30 Mar 2013

IPT IO N SC R SU B

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

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406 rounded up in Ahmadi security swoop

150 Fils

JAMADA ALAWWAL 18, 1434 AH

‘Monster of Grbavica’ jailed for 45 years

No: 15763

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Sanders helps Bucks beat Lakers 113-103

N Korea puts missiles on standby for strike US stealth bombers fly over peninsula

SEOUL/WASHINGTON: North Korea put its missile units on standby yesterday to attack US military bases in South Korea and the Pacific, after the United States flew two nuclear-capable stealth bombers over the Korean peninsula in a rare show of force.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed off on the order at a midnight meeting of top generals and “judged the time has come to settle accounts with the US imperialists in view of the prevailing situation”, the official KCNA news agency said. KCNA said North Korea and the United States could only settle their differences by “physical means”. The North has an arsenal of Sovietera short-range Scud missiles that can hit South Korea but its longer-range Nodong and Musudan missiles, which could in theory hit US Pacific bases, are untested. China, the North’s sole major ally, repeated its calls for restraint on the Korean peninsula at a regular Foreign Ministry briefing and made no criticism of the US flights.

“We hope that relevant parties will work together in pushing for a turnaround of the tense situation,” ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters. Tension has been high since North Korea conducted a third nuclear weapons test in February in breach of UN sanctions and despite warnings from China for it not to do so.

Russia’s foreign minister implicitly criticized the US bomber flights. “We are concerned that alongside the adequate, collective reaction of the UN Security Council, unilateral action is being taken around North Korea that is increasing military activity,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

“The situation could simply get out of control, it is slipping toward the spiral of a vicious cycle,” Lavrov told reporters in Moscow when asked about the situation. He called for efforts to get stalled six-party talks on North Korea going again. The talks have involved the two Koreas, the United States, Russia, China and Japan. On Thursday, the United States flew two radar-evading B-2 Spirit bombers on practice runs over South Korea, responding to a series of North Korean threats.

Continued on Page 14

PYONGYANG: North Koreans gather at a rally at Kim Il Sung Square in downtown Pyongyang yesterday. Thousands of North Koreans turned out for the mass rally at the main square in Pyongyang in support of their leader Kim Jong Un’s call to arms. — AP

Shoe-waving protesters ask minister to quit

TUNIS: A protester shows shoes during a demonstration to demand the resignation of Tunisian Minister of Women’s Affairs, Sihem Badi yesterday in Tunis. — AFP

Max 33º Min 18º

TUNIS: Dozens of angry Tunisians brandishing shoes protested yesterday demanding the resignation of the minister of women’s affairs, Sihem Badi, accusing her of failing to stand up to the ruling Islamists. Badi has for months been strongly criticized by civil society activists over her ties with Ennahda, the Islamist party that heads the coalition government which secular opposition groups accuse of seeking to curtail women’s rights. Fifty MPs on Thursday signed a no-confidence motion against the minister, according to the official TAP news agency, after similar protests earlier in the week.

Yesterday protesters chanted: “Badi get out!” and “Government of terrorism, minister of rape.”

Calls for her departure have multiplied since the rape of a three-year-old girl at a children’s nursery in the Tunis suburb La Marsa. The main suspect was arrested last Sunday.

Badi belongs to President Moncef Marzouki’s Congress for the Republic party, Ennahda’s centre-left ally in the ruling coalition, and as minister of family affairs is responsible for children’s nurseries. After reports of the rape case emerged, she said a member of the girl’s family was to blame and that no measures against the nursery were needed. — AFP

Iran slams Qatar over Syria rebel ‘embassy’ TEHRAN: A top diplomat yesterday condemned the move by the Gulf state of Qatar to let Syria’s opposition open an “embassy” in Doha, calling the decision “hasty and irrational,” Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported. “Qatar’s theatrical act in giving the Syrian embassy to a group which is unelected is both hasty and irrational,” the deputy foreign minister in charge of Arab and African affairs, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, was quoted as saying.

“The people of Syria will not allow others to decide their country’s fate,” he said of Tehran’s key regional ally.

“It is in Qatar’s interests to stop acting hastily and intensifying bloodshed among the Syrian people.” On Wednesday, Syrian opposition chief Ahmed Moaz Al-Khatib and Qatari State Minister for Foreign Affairs Khaled Al-Attiya inaugurated a representative office dubbed the “Embassy of the Syrian National Coalition” in Doha. The original Syrian embassy itself in Qatar remains closed.

The opening came a day after opponents of President Bashar AlAssad, whom the Islamic republic staunchly backs, were given Damascus’s long-vacant seat at the Arab League annual summit of the 22-member bloc in Doha. Iran criticized the League move as a “dangerous precedent”. — AFP

LOCAL

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Security inspections in Ahmadi: 406 held

By Hanan Al Saadoun

KUWAIT: The Ministry of Interior conducted a massive security inspection campaign in Ahmadi area over the weekend and arrested 406 illegal resdents and other violators of the country’s laws.

Senior officials told the media that they are planning to continue such operations to get rid of the marginal labour in the country. Such campaigns will help the govt to trace all violaors of the rules and regulations especially related to residency and work. Security media called upon all citizens and expatriates to carry their identification papers always pointing out that security teams are equipped with computer which will provide them with necessary information about all people.

Security media also urged people to cooperates with the field cooperation groups and help them to carry out their duties completely. They warned that whoever gives shelter to residency violators or wanted people will be totally responsible for their actions and will be considered partners in that crime.

LOCAL SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Kuwait plans quotas, limits for expats Bid to regulate labour market MANAMA: Kuwait is considering a move to reduce the number of foreigners in the country by imposing a quota based on nationality and a cap on the length of time expatriates can spend in the country.

The plan is being worked out by a special committee set up by the social affairs and labour ministry to address the issue of foreigners in Kuwait.

Kuwait, home to around two million foreigners, who make up two thirds of the total population, earlier this month said that it had plans to halve the number of expatriates working in the country within 10 years.

“The committee has requested all the ministries and state institutions to comment on its proposal to limit the presence of expatriates,” said Abdul Mohsin Al Mutair, the ministry undersecretary, as quoted by local daily Al-Qabas.

“The proposal is based on three major issues and the official institutions have been invited to give their views on the possibility of introducing a quota system based on nationalities, limiting the number of unskilled labour and putting a cap on the number of years foreigners can spend in the country.

The cap would be five years for unskilled labour, seven years for average technical skills and 10 years for advanced skills, he said. “We hope to receive the official comments and remarks within two weeks,” he said. On March 19, Dhikra Al Rasheedi, minister of social affairs and labour, said that she was pushing for new measures to reduce the number of foreigners by 100,000 annually over the next 10 years.

“The strategy envisages bringing down the total number of expatriate workers to only one million in 10 years,” she told the Kuwait News Agency. “The move is part of the ministry’s efforts to regulate the labour market, curb the phenomenon of marginal labour and restore the demographic equilibrium of the country.”

A major concrete step will be implemented on April 1 when the transfer of all forms of visit visas into work permits will be halted. However, for-

eigners whose applications have already been approved would not be affected by the decision, she said.

Most of the foreigners in Kuwait are Asians working in the construction and service sectors or are employed as domestic helpers.

Indians make up the largest community while Egyptians top the Arab numbers.

Kuwait and the other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - have for years depended on foreign labour, particularly in the booming construction sector, menial work and services.

Millions of expatriates, particularly unskilled workers from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh and Arabs from Egypt and Jordan have moved to the Gulf since the 1970s, lured by lucrative salaries and benefits.

Unskilled labourers and domestic helpers constitute around 85 per cent of the 13 million foreigners living in the Gulf states.

However, as their

Khaitan Coop shareholders demand board dismissal KUWAIT: A number of shareholders in Khaitan Cooperative society recently demonstrated outside the office of the Minister of Social Affairs and Labor Thekra Al-Rasheedi to express their refusal of what they described as the unwise financial and administrative policies adapted by the coop’s board of directors. Demonstrators also called for dismissing the board and calling for early board elections or appointing a temporary director to set things straight.

One of the shareholders, Azzam Al-Mehani said that the situations in the cooperative store were very bad, services were deteriorating yearly and that prices were high compared to other cooperatives or other nearby department stores. “Profits zero for the first time since the coop’s establishment”, stressed Al-Mehani urging the minister to dissolve the board of directors and call for immediate elections of a new one. He also called for immediate appointment of a temporary care-taking director to run the coop till a new board was elected.

On his part, shareholder Rashid Abdul Aziz stressed that there were some deals between the current board of directors and some senior MSAL officials in addition to MPs practicing pressure on the minister to keep the current minister in office.

numbers surpassed those of the local populations, the situation turned into a challenge to the demographic balance and national identities.

Attempts by the GCC labour ministers to cap the presence of expatriates, citing grave security

and unemployment-related concerns, were invariably defeated by the powerful business communities that claimed that they would put on hold several major development projects and would cause the collapse of the economy.

Local SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Border ‘maintenance problem’ resolved BAGHDAD: United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative for Iraq Martin Kobler said here yesterday the problem blocking the maintenance of Kuwaiti-Iraqi frontier signs has been resolved by the demolition of Iraqi border houses.

The announcement was made during a joint press conference between Kobler, who is also the head of the United Nations Assistance

Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), and Basra Governor Khalaf Abdul-Samad.

He said Iraqi families have accepted the demolition of their houses on the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border with the goal of proceeding with the joint border sign maintenance process. However, Kobler emphasized that the only way for Iraq to exit Chapter VII of the UN Charter is to live up to all relevant international obligations, noting that Iraqi-Iraqi relations

are developing. For his part, Basra Governor Khalaf Abdul-Samad said three Iraqi houses impeding the border sign maintenance were demolished on Wednesday.

The Iraqi owners of the three demolished houses agreed to evacuate their properties upon agreement with the Iraqi government, he added. —KUNA

Kuwaiti swindler in custody UAE helps in operation KUWAIT: Cooperation among security administrations in the Gulf has resulted in the arrest of a Kuwaiti citizen who was accused of collecting KD 5 million through swindling operations. He offered many citizens of selling them real estates in capital governorates. After getting down payments from them he escaped to UAE. Later UAE authorities arrested him and handed him back to Kuwait authorities.

According to criminal investigators, they received several reports about the man who cheated citizens in the real estate business. He was reported to be missing after collecting around KD 5 million from the unsuspecting clients.

According to security sources, they discovered that the man was acting as a real estate agent at Hawally, and has offered his victims to sell a house at a prime location at the capital governorate, at an attractive price. He collected a down payment for completing the formalities after showing a power of attorney to sell the house from the real owner.

Thereafter the man disappeared. Investigations revealed that he had escaped to the UAE in an illegal way, and that the power of attorney from the house owner was a faked one.

The owner of the house was called, and he confirmed giving a copy of the document to the real estate agent to sell the house to the highest bidder, and he never knew that the man will use it for swindling. It was also found that the ‘agent’ had a lot crime records and there was a court verdict against him for 27 years imprisonment.

Sources said that detectives made use of the participation of a security delegation at a conference held in Kuwait recently and gave them the case file of the swindler. They promised them to arrest the swindler and return him to Kuwait.

The man was arrested last week even though he had undergone some plastic surgeries to change the appearance of his face. The swindler confessed his crime and said that forgery operations were made with the assistance of another Arab expatriate.Investigations are continuing.

KUWAIT: The car theft gang pictured after their arrest.

Hawally car theft gang in police net

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: Hawally detectives have arrested a two-member criminal gang consisting of a Kuwaiti and a bedoon. Case papers indicate that they had a entered a number of car sales offices at Hawally and Salmiya and stole luxurious cars which were exhibited there.

Police started investigations after receing several complaints from the car sales offices of the thefts. The theft gang soon fell into the police trap.

The duo pleaded guilty and confessed that some times they even tried to act like police detectives. Value of the cars caught with them was around KD 45,000.

Local SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

MOC plans e-payment KUWAIT: The Ministry of Communications announced yesterday that it will not accept cash payment for different kinds of bills and services as of April 1.

“The new, mainly e-payment system will save much time and effort,” the Ministry Undersecretary Buthiana Al-Sebae

said in press statements. Al-Sebae disclosed that the Ministry will allow clients to pay their dues and bills through new electronic payment services to be available at all the Ministry’s premises across the nation as of April 1.

She added the new service will be provided through coop-

eration with the national Shared Electronic Banking Services Company, known as Knet. “Clients have various other payment methods including checks, phone payment through the shared banking account, or e-payment gateway on the official website of the ministry,” Al-Sabae pointed out. —KUNA

Fire in basement car park contained

By Hanan Al-Saadoun KUWAIT: Firefighters managed yesterday to contain a huge fire that erupted in a basement car park in Hawally. Kuwait Fire Service Directorate said that three suffocation cases among the residents of the building where the basement was and some injuries among firefighters were reported.

The 5,000 square-meter-basement contained 120 cars, the KFSD said, adding that the firefighters managed to restrict the damage to only five vehicles. Some 300 residents have been evacuated, including 13 handicapped people, it said.

Deputy chief of the Fire Department, Khalid Al-Mikrad said that fire department received a report about the fire at 2.49 am and Hawally and Salmiya firemen along with Al Hilal fire center and technical rescue center responded fast. Al-Mikrad said that the teams were divided into two, for fire-fighting and rescue operations.

Soon the fire was brought under control.

Al-Mikrad explained that the firefighters were able to achieve such success because of their experience gained from fire exercises carried every now and then.

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Syrian rebels capture key town near Jordan border

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Angry lawyer throws shoe at Musharraf

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Iran, N Korea, Syria block arms trade treaty

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BAGHDAD: An Iraqi man is comforted as security forces and civilians gather at the scene of a car bomb attack in Baghdad yesterday. —AP

String of attacks kills 23 in Iraq Bombings bear hallmarks of Al-Qaeda BAGHDAD: A series of car bombings in Iraq struck five Shiite mosques as worshippers were emerging from Friday prayers, killing at least 23 people, officials said.

The attacks - four in Baghdad and one in the country’s north - were the latest spectacular assaults staged by insurgents seeking to undermine the Shiite-led government’s efforts to achieve security across the country. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the bombings bore the hallmarks of Al-Qaida’s Iraq branch.

The Sunni Muslim group, known as the Islamic State of Iraq, frequently uses car bombs, suicide bombers and coordinated blasts in an effort to sow fear among Shiites and erode their trust in the government of Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki.

In the first blast in Baghdad, a parked car exploded in Baghdad’s western Jihad neighborhood, killing seven worshippers and wounding 25, a police officer said. Another bombing in the eastern Qahira neighborhood killed four and wounded around 20, while another blast killed three more and wounded another 15 in the Zafaraniyah district. A fourth car bomb killed five people and wounded 14 in the northeastern

Binook neighborhood.

Three health officials confirmed the causality figures. All officials in Baghdad spoke on condi-

tion of anonymity because they were not allowed to talk to the media. In the northern city of Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Baghdad, a

Over 200 Latvians airlifted from drifting ice floes RIGA: Latvian rescue workers and soldiers yesterday airlifted more than 200 people, mostly ice fishermen, from two ice floes adrift in the Gulf of Riga, officials said. “The rescue operation concluded successfully at around 1600 (1400 GMT) with a total of 180 people rescued at Vakarbulli and 43 at Majori,” both towns in the Gulf of Riga, rescue services spokeswoman Viktorija Sembele told AFP. Helicopters carried up to 20 people at a time off the ice floes, she said, adding that no injuries were reported. Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics used his Facebook page to congratulate the rescue services and

army for their “high level of professionalism” in the operation. A public holiday on Good Friday saw a spike in the number of people engaging in recreational ice fishing, which is hugely popular in the tiny Baltic state. The season has been especially busy this year because of an unusually cold spring. But on Thursday authorities began warning of a thaw amid high winds-a combination that creates ice floes and pushes them offshore.

Every year dozens of ice fishermen are rescued and a handful drown when they venture out onto ice too thin to support their weight. —AFP

suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden car into a group of worshippers as they were leaving a mosque after Friday prayers, killing three people and wounding up to 70, according to police Col. Najat Hassan. A senior provisional health official, Sidiq Omar Rasool, confirmed the casualty figures in Kirkuk. Also yesterday, a roadside bomb struck a joint patrol north of Baghdad, killing an army officer and a police officer, a police official said.

Seven others were wounded in the attacks in the town of Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles (90 kilometers) north of Baghdad, the official added on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to talk to the media.

Violence has ebbed sharply since the peak of Sunni-Shiite fighting that pushed the country to the brink of civil war in 2006 and 2007, but Sunni insurgents still occasionally carry out high-profile attacks against Shiites, considering them to be heretics. Friday is a particularly popular day for militants to undertake such attacks because of the rush of mostly men and boys who flock to the mosques throughout the country to hear traditional Muslim sermons and take part in communal prayers. —AP

INTERNATIONAL SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Christians observe Jesus’ crucifixion

A Christian holds a large wooden cross as Lebanese Christians reenact the crucifixion of Jesus Christ during the Good Friday procession in the southern village of Qraiyeh yesterday. — AFP

Three activists raped by militiamen in Libya TRIPOLI: Three female British activists of Pakistani origin were raped by Libyan pro-government militiamen in the eastern city of Benghazi, after joining an aid convoy bound for Gaza to break an Israeli blockade, officials from several countries confirmed yesterday.

Libyan deputy prime minister Awad Al-Barassi, who visited the women in the hospital, said the victims were traveling with two male companions when they were kidnapped on Tuesday on their way to the Benghazi airport after deciding to return to Britain. The overland convoy left Britain on Feb. 25, but was stuck for days along the Libyan-Egyptian border after Egyptian border guards refused to let them to cross.

Al-Barassi told Libya al-Hurra TV late Thursday that the women were in “very bad shape.” Two of the women are sisters and their father witnessed the rape of the women, he said. Their 10-vehicle convoy carrying medical supplies was named “Mavi Marmara” in honor of a ship involved in a 2010 deadly flotilla incident, according to Huseyin Oruc of IHH, a Turkish humanitarian relief organization. IHH was the group that helped organize the international flotilla that was attacked on May 31, 2010. Israeli commandos stormed the Mavi Marmara while stopping the flotilla that was trying to breach an Israeli blockade of Gaza. Eight Turks and a TurkishAmerican were killed, and dozens of activists and seven Israeli soldiers were wounded.

IHH mediated the release of the kidnapped women and men after they were contacted by the convoy’s organizers and pled for help. The man and his daughters were scheduled to return to Britain on Friday, he said. He said the women were attacked and robbed, and that their abductors included a taxi driver and a group of men in military uniforms.

Less than two years after the country’s uprising-turnedcivil war, Libya is struggling to build a unified army and police force amid increasingly powerful militias. The government depends on some of the militias to fill the security vacuum, but has struggled to control over their actions.

Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry condemned the attack and said that Pakistani embassy in Libya had lodged a strong protest with Libyan authorities “A heinous crime has been committed against these female activists,” he said, adding that he hoped stern action would be taken against the attackers. Britain’s Foreign Office said in a statement that it was aware of an incident involving British nationals who were part of an aid convoy.

The office said the government was providing consular assistance, but it did not elaborate. — AP

JERUSALEM: Hundreds of Christians streamed through the cobblestone alleyways of Jerusalem’s Old City yesterday, hoisting wooden crosses and chanting prayers to mark the crucifixion of Jesus.

Throngs of pilgrims walked a traditional Good Friday procession that retraces Jesus’ steps along the Via Dolorosa, Latin for the “Way of Suffering.”

They followed his 14 stations, saying a prayer at each and ending at the ancient Holy Sepulcher church. Along the route, Franciscan friars in brown robes chanted prayers in Latin and explained the different stations to crowds through a megaphone. Leonard Mary, a priest from Irondale, Alabama, was dressed as Jesus wearing a crown of thorns. He was flanked by men posing as Roman soldiers and had fake blood dripping down his chest as he lugged a giant cross down the street.

“The most perfect love that was ever seen in the world was when Jesus died for us. He showed us the perfection of love,” the priest said.

Good Friday events began with a morning service at the cavernous Holy Sepulcher, which was built on the place where tradition holds that

Jesus was crucified, briefly entombed and resurrected. Clergy dressed in colorful robes entered through the church’s large wooden doors as worshippers prayed in the church courtyard.

Later yesterday, a service was due in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, built atop the traditional site of Jesus’ birth. Christians believe Jesus was crucified on Good Friday and resurrected on Easter Sunday.

Roman Catholic and Protestant congregations that observe the new, Gregorian calendar, are marking holy week. Orthodox Christians, who follow the old, Julian calendar, will mark Good Friday in May. Less than 2 percent of the population of Israel and the Palestinian territories is Christian, mostly split between Catholicism and Orthodox streams of Christianity. Christians in the West Bank wanting to attend services in Jerusalem must obtain permission from Israeli authorities. Israel’s Tourism Ministry said it expects some 150,000 visitors in Israel during Easter week and the Jewish festival of Passover, which coincide this year. — AP

Syrian rebels capture key town near Jordan border ‘US, Arab states prepare rebels for critical push’ BEIRUT: Syrian rebels yesterday captured a strategic town near the border with Jordan after a day of fierce clashes that killed at least 38 people, activists said, as opposition fighters expand their presence in the south, considered a gateway to Damascus. The Britainbased Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 16 rebels were among the dead in the fighting in and around Dael. The town lies less than 15 kilometers (10 miles) from the Jordanian border in Daraa province, where the uprising against President Bashar Assad’s regime began two years ago.

The rebel gains have coincided with what regional officials and military experts say is a sharp increase in weapons shipments to opposition fighters by Arab governments in coordination with the US in the hopes of readying a push into Assad’s stronghold in the capital, Damascus. Although rebels control wide areas in northern Syria that border Turkey, the Jordanian frontier is only about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Damascus, or a third of the distance to the Turkish border.

The battle for Dael came as authorities ordered an investigation into a mortar attack on Damascus University that killed at least 10 students on Thursday, state media said. The attack was the deadliest since a wave of mortar shells began hitting the capital last month, puncturing the sense of normalcy the regime has tried to cultivate in the city. It was unclear who fired the mortar rounds. The government blamed “terrorists,” its blanket term for those fighting Assad’s regime. Antiregime activists accused the regime of staging the attack to turn civilians - many of whom in Damascus are already wary of the opposition fighters - against the rebels.

“Rebels now control wide areas in the Daraa countryside,’” said Rami Abdul-Rahman who heads the Observatory. “Every area that goes out of government control is important.”

Syrian activist Maher Jamous, who is from

Dael but currently lives in the United Arab Emirates, said that despite the steady advances and the latest rebel victory in Dael, the regime still maintains a strong presence in the strategic province that leads to the capital. Jamous said the capture of Dael increases the pressure on the regime. The regime is known to have posted elite troops in Daraa province, which separates Damascus from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that the Jewish state captured in 1967 and annexed in 1981.

Jamous said Dael has a population of 40,000, making it one of the bigger towns in the primarily agricultural region, which is dotted with small family farms. He added that the town fell briefly into the opposition’s hands in the early days of the uprising, but was quickly retaken by regime forces in May 2011.

Amateur videos posted online by activists, showed rebels in the streets of Dael

and the bodies of dead soldiers lying on the ground. The videos appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting on the events depicted.

In other areas, the Observatory said heavy clashes were taking place between regime forces and fighters renewing their attempts to storm a strategic military facility, known as the 17th Division base, north of the city of Raqqa that was captured by rebels earlier this month.

The division is considered one of the most important remaining regime strongholds in the northern province that borders Turkey, the Observatory said. It added that warplanes carried out several air raids in the area.

The Observatory said regime forces bombarded the Damascus suburb of Adra, while the government al Al-Ikhbariya TV said troops killed “many terrorists” in the area which is close to one of the main jails in the country.—AP

Fighters from the Syrian Free Army fire on a Syrian army position in Dael less than 15 kilometers (10 miles) from the Jordanian border in Daraa province, Syria. — AP

INTERNATIONAL

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Kenyans urged to stay calm over vote ruling

SANDTON: Locals and tourists pose in front of the giant Statue representing former South Africa’s president Nelson Mandela at Mandela’s square yesterday in Sandton. — AFP

Mandela ‘making steady progress’ JOHANNESBURG: Nelson Mandela was “in good spirits” and making steady progress yesterday as he spent a second day in hospital for a lung infection, in the latest health scare for the revered peace icon, South Africa’s presidency said. Prayers and messages of concern for the ailing 94-year-old, one of the towering figures of modern history, have poured in from across the globe since he was admitted to hospital late Wednesday. “Mandela is in good spirits and enjoyed a full breakfast this morning,” President Jacob Zuma’s office said in a statement. “The doctors report that he is making steady progress. He remains under treatment and observation in hospital.”

Zuma sought Thursday to reassure South Africans that the country’s anti-apartheid hero and first black president was in good hands. “The country must not panic, Madiba is fine,” Zuma told the BBC, referring to Mandela by his clan name.

“The doctors advise that former president Nelson Mandela is responding positively to the treatment he is undergoing for a recurring lung infection,” Zuma’s office had said in a short statement Thursday. It is the second time this month that the Nobel Peace Prize winner has been admitted to hospital, after spending a night for checkups on March 9. —AFP

DAR ES SALAAM: People searching through the rubble after a building collapsed along Indira Gandhi and Asia streets in Dar Es Salaam. — AFP

15 die in Tanzania building collapse DAR ES SALAAM: A building under construction collapsed in the centre of Tanzania’s commercial capital Dar es Salaam yesterday and rescuers searched for survivors under the rubble, with conflicting reports about the number of dead. A senior police officer initially told reporters 15 people were killed and two people were pulled out alive. Hours later, the mayor for central Dar es Salaam, Jerry Silaa, said two people were killed and 17 survivors had been found.

The building, in the Kariakoo district, was at least 12 storeys high. Witnesses said some cars were crushed in the collapse and people were using their hands to pull away masonry. Rescue workers said they heard the voices of people trapped, possibly including boys who had been playing soccer nearby when the building collapsed. Some witnesses said construction workers may also have been trapped. —Reuters

NAIROBI: Kenya’s outgoing president called for his nation to stay calm when a court rules today on a legal challenge over the presidential election result, seeking to avoid a repeat of the tribal bloodbath that followed a disputed vote five years ago. Orderly voting on March 4 after which Uhuru Kenyatta was declared victor has gone a long way to restoring Kenya’s image as one of Africa’s more stable democracies. And this time round, a row over the result has played out in court not the street.

But the final test comes when Kenyans hear from the Supreme Court whether it upholds Kenyatta’s win or orders a new vote that would give another chance to defeated Raila Odinga, who disputed the result declared on March 9 after a five-day count.

Kenyatta, whose win would pose a headache for Western donors because of charges he faces in the Hague over the 2007 violence, was well ahead of Odinga in total votes but had only just enough to exceed the 50 percent threshold to avoid a run-off. “As the country awaits the Supreme Court ruling which is due this Easter weekend, I call upon all of us to accept the ruling and maintain peace,” President Mwai Kibaki said in a message to mark the Christian holiday.

“Kenyans should resume their routine economic activities as soon as possible to return normalcy in the country,” he said. East Africa’s biggest economy was hammered when the December 2007

vote was followed by weeks of ethnic rioting that killed more than 1,200 people, scaring away investors and tourists.

Growth has not yet recovered to levels before the 2007 vote.

Neighbours, some of whose economies were hurt when their trade routes through Kenya were shut down five years ago, have been watching warily. So too have Western donors, who see Kenya as a vital ally in the regional battle against militant Islam.

Many ordinary Kenyans, even in the flashpoints of five years ago, insist there will not be re-run of the violence, partly because of greater confidence of a fair adjudication by the judiciary, reformed after 2007 with changes in its top echelon. “It is hard to know where the truth lies,” said John Okello, 45, a taxi driver in Kisumu, a city in western Kenya devastated by violence last time. “Let us leave that to the courts. I believe they will grant us credible justice.”

But voting patterns in Kenya are still largely determined by tribal loyalties, leaving room for sparks from the losing side. Many backers of Odinga, a Luo who also lost the 2007 vote, are convinced the election was unfair, just as Kenyatta’s supporters from his Kikuyu tribe are sure their man won.

Western diplomats said they expected calm to prevail, but the US Embassy still issued a warning this week to its citizens in Kenya about possible unrest.

Both candidates said they would respect the ruling and said they would keep any

disputes off the streets.

“Our real test for tolerance was when the presidential results were announced,” said Elikana Mukofu, 34, a guard at a nightclub in the port of Mombasa, another hot spot. “If we didn’t disintegrate into violence at that time, then for sure this judgment will have no impact on our emotions.”

Kenya’s Supreme Court met for a last brief session on Friday so legal teams could review results of recounts ordered in 22 of the 33,400 polling stations after Odinga said more votes were cast than registered voters.

“Keep your cellphones open, because we don’t know when we are going to summon you tomorrow (to issue the ruling),” Chief Justice Willy Mutunga told lawyers at the end of the session where both sides said the recount supported their arguments.

Odinga’s team also argued that the failure of technology in tallying undermined the vote. Rival lawyers said any irregularities or technical hiccups had an insignificant impact and did not change the overall outcome.

International observers said voting itself was credible, but diplomats say observers did not watch the full five-day count. If confirmed, a win by Kenyatta, the son of Kenya’s founding president, will complicate ties for Western nations because he faces charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court related to the violence after the 2007 vote. — Reuters

UN backs first ‘offensive’ peacekeeping for DR Congo UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council has unanimously approved the first-ever “offensive” UN peacekeeping brigade to battle rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which yesterday hailed the move as a turning point for its restive east. A council resolution gave the 3,000-strong force orders to “neutralize” and “disarm” rebel groups in the resource-rich east of the country, which has been gripped by conflict for more than two decades.

DR Congo Prime Minister Augustin Matata Ponya hailed the move as “the beginning of the end of armed groups and sends a very clear signal to those supporting them.” “The DRC welcomes this vote, which marks a decisive turning point for re-establishing peace and security in the Kivu” regions in the east, he said in a statement.

The first troops in the intervention brigade will come from South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi, UN peacekeeping force chief Herve Ladsous said Thursday.

The force and surveillance drones to monitor DR Congo’s borders with neighbors accused of backing the rebels will be operating by July. The force will launch UN peacekeeping operations into a new era, said diplomats. “It’s an innovation,” said France’s UN ambassador Gerard Araud, whose country wrote the resolution which has worried some

contributing nations to UN missions.

The resolution’s mandate to conduct “targeted offensive operations” has never been given to a peacekeeping mission before. It will act “in a robust, highly mobile and versatile manner and in strict compliance with international law” to “prevent the expansion of all armed groups, neutralize these groups, and to

disarm them,” the resolution said.

The brigade and drones are part of a UN campaign to add military muscle to political efforts to end conflict in DR Congo’s border regions with Rwanda and Uganda. Eleven African nations signed a UN-brokered accord last month pledging not to interfere in the affairs of their neighbors. —AFP

BRAZZAVILLE: Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso (right) and his wife Antoinette (second right) welcome China’s new President Xi Jinping (second left) and his wife Peng Liyuan (left) yesterday upon their arrival at Brazzaville’s Maya-Maya airport on the final leg of a three-nation Africa tour that has underscored Beijing’s growing presence in the resource-rich continent. — AFP

INTERNATIONAL

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Montenegrin jailed for 45 years over Sarajevo killings ‘Monster of Grbavica’ of murders, rapes and torture

ROME: Silvio Berlusconi, leader of centre-right People of Freedom party (PDL) arrives for a press conference following a meeting with Italy’s President yesterday. —AFP

Italy poised for talks to break govt deadlock ROME: Italian political leaders were poised for a new round of talks yesterday after leftist Pier Luigi Bersani failed to form a government following inconclusive elections in euro-zone’s thirdlargest economy. President Giorgio Napolitano was scheduled to host the talks later yesterday, as European capitals and financial markets watched warily amid renewed turbulence in the eurozone.

Italy’s main business daily Il Sole 24 Ore issued a stark warning to bickering politicians with a front-page headline reading: “Stop the Games”. Editor Roberto Napoletano warned of a “political vacuum” even as the country faced an economic emergency, adding: “There is no time to lose.”

Pierluigi Battista, a columnist for the Corriere della Sera daily, said: “The main political forces have to choose whether to commit to a very tough challenge or jump back into another campaign”. “We still do not know... if we will manage to have a government in a reasonable timeframe and who will take part and what priorities it will have, while the economy and society stagnate,” he said.

“The next few hours will tell,” he added. Political analyst Ugo Magri warned in La Stampa daily that Italy risked finding itself back in the market turmoil that led to Silvio Berlusconi’s ouster in 2011 once the Milan stock market re-opens on Tuesday after the Easter holiday.

