaa Islamiyya would also look for other candidates to support, but that if no others were found

by Wednesday, its backing for Abol Fotouh would be formalised.

Classified for many years as a terrorist organisation and banned, Gamaa Islamiyya has sought to enter mainstream Egyptian politics since the popular uprising that toppled Mubarak in February 2011.

Its militants participated, along with members of Egyptian group

Islamic Jihad, in the 1981 attack that killed Sadat, Mubarak’s predecessor. It also claimed responsibility for a devastating attack in Egypt’s southern city of Luxor in 1997 that killed 62 people, most of them tourists.

For his part, Ghonim wrote on Twitter that he supports Abol Fotouh “for many reasons, the most important being that he will be the president of all Egyptians who will unite and not divide.” Ghonim became famous in February 2011 when he described his situation while in detention after being arrested during the revolt against Mubarak. He continues

to be active in Egypt’s pro-democracy movements.

Abol Fotouh was expelled from the Muslim Brotherhood last year because he nominated himself when the movement had not planned to contest the election. Last week, he secured the support of the most important hardline Islamist group, the Salafist Al-Nur party, which has around 20 percent of the seats in parliament, as well as the support of the moderate Islamist party Wassat.

Seen as a moderate, Abol Fotouh also enjoys the support of many young Brotherhood members who

object to the organisation’s conservative attitude. He is also well regarded by a large number of secular-minded youth who participated in last year’s uprising. Abol Fotouh’s growing support threatens to cause problems for official Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Mursi, who risks losing a large section of the Islamist vote to him. Some Egyptian commentators reckon he has a good chance of making it through to a run-off on June 1617, possibly to stand against Egypt’s main secular candidate, former foreign minister and ex-Arab League chief Amr Mussa. —AFP

Fears for Palestinian hunger strikers as protest grows Thousands more could join hunger strike JERUSALEM: Two Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli jails for 62 days are in danger of dying and are receiving inadequate medical care, the Physicians for Human Rights-Israel group warned yesterday.

The warning, after a doctor from the group visited the men,

medical monitoring for the hunger strikers is essential at this stage,” a statement said.

“It cannot take place in the IPS (Israeli Prison Service) medical facility, which is not a hospital and cannot cope adequately with a sudden deterioration in the hunger strikers’ condition.” PHR-

though Diab and Halahla have been refusing food the longest.

They began their strike on February 29, and have been joined by an increasing number of fellow inmates, including a group of 1,200 who began an open-ended protest on April 17. A Palestinian official who spoke to AFP said

GAZA: A symbolically chained Palestinian man stands in front of portraits of jailed Palestinians during a rally in Gaza City in support of more than a thousand prisoners who are on an openended hunger strike in Israeli jails yesterday. At least 1,350 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel are conducting a general hunger strike to protest their conditions. —AFP came as Palestinian officials said thousands more Palestinian prisoners could join an open-ended hunger strike if their demands were not met. PHR-Israel said the lives of prisoners Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahla “are in danger and asks that they immediately be transferred to a civilian hospital.”

Both men are being cared for in an Israeli prison clinic, which PHRIsrael said was incapable of providing appropriate care. “Close

Israel said Diab was now in “immediate mortal danger,” suffering from extreme weight loss, a slow heart rate and very low blood pressure.

“He is suffering from stomach pains and there are indicators he could be suffering from internal bleeding,” the statement said, adding that Halahla was in urgent need of a CAT scan. The men are among 1,450 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails on hunger strike,

thousands more Palestinian prisoners would join the protest if their demands were not met by a May 2 deadline.

“The prisoner leaders are awaiting a response from the Israeli prison authorities by May 2. If they don’t give a positive response, all the prisoners will join the hunger strike,” the official said. The prisoners are demanding better prison conditions, including greater access to relatives and lawyers and

an end to solitary confinement, and are also protesting the use of administrative detention.

The practice allows Israel to hold detainees without charge or trial for renewable periods of up to six months at a time. Both Diab and Halahla are being held under administrative detention orders.

Another Palestinian source said negotiations were under way between prison authorities and prisoner representatives including jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghuti and veteran prisoner Karim Yunis.

Israeli media said that, during a routine prison visit, IPS governor Aharon Franco met prisoners, including Barghuti, who aired their grievances, and he told them a committee dealing with them would deliver its findings in 10 days. Weizman said there were no negotiations, but demands were being examined without reference to the May 2 deadline.

“We don’t work to deadlines and do not engage in any negotiation. We are looking at their demands irrespective of the strike, through a team that began examining their demands before the strike,” she said. Palestinian prisoners minister Issa Qaraqaa said on Monday that the Palestinian Authority, the Arab world and the Europeans were putting pressure on Israel to resolve the situation as soon as possible. “ There is communication between the Palestinian Authority and Israel through the civil administration, and there is also Arab and European Union communication with Israel to try to find a way to end the hunger strike,” he told AFP. “But until now, we haven’t had an answer.” There are 4,699 Palestinians being held in Israeli jails, of whom 319 are in administrative detention, according to Prisoners Club figures. —AFP

JAAR: Jalal Al-Blaidy, also known as Abu Hamza, leader of the Ansar AlSharia (Partisans of Sharia) in Yemen, addresses tens of Yemeni soldiers upon their release in the militant stronghold town of Jaar, in the southern Abyan province. —AFP

19 killed as militants battle Yemen troops ADEN: Yemen said it killed 12 militants linked to Al-Qaeda in the country’s restive south yesterday, while insurgents reported killing seven soldiers in the same battle.

Soldiers backed by tribal fighters killed eight militants outside the town of Lawdar, where clashes have taken place for several weeks, a local government official said. An air force plane bombed a vehicle nearby, killing four militants inside.

The official said one soldier and a tribal fighter died in the battle. However, Ansar Al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic Law), an AlQaeda-affiliated group which has seized several areas in the south, said in a statement that its fighters killed seven soldiers and wounded 27 tribesmen. The reports could not be verified because access to the area is restricted. A year of political upheaval that eventually unseated former President Ali Abdullah Saleh has emboldened militants in the impoverished Arab

state, especially in the south, where they have seized swathes of territory and carried out scores of attacks on security forces.

The increasing frequency and audacity of attacks linked to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) have prompted the United States to use drones to target militants in southern Yemen. AQAP yesterday confirmed the death of a prominent commander in an air strike on his convoy in the oil-producing province of Maarib last week. Mohammed Al-Umda, who received military training under al Qaeda’s deceased founder Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, was convicted of involvement in a 2002 attack on the French oil tanker Limburg. He was jailed in 2005 but escaped from prison in 2006. Yemen says it has killed more than 200 militants since the start of the month, when Ansar AlSharia fighters attacked an army camp in the Lawdar area.—Reuters

Political risks to watch in Bahrain DUBAI: Violence escalated in Bahrain in April when opposition activists used the presence of international media during the Formula One Grand Prix race to draw attention to an ongoing uprising, but the government intensified its crackdown. Here are some of the main political risks in Bahrain: INTERNAL CONFLICT Bahrain’s government was shocked to find the revolt, led by members of the restive Shiite Muslim majority population, the focus of foreign media attention during the Grand Prix. Opposition parties and a network of protesters known as the February 14 Youth Coalition stepped up protests and clashes with police worsened in the run-up to the April 20-22 race, which Bahrain authorities had cancelled last year due to unrest in the early stages of the pro-democracy movement. Two dissidents scaled the walls of Bahrain’s embassy in London days before the race and unfurled banners from the roof demanding the release of opposition leaders, including one who has been on hunger strike for more than two months. International rights groups have called for his release and the United Nations secretary general has voiced concern.

A protester who regularly made videos of protests was shot dead in early April by an unknown assailant and during the Grand Prix a protester was found dead the morning after he disappeared during a clash with police. Salah Abbas Habib’s battered body was found splayed on the rooftop of a farm building, covered in birdshot. Police said they had launched an investigation to find the perpetrators but the death of Habib known as an organizer among the Feb. 14 movement was taken by the opposition as a warning. The leading opposition party Wefaq said his death raised the toll in over of strife to 81, including five security personnel killed during the uprising and initial crackdown last year.

Police stepped up their use of birdshot in April and Sunni Muslim vigilantes attacked a number of supermarkets owned by Shiites. An enterprise owned by an independent member of parliament who had called for the resignation of the prime minister - a key Sunni hardliner who views the Shiite-led opposition as lackeys of Iran - was also attacked. Bahraini state television returned to the kind of rhetoric used against the opposition during last year’s period of military law, and reports appeared in local media about a plan to

announce a form of union with Saudi Arabia - which government loyalists see as their regional bulwark against Shiites.

Any such statements could be intended as a warning to the opposition that Saudi Arabia could send in troops again to stop protesters using street action to make the country ungovernable. Shiites in the opposition deny having any political links with Iran. The opposition includes Shiite Islamists as well as secular Sunnis and Shiites from leftist and Arab nationalist backgrounds. The pro-government camp includes some Shiites who fear a secret agenda to the leading opposition party Wefaq.

FRICTION WITH IRAN Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a surprise visit to the island of Abu Musa in April - an island which the UAE claims as its own. The visit was seen as a provocation by Gulf Arab rulers, who see the actions of Bahrain’s opposition through the prism of Iranian expansionism in the Gulf. The visit could have helped prompt the renewed reports of Saudi efforts to announce a form of closer union with Bahrain. Riyadh considers a stable Bahrain to be vital to its security given the large population of Shiites in its Eastern Province. Fears of a regional war rose in January as the United States and Iran sparred over sanctions and access to Gulf oil as Tehran threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz in response to Western measures to choke off its oil exports and gas imports.

But the tension has eased since Iran began a new round of nuclear talks with Western countries. The United States and Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, regard Bahrain as an ally in the standoff with Iran over its disputed nuclear program. While Bahrain has close ties with Saudi Arabia, it also has connections to Iran. Many Shiites visit Iran as pilgrims or religious students. Some look to Iranian clerics such as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as spiritual guides. Others follow clerics in Iraq or Lebanon. Khamenei’s followers may send alms to his office - donations viewed suspicion by the Bahraini government - although Shiites say they are entirely disconnected from politics.

Some Bahrainis known as Ajam are Shiite Iranians in origin but they are traditionally close to the government. Prosecutors link Iranian Revolutionary Guards to an alleged plot by five arrested Bahrainis and two London-based dissidents to attack the interior ministry

and Saudi embassy in Manama. Bahrain could be a target for Iranian reprisals if the United States or Israel attacked Iran. The US naval base allows the US military to protect Saudi oil installations and Gulf waterways without having Western troops on Saudi soil. It is not clear what Iran, which has had claims on Bahrain in the past, would do if a union with Saudi Arabia was declared. Such a union could allow Saudi troops easier access to Bahrain.

IMPACT ON ECONOMY The banking and tourism hub has become a shadow of its former self since the social unrest broke out.

Hotels and office space have low occupancy and fewer Saudi weekend visitors frequent its bars, restaurants and malls. Few foreign media have correspondents based in Bahrain. The International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday the small oil exporter should come up with policies that resolve public grievances and restore confidence in its economy. Bahrain’s economic growth slowed to 2.2 percent in 2011, down from 4.5 percent in the previous year after some businesses closed and investors withdrew from the country’s mutual funds.

“Further measures to diversify the economy, improve the investment climate, and strengthen the labor market are essential for sustained growth and employment,” the IMF’s executive board annual assessment said. Total investment in Bahrain’s mutual funds dropped nearly $800 million last year to $8.4 billion, central bank data show. Its banks hold assets of about $211 billion. Bankers say the unrest damaged Bahrain’s main advantages as a convenient, stable, liberal business location, as some banks moved out to Dubai.

Some Indian banks have moved in.

In February, Bahrain restricted on-arrival visas after some Western activists entered as tourists. The restrictions were subsequently eased. Bahrain has seen a rapid rise in natural gas consumption as its economy has grown, but tension with regional producers Qatar and Iran has hampered plans for gas imports, threatening growth. Aluminium Bahrain (Alba), for example, raised $338 million in an initial public offering in November 2010 but has had to postpone expanding output, partly due to lack of energy. Bahrain is in talks to import an average 400 million cubic feet per day gas from Russia’s Gazprom through an LNG terminal expected to open in 2015, the oil minister said in March. —Reuters

JERUSALEM: In this July 11, 2010 file photo Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, and his father Benzion attend the official memorial service for the late Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky at the Mt. Herzl cemetery in Jerusalem. Benzion Netanyahu, historian, Zionist activist and influential father of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, died yesterday, in his Jerusalem home, the Israeli leader’s office said. He was 102. —AP

Netanyahu’s father dead JERUSALEM: Ben-Zion Netanyahu, the historian and Zionist activist whose skepticism about peacemaking with the Arabs helped to shape the world outlook of his son, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, died yesterday.

He was 102.

Born Ben-Zion Mileikowsky in Warsaw, Poland, Netanyahu was a devout follower of revisionist Zionist leader Zeev Jabotinsky, who advocated Jewish military strength and opposed partitioning Palestine between Arabs and Jews. Netanyahu served as his personal aide until Jabotinsky’s death in 1940. He then edited right-wing Jewish publications and earned a Ph.D in history from Dropsie College in Philadelphia, a center of Jewish learning that was later incorporated into the University of Pennsylvania. Later, he was a professor of Jewish history and Hebrew literature at the University of Denver and Cornell University, where he served as chairman of the department of Semitic languages and literature. He was the editor-in-chief of the Hebrew Encyclopedia for more than a decade.

He was best known in academic circles for his research into the medieval inquisition against the Jews of Spain. His academic career

had his family shuttling between the United States and Israel. He met with many Jewish leaders of the period, as well as with US senators, Congressional representatives, poets and leaders, including Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Netanyahu and his wife, Tzila, had three sons: Yonatan, Benjamin and Iddo, all of whom served in the same elite military commando unit, Sayeret Matkal. Yonatan was killed while commanding the daring 1976 rescue of more than 100 Jewish and Israeli hostages on board an Air France jet in Entebbe, Uganda.

Following his son’s death, Netanyahu returned to Israel full-time. His middle son, Benjamin, entered politics and was elected prime minister of Israel in 1996 and again in 2009. Iddo, the youngest of the three, is a radiologist and writer. Netanyahu is believed to have had great influence over his son’s politics and openly criticized him when his government made concessions toward the Palestinians. Several analysts have speculated that Benjamin Netanyahu was emotionally unable to sign off on a comprehensive peace deal with Israel’s Arabs neighbors as long as his father was still alive, a notion the prime minister dismissed as “psychobabble.” —AP

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HRW reports widespread ‘war crimes’ in Mali’s north DAKAR: Tuareg rebels, militias and Islamist groups are committing war crimes in Mali’s lawless north, including summary executions and rapes, Human Rights Watch said yesterday.

Even government troops in the north, parts of which are controlled by Tuareg separatists, Arab militias and armed Islamists are also flouting rights, the New York-based organisation said. “Armed groups in northern Mali in recent weeks have terrorized civilians by committing abductions and looting hospitals,” said

Corinne Dufka, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The commanders of these groups need to stop the abuses, ensure discipline over their fighters, and appropriately punish those in their ranks responsible for these crimes.” A statement said the forces who overran the north after a March 22 putsch in Bamako, the capital in Mali’s south, “have committed numerous war crimes, including rape, use of child soldiers, and pillaging of hospitals, schools, aid agencies, and government build-

ings.” It said HRW had got “credible information that Malian army soldiers have arbitrarily detained and, in some instances, summarily executed ethnic Tuareg members of the security services and civilians.

Much of the north remains in the hands of two armed groups-Islamists Ansar Dine and the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), Mali’s main Tuareg rebel group. The MNLA earlier declared independence in the north, a vast swathe of desert it calls

Hands-free Hollande cruises into runoff Weaker far left frees him to tread a pragmatic path PARIS: A resurgent French far-right is playing into the hands of Socialist presidential candidate Francois Hollande, who is cruising into Sunday’s runoff vote freed of having to make concessions to a weakened hard left.

Hollande no longer needs to risk losing centrist votes by appealing to hard-left voters after their candidate faded in the first round. By contrast, a campaign by incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy to win back conservative voters after a strong far-right showing seems to be failing.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s surprise 17.9 percent score in the first-round on April 22 seemed to throw Hollande’s lead over Sarkozy into question, as most Le Pen backers had been expected to vote conservative in a runoff. Yet a week on, Sarkozy looks no better off in opinion polls and may have put off many centre-ground voters with his tough talk about immigration and borders so clearly aimed at the far right that it upset many in his own camp.

Hollande, meanwhile, has plodded on with the same tone and the same platform he set out in January.

Humbled by his 11 percent first round score - well below the 14-17 percent he was polling a month ago - leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon has gone from clenched-fist tirades to asking Hollande politely not to overlook issues such as the minimum wage.

“Hollande is much less encumbered by his extreme left than Sarkozy is by his extreme right,” said political scientist Pascal Perrineau.

“Hollande doesn’t need to send messages to his extreme wing, while Sarkozy is doomed if he doesn’t.” With Hollande’s campaign anchoring left-wing and centrist voters, his backers in the business community hope the fading of the far-left will free him to nudge forward structural economic reforms his aides say he is privately keen to carry out. “If Hollande wins with a big margin he won’t need to pick ministers who are tokens for the extreme left,” said investment banker Matthieu Pigasse, who is close to senior Socialists and was tutored by Hollande in economics

years ago. Pigasse, now CEO of Lazard France and co-owner of the daily newspaper Le Monde, said he believed Hollande would be as much of a reformer as Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, who sold state -owned firms and trimmed taxes in his 1997-2002 term. “I am not part of the campaign team so I don’t know what’s inside his boxes, but I am convinced he wants change. He’s being prudent in

seem to be splitting in three ways for the runoff. Around half will opt for Sarkozy, but many seem set on abstaining or even voting for Hollande.

While Sarkozy hammered home the need for strong frontiers and a clear national identity, using the word “border” dozens of times in a speech to supporters in southern France on Sunday, Hollande told a rally in Paris he would not stoop to

PARIS: A fan poses for a picture with Socialist Party (PS) candidate for the 2012 French presidential election Francois Hollande (C) as he leaves the French Europe1 radio studios, following an interview, yesterday in Paris. — AFP what he says but paradoxically the French left has always reformed more than the right,” he said. “The labour market needs more flexibility and I think Hollande can do it.”

Latest polls give Hollande a comfortable 6-10 point lead over Sarkozy before Wednesday’s sole television debate.

An OpinionWay-Fiducial survey found 49 percent of voters feel Sarkozy’s campaign was leaning too far to the right. Among centrists, 60 percent felt Sarkozy had tilted too far and 56 percent judged Hollande’s campaign to be spot on.

“The very right-wing position adopted by the president to seduce National Front voters seems to have been totally counter-productive,” said opinion pollster Gael Sliman of the BVA institute. He said Le Pen voters seemed annoyed he was using “such a thick line to fish them”.

First round National Front voters

such tactics to chase National Front votes. “I am not going for flattery or exaggerated seduction. I am about coherence and consistency, that’s what sets me apart in this campaign,” Hollande said as even some conservatives voiced unease at Sarkozy’s embracing of Le Pen’s rhetoric.

A self-styled “Mr. Normal” who sees his calm temperament as a selling point contrasted to Sarkozy’s hot-bloodedness, Hollande was the unexpected Socialist contender after a sex scandal ended former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s chances of running. He lacks Strauss-Kahn’s intellectual sparkle and Sarkozy’s verbal fireworks, but has held steadily to his ideas of higher taxes to cut the budget deficit and a bigger European focus on economic growth as the president has veered right on immigration and Europe. — Reuters

Qaeda offers to trade UK hostage for cleric CAIRO: Al-Qaeda’s North African affiliate yesterday offered to free a British hostage if London allows a radical cleric described as a leading figure in the terror group in Europe to leave Britain for another country.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in a statement posted yesterday on a militant website said it would release Stephen Malcolm if the cleric Abu Qatada were let go. It warned that the British government would be responsible for the consequences if it follows through on a plan to deport him to Jordan, where he faces trial on terrorism charges.

Authorities in Britain have been trying to expel the Palestinian-Jordanian preacher since 2001, but the European Court of Human Rights ruled he could not be deported to Jordan because of a risk that evidence obtained through torture would be used against him there. Earlier this month, British authorities detained the cleric once again, and at the time said they were close to deporting him to Jordan. Abu Qatada, whose real name is Omar Mahmoud Mohammed Othman, has

LONDON: In this Tuesday, April 17, 2012 file photo, Abu Qatada is driven away after being refused bail at a hearing at London’s Special Immigration Appeals Commission, which handles deportation and security cases, in London. Al-Qaeda’s North African affiliate offered to free a British hostage if London allowed radical cleric Abu Qatada to leave Britain for another country. — AP

been described in both Spanish and British courts as a leading al-Qaeda figure in Europe and a threat to national security. He was first detained in Britain in 2002. “We offer the British government an initiative to release its citizen Stephen Malcolm .... who is our prisoner, if it allows Sheik Abu Qatada to leave to one of the Arab Spring countries or any other country of his choice where he guarantees his freedom and, rights and dignity,” it said.

Elections held in the aftermath of the pro-democracy uprisings that have swept the Middle East in the past year have resulted in Islamist-dominated parliaments in Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt. Malcolm was kidnapped along with a Swedish and a Dutch national in Timbuktu in November. He also holds South African citizenship.

The terror group expressed hope that the British government would deal with the offer with “objectivity, reason and wisdom” but threatened that Britain would be responsible for the consequences if he is handed over to the Jordanian government.

Britain has not commented on the proposal. A British official speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his job said, “We don’t engage with terrorists in these matters.”

Al-Qaeda denied Abu Qatada has any ties to it, but said it was defending him because of allegiances to a “Muslim brother” should come ahead of other ideological concerns. The group argued that Abu Qatada’s case proves that Britain does not protect human rights or justice. “How come the Sheik was jailed for years merely for exercising his right to express his opinion and beliefs, in words and writing,” it said. The cleric spent six years in jail in Britain, although he has never been charged with any crime. Earlier this month, he was detained again, and British authorities said at the time that they were close to deporting him. Jordan has said it will guarantee Abu Qatada a fair trial and that no evidence obtained through torture could be used in any trial.

The al-Qaeda statement alluded to the possibility of torture in Jordan, saying the country has a record “full of unprecedented crimes against Muslim prisoners.” — AP

Azawad, which it captured along with Ansar Dine, a much smaller group.

Ansar Dine, an Islamist group, subsequently took control of Timbuktu. It says it rejects independence for the north and says it is fighting for Islam and to impose sharia law. The statement quoted witnesses as saying that the MNLA was responsible for much of the killings and looting and had children aged as young as 13 among its fighters. “Ansar Dine fighters took several measures to protect civilians from the widespread

looting, sexual violence, and other abuses by the MNLA, Arab militias, and common criminals,” it said.

But witnesses said that Ansar Dine members also “executed two men in (the northern town of) Gao and amputated the hands of an MNLA rebel in Kidal as part of its crackdown. “Gao residents said that in early April, Ansar Dine had cut the ear of a woman for wearing a short skirt and flogged men who had consumed alcohol and engaged in petty theft.” — AFP

Tymoshenko’s condition worsening: Daughter PRAGUE: Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s health has deteriorated during her hunger strike and her family is hoping the government will take action so she will stop the protest, Tymoshenko’s daughter said yesterday.

Yevgenia Tymoshenko told reporters in Prague the family now believed Yulia, serving a seven-year jail sentence on charges of abuse of office, needed treatment for her back outside Ukraine.

Tymoshenko’s jailing has soured Ukraine’s ties with the European Union and risks becoming an embarrassment when it co-hosts the European soccer championship in June.

European leaders have already threatened to boycott the tournament and several have called off visits to the country, now ruled by her political arch-rival Viktor Yanukovich. The EU has condemned Tymoshenko’s conviction as an example of selective justice and warned Ukraine that its members would not ratify agreements on political association and free trade as long as she remains in prison.

Tymoshenko has been on hunger strike since last week after she said prison guards beat her during a forced transfer to a hospital for examination of her long-term back problems. “We are really running out of time. I don’t know how long my mother can be on hunger strike, whether it can be five days or 10 days, we are not sure,” Yevgenia Tymoshenko said.

Speaking alongside her father,

who lives in the Czech Republic, the Ukraine-based Yevgenia said she visited her mother in jail two days ago. “She was very week and her physical condition is worsening.

When they attacked her, it

senior human rights official said on Wednesday Tymoshenko was indeed bruised.

President Yanukovich ordered a probe of the alleged beating.

The German government has

PRAGUE: Oleksander Tymoshenko, left, husband of jailed former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and her daughter Eugenia, answer questions to media during a press conference in Prague, Czech Republic, yesterday. Eugenia Tymoshenko thanked European leaders for their support for her mother. — AP caused more pain to her back. “Now she is in real pain, she is almost all the time lying down. She cannot move much but that is also because she is weak from the hunger strike.”

“We are really hoping there will be some strong positive changes in the actions of the regime towards political prisoners so that she can stop the hunger strike as soon as possible.” Prison authorities have denied Tymoshenko’s allegations that she was beaten but Ukraine’s

offered to treat Tymoshenko in a German hospital - a move which could remove her from Ukraine for the time of the Euro championship but it is not clear if Kiev or Tymoshenko would agree.

Yevgenia said yesterday the family now saw treatment abroad as the only possibility. “After she has been forcefully taken to hospital, I understand she cannot trust people in the hospital because it was not her choice. — Reuters

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

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

Feds demand convicted con man serve 30 years SAN FRANCISCO: Federal prosecutors are demanding that a man they call a “congenital liar and serial fraudster” serve 30 years in prison and pay a $60 million fine after a jury convicted him of defrauding actors Danny Glover, Harry Belafonte and others out of more than $35 million.

If US District Judge Charles Breyer agrees to the sentence yesterday, it would represent one of the harshest penalties ever meted out in a white collar case. Not even Jeff Skilling, the architect of Enron Corp.’s criminal collapse, was sentenced to that much prison time. Skilling is currently serving a 24year, four-month sentence.

Assistant US attorneys W. Douglas Sprague and Hallie Mitchell argue in court papers that the harsh sentence is warranted because of the financial and

emotional toll the fraud had on the victims, the extent Samuel “Mouli” Cohen went to cover up his scam and his refusal to accept responsibility.

“This unrepentant con man with a militant lack of responsibility has blamed everyone — the victims, the Court, his attorneys, the government, the Probation Officer, and the Court reporter — for his actions and their consequences except the person responsible for it,” prosecutors write in a court filing. Most notably, Cohen’s fraud caused the collapse of the Vanguard Public Foundation, a nonprofit launched in 1972 that awarded grants to a vast array of social causes. Many of Cohen’s victims, including Glover and Belafonte, were associated with the foundation, which supported anti-war causes, environmental groups and other politically

liberal issues. Prosecutors said Cohen even preyed on his father-in-law, looting his retirement account.

A federal jury in November convicted Cohen of 15 counts of wire fraud, 11 counts of money laundering and three counts of tax evasion after a three week trial in San Francisco federal court. His lawyer said Cohen will appeal the conviction.

Cohen, 53, is a son of Russian immigrants who was raised in Jerusalem. He moved to the United States in 1987and became a United States citizen, though prosecutors allege he falsely told victims that the first President Bush personally granted him citizenship.

Cohen was convicted of falsely telling investors beginning in 2002 that a company he launched called Ecast that made electronic jukeboxes for bars

was about to be acquired by Microsoft Corp. Prosecutors said Cohen kept the scheme going by soliciting more money from victims with complaints that US and then European regulators were holding up the deal, which required additional investments to pay nonexistent fees and bonds needed to push the deal to approval. Prosecutors say none of that was true. Instead, they said Cohen used the millions to fund an “absurd lifestyle” that included helping his wife publish a cookbook called “The Kosher Billionaire’s Secret Recipe.”

Prosecutors allege that he jetted around the country in a rented private jet that he to claim to have owned, giving rides to the likes of singer Elton John and actress Jennifer Lopez, neither of which are included on the victims list.

Prosecutors say that Cohen rented a

mansion in the wealthy enclave of Belvedere just north of San Francisco and decorated the house with copies of famous paintings from Picasso, Miro and Matisse and other noted artists. But prosecutors said he solicited investments during parties at his house, which he told victims he owned while showing them the artwork he deemed were originals. Prosecutors said that was all part of a ruse to portray himself as a wealthy and savvy businessman.

Cohen’s attorney is asking for a sentence of less than nine years. “A 30 year sentence is excessive for a 53-year old first-time offender, who has a long history of selfless acts and entrepreneurial innovation,” Cohen’s attorney Marcus S. Topel wrote in a court filing, pointing out that his client has donated at least $2 million to charity. — AP

Romney urges US to protect China activist US, China holding talks to resolve sensitive case

ARLINGTON: Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda observes a moment of silence after placing a wreath at the Tomb of Unknowns Soldier at the Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, yesterday. The leaders of Japan and the US met yesterday to look at new ways to cooperate in defense, hoping to show that the alliance is back on track after a rocky few years. — AFP

Japan PM in US to turn page for alliance WASHINGTON: Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda was meeting yesterday with President Barack Obama, looking to reaffirm Japan’s strong alliance with the US and boost his leadership credentials as his popularity flags at home.

Noda, who came to power in September and is Japan’s sixth prime minister in six years, faces huge challenges in reviving a long-slumbering economy and helping his nation recover from the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl. His Oval Office meeting and working lunch with Obama, to be followed by a joint news conference and then a gala dinner hosted by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, could offer Noda some brief relief from domestic woes. The two sides are determined to show that US-Japan ties are as close as ever, particularly after the assistance from the US lent following the massive March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that triggered a meltdown at a nuclear plant. The U.S. alliance with Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, is at the core of Obama’s expanded engagement in Asia - a diplomatic thrust motivated in part by a desire to counter the growing economic and military clout of strategic rival China.

Their meeting takes place during a delicate time in US-China relations, as the two world powers reportedly negotiate an asylum deal for a blind Chinese legal activist who escaped from house arrest. Activists say he is under the protection of US diplomats in Beijing, but US officials have yet to comment on the diplomatically sensitive case.

Obama and Noda are expected to say they want to strengthen the US-Japan security alliance. The US has about 50,000 troops in Japan, and both sides never tire of saying that their defense cooperation underpins regional peace and security. Days before Noda’s visit, the US and Japan announced an agreement on shifting about 9,000 Marines stationed on the Japanese island of Okinawa. The plan would spread US forces more widely in the Asia-Pacific as part of a rebalancing of US defense priorities after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a move also aimed at easing what Okinawans view as a burdensome US military presence and goes some way to ameliorate a long-term irritant in bilateral relations. But there’s still

no timetable and the plan faces opposition in Okinawa and in the US Congress.

Among other issues for discussion yesterday will be North Korea’s recent failed rocket launch and expectation it could soon undertake its third-ever nuclear test, democratic reforms in Myanmar and the international pressure on Iran over its nuclear program.

Noda is the first Japanese leader to be hosted at the White House since his Democratic Party of Japan, which had an initially awkward relationship with Washington, came to power in the fall of 2009. The party had at first favored a foreign policy more independent of the United States.

Noda is seen in Washington as capable and practical, and the Obama administration will be hoping he can weather his political problems and stick around longer than his immediate predecessors.

His poll numbers have dwindled to below 30 percent as he pushes an unpopular rise in a consumption tax to tackle Japan’s vast national debt and looming social security crisis to cope with the nation’s aging population.

No breakthroughs on trade were anticipated at Monday ’s summit. In November, Noda signaled Japan’s interest in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a pact under negotiation by nine nations and a key plank in US trade strategy to crank up its exports to support America’s fragile recovery after the global slowdown.

While Noda is believed to be personally supportive of declaring Japan’s intent to join the talks, he faces opposition at home, even within his own party.

The pact could demand an assault on the heavy subsidies enjoyed by Japan’s farmers. Noda also faces an uphill battle to persuade Japan to restart dozens of nuclear power plants that were idled as a safety precaution after the meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant after last year’s quake and tsunami. The plants were a source of about one third of Japan’s power needs, and last week Japan reported its largest annual trade deficit ever, after decades of surpluses, as oil and gas imports grow.

US companies are major players in Japan’s nuclear sector, and the White House may be looking for reassurance that the plants will go back on line. Japan is likely interested in natural gas exported from the US. — AP

COLORADO: This photo combo made from file photos provided Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2011 by the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office shows, from left, Ryan Edward Dougherty, 21, Dylan Stanley-Dougherty, 26, and Lee Grace Dougherty, 29. Three Florida siblings accused of shooting at a police officer and staging a daring bank robbery in a multistate crime spree are facing sentencing on charges stemming from their shootout and capture in Colorado. — AP

WASHINGTON: White House hopeful Mitt Romney urged US officials to do all they can to protect a Chinese activist said to have fled to the US embassy and vowed to confront Beijing over human rights.

Campaigners say that Chen Guangcheng, a blind self-taught lawyer who exposed forced abortions under China’s one-child-only policy, made a daring escape from house arrest and entered the US embassy, days before major US-China talks.

President Barack Obama’s administration has refused all comment on Chen, with activists saying that the United States and China are quietly holding talks to resolve the highly sensitive case. Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, did not directly criticize Obama’s handling of the case but raised concerns over the safety of the prominent activist and his family.

“My hope is that US officials will take every measure to ensure that Chen and his family members are protected from further persecution,” Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, said in a statement.

“This event points to the broader issue of human rights in China. Any serious US policy toward China must confront the facts of the Chinese government’s denial of political liberties, its one-child policy and other violations of human rights,” Romney said.

“Our country must play a strong role in urging reform in China and supporting those fighting for the freedoms we enjoy,” he said.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has voiced concern about Chen in the past. The case is now bound to overshadow long-planned talks Thursday and Friday in Beijing involving Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Romney has repeatedly attacked Obama’s

stance of trying to work where possible with China. Romney has called for the United States to challenge the rising Asian power more aggressively over its trade, human rights and military policies.

Chen released an audacious video directed

Chen’s plight, said that the “eyes of the world” were now on Wen as well as Clinton and other US officials as they visit China.

“Over the next few hours/days, whatever it takes, everything discussed in China between Secretary Clinton and Premier Wen, as well as

PORTSMOUTH: Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney waves as he visits the Portsmouth Fish Pier in Portsmouth, N.H., yesterday. — AP to China’s Premier Wen Jiabao in which he said he suffered repeated beatings even after completing a four-year jail sentence. He voiced grave concern over his wife and young son who are still being held at the family’s house in the eastern province of Shandong.

Representative Chris Smith, a Republican who has long sought to draw attention to

their staffs, must be through the prism of the struggles, torture, escape and justice overdue Chen Guangcheng, his family and other human rights activists in China,” Smith said in a statement.

“Perhaps it is a gift that so many US leaders are there. They must push for human rights like never before,” Smith said. — AFP

LA marks deadly riots ’versary with unity call LOS ANGELES: Los Angeles community leaders issued a call for unity on the 20th anniversary of the city’s deadly riots, one of the worst spasms of violence in modern US history. But a small number of African American protestors used the anniversary to lash police at the epicenter of 1992 riots in deprived South LA, which left 53 people dead and caused more than $1 billion worth of damage.

The historic race-fueled mayhem was sparked by the acquittal of police officers caught on video beating black motorist Rodney King, but were fueled by ethnic tensions and huge economic disparities in LA. “We felt we were under attack,” community activist Morris Griffin told a crowd Sunday at the junction of Florence and Normandie avenues, where some 150 mostly African Americans gathered for the “speakout” event. A short time later another rally developed on the other side of the junction, with Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) representatives as well as Latino, African American and Korean leaders vowing unity.

But the initial gathering, while dwindling to some 50-60 people, turned more negative, with protestors at one point shouting “f*** the police” as a female rapper spoke, an AFP correspondent reported from the scene. “In my opinion they’re not part of the solution because everything I hear from that side (of the street) is very negative and confrontational,” said Michael Crosby, head of the local 77th Street Division LAPD Clergy Council.

“We already know what the problem is, so let’s take some efforts to try to build a better community,” he added. Local radio and other media have hosted wall-to-wall debates about the lessons learned from the unrest, triggered by the acquittal of four police officers over the beating of King.

King-who has released an autobiography timed with the anniversary-was 26 years old when a group of white police officers brutally beat him while a bystander videotaped them from his apartment window on March 3, 1991.

A year later, on April 29, 1992, an all-white jury acquitted four police officers over his assault.

Hundreds of thousands of people poured into the streets in anger, igniting a wave of deadly violence and arson that swept through large areas of Los Angeles. The run-up to the anniversary has seen a surge of reflection on what has changed in the decades since the riots, which were centered on South LA, primarily composed of African American and Hispanic communities. — AFP

XALAPA: A woman stands next to the coffin of Mexican journalist Regina Martinez, in Xalapa, Veracruz State, Mexico, yesterday. Martinez was found dead in her house last April 28, with signs of strangulation. More than 40,000 people have been killed in rising drug-related violence in Mexico since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderon deployed soldiers and federal police to take on organized crime. — AFP

Panama eye ex-Marine in missing woman case PANAMA CITY: Panamanian police named an American ex-Marine as a person of interest Sunday in the disappearance of a 42-year-old California woman last seen on an archipelago near the Costa Rica border.

Police in Panama and the United States haven’t identified Brian Brimager as a suspect as they investigate the case of Yvonne Baldelli, who was reportedly dating Brimager. But Panama national police official Alexis Munoz said Sunday that Brimager had raised investigators’ interest. Later in the day, Baldelli’s mother, Lillian Faust, who is in Panama for the investigation, said she thinks her daughter is dead and begged for Brimager to tell what he knows about what happened to her.

“My husband, I, the famiy know that something happened to her. Some people want to say that she’s out there somewhere, but everyone in the family knows that’s not possible,” Faust said.

“We did not want to accept it for a long time, but we have accepted it,” she added. Panama police said Brimager left Panama for Costa Rica and the United States some 10 days after last being seen with Baldelli in November on the Bocas del Toro islands. Baldelli’s family reported her missing in January. Munoz said witnesses at the hotel where the couple stayed reported they had a “violent” relationship and frequently fought and argued. Panamanian officials said Brimager was between the ages of 35 and 40 and had brought Baldelli to the islands.

On Thursday, FBI and Panamanian forensic investigators visited the hostel.

The mother said she had never met Brimager, who she thinks is from Southern California. Faust said authorities had not told them that Brimager is suspected of anything. “I do not know, but if he knows something I would love for him to speak,” she said. — AP

11

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

international

Gilani strikes moderate tone after US attack Pakistani soil should not be used to attack other countries

DHAKA: Lawmakers of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) attend a rally outside parliament during a nationwide strike in Dhaka yesterday.

Bangladesh police charged 28 opposition officials yesterday, including senior leaders over a series of bomb explosions at the weekend, as a nationwide strike again paralysed the country. - AFP

Oppn leaders charged with Bangladesh blasts DHAKA: Bangladesh police charged 28 opposition officials yesterday including senior leaders over a series of bomb explosions at the weekend, as a nationwide strike again paralysed the country.

Police said they had raided the house of the second-highest leader of the opposition early yesterday, secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Alamgir, and charged other senior Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) officials.

“Police raided Mirza Fakhrul’s house early yesterday to arrest him. But he was not found,” deputy commissioner of Dhaka police Nisharul Arif told AFP. Nine small bombs rocked the capital Dhaka on Sunday, including two explosions inside the Bangladesh Secretariat, home to most government ministries and the cabinet office where the prime minister leads weekly meeting.

No one was injured and damage was minimal. The charges against opposition figures risk exacerbating a deepening political crisis in the impoverished South Asian country.

The BNP has been leading angr y protests since one of its regional leaders, Ilias Ali, went missing on April 17 in a case it believes was an abduction by

the security forces.

Police found Ali’s car abandoned in an upmarket district of Dhaka. His driver is also missing. As well as the BNP secretar y general, an ex-mayor of Dhaka and three members of BNP’s main decision-making body were also charged with Sunday’s explosions.

Police also arrested dozens of opposition activists in connection with the violence and torching of vehicles, Dhak a police spokesman M asud Ahmed said, adding that security had been stepped up.

Border guards have been deployed as reinforcement in addition to the 10,000 policemen on patrol across the capital, as a strike closed businesses for the fifth time in nine days.

One opposition supporter was shot dead late on Saturday, raising the death toll to four since last week. On Monday, roads were empty, shops, offices and schools were shut while inter-district bus, lorry and ferry services were suspended.

The missing BNP leader Ali is the highest profile opposition politician to have “disappeared ” since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina took power in January 2009. —AFP

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s prime minister struck a moderate tone yesterday amid criticism of the US for carrying out its first drone strike in the country since parliament demanded that Washington end the attacks two weeks ago.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s comments could indicate the government does not want the drone issue to torpedo attempts to patch up ties with the US. The strikes have complicated US attempts to get Pakistan to reopen supply lines for NATO troops in Afghanistan that were closed in November in retaliation for American airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani troops.

For Pakistan, reconciliation could mean the freeing up of over $1 billion in US military aid that has been frozen. Pakistan’s parliament approved new guidelines for the country’s relationship with the US in mid-April. Washington had hoped that parliament’s decision could pave the way to reopen the supply lines. But the legislature’s demand that drone strikes end threw a wrench in the process because US officials have indicated they have no intention of stopping the covert CIA program.

When asked about the most

recent strike, which killed three suspected Islamist militants Sunday, Gilani pointed out that the resolution passed by parliament also stipulated that foreign fighters must be expelled from the country and Pakistani soil should not be used to attack other countries.

“So, when we plan a strategy (with the US), all these aspects would be discussed,” said Gilani.

The US has repeatedly demanded that Pakistan target Taleban and al-Qaeda militants who use its territory to launch cross-border attacks against American troops in Afghanistan. The Pakistani military has refused, claiming its forces are stretched too thin by operations against homegrown militants battling the government. However, many analysts believe Pakistan is reluctant to target militants with whom it has historical ties because they could be useful allies in Afghanistan after foreign forces withdraw.

The drone issue is complicated by the fact that some elements of the Pakistani government, including the military, have helped the US carry out strikes in the past.

That cooperation has come under strain as the relationship between

the two countries has deteriorated, but many analysts believe some in the government still support the program at some level.

Even those Pakistani officials believed to support the attacks often protest them in public because they are so unpopular in the country. Many Pakistanis believe they most kill civilians, an allegation disputed by the US and independent research.

The latest attack Sunday killed three suspected militants sheltering in an abandoned school in the North Waziristan tribal area along the Afghan border, said Pakistani intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement early yesterday saying the strikes “are in total contravention of international law and established norms of interstate relations.” “The government of Pakistan has consistently maintained that drone attacks are violative of its territorial integrity and sovereignty,” it said.

It’s not the first time the US has ignored Pakistan’s parliament, which has called since 2008 for the drone strikes to end. A

Pakistani intelligence official said the most recent strike seemed to be a message from the US. “It’s a message that things are going to continue as usual irrespective of what we say,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

President Barack Obama significantly ramped up strikes in Pakistan when he took office in 2009, and while the US has said little publicly about the attacks, American officials have argued in private that they are critical to targeting Taliban and al-Qaida fighters who threaten the West.

Drones are not the only issue complicating Pakistan’s decision to reopen the NATO supply lines.

The country’s parliament has also demanded that the US provide an “unconditional apology” for the deaths of the Pakistani troops in November. The US has expressed regret, but has declined to apologize - a decision that appears to be driven by domestic political considerations. The US has said its troops fired in self-defense - a claim disputed by Pakistan - and the White House could be concerned about Republican criticism if it apologizes. —AP

‘White vans’ keep fear alive in post-war S Lanka COLOMBO: The choice of vehicle was almost inevitable. Recalling his terrifying abduction ordeal in Sri Lank a, political activist Premakumar Gunaratnam said his captors came in a white van. The Sri Lankan-born Australian citizen says he was grabbed by six to eight gunmen outside his house in Colombo in April, stripped and then “sexually tortured” during his detention that lasted four days.

His colleague and fellow hard-left Marxist dissident Dimuthu Attygalle suffered a similar fate. He was also freed after four days in captivity, shortly after Gunaratnam was kicked out of the country. Unlike others to

have disappeared since the end of the country’s Tamil separatist war in May 2009, they both lived to tell their tales after diplomatic pressure from Australia.

Being “white-vanned”-a verb synonymous with being abducted in Sri Lanka was a widely reported tactic employed by the security forces to deal with troublesome opponents during the island’s ethnic war.

But rights activists such as the Asian Human Rights Council say more than 50 people have been kidnapped in the past six months alone, highlighting what they say are continuing abuses on the Indian Ocean island that is re-emerging as a popular holi-

day destination.

“I believed they were going to kill me after they took me away at gun point,” Gunaratnam, 47, told reporters via Skype from Australia after he was deported. “They blind-folded me, tied my wrists and legs and sexually tortured me.”

“I am lucky to be alive and one of the very few to have survived an abduction by security forces. But, this is not a question about me, but about democracy and human rights in Sri Lanka.” Attygalle, 43, a Sri Lankan national, said she was taken to the same place where Gunaratnam was being tortured. —AFP

12

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

international

Australia, NZ make rare diplomatic foray to Fiji SUVA: Australia and New Zealand dispatched their foreign ministers to Fiji yesterday to examine first-hand whether the coup-plagued Pacific nation was making progress towards democracy. Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr and his New Zealand counterpart Murray McCully, two of the harshest critics of Fiji’s military dictatorship, travelled to Suva as part of a Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) delegation.

Ahead of the two-day visit, Carr said

Canberra had no immediate plans to relax sanctions on military strongman Voreqe Bainimarama’s regime, which seized power in a 2006 coup and had pledged to hold elections in 2014.

“Reducing sanctions that apply, not to the people of Fiji, but to members of the interim government, would be several steps into the future,” Carr told Australia’s ABC radio before his departing for Fiji yesterday.

“We need to see a robust democracy

functioning in Fiji.” Fiji was suspended from the 16-nation PIF in 2009 after Bainimarama tore up the constitution and reneged on a promise to hold elections that year. Australia and New Zealand have also imposed sanctions on Fiji, including cutting all military cooperation and travel bans on senior members of the regime.

Carr’s visit is the first time an Australian foreign minister has travelled to Fiji since 2008. He said he would hold

talks with government officials, the opposition, academics, trade unions and non-government organisations to assess plans recently announced by Bainimarama to restore democracy.

Bainimarama last month outlined plans to create a new constitution by February next year ahead of elections in 2014. In January, he repealed emergency measures introduced in 2009 which muzzled the media and banned public meetings, although he also

strengthened public order decrees, meaning the police and military still have sweeping powers.

McCully said Fiji was at a pivotal juncture and the resumption of direct dialogue between the PIF and the regime was a significant development.

“I think the very fact that we are here is cause for optimism,” he told reporters in Fiji. The delegation is not scheduled to meet Bainimarama, who is on a visit to India. —AFP

Suu Kyi’s party ends boycott of parliament UN chief applauds, says leaders can work together YANGON: Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi agreed yesterday to end her party’s boycott of parliament, setting aside her first major dispute with the government since winning byelections and clearing the way for what could be an acceleration of reforms.

Suu Kyi and her party will make their historic debut in the assembly tomorrow after backing

as UN Secretary-General Ban Kimoon was addressing parliament in the capital, Naypyitaw. She is due to meet Ban in Yangon today before travelling to Naypyitaw for Wednesday’s parliamentary session, party officials said.

The NLD boycotted general elections in November 2010, when Suu Kyi was under house arrest, saying the poll was rigged in favour of the military-backed

take control in a state of emergency and occupy a quarter of seats in parliament.

The NLD wanted to replace the words “safeguard the constitution” with “respect” it in the parliamentary oath. But the ruling, army-backed party rejected the NLD’s demand.

Suu Kyi said the by-election victory showed the support of the people and her party had to

NAYPYIDAW: Myanmar Lower House Speaker Thura Shwe Mann (R) holds a meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at the Union parliament in Naypyidaw yesterday. —AFP down over the wording of an oath for new members of parliament. She agreed to swear to protect a constitution drafted under military control that she says is undemocratic and needs to be amended.

“In politics it is essential to give and take,” the Nobel Peace Prize laureate told reporters after a party meeting. “As a gesture of respect to the desires of the people and in consideration of the requests made by lawmakers from democratic parties and independent lawmakers, we have decided to attend the parliament ... We will go there as soon as possible and take the oath.”

