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The little maestro who wouldn’t have been

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Man vs machine

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Local FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Local Spotlight

Kuwait’s my business

Here’s what’s nice about Kuwait

Be yourself!

By Muna Al-Fuzai

By John P Hayes muna@kuwaittimes.net local@kuwaittimes.net

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uffets! Yep, that’s what the majority of my readers told me is “nice” about Kuwait. You’ll recall that last week I asked you to tell me what you think is nice about Kuwait before I tell you what I told my niece in the US when she asked me, “Is anything nice over there?” Buffets makes sense for a country that offers at least one in every hotel, but thankfully the readers also offered other nice features about Kuwait. My Twitter messages included, “Everyday is a holiday,” “I like that I can be outside all day in January,” “Kuwait is small and everything is close,” and “my time in Kuwait was the most rewarding working with multicultural teams.”

My email included comments about no taxes (even though we are hearing rumblings to the contrary), living a “more comfortable life,” and an “easy life” compared to other parts of the world; subsidized utilities, low petrol costs, “a truly cosmopolitan environment,” and the ability to get along without knowing a word of Arabic. Several readers approached me in person. One said, “It’s nice that Kuwait lets someone like you share your ideas.” (I’m guessing that was a compliment). Readers at a mall said, “Our malls are amazing,” and “We love all the American franchises.” The nicest comment came from a little boy who told me, “Our Amir is nice!”

So now it’s my turn. Here’s what I told my niece about what’s nice in Kuwait: “It’s nice that I can go to sleep at night and not worry if I locked the door to the flat. I could never do that in Dallas, Texas. It’s nice that I don’t worry about a psycho pulling out a gun and shooting up a school, or a movie theatre, or a drug addict dragging me out of my car and stealing it. Day to day, I don’t think about safety. It’s really nice that I can afford a driver because it’s not nice to drive in Kuwait; a driver is financially out of reach in the USA. It’s nice that I don’t have to borrow money to fill the tank of my SUV,

or pay for car maintenance and repairs.

“Even though the cost of living is increasing (and that worries me) I have a nice, affordable, comfortable lifestyle in Kuwait. Many mornings I visit a coffee shop to read the newspaper, or interview someone for my column. I love riding my bike along the seashore; I love the outdoor brunch with friends on Fridays; I especially love meeting people from other cultures and societies and learning about their ideas and values. While my favorite food is Italian, it’s nice knowing that I can enjoy a variety of authentic cuisines. Plus there’s that nice Iranian bread - you haven’t eaten bread until you get Iranian bread right from the brick oven.

“I have a nice job in the nicest of Kuwait’s private universities, and I enjoy meeting many nice students who come from numerous countries. Kuwait’s geographic location is also nice, affording me opportunities to travel. In the past year, I’ve been to Dubai, Jordan, Oman and Thailand - each trip cost little more than what I’d pay just for airfare between any one of those countries and the USA. I know none of this lives up to the ‘dangerous’ image that the American media create about the Middle East, but this is the way it is in Kuwait. In a word: Nice.”

My answer wasn’t what my niece expected, but it was easy for her to understand why I think of Kuwait as my home.

And now I’m off to a . . . buffet!

NOTE: Dr John P Hayes is inspiring 60 future leaders by teaching the Kuwait Leadership Mastery program. He’s the head of Business Administration at GUST where he also teaches marketing. Through the years he’s worked with more than 100 franchised brands internationally. Contact him at questions@hayesworldwide.com, or via Twitter @drjohnhayes.

A

n old friend of mine called me recently and while we were chatting, we started gossiping about a person we both know. He fancies himself as a sort of comic but cracks many poor or boring jokes that are not funny. In fact, the more he tries to be funny by cracking such jokes, the more he seems ridiculous, laughing at his own jokes. His humour leaves others simply cold. Even when it is not funny or humorous, I agree that one can pretend once out of courtesy. But when it becomes a habit, one cannot be nice every time just because his feelings would be hurt. At times, the situation becomes too pathetic.

I wonder why someone would behave like this, but I guess it could be a need to seek attention and acceptance. They think the more they act like a comedian, the more they will be welcomed by others. The facts are actually quite the opposite. It only makes such people come across more as clowns and not a very good one at that.

I also think that some people try to act as comedians because they do not know enough and cover it up with the silly jokes they make on the assumption that people will consider them as men of good nature. I think such people are shallow and if only they spend some time reading a good book on social behaviour or science, they would have little need to come up with jokes.

I really wish I can give this person a piece of this advice and ask him to stop cracking these jokes. If only he acts normal, we will be happy to take him on his terms and not for what he is trying to be. Just be yourself. That is a key to comfort in life and only then you would be able to have a circle of friends who will stay with you for who you are and not for your silly jokes.

In my view

From East to West

By John O’Neill local@kuwaittimes.net

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KUWAIT: The good weather and the three-day weekend were most enjoyable to children in Kuwait who were entertained with various outdoor activities. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat

he proliferation of modern media often seems firmly anchored in the Western tradition, tending to overlook our global debt to Arabic social values and practices. As an example, modern hospitals and universities both began in 9th century North Africa whilst that ubiquitous modern staple, coffee, had its origins in Yemen. Much information is being reclaimed from ‘forgotten history’ enabling us to track how East enabled West to develop an extraordinary range of items and facilities. Truly ‘goods and services’ have always been integral to the Arabic worldview.

Consider universities in the year 859. Young princess Fatima Al-Firhi founded the first degree-granting university in Fez, Morocco. Her sister Miriam founded an adjacent mosque and together the complex became the Al-Qarawiyyin Mosque and University, which is still operating today. Shortly afterwards in 872, the first medical center with patient wards and a teaching wing was founded in Cairo. The Tulun hospital provided free care for anyone who needed it, in line with the Muslim tradition of caring for all who are sick. From Cairo, such hospitals spread around the Muslim world.

From the world of maths, the very word algebra comes from

the title of a Persian mathematician’s famous 9th century treatise “The Book of Reasoning and Balancing”. Developing Greek and Hindu systems, algebra unified rational and irrational numbers, and defined raising a number to a power.

Around the year 1000, Iraq’s Ibn Al-Haitham proved that humans see objects as light rays are reflected and enter the eye, overturning the theories of those wise Greeks Euclid and Ptolemy that light was emitted from the eye itself. The great Muslim physicist also explained how the eye sees images upright due to the connection between the optic nerve and the brain.

In terms of music also, the Muslim world had a profound impact on Europe, being a noted center of excellence. Among the instruments spreading out from the Middle East were the lute and the rahab, an ancestor of the violin. In fact modern musical scales are said to derive from the Arabic alphabet.

Now so central to Western culture, coffee was first brewed in Yemen around the 9th century, helping Sufis stay up during late nights of devotion. Later brought to Cairo by students, coffee was soon part of Arab life but not until the 16th century did the beans reach Italy, often seen as the home of creative coffee-making.

Local FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Conspiracy Theories

Rumour me this, rumour me that

By Badrya Darwish

badrya_d@kuwaittimes.net

R

umours are somewhere between myth and reality, and could be very destructive. Rumours have been around ever since man was born. Rumour is something all pervasive - be it China, India, Australia, the US, Europe, Africa or the Arab world.

People of all ages, races and colour love rumours. Some people spread rumours as a pastime and a joke. For them it is a social act. Perhaps they wait and watch to see how effective their rumour has turned out. The sad side is that some people eventually start believing the rumours they spread. The problem is that rumours spread like wildfire, especially with mushrooming social networks, smartphones and technology.

People love to listen to rumours about marriages, divorces and any kind of scandal. In fact, these are rather favourite subjects of rumourmongers and consumers of these rumours in any society.

On the other hand, rumours sometimes take a serious turn, particularly in the political or economic field, or they may originate out of jealousy and end up destroying a business. For instance, I know of a few cases in Kuwait where people spread rumours about famous restaurants accusing them of serving donkey meat or dog meat. I will not mention the names of the restaurants because I do not want to commit libel. Many restaurants became the victims of such rumours that spread via SMS, on blogs or Whatsapp. Even long-time patrons of these restaurants shunned them though the restaurants themselves denied such rumours.

Rumours can affect stock exchanges and markets. Often they are put out by spin doctors who do this as part of some vested project or to affect the stocks. The worst rumours which I found difficult to deal with concerned the deaths caused by flu. Some media sources take such rumours seriously and scare the nation. The latest fad is that everyone should go and get a flu shot because thousands were dying of flu.

This reminded me about what happened a few years ago with swine flu and then with bird flu when things assumed such proportions that the whole country was counting the deaths and wondering if emergency services would be able to cope up with the corpses. It was said that even burying the people would become tough. If you had watched such a report, you would have rushed to the nearest pharmacy and gotten two shots just in case one failed to work.

A few months after the swine flu rumours, it turned out that billions of vaccines were sold all over the world. A journalist in Holland exposed the big scandal. He discovered that it was all a big scam and originated from a big pharmaceutical company in the US. Just imagine how the poor nations would have bought millions of vaccines just to protect their people.

These were criminal rumours.

Let me enlighten you about the latest rumour in Kuwait.

Some military guy supposedly committed suicide and posted a recording of the act online. The army denied the suicide. The people behind this rumour were arrested yesterday and it turned out that all of this was “just a prank”.

When you hear something so fantastic, do not believe it immediately. It could be a rumour. Try to find out who is spreading it and what could be his interest. At the end of the day, it could turn out to be just a rumour. Never believe something without doing your own fact-checking. By the way, my article is real and not a rumour!

Have a nice, long weekend!

KUWAIT: Arabic coffee: aroma and taste to die for. — Photo

by Joseph Shagra

Local FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

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Local FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

The little maestro

who wouldn’t have been

By Ben Garcia

H

Haiwei Li performs at a concert.

aiwei Li, a talented young Chinese pianist and violinist who has showcased his talents before presidents and prime ministers, is not just a wunderkind but more of a miracle - someone who is very lucky to be among us, going by what he went through as an infant. Li is just nine years old, but his music has already captivated spectators from around the world. His talent is widely sought by members of the diplomatic community in Kuwait and highly respected political leaders. He has won several awards and recognitions from across the Middle East.

His love affair with music started when he was just four. This was when he joined the Kuwait Music Academy where he studied under the guidance of Professor Cezary Owerkowics and Kinga Masternak. After spotting his talent, the academy gave him full scholarship since he had won the institute popularity.

Zang Feng, Li’s mother, narrated the story of his birth, at times pausing to wipe away the tears that rolled down her cheeks. “When I became pregnant with Haiwei Li, we never thought we would keep him in view of China’s one-child policy and our then 20-year-old son,” explains Feng, adding that at the time the family was facing financial difficulties. “We didn’t have enough money to raise another child and that is why we decided to go back home to China for an abortion,” she said. “I was crying hard because I wanted to keep the baby but I knew that it would be hard to afford having another child,” Zang said. Every day of those three months, Zang would only cry, looking for a way to save the baby.

At the time, the Chinese couple had already scheduled their return to China to abort the child. All that they could think of was that they will have to be quick, otherwise the abortion could turn out to be dangerous. “But at that time, Iraq was becoming embroiled in problems and nurses in Kuwait were advised to prepare for any emergency. And some people told us that if we leave Kuwait during the war in

Iraq, we could not get our job back again. So our flight to China was eventually cancelled.

That created another bigger trouble for us. We were already struggling and suffering, wondering what to do with the child in my belly. And my mind was already conditioned to do an abortion back in China, but we just could not get out.

Through sources, I obtained certain pills from a Filipina lady which could help abort a child. I was happy and was ready to take the step; in fact, I was all set to consume those pills.

But there were other things to consider. I was told that if something happened to me as a result of taking that medicine, my husband or even I could land in jail. Now this was the beginning of yet another problem and I was crying hard and wondering about some other way to abort the baby. I was told to do it through acupuncture, but I had read a lot of

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Local FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

failed abortions through this procedure.

All I could do was to search for more ways, crying every day because at the back of my mind, I also wanted to keep my child alive.

One night before taking the medicine, I received a call from a Kuwaiti woman who was my friend in a hospital. She said she had heard that I was planning an abortion. When I responded in the affirmative and told her about the one-child policy in China and that we already had one, she pleaded with me not to abort the baby. She said if I had any financial problems, she will help me raise the baby. I uttered a sign of relief because I was on the verge of aborting my baby and here was a woman offering help to finance my child. I was shocked and could not believe what I had heard. I immediately told my husband about it and he said, ‘okay, we’ll keep him.’”

Zang was elated about the Kuwaiti lady’s interest in her baby. She started to constantly communicate with this benefactor and started discussing with her how to care for her baby. “Initially, she said ‘I will help you, I will take care of your child, and when you think you are ready financially’ she would return the child to us. Some of my Chinese friends asked me not to give away my child because when the child would grow up, they would never give him back to us. I told them no, it’s okay. As long as the child is alive, I have no problems about that. In short, we agreed.”

“When I was eight months pregnant, I called the woman and told her that I wanted to visit her home because if the child was to be with them, I wanted to know where they were going to keep my baby so that I could also visit. She promised me that she will come on Monday, then Tuesday, again on Wednesday to pick me up and take me to her home, but she never came. I thought that she was no longer interested and was very disappointed once again.

“After the delivery, I called her again.

She said, she would take the baby, but told me to go to a court to sign some legal requirements. She said I would have to go to court, otherwise ‘mafi fayda.’ I thought that she had initially agreed just to raise the baby, but now, she wanted to change the name of my baby legally. Around that time, I watched a television report about a case similar to mine in which the family found it hard to receive the baby back. In my mind, I was struggling with the question about whether or not to let the woman have my child. I had already had the baby, and I did not want to lose him at this stage. Yet our financial situation was so hard that we could not really keep our child with us. So for a month or two months, I struggled a lot. I was crying and crying hard because while in my heart, I wanted to keep him, on the other hand, I wanted to give him away to someone else to help us extricate ourselves from our financial difficulties.

“One day, when I returned to work, there was a Kuwaiti patient who was very sick. My husband came to the hospital with my baby. I showed her the child and she was very happy. As we shared our predicament, my husband and I were both crying. She said, khalas, give the child to me and my maid will take care of him. At that moment, we decided to let her have the child. He was almost four-months-old at that time. He stayed with them until madam died in 2009. She provided him with almost everything. They treated him like their own son while I used to see him only on holidays. They sent him to school.

factbox A list of the most recent solo appearances Loyac’s Got Talent (won first place) ● Concert of Hope ● Fundraising for Kuwait Bayt Abdullah for Children’s Hospice ● Fundraising event for PAWs (Protecting Animal Welfare Society) ● German national day event at the German Embassy ● Charity concert in the British Embassy ● Many times he was Invited by Kuwait National TV for live performances ● Countless many various concert in his school and Kuwait Awards/recognitions ● Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music International Exams: Practical Piano up to Grade 8 (June 2012) & Theory of Music Grade 5 (many with honors). ● 1st Gulf Chopin Competition (March 2010): 15th Prize Junior Section & Polish Ambassador Special Prize. ● 5th Kuwait Chopin Competition (Feb 2010): 1st Prize Junior Section. ● 1st GCC Competition Emirates International Competition, Piano Section (Feb 2012): 2nd Prize Junior Section. ● 1st GCC Competition Emirates International Competition, Violin Section (Feb 2012): 1st Prize Junior Section. ● Solo appearance with Emirates Youth Symphony Orchestra. ● He is also good ballet dancer, Indian dancer, actor, and rock climber. ●

I appreciated a lot what madam. Then he learnt little by little how to play a piano or a violin, learnt gymnastics and acting. I used to visit him all the time.

“One day, I thought of bringing him back with me but madam said no way. I know the family loved him so much and he too was very close to them already, and felt like family. He learnt Arabic. For them, his name was Abdullah. In one sense, he really belonged with them already. At that time, I sincerely started thinking about bringing him back with me. I had already started earning a good salary and thought I could keep him with me and raise him but madam would not relinquish control.

They started to hide the child away from me. I remember once I cried outside for three hours, but they did not allow me in.

“When he was eight months, I ‘borrowed’ him for a day but madam could not wait and appeared at our flat and virtually snatched him away. At that time, we are struggling financially, so I gave up.

When he was two years of age, I tried to take him back but she would not allow. It remained that way when he turned three.

When he turned four, I tried many times, but she would ask me to leave the baby alone and that he will be fine. We made an agreement with madam and made her

agree to let Abdullah stay for two days at our home and two days at their home.

“This arrangement about spending two days with each family has another story: Once when I was about to take my child for his two day stay with us, her daughter called. She said her mother was very sick.

When I reached their home, I saw her lying down and froth was spouting from her mouth. I immediately tried to resuscitated her but by then she was already dead. I knew how my child would be affected. He loved her so much but it was already too late; she had died. I knew that she loved my child very much. When she died, the daughter of the Kuwaiti lady and other members of their family allowed me to take my son with me, but their love and support for Abdullah continued.

“The daughter of the madam would give him almost everything he needed, from clothes to school needs. She bought him an iPad, a laptop, almost everything that he ever needed. In 2009, I enrolled him for piano lessons because he liked music, just like his father. His skills will always bring something beautiful, adding to the memories of people who are listening to his notes. Haiwei admits that he misses his Kuwaiti ‘mother’ a lot, even now.”

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Local FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Malayalam lit blooms in Kuwait desert Writers admit expat life a fertile climate for writing

Bergman Thomas

Bessy Kadavil

By Sunil Cherian

I

t is a genre in its own right among the many diversified streams of literature - expatriate writings. It rubs shoulders with other evolving branches like women’s writing, political writing and literature of the displaced among other classifications. Identity issues, struggles to adapt and longing for home and other things are discussed in depth here. The Third Culture Kid (TCK) frame - living outside the parental world has always given literature a different angle. When a writer looks at his or her own background from an outside frame of reference, it turns out to be the best of both worlds.

In Kuwait, where Indian expat lit is very much active and alive, the clan of expat writers is on the rise.

At least 10 Malayalam books are in print now. More than that number is currently in the works, either on paper or on the computer on an everyday basis, making the best creative use of after-work time. Many have shared the idea of penning down their fictional and otherwise thoughts, except that some would not reveal their area of interest. Jleeb based writer Karunakaran denies the term expat writing because ‘literature should transcend the boundaries of place’ he said. Karunakaran’s new novel ‘The Seven Disciples of Mao Zedong’ is in completion now.

Arguably, the greatest expat literary event in Kuwait is scheduled for Feb 24 this year where the Kuwait launch of a novel, The Saga of an Expat, and a workshop on writing and discussions on literature are the only agenda. The organizers Malayalam Kuwait have invited celebrated Indian writer Paul Zacharia for the two-day event. “Zacharia will spend two days here conducting the workshop and delivering the keynote address,” said Bergman Thomas, the chief coordinator of the event. Zacharia is coming to Kuwait from the film set of ‘Praise the Lord’, one of his stories now being filmed by newcomer director Shibu Gangadharan.

The novel Saga of an Expat, the third book published by Kuwait-based 75-year-old author Balagopalan, is a first person account of the 50 years of Kuwait’s history through the eyes of an expat. The autobiographical novel or the narrative non-fiction details the expats in the category of ABC (ayah, butler, clerk) and detests the Saddam days where even 14year olds were sent with ‘Kalashnikov in hand and slippers on feet’.

Dharmaraj Madappally

Thomas, whose debut novel was picked as one of the best 10 in 2012 by literary critic Harikumar, is writing a new novel. “Right now, I’m shuttling between my job, the organization’s activities and late night writing,” said Thomas, who ends his every day by giving a missed call to his wife who is in India.

Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh based Lisy Kuriakose who lives with her family that includes her grandchildren has finished writing 50 poems that have spiritual traces and tinges. Bessy Kadavil, another Jleeb resident, is working on a bildungsroman or coming of age story about an ‘orphaned’ boy. “The novel is about nostalgia,” said Bessy, who has published collections of three poetry books, two story books and two audio CDs of her anthology.

Dharmaraj Madappally, who shot to fame by his expat themed stories published in the Malayalam edition of Kuwait Times, is on a novel about a nurse in Jleeb who is named John Mary because her father wanted a boy. The novel, tentatively titled ‘The Mind that Rains by Mistake’ proclaims the relations humans have with nature.

Shibu Philip of Mangaf is into his second novel about a man who lives in two worlds: one of his native land and the other the land he lives in. “The combination and friction unfolds, said Shibu who hopes to finish the novel by June this year. Uthaman Valathukad, known as an artist, is for the first time publishing his 21 poems titled ‘The Storm Hidden in the Leaves’. The poems are a “tough selection from many poems written over 7 years”.

‘Mayflower An Ancient Dream,’ an anthology of 40 poems written over a span of 15 years, is going to be published coinciding with the poet’s 40th birthday. The poet, Abu Halifa based Jyothidas, has initiated a publishing company - Aksharam Books - for the publication of his poems.

Prathibha Kuwait, another expat association for literature has published 2 books comprising the works of its members. Habeeb Rahman, former literary secretary of Kerala Art Lovers’ Association, has just finished his second book ‘Some Who Nobody Doubts’, a collection of 8 short stories.

And there are other writers who burn the midnight oil without letting anyone know their secret dreams as they uncage the thoughts they are pregnant with. That list is only growing.

Jyothidas

Lisy Kuriakose

Shibu Philip

Valet shopping

By Nawara Fattahova

I

n a shopping paradise like Kuwait where free time, disposable income and retail goods abound, there is a section of women that needs assistance to handle their own shopping. For some, shopping is a hassle. For others, finding appropriate matches is a skill they have not mastered. Their call for help is answered by Joumana Soufi, 27, who provides shopping services known as Posh Fairy styling service.

According to her, Posh Fairy gives your look an attitude. “I do this as a personal stylist to help my client negotiate her way successfully through the fashion maze and to solve style dilemmas or wardrobe crisis she might have. We have certainly all been there. Who hasn’t landed in the totally wrong outfit at an oh-so-cool party? I am here to help and take on all the fashion emergencies,” Soufi says, describing her job.

“I work with my client to create an image that works for her age, life style, budget and aspirations in such a way so that she can be comfortable in her own skin. I also function as a personal shopper. For those who hate the stress of disappointing shopping trips, this will change the way they go about their shopping business. One shopping session with me will change all that for a super fashionable and a fun experience,” she pointed out. Posh Fairy is an expert in a wardrobe makeover. “Wrong size?

Wrong color? Wrong pattern? Can’t accessorize?

Out of date? The list is endless. These are just some of the symptoms that Posh Fairy can remedy with one visit to the client’s closet,” explains Soufi. The service she provides is available for women only.

Most of her clients are middle-aged women between 26 and 35 and hailing from Kuwait.

Packing is the next stage of the personal shopping experience that Posh Fairy helps with. “Those who are going somewhere and hate packing or are confused what to take along, can also use her services. “How many times did you end up packing so

much stuff that you did not require? I am here to help the client get the best out of her closet and give her as many outfits from the fewest items. My advice is: Travel light, and stay in style,” she noted. For Posh Fairy, consulting a client on her wardrobe is another feature of her job. “If the client Joumana Soufi thinks she hasn’t used the most out of her closet, or she is not sure what cuts work for her body type, or what colors go with her skin and hair, or doesn’t know which trends to follow, I’ll work with her to put on the perfect new style, and to find out what suits her and what doesn’t,” explained Soufi.

Busy moms are also some of Soufi’s clients. “I’m here to offer a helping hand for busy mums to facelift their chic-mode or help dressing their little ones,” she says explaining that she can help the Mama-tobe. “I know how hard it is to be pregnant and stay stylish. If this client is expecting and don’t know what works with her new body, I’ll take care of her,” she stated. Soufi also helps with choosing gift packages. “I’m considered as a friend that could use a helping hand. For those who need a really original present for a friend or partner, Posh Fairy gift packages can be made out for a specific amount or for a particular service. They are special gifts that make a difference and could change a life,” she further said.

She usually meets the client before the shopping trip to understand her better. “I go to her house and mix and match her clothes, or she chooses destination to go shopping. Sometime the client wants me to do the shopping from A-Z, while other clients ask me for advice, and I find staff for her, or give her tips,” she says explaining that she avoids shopping in malls at the weekends. Sometimes, she says, clients just ask questions on the phone.

Local FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Poet appeal becomes test for Web crackdowns DOHA: After morning prayers next Monday, Qatar’s most prominent defense lawyer plans to gather his files, drive five minutes to the appeals court and try to convince a judge that a poet doesn’t deserve to spend his life in prison for a Web-posted verse interpreted as defiance against the Gulf nation’s ruler. The attorney - a former Qatari justice minister who later helped defend the toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein - knows he has given himself an ambitious agenda. He first seeks to prove the poet was convicted on an allegedly falsified confession.

He is then setting his sights on trying to reform legal codes to give more room for free expression in Qatar, a hyper-rich nation with a rapidly expanding international profile.

And if that’s not enough, he also is up against an overall mood from Gulf officials that’s becoming decidedly unfriendly to the Web. Arrests now occur regularly across the Western-backed Gulf states for Twitter posts and blogs - even some poems - considered threatening to the state or offensive to rulers increasingly on guard for perceived threats inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings. Earlier this month, two Kuwaitis received two-year prison sentences for Twitter messages considered offensive to the country’s ruler. The United Arab Emirates last year imposed sweeping Internet laws that give authorities wide authority against posts construed as a challenge to the ruling system. “Do we want this to be a region where any political opinion runs of risk of bringing a criminal charge?” said defense lawyer Najeeb Al-Nauimi in an interview with AP in his Doha office. “The system has to reform itself. This is my mission.” The immediate test in Qatar, though, strikes at some of Gulf’s most sensitive issues as leaders grope for ways to keep a lid on possible dissent. The appeal seeks to overturn the most severe punishment from the Web crackdowns: the life sentence in late November against a well-known poet, Muhammad ibn al-Dheeb Al-Ajami, for a verse deemed as encouragement to fight the ruling system.

While each Gulf state has its own legal procedures and laws, the region is moving toward greater integrations of all policies. The poet’s case will be closely followed - by both authorities and activists - as a message on how far officials can go in muzzling cyberspace. “This sentence, in particular, sent a huge chill right across the region,” said Rori Donaghy, a coordinator at the London-based Emirates Center for Human Rights. “All these crackdowns are meant to make everyone on the Internet think, ‘Could I be next?’”