“Without a solution to the crisis, we will be back to two years ago. Or worse,” he said. Bersani’s centre-left coalition got the most votes in the February 24-25 elections, winning a majority in the lower house of parliament but not in the upper house-with Berlusconi’s centre-right a very close second. Napolitano asked Bersani last Friday to try to form a government, but the ex-communist failed in his attempt to woo lawmakers from the Five Star Movement, an anti-establishment party. Bersani has ruled out a coalition government with his arch-rival Berlusconi, a scandaltainted 76-year-old billionaire tycoon who has served as prime minister three times in a tumultuous political career spanning two decades.

Analysts said a variety of scenarios were possible. One option is that Napolitano will nominate a prime minister candidate from outside the party political sphere-an arrangement similar to the one that brought Mario Monti to power in 2011. A former European commissioner, Monti kept public finances in check and launched key reforms but was punished at the ballot box by widespread opposition to his austerity measures. Another possibility is that Napolitano could try to push through some kind of right-left coalition. Berlusconi loyalist Daniela Santanche told La Repubblica daily that there could either be a right-left coalition or her party could support a minority leftist government on condition that it got to select the next president. —AFP

SARAJEVO: A Montenegrin warlord was jailed for 45 years yesterday for the murder, rape and torture of non-Serb civilians in Sarajevo in the Bosnian war, receiving the longest sentence handed down so far by the Bosnian war crimes court.

Veselin Vlahovic, nicknamed Batko, was found guilty of the murders of 31 people, rapes of at least 13 women and torture and robbery of dozens of civilians in Grbavica and Vraca, Serb-occupied areas of Sarajevo, in 1992, said presiding judge Zoran Bozic.

44-year old Vlahovic, known by his victims as the “Monster of Grbavica” and “Master of Life and Death”, carried out “horrid, cruel and manifold criminal acts”, Bozic said.

Prosecutors compiled a 66-count indictment against Vlahovic, the most extensive ever for crimes committed in the 1992-95 Bosnian war. The 45-year sentence is the maximum that can be given for such crimes.

Bozic said Vlahovic, a member of paramilitary group White Angels, which was allied to the Bosnian Serb army, often demanded ransoms of money or gold for his captives.

“Victims who could not pay for their lives would be typically taken to a recognisable location on Trebevic hill and shot in the head,” Bozic added. “In June 1992, he forced 13 members of the Pecar family out of their home and ordered three male relatives to run across a front line street planted with mines,” he said.

He then ordered his soldiers to open fire knowing the act would provoke a return of fire from the combat lines. One woman died and three, including a minor girl, were wounded and left on the street.

“It was a typical pattern (of his) behavior.

Those who had nothing to offer in turn for their lives were typically killed by a shot in the forehead, mouth or temporal bone, according to forensic accounts,” said Bozic.

He also described how Vlahovic raped a woman who was seven months pregnant in

War crimes suspect Veselin Vlahovic before he was extradited from Spain. —AP front of her young daughter in their Grbavica apartment, and in another incident raped a woman and then forced her to watch him rape her mother.

Vlahovic, dressed in a light blue shirt, showed no emotion throughout the proceedings, even when the verdict drew loud applause from members of victims’ associations in the heavily packed courtroom.

Bosnian Serbs, backed by the Serb-led Yugoslav army, launched an “ethnic cleansing” campaign in April 1992 in which thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats were killed, held captive or driven from their homes. Within months Serb forces had captured almost three-quarters of Bosnia and encircled its capital Sarajevo, where more than 10,000 people died in a 3-1/2-year siege. Vlahovic, 44, was detained in 2010 in Spain and delivered to the Bosnian court. He had served a jail sentence after the Bosnian war for an armed robbery in Montenegro. He

pleaded not guilty at the start of the trial and maintained his stance. “It’s a deserved punishment for all the suffering he caused,” a protected witness told Reuters through tears after the case was closed. More than 100,000 people were killed in the course of the 199295 war. The Bosnian war crimes court was set up in Sarajevo in 2005 to reduce the workload of the United Nations war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

Though the establishment of the courts was also aimed at establishing the truth about the Bosnian conflict and boost reconciliation, Bosnian Serbs see it as a political institution biased against them and have often challenged its legitimacy since most of those convicted are Serbs.

Tiny Montenegro, now independent, was still in union with Serbia during the Balkan wars and many Montenegrins sympathized with the Serb cause against Bosnian Muslims, Croats and Kosovo Albanians. — Reuters

Pope prepares for first Good Friday observances VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis prepared for his first Good Friday observances yesterday culminating in a torch-lit procession at Rome’s Colosseum and prayers for peace in a Middle East “torn apart by injustice and conflicts”.

The new pontiff was to recite the Passion of Christ-the story of the last hours of Jesus’s life-in St Peter’s Basilica starting at 1600 GMT before the Colosseum ceremony from 2000 GMT. The ceremonies come after a mass in a youth prison on Thursday in which the pope washed the feet of 12 inmates including two Muslims, an unprecedented version of a traditional pre-Easter ritual.

Latin America’s newly elected first pontiff has set a markedly different tone from his predecessor Benedict XVI, with a more open and informal style that is unusual in the Vatican halls of power.

He is expected to take part in Friday’s procession and even carry the wooden cross representing Jesus Christ’s crucifix on his shoulder part of the way. The 2,000year-old Colosseum is used as a backdrop for the ceremony because of the belief that Christians were martyred there in

ROME: This handout picture released by the Vatican press office on Thursday shows Pope Francis kissing the feet of a young offender after washing them during a mass at the church of the Casal del Marmo youth prison on the outskirts of Rome as part of Holy Thursday. — AFP Roman times even though there is no evidence of this. The meditations read out during the procession were written by a group of Lebanese young people chosen by the Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai. “Come, Holy Spirit, to console and strengthen Christians, especially those

from the Middle East so that, united in Christ, they may be witnesses of your universal love in an area torn apart by injustice and conflicts,” reads one of the prayers. Another refers to the conflicts “which in our days devastate various countries in the Middle East”. —AFP

INTERNATIONAL SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Iran, N Korea, Syria block arms trade treaty UNITED NATIONS: Iran, North Korea and Syria on Thursday held up agreement on the first global treaty on the $80 billion a year conventional arms trade. The three states twice blocked moves to adopt a treaty by consensus at the end of 10 days of arduous talks at the UN headquarters.

A coalition of countries from around the world said they would now take the treaty straight to the 193-member UN General Assembly next week for approval. It can be passed with a two thirds majority which is virtually assured. The move by Iran, North Korea and Syria, all facing sanctions or international reprimands for their weapons programs or trading, caused widespread anger at the conference. “This is not a failure, today is success deferred and deferred by not very long,” said Britain’s chief negotiator Jo Adamson. “A good strong treaty has been blocked by the DPRK (North Korea), the Islamic Republic of Iran and Syria but most people in the world want regulation and those are the voices that need to be heard,” she added.

The Amnesty International rights group called the blocking move “deeply cynical”.

“The world has been held hostage by three states,” said Anna MacDonald, Oxfam’s arms control specialist.

All of the major arms producer-the United States, Russia, Germany, France, China and Britain-were ready to agree the treaty for which negotiations started in 2006.

The first major arms accord since the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty would cover tanks, armored combat vehicles, large-caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles and missile launchers, as well as small arms and light arms. It would aim to force countries to set up national controls on arms exports. They would also have to assess whether a weapon could be used for genocide, war crimes or by terrorists or organized crime gangs before it is sold. Conference president Peter Woolcott of Australia had been about to bring the gavel down on an accord when Iranian, North Korean and Syrian ambassadors raised objec-

tions. After an hour of closed talks, a second attempt brought the same result. “The inherent right of states to self-defense, to defend against aggression and preserve its territorial integrity is not addressed,” Iran’s UN Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee told the conference. North Korea’s deputy UN ambassador Ri Tong-Il called the proposed treaty a “risky draft which can be politically manipulated by major arms exporters.” The envoy railed against arms embargos such as one his country faces over its nuclear weapons tests.

Syria’s UN ambassador Bashar Jaafari said the treaty should be more explicit on supplying arms to “terrorists” and “non-state groups.” Dozens of countries made it clear to the three that they were isolated. UN leader Ban Ki-Moon was “deeply disappointed” that the treaty was not agreed, said a UN spokeswoman. The United States is the world’s biggest arms dealer but Assistant US Secretary of State for International Security Tom Countryman said the United States backed the text and US trade would not be

“unduly hindered” by the treaty.

Even if the treaty is now agreed in the General Assembly, it may not get universal acceptance. Countryman predicted that other countries would join the objectors in voting against the treaty at the General Assembly.

But he added: “We think an overwhelming majority of states will vote in favor. I am happy to vote the opposite direction of such states as Iran, North Korea and syria on this text.” Russia said there are “omissions” in the treaty and “doubtful” provisions such as the failure to control arms transfers to non-state groups. Russia is particularly worried about weapons getting into the hands of Chechen rebels.

A Russian diplomat told the conference “we will be studying the draft extremely carefully” before deciding whether to sign it. India also cast doubt on whether it would sign the treaty. “The final draft has the telltale marks of behind-the-scenes carve outs of exclusive interests of a select few countries,” India’s delegate Sujata Mehta said. — AFP

Man charged in ‘mercy killing’ set for sentencing Sanders shot elderly wife in the head

NEWTON: Supporters of both sides of the gun debate gather outside the National Shooting Sports Foundation headquarters in Newtown, Connecticut. — AP

Motive remains unclear in Newtown school shooting NEW HAVEN, Connecticut: Newly released search warrants in the Newtown school shooting have revealed that gunman Adam Lanza’s home was packed with weapons and ammunition, but the documents do not shed any new light on what could have driven him to slaughter 20 children and six educators inside an elementary school.

Lanza left behind journals, which state police turned over to the FBI for analysis, but if investigators have any ideas about his motive, they aren’t saying. Nicole Hockley, whose son Dylan was among the children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School, said she has come to grips with the fact that she may never know why Lanza carried out the massacre. But she’s focused on measures to prevent violence. — AP

PHOENIX: George Sanders appeared frail and tired in the hours after he shot his ailing elderly wife in the head, wrapped in a blanket as he sat being questioned by a detective. “ She never wanted to outlive me and be left at the mercy of someone else,” Sanders tells a Maricopa County sheriff’s detective in an interrogation recorded the day his wife, Virginia Sanders, 81, was found shot in the couple’s home.

“We loved each other so much,” Sanders said. “It was a wonderful life in spite of all the hard things we had at the end.” The 86-year-old was initially charged with first-degree murder for the Nov 9 shooting of his wife but later pleaded guilty to manslaughter in what attorneys on both sides have called a “mercy killing.” Sanders could face probation or up to 12 1/2 years in prison at his sentencing hearing. His attorney did not respond to requests for comment.

The World War II veteran told authorities his wife was diagnosed with multiple

sclerosis in 1969, and the couple moved from Washington state to the retirement community of Sun City outside Phoenix about seven years later for the warm, dry climate as she was now in a wheelchair.

“We did a lot of things together, always loved each other,” he told the detective, adding that her health began to deteriorate over the last few years.

“I took care of her through that day and night,” Sanders said. Eventually, as his own health deteriorated, he said the couple hired a caregiver. He said his wife had been diagnosed with gangrene on her foot just a few days before the shooting and was set to be admitted to a hospital, then a nursing home.

“It was just the last straw,” Sanders said. “She didn’t want to go to that hospital ... start cutting her toes off.”

He said he talked it over with his wife and she begged him to kill her. “I said, ‘I can’t do it honey,’” he told police. “She says, ‘Yes you can.’” Sanders said he got his revolver and wrapped a towel around

it so the bullet wouldn’t go into the kitchen. “She says, ‘Is this going to hurt,’ and I said, ‘You won’t feel a thing,’” he said. “She was saying, ‘Do it. Do it. Do it.’

And I just let it go,” Sanders added.

He sat in the room at the sheriff’s office for about five hours as his wife was hospitalized. The bullet didn’t kill her.

She died a few days later.

After several hours, the detective came back in. “Virginia was at this present moment currently still alive but not expected to make it. She’s not expected to live,” the detective told him. Sanders appeared distraught. “I think of her laying in her bed and it haunts me. I’ve taken care of her all these years and to think of somebody else doing it that really doesn’t care,” he said. “Terrible.”

A few minutes later, a deputy came into the room and handcuffed him, then led him out the door to be fingerprinted.

“I sit here and I don’t know how I could have done that,” Sanders said. “It seemed to make sense at the time.” — AP

Colorado suspect’s plea offer rejected DENVER: Prosecutors in the Colorado theater massacre case have rejected an offer from suspect James Holmes to plead guilty in exchange for avoiding the death penalty, saying the proposal can’t be considered genuine because the defense has repeatedly refused to give them information needed to evaluate it. No plea agreement exists, prosecutors said in a scathing court document Thursday, and one “is extremely unlikely based on the present information available to the prosecution.”

They also said anyone reading news stories about the offer would inevitably conclude “the defendant knows that he is guilty, the defense attorneys know that he is guilty, and that both of them know that he was not criminally insane.”

Neither the defense nor the prose-

cution immediately returned phone calls Thursday. Holmes is charged with multiple counts of murder and attempted murder in the July 20 shootings in a packed theater in the Denver suburb of Aurora. Twelve people were killed and 70 were injured.

Holmes’ attorneys disclosed in a court filing Wednesday that their client has offered to plead guilty, but only if he wouldn’t be executed.

Prosecutors criticized defense attorneys for publicizing the offer, calling it a ploy meant to draw the public and the judge into what should be private plea negotiations.

Prosecutors did not say what information the defense refused to give them, but the two sides have argued in court previously about access to information about Holmes’

mental health. Karen Steinhauser, a former prosecutor who is now an adjunct professor at the University of Denver’s law school, said prosecutors clearly do not want to agree to a plea deal without knowing whether Holmes’ attorneys could mount a strong mental health defense. “One of the issues the prosecution needs to look at is, is there a likelihood that doctors, and then a jury, could find that James Holmes was insane at the time of the crime?” she said.

Prosecutors also criticized comments to AP by Doug Wilson, who heads the state public defenders’ office. Wilson told the AP Wednesday that prosecutors had not responded to the offer and said he didn’t know whether prosecutors had relayed the offer to any victims as required by state law.

Prosecutors said that violated the

gag order. They also said they have repeatedly contacted “every known victim and family member of a victim - numbering over one thousand” about possible resolutions of the case, including the death penalty and life in prison without parole. George Brauchler, the Arapahoe County district attorney, is scheduled to announce Monday whether he will seek the death penalty for Holmes.

He has refused repeatedly to comment on the case, citing the gag order.

Pierce O’Farrill, who was shot three times, said he would welcome an agreement that would imprison Holmes for life. The years of court struggles ahead would likely be an emotional ordeal for victims, he said.

“I don’t see his death bringing me peace,” O’Farrill said. —AP

Shooting suspect James Holmes.

US prosecutors rebuffed a reported offer by Colorado theater massacre suspect James Holmes to plead guilty in exchange for escaping the death penalty, legal documents showed. —AFP

International SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Sri Lanka boosts security after anti-Muslim attack COLOMBO: Elite police commandos patrolled a suburb of the Sri Lankan capital yesterday after hundreds of rampaging Buddhist hardliners torched a Muslim-owned business in the latest in a series of mob attacks.

At least three people were wounded when mobs from the ethnic Sinhalese majority stoned and later set fire to a clothing store in Pepiliyana on Thursday night, police spokesman Buddhika Siriwardena said. “We have deployed extra units of STF (Special Task Force commandos) and police to guard the area,” Siriwardena told AFP. “The situation was brought under control within a few hours.”

No arrests had been made, Siriwardena said. The authorities have not declared a motive for the attack, but official sources said it appeared to be part of the ongoing targeting of minority Muslim businesses by a group of Sinhala-Buddhist hardliners.

The Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, an umbrella organization of Muslim groups, said tensions had been heightened by Thursday’s attack. “It has created a fear psychosis among the

Muslims,” council president N M Ameen told AFP. “We know a majority of the (Buddhist) people do not support this type of activity.” Hundreds of

men smashed parked vehicles, stormed the Fashion Bug store and set fire to merchandise before escaping, witnesses told AFP.

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan Buddhist monk Galaboda Aththe Gnanasara speaks during a press conference in Colombo yesterday denying involvement in an overnight attack against a Muslim-owned clothing store just outside the capital. —AFP

Army units were called in to disperse the mob as tension gripped the area. The attack came a day after Sri Lankan police set up a hotline to tackle complaints about anyone suspected of “inciting religious or racial hatred”.

Mobs hurled stones at another Muslimowned clothing chain near Colombo in January while Muslim businessmen have also complained of random stone-throwing, intimidation and calls for the boycott of their shops. Buddhist hardliners last month forced Islamic clerics to withdraw “halal” certification from food sold in the local market, saying it was offensive to the majority non-Muslim population. President Mahinda Rajapakse, who is a Buddhist, urged monks earlier this year not to incite religious hatred and violence.

The United Nations estimates that Sri Lanka’s ethnic civil war claimed at least 100,000 lives between 1972 and 2009, when Tamil rebels were crushed in a major military offensive. Less than 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s population of 20 million are Muslim. The majority are Sinhalese Buddhist, while most Tamils are Hindu.—AFP

Angry lawyer throws shoe at Musharraf Suicide bomb attack kills 11 KARACHI: An angry lawyer threw a shoe at former President Pervez Musharraf as he headed to court in southern Pakistan yesterday to face legal charges following his return to the country after four years in self-imposed exile, police said. Meanwhile, a suicide bomber on a bicycle attacked the convoy of a

former military strongman was walking down a hallway in the court building in the city of Karachi surrounded by a mob of security, supporters and journalists, said police official Nasir Aftab. The shoe did not hit Musharraf, and the lawyer was not detained because no charges were filed against

KARACHI: Supporters of former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf chant slogans at a court complex, where Musharraf was appearing in a court in Karachi yesterday. An angry lawyer threw a shoe at former President Pervez Musharraf as he headed to court in southern Pakistan yesterday. —(AP paramilitary police commander in northwestern Pakistan, killing 11 people, including a four monthold infant, police said. Musharraf, who seized power in a military coup in 1999 but was forced to step down nearly a decade later, is disliked by many lawyers throughout Pakistan because of his decision to suspend the chief justice of the Supreme Court while he was in office.

The lawyer tossed his shoe at Musharraf as the

him, said Aftab.

Throwing a shoe at someone is an especially potent insult in Muslim countries because the sole is considered unclean. Local TV channels showed video of the incident, but it was impossible to identify the shoe thrower because he was hidden behind part of the corridor. Following the incident, judges granted Musharraf an extension of preemptive bail in three cases against him, meaning

he cannot be immediately arrested. Two of the cases involve the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the killing of Akbar Bugti, a Baluch nationalist leader who died in August 2006 after a standoff with the Pakistani military. Musharraf was granted an extension of 21 days in those two cases.

He was granted a 15-day extension in connection with a third case, in which he is accused of illegally removing a number of judges at the time, including the Supreme Court chief justice, said Shahadat Awan, the prosecutor general for surrounding Sindh province. Musharraf was also restricted from leaving the country during the period that his bail was extended, Pakistani state TV reported. Musharraf returned from exile last Sunday, seeking a possible political comeback despite the legal charges against him and death threats from Taleban militants. But he was only met by a couple thousand reporters when his flight from Dubai landed in Karachi, and analysts have said they don’t expect his party to attract much support in parliamentary elections scheduled for May 11. Musharraf seized power in 1999 when he was serving as Pakistan’s army chief. He was forced to step down in 2008 and eventually left the country amid discontent with his rule and threats of impeachment by the country’s main political parties. His decision to suspend the Supreme Court chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, played a key role in reducing his popularity. Chaudhry has since been reinstated.

In Karachi, a group of lawyers protested outside the Sindh High Court on Friday as Musharraf entered. They chanted slogans against the former military strongman and jostled with his supporters.

The attack on the paramilitary police commander’s convoy in northwestern Pakistan occurred in the city of Peshawar. The apparent target, Abdul Majeed Marwat, who heads the Frontier Constabulary, was not hurt, said police official Dost Mohammed Khan. —AP

PESHAWAR: A Pakistani police officer and a rescue worker remove a dead body from the site of suicide bombing in Peshawar yesterday. —AP

India’ Padmashri winner on the run after rape charges NEW DELHI: An award-winning Indian writer is on the run after five women who worked as cooks at a charity school he founded accused him of rape, police said yesterday.

Laxman Mane, 63, disappeared after the women filed complaints earlier this week, alleging that he had repeatedly assaulted them between 2003 and 2010, mostly on the school premises in western Maharashtra state. “He has been on the run since the first case was filed at midnight on Monday,” said Amol Tambe, additional superintendent of police in the state’s Satara district, where Mane was living.

“A new complaint was filed on Wednesday. We have dispatched police teams to trace him,” Tambe told AFP by telephone. Mane is executive president of the trust that runs the school for underprivileged children. The case comes at a time when India is under fire for its treatment of women following the fatal gang-rape of a student on a bus in New Delhi in December and a series of other sexual assaults. Mane, who writes in the local Marathi language, was awarded the Padmashri, one of India’s highest civilian awards-for his contribution to vernacular literature in 2009. His autobiography titled ‘Upara’ (Outsider) bagged the prestigious Sahitya Akademi (National Academy of Letters) award in 1981.

The women, all of whom are aged between 30 and 35, claimed Mane raped them in the school’s office, storeroom and canteen as well as at a government-run guesthouse, after promising to make them permanent employees.

A clerk at the school has been accused of abetting. Mane’s family has dismissed the charges as baseless. “Some of the employees of the school seem to have conspired to implicate my father in a false case,” Mane’s son Bhai was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India news agency. —AFP

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

INTERNATIONAL SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

After 40 years, Vietnam memories still strong HANOI: The last US combat troops left Vietnam 40 years ago Friday, and the date holds great meaning for many who fought the war, protested it or otherwise lived it. While the fall of Saigon two years later is remembered as the final day of the Vietnam War, many had already seen their involvement in the war finished - and their lives altered by March 29, 1973.

US soldiers leaving the country feared angry protesters at home. North Vietnamese soldiers took heart from their foes’ departure, and South Vietnamese who had helped the Americans feared for the future. Many veterans are encouraged by changes they see. The US has a volunteer military these days, not a draft, and the troops coming home aren’t derided for their service. People know what PTSD stands for, and they’re insisting that the government takes care of soldiers suffering from it and other injuries from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Below are the stories of a few of the people who experienced a part of the Vietnam War firsthand.

Dave Simmons of West Virginia was a corporal in the US Army who came back from Vietnam in the summer of 1970. He said he didn’t have specific memories about the final days of the war because it was something he was trying to put behind him. “We were more interested in getting back, getting settled into the community, getting married and getting jobs,” Simmons said.

He said he was proud to serve and would again

if asked. But rather than proudly proclaim his service when he returned from Vietnam, the Army ordered him to get into civilian clothes as soon as he arrived in the US. The idea was to avoid confrontations with protestors.

“When we landed, they told us to get some civilian clothes, which you had to realize we didn’t have, so we had to go in airport gift shops and buy what we could find,” Simmons said. Simmons noted that when the troops return today, they are often greeted with great fanfare in their local communities, and he’s glad to see it.

“I think that’s what the general public has learned - not to treat our troops the way they treated us,” Simmons said. Simmons is now helping organize a Vietnam Veterans Recognition Day in Charleston that will take place today.

“Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another. We stick with that,” said Simmons, president of the state council of the Vietnam Veterans of America. “We go to the airport. ... We’re there when they leave. We’re there when they come home. We support their families when they’re gone. I’m not saying that did not happen to the Vietnam vet, but it wasn’t as much.

There was really no support for us.”

Tony Lam was 36 on the day the last US combat troops left Vietnam. He was a young husband and father, but most importantly, he was a businessman and US contractor furnishing dehydrated

HANOI: A bird sits in a cage overlooking the engine of an American B-52 bomber in a lake in Hanoi, Vietnam, yesterday. The plane was shot down during the Vietnam War, and the engine fell into the lake. — AP rice to South Vietnamese troops. He also ran a fish meal plant and a refrigerated shipping business that exported shrimp. As Lam, now 76, watched American forces dwindle and then disappear, he felt a rising panic. His close association with the

Americans was well-known and he needed to get out - and get his family out - or risk being tagged as a spy and thrown into a Communist prison. He watched as South Vietnamese commanders fled, leaving whole battalions without a leader.—AP

Japan study: Rising China disregarding neighbors Beijing refutes claim

SAN FERNANDO: Philippine Christian devotee Ruben Enaje (center), grimaces in pain as he is nailed to the Cross by men dressed as Roman soldiers during a re-enactment of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on Good Friday in San Fernando City. — AFP

Filipino devotees reenact crucifixion of Christ SAN PEDRO CUTUD, Philippines: Devotees in villages in the northern Philippines took part in a bloody annual ritual to mark Good Friday, a celebration that mixes Roman Catholic devotion and Filipino folk beliefs and sees some reenact the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The crucified devotees spent several minutes nailed to crosses in Pampanga province while thousands of tourists watched and took photos of the spectacle, which the church discourages. Earlier in the day, hooded male penitents trudged through the province’s villages under the blazing sun while flagellating their bleeding backs with makeshift whips. Others carried wooden crosses to dramatize Christ’s sacrifice.

Devotees undergo the hardships in the belief that such extreme sacrifices are a way to atone for their sins, attain miracle cures for illnesses or give thanks to God. Alex Laranang, a 58-year-old vendor who was the first to be nailed to a cross Friday, said he was doing it “for

good luck and for my family to be healthy.” It was the 27th crucifixion for sign painter Ruben Enaje, 52, one of the most popular penitents from San Pedro Cutud village. He began his yearly rite after surviving a fall from a building.

Enaje screamed in pain as men dressed as Roman soldiers hammered stainless steel nails into his palms and feet. A wireless microphone carried his voice to loudspeakers for everyone watching to hear. His cross was raised and he was hanged there for several minutes under the searing afternoon sun before the nails were pulled out and he was taken on a stretcher to a first aid station. “It’s intriguing and fascinating what makes people do something like this, how you can believe so much that you make yourself suffer to that extent,” said Dita Tittesass, a tourist from Denmark. Remigio de la Cruz, the chief of San Pedro Cutud village, explained that the practice began in his village in the 1950s. —AP

TOKYO: The rising might of China is causing it to act with increasing disregard towards its neighbors, a Japanese government-funded study said yesterday. “China, against the backdrop of its rising national power and improvement in its military power, is increasingly taking actions that can cause frictions with neighboring countries without fear,” said the East Asian Strategic Review.

The study, published yesterday by the National Institute for Defense Studies, is an annual venture commissioned by Japan’s Defense Ministry, and influences national defense policy. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman refuted the claim and said Japan should come clean about its own defense policy.

“We develop our national defense power in accordance with our domestic conditions. That is reasonable and will not pose any threat to any other country,” the spokesman, Hong Lei, told a regular press conference in Beijing. Beijing and Tokyo have been at diplomatic daggers drawn since September when Japan nationalized some islands it controls in the East China Sea. The Senkakus, which Beijing claims as the Diaoyus, are uninhabited but resource-rich and strategically-important islands that have been the scene of confrontations between government ships from both sides over several months.

However, the report noted, China’s preparedness for pushing its territorial claims was on the rise well before Tokyo angered it with the island nationalization. In January last year Beijing classed the archipelago as a “core interest”, ranking it alongside Tibet and Taiwan as an issue over which it would never give ground, the study said. It is not only China’s relationship with Japan that is becoming complicated, the report said, with Beijing’s ostensible strategic partner Russia also becoming wary of its neighbor’s rising power. Despite Xi Jinping choosing to take his first foreign trip as China’s president to Russia for a summit with his counterpart Vladimir Putin, the “RussoChinese strategic partnership is more complex than it appears”, the study said. “An equal relationship can hardly be maintained with China’s GDP at more than four times Russia’s,” it added, saying that the imbalance was leading Moscow to shore up previously fragile relations with Japan.

“At recent bilateral summit meetings and foreign ministerial conferences between Russia and Japan, Moscow

has persistently requested that Tokyo cooperate in security matters, particularly maritime security,” the study said.

“Recognition that China’s maritime activities on the high seas will expand in a northerly direction in the near future is a factor motivating Russia to seek cooperation with Japan and the United States.” — AFP

N Korea puts missiles on standby for strike Continued from page 1 They flew from the United States and back in what appeared to be the first exercise of its kind, designed to show America’s ability to conduct long-range, precision strikes “quickly and at will”, the US military said.

The news of Kim’s response was unusually swift. “He finally signed the plan on technical preparations of strategic rockets of the KPA (Korean People’s Army), ordering them to be on standby for fire so that they may strike any time the US mainland, its military bases in the operational theatres in the Pacific, including Hawaii and Guam, and those in South Korea,” KCNA said.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported there had been additional troop and vehicle movements at the North’s mid- and long-range missile sites, indicating they may be ready to fire. It was impossible to verify the report which did not specify a time frame. South Korea’s Defense Ministry said it was watching shorter-range Scud missile sites closely as well as Nodong and Musudan missile batteries. The North has launched a daily barrage of threats since early this month when the United States and the South, allies in the 1950-53 Korean War, began regular military drills.

The South and the United States have said the drills are purely defensive and that no incident has taken place in the decades they have been conducted in various forms. The United States also flew B-52 bombers over South Korea earlier this week. The North has put its military on highest readiness to fight what it says are hostile forces conducting war drills. Its young leader has previously given “final orders” for its military to wage revolutionary war with the South.

Despite the hostile rhetoric from the North, it has kept open a joint economic zone with the South which generates $2 billion a year in trade - money the impoverished state can ill-afford to lose.—Reuters

Hollande’s rehashed super-tax falls flat

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US consumer sentiment rises on better job market outlook

Business

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Asian giants tiptoe toward free trade deal

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

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China’s Xi heads to Congo on final leg of Africa tour

NICOSIA: A woman gives money to musicians busking in a street in the old part of the Cypriot capital Nicosia yesterday. Businesses and families in Cyprus are suffering despite the return to normal banking hours, as draconian capital controls make it hard to pay salaries and bills, trade groups said. — AFP

Cyprus will not quit the euro No restrictions on local card transactions NICOSIA: President Nicos Anastasiades vowed yesterday to keep Cyprus in the eurozone but had harsh words for international lenders behind the huge bailout that saved the island from bankruptcy. His comments came as banks resumed normal trading a day after they reopened following a nearly two-week lockdown, although Cypriots still face hardship under the single currency area’s first ever capital controls.

Just hours later, the central bank lifted one of the restrictions imposed on financial movements, by removing the 5,000 euro ($6,400) ceiling on credit and debit card transactions within the country.

The 10-billion-euro EU-IMF rescue deal imposed a levy on big bank deposits and calls for tough banking reforms, causing jitters among other eurozone strugglers who fear they could be next. Rightwinger Anastasiades, who was elected in February on the back of a promise to secure a bailout for the small eastern Mediterranean island, said the deal had saved Cyprus from “economic collapse.”

“We will not leave the euro and I stress that,” state media quoted him as telling a conference of civil servants. “We will not engage in risky experiments that will endanger the future of our country.” But the Greek Cypriot leader criticised other eurozone states for enforcing the tough terms of the deal agreed after all-night talks in Brussels on Monday.

“Nobody can ignore the insensitivity of our partners,” he said. He also took aim at both international lenders and the previous government for pouring money into the country’s second largest lender Laiki, or Popular Bank, which will be wound up under the terms of the bailout.

“I honestly question the seriousness of the position of those authorities which allowed the financing of a bankrupt bank to the highest possible amount,” he said. Anastasiades received the apparent backing on Friday of visiting Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, who tweeted that the EU “pumped money into (an) unsustainable situation” and “could have pulled the plug earlier.”

The bailout calls for severe cuts to Cyprus’s

prized tax-haven style banking system-bloated with Russian money and exposed to toxic Greek debt-and also threatens to trigger deepen the economic recession the island is suffering.

The most controversial element is the unprecedented raid on deposits over 100,000 euros, a move which sparked fears that domestic and foreign investors would make a run on the banks when they reopened on Thursday.

The panic failed to happen and banks returned to normal hours yesterday, opening at 8:30 am (0630 GMT) and closing five hours later. Small queues built up outside many branches before they opened.

But draconian controls are still in place to stop a bank run, including a daily withdrawal limit of 300 euros and bans on cashing cheques or taking more than 1,000 euros in cash out of the country.

Anastasiades said the restrictions, officially in place for a week, would “gradually ease until we can return to normality” but did not specify a time.

Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides said on Thursday that they were likely to last for at least

another month. Cypriots are already feeling the pinch from the controls. Withdrawal and transfer limits have made it hard for small businesses to pay salaries and for families to make rent payments, especially as both tend to fall around the end of the month.

More than 100 members of the right-wing nationalist ELAM party demonstrated in Nicosia on Thursday night against the “troika” of the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Cyprus remains under global scrutiny as the latest test of the viability of the eurozone.

Japanese shares ended higher at the end of quiet regional trade yesterday but the euro edged lower. Meanwhile an official at a top global grouping of banks said there was still a real chance Cyprus could exit the eurozone.

“This is the first case where you can see some kind of exit as a very distinct possibility,” said Philip Suttle, deputy managing director of the Institute of International Finance, which represents some 450 banks worldwide. — AFP

BUSINESS SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Where to beat the market: Small-cap foreign funds BOSTON: An annual scorecard of mutual fund performance is in, and it’s generating more of the negative headlines that fund managers have become accustomed to in recent years.

The key finding: Two-thirds of managed US stock funds failed to beat the market in 2012, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. For all their stock-picking skills, the vast majority of managers couldn’t claim an edge over low-cost index funds and exchange-traded funds that seek to match the market.

It was the sixth time in the last 10 years that average annual returns of managed funds fell short of the market’s overall performance. Faced with such persistently disappointing results, it’s understandable that an investor might consider giving up and rely exclusively on index funds.

But look deeper into the latest annual scorecard, and there’s a positive takeaway for investors. Funds specializing in stocks of small foreign companies have beaten their market benchmark year after year. In 2012, 85 percent of this small group of funds posted larger returns than an S&P

index of stocks from foreign developed countries. Returns for the five-dozen funds in the international small-cap category averaged 21.7 percent, compared with 15.4 percent for the index.

It wasn’t a one-year fluke. Ninety percent outperformed over three years, and 79 percent over five years. Those results are far better than the long-term numbers for other stock fund categories, suggesting that international small-cap is the go-to category for market-beating fund performance.

“It’s kind of like an overlooked child,” says Aye Soe, an S&P Dow Jones Indices researcher who authored the company’s latest scorecard. “There are lots of opportunities there, and active managers can find them.”

Stocks of small companies based overseas generate less attention from investment managers and stock analysts than the big US names in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index. That under-the-radar status creates greater opportunity to find stocks that are underpriced relative to their earnings potential. That’s reflected in the wide vari-

Commission considers good and bad of British banking LONDON: The Archbishop of Canterbury has spent the run up to Easter contemplating the ethics of the trading floor and ways to curb greed in the City of London.

Justin Welby, the spiritual leader of 80 million Anglicans, is one of an influential committee of British lawmakers looking at how to change the culture of an industry laid low by price manipulation, mis-selling and fraud.

Measures to improve competition and to rein in risk-taking and proprietary trading are all being considered. “We’ve learnt of various scandals that show the problem to be even greater than we were fully aware of,” said commission member Nigel Lawson, who was Britain’s finance minister in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet in the 1980s.

Britain’s current Finance Minister George Osborne set up the cross-party Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards last year to look at ethics in banking after Barclays, one of the oldest names in British banking, was fined $450 million over the manipulation of global interest rate benchmarks.

Osborne later gave the commission additional powers to review his banking reform law, which is meant to help shield taxpayers from future bank failures by ringfencing lenders’ retail operations from riskier investment banking activities.

Osborne adopted a commission proposal to “electrify” the ringfence with a threat to break up banks if they fail to adequately protect depositors and taxpayers from investment banking risk-taking. Flexing its independence, the commission has said Osborne needs to go further by raising leverage standards and forcing the split of all banks’ investment banking and retail arms if the new rules designed to protect taxypayers fail. The finance minister has shrugged off the recommendations and, in the meantime, the commission is working on its final report, on how to improve the culture of British banking.

It is set to be published at the end of May. Only recommendations that are supported by every member of the commission, made up of nine men, including a former investment banker, and one woman, a former executive with Citigroup, will be put forward, its members told Reuters.

Osborne does not have to implement their proposals but given that he created the commission, at least some of the recommendations will likely be taken up. “What these guys say is more likely to be listened to. Anything that comes from these guys is going to be stress-tested for politics. I would have thought it slightly increases the likelihood of what they recommend actually coming to pass,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary, University of London.

For commission member John Thurso, a member of the junior government party, the Liberal Democrats, their recommendations must find a way to, “make banking the servant of commerce and industry and a helpful part of growth rather than a bunch of people just making a lot of money on their own without any benefit to anyone else”. —Reuters

ations in returns among small-cap international stocks. The gap between the best and worst performers is typically larger than in other market segments. “That creates more opportunity for active managers to add value,” Soe says.

A couple examples of top-rated smallcap international funds, and stocks that have generated strong recent returns: Franklin International Small Cap Growth (FINAX) found a gem in Jumbo SA, which was recently the fund’s third-largest holding. Shares of the Greece-based retailer of children’s products have surged 43 percent over the past 12 months.

For Invesco International Small Company (IEGAX), a key contributor has been Total Energy Services Trust. The Canadian energy services company is a longtime holding and the stock has more than doubled over the past five years.

One word of caution: Investors who don’t have the stomach for volatile returns might want to avoid international smallcap funds. Sharp ups and downs are more likely with foreign stocks than with the US market, especially among small-caps.

But for consistency in generating market-beating returns, international smallcap funds stand out. Last year, just two out of 13 categories of managed US stock funds posted average returns better than their market benchmarks. The two: funds specializing in large-cap growth stocks, and funds investing in property-owning real estate investment trusts. But going back over 3 and 5 years, the vast majority of funds in both categories failed to beat the market.

Among managed US stock funds last year, 66 percent failed to beat a broad measure of the market, the Standard & Poor’s Composite 1500. Although that may sound bad, it’s a marked improvement from the 84 percent that underperformed in 2011. The last year that a majority of managed funds beat the market was in 2009. Such poor numbers are a key reason why investors have been pulling their money out of managed funds in recent years.

Among all US stock funds - the majority of them managed funds, rather than index products - withdrawals have exceeded deposits for six years in a row. —AP

Hollande’s rehashed super-tax falls flat Govt wasting time with symbolic measure: Economists PARIS: France’s Socialist president may save face with some supporters by resurrecting a 75 percent super-tax on million-euro salaries, but his plan to shift the levy from individuals to companies only alienated business leaders yesterday and impressed few even on the left.

Francois Hollande announced a redraft late on Thursday of his plan for a 75 percent tax on income over 1 million euros - an election pledge that was crushed by the Constitutional Council so that it hits companies rather than individuals.

The rehash means he can maintain an emblematic tax rate meant to symbolise making the rich help pull France out of crisis, rather than having to cap it at the 66 percent France’s top court says would be the legal maximum for individuals.

Yet it will reinforce a view that Hollande is anti-business, and could reap even less for the cash-strapped government than the initial version, which would have raised some 200 million euros ($260 million) a year from around 1,500 millionaires. “I don’t understand the president’s thinking,” said Laurence Parisot, head of the Medef employers’ group, calling the rejigged super-tax a “knock to the business sector”.

French economist Thomas Piketty, a taxation expert, called the proposed move “a patch-up job.”

“It’s as useless as the original plan. It’s symbolic and inefficient and it avoids the bigger issue which is the need for a broad fiscal reform,” he told Reuters.

Analysts struggled to guess how many high-earners could be hit, but many of those on million-euro packages receive much of it in benefits like stock options that would likely be exempt.

BNP Paribas economist Dominique Barbet said the revived super tax would

PARIS: A file picture taken on June 8, 2012 in Paris, shows an illustration made with a plastic figurine set up on words cuts from newspapers to illustrate recession, crisis and financial situation in Europe. France’s two key economic indicators for 2012 overshot government targets, with public deficit standing at 4.8 percent of gross domestic product while public debt reached a new record of 90.2 percent of output, data showed yesterday. — AFP have a negligible effect on the battle to reduce the groaning public deficit. “It’s marginal,” he said.

The tax was only ever meant to be in place for a couple of years, so companies may now dodge it by holding back bonuses for a few years or paying employees through offices outside France. “It’s a symbolic tax he wanted to hold onto at all cost, but this is ridiculous and absurd. It’s very disappointing,” said Michel Rousseau, head of liberal think tank Fondation Concorde.

“He will raise absolutely nothing, people will cheat like crazy. The French have a capacity to adapt to bad news.”

Hollande, scrabbling to shore up state coffers and kick-start investment and spending as his growth, deficit and job

creation goals fall apart, made the tax announcement in a primetime TV interview aimed at restoring public faith in him. Critics of his performance said his assertion that all the tools were in place for a recovery made him sound flippant.

Even the left-wing Liberation daily weighed in. “He kept repeating ‘all the tools are on the table’ as if all we need to do is wait for 2015 for the country to recover,” it wrote in an editorial.

The hard-left Left Party’s national secretary Francois Delapierre said Hollande sounded like “a scratched record.”

Hollande unveiled his initial 75 percent tax during his campaign for the May 2012 election to show people fed up with economic gloom that the rich would hurt too. —Reuters

BUSINESS SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Unemployment fell in February in 22 US states WASHINGTON: Unemployment rates fell in 22 US states in February from January, a sign that hiring gains are benefiting many parts of the country. The Labor Department said yesterday that unemployment rates rose in 12 states and were unchanged in 16.

Nationally, the unemployment rate slid to a fouryear low of 7.7 percent in February, down from 7.9 percent in January. Since November, employers across the country have added an average of 200,000 jobs a month, nearly double the average from last spring.

States hit hardest during the recession are showing

improvement. In Nevada, unemployment dropped to 9.6 percent last month, down from 11.8 percent a year ago. That’s the biggest year-over-year decrease among states.

One reason for the big drop is that people have stopped applying for jobs. Nevada’s work force - those working or looking for work - fell nearly 1 percent in the year through February. Only those looking for work are counted as unemployed. But hiring accelerated, too: Jobs in Nevada rose 2 percent over the past year.Unemployment in California fell to 9.6 percent last

month, down from 10.8 percent in February 2012.

California and Nevada are still tied with Mississippi for the highest unemployment rate in the US Florida’s job market has also rebounded in the past year. The Sunshine State’s unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent in February, down from 9 percent a year earlier.

North Dakota once again held the nation’s lowest unemployment rate, at 3.3 percent. The state is benefiting from a boom in oil and natural gas production. Nebraska had the second-lowest rate, at 3.8 percent. — AP

US consumer sentiment rises on better job market outlook Report bolsters view of stronger Q1 growth

ALKMAAR: Cheese is examined during the official opening of the Cheese market season in Alkmaar, the Netherlands, yesterday. — AFP

Hedge funds portfolio manager arrested in US NEW YORK: A senior portfolio manager for one of the largest US hedge funds was arrested yesterday, accused of making $1.4 million illegally in a widening insider trading probe involving an investment company founded by billionaire businessman Steven A. Cohen.

Michael Steinberg, 41, pleaded not guilty yesterday, hours after he was arrested at his Manhattan home on insider trading charges lodged in an indictment unsealed in US District Court in New York City. He is a senior portfolio manager at SAC Capital Advisors.

His attorney, Barry Berke, said in a statement that Steinberg “did absolutely nothing wrong.” He said Steinberg’s trading decisions were based on detailed analysis along with other information he properly obtained.

“Caught in the crossfire of aggressive investigations of others, there is no basis for even the slightest blemish on his spotless reputation,” he said. In a statement, SAC Capital, which manages $15 billion, said Steinberg “has conducted himself professionally and ethically during his long tenure at the firm. We believe him to be a man of integrity.”

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement that Steinberg “was another Wall Street insider who fed off a corrupt grapevine of proprietary and confidential information cultivated by other professionals who made their own rules to make money. With lightning speed in at least one case, Mr. Steinberg seized on the opportunity to cash in and tried to

keep his crime quiet, as charged in the indictment.”

George Venizelos, head of the FBI’s New York office, said the arrest was the latest in an FBI probe that has resulted in more than 70 arrests. “Mr. Steinberg was at the center of an elite criminal club, where cheating and corruption were rewarded,” he said. “Research was nothing more than well-timed tips from an extensive network of well-sourced analysts.”

At least four other people associated with the Stamford, Connecticut-based firm have been arrested over a period of about four years. The arrest of Steinberg and the January arrest of a former hedge fund portfolio manager for an affiliate of Cohen’s firm has increased speculation that the government is taking a hard look at the practices of the billionaire hedge fund owner. In the January case, Cohen is repeatedly referenced as a “Hedge Fund Owner” in a criminal complaint. He has not been charged in the case and SAC spokesman Jonathan Gasthalter has said the company and Cohen are cooperating with the inquiry and “are confident that they have acted appropriately.”

In the latest case, Steinberg is charged with conspiracy to commit securities fraud and four counts of securities fraud, accused of using inside information as he made trades involving Dell Inc. and Nvidia Corp. securities. If convicted, he could face up to 85 years in prison. Civil charges against Steinberg also were filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.—AP

WASHINGTON: US consumer spending rose in February and sentiment among Americans perked up this month, further signs of an acceleration in economic activity in the first quarter after a near stall late last year.

The data yesterday also showed a rebound in income growth, putting the economy in a better shape to deal with tighter fiscal policy, particularly $85 billion in across-the-board federal government spending cuts, known as the “sequester.”

“The economy is in a good place now in terms of momentum and strength, and it will need it as the government spending cuts will take something off growth as the year progresses,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ in New York. Consumer spending increased 0.7 percent last month after a 0.4 percent rise in January, the Commerce Department said.

Though part of the increase in spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of US economic activity, was because of higher gasoline prices, Americans also bought long-lasting goods such as automobiles and spent more on services. Gas prices at the pump increased 35 cents a gallon last month. After adjusting for inflation, spending was up 0.3 percent after advancing by the same margin in January. As a result, economists said consumer spending in the first quarter was on track to record its fastest growth pace since 2010. “It appears that consumer spending actually accelerated in the first quarter despite the tax hikes implemented at the start of the year,” said Daniel Silver, an economist at JPMorgan in New York. Some economists bumped up their firstquarter economic growth estimates.

Barclays raised its gross domestic product forecast by 0.7 percentage point to 3.3 percent. Macroeconomic Advisers lifted their estimate by threetenths of a point to 3.5 percent.

The economy grew at only a 0.4 percent annual pace in the fourth quarter. A separate report showed households this month shrugged off the deep government spending cuts, focusing instead on a steady labor market improvement, which is starting to boost wages. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan’s index of consumer sentiment rose to 78.6 from 77.6 in February.

“Consumers have discounted the administration’s warning that economic catastrophe would follow the reductions in federal spending, and consumers have renewed their expectation that gains in employment will accelerate through the rest of 2013,” said survey director Richard Curtin.

And they have reason to be optimistic. Income increased a healthy 1.1 percent after tumbling 3.7 percent in January. Personal income had increased sharply in December as businesses rushed to pay dividends and bonuses before tax hikes took effect this year. That also skewed income

from 2.2 percent in January.

The higher gasoline prices pushed up inflation, with a price index for consumer spending rising 0.4 percent after being flat for two straight months.

February’s increase in the PCE index was the largest since August.

But a core reading that strips out food and energy costs rose only 0.1 percent after increasing 0.2 percent in January, showing no sign of underlying inflation pressures.

Over the past 12 months, inflation has risen 1.3 percent after a similar gain in the period through January.

Core prices were up 1.3 percent,

ALBANY: In this Monday, Feb. 25, 2013 photo, Jack Yonally rings out a customer at Lodge’s store in Albany, NY. US consumers earned more and spent more in February, helped by a stronger job market that offset some of the drag from higher taxes, according to the Commerce Department, yesterday. — AP data for January. US financial markets were closed for Good Friday and will reopen on Monday.

A 2 percent payroll tax cut expired on Jan. 1 and tax rates for wealthy Americans also went up. The consumer spending and sentiment reports were the latest to show little sign the tighter fiscal policy has been a major drag on the economy. Employment growth gained steam in February, factory activity touched a 1-1/2 year high and firsttime filings for jobless benefits have only increased modestly so far in March. Last month, the income at the disposal of households after inflation and taxes increased 0.7 percent after dropping 4 percent in January.

With income growth outpacing spending, the saving rate - the percentage of disposable income households are socking away - rose to 2.6 percent

well below the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target. They also had risen 1.3 percent in the 12 months through January. The benign inflation picture should give the US central bank room to continue with its monetary stimulus as it seeks to boost job growth.

The Fed said last week it would maintain its monthly $85 billion purchases of mortgage and Treasury bonds until it saw a substantial improvement in the job market.

“This is plenty of ammunition for all those Fed officials, who currently do not want to scale back the degree of monetary accommodation,” said Harm Bandholz, chief US economist at UniCredit Research in New York.

“For investors this must look like Goldilocks: Better economic data and ongoing monetary accommodation at the same time.” — Reuters

BUSINESS SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Turkish assets firm up after favourable trade data ISTANBUL: The Turkish lira was slightly stronger and bond yields inched down in thin volumes on Friday after trade deficit figures came in lower than expected, easing pressure on the central bank.

The trade deficit rose to $6.96 billion in February from $6.04 billion a year earlier, below a forecast deficit of $8.65 billion in a Reuters poll.

The lira firmed to 1.8096 to the dollar by 1427 GMT from 1.8105 on Thursday.

Against its euro-dollar basket , it firmed to 2.0643 from Thursday’s 2.0670.

The benchmark two-year bond yield rose to 6.36 percent from 6.34 percent on Thursday.

“The narrower-than-expected monthly deficit, in itself, could ease the central bank’s concerns regarding the external deficit, leading to reduced tightening pressures,” said Inan Demir chief economist at Finansbank.

The central bank signalled a move away from its focus on protecting the economy against hot money this week, hunkering down instead for the threat of

falling capital inflows if the crisis in Cyprus triggers global risk aversion.

The bank cut its overnight lending rate by 100 basis points on Tuesday but more than halved the amount of liquidity it provides at its monthly repo auctions, meaning more lira funding will instead be channelled through its one-week auctions and overnight lending facility.

This gives it a tighter grip on liquidity conditions, allowing it to control the amount and cost of banks’ lira funding more quickly, meaning it can react faster

either if the global environment deteriorates sharply or if risk appetite picks up again.

In a sign of the tighter liquidity, primary dealers borrowed 6.25 billion lira ($3.45 billion) from the central bank’s overnight repo facility at a rate of 7 percent yesterday, the first time it has been used since last August.

Istanbul’s main share index rose 0.81 percent to 85,735 points, outperforming a 0.2 percent rise in the global emerging markets index. —Reuters

China’s Xi heads to Congo on final leg of Africa tour Deals worth several billion dollars to be signed

BRAZZAVILLE: China’s new President Xi Jinping arrived yesterday in the Congolese capital Brazzaville pledging to boost bilateral ties to a “new and higher level”. Xi’s Congolese counterpart Denis Sassou Nguesso greeted him and his wife Peng Liyuan at the airport upon their arrival.

The visit will wrap up a three-nation

Congo) and lift bilateral ties to a new and higher level,” China’s Xinhua news agency reported.

Deals worth several billion dollars are due to be signed during Xi’s twoday visit, the first by a Chinese president to the impoverished country of four million with significant oil resources.

BRAZZAVILLE: A vendor poses in a Chinese-owned store in the PotoPoto district in Brazzaville yesterday. Congolese awaited a visit from China’s new President Xi Jinping to the impoverished Republic of Congo starting yesterday, with many expressing doubt that he will bring job opportunities with him. When Chinese companies install themselves in Africa, they often bring Chinese workers with them at the expense of the local workforce. —AFP Africa tour that has underscored Beijing’s growing presence in the resource-rich continent. Several thousand Congolese wearing T-shirts emblazoned with images of Xi and Sassou Nguesso were on hand, dancing under a blazing sun, to greet the Chinese delegation as they left the airport.

Xi said in a statement that he hoped to “deepen mutual understanding and friendship (with the Republic of

One will finance the building of more than 500 kilometres (300 miles) of highway between Brazzaville and the economic capital on the Atlantic Coast, Pointe-Noire.

China is already Congo’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade ballooning to five billion dollars in 2012 from $290 million dollars in 2002, according to Xinhua.

Xi’s African tour, part of his first presidential trip that began in Russia,

has also taken him to Tanzania and South Africa.

China’s business boom and its rise to become the world’s second-largest economy has seen financial and trade ties rocket in recent years as it sources many of its raw materials from Africa.

But ahead of Xi’s visit to Congo, many expressed doubt that he will bring job opportunities with him, since when Chinese companies set up shop in Africa, they often bring their workers with them.

“It’s like we don’t have able hands in Congo,” a teacher at a training college told AFP. “If you import labour when there are no able people or specialists, that’s OK. But they even bring their own chauffeurs. There’s no transfer of abilities.”

Xinhua said however that more than 85 percent of the staff of some 2,000 Chinese companies operating in 50 African countries are Africans.

In South Africa, Xi attended the summit of the BRICS group of emerging economic powers-Brazil, Russia, China, India and South Africa-at which they agreed to launch a new development bank while failing to set up an infrastructure fund.

South African President Jacob Zuma, after meeting Xi on Tuesday, hailed China’s economic success as an inspiration for Africa’s biggest economy, but urged more equitable trade ties.

Earlier in Tanzania, Xi called Africa a “continent of hope and promise” and urged the rest of the world to “respect (its) dignity and independence”.

Bilateral trade reached some $200 billion last year, Xi said in Tanzania, adding that China would “intensify not weaken” its relationship and noting a commitment to provide a $20 billion credit-line to African nations over the next two years.

Xi was due to address Congo’s parliament later. Today Xi, who was named China’s new president on March 14 after taking the reins of the Communist Party last November, will inaugurate a hospital and a library before heading home to Beijing. —AFP

HONG KONG: Policemen keep vigil at the Kwai Chung container terminal during a strike asking for better wages in Hong Kong yesterday. The dockers, who work in one of the world busiest container port in the world, claim their wages had not gone up in 15 years. —AFP

Sony-Olympus deal held up by China

TOKYO: A joint-venture deal between Sony and medical equipment maker Olympus has been delayed because of Chinese regulatory approval, sources familiar with the matter confirmed yesterday.

Olympus, which is recovering from a huge accounting scandal, said in a joint statement with Sony on Friday that the deal-first announced in September-was held up over approvals from an unspecified authority.

“The examination by the relevant authority is taking longer than expected, but we understand the examination process is currently in its final stage,” it said. Both firms declined to elaborate on specifics of the delay.

But sources confirmed to AFP that the hold up was linked to Chinese regulators. The issue comes at a time when Tokyo and Beijing are embroiled in a tense territorial spat over an island chain in the East China Sea. Regulatory delays involving other Japanese firms have been linked to hold ups from Chinese watchdogs. Among them are advertising firm Dentsu’s now-completed $4.8 billion takeover of Britain’s Aegis and a merger between steelmaker JFE Holdings and Japanese heavy machinery firm IHI. The problem comes as regulatory delays involving Japanese advertising firm Dentsu’s now-completed $4.8 billion takeover of Britain’s Aegis media group have been linked to hold ups from Chinese watchdogs.

Sony and Olympus had initially planned the launch of a joint venture from April 1 as Sony, which is trying to repair a dented balance sheet, invests 50 billion yen ($532 million) in Olympus as part of a drive to tap the lucrative medical equipment market.

Better known for its cameras, Olympus controls about 70 percent of the global market for medical endoscopes. —AFP

BUSINESS SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

S Lanka auctions airwaves for 4G mobile network COLOMBO: Sri Lanka auctioned a block of airwaves to become the first country in South Asia to roll out a full nationwide mobile fourth-generation (4G) network, a top official said yesterday.

Anusha Palpita, the Director General of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission, said he allocated the airwaves to Sri Lanka’s largest cellular operator Dialog Axiata for $26.25 million on Thursday.

He said Dialog, the Sri Lanka unit of Malaysia’s Axiata, will roll out a 4G mobile network that will allow users to download content from the Internet at speeds four to five times faster than the currently available 3G. “We will be South Asia’s first with a (country-wide) mobile 4G/LTE (Long Term Evolution) network,” Palpita said.

Right now, Sri Lanka already has fixed-line tele-

TOKYO: Businessmen cross a street at the intersection in Tokyo yesterday. Japan’s jobless rate edged higher and industrial production fell slightly in February as consumer prices also fell, underscoring the fragility of the recovery of the world’s third-largest economy. —AP

Organized labor says closer to deal on immigration reform WASHINGTON: US labor unions said on Thursday they were closer to resolving problems with wages for future unskilled immigrant workers like janitors and housekeepers - an issue that has stalled progress on a US Senate proposal to overhaul the immigration system.

“We have moved off poverty level wages and are moving forward and are working on a standard that will protect U.S. workers,” said Andrea Zuniga DiBitetto, legislative representative for the biggest union the AFL-CIO. Late last week, disputes over a new visa program for foreign workers between the AFL-CIO, the labor federation, and the US Chamber of Commerce threatened to derail immigration reform talks between a group of four Republican and four Democratic Senators.

The AFL-CIO had accused Republicans and businesses of trying to undercut wages. And the Chamber, the biggest business lobby, said unions were jeopardizing the immigration reform effort.

Now the AFL-CIO is saying that the unions, the Chamber and lawmakers are coalescing around the idea of using a wage standard that already exists in current law rather than specific wage levels.

Both high-skilled and low-skilled visa programs specify that visas will only be issued if they do not drive down the wages of those doing the same job in the United States.

“I think there is an agreement that it should be a standard and we are finalizing what that standard should say,” said DiBitetto. “We are working with them to find the language that the senators and labor and the Chamber can agree to,” she said.

The Chamber also a took a more conciliatory tone on Thursday and said any temporary worker program would require that an immigrant worker “be paid the greater of actual wages being paid to comparable American workers or the prevailing wages as determined by the Department of Labor.”

The bipartisan Senate group is aiming to introduce legislation in April that would give millions of illegal immigrants a way to earn citizenship as well create a process for dealing with the future flow of unskilled labor into the country.

The temporary worker program is one of the remaining issues left for senators to resolve and one that has contributed to the downfall of other immigration reform efforts in the past.

The unions and the business community have already reached an agreement on other contentious parts of the new worker program, including how many visas will be issued per year, according to the AFL-CIO. Unlike existing visa programs, the new one would take into consideration the health of the economy and unemployment figures and expand and contract the flow of workers based on those factors, the labor group said. —Reuters

phone 4G in key cities, but the new mobile 4G network will allow users to access high-speed Internet with their hand-held devices across the country.

The 4G network is expected to be rolled out “shortly”, said Palpita, noting the infrastructure is already in place. He added that the money raised from the spectrum sale Thursday was the highest ever earned from an auction of airwaves.

Sri Lanka became the first country in South Asia to

introduce mobile phones in 1989 and the first to roll out a 3G network in 2004. But Palpita said that a vast majority of mobile phones in the country were still older 2G handsets.

The five mobile phone operators in Sri Lanka are being encouraged to switch over to newer technology for its increasing mobile phone connections, which now outnumber its population of 20 million, he said. —AFP

BUSINESS SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Asian giants tiptoe toward free trade deal SEOUL: China, Japan and South Korea are inching ahead with talks for a free trade zone that would rival the European Union and North America in economic heft. Despite the achievement of setting aside their often acrimonious relations to begin negotiations, progress will be slow. An agreement to start talks took 10 years. After three days of meetings in Seoul that finished Thursday, South Korea said officials agreed to hold two more rounds of negotiations this year, with the second meeting to be held in China either in June or July. Negotiations will cover goods, services and investment and might be extended to intellectual property rights and electronic commerce.

Striking an optimistic tone on the first day of talks, Japan’s negotiator Koji Tsuruoka said the “integration of three economies which are very significant economies in this area as well as globally will provide very fruitful results to industries ... and to people.”

Trade between the three Asian powers totaled $684 billion in 2011, an increase of more than five times from 1999, underlining Asia’s growing weight in the world economy after more than two

Japan’s Iranian crude imports fall a third in Feb TOKYO: Japan’s crude oil imports from Iran fell nearly a third in February from the same month a year earlier, trade ministry data showed yesterday, as tougher western sanctions targeting payments and insurance appeared to bite.

Imports by Japan, Iran’s No.3 crude buyer, are expected to continue declining this year after dropping 39.5 percent last year as the United States and the European Union ratchet up sanctions targeting Iran’s disputed nuclear programme. Under pressure from sanctions, Iran’s overall oil exports more than halved last year, costing it over $5 billion a month. Tehran says its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes, while the West accuses it of aiming to develop nuclear weapons.

Japan’s February crude imports from Iran were 953,848 kilolitres (214,268 barrels per day), down 32.3 percent from a year ago and 19.1 percent lower than in January, data from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) showed.

For the first two months of 2013, Japan imported 2,132,205 kl (227,308 bpd) of Iranian crude, down 30.8 percent from the same period a year ago. The figures contrast with customscleared data on Thursday which showed Japan’s Iranian crude imports rose 15.9 percent in February to the highest in eleven months, but the industry considers the trade ministry data a benchmark because it tracks the actual import status of oil tankers. The International Energy Agency said in its March report that new US sanctions on Iran implemented in February, which barred the country from repatriating oil export earnings, appeared to have not had an impact on February shipments.

Iranian crude oil exports were expected to hold strong and even exceed 1.4 million bpd in March from 1.28 million bpd in February, said the IEA, which coordinates the energy policies of major consuming nations. The report was at odds with industry expectations that the new US measures would push Iran’s exports in March to their lowest since Western sanctions came into effect in 2012. Earlier this month, the United States extended 180-day waivers on Iranian sanctions to Japan and 10 European Union nations in exchange for their cutting purchases of the OPEC nation’s crude oil.

Most other major Asian buyers of Iranian crude also cut imports last month, although China, Iran’s top crude oil customer, was an exception and imported 521,330 bpd, up 81 percent on the year. India reduced oil imports from Iran by 43 percent to 259,000 bpd from a year ago, as New Delhi struggled with new insurance issues that may trigger more cutbacks in shipments from Iran.

South Korea imported 141,929 bpd from Iran in February, down 30 percent on year, and its imports could plunge even further in March given a heavy refinery maintenance schedule.

The United States in February imposed new sanctions against Iran, aiming to trap its oil revenues so they are locked up in a purchasing country and used solely for buying goods from that country. — Reuters

decades of breakneck growth in China and the earlier rise of Japan and South Korea as manufacturing powerhouses. Those booming commercial ties are one of the few bright spots for relations among the three. The legacy of Japan’s colonial occupation of South Korea until 1945 and its World War II-era atrocities in China has provided fertile ground for animosity.

Beijing and Tokyo’s dispute over the sovereignty of East China Sea islands led last year to anti-Japanese riots in China and a damaging consumer boycott of Japanese autos and other goods. China and South Korea’s relations have been strained over Beijing’s continuing support for North Korea even as the North engages in threatening behavior and rhetoric.

Against that background, progress toward a free trade zone that would be the world’s third largest could easily be interrupted by any flare-up in political tensions. A separate Japan-South Korea trade deal has languished since talks were halted in 2004 as they could not narrow disagreements over opening agricultural trade. Negotiating a three-way deal among countries at different stages of development, and each with

industries lobbying for protection from competition is by itself a complicated affair.

“Usually, it takes around one to three years at the least to conclude FTA talks with a large trading partner, but I think the ongoing talks may take some more time, considering the importance and size of the involved countries and the fact that they are three-way negotiations,” Choi Kyong-lim, South Korea’s chief negotiator, told reporters according to Yonhap.

The talks between China, Japan and South Korea come amid a slew of moves to lower trade barriers as nations seek to reinvigorate economic growth that is still lagging in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis.

South Korea, which already has free trade pacts with the European Union and its US military ally, is separately negotiating a trade deal with China. As part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s policies to lift the Japanese economy out of two decades of stagnation, Japan has started negotiations with the EU and is seeking to join talks for a Pacific trade pact known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership that is being led by the US.—AP

Asian stocks higher after S&P hits record Shares in China flat amid limited trading volume BANGKOK: Asian stock markets were mostly higher yesterday as momentum carried over from yet another record high on Wall Street.

The Standard and Poor’s 500 index closed at its highest level ever Thursday, driven by more encouraging data on the US economic recovery. The government

US are also closed.

Japan’s Nikkei reversed early losses to rise 0.5 percent and close at 12,397.91.

Gains were muted, however, as the yen leveled off against the dollar and the government released figures for February showing the country’s jobless rate edging up while industrial production fell slightly.

TOKYO: Passersby stand in front of an electronic stock price board showing global stock index including Japan’s Nikkei 225, top center, that closed for the week at 12,397.91 after gaining 61.95 points in front of a securities company in Tokyo, yesterday. — AP said the economy grew at an annual rate of 0.4 percent in the October-December quarter, slightly better than previous estimates.