Suu Kyi’s change of heart came

Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).

The USDP won an overwhelming victory, but a new government under President Thein Sein embarked on political and economic reforms after 50 years of military rule and persuaded Suu Kyi to enter the political process.

The NLD won all but one of the 44 seats it contested in April 1 by-elections after a campaign in which Suu Kyi, who won one of the seats, made the amendment of the 2008 constitution drawn up under military supervision, a central theme.

The charter gives the military wide powers, including the ability to appoint cabinet members,

give in to their wishes. “We need to show practically that we have real will to cooperate and compromise,” she said.

Although the NLD has only a handful of seats compared with the USDP and the military, her presence in parliament will keep the focus on reforms and could even lead to their acceleration.

The European Union, United States and other countries have eased sanctions on Myanmar in response to the liberalisation but the dispute over the oath could have delayed a further thawing in relations, had it festered.

UN chief Ban welcomed Suu Kyi’s announcement. “ This is

Embattled Australian PM Gillard vows to stay in power SYDNEY: Prime Minister Julia Gillard yesterday vowed to lead Labor to the next Australian election, as a poll showed her scandal-hit government is deeply unpopular and pressure mounted for an early ballot.

Dogged by allegations that lawmaker Craig Thomson had used a former employer’s credit card to pay for prostitutes before he came to parliament, Gillard moved Sunday to clear the decks by ordering him to quit the party.

She also sidelined Speaker Peter Slipper, who has been accused of sexually harassing a staffer and misusing travel entitlements, by forcing him to take indefinite leave.

Gillard said she was forced to act because of the “combined weight” of the scandals, as she rejected the idea that struggling Labor would dump her ahead of the next election, not due until 2013.

“I will be leading the Labor Party to the next election,” she told reporters in Sydney.

But she remains under intense pressure to call the election early, with a poll in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph revealing 52 percent of voters were in favour of a vote of no confidence in her government.

Carried under the headline “Julia on the brink”, the newspaper revealed the Galaxy poll of 1,019 people showed Labor’s vote had dropped to just 30 percent-from 34 percent in January. It also found that 54 percent of voters thought that Gillard’s reluctance to demand the resignation of Thomson and Slipper was poor political judgment.

Thomson is accused of using the credit card of his former employer, a trade union, to pay for prostitutes, lavish meals and to get cash advances. Slipper is alleged to have sexually harassed a staffer with explicit text messages and inappropriate com-

ments, as well as misusing taxi travel vouchers.

Both men strongly deny the claims but Gillard said the allegations had challenged the public’s ability to respect parliament.

The scandals have increased speculation that Gillard, who scraped into power after 2010 elections resulted in a deadlocked parliament by forming a coalition with a Greens MP and several independents, may face a new leadership challenge.

The loss of Thomson reduces Labor’s numbers in the 150-seat House of Representatives and she must rely on the support of a Greens MP and two independents to have control of 74 votes. The opposition controls 73 votes. Gillard saw off a leadership ballot against former prime minister Kevin Rudd in February, crushing him 71 to 31 in a Labor Party room vote, but speculation is mounting that her time is running out.

Trade Minister Craig Emerson said he had not spoken to Labor colleagues about dumping Gillard, but said there was “always chatter about this sort of thing”. He added: “Her job is safe because she is a leader with gutsy determination.”

Commentators slammed Gillard’s moves as political expediency, with The Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Hartcher saying the prime minister had “decided to take out her political rubbish, not because she objected to the putrefaction but because the neighbours wouldn’t stop talking about the smell”. The government also took a hit from mining billionaire Clive Palmer yesterday, who announced he wanted to stand against Treasurer Wayne Swan in the Queensland seat of Lilley because “it’s about time we get this country moving again”. —AFP

encouraging. I respect her decision. Leaders should work in the long-term interests of the nation,” he told reporters shortly after becoming the first foreign dignitary to address the fledgling parliament.

He said it would now be easier for Thein Sein and Suu Kyi to work together. “Both leaders should fully cooperate and discuss all matters. There are always difficulties that can be overcome in the interests of the nation,” he added.

In his speech to parliament, Ban urged Western powers to ease sanctions further to help Myanmar and even suggested the countr y could become a model for democrac y af ter decades of repression and isolation under military rule.

Ban said he had no doubt that, under the year-old civilian government, Myanmar would catch up with its Asian neighbours, but he warned of “perils and pitfalls” on a difficult road. “ Today, I return to a new Myanmar, a Myanmar that is making history. The dramatic changes sweeping Myanmar have inspired the world,” Ban said.

“More needs to be done.

Today, I urge the international community to go further in easing or suspending trade restrictions and other sanctions.”

Ban’s visit is his first since July 2009, when Senior General Than Shwe ruled Myanmar at the head of a regime that brutally suppressed dissent.

But under Thein Sein, the junta’s former fourth-in-command, the government has eased media censorship, legalised trade unions, freed more than 600 political prisoners and begun an economic overhaul. It has also struck ceasefire deals with ethnic minority rebel groups.

Ban signed an agreement on Monday offering U.N. technical support for Myanmar’s first census since 1983 and he will travel to Shan state, one of the world’s biggest opium-growing regions, to assess moves to eradicate opium poppy cultivation. —Reuters

Dead Pakistanis got ‘blood money’ in CIA killing ISLAMABAD:- The widow and mother-in-law of a Pakistani man killed by a CIA contractor last year were murdered yesterday, allegedly by the widow’s father who may have feared she would remarry and take the “blood money” she received with her, police said.

The families of the two men killed by Raymond Davis last January received hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for pardoning the killer, a common legal practice in Pakistan. The money normally goes to the wife if her husband was killed. The widow who was murdered yesterday in the eastern city of Lahore, Zohra Haider, wanted to remarry and was supported by her mother, Nabeela Bibi, said police officer Athar Waheed. But her father, Shahzad Butt, opposed the move, possibly because she would take her fortune with her when she remarried, Waheed said.

“We will investigate that aspect as a possible motive,” said Waheed. Butt allegedly shot and killed his wife after having an argument about the issue in their house in a middle class neighborhood in Lahore that they bought with the blood money, said Waheed. He chased his daughter as she tried to escape and allegedly shot and killed her in the street, said Waheed. The shooter escaped. Davis said he shot Haider’s husband, Faizan, and another Pakistani man last year because they tried to rob him as he was driving his car through Lahore. The US and Pakistan argued for nearly seven weeks over whether Davis had diplomatic immunity before the blood money was paid, and he was freed.

The U.S. denied paying the compensation to the families, but many believe it was simply routed through Pakistani officials. Reports of the total payout varied from $1 million to over $2 million. A third Pakistani man was killed by a US vehicle rushing to the scene of the shootings, but the driver was never taken into custody. The incident seriously damaged the already troubled relationship between Pakistan and the US, one that got worse only months later when American commandos killed Osama bin Laden in a covert raid in a Pakistani garrison town last May. —AP

MANILA: A Filipino activist shouts slogans during a rally outside the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila, Philippines yesterday.

The group is protesting against an increased presence of US military in the country as bilateral talks in Washington DC are expected between the top foreign affairs and national defense chiefs of the Philippines and the United States. —AP

Najib weathers protest, may still call early poll KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak appeared yesterday to have weathered a violent electoral reform protest and may still call elections as early as June, but a huge turnout by protesters showed a strong groundswell of opposition to his government.

Running battles between protesters and police in Kuala Lumpur highlighted growing tensions in the Southeast Asian nation as it prepares for close elections that could threaten the ruling coalition’s 55-year grip on power.

Najib has been seen as leaning towards an election in June - well before his mandate expires next March - but his appeal to middle-class voters may suffer if accusations of police brutality against the around 25,000 protesters gain traction.

However any political fallout appeared to be limited because protesters were at least partly to blame for the violence, which resulted in hundreds of arrests. Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim gave a speech at the rally organised by the independent Bersih movement for election reforms and was accused by some ruling party members and state media of inciting the crowd to break through police barriers.

“That proves that Bersih was hijacked and that Anwar was trying to use it as an election tactic,” Nur Jazlan Mohamed, a member of parliament for the ruling United Malays National Organization, told Reuters. He said Najib would still be inclined to call elections early, possibly in June.

Najib’s approval rating, at a lofty 69 percent in the most recent opinion poll, tumbled last year after a heavy-handed police reaction to a previous Bersih rally for electoral reform.

Since then, he has reached out to middle-class and younger voters by abolishing some colonial-era security laws and pushing limited reforms of an electoral system the opposition says favours his long-ruling National Front coalition.

He is due to announce Malaysia’s first national minimum wage for private sector workers on Monday night - the eve of Labour Day - in another sign that elec-

tions are approaching four years after historic opposition gains in 2008.

Government sources told Reuters last month the wage would be set at between 800 and 900 ringgit ($265 $300) per month.

Protest leaders and the country’s opposition blamed the police for an overzealous response and dozens of witnesses gave evidence of police brutality after officers fired tear gas and chemically-laced water at the unarmed protesters. “ When I walked passed a pack of police officers on both sides, they punched and kicked me,” Wong Chin Huat, one of the leaders of the Bersih electoral reform movement, told the news website Malaysiakini.

“I fell down. When it looked like I was going to faint, they stopped hitting me.”

The government and state-controlled media were quick to put the blame on protesters for the clashes, which began after some demonstrators broke through police barriers blocking them from entering the city ’s Merdeka (Independence) Square.

“A Show of Hooliganism,” read a headline in the pro-government New Straits Times, which carried pictures of yellowshirted protesters throwing sticks at police and kicking police cars. Najib said that police had been the main victims of the violence, but that any allegations of police brutality would be investigated.

Anwar, a former deputy prime minister who was acquitted on charges of sodomy in January, denied inciting the protesters, saying the government was trying to deflect the blame for not fully addressing demands for electoral reforms. Saturday ’s protest saw the biggest turnout of the three demonstrations the influential Bersih movement has staged since 2007. Police estimated the crowd at about 25,000 but some news sites put the number at 100,000 or higher. “The huge turnout has sent one significant signal-there is a groundswell of dissatisfaction with the government and it is now boiling over,” said Yang Razali Kassim, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. —Reuters

BANGKOK: The editor of the popular Prachatai news website, Chiranuch Premchaiporn (L) is escorted by police at the Criminal Court in Bangkok yesterday. A Bangkok court postponed giving its verdict in the closely-watched trial of a Thai web editor accused over remarks about the monarchy posted by other people on her website. —AFP

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

NEWS

A model parades a Marvel Comics inspired design during the Berserkergang Summer 2012/13 show by ‘Romance Was Born’ at Fashion Week Australia in Sydney yesterday. The annual event showcases over 75 collections by renowned Australian and Asian designers. — AFP

Gulf struggles to agree on missile shield

New blasts mar Syrian ceasefire

Continued from Page 1

Continued from Page 1

Alani, a Middle East defence analyst. “The central command is going to be controlled by a powerful state (Saudi Arabia) and the Americans and the small states will be sandwiched between the two.” US officials say the missile shield is part of a global plan that includes deployment of sea and land-based systems in Europe, the Middle East and Asia to counter the threat of ballistic missiles from states like Iran and North Korea.

Iran is at odds with its Gulf Arab neighbours and the West over its nuclear programme. The United States and its allies say Iran is seeking nuclear weapons capability under the cover of a civil program, which Tehran denies.

The Islamic state has threatened to target US interests in the Gulf, including military bases, and to block oil tanker lanes in the Strait of Hormuz if it is attacked.

US officials have been talking for years to the GCC members - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - about building the shield but have done so with more urgency in recent months. The site of the central command room is a thorny issue because the Gulf states have a long history of disaccord. In 2009, the UAE pulled out of a planned GCC monetary union after Saudi Arabia was voted as the host of a common central bank. Saudi Arabia also hosts the GCC headquarters. “We have to have a location,” Lt Gen David Goldfein, the US Air Force commander for southwest Asia, told a security conference in Abu Dhabi.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia are likely to vie for hosting the headquarters. Heavyweight Saudi Arabia is also home to the Peninsula Shield, a GCC force set up in 1986 to defend Gulf countries against any potential threat. It has been called upon three times since its foundation - in the 1990-91 Gulf War, during the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and in March 2011 when Saudi Arabia and the UAE sent 1,500 soldiers to Bahrain during anti-government Shiite protests. Theodore Karasik, a Dubai-based security analyst, said the UAE would be the favoured host because “this is where the push for integration has started from”.

Experts suggest the best short-term solution is for Gulf states to acquire compatible systems that can be, as one official said, “plugged” together in case of emergencies. But US officials say a “plug and play” approach is too risky, suggesting that it is no alternative to a central command which allows for a much faster decisionmaking process. In this case, commanders would be sitting in one room controlling the entire network rather than having to coordinate between six different commands. Goldfein said that despite each country’s individual defence plans and bilateral defence arrangements with the United States, a multilateral security approach was still needed.

Analysts say the Gulf states are not only wary of sharing information among themselves but also with the United States because the oil exporters fear direct US

involvement in the shield could mean that it would link its systems to GCC radars without sharing back data collected by its own assets. GCC Secretary-General Abdullatif Al-Zayani was among those at the Abu Dhabi conference who questioned the bloc’s dependence on foreign allies, mainly the United States. “What are the defence capabilities that the GCC needs to become less dependent on their allies?” he asked.

Alani said another obstacle to regional cooperation was related to finances and sovereignty. “Many countries either don’t have the money or don’t want to relinquish national control,” he said. Smaller countries are concerned that states who would contribute more to the system such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE would have more control over it. Despite a closing of ranks during the 1990-91 crisis over Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, Gulf states belonging to the Saudi-dominated GCC have tended to guard their sovereignty jealously. Long-running border disputes have slowed security coordination.

“The GCC is overall a fractious organisation. They weren’t able to agree on a common currency and it’s rare they have real consensus among themselves,” Robert Jordan, the US ambassador to Riyadh from 200103, told Reuters. “The Saudis are viewed by the others as the 800lb gorilla in the region and are perceived to throw their weight about.” Any pan-Gulf defence shield would have to be supervised by the Americans, which makes some countries, especially Saudi Arabia, have seconds thoughts about taking part, a Gulf-based diplomat said. “The Americans want the system for their own reasons and defence assessment, but yet they want the Gulf to pay for it and host it,” he said.

The missile defence buildup in the Gulf began under former US President George W Bush and accelerated under President Barack Obama, whose administration introduced tougher sanctions against Iran. A shared early warning system could be integrated with US Navy cruisers and destroyers equipped with the Aegis ballistic missile defense system in offshore waters. The Gulf states have individually acquired some advanced defence systems, including the latest versions of the Patriot Air and Missile Defense System. UAE has spent billions in recent years to protect its cities and oil installations against missile attacks.

The latest deal was signed in December with Lockheed Martin Corp for a $3.6 billion Theater High Altitude Area Defense ( THAAD) - the only system designed to destroy short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles both inside and outside the Earth’s atmosphere. A company official told Reuters he expected other Gulf states to buy the THAAD as a result of tensions with Iran. Besides Lockheed Martin, the biggest US missile defence contractors include Boeing Co, Raytheon Co and Northrop Grumman Corp. Even without a central command system, much of the Gulf would be covered within a few years with the deployment of new systems in the region. — Reuters

Illegal deposits political bribery scandal...

Continued from Page 1 that a well-known government advisor has suggested that the deposits scandal be made as a cheating issue in order to get rid of it and present it to the court in this form. He warned that the parliamentary probe panel will continue to work until it has presented all the facts before the Kuwaiti people in order to contribute to the protection of public funds.

Barrak was speaking to reporters following a meeting of the Assembly’s public funds protection committee which continued its investigation into the Shell contract with Kuwait Oil Company and the smuggling of diesel which was attended by officials from the oil companies.

The lawmaker also blasted Finance Minister Mustafa Al-Shamali saying that neither he nor the finance ministry or other institutions under it have cooperated with the two investigation committees. The second committee is the one investigating allegations that the former prime minister transferred millions of public funds into his accounts abroad. Barrak said that yesterday he provided the special tribunal for the trial of ministers, which is investigating the case, documents showing 18 major transfers of money signed by one of the prominent assistants of the former prime minister.

In another development, MP Muabarak Al-Waalan yesterday asked Oil Minister Hani Hussein about suspicions surrounding a major oil supply contract with China’s Sinopec company. Waalan said that the 10-year deal stipulating the supply of 300,000 barrels per day of Kuwaiti oil involved a number of technical, administra-

tive and financial violations. He said the deal was signed before obtaining the mandatory prior approvals from the Audit Bureau and the Legal and Legsilative Department in addition to the Central Tenders Committee.

Waalan asked the minister for a copy of the contract and if the deal involved financial facilities in violation of the Kuwaiti law and at a cost of public funds. He also asked the minister if the deal was signed by the board of directors of Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC) as required by the law. KPC and Sinopec are involved in a separate $9-billion joint venture to build a refinery and a petrochemicals complex in China’s southern Guangdong province. France’s energy giant Total has taken 40 percent of KPC’s share or 20 percent of the venture.

Separately, the Cabinet appointed Yousef Alobaid as the country’s new deputy Central Bank governor yesterday, state-run news agency KUNA reported, after a recent change in the bank’s leadership. Alobaid is currently executive director of the supervision sector at the bank, according to its website. He has also worked in corporate finance at Boubyan Bank. Alobaid will support new governor Mohammed Al-Hashel who was appointed in March. The Cabinet approved the appointment in a draft decree, KUNA said. This usually means that it needs final approval from HH the Amir.

Meanwhile, Speaker Ahmad Al-Saadoun yesterday distributed invitations to MPs to attend a special session on Thursday to debate and pass in the second and final round of voting a law stipulating the death penalty for those who insult Allah, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and his wives.

An unknown number of civilians living near the site of the explosion were wounded, he added.

Overnight, a rocket-propelled grenade hit the central bank in Damascus, state media said, adding that an “armed terrorist group” carried out a second RPG attack on a police patrol outside a hospital in the city’s Rokn Eddin area. Four police were wounded. And the Observatory said two civilians were killed yesterday - one by a sniper in a village in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor and one in a town in the central province of Homs. Troops were also reported searching for deserters in Kfar Nabal in Idlib province, and making arrests in the Deir Ezzor town of Quriya. On Friday, a suicide car bomb in central Damascus

killed 11 people. Anti-regime activists have accused the government of being behind the series of explosions, while the authorities blame “terrorists”.

The Syrian National Council, the main opposition group, said the RPG attacks in Damascus were “another trick” by the regime to justify its continued crackdown against a revolt that began in March last year. “The Assad regime is trying in various ways to mislead and distract (UN) observers in order to prevent them carrying out their work,” a statement said, calling for “an international commission of inquiry to uncover who was behind the explosions.”

Veteran peacekeeper Major General Robert Mood urged all sides on Sunday to abide by the ceasefire as he arrived to take command of the UN military observer mission overseeing the truce.

The peace plan, brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, calls for a commitment to stop all armed violence, a daily two-hour humanitarian ceasefire, media access to all areas affected by the fighting, an inclusive Syrian-led political process, a right to demonstrate and the release of detainees.

Mood, a 54-year-old Norwegian, stressed that the monitors need the cooperation of all parties to achieve their mission. “The observers can’t solve all problems in and of themselves... All sides must stop violence and give the process a chance,” he said. Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Meqdad told Mood that Syria “will confront the actions of armed bands and those who support them, especially after the unprecedented escalation by the terrorist bands since the first observers arrived,” SANA said. — AFP

200 dead and missing after India ferry sinks Continued from Page 1 “There were about 350 people on board when a storm split the steamer into two,” Assam state police chief J N Choudhury told AFP. Local police officer A Dass said rescuers had recovered the bodies of 68 victims, leaving around 132 missing.

The boat was on its way from Dhubri to the adjoining district of Fakirganj when the accident occurred in late afternoon, police said. Dhubri is some 300 km from Guwahati. More rain was forecast for

today for the area. Assam state chief minister Tarun Gogoi said the Indian prime minister had telephoned him and promised to rush disaster response units from New Delhi and other locations. “Army, Border Security Force and other rescue teams with mechanised boats have moved to the site but nightfall and bad weather are hampering rescue efforts,” Gogoi told AFP. Singh said in a statement that he was “shocked and grieved to know about the loss of lives”. He said that he had given instructions “for all pos-

sible assistance to the government of Assam in relief operations and also for assistance from the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund to the families of the deceased”. In one of the last major ferry disasters in India, at least 79 Muslim pilgrims drowned when an overcrowded boat carrying 150 people sank in the eastern state of West Bengal in Oct 2010. In March this year, some 138 people died in neighbouring Bangladesh when an overloaded ferry carrying 200 people sank in the Meghna river southeast of the capital Dhaka. — AFP

Bahrain to retry hunger striker Continued from Page 1 More than two months on from the launching of his hunger strike, Khawaja went “missing” for six days. After his family expressed fears for his safety, they found out Sunday that he was being force-fed through the nose, said his daughter. “He had been drugged, tied to the bed and force-fed through the nose,” she said. “We consider this torture, partly because he was put in solitary confinement while they force-fed him.”

The Bahraini health authorities have denied the family’s claims. “In response to claims made by Abdulhadi AlKhawaja’s family members today, we want to be clear that the patient has not been force-fed or treated against his will,” a spokesperson for the Bahrain Defence Forces Hospital said. Bahrain’s most prominent activist remained determined to continue on his hunger strike, until he is freed from jail. “Despite their force-feeding him,” said his daughter, the authorities “can’t break him.” Khawaja has previously said his goal was “freedom or death”.

Bahrain’s main Shiite opposition group, Al-Wefaq, called for the release of its members, saying “the political prisoners ... told the court today that they have been beaten and tortured in order to extract confessions.” Bahrain needs a political solution to get out of the current crisis, it added.

Ahead of yesterday’s hearing, witnesses said dozens of Shiite protesters gathered outside the Court of Cassation, Bahrain’s highest appeals court, waving pictures of the defendants on which they wrote: “Trials of oppression.”

Security forces cordoned off the courthouse but no incidents were reported. Protesters also blocked roads and set tyres ablaze in Shiite villages around the capital, the sources said. The interior ministry said “groups of saboteurs” blocked two roads which the security forces later reopened. Khawaja, who has become a symbol of Bahrain’s opposition movement, was arrested last April shortly after the regime crackdown on a month-long Shiite-led uprising that killed 35 people, according to an independent probe.

Bahrain has repeatedly come under pressure from rights groups as well as Western governments to release Khawaja, a 52-year-old father of four who has dual Danish and Bahraini nationality. But Manama has rejected such calls as interference in its internal affairs.

Denmark has asked to take him in, but Bahrain has refused to let Khawaja go, with the authorities repeatedly saying the activist is in good health. Danish Foreign Minister Willy Sovndal praised the verdict but said it was just a start. He also called for a resumption of access to the Khawaja, who is respected by international rights groups but dubbed a Shiite Islamist by some Bahrainis.

“The case is not finished and we continue the diplomatic efforts. We will continue to be in regular contact with the Bahraini authorities and with the wide international circle of countries and organisations which support us in this case, until a final solution has been found,” Sovndal told Reuters. “Now it is of course decisive that the Danish ambassador immediately regains access to visit Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja.” — Agencies

Kuwait, Iraq ink major accords Continued from Page 1 Zebari indicated at an agreement for regulation of the higher commission, and another accord regarding navigation through Abdullah water passageway, according to international resolutions that organize such marine movement. He also noted that HH the Prime Minister of Kuwait and other Kuwaiti officials would visit Iraq ahead of the yearend, to follow up on these issues and several memoranda.

Zebari said the minutes addressed double-taxation, encouraging investments and commercial and technical cooperation. On Kuwait’s Mubarak Port, Zebari said the Kuwaiti side assured the Iraqi officials that this

mega venture would not affect navigation in the region. “We have agreed on a number of protocols and cooperation in various sectors, and these protocols will be signed during the upcoming visit of the Kuwaiti prime minister to Baghdad in the last quarter of this year,” he said. The two sides discussed the issue of war compensations extensively, he said, adding that they agreed on holding the third round of the commission in Kuwait in March next year. Elaborating, Zebari affirmed that Iraq would not pose a threat to other countries in the region. “Iraq’s power won’t be a threat to anyone, but it will be might for goodness and not evil,” he added.

For his part, the Kuwaiti foreign minister said the two sides worked

diligently to hammer out the agreements. “What has been achieved constitutes crowning of the visit of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah AlAhmad Al-Sabah to Baghdad and the visit of the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki to Kuwait as well as the joint desire of the two sides for establishing best possible relations for service of interests of the two brotherly peoples,” Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid said. On the port venture, the minister reaffirmed that Kuwait will ensure that such ventures will not harm neighboring countries. The joint commission, formed early last year, held its first meeting in Kuwait in March 2011. Senior Kuwaiti and Iraqi officials took part in the meetings in the Iraqi capital. — KUNA

14

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

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Issues

China, US face damaging fallout from activist flight

By Pascale Trouillaud he escape of a Chinese activist championed by Washington and now said to be under US protection is hugely embarrassing for Beijing and comes at the worst possible time ahead of USChina talks, analysts say. Both countries have maintained absolute silence on the whereabouts of 40year-old blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng since his audacious flight from house arrest eight days ago, underscoring the extreme sensitivity of his case.

Friends of Chen, who served four years in jail after exposing rights abuses under China’s “one-child” policy, say he is holed up in the US embassy but is not seeking US asylum, raising the spectre of a drawn-out diplomatic wrangle.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is due in Beijing on Wednesday for high-level talks with Chinese leaders, has repeatedly criticised China’s treatment of the activist and demanded his release from house arrest. “The timing really couldn’t be any worse,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, China expert at Hong Kong Baptist University. “There is a shared code of silence. It is in both countries’ interests to minimise the affair and separate it from the rest.

That is why they have not confirmed anything, and are keeping a low profile.”

Washington has reportedly dispatched senior US diplomat Kurt Campbell to Beijing to try to contain the looming crisis ahead of the annual economic and political talks between the two world powers, scheduled for Thursday and Friday. But resolving the issue before the talks -expected to cover ChinaUS cooperation on such highly sensitive global problems as Iran, Syria and North Korea - will be a huge diplomatic challenge. The fate of the selftaught legal activist, who has been blind from childhood, has made headlines around the world and observers said it would be unthinkable for the United States to release him into the hands of the Chinese.

“Everyone recognises that he is a victim, someone highly respected,” said Beijing-based China expert Michel Bonnin, adding that Chen was unlikely to be easily persuaded to go into exile -the solution most likely to be acceptable to Beijing.

“Dissidents can do nothing to advance their cause from abroad,” he said. If he is unwilling to leave the country, the United States might be forced to keep Chen in the embassy indefinitely - a constant reminder in Beijing of the government’s loss of face.

Analysts said the only other likely scenario - a guarantee from China that it will respect the rights of Chen and his family if he leaves US protection was unlikely. Cabestan said the United States was “playing for time” while it sought a solution to the thorny question of what to do with Chen, with Beijing likely furious at the way the situation has turned out. “But what can they (Chinese) do? They can’t very well go in and get him,” he added.

Chen’s flight to the US embassy is particularly sensitive for Beijing because it comes just months after Wang Lijun, former right-hand man of disgraced leader Bo Xilai, went to a US consulate and reportedly asked for asylum. Wang is said to have handed documents that incriminated Bo to US officials, leading to the downfall of one of the country’s highest-profile leaders and sparking the biggest political drama to hit the ruling Communist party in years. “This (the Chen affair) will affect not only the relations between China and the United States, but also the image of China after the Bo Xilai affair,” said Cabestan.

The last time a Chinese dissident sought refuge in the US embassy was in 1989. Fang Lizhi, an academic and supporter of that year ’s Tiananmen Square pro-democracy demonstrations, remained at the embassy for a year before leaving in 1990 for exile in the United States with his wife. The United States’ refusal to hand him over to the Chinese authorities sparked a major row. Human Rights Watch analyst Phelim Kline said the Chen affair was the “diplomatic equivalent of a slow-motion car crash”. “Ensuring the protec tion of Chen Guangcheng, his family and supporters from official reprisals will require a degree of flexibility and artful diplomacy that the Chinese government may be unable or unwilling to conjure,” he said. —AFP

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In French election sobriety is new sign of times

By Geert De Clercq hen Nicolas Sarkozy won the French presidency in 2007, the roaring Noughties were still in full swing and his message of “work more to earn more” was in sync with the times. Five years later, sobriety, solidarity and a desire for fairness define the zeitgeist and Sarkozy’s Socialist challenger Francois Hollande seems more in tune with the spirit of the age. Winning an election requires a potent mix of charisma and a project that captures the public mood. Sarkozy’s 2007 Socialist opponent Segolene Royal had plenty of personality but, with the economy growing and the stock market booming, her message of social justice did not fly.

This time, the mood is very different. With both contenders vowing to balance state books, voters know the coming years will be austere and they are looking for a leader who makes everyone share the sacrifice while safeguarding the welfare state. Style matters too.

The French are fed up with a “bling-bling” president seen as a friend of the rich.

Hollande’s modest manner is reassuring and his vow to make justice his guiding principle speak to the anxieties of this decade, the Teenies. If he wins the May 6 runoff - as all polls predict - his style and message will be studied well beyond France’s borders.

“In 2007 Sarkozy embodied dynamism and optimism, but now the French are fearful.

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They want more regulation and a president who protects them,” said Alain Duhamel, the dean of French political commentators. For Christian Salmon, a writer on French politics, the neo-liberal revolution that began in the early 1980s with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher hit the buffers with the global financial crisis of 2008, but no new ideology has yet emerged. “While we wait for the emergence of a new political paradigm, the new leaders in Europe today all have more of an ethos than an ideology: the ethos of the bespectacled accountant who will restore order in the country,” he said.

Salmon said the crisis has made the traditional divide between conservatives and social democrats less relevant than a new split between exuberant but distrusted showmen like Silvio Berlusconi and Sarkozy and duller but steadier personalities like Italy’s Mario Monti, Spain’s Mariano Rajoy and Hollande. “It is a time for modesty and ethics that started in 2008 with Barack Obama,” Salmon said.

Outside the political sphere, some were early to sense the changed spirit of the age. In Jan 2009, less than a year into the crisis, Germanborn Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld heralded a “New Modesty”, saying that bling was over and that the crisis would bring a big moral spring cleaning.

Hollande’s plan to raise taxes on banks, big companies and the rich appeals to a deep desire for fairness after a decade in which

inequality rose to 30-year highs. So does his promise to be a “normal” president, answerable to the courts like any other citizen.

Hollande has said his government’s first decision would be to cut presidential and ministerial pay by 30 percent and he pledges to travel in France by train instead of presidential jet when possible. Even his weight loss fits the modesty message, said Salmon. “You can’t preach austerity with a double chin,” he said.

The spirit of an era is hard to fathom, but polling agency CSA has tried to measure the difference between society as perceived and society as desired. CSA presented 1,000 voters with 19 keywords picked from the 2007 and 2012 campaign slogans and asked which best represented the state of French society and which best described their personal state of mind. The two most-used words to describe society were “profit” (53 percent) and “capitalist” (43 percent), while the two that respondents most used to describe themselves were “change” (28 percent) and “solidarity” (25 percent). Only 4 percent picked “justice” as a good description of the state of France, while 22 percent said it was a personal aspiration.

“There is a very strong egalitarian critique of the economy in France at the moment,” said Jerome Sainte-Marie, head of political studies at CSA. He said French people know there will have to be belt-tightening to repair public finances and they want the pain to be shared fairly. “They do not trust Sarkozy for that

because he is seen as the president of the rich,” he said. In 2007, the last year of the debtfueled prosperity of the Noughties, Sarkozy appealed to voters with the idea that everybody would be able to get rich. Disappointed voters now want a fair captain to steer them through the storms ahead. “By constantly hammering on the theme of social justice, Hollande is clearly in sync with the times,” Sainte-Marie said.

In his keynote Jan 22 speech, the Socialist declared that the world of finance was his main opponent and put the issue of fairness at the centre of his campaign. “The French people must know that as president I will ask only one question: before every extra effort, before every reform, every decision, every law, every decree, I will ask myself one single question: ‘Is it fair?’” he said. The dominant theme of the 2012 election jumps off the April 19 “Hatred of the Rich” cover of weekly Le Point, which superimposed the faces of French opposition p o liticians onto Jean-Victor Schnetz’s celebrated “Fighting at the Hotel de Ville”, a painting of a street battle during the July 1830 revolution that toppled the restored Bourbon monarchy.

Centre stage was Communist-backed hardleft leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, who drew massive crowds to rallies and at one stage rose to third place behind Hollande and Sarkozy before falling back to score 11.1 percent in the first round.— Reuters

Obama falls short of expectations abroad

By Peter Apps t was not just US Democratic voters who were looking forward to “hope and change” when Barack Obama became the 44th US president. Around the world, many anticipated the United States would behave very differently under the new leader. They wanted to hear less about Americans swaggering and throwing their weight around.

Some, perhaps, wanted more talk of US-style freedom and democracy, but not if it meant Washington imposing its will. Few dispute that Obama’s election brought with it a noticeable change in tone. But 3-1/2 years later, there are growing complaints that when it comes to substance, relatively little has changed.

A scandal over the hiring of prostitutes by the US Secret Service in Colombia, killings and Koran burnings in Afghanistan and drone strikes in Pakistan have helped fuel an impression of a United States that globally does what it wants regardless of others. Even the “Arab Spring,” some complain, showcased US hypocrisy: Washington withdrew support from autocratic allies like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak only when it became clear they were on the way out while still supporting authoritarian partners in states such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

The failure to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba, where suspected foreign terrorists are held, despite Obama’s promises both before and after his election, has added to the disillusionment. “We were very hopeful at the time Obama was elected,” said Abdel Rahman Mansour, an Egyptian political activist whose Facebook postings helped drive the revolution that ousted Mubarak in February last year. “But nothing happened. Obama didn’t deliver change but diplomatic rhetoric.”

As it struggles with a slow economic recovery, a potentially crippling budget deficit and debt burden, and political gridlock in Washington, some wonder whether the United States itself is in a slow decline. A poll released last week by Gallup and conducted across 136 countries showed 46 percent of respondents had a positive view of US global leadership. That has fallen gradually from 49 percent in 2009 immediately after Obama’s election, the highest since Gallup began polling on the issue in 2005. It remains well above the 34 percent recorded in 2008, the

I

last year of the George W Bush administration.

Obama is also seen as much more popular internationally than his presumptive Republican challenger in November’s election, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who has indicated he would take a hard line with countries such as Russia and China. The enthusiasm verging on euphoria that initially greeted Obama, however, seems to be gone for good. Karl Lemberg, one of thousands who thronged a Berlin park in July 2008 for a pre-election address by Obama, says he believed at the time he was seeing a seismic shift in relations between the United States and the rest of the world. Four years later, now married to an American woman and studying in Washington, he says he has trimmed his expectations, particularly after learning how Congress limits the freedom of any president. “I have a much more realistic view of the US now,” he said.

Some now say the world’s embrace of Obama had less to do with the candidate himself - and even less to do with his policies - and more to do with what he was seen to represent as the first black US president. “To me, what the Obama presidency has done ... is to show that with good ... institutional structures... anybody can rise up to any level they would want to achieve,” said James Shikwati, founder and director of the Nairobibased Inter Regional Economic Network think tank.

Certainly, the United States - with its enduring if occasionally troubled democracy, wealth, image and power - exerts a powerful draw. A separate Gallup poll shows it the most popular desired destination for potential global migrants. Most polls show greater trust in US leadership than that of other powers, such as China. Indeed, Beijing’s rise is seen prompting many other countries in Asia to tighten relations with Washington.

For Obama “it was always going to be a roller coaster,” says P J Crowley, State Department spokesman between 2009 and 2011 and now a university lecturer, pointing to the shift in expectations after the eight years under Bush. Global sentiment towards the United States has always ebbed and flowed. President Ronald Reagan was far from universally loved in Europe at the time of his Cold War standoff with the Soviet Union, while presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon were heavily criticized during

the Vietnam War. But recent months have certainly seen the kind of image-damaging news flow Washington could do without. This month’s Americas Summit in Colombia was marred by the embarrassing disclosure that US Secret Service agents had been caught bringing prostitutes into their hotel. The United States also found itself isolated over its tough Cuba policy. Of greater damage to Washington’s image was a string of incidents in Afghanistan, where it is struggling to create security and promote development.

“What happened in Colombia was a distraction from the summit itself, but that was it,” said Douglas Ollivant, a former director for Iraq for the National Security Council who is now at the New America Foundation think tank. “In Afghanistan, though, there is something of a drum beat of events. And there it really matters.”

In March, a US Army sergeant was accused of killing 17 Afghan civilians. He was arrested and flown back to the United States for trial.

Before that a video circulated showing US troops urinating on dead Taleban fighters. In February, there were protests and reprisals after it emerged US forces had burned several copies of the Holy Quran. Jon B Wolfsthal, a former NSC director for nuclear issues and special adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, said it was vital for the government to build up international capital to help it better weather such storms.

Wolfstahl, now deputy head of the University of Monterey’s Center for Nonproliferation Studies, said there was a big difference between recent scandals and some of the more unpopular actions of the Bush administration, like the use of controversial interrogation techniques such as waterboarding. Under Obama the acts were by misguided individuals and they were not official policy, he said. In Obama’s first year in office, he said, the president and his aides pursued a deliberate policy of trying to build international capital with big speeches in Prague and Cairo so they could trade off it in later years.

“There are times when it has been very useful,” says Wolfsthal, pointing to negotiations to get countries to surrender atomic material or cooperate on sanctions against nuclear smuggling. “You have national leaders that were willing to do things they didn’t want to do because they got to meet with or be photographed with the president.”

Administration insiders said they always

knew Obama’s sky-high global popularity would not be sustainable. Romney might accuse Obama of too often apologizing for the United States, but the president’s defenders said he had no problem making internationally unpopular decisions when necessary.

“I don’t think the Obama administration is particularly any more worried about what people in the rest of the world think,” says former NSC member Ollivant, who served both Bush and Obama.

Still, in some parts of the world the president remains much more popular than many local politicians. When he visited the Indonesian island of Bali for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in November, adoring crowds lined the route cheering “We love you Obama.” An Indonesian provincial governor passing along the same route hours later was met with jeers and complaints over flooding and poor roads.

Obama lived in the capital Jakarta for three years with his mother and Indonesian stepfather between 1969 and 1971.

But in Pakistan, where US Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden a year ago and where drones stalk militants in the lawless tribal areas, Obama’s leadership has proved divisive. “Things seem to have gotten worse under Obama,” said Shayan Jafri, 21, a law student in Islamabad. “America has been violating our sovereignty ... how can they expect us to respect them when they don’t respect us.”

Some Pakistanis do express sympathy with the policy challenge for the United States. “As long as we are not willing to solve our own problems, what options do the Americans have?” said fellow Islamabad resident Ali Qureshi, 28. It is a similar picture across the border in Afghanistan. While some Afghans credit the United States - and even Obama in particular - with some development and security gains, there are widespread complaints that go beyond the scandals, particularly over failure to build up the economy and infrastructure.

In the Middle East, there seems little doubt the Obama presidency scaled back perceptions widespread under Bush that the United States was at war with the Muslim world. Obama’s supporters say that has helped him build regional and international coalitions to help contain Iran, particularly when it comes to tightening sanctions designed to rein in Tehran’s nuclear program.—Reuters

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

sp orts

Tevez wants long-term stay at Manchester City

Podolski to join Arsenal BERLIN: Cologne winger Lukas Podolski will join Arsenal for next season, the two clubs said yesterday, ending months of speculation regarding the future of one of Germany’s most exciting players. The 26-yearold, the relegation-threatened side’s leading scorer this term with 18 Bundesliga goals, has long been a target for several top European clubs and had a year left on his Cologne contract.

An Arsenal statement said Podolski, who will join fellow Germany international Per Mertesacker at the London club, had agreed a long-term deal for an undisclosed fee. “This transfer gives me the opportunity to play for a top European club on an international level,” said Podolski, who joined Cologne as a 10-year-old and returned to the club after a hapless three years at Bayern Munich from 2006-09. —Reuters

MANCHESTER: Argentina striker Carlos Tevez has told Manchester City he wants to stay at the club for the long term in a remarkable turnaround for a player who was an outcast only months ago.

Speaking ahead of Monday night’s Manchester derby that will decide whether the Premier League title stays at United’s Old Trafford or goes to City’s Etihad Stadium, Tevez said he had repaired his relationship with manager Roberto Mancini.

“My relationship with the manager is totally fine, he’s been as good as gold with me and there have been

absolutely no problems,” the former United player told Monday’s Manchester Evening News.

“I’m an ambitious person. I want to work hard and win things with City.”

Tevez said Abu Dhabi-owned City had big plans and he wanted to be part of them. “This club has been building something special for the past few years. It was the project and the dream that made me come to City in the first place,” he declared.

“I’ve been here since the start of that project and I share the same vision as (owner) Sheikh Mansour (bin Zayed Al Nahyan),” Tevez added.—Reuters

Fans’ most popular choice LONDON: When it comes to sporting the name of their favorite Premier League player on the back of a replica shirt, Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney is officially the most popular choice of fans around the world.

Global sales data from Sporting iD, who determined the top five by the number of player names sold for official replica shirts, said it was a close race for the top three positions.

Rooney edged out Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard and Chelsea frontman Fernando Torres, who may go up in the popularity stakes after hitting a hat-trick in the 6-1 Premier League win over Queens Park Rangers on Sunday.

Cristiano Ronaldo, formerly with Manchester United and now with Real Madrid, is the fourth most popular over the 20 seasons of the Premier League, with Chelsea’s Frank Lampard fifth.

Sporting iD global sales & marketing director Rob Thayne said demand for Rooney shirts “showed no signs of abating”.—Reuters

Yankees tame Tigers

LOS ANGELES: Dodgers’ James Loney (right) watches his two-RBI single as Washington Nationals catcher Jesus Flores looks on during the sixth inning of a baseball game.—AP

Capuano and Loney lead Dodgers to win over Nats LOS ANGELES: Chris Capuano struck out nine batters while combining with two relievers on a four-hitter and James Loney drove in two runs with a bases-loaded single as the Los Angeles Dodgers completed a three-game sweep of the Washington Nationals with a 2-0 victory Sunday.

Capuano (3-0) allowed three hits and two walks in 6 2-3 innings, sending the Nationals to their fourth straight loss after they entered the series with an National League-best 14-5 record.

Kenley Jansen followed Josh Lindblom out of the bullpen and pitched a hitless ninth for his second save after starting out with six straight balls and getting a visit from pitching coach Rick Honeycutt. Jansen then struck out his next two batters and fanned Jesus Flores with runners at first and second to end it.

Cubs 5, Phillies 1 At Philadelphia, Matt Garza pitched one-hit ball for seven shutout innings and struck out 10 batters as Chicago beat Philadelphia.

Garza (2-1) gave up a pop-fly single to Jimmy Rollins leading off the first and nothing more. The right-hander retired 20 of the next 21 batters, with Juan Pierre’s seventh-inning walk accounting for the only other baserunner. Joe Mather homered and Bryan LaHair doubled twice for the Cubs. Kyle Kendrick (0-2), making his second start in place of injured Cliff Lee, allowed two earned runs and five hits in six innings. He matched his career high with seven strikeouts.

Brewers 3, Cardinals 2 At St. Louis, Zack Greinke worked six strong innings and Jonathan Lucroy’s two-run double capped a three-run sixth as Milwaukee beat St. Louis to avoid a three-game sweep.

Greinke (3-1) allowed a run and seven hits to help stop the Brewers’ six-game road losing streak. He’s 2-1 with a 2.11 ERA in four career games in St. Louis. Jaime Garcia (2-1) fell to 1710 at home with a 2.38 ERA. John Axford escaped an eventful ninth for his fifth save in five chances and 48th in a row, breaking a tie with Brad Lidge for the fourth-longest string in major league history.

Braves 4, Pirates 3 At Atlanta, Tim Hudson labored through five tough innings to win in his return from back surgery and Atlanta held on in the ninth to beat Pittsburgh. Hudson (1-0) pitched in the majors for the first time since his operation last November to repair a herniated disc. The right-hander threw 96 pitches while giving up two runs on six hits and two walks. He allowed at least one baserunner in every inning. The Pirates stranded 10 runners, including eight against Hudson. Craig Kimbrel gave up one run in the ninth before earning his eighth save. Martin Prado hit his second homer for the Braves. Michael Bourn had three hits and a walk. Kevin Correia (1-1) gave up two earned runs on four hits and five walks in 4 1-3 innings.

D’backs 8, Marlins 4 At Miami, Wade Miley held Miami hitless until the sixth inning and Jason Kubel drove in three runs for Arizona. Miley (3-0) gave up one hit and an unearned run in 6 1-3 innings to lower his ERA to 1.29. He also singled and scored the game’s first run. The retractable roof over the Marlins’ new ballpark averted a rainout, because showers fell all day.

But inside, boos rained down from the crowd of 34,918 during Arizona’s five-run sixth.

The Marlins trailed 8-0 before they managed their first hit in the sixth, a leadoff double by John Buck. Miami has lost seven of eight.

Miami ace Josh Johnson (0-3) had another poor outing. He struck out eight but allowed 10 hits and five runs in 5 1-3 innings, and opponents are batting .350 against the 2010 NL ERA leader.

Giancarlo Stanton hit a three-run homer, his first this season, in the Miami ninth.

Mets 6, Rockies 5 At Denver, Ike Davis singled in the go-ahead run in the 11th inning as New York overcame two tying homers allowed by its bullpen to beat Colorado. Johan Santana, looking for his first win since September 2010, left with a 4-0 lead after six innings but left-hander Tim Byrdak gave up pinchhitter Todd Helton’s grand slam in the eighth. Kirk Nieuwenhuis put the Mets ahead again with an RBI double in the 10th before Frank Francisco (1-1) served up Carlos Gonzalez’s solo homer in the bottom half. David Wright started the 11th with a single off Matt Belisle (1-2) and went to third on Lucas Duda’s single. One out later, Davis singled to finally rescue the Mets. Ramon Ramirez got three outs for his first save of the season. Wright had a two-run double and Josh Thole homered for New York.

Giants 4, Padres 1 At San Francisco, Pablo Sandoval homered to back Madison Bumgarner’s fourth straight victory as San Francisco denied San Diego its first series win of the season. Joaquin Arias added a two-run triple in the sixth inning to turn a one-run lead into 4-1. Bumgarner (4-1) struck out a season-best six in 7 2-3 innings for his team-leading fourth victory.

The 22-year-old left-hander has held opponents to two or fewer runs in his last nine starts at AT&T Park. Santiago Casilla finished for his fourth save.

Reds 6, Astros 5 At Cincinnati, Jay Bruce’s fourth home run in four games, a tiebreaking shot in the eighth inning, lifted Cincinnati to a comeback win over Houston.

Bruce hit the first pitch from reliever Fernando Rodriguez (0-3) into the right-field seats for his seventh homer of the season. Bruce has hit home runs in a career-high four consecutive games, one short of tying Cincinnati’s club record.

Joey Votto also homered for the Reds, his second of the year. Logan Ondrusek (1-0) pitched a perfect eighth and Sean Marshall earned his fifth save in six tries. Jed Lowrie hit a two-run shot for the Astros and Matt Downs also went deep.—AP

NEW YORK: CC Sabathia steadied New York ’s rock y rotation with eight sharp innings, Alex Rodriguez passed Willie Mays for eighth on the career RBIs list and the Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers 6-2 on Sunday despite leaving 14 men on base in the first six innings.

Rodriguez drove in two runs without hitting the ball out of the infield, leaving him with 1,904 RBIs. He singled on a dribbler down the third-base line with the bases loaded in the second, the Yankees’ only hit in six plate appearances with three men on.

Chris Stewart slid under catcher Gerald Laird’s tag on Rodriguez’s grounder to shortstop in the seventh.

Curtis Granderson walked to force in the game’s first run in the second, one of a career-high seven walks by Detroit starter Max Scherzer (1-3). The Yankees walked nine times and left 15 on base overall, but won the three - game series. Sabathia (3-0) allowed two runs and four hits.

Rays 5, Rangers 2 At Arlington, Texas, David Price beat Texas for the first time in 10 career starts as Tampa Bay became the first team to win a series against the Rangers this season.

