15 Mar 2013

China names Xi Jinping as new president

Premier visits Kuwait-Iraq border

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Sharapova into Indian Wells semis

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NO: 15748- Friday, March 15, 2013

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KUWAIT: Indian Jyoti Amge, 19, the world’s shortest woman, stands next to Morocco’s Brahim Takioullah, who has the largest feet in the world according to the Guinness Book of Records, during an event yesterday. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat

Local FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Kuwait’s my business

The homeless man who built a successful business

By John P Hayes

local@kuwaittimes.net

e knew exactly how to dress, right down to the tilt of the hat on his head. His gloves only partially covered his fingers, and one of his pant legs was rolled up and you could see he wasn’t wearing socks and his shoes didn’t match. He knew exactly where to stand and how to slouch sympathetically, and he had learned how to extend his hand in a non-threatening way. He also knew exactly what to say and how to inflect the most appealing tones: “Five dollars for a cup of coffee?” The words, the look, the position were all magical when he did everything perfectly.

Six figures tax free!

Perfection required months of practice. He didn’t mind, though, because once he mastered it all, he was making more than $100,000 a year. Tax free. On a street corner in New York City! We don’t have homeless men begging on the streets of Kuwait, but if we ever do, pay attention to them. In principle, some of them are the best businessmen anywhere.

The successful homeless man understands that successful businesses are operated by systems, and not by chance, or by people. Master the systems and you build

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a successful business. It’s one of the most important lessons to learn, and yet most business people never learn it. That’s why they say, “I was in the right business at the right time” if they’re successful, or “I just couldn’t hire the right people,” if they fail. Truth is, neither scenario matters. Systems, not people, build successful businesses.

People operate systems

Every business requires some of the same systems for example: marketing, sales, accounting, and management. Certain businesses require systems that address issues specific to their operations. For example, not every business needs a manufacturing system, an export system, or a retail system. If the systems are sound, people can be trained to operate the systems.

Most businesses get into trouble because their systems are their people (their employees) or their people control the systems instead of the other way around. If the accountant alone knows how to keep the company’s books, what happens if the accountant doesn’t show up for work one day? If the sales manager alone knows how to sell the company’s products, what happens if he quits for another job? If no one teaches the operations manager how to follow a successful system and he has to invent his own way of doing things, the business suffers.

In these instances, the systems disappear with the people. No business should put itself in that situation, and yet, many do.

The wealthy master systems No one knows better than the homeless man that

systems build successful businesses and every homeless man knows that anyone can be a homeless man.

However, only those who master the systems will become wealthy. “Five dollars for a cup of coffee?” snapped an outraged passerby. “No one is going to give you five dollars to buy a cup of coffee.” Just as he had been taught, and just as his marketing system required, the homeless man smiled thinly and replied, “You can tell me yes or you can tell me no. But don’t tell me how to run my business!”

Another franchise?

So long as the homeless man followed the systems that previous homeless men had taught him, he operated a gold mine. And if by chance he didn’t show up one day (because he took his savings and headed to the islands) another homeless man would replace him without missing a beat (or a dollar) because he, too, had learned the same systems. If that sounds like a franchise to you, you’re right. No one has yet created the Homeless R Us franchise, but it could be coming.

Meanwhile, keep watching those busy street corners in Kuwait City!

NOTE: Dr John P Hayes is the head of Business Administration at GUST where he teaches marketing and directs the Kuwait Leadership Mastery program. He has helped dozens of franchised brands expand internationally. Contact him at questions@hayesworldwide.com, or via Twitter @drjohnhayes

Local FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Conspiracy Theories

Is it a street or street wars?

By Badrya Darwish

badrya_d@kuwaittimes.net

think Kuwait is rated as one of the most accidentprone places in the world. Take into consideration the size of Kuwait and its population. We are rated not just a city known for a high rate of fatal accidents but also where speed limit violations are rampant and people blatantly ignore traffic rules.

Why is that?

First, it means we lack a conscience and have become selfish. It is not only your life that you are endangering. We also pose a threat to the life of others who drive nicely and follow all the rules. A major reason is that the government is not applying strict rules as happens in other countries that keep a curb on traffic violations.

Road safety norms must not be vulnerable to the culture of wasta (influence peddling through networking). There is a need for a set of rules that do not take into consideration nationality, citizenship

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or colour of skin. If a punishment is prescribed for a certain violation, it should be applied to one and all.

Do not tell me that we have tried it and it cannot be done. I have seen rules being applied in neighbouring countries. Take for instance Dubai. How come rules are applied there and you rarely see somebody speeding madly on the roads or jumping along the pavements to avoid a snarl at the traffic light?

Similarly, in Oman, wherever there is heavy traffic, the law is really applied strictly. So is the case with Bahrain. Why is Kuwait such an exception? Why can’t we follow the rules like everybody else? You may not want to implement them in many areas but certain areas are very dangerous. There are areas you cannot be lenient about because people die there on the roads. Most accidents there are either fatal or lead to permanent disabilities.

I remember when I was in London a long time ago, Princess Anne’s license was suspended.

Another time I was shopping in Kensington when Princess Diana rushed to her car because she saw the warden coming to issue a traffic ticket to her for wrong parking. There are many stories like that of influential people being fined for even minor violations of traffic norms. I am not talking about serious traffic offences. Even those belonging to royal families are not above the law. Everyone is equal before the law.

Why should we feel special and why should so many people in my country feel they are above the law? By how much do we want the deaths to rise before something serious is done? Are there streets in Kuwait, or are these made for street wars?

Drive safely, please. Your life is involved, and mine too.

Local FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

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Local FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

By Nawara Fattahova

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lmost everyone in Kuwait celebrates Mother’s Day on March 21. Each has his or her own ideas for this special occasion, and some even have rather strange ones. Other than showering our mothers with love, this day is about choosing the right gift, too. Many quizzed for this story said that gifts are becoming more expensive with time, as prices of goods and services have skyrocketed.

Many stores and companies are coming up with special gift ideas for this special day. Some companies launch new perfumes for the occasion. Jewelry shops launch new designs incorporating the word ‘Mother’. Even restaurants and spas offer special packages or promotional packages for Mother’s Day. “I don’t like to be very traditional, so this year I will celebrate this day with my mother and two brothers on a yacht.

The trip will cost KD 250 for a two-hour cruise on Kuwaiti Bay with dinner onboard. My brothers and I have saved some money and booked this trip. We made reservations two weeks in advance to make sure we are on the yacht,” 25-year-old Hassan said.

Many children pool together enough money to collectively buy an expensive gift. Mahmoud, who is 24, made all his eight siblings contribute money to buy jewelry for their mother. “My mother likes to wear gold jewelry and we wanted to please her and buy her an expensive gift that will be from all of us together rather than each one of us buying her something. Gifts are becoming more expensive every year. I think this year, we will collect about KD 500,” he said.

On her part, Ibtisam prefers to give her mother cash in lieu of a gift so that she can buy whatever she needs.

“Usually I give her money, as I did last year also, to buy herself whatever gift she likes. I think this is a practical approach. Last year my mother bought a microwave, and I have no idea what she will buy this year. Usually, she buys stuff for the house and is satisfied with it,” she explained.

Those who are not living with their mothers in Kuwait also go in for the cash option. “I send money every year to my mother in Lebanon on this occasion as this is the most feasible and practical way rather than sending some object through a mail service which may reach late. Besides, it limits the options for the choice of a gift as many items cannot be sent through this service. My siblings are there with her and they will buy gifts to their taste. When I was living in Lebanon with her, I used to buy gold for her, and now she can buy that for herself,” stressed 29-year-old Amal.

On her part, 41-year-old Knar is more emotional and romantic. She thinks that the value of the gift is not in its price. “I will buy my mother a rose and gift it with love that will express my feelings for her. In fact, she prefers to see me spending the money on myself. She only wants love that can be expressed with flowers. I buy her gifts all through the year without waiting for any occasion, and I don’t wait for Mother’s Day. People buy expensive gifts for their mothers only on this day, and then forget her for the rest of the year,” she stated.

Fatma, a 27-year-old employee, is used to asking her mother every year what she would like as a gift. “First of all, the gift must be expensive. My mother does not like strange things, so I prefer not to surprise her. I know she wants a mobile and so I will buy her one this time. I buy gifts according to her needs,” she noted.

Local FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

In my View

What is your personal USP?

By John O’Neill

Globetrotting mother-daughter meet in Kathmandu, this time

local@kuwaittimes.net

“J

oining gym just hasn’t worked,” my friend wailed.

“I’ve been there for three weeks now, expecting to meet a lot of people who are interested in the same things as me. Nothing’s happening - I go in, do my routine, come home. That was never the plan.” I gently pointed out that my friend is superfit anyway and probably intimidates other patrons. “You need to define for yourself why you joined. It was primarily to meet people, so you need to relax and smile. If you’re always working out, looking pained and grim-faced, everyone will steer clear. Think about what makes you different there and how you come across.”

I remembered that conversation when I was recently chatting with a colleague who teaches at Kuwait’s Retail Academy. We were discussing consumer behavior. What signals do we send as potential buyers? Once we have looked around a little, why do we stay loyal to one particular retail supplier, coffee shop etc? “It has certainly to do with USPs,” my friend enthused. Ah yes, Unique Selling Points.

It struck me that these retail transactions are similar to the way we form and maintain all our close and trusting relationships in life, from schooldays onwards. We all want to hold on to friends, not let them drift away. Likewise businesses want to keep us - so much easier than replacing us with new customers. One of their methods is “customer service.” We know when we feel satisfied in some relationship and end up telling our friends about it. Conversely, if we are disappointed then we broadcast that as well. In our small pool which is Kuwait, word of mouth is crucially important whether personally or professionally. To maintain harmony takes hard work, and you may need to show ‘grace under pressure.’

“What goes around comes around. If someone is doing a bad job, then eventually this has consequences.

Sometimes the person may be trying to do his or her best but it is a matter of communication skills.” My colleague carried on speaking about retail situations, and it all fitted so well with how friendships and personal relationships play out. Later, I sneaked a look at a marketing book on retail USPs, thinking “this will help me avoid disastrous personal situations.”

Here’s the first case study - in a competitive market, you have to accentuate what makes you different. This also helps your own sense of identity. Consider pizza delivery where a proven selling point has been ‘right to your door fast’ - more powerful even than ‘tastes good’. How can I apply this to myself - by always being early. Hey, I may not be witty or charming but I can do early.

Reading on, it’s important to define your niche area and your target demographic group. I was starting to understand how all those Kuwait Maastricht Business School students give off this aura of all-round success. They are applying what they’ve learned in the classroom to all areas of life. The next marketing tip was to conduct extensive surveys. Hmm...that could be rather embarrassing when the product is yourself - ‘would you describe me as ...’ Nah, asking for trouble. However, all these decision making and soft skills courses do have so much good advice for life as a whole. Success breeds success - look at Richard Branson from mail order in his bedroom to outer space travel. Truly the power of positive thinking.

NOTE: John O’Neill is a teacher with Retail Academy and Kuwait Maastricht Business School

By Sunil Cherian

B

eth Schmidgall, 55, works in Kuwait. A weekend is enough for the mother of four grown-up children to go and explore, say, Timbuktu.

Last month she was in Nepal, trekking at the base camp of Everest. Trotting along the narrow path was her daughter, Ami, the globetrotter daughter of the mother of the same kind. Other than mountaineering and trekking, these birds of the same flock had one more thing to share - some time together, something they have been missing for years.

“Globetrotting is in my family,” said Beth. “My father was a colonel in the US military. My childhood days, I remember, were of moving from place to place.” Beth, a US citizen, was born in Germany, did her kindergarten in Rangoon, Burma and did a few years of her schooling in Riyadh. Later, when she came to work in Kuwait, the first thing she planned was to bring her children here. They came, one after another, during the last two years. “They all liked the desert and camel farms here,” said the beaming mother. Ami was the last one to come. While they were trudging through the Jahra desert last year, they planned something exotic for this February when Ami turned 30.

“It has been years since I was with Ami for her birthday,” Beth said.

Wishing her on the phone, Beth said, was the norm until a couple of years back. “Then came emails and now we communicate through Facebook. But being together with my daughter cannot be replaced by technology.” Ami, who works at an organic food company in the US, took a few days off for being with her mother and nature.

“We spent two weeks together at the Everest base camp. We would walk for hours with Ami doing the talking and me reverting to the listener’s role for most of the time. Walk and talk was the only thing we mainly did. Every time we would pass some people carrying cupboards or things bigger than them, I would fall back to capture those human snails. But missing Ami’s story was dearer than these photos. So I would rush to be closer to my daughter. We would come across a village in the mountain; light a bonfire and play cards and board games with our guide, hotel staff and others joining in,” Beth said.

What made Ami happy was the fact that these villagers were growing vegetables in their gardens and the concept ‘Farm to Table’ made more sense in this remote place than in the US. “The villages in the mountains seemed independent,

Beth Schmidgall and daughter Ami at the Mount Everest base camp last month.

“What makes a journey spiritual is its unearthly experience,” philosophized Beth. “I can’t explain the time my daughter and me spent together.” our guide Ram told us,” she said.

Beth shared the story of finding Ram the guide. “Two years ago, I met a US couple in Laos. They - Katie and Chaney LaRue - were on tour for a year. They told me about Nepal, a place I wanted to go but was scared. They gave me Ram’s address in Pokhara. Ram and his Essence Travels were not easy to forget.

What makes a journey spiritual is its unearthly experience,” philosophized Beth. “I can’t explain the time my daughter and me spent together.”

“When and where are the two meeting again?” I asked Beth.

“Hawaii. This was one of the topics we discussed at a height of hundreds of feet last month”, Beth said.

Local FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

MP seeks debt relief off for non-Kuwaitis too KUWAIT: MP Abdulhameed Dashti said he will submit parliamentary questions to find out how many non-Kuwaitis are affected by loans and who among them are being burdened by the interest accrued on these loans as was the case with their Kuwaiti brethren. Dashti said once the government finishes dealing with the issue of waiving off the interest accrued on loans availed by Kuwaitis citizens who have been reeling under this economic debt for years as “the MPs in the annulled parliament and their predecessors took advantage of their hapless situation”, it was time to open the issue

of “our non-Kuwaiti brothers” who were also affected by similar high interests on loans just like Kuwaiti citizens.

Dashti said the good work being done by the “one-vote Assembly” - a reference to the fact that this Assembly was elected on the basis of the one-man-one-vote system opposed by the opposition - will benefit everyone in Kuwait as it is “our humanitarian duty to end injustice being faced by everyone regardless of nationality or what group or place one belongs to.” He said the Assembly admitted that violations had indeed taken place when it came to loans and hence “it is our polit-

ical and humanitarian duty to remove injustice being meted out to those who suffered these financial violations, be they Kuwaitis or non-Kuwaitis.”

He said the coming few days will see this issue being raised in cooperation with some MPs away from the media hype created by former MPs in the annulled parliament and their predecessors who were all “politics traders” and “good for nothing”.

Meanwhile, parliamentary sources said several MPs will introduce a legislation to write off the interests on the loans availed of by those non-Kuwaitis who

have been working in the public and private sectors in Kuwait for 15 years or more.” They said that “some nonKuwaitis received low-cost loans compared to citizens”. The sources said “the government must take into consideration the financial circumstances of nonKuwaitis who served the country side-byside with citizens. They said “Kuwait was and still is in the forefront in giving out financial aid to the needy around the world, and it will be more fitting to look inwards and help the needy among us, so that everyone living in this country is covered by such joyousness.” — Al-Rai

Prime Minister visits Kuwait-Iraq border Assembly panel demands meeting

By B Izzak

KUWAIT: Indian Jyoti Amge, 19, the world’s shortest woman, sits next to Morocco’s Brahim Takioullah, who has the largest feet of the world according to the Guinness Book of Records during an event yesterday. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat

Kuwait hosts record festival for children

By Nawara Fattahova KUWAIT: For the first time in the region, Kuwait is hosting the Guinness World Records One Minute Festival for children at the Marina Mall. The festival, from March 14-16, is being organized by the Fiesta Company in cooperation with the Childhood and Maternity Regional Center of the Ministry of Education. The event is attended by representatives of the Guinness World Records who are visiting the Middle East for the first time. The representatives include media spokesperson of Guinness Athena Simpson, PR Manager Adam Wide besides Jilin Bolder and Ben Bacchus from the Administration Department. They will be acting as judges for the participating children in this unique competition.

The children can be in the age band of 5 -15 years.

The festival was launched yesterday at 1:00 pm by Abdullateef Al-Bieijan, Secretary General of the UNESCO which was attended by a large number of children from Arabic and Western schools in Kuwait. The competing children will be trained for 15 minutes in respect of different games to develop their creativity and intelligence and help them improve their skills. These games inculcate patience in the face of challenges.

The judging committee will then review these games that will be held on a specially built stage for this purpose in front of a large number of attendees. The children who will succeed in finishing the game within a minute will be given a certificate by the Guinness World Records.

The General Manager of Fiesta Ashraf Makarim stated that this festival coincides with the tenth anniversary of the company’s establishment and was a gift to the people on this occasion. “We are keen to continue holding this festival on an annual basis to provide the children an opportunity to participate in the competitions in this festival. This will enable them to set Guinness World Records and document these,” he pointed out.

“The festival will also feature a highlight in the form of having among the invitees the man with the largest feet in the world who is originally a Moroccan living in France. He is 2.5-m tall and is 31 years old. Also, we have invited the shortest person in the world who is a 19-year-old Indian woman weighing only 5 kg and is 40 cm tall,” Abeer Naser Al-Deen, PR head of the Festival, told Kuwait Times.

KUWAIT: Prime Minister HH Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah and National Assembly Apeaker Ali Al-Rashed yesterday inspected the borders with Iraq a few days after Iraqi farmers rioted and prevented a United Nations team from completing repairs of border markers.

The prime minister was briefed by security officials on the Kuwaiti preparations on the borders in the face of the developments to protect Kuwaiti territory against any violations or aggressions.

Earlier this week, several hundred Iraqis pelted rocks at UN workers who were repairing border markers near Umm Qasr. The situation later deteriorated when unidentified people from Iraq fired shots at the Kuwaiti side which also responded with gunshots. No injuries were reported in the fire exchange, but the UN-supervised work on the border markers had to be stopped. The maintenance of border markers resumed several weeks ago after a halt of several years after Iraq and Kuwait sorted out a number of outstanding issues. Kuwait strongly protested at Iraq and urged Baghdad to shoulder its responsibilities in preventing such violence in the future, and also sent another protest to the United Nations.

Sheikh Jaber said Kuwait hopes that Iraq will perform its duties with regard to the incident, but insisted that the relations between the two nations are “much bigger” than being affected by some individuals. Speaker Rashed also hoped that such actions on the borders will not be repeated because this will help develop the relations between the two countries and help Iraq come out from Chapter 7 obligations.

Head of the Assembly foreign relations committee MP Saleh Ashour said that the committee has invited Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled AlSabah for a meeting next week to discuss the developments on the border.

Ashour said the Iraqi side should shoulder its political and security responsibilities to maintain security at the borders because this reflects positively on bilateral relations. The lawmaker said that three border markers have not been

KUWAIT: HH the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah inspects the borders with Iraq yesterday. — KUNA repaired and the Iraqi side must provide the necessary protection to the UN team to complete its mission which is based on UN Security Council resolutions.

In another development, Rashed said that the issue of the much publicized KD

1,000 grant to Kuwaiti citizens is “in the hands of His Highness the Amir who can better assess the matter”. Several MPs have said that Kuwaitis who will not benefit from the debt relief scheme will be given a grant of KD 1,000.

Kuwait world’s fourth unfriendliest nation KUWAIT: When traveling, some countries just don’t like you. Or at least, it can certainly feel that way. A new report, put out earlier this month by the World Economic Forum, has ranked which countries roll out the welcome mat to travelers and which give the cold shoulder. The “Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2013” ranked 140 countries according to attractiveness and competitiveness in the travel and tourism industries. Among the extensive analyses, one of the most interesting rankings was how welcome tourists are in each country, under the category “Attitude of population toward foreign visitors.” And the world’s most unfriendly country, according to the data? Bolivia took the dubious honor, scoring a 4.1 out of seven on a scale of “very unwelcome” (0) to “very welcome” (7). Venezuela and the Russian Federation were next, followed by Kuwait.

Interestingly, despite their huge tourist arrivals, South Korea and China tied with four other countries for the eighth least friendly

spot. At the other end of the scale, Iceland and New Zealand were ranked the world’s most welcoming nations for visitors. The “friendly” ranking was just one aspect of the report, analyzing each country’s competitiveness in travel and tourism. That competitiveness is “based on the extent to which they are putting in place the factors and policies to make it attractive to develop the travel and tourism sector.” —CNN.com The most unfriendliest countries and score: 1. Bolivia 2. Venezuela 3. Russian Federation 4. Kuwait 5. Latvia 6. Iran 7. Pakistan 8. Slovak Republic 9. Bulgaria 10. Mongolia

4.1 4.5 5.0 5.2 5.2 5.2 5.3 5.5 5.5 5.5

Local FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

France vies to regain Kuwait market share Paris sees Kuwait as part of ‘strategic axis’

KUWAIT: The ‘Iran Era’ news blog accused the Iranian embassy in Kuwait of publishing a doctored picture that shows President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad with an elderly man to avoid criticism of a photo that was broadcast by world news agencies. In the photo, the Iranian president is seen hugging the mother of late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at his funeral last week. Iran Era published the original picture which features the incumbent Islamic Shura Council Speaker Ali Larijani with the former head of IAEA Mohammad ElBaradei, whose image was inserted instead of Chavez’s mother. The blog said the letter sent by the Iranian Embassy in Kuwait to Kuwaiti newspapers denied any hug between Ahmadinejad and Chavez’s mother. — Al-Rai

CAIRO: Kuwaiti Minister of Health Dr Mohammad Al-Haifi (left) conducts a gastric bypass procedure on an Egyptian patient at El-Manial Specialized University Hospital in Manial El-Roda on Wednesday. — KUNA

Haifi conducts GBPs for Egypt patients CAIRO: Kuwaiti Minister of Health Dr Mohammad Barrak Al-Haifi conducted a number of gastric bypass procedures (GBP) for Egyptian patients at El-Manial Specialized University Hospital in Manial El-Roda, downtown Cairo. The initiative to conduct the surgeries in collaboration with eminent Egyptian surgeons falls in the framework of the close ties and experience sharing between the State of Kuwait and Egypt, the minister told KUNA on Wednesday.

“The two sisterly countries enjoy exemplary ties not only in the medical field but in all domains as well,” Haifi, on a visit to Egypt, said.

“The gastric bypass surgeries proved to be a successful treatment to obesity as the size of stomach is trimmed by 80 percent and then the small intestine is rearranged,” he explained, noting that the GBPs are 99 percent successful. “Kuwait donates all costs of the surgeries and the necessary equipment out of keenness to support the hospitals of the Egyptian Health Ministry and provide medical care for the Egyptian patients,” Haifi added.

Dealing with the prevalence rate of obesity in Kuwait, he said it hit 70 percent of the total population. Up to 30 percent of those who are overweight need surgical intervention. The minister highlighted the role of mass media in promoting public awareness about the risks of obesity which is “the mother of all evils”.

On his part, Director of El-Manial Hospital Dr Jamal Hamed expressed gratitude to Kuwait for her constant support to the Egyptian health sector. “Minister Al-Haifi has made a kind gesture by conducting the surgeries and contributing their costs,” he said.

Hamed commended the close ties between his country and Kuwait and the visit exchanges between senior health officials from both sides. He praised the academic excellence of Kuwaiti physicians, voicing hope for even close cooperation with the Kuwaiti Ministry of Health. The GBP is a group of surgeries that first divides the stomach into a small upper pouch and a much larger lower “remnant” pouch and then re-arranges the small intestine to connect to both. Surgeons have developed several different ways to reconnect the intestine, thus leading to several different GBP names. Any GBP leads to a marked reduction in the size the stomach, accompanied by an altered physiological and physical response to food. — KUNA

KUWAIT: France is vying to regain its share of the Kuwaiti market, as Kuwait moves ahead with several multi-billion dollar infrastructure projects, a visiting French minister said. “I think that France’s share in the Kuwaiti market has retreated and is not proportional with the form of political ties between the two nations,” Foreign Trade Minister Nicole Bricq said. She told a gathering at the French embassy in Kuwait late Wednesday that the share of French products in the Kuwaiti market dropped from 6.0 percent in the 1990s to just 2.5 percent now.

“I think the French presence is not sufficiently diversified and France must be ready with the launch of Kuwait’s mega projects in the development plan, like building new cities,” Bricq said. Kuwait plans to build three cities as part of a plan to construct around 174,000 housing units by 2020.

Bricq said France was doing well in the aviation, oil and gas sectors, but was eying others, especially health and infrastructure projects. “I believe we can regain our position and even improve on it as trade exchanges should be at the level of political relations,” she said.

Bricq called on Kuwaiti investors to invest in the French industrial sector and diversify their investments in other fields, noting that 70 percent of Kuwaiti investments in France are in the real estate sector. “I encourage Kuwait, through its institutions, its enterprises, and its citizens to invest in France, further strengthening the historic ties between our two countries,” Bricq said, adding that “the opportunities for Kuwaiti capital are multiple in the large French corporate groups, as well as in the small and medium innovative enterprises.” Bricq pointed out that return of French products to Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries’ markets, especially Kuwait, is one of her ministry’s top priorities, which are being worked upon via medical and infrastructure sectors.

“My visit will endeavor to focus on two essential themes; infrastructure and health. The needs are tremendous, matching the growing vitality of the Kuwaiti economy and the rapid growth of the population,” said Bricq.”The four-year development plan presented by the government and endorsed by the parliament gives the proper answer to the challenges.

French companies, widely known for their knowhow and expertise, can contribute, together with Kuwaiti partner groups, to projects implementation,” she added.

Also, she stressed her country’s readiness for transferring technology to Kuwait, noting importance of discussing all issues during the joint French-Kuwaiti economic committee meeting, to be held in Paris this year, and to lay a clear roadmap and projects that French companies can contribute in achieving. In addition, the

French minister indicated that she has showcased a new financial product to the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA), which would support and increase state and private investments in France and Kuwait, pointing out that she has listened during her meetings to several notes, in which she would work to find solutions for.

Moreover, she indicated that “the two-way economic relation established by our countries is essential. I am pleased to note the strong growth in volume of trade between France and Kuwait, which reached 1 billion euros in 2012,” pointing out that Kuwaiti companies and merchants are showing growing interest in French products, which contributed to the rise of French exports by 20 percent, reaching more than Ä380 million.

Also in the area of health, Bricq outlined the “willingness of French companies to contribute to the development effort of a quality health service” which will include the construction of nine new hospitals and the renovation of eight existing structures. France is also offering to deliver high-tech and innovative equipment for the Kuwaiti health sector. “Beyond major, strategic and structure contracts, my trip allowed for the emergence of specific, new cooperation projects in the area of ‘better urban living’...and ‘improving health care’ in Kuwait, areas in which an integrated French offer is being put together,” Bricq said on her return to France.

The French Minister also discussed ongoing technical and academic exchanges between the two nations,

KUWAIT: French Minister for Foreign Trade Nicole Bricq (left) speaks to Gregoire Muller (second left), project director of Al-Zour Desalination Plant, during her visit on Wednesday. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat

France sees Kuwait as part of a “strategic axis” to better develop trade and investment ties in the Gulf region, particularly by participating in local development projects and by attracting more Kuwaiti investment to France, Bricq said yesterday after her return to Paris. Bricq noted the major construction projects to be undertaken in the region, especially the $110 billion infrastructure development projects being put in place in Kuwait under the 2010-2014 four-year plan.

Bricq also said France was hoping to bid on the Kuwait City subway project that envisions four metro lines for the capital.