It also has presents a potential quandary for Qatar, which has tried to craft a reputation as a pragmatic power

that has benefited from the Arab Spring by exerting its influence with opposition groups in places such Libya and Syria. The case could put an uncomfortable spotlight on issues such as Qatar’s proposed new media laws that - like others emerging in the Gulf - give authorities wide leeway for arrests. Qatar’s pan-Arab network Al-Jazeera, meanwhile, has faced criticism for aggressive reporting about rights abuses outside the Gulf but giving scant attention to similar accusations at home.

“What it all shows is that the Gulf has done well with adopting and adapting many aspects of the West in commerce and technology,” said Christopher Davidson, an expert on Gulf affairs at Britain’s Durham University.

“Where it stops is over anything that could challenge the political status quo. There, they fall back on the traditions of coming down fast and hard.”

Qatari officials have declined to comment on the poet’s conviction or appeal. Even the basis for the charges is difficult to pin down. Ajami, 37, has been jailed awaiting trial since Nov 2011. He was taken into custody months after an Internet video was posted of him reciting “Tunisian Jasmine”, a poem lauding that country’s popular uprising, which touched off the Arab Spring rebellions across the Middle East. In the poem, he said, “We are all Tunisia in the face of repressive” authorities, criticizing Arab governments that restrict freedoms. “Thieves,” he called them.

But the actual charges appear to be built around an earlier online dispute in Aug 2010, before the Arab Spring, said attorney Nauimi. In that instance, Ajami claims he was secretly recorded reciting a verse mocking another poet, who was believed close to high-level officials in Qatar. The audio of Ajami’s poem, recited to a private group at Cairo University, was posted on the Web and became a brief sensation in Gulf literary circles. In the verse, Ajami describes the other poet as an example of a flawed personality unfit to be a leader.

While seemingly tame, the traditions of Arabic poetry often include rich use of allegories and veiled references embedded with sharper meanings. This apparently caught the attention of Qatar’s rulers. The case file against Ajami includes responses from three poets employed by the Culture Ministry concluding that the poem was an indirect call to challenge the state, said the defense attorney.

“Since when does the Ministry of Culture become the police?” asked Nauimi. He said he tried to get other poets to offer counter-opinions, but “no one would do it”. “They are too scared,” he said.

Nauimi plans to undermine the state’s case by claiming the prosecutor “cut and pasted” comments from Ajami’s interrogation to make it appear he said the poem in public

when instead it was given among a handful of friends in Cairo, where Ajami was studying literature. Ajami has since expressed his loyalty to the emir, whose family has had friendly ties with Ajami’s clan for decades. But he won’t try to appease the rulers with an apology or writing a poem in their praise. “We stand behind the emir and the system. No one can deny that,” said Ajami’s brother, Farhad, a law student in Dubai. “But we refuse to go directly to the emir to beg to drop the case. This is not right. He should not be in jail in the first place.”

For Nauimi, it’s also a chance to shoot for a higher goal in a career with bold forays. Nauimi, who served as Qatar’s Justice Minister from 1995-1997, was part of Saddam’s defense team in Baghdad and claims he broke the news to the deposed Iraqi leader that the tribunal would likely sentence him to hang. He also says he is ready to defend Syrian President Basher Al-Assad if he ever faces trial. He views the poet’s case as an opportunity to try to roll back some of the hardline codes on public expression in Qatar as an example to other countries in the region. “(The emir) can pull the plug on this. I can just pick up the phone. I wouldn’t advise that,” said Nauimi. “I don’t want to drop the case. The judiciary system has to correct itself. Look,” he continued. “They say there is free speech except if it’s against the ruler or his family or his relatives or the dignity of the state or the crown prince or his family or the dignity of the crown prince. What’s left? A political person can just criticize himself. That’s it.” — AP

UN pays Kuwait $1.3bn Iraq war compensation

GENEVA: The United Nations said it paid out about $1.3 billion in compensation to Kuwait yesterday over Iraq’s invasion of the state in 1990. The Geneva-based UN Compensation Commission said the payments related to damage to Kuwait’s oil wells, pipelines and equipment during the seven-month occupation by Iraqi forces and subsequent losses to production and sales. It said it has now paid out a total of $40.1 billion to over 100 governments and international organisations in reparations for the invasion, with about $12.3 billion still to be paid. Payments to meet Kuwait’s claims are funded by a percentage of the proceeds of Iraqi oil sales, currently at five percent. —AFP

News

in brief

Kuwait army refutes soldier suicide reports KUWAIT: The moral guidance directorate of the Kuwaiti army refuted as totally groundless a report carried recently by a social networking site about the death or suicide of a soldier “The video in question is a drama film made out of nothing true,” the directorate said in a press release on Wednesday. Army military intelligence later arrested three soldiers who made the video. It said the three would be court-martialed for violating military and disciplinary codes.

KUWAIT: Camels parade during a camel beauty competition at the folklore festival in Jahra yesterday.—KUNA

7th Formative Art Fest begins Feb 3 KUWAIT: Kuwait 7th Festival of Formative Art is due to begin on Feb 3 with the participation of 83 Kuwaiti men and women artists showcasing 126 pieces of diverse creativity. Abdul-Rasoul Salman, the Chairman of Kuwait Formative Art Society and organizer of the event, said at a news conference held late on Wednesday that the festival would be patronized by the Honorary Chairman of the society, Minister of Amiri Diwan Affairs Sheikh Nasser Sabah AlAhmad Al-Sabah. He said the event would coincide with the 7th anniversary of the proclamation of HH Sheikh Sabah AlAhmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah as the Amir of Kuwait. Salman said a panel of jurors will select the top works and award artists, adding that another committee had already received 187 pieces, two from each contender.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Tribal leaders, loyalists may sweep Jordan vote

France sees no sign Assad will be toppled soon

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N Korea warns of third nuclear test

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MAAMEER, Bahrain: Bahraini anti-government protesters run during clashes with riot police in Maameer, Bahrain yesterday. Riot police in Bahrain fired teargas and stun grenades at anti-government protesters whose chants included calls to reject proposed talks aimed at easing nearly two years of unrest in the Gulf nation. — AP

Strait closure if US chooses ‘war’: Iran US will stop Iran nuclear arm: Kerry BAGHDAD: The United States has nothing left to pressure Tehran over its nuclear program except for war, and if it chooses conflict Iran could close a key energy chokepoint, its envoy to Baghdad told AFP yesterday.

Ambassador Hassan Danaie-Far insisted in an interview that Tehran retained the right to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which a third of the world’s traded oil passes, in response to any aggression, military or otherwise. “What else (US President Barack) Mr Obama can do?” Danaie-Far said through an Iranian embassy translator.

“The only remaining card on the table is war. Is it to their benefit? Is it to the benefit of the world? Is it to the benefit of the region?”

The diplomat said that if it faced a “problem,” Tehran would be within its rights “to react and to defend itself.” Asked if it could try to close off the strait, Danaie-Far replied: “If there is some movement and action from our enemies, including US, against us, as a part of natural reaction, that may happen.”

“Everybody would be a loser in that case,”

he added. On whether only military or other types of pressure could spur Iran to make such a move, he said: “It can include all of them.” Iran frequently conducts missile tests and manoeuvres to underline its military muscle, and has repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz to oil tanker traffic should it be attacked.

Washington has warned Tehran that any attempt to close the strait would be viewed as a “red line”-grounds for US military action.

Iran regularly denounces the regional presence of foreign forces, including American, particularly those stationed in the Gulf. It says the security of the region must be ensured “by regional countries.”

Arab monarchies across the Gulf from Iran are worried by what they see as the territorial ambitions by Islamic republic, which frequently stresses Persia’s historic dominance over the waterway.

The United States will pursue a policy of non-containment towards Iran to stop it obtaining a nuclear weapon, Senator John

Kerry, the secretary of state designate, pledged yesterday.

“I repeat here today: our policy is not containment. It is prevention and the clock is ticking on our efforts to secure responsible compliance,” he told lawmakers in prepared remarks at a hearing to confirm him as the next top US diplomat.

Meanwhile, the European Union rebuked Iran in unusually direct language, suggesting it was willfully delaying new nuclear talks with six world powers by changing venues and setting preconditions on how the negotiations should be conducted. The criticism appeared provoked by an announcement by Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi that his country was now proposing Cairo as the host city of the next meeting. Salehi said Egypt welcomed the proposal and was in contact with the six powers - the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany - on the issue. Diplomats from some of those world powers have expressed frustration in recent weeks about what they say are Iran’s tactics of

Hassan Dnaia-Far proposing several venues but not committing to any single one. But the comments Wednesday by the spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton were the first to voice that sentiment on record. Ashton has acted as the convener of previous talks. The comments, by Michael Mann, her spokesman, were clearly meant to put the responsibility on Tehran for lack of agreement on a venue and date for such a meeting, despite weeks of consultations. —Reuters

International FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

France: No sign Assad will be toppled soon Rebels take missile base in the north

DAMASCUS: Syria’s embattled President Bashar Al-Assad sitting during a prayer to mark the birth of Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) yesterday in Damascus. — AFP

UK warns of ‘specific’ threat in Benghazi LONDON: Britain yesterday urged its nationals to leave the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi immediately, saying there was a “specific and imminent threat to Westerners” there.

The alert came just hours after Prime Minister David Cameron warned that last week’s deadly attack in Algeria was only one part of what would be a “long struggle against murderous terrorists” around the world. “We are now aware of a specific and imminent threat to Westerners in Benghazi, and urge any British nationals who remain there against our advice to leave immediately,” the Foreign Office said in a statement. “We cannot comment further on the nature of the threat at this time.” The warning also came a day after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave an emotional appearance before Congress about the attack on the US mission in Benghazi on September 11, which killed the US ambassador and three other people. She warned of the challenge posed by rising militancy after the Arab Spring, saying the Arab revolutions had “shattered security forces across the region”.

Around the time of the attack, Britain advised against all travel to Benghazi and most of Libya, with the exception of Tripoli and a clutch of other towns.

Earlier this month, Italy temporarily closed its consulate in Benghazi and pulled its staff out of the country following a failed gun attack on the consul.

Following last week’s bloody hostage crisis in Algeria, Cameron has promised to put the issue of terrorism on the top of the agenda at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland in June, which he is hosting. Dozens of foreigners were killed when Islamist gunmen attacked a remote desert gas complex at In Amenas, including at least three Britons, with another three, plus a British resident, still missing and believed to be dead. —AFP

RAFAH: A Palestinian patient is treated by the use of a bee sting at the clinic of Ahmed Zoarob (unseen), a Palestinian agronomist turned healer, yesterday in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah.

PARIS/BEIRUT: France said yesterday there were no signs that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad is about to be overthrown, something Paris has been saying for months was just over the horizon.

The uprising against Assad’s rule is now almost two years old. 60,000 Syrians have been killed and another 650,000 are now refugees abroad, according to the United Nations. France, a former colonial ruler of Syria, has been one of the most vocal backers of the rebels trying to topple Assad and was the first to recogniZe the opposition coalition.

“Things are not moving. The solution that we had hoped for, and by that I mean the fall of Bashar and the arrival of the (opposition) coalition to power, has not happened,” Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in his annual New Year’s address to the press.

Fabius told RFI radio in December “the end is nearing” for Assad. But yesterday, he said international mediation and discussions about the crisis that began in March 2011 were not getting anywhere.

“There are no recent positive signs,” he said.

He said Syrian opposition leaders and representatives of some 50 nations and organisations would meet in Paris on Jan. 28 to discuss how to fulfil previous commitments.

Assad has resisted all attempts at forcing him to step down and has led a ruthless crackdown on what he calls a foreignbacked terrorists.

The president was shown on Syrian state television yesterday visiting a mosque to celebrate the birth of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). Assad shook hands with government members and smiled but did not make a speech. Meanwhile, Syrian army forces bombarded opposition-held areas of the country with artillery and air strikes and insurgents clashes with infantry, opposition activist said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which monitors violence in Syria, said that six civilians, including a woman and two children, were killed in Homs on Thursday when a

plane bombed their house. On the southwestern edge of the capital, artillery hit the rebel-held district of Daraya, residents in Damascus said.

“There was very loud shelling overnight from the mountain onto Daraya,” said a resident of central Damascus. Assad’s army has used the Qasioun mountain range to the west of Damascus as high ground to shell opposition districts. “(The explosions) sounded like huge trucks falling from the sky, one huge truck

Video posted on the Internet on Wednesday showed images of fuel tanks and at least 17 trucks with mounts for several-metres-long missiles, although they appeared to have had the missiles removed. “(There are) fuel tanks in addition to missiles and the whole battalion was taken over by the rebels,” said a voice off camera. Text accompanying the video said that the Battalion 599 base, 12 miles (20km) south of Aleppo, was overrun on Tuesday.

But the army has fortified positions in

SUWAIDA: A Syrian army fighter points his rifle towards the rebel-held province of Daraa as he takes position on the green Line in Mjeimer in the mainly-Druze southern province of Suwaida. Fighting raged in several Syrian flashpoints as key Damascus ally Moscow lashed out the opposition for its “obsession” with toppling President Bashar Al-Assad. — AFP at a time,” the resident said on condition of anonymity. “I felt my windows shake.”

The army and insurgents have been stuck in a military stalemate for weeks, but rebels have been able to capture some military bases.

This week, rebels took control of a missile base in the country’s north, according to opposition footage, potentially gaining access to powerful long-range weapons.

the capital and in major military bases and it is rare that either side makes a significant advance. While France has ruled out sending the rebels weapons, it has pushed the European Union to review its arms embargo. Paris and other Western allies have so far failed to convince Russia and China, who have continued to block stronger U.N. action against Assad, to change their stance. —Reuters

10th Japanese confirmed dead in Algeria crisis TOKYO: Japanese officials have found the body of the last Japanese citizen who went missing during a hostage crisis last week in Algeria, the government confirmed late yesterday, bringing the country’s death toll to 10. The victims worked for a Japanese engineering company, JGC Corp., at a natural gas plant in the Sahara Desert. Seven other Japanese workers for the company survived the hostage-taking.

Islamist militants seized the gas field and held scores of foreigners from a number of countries hostage for four days until Algerian special forces stormed the plant Saturday. Algeria’s prime minister has said that at least 37 hostages and 29 militants were killed.

Seven other Japanese citizens had been confirmed dead earlier this week.

Japanese diplomats, police and company officials continued their effort to find

the three who remained unaccounted for, and they identified two of them on Wednesday among a group of unidentified victims at a morgue in Algiers. The effort continued yesterday to find the last victim. The 10th victim is reportedly JGC’s former vice-president Tadanori Aratani, 66, who was to meet officials of his company’s British partner, BP, the day of the hostage crisis. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga announced that all 10 Japanese who had been unaccounted for were now confirmed dead.

“I represent the government to convey the deepest condolences to their families and other related people,” he told an emergency news conference yesterday. “Using violence is not forgivable whatever the cause,” he said late Wednesday. “We strongly condemn ter-

rorist activities.” “It is extremely regrettable,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters yesterday. A government airplane carrying the seven survivors and nine bodies is scheduled to return to Japan as early as today morning.

Mitsunobu Fuchida arrived at Tokyo’s Haneda airport yesterday morning to await the return of the body of his younger brother Rokuro, 64. “I just want to see him. I want to see him quickly,” he said. The mother of contract worker Bunshiro Naito, 44, whose body was identified Wednesday, said her son went to Algeria to contribute to people who needed him. “I just want to praise him for his hard work, and say ‘Thank you for being my child,’” she told a televised interview with Japan’s NHK public TV. Naito was to return to Japan today to celebrate his father’s birthday, NHK said. — AP

International FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Tribal leaders, loyalists may sweep Jordan vote King Abdullah to get a shot in arm

STRASBOURG: Turkish sociologist Pinar Selek attends a support meeting in her honor at the university of Strasbourg yesterday. Selek is accused of having caused an explosion in Istanbul in 1998. — AFP

Turkey repeals head scarf ban in courts ANKARA: A Turkish court has ruled to allow women lawyers to wear Islamic-style head scarves in court, repealing another ban on religious dress in the predominantly Muslim but secular country.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted government, which advocates greater freedom of religious expression, has lifted strict restrictions on head scarves worn at universities and relaxed bans on religious dress in schools.

Civil servants are still barred from wearing head scarves but the court’s ruling yesterday removes that ban for lawyers in court rooms. Some secular-minded Turks regard such moves as an affront to secularism. The ruling comes after a lawyer petitioned the court to cancel the ban when her application to renew her bar membership was rejected over a photograph in which she wore the head scarf. —AP

Morocco takes a step on path to gender equality RABAT: Women’s rights in Morocco are poised to make a breakthrough with the probable scrapping of a law allowing rapists of minors to avoid jail by marrying them, but the road to gender equality remains long. The kingdom was shocked in March 2012 by the suicide of Amina Filali, 16, who was forced to marry the man who violated her. For him it was a way under Article 475 of the country’s penal code to remain a free man.

On Monday, the country’s Islamist government expressed its backing for a bill to repeal this section of the law. The justice ministry has also said it supports a proposal by parliament to alter the article, under which the rape of a minor is punishable by several years in prison unless the victims and their aggressor wed. The proposal has yet to be formally approved by both houses, however. The ministry said it was prepared to go further than scrapping the paragraph on marriage, suggesting harsher punishments for those who rape minors, including up to 30 years in jail rather than the current stipulated five.

“The amendments by nature guarantee the necessary protection for minors against sexual assault,” said Justice Minister Mustapha Ramid. Driss El Yazami, president of the National Council for Human Rights, said that the way was now clear for a favourable amendment in both houses. “Any progress is noteworthy and it is clear that there was a shocking provision” in the current law, he said, but also called for speedier reforms.

“The question is not simply to affirm the principle of equality, but to see how parity” can be achieved, he said, noting that his council urged the creation of a superior body on equality as stipulated under the constitution.But progress towards gender equality in Morocco is moving slowly.

Since 2004, following an initiative by King Mohammed VI, Morocco has had a new family code (moudawana) governing polygamy. However, the daily Le Soir Echos has cited alarming data showing that marriages of minors are on the rise in the kingdom, with 34,000 cases reported in 2010 — up from 29,847 in 2008. A key concern is violence against women, said Khadija Ryadi, president of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights. Six million Moroccan women have suffered physical or verbal violence, more than half suffering abuse in marriages, according to Bassima Hakkaoui, the only female minister in a government dominated by Islamist Justice and Development Party which won the 2011 parliamentary polls. — AFP

AMMAN: Tribal leaders, pro-regime loyalists and independent businessmen looked set to sweep Jordan’s parliamentary election that was shunned by Islamists, according to initial results released yesterday. Analysts say the new parliament will be dominated by loyalists who will carry out King Abdullah II’s orders, dashing hopes of real political reform, after initial results showed that tribal leaders, an assortment of pro-regime figures and independent businessmen were heading the field.

The Arab Spring movement that began two years ago and toppled four regimes across the region also sparked regular protests in Jordan, where a combination of youths and Islamists have been demanding sweeping political and economic reforms. Their protests have become increasingly vocal and, during deadly November rioting over a sharp hike in fuel prices, there were unprecedented calls from some quarters for the king to step down. Abdullah, whose throne is not seriously thought to be under threat, had touted Wednesday’s election as a focal point of his reforms process, which he said should pave the way for a parliamentary system of government. Among his reforms, he said that he plans for the first time to consult MPs before naming a premier, who should in turn then consult with MPs before forming cabinet. But Islamists led by the Muslim Brotherhood boycotted the poll, saying the monarch’s measures fell far short of true democratic change and that he should not have any say at all in the naming of a prime minister. The Independent Election Commission (IEC) put the final turnout at 56.6 percent of the registered electorate of 2.3 million but the Brotherhood disputed this figure, saying there had been widescale fraud and votebuying.

The figures showed that independent candidate Maryam Luzi, an educationist, had won a seat outside of the quota system which reserves 15 seats for women in Jordan. Also among the winners are two women from Amman, Abla Abu Elbeh,

secretary general of the leftist Jordanian People’s Democratic Party, and Rula Hroub, an outspoken journalist.

The IEC also announced that Khalil Atieh, a long-time regime ally, had come out winner in an Amman constituency, while Mustapha Hamarenh, a reformist researcher, won a seat for his mainly Christian city of Madaba, near Amman. At least three candidates, who have been accused by the authorities of vote-buying, appeared to have won. Their cases are still before the courts and if found guilty, they lose their seats in parliament, facing several years in jail. The Muslim Brotherhood slammed the election. “The turnout does

AMMAN: A member of the Jordanian Independent Electoral Commission, walks past a large photograph of King Abdullah II of Jordan. — AP

AMMAN: A general view shows the Head of the Independent Commission for Elections Abdul Ellah Al-Khatib (right) and Hussein Bani Hani the Independent Commission spokesman (left) giving a press conference in Amman to announce the results of the parliamentary elections yesterday. —AFP not make any sense. They could have done a better job to make people believe,” Zaki Bani Rshied, deputy leader of the Brotherhood told AFP. “We have closely monitored the electoral process. Vote buying and fake voter cards were very clear. We will prove that our boycott was the right decision.” The election commission insisted its figures were accurate. Mohammad Abu Rumman, researcher at the University of Jordan’s Centre for Strategic Studies agreed that the turnout had been good. “The Islamists got a slap in the face when it comes to turnout, which was good. But that’s not all.

Parliament faces huge challenges,” he said. “It will be weak because it will have many MPs who served in past parliaments

as well as businessmen who used their money to win. These two groups do not have clear agenda for change.” Other analysts too saw little chance of real reform.

“The king ... did not at all cede any of his powers to parliament, which anyway, will be dominated by loyalists. So his orders will be implemented in the end,” political analyst Hassan Abu Hanieh said.

“It is unlikely that the new MPs will change anything. It is obvious that are clear attempts to make the election look good. That’s all,” he said adding that “constitutional amendments are needed to change the king’s power.” A total of 1,425 candidates, including around 140 former MPs and 191 women, contested the 150 seats in parliament’s lower house. —AFP

Two years since uprising, Egypt braces for protests CAIRO: Egypt marks the second anniversary of the uprising that swept Hosni Mubarak from power with little to celebrate. Deeply divided and facing an economic crisis, the nation is bracing for more protests, but this time against a freely elected leader. President Mohamed Morsi’s opponents plan to march to Tahrir Square today to vent anger at the new Islamist leader and his Muslim Brotherhood backers, whom they accuse of betraying the goals of the Jan. 25 revolution that galvanized Egyptians in a display of national unity that has not been seen since.

“We don’t see it as a celebration. This will be a new revolutionary wave that will show the Brotherhood that they are not alone - that there are other forces that can stand against them,” said Ahmed Maher, founder of the April 6 - a group that helped ignite the uprising by using social media to organize. The Brotherhood has said it will not send its supporters to Tahrir Square today - a decision that at least limits the scope for more of the unrest that has compounded Egypt’s economic troubles. Instead, with its eye on forthcoming parliamentary polls, the electorally savvy Brotherhood is marking the anniversary with a campaign to help the poor. With allies, it promises to send volunteers to

renovate 2,000 schools, plant trees, deliver medical aid and open “charity markets” selling affordable food. “The importance of the anniversary is to lift the spirits of the Egyptian people: more hope and more work,” said Ahmed Aref, a Muslim Brotherhood spokesman who was in Tahrir Square for the entire 18-day uprising against Mubarak. Inspired by Tunisia’s uprising against President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, Egypt’s revolution helped set off more revolts in Libya and Syria. It brought political freedom that allowed the dramatic rise to power of the Brotherhood, an Islamist group that was outlawed under decades of army-backed autocracy.

Two years on, Egypt is struggling with a deep economic crisis caused by political turbulence which has continued unabated since the election of a new president. The sense of common purpose that united Egyptians against Mubarak has given way to conflict. Secularists and liberals accuse the Muslim Brotherhood of seeking to dominate the country.

The Islamists say their opponents are not respecting the rules of the democratic game. Mursi’s bid to fast-track a controversial, Islamist-tinged constitution in December fuelled days of protests that helped send the Egyptian pound to record lows against the U.S. dollar. — Reuters

FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

International FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Key Mali Islamist group splits Faction ready for talks after French-led offensive BAMAKO: One of the main Islamist groups occupying northern Mali split yesterday, with the breakaway faction saying it was ready for talks to end a twoweek-old French-led offensive, amid growing concerns over rights abuses by government troops. The first of the 6,000 troops pledged by African nations to support France’s intervention started heading north, moving closer to the areas a trio of Al Qaeda-linked groups

France to cease hostilities in the zones that we are occupying in the north-eastern regions of Kidal and Menaka to create a climate of peace which will pave the way for an inclusive political dialogue.” The new group is led by Alghabasse Ag Intalla, the scion of a leading Tuareg family from Kidal, and a former negotiator from the group’s moderate wing. West African and Algerian negotiators have for months been trying

BURKINA FASO: A Malian young girl plays in a refugee camp set yesterday, near the Malian border in Burkina Faso. The conflict in Mali has caused nearly 150,000 people to flee the country, while about another 230,000 are internally displaced, the UN humanitarian agency said. —AFP seized in April in the chaotic aftermath of a coup in Bamako. Cracks emerged in the rebel front however when a new faction announced it had broken away from Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith). The newly-formed Islamic Movement for Azawad said in a statement that it “rejected all forms of extremism and terrorism and was committed to fighting them”, adding that it wanted a “peaceful solution” to the Mali crisis.

The use of the Tamasheq term Azawad appeared to further signal a willingness among the group’s Tuareg ranks to distance themselves from Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Malian insurgency’s mainly foreign leadership.