Ben Zobrist had three hits and an RBI and Price earned his fourth victory in five starts.

Tampa Bay touched up Derek Holland (2-2) for five extra-base hits in a nine-hit outburst.

Price (4-1) struck out six and walked one in 6 1-3 innings.

He gave up two runs and six hits.

Fernando Rodney loaded the bases with two outs in the ninth, then jammed Ian Kinsler on a soft liner back to the mound for his seventh save.

Rangers slugger Josh Hamilton left in the third with back stiffness and is day to day.

Texas manager Ron Washington was ejected on his 60th birthday.

Indians 4, Angels 0 At Cleveland, Derek Lowe pitched threehit ball into the eighth inning as Cleveland scored three runs on Los Angeles errors.

Lowe (4-1) retired 12 batters on ground balls, including Albert Pujols three times.

Pujols also struck out against Chris Perez, extending his career-long homerless streak to 117 at-bats.

Er vin Santana (0-5), in his first star t against Cleveland since throwing a no-hitter at Progressive Field last July 27, allowed two unearned runs over seven innings. The runs scored when nine-time Gold Glove outfielder Torii Hunter lost a routine two-out fly ball in the sun for an error in the fif th. Los Angeles has totaled only 11 runs while losing six of seven.

White Sox 4, Red Sox 1 At Chicago, Gavin Floyd carried a no-hit-

ter into the seventh inning and Adam Dunn hit a two-run homer as Chicago snapped a five-game losing streak. Floyd (2-3) struck out nine in 6 2-3 innings, yielding one run and three hits. He improved to 7-0 with a 3.21 ERA in nine career appearances against Boston. Dustin Pedroia singled with one out in the seventh for Boston’s first hit of the game. Cody Ross had an RBI single for the Red Sox, who had won six straight.

Red Sox starter Josh Beckett (2-3) allowed three runs and six hits in 6 2-3 innings. He struck out eight and allowed six hits while matching a career high with 126 pitches.

Orioles 5, Athletics 2 At Baltimore, Wilson Betemit hit a threerun homer in the bottom of the ninth inning after Matt Wieters doubled in two runs, giving Baltimore an unlikely victory.

Oakland starter Bartolo Colon took a fourhit shutout into the ninth without allowing a runner past second base.

After JJ Hardy led off with an infield hit and Nick Markakis struck out, Adam Jones hit a chopper down the third-base line that Colon collected before throwing wildly to first. The single and error put runners at second and third and ended Colon’s afternoon.

Grant Balfour (0-1) entered and promptly gave up a double to left by Wieters that tied it.

After Chris Davis received an intentional walk, Betemit hit a liner to right-center that bounced off the top of the wall - a home run, according

Tampa Bay Baltimore NY Yankees Toronto Boston Cleveland Detroit Chicago W Sox Kansas City Minnesota Texas Oakland Seattle LA Angels

W L PCT 14 8 .636 14 8 .636 12 9 .571 12 10 .545 10 11 .476 Central Division 11 9 .550 11 11 .500 11 11 .500 6 15 .286 6 15 .286 Western Division 16 6 .727 11 12 .478 11 12 .478 7 15 .318

GB 1.5 2 3.5 1 1 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5 9

Atlanta Washington NY Mets Philadelphia Miami St. Louis Cincinnati Milwaukee Pittsburgh Chicago Cubs Houston LA Dodgers San Francisco Arizona Colorado San Diego

Blue Jays 7, Mariners 2 At Toronto, Edwin Encarnacion hit his third home run in three games for Toronto, and Henderson Alvarez won for the first time since August. Jeff Mathis added a two-run homer as the Blue Jays broke open a close game with a five-run eighth inning.

Chone Figgins and Miguel Olivo homered for the Mariners, who lost their second straight. Alvarez (1-2) allowed one run and six hits in six-plus innings to win for the second time in 15 major league star ts.

Alvarez, whose only other victory came at Baltimore last Aug. 31, walked a careerhigh three and struck out one. Seattle starter Jason Vargas (3-2) allowed two runs and four hits in six innings.—AP

PHILADELPHIA: Danny Briere scored 4:36 into overtime to give the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 victory over the New Jersey Devils on Sunday in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinal series Briere had his second chance at the winner count minutes after an apparent goal was overturned on review because he kicked it into the net. He also scored in the second period.

He wasted no time making up for the missed opportunity, firing a slapper past Martin Brodeur for his seventh goal of the playoffs. Brodeur was screened in front by Philadelphia forward James van Riemsdyk. Game 2 is today in Philadelphia.

Van Riemsdyk and Claude Giroux also scored for the Flyers. Zach Parise, Travis Zajac and Petr Sykora scored for the Devils.

1 4 5.5 3 4 4.5 6 6 4 5 5.5 9.5

City had won three straight.

Briere nets winner, Flyers edge Devils

NY Yankees 6, Detroit 2; Cleveland 4, LA Angels 0; Toronto 7, Seattle 2; Arizona 8, Miami 4; Cincinnati 6, Houston 5; Baltimore 5, Oakland 2; Atlanta 4, Pittsburgh 3; Chicago Cubs 5, Philadelphia 1; Chicago White Sox 4, Boston 1; Minnesota 7, Kansas City 4; Milwaukee 3, St Louis 2; NY Mets 6, Colorado 5 (11 innings); San Francisco 4, San Diego 1; LA Dodgers 2,Washington 0; Tampa Bay 5, Texas 2.

National League Eastern Division 14 8 .636 14 8 .636 13 9 .591 10 12 .455 8 13 .381 Central Division 14 8 .636 11 11 .500 10 12 .455 9 12 .429 8 14 .364 8 14 .364 Western Division 16 6 .727 12 10 .545 11 11 .500 10 11 .476 7 16 .304

Twins 7, Royals 4 At Minneapolis, Josh Willingham had three hits as Minnesota snapped a sixgame losing streak. Jason Marquis (2-0) threw six strong innings for Minnesota, which also got three hits and a pair of RBIs from Danny Valencia. K ansas Cit y starter Bruce Chen (0-3) had his worst outing of the season, giving up six runs and six hits in 2 2-3 innings.

It was Chen’s shortest outing since lasting 3 1-3 innings on July 9, 2010. Kansas

NEW YORK: Yankees’ Derek Jeter (right) scores on a passed ball as Detroit Tigers pitcher Bryan Villarreal cannot handle the throw from Tigers catcher Alex Avila as Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez (left) looks on during the ninth inning of a baseball game.—AP

MLB results/standings

American League Eastern Division

to the ground rules at Camden Yards.

PHILADELPHIA: Flyers left wing James van Riemsdyk (right) skates away after scoring a goal as New Jersey Devils defenseman Andy Greene (left) reacts in the second period of Game 1 in a second-round NHL Stanley Cup hockey playoff series.—AP

Coyotes 5, Predators 3 At Glendale, Arizona, Shane Doan, Radim Vrbata, Antoine Vermette and Martin Hanzal each had a goal and an assist, Mike Smith made 30 saves, and Phoenix avoided its usual overtime theatrics, beating Nashville to take a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference semifinal series.

Taylor Pyatt also scored for the Coyotes. Ryan Suter, Patric Hornqvist and Andrei Kostitsyn scored for the Predators.

Phoenix scored three times on 19 second-period shots. The Coyotes built a two-goal lead early in the second period. Nashville twice cut it to one only to see Phoenix quickly respond.

The Coyotes did not go into overtime for only the second time in eight playoff games. The bestof-seven series shifts to Nashville for Game 3 tomorrow night.—AP

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

sp orts

Power wins Sao Paulo 300

Lee Chong Wei

Lee targets London gold NEW DELHI: World number one Lee Chong Wei suffered a shock defeat in the India Open final but he is determined to mark his final Olympic appearance by claiming a gold medal for Malaysia later this year.

Returning from a shoulder injury sustained in March, Lee lost to unseeded South Korean Wan Ho Shon 21-18 14-21 21-19 in Delhi on Sunday.

Lee’s smashes lacked their usual sting against a player ranked 16 places lower, giving the impression he was not taking any risks with his shoulder.

Overall, though, the 29-year-old was not too unhappy with his runner-up finish in the final qualifying event for the London Olympics in July.

“He played very well and there were some easy points that I missed,” 2008 Beijing Olympic silver medallist Lee told reporters.

“I have just came back from injury, I had to be careful.

I just tried to enjoy the game. I know I lost but it’s okay I still have three months before the Olympics.

“All Malaysians expect a gold medal and I will try my best to take gold for my country. I’m the world number one and every tournament I’m expected to win,” said Lee. He will compete in the Thomas Cup and Indonesia Open before heading to London. “I will enjoy my last Olympics. It’s going to be very tough,” he said. “There’s a lot of pressure but I’m going to enjoy it.” —Reuters

SAO PAULO: Will Power had a flawless race to win IndyCar’s Sao Paulo 300 for the third straight time on Sunday, extending his dominance on the streets of South America’s biggest city.

The Australian was hardly challenged at the 4-kilometer (2.5-mile), 11-turn Anhembi circuit, taking control of the race from the start to finish ahead of American Ryan Hunter Reay. “I think I love Brazil, I love Sao Paulo,” Power said after climbing out of his car.

Takuma Sato had a great run to finish third for his first podium after starting only 25th and overcoming a drive-thru penalty, while Brazilian Helio Castroneves was fourth after starting 18th. Three-time defending series champion Dario Franchitti recovered from an early spin to finish fifth.

It was Power’s third straight victory after four races this season, and Penske’s fourth straight. It is the first time the team wins four in a row to start the season, dating to the introduction of CART in 1979. Penske also won the first three races of the year in 2010.

Power became the first driver since Scott Dixon in 2007 to win three consecutive races. It was the Australian’s 18th career victory at IndyCar. “Something is clicking there very well,” Hunter-Reay said. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all that they’ve won as many as they’ve won this season. Three out of four, that’s astonishing.”

Power led the most laps and clearly was faster than the rest of the field on Sunday, but had to fend off Hunter-Reay on a couple of late restarts, including one with five laps to go. Power crossed the line less than a second ahead of the American. “I was giving absolutely everything I had to keep Ryan behind,” said

Power, who started from the pole position. “A solid day when you look at it, very solid, no mistakes.” Reay said he knew his best chance was to try to make a move at the restarts.

“I was certainly going hard, giving Will Power every bit of the fight that I had in me going into Turn 1. I tried to get him on the outside,” the Andretti Autosport driver said. “It was a good race, a lot of fun, but came out just a little bit short.”

Last year Power won from the pole in a race postponed for a day because of heavy rain. He won the inaugural Sao Paulo 300 in 2010, passing Hunter-Reay with three laps to go to win the rainshortened race. Power was coming off victories in Alabama and Long Beach and his triumph in Sao Paulo helped him increase his series points lead heading into the Indy 500 next month. He has a 45-point lead over Castroneves, the best Brazilian at the Anhembi circuit on Sunday. “Definitely good for the points, the biggest one is next race and we’ll try to make it four in a row,” he said. Japan’s Sato surprised with his third-place finish after starting back in the grid because of an engine change. He also overcame a drive-thru penalty on lap 12, using a three-stop strategy and being aggressive on restarts to move to the front.

“Will was just about lapping me when I had a drive-thru penalty, so we were really luck,” Sato said. “It was an eventful and very exciting race. Every restart really helped me a lot.”

Weather was a concern as it rained hard during the morning practice session and it was expected to rain all day on Sunday, but the race started and finished on a mostly dry track. There was a light drizzle during the race, but not enough to get the track wet. Rain had affected

chicane and lost control of his Chip Ganassi Racing car. He needed to use pit strategy to race back to the front to finish in the top five after starting second. It was his first top five of the season.

Ryan Briscoe’s race ended when he hit the wall exiting a turn on lap 22, and Josef Newgarden was involved in an accident at chicane on a restart on lap 29. Rubens Barrichello, in his first race at

SAO PAULO: IndyCar driver Will Power of Australia (right) Ryan Hunter-Reay of the US (center) and Takuma Sato of Japan celebrate their first, second and third place wins at the IndyCar’s Sao Paulo 300. —AP as the Australian came off the pits, but Dixon - who started third - had to make another stop at the end and finished only 17th. Franchitti stayed close to Power in the beginning of the race but spun on a restart on lap 27. He apparently was touched from behind at the first

home since joining IndyCar this season after a 19-year career in Formula One, ran as high as third place but fell to 10th at the end. “Unfortunately, because of all the caution flags our strategy didn’t work out today, but it will some other day,” he said. —AP

Pakistan to tour Sri Lanka COLOMBO: Pakistan will tour Sri Lanka next month for three Tests, five one-day internationals and two Twenty20 games, Sri Lanka Cricket said yesterday.

The Pakistanis will kick off the six-week tour with two Twenty20 matches in the southern port town of Hambantota on June 1 and June 3.

The first two one-day internationals will be played in Pallekele on June 7 and June 9, followed by the remaining three at the Premadasa stadium in Colombo on June 13, 16 and 18.

The three back-to-back Tests will be held in Galle (June 22-26), the Sinhalese sports club in Colombo (June 30-July 4) and Pallekele (July 812).

Pakistan last toured Sri Lanka in 2009 where they lost the Test series 2-0. The two sides met

CAS overturns Britain’s lifetime Olympic bans LONDON: Britain’s lifetime Olympic ban for doping offenders was overturned by sport’s highest court, clearing the way for sprinter Dwain Chambers and cyclist David Millar to try to qualify for the London Games. The Court of Arbitration for Sport said in a ruling published Monday that the British Olympic Association’s bylaw was invalid because it fails to comply with the World Anti-Doping Agency code.

A three-man CAS panel said a lifetime ban from the Olympics amounts to a second sanction after an initial doping ban. The BOA had argued that it was an eligibility issue rather than a sanction.

The CAS decision was in line with its ruling in October, when it threw out the International Olympic Committee rule that would have barred athletes who had received drug bans of more than six months from competing in the next games.

“WADA regrets the many hysterical and inaccurate public statements from the BOA in the course of challenging the WADA decision,” WADA President John Fahey said in a statement. “WADA has spent the last decade harmonizing the fight against doping in sport across the world by creating one set of rules.” Yesterday’s ruling means that Chambers and Millar are now eligible to compete for Britain at the July 27-Aug. 12 London Olympics.

Chambers, who won a bronze medal in the 60 meters at the world indoor championships in March, served a two-year ban after testing positive for the steroid THG in 2003 but can now try to make the British team at the Olympic trials in July.

UK Athletics said it supported lifetime Olympic bans but “welcomes the clarity the CAS decision brings to this issue.”

“Athletes affected by the ruling are now eligible for the team, in both individual and relay events, and will be subject to the same selection criteria and process as every other British athlete,” UK Athletics said in a statement. Millar was suspended in 2004 for two years after testing positive for the blood-boosting agent EPO. “Our team for the games is being selected in June and across all disciplines we’ll pick the team based on which riders are fit and available, and who we believe have the best chance to deliver medals,” British Cycling said in a statement. “Ahead of that we won’t be speculating on who may or may not be selected.” CAS said its rulings underlined the international sports movement’s commitment to harmonized anti-doping rules and policies laid out in the WADA code. “All signatories have agreed to comply .... without any substantial deviation in any direction,” CAS said. The panel said the IOC and BOA are still free to try to persuade other bodies that an extra sanction involving a ban from the Olympics “may be a proportionate, appropriate sanction” that could be part of a revised WADA code in the future.

“At the moment the system in place does not permit what the BOA has done,” CAS said.

In recent months, BOA chairman Colin Moynihan has been harshly critical of WADA, accusing it of failing to catch the world’s biggest drug cheats and of dragging the doping fight into a “dark age.” He called for an independent review of the Montrealbased body. Ordering the BOA to pay some of WADA’s legal costs, CAS said the appeal was “unnecessarily increased by the voluminous and largely irrelevant submissions and evidence submitted by the BOA on this appeal.” CAS said Moynihan “contradicted” a claim that the purpose of the bylaw was not to punish cheating when he stated that the “use of banned per formance enhancing drugs ... is the most heinous reprehensible form of cheating in sport.” —AP

the Sao Paulo race every year since it joined the IndyCar calendar in 2010.

Eight drivers were involved in a crash at a restart with eight laps to go, and although there was little contact between the cars, the track was blocked as the cars tried to make it through the first chicane.

Dixon was on a different pit strategy and passed Power for the lead on lap 52

Will Genia

Genia turns back to Reds MELBOURNE: Wallabies playmaker Will Genia has made a stunning Uturn by deciding to re-sign with the Queensland Reds two days after the Super Rugby team announced he would join Western Force next season.

The Reds said in a statement on Monday Genia had signed that morning until the end of 2015, scuppering the Perth-based Force’s bid to recruit the 24-year-old scrumhalf at the eleventh hour.

On Saturday, the Reds had announced that Genia was leaving the team at the end of the season to play for Force after not being able to provide a competitive enough offer.

Genia said he had told the Reds’ title-winning coach Ewen McKenzie after Friday’s win over the Auckland Blues that he was set to defect to the Force, but had a change of heart over the weekend.

“Ewen asked me after the game on Friday whether I was going to be staying with the Reds and I told him I was going to join the Western Force at the end of the season,” he told reporters.

“But when I considered my options over the weekend I realised it really didn’t sit well with me and my heart was in Queensland and that’s where I want to play my rugby.”

Genia added the caveat that the new Reds deal was subject to a “top-up” by the Australian Rugby Union (ARU). The ARU has final signoff on Super Rugby contracts, which are often linked to national contracts and include extra payments and incentives to encourage top players to remain at home rather than pursue bigger money deals overseas.

“The deal that I’ve signed here is subject to an ARU top-up as well, so that discussion is something that needs to take place and hopefully that works out because I want to stay,” Genia told local reporters.

The ARU said they were yet to receive a contract from the Queensland Rugby Union and were unable to start negotiations with the player. “We look forward to talking to Genia once those protocols have been met,” an ARU spokesman said.

Genia scored the match-winning try in last year’s final against the Canterbury Crusaders to seal the Reds’ first title in the competition’s professional era and has been a key player in the formerly struggling franchise’s revival. Local media reported Genia had been offered A$600,000 ($627,000) a year to play with Force, well above the A$400,000 Queensland had tabled. Force conceded they had lost their bid to bring Genia to Perth and expressed disappointment at the player’s backflip. “While we respect that Will has changed his mind, and had the right to do so, we are obviously disappointed following a verbal agreement a few days earlier and the promise of the paperwork to be signed and returned over the weekend following his arrival back from New Zealand,” Force CEO Vern Reid said.

Despite the team reporting his departure, negotiations re-opened on Sunday. Genia said the Reds’ initial offer had not changed.

“I stayed because I want to stay,” he told reporters. “I love the environment, I love the culture and I love where the club is heading and that’s the reason I wanted to stay.

“The financial gain to move to Perth was quite significant but it’s not about money. It’s about where I’m happy and this is where I’d be happy.

“It was a scary thought to think I may not feel that way about playing for another club ... Singing the team song in the change room afterwards and thinking I would not have the opportunity next year was a scary thought.” The Super Rugby champions have won five out of their nine games so far this season and remain six points behind the Canberra-based ACT Brumbies in the Australian conference.

The conference winners automatically qualify for the southern hemisphere provincial competition’s postseason. Force have won only two games this season and are all but out of the playoff race. —Reuters

in the United Arab Emirates last year where Pakistan won both the Test and one-day series and also clinched the lone Twenty20 international.

Tour itinerary: June 1: First Twenty20 international, Hambantota June 3: Second Twenty20 international, Hambantota June 7: First one-dayer, Pallekele June 9: Second one-dayer, Pallekele June 13: Third one-dayer, Colombo June 16: Fourth one-dayer, Colombo June 18: Fifth one-dayer, Colombo June 22-26: First Test, Galle June 30-July 4: Second Test, Colombo July 8-12: Third Test, Pallekele.

Clarke keeps lid on Aussie expectations ROSEAU: Michael Clarke celebrated a year in charge of Australia with a 75-run victory over West Indies in the third and final Test, but insisted his team is far from the finished.

Since succeeding Ricky Ponting as skipper, Clarke has built an impressive record with nine wins, three draws and just two defeats in 14 Tests. “A lot more grey hairs, but I’ve really enjoyed it,” said Clarke, after Australia wrappedup their Caribbean series 2-0.

“I’ve been very lucky to have some other great leaders around me, wonderful support staff who have played a part in me having success. And the captain is only as good as his stock. “Come our next tour to England, the oneday series, we’ll be looking to continue to play some really good cricket and keep Australain cricket in the right direction.”

Clarke has been through the mill during his time in charge, with a series of great highs and embarrassing lows. He led Australia to an impressive 4-0 home win over India, scoring 626 runs at an average of 125.20.

He also became only the third player after Don Bradman and Wally Hammond to have made a triple century and a double century in the same series.

But he also saw his team bowled out for just 47 by South Africa in Cape Town, before squaring the series in Johannesburg just days later.

Then came the shock defeat to New Zealand in Hobart in December last year. Those ups and downs have forced Clarke not to get too carried away by making predictions over what the future may hold for Australia.

“Cape Town showed us how quickly things

can change for the worse and then to be able to pull off a win in Jo’burg-and we’re talking about a very strong Test team in their own back yardso to be able to level that series was a great learning curve for us.

“And we continue to learn, especially, from those two games, Cape Town and Hobart. “I still think we’re a way off the number one spot. We have a lot of improvement to become the number one team. It’s not just about one series or one summer. It’s about consistency over a period of time.”

Australia’s South African coach Mickey Arthur praised the contributions of Matthew Wade, who made a maiden Test century here and spinner Nathan Lyon, who was his team’s leading wicket-taker in the series with 13. Ed Cowan also won plaudits from Arthur after the opener made a battling 55 in the first innings of the final Test. “It’s been excellent for the development of a lot of players who haven’t played out of Australia before. I’m thinking of the likes of Matthew Wade, Ed Cowan, Nathan Lyon,” said Arthur.

“I think we’ve played solid cricket, we’ve had a lot of young players that are playing in these conditions for the first time and I think they all go back to Australia better players. “ We go back to Australia with a lot of answers as to where we’re going as a squad and I’m very, very happy that we’re just creating depth within our structures because with the amount of cricket we play these days there’s going to be injuries and we’ve got guys that are going to be match-hardened and ready to step up to the plate.” —AFP

Michael Clarke celebrates in this file photo

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

S P ORT S

Dufner seals playoff win in New Orleans

MOBILE: Stacy Lewis hits her second shot on the ninth hole during the final round of the Mobile Bay LPGA Classic at the Crossings Course. — AFP

Stacy clinches Mobile Classic MOBILE: Stacy Lewis won the Mobile Bay LPGA Classic on Sunday for her second LPGA Tour title, holding off a challenge from teenager Lexi Thompson by one stroke.

Lewis, who held a five-stroke lead early in the day, reclaimed the edge with a birdie on No. 16, while the 17-year-old Thompson parred the final hole and had to wait.

Lewis parred out. Her week was so solid that her finishing 3-under 69 was her worst round en route to a 17-under 271 total. The former Arkansas star also won the 2011 Kraft Nabisco Championship.

“I feel like I’ve been close ever since then just to winning and people say I haven’t been winning, just kind of knocking on the door,” said Lewis, who won $187,500. “It’s nice to get it out of the way.

“I fought. I’m exhausted. I’m glad I didn’t have to play more holes.” Thompson found redemption from her final-round fall in Mobile a year ago. She didn’t flinch under the pressure given a second shot, closing with rounds of 66 and 65, tying her career low in a bogey-free round. “l wouldn’t take last year’s Sunday round back for anything, because I learned so much out of that,” Thompson said. “I learned what not to do. It was a really big learning experience.”

Thompson said she didn’t check out the scores on No. 18. “I looked away,” she said. Lewis secured the win with a two-putt par from the edge of the green. Karine Icher of France closed with a 68 to finish third, two strokes back. It ended up as a duel of two young Americans, though.

Thompson signaled that this one would be different from 2011 with a long chip-in for birdie on the par-3 second hole.

She was seeking her second straight Alabama win after becoming the youngest LPGA Tour winner in September at the Navistar LPGA Classic. She got her tour card a few weeks later.

“I wouldn’t take back any shot that I hit,” Thompson said. “I hit it pretty good. Just really relaxed out there. I’m just a lot more experienced with learning from bad rounds like last year.”

Thompson signed autographs, while Lewis strolled toward the green and said she didn’t “see any of her 18th hole.” Lewis raised both arms after sinking her short clinching putt, seemingly more relieved than exuberant in the moment.

Lewis spent her teen years in a back brace with scoliosis, then had surgery that corrected her spine with five screws and a steel rod.

Lewis had birdied holes 15-17 each of the past two days, when she was a combined 9 under on the back nine. “I just didn’t quite have it today,” she said, “but I found a way to get it done.” Se Ri Pak had the previous low score in the tournament’s first three years at 13 under in 2010. — AP

NEW ORLEANS: American Jason Dufner clinched his first PGA Tour title with a nail-biting playoff victory over veteran South African Ernie Els at the New Orleans Classic in Avondale, Louisiana, on Sunday.

The laid-back journeyman, previously a runner-up three times on the U.S. circuit, sealed the long-awaited win in bright sunshine with a two-putt birdie on the second extra hole at the TPC Louisiana, the par-five 18th.

Els, seeking his first PGA Tour victory since the 2010 Arnold Palmer Invitational, missed his long-range birdie attempt there from just off the left edge of the green.

“It was a tough day,” Dufner, 35, said in a greenside interview after finally triumphing on his 164th PGA Tour start.

“Ernie put up a good number today and we were battling it.

“It was just tough trying to get this first win. It’s been tough for about six years out here now, so a little bit of a monkey off my back. I’m excited.”

Both players had good birdie chances at the first extra hole, also the 18th, but Dufner missed his attempt there from seven feet and Els from six feet.

The duo had finished the regulation 72 holes on 19-under-par 269, Els eagling the seventh on his way to a five-under 67 and Dufner narrowly missing a 10-foot birdie putt at the last to close with a 70.

Britain’s Luke Donald fired a 67 to finish alone in third at 17 under and will regain the world number one spot from

Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy when the official rankings are issued on Monday.

Canada’s Graham DeLaet (71) and American Ryan Palmer (69) tied for fourth at 16 under, a stroke in front of American world number seven Steve Stricker (70).

Dufner, who played with his customary unflappable demeanour all week, held a two-stroke lead overnight but that advantage was soon trimmed to one after faststarting American Ken Duke birdied four of the first five holes.

Els also got to 16 under, level with Duke, after knocking in a four-foot birdie putt at the par-four fifth. While Duke slipped back with a bogey at the eighth and a double -bogey at the ninth, Els found himself in a two-way tie at the top after Dufner bogeyed the par-four sixth.

Els then took control in spectacular style with an eagle at the par-five seventh, hitting his second shot from 228 yards to eight feet and rolling in the putt to forge two strokes clear.

Dufner, however, immediately responded with birdies at the seventh and eighth to draw level with Els at 18 under as the two players duelled for the title.

After safely parring the ninth to reach the turn in one-under 35, Dufner coolly sank a 10-footer to birdie the 10th and regain a one-stroke lead.

Els again caught Dufner at the top with a birdie at the par-five 11th and both players did well to save par at the tricky 14th after overhitting the green with their

AVONDALE: Jason Dufner kisses the trophy after defeating Ernie Els in a sudden-death playoff to win the Zurich Classic golf tournament. — AP

tee shots.

Dufner also salvaged an unexpected par at the 16th where he drove into the lake bordering the fair way, took an unplayable lie, then struck his third shot to 45 feet before remarkably holing the putt.

As the late afternoon shadows length-

ened, both players parred the last two holes to take the tournament into a sudden-death playoff.

Masters champion Bubba Watson, who won last year’s New Orleans Classic in a playoff, ended his title defence at the TPC Louisiana with a 70 to share 18th place at 11 under. — Reuters

Lakers roll past Nuggets

Allen Iverson

Iverson in negotiation with Kuwaiti club

By Ahmad Jabr KUWAIT: A Kuwaiti basketball club is in negotiation with NBA legend Allen Iverson to possibly play for the team during an upcoming regional tournament, a team official said yesterday confirming earlier reports.

“The reports are true”, Salah Al-Mayal, Board Member and Director of Basketball at the Kazma Sports Club told Kuwait Times yesterday. A report published by Al-Jarida daily indicated that management of the Kazma Sports Club is “nearing an agreement” with Iverson, 36, following “serious negotiations” to play for the orange team during the Arab Clubs Basketball Tournament hosted in Kuwait between the 15th and 27th of May 2012.

Al-Mayal explained that the deal will be for one month in which Iverson will receive a $120 thousand salar y.

According to the team official, the deal is only pending procedures in which Iverson’s lawyer “needs to verify the deal with [FIBA]”. This step is deemed necessary given the fact that Kuwait basketball is suspended from international competition by the sport’s global body.

Al-Mayal further told Kuwait Times

that Iverson has a contract to play in China, where he visited Friday for a twoweek promotional basketball tour.

Several news agencies in China had confirmed that the 14-years NBA veteran is “seriously considering” playing in China.

According to rules of the Arab Clubs Tournament, a team can only have three non-native players among its members.

Kazma looks to add Iverson after reaching an agreement with Tunisia’s Makram bin Ramadan who helped his national team win the FIBA African Championship last year.

Iverson started his NBA career with the Philadelphia 76ers in the 1996/97 season during which he was selected Rookie of the Year. His decorated career in the NBA featured being selected eleven times for the All-Star game, winning four scoring titles, and one most valuable player (MVP) crown in 2001. He last played in the NBA for the 76ers during the 2009/10 season where he returned following stints with the Denver Nuggets, Detroit Pistons and Memphis Grizzlies. During the 2010/2011 season, Iverson played briefly for Besiktas of Turkey before his season was ended prematurely by a calf injury.

LOS ANGELES: Kobe Bryant scored 31 points and Andrew Bynum posted the Lakers’ first playoff triple-double in 21 years with an NBA postseason recordtying 10 blocked shots as Los Angeles thoroughly controlled the tempo in a playoff-opening 103-88 victory over the Denver Nuggets on Sunday.

Bynum, the Lakers’ All-Star center coming off his best regular season, also had 10 points and 13 rebounds while incredibly blocking 11 percent of the Nuggets’ 90 shots.

Bynum had the Lakers’ first playoff triple-double since Magic Johnson in the 1991 NBA finals. Fellow 7-footer Pau Gasol added 13 points, eight rebounds and eight assists as the playoff-tested Lakers never trailed.

Danilo Gallinari scored 19 points for the sixth-seeded Nuggets, but the NBA’s second-youngest playoff roster struggled to run. Game 2 is today.

Clippers 99, Grizzlies 98 At Memphis, Tennessee, Chris Paul hit a pair of free throws with 23.7 seconds left as the Los Angeles Clippers rallied from 27 down to beat Memphis in the opening game of their Western Conference series. Rudy Gay missed a 15-footer with 0.9 seconds left after the Grizzlies squandered a lead they held for the first 47 minutes.

The Clippers lost Caron Butler to a broken left hand. But Nick Young scored 19 points off the bench, including three 3-pointers in the midst of the Clippers’ 26-1 run. Paul finished with 14 points, and Blake Griffin had 17. Butler had 12 before leaving the game. Gay finished with 19 for Memphis. Mike Conley and O.J. Mayo had 17, and Marc Gasol had 14. Game 2 is tomorrow.

Hawks 83, Celtics 74 At Atlanta, Josh Smith scored 22 points and grabbed 18 rebounds to

lead Atlanta over Boston in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference playoffs, the final minute turning ugly when Celtics star Rajon Rondo was ejected for bumping an official.

The Hawks, who led by as many as 19 in the first half, were clinging to a four-point lead when Rondo lost his cool with 41 seconds remaining - and may have cost himself a chance to play Game 2 Tuesday night.

Brandon Bass was called for a foul on Smith tussling for a loose ball.

Rondo screamed at official Marc Davis, who quickly called a technical. Rondo then bumped Davis with his chest and was tossed out. A suspension could be coming, too.

Rondo scored 20 points and dished out 11 assists, but none of it mattered when he lost his cool. Kevin Garnett bounced back from a miserable start to put up 20 points and 11 rebounds.

Smith carried the Hawks on a night when Joe Johnson managed just 11 points on 3-of-15 shooting.

Spurs 106, Jazz 91 At San Antonio, Tony Parker scored 28 points as San Antonio beat Utah to win its playoff opener for the first time in four years.

Tim Duncan added 17 points and 11 rebounds, helping the Spurs dodge another early playoff letdown. Despite boasting the No. 1 seed again, San Antonio hadn’t won a Game 1 in its last six postseason series - including the one that began a shocking first-round ouster last year.

Paul Millsap led Utah with 20 points. The Jazz hung close until the third, when the NBA’s top 3-point shooting team began burying Utah with three in a two-minute burst to finish the quarter. The Spurs have won 11 in a row. Game 2 is tomorrow in San Antonio. — AP

Spanish league denies match-fixing report MADRID: The spectre of match-fixing loomed over Spanish top-flight soccer yesterday but the football league (LFP) and two of the clubs allegedly involved swiftly moved to distance themselves from the speculation.

The LFP denied a report on radio station Cadena Ser that it had informed anti-corruption investigators of possible cases of matchfixing in recent La Liga and second-tier games.

The broadcaster also alleged European soccer’s governing body UEFA was investigating suspect betting patterns. It did not identify the source of its information or provide details of which matches were involved.

A separate report on Cadena Cope radio, which cited an anonymous source in the LFP, raised doubts about Sporting Gijon’s 3-0 win at Espanyol at the weekend which prompted a furious response from both clubs.

Gijon president Manuel Vega-Arango called a news conference at which he said the Asturians, who are second from bottom with three games left and fighting to avoid the drop to the second division, would be taking

Cope to court over their allegations. “These things disgust me and I am extremely angry,” Vega-Arango said.

“We are a modest club in economic terms but...with a sensational fan base who does not deserve these things which is why we are not going to let it go.”

Espanyol CEO Joan Collet, whose side is chasing a lucrative place in Europe next season, said the Barcelona-based club would be doing “everything necessary to defend its honour”.

Espanyol’s head of legal affairs Rafael Entrena said the club would take 24 hours to mull over its next move. “This is a very grave issue and the club will act accordingly,” he added.

Several countries have had to deal with allegations of match-fixing in soccer in recent weeks, including Turkey, China and Italy, where the government has set up a match-fixing task force in response to a number of high-profile cases.

Nan Yong, the former head of Chinese soccer, was this month charged with taking 1.48

million yuan ($234,500) in bribes, state media said, the latest episode in the nation’s drive to clean up widespread corruption in the sport.

The LFP published a statement earlier on Monday in reaction to the Cadena Ser and Cadena Cope reports in which it denied it had denounced suspected match-fixing.

“As things stand the LFP has not lodged any formal complaint about irregularities relating to the normal evolution of the first or second division championships in the current season,” the statement said. League officials had met up with representatives of the state prosecutor several weeks ago as part of their efforts to prevent “any situation developing which might be outside the bounds of legality,” it added.

The meeting was held to coordinate any “preventative or investigative action”. “As already expressed on multiple occasions the LFP is dedicated and strongly committed to the fight against competition fraud and will use all the means at its disposal to avoid it,” the league added. UEFA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. — Reuters

MEMPHIS: Los Angeles Clippers’ Blake Griffin (top) defends Memphis Grizzlies’ Mike Conley during the second half of Game 1 in the first round of the NBA basketball playoffs. — AP

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TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

S P ORT S

Real eye title celebrations MADRID: Success-starved Real Madrid fans will finally be able to stage the traditional title celebrations at the Cibeles fountain in the centre of the Spanish capital tomorrow if Jose Mourinho’s side win at Athletic Bilbao.

After four years living in the shadow of bitter rivals Barcelona, when only a King’s Cup was

Champions Leagues and three successive La Liga titles.

However, the arrival of the combative Mourinho from Inter Milan in 2010 is finally starting to bear fruit. His free-scoring Real side, eliminated on penalties by Bayern Munich in the Champions League semi-finals last week, have 91 points with three games left.

his side hammer Rayo Vallecano 7-0 on Sunday.

“This game was a demonstration of what this team has achieved,” added the 41-year-old, who is taking time away from the game to recharge his batteries.

“The club is healthy, there is a young squad, Tito knows the players perfectly and I am con-

Cristiano Ronaldo added to the trophy cabinet, many of them will also be celebrating the imminent departure of Barca coach Pep Guardiola, who announced on Friday he was stepping down at the end of the season.

Guardiola has been a hugely irritating thorn in Real’s side since taking over in 2008, leading Barca to 13 trophies including two

Barca, who host Malaga earlier on Wednesday (1800), are seven adrift and resigned to the fact that their three-year stranglehold on the La Liga title is drawing to an end.

“We know that Madrid are the champions,” Guardiola, who will be replaced by close friend and long-term assistant Tito Vilanova next season, said after watching

vinced Barca will continue competing at the highest level in every competition.”

The normally outspoken Mourinho has shunned the media in recent weeks, sending out assistant Aitor Karanka before and after La Liga matches.

Karanka said after Real’s 3-0 home win over Sevilla on Sunday winning the title at the San

Mames against Europa League finalists Bilbao would be a special experience.

“But nobody is thinking about anything other than winning the three points that we need wherever and whenever that might be,” he added.

“I t ’s clear that winning a championship like the Spanish league, with all the effor t it costs and everything that goes with it, is important. The sooner the better.”

The fight for the third automatic Champions League berth and fourth, which carries a qualification spot for Europe’s elite club competition, has intensified in recent weeks, with Valencia struggling to hold off ambitious, Qatar-owned Malaga.

The Andalusian club earned a 1-0 home win over Valencia on Sunday to draw level on 55 points but remain fourth due to a poorer head-to-head record.

After Malaga’s game at the Nou Camp, Valencia host eighthplaced Osasuna (2000), who are still in with a chance of a berth in the Europa League next season along with Levante, Bilbao and their opponents in next month’s final Atletico Madrid.

With R acing Santander already down, Sporting Gijon and Real Zaragoza continue their unlikely bids for survival at home to Villarreal and Levante respectively.

Gijon, in 19th, could close to within a point of Villarreal with a win on Saturday (1800), but will be joined on 37 by Zaragoza if they manage to beat fifth-placed Levante on Sunday (1800). Rayo and Granada are also in serious peril in 15th and 16th and play Real Mallorca and Espanyol respectively. —Reuters

EU chief Barroso to snub Euro 2012 in Ukraine

Carlo Ancelotti

Ancelotti defiant as Montpellier close on title PARIS: Paris St Germain coach Carlo Ancelotti is refusing to concede the Ligue 1 title but with just four games remaining, leaders Montpellier can stretch their advantage to eight points with a home victory over Evian today.

Sunday’s damaging 2-1 defeat at thirdplaced Lille left the Italian’s Qatar-backed side five points adrift of a modest-spending Montpellier and in danger of being further behind before they host in-form St Etienne tomorrow. “There are still four games to play, it’s not finished,” Ancelotti told reporters after the Lille game. Montpellier have 72 points, PSG are on 67 with defending champions Lille suddenly back in contention for an automatic Champions League spot a further two points behind.

“We have not lost the title yet, we have to believe everything is possible, it will be more difficult but it’s not over,” the Italian added.

While Ancelotti has yet to give up on the title race, his players appear to believe the gap at the top is insurmountable. “We now need more than a miracle,” midfielder Momo Sissoko said.

“We can forget the title,” goalkeeper Salvatore Sirigu, one of PSG’s high profile

signings, added. “If Montpellier let it slip away, they’re stupid.”

Sirigu’s frank assessment was dismissed

by Montpellier coach Rene Girard, who preferred to turn his attention to the side’s next fixture. “I’m not listening to that kind of comment,” Girard said on sports daily L’Equipe’s website (www.lequipe.fr) yesterday. “Pressure is here but that is what drives us. Pressure can be positive.

“When you’re a coach, what matters is the following game. You can only celebrate what you have won.” Lille will continue their quest for an automatic Champions League spot at Nice tomorrow. “We’re in money time. Every point will count, starting with those we scored tonight,” coach Rudi Garcia said after the win over PSG. Stade Rennes are fourth on 57 points and they travel to Girondins Bordeaux on Wednesday looking to secure a Europa League spot. Olympique Lyon, in fifth place, have a game in hand and lie one point behind Stade Rennes ahead of their Wednesday fixture at home to Valenciennes.

Should French Cup winners Lyon move up a spot by the end of the season, the team that finishes fifth will also secure a Europa League berth. —Reuters

BRUSSELS: The chief of the European Union’s head office says he will not go to Ukraine during the European soccer championships in June unless there is a swift improvement in the human rights situation there. EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and other European leaders piled the pressure Monday on the leadership in Kiev in support of jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Barroso’s announcement followed that of EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding, who is skipping the ceremonial Euro 2012 opening on June 8.

“It is clear that as things stand now, the president has no intention of going to Ukraine,” Barroso’s spokeswoman said. The tournament, more important to Europe than the Olympic soccer tournament, is being co-hosted by Poland and Ukraine from June 8 until July 1.

Activists have called for protests against Ukraine where Tymoshenko is serving a seven-year jail sentence in a case the West has called politically motivated. Ukraine’s president is a fierce rival of Tymoshenko’s but government officials have denied any claims of bias in the case.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s environment minister has urged top European government officials to boycott the Euro 2012 matches. Also, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported that Merkel will abstain from attending any matches and urge her Cabinet members to do so as well unless Tymoshenko is freed to undergo medical treatment abroad. Germany government has offered to treat her in Berlin, but Kiev has rejected the offer. Also yesterday Czech President Vaclav Klaus canceled his visit to a summit of Central European leaders being held May 11-12 in Ukraine because of Tymoshenko’s treatment, his spokesman said. German President Joachim Gauck said he will also not travel to the Yalta gathering. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Voloshin tried to downplay the announcements.

“I hope that German statesmen won’t reactivate the methods of the Cold War and try to make sports a hostage to politics,” he was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying. Poland, as co-host of Euro 2012 but also an EU member, was in a tough position. “We believe that at this point calls for a boycott of the Euro 2012 are totally unfounded,” government spokesman Marcin Bosacki said.

“These two things should not be linked together.” He stressed that Poland has made it clear to Ukraine’s authorities that it did not approve of the trial and the treatment of Tymoshenko but added that she herself had asked others not to link the two events “Poland will follow that appeal,” Bosacki said. —AP

Antonio Cassano

Cassano’s return may be too late for Milan ITALY: Antonio Cassano has been praised by AC M ilan’s doc tor for work ing tirelessly to get fit after heart problems but his return to the starting lineup looks to have come too late to save their dwindling scudetto hopes.

A 26th-minute goal in the forward ’s first star t for six months helped the champions to a 4-1 win at Siena on Sunday and they stayed three points adrift of Juventus as the leaders walloped Novara 4-0.

Three games remain and secondplaced Milan host mid-table Atalanta tomorrow desperate for Juve, chasing their first Serie A title since a 2006 match-fixing demotion, to slip up at home to third from bottom Lecce.

Cassano, now likely to feature for Italy at Euro 2012 having proved his fitness, will be eager for another start in midweek and the medical staff say he is ready.

“He really has been very strong. He has not given up for one moment, he has come to the Milanello training ground and done exactly what he had to do. I didn’t expec t a goal immediately,” club doctor Rodolfo Tavana told reporters.

“We wanted to make sure he could return to the pitch healthy and with no risks.” With the top two expected to win on Wednesday, focus will quick ly turn to Sunday ’s derby between Milan and resurgent Inter who have rocketed up the league under new coach Andrea Stramaccioni and lie joint third with three teams.

Third place guarantees a Champions League qualifying place with four th only wor th a Europa League berth after Italy lost one of its slots to Germany. Napoli, Udinese and Lazio are the other teams level on 55 points with Inter, 22 points behind Juve.

Italy uses head-to-head records rather than goal difference to determine positions at the end of the sea-

son and the scenario has added complications with Lazio hosting Inter on the last day of the campaign on May 13.

Before then Inter travel to improving Parma on Wednesday when Lazio welcome Siena and Udinese go to relegated Cesena. Napoli entertain Palermo today.

Lazio will be without suspended defender Andre Dias and goalkeeper Federico M archetti af ter bizarre scenes at the end of Sunday’s 2-0 defeat at Udinese.

Visiting players heard a whistle in the crowd and thought the game was over, only for Udinese’s Roberto Pereyra to score the second goal in injury time, leading to an unsavoury fracas and Dias’s dismissal. Marchetti was not sent off but Serie A said in a statement yesterday that he has been banned for four matches following video evidence which showed him pushing the referee. At the foot of the table, second from bottom Novara will be relegated on Wednesday if they fail to win at fellow strugglers Fiorentina. —Reuters

Matches on TV (Local Timings) English Premier League Stoke v Everton Abu Dhabi Sports HD Liverpool v Fulham Abu Dhabi Sports HD

21:45 21:45

Spanish League Getafe v Real Racing 13:00 Aljazeera Spors +2 Granada v Espanyol 19:00 Aljazeera Sports +2 Gijon v Villarreal 21:00 Aljazeera Sports 2 Italian League Verona v AS Roma 19:00 Aljazeera Sports +1 Napoli v Palermo Aljazeera Sports +1

21:45

Del Potro free-wheeling prior to start of Estoril

LISBON: Italy’s Simone Bolelli returns a forehand shot to Netherlands’ Robin Haase during their Estoril Open tennis tournament match in Oeiras, outskirts of Lisbon. Haase won 6-3, 6-2. —AFP

ESTORIL: Argentine draw card Juan Martin del Potro took time away from training for his first serious 2012 test on clay yesterday, with the top seed lured out on a brief bicycle tour of the Atlantic coast resort town where players are staying during the Estoril Open. The 12th-ranked South American took a spin over the cobblestone streets of Cascais, 20 kilometres from Lisbon along with second seed Richard Gasquet of France, Del Potro, who arrived at the weekend from South America, will be making his pre-Roland Garros start when he plays in the second round after a bye against one of two Portuguese, wildcard Pedro Sousa or 90th-ranked Rui Machado.

Del Potro won the title here a year ago over Spain’s Fernando Verdasco. He owns a trophy this season indoors in Marseille.

Since arriving from home, the 2009 US Open champion had put in multiple prac-

tise sessions to get accustomed once again to the conditions which he will face over the next four weeks until the May 27 start of the French Open. “I’m feeling fit and ready to play,” said Del Potro, winner of two Davis Cup matches on the surface in Buenos Aires during Davis Cup a month ago. “I’m thinking only about getting my form for this week. “I’m not looking ahead yet to Roland Garros. I need to work hard before I start my tournament.” Gasquet, the second seed and ranked 18th, has not stepped onto clay since losing two Davis Cup matches last September against Spain. The Frenchman is making his first return to Estoril since losing the 2007 final to Novak Djokovic back when the Serb world number one was just another talented youngster hoping for a breakthrough. Swiss third seed Stanislas Wawrinka has also been haunting the

practise courts at the Estadio Nacional complex as he makes his debut. Wawrinka has had a solid clay start in 2012, reaching semi-finals in Buenos Aires and Acapulco in February and losing a Monte Carlo quarter-final to Rafael Nadal. “I want to keep up my level,” said the 22nd ranked Swiss. “I’ve done very well so far on clay and don’t want to stop now.

“Conditions here are different than in Monaco, there is much more wind. But after getting over a leg problem (in March in the US), I’ve showed I’m fit again. “I’ll be giving my maximum this week. I want to start getting rhythm for the big events coming up.” Estoril leads into the Madrid Masters starting on Sunday in the Spanish capital, a venue located at 650 metres above sea level. That makes the ball fly and requires another massive adjustment from players. With final qualifying rounds

dominating the Monday programme at the joint ATP-WTA event, a handful of main-draw matches were scheduled. On the men’s side, Italian Paolo Lorenzi staged a comeback to go past Eduardo Roger-Vasselin of France 3-6, 7-6 (7/2), 6-4 after more than two and a half hours. The winner will be the opening opponent for Gasquet. Dutch sixth seed Robin Haase beat Italy’s Simone Bolelli 6-3, 6-2. In women’s play, top seed and four-time clay titleholder Robert Vinci of Italy advanced over Nina Bratchikova of Russia 6-1, 1-6, 64. Vinci had her difficulties against the number 108, with the Italian who was broken four times winning just 10 points in the second set. But she went onto avenge her Monterrey loss to Bratchikova earlier this year with a break of serve at 4all on her way to the win, her 13th of the season. —AFP

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TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

sp orts

Hodgson holds England job talks

MEXICO: America’s Christian Benitez (right) and Cruz Azul’s Fausto Pinto battle for the ball during a Mexican soccer league match. —AP

Tijuana and Chiapas snatch berths in Mexican title push MEXICO: Border town newcomers Tijuana and rebel state Chiapas bagged the last two berths in the Mexican Clausura championship quarter-finals on Sunday.