In a statement from her office, the Trade Minister also indicated French interest in providing water-treatment plants, energy efficiency programs, new urban construction and other infrastructure projects. French companies, “both big groups and small- and medium-enterprises, have real expertise” in these areas and Bricq sought to demonstrate this to Kuwaiti authorities during her visit, her office said.

in particular the programs via the University Paris Descartes. A second approach made by Bricq was to meet Kuwaiti investors and fund managers and demonstrate how attractive France can be as an investment destination, and not just in the real estate sector. She also discussed ways to establish joint projects to boost French exports to the region, a proposal that will be followed up on my more discussions at technical level later in the year. The Trade Minister has proposed a joint France-Kuwait Economic Commission meeting be held before the end of the year.

That Commission has not met in four years, although annual meetings were planned. “This will be an opportunity to re-boost direct contacts between the business communities,” the French side said. Promoting stronger economic and trade ties is at the heart of new policies being implemented by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who espouses a revitalized “economic diplomacy” to bolster France’s presence abroad. — Agencies

FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

How sectarian killers operate with ‘impunity’

Tehran steps up weapons lifeline to Syria’s Assad

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Netanyahu clinches coalition deals

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BEIJING: Former president Hu Jintao (left) and newly-elected Chinese President Xi Jinping (center right) shake hands after the election of the new president of China during the 12th National People’s Congress (NPC) in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing yesterday. — AFP

China names Xi Jinping as president Xi caps rise to take on myriad challenges BEIJING: China’s parliament named Xi Jinping as president yesterday, four months after he took charge of the Communist Party with pledges of reform that have raised hopes but so far yielded little change. About 3,000 delegates lined up to cast their votes in Beijing’s cavernous Great Hall of the People, dropping red papers into red ballot boxes in front of giant red flags, but the outcome was never in doubt.

Xi received 2,952 votes at the tightly choreographed ceremony, with one against and three abstentions, a 99.86 percent share.

“Now I announce comrade Xi Jinping is selected as president of the People’s Republic of China,” said Liu Yunshan, who chaired the session at the National People’s Congress, a rubber-stamp parliament. To loud applause, Xi, 59, stood up and bowed to the delegates, before shaking hands with other officials and walking off the stage. Xi’s formal appointment as head of the world’s most populous nation is due to be followed by the naming of Li Keqiang as premier on Friday, marking the final step in the nation’s oncein-a-decade power handover.

Xi’s new role was effectively guaranteed by his position as Communist party leader, the real source of his authority in China, but the title will increase his public and international standing. He takes office at a time when China is becoming more assertive on the global stage and is taking a harder line on territorial

rows with its neighbors, and Xi has vowed to increase its military strength. Domestically, since taking the top party post in November Xi has pledged to preserve the ruling party’s grip on power by cracking down on corruption, improving people’s livelihoods and pushing forward economic reforms.

But despite the promises of action on multiple

fronts, including pollution, observers say concrete reforms would be complex and will not be swiftly introduced. Xi last year became head of China’s top military body, the Central Military Commission, unlike his predecessor Hu Jintao, who worked as President for two years before his predecessor Jiang Zemin passed on the Commission chairmanship. “In recent

Clashes as Bahraini youths stage anti-Gulf force demo DUBAI: Bahraini police clashed with youths protesting yesterday against the deployment into a third year of a Gulf military force that backed Manama’s bid to crush a Shiite-led uprising, witnesses said.

Police fired tear gas and sound bombs to disperse hundreds who took to the streets across several Shiite villages chanting: “No, no Saudi occupier” and “Down (King) Hamad,” the witnesses said. On March 14, 2011, a joint Peninsula Shield Force-led by Sunni Saudi Arabia-rolled into Bahrain to help restore order in the strategic Gulf kingdom where protesters had camped for a month in the

capital’s financial centre.

The Gulf troops continue to protect the kingdom’s vital installations but do not intervene to disperse protests.

“Bahrain free, free, Peninsula Shield out, out,” chanted the demonstrators, who took to the streets in response to calls for rallies by the clandestine cyber radical group The February 14 Revolution Youth Coalition. The protesters blocked main roads to their villages using large tree trunks, garbage containers and burning tyres, and hurled petrol bombs and stones at police, witnesses said. No casualties were reported. —AFP

memory there is no comparable figure who has such power in his hand (so quickly),” said Willy Lam, a politics expert at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

As the son of one of China’s most famous generals, Xi has closer ties to the People’s Liberation Army than Hu did and has strengthened the relationship in recent months with an unusually high number of visits to military bases. He is seen as one of the architects of China’s recent more assertive stance on territorial disputes with neighboring countries and a supporter of Beijing’s military expansion, telling troops recently that they should be “combat ready”. “Comrade Xi Jinping pays a great deal of attention to military development, especially in raising the military’s level of battle preparedness,” said Yang Jianhua, a green-uniformed military delegate to the NPC. Tokyo sent congratulations, and its Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said it had “always kept our door open for dialogue with China”, adding the relationship was “one of the most important international relationships for Japan”. Officially Xi was elected for a five-year term, but tradition dictates that barring extraordinary events he will hold the position for a decade. He is a Communist “princeling”, the name given to relations of the first generation of Communist leaders, who grew up immersed in the ruling party’s upper echelons. —AFP

International FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Iran steps up weapons lifeline to Syria’s Assad New arms supply route opens via Turkey and Lebanon UNITED NATIONS: Iran has significantly stepped up military support to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in recent months, solidifying its position alongside Russia as the government’s lifeline in an increasingly sectarian civil war, Western diplomats said. Iranian weapons continue to pour into Syria from Iraq but also increasingly along other routes, including via Turkey and Lebanon, in violation of a UN arms embargo on Iran, Western officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Iraqi and Turkish officials denied the allegations.

Iran’s acceleration of support for Assad suggests the Syrian war is entering a new phase in which Iran may be trying to end the battlefield stalemate by redoubling its commitment to Assad and offering Syria’s increasingly isolated government a crucial lifeline, the envoys said. It also highlights the growing sectarian nature of the conflict, diplomats say, with Iranian arms flowing to the Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

That group is increasingly active on the ground in Syria in support of Assad’s forces, envoys say. The Syrian conflict started out two years ago as a pro-democracy movement. Some 70,000 people have been killed and more than 1 million refugees have fled the violence.

A Western intelligence report seen by Reuters in September said Iran was using civilian aircraft to fly military personnel and large quantities of weapons across Iraqi airspace to aid Assad. Iraq denied that report but later made a point of inspecting an Iran-bound flight that it said had no arms on board. Much of the weaponry going to Syria now, diplomats say, continues to be shipped to Iran through Iraqi airspace and overland through Iraq, despite Baghdad’s repeated promises to put a stop to Iranian arms supplies to Assad in violation of a U.N. arms embargo on Tehran over its nuclear program.

“The Iranians really are supporting massively the regime,” a senior Western diplomat said this week. “They have been increasing their support for the last three, four months through Iraq’s airspace and now trucks. And the Iraqis really are looking the other way.” “They (Iran) are playing

now a crucial role,” the senior diplomat said, adding that Hezbollah was “hardly hiding the support it’s giving to the (Syrian) regime.” He added that the Syrian civil war was becoming “more and more sectarian,” with Sunnis - an increasing number of whom come from Iraq - battling Shiites and members of Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Ali al-Moussawi, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki’s media adviser, strongly

weapons such as helicopters. Moscow says it is not wedded to Assad but that the rebels and government should talk and Assad’s departure should not be a condition for a deal as the opposition and its supporters insist. Along with China, it has used its Security Council veto to block punitive U.N. measures against Syria’s government.

Alireza Miryousefi, spokesman for Iran’s UN mission, responded to a request for a

IDLIB: Photo shows Syrian rebels walk past of dead Syrian soldiers loyal to Syrian president Bashar Assad, at Taftanaz air base that was captured by the rebels, in Idlib province, northern Syria. — AP denied the allegations, saying on Wednesday: “No, such a thing never happened. Weapons did not and will not be transferred from Iran to Syria through Iraq, whether by land or by air.” Russia, diplomats said, also remained a key arms supplier for Assad. Unlike Iran, neither Syria nor Russia is subject to a UN ban on arms trade and are therefore not in violation of any UN rules when conducting weapons commerce. But accepting Iranian arms would be a violation of the UN Iran sanctions. Assad’s ally Russia criticizes US, European and Gulf Arab governments for their aid to Syrian rebels seeking to topple Assad. Russia has said repeatedly that its military support for Syria includes antimissile air defense systems but no attack

comment by saying, “We believe Syria does not need any military help from Iran.”

“Unfortunately the situation in Syria and the whole Middle East region is becoming more and more delicate and risky because of foreign interference and funneling of arms to the extremist groups,” he said, repeating that Tehran wanted to end the conflict through dialogue between the government and opposition.

Syria’s UN ambassador, Bashar Ja’afari, did not respond immediately to a request for comment. The diplomats cited by Reuters made clear that the principal delivery route for arms to Syria still went through Iraq, despite the existence of alternative supply channels such as Turkish airspace. — Reuters

France and Britain to arm Syria rebels PARIS: France and Britain are ready to arm Syrian rebels even without unanimous EU support, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said yesterday. Paris and London will call for moving up the date of the next European Union meeting on the Syria arms embargo, and will decide to arm the rebels if the 27-member body does not give unanimous agreement, he said.

Fabius said the regime of President Bashar al-Assad was receiving weapons from Iran and Russia which gave it an edge over the opposition in the two-year conflict.

France and Britain will ask “the Europeans now to lift the embargo so that the resistance fighters have the possibility of defending themselves,” he told France Info radio. “We cannot accept the current disequilibrium with Iran and Russia supplying arms to Assad on the one hand and the opposition unable to defend itself on the other,” he said. French officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Paris was considering providing the rebels with ground-to-air missiles to retaliate against air strikes by government troops.

“Lifting the embargo is the only means of moving things on a political level,” Fabius said. If unanimous EU support for lifting the measure is lacking, the French and British governments will decide to deliver weapons, Fabius said, adding that France “is a sovereign nation.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday said that “arming the opposition is in breach of international law.” But Fabius rejected this saying that one could not take recourse to legal arguments to say that “‘we can supply arms to Assad but will not allow resistance fighters to defend themselves.’”

Western powers have stepped up non-military support for the rebels, even as Russia has continued to arm its ally Assad. Britain is currently giving “non-lethal” support to the rebels but its foreign and defense ministers have refused to rule out arming them. The next EU meeting to study the embargo is planned for the end of May, but Fabius said Paris and London want to hold the meeting sooner. “We must move quickly,” he said, adding: “We along with the British will ask for the meeting to be moved up.”

He did not rule out a gathering before the end of March. Prime Minister David Cameron said Tuesday that Britain would consider ignoring an EU arms ban and supplying weapons to Syrian rebels if it would help topple Assad. The EU last month amended its embargo to allow member nations to supply “nonlethal” equipment and training to the opposition but stopped short of lifting the embargo entirely. More than 70,000 people have died in the Syrian conflict, according to the United Nations, while the number of refugees has reached one million. — AFP

Syrian power balance to tilt towards rebels LONDON: The balance of power in Syria will eventually shift to rebel forces but a protracted civil war risks destabilizing the whole region, a leading think-tank warned yesterday in its annual report on world military strengths. Syria dominated an “increasingly complex” global security situation that also includes China’s rise and a continuing increase in Asian defense spending, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said. Cash-strapped western militaries are meanwhile using the NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan as a pretext for focusing on smaller but more capable forces, it said.

The “Military Balance 2013”

report said that in Syria the tide was turning against President Bashar AlAssad in the two-year conflict, even though the prospect of foreign military intervention remained “remote”. “It was likely that, over time, the balance of forces would shift to the rebels, given that their capability and external support would rise,” the report said. “Short of using chemical weapons against rebels, with attendant risk of international intervention, it was difficult to see how Assad could reverse this trend.”

But the report warned that regime forces “could still tactically defeat the rebels if the latter abandoned their guerrilla approach and

tried to hold urban areas. “If President Bashar Al-Assad could not win, the rebels could still lose.” The rebels also lack strong political and military leadership, increasing the risk of inter-factional fighting among the opposition, the IISS report said.

“This could see the country descend into a civil war with the government just the strongest faction amongst many, increasing the chance of regional destabilization. ”The IISS drew comparisons between the situations in Syria and Afghanistan, saying lessons could be learned because they were “both contests between insurgents and government forces” with external forces involved. But it said that in

Afghanistan military operations were “overwhelmingly” aimed at minimizing casualties, whereas the Syrian government’s approach was to use force “as a means and an end in itself and a tool of repression and deterrence.”

NATO and the Afghan government are “engaged in a race against the clock” to improve security and build the capacity of the state before the security handover of next year, the IISS report said.Afghan forces are likely to reach full strength by the time they take over from NATO troops at the end of 2014 but the situation after that will likely remain a “patchwork” with continuing insurgent activity. Globally, a shifting bal-

ance was illustrated by the fact that Asia’s defense spending overtook that of NATO European states for the first time in 2012, as the Military Balance report predicted last year.

China’s rise continued, with the country taking delivery of its first aircraft carrier in September last year and developing a stealth fighter seen as significant.

Austerity has meanwhile prompted many western militaries to change their focus towards “smaller, though potentially more capable forces” after a decade of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the IISS report warned: “While doing more with less is a challenge, sometimes numbers count.” — AFP

FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

International FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Turkish Kurds see best hope of ending three-decade war Ceasefire anticipated from Kurdish New Year

DIYARBAKIR: Kurdish politician Abdullah Demirbas is haunted by the nightmare vision of his two sons meeting in the hills of southeastern Turkey. The first left home at 16 to join Kurdish rebels fighting the Turkish army, and now his older brother is signing up on the government side.

Like many Kurds weary of a war that has killed 40,000, he prays talks between fighters and government will bring the swift, lasting peace that has eluded generations. The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), whose leader Abdullah Ocalan is conducting talks from his prison cell on an island near Istanbul, is expected to declare a ceasefire next week. On Wednesday, the PKK freed a group of Turkish soldiers held prisoner in their mountain retreat in northern Iraq.

Previous contact with the man once dubbed “baby killer” by Turkish media was a closely-guarded secret, but the latest talks have been openly acknowledged by Ankara, risking the wrath of a conservative establishment. There are perils for all and forces on both sides that stand opposed to talks. In the regional centre Diyarbakir, a city of anonymous apartment blocks ringed by centuriesold ramparts, the conflict eats into the heart of families and friendships.

“The worst thing that could happen in my life is for both of my children to come together fighting in one place,” said Demirbas, a member of the pro-Kurdish BDP opposition party.

His wife, he said, would stay up all night to pray when she heard fighter

jets leave on sorties to bomb rebel hideouts. “Maybe my child is going to die tonight,” he recounted her saying of the younger brother, who left home four years ago to join the rebels in the highlands around the city perched on a bend in the Tigris River.

The three-decade Kurdish conflict has opened Turkey to accusations of human rights abuses and consigned the south-east to poverty. It has lso forced a nation eager for a greater role on the world stage to face up to its own ethnic diversity. Progress in solving it has been painfully slow. In this city of 1.5 million people, where boys selling tea and turnip juice dart among old men in traditional Kurdish baggy trousers, there is widespread resentment of a state which for decades denied Kurdish ethnic identity.

But whether driven by his presidential ambition ahead of elections next year, a path which would be smoothed by Kurdish support, or by fear of Kurdish assertiveness in neighboring northern Iraq and war-torn Syria, Prime Minister Erdogan has a new sense of urgency. Since October, intelligence officers and Kurdish politicians have been speaking to PKK leader Ocalan in the island prison where he was dispatched in 1999 after capture by Turkish Special Forces in Kenya. What has emerged appears the most comprehensive effort yet to end the conflict with the PKK, considered a terrorist group by Washington and the European Union as well as Ankara.

“There have been many attempts at

peace, but this one is the most serious,” said Imam Tascier, head of the Revolutionary Democratic Cultural Associations (DDKD), one of several Kurdish leftist groups formed in the 1970s and a precursor to the PKK. “Why? Because it is being carried out in the open. Previous efforts have disappeared without trace,” he said. “But a ceasefire alone will not solve the problem, this is only the beginning.” The PKK originally demanded creation of an independent Kurdish state in the southeast but has now moderated its declared goal to autonomy within Turkey.

CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM Erdogan has taken steps his predecessors would never have dared, including allowing Kurdish television broadcasts and elective Kurdish language courses at state schools. But his administration has also overseen the detention of thousands of Kurdish politicians and activists in recent years, Demirbas among them, while last summer saw the heaviest fighting in more than a decade with PKK militants. Leaks from the talks with Ocalan reveal a roadmap envisaging a PKK ceasefire from March 21, the Kurdish New Year, the withdrawal of fighters to northern Iraq and eventual disarmament in return for greater rights for Kurds. “We are hopeful, with some reservations,” said Demirbas, breaking off to be briefed on a convoy heading to northern Iraq to collect the Turkish soldiers being released from PKK captivity as a confidencebuilding measure. — Reuters

Muslim world hopes for better ties with new pope CAIRO: The Muslim world yesterday expressed hopes for better ties with the Vatican under new Pope Francis, after years of strained relations with Benedict XVI who was seen as hostile to Islam. The 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam’s highest seat of learning, came out with similar statements expressing this sentiment as they welcomed the Argentine’s election. OIC chief Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, in a letter of congratulations, said he hoped “the relationship between Islam and Christianity will regain its cordiality and sincere friendship” under the new head of the Roman Catholic Church.

Ihsanoglu said that “over the last eight years, the OIC has called for and worked hard to propagate the idea of ‘historic reconciliation between Islam and Christianity’.”

“I would like at this historic moment to reiterate this call,” wrote the secretary general of the organization based in the Saudi city of Jeddah. Al-Azhar also called for “better relations” with the Vatican under the new pope following the suspension of dialogue after statements by Benedict XVI sparked Muslim anger.

“As soon as a new policy emerges, we will resume the dialogue with the Vatican which was suspended in early 2011,” Mahmud Azab, adviser for inter-faith affairs to AlAzhar imam Ahmed Al-Tayyeb said. Benedict’s papacy was plagued by a series of public relations blunders that

offended many from the start of his reign. In 2006, the German pontiff sparked fury across the Muslim world when he recounted an anecdote in which the Muslim Prophet Mohammed was described as a warmonger who spread evil teachings by the sword.

Dialogue resumed in 2009, but was again severed after Benedict strongly called for protection of Christian minorities following a January 2011 suicide bombing at a church in Alexandria, Egypt’s second city. At the time, the Cairo-based Al-Azhar said it would cut ties again with the Vatican over Benedict’s “repeated treatment of Islam in a negative way, and his claims that Christians and others are oppressed in the Middle East.” According to Ali Bakr, an expert on Islamic affairs at the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, “a restoration of good ties between the Muslim world and the Vatican depends on the new pope’s personality, thinking and vision for reconciliation.” In the wake of uprisings that erupted in 2011, Islamists have emerged as the most powerful political force in several countries across the Middle East and North Africa, exacerbating a feeling of insecurity among minority Christians. This was especially the case in Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous country with more than 80 million inhabitants and where the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi was elected president in June 2012. — AFP

BAGHDAD: Smoke billows from the scene of a bomb attack in Baghdad yesterday. A coordinated string of bombings and brazen assault on a ministry near Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone killed 18 people, in the Iraqi capital’s deadliest violence this month. — AFP

Ten years on, Iraq haunts US response to Syria, Iran WASHINGTON: Ten years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, the searing memory of what became a deeply unpopular war has made Washington policy makers reluctant to use even limited force in Syria or Iran. After launching a war to oust Saddam Hussein, the United States faces another isolated Arab Baathist dictator accused, in his turn, of hoarding chemical weapons, supporting terror groups and brutalizing his own people.

But two years into the revolt against Syria’s Bashar AlAssad-a conflict that has killed more than 70,000 peopleeven the most hawkish voices in Washington are merely calling for arming the rebels or enforcing a no-fly zone.

And despite years of fruitless negotiations over Iran’s controversial nuclear program, both candidates in last year’s US election spoke of military force as a last resort to prevent Tehran from getting an atomic bomb.

Washington seems to have heeded the parting quip of former defense secretary Robert Gates, who suggested in 2011 that anyone advocating a land war in the Middle East or Asia should “have his head examined.” With a still-sputtering economy and spiraling debt, US President Barack Obama has repeatedly called for nation-building at home, vowing to withdraw from Afghanistan next year after pulling out of Iraq in 2011. The “shock and awe” of the Iraq invasion-a media-blitzed display of American power aimed at transforming the Middle East-has been replaced by the unseen work of aerial drones buzzing over the region’s backwaters.

And in Libya, Washington was content to “lead from behind” as it took part in a UN-authorised and Arabbacked NATO intervention involving no US ground troopsa far cry from the “coalition of the willing” that invaded Iraq. “One has to be very careful about jumping into situations you don’t understand, whose unintended consequences can be very, very surprising,” says Christopher Hill, who served as US ambassador to Iraq from 2009-2010. But he fears policy makers “may have over-learned their lessons, because I think we do need to be more diplomatically engaged in Syria’s future.”

Many of the neo-conservatives who dominated the first term of George W. Bush’s presidency and championed the invasion of Iraq have pressed for more strident action in Syria. But this has drawn comparisons, not with the 2003 war, but with the aftermath of the 1990 Gulf War, when the United States stood by as Saddam brutally crushed an uprising Washington had helped to incite.And even the most strident advocates of American force have stopped well short of calling for boots on the ground.

“It is perfectly understandable why the Obama administration wants to do nothing that would lead to a repetition of the invasion of Iraq,” former deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, one of the most ardent advocates of the 2003 invasion, wrote in the Wall Street Journal in January. “But no one is arguing for any such thing,” he added. — AFP

International FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Curfew in Kashmir Killings heighten tensions SRINAGAR: Indian-administered Kashmir’s main city was under curfew yesterday after the killing of five paramilitary police and the death of two civilians cranked up tensions in the disputed region.

Kashmir’s inspector general of police Abdul Gani Mir said a round-the-clock curfew order had been imposed in the city of Srinagar while there were similar restrictions in other towns and villages in the Kashmir Valley.

“It is an indefinite curfew,” Mir said in Srinagar where major roads were blocked with steel barricades and coils of razor wire. Schools and government offices were closed while the University of Kashmir postponed all examinations which had been scheduled for today. A proPakistan Kashmiri militant group, Hizbul Mujahideen, has claimed responsibility for an attack Wednesday when two militants killed five members of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) before being

shot dead themselves.

India’s Interior Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde told lawmakers Thursday the attackers appeared to be of Pakistani origin, reiterating earlier accusations from the government.

“The authenticity of the claim (by Hizbul Mujahideen) is being verified. From their bodies they appeared to be from Pakistan,” the minister said.

Shinde said investigators had recovered two diaries containing Pakistani names and phone numbers. Mir also said “medicines, diaries and other material found on the bodies of the militants showed they are from Pakistan”.

However the foreign ministry in Islamabad denied any Pakistani link to the attack.

“We feel that this trend of making irresponsible statements and knee-jerk reactions by senior Indian government functionaries have the potential of undermining the efforts made by both sides to normalize relations,” it said.

Wednesday’s attack, the dead-

liest in Srinagar for nearly five years, has further heightened tensions in Kashmir following the execution last month of a local separatist over a deadly 2001 attack on the national parliament in Delhi.

A 24-year-old man was shot dead on Wednesday evening in Srinagar, with the paramilitary police saying that they responded after one of their vehicles had come under attack from rock-throwing protesters.

Witnesses however said the victim was shot from a moving armored vehicle while he was crossing a road in his neighborhood. A 70-year-old local man also died after he was allegedly run over by a CRPF vehicle late Wednesday evening.

Police have registered a case against the driver.

Kashmir is split between India and Pakistan along a UNmonitored line of control, but both claim it in full and have fought two wars over its control. — AFP

Chief justice sworn in to oversee Nepal elections KATHMANDU: Nepal’s chief justice was sworn in yesterday as head of an interim government tasked with steering the country towards elections by June after a crossparty deal broke a 10-month deadlock. The leaders of four major parties reached agreement late Wednesday to appoint Khilraj Regmi to lead an interim administration to oversee what would be only the second national polls since the end of the country’s civil war in 2006.

The election in theory should be held by June 21, but analysts are skeptical the vote will go ahead within the scheduled timeframe. A legal challenge to Regmi’s appointment has already been launched while a breakaway Maoist faction has called for a strike to protest the agreement.

The swearing-in ceremony for the 64year-old Regmi was broadcast live yesterday morning on Nepal television. “In the name of God, I take this oath as per the interim constitution that I will remain committed and honest to the nation and the sovereign people,” he said as he took over as head of a team of 11 ministers.

Regmi, whose official title is chairman of the interim election council of ministers, will hold several ministerial portfolios including finance. Nepalese politics has operated in a legislative vacuum since May last year when the parliament, which had doubled as a constitution drafting body, was dissolved with-

out producing the charter. Political infighting, which included a split in the ruling Maoist party last year, has confounded efforts to implement a peace plan meant to rebuild the country after its 10-year civil war.

Under the terms of the cross-party agreement, Regmi will return to his post as chief justice after the elections.

The deal has settled some of the most contentious issues including the make-up of a truth and reconciliation commission and how to integrate former Maoist fighters in the army. But while all parties say they want the elections to take place in June, there is already talk they could be pushed back.

“If things get out of control, we will defer the elections until November,” Ram Chandra Paudel, a leader of the main opposition Nepali Congress, told reporters after the deal. Sudheer Sharma, editor of Nepal’s Kantipur newspaper, said it was overly optimistic to expect the polls to take place in June. “This has paved the way for holding the elections, so in that sense it’s a breakthrough,” he said.

“But there has been very vocal opposition against a government headed by the chief justice, and I don’t think this government will be able to conduct polls by June.”

A challenge to the legality of Regmi’s appointment is scheduled to begin before a special bench in the Supreme Court yesterday. — AFP

How sectarian killers operate with ‘impunity’ in Pakistan QUETTA: Hateful graffiti messages against Shiite Muslims are scrawled along main roads.

The striped flags of a banned militant faction accused of hundreds of murders flutter from homes. These are the outskirts of Quetta in Pakistan, from where Shiite leaders say Sunni extremists towed a giant bomb by tractor to kill 90 Shiite Hazaras on February 16, after dispatching suicide bombers to kill 92 others at a snooker hall a month earlier.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a militant group officially banned by the government in 2002, claimed responsibility for both attacks. Local Shiites say they know who the organizers are, and where they live, and yet the authorities do nothing.

An AFP reporter saw no sign of police or paramilitary in Akhtarabad, the run-down neighborhood from where Shiites claim the bombers drove the giant bomb. Nor was there a security presence in Killi Kambrani and Killi Badeni, dens of suspected kidnappers and criminals, covered in slogans for jihad and Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), described as the “political wing” of LeJ. Bombers determined to exterminate Shiites have slaughtered more than 250 Pakistanis since January 10 and questions are being asked about possible political and military collusion. Pakistan has an abysmal track record of convicting extremists, and there is growing alarm about perceived apathy towards attacks on Shiites, which are similar to those that fuelled civil war in Iraq. “Akhtarabad is their hub and main hideout. Everybody knows they come from there to attack Hazaras but nothing has been done,” said Shiite community leader Syed Mussarrat Hussein in Quetta, the capital of the troubled southwestern province of Baluchistan.

Daud Agha, local president of the Shiite Conference, said tip-offs about impending attacks are ignored and the ASWJ tolerated.

Amnesty International has said the failure of the authorities to bring those responsible for

QUETTA: The president of Pakistan’s Baluchistan province for Jihad and Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), “political wing” of a banned militant faction Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) Ramzan Mengal (left) is escorted as he walks to attend a protest rally in Quetta. Mengal says: “Lashkar-e-Jhangvi LeJ was created in reaction to injustices by the government.” — AFP sectarian violence to justice “sends the signal that they can continue to commit these outrageous abuses with impunity”. So how and why does LeJ operate with such apparent freedom? There are many theories.