The statement said the new group was composed entirely of Malian nationals and called on “Malian authorities and

to get Ansar Dine to sever links with AQIM and its offshoot the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), essentially comprising foreign fighters. The UN has authorized the deployment of a 3,300-strong force under the auspices of 15-nation West African bloc ECOWAS. The involvement of non-member Chad could boost the African deployment by another 2,000 soldiers. Most of the estimated 1,000 African soldiers who have arrived in Mali are still in Bamako but a Malian defence source said a group of 160 troops from Burkina Faso had started making its way to central regions nearer the frontline. A large contingent of Chadian troops arrived in the Niger capital Niamey and the convoy included tanks and armored vehicles, witnesses said. Soldiers from Niger and Chad

are supposed to proceed to Gao, a main town in northern Mali, which is only three hours by road from Niamey. But no date has yet been fixed.

France’s surprise decision to intervene on January 11 received broad international support but reports of abuses by Malian troops have triggered concern.

The European Union said it was worried at reports that Tuaregs and Arabs had been killed by Malian forces, stoking fears of systematic reprisals against the region’s light-skinned residents.

“We are very worried by reports evoking the possibility of ethnic attacks and fighting and abuses committed in revenge attacks,” said EU humanitarian aid commissioner Kristalina Georgieva.

The International Federation of Human Rights Leagues said that in the central town of Sevare at least 31 people were executed, and some bodies dumped in wells, citing evidence gathered by local researchers. Two Tuaregs were also executed by Malian soldiers in the central town of Niono, it said, calling for an immediate independent inquiry to “determine the scale of the abuses and to punish the perpetrators”.

Human Rights Watch said its investigators had spoken to witnesses who saw the executions of two Tuareg men in the village of Siribala, near Niono. It also said witnesses had reported “credible information” of soldiers sexually abusing women in a village near Sevare, and called on the government to urgently investigate. French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian urged extreme “vigilance” against any abuses, saying the “honour of the (Malian) troops is at stake”. France said it has already deployed 2,300 soldiers in its former colony, whose poorly trained and equipped force has been overwhelmed by the Islamist rebels occupying the vast arid north and seeking to push south.

Mali’s crisis began when Tuaregs returning from fighting for slain dictator Moamer Kadhafi in Libya, battle-hardened and with a massive arsenal, took up a decades-old rebellion for independence of the north, which they call Azawad. — AFP

Poland’s PM in hospital with ‘acute infection’ WARSAW: Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk was hospitalized yesterday with an acute respiratory infection, raising doubts as to whether he will go ahead with a planned official trip to Paris, government spokesman Pawel Gras told reporters.

“The decision was made this morning for the prime minister to undergo detailed testing. Physicians decided to keep him in hospital today after they received the results,” Gras added. It was not clear when the prime minister, who at 55 is an avid football player and skier, would be released.

Tusk is due in Paris on Monday for talks with President Francois Hollande focused on EU budget and security policy, diplomatic sources have said.

Gras insisted it was “up to the physicians” to decide whether the prime minister would be well enough to make the trip. “We’ll see. It will depend on the state of the prime minister’s health and the final decision of his doctors,” he said. — AFP

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk

LISBON: Fugitive Italian paparazzo Fabrizio Corona (center), convicted of extortion, leaves the Lisbon Court of Appeal yesterday in Lisbon. — AFP

S African school told to lift headgear ban CAPE TOWN: A South African school was told by education officials to allow two Muslim siblings to return to classes yesterday after the pair were sent home for wearing religious headgear last week. Sakeenah Dramat, 16, and her brother Bilaal, 13, missed several days of school after being asked to remove a headscarf and a traditional Islamic hat at a Cape Town high school.

“The issue came to a head last week when the school principal told the learners that they were not allowed to wear their Muslim headgear at school and sent them home,” said Western Cape education department spokesman Paddy Attwell.

South Africa’s school dress code guidelines stipulate that pupils cannot be prohibited from wearing religious attire according to the country’s constitution.

Officials held discussions with the parties and instructed the school principal verbally and in writing to allow the two students to return to class.

A meeting was then held yesterday morning with the school and the parents where the education department, a local imam and the South African Human Rights Commission were present.

“The two learners are back at school and they are wearing their Muslim attire so the issue at this stage has been resolved,” Attwell told AFP. The siblings’ mother Nabila Dramat told the Cape Times that her children had missed six days of school. — AFP

Slovenian PM to stay on despite coalition breakup LJUBLJANA, Slovenia: Slovenia’s embattled prime minister refused to step down yesterday despite the breakup of his ruling coalition, saying an election now would hurt the small European Union nation that is struggling to avoid an international bailout. Prime Minister Janez Jansa told a press conference that he will stay on until he is removed from the post by a parliamentary no-confidence vote or as the result of a wider political agreement.

“Slovenia cannot afford to hold early elections at this point,” he said. “We have a government with full authority.” The Civic List party quit the ruling coalition Wednesday after Jansa refused to resign over corruption allegations against him. A report issued this month by an anti-graft watchdog accused him of failing to declare more than ?200,000 ($266,000) in private assets, which he has denied.

Yesterday, Slovenia’s ministers of justice and finance, who are from Civic List, formally submitted their resignations, which need to be confirmed in the parliament.

Jansa has insisted that his government must first push through an austerity package so the country can cut costs amid a deep financial crisis linked to the euro-zone’s debt crisis. Slovenia is among the 17 nations that use the common euro currency. — AP

International FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

French woman freed in Mexico returns home Cassez gets a hero’s welcome in Paris The construction site of Bulgaria’s second nuclear power plant in the town of Belene. — AFP

Bulgaria to hold referendum on new nuclear plant SOFIA: Polls indicate that Bulgarians will on Sunday vote “yes” to a second nuclear power plant in a referendum, in a closely watched contest between the government and the opposition ahead of elections in July. Even if stopping short of explicitly mentioning it, Bulgaria’s first plebiscite since the fall of communism in 1989 concerns the revival of a long-delayed project at the northern site of Belene. Price haggling and an inability to find a strategic investor prompted Prime Minister Boyko Borissov in March to scrap a deal with state-owned Russian firm Atomstroyexport to build the 2,000-megawatt plant.

Atomstroyexport filed a one-billion-euro ($1.3 billion) compensation claim at the Paris-based International Court of Arbitration. The opposition Socialists, who want to revive the project, then pressed for a referendum. Low voter turnout is largely expected to invalidate the plebiscite but this has not stopped the contest becoming a hard-fought popularity test between the ruling GERB party and the Socialists before July.

Surveys on the eve of the ballot showed that 60-62 percent of an expected 1.6 to 2.1 million people who turn up to vote Sunday will back Belene compared with 38-40 percent against.

Analysts explained the low turnout by people’s doubts that they can make an informed choice on such a complicated issue and the number of uncertainties still plaguing the project.

A key one among them is its cost — 4.0 to 5.1 billion euros according to the Socialists, 6.3 billion euros according to Atomstroyexport and as much as 11.0 billion euros according to the government. Questions about site safety, reactor technology, funding and potential electricity markets also remain unanswered, puzzling voters even further.

If 20 percent of all eligible voters participate in the referendum and over half of them say “yes”, Bulgaria’s parliament will have to review the issue within three months. “A referendum can resolve political issues, not engineering or economic,” Alpha Research analyst Boryana Dimitrova commented. “You cannot ask people to give an expert opinion on a business project,” political analyst Ivan Krastev said, slamming the referendum as “absurd.” The initial reasoning behind Belene was to compensate for lost capacity and keep Bulgaria’s position as a top electricity exporter on the Balkans after shutting down part of its sole Soviet-built nuclear power plant at Kozloduy, further east on the Danube river. But even after mothballing four out of Kozloduy’s six reactors ahead of joining the European Union in 2007, Sofia did not experience shortages and kept providing record amounts of electricity to Greece, Macedonia and Serbia. — AFP

PAMPLONA: A couple walk through a tunnel with umbrellas during snowfall in Pamplona yesterday. — AP

PARIS: A Frenchwoman freed from Mexican jail after a court said police violated her rights by staging her arrest for kidnapping on national television, arrived in Paris yesterday to a hero’s welcome.

A smiling Florence Cassez arrived on a flight from Mexico City with her father Bernard, a day after Mexico’s Supreme Court voted for her release after seven years in prison in a case that strained Franco-Mexican ties. France’s foreign minister was among the many dignitaries joining her mother and members of her support committee for her arrival at Charles de Gaulle airport.

Dozens of reporters and camera crews were also in place to record the arrival of the 38-year-old whose release was hailed by President Francois Hollande, who said it marked “the end of a particularly painful period.”

Hollande was due to meet Cassez and her family later. “I have suffered as a victim for the last seven years,” Cassez told reporters at the airport. “This also a great victory for Mexicans in the sense that justice has been done.”

Cassez, who has always proclaimed her innocence, was accused of being involved with a gang of kidnappers known as the Zodiacs, allegedly run by her ex-boyfriend Israel Vallarta.

The court justices ruled that the police violated her right to presumption of innocence and consular access when it staged her arrest in a live national television broadcast on December 9, 2005.

Mexican television showed police storming her ex-boyfriend’s ranch near Mexico City, where they detained Cassez and freed three hostages as cameras rolled.

It was later revealed that she had actually been arrested on a road hours before the raid. The federal police said the re-enactment was made at the request of the media. Her treatment caused a diplomatic spat in February

2011, when Mexican authorities cancelled a “Year of Mexico” cultural event in France after its then president Nicolas Sarkozy tried to dedicate the festivities to Cassez.

The case of Cassez, who had faced 60 years in jail, also put a spotlight on Mexico’s troubled justice system, where most crimes go unsolved and authorities are often accused of corruption and abuse.

But her release angered crime victim rights activists. As Cassez was driven away from prison after her release, wearing a flak jacket, some people shouted “Kidnapper! Murderer!” Though all five Supreme Court justices agreed that Cassez’s constitutional and human

rights were violated, two of them said the case should be sent back to lower courts. The court did not rule on whether she was guilty or innocent. The Supreme Court already examined her case last year, but the panel was split on whether to release her, even though four of the five justices then agreed that there were irregularities in the case.

Some Mexican rights groups said the victims were forgotten in the Cassez case. “Sadly, today showed that the rights of victims don’t count,” said Isabel Miranda de Wallace, leader of the Stop the Kidnapping Association. “What counts is power, money and connections, leaving the victims with empty hands.” —AFP

PARIS: French Florence Cassez (inset) arrives at Roissy airport outside Paris yesterday in Roissy-en-France after being freed from a Mexican prison. — AFP

UN launches drone attacks probe LONDON: A United Nations investigation into the impact of drone strikes and targeted killings on civilians was launched in London yesterday.

Ben Emmerson, the UN special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, said there was a need “for accountability” when strikes went wrong. Emmerson, a British lawyer who is heading up the inquiry, said the huge expansion in the technology used in drones required a new legal framework to be put in place. “The exponential rise in the use of drone technology in a variety of military and non-military contexts represents a real challenge to the framework of an established international law,” he told a press conference in London.

“It is both right as a matter of principle, and inevitable as a matter of political reality, that the international community should now be focusing attention on the standards applicable to this technological development.” — AP

Spanish newspaper withdraws ‘false photo’ of Chavez MADRID: Spain’s influential El Pais newspaper withdrew what it said was “false photo of Hugo Chavez” that it had published in its on-line and print editions yesterday.

Venezuelan President Chavez has cancer and has been under medical treatment in Cuba where he underwent surgery in December. He has not been seen publicly for six weeks.

The grainy photo that El Pais originally splashed on its front page, billed as a global exclusive, portrayed the head of a man lying down with a breathing tube in his mouth. El Pais, one of the biggest Spanish-language publications in the world and an institution both in Spain and in Latin America, said in a brief on-line statement that it had withdrawn the photo after ascertaining that the image was not of

Chavez. Venezuelan political opposition leaders have criticized government secrecy over Chavez’s condition while his supporters have accused foreign media of being in league with the opposition to spread rumors that the president’s medical condition is worse than it is.“El Pais apologizes to its readers for the damage caused. The newspaper has opened an investigation to determine the circumstances of what happened and the errors that were committed in the verification of the photo,” the newspaper said in the statement. The photograph was on the paper’s website for half an hour and also appeared in early editions of the print version of the paper, before the company stopped the presses and changed its front page, the company said. — Reuters

International FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

N Korea warns of third nuclear test Rockets could warheads targeting US

In this photo released by the Taiwan Coast Guard, a Japanese Coast Guard patrol boat (left), sprays a water cannon over a Taiwan Coast Guard boat to warn a Taiwanese leisure boat, right, carrying four Taiwanese activists that they not to go any further, near Tiaoyutai, in the East China Sea yesterday. —AP

Taiwan boat leaves isles after Japan water duel TAIPEI: A boat with Taiwanese activists headed for disputed Japanese-controlled islands turned back yesterday after coastguard vessels from the two sides converged and dueled with water cannon.

The boat, carrying seven people including four Taiwanese activists, gave up a plan to land on the East China Sea islands after being blocked by Japanese coastguard vessels as it sailed within 17 nautical miles of the archipelago. “We fired water cannon at each other,” Taiwanese coastguard spokesman Shih Yi-che said of the confrontation. The disputed islands, in an area where the seabed is believed to harbor valuable mineral reserves, are known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese. Both China and Taiwan claim them.

As the standoff unfolded, three Chinese surveillance vessels were positioned a few nautical miles off, the Taiwanese coastguard said. It added that it was the first time ships from China had been spotted near a Taiwanese-Japanese incident, and that it had sent a radio message to the three boats to keep their distance in order not to complicate matters.

The incident came at a time of growing regional concern over the intensified friction over the islands between China and Japan, with both Beijing and Tokyo recently scrambling fighter jets to assert their claims to the area. The Japanese coastguard confirmed that it took action after encountering the Taiwanese vessel.

“Our patrol boat carried out restrictions on the vessel such as blocking its path and discharging water,” it said in a statement. “The vessel left our country’s contiguous zone at around 1:30 pm (0430 GMT) and continued sailing west-southwest away from the Senkakus.” The activists, who set off in the early hours and were expected to return to Taiwan at about 7:00 pm (1100 GMT), had hoped to place a statue of the Goddess of the Sea on the islands, to protect Taiwanese fishermen in the area. — AFP

JAKARTA: Marine soldiers load relief goods an an military amphibious vehicle for distribution to flooded areas in Jakarta yesterday. Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said more than 30,000 people were displaced while 20 people died during the widespread flooding that hit Jakarta as the weather bureau forecast more rains in the coming days. —AFP

SEOUL: North Korea’s top governing body warned yesterday that the regime will conduct its third nuclear test in defiance of UN. punishment, and made clear that its long-range rockets are designed to carry not only satellites but also warheads aimed at striking the United States.

The National Defense Commission, headed by the country’s young leader, Kim Jong Un, denounced Tuesday’s UN Security Council resolution condemning North Korea’s long-range rocket launch in December as a banned missile activity and expanding sanctions against the regime. The commission reaffirmed in its declaration that the launch was a peaceful bid to send a satellite into space, but also clearly indicated the country’s rocket launches have a military purpose: to strike and attack the United States.

The commission pledged to keep launching satellites and rockets and to conduct a nuclear test as part of a “new phase” of combat with the United States, which it blames for leading the UN bid to punish Pyongyang. It said a nuclear test was part of “upcoming” action but did not say exactly when or where it would take place. “We do not hide that a variety of satellites and long-range rockets which will be launched by the DPRK one after another and a nuclear test of

higher level which will be carried out by it in the upcoming all-out action, a new phase of the anti-US struggle that has lasted century after century, will target against the US, the sworn enemy of the Korean people,” the commission said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“Settling accounts with the US needs to be done with force, not with words, as it regards jungle law as the rule of its survival,” the commission said. It was a rare declaration by the powerful commission once led by late leader Kim Jong Il and now commanded by his son. The statement made clear Kim Jong Un’s commitment to continue developing the country’s nuclear and missile programs in defiance of the Security Council, even at risk of further international isolation.

North Korea’s allusion to a “higher level” nuclear test most likely refers to a device made from highly enriched uranium, which is easier to miniaturize than the plutonium bombs it tested in 2006 and 2009, said Cheong Seongchang, an analyst at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea. Experts say the North Koreans must conduct further tests of its atomic devices and master the technique for making them

smaller before they can be mounted as nuclear warheads onto long-range missiles.

The US State Department had no immediate response to yesterday’s statement. Shortly before the commission issued its declaration, US envoy on North Korea Glyn Davies urged Pyongyang not to explode an atomic device. “Whether North Korea tests or not, it’s up to North Korea. We hope they don’t do it. We call on them not to do it,” he told reporters in Seoul after meeting with South Korean officials. “It will be a mistake and a missed opportunity if they were to do it.”

Davies was in Seoul on a trip that includes his stops in China and Japan for talks on how to move forward on North Korea relations. North Korea claims the right to build nuclear weapons as a defense against the United States, its Korean War foe. The bitter three-year war ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953, and left the Korean Peninsula divided by the world’s most heavily fortified demilitarized zone. The US leads the UN. Command that governs the truce and stations more than 28,000 troops in ally South Korea, a presence that North Korea cites as a key reason for its drive to build nuclear weapons. — AP

Jakarta governor inspires, but can he also deliver?

JAKARTA: Cheering crowds greeted the new leader of this Asian megacity as he toured its flooded business district atop a handcart typically used to haul garbage. Men, women and children waded through dirty water to shake his hand, shout greetings and hear his vague promises that their lives will get better.

“Come the dry season, we need to do something real, something concrete,” Jakarta Gov. Joko Widodo said last week.

“We need a breakthrough, whether that be a massive reservoir or whatever.” It’s the kind of populist moment you see from many of the world’s big-city mayors, but it’s not typical for Indonesia, the largest economy in Southeast Asia. More than 14 years since dictator Suharto was overthrown, its politicians are still mostly drawn from the same stock: wealthy businessmen or former generals running more on connections and money than experience in government.

Enter Widodo, known universally by an affectionate nickname, “Jokowi.” He comes from Solo, a smallish city in the middle of Java, and speaks Indonesian with the thick accent of people from those parts. He dresses simply in a white shirt and slacks, resembling one of the office workers who cram into Jakarta’s falling-apart buses every day. Widodo’s

trip through his inundated city of 14 million reflected his hands-on approach to leadership, a style that helped him win election in September against an incumbent who was backed by the establishment political parties.

The 51-year-old has made several moves aimed at shoring up support among the poor, including a big increase in the minimum wage, but many tough decisions, including those surrounding Jakarta’s woeful infrastructure, remain ahead of him. The city is wracked not only by floods, but by corruption, worsening traffic congestion and a widening gap between rich and poor. “I don’t feel under any burden,” he said in a 25-minute chat at a street-side coffee shack two weeks before the floods struck. He played to a gallery of photographers who snapped wildly every time he brought a cheap glass of joe to his lips. “My task is simple,” he said.

“Just stop the floods and fix the traffic.”

Widodo, a former furniture producer, was credited with bringing a new style of governance to Solo when he became mayor there in 2005, even though lasting achievements there are perhaps harder to pin down.

He was supported by the country’s main opposition party, but appeared to distance himself from it, saying his

alliance was “with the people.” Many ordinary Jakartans believed him, as well as progressives and liberals, who helped in a savvy, social media-driven campaign that swept through the city’s young, relentlessly online population. — AP

CEBU: In this undated photo provided

by Jessica Villamor, Canadian citizen John H Pope carries a child on his shoulders in Cebu city in central Philippines. Pope, facing charges of illegal possession of firearms, opened fire in a Philippine courtroom on Tuesday, killing two people and wounding a prosecutor before police fatally shot him. —AP

International FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Trial in India gang rape case begins Five accused produced in court

SRI LANKA: Sandya Ekneligoda, wife of missing journalist Prageeth Ekneligoda (center) speaks to reporters during a protest rally out side the parliament in Colombo yesterday — AP

Protest over missing Sri Lankan journalist COLOMBO: Relatives, colleagues and opposition activists have demanded that the Sri Lanka government to hold proper investigation to find out what happened to a journalist missing for three years. Prageeth Ekneligoda, a columnist and cartoonist who worked for lankaenews.com, a web site that harshly criticized the government, went missing in January 2010. The website’s office was also set on fire in 2011 by an unidentified group. Yetserday, demonstrators staged a silent protest, displaying placards saying “Release Him Now” and “Don’t Hide The Truth”, near Sri Lanka’s parliament. His wife Sandya Ekneligoda said authorities have failed to resolve abduction of her husband. “I urge the government to ensure justice to me,” she said. Amnesty International says at least 14 Sri Lankan media workers have been killed since the beginning of 2006. —AFP

Pakistan court probes graft official’s death ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s top court yesterday opened an inquiry into the death of an official investigating a corruption scandal involving the prime minister, giving officials three days to submit documents.

Kamran Faisal was found dead last Friday in a government hostel three days after the Supreme Court ordered the arrest of Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf over a long-running scandal into so-called Rental Power Plants (RPPs). The initial findings of an autopsy said Faisal committed suicide, but his family and some of his colleagues believe he was murdered.

Judge Jawwad Khawaja ordered police, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and Faisal’s employer, anti-corruption watchdog the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), to submit documents related to the case by Saturday. Among information demanded are phone records of senior NAB officials, and records and CCTV footage of all meetings and events at NAB since January 15 - the day that the Supreme Court ordered the prime minister’s arrest.

Khawaja said it was important to determine whether there was any link between Faisal’s death and the order that Ashraf and 15 other officials be arrested. “And all indications and evidences show that this unnatural death has a link with the case we were hearing. This is not an ordinary case,” he said. “After the order dated January 15 in the Rental Power Plants (RPP) case, it also becomes important for the court to ascertain if there was an attempt to interfere into the proceedings of RPP case,” he added.

Faisal’s brother-in-law Hamid Munir, who also works at NAB, appeared before the court to complain that police had not registered a case into his death. “Whether its murder or suicide, we don’t know, but the police should have registered the case,” the judge said, adjourning the case until January 28.

The long-running corruption probe relates to allegations of kickbacks during Ashraf’s tenure as minister for water and power. NAB has suspended the investigation pending inquiries into Faisal’s death.—AFP

NEW DELHI: The trial of five men charged with the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a New Delhi bus began in a closed courtroom yesterday with opening arguments by the prosecution lawyers in a special fasttrack court set up just weeks ago to handle sexual assault cases.

The brutal attack last month set off protests across India and opened a national debate about the epidemic of violence against women. A government committee established in the wake of the attack has called for a complete overhaul of the way the criminal justice system deals with rape, sexual assaults and crimes against women in general.

The five men on trial - who face a maximum sentence of death by hanging if convicted - covered their faces with woolen caps as they walked into the courtroom yesterday surrounded by a phalanx of armed police. Two hours later, after proceedings were over, they were whisked away by the police.

Details of the day’s proceedings were not available. The courtroom was closed to the public and the media - a routine move in Indian rape cases - even though defense lawyers had argued that since the victim is dead, the proceedings should be opened. There was also a gag order on the lawyers to not reveal what happened inside the court.

Judge Yogesh Khanna turned down requests by journalists yesterday that they be briefed on the day’s proceedings and said the gag order would remain. Since Friday is a public holiday in India, the next hearing in the case was set for Monday, when the defense will present its opening arguments.

A sixth suspect in the case has claimed he is a juvenile and is expected to be tried in a juvenile court. On

NEW DELHI: Indian children wave to a man dressed as Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the ‘Pink Bus’ which launched the Campaign for Education as the solution to cure India’s rape epidemic at Munirka Bus stand in New Delhi yesterday.—AFP Thursday, a magistrate separately rejected a petition by Subramanian Swamy, a prominent politician, that no leniency be shown toward the accused who claims to be a juvenile because of the brutal nature of the crime, said Jagdish Shetty, an aide to Swamy. Documents presented by prosecution last week to the Juvenile Justice Board indicated that the defendant was a juvenile at the time of the attack, which would make him ineligible for the death penalty.

Magistrate Geetanjali Goel is expected to rule on the suspect’s age on Jan 28. The suspect, who is not being identified by The Associated Press because he says he is 17, would face three years in a reform facility if convicted as a juvenile.

After the fast-track court hearing, M L Sharma, a defense lawyer for Mukesh

Singh, one of the accused, said he had withdrawn from the case. VK Anand, who represents Mukesh’s brother Ram Singh, will now defend both brothers.

The two lawyers had been arguing over who was Mukesh Singh’s real lawyer.

Sharma said he left the case to save his client from being tortured to fire him. He has long maintained that the other defense lawyers were planted by the police to ensure guilty verdicts.

Dozens of police were outside the sprawling court complex in south New Delhi where the trial is taking place.

Inside the court, about 30 policemen blocked access to the room where Khanna heard the prosecution’s case.

Outside the courtroom scores of journalists and curious onlookers crowded the hallway. — AP

Bangladesh to buy first submarines: PM

DHAKA: Bangladesh is to acquire its first submarines to boost its naval power in the Bay of Bengal, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said yesterday, only days after she signed the country’s largest defence deal. “We have made a decision to add submarines with base facilities to Bangladesh’s navy very soon to make it a deterrent force,” Hasina said, as she commissioned the country’s first domestically produced warship at a base in the southern city of Khulna.

“We will build a modern threedimensional navy for future generations which will be capable of facing any challenge during a war on our maritime boundary.”

The announcement is the latest sign of Hasina’s willingness to spend heavily on defense, coming only nine days after she signed a $1 billion defense deal in Russia for the purchase of training fighters, helicopters and anti-tank missiles.

Analysts have said the deal with Moscow represents the biggest military purchase agreement since impoverished Bangladesh won its independence in 1971.

Hasina did not give details of how many submarines the country would be purchasing and from where, but a senior army general has said that Bangladesh is in negotiations with China on the subject.

Bangladesh, a third of whose 153 million population lives below the poverty line, has been expanding its defense capabilities in recent years, building a new air base close to neighboring Myanmar and adding new frigates. A UN tribunal ended a territorial dispute between Bangladesh and Myanmar last March, but the row had brought the two sides close to military conflict in 2008 when Myanmar sent naval ships to support drilling for gas. Bangladesh has also

a long-standing dispute with neighboring India over their maritime boundary in the resources-rich Bay of Bengal.