Promoted Tijuana, who have never before been this far, will meet Concacaf Champions League winners Monterrey in the first knockout round after qualifying with a 1-1 draw at home to Pumas UNAM in their stronghold on the northwestern border with the United States.

Chiapas, a southern region noted for its rebel spirit whose team are based in Tuxtla Gutierrez, got through thanks to Cruz Azul’s 2-2 draw away to Mexico City giants America at the Azteca. Chiapas had beaten Morelia 1-0 on Saturday leaving Cruz Azul needing a victory to qualify. The top eight teams in the 17match league phase of the championship, second of two in the season, go through and Cruz Azul missed out in ninth place.

League table-toppers Santos Laguna face the Chiapas “Jaguars” who finished eighth, Monterrey were second and America, who were third, go into a quarter-final tie against sixth-placed Pachuca.

The other tie pits title holders Tigres UANL, who won the Apertura championship in December and qualified in fifth, against fourth-placed Morelia.

Colombian striker Duvier Riascos scored the key goal for Tijuana just before the hour. In the last three minutes Tijuana had defender Joshua Abrego send off and then Pumas equalised through Javier Cortes but a point was enough to put them through.

Ecuador striker Cristian Benitez, the league phase’s joint top marksman with 14 goals, scored both for America in the opening 13 minutes and later had a penalty saved by goalkeeper Jesus Corona but Cruz Azul’s reply fell short.

Defender Jair Pereira pulled one back before halftime with a header from a corner and Argentine striker Emanuel Villa equalised before Pereira was sent off late in the game. Toluca, out of the reckoning in 10th place, beat lowly San Luis 2-1 at home with both goals from Uruguayan Ivan Alonso, who also reached a tally of 14. “I’m left with a bitter-sweet taste, I’d change my goals for a place in the knockout rounds,” Alonso told reporters.

Ailing giants Guadalajara, being revamped by Dutch great Johan Cruyff’s consultancy, finished fourth from bottom after their ninth consecutive defeat in league and Libertadores Cup matches, 31 at Pachuca on Saturday. Estudiantes UAG, who drew 1-1 with Queretaro on Friday, were relegated after 37 years in the first division. —Reuters

Porto clinch league title LISBON: Porto clinched their 26th Portuguese Premier League title after fierce rivals Benfica slipped to a 2-2 draw at Rio Ave on Sunday, extending their decade-long domination of Portuguese football.

The northern club won 2-0 at Maritimo on Saturday thanks to two penalties by Brazil winger Hulk. Secondplaced Benfica’s draw left Porto with a six-point advantage and with only two matches remaining the “Dragons” have a better head-to-head record.

The title win means Porto, European champions in 1987 and 2004, have won eight league trophies in the last 10 seasons.

The feat is a major achievement for Porto coach Vitor Pereira, who took over from Andre Villas-Boas in June last year, although it will be Porto’s only trophy this season.

Pereira struggled at times to live up to his predecessor’s glorious 2010-2011 season but will take satisfaction from the domestic league trophy despite falling short of last year’s treble of league, Cup and Europa League.

Porto were humbled in the Champions League, stunned twice by underrated APOEL. They drew 1-1 at home and lost 2-1 in Nicosia, exiting at the group phase. They went into the Europa League but were knocked out by Manchester City in the round of 32.

They also suffered an early exit from the Portuguese Cup but Pereira expertly managed to recover in the league after Benfica led by five points in February.

One of the season’s key moments was Porto’s 3-2 victory over Benfica in a “Clasico” in March.

Porto kept the backbone of last year’s successful squad, with only striker Radamel Falcao and midfielder Ruben Micael as noteworthy departures.

Hulk and promising young Colombian James Rodriguez stood out as the two top scorers while hard-working midfielder Joao Moutinho and winter signing Lucho Gonzalez played important parts.

Pereira, 43, previously Villas-Boas’s assistant at Porto, had previously managed clubs in the lower divisions and spent two seasons in charge of Porto youth teams. —Reuters

PORTUGAL: Benfica’s Javi Garcia (right) from Spain, challenges Rio Ave’s Yazalde Pinto in a Portuguese League soccer match. —AP

LONDON: Roy Hodgson left Wembley Stadium yesterday, with all the indications he was set to be appointed to the vacant England manager’s post.

The West Bromwich Albion manager met with Football Association officials at their Wembley headquarters in north London for what turned out to be four hours’ worth of talks before leaving without making any public comment.

It is not expected the FA will now make any further statements on the issue of the England manager until today at the earliest.

And that may simply be because they do not want to distract from yesterday’s potentially title-deciding Premier League clash between Manchester City and Manchester United at Eastlands.

Hodgson met with the fourman panel tasked with finding a new England manager featuring FA chairman David Bernstein, former West Ham and England midfielder Sir Trevor Brooking, now the FA’s director of football development, and senior officials Alex Horne and Adrian Bevington.

The FA’s surprise decision to go for the 64-year-old Hodgson instead of long-time favourite Harry Redknapp left much of the British press underwhelmed.

“What are the Hods on that?” was the front-page story in The Sun tabloid, while the Daily Mail said the “fans’ backlash” has already begun.

With just six weeks to go until England play their first match at Euro 2012, the FA confirmed on Sunday they had been granted permission from West Brom to speak to Hodgson about the position vacated by Fabio Capello. Tottenham manager Redknapp appeared to have conceded defeat, telling Sky Sports: “It’s no problem. If Roy takes the job, I wish him all the best. He’s a

United Arab Emirates and Finland, and club sides in Sweden, Italy and England, without ever winning a major trophy, was the only manager the FA had approached.

“Roy is the only manager we have approached and we remain on course to make an appointment within the timescale we setout soon after Fabio Capello’s departure,” Bernstein said.

Roy Hodgson great guy. I’ve got a great job here.”

Hodgson, who has already guided West Brom to safety this season, would be available to take over immediately unlike Redknapp, whose buyout clause at Tottenham could have cost the FA up to £10 million ($16.2 million). Bernstein said Hodgson, who has managed Switzerland,

Hodgson, who has guided both Inter Milan and Fulham to the Europa League final, took over at West Brom in 2011 after an unhappy and unsuccessful sixmonth spell in charge of Liverpool.

Several newspapers recalled Hodgson had given an interview at the start of the season in which he said he would only consider

taking the England job if he had the backing of the FA, the media and the players.

“I would rather hope if I was ever going to be offered the England job, it would be with the backing of the important people,” he told journalists then.

“And that would be of course the fans and the people like yourselves (the media), who represent the fans. Otherwise it’s going to be a very difficult job for anyone who takes it and has not got the backing of these people.”

England are currently under the caretaker charge of Stuart Pearce, the former England defender who is also the manager of the national Under-21 side and coach of the British Olympic team. Concerns have been raised about the FA’s failure to get a permanent manager on board so close to the European Championships in Poland and Ukraine, where England begin the tournament against France in Donetsk on June 11.

But Sir Geoff Hurst, who scored a hat-trick when England last won a major title by beating West Germany in the 1966 World Cup final at Wembley, said this could work to the side’s advantage.

“Roy has not been involved in the preparations to date and that’s not ideal,” said Hurst. “But, in some respects, I see that as a positive. It might take the pressure off, certainly from the media and the fans, to be successful this year.” —AFP

Neymar scores hatLuxemburgo in ball boy row

Dick Advocaat

Advocaat plan to quit Russia after Euro 2012 MOSCOW: Russia coach Dick Advocaat has revealed he will step down after the end of the European football championships to be co-hosted by Ukraine and Poland from June 8 to July 1.

“It’s true, I will resign after the end of the European championship,” local media quoted Advocaat as saying. “I don’t want to disclose the reasons for my decision but money wasn’t the issue,” he said. “I didn’t tell the players that I’m going to resign but I’m confident it will not affect our preparations for the Euro.

“We’ll all do our best to perform well at the championships.” The 64-year-old Dutchman took over in 2010 from compatriot Guus Hiddink, who led Russia to the Euro 2008 semi-finals. Advocaat had signed a two-year deal with an option to extend for another two years.

Repor ts said that Advocaat has already received offers from clubs including Dutch league giants PSV Eindhoven, where he worked from 1995-98, and Russian top-flight side Dynamo Moscow, who are battling for a spot in the Champions League next year.

Russian team skipper Andrei Arshavin said he was upset by Advocaat’s decicion. “Speaking frankly I’m upset with his decision,” Arshavin said. “There was good chemistry in our team and we achieved good results. I expected to be playing the next qualifying campaign under Advocaat.

“Now I hope that the RFU will chose a top class coach for our squad.” Sergei Kapkov, deputy president of the Russian Football Union (RFU), said he respected Advocaat’s decision.

“We should accept Advocaat’s decision with all possible respect as he achieved good results with our team, winning our Euro-2012 qualifying group,” Kapkov said. “It’s very honest to announce his decision beforehand.”

“Now we will need to find the manager, who will coach the team for another four or five years. He will need to bring new names into the squad as its current line-up consists of many veterans.” —AFP

BRAZIL: Brazil forward Neymar scored a hat-trick to lead Santos in a 3-1 win over Sao Paulo while former Brazil and Real Madrid coach Vanderlei Luxemburgo was sent off following a row with a ball boy in Gremio’s match.

Luxemburgo rushed out of his technical area and ran down the touchline to confront the ball boy by the corner flag, leading to an incident which held up the Porto Alegre derby against Internacional for five minutes and involved around 30 people. He was apparently angry because the ball boy, employed

by Internacional, placed the ball for a corner to be taken by the hosts while Gremio’s defence were out of position.

As Luxemburgo approached the ball boy, International players joined in along with police, radio reporters and cameramen, leading to a huge melee. “”I regret the incident, I’m the one to blame,” Luxemburgo told reporters. “”It all happened in the heat of the moment.”

Internacional players later ran to celebrate with the ball boy after Fabricio grabbed a late goal to give them a 2-1 win in the Gaucho championship, one of the plethora of state competitions which kick off the marathon Brazilian season.

Gremio were also angry to find that salt had been sprinkled under their bench

before kickoff, a practice which in Brazilian football folklore is said to bring bad luck to the victims.

Neymar’s afternoon got off to a quick start when he converted a penalty in the first minute for Santos, firing into the roof of the net. The 20-year-old struck again in the 32nd minute when he collected the ball in midfield, outran his marker and slipped the ball past goalkeeper Denis.

Although William Jose pulled one back for Sao Paulo after the break, Neymar completed his hat-trick with a shot from the edge of the area which slipped through the hands of the keeper.

Sao Paulo often found Neymar unplayable and their frustration boiled over when defender Ivan Piris was booked for blatantly hacking him down after the striker dribbled past him four times in succession. Sao Paulo later had Cicero sent off for another foul on the Santos prodigy. Guarani, who beat Ponte Preta 3-1, will face Santos in the final of the competition. Uruguay forward Sebastian Abreu scored twice to give Botafogo a 3-1 win over Vasco da Gama to win the second stage of the Carioca championship in Rio de Janeiro.

Under the tournament format, Botafogo will face Fluminense, who won the first stage held earlier in the year. —Reuters

SAO PAULO: Santos’ Neymar (left) fights for the ball with Sao Paulo FC’s Xandao (right) during a Sao Paulo state soccer league match. —AP

Robben’s future at Bayern in doubt FRANKFURT: Arjen Robben has delayed signing a contract extension with Bayern Munich and says there are other clubs interested in his services.

“Many things have happened in recent times,” the Netherlands winger told yesterday’s edition of Kicker magazine - such as a confrontation with teammate Franck Ribery when Robben was punched in the face at halftime of the Champions League semifinal against Real Madrid.

The two argued on the field shortly before halftime over who should take a free kick, with the argument escalating into a fist fight in the locker room. Bayern went on beat Real 2-1 at home and won a penalty shootout in Madrid to set up a final in its own stadium against Chelsea on May 19. Robben scored from the penalty spot in regulation time for a

key away goal in Madrid. “Franck knows that he can’t do what he did. These are all things that are not positive, not nice. That’s why everything has to be thought through well.”

Robben was also upset when he was benched for a few games by coach Jupp Heynckes. He then objected when honorary Bayern president Franz Beckenbauer called him selfish.

Robben has another season remaining on his contract with Bayern and had been discussing a two-year extension. Earlier this year, Robben had called a new deal a “formality.”

“Clearly, I feel at home in Bayern ... but so many things play a role when you extend.

That’s why you have to think very carefully before you make a decision,” he told Kicker.

“There are other possibilities, but that’s normal when you play for a top club. And people know what I can do,” he added. —AP

Dufner seals playoff win in New Orleans

Lee targets London gold

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TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

Cassano’s return may be too late for Milan

Page 18

LONDON: Manchester City’s Vincent Kompany (third left) scores against Manchester United during their English Premier League soccer match at The Etihad Stadium. — AP

City down United to go top Man City 1

Man United 0

MANCHESTER: Manchester City seized control of the Premier League title race here yesterday after Vincent Kompany’s first-half header powered them to a 1-0 win over bitter rivals Manchester United.

Kompany headed home from a corner on the stroke of half-time to settle a highlycharged title duel at Eastlands which saw City go top of the table by virtue of their superior goal difference.

The victor y means that wins over Newcastle and Queens Park Rangers in their remaining games will almost certainly see City claim their first league crown in 44 years while United would finish the season without a trophy.

The win also capped a remarkable come-

back in the league race by City, who appeared to have blown their title chances in early April after falling eight points behind United.

Kompany’s winner settled an at times illtempered duel which in terms of quality failed to live up to its pre-match hype.

The pressure-cooker nature of the occasion was reflected by an ugly touchline bustup involving United manager Sir Alex Ferguson and his City counterpart Roberto Mancini on 76 minutes.

A visibly enraged Ferguson had to be restrained from confronting Mancini after the Italian had marched into the technical area to complain after Nigel De Jong was booked for a cynical challenge on Danny Welbeck.

A scrappy first half saw City dominate possession and territory but struggle to create clear chances against a United side who had flooded midfield with five men, leaving Wayne Rooney as the lone striker.

The home side were also given a huge scare after only two minutes, when Michael Carrick ’s shot from inside the area was blocked to safety by Kompany.

That early scare aside it was largely all City,

although United’s defence were rarely troubled as the home side struggled to find their passing rhythm.

Samir Nasri brought the Eastlands crowd to their feet with a jinking run on 16 minutes which took him beyond the United defence before the France international played in Carlos Tevez, whose cutback was cleared by Phil Jones.

The fractious mood of the evening was reflected at Ferguson’s angry reaction after Kompany was booked for a clumsy challenge that pole axed Rooney.

On 25 minutes Sergio Aguero nearly gave his watching father-in-law Diego Maradona something to cheer about only for his volley from Joleon Lescott’s flick-on to sail over the crossbar.

The diminutive Argentinian attacker was off-target 10 minutes later, miscuing his shot wide after good work down the right once more from Nasri as City ramped up the pressure.

The moments before half-time marked City’s best spell of the match, with David De Gea needing to be alert to intercept a menacing cross from Gael Clichy before Tevez pro-

Gambhir takes Kolkata to victory over Chennai CHENNAI: Captain Gautam Gambhir struck a solid 63 to take Kolkata Knight Riders to a comfortable 5-wicket victory over two-time defending champion Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League yesterday.

Gambhir hit one six and six fours in his 52-ball knock as Kolkata scored 1405 in 19.4 overs after restricting Chennai to 139-5 at the Chidambaram Stadium.

Apart from Gambhir, South African Jacques Kallis also contributed to the win. After bagging the key wickets of Suresh Raina and Dwayne Bravo, he produced a useful knock of 26 and figured in a 70-run second-wicket stand with Gambhir.

Gambhir, who struck 93 in Kolkata’s last game against Royal Challengers Bangalore, was out in the penultimate over when he was trapped lbw by West Indian allrounder Dwayne Bravo with a slower delivery.

But local favorite Debabrata Das produced a four-ball cameo of 11 and scored the winning four off Ravichandran Ashwin to complete the win with just two deliveries remaining.

“We did a good job restricting them to 139,” Gambhir said after being named man of the match. “We know we have a lot of potential and quality, we only need to a complement each other. Das should have been man of the match.”

CHENNAI: Chennai Super Kings’ MS Dhoni plays a shot during their Indian Premier League (IPL) match against Kolkata Knight Riders. — AP Earlier, Gambhir rotated the bowlers The win ensured Kolkata stays in secwell to restrict Chennai on a slow pitch. ond place with six wins, three losses and South African Faf du Plessis (3) was dis- a no-result from 10 games. Chennai has missed early by Brett Lee while his four wins, five losses and a no-result.

Australian opening partner Michael Hussey (18) was run out as Chennai Scores: struggled to 32-2 in five overs.

Kolkata Knight Riders 140-5 in 19.4 But left-hander Raina ended a lean overs (Gautam Gambhir 63, Jacques patch by scoring 44 off 34 balls with Kallis 26, Ravichandran Ashwin 2-22, one six and four fours and captain Dwayne Bravo 2-27) def. Chennai Super Mahendra Singh Dhoni made an Kings 139-5 (Suresh Raina 44, unbeaten 34 off 30 balls with only two Mahendra Singh Dhoni 34, Jacques fours.

Kallis 2-21). — AP

EPL result/standings Manchester City 1 (Kompany 45) Manchester United 0 English Premier League table after yesterday’s match (played, won, drawn, lost, goals for, goals against, points): Man City Man Utd Arsenal Tottenham Newcastle Chelsea Everton Liverpool Fulham West Brom

36 36 36 35 35 35 35 35 35 36

26 5 5 88 27 83 26 6 4 86 33 83 20 6 10 68 44 66 18 8 9 59 39 62 18 8 9 53 46 62 17 10 8 62 39 61 14 9 12 46 38 51 13 10 12 43 37 49 12 10 13 45 48 46 13 7 16 41 47 46

duced one surging run from inside his own half that had United scrambling back to cover. Yet just when it looked as if United had survived the late onslaught, City went ahead.

David Silva curled in a corner from the right and Kompany leapt above Chris Smalling to power an unstoppable header past De Gea. The second half saw City again control

Sunderland Swansea Norwich Stoke Aston Villa Wigan QPR Bolton Blackburn Wolves

36 36 36 35 36 36 36 35 36 36

11 11 11 11 7 9 9 10 8 5

12 11 10 10 16 10 7 4 7 9

13 14 15 14 13 17 20 21 21 22

44 43 45 43 49 44 47 63 43 33 49 43 36 50 37 38 60 37 40 63 34 41 69 34 47 75 31 38 79 24 — relegated

possession, and they went close to scoring with late chances from Gael Clichy, Nasri and Aguero.

United meanwhile struggled to create any chances of note, their attempts to get back in the game foundering on a superb defensive effort from City, with Kompany and Lescott unyielding throughout. — AFP

Union Rags favorite for Kentucky Derby NEW YORK: Union Rags is emerging as the sentimental favorite to win Saturday’s 138th running of the Kentucky Derby because of the extraordinary tale of his trainer and owner.

The three-year-old colt was already looming as the horse to beat after his eye-popping performances on the race track but the survival stories of his connections has endeared him to the U.S. racing community.

His 61-year-old trainer Michael Matz is already a national hero in America. He won the 2006 Derby with the ill-fated Barbaro, who was unbeaten before he suffered a life ending injury at the Preakness Stakes.

Before starting a new career as trainer, Matz won a silver medal in equestrian at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, but his sporting success was perhaps the least of his achievements.

Seven years earlier, he was on board United Airlines Flight 232 from Denver to Philadelphia when the plane crashed, killing 111 people.

Matz not only survived, he led three children sitting near him to safety, then returned to the burning fuselage and rescued an 11-month-old girl. Union Rags’ owner, Phyllis Wyeth, also survived a brush with death.

She worked for John F Kennedy during his presidency but her world was turned upside down in 1962 when she was involved in a head-on car crash that left her paralyzed from the waist down.

LOUISVILLE: Kentucky Derby hopeful Union Rags under jockey Julien Leparoux, trains at Churchill Downs. — AP Confined to a wheelchair, she The bay colt won his first race this became an advocate for helping people season, the $400,000 Fountain of Youth with physical disabilities, while indulging Stakes, in dashing style before blotting in her love of breeding racehorses. his copybook when he finished third in She bred Union Rags then sold him at the $1 million Florida Derby, his last race auction, only to have a sudden change of before the Kentucky Derby. heart when she dreamt that he would do Had he won in Florida, he would great things. So she bought back him almost certainly have been installed as back and sent the horse to Matz and now the overwhelming favourite to win the her dream is becoming a reality. first leg of the Triple Crown but there Union Rags won his first three races were some excuses. as a two-year-old last season before finHe got trapped on the rails and could ishing an unlucky second in the Breeders’ not get a clean run in the straight and Cup Juvenile at Churchill Downs, when Matz believes he has peaked at the right he nearly ran off the track. time.

Business

Eurozone lending still weak; inflation eases Page 25 Europe’s economic gloom hurts shares Page 24

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

NBK rewards customers with McLaren MP4-12C, KD 180,000

Page 26

Slowing China demand dampens Taiwan growth Page 22

BARCELONA: People are seen inside an almost empty restaurant during dinner time in Barcelona. The Spanish economy is in recession for the second time in three years as the damage from a housing bust persists. Foreclosures are rising, Spain’s banks are in worse financial shape and the government’s deficit is hitting worrisome levels. — AP

Spain falls back into recession Austerity bites; Q1 GDP shrinks 0.3% MADRID: Spain sank into recession in the first quarter and economists said spending cuts aimed at meeting strict EU deficit limits, together with a reeling bank sector, would delay any return to growth until late this year or beyond. It is the second recession in just over two years for the euro zone’s fourth largest economy and comes as the government tries to convince investors it will not need outside aid to put its house in order. The country is caught between pressure from its European peers to fix public finances and growing domestic resistance to austerity measures that have helped push unemployment to more than double the EU average.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s added to the country’s problems with a two-notch rating downgrade last week and yesterday it chopped the credit score of 11 banks. While the 0.3 percent contraction from January to March from the previous quarter was slightly better than the forecast drop of 0.4 percent, it confirmed the economy is deteriorating. “The wheels are very clearly coming off,” Jefferies economist David Owen said. “It wouldn’t surprise me to see a very significant decline in GDP both in the second and third quarters this year, and it’s still reasonably easy to envisage GDP to be down about 1.5 percent this year.”

Spain was last in recession, defined by two consecutive quarters of contraction, at the end of 2009. The government’s

latest economic plan, published on Friday before it was sent to the European Commission for approval, forecast a contraction of 1.7 percent in 2012 turning to meagre 0.2 percent growth by next year. Spain’s demand for electricity, a good indicator of the strength of economic output, fell for the eighth month in a row in April, the national grid operator said. Spanish bonds showed little reaction to the GDP report but yields have risen to around 6 percent in recent weeks. At around 7 percent, they are seen as financially unsustainable.

BANKS IN FOCUS The S&P downgrades of both Spain and its banks put the country’s fragile financial sector back into the spotlight, while an unemployment rate nearing 25 percent will remain a drag on already tight public accounts. “Did you need any more reasons to short Spanish debt?” the 4Cast consultancy said in a research note yesterday. The banks were damaged by a real estate collapse that began in 2008 and now bad loans in other sectors of the economy have risen sharply. With virtually no access to wholesale funding markets, the banks have taken on a large amount of cheap European Central Bank money and bought domestic debt, helping the Treasury to fulfill half of its gross issuance already this year, an achievement that gives Madrid some room for maneuver.

ECB data yesterday showed Spanish and Italian banks filled their coffers with government bonds again last month, confirming that they had helped keep a lid on yields. But non-residents, which before December held an average of around 50 percent of Spain’s debt, had just 37.5 percent in March, the Treasury said. The country’s two largest banks Santander and BBVA have suggested they may not buy any more government bonds this year, adding to fears the Treasury may have to pay higher costs to place new debt.

Some investors have been betting the ECB will restart its program of buying bonds of troubled euro zone states but some of its policymakers are fiercely opposed to the idea.

Spain’s regions, also in sharp focus after they were blamed for most of 2011’s fiscal slippage, have been told to cut their own deficits or face central government intervention. None of the 17 autonomous regions would require central government help to slash costs, a Finance Ministry source said. Regional authorities must pass their plans for reducing their deficits to Madrid today. The government will then have two weeks to approve the plan.

PROTESTS As well as facing pressure from Europe to cut its deficit, there is resistance to the austerity measures needed to achieve

this. Thousands of Spaniards took part in protests on Sunday.

There is growing opposition around Europe to the bitter medicine prescribed by policymakers from European institutions and from fiscally conservative countries such as Germany.

Economists, including some from the International Monetary Fund, have started to question whether it is right to push austerity at the expense of restarting growth. “I assume we get some policy response out of the ECB and Spain is allowed to rein back on its fiscal austerity it is pushing through. There’s certainly a lot of push back as people question the German-centric view of the world that everyone needs more austerity,” said Owen. The Spanish government has announced savings of over 40 billion euros ($53.04 billion) this year from both central and regional government budgets, to try and cut the deficit to 5.3 percent of GDP from 8.5 percent of GDP in 2011.

The conservative government, which took power from the Socialists in December, has told the banks to raise over 52 billion euros in capital this year. However, with property prices expected by some to fall another 20-30 percent, many economists believe increased banking provisions against potential bad real estate loans will not be enough to stabilize the sector. Some economists say the country will eventually need a financial bailout package like Greece and Ireland but the government has repeatedly said it will not seek outside help. — Reuters

Global unemployment to keep rising, UN says

India ends cotton export restrictions

31% of Indians are ‘suffering’ GENEVA: Global unemployment will hit 202 million this year, or 6.1 percent, as debt-driven austerity measures hammer job markets and threaten to drive Europe into recession, the UN labor agency predicted yesterday. In a gloomy forecast, the International Labor Organization predicted unemployment, which stood at 196 million at the end of 2011, would edge up further in 2013, with the longterm unemployed and young people hit particularly hard.

The “narrow focus of many eurozone countries on fiscal austerity is deepening the jobs crisis and could even lead to another recession in Europe,” said Raymond Torres, the report’s lead author. “Austerity has not produced more economic growth,” he told reporters. With 50 million jobs vanished since the 2008-09 global financial crisis, the Geneva-based ILO’s report said said, “the global employment situation is alarming and shows no signs of recovery in the near future” despite signs of economic growth in some regions.

“It is unlikely that the world economy will grow at a sufficient pace over the next couple of years to both close the existing jobs deficit and provide employment for the over 80 million people expected to enter the labor market during this period,” the report said. The unemployment rate has risen across nearly two-thirds of European nations since 2010, the ILO said, but the labor market has also “stalled” in the US, Japan and other advanced economies. In China, the gains are coming slower for a better educated working-age

population, and through much of the Middle East and Africa the “jobs deficits remain acute,” the ILO report said.

Indians ‘suffering’ More than three out of 10 Indians are “suffering”, an increase from 24 percent last year, a survey from global polling group Gallup showed yesterday. A total of 31 percent of Indians aged 15 and older rated their lives poorly enough to be considered as “suffering”, while 56 percent were “struggling” and only 13 percent were “thriving”, Gallup said. About 5,000 people were surveyed across India, with respondents asked to rate their current lives and future expectations on a scale of zero to 10. Gallup said the results might have been skewed by the timing of the survey before harvest time in early 2012, which meant many farmers “likely had gone without pay for several months”.

No further explanations for the increase in suffering were given, but Indians have been struggling with rising inflation and high interest rates which have resulted in slower economic growth. The country recorded economic growth of 6.9 percent in the last fiscal year, the second slowest pace in a decade.

Gallup noted that education seemed to play a big role in the mental well-being of respondents with most in the “suffering” category having the lowest educational qualifications.

“Suffering levels among the most educated and the least educated Indians suggest the gaps between the haves and have-nots may actually be widening,” Gallup said.— Agencies

HYDERABAD: Indian farmers rest on bails of raw cotton loaded onto trucks as they wait in line at the Enumamula Grain Market in Warangal District. India yesterday ended recent restrictions on cotton exports, six weeks after partially reversing a ban it had imposed on overseas sales. — AFP

NEW DELHI: India yesterday ended recent restrictions on cotton exports, six weeks after partially reversing a ban it had imposed on overseas sales. India, the world’s second-largest producer of cotton, last month stopped all exports of the crop, saying it wanted to protect supplies for domestic mills. After outrage from Indian cotton farmers, the government eased the ban just one week later but stipulated that no new export registrations would be made to limit shipments.

Commerce and Textiles Minister Anand Sharma said yesterday the restrictions had now been waived. “A decision has been taken to remove suspension of cotton exports registration (and) the registration of cotton exports will be allowed by the government,” he told reporters in New Delhi. The U-turns over cotton export policy have been seen as one example of the Indian government’s poor decision-making and communication in recent years.

In a major policy reversal late last year, the government unveiled and then withdrew retail sector reforms that would have allowed foreign supermarket chains to open stores in India.

When the cotton expor t ban was first announced on March 5, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar said he knew nothing about it before the announcement. Experts say India imposed the ban because cotton exports overshot official estimates and the government felt the need to build up buffer stock. The country has already shipped a record 9.5 million bales in the first five months of 2011-12 marketing year that runs from October to September.— AFP

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

BUSINESS

China mulls guarantees for ships carrying Iranian crude Ship firms unwilling to take risk BEIJING: China is considering sovereign guarantees for its ships to enable the world’s secondbiggest oil consumer to continue importing Iranian crude after new EU sanctions come into effect in July, the head of China’s shipowners’ association said. Tough new European Union sanctions aimed at stopping Iran’s oil exports to Europe also ban EU insurers and reinsurers from covering tankers carrying Iranian crude anywhere in the world. Around 90 percent of the world’s tanker insurance is based in the West, so the measures threaten shipments to Iran’s top Asian buyers China, India, Japan and South Korea. Global crude oil prices have risen nearly 20 percent since October, partly on fears over supply disruptions from Iran. “(Ship) operators are worried that if the insurance issue cannot be resolved, they will not be able to take orders for shipping Iranian oil any longer,” Zhang Shouguo, secretary general of China Shipowners’ Association, told Reuters in a rare interview with foreign media. “We have put forward our concern and related government departments are studying the issue.” Iran, OPEC’s

and tap into the reinsurance market when coverage exceeds $8 million. A typical supertanker the biggest can ferry some 2 million barrels of oil - is covered for $1 billion against personal injury and pollution claims. Several government departments were considering the industry’s request, including the Ministry of Finance, China Insurance Regulatory Commission, Ministry of Transport and National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), Zhang said. He did not say when a decision might be made.

Until recently, China was Iran’s top customer, taking more than 20 percent of its crude exports but customs data last week showed China halved its Iranian crude imports in March compared with the same month in 2011. On the broader shipping market, Zhang said he expected the troubled industry would return to a normal growth path in 2014. The freight market, which includes oil tankers, dry bulk ships and container vessels, has been in one of the worst downturns in recent memory due to an oversupply of vessels and slow global economic activity. — Reuters

second-largest producer, exports most of its 2.2 million barrels of oil per day to Asia, and major buyers have yet to find a way around pending EU sanctions. “We are paying great attention to this, the country has the need for oil and it’s our responsibility to move the crude,” said Zhang.

“But we need a solution from the government so we can avoid such risk.”

Like China, India and South Korea were also mulling sovereign guarantees for their tankers.

Indian shipping firms indicated last week they would continue to transport Iranian oil even if limited insurance cover exposed them financially to a spill or accident. Chinese insurers and shipowners would not take the risk on themselves and government intervention was necessary, Zhang said. Major ship insurer, China P&I club, told Reuters earlier this month it would not provide replacement cover for domestic tankers carrying Iranian oil. Most of China’s tanker fleet, owned by firms such as China Shipping, COSCO Group and Nanjing Tankers , were covered by European insurers, analysts said.

Most maritime insurers pool their coverage

Qatar Airways defers A380 deliveries on wing cracks worry

ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani man carries a bunch of dry kindling to use for cooking as he is heading home in Islamabad, Pakistan yesterday. — AP

NBAD in talks over UAE proposed lending caps ABU DHABI: National Bank of Abu Dhabi is in discussions with the United Arab Emirates’ central bank over proposed lending caps on local government entities and was “confident” a solution would be found, its chief executive said yesterday. “We are in active conversations with the central bank. We are confident that, by the end of these, we will have a solution that allows the bank to manage its balance sheet,” Michael Tomalin said on a conference call yesterday to discuss earnings results, which were released last week.

In the first such change in nearly two decades, the central bank said at the start of April it was imposing new limits of 100 percent of the capital base for all lending by a bank to governments of the seven-member UAE federation and their quasi-sovereign entities, and 25 percent to individual borrowers.

No such limits existed before. According to a Deutsche Bank note published April12, NBAD would be hardest hit of the major UAE banks as it had collective exposure worth 199 percent of its regulatory capital, ahead of Emirates NBD at 192 percent. The note warned “although the interpretation of some aspects of the circular is open to doubt, the new limits will likely prompt some balance sheet deleveraging for the most affected UAE

banks, with NBAD and ENBD appearing most at risk.” “We don’t want to sell off high-quality assets in the Middle East and be forced to buy lower-quality ones,” Tomalin said. “This would be an unintended consequence which I don’t think the central bank wants to see.” Tomalin didn’t expect the new rules, which banks have until September 30 to comply with, to affect balance sheet growth at the bank. “Our balance sheet will grow through lending - we see a 10 percent growth this year,” he said.

Credit growth among most UAE banks has been weak, growing in low single digits.

NBAD saw its loan book grow by 2.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2012 over the same period last year.

Provisioning will continue at the bank, with NBAD expecting to budget around 350 million dirhams ($95.3 million) in each quarter this year. “It is well within our capacity to absorb,” Tomalin said.

NBAD has no immediate requirement to raise debt this year but will be opportunistic, he said, adding the bank has bond debt worth 745 million dirhams maturing in 2012 and 89 million dirhams in 2013. The bank, the largest in the emirate of Abu Dhabi, priced a $750 million five-year bond with a yield of 3.304 percent on March 19. — Reuters

DUBAI: Qatar Airways will defer delivery of its A380 superjumbos until it gets more details about wing cracks on the Airbus aircraf t, its chief executive said yesterday.

European air safety regulators ordered checks in February for Airbus A380 wing cracks for the entire superjumbo fleet after safety engineers found cracks in almost all the planes inspected.

“Qatar Airways will have to defer scheduled deliveries of its A380s from October 2013 until we have a clear position on the issue surrounding wing cracks which are under process of modification by Airbus,” Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker said at a Dubai travel show.

Qatar has an order for five A380 aircraft pending and was due to receive the first of these next year. In January, Al Baker said he was confident Airbus would fix the cracks on its flagship aircraft but did not rule out delaying delivery if the problem persisted. Airbus said last week it was slowing down production of the world’s largest aircraft as it develops a long-term solution to premature cracks in some of the brackets inside the wings but insisted it would stick to its schedule of delivering a total of 30 A380s this year. It says the plane is safe to fly.

The Gulf Arab carrier’s chief executive also said the airline pulled out of talks with Spanair after Spanish regulators said state aid given to the loss-making carrier had to be repaid.

Spanair halted operations in January.

“The only reason we pulled out of Spanair is when state-aid got involved. Regulators said all state aid received by Spanair needed to be paid back. We are not interested in such business,” he said, but added that the Spanish airline had huge potential and would have added a lot of value for Qatar Airways.

Al Baker said his fast-growing airline aimed to cover 170 destinations and have an equal number of aircraft in the next three years. He said the airline would imminently order 10 aircraft from Canadian planemaker Bombardier Inc. to bolster its corporate jet business. The order is valued at $700 million. — Reuters

TAIPEI: Two women pass a homeless man in a quiet shopping district of Taipei yesterday. The Taiwan government yesterday lowered its economic growth forecast for 2012 from 3.8 percent to 3.4 percent amid weak global demand. — AP

Slowing China demand dampens Taiwan growth TAIPEI: Taiwan’s export-reliant economy expanded by just 0.36 percent in the three months to March, the slowest since 2009, dampened by weakening demand from the key Chinese market, the government said yesterday. The first-quarter preliminary growth forecast, released by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, compared with a February prediction for first-quarter year-on-year growth of 1.19 percent. “Slowing demand from mainland China indeed has had an impact on the export sector,” an official with the directorate said. First-quarter growth was down from 1.89 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 and was at the lowest level since the third quarter of 2009 when it contracted 1.41 percent.

“The decline in exports of electronic, information and telecommunication, plastics and optical products was sharper than our expectations,” the directorate said.

Exports in the three-month period fell four percent year-on-year while Taiwan’s shipments to China, the island’s biggest overseas market, plunged by 9.7 percent, according to figures compiled by the finance ministry.

For the full 2012 period, Taiwan’s GDP is forecast to grow 3.38 percent, down from a February forecast of 3.85 percent, according to the directorate. In 2011 Taiwan’s economy grew by 4.04 percent following sizzling growth in 2010 of 10.72 percent-a 24-year high-fuelled mainly by demand in China. — AFP

AAOIFI issues rules for Islamic finance DUBAI: The Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) has introduced new guidelines for applying religious law to finance, as it prepares to launch a sweeping review of the industry. The seven new standards, which help scholars decide whether financial activities and products conform with sharia law, address issues including financial rights, bankruptcy, capital protection, entrusting money to an agent for investment, and contract termination.

Capital protection has been widely discussed in the industry over recent months; some investment firms are keen to offer it in products, but Islamic principles do not allow companies to promise guaranteed returns. AAOIFI’s new standards also cover the ways in which financial institutions manage their liquidity, discussing the sources and uses of funds and offering rules for

calculating and distributing profits from investment instruments. How to increase liquidity has been a key concern for Islamic banks. Last month two global bodies launched a standard contract for Islamic profit rate swaps, which banks can use to manage their exposures over varying time periods.

The Bahrain-based AAOIFI announced the new standards on Sunday after several days of internal discussions among sharia scholars, its deputy secretar y-general Khairul Nizam said. The standards are being issued first in Arabic and will be translated into English later.

AAOIFI, one of the top standard-setting bodies in Islamic finance globally, will over the next couple of years conduct a broad review of how the industry operates, addressing issues such as how boards of scholars work, the organization’s secretary-general Khaled Al Fakih said earlier. — Reuters

EXCHANGE RATES Commercial Bank of Kuwait US Dollar/KD GB Pound/KD Euro Swiss francs Canadian Dollar Australian DLR Indian rupees Sri Lanka Rupee UAE dirhams Bahraini dinars Jordanian dinar Saudi riyals Omani riyals Philippine peso Egyptian pounds

.2730000 .4480000 .3650000 .3030000 .2800000 .2880000 .0040000 .0020000 .0751190 .7318660 .3830000 .0710000 .7174620 .0040000 .0430000

CUSTOMER TRANSFER RATES US Dollar/KD .2767000 GB Pound/KD .4501220 Euro .3667520 Swiss francs .3052400 Canadian dollars .2822030 Danish Kroner .0493240 Swedish Kroner .0411970 Australian dlr .2897740 Hong Kong dlr .0356600 Singapore dlr .2236140 Japanese yen .0034470 Indian Rs/KD .0000000 Sri Lanka rupee .0000000 Pakistan rupee .0000000 Bangladesh taka .0000000 UAE dirhams .0753640 Bahraini dinars .7342440 Jordanian dinar .0000000 Saudi Riyal/KD .0738060 Omani riyals .7189810 Philippine Peso .0000000

.2805000 .4560000 .3730000 .3110000 .2870000 .2950000 .0070000 .0035000 .0758740 .7392210 .4000000 .0760000 .7246730 .0072000 .0500000 .2788000 .4535380 .3695350 .3075570 .2843450 .0496990 .0415100 .2919730 .0359300 .2253110 .0034730 .0053460 .0021570 .0030790 .0034190 .0759360 .7398170 .3943420 .0743660 .7244380 .0066540

Kuwait Bahrain Intl Exchange Co. Currency

Rate per 1000 (Tran)

Pak Rupees Indian Rupees Sri Lankan Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Peso UAE Dirhams Saudi Riyals Bahraini Dinars Egyptian Pounds Pound Sterling Indonesian Rupiah

3.056 5.300 2.135 3.400 6.620 75.765 74.265 738.800 45.920 457.900 3.090

Yemeni Riyal Euro Canadian Dollars Nepali rupee

1.550 373.800 289.200 3.350

UAE Dirhams Qatari Riyals Saudi Riyals Jordanian Dinar Egyptian Pound Sri Lankan Rupees Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Bangladesh Taka Philippines Pesso Cyprus pound Japanese Yen Thai Bhat Syrian Pound Nepalese Rupees Malaysian Ringgit

Al Mulla Exchange Currency

Transfer Rate (Per 1000)

US Dollar Euro Pound Sterling Canadian Dollar Japanese Yen Indian Rupee Egyptian Pound Sri Lankan Rupee Bangladesh Taka Philippines Peso Pakistan Rupee Bahraini Dinar UAE Dirham Saudi Riyal

277.550 370.500 453.500 285.200 3.495 5.283 45.914 2.130 3.387 6.548 3.060 739.100 75.600 74.100

COUNTRY

SELL DRAFT SELL CASH

Australian Dollar Canadian Dollar Swiss Franc Euro Sterling Pound Japanese Yen Bangladesh Taka Indian Rupee Sri Lankan Rupee Nepali Rupee Pakistani Rupee UAE Dirhams Bahraini Dinar Egyptian Pound Jordanian Dinar Omani Riyal Qatari Riyal Saudi Riyal

295.33 287.99 311.44 371.61 455.14 3.54 3.393 5.277 2.120 3.314 3.058 75.62 739.20 45.90 395.36 722.24 76.63 74.20

292.00 284.50 307.50 369.00 447.00 3.65 3.550 5.700 2.550 4.000 3.250 76.50 741.00 47.25 394.50 726.00 77.75 74.25

Dollarco Exchange Co. Ltd US Dollar Canadian Dollar Sterling Pound Euro Swiss Frank Bahrain Dinar

Selling Rate

278.950 281.210 444.240 365.770 303.830 738.695

COUNTRY Australian dollar Bahraini dinar Bangladeshi taka Canadian dollar Cyprus pound Czek koruna Danish krone Deutsche Mark Egyptian pound Euro Cash Hongkong dollar Indian rupees Indonesia Iranian tuman Iraqi dinar Japanese yen Jordanian dinar Lebanese pound Malaysian ringgit Morocco dirham Nepalese Rupees New Zealand dollar Nigeria Norwegian krone Omani Riyal Pakistani rupees Philippine peso Qatari riyal Saudi riyal Singapore dollar South Africa Sri Lankan rupees Sterling pound Swedish krona Swiss franc Syrian pound

SELL CASH 294.100 739.210 3.660 286.900 545.900 45.300 50.400 167.800 47.630 372.400 36.500 5.550 0.032 0.159 0.232 3.560 393.910 0.188 93.550 45.400 4.270 231.900 1.801 49.700 721.980 3.140 6.810 76.890 74.210 226.120 38.110 2.649 456.300 42.300 310.000 4.300

Thai bhat Tunisian dollar UAE dirham U.S. dollars Yemeni Riyal

9.360 198.263 75.780 278.300 1.340

10 Tola

GOLD 1,734.770

Sterling Pound US Dollar

9.250 75.680 277.900

TRAVELLER’S CHEQUE 454.300 277.900

Al-Muzaini Exchange Co.

Bahrain Exchange Company

UAE Exchange Centre WLL

Rate for Transfer

75.925 76.570 74.345 392.660 46.178 2.189 5.426 3.082 3.411 6.549 684.255 4.440 9.120 5.875 3.480 92.305

SELL DRAFT 292.600 739.210 3.394 285.400

Japanese Yen Indian Rupees Pakistani Rupees Srilankan Rupees Nepali Rupees Singapore Dollar Hongkong Dollar Bangladesh Taka Philippine Peso Thai Baht Malaysian Ringgit

3.498 5.276 3.056 2.135 3.315 220.100 35.851 3.394 6.545 9.038 91.180 GCC COUNTRIES 74.190 76.443 733.940 738.940 75.756

226.100 45.966 370.900 36.350 5.290 0.031

Saudi Riyal Qatari Riyal Omani Riyal Bahraini Dinar UAE Dirham

393.860 0.187 92.550

ARAB COUNTRIES Egyptian Pound - Cash 47.750 Egyptian Pound - Transfer 45.916 Yemen Riyal/for 1000 1.298 Tunisian Dinar 182.12 Jordanian Dinar 392.880 Lebanese Lira/for 1000 1.866 Syrian Lier 4.853 Morocco Dirham 33.628

3.330 230.400 721.800 3.070 6.570 76.460 74.210 226.120 38.110 2.130 454.300 308.500 4.300

EUROPEAN & AMERICAN COUNTRIES US Dollar Transfer 278.100 Euro 371.54 Sterling Pound 455.250 Canadian dollar 286.26 Turkish lire 157.610 Swiss Franc 309.34 US Dollar Buying 276.700 20 Gram 10 Gram 5 Gram

GOLD 298.500 149.000 75.500

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

BUSINESS

Arab aviation sector eyes ‘open skies’ Low-cost carriers show the right business model: Adel Ali

By Sajeev K Peter SHARJAH: Arab aviation industry is eyeing a roadmap for a broader open skies policy in the region in order to unleash the full potential of the aviation market in the region, industry experts attending an aviation and media summit here said.

“Today, the regional governments are facing a dilemma whether to open up their skies to other airlines or continue to protect their flag carriers and incur huge losses,” an industry expert said at the summit.

Though all the governments in the Arab Gulf region have made commitments to liberalize their aviation industry, only eight countries including Kuwait have signed the ‘open skies policy’ convention, said Abdul Wahab Teffaha, Secretary General, Arab Air Carriers Organization (AACO) at the Arab Aviation and Media summit here. “AACO will demand speedy implementation of the commitments made by the Arab countries within the framework of the Damascus convention at the next Arab Civil Aviation Commission meeting to be held on May 17, he added. “The Arab aviation industry is a catalyst for growth provided the governments lift the regulatory regime and make a liberalized environment for airlines to operate,” he pointed out.

The Arab Aviation and Media Summit is an initiative started in 2011 and aimed at stimulating constructive dialogue between business leaders and the media fraternity. It also seeks to put spotlight on key challenges currently being faced by the aviation sector. “Consolidation may be the buzzword the industry is looking for at the moment, considering the complex business environment existing in the region in the aftermath of Arab Spring and changing geopolitical scenarios,” said Omar Bin Ghalib, Deputy Director General, General Civil Aviation Authority, UAE. He gave an overview of how the UAE aviation industry has benefited ever since it implemented an open skies policy and liberalized the industry.

In his opening remarks, Adel Ali, CEO, Air Arabia, said low-cost airlines have evolved into an innovative and sustainable business model over the last few years. Proving the skeptics wrong that low-cost carriers compromise on quality and service, he said the success of low-cost airlines once again underline the fact that passengers opt for them, he added. The Arab spring has negatively impacted on the regional industry with massive plunge in pas-

SHARJAH: Omar Bin Ghalib speaks as (from left) Eithne Treanor, Dr Peter Heath and Adel Ali look on during the aviation and media summit in Sharjah UAE. — Photos by Sajeev K Peter

senger numbers though the sector has shown considerable resilience in the face of the crisis.

“Fortunes were not good for the industry. The crisis has affected tourism industry in countries such as Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen registering a 50 percent drop in tourism arrivals,” commented Dr Majdi Sabri, regional vice-president MENA, IATA. However, the experts agreed that the industry has bounced back significantly in the last few months.

Passenger numbers on Middle East airlines rose by 8.9 per cent in 2011. In the first quarter of 2011, the industry recorded a 15 percent jump in net sales.