The worst violence is concentrated in Baluchistan, fuelling accusations that the military turns a blind eye or even encourages LeJ operatives, to distract attention from a six-year separatist insurgency. “LeJ got stronger in Baluchistan after the start of the Baluch insurgency,” says Anwar Sajidi, a Baluch rights

activist and chief editor of Quetta-based newspaper Intikhab. “The government is supporting LeJ as a counter-insurgency strategy to show the world that sectarian violence is also on the rise and the Baluch separatist movement is not the only reason for killings.”

LeJ, which is linked to Al-Qaeda, was created in the 1990s out of the same pool of fighters trained and nurtured by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United States in the 1980s war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Last month the chief military spokesman categorically

denied the armed forces were in contact with militants, including the LeJ. But despite Pakistan joining the US-led “war on terror” after the 9/11 attacks, the armed forces continue to be dogged by allegations of playing a double game.

LeJ founder and ASWJ vice president Malik Ishaq has been accused in more than 40 murder cases but was free until being taken into custody on February 23 for posing a risk to law and order. Others say LeJ is protected because of the electoral support it can harness in southern districts of central Punjab province, a key battleground in upcoming national elections where the Pakistan Muslim League-N is in power. “This politics of expediency may win the party a few more seats in the upcoming elections, but the move would provide further space to religious extremism already on the rise,” author Zahid Hussain wrote in Dawn newspaper.

There is little to distinguish the ASWJ from LeJ in public. “Lashkar-e-Jhangvi was created in reaction to injustices by the government,” says Ramzan Mengal, the Baluchistan president of the ASWJ. “We can ask the LeJ men to negotiate with the government but the authorities will have to stop being influenced

by Shias.” A senior police official in Quetta told AFP his force was too weak to act, because the LeJ and ASWJ had too much financial and logistical support. Until the government develops a “multi-pronged” strategy to shut down their support networks, he warned, Shiites will continue to be slaughtered.

Many people in Baluchistan say there is an international element to the violence, believing that Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran are fighting a proxy war on Pakistani soil. Religious schools that have educated millions of Pakistanis in a hardline Sunni interpretation of Islam are also partly to blame. “There are hundreds of seminaries in the country who produce thousands of extremists every year,” the Quetta police official said. — AFP

International FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

1 in 3 US counties are now dying off Counties hit by aging population, weakened economies WASHINGTON: A record number of US counties - more than 1 in 3 - are now dying off, hit by an aging population and weakened local economies that are spurring young adults to seek jobs and build families elsewhere. New 2012 census estimates released yesterday highlight the population shifts as the US encounters its most sluggish growth levels since the Great Depression.

The findings also reflect the increasing economic importance of foreignborn residents as the US ponders an overhaul of a major 1965 federal immigration law. Without new immigrants, many metropolitan areas such as New York, Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh and St Louis would have posted flat or negative population growth in the last year. “Immigrants are innovators, entrepreneurs, they’re making things happen. They create jobs,” said Michigan Gov Rick Snyder, a Republican, at an immigration conference in his state last week. Saying Michigan should be a top destination

for legal immigrants to come and boost Detroit and other struggling areas, Snyder made a special appeal: “Please come here.”

The growing attention on immigrants is coming mostly from areas of the Midwest and Northeast, which are seeing many of their residents leave after years of staying put during the downturn. With a slowly improving US economy, young adults are now back on the move, departing traditional big cities to test the job market mostly in the South and West, which had sustained the biggest hits in the housing bust. Census data show that 1,135 of the nation’s 3,143 counties are now experiencing “natural decrease,” where deaths exceed births. That’s up from roughly 880 US counties, or 1 in 4, in 2009. Already apparent in Japan and many European nations, natural decrease is now increasingly evident in large swaths of the US, much of it rural.

Despite increasing deaths, the US population as a whole continues to grow, boosted by immigration from abroad

and relatively higher births among the mostly younger migrants from Mexico, Latin America and Asia.

“These counties are in a pretty steep downward spiral,” said Kenneth Johnson, a senior demographer and sociology professor at the University of New Hampshire, who researched the findings. “The young people leave and the older adults stay in place and age.

Unless something dramatic changes for instance, new development such as a meatpacking plant to attract young Hispanics - these areas are likely to have more and more natural decrease.”

The areas of natural decrease stretch from industrial areas near Pittsburgh and Cleveland to the vineyards outside San Francisco to the rural areas of east Texas and the Great Plains. A common theme is a waning local economy, such as farming, mining or industrial areas of the Rust Belt.

They also include some retirement communities in Florida, although many are cushioned by a steady flow of new retirees each year. — AP

India bars Italy envoy from leaving country

NEW DELHI: India’s top court yesterday temporarily barred the Italian ambassador from leaving the country, the latest escalation in a dispute over the killing of two Indian fishermen by Italian marines. India had summoned the Italian ambassador this week to protest against Rome’s decision not to send two marines charged with killing the fishermen while on anti-piracy duty back to India to face trial.

Separately, an Indian politician who heads a regional party has filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the Italian government over the decision. The court ordered ambassador Daniele Mancini not to leave India, and to respond to the petition by March 18, raising questions about whether this violated the envoy’s diplomatic immunity. “The Chief Justice issued a notice to the Italian ambassador stating not to leave the country and has sought a reply from the ambassador by March 18,” said Viplav Sharma, defense counsel for the Italian marines.

India’s Supreme Court had allowed Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone to return home for four weeks to vote in last month’s general election, provided they returned.

They have not done so, and Italy’s Foreign Ministry said the incident had become a formal dispute over UN laws. “(The dispute) has shaken the confidence of the people whether foreign powers can take our Supreme Court so lightly. It is a very serious contempt,” Subramanian Swamy, the politician who filed the petition, told reporters yesterday.

India’s Supreme Court said in a long-awaited ruling in January that India had jurisdiction to try the marines, but Italy has challenged that decision, arguing that the shooting took place in international waters. The sailors arrived back in Italy on Feb. 23, a day before the country’s election, after India’s Supreme Court granted their request to exercise their right to vote. Italy’s announcement the sailors would not return has sparked fury in India. The case has caused an uproar in parliament and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government is under pressure to respond forcefully. Singh issued an unusually strong statement on Wednesday in which he accused Italy of violating “every rule of diplomatic

ROMA: Italian marines Massimiliano Latorre (right) and Salvatore Girone arrive at Ciampino airport. India’s Supreme Court yesterday issued an order to Italy’s ambassador to stay in the country for four days amid a dispute over two Italian marines who skipped bail while on trial in New Delhi. — AFP discourse” and warned that if the sailors did not return “there will be consequences for our relations with Italy”. “We have to take steps, there is no question that we won’t take any steps,” Salman Khurshid, India’s foreign minister, told reporters yesterday. “You can be certain that this is a matter that will be treated with the greatest urgency. It will be treated with determination to ensure that we do not suffer.”

A government official said India was weighing what steps it could take, including expelling the ambassador, but that it was unlikely to take any action before March 22, when the sailors are due to appear again in court. “I am the envoy. I will represent the government of Italy until the very moment when (a competent authority) would declare me persona non grata,” Mancini told reporters on the sidelines of an event in New Delhi late on Wednesday. — Reuters

Election delay could destabilize Lebanon BEIRUT: A divisive debate over Lebanon’s electoral law may delay parliamentary elections scheduled for June 9, stoking fears of instability in a country already rattled by the conflict in neighboring Syria.

Nominations opened on Monday but no candidate has yet been registered. Meanwhile, rival political groups have quibbled over how legislative power should be shared out in the multi-confessional country. The same as in domestic politics, Lebanon is divided into two camps over the conflict in Syria.

One is led by the powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah, which is backed by Damascus and Tehran. The other is supported by the United States and Saudi Arabia, and it is bitterly opposed to the Damascus regime.

The raging war in Syria has worsened tensions in Lebanon, which suffered its own civil war from 1975 to 1990. For nearly 30 years, Damascus dominated Lebanon politically and militarily until Syrian troops pulled out in 2005. Hezbollah allegedly provides military backing to President Bashar AlAssad’s regime, while Sunni Islamists in Lebanon aid the rebels, with Syria’s violence at times spilling over into the small Mediterranean country.

“Lebanon’s main parties are all strategically linked to what is happening in Syria. Each of them is betting on the Damascus regime falling or staying in place,” said Beirut-based analyst Fadia Kiwane of Universite Saint-Joseph.

But with the Syrian war entering its third year, pressure has increased on Lebanon’s leaders to hold the vote on time. “There is international pressure to meet the deadline” for the parliamentary elections, said Kiwane, amid fears that Lebanon could otherwise slide into a new civil war of its own.

In Beirut, Western ambassadors-mainly the United States and France-have stepped up calls for the vote to go ahead on schedule, for fear of a political vacuum. Lebanon’s influential Druze leader Walid Jumblatt said on Tuesday that any delay would amount to “a jump into the unknown”. For its part, Syria favours the status quo in Lebanon, where Hezbollah heads the current government, said Kiwane, since fresh elections could return the anti-Assad opposition back into power.

“But the status quo may become impossible to manage and the situation may degenerate at any moment,” she warned. With repeated cases of violent incidents along the border with Syria, sectarian tensions have grown in Lebanon, where the political system is based on a complex distribution of power along sectarian lines.

Every parliamentary vote has been held under a different law, following long and arduous negotiations as alliances shift. “The Lebanese are used to adapting laws to suit their circumstances,” said Kiwane.

At least six draft electoral laws have been presented for the next elections, including a so-called “Orthodox” law under which voters select their candidates according to sect for the 128-member parliament. Despite criticism of the law as a “project for a new civil war”, it has gained the support of Christian parties.

Experts predict that the debate will end in a compromise, but that the ongoing talks would force a delay to allow candidates to organize their campaigns. “We are probably heading towards a technical delay of three months,” said Kiwane, with the vote likely to be rescheduled to “after the summer”. — AFP

International FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Rampage kills 4, shatters peace in 2 NY villages HERKIMER: A 64-year-old loner sauntered into a barbershop in upstate New York, coolly asked if the man cutting hair remembered him then opened fire, the first shots in a burst of violence that would leave four dead, two critically wounded and people in this small village aching to find out what set the gunman off. New York state police vowed to wait out Kurt Myers, the man suspected of gunning down four people then holing up in an abandoned building. Police kept vigilant watch there into Thursday morning, periodically blaring sirens in an apparent attempt to encourage Myers to surrender, if alive. Booms also were heard.

John Seymour, one of the men wounded in the attacks told his sister, Mary Hornett, the barbershop attack came out of nowhere. “He just said that the guys were in the barbershop and this guy comes in and he says, ‘Hi John, do you remember me?’ and my brother said, ‘Yes, Kurt, how are you?’ and then he just started shooting,” Hornett said. Hornett said her brother, who was hospitalized in critical condition, was doing well after being shot in the left hand and right hip. “My brother couldn’t think of any reason why he would do such a thing,” she said of Myers, a former customer who hadn’t been in the shop for a couple of years.

Officers were fired on from the abandoned building on Wednesday afternoon while looking for Myers, state police Superintendent Joseph D’Amico said. At least one officer returned fire. “We’re in no rush to bring this to a conclusion,” D’Amico said, adding that the main objective was to make sure no one else was hurt. Late Wednesday, state police spokesman Jack Keller said police were working under the assumption Myers was

alive and said the heavily armed troopers and local police were ready to wait out the suspected gunman.

The shootings shattered the peace and rattled the nerves of Mohawk and Herkimer, two small villages about 170 miles northwest of New York City, separated from each other by the Mohawk River,

shotgun to kill two customers, D’Amico said, identifying them as Harry Montgomery, 68, and Michael Ransear, 57, a retired corrections officer. In addition to Seymour, the shop’s owner, another customer, Dan Haslauer, also was listed in critical condition at a Utica hospital.

The gunman then drove to Gaffy’s Fast

NEW YORK: Members of the New York State Police walk past a citizen after switching off with another team for a rooftop position during a standoff with murder suspect Kurt Meyers on March 13, 2013 in Herkimer. — AFP the New York State Thruway and just a mile. Police snipers waited on rooftops on a block of small businesses in Herkimer as they waited for Myers to emerge.

Police said Myers’ rampage started with a fire in his apartment in the nearby village of Mohawk at about 9:30 am Wednesday. He then drove to John’s Barber Shop around the corner and used a

Teenagers, sex, alcohol and cameras: a dangerous mix CHICAGO: A video of high school boys laughing about watching the rape of a “dead” drunk teenage girl who “deserved to be peed on” drew a horde of reporters to a small Ohio town for a trial Wednesday. While the video and a photo of two boys lifting the unconscious 16-yearold girl by her hands and feet were shocking and extreme, the dangerous combination of teens, alcohol and cameras was far from unique.

Thousands of teenagers have found themselves in social hell after sexually explicit or other humiliating pictures and videos spread through social media like wildfire.

The urge to document embarrassing, malicious-or even potentially criminal-moments is hard to resist for teenagers growing up in the digital age with a smartphone in their pocket at all times.

It’s a complex problem for parents, educators and police, who have to draw a line between youthful dalliances and crimes like extortion, harassment or the production of child pornography. Most of the images start out as a moment of youthful experimentation meant to be shared with a girlfriend, boyfriend or crush. Others are meant to be a joke. Then somebody hits send and the echo chamber of teenage gossip is magnified by the power of the Internet to produce an overwhelming tide of insults and abuse. And since the images are online forever, the victimization never really ends.

‘It can be hard to escape your past’-”We have girls - 16, 17, 18-year-old girls-telling us ‘I’m contemplating suicide. I can’t get my photos off this site,’” said James McGibney, founder of bullyville.com, which aims to help bullied teens and adults. One in six US children aged 12 to 17 have received a sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude photo or video of someone they know, a recent study by the Pew Research Center found. —AFP

Lube in nearby Herkimer and used the shotgun to kill Thomas Stefka, an employee, and Michael Renshaw, a customer who was a 23-year veteran of the state Department of Corrections, D’Amico said.

Gov Andrew Cuomo, in a press conference in Herkimer, called it “truly an inexplicable situation.” “There’s no apparent motive to the best of our knowledge at this time to

provoke these attacks,” he said. Police had not had any communication with Myers, whose only known police record was a 1973 drunken-driving arrest, D’Amico said.

Police were positioned in front of a block of small businesses topped with apartments in the village of Herkimer on Wednesday evening. A local businessman, jeweler Fred Weisser, said police were trying to get people out while Myers was believed to be in a building next door.

“They’re sending in a robot to check the place out,” he said by telephone. “I guess we’re stuck. We’re between him and the cops. I don’t want to step out and get clipped by a sniper.”

Myles Smith, who lives in one of the apartments above the shops, said by cellphone he had heard police trying to talk to Myers. “The snipers on the roof are sitting there,” Smith said. “I ain’t seen a whole lot of movement. I heard about five gunshots.

I keep hearing them trying to talk him out, but I don’t think he’s coming out.” The rear of the small building where Myers lived was burned out, and police continued to guard the building, where they found guns and ammunition. It was unclear if they were in his apartment.

Neighbors said they barely knew Myers, who rarely spoke, left every morning in his red Jeep and came back. Traci Randall said the only time she remembers speaking to her next-door neighbor was when he yelled at her son because he thought he had shot an air pellet at his Jeep. “He would walk by himself. He was kind of a loner. No wife,” she said. Neighbors said he never had visitors or friends. Gary Urich said Myers wouldn’t even say much as ‘Hi’ to him when walking by his porch. “I said, ‘How are you doing?’ No response. He just walked by,” he said. —AP

US lawmakers outraged over army’s handling of sex assaults Victims say too many crimes overlooked, complaints ignored WASHINGTON: Lawmakers expressed outrage yesterday over the military justice system’s failure to deal effectively with rape and sexual assault crimes, saying a system that had some 19,000 cases a year but only brought 240 to trial was not working. Lawmakers also challenged military legal experts who told a Senate hearing that commanding generals should have the final say over verdicts by military juries, including the ability to throw out convictions and sentences, because it helped them to maintain order and discipline. “I don’t know how you can say that having 19,000 sexual assaults and rapes a year is discipline and order,” said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who chaired the Senate panel. “It is the exact opposite of discipline and order.”

The day-long hearing on sexual assault in the military followed a spate of highprofile incidents that have highlighted the issue, including a scandal at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas in which 59 recruits were assaulted by drill instructors.

Lawmakers were angered by a case at Aviano Air Base in Italy where Lieutenant Colonel James Wilkerson had his sexual assault conviction overturned by a top commander who threw out his one-year prison sentence and dismissal from the Air

Force and returned him to duty.

Lieutenant General Craig Franklin, - the “convening authority” or officer with final say over Wilkerson’s court martial reviewed the trial record and concluded that despite the jury verdict the evidence was insufficient to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. “Sexual assault is a heinous and violent crime, and it must be treated as such,” said Senator Barbara Boxer, who testified before the panel. “It isn’t an internal matter. It is a violent crime, and it must be treated as such.”

Senator Richard Blumenthal urged a group of top Pentagon lawyers who also appeared before the panel to consider the problem with the same sense of urgency as that given to defeating improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“This problem is the equivalent of an IED in every unit of the armed forces. It is the equivalent of an immensely destructive force, which the Aviano case has brought to the public’s attention in a very dramatic way,” he said.

“This issue really demands immediate action. And not just tinkering around the edges,” Blumenthal added. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel directed the Pentagon’s top lawyer this week to look into issues in the Aviano case and whether

the convening authority - a tradition that dates to the era of the Continental Congress prior to the adoption of the US Constitution - should have the power to overturn jury verdicts before an appeals process even begins.

“I believe that we have to look very carefully about whether there is a continuing value to the authority ... to throw out findings, to reject findings of a military trial,” Robert Taylor, the Pentagon’s acting general counsel, told the panel. Senator Lindsey Graham, a lawyer in the Air Force Reserves, said the system was “way too indifferent” toward sexual assault crimes and had issues that needed to be fixed.

But he urged his fellow lawmakers not to “over-indict the system.”

He said military justice bars close personal relationships, sexual or otherwise, encourages respect and aims to instill “good order and discipline” while protecting the individual rights of those who may be wrongfully accused. But Boxer said: “I’m here to talk about the violent crime of sexual assault in the military, not about fraternization. I’m not here to talk about disrespect, but about vicious crimes. And I’m not here to talk about false charges, but about real charges and the way they’re handled.” —Reuters

International FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Asia’s defense spending overtakes Europe’s US still represents nearly half of global defense spending LONDON: Asia’s defense spending overtook Europe’s for the first time last year, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said yesterday, reflecting China’s military rise and shrinking European economies.

In its annual report on the world’s militaries, it said China’s defense spending in real terms rose 8.3 percent between 2011 and 2012, while in Asia as a whole, spending rose 4.94 percent last year. At the same time, nominal defense spending among European NATO members had shrunk to around 2006 levels due to budget cuts, the IISS said in “The Military Balance 2013”.

“Indeed, the increase in Asian spending has been so rapid, and the defense austerity pursued by

European states so severe, that in 2012 nominal Asian spending ($287.4 billion) exceeded total official defense spending not just in NATO Europe, but across all of Europe, including spending by non-NATO European states,” it said. The IISS, however, played down Washington’s planned “pivot” to Asia, saying that it had announced only limited new military deployments there while reducing in its forces in Europe. “But as far as Asia was concerned there was less to this rebalance than first appeared,” the report said.

It also noted the United States continued to dominate defense spending, accounting for 45.3 percent of the global total. Asian countries have been steadily raising

defense spending, using resilient economic growth to fund militaries able to cope with an increasingly complex regional environment.

“China is now clearly the secondlargest defense spender in the world,” it said, adding that if it could sustain economic growth, it could match US levels between 2025 and 2028.

North Korea, which conducted a third nuclear test last month, continued to add to its military capabilities.

Among these, the report said, were a plutonium stockpile sufficient for four to 12 nuclear weapons, a uranium-enrichment program that could add enough fissile material for an extra one or two weapons a year and an array of short and medium-range

Netanyahu clinches govt coalition deals Ultra-orthodox Jewish parties won’t be in new coalition JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clinched deals for a coalition government yesterday reflecting a shift to the centre in Israel and a domestic agenda that has shunted peacemaking with Palestinians to the sidelines. In control of 68 of parliament’s 120 seats, the right-wing leader’s new administration is expected to take office next week, just days before a visit by US President Barack Obama, his first to Israel since entering the White House. “There is a government,” said Noga Katz, a spokeswoman for Netanyahu’s Likud party, citing agreements with the centrist Yesh Atid and far-right Jewish Home parties as well as with a smaller faction led by former foreign minister Tzipi Livni.

Netanyahu’s long-time partners, ultra-Orthodox parties effectively blackballed by Yesh Atid and Jewish Home over social benefits and military draft exemptions for religious Jews, will not be in the new coalition born of a Jan. 22 parliamentary election.

The exclusion of the religious parties represents a dramatic political change for an increasingly inward-looking Israel after the surprisingly strong ballot box showings by Yesh Atid, led by former TV news anchor Yair Lapid, and Jewish Home, headed by high-tech millionaire Naftali Bennett.

Although Lapid, has advocated a resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians stalled since 2010, his party’s second-place finish was a reflection of a renewed public focus on bread-and-butter issues such as the high cost of living. “We came into politics specifically to influence health and welfare policies...the time has come to start working,” Yesh Atid lawmaker Adi Kol said on Israel’s Channel

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs the LikudBeiteinu faction meeting at the Knesset (Israel’s Parliament) yesterday in Jerusalem. — AFP 10 television. Public expectations are high that the new government could effect real change in what many Israelis see as state coddling of the ultra-Orthodox, whose welfare benefits and exemption from the military provide little incentive or opportunity to learn skills and contribute to the economy.

Netanyahu will turn his attention again to the Palestinian issue and Iran’s nuclear drive in his talks with Obama, with whom he has had a testy relationship. But US officials have said Obama is not coming with any peace plan and expectations of any swift movement on the Israeli-Palestinian track are low. “We hope that this Israeli government will choose peace and negotiations and not settlements and dictation,” Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said.

DEADLINE Lapid and Bennett each said they expected to sign coalition deals with Netanyahu later in the day. Livni made

her pact with the prime minister several weeks ago. The agreements yesterday were sealed before a March 16 deadline for Netanyahu to announce a new government. Yesh Atid said Lapid would become finance minister.

Israeli media reported Bennett would get the trade and industry cabinet post. Lapid, 49, gained wide backing among young, secular voters who helped fuel massive street protests in 2011 against high food and housing prices. He and Bennett, 40, took kingmakers’ roles in the coalition bargaining by forming a negotiating alliance that frustrated Netanyahu’s efforts to retain his largely loyal ultra-Orthodox partners for his third term in office.

Bennett, who Israeli media said would get the industry and trade portfolio, rejects any future Palestinian state and has strong support among Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

But he has pledged not to be an obstacle to peace talks, saying that in any case, he does not believe they will achieve anything. — Reuters

ballistic missiles. It also had the world’s third-largest chemical weapons arsenal and possibly biological weapons.

The multiplicity of threats in Asia, as different countries take action to counter others, mean “there is substantial evidence of action-reaction dynamics taking hold and influencing regional states’ military programs,” the IISS said. India, whose heavy reliance on imports makes it one of the largest defense markets for foreign suppliers, continued to build capabilities geared towards both Pakistan and China. Japan and South Korea, meanwhile, were trying to build their defenses against North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. — Reuters

News

in brief

Iran test-fires missiles TEHRAN: Iranian media say the military has test-fired several short-range missiles, including the type Palestinian militant Hamas group used to attack Tel Aviv last November. Yesterday’s report by the semi-official Fars news agency says the missiles were tested during an army exercise in central Iran. It says the missiles fired were Nazeat-10 and Fajr-5. During weeks of fighting in November, Gaza’s Hamas rulers fired Iranian-made Fajr5 rockets that came close to Israel’s heartland, including the cities of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for the first time.

Later, Iran admitted supplying Hamas with the technology to produce Fajr-5. The missile has a range of 75 kilometers, or 45 miles. The range of the Nazeat-10 missiles is about 100 kilometers, or 62 miles. Iran regularly holds maneuver to test and promote its military power.

Patient sentenced to death TAIPEI: A cancer patient who started a fire in a Taiwan hospital-which killed 13 people and injured 60 othersbecause he was upset by his illness has been sentenced to death, a court said yesterday. “The court decided to impose the death sentence on Lin Chi-hsiung because of the large number of casualties he caused and because he showed no remorse for his crime,” a spokeswoman for the Tainan district court in south Taiwan said. Lin, 67, a patient at the nursing facility in Tainan city, was found guilty of last year triggering the fire by lighting tissue paper and throwing it into a storage room full of clothes. He was arrested hours after the incident and has claimed he started the blaze because he was upset about suffering from cancer and other chronic illness. The fire erupted before dawn at the nursing facility, whose 115 patients included people in their 90s, with several left on their own to escape dense smoke that filled the building. Closed-circuit TV footage taken moments after the blaze broke out showed hospital staff scrambling to put out the fire, while some elderly patients struggled to escape in their wheelchairs.

Sunni Islam’s Al-Azhar eyes ‘better relations’ with pope CAIRO: Sunni Islam’s highest seat of learning, Al-Azhar, said yesterday that it wants “better relations” with the Vatican under Pope Francis. “We are hoping for better relations with the Vatican after the election of the new pope,” Mahmud Azab, adviser for inter-faith affairs to AlAzhar imam Ahmed Al-Tayyeb said. “As soon as a new policy emerges, we will resume the dialogue with the Vatican which was suspended in early 2011,” Azab said.

Business FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Lufthansa hopes to keep profits flying

Cyprus crosses red lines for EU bailout

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LONDON: A volunteer carries a basket of donated jam at the headquarters of the Trussell Trust Foodbank Organization in Salisbury, southern England yesterday. — AFP

Number of UK’s poor rises Food banks brace for new influx of Britain’s poor

LONDON: As the first visitors arrive at St Luke’s church in south London, pushing empty shopping trolleys and carrying plastic bags, it is clear they haven’t come to worship. Twice a week, this place functions as a food bank serving up physical rather than spiritual sustenance to the increasing numbers of Britain’s poor. The economic crisis has left many people on the edge, but campaigners warn the situation is going to get worse because of government plans to cut welfare payments in the coming months.

“We are giving away over half a ton of food every week at the moment, just here in Norwood. Over Christmas we gave away three tons in three days,” said Elizabeth Maytom, who runs the Norwood and Brixton food bank at St Luke’s. With its shelves stacked high with soup, beans, milk and pasta, most of which has been donated, St. Luke’s is one of 300 food banks run in Britain by Christian charity The Trussell Trust.

More than 100 of these have been launched in the last year alone, feeding more than a quarter of a million people. “People may have just one meal a day and this means they can have more than just bread-they get vegetables and

some fruit just to help provide a more balanced diet,” said Maytom. Although Britain is one of the richest countries in the world, the boom in food banks reflects the growing number of people struggling to balance their income with increases in rent, fuel and food costs.

Many charities fear that government plans to end the practice of increasing welfare payments each year in line with inflation will see these numbers grow. The highly controversial proposals would see unemployment and child welfare payments go up by one percent a year until 2016, well below current inflation of 2.7 percent.

The move is part of a wider government shakeup of the welfare system intended both to save money and ensure people are better off working than staying at home on benefits. Ministers say it will bring benefit increases more into line with wages, which have stagnated since the financial crisis.

But the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is among the critics, warning the change will have a “deeply disproportionate impact on families with children”. The Trussell Trust’s executive chairman, Chris Mould, said millions of

Britons are “only a pay cheque away from crisis”, and this was likely to increase with the government’s plans. “What that means is the buying power of the poorest people in this country has been held below inflation, it’s going to go down each year,” he said. Benefits have historically risen in line with inflation and, without any change, would have been due to go up by 2.2 percent in April.