The revision reflected stronger business investment and export sales.

South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.6 percent to 2,004.89. Taiwan’s TAIEX advanced 0.7 percent to 7,918.61. Markets in Hong Kong, India, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Philippines and Singapore were shut for Good Friday. Markets in the Europe and the

Newly appointed central bank governor, Haruhiko Kuroda, has pledged to work with the government to end decades of growthinhibiting deflation. His outspoken calls for action have raised hopes for results but some analysts said they may also have created unrealistic expectations for a turnaround.

“Unfortunately, the markets’ expectations of the new Governor are so high that they will be almost impossible to meet, let

alone beat,” said analysts at Capital Economics in a market commentary.

Shares in mainland China were mostly flat amid limited trading volume, analysts said. The Shanghai Composite Index was nearly unchanged at 2,236.62 while the Shenzhen Composite Index fell 0.2 percent to 927.89.

Peng Yunliang, a Shanghai-based analyst, said shares in brokerage houses declined following the release Thursday of official policies aimed at tightening control over wealth management products.

In Europe on Thursday, markets responded positively to the calm reopening of Cyprus’s banks. Banks in the Mediterranean island nation were shut for nearly two weeks as the government negotiated a rescue loan from international lenders to prevent the financial system from collapsing. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares, Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC-40 all closed higher Thursday.

Italy’s political uncertainty will also remain in the spotlight. Following inconclusive elections around a month ago, the country is still without a government, and that’s raised concerns over its future economic path. Italy is the third-largest economy of the 17 countries that use the euro.

The Standard and Poor’s 500 index closed at a record Thursday, surpassing its previous record close of 1,565.15 set in October 2007. The Dow, which surpassed its previous all-time high at the start of the month, also rose.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 0.4 percent to close at 14,578.54.

The S&P 500 advanced 0.4 percent to close at 1,569.19. The Nasdaq composite index added 0.3 percent to 3,267.52. U.S. stock markets will be shut for the Good Friday holiday. Thursday was the last trading day of the first quarter. The New York Mercantile Exchange, where benchmark oil is traded, was closed for the Good Friday holiday.In currencies, the euro fell slightly to $1.2819 from $1.2822 late Thursday in New York. The dollar fell to 94.03 yen from 94.13 yen. — AP

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Harry Potter actor Richard Griffiths dies

www.kuwaittimes.net

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Monroe, Eisenhower letters to be auctioned PAGE 27

Models showcase a creation from Korean Designers’ Collection at the China Fashion Week in Beijing yesterday. — AFP

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Kim Kardashian wants to name her baby Easton West

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he reality TV star - who is expecting her and boyfriend Kanye West’s first child in July - shot down speculation the couple are planning to call their little one North, but admitted they have drawn up a shortlist of potential monikers and she is hoping the rapper will allow her to call their kid Easton West. When asked about plans to name the couple’s baby North, she replied: “That is not true. That is not one of the names on our list. But you know what name I do like? But it probably won’t be on [the list]. ‘Cause it kinda goes with North, I like Easton.

Easton West. I think that’s cute.” Following the revelation she was immediately asked whether she is expecting a boy, but insisted Easton West would be a suitable name whatever the sex of their child. Speaking on ‘The Tonight

Show with Jay Leno’ last night, she added: “Boys names are good for girls. We have a list and some of them are ‘K’ names some of them aren’t.” The 32-year-old beauty revealed she told her mother Kris Jenner and sister Kourtney Kardashian about her pregnancy before letting her other sibling Khloe Kardashian in on the news because she was “nervous” about telling the 28-year-old star, who has struggled to conceive in the past three years. She explained: “I had Kourtney come with me to tell Khloe ‘cause I was a little nervous. “Because I know she really really really wants a baby. So I felt like I’m gonna need some moral support to tell her. And she was so happy! But I was really nervous to tell her. And she kind of got mad that I was nervous, [she] thought it was ridiculous.”

Taylor Swift is to guest

Katie Price excited about her wedding day

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he former glamour model has dropped the biggest hint yet that she is to tie the knot to for the second time to part-time stripper-and-actor Kieran Hayler today after tweeting some of the lyrics to Billy Idol’s ‘White Wedding’ song. In a series of tweets, she wrote: “as billy would say, it’s a nice day for a.. “great atmosphere with everyone an lovin the build up eeeeeek exciting xx (sic)” The 34-year-old star - who married Kieran in Barbados in January following a whirlwind romance - also tweeted several pictures of white flowers to suggest they could be part of her marriage bouquet. Katie is expecting to tie the knot in seaside town Weston-super-Mare, in South West, England, and reportedly had to move her wedding date forward one day in a bid to keep the couple’s nuptials a secret. Earlier this week, the brunette beauty admitted she would love to have an equestrian-themed nuptials and has always dreamed of riding a horse to her wedding. She told BANG Showbiz: “One thing I always say is, wouldn’t it be nice to ride to my own wedding? But who knows what will happen. I’ll just turn up. “Everyone seems to know more than me about my wedding - but an equestrian theme, I’d love to do that.”

star in ‘New Girl’

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he ‘State of Grace’ hitmaker - who is known to be a big fan of the series - will make a cameo appearance in the May 14 finale of the comedy show, which stars Zooey Deschanel as adorable-but-awkward teacher Jess.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Taylor will portray a character called Elaine, who is an “important guest” at the wedding of Cece (Hannah Simone) and Shivrang (Satya Bhabha).

The 23-year-old star has been name-checked on several occasions in the series and in one episode Taylor’s latest single ‘22’ played in the background while Nick (Jake Johnson) was trying to cheer up Jess. It’s not the first time the blonde beauty has tried her hand at acting.

Taylor made her acting debut on the small screen in a 2009 episode of ‘CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’, in which she played a rebellious teenager. Taylor has also featured in movies such as 2010 comedy ‘Valentine’s Day’, which saw her star as a ditzy girlfriend of a high school student. Last year, the ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ singer voiced tree-lover Audrey in animated film ‘The Lorax’ opposite Danny DeVito and Zac Efron.

Hugh Hefner is a hopeless romantic

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he Playboy mogul - who married third wife Crystal Harris last December claims that, despite having slept with over 1,000 women during his lifetime, he is a firm believer in traditional notions of romance and finding his soul mate. The 86-year-old star told America’s Esquire magazine: “I’m essentially a romantic, always have been.” Hugh was ditched by busty blonde Crystal just five days before they were supposed to wed in June 2011, but the 26-year-old model decided to give him another chance when she realised how committed he was to her. She explained: “He believes in love. Hef loves me more than anybody else in a relationship ever has. It took me time away to realise that. I think I realised that here is where I’m meant to be.” Hugh was previously married to Mildred Williams from

1949 to 1959 and Kimberley Conrad from 1989 to 2010, and famously had multiple livein girlfriends at the Playboy Mansion. The entrepreneur’s younger brother Keith also shed some light on Hugh’s need for escapism and romantic fantasies, explaining that they grew up in a home starved of love and affection. Discussing Hugh - whose favourite film is ‘Casablanca’ - and his obsession with movies, he said: “Our mother took us very early to movies. We loved it. It was a great escape. I think so much of it ... the dreams ... “The lack of warmth and affection in our home had a tremendous impact on both of us. There was no hugging and kissing. “Our mother and father were religious and strong and good puritans ...That’s what we didn’t have. That’s why movies.”

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Jennifer Lawrence is an ‘ogre’ in high heels

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Tattooist calls Justin Bieber a ‘spoiled brat’

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ustin Bieber has been called a “spoiled brat” by a tattooist after he threw “a fit” over the price.

Body artist Guy Sahar was called to the singer’s hotel suite during his controversial London trip which saw him arrive two hours late for a concert and get into an altercation with a photographer and claimed the star’s behaviour was “disgraceful” as he haggled on the cost of the ink. He told the Daily Mirror newspaper: “When I said it was £1,000, Bieber’s bodyguard didn’t want to pay. “They snubbed me and tried to haggle over the money. In the end I accepted £500 just so I could go.

“Basically, he’s a joke and a spoiled brat. When I was there, I also saw Justin throw a fit with his personal assistant. It was disgraceful.” Apparently the ‘Beauty and the Beat’ hitmaker also kept Guy on standby for almost 12 hours after he was originally called in the evening. Guy added: “Initially I was told to go to Justin’s hotel at 7 pm by one of his minders but then I was called back and put on standby all night.

“I was finally summoned to the hotel at 6 am. I was told money wasn’t a problem so we didn’t discuss prices. “I spent four hours tattooing him and his DJ, and wasn’t even offered a glass of water.”

he 22-year-old star - who is five feet seven inches tall - said she is “uncomfortable” in the heightenhancing shoes, preferring more casual footwear. She told Fabulous magazine: “When I’m in high heels I feel like an ogre, I can’t walk and my feet are uncomfortable.” The ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ actress revealed she feels “too dressed up” in heels, which add to her relatively tall frame. She admitted: “I’m at that awkward height where I’m already kind of tall, so when I put heels on, everyone is like: ‘Oh, well, where’s the ball?’ “It’s just that they make me look too dressed up and yeah, I’m terrible in heels.”

Jennifer also recently compared her appearances at award ceremonies with a scared “chihuahua”. She said: “I’m afraid I’m going to go through my whole life being scared like a chihuahua. “It’s not my comfort zone.

Making movies is where I belong. I shouldn’t be heard just talking. “So, when I’m doing movies, I’m really happy. That’s where I’m comfortable, that’s my home. When you put me on a red carpet or on a stage, I turn into chihuahua Jennifer.”

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs named the richest hip-hop star

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he rapper has an estimated fortune of $580 million and was recognised in Forbes magazine’s annual list, once again beating Jay-Z ($475 million) to the top spot. His wealth actually primarily comes from non-musical ventures, the majority coming from his eight-figure deal with Diageo’s Ciroc vodka. As well as a huge annual payout, Sean - previously known by his stage-name P Diddy - will receive a nine-figure windfall if the brand is sold. Meanwhile, Jay-Z’s fortune is largely made up of his 2007 sale of Rocawear ($204 million) and his deal with Live Nation ($150 million). Dr Dre is in third place on the list with $350

Britney Spears is on a big ‘workout kick’

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he ‘Scream & Shout’ singer is said to be “motivated” as she pushes herself to get fit and looking “great”. A source to E! News: “She’s looking so great because she has been on a total fitness and workout kick recently. “She’s all about it. She’s been feeling really motivated and happy and it shows.” The 31-year-old star had a tough time earlier this year when she split from fiance Jason Trawick in January, but she seems happier than ever with new boyfriend David Lucado. A source revealed he has genuine feelings for Britney - who shares sons Sean Preston, seven, and Jayden James, six, with her ex-husband Kevin

Federline - and isn’t interested in her fame and fortune. The insider recently said: “[He] genuinely cares for Britney. David is very protective of Britney, and isn’t dating her for fame. “He is very, very patient with her as Britney can be prone to drastic mood swings. He has become a very calming influence in her life.” It was also noted, however, David was made to sign a confidentiality agreement and undergo a background check before the pop star’s father Jamie would set them up. Jamie is still in control of his daughter’s affairs via a conservatorship, which he obtained five years ago following her public meltdown. —Bang Showbiz

million mainly thanks to his ‘Beats by Dr Dre’ headphones brand. In 2011, the entrepreneur sold 51 percent of the business for $300 million, before buying back half of the half he sold the following year and seeing the company’s share of the premium headphones market reach 65 percent. The list is rounded off in the same way as last year’s, with Bryan ‘Birdman’ Williams and 50 Cent occupying the fourth and fifth spots.

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Harry Potter actor Richard Griffiths dies aged 65 B

ritish actor Richard Griffiths, best known for his roles as Harry Potter’s uncle and in the cult film “Withnail & I”, has died aged 65, his agent said yesterday. The portly star of stage and screen, one of Britain’s best loved character actors, died on Thursday from complications following heart surgery, Simon Beresford said. Griffiths will be forever remembered as Uncle Monty by fans of cult classic “Withnail & I”, although he reached his biggest audience as Uncle Vernon Dursley in the Harry Potter films.

Daniel Radcliffe, who played the boy wizard in the blockbuster Potter series, led the tributes to a man he said had offered him “encouragement, tutelage and humour”. The two men worked together on the Harry Potter films and later in the play Equus. “Any room he walked into was made twice as funny and twice as clever just by his presence. I am proud to say I knew him,” Radcliffe said in a statement. Griffiths was born on July 31, 1947 in Yorkshire in northern

In this file picture, British actor Richard Griffiths arrives for the Premiere of the film ‘Venus’ in London. — AFP England, the son of a steelworker. His parents were both deaf so he had to learn sign language at an early age. He

left school at 15 but later went back into education to study drama, before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company. Early film credits included “Chariots of Fire”, “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” and “Gandhi”, before he landed a starring role in the 1987 comedy “Withnail & I”.

Griffiths played the predatory gay uncle of Withnail, an out-of-work, alcoholic actor played by Richard E Grant, in a film now regarded as a British classic.

Grant said in a message on Twitter: “My beloved ‘Uncle Monty’ Richard Griffiths died last night. Chin-Chin my dear friend.” Nicholas Hytner, the director of London’s National Theatre who directed Griffiths in one of his biggest stage hits, “The History Boys”, said he was “the life of every party”. He recalled anecdotes that “would go on for hours, apparently without destination, constantly sidesplitting. The only way to stop them was to tell him you were walking away”.

Griffiths won a Tony and an Olivier award for his role as an inspirational teacher in The History Boys, and was

nominated for a Bafta for best actor for the film version. “His performance in The History Boys was quite overwhelming: a masterpiece of wit, delicacy, mischief and desolation, often simultaneously,” said Hytner. As a stage actor, Griffiths demanded his audience’s full attention, having twice stopped a show to order people out of the theatre after their mobile telephones rang out.

He also had a successful television career, starring as a crime-solving chef in TV series “Pie In The Sky” in the 1990s, and he was awarded an OBE for services to drama in 2007. Last year Griffiths starred alongside Danny DeVito in The Sunshine Boys in London and was due to reprise the role in Los Angeles in September. In a statement, Beresford said his client had “brightened my days and enriched the life of anyone he came into contact with”. “Richard gave acting a good name. He was a remarkable man and one of our greatest and best-loved actors. He will be greatly missed,” the agent said. — AFP

Philly arts fest opens with ‘time travel’ theme T

he city’s newest arts festival has returned with a month of music, dance, theater, visual arts and family activities, all loosely based on the topic of time travel. The Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts kicked off Thursday and runs through April 27 at locations around the city. The theme is “If You Had a Time Machine.” More than 50 events, installations and performances from local, national and international artists are exploring a wide range of questions related to time travel, many looking at historic events in a novel way or imagining what the future will bring.

The festival’s marquee names include

This file photo shows Barbara Walters attending the Time 100 Gala celebrating the Time 100 issue of the Most Influential People In The World at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York. — AFP

US TV icon Barbara

Walters set to retire in 2014 Visitors explore an imaginary time machine part of the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Thursday, March 28, 2013, in Philadelphia. — AP photos

Visitors explore an imaginary time machine part of the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts.

Tony Award-winning choreographer and dancer Savion Glover, who is launching the festival’s opening weekend with “Dance Space,” a world premiere he says will take audiences back to the beginning of the universe. Acclaimed singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright will pay homage to Judy Garland’s 1961 Carnegie Hall performance

with his show “Prima! Rufus! Judy!” on April 21, while Grammy Award-winning pianist and composer Danilo Perez on April 26 will use multi-instrumental jazz improvisation to commemorate Balboa’s discovery of the Pacific Ocean in 1513.

On April 12, Baltimore-based electronic musician Dan Deacon celebrates the first email, sent by inventor Ray Tomlinson in 1971, with an event that will allow audiences to participate in the performance with their smartphones. The festival’s core exhibit in the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts is an imaginary time machine, actually a 100-feet-long corkscrew spiral that visitors can walk through and experience changing sights and sounds. Free performances are happening on most nights around the time

machine, from a musical production called “Flash of Time” to a comedy troupe presenting the pitfalls of time travel with a show called “Shut Your Wormhole.”

A group of trapeze artists promise to fulfill the festival’s theme “in honor of the spunky women who first sported the raised hemlines of the 1960s” and will sell tickets for public trapeze lessons nearly every day of the monthlong event. Also on the schedule are concerts by the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Philly Pops, as well as smaller musical and theatrical performances inspired by events including the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the first moon landing in 1969, the founding of the Works Progress Administration in 1935, the emancipation of Puerto Rico in 1873 and the birth of Benjamin Britten in 1913. —AP

US

broadcasting icon Barbara Walters, 83, is poised to announce her retirement next year in the coming weeks, US news media reported Thursday.

The New York Times, quoting “an executive familiar with the newswoman’s plans,” said a formal announcement of Walter’s retirement would likely be made on “The View,” a daytime talk show on ABC that she co-hosts. It would be followed by a number of specials and retrospectives on Walters’ long career at ABC News, which she joined in 1976 after a long stint as cohost of the NBC breakfast show “Today,” the source said.

The Hollywood Reporter, a showbiz trade journal, said it was told by its sources that Walters-who weathered a bout of chicken pox at the start of this year-was poised to retire in May 2014. There was no immediate comment from ABC News or from Walters herself, who on March 20 told her 1.167 million Twitter followers that “The View” would return April 1 after a spring hiatus with “great guests to come-that’s no joke!” In a career spanning more than half a century, Walters sometimes made news herself. In 1976 she became the first woman ever to anchor a US evening network newscast, and her interviews with entertainers and politicians, notably on ABC’s “20/20” newsmagazine program, were often must-see viewing. — AFP

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Cutting edge art movement emerges in Ethiopia U

nder a canopy of trees in a park not far from Addis Ababa’s National Museum, home of many of Ethiopia’s historic national treasures, a contemporary art revolution is quietly afoot. It is here at Netsa Art Village that the experimental work made from shoelaces by Merhet Debebe can be found, or the vibrantly-coloured work of Tamrat Gazahegn, who uses tree trunks as canvases. Nearby are the giant sculptures of jazz musicians, trains and horse-drawn carts made from metal scraps and trash by Tesfahun Kibru.

works of famed international artists, including Brazil’s Oscar Niemeyer and Portugal’s Paula Rego. For Ethiopian painter Merid Tafesse, who had two pieces in the show, the exhibition is an opportunity to tell the world that there is more to Ethiopian art than the kitsch sold to tourists.

“This is good not just for me as an artist” said the dread-locked artist, smoking a cigarette. “Most Ethiopians cannot see where Ethiopia is in the fine arts industry, so this will give good exposure,” he added. He said most buyers look for cliches in Ethiopian art-wide-eyed cherubs, traditional crosses, worshippers in white mantles-but he and his contemporaries are producing work outside that box, even if it means suffering commercially.

“It is easier for most people to connect with the commercial art because they see some motif of the church, or some cultural clothes, so they think that represents Ethiopia better. But the personal expression... of an artist is what makes it art nowadays,” he said. Some artists, namely Tamrat, are using themes found in traditional Ethiopian art, but in experimental ways. He paints scripture on traditionallooking scrolls, for example, but the words are his, not lifted from the Bible, and the scrolls are painted in vibrant greens, yellows and oranges, not a common palette in traditional art.

The work of Contemporary Ethiopian artist Dawit Adenew is pictured at the Netsa Art Village in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. — AFP photos The collective, the only one of its kind in Ethiopia, is made up of 15 artists who are spearheading Ethiopia’s contemporary art movement, shifting away from endless copies of Ethiopia’s ancient Coptic Christian paintings. Still in its infancy, the movement marks a daring shift away from the commercial art that dominates many of Ethiopia’s mainstream galleries, and seeks to put the country on the map in the international art world as a source for cutting edge work.

“We’re trying to say that Ethiopia is not just a place for cultural and historic and prehistoric treasures, but contemporary work too,” said Desta Meghoo, an art curator living in Ethiopia. “We don’t want to continue to be a footnote in art.” Ethiopia held its first international art exhibition earlier this month.

The show, at the capital’s National Museum, co-curated by Meghoo, displayed the work of young, relatively unknown Ethiopian painters next to the

The work of Contemporary Ethiopian artist Tesfahun Kibru is pictured at the Netsa Art Village in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Stunted by lack of scholarship As striking as the work is, Mehret said most artists struggle to make a living.

Though the collective provides a space for artists to produce their work, it does not guarantee sales.

Merhet, one of the collective’s founders, hopes to see a time where “the artist is free of struggling to survive.” “I am hoping to get that opportunity for the artists here. At this pace, I don’t know that it will come soon, but I hope, I hope,” she said, laughing off the notion that she can

The work of Contemporary Ethiopian artist Tamrat Gazahegn is pictured.

Contemporary Ethiopian artist Tamrat Gazahegn shows off one of his paintings at the Netsa Art Village. earn a living from her performance pieces work on the international market.

“An internationally-acclaimed artist has in which she uses shoelaces.

“Commercially I cannot say it has been not been produced in Ethiopia,” she said. successful selling the art works,” she said. To date, there have been no major sales by Today’s contemporary art movement is an Ethiopian artists abroad, save for outgrowth of Ethiopian modernism, which Ethiopian-born, American-raised artist emerged in the 1950s and 1960s to much Julie Merhetu who was commissioned by international acclaim. Modernism went Goldman Sachs to create a mural in their quiet in the 1970s, with the takeover by New York offices for $5 million (3.8 million the repressive Communist junta, called the euros).

Locally, works sell for much less: typiDerg. Creativity was stunted and many artists fled, while those who stayed were cally the work of Tamrat and Merid fetch permitted only to produce socialist- $1,500 (1,150 euros) to $3,000 (2,301 euros), paltry sums by comparison. But inspired revolutionary work.

Today, experimental creativity is Meghoo remains optimistic, believing it is reemerging, which Ethiopian art scholar only a mater of time before Ethiopian Elizabeth Woldegiorgis attributes to work will be featured in the contemporary greater access to the outside world section of international galleries such as through the internet and the Addis Ababa New York’s Museum of Modern Art School of Fine Arts, the only establishment (MoMA). “Merid’s work is in the MoMA’s of its kind in Ethiopia. Elizabeth, who also archives, mind you, it’s not been on the runs the country’s only modern art gallery, walls yet, but the MoMA also declined said the absence of scholarship and critical Basquiat’s work,” she said, with a smile, analysis in the country is stunting contem- referring to the acclaimed late New Yorkporary art, making it difficult for artists to born graffiti pioneer Jean-Michel gain international acclaim and sell their Basquiat. — AFP

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

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pair of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members took the stage Thursday in South Dakota for the first show in a week of concerts benefiting a music academy for Sioux Falls Boys & Girls Clubs members. Alice Cooper jammed with Robby Krieger of The Doors and a who’s who of ‘80s glam and metal rockers to help christen the $3.6 million Brennan Rock & Roll Academy in Sioux Falls. Also taking the stage were Joey Allen of Warrant, former Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach, bassist Chuck Garric and Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer of Kiss. “These guys all know my songs, so I’ll be doing four or five of my songs, and then a couple of Doors songs,” Cooper told The Associated Press before the show. Cooper, wearing black leather pants, a black vest, black jacket and black gloves, belted out The Doors’ “Back Door Man,” aptly channeling the late Jim Morrison as Krieger led on guitar.

Cooper then told tales of warming up for The Doors in the late 1960s before the band jumped into “Break on Through (To the Other Side).”

Earlier in the set, Krieger came out for a duet with Bach on the lesser known “Crystal Ship,” the Bside to superhit “Light My Fire.”

The all-star band also performed some Kiss songs, a cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar” and a little Skid Row. The $1,000-a-ticket concert is a fundraiser for the center, which is the

brainchild of Sioux Falls native Chuck Brennan.

Brennan, the founder of short-term lender Dollar Loan Center, based his idea on Cooper’s Solid Rock Foundation in Phoenix. Cooper said about 100 kids a night are flocking to his Solid Rock center, which opened about two years ago.

“If you take one kid out of a gang and get him involved in rock ‘n’ roll or get him involved in a guitar or bass or drums, you don’t just change that kid, you change the neighborhood,” he said.

The Sioux Falls academy has had the feel of an exclusive, intimate venue this week, but starting in April it will become the afternoon home for young people looking to learn or improve their skills in guitar, bass, drums, keyboards or vocals.

Lessons will be given in nine soundproof rehearsal rooms, five of which are wired to a professional mixing and recording studio. The four upstairs rehearsal rooms will honor Kiss, with each decorated as an homage to the band members’ characters: The Demon, Starchild, Catman and Spaceman. Kiss’ Thayer, who grew up playing saxophone in a school music program before he ever touched a guitar, said the facility will spark kids’ creative side. “I’m blown away with this whole facility,” Thayer said. “I think it’s a great thing.” — AP

Alice Cooper (center) sings his song “Under My Wheels” with bassist Chuch Garric (left) and guitarist Tommy Thayer of Kiss, Thursday, March, 28, 2013, at a concert benefiting the Brennan Rock & Roll Academy in Sioux Falls, SD. — AP

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Demi Lovato attends the “The X Factor” season finale results show at CBS Television City in Los Angeles. — AP

ace covered and mouth taped shut, alternative folk and rock singer Michelle Shocked staged a sit in outside a Santa Cruz nightclub that canceled her show because she made an anti-gay slur at a San Francisco club earlier this month. The tape across her mouth said “Silenced

By Fear.” When asked a question, Shocked shook her head vigorously and strummed her guitar while seated on the ground outside popular music venue Moe’s Alley. She pointed to a sign inviting people to pick up a Sharpie marker and write on the white disposable safety suit she was wearing. Earlier in the day, she had tweeted her plans: “Moe’s in S Cruz tonight ok? Its an art project ‘My Summer Vacation’ I want your autograph. Bring Sharpie.” Moe’s Alley owner Bill Welch, who talked with Shocked as she strummed her guitar outside his club, had replaced her with bands Beaver Fever and Frootie Flavors. “We will not be bashing Michelle Shocked,” he said. “Rather we will celebrate music, diversity and send some healing Santa Cruz energy her way.” — AP

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ox network says Demi Lovato is returning as a judge of “The X Factor.” The singer-songwriter will be back alongside series creator Simon Cowell when the singing competition begins its third season this fall. Although calling Lovato “really, really annoying,” Cowell said he enjoys working with her. She joined the panel of judges last year.

Thursday’s announcement comes as the panel is being revamped. Britney Spears and record producer Antonio “LA” Reid departed after Season 2. — AP Alternative folk singer Michelle Shocked sits outside Moe’s Alley nightclub in Santa Cruz Calif, and strums her guitar on Thursday, March 28, 2013. — AP

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Lil Wayne

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il Wayne says he’s an epileptic and has had seizures for years. In an interview with Los Angeles-based radio station Power 106 on Thursday, the 30-year-old rapper said epilepsy caused his most recent health scare earlier this month, when he was rushed to a hospital. Wayne said he had three back-to-back seizures. The Grammy winner says: “I’ve had a bunch of seizures, y’all just never hear about them.” Wayne says he “could’ve died” and that the recent seizures

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arilyn Monroe’s letter of despair to mentor Lee Strasberg, and Dwight D. Eisenhower’s heartfelt missives to his wife during World War II are among hundreds of historical documents being offered in an online auction. Monroe’s handwritten, undated letter to the famed acting teacher is expected to fetch $30,000 to $50,000 in the May 30 sale.

“My will is weak but I can’t stand anything. I sound crazy but I think I’m going crazy,” Monroe wrote on Hotel Bel-Air letterhead stationery. “It’s just that I get before a camera and my concentration and everything I’m trying to learn leaves me. Then I feel like I’m not existing in the human race at all.”

The 58 Eisenhower letters, handwritten between 1942 and 1945, range from news of the war to the Allied commander’s devotion to his wife, Mamie. They are believed to be among the largest group of Eisenhower letters to survive intact and could bring up to $120,000, said Joseph Maddalena, whose Profiles in History is auctioning the items. They are among 250 letters and documents being sold by an anonymous American collector. Selected items will be exhibited April 8-16 at Douglas Elliman’s Madison Avenue art gallery.

Also included is a typed, undated draft letter from John Lennon to Linda and Paul McCartney that reflects the deep animosity between the

were a result of “just plain stress, no rest, overworking myself.” He released his 10th album, “I Am Not a Human Being II,” this week. He’ll embark on a 40-city tour in July with rappers T.I. and Future. The New Orleans native, whose given name is Dwayne Michael Carter Jr, is one of the biggest stars not only of his genre but in all music. — AP

two Beatles around the time of the foursome’s formal 1971 breakup. The two-page letter is unsigned and contains corrections. A photographic logo on the stationery shows Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono within a circle with their lips almost touching.

“Do you really think most of today’s art came about because of the Beatles? I don’t believe you’re that insane - Paul - do you believe that? When you stop believing it you might wake up!” Lennon writes. It’s expected to fetch $40,000 to $60,000. Other highlights include two large photo albums that Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini exchanged prior to War World II. “When Mussolini and Hitler visited each other before the war, they would each have their photographers document their trips,” Maddalena said. “They really documented the regalia, the flags, the uniforms, tanks and all the pomp and circumstance, and them speaking and reviewing the troops.” The leather-bound albums, containing hundreds of images, have a pre-sale estimate of up to $50,000. The sale is the second of several planned online auctions of the anonymous collector’s artifacts. The entire collection contains 3,000 items. — AP

Visitors walk past painting “Maria” by Konstantin Khudyakov at the exhibition ICONS in St Petersburg yesterday. — AFP

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sk award-winning Indian filmmaker Kamal KM what he thinks about Bollywood and he throws back his head and roars with laughter. “Nonsense!

Nonsense!” he cries. For Kamal, the winner of this year’s Deauville Asian Film Festival for his film “ID”, Bollywood’s commercially successful diet of slick song and dance routines, farfetched plots and cheesy dialogue is a bit “like opium”.

Producers and directors, he says, will joke among themselves that their films are “rubbish” but claim they have to keep churning them out because “the people insist”. The Kerala-based independent filmmaker is sceptical and more than a little disapproving, believing the industry’s leading lights should take greater responsibility for what they produce and give audiences more choice.

“Bollywood is just one part of Indian cinema,” Kamal told AFP in an interview in Paris, adding that around 10 of India’s 31 states produce their own films.

“Among that, Bollywood is one... the largest film-producing state (of Maharashtra).

It is strong in the diaspora across the world and so that is why Bollywood is appreciated

all over the place,” he said. Inspired by a real life incident, “ID” tells the story of a labourer who collapses at the comfortable Mumbai flat of young graduate Charu and her quest to piece together who he is.

The city of 20 million is a magnet for poor rural people from all over India who flock there in search of work, often leaving their families behind. Forced to live lives of extreme precariousness, security can be limited to nothing more than managing to find a piece of pavement or wasteland beneath an underpass that has not yet been claimed by someone else. Every day, thousands gather at so called labour points where they are picked up by employers to do casual work.

In a country of extremes, Charu by contrast is part of a new generation of well-qualified young Indians employed by multinational companies. Her search launches her on a journey from one world to another, from middle class privilege and security to the grinding poverty-and anonymity-of the city’s slums.

According to Kamal, migrants often fall ill and die or are killed without their families ever knowing what has happened to them.—AFP

Dwayne Johnson, a cast member in “G.I. Joe: Retaliation,” poses at the Los Angeles premiere of the film at the TCL Chinese Theatre on Thursday, March 28, 2013 in Los Angeles. — AP

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Zayna Abdul, 34, an Abigail Michaels concierge, works at her desk in the Mercedes House apartments, in New York, Monday, March 25, 2013. — AP

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here was the resident who wanted a private jet commissioned for his new puppy, flown like a CEO to its new home in Manhattan. There was also a frantic search for a specific type of crystal vase whose presence was required at a dinner party. For the well-trained concierge at exclusive Manhattan apartment buildings, no request is too extravagant.

“Sometimes it’s finding the perfect gift for your wife’s 40th birthday,” said Jenene Ronick, the founder of Luxury Attache, a lifestyle management company that employs concierges at about 30 Manhattan residential buildings. “Sometimes it’s finding a rare bottle of wine or an autographed first copy of a book.”

A penthouse with a view of Central Park is no longer enough for well-to-do New Yorkers. What they want now is five-star hotel amenities in their own apartments. That means room service delivered from world-renowned restaurants, a private health spa with trainers at the ready and, most importantly, a smiling concierge on call at all hours to accommodate every aspect of their lives. The luxury craze has been partly fueled by the influx of deep-pocketed foreigners from places like Russia and China, who are streaming into New York City in search of “trophy apartments” that can serve as pied-a-terres. But the amenities are considered a requirement at every level of luxury living, from $5,000-per-month rentals to $60 million penthouse condominiums.