“Arab Spring not only presented challenges but enormous opportunities to the industry,” said Abdul Wahab. In the Middle East alone, the aviation sector currently supports 2.7 million jobs and accounts for $129 billion in GDP approximately. Over the next two decades, Middle East international passenger numbers are expected to reach some 220 million in

Once poster child of crisis, Iceland recovers GRINDAVIK: In this small Icelandic village, sailors are making double their pre-crisis pay, haddock sales to places like Boston and Brussels are booming and unemployment is almost zero - signs of this island’s surprisingly rapid rise from the ashes of banking ruin.

While much of Europe wallows in recession, the economy of this volcanic island in the mid Atlantic is growing at a clip that has surprised many people, thanks to a currency fall - in which the crown lost almost half its value to the euro - an export and tourism boom as well as growing consumer confidence. “This is probably one of our best years,” said Arnthor Einarsson, a fisherman readying his boat for his next catch as seagulls circle huge piles of fishing nets on a rocky peninsula about one hour south of the capital Reykjavik.

Only a few years ago, a banking boom in which the sector’s assets grew to 10 times the country’s GDP lured many of Iceland’s 320,000 population from traditional industries into the world of finance. Fisherman got into banking and sailors speculated on booming real estate. Those heady days have gone. Gas-guzzling Land Rovers have been replaced with fuel-efficient Volkswagens, a sign perhaps of a more sober consumer mood in which economic growth is based on a steady expansion of exports rather than flash-in-the-pan speculation. The wounds that sparked massive street protests against the financial elite are slowly healing. Even the then prime minister has been tried by a special court, closing one chapter. Granted, there is still a long way to go, but many see Iceland as offering a lesson particularly to European countries such as Greece and Spain, stuck with shrinking economies and lacking the option of devaluing to boost their international competitiveness. Iceland’s GDP growth estimated at some 2.6 percent this year will outshine even powerhouses like Sweden. “These are among the highest numbers in Europe,” said Finance Minister Steingrimur Sigfusson. “Sometimes it is easier to turn a small boat around than a big ship.” Currency depreciation though is only part of the picture.

Capital controls, progressive taxes and a careful phasing-in of austerity measures were also key to getting the country back on track, bringing a more than 10 percent fiscal deficit back to a near balance. Iceland also did what other parts of Europe haven’t dared to do - let its banks go under. It took some of the cost itself but forced foreign creditors to take the biggest hit. Lauded by some economists for taking unorthodox measures to fix its broken economy, others see it as a one-off example that would be hard to replicate. “The lessons don’t transfer directly because of the relative size of the old banks in relation to the economy. What we were left with was quite manageable,” said Jon Bentsson, senior economist at Islandsbanki.

BACK TO BASICS Three years after its near meltdown, Iceland looks healthy on many measures. It successfully finished an IMF bailout program and has already made one early repayment. It expects the sale of assets from failed bank Landsbanki to cover its $5 billion in debts to Britain and the Netherlands. In February, Iceland recovered its investment-grade rating

from Fitch, which praised the country for restoring macroeconomic stability, adding to investment-grade ratings from Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service.

Icelanders are getting work, going shopping and their house prices are rising again. And while the penthouse of a gleaming new skyscraper in downtown Reykjavik sits empty, Icelanders are piling into a hip new restaurant on the ground floor called the Hamburger Factory.

Car sales doubled in the first quarter.

Jon Olafsson, who runs an auto dealership on the outskirts of Reykjavik, expects to sell almost 1,000 cars this year, having sold less than 100 cars in 2009. “This is a high volume day for us,” he says, pointing at a shiny row of cars just rolled out on his lot. His customers are back en masse, hunting for leaner, greener cars, and he is recruiting staff to meet demand. While signs point to recovery, many remain cautious about the future and bitter over the past. Household debt exceeds 200 percent of GDP. The government must deal with the issue of capital controls, imposed after the crisis but which are seen by some economists as denting foreign investment confidence. There is little trust in government three years after the fall of ex-Prime Minister Geir Haarde.

Parliament has the support of only 10 percent of the public, polls show. Pall Matthiasson, chief executive of mental health services at the National University Hospital of Iceland, flips through slides on his iPad showing the five stages of grief. He says Icelanders remain in a state of depression.

“There is cohesive guilt, because only so much anger can be directed at the bankers,” he said. “It’s like looking in the mirror and asking ‘did I do that’? It comes back to haunt us.”

CLOSE THE TRENCHES Many just want a clean slate. That can be seen no more clearly than in recent polls which show a surprisingly strong lead for presidential candidate Thora Arnorsdottir, a fresh-faced mother who is due to give birth to her sixth child at the end of May. In an election due at the end of June, the 37-year-old goes up against President Olafur Grimsson, who is running for a fifth four-year term having a few years back cheered on those who drove the country’s banking expansion.

Haarde’s trial, she says, was difficult for the nation. “Instead of being a step towards reconciliation, it has been more an opening up of wounds,” she told Reuters, curled up on a sofa in her suburban home and peeking out of her window every few minutes to check on her children. People told her they couldn’t bear to watch the news anymore. “I feel that we can get through this without taking out the daggers,” said Arnorsdottir, a journalist who also has her own quiz show. “My hope is to use the influence of the presidency to close the trenches.” Haarde, the world’s only political leader to be tried for crimes related to the global crisis, was found innocent of major charges of gross negligence but guilty of failing to hold dedicated cabinet meetings ahead of the collapse. In the months ahead, Iceland will bring former banking executives to stand trial, so the pain is not over. —Reuters

2030 as compared to 77 million in 2010. Regional markets derive substantial economic benefits from the spending of tourists travelling by air.

IATA has increased its 2012 profit forecast for Middle East airlines from $300 million to $500 million. The revision was fuelled by strong growth in regional traffic. The 21-nation Arab League plans to spend nearly $200 billion on the purchase of new aircraft in the next 15 years. The Middle East is home to 65 airlines with 1,029 aircraft in service, operating from 70 commercial airports. The region has 13 air navigation service providers. The combined value of the Arab aircraft fleet is expected to rise to nearly $200 billion in the next 15 years.

The other speakers who participated in the panel discussions included; Dr. Peter Heath, Chancellor, American University of Sharjah; Fouad Attar, President, Airbus Middle East; and Chris Taylor, VP at Spectrum Capital UK. Organized by Air Arabia in

Adel Ali

association with CNBC Arabia and the American University of Sharjah, the Arab Aviation and Media Summit 2012 was themed “Mobility in the Middle East,” and brought together industry experts and regional media to discuss the growth of the Arab aviation sector and how it led to increased mobility in the wider MENA region.

Gold slides towards $1,650 Platinum set to underperform palladium, gold LONDON: Gold prices slid towards $1,650 an ounce yesterday, taking a breather after four straight days of gains, as upcoming elections in France and Greece and a European Central Bank meeting later this week pressured the euro versus the dollar. Spot gold was down 0.6 percent at $1,652.80 an ounce at 1406 GMT, while US gold futures for June delivery were down $10.90 an ounce at $1,653.90. The metal earlier rose as high as $1,665.60 an ounce after data showing the US economy grew more slowly than expected in the first quarter reignited speculation that the Fed could take fresh measures to stimulate the economy by raising money supply.

Non-yielding gold, which is priced in dollars, tends to benefit from such an environment. It struggled to build on that support as the dollar firmed, however, and remains within this month’s $1,610-1,680 range, the narrowest since last June. “ The QE trade is the key thing,” Macquarie analyst Hayden Atkins said. “If we get a more material deterioration in US data, that would bring that trade back into play. That would probably move it one way or another.”

Gold traders awaited a European Central Bank press conference and rates decision on Thursday and US payrolls data on Friday for clues as to the next direction of trade.

Gold’s ability to hold above $1,620 an ounce this month, despite several tests of that level, has been cheering investors that the longerterm bull trend is intact, analysts said. “After peaking in mid first quarter, gold prices fell amid renewed volatility. We note such corrective price movements have been evident throughout the 2001-12 bull market, especially since the acceleration in the uptrend from 2009,” Morgan Stanley said in a note. “Notably, this latest correction, while painful, has not retested the late December 2011 lows and has so far been notably less severe than the retracement in the second half of 2011.”

ETF HOLDINGS RISE Money managers in gold futures and options cut net long positions in the week ended April 24 for their third decline in four weeks, as the metal’s price failed to break out of a narrow range by last Tuesday. One market watcher noted that the “speculative fervor” had gone out of gold. On Friday, holdings of gold-backed exchange-traded funds rose, with the largest, New York’s SPDR Gold Trust, adding nearly 78,000 ounces to its reserves, its largest one-day inflow in nearly a month.

Concerns about off-take of physical gold, particularly in number one bullion consumer India, in recent weeks have knocked investors’ confidence the precious metal. Indian sales have been pressured by rupee weakness and high spot prices.

“Indian buying will never disappear; after all, gold is well-engrained in the country’s culture and traditions,” UBS said in a note. “What is likely though is a continuation of the unimpressive ... demand that we have seen in recent months.

“Although physical demand is not typically the force that drives a rally, the significance lies in its ability to come in and provide a floor during a pullback,” it added. “With the rupee expected to

AHMEDABAD: An Indian sales person arranges bangles made of gold and other precious metals in Ahmedabad. — AFP

weaken further up ahead, this means the dollar price of gold needs to ease up even more than where demand was evident over the past few weeks in the $1,620-1,630 area.” Among other precious metals, silver was down 1.7 percent at $30.70 an ounce. Spot platinum was down 0.3 percent at $1,561.85 an ounce, while spot palladium was down 0.9 percent at $672.20 an ounce.

The platinum/palladium ratio, which measures the number of palladium ounces needed to buy an ounce of platinum, fell to its lowest in

nearly three months yesterday at 2.31 as platinum continued to underperform against its fellow autocatalyst metal. Platinum is set to fall 4.6 percent this month, while palladium is on track to rise 4.9 percent and gold is headed for only a marginal decline. Miner Aquarius Platinum posted a net loss for the third quarter, hit by weaker prices and a drop in production on the back of poor ground conditions, continuing safety stoppages and worse than usual absenteeism after the Christmas holidays. — Reuters

Singapore warns of higher inflation, slower growth SINGAPORE: Singapore faces a higher inflation rate and slower economic growth as the government allows in fewer foreign workers, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong warned yesterday. A tight labor market has hindered the expansion plans for many companies and some businesses may leave Singapore, Lee said. Meanwhile, growing demand for workers should boost wages, which will increase business costs, undermine competitiveness and quicken inflation, Lee said. “We are running up against land and manpower limits,” Lee said in his annual May Day message.

The government has struggled to stem the inflow of foreign workers in the last couple of years amid a voter backlash against stagnant wages, crowded transportation infrastructure and higher housing costs. After their numbers surged during the last decade, foreign workers now account for about a third of Singapore’s workforce. The government said in February it would lower the percentage of foreign workers that manufacturing and service companies can employ and continue a four-year scheme to increase immigrant worker levies. Singapore doesn’t have a minimum wage, and opposition parties argue foreign workers have helped keep salaries low, especially at the expense of poorer Singaporeans.

Discontent over the cost of living, growing income inequality and immigration policy helped cut the total vote won by the ruling People’s

Action Party in last year’s parliamentary elections to its lowest since independence in 1965. “My grocery and petrol bills have gone up, and we think twice before we eat out,” 60-year-old homemaker Pauline Koe said. “I don’t know if the government understands that this is a big problem. It makes me worry for my sons and their children.”

The inflation rate has remained stubbornly high, jumping to 5.2 percent in March from 4.6 percent in February, the highest among major Asian economies besides India and Vietnam.

Earlier this month, the central bank sought to slow inflation by allowing the Singapore dollar to strengthen, which would lower the cost of imports. “There’s a significant risk that the persistent strength of inflation will become entrenched in price and wage expectations,” said Robert Prior-Wandesforde, an economist with Credit Suisse in Singapore. “This is a dangerous situation for any country, not least for one that is so internationally exposed.”

Singapore’s economy relies on manufacturing, finance and tourism to fuel one of the highest living standards in the world. The government expects the economy to grow as little as 1 percent this year from 4.9 percent last year. Lee said Singaporean companies and workers must improve skills to increase productivity and help expand the economy. “Raising productivity is more important than ever in our mature economy, because it is the only way to upgrade ourselves and our lives,” Lee said. — AP

24

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

business

Qatar to co-invest with Barclays resources unit DOHA: Qatar has signed a deal to coinvest $250 million with Barclays’ natural resources private equity investment unit, underlining the gas-rich Gulf state’s desire to plough some of its commodity wealth back into the sector. The investments in Barclays Natural Resources Investments’ (BNRI) portfolio companies will be done through Qatar Asset Management Company, a joint venture between the gas-rich Gulf state’s sovereign wealth fund and the Qatar Financial Centre.

I t cements the relationship

Barclays has with Qatar, which through its sovereign fund, was one of the top three shareholders in the British lender as at the end of last year, with a 6.8 percent stake. Reuters had reported earlier in the day that Qatar and Barclays were set to unveil an asset management transaction.

The Qatar Financial Centre provides a platform for financial services, focusing on reinsurance and asset management, and has been positioned as the gas-rich Gulf state’s answer to glitzier Dubai’s financial centre.

“Our objective for 2020 is that the

amount of assets under management in Qatar will be between $150 and $200 billion,” Abdulrahman Ahmad al-Shaibi, board member and managing director, Qatar Financial Centre Authority said at a conference to unveil the Barclays resources investment. The investment is consistent with Qatar’s penchant of investing its commodity wealth in the broader commodities sector. Last week, a senior executive of Qatar’s aggressive sovereign fund, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), said that the financial crisis had restricted investment

in commodities and that he expected a supply-demand gap to emerge by 2016 or 2017.

QIA has been the most active of the region’s sovereign wealth funds in recent years, deploying the Gulf nation’s plentiful natural gas riches in assets ranging from German sports car maker Porsche to British bank Barclays.

The fund has also been slowly buying into London-listed miner Xstrata recently. Its current holding in Xstrata, which is planning to merge with commodities trader

Glencore, is about 7.2 percent.

Barclays will continue to source, execute, manage and exit private equity transactions in the natural resources sec tor on a global basis and co investors would be invited to participate immediately upon completion of each transaction, the British bank said. BNRI has $2.1 billion committed in 22 portfolio companies, and typically commits $50-200 million to each management team to help execute their business plans. The company had been looking for a partner in the Middle East for a while.— Reuters

Europe’s economic gloom hurts shares Dollar softer on Fed policy easing hopes

AMSTERDAM: Street vendors try to sell their goods at Prinsengracht during the annual free market at Queen’s Day in Amsterdam, Netherlands yesterday.— AP

LONDON: Signs of increasing euro zone economic gloom and rising public hostility towards austerity policies ahead of two elections kept the single currency weak yesterday and European shares snapped a four-day rally. But trading was light ahead of May Day holidays across Europe, elections in France and Greece at the weekend and the European Central Bank meeting on Thursday when policymakers will have to consider the region’s worsening economic health. “Market stresses have re-emerged in the euro area on concerns that deficit reduction targets may be sabotaged by a return to recession,” said Sarah Hewin, senior economist for Europe at Standard Chartered Bank.

Disappointing 2.2 percent first quarter growth in the United States also renewed hopes the Federal Reserve will consider further policy easing before its current program of support to the financial markets ends in June.

“The weaker-than-expected US GDP report has re-heightened speculation over the prospect of further monetary stimulus from the Fed, weighing upon the dollar,” said Lee Hardman, currency economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd. In the foreign exchange markets, speculation about the Fed pushed the dollar to a two-month low against a basket of currencies of 78.64 before it recovered to be little changed at 78.76. The euro meanwhile fell

to a two-week low against the yen but was mostly steady against the softer US unit at around the $1.3245 mark.

RECESSION FEARS GROW Spain, the euro zone’s fourth largest economy, added to evidence of the region’s worsening outlook by reporting its economy had slipped into recession, joining a growing list of countries that includes Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Belgium, and Holland. Growing opposition to austerity is expected to be a large factor in weekend elections in France and Greece which could add to pressure to find ways to stimulate growth across the region. On Sunday, thousands of Spaniards angered by government cuts that have helped send unemployment up to nearly 25 percent took part in protests across country. Fresh European Central Bank data yesterday showed loans to euro zone households and firms grew more slowly than expected in March, as banks continued to reduce lending. Adding to the worries, Germany reported retail sales had risen less than expected in March, indicating that private consumption in Europe’s biggest economy may be flagging. Germany’s June Bund future contract was up seven ticks to 140.77 still below a high of 141.38 reached on Friday after a two notch ratings downgrade for Spain prompted a flight to safety. Spanish

10-year yields yesterday were at 5.89 percent, slightly short of the key 6.0 percent level.

“In our view it (the Spanish data) doesn’t make a huge difference...The economic performance will be a function of whether credit will be able to flow again in the economy so the banking issues remain at the core,” UBS strategist Gianluca Ziglio said. Spain will test market sentiment for its debt on Thursday when it sells three- and five-year bonds, the first sale since the downgrade by Standard and Poor’s. The brewing concerns over Spain and the health of the region’s economy undermined confidence in the region’s share markets, dragging the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares down 0.25 percent to 1,048.88. “Coming on top of (Spain’s) record unemployment data last week as well as massive demonstrations against austerity on the streets yesterday, the problems for European leaders continue to mount up,” said Michael Hewson, senior market analyst at CMC Markets.

Spain’s benchmark share index, the IBEX, lost 0.2 percent and is now down 16.2 percent so far in 2012, strongly underperforming the euro zone’s blue chip Euro STOXX 50 .STOXX50E index, which is up 1.2 percent year-to-date, and Germany’s DAX, up 15.9 percent. The MSCI world equity index, was up 0.1 percent at 329.75 and holding onto gains of just over 10 percent for the year to date.— Reuters

25

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

business

Abdulrahman Barrak Al Babtain unveils ‘i’m Watch’ KUWAIT: The world’s first real smartwatch ‘i’m Watch’ will soon make its way into the Kuwaiti market, bringing a new concept in the telecom industry and fostering innovation, creativity and excellence. Wildly popular overseas, this Italian-designed wristwatch is the first multitasking touch screen smart watch that works in unison with a variety of smart phones and allows wearers to use applications such as games, SMS, calls, weather forecast, email, facebook, twitter, news and many others. In one word, it allows them the ability to stay connected and conduct vital business without having to forage into their pockets looking for their phones!

Moreover, this creative invention actually uses Android 1.6 OS, the most common operating system in the world and is characterized with performances never seen before on such a small devices, such as an intuitive interface, a rock-solid stability and amazing functionalities. Available in many different colors (black, blue, red,

pink, green, yellow...), this seductivelooking watch will surely satisfy even the most sophisticated demands. It also includes different category lines, star ting from the fashionable i’m Color, to the interactive designs of i’m Tech especially conceived for people with active lifestyles, and ending up with the luxurious and extravagant i’m Jewel collection.

In fact, Manuel Zanella, President of i’m Watch emphasized the particularity of this watch by stating: “What makes i’m Watch a special product is that even if other companies produce a smartwatch, it will not reach the luxury and high quality material used to create i’m Watch. It will be even difficult for them to stand up to the entry level, the “i’m color”, which are very fashionable.”

With the soon arrival of i’m Watch into the Kuwait market, Abdulrahman Barrak Al Babtain Est. (ABB) adds a new feather on its cap for bringing you a product bred with cutting-edge technology and an incomparable

innovative touch. The company is actually proud to announce to all technology and fashion lovers that it will be soon launching i’m Watch in Kuwait and the rest of the GCC coun-

UAE and Oman.

Massimiliano Ber tolini, Vice President and CEO of i’m Watch stated: “ The GCC countries are one of the most important for selling a product

tries. Focusing on launching new innovative products, ABB is today the exclusive distributor of i’m Watch in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar,

like i’m Watch because people from the GCC tend to fancy products made in Italy. The GCC is the window to show the world this new innovation. “

Oil slips, holds above $119 on US stimulus prospects OPEC output at highest level since 2008 LONDON: Brent crude oil prices slipped but held above $119 per barrel yesterday as the prospect of a third round of liquidity stimulus by the United States continued to support commodities despite slower economic growth around the globe. Brent June crude futures were down 35 cents to $119.48 a barrel by 1352 GMT, on track to close down for the second consecutive month. US crude was down 80 cents at $104.13 a barrel.

Analysts and traders said the market was effectively trading sideways following data on Friday that showed slower-than-expected US GDP growth in the first quarter, raising expectations of a fresh liquidity injection. The Chicago purchasing management index for April came in at 56.2, missing a consensus forecast for 61, and lower than March’s 62.2.

James Zhang, energy analyst at Standard Bank, said the market was in a cautious mood ahead of a heavy week for US data releases.

“The market is undecided, but if anything there is a slightly bearish bias given that the weekly U.S. jobless report has disappointed over the last few weeks. That potentially points to a downbeat non-farm payroll report on Friday,” he said. But he added that whenever US data show signs of weakness, the market sees a greater possibility of another round of monetary easing. “So we are getting a tugof-war between what is going on in the real economy and what the central banks might do with monetary policy. Prices will swing up and down within a fairly narrow range for a bit unless the data really surprises,” he suggested.

In Europe, Spain’s economy slipped into recession in the first quarter as domestic demand shrank against a background of deep government spending cuts. Although GDP declined 0.3 percent quarter-on-quarter and 0.4 percent year-on-year, this was not as bad as analysts had forecast. “The Spanish GDP number, which could have been depressing came in a bit above expectations but not much,” said Filip Petersson, commodity strategist at SEB. Trading volumes are expected to be fairly light today because of the May Day bank holiday across much of Europe on Tuesday. This may limit oil price moves.

“It’s still in the same range as Friday and

because of the European holiday tomorrow, a lot of people are out today as well, which is making the market very quiet,” said Christopher Bellew, a trader at Jefferies Bache in London. “It’s very much sideways at the moment.” Analysts expressed surprise at how well oil was holding up given the bearish newsflow of the past few weeks. “ This is despite the fact that tensions with Iran have

towards Asia from the Middle East so there’s a general feeling of over-supply in the market,” he said. OPEC output in April hit its highest level since 2008 as extra crude from Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Libya more than compensated for the lowest Iranian supply in two decades ahead of an EU embargo, a Reuters survey found yesterday.

Speculator positioning in US crude oil

RBS sees no issues with Gulf refinancing needs DUBAI: Royal Bank of Scotland expects Gulf borrowers to have no significant problems overcoming a refinancing hump this year that the bank estimates at $60 billion, though its own lending in the region will shrink, senior executives said yesterday. “We don’t see any issue with the refinancing needs of the region,” Jacco Keijzer, RBS’ head of debt capital markets for the Middle East and Africa, told reporters in Dubai. The ability of regional borrowers to refinance upcoming debt has been in focus as European banks, behind much of the loan activity in the Gulf in recent years, pull back as a result of funding pressures created by the Euro zone crisis.

RBS was still lending billions of dollars to entities in the United Arab Emirates but the number of clients it was working with in the region had been cut back, the bank’s regional chief executive said. “We have massively shrunk the number of clients to whom we are lending to now as we have lesser capital to deploy,” Simon Penney, RBS’ chief executive for

the Middle East and Africa said. RBS, 82percent owned by the British government after it received 46 billion pounds of taxpayer cash following the 2008 financial crisis, announced a restructuring in January aimed at reducing costs and exposure to areas of investment banking deemed risky by the authorities.

While Western banks were stepping back from lending into the region, local banks were playing a bigger role in addressing the Gulf’s refinancing needs, Keijzer said. “Loan activity has fallen 23 percent globally in the first quarter but we are seeing a reversal of that trend in the Middle East as local banks have stepped in to fill the gap left over by the foreign banks,” he said.

RBS also remained active in the regional debt capital markets, Keijzer said, with the bank having between 5-10 bond mandates for the second half of 2012. “It’s a mix of Islamic and conventional issues,” Keijzer said. “It all depends on how stable financial markets are during the second half.” — Reuters

Spain mulls hiving off bank bad loans RIO DE JANEIRO: A Transocean Ltd offshore oil rig is tilted to one side in the Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Rio de Janeiro’s port captain said that an inclination of three degrees prompted a Saturday night evacuation of about 100 workers from the oil platform. — AP eased, which should reduce the risk premium, futures and options was mixed in the week to and there are signs that growth momentum is April 24, CFTC data showed on Friday, with slowing in the two-largest oil consuming traders cutting their positions on the New nations, the United States and China,” said York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) but raising Carsten Fritsch, an energy analyst at them in London.

Meanwhile, data from the Commerzbank in Frankfurt.

IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) showed that speculators turned bearish on the outlook for SUPPLY FACTOR SEB’s Petersson said equity markets had Brent, cutting back their net long positions as run a bit ahead of crude, which could be pro- Brent futures prices dipped. Investors will viding some support. But he added that the scour data on Chinese PMI on Tuesday and US oil supply factor should continue to weigh, employment on Friday for a better read on with over-production from Saudi Arabia. the economic health of the world’s two “ There is an Armada of tankers heading largest oil consumers. — Reuters

Eurozone lending still weak Inflation eases to 2.6 percent FRANKFURT: Eurozone lending to the private sector remains weak, despite the vast amounts of cheap cash banks in the region recently borrowed from the European Central Bank, data showed yesterday. The ECB said in a regular monthly report that growth in loans to the private sector slowed to just 0.6 percent in March from 0.8 percent in February. The slowdown is of particular concern given that, in two special measures in December and February aimed at averting a credit squeeze in the 17-nation eurozone, the ECB lent more than 1.0 trillion euros ($1.3 trillion) to banks at a rock-bottom rate of 1.0 percent for a period of three years.

The thinking behind the unprecedented moves was that banks would lend the cheap funds on to businesses and households and keep credit flowing in the debt-wracked eurozone economy.

However, the cash does not appear to be trickling through into the real economy just yet, the data suggested. But that seems to be more because overall demand for credit remains weak, rather than the unwillingness of banks to make loans available, analysts say.

Last week, in its regular quarterly survey on bank lending, the ECB found that a tightening of credit

He further added: “ A strong and solid Company, Abdulrahman Barrak Al Babtain Est. with its many connections has opened to us possibilities for this market which has become a great asset to us, and is one of the first companies who signed with us. “ On his par t, Manuel Zanella, President of i’m Watch mentioned: “Particularly in the GCC we have realized that people always look for luxury and high-end products, and this has been shown in our online sales.

Around 50% of orders from the GCC countries have compensated the i’m Jewel collection.”

ABB was established by Abdulrahman Barrak Al Babtain to continue the legacy of Al Babtain Group and evoke a new young and aspiring spirit to expand his family business. By adopting innovative products like i’m Watch, ABB today invests in the future generations and responds to their needs and demands by acquiring all what is new around the globe.

conditions had eased “substantially” in the first three months of this year and banks were expecting that trend to continue in the second quarter as well.

Nevertheless, small- and medium-sized businesses still complained that getting bank loans has become harder, according to a separate ECB survey. IHS Global Insight economist Howard Archer warned that the latest lending data meant that tight credit conditions “remain a serious concern for eurozone growth prospects.” A further modest monthly fall in lending to businesses in March and a slowdown in the growth rate in lending to households “fuel concern that the ... trillion euros loaned to European banks by the ECB is not feeding through to boost lending to the private sector-at least for now,” he said.

“While this could yet happen, the hard evidence so far is disappointing even allowing for limited demand for credit from the private sector,” he concluded. Newedge Strategy analyst Annalisa Piazza said the latest ECB lending survey “clearly showed that-despite a solid improvement in net tighteningdemand for loans remained depressed in the first quarter of 2012, as both households and businesses have a very cautious

approach, given the current uncertainties surrounding the economic environment.”

Postbank economist Heinrich Bayer agreed. “Weak credit is largely due to low demand rather than the restrictive lending policies of banks,” he argued. “It’s more a symptom rather than a cause of the economic weakness in the euro area,” Bayer said.

UniCredit economist Loredana Federico believed that said the ECB’s liquidity moves have “substantially reduced the risk of a credit crunch and the weakness in the credit cycle at this stage seems to mainly reflect subdued loan demand.”

She expected loan demand from non-financial corporations, which lags the business cycle, to remain weak for most of this year.

The ECB also calculated that growth of the eurozone money supply, a key indicator of demand in the economy, picked up again in March, with the M3 indicator rising to 3.2 percent last month from 2.8 percent in February. The ECB regards the M3 figure as a key guide to inflation pressures and uses it to set interest rates accordingly. The central bank seeks to keep eurozone inflation below but close to 2.0 percent and it eased slightly to 2.6 per-

cent in April from 2.7 percent in March, according to a first estimate from the European Union’s Eurostat agency.

INFLATION EASES TO 2.6% Eurozone inflation eased only slightly to 2.6 percent in April from 2.7 percent in March, data showed yesterday, hitting hopes of recovery before a key European Central Bank meeting on interest rates. If confirmed, a first estimate for April from the European Union’s Eurostat agency will mark the 17th month running during which inflation has exceeded the ECB target of “below, but close to, 2.0 percent.” “While any edging back in inflation is welcome, the fact is that Eurozone consumer price inflation has not fallen back overall so far in 2012 as had been hoped for at the start of the year, but instead has been locked in a 2.6-2.7 percent (range),” said Howard Archer, chief economist for IHS Global Insight.

The figure comes ahead of the ECB’s regular monthly policy-setting meeting Thursday when the bank is expected to leave its benchmark interest rate steady at 1.0 percent despite fears of a resurgence of the sovereign debt crisis, notably due to the situation in Spain. —Agencies

MADRID: Spain’s government said yesterday it is studying a scheme to remove the massive weight of bad property-related loans crushing the banking sector. The proposed solution would allow banks to split off their bad loans and place them into a separate agency, an Economy Ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The agency would not be a ‘bad bank’-a special vehicle used in other countries such as Ireland to help stabilize the banking system and the economy because the state itself would take no part, the official said.

Banks who joined the scheme would have to set aside financial provisions that recognize the sharply reduced market value of the loans, extended during a huge property bubble that imploded in 2008.

“What we are speaking about is a type of agency where several banks could come together or one could do it perhaps with an outside partner, so they can externalize their property assets,” the official said. “It is so banks can go back to doing their work as banks and someone else can take care of selling the assets. “Conditions will be imposed and one of them will be that the banks have to make the requisite provisions for those assets. We think that the provisions should be close to the market value of the assets.” The state would not take part but foreign investors could be invited to join, the official said. “It is an idea we are considering, one possibility,” the source stressed.

Bank of Spain figures on Friday showed commercial banks held problem real estate loans worth 184 billion euros, some 60 percent of their proper ty por tfolio at the end of 2011.

Central bank figures show that the ratio of bad loans-those at least three months in arrears-hit an 18-year high in February of 8.15 percent of total credit extended, the highest since 1994. Another financial source close to the matter, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the study was “still a bit green. “They are looking at what is the most appropriate solution to remove the property assets from the banks’ balance sheets,” the source said.

“What seems clear is that it will not be a ‘bad bank’ because there will be no public money behind it.”

The conservative daily El Mundo said the Bank of Spain had appointed BlackRock’s Financial Markets Advisory division and management consults

Oliver Wyman as advisors on cleaning up Spanish banks’ balance sheets.

BlackRock had helped to design the Irish ‘bad bank,’ the National Asset Management Agency which took over the banking sector’s bad debt as part of a wider bailout for Ireland, the newspaper noted. Neither BlackRock nor Oliver Wyman were immediately available to comment.

STANDARD & POOR’S in another development, Standard & Poor’s yesterday downgraded the ratings of the top Spanish banks, including Santander and BBVA, after slashing the country’s credit standing because of worsening deficit and growth problems. The banks affected include Santander and its subsidiary Banesto, BBVA, Banco Sabadell, Ibercaja, Kutxabank, Banca Civica, Bankinter and the local unit of Barclays. S&P downgraded Banco Santander by two notches to ‘A-’ from ‘A+’, with BBVA cut to ‘BBB+’ from ‘A.’ S&P on Friday slashed Spain’s sovereign rating by two notches to ‘BBB+’ and said yesterday the same considerations “could have potentially negative implications for our view of the economic risk and industry risk affecting the Spanish banking industry.” Just as S&P made the announcement, official figures showed the Spanish economy slumped into recession in the first quarter, shrinking 0.3 percent after a similar contraction in the last three months of 2011. The economy, saddled with the highest unemployment rate in the industrialized world at some 24.4 percent, has struggled since a property bubble imploded in 2008, compounding the downturn caused by the global financial crisis.

Faced with mounting debt and falling revenues, the government is trying to stabilize the public finances and cut the annual public deficit. Last year Spain missed its deficit target by a long way, driving speculation it might ultimately need a debt bailout like fellow eurozone strugglers Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

S&P said it expected to “conclude our review on the wider implications of the sovereign downgrade on the economic and industry risks for the Spanish banking sector and the Spanish banks we rate by end May. “Currently, we are of the view that any potential negative rating actions would likely be limited to one or two notches,” it added. — Agencies

26

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

business

RFI captures investable opportunity in Mideast DUBAI: The Russell Frontier Index (RFI) represents the investable frontier equity market and its segments comprehensively. In the Middle East it captures the investable opportunity set across five countries: Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar.

The Middle East is the largest Russell frontier region by market capitalization, at 42.1% of the RFI; the Frontier Middle East Index contained 170 constituents as of December 31, 2011. In this analysis Russell revisits the index and report on its performance, constituent, size and sector characteristics.

As of December 31, 2011, frontier Middle East contained the two largest countries in the RFI by weight; Kuwait and Qatar, which combined accounted for approximately three-quarters of the region’s overall market cap. Kuwait represented 38.5% of the frontier Middle East region while Qatar represented 35.2% of the frontier Middle East region. Bahrain

reached a weight of 3.4% in the RFI; while Oman has achieved a small proportion of large cap stocks, at 70.97% large cap. Mat Lystra, Research Analyst, Russell Indexes said: “In 2011, the frontier Middle East markets outperformed emerging and aggregate frontier markets and slightly underperformed developed markets. The frontier Middle East region also contained the two countries with the largest individual weights in the RFI: Kuwait and Qatar.

Frontier Middle East had a region-specific sector structure that was underweight Consumer Discretionary, Consumer Staples, Energy, Health Care and Technology and overweight Financial Services, Materials & Processing and Utilities, relative to both global and aggregate frontier markets. The underweight can be attributed in part to the fact that these sectors are generally more tightly held in Frontier Markets versus Global Developed Markets.”

Jim Leggate, Managing Director, Middle East Russell Investments added:”New opportunities may arise for international investors as countries in the region undertake actions to open their markets and diversify their economies”. Despite the fact that the Middle East’s economy is often associated with oil production and other energy-related industries, the frontier Middle East region was underweight to the Energy sector; only Oman had more than 10% Energy stocks, with 11.4% in the Energy sector. The other countries had less than 5% Energy stocks, with Bahrain having no exposure to the sector. The frontier Middle East Energy represented only 2.71% of the region’s total market cap. This underweight can be attributed in part to the fact that energy-related industries are generally more tightly held by the government in these markets.

The Middle East region was substantially over-

weight Financial Services relative to both global and aggregate frontier markets. Each country in the frontier Middle East region had more than 50% Financial Services stocks; Qatar and Jordan each had more than 60%. Furthermore, the top 10 Financial Services stocks in the region accounted for almost 40% of the region’s total market capitalization, indicating that the frontier Middle East Financial Services sector was top-heavy.

Other than Financial Services, the only frontier Middle East sectors with more than 10% weight in the regional index were Utilities and Materials & Processing, at approximately 15% each. The region was notably overweight these three sectors relative to global and aggregate frontier markets. These three sectors comprised almost 90% of the frontier Middle East region, demonstrating the region’s high degree of sector concentration.

Dubai’s JAFZA in talks to refinance $2 billion sukuk Existing bond yields at 9.3 percent DUBAI: Dubai’s Jebel Ali Free Zone (JAFZA) is in advanced talks with financial institutions over a financing package to meet its $2 billion-equivalent Islamic bond, or sukuk, maturity in November, the company said in a statement on Monday. The state-linked industrial free zone, located on the outskirts of Dubai, will use the funding package solely for the redemption of its 7.5 billion dirhams ($2.04 billion) sukuk, the statement, which accompanied its 2011 results, said.

“The board of directors is confident about JAFZ’s ability to refinance the sukuk,” Hisham Abdullah al-Shirawi, chairman of Economic Zones World (EZW), JAFZA’s parent and a unit of state conglomerate Dubai World, said. In

March, Reuters reported the company was preparing a three-pronged approach to the refinancing, consisting of a syndicated loan, another sukuk issue, and partial cash repayment. Asset sales are also an option.

Along with a $1.25 billion sukuk issued by another state-owned entity, DIFC Investments, which matures in June, the upcoming JAFZA redemption is being closely tracked for the ability of Dubai Inc firms to meet their debt obligations. Mohammed AlShaibani, a top Dubai financial figure and head of its de facto sovereign wealth fund, reiterated on Monday that DIFC Investments will be solely responsible for repaying its sukuk. Market players have debated the likeli-

hood of government support to strategic and non-strategic firms.

JAFZA’s sukuk was last bid at a cash price of about 96.65, to yield 9.304 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data, down from nearly 10 percent earlier this month but higher than this year’s lows of 8.2 percent in early March. The company reported a net profit of 242 million dirhams in 2011, up from 140 million dirhams in the previous year, its financial statements showed. Last week, the government of Dubai successfully issued a $1.25 billion sukuk which attracted healthy demand due to increasing confidence that the emirate is committed to honoring its public debt obligations. — Reuters

NBK rewards its customers with McLaren MP4-12C, KD 180,000

Stewart Lockie

ABK and Visa offer 10% discount at Duty Free

KUWAIT: National Bank of Kuwait (NBK) is kicking off its annual summer campaign offering its customers the chance to win an astonishing 2012 McLaren MP4-12C super car as well as up to KD 180,000 in cash prizes. From 1 May until 15 September 2012, NBK Cardholders can participate in the promotion and earn unlimited chances in the three draws throughout the summer. In addition to the grand prize draw for the 2012 McLaren MP4-12C, 18 winners will be reimbursed for all their spending using NBK Cards up to KD 10,000.

For every KD 20 spent in Kuwait with NBK Credit or Prepaid Cards, Cardholders will earn one chance to enter the draws. Cardholders will triple their chances by using their NBK Credit, Prepaid and Debit Card abroad or by shopping on international sites. “NBK is the first bank in Kuwait to give away a McLaren,” said Mazin Saad Al Nahedh, NBK General Manager, Consumer Banking Group. “This is our biggest promotion of the year and we want our Cardholders to enjoy the summer even more.”

“We always strive to reward our customers.

Last summer we gave away three Mercedes SLS. This year, we are giving away the 2012 McLaren MP4-12C. We encourage our Cardholders to use their NBK Cards during the summer to enjoy this exclusive promotion,” added Al Nahedh. NBK Cards are accepted worldwide and are the

TMC accepts applications TOYOTA CITY: Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) began accepting applications yesterday for this year’s Toyota Environmental Activities and conservation activities aimed at sustainable development.

Similar to previous years, the eligible themes for this grant remain: “Biodiversity Conservation” and “Global Warming Countermeasures”. Grants will be provided to NPOs and other private, non-profit groups (excluding schools) that are promoting practical projects. As before, the program will bestow both overseas and domestic project grants. The Toyota Environmental Activities Grant Program was established in commemoration of TMC’s receipt of the Global 500 Award in 1999 from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), and has been carried out every year since 2000 as part of TMC’s environmental social contribution activities, with this year marking the program 13th year.

Mazin Al Nahedh safest, most convenient and rewarding way to pay. For more information log onto nbk.com or contact Hala Watani on 1801801. The new McLaren MP4-12C is one of the world’s most critically acclaimed luxurious supercars with its astonishing design that combines elegance and exquisiteness. Ali Alghanim & Sons Automotive is the sole dealer of McLaren Automotive Ltd in Kuwait.

KUWAIT: Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait, in cooperation with Visa is offering its customers 10% discount on selected items from Kuwait Duty Free at Kuwait International Airport. With summer travels just around the corner, ABK offers its Credit and Debit Visa Cardholders the opportunity to shop at Kuwait Airport and receive instant discounts. Stewart Lockie, General Manager of the Retail Banking Division commented “We at ABK are extremely pleased to offer such value added benefits, through our partnership with Visa, and with summer holidays coming up, this is the perfect time to reward our Visa cardholders when they travel”. So travel, spend and be rewarded with you ABK Visa Debit and Credit Cards.

United Arab Bank targets double-digit profit growth ABU DHABI: Abu Dhabi-listed United Arab Bank expects to post double-digit profit growth in 2012 and plans to double its branch network in the United Arab Emirates over the next 12 months, its chief executive officer said yesterday. The Sharjah-headquartered lender, which is 40-percent owned by Commercial Bank of Qatar, currently has 14 branches in the UAE. UAB posted a 23 percent jump in firstquarter net profit, making 75 million dirhams ($20.4 million) in the three-month period to March 31. ‘We are optimistic about 2012 - our profit was 23 percent up on the first quarter of 2011 and opening branches will generate more revenues,’ CEO Paul Trowbridge said at

the opening of the bank’s second branch in Abu Dhabi. ‘We are 14 branches now, we expect to be 20 branches by end-2012 and more early next year,’ he added.

The bank plans to invest 40 million dirhams in its Abu Dhabi expansion, with three more branches opening in the emirate before the end of the year, Trowbridge said. UAB made a full-year profit of 308 million dirhams in 2011, up 7 percent on the previous year. The bank’s exposure to the real estate sector is about 20 percent of its loan book - worth 10 billion dirhams at the end of 2011 - and the bank does not lend to government entities, said Trowbridge. — Reuters

AUB announces Al-Hassad weekly draw results Draw program based on Islamic Sharia principles KUWAIT: AUB has announced the results of the Weekly draws of its Al-Hassad Islamic savings scheme. The lucky customers winning the Grand Weekly prize worth KD 25,000 each at the draws held on the 18th of April 2012 are Mohamed Eissa Afify, Amal Khudair Mohd and Samir Wazan.

The following Al-Hassad Islamic customers won cash prizes of KD 1000 each - Jassim Abdulmohsen Javeed Ahmed Sakharkar, Aysha Awad Ghazi Sluman, Saleh Abdulla Al Hemadidi, Hamoud Hussein Al Mutairi, Mohammed Essa Al Mahfouz, Munerah Abdulmuhsen Mohammed, Shaikhah Faisal Ahmad, Tarteel Musaad Al Shammari, Abdulmohsen Sulaiman Al Tukhaim, Wasmiya Shukhair Thamer, Adnan Suliman Mohd, Ali Habeeb Ali Muhsin, Abdul Mueed Khan Abdul Majid Khan, Wajeeh Haleim Gerges, Mohammad Yaqoub Abdulaziz Malallah, Salma Salah Al Obaid, Layla Said

Kardaman, Feras Rateb Abu Srour, Mamoun Hamoud, Mohamed Hasan Mohamed Fardan, Atef Elshabrawi Ebrahim Abdelrazak, Ahmed Mohd Husain Ali. Mansoor A.Amir Mansoor Al Jamri and Mohd Abdulla Alsafi.

With the new Al-Hassad Islamic 2011 scheme, customers have a lot more to look forward to. With 28 Weekly Prizes totaling KD 100,000 each week and “Salary for Life” Prizes every month, the chances to win bigger prizes more often couldn’t get any better. The most attractive feature of the new scheme is the chance to win bigger prizes, more frequently with 3 grand prizes of KD 25,000 each, week on week plus 25 other weekly prizes of KD 1,000. Chances to win big prizes on a weekly basis, offer instant rewards to both existing as well as new Investors in Investment Saving Account (Al Hassad Islamic). With the introduction of a

“Salary for Life” Prize of KD 250,000 every month, the grand prize is also now more frequent and customers do not need to wait for a quarter or more to qualify for the grand prize.

The “Salary for Life” has been a core feature for the AL Hassad Islamic scheme with prizes paid out to date exceeding KD 10 Million. The monthly “Salary for Life” prize has enabled winners to afford better homes, ensure better education for their children and enjoy an improved quality of life, with the assurance that the rewards will continue to come month after month for 250 months.

Al-Hassad Islamic is the only scheme to offer high value weekly and monthly prizes that are significantly higher than the total outlay of other prize schemes in Kuwait. In addition to the attractive prize pool, customers with high balances can opt for other unique features such as

Investment savings plan, cheque facility linked to their investment savings account and state of the art e-banking and 24 x 7 Contact Center support.

The new Al-Hassad Islamic 2011 is geared to meeting the needs of salaried individuals. Customers can benefit from not only the biggest and most attractive prize pool but can also enjoy state of the art banking benefits and access to AUB’s unique products’ range for Islamic Finances ,credit cards and investment products. All AlHassad draws are conducted under the scrutiny of officials from the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and independent auditing firm, Ernst& Young. For more information on the Al-Hassad Islamic investment savings account, its prize structure and eligibility criteria, customers may visit any AUB Kuwait.

27

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

TECHNOLOGY

Toshiba releases oversized tablet Oversized tablet and mini headset: New from the digital world BERLIN: As part of their Excite series, Toshiba has announced three news tablet PCs, including the Excite 13 with a 13.3 inch display (1600 x 900 pixels). The 1 kilogram heavy tablet is a centimeter thick. Just like the other two tablets with 10.1 inch or 7.7 inch displays, all three Toshiba devices are equipped with the quad-core processor Tegra 3 from Nvidia as well as the current Android operating system 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). All of the devices offer 1 GB of RAM, a micro HDMI port and a slot for SD cards. The Excite 13 will be available in the US starting in June for 650 dollars (about 495 euros) with 32 GB and 750 dollars (about 570 euros) with 64 GB. No sales dates for outside the US were announced.

Notebooks with AMD processor from ASUS Asus has presented a new series of less expensive 13-inch notebooks under the title U32U. The 2.4-centimetre-thick laptops run a dual core E-450 processor (1.65 GHz and 2 x 512 KB cache) with an AMD Radeon HD 6320 graphic chip. All models have a shiny display (1366 x 768 pixels), USB 3.0, multi-gesture touchpad and Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit as the operating system. Other devices can be run through the USB ports - even in shutdown mode. The basic version of the U32U, which weighs 1.6

Samsung Galaxy for two SIM cards kilograms, has 4 GB RAM, a 320 GB hard drive, a fourcell battery and costs 499 euros.

Samsung Galaxy for two SIM cards Samsung has expanded its Galaxy family of mobile devices with the Y Duos UMTS smartphone which operates with two SIM cards. One of the cards can even be swapped out while in use.

The 1.2-centimetre-thick, 109 gram Android 2.3 smartphone runs

Notebooks with AMD processor from ASUS an 832 MHz processor and has a 3.14 inch touchscreen while supporting Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n. It costs 249 euros but can be purchased in online shops for 100 euros less.

Bluetooth headset from Jabra Is there a connection for the mobile phone? Does the battery need recharging? The Bluetooth headset Easycall from Jabra can

answer these questions, speaking the answers aloud.

In addition, the device’s volume can be adjusted when it gets louder around the user while also maintaining a connection to two mobile phones at the same time. The manufacturers said talk time lasts up to six days or eight days in standby mode. Easycall is available for 30 euros. —dpa

App depicts impact of climate change on planet TORONT: Whether it is melting glaciers, coastal erosion or drying lakes, a new app displays the impact of climate change on the planet by using before and after satellite images. Called Fragile Earth, the app for iPhone and iPad shows how our planet is impacted by global warming by featuring more than 70 sites such the receding Muir Glacier in Alaska, the impact of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the draining of the Mesopotamia Marshes in Iraq.

“We don’t necessarily put an opinion on it,” said Jethro Lennox, head of publishing at Collins Geo, a division of Harper Collins UK which created the app. “We’re just trying to visually portray some of the geographical features and changes around the world.” The app also shows the impact of natural disasters including the devastating earthquakes in Haiti and Pakistan and the tsunami in Japan, and how mining, deforestation and dam building have changed areas of the planet.

Users of the app slide birds-eye photographs depicting before and after states of environmental changes. “When you’re looking at the earth changing, it’s almost surprising and it shows how amazing the place is,” said Lennox. “For years glaciers have been retreating and advancing, and we don’t really know exactly why this is taking place. But the rate of some of these changes is amazing.”