‘MUMMY’S GOT NO FOOD’ Thirteen million people in Britain-or 21 percent-live below the poverty line, a threshold measured at 60 percent of average income, according to official statistics. At St Luke’s, women bring branded plastic bags or their own shopping trolleys which they pack with tins of food, toilet paper, washing powder and boxes of tea, so that outside on the street, strangers would have no idea that they hadn’t bought the items themselves. On the day that AFP visited, a woman who didn’t want to be named waited with a cup of hot tea as enough food for three days was heaped into her bags.

After paying her weekly bills, she routinely

has nothing left with which to feed her family until her next benefit payment arrives. “If this place wasn’t here, I wouldn’t have been able to have anything for the children and my kids would have had to go without for three days,” she said. “The money that you are getting isn’t actually covering the food that you need because the prices are going up,” she said. “It’s hard to tell three young children,’ mummy’s got no food’.” The welfare cap will contribute nearly £2 billion (2.2 billion euros, $2.9 billion) to Britain’s recession-hit public coffers.

But ministers insist that those most in needthe disabled and those reliant on state pensions-will continue to see their payments rise in line with inflation. According to the minister for pensions Steve Webb, it’s about making it “pay to work”.

“In difficult economic times we’ve protected the incomes of pensioners and disabled people who have little means to increase their income,” he said. “We have also committed to helping people who rely on working age benefits and tax credits and will increase that support by one percent.” — AFP

Business FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Japan faces higher fuel bill Nuclear shutdown enters 3rd year TOKYO: The restart of Japan’s nuclear power industry is proving pivotal to the economic vision of the country’s prime minister as soaring fuel bills after the Fukushima disaster threaten to keep the country’s trade in a deeper deficit for longer. As Japan marks the second anniversary this week of a crisis that scarred the nation, the fuel bills to pay for lost atomic output are leaving their own scars on the economy, partly owing to Abe’s own making.

His mix of economic policies - dubbed Abenomics by the media has driven the yen down sharply, thus raising the cost of imports that will weigh on the revival of a nation that has traditionally relied on exports to drive growth. The sooner that pro-nuclear Abe can restart atomic power stations, the sooner he will return the country’s record trade deficit to its longterm standing of a trade surplus and so mark a milestone in the recovery of the economy.

But in Abe’s way is the country’s new, independent atomic watchdog, which has said it will take as long as three years to approve restarts under safety guidelines it is drawing up. “It’s a problem for Abe because his economic policies depend partly on an export led recovery to really deliver growth and he needs to get the trade balance back to positive,” said Tom O’Sullivan, a Tokyo-based energy consultant. “He also needs to stimulate

domestic demand in parallel with improving exports,” O’Sullivan said, adding he believed Abe had made up his mind to restart reactors.

The Fukushima disaster, triggered by a huge earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan in March 2011, led to the shut down of the country’s entire nuclear power industry, which was producing 30 percent of the country’s electricity supply at the time. Only two reactors have resumed operation, sparking huge protests against nuclear power. Japan’s fuel imports bill jumped immediately as power companies ramped up production of oil and gas-fired generators. Just as quickly, the trade balance swung into a deficit.

Abe’s push for more aggressive fiscal and monetary policy since he won a big election victory in December has added to the fuel bill by driving down the value of the yen to a 3-1/2 year low of 96.71 per dollar on Tuesday. Japan, the most energy-import dependent of the world’s major economies, spent about 24 trillion yen ($250 billion) in 2012 on fuel imports including for electricity generation, based on the official average yen rate of 79.55 to dollar, finance ministry figures showed.

That made up a third of Japan’s total imports bill and towered over a record trade deficit of 6.9 trillion yen. Should the yen fall to 100 to the dollar and stay there for the next year, Japan’s purchases of oil,

gas and coal from overseas would rise 25 percent to just over 30 trillion yen, in the unlikely scenario that import volumes hold steady. But energy imports are likely to rise as Japan faces a second complete shutdown by September when the two running nuclear plants must be idled for regular maintenance.

OPTIMISTIC Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party is seen as more pro-nuclear power than the preceding Democratic Party of Japan government. Abe plans, for example, to review from scratch his predecessor’s plan to exit atomic power. “Abe will surely use high import costs after the summer to argue that Japan needs to get restarts simply because the cost for doing business in Japan is prohibitive,” said Martin Schulz, a senior research fellow at Fujitsu Research Institute. Like Abe, utilities have strong economic reasons to restart nuclear power stations as they see costs soar. Imports of liquefied natural gas, the main substitute for nuclear fuel, cost 6 trillion yen in 2012 and utilities are desperate to restart other units to reduce costs and cut losses.

They are betting they will be able to get just over a fifth of Japan’s 50 reactors restarted by the end of March 2014, although some critics say that is ambitious given the regulator’s more cautious view. If utilities were able to get half the country’s 50 nuclear reactors back online,

India to hand plots of land to rural poor NEW DELHI: India’s government is drawing up a major new welfare reform which would hand small plots of land to millions of homeless poor in the countryside, reports said yesterday. The proposed entitlement program, which comes as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s administration is struggling to rein in the public spending deficit, is seen as a potential vote-winner in rural areas ahead of elections next year.

The draft National Right to Homestead Bill, which must be approved by cabinet and then passed by parliament, would provide for a minimum of 400 square meters to be given to each homeless family, The Indian Express said. An estimated eight million rural families are believed to be homeless and landless. “The idea is to provide statutory backing... to the provision of homestead land for those without land and shelter,” Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh, who won a 46 percent increase in funding in the new budget, told the Mail Today newspaper.

“The government is committed to giving rights to the landless poor in the country.” The left-leaning ruling Congress party is looking to rejuvenate itself ahead of elections due in the first half of 2014 after a second term in power marked by corruption scandals and a sharp slowdown in economic growth. A separate $1.9 billion welfare program guaranteeing food for the poor is set to

GWALIOR: In this file photo, Indian demonstrators participate in a long-distance march as they head to New Delhi from Gwalior. India’s government is drawing up a major new welfare reform which would hand small plots of land to millions of homeless poor in the countryside. — AFP be introduced soon in parliament, following previous laws guaranteeing education and the right to 100 days of paid work annually for impoverished laborers.

The Homestead Bill is set to be tabled in parliament in the monsoon session, which normally begins around August, the Mail Today said. Ratings agencies and investors are watching India’s public finances closely amid fears that the

country is over-stretched, with a public deficit expected to run at 5.2 percent of gross domestic product in this financial year. Last October tens of thousands of poor Indians began a 350-kilometre march to New Delhi to protest the plight of marginalized rural communities excluded from the country’s economic development. Under a deal reached in Agra to stop the protests the government pledged land reforms. —AFP

they would save as much as 1.8 trillion yen in fuel imports over the next year, the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan, a government-linked research institute, said.

Tokyo Electric Power Co, Kansai Electric Power Co , Kyushu Electric Power Co, Shikoku Electric Power Co and Tohoku Electric Power Co have included the restart of 11 reactors as part of applications to raise electricity prices. Out of the country’s 10 nuclear operators, the five account for more than 70 percent of fuel oil, crude and LNG use for power generation in Japan and 40 percent of coal burning. Together they operate two-thirds of the country’s reactors.

“Nothing has been decided yet about the restart of nuclear reactors, but my guess is that the current government is supportive of restarts, although in a lowkey manner, since the resistance among the population is substantial,” said Gerhard Fasol, chief executive officer of Eurotechnology Japan KK, a Tokyo-based consulting firm. The big five are forecasting a 50 percent increase in coal use in the year to March 31, 2014, while their LNG use is expected to decline 9.4 percent. Reflecting the currency impact, the volume of crude oil imports fell 4.7 percent in January but their value rose 5.9 percent. Average benchmark Brent crude prices in the month were only 0.8 percent higher than a year earlier. — Reuters

Indian inflation rises MUMBAI: India’s inflation increased unexpectedly last month, data showed yesterday, tempering hopes of an interest rate cut next week after the central bank chief warned about rising prices. After four months of easing, the widely watched Wholesale Price Index rose to 6.84 percent in February from a year earlier, up from 6.62 per cent in the previous month, which marked a more than three-year low.

The new data comes after Reserve Bank of India governor Duvvuri Subbarao reiterated his concern late Wednesday about persistently high inflation, which he said hurt growth prospects when above 6.0 percent. The RBI is due to meet on Tuesday in the financial capital Mumbai to decide on interest rates, which it cut in January for the first time in nine months under pressure from government and business leaders to help spur the flagging economy.

“It’s not possible to bring inflation down without sacrificing some growth. But... you have to realize that growth sacrifice is only in the short term,” Subbarao said in a speech at the London School of Economics. “In the medium term, low inflation-price stability-is very important for sustained growth,” he said in defense of criticism that the RBI is damaging growth by not lowering borrowing costs quickly enough. He described inflation as “still high” and “stubborn”. While the RBI will deliberate the latest inflation rise at next week’s meeting, it is unlikely to sway the decision, according to Glenn Levine, senior economist at Moody’s Analytics.

“The recent rumblings from the RBI, including praise for the government’s reforms and recent budget, suggest that a small March rate cut is likely,” he said in a note, predicting a 25-basis-point cut in the repo rate. In January, the RBI cut the benchmark repo rate, at which it lends to commercial banks, by 25 basis points to 7.75 percent-the first cut since April last year. Indian business leaders and the government have for months been calling for lower lending rates to help the once-booming economy, forecast to see a five percent growth rate in the year to March 2013, the weakest in a decade. — AFP

Business FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Sharp drop in US homes lost to foreclosure LOS ANGELES: While the nation’s foreclosure woes persist, new data show they’re easing amid a resurgent housing market, rising home prices and efforts by some states to buy homeowners more time to avoid losing their homes. The number of US homes repossessed by lenders last month fell 11 percent from January and declined 29 percent from February last year, tumbling to the lowest level since September 2007, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc said yesterday.

Some states continued to see sharp increases in homes lost to foreclosure last month, including Washington, Wisconsin and Iowa. But home repossessions declined both on an annual and monthly basis in a majority of states, including past foreclosure hotbeds such as California, Georgia and Arizona. All told, 45,038 US homes completed the foreclosure process in February. That’s less than half of the 102,000 homes lost to foreclosure in March 2010, when home repossessions peaked, according to the firm’s records, which go back to January 2005.

Foreclosures remain at more than double the pace that RealtyTrac considers normal, roughly 20,000 foreclosures a

month, the average in 2005. But their national impact has been contained, said Daren Blomquist, a vice president at RealtyTrac. “It’s definitely safe to say we’re past the worst of it at a national level,” he said. Several factors are contributing to the overall decline in completed foreclosures. More jobs and ultralow mortgage rates are helping the once-battered housing market recover, and the rising demand combined with fewer available homes has helped push home prices steadily upward since last year. They posted their biggest annual increase in six years in January.

Higher home values help restore equity to homeowners, which can help those at risk of foreclosure by improving their chances of refinancing their mortgage to a lower payment or place them in a better position to sell their home. In the first nine months of 2012, 1.4 million homeowners who had been underwater on their mortgage, or owed more than their home is worth, were moved into positive equity, according to data from CoreLogic.

The tight supply of available homes for sale has created a sellers’ market, with many properties drawing multiple offers.

That means even bank-owned homes

and those in some stage of foreclosure, which typically sell at a discount to other homes, are going for higher prices. That has given banks further incentive to let homeowners who have fallen behind on their payments avoid foreclosure by authorizing a short sale, when a lender agrees to accept less for a home than what the seller owes on their mortgage.

Last year, sales of homes in some stage of foreclosure rose 6 percent from a year earlier, while sales of bank-owned homes fell 15 percent, according to RealtyTrac. Meanwhile, states like California, Nevada and Washington have passed laws to increase homeowners’ protections from foreclosure. Those laws have effectively delayed the pace of homes entering the foreclosure process, which has helped to thin the pipeline of completed foreclosures in those states.

The combination of fewer foreclosed homes hitting the market and higher prices for those that do sell is good news for homeowners because those properties will be less of a drag on the value of nearby homes. “They’ll have less of a negative impact just because there are fewer selling,” Blomquist said. As of the end of February, 1.5 million US homes were in some stage of foreclosure or in

Lufthansa hopes to keep profits flying German flag carrier to order 102 new Airbus planes FRANKFURT: German flag carrier Lufthansa said yesterday it hoped to improve operating profit and turnover next year despite turbulent times, as it announced a 36-percent drop in operating profit in 2012. Operating profit plunged by 36.1 percent compared with the previous year to stand at 524 million euros ($679 million) - a decline the firm blamed on a much higher fuel bill than in 2012.

Overall turnover was up 4.9 percent to 30.1 billion euros and net profits also rose strongly thanks to one-off gains from the sales of its British Midland airline and shares in the parent group, it said in its annual earnings statement.

“2013 will be a particularly challenging year for the companies and their employees,” warned Lufthansa chief executive Christoph Franz, whose group comprises several airlines including Austrian Airlines and SWISS. Last year, the group launched a huge restructuring program in a bid to boost operating profit by 1.5 billion euros in 2015 compared to the 2011 level. As part of this program, dubbed SCORE, Lufthansa introduced some 800 costcutting measures that contributed some 618 million euros to the firm’s turnover.

“The Lufthansa Group expects to make further progress with SCORE and to improve its operating result in 2013,” the firm forecast, confirming preliminary earnings results published in February.

In a separate statement, SWISS said it would buy Boeing planes for the first

FRANKFURT: A Lufthansa plane lands at the Frankfurt, Germany Rhein Main Airport. German airline Lufthansa AG says it plans to buy 102 new aircraft from European plane maker Airbus to improve fuel efficiency and meet future demand. —AP time, ordering six twin-engine 777 jetliners at a cost of 1.5 billion Swiss francs ($1.6 billion, 1.2 billion euros) to replace its four-engine Airbus A340s. The Boeing aircraft would fly to destinations like San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Bangkok, Beijing and Johannesburg with a capacity of 330 seats, and would cut fuel costs and CO2 taxes by 23 percent compared with the A340s, SWISS said.

Meanwhile, Lufthansa AG says it plans to buy 102 new aircraft from European planemaker Airbus to improve fuel efficiency and meet future demand.

CEO Christoph Franz said in a statement yesterday that the board had approved purchase of two Airbus A380 superjumbo jets and 30 Airbus A320s. The board also authorized management to complete negotiations for a further 70 Airbus A320 and A321 planes. Franz said the purchase focused on making the company’s fleet more modern and fuel efficient, not on expanding it. The company is trying to cut costs and improve profits. Lufthansa also said it would buy six Boeing 777-ER plans for its SWISS subsidiary. — Agencies

banks’ possession, according to RealtyTrac.

Given the monthly pace of home repossessions through February, Blomquist projects there will be 600,000 completed foreclosures this year, down from 671,000 last year. He also expects the number of homes taken back by lenders to increase later this year, noting that 1.2 million homes entered the foreclosure process in 2012. Typically, about half of those end up as bank-owned homes, he said. While lenders took back fewer homes last month, the number of properties that entered the foreclosure process in February increased 10 percent from the previous month, RealtyTrac said.

The monthly gain was the first after three monthly declines. So-called foreclosure starts were down 25 percent from February 2012, with Nevada, New York, Washington and 13 other states posting annual increases. Overall, Florida posted the nation’s highest foreclosure rate, which RealtyTrac measures by tracking the number of properties with foreclosure-related filings. One in every 282 households in the state received at least one filing, or more than three times the national average. —AP

NZ drought hurting

farmers, economy

CARTERTON: Dairy farmer John Rose has sent more than 100 of his cows to the slaughterhouse over recent weeks as a severe drought browned pastures in New Zealand’s normally verdant North Island. He said it was necessary to thin his herd so that his remaining 550 cows have enough to eat. He’s supplementing their diet with ground palm kernel as the grass in his fields withers. “We try and make sure they’ve got water and shade during the day and do the best we can for them,” he said. “It’s very hard to remember when the last rain fall was.” The drought is costing farmers millions of dollars each day and is beginning to take a toll on the country’s economy.

Parts of the North Island are drier than they’ve been in 70 years and some scientists say the unusual weather could be a harbinger of climate change. There has been little significant rainfall in the northern and eastern parts of the country since October. But some are finding the dry, sun soaked days a boon. Vintners say the conditions are perfect for them. And city dwellers are reveling in eating lunch outdoors or spending evenings at the beach in a Southern Hemisphere summer that never seems to end.

Farmers estimate the drought has so far cost them about 1 billion New Zealand dollars ($820 million) in lost export earnings with the damage rising daily as they reduce their herds, which in turn results in lower milk production. Farming, and dairy cows in particular, drives the economy in the island nation of 4.5 million and the drought is expected to shave about a percentage point off economic growth. New Zealand’s last significant drought was five years ago and also cost farmers billions of dollars.

Bruce Wills, president of farming association Federated Farmers, said North Island slaughterhouses are processing about 40 percent more cows and sheep this year as farmers reduce their herds. The increased numbers and lighter weight of the animals has resulted in plummeting prices, he said. North Island farmers are also sending stock to the South Island, which hasn’t been so affected. Wills said famers have sent 1.5 million lambs and other stock on ferries to the South Island to graze or be slaughtered there.

“One of the challenges with a drought is that the impact can go on for a number of years,” he said. “We’ll have a lower lambing percentage next year because there hasn’t been enough feed this year,” he said of the impact on animal fertility. —AP

Business FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

EU leaders walk tightrope between austerity, growth Unemployment soars; Economy remains stuck in the doldrums

BRUSSELS: German Chancellor Angela Merkel (right) arrives for a meeting of the EPP party in Brussels yesterday.

European Union heads of state and government meet for a two-day summit to discuss the current financial crisis. — AP

Cyprus crosses red lines for EU bailout NICOSIA: After nine months of stop-start negotiations, cashstrapped Cyprus is on the verge of securing an EU bailout but analysts say it will come at a hefty price. Euro-zone finance ministers are to meet today after a two-day EU summit in Brussels, to thrash out a bailout plan for Cyprus that will hopefully conclude marathon talks. “The longer this has gone on, the more drastic the proposed measures have become, the craziest idea being a haircut on deposits, which would only ensure that EU taxpayers never get their money back,” analyst Fiona Mullen told AFP. The government has dismissed any suggestion of a haircut on bank deposits to help pay for a rescue package estimated at 17 billion euros. But in order to seal an agreement, the newly elected government has had to cross red lines on the island’s low corporate tax rate and on the sale of profitable state utilities. “It looks like it will have to accept an increase in the corporate tax rate to 12.5 percent, which until now was the lowest in the euro-zone at 10 percent,” said Mullen.

“And of course privatization used to be taboo, but they will not get a bailout without it.” She said Cyprus may also have to accept more “damaging taxes”, such as the financial transaction tax, which will hit the big foreign exchange trading companies.

Cyprus requested financial assistance from the EU in June last year after its two largest banks-Bank of Cyprus and Popular Banksought state aid following massive losses estimated at ?4.5 billion resulting from a Greek debt haircut.

Nicosia has argued that its eagerness to support Greece and show euro-zone solidarity has been its undoing. With the island’s banks being the most exposed to Greek debt, Cyprus simply could not afford to agree a 75 percent write-down of its bond holdings. And because state finances had deteriorated, the government was unable to access international financial markets to assist its own banks and so applied for aid. As part of a rescue package reached last year, Greece obtained a partial reduction in debt owed to private creditors, who included Cypriot banks.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades has pushed for this to be taken into account in talks with international creditors on the island’s own bailout, which has been earmarked for the end of March. “The consequences of the haircut of Greek bonds was not handled on our side in the best possible manner within European institutions,” Anastasiades told To Vima newspaper over the weekend, referring to the administration of his communist predecessor Demetris Christofias.

Cyprus is the fifth financial rescue following those for Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and for Spanish banks, but has proved to be the most difficult to conclude. The Christofias government tried to avoid the harsh terms of an EU bailout by asking Russia and China for bilateral loans. But as the amount required soared, it became clear that the troika-the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund-was the only institution with the resources to help.

The mooted 17-billion euro ($22.2 billion) bailout figure is roughly the same as the island’s total economic output, and would increase debt to more than 140 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), a level considered unmanageable in the long run.

The island’s Simerini newspaper said Cyprus had been told to find seven billion euros of the 17 billion euros it needs because lending the government more than 10 billion would make the debt unserviceable. To help fast-track an agreement, Cyprus has agreed to submit its banks to independent scrutiny to allay suspicions of money-laundering. —AP

BRUSSELS: European Union leaders met yesterday, seeking a balance between austerity and growth amid rising fears of social unrest as unemployment soars and Europe’s economy remains stuck in the doldrums. The stakes are high. A brash anti-austerity party won a stunning 25 percent of the vote in last month’s Italian elections, a warning for austerity hardliners such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel who faces polls later in the year.

Unions have already set up camp across from the summit venue at EU headquarters in Brussels, aiming to make their point amid a heavy police presence with huge banners proclaiming “Austerity Pact, No! Solidarity Pact, Yes!” “We do not need another summit where EU (leaders) ... try to sugar-coat and deny the harsh reality,” said Hannes Swoboda, head of the Social Democrat group in the European Parliament as leaders headed to Brussels for a 1600 GMT start.

“We need action and new tools to get Europeans back into jobs and our economies back on track,” Swoboda said in a statement. “Italy has made a lot of people think,” one EU official said. The problem, he added, was that governments still need to balance public finances after years of overspending, but

austerity and belt-tightening cannot be the only response. “You need to implement these plans carefully and with flexibility, otherwise there is no growth,” the official said. “If there is no growth for 10 years then you can’t pay back your debt ... there is not much room for manoeuvre.”

Analyst Carsten Brzeski of ING Bank warned that the social and political impact from high unemployment “could be the biggest threat to the survival of the euro-zone.” A draft of the summit conclusions obtained by AFP too says that given the currently “unacceptably high levels of unemployment”-expected to run at an unprecedented high of more than 12 percent in the EU all this year-it is critical to support growth “as a matter of priority.”

The key to stabilizing the public finances must be “growth-friendly fiscal consolidation”, it adds. Another EU official said this language offers the possibility that targets can be eased or adjusted, with leaders trying to nail down “what growth-friendly fiscal consolidation really means” in practice. The issue is crucial for France after President Francois Hollande recognized Tuesday he could not cut the public deficit to the EU limit of 3.0 percent of gross domestic product this year, coming in instead at 3.7 per-

cent as a weak economy exacts its toll.

Failing to meet the target leaves France needing another year of grace from Brussels, an extension it seems likely to get. But German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble made the case again Wednesday for sticking to austerity first. “Growth and (budgetary) consolidation are not mutually exclusive but rather they reinforce each other,” Schaeuble said. “The confidence that solid state finances brings is the pre-condition for sustainable growth.”

Highlighting the point and the sharp difference with France, the German government approved a 2014 budget based on the lowest headline deficit for some 40 years.

During their two-day talks, the 27 EU leaders will also discuss financially beleaguered Cyprus, taking the opportunity to meet its newly elected president, but are note expected to make any decisions on a planned debt bailout. That issue will be covered by a separate euro-zone finance ministers meeting late today after the summit closes. The second day of the summit Friday will review relations with the EU’s strategic partners, in this case Russia, where ties have been strained by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s clampdown on the opposition. — AFP

World stocks up BANGKOK: World stock markets shared Wall Street’s ebullience and turned higher yesterday ahead of the release of US jobless claims. Investors will also be looking for the release of the Labor Department’s producer price index to see whether inflation is posing any kind of threat to the US economy. The index measures the cost of goods before they reach consumers. Stable prices give the Federal Reserve room to keep interest rates at record lows without worrying about igniting inflation.

“Inevitably there will be much chatter today about the (Dow Jones) index potentially extending its winning streak to double digits, with much depending on the outcome of jobless claims and PPI data,” said Matt Basi of CMC Markets in an email commentary. The Dow has risen for nine straight trading sessions. Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.4 percent to 6,505.26. Germany’s DAX gained 0.9 percent to 8,039.14. France’s CAC-40 advanced 0.7 percent to 3,860.92. Wall Street appeared set to extend its winning streak, with Dow Jones industrial futures rising 0.2 percent to 14,431 and S&P 500 futures gaining 0.2 percent to 1,553.20.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index rose 1.2 percent to finish at 12,381.19 - its highest close in more than four years - as investors anticipated parliament’s approval of Haruhiko Kuroda as chief of the Bank of Japan. Kuroda has been critical of the central bank’s policies in the past and is thought to back Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s strategies for seeking to revive Japan’s economy by fighting deflation through monetary easing and hefty government spending.

South Korea’s Kospi added 0.1 percent to 2,002.13.

Benchmarks in mainland China and New Zealand were also higher. Elsewhere in Asia, however, stock markets ran into speed bumps. Stocks in Hong Kong were muted as a result of investor disappointment as the annual National People’s Congress in Beijing heads toward its conclusion without having announced policy moves to stimulate the economy. The Hang Seng spent much of the day in the red but ended up 0.3 percent at 22,619.18.

“It is disappointment that the Chinese government did

not launch any ... economic stimulus as expected. The speculators have played up the market ahead of the congress and they are disappointed,” said Francis Lun, managing director of Lyncean Holdings in Hong Kong. Lun said that mortgage rate increases by two major banks also hurt property stocks. Hong Kong-listed Henderson Land Development Co dropped 4 percent. Sino Land Co lost 2.2 percent. In Australia, a report showing the country experienced its strongest job growth in more than a decade in February hurt stock market sentiment since it diminished hopes of an interest rate cut, analysts said.

The S&P/ASX 200 fell 1.2 percent to 5,032.20. But the jobs trend was not likely to continue because the mining boom that has been fueling growth is sputtering, analysts said. “It is unlikely that we will see a sustained improvement in jobs numbers despite the decent pace of growth,” analysts at Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong said in a market commentary. BHP Billiton, the world’s largest mining company, fell 2.3 percent in Sydney. Rival mining giant Rio Tinto fell 2.3 percent.

On Wednesday, a US government report showed retail sales grew 1.1 percent in January from the previous month, almost twice as much as forecast. The rise showed consumer spending, which makes up about three quarters of economic activity in the US, was not inhibited by recent tax increases. The Dow Jones industrial average notched its ninth gain in a row Wednesday, giving the index its longest winning streak in more than 16 years.

Demand for stocks has been propelled this year by optimism that the housing market is recovering and that companies have started to hire. Strong company earnings and ongoing stimulus from the Federal Reserve are also helping make stocks more attractive. In currencies, the euro fell to $1.2947 from $1.2961 late Wednesday in New York. The dollar rose to 96.42 yen from 96.04 yen.

Benchmark crude for April delivery was up 26 cents to $92.79 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 2 cents to close at $92.52 on the Nymex on Wednesday. — AP

THEY ARE THE 99!

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

THE FASCINATING STORY OF THE 99 Mumita the Destroyer, Samda the Invulnerable and Baqi the Everlasting are at a demolition site in Alexandria, at the request of Baqi’s father, who thinks someone is trapped in the debris.

The 99 ® and all related characters ® and © 2013, Teshkeel Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

www.the99.org

Opinion FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Obama tries new tack with Israel

By Matt Spetalnick and Jeffrey Heller

A

fter nearly four years of often testy relations with Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Barack Obama is about to try a different tack going over the head of Israel’s prime minister and appealing directly to the Israeli people. Obama’s first presidential visit to Israel next week, while certainly including meetings with Netanyahu, will focus heavily on resetting his relationship with the country’s wary public as he seeks to reassure them he is committed to their security and has their interests at heart.

All signs are that Obama hopes the strategy will give him more leverage with the right-wing Netanyahu - politically weakened by January’s election in which centrists made surprising gains to pursue a peaceful resolution with Iran and eventually address the IsraeliPalestinian stalemate. But it will be no easy task. Obama faces the challenge of overcoming Israeli suspicions that have lingered since his early days in office when he pressed Netanyahu for a freeze on settlement expansion and launched a short-lived outreach to Tehran, Israel’s arch-foe.