“The global market has forced a lot of people to travel extensively around the world, and by doing so, they are being exposed to really some exquisite hotel living,” said Leonard Steinberg, a sales broker with Douglas Elliman. “When they come home, they do not want a lesser experience.”

Business is booming at Abigail Michaels Concierge, which provides concierge service to 200 Manhattan buildings and has added about a dozen new properties to its clientele in the past year alone.

The concierge service is generally included in condominium or maintenance fees, but some buildings

charge extra for amenities.

Developers are less wary of the word “luxury” than they were at the height of the recession, said Michael Fazio, the company’s co-founder and author of the service-industry memoir “Concierge Confidential.” “What happened is, people are getting back to feeling more confident about what they’re entitled to,” Fazio said. As the on-site concierge at Mercedes House, a high-end rental apartment complex in the west 50s near the Hudson River, 34-year-old Zayna Abdul juggles requests for nearly 1,000 apartments, the priciest of which rents for $15,000 a month. In one particularly memorable demand, a male resident preparing for a big date asked Abdul to help him re-enact a scene from the movie “Hitch” where a couple rides jet skis under the Brooklyn Bridge and around the harbor.

Duane Davis, 29, who works in finance, recently enlisted Abdul’s help in planning an upcoming tropical getaway to Anguilla. He relies upon her to get reservations at trendy restaurants and keep him informed about where to take business clients. “You can have the nicest gym, but if the person at the front desk is rude and inattentive, then you don’t really have a sense of a tie to the building,” Davis said. “I ask her a question and she gets back to me in 10 minutes.” International residents who only drop in from time to time expect the concierge to run their households while they’re away, mastering the finest of details. “Do you want white tulips in your room every time you arrive?” said Lydia Sussek, a sales associate for Corcoran Group. “Do you want appointments with fashion designers for consultations?”

There’s a dizzying array of amenities at New York

by Gehry, a building designed by iconic architect Frank Gehry near City Hall that is the tallest residential building in the city’s history. One two-bedroom apartment there is available for $10,154 a month.

Inside the 76-story tower’s rippled steel exterior lies a lifeguard-manned swimming pool and sun deck, a

boxing studio, a children’s library, a grilling terrace with “dining cabanas,” a billiards room, a squash court and a golf simulator, just to name a few.

Want to order room service from the restaurant down the block? That’s one perk at 150 Charles Street, an old West Village warehouse with a 75-foot pool that is being converted into luxury condominiums selling for up to $35 million.

About 85 percent of the units were sold within a month - worth half a billion dollars in contracts - a sales record for Douglas Elliman. The building won’t even open for another two years. “We expected it to sell fast, but we were shocked at the velocity and the volume,” Steinberg said. Occupants of The Mark Residences, high-end condominiums attached to The Mark Hotel on the Upper East Side, can have meals cooked by celebrity chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten delivered to their living rooms. The penthouse is currently on the market for $60 million.

“One night, the hotel restaurant was booked and somebody wanted to have a dinner for some friends, very important people,” Sussek said. “JeanGeorges personally came up and cooked for them in their apartment.” But having a concierge is the first and foremost demand of prospective luxury buyers surveyed in recent months by Bjorn Hanson, a professor of hospitality management at New York University who has been researching the luxury market. “Fifteen years ago people started worrying about having very high-end branded kitchen equipment,” Hanson said. “This is kind of next in the evolution.” — AP

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

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ith the housing recovery gaining steam, Americans have more incentives to paint up, touch up and otherwise redecorate their homes. But there’s no need to spend willynilly. From finding treasures on eBay.com to taking advantage of new offerings at department stores and discounters, there are plenty of ways to make your home more stylish on the cheap.

“There’s no excuse for an undecorated home on any budget,” said Candace Corlett, president of WSL Strategic Retail, a retail consultancy. “Home has as much retail selection as fashion. And you can get a lot of buys.”

Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world’s largest retailer, has expanded this year its assortment of window treatments like blinds, and is also bolstering offerings on rugs, decorative pillows, bathroom accessories and patio furniture. Under the discounter’s Better Homes & Gardens brand, decorative pillows range from $11.97 to $13.97.

Meanwhile, Target Corp, known for its cheap chic home designs, has launched a full line for the new store brand called Threshold, which offers a variety of goods from dinnerware sets to sheets and towels. And J.C Penney Co is counting on a newly revamped home area that opens April 5 that houses new brands like Jonathan Adler, Sir Terence Conran, and Bodum. Michael Graves, who ended his 13-year partnership with Target last year and is known for his stylish tea kettles, is also joining Penney this spring.

Here are six tips for decorating your home: Do your homework: First, create a budget and search around to get inspiration. To get ideas, attend open houses to see how other people are decorating their homes. You can also find how-to videos and decorating blogs on such sites as HSN, HomeGoods, Lowe’s and Home Depot. There are fewer home decor magazines than there used to be. But you can always flip through catalogs from stores such as Ballard Designs to get some tips.

Also, experts encourage you to do broad searches on the Web. EBay just launched a new technology called Feed that allows you to personalize your searches based on your style, like mod 1960s. “It’s all about getting unexpected things,” said Chris Benz, an American fashion designer who is collaborating with eBay on various fashion collections.

He said he has furnished his apartment and office with eclectic eBay finds like vintage Italian turquoise pottery pieces.

Pick and choose: Study your space and figure out what pieces of furniture you’ll be using more.

So if you spend a lot of time in your living room, you may want to spend more on a sofa and an entertainment center that would house your flat-

screen TV and books. It’s like investing in good shoes or a handbag, said Pallavi Naidu, vice president of merchandising and product development at Atlanta-based Ballard Designs. Spending more on items that get lots of use means they will last longer and give you more satisfaction.

Improvise: You don’t need the real thing. If you don’t have money to spend on a granite backsplash for your kitchen turn to peel-and-stick wall tiles. Not sure if you want to invest in a carpet? An area rug could cost less and accomplish the same thing.

Repurpose pieces: Shop in flea markets and even your mother’s attic to find pieces that could be reinvented as useful home decor items. And think beyond the original purpose: WSL’s Corlett said that old sewing machines or leather-trimmed luggage can be used as tables.

Check out financing deals: If you’re strapped and need to stagger payments, instead of charging all at once on your credit card, check out financing deals from various retailers. Most furniture stores have some kind of interest-free financing deal going most of the time. Just remember to keep up with the monthly payments or else you will wind up paying heavy-duty interest and sometimes extra fees.

When in doubt, paint: Often, just a fresh coat of paint will make all the difference in a room.

“Painting is one of the affordable ways to change the decor,” Corlett said. — AP

TECHNOLOGY

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

GOP moves to plug tech gap with Democrats WASHINGTON: Embarrassed by how the last presidential election exposed their yesteryear technology, Republicans are turning to a younger generation of techsavvy social media experts and software designers to improve communications with voters, predict their behavior and track opponents more vigorously. After watching President Barack Obama win reelection with help from a technology operation unprecedented in its sophistication, GOP officials concede an urgent need for catch up.

“I think everybody realized that the party is really far behind at the moment and they’re doing everything within their realistic sphere of influence to catch up,” said Bret Jacobson, a partner with Red Edge, a Virginia-based digital advocacy firm that represents the Republican Governors Association, the US Chamber of Commerce and the Heritage Foundation.

Democrats began using related technology years ago, giving Obama a significant advantage last fall in customizing personalized fundraising and get-out-thevote appeals to prospective supporters.

With the blessing of party leaders, a new crop of Republican-backed outside groups is developing tools to do the same in 2014 and 2016. Alex Skatell, former digital director for the GOP’s gubernatorial and Senate campaign operations, leads one new group that has been quietly testing a system that would allow Republicans to share details about millions of voters their personal interests, group affiliations and even where they went to school.

With no primary opponent last year, Obama’s re-election team used the extra time to build a large campaign operation melding a grass-roots army of 2.2 million volunteers with groundbreaking technology to target voters. They tapped about 17 million email subscribers to raise nearly $700 million online.

Data-driven analytics enabled the campaign to run daily simulations to handicap battleground states, analyze demographic trends and test alternatives for reaching voters online. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, in contrast, had only a few months after a lengthy primary fight to try to match Obama’s tech advantage. He couldn’t make up the difference.

Romney’s technology operation was overwhelmed by the intense flow of data and temporarily crashed on Election Day. A 100-page report on how to rebound from the 2012 election, released last week

by Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus, includes several technology recommendations. “The president’s campaign significantly changed the makeup of the national electorate and identified, persuaded and turned out low-propensity voters by unleashing a barrage of human and technological resources previously unseen in a presidential contest,” the report said. “Marrying grass roots politics with technology and analytics, they successfully contacted, persuaded and turned out their margin of victory. There are many lessons to be learned from their efforts, particularly with respect to voter contact.”—AP

Tablet technology enters classrooms in China Efforts to restructure teaching practices BEIJING: At Beijing’s Haite Garden Primary School, pupils pore over their work, concentrating on sums and language learning. But they are reading their study materials not in textbooks, but on the screens of tablet computers linked to a wireless broadband network.

Such scenes are currently rare in China, but may become less so after the Beijing municipal government announced on Wednesday that it will earmark three million yuan (about $482,796) to promote what is dubbed an “ebag,” turn paper books into e-books and put tablet appliances in the hands of more pupils.

Haite Garden Primary School recently became one of a handful of schools in the capital to take this plunge when it decided to restructure teaching practices using the technical breakthrough of hand-held computers.

A free tablet was issued to each child in grade one and two at the Shijingshan District school at the start of spring. In an age when toddlers learn to use touchscreens before they can talk, tablet technology is starting to get a toe in the door of traditional classrooms.

Li Jiangnan, a teacher with the school, explains that students use the tablets in three classes-Chinese, math and English. The technology enables vibrant interactions in classrooms. In Li’s class, students follow the teacher’s guidance on drawing Chinese characters on their touchscreens. If correct, the strokes turn red, while incorrect ones remain their original color, turning the dull writing practice into a vivid online game.

Coming in the wake of the technology’s surging popularity, the tablet roll-out is a trial designed to discover new ways to inspire children to learn, according to school head Wu Youying. As a trial site, Haite Garden Primary School has encountered various teething troubles with the project-including difficulties in network instability, shortage of e-textbook resources and limitations with charging the devices. Yang Dejun, deputy director of the Beijing Academy of Educational Science, says educational authorities have been working to develop more e-textbooks, and programs for downloading teaching resources are being set

up. However, not everyone is convinced.

Netizens have expressed concerns that electric screens may harm children’s eyesight.

The authorities should study whether using tablets would have this impact, and that it is irresponsible for the government to take action without such due diligence, according to a post by Internet user Wang Jiafu.

Parents also fretted that the youngsters, lacking self control, will log onto instant messaging tools or games as soon as their teachers’ backs are turned. “Allowing pupils unlimited access to the Internet is likely to distract their attentions as well as deprive them of imagination,” said one parent on condition of anonymity. Education expert Liu Yongming, notes Beijing’s attempt to incorporate high technology into traditional classes follows current worldwide teaching trends.

“We should treat the tablet as a supportive tool because the essence of education lies in learning and thinking through reading and writing, and this should not be shattered and changed,” Liu adds.

Solar-powered plane prepares for coast-to-coast US flight MOUNTAIN VIEW, California: A groundbreaking solar-powered Swiss aircraft is ready to make a coast-to-coast flight across the United States, its creators said Thursday. The experimental Solar Impulse plane, which has made several trips since its maiden flight in 2009, will take off on May 1 on a transcontinental tour split in five stages.

“We are ready to do this flight across America,” said Solar Impulse co-founder Andre Borschberg during a press conference at a hangar in Mountain View, near San Francisco.

Borschberg said the flight is being split into multiple stages for security reasons, emphasising nevertheless that the single-seat aircraft was technically capable of flying non-stop across the United States.

A non-stop flight would take approximately three days travelling at the aircraft’s cruising speed of around 70 km per hour.

“We have limited ourselves to fly a duration maximum of 24 hours,” said Borschberg, who will share the piloting duties with Solar Impulse president Bertrand Piccard.

Weather conditions permitting, the Solar Impulse will take off on May 1 and is scheduled to make stops in Phoenix, Dallas and

Washington before arriving in New York in early July.

The plane will spend up to 10 days at each stop on its journey in order to showcase its technology to the public, schoolchildren and students who will also have a chance to talk with the pilots.

“The people will be able to follow the mission, to speak to the pilot, to ask questions,” Piccard said. “We would like to inspire students, schoolchildren, inspire as many people as possible to try to have the spirit to dare, to innovate, to invent.”

The Solar Impulse project was launched 10 years ago before the plane, which weighs about the same as a family car but boasts a wingspan roughly equivalent to a Boeing 747, made its first flight in 2009. In 2010, the plane was flown 26 hours non-stop in order to demonstrate that its photovoltaic cells could soak up enough solar energy in daytime to power the plane at night.

A year later, the plane made its first international flight between Belgium and France before it set off on a 1,550-mile intercontinental flight from Madrid to Rabat in June. Borschberg and Piccard are planning an around-the-world flight of the plane in 2015. — AFP

TECHNOLOGY SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

First TED event brings innovation talk to Intel Combination of brilliance, innovation

TOKYO: French Minister Fleur Pellerin inspects a demonstration of a humanoid robot HRP-2, which is controlled by human brain activity with the brain machine interface in the JapanFrance joint laboratory at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tsukuba, suburban Tokyo yesterday. The HAL, which is designed to learn the user’s motion and assist the wearer’s movement, can be used for the rehabilitation of disabled and assist elderly people. — AFP

Google to deliver goods fast to online shoppers SAN FRANCISCO: Internet search leader Google is taking another step beyond information retrieval into grocery delivery. The new service, called Google Shopping Express, will initially provide same-day delivery of food and other products bought online by a small group of consumers in San Francisco and suburbs located south of the city. The company, based in Mountain View, Calif., didn’t say how many people will be part of the test.

If the pilot program goes well, Google Inc. plans to expand delivery service to other markets. “We hope this will help users explore the benefits of a local, same-day delivery service, and help us kick the tires on the new service,” Google said in a Thursday statement.

The delivery service is part of Google’s effort to increase consumer reliance on the Internet, so it will have more opportunities to show online ads, which generate most of its revenue. Google has learned that the more time people spend online, the more likely they are to use its dominant search engine or one of its other popular services, like its YouTube video site or Gmail, that include advertising.

The delivery service also could spur merchants to buy more online ads if Google’s same-day delivery service encourages consumers to do more of their shopping online.

Having to wait days or, in some cases, more than a week for the delivery of online orders ranks among the biggest drawbacks to Internet shopping.

It’s a problem that Amazon.com Inc. and eBay Inc., which operate the largest e-commerce sites, already have been trying to solve by offering same-day service in some U.S. markets. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, also offers same-day delivery in five markets.

A mix of national, regional and neighbor-

hood merchants are enlisting in Google Shopping Express. The best-known names on the list include Target Inc. and Walgreen Co. All the merchants in the Google program will sell certain items through a central website.

Google has hired courier services to pick up the orders at the merchant stores and then deliver them to the customer’s home or office.

Although the couriers will be working on a contract basis, they will be driving Google trucks and wearing company-issued uniforms.

It remains unclear whether Internet shopping and same-day delivery can be profitable.

Online grocer Webvan collapsed in 2001, largely because it couldn’t devise a pricing plan that would pay for the costs of same-day delivery without alienating shoppers unwilling to pay too much extra for the added convenience.

Google is still trying to figure out how much to charge for its same-day delivery service. For the six-month test period in the San Francisco area, consumers won’t have to pay a surcharge. Google instead will receive a commission from participating merchants.

The expansion into same-day delivery comes at the same time that Google is preparing to close some of its older online services so it can devote more attention and money to other projects. The realignment has irked some Google users. The biggest complaints have centered on Google Reader, which allows people to automatically receive headlines and links from their favorite sites, and iGoogle, which allows Web surfers to design a page consisting of the Google search engine surrounded set up other online features, such as local weather reports and stock market quotes. Google Reader is scheduled to close in July and iGoogle will shut down in November.

Google shares fell $8.47 to close at $794.19 on Thursday. — AP

SANTA CLARA, California: Intel researcher Jennifer Healey stepped onto a stage decorated with a mad scientist’s lab in mind and made her case for gossiping cars. Her place was soon taken by colleague Eric Dishman, who brought the audience to its feet with a poignant tale weaving a transplant that saved his life with his vision to re-invent how health care is handled. Potentially worldchanging passions of those working behind the scenes at the leading computer chip maker were spotlighted at Intel on Wednesday in the first TED event produced exclusively in a company with the employees being the stars.

TED-originally known as Technology, Entertainment and Design-has built a global following for its online videos of inspiring talks devoted to “ideas worth spreading.”

Presentations, made available free online at ted.com and other venues, have traditionally come from the non-profit group’s annual conferences and at sanctioned satellite TED events. This week marked the first time TED went behind the walls of a corporation to produce talks bearing its trademark combination of brilliance, innovation, and heartfelt drive to make the world a better place.

“There is a gigantic well of interesting ideas in corporations that are not tied to products but to activism and social impact,” said TEDGlobal director Bruno Giussani, who hosted the TED@Intel event.

“Our goal is to use the TED format to unlock some of those ideas and make them more visible.” Healey shared research aimed at letting cars use short-range signals to share information ranging from where they are and how fast they are going to what is happening inside or outside vehicles.

“Our cars can talk about us behind our backs and it can be a good thing,” Healey said. “Let your car gossip about you; it is going to make the roads a lot safer.”

For example, cars could confide in one another about a speeding motorcyclist approaching from behind or a problem in the road ahead. Intel is backing testing of using sensors, cameras and position location technology in cars along with radio signals to let them “talk” to one another when close by, according to Healey. Research is also being done into letting cars detect when drivers are looking away from the road, perhaps turning their attention to a mobile phone, car radio or cup of coffee, she added.

“We can predict who is going to have the accident and which cars should move out of the way to make the safest route,” Healey said. “These technologies exist today; the biggest problem we face is getting people to share data.”

Dishman plugged a wand made by Mobisante in Washington state into a smartphone and did an on-stage ultrasound scan on his abdomen, sharing the image real-time in an online consultation with a doctor.

“This is an example of mobile, social and analytic technologies; a foundation of what is going to make personal health care possible,” Dishman said. Dishman laid out a vision of shifting medical care from hospitals to homes, with people coordinating exams and treatment with teams of professionals.

He said that his Intel team is exploring the approach in a project working with seniors in China. “TED stages are often about celebrat-

ing innovations and technologies,” Dishman said. “But, until all these technologies are available it is up to us to take care of ourselves and each other.”

Talks ranged from efficient ways to fuel deep space exploration to being a “plucky rebel” in a corporate workplace or being technically fit to parent.

TED@Intel was a chance to showcase a personal, passionate side of chip making, according to Intel global director of co-marketing Elizabeth Broers.

“It is all about silicon at the very rudimentary level, but you put it together and there are big stories,” Broers said, referring to the basic chip material.

“We are thinking about what those technologies will mean for you,” she continued.

“Not just faster processing power but what that power enables around health care, safety, education and even cars potentially talking to each other.” — AFP

Quarter of US firms in China face data theft BEIJING: Over a quarter of the members of a US business lobby in China have experienced data theft, the group said on Friday, after the two powers engaged in a war of words over state-sponsored hacking attacks.

An American Chamber of Commerce in China survey of its members found 26 percent of respondents said “proprietary data or trade secrets have been breached or stolen from their China operations”.

Data theft “poses a substantial obstacle for businesses in China”, the Chamber said in a report. Most businesses said the threat of data theft was “rising or staying the same”, threatening the development of cloud computing, an emerging technology which has received a major push from the Chinese government, the report said.

Beijing’s foreign ministry, which has repeatedly denied that China engages in hacking, dismissed the report, with spokesman Hong Lei saying: “We oppose the presumption of guilt, without thorough investigation and solid evidence.”

He called on the US to stop “politicising the trade issue, and hyping cybersecurity issues”. The report follows a war of words between the world’s two largest economies over cyber-attacks, after a US research company said last month that a Chinese army unit had stolen “hundreds of terabytes” of data, from mostly US firms.

China dismissed the report as “groundless” and said its defence ministry websites were often subject to regular hacking attacks originating in the US. It also labelled as “biased” a US bill blocking government purchases of information technology equipment “produced, manufactured or assembled” by firms “owned, directed or subsidised by the People’s Republic of China”. — AFP

TV listings SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

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

Monster Bug Wars Untamed & Uncut Wildest Islands Shark Family Whale Wars Shamwari: A Wild Life Dark Days In Monkey City Animal Precinct The Really Wild Show Earthquake: Panda Rescue Bad Dog Crocodile Hunter America’s Cutest...

Jeff Corwin Unleashed Jeff Corwin Unleashed My Cat From Hell The Really Wild Show Wildlife SOS Wildlife SOS Wildlife SOS Wildlife SOS Wildlife SOS Wildlife SOS The Animals’ Guide To Survival The Animals’ Guide To Survival The Last Lion Of Liuwa Wildest Latin America My Cat From Hell Baboons With Bill Bailey Baboons With Bill Bailey Animal Cops Philadelphia

00:00 Homes Under The Hammer 00:50 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition 01:30 Come Dine With Me 02:20 Masterchef: The Professionals 02:45 Masterchef: The Professionals 03:15 Fantasy Homes By The Sea 04:00 Bargain Hunt 04:40 Bargain Hunt 05:25 House Swap 06:10 Homes Under The Hammer 07:00 Homes Under The Hammer 07:55 French Food At Home 08:20 Nigel Slater’s Simple Cooking 08:45 French Food At Home 09:10 Nigel Slater’s Simple Cooking 09:40 Homes Under The Hammer 10:30 Homes Under The Hammer 11:25 Homes Under The Hammer 12:15 The Boss Is Coming To Dinner 12:40 The Boss Is Coming To Dinner 13:05 Come Dine With Me 13:50 Come Dine With Me 14:40 Nigel Slater’s Simple Cooking 15:05 Baking Mad With Eric Lanlard 15:30 French Food At Home 15:55 Nigel Slater’s Simple Cooking 16:25 Baking Mad With Eric Lanlard 16:50 Antiques Roadshow 17:40 Bargain Hunt 18:25 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition 19:10 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition 19:55 Come Dine With Me: Supersize 21:30 Come Dine With Me 22:25 Antiques Roadshow 23:20 Bargain Hunt

00:05 00:30 00:55 01:20 01:45 02:10 02:35 03:00 03:25 03:50 04:00 04:30 04:55 05:20 05:45 06:00 06:25 06:45 07:00 07:20 07:45 08:10 08:35 09:00 09:25 09:40 09:55 10:10

04:10 Tech Toys 360 04:35 Finding Bigfoot 05:25 The Kustomizer 06:15 Science Of The Movies 07:05 Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman 08:00 Tech Toys 360 08:25 Tech Toys 360 08:50 Stunt Junkies 09:15 Stunt Junkies 09:40 Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman 10:30 The Loch Ness Monster Revealed 11:25 Investigation X 12:15 Weird Connections 12:40 Weird Connections 13:10 Finding Bigfoot 14:00 Weird Or What?

14:50 Wallace & Gromit’s World Of Invention 15:20 Da Vinci’s Machines 16:10 Weird Or What?

17:00 Tech Toys 360 17:25 Tech Toys 360 17:55 Superships 18:45 Through The Wormhole With Morgan Freeman 19:35 Food Factory 20:00 Food Factory 20:30 Meteorite Men 21:20 Oddities 21:45 Oddities 22:10 Tech Toys 360 22:35 Tech Toys 360 23:00 Meteorite Men 23:50 Dark Matters: Twisted But True

Taz-Mania Pink Panther And Pals Moomins Tom & Jerry Kids A Pup Named Scooby-Doo Puppy In My Pocket Wacky Races Looney Tunes Duck Dodgers Dastardly And Muttley Dexter’s Laboratory Wacky Races Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries Tom & Jerry The Garfield Show Bananas In Pyjamas Gerald McBoing Boing Jelly Jamm Ha Ha Hairies Baby Looney Tunes Cartoonito Tales Gerald McBoing Boing Lazytown Krypto: The Super Dog Bananas In Pyjamas Cartoonito Tales Ha Ha Hairies Jelly Jamm

TOMORROW WHEN THE WAR BEGAN ON OSN ACTION HD 10:25 10:45 11:05 11:30 11:55 12:20 12:45 13:10 13:35 14:00 14:50 15:15 15:40 16:30 17:20 18:10 19:00 19:30 19:55 20:20 20:45 21:00 21:25 21:50 22:15 22:40 23:05 23:30 23:55

00:00 00:30 01:00 02:00 02:30 03:00 04:00 05:00 05:45 06:00

Gerald McBoing Boing Lazytown Krypto: The Super Dog Baby Looney Tunes Ha Ha Hairies Jelly Jamm Gerald McBoing Boing Lazytown Krypto: The Super Dog Tiny Toons Pink Panther And Pals Pink Panther And Pals Tom And Jerry Tales 13 Ghosts Of Scooby-Doo Johnny Bravo Dexter’s Laboratory Looney Tunes Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries Taz-Mania The Looney Tunes Show Tom & Jerry The Garfield Show Pink Panther And Pals What’s New Scooby-Doo? Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries Puppy In My Pocket The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop The Addams Family Droopy: Master Detective

Amanpour World Sport Piers Morgan Tonight World Report World Sport Anderson Cooper 360 Piers Morgan Tonight Quest Means Business CNN Marketplace Africa The Situation Room

07:00 07:30 07:45 08:00 08:15 08:30 09:00 09:15 09:30 10:00 10:30 10:45 11:00 12:00 12:30 13:00 13:30 14:00 14:30 15:00 15:30 16:00 16:30 17:00 17:30 18:00 18:15 18:30 19:00 19:30 20:00 20:30 21:00 21:30 21:45 22:00 23:00 23:30

World Sport Leading Women Future Cities World Report CNN Marketplace Africa Backstory World Report CNN Marketplace Middle East Sanjay Gupta MD World Sport Winning Post The Gateway The Best Of The Situation Room World Report The Brief Amanpour Inside Africa Talk Asia I Report For CNN World Report On China News Special Backstory International Desk African Voices CNN Marketplace Europe CNN Marketplace Africa The Brief World Sport Open Court International Desk Inside Africa International Desk Leading Women Future Cities The Best Of The Situation Room World Report News Special

00:15 Crash Course 00:40 Crash Course

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

World’s Top 5 Dirty Great Machines Mythbusters How Stuff’s Made Auction Kings Baggage Battles How Do They Do It? How Stuff’s Made Sons Of Guns Superhuman Showdown James May’s Man Lab Moonshiners Shark Attack Files Soul Food Family Soul Food Family Soul Food Family Soul Food Family Soul Food Family Soul Food Family Soul Food Family Soul Food Family Crash Course Crash Course Gold Rush Around The World In 80 Ways Sons Of Guns Auction Hunters Auction Hunters Baggage Battles Baggage Battles Baggage Battles Auction Kings

00:40 Gadget Show - World Tour 01:05 How Tech Works 01:35 Scrapheap Challenge 02:25 Weird Or What?

03:15 Wallace & Gromit’s World Of Invention 03:45 Tech Toys 360

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

Hannah Montana Brandy & Mr Whiskers Brandy & Mr Whiskers Replacements Replacements Emperor’s New School Emperor’s New School Brandy & Mr Whiskers Brandy & Mr Whiskers Replacements Replacements Emperor’s New School Emperor’s New School Brandy & Mr Whiskers Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Jake & The Neverland Pirates Suite Life On Deck A.N.T Farm A.N.T Farm Wizards Of Waverly Place Wizards Of Waverly Place Good Luck Charlie Shake It Up Jessie Austin And Ally A.N.T Farm Good Luck Charlie Cinderella Wizards Of Waverly Place Jessie Jessie Good Luck Charlie Good Luck Charlie Shake It Up Shake It Up Austin And Ally Austin And Ally A.N.T Farm A.N.T Farm Cinderella Disney Princess: Enchanted

00:20 00:50 01:05 01:15 01:40 01:55 02:10

Little Einsteins Special Agent Oso Special Agent Oso Lazytown Jungle Junction Jungle Junction Handy Manny

Wizards Of Waverly Place Shake It Up Shake It Up Austin And Ally A.N.T. Farm A.N.T. Farm Jessie Jessie Good Luck Charlie Good Luck Charlie The Suite Life Of Zack And The Suite Life Of Zack And Stitch

02:20 Handy Manny 02:30 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 03:00 Lazytown 03:25 Special Agent Oso 03:40 Special Agent Oso 03:50 Imagination Movers 04:20 Handy Manny 04:30 Handy Manny 04:40 Special Agent Oso 04:50 Special Agent Oso 05:00 Timmy Time 05:10 Lazytown 05:35 Little Einsteins 06:00 Jungle Junction 06:15 Jungle Junction 06:30 Little Einsteins 06:50 Special Agent Oso 07:00 Special Agent Oso 07:15 Jungle Junction 07:30 Jungle Junction 07:45 Handy Manny 08:00 Special Agent Oso 08:15 Jungle Junction 08:30 Little Einsteins 08:55 Lazytown 09:20 Imagination Movers 09:45 Timmy Time 09:55 Doc McStuffins 10:10 Doc McStuffins 10:20 Doc McStuffins 10:35 Doc McStuffins 10:50 Doc McStuffins 11:00 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 11:15 Toy Story Toons 11:20 New Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh 11:45 Doc McStuffins 12:00 Handy Manny 12:10 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 12:25 Mouk 12:35 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 13:00 Winnie The Pooh: Tales Of Friendship 13:10 Timmy Time 13:20 The Hive 13:30 Doc McStuffins 13:45 Doc McStuffins 14:00 Zou 14:15 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 14:30 Jungle Junction 14:55 Jungle Junction 15:20 New Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh 15:40 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 16:05 The Hive 16:20 Mouk 16:35 Doc McStuffins 16:50 Doc McStuffins 17:00 Doc McStuffins 17:15 Doc McStuffins 17:30 Doc McStuffins 17:45 Art Attack 18:10 Lazytown 18:40 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 19:05 Mouk 19:20 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 19:35 New Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh 20:00 Animated Stories 20:05 Timmy Time 20:15 Pajanimals 20:25 Doc McStuffins 20:40 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 20:55 Jake & The Neverland Pirates 21:10 Winnie The Pooh: Tales Of Friendship 21:20 The Hive 21:30 Pajanimals 21:45 Handy Manny 22:00 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 22:25 Pajanimals 22:35 New Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh 23:00 Timmy Time 23:10 Animated Stories 23:15 A Poem Is...

23:20 Winnie The Pooh: Tales Of Friendship 23:30 Jungle Junction

00:00 Scouted 00:55 Style Star 01:25 15 Most Infamous Child Star Mugshots 03:15 Style Star 03:40 Extreme Close-Up 04:10 E!es 05:05 E!es 06:00 THS 07:50 Style Star 08:20 E! News 09:15 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 10:15 THS 11:10 THS 12:05 E! News

TV listings SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013 13:05 Scouted 14:05 Giuliana & Bill 15:00 Giuliana & Bill 16:00 Opening Act 17:00 Opening Act 18:00 E! News 19:00 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 20:00 Keeping Up With The Kardashians 21:00 Chasing The Saturdays 21:30 Fashion Police 22:30 E! News 23:30 Chelsea Lately

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

I Almost Got Away With It Dr G: Medical Examiner The Haunted Scorned: Crimes Of Passion Most Evil I Almost Got Away With It Dr G: Medical Examiner The Haunted Murder Shift Mystery Diagnosis Street Patrol Street Patrol Real Emergency Calls Who On Earth Did I Marry?

True Crime With Aphrodite Murder Shift Disappeared Mystery Diagnosis Street Patrol Street Patrol Forensic Detectives True Crime With Aphrodite Real Emergency Calls Who On Earth Did I Marry?