Hasina said the amicable settlement of the sea dispute with Myanmar has ensured the country’s sovereignty over 111,631 square kilometres (43,100 square miles) of maritime area, nearly the size of the country itself. She added the defense purchase was essential to ensure security of the huge area, in which Dhaka last month invited bidding from international oil companies to drill for new gas and oil reserves. According to the state-run BSS news agency, the new warship that Hasina officially commissioned yesterday was made in Khulna Shipyard under the supervision of the Bangladesh Navy. The “BNS Padma” is armed with four 37-millimetre and two 20-mm cannons to resist land and air attacks and capable of laying mines. — AFP

International FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Kerry faces Senate panel on secretary of state bid Statements on Israel, Iran may be quizzed

TIKRIT: A female US soldier sitting in a humvee while waiting to start a patrol in the outskirts of the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has decided to lift a ban on women serving in combat, a senior defense official said. —AFP

Military set to decide on combat jobs for women WASHINGTON: The Pentagon’s decision to lift the ban on women serving in combat presents a daunting challenge to top military leaders who now will have to decide which, if any, jobs they believe should be open only to men.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is expected to announce that more than 230,000 battlefront posts - many in Army and Marine infantry units and in potentially elite commando jobs - are now open to women. It will be up to the military service chiefs to recommend and defend whether women should be excluded from any of those more demanding and deadly positions, such as Navy SEALs or the Army’s Delta Force. The historic change, which was recommended by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, overturns a 1994 rule prohibiting women from being assigned to smaller ground combat units.

The change won’t take place overnight: Service chiefs will have to develop plans for allowing women to seek the combat positions, a senior military official said. Some jobs may open as soon as this year, while assessments for others, such as special operations forces, may take longer. The services will have until January 2016 to make a case to that some positions should remain closed to women.

Officials briefed The Associated Press on the changes Wednesday on condition of anonymity so they could speak ahead of the official announcement. There long has been opposition to putting women in combat, based on questions of whether they have the necessary strength and stamina for certain jobs, or whether their presence might hurt unit cohesion.

But as news of Panetta’s expected order got out, many members of Congress, including the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., announced their support.

“It reflects the reality of 21st century military operations,” Levin said. Objections were few. Jerry Boykin, executive vice president of the Family Research Council, called the move “another social experiment” that will place unnecessary burdens on military commanders.

“While their focus must remain on winning the battles and protecting their troops, they will now have the distraction of having to provide some separation of the genders during fast moving and deadly situations,” said Boykin, a retired Army lieutenant general. He noted that small units often are in sustained combat for extended periods of time under primal living conditions with no privacy.

Panetta’s move comes in his final weeks as Pentagon chief and just days after President Barack Obama’s inaugural speech in which he spoke passionately about equal rights for all. The new order expands the department’s action of nearly a year ago to open about 14,500 combat positions to women, nearly all of them in the Army.

In addition to questions of strength and performance, there also have been suggestions that the American public would not tolerate large numbers of women being killed in war. Under the 1994 Pentagon policy, women were prohibited from being assigned to ground combat units below the brigade level. — AP

WASHINGTON: Democratic Sen John Kerry is likely to face friendly questioning on a smooth path to confirmation as US secretary of state when he testifies before the committee that he’s served on for 28 years and led for the past four.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman will sit at the witness table when he appears before the panel, a month after President Barack Obama said he wanted him to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Clinton is stepping down. The five-term senator is widely expected to win overwhelming bipartisan support from his colleagues, and that notion was reinforced by the list of people who will introduce him: Clinton, freshman Sen Elizabeth Warren and Republican Sen. John McCain.

McCain and Kerry are friends who have worked closely on national security issues. They’re also decorated Vietnam War veterans and former presidential candidates who know the sharp sting of defeat. At the conclusion of a Capitol Hill news conference Tuesday, McCain joked about Kerry’s hearing and the tough tactics that won’t be employed. “We will look forward to interrogating him at his hearing - mercilessly,” McCain said to laughter. “We will bring back, for the only time, waterboarding to get the truth.” The hearing is the first of three for Obama’s national security nominees and the least controversial. Former Republican Sen Chuck Hagel, nominated

for defense secretary, will face tough questions about his past statements on Israel, Iran, nuclear weapons and defense spending at his confirmation hearing next Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee. John Brennan, the president’s choice for CIA director, will be quizzed about White House national security leaks and the use of unmanned drones at his hearing next month.

The job of the nation’s top diplomat would be the realization of a dream for Kerry, whom Obama passed over in 2008 when he chose Clinton. When Joe Biden became vice president, Kerry replaced the former Delaware senator as chairman of the committee. Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, the incoming chairman, will preside at Kerry’s hearing.

Obama nominated Kerry after Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations, removed her name from consideration following criticism from Republicans over her initial comments about the attacks on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya. Kerry, 69, is the son of a diplomat and has served as Obama’s unofficial envoy, using his skills of persuasion with leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Although a rough hearing is unlikely, Kerry will be pressed about the civil war in Syria and other hot spots, foreign aid and the Keystone XL oil pipeline, about which he’ll have a major say. More than half the Senate has urged quick approval of the pipeline, increasing the

pressure on Obama to move forward on the project despite concerns from environmentalists. “We urge you to choose jobs, economic development and American energy security,” wrote 53 senators, who added that the pipeline “has gone through the most exhaustive environmental scrutiny of any pipeline” in US history. The $7 billion project would carry tar sands oil from Canada to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast. The Obama administration has twice thwarted the 1,700-mile (2,735.76-kilometer) pipeline, which Calgary-based TransCanada first proposed in late 2008. — AP

WASHINGTON: Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry leads a hearing on the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee met yesterday to consider the nomination of Kerry to be secretary of state. — AP

LA teacher suspected of sex abuse of 20 kids LOS ANGELES: An elementary school teacher who worked for nearly four decades in the Los Angeles Unified School District was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of sexually abusing 20 students and one adult, police said. After a 10-month investigation, eight felony counts of continual sexual abuse and seven counts of lewd acts upon a child have been filed against Robert Pimentel of Newport Beach for abuse that took place at George De La Torre Jr. Elementary in the Wilmington area,

Officer Christopher No told The Associated Press. In addition to the 15 felonies, misdemeanor charges are expected for the remaining incidents, No said.

His bail has been set at $12 million, and an arraignment date hasn’t been set. Pimentel, 57, left his fourth-grade teaching position last March when allegations arose from several girls who told their parents he inappropriately touched them during school and police opened an investigation. District offi-

CARACAS: A supporter of Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez holds a fake wooden rifle at an event commemorating the 1958 fall of the country’s dictatorship in Caracas on Wednesday. —AP

cials immediately removed him from campus and parents and state credentialing authorities were informed, school district spokesman Daryl Strickland said. Parents and guardians will be told of the arrest by letter and phone, he said.

Before the official dismissal process with the Board of Education could begin, Pimentel, who had worked for the district since 1974, retired. “Can you go back and fire someone who’s already retired? No, you can’t,” LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy told the Los Angeles Times. Deasy said the school’s principal was also immediately removed because the superintendent was “dissatisfied” with how the incident was handled.

Court records obtained by the Times show the allegations covered a period between Sept. 2011 to March 2012.

LAPD Capt. Fabian Lizzaraga told the newspaper Pimentel is suspected of inappropriately touching the children over and under their clothing.

The Police Department said the teacher’s name was spelled “Pimental,” but the school district and public records give the spelling as “Pimentel.”

Police did not know if he had hired an attorney. A woman who picked up the phone at a number listed for Pimentel hung up when asked about a lawyer or comment from family. — AP

Business FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Japan reports record $78.3bn trade deficit

Euro-zone business activity rallies

PAGE 21 PAGE 22

DAVOS: British Prime Minister David Cameron jumps on stage to deliver his speech at the 43rd Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum, WEF, in Davos yesterday.—AP

Cameron: I don’t want a country called Europe At Davos, EU leaders urge Britain to stay in the club DAVOS: British Prime Minister David Cameron wants nothing to do with a United States of Europe, an idea that’s gaining currency as the countries that use the euro struggle to fix their debt crisis.

A day after he shook up Europe’s political landscape by offering citizens the prospect of a vote on whether to stay in the 27-country European Union, Cameron insisted yesterday he wants Britain to remain an integral part of the bloc but that more unification would not be the answer.

“To try and shoehorn countries into a centralized political union would be a great mistake and Britain would not be a part of it,” he said in a speech at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos. Over the past few months, many in the EU, particularly among the 17 countries that use the euro, are on a drive for closer unification, and that’s raised particular concerns in Britain, which has often viewed the bloc through a business prism.

“If you mean that Europe has to be a political union, a country called Europe, then I disagree,” said Cameron, who insisted he is arguing for a more flexible EU - not to walk out on it. On Wednesday, Cameron put an end to

months of speculation by revealing he intends to hold a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU if he wins the next general election, expected in 2015.

But many politicians in Europe think closer political ties are exactly what is needed to maintain continental unity in the face of a debt crisis that’s laid bare fundamental flaws in the euro. The European Union, which last year won the Nobel Peace Prize, effectively started amid the rubble of World War II - the motivation to avoid future wars.

Some even think Europe’s end-game has to be to resemble the United States of America. Countries would be so tied together in their economic and social fabric to make war inconceivable.

A number of European leaders have accused Cameron of putting the bloc at risk to deal with domestic political problems. His Conservative Party has a hardcore element that is highly skeptical of the EU, while an anti-EU party, the UK Independence Party, is gaining ground in the polls most notably at the expense of Cameron’s Conservatives.

Italian Premier Mario Monti said Britain should set aside ideology and look at its

membership in the EU with “pragmatism, which should be a British attitude of mind.”

He argued that Britons, for all their hostility to EU regulations and bureaucracy, benefit so much from the single market that they would be scared to leave - a ready access to markets and over half a billion people would be a gamble too far. Most of British business appears to want to stay in the EU but out of the integrationist drive - the question is whether that can be achieved. “The vast majority of businesses across the UK want to stay in the single market, but on the basis of a revised relationship ..... that promotes trade and competitiveness,” said John Langworth of the British Chambers of Commerce.

He was among 55 British business leaders who issued a public letter to the Times of London on Thursday complaining about demands from Brussels and calling for a “a more competitive, flexible and prosperous European Union that would bring more jobs and growth for all member states.”

Growth is certainly something that Europe is craving. The euro-zone as a whole is in recession and figures Friday are expected to show the British Economy, the EU’s third-

largest, half way back to its third recession in four years - a recession is commonly defined as two successive quarters of negative economic growth.

The leaders of Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands and Denmark - also in Davos for the gathering of political and business elites stressed the importance of Britain’s place in the EU. But Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt acknowledged Cameron’s budget concerns. “Every morning we need to get up in the morning and ask, are we spending public money in the right way,” she said.

“If we are doing it at the member state level we should be doing it at the European level as well.” Britain’s relations with Europe have been strained since the end of World War II. It did not join the European Steel and Coal Community, the forebear of what would later become the European Union, in 1951. Britain later realized there were benefits accruing from joining up with some of its wartime friends and foes, and joined the evolving European bloc. It has stood against many efforts to forge closer ties, notably the creation of the euro, but has been at the forefront of the drive to create a single market. — AP

Business FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

India mulls raising taxes on the rich Chidambaram comments ahead of budget KARACHI: A Pakistani stockbroker monitors the latest share prices during a trading session at the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) in Karachi yesterday. The benchmark KSE100 Index finished the day at 17056.36, with an increase a 147.69 points. — AFP

Dubai’s Nakheel profit rises 57% DUBAI: Indebted Dubai property developer Nakheel posted a 57 percent rise in full-year profit, saying its earnings growth showed the emirate’s real estate sector was in recovery.

House prices plunged about 60 percent from a 2008 peak as a property boom turned to bust, with Nakheel among the most high-profile corporate casualties. The government-owned developer agreed a $16 billion debt restructuring in 2011 and scaled back grandiose plans, such as building a one-kilometre high tower.

This has helped turn around Nakheel’s operations and it made a 2.02 billion dirham ($550 million) profit last year, on revenue up 91 percent to 7.8 billion. “It is proof that investor confidence is back,” chairman Ali Rashid Lootah said, adding: “Nakheel’s strong financial performance ... is a clear sign of a recovery in Dubai’s real estate sector.” Aside from Nakheel, Dubai’s property sector has shown other signs of improvement, in part helped by an influx of people and money from countries affected by the Arab Spring.

Prices have levelled out and even increased in some districts, although the sector remains dogged by an oversupply of commercial and residential property. Nakheel owns and operates shopping malls in Dubai, with retail revenue up 23 percent in 2012. It did not provide figures in cash terms. The company made interest and profit payments of around 800 million dirhams to lenders last year and has now paid around 10 billion to various trade creditors and contractors since the start of its debt restructuring. Nakheel has cut its long-term liabilities by about 7.3 billion dirhams and will hand over 3,000 units to customers in 2013. It plans to invest 6.5 billion dirhams over the next three years on new projects. —Reuters

EasyJet gets business passenger boost LONDON: British budget airline easyJet said quarterly revenue rose 9.2 percent, after it attracted more business travelers by adding flights on routes where rivals have cut capacity. EasyJet also benefited from extra services, such as flexible tickets and allocated seating, it has started offering in a bid to steal business customers from legacy carriers such as IAG’s British Airways. Demand for flights between London, Geneva, Milan, Paris and Rome were especially strong during the three months to December - easyJet’s first quarter, a spokesman said yesterday.

Competitors have been struggling with high fuel costs, weak consumer confidence and the euro zone crisis. Some ceased operations last year. Others have cut routes, leaving gaps that low-cost airlines have been quick to exploit.

“With around 80 percent of (fiscal) first-half seats now booked, easyJet expects to contain first-half loss before tax to between 50 million and 75 million pounds ($119 million) ... this assumes a normal level of disruption in the second quarter,” chief executive Carolyn McCall said yesterday.

Prior to its trading statement, easyJet was expected to report a first-half pretax loss of 109 million pounds, according to Thomson Reuters data. The airline makes its profit in its second half, which includes the busy summer holiday period.

Its shares were up 3.7 percent to 887.0 pence by 1020 GMT, down from an earlier record high at 897.5 pence and valuing the group at around 3.5 billion pounds. — Reuters

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: India should consider the argument for higher taxes on the “very rich”, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said in comments likely to fuel speculation about steps he may take in next month’s budget to boost tax flows and narrow a yawning fiscal gap. In an offthe-record pre-budget meeting with Chidambaram and Finance Ministry officials on Jan. 7, some economists pressed for higher taxes on the rich to make sure they are paying their fair share, alarming business lobby groups that warn such a move would stifle growth.

The Indian finance minister’s comments come against the backdrop of a global debate, from the United States to France, about whether the very wealthy pay enough taxes.

The growth rate of Asia’s third-largest economy is widely expected to slip to a decade-low in fiscal 2012/13 as the government grapples with ballooning budget and current account deficits and high inflation. Chidambaram wants to plug holes in the nation’s finances by cutting expenditure and increasing revenues through improved tax collection.

“I think we should have stability in tax rates but we should consider the argument that very rich should be asked to pay a little more on some occasions, but that is not the view I am expressing. That is simply the argument I have heard and I am repeating,” Chidambaram said in a TV interview aired yesterday. Chidambaram

offered no definition of the “very rich”, but his comments are likely to please many in his centre-left Congress party who feel recent reforms to further liberalize the economy favor corporate India at the expense of the common man.

The Congress party is facing a tough fight to hold on to power in a series of state elections this year and general elections due by May 2014. “It is good electoral politics but economically doesn’t make sense,” said Venugopal Dhoot, who controls India’s diversified Videocon Group and ranks 38th in Forbes’ India rich list with a net worth of $1.5 billion. It was not immediately clear if Chidambaram was referring to higher taxes on income, assets or capital gains in a regime that currently makes India a good place for the rich to live.

At present the top income tax rate is 30 percent, which applies to earnings above 1.0 million rupees ($18,500) a year. There are just 35 million taxpayers in a country of 1.2 billion people, and of them about 1.5 million declare annual earnings of more than 1.0 million rupees, according to the Finance Ministry. There is no inheritance tax, an issue Chidambaram raised as a concern after being appointed finance minister last August.

In 2009, his predecessor withdrew a 10 percent surcharge on the 30-percent rate paid on earnings above 1.0 million rupees.

A government official with direct knowledge of the debate in the Finance Ministry

said the focus is on plugging loopholes in the collection of income tax paid by individuals and companies. “There are options of revisiting the inheritance tax and surcharge on income tax paid by the individuals,” the official said, declining to say if these were firm proposals on the table for the budget to be unveiled around the end of February.

“Even if they bring (back) the surcharge that will only add about 15-20 billion rupees, which is a drop in the ocean and will be lost in the decline of tax revenues that will arise due to lower compliance if tax rates are raised,” said Surjit Bhalla, chairman of advisory firm Oxus Investments.

India’s richest people tend to own businesses and other assets and thus have comparatively little exposure to salaries tax. Billionaire Mukesh Ambani, for example, was paid salary and perks of 150 million rupees ($2.8 million) in the last fiscal year by Reliance Industries, which he controls. According to Forbes, Ambani is worth $21 billion.

Similarly, Azim Premji, founder of India’s No 3 software exporter, Wipro Ltd, and India’s third-richest person with a net worth of $1.2 billion, took home a salary and allowances of $84,696 in the last financial year, less than half of what the company’s chief financial officer was paid. Premji said at a gathering of business leaders in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday that in principle he was not against higher taxes for the wealthy.— Reuters

Iraqi Kurdistan awards Chevron stake in oil block DAVOS: Iraqi Kurdistan has awarded Chevron Corp a stake in the Qara Dagh oil block, the region’s energy minister said yesterday, building on the company’s exploration play in the autonomous northern region. Kurdistan has upset the central government by signing deals directly with oil majors such as Chevron and Exxon Mobil , providing lucrative production-sharing contracts and better operating conditions than in the south. Baghdad says it alone has the right to do oilfield deals and to control exports of the OPEC member’s crude.

“We informed them that we awarded them a field called Qara Dagh,” Ashti Hawrami told Reuters. “It is an important and big exploration project. We’ve agreed all the terms.” Hawrami said Chevron was firmly committed to all its projects with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Jay Pryor, Chevron’s Vice President for business development, met with Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “During the meeting, Chevron expressed strong commitment to all its projects in Kurdistan,” Hawrami said. Unlike its larger rival Exxon, Chevron has no stake in oilfield projects in southern Iraq. Even so, Baghdad hit out at Chevron last summer - barring it from any oil agreements with the cen-

tral government. The company found the commercial terms of Iraq’s service contract unworkable, but - like other investors - found Kurdistan’s production-sharing contracts more attractive.

Slim margins at its $50 billion West Qurna-1 oilfield project in southern Iraq

had led ExxonMobil to seek to quit the service contract and focus firmly on Kurdistan. But Exxon may be moving closer to Baghdad’s side in its bitter feud with Kurdistan - with a sweeter deal to keep it operating in southern Iraq on the table, said industry sources. —Reuters

TRIPOLI: Cranes around a construction site which started during the regime of ousted dictator Muammar Gaddafi and has since been put on hold in Tripoli. — AFP

21

Business FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Japan reports record $78.3bn trade deficit

Fuel imports surge, territorial row weighs

BEIJING: Chinese shoppers walk past a new Hollister clothing store in Beijing as its parent company Abercrombie & Fitch continues its retail expansion in the country yesterday. —AFP

China manufacturing hits 2-yr high: Survey HONG KONG: China’s manufacturing crept higher this month to the fastest pace in two years, a survey showed yesterday, in another sign the world’s second-biggest economy is coming out of a downturn. A preliminary version of HSBC’s monthly purchasing managers’ index rose for the fifth month in a row to 51.9 in January from 51.5 in December. Readings above 50 on the 100-point scale indicate an expansion. China’s economy is rebounding from its deepest slump since the 2008 global financial crisis but many analysts predict the recovery will be anemic and wonder whether it will be sustained.

HSBC’s chief China economist, Qu Hongbin, said that gains in new business allowed manufacturers to step up production by adding jobs and making more purchases. “Despite the still tepid external demand, the domestic-driven restocking process is likely to add steam to China’s ongoing recovery in the coming months,” Qu said. HSBC’s index is based on responses from 85 to 90 percent of purchasing executives surveyed at 420 manufacturers. The full version is due by Feb. 1.

While domestic demand is holding up, demand for shipments of goods like clothes, toys and electronics is more uncertain because of a weak US recovery and austerity measures in Europe. Export-driven manufacturing employs millions of Chinese workers, though the country’s reliance on trade has lessened as domestic consumption has grown. The Chinese economy expanded 7.9 percent in the final quarter of last year, up from 7.4 percent in the previous quarter, according to data released earlier this month. For all of 2012, the economy expanded 7.8 percent, the slowest annual performance since the 1990s.

Economists were watching the index closely for any signs of how China would perform in the near future. Many predict that the rebound will peak in the coming months before easing off to produce growth of about 8 percent for the year, well below double-digit rates of the past decade. Yao Wei, an economist at Societe Generale, noted that the survey’s subindexes showed production continued to grow but at a slower rate while new orders edged lower. Similar slowing in previous cycles often came three to four months before the peak.

“Hence, the next few reports will be crucial for the assessment of how much stronger growth can get,” she wrote in a research note. —AP

TOKYO: Investors look at a share prices board outside a securities company in Tokyo yesterday.

Japan’s share prices rose 133.88 points to close at 10,620.87 at the Tokyo Stock Exchange. —AFP

TOKYO: Japan’s trade deficit in 2012 rose to a record 6.93 trillion yen ($78.3 billion), as fuel imports surged and a bitter territorial dispute with China hammered its exports. The provisional figures reported by the Finance Ministry yesterday showed the trade deficit narrowed, however, in December, to 641.5 billion yen ($7.25 billion) from the 954.8 billion yen shortfall in November. That’s despite a 5.8 percent drop in exports for the month.

Recovering overseas demand has coincided with a recent decline in the yen’s value against the US dollar and even bigger drops against other major currencies driven by expectations that stimulus spending and monetary easing championed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who took office a month ago, will help drive a turnaround in Japan’s moribund economy. But the weak yen policy has rankled some of Japan’s trading partners, raising worries that it might precipitate a destabilizing round of “competitive” devaluations. It also raises the relative costs of imports of consumer goods and commodities that resource-scarce Japan relies on to power its industries.

Energy imports surged 34 percent last year, to 24.08 trillion yen ($3.3 trillion). Rising costs for fuel and other commodities have pushed costs for Japanese manufacturers sharply higher after Japan’s nuclear plants were taken offline following Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant accident following the earthquake and tsunami disasters in March 2011. December was the sixth straight month of deficits. Exports have suffered from plunging demand in crisis-stricken Europe and troubles with China after a flare-up over uninhabited

islands in the East China Sea prompted anti-Japanese protests last fall.

The annual trade deficit was a 170 percent increase from the deficit of 2.56 trillion yen recorded in 2011. As an export powerhouse, Japan ran trade surpluses until the 2011 disasters and the global crisis combined to push it into

stagnation will take time. The tensions with Beijing remain a potential pitfall for the recovery, despite Japan’s efforts to shift more of its trade and offshore manufacturing into Southeast Asia and India.

Japan’s exports to China sank 10.8 percent last year, to 11.5 trillion yen ($130 billion) while imports rose 2.7 per-

TOKYO: The Japanese national flag flies in front of the container pier in Tokyo port yesterday. Japan said it logged a record trade deficit in 2012, Japan’s exports totaled 63.7 trillion yen against imports of 70.7 trillion yen, as exports to debt-hit Europe plunged and a bitter diplomatic spat with its biggest trade partner China weighed on demand. —AFP deficits. Abe has focused his stimulus program on boosting manufacturing competitiveness while spurring domestic demand through a sharp increase in government spending on public works.

Ample capital circulating due to monetary easing in most major economies has helped drive a rally in the stock market, but making real structural changes in the economy after two decades of

cent to 15.03 trillion yen ($170 billion), leaving a deficit of 3.52 trillion yen ($39.8 billion). Exports to the European Union likewise fell, by nearly 15 percent, leaving a deficit of 139.7 billion yen ($1.6 billion). But trade with North America, mainly the US, rebounded, with exports climbing 12 percent and imports about 2 percent, for a surplus of 4.9 trillion yen ($55.4 billion). —AP

Data: French economy stumbling into 2013 PARIS: The French economy limped into 2013, a widely-tracked economic indicator showed yesterday in contrast to signals for the overall euro-zone, and separate data showed that housing loans and construction activity fell and that industrialists were gloomy.

Consumer borrowing posted the biggest drop last year since 2009 despite ultra-low interest rates as French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici called for 2013 to mark “a new start for the French economy.”

A preliminary, or “flash” purchasing manager’s index (PMI), a leading indicator of activity, compiled by Londonbased research firm Markit for France dropped to an indexed 42.7 points in January from 44.6 points in December, to reach its lowest level in 46 months.

A value of less than 50 indicates a contraction in business activity, and there had been some hope as the indicator suggested late last year that the decline

was slowing.

For the entire 17-nation euro-zone, the composite PMI, which covers the manufacturing and services sectors, pushed up to 48.2 points from 47.2 points. “Today’s improvement at the euro-zone level comes despite a surprisingly big deterioration in French PMIs,” UniCredit chief euro-zone economist Marco Valli noted. Other releases showed that the amount of French housing loans plummeted by 26.4 percent last year from the level in 2011, when it had already fallen by 4.2 percent, even as interest rates fell to an all-time low.

The average rate for home loans fell in December to 3.22 percent, a study by the CSA Housing Credit Observatory found, and was expected to decline further this month.

The total amount of approved loans nonetheless fell to between 117.5 and 120.5 billion euros ($156-160 billion), according to Michel Mouillart, an eco-

nomic professor who was lead author for the study. The final figure will be released once it was determined if any of the loans were in fact finalized this year.

Activity among craftspeople in the construction industry declined by 1.0 percent in 2012, according to the sector federation Capeb, with a bigger drop of 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter from the same period a year earlier.

The sub-sector counts 380,000 companies that employ 992,000 workers.