On top of that, Obama - known for his cool, detached public persona - rarely comes across with the kind of “I feel your pain” diplomacy that Bill Clinton used to charm Israelis and Palestinians alike during his presidency. Even so, some Middle East experts say Obama may be able to take advantage of an opening to build public confidence in Israel, the first foreign destination of his second term. His visit comes at a time when US and Israeli strategic concerns seem more closely aligned than they have been in years, with the West’s nuclear standoff with Iran at a critical stage and Syria’s civil war seen as a threat to regional stability.

“There’s no substitute for actually being there,” said Dennis Ross, Obama’s former Middle East adviser. “It’s an opportunity for him to connect with the Israeli psyche.” But there is also the risk of a disconnect. Many Israelis will be looking to Obama for firmer reassurance of his resolve to do what is deemed necessary, including the use of military force, to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. Iran denies such ambitions.

The US president does not appear likely, however, to go much further, despite Netanyahu’s repeated calls for a stricter US “red line.” Obama, who has insisted he is not bluffing about military action against Iran if all else fails, told American Jewish leaders privately last week he saw little value in extra “chestbeating” just to sound tough, participants said.

The White House believes Israelis

have yet to reach a consensus on how to confront Iran, essentially putting on hold, at least for now, Netanyahu’s threats of an attack on Tehran’s nuclear sites, according to a source familiar with the administration’s thinking. Obama will stress with Netanyahu the need for patience with sanctions and diplomacy, the source said. But US officials also hope a high-profile recommitment to Israel’s security can increase public pres-

have a dark history. I’m not trivializing your fears.’ This hasn’t been adequately communicated by this administration,” Miller said.

CHOREOGRAPHED VISIT Obama’s decision to skip Israel in 2009 when he went to Cairo, where he offered a “new beginning” with the Muslim world, remains a sore point with many Israelis and they wonder what

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama pauses as he speaks during the Organizing for Action dinner at the St Regis Hotel in Washington, DC. — AFP

sure on Netanyahu to avoid aggravating the situation while world powers negotiate with Tehran.

Iran has become the main source of friction in the relationship between Obama and Netanyahu, which Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator, called the “most dysfunctional” he has ever seen between an American president and Israeli prime minister. He believes a thaw is still possible, especially if Obama hits the right notes in Israel.

“He needs to say to them, ‘I understand this is a tough neighborhood and you

took him so long to visit. Obama’s Republican predecessor, George W Bush, also waited until his second term to go there. “He (Obama) has to speak to the emotions of people because there has been a loss of faith in our relations with the United States,” said Itay Bar, a student at Ben-Gurion University, where tickets for a Jerusalem speech by Obama were distributed. Bar was speaking on Israel’s Army Radio. Obama’s visit is being choreographed to present him as a good friend of Israel. The White House has yet to officially announce the dates

officially, but Israeli media say he will arrive next Wednesday.

Photo opportunities are expected at sites evoking the country’s biblical past, its founding Zionist movement and the Holocaust. Obama could also inspect an Iron Dome missile battery, a US-funded system that protected Israel from Hamas rockets during a brief Gaza war in November, Israeli media reports. But the centerpiece will be Obama’s televised speech to university students, reportedly set for Jerusalem’s convention center, which an aide said would be the president’s chance to “have a conversation with the Israeli people.”

To be sure, Obama has no intention of trying to cut Netanyahu out of the picture. With both leaders starting new terms, they may have come to the realization they are stuck with each other and this is a chance for a new chapter.

Obama’s decision to hold off on any new Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative will prevent the thorny issue from dominating the agenda at a time when negotiating prospects are dim and Israelis are more focused on what many see as a looming existential threat from Iran.

Some Israelis are still likely to bristle if Obama publicly challenges them to take “hard steps” for peace, as he told the American Jewish leaders he would.

READY TO TURN THE PAGE? Netanyahu, who has been deep in political talks on assembling a governing coalition, is on the same page with Obama about making a successful show of the president’s trip, which will also include a brief visit to the occupied West Bank to meet Palestinian leaders and a final stop in Jordan. Obama is looking to counter Republican opponents who accused him during the 2012 campaign of “throwing Israel under the bus.”

Netanyahu wants to show Israelis, who like their leaders to be assertive with Washington but not on bad terms with it, that he can still do business with Israel’s superpower ally.

Netanyahu made no secret of his preference for Republican challenger Mitt Romney before last year’s US election, and some Israelis wonder whether Obama may want to settle scores. But Netanyahu was not alone. A poll in October found Israelis preferred Romney by 57 percent to 22 percent.

Nonetheless, many Israelis regard Obama as a solid ally, especially after Washington backed them in the Hamas conflict and staunchly opposed recent Palestinian statehood bids at the United Nations. Some Israeli lawmakers had called on Obama to address the country’s parliament. But the Knesset is renowned for eruptions of heckling and shouting. The White House opted to steer clear. — Reuters

FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013 www.kuwaittimes.net

Neutrogena brand ambassador and actress Jennifer Garner attends the 2013 Neutrogena Sun Summit at the Chelsea Arts Tower on Wednesday March 13, 2013 in New York. — AP

Food FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

2

013 is the year of the snake, according to the Chinese lunar calendar. But in food circles, it just might be the year of the roast chicken or Asian noodles. Molecular gastronomy, fancy cupcakes, Korean tacos? So, so 2012. The new year is always the time when prognosticators of all stripes decide what’s in, what’s out and, most intriguing of all, what’s next. Will we eat more Asian-influenced sandwiches and less Asian fusion? More Latin American flair, with a focus on Peru and Brazil? What influence will the economy, the growing number of farmers markets and our time-crunched lives have on what we eat?

“We are always looking for new versions of things that we already know,” says Harry Balzer, who has been watching what America eats for more than 30 years as a senior analyst with NPD market researchers. “We’re explorers, but we’re not Christopher Columbus. “Where are the things that could have the greatest impact? They’re in the things that we eat the most often,” he says: sandwiches, vegetables and fruit.

Here’s our forecast based on the buzz among prognosticators we talked with: Heirloom chicken: Like heirloom turkeys, now may be chicken’s turn to get attention. “We’ll begin calling chicken by their varieties and, maybe, begin noticing the difference in flavors,” says Clark Wolf, a restaurant consultant and trend spotter. In fact, Bret Thorn, senior food editor at Nation’s Restaurant News, said it’s here, pointing to an emerging class of high-quality fast-casual restaurants like Bantam & Biddy in Atlanta that celebrate heritage chicken.

Good, and good for you: “Vegetables will continue to move to the center of the plate, catering to vegetarians, vegans, flexitarians, foodies and nutrition-conscious carnivores alike,” says David Sprinkle, research director of consumer market

researcher Packaged Facts. Kale sits atop the greens heap now (you ate lots of crispy chips last year, didn’t you?) and may be joined by Brussels sprouts and more. “It’s not always easy to convince a consumer, especially a mainstream consumer, that a vegetable dish is going to have flavor and interest and innovation,” says Mary Chapman of Technomic, a food service research and consulting firm. “But then you look at a menu

Food FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

like the Cheesecake Factory that has kale on one of their salads (and patrons think), ‘Maybe I would be willing to try it there, and then I know what to do with it.’”

Baobab, a coconut-size fruit loaded with vitamin C, fiber and calcium, could be the next superfruit, predicts Josh Schonwald, author of “The Taste of Tomorrow.” Regional cooking: The continuing emphasis on local and seasonal foods will, Wolf predicts, lead toward a local, seasonal and more distinctive regional style of cooking.

Techno-shoppers: Texting while shopping? Why not.

According to The Food Marketing Institute, 52 percent of consumers use technology in their grocery shopping, 32 percent are using online coupons, while a nearly equal amount (31 percent) use mobile technology when grocery shopping to make shopping lists, find recipes or research products.

Greek yogurt, part II: Look for Greek yogurt dressings, dips, sauces, smoothies, soda and even cheesecakes with Mediterranean ingredient garnishes. “Keep an eye out for metoo promotion of other regional/national yogurt styles (such as New Zealand yogurt),” Sprinkle says. Noodling: Look for udon, soba, cellophane and rice noodles to show up in hearty

layered bowls, fragrant soups and even mixed-texture salads, not only in a burgeoning number of big-city noodle shops but in seafood and varied-menu restaurants as well, Technomic researchers say.

Tummy time: “This is going to continue being a trend for how we define health, moving from avoidance of harmful substances to adding beneficials to, now, digestive health.

The question is, will it be gluten or will it be probiotics?” says Balzer. Molecular gastronomy: “In many ways the No. 1 trend is the rather public demise of molecular poo-poo,” Wolf says.

“Enough. Fine. Time’s up.”

High-end Bordeaux: “I hate to say it, but Bordeaux is out right now. Pricing has gotten extremely high,” says Evan

Goldstein, a master sommelier, wine writer and president of Full Circle Wine Solutions in San Carlos, Calif. Fast-food favorites: Mini-burgers, Korean tacos, fancy cupcakes: Foodies may call them “passe, but there are plenty of people who are still loving them,” Chapman says.

Packing the pantry: When the economic downturn hit, did you really need five boxes of pasta, and 10 cans of tuna? “The biggest collector of food in this country is the American home,” says Balzer, who watched as we readjusted pantry inventory levels in 2012. “People still ate, but their volumes were not being seen in supermarket sales because people were using (items on hand). Perhaps we will restock our inventories as the economy picks up.” Liquid sugar: “Consumption (of sugary sodas and fruit juice) will continue a downward trend, though fresh squeezed/pressed juices with help make a fresh case for fruit juice,” Sprinkle says. — MCT

Tr a v e l FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Las Vegas, Nevada, shown in this 2004 photograph, attracts millions of visitors every year to casinos and entertainment venues. — MCT photos

The city some people just love to hate T

hey’re tourists, bloggers, travel writers and newspaper pundits - an opinionated crowd with one thing in common: They’re Vegas haters. And, oh, do they have their reasons, their ammunition. They abhor what they see as the mindless Mardi Gras of the Strip and arrogant handin-your-pocket connivances of the casino bosses. They criticize such Las Vegas entertainment mainstays as the comedian Carrot Top and the sickening largesse of those all-youcan-eat buffets, not to mention the scruffy characters who shove tacky girlie-show cards into the hands of passing tourists.

And why, they ask, are so many slot machine players

perched in wheelchairs, wearing oxygen masks, puffing on cigarettes? Has the place no decency? “I have to go there to see my family at Christmas - I feel so dirty,” one letter writer responded to a blog post about people who despise this town. Author James Ellroy, who feels at home in even the darkest milieu, highlighted the city’s disgusting nature, which he called “a testimonial to skeeviness.”

A guest opinion-page writer from North Carolina pointed out that, by comparison, Las Vegas lends even Orlando, Fla, an old-world charm. “I can’t even stand its name,” wrote Tom Nelson, a media professor at Elon University.

“Going to a show in Vegas? Where’re you staying in Vegas?

It’s Vegas this and Vegas that. Las is lost. It is a city curtly summoned like a dog. Vegas.”

This city, by its nature, is thick-skinned. Think some vampy runway model flaunting some scandalous outfit; she couldn’t care less what people think. But sometimes the insults cut too deep, even for this place. That’s when Vegas fights back. “You know what people should do who come here and bad-mouth our city?” asked former Mayor Oscar Goodman, 73, who also was mob lawyer here. “They should try our lake. It’s nothing that a good pair of cement shoes couldn’t cure.”

As mayor from 1999 to 2011 and now as a chairman for the city Convention and Visitors Authority, Goodman has avidly defended the city. He’s among an informal cadre of reputation gatekeepers who speak up when their city takes

Tr a v e l FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

it on the chin. “We get these published lists, ranking cities for their fat people and social ills, such as homelessness, and often our response is, ‘Oh look, we’re at or near the top. Again,’ “ said Las Vegas city spokesman Jace Radke.

He’s fired off dozens of responses.

Last month, The Wall Street Journal published a list that ranked Las Vegas as No. 10 of the nation’s 20 worst-run cities. Radke’s office argued that the newspaper had used outdated numbers, adding that “Forbes Magazine recently named Las Vegas as one of America’s new tech ‘hot spots,’ placing our city No. 6 on the list of cities for tech growth.

Also, ‘CNN Money’ named Las Vegas as one of America’s best places to retire.”

Insult Vegas, and Goodman will come barking like a junkyard dog. He’s telephoned locals who write snotty letters to give them a piece of his mind. And he’s taken on the NFL, which a few years ago refused to accept a Las Vegas promotional ad for a Super Bowl halftime show. “I went on every station on the planet to complain,” he said. “They played our ad and gave us $20 million of free publicity, and the NFL got nothing. That’ll teach them to mess with Las Vegas.”

Goodman has even taken on President Barack Obama. A few years back, he wrote the White House a letter after the president’s perceived slight about Vegas during a speech about fiscal responsibility. “I demanded an apology,” Goodman said. “And then I backed off. No mayor should ask a president for an apology.”

During last fall’s White House race, Goodman’s hackles were again raised when Obama suggested that, in tough

economic times, rolling the dice on the Strip wasn’t the wisest move. Goodman went public with his counterattack.

Before an Obama visit, he told reporters: “I want to assure you that when he comes, I will do everything I can to give him the boot back to Washington and to visit his failures back there.”

In a piece published last month, Las Vegas Weekly magazine featured insults from some of the most vociferous Vegas haters. One of the juiciest called the city “a nonstop spectacle of fat... Midwesterners, Arab sheikhs, the elderly, gangsta thugs, greasy Lotharios with unbuttoned shirts and scantily clad club ladies all commingling inside a giant pinball machine.”

Weekly writer Erin Ryan takes such insults in stride.

“People are endlessly creative in their hating on things,” she said. “The Internet has made this easy to do. People feed on each other. It gets really ugly and really funny.”

Oregon blogger Matt Haughley wrote that a video he posted on the inside tricks of the casino industry “perfectly communicates everything I hate about Las Vegas and why I think it’s one of the worst places on Earth, designed to bankrupt people, enable addicts and generally just be a horrible place for humans to be.”

That was last year. His opinion hasn’t changed. “It’s still got lot of bad stuff going for it,” said Haughley, 40, whose tech job forces repeat visits here. “Either you love it or you hate it. For me, it could be the most-hated city in America.”

Not everyone agrees. Vegas attracted 39.7 million visitors last year.

You won’t get any arguments from Fabiola Santiago. In

2011, the Miami Herald columnist argued that Miami should not promote widespread gambling. Her lead sentence: “I hate Las Vegas.” So was this some journalistic device to get her reader’s attention? “No, I really do hate Las Vegas. I never want to go there again,” she said. “There is no redeeming value to the place. After two days, I was bored out of my mind.”

Years after he ranted about the name “Vegas,” Nelson, the Elon professor, has softened. “Now I realize the city is a metaphor for the entire country and its fetish of self,” he said. “All those people on Twitter and Facebook and those horrible TV reality shows.” Alas, when it’s your job to promote Las Vegas, sometimes you just can’t win. Cara Roberts, spokeswoman for the Chamber of Commerce, once got a letter from a tourist who had come to celebrate the anniversary of Elvis Presley’s birthday, only to be miffed that the city hadn’t thrown much of a party. “He was disappointed this wasn’t a citywide holiday,” she said. “In the end - and this has become my all-time favorite Vegas complaint letter - he said that the city needed to embrace its Elvisness.” —MCT

Health FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Face the acne facts A

cne is a skin condition that occurs when your hair follicles become plugged with oil and dead skin cells. Acne most commonly appears on your face, neck, chest, back and shoulders. Acne can be distressing and annoyingly persistent. Acne lesions heal slowly, and when one begins to resolve, others seem to crop up.

Depending on its severity, acne can cause emotional distress and lead to scarring of the skin. The good news is that effective treatments are available - and the earlier treatment is started, the lower your risk of lasting physical and emotional damage. Acne typically appears on your face, neck, chest, back and shoulders, which are the areas of your skin with the largest number of functional oil glands. Acne can take the following forms:

counter (OTC) lotions are generally mild and contain benzoyl peroxide, sulfur, resorcinol, salicylic acid or sulfur as their active ingredient.

These products can be helpful for very mild acne. OTC acne medications may cause initial side effects - such as skin irritation, dryness and flaking - that often improve after the first month of therapy.

Topical treatments available by prescription: If your acne doesn’t respond to OTC treatments, consider seeing a doctor or dermatologist to get

zoyl peroxide and erythromycin (Benzamycin).

Dapsone gel (Aczone) is a newer acne treatment that’s particularly effective in treating inflammatory acne. Prescription topical treatments for acne may cause skin side effects, such as stinging, burning, redness or peeling. Your doctor may recommend steps to minimize these side effects, including using a gradually increased dose, washing off the medication after a short application or switching to another medication.

Noninflammatory lesions Comedones (whiteheads and blackheads) are created when the openings of hair follicles become clogged and blocked with oil secretions, dead skin cells and sometimes bacteria.

When comedones (koe-muh-DOE-neez) are open at the skin surface, they’re called blackheads because of the dark appearance of the plugs in the hair follicles. When comedones are closed, they’re called whiteheads - slightly raised, skin-colored bumps.

Inflammatory lesions Papules are small raised bumps that signal inflammation or infection in the hair follicles.

Papules may be red and tender.

Pustules (pimples) are red, tender bumps with white pus at their tips.

Nodules are large, solid, painful lumps beneath the surface of the skin. They’re formed by the buildup of secretions deep within hair follicles.

Cysts are painful, pus-filled lumps beneath the surface of the skin. These boil-like infections can cause scars.

When to see a doctor Acne usually isn’t a serious medical condition. But you may want to seek medical treatment from a dermatologist for persistent pimples or inflamed cysts to avoid scarring or other damage to your skin. If acne and the scars it may have left are affecting your social relationships or self-esteem, you may also want to ask a dermatologist if your acne can be controlled or if your scars can be diminished.

If you have acne that’s not responding to home and over-the-counter treatments, make an appointment with your doctor. Early, effective treatment of acne reduces the risk of scarring and of lasting damage to your self-esteem.

After an initial examination, your doctor may refer you to a specialist in the diagnosis and treatment of skin conditions (dermatologist).

Acne treatments work by reducing oil production, speeding up skin cell turnover, fighting bacterial infection, reducing the inflammation or doing all four. With most prescription acne treatments, you may not see results for four to eight weeks, and your skin may get worse before it gets better.

Your doctor or dermatologist may recommend a prescription medication you apply to your skin (topical medication) or take by mouth (oral medication). Oral prescription medications for acne should not be used during pregnancy, especially during the first trimester.

Types of acne treatments include: Over-the-counter topical treatments: Acne lotions may dry up the oil, kill bacteria and promote sloughing of dead skin cells. Over-the-

the risk of developing antibiotic resistance.

Antibiotics may cause side effects, such as an upset stomach, dizziness or skin discoloration.

These drugs also increase your skin’s sun sensitivity and may reduce the effectiveness of oral contraceptives.

Isotretinoin: For deep cysts, antibiotics may not be enough. Isotretinoin (Amnesteem, Claravis, Sotret) is a powerful medication available for scarring cystic acne or acne that doesn’t respond to other treatments. This medicine is reserved for the most severe forms of acne. It’s very effective, but people who take it need close monitoring by a dermatologist because of the possibility of severe side effects. Isotretinoin is associated with severe birth defects, so it can’t be safely taken by pregnant women or women who may become pregnant during the course of treatment or within several weeks of concluding treatment. In fact, the drug carries such serious potential side effects that women of reproductive age must participate in a Food and Drug Administration-approved monitoring program to receive a prescription for the drug.

Isotretinoin commonly causes side effects such as dry eyes, mouth, lips, nose and skin, as well as itching, nosebleeds, muscle aches, sun sensitivity and poor night vision. The drug may also increase the levels of triglycerides and cholesterol in the blood and may increase liver enzyme levels. In addition, isotretinoin may be associated with an increased risk of depression and suicide. Although this causal relationship has not been proved, doctors remain on alert for these signs in people who are taking isotretinoin. If you feel unusually sad or unable to cope while taking this drug, tell your doctor immediately.

Laser and light therapy: Laser- and lightbased therapies reach the deeper layers of skin without harming the skin’s surface. Laser treatment is thought to damage the oil (sebaceous) glands, causing them to produce less oil. Light therapy targets the bacteria that cause acne inflammation. These therapies can also improve skin texture and lessen the appearance of scars.

More research is needed to understand the most effective use of light and laser therapies in acne treatment, and experts currently recommend these approaches as stand-alone therapy only in people who can’t tolerate approved acne medications. These therapies may be uncomfortable and may cause temporary skin problems that mimic a severe sunburn.

Cosmetic procedures: Chemical peels and microdermabrasion may be helpful in controlling acne. These cosmetic procedures - which have traditionally been used to lessen the appearance of fine lines, sun damage and minor facial scars - are most effective when used in combination with other acne treatments. They may cause temporary, severe redness, scaling and blistering, and long-term discoloration of the skin.

a stronger prescription lotion. Tretinoin (Avita, Retin-A, others), adapalene (Differin) and tazarotene (Tazorac, Avage) are examples of topical prescription products derived from vitamin A. They work by promoting cell turnover and preventing plugging of the hair follicles. A number of topical antibiotics also are available.

They work by killing excess skin bacteria.

Often, a combination of such products is required to achieve optimal results. A number of benzoyl peroxide and antibiotic combination medications are available, including different dose combinations of benzoyl peroxide and clindamycin (Benzaclin, Duac, Acanya) and ben-

Antibiotics: For moderate to severe acne, you may need a short course of prescription oral antibiotics to reduce bacteria and fight inflammation. Since oral antibiotics were first used to treat acne, antibiotic resistance has increased significantly in people with acne. For this reason, your doctor likely will recommend tapering off these medications as soon as your symptoms begin to improve, or as soon as it becomes clear the drugs aren’t helping - usually, within three to four months. In most cases, you’ll use topical medications and oral antibiotics together.

Studies have found that using topical benzoyl peroxide along with oral antibiotics may reduce

www.mayoclinic.com

Lifestyle FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

A visitor looks at a painting entitled ‘The Three Witches’ by Swiss artist Henry Fuseli (Johann Heinrich ) displayed at the Art and Antiques Fair TEFAF in Maastricht, Netherlands, yesterday.

The event runs from today to March 24, 2013.—AFP

S

noop Lion won’t fire back at critics who say his backing of the Rastafari movement is simply another gimmick from one of hiphop’s savviest self-marketers. But Snoop Dogg will. Reggae pioneer Bunny Wailer is the most notable skeptic. Wailer bestowed the Lion name on Snoop, but has since repeatedly questioned the 41-year-old rapper’s intentions and commitment to Rasta ideology.

Asked by The Associated Press to respond, Snoop’s face registered a flash of malice followed by a devilish smile: “If I was Snoop Dogg: ‘(Expletive) Bunny Wailer.’ But I’m Snoop Lion right now, so I’m chilling,” he said. He is using the name to release a reggae- and dancehallfocused album, “Reincarnated.” Produced by Major Lazer - which includes DJ-producer Diplo it features guests ranging from Chris Brown and Drake to Jamaica’s Mr Vegas and Mavado.

While promoting an accompanying documentary that tracks his trip to Jamaica and exploration of Rasta culture, Snoop makes it clear that his Lion persona is less a drastic transformation than part of ongoing personal growth. With his film in limited release this week and his album due out April 23, the performer talked to the AP about his identity issues, his effort to stay positive and religion.

AP: What does Snoop Lion mean to you? In the movie we see Bunny Wailer give you the name because he said he didn’t want to call you a dog. That was his take on it.

Snoop: I don’t know what that take was because I’m going to always be Snoop Dogg. I can’t throw that person away and get rid of him.

To me, the Lion is the growth of Snoop Dogg me growing into the next phase of my musical career, the next phase of my life. But at the same time, I can never get rid of who I am. I’m an East

Side Long Beach Rollin 20s Crip, first and foremost. ... I’m Snoop Doggy Dogg, then I’m Snoop Dogg, then I’m Snoop Lion. But it’s all the same.

AP: In interviews since the film was made, Bunny has been skeptical of you. What’s your take on his criticism?

Snoop: I’ve done nothing but what I said I was going to do: Go to Jamaica, make a great record, intertwine with some people, build on some relationships and come back and bring something back to the community. ... As far as what people feel about how I’m representing or misrepresenting, that’s for no man to judge. I’m here to do what I’m doing. This is my journey.

And for those who don’t like it, I still got love for them.

AP: What has been religion’s place in your life up until now - and how does Rastafari fit in?

Snoop Dogg: As a kid, I was pushed into the Baptist church, taught that way. As an adult, I was able to seek out information on my own to find out that the Muslim religion, Rastafari, Baptist, Christian - that they all the same. They all God-fearing people and love is love. ... It’s more based on life and a way of life and liberty as opposed to religion. Because religion is so false, because it’s so past tense and written by

someone who is not here. I feel like religion should be based on the way you live and the way you treat yourself and treat others.

AP: How does Rastafarianism fit in there for you? Do you feel like you converted?

Snoop: I feel like I’m a part of it. I feel like I’m a part of anything that’s positive, that’s loving.

And Rastafari is so connected to who I am that I feel like I’m a part of it. Because it is me. It is what I am. And through the spirit of it you want to learn more about it. ... I’m just learning. So it’s all brand new to me.

AP: What were you trying to accomplish with this album? Your daughter appears on one song and there is very little cursing.

Snoop: It’s a goal to have songs that represent who I am today. A lot of the songs I got represent who I was, not who I am. It is my music. I love it. It’s my baby. So I’m not going to ever denounce it. It’s just that it’d be nice to have a song about peace and love and happiness and about what’s going on in the world and about addressing some real issues, when that’s what’s important right now. As opposed to just partying all the time and having a good time. That’s not what I’m on.

AP: Will you only make reggae music now?

Snoop: To me it’s not about record sales, so I believe I’m going to do it whenever I want to. So I’m not doing this to create financial gain or money. So it’s fun. So anytime it’s fun, it’s to be done over and over again. Just like with rapping.

Rapping had got not-fun to me because 20 years of doing it and being on top. — AP

In this Tuesday, March 5, 2013 photo, Snoop Lion poses for a portrait at the Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles. — AP

Lifestyle FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

M

File photo shows Jim James performing at the Newport Folk Festival in Newport, R.I. James thinks music is a spiritual force that can unite humanity. — AP

B

y Morning Jacket frontman Jim James thinks music is a spiritual force that can unite humanity. He’s taking that message - and his new solo album “Regions of Light and Sound of God” - to the South By Southwest Music Festival this week. “I feel like society likes to highlight our differences so much, to make us feel so isolated and so separated and so different,” James said. “Music does that a lot, too. The walls are put up so big. What could a country music fan possibly have in common with a hip-hop fan? I feel if you take everything down to the core, it’s the same in a beautiful way. It’s all the same.”

There’s no better example of that sort of spiritual communalism than SXSW where musicians and artists of all stripes gather to find some kind of connection. James, the singer-songwriter who normally heads up the rock ‘n’ roll band My Morning Jacket, launched a five-set examination of higher powers early Wednesday morning in Austin, Texas, and will wrap things up Friday when he appears at the free outdoor show at Auditorium Shores, one of the week’s highlights. And in April he’ll start an extensive tour to support “Regions of Light,” which came out last month.

y merely striding onto a stage, Liza Minnelli transformed a Manhattan concert hall into a cabaret on Wednesday, as the legendary entertainer teamed up with Broadway veteran Alan Cumming for the first night of a two-night gig reprising a show the pair put on last summer at a Fire Island nightclub. “Liza coming to Fire Island can you imagine? It was like a papal visit,” Cumming said, recalling the friends’ two shows that spawned the sold out shows at Town Hall on Wednesday and Thursday. “I think this is probably the first time that a show has transferred from Cherry Grove, Fire Island to Broadway,” Cumming said, referring to the almost exclusively gay beach town where the friends appeared during a July heat wave, cooling down between sets in a walk-in refrigerator.