Lennox said that some of the most astounding images are of the Aral Sea, which was once the world’s fourth-largest lake but has drastically reduced in size over the past 40 years. “We even have to change our world maps quite regularly because it changes so fast,” he said.

The app explains what is happening in the images, which Lennox thinks is part of its appeal because a user doesn’t need to be a scientist to understand what is happening. It is an extension of the book “Fragile Earth,” which was published in 2006 and is now out of print. A second edition of the book will be published later this year.

Collins Geo plans to continue to develop the app, adding more image sets and other features. Lennox said the company views apps as an important channel, especially for visual content. “Some of the more reference and illustrative books are starting to really come alive in the app environment,” he said.

Images within the app come from a variety of sources including NASA and GeoEye, a satellite imagery company. They date from 1914 up to the present day. The app is available worldwide and costs $2.99. —Reuters

Experience the Facebook’s Bootcamp Facebook’s rite of passage into ‘the Hacker Way’ SAN JOSE: Congratulations, recruit! It’s time to learn the ropes of your Facebook engineering job. Take a seat at one of Facebook’s long, white desks and look at the piece of paper taped on your monitor: “Welcome to Facebook!” Underneath, printed in big, bold, red letters, are slogans like: “We Hack Therefore We Are,” or “Move Fast and Break Things.” Within days, your software code will be in front of our more than 845 million users.

And so begins the six-week journey of a new employee class in Facebook’s “Bootcamp,” an experience shared by every engineering hire, whether they are a grizzled Silicon Valley veteran or a fresh-faced computer science grad. Since 2008, hundreds of Facebook’s engineers have passed through Bootcamp, which may lack the physical tests of military basic training but does provide the same kind of shared experience and cultural indoctrination into the world’s largest social network.

Bootcamp is one part employee orientation, one part software training program and one part fraternity/sorority rush. When new engineering recruits are hired at Facebook, they typically do not know what job they will do. They choose their job assignment and product team at the culmination of Bootcamp, a program that exemplifies Facebook’s adherence to founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s “Hacker Way,” an organizational culture that is supposed to be egalitarian, risk-taking, self-starting, irreverent, collaborative and creative.

Each new recruit needs to take a deep breath. Within a few days, all are expected to be pushing live software updates out to the better part of a billion users. If a Bootcamper crashes part of Facebook doing that, well, it won’t be the first time.

“I would describe it as a way for us to educate our engineers not only on how we code and how we do our systems, but also how to culturally think about how to attack challenges and how to meet people,” said Joel Seligstein, the head of the Bootcamp program, who might be described as Facebook’s answer to Yoda. “We like to teach what’s important very early on, on Day 1. I would say it’s even more of a cultural program than it is a teaching program.”

From “the HP Way” at Hewlett-Packard to Google’s sense of what’s “Googley,” company culture is a mainstay of Silicon Valley life.

With workplace perks like free gourmet

food and other amenities, life at Facebook doesn’t look much different on the surface from Google, Zynga, Twitter or many other young, fast-growing Internet companies.

But Facebook takes its zeal for culture one step further. It plasters the walls of its offices with slogans like “Code Wins

CALIFORNIA: Dimitry Soshnikov writes a headquarters.

Arguments” and “Move Fast and Break Things,” Facebook’s version of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book of quotations. Rather than top-down commandments, however, employees are encouraged to tweak those messages or add their own opinions in chalk or paint, a ritual called “Hacking the Space.”

Within the company, it is an article of faith that the culture of constant change embodied by those sayings differentiates Facebook from its competitors, and will allow the company to remain nimble even as it goes through a landmark initial public offering of stock this year.

“It’s a quasi-religious iconoclasm,” said David Kirkpatrick, author of “The Facebook Effect,” a 2010 book about the rise of the social network. “Facebook takes its culture deadly seriously. They know the pace at which they arose and became dominant in their field was even faster than Mark Zuckerberg expected. They also know that things on the Internet are constantly changing at an extremely rapid rate, and the only way any organization can stay alive is to be

CALIFORNIA: Tim Williamson writes a code during a boot camp at Facebookís headquarters in Menlo Park. —MCT photos

unbelievably dynamic.”

Nothing encapsulates that culture better than Bootcamp, a program started in 2008

by Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, a burly and gregarious Saratoga, Calif., native with a map of California tattooed on his forearm who was one of Zuckerberg’s teaching assistants at

code during a boot camp at Facebookís Harvard. One of the keepers of Facebook culture, Bosworth started Bootcamp when Facebook’s engineering organization passed 150 people, a threshold known as “Dunbar’s number,” the maximum number of people with whom humans are believed to be able to maintain stable social relationships.

Almost immediately after reporting for Bootcamp, new hires get assigned by Seligstein to work independently on a few real software bugs and problems, between lectures and other Bootcamp activities. The expectation is that some of their code should be ready to go live within days _ one way Bootcamp tries to unlearn habits that don’t fit with Facebook’s urgent, ship-itnow culture.

The program is so important that Zuckerberg included an explanation in his “Hacker Way” letter on Facebook’s philosophy that accompanied the company’s IPO filing in February.

“There are a lot of folks in the industry who manage engineers and don’t want to code themselves, but the type of hands-on people we’re looking for are willing and able to go through Bootcamp,” Zuckerberg wrote.

Now that Facebook is growing so fast — about one-third of the company’s roughly 3,200 employees have been hired since the start of 2011 — Bootcamp has become a critical way to expose new hires to the company’s values and culture.

Beyond all else, Facebook executives say, employees have not just the freedom, but the obligation, to try new things and fail, because “shipping code”— adding new software that runs the website — as quickly as possible is crucial to the company’s success.

What other Silicon Valley companies “don’t do is let their employees take risks, and have failure be OK,” said Jocelyn Goldfein, a Facebook director of engineering. “I think that is part of the secret sauce at Facebook. I didn’t understand this one until after I got here — that the tolerance for fail-

ure, that ‘Move Fast and Break Things,’ is actually what keeps us open to continue to innovate.”

“Can you think of another site that routinely pisses off such a large percentage of their customers?” she asked, referring to the user outrage that greets every Facebook change. “But you can think of lots that had plenty of happy users, and eventually dwindled into irrelevance.”

Even though she was a longtime manager at VMware and high-profile hire in 2010, Goldfein went through Bootcamp like everybody else. By her first week, she said, she had shipped more software code at Facebook than she did in her seven years at VMware.

And, as has happened before, a fellow Bootcamper, working on one of the software bugs that new recruits are typically assigned to fix, made a mistake that crashed part of Facebook.

“That was a really scary experience for him,” Goldfein said. “But no one said, ‘You idiot; you don’t belong here.’ They said, ‘Hey, you tried, and here’s what we’re going to do to try to fix it, and this is what you’ve learned.’ That experience of having people rally around you is really tremendous, and what it teaches you to do to is rally around other people.”

A Bootcamp class, which can range from three to 40 new engineers, doesn’t look much different during the program from any other group of Facebook engineers.

There are lectures and talks from top executives like Vice President of Engineering Mike Schroepfer, and Bootcampers learn about the various product groups in preparation for deciding where they want to work. But for the most part, they work independently mastering Facebook’s software code base, the long tables that support their large

Zuckerberg or Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg to talk about an engineering problem or a company issue. “That is actually very hard to teach people,” Seligstein said. But it is a significant lesson.

“What makes (Facebook) flat is that Zuck is very hands-on with the product,” Goldfein said. “When he wants to find out what’s going on in his organization, he doesn’t go talk to the VP, who talks to the director, who talks to the manager, who talks to the engineer. Zuck goes and talks directly to the engineer.”

The ‘hacker way’: CEO Mark Zuckerberg and others at Facebook believe the company’s culture is an important element of its success. A look at some of Facebook’s key internal values: l Egalitarian: Facebook lacks hierarchical titles like “principal engineer” or “senior engineer.” l Flat: At no time should there be more than three layers of management between an engineer working on a product and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Even for a major product like Facebook’s new Timeline feature, engineering teams begin as a dozen people or fewer. l Just Do It: Engineers are expected to tackle problems on their own accord, to build a prototype that fixes a problem, rather than debating how to do something, or spending too much time trying to get it perfect. l ”Hackathons” and “Hack-a-months”: Every few months, Facebook engineers pull an all-nighter called Hackathon, trying out software ideas that sometimes turn into real products. Employees are encouraged to do temporary tours with other product teams, something called “Hack-a-month.”

CALIFORNIA: Thomas Aylott writes code. monitors cluttered with cans of Red Bull and Starbucks iced coffee.

One current Bootcamp attendee, AliReza Adl-Tabatabai, was most recently the director of the programming systems lab and senior principal engineer at Intel Labs.

“You have people coming into the company — they are engineers, but within the week, you are allowing them to change a part of the product that then becomes visible to millions of users,” said Adl-Tabatabai. “One thing that really surprised me was how open the culture is. It seems there are no secrets inside.”

An early lesson in Bootcamp is that it’s fine for any employee to walk up to

Facebook slogans Starting with Bootcamp, Facebook recruits are exposed to a series of slogans that are intended to encapsulate the company’s values. Among the sayings posted on red-letter posters around any Facebook office are: lMove Fast and Break Things l What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid? lThe Foolish Wait lOur Work Is Never Over lWe Hack Therefore We Are lAre You Fearless? lDone Is Better Than Perfect lCode Wins Arguments —MCT

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

H E A LT H & S C I E NC E

Dutch ban takes aim at foreigners buying pot AMSTERDAM: This country of canals and tulips is also famous for “coffee shops” where joints and cappuccinos share the menu. Now, the Netherlands’ famed tolerance for drugs could be going up in smoke. A judge on Friday upheld a government plan to ban foreign tourists from buying marijuana by introducing a “weed pass” available only to Dutch citizens and permanent residents. The new regulation reins in one of the country’s most cherished symbols of tolerance - its laissez-faire attitude toward soft drugs - and reflects the drift away from a long-held view of the Netherlands as a free-wheeling utopia.

For many tourists visiting Amsterdam the image endures, and smoking a joint in a canal-side coffee shop ranks high on their to-do lists, along with visiting cultural highlights like the Van Gogh Museum and Anne Frank House.

Worried that tourism will take a hit, the city’s mayor, Eberhard van der Laan, is hoping to hammer out a compromise with the national government, which relies on municipalities and local police to enforce its drug policies.

Relaxing outside The Bulldog, a coffee shop in downtown Amsterdam,

Gavin Harrison and Ian Leigh of Northern Ireland said they hoped the city wouldn’t change. “I think it’s going to be a shame for Amsterdam, I think it’s going to lose a lot of tourists,” Harrison said. Leigh said he had been visiting Amsterdam for a decade and had noticed the erosion of tolerance over the years. “It’s taking a step back,” he said.

Coffee shop owners have not given up the fight. A week ago they mustered a few hundred patrons for a “smoke-out” in downtown Amsterdam to protest the new restrictions. A lawyer for the owners, Maurice Veldman, said he would file an appeal against the ruling by The Hague District court, which clears the way for the weed pass to be introduced in southern provinces on Tuesday.

If the government gets its way, the pass will roll out in the rest of the country - including Amsterdam - next year. It will turn coffee shops into private clubs with membership open only to Dutch residents and limited to 2,000 per shop.

The Netherlands has more than 650 coffee shops, 214 of them in Amsterdam.

The number has been steadily declining as municipalities imposed tougher regulations, such as shuttering ones close to

schools. But the new membership rules are the most significant rollback in years to the traditional Dutch tolerance of marijuana use. The government argues that the move is justified to crack down on so-called “drug tourists,” effectively couriers who drive over the border from neighboring Belgium and Germany to buy large amounts of marijuana and take it home to resell. They cause traffic and public order problems in towns along the Dutch border.

Such issues do not exist in Amsterdam, where most tourists walk or ride bikes and buy pot for their own consumption. The weed pass “doesn’t solve any problems we have here and it could create new problems,” said city spokeswoman Tahira Limon. Many Amsterdam residents agree.

Barring tourists from coffee shops will only drive them into the hands of street dealers, warned Liza Roodhof, unwinding with a friend at an Amsterdam cafe that caters to artsy types. “If you make it so that tourists can’t buy weed in a coffee shop, then they’re going to buy it on the street. So you add more problems than you solve,” she said.

Her friend Nina Fokker, an actress,

also worried about what the ban portends for the Netherlands’ image as an open-minded society. Tolerance “is something beautiful, it has something special, it has something that’s authentic about the Netherlands,” she said.

It is not just hardcore pot heads taking a toke in the city. Limon said 4 million to 5 million tourists visit Amsterdam each year and around 23 percent say they visit a coffee shop during their stay.

Therese Ariaans of the Dutch tourism board said it was hard to judge the effect on tourism - it could reduce visits from people wanting to smoke pot but increase tourists previously kept away by Amsterdam’s seedy side.

“If the result is that there will be fewer visitors to the Netherlands we would regret that,” she said. Amsterdam argues that the reasons coffee shops were first tolerated decades ago are still relevant today - they are well-regulated havens where people can buy soft drugs without coming into contact with dealers of hard drugs like heroin and cocaine.

Coffee shops also are banned from serving alcohol and from selling drugs to people under 18.The government in The Hague said Friday there would be no

exceptions to the new rules. “Amsterdam will also have to enforce this policy,” said Job van de Sande, a spokesman for the Ministry of Security and Justice.

The conservative Dutch government introduced the new measures saying it wants to return the shops back to what they were originally intended to be: local shops selling to local people. However the Dutch government collapsed this week and new elections are scheduled for September. It’s unclear whether the new administration will keep the new measures in place.

Coffee shop lawyer Veldman called Friday’s ruling a political judgment. “The judge completely fails to answer the principal question: Can you discriminate against foreigners when there is no public order issue at stake?” he asked. Coffee shop owners in the southern city of Maastricht have said they plan to disregard the new measure, forcing the government to prosecute them in a test case. Back in Amsterdam, Leigh hoped the weed pass was a marketing stunt to drum up business. “It’s a recession,” he said. “Maybe it’s a publicity stunt as well get people to come over in a mad rush before it happens.” — AP

As America’s waistline expands, costs increase $190bn a year in excess medical spending

TAIYUAN: Two workers walk pass the gate of the Coca-Cola Shanxi Beverages Company in Taiyuan, northeast China’s Shanxi province yesterday. Coca-Cola has been ordered to temporarily halt production at a bottling plant in northern China after media reports of chlorine in its products, according to a government statement. — AFP

China shuts Coke plant after chlorine reports SHANGHAI: Coca-Cola has been ordered to temporarily halt production at a bottling plant in northern China after media reports of chlorine in its products, according to a government statement. Shanxi province ordered an investigation after reports that a batch of drinks contained water with chlorine, the province’s quality bureau said in a statement at the weekend.

“An on-site inspection, product testing, consultation of records, interviewing workers and other methods confirmed media reports about the situation were fact,” it said. But a spokesperson for Coca-Cola said yesterday that the production suspension, which was temporary, was unrelated to food safety or chlorine levels, and arose from other issues found by the government inspection.

“The chlorine levels are well below the WHO (World Health Organization), EU, North American and China standards for drinking water,” she said. Chlorine is commonly used in water treatment to kill bacteria, but high levels can be hazardous to human health.

Coca-Cola said it was moving to address

the issues raised by the government, which included restricting access between production and cleaning areas. “The quality and production issues being addressed at our bottling plant in Shanxi, China, are isolated to that one location, and the company is moving quickly to resolve them,” said a statement provided to AFP. “At no time did these issues affect the safety of our products in the market.” A receptionist at Coca-Cola Shanxi Beverages Co. on Monday confirmed to AFP that the plant had already stopped production.

The incident occurred in February when water with small amounts of chlorine accidentally flowed into water used for drinks during maintenance work, the official Xinhua news agency said late Sunday. An anonymous company whistle-blower told local media that nine batches of products were affected, it said. China has experienced several scares over food safety in recent years, many blamed on lax supervision or producers deliberately cutting corners and deceiving consumers in search of profits.—AFP

Heavy teens have trouble managing diabetes: Study LOS ANGELES: New research sends a stark warning to overweight teens: If you develop diabetes, you’ll have a very tough time keeping it under control. A major study, released Sunday, tested several ways to manage blood sugar in teens newly diagnosed with diabetes and found that nearly half of them failed within a few years and 1 in 5 suffered serious complications. The results spell trouble for a nation facing rising rates of “diabesity” - Type 2 diabetes brought on by obesity.

The federally funded study is the largest look yet at how to treat diabetes in teens.

Earlier studies mostly have been in adults, and most diabetes drugs aren’t even approved for youths. The message is clear: Prevention is everything.

“Don’t get diabetes in the first place,” said Dr. Phil Zeitler of the University of Colorado

LOS ANGELES: Judith Garcia, 19, pinches her abdomen to make a firm place to give herself an injection of insulin at her home in the Los Angeles suburb of Commerce, Calif., Sunday. — AP

Denver, one of the study leaders. A third of American children and teens are overweight or obese. They are at higher risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, in which the body can’t make enough insulin or use what it does make to process sugar from food. Until the obesity epidemic, doctors rarely saw children with Type 2 diabetes. The more common kind of diabetes in children is Type 1, which used to be called juvenile diabetes.

Doctors usually start Type 2 treatment with metformin, a pill to lower blood sugar. If it still can’t be controlled, other drugs and daily insulin shots may be needed. The longer blood sugar runs rampant, the greater the risk of suffering vision loss, nerve damage, kidney failure, limb amputation - even heart attacks and strokes.

The goal of the study was simple: What’s the best way for teens to keep diabetes in check? The study involved 699 overweight and obese teens recently diagnosed with diabetes. All had their blood sugar normalized with metformin, then were given one of three treatments to try to maintain that control: metformin alone, metformin plus diet and exercise counseling, or metformin plus a second drug, Avandia.

After nearly four years, half in the metformin group failed to maintain blood sugar control. The odds were a little better for the group that took two drugs but not much different for those in the lifestyle group.

Even so, Zeitler said doctors would not recommend this combination drug therapy because Avandia has been linked to higher risk of heart attacks in adults. Those risks became known after this study had started.

Another study leader from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Dr. Mitchell Geffner, agreed that Avandia can’t be recommended for teens, but said the study makes clear they will need more than metformin to control their disease. “A single pill or single approach is not going to get the job done,” he said. Among all the teens in the study, 1 in 5 had a serious complication such as very high blood sugar, usually landing them in the hospital.— Reuters

NEW YORK: US hospitals are ripping out wall-mounted toilets and replacing them with floor models to better support obese patients. The Federal Transit Administration wants buses to be tested for the impact of heavier riders on steering and braking. Cars are burning nearly a billion gallons of gasoline more a year than if passengers weighed what they did in 1960.

The nation’s rising rate of obesity has been well-chronicled. But businesses, governments and individuals are only now coming to grips with the costs of those extra pounds, many of which are even greater than believed only a few years ago: The additional medical spending due to obesity is double previous estimates and exceeds even those of smoking, a new study shows.

Many of those costs have dollar signs in front of them, such as the higher health insurance premiums everyone pays to cover those extra medical costs. Other changes, often cost-neutral, are coming to the built environment in the form of wider seats in public places from sports stadiums to bus stops.

The startling economic costs of obesity, often borne by the nonobese, could become the epidemic’s second-hand smoke. Only when scientists discovered that nonsmokers were developing lung cancer and other diseases from breathing smoke-filled air did policymakers get serious about fighting the habit, in particular by establishing nonsmoking zones. The costs that smoking added to Medicaid also spurred action. Now, as economists put a price tag on sky-high body mass indexes (BMIs), policymakers as well as the private sector are mobilizing to find solutions to the obesity epidemic. “As committee chairmen, Cabinet secretaries, the head of Medicare and health officials see these really high costs, they are more interested in knowing, ‘what policy knob can I turn to stop this hemorrhage?’” said Michael O’Grady of the National Opinion Research Center, co-author of a new report for the Campaign to End Obesity, which brings together representatives from business, academia and the public health community to work with policymakers on the issue.

The US health care reform law of 2010 allows employers to charge obese workers 30 percent to 50 percent more for health insurance if they decline to participate in a qualified wellness program. The law also includes carrots and celery sticks, so to speak, to persuade Medicare and Medicaid enrollees to see a primary care physician about losing weight, and funds community demonstration

programs for weight loss. Such measures do not sit well with all obese Americans. Advocacy groups formed to “end size discrimination” argue that it is possible to be healthy “at every size,” taking issue with the findings that obesity necessarily comes with added medical costs.

The reason for denominating the costs of obesity in dollars is not to stigmatize plus-size Americans even further. Rather, the goal is to allow public health officials as well as employers to break out their calcula-

said Finkelstein, is also expensive. The very obese lose one month of productive work per year, costing employers an average of $3,792 per very obese male worker and $3,037 per female. Total annual cost of presenteeism due to obesity: $30 billion.

Decreased productivity can reduce wages, as employers penalize less productive workers. Obesity hits workers’ pocketbooks indirectly, too: Numerous studies have shown that the obese are less likely to be hired and promoted than their svelte peers

Obese men rack up an additional $1,152 a year in medical spending. tors and see whether programs to prevent or reverse obesity are worth it. The percentage of Americans who are obese (with a BMI of 30 or higher) has tripled since 1960, to 34 percent, while the incidence of extreme or “morbid” obesity (BMI above 40) has risen sixfold, to 6 percent. The percentage of overweight Americans (BMI of 25 to 29.9) has held steady: It was 34 percent in 2008 and 32 percent in 1961. What seems to have happened is that for every healthyweight person who “graduated” into overweight, an overweight person graduated into obesity.

Because obesity raises the risk of a host of medical conditions, from heart disease to chronic pain, the obese are absent from work more often than people of healthy weight.

The most obese men take 5.9 more sick days a year; the most obese women, 9.4 days more. Obesity-related absenteeism costs employers as much as $6.4 billion a year, health economists led by Eric Finkelstein of Duke University calculated.

Even when poor health doesn’t keep obese workers home, it can cut into productivity, as they grapple with pain or shortness of breath or other obstacles to working all-out.

Such obesity-related “presenteeism,”

are. Women in particular bear the brunt of that, earning about 11 percent less than women of healthy weight, health economist John Cawley of Cornell University found.

At the average weekly US wage of $669 in 2010, that’s a $76 weekly obesity tax.

The medical costs of obesity have long been the focus of health economists. A just-published analysis finds that it raises those costs more than thought. Obese men rack up an additional $1,152 a year in medical spending, especially for hospitalizations and prescription drugs, Cawley and Chad Meyerhoefer of Lehigh University reported in January in the Journal of Health Economics. Obese women account for an extra $3,613 a year. Using data from 9,852 men (average BMI: 28) and 13,837 women (average BMI: 27) ages 20 to 64, among whom 28 percent were obese, the researchers found even higher costs among the uninsured: annual medical spending for an obese person was $3,271 compared with $512 for the non-obese.

Nationally, that comes to $190 billion a year in additional medical spending as a result of obesity, calculated Cawley, or 20.6 percent of US health care expenditures. That is dou-

ble recent estimates, reflecting more precise methodology. The new analysis corrected for people’s tendency to low-ball their weight, for instance, and compared obesity with non-obesity (healthy weight and overweight) rather than just to healthy weight.

Because the merely overweight do not incur many additional medical costs, grouping the overweight with the obese underestimates the costs of obesity.

Contrary to the media’s idealization of slimness, medical spending for men is about the same for BMIs of 26 to 35. For women, the uptick starts at a BMI of 25. In men more than women, high BMIs can reflect extra muscle as well as fat, so it is possible to be healthy even with an overweight BMI. “A man with a BMI of 28 might be very fit,” said Cawley.

“Where healthcare costs really take off is in the morbidly obese.”

Those extra medical costs are partly born by the non-obese, in the form of higher taxes to support Medicaid and higher health insurance premiums. Obese women raise such “third party” expenditures $3,220 a year each; obese men, $967 a year, Cawley and Meyerhoefer found. One recent surprise is the discovery that the costs of obesity exceed those of smoking. In a paper published in March, scientists at the Mayo Clinic toted up the exact medical costs of 30,529 Mayo employees, adult dependents, and retirees over several years.

“Smoking added about 20 percent a year to medical costs,” said Mayo’s James Naessens. “Obesity was similar, but morbid obesity increased those costs by 50 percent a year. There really is an economic justification for employers to offer programs to help the very obese lose weight.”

For years researchers suspected that the higher medical costs of obesity might be offset by the possibility that the obese would die young, and thus never rack up spending for nursing homes, Alzheimer’s care, and other pricey items. That’s what happens to smokers. While they do incur higher medical costs than nonsmokers in any given year, their lifetime drain on public and private dollars is less because they die sooner. “Smokers die early enough that they save Social Security, private pensions, and Medicare” trillions of dollars, said Duke’s Finkelstein.

“But mortality isn’t that much higher among the obese.” Beta blockers for heart disease, diabetes drugs, and other treatments are keeping the obese alive longer, with the result that they incur astronomically high medical expenses in old age just like their slimmer peers.— Reuters

Scientists find gene that slow pancreas cancer spread PARIS: Scientists have identified a gene that slows the spread of pancreatic cancer tumours, paving the way for targeted treatment of one of the deadliest forms of the disease, said a paper published Sunday.

After discovering the gene dubbed USP9X at work in a study of pancreatic cancer in mice, the international research team found it also played a role in humans. “We looked in human tumour specimens and we found that it was missing in a fraction of patients-the patients that did very poorly ... the people who died the fastest,” researcher David Tuveson told AFP. “Patients that had a low level of the gene expressed ... they died very quickly after their

operation and the patients who at the end of their life had lots of metastasis (spreading of the cancer), they had also a very low level of this protein.”

The existence of the gene, which is found in all of our cells but goes missing in some tumours, was known before but not its role as a cancer suppressor, said Tuveson. Three other pancreatic tumour suppressor genes are known to exist, but this is the one whose absence “probably causes metastasis-that is what kills people with pancreas cancer,” said the scientist.

The discovery means that “we can wake up the gene by using drugs” known as epigenetic

modulators, he added. “Our observation allows us to potentially treat people that have lost this gene in the pancreas tumours. It allows us to offer a therapy for the patients that actually have the worst prognosis.”

Tuveson said these kinds of drugs have already been developed, “but people haven’t figured out where exactly they would be useful. “We are proposing that these drugs would be useful in this subset of pancreas cancer patients.” Pancreatic cancer kills about 96 percent of its victims within five years of diagnosis, one of the lowest cancer survival rates. Early diagnosis is difficult, so the disease is often discovered only after it has already spread. —AFP

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

H E A LT H

Checking up on your fitness form

SINGAPORE: People walk on the ‘OCBC Skyway’ linking the Supertrees, ranging from 25-50 meters in height and serving as vertical gardens while others are dwarfed on ground level in the nearly completed Gardens By The Bay just next to Singapore’s busy financial district yesterday in Singapore. This is part of the city-state’s efforts to bring and nurture greenery within the city and capture the essence of Singapore as a tropical city.—AP

Spain scraps health benefits for illegal immigrants MADRID: Spain takes pride in its universal health care but Europe’s debt crisis has spurred tough budget cuts that will bring sometimes life-saving treatment for illegal immigrants to an abrupt end.

Carmen Maria, a 33-year-old woman from Nicaragua who arrived in the country in 2010, has no legal ID in Spain but has benefitted from free health coverage for her illness nonetheless.

She has been working as a cleaner and despite failing to obtain residency she was able to enjoy the same health care as any legal Spanish citizen.

Ten months ago she was diagnosed with dermatomyositis, a skin disease which can be associated with a tumour and lead to potentially fatal complications.

“It’s considered a rare disease and my condition requires constant medical monitoring,” said Carmen Maria, whose husband and four children still live in Nicaragua.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s

government, faced with soaring unemployment, rising debt and a slide into recession, has launched an austerity plan aimed at cutting the deficit from 8.5 percent of GDP last year to 5.3 percent in 2012.

To achieve the package’s target of cutting health expenditure by seven billion euros ($9.3 billion), only legal immigrants will retain health coverage as of September 1.

Among illegal immigrants, only children, pregnant women and emergency cases will qualify for free treatment.

“This will only put Spain on a par with other European Union countries,” according to Health Minister Ana Mato.

The measure will leave half a million illegal immigrants who have been counting on Spain’s health coverage with no safety net, and several organisations have been sounding alarm bells.

Carmen Maria decided to seek help from the group SOS Racismo, saying, “I’m alone here, I don’t have

anyone.” “The economic crisis, no matter how severe it is, should not be an excuse for stripping immigrants of all their rights,” SOS Racismo said, describing access to health care as “a fundamental right”. “This is a very dangerous situation,” said Vladimir Paspuel, who heads Ruminahui, a SpanishEcuadorian association that offers social and legal assistance to immigrants.

“It can have life-threatening consequences in cases where a disease is not treated in time,” he said.

“Another thing is that it sends a subliminal message to Spanish society: ‘Illegal immigrants are the ones who are pilfering the money, they are responsible for the crisis’,” he explained.

In a bid to defuse any surge in anti-immigrant rhetoric among the public following the conservative government’s decision, groups such Ruminahui point out that immigrants are more sparing with

their visits to the doctor’s.

According to a study carried out by a health expert and published in the El Pais daily, immigrants on average go 5.05 times when Spaniards go 7.65 times over the same period.

“I don’t go to the doctor more than twice a year,” said Wilson Quintero, a 42-year-old Ecuadorian.

But scrapping health coverage for 500,000 Latin Americans, North Africans and Eastern Europeans in Spain “is a serious problem”, he said.

“If someone falls ill and doesn’t have a steady job, what is he supposed to do? It will become very difficult,” he said.

Wilson has lived in Spain since 2002 and worked as a builder until the real estate bubble burst, which led him to lose first his job and then his residency.

Spain’s unemployment rate is the highest in the industrialised world at 24.4 percent. It is even higher among immigrants at more than 40 percent. —AFP

NEW YORK: From jumping rope to swinging a kettle bell to pounding a treadmill, a finely-tuned form can spell the difference between a sound body and a sore knee.

Exper ts say often a professional tweak can go a long way towards firming up your workout.

“People usually injure themselves on basic exercises, like a squat or a bench press,” said New York-based personal trainer Tiffany Boucher.

But Boucher, who works for the national chain of fitness centers Equinox, said form is relatively easy to fix.

“Something is being overused, usually in tandem with some type of muscle imbalance,” she said. “So it’s often about getting people to put their shoulders in a certain place, find their center of gravity, engage their abdominals, or tilt their pelvis in a certain direction.”

She said even a small adjustment can be transformative. Knees are the most common focus of client complaint, according to Boucher. Once form is corrected, relief often comes within weeks.

“People don’t have that continued inflammation,” she said. Dr. Daniel Solomon, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, believes in getting the help of a professional trainer before embarking on a new routine.

“Most of what we see are strains and really preventable muscle-type injuries,” said Solomon, a California-based physician specializing in sports medicine. “People just

do things their bodies aren’t ready to do or capable of sustaining for long.”

Another big mistake is skipping the warm up. “They jump right in instead of spending 15 minutes to do a good cardio warm up and stretching before grabbing the weight,” he said. He said some workouts just require more expertise than others.

“I’m a proponent of using free weights,” he said. “But you’ve got to make sure you have the technique correct.” Jessica Matthews, an exercise physiologist for the American Council on Exercise, said many highly effective workouts, such as kettle bells, medicine balls, and plyometric (jumping) moves, can be dangerous if done incorrectly.

“Some workouts are trickier,” said Matthews, who is based in San Diego, California. “I’ve seen a lot of people use free weights incorrectly. There is a much greater margin of error than with machines, which move on a fixed path.”

Before going all-out on the plyometric training that characterizes so many home DVD workouts, she said it ’s important to learn to land safely, which means softly and on the mid-foot. “The body is one big kinetic chain.

Dysfunction in one area will create dysfunction in another,” she said. “So suddenly your hip is bothering you because of instability in your ankle.”

Before tackling the latest high-intensity, technique -based workout, Matthews advises strengthening your stability and mobility through back-tobasic exercises such as plank, side plank, lunges and squats.

“Build that solid foundation first,” she said. “Then progress to more explosive workouts that take more advanced skills.” If don’t have your own personal trainer, Boucher said, don’t hesitate to ask a fitness professional at your gym to observe your form for a few seconds. Then be open to the feedback. “Do you hunch your shoulders? Hunch your back? “ she said. “Maybe one side of your body is tighter than the other. Or the left hip is more rotated than the right.”

“Sometimes it’s that little thing that you can’t catch on your own,” she said. — Reuters

30

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

W H AT ’ S O N Greetings

Wishing Fady Salah Fakari a very happy birthday! Best wishes comes from Mohammad Khalid, Mastan and Tariq.

Welcome to the annual spring bazaar

A

n event like no other! Enjoy a day of shopping and socializing, there’s something for everyone!

Come browse through our unique variety of souvenirs, gifts, perfumes, fresh flowers, homemade treats, carpets, custom jewelry, fashion, accessories, photographs, original artwork and handicrafts. K-net is available on site. Running from Friday, May 4th, 10:30am to 8:30pm at The Safir Hotel, The Pearl Hall, Bnaid Al Gar. (Gulf Road across from AbdulWaheb Lebanese Restaurant). Entrance Fee: 1KD *The Blood Bank will be there to take your donations

Mais Alghanim celebrates Annual Open Day

M

ais Alghanim recently celebrated the Annual staff party with all employees and their families in Marah Land. The event was also attended by the owners, executive management and guests. The event was fun-filled and had many games for kids and adults with different activities to suit everyone’s taste such as a raffle draw and sport activities.

The day ended with a wonderful buffet.

The event was marked by various awards & recognitions for the employees.

Some of the award categories included Employee Of the Month Feb 2012, which was awarded to Rubi Fernandes,

Leader Of the Quarter, which was awarded to Arif Attari, 20 Years of Service Awards, which were awarded to Lito Clarin, Ricardo A Labrador and Filomeno Caciano Desmundo Dacosta and two appreciation certificates, which were awarded to Raghupathy Margabandu and Abdallah Kassem.

One leading Award went to Jorge Malquisto Jr, Chef De Partie in the Kitchen Department, who received the “Emile Barakat Lifetime Achievement Award.”

Jorge has been working with the company since December 1987. The second leading award went to Khorshed Alam,

Kitchen Steward from the ‘To Go’ Division who received the “Employee of the Year 2012” award. Khorshed joined Mais Alghanim in August 2005.

Mais Alghanim believes that the annual award plays a key role in the company’s ongoing commitment to the development and recognition of its team members, which boosts the service it provides to its customers and contributes to the company’s growth. Speaking on this momentous occasion, Chawki Barakat, General Manager said, “Mais Alghanim today, in its 59th year of operation has established itself as an esteemed brand in

the Food and Beverage Industry. We further need to strengthen and grow this brand in the ever evolving minds of our consumers. We hope that with unstinted support of all employees, we would succeed in our goal.” As part of the celebrations, talent shows were presented by different team members whom were divided into various zones. Winners were given bumper prizes ranging from cash prizes, trophies to electronic and household items. By the end of the day, the gathering was thoroughly enjoyed by all in a festive family atmosphere of friendship and social interaction.

Announcements People of Uttrankhand state form association It gives us pleasure to inform you that we, the people of Uttrankhand \ state from India, have decided to form an Association which will soon be registered with Indian embassy Kuwait. Nearly 200 people have already been connected and have given their valuable views and suggestions. All people have given their positive response. Anyone from Uttrakhand who is interested in joining the Association can contact Ravindra Singh Rawat on 6609 4925 for more information.

Frontliners function Frontliners Association, Kuwait is conducting a starstudded “National Integration and Grand Cultural Show’ on May 4, 2012 (Friday) at 6pm at Al-Jeel Jadeed, School, Hawally. The highlight of the function will be the release of “Frontliners Book - series 16” by writer NC Mohandoss. Three eminent persons with illustrious career will grace the occasion of the Book release.

Gopalaswami, Former Chief Election Commissioner will be the Chief Guest. V. Ponraj, Scientist & Advisor to former President Dr Abdul Kalam, is a key public figure whose recent tasks included the preparataion of “Koodankulam Report” and conducting special training session for the MLAs after the Assembly election last year and Vivek, the special guest for the evening is a ‘Padma Shri’ awardee and a popular Tamil film comedian known to south with a string of awards for his hilarious and stylish performances. For details contacy 99816937, 55483266.

‘Arangetram 2012’ Nandhanam School of Dance, an institute to promote India’s rich culture and values in Kuwait, is conducting its first “Arangetram 2012”, a student’s debut on stage dance performance, at the American International School, Maidan Hawalli - Kuwait on Friday, May 4, 2012. The program will start by 05:45 pm and the guests are requested to be seated 15 minutes before the program. For information contact 97895754, 99129611, 67057758.

Intensive Free Arabic Course in IPC IPC is opening an intensive Basic Arabic Course for ladies commencing from June 3-July 8, 2012. The class will be from 5 -7 pm and 3 days a week. Registration is on! For information, call: 22512257.

Iranian Contemporary Art Date: 23rd April to 10th May, 2012 These are images of conflations and juxtapositions. Sabzi’s paintings signify the crossroad of cultures and evoke one of the most pertinent signs of the multiculturalism that has been the hallmark of the arts in late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. His art represents that humanized perspective where in memory persists across cultural zones, even when and where it has no relevance.

So many of his works speak of conditions where values and perspectives seep through the chinks of any culture’s shield of protection. They are about the kind of interconnectedness that can no longer be undone; they are about the end of purity and the end of searching for origins and essence.

The Event-Art & Fashion Date: April 28-May 1 The Event will be sponsored by Goji Boutique and Qumarl4 and will be filled with an eclectic mix of designers who compliment each other, providing the visitors with an inspiring and unique shopping experience. To add to excitement Join them and feast your eyes! Dar Al Funoon is located In Al-Watiah, Behbehani Compound, House No.28. For more Information please call 22433738 or log onto www.daralfunoon-kw.com Sadu House Opening: 7 May 2012 5pm-8pm Exhibition Hours: 8 May, 9am - 1pm & 48pm, 9 May, 9am - 1pm For its launch exhibition, Zen Crafts presents the richness of Gulf handicrafts, blending traditional and modern design to create unique and expertly crafted contemporary pieces. An exquisite limited collection of hand-woven textiles inspired by the bedouin art of Sadu weaving, and award-winning designer/ silversmith Nedda El-Asmar’s take on the modern mabkhar, the Gulf’s iconic incense burner, will be unveiled. Join us on this cultural journey from Kuwait to Laos and Brussels in the brand’s quest for new interpretations of our Gulf heritage. Sodu House is located in Kuwait City, on Gulf Street, next to the Kuwait National Museum. For more Information please call 99402406 or email info@zericrafts.com Visit www.zericrafts.com

Najla Al-Naqqi Forum hosts Saudi poet

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he Najla Al-Naqqi Forum hosted an event recently featuring Saudi poet Mohammad Al-Jelwah; board member of the Ahsa Literature Club and Kuwaiti poet Tahir Al-Najadi. During the event, Kuwaiti cultural researcher Abdullah bin Nasser presented Al-Jelwah with an original copy of the ‘Dewan of Poet Fahad Buresli’, a collection of poetry works by the prominent Kuwaiti poet. Researcher in Kuwaiti sea culture, Nawaf Al-Asfour, also attended the event and displayed rare items used by sailors in pre-oil Kuwait.

KES hosts annual awards night

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undreds of proud parents of children who attended Kuwait English School gathered at its annual prize giving ceremony, held in the lavish setting of the Arraya Ballroom at the Courtyard Marriott Hotel on Sunday night. The new KES crest and backdrop were arranged by creative designer Jassim Al-Saddah, a former student and son of the chairman, former diplomat Mohammed Jassim AlSaddah.

A regal 2012 procession was led by KES High Management, Heads of Department, Head Boy and Head Girl, and the prize-winning students starting with members of the band. After the National Anthem, Ahmed Abdelaal recited verses from the Holy Quran. Dalaal Al-Sallal read a translation in English.

John Sherwood, Senior High School Principal opened the ceremony and Ian Drummond, Showband Director, led 72 students and members of staff in a lively rendition of Boogie Down. Naela Al-Saddah, KES Vice Chairman, delivered a welcome address in both Arabic and English. Naela noted that KES is one of the best schools in Kuwait, the Gulf and even the world. She said the success of the students is a reward to their parents. Naela said Muhmood, KES Director, has been “much missed” during her absence due to the unprecedented illness of Muhmood, School Manager.

Fatima Hussain Al-Easa Al-Qanaie, guest of honour, presented prizes to Year 7, Year 8 and Year 9 students. KES Senior Choir, consisting of 33 students, was conducted by music teacher, Michael Hassan, and enhanced the evening with an absolutely amazing tribute to Queen.

“That really takes me back,” said John Sherwood addressing the gathering. John Sherwood said KES staff particularly enjoy the success of KES students. Of the 900 Senior High School students, 138 are elite prize winners. This 15 percent of gifted and talented students are driven to succeed like Olympic champions, he said. According to August results, KES outperformed the UK average by a considerable margin and up to 25 percent higher marks, shown by the grades achieved in some of the examinations.

“A great many excel in so many aspects of school life,” he said. John Sherwood said KES students also thrive on the sports field, both locally and abroad. He said KES has the top swimming team in Kuwait. He mentioned a list of other events KES students participate in during the academic year. He also said he never ceases to be amazed at the generosity of both parents and stu-

dents in works of charity. “People throughout the world benefit from our caring approach,” he added.

“I look to the future with confidence,” Sherwood said, “Every one of us is a lifelong learner”. Ian Drummond conducted the Showband before an address by Fatima AlQenaie. Fatima is a leading Kuwaiti pioneer in the field of media and journalism. She studied in Cairo and worked in broadcast-

ed the Year 12 prize for boys. The orchestra played a splendid classical piece conducted

by Dragan Markovic, a beautiful rendering leading into an address by Rhoda Elizabeth Muhmood, KES Director.

“To end is to begin,” said Muhmood, quoting T.S. Elliot. Muhmood said the lives of the students are owed to the quality of education received both at school and at home. Muhmood praised

ing here before taking up a post in the Foreign Ministry, where she met the KES Chairman. In 1991 she was Chief Editor at Al-Watan newspaper and founded Samra magazine.

Naela presented the prizes to students in Years 10, 11 and 13. Mohammed El Bahnasawi, who last year obtained the highest mark in the world for maths, won the Year 12 chemistry prize this year. David Abi Hanna won the Year 12 maths prize, and the GCSE/GCE PE prize, and was award-

the band and the choir. “I don’t think many schools in the world have such a wealth of music,” she said.

Muhmood sent his love, missing the event for the first time since the establishment of the school in 1979 due to ill health. Muhmood thanked everyone for their thoughts, prayers and concern, particularly and especially thanking Maha Al-Azmi, who has dealt with so many matters so efficiently during the past 20 years.

Mohammad Al-Dahes, Director of the Private Education Department, sent his apologies for being unable to attend the event as scheduled to present the special prizes. Sherwood assisted Muhmood to present special prizes to outstanding students, whom had already won three or more prizes during the course of the year.

Mahmoud El Bahnasawi scooped up the Year 10 prize. Sofia Switzer and Abdullah Khalil won Year 11 prizes, and Someh Daga won in Year 13. Kelsea Helmsley won in Year 9 and Alicja Rutkowska and Farah Abdelrahim, both in Year 7, also won prizes.

Honour prizes went to Heui Sung Kim who won the first place in the Emirates Youth Symphony orchestra International Competition for violin and piano, flute and clarinet. Muhannad Al-Shihabi won an honour prize due to a most creative school project which won Fourth place in the annual Kuwait Science Fair. Hariz Johnson, who came first worldwide in the Cambridge IGCSE English literature exam, also won the Year 12 prize for musical instrumentalists. Hariz received a standing ovation from the band as thunderous applause greeted the students. Ahmad Al-Shareeda won the Asdan Award.

“These students, their families and KES staff are to be especially congratulated and recognised for the exceptional and prestigious honour they brought to KES,” the programme stated. Steven Tarry led the Concert Band in Marching Down Broadway, and John Sherwood closed the ceremony. The students left the hall in a procession, followed by the guest speaker, dignitaries and then the parents, who participated in a sumptuous celebration reception.

31

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

W H AT ’ S O N

Embassy Information EMBASSY OF BRAZIL The Embassy of Brazil requests all Brazilian citizens in Kuwait to proceed to the website www.brazil.org.kw (Contact Us Form / Fale Conosco) in order to register or update contact information. The Embassy encourages all citizens to do so, including the ones who have already registered in person at the Embassy.

The registration process helps the Brazilian Government to contact and assist Brazilians living abroad in case of any emergency.

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GUST Islamic Finance Club students visit Malaysia

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he Gulf University for Science and Technology (GUST) student run club, the Islamic Finance Club (IFC), organized a business to visit the most important Islamic finance institutions in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, including banks, companies and universities.

The main goal of the trip was to take the students into an experience where they can see first-hand the work of Islamic Finance in one of the superior markets in Eastern Asia.

The students were accompanied by Assistant Professor in the College of Business Administration at GUST, Dr. Khiyar Abdalla Khiyar. The IFC visited Kuwait Finance House Malaysia (KFHM), Kuwait Finance House Research Co., Islamic Finance Services Board (IFSB),

International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), the Embassy of Kuwait in Malaysia and the International Center of Education in Islamic Finance (INCEIF). At the INCEIF, the students received an overview of the institution from Dr. Ahcene Lahsasna and highlighted the INCEIF’s unique relationship with the industry which resulted in regular interaction between INCEIF students and Faculty with the industry players.

Dr. Khiyar said: “Malaysia being the hub of a thriving and effective Islamic finance industry was definitely a must visit for us. We are here at INCEIF in particular to learn its role in the promotion and development of the industry.” This is the second business trip the students organize to Malaysia, after their first trip

ICSK Khaitan holds CCE orientation program

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n orientation program on CCE was organized for the parents whose wards are currently studying in Classes 9 and 10, on April 19, 2012 Thursday

by ICSK Khaitan. After the introductory remarks by the Principal, there was a PowerPoint presentation on “Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation”. All the aspects of this newly arrived scheme of evaluation were duly dealt with. The interaction between parents and the school’s faculty was quite fruitful. The parents actively participated in the discussions and clarified their doubts about the new evaluation pattern. The PowerPoint presentation was given by V. S. Shastry, Coordinator, Senior Dept. The participants benefitted a lot from the orientation programme.

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to Bahrain in 2010; and like the prior trips, this trip was successful and beneficial for the students and showed them

the great role Islamic Finance plays in the markets today and the position it holds in the global economics.

Country Kidz crowned winners in Battle of the Bands 2012

EMBASSY OF CYPRUS The Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus requests Cypriot citizens living in Kuwait to register with the Embassy has moved. This registration service is provided so that the Embassy can update its contact list and assist Cypriot citizens in cases of emergencies.

Registration information can be emailed to cyprusembassykwt@gmail.com or faxed to 22253227 or given by phone to 65906048 (Mrs Christine).

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EMBASSY OF INDIA The Embassy of India will remain closed on Sunday, May 6, 2012 on account of ‘Buddha Purnima’.

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EMBASSY OF KOREA The Embassy of the Republic of Korea wishes to inform that it has moved to Mishref. New Address: Embassy of the Republic of Korea Mishref, Block 7A, Diplomatic Area 2, Plot 6 The Embassy also wishes to inform that it will be opened to the public on the following office hours: Saturday to Thursday Morning: 8:00 am to 12:30 pm Lunch Break: 12:30 pm to 1:00 pm Afternoon: 1:00 pm to 3:30 pm ■■■■■■■

EMBASSY OF MYANMAR Embassy of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar would like to inform the general public that the Embassy has moved its office to new location at Villa 35, Road 203, Block 2, AlSalaam Area in South Surra. The Embassy wishes to advice Myanmar citizens and travellers to Myanmar to contact Myanmar Embassy at its new location.

Tel. 25240736, 25240290, Fax: 25240749, email:myankuwait11@gmai1.com

Kozhikode District Association holds 2nd anniversary

T

he Kozhikode District Association celebrated its second anniversary at Touristic Park, Abbasiya in grand style. The celebrations titled ‘Kozhikode Fest 2012’ attracted thousands to the Touristic Park. The musical night, presented by film playback singer, Sindhu Premkumar and other reputed singers from Kozhikode Salish Syam and Faisal Moothadath enthralled the large audience. They rendered a variety of songs including melodies and trendy songs in Malayalam, Tamil and Hindi. Sindhu who started with melodies went on to sing some big hits in Malayalam and Tamil.