Consumer credit declined by 5.1 percent last year to 35.7 billion euros meanwhile, according to data provided by the French Financial Services Association, the biggest drop since one of 13.3 percent in 2009, when France was in recession. A survey of French industrialists by the Roland Berger group found that just four percent expected their business to do better this year, even though 75 percent said they were able to compete effectively in their respective sectors. —AFP

Business FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

US jobless claims drop to 5-yr low WASHINGTON: The number of Americans seeking unemployment aid fell last week to the lowest level in five years, evidence that employers are cutting fewer jobs and may step up hiring. The Labor Department said yesterday that weekly unemployment benefit applications dropped 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 330,000. That’s the fewest since January 2008.

The four-week average, a less volatile measure, fell to 351,750. That’s also the lowest in nearly five years. The decline may reflect the government’s difficulty adjusting its numbers to account for layoffs after the holiday shopping season. Layoffs spike in the second week of January and then plummet. The department seeks to adjust for those seasonal trends, but the figures can still be volatile.

If the trend holds up, fewer applications would suggest the job market is improving.

“Encouraging news on the US jobs front, even when you remove all of the noise,” said Jennifer Lee, an economist at BMO Capital Markets. “Weekly data are noisy, particularly at this time of year, so keep that in mind.”

Applications are a proxy for layoffs. They have fluctuated between 360,000 and 390,000 for most of last year. At the same time, employers added an average of 153,000 jobs a month. That’s just been enough to slowly push down the unemployment rate, which fell 0.7 percentage points last year to 7.8 percent. There have been other positive signs for the economy and job market.

The once-battered housing sector is recovering, which is boosting construction and home prices. Home builders started work in 2012 on the most new homes in four years.

And sales of previously occupied homes reached their highest level in five years last year. Still, home building and sales remain below the levels consistent with a healthy economy.

More home building will likely increase job growth. In December, the economy gained 30,000 construction jobs the most in 15 months. And economists expect construction firms to add more jobs this year as the housing recovery strengthens. Patrick Newport, an economist at IHS Global Insight, forecasts that construction companies will add 140,000 jobs this year, up from a meager 18,000 in 2012. The number of people continuing to claim benefits is also falling. There were nearly 5.7 million people receiving unemployment aid in the week ended Jan. 5, the latest data available. That’s down from almost 5.9 million in the previous week.

The overall economy grew at an annual rate of 3.1 percent in the July-September quarter. But economists believe activity slowed considerably in the OctoberDecember quarter to a rate below 2 percent or less, in part because companies cut back on restocking. — AP

Foreign firms hesitate returning to Libya TRIPOLI: Thousands of industrial projects signed by the regime of Muammar Gaddafi are still languishing in Libya, except those in the key oil sector, as foreign majors hesitate to return to the north African country.

Fifteen months after the ouster of the former dictator, reconstruction has been slow to take off, primarily because of insecurity, as authorities struggle to control armed groups formed during the war that toppled Gaddafi killed him in October 2011. A lack of well organized and effective police and army has further compounded the sense of insecurity.

“The question is of security for our companies,” Helene Conway-Mouret, French minister for nationals abroad, said in Tripoli last week. In other cases, however, companies are demanding compensation for damages suffered during the uprising, with properties having been looted or bombed during the conflict. And still other projects are on hold because the authorities are investigating whether bribes were paid to secure lucrative contracts. The lacklustre industrial situation is particularly evident in the housing, telecommunications, health, education and transport sectors. China Railway Construction Ltd, for example, left behind three sites in Libya, including the laying of Tripoli-Sirte railway line worth $4 billion (3 billion euros).

Also languishing is the expansion of Tripoli’s airport by French companies Vinci and Aeroports de Paris, as well as dozens of housing and shopping complexes involving Brazilian, Spanish, Tunisian and Turkish firms. — AFP

Euro-zone business activity rallies, analysts cautious Economic growth remains tepid in Jan BRUSSELS: Private business activity across the euro-zone rose to a 10-month high level in January, a leading growth indicator showed yesterday, but analysts were cautious about underlying recovery of the economy. The Purchasing Managers’ Index published

by London-based Markit researchers, a survey of thousands of euro-zone companies, logged 48.2 points in compared to 47.2 points the previous month.

January marked a third rise running for the index, even though it remains below the 50-point line indicating economic growth or contraction-a 16th reading of less than 50 in 17 months.

Manufacturing production fell for the 11th month in a row, with both the manufacturing and services sectors each registering their smallest retreat in 10 months. The key euro-zone economy of Germany powered back to growth, but No. 2 economy France is still in contraction. Markit chief economist Chris Williamson said forward-looking indicators “suggest that the rate of decline will continue to slow in the coming months, and a return to growth looks to be on the cards during the first half of 2013.”

However, he underlined that “worrying signs of weakness persist, however, with companies cutting staff at a faster rate, reflecting the need to keep costs as low as possible in the face of ongoing uncertainty about the economic outlook.”

“While the surveys add to the mounting evidence that euro-zone economic activity turned the corner in late-2012,

BARCELONA: Anti-eviction activists of the PAH (Platform of People Affected by Mortgage) stick placards reading “This bank steals” in the window of a Catalunya Caixa Bank office during a protest against mortgage debt yesterday. —AFP they indicate that it is not out of the woods yet,” said London-based IHS Global Insight analyst Howard Archer, who highlighted worries about France.

Jonathan Loynes of Capital Economics also in London said the improvement on the consensus forecast among economists-of 47.4 points-is nonetheless “consistent with quarterly contractions in euro-zone GDP of about 0.2 percent, compared to a likely drop of perhaps 0.5 percent in the fourth quarter last year.”

He added that it would be “premature to conclude that a sustained recovery is now underway. For now, at least, the

indices are still consistent with recession.”

Christian Schulz of Germany’s Berenberg Bank said the “safety net” announced by the European Central Bank last year for governments toiling to borrow at affordable rates “is progressively affecting the real economy and healing the transmission of monetary policy.” He added: “This buys the crisis countries the time to see through the tough structural reforms and fiscal tightening and eventually reap the rewards.

The ECB’s own pessimistic growth forecast look likely to be exceeded.” —AFP

Toyota, BMW working on new battery technology TOKYO: Toyota Motor Corp and BMW Group are working together on nextgeneration batteries for green vehicles called “lithium-air” as their collaboration, first announced in late 2011, moves ahead in fuel cells, sports vehicles and other fields. But both sides said yesterday the partnership will not involve a capital alliance while spanning a wide range of technologies for green vehicles. The Japanese and German

automakers aim to complete a fuel-cell vehicle system by 2020, and a concept for a mid-size sports vehicle by the end of this year. They will also work together on developing lightweight technologies such as composites, which will help make cars greener.

Joint research will be started to develop a lithium-air battery, which will be more powerful than the current lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehi-

NAGOYA: Toyota President Akio Toyoda (third left) shakes hands with BMW AG chief executive Norbert Reithofer (third right) as their executives show signed documents during a signing ceremony to jointly develop next-generation batteries for green vehicles in Nagoya yesterday. —AP

cles, they said. The technology, which other automakers are also working on, will allow a major part of the battery’s energy-making process to come from the oxygen in air. BMW AG board member Herbert Diess told reporters the cooperation will help both companies boost competitiveness in new technologies. “We really share the same vision,” he said at a news conference in Nagoya, central Japan, live-streamed at Toyota’s Tokyo office.

Toyota Vice Chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada said working with BMW will allow for a much faster development as they pool their resources. He said the companies share a corporate culture and they have built trust over the last year.

An agreement to work on technologies together was signed in June last year.

BMW, known for its strong design and sporty cars, could be a good match for Toyota, reputed for innovation and solid engineering but sometimes criticized as making dull cars. Global automakers are forging such partnerships to become more competitive. French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen and General Motors Co of the US have a deal to share in purchases of parts and services to cut costs.

Toyota already has a joint venture with Peugeot Citroen to make small cars in Europe. —AP

26

Opinion FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Can smart machines do your job?

By Paul Wiseman, Bernard Condon and Jonathan Fahey

A

rt Liscano knows he’s an endangered species in the job market: He’s a meter reader in Fresno, Calif. For 26 years, he’s driven from house to house, checking how much electricity Pacific Gas & Electric customers have used. But PG&E doesn’t need many people like Liscano making rounds anymore. Every day, the utility replaces 1,200 old-fashioned meters with digital versions that can collect information without human help, generate more accurate power bills, even send an alert if the power goes out. “I can see why technology is taking over,” says Liscano, 66, who earns $67,000 a year. “We can see the writing on the wall.” His department employed 50 full-time meter readers just six years ago. Now, it has six.

From giant corporations to university libraries to start-up businesses, employers are using rapidly improving technology to do tasks that humans used to do. That means millions of workers are caught in a competition they can’t win against machines that keep getting more powerful, cheaper and easier to use. To better understand the impact of technology on jobs, AP analyzed employment data from 20 countries; and interviewed economists, technology experts, robot manufacturers, software developers, CEOs and workers who are competing with smarter machines.

The AP found that almost all the jobs disappearing are in industries that pay middle-class wages, ranging from $38,000 to $68,000. Jobs that form the backbone of the middle class in developed countries in Europe, North America and Asia. In the United States, half of the 7.5 million jobs lost during the Great Recession paid middle-class wages, and the numbers are even more grim in the 17 European countries that use the euro as their currency. A total of 7.6 million midpay jobs disappeared in those countries from Jan 2008 through last June. Those jobs are being replaced in many cases by machines and software that can do the same work better and cheaper. “Everything that humans can do a machine can do,” says Moshe Vardi, a computer scientist at Rice University in Houston. “Things are happening that look like science fiction.”

Google and Toyota are rolling out cars that can drive themselves. The Pentagon deploys robots to find roadside explosives in Afghanistan and wages war from the air with drone aircraft. North Carolina State University this month introduced a high-tech library where robots - “bookBots” - retrieve books when students request them, instead of humans.

The library’s 1.5 million books are no longer displayed on shelves; they’re kept in 18,000 metal bins that require one-ninth the space.

The advance of technology is producing wondrous products and services that once were unthinkable. But it’s also taking a toll on people because they so easily can be replaced. In the US, more than 1.1 million secretaries vanished from the job market between 2000 and 2010, their job security shattered by software that lets bosses field calls themselves and arrange their own meetings and trips. Over the same period, the number of telephone operators plunged by 64 percent, word processors and typists by 63 percent, travel agents by 46 percent and bookkeepers by 26 percent, according to Labor Department statistics.

In Europe, technology is shaking up human resources departments across the continent.

“Nowadays, employees are expected to do a lot of what we used to think of as HR from behind their own computer,” says Ron van Baden, a negotiator with the Dutch labor union federation FNV. “It used to be that you could walk into the employee affairs office with a question about your pension, or the terms of your contract. That’s all gone and automated.” Two-thirds of the 7.6 million middle-class jobs that vanished in Europe were the victims of technology, estimates economist Maarten Goos at Belgium’s University of Leuven. Does technology also create jobs? Of course. But at nowhere near the rate that it’s killing them off - at least for the foreseeable future. Here’s a look at three techno-

logical factors reshaping the economies and job markets in developed countries: Big Data At the heart of the biggest technological changes today is what computer scientists call “Big Data.” Computers thrive on information, and they’re feasting on an unprecedented amount of it - from the Internet, from Twitter messages and other social media sources, from the barcodes and sensors being slapped on everything from boxes of Huggies diapers to stamping machines in car plants. According to a Harvard Business Review article by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, more information now crosses the Internet every second than the entire Internet stored 20 years ago. Every hour, they note, Wal-Mart Stores Inc collects 50 mil-

World, recalls starting work in manufacturing years ago as a “grunge, white-collar worker”. He’d walk around the factory floor with a clipboard, recording information from machines, then go back to an office and enter the data by hand onto a spreadsheet. Now that grunge work is conducted by powerful “operations management” software systems developed by businesses such as General Electric Intelligent Platforms in Charlottesville, Virginia.

These systems continuously collect, analyze and summarize in digestible form information about all aspects of factory operations - energy consumption, labor costs, quality problems, customer orders. And the guys wandering the factory floor with clipboards? They’re gone.

The Cloud In the old days - say, five years ago - businesses

In this Jan 3, 2013 photo, the “bookBot” glides down a row of drawers at the James B Hunt Jr Library at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. The automated book retrieval system is just one of many innovations in the new, stateof-the-art facility. — AP lion filing cabinets’ worth of information from its dealings with customers.

No human could make sense of so much data.

But computers can. They can sift through mountains of information and deliver valuable insights to decision-makers in businesses and government agencies. For instance, Wal-Mart’s analysis of Twitter traffic helped convince it to increase the amount of “Avengers” merchandise it offered when the superhero movie came out last year and to introduce a private-label corn chip in the American Southwest.

Google’s automated car can only drive by itself by tapping into Google’s vast collection of maps and using information pouring in from special sensors to negotiate traffic. “What’s different to me is the raw amount of data out there because of the Web, because of these devices, because we’re attaching sensors to things,” says McAfee, principal research scientist at MIT’s Center for Digital Business and the co-author of “Race Against the Machine”. “The fuel of science is data,” he says. “We have so much more of that rocket fuel.”

So far, public attention has focused on the potential threats to privacy as companies use technology to gather clues about their customers’ buying habits and lifestyles. “What is less visible,” says software entrepreneur Martin Ford, “is that organizations are collecting huge amounts of data about their internal operations and about what their employees are doing.” The computers can use that information to “figure out how to do a great many jobs” that humans do now.

Gary Mintchell, editor in chief of Automation

that had to track lots of information needed to install servers in their offices and hire technical staff to run them.

“Cloud computing” has changed everything.

Now, companies can store information on the Internet - perhaps through Amazon Web Services or Google App Engine - and grab it when they need it. And they don’t need to hire experts to do it. Cloud computing “is a catch-all term for the ability to rent as much computer power as you need without having to buy it, without having to know a lot about it,” McAfee says. “It really has opened up very high-powered computing to the masses.”

Small businesses, which have no budget for a big technology department, are especially eager to take advantage of the cheap computer power offered in the cloud. Hilliard’s Beer in Seattle, founded in Oct 2011, bought software from the German company SAP that allows it to use cloud computing to track sales and inventory and to produce the reports that federal regulators require. “It automates a lot of the stuff that we do,” owner Ryan Hilliard says. “I know what it takes to run a server. I didn’t want to hire an IT guy.”

And the brewery keeps finding new ways to use the beefed-up computing power. For example, it’s now tracking what happens to the kegs it delivers to restaurants and retrieving them sooner for reuse. “Kegs are a pretty big expense for a small brewery,” Hilliard says. Automated Insights in Durham, NC, draws on the computing power of the cloud to produce automated sports stories, such as customized weekly summaries for fantasy football leagues. “We’re able to create over 1,000 pieces of

content per second at a very cost-effective rate,” says founder Robbie Allen. He says his startup would not have been possible without cloud computing.

Smarter Machines Though many are still working out the kinks, software is making machines and devices smarter every year. They can learn your habits, recognize your voice, do the things that travel agents, secretaries and interpreters have traditionally done.

Microsoft has unveiled a system that can translate what you say into Mandarin and play it back - in your voice. The Google Now personal assistant can tell you if there’s a traffic jam on your regular route home and suggest an alternative. Talk to Apple’s Siri and she can reschedule an appointment. IBM’s Watson supercomputer can field an awkwardly worded question, figure out what you’re trying to ask, retrieve the answer and spit it out fast enough to beat human champions on the TV quiz show “Jeopardy!” Computers with that much brainpower increasingly will invade traditional office work.

Besides becoming more powerful and creative, machines and their software are becoming easier to use. That has made consumers increasingly comfortable relying on them to transact business. As well as eliminated jobs of bank tellers, ticket agents and checkout cashiers. People who used to say “Let me talk to a person. I don’t want to deal with this machine” are now using check-in kiosks at airports and self-checkout lanes at supermarkets and drugstores, says Jeff Connally, CEO of CMIT Solutions, a technology consultancy. The most important change in technology, he says, is “the profound simplification of the user interface”.

Four years ago, the Darien, Connecticut, public library bought self-service check-out machines from 3M Co. Now, with customers scanning books themselves, the library is processing more books than ever while shaving 15 percent from staff hours by using fewer part-time workers.

So machines are getting smarter and people are more comfortable using them. Those factors, combined with the financial pressures of the Great Recession, have led companies and government agencies to cut jobs the past five years, yet continue to operate just as well.

How is that happening? Reduced aid from Indiana’s state government and other budget problems forced the Gary, Indiana, public school system last year to cut its annual transportation budget in half, to $5 million. The school district responded by using sophisticated software to draw up new, more efficient bus routes. And it cut 80 of 160 drivers.

When the Great Recession struck, the Seattle police department didn’t have money to replace retiring officers. So it turned to technology - a new software system that lets police officers file crimescene reports from laptops in their patrol cars. The software was nothing fancy, just a collection of forms and pull-down menus, but the impact was huge. The shift from paper eliminated the need for two dozen transcribers and filing staff at police headquarters, and freed desk-bound officers to return to the streets. “A sergeant used to read them, sign them, an officer would photocopy them and another drive them to headquarters,” says Dick Reed, an assistant chief overseeing technology.

“Think of the time, think of the salary. You’re paying an officer to make photocopies.” Thanks to the software, the department has been able to maintain the number of cops on the street at 600. The software, from Versaterm, a Canadian company, is being used by police in dozens of cities, including Denver, Portland, Oregon, and Austin, Texas.

In South Korea, Standard Chartered is expanding “smart banking” branches that employ a staff of three, compared with an average of about eight in traditional branches. The bank has closed a dozen full-service branches, replacing them with the smart branches, and expects to have 30 more by the end of this year. Customers do most of their banking on computer screens, and can connect with Standard Chartered specialists elsewhere by video-conference if they need help. —AP

FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013 www.kuwaittimes.net

A model wears a creation by fashion designer Martin Margiela as part of his Spring/Summer 2013 Haute Couture fashion collection, in Paris, Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2013. — AP

28

Tr a v e l FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Let your wild side out in

—Photos by Maitham Al-Misry

K

enya is one of the world’s great tourism destinations, known for its remarkable diversity of landscapes, wildlife and cultures. From sweeping savannahs to tropical beaches and coral reef, dense equatorial forests to mighty snow capped mountains and more, Kenya is a world unto itself.

Kenya is Africa’s original safari destination, attracting explorers, adventurers and travellers for centuries. A safari to Kenya is the trip of a lifetime, but planning your trip couldn’t be easier. Kenya is an ideal destination for all kinds of travel, including business and conference and incentive travel.

The Ministry of Tourism supports and promotes sustainable tourism for the benefit of both our visitors and our fellow Kenyans. To this end, we encourage Domestic Tourism so that all Kenyans can discover the great natural and cultural wealth of their homeland- and we actively support and promote Eco and Community Tourism projects in order to protect the destination for the future.

—www.tourism.go/ke/ministry.nsf

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Tr a v e l FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

FOOD FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Generations of comfort served on a plate

By Sharon Thompson

A

few months ago, I bought a “Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book,” published in 1968, at a church yard sale. I didn’t need another Better Homes cookbook; I bought it because of the handwritten recipes that fell out of when I opened the book the kinds of recipes that are shared at potluck suppers, swapped over coffee and passed down through generations of families. The recipes tucked inside the cookbook, written on yellowed paper and school notebook paper, are a tribute to family traditions.

I have my husband’s grandmother’s “My Better Homes and Garden Cook Book” from 1935. It also has dozens of handwritten recipes, some still attached to the pages with straight pins. This particular cookbook means more to me than the cookbook I picked up at the church sale because I remember the late Emma Carpenter preparing many of those handwritten recipes for family gatherings.

“Mamaw’s” pecan cake might

not have tasted any better than the butterscotch pie recipe found in the stranger’s book, but it is the memories that make any recipe a treasure. As we settle into winter, we begin to crave those comforting foods that we associate with happy times and loving relatives.

Whether it’s pecan cake, salmon croquettes, tuna noodle casserole, coconut pie or fried chicken, we all have our favorite foods that comfort us when we need it the most.

You don’t have to have an old family cookbook to find recipes that bring back memories. Many comfort food recipes can be found in church and regional cookbooks

or those from small interest groups. Also, there are new cookbooks that have updated those great recipes for today’s generation of cooks. Here are some recipes that might bring back some memories. Pineapple upsidedown cake is a favorite dessert from childhood. This recipe is from “Sew Many Recipes ... Sew Little Time,” a collection of recipes from Quilter’s Square in Lexington, Ky. QUICK PINEAPPLE UPSIDEDOWN CAKE 3 tablespoons butter 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 can (15 ounces) unsweetened pineapple slices 7 maraschino cherries, optional 1/2 cup chopped pecans, optional 1 package yellow cake mix, without pudding Melt butter in a large cast-iron skillet. Combine brown sugar and cinnamon, and sprinkle over butter in the bottom of skillet. Arrange 7 pineapple slices over brown sugar.

Place a cherry in center of each pineapple ring and sprinkle with pecans, if desired. Set aside.

Prepare cake mix according to package directions. Pour batter over pineapple. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes, or until pick comes out clean.

Remove cake and invert onto large plate. This recipe for salmon croquettes is from “The Blue Grass Cookbook,” compiled by Minnie C Fox. The first edition was published in 1904, and reprinted last year by University Press of Kentucky with a new introduction

by Toni Tipton-Martin.

Rebecca Lang.

SALMON CROQUETTES 1 can salmon 2 eggs 1 cup butter 1 cup fine bread crumbs 1 teaspoon baking powder, in bread crumbs 1 cup cream 1\2 teaspoon cayenne pepper Salt to taste Mix all together and form into pear shapes. Roll in egg and cracker dust, and fry light brown.

There are thousands of recipes for homemade fried chicken, and no one can make it like your mother or grandmother, but this is a good recipe from “Southern Living Around the Southern Table: Coming Home to Comforting Meals and Treasured Memories” by

REAL BUTTERMILK FRIED CHICKEN 2 pound whole chicken, cut into 8 pieces 2 cups buttermilk 1 tablespoon creole seasoning 1 teaspoon salt 1\2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper 3 cups all-purpose flour 9 cups shortening Place chicken in a large zip-top plastic freezer bag. Add buttermilk, seal and chill 2 hours. Remove chicken from buttermilk, discarding buttermilk. Sprinkle chicken with creole seasoning, salt and pepper. Place flour on a large plate or in a shallow dish. Dredge chicken in flour, shaking off excess.

Melt shortening to depth of 1

FOOD FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

inch in a Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed skillet at least 10 inches wide and 3 inches deep. Heat shortening to 360 degrees using medium-high heat. Fry chicken, in batches, turning often, 15 to 20 minutes or until evenly browned and done.

Drain on a wire rack over paper towels. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

Crackling corn bread is an old recipe that early cooks made with the crunchy pieces of rendered pork fat. Today the cracklings are sold in specialty markets and in some supermarkets. This recipe is from “The Complete Southern Cookbook: More Than 800 of the Most Delicious, Down-Home Recipes” by Tammy Algood.

CRACKLING CORN BREAD 1 cup plain cornmeal 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 egg, lightly beaten 2 cups buttermilk 1 cup cracklings Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Place a greased 10-inch cast-iron skillet in the oven to heat while the desired temperature is reached.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, mix together cornmeal, flour, salt and baking soda. Add egg and buttermilk, stirring just until moistened.

Fold in cracklings. Pour batter into preheated skillet. Bake 25 minutes,

or until golden brown. Serve warm.

Makes 10 servings.

When it comes to pie, coconut is a classic recipe. The use of refrigerated pie crust makes it easy. This recipe is from “Classic Southern Desserts from the editors of Southern Living”.

COCONUT PIE 15 ounces refrigerated pie crusts

1 cup sugar, divided 1/2 cup cornstarch 2 cups half-and-half 4 egg yolks 3 tablespoons butter 1 cup sweetened flaked coconut, plus more for toasting for garnish 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, divided 2 cups whipping cream Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Fit 1 pie crust into 9-inch pie plate according to package directions; fold edges under and crimp. Prick bottom and sides of pie crust with fork. Bake at 425 degrees for 12 to

15 minutes or until lightly browned.

Let cool on a wire rack.

Combine 1 cup sugar and cornstarch in a heavy saucepan. Whisk together half-and-half and egg yolks. Gradually whisk egg mixture into sugar mixture; bring to a boil over medium heat, whisking constantly. Boil 1 minute; remove from heat.

Stir in butter, 1 cup coconut and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Place plastic wrap directly on warm custard to prevent a film from forming; let stand 30 minutes. Spoon custard mixture into pie crust, cover and chill 30 minutes or until set.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place 3 tablespoons coconut in a single layer in a shallow pan; bake 5 to 6 minutes or until toasted, stirring occasionally. Cool completely, about 15 minutes.

Beat whipping cream at high speed with an electric mixer until foamy; gradually add 1 cup sugar

and remaining 2 teaspoons vanilla, beating until soft peaks form.

Spread or pipe whipped cream over pie filling. Sprinkle with toasted coconut. Store in refrigerator.

Makes 8 servings. — MCT

Te c h n o l o g y FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

5 key features to expect in future smartphones A

s the name suggests, smartphones possess smarter capabilities than mobile phones, providing then additional, now essential functions like web browsing, multimedia entertainment, games etc - much like mini-computers, only small enough to fit in your pocket. Smartphones appeared in the market close to two decades ago as the alternative to mobile phones which carry the primary function to enable only two-way communication by text or calls.

The smartphones of today have other extended capabilities including in-built high-quality camera lenses, mobile apps that aid productivity, video-streaming as well as connectivitiy that enable millions to stay connected while on the go.

What should we expect to see in the development of smartphones in the near future, say in the next five to ten years? This is probably hard to predict with accuracy due to the fast pace tech evolutions have been riding on. Yet, as we await with anticipation, why not observe the existing trends and make some wild guesses on where smartphones are heading? You shall see below a couple of features for smartphones that may become the focal points for development in the near future.

1. Augmented Reality (AR) The term ‘augmented reality’ or AR when used in the context of computer technology refers to what we perceive through our senses (usually sight) enhanced through the use of computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics and GPS data. Simply put, AR makes available more information for us users by combining computer data to what we see in real life. Using the camera on your phone, you can point it somewhere ‘live’ to get an information overlay of where you can find the nearest cafes or dining places, for example.