The concert served as a “Cabaret” reunion of sorts, as Minnelli, still closely associated with her Oscar-winning performance as Sally Bowles in the 1972 film of the iconic

James often thinks about the connections between people and the world around us both on the physical plane and beyond it. His spiritual explorations have driven some of My Morning Jacket’s best music, but he takes it to a different level on his first solo album. The 34year-old began the album as several threads came together in his life. First, he built a quality professional studio in his hometown of Louisville, Ky. And inspired by a gift from a friend, he’d started writing music to accompany the 1929 wordless graphic novel “God’s Man,” told through a series of wood engravings by American artist Lynd Ward.

A short time later he fell off the stage during a dark moment at a 2008 performance and his life took a strange turn during his recovery.

“It was horrible,” James said. “It was the worst thing that ever happened to me. It was a nightmare and it definitely sent me to a really bad place. It kind of paralleled this book, ‘God’s Man,’ I was reading. I felt like I was part of the book or sucked into the book or something for a while. Also, good happened because I was brought out of that and came out of that and sort of good stuff happened.

And that sort of happened in the book, too. It

was definitely a major event for me. It definitely shaped the album.”

James played most of the instruments on “Regions of Light” and broadens his already wide ranging sound. He was trying to get the sounds that resonate in his head as he ponders deep questions on tape so the listener could join in. “People have said many times ‘God is love,’ and I feel like an extension of that is love to mean spiritual love, physical love, mental love, the act of creation,” James said. “I think anybody who loves what they do loves that point in time when you get lost and you’re gone and you’re not there anymore.

You’re working so hard on something you’re writing. Or if you’re a basketball player you’re playing the game or if you’re a musician you’re playing a concert and you’re kind of lost in space and time and you’re not thinking about all the mundane (expletive) that we think about. To me that’s like the closest glimpse at God.” — AP

musical, and Cumming, who won a Tony award as the emcee in the acclaimed Broadway revival more than two decades later, sang duets including the title song, “Cabaret.” But the pair toyed with sexual identity, as Minnelli, who has a huge gay following, and Cumming, who is married to his male partner, switched their “Cabaret” roles - she sang “Willkommen,” usually sung by the emcee, while he sang “Mein Herr,” one of Sally’s big numbers.

Minnelli’s husky intonations contrasted dramatically with Cumming’s reedy tenor for their duets, which were augmented by little waltzes and plenty of banter and embracing. “We’re just crazy about each other,” Minnelli told Reuters after the show. “It felt very intimate, like being with a bunch of friends.”—Reuters Black Keys

Liza Minnelli and Alan Cumming

A

Nashville lawyer who opposes legislation that would crack down on ticket scalping in Tennessee alleges that a manager of The Black Keys tried to persuade him to change his position in exchange for tickets to a performance by the band. Attorney John Ray Clemmons said in a letter to a Senate committee chairman that he was disturbed by repeated efforts by Fielding Logan, who also manages country star Eric Church, to give him tickets.

WTVF-TV reports Logan in a written response to Johnson acknowledged he offered the tickets but said he only meant to demonstrate how easily paperless tickets can be transferred. Clemmons’ letter was forwarded to the Nashville prosecutor’s office. A spokeswoman there said it hadn’t yet been received. Logan didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment Wednesday. — AP

Lifestyle FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

“V

This 2007 publicity photo supplied by the CW shows Kristen Bell, who plays the title role in ‘Veronica Mars’ on The CW Network. — AP

H

armony Korine seems to want it both ways, all day, with “Spring Breakers,” his super- stylized descent into a sunbaked hell where bikini-clad, gun-toting college babes serve as our guides. As writer and director, Korine wants us to be appalled and aroused, hypnotized and titillated. He wants to satirize the debauchery of girls gone wild while simultaneously reveling in it. And damned if he doesn’t pull it off. This is the rare movie that I actually found myself liking more the longer I spent away from it and the more I thought about it - mainly because I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

In the moment, I found it numbingly repetitive, even boring at times: an obvious juxtaposition of sex and violence, of dreamlike aesthetics within a nightmare scenario. And it is all of those things. But it stuck with me, and it made me appreciate the genius of Korine’s approach.

There is a great deal of genuine artistry in this film, which is the most polished and mainstream to date from the maker of indies like “Trash Humpers.” The exquisite images, which range from intimately gritty to eerily glowing, come from Belgian cinematographer Benoit Debie, and Cliff Martinez (“Drive”) complements them with a mesmerizing score. But “Spring Breakers” is also provocative in various ways -totally

This film image released by A24 Films shows James Franco in a scene from ‘Spring Breakers.’ — AP

eronica Mars” fans just bought themselves a big-screen version of the cult favorite TV series. A crowd-sourcing campaign on the Kickstarter website to raise $2 million for the project hit its goal in less than a day. “Veronica Mars,” which starred Kristen Bell as a young sleuth, ended its three-season run in 2007. With Bell’s help, series creator Rob Thomas started the effort Wednesday to make a big-screen version. More than 33,000 contributors had pledged $2.1 million as of Wednesday evening, and the total was still growing. In his online pitch, Thomas promised, “The more money we raise, the cooler movie we can make.”

The movie is the fastest project yet to reach $1 million on Kickstarter, hitting the mark in 4 hours, 24 minutes. It’s also the most-funded film or video project to date, according to a spokesman for the site. Previous top movie fundraisers are the planned “The Goon” ($442,000) and “Charlie Kaufman’s Anomalisa” ($406,000), both animated. Thomas said “Veronica Mars” owner Warner Bros. has given the project its blessing, and Bell and other cast members are ready to begin production this summer for a 2014 release. A studio spokesman said a limited release, meaning it may not be on thousands of screens or in every city, is likely at this point.

The fundraising campaign, which was confirmed by Thomas’ representative at United Talent Agency, ends April 12. “You have

unsurprising from the guy who wrote Larry Clark’s “Kids” at age 19- depending on the viewer. In super slo-mo, as beersoaked party girls cavort on the beach to the thump of electronic dance music, is that how it actually feels in the middle of it? Or is that the frightening extreme adults imagine when they dare to ponder what their kids are up to each March?

The corruption of formerly squeakyclean Disney Channel superstars Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens may be Korine’s cleverest trick of all: They get to show some range, we get to gawk. But James Franco steals the whole movie away when he arrives about halfway through as a cornrowed, wanna-be gangster rapper named Alien (pronounced aLEEN). It’s a showy, wonderfully weird performance, but Franco also finds the vulnerability beneath the bravado. And in playing a complicated, flawed ringleader, he’s much more effective here than he was in “Oz the Great and Powerful.” The young women of “Spring Breakers” have their own treacherous road to follow. The four longtime friends (Gomez, Hudgens, Ashley Benson of “Pretty Little Liars” and Rachel Korine, the director’s wife) long to escape the drudgery of their dreary college life. Spring break in Florida beckons, and after a quick-and-dirty, coked-up diner robbery - which three of the girls pull off without the help of Gomez’s character, the churchgoing Faith - they’re headed South. Clearly these women already were headed for trouble long before they got in the car; they’re essentially wild animals in hot pink nail polish. They just needed a little shove, which the promise of non-stop partying provides. When they get busted for narcotics possession and the flashy Alien shows up to bail them out - their fates are sealed. —AP

banded together like the sassy little honey badgers you are and made this possibility happen,” Bell said in an online message, promising the “sleuthiest, snarkiest” movie possible. Bell is back on TV in “House of Lies,” the Showtime series starring Don Cheadle. She and several “Veronica Mars” cast members appear in a lighthearted video on Kickstarter in which they mull the prospect of reuniting.

The series averaged between 2.2 million and 2.5 million viewers in its two-year run on the now-defunct UPN and final season on the CW network. Those modest numbers are overshadowed by the intense fan devotion that has kept dreams of a movie alive. Backers are eligible for various goodies, ranging from a PDF copy of the script to be sent on the day the film is released (for a $10 pledge) to naming rights to a character (for $8,000). An appearance in the movie, available to one $10,000 contributor, was snapped up.

Crowd sourcing has given filmmakers a new way to get always-elusive funding. At last month’s Academy Awards, the short documentary “Inocente” became the first Kickstarter-funded film to win an Oscar. It received $52,000 from 300 contributors. — AP

This film image released by Disney Enterprises shows James Franco, as Oz, left, and the character Finley, voiced by Zach Braff, are shown in a scene from ‘Oz the Great and Powerful.’—AP

“O

z the Great and Powerful” aims for nostalgia in older viewers who grew up on “The Wizard of Oz” and still hold the classic dear while simultaneously enchanting a newer, younger audience. It never really accomplishes either successfully. A prequel to the groundbreaking 1939 film, “Oz” can be very pretty but also overlong and repetitive, with a plot that’s more plodding that dazzling.

Director Sam Raimi also is trying to find his own balance here between creating a big-budget, 3-D blockbuster and placing his signature stamp of kitschy, darkly humorous horror. He’s done the lavish CGI thing before, with diminishing results, in the “Spider-Man” trilogy, but here he has the daunting task of doing so while mining an even more treasured pop -culture phenomenon.

The results are understandably inconsistent. “Oz” features a couple of fun performances, a handful of witty lines, some clever details and spectacular costumes.

And it’s all punctuated by a Danny Elfman score that serves as a reminder of

how similar this effects-laden extravaganza is to the latter-day (and mediocre) work of Elfman’s frequent collaborator, Tim Burton - specifically, 2010’s “Alice in Wonderland,” also from Disney.

At its center is a miscast James Franco, co-star of Raimi’s “Spider-Man” movies, as the circus huckster who becomes the reluctant Wizard of Oz. On the page (in the script from Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire), Franco’s selfish, scheming womanizer provides an early glimpse of the famous fraud that Dorothy Gale and her posse of new pals will go on to expose. But Franco seems too boyish for the role; he’s neither charismatic nor self-loathing enough and his performance frequently consists of hammy goofing. So when his character does have a change of heart and decides to accept his destiny as a noble and inspiring leader, it rings hollow.—AP

Lifestyle FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

File photo shows designers Jack McCollough, right, and Lazaro Hernandez after the Proenza Schouler Fall 2013 collection is shown during Fashion Week in New York.

A

lexander Wang and Proenza Schouler are among the leading nominees for this year’s Council of Fashion Designers of America awards, topping a list of many familiar names. CFDA president Diane von Furstenberg and CEO Steven Kolb announced Wednesday evening that Proenza’s Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough, and Wang were in the running for both women swear designer of the year, as well as Marc Jacobs. Jacobs and the Proenza duo have both won the category before, and Wang has received the Swarovski Award for emerging talent in women’s design. For the top accessories designer, Hernandez and McCollough, and Wang - all previous winners - will compete against Phillip Lim. Thom Browne, Michael Bastian, and Steven Cox and Daniel Silver for Duckie Brown are the menswear nominees. Vera Wang will get the lifetime achievement award, and Oscar de la Renta

(From left) Ashley Olsen, Nadja Swarovski, Vera Wang, Diane von Furstenberg and Mary-Kate Olsen attend the CFDA2013 Awards Nomination.

the Founders Award created in honor of CFDA founder Eleanor Lambert, who the organization credits “with putting American fashion on the map.” Costume designer Colleen Atwood, whose credits include “Snow White and the Hunstman,” “Alice in Wonderland” and “Chicago,” is getting the board of directors’ tribute award, and Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy is being recognized with the international award. Tim Blanks of Style.com is to receive the media award. The newest round of designers competing for the Swarovski awards, which also include financial support, is: Womenswear: Shane Gabier and Christopher Peters for Creatures of the Wind; Carly Cushnie and Michelle Ochs for Cushnie et Ochs; and Erin Beatty and Max Osterweis for Suno.

Menswear: Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne for Public School; Tim Coppens; and Todd Snyder.

Accessories: Irene Neuwirth, Jennifer Meyer, and Pamela Love.

“The CFDA Fashion Awards celebrate American design talent and the influence our industry has across the globe,” Kolb said in a statement. “This year’s nominees and honorees represent the best and most creative talent of the past year as determined by a guild of their peers. We look forward to announcing our winners on June 3 and thank Swarovski for its longtime commitment to and support of the event.”

The CFDA Fashion Awards Selection Committee includes the more than 400 members of the CFDA, along with top fashion retailers, journalists, and stylists. The awards will be held June 3 at Lincoln Center. — AP File photo shows designer Alexander Wang at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in New York. — AP/AFP photos

M Colored T-shirts of German fashion house Hugo Boss, are on display at the company’s headquarter in Metzingen, southern Germany prior to the annual press conference yesterday. — AFP

G

erman fashion house Hugo Boss yesterday announced record-high sales and earnings in 2012 and said it would improve on this performance next year despite a “challenging” economic environment. Hugo Boss said group sales grew by 14 percent to 2.346 billion euros ($3.0 billion) last year and underlying profit, as measured by earnings before interest, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), rose by 13 percent to 529 million euros.

Net profit was up eight percent at 307.4 million euros. “In spite of the challenging economic environment, Hugo Boss posted significant increases in sales and earnings in 2012 and thus

achieved the targets it had set itself,” the firm said in its annual earnings statement. “We also see major opportunities to continue to grow profitably and further enhance the perception of our brands in 2013,” said chief executive ClausDietrich Lahrs. Hugo Boss said it was forecasting “high-single-digit” sales and earnings growth this year after all its business regions contributed to the strong 2012 performance. The group said it would open around 50 new stores worldwide as it attempts to expand its own retail business further. — AFP

alaysian writer Tan Twan Eng won the 2012 Man Asian Literary Prize yesterday for a novel dealing with the aftermath of Japan’s wartime occupation of his country, becoming the first Malaysian to claim one of Asia’s main literature prizes. Tan, born in 1972, beat out four other authors, including Turkish Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk, for the $30,000 prize in what was described as a “far-ranging and intricately layered novel”. “The Garden of Evening Mists”, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2012, tells the story of Yun Ling Teoh, the survivor of a Japanese prison camp who in her old age looks back at the early 1950s and her relationship with the mysterious creator of then-Malaya’s only Japanese garden.

“It’s partly about the co-existence of cultural refinement and artistry, and terrible barbarity,” chair of judges Maya Jaggi told reporters, noting that Japan’s occupation of Asia remains a raw issue even today, decades after the war’s end. “What this novel is doing is looking at that, but in such a subtle way, I think. It’s not glib, it’s about guilt and atonement and how love transforms people’s conceptions of themselves and what they’ve done.”

Tan published his first novel, “The Gift of Rain”, in 2007. It also dealt with the Japanese occupation

and its aftermath. He told Reuters in 2008 that he welcomed the growing recognition for Asian writers in the West but that talented Southeast Asian voices were sometimes overlooked. —Reuters

Malaysian author Tan Twan Eng poses for a photo after winning the Man Asian Literary Prize for his novel ‘The Garden of Evening Mists’ in Hong Kong yesterday. — AFP

Lifestyle FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

I

t turns out spring is leather weather - at least this year.

Don’t be frightened: This isn’t a heavy head-to-toe rock ‘n’ roll look. This is about leather done as easy and breezy as one would expect as we head into warmer, sunnier times. It could be a jacket, but it also could be a dress or a vest, a button-down shirt or pants.

Maybe it’s light pink or the chic color of stone, or maybe it’s perforated to give it a sporty vibe. There are paper-thin leathers and “vegan leathers,” the new industry way to say “pleather” or faux leather.

Laser cutting can add airiness. “What’s happened is that customers are responding to the luxuriousness of it,” says Tim Baxter, executive vice president of Macy’s fashion and product office.

Women started really embracing leather as an everyday fabric, not just a cool-kid statement, this past fall, and they’re not ready to give it up, he says. “The customer is shifting toward seasonless clothing. They want clothing they can wear at least eight or nine months a year, and leather is now one of those things she can wear most of the year.”

The customer also likes that leather takes pigment so well, and just as the season flips into spring, people are eager to wear cheerful, optimistic colors, even if the real-feel temperature doesn’t match the mood. Marti Horwitz, designer of the Marti collection, says a leather jacket or vest is the perfect layering piece for the days the weather can throw anything at you. “It’s an instantly more glamorous look.”

Lambskin or goatskin is naturally thinner than cow hide, she explains, advising shoppers to keep that in mind as they set out on a spring shopping spree. She’d take one of her floral-print leather jackets and pair it with a classic black dress, or wear a tougher motorcycle-chic jacket with a long evening skirt. “The floral print is a showstopper, but it’s not for everyone. I can envision it more in LA than New York. It’s for the person who wants to be the first one in a trend. It’s the same for the leather and eveningwear.”

For the leather novice, it’s easier to start with the daytime outfits, Horwitz says, and go with a navy or a chocolate brown, which she promises will work with existing items in the closet. (She says she is assuming black is a no-brainer and already in the wardrobe.)

Baxter, meanwhile, suggests a bolder bright color or feminine blush tone in a classic, familiar shape, such as a blazer. If that still takes the customer out of her comfort zone, he says, try leather trim on the cuffs of a shirt, leather elbow patches or collars - all stepping stones into the trend that are selling very well.

Price shouldn’t be a stumbling block, adds Tom Julian, a director at the The Doneger Group, a fashion trend forecasting firm. Designer leather pieces will cost in the $500 (and up) range, but adding a touch of high-quality here and there is affordable in the contemporary market, he says, and the faux leather - for less than $100 - is looking better than ever.

Leather also isn’t a look necessarily limited by age,

In this produce image released by Macy’s shows a collarless faux-leather jacket by bar III only at Macy’s. — AP photos

body shape or style. “Leather is consistent in men’s and women’s, and you can be rock ‘n’ roll trendy and wear John Varvatos to AllSaints, or be into classic American, like a Michael Kors or Gap-type operator,” Julian says.

Unlike some trends that feed into a single look - like a maxi dress might work for the bohemian, or shoulder pads for the minimalist - leather crosses into the lifestyles of all the muses buyers aim to keep in mind, adds Macy’s Baxter. And he predicts leather will have legs for quite a few more seasons. (It certainly did continue to dominate the runways for the coming fall.) “I absolutely believe that leather and leather trims are here for a while. I feel like we’re very early in the cycle of leather,” Baxter says. “It’s a bigger investment piece than a throwaway trend, and that should indicate it’s a trend that will last.”— AP

This undated product image released by Marti shows their Lisette black leather jacket.

This undated product image released by Marti shows their Brittany floral print leather jacket.

File photo shows a model wearing a multi-colored leather mini dress during the Tommy Hilfiger Spring 2013 collection at Fashion Week in New York.

A dual tone

FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

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Kuwait SHARQIA-1 THE BAY (DIG) SIDE EFFECTS (DIG) PARKER (DIG) THE BAY (DIG) SIDE EFFECTS (DIG) PARKER (DIG) THE BAY (DIG)

12:30 PM 2:15 PM 4:15 PM 6:45 PM 8:30 PM 10:30 PM 12:45 AM

SHARQIA-2 OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL (DIG-3D) 2:15 PM OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL (DIG-3D) 4:45 PM COTTAGE COUNTRY (DIG) 7:30 PM JACK THE GIANT SLAYER (DIG-3D) 9:45 PM JACK THE GIANT SLAYER (DIG-3D) 12:05 AM NO SUN+ TUE+WED SHARQIA-3 SNITCH (DIG) AL HAFLA (DIG) HABIBATI (DIG)(Turkish) AL HAFLA (DIG) HABIBATI (DIG)(Turkish) AL HAFLA (DIG) NO SUN+ TUE+WED

12:45 PM 3:00 PM 5:15 PM 8:00 PM 10:00 PM 12:45 AM

MUHALAB-1 THE BAY (DIG)

12:30 PM

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KNCC PROGRAMME FROM THURSDAY TO WEDNESDAY (14/03/2013 TO 20/03/2013) COTTAGE COUNTRY (DIG) PARKER (DIG) THE BAY (DIG) COTTAGE COUNTRY (DIG) PARKER (DIG) THE BAY (DIG) NO SUN+ TUE+WED MUHALAB-2 AL HAFLA (DIG) HABIBATI (DIG)(Turkish) AL HAFLA (DIG) HABIBATI (DIG)(Turkish) AL HAFLA (DIG) HABIBATI (DIG)(Turkish) NO SUN+ TUE+WED

2:15 PM 4:00 PM 6:15 PM 8:00 PM 9:45 PM 12:05 AM

12:30 PM 2:30 PM 5:15 PM 7:30 PM 10:15 PM 12:30 AM

MUHALAB-3 OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL (DIG-3D) 1:00 PM JACK THE GIANT SLAYER (DIG-3D) 3:30 PM OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL (DIG-3D) 5:45 PM

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2:30 PM 4:15 PM 6:30 PM 8:15 PM 10:45 PM 12:30 AM

FANAR-2 SIDE EFFECTS (DIG) SIDE EFFECTS (DIG) SIDE EFFECTS (DIG) HABIBATI (DIG)(Turkish) HABIBATI (DIG)(Turkish) SIDE EFFECTS (DIG) NO SUN+ TUE+WED

1:00 PM 3:00 PM 5:00 PM 7:15 PM 10:00 PM 12:45 AM

12:45 PM 3:00 PM 5:15 PM 7:30 PM 9:45 PM 12:05 AM

JACK THE GIANT SLAYER (DIG-3D) JACK THE GIANT SLAYER (DIG-3D) JACK THE GIANT SLAYER (DIG-3D)

8:15 PM 10:30 PM 12:45 AM

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FANAR-1 COTTAGE COUNTRY (DIG)

12:30 PM

FANAR-4 OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL (DIG-3D) 2:00 PM

Pe t s FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Top dog takes on the alphas

Taking on tough dogs in tough neighborhoods

Larry Hill (right) and his dog, Ryder, train Pamela Hederson and her dog, Angel Gabriel, in South Los Angeles, California. — MCT

By Gale Holland

L

arry Hill is the dean of a small network of dog trainers who are out to save the bully breeds - pit bulls, mastiffs and Rottweilers - of South Los Angeles. His specialty is tough dogs in tough neighborhoods.

In his professional work and monthly free classes, he takes lunging, yelping masses of dog flesh and molds them into gentle companions.

Hill’s mantra is there is nothing wrong with the dogs. It’s the owners who have the problem, as I discovered one Saturday morning at St Andrews Recreation Center in Gramercy Park. Dressed in a brown uniform with the name of his nonprofit, Puppy Imprinters, embroidered on the vest, Hill kept his distance, sending us out with our dogs into the field for a walking exercise.

A woman in a purple velour running suit jogged by on the track. Pamela Henderson, an Altadena financial advisor, struggled to get her pit bull Gabriel to heel. “Who’s the alpha?”

Hill asked. “My other pit Smokey,” said Henderson. “The other alpha,” he said. “Oh, me,” Henderson said. Hill lectured us about our profound ignorance of basic dog behavior, occasionally drowned out by the jets rattling overhead on their way to LAX. We either turn our pets into babies in sweaters and bows, or trick them out in spike collars and bristling harnesses, he said. But we’re clueless about how to get them to do what we want.

We quickly showed him how clueless.

“Turn to the right,” Hill called to Henderson.

“Don’t stop.” “I’m sorry. I’m thinking which

way is right,” she answered. I didn’t even get to left or right. Before the first turn, I tripped over my own dog.

Hill loves the bully breeds and gets surprising things from them. His own dog Ryder, a pit bull from fighting stock, stays, comes on command, climbs an obstacle board and speaks in response to hand signals and oral directions. But Hill knows what goes on in the streets, where dogs are chained, beaten and thrown in the ring. Growing up in Los Angeles, Hill put dogs into fights before he knew any better, he said.

“I started on the other side of the fence, rolling and bumping these dogs,” he told one young man who stopped by to check out the class. “Now I’ve learned to do this.” His background has given him credibility in these neighborhoods and stripped him of illusions.

Hill breaks with many pit bull activists on the question of euthanization. Not every dog can be saved, he believes. Some sick and dangerous dogs inevitably have to be put down, and animal shelters should be frank with the public about this, he says.

That put him at odds with Animal Services, where he worked for 10 years as a clerk at the South LA shelter. Hill was quoted in a magazine article accusing Ed Boks, the department chief at the time, of misleading people by calling shelters “no kill.” Then a supervisor complained Hill had taken home two bags of dog food and the city attorney prosecuted him for petty theft.

Hill said a co-worker told him the food was going to be thrown away because the bags were damaged. Earlier this month, Judge

Karen Ackerson-Brazille dismissed the case for lack of evidence. Hill ended up retiring in November with a reduced pension. That hurt.

But Hill’s sentiments are as strong as ever.

“Are there some people in society who just can’t conform to the rules?” he said. “Some dogs are like people - incorrigible.”

What really gets him is that Animal Services makes no effort to teach people how to handle their dogs so they won’t end up in the shelters. Training - of people and animals is the real solution to the city’s bully breed problem, he believes. “They’ll write you a ticket and get rid of a dog,” he said. “That doesn’t educate people.”

Hill isn’t the first trainer in South LA to take that task on himself - he knew TV personality Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, who also started here, “before he could speak English,” he says. Nor are his training techniques completely unique. What sets Hill apart is that he’s stayed right here, where’s he’s needed, at the epicenter of the pit bull explosion, for more than four decades, learning as he goes. “I’ve thrown out all the stuff that doesn’t work,” he told us.

Hill can be gruff, barking out orders, but he’s also a bit of a clown. That’s just how he wants us to treat our animals. There’s a time to play, and a time to discipline. He identifies the basic drives that predominate in each dog - prey, socialization, aggression - then tailors his instruction to each animal. The harshest correction is a tug on the leash and sharp command, never physical punishment. The incentives are praise and affection - several strokes down the flanks, followed by a couple

of pats. Hill is not one for false modesty - he credits himself with “an uncanny ability to read dogs.” But that doesn’t seem like an overstatement.

Some of his students had tried obedience classes at mall pet shops and parks, to no avail. Hill shows them that there is more to training than generic treats-and-clickers approaches, and that they can indeed control their dogs. One of Hill’s regular students was having trouble handling a blue-point pit bull she named Blue Bunny, a name he objected to; in Hill’s world even a dog’s name matters.

Hill told her to take off the training collar and let the dog loose. “I don’t want you to control her. I want her to do what’s inside of her,” he said. Bunny rolled on his back, leaped in the air and slithered on his belly. “There isn’t an ounce of aggression in that dog,” Hill laughed. He is dead serious about his mission, and he expects his students to feel the same.

Hill wants to do more education work with kids and adult groups. He volunteers with the Downtown Dog Rescue to bring its mobile spay and neuter clinic into Watts. His entire career has been spent between Watts and Gramercy Park, and here he plans to stay.

“Out here in the community, the majority of people can’t afford training,” he said.

“Somebody had to be here.” — MCT

Stars

FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Aries (March 21-April 19)

If you run into trouble today there will be people around you that are ready, willing and able to get you through any rough spots you may encounter. Although it may not appear to be so, now is a favorable time for you to make substantial movement towards realizing your goals. Don’t forget to let the good people who assist you know how much you appreciate them. You are very bold and adventurous right now and you cannot tolerate delays, restrictions, or any form of authority that prevents you from behaving exactly as you please. Your drive for personal freedom and insistence on your rights is pressing, and a confrontation in which you have to stand up for yourself is likely.

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

Acting on impulse, changing your usual routine, improvising and using your intuition rather than following a prescribed, logical way of doing things is called for now. The tempo of your life accelerates now. Expect a rather inconstant, unpredictable, but interesting time. Your desire to make a fresh start with any romantic or emotional commitments you have are high today. Your physical energy, will, and courage are intensified.

Unless you channel your abundant energy into decisive action or vigorous work, accidents, anger, and irritability are likely at this time.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

Direct your restless mind into new channels.

Golfing, model-making, knitting, or study courses will aid in keeping from fretting about insignificant worries. An emotional bond may be formed between yourself and a sibling or neighbour. At this time you need to guard yourself against being too aggressive, coming on too strong, or trying to force your own will on others. Your need to be in control and dominate is likely to back fire and leave you standing alone rather than joining forces in a relationship. Do try to avoid situations which you know will provoke or irritate you.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

The stormy arguments and narrow attitudes that have been coloring your home or working world come to an end soon; and all because you finally put some healthy boundaries in place. It’s a day when logic and pragmatic decisions need to take priority. After the day’s work is complete, a little self-indulgence is in order. This is a busy time for you and communicating and getting in touch with others is very likely. Numerous phone calls, emails, meetings, errands, or discussions bring you into contact with others. Who knows all this social contact may lead you to someone you’ve been manifesting for awhile.