Disappeared Murder Shift Forensic Detectives True Crime With Aphrodite

19:40 20:05 20:30 21:20 22:10 Torres 23:00 23:25 23:50

Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives Chopped Chopped Easter Sweets With Jacques Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives

00:45 Living With The Amish 01:40 Travel Madness 02:05 Travel Madness 02:35 Bondi Rescue 03:00 Bondi Rescue 03:30 Exploring The Vine 03:55 Maverick Chef 04:25 Living With The Amish 05:20 Chasing Time 05:45 Chasing Time 06:15 Gone to save the planet 06:40 Gone to save the planet 07:10 Lonely Planet: Roads Less Travelled 08:05 Lonely Planet: Roads Less Travelled 09:00 Long Way Down 09:55 Long Way Down 10:50 Living With The Amish 11:45 Travel Madness 12:10 Travel Madness 12:40 Bondi Rescue 13:05 Bondi Rescue 13:35 Exploring The Vine 14:00 Maverick Chef 14:30 Living With The Amish 15:25 Banged Up Abroad 16:20 Lonely Planet: Roads Less Travelled 17:15 Long Way Down 18:10 Long Way Down 19:05 Chasing Time 19:30 Chasing Time 20:00 Gone to save the planet

20:30 Gone to save the planet 21:00 Lonely Planet: Roads Less Travelled 22:00 Travel Madness 22:25 Travel Madness 22:55 Bite Me With Dr. Mike Leahy 23:50 By Any Means

00:00 Fright Night-PG15 02:00 Hide And Seek-18 04:00 Legendary Assassin-PG15 06:00 Go Fast-PG15 08:00 Season Of The Witch-PG15 10:00 The New Daughter-PG15 12:00 Tomorrow, When The War Began-PG15 14:00 Season Of The Witch-PG15 16:00 Sucker Punch-PG15 18:00 Tomorrow, When The War Began-PG15 20:00 The Last Exorcism-18 22:00 AVP: Alien vs Predator-PG15

01:00 Uncorked-PG15 03:00 Garfield’s Pet Force-FAM 05:00 33 Postcards-PG15 07:00 Ike: Countdown To D-DayPG15 09:00 Uncorked-PG15 11:00 The Artist-PG 13:00 A Dog Named Duke-PG15 15:00 Teen Spirit-PG15 17:00 Certain Prey-PG15 19:00 Larry Crowne-PG15 21:00 Toast-PG15 23:00 The Disappearance Of Alice Creed-18

00:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 01:00 The Colbert Report

01:30 The Ricky Gervais Show 02:30 It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia 03:00 Louie 03:30 2 Broke Girls 04:00 Til Death 04:30 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 05:30 Hope & Faith 06:30 Less Than Perfect 07:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 08:00 Til Death 08:30 Hope & Faith 09:00 Parks And Recreation 09:30 30 Rock 10:00 Cougar Town 10:30 Less Than Perfect 11:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 12:30 Til Death 13:00 Hope & Faith 13:30 Less Than Perfect 14:00 2 Broke Girls 14:30 Cougar Town 15:00 30 Rock 15:30 The Daily Show With Jon Stewart 16:00 The Colbert Report 17:00 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon 18:00 Parks And Recreation 18:30 Happy Endings 19:00 The Neighbors 19:30 The Office 20:00 The Tonight Show With Jay Leno 22:00 Saturday Night Live 23:00 It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia 23:30 Late Night With Jimmy Fallon

00:00 02:00 05:00 09:00 10:00

Disappeared Nightmare Next Door Couples Who Kill Deadly Affairs I Was Murdered

00:15 Heat Seekers 00:40 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 01:05 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 01:30 Heat Seekers 01:55 Outrageous Food 02:20 Unwrapped 02:45 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 03:10 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives 03:35 Heat Seekers 04:00 Heat Seekers 04:25 Unique Eats 04:50 Food Crafters 05:15 Charly’s Cake Angels 05:40 Chopped 06:30 Iron Chef America 07:10 Unwrapped 07:35 Unwrapped 08:00 Healthy Appetite With Ellie Krieger 08:25 Healthy Appetite With Ellie Krieger 08:50 Healthy Appetite With Ellie Krieger 09:15 Healthy Appetite With Ellie Krieger 09:40 Cooking For Real 10:05 Cooking For Real 10:30 Cooking For Real 10:55 Cooking For Real 11:20 Easter Sweets With Jacques Torres 12:10 Food Network Challenge 13:00 Unwrapped 13:50 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 14:15 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 14:40 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 15:05 Unique Sweets 15:30 Unique Sweets 15:55 Unique Sweets 16:20 Unique Sweets 16:45 Chopped 17:35 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 18:00 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 18:25 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 18:50 Barefoot Contessa - Back To Basics 19:15 Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives

American Idol Survivor: Caramoan Good Morning America The Ellen DeGeneres Show Castle

15:00 16:00 20:00 21:00 22:00

Live Good Morning America Castle Criminal Minds The Mob Doctor Sons Of Anarchy

00:00 01:00 02:00 06:00 08:00 13:00 14:00 15:00 18:00 19:00 20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00

C.S.I. New York Survivor: Caramoan Smash C.S.I. New York White Collar The Ellen DeGeneres Show White Collar C.S.I. New York White Collar Touch Criminal Minds The Mob Doctor Sons Of Anarchy Greek

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

Fright Night Hide And Seek Legendary Assassin Go Fast Season Of The Witch The New Daughter Tomorrow, When The War

The Last Exorcism AVP: Alien vs Predator

01:30 The Man Who Came With The Snow-PG15 03:00 25th Hour-18 05:15 The King’s Speech-PG15 07:15 World Trade Center-PG15 09:30 Would Be Kings-PG15 11:00 Senna-PG15 13:00 L’ Eleve Ducobu-PG15 14:45 Would Be Kings-PG15 16:30 Seabiscuit-PG15 18:45 The Way Back-PG15 21:00 Any Given Sunday-18 23:30 Resolution 819-PG15

THE ARTIST ON OSN CINEMA

01:00 Chase 02:45 04:30 06:00 08:00 10:00 11:30 13:00 14:30 16:00

Alpha And Omega The Search For Santa Paws Pacific Pirates Zathura: A Space Adventure

00:00 The Tree Of Life-PG15 02:30 Every Jack Has A Jill-PG15 04:00 Alvin And The Chipmunks: Chipwrecked-PG 05:30 The Tree Of Life-PG15 08:00 A Monster In Paris-PG 10:00 The Borrowers-PG 12:00 127 Hours-PG15 14:00 The Art Of Getting By-PG15 16:00 A Monster In Paris-PG 18:00 Why Did I Get Married Too?-PG15 20:00 Rabbit Hole-PG15 22:00 Friends With Benefits-18

02:00 06:30 08:30 09:30 11:30 13:30 15:30 16:00 21:00 21:30

PGA European Tour Live Super Rugby Trans World Sport Live Super Rugby Live Super Rugby Super Rugby Futbol Mundial Live Dubai World Cup ICC Cricket 360 AFL Premiership

01:00 03:00 04:00 05:00 06:00 07:00 10:30 11:00 11:30 13:30 15:00 15:30 16:00 20:00

WWE SmackDown WWE Bottom Line WWE NXT UFC The Ultimate Fighter Trans World Sport PGA Tour Futbol Mundial ICC Cricket 360 Live NRL Premiership Super League Inside The PGA Tour European Tour Weekly Live PGA European Tour Live PGA Tour

01:00 02:30 04:30 06:30 07:00 08:30 10:00 10:30 11:00 12:00 15:00 15:30 17:30 18:00 22:00

Super League Top 14 PRO 12 Total Rugby Super League Super League Futbol Mundial Total Rugby Trans World Sport Live AFL Premiership ICC Cricket 360 Super League Total Rugby Live Super Rugby Dubai World Cup

Season Of The Witch Sucker Punch Tomorrow, When The War

00:00 Jackass: The Movie-18 02:00 Flypaper-PG15 04:00 The Naked Gun: From The Files Of Police Squad-PG 06:00 Snow Day-PG 08:00 3 Holiday Tails-PG15 10:00 The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom-PG 12:00 The Naked Gun: From The Files Of Police Squad-PG 14:00 The Smurfs-PG 16:00 The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom-PG 18:00 Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell Of Fear-PG15 20:00 Tucker And Dale vs Evil-18 22:00 Jackass: The Movie-18

00:00 02:00 04:00 05:45 07:30 09:00 11:00 13:00 15:30 17:30 20:00 22:00

18:00 20:00 22:00 23:30

Shark Night-PG15 The Descendants-PG15 Tower Heist-PG15 Puss In Boots-PG Once Brothers-PG15 The Muppets-PG Footloose-PG15 The Way-PG15 The Muppets-PG We Bought A Zoo-PG Your Sister’s Sister-18 The Darkest Hour-PG15

Moomins And The Comet The Hairy Tooth Fairy 2 Emilie Jolie Twigson D’fenders Alpha And Omega Twigson Pacific Pirates The Hairy Tooth Fairy 2 Zathura: A Space Adventure

01:00 Trans World Sport 02:00 UFC The Ultimate Fighter 03:00 Ping Pong World Championships 04:00 US Bass Fishing 05:00 NHL 07:00 WWE SmackDown 09:00 WWE Bottom Line 10:00 WWE Vintage Collection 11:00 NHL 13:00 UAE National Race Day Series 14:00 WWE SmackDown 16:00 WWE Bottom Line 17:00 Live Top 14 19:00 NHL 21:15 Pro 12 23:15 WWE Bottom Line

00:40 02:35 FAM 04:40 07:10 08:00 09:35 10:45 12:00 13:55 15:30 17:20 19:05 21:15 23:00

Old Acquaintance-FAM The Wonderful World Of The...Ice Station Zebra-FAM TCM Presents Under The...-U Lone Star-FAM The Golden Arrow-FAM Little Caesar-PG Old Acquaintance-FAM Blossoms In The Dust-PG The Prodigal-PG It Started With A Kiss-PG Now, Voyager-PG Easter Parade-FAM Sweethearts-FAM

W h a t ’s o n SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Exclusive visit to ESF

I

ndian Ambassador to Kuwait Satish Mehta and Preeti Mehta recently paid a special visit to The English School Fahaheel, which is marking its 45th year as one of Kuwait’s leading English schools.

The ambassador was delighted to speak to the many Indian

students attending ESF and followed their impressive academic achievements at the school. Mehta also toured the modern premises and also visited the new Contemporary Library at ESF, the new CT Centre and the Sixth Form Centre.

Mehta was greeted upon arrival by the owner and

Chairman Shuhaiber, Vice Chairperson Shuhaiber, principals of departments and many Indian students who attend ESF.ESF would like to thank the Indian Ambassador and Preeti Mehta for their visit as the school celebrates 45 years of excellence in education.

KNES hosts annual secondary Sports Day 2012-13

K

uwait National English School celebrated its annual Sports Day. Students and staff at Kuwait National English School enjoyed a funpacked day of sports competitions and activities at the school’s annual Secondary sports day which took place on March 14. All students and all year groups (Year 7-13) attended and took part and as is customary pupils competed individually and in the school houses (Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Venus). Students were wearing house colour tee-shirts to identify themselves from the other houses.

At Kuwait National English School, we believe that Sports Day is an ideal opportunity for the students to demonstrate their sporting ability and this is done by them playing a variety of new and challenging sports. This year, besides the traditional football, volleyball, swimming, tug of war and basketball, we have chosen to include handball into the programme for years 8-12. Students were really excited about this and they find it easier than basketball. Students quickly found out that they have all the necessary skills to play the second most popular sport

in the world! It was pleasing to see the spirit of competition so much in evidence again this year with all games being keenly contested.

KNES stresses the importance of Sport as part of a healthy and rounded life and each year the importance of fair-play and inclusion and the participation of all students, is at the centre of the Day’s events. The winning teams were rewarded during the prize-giving ceremony with medals and trophies. The overall house winner was Venus followed by Saturn, Jupiter came third.

‘Nritholsav’: Group Dance Competition

T

he Basil Arts’, an Indian Embassy registered cultural organization, is organizing a ‘Group Dance’ competition for students, ‘Nritholsav’ from April to June 2013. The ‘Grand Finale’ will be scheduled for Thursday, June 6, 2013 at Marina Hall, Abbasiya. The finale will be a day filled with dance and musical live concerts by famous south Indian celebrities and play back singers. The dance items include Bharathanatyam (group), Mohiniyattam (group), Kuchipudi (group), and Cinematic (group). The teams, which are interested to take part in the competition, should register their names on or before April 15.

W h a t ’s o n SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

KPFA Executive Council is seen with distinguished guests.

Noor Mohammad Malik receives his memento.

KPFA President Rana Ijaz receives a special certificate from Amiri Diwan Secretary Khalid Al-Ghanem.

KPFA celebrates National Days of Kuwait and Pakistan

K

uwait-Pakistan Friendship Association (KPFA), celebrated jointly the National Days of Kuwait and Pakistan recently at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, which was attended by large numbers of Kuwaitis and Pakistani dignitaries. This year the event was unprecedented, as the Under Secretary of Amiri Diwan Khalid Ghanem Al-Ghanem graced the occasion and presented special certificate and memento to the patron KPFA Mubarak Sadoun Al-Mutawa and to the President RanaIjaz for their efforts in promoting goodwill relations among the two communities.

The function was also attended by ambassador of Pakistan Iftikhar Aziz, special representative of Amiri Diwan- Sheikh Abdullah Fahad Malik Al-Sabah, Chief Patron of Marafie Foundation Abdul Ilh Marafie, Chairman Kuwait Red Crescent Society - Dr Barjes Hamoud Al-Barjis -and Secretary General Kuwait Awqaf Public Foundation Dr Abdul Mohsin Jarallah Al-Kharafi.

Speaking on the occasion the Ambassador of Pakistan, Iftikhar Aziz praised the relations between two countries and said both Kuwait and Pakistan enjoy good relations. He also spoke highly of KPFA and its President RanaIjaz for holding this event every year with the aim to promote good ties between the two brotherly countries.

KPFA patron Mubarak Sadoun Al-Mutawa receives a special certificate from Amiri Diwan Secretary Khalid Al-Ghanem.

KPFA patron Mubarak Sadoun Al-Mutawa also spoke highly about the event and highlighted the importance of holding jointly the national days of Kuwait and Pakistan. He said such event provides platform for both communities to socialize and exchange views among themselves. He also congratulated the distinguished guests and the Executive Council of the KPFA on the occasion of National Days of Kuwait and Pakistan.

The cake-cutting ceremony is seen.

Sheikh Abdullah Fahad Malek Al-Sabah in his address also congratulated the guests and KPFA Executive Council on National Days and praised KPFA for holding such events. He also spoke highly of Kuwait and ]Pakistan relations.

Special mementos were presented to Sheikh Fahad Malek Al-Sabah, Khalid Ghanem Al-Ghanem - Under Secretary Amiri Diwan, Iftikhar Aziz - Ambassador of Pakistan , Mohammad Ayoub Bhatti , Noor Mohammad

Malik - Chairman Friends Welfare Trust , and Amir Hamid - Chairman Pakistani Blood Donors in Kuwait.

KPFA Chairman for Educational Assistance Committee - Dr Mohammad Afzal also gave a presentation on the Educational opportunities in Kuwait and Pakistan and the importance of education. At the end special prayers were offered for the progress and prosperity of both countries.

Health SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Scientists find new gene markers for cancer risk NEW YORK: A huge international effort involving more than 100 institutions and genetic tests on 200,000 people has uncovered dozens of signposts in DNA that can help reveal further a person’s risk for breast, ovarian or prostate cancer, scientists reported Wednesday.

It’s the latest mega-collaboration to learn more about the intricate mechanisms that lead to cancer. And while the headway seems significant in many ways, the potential payoff for ordinary people is mostly this: Someday there may be genetic tests that help identify women with the most to gain from mammograms, and men who could benefit most from PSA tests and prostate biopsies.

And perhaps farther in the future these genetic clues might lead to new treatments. “This adds another piece to the puzzle,” said Harpal Kumar, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, the charity which funded much of the research.

One analysis suggests that among men whose family history gives them roughly a 20 percent lifetime risk for prostate cancer, such genetic markers could identify those whose real risk is 60 percent.The markers also could make a difference for women with BRCA gene mutations, which puts them at high risk for breast cancer.

Researchers may be able to separate those whose lifetime risk exceeds 80 percent from women whose risk is about 20 to 50 percent. One doctor said that might mean some women would choose to monitor for cancer rather than taking the drastic step of having healthy breasts removed.

Scientists have found risk markers for the three diseases before, but the new trove doubles the known list, said one author, Douglas Easton of Cambridge University. The discoveries also reveal clues about the biological underpinnings of these cancers, which may pay off someday in better therapies, he said.

Experts not connected with the work said it was encouraging but that more research is needed to see how useful it would be for guiding patient care. One suggested that using a gene test along with PSA testing and other factors might help determine which men have enough risk of a life-threatening prostate cancer that they should get a biopsy. Many prostate cancers found early are slow growing and won’t be fatal, but there is no way to differentiate and many men have surgery they may not need.

Easton said the prospects for a genetic test are greater for prostate and breast cancer than ovarian cancer. Breast cancer is the most common malignancy among women worldwide, with more than 1 million new cases a year. Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men after lung cancer, with about 900,000 new cases every year. Ovarian cancer accounts for about 4 percent of all cancers diagnosed in women, causing about 225,000 cases worldwide.

The new results were released in 13 reports in Nature Genetics, PLOS Genetics and other journals. They come from a collaboration involving more than 130 institutions in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. The research was mainly paid for by Cancer Research U.K., the European Union and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Scientists used scans of DNA from more than 200,000 people to seek the markers, tiny variations in the 3 billion “letters” of the DNA code that are associated with disease risk.

The scientists found 49 new risk markers for breast cancer plus a couple of others that modify breast cancer risk from rare mutated genes, 26 for prostate cancer and eight for ovarian cancer.

Individually, each marker has only a slight impact on risk estimation, too small to be useful on its own, Easton said.

They would be combined and added to previously known markers to help reveal a person’s risk, he said. —AP

HIV test urged for 7,000 Oklahoma dental patients TULSA: Health officials urged thousands of patients of an Oklahoma oral surgeon to undergo hepatitis and HIV testing, saying unsanitary conditions behind his office’s spiffy facade posed a threat to his clients and made him a “menace to the public health.”

State and county health inspectors went to Dr. W. Scott Harrington’s practice after a patient with no known risk factors tested positive for both hepatitis C and the virus that causes AIDS. They found employees using dirty equipment, reusing drug vials and administering drugs without a license.

Harrington voluntarily gave up his license and closed his offices in Tulsa and suburban Owasso and is cooperating with investigators, said Kaitlin Snider, a spokeswoman for the Tulsa Health Department. He faces a hearing April 19 where his license could be permanently revoked.

“It’s uncertain how long those practices have been in place,” Snider said.

“He’s been practicing for 36 years.” The Oklahoma Board of Dentistry said the inspectors discovered multiple sterilization issues at Harrington’s offices, including the use of a separate, rusty set of instruments for patients known to have infectious diseases.

“The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) has determined that rusted instruments are porous and cannot be properly sterilized,” the board said in a 17-count complaint against the dentist.

Officials are sending letters to 7,000 known patients of Harrington, but they noted that they do not have information for patients before 2007. The letters urge the patients to be tested for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV - viruses typically spread through intravenous drug use or unprotected sex, not occupational settings.

Harrington could not be reached for

comment Thursday. A message at his Tulsa office said it was closed and the doctor’s answering service referred callers to the Tulsa Health Department.

Phone numbers listed for Harrington were disconnected. A message left with Harrington’s malpractice attorney in Tulsa, Jim Secrest II, was not immediately returned.

The CDC is consulting on the case, and agency spokeswoman Abbigail Tumpey said such situations involving dental clinics are rare. In a similar case in Colorado last year, an oral surgeon was accused of exposing patients to diseases by reusing needles and syringes.

Authorities sent letters urging about 8,000 patients to get tested for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV, but Tumpey said it wasn’t clear whether anyone was actually infected.

“We’ve only had a handful of dental facilities where we’ve had notifications in the last decade,” Tumpey said.

Harrington’s Tulsa practice is in a tony part of town, on a row of some of the city’s most upscale medical practices. The white-and-green stucco, twostory dental clinic has the doctor’s name in fancy letters on the facade.

Inside, the Dentistry Board said, Harrington ran a clinic that didn’t ensure items were sterile. The clinic had different cleaning procedures for its sets of equipment, drug vials were used on multiple patients and the office had no written infection-protection procedure.

Joyce Baylor said she had a tooth pulled at Harrington’s Tulsa office a year and a half ago.”The office looked clean,” she said in a telephone interview. Baylor, 69, said she plans to get tested next week.”I’m sure he’s not suffering financially that he can’t afford instruments,” Baylor said of Harrington.

The Dentistry Board accuses Harrington of “being a menace to the public health by reasons of practicing

dentistry in an unsafe or unsanitary manner.”

Harrington told officials he left questions about sterilization and drug procedures to his employees.

“They take care of that, I don’t,” the board quoted him as saying.

The doctor is also accused of letting his assistants perform tasks only a licensed dentist should have done, including administering IV sedation.

Also, the complaint says that the doctor’s staff could not produce permits for the assistants when asked for them.

As an oral surgeon, Harrington routinely does invasive procedures that involve “pulling teeth, open wounds, open blood vessels,” said Susan Rogers, executive director of the Oklahoma Dentistry Board. A board complaint said Harrington and his staff told investigators that a “high population of known infectious disease carrier patients” received dental care from him.

According to the complaint, a device used to sterilize instruments wasn’t being properly used.Also, a test is supposed to be performed monthly and sent to a lab to determine that the equipment is successfully sterilizing instruments, but “no such test had ever been performed in the 6 years one dental assistant had been working at the office,” the complaint said.

The doctor also apparently used outdated drugs, as one vial found this year had an expiration date of 1993, and didn’t properly keep track of drugs, the complaint said. It noted that a drug cabinet was unlocked and unattended during the day.

It also said that although U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration records show Harrington had not received morphine from a distributor since 2009, the drug logs kept by his assistants said morphine had been used on patients last year. —AP

A toucan flies at Zoomadrid in Madrid. —AFP

Scientists criticise Italy for unproven stem cell therapy ROME: Scientists have criticised an Italian government decree allowing a group of terminally-ill patients to continue using an unproven stem cell treatment, saying such therapies may cause harm and risk exploiting desperate people.

The treatment, created by the privately-owned Stamina Foundation, was banned by Italian medicines regulator AIFA last year after it inspected their laboratories, leading to a series of legal challenges by families of patients.

Early this month Health Minister Renato Balduzzi allowed a terminally ill child to continue using the Stamina treatment after hearing the emotional pleas of her parents. The Health Ministry then issued an official decree on March 21 allowing 32 patients, mainly children, already using the treatment to continue it.

Scientists from around Europe released a statement on Thursday criticising the decree, warning that Balduzzi was “riding roughshod over existing European licensing criteria”, failing to protect patients from exploitation and ignoring the need for sound evidence that therapies are effective.

“These unproven and ill-prepared stem cell therapies, for which there is no scientific basis, will do nothing for patients and their families except make them poorer,” said Charles ffrench-Constant from the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Regenerative Medicine.

Advocates of the therapy say strict regulations work in favour of big drug companies with their portfolio of blockbuster treatments, reducing the pool of potential competitors. But scientists said Stamina’s treatment was unproven and risky.

“There is no rationale for this and no evidence that these procedures are not dangerous for patients,” said Professor Michele De Luca of the University of Modena.—Reuters

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

health & science

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

ACCOMMODATION

Al-Madena Al-Shohada’a Al-Shuwaikh Al-Nuzha Sabhan Al-Helaly Al-Fayhaa Al-Farwaniya Al-Sulaibikhat Al-Fahaheel Jleeb Al-Shuyoukh Ahmadi Al-Mangaf Al-Shuaiba Al-Jahra Al-Salmiya

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Address India: H.No: 995, Zuari - Fursa Vaddo, Velha Goa, Ilhas - Goa - 403108.

(C 4355) I, Dmello Fiolina Lourdina, Passport No: H4917403, issued in Panaji on 29-102009, converted to Islam.

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Kuwait

KNCC PROGRAMME FROM THURSDAY TO WEDNESDAY (28/03/2013 TO 03/04/2013)

SHARQIA-1 KON-TIKI (DIG) KON-TIKI (DIG) KON-TIKI (DIG) TRUTH OR DARE (DIG) KON-TIKI (DIG) KON-TIKI (DIG)

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

FANAR-1 OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (DIG) IN THEIR SKIN (DIG) OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (DIG) OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (DIG) IN THEIR SKIN (DIG) IN THEIR SKIN (DIG)

1:00 PM 3:45 PM 6:00 PM 8:15 PM 10:30 PM 12:30 AM

SHARQIA-2 THE CROODS (DIG-3D) JACK THE GIANT SLAYER (DIG-3D) THE CROODS (DIG-3D) G.I. JOE: RETALIATION (DIG-3D) G.I. JOE: RETALIATION (DIG-3D) G.I. JOE: RETALIATION (DIG-3D)

1:30 PM 3:30 PM 5:45 PM 7:45 PM 10:00 PM 12:15 AM

FANAR-2 KON-TIKI (DIG) THE TALL MAN (DIG) THE TALL MAN (DIG) KON-TIKI (DIG) KON-TIKI (DIG) KON-TIKI (DIG)

1:30 PM 4:00 PM 6:15 PM 8:30 PM 10:45 PM 1:00 AM

MUHALAB-1 TRUTH OR DARE (DIG) KON-TIKI (DIG) TRUTH OR DARE (DIG) KON-TIKI (DIG) KON-TIKI (DIG) KON-TIKI (DIG)

12:45 PM 3:00 PM 5:15 PM 7:30 PM 9:30 PM 11:45 PM

MARINA-1 KON-TIKI (DIG) KON-TIKI (DIG) TRUTH OR DARE (DIG) KON-TIKI (DIG) KON-TIKI (DIG) KON-TIKI (DIG)

MUHALAB-2 OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (DIG) SIDE EFFECTS (DIG) OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (DIG) AL HAFLA (DIG) OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (DIG) OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (DIG)

1:00 PM 3:30 PM 5:30 PM 7:45 PM 9:45 PM 12:05 AM

MARINA-2 AL HAFLA (DIG) OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (DIG) SNITCH (DIG) OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (DIG) AL HAFLA (DIG) OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (DIG)

OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN (DIG)

12:30 AM

AVENUES-1 THE TALL MAN (DIG) THE TALL MAN (DIG) THE TALL MAN (DIG) LOVE AND HONOR (DIG) THE TALL MAN (DIG) THE TALL MAN (DIG)

1:00 PM 3:30 PM 6:00 PM 8:30 PM 10:30 PM 12:45 AM

AVENUES-2 HIMMATWALA (DIG) (HINDI) HIMMATWALA (DIG) (HINDI) HIMMATWALA (DIG) (HINDI) HIMMATWALA (DIG) (HINDI) LOVE AND HONOR (DIG)

12:30 PM 3:30 PM 6:30 PM 9:30 PM 12:30 AM

1:00 PM 3:15 PM 5:30 PM 7:30 PM 9:45 PM 12:05 AM

360º- 1 G.I. JOE: RETALIATION (DIG-3D) G.I. JOE: RETALIATION (DIG-3D) G.I. JOE: RETALIATION (DIG-3D) G.I. JOE: RETALIATION (DIG-3D) G.I. JOE: RETALIATION (DIG-3D) G.I. JOE: RETALIATION (DIG-3D)

1:15 PM 3:30 PM 6:00 PM 8:30 PM 10:45 PM 1:00 AM

1:30 PM 1:15 PM 3:30 PM 5:45 PM 8:00 PM 10:15 PM

360º- 2 AL HAFLA (DIG) AL HAFLA (DIG) AL HAFLA (DIG) AL HAFLA (DIG) AL HAFLA (DIG)

1:15 PM 3:45 PM 6:00 PM 8:00 PM 10:15 PM

information SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

DIAL 161 FOR AIRPORT INFORMATION In case you are not travelling, your proper cancellation of bookings will help other passengers use seats Airlines JAI KLM THY JZR JZR QTR SAI ETH GFA UAE ETD OMA FDB PIA MSR RBG QTR DHX THY JZR JZR KAC JZR BAW KAC KAC KAC FDB KAC KAC KAC UAE KAC ABY QTR FDB ETD GFA IAW JZR MSC KNE MSR UAE KAC JZR FDB KAC KNE SVA JZR KAC KAC KNE QTR IRC JZR KAC UAE JZR ETD RJA UAL GFA SVA JZR ABY KAC SYR KAC NIA JZR

Arrival Flights on Saturday 30/3/2013 Flt Route 574 MUMBAI 413 AMSTERDAM 772 ISTANBUL 267 BEIRUT 539 CAIRO 148 DOHA 441 LAHORE 620 ADDIS ABABA 211 BAHRAIN 853 DUBAI 305 ABU DHABI 643 MUSCAT 67 DUBAI 239 ISLAMABAD 612 CAIRO 3555 ALEXANDRIA 138 DOHA 170 BAHRAIN 770 ISTANBUL 503 LUXOR 555 ALEXANDRIA 416 JAKARTA 529 ASSIUT 157 LONDON 412 MANILA 206 ISLAMABAD 382 DELHI 53 DUBAI 302 MUMBAI 352 COCHIN 344 CHENNAI 855 DUBAI 362 COLOMBO 121 SHARJAH 132 DOHA 55 DUBAI 301 ABU DHABI 213 BAHRAIN 157 BAGHDAD 165 DUBAI 401 ALEXANDRIA 482 TAIF 610 CAIRO 871 DUBAI 284 DHAKA 325 NAJAF 57 DUBAI 672 DUBAI 472 JEDDAH 500 JEDDAH 257 BEIRUT 788 JEDDAH 790 MEDINAH 470 JEDDAH 134 DOHA 6692 MASHAD 535 CAIRO 118 NEW YORK 857 DUBAI 357 MASHAD 303 ABU DHABI 640 AMMAN 982 WASHINGTON DC DULLES 215 BAHRAIN 510 RIYADH 777 JEDDAH 127 SHARJAH 538 SOHAG 341 DAMASCUS 542 CAIRO 251 ALEXANDRIA 177 DUBAI

Time 0:05 0:30 0:35 0:45 0:50 1:00 1:30 1:45 1:50 2:35 2:45 2:50 3:05 3:05 3:10 3:25 3:45 5:15 5:30 5:55 6:00 6:25 6:35 6:40 6:45 7:40 7:45 7:45 7:55 8:05 8:40 8:40 8:45 9:05 9:10 9:15 9:20 9:55 11:00 11:20 11:30 12:00 12:45 12:50 12:55 13:00 13:50 14:15 14:15 14:30 14:50 14:55 15:00 15:05 15:30 15:50 16:25 16:35 16:40 16:45 16:50 16:55 17:10 17:15 17:20 17:45 17:55 18:00 18:00 18:05 18:10 18:15

RBG FDB IZG MSC KAC KAC KAC KAC KAC IRA KAC OMA FDB JAI MSR JZR AXB ABY KNE QTR ALK KNE MEA QTR GFA ETD UAE JZR FDB KLM UAL KAC AIC JZR GFA KAC JZR KAC DHX DLH

3553 63 4167 405 176 618 104 674 774 607 562 647 61 572 618 189 389 129 462 146 229 474 402 136 221 307 859 135 59 415 981 786 975 239 217 502 185 614 370 636

ALEXANDRIA DUBAI MASHAD SOHAG GENEVA DOHA LONDON DUBAI RIYADH MASHAD AMMAN MUSCAT DUBAI MUMBAI ALEXANDRIA DUBAI MANGALORE SHARJAH MEDINAH DOHA COLOMBO JEDDAH BEIRUT DOHA BAHRAIN ABU DHABI DUBAI BAHRAIN DUBAI AMSTERDAM BAHRAIN JEDDAH CHENNAI AMMAN BAHRAIN BEIRUT DUBAI BAHRAIN BAHRAIN FRANKFURT

Airlines AIC KAC UAL JAI DLH KLM SAI ETH THY FDB UAE OMA ETD RBG MSR PIA QTR QTR JZR GFA THY FDB BAW JZR JZR KAC JZR KAC ABY KAC UAE

Departure Flights on Saturday 30/3/2013 Flt Route 976 GOA 283 DHAKA 981 WASHINGTON DC DULLES 573 MUMBAI 637 FRANKFURT 413 AMSTERDAM 442 LAHORE 621 ADDIS ABABA 773 ISTANBUL 68 DUBAI 854 DUBAI 644 MUSCAT 306 ABU DHABI 3556 ALEXANDRIA 613 CAIRO 240 SIALKOT 139 DOHA 149 DOHA 164 DUBAI 212 BAHRAIN 771 ISTANBUL 54 DUBAI 156 LONDON 256 BEIRUT 534 CAIRO 101 LONDON 324 AL NAJAF 671 DUBAI 122 SHARJAH 537 SOHAG 856 DUBAI

18:20 18:45 18:50 19:00 19:15 19:20 19:35 19:35 19:50 19:50 19:55 19:55 20:00 20:10 20:25 20:30 20:35 20:35 20:40 20:45 20:55 21:00 21:20 21:25 21:30 21:35 21:40 21:50 22:00 22:05 22:25 22:25 22:30 22:45 22:50 23:00 23:05 23:15 23:40 23:55

Time 0:05 0:10 0:10 1:05 1:20 1:45 2:30 2:45 2:55 3:45 3:50 3:55 4:00 4:05 4:10 4:20 4:50 6:05 6:55 7:00 7:35 8:25 8:45 8:50 9:15 9:20 9:35 9:40 9:45 9:50 9:55

FDB ETD QTR KAC GFA JZR KAC KAC IAW JZR MSC KNE MSR JZR UAE FDB KAC KAC KNE KAC SVA KNE JZR KAC IRC KAC KAC JZR ETD JZR QTR UAE RJA GFA UAL JZR SVA ABY JZR SYR RBG JZR NIA FDB MSC IZG KAC FDB IRA OMA KAC JAI ABY MSR KAC KAC KNE DHX ALK KNE MEA ETD QTR GFA KAC KAC FDB UAE KAC KLM QTR AXB GFA KAC

56 302 133 789 214 356 541 165 158 776 406 483 611 176 872 58 561 673 473 617 505 461 188 773 6693 785 501 238 304 538 135 858 641 216 982 184 511 128 266 342 3554 134 252 64 402 4168 613 62 604 648 331 571 120 607 351 543 475 171 230 471 403 308 137 222 301 381 60 860 205 415 147 390 218 411

DUBAI ABU DHABI DOHA MADINAH BAHRAIN MASHHAD CAIRO ROME AL NAJAF JEDDAH SOHAG TAIF CAIRO DUBAI DUBAI DUBAI AMMAN DUBAI JEDDAH DOHA JEDDAH MADINAH DUBAI RIYADH MASHHAD JEDDAH BEIRUT AMMAN ABU DHABI CAIRO DOHA DUBAI AMMAN BAHRAIN BAHRAIN DUBAI RIYADH SHARJAH BEIRUT DAMASCUS ALEXANDRIA BAHRAIN ALEXANDRIA DUBAI ALEXANDRIA MASHHAD BAHRAIN DUBAI ISFAHAN MUSCAT RIVANDRUM MUMBAI SHARJAH LUXOR KOCHI CAIRO JEDDAH BAHRAIN COLOMBO JEDDAH BEIRUT ABU DHABI DOHA BAHRAIN MUMBAI DELHI DUBAI DUBAI ISLAMABAD DAMMAM DOHA MANGALORE BAHRAIN BANGKOK

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SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Word Search

Yesterdayʼs Solution

C R O S S W O R D 1 4 4

ACROSS 1. A nucleic acid consisting of large molecules shaped like a double helix.