Smartphones being portable serve as a good platform for AR to work. You can just whip out your phone to get the latest and relevant info for what you are searching for - information which you would otherwise have to call and ask or search online before heading out of Wi-Fi coverage. Most AR apps available now utilize some form of Global Positioning System (GPS) to facilitate location searches and this feature is likely to develop further over the next couple of years because of its potential. So why isn’t it in all smartphones yet?

It seems that the primary limiting factor is the limited recognition accuracy for ‘live’ views when we point our camera lens at places, buildings or even people. For AR to work seamlessly and reliably, the technology for recognizing places, things or people must be of a certain standard.

One example on the use of AR via smartphone can be found here.

Expect more of such apps to be made available in the market in the years to come.

2. Flexible Screens It may soon be the case where smartphones are able provide a large screen to watch and play your favorite movies and games while maintaining a pocketable size. Screens can be folded and unfolded, all thanks to Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) technology. This paper-thin screen can even project future-features-smart-phones/ from both sides of the screen, so you can show pictures or videos to your friend on one side while using the other as a control.

With such physical flexibility for smartphones, some companies even have plans on make wearable smartphones for the masses. For instance, Nokia is currently conducting research on their concept device, Morph (http://research.nokia.com/morph), which offers users the option of wearing it as a wrist watch or unfold it to use as a typical handset as and when required. It all depends on the task the users are engaging with.

3. In-Built Projector If flexible screens are not enough to compensate for the small screens on smartphones why not integrate a projector within?

Samsung Galaxy Beam was released back in the second half of 2010.

It features a built-in DLP (Digital Light Projection) WVGA projector that is able to project future-features-smart-phones/ at up to 50 inches in size at 15 lumens. What good will this do? Well, for one thing, future smartphones can actually be turned into an interactive gaming consoles without a need for a TV screen; all you’ll need is a flat surface. Instead of a physical controller, you can use your body or your voice. Similar to Kinect, a smart camera and a voice control function can capture your movements and voice commands to let you interact with objects and future-features-smart-phones/ on the projected screen.

Of course, you can imagine the drainage rate on your smart-

phone’s battery life and there’s also the other issue with luminance i.e. the amount of light it outputs. In-built projectors for smartphones must be small, and as the paradox sits: the smaller the projector is, the lesser light it will be able to give out. With better technology though, issues such as these will be addressed in time, making projectors a part of a new experience you can now engage with your smartphone.

4. Seamless Voice Control Voice control has been receiving much attention since Siri made headlines. Voice control has existed in many earlier mobile phones even though the voice recognition function was crude at best.

Research has been made to advance the development of voice control, but it has proved to be a paramount task.

Siri might have signaled a breakthrough to the way voice control and recognition programming ought to be made. Instead of recognizing commands via sound waves like most voice-recognition systems, Siri interprets diction and syntax in a similar fashion to how we recognize speech. Such Natural Language User Interfaces prove to be more effective and accurate.

The interest with voice control for computers and especially smartphones has always been there since the pioneer MIT research, “Put That There” studied different ways to communicate with computers in 1980. With the newly improved voice recognition app, Siri, as well as the greater capabilities of smartphones in the years to come, seamless voice control seems to be a viable goal. That, combined with gestures may bring interactivity to a new level for smartphones and their users.

5. 3D Screens & Holograms Smartphones may have already reached the peak for their screen

resolution with Apple’s ‘Retina Display’, which actually provides a resolution that is sharper than what the human eye can perceive. Yet, even then, we still want more. Mobile companies are now moving from 2D future-features-smart-phones/ to 3D future-features-smartphones/ for the smartphone screen. At present, we have a couple of 3D smartphones in the market, such as the LG Optimus 3D, the Motorola MT810 as well as the very first Samsung AMOLED 3D. So what happens after 3D? Well, the next path could possibly be holographic projections. In essence, holographic projections will mean a combination of 3D future-features-smart-phones/ and projections from the smartphone. According to Mobiledia Network, MasterImage 3D had previously showcased their ongoing development on a projection system that allows smartphones to display 3D holograms at the annual Mobile World Congress last February. If you want to talk about the potential of holographic projections in smartphones, it’s great.

3D displays can be integrated with elements of movements when it comes to user interactions with the phone. For example, you can resize your photos by using your hands to ‘pull’ or ‘compress’ the holographic photos that appear in front of you, move objects by ‘grabbing’ them from one place to another, etc. If you’rea fan of Tom Cruise’s ‘Minority Report’, this would be your dream come true.

All set for smartphones of the future?

It’s exciting to expect these features in our future smartphones.

Also, with so much incorporated into our smartphones will the case of total dependence of the user on their mobile devices be a problem? Everyone is waiting to see what the smartphone industry can offer, and how the masses will react to the emergence of new and better smartphones along with the multitude of issues that come with each technology that is introduced to public use.

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Lifestyle FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

A tram driver waits for departure at a tram terminus in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong’s century-old trams revamped but here to stay

T

rundling along slowly against a backdrop of glittering skyscrapers, Hong Kong’s trams are entering a new phase of their life but their well-loved retro look is here to stay. Since 2011 a handful of vehicles have had their wooden seats replaced and some now have air conditioning, but the network’s operator says that the small steps towards modernization will remain subtle.

The 109-year-old trams, fondly referred to as “ding ding” from the sound of their bells, retain a special place in the hearts of Hong Kongers, despite their sharp contrast to the rest of the fast-paced Asian metropolis.

“We ensure that the facelift maintains the iconic image of the trams,” Hong Kong Tramways managing director Tsang Winghang told AFP. “The newly renovated tram is a combination of modern interior design with traditional tram body exterior.” Every day the city’s 163 trams carry 230,000 passengers, from office workers and students to tourists, all travelling on what is the largest double-deck tram system in the world. The city’s network has lived through Japanese occupation, Hong Kong’s transformation into one of the world’s biggest financial hubs and the handover from British to Chinese rule in 1997.

It has also survived the development of modern public transport, including a vast

Commuters travel in a tram in Hong Kong. —AFP Phots

A driver looks into the mirrors of his tram.

subway system, making it a rare symbol of the city’s rich history while much of Hong Kong’s colonial heritage has been demolished. The double-decker streetcars, with their facades in red, green and blue, are nowadays emblazoned with advertising, but most still operate without air conditioning

district, traditional markets and colorful nightlife hotspots. “It has become a Hong Kong symbol. Hong Kong would not be the same without the sound of the ‘ding ding’,” 61-year-old retiree Kuok Yee-tung said as he took his daily tram ride across the city, his favorite pastime. —AFP

and rattle along at the speed of a bicycle.

They also go against the tide of rising prices in the city, with a flat fare of just HK$2.30 (30 US cents) for a ride anywhere on the 120stop system. A leisurely tram trip is one of the best ways to see the many faces of the former British colony, from its bustling financial

Lifestyle FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Beyonce lets others do talking on lip-synch drama

B

eyonceís lips remained sealed on Wednesday over her headlinemaking rendition of the US national anthem at President Barack Obamaís inauguration, leaving others to do the talking over whether she lipsynched to a pre-recorded track.

Celebrity magazine Us Weekly quoted a source saying the Grammy-winning

live.î ìBecause she didnít have time to rehearse with the US Marine Band, she decided to use her recording with the Marine Band,î the official told CNN on Wednesday.

The US Marine band said in a statement on Tuesday that no one in the band ìis in a position to assess whether it was live or pre-recorded.î Us Weekly

Singer Beyonce performs the National Anthem during the public ceremonial inauguration for US President Barack Obama.—AFP artist was disappointed by the controversy she stirred by singing ìThe StarSpangled Bannerî at Mondayís solemn ceremony using a backing track - and drew a comparison to late Italian opera singer Luciano Pavarotti. As some of Americaís singing stars offered sympathy and understanding, an inaugural official, who declined to be identified, told CNN that Beyonce ìdid not sing

meanwhile quoted a different, also unidentified source, as saying ìShe did sing, but used a track.îìShe didnít think there was anything wrong with it,î the source told the celebrity magazineís website on Wednesday. ìPavarotti has done it! It was freezing out, and if she messed up just one note, that would have been the story ... Everybody uses these tracks, and the music director

advised it,î the Us Weekly source added.

Pavarotti lip-synched his last performance, at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, because of the bitter weather and his failing health, according to orchestra conductor Leone Magiera in a 2008 book. The Italian tenor died in 2007 of pancreatic cancer at age 71.

Beyonceís publicist has declined to comment on the furor, but Aretha Franklin and Jennifer Lopez chimed in with their support. ìWhen I heard the news ... that she was pre-recorded I really laughed,î Franklin, 70, who sang live at Obamaís first inauguration in 2009, told ABC News. ìI thought it was funny because the weather down there was about 46 or 44 degrees and for most singers that is just not good singing weather ... she did a beautiful job with the pre-record ... next time Iíll probably do the same.î Lopez told Jon Stewart on ìThe Daily Showî on Tuesday that many performers resort to using pre-recorded tracks. ìYou know, sometimes it happens,î Lopez said. ìWhen youíre in certain stadiums and in certain venues, they do pre-record things because youíre going to have that terrible slapback.î Beyonce, 31, was giving her first major public performance since giving birth to a baby in January 2012. On Sunday, she had posted on Instagram photo of herself in a recording studio holding the sheet music for ìThe Star-Spangled Banner.î She is due to take the spotlight again next month by performing, live, at the Feb. 3 Super Bowl halftime show.—Reuters

Rapping the revolution: Syrian sets war to music

I

f his words were bullets, Ahmad ElKhalaf would have already brought down President Bashar al-Assad to end the bloodshed tearing apart his family’s homeland of Syria. But for now, this 23-year-old has to make do with setting the revolution to his own rap music, putting his indignation into stanzas slamming international inaction and calling for Assad’s ouster-his message to the world. Though his roots are in Syria, Khalaf has never lived there. But the 22month conflict prompted him to swap life in London for Antakya on the Turkish border with Syria. From there, he travels regularly into Syria.

“I found it my duty to do everything I can, everything that I am able to, to pass the message over, and one of those duties was through music,” Khalaf told AFP in Antakya.

“I am a rapper, I have been a rapper for the past seven years now... I’ve always rapped about reality, so that’s another way of passing the message over.” While Antakya shelters many Syrian refugees fleeing the bloodshed, Khalaf is not one of them. Speaking with a thick working-class London accent in English, he sounds like a young European on vacation.

But his father, he says, was the Sunni head of an outlawed political group who in the 1980s had to take his family out of Syria to live in exile. Khalaf was born in the first leg of that exile, in Iraq,

In this photograph taken on January 19, 2013 Ahmad El-Khalaf, Syrian with Dutch passport, sings a pro-revolutionary Syrian song in Antakya.—AFP and picked up his passport-Dutch-as a child on the next leg in the Netherlands, before going on to Britain where he has spent most of his life. It was in London seven years ago that he discovered his passion for rapping, performing in clubs and putting out two underground albums, some tracks of which he has uploaded to YouTube.

Now Antakya is his temporary new home, a base from which to travel back and forth into war-torn Syria, where he finds fuel for his angry lyrics, and picks up money translating from Arabic for

British and US television news teams.

“When I went inside Syria, I didn’t feel too different from the people. I actually felt like I was one of them, like I was grown up with them since we had the same thinking and the same belief,” he said. On initial contact, Syrians treated him as a foreigner, “until they heard me speak Arabic, and they just realized I’m actually one of them.”

What he has seen has only bolstered his determination to use rap to try to galvanise greater attention for Syria’s war.—AFP

Cast member Amanda Seyfried poses at the premiere of “Lovelace” during the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.—AP

Seyfried delves into dark material in ‘Lovelace’

I

t took the French Revolution to pull Amanda Seyfried away from her role as ‘70s porn star Linda Lovelace. Seyfried delved deep into her character in the biopic “Lovelace,” which premiered this week at the Sundance Film Festival. The 27-year-old actress says she was only able to shed the dark role by playing Cosette in the Oscar-nominated “Les Miserables.” “I had a hard time letting go of Linda at the end of the movie,” she said. “I had a really intense time with (costar) Peter Sarsgaard. I think we both had a hard time letting go because we went to these places. “He played a man who consistently beat his wife. And I played a woman who was raped and abused, psychologically and physically. I was constantly taking my clothes off. I didn’t have an issue with that.

She had an issue with that. So it was a lot. And the only thing that helped was getting onto ‘Les Mis.’” “Lovelace” tells the story of the unlikely porn star and the abusive relationship she shared with her husband, Chuck Traynor. Seyfried was grateful her musical part in “Les Mis” came just three weeks after “Lovelace” wrapped. If not, she said she might have “carried Linda for a long time, and it could have been unhealthy,” even though she knew from the start the role would be risky - and risque. “It is risky and people did not stop reminding me of that. But I also really wanted a challenge. It appealed to me in that way,” she said. “And this woman had a fascinating story. There are things that a lot of people don’t know. People have an idea of her. It’s very onedimensional.”

Directed by Oscar-winning documentarian Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, “Lovelace” was based in part on Lovelace’s memoir, in which she recounted her entrance into pornography as the star of “Deep Throat,” which brought porn to mainstream audiences. Seyfried said Lovelace was “exploited.” “She was coerced into the porn industry,” said the actress, who was accompanied by her mother at Sundance.

“Yes, she enjoyed parts of it because parts of it made her feel safe because she was around so many people. But there’s so much to say.” Born Linda Susan Boreman, Lovelace died in 2002, but Seyfried spoke to two of her children as part of her research. She said that while she doesn’t feel like she has much in common with the pioneering porn star, there are similarities.

“Being in the public eye now, people can make assumptions about me, I’m sure. And no one really knows what’s really going on. So I can relate in that way,” Seyfried said. “She comes from a place of innocence. And I definitely did as well at one point coming into this business, which is nothing like the porn industry. People try to exploit me all the time. You’ve got to know your boundaries and you’ve got to know how to speak for yourself. But unfortunately she didn’t have that freedom like I do. She had a husband that literally wouldn’t allow her to go to the bathroom without asking.” Seyfried said she took “the responsibility very seriously of portraying and giving her validation and being her voice,” especially after meeting her children, “which is why I was so nervous about releasing it into the wild.”

Still, she’s delighted the film premiered at the annual independent-film showcase. “I just am so, so happy and proud to be able to say that this is our premiere,” she said. “It’s here and it feels safe here almost for some reason, I don’t know why.

Maybe because it’s just really cozy and everybody is really friendly.” But she acknowledged she’s still frightened about how the film will be received when it reaches a wider audience. It’s not yet been acquired for distribution, so no theatrical release date has been set. —AP

Lifestyle FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Valentino, Gaultier, Saab shimmer in couture H

aute couture, fashion’s most luxurious appellation, can only ever come from Paris. One thing couture week’s third and final day proved, however, is that despite these geographical limits, Paris punches high above its weight creatively, attracting designers the world over and evoking every culture under the sun. Italian house Valentino flew in its small army of artisan seamstresses to Paris for their spring summer 2013 show Wednesday, which had guests awestruck in its glistening Renaissance-style embroideries and delicate lace. Chinese-French Yiqing Yin put on a decorative, constructed display channeling Russian architect Naum Gabo.

Lebanese designer Elie Saab put on a typically fairy tale-like collection with 19th century crinolines.

Meanwhile, couture’s enfant terrible Jean Paul Gaultier traveled to Rajasthan to produce a gypsy-infused homage to India. Such cultural infusions are all part and parcel of the famed artisan-based method of making clothes that dates back over a century.

VALENTINO Delicacy, nature, architecture and timeless, effortless beauty. Those words describe one of the most sumptuous displays seen this season - courtesy of Valentino.

Designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli, and their indefatigable Italian seamstresses, surpassed even themselves Wednesday perfecting the delicate Valentino silhouette by subtly softening it and exposing more of the neck. The designers said they were inspired by a garden. A garden gate was evoked in the first gown, in tulle, with soft swirls of red piping. It appeared simple, but was achieved with 220 meters of silk around fibers of wool. And there were beautiful plays in dimension - such as a dress in magnolia wool and crepe, hung with a curved square bottom. It captured the voluminous, yet flat dimension of a Renaissance painting. “This year we wanted to surprise,” said Piccioli. “Not only everyone else, but ourselves first.” And they did.

JEAN PAUL GAULTIER Did the Pondicherry landscape in “Life of Pi” inspire Jean Paul Gaultier’s latest Indian-themed collection?

Whatever the reason, the one shoulder sari-styles, scarves and silk “shalwar” pants all made for a fun, endearing display. Guests even chuckled to Edith Piaf’s “La vie en rose” in Hindi. There were some vibrant Eastmeets-West looks. One European Spencer jacket came in paprika-colored shantung with a skirt, over a cumincolored muslin dress - evoking Indian-style layering.

Still, the exuberance translated a little too much into the clothes. Gaucho-style fringing mixed with Madonna-style “Blonde Ambition” corsets, gypsy detailing, seventies disco, and even a look from the 1950s. Only a master like Gaultier can pull off something this eclectic, but sometimes, even for him, too many spices can spoil the couture broth.

ELIE SAAB Elie Saab’s couture never ventures far beyond his safe signature: fitted high-waists and long feminine gowns in powdery sumptuous silk that are always wellcut. There were no surprises here. This season’s theme, s “an ode to delicateness,” saw the Lebanese-born n o ti nt crea r Elie e designer explore transparencies in lace and tulle in s e r p e s Model nese design aute ivory, pink and light blue. There is always something of H a

by Leb b during the mmer the slightly twee fairy story princess that infiltrates u a Sa ing-S ws in Saab’s collections. Here, this was done more creatively re Spr Coutu llection sho otos in otherworldly black crinolines in the latter part of the o h show. Instead of conjuring up Snow White, they had a 2013 c ris. —AFP p Pa great feel of a glamorous wicked witch. —AP

Lifestyle FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Valentino

Lifestyle FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Jean Paul Gaultier

FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

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Pets FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

A different breed apart Woman dedicates life to keeping breeds pure, raising funds to help dogs

Rhonda Hovan with one of her female golden retrievers Ch. Faera’s Pivotal Moment “Pivot” at her home, December 26, 2012 in Bath, Ohio. Hovan is a breeder of goldens and an internationally known American Kennel Club judge. — MCT

S

o you think purebred, AKC-registered dogs are only those elite canines that prance around the ring at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show? You doubt that those of us who love a common cocker or a lovable Labrador can relate to the aristocracy of dogdom? You couldn’t be more wrong, said Bath Township, Ohio, resident Rhonda Hovan, who breeds champion golden retrievers and believes other American Kennel Club breeders of registered animals are the watchdogs for all breeds.

“People who say they are just looking for a pet do care that the dog they buy has the characteristics they buy the breed for,” Hovan said. So you and your pet Pekinese can and should relate, she said. Breeders of AKC-quality dogs will go to great lengths to make sure their dogs are good-tempered and healthy - the very things pet owners want in their pets, she said.

“These are the things that set the dedicated breeder apart from your neighbors,”

she said. Hovan lives with pet golden retrievers Pi, 5, and Pivot, 2, who are true champions. The dogs have won more than the necessary number of points at AKCmember dog shows to qualify for the title.

They have earned their pedigrees through good breeding practices and carefully guided genetics.

“In the old days, I had one of the top sires in history. Thunder sired more than 120 champions. That’s ‘rare air’ for dogs,” Hovan said. Only three goldens in recorded history can make that claim, she said. And although Thunder died in 2000, his legacy lives on. “Pi and Pivot are his kids,” she said, bred with Thunder’s frozen sperm, which has been used to sire puppies as far away at Thailand and Brazil.

Aside from being a breeder and an AKCregistered judge, Hovan has devoted her life to helping establish the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals, a nonprofit health registry that provides screening tests to produce dogs without aliments common

to their breeds. Hovan currently holds the title of emeritus director of the registry located in Columbia, Mo. The registry website (www.offa.org) may be used by anyone who wants to make sure a breeding animal (over the age of 2) doesn’t have a genetic disposition for problems inherent to specific breeds.

Hovan is also a research facilitator for Golden Retriever Club of America, helping provide research materials for the breed.

Hovan got interested in the breed when she was still in high school and her parents told her she could get a pet of her choosing. “I was the youngest of four sisters and knew from family history that it would have to be well trained. Goldens have the reputation of being easily trained,” she said.

Three years later, Hovan entered her first dog show in 1973. Considering the years she has devoted to the breed since then, it seems strange she still considers her life’s work a hobby. “Hobby breeders

don’t try to make money on their dogs. We do it because we have a passion for the breed. I see us as the true guardians of the breed,” she said.

A guardian tries to maintain the integrity of the breed for health, temperament, structure and aptitude. “Almost every breed has a purpose whether it is a hunting dog, a retriever of things or meant to be a lap dog,” she said.

Hovan, who has bred more than 60 champion show dogs in her career, is a member of the President’s Club of the AKC Canine Health Foundation, the world’s largest research organization dedicated to funding sound scientific research to prevent, treat, and cure canine disease. The group has raised more than $30 million in research funds in the past 17 years. She has been a volunteer since 1997. It’s only puppy mills and large-scale backyard breeders that can make a profit breeding dogs. “If it’s done right, you just can’t make any money doing this,” she said. — MCT

Stars

FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Aries (March 21-April 19) A greater appreciation for things of value and the idea of value itself is in order. This could be a period of great material gain; it is certainly a time when material things have a great deal of importance for you. This is a very lucky day for making plans or decisions and finding your way through just about any problem. You feel successful and able to handle difficult situations.

Good advice from a guide or older person may be helpful—listen, it may mean a raise. This is a good day. Being more closely involved with another person may well become your highest priority this evening. Marriage, contracts and partnerships are seen as keys to success and happiness and they have plenty of lessons to teach you. You enjoy companionship this evening.

Taurus (April 20-May 20) You have the right amount of passion to pour into practical and career decisions now. You may appear commanding and assertive. Adjust your requirements or dreams to rely more upon yourself and less upon others when making important choices. Be patient with and around authority figures today. You will be finding some shrewd ways of making yourself heard. Obtaining and exchanging information is most important to you. You may find much of the afternoon is occupied with neighbors and friends playing cards, popping popcorn and visiting with each other.

Personal conversations become most important. Through your words of encouragement, you could make some positive changes in many people’s lives.

Gemini (May 21-June 20) By taking charge of your life and showing reliability, you can easily gain the respect and admiration you have been looking to achieve. Career or vocational decisions are best made from the planning viewpoint at this time. You could be most persuasive with others. The situation today is a natural for self-expression and encourages many creative ideas. Put your mind to work and take care of any details that you may have this afternoon—mental discipline should come easily. Problems and obstacles that have previously been difficult should soon find the easy explanations you have been looking for so hard. Family, home, relatives and real estate play a bigger part in your life this year. You and your family may be looking for a new home.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) Before you sign on the bottom line, check out the document! Your very own personal luck is back! You may see some relief soon on the financial front. Be careful with your power as you could persuade someone to do something they really do not want to do—then you will have regrets. You are at ease and comfortable in most situations. Be consistent with your actions so as not to confuse yourself or others. When asked to participate in anything . . . express the need to think about it and then return an answer soon. Your true freedom comes from responsible awareness. It is good that you naturally gravitate to highly motivated people. Pay attention, there is someone that will help you carry out some of your goals this year.

Leo (July 23-August 22) Just when you thought you had the finances under control some unexpected cost comes to your attention. This seems to happen occasionally anyway so you are prepared. This could mean new tires or a plumbing repair. The problem will be solved in a short time so do not become too absorbed or concerned. If you have been setting money aside for those thin times, you have been wise. You are more ambitious now and you are open to new ideas for financial improvements. You have wonderful ideas for advertising or simplifying some work methods.

Write these suggestions in a businesslike manner and seek an influential person to review your ideas. Tonight there is time to play, go to a movie, count the stars, sing or just enjoy the evening.

Virgo (August 23-September 22) You use your creative ideas to pull yourself out of a sluggish morning. In the workplace you are pleased . . . you may discover where a continuing problem had its beginning.

Now it is time to work on ways in which this reoccurring situation can be stopped. This is, obviously, not a good time for social events—your mood is intent and you want answers. You can greatly reduce stress by taking the appropriate breaks. Walking during your break time may help you to think through the process of your day—or if needed, a distraction from the work. If you have employees working with you, you will teach them to take on the construction crew attitude: Create, improve, always upward and forward.

This evening is a good time to enjoy a movie.

Libra (September 23-October 22) This is a great time to be with others and to work together in a sense of cooperation. You may be sought after as just the person for a particular job. There is some sort of settlement, generous partner or inheritance coming your way—but there may be a wait. Do not get deeper in debt just now. Now that the holidays are over, it still may take a little while before you really feel secure in your finances. You enjoy life and you enrich others with your positive attitude and, more than that, you will succeed at whatever you set out to accomplish. Clear decisions affecting others could be made at this time. Although there are signs of trouble with a love relationship, the trouble may be solved magically before the end of the evening—patience wins.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) You may be in a position of leadership this morning. It may prove favorable for you to pace yourself today. Some changes that you would like to see happen may take a little longer than you expected. Some particular situation may affect you in a very direct manner. Two people look out a window . . . one sees mud, but the other sees the sky. This is a time during which everything you do may seem to be slowed and require more effort than usual—your optimism is good.

Patience with yourself and others is important. Because you expect good things from others, you receive the same input; support is easy to find among friends. Some past investment will begin to pay off soon— be patient. You and your loved one can enjoy a happy evening.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) You may be helping or guiding a new co-worker through some important matters at work today. Life seems to go your way just now and your sense of goals can be very clear—take a look. You enjoy your work and others could learn from just observing you. Your attitude is that your work is fun. Difficulties, blocks and all manner of hot spots may be discovered and worked through—you are able to view all the aspects. Family happily occupies most of your time this afternoon. You may find yourself running errands or just enjoying a home-cooked meal with family members telling you about their day. You like to support and help your family with the activities that are enjoyable. Enjoy your own creative abilities—you might find some new talents.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19) Your physical and mental balance may be out of sync today—taking notes to gain some focus is a help.