Leo (July 23-August 22) Other people have a way of getting your goat now, especially in close relationships (with family members, for example) and in your dealings with the public. Haste and impatience can cause strain; vitality levels may be a bit lower than usual.

This is a good time to speak up and clear the air of any grievances you have been holding on to for some time in your personal relationships. By dealing with any issues you’ve been holding onto and allowing your partner to do the same leaves you the space to move forward and find some new understandings in area’s you may have thought were never going to change.

Virgo (August 23-September 22)

There really is only one effective and at the same time spiritual way to work, and that is to stop watching the clock and throw yourself into the tasks at hand. This is much more easily achieved when the object of your work is to your liking and pleasurable, which does seem to take you out of space and time.

The challenge today is to implement this type of state of mind into doing jobs that are not your favorites as well as those that are. Both friendship and material benefits could come to you at this time, it may feel like you’ve won the lottery in many ways.

You feel very sociable and gregarious, it’s a time to spend with people who really know how to have a good time.

Libra (September 23-October 22)

Showing your feelings may not be the best thing to do right now. Keeping to yourself could save you from unwanted entanglements. Be staunch, do not stoop to complain, and you will gain the respect of all for your worldly reticence. Send requests through channels and things will flow more easily. You are in harmony with the people in your immediate environment and there is a sense of ease and of flowing with, rather than fighting against or resisting, what is going on around you. Enjoy their company and do something fun and interactive together, maybe even get a bit on the wild side.

Scorpio (October 23-November 21) You may get a momentary boost to ego and confidence, a brief reminder of how good you can be when you’re on. Observation now will let you do it with greater regularity — shine, but remember how you did it so it becomes a habit.

You gain what and who you want through diplomacy or charm, rather than by being forthright and bold. You are willing to make concessions in order to maintain harmony in your environment. Light and pleasant interactions characterize this time period.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 21) You’ll be expressing your affection more strongly than usual. This influence also could increase your impatience with what you see as the foolhardiness of others. You will also find yourself being more controlling with those close to you. If you are in a dedicated relationship, you might try to control him/her and will be may be a bit unreasonable.

Today, compromise is the key word for you. Confusion and the inability to focus on mundane tasks as well as poor understanding or miscommunication between yourself and others, and the desire to evade real responsibilities and challenges are negative potentials for you now.

Overall a very confusing day and may be one that if the opportunity presents it self just to stay home and wait it out.

Capricorn (December 22-January 19)

Today’s energy brings a flurry of monetary activity, perhaps a quick find or mini-crisis, but it passes quickly. Keep its brevity in mind so you don’t lay heavy bets on a passing fancy, unless other longer-range cycles are much in focus with this as trigger. Creativity and a talent for new approaches are the lynch pins to your success, so don’t hold back, let the juices flow.

Sharing time with those close to you is likely to be very attractive to you at this time. Quality time spent with your family will reenergize you and reaffirm much of your sense of purpose.

Renewing your sense of belonging to something good is sure to put smile on your face and a little snap in your walk.

Aquarius (January 20- February 18)

Heightened appetites (of all sorts) are a natural this time of the month, as will be opportunities to fulfill them. Pick as you would from a smorgasbord and don’t chow down too heavily — the taste is what counts, volume only slows you down.

Variety is the spice, intensity the sweetness, whatever or whoever is involved. A good time for just getting out there and getting physical. You are impulsively affectionate and flirtatious at this time, and you feel quite restless if you are in a stable, predictable relationship that offers little excitement. Also, your friends or love partner may behave in unexpected ways. Flexibility and open mindedness in your relationships is called for now.

Pisces (February 19-March 20)

Not everyone you encounter today will be an ally.

You may run into opposition from sources you cannot even identify. Now is not a time to act indecisively or show any weakness. To accomplish what you want to accomplish you will have to act quickly and with resolution. Don’t take no for an answer.

Be prepared to support your ideas with irrefutable facts and logic and you should do well. Don’t question moments of inspiration in your relationships right now, trying to pin them down will mean simply losing it altogether. Enjoy and savor the feelings brought out in the process. Make a long lasting memory by writing down your day or even taking a few pictures.

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

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

Stars

FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Word Search

Yesterdayʼs Solution

C R O S S W O R D 1 2 9

ACROSS 1. 10 grams.

4. Likely but not certain to be or become true or real.

12. Of southern Europe.

15. A period marked by distinctive character or reckoned from a fixed point or event.

16. Crowned with or as if with laurel symbolizing victory.

17. Large brownish-green New Zealand parrot.

18. (informal) Of the highest quality.

19. The territory of Athens in ancient Greece.

20. (biology) Having or resembling wings.

22. A corporation authorized by Congress to provide a secondary market for residential mortgages.

24. (astronomy) A measure of time defined by Earth's orbital motion.

25. Painter of the Florentine school.

27. A woman's headscarf folded into a triangle and tied under the chine.

29. Informal terms for a (young) woman.

30. A bar of sand.

33. A telephone connection.

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

36. A mobile mass of muscular tissue covered with mucous membrane and located in the oral cavity.

39. British slang.

43. A thief who steals from someone by threatening violence.

45. Strike with disgust or revulsion.

47. An inflammatory complication of leprosy that results in painful skin lesions on the arms and legs and face.

48. A material effigy that is worshipped as a god.

49. A silvery soft waxy metallic element of the alkali metal group.

52. A metabolic acid found in yeast and liver cells.

53. Suppress or crush completely.

54. Surrealist Spanish painter (1904-1989).

55. A metric unit of volume or capacity equal to 100 liters.

56. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake Chad.

61. An unforeseen obstacle.

62. Large dark brown North American arboreal carnivorous mammal.

65. A Chadic language spoken in the Mandara mountains in Cameroon.

68. (trademark) An antacid.

72. A member of the Algonquian people of Maine and southern Quebec.

75. (British) A waterproof raincoat made of rubberized fabric.

76. A vehicle mounted on runners and pulled by horses or dogs.

77. A tricycle (usually propelled by pedalling).

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

80. Queen of the Olympian gods in ancient Greek mythology.

81. A state in the southeastern United States on the Gulf of Mexico.

82. (informal) Roused to anger.

2. (of persons) Highest in rank or authority or office.

3. A Gaelic-speaking Celt in Ireland or Scotland or the Isle of Man. 4. Easily calmed or pacified.

5. Any of various long-tailed rodents similar to but larger than a mouse.

6. What is produced in a given time period.

7. The people of Great Britain.

8. A former agency (from 1946 to 1974) that was responsible for research into atomic energy and its peacetime uses in the United States.

9. Raspberry native to eastern North America having black thimble-shaped fruit.

10. A chronic inflammatory collagen disease affecting connective tissue (skin or joints).

11. Mild yellow Dutch cheese made in balls.

12. Jordan's port.

13. Watery fluid of the blood that resembles plasma but contains fibrinogen.

14. A person to whom money is paid.

21. A spoon-shaped vessel with a long handle.

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

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

28. (in Scotland) A child.

31. (of snakes and eels) Naturally footless.

32. A wealthy man (who made his fortune in the Orient).

34. A lipoprotein that transports cholesterol in the blood.

37. A rare silvery (usually trivalent) metallic element.

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

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

41. The sound of a bell rung slowly to announce a death or a funeral or the end of something v 1.

42. A song that was formerly popular.

44. Divulge information or secrets.

46. A federation of North American labor unions that merged with the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1955.

50. Jordan's port.

51. A city in southern Turkey on the Seyhan River.

57. Any of various strong liquors distilled from the fermented sap of toddy palms or from fermented molasses.

58. Eurasian perennial bulbous herbs.

59. West Indian tree having racemes of fragrant white flowers and yielding a durable timber and resinous juice.

60. Located inward.

63. Annual to perennial herbs of the Mediterranean region.

64. A member of a formerly tribal people now living in south central India.

66. (usually followed by `to') Having the necessary means or skill or know-how or authority to do something.

67. An informal term for a father.

69. (Islam) The man who leads prayers in a mosque.

70. A Chadic language spoken south of Lake Chad.

71. Any of a number of fishes of the family Carangidae.

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

74. Horny projecting mouth of a bird.

78. Angular distance above the horizon (especially of a celestial object).

Yesterdayʼs Solution

DOWN 1. Lacking or deprive of the sense of hearing wholly or in part.

Daily SuDoku

Yesterday’s Solution

Sports FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Broncos agree to 2-year deal with Wes Welker DENVER: The Denver Broncos gave Peyton Manning a new target - Tom Brady’s favorite receiver. Wes Welker’s signing for $12 million over two years highlighted another busy day for the Broncos on Wednesday.

In addition to bringing Welker on board, Denver also agreed to terms on a two-year deal with defensive tackle Terrance Knighton, formerly of Jacksonville, and a one-year contract with linebacker Stewart Bradley, who played with the Cardinals the past two seasons.

Broncos boss John Elway was far from done, though, adding cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie on a oneyear deal later in the evening.

Once again, the Broncos are being aggressive in free agency. It worked so well last season when they won the high-stakes contest to sign Manning, which prompted Elway to joke, “Plan B? I don’t have a Plan B. We’re going with Plan A.” Manning guided the Broncos to a 13-3 regular season finish, only to lose to Baltimore in double over-

time during the division round of the playoffs. Instead of sticking with the same cast, Elway is revamping the roster. Nothing too drastic, just adding some crucial pieces. He picked up the league’s most productive receiver to play in the slot where Brandon Stokley was last season. Welker’s five 100catch seasons are the most in the NFL. He has been selected to the Pro Bowl in each of his past five seasons and was an All-Pro four of the past five years.

“When you look at Wes in the middle of the field, you can’t cover him,” Elway said.

“He does such a tremendous job of getting open, finding seams in zones, beating man-to-man coverage. So, he’ll be a huge asset for us inside.”

Welker caught 118 passes for 1,354 yards and scored six touchdowns last year, helping the Pats go 12-4 and make the AFC title game before they also fell to Baltimore. He developed quite a rapport with Brady during his six seasons with the Patriots. The Broncos are banking the same kind of relationship can blossom between

their 37-year-old future Hall of Fame quarterback and his newest target, Welker, who is 31. That the Broncos are signing a top player away from Brady and the Patriots certainly didn’t hurt, either.

“Anytime you can take a player from a team you have to compete against, it helps, especially the caliber of Wes Welker,” Elway said. “New England is there year in and year out and that’s a team we have to beat to get where we want to get.”

Although the deal with Welker received a bulk of the attention, the RodgersCromartie, Bradley and Knighton deals could also influence Denver’s starting lineups. Rodgers-Cromartie played for Philadelphia last season and had three interceptions. He’s expected to line up opposite of perennial Pro Bowl Champ Bailey next season.

That means Chris Harris, an undrafted player out of Kansas who’s coming off a solid season, will move back inside. Not that he’s too bothered by the move.

On the contrary, Harris posted on

Patrick Chan leads with record-setting score Picture perfect triple Axel LONDON: Patrick Chan is well on his way to defending his title after producing one of the greatest short programmes of his career at the World Figure Skating Championships on Wednesday.

The 22-year-old Canadian was rewarded Wednesday night with a score of 98.37, the highest ever recorded for the opening round. The twice world champion delivered a rock solid quadruple-triple jump combination and picture perfect triple Axel in a sublime performance that had the crowd at the Budweiser Gardens on its feet as he wound down his final spin.

“It was so inspirational to be out there. I got into my last spin and there was a rush through my whole body. It was tingling,” said Chan. Chan struggled with shaky performances on the Grand Prix circuit last fall, raising questions about his chances to win again here.

Grabbing second place (91.56) was unheralded Denis Ten, of Kazakhstan, who opened with a beautiful quadruple toe-loop and delivered a flawless, yet less technically difficult, programme than Chan.

Canada’s number two, Kevin Reynolds, who scored an upset with his recent win at the Four Continents Championship, posted 85.16 points to sit third. Known for his rapid rotation on his jumps, Reynolds produced two quadruple jumps-a salchow and toeloop, although he had to fight to hang onto the landing of the second.

Ten, seventh at the 2012 worlds, and Reynolds, who was 12th, both expressed surprise and excitement to be among the frontrunners. Ten, a descendant of the famous Korean general Min Keung Ho, said the small medal he won for his short programme result was the first world championship medal for Kazakhstan.

“I will try to keep my mood and moti-

LONDON: Patrick Chan of Canada skates in the Men’s Short Program during the 2013 ISU World Figure Skating Championships at Budweiser Gardens on Wednesday in London, Ontario, Canada. — AFP vation the same for (Friday’s) final,” said Ten, who now works with the coach and choreographer who were behind US skating star Michelle Kwan’s brilliant career.

Chan was the only man among the four gold medal favourites to skate to his potential on a night when stellar performances were the exception. “It’s not a matter of luck,” he said. “It’s how much work you put in and the confidence you have. “I worked very hard the last three weeks.” One by one, the other contenders faltered, finishing out of the top three. While it is unlikely Japan’s Yuzuru Hanyu, (ninth with 75.94) can claw his way back in the final and grab a medal, his countryman Daisuke Takahashi (fourth with 84.67)and Spain’s Javier Fernandez (seventh with 80.76) still have a shot at the podium.

Fernandez, who was coming off the

high of winning the European title, turned his planned triple Axel into a single at huge cost, while Takahashi’s quadruple jump attempt was significantly underroated.

Also in contention is veteran Frenchman Brian Joubert in fifth with 84.17. Earlier Wednesday, Russians Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov finished atop the scoreboard with an assured performance in the pairs short programme. The twice world silver medallists head into today’s final with 75.84 points and a slim lead over Canadians Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford (73.61) and Germany’s fourtime world champions Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy (73.47).

In all, five couples, including another Russian and Canadian duo, are in podium position with just over six points separating fifth from first place. — AFP

Twitter: “It’s gonna be some Amazing practices with me and Welker in this slot.

Games should be easy.” Bradley played last season for Arizona, where he didn’t fit in with the team’s 3-4 scheme. His best season came in Philadelphia in 2008, when he had 108 tackles. He will compete with Nate Irving and Steven Johnson for Denver’s starting middle linebacker spot.

“Obviously, the standards on both sides of the ball are high here,” Bradley said. “I think it’s a great combination when you can have a stout, strong defense on a team with a prolific offense.”

One that’s only bolstered by the presence of Welker. “The Welker deal is a big deal. He’s a great player and just another weapon on an already scary offense,” Bradley said. “He’s definitely a dangerous player because you think he’s covered and you throw the ball to him, he’s going to catch it. He’s so versatile in the slot. He’s a durable guy. He has been as productive of a guy as there is in the NFL in the past five or six years. —AP

Russian duo top German rivals in short program LONDON: Russia’s Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov took a step towards ending the reign of four-time world champions Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy by grabbing the lead after the pairs short program on Wednesday.

Beaten into second place by the German duo at the previous two world championships, Volosozhar and Trankov put themselves on pole position for Friday’s free skate with a personal best score of 75.84.

After a bizarre fall by Trankov during the short program at last year’s worlds in Nice, France, the Russian pair avoided any such calamities on Wednesday, turning in a sophisticated skate to music from “The Godfather” that delighted fans and judges.

Top spot on the podium was expected to be a two-way battle between the Russians and Germans but home ice provided an early edge for Canada with Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford, who have never medaled at an Olympics or world championships, sneaking into second ahead of Savchenko and Szolkowy.

“From the moment we stepped on the ice the crowd was amazing and we were expecting that,” said Radford.

“As we took our starting position I think we both felt really confident and ready to do what we had to do.”

At the end of their robust and crowd-pleasing skate to “La Boheme,” Duhamel was left jumping up and down on the ice in absolute delight knowing they had delivered something special.

The judges agreed, handing the Canadian’s a personal best mark of 73.61 that put them ahead of Savchenko and Szolkowy, who were handed a score 73.47 for their uninspired performance.

“The points may say season’s best but for us it is not the best,” lamented Szolkowy. “Maybe from outside the people can say that is the best they have seen but for us not.” With Savchenko fighting sinus problems the fourtime world champions have been forced to the sidelines, missing valuable training and competitions and failing to qualify for the Grand Prix final.

At the same, with the Sochi Olympics beckoning, Volosozhar and Trankov have been on the rise going unbeaten since finishing runners-up to Savchenko and Szolkowy in Nice and finally getting the better of the German pair for the first time at the European championships in January.

“We don’t feel big pressure we feel only the love of the Russian people, everybody just cheer for us trying to help,” said Trankov. “We just trying to do our best our goal is to give back gold to Russia.” —Reuters

Sports FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Heat streak at 20 after 98-94 win over 76ers PHILADELPHIA: LeBron James scored 27 points and the Miami Heat became the fourth team to win at least 20 consecutive games in a season, rallying to beat the Philadelphia 76ers 98-94 on Wednesday night.

Dwyane Wade added 21 as the Heat needed big baskets over the final 2 minutes to top the Sixers for the milestone win. Only three teams have won at least 20 consecutive games in the same season: the 197172 Los Angeles Lakers (33), the 200708 Houston Rockets (22) and the 1970-71 Milwaukee Bucks (20). The Washington Capitols also won 20 straight, spanning the end of the 1947-48 season and the start of the 1948-49 campaign.

Thaddeus Young had 24 points and 15 rebounds for the Sixers. James and the Heat have started to acknowledge just how special this winning streak is in a season that has them running away with the Eastern Conference. They opened a five-game road trip as 81/2-point favorites over the slumping Sixers, a team they’ve defeated three times during the streak. They beat Atlanta on Tuesday for streak win No. 19, then made the flight to Philadelphia that put them in just before dawn.

“You get sleep when you can and do your job,” center Chris Bosh said before the game. Maybe fatigue played a bit of a role in Miami’s inability to truly put away the Sixers. Led by Young, the Sixers opened the third quarter on a 16-8 run that helped slice the lead to four. Miami led 71 66 at the end of the quarter.

The Sixers hung around in the fourth, too. Dorell Wright hit a 3pointer to make it a six-point game and he followed with a steal and fastbreak dunk to cut it 82-78. Sixers fans coming to see a slice of history were suddenly rooting for history denied.

Philadelphia’s fans started going wild to the “make some noise” sign on the video board and started singing the catchy anthem, “1-2-3-4-5-Sixers!”

Jrue Holiday brought them back with a 3-pointer for an 83-82 lead with 5:26 left and had fans chanting, “Beat the Heat!” Jay Allen silenced them with a big 3 in front of the Sixers’ bench for an 89-86 lead. Bosh scored to make it 91-89.

It wasn’t enough, at least not yet.

Holiday, the All-Star point guard, showed no fear of the moment when he dunked on James for the tying bucket.James came right back made one of two free throws for a 92-91 lead. Holiday dribbled the ball into Bosh’s leg, then off his own foot, leading to Wade’s tip after James missed twice at the rim.

The Heat escaped with a scare and No. 20. Unless they wear down, there’s no reason to think the Heat can’t keep the streak going toward 33. The rest of the road trip includes games at Milwaukee, Toronto, Boston and Cleveland. Fans in Heat jerseys

dotted the arena and dozens packed the baseline three rows deep snapping pictures of Miami’s pregame drills. James wowed them with some around-the-back reverses that served as a sneak peek for what was ahead.

James, the reigning MVP, turned the second quarter into his own dunk contest. It helped that he didn’t have any competition. With flair, James threw down thunderous dunks about every time he touched the ball. His best came on a reverse he brought between the legs that had the sellout crowd of 20,398 “Oooohhhh!” in amazement. His dunk capped a 17-2 run that put the Heat up 10 and

helped them cruise toward a 51-39 halftime lead.

But the first half wasn’t all about James’ dazzling dunks. The Heat had 14 assists on 19 baskets and Shane Battier came off the bench to hit a pair of lead-stretching 3-pointers. It’s the kind of teamwork that has the Heat rolling. “You have to have a unique group that are willing to sacrifice, a unique group willing to keep perspective of what we’re playing for and not get caught up in all the noise outside,” coach Erik Spoelstra said before the game. “There are so many distractions, not only in this league, but everyday life.” — AP

PHILADELPHIA: Miami Heat’s LeBron James goes up for a dunk in the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Philadelphia 76ers, Wednesday, in Philadelphia. James scored 27 points and the Heat became the fourth team to win at least 20 consecutive games in a season, defeating the 76ers 98-94. — AP

NBA results/standings Miami 98, Philadelphia 94; Washington 106, Milwaukee 93; Indiana 107, Minnesota 91; Boston 112, Toronto 88; Atlanta 96, LA Lakers 92; Houston 111, Phoenix 81; Oklahoma City 110, Utah 87; Sacramento 121, Chicago 79; Denver 117, NY Knicks 94; Memphis 96, LA Clippers 85; Golden State 105, Detroit 97.

Eastern Conference Atlantic Division W L PCT NY Knicks 38 24 .613 Brooklyn 38 27 .585 Boston 35 29 .547 Toronto 25 40 .385 Philadelphia 24 40 .375 Central Division Indiana 40 24 .625 Chicago 35 29 .547 Milwaukee 32 31 .508 Cleveland 22 42 .344 Detroit 23 44 .343 Southeast Division Miami 49 14 .778 Atlanta 35 29 .547 Washington 21 42 .333 Orlando 18 47 .277 Charlotte 14 50 .219 Western Conference Northwest Division Oklahoma City48 17 .738 Denver 44 22 .667 Utah 33 32 .508 Portland 29 34 .460 Minnesota 22 40 .355 Pacific Division LA Clippers 45 21 .682 Golden State 37 29 .561 LA Lakers 34 32 .515 Sacramento 23 43 .348 Phoenix 22 43 .338 Southwest Division San Antonio 49 16 .754 Memphis 44 19 .698 Houston 35 30 .538 Dallas 30 33 .476 New Orleans 22 43 .338

GB 1.5 4 14.5 15 5 7.5 18 18.5 14.5 28 32 35.5

4.5 15 18 24.5 8 11 22 22.5 4 14 18 27

Finn Bottas sleeping easy ahead of Albert Park debut MELBOURNE: Formula One world champion Sebastian Vettel and his chief rival Fernando Alonso head into this weekend’s season opener with opposing views about recent history - one is trying hard to ignore it while the other is using it as a spur.

Red Bull’s Vettel enters this season with three straight world championships under his belt and is aiming for a fourth, while Ferrari’s Alonso has gone into the final race with a chance of snatching the drivers’ title twice in those three years only to come away empty handed.

Under those circumstances, the German would be expected to be the man reflecting upon the past and the Spaniard eager to forget it, yet the situation is reversed.

Asked yesterday how he is approaching the task of winning a fourth straight title - something only achieved by the sport’s greats Juan Manuel Fangio and Michael Schumacher - Vettel had a simple answer. “The secret is not to think about what happened the last three years,” he said For Vettel, titles number two, three and potentially four were icing on the cake compared to the task of winning his first. “After that you don’t have that pressure anymore,” he said. “You have proved to yourself more than anyone else that you can do so.” Alonso, a two-time world

champion with Renault, has been unable to add to that tally in his three years at Ferrari despite coming tantalizingly close in 2010 and last year. Far from wanting to purge those disappointments, he is evoking them as he enters 2013 and accentuating the positives.

“I feel privileged to fight for the world championship two times in three years. Very few people have the opportunity to fight for a world championship,” Alonso said. “We lost two times in the three years in the last race and we want to have the opportunity to fight again for the world championship, hopefully again this year and hopefully to change the result.

This is maybe some extra motivation for me and the team.”

Alonso’s title chances look much stronger this year than last, with Ferrari looking competitive in preseason testing compared to a woeful winter in 2012. “It will be difficult to start any worse,” he said. “The winter has been much better than last year.

We need to start on the right foot and hopefully score some good results for the championship. “No-one knows who can win this race at the moment. I expect the five top teams to have a little advantage and not have many surprises in the first races. It’s very close and very difficult to choose one favorite. — AP

Sports FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

France stick to controversial Michalak PARIS: France manager Philippe Saint-Andre stuck to the much-criticised Frederic Michalak to spearhead Les Bleus against Scotland as they look to avoid the Six Nations wooden spoon tomorrow.

The once-brilliant Michalak has had poor games in this year’s championship and his first half in last weekend’s 13-13 draw against Ireland was definitely not one of his best, with his kicking game being more than questionable.

Former England coach Clive Woodward, working as a pundit at the BBC, said during France’s second defeat in the tournament against Wales: “I just can’t

believe France haven’t got a better number 10.”

Saint-Andre, who made three changes to the team who faced Ireland in a bid to add power ahead of tomorrow’s clash, hit back. “Woodward has been in athletics for four years now. I’m not questioning his work.

You have to lose to build your team,” he said. Asked if he did not fear Toulon’s Michalak would receive a cold reception from the fickle Stade de France crowd, Saint-Andre replied: “The Stade de France will be behind the France team and Michalak.

“I cannot imagine that those who celebrated him in November

will boo.” Michalak was key to France’s wins against Samoa, Australia and Argentine last November but since then his form has nosedived.

Saint-Andre argued that he had not many flyhalves to chose from anyway and that by sticking by Michalak, he was not letting Francois Trinh-Duc down.

“Francois has been on all match sheets,” he pointed out. Michalak will play alongside scrumhalf Morgan Parra with the Toulon player in charge of kicking penalties unless game circumstances dictate otherwise.

Parra’s main role will be to lead the pack in gruelling weather con-

ditions as torrential rain has been forecast in Paris on Saturday night.

Saint-Andre made two changes among the forwards with South African-born Antonie Claassen coming on for Yannick Nyanga as blindside flanker and Sebastien Vahaamahina replacing Christophe Samson at lock.

Mathieu Bastareaud will also bring power at outside centre as Florian Fritz, who picked up a foot infection, is not even certain to sit on the bench. Gael Fickou is the reserve player. “We will make a decision tomorrow,” said SaintAndre.

France have one point and will finish last if they lose against

Scotland who have not win against Les Bleus since 2006 and since 1999 in an away game. Team: 15Yoann Huget, 14-Vincent Clerc, 13-Mathieu Bastareaud, 12-Wesley Fofana, 11-Maxime Medard, 10Frederic Michalak, 9-Morgan Parra, 8-Louis Picamoles, 7-Thierry Dusautoir (captain), 6-Antonie Claassen, 5-Yoann Maestri, 4Sebastien Vahaamahina, 3-Nicolas Mas, 2-Benjamin Kayser, 1-Thomas Domingo Replacements: 16Guilhem Guirado, 17-Vincent Debaty, 18-Luc Ducalcon, 19Christophe Samson, 20-Yannick Nyanga, 21-Maxime Machenaud, 22-Francois Trinh-Duc, 23-Florian Fritz or Gael Fickou. — Reuters

NHL results/standings Montreal 4, Ottawa 3 (SO); New Jersey 5, Philadelphia 2; Calgary 5, Detroit 2.

CALGARY: Mike Cammalleri #13 of the Calgary Flames shoots wide past Jonas Gustavsson #50 of the Detroit Red Wings during third period NHL action on Wednesday at the Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Calgary Flames defeated the Detroit Red Wings 5 - 2. — AFP

Ducks nip Chicago 3-2 in shootout Perry incurs four-game suspension

CHICAGO: Rookie goaltender Viktor Fasth lifted Anaheim Ducks to a 3-2 shootout win over the Chicago Blackhawks to extend the perfect start to his NHL career.

Anaheim trailed 2-1 in the final minutes of regulation when Andrew Cogliano equalized at 17:20 in the third to extend the battle and leave it to Fasth to carry them to victory. The 30-year-old Swedish netminder made three saves during a scoreless overtime, finishing with 28, and denied Chicago’s final two shootout attempts to improve to 6-0-0 in his magical first season.

“You always work hard to get to play and when you play you work hard to try to get the wins,” Fasth told reporters. “I don’t take anything for granted and I’ve got to work hard every day to get my chances.”