4. Pertaining to or containing or similar to ammonia.

12. Piece of solid food for dipping in a liquid.

15. The sense organ for hearing and equilibrium.

16. Charge falsely or with malicious intent.

17. 4-wheeled motor vehicle.

18. (Babylonian) A demigod or first man.

20. Area around the altar of a church for the clergy and choir.

21. A genus of Indriidae.

23. The 12th letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

24. Of or relating to the stomach and intestines.

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

29. A device that, on receiving radar signals, transmits coded signals in response to help navigators determine their position.

32. An island in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa.

35. Type genus of the Anatidae.

38. A person who has lied or who lies repeatedly.

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

40. The first month of the year.

41. 40th President of the United States (1911- ).

44. Remote city of Kazakhstan that (ostensibly for security reasons) was made the capital in 1998.

47. (informal) Exceptionally good.

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

50. An anticipated outcome that is intended or that guides your planned actions.

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

52. A soft yellow malleable ductile (trivalent and univalent) metallic element.

56. People having the same social or economic status.

62. American dramatist (1928- ).

63. Connected with or belonging to or used in a navy.

66. The content of cognition.

68. The month following April and preceding June.

69. Red Asian weaverbirds often kept as cage birds.

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

73. A syndrome that occurs in many women from 2 to 14 days before the onset of menstruation.

74. Make into a total.

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

76. Edible tuber of any of several yams.

77. An extinct ancient language of unknown affinities.

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

4. A port city in southwestern Iran.

5. A state in New England.

6. A state-chartered savings bank owned by its depositors and managed by a board of trustees.

7. The ending of a series or sequence.

8. United States admiral of the Pacific fleet during World War II who used aircraft carriers to destroy the Japanese navy (1885-1966).

9. A self-funded retirement plan that allows you to contribute a limited yearly sum toward your retirement.

10. A radioactive element of the actinide series.

11. Basal part of a plant ovule opposite the micropyle.

12. Scarabaeid beetle considered divine by ancient Egyptians.

13. An island of central Hawaii (between Molokai and Kauai).

14. Affectedly dainty or refined.

19. A tributary of the Rio Grande.

22. (Norse mythology) Race of ancient gods sometimes in conflict with the Aesir.

25. A canopy made of canvas to shelter people or things from rain or sun.

27. English monk and scholar (672-735).

28. A deep bow.

30. Squash bugs.

31. The highest part (usually the melody) in a piece of choral music.

33. Small terrestrial lizard of warm regions of the Old World.

34. A Hindu prince or king in India.

36. Lacking in liveliness or charm or surprise.

37. A region of Malaysia in northeastern Borneo.

42. A system of high tension cables by which electrical power is distributed throughout a region.

43. Avatar of Vishnu.

45. Lower in esteem.

46. Upset and make nauseated.

48. A family of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in southeastern Asia.

53. Plaything consisting of a container filled with toys and candy.

54. The basic unit of money in Gambia.

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

57. Wild or domesticated South American cud-chewing animal related to camels but smaller and lacking a hump.

58. A bottomless gulf or pit.

59. A crane-like device (usually one of a pair) for suspending or lowering equipment (as a lifeboat).

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

61. An indehiscent fruit derived from a single ovary having one or many seeds within a fleshy wall or pericarp.

64. (Old Testament) In Judeo-Christian mythology.

65. (Norse mythology) One of the Aesir and avenger of Balder.

67. Fallow deer.

70. The molecular weight of a substance expressed in grams.

71. A police officer who investigates crimes.

Yesterdayʼs Solution

DOWN 1. Made of fir or pine.

2. A quantity of no importance.

3. The biblical name for ancient Syria.

Daily SuDoku

Yesterday’s Solution

SPORTS

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Match-fixing scandal still raw among Lebanese fans Payments ranging from $8,000 to $12,000 per match BEIRUT: Before any money changed hands, the Lebanese players were given detailed instructions on how to rig football matches.

Once they’d carried out the fix, they went to a Beirut hotel to collect their reward - payments ranging from $8,000 to $12,000 per match.

The discovery last month that 24 players including six involved in World Cup qualifying matches - had been implicated in cheating has shocked Lebanon, an Arab country of 4 million where football has helped unite the deeply divided population still recovering from 15 years of sectarian war that left the place in ruins when it ended in 1990.

“It was match-fixing at its highest level,” said Asaad Saeed Saeed, a Lebanese lawyer who helped investigate the scandal that stretches well beyond the Middle East. The players’ roles were exposed by a three-member investigation committee of the Lebanon Football Association. The investigators were led by Jordanian Fadi Zreiqat, general secretary of the West Asian Football Federation.

The committee interviewed 65 people, including 44 players, 18 club officials and three referees.

“Player after player came in front of us, and told us when and how he was approached, for which game he was asked to act, how much money they offered and who gave him the money,” Saeed, who served on Zreiqat’s panel, told The Associated Press in an interview in Beirut. More than 170 hours of interviews have been recorded and transcribed as part of a report handed over to Lebanese FA officials, along with recommended sanctions. “The players said the money paid for fixing international matches, including Asian games, was from $8,000 to $12,000 for one game, depending on the importance of the match, the position of the player and his ability to manipulate the result,” Saeed said.

The players told the investigators of the detailed instructions they received on how to achieve the fixed results. “Sometimes they told the players how to play, and said they should do a specific move or that they should move around in a certain way during the game,” Saeed said, adding that all the people questioned were required to take an oath, either on the Koran or the Bible, promising to tell the truth. “Some said they were told to play in a way to get a yellow card or a red card to be sent off and some even said they were instructed to make sure they stay off the field by pretending they were sick or injured.”

Saeed said three names repeatedly came up in the testimony of those players who admitted to being part of the match-fixing plot: Lebanon internationals Ramez Dayoub and Mahmoud Al-Ali and club official Fadi Fneish. Midfielder Dayoub has played for Selangor in Malaysia, and striker al-Ali has played for Persiba Balikpapan in Indonesia.

Fneish is an official with Beirut-based Al Ahed club who also served as a translator for Lebanon’s national team. “The players said one of those three persons either talked to them (about fixing) or gave them the money after the deal,” Saeed said.

Some players said they were approached in the dressing room before matches at different stadiums, although most plots were developed and payments made in one of three hotels in Beirut, Saeed said. When inves-

tigators interviewed Dayoub, al-Ali and Fneish, all three denied the allegations. “They were the only ones who said they know nothing, absolutely nothing about such things as buying and selling matches and said they were not involved in any conspiracy in football,” Saeed said. “By saying they have never even heard of match-fixing, we believed they were like (criminals) denying the crime even though all data and evidence we collected showed they were involved.”

Subsequently, the three men received the harshest punishments from Lebanon’s FA: Dayoub, Al-Ali and Fneish were banned for life and each fined $15,000. FIFA, football’s international governing body, was asked to extend the ban worldwide. Dayoub and Al-Ali

at either, leaving the panel to recommend sanctions based on testimony of players, officials and referees.

“We are fully aware that we did not extinguish the problem, but at least we stopped it from spreading,” Saeed said. “I wish we had the powers to go further and investigate deeper to find out who is the big boss here.

We’ve established that the three are involved, but there is someone above them and we don’t know who that is.” Lebanon has never qualified for the World Cup. And the only time the country qualified for a continental tournament was in 2000 when Lebanon hosted the Asian Cup in Beirut.

There is no professional football competition in Lebanon and domestic clubs tend to

Thailand was a boost for the players and disappointed fans, although revelations of cheating and corruption were still too raw for many to forgive. Some are convinced the loss in Qatar reached far beyond football and almost amounted to treason. “It was horrible, just horrible for the fans,” said Charbel Krayem, a football writer for Al Akhbar newspaper in Beirut.

The fans “felt bad because the players had no problems getting paid for selling a match, selling the game and selling their country.”

Also striking was the fact that among the sanctioned players, six were players on Lebanon’s Under-21 team. “The revelation that Lebanon is raising a bunch of gamblers, who would one day wear the national jersey

BEIRUT: In this file photo, Lebanon’s national soccer team listens to the National Anthem during the 2015 Asian Cup qualifier match against Thailand, in Beirut, Lebanon. Six players who have represented Lebanon in its ongoing campaign to qualify for the 2014 World Cup are caught up with many other players in allegations of cheating. — AP also publicly denied any involvement in match-fixing and are appealing their bans.

Neither of the two players responded to attempts by the AP to seek comment, nor did a lawyer representing them.

The Asian Football Confederation said it reviewed a summary of the report from the investigation in Lebanon, but found no evidence that Dayoub played a role in helping Qatar beat Lebanon in a 2014 World Cup qualifying match. The Lebanon investigation focused on finding the match-fixing ring leaders and active participants, not trying to discover which and how many matches were rigged. “The committee hopes the results of this investigation will close the file of matchfixing permanently and turn the page in Lebanon’s football,” said Zreiqat, the chief investigator.

Saeed said he wished the committee could probe further, saying investigators should have been given the authority to look into the players’ bank accounts and video records of the hotels to find material evidence. Under Lebanese laws, they were not allowed to look

be tied to political parties that are deeply rooted in the country’s various Muslim and Christian sects. While the quality of the domestic league is poor, Lebanese fans have rallied behind the national team which has, under German coach Theo Buecker, beaten stronger teams including Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates in the past year and even Asian heavyweights like South Korea and Iran. With the national team finally translating some of the passion for football into quality on the pitch, the match-fixing scandal came as a huge blow. “Personally, I am very disappointed with a couple of guys I really trusted,” Buecker was quoted as saying by Gulf daily Sport360. “I was putting a lot of effort, a lot of time a lot of work into making a path in this country, and some really stupid idiots have destroyed everything.”

The scandal also hit the team’s morale ahead of a World Cup qualifier against Uzbekistan this week (March 26), contributing to a 1-0 loss in Tashkent. Lebanon did beat Thailand 5-2 in Beirut on March 22 in qualifying for the 2015 Asian Cup. The win over

is the most sickening for me,” Krayem said.

Dayoub’s and al-Ali’s families were shocked by the punishment and said in recent interviews with Al Arabiya satellite TV channel the allegations were unproven. Both players come from modest backgrounds. Al-Ali’s mother said her son does not even own a house. She said the player, his wife and their five children live with them in northern Lebanon where clashes between Lebanese factions on the opposing sides in Syria’s civil war frequently erupt, putting civilians in crossfire.

“If Mahmoud has properties and I don’t know what else, we’ll leave,” said al-Ali’s father, a coffee vendor. “What would be the problem if there is all this money? Why would we sit in danger?” Dayoub’s mother said the ban was unjust and ruined her son’s future. “Ramez does not have (bad) morals at all,” she said. “I am his mother, one of the closest people to him, I would have felt something. If my son had in fact done what they say, I will be the first one to call for him to be punished.” — AP

Sports SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

McIlroy opens Masters tuneup with 73 HUMBLE: Rory McIlroy was asked what positive signs he took from his first round at the Houston Open. “I’m not too sure,” McIlroy said. McIlroy opened with a 73 on Thursday, and is in danger of missing the cut in his last start before the Masters. D A Points shot an 8-under 64 to take a one-stroke lead over Cameron Tringale and afternoon starter John Rollins. Angel Cabrera and Jason Kokrak were two shots back. McIlroy, meanwhile, seems to be grasping for the form that catapulted him to No. 1 in the world last year.

“I’m still a little bit tentative on the golf course and not committing to my shots fully,” McIlroy said. “But I think that just takes time and hopefully, another three rounds this week and some good scores will give me confidence going into the Masters.” He has to make it to the weekend here first. McIlroy is off to a shaky start since he signed a new equipment deal with Nike in the offseason. He missed the cut in Abu Dhabi, lost in the first round of the Match Play Championship and walked off the course in frustration in the second round of the Honda Classic.

He saw progress when he tied for eighth at Doral, but was disappointed after his up-and-down start in Houston.

McIlroy hit only eight of 14 fairways and 11 of 18 greens in regulation. He made three bogeys and dunked his approach to the par-5 8th in the water and took a double. “It wasn’t the start I wanted,” McIlroy said. Points, though, couldn’t have dreamed of a better one. He opened with five straight birdies, holed a bunker shot for another one and finished with his best round of the year. Trying to change his luck after only two made cuts this year, Points dug into his mother’s golf bag and pulled out the old putter that used to help him win in his junior days.

After Thursday, he’s wondering why he ever stopped playing with it. He holed birdie putts of 54 and 36 feet Thursday and needed only 23 putts in his round. “Maybe I’m an idiot for not having used this putter the whole time,” Points said. “It worked well today.” The bunker shot was a bonus, following an errant 8-iron off the tee at the par-3 7th.

TEXAS: Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland watches his tee shot on the 13th hole during the second round of the Shell Houston Open at the Redstone Golf Club yesterday in Humble, Texas. —AFP

World’s richest race draws strong overseas challenge DUBAI: Horses from Britain, France, South Africa and the USA will oppose a five-strong domestic team of runners in the $10 million Dubai World Cup at Meydan racecourse today. The world's richest race, which is run over 2,000 metres, has proved a magnet for some of America's finest thoroughbreds. Dual Eclipse Award winner Royal Delta fronts a challenge that also embraces 2011 Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom and multiple Grade 1 winner Dullahan, the latter from US champion trainer Dale Romans's stable.

But their collective potency at home may be diluted by the synthetic Tapeta surface over which the race in Dubai will unfold. Royal Delta returns for a second tilt at a race she contested last year, although the five-year-old mare met severe traffic in running and could never express herself. As a consequence her connections remain in the dark over whether the artificial surface is to the champion racemare's liking.

Nevertheless, Royal Delta's trainer, Bill Mott, is encouraged by what he has seen in the build-up. "She is doing very well, having travelled over very well," said Mott, who won the inaugural Dubai World Cup with Cigar in 1996. "I also feel the surface is a bit faster this year. It was more oily last year but my horse seems to be moving extremely well over it this time." Royal Delta, who

changed hands at public auction for $8.5 million in 2012, bids to become the first female to win in 17 renewals.

Only one, Japan's To The Victory in 2001, has gained a placing when she ran second to Captain Steve. Animal Kingdom has been in high spirits on the training track since arriving in Dubai.

However, the five-year-old's prospects were compromised when he was allocated post position 12 in the 13-runner field. Only one horse has won from post position 11 or higher in 69 races run on Tapeta at the recent Dubai Winter Carnival. The home team of five emanate from two stables: those of Mahmood Al Zarooni and Saeed Bin Suroor, both of whom train almost exclusively for the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid AlMaktoum.

Al Zarooni won the World Cup 12 months ago with Monterosso, who lines up once again, although the horse has since failed to advance on that achievement.

The trainer also fields Capponi, last year's runner-up but absent from the racetrack since. French pilot Mikael Barzalona renews his partnership with Monterosso while Emirati jockey Ahmed Ajtebi is aboard Capponi. Bin Suroor's three include Hunter's Light, who disputes favoritism with Royal Delta and who dismissed stablemate

Kassiano - another World Cup runner from the Bin Suroor stable - over the Meydan course three weeks ago.

The trainer's third runner, African Story, is highly talented but has never previously raced over 2,000 meters.

Britain's best chance of taking home the $6 million winner's prize appears to rest with Planteur, who finished third in last year's Dubai World Cup. Neither Red Cadeaux nor Side Glance, who complete Britain's challenge, has yet shown the requisite level of ability to win such a competitive race. The French challenger, Meandre, has been equally devoid of high achievement since winning the 2011 Grand Prix de Paris, while Treasure Beach, representing South Africa, has been sparingly raced of late and must step forward considerably if he is to contest the finish. On a day bolstered by $27 million in prize-money spread across eight thoroughbred races, Japan's Gentildonna is a strong favorite to win the $5 million Dubai Sheema Classic, sponsored by Longines, over the 2,400-metre turf track. The four-year-old filly has drawn a large Japanese media contingent to Dubai as she bids to enhance a formidable haul of big races, among them the Japan Cup, the Japanese 1,000 Guineas and Japanese Oaks.

Gentildonna has won six of her seven starts to date. —AFP

“I was like, ‘I can’t hit it any better than that,’” he said. “Then, for it to actually do what you imagined it to do and then to go in on top of that is just - it’s luck, to be honest.” The wind picked up in the afternoon, and Rollins thinks he may get a jump on the field with an early start yesterday.

“Obviously, the greens are going to be really fresh, at least the first nine holes, for sure,” he said. “But having a 7:30 (am) tee time, there may not be much wind, perfect conditions.

We’ll see what happens.” Phil Mickelson settled for a 72 after going 4-under through his first 13 holes. He hit a tee shot into the water, leading to a double bogey, three-putted the next hole for a bogey, and then hit a tee shot into the bunker on the par-3 ninth to drop another shot. “It was a disappointing finish,” Mickelson said. “I feel really good with the putter, and I believe that as the tournament goes on, I’ll get better.”

Defending champion Hunter Mahan played with Mickelson and shot a 74. Former US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy, currently ranked No 50 in the world, rounded out the group and shot a 73. Ogilvy must be in the top 50 by the end of the weekend to qualify for the Masters. Lee Westwood shot a 68, despite making bogeys on two par 5s. Charles Howell III had a 69 in his bid to get into his hometown major at Augusta National. Howell would need to finish at least in fourth place alone to have any chance of moving into the top 50.

Mickelson, the 2011 champion, returned to Houston even though it falls two weeks before the Masters this year. The tournament was the run-up event to the Masters from 200712. This is only the second time in the last 15 years that Mickelson won’t be playing the week immediately before Augusta. Lefty also plans to skip the week before the US Open. “It’s a very unusual situation for me here,” he said. “I usually like to play the week before. I’m going to have to learn how to do that, now that we’re not really having tournaments conducive to getting ready for those events. This is a good opportunity for me to work on getting prepared properly in another spot outside of a tournament.”—AP

Ryder-a huge talent with human frailties WELLINGTON: New Zealand cricket’s wild child Jesse Ryder, seriously injured in a vicious assault this week, is a huge talent with the bat who struggles with alcohol demons and is a self-confessed bad boy. In a tumultuous international career marred by a string of disciplinary lapses, the powerful all-rounder averages 40.93 in 18 Tests but last year went into self-imposed exile to sort out his “personal issues”. The 28year-old, who continues to catch the eye in domestic competition, has rejected all overtures to return to the New Zealand team, despite public clamor for his recall. In the early hours of Thursday morning, Ryder was rushed to hospital after being assaulted as he left a bar in the South Island city of Christchurch. Ryder had been drinking with his Wellington team-mates after a season-ending loss to Canterbury, but police said alcohol was not a factor in the beating he sustained. Witnesses said the attack appeared unprovoked. But drink has frequently been at the centre of Ryder’s troubles and the player has in the past sought psychological help to help get his career back on track.

In a 2010 interview he revealed how his life changed when his parents split. “Dad bounced when I was about 14; he just took off man. He just dropped me off at a mate’s one day and said he’d see me in a week. He never came back,” he told the Sunday News. “That’s probably where that rebel streak and badness comes from. I just didn’t have any boundaries once he left.” His formative teenage years were spent moving around friends’ homes, sleeping on their couches and forming an association with alcohol. “I guess I could be classed as a bad boy and it’s true, I did like going out (drinking). It wasn’t so much fighting, more so just getting on the beers with the boys.” But his cricket talent shone through and by the time he left school the left-handed batsman was already on the New Zealand radar. In 2008, he made an inauspicious start to his Test career, scoring one and 38 on debut against Bangladesh but the following year he made his debut Test century against India and followed up with a career-best 201. Yet the career of the New Zealander, who has also taken Test and one-day international wickets with his right-arm medium, has frequently been disrupted by alcohol-related incidents. During the 2008 home series against England his season ended early when he cut his hand trying to break into a bar toilet after a night out drinking following a one-day international victory. —AFP

SPORTS SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Big East breaking up with a bang WASHINGTON: If you’re one of the college basketball fans who can’t wait for the Big East breakup to be final, hang on.

You’ll have to wait for the Final Four. Syracuse and Marquette both won their East Regional semifinal games Thursday night and that means the Big East will have a team in Atlanta next week. It will be the fourth straight season the conference that changed the landscape of college basketball over the last three-plus decades will have a Final Four team. Oh yeah, Louisville, the overall No. 1 seed in the tournament and a Final Four team last season, is still alive with the Cardinals playing Oregon on Friday in the round of 16. “It will be different than the Big East tournament,” Syracuse guard Michael Carter-Williams said after scoring 24 points in the 61-50 victory over top-seeded Indiana. “It will definitely feel familiar with different refs and a neutral

Baseball season opens with Giants looming WASHINGTON: The 2013 Major League Baseball season opens Sunday with a new league for the Houston Astros, San Francisco seeking a third World Series title in four seasons and the New York Yankees hurt but dangerous. The six-month campaign starts with the Astros playing host to the Texas Rangers, Houston moving this year from the National League Central division to the American League West, giving each league three five-team groupings. That means interleague games, once unheard of until the best-of-seven World Series title showdown in October, will now be played almost every night of the season after being reserved for only select dates in recent years.

San Francisco’s dominating pitchers, including standout Tim Lincecum and lefthander Barry Zito, will be counted upon to keep the Giants in contention while 2012 National League Most Valuable Player Buster Posey and Pablo Sandoval provide batting power. But the Giants will have to contend with the big-spending Los Angeles Dodgers, whose new owners have poured $230 million into salaries this season, landing pitcher Zack Greinke, southpaw hurlers Ryu Hyun-Jin of South Korea and reliever J.P. Howell and relying on Matt Kemp to lead the hitters.

Baseball’s biggest spenders, the Yankees, have faced injury and controversy in the off-season. New doping allegations have surfaced surrounding Alex Rodriguez and a Miami clinic. Curtis Granderson is sidelined until May with a broken arm while Mark Teixeira has a wrist injury that might need season-ending surgery, Derek Jeter is coming off ankle surgery and relief ace Mariano Rivera is back after surgery for one last season before retirement. Unless CC Sabathia can spark the pitchers and Robinson Cano can stabilize sluggers, the Yankees could have a long season in the American League East.

Rising in that division are the Toronto Blue Jays, who landed 2012 NL Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey and Mark Buerhle to pitch, doping-disgraced outfielder Melky Cabrera and shortstop Jose Reyes in a bid for their first trip to the playoffs since winning the 1993 World Series. Detroit third baseman Miguel Cabrera comes off the first Triple Crown season since 1967, leading the AL with a .330 batting average, 44 home runs and 139 runs batted in. —AFP

court, but we’ll see them again.” Marquette won the only meeting between the teams this season, 74-71 on Feb. 25 the middle game of the Orange’s three-game losing streak.

This one will be in the Verizon Center - where Georgetown of the Big East plays its home game - and there will be plenty of familiar faces on hand. Hall of Fame coach John Thompson, who led Georgetown to the 1984 national championship, is doing analysis on radio. Bill Raftery, the former Seton Hall coach who made Big Monday big with his classic one-liners, is doing the color commentary on CBS. The Big East has had 18 Final Four teams in its 33 years of competition, including six in the last seven seasons with five different schools. This NCAA tournament started horribly for the Big East.

On the first weekend, five teams - Georgetown,

Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, Cincinnati and Villanova - were gone from the tournament. That left Syracuse, Marquette and Louisville, and the first two of those certainly did their job. Marquette advanced with a 71-61 victory over Miami, the first win in the round of 16 for the Golden Eagles after losses the last two seasons. “We’re used to people not giving us credit, saying we were no good,” said Vander Blue, the man who hit the game-winning shot against Davidson in the second round and had 14 points against the Hurricanes. “If you were to look at our roster, no one would expect us to be an Elite Eight team, our guys don’t get into that much,” he added, “but it’s good to know if you step on to the court, if you don’t give us respect, we’re going to earn it, as we work harder than, I feel, anybody in the country. —AP

Williams, Sharapova face off in Miami final Gasquet, Murray clash in semi-final MIAMI: Maria Sharapova will face Serena Williams in the final of the Sony Open while Britain’s Andy Murray will take on France’s Richard Gasquet in the men’s semi-finals after grinding down Croatian Marin Cilic. World number one Williams needed just 65 minutes to deal with fourth seeded defending champion Agnieska Radwanska 6-0 6-3, while Sharapova,

who won at Indian Wells earlier this month, demolished Serbia’s Jelena Jankovic 6-2 6-1.

Sharapova, extended her winning streak to 11 matches with a lopsided win in just over an hour against Jankovic, a former world number one struggling to regain her best.

Despite Sharapova’s good form, Williams will start as clear favorite in today’s final - she is 11-2 in

FLORIDA: Tomas Berdych of Czech Republic serves against Richard Gasquet of France during their quarter final match at the Sony Open at Crandon Park Tennis Center on March 28, 2013 in Key Biscayne. — AFP

meetings with the Russian and has won the last 10 matches between the pair. Williams, seeking a record sixth Miami title, is relishing the chance of taking on the woman directly below her in the world rankings. “I love playing her. I love seeing her on the opposite side because she just brings out a good game. I just like the challenge of playing someone who has made history and who is doing so well,” the American told reporters.

“She’s been playing awesome. I definitely expect a tough match.” One of just 10 women to have won all four grand slams, Sharapova has been collecting titles all over the world but has never won the Sony Open, played in her “home” state of Florida, despite reaching four previous finals. “It would mean so much to me,” she said in a courtside interview. “I love this city. It’s the first city I landed in when I came to the United States as a little girl.”

HIGHEST SEED In the men’s draw, second seed Murray twice fought back from a break down in the first set and then grafted his way through the second to overcome the tall Croat 6-4 6-3. “It was a tough, tough match. Second set especially was a lot of long, long games and tough points,” Murray said.

“I just managed to come through that. Obviously, I took a while to get to the finish line but I thought I played a solid match with not too many errors and was tough in the important moments,” the world number three added.

The US Open champion is the highest seed left in the draw after world number one Novak Djokovic lost to 15th seed Tommy Haas and the Briton can leapfrog Roger Federer to second place in the world rankings if he wins the title. “I’d like to get to number two this week. It would be nice, but I’d rather focus on trying to win my matches,” said the Scot, who will fancy his chances against eighth-seeded Gasquet.

Gasquet was solid, hitting 17 winners and breaking serve three times as his 6-3 6-3 victory easily made up for his defeat to the same opponent in the round of 16 at Indian Wells. The Frenchman knows he will be the underdog against Murray, with the Briton holding a 4-3 head-to-head advantage, but believes he is capable of producing an upset. “I can win against Andy. He’s the favorite, the number three in the world but I know his game, I know how he plays,” he said. Germany’s Haas played Spanish third seed David Ferrer in the other semi-final yesterday. — Reuters

SPORTS

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Penguins blank Jets 4-0 Pens extend winning streak to 14

PITTSBURGH: Pascal Dupuis scored twice and Evgeni Malkin had a goal in his return to the lineup, leading the Pittsburgh Penguins to a 4-0 victory over the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday night for their 14th straight win. Chris Kunitz had a goal and an assist and Sidney Crosby had two assists to push his league best points total to 56 as the Penguins moved within three victories of its own NHL record for consecutive wins.

Malkin, back from an upper-body injury, got his first goal in three weeks. Tomas Vokoun had 20 saves and his first assist while getting his 50th career shutout.

Al Montoya, making just his fourth start of the season, made 39 saves for Winnipeg but the Jets were no match for the NHL’s hottest team. The league record for consecutive wins was set by the Mario Lemieuxled Penguins in 1992 93. Pittsburgh hosts the New York Islanders on Saturday and Buffalo next Tuesday. If the Penguins win those games, they’ll head to New York to face the Rangers on April 3 with a chance to tie the mark.

ing period to cruise to a win over Nashville.

Martin Hanzal, David Moss, Matthew Lombardi, Keith Yandle and Antoine Vermette also scored for the Coyotes, who snapped a seven-game losing streak thanks to their big first period that included five goals in a span of 6:40. The Coyotes’ seven goals were just one short of the number they had in the entirety of their skid.

Phoenix has 10 goals the last two nights after being outscored 16-5 in the previous

Pominville scored for Buffalo. Shawn Matthias had two goals in regulation, and Jonathan Huberdeau and Tomas Fleischmann also scored for the Panthers, who snapped a three-game losing streak.

Jacob Markstrom made 36 saves. Marcus Foligno, Drew Stafford, Andrej Sekera and Nathan Gerbe scored for the Sabres, and Ryan Miller stopped 36 shots. Huberdeau tied the score at 4 with 6:09 remaining in the third period. — AP

SENATORS 3, RANGERS 0 Ben Bishop turned aside 24 shots to earn his second career NHL shutout, leading Ottawa to a win over New York. Andre Benoit, Guillaume Latendresse and Colin Greening scored for the Senators, and Mika Zibanejad and Chris Neil chipped in with two assists apiece. Henrik Lundqvist made 26 saves for the Rangers. When the Senators finally relieved the pressure after about a minute, they went down ice and Latendresse beat Lundqvist with a low shot from the faceoff circle. Greening scored into an empty net with just over two minutes to play.

KINGS 4, BLUES 2 Mike Richards scored the go-ahead goal with 2:43 to play, Jonathan Quick made 20 saves and Los Angeles continued its dominance of St Louis. Dustin Brown had a goal and an assist, and Trevor Lewis and Justin Williams also scored for the Kings. Jarret Stoll assisted on Lewis’ goal, giving him 100 with Los Angeles. The win gives the Kings only their second sweep of a season series against St. Louis after first doing it in 200506. Los Angeles has beaten the Blues eight straight times, including a 4-0 sweep in last season’s Western Conference semifinals.

Vladimir Tarasenko scored both goals and Jaroslav Halak made 36 saves for the Blues.

MAPLE LEAFS 6, HURRICANES 3 Joffrey Lupul scored the go-ahead goal with 3:10 remaining, helping Toronto hold off a Carolina comeback and beat the Hurricanes. Lupul raced past Joe Corvo and beat Justin Peters for his seventh goal this season. Jay McClement sealed it with his sixth of the season on an empty-netter with 45 seconds to go before Nikolai Kulemin added his sixth with 3 seconds left - also into an empty net. Tyler Bozak, Cody Franson and Dion Phaneuf also scored for Toronto. Eric Staal, Jordan Staal and Alexander Semin scored for the Hurricanes, who rallied from a 2 0 hole for a 3-2 lead early in the third before extending their winless streak to seven games.