The Figure Live Show, presented by Kalabhavan Siraj, who hails from Kozhikode District, was an unforgettable experience for all. With expressions on his face changing in a flash, Siraj presented different personalities with dexterity rarely seen creating new standards in mimics. With his great performance Siraj endeared himself to the audience in Kuwait and all agreed in one voice that his name will be heard quite often in the years to come.

Association President Rajagopalan Edavalath presided over the inaugural function of Kozhikode Fest 2012. Shabeer Mandoly, patron of the association inaugurated the event. General Convenor Jayaprakash Palliyalil welcomed the gathering. Rishi Jacob, General Secretary presented the annual report and Santhakumar, Treasurer expressed vote of thanks.

EMBASSY OF CANADA The Embassy of Canada is located at Villa 24, Al-Mutawakel St., Block 4 in Da’aiyah. Please visit our website at www.Kuwait.gc.ca. The Embassy of Canada is open from 07:30 to 15:30 Sunday through Thursday. The reception is closed from 12:30 to 01:00 pm for lunch break.

Consular Services for Canadian Citizens are provided from 09:00 until 12:00 on Sunday through Wednesday. The Canadian Embassy in Abu Dhabi provides visa and immigration services to residents of Kuwait. Individuals who are interested in visiting, working or immigrating to Canada are invited to visit the website of the Canadian Embassy to the UAE at www.uae.gc.ca.

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EMBASSY OF NEPAL The Embassy of Nepal will be moving from its current location to a new place in Jabriya, Block 8, St. 13, House No. 514, effective from 15th April, 2012. Till the new telephone connections are installed, the Embassy may be contacted by email: info@nepembku.org ■■■■■■■

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n April 27, at IEAS Auditorium, Salmiya, Don Bosco Past Pupils Association organized “Battle of the Bands - Simply Unplugged 2012”. Various bands had come to unleash their raw talent to win the title. It was a high intensity unplugged competition among the music bands in Kuwait. The competition was divided into juniors and seniors.

Country Kidz bagged the first place for their all round performance in showmanship and instruments for third consecutive year,

which left the audience wanting more. Kuwait Times asked the young band members (Amanda, Johanson, Kegan, Slegi and Slevi) on how they feel winning for the third time and they said “We want to carry this success all the way into our professional careers” .

Band Manager Karmen Meneses said “ Kidz have put on lot of effort for over three years along with their trainer Ramos Fernandes, and since they have been learning since the age of five, they have gelled to be complete entertainers”. Styx Divas bagged the second

place in juniors section. Judges for the show were Rico (lead singer and on guitar and keyboard), Hashim Al-Nasser (lead guitarist Jelly Shot Band) and Caesar Fernandes (Owner of portal Kuwait-Music.com). Bands which performed in junior section were: The Raptors, Scorpions JR, Music Makers, Explosive, Pretty Pink, Freak M Out, Frequenzy, Cooljulia, Beauty n the Boyz, Dark Angels, 4 Ways Only, Styx Divas, 4 Dimension, Styx & Country Kidz. In senior section Stripes & Twisted Fate performed.

EMBASSY OF ROMANIA The Embassy of Romania to the State of Kuwait would like to inform that the Consular Section of the Embassy will be closed for construction works beginning with 18 April 2012, till 10 May 2012. During this period of time the Consular Section will not issue any type of visas for Romania and will not issue any Romanian passports or travel documents. The Consular Section will only be able to assist with notary deeds. We would like to apologize for any inconvenience.

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EMBASSY OF SLOVAKIA The Embassy of the Slovak Republic in Kuwait would like to inform the public that on the occasion of Labor Day, the Embassy will be closed on Tuesday, May the 1st.

The Embassy will also be closed on the occasion of Liberation Day on Tuesday, May the 8th.

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EMBASSY OF THAILAND The Royal Thai Embassy in Kuwait, wishes to invite the Kuwaiti companies that deal business with Thai companies or those agencies of Thai commercial companies to visit the Embassy’s Commercial Office to register their relevant information to be part of the embassy’s business and trade database. The Royal Thai Embassy is located in Jabriya, Block 6, Street 8, Villa No. 1, Telephone No. 25317530 -25317531, Ext: 14.

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EMBASSY OF UKRAINE We’d like to inform you that in response to the increasing number of our citizens who work in the state and the need for 24-hour operational telephone in case of emergency the Embassy of Ukraine in the State of Kuwait has opened “hotline telephone number” (+ 965) 972-79-206.

Write to us

3rd Kuwait Cricket Centre Tournament

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uwait Cricket Centre (Associate member - Kuwait Cricket) organized the third cricket tournament season 2011-12. Finals was on April 27. The second final team Skylark (Captain Mehmi Abdulla) beat team Kuwait Swedish by 51 runs. Team Skylark won toss and elected to bat scored 222 runs in 19 over lost 4 wickets. But Kuwait Swedish did second batted scored 172 runs in 10 wickets. Kuwait Cricket Director General Asad Baig, Kuwait Cricket Centre President Said Mubarak Said Club Secretary Gopa Kumar participated. Kuwait Cricket Centre life achievement award was given to Vinod V. Nair of 98.4 ufm Radio news head.

Send to What’s On upcoming events, birthdays or celebrations by email: local@kuwaittimes.net Fax: 24835619 / 20

Classifieds TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

DIAL 161 FOR AIRPORT INFORMATION

Airlines JZR QTR JZR RJA GFA UAE ETD OMA DHX FDB MSR QTR KAC THY DHX FAH JZR KAC BAW KAC KAC FDB KAC KAC KAC KAC UAE ABY QTR FDB IRA ETD IRA GFA MEA RAB JZR MSR JZR JZR MSR GFA KAC KAC FDB KNE QTR SVA KAC RJA RJA KAC KAC QTR JZR JZR ETD JZR UAE SVA GFA UAL JZR JZR ABY KAC KAC KAC FDB KAC MSR JZR KAC KAC KAC JAI KAC AXB FDB OMA MEA QTR GFA ALK SYR KLM UAE JZR ABY QTR DHX AIC RBG GFA UAL JZR DLH THY PIA

Arrival Flights on Tuesday 1/5/2012 Flt Route 185 DUBAI 148 DOHA 539 CAIRO 642 AMMAN 211 BAHRAIN 853 DUBAI 305 ABU DHABI 643 MUSCAT 370 BAHRAIN 67 DUBAI 612 CAIRO 138 DOHA 544 CAIRO 770 ISTANBUL 170 BAHRAIN 201 DUBAI 555 ALEXANDRIA 412 MANILA 157 LONDON 416 JAKARTA 206 ISLAMABAD 53 DUBAI 302 MUMBAI 332 TRIVANDRUM 352 COCHIN 284 DHAKA 855 DUBAI 125 SHARJAH 132 DOHA 55 DUBAI 605 ISFAHAN 301 ABU DHABI 619 LAR 213 BAHRAIN 404 BEIRUT 110 SHARJAH 165 DUBAI 618 ALEXANDRIA 561 SOHAG 201 DAMASCUS 610 CAIRO 219 BAHRAIN 514 TEHRAN 672 DUBAI 57 DUBAI 472 JEDDAH 140 DOHA 500 JEDDAH 562 AMMAN 640 AMMAN 80 AMMAN 678 ABU DHABI 546 ALEXANDRIA 134 DOHA 215 DEIREZZOR 535 CAIRO 303 ABU DHABI 787 RIYADH 857 DUBAI 510 RIYADH 215 BAHRAIN 982 WASHINGTON DC DULLES 177 DUBAI 777 JEDDAH 127 SHARJAH 542 CAIRO 166 PARIS 786 JEDDAH 63 DUBAI 104 LONDON 624 SOHAG 325 NAJAF 618 DOHA 674 DUBAI 742 DAMMAM 572 MUMBAI 774 RIYADH 389 KOZHIKODE 61 DUBAI 647 MUSCAT 402 BEIRUT 146 DOHA 221 BAHRAIN 229 COLOMBO 341 DAMASCUS 415 AMSTERDAM 859 DUBAI 135 BAHRAIN 129 SHARJAH 136 DOHA 372 BAHRAIN 981 CHENNAI 3553 ALEXANDRIA 217 BAHRAIN 981 BAHRAIN 239 AMMAN 636 FRANKFURT 772 ISTANBUL 205 LAHORE

Time 0:15 0:20 0:30 2:10 2:20 2:25 2:30 2:50 2:55 3:10 3:20 3:25 4:10 4:35 5:00 5:30 6:00 6:15 6:30 6:35 7:15 7:45 7:50 7:55 8:05 8:15 8:25 8:30 9:00 9:20 9:20 9:30 9:40 10:00 10:55 11:00 11:05 11:25 12:25 12:30 13:30 13:40 13:40 13:40 13:45 14:15 14:25 14:30 14:30 14:55 15:00 15:05 15:05 15:15 15:15 16:00 16:35 16:40 16:55 17:20 17:20 17:25 17:30 17:40 17:45 18:15 18:40 18:40 18:45 18:45 18:55 19:15 19:20 19:25 19:30 19:35 19:40 19:55 20:00 20:10 20:15 20:25 20:35 20:55 21:00 21:05 21:15 21:15 21:30 21:35 22:00 22:25 22:30 22:35 22:40 22:55 23:10 23:40 23:59

Airlines AIC UAL DLH KLM PIA THY UAE FDB OMA DHX ETD MSR QTR QTR JZR RJA JZR JZR GFA THY KAC BAW FDB KAC ABY JZR KAC KAC KAC UAE JZR KAC QTR FDB ETD IRA IRA GFA KAC KAC MEA JZR MSR KAC JZR JZR GFA FDB MSR RAB KAC KNE SVA KAC RJA JZR QTR RJA KAC KAC ETD JZR JZR QTR UAE GFA JZR ABY SVA UAL JZR FDB MSR JZR KAC KAC JAI FDB KAC KAC OMA MEA KAC GFA DHX ALK SYR KLM ABY KAC UAE FAH QTR KAC KAC DHX JZR QTR AXB RBG GFA KAC JZR

Departure Flights on Tuesday 1/5/2012 Flt Route 976 GOA 981 WASHINGTON DC 637 FRANKFURT 411 AMSTERDAM 240 SIALKOT 773 ISTANBUL 854 DUBAI 68 DUBAI 644 MUSCAT 371 BAHRAIN 306 ABU DHABI 613 CAIRO 139 DOHA 149 DOHA 560 SOHAG 643 AMMAN 164 DUBAI 200 DAMASCUS 212 BAHRAIN 771 ISTANBUL 545 ALEXANDRIA 156 LONDON 54 DUBAI 677 ABU DHABI 126 SHARJAH 534 CAIRO 513 IMAM KHOMEINI 561 AMMAN 671 DUBAI 856 DUBAI 214 DEIREZZOR 101 LONDON 133 DOHA 56 DUBAI 302 ABU DHABI 604 ISFAHAN 618 LAR 214 BAHRAIN 541 CAIRO 165 ROME 405 BEIRUT 776 JEDDAH 623 SOHAG 785 JEDDAH 786 RIYADH 176 DUBAI 220 BAHRAIN 58 DUBAI 611 CAIRO 110 KANDAHAR 673 DUBAI 473 JEDDAH 501 JEDDAH 617 DOHA 641 AMMAN 324 AL NAJAF 135 DOHA 81 DUBAI 773 RIYADH 741 DAMMAM 304 ABU DHABI 238 AMMAN 538 CAIRO 141 DOHA 858 DUBAI 216 BAHRAIN 134 BAHRAIN 128 SHARJAH 511 RIYADH 982 BAHRAIN 266 BEIRUT 64 DUBAI 607 LUXOR 184 DUBAI 283 DHAKA 361 COLOMBO 571 MUMBAI 62 DUBAI 343 CHENNAI 351 KOCHI 648 MUSCAT 403 BEIRUT 543 CAIRO 222 BAHRAIN 171 BAHRAIN 230 COLOMBO 342 DEIREZZOR 415 DAMMAM 120 SHARJAH 381 DELHI 860 DUBAI 102 DUBAI 137 DOHA 301 MUMBAI 205 ISLAMABAD 373 BAHRAIN 554 ALEXANDRIA 147 DOHA 390 MANGALORE 3554 ALEXANDRIA 218 BAHRAIN 411 BANGKOK 528 ASSIUT

Time 0:05 0:25 0:30 0:55 1:00 2:15 3:45 3:50 3:55 3:55 4:05 4:20 4:50 5:40 6:00 6:50 6:55 7:00 7:05 7:10 8:10 8:25 8:25 8:35 9:05 9:10 9:15 9:15 9:20 9:40 9:45 10:00 10:00 10:05 10:15 10:20 10:40 10:45 11:30 11:45 11:55 12:15 12:25 13:10 13:15 13:20 14:25 14:25 14:30 15:00 15:05 15:15 15:45 15:45 15:50 15:50 16:15 16:20 16:25 16:30 17:20 17:30 17:40 17:45 18:05 18:20 18:20 18:25 18:35 18:40 18:50 19:25 19:55 20:05 20:15 20:20 20:35 20:40 20:55 21:05 21:10 21:15 21:30 21:35 21:50 21:55 22:00 22:05 22:10 22:20 22:25 22:30 22:35 22:40 22:45 23:00 23:00 23:10 23:10 23:15 23:30 23:40 23:50

Directorate General of Civil Aviation Home Page (www.kuwait-airport.com.kw) Prayer timings

112 Ministry of Interior website: www.moi.gov.kw For labor-related inquiries and complaints: Call MSAL hotline 128

Fajr: Duhr: Asr: Maghrib: Isha:

03:40 11:45 15:21 18:25 19:48

THE PUBLIC AUTHORITY FOR CIVIL INFORMATION Automated enquiry about the Civil ID card is 1889988

ACCOMMODATION Sharing accommodation available with Pakistani family in Kheitan, bachelor or couple. Please contact: 99868113. (C 3972) Sharing accommodation for decent bachelor (non smoking) or working ladies.

Location: Amman street, opposite to Al Rashid Hospital, Salmiya, building no: 44 2nd floor, room no: 10. Contact: 66232356, 50223132. (C 3976) 26-4-2012 Sharing accommodation available in Abbassiya, single bachelor accommodation, double bedroom flat, rent KD 40/-, from May 1st.

Contact: 99162583 (C 3968) 23-4-2012

FOR SALE

CHANGE OF DOB I, Afzalur Rahman, son of Fazlur Rahman, holder of Bangladeshi passport No. E0982724 hereby change my date of birth from 0301-1968 to 03-01-1967.

(C 3960) 19-4-2012

MATRIMONIAL Marriage proposals are invited from parents of well educated boys preferably employed abroad for an ezhava girl, 24 years, height 159cm, fair good looking, star: Ailyam-Shudham, MSc (biotechnology) employed as JRF doing Ph.D at Central Govt. Institute in Kerala.

Contact Email: padmasree52@hotmail.com (C 3964) 21-4-2012

TUITION

PC Desktop Siemens, Core2 Duo, Ram 2GB, HD 160GB, DVD Writer, multi card reader, CPU in small shape, Windows-7 Ultimate, Multimedia, LCD Screen 17”, excellent condition.

Contact: 50505120.

(C 3973)

An experienced M.Sc lady teacher is organizing home private tuition only for class 10 students in Abbassiya.

Contact: 99396335.

(C 3978) 28-4-2012

Mitsubishi Colt model 1993, white color, engine & transmission (gear), external (body) all in good condition, insurance till 25th Januar y 2013, price KD 220/-. Contact: 99337034.

(C 3974) 26-4-2012

Teacher available to teach Mathematics B.Maths, Algebra, Calculus, Geography, Science and Statistics for British, American and bilingual school and university students. Contact: 97170935.

(C 3954)

LOST Policy No: 633002951-7 Mohd Naeem policy no: 633003318-4 Manzar Ali Khan of State Life Insurance has been lost if anybody found please contact: 22452208-9 Mirqab Kwt. (C 3975) 26-4-2012

CHANGE OF NAME Name: Vir Niqel A. Tagongtong has filed with Phil Embassy Kuwait for change of first name from Abel C to Vir Niqel who was born on May 31, 1993 at Al Jahra Kuwait. Any person affected by said publication his/her written opposition w/ Phil Embassy Kuwait not later than May 21, 2012.

(C 3977) 29-4-2012 I, Nazia Begum, D/o Syed Aziz, R/o 18-8-134, Dargah Barhaneh Shah, Santoshnagar, Hyderabad, having passport No. E8384809, have changed my name, henceforth I shall be known and called as “Nazia Syed Aziz”. (C 3969) I, Sajna Kunhi Mohamed, holder of Indian passport No. E2271200 hereby change my name to Ayesha Mohammed hereafter.

(C 3970) 24-4-2012 I, Penigalapati Chinnanarsaiah, holder of Indian passport No. G9940624, residence of Venkatanarayanampalli, Chakrampeta post, Rajampeta, Kadapa District, Andhra Pradesh, have changed my name to Polarapu Babu Naidu.

(C 3967) 22-4-2012

Math teacher for secondary stage, language schools, bilingual schools and intermediate stage: Algebra, Gmath, Geometry, Statistics for arts and science branches. Tel: 66974020.

Hospitals Sabah Hospital

24812000

Amiri Hospital

22450005

Maternity Hospital

24843100

Mubarak Al-Kabir Hospital

25312700

Chest Hospital

24849400

Farwaniya Hospital

24892010

Adan Hospital

23940620

Ibn Sina Hospital

24840300

Al-Razi Hospital

24846000

Physiotherapy Hospital

24874330/9

Clinics Rabiya

24732263

Rawdha

22517733

Adailiya

22517144

Khaldiya

24848075

Khaifan

24849807

Shamiya

24848913

Shuwaikh

24814507

Abdullah Salim

22549134

Al-Nuzha

22526804

Industrial Shuwaikh

24814764

Al-Qadisiya

22515088

Dasmah

22532265

Bneid Al-Ghar

22531908

Al-Shaab

22518752

Al-Kibla

22459381

Ayoun Al-Kibla

22451082

Mirqab

22456536

English language teacher specialized in starting elementary and intermediate, 10th and 11th experienced in starting functions, grammar, set book, vocabulary, notes and model exams available. Tel: 65791555.

Sharq

22465401

Salmiya

25746401

Jabriya

25316254

Maidan Hawally

25623444

Bayan

25388462

Mishref

25381200

Arabic language teacher, masters in methods of teaching for secondary and intermediate students. Tel: 50644685.

W.Hawally

22630786

Sabah

24810221

Jahra

24770319

New Jahra

24575755

West Jahra

24772608

South Jahra

24775066

North Jahra

24775992

North Jleeb

24311795

Ardiya

24884079

Firdous

24892674

Al-Omariya

24719048

N.Khaitan

24710044

Fintas

3900322

SITUATION WANTED Accountant, MBA Finance has 5 years experience looking for part time job, can prepare your all business accounting reports and financial statements independently.

Call 55829223. (C 3979) 29-4-2012

No: 15435

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

FIRE BRIGADE

PRIVATE CLINICS Ophthalmologists Dr. Abidallah Al-Mansoor 25622444 Dr. Samy Al-Rabeea 25752222 Dr. Masoma Habeeb 25321171 Dr. Mubarak Al-Ajmy 25739999 Dr. Mohsen Abel 25757700 Dr Adnan Hasan Alwayl 25732223 Dr. Abdallah Al-Baghly 25732223 Ear, Nose & Throat (ENT) Dr. Ahmed Fouad Mouner 24555050 Ext 510 Dr. Abdallah Al-Ali 25644660 Dr. Abd Al-Hameed Al-Taweel 25646478 Dr. Sanad Al-Fathalah 25311996 Dr. Mohammad Al-Daaory 25731988 Dr. Ismail Al-Fodary 22620166 Dr. Mahmoud Al-Booz 25651426 General Practitioners Dr. Mohamme Y Majidi 24555050 Ext 123 Dr. Yousef Al-Omar 24719312 Dr. Tarek Al-Mikhazeem 23926920 Dr. Kathem Maarafi 25730465 Dr. Abdallah Ahmad Eyadah 25655528 Dr. Nabeel Al-Ayoobi 24577781 Dr. Dina Abidallah Al-Refae 25333501 Urologists Dr. Ali Naser Al-Serfy 22641534 Dr. Fawzi Taher Abul 22639955 Dr. Khaleel Abidallah Al-Awadi 22616660 Dr. Adel Al-Hunayan FRCS (C) 25313120 Dr. Leons Joseph 66703427 Psychologists /Psychotherapists

Paediatricians

Plastic Surgeons Dr. Mohammad Al-Khalaf

22547272

Dr. Khaled Hamadi

Dr. Abdal-Redha Lari

22617700

Dr. Abd Al-Aziz Al-Rashed

Dr. Abdel Quttainah

25625030/60

Family Doctor Dr Divya Damodar

23729596/23729581

Psychiatrists Dr. Esam Al-Ansari

22635047

Dr Eisa M. Al-Balhan

22613623/0

Gynaecologists & Obstetricians DrAdrian arbe

23729596/23729581

Dr. Verginia s.Marin

2572-6666 ext 8321

Endocrinologist

25665898

Dr. Zahra Qabazard

25340300 25710444

Dr. Sohail Qamar

22621099

Dr. Snaa Maaroof

25713514

Dr. Pradip Gujare

23713100

Dr. Zacharias Mathew

24334282

(1) Ear, Nose and Throat (2) Plastic Surgeon Dr. Abdul Mohsin Jafar, FRCS (Canada)

25655535

Dentists Dr Anil Thomas

3729596/3729581

Dr. Majeda Khalefa Aliytami

25343406

Dr. Shamah Al-Matar

22641071/2

Dr. Ahmad Al-Khooly

25739272

Dr. Anesah Al-Rasheed

22562226

Dr. Salem soso

22618787

Dr. Abidallah Al-Amer

22561444

Dr. Faysal Al-Fozan

22619557

Dr. Abdallateef Al-Katrash

22525888

Dr. Abidallah Al-Duweisan

25653755

Dr. Bader Al-Ansari

25620111

General Surgeons Dr. Amer Zawaz Al-Amer

22610044

Dr. Mohammad Yousef Basher

25327148

Internists, Chest & Heart Dr. Adnan Ebil

22639939

Dr. Mousa Khadada

22666300

Dr. Latefa Al-Duweisan

25728004

Dr. Nadem Al-Ghabra

25355515

Dr. Mobarak Aldoub

24726446

Dr Nasser Behbehani

25654300/3

Soor Center Tel: 2290-1677 Fax: 2290 1688

info@soorcenter.com www.soorcenter.com

Neurologists Dr. Sohal Najem Al-Shemeri

25633324

Dr. Jasem Mola Hassan

25345875

Gastrologists Dr. Sami Aman

22636464

Dr. Mohammad Al-Shamaly

25322030

Dr. Foad Abidallah Al-Ali

22633135

Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa, Ph.D. 2290-1677 Susannah-Joy Schuilenberg, M.A. 2290-1677

25339330

Dr. Ahmad Al-Ansari 25658888 Dr. Kamal Al-Shomr 25329924 Physiotherapists & VD Dr. Deyaa Shehab

25722291

Dr. Musaed Faraj Khamees

22666288

Rheumatologists: Dr. Adel Al-Awadi

22655539

Dr. Fozeya Ali Al-Qatan

Dr. Abd Al-Naser Al-Othman

25330060

Dr. Khaled Al-Jarallah

25722290

Internist, Chest & Heart DR.Mohammes Akkad

24555050 Ext 210

Dr. Mohammad Zubaid MB, ChB, FRCPC, PACC Assistant Professor Of Medicine Head, Division of Cardiology Mubarak Al-Kabeer Hospital Consultant Cardiologist Dr. Farida Al-Habib MD, PH.D, FACC Inaya German Medical Center Te: 2575077 Fax: 25723123

2611555-2622555

William Schuilenberg, RPC 2290-1677 Zaina Al Zabin, M.Sc. 2290-1677

Al-Madena

22418714

Al-Shohada’a

22545171

Al-Shuwaikh

24810598

Al-Nuzha

22545171

Sabhan

24742838

Al-Helaly

22434853

Al-Fayhaa

22545051

Al-Farwaniya

24711433

Al-Sulaibikhat

24316983

Al-Fahaheel

23927002

Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh

24316983

Ahmadi

23980088

Al-Mangaf

23711183

Al-Shuaiba

23262845

Al-Jahra

25610011

Al-Salmiya

25616368

POLICE STATION Al-Madena Police Station Al-Murqab Police Station Al-Daiya Police Station Al-Fayha’a Police Station Al-Qadissiya Police Station Al-Nugra Police Station Al-Salmiya Police Station Al-Dasma Police Station

22434064 22435865 22544200 22547133 22515277 22616662 25714406 22530801

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

TV PROGRAMS

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

Baboons With Bill Bailey A Panda Is Born Going Ape Wildlife SOS Orangutan Island Wild Animal Orphans Natural Born Hunters The Really Wild Show Cats Of Claw Hill Must Love Cats A Panda Is Born Animal Precinct Animal Cops South Africa Dolphin Days Dolphin Days RSPCA: On The Frontline Wildlife SOS A Panda Is Born Animal Battlegrounds The Really Wild Show Wild Animal Orphans Natural Born Hunters Dogs 101 America’s Cutest Pet Wildlife SOS Going Ape Orangutan Island Animal Battlegrounds Saving A Species Safari Vet School Wildlife SOS Animal Cops Phoenix

03:00 Newsday 03:30 Hardtalk 04:00 BBC World News 04:30 World Business Report 04:45 BBC World News 05:30 World Business Report 05:45 BBC World News 06:00 BBC World News 06:30 World Business Report 06:45 Sport Today 07:00 BBC World News 07:30 World Business Report 07:45 Sport Today 08:00 BBC World News 08:30 Hardtalk 09:00 BBC World News 09:30 World Business Report 09:45 Sport Today 10:00 BBC World News 10:30 BBC World News 11:00 GMT With George Alagiah 11:30 GMT With George Alagiah 12:00 BBC World News 12:30 World Business Report 12:45 Sport Today 13:00 Impact With Mishal Husain 14:30 World Business Report 14:45 Sport Today 15:00 BBC World News 15:30 Hardtalk 16:00 The Hub With Nik Gowing 17:30 World Business Report 17:45 Sport Today 18:00 World News Today With Zeinab Badawi 18:30 World News Today With Zeinab Badawi 19:30 World Business Report 19:45 Sport Today 20:00 BBC World News America 20:30 Hardtalk 21:00 BBC World News 21:30 World Business Report 21:45 Sport Today 22:00 BBC World News America 22:30 Asia Business Report 22:45 Sport Today 23:00 BBC World News 23:30 Asia Business Report 23:45 Sport Today

03:00 03:25 03:50 04:15 04:40 05:00 05:25 05:50

Tom & Jerry Looney Tunes Scooby Doo Where Are You! Droopy: Master Detective Wacky Races The Flintstones A Pup Named Scooby-Doo Popeye Classics

06:00 06:30 06:55 07:20 07:45 08:00 08:25 08:50 09:15 09:40 10:05 10:25 10:50 11:15 11:40 12:00 12:15 12:40 12:55 14:10 14:35 15:25 15:50 16:15 16:40 17:05 17:20 18:10 19:00 19:15 19:40 20:05 20:30 20:55 21:20 21:45 22:10 22:35 23:00 23:20 23:45

Dexters Laboratory Bananas In Pyjamas Baby Looney Tunes Gerald McBoing Boing Jelly Jamm Pink Panther And Pals The Garfield Show Dastardly And Muttley A Pup Named Scooby-Doo Scooby Doo Where Are You! The Flintstones Duck Dodgers Tom & Jerry Kids Droopy: Master Detective Wacky Races Jelly Jamm Baby Looney Tunes Bananas In Pyjamas The Garfield Show Dastardly And Muttley Looney Tunes Puppy In My Pocket Pink Panther And Pals Pink Panther And Pals Tom & Jerry Tom & Jerry The Garfield Show Dexter’s Laboratory Jelly Jamm Baby Looney Tunes Gerald McBoing Boing Bananas In Pyjamas Pink Panther And Pals Tom & Jerry Looney Tunes Scooby Doo Where Are You! Droopy: Master Detective The Flintstones Wacky Races Dastardly And Muttley New Yogi Bear Show

03:00 The Amazing World Of Gumball 03:25 Ben 10 03:50 Adventure Time 04:15 Powerpuff Girls 04:40 Generator Rex 05:05 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 05:30 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 05:55 Angelo Rules 06:00 Casper’s Scare School 06:25 Eliot Kid 06:50 The Amazing World Of Gumball 07:15 Adventure Time 07:40 Regular Show 08:05 Grim Adventures Of...

08:55 Courage The Cowardly Dog 09:45 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 10:10 Ben 10: Ultimate Alien 10:35 Powerpuff Girls 11:25 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 11:50 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 12:15 Ed, Edd n Eddy 13:05 Ben 10: Alien Force 13:30 Bakugan: Gundalian Invaders 13:55 Camp Lazlo 14:45 Powerpuff Girls 15:35 Angelo Rules 16:25 Grim Adventures Of...

17:15 The Amazing World Of Gumball 17:40 Adventure Time 18:05 Regular Show 18:30 Ben 10 18:55 Generator Rex 19:20 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 19:45 Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated 20:10 Courage The Cowardly Dog 21:00 Star Wars: The Clone Wars 21:25 Star Wars: The Clone Wars 21:50 Cow And Chicken 22:00 Codename: Kids Next Door 22:50 Ben 10 23:15 Ben 10 23:40 Chowder

03:25 04:20 05:15 05:40

Ultimate Survival Mythbusters How It’s Made How Stuff’s Made

06:05 07:00 08:45 09:40 10:05 10:30 10:55 11:25 12:20 13:15 14:10 14:35 15:05 16:00 16:55 17:20 18:15 19:10 19:40 20:05 20:35 21:00 21:30 22:25 23:20

Dirty Jobs Mythbusters Fight Quest Border Security Auction Hunters How It’s Made How Stuff’s Made Fight Quest One Man Army Storm Chasers Border Security Auction Hunters Coal Futurecar Wheeler Dealers Ultimate Survival Mythbusters How It’s Made How Stuff’s Made Border Security Auction Hunters Scrappers Fight Quest One Man Army An Idiot Abroad

03:35 How Does That Work?

04:00 How Does That Work?

04:25 Punkin Chunkin 2010 05:20 Ldrs (Large Dangerous Rocket Ships) 06:10 How The Universe Works 07:00 The Gadget Show 07:25 The Gadget Show 07:50 Nyc: Inside Out 08:40 Mega Builders 09:35 Superships 10:25 How Does That Work?

10:50 How Does That Work?

11:20 Ldrs (Large Dangerous Rocket Ships) 12:15 Punkin Chunkin 2010 13:05 How The Universe Works 13:55 The Gadget Show 14:20 The Gadget Show 14:50 How Does That Work?

15:15 How Does That Work?

15:40 The Tech Show 16:05 Ldrs (Large Dangerous Rocket Ships) 17:00 Mighty Ships 17:50 How The Universe Works 18:40 Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman 19:30 Space Pioneer 20:20 The Gadget Show 20:45 The Gadget Show 21:10 Smash Lab 22:00 Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman 22:50 Space Pioneer 23:40 Mighty Ships

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

Emperor’s New School Brandy & Mr Whiskers Brandy & Mr Whiskers Replacements Replacements Fairly Odd Parents Fairly Odd Parents Fish Hooks Recess So Random Wizards Of Waverly Place Good Luck Charlie Shake It Up Austin & Ally Phineas And Ferb Phineas And Ferb Suite Life On Deck Suite Life On Deck Wizards Of Waverly Place Wizards Of Waverly Place Good Luck Charlie Good Luck Charlie Jessie Jessie Austin & Ally Austin & Ally A.N.T. Farm Phineas And Ferb Phineas And Ferb Phineas And Ferb Phineas And Ferb Phineas And Ferb The Return Of Jafar

18:05 18:20 18:45 19:10 19:35 20:00 20:25 20:50 22:20 22:30 22:55 23:20 23:45

Fish Hooks A.N.T. Farm Jessie Jessie Austin & Ally Austin & Ally Good Luck Charlie Frenemies Phineas And Ferb Good Luck Charlie Wizards Of Waverly Place Wizards Of Waverly Place Kim Possible

06:00 Kid vs Kat 06:20 Kid vs Kat 06:45 American Dragon 07:10 American Dragon 07:35 Rated A For Awesome 08:00 Rated A For Awesome 08:30 Mr. Young 09:00 Mr. Young 09:30 Kickin It 10:00 Kickin It 10:30 Pair Of Kings 10:55 Pair Of Kings 11:20 Zeke & Luther 11:45 Zeke & Luther 12:10 Mr. Young 12:35 Mr. Young 13:00 Avalon High 14:35 Kickin It 15:00 Kickin It 15:25 Scaredy Squirrel 15:50 Scaredy Squirrel 16:15 Rated A For Awesome 16:40 Rated A For Awesome 17:05 I’m In The Band 17:30 I’m In The Band 17:55 Kick Buttowski 18:20 Kick Buttowski 18:45 Zeke & Luther 19:10 Zeke & Luther 19:35 Kickin It 20:05 Wendy Wu 21:35 The Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes 22:00 Kid vs Kat 22:25 Kid vs Kat 23:00 Programmes Start At 6:00am KSA

03:15 Behind The Scenes 03:40 Extreme Close-Up 04:10 Sexiest 05:05 Extreme Hollywood 06:00 THS 07:50 Behind The Scenes 08:20 E! News 09:15 Scouted 10:15 THS 12:05 E! News 13:05 Giuliana & Bill 17:55 E! News 18:55 Giuliana & Bill 19:55 Giuliana & Bill 20:55 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 21:25 Giuliana & Bill 22:25 E! News 23:25 Chelsea Lately 23:55 Fashion Police

03:25 Mexican Made Easy 03:50 Mexican Made Easy 04:15 Unwrapped 04:40 Good Eats 05:05 Luke Nguyen’s Vietnam 05:30 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 05:50 Staten Island Cakes 06:35 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 07:00 Food Network Challenge 07:50 Gourmet Farmer 08:15 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 08:40 Kid In A Candy Store 09:05 Good Eats 09:30 Paula’s Best Dishes 09:55 World Cafe Asia 10:20 30 Minute Meals 10:45 Reza, Spice Prince Of India 11:10 Unwrapped 11:35 Easy Chinese: San Francisco 12:00 Food Network Challenge 12:50 Aarti Party 13:15 Cooking For Real 13:40 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 14:05 Healthy Appetite With Ellie Krieger 14:30 Reza, Spice Prince Of India 14:55 30 Minute Meals 15:20 Mexican Made Easy 15:45 Iron Chef America 16:35 Cooking For Real 17:00 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 17:25 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 17:50 Aarti Party 18:15 Kid In A Candy Store 18:40 Guy’s Big Bite 19:05 Mexican Made Easy 19:30 Food Network Challenge 20:20 Iron Chef America 21:10 Guy’s Big Bite 21:35 Guy’s Big Bite 22:00 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 22:25 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 22:50 Meat & Potatoes 23:15 Meat & Potatoes 23:40 Meat & Potatoes

03:25 Toy Soldiers-18 05:15 Stay Hungry 06:55 Heart Of Midnight 08:45 Mission Of The Shark 10:20 Marie: A True Story 12:10 Leona Helmsley: The Queen Of Mean 13:45 Charge Of The Light BrigadePG 15:55 They Call Me Mister Tibbs!-PG 17:45 The Group-PG 20:15 The Wilby Conspiracy-PG 22:00 One More Time-PG 23:30 The Trip-18

LADDER 49 ON OSN ACTION HD

03:00 04:00 04:30 05:00 05:30

Extreme Tourist Afghanistan Graham’s World Graham’s World Wild Rides Wild Rides

06:00 Lonely Planet: Roads Less Travelled 07:00 A World Apart 08:00 Treks In A Wild World 09:00 Extreme Tourist Afghanistan 10:00 Graham’s World 10:30 Graham’s World 11:00 Wild Rides 11:30 Wild Rides 12:00 Lonely Planet: Roads Less Travelled 13:00 Deadliest Journeys 13:30 Deadliest Journeys 14:00 Don’t Tell My Mother 15:00 Banged Up Abroad 16:00 Treks In A Wild World 17:00 Endurance Traveller 18:00 Lonely Planet: Roads Less Travelled 19:00 Weird & Wonderful Hotels 19:30 Young Global Hotshots 20:00 Miracle On Everest 21:00 Somewhere In China 22:00 Banged Up Abroad 23:00 A World Apart

03:00 Caught In The Act 04:00 Banged Up Abroad 05:00 Great Migrations 06:00 Dangerous Encounters 07:00 Mega Factories 08:00 Banged Up Abroad 09:00 Animal Impact 10:00 Dangerous Encounters 11:00 Mega Factories 12:00 Caught In The Act 13:00 Hunter Hunted 14:00 Banged Up Abroad 15:00 Inside 16:00 Megastructures 17:00 Ancient Secrets: Cathedrals Decoded 18:00 Is It Real?

19:00 Hunter Hunted 20:00 Inside 21:00 Air Crash Investigation 22:00 Hooked 23:00 Big, Bigger, Biggest

THE KINGʼS SPEECH ON OSN CINEMA

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

Caught In The Act The Lion Ranger Journey Into Amazonia Monster Fish Superfish Caught In The Act I, Predator Street Monkeys Shadow Hunters Dive To Tiger Central Catching Giants Expedition Wild Caught In The Act How Big Can It Get Cliffhangers My Life Is A Zoo Monster Fish Superfish Caught In The Act I, Predator Street Monkeys

03:45 Road To Perdition-18 05:45 Spider-Man-PG 07:45 Rocky-PG15 09:45 The Librarian: The Curse Of Judas Chalice-PG15 11:15 Ladder 49-PG15 13:15 Rocky-PG15 15:15 Camp Hope-PG15 17:00 Ladder 49-PG15 19:00 The Godfather-18 22:00 Kull The Conqueror-PG15

03:15 Burlesque-PG15 05:30 Africa United-PG15 07:15 Stonehenge ApocalypsePG15 09:00 Jumping The Broom-PG15 11:00 True Story Of Puss’n Boots-PG 12:30 The LXD: The Uprising BeginsPG15 14:00 The LXD: Secrets Of The RaPG15 15:45 Swansong: Story Of Occi Byrne-PG15 17:30 The 19th Wife-PG15 19:00 The King’s Speech-PG15 21:00 Gentlemen Broncos-PG15 23:00 City Rats-18

03:00 The Simpsons 03:30 10 Items Or Less 04:00 Friends 04:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 05:30 Seinfeld 06:00 Weird Science 06:30 Dharma And Greg 07:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 08:00 Friends 08:30 The Simpsons 09:00 Seinfeld 10:00 Breaking In 10:30 Dharma And Greg 11:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 12:00 Weird Science 12:30 Friends 13:00 Seinfeld 13:30 Dharma And Greg 14:00 10 Items Or Less 14:30 Breaking In 15:30 The Daily Show Global Edition 16:00 The Colbert Report Global Edition 16:30 Weird Science 17:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 18:00 Perfect Couples 19:00 The League 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 Enlightened 22:30 Hung 23:00 American Dad 23:30 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon

03:00 04:00 05:00 07:00 08:00 08:30

Revenge Boardwalk Empire Live Good Morning America Switched At Birth Emmerdale Coronation Street

09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 18:30 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

The Ellen DeGeneres Show The Martha Stewart Show The View Desperate Housewives Revenge Live Good Morning America Switched At Birth The Ellen DeGeneres Show Emmerdale Coronation Street Grey’s Anatomy Private Practice House The River Boardwalk Empire

03:00 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 07:30 08:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 12:00 12:30 13:00 14:00 15:00 16:00 16:30 17:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

Desperate Housewives Revenge Friday Night Lights Parenthood Emmerdale Coronation Street Royal Pains The Closer Desperate Housewives Revenge Emmerdale Coronation Street The Ellen DeGeneres Show Royal Pains Parenthood Emmerdale Coronation Street The Ellen DeGeneres Show Surface Grey’s Anatomy Private Practice House The River The Tudors

03:00 05:00 PG15 07:00 09:00 11:00 13:00 14:45 16:45 19:00 21:00 23:00

Road To Perdition-18 The Burningmoore IncidentSmoke Screen-PG15 The Front-PG15 Salt-PG15 Last Breath-PG15 The Front-PG15 King Arthur-PG15 Fear Island-PG15 Kull The Conqueror-PG15 Army Of Darkness-18

04:00 My Father The Hero-PG15 06:00 Nanny McPhee And The Big Bang-PG 08:00 Happy Ever Afters-PG15 10:00 A Pyromaniac’s Love StoryPG15 12:00 Miami Rhapsody-PG15 14:00 Our Family Wedding-PG15 16:00 A Pyromaniac’s Love StoryPG15 18:00 A Fork In The Road-PG15 20:00 Love And Mary-PG15 22:00 Beavis And Butt-Head Do America-PG15

03:00 05:00 07:00 09:00 11:00 13:15 15:00 17:00 19:00 21:00 23:30

Combien Tu M’aimes-18 Exodus-PG15 Good Hair-PG15 Greener Mountains-PG I Am Sam-PG15 Espions-PG15 Greener Mountains-PG South Solitary-PG15 Dick Tracy-PG15 2001: A Space Odyssey-PG15 Into The Night-18

03:00 A Guy Thing-PG15 05:00 Lies In Plain Sight-PG15 07:00 Tangled-FAM 09:00 Justin Bieber: Never Say Never-PG 11:00 African Cats: Kingdom Of Courage-PG 13:00 You Again-PG15 15:00 My Girlfriend’s BoyfriendPG15 17:00 Justin Bieber: Never Say Never-PG

19:00 Morning Glory-PG15 21:00 2001: A Space Odyssey-PG15 23:30 Date Night-PG15

04:00 Last Of The Mohicans-PG 06:00 The Borrowers-PG 08:00 Garfield’s Pet Force-FAM 10:00 Scooby-Doo-PG 12:00 Moomins And The Comet Chase-FAM 14:00 Last Of The Mohicans-PG 16:00 In Search Of The Titanic-PG 18:00 Scooby-Doo-PG 20:00 Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed-PG 22:00 Moomins And The Comet Chase-FAM

03:00 MSNBC The Ed Show 04:00 MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show 05:00 MSNBC The Last Word W/ Lawrence O’Donnell 06:00 NBC Nightly News 06:35 ABC Nightline 07:00 ABC World News W/ Diane Sawyer 07:30 Live NBC Nightly News 08:00 MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show 09:00 MSNBC The Last Word W/ Lawrence O’Donnell 10:00 ABC World News Now 10:30 Live ABC World News Now 11:00 NBC Early Today 11:30 ABC America This Morning 12:00 ABC America This Morning 12:30 Live ABC America This Morning 13:00 Live ABC America This Morning 13:30 MSNBC First Look 14:00 Live NBC Today Show 17:57 Live MSNBC Hardball W/ Chris Matthews 18:38 Live MSNBC The Ed Show 19:19 Live MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show 20:00 MSNBC Andrea Mitchell Reports 21:00 MSNBC Newsnation 22:00 MSNBC Martin Bashir 23:00 MSNBC The Dylan Ratigan Show

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

Legend Of The Guardians-PG The Flyboys-PG15 Goodbye Solo-PG15 Bustin’ Down The Door-PG15 My Last Five Girlfriends-PG15 A Family Thanksgiving-PG15 Goodbye Solo-PG15 Zookeeper-PG15 Cyrus-18 Sucker Punch-PG15

03:00 European PGA Tour Highlights 04:00 Super Rugby Highlights 05:00 NRL Premiership 07:00 Snooker World Championship 10:00 NRL Premiership 12:00 Live Snooker World Championship 16:00 Volvo Ocean Race Highlights 16:30 Live Snooker World Championship 20:00 European PGA Tour Highlights 21:00 Live Snooker World Championship

06:00 06:30 07:00 09:00 10:00 10:30 11:00 11:30 12:00 13:30 14:30 15:30 19:00 19:30

SPL Highlights Mobil 1 The Grid NRL Premiership AFL Highlights City Center Races City Center Races City Center Races City Center Races Volvo Ocean Race Super Rugby Highlights AFL Highlights Premier League Darts SPL Highlights NRL Full Time

20:00 20:30 21:00 21:30 22:00 23:00

Top 14 Highlights Mobil 1 The Grid Futbol Mundial SPL Highlights Trans World Sport Golfing World

03:00 Snooker World Championship 06:00 Ping Pong 07:00 Golfing World 08:00 Scottish Premier League Highlights 08:30 Top 14 Highlights 09:00 Mobil 1 The Grid 09:30 Super Rugby Highlights 10:30 Scottish Premier League 12:30 Scottish Premier League Highlights 13:00 AFL Highlights 14:00 Golfing World 15:00 Top 14 Highlights 15:30 European Challenge Cup 17:30 AFL Premiership 20:00 Super Rugby Highlights 21:00 Super Rugby 23:00 NRL Full Time 23:30 Premier League Darts

04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 08:00 09:00 12:00 12:30 13:00 14:00 16:30 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

UFC The Ultimate Fighter UFC Unleashed UFC Unleashed WWE NXT WWE Bottomline PrizeFighter V8 Supercars Extra UAE National Race Day WWE Bottomline WWE Vintage Collection V8 Supercars WWE NXT WWE Experience UFC Unleashed UFC The Ultimate Fighter UFC Unleashed WWE SmackDown

03:00 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 08:00 09:00 10:00 11:00 11:30 12:00 13:00 14:00 14:30 15:00 16:00 17:00 17:30 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 21:30 22:00 23:00

Luxury Train Journeys In India Globe Trekker Sophie Grigson In The Orient Glutton For Punishment Globe Trekker Rivers Of The World Swiss Railway Journeys Sophie Grigson In The Orient Flavours Of Peru Glutton For Punishment Globe Trekker Planet Food Essential Distant Shores People Of The Sea Globe Trekker Glutton For Punishment Flavours Of Spain Sophie Grigson In The Orient Globe Trekker Food Tripper Floyd On Africa Floyd On Africa Planet Sports Globe Trekker

03:00 IRT: Deadliest Roads – The Andes 04:00 Only In America 06:00 Ice Road Truckers 07:00 Life After People 08:00 IRT: Deadliest Roads – The Andes 09:00 IRT: Deadliest Roads – The Andes 10:00 Only In America 12:00 Ice Road Truckers 13:00 Life After People 14:00 IRT: Deadliest Roads – The Andes 15:00 IRT: Deadliest Roads – The Andes 16:00 Only In America 18:00 Ice Road Truckers 19:00 UFO Hunters 20:00 Pawn Stars 21:30 Storage Wars 22:00 Mud Men 23:00 American Pickers

35

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

stars CROSSWORD 663

STAR TRACK

CALVIN & HOBBES

Aries (March 21-April 19) There could be some pushing and shoving now between various facets of your life that normally should be in balance, such as your home life, professional life, your logical mind and emotions, or your conscious and subconscious mind. If these are in line, you should have the energy to get a lot done; if not . . . there could be problems. Doubts fade into the background, making it time for action in whatever activity will get you moving forward professionally. A noon meal with co-workers may lead to gossip and you will be much happier when you can lead the conversation in other directions. This evening you and a loved one may become involved in a psychic experiment. The connection between the two of you may create many unique evenings.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) Projects you have worked on for many months could reach completion at this time. Be sure and check if these activities produced the results you expected and that those results are as important to you as you thought they would be. This will help guide you in your next project. Be your own judge! Working with—rather than against—the flow should be easy. In-depth discussions and probing conversations find you at your mental best. Your analytical abilities are at a high point. This is a good day, with lots of energy and ambition. New projects can be investigated today and moving forward with projects already under way will be successful. You may enjoy a sense of creating your own opportunities. Someone older may be a motivating force.

POOCH CAFE ACROSS 1. A republic in central Europe.