Nick Bonino and Corey Perry converted shootout goals for Anaheim (9-2-1) as the Ducks won for the sixth time in seven games and moved two points clear of San Jose for first place in the Pacific Division.

The San Jose Sharks fell to Nashville Predators 1-0 in overtime to lose ground.

Anaheim grabbed a 1-0 edge on Chicago on a Ryan Getzlaf wrist shot early in the second period, but the home Blackhawks quickly seized the lead with goals by Nick Leddy and Brandon Saad.

Cogliano’s tying goal came as he tipped a shot from Ben Lovejoy. “I was at the right place at the right time,” Cogliano said. “I think it was just fitting for the kind of night we had.”

Blackhawks goaltender Corey Crawford made 29 saves to keep pace with Fasth

who was just a little better in the extra sessions.

Despite the defeat, Chicago (10-0-3) are still without a loss in regulation and remain on top of the league’s standings.

The Blackhawks were returning home following a six-game road trip while the Ducks are in the middle of a similar road stint.

Anaheim Ducks play-maker Corey Perry has been slapped with a four-game suspension, without pay, for an illegal hit against Minnesota Wild, the National Hockey League (NHL) said on Wednesday.

Perry put a late check on Minnesota’s Jason Zucker during the second period on Tuesday, earning himself a major penalty for interference and game misconduct.

“Perry delivered a late, illegal check that

Eastern Conference Atlantic Division W L OTL GF GA PTS Pittsburgh 19 8 0 100 78 38 New Jersey 13 9 5 70 77 31 NY Rangers 13 10 2 64 61 28 NY Islanders 11 12 3 77 88 25 Philadelphia 12 15 1 77 87 25 Northeast Division Montreal 18 5 4 88 69 40 Boston 17 4 3 72 53 37 Ottawa 13 8 6 64 58 32 Toronto 15 11 1 81 75 31 Buffalo 10 14 3 70 84 23 Southeast Division Carolina 15 9 1 79 69 31 Winnipeg 13 11 2 68 76 28 Tampa Bay 11 14 1 88 81 23 Washington 10 14 1 69 76 21 Florida 7 14 6 66 101 20 Western Conference Central Division Chicago 21 2 3 85 58 45 St. Louis 14 10 2 80 79 30 Detroit 12 10 5 70 71 29 Nashville 11 9 6 58 61 28 Columbus 10 12 5 62 74 25 Northwest Division Vancouver 12 7 6 68 68 30 Minnesota 13 10 2 59 61 28 Edmonton 10 11 5 64 76 25 Colorado 10 11 4 62 73 24 Calgary 10 11 4 69 84 24 Pacific Division Anaheim 19 3 3 87 63 41 Los Angeles 14 9 2 73 65 30 Phoenix 13 10 3 77 74 29 San Jose 11 8 6 58 61 28 Dallas 12 11 2 67 71 26 Note: Overtime losses (OTL) are worth one point in the standings and are not included in the loss column (L)

injured Minnesota forward Jason Zucker,” Rob Blake, the NHL’s Department of Player Safety, explained in a video.

“Perry (had) enough time to avoid this violent check or, at the very least, minimize it more significantly.”

A former Hart Trophy winner, Perry is among the Anaheim team leaders with nine goals and 15 assists on the season.

The Ducks have the second best record in the NHL with 41 points, and will begin campaign without Perry on Thursday against the Dallas Stars. — Reuters

Sports FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Yani Tseng trying to recapture youthful enthusiasm PHOENIX: Yani Tseng is trying to recapture a youthful enthusiasm, searching for the balance of fun and precision that carried her to the top spot in women’s golf.

The No. 1-ranked Tseng enters her title defense in the LPGA Founders Cup on a 22-event, 50-week winless streak. Conversely, third-ranked Stacy Lewis is coming off a victory - her fifth in her last 22 tournaments - two weeks ago in Singapore.

“I just want to have fun and enjoy as much as I can because I know last year I paid too much attention to world No. 1,” Tseng said. “I feel like I lost some childlike. I just want to play as a child, and I feel like I lost that enjoyment for playing golf last year. ...

“You want to have fun out there. You don’t want to think about results too much. But you want to try to find the fine line because it’s very easy to be too relaxed, it’s very easy to have too much pressure. You just want to find the balance.”

Lewis is closing in on the top spot in the world. “I never

expected to be No. 1 in the world, so if I get there one day, I’m going to enjoy the heck out of it because there’s no way that kid growing up in a back brace would ever think about being the best golfer in the world,” said Lewis, forced to wear a back brace for six years as a teen because of scoliosis. Lewis’ agent recently asked if there was anything he could do for her. “I said, ‘More time in a day,’” Lewis said. “It’s definitely been busy, it’s been tough.

We’ve had to unfortunately say no to a lot of things, but for me golf needs to be No. 1and I need that time to get my practice in then if I have time for other stuff, great.”

Last year at Desert Ridge’s Wildfire Golf Club, Tseng won the second of her three 2012 titles, holding off Na Yeon Choi - No. 2 in the world - and Ai Miyazato by a stroke in cold, rain, wind and hail. The Taiwanese star won the Kia Classic the following week at La Costa for 15th LPGA Tour title, then struggled the rest of the season.

“People started asking, ‘What’s wrong with Yani?’” said Tseng, No. 1 in the world for 109 weeks. “I think that is

time I feel really pressure. ... “This year, world No. 1 still means a lot for me, but I just don’t want to really focus on that. If I lose, it’s OK, I just try to get it back. I’m not worried about too much. It’s very hard to always be on top, and I think now the LPGA is getting tougher and tougher.”

Tseng and Lewis will open play late yesterday in a group with Paula Creamer. The tournament is the fourth of the season, and first in the United States. Jiyai Shin won the season-opening Australian Open, Inbee Park took the LPGA Thailand and Lewis completed the Asian swing with her victory in the HSBC Women’s Champions in Singapore. “It’s nice to just be back in the States in general,” said Lewis, the Texan who played at the University of Arkansas. “It’s nice to not have to get on a 12-hour flight to go to your next golf tournament.”

She tied for 10th last year at Wildfire. “The greens are holding a little bit better,” Lewis said. “That kind of frustrated me last year, so I was kind of looking forward to getting back here and getting some redemption.”—AP

SCOREBOARD WELLINGTON: Scoreboard at stumps on the opening day of the second Test between New Zealand and England at the Basin Reserve in Wellington yesterday: England, first innings A. Cook c Fulton b Wagner 17 N. Compton c Taylor b Martin 100 J. Trott not out 121 K.Pietersen 18 Extras (w5, lb3, nb3) 11 Total (2 wkts, 90 overs) 267 Fall of wickets: 1-26 (Cook), 2-236 (Compton) Bowling: Southee 19-4-44-0, Boult 20-4-78-0, Wagner 225-70-1, Martin 27-9-58-1, Williamson 2-0-14-0.

New Zealand: P. Fulton, H. Rutherford, K. Williamson, R. Taylor, D. Brownlie, B. McCullum, BJ Watling, T. Southee, B. Martin, N. Wagner, T. Boult

Laura Diaz appointed US Solheim Cup vice captain PHOENIX: Laura Diaz was appointed vice captain of the US Solheim Cup team, pairing her with Dottie Pepper six years after their friendship seemingly ended over Pepper’s blunt televised comment during the matches. Diaz, selected by captain Meg Mallon to join Pepper as an assistant for the August matches against Europe at Colorado Golf Club, was the most vocal critic after Pepper referred to the US players as “chokin’ freakin’ dogs” during Golf Channel’s coverage of the 2007 event. Believing the network was in a commercial break, Pepper made the comment after Diaz and Sherri Steinhauer settled for a halve when Steinhauer missed a 3-foot putt on the 18th.

“I think in most friendships words are said that people don’t like,” Diaz said at the LPGA Founders Cup. “Sometimes it takes a little time to get over and sometimes it takes a longer time. ... We both are very passionate about the Solheim Cup. “As much as Dottie and I have shared, I’ve known Dottie since I was 10 years old, so there’s a lot more that goes into it than just she was a commentator. I would like to believe that she was playing that match with me and she was feeling what I was feeling and words came out that, you know, they were just words.”

Pepper reiterated that she thought she was off the air when she made the comment. “I made one crucial mistake,” Pepper said. “It was breaking a broadcast rule that you’re never supposed to root and I did, and the switch wasn’t off when I did and I said something that I have said to myself numerous times and it happened to go out over the air. But I think the thing that is most important to remember about the Solheim Cup itself is that while it drives passion and that can sometimes scar a friendship, Solheim Cup is also way bigger to mend it again.” Mallon thinks the fiery duo will make perfect assistants.”If they’re OK with it, the rest of us are OK with it and I’m happy to see this,” Mallon said. “And I’m no dummy. These two love this event and they should be together enjoying this event together, so I’m happy about it.”—AP

WELLINGTON: New Zealand’s Trent Boult dives in attempt to field off his own bowling in front of England’s Kevin Pietersen on the first day of the second international cricket test in Wellington, New Zealand, yesterday.— AP

England batsmen dominate first day of second Test Compton, Trott guide England to strong position WELLINGTON: England’s Nick Compton and Jonathan Trott punctured New Zealand’s growing bubble of self-belief yesterday as they both scored centuries to guide their side to an imposing 267 for two at the close of play on the first day of the second Test.

The hosts had entered the match with a burgeoning sense of confidence after a credible performance in the drawn first test in Dunedin, though England’s batsmen brought them back to earth on Thursday with a ruthlessly efficient display.

Trott was 121 not out, his ninth century, at stumps after he and Compton combined for a 210-run partnership on a Basin Reserve pitch that was offering New Zealand little assistance. Kevin Pietersen was on 18 at the close of play. Compton had been dismissed in the final hour for 100, his second test century. “It was important that Nick and I got going after losing Alastair early and we managed to do that,” Trott told reporters. New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum had won the toss and chosen to bowl to try to extract whatever help they could get from the pitch expected to offer more pace and bounce than University Oval in Dunedin.

Compton and Trott, however, made him pay for that decision, comfortably dealing with the lack of swing, seam movement and penetration by the New Zealand bowlers, who consistently failed to force them to play at deliveries or create any sustained pressure. Captain Alastair Cook (17) was the only wicket to fall in the first session when he appeared to get through his shot a little

ahead of the delivery from left arm pace bowler Neil Wagner and it spooned to Peter Fulton at mid-on. Compton and Trott then dominated the rest of the day’s play.

They guided the visitors through to 162 for one at tea and then appeared to be engaged in a race between themselves as the first to three figures when play resumed in the final session.

Trott belted two boundaries in one Bruce Martin over, then Compton responded in the next by Trent Boult, dispatching the left arm medium pace bowler to the fence twice.

The 31-year-old Trott, however, reached the mark first when he rocked back and pulled a short Wagner delivery to the square-leg fence for the 14th boundary of his 174-ball innings.

“As a batsmen you have never scored enough,” Trott added.

“It’s important that you have never think you have done the job and hand it over to someone else. “It’s nice to be in a bit of form and get some runs to contribute to the team.

“I was very happy to do that and I have worked hard for it.”

Compton wasted little time in joining him, effortlessly driving a full Wagner delivery in the left armer’s next over through the covers for his 15th boundary.

The 29-year-old Compton, who scored his maiden test century in the second innings in Dunedin, punched the air in delight before the ball had even reached the boundary to celebrate the achievement.—Reuters

Sports FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Super-G races canceled, Hirscher edges near title

LENZERHEIDE: Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway shows off the men’s downhill World Cup trophy and the men’s super-G World Cup trophy during the season final in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, yesterday. — AP

South Africa axe captain Khumalo for World Cup tie SOWETO: South Africa dropped captain Bongani Khumalo yesterday for a 2014 World Cup qualifier against the Central African Republic in Cape Town this month.

Goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune, who skippers South African Premiership leaders Kaizer Chiefs, takes over the armband for a March 23 fixture Bafana Bafana (The Boys) must win to have a realistic chance of reaching Brazil.

South Africa dropped four points in the first two rounds last year after 1-1 draws at home to Ethiopia and away to Botswana and are only third in Group A, two points off the pace.

Centre-back Khumalo, full-back Siboniso Gaxa, midfielder Thulani Serero and strikers Lehlohonolo Majoro and Katlego Mphela are axed from the 23-man squad eliminated in the Africa Cup of Nations quarter-finals last month.

They are replaced by Morgan Gould, Siyanda Xulu, Daylon Claasen, Daine Klate and Dino Ndlovu for the first international meeeting between Bafana Bafana and the Wild Beasts.

“I did not choose Bongani because he has not being playing for his club (PAOK Salonika of Greece),” coach Gordon Igesund told reporters here after naming his squad.

Khumalo did not impress as a defender or leader during a disappointing Cup of Nations for hosts South Africa, who lost a last-eight penalty shootout to Mali after beating Angola and drawing with Cape Verde and Morocco in group games.

Gould, ruled out of the Nations Cup by injury, is among six Chiefs stars in the squad and is the likely replacement for Khumalo, who joined Tottenham Hotspur two years ago and was lent to Preston, Reading and PAOK.

“I did not make too many changes because I believe in continuity. We need to carry on from where we left off in the Cup of Nations tournament,” said the coach. “Central African Republic are a very dangerous team. They are very strong and physical but if we move the ball around and keep it on the ground, we will do well,” he promised.

Ethiopia have four points, Central African Republic three, South Africa two and Botswana one in a group 1998 and 2002 World Cup qualifiers Bafana Bafana were expected to dominate.

Central African Republic stunned seven-time champions Egypt 4-3 overall in a 2013 Nations Cup qualifier only to be pipped by Burkina Faso for a place at the finals, and are ranked ninth in Africa, two places above South Africa.

Squad Goalkeepers: Itumeleng Khune (Kaizer Chiefs, capt), Senzo Meyiwa (Orlando Pirates), Wayne Sandilands (Mamelodi Sundowns)

LENZERHEIDE: Marcel Hirscher of Austria edged closer to a second straight overall World Cup title yesterday when organizers canceled a super-G race after only 10 of 27 racers started.

Already delayed 3 1/2 hours by bad weather, the men’s race was called off 45 minutes after Klaus Kroell of Austria crashed into the safety nets.

He was taken by helicopter for treatment.

The canceled women’s race -which was scheduled to start immediately after the men’s event gave the season-long super-G title to Tina Maze of Slovenia, who had already won in the overall and giant slalom standings.

Maze could only have been caught by Julia Mancuso. The American’s head coach, Alex Hoedlmoser, said the steep, twisting course was “too dangerous” to race on. “The wind was blowing the snow across the track and you couldn’t really see enough. The conditions on the top were just not good enough,” Hoedlmoser said.

In a difficult World Cup finals week for race organizers, the weather helped decide seasonlong titles for a second day. Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway had already won the men’s super-G title but was prevented from scoring race points in his overall pursuit of Hirscher.

Svindal trails Hirscher by 149 with the Austrian technical specialist’s best two events, giant slalom and slalom, remaining at the weekend. Race wins award 100 points. The Norwegian challenger all but conceded the overall title Wednesday after thick fog forced the downhill to be cancelled, giving him the discipline title.

The cancelled women’s downhill gave the title to American star Lindsey Vonn, whose season was ended by injury last month. She stayed one point ahead of Maze, who was denied a chance at sweeping all five women’s World Cup trophies.

Fog, falling snow and cross winds on the upper slope caused problems yesterday, after the lower slope was shrouded in fog 24 hours earlier.

The men’s super-G finally began at 1 pm (1200 GMT) and was halted by cross winds after the first racer, Gauthier de Tessieres of France, came down.

De Tessieres recovered his balance well after being launched into the air midway through his run, at a ridge approaching a right-hand turn. Kroell crashed out at the same spot, going directly into the safety nets and only stopping after a headfirst tumble. The Austrian racer, who lost his downhill title to Svindal on Wednesday, quickly sat up but appeared to have a shoulder injury. — AP

Remy, Varane recalled for World Cup games PARIS: France coach Didier Deschamps yesterday recalled injury hit striker Loic Remy in his 24-player squad to face crucial 2014 World Cup qualifiers against Georgia and Spain on March 22 and 26 respectively in Paris. The Queen Park Rangers’ marksman and Real Madrid defender Raphael Varane, 19, who has been a revelation in Jose Mourinho’s back-four this season, both return, while there is a first call-up for 20-year-old Juventus midfielder Paul Pogba. “He’s not a young or new player,” Deschamps said of Remy who has struggled with a series of injuries at the relegation threatened London club.

“He is better physically and getting playing time. He has also had success scoring goals in recent matches and we know that he has a profile and qualities that are different from the other attacking players,” he added of the 26-year-old.

“I know him well because I coached him for several seasons at Marseille and it’s good for him to be back with us and to grow in confidence.

There are ten English-based players, including four from Newcastle in the squad that go into the crucial qualifiers set to go a long way to determining top place and the automatic spot at the 2014

World Cup in Brazil. Tottenham ‘keeper Hugo Lloris is likely to captain the squad in an attack heavy formation that includes Karim Benzema, Olivier Giroud and Franck Ribery as well as the in-form PSG forward Jeremy Menez and Lyon’s Bafetimbi Gomis.

Goalkeepers: Mickall Landreau (Bastia), Hugo Lloris (Tottenham/ENG), Steve Mandanda (Marseille) Defenders: Gall Clichy (Manchester City/ENG), Mathieu Debuchy (Newcastle/ENG), Patrice Evra (Manchester United/ENG), Christophe Jallet (Paris SG), Laurent Koscielny (Arsenal/ENG), Mamadou Sakho (Paris SG), Raphall Varane (Real Madrid), Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa (Newcastle/ENG) Midfielders: Yohan Cabaye (Newcastle/ENG), Maxime Gonalons (Lyon), Blaise Matuidi (Paris SG), Dimitri Payet (Lille), Paul Pogba (Juventus), Moussa Sissoko (Newcastle/ENG), Mathieu Valbuena (Marseille) Forwards: Karim Benzema (Real Madrid/ESP), Olivier Giroud (Arsenal/ENG), Bafetimbi Gomis (Lyon), Jeremy Menez (Paris SG), Franck Ribery (Bayern Munich/GER), Looc Remy (Queens Park Rangers/ENG). — AFP

Defenders: Morgan Gould, Tsepo Masilela (both Chiefs), Thabo Matlaba, Siyabonga Sangweni (both Pirates), Anele Ngcongca (Genk/BEL), Thabo Nthethe (Bloemfontein Celtic), Siyanda Xulu (Rostov/RUS) Midfielders: Daine Klate, Oupa Manyisa (both Pirates), Reneilwe Letsholonyane, Siphiwe Tshabalala (Chiefs), Lerato Chabangu (Moroka Swallows), Daylon Claasen (Lierse/BEL), Kagisho Dikgacoi (Crystal Palace/ENG), Dean Furman (Oldham/ENG), May Mahlangu (Helsingborg/SWE), Thuso Phala (Platinum Stars) Strikers: Dino Ndlovu (Maccabi Hafia/ISR), Bernard Parker (Chiefs), Tokelo Rantie (Malmo/SWE). — AFP

PARIS: France’s national football team head coach Didier Deschamps smiles yesterday during a press conference to announce the squad for the World Cup 2014 qualifying football matches against Georgia (March 22) and Spain (March 26) to be held at the stade de France in Paris. — AFP

Sports FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Sagan eyes historic SanRemo win MILAN: Slovakian Peter Sagan will be among the big names to watch when Milan-SanRemo kicks off the season of major cycling classics this weekend. Although only 23 years old, Sagan is already regarded as one of cycling’s next big stars and could take his stock further with a maiden, historic history in “La Primavera” on Sunday.

The Slovakian highlighted his form with two stage victories in the Tirreno-Adriatico race last week when his former Liquigas teammate Vincenzo Nibali, now at Astana, triumphed for the second year in succession.

After a fourth place finish last year, when Australian Simon Gerrans pipped Swiss star Fabian Cancellara at the line, Sagan went on to win three stages and the sprinters’ green jersey at the Tour de France.

Having beaten British sprint king Mark Cavendish in last week’s outing at Tirreno, Sagan is confident in his chances. “I think the team will ride to support me in the race,” said Sagan. In the event the race does not finish in a small group sprint, Cannondale have another option in Moreno Moserthe recent winner of the gruelling Strade Bianche one-day Italian race. Sagan added: “If it turns out a different race, Moreno gives us another guarantee and that means I could be even more comfortable, and confident”.

The first of the season’s five “monuments”, the race is a near 300 km slog which begins in Milan and heads south towards the coast where the first of eight climbs begin taking a steady toll on the peloton. Usually it is on the Cipressa, the race’s penultimate climb, or the Poggio whose summit is barely six kilometres from the finish-that decisive attacks and counter-attacks usually come and go as a dwindling bunch races towards the flat finish.

Although Sagan is riding strongly, the Slovakian will not be without adversaries. Despite failing to win a stage in the past week, 2009 champion Cavendish remains a threat-if he can manage to stay near the front of the peloton when the going gets tough later on.

Cancellara won the race in 2008 and his runner-up place last year suggests the Swiss still has the legs to challenge for what would be his second win. Meanwhile, for the first time the race will welcome an African-registered team. While MTN-Qhubeka’s leader for the race is German sprinter Gerald Ciolek, all eyes are likely to be on Sozengo Jim. “Songezo Jim will become the first black South African to participate in a WorldTour race,” the team’s manager, Doug Ryder, said midweek. “Songezo and the other riders will be working in support of Ciolek.” Team Sky’s hopes, meanwhile, will be shouldered by Norwegian Edvald Boasson Hagen-a strong all around rider who is well suited to the race’s climbs and has a fairly strong sprint finish. Gerrans recently said he was not on the form of his life and that Orica-GreenEdge teammate Matt Goss, the winner of a stage at Tirreno and the 2011 champion, would be a better bet.—AFP

Sharapova into Indian Wells semi-finals Kirilenko reaches first Indian Wells semis INDIAN WELLS: Maria Sharapova progressed to the semi-finals at Indian Wells on Wednesday with a 7-6 (8/6), 6-2 victory over Sara Errani in a rematch of last year’s French Open final. The Russian beat the Italian in the Roland Garros title match last year to complete a career Grand Slam and again triumphed this time round. With a win over the sixth seed, Sharapova reached the semifinals in the California desert for the sixth time and said she hoped to secure a second title to go with the one she captured back in 2006.

“I’m giving myself an opportunity to be back in the final, and hopefully I will go farther this time,” said Sharapova, who was runner-up to Victoria Azarenka last year.

Sharapova was slow out of the blocks against Errani, as she was in her 7-5, 6-0 victory over Spain’s Lara Arruabarrena-Vecino.

The Italian broke her in the first game of the match as Sharapova delivered two double faults and although the Russian immediately regained the break she dropped her serve again in the seventh game with another brace of double faults to trail 4-3.

Sharapova buckled down, however, getting the break she needed to force a tiebreak in the 10th game before fending off a set point in the tiebreaker.

She wrapped up the match after two hours and one minute — just after the clock ticked past midnight in California.

Erratic serving cost Petra Kvitova dearly as the fifth-seeded Czech was knocked out of the BNP Paribas Open by Russian Maria Kirilenko on Wednesday, losing 4-6 6-4 6-3 in the quarter-finals. Kirilenko will next meet 2006 champion and compatriot Maria Sharapova, who beat sixth-seeded Italian Sara Errani 7-6 6-2 in a late evening match at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. Left-hander Kvitova double-faulted 13 times during an error-strewn encounter which ended after almost two-and-a-half hours when the 2011 Wimbledon champion sent a forehand long on a steaming hot afternoon at the Indian

INDIAN WELLS: Maria Kirilenko of Russia hits a return to Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic during day 8 of the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells Tennis Garden on Wedneday in Indian Wells, California. — AFP Wells. Kirilenko, who won her sixth WTA singles title at Pattaya City last month, squealed in delight while pumping her fists in celebration after extending her unbeaten record this year in three-set matches to 6-0.

“Finally I reach the semi-finals,” a jubilant Kirilenko said courtside after reaching the last four at Indian Wells for the first time at the elite WTA event. “It is my 10th time playing here. “I am really happy I won this match.

I had some problems with my knee in the first set but I was able to keep fighting and win. Every time we play we have really tough ones. “In the first set I was leading 4-2, and then suddenly she start to play unbelievable, a lot of winners. It seems when she’s losing she’s more relaxed. She can be very dangerous.” Kirilenko, who had upset third seed Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland in the previous round, broke Kvitova in the sixth game

of the opening set but then failed to hold her serve in the seven and ninth games as the Czech took early control.

Kvitova seized an early 4-2 lead in the second set but her power game became increasingly erratic before she lost the set in unusual circumstances when, serving at 4-5 and 15-0, she made four successive double faults for the Russian to level.

The final set went with serve until the sixth game when the Czech again failed to hold. After breaking back in the seventh with a rasping forehand winner down the line, Kvitova lost serve in the eighth with her 13th double fault of the match.

Serving for the match, Kirilenko began poorly to trail 0-30 but won the next four points on three Kvitova unforced errors to wrap up the win and improve her record against the Czech to 4-3.—Agencies

Federer, Nadal set up quarter-final showdown

INDIAN WELLS: Rafael Nadal of Spain serves against Ernests Gulbis of Lativa during their ATP fourth round match at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California on Wednesday. — AFP

INDIAN WELLS: Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal both battled through three-set thrillers Wednesday to set up a mouthwatering quarter-final at Indian Wells. Defending champion Federer defeated fellow Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka 6-3, 6-7 (4/7), 7-5, laboring two hours and 20 minutes to subdue his old friend.

Nadal, playing his fourth tournament since returning from a seven-month injury absence, outlasted the in-form Latvian Ernests Gulbis 4-6, 6-4, 7-5. The other two of the “big four” of men’s tennis also reached the quarter-finals of combined ATP Masters and WTA event.

World No. 1 Novak Djokovic defeated American Sam Querrey 6-0, 7-6 (8/6) in a match that started after midnight and finished around 2 am yesterday.

World No. 3 Andy Murray beat unseeded Argentinian Carlos Berlocq 7-6 (7/4), 6-4. Djokovic’s late night was the result of some long matches Wednesday on stadium court.

Federer had a golden opportunity to make his day much shorter, but serving for the match at 5-4 in the second set he was broken to love.

Unable to convert two break points in the following game he surrendered the set on a tiebreaker when he double-faulted on set point. Wawrinka then gained the upper hand with a break in the third set, but Federer, winner of 17 Grand Slam titles, broke back and earned the decisive break in the final game.

“I think I was a little little lucky to come through it in the end,” said Federer, who continued to say a sore back would not hinder his pursuit of a first title of 2013.

“Overall I’m very pleased that I was able to play today and play at a high level,” Federer said. Nadal is playing his first hard court tournament since left-knee tendinitis forced him out of the Miami Masters last March. Damage in the same knee later sidelined him for seven months-from a second-round defeat at Wimbledon until a comeback swing of three clay-court tournaments in Latin America in February that yielded two titles and a runner-up finish.

Nadal had admitted he did not know how his knee would hold up on hard courts, and in qualifier Gulbis he came up against a red-hot player who had won the Delray Beach title as a qualifier the week before Indian Wells and toppled two seeds en route to his meeting with the Spaniard. “Always against Ernests it’s a very difficult match,” Nadal said. “He’s a very, very aggressive player with a big serve.” Nadal saved the only break point he faced in the third set, and converted his only opportunity to break in the 11th game.When he finally blasted a forehand winner on his third match point, Nadal gave a little leap of joy The last time he played Federer was in the semi-finals at Indian Wells last year when he lost 6-3, 6-4. A packed schedule on stadium court saw Nadal’s match, the last of the day session, finish at at 9:47pm.—AFP

FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 2013

Heat streak at 20 after 98-94 win over 76ers Page 43

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INDIAN WELLS: Maria Sharapova of Russia hits a return against Sara Errani of Italy during their WTA women’s quarterfinal match at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California on Wednesday. — AFP (See page 47)

England batsmen dominate first day of second Test Page 45