COYOTES 7, PREDATORS 4 Radim Vrbata had two goals and an assist, Rostislav Klesla added four assists and Phoenix scored six times in the open-

VANCOUVER: Chris Tanev #8 of the Vancouver Canucks tries to clear the puck after goalie Cory Schneider #35 of the Vancouver Canucks makes a save while Jamie McGinn #11 of the Colorado Avalanche crashes the net during the third period in NHL action on March 28, 2013 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver. — AFP six games. David Legwand, Rich Clune, Gabriel Bourque, and Shea Weber scored for Nashville.

ISLANDERS 4, FLYERS 3, SO Colin McDonald scored two goals, Josh Bailey tallied the clinching score in the shootout and New York beat Philadelphia for its fourth straight road win. John Tavares also scored for the Islanders, who improved to 10-4-1 away from home this season to pull into a tie with the Rangers for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. Scott Hartnell scored twice and Mike Knuble also had a goal for the Flyers, who blew a two-goal lead while falling further out of the playoff hunt.

Philadelphia last missed the playoffs in 2007. The Isles, who last made the playoffs in 2007, dominated the final two periods of regulation after falling behind 2-0 in the first.

PANTHERS 5, SABRES 4, SO Jonathan Huberdeau and Mike Santorelli scored in the shootout to lift Florida to a win over Buffalo. Santorelli got the winner for the Panthers, while Jason

NHL results/standings Toronto 6, Carolina 3; NY Islanders 4, Philadelphia 3 (SO); Pittsburgh 4, Winnipeg 0; Ottawa 3, NY Rangers 0; Florida 5, Buffalo 4 (SO); Los Angeles 4, St. Louis 2; Phoenix 7, Nashville 4; Edmonton 6, Columbus 4; Vancouver 4, Colorado 1; San Jose 2, Detroit 0.

Pittsburgh New Jersey NY Rangers NY Islanders Philadelphia

Eastern Conference Atlantic Division W L OTL 27 8 0 15 11 7 16 14 3 16 15 3 13 17 3

Montreal Boston Ottawa Toronto Buffalo

Northeast Division 21 7 5 104 21 7 4 94 19 9 6 89 19 12 4 108 13 16 5 91

83 72 72 100 107

47 46 44 42 31

Winnipeg Carolina Washington Tampa Bay Florida

Southeast Division 18 15 2 88 15 15 2 89 15 17 1 94 14 18 1 105 10 19 6 85

103 96 93 99 123

38 32 31 29 26

GF 121 82 78 100 87

GA PTS 84 54 89 37 81 35 110 35 103 29

Chicago Detroit St. Louis Nashville Columbus

Western Conference Central Division 25 4 3 17 12 5 17 14 2 14 14 6 13 14 7

108 90 94 87 79

71 85 93 95 92

53 39 36 34 33

Vancouver Minnesota Edmonton Calgary Colorado

Northwest Division 19 9 6 20 10 2 13 13 7 13 15 4 11 18 4

92 90 83 89 83

86 78 95 108 108

44 42 33 30 26

Anaheim Los Angeles San Jose Dallas Phoenix

Pacific Division 22 7 4 19 12 2 16 11 6 15 14 3 14 15 5

104 97 82 87 92

87 82 82 97 98

48 40 38 33 33

Note: Overtime losses (OTL) are worth one point in the standings and are not included in the loss column (L).

Hurricanes in deadline dilemma - deal or no deal TORONTO: The Carolina Hurricanes find themselves trapped in a deadline day dilemma after a seventh straight loss on Thursday, slowly slipping out of a playoff race and pondering whether to make a deal or stick with what they have. With the National Hockey League’s April 3 trade deadline fast approaching, the Hurricanes have little time to decide if they want to roll dice and make a trade that could help send them to the post-season or ride out the current storm.

“When you play well and don’t get anything out of it that’s what is tough,” Hurricane’s coach Kirk Muller told reporters. “It’s a test for us, we’re still in it.

“It’s like a playoff series, you lose a few and you know it’s not over yet, I don’t think anyone is going to quit.” Despite a 6-3 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs, the slumping Hurricanes remain just three points out of a playoff spot, leaving Carolina general manager Jim Rutherford scratching his head over what to do next. The Hurricanes, however, are not the only team

caught in a deadline day no man’s land.

The lockout-shortened 48-game season has created a unique competitiveness, further complicated by a salary cap that is set to drop from $70 million to just over $64 million next year, forcing general managers to balance the reality of the books against their dreams of making the playoffs. When the puck was dropped on Thursday, only seven points separated the New York Rangers, who occupied the eighth and final playoff spot in the East, and the Philadelphia Flyers in 14th. With just four weeks remaining in the regular season, only a handful of teams have written off their post-season hopes, blurring the lines between buyers and sellers. The Calgary Flames, anchored to the bottom of the Western Conference, signaled they had thrown in the towel, trading longtime captain and Canadian Olympic gold medalist Jarome Iginla to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday for a pair of prospects and a first round draft pick. —Reuters

SPORTS SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

French academies about education and mental power PARIS: Education and mental strength are the main development targets for young academy players because most will fail to make a living from soccer, according to French national institute (INF) director Gerard Precheur. With only around 10 percent of prospects eventually turning professional, the INF believe it is important to help the youngsters grow not just as footballers but as men as well. “Education is key because it helps the boys to feel good and deliver their full potential, athletic as well as intellectual,” Precheur told Reuters in an interview.

“You have to be honest with the boys and their parents - most of them won’t be professional players.” Precheur has had plenty of experience dealing with youngsters, having worked with players aged from 13 to 15 at the INF for a dozen years and been director since 2010. While most domestic clubs have had academies for decades, the INF is part of a national push by the French Football Federation (FFF) to coach the youth and it has led to the launch of 14 other similar regional structures. The INF, located at the national team’s training camp at Clairefontaine 50-km south west of Paris, has a glittering array of former pupils like ex-French internationals Thierry Henry and Nicolas Anelka, and Paris St Germain midfielder Blaise Matuidi. The institute has also been praised for its approach to general education. INF teenagers take two-year scholarships and spend six hours a day on general education and two more on homework while football takes up two and a half hours.

Ball skills are fundamental when it comes to choosing 25 boys a year from the 2,000 candidates but the institute also looks for kids who are serious about their overall development. “I have insisted on mental strength...for years,” said Precheur. “I also focus on their ability to analyse information on and off the pitch. “From the mental point of view we have many criteria.

First we look at the school reports - we aren’t overly interested in their results but more in their attitude, their behavior. “A couple of supervisors watch them on the pitch, during training and matches in order to assess if they are involved in the team work, if they put heart into it,” added Precheur.

“Then we ask them to fill in a questionnaire and we set up interviews with me or a coach and a psychologist.”

Although the process has proved efficient, according to Precheur, it is clear the INF have had to continue progressing themselves to adapt to modern demands. “We have to spend more time and energy to educate the kids and we regret that,” he said. “It’s been harder and harder for us,” he added while pointing out the need to teach the basics to some of the teenagers like waking up on time, meeting their daily schedule, respecting the people around them. “Some of them have not learned it at home. Sometimes you even have to start with the key words - hello, please, thank you. But you have to fight to go further than that.” —Reuters

LAKELAND: Tampa Bay Rays starting pitcher Jeremy Hellickson, left, and first baseman James Loney run into each other on a popup caught by Hellickson during the first inning of an exhibition spring training baseball game against the Detroit Tigers, yesterday in Lakeland, Florida. —AP

Photo of the day

CALIFORNIA: Members of ROFF Cascais Sailing Team of Portugal sail during the Red Bull Youth America Cup Selection Series in San Francisco, California. —www.redbullcontentpool.com

SOCCER-ACADEMIES

Italy lags behind in academy stakes ROME: Italy’s biggest clubs are playing catch-up with the rest of Europe as they look to save money by developing their own young talent but the move is hurting some of the other Serie A outfits who boast successful academies. Until very recently, the likes of Juventus, Inter Milan and AC Milan would reinforce their squads by bringing in big names ready to compete at the highest level but the difficult economic climate is forcing them to focus their resources in-house.

“The current economic situation combined with new UEFA (financial fair play) regulations has forced Europe’s big clubs to invest heavily in youth development,” Mauro Bianchessi, AC Milan’s head of youth scouting said. According to the CIES (International Centre for Sports Studies) Football Observatory’s 2013 Demographic Study, Italy has the lowest percentage of players who spent three years at the club they are at now between the ages of 15 and 21. The figure for Italy is 7.8 percent, which falls well below the average for the other four top European leagues (England, Spain, Germany and France) of 17.2 percent.

AS Roma’s Francesco Totti and Daniele De Rossi are among the rare examples of players who have stayed at the clubs whose academies they came through but there could soon be more if the big clubs continue their drive towards homegrown talent. This bigger

focus by Italy’s top clubs on youth development though is, according to Bianchessi, having a negative effect on smaller clubs like Atalanta, who traditionally have had a strong academy and who regularly bring players into their first team.

“I worked at Atalanta for 15 years, and have been at Milan since 2006. Back then there was a different economic situation and different aims for the first teams,” Bianchessi said. “To win the league or Champions League players were needed who were ready, and therefore not young unless they were phenomenal. “A club like Atalanta, which didn’t have these aims, had the opportunity to develop players, put them in the first team and then sell them. And with that money they managed to keep the club going.”

Atalanta are based in Bergamo in Lombardy, on the doorstep of Milan and Inter, but nonetheless consistently produce footballers capable of playing in the top division. They have eight academy products in their first team squad, and according to the CIES study are Italy’s number one club for youth development and eighth in the world. “Smaller clubs like Atalanta are in great difficulty now, as we are a very strong local competitor, and a much bigger club. Over the last few years Inter, Milan and Juventus have been investing heavily in their youth systems,” Bianchessi said.

ECONOMIC REASONS The Italian footballers’ union AIC has been conducting its own study into the future facing Italy’s young players, and early figures for the 2009-10 season suggest there is a serious problem with youth development. Of the 1215 players playing in Serie A and B clubs’ Primavera sides (oldest youth team age group, aged 15 to 20) that season, only 5 percent now play in Serie A and 11 percent in Serie B. What will be even more shocking to some is that 58 percent do not play professional football at all in Italy. The numbers do not specify those who have moved abroad or are still in their youth set-ups but 22 percent of all Primavera players from that season who are today registered as professional footballers are without a team to play for.

Of those who do play professionally in Italy, 58 percent are either on loan to or part-owned by other clubs, 67 percent of them to clubs in the Lega Pro First and Second Divisions (third and fourth tier).

According to the AIC, this is because Lega Pro clubs receive financial support from the Italian Football Federation for each player under the age of 22 they field. First Division clubs must field at least two and Second Division clubs three. The AIC report says many clubs at this level exploit this rule “not to invest in promising young players, but only and exclusively for economic reasons”. —Reuters

SPORTS

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

SPANISH LEAGUE PREVIEW

Champions League proving a distraction in Spanish league MADRID: There may be a full program of Spanish Primera Liga matches this weekend but the country’s top teams appear firmly focused on next week’s Champions League quarterfinals. League leaders Barcelona travel to Celta Vigo while champions Real Madrid are in Aragon to take on Real Zaragoza, and yet both teams seem more concentrated on their European commitments.

Madrid’s Xabi Alonso met fans for an autograph signing session this week and then revealed that the nine-time European champions’ supporters are also far more concerned with midweek affairs. “What most have said to me is that they want the 10th (European title),” he said. “The Champions League is dear to all us Madridistas (Real fans), (we want) to go all the way to the final. “But before then there are sev-

eral steps to take and the first of those is on Wednesday, playing at home.

“We want to pocket a good result and it’s sure to be a good game and a great atmosphere.” Real host Galatasaray in their quarterfinal, first leg at the Santiago Bernabeu as they go in search of a third straight semi-final appearance. However, they have not reached the final since 2002, when they beat Bayer Leverkusen 2-1, and such a long exile from European club football’s showpiece event does not sit well with gluttonous fans used to a diet of regular success. It has taken on extra special significance this season as Real trail bitter rivals Barca by 13 points in La Liga, with no realistic prospect of retaining their title.

“The league situation is not ideal but we still want to keep going in the same manner, doing

things well and trying to win every game,” added Alonso. “Zaragoza are having problems, they’re on a bad run but every away match at every ground is complicated and I don’t think it will be easy.” The Aragonese have not won a league match since the turn of the year and currently sit just one place above the drop zone.

They’ve only picked up four points from a possible 33 and have scored just five times in that period. Contrast that with Madrid, who won 4-0 when the sides met at the Bernabeu in November and have won six in a row in La Liga, and the hosts appear to have little chance of success. Real scored as many goals in their last match as Zaragoza had done in their previous 11. It’s not just Real who are fixated on Europe, though, as Barca also have more than one eye on Paris Saint-Germain. Influential midfielder

ITALIAN LEAGUE PREVIEW

Juve ignore Inter woes ahead of ‘Derby d’Italia’ MILAN: Juventus striker Mirko Vucinic insists the champions will not take Inter Milan lightly when the sides meet in the much-anticipated Derby d’Italia today.

Juve top the Serie A table with a ninepoint lead on Napoli with Milan in third, a further two points back with nine games remaining in the campaign.

Inter’s solid first half of the season has been replaced by inconsistency in recent months and although in fifth place Andrea Stramaccioni’s side are seven points behind Milan and the third and last Champions League qualifying spot.

They also welcome Juventus to the San Siro still smarting after several of their strong Latin American contingent were held up by flight delays while on international duty in midweek. But Vucinic says Juve will be treating the clash like the “last game of their lives”.

He believes Inter could show the same grit and determination as they did recently when they overturned a 3-0 Europa League first leg defeat to Tottenham with a 4-1 second leg win, only to lose out on away goals.

“We’re playing against Inter, the name says it all,” Vucinic told juventus.com. “They’re a strong team and I don’t believe people who say that they’re struggling.” The Montenegrin striker, who played in his country’s 1-1 draw against England in the World Cup qualifiers in midweek, added: “I saw the second leg against Tottenham and despite being written off, they nearly qualified after putting on a really proud performance. “We have to concentrate solely on the match and play like it’s the last game of our lives.”

Inter silenced the doubters when they outclassed Juventus 3-1 in Turin in early November. On that occasion Argentine Diego Milito scored a brace with Rodrigo Palacio hitting Inter’s third.

This time, however, Milito is sidelined with serious injury while Argentine star Palacio could be below par after playing against Bolivia at high altitude in La Paz. Other Inter players have had it worse.

Alvaro Pereira and Walter Gargano were among the Uruguayans, also including Napoli striker Edinson Cavani, left stranded in Chile after their flight was can-

ROMA: A file picture shows AS Roma forward Francesco Totti (right) controlling the ball during the Italian first league match AS Roma - Juventus at Rome’s Olympic Stadium. Francesco Totti celebrates on March 28, 2013 the 20th anniversary of his first Serie A appearance. — AFP celled.

Colombian Fredy Guarin was an unused substitute in a 1-0 defeat away in Venezuela and has-like his club-matesyet to arrive back in Italy. While Stramaccioni should have no trouble firing up his players, defender Andrea Ranocchia believes it will take another Tottenham-like performance to claim their second win this season over the leaders. “We won our first meeting with Juve this season and we hope to repeat that,” the Nerazzurri defender told inter.it. “We’ll fight right down to the wire to get back into the Champions League. It’s a tough old battle for third place because there are lots of sides in

the mix, but we’re in there too.”

Elsewhere today Milan travel to Chievo with injury doubts over striker Giampaolo Pazzini and forward KevinPrince Boateng, who are suffering from ankle and muscle problems respectively.

Roma icon and captain Francesco Totti could be given a warm welcome, even

by Palermo’s fans in Sicily today, after he celebrated his 20th year in Serie A on Thursday. Napoli, meanwhile, will be desperate for Cavani to show. He is the league’s top scorer on 20 goals and will be hoping his latest travelling experience does not compound a season which has seen both him and Napoli blow hot and cold. — AFP

Xavi Hernandez played 90 minutes for Spain against France on Tuesday despite carrying a hamstring problem and local press reports claim he will be rested at the weekend in order to give him time to be fully fit for another trip to the French capital.

Celta are three points from safety and desperate to get a result to boost their survival chances. While Barca can certainly consider resting some of their stars, the third Spanish representatives in Europe’s premier competition, Malaga, cannot afford that luxury. Sixth in the table, they travel to Madrid to face Rayo Vallecano, who lie three points further back in ninth. Third-placed Atletico Madrid play host to another Champions League-chasing side, Valencia, on Sunday at the Vicente Calderon. — AFP

GERMAN LEAGUE PREVIEW

Record champions Bayern on the brink of latest title BERLIN: Runaway leaders Bayern Munich can become the first team ever to secure the Bundesliga title before the end of March if they beat Hamburg today evening and other results go their way. Borussia Dortmund have won the last two titles, but they currently sit 20 points adrift of Bayern in second place with eight games remaining.

If Juergen Klopp’s side fail to win at Stuttgart today afternoon, record champions Bayern will be in a position to clinch their 23rd national title, and 22nd since the inception of the Bundesliga half a century ago. However, it is inevitable that the Bavarians will eventually get their hands on the ‘Salad Bowl’ trophy, and those at the club are not too concerned whether they do so this weekend, especially with the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final against Juventus to come on Tuesday.

Bayern players and staff insist all the focus is on Hamburg, but the prospect of any major celebrations if they do wrap up the title has been ruled out, with officials confirming that there will be no trophy presentation at the Allianz Arena regardless of what happens. “In the dressing room, we’re talking exclusively about Hamburg,” said midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger. That’s our main focus. We need a good performance.” “Obviously it would be an incredible moment but one we’d only be able to savour very briefly,” sporting director Matthias Sammer told Bild of the possibility of wrapping up the championship.

“Preparation for the Juventus match will start immediately with a meal together at the stadium.” Bayern against Hamburg is a meeting of the traditional giants of southern and northern Germany, but while Bayern have long dominated the country’s footballing scene, HSV are struggling to keep up. In the last two campaigns, Bayern have won this fixture 6-0 and 5-0, and it is 26 years since Hamburg last won a trophy, but the side coached by one-time Bayern star Thorsten Fink still have plenty of motivation.

Just a point adrift of the top four, they are one of several clubs still in in contention for a place in the Champions League next season. “Maybe some of them will be thinking about Juve,” said Dutch international midfielder Rafael Van der Vaart. “But Bayern want to wrap up the Bundesliga title as soon as possible. They have such strength in depth that it will be tough for us either way.” Dortmund have never really threatened to make it three consecutive titles, with top spot having eluded them all season.

Instead, the real focus for Klopp’s team is the Champions League, with a trip to Spain to face Malaga in the first leg of the quarter-finals coming up on Wednesday. Before that, Borussia head to the south-west to take on Stuttgart, where they must do without winger Jakub Blaszczykowski as well as defender Mats Hummels.

Klopp, who recently accused Bayern of buying their way to success, is eager to keep those in Munich waiting as long as possible before being able to celebrate the title. “I will happily congratulate them, but not today because we want to beat Stuttgart first,” he said. — AFP

SPORTS

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Champions-elect United have history in sights LONDON: With Manchester City having conceded defeat in the Premier League title race, runaway leaders Manchester United are switching their focus to the pursuit of records and the preservation of freshness in their squad. United visit Sunderland today, when victory would provisionally take them a massive 18 points clear of second-place City, who host Newcastle United later in the day and whose manager, Roberto Mancini, accepts United can no longer be caught.

Eighteen points is the record margin by which United won the title from Arsenal in 2000, while manager Alex Ferguson has spoken of his desire to eclipse Chelsea’s unprecedented haul of 95 points from the 2004-05 campaign. United are also out to gain revenge for the exuberant celebrations of Sunderland’s fans after Ferguson’s men lost out on the title to City at the Stadium of Light on the final day of last season.

However, thoughts of both vengeance and the history books must be weighed against the need to retain focus for Monday’s FA Cup quarter-final replay at Chelsea. With such a short turnover between the games, and in the immediate aftermath of the international break, Ferguson has given a strong hint that he will make changes for the visit of Martin O’Neill’s side.

“Every coach is praying that their players come back fit (from international duty),” said Ferguson.

“I have to make sure I have some freshness in the team because we also have Chelsea on Monday lunchtime. “It is a big ask for our squad and something we need to concentrate on because I need to make sure I pick the right teams.” The resumption of the league program sees City, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal and Everton resume their five-way battle for the three Champions League places below United. Chelsea, four points off

City in third place, visit Southampton today, while fourth-place Spurs are at Swansea City and fifth-place Arsenal host second-bottom Reading.

Everton, two points behind Arsenal in sixth, tackle Stoke City. Spurs’ momentum has begun to ebb in recent weeks, following consecutive defeats

by Liverpool and Fulham, and Arsenal are now only four points behind their local rivals with a game in hand. Arsene Wenger’s men, however, will once again be without Jack Wilshere, who has an ankle injury, while the injuryprone Abou Diaby has been ruled out for up to nine months with knee ligament damage.

Arsenal are also likely to encounter a Reading side invigorated by the midweek appointment of manager Nigel Adkins, who has eight games to bridge the seven-point gap that currently separates the club from safety. Third-bottom Wigan Athletic preserved the three-point gap that separates them

from the teams above the drop zone with a last-gasp 2-1 win at home to Newcastle last time out. Roberto Martinez’s side, who also have a game in hand, host Norwich City today and victory will lift them out of the relegation zone at the expense of Aston Villa, who do not welcome Liverpool to Villa Park until tomorrow.

The writing appears to be on the wall for Queens Park Rangers, who are level on points with Reading but occupy the last place in the table due to an inferior number of goals scored.

However, ahead of Monday’s derby with London rivals Fulham, manager Harry Redknapp has urged his players to draw inspiration from the very best as they seek to change their fate. “The best teams work the hardest,” said Redknapp. “People think the best teams just play football. It’s a fallacy.

The best team in the world is Barcelona and they are the hardest-working team.” — AFP

Mancini rebukes Kompany MANCHESTER: Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini has criticized captain Vincent Kompany after he ignored advice from the club over the management of his comeback from injury. The Belgium defender has not played for the reigning Premier League champions City since damaging a calf muscle in January.

But the influential centre-back figured in a World Cup qualifying match this week, much to the annoyance of his club manager. If Kompany suffers no adverse reaction to his appearance in the 1-0 win against Macedonia, he will lead out his City team-mates for the first time in two months against Newcastle United at the Etihad Stadium today. But Mancini, who has conceded the title to runaway leaders Manchester United, made it clear he was not happy with his skipper.

Having tried to persuade the defender not to join up with the Belgium squad, he said that he had expected Kompany to return “in a day or two” after checking in with the national team for medical formalities. “Sometimes the player has to understand that the club is more important,” Mancini said. “I’m not saying that international football is not important, because I never say to my players ‘Don’t go to the national team.’ “But there are some cases when the club is more important - all the players should understand this. The responsibility is also the player’s.

“I tried to explain to the Belgium manager (Marc Wilmots) when Vinny was first injured, but probably he didn’t understand very well. It’s not that I don’t want him to go in the national team, but in this case it was impossible. “It is not correct, because for 60 days he didn’t play for us. The club pay his salary every month. We did everything, and he went to play in the national team. “If he had got another injury, or if today he’s not ready to play because he played for the national team, and I lose him for another month, for me this is not correct for the player or the manager.

“I talked to him, but I can’t put him in jail for two weeks. I said: ‘Stay here to have more treatment but don’t go to play. It would be taking a risk for us because these next two months are really important.’ He said the manager called him and he should go.” Mancini, who will have striker Sergio Aguero back from injury against Newcastle, is urging his players to finish their campaign strongly, with second place yet to be secured.

“Every time we play against Newcastle, it’s a difficult game. They have changed three or four players and they have a good team and are doing very well in the Europa League,” said the Italian. Newcastle are not yet clear of relegation danger, but Papiss Cisse believes they should have more lofty aims than mere survival in their final eight league games. Alan Pardew’s side enjoy a six-point cushion over the bottom three, but Senegal international Cisse claimed: “We have enough games left now to take us to a top-10 finish.

“It’s what the manager wants, and it’d be

important for us and give us a solid foundation to build from for next season. Looking at our remaining games, we feel we can come up with the wins needed to do that.” Massadio Haidara is making good progress following thigh and knee injuries sustained in a sickening challenge

by Wigan Athletic’s Callum McManaman, but the French defender is not yet in contention to return. Meanwhile, Newcastle’s Dutch international goalkeeper Tim Krul hopes to be available for the upcoming Europa League trip to Benfica after missing the last month with ankle ligament damage. — AFP

Today’s matches on TV

ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE Sunderland v Man United Abu Dhabi Sports HD Man City v Newcastle Abu Dhabi Sports HD Arsenal v Reading Abu Dhabi Sports HD Swansea v Tottenham Abu Dhabi Sports HD West Ham v West Brom Abu Dhabi Sports HD Southampton v Chelsea Abu Dhabi Sports HD Wigan v Norwich Abu Dhabi Sports HD Everton v Stoke City Abu Dhabi Sports HD

15:45 18:00 18:00 18:00 18:00 18:00 18:00 20:30

SPANISH LEAGUE Rayo Vallecano v Malaga Aljazeera Sport +2 Celta de Vigo v Barcelona Aljazeera Sport +2 Real Zaragoza v Real Madrid Aljazeera Sport +2 TOMORROW Levante v Sevilla Aljazeera Sport +8

18:00 20:00 22:00 0:00

ITALIAN LEAGUE SS Lazio v Catania Aljazeera Sport +6 Cagliari v Fiorentina Aljazeera Sport +9

17:00 17:00

Internazionale v Juventus Aljazeera Sport +1 Parma v Pescara Aljazeera Sport +10 Palermo v AS Roma Aljazeera Sport +7 Udinese v Bologna Aljazeera Sport +9 Chievo Verona v AC Milan Aljazeera Sport +1 Torino v Napoli Aljazeera Sport +1

17:00 17:00 17:00 17:00 20:30 23:00

GERMAN LEAGUE FSV Mainz v Werder Bremen Dubai Sports Stuttgart v Borussia Dortmund Dubai Sports 2 Schalke 04 v TSG Hoffenheim Dubai Sports Bayern Munich v Hamburger Dubai Sports 2

17:30 17:30 17:30 20:30

FRENCH LEAGUE ES Troyes v Saint Etienne Aljazeera Sport +4 FC Girondins v Lorient Aljazeera Sport + AC Ajacciov Toulouse Aljazeera Sport +5 Valenciennes v Bastia Aljazeera Sport +9 Stade Rennes v Nancy Aljazeera Sport +8

19:00 22:00 22:00 22:00 22:00

Chelsea aim for second SOUTHAMPTON: Rafael Benitez insists Chelsea can still claim second place in the Premier League ahead of a trip to Southampton today that marks the start of a testing run of fixtures for the Blues. Benitez’s third placed side will attempt to increase the pressure on Manchester City, who sit five points ahead in second spot, with victory over the relegation-threatened Saints at St Mary’s. That marks the first of six games in a 16-day period for Chelsea, with the FA Cup sixth round replay against Manchester United next up just 48 hours later.

The program will test Benitez’s squad to the limit but the Spaniard said: “It is better to have this problem than be at home watching it on the television. “It is better to have this schedule because it means you are still competing. “With a top side, the last month in the season is when you fight for trophies. We are still there and it is a positive.

“At this stage of the competition, you have to win games and then you can win trophies. It has to be now, in this period.”

Chelsea moved one point ahead of Tottenham in the last round of fixtures before the international break, with Arsenal another four points adrift in fifth place.

The battle for a Champions League place is set to intensify in the coming weeks but while Benitez recognizes the threat of the two north London clubs, he maintains his focus is fixed on City. “I would like to see if we can reduce the gap or think like this, but I’m sure they will be concerned like we are concerned about Tottenham, Arsenal and Everton,” Benitez said. “In recent weeks we have been training very well and we were competing really well and the team was playing very good football.

“So if you can keep all these things and this momentum, I will not be worried about the other teams. I will be just watching Manchester City.”Chelsea’s England defender Gary Cahill is struggling with the knee injury that forced him to withdraw from international duty, while Brazil midfielder Ramires has a groin problem. Chelsea will face a Southampton side lifted by victory over Liverpool last time out, only their second victory since Mauricio Pochettino replaced Nigel Adkins as manager. —AFP

SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 2013

Sports

Match-fixing scandal still raw among Lebanese fans

41

MILWAUKEE: Los Angeles Lakers’ Steve Nash (left) reaches in on Milwaukee Bucks’ Monta Ellis during the second half of an NBA basketball game in Milwaukee. — AP

Sanders lifts Bucks over Lakers Cousins leads Kings past Suns 117-103 MILWAUKEE: Larry Sanders scored 13 of his career-high 21 points in the third quarter and the Milwaukee Bucks rallied to beat the Los Angeles Lakers 113-103 on Thursday night. Sanders was 8 of 11 from the floor and had 13 rebounds. Ersan Ilyasova and Brandon Jennings each had 20 points, Monta Ellis added 18, and Marquis Daniels had 16 to help the Bucks end a four-game losing streak. Kobe Bryant led the Lakers with 30 points, leaving him four points behind Wilt Chamberlain (31,419) for fourth place on the NBA’s career list.

Dwight Howard had 15 points and 15 rebounds, and Steve Nash scored 16 points.

Following the loss, the Lakers revealed Bryant was suffering from a bone spur his left foot. He left the arena using one crutch, but appeared to be walking without pain after his 361/2 minutes on court. “Inflamed on me. I’ll be all right,” Bryant later told Yahoo Sports.

The Lakers are eighth in the Western Conference, a half-game ahead of Utah for the final playoff spot. Milwaukee is eighth in the Eastern Conference, seven games ahead of Philadelphia for the final spot.

Ellis scored eight points for Milwaukee during a late 12-3 run, making it 102-92 and when the Lakers turned it over on the next possession, Daniels raced down the court and dunked to make it 104-92 with 4:12 left. The Lakers never got

closer than eight the rest of the way. The Lakers’ last gasp came early in the fourth. Antwan Jamison scored twice and Howard dunked in a miss to help the Lakers regain the lead at 83-82.

The teams exchanged the lead four times before Jennings’ 3-pointer at 8:23 put Milwaukee ahead for good.

Scola led the Suns with 25 points, P.J. Tucker had a career-high 18, and Michael Beasley added 14 points and eight rebounds. Phoenix, resting point

guard Goran Dragic for the second straight game, has lost five straight, nine of 10 and 11 of its past 13. — Agencies

NBA results/standings Milwaukee 113, LA Lakers 103; Indiana 103, Dallas 78; Sacramento 117, Phoenix 103.

PACERS 103, MAVERICKS 78 Paul George had 24 points and eight rebounds and Indiana broke open a close game in the third quarter to beat Dallas. George scored 13 points in the third, including eight in a 20-5 run that broke a tie game at halftime. The Central Division-leading Pacers won their fourth straight and have a halfgame lead for the second-best record in the Eastern Conference. Dirk Nowitzki scored 21 points for Dallas, which remained 11/2 games behind the Los Angeles Lakers in the race for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

KINGS 117, SUNS 103 DeMarcus Cousins scored 17 consecutive points in the first half and finished with 34 in Sacramento’s victory over Phoenix. Cousins also had 14 rebounds while playing only the first three quarters. Isaiah Thomas added 23 points and eight assists to help the Kings win for only the second time in their past 14 games in Phoenix. Luis

Eastern Conference Atlantic Division W L PCT NY Knicks 44 26 .629 Brooklyn 42 29 .592 Boston 37 34 .521 Philadelphia 28 43 .394 Toronto 26 45 .366 Central Division Indiana 46 27 .630 Chicago 39 31 .557 Milwaukee 35 36 .493 Detroit 24 48 .333 Cleveland 22 48 .314 Southeast Division Miami 56 15 .789 Atlanta 40 32 .556 Washington 26 45 .366 Orlando 18 54 .250 Charlotte 17 54 .239

GB 2.5 7.5 16.5 18.5 5.5 10 21.5 22.5 16.5 30 38.5 39

Western Conference Northwest Division Oklahoma City 53 19 .736 Denver 49 24 .671 Utah 36 36 .500 Portland 33 38 .465 Minnesota 25 45 .357 Pacific Division LA Clippers 49 23 .681 Golden State 41 32 .562 LA Lakers 37 36 .507 Sacramento 27 46 .370 Phoenix 23 50 .315 Southwest Division San Antonio 54 17 .761 Memphis 47 24 .662 Houston 39 32 .549 Dallas 35 37 .486 New Orleans 25 47 .347

4.5 17 19.5 27 8.5 12.5 22.5 26.5 7 15 19.5 29.5