Writing down the goal(s) in large block letters at one corner of the paper and then the steps it will take to get you to that goal will help.

During your break do something different, a phone call to a friend, a little laughter, a little music and you will soon feel a better balance.

Some type of exercise would be a good transition from work to home. If you stop off at the grocery store, you would be wise to have a list to guide you. There is an opportunity to share a massage with your sweetheart. Good smelling oils are relaxing. This evening, your frame of mind is toward romance and with a relaxed atmosphere, anything is possible.

Aquarius (January 20- February 18) If you are involved in a work project, the accomplishments will be numerous. Letting machines do the work for you seems to be the future push in the work industry.

People demand automated, fast and NOT do-it-yourself sort of toys.

Eventually our transportation will be calculated and navigated by computers. There is room for you in the invention industry or in the imagination department. Think outside of the box, so to speak, and start inventing. You may decide to shop later today because of a sale in the newspapers. You may also find some wonderful opportunities to spend money on products that will aid your creative ideas.

Plenty of rest, nurturing, fun and good nutrition this evening will ease tensions of this very busy day.

Pisces (February 19-March 20) Testy energy could leave you feeling emotionally blocked and frustrated by the end of this day. Do not try to push too hard—you would only be going against the flow of things if you do. This is a great time for planning, designing or preparation. Any ideas to increase business or to make working easier, etc., should be written down for later. Take the driver’s position and really become involved with your part in the business progress.

At home this evening, you may have a friend drop in to visit you and he or she may bring a friend. You draw emotional sustenance from your friends and you enjoy a relaxed social life. Real friends don’t care if your socks don’t match, so if you are not entertaining, enjoy a movie or dinner away from home with your friends.

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

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

L e i s u re

FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Word Search

Yesterdayʼs Solution

C R O S S W O R D 8 0

ACROSS 1. A compartment in front of a motor vehicle where driver sits.

4. A demonstration of approval by clapping the hands together.

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

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

16. An anticonvulsant drug (trade name Dilantin) used to treat epilepsy and that is not a sedative.

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

18. A colloid in a more solid form than a sol.

19. Having few if any teeth.

20. A river in north central Switzerland that runs northeast into the Rhine.

21. Not only so, but.

23. United States publisher of magazines (1898-1967).

25. Witty language used to convey insults or scorn.

30. A public promotion of some product or service.

32. God of the Underworld.

33. A slow pace of running.

36. Suggestive of or tending to moral looseness.

39. Having a specified kind of border or edge.

41. A river in northeastern Brazil that flows generally northward to the Atlantic Ocean.

44. The elementary stages of any subject (usually plural).

46. The compass point midway between east and southeast.

47. An agency of the United Nations affiliated with the World Bank.

48. A soft white precious univalent metallic element having the highest electrical and thermal conductivity of any metal.

49. Genus of New Zealand mat-forming herbs or subshrubs.

51. United States astronomer (1835-1909).

53. Hidden and difficult to see.

54. (Sumerian) God of the air and king of the Sumerian gods.

55. Cubes of meat marinated and cooked on a skewer usually with vegetables.

58. Liquid excretory product.

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

60. Kamarupan languages spoken in northeastern India and western Burma.

62. Show a response or a reaction to something.

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

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

72. A white linen liturgical vestment with sleeves.

73. Of or relating to or characteristic of India or the East Indies or their peoples or languages or cultures.

77. A sharp hand gesture (resembling a blow).

78. A former province of east central France.

80. Ancient Hebrew unit of liquid measure = 1.5 gallons.

81. Used of a single unit or thing.

82. An explanation or critical interpretation (especially of the Bible).

83. A doctor's degree in education.

3. A pale rose-colored variety of the ruby spinel.

4. A sweetened beverage of diluted fruit juice.

5. A three-tone Chadic language.

6. The thin serous membrane around the lungs and inner walls of the chest.

7. A long pointed rod used as a weapon.

8. (prefix) In front of or before in space.

9. A reptile genus of Iguanidae.

10. Be seated.

11. The compass point midway between northeast and east.

12. A condensed but memorable saying embodying some important fact of experience that is taken as true by many people.

13. The Hebrew patriarch who saved himself and his family and the animals by building an ark in which they survived 40 days and 40 nights of rain.

14. A city in northern India.

22. Austrian composer who influenced the classical form of the symphony (1732-1809).

24. Advanced in years.

26. A hard gray lustrous metallic element that is highly corrosion-resistant.

27. Muslim name for God. 28. An uproarious party.

29. A medicinal drug used to evoke vomiting (especially in cases of drug overdose or poisoning).

31. Quieten or silence (a sound) or make (an image) less visible.

34. Draw back from an agreement, contract, statement, etc..

35. Form a mental image of something that is not present or that is not the case.

37. Cry loudly, as of animals.

38. A flexible container with a single opening.

40. A set of clothing (with accessories).

42. Absent without permission.

43. A coffee cake flavored with orange rind and raisins and almonds.

45. African tree having an exceedingly thick trunk and fruit that resembles a gourd and has an edible pulp called monkey bread.

50. A white trivalent metallic element.

52. (computer science) A kind of computer architecture that has a large number of instructions hard coded into the cpu chip.

56. A change for the better.

57. A genus of tropical American plants have sword-shaped leaves and a fleshy compound fruits composed of the fruits of several flowers (such as pineapples).

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

63. A feeling of strong eagerness (usually in favor of a person or cause).

64. A French abbot.

65. A flat thin rectangular slab (as of fired clay or rubber or linoleum) used to cover surfaces.

67. A stick that people can lean on to help them walk.

69. A dull persistent (usually moderately intense) pain.

70. Harsh or corrosive in tone.

71. Relating to or characteristic of or occurring on land.

74. (Greek mythology) Greek goddess of the night.

75. Mature female of mammals of which the male is called `buck'.

76. Syndrome resulting from a serious acute (sometimes fatal) infection associated with the presence of staphylococcus.

79. Being one more than one.

Yesterdayʼs Solution

DOWN 1. Showing self-interest and shrewdness in dealing with others.

2. American novelist (1909-1955).

Daily SuDoku

Yesterday’s Solution

42

Sports FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Leafs win 5-2 over Penguins Gaborik hat trick puts Rangers over Bruins NEW YORK: New York’s Marian Gaborik completed his hat trick in overtime to give the Rangers a see-sawing 4-3 win over the Boston Bruins on Wednesday.

Elsewhere, Toronto spoiled Pittsburgh’s home opener, Phoenix won its first game by downing Columbus, and Vancouver had a shootout win over Calgary. Gaborik scored twice in the first period and then got the overtime winner as he outraced two Bruins opponents, had his first shot blocked by the goalie but then hit the rebounded puck in mid-air into the net.

Taylor Pyatt also scored for the Rangers, who squandered leads of 2-0 and 3-2 en route to avenging a seasonopening loss at Boston on Saturday. Brad Marchand and Milan Lucic erased Boston’s 2-0 deficit in the second period, and Nathan Horton got the Bruins even again at 3-3 with 4:23 left in regulation.

Toronto’s James van Riemsdyk scored

twice and goalie James Reimer stopped 28 shots as the Maple Leafs won 5-2 at the Pittsburgh Penguins. Clarke MacArthur, Mikhail Grabovski and Tyler Bozak also scored for Toronto. Sidney Crosby and reigning NHL MVP Evgeni Malkin scored their first goals of the season for Pittsburgh, but the Penguins struggled with Toronto’s speed and failed to play with the kind of discipline that highlighted opening weekend wins over Philadelphia and the New York Rangers. Phoenix’s Steve Sullivan scored three goals while Oliver Ekman-Larsson had two goals and an assist in the 5-1 home win over the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Sullivan had his eighth career hat trick, and Ekman-Larsson his first three-point game. The Coyotes were sounder defensively than in their first two games and created some good scoring chances

because of it, sending 42 shots on goal.

Fedor Tyutin scored for Columbus in its first regulation loss of the season.

In the all-Canadian battle, Vancouver’s Zack Kassian scored in regulation and got the winner in the shootout, giving the Canucks a 3-2 win against the visiting Calgary Flames. Kassian scored the decisive shootout goal by deking Flames goalie Miikka Kiprusoff in the fifth round.

Alex Burrows also scored in the shootout for Vancouver, and goalie Cory Schneider secured the win by stopping Curtis Glencross on the final shootout attempt.

Mason Raymond also scored for the Canucks, giving them a 2-0 lead about halfway through the second period. Alex Tanguay scored in regulation and had one in the shootout for Calgary, and Mikael Backlund had the tying goal with just under 4 minutes to go in the second period. — AP

NEW YORK: Marian Gaborik #10 of the New York Rangers acknowledges the fans as hats litter the ice in celebration of his hat trick. —AFP

NHL results/standings Phoenix 5 Columbus 1; NY Rangers 4 Boston 3; Vancouver 3 Calgary 2 (SO); Pittsburgh 2 Toronto 5.

New Jersey Pittsburgh NY Islanders NY Rangers Philadelphia

Eastern Conference Atlantic Division P W L OT 2 2 0 0 3 2 1 0 2 1 1 0 3 1 2 0 3 0 3 0

Boston Ottawa Buffalo Toronto Montreal

3 2 2 3 2

Northeast Division 2 0 2 0 2 0 2 1 1 1

1 0 0 0 0

5 4 4 4 2

Tampa Bay Winnipeg Florida Washington Carolina

Southeast Division 3 2 1 3 1 1 3 1 2 2 0 2 2 0 2

0 1 0 0 0

4 3 2 0 0

P 4 4 2 2 0

Western Conference Central Division Chicago St. Louis Nashville Columbus Detroit

3 3 3 3 3

Minnesota Vancouver Colorado Edmonton Calgary San Jose Anaheim Dallas Phoenix Los Angeles

3 2 1 1 1

0 1 0 1 2

0 0 2 1 0

6 4 4 3 2

Northwest Division 3 2 1 3 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 3 0 2

0 1 0 0 1

4 3 2 2 1

Pacific Division 2 2 0 2 2 0 3 2 1 3 1 2 2 0 2

0 0 0 0 0

4 4 4 2 0

PITTSBURGH: Tyler Bozak #42 of the Toronto Maple Leafs scores past Marc-Andre Fleury #29 of the Pittsburgh Penguins during the game at Consol Energy Center. — AFP

Lions tour, World Cup add edge to Six Nations LONDON: Next weekend sees the start of what promises to be another intriguing Six Nations, with European rugby’s showpiece event given additional interest by the looming British and Irish Lions tour and the 2015 World Cup draw. Players from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales will have the Six Nations as a “shop window” in which to impress Lions chief Warren Gatland, seconded from his role as Wales coach, ahead of this year’s tour of Australia. And December’s World Cup draw, which placed hosts England and Wales in Pool A while Six Nations rivals France, Ireland and Italy all in Pool D, means that from now on their respective head-to-head clashes will be seen as indications, albeit nothing firmer, of what

could happen in two years’ time. The Six Nations is notoriously unpredictable, with recent results so often little guide to Championship performances.

Wales will hope that holds true, with the reigning Grand Slam champions coming into their tournament opener against Ireland in Cardiff on February 2 on a run of seven successive defeats.

“Having a Lions tour in the summer gives a different feel to the whole season,” said Rob Howley, Wales’s head coach in Gatland’s absence, at the launch of the Six Nations in London on Wednesday.”Right from pre-season players are working to be physically right for such a long season,” added Howley, himself a former Lions scrum-half and assistant coach with the

combined side. “In the Autumn (end-ofyear internationals) they put themselves in the shop window and then again in the Six Nations when they are going against their potential rivals.” France may have finished a lowly fourth in the Championship last season but after four wins in a row are one of the favourites along with England, who ended 2012 with a spectacular 38-21 win over world champions New Zealand.

England, at least according to France coach Philippe Saint-Andre, have an advantage as this Championship they have three home games. However, in coach Stuart Lancaster’s first Six Nations in charge last year, England won a record three away matches, with the runners-up’ only loss a home defeat by Wales.— AFP

43

Sports FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Warriors stars shine in win over Thunder

MIAMI: Dwyane Wade #3 of the Miami Heat passes over Ed Davis #32 of the Toronto Raptors during a game at American Airlines Arena on January 23, 2013 in Miami, Florida. — AFP

Miami Heat to visit Obama MIAMI: The Miami Heat will be in suits and ties when they visit the White House on Monday. Unless, of course, someone invites them to play some ball. After all, President Barack Obama does enjoy some pickup games. “Everybody will bring their shoes - just in case,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. The basketball-fan-in-chief will be providing his personal congratulations to the Heat on Monday, when the team picks up one of the traditional perks of winning a championship. Miami will fly to Washington after playing in Boston on Sunday night, then remain in the city for parts of two days before heading back north for a game in Brooklyn on Wednesday night.

“I’ve never been to the White House,” Heat forward Mike Miller said. “It’ll definitely be an interesting experience that I’ve always wanted to do.” The White House says Obama also will recognize the franchise’s support of military members.

The Heat will meet with wounded soldiers during their trip to Washington.

Honoring soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan has been a pregame tradition at Heat home games for several years, part of team president Pat Riley’s program called “Home Strong.” “It’s the pinnacle of the things that we’ve been able to experience together,” Spoelstra said of the White House visit. “Thankfully we have the majority of the team back. I think it’s a great experience and a culmination of that year for our organization.”

When the Heat last visited the White House after winning the 2006 title, then-President George W. Bush attempted to dribble a ball that Heat players had signed. Problem was, the ball wasn’t exactly inflated - and fell to the floor with a thud.

“It’s always cool to be able to go,” Heat guard Dwyane Wade said. “It’s special any time you get invited to the White House, but especially to go as champions, it doesn’t get any better than that.”

Several members of the Heat organization, including Wade and LeBron James, openly voiced support for Obama’s reelection campaign last year. Politics aside, though, there is one policy where the opinions of the Heat and Obama - who supports Chicago teams - differ. “We won’t hold it against him that he’s a Bulls fan,” Spoelstra said. — AFP

OAKLAND: Golden State’s two key men made timely bids for inclusion in the NBA All-Star game by putting in powerful performances and leading the Warriors to a 104-99 win over the league-leading Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday. On the eve of the announcement for the All-Star reserves, Stephen Curry had 31 points and seven assists while David Lee finished with 22 points and 12 rebounds for Golden State. In other key games, Denver pulled away in the third quarter against a sloppy Houston, San Antonio overcame two key absences to beat New Orleans and notch a 15th straight home win, while Portland arrested a six-game skid and beat Indiana, dropping the Pacers out of the Central Division lead.

Golden State’s Curry stole a pass from the Thunder’s leading man Kevin Durant in the final seconds and hit a pair of free throws to seal the Warriors’ third straight victory. Durant had 33 points, nine assists and five rebounds for the Thunder, who blew an eightpoint lead in the fourth quarter.

Oklahoma City’s lead over San Antonio at the top of the standings was sliced to zero games, ahead only on percentage.

The Spurs overcame the absence of the injured Tim Duncan and ill coach Gregg Popovich to beat the New Orleans Hornets 106-102. Tony Parker had 24 points and 13 assists while Tiago Splitter added 25 points and seven rebounds. Eric Gordon had 17 points for the Hornets. The Denver Nuggets made the most of a Houston’s myriad mistakes and beat the Rockets 105-95.

Ty Lawson scored 21 points and Wilson Chandler had 20 for the hosts, who took command with a 21-5 burst late in the third quarter. The Nuggets converted 28 points off 23 Houston turnovers and beat the Rockets for the fifth straight time. James Harden scored 23 points for Houston, which has lost eight of its past nine. The Portland Trail Blazers, who had lost their previous four home games, arrested the slide with a 100-80 win over the Indiana Pacers.

LaMarcus Aldridge scored 27 points

and rookie gaurd Damian Lillard added 20 points and eight assists for the Trail Blazers, who shot a season-high 56.4 percent from the floor. Paul George had 22 points and seven rebounds for the Pacers, who had won seven straight against Western Conference teams, their longest streak in nine years. The Los Angeles Lakers miserable season continued with a 106-93 defeat at the Memphis Grizzlies. Darrell Arthur scored 20 points and Mike Conley added 19 for Memphis, which has won every one of the 12 games in which it’s reached three figures.

Kobe Bryant scored 29 points for Los Angeles, which lost its seventh consecutive road game, and also center Dwight Howard, who missed the second half after aggravating his sore shoulder in the first half. Brooklyn’s Brook Lopez was another to strengthen his All-Star claims by leading the Nets to a 91-83 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. He had 22 points on 10for-16 shooting.

The Nets improved to 12-2 under interim coach PJ Carlesimo, and they’re 9-1 with their preferred starting lineup.

The Miami Heat came from 15 points down at home to beat the Toronto Raptors 123-116 in overtime. Dwyane Wade scored 35 points and LeBron James got his 34th career triple-double, finishing with 31 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds. The Chicago Bulls put in a furious fourth-quarter comeback to beat the Detroit Pistons 85-82.

Nate Robinson had 11 points and seven assists in 21 minutes off the bench, helping the Bulls to a win that moved them to the top of the Central Division standings, ahead of Indiana. In other games, the Atlanta Hawks snapped a six-game losing skid in road games by beating the Charlotte Bobcats 104-92; the Utah Jazz held off the fast-finishing Washington Wizards and won 92-88, while the Phoenix Suns won their first game under new coach Lindsey Hunter, beating the Sacramento Kings 106 (equals) 96.— AP

OAKLAND: Oklahoma City Thunder’s Kendrick Perkins (5) and Serge Ibaka (9) fight for a rebound during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Golden State Warriors Wednesday, Jan 23, 2013, in Oakland, Calif. —AP

Injured Bresnan out of NZ tour LONDON: England’s Tim Bresnan has been ruled out of the tour of New Zealand with an elbow injury while wicketkeeper Craig Kieswetter was dropped from the one-day squad. National selector Geoff Miller announced yesterday a 15-man squad for the three Test series, with uncapped Warwickshire seamer Chris Woakes replacing Bresnan, who has been struggling with a right elbow problem for over a year. Miller hopes the Yorkshireman will be fit in time for a packed schedule on home soil later in the year that sees England staging a return series against New Zealand, the Champions Trophy and an Ashes contest with Australia.

Kieswetter who played in 34 successive one-day internationals until England’s defeat by India in Mohali on Wednesday, was included in the original ODI squad for New Zealand. But a run of

low scores, as well as some indifferent performances with the gloves, have seen the Somerset man leapfrogged by county colleague Jos Buttler and Yorkshire’s Jonathan Bairstow in the revised squad announced yesterday.

England have also added two players to their 50-over party in top-order batsman Joe Root and seamer James Harris.

Former England off-spinner Miller, explaining Bresnan’s absence, said: “It’s not necessarily an operation at this stage and we feel he’ll be absolutely fine; our medical staff say he’ll be fine for the (English) summer.

Turning to Woakes, a near like-forlike replacement for Bresnan in that he too is a useful lower-order batsman, Miller, in an England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) statement, said: “He is coming in for all parts of the New Zealand tour because he’s shown with the (sec-

ond-string England) Lions what he is capable of.” As for Kieswetter, Miller said he’d failed to make the most of his chances. “Craig has had an extended opportunity in ODI and T20 cricket and while he has shown evidence of delivering performances on the international stage, we don’t feel these have been consistent enough. “We discussed it with him and felt the best way forward was for him to go back to Somerset, work on his game and get a lot of runs early in the season.”

Root has made his debut in all three international formats in India, with the Yorkshireman helping Alastair Cook’s men clinch a 2-1 series win in the drawn fourth Test in Nagpur last month. “He’s already shown us what he can do and he’s shown he is very, very easy in the international arena,” Miller said. “We’re excited about him.”— AFP

44

Sports FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Li storms in against controversial Azarenka Flawless Djokovic destroys Ferrer MELBOURNE: Playing near perfect tennis, Novak Djokovic sent an emphatic warning to Roger Federer and Andy Murray by destroying fourth seed David Ferrer 6-2 6-2 6-1 in the Australian Open semi-finals yesterday. Murray and Federer meet on Friday and although they will be concentrating on each other they must surely have been impressed by the clinical demolition of Ferrer by the two-times defending champion at Melbourne Park.

“I was aware of David’s qualities. I wanted to be aggressive on the court and this was definitely one of the best matches of my career,” said the 25-yearold Djokovic who is seeking to become the first man in the professional era to win three successive Australian Open titles.

“It can only do positive things to my confidence.

Definitely at this stage of a tournament, playing semi-finals against the world number four, somebody that I have respect for, great competitor, and being able to perform as well as I did, it’s incredible,” the Serb added. “I have a great feeling about myself on the court at this moment. Now I have a two days off before the finals which gives me enough time to get ready and recover.”

The world number one was in no mood to allow Ferrer the opportunity to come back from a two-set deficit as the Spaniard did against compatriot Nicolas Almagro in the quarter-finals, and he stamped his authority on the match early. He seized the initiative after the fourth game when he began to attack Ferrer’s serve and work him around the court. The Serb ramped up his own service game and reeled off his next three to love before wrapping up the first set in a quickfire 29 minutes.

Utterly dominant Djokovic’s serve was utterly dominant, winning more than 90 percent of his first serve points and almost 80 percent of his second, conceding only seven points on serve in the entire match and not having to face a single break point. He converted all seven of his own break opportunities. The second set was just as emphatic, with few in Rod Laver Arena able to draw breath as Djokovic extended his run of holding service games to love to five with a barrage of winners. The third set continued in the same vein with Ferrer under pressure on his serve and Djokovic running riot when he had the ball in hand.

His dominance was highlighted in the fourth game of the third set when he broke Ferrer to love.

“You need to focus on every point and even though I was two sets up I didn’t want to give him any points,” Djokovic added of his mental toughness.

Ferrer will rise to fourth in the world after the tournament but the 30-year-old said beforehand that he was only going that high due to a long-term injury to compatriot Rafa Nadal and that there was still a gap between himself and the ‘Big Four’ of Djokovic, Federer, Murray and Nadal.

Djokovic underlined that statement in emphatic fashion, making it appear that he was playing a 400th-ranked player rather than a man who won seven titles in 2012 and had been to four previous grand slam semi-finals.

“He play very, very good,” Ferrer said before adding he felt it was the best he had seen the Serb play. “I didn’t have any chance to win tonight. “He was better (than me) in all the moments.” — Reuters

MELBOURNE: China’s Li Na shocked Maria Sharapova yesterday to set up an Australian Open final against 2012 champion Victoria Azarenka, who beat teenager Sloane Stephens in controversial circumstances. Li, Asia’s first Grand Slam singles champion, came out firing and halted Sharapova’s storming run with a blaze of aggression which stunned the four-time major champion 6-2, 6-2.

The Chinese world number six, who reaches her second Melbourne final, now has a chance to add to her historic 2011 French Open crown which brought tennis to public attention in her home country. “After playing for 20 years, this is the first time in my life,” she said, when asked if she’d played a perfect match.

“At the beginning of the match I was nervous. I was happy I was back in the semis again, but for some reason I really wanted to win this match. “I don’t know what happened today. I just came to the court, feeling like, ‘OK, just do it’. Yeah.”

While Li was compelling against Sharapova, drama unfolded in the second semi-final when Azarenka let slip five match points before being broken, and then took a 10-minute medical timeout off the court. When she returned, with 19-year-old Stephens serving to stay in the match, the Belarusian world number one broke for a 6-1, 6-4 victory.

“I couldn’t lose. I just couldn’t. That was why I was so upset. I couldn’t breathe out there,” she said. “It’s a tremendous achievement and I’m so happy I pulled it through.” In the earlier match, Sharapova had lost only nine games in her march to the semi-finals, a tournament record, but Li was always going to provide a far sterner test despite trailing 4-8 in their head-tohead encounters.

And the Russian started disastrously with consecutive double faults as she was broken in the opening game. Four-

time major winner Sharapova could have returned to the world number one ranking had she won her second Australian Open title, but Li’s ball-striking had her on the back foot from the outset.

Benefiting from her intense off-season fitness training under new coach Carlos Rodriguez, Li was untroubled by the sweltering heat in Melbourne and broke for a second time to take a 4-1 lead. Her serving was steady, and her groundstrokes were probing. Two close video rulings went against Li and

Sharapova stumbled in the fifth game.

The fifth of Sharapova’s six double faults handed Li another chance to break and when the Russian went long with a backhand, Li led 3-2.

She led 40-15 in the next game but Sharapova unloaded some ferocious winners to reach break point. Li recovered to move within sight of the finish line, breaking again for 5-2. Li lost her first match point by hooking a forehand wide, but she then polished off the upset victory as Sharapova finished with a ruinous 32 unforced errors. “I think she

MELBOURNE: China’s Li Na serves against Russia’s Maria Sharapova during their women’s singles semi-final match on day 11 of the Australian Open tennis tournament yesterday. — AFP Sharapova retrieved one of the service breaks, only to hand it straight back.

China’s 2011 French Open champion closed out the opening set in 48 minutes, but she then missed a sitter of a forehand in a worrying sign at the beginning of the second set. She resolutely held her serve, however, and

played a really great match. She was certainly much more aggressive than I was, dictating the play,” Sharapova said.

“I was always on the defence. When I had my opportunities and break points in games that went to deuce, I don’t think any of them really went my way today.” — AFP

Kaymer makes move in Qatar

QATAR: Martin Kaymer of Germany during the second round of the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters held at the Doha Golf Club yesterday. — AP

DOHA: German ace Martin Kaymer moved into contention at the 2.5 million dollar Qatar Masters with a fluent 67 at the Doha Golf Club yesterday. His two-round aggregate of nine-under par 135 helped him share the lead with Australian Marcus Fraser, with Chilean Felipe Aguilar and South African George Coetzee one shot down among the early finishers.

Overnight leader Ricardo Santos of Portugal, who is on 65, was yet to start his second round as once again perfect conditions greeted the golfers. Kaymer, the 2010 US PGA Championship winner, started off brilliantly with two birdies over the first two holes and played risk-free golf thereafter to position himself perfectly for the next two rounds.