4. A fine coating of oxide on the surface of a metal.

10. The seventh and last day of the week.

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

14. A port city in southwestern Iran.

15. Electronic equipment that provides visual images of varying electrical quantities.

16. A doctor's degree in musical arts.

18. A metabolic acid found in yeast and liver cells.

19. The month following July and preceding September.

20. A hypocrite who pretends to religious piety (after the protagonist in a play by Moliere).

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

24. A unit of absorbed ionizing radiation equal to 100 ergs per gram of irradiated material.

26. A Russian river.

27. A recognizable kind.

30. A river in north central Switzerland that runs northeast into the Rhine.

32. Wheelwork consisting of a connected set of rotating gears by which force is transmitted or motion or torque is changed.

36. A person of unquestioning obedience.

39. Made of fir or pine.

40. A paste-up made by sticking together pieces of paper or photographs.

42. A radioactive element of the actinide series.

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

45. A flat wing-shaped process or winglike part of an organism.

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

47. Biennial weed in Europe and America having large pinnate leaves and yellow flowers and a bitter and somewhat poisonous root.

49. The United Nations agency concerned with the international organization of food and agriculture.

51. A small cake leavened with yeast.

52. A rare polyvalent metallic element of the platinum group.

54. A training program to prepare college students to be commissioned officers.

57. A republic in West Africa on the Gulf of Guinea.

61. Leaf or strip from a leaf of the talipot palm used in India for writing paper.

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

66. (archaic or Scottish) Faithful and true.

67. Speaking a Slavic language.

68. Cubes of meat marinated and cooked on a skewer usually with vegetables.

70. Rate of revolution of a motor.

71. Type genus of the family Arcidae.

72. Small terrestrial lizard of warm regions of the Old World.

73. An affirmative.

DOWN 1. A legally binding command or decision entered on the court record (as if issued by a court or judge).

2. Avatar of Vishnu.

3. Wild ox of mountainous areas of eastern India.

4. A city in Veneto.

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

6. A long thin piece of cloth or paper as used for binding or fastening.

7. An agency of the United Nations affiliated with the World Bank.

8. Tag the base runner to get him out.

9. (electronics) Of a circuit or device having an output that is proportional to the input.

10. A fraudulent business scheme.

11. Wild sheep of northern Africa.

12. A one-piece cloak worn by men in ancient Rome.

17. A thoroughfare (usually including sidewalks) that is lined with buildings.

21. A federal agency established to regulate the release of new foods and health-related products.

23. In bed.

25. A trivalent metallic element of the rare earth group.

28. Absent without permission.

29. Fiber from an East Indian plant Hibiscus cannabinus.

31. (informal) Of the highest quality.

33. (in Gnosticism) A divine power or nature emanating from the Supreme Being and playing various roles in the operation of the universe.

34. Any competition.

35. A blow from a flat object (as an open hand).

37. Used as a Hindi courtesy title.

38. Fallow deer.

41. A unit of magnetomotive force equal to 0.7958 ampere-turns.

43. Open-heart surgery in which the rib cage is opened and a section of a blood vessel is grafted from the aorta to the coronary artery to bypass the blocked section of the coronary artery and improve the blood supply to the heart.

48. Tropical woody herb with showy yellow flowers and flat pods.

50. An anti-TNF compound (trade name Arava) that is given orally.

53. (Norse mythology) One of the Aesir known for his beauty and skill with bow and skis.

55. The basic unit of money in Bangladesh.

56. Large swift fly the female of which sucks blood of various animals.

58. Characterized by lightness and insubstantiality.

59. The back side of the neck.

60. Voluntary contributions to aid the poor.

62. Resinlike substance secreted by certain lac insects.

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

65. The most common computer memory which can be used by programs to perform necessary tasks while the computer is on.

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

Yesterday’s Solution

Gemini (May 21-June 20) Draw the line between when to work overtime and when to have some fun. Others value you for your ability to make practical decisions. You have a natural sense of what the public wants at this time and may find yourself in the political arena. Clear decisions affecting others could be made now. You love people! Any excuse for a get-together to make new friends is welcomed. You feel especially close to your loved ones as well and your desire to nurture and protect them is strong. You also may enjoy reminiscing with old friends this afternoon about pleasant memories of the past. This is a grand time to get close to a family member or friends without the feeling that emotions may sweep you away. Mental encouragement is a positive.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) Little is needed, other than your time in the workplace this day.

You may be able to leave work a bit early today. This afternoon a neighbor that irritates you from time to time may push the limits. Find ways to express your need to get back to some project and encourage this person to show off his or her talents by teaching or taking a class. Fresh challenges and initiatives at home light your fire; there may be a new addition or a garden or decor you may want to add to your home for health, convenience or beauty. You are good to create a balance in your life and people are encouraged by your bright enthusiasm. There may be a young person that has a need for some guidance with school work tonight. Wherever you are, you create a pleasant atmosphere.

NON SEQUITUR

Leo (July 23-August 22) Although you may find work a bit challenging today, you will dive into it with much enthusiasm. You are encouraged to search for answers and complete the project or solve the problem. Others are encouraged by your success and may ask for your guidance. You can demonstrate great understanding and sensitivity to others just now and are in a good position to lend a helping hand. On a shopping spree this afternoon, you look for new ways to make your dreams come true. Objects of art and beauty are especially poignant. Just keep everything in perspective—including the budget. Your friends may find you especially witty and eccentric today. You crave to socialize and make new friends, which of course can bring all sorts of good things into your life.

ZITS

Virgo (August 23-September 22) In the workplace, you must use your energy to create a sense of patience, even if you do not feel that you have patience. By creating a sense of patience, patience will come to you. This is the secret ingredient for your success for the next few months. It is a great day to work in group situations. You may be the one to lead a group. This is a people day! You crave the act of socializing and making new friends. Others in turn are attracted to you, which bring all sorts of good things into your life. Music, art, math, etc., are a few of the talents that you have conquered. You may think now about teaching others or perhaps entertaining others. You are in touch and in harmony with others—invitations to go places and do things with friends are accessible tonight.

Libra (September 23-October 22)

MOTHER GOOSE AND GRIMM

Today your sharp and alert mind is packed full of opinions and information that you are dying to share with everyone, especially those with whom you may be working on some project. Also, you are eager to take in all sorts of information from everyone else, leading to frequent meetings and a busy telephone. This should be a very electric day! A new sense of self, a more assertive personal style and a more dynamic approach to life are the hallmarks of the cycle that begin for you now. Doubts fade into the background and reserve is more and more a thing of the past. It’s time for action; your destiny is in your hands, rather than set apart. Gather, exchange information and network in order to stay current. A quiet and relaxing evening is in order.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) Other people, or the general circumstances in which you find yourself at present, may bring about the opportunity to rise above others in solving difficult problems and settling complex situations between co-workers. This may be a difficult time to remain calm. Difficulties, blocks and all manner of hot spots may be discovered and have to be worked through this day. Because things change so quickly in your life, tomorrow may bring a whole new set of problems—or none at all. You are feeling reflective rather than expressive this evening. A walk may be in order before the evening meal, weather permitting. Close relationships take on more importance. A family meeting may be needed tonight for planning the next family vacation.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) A period of great mental activity begins now. You are determined to complete tasks and get ahead of the paperwork today.

Steady work plus consistent savings produces prosperity. If you take your time with investing opportunities and look for modest returns rather than big results, your future will be secure. Intellectualism and the exchange of ideas with the idea of being smart as a fox have a special appeal now. You can demonstrate great understanding and sensitivity to the needs of others and are in a good position to communicate concerning groups and society in general. Today, you would rather switch than fight—a real pushover. Socializing and love interests are favored—but not overindulgence.

Avoid the buffet table and watch the calories.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19) You may need to work a little overtime today. Perhaps the work has been a bit challenging lately. You may have problems with a time schedule in completing your work; however, you eventually enjoy the accomplishments that come with this intensity. Consulting with someone more experienced or consulting some guidelines may cut your time a great deal.

Concentration and attention to family matters this afternoon may increase a desire to splurge this evening. A spa or a massage instead would be the best way to relax; invite a friend perhaps. You could be most persuasive with family members tonight—you may even be surprised that the outcome of a recent disagreement turns into a compromise.

To

Yesterday’s Solution Yester

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) Out with the old, in with the new! You are hardworking and enjoy cleaning off your desk at the end of the day. You may even be in sales and have notes about the new people you meet and want to remember for the next time you are able to help them find an item. People are pleased with the results of your work and you can expect good things to happen. Your enthusiasm catches on and co-workers, housemates or family members follow suit. You have motivation and goals. This evening you will be rewarded as you help to bring family members closer; the results can be quite pleasurable. You are finally able to get to know someone better . . . or to fully demonstrate your affections. Someone does you a favor this evening.

Pisces (February 19-March 20)

Word Sleuth Solution

You will know right away that this is an A+ day. Today you will have the opportunity to meet a new co-worker that may evolve into a fun friend. Participation in group interests or a hobby may become the fun part of this relationship; you learn from each other. A perfect balance between your career needs and personal needs should bring about an inner peace today that you rarely get a chance to enjoy. Neither side of you has to struggle with the other. In addition, you have a super-sensitive awareness of the moods and needs of others, making this a suitable time to run seminars or work with groups. Take some time off from your busy life to enjoy the company of a loved one tonight. This relationship is important to you and deserves your attention.

36

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

lifest yle G o s s i p

he 31-year-old socialite recently had a cameo in a live episode of comedy show ‘30 Rock’ and now hopes to take her career in a new direction. A source said: “She really wants to move beyond reality T V and be a comedy actress.” The ‘Keeping Up with the Kardashians’ star - who is currently dating rapper Kanye West is said to be inspired by ‘Modern Family’ beauty

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Sofia Vergara. The source added to The Sun newspaper: “Kim wants to be the next Sofia Vergara.” After her appearance on ‘30 Rock’, Kim admitted she had had a great time on the show.

She tweeted: “Anyone see 30 Rock tonight??? I had a blast!!!! Love this show! (sic)” And her good time came in spite of the fact ‘Mad Men’ star Jon Hamm - who previously branded her an “idiot” -

also made an appearance. However, it is claimed the pair made their peace over the comments and even joked about their feud. Kim is said to have told a friend: “We laughed it off. [Jon was] very sweet and very respectful.”

Cameron Diaz ‘became very close’ to Gwyneth Paltrow while grieving he ‘Bad Teacher’ star lost her dad Emilio Diaz in April 2008 after he succumbed to pneumonia aged 58 and Gwyneth - whose producer dad Bruce Paltrow passed away in October 2002 also at the age of 58 - offered her support as Cameron was grieving. Cameron insists she will never forget the support the ‘Iron Man’ star gave her. In an interview with the June UK issue of Harper’s Bazaar magazine, she said: “We became very close after my dad’s death. She reached out and it was very sweet. We bonded on that.” The 39-year-old actress also revealed she is an Anglophile and loves Englishmen because she grew up watching British comedy TV shows like ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’. Cameron who has previously dated Justin Timberlake, and baseball Alex Rodriguez and has been linked to rapper P Diddy - thinks Colin Firth is the “perfect

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Englishman”. She said: “I love their (English guys’) sense of humor and the sense of chivalry and charm. It’s something that is innately a part of the culture - we don’t have that over here, it’s not the same in America. “(Colin Firth) is the perfect Englishman. Just enough of the self-effacing to a point that it’s comfortable for other people, but also totally charming and engaging to where he makes you feel special.” She added, “I love London. I love the Brits, I always have. I have a weak spot for them.

I grew up on ‘Monty Python’. I love ‘Little Britain’. My grandfather used to watch Benny Hill all the time.”

Brooklyn Decker wants to adopt a disabled baby

Alyson Hannigan didn’t rush into marriage on her mother’s advice he ‘American Pie: Reunion’ star has been wed to actor Alexis Denisof who she met on the set of TV show ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ - since October 2003 but she wait until they had been in a relationship for four years before saying her vows. Alyson was raised by her mother Emilie Posner after she and her father

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Al Hannigan divorced and her Emile also told her not to marry in haste like she did. In an interview with The Sun newspaper, the 38-year-old actress said: “My mom, Emilie, always taught me to think hard about marriage. Her own, to my father, ended when I was two. So she said, ‘Take your time.’ I met Alex, who

played Wesley Wyndam-Pryce in the series (‘Buffy’). I was trying to pursue him, but he said he didn’t want to date somebody he was working with. But we developed a great friendship ... When my new relationship ran its course, the whole thing suddenly changed and Alex and I started to really care about each other.

“So it was two years before we started seeing each other and that was back in 1999. I took my mom’s advice and thought really hard about the whole thing - and didn’t marry until I was nearly 30.” Although Alyson and Alexis - who have a three-year-old daughter Satyana together and are expecting their second child in June - has never worried about being in a relationship with another actor. The couple are happy to keep a low-profile but can relate to each other’s careers and work stresses. Alyson - who stars in ‘American Pie: Reunion’ with Jason Biggs, Mena Suvari and Sean William Scott - explained: “There is a lot of debate about whether an actor and actress should get together. If it’s very high profile, they can be followed by photographers around the world ... With Alex and myself we like to keep a low profile away from our work. I like coming home to an actor husband. He understands what I am talking about and he’s always supportive.”

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Katy Perry sold her New York penthouse he ‘Firework’ hit maker is believed to have made close to the $2.75 million asking price on the sale of the duplex apartment, which she bought for the same amount in September 2010, a month before she wed comedian Russell Brand. The 1,500 square foot property is situated in TriBeCa and boasts two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a cherry wood staircase, steel kitchen and a south-facing terrace boasting impressive views of the city, the New York Post newspaper reports. Following their split in December, Katy and Russell agreed the pop beauty would keep their Beverly Hills mansion and the ‘Arthur’ star was seen moving out of the $6 million property in January. However, Katy - who is now believed to be dating Florence + the Machine guitarist Rob Ackroyd - is also believed to have left the property soon afterwards and reportedly moved just three miles away from the mansion in Los Feliz, California. The ‘Last Friday Night’ hit maker is said to have purchased a $1.9 million pad - which comes complete with five bedrooms and five bathrooms - as a temporary base until she finds somewhere more permanent to live.

T

he troubled actress celebrated the completion of filming of her small cameo role in musical TV show ‘Glee’ by heading to the Bar Marmont, where she stayed until 1.30am before moving on to a house party until 6am. According to X17Online.com Paris - who was previously good friends with Lindsay until a falling out - was also spotted at the house last night and the night before, sparking suggestions the pair may have become friends again. Lindsay was reported to be a “total nightmare” on the set of ‘Glee’ which stars Lea Michele, Corey Monteith and Matthew Morrison - because she turned up late and did not know her lines. A source said: “Lindsay was a total nightmare. She was three hours late in the morning and when she did finally arrive, she just didn’t want to be there.” However, her spokesperson Steve Honig claimed it was simply a misunderstanding. He said: “The production team came to us and said that they wanted to start [with Lindsay] right after lunch, which was at 2. They wanted to begin with Lindsay at 3, so that meant she had a lot of time where she wasn’t doing anything. That’s why people didn’t see her. She was then in hair and makeup and began after lunch at 3.”

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Lindsay Lohan

he 25-year-old actress - who is married to tennis pro Andy Roddick - is planning on expanding her family eventually and has been inspired by her aunt, a Special Olympics athlete. She told Canada’s Flare magazine: “I want to adopt a baby with an intellectual disability one day. I mean, that’s in the distant future, but that’s always been a goal of mine. Unfortunately a lot of kids with intellectual disabilities are given up for adoption when they’re born because it’s a lot for their family.” However, Brooklyn - who is best known for her roles in movies ‘Battleship’ and ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting’ - is not always so confident with her decisions; she has previously confessed to feeling similar to Kristen Wiig’s insecure maid of honor character Annie Walker in ‘Bridesmaids’. She said: “I feel like her character is my inner soul. “The ways she acts are my inner thoughts, but I just can’t express them because they’re too nerdy. So if he [Andy Roddick] was calling her crazy, I guess that makes me slightly crazy.”

partying with Paris Hilton

Kevin Jonas to star in reality show he 24-year-old singer and his wife Danielle will appear in E!’s ‘Married to Jonas’ - on which Ryan Seacrest will act as the executive producer - and will tell the tale of how the pair, who married in 2009, are dealing with their lives in the international spotlight. Lisa Berger, president of entertainment programming for E! said: “Danielle is living a true Cinderella story after marrying into pop royalty, partnering in Kevin’s larger-than-life career and becoming a ‘Jonas,’ a name synonymous with hit music and a worldwide fan base.” She added, “The series presents a unique look at a young couple and their families from two entirely different worlds, one small town and one dealing with international fame, coming together as one and starting a whole new life together.”

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TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

lifestyle

SYDNEY: Australian ballet dancers Andrew Killian as Onegin and Madeleine Eastoe as Tatiana, rehearse the ballet “Onegin” at the Sydney Opera House yesterday. One of the Australian Ballet’s most popular productions “Onegin”, transports audiences to the oppulent world of 1820’s St Petersburg, telling the story of heroine Tatiana who has her heart broken by the dashing leading man Onegin, a bored Russian aristocrat. — AFP

By Islam Al-Shara

ly say that we didn’t face big difficulties.

hat attracted you to do this role; especially that he is one of the most influential men in the Turkish history?

I think the most important reason was the project as a total. It is a historical story, and especially the role being ‘Kanuni’ and the chance to play him during such an important period in his life made me say yes very quickly.

W

Is there a message that you as a group aimed to send through this work?

We don’t have a specific message or a mission as a team. We are really working hard to create a good TV series. I am happy to see that people are more interested in history after “Magnificent Century.” The history books are best sellers now, and the viewers are reading more about Kanuni, Hurrem and Ibrahim.

What can you say about Sultan Sulaiman?

First of all, Kanuni is 10th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, which was the greatest power at the time. This is a very distinctive mark for his character. He is the heir of a longtime powerful dynasty and he is very clever, determined, well educated, hardworking and a faithful leader. In general he is very calm, but when he gets angry he is capable of making quick and strong decisions. He is also a productive poet and jewelry designer. And he is in love as, everyone knows, with Hurrem.

Is it surprising to you to know that this series achieved huge viewing rates in the Arab world?

I had this experience before with “1001 nights” and we were really happy about the success. And also with this series I am very glad and honored that our viewers in the Arab World liked it and are watching it.

C

anadian popstar Justin Bieber yesterday tweeted his love for Indonesia, after enraging fans in the world’s fifth most populous nation by referring to it as “some random country”. “One rumor I wont stand for is saying what me and my fans have isnt real. Indonesia I see you. i love u. I love ALL MY FANS,” a post on the official @justinbieber Twitter account said.

Fans in Indonesia — a country of 240 million people with the thirdlargest Facebook community in the world and the fifth-biggest number of Twitter accounts — were angered on hearing how Bieber had referred to their nation. “I was in some random country,” British tabloid Daily Mirror quoted the 18-year-old as saying last week, when explaining where one of his new tracks was produced. His manager, Scott “Scooter” Braun, interjected and informed him it was produced in Indonesia, the report said.

Fans, or “Beliebers”, in the Southeast Asian country, where he performed a sell-out concert in April last year, demanded the young star apologize. Bieber has a sizeable following in Indonesia, with nearly 20,000 followers on the Bieber Indonesia Twitter account and around 45,000 “likes” on the Justin Bieber Indonesia Facebook page. Kiss 105 FM, an Indonesian radio station popular with teenagers, stopped playing Bieber’s songs starting Friday. “Our country has a name, we are not just some random country so we are certainly offended. What he said was inappropriate,” the station’s manager Beldi Dimardi Abas told AFP. “Some fans were so upset they had unfollowed or blocked his account. We appreciate that he said he loved Indonesia in his last Tweet, but we still think he should apologize.” Popular Indonesian singer Syahrini also called for an apology, news website tribunnews.com reported.

“Which citizen likes his or her country to be insulted? I love Indonesia.

Let’s create a good image for our beloved country,” she said. — AFP

What other projects they are working on?

I am only concentrating on “Magnificent Century” for the moment. We are working very hard and we have a full schedule, so I don’t have any time left for other projects.

Were there any difficulties that you faced while shooting?

Well, regarding the shootings, the first episode was the most difficul because everybody is in a creative period. But at the same time, it is very exciting. We have a great crew and cast, very good directors and a great production team. So, I can easi-

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he Kardashians’ television neighborhood is getting a refurbishing. The E! Entertainment network has expansion plans that include a new music series from “American Idol” producer Nigel Lythgoe, a reality series with the oldest member of the Jonas Brothers and a talk show starring Whitney Cummings. E! is also sticking with what works, announcing last week a new three-year deal to keep the Kardashian reality TV empire in-house for three more years. “You’ll see us keep our fun and keep our attitude,” said E! President Suzanne Kolb. “I think you’ll see us be a little broader. We feel like E! is to pop culture what ESPN is to sports and I think we need to fully realize that.”

E! is part of the NBC Universal group of cable networks, which have been enormously profitable for parent Comcast Corp. The network has a strong brand name and good distribution, so it has potential to grow its revenue, said Derek Baine, an analyst for SNL Kagan, a company that researches the economics of TV networks. While E! is growing, it’s not at the level of fellow NBC Universal networks like USA and Bravo. USA is averaging 2.33 million viewers so

far this television season, Bravo has 992,000 and E! stands at 649,000, according to the Nielsen company.

The most high-profile attempt to broaden E!’s offerings comes on July 9 with the premiere of Lythgoe’s “Opening Act.” Each week producers will pick an unknown musical act that has posted work online, surprising the artist with the chance to open a concert for acts like Rod Stewart, Brad Paisley and Nicki Minaj. The series, which features Mary J. Blige, follows the acts as they prepare and execute the potential career-changing gigs. In August, E! premieres “Married to Jonas,” featuring Nick Jonas and Danielle Deleasa, a hairstylist in training who met the musician while they were both vacationing in the Bahamas two years ago. The series depicts the couple juggling work and family and is being produced by Ryan Seacrest.

The two programs are a targeted choice; E! executives consider music one area of entertainment the network has been deficient in following. “MTV and VH1 have moved away from their core a little bit and that has provided opportunities for people like us to expand ours,” Kolb said. While E! is not getting into sports, it

has increased its news coverage of athletes.

Part of the reason is to attract more men.

Typically, the E! audience runs 60-40 percent female, and Kolb would like to even that out a little more.

That’s also some of the thinking behind a more “gender-neutral” design of network graphics that will debut on the same day of “Opening Act,” Kolb said. Men are also more interested in E!’s topical programming like “The Soup,” and Cummings’ new series will follow “The Soup” on Wednesday nights. Titled “Love You, Mean It with Whitney Cummings,” it’s a talk show with celebrity guests and sidekick Julian McCullough. Another California family getting the reality show treatment is actor Clint Eastwood and his wife, Dina, a former television anchor. “Mrs. Eastwood & Company,” which begins on May 20, also features the actor’s two daughters and a singing group that Dina discovered on a trip to South Africa and is now managing.

E! generally finishes among the top 15 of networks among its target audience of people aged 18 to 34, and Kolb said one of her goals is to move into the top 5. The network generally

gets solid circulation - a healthy number of people tune in for one show or another - but not enough people stay around to watch other shows, she said. “There is quite a bit of brand love,” she said. “We just need them to come over more.” The network is increasing its original programming so viewers see fewer reruns, she said. “We have taken a look at what is working for us and what areas we can improve upon and we’re taking action on that,” Kolb said. “For us, this is more of an evolution than a repositioning.” — AP

In this file photo, producer Nigel Lythgoe arrives at the 18th Annual BAFTA Los Angeles Britannia Awards in Los Angeles. E! Entertainment network announced that Lythgoe will produce a reality series that will premiere on July 9, 2012. — AP

38

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

LIFESTYLE F e a t u r e s

Beach Boys puts past differences aside for reunion “miracle.” That’s the word Al Jardine notso-jokingly uses to describe the latest Beach Boys reunion - this one consisting of himself and fellow founding Beach Boys Brian Wilson and Mike Love, as well as longtime players Bruce Johnston and David Marks.

After decades of prolonged separations, legal spats and near reunions, the core Beach Boys are back together, both on stage and for an upcoming new album. Their rebirth, which became a reality earlier this year when the group performed “Good Vibrations” with Maroon 5 and Foster the People at the Grammys, has reawakened musical memories for 69-year-old Jardine.

“When I’m rehearsing over there, I’m hearing stuff I haven’t performed for many years,” Jardine said during a recent break from rehearsals for the iconic band’s 50th anniversary tour, which kicked off last week in Tucson, Ariz. “It’s wonderful to rediscover the music that way. When you’re recording three albums a year, as we did in the early days, it’s yesterday’s news,” he said. “You’re on to the next thing. Boom. That stuff gets parked somewhere though, and now it’s becoming unveiled again.” When the Beach Boys formed in 1961, it was mostly a family affair: school pal Jardine established the group with Wilson and his late brothers, Carl and Dennis, and their cousin, Love. Their breezy harmonic tunes and embodiment of freewheeling West Coast sensibilities captured the nation’s attention just before the Beatles invaded the United States, and continued for much of the 1960s with timeless songs like “I Get Around” “Surfin’ USA” and many more.

Following the 1998 death of Carl Wilson, the group fractured and began moving in different directions. Over the past 20 years, the Beach Boys’ legacy has been mired in messy conflicts that the group’s members agreed to squash in honor of their fans and the band’s 50th anniversary, a hallmark occasion even in this jaded age of reboots and comebacks.

“They sense that we love each other and that we really want to share that love with them (the fans),” said 69-year-old Wilson, the visionary songwriter of such classics as “Help Me Rhonda,” “Surfin’ USA” and “California Girls.”

Wilson, who has released solo albums in recent years and now speaks with a slight slur, had a turbulent tenure with the Beach Boys, notoriously leaving then returning to the band at one point as he battled mental illness and addiction.

“When it comes to the music, all the pretensions are aside,” said 71-year-old Love, who reached a settlement with Jardine in 2008 after launching a lawsuit against him in 2003 over his usage of the Beach Boys name (he also has sued Wilson on more than one occasion, most recently in 2005). “All the egos are

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aside. It’s just all about those group harmonies,” he added. “The effect that it has on ourselves and other people is just fantastic.”

Love said that the Beach Boys, who will be supported by a backing band composed of members from the group’s various touring entities, have rehearsed more than 50 songs spanning all their albums, including “Pet

comes around us. It’s the chemistry that’s behind all successful bands, like the Beatles and the Stones. It has to be there. It’s special for us.” The 40-city tour will take the band’s members to bigger venues than in recent years, including headlining performances at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. To honor Carl and Dennis Wilson’s contributions

unfazed by the prospect of a sweeping tour that will take them across North America, Europe and Japan. Johnston noted that “hotels are great” nowadays, while Marks was reminded that they no longer have to unload or haul their own equipment in a “U-Haul trailer and station wagon.” “The heavy lifting is the writing, arranging and recording,” said 69-year-old

said the new songs will recall their classic harmony-stacked style. The group plans to perform their new single, “That’s Why God Made the Radio,” while on tour and may add new tracks to the set list when the album is released. “We’re slaves to the Beach Boys legacy,” said Marks. “We’re just out there trying to keep that legacy alive. I can’t count how many

In front from left, The Beach Boys’ Al Jardine, Mike Love, David Marks and Bruce Johnston play during the opening show of their 50th Anniversary tour kickoff Tuesday, April 24, 2012, in Tucson, Ariz. —AP Sounds” and “Smile.” The band noted the biggest challenge has been figuring out who is singing lead on which songs, not recapturing their chemistry.

“The chemistry is there,” said 63-year-old Marks, who recorded four Beach Boys albums and has moved between the band’s camps.

“We pick up right where we left off, especially the five of us together. The magic bubble

(Dennis died in 1983), the band will play alongside videos of the late founding Beach Boys during a tribute in the show. “We haven’t gotten the holograms together yet,” joked Marks, referencing the hologram of late rapper Tupac Shakur that appeared at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival earlier in April.

For a group who could hardly be considered boys anymore, they’re surprisingly

Johnston, who joined the group in 1965. “This is not the heavy lifting. This is the chocolate cake for me because we get to pull all of these magnificently arranged parts out and sing them live. We don’t have to write them now.

We just have to pull them out of the trunk.”

The Beach Boys will stuff more tunes into that trunk with the release of an as-yet-untitled album of new material this summer. Love

times people have come up to me after shows and told me that they sing their children to sleep with ‘Surfer Girl.’ I look in the audience and little children know the words to ‘Help Me Rhonda,’ and 80 year olds are dancing in the aisles.” —AP

Rose-Marie Mattei, Peter Mattei and HRH Princess Madeleine of Sweden attend the 7th Annual Opera News Awards at the Grand Ballroom at The Plaza Hotel on April 29, 2012 in New York City. —AFP

Opera awards go to irector Peter Sellars has won a special award along with four of the world’s best singers. On Sunday, the prestigious Opera News Awards went to the American theater whiz, and to Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky, German soprano Anja Silja, Swedish baritone Peter Mattei and Finnish soprano Karita Mattila. With his trademark hair shooting straight up, Sellars accepted the award at Manhattan’s Plaza hotel. “Nothing in my life prepared me for this ballroom,” the Pittsburgh native deadpanned to the bejeweled fans, including Princess Madeleine of Sweden.

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Peter Sellars and 4 singers

For the seventh year, the opera magazine honored stars of an art form that still expresses today’s emotions, “here and now,” says the director who once set Wagner in an abandoned American Airlines terminal and Mozart with props including switchblades, guns, and drugs, and waist-up nudity. Opera, he says, “is the deep end of the pool, where we get real,” and the top singers “take this and transform it into something beautiful ... things we care about most.” On Sunday, honorees included Hvorostovsky, the silver-haired native of Siberia with the rich liquid voice, who was listed by People magazine as one of

the 50 “most beautiful people.”

Silja’s 62-year career is marked by the thrill of her modern acting, plus a voice that carries a tradition reaching back to the late Wieland Wagner, the composer’s relative and her real-life soul mate. Mattila opened a recent Met season in Puccini’s “Tosca,” broadcast live to movie theaters worldwide in high definition. The award to Sellars was presented by American bass-baritone Eric Owens, who played the general directing the World War II bomb project in the director’s “Dr. Atomic.” Several years ago, the work drew a young crowd to the Metropolitan Opera that filled

cheaper seats with their backpacks - and enthusiasm for a cuttingedge opera as fresh as a Broadway musical.

“People come because it’s about a subject they’re interested in,” says the 55-year-old Sellars. “Opera can be cool, with sheer American energy - jazz, and an R&B bass.” With his surprising, sometimes shocking direction, “people at first didn’t know what hit them,” says Opera News editor in chief F. Paul Driscoll.

“Now, we appreciate his work for its emotional truth.” —AP

Brad Paisley performs on stage at the Stagecoach Country Music Festival April 29, 2012 in Indio, California. —AFP

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TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

LIFESTYLE F a s h i o n

Avengers hurtles to $178.4m overseas debut he superhero saga “The Avengers” lived up to its blockbuster buzz with $178.4 million in overseas ticket sales days before it opens in US theaters. Domestic audiences generally passed on a bunch of new films as fans seem to be in anticipation mode for Disney’s “The Avengers,” which debuts Friday in the United States after launching in 39 other countries a week earlier. The huge overseas launch will help fan the frenzy already in place for “The Avengers,” the superhero mash-up of Marvel Comics idols whose cast includes Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner and Samuel L. Jackson.

“You hope that the magnitude of this kind of opening sends a signal that this is a for-everyone film,” said Dave Hollis, head of distribution for Disney. “You can’t put up these kinds of numbers if it’s just for guys or just for the fans. These numbers say that it is for everyone, 8 to 80.” The Sony Screen Gems ensemble comedy “Think Like a Man” was No. 1 domestically for the second-straight weekend with $18 million. Four movies were bunched up for the No. 2 spot in the $11 million range: Sony’s animated comedy “The Pirates! Band of Misfits” with $11.4 million; the Warner Bros. romantic drama “The Lucky One” with $11.3 million; Lionsgate’s blockbuster

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Actor Robert Downey Jr attends the premiere of “The Avengers” during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival on Saturday, April 28, 2012 in New York. —AP

“The Hunger Games” with $11.25 million; and Universal’s romantic comedy “The Five-Year Engagement” with $11.2 million.

Those four films were so close that their rankings from Sunday studio estimates could change once final numbers were set to be released yesterday. Along with “Pirates,” whose voice cast was led by Hugh Grant, and “Five-Year Engagement,” which stars Jason Segel and Emily Blunt, the other newcomers were Jason Statham’s action tale “Safe” from Lionsgate at No. 6 with $7.7 million and John Cusack’s Edgar Allan Poe mystery “The Raven” from Relativity Media at No. 7 with $7.3 million. “I think going to the movies will be the No. 1 priority next weekend but clearly was not the No. 1 priority this weekend,” said Paul Dergarabedian, analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com. “There’s so much anticipation for ‘The Avengers’ that the newcomers kind of got lost in the shuffle.”

“The Hunger Games” climbed to $372.5 million domestically, putting it less than $10 million behind last year’s “Harry Potter” finale, the top-grossing entry of that fantasy franchise. “Think Like a Man” raised its domestic total to $60.9 million, while “The Lucky One” lifted its haul to $39.9 million. Along with the United States, “The Avengers” has yet to open in other big markets that include Japan, China and Russia.

Among the overseas totals for “The Avengers”: $24.7 million in Great Britain; $19.7 million in Australia; $15.9 million in Mexico; $12.9 million in South Korea; and $12.9 million in France. Directed by Joss Whedon (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”), “The Avengers” has strong word-of-mouth domestically from fans who were able to see advance screenings.

Critics also have given the film high marks, and the publicity blast from the overseas revenues could push the movie into record-debut territory. The “Harry Potter” finale now has the top opening weekend domestically with $169.2 million, followed by “The Dark Knight” with $158.4 million and “The Hunger Games” with $152.5 million.

“Who knows?” Disney’s Hollis said. “It’s a film that comes with very high expectations but leaves audiences exceptionally satisfied. I’d say there’s opportunity for some repeat viewing just in the first weekend that will help make it big.” Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at US and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures were to be released yesterday.

1. “Think Like a Man,” $18 million.

2. “The Pirates! Band of Misfits,” $11.4 million ($5.5 million international).

3. “The Lucky One,” $11.3 million

($4.8 million international).

“The Hunger Games,” $11.25 million ($7.4 million international).

5. “The Five-Year Engagement,” $11.2 million.

6. “Safe,” $7.7 million ($2.4 million international).

7. “The Raven,” $7.3 million.

8. “Chimpanzee,” $5.5 million.

9. “The Three Stooges,” $5.4 million.

10. “The Cabin in the Woods,” $4.5 million ($1.5 million international).

Estimated weekend ticket sales at international theaters (excluding the US and Canada) for films distributed overseas by Hollywood studios, according to Rentrak: 1. “The Avengers,” $178.4 million.

2. “Battleship,” $22.5 million.

3. “Titanic” in 3-D, $18.5 million.

4. “American Reunion,” $14.5 million.

5. “The Hunger Games,” $7.4 million.

6. “The Pirates! Band of Misfits,” $5.5 million.

7. “The Lucky One,” $4.8 million.

8. “Le Prenom,” $4.4 million.

9 (tie). “Mirror Mirror,” $3.2 million.

9 (tie). “Wrath of the Titans,” $3.2 million. —AP 4.

‘Think Like A Man’ tops N America box office he romantic comedy “Think Like A Man” topped the North American box office for the second weekend in a row, industry estimates showed Sunday. The ensemble date movie based on the best-selling book by actor and radio talk show host Steve Harvey made $18 million in its second week despite mediocre reviews, according to Exhibitor Relations. That brings its two-week total to $60.9 million, the box office tracker said. In second place was “The Pirates! Band of Misfits,” a children’s stop-motion animated film from the studio that produced the “Wallace and Gromit” series that earned $11.4 million in its opening weekend.

Next came another date movie, the tearjerker drama “The Lucky One,” an adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks book starring Zac Efron as a US soldier back from Iraq. The movie made $11.3

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million in its second weekend. Smash action hit “The Hunger Games” fell to the fourth spot in its sixth week on the big screen. The movie, starring Jennifer Lawrence, earning $11.3 million but has raked in $372.5 million total since its opening. Legions of fans have flocked to see the movie, based on a book by Suzanne Collins, in which a teenage girl played by Lawrence fights to win a deadly television reality show featuring children in a post-apocalyptic world.

“The Five-Year Engagement,” starring Emily Blunt and Jason Segel, opened in fifth place, pulling in $11.15 million. In sixth place was another opening, the Jason Statham action flick “Safe,” which pulled in $7.7 million. It was followed by yet another debut with mediocre reviews, “The Raven” starring John Cusack as 19th century American author Edgar Allan Poe,

which collected $7.3 million. “Chimpanzee,” a true-life, child-friendly adventure about a special chimp in the jungles of Ivory Coast, sank to eighth place, pulling in $5.5 million.

Ninth was the Farrelly brothers’ comedy “The Three Stooges,” in its third week. The tribute to the legendary US comedy trio brought in $5.4 million, and a total of $37.1 million since opening. Rounding off the top 10 was “The Cabin in the Woods,” a horror movie co-produced by Josh Whedon of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” fame. The film, which plays with stereotypes from teen slasher movies, pulled in $4.5 million. —AFP

Australian billionaire to build Titanic ne of Australia’s richest men, Clive Palmer, unveiled plans yesterday to build a 21st century version of the doomed Titanic in China, with its first voyage from England to New York set for 2016. Palmer, a self-made mining billionaire, said he had commissioned state-owned Chinese company CSC Jinling Shipyard to construct Titanic II with the same dimensions as its predecessor. “It will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic but of course it will have state-of-the-art 21st century technology and the latest navigation and safety systems,” Palmer said in a statement. “Titanic II will sail in the northern hemisphere and her maiden voyage from England to North America is scheduled for late 2016.”

He added that he had invited the Chinese navy to escort the Titanic II to New York. The announcement comes just weeks after the 100th anniversary of the sinking of Titanic, which went down on April 15, 1912 after striking an iceberg on its first voyage, from Southampton to New York.

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Palmer said the new ship would be a tribute to the spirit of the men and women who worked on the original, which sank with the loss of 1,514 passengers and crew. “These

people produced work that is still marveled at more than 100 years later and we want that spirit to go on for another 100 years,” he said.

Titanic was commissioned by

In this April 25, 2012 photo provided by Crook Publicity, Australian billionaire Clive Palmer poses in front of an artist impression of the Titanic ll at MGM Studios in Los Angeles, Ca. Palmer said yesterday that he’ll build a high-tech replica of the Titanic at a Chinese shipyard and its maiden voyage in late 2016 will be from England to New York, just like its namesake planned. —AP

A handout picture received from Southampton City Council on April 4, 2012 shows the Titanic leaving Southampton on her ill-fated maiden voyage on April 10, 1912. —AFP

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White Star Line and was the largest liner in the world at the time.

Palmer said he has established his own shipping company, Blue Star Line, with the new vessel having the same specifications as its predecessor - 270 meters long (885 feet), 53 meters high and weighing some 40,000 tons. It will have 840 rooms and nine decks with design work in conjunction with an historical research team underway. No figure was given on how much it would cost. The only changes to the original would be below the water line including welding and not riveting, a bulbous bow for greater fuel efficiency, diesel generation and enlarged rudder and bow thrusters for increased maneuverability.

“Titanic II will be the ultimate in comfort and luxury with on-board gymnasiums and swimming pools, libraries, high class restaurants and luxury cabins,” Palmer said. The ship would also include an exhibition room which will be located in the space of the original’s coal boilers which will showcase his home state of Queensland. Palmer is estimated to be Australia’s fifth richest person, worth more than Aus$5 billion (US$5.2 billion), thanks to his vast coal and other mining assets in Queensland and Western Australia.

He has also branched out into tourism and owns the luxury Coolum resort on the Sunshine Coast, while recently saying he wants to move into the media industry, a sector dominated by Fairfax and Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited.

His decision to commission a Chinese shipbuilding yard, which will also construct other luxury liners for the tycoon, reinforces his ties to the country, which is a key buyer of his coal and iron ore. “The Chinese are renowned for building commercial cargo and container ships,” he said. “China currently produces around two to three percent of the world’s luxury ships but is looking to challenge the Europeans who have around 75 percent of this market. “The Chinese ship building industry with our assistance wants to be a major player in this market.”

The original Titanic was built in Belfast. —AFP

New 007 film to depict spy’s inner demons he next James Bond movie, “Skyfall,” promises the usual action, exotic locations, scheming villains and beautiful women. For fans of the original novels by Ian Fleming, there’s more: a journey into the troubled psyche of the iconic spy. After all, the director of the 23rd film in the franchise, which spans half a century, is Sam Mendes, whose cinematic studies of personalities in emotional turmoil and even meltdown include “American Beauty” and “Revolutionary Road.”

“You always go back to the Fleming because the character Fleming created over a number of novels was incredibly complex,” Mendes said Sunday at a news conference in Istanbul, where the crew of “Skyfall” has filmed. “Some people sometimes forget in the cliché of Bond that actually what (Fleming) created was a very conflicted character,” said Mendes, who was joined by cast members, including Bond actor Daniel Craig.

Fleming created a secret agent who was sometimes frustrated and ambivalent about his job. Many Bond movies sidestepped the inner demons, showcasing instead a debonair 007 whose exploits were enhanced with gaudy gadgets and special effects. In Fleming’s last novels, Mendes said, Bond suffered from a “combination of lassitude, boredom, depression, difficulty with what he’s chosen to do for a living, which is to kill. That makes him a much more interesting character, and some of those things are explored in this movie, because Daniel as an actor is capable of exploring them.”

It is Craig’s third portrayal of the spy, and he introduced a darker side to Bond in his earlier roles in 2008’s “Quantum of Solace” in 2008 and “Casino Royale” in 2006. Craig

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reread Bond novels as part of his preparation for “Skyfall,” and a delay in film production, caused when studio MGM filed for bankruptcy in 2010, allowed him more time to discuss the character with Mendes.

He said he had spoken to intelligence agents about their work, and has some inkling of the hardships they face. “I’ve got the better job,” said Craig, whose last movie was “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” the thriller adapted from the novel by Stieg Larsson.

“Skyfall” is due for release on Oct. 26 in Britain and in other locations shortly after that. Judi Dench returns as spy chief M and the film introduces English actress Naomie Harris as a field agent named Eve and Berenice Marlohe of France as a character named Severine. Producers are enigmatic about the plot, though they have said the relationship between Bond and M is tested and MI6, the spy agency, comes under attack. “Skyfall” includes scenes in London, Scotland, Turkey and China. In Istanbul, the crew filmed scenes with motorcycles at the Grand Bazaar, a covered market that dates to the early Ottoman period. The 1963 Bond movie, “From Russia With Love,” included scenes in Istanbul. It starred Sean Connery.

Fleming, whose experiences as a British intelligence officer in World War II helped him conceive the Bond novels, died in 1964. Some things about the spy’s image on screen (as well as in the books) won’t change. Asked to describe Bond’s love life in “Skyfall,” Craig smiled. “It’s very rich,” he said. “We’re making a Bond movie, so that kind of speaks for itself.” —AP

’Avengers’ hurtles to $178.4m overseas debut

TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012

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Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform. — AP

Berlin yodel school revamping alpine sound of music

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he distinctive warble of yodeling strikes a dissonant note in the middle of a gritty Berlin district that is home to a thriving Turkish population and peppered with trendy bars. But if you walk down the street from the kebab shops and anarchist graffiti scrawled on the pavement, you will catch the mellifluous sounds usually heard in Swiss Alps-a noise that grows louder when you enter Doreen Kutze’s hairdressing salon. Instead of perms and highlights, Kutze rents out the space to offer wannabe yodelers lessons in the art of alpine singing.

“It’s good to be able to offer this to people here in Berlin, so they can try it out without having to travel all the way to Switzerland,” Kutzke said. Once used by alpine cattle herders to communicate across the open meadows and deep valleys of the Alps, yodeling is usually associated more with the fusty repertoire of the Sound of Music’s von Trapp family than the edgy music scene of Berlin.

But the 37-year-old is coaxing yodeling down from the snow capped peaks and into the urban jungle of the German capital, in the hope of stripping alpine singing of its kitschy image. “Yodeling used to mean standing in the middle of some marketplace in a dirndl (traditional German woman’s dress) during a folk festival,” she said. “I do a lot to try to work against yodeling clichÈs.”

“FILTHY SOUND” Furnished with an old-fashioned wood burner and decorated with pine cones, the hairdressing salon where Kutzke holds her workshop is reminiscent of a cosy alpine lodge-save for the barber’s chair. Kutzke draws the curtains across the huge window front to stop local children from staring, before the pre-yodeling warm up of stretches begins, interrupted only briefly by a passer by wanting to make a hair appointment. There is enough demand from Berliners to learn the technique that her workshop for beginners runs every month, with up to 10 participants, Kutzke said.

“It’s not tiring exactly, to yodel, but I feel hoarse,” said one participant named Michaela, during one of the regular breaks to allow the budding yodelers to rest their vocal chords. She said she had read about the yodeling school in a newspaper and had always wanted to try it out. The remainder of the group were unwilling to talk, seemingly embarrassed to be caught yodeling in a hairdressers’ for three hours on a sunny Saturday afternoon. It took a while for the troupe of mostly middle-aged yodelers to overcome their shyness and bellow “yo” and “hee” at the top of their lungs as they slouched awkwardly in a circle.

“Children pick up yodeling a lot faster than adults because they can mimic and are so uninhibited, they have no fear,” Kutzke said. The tricky technique requires quick alternation between shrill falsetto and rough chest voice. A good singing voice can often hamper learning how to yodel,

Kutzke said. “People who sing well can have problems because they are just not used to making those sounds,” she said. “It sounds a bit like a donkey. It’s not a pretty sound, it’s really quite filthy.”

Kutzke, however, can both sing and yodel, and has showcased her talents on German national television and in clubs. Under the performing name Kutzkelina, the singer experiments with yodeling and dub music - a genre of emphatic bass beats that grew out of reggae. The result is a brand of yodeling you can dance to and that recasts the trilling song for the warehouses, power plants and concrete basements that house Berlin’s club scene. “ The echo element in dub fits well with the echo in yodeling. Single phrases and echoes are used and then sampled,” Kutzke said. “But yodeling can also be sung to jazz and classical music there are really no limits to it. I want to show the diversity,” she said. It’s a message she tries to impart to her students, whom she guides through the many facets of yodeling, from country music to a yodellay-ee-oo-ing rendition of “You Are My Sunshine”, a song made famous by Bing Crosby.

EVIL SPIRITS Aside from its musical versatility, yodeling also serves other purposes, far removed from its alpine form. The cry is used by African tribes to ward off evil spirits, Kutzke said. “The idea was that wherever a yodeler was singing there would be no room for demons,” she explained. To hear the hollering of five yodelers in the small hairdressing salon, it is easy to understand why-it is impossible to yodel quietly.

For the urban yodeler, the volume of the technique can be a stress buster for the strains of modern life.

“Yodeling can get rid of stress and it can really put you in a good mood because adults are rarely so loud,” Kutzke said. “In yodeling there’s this ‘Aha!’ factor, when you realize ‘I can sing loudly-I’m allowed to sing loudly!’” But this aspect of yodeling can also be a curse - suitable practicing space for yodelers is hard to come by in the crowded city.

Kutzke recommends her students practice in the closed-off space of their car to avoid annoying others with their yodeling endeavors-if they want, that is. “Some people just decide they don’t care about their neighbors,” she said. — Reuters

Wild Man John of the Wild Tchoupitoulas Mardi Gras Indians performs at the Cultural Exchange Pavilion, which is devoted to the Mardi Gras Indian tradition this year, on Sunday during the 2012 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, in New Orleans. — AP

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ruce Springsteen has closed out the first weekend of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival with a 2 1/2-hour show that combined crowd-pleasers such as “Born to Run” with the cover tune of his new CD, “Wrecking Ball.”

Fans began staking out spots when the Fair Grounds opened at 11 a.m. Sunday, rushing from the entrance gates to spread blankets and set up chairs close to the stage. By the time Springsteen stepped on stage fans were

Bruce Springsteen and Steven Van Zandt perform. — AP

stretched around the fairgrounds track, some standing 10 to 12 people deep. At one point New Orleans blues legend Dr John took the stage with Springsteen, joining him on “Something You Got.” Springsteen last played Jazz Fest in 2006. Soul singer Al Green closed out the day on the Congo Square stage. — AP