Fraser, a two-time winner on the European Tour had a brilliant if unusual round. After parring the first nine holes, the world number 58 produced a string of five birdies over the next seven holes before finishing with two pars.

Chilean Aguilar shot six birdies, but a bogey on the fifth ruined what could have been a perfect round. Coetzee found himself in contention despite a double bogey seven on the 10th, his 67 giving him an aggregate of 136. — AFP

45

Sports FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

German League Preview

Passionate Leverkusen aim to cut Bayern lead BERLIN: Bayer Leverkusen were far from title contenders when the season started but the second-placed team tomorrow can cut the gap with Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich to six points with a win over surprise package Freiburg. Leverkusen’s coaching duo of Sami Hyypia and Sascha Lewandowski have created a hugely exciting team that has now won six of their last seven league games to firmly establish themselves as one to be reckoned with. A win against Freiburg, who have only lost one of their last nine games to climb up to sixth place and challenge for a European spot, could see them closing the gap to Bayern, in action at VfB Stuttgart a day later. “We have a young and small squad but with a lot of quality,” Lewandowski said, with his team on 36 points and Bayern on 45. “We know what we are capable of doing and we want to take the next step. We want to try to stay in contention for an international spot and that needs to be our aim even though we are taking the first step with this team.” Lewandowski and hard-working former Liverpool defender Hyypia, who took over late last season, have managed to absorb the retirement of Michael Ballack in the summer and give their players more freedom on the pitch. The addition of 20-year-old defender Daniel Carvajal has also proved an overwhelming success with the Spaniard exuding much-needed calmness at the back.

Kiessling goals Forward Stefan Kiessling may have been regularly overlooked by Germany coach Joachim Loew for a return to the national team but the 29-year-old has been in scintillating form, topping the scorers’ list with 13 goals so far. “We are certainly the team of the hour and the reason for that is because everyone takes on their responsibility and everyone works for the other players on the field,” Carvajal said. Given the club’s history of failure at the very last hurdle and Bayern’s current sensational form, Leverkusen are wise to keep expectations low but they still have their sights firmly on a Champions League spot.

“We want to defend our spot at the top, that is our aim. We want to continue being right there at the top spots,” said sports director Rudi Voeller. Freiburg will, however, not be a walk in the park, having built the league’s second-best defence this season behind Bayern.

With 18 goals conceded in 18 games, they have let in fewer than champions Borussia Dortmund or Leverkusen for that matter, to move up to sixth on 27 points.

Freiburg coach Christian Streich, honoured this week with a regional coaching prize, is eager to play down his team’s surprise run and keep his players firmly grounded.

“For us coaches it is the same as for players this season and that is to manage the praise we get so that it does not become too sweet,” Streich told reporters.

“Otherwise it can quickly turn into a situation where there is no reason for praise anymore.” Dortmund, in third place on 33, host Nuremberg today while fellow Champions League competitors Schalke 04, in fifth, travel to relegation-threatened Augsburg tomorrow.— Reuters

LEVERKUSEN: Frankfurt’s Japanese midfielder Takashi Inui (right) and Leverkusen’s defender Philipp Wollscheid vie for the ball during the German first division Bundesliga football match Bayer Leverkusen vs Eintracht Frankfurt. — AFP

Roma beat Inter Milan 2-1 Florenzi gives Roma the lead

ROME: Roma beat Inter Milan 2-1 in the first leg of the Italian Cup semifinals on Wednesday. Alessandro Florenzi gave Roma the lead when he headed Ivan Piris’ cross into the top left corner in the 13th minute. Roma was dominating and Mattia Destro doubled its advantage 20 minutes later, getting in between two Inter defenders to head home another Piris cross. The capital club had further chances to extend its lead before a howler allowed Inter to get back in the game a minute from halftime.

Roma’s Nicolas Burdisso was caught napping, allowing Rodrigo Palacio to rush in completely unmarked and slot home Esteban Cambiasso’s free kick. It was Palacio’s second goal against Roma in a week, after he scored in Sunday’s 11 draw in the league. The second leg was meant to be played next week but has been moved due to the Six Nations, and will take place in April.

Lazio and Inter drew 1-1 in the first leg of their semifinal on Tuesday. Inter was again without Antonio Cassano, Diego Milito, Walter Samuel, Philippe Coutinho, Ricky Alvarez, Dejan Stankovic and Luca Castellazzi. Roma had several chances to add to its tally, especially in the first half.

“We have an advantage and will try

to increase it in the second leg,” Roma coach Zdenek Zeman said.

“We did everything right in the first half and it could’ve ended 4-0 with no complaints.” Francesco Totti lost the ball attempting to round Inter goalkeeper Samir Handanovic and it fell to Erik

Lamela, but Andrea Ranocchia got back to clear off the line. Handanovic also had to act smartly as he was caught by surprise by an effort from Destro, but he recovered to palm it onto the inside of his post. Fredy Guarin hit the post for Inter. —AP

LEVERKUSEN: Frankfurt’s Japanese midfielder Takashi Inui (right) and Leverkusen’s defender Philipp Wollscheid vie for the ball during the German first division Bundesliga football match Bayer Leverkusen vs Eintracht Frankfurt. — AFP

Nigeria welcome back Moses for Zambia clash NELSPRUIT: Chelsea winger Victor Moses, who missed Nigeria’s opening game, is expected to enter the Africa Cup of Nations fray against Zambia here today.

Moses’s return from injury is welcome news for the Super Eagles, who take on the defending champions four days after being contained to a 1-1 Group C draw by Burkina Faso. That surprise stalemate has placed added emphasis on an already

tough assignment for coach Stephen Keshi’s side. Keshi, captain of the Nigeria side that defeated Zambia to claim the second of their two titles in 1994, was in a relaxed mood at the team’s plush hotel outside this north eastern city yesterday.

“That title win was 19 years ago, we have a different game ahead of us tomorrow,” he told a press conference. On Moses, set to make his Nations Cup debut, he con-

Ethiopia seek to add to Burkina’s Cup woes NELSPRUIT: Ethiopia made up for a 31-year absence by hogging the Africa Cup of Nations headlines with an explosive return to the continental showcase against champions Zambia. Monday’s 1-1 draw has left one of the founding fathers of African football bang in the mix to qualify from Group C, and they will be looking to further their cause when they take on Burkina Faso here today. But despite their sterling work against the title-holders, they go into this second game under something of a cloud.

Their first-choice ‘keeper Jemal Tassew misses out after copping a two-match ban for his terrible tackle on Chisamba Lungu. And Cup organisers CAF fined the Ethiopian Football Federation $10,000 (7,515 euros) as punishment for the reaction of the fans to Tassew’s justified sending off, with vuvuzelas (plastic horns), water bottles and other objects thrown on the pitch.

In light of that red card, a first-half missed penalty and a Zambia goal, Ethiopia showed tremendous fortitude to hold themselves together to level via captain Adane Girma’s second-half goal and come away with a point. Coach Sewnet Bishaw refused to blame his ‘keeper’s hot-headedness nor the fan’s unruly behaviour.

On his side’s performance, he added: “I’m happy as we missed a penalty and drew. This is our first experience after 31 years so, as you see, it was fantastic for our football. “The players have shown their characters, and shown the rest of the world they can play football.” Bishaw’s side will be intent on proving they are not one-hit wonders against a Burkina Faso side team seeking to end an 18-match winless streak at the Nations Cup. However, they emerged with plaudits after stoically containing Nigeria and super sub Alain Traore earned the draw with an equaliser deep in injury time. “All four teams have one point so everything is open,” said Belgium-born Burkina Faso coach Paul Put. “The performance today showed who Burkina are-we have quality in the team. “We were missing some key players so I am very proud of what we did. — AFP

firmed: “Victor trained well yesterday and, hopefully, will be okay to play. He will bring his desire to the side.”

Keshi has one of the most demanding jobs in African football with 180 million would-be coaches back home picking his side. Reflecting on that pressure, he said: “It is stressful. Everyone wants a return to the glory years, but to get there you have to develop. “It’s difficult because everyone wants to tell you who to play in your team, so I close my ears and do what is best for the side-it’s not easy!

“But it’s not only a Nigeria thing-it was the same when I coached Mali.” One of the striking aspects of the opening batch of group games has been the way so-called lesser lights like Burkina Faso, Cape Verde and Ethiopia have jolted the continent’s traditional football superpowers. “You really can’t differentiate between the teams now, you can’t say which ones are better. In this Nations Cup, no one can tell what is going to happen it’s so tight.”

With Nigeria undone by Alain Traore’s equaliser deep into stoppage time, Keshi stressed the importance for his players to concentrate right to the bitter end against Zambia. He described the mood in the Super Eagles camp as “tremendous” before adding: “We know the job we have to do tomorrow”. Tackled on his likely tactics for Zambia, he laughed: “I’m not going to share my plan with you”.

Captain Joseph Yobo, who equalled Nwankwo Kanu’s record of playing in six Nations Cups on Monday, was only a youngster when Keshi’s team lifted the title. “It was a long time ago, but I remember dancing in the streets. With Zambia, it’s always going to be a special game,” said the Fenerbahce defender, appearing alongside Keshi at the eve-of-match press conference.— AFP

Sports FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2012

Five ball boy controversies LONDON: Chelsea midfielder Eden Hazard has apologised after he was sent off for kicking a ball boy in a League Cup game at Swansea City on Wednesday. Here, AFP Sports looks at some other sporting controversies featuring the boys and girls employed to help keep the action going: OVER-EAGER BALL BOY STOPS PLAY An inattentive ball boy sparked confusion during a match between Andy Murray and Victor Troicki at the 2011 French Open by running onto the court mid-point.

As Troicki lined up a smash, the boy dashed onto the court in the mistaken belief the ball had gone out, before retreating sheepishly to his position by the umpire’s chair.

The umpire ordered the point, which Troicki won, to be replayed, and Murray went on to win the match.

CABAYE LOSES PATIENCE AT GOODISON PARK Newcastle United midfielder Yohan Cabaye, a teammate of Hazard’s at Lille, got involved in an altercation with a ball boy in a match at Everton last season. With Newcastle trailing, Cabaye was seen to angrily wrench the ball from the hands of a pitch-side ball boy. The incident sparked jeers from the home fans, but Cabaye sought the boy out at half-time to apologise.

BRAZILIAN BALL BOY SCORES GOAL A Brazilian referee was left red-faced after allowing a goal scored by a ball boy to stand in a regional tournament in Sao Paulo in September 2006. Standing behind one of the goals, the boy fielded the ball after a wayward shot and then casually kicked it into the goal when the referee’s back was turned. The referee, Silvia Regina de Oliveira, said she had awarded the goal on the advice of one of her assistants.

HENMAN TAKES ANGER OUT ON BALL GIRL Before Tim Henman had won the hearts of British tennis fans with his string of near-misses at Wimbledon, he landed himself in hot water in 1995 for angrily hitting a ball at a ball girl during a doubles match. The ball struck the girl on the face and Henman was disqualified from the tournament along with his partner, Jeremy Bates. He later apologised and planted a kiss on the girl’s cheek that one tabloid newspaper dubbed: ‘the Hen-peck’.

BALL BOY LOSES BEARINGS A ball boy displayed too much eagerness to retrieve the ball during a league match between Tottenham Hotspur and Bolton Wanderers in May 2010 when he ran on the pitch to collect it before it had even gone out of play. Bolton left-back Paul Robinson looked incredulous when the boy stopped the ball as he moved in to play it, and play was restarted with a drop-ball. — AFP

Utd defend spate of new sponsors LONDON: Premier League giants Manchester United have dismissed suggestions that they have diluted their brand by announcing a glut of new sponsorship deals. Just last week, United revealed they had signed agreements with Chinese firms Wahaha and China Construction Bank, as well a threeyear partnership with Japanese paint manufacturer Kansai Paint. A massive £357 million ($565 million, 424 million euros) shirt sponsorship deal with American car manufacturer Chevrolet is also due to begin next year.

The income from sponsors has helped the 19-time English champions establish themselves as one of the richest teams in world sport. United were ranked third behind Real Madrid and Barcelona in the latest Deloitte Football Money League published yesterday, while their most recent annual results showed a 13.7 percent rise in commercial revenue to £117.6 million.

According to United marketing manager Jonathan Rigby, such figures demonstrate that the club are not over-extending themselves by accumulating multiple sponsorship deals.

“There is nothing of what we know of our own brand that suggests that is the case,” he said.— AFP

Chelsea star ejected for kicking ball boy Swansea advance past Chelsea to League Cup final LONDON: Just when it seemed Chelsea’s reputation couldn’t sink any lower after a controversy-ridden 2012, along came “Ballboygate.” The Football Association’s disciplinary body is set to open a fresh file on the English club yesterday after winger Eden Hazard was sent off for kicking a 17-year-old ball boy while attempting to retrieve the ball toward the end of a League Cup semifinal match against Swansea.

The Belgium winger has apologized to the ball boy - and will not face criminal charges - but will be handed a minimum three-match ban for violent conduct, depriving Chelsea of one of its top players. Worse for the European champions, however, is having face up to further accusations that its millionaire players are out of control, soon after the racism scandals involving John Terry, Ashley Cole and John Obi Mikel that blighted 2012. “It is an extraordinary incident,” former referee Dermot Gallagher said. “There’s no defence for that. Someone said it was borne out of frustration but you have to accept it . it was an extreme but you can’t have that at a football match.” The incident sparked a flurry of activity on social networking sites and induced imaginative headlines in British newspapers, such as “Ed Case,” “Occupational Hazard” and “Boots of Hazard.” BBC radio has already been referring to it as “Ballboygate.”

Many ex-professionals have reacted with sympathy for Hazard, who was attempting to get the ball back into play as quickly as possible with Chelsea needing two late goals to force extra time in the second leg. The match finished 0-0, with Swansea progressing to the final 2-0 on aggregate.

“I’m not saying it’s the correct thing 2

CARDIFF: A ball boy (center) lies on the ground and reacts after an altercation with Chelsea’s Belgium midfielder Eden Hazard during the English League Cup semi-final second leg football match between Swansea City and Chelsea at The Liberty Stadium on January 23, 2013. — AFP do but when in the heat of the moment u just want the ball,” Everton midfielder Steven Pienaar wrote on Twitter. It is another saga that Chelsea could do without, with controversy seemingly hovering over the club on a permanent basis. “I do not know what you expect from me,” Chelsea manager Rafa Benitez said. “Do you think we are not disappointed with the situation, that we do not regret what happened?

“Do you want to change things? We cannot.” Chelsea probably wishes it could change a lot of things over the past 12 months, save its unexpected Champions League title in May. The club was at the center of a major racism incident that gripped English football last year when Terry was banned for four matches for hurling a racial slur at an opponent during a league game.

The case, which also involved Cole,

took a year to be resolved.

In November, a complaint by Chelsea that one of its black players - Mikel - had been subjected to racist abuse by a referee during a game was dismissed by the FA. Mark Clattenburg, the referee in question, was removed from duty by the Premier League for four straight weekends and received unwanted media scrutiny. At least Chelsea responded quickly to this latest incident, quickly putting up on its website an apology from Hazard. There are also reports the ball boy was welcomed into the changing room and treated well by Terry and Frank Lampard, Chelsea’s two most senior players.

“Both parties have come together and we’ve got a mutual bond,” Gallagher said. “That is brilliant for the future, but it doesn’t escape the fact that the FA are duty bound to act.” — AP

Wenger relieved as Arsenal bounce back LONDON: Arsene Wenger believes Arsenal’s 5-1 demolition of West Ham proves they are mentally strong enough to cope with the pressure of battling to finish in the Premier League’s top four. After

error-strewn performances in successive defeats against Manchester City and Chelsea, Arsenal’s season appeared to be in danger of imploding and Wenger reportedly held crisis talks with his players

LONDON: Arsenal’s English striker Theo Walcott scores Arsenal’s fourth goal past West Ham United’s Finnish goalkeeper Jussi Jaaskelainen during the English Premier League football match between Arsenal and West Ham United at The Emirates Stadium in London on January 23, 2013. — AFP

earlier this week. But the Gunners temporarily silenced their critics with an emphatic victory at the Emirates Stadium on Wednesday which ended a troubling run of three games without a win and lifted them within four points of fourth placed Tottenham.

“We got a good response, I watched the Chelsea game again and felt in the second half we were good and we continued that here,” Wenger said. “In the first half we controlled it but West Ham were dangerous on set pieces and we got punished. In the second we played with great pace, had tremendous movement and created a lot of chances. “I never felt the players didn’t know how important these matches were.

I was just worried they were a bit inhibited in the big games. “They have fantastic mentality and ability. That is what we want to show until the end of the season.” Although Arsenal recovered from a 10-point deficit to finish in the top four last season, Wenger had conceded the team’s position was beginning to concern him. And when Jack Collison fired West Ham into a shock lead in the 18th minute, it appeared the north Londoners were set to hit a new low.—AFP

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Sports FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Real Madrid in Copa semis after 1-1 draw at Valencia

VALENCIA: Real Madrid’s goalkeeper Iker Casillas leaves the field injured during their a Copa del Rey soccer match against Valencia at the Mestalla stadium. — AP

Real lose Casillas for Getafe clash MADRID: Real Madrid will be without captain and goalkeeper Iker Casillas for Sunday’s La Liga match at home to Getafe (1100 GMT) after tests showed he has fractured a bone in his left hand in Wednesday’s King’s Cup game at Valencia. Spain’s number one was trying to collect a loose ball in the area early in the first half of the second leg match at the Mestalla when team mate Alvaro Arbeloa accidentally kicked the hand as he attempted a clearance. Casillas was replaced by reserve keeper Antonio Adan and Jose Mourinho’s side went on to secure a 1-1 draw that put them into the semi-finals 3-1 on aggregate to face Barcelona or Malaga, who met later yesterday. “After carrying out initial x-rays ... it has been confirmed that the footballer Iker Casillas has suffered a fracture at the base of the first metacarpal on his left hand,” Real said in a statement on their website (www.realmadrid.com).

“It will be assessed again by a specialist later today to decide what treatment will be followed,” they added. As well as Sunday’s game against Getafe, Casillas is also likely to miss next week’s Cup semi-final first leg. He is also a serious doubt for Real’s Champions League last 16, first leg at home to Manchester United on Feb. 13 and Spain’s friendly against Uruguay on Feb. 6.

“When I tried to close my fist it hurt. It’s just the thumb. The fact that it has nothing to do with the wrist is good,” Casillas, who had his left hand heavily bandaged, was quoted as saying on the club’s website. The injury to a key figure comes at a delicate time for Mourinho with Europe’s elite club competition resuming in just over two weeks.

Casillas has just been restored to the starting line up after Mourinho controversially dropped him for the league games either side of La Liga’s winter break. The decision provoked angry reactions from home fans and fuelled media speculation about possible dressing room rifts even though Real’s defence has started to tighten up of late.

The 2011 King’s Cup winners will face a high-profile clash with great rivals Barca if the holders can beat Malaga in their quarter-final second leg at the Rosaleda. The scores are level at 2-2 after Malaga snatched a late equaliser in last week’s first leg at the Nou Camp.

Slow to react Real have only conceded one goal in their last five outings in all competitions, while in their previous five they had conceded 12. Adan was at fault for the goal conceded in Valencia on Wednesday, a low free kick he was slow to react to, but assistant coach Aitor Karanka defended him. “Adan knows we have confidence in him,” he said. “He played recently and was unlucky to get sent off. He knows he is young and has to progress, and that he has our backing.”

The Cup and the Champions League have taken on extra significance for Real who trail La Liga leaders Barca by 15 points, and second-placed Atletico Madrid by seven as their title defence has faltered. — Reuters

BARCELONA: Real Madrid overcame the loss of goalkeeper Iker Casillas and two dismissals to reach the Copa del Rey semifinals after drawing 1-1 at Valencia on Wednesday, setting up a possible clash with archrival Barcelona. Madrid went through on a 3-1 aggregate score after making good on its 2-0 win in the first leg despite losing Casillas to a hand injury in the 13th minute. Also, Sevilla thrashed nine-man Real Zaragoza 4-0 with striker Alvaro Negredo scoring twice to also make the semifinal round.

Striker Karim Benzema opened for Madrid a minute before halftime, but the game swung in Valencia’s favor when Fabio Coentrao received his second booking in the 51st. Midfielder Tino Costa scored the resulting free kick, which backup goalkeeper Adan Garrido let slip under him. Madrid had little trouble resisting Valencia’s revival even with 10 men. Jose Mourinho’s team ended with nine players when Angel Di Maria saw red for tripping Joao Pereira in the 88th.

Madrid will face the winner of the tie between Barcelona and Malaga. The two meet in La Rosaleda Stadium after drawing 2-2 in the first leg. “We went in with an advantage from the first leg, and the first goal put us well on our way,” said Madrid midfielder Xabi Alonso, adding that he hoped Casillas’ injury “wasn’t too serious.” It was Madrid’s third game against Valencia in nine days, after thrashing Ernesto Valverde’s team 5-0 in the league on Sunday. Both sides traded shots early on with Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo drawing a parry from goalkeeper Vicente Guaita, while Nelson Valdes - starting for the injured Roberto Soldado - threatened with a pair of headers. Madrid went ahead when Valencia defender Ricardo Costa failed to intercept Xabi Alonso’s pass to Benzema, leaving the France striker alone to stroke the ball past Guaita. Benzema’s score gave Madrid an all-important away goal to practically crush any thoughts of a Valencia comeback. Even so, Valencia showed spirit toward the end after pulling one back through Costa’s free kick, and a good deal of help from Adan, who should have done more to prevent the equalizer.— AP

VALENCIA: Valencia’s Argentinian midfielder Tino Costa (left) vies with Real Madrid’s German midfielder Mesut Ozil during the Spanish Copa del Rey (King’s Cup) quarterfinal, second leg, football match Valencia CF vs Real Madrid at the Mestalla stadium in Valencia on January 23, 2013. — AFP

Real break 500m-euro mark to top money list LONDON: Real Madrid have become the first club in any sport to generate more than 500 million euros in revenue in a single year, according to the business advisory firm Deloitte. The company’s Football Money League, published for the 16th time yesterday, sees Spanish champions Madrid retain their hold on first place ahead of perennial rivals Barcelona.

In an unchanged top six, Manchester United remain third, Bayern Munich fourth, European champions Chelsea fifth and Arsenal sixth, but English champions Manchester City soar five places to seventh. AC Milan fall one place to eighth, with Liverpool remaining ninth and Italian champions Juventus rising three places to complete the top 10. Madrid’s revenue rose by seven percent to 512.6 million euros in the 2011-2012 season, equivalent to £414.7 million or $644.7 million at June 2012 exchange rates.

It enabled the nine-time European champions to hold onto top spot in the ranking for an eighth successive year, matching United’s record from 1996-1997 to 2003-2004. “It is an impressive achievement for Real Madrid to have surpassed 500 million euros in revenue in a single year,” said Dan Jones from Deloitte’s Sports Business Group.

“Real have led the way in the phenomenal rate of revenue growth achieved by the game’s top clubs, with the double-digit (10-percent) increase by the top 20 clubs representing continued strong performance in these tough economic times. “The combined revenues of the top 20 clubs have quadrupled since we began our analysis in 1996-1997.”

Madrid triumphed in the Spanish Liga in 2011-2012, ending three years of dominance by arch-rivals Barcelona, but lost out in the Champions League after being beaten by Bayern in the semi-finals.

Overall, the combined revenue of the world’s 20 highest-earning football clubs grew by 10 percent on the previous year to reach 4.8 billion euros. City’s climb of five places was matched by German champions Borussia Dortmund, who rose to 11th, and Italian side Napoli (15th).

“Manchester City’s Premier League title-winning season, combined with par-

ticipation in the UEFA Champions League, helped drive 51-percent revenue growth to 285.6 million euros, the largest absolute and relative growth of any Money League club,” said Deloitte’s Austin Houlihan.

“The club’s progress to the top of the English and European game means that they are set to remain a top 10 Money League club for the foreseeable future.”

The only new entry in the list was English side Newcastle United, who moved into the top 20 at the expense of Spanish club Valencia after a surprise fifth-place finish in the Premier League last season.

The English top flight remains the most well-represented league in the ranking, with seven of the 20 clubs hailing from the Premier League. The Deloitte Football Money League 2013 (position, previous year’s position, club, country, revenue in 2011-2012): 1.

(1) Real Madrid (ESP) 512.6 million euros (£414.7 million) 2.

(2) Barcelona (ESP) 483 million (390.8 million) 3.

(3) Manchester United (ENG) 395.9 million (230.3 million) 4.

(4) Bayern Munich (GER) 368.4 million (298.1 million) 5.

(5) Chelsea (ENG) 322.6 million (261 million) 6.

(6) Arsenal (ENG) 290.3 million (234.9 million) 7.

(12) Manchester City (ENG) 285.6 million (231.1 million) 8.

(7) AC Milan (ITA) 256.9 million (207.9 million) 9.

(9) Liverpool (ENG) 233.2 million (188.7 million) 10.

(13) Juventus (ITA) 195.4 million (158.1 million) 11.

(16) Borussia Dortmund (GER) 189.1 million (153 million) 12.

(8) Inter Milan (ITA) 185.9 million (150.4 million) 13.

(11) Tottenham Hotspur (ENG) 178.2 million (144.2 million) 14.

(10) Schalke 04 (GER) 174.5 million (141.2 million) 15.

(20) Napoli (ITA) 148.4 million (120.1 million) 16.

(14) Marseille (FRA) 135.7 million (109.8 million) 17.

(17) Lyon (FRA) 131.9 million (106.7 million) 18.

(18) Hamburg (GER) 121.1 million (98 million) 19.

(15) Roma (ITA) 115.9 million (93.8 million) 20. (new) Newcastle United (ENG) 115.3 million (93.3 million). — AFP

FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2013

Chelsea star ejected for kicking ball boy Page 46

www.kuwaittimes.net

MELBOURNE: Serbia’s Novak Djokovic celebrates after victory in his men’s singles semi-final match against Spain’s David Ferrer on the eleventh day of the Australian Open tennis tournament yesterday. — AFP

Flawless Djokovic destroys Ferrer Page 44